MacBreak Weekly Episode 827 Transcript

 MacBreak Weekly Episode 827 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Mikah Sergeant (00:00:00):
Coming up on MacBreak Weekly. I Mikah Sergant, am subbing in for Leo Laporte. And this week, we've got a great show for you. First. We kick things off with Jason Snell's review of the M2 MacBook Air. That's right. He's got it in hand and he's ready to talk about it. What's good. What's great. And what could use work? We also talk about some interesting legal cases. Apple pay is under fire and Apple is trying to deal with the fact that some folks feel that there are some antitrust concerns related to Apple's grip on payment processing on iOS. Then we talk about apple arcade and how some games are leaving before we discuss Apple's whole slate of subscription offerings. And finally, finally, some movement on that ongoing case where different purchasers of Apple's Mac computers said, look, that keyboard you've been including in the laptops, not so great, a 50 million settlement, all that plus so much more coming up on MacBreak Weekly

Speaker 2 (00:01:06):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is,

Mikah Sergeant (00:01:15):
This is MacBreak Weekly episode, 827 recorded Tuesday, July 19th, 2022. A response with lots of nines. This episode of MacBreak Weekly is brought to you by new vey. Say goodbye to abandoned carts, poor approval rates and high chargebacks with Newvey, the platform fast forwarding to the next generation of payments. Turn payments into powerful accelerators for your business@newvey.com and by new Relic use the data platform made for the curious, right now you can get access to the whole new Relic platform and 100 gigabytes of data per month. Free forever with no credit card required. Sign up at new relic.com/macbreak and buy it pro TV. Give your team an engaging it development platform to level up their skills. Volume discounts. Start at five seats, go to it. Pro.Tv/Mac break. Make sure to mention Mac break 30 to your designated it pro TV account executive to get 30% off or more on a business plan. It's time for MacBreak Weekly. Leo Laport is still cruising USA. I don't know cruising Alaska, but I am Mikah Sergeant. I'm here with you today to talk about all things, Mac and Apple with some of the greatest gents out there. Joining us from just down up the highway, down the highway. Yes. It's Jason Snell of six colors.com. Hi Jason.

Jason Snell (00:02:45):
Hi, Micah. Good to be back. I guess now it's official that I'm gonna be on this show cuz one week, you know, I'm just a guest two weeks now I'm a regular

Mikah Sergeant (00:02:53):
<Laugh>. He is officially irregular. Also irregular, but that's that's beside the point and also joining us from w G B H in Boston. It's Andy Ihnatko. Hello, Andy.

Andy Ihnatko (00:03:06):
Hello, Micah.

Mikah Sergeant (00:03:07):
How are you?

Andy Ihnatko (00:03:10):
I'm marinating slightly. It's really quite unpleasant here in new England. I'm I'm used to, I'm used to ducking out of the top 10 degrees of what people are suffering in Boston, cuz I'm close to the coast. And right now I'm about to tell like anyone who's listening that, Hey man, I could hear the fans in your room, cute that know the fans are staying on the fans unless, unless listening

Mikah Sergeant (00:03:34):
That's that sound is

Andy Ihnatko (00:03:35):
Unless you wanna hear the musings of heat stroke and which could be amusing as hell 

Mikah Sergeant (00:03:39):
Heat stroke. And I feel like there's a jingle there, but yeah, I was wondering what those sounds were now. I know. So now, now that we've addressed it, it's fine. Right. and also joining us perhaps with even louder fans, but he's got some special filter. That's making it all go away. It's Alex Lindsay, how are you Alex?

Alex Lindsay (00:03:58):
Doing much better. <Laugh>

Mikah Sergeant (00:04:00):
Good. Good. Yes you are. You are here this week. We we had a little dropout from you last week, but glad to have you back this week. I'm glad everything's okay. I know everybody has everyone theory.

Alex Lindsay (00:04:11):
It was a long trip and it was a long COVID train <laugh> started, started started on the day during the show and we were talking before the show. It was, you know, I, I told the COVID train, Hey, can you wait for me? And it said, <laugh> I need you to, it said, I need you to get out right now. So, so anyway, so sorry for disappearing, but I thought you guys handled it quite well from, from what I could hear as I laid down. So but yeah, doing, doing much better now.

Mikah Sergeant (00:04:34):
Good, good. Glad to have you back. So let's kick things off. I have to say I was very excited this morning. I woke up and I looked at my phone and there were two things I was looking for. One was a notification from my doctor for the results of my COVID test to make sure that I didn't have it. And I was negative for COVID and the two variants of flu that they're testing for now. So yay. That was exciting. But what I wasn't expecting, but that I did get was a notification from FedEx saying that a package from apple was on its way. A package I wasn't expecting to get until mid August is now coming this coming Tuesday, not today, but this next Tuesday. And that is an M two MacBook air that I thought I was gonna have to wait a lot longer for. But some folks Jason's no included have an early look at the MacBook air and have done a review. So tell us, Jason, what your, what your thoughts are on the new new M two MacBook air.

Jason Snell (00:05:35):
Micah, is this your card?

Mikah Sergeant (00:05:37):
<Laugh> oh my God. How did you guess?

Jason Snell (00:05:40):
I guessed it was a, yeah, M two MacBook air it's here for some people mostly base configurations, but yeah, it sounds like they're starting to ship to everybody else. I got mine a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't talk about it last week was not allowed, had to pretend I didn't have it. But it's here now. I've been a big fan of the MacBook air since the early days I actually had that first MacBook air. That was terrible, but I loved it because it was so small. And then fortunately they got rid of that and replaced it with the one that we all know and love in 2010. And it's been Apple's most popular laptop for basically the last decade. And this is a, a big redesign in the sense that it's really based on that design language from the 14 and 16 inch MacBook pros that were introduced last year.

Jason Snell (00:06:20):
So they've got the wedge shape is out the little kind of curvy edges are out. And instead you've got this sort of flat kinda like the curves right on the edges, but otherwise perfectly flat. It's got mag safe, it's got two USBC ports and and an M two processor that we already know, cuz it's the same one that's was in that MacBook pro that was released last month. And yeah, it's, it's a new, it's a new era for the MacBook era. And I just wanna point out something which is that I, I gave the headline a new era and spelled it out. I, I noticed that the verges story about it was also headlined a new era, but they decided to say, I R dash a because they didn't trust golly their readers to get

Mikah Sergeant (00:07:01):
It. <Laugh> no, I

Jason Snell (00:07:03):
Trust my readers to get it.

Mikah Sergeant (00:07:04):
Thank you for not having contempt for your readers. <Laugh> I, so I have to say I was kind of surprised. So I, I got the midnight version and I got the one with eight core CPU, 10 core GPU, 16 gigs of Ram and a terabyte of, of storage. So I thought I'm gonna have to wait and that's fine. So I was just, I was shook and shocked when I saw that it's supposed to be coming this next week. Our, I know that lots of base configuration models were shipping on time or arriving on time. But have, have any of you seen any other folks talking about how theirs that was originally pushed further out are coming sooner? Was this just kind of a, a fluke for me

Jason Snell (00:07:44):
I've heard that the 16 with terabyte is actually like a secret. They seem to have built a bunch of those because I've heard a bunch of those eating in stock and apple stores too. And that's the a tip for those of you who really are desperate to get your hand on this laptop or maybe some other apple product, when it comes out, they reserve an amount of them and put them in stores that are not available. So you might think, well, it's, it's back ordered for a month, so I'm not gonna be able to get my hands on it. I place that online order. And now I wait, well, you can cancel that online order if you need to, because you should check with your local store or maybe go to your local store. They often have stock. And one of the things I've heard is that that one terabyte storage model with the 16 gigs of Ram is also something that has been cropping up in apple stores.

Mikah Sergeant (00:08:33):
Mm. That is a good tip. That's a really good tip. So yeah, I pick up a couple, oh,

Alex Lindsay (00:08:38):
I I've definitely picked up a couple things first thing in the morning and, and also like you just get the right as it opens. And, and oftentimes they have three, four of them, of many things that, that are oftentimes sold out. They kind of seed those out. It's also useful to be a it's it I've, I've learned over time. That back when I had a, we were buying lots and lots of computers that being a business user is useful. You should do it. If you, if you have a business sign up build, build a relationship.

Jason Snell (00:09:04):
Yeah. Cuz they have a business rep at the apple store and they will talk to you and they will reserve things for you and help you. Exactly.

Alex Lindsay (00:09:10):
You'll be like, Hey, it's quite nice. Tomorrow would be great. If you came in, it'd be great to visit here

Mikah Sergeant (00:09:15):
Tomorrow. I've got a bag with my, from when I got the, my last MacBook pro. Well, when twit got the last MacBook pro there's still a bag that I have that has my name on like a label on the side whenever I walked in and they were like, oh, you know, not only did they help me out, but they were also like, we, we had your shows on today, which was just a really kind of fun thing. But I'm curious, how do you approach Jason or how did you approach the review for this specific MacBook air? And was it for you a comparison to that MacBook pro that people seemed to be kind of confused about that just came out? Or were you really looking at it as an iteration on the MacBook error itself? Or did you answer some of those questions? Like, should I get this or should I get the MacBook pro?

Jason Snell (00:10:00):
I think the most important context is to compare it to the MacBook errors of old, not only the M one, which is sort of a, you know, the last of that other era, but also of Intel MacBook airs because the truth is most people updating to this computer are not coming from an M one, a they're coming from an Intel MacBook air probably. And so I, I tried to think about that. I got this, I was actually on vacation when this came in, which was weird, cuz apple is very secretive about sending you review units. And I had to be like, you need to send this to a condo. That is, that is a VRBO in San Diego. And I I've never been there before, but here's the address and it should work and it all worked fine. But I ended up with two MacBook airs.

Jason Snell (00:10:40):
I ended up with my MacBook air and this MacBook air. And so, and it was kind of great cuz I was on vacation. And so I had a laptop in the condo and I was checking email and writing stuff and I was doing, you know, whatever, like not working because I was on vacation, but I, I got to travel with it, which I thought was actually, that's good. Right? Like that's a part of the point of doing a laptop. And then in my approach, yeah. I mean the truth is what we learned about the M one is true of the M two, which is these chips are what they are and you can put them in different rappers and the performance, if you do benchmark testing is largely identical because you know, an M one air and an M one mini and an M one 13 inch Mac, but pro and an M one, I Mac they're all the same.

Jason Snell (00:11:20):
They all get the same scores more or less. So I try to focus on the MacBook air experience and also think a little bit about coming from Intel. My wife has a 2018 Intel MacBook air that is, she probably won't have very much longer and it is startling how much I, I, you forget if you've been living on an M one MacBook air for a while, how slow in comparison those Intel MacBook errors were. And that's just a function of the apple Silicon transition more than anything else. And yeah, the M two is faster than M one. There's no doubt about it. And the design is really nice and having mag safe come back and not just because it's MagSafe and all the benefits of that, but having that extra port. Now my, my M one air has that little, little deally that, that you stick into the USBC port that gives it fake mag safe. And that's great, but that means I have one port. So having two usable ports is also a big part of this. But yeah, and in the end for me, it was mostly about what's the MacBook air experience like cuz I think that that not only is it the most popular laptop, but that's the context most people are considering when they're buying this thing or thinking about buying it.

Mikah Sergeant (00:12:28):
Absolutely. And I mean that, that's kind of been one of the ongoing questions. I know Leo has talked a lot about how the, the, the sort of single core performance of all of the M one series devices is very similar. The single core performance of these ones are likely to be very similar and it's only in multi-core performance things. And so when you look at like the MacBook air, which is this device that in theory is meant for browsing the web and, and, and doing some writing tasks and that kind of thing, then we don't necessarily look at that performance boost as part of it, which I think is part of the reason why, you know, it doesn't have that active cooling system, right. But at the same time I've seen folks talk about how they, you know, threw a bunch of tasks at it, opened up a bunch of tabs, tried to do these little things.

Mikah Sergeant (00:13:18):
They couldn't get it to slow down. And it's fascinating to me what apple Silicon has done in terms of changing the way that folks are kind of looking at these devices and, and trying to, to turn them into these, these productivity machines to an extra extent I'm so confused or not confused, but rather I'm, I'm so fascinated by how now they get a MacBook air and they're trying to push it as hard as they can, even though this device maybe in years before was not meant that way. I mean, is that, do we feel like that is because of the, the, the performance gains we've got from apple Silicon itself? Or is it just something that maybe I hadn't noticed before?

Jason Snell (00:14:01):
I mean, anything up on this, it's the, it's the bar being raised over time, right? Like it used to be like, oh, well, we're processing, but as computers have advanced and in the app power of apple Silicon, that bar keeps getting raised. So now as a reviewer, I look at it and I say, oh you know, you might not want to do eight K renders on this for an hour, cuz it'll slow down. It'll still do it. It'll just be a little bit slower. And it's like eight K renders, right? Like the, the bar, the bar's been raised a lot over time and the truth is 99.9% of people who buy the MacBook air will never get it to throttle. Even it will maybe get a little warm maybe. And that's about it.

Alex Lindsay (00:14:40):
I, I think that our, our, our expectations grow, it's like a bag, you know, our expectations will grow with no matter how fast you make the process or we're gonna go well, it's pretty good. You know, like, like it was, it was, it, it could have done this better. It could have rendered eight K or I could have been able to render, you know, whatever those things are. But I, but I will say that it's just incredible, like these, these, these all the M ones. I mean, I have a, I've not traveling as much, so I have a lot of the M one minis and I'm just all, I'm still taken aback by how fast they are, you know, and, and that they just jumped so much forward. And and then obviously the studio has been great as well. You know, we've done some pretty extensive tests with the studio with video and it's just, you just keep on adding more outputs and you're like, it's gonna slow down eventually.

Andy Ihnatko (00:15:25):
Maybe that, that, that just points out what the, I, I agree, absolutely what Jason's saying. I mean, when you're reviewing these things, it's hard to come up with a real world scenario in which you can say, oh, geez, that's too bad. Because even stacked up next to like, mid-range big, like eight fan helicopter cooling style windows laptops, this thing is just thrashing thrashing in the benchmarks and another hands on actual test. But the thing is like, when you, the, the Apple's only Apple's problem is that they don't charge. They, they don't, they don't, they aren't really good at giving you a really, really great deal. You know, like, like if this were at $800 laptop, we could possibly be reviewing things and sense of well, but you know, what, what are you gonna get? What are you, let's not expect too much. Cause this is an $800 laptop. This, these are great benchmarks. It is appropriate to see, well, let's see what it takes to really make these things suffer and scream. Because look for two, a lot of these people are spending $1,500, $2,000, $3,000 on a MacBook air. And for, for that amount of money, even at the lower end, they have a right to expect like the best possible upgrade they could possibly get over whatever they were using before.

Jason Snell (00:16:38):
I think that's a great point too. The idea that the we could be cynical about the fact that this is 1199 and that the old last year's model, essentially the M one air is still on the price list at 9 99. But I think the other way to view it, and Andy, you were kind of getting at it there too. Is that, that M one MacBook air is great. <Laugh> right. And like, although I wish that this M two air was 9 99. It's not for various reasons. I think they are gonna need to get it there eventually, but I'm so glad that that 9 99 price point is still there. And the, the fact is apple, Silicon was such a leap that even if you end up, I think that that it's a legitimate buy, a good buy to buy the M one MacBook air. Even today, if you are looking at the prices and going, oh, it's a little too rich for my blood, because at 9 99, that M one a is still gonna do 99.9% of the jobs that you ever wanted as fast as you could possibly want them.

Andy Ihnatko (00:17:31):
Yeah. Another, another response, another response with a lot of nines in it. I think that it's really, really important that apple hold that line and make sure there's always a, a MacBook available for less than a thousand dollars, even if it's a dollar less, cuz that also means that education prices is probably gonna be a hundred dollars less. And there's so many people for whom that a hundred dollars or that $200 difference between the M one and the M two is gonna be the difference between having a Mac and having a windows machine. And most of those people would probably rather have a Mac wouldn't they?

Mikah Sergeant (00:18:01):
But what is it outside of the processor? Sorry, what is it outside of the processor that brings this over that 9 99 price, price bump. What else did they do with the M two over the M one to, to really raise that price? Do we think,

Jason Snell (00:18:17):
I think it's not the processor so much as it is the I mean the display is new. The webcam is upgraded. It's that notch display which is, it's not as good as display as this MacBook pros that costs $2,000, but it's brighter and it's taller and it's got, yes, it's got the notch, but you know, they, Apple's been very clever about hiding the menu bar and the notch. And I think that that for most people, the menu bar being up there, it, it isn't that disruptive and you get used to it and it's fine, but it's a, so it's a better display. It's a better webcam. It's a 10 80 webcam. You got mag safe. This new design probably is a little more expensive than the old design too, in terms of the physical enclosure of it. I I'm sure it's one of those things where they looked at the cost of making this right now and didn't, weren't comfortable taking it to 9 99 and thought, like I just said that the M one air is actually pretty great.

Jason Snell (00:19:08):
So why don't, why don't we keep selling it. But I do think that over time they need to push it down because like Andy said and it's the truth of it. It's the reality of it. There, there's a reason apple tried to get rid of the MacBook air a few years ago and replace it with the MacBook and the 13 inch MacBook pro both of which were 1199 or 1299. And they were retina and the MacBook air wasn't and people didn't care. They just kept buying the 9 99 laptop. And I think apples learned that lesson, that for a lot of people, the 9 99 laptop is what they're gonna buy. And that's it like, you can, you can try to sell me an 1199 laptop, but there's a certain portion of the consumer base. That's just gonna say no. So <laugh> so that's why I think in the long run, the M two air will need to get down there. And I know there's inflation and stuff like that, but like having that, having that 90, 99 price point, a lot of nines, like Andy said, I think is important. And I, I don't, I really wonder what the they'll never say, but what the sales proportion will be between the M one and the M two over the next year, cuz I think they're still gonna sell a lot of M one errors and they should. It's great computer.

Alex Lindsay (00:20:13):
I, I will say the apple is starting to, starting to, it feels like there's a trajectory that looks a lot like the early nineties where there are so many different chips and so many different computers that are being released. And they're all in different cadences that even for someone like me, I start going, Hey, I don't know what I wanna buy. You know, like it, you know, I think it was clear for a while and I think it's starting to get murky. And I think that app, it is not murky yet, but I think that apple has to start thinking about, you know, the streamlining that a little bit, it probably has to do with supply chains and lots of other things of, of putting out what you can when you can, but with lots of different chip sets that are not as far apart with lots of different outlays, it just gets, it starts to get confusing.

Alex Lindsay (00:20:53):
And, and it wasn't, it was like, it was not that there was didn't need to be, I don't know, six versions of, of the Mac when, you know, there was, they're almost identical in the early nineties, but I start feeling a little dejavu that were starting to get a lot of product, different, different pieces of hardware at different levels of development. And it, and it's starting to lead to, I, I think it's people I've talked to are starting to get like they're just hanging on and not buying anything right now because they're not sure what, what the next thing is for them, because it's just so many different options and they're so fine a detail between them that it really takes a lot of thought and something that Apple's been good at, not forcing us to do for a long time, but it seems to be getting harder.

Mikah Sergeant (00:21:32):
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Mikah Sergeant (00:22:26):
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Mikah Sergeant (00:23:33):
And Hey, you can have that today. Thanks so much to Neve for sponsoring this week's episode of MacBreak Weekly back from the break. And now let's talk about an interesting report. So first and foremost, we saw, I think it was, I can't remember if it was Facebook or Google first, but one of those two companies whether they said it themselves or it was leaked, or however it went, those two companies announced that things were gonna be slowing down, that they weren't gonna be doing a lot of hiring, that they were gonna be pulling back on spending that that was gonna be a rough couple of years, et cetera, et cetera. And now according to Bloomberg, apple is joining that list of companies who are reportedly planning to slow down, spending on some teams. Next year, the outward understanding of this is that the potential economic downturn is at the root of wanting to slow things down. But I have to ask Jason, you know, you've got charts on charts on charts that always seem to be showing Apple's money growing and growing and growing. Why does a company this big with this much money need to slow down hiring and change, focus on this team? And I know you're not, you know, you're not an economist by trade, but I am curious your thoughts on this.

Jason Snell (00:24:48):
<Laugh> you know, I, I, why do they, they don't that's, that's the thing. And in fact, I find it baffling when these stories come out, because apple has always been the company that says you invest through a downturn, we have all the money, we have all the money in the bank. We make a huge amount of money when everybody else is shrinking. That's when we put more money in, right? Because then when it turns back around, you're ahead, that's a, that's an investing thing. It's a business thing. And I think apple mostly does that. So I look at this and I think one, maybe this is a message Apple's trying to send two street, which is we're taking it seriously. And we are concerned that this is gonna be an issue. And, and, and I also, anything that's an important category for apple, they are absolutely not doing this, right?

Jason Snell (00:25:29):
Like I, anything that's important, they're not doing this. So what is it? My gut feeling is it's either an excuse to cut in places or, or reduce through attrition places where they are not, you know, that particularly enthusiastic or they think there are too many people or, you know, or it's just, I, I mean, I don't even know. I, I, I, I find it ridiculous to, to suppose that apple somehow needs to limit its hiring in certain areas, because it's worried about a, a, unless they are worried about a decades, long depression or something like that, like they got all the money they're gonna come out of this. The last thing they want to do is reduce the amount of of, of fuel going to the engine. So I, I, I, I'm skeptical that this is not something that is not what it appears to be, if that makes sense, like in some sort of ulterior motive whether it's external or internal.

Alex Lindsay (00:26:21):
I, I think that, that apple still run by folks that came from a you know, from a downturn, you know, that, you know, I think that there's a PTSD that, that existed apple related to the nineties that, that they have never really gotten out of, you know? And I think that they I, I think that anytime they, they see any, any issue at all I think that they go, oh, well, we're gonna have to pull back, you know, a little bit, and they've made these announcements in the past. I think that we're talking about them, you know, they're still talking about not even necessarily cutting jobs, but simply slowing down. And I think that they, right, I think they very quickly get to prioritize, like we're just gonna prioritize what matters than I think Apple's better at this than most companies, which is, we're just gonna prioritize the things that probably the things that make money for the next, and that's kind of their signal like that.

Alex Lindsay (00:27:08):
We're gonna focus on those things. And, you know, and, and again, I think that, that if, if any of any company, they are the they worst case scenario, a lot of things of, you know, how bad can this be and what can it look like? And, and I think that, that they will tend to pull back faster than almost anyone else. As far as wanting to be careful because, you know, they're cons, you know, again, I think it comes from the nineties and it literally, isn't something that's fr right now, it's, you have still people making decisions who live through something that was pretty narrowing and they, if they see anything that they might wanna start hedging for, they'd rather hedge very slowly than, than hedge hard.

Andy Ihnatko (00:27:44):
Yeah, this is this is probably similar to what the news came out from Google last week. The Google news was a little bit more precise because it came in the form of an actual company wide email that sent our Pacha sent out that said that, no, we're not, we're not gonna be firing people. As a matter of fact, we just finished a huge round of our usual snapping up people who just graduated from college, but we're not, we're gonna be slowing down hiring for the rest of the rear and we're gonna, but the, the, the specifically slightly chilling news for people who might be working on, I don't know, Google like balloon internet projects was that we might be, we, we, we're gonna be refocusing attention on things that are kind of, that are, that are kind of key, key things and maybe consolidating certain groups together.

Andy Ihnatko (00:28:30):
And so I don't, I think that something similar, but maybe a little less dramatic is going on in apple. They didn't become a $2 trillion company by saying, you know what? We don't have any need for these 800 people that we're thinking of hiring. We don't know what we're gonna do with them. And we're in a milli economic downturn, but what the hell we're we're apple. We can hire as many people as we want. So yeah, this is not gonna affect the AR headset. This is not gonna affect the Mac pro. This is not gonna affect anything that was already on the rails ready to go. The, the, the, the indirect news that we got specifically said that this is not gonna affect any, any shipments or any projects that are already on the rails and ready to go

Jason Snell (00:29:06):
For a company that will throw millions of dollars at a car project that me may, yeah. May never see the light of day. It, it is something Alex said is absolutely true. I, I don't know how much of it is the PTSD from the nineties, but I will say there is that. And also, I think there is a general frugality and a carefulness when hiring that is that comes from that era that still exists. And it is, you know, again, a company that can spend all this money on this car project that may never work just as one example. And yet there are places within apple where you would be surprised at how cheap they are and, and how, how reluctant they are to spend money. And I always found that weird, but I guess the argument there is, if you let that go, it will get outta control. Like it did at apple in the nineties where it literally, I mean, they were bankrupting themselves because they said yes to everything. Yeah. I

Alex Lindsay (00:29:55):
Mean, and they gave away a lot of computers were just for forget about 'em <laugh>. Yeah. Like there was a lot of, we had Lucas film. I think we had a bunch of computers that they would drop off and, and say, okay, it's great. And I don't think that they, there was no paperwork for them. I mean, it was like, it was just there, you know? And so, so I think that there was definitely a, after Steve came back, there was definitely a tightening dramatic tightening that that happened.

Andy Ihnatko (00:30:18):
And, and sometimes they can shoot themselves in the foot with frugality. How many times have we been kind of surprised by the fact that why, why is this, why is this bug still here, or why has this sum seemingly important part of Mac O S or iOS haven't been fixed, or this feature hasn't been added? Oh, cause we don't have enough people on staff. Why don't have people on staff? Well, cuz we pull people off of those, those teams to put them on this other team because another team was behind and this is where most of us would shrug and think and say, you've, you're a $2 trillion company hire more PE if, if you've, if you've had a proven to yourself that jeopardy, that deadlines are in jeopardy, cuz you don't have enough people working on the project, hire more people for the project, don't make it that much later to to, to fix this part of the UI. That's been driving everybody nuts for the past two two releases.

Mikah Sergeant (00:31:07):
Yeah, I mean, I guess ultimately this, you know, made me a little nervous cuz all of these companies are preparing for the EC the potential economic downturn. So I guess now's a good time to, to mention club TWI, twi.tv/club TWI <laugh> where you can support these shows directly to make sure that they continue to come out even in times of, of economic uncertainty. And we appreciate all of you who are members of club twit who are helping to support the shows. Up next, let's talk about an interesting new lawsuit that has hit this is, this is an interesting one because of the people who are involved. So apple has faced some scrutiny in the past, over apple pay and the use of the NFC chip inside of the iPhone in the very first iteration when the NFC chip got added for the purpose of using apple pay.

Mikah Sergeant (00:32:00):
There was lots of griping about the fact that no one was able to use the NFC scanning technology in the iPhone, except for apple through the use of apple pay. And then it kind of grew from there where there are now companies who are saying that apple essentially holds a monopoly on iPhone and other platforms because you have to use apple pay instead of being able to sort of directly integrate with a specific payment system. And now in the United States a, a law, a law group, I guess that has actually been responsible for two other antitrust cases, brought against apple. That one is bringing a case against apple in relation to apple pay. It's a class action suit that was struck up by a company and I'm losing it. But I think it was a company in Iowa affinity.

Mikah Sergeant (00:32:58):
Was it? Yeah. Thank you. Affinity credit union. Yeah. And now we're looking at this case and I'm I'm I of course would love to be would love to hear your folks' thoughts on this and sort of what, when I think of apple pay and I think of the benefits I get from apple pay as a user, I am very happy with the, the, the security of it and the, the convenience of it, but I'm sure as a provider of payments having to pay those fees is not something people much like to do or companies much like to do.

Andy Ihnatko (00:33:32):
Yeah. I'm really interested to see if apple just basically cuts a deal to makes this go away. They recently had I can't remember how, how recently it was, but fairly recently they decided just write a check for a hundred million to settle a similar suit with developers a similar class action antitrust suit. They're I think they're, they're also facing new action from from the British on similar similar antitrust actions on on these fees. I really think that this, there are only, there are only two real antitrust pain points that or vulnerabilities Thur thermal thermal exhaust force, so to speak on the, on the, on the apple spaceship. And it really is exclusivity over the app store and exclusivity over payments and transactions. Those are the only places where apple seems to be vulnerable and they do seem to be more vulnerable on the second than on the first, because for many international guidelines on how you prove antitrust apple, basically saying that, Nope, we have our own payment platform.

Andy Ihnatko (00:34:25):
Nope. We're gonna give our own payment platform, hardware level priorities over every other competing platform. Yes, there are two or three or four competing payment systems that are out there. We are not gonna let them have the same kind of power and the same kind of simplicity that that that ours have. You're never gonna be able to get Samsung pay on your apple watch. And I think that most people would agree. Who've used both all of the, all of these things, that that's not a bad thing that you're keeping Samsung pay off the apple watch, but a court might have different ideas for it and antitrust, if they can just simply write a check, be done with it and be ready to fight the fight, the really big wars that are coming up very, very soon from the actual government actions. Then that's probably the smart thing for them to do at this point.

Jason Snell (00:35:07):
You know, apple is good at a few things. Apple is good at making lots of money and apple is also good at focusing on customer experience. And there are times when those two things are in opposition and there are times when those two things are perfectly aligned. And this is a case where they're perfectly aligned, where if they had come up with an NFC payment system and it was an open API and every app was different and you had to launch a specific app in order to pay and all of that, they would've, it would've been a worse user experience. I really believe unifying it under apple pay was the right decision, but also a, a side effect of that decision is that apple is saying, well, we built this feature financial institutions, and now you need to cut us in for some of that money cuz we, that's why we built this feature.

Jason Snell (00:35:49):
And like it is it's funny because it's not, it's, anti-competitive sort of in a way, but really what we're talking about is financial institutions who benefit from the frictionless aspect of contactless payments cutting in the company that in that builds the hardware and built the software to make it as frictionless as possible. And I kind of don't have a lot of sympathy for them, but I have a little, like I understand it and having it be open and letting them do what they want. Like I, I get why they want that. And yet at the same time, if they had gotten that, it would be worse. And that's the mm-hmm <affirmative> that's the struggle I have with a lot of this is sometimes the user experience is degraded, cuz apple wants to make money and that's things like not letting you buy Kindle books inside iOS, but, but buying iBooks and you know, that is that is bad. And the reason it happens is cuz apple wants to skim your credit card transactions for things bought on iOS that are digital. I, I get it. I'm kind of opposed to it, but it is what it is. But in this case, like apple pay is, is good. It's really good. And it would not be as good if I had to have a bunch of janky bank apps on my device, instead of just putting my, my code numbers, you know, my credit card numbers in the apple wallet setup and then forgetting about it.

Alex Lindsay (00:37:02):
Yeah. And I, I think that the, what starts out as freedom, what starts out as freedom ends up being, we end up as users being leveraged. So what'll happen is, is it'll start opening up and then people will only wanna let us use those things instead of using the apple one, cuz they don't like to make the payments or whatever. So as a user, we're gonna end up on the tail end of this, you know, and, and this is a fight of these are rich banks asking for more money from a big, from a very rich company. And the user experience will be degraded when this happens, you know, I'm not, you know, and the EU will do whatever cause EU doesn't care about American companies. And so the, the so the EU will do whatever it's gonna do. But these, this, this is a bunch of rich people asking for money from a company that's bigger than them, but they want more of their little cut. And what it's gonna mean eventually with this is the same with the app store. The same with this is that users will be forced to use certain things because they don't want to use that other thing, you know? And so we will be it's it's, it starts out looking like choice. But when, when there's not consumers in the lawsuit just know that eventually we're gonna get it in the back.

Andy Ihnatko (00:38:07):
Hmm. Well I disagree with a lot of that, but we're not gonna get into that right now. Mostly I'd like to, mostly I wanna bring up that part of the problem is not just simply the, the there's the correct observation that these are very, the, the very, very wealthy banking industry is taking on the very, very wealthy apple. But part of it is that you also have to ask yourself, we also have to ask ourselves as part of this conversation, what alternative payment systems that are better, that could be better than apple pay are never going to make it out of the cradle because there is no point there's not gonna be an investment in it because the first question they're gonna have is how are you gonna make this easier to use than than apple pay? How are you gonna get availability on the apple watch?

Andy Ihnatko (00:38:50):
And you will have no answer for that because apple just simply has said that apple pay is the way that this is gonna go. We have more than half of the phones in the United States of America, we have a huge tick of the phones worldwide. If we make this decision, then suddenly this becomes a very, very impossible proposition. And I do think that apple could, if, if apple had no choice in the matter, if they, if there were existing laws on the books, we don't have to discuss whether that's a good idea for these law, such a law to exist or not. But let's say that it was like absolutely illegal for them to to lock in apple, watch users, to just apple pay. I'm sure they could come up with an API that would simp that every bank would absolutely support if it meant that you don't have to pop up an app in order for me to do it.

Andy Ihnatko (00:39:34):
You just simply just like you can set the default browser, just like you can set a default email client. You can set a default tap to pay system. I'm sure they would make that happen if they had if they had an alternative, if they had, if they had no alternative, but to support other systems. And that's why I'm always very open to discussion of, well, if apple wants to Def, if apple wants to claim that what they're doing is not anti-competitive, that's great. We'd love to hear it in front of a court law where other people who are not necessarily emotionally or financially invested in apple, get to decide whether apple is making a good case or not. They should at least be forced to make that argument and not just simply say, Hey, we're apple two hippies in a garage. We just, we're all about user experience. We love everybody. We're the best.

Alex Lindsay (00:40:15):
So

Mikah Sergeant (00:40:15):
You think they won't you do you feel like they're not, it sounds like this lawsuit's happening so they will have to do this right. Andy,

Andy Ihnatko (00:40:24):
I think, I think they're, I think they're gonna look for, well, they, they like this kind of a lawsuit is gonna basically end up in some sort of a settlement. I don't, I don't see it going so far that if the, if the, if the government had, if, if the government were in a position to basically make this ruling, they would much rather do it themselves. Congress would much rather make this sort of a ruling themselves as part of a large package they would like to make after the midterms. But yeah, that you're right. That is, that is a risk that if apple lets this go to a certain extent, they could have a ruling on their hands will cost. 'em A lot more than whatever check they would have to write to just make this group of banks, investment companies happy and make them go away.

Alex Lindsay (00:40:59):
I think that, I think that the issue really is, is that, you know, I I'd be surprised that more than 5% of apple users want anything different <laugh>, you know, like I just don't think that I just don't think it's there. And so the issue is is that if it, the, the, the hard part will be, you know, for Congress or someone else to do something, is, is that, you know, there's not a lot of voters out there interested, so it really comes down to paying for it. I

Mikah Sergeant (00:41:22):
Really like how, when I, when I go into San Francisco around when there's like an event or something, and everybody, you know, there are lots of street vendors, you see lots of folks, and then you also, you go into some coffee shops and stuff, and everybody's offering nine different options. They've got a, a tag you can scan for paying with Square's cash app. They've got a tag you can scan for paying via PayPal. They've got one for Venmo. They've got their, their tag on the side of the thing they've got, some of them have crypto, all the, you know, there are so many different payment platforms out there, and a lot of them are just making all of them available for use. I'm kind of curious what ends up being the, the main solution that a lot of people use.

Mikah Sergeant (00:42:06):
I think it's more varied than maybe we, we realize because when it comes to individuals or small companies versus these big companies, of course, like a, a grocery store, that's a grocery store chain can afford the infrastructure acquired to set up apple pay and all those sort of tap to pay terminals. But these smaller businesses that don't wanna spend, you know, X amount of dollars a month to be able to go through square or one of those other toasts or one of those are just offering payments in different ways. And, and yes, it results in some paperwork on their end, but it's interesting to see.

Alex Lindsay (00:42:39):
I mean, they also have those options. They have to look at whether they're supporting, you know, from an apple perspective. I mean, from an apple user perspective, I just know which vendors support apple pay. If they don't, then I don't go there very often. So, so the thing is, cause I, I don't really use cash anymore and I don't, I don't really like pulling my credit card out. And so pretty much everything is all, you know, and I think that that is, you know, probably will still be the case for, for quite some time from an apple user's perspective, not necessarily, I mean, they can have a lot of other things, but I think most of them will, will have apple pay mostly because apple users tend to spend more money.

Andy Ihnatko (00:43:10):
Yeah. Well, just, just as we were used to seeing the, the stickers on the windows of the store that says that you used to say, Hey, we accept MasterCard visa and American express. And gee, how come they're always printed on the same stickers almost as if there's someone says, if there's no chance that they would only accept one instead of three, now that sticker is, Hey, we accept apple pay, Google pay and Samsung pay. So I I've, I honestly have no idea when I tap my Android phone or tap a tap, a watch. What I, I know I don't, I don't have to know or care what, what processing system the thing is using. It would be more interesting if I, if I could just just as my internet connection interface here, it basically says, here are the, here's the order in which I would like you to try to connect to the internet if there's ethernet, boom, go ethernet.

Andy Ihnatko (00:43:57):
If there's wifi, try this wifi access point. First, this one second at the last, at the end of the list, try my my wifi hotspot. It would be nice if in an ideal world, I would love to have multiple payment systems on my phone that could basically make that negotiation on myself saying primarily, I, I like this payment app, cuz I know that it puts automatically adds more money to to independent businesses than it would to other businesses or for whatever reason. And I just simply tap and it actually works. But when we, but as, as, as pie in the sky, as these things go realize that I, I, I, I am very hippie in my, in a lot of my pronounce pronouncements pronunciations here, but I'm also aware of like what the world was like when the court said, you know what, it's bad that at.

Andy Ihnatko (00:44:42):
And T has the, has the, has a monopoly on on long distance, we should open up the long distance business to everybody. And now all of a sudden you're, you're getting all of a sudden, you have to basically navigate, how am I paying for long distance? How many minutes am I getting? And how did I suddenly get switched from this plan to this other plan without actually doing anything? It could, it could wind up in being a hell escape, but you know what maybe life was, is meant to be a hellscape anyway. And we're just meant to figure out how to survive it.

Mikah Sergeant (00:45:07):
Oh boy. Speaking of hell, scapes, Russia, I'm sorry.

Andy Ihnatko (00:45:10):
It's really, it's really hot. Okay. <Laugh>

Mikah Sergeant (00:45:13):
Russia is finding apple now joining in, in finding apple for antitrust laws for violating antitrust laws. And what's interesting about this is it was, I think a couple of weeks ago I saw that Russia was planning on finding apple because apple was not going to store was going to continue to not store data inside of Russia. But instead was storing data outside of Russia. And Russia said, if you don't, if you don't start storing it here in Russia, then we're going to start finding you. And now the the country has come forth with some antitrust concerns. It says, and I quote, the company has abused its dominant position in the iOS app distribution market apple prohibits iOS app developers from telling clients inside the app about the possibility of paying for purchases outside the app store or using alternative payment methods.

Mikah Sergeant (00:46:06):
So this is you know, essentially at the heart of this is the long ongoing discussion about apple and its payment platforms. And Jason, you had mentioned earlier that the way that it kind of is affected affects users in the Kindle app for one example. But there of course is the argument that this is, is a, a larger concern, but Russia seems to be doing this after some other <laugh> attempts at, at finding apple for many different things. So this is only the latest in a long run. It seems

Jason Snell (00:46:45):
Isn't this so sweet Russia wants to get in on the on the antitrust. I, I have a hard time not viewing this as a way for Russia to see if apple has some accounts that are in Russia, that it was mandated to have for sales that were going on in Russia, that it might be able to find and get access to because I, I gotta be honest. I'm not sure apple or most Western companies are counting on Russia being a market for them in the near future. And so, I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, Apple's so intertwined with China. There are lots of markets that apple is not going to say goodbye to, but Russia as a market at this point, I think is not in that category. And apple has paused its sales there. And I think that I look at this and I think, well, you know, why would apple care or pay them or do anything if they're essentially turning their back on Russia. And I think maybe the answer is maybe there's a bank account somewhere. That's got rubbles in it that Russia can just rest back from them and take that money back. And that sounds like them. So,

Andy Ihnatko (00:47:51):
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's only gonna get tighter. They just find Google something like 230 million. I'm sorry, I'm looking up for now 360 million equivalent of for failing to failing, to censor Ukrainian content. And not basically making sure that Russian users only get the party line in terms of how that war is going. So, yeah, I think that if, if, if Russia were, were, were giving apple monster numbers, instead of being something, what is it like 4%, something, 5%, very, very small amount of how much money Apple's making. They're not making an argument that this is a relationship that apple wants to bend over backwards in order to in order to serve in order to make these people happy, considering how much it's gonna cost them to make them happy.

Mikah Sergeant (00:48:38):
All right, folks, let's take a quick break away from the legal stuff and also from the show for just a moment. So I can tell you about our next sponsor, new Relic, who are bringing you this episode of MacBreak Weekly a lot of devs and you know, a lot of devs out there are incredibly curious people. And they're often the first to explore the newest tech. They dig into documentation. You know, you're the folks who don't only want to know how things work, but want to know why they work the way that they do. And that is why so many engineers turn to new Relic because new Relic gives you data about what you build and shows what's really happening in your software life cycle. It is a single place to see the data from your entire stack. So you don't have to look into those 16 different tools and make those connections manually new Relic, pinpoints issues down to the line of code.

Mikah Sergeant (00:49:30):
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Mikah Sergeant (00:50:21):
Sign up at new relic.com/mac break that's N E w R E L I c.com/mac break, new relic.com/mac break. Thank you so much new Relic for sponsoring this week's episode of MacBreak Weekly. All right. We are back to the show and I wanted to kick things off for this segment talking about apple arcade check in on apple arcade. So one of the things that we just saw at I think it was at WWDC Apple's worldwide developer conference was a conversation around gaming on the Mac and apple is sometimes accused of, I don't even know if it's an accusation maybe observed as being the company that is the mobile game platform. But I think that there then is the criticism that apple is not the the sort of PC gaming company. And I felt like what they had talked about at that Mac event.

Mikah Sergeant (00:51:22):
Well, in part of that Mac event, was that it is working on making, you know, Mac O S itself as well as the hardware behind Mac O S powerful and capable enough to run some of these triple a games that we see out there. But while all of that is going on, we do have to, again, recognize apple as a platform or as a mobile gaming company. And one of the places that that exists is apple arcade. And, you know, I'll, I'll check in from time to time on apple arcade. But now there's a list of games that will be leaving apple arcade. Soon. We sometimes see this on Netflix and and Hulu where there are some, some deals that have gone through. And so those apps will, or those shows will leave. And now the same thing is happening in apple arcade. So I just wanted to check in with you fellas, if any of you play any games from apple arcade or use apple arcade. And I'm curious about your, your thoughts on sort of the future of apple arcade. If this is gonna continue to be something that apple really digs into or not.

Andy Ihnatko (00:52:25):
Yeah. I, I, I only use apple arcade sporadically, but I, I use it. I use it as a it's it's I use it for snacking, so to speak mm-hmm <affirmative> well, cause I think what it's really, really good at is finding those little games that aren't gonna take up your brain for three weeks. It's gonna be a good thing. It's gonna be a good time for a few hours, and then maybe you'll dip into it again the next day and more than anything else, you know, that's not gonna be filled with popup ads. It's not gonna be where you, you bring your, you, you steer your cart around the course once. And then at the end of the first lap, it says, congratulations now, Hey, why don't you improve your cart with a new engine, a new, a new racing stripes, and how about a new hat?

Andy Ihnatko (00:53:03):
So that's pretty much what I'm using it for. I'm so glad that they are starting to let people know that, Hey, these games are certain games are about to expire and about to leave the store because it does let you know that it, it does give a sense of urgency to make sure that you know, that the, the, the apple arcade library is a living, breathing creature. That's gonna be changing with things coming and going as you go. And I don't, I, I have Toma, I have to admit that I I'm looking at the list right now. I don't recognize any of these games, but it, if it gives attention to the, the, this list of like 10 or 20 games and makes people discover them simply by the fact that look, you don't know what you've got until it's gone. You may as well give you may as well give dread nautical or don't bug me a try. I think that's a, it's a really good thing. And an important part of the consumer experience

Alex Lindsay (00:53:51):
I have to admit the only two, we, we play a little apple cart, apple arcade, and then we also have, I have an Atari, you, one of those Ataris that has all the games built into it there. At some point the other night, I was playing some space invaders, and I was like, apples should just buy aary. It's like $400 million. <Laugh> just buy the whole thing and just took all the app, all those games on there that then I'd play a lot more on, on apple, apple arcade. And then you could update them all, you know, like have a, you know, have like a click, the, the, you know, the 20, 25 version versus the, the original version. And you probably do really well. You know, I think that you know, I don't know if people have a strong expectation of apple, you know, the apple arcade stuff.

Alex Lindsay (00:54:27):
And I don't know, it seems like that's gonna be a really, there's a lot of momentum <laugh> to, to play triple a games on a PC and on desktop boxes and so on and so forth. I think apple is doing pretty well with kind of more of the casual gaming. I think that one of the things that they're really missing is, is, I mean, they're doing, I mean, they're really crushing it with casual gaming, and I think that they, they can continue to do that. I think that, I think that they I think that they do need, if they really want this to turn out, they need a breakout game. They need a game that everyone's playing, you know, and I think that that could be done, but it would take a lot of decisiveness that I don't know if they, you know, have to do that. But, but building some great game that people have to be part of and, you know, what is Apple's Fortnite, so to speak. And I think that there, there are opportunities there, but it's a, you'd have to kind of start throwing some pretty hard numbers at something to make it that, to, to make that work.

Jason Snell (00:55:20):
I think Apple's done pretty well with apple arcade so far. I most impressively perhaps is that they seem to have recalibrated right there. There's that sign of like, does apple just push something out onto the ice flow and then walk away and hope that it doesn't sink. And that, that the initial launch was interesting and they tried to build up a catalog. And then at some point they realized, oh, what we really need to do is we need to have some exclusive games. And then we also are gonna put some money toward taking things that are in the app store and pulling them in, in a free for apple arcade members version that doesn't charge. And then we're also gonna go to some of the classic games that people remember playing on their iPhones that have kind of fallen out of off the app store.

Jason Snell (00:56:05):
Their tech is a little bit old and the developer doesn't have a reason to update them. And we're gonna basically pay them to pull those into apple arcade and get them up and running on the latest versions of iOS. And that is a much better approach. I think they've been successful with it. They brought back a lot of people's favorite games from the past, and you can play them now again on your iPhone. I think it's such a great idea. Yeah. And, and there are, you know, as for my personal use, I go on and off with apple arcade. There are games that come on and I play them. And then like the Alto's Aden and Alto's Odyssey series they did revisited versions of those games, I, with extra levels. And it got me back into that. I play flip Flo solitaire from Zach G.

Jason Snell (00:56:46):
There are a bunch of games that I do play that are apple arcade games in some form, often classic games that have been brought in. I think the truth of these games is probably that they don't get a lot of use and apple is cutting games that are not played a lot from its catalog. That's my guess my understanding is that that there's some compensation you get from apple for having your game on apple arcade, and then you're compensated more based on, I think it's time of use the amount of time that apple could subscribers spend in a game actually factors in to what they get paid, but, you know, and maybe different contracts are different, but my guess is that they're cutting from here. And I hate, I hate that experience on any subscription service where you're, there's a game or show or movie or whatever that you expect to see.

Jason Snell (00:57:29):
And it just vanishes. I think it's really frustrating. And I, I just am opposed to it generally, but that's probably what's going on here. And when I saw the list, I thought, well, yeah, like I would be more upset if it was a list of like things that they had promoted that were like big deals that were reasons for you to get apple arcade. And that's not what it is. It's more like they're, again, I kind of admire them really seeming to be pretty active on sort of defining what the rules are for apple arcade and changing what the selection is and trying to find a sweet spot there. And I hope they keep doing it.

Andy Ihnatko (00:58:01):
Yeah. It's a very safe spot to let your kids loose on where you know, that it's an all, all you can eat buffet. You're not gonna be, you're not gonna be racking up letting them let rack up thousand dollars worth of in, in app purchases and in-game purchases. And you know, that they are up to a certain level and that they, at some point, some human being at apple has said that, okay, we don't, we, we, we believe that this game is not gonna result in a press release in, in a news story that we're gonna have to react to at some point in the future. So I it's, it's PO it's very possible that the role of apple arcade is not simply to give apple a bigger slice of the gaming pie, but simply to keep people inside the apple ecosystem in a way in which apple can deliver something that that customer wants.

Jason Snell (00:58:43):
It's an important part of that, your nutritious apple bundle as well, right? Yes. Like, I mean, as a $5 a month thing, if you use it a lot. Yeah. Great. If you don't, there's that question of like, should I be paying for this, but, you know, I converted to the apple one bundle because I was buying iCloud and all these other things, and you, you roll it together and there's something freeing almost about saying like, I don't need to be constantly interrogating apple or, or apple arcade or apple news or anything else, and be like, am I using you? Cause it's like, well, it's almost, it's almost free at this point, right. It's almost like, well, I'm getting it for all these other reasons it's free. And now I can look on there and play the games too. And that's, you know, not everything in the bundle has to be like the a hundred percent we gotta use it. It's a must have, sometimes it is that just kind of accretion that happens where you throw a bunch of stuff into the bundle and you realize I'm glad it's there. Even if I don't use it every day. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (00:59:36):
I, I gotta say though that it, it, I, I'm also, I also converted to a bundle and it, and it does bother me a little bit that if I were to, if, if I could pay the exact same amount of money and have these things individually, I'm not sure how I'm not sure how, how strongly each one of them would, would, would pass that smell test of, do I like apple use enough to actually subscribe to it? Not really. Definitly not, do I like iCloud enough? Not really. Do I, do I like, do I like apple arcade enough? Not really, but if I can get a bundle so I can back up my, I can, I can back up my iPad and my iPhone without having to AF actually interact with us at all. If I can occasionally use apple news to read things that are behind payables on on other news rear arrests

Jason Snell (01:00:22):
Wall street journal. Yeah. Mm-hmm

Andy Ihnatko (01:00:23):
<Affirmative> yeah. On, on and on and on. I just, I just wish that they were cuz alternatively, like I love Google photos and I, I pay to use, I pay for unlimited on Google photos cuz it really works great for me and I love Dropbox and I love and I love other I love other cloud storage systems and I love certain certain other news reader apps. And there's there, there are things that I pay for because I love them and I want this to keep going and I wanna keep getting them. I just wish I felt that way up on all these apple services. But I think

Alex Lindsay (01:00:51):
There's, I think there's a lot of times there's an inertia to it as well though. Cause it is kind of like, ah, apple news, wasn't that good. But now I find myself in it most of the time, you know, like I'm, you know, like it was one of those things. Like I was like, ah it's okay. It drives me crazy that it constantly, if I block something, it constantly tells me this was blocked, you know, like, and I'm just like, okay, well when I blocked it, I didn't wanna look at it anymore. It's my biggest con complaint about it is. And but I, but I think that it, it is this inertia and a lot of memberships that's kind of the deal is you try to build it up to a point where the, the, the sum is bigger than whatever you were gonna make a decision about. I do think as long as we don't lose cricket through the ages, you know, I, I that's the, if they start taking that off, then I'm gonna be like, I don't know. I don't know if I can keep on doing this. Okay.

Jason Snell (01:01:32):
That's the like yeah. The idea that you're not making three separate $5 decisions about like, or five or $10 about apple news and apple TV plus and apple arcade. But instead it's just part of the bundle. It is sort of freeing and in the way of like, well, did I watch for all mankind? Yes I did. So that's good. And then this other month, did I play Al Alto's odysey yes I did. So that's good. And did I did was there that big feature story in the, in the wall street journal that somebody linked to and I don't pay for it, but it was in apple news, by the way, that's pro tip. If there's a wall street journal article that you wanna read, you just search for the headline in apple news. If you've got a, if you've got a news plus and it's there, it's amazing. Yeah. Like it does it doesn't I don't wanna be making monthly decisions about if I'm using those features. Right. Like I just don't want to do it. And that's the brilliance of throwing a bunch of different things in the bundles is they don't, they only have to be kind of like occasionally helpful as long as you're getting enough out of it for it to be worth it. And that's, that's what the game is that they're playing there.

Andy Ihnatko (01:02:26):
Yeah. There there's a good reason why Slayer and night ranger and a couple other metal bands from the eighties, they always tour together. They don't tour separately. That's right. Because that's

Jason Snell (01:02:34):
Why we have county I'll spend,

Andy Ihnatko (01:02:36):
That's

Jason Snell (01:02:37):
Why county fairs exist. Come on

Andy Ihnatko (01:02:39):
As package. Okay. 40 bucks. But it's a bundle.

Jason Snell (01:02:42):
Yeah. It's the Lollapalooza retro bundle. Sorry. That's a different decade. I know, but we're just talking about concerts and, and yeah. Yeah. It's the county fair. So what you're saying is apple one is the county fair of technology bundles. It's very good. Fair.

Andy Ihnatko (01:02:55):
I think, I, I think, I think that we should end this before we get salt, say, okay, which one is the night ranger, which are the apple services is, is Sputnik. Which one

Mikah Sergeant (01:03:05):
Did you see that Apple's paying 50 million for the butterfly keyboard?

Andy Ihnatko (01:03:13):
<Laugh>

Jason Snell (01:03:14):
I wouldn't pay a dime for it. Right.

Mikah Sergeant (01:03:17):
Amen

Jason Snell (01:03:17):
Law. Exactly.

Mikah Sergeant (01:03:19):
So apple is going to pay 50 million in the settlement over the MacBook butterfly keyboard lawsuits. Of course, this was a lawsuit that that was

Jason Snell (01:03:28):
Cause this mean we all get a dollar's like we get a dollar 83

Andy Ihnatko (01:03:31):
In mail. It's no, this is, this is the, we, we always complain about, oh, well, great. We're gonna get a check for a dollar 25. It's no, it's actually like if the more you suffer, the more times you had to take that damn thing back, the more you're gonna get, like you're gonna get, I think the top thing is like $430 you to take it back two or three times. You've only had to take it back once you get $150. And yeah, I mean, the there's the, I think there's anything could have, we, we already, we already had a big neon sign of, of failure on the butterfly keyboard simply by virtue of the fact that apple just quietly said, yeah, we decided not to have that on any of the new apples anymore. <Laugh> but, but when, but when, when we're like, okay, you know what, you, you kind of got us.

Andy Ihnatko (01:04:14):
We, we will write handsome checks to Mo to the people that we made suffer because cause let's, let's not like, let this let this die and legend that there are people that like, they just kept things just kept breaking and breaking and breaking. They had key capture placed. They had entire keyboards replaced time and time again, apple stuck to their guns for like three iterations of this thing after it was, I mean, I, I was, I was early on the bandwagon, but most of my complaints were that I just thought the keyboard sucked. It just sucked as something to type on. But then we also found out that, yeah, but unfortunately, if you are, if you are operating it inside Earth's atmosphere, particles of that atmosphere will get underneath the keys and destroy it. And that was probably not something that came up in testing. And if, if not, I hope they didn't release it based on that.

Jason Snell (01:05:01):
And I'm not sure that crumbs are a vital part of Earth's atmosphere, but yes, your point is well taken.

Andy Ihnatko (01:05:07):
It's a

Jason Snell (01:05:08):
Board that also didn't work. Right. So great. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (01:05:12):
I

Jason Snell (01:05:12):
Just, one of those things I kept on

Andy Ihnatko (01:05:14):
Thinking that I would, I was like, oh, this looks really cool. And I

Alex Lindsay (01:05:16):
Just found that I didn't type on it very much. Like it was always like, it was always like, oh, I gotta go to another computer. And then there was some point about a month or two in, I was like, wow, this keyboard really stinks. You know, like it's, I didn't have the same exp experience that Andy had. It was just, it was kind of like one of those things, like I just found myself finding other places to go to type other than other than my, my laptop.

Mikah Sergeant (01:05:35):
Yeah. And part of the reason that this, this case is is, you know, making that it's made it this far is because, and I think this is a fair point. Not only, you know, did the keyboards, they seemed rather defective in the first place because so many of them got, you know this issue, but when you took it in to get it repaired, then they put in the same keyboard obviously as they would. And then it would continue to be an issue the next time some dust got under there and it wasn't working or the, the key got a little sticky. So the argument is not only that these felt rather defective in the first place and that the design was kind of crummy and long-term use, ah, there was a pun that I didn't actually did not intend. Haha. But that over time, even if you, you know, paid to get it fixed with that, you know, 150, $200, 125 replacement, it would then replace it with a keyboard. That was the same thing that would then happen again. So yeah, I, I, I get where that, that concern comes from or the ongoing concern at least.

Andy Ihnatko (01:06:38):
Yeah. It got it. Got it actually got me kind of angry because it was just such a stupid design decision because I'm, I'm kind I'm I've I, I didn't get super angry about deleting the the headphone Jack from the phones because I thought was anti-consumer but there was a practical engineering reason why that was a, a good idea. There, there, there benefits to not having a a headphone Jack inside the iPhone and they could legitimately say, look, there's every square millimeter of space inside. This case is precious real estate. We just don't even want to have the space to use that space for something that we don't think everybody's gonna, anybody's gonna miss. But for that, for that to have a keyboard with what was it, less of 0.5, two millimeters of key travel on a, on a, on a MacBook that was not really thinner than anything else that apple had ever made that made it a stupid just design choice, as opposed to a way of a way of making it thinner, a way of making it more comfortable, making more practical.

Andy Ihnatko (01:07:38):
No, somebody like somebody we're not gonna name who, but he just lost his contract with apple or Ken's relationship with apple decided that, oh, the, the, the idea that the, the, these keys are, are sitting too proud from the surface of the MacBook that offends me in a way that I can, Carly contain, we must have flat keys. And after he was talked off of the idea of what, if we just had a flat paint of glass with etching, etched glass, the representing hinting at where the keys should be struck, they were say, well, could we make, they negotiated down to less than to about half a millimeter? And then he made forward. That's what gets me annoyed when make a stupid design decision just for aesthetics, just for style. This is what we were, this is what we spent half of our lifetimes defending apple haters about that they're oh, they're, they're just like cute design. They don't really care about performance, cuz yeah, here, you kind of got us. This was a stupid design based on just style.

Jason Snell (01:08:30):
Well, I think it's worse than that though, because I think that there was a reason they designed this keyboard, which was for the 12 inch MacBook, which was super thin and they felt like they needed a thinner keyboard. So they designed it for that. Right? The problem is that apple has this pride of invention and also like this idea of, they wanna for lots of good reasons, they wanna recycle their stuff. So you build, you see this to this day, right? It's like, oh the new feature that continuity camera in the next version of Mac S has center stage in it. And it has portrait mode in it because they already made those things. So we'll recycle them. But somebody somewhere made the fatal decision to say, you know, this MacBook keyboard that we made because we needed it super thin. Let's just use it everywhere.

Jason Snell (01:09:09):
Sure. What could be? Yeah. The, the problem with that. And it wasn't a good keyboard on the MacBook either, but to, to subject every other laptop user to a keyboard that was essentially just designed for the skinniest of all their laptops. And then on top of all that, it turns out that it's actually not resilient in terms of real environments that are not a white room with nothing in it, a featureless white room. I don't know who would live in that room. <Laugh> probably somebody whose contract just ended with apple. So anyway, yeah, here we are. At least the keyboards are better now, but I mean, should apple pay people for the butterfly keyboard angst that they went through? Yeah. Yeah. They should. They should spend money on that. That they should. That is a, like, that's a great contr great lawsuit for them to settle. It's like, this was really bad.

Andy Ihnatko (01:09:54):
Tim cook, Tim cook should have to sit at his desk, just like Nathan in in the jerk, writing out Mr. John toil, Hudy $400 and 12 cents.

Jason Snell (01:10:06):
He has to type it on a, on a, on a butterfly keyboard. And every time it does a double E he has to backspace go to these again and then do it again. That's the punishment

Andy Ihnatko (01:10:16):
For that. Maybe that's why they finally added mail merge to pages. Cuz now he, you realize he's gonna have to, he's gonna have to hook up his PS PFS file to the word. Process'

Mikah Sergeant (01:10:24):
Exactly why they added mail merge. Oh my God. You figured it out.

Jason Snell (01:10:28):
Hey, remember when we talked about the butterfly keyboard every week? Oh, old times. It's so good. It's just a little, little nostalgia shot here.

Mikah Sergeant (01:10:36):
That's exactly what it was. Oh boy. Well anyway, it's gone. Thank goodness goodbye to you forever. And now that now they're paying for it in more ways than one. One other quick little story before we take another break. I did see there's a wall street journal article. It is tied behind a pay wall, but I've seen some other conversation about this and I'm this news

Jason Snell (01:10:58):
Plus news plus there you go.

Mikah Sergeant (01:11:00):
Solve

Jason Snell (01:11:00):
That one news

Mikah Sergeant (01:11:01):
<Laugh> yes. So there's talk of SIM cards, these very silly things going away in in hopes that the EIM, which is very popular in other countries sort of takes over. And one thing I didn't realize is that the iPhone 13 was shipped without a SIM installed. And I guess that's the first model where that happened. And I have used a SIM card, an actual physical SIM card in the past. And at some point there was the offer to turn it into an EIM. And I did that and it was a whole horrible nightmare mess where for a while I didn't have my phone number, the phone number I've had for years and thought I was gonna be this whole thing and it ended up getting fixed. Thank goodness. And it was all okay. And now I'm EIM and everything's fine.

Mikah Sergeant (01:11:52):
But I like for people who have used a SIM and then tried to make a change to an EIM, who've had the same experience as I have. I can understand a hesitancy on having the SIM card go away. But if I throw aside all of my experience and I just think about the fact that we have this little plastic and metal thing that we stick into our phones to make it work whenever all it is is telling the phone things that we could just have the phone know in the first place. That's bizarre to me like where, what, how, who invented the SIM card at the first place? Why did we ever do this instead of just having it all built into the phone? I don't know. How are, what are your thoughts on SIM cards folks? <Laugh>

Jason Snell (01:12:30):
Well, there's, there's, we're talking about retro. Oh, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say, talk about talking about retro. We're talking about SIM cards now. Yeah. My daughter is in Europe for a month doing a summer program and we set her up with an EIM and it's the first time I've actually ever used that. And it was super convenient. My concern, and this is not a general concern, but like my concern about it is what you said, Micah, which is there is something that feels very safe about putting that piece of plastic in a different phone. And knowing that your phone identity is essentially transferred. And I, if you can assure me that moving from phone a to phone B is a very smooth process and that I'm not gonna get a phone call from my carrier or that my phone number's not gonna transfer properly.

Jason Snell (01:13:12):
And I end up having to wait on, hold on an 800 number, then let's do it. Let's go all the way with EIM. But that's my fear. And as somebody who reviews phones, I am transferring that SIM card all the time. And it's so con that's why I haven't switched to an EIM is because it's so convenient to just pop it in another phone. And now my phone number is over there and I, I am a little worried and I know that that's a, an edge case, but I'm a little worried about that. Putting myself in the hands of my carrier to trust that this transfer has been honored and all of that, but if they can solve it, yeah. Having a plastic thing, you stick in your phone is dumb. It totally is dumb, but I, I, they need to prove to me that they're not gonna disappoint me before I, I switch. I,

Mikah Sergeant (01:13:55):
And I'm realizing I lied because I now remember, I was just looking at my phone. I went into the store and said, I switch to Sunis. I want my physical, I need a SIM card again. So that I wouldn't. Cause I was so concerned about it. So yeah, I have a physical SIM too, for the same reason. If I wanna pop that into another phone, it's very easy to do and I don't have to worry about it. It's like, this is the thing that says, this is my number and remains my number. So yeah, I have that concern too.

Alex Lindsay (01:14:22):
And it's also nice. You leave the country, you swap out into the new SIM. When you get back, you just put your old SIM back in you're back to where you're, you know, there's no, no fus must. So the,

Jason Snell (01:14:31):
The, the beauty of the EIM thing though, so like apple supports this now where you can have a SIM and an EIM and it's a dual SIM system. And it's really nice. Having only experienced this with my daughter when she was going away to the Netherlands is you, you know, you get an app, you get the EIM, it installs it. It's like installing a profile or something. It installs into the system. Then you've got two cellular connections and you can do things like, say, turn off cellular one and turn on cellular two, or turn off the data on one and keep the voice on it, but use the data you can choose to prioritize. So there's a lot of flexibility there. So you actually could do it where you just turn off your us SIM when you're traveling, if you want to, and it stays in, right. And then you use SIM as there

Alex Lindsay (01:15:12):
Historically, historically. But I think I'm on EIM now and I'm quite happy with it. Yeah.

Jason Snell (01:15:16):
It's, it's really, it's really nice. And, and, and these, and, and some of the fear is you, you try it out. Like I did a couple months ago and you realize, oh, apple has actually done a very good job of supporting this. It's built in multiple Sims and EIMS, and it's all it's been there for a little while. They had a dual SIM phone in China a few years ago, they sort of kicked off this whole process and like, yeah, I just I'm like Micah, I'm just a little trepidacious cuz I'm worried that I'm gonna have to, you know, review an iPhone and try to transfer my number and then it won't ever come back. And then I, I to

Mikah Sergeant (01:15:48):
Charge up Android phone phone. Yeah. I had to charge up an Android phone and get a mint mobile plan again really quick. Oops. A sponsor of the network I should note. So that I could call at and T and say, Hey, I need this fixed. And no, it's not with this number. It's with the number. Yeah. So that was scary. And that's why I was like, I need a physical SIM back as, as quickly as I possibly can. But

Andy Ihnatko (01:16:12):
If,

Mikah Sergeant (01:16:12):
If you're starting new, then that's fine. Go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead.

Andy Ihnatko (01:16:14):
And yeah, no, just, just, I, I I'm I'm with you. I just feel very much in control when it's like I've removed this, this physical object from this one device, I've inserted it into this other device. And Verizon did not try to stop me at and T did not, did not try to stop me at no point. Did I have to say, oh, why do you, why, why do you want use a new phone? Why do you use our phone? Oh, why you're using Verizon instead of us. And that doesn't, that doesn't seem that concern doesn't seem to have played out yet, but I just don't wanna be in a situation like Mike is in where something happens. And now I have to trust a customer service apparatus to put things right. And make sure that my, my, my, my, my cell number be remains my cell number.

Andy Ihnatko (01:16:56):
I will say though, that having, since we just talked about deleting deleting the, the headphone Jack, it is the, the SIM tray is another point of ingress for dust and for, and for moisture and stuff like that. So if we believe that deleting the headphone track was a good thing for the longevity of the phone. We also have to believe that the SIM cards, Trey is another thing like that. So it's, I think it's gonna be, there's like a whole generation of people that I, I, I got into at when the, at, when ATM networks started popping up, I had no problems with it. Older generations had a problem with it, but for me, it took me two years before I would, I would deposit checks by phone because I'm like, I, it, this can't possibly work. I take a picture of it and I set a push and, and it basically, and, but don't, they need the check. And for like two years it was available, it was available at my bank, but I would still go to the ATM once a month with like three or four checks. Sometimes you just have to, you, you have to keep dip a toe in the water and then just slowly let yourself get acclimated to a new technology. And I think for myself of being honest, EIM is just like that.

Jason Snell (01:17:56):
Yeah. I'm more concerned with the unknowns of this, that, that there's gonna be like, it seems fine. Like I'm, I'm totally okay with the idea that there's a little bit of data on the SIM card. Now the data is an EIM. Like that's great. Like fantastic. Why do we have these pieces of plastic? My concern is that you're gonna, you're gonna switch to a new phone for the third time. And you're gonna get a note that says at and T is noticed that you've used a bunch of different things with your thing. Therefore, your account is locked like, like, or, or that they do it after a certain threshold that most people will ever hit. And then if you hit it, you have run into a brick wall and you have to go through multiple layers in order to get it taken care of. That's my concern is more just institutional incompetence or, or just a lack of focus on the part of a cell carrier, more than anything else. But otherwise it's great tech and I hope it all works. Okay. Because it sounds like we're going there regardless. And it's probably all for the best, but it may be a bumpy ride. That's what worries me.

Andy Ihnatko (01:18:51):
Yeah. What tastes like us?

Mikah Sergeant (01:18:53):
Yes. We need to take another quick break and then we will come back. I think we can go ahead and go into picks of the week after this. But I wanna tell you about it pro TV, who are bringing you this episode of MacBreak Weekly. You've probably heard of it pro TV, if you haven't. Well, you should your it team needs the skills and the knowledge to ensure that your business is a success and it pro TV can help you with that. Because more than 80% of users who start a video, actually finish it. It pro TV is engaging and your team will enjoy learning on the platform. You can give your team the tools they need to make your business thrive. Courses are entertaining and binge worthy. They keep your team interested, invested in learning. The tech industry is always evolving.

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Mikah Sergeant (01:21:37):
I after he left the company and I'm having trouble finding the link here in the document, but there was conversations surrounding how long apple was working with Johnny ive. And even if there it is in the New York times. And even if that original the partnership between the companies was maybe not actually a realistic thing. The, the article from trip Kel quote, three years after promising to work long into the future with the man behind its candy colored computers, apple and Mr. Ive are through. So how long do we really think that Johnny ive and apple have been sort of collaborating with love from Johnny I's own design firm and how much of this is just kind of nonsense?

Alex Lindsay (01:22:29):
It was good PR I mean, you know, like was good. I mean, I, I think that, I think there was probably some cracks. I mean, that, that led him to leave. There were some cracks probably for a couple years before that, you know? And so, you know, I think that, you know, he was very focused on a, you know, some, some very specific design requirements that a lot of us, we just talked about butterfly keys and, and really getting into this design, you know, form over function that I think became pretty hard. It became untenable in a lot of places. And I think that, you know, obviously what he did was amazing and, you know, for, for decades. But I think that that continued, you know, and I think that, I think, I think Johnny and I had a hard time when he couldn't bounce it off of Steve. You know, I think Steve brought a certain level of no, let's not do that, like in a nice way, you know? And so, and, and I think that without, without that, he was kind of, I think that there was a yin and yang there that when, when Steve, it was no longer there, I think at that point, things were going to just slowly, slowly unwind. He just didn't have a, he didn't have a foil who

Jason Snell (01:23:29):
Who's gonna say no to Johnny ive, other than Steve jobs, right. Steve jobs dies. And they're like, well, Johnny is here to bear, carry the torch. And it's like, well, who's gonna say no to him. Is Tim cook gonna say no to him? Tim's not a product guy. Tim's like, oh no, no, Johnny, you, you take care of it. I think that was part of the issue. This is though in general, it's just a long, slow fade, right? There's some corporate jobs end really rapidly and others just fade away. And everything we heard is like, he wasn't coming into the office regularly. He was bringing people up to his place in San Francisco. He got a new title that was sort of a courtesy title, but he was really kind of like removing himself from the day to day. Then they do the formal separation, but wait, we're gonna keep a relationship with his new firm.

Jason Snell (01:24:09):
It's gonna be. And it's like, for all concerned, it's good for Johnny. He gets some money. He gets to start his new business. It's good for apple. They don't freak out investors about the fact that this design genius, who is part of the revival of apple has gone too close to the death of Steve jobs. Right. They got to space it out a lot because imagine if Johnny had left after, right after Steve died, right. Like right. Oh my God, everybody would've lost it. So, you know, orchestrated everybody gets a little money. There are some details about people saying, you know, we are paying him what, he doesn't do anything for us. Why are we paying him that? And the answer is you're paying him that cuz he is Johnny ive and you wanted to make it a, a gentle transition. And, and you know, he has not been running the show of stuff.

Jason Snell (01:24:51):
Like, is it, by the way we haven't even mentioned, like there was a story last week on GQ in the UK, which quotes Evans, hanky, who is Apple's lead designer at length about the design decisions that she and her team made about the MacBook air and about last year's MacBook pros and like, is it a coincidence that Evans hanky was prominently featured in a press story that was pretty fluffy and very positive when this was all going on? Of course not. Cuz they're sending the message that it's all okay at apple, it's all fine. We love Johnny. We paid him a lot of money and now their relationship is finally over. Like it's just, it's very well orchestrated. And you know, you wanna be that guy. You want to be the guy who they pay to not work for you for a while because they love you so much. And not the guy who comes in one day and realizes somebody else is sitting at his desk.

Alex Lindsay (01:25:37):
<Laugh> and, and, and, and, and the bottom line is, is that, is that, you know, apple did make a little bit of money from Johnny's designs. So like they could pay him back a little bit, you know, like, you know, on, on the way out, you know, it's, there's a gold, I mean, it's not like it's not like he hung out for two decades and, and didn't create some of the most iconic, you know you know, pieces of hardware ever. So, so, you know, a little bit of little bit of, you know, I mean, and I'm sure he's doing just fine. I'm sure he is been doing just fine a while, but I think, think bored,

Jason Snell (01:26:04):
I think he was bored. Right? I think he, I think there's a natural endpoint and I think it came at the point when apple was desperate to not be seen as losing all of its key contributors because Steve jobs had died. And so I think there was one of those things like Johnny, what could we get? Look back when I had a senior vice president title at a media company. Like you, you have those moments where you're like, what can I do to make you stay? I'll give you any job you want. I'll give you any title you want. I'll get you a raise, please don't go. And I think, I think that happened when Johnny, I was like, look, how many more computers can I design? Like, and he did design some amazing things from the, the, or G three iMac that saved apple really. And the iPod all the way through the iPhone, his contributions are legendary and will be you know, for decades to come if not longer. But I think he was ready, like all to all things. There is an end and I think he was done.

Alex Lindsay (01:26:57):
I think the culture is very different at apple too. I mean, I think that, that, that, that Steve had a certain, he was trying to get something done and the logistics were something he handed off to Tim cook and then, and then it was Tim cook is working on the logistics, you know, and I think that there's a, there is more of a a, a managed process and a more of a, a council of people making decisions. And it's a little bit more diffused than it was before. And, you know, it's, I don't think Johnny, I was the first person to complain about those, those situations and a lot of people that just weren't, they wanted that kind of hunger and, and that edginess that, that came with Steve, that, that they don't, that they didn't have. And a lot of people have left because of that. It doesn't mean that Apple's making any, I mean, apple still, you know, Tim has really managed the ship. <Laugh> pretty tightly and, and really grown the company. If you look at the growth of the company, you know, over the last decade, it's been pretty amazing. And so it's not like he's, he's not doing it correctly. He's just not doing it the way that many of the old guard we're used to.

Andy Ihnatko (01:27:54):
You know, and I did make was responsible for a lot of transformative products that were absolutely had a big hand in apple success. He, he also created the solid gold, 12,000 gadget,

Mikah Sergeant (01:28:07):
Your favorite

Andy Ihnatko (01:28:09):
And, and the, and the, and the, and the $10 million tent that you needed to make sure people understood what you were going.

Jason Snell (01:28:16):
Don't forget the coffee table book. Don't forget the coffee table book of his great accomplishments.

Andy Ihnatko (01:28:22):
Yeah, sir. Johnny, I'm sorry, sir. Johnny, we need to, that's

Mikah Sergeant (01:28:26):
Put some respect on his name. Let's get into the picks of the week now, let's start with Andy, Andy, not co what is your pick of the week?

Andy Ihnatko (01:28:34):
My pick of the week is something that's been around since February, but has just been sort of like validated as kind of safe for most people to actually use. It's a Google's new version of Chromos Chromos flex which is they released it in February, basically telling people that, Hey, it's in sort of experimental mode. But if your computer doesn't blow up, when you install it, could you please like send us an email so we can add it to the list of computers that don't blow up when you try to install Chromos flex. But yeah, I mean, I, I have, I've had it on this 2010 polycarbonate MacBook for like two months. And it does like what, what is advertised? It gives you, it basically takes a machine that is at most can run, give you a nostalgic experience of what it was like to use a Macintosh in maybe 2013 at the latest and actually turn it into a absolutely arguably a modern PC with a modern web browser that can run any base.

Andy Ihnatko (01:29:38):
That is, that runs the latest version of the, of of the Chrome browser has the latest security patches onto it. Hasn't been abandoned like 10 years ago. And the nice thing about it is it is free. And also you can, you don't have to you on this one, I've actually just basically installed it as the primary OS, but you don't have to just like on, on a Lenux distro, you can install it on a, you can create an installer USB stick, and then just simply boot off of the USB stick, give it a try. I think that if you haven't ever tried Chrome OS, you might be surprised at how good it is after after 10 years, 15 years of, of baking in the oven because you, you will realize that you, it will make you remember that.

Andy Ihnatko (01:30:18):
Gee, I do spend a great deal of my time in, in web apps. And the fact that as it essentially is 80% a web browser, 20% notebook desktop style features that make this usable as a notebook or as a desktop that won't be quite as scary after you spend like a couple days running Netflix, running Google docs running iCloud apps on it. You might actually kinda like it. It's it's, it is just a great way to take take an old machine that's out of out of the closet or in this case, I bought it for $10 at the MIT flea market, like about a year ago. Nice. <Laugh> and, and actually have like a, like I said, not a, Hey look, isn't, it is isn't this, isn't this a wacky like time travel Curio. It's like, no, this is as capable as a lot of what I would do on my on my on the M one MacBook pro that I bought last year.

Andy Ihnatko (01:31:12):
Again, limited to the stuff that I do inside the Chrome browser on my MacBook pro, but nonetheless, I'm over the past two hours, I've been looking at a Google doc that we've got our show notes on. I have been checking up on other things and tabs in that browser. So definitely worth a, worth a look over 400 different machines are officially supported. And many that aren't on that list are will also work fine. But again, you can try before you you commit to installing it really good stuff, and you, I think you'll be surprised at how nice it is.

Mikah Sergeant (01:31:43):
All right, let's go next to Alex.

Alex Lindsay (01:31:48):
So I, I generally, don't like a lot of stuff that requires subscriptions, like little subscriptions that I feel like, oh, I'm gonna get over it. And I, and I, I signed up for this one and I, and I keep on going, I'm gonna get rid of it, but then I use it often enough that I'm, and it's so cool when it works, which is always so far. And it's called picture this. And just, I just feel like, I can't believe I bought a, an app that identifies plants, but, but there is something about it. You just see it, you see something and you go, what is that? And I just, you take a picture and, and boom, it's there. It's like, okay, that's in agave. And this is kind of this kind of agave and this or whatever. And and so, and like, I, I found out I took a picture of, of my, the, the plant by my pool, and it's got this huge PO suddenly coming out of it and said, yeah, that's in AGA plant and it's going to die.

Alex Lindsay (01:32:39):
<Laugh>, you know, like this lit, you know, and so I, but I was able to plan, you know, but the point is, is that I, I started taking pictures. Like I had, I had a tree that I couldn't decide that it came when I bought it, it came with the house and I couldn't decide where there was a lemon tree or a lime tree. And, and so I took a picture and I was like, that's a lemon tree. And I was like, oh, I I've been eating them too early. <Laugh> so, anyway, so they, so the so, so the so, but what was funny was is that every day, every couple days I'm out wandering around and I just have this curiosity of what I'm looking at, and I take a picture of it and it tells me what it is, and then I can get more information and I can get, you know, and, and I, and I find that to be just, I guess, beyond plants, I find it just fascinating that we have something on our phone that we just take a random photo and it just tells us what it is.

Alex Lindsay (01:33:26):
And it's, so it's accurate. And it gives you a bunch of information. And to me, I guess, I just feel like I, I wanted to bring it up, cuz I feel like it's just magical. Like there's very few apps that I just go, I'm living in the future where I'm, I, I can just look at something and just go take a picture of it. It goes, oh, that's what that is. And I'm like, oh, because there's so many times. And now when I'm, you know, if I'm out for a walk, I, I just use it constantly like, oh, what is that? I wonder what that is. And what what's interesting about it is is when you have the app, it changes the way you look at the world because there's like a, oh, I'll figure that out. I'll take a picture and then I'll do a search on Google.

Alex Lindsay (01:34:01):
And I, now I gotta figure out how to describe it, or maybe I'm gonna upload an image to Google and we'll see if more come down. And there's like a process when it's just effortless. You just do it all the time. And now, and, and then what happens is, is that, you know, everything along your walk, that you, you know, all the plants and then you start observing them in a different way, from a different filter in your brain, you know? And, and so I, I, so at first I thought it was just, I was like, I, from an AI perspective, I was curious, and that's why I bought it. And now I'm, it just really, it, it just, it just brings me an odd level of enjoyment that's worth. I don't know. I think it's like 3 99 a month or something like that. And I keep on thinking for the first couple months I was like, I'm gonna, I wasn't gonna recommend it. Cuz I was like, I'm gonna use this for a couple months and see if I actually keep using it, but now use it all the time. So it's, it's pretty fun. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (01:34:45):
That this is what automated reality should be all about. They, they keep, they keep showing us demos of, Hey look, and you can, you can have a, a, a dancing Pokemon on the top of your desk, like, okay, that is a cool demo. But what I really want is to be walking around. And as soon as the thought occurs that, Hey, is that a, is that a maple? Or is that an Elm? And suddenly there would be a Dingus that says, Hey, by the way, that's an Elm. And by, and by the way it has, it has, it has a, it has a disease that all of the Elms in in new England, England are getting. So you should, you should enjoy this one while you have it. Cuz as you, you can see by the ends of those tips that, yeah, that's a, that's a Sur you're, you're absolutely right. The idea of, Hey, that's interesting. And maybe you will make a note and maybe you'll follow up on it versus at the point of curiosity, you're feeding your mind. That is a very, very powerful thing. I

Jason Snell (01:35:31):
Did not expect there to be this much plant death discussed on this episode. It's very disturbing circle

Andy Ihnatko (01:35:37):
Life, man.

Jason Snell (01:35:39):
There's a, there's a free app called iNaturalist. That does a similar thing. So if people wanna try a free app, that would be an alternative it's the interface is probably not a slick, but it, the machine learning models for this stuff. I, I, yeah, I also don't know any plants or trees and always wonder, and now you literally just hold your phone up it's it is. Yeah. At the point of curiosity, like, like Andy said,

Mikah Sergeant (01:35:59):
Very cool. All right. Our next pick comes from Jason.

Jason Snell (01:36:03):
Oh boy. It's it's scriptable scriptable is a free app on iOS. It's started life, I believe is really just the idea that you could use JavaScript. You could write JavaScript apps do your JavaScript development mess around with little JavaScript scripts on iOS. Right. But I think it really took flight when it added in this other feature, which is support for widgets on iOS. So now you can write if, if the, the apps that you use, don't give you the widget that gives you exactly what you want. You can write your own and in JavaScript. And so, and I did. So one of the things that I did is we had a bunch of terrible fires is well, probably is about to happen again out here in California. And I wanted an air quality widget that used the purple air network. And I, I wrote a JavaScript widget that put the air quality in my local purple air.

Jason Snell (01:36:55):
The nearest purple air sensor on my desktop or on my lock screen, on my iPad. And then I wrote one that parse my weather station at home and made a widget of that. And then recently I started playing around with Apple's new weather kit API, and I made a, I, I made a script that looks at the widget and pulls the forecast and charts it and makes a little chart of my local forecast from, from all just from data on the internet using JavaScript and just parsing it out, which is pretty amazing. So I made my own little widget, the equivalent of something like the old weather line app that went away except it's my own. And I did it all using scriptable and it works on your iPhone. It'll work on all the different widget sizes that are available.

Jason Snell (01:37:38):
You can write one script that will have different presentation and the small widget size versus the medium widget size versus large and extra large. And as a little tidbit the developer is now beta testing, a version of scriptable for iOS 16, that will let you do that with lock screen widgets. So I'm actually gonna be able to put my temperature in my backyard on the lock screen of my iPhone, which is also just pretty awesome. So if you've got an idea for something, and you're wondering why doesn't this thing exist, guess what make it yourself in? If you can do JavaScript make it yourself a scriptable

Mikah Sergeant (01:38:14):
That's

Andy Ihnatko (01:38:14):
Jason. I, I, I, I, I hope I hope you live a long, long life of, of happiness and, and health and safety. I just hope that like, when you, when your day comes, you've made arrangements, so that on your tombstone will be some sort of a chart that's being generated by a script automatically by a script that that would, that would be your perfect epitaph. You like you are <laugh> that, that is one of the, the eight things that I, that you are, you are the man of

Jason Snell (01:38:38):
The chart is mostly gonna be trending down at that point, which is unfortunate. It's okay. I can accept it.

Andy Ihnatko (01:38:43):
<Laugh> it'll trend very quickly until about six feet. And then it'll just, it'll flat line it's chart. How, how much just track track, the amount of nitrogen, like inside the casket, say, you know what, there you go. There really is. You, you, you may as well, like just not stop visiting, cuz really there's nothing left to visit at this point. But thanks. <Laugh>

Mikah Sergeant (01:39:02):
Well, this is very grim. My

Jason Snell (01:39:05):
It's not just, it's not just planned death,

Mikah Sergeant (01:39:07):
Not just planned death. It's Jason death. No too. Oh, okay. So the might I pick, I've been looking for just a nice, simple bag that is not necessarily a backpack that I can use when I go into the TWI office in particular. And for me, I like to carry my water bottle. I like to occasionally carry, I've got this bag that goes over my shoulder that it's sort of like a purse. And it, it, it usually sits on my side, but when I'm going into the studio, I usually slip it in my backpack. And then I want room for the laptop that I take with me as well. And there are lots, of course, lots and lots and lots of options out there. But in case sent over this bag that I'm really, really liking because it's simple enough, but also has the things that I want without being so much more.

Mikah Sergeant (01:39:58):
So it's called the, the two way transfer tote. And the reason why it's called the two a transfer to is because it can be a tote it's got handles for you to tote it around, which is nice, but it also has some D-ring loops on the back and some clips at the top and it comes with straps. So you can at any time convert it into a backpack. So I can, you know, if I want to bring it in as a backpack, I can do that. And what I wanna carry it as a bag I can, and it's got water bottle spots on both sides, which is quite kind of nice because there are times where maybe I'll have my water, but then I will also have a beverage at work that's, you know, something else. So then I can go in there and plenty of zippered pouches the inside though can hold up to a 16 inch laptop if you have it, which is what I have right now until next week when I transition to that new MacBook air. And it is super soft inside and has lots of storage space, lots of open space to, to tuck things into. And as I said, I really like just the simplicity of this. I'm a, a pin guy and I like to, I have pins on my bag and I'll show you my bag.

Mikah Sergeant (01:41:08):
I have pins that I put on my bag. And so I'm planning on transferring, oops, some of these pins over to my that, that incase bag. And I also have some other pins that I'm not, Hey, Jason, you, you know that one? Yeah. You comparable

Alex Lindsay (01:41:23):
Robot this right

Mikah Sergeant (01:41:24):
There. Yeah. so anyway, there's plenty of blank space on that. That's a lot of fun, but I just, I like this two way idea that, Hey, sometimes I don't feel like carrying it. I just want it to go on my backpack on my back rather and carry it as a backpack and it can do that. So and in case, you know, long time maker of products that are kind of purpose built to fit in particular apple gadgets and apple, you know, laptops and, and whatnot. So pretty enamored this it is available for 99, 95 on, in Case's website. And of course we'll include a link in the show notes and I saw, and thank you. I saw somebody ask for it in the chat, but Jason's on that. So thank you, Jason. Again, simple and so far it's it it's working well for me. So I, I wanted to give them a shout out for that that bag. And with that we have reached the end of this episode of MacBreak Weekly, Andy and NACO thank you so much for being here. If folks want to listen to you on the Ragio, where do they go to do that? And when

Andy Ihnatko (01:42:26):
Go to WGBH news.org, they have, they will live stream all of my appearances. They also archive all my appearances. You can check that out. I'm gonna next to up on usual time, Friday at 1245 in the afternoon Eastern time, you can stream that@wgbhnews.org, or you can actually go to the live stream of w GBH on YouTube, or if you are in the Boston area, dropped by the Boston public library GBH has this big, nice studio in the middle of like this little cafe that's on like the first floor of the Johnson building of the Boston public library. The library's a lovely, lovely place. Get yourself a cookie cup of coffee. You'll have to pay for both of those. And you can watch the show.

Mikah Sergeant (01:43:05):
Excellent. Alex Lindsay of course folks can head to office hours.global if they want to check out what you're doing. Have you been broadcasting despite the, the COVID train?

Alex Lindsay (01:43:17):
You know, the, the great thing about this, this, this larger group that's built up around office hours is that I just just said, I just need you guys to handle this for a while. So for a couple days bill Davis and a couple other folks, so we're able to take care of all of the, you know, there's a huge machine that kind of runs it every morning. And so it's, I'm just the, you know, I'm just the puppet in the middle. And so, so the so, so I was able to go to sleep and they, they took over and just ran great shows. We've had, I I've started to kind of roll back in this week and we had a great conversation with NFTs on in making them and what it takes and so on. So forth on Monday today, we were playing with lots and lots of microphones. So we were testing microphones together. And tomorrow we're talking about motion capture Nick, Nick suggestion from Drexel universe, he'll be talking about what, what that is, and then got Charles Klein coming in, talking about yeah. Color correction on Thursday. So, so it's as always, it's a, it's a busy week. <Laugh> hit at office hours, so

Mikah Sergeant (01:44:16):
Wowza. All right. And Jason Snell of six colors.com. Thank you for being here. Any, any stories you want to to hint at, or <laugh> tell us about

Jason Snell (01:44:29):
The Mac S public beta piece and the, and the Mac Bague piece kind of took it outta me. So you're regrouping for the summer. And I got iCloud photo library, shared photo libraries working. So I gotta play without a little bit. And so yeah, just six colors.com, check it out. My compatriot there, Dan Mor is now on paternity leave. So I, I, it's just me holding down the store for the rest of the summer. So we'll make it work. It's all, it's all good. We'll make it work. By the way, I, I, I'm gonna just plug, going to the BPL and seeing Andy live because I've done that. And it was great. It was an awesome experience. You may not be able to go out to lunch with Andy afterward as I did, but you could still appreciate his wisdom in the lovely Boston public library.

Alex Lindsay (01:45:13):
<Laugh>

Speaker 6 (01:45:13):
Which may not wish may not be a downside, cuz

Alex Lindsay (01:45:15):
I, I really am quite much, it's it it's, you know, it's the Mac break mafia, you know, we all go out, you know,

Mikah Sergeant (01:45:25):
All right. Well you can this week find me in a lot of places tomorrow on windows, weekly, Thursday for tech news, weekly and hands on Mac Saturday on the tech guy. And then I will sleep for nine years after that. Oh, and tomorrow with Jason Snell on clockwise, which is a that's right. A podcast over on relay. Normally with my cohost Dan Moore, who as Jason noted is on paternity leave. So thank you Jason, for being there. If you wanna more of this dynamic duo, you can have that tomorrow. <Laugh> alright. I think that's it. So now it's time for me to say, get back to work. Cuz break time is over goodbye. Everybody.

Speaker 6 (01:46:05):
The world is changing rapidly so rapidly. In fact that it's hard to keep up. That's why Micah Sergeant and I, Jason Howell talk with the people making and breaking the tech news on tech news weekly. Every Thursday, they know these stories better than anyone. So why not get them to talk about it in their own words, subscribe to tech news weekly and you won't miss a beat every Thursday at twit TV.