Tomorrow - 195: Shiny New Apple

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

Josh and Ryan did an entire episode of this podcast (mostly) without talking about politics! It can be done! What they do discuss is Apple, Apple, Apple, and The Last of Us II. No spoilers, don't worry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow, I'm your host Joshua Topolski. Today on the podcast we discussed the last of us part two, new morphism and the zoom. I don't want to waste one minute. Let's get right into it. Alright Ryan, we're back. We're better than ever. We are post WWDC pre COVID wave three and And everything is just looking real real tight Yeah, we're in a world of excellent phones and deaf

Everything's looking real real good out there folks Okay, anyhow, it's been a crazy, crazy week so far. Yeah. And I mean, honestly, this week was 100% a week where it was Tuesday, and I was like, it's definitely Thursday, and was very disappointed to discover the truth of my situation. So this is a big tech week. Last week, we basically only talked about politics, and I think this week, to be honest,

like the political situation has been relatively quiet, which I'm not complaining about. Which we should be very suspicious about. No, definitely. It's definitely like the new wave of COVID. There's like a wave, some kind of political wave coming. And I'm sure Trump did horrendous shit this week, but there's so much of it happening so quickly

that it's hard to remember, unless it's a multi-day affair. Every day, we've decided to kill all children who don't spin around three times in pledge allegiance to Mike Pence. And you're like, oh God, but there's so many of those that you're like, I guess we're all spinning around. Yeah, I mean, and listen, Mike Pence is a great leader.

And we should, we should worship him. He was actually chosen by God. Have you heard? He was chosen by God. I'm aware of that. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I personally, when I voted, I didn't vote for Trump and I did vote for Mike Pence.

You know what I'm saying? Well, how did you feel about WWDC overall? Other than it being a blur, because honestly, this whole week has felt like one day for me. Like one day where I was just reporting on Apple. But other than it being a blur, how did you feel about the presentation? I mean, I actually feel,

so let's just talk, for a second, let's talk about the technical presentation and the aesthetics of it. So, yes. Obviously, there was no crowd, there are no developers out in, Cupertino right now, or in San Francisco, there is just like, basically Apple executives in there.

I mean, I guess they went to places, right? They were in actual locations. It's weird because they definitely couldn't have produced some of that in social distancing. No, they absolutely. They absolutely did the Naomi Campbell, like, hazmat suit scenario. Yeah, I think they definitely were,

there was some production there, which is fine. I mean, at some point, there's gonna be, you know, you have to kind of, with trusted groups, people have been quarantining, with all of the, like, measures that we're supposed to be taking, like, you can do, there are things you can do. You know, like, yeah. I mean, if the argument of, like,

produce a reality show right now on an island after the cast and crew have been quarantined, like that's the main way you can make television, right? Right, and I think like, you can make an argument that there's some safety there built into the, you know, if you're really careful. I think at any rate, so I thought that the presentation was actually, I didn't feel like I lost a lot from watching a typical Apple presentation. Like, I think that Apple

executed the virtual presentation a million times better than anybody else I've seen give a virtual presentation. And I would say 100%. 100%. And if you compare their virtual presentation to like Sony's recent PlayStation one, it's not even in the same ballpark, you know, it's like, the PlayStation one looks embarrassingly amateur by comparison. I will always say like hats off to Nintendo for inventing this like form and for like being the first to say, there's no reason to get everybody together, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and a pre-quarantine world.

But the Apple just showed everybody how to do it, really. Yeah, and so I thought that was good. I thought it was fine. I think that they basically did, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, I never need to go to another Apple event. I mean, what they did and what they showed off worked completely fine in that context. I also think it let them run a much shorter presentation.

I mean, I feel like the presentation was like about an hour. Yeah. And as much as I miss the hilarious, that didn't work on stage, I really every year miss me with the like, the wife I didn't connect on, they I really every year miss me with the like the wife I didn't connect on they were on stage home embarrassing. Like honestly, the fact that they could just show me the future and move on was great. I don't need like riffing and then like I also don't need the extended crowd applause for like we developed a period on our font that is so dark and you're like okay great like great. Like, it's a period. Like, if you're not, I don't need a fucking,

to hear the people doing the wave in the crowd. Exactly, it's actually, was it improvement? So, at any rate, so that was fine. And I think that, I thought that the announcements were really, I thought that there were a lot of really impressive and major announcements. I think this was a major WODC for Apple. I think that as the kind of industry leader,

for lack of a better descriptor, the kind of commonly agreed upon industry leader for sort of like where innovation is happening. In Apple, by the way, like sometimes earns that and sometimes does not. I thought that- Yeah, I think it's a common mind share and imagination. Apple is the tech company.

Yeah, I mean, also, they tend to get things right that a lot of other companies spend a lot of time getting wrong. I think, and we talked about this as a team after the event about stuff that Windows does, or Android does, that Apple is not implementing. I think you saw a lot of them adopting ideas from other places, but I think where you see Apple being excellent is in their execution. I'll start with just a really easy one, which is their introduction of ARM, I'll start with just a really easy one, which is their introduction of ARM, that they're basically switching their lineup of desktops and laptops to ARM, CPUs that are custom designed by apples, chip people.

I think what Apple is saying is what they said when they switch to Intel. They're like, we're going to keep doing supporting the stuff that came before this, but there's gonna be an end date in the future. And if you see the difference between that when Microsoft has done, it's really stark, right? Microsoft did this half step about ARM when they introduced the Surface, like RT or whatever it was called. And it was like, oh, we're doing this like Windows X

and Windows 10, and or whatever they were. I can't remember the exact designations, but it was this thing where they literally split the OS, and they said there's this new version, the solid version, and the old version were obviously going to keep supporting because it's Windows. And the new version is like, we'd really like for you to be involved

and please make an app for it. And what happened is basically nobody did anything with it. Nobody bought the devices because they weren't fully compatible. Nobody was really working on things to make future things compatible. They stopped working on them because there's no audience for them. It's a dead project with Microsoft. They tried to introduce the Surface Pro X last year. I think it's totally mediocre.

Or was it this year, I can't remember now. It's all very mediocre device that still has the same problems. Whereas Apple's like, listen, get on the train. You don't have to get on the train right now, but it's gonna leave the station and it's not coming back and there is no going backwards and we're not gonna, like, just nurse this Intel shit for the next 10 years.

I mean, they will support it, obviously, but it's clear that they're gonna make a break at some point and say, we think the future is these chips. This is where all of our systems are going, this is how we're bringing them all together. And like, if you're a developer or a user, you just are gonna have to get comfortable with the idea that at some point the shit you're doing

is going to either need to change or be obsolete. And I think that like, that conviction is what has allowed Apple to make some of the leaps it's made in computing where other people have lagged. That is like a really, that we saw in spades at this thing, particularly obviously around the big shift in Silicon, but I just think that they are committing to things even if they're going to be difficult. And that's a big deal. I think there's something to be said for Apple's usual strategy of waiting for a technology to be mature before they implement it and then acting like they invented it.

Because across both their design, their UX design, their hardware design, their choices in strategy, their choices in materials, they have the same idea of like they let Google do something that scares people or is dangerous or is risky, and then Google normalizes some stuff. Google's like, upload, literally Google's listening to me right now. So annoying it does that. It's so annoying. They will be like, upload everything in your digital life to a cloud, and then we'll scan it and serve you ads, and then you'll, for free, always have everything backed up.

And you're like, as a consumer, you're like, I don't know about that. That they're listening to everything I do now and like, I don't care if it's free because sometimes if my internet's down I want to have access to things and you get all like worked up and then like three or four years later apples

like we'll do a thing where like you have a hard drive filled with information and you pay us a very low fee of like a couple dollars a month and then you'll get a private backup upload in the cloud that's accessible if you need it. And then consumers are like the cloud, I cloud, it's an I cloud and it becomes, they capture the imagination because they let Google normalize the idea and also take all the heat and then they can fix whatever Google did wrong. It's the same thing with Microsoft's Windows 10s or even Windows Mobile design was like

the Windows Phone widget live icons. Great idea. Or the POMPRI interface where all the apps work together and there's lots of APIs and then you have that system of cards So that you go into an app, but they use a common folder for Photos and they use a common like contact book and so like when you go to universal search all the contacts are in one place Apple like let the palm pre do that and then when they saw the flaws in the strategy They like tightened them up a little bit and then did their own version. And there's something to be said for the fact

that they like do that every time. They let like a ton of MP3 players come out and then they find out what the problems that people don't like about it is and then they come out with the iPod and then they take the credit. And that is what they're doing with iOS 14. That is what they're doing with Big Sur,

that is what they're doing with their chipsets. And it pisses people off because they, like fanboys who invested in an Android phone for the last 15 years are like I've heard widgets and it's like okay but did you have widgets like this and where they like it's useful because I've used Android for extended periods of time now and I never use the widgets on Android and I had iOS 14 for a few days and I love the widgets and I I know that's gonna upset people, but it works. Well, it's interesting to see.

It's a good strategy. It's interesting to see where corners have been cut and where other decisions, where sort of like certain decisions for both Android and for iOS have been made about how they're going to handle. Like for instance, widgets on iOS have become in a way and they even kind of hinted this in the opening video and we talked about this extensively

because there's kind of like a lot of stuff out there in the world that predates this design. But it's like, it's an extension of what they were sort of doing with icons, right? So icons and the watch. Well, so here's basically what they just copied and paste it. Well, here's what is interesting. So we wrote a story right after their announcement

about this, and I'd covered this at the verge and we covered it a little bit after some leaks around iOS 14. This designer in 2014 had done this incredible sort of redesign of iOS, and it's literally exactly what you see today in iOS 14, the way that icons can kind of expand, the concept of an icon can kind of expand to become a widget. And it uses that space in a very specific way. It uses the design language in a very specific way.

It's very referential to like what Apple did with the clock. This is actually one of my age old gripes with iOS is that in iOS 7, they're like, hey, we made the clock show the real time and the calendar shows the real date. And it's like the weather icon does nothing. And none of the other icons do anything. And it's like, they made this weird arbitrary decision, but then they also introduced this widget panel,

which sat off to the side, which was like a totally different design of widgets, totally different than what we see today in the new version. Just as difficult to access that information as it was to open the app you needed the information from on the homepage, like it was not at all easier to use widgets. Yeah. So it's interesting because this decision that they've made, and it's funny, we ran this article about this designer who did this beautiful sort of exploration of this design, and it's totally what Apple implemented. Now, maybe Apple will tell you, well, this is in the ether.

A lot of designers are like, anybody would have thought of this. This is exactly how you have to do it. If you follow their guidelines, this is in the ether. A lot of designers are like, anybody would have thought of this. This is exactly how you have to do it. If you follow their guidelines, this is what you would do. But the reality is Apple actually had a totally different idea for how widgets would be presented on iOS. And this is a new idea. This is different from what they were doing before. And you actually see in the beta version, there's a divide between the new widget style and

the old widget style. And those, the designs and the look and the feel couldn't be more different. But what's also distinct is that they are extensions of the iconography of iOS, they are meant to fill the space specifically of a certain set of icons on your home screen. And from what I understand,

reading some of the guidelines around how developers are supposed to be creating, which is they're really about glanceable information, not trying to recreate an app experience inside of that widget, right? So it's a very, very strict and specific way that they've thought of doing this.

And I have to say, from a visual perspective, when you look at the iOS home screen now, it is like night and day in terms of its sophistication. I think at the iOS home screen now, it is like night and day in terms of it's like sophistication. I think that the iOS home screen has become so much more sophisticated and interesting based on the introduction of these new widgets and widget forms. It's like now, whereas I used to look at Android and say, well, there's so many more sophisticated

things happening from a design perspective here. I now look at iOS and say, this starts, this is now starting to feel like a real cohesive, complete thought about a modern mobile computing interface. But so it's really interesting that they've made that decision. Whereas Android kind of left it open to, in many ways, it's kind of choose your own adventure, right? There aren't hard guidelines around how widgets should work.

There aren't hard guidelines around what a developer can do with a widget. Google itself has created a lot of sort of disparate widget styles. And so to your point, like on my Android phones, like there are a few widgets I always use, like that I am, you know, I need to have eyes on, but that number has gone way down over time. I'm sure that'll be true of iOS, too. But I do think that iOS came with a much more cohesive thought around it. Of course, they've had six years to study other people's designs, and they've had more than that amount of time to study what Android is doing. And so I'd be surprised if they didn't learn a little something from it.

So I think that's, you know, I think that's, and you see that throughout, I mean, I feel like Apple has moved into a design period where they are there much. I think they've kind of shaken off some of the confusion, although I say this, but I'm going to, we're going to talk about macOS in a second. Yeah. None of this applies to macOS. In iOS, in iOS, they've shaken off a lot of the confusion of the last several years. I feel.

And they've started to turn something in that feels really cohesive and, and more way more functional and way more thoughtful to the actual users needs. And I would say, I like using it. Yeah, but it's taken them way fucking too long. I mean, it's absurd how long it took them to execute ideas that were obvious, not difficult to execute for them,

completely straightforward, totally acceptable, to most users, and for some reason, they just sat on their hands. And that I don't really understand. You know, if they're like milking this stuff because they wanna have stuff to release, I think that's not a great sign. I just don't really get how it takes six years to get to this, you know?

Yeah, I do think the widgets thing felt like something that was very obvious and that they were waiting until they needed it. And then they would play that card and they would be like, look, we're innovators. But there is innovation in here. Like I really, I wrote a piece about how much I love app library

versus the app drawer or like the old iOS, just like pile of icons on a screen. I really like it. I really, really like how it works. I feel like it has changed the way that I interact with my phone and it's changed my workflow and kind of how I think when I'm using my phone, which thanks to quarantine it's like all the

time now. If you don't know if you haven't watched it, it's sort of like Android's app drawer where like everything is shoved so that like your home screen can be designed however you like what you want when you unlock your phone. It doesn't have to be everything. But what it does do is, and this seems so obvious, and it's so weird that Google didn't do this first, was it auto sorts folders, if you slide to the right and open app library, there is a list,

if you hit the search button, you do get an alphabetized list of every app. But you also get these folders that are auto sorted based on sort of what they are, and they give you the three suggestions for each sort. So like, for entertainment right now, it's YouTube, Prime Video, and Roku are the most open, and the reason they're the most open is, I watch YouTube when John is working. I watch, I use Roku to control my TV, and we've been binging Aliess.

So whenever I'm about to go watch something, it's a really good chance that I'm going to turn my TV on and watch Aliess. The idea that it's just like auto-populates that stuff is so nice, but the reason that I feel like for me it's so perfect is that I was already doing this. I was creating folders on my second page of iOS. My first page was like stuff that I regularly use when I actually use as a home screen. The second page was I was creating folders for each category of app type and then alphabetizing my apps as I downloaded them into those folders by hand all the time so that I would know where things were because I have

no object permanence or whatever. And it's insane that like I never even thought like why doesn't the system auto do this for me? I like took for granted that I needed to be doing that by hand. And even on Android, it doesn't auto do that. I mean, Android just introduced in the latest beta on the Pixel. They just introduced like a row of icons that like auto comes up with four things you might want to use.

It's wild to me that Google didn't think like, let's create folders that auto-sort the apps. And I feel like it's such a convenience, and it also gets all of it out of my mind, so that I'm not opening my phone and then being like, oh, I haven't checked LinkedIn for a while. I don't look for LinkedIn until I get a notification, or like, it comes to my mind

because I absolutely have to open LinkedIn. And that means I never open that's super app, which I never like anyway. The app library stuff, what's interesting about that is that I have sort of resisted auto organizing of apps on Android. Like I'm like, oh, I love that app drawer. Like that's really like, it's great.

All my stuff is there. I like the fact that it's away. That's the right idea, right? Like you have all these apps, you don't use them all the time. They're put away. You go find- There's a reason your Mac or Windows desktop

is not every single app you're fucking installed. Which is why like, you know, like launch pad or whatever the fuck it's called is such a dumb idea. And no one's ever used it. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you have a whole page just for launching stuff. Like, okay, cool. But what's interesting about App Library is, and it's so dumb to be gushing over these simple features. I know, I feel like it's like a nerd.

But no, but I mean, how much you spend so much time on these devices, and it's like, it feels like there's so little that's like being done, especially with iOS. So little that's being done that's thoughtfully like addressing user needs. So often I'm like, why is this done like this? And I feel like they actually got to a couple of things in this version where they're addressing real problems. And the app library is great. What is most notable to me is that I have two pages

of my like critical apps mixed in with widgets now. So even fewer than I would have had on my on the old version of my device. And I barely ever look at it the other apps. I mean, I'm barely I have barely touched them at all. And certainly it like makes it easier to find them, but it's like I'm not even certainly it like makes it easier to find them, but it's like, I'm not even looking there. And so it really does kind of call into stark contrast just how much I'm using my core apps and how little I'm using those others, you know?

I think the thing I'm gushing over is not necessarily the design or the innovation because I get that there's just a phone and like these are just a new way to arrange a bunch of squares. I get it. But the thing that I really do like is that it confidently and seamlessly integrates the idea that like use your phone less. It doesn't make the phone worse to use.

In fact, it makes my phone easier to use and easier to use less, which I do want. I want to stop feeling this like anxiety and sense of addiction to my phone, especially now that I'm trapped in my home and my job is digital. It's nice that the phone subtly encourages me not to think about a bunch of apps that I don't need to think about. And like, on Android, every time I open the app drawer, because I keep my Android home screen pretty clean, whenever I open the app drawer, everything is there. So it's not as if I'm avoiding with an app,

there, it's just like always there anyway. So I don't know, it's in general, like yet, we can move on from the app library, the company. Yes, same work. But I really like it. But this is all to say iOS 14 is great. It has lots of little features, lots of little touches that we've got on the site that

if you want to get into like our thoughts about each little like dot icon, like we do pull it apart there. But Mac OS Big Sur, I installed that beta. That's a big fucking seeming mess. I can't stand Big Sur. Right. Well, I mean, Big Sur is a whole other situation. I mean, so we were actually our designer, Jack Laskis, wrote a big essay about the design of Big Sir. Big Sir is obviously the next version of Mac OS, which is version 11, which is going to be the first version to sort of adopt this new ARM platform. As far as I know, I could be wrong about that,

but I believe that's like Big Sir is the version that's going to be the ARM OS, right? Yeah, it's Mac OS 11. Right. So, they're doing things with the design that are really specific. One is that there's a ton of stuff in the design that is obviously touch screen influenced or based, right? Like, the controls, like the control center stuff, the quote-unquote sliders and buttons are like very much like tap.

Even the pop-ups are supposed to kind of look like 3D touch. Yeah. So, to me, it's indicating that I don't know if this is true or not, but it seems to be indicating that there's going to be potentially some of the hybrid devices in the future, right? That are like laptops with touch screens or some shit like that. I mean, who knows? Because the reality is, if everything's on ARM and there's a shared platform that like Big Sur and iOS

are so close that they're almost indistinguishable in a lot of ways from the underpinnings, like if you build an app for iOS, it's going to run natively on Big Sur. That's a big fucking deal. So suddenly, this is what sort of Microsoft figured out while still doing traditional Windows 10, is that you can now sort of free up

like the ecosystem in a way from this general idea of like, it's a laptop, it's a desktop. I mean, what Microsoft has done with like the, what is the Surface Desktop called? What is the big one? Like the really Surface Studio? Surface Studio, yeah, where it's like, it literally lays down flat and you get this

a massive space for creation, really, really interesting ideas. Like you started to think about all the things that Apple can do, so that's exciting. I mean, I want Apple to break out of this single use form factor idea and I think that they're almost there and maybe Big Sur takes them there. So there's a lot of stuff that's very referential to iOS. Then there's this other stuff. And mostly you see it in some other, some menus and some areas like some windows and stuff.

But mostly you see it in icon design. And the icon design is like this weird fucking middle ground between, it's not like current Mac OS. It's almost like this weird skew morphing thing and trying to be like iOS. And it turns out there's actually a name for this, which is new morphism or no more for some depending on who you talk to. And it is this, I think, fascinating new space in user interface design, which is, what if objects in a digital space had relationships

to one another and had sort of depth and texture that was not referencing the real world as skew morphism was in the old versions of iOS, but was referencing something that's purely digital. So it's almost as hybrid of the physicality of like, oh, it's a metal surface with a switch. That's a very physical concept that's based in our current reality, right? Like our real world.

Like, oh, there's a, on my stereo, there's a button and I can push it. It's almost taking that idea of like a real world button that you can push, but then saying like, what if that button existed in this digital space? And what if those, the things you could touch in those spaces actually had a relationship to the other things and weren't just these arbitrary

like surfaces? And so that's a really interesting idea. touch in those spaces, actually had a relationship to the other things and weren't just these arbitrary surfaces. So that's a really interesting idea. It adds another dimension, but it adds the ability to like, yes, windows in a fully digital space, like two windows, one can be on top of each other, and that's communicated by like only seeing part of one. But it also adds like a sense of depth so that I, because it uses light to add another way of adding information and communicating where things are and how they're being prioritized for you the user. So it's sort of, it's sort of funny that ray tracing is happening at the same time in video games because it is using light in this way to communicate much more purposefully and less artificially, more like naturally, information about depth, about priority, about focus.

And it's definitely needed because flat design was throwing out a bunch of like options that were there, that skew amorphism was not necessarily taking great advantage of. And because it's being slowly reintroduced to this digital interface, you can more thoughtfully decide when and how it's needed and when and how it's used. But the problem is, we're very early in people figuring out the conventions that work and that feel natural and that are easily digestible and understandable for mainstream audiences. And so, Apple, as much as they're lauded for their flawless design, they can be messy. I mean, look at your magic mouse and how it charges.

It's funny. Like, they do bad things and this is a mess. These icons are a mess. All of Mac OS right now that I'm using is a big mess. Like, I just don't, there's no uniformity. I don't know why they're doing some of the things they're doing. They seem completely arbitrary, some of the icon stuff. Like, the message is icon is terrible.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, at this point, well, this is the interesting thing is that Jack's piece is sort of like, this is a, pretty fertile ground for new ideas, but their execution at this point is pretty half, pretty half-ass, you know? It's, it's just not, it's closer to Mac OS X, the original release with all its like gel and crystal and like all of that artificial future

that they were selling, it's closer to that than it is to like what I see on dribble that people are experimenting with new morphism. Like it's closer to like the late 90s, early 2000s, like, fantastic N64. And like I totally have nostalgia for that, but it doesn't feel like a useful change.

It just feels like a stylistic change just to have something look different. And that I've never into like Design for me needs to improve usability or like digestibility or comfort or you're just like in the fashion business right right. I mean I think Look, I mean Here's the thing. It's like when you read what at least when you, when I read the piece that Jack wrote, I was like, this is really exciting

and has a huge, there's a huge opportunity. And what he ends up piece with, which I agree with is that at the end of the day, it's going to take other people to push it forward, faster and harder than Apple can, because Apple's always trying to sort of play like this middle ground, or often, this is what I was saying, is like they do sometimes make these big decisions,

but a lot of time they're kind of doing this thing where it's like, hey, why did they take six years to get the widgets? Maybe it's because they were worried that it would be too jarring to people, you know? And I think that like, it is gonna take the third party developers to actually push it forward in a meaningful way, which is fine.

But I do think if Apple can even- In the meantime though, it doesn't feel like it's for adults. It doesn't feel mature. Like it just ends up feeling very like Fisher Price is the word that I keep using. And some of it is just fucking ugly. Like I think some of the icons are just like, it's too, like they're not even in that space.

I would say there's a mismatch right now. There is a, some of the icons are absolutely like in the sort of like new morphism sort of style. Some of them are like weirdly, are like skew morphic, like super photorealistic, like the text edit icon looks like a photograph of a pen on a photograph of a piece of paper, you know? Like it's not, it's not good.

It doesn't add anything, like okay, now I see a pen and a piece of paper, that's what I saw before. You just kinda like used a glossy paint. I don't know why you're doing it. And it's not like the light is being rendered in real time, so it's so visually impressive. It just sort of still feels arbitrary and I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, we're beating the design stuff to death, but definitely. Definitely. All of which to say, I don't like looking at Big Sur, but I am excited about the Switch to Arm. Yeah. I actually really want to buy one of these arm computers

because even if it's the same performance I'm getting from a MacBook Pro now, I am excited by the idea of it being so low power and the heat. Yeah, I mean, look, I think that's a huge deal. I mean, we could have a whole show just to talk about that. I mean, I would just say that Apple doesn't make these decisions arbitrarily.

They don't make them lightly. They don't make them lightly. They don't make them lightly. No. Yeah. And I think that there's going to be, I mean, they showed like final cut, like real-time final cut effects, like while editing. To me, there could be a potentially a huge moment, a breakthrough moment in how we think of computing, where we go from stuff that we're used to doing

like as a good example, like you're doing a 4K video edit and you want to add some lighting changes and some effects and like you're going to wait for those to render when you're done. You know, an era where that happens in real time is like a, it's sort of like what's happening on consoles where the next generation of the PlayStation and the Xbox one of the big things they're doing is these they're basically cutting out load times which is a two seems like not that big of a deal. But when you start to think about what it means for a game that could where you could like keep a narrative moving in an infinite amount of space and an infinite amount of scenarios are almost near, let's say, near infinite

because of the speed of the load times that you can do it in the background essentially. It's a very, very different, very different way to think about how technology works. And I think that we could be approaching that with what Apple's doing with ARM, but we won't know, of course, until we see it fully realized.

But it's exciting. I think it's a big deal. Yeah, I'm very excited. I'm very excited to see what this means for the design of the actual laptop that they roll out. I'm sure the first one will hedge their bets a little bit and look as close to a current Mac as possible so that people don't freak out.

But I am excited to see in the next few years how it affects the actual design of the computer and like the form factor, because if you think about like no load times, or you think about like no really low energy draw, really low heat, really thin products, at least internally, it's like a car that never has to stop for a red light.

Like that would change the world. That would change travel, that would change transportation, that would change deliveries. Like everything would be different if a car never had to stop at a red light. And so I am excited to see what that would mean for like the shape of the car. And I do think like, you know,

and I do appreciate the like loss to the whole like technological scene. Like we, you know, Evan wrote this piece about the hack and Tosh's dead because the interrupt interoperability of the chipsets and the x86 sort of platform means you're not going to be able to like do a hack and Tosh are also not because the drivers won't be there, but you're also not going to be able to like run wine or emulate windows on a Mac easily or at all and so It is sort of a loss and I do understand the like especially if Apple's off doing their own thing with computers again That split with windows of just like what it means to have a Windows PC versus a Mac Will be interesting especially since Windows has only dipped its toes into the whole arm scene, and they still haven't got their shit together. And it means there might be all this fracturing and like,

Ruhaha around like what apps are available on what part of Windows and what apps are available for Mac versus being emulated and a new app drops for the arm Macs that doesn't work on the Intel Mac, like Macs, but professionals are still using the Intel Intel Max. It's going to be a mess. Yeah, I do appreciate all of that, but honestly, like we've been through this kind of mess before, like there was a lot of pain on the internet when we had to get rid of Flash, but I do think it's good that we got rid of Flash. So I'm excited to see where it goes. I mean, it's definitely like, yeah, I mean, it's going to be messy for a while, but hard transitions are always messy. They should be. They need to be. And I think like, I mean,

what we don't have enough of is people making, I mean, look, sometimes Apple does and it's fucking stupid and annoying. Like the situation with dongles is absolutely absurd. Oh my god. The fact that I have to have these external, ridiculous things outside of the computer just to be able to do basic things that my computer would normally do otherwise. I have to hang off of the MacBook, which is sitting in my lap right now. They're both hanging off the sides of my lap. How is this a laptop?

It's so dumb. It's so dumb. It's such a, I mean, I get like, it's great, we're all moving to USB-C, but things haven't moved to USB-C, and it's like, I'm still on a regular basis, searching for this stupid thing. Like, no real USB port is not an insane ask.

I mean, no, you know, no HDMI port of any type, no mini display or anything. I mean, I know this sounds like I'm an old man, no SD card. I mean, that's just really useful on a laptop. Anyhow, this is, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole in this just to say that there are things they do where they're like, we're making this big decision and I find it to be absolutely annoying and stupid. But then there are things that they do where I'm like, yes, this is the right

decision. And I think this last round of announcements from WDC are absolutely like good, big, smart decisions that I am behind. And I think that are going to have some yield some really interesting major stuff in the near future. So that's Apple. Is there anything else to, what else do they announce? I mean, is there anything else worth talking about from Apple? Any announced a bunch of car stuff and TV stuff? Yeah, I don't care about that at all. I should say, speaking of a playstation, so I was like sort of convinced that I wasn't going to play

the new last of us game, because there's been a lot of controversy around it. There've been a lot of reviews that were sort of very critical of it. And then finally, I was like, you know what, I really enjoyed the first one. I'm curious to see what happens with the second one. I'm going to play it. So I've started playing it. I don't know if you've played it all yet or not. I have it. I haven't started playing it yet. Yeah. So I want to like sit down and spend one day like doing like eight hours of play. I really am not the type that can play a game like that

in like 40 minute chunks after work. Like it's not good. It's actually, so here's what I'll say. First, I'll say this, the bad. It is a game that is, you know, has a really Thoughtfully deeply told story Unbelievably acted unbelievably directed for a video game. It's like it is on a whole other level in my opinion There's only a handful of games that really come close in terms of like just really

Being and engrossing Thought provoking Sort of like, you know, detailed story. It is, I want to play it. I'm interested in it. I'm curious about it. It is, it is unbelievably stressful to play. Like one of the most stressful games I've ever played, it is unpleasant, like it's not fun, right? Like it's like, I would say it's like the game version of Requiem for a Dream, I don't know if you've ever seen

Requiem for a Dream. Yeah, of course. It's a very, very dark movie about addiction. And it's, you know, there is some value in watching it, but it's not enjoyable. It's almost like Uncut Gems is a similar movie also about addiction. It's a wonderful, beautiful, thought-provoking movie

that is absolutely like, I would not like to return to it ever. Like I don't, once I finished it, I was like, oh thank God this is over and I don't want to go back to it. The incredible and amazing and I bow before, oh, thank God this is over. And I don't want to go back to it. The incredible and amazing and I bow before his thought, process Tim Rogers launched a new YouTube channel where he's doing action, but it's called action button reviews. Where he's doing like three hour plus reviews of a single game made over the course of a month

and where he's devoting like 12 hour days, full work days to these reviews. And he did one of the last of us, which was incredible and mind-blowing and very compelling. But in it, he breaks down sort of why the last of us is both a singular artistic statement created with creative freedom. But it's also kind of made an laboratory to win game of the year awards because of things like, you know, it's cinematic nature. It's the amount of time spent on cutscenes versus playing, the ease of understanding the different gameplay flavors

and how they mix with each other. And one of the pieces that he really highlighted is, like for example, when you see a dystopic video game, part of that is that someone likes writing about dystopias and you can talk about politics with a pretty easy shorthand that doesn't feel political, but also game designers really like making dystopias because they look like shit.

And like they can make this furniture all knocked over before you even work walk into the space and they don't have to explain why. It can kinda just be a big mess and it can be artistic, but when done correctly, it's both convenient and super effective and there's no way to knock the last of us. It does just topia right.

Like it feels gorgeous and cinematic, but it also happened to probably be easier to design stuff at that caliber and at that level that didn't have to look like the real world and didn't have to look as like thoughtfully, every single part of it as thoughtfully textured and stuff it could look dirty. Right.

Similarly, a really great shorthand for justifying violence and justifying heart racing, like you can't look away because of danger gameplay, is to make it uncomfortable, because then you can either comment on how you don't like violence and it's uncomfortable and so the game fulfilled its duty towards being anti-violent or you can say I like violence and this is a violent game and both sides win. And so the game is designed and I haven't played part to you but that game is designed

to make you uncomfortable with violence because it is something we can universally agree is bad, but also enjoy doing. And so it makes the mix of, I like playing this and it feels valuable to me, but also it's painful sort of, it's its own like slurry of just like cringing, but I can't wait to get to the next part. Yeah, but I mean, but I will just want not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not really sure if I'm not saying I was just like to watch it because there are parts of it that I find like fun to play. I think like the hardest part of the game is that it has.

It has this personality sort of the split personality where it wants to be a game that. That makes you hate the violence of the game. And then it also has to be a game where you can like upgrade your. I mean, this is literally, this is literally the game. It is absolutely, it absolutely abores the concept of violence and is trying to say something about, I mean, in the heavy-handed way the video games do. It's trying to like show you the consequences of violence, which is like, okay, fine.

You're like, that's a, you can do that. Like, that's a thing you can do in a game or in any other sort of piece of art. But then it's also like upgrade your revolver and it's like, well, okay, like, you can't be sort of like, you can't make me question why I'm shooting people and then also ask me to make my thing that shoots people more powerful for shooting.

Like, if that to me is where the game sort of like loses, it's luster is in these moments where it just goes back to being a video game and doesn't commit to like the story in a way. But like, but here's what I'll say. It's not enjoyable to play, but I want to keep playing it. It's not fun. It's especially after a long day. It's especially not enjoyable to like Start playing the I mean, I think about it. I've been thinking about it all day But like to start playing it is hard. I don't want to play it for very long But here's the thing that's most notable about the last of us part two to me and the thing that I my biggest takeaway thus far

It is like maybe the most beautiful game in terms of graphics that I've played ever on my PlayStation and I have the I don't have a pro I have the original PS4. From a graphical standpoint from graphics standpoint it is like Like I just kind of want to look around sometimes in the game like I don't even want to play it But what he has done more than any other thing that I have seen thus far It has gotten me extremely excited about the next generation of consoles See did that could the old last of us felt like for me and so now that I'm super excited because I remember playing the original and thinking, like, this looks like a PS4 game. Yeah. I mean, this looks like, to me, whatever they're doing from the physics to the character animations and faces to the environments, I mean, honestly, there's stuff in this game

where I'm like, is this ray tracing? Like what they're doing looks like what I've seen in ray tracing, like actual games of the ray tracing? It is like unbelievable what they've managed to pull out of the PS4, which is, and we know, the original PS4 that I'm playing, like when was it introduced? Six years ago? 2013.

So seven years ago? Yeah. Really good at math. So the thing is seven years old, okay? And the performance is unbelievable for this game. The graphics are unbelievable. I mean, not just they're masterful at getting those Sony consoles to perform. Like it feels like most people don't use the whole orchestra, especially with Sony games. Like Switch games, it feels like people are always trying to push the limit. With Sony consoles, it never feels like people are using the whole orchestra at once. But Naughty Dog always does. They're fully, they turn stuff out of those consoles

that is just jaw-dropping every time. And it makes you really look forward to like what they're be doing next, you know? Yeah, and I just wanna say, I mean, so looking at what they're doing right now on current generation. I mean nothing I don't think anything has gotten me more excited about the next PlayStation Then this game because if this is what current Gen can do and it is and it is amazing. I really think it's amazing

The next Gen's gonna be Completely out of control be completely out of control. Like completely out of control. I mean, like, at this point, in next gen, shit's gonna basically look real from what I can tell. And not that that's the only goal of these systems, and not that's the only goal of like better graphics performance, but I just think the environments and the characters and the way that you can tell these stories is gonna get so much richer.

And so like there really hasn't been anything that I've seen up until this point up until playing this game that gave me like that kind of like next gen excitement that I've been sort of like looking for and missing, you know, like looking for and missing, you know? Like, it just like hasn't been there. And now that I've seen this game, I'm like, wow, like I'm really excited about the PS5 and I'm really excited about the new Xbox. It's like, the graphics are just on a whole other level, in my opinion.

I mean, there's a few games that you can say, like, you know, Horizon Zero, Dawn is like that. You know, but this one's like, it just synthesizes so much of what has been really great about what they're doing with environments and with characters in these games. And it's just like, it's pretty mind boggling. So I'm like, very excited. And I don't know how much I haven't read a lot of the reviews because I'm trying to avoid spoilers on this game. But like, I don't know how much has been written about this. Like, I get all the controversy

around the game. I get like a lot of what people have been feeling in terms of, you know, the problems with it. And it's message and it's characters. They're all there, you know. I do think it's a compelling story, but more than anything, I mean, it's like, it's just a beautiful, it's just a beautiful piece of art. Like, it's really like just, I mean, the environment, the characters, everything is just like pretty fucking breathtaking. Anyhow, so that's my big takeaway from playing it, which is, you know, it's, it's really impressive. And the next gen is gonna be Absolutely mind-boggling You you a pro right yeah, I'm literally watching a comparison of the pro and the And the regular ps4 right now and I just say like the leap you know, it's definitely there

The leap isn't so crazy. Yeah, the pro is a little extra like icing on your cupcake or whatever. I, I, I was never like a person that felt like the pro like makes the menus work faster and like they're anti-aliasing is smoother and sometimes shadows look better and obviously it's higher resolution. But I was never like, oh my God, this is the one way to play PS4 games,

but it does make me really excited for the PS5 in a way that like the jump from the PS3 that the PS4 didn't feel. So like the Xbox 360 versus the Xbox One didn't blow me away in any respect and certainly the like we you to the Switch is the exact same thing. So I'm excited about it in a way that I haven't been for a long time,

but I also know that these consoles are gonna cost so much money. Yeah, yeah, I mean for sure, but I don't know, I think it'll be worth it. I mean, I kind of like, I almost like want to wait and play this on the next generation console. Like I got the last of us remasters for the PS4 and I played it a bit. I didn't finish it on the PS4, but anyhow, I think I've already said enough about it. It's just like, it's an interesting game. I do think philosophically speaking, I think they're trying to pull off something very difficult. I'm excited to see what VR is gonna look like again.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, I mean, this made me think like instantly about what the VR possibilities are. I mean, if we get the, if we get downsize headsets and higher resolution headsets with like this level of fidelity in terms of graphics, it's like fucking insane. Like, it's funny because I just built this game PC and I was like, wow, these graphics

are, you know, I'm playing like control on like full graphics and I'm like, nothing is gonna look better than this. And honestly, like last of us on PS4 looks and in some way performs like, I mean, I remember playing the original Resident Evil and being like, this is a movie. Well, that's, that's, I mean, that's the shit I've always like, like, I remember playing the original Resident Evil and being like, this is a movie. Well, that's, I mean, that's the shit. I've always like, I thought this looked real, you know? I remember we were talking about NBA Jam. You were like, I was like, you were like,

this is a photo realistic maskable game. Yeah, people were like, this is, I'm on the court right now. So I know, and one day someone's gonna listen to this podcast and be like, these motherfuckers thought that fucking that look. But you know what? Like fucking toy story looked so good that if you ever go back and watch the racial toy story, you're like, it's astonishing that they made a full movie in this comic.

They couldn't get like their hands, can't like fully grasp things. And it's like, yeah. No, it's incredible. All right. Anything else we should talk about Ryan? Anything else that's going on in the news? I mean, there's stuff going on, but I think those are the big things.

I'm excited because tech is fun to talk about right now and it hasn't been for a long time. For this for one week. For one week, there's stuff to talk about. You know, look, I will say we're all bored at home, you know, the fucking COVID is back and better than ever. And so we need things to do. We need things to entertain ourselves with.

So like some good video games and some new fucking OS's to play around with is a welcome change of pace from having to just, you know, sit online all day and read Donald Trump's tweets, which is what I'm normally doing. Now I get to read them with widgets. Exactly. Yeah, I'm right right up there. It's a great stuff.

It's very good stuff. Anyhow, all right. Well, so should we wrap up? Is that it? Yeah, let's talk about do many nice things. Do I have any nice things? Wait, I haven't thought about my nice things this week. I'll go.

I have. Okay, go ahead. So I have two nice things. One is that I got my birthday presents early. I bought myself a birthday present and John got me a present I bought an original family come and family come disc system from Japan, which I'm never gonna play, but it's like a beautiful work of art My home that I just I stare at it and I touch it and it's so cool and then John got me the super system 3 SD, which is Cool. And then John got me the Super System 3 SD, which is, if you don't know, a Terra Onion product

for the original TurboGraphics 16 slash PC Engine, slash Core Graphics Console, which it plugs into, it's like an addition that plugs into the back port of that old server console. And it lets you play all of those games, TurboGraphics, Super CD games, SuperGraphics games, and it gives you beautiful CrystalClear RGB video instead of though weird like composite video that console was known for turning out.

And it is so nice, and I have waited so long because the thing was never in stock. And it came in stock and he got it for me as a surprise and I am over the moon about it. So that is great. I love FPGA stuff. I am still a nerd for retro games. And then my other nice thing is if you Google search chromatica2 into 911, there is currently a meme about the transition

on Lady Gaga's chromatica album between the song, the snippet chromatica 2, which is like an orchestral snippet, into the track 911, which is such a beautiful, seamless, awesome moment on the album. It's so great, but it's so great that it's turned into a meme of just like, I can't even explain it. Like, just go look it up. Just go look it up. It's a moment when like the orchestral stuff turns into like this fashion forward aggressive dance pop song, but the transition is so seamless and gorgeously produced that you don't notice when the strings become synths. And so people are doing things like every time in a movie something super unexpected and like jaw

dropping happens, like, you know, the green goblin bursting through Aunt May's bedroom wall or like Regina George being hit by a bus or someone slapping someone else on the good fight. bus or someone slapping someone else on the good fight. So people, especially gay people, are turning these things into, like, they're turning the track into these hilarious video clips. And I've been watching them all day and they make me so happy. So that's my other nice thing as a meme. Wow. That's a very, it's a wonderful meme.

Wonderful nice thing end of sounds like a wonderful, and I'm very happy for you. I haven't had time for memes, you know why? I've been cleaning my garage. Oh yeah? Yeah, that's my nice thing. Oh yeah, you sent us some pictures of shit you found. Cleaning, oh, I found a Zoom, which I'm like, try to figure out how I could use.

I don't know why. You got a squirt, man. I got to do it. Yeah, it's like, it can get online, but it won't get online. So it's like so fucked up that a kid even like connect to. Yeah. My network. I'm surprised there isn't like a zoom hacking subreddit.

Oh, I'm sure there is. I just haven't gone there yet because I have a life. No, but I'm not. I've talked about this woodworking stuff that I'm getting into and I actually signed up for some classes in October, which I'm very excited about around Japanese woodworking, which is a very specific sort of subset of woodworking anyhow, but I've been cleaning out my garage, so I have room to actually do this and it's been extremely good to be throwing things out.

And I feel like I'm, I used to be very anti throwing things out. I was like a weird hoarder for reasons. And now I'm going through my stuff. Like I don't even know why, you know, I have like fucking receipts from like 1999 in a box somewhere. I mean, seriously, it's disturbing, you know. fucking receipts from like 1999 in a box somewhere. I mean, seriously, it's disturbing, you know? And- I bought a giant Coke once at a gas station. Yeah, it's like I have like trips

that I took like a whole like envelope full of trips, like receipts from trips that I took like 20 years ago. I'm like, what was I thinking? What was the plan for these exactly? Not really sure. You ready to scrapbook? Very strange. At any rate, so I'm clean, throwing stuff out, and I feel like it's an incredibly liberating experience, and I recommend to everybody, you know, fucking throw shit out. Get, you know, let the past die. Kill it if you must put it in a contractor bag if you must.

You're saying let the past die. I'm saying polish it up and put it on display in your home. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, it's different strokes, different folks, as they say. Anyhow, that's so that's my nice thing is like throwing things out and cleaning. That is like, I think at I think in the time of coronavirus, the feeling of making progress on something is very powerful. Well, on that note, I will say, to fund the police and we will talk to you next week.

Wow. Wow. truly agree. Defund the police, throw the police in the garbage and use that space for show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best and I'm happy to report that your family has their zones all set up and working and they're squirting right now. you