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Podcast

623- It’s About Human Connection

Accidental Tech Podcast

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  • Combating Division and Cruelty
    • Practice generosity, acceptance, love, and protection.
    • Support and protect those under attack, especially women, minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals. Transcript: Marco Arment There is no quick and easy fix. We can’t just turn all of our avatars blue or put stickers on our cars and expect anything to change. What I suggest that we do is practice the opposite of their playbook. So what’s the opposite of division, cruelty, and violence? Generosity, acceptance, love, and protection. And I think we need to embody those in what we preach, what we do, and as tech people, what we build. You know, right now, women, anybody who’s not white, LGBTQ people, trans and non-binary people are all under attack by these monsters. Those of us who can support and protect someone who needs support and protection really need to now. So generosity, acceptance, love and protection. (Time 0:02:09)
  • Managing Political Stress
    • Limit news consumption if it negatively impacts mental health; the constant scandals are a distraction.
    • Focus on personal well-being and helping others instead of getting caught up in every news cycle. Transcript: Marco Arment I’m not that way. I found that it cost me dearly in stress and mental health and everything. And I had to pull back from the news. The scandal of the day is going to keep changing. So you can keep stacking up those blocks and staying really like cranked up and mad and scared and just feeling powerless. Like you can feel that every single day if you want to pay attention to all this stuff. I suggest reconsidering that. Like if you are not a politics wonk and if you are not a politics enthusiast, reconsider how much of your mental health you want to give these monsters. It is not your civic duty to follow everything that they do, to get know, every single gaffe or awful thing they do. It is not your job to yell about it and get mad at every single little thing because they’re going to just keep adding stuff every single day. It’s not going to stop. That is how these monsters govern. It is by distraction and smoke screens. And, you know, I heard the term flooding the zone, which I think is a sports thing. That’s how they govern. It’s by just an endless barrage of scandals, because by the time anybody can think of anything to do with one scandal, three more have piled on top of it and nobody can even keep up. Focus on what gives you the life that you need and want. You can focus on your own mental health and protection and focus more on the general themes of where we want to go and help people, protect people. (Time 0:05:56)
  • Jeff Atwood’s Philanthropy
    • Jeff Atwood, co-founder of Stack Overflow, donated $8 million to good causes.
    • He’s a “nerd’s nerd” from Richmond, VA, and went to UVA, says John Siracusa. Transcript: John Siracusa Also, special shout- out to Jeff Atwood. Have you seen the stuff he’s been doing? Casey Liss Oh, that is true. We should call attention to that. He donated something like 8 million bucks or something like that? Marco Arment Yeah, so far. And is going to be donating more. So Jeff Atwood, he blogged under the name Coding Horror for years. He was also one of the co-founders of Stack Overflow. And he is just a super nice guy. He’s like a nerd’s nerd. Even though I didn’t always agree with his blog as he was more Microsofty, he’s still a really nice guy and a huge nerd like the rest of us. And he made a bunch of money off of Stack Exchange and has been donating tons of it to lots of good causes and promoting people doing what they can to help out. And so, yeah, special shout out. He’s doing some really good stuff recently. So thanks to Jeff Atwood for being awesome. He seems like a genuinely good person. I don’t know him well. I’ve only met him like twice. But he seems like a really good person. And I really respect what he’s doing. Casey Liss Yeah, couldn’t agree more. And I had no idea until I read the blog post that we’ll link in the show notes that he is from right around here. He’s from another Richmond suburb and went to UVA, which is where Aaron went. So yeah, even if he wasn’t doing amazing things, I would have a little bit of kinship with him for that. But he is doing far more good things than I am, which should be celebrated. Marco Arment Yeah, more people like Jeff Atwood should have a bunch of money because then they actually do good things with it. All (Time 0:08:44)
  • Apple Intelligence Beta
    • Apple’s opt-in approach to beta features like Apple Intelligence is impractical for core software strategy.
    • Apple Intelligence is integral to Apple products, and users should either accept it or switch platforms. Transcript: John Siracusa Yeah, so someone’s saying that even 15.2, that mac os 15.2 turned it on by default this is the question of like when you use upgrade to these new os’s do you get asked hey apple intelligence Exists do you want to turn it on and i think personally i think that it is a little bit it’s a little bit extreme to say like uh that apple should ask you about this new feature it’s like saying Apple should ask me if they want me to be able to have this new features of the Photos app. What if I don’t want face recognition? They just turn it on without even asking me? Like, I know when a feature has anything to do with, like, privacy or is controversial in some way, people would, like, I want to be asked. But that’s not a scalable way to release features. You can’t make every single new feature you put in your software be opt-in and have to have an explicit thing that asks somebody, by the way, add a new feature to my program. Do you want me to turn it on or not? Like, as if people can just like a la carte accept your application as like, I’ll only accept what shipped in 1.0. Everything else after that I don’t want. And if you foist it on me, I’m going to be mad about it. That said, particular features can get a bee in someone’s bonnet. Let’s say they use something controversial like AI. People don’t like for various reasons even something like face recognition people can make its privacy invasive despite what apple tells them about it not being so i do understand The idea that and betas you know quote unquote betas i do understand people feeling like in certain cases they’d rather not have the thing turned on by default but apple intelligence Is such a fundamental part of apple’s software strategy and it spans so many different features across so many different products i don’t think it’s reasonable to say it shouldn’t Be turned on for me by default when i upgrade to the new operating system if you don’t like apple intelligence that much a you can go turn it off uh which maybe you won’t be able to do in the Future or whatever but b don’t use apple products because i have news for you apple intelligence is not going away it’s not like they’re going to say oh never mind we’re not doing that Apple intelligence thing anymore uh you can think of every other feature that apple has added to mac os like i don’t like notifications i like the better when there wasn’t notifications Or a notification center well it didn’t go away it still exists every app can do it you turn it off and on off perhaps and if you really hate notifications don’t use ios Don’t use macOS. They have notifications. It’s part of the operating system. So that’s how I personally feel about the Apple intelligence stuff in terms of it being on versus off. We’ll get to the actual feature in a second. But, you know, people have different opinions. And this is a point where you can decide how much do you hate Apple intelligence? Is Apple turning it on by default enough for you to change platforms? (Time 0:11:21)
  • Dual-Screen CarPlay
    • Marco Arment discovered his BMW supports dual-screen CarPlay, but only for Apple Maps navigation.
    • Waze and Google Maps don’t currently utilize the dual-screen API. Transcript: Casey Liss Right, Marco, you have some follow-up for us from, what is it, last week’s post-show, right, with regard to CarPlay. John Siracusa Yes. Marco Arment So I said in last week’s post-show because there was a news item that BMW’s next version of their iDrive system and their cars was not going to support dual screen CarPlay. And I was like, huh, I thought my car had really advanced CarPlay and it doesn’t support dual screen CarPlay now. It turns out my car does support dual screen CarPlay. So thanks to an anonymous friend of the show who informed me of this. And I went and tested it. And sure enough, yes, I do have dual screen CarPlay. What I didn’t realize is that you have to have the center dial configuration showing its map mode for it to work. Oh, interesting. When that’s there, then the middle screen will show the dual screen. But I also learned, and I think this is just true of dual screen CarPlay in general, that the second screen in the dial cluster will only show Apple Maps and only during active navigation Within Apple Maps. If you use any other map app like Waze or Google Maps, currently with their current versions, those do not show in the second screen. I have also learned that apparently there is an API for them to do that, but that’s been a fairly recent addition, I think in the iOS 17 series sometime, but the Google Maps and Waze just Have not yet used it. So basically right now, if you have two-screen CarPlay, what that really just means is Apple Maps directions will show up on the second screen during navigation and that’s it. For me personally, that doesn’t really help me that much because I don’t usually use Apple Maps for navigation in the car. I’m more of a Waze person myself, but, uh, if you do, uh, maybe look into that if that’s relevant to you. And (Time 0:16:12)
  • Honda’s EV Plans
    • The Acura RSX, Honda’s first original EV, will debut in 2026, using Honda’s new EV platform and operating system.
    • Honda’s Prologue, based on GM’s Ultium platform, has outsold its GM counterparts. Transcript: Casey Liss Since we’re in neutral corner, uh, John, apparently Honda has decided that the two EVs they were going to sell or they’ve talked about already are not their only offerings. What else is on the table here? John Siracusa So this is an article from The Verge. It says Honda says the Acura RSX will be its first original EV. Reading from The Verge, Honda announced that its first original electric vehicle, that is an EV built on its own platform and not based on another automaker’s tech like the honda prologue Will be the acura rsx due out in 2026 the rsx is based on the performance concept which was introduced last year that’s with a capital p uh it will be the first ev built on honda’s new vehicle Platform and will debut the proprietary in-house developed asimo operating system that was announced at ces honda’s two battery electric vehicles in the u.s the honda prologue and The acura zdx those are both the same car under the covers are both based on uh general motors ulti general motors ultium vehicle platform the prologue in particular has been an early Success for honda outselling its sister vehicles the chevy blazer and the honda equinox evs what is equinox it’s the chevy equinox right yeah uh the rsx will also be the first ev to be Built at honda’s new factory in ohio where production is expected to kick off in late 2025. The $4.4 billion plant is a joint venture between Honda and LG Chemical, the Korean battery company. So we’ll put a link to this in the show notes. You can see a spy shot of a lightly camouflaged Acura RSX. Thing to note, the Acura RSX nameplate, you may recognize that from the past because that was the car that Honda made a while ago back in the early 2000s to succeed the Integra. The Integra is a very famous small sporty car. It came in two-door and four-door varieties, but it was like a sporty hatchback. The RSX looks very much like an Integra, just not as nice. It wasn’t as popular. It wasn’t as good. But the point is it was a small, like know usually two-door sports car i don’t i think there was only two-door for the rsx i don’t think they made a four-door like they did with the integra Anyway uh this is not that this is another instance like the uh the ford uh mustang mock quote-unquote mustang mock e where they’ve taken a name from a previous car that was popular. I don’t know. The RSX wasn’t that popular, but the Integra was. And said, we’re going to use that name, but what are we going to put it on? The only kind of car anybody buys, an SUV. So now there will be a car called the Acura RSX that is a four-door sport utility vehicle like every other car on the road. But the good thing is, it looks like a four-door sport utility vehicle it has a rear window i bet it has a steering wheel that’s almost round it has regular-ish doors like it just looks Like a normal car oh and by the way on the prologue thing first of all i saw the first one i was on the road recently it’s very big and second i think it’s hilarious that uh honda essentially Licensed a car from gm uh and gm is selling it two times they’re showing it as the blazer and the equinox and honda is out selling them with its like re-skinned re-badged re-interiored Version of their car they must be saying what’s the it’s our car how are we not selling more of it than they are and the answer is because people trust the honda name and they don’t trust General motors uh which is sad but you know that you uh reap what you sow um anyway i’m glad that honda is going to make at least one non extreme let’s say uh electric vehicle this looks like Exactly the kind of car they would make if you’re going to make one car that most people buy, like make this shape because that’s what people want. And I don’t want it, but I’m glad that their EV platform is not only good for super weird looking cars with no rear windows and no steering wheels. (Time 0:18:00)
  • Affordable 5K Monitor
    • ViewSonic VP2788-5K, a 27-inch 5K monitor, boasts HDR400, Thunderbolt 4, and more for $800.
    • This price point, if confirmed, is exceptional value, even if the monitor isn’t top-of-the-line. Transcript: Casey Liss Well, I’m excited for you to buy one in the name of the show. Allison Sheridan pointed out to us that there’s another entry to the suddenly very robust, you know, 27 inch 5K monitor market. I am here for this. Marco Arment Yeah, finally. Casey Liss But, you know, somebody pointed out to us. Shoot. I don’t know if I can find that tweet recently. Oh, here we go. Tom Bullock writes, regarding third-party Mac monitors from last week’s show, it would have been wild to see all of our reactions in 2016 or so to find out that the year when the dam would Break on third-party 5K displays would be 2024 and 2025. Someday I hope there’s a good story about what took them 10 years. John Siracusa The best part of that would be, and during that time, Apple will ship one. All right. Which is better than zero, but still. Casey Liss It’s very good. Anyways, I digress. So, Allison writes in with regard to the ViewSonic VP2788-5K. Such great names. This is a 27-inch 5K, same resolution as the ones you’re used to. This has display HDR 400, which goes up to 500 nits. 99% DCI-P3. It has HDMI 2.1 display port to Thunderbolt 4 at 100 watts, two USB-A, two USB-C at 15 watts, a height-adjustable stand, internal speakers. It sounds decent, if not pretty good. The look of it is fine, but now Casey is interested because gentlemen, $800 as per Dave Hamilton from the Mac GeekGab YouTube channel. If it’s $800, that is phenomenal value for money. This thing could be a piece of crap and I’d still buy six of them because that’s so cheap. John Siracusa I mean, ViewSonic is a good brand and they historically have made good monitors. I remember them from the CRT days. Presumably, they haven’t gone entirely downhill since then. You can see some video of it. (Time 0:21:45)
  • APFS Fast Directory Sizing
    • APFS has a fast directory sizing feature, accessible via the command line utility ‘apfs.util’.
    • This feature could greatly speed up directory size calculations if officially supported with APIs. Transcript: Casey Liss Do too. All right. Apparently, fast directory sizing does exist. Remind me or jump in when you’re ready. But we had talked about how APFS has the ability to very, very quickly figure out the size of the directory. But then there were a bunch of caveats. We thought that it wasn’t actually implemented. But maybe it is? John Siracusa So the faster exercising is not about figuring out the size. It’s about constantly keeping the size on record up to date with all the changes that happen. So when you ever ask for the size, it’s like, I already have that size. I’ve been keeping track of it. I don’t, nothing happens in this directory without me knowing about it. I’m the file system. And whenever something happens, I write it down in my little book. And so when you ask me how, is the total size of all the the stuff in this directory i just read you the number that i’ve got written down right here and it’s instant um and that is the feature And it was advertised with apfs when it was introduced in 2016 unfortunately the uh api to get that information the durstat underscore np uh uh function has code in it that says yeah this Is broken we’re not doing it we’re just gonna if you ever call this we’re gonna do it the old-fashioned way by crawling over the whole directory laboriously uh taking a huge amount of Time and then giving you your answer but apparently this feature does in fact exist in apfs and can in fact be used by a regular user if they want to use the apfs.util command line binary That is buried in system library file systems apfs.fs contents resources apfs.util you can run man space apfs.util all lowercase and read about this command and what this command Can do is turn on fast directory sizing for a directory and once it’s on you can run this command to ask the directory hey what’s the size of the stuff inside you that’s pretty cool that Shows that the feature does exist and does sort of kind of work does it work all the time is it reliable is just something broken about it we don’t know i tried the command line thing i ran It on a directory that had a bunch of files it gave me an answer that seemed right according to my verification by doing it manually maybe it gets confused over time and can’t keep up with The pace of changes maybe it’s gonna cause some like i don’t i don’t know what what the caveats are about this but it seems clear that the functionality that implements fast directory Sizing does exist this apfs.util thing i believe is not open source so i don’t know what’s inside of it presumably it’s calling some proprietary apis that were you to try to put them in Your app you would get rejected from the mac app store at the very least you could i believe run this command line utility from your mac app in the mac app store and get it to get the answer Um but yeah i’m glad to see that this stuff still exists uh and there’s hope for it being resurrected if it does actually work i would love for them to actually provide apis for it and or Even if they don’t provide apis for it integrate it into the finder integrate it into the ios setting screen like we said before when i go to see what you know which apps are taking up space On my phone that could be way faster if you use this if only it worked so i don’t know what the caveats are but if you want to play with it there’s that command line utility hopefully it won’t Destroy your system hopefully not oh and as for we’ll get to this in the topics thing but as for hyperspace i’m not going to use this with hyperspace it’s not the type of thing that i can I don’t feel confident that it works all the time or is reliable or, you know, like it’s not, it’s a file buried in the system library file systems directory. (Time 0:24:48)
  • Tim Cook Interview
    • Tim Cook’s interview on ‘Table Manners’ revealed little about Apple, focusing on personal details.
    • Marco Arment finds Cook’s guarded nature uninteresting, while Casey Liss appreciated the humanizing aspect. Transcript: Casey Liss All right. And then finally, I wanted to call attention to a podcast that I think aired a week, maybe two weeks ago. I’m going to, my American will be showing and I apologize to everyone who’s listening across the pond. But apparently there exists a podcast called Table Manners with Jesse and Lenny Ware. I haven’t a clue who these people are. My understanding is one of them, at least if not both are very famous in the UK. My genuine apologies. I just don’t, I’m, I’m an ignorant American. What do you want to do? But Tim Cook was on the show and I didn’t, I’m not aware of a video version, although apparently the whole shtick is they serve the person a meal and they talk over the meal and so on and so Forth. This interview really ticked me off because is the kind of interview that I think I would want to do with Tim Cook if possible, because they basically don’t talk about barely anything Apple related. And even though the better interview would be to get Tim Cook to open up about all the decisions he’s made at Apple and why he made them and so on and so forth, as we’ve said many times on the Show, he’ll never do that. That’s never going to happen. So just take that off the table. It’s never going to happen. So knowing that that’s never going to happen, what do you do? He’s talked to him about what it’s like to grow up as Tim Cook and what does he like to do and how does he work and where does he go to relax and stuff like that. And it’s, I don’t know, it was like half an hour, 45 minutes. I thought it was really, really good. And it showed Tim Cook as a human, which is great because right now I want him to go away. Marco Arment He’s a human that we’re all mad at. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I’m so glad Tim had this really hard-hitting interview, Puff piece. I mean, maybe this is worth it to somebody, but would you right now watch the same interview of, say, Mark Zuckerberg? I mean, I’m just saying, I think this is a P you know bs thing and i’m i’m glad for people who like it maybe it’ll make you feel better to me this it just kind of angers me like why give him this Kind of attention right now when he does not deserve anything but very strict scrutiny over what he has done yeah and i also think like you know it is i guess not somewhat novel for someone John Siracusa To interview Tim Cook and ask so little about Apple. They didn’t ask zero, but ask so little about Apple. But I do think that literally everything he said was entirely controlled in Tim Cookie. Like I’ve just he is impossible to draw out. I’ve never seen anyone do it like to get to the human that’s inside there. I’m not saying what he was saying was like insincere or dishonest. I think he was saying things that he really felt and did or whatever but in a very controlled tim cook way like in a in a in a media trained carefully avoiding anything he’s he’s so well trained And disciplined that they would ask him things about like which of these two different kinds of fruit do you prefer and he would not take a position because he’s afraid that the people Who like the kind of fruit that he said he doesn’t like will not like like it’s just he just will not like i swear to you like listen to it i forget what the particular details but they tried To ask him to have take a position on food like do you i don’t this wasn’t it but like because he he did take a position on dark chocolate versus milk and he said he liked dark right so apparently He’s okay with that one but another one they’re, it’s not that I dislike it. He will not be drawn out to be like, you know, unguarded or, you know, he’s always very careful in every single thing that he says. And it must be tiring to be him. And sometimes I find it tiring to listen to him because he is so controlled i think as we’ve said in past shows i think the least controlled i’ve ever heard him is when he was somewhat stern With uh an obnoxious question asker at a shareholder meeting uh where they uh complained about the return on investment in some uh thing apple is doing related to the environment or Whatever the heck it was and uh tim cook said if you’re so concerned about the roi whatever get out of the stock it’s not about the bloody roi blah blah it’s the closest i’ve ever seen to Him show it showing any real emotion and it wasn’t that close because really it was just fairly straightforward articulation of apple’s corporate policy but there was a tinged with A hint of of uh of sternness and that was years ago and apparently he’s erased that part of his brain that does that so i’m sure he’s i’m sure he is not like this when he’s in meetings with Other apple executives telling them what to do we’ve heard stories about that like there is a real talk tim cook in there but you’re not going to see him on a podcast about food yeah i mean Marco Arment That’s why like i i almost never actually watch or listen to or read his interviews because there’s almost nothing of value to it because he is so guarded and careful and on message and So the things that you end up getting from him are just things that don’t matter like and and i you know we all had a cult of personality around steve jobs because he was a really interesting Personality and and he would like let out bits and pieces that were entertaining entertaining and insightful and a little bold a little risk taking. And Tim Cook is none of those things. Like he is just bland, milquetoast corporate nothingness. And whatever he is behind the scenes, as John said, we don’t see that. What we see in the public is very controlled, corporate, boring. And frankly, I don’t know how much more of Tim Cook there is than that. And I don’t care because even before I hated him for his political BS that he’s doing now, he’s just not interesting. I think Apple is very interesting. And the moves of the company and the products they create can be very interesting a lot of the times. But he personally, I don’t know what people get out of his interviews because whatever it is, I don’t get it. Like, I can’t even imagine having to, like, sit down and talk with him about anything because, like, I don’t know what the heck I would say or what he would say back. It would be a waste of time for both of us. (Time 0:32:21)
  • Hyperspace Icon Placeholder
    • John Siracusa included a “Brown M&M” clause in his Hyperspace app release notes, indicating the icon was a placeholder.
    • Many testers missed this, focusing instead on the icon’s design. Transcript: Casey Liss It looked like you wanted to keep my question for the end, which is fine. But tell me what’s going on. John Siracusa Yeah. So last episode, I announced a test flight. It went out to all the ATP members, people who were interested, dutifully started installing it and using it and sending me feedbacks through all the various channels. And it occurred to me about halfway through the week that I had included my own little brown M&M in the test flight release notes. Are you too familiar with the brown M&M thing? Is this like a sex thing? Casey Liss No, no, no. I think it’s where you ask for like all green M&Ms or something like that on your rider just to see if people are paying attention to you. John Siracusa Kind of. The the story is that uh the band van halen uh used to have this very long contract they would have with the venues that they would play their concerts in and one of the things they would Ask for is and in our dressing room we want to have a bowl of m&ms but there should be no brown ones in the bowl right and it was the story went around in the 80s and it was like oh van halen can You believe these like rock divas and they gotta have you know full of themselves, they want every little thing. They’re just mad with power and just abusing the people who run the concert halls that they run in. But then the sort of later day sort of internet era turns out story about that is, well, actually, they put that in there. There was a real thing and it wasn’t their contracts. And they put that in there because if they went into the dressing room and they saw either no bowl of M&ms or bowl m&ms but the brown ones were not removed they know that the concert venue Did not really carefully read or take seriously their instructions and that was important because a lot of their instructions had to do with safety about you know we’re going to have This light rig that’s going to weigh this much, and the stage is going to put this much pressure on these positions, and we have to have these kind of electrical outlets and so on and so Forth. For it to be a safe show, I mean, it wasn’t that big, but they had explosions going off and, you know, pyro flames, things, and all that stuff. They wanted the venue to actually read it and not just be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Rock Band will set your stuff up, you’ll be fine. And so that was the supposed utility of the Brown M and M clause that it was just an easy way to tell, uh, are they paying attention to our contract? Or are they, do they just not even read that closely and don’t even care about the details? Right. Uh, I have nothing. I didn’t intend to put a Brown M and M in my release notes, but I did. Uh, at the top of the release notes in all caps letters is the thing that says it doesn’t actually reclaim disk space because that was the most important thing that people needed to know Because i didn’t want to have a week of telling me that there were people running my program but they weren’t getting disk space back so that’s all caps it’s line number one i think pretty Much everybody read that so good job everybody um line number two of the release notes was a link it was a url uh and that’s where everything fall apart because i don’t think people followed That link or read anything else they said read the all caps line they said yep got it good doesn’t reclaim disk space which is fine um but the reason i know is because if you follow that link It goes to a bullet pointed list it’s got like five bullet points on the page here uh and the very bottom of the five bullet points says the following the icon is a placeholder the final Icon is still in the works every single person in there a lot of you who sent me very long critiques about the icon they didn’t think it was appropriate and i should really think of something Else you didn’t read the part about the brown m&ms you read the all caps part about how it won’t actually reclaim disk space so i thank you for that uh but that brown m&m is in there so i just Casey Liss Wanted to tell everybody if you’re listening to this podcast the icon is temporary i actually think it’s pretty good to be honest with you but that’s neither here nor there yeah (Time 0:40:20)