620: Mostly Cookies

28:20And we'll put a link to that article in the show notes. Given this, perhaps the more pixel-dense Vision Pro could be released in 2027 or 2028. Yeah, maybe add a year or two to that, because if you look at the article about the samsung and stanford screen this is less a commercial product more and more of a research effort but hey if they can figure out how to manufacture it affordably maybe this will be the next next technology and so to give a reasonable timeline for a vision pro with three times the display density hopefully for the same low low price of 3500 2028 2029 maybe those are the years but keep an eye on it but it's good to see some story out there about displays that could substantially increase the pixel density of a high-end device.

29:02And then here's a PSA for you. This is from a while ago, actually. Here's why you shouldn't use iPhone mirroring on a corporate Mac, writes MacRumors. According to a blog post by security firm Sevco, the core issue lies in how iPhone mirroring interacts with macOS's file system and metadata. When activated, the feature creates app stubs for iOS applications in a specific directory on the Mac. Users, your username, library, daemon containers, data, library caches. These app stubs contain metadata about the iOS apps, including icons, application names, dates, versions, and file descriptions. While they don't include the full executable code, they provide enough information for macOS to treat them as installed applications.

29:39The problem arises because many enterprise security and IT management tools routinely scan Macs for installed software. These tools often use macOS's built-in metadata system, which now includes these iOS app stubs. As a result, personal iPhone apps can inadvertently appear in corporate software inventories. Whoopsie-dupsies. Yeah, it's another one of the great advantages of corporate malware that is constantly scanning your computer. When something like this comes out, it's not like the people who make this corporate, you know, scanning software are on top of the latest advances in macOS. And so when iPhone mirroring comes out, they're not like, we've got a new version that accounts for that.

30:13They probably never even tested it. But users are going to find out when they, you know, oh, I'd like to use iPhone mirroring on my work Mac. And they do that, and then suddenly they have essentially revealed every app that's installed on their iPhone to the corporate scanning thing, which maybe is not what they wanted to do. Setting aside that even if there's nothing on there that you wanted to hide, now the scanner is going to say, well, look at all these new apps that this person has installed. And maybe someone comes and pays you a visit and says you shouldn't be installing personal apps on your work computer and yada, yada.

30:40although i do find it interesting that this is you know secretly how this is implementing these little little sort of empty app stubs that are enough of an app to be recognized as an app and to have an icon and a creator or whatever but they have no actual executable code in them and that's how they implemented the thing where mac os is aware of the apps on your phone right instead of just communicating over the network they spray a bunch of files into the file system and say here's a bunch of apps that are on your uh phone uh interesting implementation but be aware of that Yeah, this is a little bit of an older story, but I thought it was worth noting.

31:10If you haven't discovered this already, maybe don't use iPhone mirroring on your corporate Mac. We are brought to you this episode by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place and all on your terms. This year, if you're just starting a new business or if you already have one, good for you. Squarespace is the great place to host your business website.

31:43So whether it's something relatively simple, a few pages about you, maybe a gallery, to a full-blown storefront. You can sell digital goods, physical goods. You can sell time slots. You can sell member-gated content, gated podcasts, newsletters. There's so much that Squarespace supports now. If you're selling physical products, they have all these integrations with shipping stuff. no matter what you're selling they have integrations with various like taxes and inventory management and they have amazing checkouts with squarespace payments so onboarding is fast and simple you get started in just a few clicks you can start receiving payments right away and your customers are given more ways to pay than ever popular payment methods supported like clarna acx direct debit apple pay after pay clear pay and as these are added over time and get popular squarespace adds them so you don't have to like do anything you don't have to move platforms or run big software updates or anything like that you just get this stuff with squarespace it's a great platform it's super easy for anybody to use too like you don't have to be a nerd to set it up so even though many of you out there are nerds because you're listening to our show there's other people in your life who need websites for their businesses you don't have to be their tech support person just send them to squarespace they'll do it themselves that it's it's great it's empowering to them and then you don't have to then be involved with everything so it's wonderful for everybody check out squarespace today you can go to squarespace.com to start a free trial build the whole site in trial mode see how it works for you.

33:01When you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash ATP to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain. So once again, squarespace.com slash ATP for 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain. Thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring our show.

33:19iOS 18, it's been out for a while now. And I haven't heard any complaints here in the house ever since like when it first dropped. But friend of the show, Quinn Nelson writes, I don't know of any iOS update more hated by normal people than the iOS 18 photos app redesign. I don't love it, but I also don't hate it. I have a very kind of milquetoasty opinion about this, to be honest with you. It's fine. Like I don't love it, but I've gotten used to it and it's fine. The one thing I will say is I really genuinely enjoy the trips feature where tries to figure out when you've gone on a trip and it has its own like bespoke section for that that a plus everything else it's fine yeah so yeah so quinn's quinn's read here this is a thing this is the first thing that i heard from normal people in my life when ios 18 came out way back when because i was trying to get people to update you know on day one instead of waiting to the waiting for that time when apple pushes the update on everybody uh if you look at the sort of non-tech enthusiast world what do what do people know or think about ios 18 the answer is the photos app is bad don't update to ios 18 because the photos app is bad here's all the reasons that the photo app is bad i put this item in here because i think we in the tech nerd sphere are not talking too much about that there was a little bit of you know news about that back in the betas when apple was changing it in response to negative feedback during the betas but now that it's been released I don't hear a lot of people in our circles complaining about it my personal opinion is also that it is not I don't think it's better than the one that came before but I don't think it's that much worse but let me tell you if you just go to like go to TikTok go to Instagram on someone else's account like just get out of your world of recommendations and look at what regular people are saying first of all the fact that regular people are saying anything about iOS 18 is probably bad for Apple because what Apple wants is just like oh my iPhone got better and they don't they don't they shouldn't know the number 18 they shouldn't care that there's an ios update maybe they care about the new emoji which is a big driver for people actually updating their phone or whatever people regular people fear os updates uh because they think it's going to break stuff or whatever so as far as regular people are concerned no news is good news for apple but that's not what's happening ios 18 people know the number 18 and they know it because everyone seems to hate the photos app and i wanted to talk about here first of all to hear what you all think of the photos app it sounds like casey's kind of where i am where it's like i don't hate it but i don't think it's a big upgrade either but second to figure out what it is and regular people hate so much about the photos app i have some ideas but anyway marco what what do you before we get into what other people like what do you personally think about the ios 18 photos app if anything i don't really use any of the new like customizable swipey you're exploring rows or anything so I don't really have a strong opinion.

36:10Like I'm a kind of Photos app, you know, light user. I skim through and I usually am looking at my most recent photos. Occasionally I'll like go back and say, oh, what was that thing I did last week? Let me pull up that picture, you know, my New Year's suit or whatever. Like it's usually short time scale. I'm never going into the Photos app and saying, make me a memory for last year. Like I love they have those features for people who do that. I'm not one of those people. So like all that stuff, it mostly just kind of gets in my way if it's in the way. But I find like for my very light use, it's fine.

36:40I don't think it's an improvement for me, but it's also not a downgrade. So it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. So what I think most people dislike and I have people in my life, my daughter refused to update iOS 18 for ages because she had heard that the photos app was bad. She hadn't even experienced it herself. But by the time I even mentioned it to her already and there's like two days after it's released already, she'd heard from her friend circle, don't update iOS 18. The photos app is bad. um i think she's since updated and she still maintains that it's bad she hasn't articulated specifically what it is about it that she doesn't like it but i have a few ideas so first of all one of the sub genres you will find in the world of you know instagram tiktok whatever or in the you know teen circles or you know regular people circles about here's how you can fix photos on ios 18 so it's not so bad and what they're basically telling you to do with a super secret hack is like did you know things are configurable right so in i was 18 photos you can configure i figure where it is probably in settings you can configure lots of the stuff to remove things that you don't care about to change the order of things to pin certain collections to the top like if the default set setup is not to your liking and it's showing you things you're not interested in you can change that so this is a super secret hack that there's a million videos about telling you here's how you can fix it which makes me think that one of the things about the iOS 18 photos app that people don't like is they launch the photos app not to do as Marco was suggesting to use memories or whatever but they just want to launch it to look at some photos they've taken I think that's what most people do with the photos app is I took some photos let me look at them let me show them to someone else let me open it up and grab that one photo they just want to open the app and get a photo that they're thinking of from today from last week or whatever that's what they're doing but the iOS 18 photos app has other plans it's like you know what here's a bunch of carousels with memories and trips and whatever and they're like what is all this i just want to get at my photo and the fact that the ios 18 photos i've got rid of like the bottom tab bar and replaced it with this like half of the screen is this other stuff that's not your photos yes you can see a grid of your photos but also have you considered albums and shared albums and media types and people and pets and recent days and memories and like all that stuff they're like that's not what i want why is it taking up half of my screen and then the ui is like well if you just scroll the grid of photos eventually we make that bottom thing disappear and it becomes like a floating tab bar at the bottom so look it's just like your old photos this is one of the things they didn't bait it was they said okay we're not going to take up half your screen with the stuff that you don't care about if you just ignore it and scroll then you just have a grid of icons like it used to be and you have this tab bar with you know years months or whatever but the fact that that big thing is there annoys people right the fact that they have to like scroll and it like it behaves unlike any other kind of app people kind of used to an app where there's either a top bar and a bottom bar like a phone app and there's a middle region that you scroll and this whole thing of like well half the bottom half of the screen is a bunch of stuff and the top half of the screen is some other stuff and then if you scroll the bottom half you have you scroll like the bottom half of the screen resists you it's like i can't push it down but if you push down a little bit more then it's like it surrenders and becomes It's floating toolbar.

39:45That's not a paradigm that exists like as common idiom in the iPhone world. It's something that Apple made up for iOS, the 18 photos. It's not familiar to people. It's weird. It's weird that the app like resists you hiding that bottom part. Like you push down, it doesn't go away. You have to push down a second time. Like try it. Go ahead. Open up photos now and see the whole bottom white section below your grid of icons. Push it down with your thumb in a single motion. No matter how far you push in that single swipe, it will never go away. like push push push push push your thumb will go off the end of the phone and it will never go away ah but push a second time and now it disappears and so like it's fighting you right so i think a whole bunch of the resentments about ios 18 photos is there's this white bottom section that is not my photos that i don't want to see that fights me every time i try to get rid of it so i think there's a lesson in that for apple and then the second thing of course is what's in that white section a whole bunch of crap and the fact that you can configure it is one of the features i actually like about the new photos you can configure to put the things you're actually interested in near the top which by the way just very quickly to interrupt the real-time follow-up on that is if you scroll all the way down scroll scroll scroll all the way down there's a customize reorder button which is like what lets you do the you know what do you want and what order do you want it in on this bottom section yeah that's a super secret tip that you can learn from all these right tick tock anyway uh the like of the with the feedback side about the recent item most people will never change the defaults like they won't even discover that or whatever that's why this is a super cool tip obviously anyone listening to the show probably knows that's there and they've already configured it but still that just lets you sort of minimize the damage of like well if i have to endure this white bottom section in the photo screen at least i'll put the stuff that i care about on the top and delete the stuff that i don't care about but that's why i say for me personally the ios 18 photos app it hasn't it's not better than the previous one because i'm like most people going in there just to find photos the thing i wish my personal wish for the photos app is first of all i would get rid of that whole like hey you can't get rid of this bottom part until you try a second time ask me a second time and then i'll turn into a toolbar like there's nothing wrong with just having a toolbar just have just have a toolbar right i would love that that toolbar is customizable because the main my main complaint with dealing with photos on my phone is whenever i'm doing anything with photos if i am picking photos like in a photo picker like the whatever the system photo picker when you're in some other app and it says here pick a photo to put here.

42:06If I'm picking a photo, or if I'm trying to file a photo away, like put this photo into an album. In both of those cases, I am always, almost always, pulling from or putting into like three albums. And in the little white region thing, you can pin them. So I have pin collections, favorites, recently saved, destiny, profile photos, contact photos, and memes. Those are the ones that I use most frequently. That's where I'm pulling from or putting into and that's great for pin collections on the screen but in the system photo picker it's like here's all your albums have fun scrolling through them it's like 500 albums and they're alphabetical sort of and there's some at the top if you've used recently and it's just like i wish you could just say look these five just always have them be in the top like kind of like the you know open save dialogue box before you expand everything it's like just you always pick from these these ones just these these will always be at the top you will never have to scroll through the list of albums looking for memes we're looking for the m section trying to remember the icons where's my destiny folder scroll scroll scroll d's i don't pass the d's scroll back just always put them at the top photos in ios 18 does not give me that experience i still frequently in other apps find myself scrolling through my gigantic list of albums trying to find the destiny album because it's somewhere in the d's and i scroll past it and it annoys me so it's not enough that was same before and it's the same after so it's not a change i do like having pen collections but i hate the fact that the little white region i have trouble getting rid of but anyway i don't think most people are like into the nuances of user interface they're just like somebody moved my stuff i used to know where things were in the photos app and now i don't the tab bar that was at the bottom isn't there anymore this is other thing that i don't understand that turns into a tab bar uh even things like i mean they change this in the beta how do i change from showing my personal library to or the shared library that's a more esoteric feature but they have that buried before too and they fix it in the beta still i do you two know where it is it's pretty well hidden if you don't know where to find that you have to to get to it you have to push the white bottom region away because you don't want that anymore so one push no you didn't make it right second push you push it away and then the up and down arrow keys to the left of the years months and all thing hit the up and down arrow keys thing and then you can pick and what does that mean like sorting or something then you can pick personal library shared library or both libraries and it used to be in the upper right and now it's in the lower left so anyway everything is moved and i think the app is fighting people from the main thing that they want to do which is just show me all my photos now it could help people there i think it's trying to say you have too many photos if we show you all your photos and never be able to find anything what if we put them into a grid where everything whether we just pick like the ones that we think are important photos instead of showing you them all like the grid where they're all different sizes and stuff what if we do that what if we show you collections with what we think are the good photos and people are like just get that out of my face just people just want to scroll their photos scroll scroll scroll maybe they want to go to months and years and that should still be there but they just want to do that everything else in the app is getting in their way and it kind of amazes me that the backlash about ios 18 is essentially you change the interface to the photos app it's not like my photos are gone or there's something worse about the photos it's just like when i go to find my photos i'm now frustrated with my phone i do wonder if by the 20 comes along and they change it again people are going to be like why did they change it the photos app was fine they didn't need to change like a new generation of people get used to the ios 18 photos and they change it again it annoys them but really i was really surprised by the backlash against this the continuing backlash against this uh because it's not like a high profile thing it's not like controversial or salacious or whatever it is just like you change my user interface and it shows how much people treat their phones like cameras because the things that people use all the time are the messages app and i guess also the photos app you know they take pictures with their phone they go and look at them they send them to people and messages and any change to that app is a problem so i find this fascinating and i think ios 18 photos like i don't give it a failing grade because i don't think it got much worse than before it does some things better to some things worse i'm going to say it's a wash but it is an example of like if you're going to change fundamentally change how a heavily used app on ios works it better be either way better or it better look and work like the old one unless you do something an example would be the messages app when they added the pin things to the top if you didn't pin anything it just looked like the old messages app and if you did pin things like i did and you wanted to pin them it is an improvement so i think messages app has improved over time getting more capabilities but also not ruining it for everybody else but ios 18 photos not not doing well again apple would hope that they would never hear the word ios 18 on tiktok but they will i should have put this in the regular show because we're gonna get feedback about it i don't know if you two tried it in the ios 18 photos app um that thing where you can't push the uh the white area down on the first try only happens if after you launch the app you swipe up by two millimeters before you swipe down if you launch it don't touch the screen at all and immediately swipe down you can do it in a single swipe but if you launch the app like force quit it launch the app pull up two millimeters let release the screen and then try to pull down it will fight you and we're gonna get feedback about that but that's my own fault for waiting too long i thought you were crazy but i figured i was just misunderstanding what you were trying to try the way to try what i said now say that one more time so okay i've just forced quit i've launched the app scroll push your finger upward on the screen for two seconds lifted off so you see more of the white area now put your finger on the screen and try to push down you will not be able to do it in a single swipe i see yep you're right no you're right but that is not i was listening but that is not what i got from what you were saying i thought i did it all the time because i guess when like if you have the app like running and you're looking at that wide area i was just like filling around with it if you've if you mess with the white area at all it you're in that mode but if on a fresh launch before you've done that if the first thing you do is swipe down you can do it in a single swipe so now we have to endure a week of that feedback.

48:03Thanks, John.

48:07All right. We have a handful of rumors from Mark Gurman, of course, and they all kind of interrelate a little bit. But we'll start with Apple's new chip for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Mark writes, codenamed Proxima, will replace some components currently supplied by Broadcom Inc. This wireless chip will launch in some products next year, including, I guess that means 2025, including a new Apple TV, HomePod mini, and the iPhone 17. The component will then come to other products during 2026. And this is interesting. This is not surprising. But this is not the cellular modem chip that they've been fighting against for years now, right?

48:46This is something different. Yeah, the cellular modem chip is also coming, and we've talked about it before. But this is, yeah, this is the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip. which so one interesting aspect is how much of both of those things can they potentially build into the package of the soc like can you move like the wi-fi bluetooth or cell modem stuff into the soc can you put some of it on die most of the time for radio frequency reasons or whatever you can't but could it be in the same package like basically can you get lower power and smaller footprint by apple doing this themselves because they can incorporate things into the package that's that's a separate question putting that aside for now the the reason i'm interested in this particular thing is like wi-fi and bluetooth like no one's super excited about the chips for that like you just you just want it to work or whatever but apple doing it themselves maybe they save money you don't have to pay broadcom for those chips because you know they have their own profit margin so if you do it yourself you get them cheaper you can make exactly the wi-fi and bluetooth chip that you need for your devices that only has the features that you need pros and cons to that already apple doesn't put the latest and greatest wi-fi standard in all their devices i think the phones have wi-fi 7 but the macs don't for example right uh if i'm getting that right and apple tends to not be a super early adopter and all these things although they're usually on time with it uh for the phones but the real question is uh we talked just talked about software but this is a hardware thing when apple decides that they're going to stop buying some hardware component from somebody else and do it themselves how do we feel about that in terms of is it are we excited and optimistic about it are we fearful because i think that's changed over the years and especially with hardware it's a it's a tough call i think i was talking about something on mastodon with somebody and they were like uh apple's never going to do xyz uh because they you know they get all their stuff from this other third-party manufacturer and they're the best and one of the things i replied was well apple used to buy its cpus for from a third-party manufacturer too and they were the best for a while right but sometimes when apple decides to do a hardware thing itself it knocks it out of the park apple silicon home run right they decided we're going to do the chips ourself for our phones for ipads and eventually for our macs previously the phone did not use an apple chip right and i think maybe the first the first ipad probably had apple silicon i forget when was the first ipad was it before uh a4 all right anyway uh they used to buy the chips from other people for all their products and they slowly but surely said no we're going to do that in-house and they just destroyed it they amazing job so you would think that anytime you hear apple's gonna stop buying some piece of hardware some hardware component from a third party and they're going to do it themselves you'd be like you're an apple fan you must be excited about that because apple's so good at hardware and yet if i heard what heard for example apple is going to start making its own well i was going to say ssds but that's a complicated issue as we're discussing the best shows but for this one they're going to make their own cellular modem they're going to make their own wi-fi and bluetooth chips my first thought is i don't know if i'm optimistic about that because unlike the cpu and stuff where like there's lots of room for innovation and excitement you basically just want wi-fi and bluetooth to work and work with the latest standards and i worry that the potential for harm is high and the potential for good is low because even if they knock this one out of the park they saved a few watts of energy and they saved a little bit of space in their phones but if they do anything wrong oh that's the the uh the uh iphone 17 that's the one that can't do wi-fi right that's the one that has even more bluetooth problems than usual the cell modem they did use intel cell modems instead of uh qualcomm for a while and it was like did you get the iphone with the intel modem or did yours come with the qualcomm on because the qualcomm ones were better that wasn't even apple that was just two third parties and everybody knew in the nerd circle you want the one with the qualcomm modem because it's better than the one with the intel modem then apple bought that intel modem business and is trying to build not to do their own thing so i'm looking at this wi-fi and bluetooth chip and i'm like it could be okay i guess i see the potential upsides it's not like they're going to pass the savings on to us so don't forget about that right it's just going to increase their margins uh it could be a little bit smaller and lower power but the downside is that broadcom's been making wi-fi and bluetooth chips forever they're probably really good at it and the bottom line is their chips work with everything because everyone knows that broadcom chips are in everything and so if you use a broadcom wi-fi and Bluetooth chip is going to work with all the, you know, you know what I mean?

53:32Whereas Apple does their own thing. There's a potential interoperability thing, uh, issue there. So I am really nervous about, about the wifi and Bluetooth chip, the cell modem. They said they were going to debut and like the iPhone SE or whatever, like they're going to roll it out and like not the flagship products in case it's a disaster, which makes sense to me. But the fact that they're mentioning this one with the iPhone 17 would have this chip in it potentially. That's, that's the show like you put it you put a wi-fi and booster chip in the iphone 17 it better be perfect like it better be perfect or better than the the broadcom chips and i'm not sure this one will i don't know how do you how do you guys feel about the prospect of apple doing this i mean i think it's changed over time like you know we we were all there for the you know the bad iphone 7 with the intel modem instead of the the qualcomm modem you know like the you know we were there for that i had the bad one i had the intel one because it was most of the most or all i think of the at and t iphone 7s um and so we see how this can go wrong like we don't want there to be a bad one and we don't want we don't want the apple version of something that is as as you know basic and required and taken for granted as wi-fi or bluetooth like we don't want that to be bad or buggy already today i hit a lot of bluetooth bugs with my iphone now i don't know whose fault that is.

54:55I don't know if it's hardware or software. It's part of the Bluetooth spec, I believe. It's a special section of the spec that says, on flaky problems that customers will never be able to solve. It tells you what you have to implement. Right. So, like, I don't know if that's the Bluetooth chip, if it's the iOS software, if it's the stuff between the two. I don't know. On one hand, you can say, well, maybe Apple taking it in-house would give them, like, you know, more control over the process. And maybe, you know, that would allow them to build a more reliable one. On the other hand, you can look at that and say, Apple can't even get the software right for someone else's Bluetooth chip.

55:34How are they going to get the software right for their own? So, like, it can go both ways. But when you look at the, you know, Apple's recent efforts, you know, the iPhone 7 was, what, over a decade ago? It was a while ago. But when you look at their recent efforts, their silicon is solid. Like when they transitioned the Mac to Apple Silicon, that whole M1 generation, you would think if you would have said, you know, five years earlier, they're going to do this. Would you buy the very first one? Most people would say no. That sounds like a terrible idea. Why would I buy the very first version of them doing this massive change?

56:09It's going to have problems. It's going to be unreliable. It's going to be buggy. Well, what happened? They switched the entire Mac over to their own chips. and as far and i was there and i had the very first one and it was solid there were i don't i don't think there were any major problems there were certainly fewer problems than the outbound mature intel ones so they not that one out of the park so i think their current standards and their and their recent performance in areas like this in terms of the apple silicon transition And

57:11shows a pretty good hasn't shipped it's unfair to judge them on that like when they ship it it'll be good but this is very relevant to wi-fi and bluetooth it's like they have been trying for years and years to do something very similar and they've essentially been internally failing not shipping what they had aiming to get a cell modem with these standards oh now we can't do it so now the target has moved now we need to make sure we have 5g but we're not going to be able to do millimeter wave because you know like they're having trouble with it maybe we don't see this internally maybe they were you know working on apple silicon for the max for years and years and kept delaying it or whatever because it was more secret but the fact they're doing the cell modem is not secret everybody knows they've been doing it and everyone knows that they are behind what we what seemed to be their earlier schedule so i mean that's good and that they're not shipping something bad they're like we're not gonna we're gonna keep buying they renewed their contract as we discussed in the show ages ago they renewed their contract with qualcomm for several more years just to say look we need to cover our bases we're obviously not ready with our cell modem qualcomm still makes the best one even though we hate each other and have sued each other let's sign a deal and say okay we'll keep buying stuff from qualcomm but everybody knows apple wants to stop doing business they just can't they've been failing to get out of that relationship because their own efforts have been not going well so that gives me a lot of pause here so like yes yeah part of the recent experience is the mac transition and they've done that transition multiple times 68k to power pc power pc to intel intel to apple silicon and they've just done amazingly every time so they have lots of institutional experience but their institutional experience swapping out wireless uh communication chips i think is far spottier and the little information we do have is that they're having trouble so that is another reason i'm feeling nervous about it well i think there's there's you can frame it like two different ways like are they is it that they can't do this well enough yet or that they haven't done this well enough yet.

59:08You know, they look, Apple knows the iPhone is the show. They know. And you can look like how many iPhones have there been? It's a pretty high number, especially when you include all the all like, you know, the non, you know, mainstream, like the non flagship models, when you include all the different, you know, sub models and different two different sizes of everything. A lot of times there have been a lot of iPhones. How many of them have had significant hardware flaws? It's a very short list, and they haven't been that significant. They know how to make really reliable iPhones. They have shown an incredible, like, when you consider how complicated iPhones are, the scale that they are produced, it's remarkable how few hardware problems iPhones have had.

59:55One of them was specifically from the cell modem when they did the Intel one, and they shipped that. But even that, like, I still used that phone for a year, and it was still mostly fine. like it wasn't that wasn't that big of like you know they have had little minor things yeah the intel sub modem and the iphone 7 wasn't that good yeah they they had like you know the the slightly more bendable than usual iphone 6 series like you know there were a couple you know the antenna gate forever ago which was also like a minor issue yeah yeah they're pretty they're pretty good at making sure they're not going to ship something really bad but part of my nervousness about this is like i don't want them to do it and just have it be pretty much the same maybe with a few problems like as a consumer that doesn't benefit me at all it gives apple a few more cents per iphone but i don't care again they're not passing that savings on to me like what i'm looking at this with a little side eye is like why are you doing this like what's the upside versus the potential downside and the upsides seem like they're all for apple and the downsides seem like they're all we're exposed to them and i i agree with you that they're not like with the cell motor that they haven't shipped if anything that goes into the phone especially like the flagship iphone they're going to make sure it is at least okay they're not going to ship something terrible we hope right which is why they've not been able to ship anything but they are doing things like the rumors for the cell modem of like they're going to make one without millimeter wave support and they'll only ship it in the lesser phones that doesn't excite me like why would i be excited about a cost savings for apple uh that exposes me to potential risk and that they're not even willing to do on their flagship phone because they haven't been able to do that wi-fi and bluetooth i'm still kind of neutral i'm like and what's the upside i one of the things i fear is that it's not going to make it more likely that the macs have like the latest wi-fi standard than the current one because like again someone can confirm this but i believe the the m4 max don't have wi-fi 7 but the phones do uh if apple made its own chips would that make it a higher chance that when wi-fi 8 comes out that it's across all the lines i don't think it does i don't think it increased it's like i'm looking for the silver lining i'm looking for like what is the upside for me is the consumer and i don't see it and i just see some minor risks and i agree with you that the frisk the phone is probably low but other devices mentioned in this rumor apple tv home pod mini i don't want my apple tv to have crappy well my apple tv is coming to the ethernet but i don't want it to have i don't want it to have crappy bluetooth right i just i don't know i'm i'm not it's i put this in here because i'm just it kind of it's notable to myself that i'm not enthused about the potential for apple taping over a piece of hardware when in some respects i should be because of apple silicon and their recent advances but when it comes to this specific subgenre i'm a little iffy well think about like okay first of all there there will probably be certain upsides in just things like power efficiency small size you know so we will see probably some minor advances there.

1:02:46Wi-Fi chips and cell modems are big. They take up space on the board. If they can make their own and or integrate it into the package of the SOC, which I think is more likely, or at least integrate parts of it into that, and maybe... Or they can use their TSMC deal to fab it at the good fab size, because most of these wireless chips are fabbed at like a two-generation old thing, to be cheaper or whatever. Apple can spend a little bit more because of their massive, you know, deals with TSMC. Right, and that, like, you know, given, like, the amount of power, especially a cell chip uses, like that could be substantial savings there.

1:03:15But like, so there's obviously like there's like the physical benefits, you know, if they could integrate it in, put it in package or at least make it on their process. Yes, there's lots of advantages they could potentially do there. But even if you think about too, like Apple does a lot of their own kind of like custom bolting on of functionality onto existing open standards like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Look at how AirPods pair and work. Look at all the Wi-Fi stuff they do for peer-to-peer Wi-Fi networks that are temporarily made for things like AirDrop and stuff like that. There's all sorts of features that Apple kind of builds on top of these standards.

1:03:49Well, if they controlled the hardware, I bet they could do more and better features like that. Now, that's kind of a double-edged sword because you think about, well, is it a good thing for Apple to have even more proprietary protocols and standards that can even maybe go at the hardware and radio level? The EU will make them open it up to all third-party developers, so it'll be fine. Yeah, I'm sure that'll be fine with everybody. So, you know, it could be a double-edged sword in the sense that they could use it for further extents of lock-in and unfair competition. So, you know, there will be downsides to this path if they go on it.

1:04:29Although you're mentioning, like, optimistic, like, oh, here's a problem that I currently have and they might be able to solve it. And, like, I see where you're going with that, especially, like, the H1 chip. Like in general, I would say that the AirPods connecting is better than Bluetooth pairing, like because Apple added their proprietary thing instead. And I have the same problem that one of the problems you're describing is like I try to do airdrop. I'm in a room with like I've got my phone in my hand. I've got a computer in front of me and I got a computer over there. And sometimes I want to airdrop something with my phone to the computer over there.

1:04:56And I would love to know what it is that determines whether I can see that computer on my phone. Yes, I have it set to like contacts only or everybody like I have. Everyone's in our contacts. i'm doing it among family members i've even done in the situation where i've logged into my account on that computer i'm and i'm on my same apple id on my phone i'm trying to airdrop it to the computer i'm sitting in front of and it just doesn't see it it sees the other computer across the room but not that one and all sorts of like airdrop issues that aren't solved by like banging the phones together with the ios 18 thing whatever is that a problem that apple will be able to solve by doing its own wi-fi chip you're thinking like oh they stuff like airdrop they could make that better i'm thinking is that a software issue or is that a hardware issue like you can pin a lot of dreams i'm like well if apple made the wi-fi chip i wouldn't have that airdrop problem but i'm thinking that that airdrop problem is a software thing not a hardware thing and i don't know like it's hard to know where where the blame lies but like when there's new hardware the optimistic take is any problem i'm currently having that involves that hardware could be improved because apple will have complete control over it and i kind of feel especially when there's software in the mix that's like 50 50 whether that's going to get better get worse i mean you're right like obviously in most cases that is kind of a blend of hardware and software and those lines are very squishy these days with a lot of these you know very complex protocols uh but i i think you are you are looking at it from the perspective of like touch bar butterfly keyboard era apple and that's not the apple we have anymore thank god uh you know modern apple i think is is showing like they really don't ship bad hardware anymore.

1:06:30They used to ship a decent amount of it. They really, like, the hardware across the board is excellent these days. They really do not have major hardware problems that ship to customers, and especially in the iPhone. So I think I am optimistic that probably the reason we haven't seen these things yet, you know, we'll occasionally see a report that, oh, the cell modem delayed. I think part of the reason we haven't seen them yet is because Apple is probably holding them to very, very high standards and won't release them until they know they're solid. So I'm pretty optimistic. I think this will go well if and when it ever happens.

1:07:08And I think if it doesn't happen or doesn't happen yet, it's probably for those reasons. It's probably that they just haven't reached the bar that Apple knows they need to reach to be good enough to ship in their flagship products. And so I actually think this, because if you think too, how else could this benefit us? well how else could it benefit us if cell modems get smaller and or more efficient or cheaper for apple huh maybe the mac will finally get a cell modem that's part of the that's part of the rumor and it's not about cost it's just about like that that apple will finally do it because part of them making their own hardware is like well let's make it so it works in all our products and now fine apple uses an excuse to be like we couldn't put cellular in our macs because reasons x y but now that we make our own chip we totally can't it's like you could have before too but anyway whatever it takes yeah whatever reasons they give who cares that we just want it there all right that's i i agree with that but we're talking about the wi-fi bluetooth chip and they already have wi-fi and bluetooth yeah the cell the cell modem chip if it actually ships and it makes them put it into mac i will count that as a huge win uh and if it doesn't hose the iphone that's that's good too but wi-fi and bluetooth macs already have that i'm a little nervous well but and what what about the apple watch the apple watch has optional cellular all of them have wi-fi and Bluetooth, it is a very tight power situation in the Apple Watch.

1:08:25If you can make those, and it's also a tight space situation, if you can make Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular smaller and more power efficient, the Apple Watch will benefit substantially from that because it's where those are like most desperate resources. So think about, for instance, not only can the watch possibly get, you know, slimmer, lighter, whatever, bigger battery, whatever. Also, maybe if they can make big strides in those areas, maybe the watch can start using its networking more. Oh, my God, what a concept. Maybe our apps wouldn't be like incredibly aggressively throttled with every single thing they try to do on the watch.

1:09:03Maybe the cell connection on the watch could get reliable because it wouldn't constantly put itself to sleep. Or it could all just get so much flakier. No, trust me. The cell connection on the watch cannot be flakier than it already is. but like you know maybe the watch can start using wi-fi for more data transfer instead of relying on slow bluetooth for as much as possible like there's all maybe maybe the the watch can do more frequent updates definitely more upsides for the watch yeah so like there's you can you can see there's very clear opportunities for like if they could make bluetooth wi-fi and cellular smaller more power efficient and cheaper to them that does benefit us in a lot of potential ways so i i'm rooting for this and i i am confident at the moment that they their hardware standards are so high especially because these things would be going in the iphone and the iphone standards are so high that i think they're not going to do it until and unless it's solid yeah i think that's really the key is if it ends up in the iphone then i'm confident anywhere else if they put it like only in the mac i might be a little bit worried only in the apple tv yeah only in the home pod that's the worst i mean that's yeah well speaking of uh your confidence in apple making hardware this next item will test your faith oh no well so mark german writes that apple's magic mouse which was introduced more than 15 years ago one five 15 years ago uh it well they've made some tweaks to it, but only minor ones.

1:10:31It moved from AA batteries to recharge to a rechargeable system, swapped in a lighter case with a smoother glide. And just a month or two ago, switched from a lightning connector to a USB-C port. The good news is there's a new magic mouse in the works. Hooray. I'm told that Apple's design team has been prototyping versions of the accessory in recent months, aiming to devise something that better fits the modern era. Apple's looking to create something that's more relevant while also fixing longstanding complaints. Yes. Including the charging port issue. As for when the mouse will arrive, I wouldn't expect anything in the next 12 to 18 months.

1:11:03Are you kidding me? What are you doing? It's been 15 years. What's another year or two? What are you doing, Apple? I can tell you exactly what they're doing. Do you remember when the butterfly keyboard finally died? About a year before, a year and a half before that, there was some rumor that Bono personally called Tim Cook and complained about it, and then it happened. I do remember that now. you know what i think happened here is the mkbhd question yes i think i honestly think that mkbhd asking tim cook about the magic mouse i think tim cook went back after that and told somebody hey fix this and said do we make a mouse yeah because i honestly i bet that's what happened because like 12 to 18 months that's how long it takes to make a new mouse like for a new for apple you know that's how long it takes so i guarantee you it was the mkbhd question that and tim cook went to somebody and just said take care of this like and before that he never thought about it at all we'll try to find that interview i think it was a wwc but just to be clear i think he just asked something like uh what do you think of the magic mouse or whatever he didn't say anything bad about it he didn't say well it was pointed yeah tim cook the magic mouse sucks why he didn't say it wasn't like a like it was just merely like it was using this example of a product that maybe people don't care about them too much like how much do you really think about the magic mouse it's just kind of like a an aside and also ran it and all right if i was tip you know if it was not tim cook but if i was in tim cook's position but not tim cook you can usually say of all the products we make the magic mouse is not one of the most important like it's low on the list right it's it's good that we make it fine whatever but obviously you know with the iphone at the top you got to go way down that list before you get to the magic mouse right that's the reality like that's why it's been around 15 years nobody really cares it's not a big deal it's not a bad mouse some people don't like it because it's low profile some people love it because it's low profile marco loves it because you can swipe on it like i don't have any hatred for the magic mouse i don't think there's no like ios 18 photos hatred for the magic mouse out there it's just like it's not for everybody but it's fine right and it's been around 15 years so it's probably due for a redesign the fact that it was mentioned in all in such a public forum maybe made him say say hey magic mouse we should update that at once every few decades right and they said oh yeah no i guess or whatever but here's the thing that's why this is like the wi-fi chip i read that very differently but go ahead right well anyway like the wi-fi chip thing okay how do you feel confidence wise about today's apple designing a new mouse setting aside the fact that you love the current one marco just in general like do you think they'll do a good job on a mouse because i think human interface devices that are fit in your hand is not one of apple's strengths currently Let me, I'll get to that in a moment, but my interpretation of the MKBHD question of Tim Cook of the Magic Mouse is that Marquez stated the question, I forget exactly what he said, it was something like, you know, what about the Magic Mouse?

1:14:01He stated the question with an implication that it's not well liked and something is wrong with it. And Tim Cook was caught off guard by that. You can see in his face that he not only was caught off the guard, but he didn't know what Marquez was talking about. Do people hate the magic mouse? Yes. That's what Tim is thinking to himself. Exactly. Marquez probably doesn't like the magic mouse, but again, I don't think there's this iOS 18 photos type hatred out there. There's just, for computer nerds, a lot of people don't like it, but then you just ignore it and buy a third-party mouse, and so it's not that big of a deal.

1:14:34No, but you could see in Tim Cook's face. It dawned on him in that moment that A, there is something that a lot of people don't like about this, and B, I don't know what it is. I bet Tim Cook does not like being surprised, especially in public like that. So I bet he went back after that, and that was a like, fix this situation. here's the thing though there's not there's not a giant movement out there to hate the magic mouse there's just the baseline level of dislike that's been there since they introduced that mouse 15 years ago mostly only among computer nerds and other people are like yeah take it or leave it and the fact that tim cook would be unaware of that like i don't think it's a thing that he needs to be aware of what he should be aware of is like which products have we not updated in a decade and a half maybe put them on a list but i don't think there's like can you believe tim cook didn't know that everyone hates the magic mouse i don't think everyone does hate the magic mouse like i don't think it's actually you know even if it was incredibly hated how many macs even come with a magic mouse percentage wise of the mac sold like they come with trackpads whose people buy laptops like it is so far beneath the thing that he should be concerned about on the same token he should update it because it's 15 years old what marquez was talking about is what all sort of like tech nerd people know is like oh well that mouse is not a lot of enthusiasts don't like that mouse they like it more of logitech style more buttons higher profile more more quote-unquote ergonomic depending on how you like it's not well loved in tech nerd circles but in regular people circles they don't know it exists because they all buy laptops like that's that's the story right so i think the map to be clear i think the mouse should be updated it's been around for a long time i personally don't like it i think it should be updated it's time to 15 years is long enough to say do you have a new idea about how apple could make a mouse because apple has done a not too big number of mice in the history of all their computers from the apple twos to the max there haven't been that many apple mice there's been some good ones and bad ones and there's the hockey puck one there was the mouse with the little ball that got clogged all the time on the top right the mighty mouse or whatever but there haven't been that many mouse shapes so apple is not hasty about that but i think it's time for them to reconsider and so again we're back to today's apple making a new mouse how do you feel that's going to go all right so as the magic mouse lover in the group here.

1:16:50What I like about it is the scrolling swiping. That is everything. That's why I switched to it in the first place from my previous Logitech good mice. Before this, I was using that Logitech mouse. One of the first ones, I think it was the MX Master, that had the wheel that you could flick hard and it would unlock and spin freely for a little while and then latch back in. A whole bunch of them do it now. Scrolling is everything. It turns out, scrolling, the way you scroll on touchpads is way better for me and the way I use computers than the way you scroll with a mouse wheel. The Magic Mouse gives you touchpad scrolling on top of a mouse.

1:17:29So that is the good thing about it. Everything else about it, I tolerate or it's fine or whatever. But that's what I like about it. Now, when you look at the Magic Mouse, this was designed in a previous era of Apple and of their hardware design. Probably almost nobody or nobody who was involved in the design of the Magic Mouse is likely to still be at Apple today or still be in the design group. Because, you know, especially the design group has had a lot of turnover in the meantime. But so, you know, keep in mind, like, what we're comparing this to is really a past era of Apple. Like, the Magic Mouse design, especially if you include the AA version, is very old.

1:18:10as you said like what 15 years like so i think today's apple would do a pretty different version of it merely even if if no other reason then none of their products are this style anymore like this is this is just a totally different version of what they make today so i'm interested to see what that would mean i do think that they wouldn't go through the trouble of redesigning it because mice are so unimportant to Apple, unless they were going to actually do a more substantial change than just changing the port. So, you know, so obviously, I think they're going to try to fix the complaints. And sometimes Apple does that.

1:18:49Like when we got the Apology MacBook Pro, everything was so much better in that one. They gave us back the SD card slot. They gave us back the HDMI port. You know, they put the headphone jack back on the right side of the computer. Yeah, MagSafe. They are capable of going in a less minimal, less stripped down industrial design direction when customers demand it enough and when it's enough of a gain. We've seen that now with the MacBook Pro. So we know they can do that. I think the mouse has a decent chance, not a guarantee, but has a decent chance of going in that same direction. because not only have we seen that happen with the MacBook Pro, but also who uses mice now?

1:19:32As John said, it's different than it was 15 years ago. 15 years ago, yeah, laptops were still dominant then, but I think they're way more dominant now. So the people who actually buy and use the Magic Mouse, maybe it's a more professional set than it used to be. Maybe Apple realized now, you know what? Most people have figured out right-click, so maybe we can do something a little bit better there. another thing to consider by the way is that this weird phenomenon so obviously all the laptops don't come with mice they just have the trackpads right but at this stage i think was it most of apple's desktops also don't come with the mouse the the the mini doesn't come with one i guess the imac comes with one oh that's right the mac pro does i do i forget because i don't yeah the imac and the mac pro both come with one and you can configure them to come with a trackpad instead um sometimes in addition but i think usually it's just instead now but they don't come in the box like the the mac pro i forgot i had forgotten that the mac pro does come with one in the box like of all the computers to not come with a mouse you would think it would be the mac pro but it does actually come with a mouse in the actual box which again maybe you can configure to the trackpad but like the iMac does too it's in the box but it's next to the keyboard the iMac makes the most sense because it's color matched and like it's all it's an all the whole point is it's all in one you get everything you need but mac mini and mac studio no mouse right correct it's a separate i mean you can attach it you can during checkout it will ask you to buy one but the mac mini and the mac studio box do not have a place for a mouse or a trackpad inside them so that's that's half of apple's laptops desktop they didn't even put put a mouse in the box because it's bring your own and arguably the mac pro should also be like that although i guess the box is so big that they have plenty of room to put a mouse or a trackpad inside put it inside the mac pro like in a bay somewhere but you know but anyway it is odd that like back in the day if you bought a mac uh you know that wasn't a laptop it came with a mouse and today 50 50 yeah if that i mean that's obviously you know which one you buy and which one's selling more volumes obviously when you go into percentages of people who buy the things but yeah it didn't like it is interesting and again with the option i don't even know what the default is if there is one but i i bet a lot of people do choose the trackpad just because like casey like they like that better sure but you know i i think if they're going to go through the trouble of designing a mouse now i do think there is a non-zero chance they will aim it a little bit more towards like people who actually care about mice and use mice and are experts in using mice because that is now so often that is like people are choosing to do this who like who who are actually power users now so you know i'm not expecting this to look like the latest mx logitech master whatever with 17 buttons and like and i'm also not expecting it to be super ergonomic because one thing i also can't imagine apple doing is making a left or right sided mouse like i think they're going to make one mouse that is symmetric so i would not expect the curvature that you get on like modern ergonomic gaming mice and stuff where it's like made for only a right hand or only a left hand so what i can guess is probably going to be largely similar to what we see but maybe they'll make it a little bit taller and a little bit boxier to be able to accommodate a charging port somewhere like on the front hopefully i that that's what i'm guessing they're most likely to do so if you really hate the current one for reasons other than the charge port location i wouldn't hold your breath that they're going to make a mouse that you like but if you use the current one and are inconvenienced by its design in a couple of ways maybe they'll make that better i think there was another rumor report from korea that actually did make a somewhat uh direct comparison to the logitech mouse saying that apple's new mouse to be more ergonomic more like the logitech mice but uh using the example of the laptops here's the thing they the fixing what was wrong with the laptops yes it kind of sort of required them to make the laptops a little bit boxier they got rid of the i think more attractive johnny i've design case that had the shallow curve towards the edges and everything because they just needed a little bit more room and that was the change we wanted them to make but you know practically speaking if you show these laptops to just a an average person who doesn't know the minutiae of apple stuff they're not going to think they look radically different they changed they had to change the macbook pros in such a subtle way that is maybe obvious to us because we're obsessed with the fine details of them but it still basically looks like a laptop it's not that much thicker it's not that much more slab-sided it does have more holes in the side of it but other than that didn't have to change it a lot they can't make a change that fine to the magic mouse and make any substantial difference even if they just do what you said is like make it a little bit taller they have to make it taller enough that it's going to be uglier right and look a little bit more like i think their problem with the mouse is they want to look like a beautiful object when no one is using it the current one does if you change you can't just do a change of a few millimeters like they did in the macbook pro and say see we solved it that's if they do that i guess they fix a charging port location and people stop complaining but if they do that they haven't really changed the magic mouse and the rumors seem to be that they're trying to make it quote unquote more ergonomic so they can't add one millimeter to it they have to add substantially and i think once you start adding substantially you're into that situation you you highlighted it very well you come to this question real fast which is symmetrical or not symmetrical because once you start making it bigger you're making it bigger so it can fit into the negative space of someone's hand and you have to ask which hand you could always make a right and a left model that's a thing apple could do it's not a popular thing that people do but it's a thing you know they could do it right but once you start making it bigger you're like what am i make what am i raising this mouse up into you're raising it up into a hand and hands are not symmetrical right and so So if you make a larger symmetrical mouse, which Apple did, the original Mac mouse was much larger and also symmetrical, you have a problem there.

1:25:26Like when they did the ADB mice, they were lower profile. Both like the original ADB mouse that was like two flat surfaces and the rounded one, they were starting to get low. Because a tall mouse should fit into the space of a single hand, which means it's going to be, even if you do like my Microsoft mouse that I have now, it's mostly symmetrical. but it's got that thing on the side for your thumb your right thumb to be on right and your your fingers of your right hand go like it's not symmetrical like it's very difficult to make a mouse that is both ergonomic and also symmetrical so i don't i feel like they won't have the they won't be willing to make their mouse unattractive to to make it ergonomically good and merely making a tall mouse that's symmetrical will not satisfy anybody because the people who wanted a more ergonomic mouse are going to say well this isn't it because it doesn't even recognize the fact that my hand is not symmetrical it's just as big it's like the you know a big it's like the original mac mouse a big box in my hand how is this better like might as well just go back to the low one because at least when i lay my hand flat and use it my hand becomes more symmetrical than when it's gripping right so this is an interesting test of their industrial design how ugly will they be willing to make this mouse as an object to make it better as an actual input device and i think with the macbook pros they were able to make it like a tiny bit less attractive for a massive functional benefit and i don't think they'll be able to make that trade because if you make it a tiny bit less attractive you're not getting a massive massive functional benefit so my current theory is it'll be almost it'll still be low profile because to make something that is symmetrical it has to be low profile otherwise it just becomes unsatisfying to everybody it'll still be low profile they'll just find a better solution to the charging port my main hope for it mostly for marco is because i don't even use this mouse is the things underneath the surface that you swipe are very low resolution and crude 15 years later they can essentially increase the dpi and sensitivity of the swipey area on top and i think that will result especially with like 120 hertz screens i think the improving that resolution will make the mouse better for people like Marco who like this mouse and if Apple refuses to give up on this being a beautiful object as it sits on the table then the best design continues to be the current low profile mouse just with higher DPI of the tracking because that's another thing that Apple is like decades behind on in terms of like how well it tracks surfaces and how you know the granularity of the updates and how fast it can handle things not you don't have to make it a gaming mouse but it's been 15 years right and then the uh the sensitivity and resolution of the swiping thing on top i don't think they're going to do a second right button but who knows i mean the magic mouth has a right button it's just a weird one that's like capacitive and you have to not touch the left side when you're touching the right side but that's another thing can they bring themselves to make a two-button mouse as in like a hairline a hairline split in the top surface making you know what i mean like can they do that or will they continue to do make sure your finger's not touching the left side of the mouse when you push down the right side otherwise we're going to register it as a left click are they going to still be doing that so this is something i definitely have my eye on not because i really care that much because i have basically zero hope that they're going to make a mouse that i like which is fine i have this third-party mouse that microsoft no longer makes that i should really have bought eight of but didn't uh and that fails all the time and i've already had like three of them die on me um but i'm just interested it's like a good test of apple's industrial design how do they solve this problem how and it's low stakes because who cares like if they mess up their mouse like nobody cares like you know the headline for this item in the notes is save the turtles save the harpooning the turtle everyone wants to flip that mouse onto its back and harpoon it and yeah the turtles the turtles will no longer be harpooned surely they will fix that it wouldn't be amazing if they have a totally new completely redesigned mouse but the charging port still dead center on the bottom that'll be an amazing troll but anyway this is the thing i'm keeping my eye on uh it is less low much lower stakes than the wi-fi and Bluetooth chip, but it is a good bellwether for the Apple of today.

1:29:30I was going to make the same point about how the laptops have gotten a lot better. You can make an argument since Johnny left. Maybe that's related. Maybe it's not. But I don't know. You're convincing me with it, not with being symmetrical, being bad, even if it's taller, like that argument you made a moment ago really has convinced me maybe this isn't so great after all. I don't know. I was really looking looking forward to it just in principle because you know again the magic mouse is not well liked from ergonomic standpoint from a general standpoint because people aren't using mouse using mice anymore but now now you really got me worried about the whole uh them not being willing to make it ugly enough to be useful so i don't know i've got a lot of these mice in my attic if margot wants to uh he needs replacements if the new one is not disliking although you're probably gonna have to get my uh black mac pro one because that's still sealed in the box.

1:30:22I think it'll probably be fine. I think, if anything, they will err on the side of not changing enough. I don't think they're going to change too much. Especially, you know, like you were saying, to make it taller, to make it better. Look at Apple's keyboards. Their keyboards are all super flat, which is not good ergonomically. It's better than them being tilted up, though. Well, they are actually slightly tilted up. They're tilted up by like one millimeter. Yeah, but Apple's keyboards are also not very good ergonomically, but tons of people use them happily, and they're fine. They could be better.

1:30:55Apple has said, okay, this is as far as we will go for ergonomics and no further. And that's currently the design of the mouse. That's why I'm thinking, like, if they do change the mouse, again, I think it's probably going to be in relatively subtle ways. I'm not expecting a major redesign. i'm expecting minor tweaks to lift up the front edge just enough that they can put a usb c port under there and call it a day and i think that's probably going to be what they do and honestly that would be fine it would be exactly as ergonomic as their keyboards are and it would fix an annoyance and i think that's that's that's by far the most likely outcome well you don't know you guys remember this but apple did actually ship actual apple mice with side buttons do you remember those no apology mouse was a mouse with side buttons they were terrible side buttons but they existed like actual physical buttons yeah you squeezed it for something what was that what was the squeeze gesture yeah there were buttons on essentially buttons on the side every sort of third-party mouse even my microsoft mouse has three side buttons has like a a forward middle and back type thing i don't even know what i have the map to because i never use them but side buttons on mice are definitely a thing and apple did ship a mouse with physical side multiple mice i think the apology mouse had it didn't the one with a little tiny trackball on the top didn't that one have a squeeze gesture the mighty mouse i don't remember if that had it the apology mouse definitely did it was the one that was a thick clear case that they gave to everyone as an apology for the imac puck mouse that had side buttons they were bad but all i'm saying is apple his you know long ago apple was not above shipping a mouse that had more than one physical button including a side button which is like side button is so kind of like outside the mainstream of what apple wants to do like they still didn't that mouse still didn't have a right button on it like a physical right button but it did have side buttons so i don't know maybe they'll be maybe they'll surprise us and ship a mouse that has two top buttons and a side button or one top button and two side buttons two turntables and a microphone they could call it an action button yeah exactly there you go with the innovation oh they should they're gonna put the stupid digital crown on it they put it on the vision pro for crying out now oh my god who knows what They'll do, yeah.

1:33:03Keep an eye on it. It'd be pretty cool. Like, you know, hit the button on the side of your mouse and turn the flashlight on. That'd be awesome. It's the best change I've made was making the action button and the flashlight button. I told you. It's great. It's so good. It's so good. I still use it for the Whole Foods app. Oh, gosh, John. All right. Thank you to our sponsor this week, Squarespace. And thank you to our members who support us directly. You can join us at atp.fm slash join. One of the perks of membership is ATP Overtime, our weekly bonus topic. This week on ATP Overtime, we're talking about, well, John is talking about fast directory sizing and APFS.

1:33:39This is an interesting tidbit of how APFS, how one of its features works and how it might influence John's app that he's building. So you can hear that and many other benefits of joining by joining at atp.fm slash join. Thank you, everybody. And we'll talk to you next week. Now the show is over. They didn't even mean to begin. Cause it was accidental. Oh, it was accidental. John didn't do any research. Marco and Casey wouldn't let him. Cause it was accidental. Oh, it was accidental. And you can find the show notes at atp.fm. And if you're into Mastodon, You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that's K-C-L-I-S-S-S-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T-M-Arco-Arment S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Syracuse It's accidental, they didn't mean to Accidental Accidental Tech Podcast So long John, I've joined the cult.

1:35:02Uh-oh. I've joined the Yolink cult. That's a good cult. So, I don't remember if I said this to you at all, be that privately or on air, but I heard you talking about your Yolink. How did you describe it? They're like long-range, maybe low-voltage transmitter. Low-RA is the standard. I forget what it stands for. I'll have to look it up in the show notes for an old Rexxers episode. But it's like low-frequency radio communication. It's not Bluetooth. It's not Wi-Fi. And so I had asked Aaron for a starter pack from Yo-Link that included one of their hubs. This one does not have Ethernet, which I don't love.

1:35:45And I think there is another one that does, but that's neither here nor there. and it has a couple of, I'll call them contact sensors. I'm sure there's a better name for it. But basically, when you have two magnets that when they're next to each other, the sensors registers as closed. And when you separate the magnets, the registers as open. These are the same kind of sensors that I have in the garage door for my Rube Goldberg garage door alert system. And so I asked for that from Erin for Christmas. She got it for me. And since the last time we spoke, I have put one contact sensor on the stationary portion of my mailbox, the other contact sensor on the door of the mailbox.

1:36:19And now I am getting alerted whenever my mail is delivered. And it makes me so happy. Erin has made so much fun of me for this. She doesn't understand why I need to know this. And honestly, I don't need to know this, but it makes me happy that I do know exactly when the mail was delivered. Do I need to go check the mail? Let me look. No, I don't. But you know, 20 minutes later, do I look, I can go look. Yes, I do need to check the mail. There's no checking, actually. I know it's there. It's magical. Now, the other thing that Erin has pointed out numerous times, and she is 100 % correct, is that it is a miracle we're still getting our mail.

1:36:53Because if you look at my setup, it's not only homely, but 100 % looks like I've installed a bomb on my mailbox. Oh, no. I should take a picture. I haven't taken a picture. You have to take a picture. I will. I will. I will take a picture, and I will send it to the boys, and we'll put it in the show notes, but imagine, so the contact sensor, the actual magnet on the part of the sensor that is on the door of the mailbox, the magnet portion is approximately the same width as the mailbox door itself. However, there's also a little bit of extra plastic with a couple of screw holes, so you can mount it on things, right?

1:37:33Well, the screw hole section is totally poking out past the end of the mailbox door. And then if you look at the portion of the mailbox that the mail carrier generally doesn't see because it's after they've passed, there's definitely the other contact sensor with wires that are going into the place that the mailbox is mounted on. Like it's not wood that our mailbox is mounted on. We just so happen to have like a plastic one and you can take off a little cover and there's just a hole there. And that's where I stuck the transmitter. It looks shady as hell, gentlemen. It looks so shady. But the good news is it has been working very well.

1:38:11And for those real nerds, even though I'm sure I could do this with the YoLink app directly, what I've done is I've added an integration for YoLink to Home Assistant. And then I have an automation on Home Assistant that will then use pushover to send me a push notification when the mail arrives. With the exact time the mail has arrived, it makes me so happy. It's so stupid, so unnecessary. And it makes me so happy. and I'm so glad I'm in the O-Link cult. And now, as with all things, when I find something new and exciting, see also Raspberry Pi, now it's like I'm smacking my arm trying to figure out, okay, what else can I do?

1:38:45What else do I need a sensor for? Maybe I do care about the fridge. I didn't think I cared about the fridge. Maybe I care about the fridge. Maybe I should get a sensor for that. I am already losing control and it's no good. So John, it's all your fault. Yeah, the freezer one, the refrigerator one is just going to let you learn how often people stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open and causing the temperature to go above the safe area. That's me all the time. Yeah, well, you're doing, yeah, but once you have the sensor, you'll suddenly know that, and it's a little bit troubling.

1:39:08In fact, I've had to raise the threshold of my refrigerator one just to try to, try to, I say, look, I'm just going to have to accept that it's going to be 41 degrees in there when people open the door. So maybe I'll set the thing at 42 or 43. Basically, what I want to know is, hey, did someone leave the door open? Like, they went to bed and they left the fridge door open a crack? That's what I want to know, not did another person spend 10 minutes in front of the open fridge door on a hot summer day and make the temperature go up. so i wouldn't necessarily recommend that one unless you have a problem with your well maybe as your kids get older start leaving the fridge open but crack and destroying everything in your fridge more often or your freezer great um freezer is a little bit easier because it maintains temperature a little bit better and you just put it at the freezing point and you probably won't get any bad alerts but the one thing i will tell you that you might want to do well maybe not but uh the water leak detectors if there's any place in your house that you think there could ever be a leak that you want to know about it you won't get any false alarms from that one they're like 17 bucks they the batteries last for like three years i was gonna say put it next to your water heater but that's in your garage so if it floods who cares no put it up put it like between every toilet and the wall yeah or under every sink like anywhere that you have a trailer i i do i don't have any of this stuff but um for insurance reasons i had to get myself a um a home alarm system from simplisafe uh recently not a sponsorship it's like you know pick whatever of these sensors you want.

1:40:26And they have water leak sensors for some relatively tiny amount of money. So I'm like, alright, I'll get six of them. I put them everywhere, under each sink and in every bathroom. And also, of course, the water heater. How do they communicate? Are they like the Yo-Link things where it's this low-frequency RF thing? Yeah, I believe it's custom because there's like a base, there's like a SimpliSafe home base thing that all their stuff talks to. Yeah, that's how the Yo-Link things work too, by the way you you get a quote unquote smart hub which gets on your wi-fi network but then also communicates over the proprietary rf thing to the sensors and that's why the sensors can be so cheap and last so long because they don't talk wi-fi they're not on your wi-fi they have no idea wi-fi exists they just talk to the hub from like a quarter mile away or so they claim uh and then the hub talks to your wi-fi so you can just put the hub right next to your wi-fi thing and put these sensors anywhere in your house and i'm assuming in three years they'll start notifying me on the app that their battery's getting low, but the battery's supposed to last a long time.

1:41:24Yep. So I'm digging this. Like I said, I'm looking for reasons to install this in all the places, but so far, so good. I'm really pleased with this. I had no idea that this was a thing, not only Yoling specifically, but this whole LoRa thing, the LoRa thing that you were talking about, this has made me very happy and is giving me an outlet for ever more nervous energy, which I'm good with. So thank you. And also no thank you, because now I'm going to spend a bunch of money on damn water leak sensors too. They're cheap. You can buy it back down to the 17 bucks for a water leak detector. Just buy a couple of them.

1:41:56Chuck them around your house. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like once you are in the system, like once you have their hub and you have their app set up and you have their alerts set up, you might as well, because you're not paying a monthly fee per sensor or anything. So you might as well spend an extra 17 bucks to get a few more of them and chuck them around the house. Anywhere that that could be useful. Anywhere that like a water leak or something, that's useful information to know. And it's part of the advantage of, I think, one of the lessons we've learned with smart home gear so far is Wi-Fi is bad.

1:42:30Smart home gear can be very useful. The less that's on Wi-Fi, the better. The most reliable and most useful smart home things tend to be ones that have some other kind of protocol they speak that is not Wi-Fi. and that usually requires a hub somewhere in your you know and and and this is part of the promise that thread is trying or purporting to solve or to unify all these standards into one new standard xkcd style that's why every single stupid uh apple device comes with a thread radio we don't even talk about it anymore but every act introduced every home pod everything that comes with a thread radio what good is that doing us someday right so this this may at some point be a good thing It seems like it's pretty lightly used now.

1:43:13Although I actually I have some some Eve sensors that I that have thread support. I'm not sure if they're using it, but they have it. So I don't know. But anyway, everything that is not Wi-Fi smart home is almost always better. It is usually like usually the devices themselves are cheaper per device. Usually they are more reliable. They usually have better battery lives if they are battery powered. they usually have longer ranges or you know in the case of these things like if you're not speaking wi-fi and going on wi-fi frequencies you can probably use lower frequency radio waves which penetrate walls better have longer range so basically getting off of wi-fi is better in almost every way for smart home devices that are not cameras cameras unfortunately need the bandwidth of wi-fi but everything else usually doesn't and that's why wi-fi is bad for home things it's not like wi-fi itself is a bad protocol or anything it's just designed for higher and higher data rates for things like computers but a home device that's telling you the temperature and humidity has such low bandwidth requirements that using a sophisticated complicated high frequency protocol like wi-fi is just a waste it's a waste of battery energy it's a way like the standard's not made for that these other standards that have incredibly low bandwidth but can you know penetrate walls and go from a quarter mile away on a single double a battery like that's it's a better fit for the application so we're not saying like why did they make wi-fi if it's so bad wi-fi is good for what it does it gives you like wireless data to your phone and your laptop and even maybe your apple tv it's bad for a thing that's telling you whether there's been a leak or not that literally communicates almost nothing yeah it's like i need to send this one oh it's like you know one bite of transfer basically to my home has there been a leak since the last minute i asked yes or no no good done exactly bandwidth over problem solved anyway so thank you but no thank you because i'm gonna go broke putting sensors in a thousand different places i don't need them yeah the reason i mentioned the water heater by the way is i i already had before i got the yoling things i already had a wi-fi um sensor on my water heater because twice now living in this house for 20 something years twice my water heater has gotten old enough that it's sprung a leak luckily not a catastrophically because water heaters just hot water tank heater or whatever they eventually corrosion eats away at the inside of them there's a big sacrificial anode see the rectus episode where i talk about this that gets eaten away once that gets eaten away guess what the tank gets eaten away and if you're not on top of replacing it exactly when the warranty expires because they put the anode in there that's big enough they think as soon as the warranty runs out the anode will be gone and then it will fail they're really good they they're they really can't they could just put a bigger anode in like i think when they sell you like a 15 year one versus a 10 year the only difference is bigger anode in the 15 one they charge you 300 extra bucks but anyway um when they leak if they catastrophically leak your basement fills water and it's terrible but usually what happens is corrosion makes a little tiny hole that starts spraying out or dribbling out water and it's still an emergency they'll be like oh turn off the water and plumber come or whatever but uh it's something you want to know about asap i've been lucky enough both times to be home and we go down to the basement enough because the laundry machines are down there to notice it and say you know and that's why i bought sensor like i don't want to be away from home when that happens because even a small leak could flood my basement i should really just replace my water heater more often but you know you do what you can my current one is still uh less than 10 years into its supposed 15 year lifetime so i'll keep an eye