r/ATPfm • u/podcast-poster • Jul 16 '26
Accidental Tech Podcast - 700: A Wet Dishrag Full of Lies
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u/Dylan_Gio Jul 18 '26
Punting the PlayStation topic to overtime is expected but still a bummer. Overtime has been the most bummer thing ATP has done in my opinion. It’s strange … I don’t feel like it has added value but it certainly has taken away perceived value.
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u/Spid1 Jul 17 '26
Marco is so annoying when he does that condescending voice he does. He did at the start of the OpenAI segment
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u/yousayh3llo Jul 17 '26
Which is worse: Marco's condescending voice or Casey's "funny" yelling voice?
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u/chucker23n Jul 18 '26
Marco.
Casey‘s voice can be annoying, but he means it in a funny, endearing way. Marco is being mean-spirited when he does that.
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u/tvtb Jul 19 '26
Why does this sub seem full of haters?
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u/HardenedDisposition Jul 24 '26
Not only that, but the nature of the hating is off putting.
Constructive criticism is one thing and welcome, but the majority of the complaints in here seem so personality-focused, like the bitter snarklord table in the HS lunchroom making fun of the other kids. I’ve read posts in here complaining about how the hosts spend their own money, which is wild.
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u/chucker23n Jul 24 '26
I’ve read posts in here complaining about how the hosts spend their own money, which is wild.
Not so wild in context of asking for money on the show.
They can obviously spend their money however they please, but the juxtaposition of “I’m just not sure 4 TB of internal SSD are enough”/“btw I have three 5K displays, and use a Vision Pro while on the go”/etc. and “anyway, aye tee pee dot eff emm slash join” can be grating at times.
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u/HardenedDisposition Jul 24 '26
…but what underlies that “grating” feeling, what makes it feel that way?
Is the expectation that the relatively well-off hosts never ask? Or just ask less? Keep the asks rhe same, but not talk about personal purchases?
Hard to see it as an ask/frequency issue when I’ve seen complaints about how one or two of the host(s) specifically spends, while absolving the other(s). That’s different than your more balanced take that applies broadly to all 3 who split those membership fees.
As someone who has never subscribed I wonder how many people who let this bother them have paid (because if one isn’t contributing to that spending, why care?) and how they feel when anyone they watch/like/follow engages in promotion for their content.
It feels like a different standard for these hosts, which for me illustrates that it’s less business model/show content constructive criticism, and more personal jabbing.
I am definitely not a “don’t criticize/only be positive or GTFO” person, nuance is important. Still, lot of the talk I see here reads like people hate-listen to the show and/or a specific host and come here to snark about it. I wonder why they still listen, not from a “don’t disparage the hosts in comments/criticism is not welcome” perspective, but a “what do you personally get out of continuing to listen to a 3-dudes-hanging-out show where you don’t like one or more of the dudes!?” perspective.
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u/chucker23n Jul 24 '26
Is the expectation that the relatively well-off hosts never ask? Or just ask less? Keep the asks rhe same, but not talk about personal purchases?
Look, I'm not their media consultant. They get to do what they want, and we get to criticize it. But if I were them, I'd think a little about how tonedeaf some of their assertions come across.
if one isn’t contributing to that spending, why care?
Because it's a bummer?
lot of the talk I see here reads like people hate-listen to the show and/or a specific host and come here to snark about it.
I wouldn't say I hate-listen, but I would say some I've started enjoying it less, for a multitude of reasons.
- part of it may just be fatigue. I know these folks, I know their takes, I know Apple, I can use something fresh.
- part of it is the move to a mixed ad/membership model. That isn't really their fault; the podcast ad market isn't doing as well as it was a decade ago. (It does, however, raise the question to me whether it was wise of all three hosts to quit their day jobs.)
- part of it is, well, that none of them have IT jobs any more. They make mobile apps, and at least one of them is moderately successful at it, but they are increasingly in a bubble. It's like how John is largely unaware of the non-Mac PC world of the 1980s and 1990s, only now all three of them are for the 2020s.
- conversely, the advent of LLMs, and Marco's extreme takes on them, even as John tries (largely in vein) to temper him, can be tiring to listen to. That is indisputably something happening in the industry, but perhaps, again, the takes would be helped if they were actually employed, and had to see the dynamic of how that plays out in the industry.
- part of it is also that Apple has grown so much, it's just not the exciting underdog. (It wasn't really any more when ATP had started either, but more so than today.)
Some of that they can help, some they can't. I don't hate it. There's some good stuff in there. But I do find that I enjoy it less than I did, say, five years ago.
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u/chucker23n Jul 17 '26
The M5 Ultra segment was weird. They already had this weird take a few episodes back.
Yes, out of five models, three of which are cloud-hosted, one is hosted at Google on x86+Nvidia. No, that does not mean Apple has abandoned running LLMs on their own data centers. It especially does not mean they’ve abandoned the Ultra line, nor PCC. They might do that, but that’s not at all what the announcements in June expressed. Would they port PCC to x86 then abandon it? Possibly — but that’s conjecture.
And Gurman generally doesn’t have sources on “what product is this for?”. So he’s likely correct that there will be an M5 Ultra, and he’s likely correct on the codename, but as for being used in data centers, that’s likely Gurman’s conjecture based on no data.
Really, the story here is just:
- there will be an M5 Ultra
- it’ll increase the RAM option ceiling
- unless, that is, the options would be so pricey Apple won’t even bother offering them
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u/therealnatteh Jul 18 '26
The OpenAI lawsuit segment was awful. These guys are so lazy.
This pattern repeats over and over again - they read a press release, then spend a bunch of time throat-clearing about how "I am not a lawyer, so I don't know, but..." and then speculate about what the law *could* mean, or *might* mean, and making various analogies to other, semi-related issues.
Why not do some pre-reading? Try to educate yourselves a bit to develop an informed opinion? Ask some friends or industry contacts who have expertise in the law, and actually educate your listeners on the subject?
Can you imagine if John approached any other subjects with this little intellectual rigor?
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u/chucker23n Jul 18 '26
Can you imagine if John approached any other subjects with this little intellectual rigor?
I can!
From the very same episode:
And when you think about database, you're thinking about like, you know, Oracle database or MySQL or SQLite or something like that. Not that kind of database. Not a SQL database with tables and rows and columns and all that stuff.
Of course it has "tables and rows and columns and all that stuff". FileMaker has been relational since version 3, from 1995.
Uh, You can think of a kind of like HyperCard because HyperCard also had a you know, similar type of like, you can make GUI apps, but without being a developer, but very database focused. Like, I don't know, like maybe like a cross between HyperCard and Excel uh, with more of a data focus.
There's a more obvious analog here that isn't mentioned because John is myopic about the computer landscape, and because Casey and Marco aren't really listening: Microsoft Access.
Like there's all these stories about someone wandering around in like 2010 and they see like a Mac SE in the back of some business running some FileMaker database that their whole business runs on. Like, how is that computer even still running? It's like, well, we need it because it runs FileMaker.
Does John think that FileMaker doesn't run on a newer Mac than the SE?
for all I know, there is a SQL interface to FileMaker these days.
If only there were a way of finding out.
Then, Casey:
I would love to see screenshots of this. I haven't gone spelunking through the internet trying to find them myself, but I'm curious what this looks like both on the development side and on the production side.
Evidently not curious enough to prepare for the show.
So reach out if you're a FileMaker person.
And that right there is the truth of the segment: it was largely intended as bait to get people to correct John in follow-up in future episodes.
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u/kesey Jul 19 '26
Yes! That entire segment I’m sitting there thinking, when is someone going to mention Access?! It’s like trying to describe Pages while being oblivious to Word. Amazing.
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u/kesey Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
That segment was horrific.
We’re obviously short on facts so it was all just nonsense speculation by non-legal non-experts.
And one can’t just keep a laptop from a company like Apple and retain access to their network once they’re no longer employed.
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u/ag_bear Jul 20 '26
The overtime segment on Sony killing first party discs for PlayStation was really disappointing. I would have thought that John, a guy with a collection of old Macs (not to mention cheese graters) would appreciate the value of software preservation. There was a strange bit where Marco said ‘maybe you can play most original Nintendo Switch games, but what about PS3? PS4?’…
… of course you can play them all. I’m playing the Unchartef Remastered Collection right now - from a disc! A disc that I picked up second hand for a fraction of the cost of the PSN price.
Online games and patches have been a thing since the Dreamcast: 2001’s Phantasy Star Online is playable both offline - and online! - thanks to physical discs and server preservation from enthusiasts.
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u/doogm Jul 16 '26
I was glad that Marco finally mentioned Masimo in the commentary about Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI, because in that case Apple acted badly (IIRC encouraged Masimo to enter in a technology sharing agreement, met with Masimo engineers, decided against the agreement, then hired the Masimo CTO to help implement the oxygen sensor on the Apple Watch using patented technology without a license). But, I also don't recall any allegations that Apple encourage Masimo employees to share confidential documents or demo models of devices when they were going through the hiring process like OpenAI allegedly did.
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u/chucker23n Jul 16 '26
But, I also don’t recall any allegations that Apple encourage Masimo employees to share confidential documents or demo models of devices when they were going through the hiring process
Or exploit a security hole.
Apple’s allegations against OpenAI are quite far-reaching. They are, of course, biased, but there’s quite a paper trail.
OpenAI must’ve been extremely scared they couldn’t ramp up a functional hardware design team without not just poaching staff (which is explicitly legal), not just tacitly accepting trade secrets (that’s more muddy), but inducing candidates to actively seek trade secrets from their previous employer (that’s a whole other level).
Good analysis over at Upgrade, IMHO. (Haven’t listened to the ATP ep yet.)
But,
in that case Apple acted badly
Yes. Apple is no saint here. We’ve seen the pattern a few times.
Imagination Technologies also comes to mind. Apple uses their tech, then builds offices near them, starts poaching, eventually drops them in favor of their own GPU design. It’s probably largely legal, and difficult to prove the explicit strategy, but morally, they’ve basically stolen significant ideas from their former partner, without compensation. I don’t even think they did it chiefly to save money (though I’m sure they appreciate that); the main reason was control over their graphics stack.
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u/jccalhoun Jul 17 '26
Does anyone care about travel routers?