0:00

We were talking in the pre-show, like the

0:02

pre-pre-pre-show before we went live, and

0:04

I was asking Marco how things were going, and I

0:06

noted that he seems to have been out of pocket

0:08

a lot recently, and Marco didn't take

0:11

offense at that, and he said, well, we

0:13

got to talk about that. Not in the like,

0:15

I'm in trouble, come to the principal's office way,

0:17

in the, oh, do I have

0:19

a story for you kind of way. So how's

0:22

it going, bud? The

0:24

story's not that interesting. Uh-oh, okay.

0:26

I've been very

0:28

slowly renovating a new

0:30

house, moving into the new house. All

0:33

of the stuff from the old house has been in

0:35

a giant pile of

0:37

boxes that consumes the entire garage of

0:40

the new house, um, because

0:42

we sold the old house months

0:44

ago, like a long time ago,

0:46

like in the fall. Um,

0:49

it's been a journey. Um,

0:51

however, as of this week, I

0:54

have spent the first night in the new

0:56

house. Good. Which is a huge

0:58

step. I am currently recording from

1:01

the new house. Oh, that's good. The

1:03

first podcast recorded in this house was under the radar, uh,

1:05

earlier, I think, yesterday. Hey, didn't we get the first one

1:07

when you were in the driveway in a car? That's

1:10

not, that wasn't in the house. Ah, it was

1:12

on the property. It was, yes. It was on

1:14

the Wi-Fi, it was on the property, but it

1:16

was not in the house. Um, but no, I'm

1:18

now coming to you, um, from the new house,

1:21

from the new office, that is not nearly sound

1:23

damp enough yet, because there's almost nothing in it.

1:25

Um, so I'll be doing some isotope processing on

1:27

the file. You should have taken some of those,

1:29

uh, boxes from the garage, the ones with clothes in

1:31

them, just dumped them out all over the floor. Yeah,

1:33

I have like a moving blanket, a dog, uh, foldable

1:36

mattress. Like I have a bunch of other stuff, like,

1:38

you know, soft things absorbing the sound. No

1:41

offense to Hopps, but I don't think he's really doing a lot

1:43

of work there. No, he's, we don't

1:45

have doorknobs yet. Um, and so

1:47

normally there would be a giant hole in

1:49

the door that would let sound in from

1:51

outside. So I've stuffed a pair of socks

1:53

in the door hole. If you

1:55

see socks stuffed in the knob hole, don't disturb

1:57

Marco. Yeah,

2:01

there's a lot going on here. Oh,

2:04

and most importantly, of course, I

2:06

wasn't able to complete the network wiring

2:08

jack installations until all the painting and

2:11

stuff was done, which I'm not even

2:13

sure if it's done yet, so

2:15

I haven't done it yet. So instead, I'm running

2:17

a network cable in the classic

2:20

way out the window into

2:22

the garden across the front yard.

2:25

Oh, you love taking indoor things and putting

2:27

them outdoors. You're kinked, we know it. I

2:31

can run ethernet outdoors. Oh my God, John.

2:33

That'll be a thrill. Oh my God, John, I'm not

2:36

prepared for this. Wow.

2:40

So anyway, that's our recording right now.

2:42

I'm recording through 140

2:44

ethernet cables going out my window across

2:47

my yard into my garage to

2:49

reach the router. Socks in the door

2:51

hole. But this doesn't sound

2:53

bad, actually. It sounds like everything is mostly copacetic,

2:56

am I wrong? I mean, we're getting there.

3:00

God, there's so much to do. Above me

3:02

in the ceiling in the middle of

3:04

the room is just a hole because the fans

3:06

are like, we're just ordering fans now so those

3:08

haven't gotten installed yet. Our silverware is somewhere in

3:10

the middle of

3:14

the giant cube of boxes in the garage.

3:16

So I went to a dollar store and

3:18

got some little flimsy dollar store silverware to

3:20

eat dinner with. We have no chairs to

3:22

sit on while eating dinners. We're all just

3:24

standing at the counter. It's very much an

3:26

ad hoc situation going on here. We're

3:29

making a word. We were talking about this before, but

3:31

when did you become – we talked about it in

3:33

the context of Casey's link, but when did you become

3:35

a fan person, Marco? What did this happen? Ceiling fans.

3:38

I've always been a ceiling fan person. I love ceiling

3:40

fans. Your past house did not have ceiling fans in

3:42

every room. No, it didn't. And

3:44

that was – It was a problem for you?

3:46

Yes. Ceiling fans are

3:48

awesome. And your beach house doesn't have ceiling

3:50

fans in every room, does it? It has

3:53

them in every bedroom in my office. You

3:56

were a secret fan person. I didn't know

3:58

it. Yes. Ceiling fans. are amazing because first

4:01

of all case either quiet not well that's a

4:03

few that's if you buy one that aren't crap

4:05

in installed on less than ten years ago and

4:07

i did both of those things they were crap

4:09

and they were installed ten actually fifteen years ago

4:11

now you have to try and i mean unless

4:13

it is actually like rocking which i believe is

4:15

not the problem with your like it rocks in

4:17

the chain it's the bit the dome stuff uh...

4:19

i think it would you like to go turn it

4:21

on i'm happy to know that we don't think it's

4:23

impossible to filter out it's operating enough that that the

4:26

chain is hitting the thing i'm afraid often

4:29

had no that's more that that that the family room

4:31

one of the living room depending on what you want to

4:33

call it that's the one that's oscillating up that is probably

4:35

going to fall down at some point that this one i

4:37

think it's just off lady's son you need to new family

4:39

you can probably just tighten that when it like i don't

4:41

know it shouldn't it should be it should be balanced like

4:43

is there is there dust build up on one of the

4:46

the propeller blades or something like it should be stable here's

4:48

the thing john when you live down here in the south

4:50

it's hard to find people that are good at what they

4:52

do when they work on your house and i don't know

4:54

that i think that every way i could do yourself you

4:56

just buy one solid rocket science let

4:58

me let me tell you listeners out there uh...

5:01

if for some reason you are tired of

5:05

constantly being afraid that you're good that you might get

5:07

laid off that you might have to find a job

5:10

let me tell you tech is not the right place for you

5:13

if you if you want to be sure

5:15

that you will always have a job no

5:17

matter what become

5:19

a plumber there

5:22

are no plumbers try to find any

5:25

plumber to come to your house let alone a good

5:27

one become a plumber or

5:30

something some other similar trade electrician like

5:33

any kind of like locally working trade

5:35

you will have infinite work i guarantee

5:37

you you'll be able to command

5:39

whatever price you want that job

5:42

can never be outsourced and will never become a

5:44

i am will never go away on

5:46

the downside yeah

5:48

well you know i think that would be your job in that

5:50

in that way but

5:53

the but yeah i'm sick it is so

5:55

hard to find trades like to find tradespeople

5:57

to come to your house to do Even

6:00

big jobs where they stand to make a

6:02

lot of money, but you can't find enough

6:04

of them. There's infinite demand. Can

6:07

confirm. What's your

6:09

role with ceiling fans, John? What is your ridiculous angst against

6:11

them? I'm not a fan, but I didn't say anything wrong.

6:13

I just didn't know Marco was a fan person. Fan people

6:15

are people who need to have fans blowing on them in

6:17

most of the rooms in their house. I

6:19

wouldn't say need to, but... I would say I

6:22

need to. What a fan does is it buys

6:25

you some headroom from needing

6:27

the air conditioning to be colder. Speaking of

6:29

headroom, fan people tend to be shorter. No

6:32

offense. How low are your ceilings that you're

6:34

going to hit your head on a fan?

6:36

My ceilings are very low, and in my

6:38

in-laws house where they are fan people, I

6:41

am forever dodging fans with my head. How

6:43

tall are you? John, you're not 17 feet

6:45

tall. My word. I'm

6:48

tall enough that fans are a threat to me.

6:51

What's the average height of an American room? Like 8 feet? What are we

6:53

talking about? Yeah, but my ceilings in the house are not 8 feet. And

6:56

the fans usually hang down by what, about 7

6:59

or 8 inches from the ceiling? No, they hang

7:01

down lower than that, especially if they have the

7:03

ones with the little ornate kind of flower-like, a

7:06

swirly little arm with a flowery-like thing on the end of

7:08

them. You know those things? I don't think they've made those

7:10

in 30 years. Well, I mean, I'm

7:12

talking about my in-laws house. It's not brand new stuff. Fair enough.

7:15

Their fans don't oscillate at least, but... Yeah, no. Fan

7:17

people, I don't want air blowing on me. I don't

7:19

want the sound of the fan. Every time I enter

7:21

a room in fan houses, I turn them off, and

7:23

then someone comes in and turns them back on. You're

7:26

constantly walking through fan houses. Your house, your

7:28

fans. Only fans, my friends. Only fans. Oh,

7:31

wow. No, first of all, a ceiling fan on

7:33

low is usually inaudible. And usually

7:35

having that little bit of air movement, if

7:37

it's like a hot day outside and I

7:39

want the air conditioning on, usually

7:42

I can... If I'm just using the fan, I can

7:44

wait until the room is like 78 degrees

7:46

before I really feel like I need the air conditioning

7:49

on. Whereas if I have no air movement, it's more

7:51

like 72 degrees. What we

7:53

had in one of my houses, the last house

7:55

I was in was my parents, by the way.

7:58

It maybe doesn't work in every climate, but it worked pretty

8:00

well. on ours is I think what they call it, like we

8:02

call it the attic fan. Do you know what I'm

8:04

talking about? Yeah, like a central fan that sucks air

8:06

into the attic from the house and so it pulled

8:08

all the air in. Exactly, right. And

8:11

it wasn't particularly good or fancy or whatever, but

8:13

it had the same effect that you're describing where

8:15

we would just open the windows and turn on

8:17

the attic fan and you get cool natural air

8:19

coming in, like in the evening or in

8:21

the morning. It was great. It was so much

8:23

better than the air conditioning. Eventually you had

8:25

to resort to the air conditioning, but I enjoyed that. But

8:28

those are noisy, but the key thing is about those

8:30

is they do not blow air onto you. But

8:32

that's what you want. That's called a breeze. That's not what

8:34

I want. That's absolutely not what I want. That's what fan

8:36

people want. Not what I want. Well, I

8:38

guess I've added myself as a fan person,

8:40

but me too. Don't let him shame you

8:42

or me. Don't let him shame us. I'm

8:45

shaming you. I just see Marco was a

8:47

secret fan person. I didn't know. There are

8:49

dozens of us. There are millions of you.

8:51

Millions. I mean, this is the

8:53

correct opinion. I mean, it's not fair of me

8:55

to be the arbiter of what's right and what's

8:57

wrong, but we are correct. Maybe John's the minority.

8:59

I am. I absolutely am. I understand that the

9:01

majority of Americans are fan people. My own wife

9:04

is a fan person. It's

9:06

coming from inside the house. Do you live in a

9:08

fan house then? Is that the problem? No, I don't

9:11

live in a fan house. I was able to hold

9:13

the line on that, but she's absolutely a fan person.

9:15

So she's been living this whole time denied of her

9:17

fans? Well, not really, because she has her own fans.

9:19

They're just not ceiling fans. But that's the best kind

9:21

of fan. Well, you know, I think in our

9:23

house, the ceilings are so low that the fans really

9:26

would be an issue. Like our ceilings are like seven

9:28

feet. So do the math on that one. It's not

9:30

great. John, you've denied that

9:32

poor woman not only fans, but air

9:34

conditioning. You are a monster, sir. She's

9:37

not denied air conditioning. She gets air conditioning. Don't you worry about

9:39

that. Jim

9:42

Buell writes with regard to image captioning on iOS.

9:44

And I actually meant to bring this up and

9:46

it completely slipped my mind. I'm glad Jim reminded

9:48

us of this. Jim writes, regarding

9:50

image captioning on iOS that you spoke about

9:52

in the last ATP overtime, I recently noticed

9:54

that Siri is able to provide a basic

9:56

description of images sent via iMessage using AirPods

9:58

with announced notifications turned on. Siri will

10:00

say something like, Jane sent a photo with a child

10:02

sitting on the floor playing with a jigsaw puzzle. These

10:04

descriptions have seemed pretty accurate to me. Not sure when

10:06

this debuted, but I started noticing it in the past

10:08

few weeks. I wanna say it's a little more than

10:11

a few weeks. I wanna say it was like two

10:13

to three months maybe. But- Yeah, it's

10:15

been a while. But I've noticed this as

10:17

well, and it's also incredibly nice when

10:19

you're using CarPlay. Because even though I'm not in the car as

10:21

much as I think I make it out to be, it

10:25

is not unusual for me to receive at least a

10:27

couple of text messages when I'm driving, and I never

10:29

look at my phone when I'm driving because I have

10:31

this magical thing called CarPlay, which Marco used to have

10:33

and now has forgotten about. And

10:35

so they'll do the same thing. You know, CarPlay,

10:37

there's Siri on CarPlay, will do the same thing

10:39

where it'll read you a vague

10:42

description of what

10:45

the picture is. And I gotta say, it's

10:47

not always great, but it's certainly a heck

10:49

of a lot better than nothing. Like my

10:51

most infuriating moment in CarPlay is, you know,

10:54

such and such sent you a link to

10:56

twitter.com. Useful. That's

10:59

great. And now this message is read, so I

11:01

will forget to go back to it, and you

11:03

haven't told me anything. You can't read the tweet,

11:05

you can't even read the title of that page.

11:08

Like it's useless. So frustrating. But. Don't

11:10

you have like, do not just start while driving turned

11:12

on? No, only because of CarPlay. I used to before

11:14

I had a car with CarPlay. And now with CarPlay,

11:16

it doesn't affect me unless I tap on

11:19

the screen and say I would like to hear this message. Pay attention

11:21

to the road. Don't worry about the messages you're getting. Right.

11:24

Well anyways, the point is, this is very, very cool, and I'm glad

11:26

that Jim reminded us to bring it up. Again,

11:29

it ain't perfect, but it's a heck of a

11:31

lot better than getting, you know, Aaron sent you

11:33

a picture. Great, thank you

11:35

for that. Like that's useful. You know, I would

11:37

love, if that same

11:40

AI or intelligence, whatever we're going

11:42

to call it, could that

11:44

be used to improve the way Siri

11:46

reads aloud the text messages over AirPods

11:49

as well, which is probably the same

11:51

system? Because even just, not even just

11:53

like images, just the way it reads

11:55

text is often so stupid. The

11:57

way it will like stumble through. things

12:00

like phone numbers or like package

12:02

tracking numbers, it'll stumble through addresses

12:04

really weirdly and poorly, it'll

12:07

fumble all over like bank alerts that

12:09

have like currency, like it'll... The

12:11

way it reads just regular text

12:14

needs a lot of improvement. So this is

12:16

the kind of thing like as Apple increases

12:18

its various use of more advanced AI modeling

12:20

and stuff across regular feature of iOS, this

12:22

is the kind of thing I'm looking forward

12:25

to like, yeah sure, generate me a

12:27

picture of you know a Jeep driving into a

12:29

river, like that's fun sometimes, but what I really

12:31

want much more often is like the

12:33

basics of this kind of stuff to just be better.

12:36

And so I'm kind of... that's what like I'm looking

12:38

forward to more of that like the you know

12:40

the less flashy, more boring improvements to the OS

12:42

that just kind of make everyday life better. Oh

12:44

this image capturing thing by the way, I've had it happen

12:47

to me as well but incredibly inconsistently.

12:49

I don't know what determines

12:51

when it's going to do it or when it

12:53

decides it's not going to. Once

12:55

it is the first time like oh this is great, I bet

12:57

I'll be hearing this from now on. Nope, every

13:00

once in a while it does it, but most of the

13:02

time it doesn't and I don't get it. So hopefully that

13:04

also gets more consistent. Yeah indeed. If

13:07

you are super bored and want something to do,

13:09

you can watch the approximately nine hours of DMA

13:11

compliance feedback session which is now available to anyone

13:13

even those who didn't sign up for it. We'll

13:15

put a link in the show notes. Yeah the

13:17

one thing I'll say about this is I was

13:20

watching it, some of it today. I wanted to

13:22

confirm the length so I could write the nine

13:24

hour thing in the show notes here and so

13:26

I'm like okay well I'll just look at it

13:28

will it just tell me the time? No okay.

13:30

I know at the top it has like a

13:32

time like from 9 a.m to 1700 hours

13:34

or whatever but like I'm like oh was that the length of

13:37

the meeting or is that the length of the video? I'll

13:39

just move the scrubber to the end but

13:41

this video player that is installed on

13:43

this web page is the

13:45

most infuriating thing I've ever seen in

13:48

my entire life. I think it is

13:50

multiple videos and multiple videos broken up

13:52

into pieces right? So even though it's

13:54

one continuous scrubber it's like segmented so

13:56

you can't look at the timestamp to

13:58

see where you are. So for example, I

14:00

was playing it here and then I wanted to play it

14:03

on my phone as I went out to you know Wash

14:05

dishes or whatever. I'm like, let me just send it to

14:07

the same place I was let me just look at the

14:09

time stamp that will not work because on the phone it

14:11

plays them with the native player But it plays them segment

14:13

wise so you have to know which segment you're in and

14:16

which offset within that segment I've never seen anything like this

14:18

in my life. It's it's called a timeline.

14:20

It's just it starts at zero and it goes to some amount

14:24

Wow just really really busy. Anyway, if

14:26

you want to watch the thing it

14:28

is pretty much as boring as you

14:30

would think it would be and probably it's not

14:32

that relevant but you know, if

14:35

you if you're a completionist If you're

14:37

a completionist and Apple's legal woes it is now available

14:39

to you Alright, so caref

14:41

swisher has interviewed Margreta Vestier

14:43

who is the executive vice

14:45

president of the European Commission

14:48

She's been the one that's been doing a lot

14:50

of the talking and tweeting and whatnot about the

14:52

DMA and so on and so forth I

14:55

do plan to listen to this this just broke I think

14:57

earlier today, so I didn't have a chance to listen before

14:59

we were recorded but John

15:02

Gruber over at Daring Fireball. I don't know why I introduced

15:04

him like that as though we didn't know who he was

15:06

But here we are anyways John

15:09

has listened to it and has some

15:11

brief notes on it and apparently Margreta

15:14

has confirmed that EU contacted Apple about

15:16

both the home screen web apps thing

15:18

and Epic's account that they took

15:20

away and then curiously gave back. So here we are

15:22

That's me confirming that because I did listen to the

15:25

interview. Oh, thank you Yeah, she straight up straight up

15:27

says like, you know, we were speculating Oh, it's probably

15:29

because the EU contact them She just says yeah this

15:31

thing happened and then we talked to Apple and asked

15:33

them to change it and At

15:36

least those two things about the home screen web app thing is

15:38

a thing We didn't get a chance to talk about on the

15:40

show but it's not that important but Apple was doing a

15:42

thing and people were annoyed by it and The

15:45

European Commission contacted Apple and they changed it and

15:47

same thing with Africa's account where we're like Oh

15:49

the EU probably contacted them. That's why they did

15:51

it Yep she confirms both of those things and

15:54

it's sort of matter-of-fact way and it's like we've

15:56

been wondering about that and we have

15:58

to hear the confirmation on a interview

16:00

podcast, whatever, I mean, more

16:02

of the mysteries of this process. All

16:05

right. Apple, Meta and Google have

16:07

been officially targeted by the EU

16:09

in DMA non-compliance investigations. This is

16:11

coverage from the Verge. The European

16:14

commission is opening five non-compliance investigations

16:16

into how Apple, Google and Meta

16:18

are complying with its new digital

16:20

markets act antitrust rules. Quote,

16:22

we suspect that the suggested solutions put

16:24

forward by the three companies do not

16:27

fully comply with the DMA. The EU's

16:29

antitrust chief, again, Margaret Vestier,

16:31

I think I have that right, said,

16:34

and so this, I, we

16:36

have a little more to say about this, but

16:38

I find it so delightful. I know everyone has

16:40

made this point at least once, maybe twice, but

16:42

I will now make it thrice. It is so

16:44

delicious that Apple has to just throw stuff against

16:46

the wall and pray that the people in charge

16:48

like it. Like, oh, the just desserts here. Or

16:50

there's in the schadenfreude is just,

16:53

it's just chef kiss. It's so great. I'm,

16:55

I'm so here. But they're really not trying

16:57

that hard. The EU has issued guidelines and

16:59

Apple is welcome to do all of the

17:01

work up front to see what

17:03

will fit and then submit their work to the

17:05

EU, the European Commission. And they'll tell them whether they

17:07

fit their guidance or not, but they have to do

17:10

all the work first. They've already got a much better

17:13

back and forth because they have that whole

17:15

feedback session where Apple was allowed to participate.

17:17

Can you imagine having nine hours to talk

17:19

with App Review about why they rejected your

17:21

app and to defend why you think it

17:23

should, that it does comply? Like, so this

17:25

is all, it's not just Apple. It's

17:27

obviously as metagogical and whatever. I continue to think that

17:29

the DMA is poorly written and that if they consulted

17:32

with people who knew better about the tech industry, they

17:34

could have said, what do you really want to happen

17:36

here? Because what you've written is not going to cause

17:39

that to happen. And lo and behold, what they've written

17:41

has not caused what they wanted to happen. So they

17:43

had that nine hour feedback session, compliance feedback to basically

17:45

say, Hey, you out there in the

17:47

world, do you have a complaint about how any of

17:49

these companies have complied with the DMA? I think this

17:51

nine hour one might've just been Apple, right? But anyways,

17:53

like, do you have complaints about how they complied? And

17:56

as you imagine, as we discussed at length on

17:58

past episodes, yes, people how

18:00

Apple is complying. So they have that nine hour

18:02

session, and in response to that, the

18:05

European Commission said, okay, Apple and

18:07

Meta and Google, we think

18:09

you're probably not complying with what we

18:11

wrote, which again, it's shocking because what they wrote is too

18:13

vague. And so now they're going

18:16

to investigate whether

18:18

they are complying and presumably tell them what they

18:20

need to do to comply. And

18:23

the specific things that they have complaints about

18:26

are things that we talked about in the past, but are also

18:29

things that they could have written more clearly in the DNA. Indeed.

18:33

And I do find it so funny in

18:35

every sense of the word that in

18:38

the European Union, it is apparently okay, and

18:40

I don't mean that to be snarky, I

18:42

genuinely didn't know this, but it's apparently okay

18:45

to just kind of make these hand wavy

18:47

rules and just expect people to understand it

18:49

and work on it. And

18:51

that's very different than my perception, at

18:53

least, of the way the US works,

18:55

where everything is extraordinarily specific and

18:58

any T's are cross-nights are dotted. I

19:00

feel like I'm implying the EU is

19:02

not doing a good job. That's not

19:04

what I mean. It's just that it seems

19:07

like the EU very much wants these

19:09

companies to comply with the very clear spirit

19:11

of the law, and that is just not

19:14

a thing here in the States. Like it's

19:16

the law is the law. The

19:18

spirit of the law doesn't matter. All that matters is

19:20

what are the words on the paper? I think our

19:22

laws are also extremely vague, but maybe there's a little

19:25

bit more horse-grating up front with the

19:27

powers that be to make sure that everyone agrees before

19:29

something has passed what it's going to take to comply with it,

19:32

which is helpful, but apparently that didn't take place here. I

19:34

just think the things they wrote

19:36

in, I think Apple and all the other

19:38

companies probably are not in

19:41

compliance with the letter of the DMA, but

19:43

the spirit is beyond that. I really feel

19:45

like this could have been avoided. It's

19:48

easy to comply in these annoying

19:50

ways when you don't specifically anticipate

19:52

these kind of, people

19:54

call it malicious compliance. It depends on

19:57

how pessimistic you want to be about the companies.

20:00

You could just be saying they're doing what they think

20:02

they need to do and it's not actually malicious because

20:04

it's poorly written, but it could also be malicious. But

20:06

either way, the DMA

20:09

could have been written better, but I think

20:12

there are actual violations of the letter of

20:14

it. So this is from the EC's press

20:16

release, specifically about Apple, a few highlights that

20:18

are super interesting and

20:21

really highlight how the EC could have

20:23

improved the DMA to avoid the situation.

20:25

So the commission has opened proceedings against

20:27

Apple regarding their measures to comply with

20:29

their obligations to enable end users to

20:31

easily uninstall any software applications on iOS,

20:33

easily change the default settings on iOS, and

20:36

prompt users with choice screens which must effectively

20:38

and easily allow them to select alternative default

20:40

service such as browser, search engine, or iPhone.

20:43

If you watch that nine hour feedback

20:45

session, so much of the feedback is

20:48

complaining about minute details about the screen where you get

20:50

to pick what your browser is. The

20:53

people who are giving the feedback have

20:55

legitimate complaints, but honestly, this is not

20:58

the meat of the problem with Apple's

21:00

anti-competitive behavior. This

21:05

is not being able to choose the default browser. Okay,

21:07

they should be able to, but let's not litigate the

21:10

minutia of the selection screen for seven

21:12

hours. That is missing the forest of

21:14

the trees entirely. I don't think they're wrong. They

21:16

had some good points, but the amount

21:19

of time dedicated to that blows my mind. Same thing

21:21

with the non-compliance. These things like changing

21:23

default settings and the choice screens and uninstalling,

21:25

and it's like, well, you made it possible,

21:27

but it's not that possible. It's just so

21:29

picky about the details of those things. Not

21:32

important. Here's the big one. Lurking. It's

21:35

not even one of the major points. It's like, oh, and by the way, also this. This

21:37

is the final bullet point. Apple's new fee

21:40

structure and other terms and conditions for alternative

21:42

app stores and distribution of apps from the

21:44

web may be defeating the purpose of its

21:46

obligations under Article 6-4 of the DMA. That's

21:49

the meat of it. That's what we talked

21:51

about when we talked about this. Apple has

21:53

essentially complied in a way that makes alternative

21:55

app stores, forces alternative app stores to not

21:57

be more attractive than what they already... Apple

22:00

already offers. Like by imposing

22:02

these fees, by saying it's gonna be a real

22:04

pain in your butt and look at these numbers,

22:06

you're probably not gonna be able to do anything

22:08

better than we do, because we're gonna be still

22:11

taking a huge amount of your money and whatever

22:13

is left, maybe you can get a little bit

22:15

of money and basically in the end, you can't

22:17

be any better than us. So it's, oh, it's

22:20

competition, but we've arranged financial things that make it

22:22

so that your alternative App Store can't really be

22:24

that much better than ours. And

22:26

in fact, may actually be worse and will certainly be

22:28

way more work for you. Yeah, that may

22:30

be defeating the purpose of its obligations under blah, blah,

22:32

blah. Yeah, you should have written that in, they're like,

22:35

oh, and by the way, Apple, you can't ask for

22:37

all the money from the alternative App Stores. Making

22:39

them economically unviable unless you have a spite store

22:42

like Epic, right? And you just remove their account.

22:45

That's not, like they spend so much time talking

22:47

about, oh, it's not fair that, you

22:50

know, the selection

22:52

of browsers on

22:54

the browser choice screen are browsers that

22:56

have a large number of sales in the current App Store.

22:58

What if someone has a third party browser that's not in

23:01

the current App Store and yada yada? I'm like, yeah, that's

23:03

a valid point, but geez, that is

23:05

not the big one. So

23:07

the fact that they throw this in, they're

23:09

like, yeah, the whole thing, they don't say the

23:11

core technology fee, they don't say the whole percentage

23:13

and the, you know, all the other things we've

23:15

talked about monetarily with alternative App Stores and side

23:17

loading, they don't say that specifically, but

23:19

they vaguely allude to that and it's like, oh

23:22

yeah, Apple, as a side

23:24

note, the entire foundation of your DMA compliance

23:26

may be considered to be non-compliance, so get

23:28

ready. But don't worry, because

23:30

we're going to figure out what the conclusion

23:32

of those proceedings that they opened today, we're

23:34

gonna figure out those conclusions and let me

23:36

check my notes, oh, a year. Oh yeah,

23:38

so this is just, this is from Six

23:41

Colors that Jason pulled from an interview with

23:44

Margaretha Vestier in a

23:46

Reuters interview. This is before the

23:48

whole non-compliance investigation was announced and

23:50

she said, if the new Apple

23:52

fee structure will de facto not make it in

23:54

any way attractive to use the benefits of the

23:57

DMA, that is the kind of thing we'll be

23:59

investigating. Yeah, that's why. You should have written the

24:01

DMA differently because if you had asked hey is

24:03

it possible for Apple to Seemingly

24:05

comply with this but just to make it

24:07

not attractive at all to Have

24:10

an alternative app store. We all want to raise their hands and

24:12

we I know I know how they're gonna do it They're just

24:14

gonna ask for money Anyway,

24:18

so yeah 12 months Think

24:21

the government moves slowly. We'll see how

24:23

this goes and it's not just Apple It's Apple

24:25

meta and Google and it's multiple threads And so

24:27

the fact that apparently nobody was able to comply

24:29

with this to the satisfaction of the EU and

24:31

they're all being investigated Some of that is on

24:34

the EU and poorly written Anonymous

24:37

writes to us with regard to the the

24:39

DOJ suit here in the states and

24:41

iOS messages app versus third-party messages app

24:44

So this anonymous person writes regarding this bit

24:46

from the DOJ complaint and this is a

24:49

quote from their Apple prohibits third-party developers from

24:51

incorporating Other important features into their messaging apps

24:53

as well For example third-party messaging apps cannot

24:55

continue operating in the background when the app

24:57

is closed Which impairs functionality

24:59

like message delivery confirmation we talked about

25:01

this last episode and we're like there's

25:04

no definition of those words No reasonable definition

25:06

of the words in that sentence that is

25:08

technically true, right? But the

25:10

feedback that you're about to get to Says

25:13

okay those words even though they are

25:15

just vague and ridiculous Like obviously third-party

25:18

messaging apps can continue operating the background

25:20

just like any iOS app can subject

25:22

to constraints yada-yada and message

25:24

delivery confirmation can be done through push notification

25:26

so on its face that sentence is not

25:29

true and makes no sense, but That's

25:32

just in the complaint. That's not the court case, right? So

25:34

this feedback and we have multiple pieces of feedback

25:36

I picked up one of the most succinct ones

25:38

is basically saying when you read that What's

25:41

under lurking underneath those two sentences is

25:43

this and this is actually a an

25:45

issue Yeah, so I didn't

25:47

think it was an issue at all You know This

25:50

is why I push notifications exist, but no it's an

25:52

issue and this is one of the comments that we

25:54

got to convince me So back to the synonymous feedback.

25:56

I work in a major messaging app and I can

25:58

provide some more information from an end engineering perspective. iMessage

26:01

is not a single app, but a set

26:03

of processes and services with escalated or reduced

26:05

privileges. Other apps are forced to

26:07

be in a single process. This is a severe

26:10

limitation, especially for security and performance. Apple's

26:12

quote-unquote blast door, low privilege

26:14

process handles all untrusted and

26:17

high-risk data, for example, media

26:19

attachments, in messages. Only

26:21

iMessage can do that. Competitor messengers are

26:23

forced to either compromise security and performance

26:26

or compromise on features, for example, support

26:28

fewer attachment types. iMessage does

26:30

a lot of processing in the background, specifically

26:32

to handle incoming messages much better than any

26:34

of the competitors can do. You

26:36

had mentioned APNS on the show, Apple Push

26:39

Notification Service, but there is much more to

26:41

do for each incoming message than just displaying

26:43

a notification. For example, for

26:46

the best receiver experience, you would want

26:48

to preprocess attachments and send delivery confirmations.

26:50

This is currently either severely limited or

26:53

not possible at all for third-party apps.

26:56

Also, check the permissions for the

26:58

Messages app in iOS settings, Messages.

27:00

I see three items there, while

27:02

other full-featured third-party messaging apps request

27:05

more than a dozen. I

27:07

think this is with regard to privacy features. You know,

27:09

can you share your location? Can you share this? Can

27:12

you share that? Anyway, back to Anonymous. Did you notice that

27:14

Messages does not ask you for location access? Have you seen

27:16

a warning that Messages has been able to access your entire

27:18

photo library for the past 10 months? Probably

27:21

not. I could go on and on, but the

27:23

point is that messaging really is an example of

27:25

Apple's anti-competitive behavior. So I was reading this and

27:27

I was all ready to start arguing in favor of Apple,

27:30

and maybe because of Michelle, who knows. But anyways, I really didn't

27:32

think this was a big deal. And as I read more and

27:34

more into this, and there were a couple other pieces of feedback

27:36

like John said that were very similar, I've

27:38

been convinced that no, this is legitimately kind

27:41

of gross. Yeah, this is one

27:43

of the things about the DOJ trial. I tried to

27:45

emphasize last week, and I'll reemphasize now, that

27:47

despite the complaint being kind

27:49

of book-reporting and technically inaccurate and poorly worded

27:51

and all that other stuff, the complaint is

27:53

not the court case, right? And

27:56

during the court case, whatever they choose to attack Apple

27:58

for... there

28:01

is ample examples of Apple preferencing its stuff

28:03

over third-party stuff. It's easy to find that

28:05

stuff. We could name stuff off the top

28:07

of their head. The things they picked on

28:09

the complaint seem weird to us, but even

28:12

lurking under something as simple as this where

28:14

it tries to say that, you know, third-party

28:16

messaging apps can't do message delivery

28:18

confirmation. Like, well, that's not true. They can't operate in

28:20

the background. Well, that's not true, right? But what is

28:22

true, and what we could have told them and they

28:25

could have written a sense better, is, yeah, of course,

28:27

messages has privileges that third-party messaging apps do not have.

28:29

Here is just a list of some of them. There's

28:31

even more from the other people who sent the feedback of,

28:33

like, look at all the things that messages can do that

28:35

we literally can't do because we're not allowed to. And what

28:37

we would say is, like, yeah, duh, everyone knows that. Apple

28:39

privileges its own apps on its operating system, right? Of

28:42

course, to win this lawsuit, the

28:44

DOJ has to prove that Apple

28:46

has monopoly power before they can

28:48

then go after them for all the many, many things that

28:51

Apple does to privilege its own apps over third-party apps. And

28:53

you have to sort of show that it is, you know,

28:57

doing that is fine if they're not a monopoly.

28:59

So they have to say, you are, you do

29:01

have monopoly power in whatever market we define. If

29:03

we successfully prove that, it should be so easy

29:05

to pick however many small things you can pick

29:08

that Apple does that privilege its stuff over everybody

29:10

else's. And this message, for example, is just one.

29:12

Now, how significant is that privileging? You know, how

29:14

important is it? What kind of remedy is required

29:16

in response to that? Does it address any of

29:18

the real issues that we've talked about in terms

29:21

of competitive app stores and Apple taking

29:23

cuts of money and everything goes through the store

29:25

and having control? Like, those are much larger issues

29:27

that the DOJ thing doesn't even seem to want to tackle.

29:30

But if the DOJ is able

29:32

to prove that Apple has monopoly power, it

29:35

should be trivially easy for them to find a whole

29:37

bunch of, quote-unquote, little things like this, because

29:39

we know Apple does this all the time. And, you know,

29:41

again, we see this and we say, yeah, that's just the

29:44

way it is. It's their platform and they get privileges. But

29:46

some of that stuff, in theory, may

29:48

be illegal if Apple has monopoly power. Speaking

29:51

of monopoly power, apparently it is

29:53

sort of kind of my fault

29:55

that the DOJ antitrust suit is

29:57

happening in New Jersey because apparently

29:59

Apparently this was a thing with fake teeth, and I have

30:02

a couple of those. So – That's

30:04

the hell of an intro. Yeah, we have a couple of days ago.

30:06

What do artificial teeth have to do with the

30:09

Department of Justice's massive lawsuit against Apple? Well,

30:11

they may be one of the reasons why the DOJ decided to file its lawsuit

30:13

in the state of New Jersey instead of, say, Virginia,

30:15

hooray, or Washington, D.C., like it did for

30:17

Google and Microsoft. So

30:20

apparently, William

30:22

Kovac-Chick, former FTC chair,

30:24

noted that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which

30:27

covers the New Jersey District Court, has, quote, some

30:29

pretty good law for plaintiffs on monopolization

30:31

issues. Quote, he goes to point

30:33

to a 2005 decision by

30:35

the Third Circuit in favor of the government

30:37

in a case called U.S. vs. Dent's supply.

30:40

In that case, the appeals court found

30:42

that the denture manufacturing company violated anti-monopoly

30:44

law by using, quote, exclusive dealing agreements

30:46

to prevent rivals from getting inputs they

30:48

need to succeed. Quote, Rebecca Hall-Allensworth, antitrust

30:51

professor and associate dean for research at

30:53

Vanderbilt Law School, notes that the Dent's

30:55

supply case may prove particularly useful for

30:57

the government's argument for Apple's market dominance.

30:59

While she says courts often consider monopoly power to

31:01

be more in the range of 90 percent market

31:04

share, Dent's supply had 75 to 80 percent market

31:06

share based on revenue and 67 percent based

31:08

on units. And then she said that,

31:10

I'm guessing, is at least part of why they

31:12

filed there. For people unfamiliar with

31:14

our weird U.S. law system, what they're talking about

31:17

here is I think what's known as forum shopping,

31:19

or is this probably a

31:21

similar phase I'm forgetting, where basically when

31:23

you're going to have a lawsuit, you

31:25

can choose where you want to file the lawsuit,

31:27

especially if it's like a federal lawsuit. They can choose. So

31:30

they filed in New Jersey. Apple's not headquartered in

31:32

New Jersey. The government, the capital of the United

31:34

States is not New Jersey, right? Why

31:36

did they pick New Jersey? This may be

31:39

why. That's why

31:41

all these patent stuff gets filed in East

31:43

Texas because they have judges in that court

31:45

system that are friendly to stupid patents, right?

31:48

So yeah, why is it filed in New

31:51

Jersey? This probably does not hurt. Indeed.

31:54

Then, Gavin Lang writes, I am

31:56

currently a master of public policy

31:58

student interested of the technology industry.

32:01

And I found your conversation in episode 597 about the

32:03

DOJ lawsuit against Apple

32:05

very interesting. Last year, Senator Bennett

32:07

of Colorado issued S1671,

32:09

the Digital Platform Commission Act

32:11

of 2023. Essentially, it would

32:14

create a new regulatory body equivalent to the

32:16

FDA with the authority to regulate tech companies.

32:18

The stated purpose of this bill is to

32:20

address two primary issues, among others, with federal

32:22

regulation in the tech industry by allocating

32:25

significant bureaucratic discretion to

32:27

the commission. Number one, the tech industry iterates

32:29

so quickly that it is impossible for Congress

32:32

to pass laws quickly enough to keep up

32:34

adequately with these companies. And

32:36

two, there is not a culture of highly

32:38

technical employees in the federal government or

32:40

in Congress to craft policy that appropriately

32:42

addresses the uniqueness of the tech industry.

32:44

The commission would take, it would include

32:47

a quote unquote code council staffed by

32:49

technical experts, nonprofits, academics, and representatives from

32:51

companies who own the platforms. This

32:53

helps to solve many of the issues you noted,

32:55

such as the federal government often having trouble defining

32:58

what a market is in the industry. To

33:00

address this concern, the commission would be required

33:02

to enter into an MOU, Memorandum of Understanding,

33:05

with the FTC and DOJ to assist them

33:07

in enforcing current laws where there is overlap

33:09

in jurisdiction. I believe the most effective

33:11

way for the federal government to approach the

33:13

regulation of the tech industry would be

33:15

to create a new agency dedicated to creating

33:18

a comprehensive regulatory regime. I've

33:20

done said here, assuming that bill went nowhere. Congress

33:24

going to Congress. Anyway, this is

33:26

one better feedback I got from the last episode

33:29

of me saying that it's how

33:31

preferable it is to be able to affirmatively

33:33

make a law of saying what you want.

33:36

And I think I did mention regulation several times,

33:38

but maybe I didn't emphasize it enough. You don't

33:41

actually literally have to pass new laws every time

33:43

you want something done. One of the things you

33:45

can do, one of the things Congress can do

33:48

is pass laws that create

33:50

regulatory bodies. And then

33:52

it is an abuse the law and use

33:55

those regulatory bodies with the power to regulate

33:57

the industries they control until we're helping them to get

33:59

control of the government. government and tell you that the

34:01

EPA can't control people polluting in rivers. But anyway,

34:03

setting that aside, we have

34:05

things like the FDA and the EPA that

34:07

are regulatory bodies who are imbued by laws

34:10

with the power to regulate the industries that

34:12

they control. And so every time the FDA

34:14

determines whether something is safe or unsafe or

34:16

whatever, make some new guidelines for poultry or

34:19

whatever, you know, whatever they're doing, it's not

34:21

like you have to pass a new law

34:23

through Congress every time. These regulatory bodies are

34:25

empowered to do that. So they can move

34:27

much more nimbly and swiftly. The

34:30

European Commission, from a US perspective,

34:32

looks like a regulatory body, right? They're not,

34:34

you know, voting on and passing laws in

34:36

the EU in the same way that Congress

34:38

passes laws that apply to the US. They

34:40

are a regulatory body that is tasked with

34:43

regulating commerce, I guess, the European

34:45

Commission or whatever. Anyway, they're currently looking at the

34:47

tech sector and their passing, whatever their system

34:49

is, I'm sure it's different than ours, but it looks to

34:51

us much more like a regulatory body. So

34:53

it's not like you have to have individual tailored new laws every

34:55

time you want to change something. We can

34:57

and do make regulatory bodies that regulate all

34:59

parts of life in the US with

35:02

some success, I would say, things like the FAA, FDA,

35:04

even the EPA, despite my earlier snark,

35:08

I think have been shown to

35:10

be useful and partially successful things

35:13

within our government. So a bill

35:15

like this, or even something that expands the,

35:17

I mean, I wouldn't expand like the FTC

35:19

or whatever to cover this. But anyway, all

35:22

I'm saying is it doesn't have to be a new law every

35:24

single time. We can actually have regulatory bodies. All

35:27

right. We have breaking

35:29

news as of earlier today. WWDC

35:32

has been announced. I lost a

35:34

bet with myself. It is actually Marco's birthday week,

35:37

which I should have guessed because it always is.

35:39

That's the thing. It usually isn't. It hasn't covered

35:41

my birthday, which is June 11. It hasn't covered

35:43

June 11 for like seven or eight years. It's

35:45

been a while. Oh, I feel like it always

35:47

then abutted your birthday one way or another. Yeah,

35:49

it's always the week before. I thought it would

35:51

be the, what the second or third or whatever

35:53

it was that Monday. I don't have a calendar

35:55

in front of me and turns out, nope,

35:57

it's June 10 to 14 and it's going to

35:59

be. just like the last couple of years, a

36:02

special event on Monday, June 10, and

36:05

you can sign up to get a free

36:07

ticket to go to that, which I have

36:09

done. I honestly don't know if I will

36:11

go even if I do get a ticket.

36:14

I probably would if I got a press pass, but if

36:16

I get a regular Schmo ticket, I don't know if I

36:18

would bother because it's considerable expense and we'll see. Marco,

36:21

did you even know that this was a

36:23

thing given how busy you've been and if

36:25

so, did you sign up? I did indeed

36:28

sign up. We'll see what happens. WBDEC

36:30

for me is always fun. Even

36:33

though business-wise, I

36:35

shouldn't be too excited about Apple stuff recently

36:37

because of all this court stuff and it's putting

36:40

a big damper on their images for me as

36:42

a developer and everything. That's all true. I

36:45

also just love their stuff and

36:47

WBDEC is always a really good

36:49

time for me. It's always

36:51

a very motivating time as well. I always

36:53

am there and I get all jazzed up

36:55

and all motivated to just go do

36:58

all the new stuff for Overcast that I need to do.

37:00

It's good for that as

37:02

well. Even though I continue

37:05

to have conflicting feelings about how

37:07

Apple treats the App Store

37:09

and their relationship with developers, I

37:12

still generally maintain

37:14

that that's a problem

37:16

with a very small number of people at the top.

37:19

WBDEC has a chance for you

37:22

to see all the work and

37:24

interact with all the other people in the

37:26

company, most of whom have, I would say,

37:28

healthier views of their relationship with developers. It's

37:33

the time when I get

37:35

to feel really good about what they're doing and about what

37:37

I'm doing as a developer on their platforms. Indeed.

37:40

I've signed up as well. We'll

37:42

see what happens. John, I'm sure that you signed up

37:44

to leave your house for any reason. I

37:47

did. I've been trying to go to WDC ever since it's

37:49

been at Apple Park. You did sign up? I'm sorry. I

37:51

always sign up. Every year. What? Haven't

37:53

you listened to me? I've been so annoyed that I haven't been able to go

37:55

here. I'm like, I really want to go to one at Apple Park. I've never,

37:57

well, I haven't been to Apple Park. But Officially, I've never been to Apple Park.

38:02

I've never been there for an Apples and let's

38:04

say that ah and side you I absolutely want

38:06

to attend are easy at Apple Park because I

38:09

have never tended to be with you more. I'm

38:11

not going to have a resume some sort of

38:13

like to travel by. Love going to it. I

38:15

hadn't even mostly likes is my third a fan

38:17

of both was it is good but still fun.

38:19

Ah so yeah I put my head and the

38:21

ring to hopefully get a ticket this year despite

38:23

missing out of and as we said apple that

38:25

I was invited to go the year my son

38:27

graduated from high school and the reason I remember.

38:30

That is for has declined because I had to

38:32

go to his graduate since have to but I

38:34

chose to go to his graduation resinous and of

38:36

literacy be they literally overlap and it was painful

38:39

read have to say thank you So much like

38:41

a matter of the press passes I guess I'm

38:43

actually invitation but enforcement the decline because my son

38:45

of graduate schools i went to my son's high

38:47

school graduation was never invited w every seguin assists

38:50

was that one t one I want to say

38:52

is every the a sophomore in college now so

38:54

and amount of mouth and well I on wednesday

38:56

than ever now but I think that wasn't You

38:59

and I both gotten. The relatively late invited

39:01

to find and will take it over know

39:03

invites but at that point like as he

39:05

Mcallister wasn't vaccinated and Saddam want to get

39:07

on a plane and.and you obviously had a

39:09

of much bigger thing to do worry about

39:11

than the Bbc and yeah since then we've

39:13

been ghost which said but it took a

39:15

sip am anyway I'm not one second I'm

39:18

getting a press pass I'm like I just

39:20

want like one of the regular lottery things

39:22

with and also to be fair to Apple

39:24

I was lucky enough to get a lottery

39:26

driven ticket to the read a resume San

39:28

Francisco and San Jose A lot. More than

39:30

should be allowed me. I can't say no, I'm

39:32

not going to move and I've been deprived. Absolutely

39:34

haven't been on saying that I would really like

39:36

to go to at least one de Vito receive

39:38

it up Park. So fingers crossed with this. yeah,

39:41

Yeah man. Health How wilde would it be

39:43

if we do well and it's pretty busy see

39:45

one way or the other this year that be

39:47

pretty cool and see a so we'll see what

39:50

happens. or Greg just reacted sweet. It's going to

39:52

be capital A. Absolutely Capital I Incredible. which I

39:54

really don't like. Reading into these things with that

39:56

seems pretty on the nose. out of you. don't

39:58

need to read into that. In a letter

40:00

to his up front as he can

40:03

possibly be the of and and out

40:05

of i didn't look at episode of

40:07

years he saw I don't think they

40:09

make any even. Saints

40:11

towards A I stuff. Of course we all know the

40:14

rumors had been a as tough as thereby we talked

40:16

about in the Virus episode of Twenty Twenty Four Hours

40:18

of the Your Apples for Your Way I sauce and

40:20

everything right And so he has Greg Garza react absolutely

40:22

one hundred percent confirming that are the studies have A

40:24

D C A eyes going to be a big things

40:27

are just in case you're wondering up as rumors are

40:29

true it's you know sometimes. We have these rumors

40:31

that go on for months and months and then

40:33

apple like has to do like subject leads to

40:35

undercut them like I'm wrong. The result is rumors

40:37

of hardware a deputy see and happen. Basically had

40:39

to say this gonna be no Harvard divinity sit

40:42

by since makes armory are disappointed on the day

40:44

or this is the opposite about this and as

40:46

stuff it's come and so I'm excited for that.

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42:48

going to do a little bit of car

42:50

related stuff. This isn't really neutral. This is

42:52

technology that's car adjacent or car adjacent technology.

42:55

You know what I mean. So don't don't

42:57

immediately skip to the next chapter. Give us

42:59

a chance. You might actually like it. And

43:02

the first thing we have to talk about is that people

43:04

are getting fed up with all the useless tech in their

43:06

cars. This was from July of 2023 apparently

43:08

that J.D. Power, which is a I don't know,

43:10

the first thing that we're going to do is

43:12

we're going to talk about the they kind of

43:14

do surveys and stuff of car owners. You know,

43:16

like user research and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So the

43:19

verge rights for the first time in 20

43:21

years of J.D. Power's car owner survey. There's

43:23

a consecutive year over year decline in satisfaction

43:26

with most of the IR directed toward

43:28

in car infotainment. The overall satisfaction amongst

43:30

car owners is 845 on

43:32

a 1000 point scale, a decrease

43:34

of two whole points from a year ago and

43:36

three points lower than in 2021. Only 56 percent

43:39

of owners prefer to use their vehicles built in

43:41

system to play audio down from 75. And

43:45

less than half of owners said they like using

43:47

their cars native controls for navigation voice recognition or

43:49

to make phone calls. Yeah. I

43:51

mean, I know all the electric car

43:53

people. Hi Marco are going to come out and

43:55

go. No, the electric car people get it. There's

43:57

so much better. But really, yeah. Anyway,

44:00

for all of us regular people with

44:02

regular cars, I can tell you that

44:04

I have never used an in-car infotainment

44:07

that was even half as good as

44:09

CarPlay. My Volkswagen is

44:11

pretty good, and I actually really like

44:13

my BMWs, even though even when I

44:15

bought it, it was relatively aged. But

44:18

that being said, it's just not as good as CarPlay.

44:20

So I am not surprised that these

44:22

auto manufacturers who really don't know what they're doing when

44:25

it comes to software, when they

44:27

try software, I'm not surprised it doesn't go terribly well.

44:30

They know what they're doing when it comes to pinching pennies, though. And

44:32

I feel like the headline here is not so much that

44:34

the score was awful or that the people don't

44:36

like the native stuff and prefer their phone stuff.

44:39

The headline is, in 28 years of doing this

44:41

stupid survey, and I don't put too much stock

44:43

in their surveys, but either way, in 28 years,

44:46

this is the first year-over-year decline. And

44:48

so that shows it's not just like, well, it fluctuates

44:50

from year to year, and who cares or whatever. That's

44:53

a long run with people generally saying each year,

44:55

they're a little bit more satisfied because the

44:58

tech inside their car would get better or whatever.

45:00

Now, year-over-year decline with

45:02

most of them signing dissatisfaction with the

45:05

infotainment, I see that squarely on

45:07

the automakers of, like you said Casey, A, not

45:09

being good at this, but B, seeing

45:11

as we've discussed and we're about to discuss further, dollar

45:14

signs when they say, we

45:16

can get rid of all of these buttons and

45:18

stuff and just put everything on touch screens. And

45:20

yeah, we're not very good at making touch screens,

45:22

but it'll save us so much money,

45:24

and it's futuristic. We'll love it. And

45:27

the fancy electric cars that actually

45:29

do have native in-car stuff, even

45:31

though Casey still wishes they had

45:33

carplay, they're mostly around the area,

45:36

with the exception of Tesla, the model why it sells

45:38

in huge numbers. And maybe that's

45:40

trying to bring up the average for everybody

45:42

else, but I can tell you outside of

45:44

Tesla and the other good EV makers, infotainment

45:46

situation on cars that regular people

45:48

buy has been getting worse and worse.

45:52

It's really no good. I mean, as much as I

45:54

snark on Marco and his electric cars, I

45:56

will absolutely admit and

45:59

concede that. that the Teslas of the

46:01

world and the Rivians of the world

46:03

have way better infotainment than pretty much

46:05

anything else that I've seen. For

46:08

me, I still don't particularly care

46:10

for it and I still would

46:12

vastly prefer carplay. Vastly prefer carplay.

46:14

But they are definitely

46:16

the best of the breed if you're not considering

46:18

Android Auto or carplay. But they're also, and Tesla

46:20

in particular, is one of the largest vendors for

46:22

this next item. Right, so European crash

46:24

tester Euro NCAP, I mean, I don't know

46:27

how to summarize it other than they're doing

46:29

the Lord's work. So they

46:32

say that carmakers must bring back physical controls or

46:36

they will pay the price in terms of ratings.

46:38

So this was covered on

46:40

Ars Technica earlier this month. Matthew

46:42

Avery, who is the director of

46:44

strategic development for the Automotive Safety

46:46

Organization European New Car Assessment Program

46:48

or Euro NCAP, says that

46:51

the overuse of touch screens is an

46:53

industry-wide problem, amen, with almost every

46:55

vehicle maker moving key controls onto

46:57

central touch screens, preach, obliging

47:00

drivers to take their eyes off the

47:02

road and raising the risk of distraction

47:04

crashes. Ah-ha, new Euro NCAP

47:06

tests due in 2026 will

47:09

encourage manufacturers to use separate physical controls

47:11

for basic functions in an intuitive manner,

47:13

limiting eyes off-road time and therefore promoting

47:15

safer driving. So Euro NCAP

47:17

wants to see the physical controls for

47:19

turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the

47:22

horn and any SOS features like the

47:24

European Union's e-call feature. Euro

47:26

NCAP is not a government regulator so it

47:29

has no power to mandate the car makers

47:31

use physical controls for these functions, but a

47:33

five-star safety score from Euro NCAP is a

47:35

strong selling point, similar to the IHS or

47:37

the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's coveted top

47:39

safety pick program here in the US. And

47:42

it is likely this pressure will be effective.

47:44

Just, I'm

47:46

here for this. I'm so incredibly here

47:48

for this. One of the great things

47:50

about it not being a government regulator,

47:53

so they're kind of making these assertions,

47:56

like there's no sort of burden of proof to

47:58

say, well, but is it actually safer to... physical

48:00

controls versus toxic controls? What have

48:02

you tested to show this is the case and all sorts of

48:04

other things? And I know that we've talked about stories in the

48:06

past where people have done studies and this to show that it

48:08

is safer. But in general, you look at this, you're like, oh,

48:11

common sense dictates that yeah, you can use a physical control without

48:13

looking at it much more easily. You can use touch screen without

48:15

looking at it. Even if things never move in the touchscreen, even

48:17

if they're always in the same place, you can't really feel for

48:19

the location. One of the things that I thought about when

48:22

considering the story was like, you know, we're just

48:24

trying to get out of winter here, although it's

48:26

still a little ice on my morning walks with

48:28

the dog. But anyway, in

48:30

theory, spring is coming. But during the whole winter, in

48:33

my wife's car, which has heated seats, I

48:36

wear gloves in the car, big winter

48:39

gloves, because my hands are always freezing. Anyway, I

48:42

can not only turn

48:45

the seat heaters to off low or

48:47

high for either one of the front

48:49

seats with my gloves on without looking,

48:51

I can also tell if they are

48:54

currently off low

48:56

or high for both seats in the dark

48:58

without looking at them with my winter gloves

49:00

on with my big, giant winter gloves on.

49:02

And you know why? Because they both have

49:04

rocker switches that are level when the thing

49:06

is off tilted forward when it's low and

49:08

tilted back when it's high. I can literally

49:10

feel for that without looking at it ever.

49:12

I've never looked at those switches. Why would

49:14

I look at them? Because they're down there.

49:16

They're like in front of the stick shift,

49:18

right? That's where they are on the central

49:20

console. So when I

49:22

look at this, I'm like, I don't have to see

49:25

your 17 scientific surveys to support

49:27

your new law. The government is saying

49:29

that you have to use physical controls.

49:31

When they say physical controls allow

49:33

drivers to take their eyes off the

49:36

road less, I look at that and

49:38

say, yes, that is obviously true. Now,

49:40

I'm not saying they shouldn't study this. They should.

49:42

The more evidence we have to say, no, we

49:44

didn't just assume this is true. We actually tested

49:46

it. But the common sense in me says, yeah,

49:48

in my experience, that's true. Common sense to me

49:50

says it's true. My experience using

49:53

touch screens, which at this point is vast,

49:55

says that it's true, right? And the fact

49:57

that they're not making a law but they're making a law.

50:00

They're just saying, hey, do what you want. But

50:02

we are a respected organization that rates cars based

50:04

on their safety. And we have decided, as part

50:06

of our ratings, which are not law. They're not

50:08

binding, right? We're not a government. We're not forcing

50:10

you to do anything. You do what you want.

50:12

But we think that here at Euro

50:14

NCAP that if you don't do this, you're going to get

50:17

dinged and you're not going to get a five-star score. And

50:19

we have those same things in the US where it's a

50:22

thing that is respected, that people look

50:24

up the crash safety ratings. We also have government

50:26

things to do that as well. It's

50:29

not legally binding. You don't have to do what they tell

50:32

you. We don't stop you from selling a car if it

50:34

doesn't get a five-star crash rating. You can still sell it.

50:36

But know that people are going to look this up. And

50:38

they're going to see that your car got a three-star instead

50:40

of a five-star. And maybe they're going to pick a competitor

50:42

car, which is why, as the story says, even

50:44

though this is not a law or a government

50:46

regulatory body, this kind of pressure will likely be

50:48

effective. Even on US car makers, because they're not

50:50

going to make a separate car for Europe with

50:52

physical controls and then one for the US with

50:55

just a touch screen, they're going to make one

50:57

car to save, again, to save costs. They don't

50:59

want to make two different cars for just

51:01

and just distance. So this will help us

51:03

in the same way that California's more stringent

51:05

emissions laws tend to help all cars in

51:07

the US, kind of, sort of, depending on

51:09

how annoying the car maker is about making

51:11

a California-only model. So I read this, and

51:13

I'm like, you go, Euro NCAP, because I

51:15

100% agree with this. I

51:18

think the reason car makers are doing it is to

51:20

save money. And I think it's a terrible decision. And

51:22

I think it is unsafe. But more importantly, it's annoying.

51:25

Yep, couldn't agree more. There

51:28

are certain things that you should be able

51:30

to do without looking away from the road.

51:32

I think adjusting the temperature, turn signals. I

51:34

could even say that hazards I could get

51:37

behind having to look at in

51:39

order to use. I think that's more like hazards, the type

51:41

of thing where maybe the touch screen is dead, because it's

51:43

not like an essential, you know what I mean? And so

51:45

I would say you need a physical thing that's like if

51:47

you had some kind of accident or whatever, and you got

51:49

to turn the hazards on because you're off the road and

51:51

your touch screen is dead, there should be a physical button

51:53

for that. Not that you need to see it when you're

51:55

driving. That's why that's required in the US. Yeah.

51:58

But yeah, I think most of the. most

52:01

of the things that this

52:03

European body is requesting are

52:05

very reasonable, turn signals, horn.

52:08

That all is very reasonable. And I think really the only car,

52:10

as far as I know, that has not

52:13

already complied with that is Tesla's new steering wheel

52:15

designs for many of their cars. Now, I thought,

52:17

John, weren't there some Ferraris that had turn signals

52:19

on the wheel or something like that? Yeah, the

52:21

new Ferraris have a turn. Well, so here's the

52:23

thing. I don't know the details of this, but

52:25

it says physical controls. The controls

52:27

in the Ferrari, I think, are capacitive touch.

52:30

But a lot of the

52:32

Tesla ones, I believe it's that stupid thing where

52:34

the entire thing is a button and where you

52:36

have your finger on it. We talked about it

52:38

before. The whole thing does move. So I think

52:41

Tesla's might be compliant, but it depends

52:43

on when they say physical controls, do they mean it has

52:45

to be a stock, or can it be a stupid button on

52:47

your steering wheel? Either

52:49

way, I think this is mostly currently aimed

52:51

at Tesla. I don't think many people

52:53

are going to change their

52:56

mind on their Ferrari purchase because Euro NCAP does

52:58

not give it a full safety rating. Yeah, and

53:00

a Ferrari, to be clear, does not care what

53:02

you're saying about the same button. They don't need

53:04

to. No one's cross shopping the Ferrari and say,

53:07

but it does have a five-star crash rating. Right,

53:09

yes, exactly. You know that

53:11

I, of the three of us, I'm the only one who

53:13

drives cars with touch

53:15

controls largely. But

53:17

I think old Tesla, the

53:19

Model S's that I had years

53:22

ago, and my current

53:24

Rivian, they, I

53:26

think, strike a fairly good overall

53:28

balance of there are

53:30

stocks and buttons for some critical

53:32

things, and then a lot of other stuff is

53:34

on the touchscreen. I'm fine with

53:37

that. And I think

53:39

what Euro NCAP is saying here

53:41

is not all touch controls are

53:43

bad. What they're saying is there

53:45

are certain controls that are so

53:47

important to safety and basic operation

53:49

that they need to be physical.

53:51

And the vehicles I've owned

53:53

have had those controls be physical. And

53:57

I agree that that is a very good balance. And

53:59

that's. That's part of the reason why I

54:01

don't like the modern direction Tesla has gone,

54:04

because they're going a little too far in

54:06

that direction for my taste. But

54:09

I think this is not a massive shift in

54:11

what we have to do or what they want

54:13

people to do. I think this

54:15

is a small course correction that mostly just applies to

54:17

Tesla and not many other makers. Well, I mean, it's

54:19

like the thing we talked about with the, whenever

54:22

we're talking about Volkswagen, that they had a

54:24

couple of generations of cars where they have

54:27

the climate controls on the touchscreen and their

54:29

customers complain so much that

54:31

they're changing it on all their models going forward.

54:33

But unfortunately, they just introduced a whole new line

54:35

of this year's model year crop of cars that

54:37

have the old system. And so it's like, no,

54:40

I know you're annoyed by it, but we totally

54:42

fix this. Not these cars, but

54:44

next time we show you a car. And

54:47

that stuff is not part of NCAP. They're not saying you

54:49

have to have climate controls according to this thing here, but

54:51

customers want that. And so customer feedback is

54:54

also a way to make this happen. And

54:56

it took however many years of VW shipping

54:58

cars with the climate controls in the touchscreen.

55:00

And it's not that much. It's only been

55:02

for the Mark 8 Golfs, as

55:05

far as I understand. But it's also unlike

55:07

the ID.4 and all the other things. That's

55:09

true. But it's only been a couple of

55:11

years. It's only one or two. Yeah, but

55:13

the reason they get dinged for it is

55:15

because they have the benefit of seeing every

55:17

other carmaker do this and get complained about.

55:19

And they didn't learn from it. It's like,

55:21

these are recent models, right? And climate controls

55:23

on the touchscreen, it's everywhere. BMW does it

55:25

on all their new cars. They are not

55:27

going back on it. Everybody does it. It

55:30

remains to be seen if anyone can complain about that, or

55:32

maybe they won't care because everyone just uses automatic climate

55:35

control in BMWs. But stuff like that, I

55:37

think, falls into the category of

55:40

foolish cost savings or foolish attempt

55:42

to be futuristic. The

55:44

worst one for me is aiming the air in

55:46

the Teslas with that stupid interface they've always

55:49

had. The way it's just a

55:51

let me point event. It's just so much better

55:53

in every possible way. But you've got to save

55:55

those $0.02 on the little, or whatever, the $0.50

55:57

on the little moving vent pieces. just

56:00

drives me bonkers, right? So consumer feedback

56:03

will give you some of this, but

56:05

apparently consumer feedback isn't sufficient to fix

56:08

all the problems rapidly. And this is, like Marcus said, this

56:10

is where the essential stuff, I don't

56:12

know what the details are, but I really do think that

56:15

things like turn signals being buttons

56:17

on a steering wheel, then the steering wheel turns

56:19

and you have to kind of find them, it's

56:21

just gonna make people either use their blinkers less

56:24

frequently or less adeptly, or

56:26

not use them at all, like

56:28

BMW drivers. Because the stock interface, the turn signals, the

56:30

fact that the stock is always in the same place

56:32

and doesn't move and you can just hit it, like

56:34

that is an amazing interface. The stock interface or turn

56:36

signals, the traditional one where it stays up when you

56:39

push it to go to the right and stays down

56:41

when you push it to go to the left, that

56:43

stock interface has amazing ergonomics.

56:45

It's so easy to do, it's

56:47

so unconscious, it's so clear what

56:49

you're in the process of doing, the little blinking

56:52

light on the instrument cluster just to show the

56:54

arrow where it's like, it's tried and true for

56:56

a reason. I would say the same thing, by

56:58

the way, is about round steering

57:00

wheels, Round is the good

57:02

tip for a thing that rotates, just FYI, no

57:04

one wants to make round steering wheels anymore. Hopefully

57:06

that will come around, but we'll see. I don't

57:09

feel that strongly about flat-bottomed wheels, my Volkswagen's wheel

57:12

has a flat bottom, and it's fine, I'm not saying you're

57:14

wrong for the record, it's fine. But now they're

57:16

flat everywhere, have you seen, Casey, they're not flat

57:18

bottom anymore. Like yours is a circle with a

57:20

flat bottom, now they're all like hexagons. Yeah, no,

57:22

no, no, I know, I think my dad's Corvette,

57:24

if I'm not mistaken, is a flat top and

57:26

a flat bottom. Yeah, it does, and they're getting

57:29

even funkier, wheels, man, wheels. The big

57:31

thing about picking which controls me do we physically

57:34

know much about, and it brings up a thing that I brought

57:36

up when we were talking about touch screens years ago. It's

57:38

like, okay, why don't you just put the steering wheel on the

57:40

touch screen? And everyone's like, well

57:42

that's ridiculous, steering wheel on the touch screen, aside

57:45

from all the people who think the cars are gonna drive themselves.

57:47

No, whatever, put the steering wheel on the touch screen, but then

57:49

a few years later, Tesla put the frigging gear selector on the

57:51

touch screen, right? Well why not put the steering wheel on the

57:53

touch screen, so great. Everyone has

57:55

their limits, like okay, I'm with you right up until you put

57:57

the steering wheel on the touch screen, I'm like, well good. So

58:00

now we know there is a limit, we're just arguing over

58:02

where it is. And I think Euro NCAP is gonna help

58:04

move that line back a little bit. I sure hope so.

58:06

I don't know. Aaron's car

58:08

has climate control on the screen

58:11

and it is fine,

58:13

but it is not fun to use.

58:15

Like I would much rather be able

58:17

to have a dial for the temperature

58:20

and preferably for heated seats like a button

58:22

or a rocker or something like that. Both

58:25

heated seats and wheel and temperature, all of that

58:27

is on the touchscreen. And I really don't care

58:29

for it. And I mean, and I mostly

58:31

like her infotainment. It's pretty good.

58:33

And honestly, the only time we use

58:36

CarPlay is generally speaking if I'm driving

58:38

the car, which is pretty rare. She

58:40

does occasionally use CarPlay, but very infrequently. She

58:43

generally just uses the infotainment and leaving aside

58:45

the fact that it takes a calendar year

58:47

to start the infotainment. It's actually

58:49

pretty good, but I

58:52

absolutely am driven bananas by

58:54

having the HVAC controls in

58:57

the touchscreen. I don't care for it at

58:59

all. It is so much nicer in my

59:01

car to just reach down to where the dial, I

59:03

know that where that dial will be. And I just

59:05

twist a little bit. And you can feel for it.

59:07

That's the important thing. It's like, oh, but it's always

59:09

in the same place in the touchscreen, I know just

59:11

where it will be. Okay, that helps, but you can't

59:14

feel for it. Like in the dark or

59:16

to adjust, to micro adjust your reach if you

59:18

do a spur off by a little bit. Well,

59:20

but you know, in defense of these controls on

59:22

touch screens, I've driven the Model S,

59:24

I've driven the Riffy. Both of those have

59:27

almost all of the HVAC, it's not all of the HVAC

59:29

stuff. I think both of them, all the HVAC stuff

59:31

is on the touchscreen. I did have

59:33

some issues with the Model S when

59:36

that Facebook designer took over and redid their

59:38

whole design and did things like hide the

59:40

defroster inside of a menu. But

59:42

that was later in the ownership of that car. And for

59:45

the first few years of owning that car, that was not

59:47

a problem and it was great. I would

59:49

caution you not to rule out the concept

59:52

when it is possible to design a

59:54

good one. In the sense that like,

59:56

if for instance, suppose the iPhone hadn't

59:58

happened yet. And we... We were all using

1:00:01

weird advanced versions of

1:00:03

Blackberries and they put out touchscreen

1:00:06

things and it's like, well, touchscreen

1:00:09

phones just don't work. And

1:00:11

the real problem might be that the touchscreen phone

1:00:14

that we had, that we were accustomed to or

1:00:16

that we had been exposed to, was

1:00:18

not a good touchscreen phone or didn't have a

1:00:20

good touchscreen design. I think this is a bad

1:00:22

example, Marco, because we look at our phones when we

1:00:24

use them. No, but this is not a bad example

1:00:26

because you can account for a lot of the flaws

1:00:29

of your experience, like Casey, your experience with the Volvo

1:00:31

one. What you keep

1:00:33

saying is it's poorly designed, it's

1:00:35

slow, it's cumbersome. Those

1:00:38

are not inherent flaws of touchscreens.

1:00:41

That is flaws of that touchscreen system.

1:00:43

But it is possible to make good

1:00:45

touch-screen controls for many of these things.

1:00:47

And in some ways, the trade-offs end

1:00:49

up being better. Like for instance, the

1:00:51

vent thing that you hate so much,

1:00:53

John, where you get to aim the

1:00:55

vents on modern Teslas. I didn't

1:00:57

have that on my Model S. I do have that on the

1:00:59

Rivian. It's fine. There

1:01:02

are certain advantages, there are certain disadvantages. It's

1:01:04

fine and a lot of

1:01:07

people with Tesla Model 3 that have that love

1:01:09

them. It's fine. Like many of

1:01:11

these differences are just different and there are

1:01:13

pluses and minuses, but if you've only ever,

1:01:16

if you've never really lived with one, you

1:01:18

might still only ever be in the transition

1:01:20

learning phase, this thing sucks phase

1:01:22

instead of like, I actually am used to this

1:01:24

now and I appreciate what's better about it. Or

1:01:26

if you've only been exposed to a bad

1:01:29

one like Casey's Volvo,

1:01:31

like you know, that maybe it's possible that

1:01:33

there's good ones out there that you just

1:01:35

haven't lived with. Because I can say like

1:01:38

as the only one of us that has

1:01:40

actually owned two touch, actually three touchscreen cars,

1:01:42

I don't hate all

1:01:44

these climate controls that define the touchscreen when it

1:01:46

is properly designed. When the

1:01:48

defroster is always in that one spot

1:01:50

and always available, which it is on the Rivian and it

1:01:52

was for most of the Model S, when

1:01:55

they are well designed, it's fine. It is

1:01:57

totally fine and there actually are some benefits.

1:02:00

You just highlighted one of the problems with it, which

1:02:02

is that you bought the car and it was fine,

1:02:04

and then there was a software update. It

1:02:06

was buried in the menu, and that doesn't happen with

1:02:08

a button, so that's one downside. Obviously, there's an upside

1:02:10

to that too, which is they can fix things that

1:02:13

are annoying later on and they can't move a button.

1:02:15

And honestly, and as much as that drove me nuts

1:02:17

with the Tesla when they did that, I mean, that

1:02:19

was just a bad design. But as

1:02:21

much as that drove me nuts, I

1:02:23

also did benefit quite a lot from

1:02:25

Tesla adding features and making improvements over

1:02:27

the time that I owned the vehicle.

1:02:30

We're not saying touch screens are bad and they shouldn't be

1:02:32

in cars. We're just saying what you put on them. Again,

1:02:34

what we were just talking about was – we're talking

1:02:37

about HVAC specifically. None of us were talking about the

1:02:39

drive mode selector or the place where you program in

1:02:41

your personalized driving thing where you pick the steering field

1:02:43

and the regen and blah, blah, blah. Obviously, the touch

1:02:45

screens are great for all of that. We know what

1:02:47

their strengths are, right? But even the thing where you're

1:02:49

saying like, well, you just haven't tried a good one,

1:02:52

that is another condemnation of

1:02:54

using touch screens for things like vents

1:02:56

because we weren't in a situation where

1:02:58

we didn't have a tried and true

1:03:00

solution that everybody could do. Nobody

1:03:03

was confused for the most part. Most

1:03:05

car makers were not confused about how to do a

1:03:07

vent that you could point the airflow out. Pretty much

1:03:09

all the car makers did a thing and it was

1:03:11

competent. Enter touch screens and now suddenly a thing that

1:03:13

we had a solution to on every car from inexpensive

1:03:15

to expensive, now it's chaos and it's like nobody knows

1:03:17

how to do it anymore. It's like, wait a second,

1:03:19

we did know how to do it. It's called a

1:03:21

vent and you pointed to people and only the good

1:03:24

expensive car makers know how to do it. You took

1:03:26

a thing that was a solved problem across the entire

1:03:28

industry and you turned it into a thing where, well,

1:03:30

you just have to make sure you get the right

1:03:32

one. You must have just got a bad one. That's

1:03:34

one damn thing. The second thing I'm going to say

1:03:36

about your phone example and the Blackberry thing is, like

1:03:38

I said, we're meant to look at our phones.

1:03:40

In fact, when we use our

1:03:43

phones, we're looking at them so much so that the

1:03:45

fact that we do have to look at our phones

1:03:47

to use them is used as an example of why

1:03:49

you should not use your phone while you're driving because

1:03:51

when you're driving, you have to look at the road.

1:03:54

That's how much you have to look at the phone. It's

1:03:56

a thing that you look at. So the things that we're

1:03:58

complaining about for touch screens and HVAC. That's not

1:04:00

a weakness of the phone because when you go to

1:04:02

use it, you're looking at it. So you don't have

1:04:04

to wonder where the button is. You're always looking at

1:04:06

it. That's how you use a phone. Whereas how you

1:04:08

drive a car is looking at the windshield of the

1:04:10

road. And when I want to turn on the

1:04:13

seat heaters or figure out if they're on lower or higher or

1:04:15

whatever, I should be able to do that without

1:04:18

taking my eyes off the road at all with winter gloves

1:04:20

on. Which means if it was like a passive button or

1:04:22

something else, there's no way I could do that. I could

1:04:24

feel through the winter gloves what position

1:04:26

the switch is already in and adjust the position

1:04:28

I want. And I would say seat heaters is

1:04:31

a pretty esoteric feature of the car. It's not

1:04:33

like turn signals or whatever. And the fact that

1:04:35

we can do that with seat heaters with the

1:04:37

amazing technology called switches, that I

1:04:39

don't want to give up for the hopes that

1:04:41

someone can find something on

1:04:43

a touch screen that's almost as good, but only

1:04:45

if you buy a very expensive, very fancy car.

1:04:47

Like I said, touch screens have huge advantages. They

1:04:50

should be used for all the things that are

1:04:52

impossible to do with buttons or are way worse

1:04:54

with buttons. But there are enough things

1:04:56

that that is not the case on. And HVAC,

1:04:59

I don't think I would, I'm

1:05:01

not going to not buy another car, a new car, because

1:05:03

I have HVAC on touch screen. In fact, I'm probably going

1:05:05

to have no choice, right? That's not actually a big deal

1:05:07

to me. But for me, if I could choose where

1:05:09

to draw the line, I would make HVAC physical, right?

1:05:12

But the line that your end cap is drawing

1:05:14

is like turn signals, the

1:05:16

steering wheel, wipers. And I

1:05:18

totally agree with that. That stuff is so

1:05:20

much more essential. Like not being able to,

1:05:22

having to fiddle to turn on the wipers,

1:05:24

oh, just use automatic wipers that work perfectly.

1:05:26

Well, you must not have good ones. The good

1:05:28

automatic ones work well. Like no, wipers are

1:05:30

a solid problem. Again, it's a stock. Or

1:05:34

however you're going to do it. A twisty thing on

1:05:36

the stock or a stock itself. I want

1:05:38

to be able to get to the wipers ASAP. I want to be

1:05:40

able to know how to adjust them without thinking. I don't want to

1:05:42

have to use a touch screen for that. So I'm

1:05:44

cheering on your end cap. But HVAC, my

1:05:47

preferences were not to be there. Casey doesn't

1:05:50

like his touch screen HVAC, but I am

1:05:52

perfectly willing to believe the touch screen HVAC

1:05:54

will not, or is not the end of the world, will

1:05:56

not drive me completely insane. But we'll see when I get one. Yeah,

1:06:00

I think you might eat those words at

1:06:02

some point, but we'll see.

1:06:05

I mean, and I do take Marco's broader

1:06:07

point that, you know, well done infotainment can

1:06:09

be not that bad, but I don't know.

1:06:11

There are certain things that I'm willing to

1:06:13

futz around on a screen for and certain

1:06:15

things I'm not. And for me, HVAC is

1:06:17

one of those things. I do not want

1:06:19

to go to a screen for it. I

1:06:21

don't doubt that the Rivian screen is way

1:06:23

better and works much faster and better and

1:06:25

so on and so forth. Ultimately,

1:06:27

particularly when I'm driving, I don't want to

1:06:29

have to look anywhere. And yes, I know

1:06:31

that these buttons don't move within the screen,

1:06:33

but because there's nothing physical to feel for,

1:06:35

I will never be 100% sure where

1:06:38

these buttons are. And you have to look to check state.

1:06:40

That's why I keep talking about the heat, the seat heating

1:06:42

buttons. I can check the state of it. Is it already

1:06:44

on? Is it already on high? Is it already on low?

1:06:46

Is my daughter in the passenger seat? Is hers on high?

1:06:48

And I'm going to need to turn it off while she's

1:06:50

going to complain that she's getting too hot, right? Like that.

1:06:53

I can check that with my gloved fingers in the dark

1:06:55

without looking. All right,

1:06:57

so there's one more piece of automotive related

1:06:59

news. Mark

1:07:02

Germin wrote, what is this, on my birthday

1:07:04

actually, that Apple's new carplay, this

1:07:06

is the thing where they like take over the

1:07:08

instrument cluster and the whole rig and roll, is

1:07:11

their last hope to crack the auto industry. Germin

1:07:13

writes, the concept for the new carplay, known as Project

1:07:16

Ironheart within Apple, was to take the system to the

1:07:18

next level by fully integrating it into vehicles. It would

1:07:20

take over more screens in a car's instrument cluster as

1:07:22

well as features like the radio and air conditioning system.

1:07:24

This is a big change from the current carplay

1:07:26

interface, which is more focused on letting you

1:07:28

operate Apple services and doesn't handle most of

1:07:30

the car's controls. At

1:07:33

this point, we should probably do a

1:07:35

quick refresher on what the equivalent system

1:07:37

is from Google. So I'm going to

1:07:39

start, and John just interrupt me when

1:07:41

I go off the rails here, but

1:07:43

Google for a long time has had

1:07:45

Android Auto, which is their equivalent

1:07:47

of CarPlay. This is how you would mess

1:07:50

with your music app or your podcasting app

1:07:52

and so on. It's how you

1:07:54

project your phone onto car screens. So if

1:07:56

you have an Android phone and your car

1:07:59

has Android Auto, your Android phone can project

1:08:01

its screen onto one or more screens in

1:08:03

the car. And that's what CarPlay does, it

1:08:05

projects your iPhone screen onto one or more

1:08:07

screens in your car. Exactly. So

1:08:10

it may not be exactly one to one with CarPlay, but it's

1:08:12

effectively the same thing. However

1:08:14

in the last few years, they've come

1:08:16

out with Android Automotive. This is different

1:08:18

than Android Auto that we just described,

1:08:20

Android Automotive. And Android Automotive

1:08:22

is, I don't know how to appropriately describe

1:08:24

it, but it's the infotainment system that the

1:08:27

car is running, irrespective of whether or not

1:08:29

a phone is connected, right? It's an operating

1:08:31

system. Like basically you can think of it

1:08:33

this way, oh my car runs Linux. Well

1:08:35

just say, oh my car runs Android Automotive,

1:08:38

which is Linux based, whatever. Like Android Automotive

1:08:41

is running on your car. It's not running on your phone.

1:08:43

You don't have to have a phone at all. You can

1:08:45

get in any car that's running Android Automotive and when you

1:08:47

start the thing up and the infotainment screen lights up and

1:08:49

lets you pick radio stations and do whatever you're going to

1:08:52

do, the operating system that those

1:08:54

screens are projecting from is Android Automotive and it

1:08:56

is running on the car. It is not related

1:08:58

to your phone at all. You can have Android

1:09:00

Automotive in your car, and many

1:09:03

manufacturers do, and Android Automotive

1:09:05

cars can support CarPlay and

1:09:08

Android Auto, right? So the operating

1:09:10

system of the car, Android, not the whole

1:09:12

car, but just the infotainment thing is Android

1:09:14

Automotive, and that supports CarPlay. When

1:09:16

you say, oh I really wish they would add

1:09:18

CarPlay support to my car, chances are good that

1:09:20

your car is running Android Automotive and when you

1:09:22

say you want them to add CarPlay support, you

1:09:24

want them to add CarPlay support to the Android

1:09:26

Automotive operating system that is running on your car

1:09:29

because that's how your car is able to project

1:09:31

itself onto the screens in your car because the

1:09:33

OS that your car is running, which is Android

1:09:35

Automotive, lets that happen. Exactly,

1:09:37

and actually my parents just got a new

1:09:39

Volvo and their new

1:09:42

Volvo has Android Automotive as the

1:09:44

infotainment system and I've used it

1:09:46

for literally 30 seconds, but that

1:09:49

being said, it was so

1:09:51

much faster and nicer than our, what is

1:09:53

it, like almost 10 year old, 6 year

1:09:55

old, 7 year old Volvo at this point,

1:09:58

it was so much more. response has been so

1:10:00

much nicer. But again, that was only 30 seconds of

1:10:03

use. Some might have a different opinion over time. But

1:10:05

my understanding from those who have

1:10:07

used Android Automotive, like our friend Jelly has

1:10:09

a Polestar sedan. I forget which one that

1:10:11

is, the Polestar 2, I think. And

1:10:14

Jelly has had very complimentary things to say

1:10:16

about Android Automotive as well. So anyway, coming

1:10:19

back to Mark Gurman, Polestar, there you

1:10:21

go. Porsche BMW, excuse me, Porsche, BMW,

1:10:23

Volkswagen, Ford, Lucid, Stellantis, which is, you

1:10:25

know, Chrysler, etc. And General Motors now

1:10:28

offer cars with the Android Automotive operating

1:10:30

system built in. After just seven years,

1:10:32

Android Automotive is the market leader with

1:10:34

an estimated 35% of

1:10:37

the car operating system market. The new car

1:10:39

plays a response to that. Apple hopes it

1:10:41

can win over users and automakers with a slicker

1:10:43

interface and greater customization. There's one big difference,

1:10:45

though. The new car plays still runs on

1:10:47

the phone and isn't a new OS embedded

1:10:49

in the vehicle. So we need to stop right

1:10:51

here. This is not a place where a Gurman's analysis as

1:10:53

usual makes me just my head

1:10:55

spin like how in the world

1:10:57

is the new car player response to an operating system that

1:10:59

runs in the car? But the difference is it's not an

1:11:02

operating system that runs in the car. I

1:11:04

mean, it's not the same

1:11:06

thing. What I'm saying is the new car play,

1:11:08

the one that protects itself on all the different

1:11:10

screens still runs on your phone. You still need

1:11:12

an iPhone and needs to be in the car

1:11:14

and needs to be connected either wired or wirelessly

1:11:17

to make the new car play experience, which means

1:11:19

that all these cars need to be in the

1:11:21

car. So you have some operating system that runs

1:11:23

them when you don't have a phone because you

1:11:25

can't even get into them and drive without an

1:11:27

iPhone or without any phone. Like the car should

1:11:29

work, right? So is it a response? Maybe you

1:11:31

can say yes because Apple thinks this is the

1:11:33

way it should work. But the bottom line is

1:11:36

that this new car play does absolutely

1:11:38

nothing to stop car manufacturers from using Android

1:11:40

automotive because how the heck are you going

1:11:42

to do this new car play without some

1:11:44

kind of operating system on the car? And

1:11:47

the car needs to have a speedometer and stuff

1:11:49

when you're not in it with your iPhone. I

1:11:53

object to this entire paragraph, but I kind of

1:11:55

get what he's trying to say, but pick different

1:11:57

words. German

1:12:00

Apple Explorer turning the new CarPlay into a

1:12:02

full operating system that runs on cars directly.

1:12:05

But the approach would have worked best with

1:12:07

Apple-designed chips and other proprietary technologies like displays.

1:12:09

It wasn't seen as practical to install that in

1:12:12

cars. Another pause now. So

1:12:15

I get what he's saying here too, but

1:12:17

I would say that the counter example, the

1:12:21

Apple counter example is

1:12:23

Apple TV, right? They sell a little

1:12:25

hockey puck with Apple Silicon in it that

1:12:27

will run tvOS and it will

1:12:29

do Apple TV plus and a bunch of

1:12:31

other apps and stuff too. But

1:12:34

also, you can buy a TV and watch

1:12:36

Apple TV plus on it. And

1:12:38

there's no Apple Silicon in that TV. It's some

1:12:40

garbage-y media tech chip in there, right? When

1:12:43

it comes to it, Apple can get

1:12:45

its software onto non-Apple Silicon

1:12:47

with much worse processors and these weird

1:12:49

things. They have to deal with all

1:12:51

these different manufacturers, but when it's important,

1:12:54

they do it. And it's important

1:12:56

to get more people to watch and pay for Apple TV plus.

1:12:58

So now every time you buy a TV, it's got Netflix

1:13:00

built in, it's got Apple TV plus built in, it's got all

1:13:02

these things built in. And that is

1:13:04

not Apple Silicon in there. And

1:13:06

there's no Apple proprietary hardware in there making

1:13:08

that happen. It is just plain old. The

1:13:11

smart TVs are essentially little computers, by the

1:13:13

way, a lot of them are on Android.

1:13:16

And Apple wants to be everywhere, so it makes sure

1:13:18

that it writes a little Apple TV plus app that

1:13:20

works there. So I

1:13:22

understand why Apple would prefer that all these

1:13:25

cars have Apple Silicon in them to give

1:13:27

really good experience. And I would imagine that

1:13:29

the iPhone that people are projecting from is

1:13:31

significantly more powerful and better tuned to iOS

1:13:33

than any car is going to be. But

1:13:36

when it's important, if you actually want to be

1:13:38

everywhere in the market like they did with Apple

1:13:40

TV plus, it's a thing that Apple is actually

1:13:43

willing to do sometimes. I take your point,

1:13:45

but I don't think it's Apple's to Apple's. In

1:13:47

the case of an infotainment system, it would

1:13:49

still probably, particularly for gauges, need to be a

1:13:51

real-time OS, which has very specific constraints. I

1:13:53

don't think any gauges are real-time OS, do

1:13:55

you think? Do you think the gauges are on

1:13:58

by real-time OS? I think they have. have to

1:14:00

be. I mean they're certainly not in car play. That's

1:14:02

the thing is that, well, you mean in

1:14:05

the new car play? Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, in the

1:14:07

new car play. Yeah, I don't know. But I think if

1:14:09

you were the car manufacturer and Apple comes to you and says,

1:14:11

hey, we'll take over the gauge cluster for you. I

1:14:14

would say like, look, you need to have

1:14:16

something that's reliable in that's real time, you

1:14:18

know, in every definition of the word. I

1:14:21

don't think the gauge cluster in Markos Rivian is real

1:14:23

time OS. I don't think the gauge cluster in any

1:14:25

car, I mean, every car is an LCD gauge cluster

1:14:27

now. I don't think it's a real time OS running

1:14:29

that. I think that is just the same. It can

1:14:32

crash at any time. It's not a big deal

1:14:34

thing that is running the entertainment. It's basically Android.

1:14:36

Android automotive is running those instrument clusters and it's

1:14:38

not real time. Didn't we get some feedback a

1:14:40

few months back that they had to be real

1:14:42

time in the US? Yeah, again, I don't know

1:14:44

the details, but my guess would be that's not

1:14:47

what they're currently doing. I mean, and

1:14:49

with Apple doing it with the iPhone thing, Apple

1:14:51

hasn't announced anything related to that. So we

1:14:53

can actually have this discussion recently with somebody

1:14:55

about Apple Vision Pro and the R1 chip

1:14:57

we've talked about before about is it running a real time

1:14:59

OS or is it not? And still,

1:15:02

no one from Apple has officially come down

1:15:04

from on high and given a secret anonymous

1:15:06

feedback to let us know definitively what is risen

1:15:08

real time. There's supposedly some real time subsystem that's

1:15:11

happening somewhere in iOS, but iOS itself is

1:15:13

not a real time operating system. And I

1:15:16

don't know. But anyway,

1:15:18

a lot of the stuff like you don't bottom line

1:15:20

is if your instrument cluster goes black, the car continues

1:15:22

to work. Yeah, it's bad that you can't see the

1:15:24

speedometer and all that other stuff and it shouldn't be

1:15:27

that way permanently. But it's not as essential as like

1:15:29

the steer by wire system, right or your brakes or

1:15:31

the brake by wire systems. You know what I mean?

1:15:34

Yeah, that's a good point. And I guess what

1:15:36

I was eventually driving out was if I was

1:15:38

Apple and I was building a car with Project

1:15:40

Titan and I built a real time OS, I

1:15:42

probably would have built that real time OS against

1:15:44

some sort of Apple Silicon and it wouldn't surprise

1:15:46

me if they didn't particularly want to have to

1:15:49

build that same OS against a different kind of

1:15:51

silicon and it's not impossible, I would assume, but

1:15:53

it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't want to.

1:15:55

And so that's kind of how they back themselves

1:15:57

into this corner. There's nothing I don't

1:15:59

know. Android Automotive have a real-time kernel

1:16:02

or the ability to run real-time processes

1:16:04

for its instrument cluster

1:16:06

stuff? I don't know. I don't think

1:16:08

I'd be able to figure that out without having to give FutureMarco a whole bunch

1:16:10

of work. We'll presumably get some

1:16:12

feedback. Maybe Sam of Wellson is still listening.

1:16:15

Yeah. It would be interesting

1:16:17

to clarify technically if we will know when we

1:16:19

say real-time operating system, what does that mean or

1:16:21

whatever. It's basically like if you

1:16:23

think about the example from my childhood is operating

1:16:25

systems that would run on space probes, right? The

1:16:28

thing that distinguishes them is that when

1:16:31

you set something up and you say this program runs

1:16:33

and does this thing, it always

1:16:35

does things according to guaranteed

1:16:38

deadlines. There's no

1:16:40

scenario in which some operation that's supposed to

1:16:42

get done at the very latest

1:16:44

by this particular time will occasionally take a

1:16:47

little bit longer. How could that happen?

1:16:49

Well, for example, say your program's running along and all

1:16:51

of a sudden some other process starts and it allocates

1:16:53

a bunch of memory and then when some instruction goes

1:16:55

in your program, your thing is supposed to be done

1:16:57

already but it's like, oops, this

1:16:59

page was swapped out and now

1:17:01

I got to pull it back in from swap so this

1:17:03

operation took twice as long as it normally does. Sorry about

1:17:05

that. Now you just missed your deadline. Real-time

1:17:07

operating systems for things like space probes or whatever, if they

1:17:10

missed their deadline for anything, it's

1:17:12

a complete failure. Absolutely

1:17:15

100% complete failure. It's not like, oopsie or whatever.

1:17:17

That's not how our computers work now. If you do something like

1:17:19

run a benchmark and then you start

1:17:22

up some other program and start rendering in

1:17:25

the background, your benchmark score will go down

1:17:27

because your other process is taking resources from

1:17:29

it. Real-time operating systems allow processes to reserve

1:17:31

essentially, I am always going to

1:17:33

get these resources. My things are always going to

1:17:35

happen on this time schedule guaranteed by the operating

1:17:37

system. There's nothing anything else on

1:17:39

this system can do to make it so that

1:17:42

I don't hit my deadlines. That

1:17:44

is important for things like space probes that are going

1:17:48

hundreds of thousands of miles an hour or whatever and they

1:17:50

have to make split-second decisions. You can't have

1:17:52

a situation in which, oops, some other process ran and

1:17:54

your thing ran a little slower and now you missed

1:17:56

your deadline. As

1:17:58

you can imagine, that's not important. for phones, computers,

1:18:00

all these systems that we have where, yeah, you know

1:18:03

if you run two things, one

1:18:05

thing will go slower than if you're running it by

1:18:07

itself, right? That's why we say if you're running benchmarks,

1:18:09

make sure you don't have other processes running, make sure

1:18:11

time machine isn't running in the background, because the things

1:18:13

we do with our computers do not get reserved, unperturbable,

1:18:17

guaranteed resources with deadlines on all of

1:18:19

them. That's not the way we want

1:18:21

our computers to work. But

1:18:24

if you have something that's supposed to control like a

1:18:26

machine hurtling down the road that could kill somebody, it's

1:18:29

a good idea to have some part

1:18:31

of that system be, if it's running

1:18:33

software, be real time such that you're

1:18:35

never surprised by like something

1:18:38

taking twice as long as expected or some

1:18:40

other process spinning up and making your things

1:18:42

slower and delaying something. And

1:18:45

so that's what we mean when we need real time

1:18:47

operating system. I'll put a link in the shout outs

1:18:49

to the Wikipedia page, which there are other various more

1:18:51

vague definitions of it, but this is what we're talking

1:18:53

about. Things happen on a guaranteed time, resources are guaranteed,

1:18:56

and nothing else that happens on the system can

1:18:58

perturb those. And that is totally inappropriate

1:19:00

for the thing that lets you play podcasts over

1:19:02

Bluetooth in your car. So that's not going to

1:19:04

be a real time operating system. That is not

1:19:07

essential functionality. Spinometer, is that

1:19:09

essential? It would be useful if

1:19:11

you wanted to be as real time as a

1:19:13

physical spinometer. It used to be in the really

1:19:15

old days, but in the end, the car still

1:19:17

works without it. But when we say drive by

1:19:19

wire and brake by wire, what we mean is

1:19:21

lots of modern cars have a brake pedal that

1:19:23

is not physically connected in any way

1:19:25

to the braking system. It's just basically like an

1:19:28

electronic switch that sends a signal to a computer

1:19:30

that actuates the braking system. And they have steer

1:19:32

by wire systems where your steering wheel is not

1:19:34

connected to the front wheels physically, but instead it

1:19:36

is connected to a thing that senses its position

1:19:38

and then activates a bunch of electronic motors. And

1:19:40

those those probably don't even run an

1:19:42

operating system at all, really, speak of,

1:19:45

it's probably just embedded systems or whatever.

1:19:47

But if there was any kind of

1:19:49

involvement of any operating system or a

1:19:51

kernel involved in those systems, it's probably

1:19:53

a real time operating system because you

1:19:55

want pretty hard guarantees that when you

1:19:57

turn the wheel under some very controlled

1:19:59

deadline. the wheels of your

1:20:01

car will also react in turn. Mm-hmm.

1:20:04

Real-time follow-up from Hairline 1 in the

1:20:06

chat. Apparently Android Auto

1:20:08

is not real-time. And Hairline

1:20:10

1 provided a page where

1:20:13

there's a compare and contrast

1:20:15

between QNX, which is the

1:20:17

kind of de facto standard real-time OS that's used in

1:20:19

most cars, versus Android Auto,

1:20:21

and that's one of the cons for Android Automotive.

1:20:23

That's not real-time. And then as I was clicking

1:20:26

around, looking at QNX a little bit, it

1:20:28

was written by two different people, Dan Dodge and Gordon

1:20:30

Bell. And apparently Dan Dodge,

1:20:33

as per Wikipedia, announced his retirement from

1:20:35

QNX in 2015. And

1:20:37

then in mid to late 2016, it was

1:20:39

reported that he joined Apple to work on

1:20:41

the Project Titan thing, which

1:20:43

I did not know. So there you go. I wonder what he's doing now.

1:20:46

All right. So just to finish out this

1:20:48

never-ending topic on CarPlay, Mark Armin writes, the

1:20:51

limited rollout of the new version of CarPlay

1:20:53

is focused on very high-end cars. In

1:20:55

fact, the only model confirmed to be getting the new CarPlay is

1:20:57

the Aston Martin DB12, which costs roughly $245,000

1:21:00

and up. Porsche

1:21:02

hasn't said which model or models are getting the feature. Gurman

1:21:05

says, I'm told that Apple has no plan in place to make

1:21:07

money from the new software, as with the current version of CarPlay,

1:21:09

the company isn't looking to charge users for it or

1:21:11

force car manufacturers to pay to install it.

1:21:14

Just for the record, Apple, if you are listening,

1:21:16

if you would like to send me a DB12

1:21:18

to test for a while, I am

1:21:21

happy to do that at no cost to

1:21:23

you, and I will happily feature that car

1:21:25

and that experience on a full

1:21:27

episode of this podcast. I promise that to you. They

1:21:29

won't give you a press pass at any of their events, but they'll send

1:21:31

you a $245,000 car. That's

1:21:34

right. I'm here for it. I've waited. They knew

1:21:36

what was coming. They knew I needed to build

1:21:38

up the credits, so to speak, so I could

1:21:40

get this. This is my moment. This is my

1:21:42

time to shine. Please send me the DB12 whenever

1:21:44

you're ready. Not that Drag

1:21:46

was back down to the regulatory stuff, but there is

1:21:48

a bunch of stuff the DOJ complained about of the

1:21:51

potential threat of Apple extending its monopoly power to take

1:21:53

over the car industry. I hope you've seen as we've

1:21:55

gone through the landscape and what Apple is currently doing

1:21:57

that I don't think it's going to be a big

1:21:59

deal. Android automotive has much to worry about

1:22:02

from CarPlay at this moment. I

1:22:04

don't think so either. So we

1:22:06

should probably do some Ask ATP and we're going

1:22:09

to start that right now with a question

1:22:11

from Ask Cortex, episode 153. I

1:22:13

don't think we can steal whatever we want

1:22:15

from other podcasts, it's fine. That's part of

1:22:17

the community of podcasting. We are a melting

1:22:19

pot. Stolen from Ask Cortex,

1:22:21

number 153, Nick writes, how soon after waking up

1:22:24

do you begin actively engaging with your phone or

1:22:26

another screen? I don't want to answer this

1:22:28

question. Marco, how about you? I

1:22:31

will give the answer that we all do

1:22:33

because we're all being honest, we all know.

1:22:36

I interact with my phone pretty much immediately after

1:22:38

waking up. It says actively engaging, so I'm going

1:22:40

to say that clarifying this question, I'm going to

1:22:42

say turning off your alarm does not count. Okay,

1:22:45

well, okay. So most

1:22:47

days I just

1:22:49

hit snooze once or twice, then get up. But

1:22:53

when I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth

1:22:55

and stuff, I bring my phone with me. You

1:22:57

get to brush his little phone teeth. Usually

1:22:59

I'm doing my

1:23:02

initial phone triage of check the email, all

1:23:04

that stuff. Usually I'm doing that while brushing

1:23:06

my teeth. Well, wait a second. This

1:23:09

is actually related. You

1:23:11

wake up and immediately brush your teeth? Yes.

1:23:14

Am I doing this wrong? Yes, you are.

1:23:17

I brush mine after breakfast. Correct. That

1:23:19

is the correct answer. Now using your communal cup to

1:23:21

rinse is not the correct answer. It's

1:23:24

brushing your teeth after breakfast is the correct answer.

1:23:26

So now we're going to hear from all the

1:23:28

dentists. So

1:23:31

what I read forever ago somewhere,

1:23:33

which is not a very credible

1:23:36

information source, is that

1:23:38

you don't want all of the crap

1:23:40

in your mouth from overnight. You don't want to consume that.

1:23:42

So the idea is brush and get it out of your

1:23:45

mouth as soon as you can when you wake up. Oh,

1:23:47

you said something different than I thought you were going to

1:23:49

say. No, I have never heard that. I also don't think

1:23:51

that's a thing. But there's no

1:23:53

harm in brushing before, as long as you also brush

1:23:55

after breakfast. That's fair. That's fair. I will

1:23:57

allow that. Yeah, for me, I...

1:23:59

wake up and generally speaking, this has been

1:24:02

the case for most of my life, if

1:24:04

I open my eyes even just to look

1:24:06

at a clock, I will

1:24:08

be, if it's after like, or if it's within

1:24:10

an hour of when I normally need to wake

1:24:12

up, the moment I open my eyes, that's it

1:24:14

for the day, I'm up. And so that's

1:24:17

generally speaking the way it works. And so if I

1:24:19

open my eyes, I maybe

1:24:21

will wait 15 seconds before

1:24:23

I grab my phone and start to screw it

1:24:25

around on it. But yeah,

1:24:27

it's pretty much instant. I don't use an alarm pretty

1:24:30

much ever because Erin gets out of bed before

1:24:32

me. And even though she is effectively a ninja

1:24:34

when she gets out of bed, I am a light

1:24:36

sleeper, like I said, when when it gets to

1:24:38

morning time. And so by her getting out of

1:24:40

bed before me, it wakes me up and and

1:24:42

yeah, it's from in the time

1:24:44

it takes her to walk from the bed to the bathroom

1:24:46

and I assure you our house is not that large. I

1:24:49

have already grabbed my phone and started looking at

1:24:51

something is to she use an alarm. She does

1:24:53

although more often than not, she'll wake up before

1:24:55

the alarm by a little bit. And

1:24:57

so she'll have silenced it before it goes off. But

1:24:59

again, just her getting out of bed will wake me

1:25:01

up even if the even if her alarm doesn't. I

1:25:05

guess I'm the only one out here. Hold,

1:25:07

hold and strong against the the irresistible

1:25:10

draw of the phone. So

1:25:12

like like both of you, apparently, my phone

1:25:14

is reachable from my bed. It's on

1:25:16

my nightstand where it charges. I don't

1:25:18

use it as my alarm clock. I have a super

1:25:21

crappy ancient clock radio Sony

1:25:23

digital clock radio thing that I use as

1:25:25

my alarm. Is it the square white one

1:25:28

that we all had in the know? But

1:25:31

it's a it's a you would be a familiar model.

1:25:33

It's it's not great, but I've had it forever. I

1:25:35

think what I should probably just do is record that

1:25:37

I hate all the phone alarms like

1:25:39

I don't want to use my phone is when I'm

1:25:41

traveling and I have like PTSD from it like waking

1:25:44

me up at like 5am to get a line

1:25:46

on W.W.C. So I and all the rings, all

1:25:48

the alarm tones that I use just

1:25:50

give me bad memories of travel stress. And that's just

1:25:52

a me thing. Anyway, so I have my clock radio.

1:25:54

I do set an alarm on it. My

1:25:57

routine on My

1:26:00

routine of weekdays is very well defined. Sometimes

1:26:03

I wake up before my alarm, sometimes I don't or

1:26:05

whatever. But anyway, I get out of bed,

1:26:08

I pick

1:26:10

up my phone and I put it in my pocket. I

1:26:12

pick my AirPods and put them in my pocket too. And

1:26:15

then I eventually make my way downstairs and

1:26:17

put my phone and my AirPods in the

1:26:19

downstairs location, which is like on a little

1:26:21

sideboard table or whatever. And I

1:26:23

do my morning routine, which is

1:26:27

involved at various times and still does involve, getting

1:26:29

my kids ready for school and currently

1:26:31

involves driving my daughter to school and

1:26:34

dropping her off at school. That

1:26:36

whole morning routine happens and I literally do not look

1:26:39

at my phone. I don't even look to see if

1:26:41

there are notifications on it. What? Remember,

1:26:43

I put it in my pocket, I put it

1:26:45

on the sideboard, put everything downstairs. Here's

1:26:48

how we know John doesn't run servers. A,

1:26:53

I don't really run servers. B, if my

1:26:56

phone made a noise or vibrated with

1:26:58

a notification, I would probably look at

1:27:00

it. But my notifications are

1:27:02

so, I have so few of them,

1:27:05

that's probably not going

1:27:07

to happen unless literally somebody calls me.

1:27:11

I guess if I got a text message, my phone

1:27:13

would vibrate. So it's not like I'm like, I have

1:27:15

text messages notifications on, but I get so few

1:27:17

text messages, right? But in the absence of any surprising

1:27:19

thing, my phone screen goes, I'm

1:27:21

like, that's not going to happen. I'm like, I'm going to have

1:27:23

to unlook that. I guess until essentially, well, it used to be

1:27:25

until I would get in the car to drive kids, but now

1:27:27

the kids don't let me play my music in the car anyway.

1:27:30

But I do take my phone and stick it to

1:27:32

the MagSafe mount, but it's not doing anything there except

1:27:34

for trickle charging, right? So I bring my phone with

1:27:36

me in case, again, to an accident, I need to

1:27:39

call somebody, whatever. When I leave the

1:27:41

house, I have my phone, but still I have not actively engaged

1:27:43

with the screen. Only when I get back,

1:27:45

after the morning has been done,

1:27:48

everybody's off to where they need to go, and

1:27:51

I'm back in the house. That is

1:27:53

when I sit down and look at my phone screen, usually

1:27:55

when I'm eating breakfast. That is bananas to

1:27:57

me. I thought it was bananas enough that's not going

1:27:59

to happen. keeps his well I

1:28:01

say that is though it's bad I thought

1:28:03

it was unusual that Snell charges his phone

1:28:05

in a different room that's not bad it's

1:28:08

actually probably healthy but it's unusual but for

1:28:10

you not to even look at it until

1:28:12

you've made an entire school run that is

1:28:14

wow yeah cuz I like I'm at this point

1:28:17

I'm like I'm waking up seven ish 730 and

1:28:19

then I'm back at the house after dropping my

1:28:21

daughter off and a little bit after nine so

1:28:23

my first active engagement with the phone screen every

1:28:26

day is you know wait it takes

1:28:28

you an hour and a half to drop her off

1:28:30

that's not how long it takes us I have the summit

1:28:32

was when I wake up versus when I drop her

1:28:34

off well what are you doing

1:28:36

then go downstairs clean up whatever mess

1:28:38

was in the kitchen make her lunch

1:28:40

make sure she's awake deal with

1:28:42

whatever last-minute emergencies there are related to

1:28:44

school stuff like things like

1:28:46

that I'm the thing is because this is this

1:28:49

is specifically asked about my phone screen it didn't answer

1:28:52

ask about my Mac screen and if I managed to

1:28:54

get everything ready and I'm waiting for her to finish

1:28:56

getting ready I may go in and

1:28:58

look at what's happening on my Mac and look at my email

1:29:00

on my Mac screen for two minutes usually I don't have that

1:29:02

kind of time but because I'm really trying to chase her out

1:29:04

of the house because she's not a morning

1:29:06

person but if

1:29:09

I do have time that's what I do to

1:29:11

my phone my phone screen does not get looked

1:29:13

at until I'm back at the house and I'm

1:29:15

about to eat breakfast and even then like I'll put the phone on

1:29:17

the table and then I'll get my

1:29:19

breakfast get all my stuff or whatever and like

1:29:21

as I'm you know eating breakfast I'm putting the

1:29:23

food into my mouth then I'm unlocking my phone

1:29:25

and probably going to mastodon oh

1:29:28

my god good for you I mean I'm poking fun

1:29:30

a little bit but good for you that's probably a

1:29:32

I would argue that is a much healthier

1:29:35

relationship that I have so credit

1:29:37

to you I mean the thing is like I'm also not

1:29:39

a morning person so if I woke up a half an

1:29:41

hour earlier I could stare at my phone for half an

1:29:43

hour in bed but I'd rather be asleep so like it's

1:29:46

I get up when I have to to do

1:29:48

the things I have to do in the morning

1:29:50

which involves you know used to be

1:29:52

hurting two people now it's just hurting one person but

1:29:55

you know and all like I said depending on what kind

1:29:57

of disasters in the kitchen from the night before the didn't

1:29:59

get cleaned up on I'm dealing with that, emptying the dishwasher,

1:30:01

doing all that stuff in the morning, making my daughter

1:30:03

breakfast, if that's what she wants me to do at

1:30:05

that time. Figuring out if she does want me to

1:30:07

make her breakfast. There's a lot of child

1:30:10

serving going on. Once all my kids are off at college,

1:30:12

maybe this routine will change and I'll stare at my phone in

1:30:14

the bed like a normal person, but right now it's not happening.

1:30:16

And then on weekends, I try

1:30:19

to sleep on weekends because I don't have to do anything in

1:30:21

the morning if I'm lucky. And

1:30:23

in weekends, I will, if I'm able

1:30:25

actually to sleep in, I will grab my phone and look

1:30:27

at it in bed before I get out of bed. That's

1:30:29

the luxury of the weekend, that I don't have to go

1:30:31

and deal with anything. If I'm lucky, if that happens to

1:30:33

be a day, if I don't have to drive someone somewhere

1:30:35

to do something, I will look at it

1:30:37

for a few minutes before I get out of bed. Wow,

1:30:39

I've learned a lot tonight. All

1:30:42

right, Brian asks, you mentioned on a recent episode that

1:30:44

we'll probably not upgrade to 128 bit in our lifetime.

1:30:47

What would be the impetus for going from 64 bit to 128

1:30:49

bit? Wasn't this

1:30:52

about memory in eight to 16 to 32 to 64? Wasn't

1:30:55

it about addressable memory? Well, sort

1:30:58

of. This came up like

1:31:01

I was talking about how, it

1:31:03

came up like why did mobile phone

1:31:05

software age out, like the early mobile

1:31:07

phone software aged out of being able

1:31:09

to run so quickly compared to early

1:31:12

computer software. And one of the things I said

1:31:14

was like, well, we did a bunch of transitions

1:31:16

over the last few years like 32 to 64

1:31:18

bit that we probably won't

1:31:20

have to do that again in our lifetime for

1:31:22

that particular one. And the reason

1:31:24

why is, I mean, obviously, there's not

1:31:27

every value that processors

1:31:30

deal with is 64 bits

1:31:32

these days. There's all sorts of different ways

1:31:34

that processors can deal with larger numbers or

1:31:36

larger, you know, wider data paths than this.

1:31:39

But 64 bit is kind of like, when

1:31:42

usually we're referring to whether a processor is 32

1:31:44

bit or 64 bit, usually we are

1:31:46

referring to the size of the

1:31:48

like kind of regular integer type

1:31:50

as well as the memory address. So

1:31:54

like when you're referring to address memory, that's usually like the

1:31:56

size of the pointer that refers to the

1:31:58

memory addresses. And So all sorts of.. The

1:32:00

software. Details and tricks

1:32:02

rely on the size and everything that, so

1:32:04

it's fairly important to have software as compile

1:32:06

and how to made nearly as of course

1:32:08

it is. it's it implies, limits of how

1:32:11

much memory you can address and democrats and

1:32:13

the reason why we are unlikely to to

1:32:15

make that jump again in our lifetime to

1:32:17

go from Sixty Four Bit when we a

1:32:19

bit on that kind of level. Is.

1:32:22

Do the math. The sit and see

1:32:24

what kind of numbers you are dealing with

1:32:26

when you compare. To. The Sixty

1:32:28

Fourth. To. To to the one

1:32:30

hundred and twenty, it's. And. I think what

1:32:33

you will find is that all of those

1:32:35

doublings that are happening with everything one of

1:32:37

those bits really add up and so the

1:32:39

the amount of resources that we will be

1:32:42

talking about. that would be that would require.

1:32:45

Over. Sixty four bits of of address space. Am

1:32:47

I don't have the tools? I don't have a number

1:32:49

of. remember the second I can look it up all

1:32:51

John explains why I'm wrong. But it is. It's a

1:32:53

large amount of memory. Of very, very large amount of

1:32:55

memory. Know you're not. You're not wrong

1:32:57

with that Dad There are more important person is

1:32:59

a thirty two bit. Too. To

1:33:01

thirty second is attractive number four million.

1:33:04

You can think of all sorts of real

1:33:06

world problems Were being able to count of

1:33:08

the four billion is a limiting factor. like

1:33:11

especially with a sign thing and out negative

1:33:13

two billion, deposit, Two billion or whatever. Like

1:33:15

okay, well, there's more than four billion people

1:33:17

on earth. right? So there's one

1:33:19

side of there's more than four billion.

1:33:21

You know, computers on Earth right? Have

1:33:24

you had I'll sign, address assumes or

1:33:26

have a ib far as Ip sick

1:33:28

and in storage space? it's four gigs.

1:33:30

death for for a you know it

1:33:33

to the thirty second. There's

1:33:35

lots of real world problems were need to count higher

1:33:37

than. Two. To the sixty fourth

1:33:39

of your hand and believes enough to give like

1:33:41

a memory, address every grain of sand on the

1:33:43

planet or something that I went great Us: It's

1:33:46

a really big number, right? And so practically speaking.

1:33:48

Yes, of course he's fourteen point numbers the gown

1:33:50

higher whenever. But frankly speaking, you wherever you need

1:33:52

to address more than two to the thirty second

1:33:55

bits of ram. Yeah, we already do. Read that

1:33:57

Mario sixty four bits. Are we ever going to

1:33:59

need to address more than two Sixty Fourth? But

1:34:01

the ramp. Maybe someday, but not

1:34:03

any time soon. Let me tell you that

1:34:05

a lotta ram, right? This is Instruments. It's

1:34:08

so much ram and fact that yes, even

1:34:10

know a sixty four bit processor. Have a

1:34:12

sixty four bit integers and sixty four bit

1:34:14

pointers. Quote Unquote: If you look at the

1:34:16

hardware almost all that doesn't use all sixty

1:34:18

four bits for the hardware addressing to they're

1:34:21

like come on, How. Much Ram as

1:34:23

ever going to be in your phone.

1:34:25

They will not use all those address

1:34:27

lines in the hardware. Thanks! They will

1:34:29

save a lot of money by only

1:34:31

using like forty address lines. You know

1:34:33

from Thirty Two up the forty. like

1:34:35

again, those doubling up real fast. There's

1:34:37

no reason to put enough address either.

1:34:39

like an Auburn Sisters will just ignore

1:34:41

the top in bits of pointers to

1:34:43

say. doesn't know this point is no

1:34:45

them for hims that amount of ram?

1:34:47

Biggest Yeah, I think maybe someday. But

1:34:50

soon. As they support this huge red.

1:34:52

So that's why even though Nintendo sixty

1:34:54

Four came out and said Pittsburgh bit

1:34:56

of that sixty Four. so don't worry,

1:34:58

next year will be Nintendo one, only

1:35:00

eight, another Us has no image and

1:35:02

caught that, but there's no reason to

1:35:04

do that. There's no benefit to that,

1:35:07

there's tremendous cost, and there are no

1:35:09

sort of real world problems that we're

1:35:11

tackling these days. The require more than

1:35:13

two to Sixty Fourth have anything to

1:35:15

the Sixty Fourth. it's of ram to

1:35:17

the Sixty Four. Things that were counting

1:35:19