0:00:00- You a doc, where do you put your doc?
0:00:02- Bottom.
0:00:04- Oh, bottom.
0:00:06Dan, I don't know if I could be your friend anymore.
0:00:09(laughing)
0:00:10I'm a doc on the right, man.
0:00:12Doc on the left is acceptable,
0:00:14but doc on the bottom, you're losing,
0:00:16I need, to me, what I crave the most
0:00:18is vertical real estate.
0:00:19- It is tricky on the 12-inch MacBook,
0:00:23although I had the doc pretty small,
0:00:26but I don't know, I never,
0:00:27I could never get used to the symmetry
0:00:29of having it on one of the sides
0:00:31and not having Windows take up the full width.
0:00:33- Yeah.
0:00:35- Like the right side of my screen
0:00:36has been the AIM buddy list for 20 years,
0:00:39or more than that.
0:00:40- Yeah, my dock icons are so small.
0:00:44And I don't even keep many apps in the dock,
0:00:48you know, like permanently,
0:00:51but just the running apps is enough
0:00:53to make 'em tiny little targets.
0:00:55And it's not like that I lack the motor skills to do it,
0:00:58It's just that part of what I love about the Mac,
0:01:01and we could probably do all show about why I love the Mac,
0:01:03but it's like I feel like I can just fly through the Mac.
0:01:05You know, like I'm always clicking
0:01:07and moving my mouse extremely fast.
0:01:09- Same, whenever I get a new job,
0:01:12I demand the fastest Mac possible
0:01:14because my brain is basically
0:01:17at the same speed of the computer.
0:01:19But whatever it is about dock clicking,
0:01:23it's just not, it's never gonna work.
0:01:25- Yeah.
0:01:26- Always the wrong icon.
0:01:27I'm just noticing now that Apple has added,
0:01:30it's very kind of them to do so,
0:01:32auto added the iWork apps to my doc again
0:01:35for the 10th time.
0:01:36- Oh, nice of them.
0:01:38Very kind.
0:01:39(laughing)
0:01:41It's been a while since I've noticed that,
0:01:43but yeah, it's probably right there.
0:01:45I do use Numbers, that's the only one.
0:01:47- I use Numbers a lot.
0:01:48I use it by far and away more than the others.
0:01:51Even though I think Keynote is probably the best of the apps
0:01:53I use Numbers quite a bit.
0:01:56I keep my sponsorship schedule in a numbers spreadsheet.
0:01:59So that's the one that gets updated all the time.
0:02:01But I don't need it open all the time.
0:02:03- Just notice I have iBooks in there.
0:02:07- Yep, they did that to me too.
0:02:09Very nice of them. - Probably a mistake.
0:02:11- Kind of them to put in an app
0:02:13that I never use on the Macintosh.
0:02:14- How's your housework?
0:02:20Is it, are we gonna be interrupted by hammers?
0:02:24- No, I don't think so.
0:02:25They did not show up today.
0:02:26Oh, good.
0:02:27So I've been very lucky in the game of roulette that is try to schedule a recording of the
0:02:33talk show on a day when the guys banging away at my house are not here.
0:02:41So…
0:02:42I forgot to check.
0:02:43Are we holiday partying or no?
0:02:44I'm not, but you're certainly welcome to.
0:02:47Oh, man.
0:02:48No, I'm just kidding.
0:02:49I do have a fizzy water, though.
0:02:51No, I have a fizzy water and I have a, I don't know, some kind of fruit juice blend smoothie
0:03:01that I paid a lot of money for.
0:03:02Should we pour one out for the deck?
0:03:04Yeah, I know.
0:03:05I poured one out for the deck with Jim yesterday.
0:03:07I saw you had a nice post.
0:03:09I am.
0:03:10You know, when I started Splat F, well, you know, your history with the deck goes back
0:03:16quite far.
0:03:17splat f in 2011, my only dream was to be deck worthy. And I never got enough, well, I got a
0:03:26different deal from another company rather quickly. So I never got to work with the deck, but
0:03:31it was always something I aspired to work with.
0:03:36Yeah, I, well, I mean, I relayed a lot of the history on my post. I mean, it's a fine first
0:03:44topic for those who don't, you know, who are listening who didn't pay attention.
0:03:47The Deck Network, a little ad network that, I mean, if you're listening to this
0:03:52and you don't know the little ads that have been on Daring Fireballs for 11
0:03:55years, then I don't know how, you know, I can't help you, but... Then you're part of
0:03:59the problem. Right. Although I suppose there are people who might be, just read
0:04:04the whole thing by RSS, so it's possible. Anyway, the Deck was an ad net, well, it still
0:04:10is, as we speak, it's alive until tomorrow, end of March,
0:04:15an ad network for independent websites
0:04:19with a couple of very simple rules.
0:04:20Only takes ads from sponsors that we think are interesting.
0:04:25In the old days, we used to actually have a rule
0:04:27that it was somebody-- some member of the deck network
0:04:30had to actually be a purchaser or user of the product.
0:04:34And that sort of went--
0:04:35that wasn't really sustainable.
0:04:36But we had to at least think, hey, this is something
0:04:39that the people who read the sites in the deck
0:04:41might actually like.
0:04:42One ad per page, so you're not allowed to join other networks
0:04:50and have 20 different ads on a page.
0:04:51The whole point was to make it exclusive
0:04:53and charge money for the exclusivity of, hey,
0:04:56if you want to get a little graphical ad on a site
0:04:59like kotke.org or Daring Fireball,
0:05:02there's only going to be one ad per page,
0:05:04and it's going to be through the deck.
0:05:05And that's it.
0:05:07Very small, relatively small bit of real estate on screen.
0:05:11No animation, no tracking, no JavaScript payloads, nothing like that.
0:05:17And it was a pretty good run, 11 years.
0:05:19But it's kaput.
0:05:20Do you think, you know, obviously you're not Jim, but was there ever a point where you
0:05:27debated, okay, the screen sizes are getting bigger or the formats of the web are changing,
0:05:33should we make the ad bigger or...
0:05:36You know, Kottke actually did that.
0:05:38If you look, Kottke, I don't even know how he's doing it.
0:05:41I think maybe because we did switch to retina images
0:05:46a couple of years ago for the obvious reason
0:05:49that the ones that weren't retina
0:05:52didn't look good on non-retina screens.
0:05:54There was some talk of it, but I think that it,
0:06:01like the last year or so, as Jim wrote in his post,
0:06:04his sort of goodbye post to it,
0:06:05The bigger problem was just that the interest from advertisers
0:06:13was dwindling.
0:06:14And so worrying about what the physical format--
0:06:16I mean, I suppose you could say, well, maybe
0:06:18if you fixed the format, there'd be more interest.
0:06:20But it seemed pretty clear that that wasn't the issue.
0:06:24The issue was that the money wasn't going
0:06:26to traditional web ads, period.
0:06:29It was going to social--
0:06:31Facebook and-- and obviously, online advertising
0:06:35is still going to Google too.
0:06:37That was the bigger part.
0:06:39- I would also not be surprised if the,
0:06:41'cause I remember the gist was that the target audience
0:06:45was kind of a creative design crowd.
0:06:49I would not be surprised if the advertisers
0:06:51who were using the deck to reach that crowd
0:06:54are now advertising on things like this podcast
0:06:56instead of buying banner ads online,
0:06:59or at least putting some of their money into that.
0:07:02- Yeah, yeah.
0:07:03And if you look, that's actually what Codkeep's doing.
0:07:05Kottke is put somehow in his template.
0:07:07He's taking the ad and taking the retina size ad
0:07:11and running it at 2x.
0:07:12So it's a little bit blurry because it's double-sized,
0:07:17but it's, at least after you're looking at it
0:07:20on a retina screen, it's, you know,
0:07:22but he made it physically twice the size.
0:07:26- That Kottke is very clever.
0:07:28- He is.
0:07:30He does this thing that I'm not familiar with,
0:07:31which is change the design of his website
0:07:33every couple of years.
0:07:35(laughing)
0:07:37No, I am sad, I don't know.
0:07:39I probably came across in my post.
0:07:41It's a sad thing.
0:07:42It is not a surprise though.
0:07:44And it's like, and you know, I don't know.
0:07:46I'm often uncomfortable talking
0:07:48about the behind the scenes stuff.
0:07:49I'm always uncomfortable talking
0:07:51about the business aspects of this stuff.
0:07:53Because I don't think, not so much out of
0:07:57sort of not wanting to talk about money, period,
0:08:01but just more that it's navel gazing into some ways.
0:08:05And then people write to me and they're like,
0:08:07"No, no, I'm fascinated to hear about it."
0:08:09But it's like, I just worry that me talking
0:08:11about the behind the scenes stuff
0:08:14is of great interest to me,
0:08:15but maybe not so much of interest to people on the outside.
0:08:18But maybe not.
0:08:22But anyway, behind the scenes, Jim is--
0:08:24- It's definitely interesting to--
0:08:26- I'll just say this, Jim kept us,
0:08:27the members of the deck, up to date.
0:08:29Like, we've known for the last year
0:08:31that the last year has not been good.
0:08:33There were a couple people who were worried
0:08:37that maybe this thing came as a surprise to me
0:08:39or everybody else in the deck,
0:08:41and it wasn't a surprise at all.
0:08:43We knew that it might be coming to an end
0:08:45from six, seven months ago,
0:08:48and then Jim let us know,
0:08:50I think it was early February even,
0:08:51that hey, end of March is it.
0:08:53- What I was gonna say is,
0:08:59There's definitely an industry of people
0:09:02who are super curious about how small
0:09:05or independent publishers operate.
0:09:07But especially as a former independent publisher,
0:09:11you never want that to be the most attention you get
0:09:14is when you're talking about yourself.
0:09:16- Right.
0:09:17- You always want your work to get the most attention.
0:09:19And even though it's sometimes fun and interesting
0:09:22to talk about the operational elements of what you do
0:09:27and what the industry does, it definitely feels weird
0:09:31when that's where you're getting the most attention.
0:09:33So I understand.
0:09:36- And you're right, podcasting is one of the areas
0:09:40where online money is going that's not social or Google.
0:09:44And it's growing.
0:09:45I mean, the demand for spots on this show
0:09:48is higher than ever.
0:09:50I forget how far ahead we're sold out,
0:09:52but probably too far even.
0:09:53And that's great.
0:09:55You know, I mean too far in the sense of...
0:09:58Let's play two.
0:09:59Right. In my theory on selling sponsorships, if you sell too far ahead, your rate's too low.
0:10:04You should raise the rate. The calculus of how high the price per spot is and versus how far
0:10:12ahead you're sold is a tricky business. But if you're... You certainly don't want to sell out
0:10:18two years ahead and have 100 weeks of shows sold out at the current rate. That means you should
0:10:24should have raised the rate for the ones in the future higher.
0:10:29Totally.
0:10:29Yeah.
0:10:30It's not doom and gloom for the Daring Fireball company.
0:10:36It's just, I think, a sad day for web advertising, period,
0:10:39simply because I think the deck did it right,
0:10:42and what's left is not so good.
0:10:47Yeah.
0:10:47So what are you going to do?
0:10:48Just going to leave an empty spot there?
0:10:50I guess come April 1st, yeah.
0:10:54I don't know, I've been thinking about it a lot.
0:10:56I mean, as I want to do, I'm indecisive
0:11:01as to what to do with that.
0:11:05- You know what I did?
0:11:07Well, I do not recommend the first part of this.
0:11:09The first thing I did was learn how to use
0:11:11DoubleClick for publishers, which is Google's ad server.
0:11:14Try to avoid doing that if you can.
0:11:17But back in the day when I was running SplatF
0:11:19and I had an ad network that did not have
0:11:22100% fill rate, I made a bunch of house ads
0:11:25that were super minimalist, clean ads,
0:11:28and they were actually for Amazon affiliate links
0:11:31to products I liked.
0:11:32So I linked to my favorite pen, this Pilot Ballpoint pen,
0:11:37and I linked to some other random stuff,
0:11:39probably the new MacBook Pro.
0:11:41And, you know, people bought some pens,
0:11:46and I think I sold some books,
0:11:47but it probably would have been nicer
0:11:51just to leave that space empty.
0:11:52- I've thought about that.
0:11:55I mean, that is putting, you know,
0:11:57picking out things from Amazon and putting,
0:11:59you know, using the spot to promote something like that
0:12:02is a possibility.
0:12:04There was a time when I made,
0:12:06again, my strategy from the beginning was,
0:12:11you know, maybe the stool analogy is a little broken
0:12:14'cause stools usually only have three or four legs
0:12:17and the legs have to all be the same size
0:12:20or the stool isn't balanced.
0:12:22But I'll stick with that analogy.
0:12:26My theory from the beginning was to have,
0:12:29don't depend on one source of revenue to run the site
0:12:32because if something goes wrong with it, you're screwed.
0:12:34It's healthier to,
0:12:36I think this is just common business sense.
0:12:38It's healthier to have multiple revenue streams.
0:12:41And at one point, like 10 years ago,
0:12:43in the early days of me going full-time on Daring Firebolt,
0:12:45Amazon affiliate revenue was,
0:12:48It was never like the highest, but it was noticeable.
0:12:53It was, wow, this is worth doing
0:12:57in terms of how much money it makes per month.
0:12:59And there were bursts around December
0:13:04because I'd be purposefully linked
0:13:06to a couple of Christmasy-type things.
0:13:10And what happens, I don't even know
0:13:13if it works this way anymore, but at least it used to,
0:13:14is if you link to something at Amazon
0:13:17your affiliate code you get more if they buy that exact product that you link to
0:13:23but whatever else they buy at Amazon until they next click some other
0:13:30affiliates affiliate code you get the affiliate revenue from that too
0:13:36and so at Christmas if somebody was like oh I'll help during fireball out I'll
0:13:40click is this link you know where I would say hey but you know in
0:13:44parentheses you know that I get a kickback from Amazon if you click this
0:13:47link blah blah blah. You know, if people then did Christmas shopping and bought other stuff,
0:13:53it was occasionally, you know, a pretty good amount of money. And because it's percentage-based,
0:13:58if people did stuff like buy a MacBook, it was a lot of money.
0:14:05I think it's a little different now, but yeah, same idea. If you link to one thing, you get
0:14:09the whole shopping cart.
0:14:11I think I met … That was great. I actually remember linking
0:14:13to my wedding registry with my affiliate link. So not only did I get an extra commission
0:14:21on the gifts people were buying me, but I could see ahead of time what was coming. That
0:14:26was pretty good. I think I mentioned this on the show, I forget,
0:14:33a couple of weeks ago with somebody. I don't remember exactly. But the funny part though
0:14:37So if I wanted to do that, I've got to get in touch with Amazon and reinstate my affiliate
0:14:46account.
0:14:47They unceremoniously shut my affiliate account down in October.
0:14:51Yikes.
0:14:52Oh, right.
0:14:53I remember that.
0:14:56Did you ever figure that out?
0:14:57No, because I don't.
0:14:58I've been wavering on whether I want to write about it, because to me it's sort of
0:15:07an interesting story, but on the other hand, writing about it also feels like I'm pulling
0:15:13this special, you know, it's obviously going to get a lot of publicity if I write, you
0:15:21know, "Look what Amazon did to me. They, you know, unceremoniously dumped me." But I still
0:15:27think it's kind of an interesting story. I've never heard of this before. So for anybody
0:15:31who didn't listen to the previous episode here, I just looked up the email. On October
0:15:35I got an email from Amazon Associates that said your associates account has come up for review in connection with our ongoing
0:15:40Monitoring of the Amazon affiliates program during our review
0:15:44We have determined that you are not in compliance with the operating agreement that governs your participation in the associates program and your associates
0:15:52Program account has been closed
0:15:54You will not receive further payment of advertising fees
0:15:58You are not in compliance because you are encouraging
0:16:01customers to bookmark your Amazon links as opposed to clicking through your website to
0:16:05reach Amazon.
0:16:06This is not the intent of the associates program.
0:16:09Section 7 of the operating agreement states that a qualifying purchase occurs when a customer
0:16:13clicks through a special link on your site to the Amazon site.
0:16:18Purchases resulting from clicks through bookmarked links do not fit this criteria.
0:16:22You can find the terms and there's a link to their terms.
0:16:26We ask that you immediately remove all Amazon content from your sites.
0:16:30other accounts you have or may open in the future may be closed and you will not receive
0:16:35any advertising fees.
0:16:37We reserve all other rights and claims we have.
0:16:40We appreciate your understanding in this matter.
0:16:45Warmest regards, amazon.com.
0:16:49That's my favorite.
0:16:51Warmest regards.
0:16:52There's your headline right there.
0:16:53So the thing that's interesting about this is they never point to anywhere on my site
0:16:57where I've done this, I encourage people to bookmark it.
0:17:02So it doesn't say, hey, on this page,
0:17:06you encourage people to bookmark it.
0:17:09There's no opportunity to edit the page,
0:17:13to remove that, and there's absolutely no recourse here.
0:17:18There's no, if you, you know.
0:17:19That day, my Amazon account was shut down.
0:17:25There's no, you know, here's where you go
0:17:28if you want to appeal, if you want to argue about this.
0:17:31Just gone.
0:17:33And one of the things that I think is funny about this
0:17:36is that people think that the App Store from Apple
0:17:38is capricious in their, you know,
0:17:41the way they deal with people.
0:17:42But I've never heard of anything like this.
0:17:44Weird, right?
0:17:47- Yeah, that's nuts.
0:17:47I'm actually surprised you haven't,
0:17:50through the, just through the popularity of your podcast,
0:17:53gotten that resolved by now.
0:17:54- Yeah, I don't know.
0:17:56Anyway, I think I know what site it was.
0:17:59I think I know what webpage it was.
0:18:00It's a post I wrote in December of 2004.
0:18:07I swear to God, I'm almost sure this is it,
0:18:10because I literally do tell people
0:18:12that they can bookmark my affiliate code.
0:18:16I wrote, "If you're going to purchase holiday gifts
0:18:18"at Amazon and you'd like to support Daring Fireball,
0:18:20"please consider using these links
0:18:22"to get to Amazon's website.
0:18:23after clicking, you'll proceed to Amazon's homepage, blah, blah, blah.
0:18:30So it was like a 12-year-old post that suddenly, I don't know, I guess they probably had like
0:18:35a spider or something that found it.
0:18:39Or an intern.
0:18:40Yeah, I don't know.
0:18:41Amazing.
0:18:42Yeah.
0:18:43But I don't know.
0:18:44But the other reason I didn't take any action immediately is I've, in recent years, stopped
0:18:50really using the affiliates code because I've been a little bit uncomfortable
0:18:56because Amazon has since 2004 whenever I joined the affiliate program has become
0:19:03a lot less of just an online store and a lot more of one of the leading players
0:19:09in the industry I write about and so I I don't know I there's all sorts of sites
0:19:16I mean the New York Times does you know bought the wire cutter which is run, you know runs on like affiliate links
0:19:21I like I don't think it's
0:19:23Unseemly but I it also just seems to me like it's cleaner if I just don't even use the the affiliate link
0:19:33So I haven't been using it in recent years and the money I get from it has been you know at one point
0:19:40it was like hundreds of dollars a month and maybe like a couple of thousand around the holidays and
0:19:46And in recent years, it's just been like, I don't know,
0:19:49$15 a month or something like that.
0:19:51- Yeah, it's one thing to say,
0:19:55here are all the new Kindles and an affiliate link,
0:19:59and then three minutes later criticize the company
0:20:02for a practice of one of its HR practices
0:20:06or something like that.
0:20:07It's a little-- - Yeah, or, you know,
0:20:10like if I, I don't know,
0:20:13or if I say something really good about a book
0:20:15or a Kindle or something like that and include the code,
0:20:20it's easier to say that, look, I'm telling you this is good
0:20:25because it's good if there is no affiliate code.
0:20:28You know, and I'm not saying, you know,
0:20:30I mean, I'm not saying that people who include it
0:20:32are doing something unethical, you know,
0:20:34and I think that in the long run, you know,
0:20:36like the wire cutter gets by in the long run
0:20:39because it's their long-term reputation that matters.
0:20:42If the wire cutter tells you to buy, you know,
0:20:44a certain blender and you get it through an Amazon link
0:20:48and they get $3 from their purchase
0:20:51and then you get the blender and it's a piece of junk,
0:20:54the wire cutter suffers from that
0:20:57because you're not gonna trust them in the future.
0:20:59The post, I'll put the, I have it in the show notes already
0:21:08so it'll be there, it's this Amazon debauchery,
0:21:11I don't even know how to pronounce that word,
0:21:13but I used it, post from 2004.
0:21:16And among the links in the post is the 20 gigabyte iPod U2
0:21:20special edition.
0:21:22Wow.
0:21:24Nice.
0:21:25One of the things about writing about the deck yesterday
0:21:28and thinking about it and going back and looking
0:21:30at my old posts about the early years
0:21:33and the early years of sponsorships and advertising
0:21:36on Daring Fireball is it really, A, it was a rabbit hole.
0:21:39And I lost a lot of time rereading 10-year-old posts
0:21:42on my own site, but B, a lot of them just gave me
0:21:46that feeling of holy shit, it's been a long time.
0:21:48Like the U2 hard drive iPod feels like another era.
0:21:54I mean, that really, that was a long time ago.
0:21:58- What do you think of that new red iPhone?
0:22:01- Well, let's hold that thought, and we'll talk about that
0:22:03after I talk about one of our friends.
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0:23:29bit of management software.
0:23:31Create your free account at Jamf, J-A-M-F,
0:23:34dot com slash the talk show.
0:23:37That's J-A-M-F dot com slash the talk show.
0:23:42- Yeah, let's talk about the new Apple stuff.
0:23:44- So--
0:23:45- Do you have any of it?
0:23:46- I have a red iPhone.
0:23:47I did get a little briefing up in New York
0:23:50from some fine folks at Apple.
0:23:54- Oh, the 17-inch iPad?
0:23:56- No, no, no, there was nothing secret like that.
0:23:59And they did not give me a review unit,
0:24:02which I was hoping they would not,
0:24:04of the 9.7-inch iPad,
0:24:07because it's, you know, I mean,
0:24:09I've got too many review units as,
0:24:12you know what I mean?
0:24:12There's nothing I don't know about it.
0:24:13I don't need to use it to get it.
0:24:15They had them there for me to examine and look at
0:24:18and they're fine products,
0:24:18but they did give me a review unit of the red iPhone.
0:24:21It's quite nice.
0:24:22- How's the texture on that?
0:24:25- It feels to me exactly like the black one.
0:24:29And I don't have,
0:24:31actually I just packed it up to send backs,
0:24:33but the black one.
0:24:34I don't have the silver or gold, but it feels about the same.
0:24:41I think blindfolded, I would not be able to tell the difference between the red one and
0:24:45the other non-jet black iPhones.
0:24:52I personally feel that it would look better with a black face than the white face, and
0:24:57I wrote that on Daring Fireball, and I got a ton of responses, and everybody feels very
0:25:02strongly about the matter. But a lot of people feel very strongly that I'm exactly right.
0:25:08And what is wrong with Apple? Are they blind? Why wouldn't they make this phone with a black
0:25:13face? And the other half are very strong saying, "Oh my God, no, this is beautiful exactly
0:25:18as it is. Don't encourage them to change a thing."
0:25:21I've never had a white iPhone and I don't think I'd ever want one. It seems like an
0:25:28unnecessary distraction when you're trying to just see the screen.
0:25:31- Yeah, for me, that's exactly how I feel.
0:25:33Well, A, my general rule is when in doubt, buying anything,
0:25:38if there's a black option, get it in black.
0:25:40I just live by that motto.
0:25:43I have a black car.
0:25:46I just generally buy stuff in black.
0:25:53But for that reason, every time,
0:25:56I've had review unit iPhones that are white,
0:26:00white face like with a gold background or something like that and I don't hate
0:26:04it but I do feel that it distracts because when the screens off you can see
0:26:08exactly where the screen is like you've got this white thing and then a black
0:26:13thing within it whereas when the black phone is off it's just a black thing
0:26:19it's great if you're trying to watch a video on a dark airplane why would you
0:26:24want a weird white frame around the screen.
0:26:29- But obviously they're very popular.
0:26:33So I mean, there's no accounting for taste.
0:26:36But I would point that out as a good,
0:26:39there's a reason why it doesn't seem to me
0:26:40like anybody makes white-framed televisions.
0:26:43To me it's unnecessarily distracting,
0:26:46but it is what it is.
0:26:48But anyway, I think that this red in particular
0:26:50would look good with a black front.
0:26:52I've also thought though,
0:26:53I've been saying this for years.
0:26:54I mean, and again, it might just be that I just like black
0:26:57over white anyway, but I think that the gold tones
0:27:01would look good with a black front,
0:27:03sort of a Pittsburgh Steelers look.
0:27:05- I would definitely buy the silver stuff
0:27:09if it had a black front too,
0:27:10the whatever it's called these days.
0:27:12- Right, right.
0:27:14But-- - I bought the aluminum,
0:27:15the main silver colored MacBook the last two years,
0:27:18and it's great with the black screen frame,
0:27:21but if it had a white screen frame, no thanks.
0:27:24- Did you see the thing, I didn't bother to do my homework,
0:27:30but there's a thing where it's obviously,
0:27:33it's product red, and so the proceeds go
0:27:36to help fight AIDS in Africa,
0:27:39except that in China, it's not a product red product.
0:27:45But I heard somewhere, somebody said that
0:27:50Even though it's not marketed as product red,
0:27:52Apple still is going to send the same portion
0:27:56of the proceeds from the red one sold in China
0:27:58to product red.
0:28:00So I don't know what the deal is there.
0:28:01I think it might just be,
0:28:02I don't know if that's true or not true,
0:28:04and if it is true,
0:28:05I don't know why they don't stamp product red on it,
0:28:08but I don't know.
0:28:10There's a lot of people who think
0:28:11that the main target for this phone is China,
0:28:13just because red is such a popular color in China.
0:28:16It's the most popular color by far.
0:28:19I can't recall a time when Apple made something that specific red and it wasn't a product
0:28:27red co-branded thing either.
0:28:29No.
0:28:30I guess maybe the U2 iPod.
0:28:32No, because that was before I think product red existed.
0:28:35Everything has always been product red.
0:28:37I think even the old iPods.
0:28:42Yeah, I think they just do it because I don't know what percentage of the money goes to
0:28:46a product red but whatever it is it's within their whatever they want to give you know they want to
0:28:50give that amount to product red anyway you know like even little rinky-dink things like the red
0:28:57iphone cases are product red or like the if you buy the the the the sports strap for your apple
0:29:05watch that's red it's product red so it must just be some i don't know if it's a legal thing in
0:29:09china or if it's a marketing thing in china where they feel like marketing wise that that wouldn't
0:29:14go over well for some reason. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. Could be both.
0:29:19My guess is it's probably a legal thing, but I don't know why China would be different than
0:29:25every other non-US entity. They also minor tweak to the iPhone SE, where they changed it from a 16
0:29:37or 64 gigabyte storage tier option to 32 and 128.
0:29:42Which--
0:29:45- Unironic, finally.
0:29:46- Yeah, no more 16 gigabyte iPhones.
0:29:50No more 16 gigabyte iPads either.
0:29:52I think the last, there is still,
0:29:53you can still buy a 16 gigabyte iPod Touch,
0:29:55but does anybody buy iPod Touches anymore?
0:29:58I guess some people do for kids, but.
0:30:02- Not even Syracuse, though, so I don't know.
0:30:06- Yeah, but that's a nice thing.
0:30:09But it also strongly suggests that
0:30:11they're not gonna update the iPhone SE
0:30:15other than the storage.
0:30:16I think it's the last of the phones of that size.
0:30:21- I tweeted this yesterday, or maybe the day before,
0:30:26I said I miss Mark Gurman, but for real,
0:30:30I wanna know why there's no new iPad Pros,
0:30:33because that seemed like the main function
0:30:35of the spring rev cycle now and we don't have it.
0:30:39Just as I was about to impulse purchase
0:30:41a mid-sized iPad Pro with a pencil,
0:30:45I was hoping for an update and now it's,
0:30:49seems like it's not happening.
0:30:51- There were a lot of the supply chain rumors for months,
0:30:55I mean dating back to like August,
0:30:57were saying that there's going to be,
0:30:59I guess some of them didn't say an iPad Pro,
0:31:02a 9.7 inch iPad Pro.
0:31:04Some of the rumors did say that there was a low cost
0:31:069.7 inch iPad coming in March.
0:31:08But they all said that there was an updated
0:31:1112.9 inch iPad Pro coming from March.
0:31:15And I thought it just made common sense,
0:31:17like not talking to little birdies or anything,
0:31:19but just, you know, Apple is a company of patterns.
0:31:22And they've had March new products for a while.
0:31:25They had March new products this year too.
0:31:27And it just seemed like a year old iPad Pro,
0:31:31and a year and a half old big iPad Pro
0:31:34seemed due for updates.
0:31:36- Especially with that Pro name.
0:31:38- Right. - It seems.
0:31:40- And some people are saying that it's still coming.
0:31:42There's somebody who said it's coming
0:31:43in an event in April.
0:31:44I don't think that that's going to happen at all.
0:31:46I don't know.
0:31:47But I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think it's coming.
0:31:51So maybe a WWDC?
0:31:52- Well, the other spring thing recently
0:31:56has been that the MacBook, the 12-inch MacBook,
0:31:58which doesn't seem to have an update
0:32:01spring either so yeah maybe yeah who knows it seems like there's a couple of
0:32:05products that could be updated and they aren't in the you know oh my god let's
0:32:11how old is the Mac Pro type era just you know products that we know Apple still
0:32:15you know cares very much about seem to for an update but do you know that like
0:32:21if you're in the market for an iPad Pro right now what do you do I'm waiting I'm
0:32:25I'm I refuse to buy something oh I don't know last night I almost bought one but
0:32:30But I think I have to wait.
0:32:33I think so too, unless you have--
0:32:35It's not going to be a whole other year.
0:32:36It's not like I really need it.
0:32:38This is like an impulse purchase, if anything.
0:32:43Yeah.
0:32:44Yeah, I'm going to hold off, because whether they change the design of it or not, all those
0:32:52rumors of the 10-whatever-inch thing, it seems like it's probably not going to be an entire
0:32:59extra year, so I might as well hold off for whatever sort of speed bumps they put into it.
0:33:04Dave: Yeah. I don't know. It's hard to say. I don't know. It seems like all of the rumors
0:33:10are coming from the supply chain. And I do feel like if... Who knows where Germin sources have
0:33:15been. But it seems like in years past, Germin had sources from somehow not just from the supply
0:33:24supply chain. The supply chain ones get all the product marketing wrong because they don't
0:33:30know. All they know is somebody at a Sharp display factory in China talks to Ming-Chi
0:33:41Kuo and tells him, "Hey, Apple is buying a ton of these 10.5-inch LCD panels. Go from
0:33:48there." But they don't know anything about what product it's for or anything like that.
0:33:53obvious in hindsight that they don't know when the hell the products are coming out either.
0:33:57At least- You know my favorite one of all time.
0:34:00Which is that? The naming, the iPhone Math.
0:34:05Which I guess in hindsight was the iPhone 6 Plus.
0:34:13Yeah. But they got the plus name right, but the iPhone Math.
0:34:17Oh, I never thought about that. Every once in a while I think about that and I just
0:34:21I just slapped my ass off walking down the street.
0:34:23I phone math.
0:34:25- I never thought about it.
0:34:26(laughs)
0:34:28That that's what, they saw the plus symbol.
0:34:30And who knows, maybe it was like a language thing too
0:34:33where in Chinese or whatever language in Asia,
0:34:38if it was Korean or whatever,
0:34:40but there's some kind of translation
0:34:42from an Asian language to English
0:34:45where plus, a number and a plus sign
0:34:48got turned into math.
0:34:50(laughs)
0:34:52It's just the best.
0:34:54- I don't know what to do.
0:34:56People often ask me, I feel like almost every product
0:35:00except the iPhone is getting harder and harder to predict
0:35:03when the hell Apple's going to come out with updates.
0:35:07- Do you use an iPad Pro for anything?
0:35:11- Right now, no.
0:35:12I've never bought one and I've packed up the ones,
0:35:16I've turned the review units that I've had.
0:35:20I regretted it, and then I thought,
0:35:22and then my thinking was, I don't really use an iPad a lot.
0:35:25So that's an Apple device that I only buy one
0:35:28every couple years.
0:35:29Like my, the iPad I'm using right now is an iPad Mini.
0:35:33And I don't even know what model it is.
0:35:38It's fairly recent.
0:35:40I don't know, no, it's not that recent.
0:35:42I don't know, it's an iPad Mini from a couple years ago.
0:35:45So I'm due to get a new one.
0:35:46I think I'm done with the iPad Mini size.
0:35:49I think I want the 9.7 inch size.
0:35:52Just because I like having everything bigger.
0:35:55It's like the years since I've had this many,
0:35:57or the years where I'm starting to need, you know,
0:36:00bigger stuff to be able to read.
0:36:02But I don't wanna buy now.
0:36:04And I don't use an iPad enough to be tempted at all
0:36:08to buy before they come out with the new ones.
0:36:10- Yeah, same.
0:36:13It is, I think it was a good move,
0:36:16and an interesting move that they went to
0:36:18move the price down as opposed to maxing out any sort of specs on this new revision.
0:36:25But it makes total sense.
0:36:28It's clear that the two places they need to go with the iPad is they need lower prices,
0:36:32and that's what this product is all about.
0:36:34And they need to keep pushing the Pro capabilities at the high end, because it runs from, "Hey,
0:36:39this is just a $300 thing for a classroom full of kids in elementary school," to...
0:36:45- Or any coffee shop with a square reader, which is, you know.
0:36:49- Right, right, like just to put like--
0:36:51- Almost every one I go into now,
0:36:52they're using an actual iPad as the point of sale stuff.
0:36:56- Yeah, and it's, you know,
0:36:57they're only $300, it's super easy,
0:37:02it seems to me like every place I go into
0:37:04that uses them as a reader, they work very well.
0:37:07They're fast, you know.
0:37:09But in cases like that, yeah,
0:37:13price is a bigger difference than power.
0:37:18I think they did a good job too of figuring out
0:37:20what are the things that are pro
0:37:23and which are the things that are not.
0:37:25If there's anything I'm a little bit,
0:37:27like I'm not surprised at all
0:37:28that it doesn't support the pencil,
0:37:30because the pencil, I can only imagine
0:37:33that the support inside the iPad for the pencil
0:37:36is relatively expensive, you know,
0:37:38that it's not like super cheap.
0:37:40And the pencil itself isn't cheap.
0:37:43And so, I don't think schools, for example,
0:37:46elementary schools that are so price sensitive
0:37:49and we're hearing so much that they're super,
0:37:50they're more price sensitive than ever,
0:37:52they're not gonna buy Apple pencils for the kids
0:37:54because surely they're gonna get lost.
0:37:56Snapped, you know.
0:37:59Maybe the stolen, who knows?
0:38:03So I don't think pencils--
0:38:04- Yeah, keep that for pro.
0:38:04I mean, you can use a dumb stylus
0:38:06with a regular iPad if you need to.
0:38:08- Right.
0:38:10My only regret, my biggest regret
0:38:11for not having an iPad Pro right now,
0:38:14myself, is the new app from the icon factory, Linea,
0:38:18which is a very cool drawing app.
0:38:20But, and it works just fine, as best as it possibly could
0:38:25on a non-Pro iPad using these big fingertip-shaped styluses
0:38:30like I have.
0:38:31But clearly it is meant for the pencil,
0:38:35'cause it's a very, very nice drawing app.
0:38:37And I don't really, it's not like I'm an illustrator,
0:38:40but it's my favorite drawing app
0:38:42that I've seen to date for the iPad.
0:38:43And so just as like a user interface nerd,
0:38:47I like playing with it to see what they've done.
0:38:49But it's clearly, I'm only getting half the experience
0:38:55by not having an Apple Pencil right now.
0:38:57There's a thing that I saw where Apple told me
0:39:03about it really that, I don't have a link to it,
0:39:06But there's a Logitech case that Apple
0:39:09is promoting, especially in education, with this new iPad.
0:39:15And it's sort of--
0:39:16you can see why Apple wouldn't make it itself.
0:39:18It's thick.
0:39:19And so it's-- in terms of like--
0:39:21it's both a case around the iPad itself.
0:39:26And it's more like one of those like gorilla cases,
0:39:29or whatever they call them, where it's like a rugged.
0:39:32And it's really quite thick.
0:39:34But it also, it plugs into the lightning port.
0:39:38So it just wraps around sort of like a battery case.
0:39:40Maybe it might even be a battery.
0:39:41I don't even know, it might.
0:39:42But it definitely plugs into the lightning port.
0:39:45And then it has a keyboard.
0:39:47There's two versions.
0:39:48There's one that's just a rugged case,
0:39:50and then there's one with a physical keyboard
0:39:52so you can prop it up like a laptop.
0:39:53And the reason why it plugs into lightning port
0:39:57is that for standardized tests in K through 12,
0:40:03It's the ones that are computerized
0:40:05have to be done with a keyboard that
0:40:07has a physical connection to the computing device.
0:40:10You're not allowed to take-- the standardized tests do not
0:40:14allow the use of Bluetooth keyboards or mice.
0:40:17Huh.
0:40:18I presumably for like cheating type thing.
0:40:24Like you're not allowed-- I guess
0:40:26the idea is that when the device is in testing mode,
0:40:30it is not allowed to have any wireless IO,
0:40:35which I guess makes some amount of sense.
0:40:39Just, you know, I'm not quite sure how they enforce it
0:40:42in software, but that's the idea.
0:40:44- I mean, it's not dumb.
0:40:45We used to beam Palm Pilot answers
0:40:47to each other in high school, so.
0:40:49- You were ahead of the curve.
0:40:51- Not a dumb idea.
0:40:52I definitely was ahead of the curve.
0:40:53The teacher had no idea what that thing was,
0:40:55but it's interesting.
0:40:58And I asked, so the smart connector counts as a wired connection.
0:41:06So if you wanted to, you could use an iPad Pro and a smart keyboard through the smart
0:41:11connector.
0:41:12That would count.
0:41:13That's not wireless because it is electricity flowing through a connector.
0:41:18But it's the iPad Pros and the expensive keyboard and everything is way outside the budget for
0:41:24elementary schools.
0:41:26But I thought that was interesting that they can't use Bluetooth.
0:41:30So I guess I'm a little surprised that the cheaper iPad, this new one, doesn't have the
0:41:34smart connector.
0:41:35I can see why it doesn't have the pencil.
0:41:36I'm a little surprised it doesn't have the smart connector, but maybe the smart connector
0:41:40adds enough to the cost that to get all the way down to $329, you really do have to make
0:41:45hard decisions like that.
0:41:46Yeah, it's interesting.
0:41:48And obviously the screen not having anti-reflective coating on it.
0:41:54Yeah.
0:41:55it doesn't have the lamination of the display to the glass.
0:41:59So there's that very narrow air gap between the,
0:42:04it just looks like the pixels are slightly lower,
0:42:08they are in fact slightly further away
0:42:10from the surface of the glass
0:42:12than they are on the iPad Air 2, the iPad Pro,
0:42:16and all the iPhones from recent years.
0:42:19But on a device that big, I saw one last week,
0:42:21it doesn't, it's not very noticeable.
0:42:24I don't know if I, you know, I guess I could do it side by side, but if you just gave me
0:42:28one iPad and asked me to guess, I'm not sure if I could see it.
0:42:32Pete: Oh, it's new too.
0:42:36Mine has, I think, some permanent fingerprints on it at this point, even with the anti-reflective.
0:42:43So…
0:42:44[Laughter]
0:42:45I've told this story before, but it's one of my favorites.
0:42:53So one of the two times that I met Steve Jobs personally was after the keynote when they
0:43:00announced the iPhone 4, which was the first Retina iPhone and the first one where the
0:43:06screen was fused to the glass.
0:43:09And it's the hands-on area.
0:43:11He was on the side hallway beside the big keynote area
0:43:14in Moscone, and I was just hanging around.
0:43:18And I got to talk to Scott Forstall,
0:43:20and I'd never talked to him before,
0:43:22and he obviously knew who I was,
0:43:24and he said he reads "Daring Fireball," likes it a lot,
0:43:27and it was very complimentary.
0:43:27We had a great little discussion.
0:43:29And Katie Cotton was talking to me then,
0:43:36and then she said, "Would you like to meet Steve?"
0:43:38And I just said, "Has anybody ever said no to that?"
0:43:42And she laughed and said, "No, actually nobody
0:43:44"has ever said no to that."
0:43:45And I said, "Sure."
0:43:46So she walked me over and introduced me,
0:43:48and I was talking with Steve Jobs and Forstall.
0:43:51And he asked what I thought of the phone.
0:43:55I said it was beautiful.
0:43:56I've been waiting for retina screens forever,
0:44:01high resolution screens.
0:44:03We talked about it, I don't know,
0:44:04probably about five minutes,
0:44:05but it felt like it just rushed right by.
0:44:07But I said, like about the lamination,
0:44:09and I had a question about that,
0:44:10and he had all the details, he knew exactly how it worked.
0:44:13In fact, he said they had to invent the machines to do it.
0:44:18There was no factory in China could do it,
0:44:21so they invented their own machines
0:44:23and filled the factory in Foxconn
0:44:26with these Apple-invented machines to do it.
0:44:29And I said, so there's literally no air gap anymore.
0:44:32It's impossible for like a piece of dust
0:44:34to get between the screen and the glass.
0:44:36And he said, "Nope, it's absolutely impossible."
0:44:39And so I took out my personal 3GS,
0:44:42and I said, "So I can't get like this."
0:44:44And I showed him the piece of dust
0:44:45that he'd be doing. (laughing)
0:44:47That was sort of like,
0:44:49right in the center of the screen horizontally,
0:44:52or yeah, horizontally,
0:44:53and about two inches up from the bottom.
0:44:55And he laughed, and he said, "No, that can't happen again."
0:44:58But I-- - That's awesome.
0:45:00- I love that I got to show Steve Jobs
0:45:01the pieces of dust in my iPhone.
0:45:06Nice.
0:45:06A good use of a rare opportunity.
0:45:10Uh, what else did they have?
0:45:14They had the, uh, was there any more hardware?
0:45:16I think the only way they had the, they had the app, which was interesting.
0:45:21And to me, this, the app is a sign that there's not an event coming before WWDC.
0:45:27Cause that's the kind of thing that seemed like it would have been
0:45:29dems for live demo, demo, totally demo.
0:45:33And in fact, in the briefing that I had, by far and away, the overall majority of the
0:45:38time was talking about clips and demoing clips and going through a sort of, you know, here's
0:45:44how you use it type thing.
0:45:46Which is it out now?
0:45:47Because it's now three.
0:45:48It is coming out in quote unquote April.
0:45:51Oh, it was funny.
0:45:53So they said it, you know, it requires 10 three.
0:45:56And I asked if that meant,
0:45:58is it going to come out the same day 10.3 comes out?
0:46:03'Cause they didn't have an announcement date for 10.3.
0:46:06And it was so typical Apple where the answer was,
0:46:10it's coming out, they said to me,
0:46:15it's coming out in April and requires iOS 10.3.
0:46:18And I said, does that mean it's gonna come out
0:46:19the same day 10.3 comes out?
0:46:21And their answer was, it's coming out in April
0:46:23and it requires iOS 10.3.
0:46:26- Amazing.
0:46:26- You've had those answers too, right?
0:46:30- Of course.
0:46:30- And when they repeat the answer once,
0:46:33and they do it, they don't do it like you're a moron.
0:46:35They don't do it as though
0:46:38they haven't told you that before.
0:46:39They do it with a, please take a hint that this is all,
0:46:44I can't give you a yes or a no.
0:46:46So I took it to mean that maybe it was going to,
0:46:51and then maybe that's what they were shooting for.
0:46:53But I think what happened,
0:46:55They did know it wasn't coming out till April already.
0:46:58I think I was there last Wednesday or I forget what day, but it was last week.
0:47:05They did know that Eclipse wasn't coming out till April.
0:47:08And I think that maybe what happened is that 10.3 was ready first and they didn't want
0:47:12to hold it back.
0:47:13I don't think they like holding back iOS updates because of the security stuff in them.
0:47:18When they get the go-ahead from their testing people that, "Hey, this is ready to ship,"
0:47:24they ship it. But anyway, I think it's a great app. I know that at first there was
0:47:30sort of, it seemed like some of the initial reaction on Twitter was sort of
0:47:33a, "Oh, Apple's piling on this me too Snapchat/Instagram/every single product Facebook-owned stories sort of multimedia posting things."
0:47:51And there's some part of that that's obviously there because Apple is emphasizing that you
0:47:57can share these—they're just videos, and you can share them to any service you want.
0:48:04But they're not making their own social network to do it.
0:48:07It has nothing to do with the networking.
0:48:09It has just to do with the creation of this new sort of hybrid media format.
0:48:15And I find it fascinating.
0:48:16And in the time I got to play with it, I was super impressed with the app.
0:48:20It is, to me, it is the software equivalent of AirPods, where hardware-wise, AirPods are
0:48:29my favorite new Apple product in a long time, and to me, is Apple at its best.
0:48:37I think clips is the same thing with software.
0:48:39Sure, it's just a little thing.
0:48:41It's not like a major, a super major new thing in the same way that, hey, they're just headphones,
0:48:47right?
0:48:48It's just a little way to make little animated movies.
0:48:51But it's so well done.
0:48:54Like I described it on Twitter.
0:48:55I worked on this tweet for a while,
0:48:57but I described it as it's as though
0:48:59Keynote and iMovie had a baby
0:49:01and the kid got all the best genes from both parents.
0:49:03(laughing)
0:49:06- And if you wanna look at it deeper
0:49:09and more strategically, it's also one of the first,
0:49:12if not the first augmented reality software tools
0:49:16from Apple in a sense.
0:49:18Yeah.
0:49:19If you believe that they are building AR glasses and that the new iPhone might have some AR
0:49:26features in it, it seems pretty obvious to start shipping that kind of stuff.
0:49:31Well, I guess it kind of is an AR feature.
0:49:34I don't know.
0:49:35It does.
0:49:36It definitely ... Is it AR?
0:49:42I don't know if it qualifies, but for example, if I would ...
0:49:45AR is kind of a murky thing to define. In some senses, Pokemon Go was AR, but in others,
0:49:51it's not really. It's just a game. Right. In some sense, I almost feel... Yeah,
0:49:57let's not worry about what is and is not augmented reality in a capital-A, capital-R sense,
0:50:04but instead just think about the ways that these devices with... Especially the camera,
0:50:13and the microphone, the camera and microphone are obviously the two main inputs, but other sensors
0:50:17as well are aware of where they are and how they're being used. And so the example with clips is,
0:50:22if I'm shooting you and I'm putting you in a clip, it does real-time facial recognition and knows
0:50:29that Dan Fromer is in the clip. And so it's already there. And I forget exactly how that comes into
0:50:38I know one way that it comes into play is when I'm done making the clip it and I go to share it
0:50:43It'll if it knows that you were in the clip. It'll suggest sending it to you
0:50:47That's cool
0:50:50There might be other things too though that you can do within the clip to somehow get you labeled or something like that
0:50:56You know my number one feature request from the internet is still the feed of photos that I'm in the background of
0:51:05- Yeah. - Taken by all random people.
0:51:07- Yeah.
0:51:09- Somewhere that exists that just hasn't been turned on yet.
0:51:12- It's called the NSA.
0:51:14- Yeah, okay, yeah, true.
0:51:16Yes.
0:51:18- But somebody's gonna make a public version of that,
0:51:20and it'll be weird, but you know.
0:51:22I remember reading a story, it's sort of a tangent,
0:51:28but I remember reading a story in Wired magazine,
0:51:31I'm gonna say 10 years ago,
0:51:32but I don't even know if I was still reading
0:51:34Wired 10 years ago,
0:51:35so it might have been 15 or 20 years ago.
0:51:38But somebody was writing about,
0:51:40as municipalities and cities put cameras at intersections
0:51:47and stuff like that,
0:51:49you know, and that there's video monitoring of public spaces,
0:51:53that the right way to, you know,
0:51:55it's right for everybody to be concerned about privacy
0:51:59and access to the footage,
0:52:00but the way to deal with it isn't to lock it down
0:52:03super tight and only allow the police to see it.
0:52:07And the way to do it is to make them public
0:52:09so that if there's a traffic camera at 15th and Locust
0:52:14and the police can get the footage of it,
0:52:17everybody should be able to get the footage of it
0:52:19over the internet.
0:52:20'Cause if I was standing there,
0:52:21I could see what's going on at the corner.
0:52:23So if there's a camera there
0:52:24and it's a publicly owned camera,
0:52:26why can't I get the footage of the camera?
0:52:28And there's some sense to that, to me.
0:52:32You know, I'm not saying I completely agree with it, but I can see the logic behind it,
0:52:35and I can sort of see the logic of, look, if some entities are collecting background information
0:52:40about who's in all these pictures that are being posted to Twitter, maybe everybody should have
0:52:45that information. Because the picture's on. If it's a public picture, right? If the picture's
0:52:51been posted to Twitter, it's there, why not notify me of it? I'm not sure about that.
0:52:57Anyway, clips. I think clips is pretty exciting.
0:53:00- Yeah, I'm pumped for that one.
0:53:02That should be cool.
0:53:03But that's the kind of thing where, you know,
0:53:06I guess that if there was gonna be a time
0:53:09to show that publicly and give a 10, 15 minute demo of it,
0:53:14- It would be on stage.
0:53:15- It would be more desirable, yeah,
0:53:16it would be on stage and that would be more desirable
0:53:18than, you know, whatever, however many places
0:53:21were pre-briefed and got to demo it.
0:53:24- Yeah, 'cause it's hard.
0:53:25'Cause even if they have exciting new,
0:53:29Like, all right, it's just a red iPhone 7, really.
0:53:33I mean, the red is nice, but it's not really demo-able
0:53:37on stage.
0:53:38Ultimately, it's the type of thing
0:53:39you really need to see in person.
0:53:40Everybody needs to go to a store and see it
0:53:42to really appreciate it.
0:53:43Because you know it's going to look good in the product
0:53:46photography.
0:53:46So the real question for anybody who's actually
0:53:49thinking about buying one is, what
0:53:50does it look like in person?
0:53:51So showing it on stage doesn't really help.
0:53:53iPhone SE has more storage.
0:53:55Well, you can't demo that.
0:53:57That is at best one slide and what,
0:54:00seven seconds is stage time.
0:54:02Software like Clips is what you need
0:54:04to actually fill a presentation.
0:54:06- Which also says that there's too much
0:54:10at WWDC to save that for.
0:54:13- Maybe, I don't know.
0:54:14Or maybe it's one of those things
0:54:16where it's ready to go and they wanna get it out.
0:54:18- Yeah.
0:54:19- One of the things that worked well for me,
0:54:21at least in my brief demo time,
0:54:24in admittedly an enclosed environment
0:54:26so it wasn't lots of public noise or anything like that.
0:54:29But the way that you, when you speak,
0:54:33when you can set, it doesn't do it all the time,
0:54:35but you can turn on like a title style,
0:54:37and while the title style is on,
0:54:39it will, you speak to the camera,
0:54:41what you're saying turns into these animated titles.
0:54:46- Oh, cool.
0:54:47- It works very well.
0:54:48And it does it in a, depending on the style, I think,
0:54:53but at least in certain of the styles,
0:54:55The words only appear as you speak them.
0:54:57And one of the things that they're super cognizant of,
0:55:03and it's clearly designed for, is that
0:55:07these videos, they have sound,
0:55:12and they even have all these cool music soundtracks
0:55:14you can do with them, but that the assumption is that
0:55:16in many contexts, they're going to be played
0:55:18with the sound off, because people are at work
0:55:20or they're in public, and nobody likes a video
0:55:24that auto plays with sound.
0:55:26And so that's why I think they put so much emphasis
0:55:29on these titles.
0:55:31But it's really pretty cool the way that the titles
0:55:34sync up with the words you're saying as you're saying them.
0:55:37And it seems like the sort of thing
0:55:40that would take a lot of fiddling with
0:55:42in the software to do, but you don't.
0:55:46You just turn on the title,
0:55:47and as you're holding the button, it happens automatically.
0:55:50You get, the result is you get an effect
0:55:54looks like it took a lot of precision editing and instead you got it automatically.
0:55:57That's cool. That sounds as close to magic as we can get these days almost.
0:56:05Yeah. I think maybe the single most appley thing about it is that among the soundtracks that
0:56:12they've commissioned, number one, they've commissioned a whole bunch of these soundtracks
0:56:16of different styles, but they've had the artists who make them make them in a whole bunch of
0:56:21different lengths. So the same song, if you make just a little four second clip,
0:56:27there's a version of it that maybe isn't recorded as exactly four seconds,
0:56:34but there's a version for, "Hey, what if the clip is only like three to five
0:56:37seconds long? We'll use this one." And there's a beginning and an end that makes
0:56:41sense. But if you have a 30-second clip, it's the same song, but it's a
0:56:45different version that is meant to be roughly 30 seconds long. But the part
0:56:50Super Appley is that they have ones that were created by Hans Zimmer. They actually paid Hans
0:56:57Zimmer to do some of these. Every other tech company in the world, I think, might have hired
0:57:04somebody like, you know, Zahn Himmer, you know, make us something that sounds like a Hans Zimmer
0:57:10song. And instead, Apple went and paid Hans Zimmer to do it. It's pretty cool.
0:57:14Did you get a sense it's mostly for tall screen video, for mobile video, or is it also for
0:57:21uploading to YouTube and stuff?
0:57:23It is, in fact, the app only works when you're holding it tall screen. The app does not rotate.
0:57:32But the format is like old school Instagram. It is only and always square.
0:57:39Oh, wow.
0:57:41And it is intended for consumption on mobile first.
0:57:48And I asked about that.
0:57:50This is great that you asked, because it
0:57:52was one of my big questions.
0:57:54If you import-- so anything you shoot while you're in clips
0:57:58is always automatically square.
0:58:00If you import from your library a photo or a video
0:58:07that you shot in a rectangular format,
0:58:10it crops to a square, but you get to pan and scan within it to where you want it. And if it's a
0:58:16video, you can, it's not just like you pick the square and the whole thing, you can change it as
0:58:21the video plays, like which, which portion of it appears in the square. That's what I mean about
0:58:27it being a very, you know, like a keynote/iMovie-esque caliber app. Like, every little thing
0:58:34like that that I could think of during the demo, they were like, "Yes, it already does that." Like,
0:58:38I thought I had them pegged on a whole bunch of these things.
0:58:41I thought, oh, well, what happens
0:58:42if the beginning of the video, the center, is the best part,
0:58:45but at the end of the video, the best part's over on the right?
0:58:48It handles that.
0:58:51And so the idea is they said-- this
0:58:53is one of the things they said about going with Square--
0:58:55is that on mobile, Square always looks good.
0:58:59And what they've noticed is that a lot of people,
0:59:04in their observations, even when they're
0:59:06watching 16 to nine horizontal video on their phone.
0:59:11If it's a short clip,
0:59:12they don't even bother rotating the phone.
0:59:14They just watch it tiny and centered in their phone
0:59:19as it's held tall,
0:59:21because it's so much more comfortable
0:59:23to hold your phone tall than to hold it sideways.
0:59:26- Yeah, I definitely do that.
0:59:29What sense do you get on why they made something like this?
0:59:33It seems kind of, you know,
0:59:35used to make stuff like this,
0:59:37like Photo Booth on the Mac,
0:59:39because there was a camera on the front of the MacBook
0:59:43and you needed something to do with it,
0:59:44but it seems like they do this less often now.
0:59:48- I do think so, and I think that's why I'm so,
0:59:50that's why it makes me so happy,
0:59:51because I do think that making creative tools
0:59:53is what Apple does best, and I think it's a sense,
0:59:56you know, they don't really,
1:00:00they generally, Apple doesn't generally like to explain
1:00:03the why behind a lot of things, but I just think it's because they could, and they knew
1:00:06that they could do a good job.
1:00:08I think they saw an opportunity.
1:00:09And I think that what they saw—this, I guess, they kind of did say—was that they could
1:00:14kind of see that this hybrid format is becoming a new thing.
1:00:20You know, that it's like at a meta level above a video or a still photo or even just
1:00:27a still photo with a static annotation over it.
1:00:31You know how you can make in Mail now?
1:00:34Like if I paste an image in Mail,
1:00:36I can edit, click the little toolbox,
1:00:39and draw like an arrow or circle something on the image.
1:00:42That a sort of combination between a video
1:00:49and an annotated image is becoming a new format
1:00:52and that they could make a tool that does it better.
1:00:57And it really does.
1:00:58It does all the things that you think you could do.
1:00:59Like when you drag out a thought bubble or something like that,
1:01:07you can pinch it to scale it.
1:01:09You can two-finger twist it to rotate it.
1:01:13You can drag it anywhere you want on the canvas.
1:01:15Everything you think you should be
1:01:17able to do to the little things you drag out and put
1:01:20on the canvas, you can do.
1:01:23So I know.
1:01:24And I think some of it is we know how to do this already.
1:01:28Like the end result is a format that's sort of new,
1:01:32but the little things you can do,
1:01:35Apple already had some of the software to do it.
1:01:39- It's interesting though with the square aspect ratio
1:01:45because then I don't know if you can make much use
1:01:49of this uploading to an Instagram Stories
1:01:52or Snapchat or something like that.
1:01:55So it is not super useful for that, I guess.
1:02:00- Well, I wonder though, maybe what people will do
1:02:01with them though is upgrade them
1:02:03as a regular Instagram post.
1:02:05- True, which I'm doing less of now because of the stories,
1:02:10so maybe that'll be useful.
1:02:12- Yeah, I don't know.
1:02:14I don't know if I've ever even posted an Instagram story.
1:02:16I don't know what to make of it.
1:02:18With Instagram Stories-- - I love it.
1:02:21I think it's great, but I can see why people don't do it too.
1:02:24But with Instagram Stories, correct me if I'm wrong,
1:02:26you can't pick from your library.
1:02:28You've gotta create a new thing right now on the fly.
1:02:31- No, you can use anything from the last 24 hours.
1:02:34That was kind of something they did differently
1:02:36than Snapchat.
1:02:37Snapchat won't let you,
1:02:39used to not let you pick from the library.
1:02:41Now you kinda can, but it's not super great.
1:02:44- So if I make a clip and save it to my library,
1:02:46I could upload it as an Instagram Story.
1:02:49- Yes.
1:02:50- Yeah, I think people might do that.
1:02:51I really do, 'cause I think that it's a richer editing tool.
1:02:53It's got--
1:02:55- But it'll be, it'll zoom in then,
1:02:58'cause Instagram Stories will take up
1:02:59the full 16 by nine vertical frame.
1:03:02So it'll-- - Ah.
1:03:03I wonder if it'll zoom in or if it'll just crop it.
1:03:06Or you know, like letterbox it.
1:03:07- It will zoom in.
1:03:10- Oh.
1:03:10Well, then maybe--
1:03:11- Well, at least that's what it does with still photos.
1:03:13I have not actually tried it with a square video.
1:03:16- Yeah.
1:03:17- I think it will zoom in.
1:03:18- Well, I don't know.
1:03:21- But some people who do like some more,
1:03:23I've noticed some people I think using either iMovie or Final Cut to make crazy effects
1:03:30in their Instagram stories and then popping it in there. Obviously, using tools you couldn't
1:03:35use in the native Instagram app, but most people obviously don't do that. Most people
1:03:39are using the Instagram tools.
1:03:41Well, I don't know. Again, I'm not a story user, so maybe I'm the wrong person to judge
1:03:46it, but I would think that if you take the time to use clips, which is a little bit more
1:03:49effort than just whipping it out, you know, just doing it live in the Instagram app. If
1:03:54you're going to take the time to use clips, you probably want to post it as a regular
1:03:57post anyway and not have it disappear.
1:03:59Yeah, that makes sense.
1:04:02I don't know. I am really excited about it, and I just think from what I saw, it is really,
1:04:07really well done. It's not just that the features are well done, but even the user experience,
1:04:16I don't know what you call it, but the layout of the app
1:04:20is very, very, very thoughtfully done.
1:04:23In a way, it's the best sort of structure to the entire user
1:04:29interface, which is that I think most people will never even
1:04:32think, wow, this has a really nice interface,
1:04:34because it's just so obvious.
1:04:37When you do it right, it just disappears.
1:04:41All it is is just two layers.
1:04:43It's like at the root level, there's
1:04:45just a horizontal stream of your clips
1:04:48that you've already made.
1:04:50So you can select a clip that you're like halfway through.
1:04:53Clip meaning a project, right?
1:04:55So you can select one that you've already made,
1:04:58and it opens back up again.
1:04:59And then that's the only two layers.
1:05:02There's one for choosing, and then you tap one
1:05:05or add the plus button to create a new one,
1:05:08and you're in the Clips Editor.
1:05:10And within the Clips Editor,
1:05:11there's only just a few things you can do.
1:05:12and there's no way to get lost.
1:05:15I feel like apps like Instagram,
1:05:18like Instagram has broken all the rules
1:05:20of what Instagram is by adding all these new features.
1:05:23When you swipe from the left to go to the thing
1:05:28where you edit your stories or whatever the hell that is,
1:05:31like where are you in the app spatially?
1:05:33It's just something they made up.
1:05:35There's no on-screen indication of where you are.
1:05:39As opposed to the old Instagram,
1:05:41where you were always in one of the five tabs
1:05:43at the bottom of the screen.
1:05:44- Well, actually, if you do it now,
1:05:48there's a little slider that kind of suggests
1:05:51that you're going toward the camera.
1:05:53There's a little slider thing.
1:05:55But yeah, I kind of get what you're going at.
1:05:58They definitely borrowed a lot of this navigational
1:06:00concept from Snapchat, which was very confusing at first,
1:06:04but now...
1:06:06- Well, and the other one, too,
1:06:07is you can slide to the other side, too,
1:06:08in your direct messages.
1:06:10And I know what you mean, I see what you mean.
1:06:12I'm looking at it right now.
1:06:13Yes, I see the little indicator that it's over there.
1:06:16And Instagram to me is certainly better than Snapchat.
1:06:20I mean, Snapchat feels like a fever dream to me.
1:06:22I mean, I honest to God feel like I'm losing my mind
1:06:25when I A, just try to understand the app,
1:06:28and B, try to understand how it's fabulously popular.
1:06:33It really does make me feel like I'm losing my goddamn mind.
1:06:39Whereas Instagram was always--
1:06:41I mean, right from the first day that it shipped, I was like, oh,
1:06:43I love the design of this app.
1:06:45I get it.
1:06:46And my design sensibilities are sympathetic with the people
1:06:51who designed this.
1:06:52Even now that they've added these things,
1:06:53I still think that the people who design Instagram
1:06:56are of a like mind to me.
1:07:00But I still feel like it's kind of confusing.
1:07:03Yeah.
1:07:05I guess the other thing that I saw along these same lines
1:07:07is I did see some day one criticism from people on Twitter
1:07:11of why is this a separate app?
1:07:13Why didn't they just make this part of the camera app?
1:07:15And I think that that's, what I'm talking about
1:07:18is exactly why I'm glad Apple did not do that.
1:07:21I think the camera app already kind of has
1:07:23a lot of stuff going on.
1:07:25And this is very different than,
1:07:28the camera app is all about getting one shot,
1:07:30either a still or a video clip.
1:07:33And clips is all about making,
1:07:34editing multiple clips together into a thing.
1:07:37I feel like separating it into its own second app is exactly the right thing for Apple to
1:07:44do.
1:07:45And I think it's exactly why iOS is so much less cluttered than the Mac.
1:07:50That whole, "Why don't you put it in the same app?" is exactly how iTunes got from a simple
1:07:55music library.
1:07:56Right.
1:07:57I was going to say, these are the same people who are complaining about iTunes bloat, maybe.
1:08:01There was a time when iTunes was the perfect example of an app that did one thing really
1:08:07It really was. Okay, instead of having a giant folder full of MP3s, just throw them all into
1:08:14iTunes. It'll sort them all out, and you've got a nice little music library that's organized by
1:08:20artist, by album, and every other feature they added, like the visualizers and stuff, was at
1:08:28least related to music playback. And so, you know, I always do—whenever you think, like,
1:08:33Why not add that to the camera app just think that's that's how camera app turns into iTunes in five years
1:08:39Plus if it
1:08:43Extends to new sensors like you know, IR facial stuff or whatever that you may not want in the main camera app
1:08:50Yeah, either. No
1:08:53So anyway, I think clips is gonna be pretty popular, but it's not out yet. So I guess we should stop talking about it
1:08:57All right
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1:10:17I've talked to, I've convinced family members to buy these things and everybody's like,
1:10:21"Wow, that is an amazing mattress." I mean, this is probably like the one product that I
1:10:26Hawk here on the talk show that I've actually gotten the most people that I know personally
1:10:33to buy. It really is. It is such an easier way to buy a mattress, and it is a great mattress.
1:10:39Everybody I've personally convinced to buy one loves it. Even if you don't, though, what
1:10:45they have is a 100-night home trial. So you have 100 days after you get it, and if you
1:10:50don't like it, you call them up, and they just come, send somebody to pick it up at
1:10:54your house, get it out of your house, and they give you a full refund. No questions
1:10:57asked. That's how confident they are in the quality of the mattress.
1:11:03Go to casper.com/thetalkshow and use that code, thetalkshow, for 50 bucks towards your
1:11:09next mattress. The only downside to that code is it doesn't work on their dog mattresses
1:11:13because the dog mattress already costs so little. I'm telling you right now, if you
1:11:17have a dog and you need a mattress for your dog, get the Casper. Your dog will love it.
1:11:22I keep talking about this, but everybody who has dogs who listens to the show is like,
1:11:26my dog loves this thing, he won't get up from it.
1:11:30So there you go, my thanks to Casper.
1:11:33What else do we have to talk about this week, Dan?
1:11:35I gotta get Ralph for one of those dog beds.
1:11:38You should!
1:11:39Although I just got him one of these wacky ones that they crawl into and it's like,
1:11:45almost a sleeping bag.
1:11:46He's not into it.
1:11:47He thinks it's ridiculous.
1:11:50So, I'll check it out.
1:11:54Well, we should talk about the Samsung thing.
1:11:56I think it's kind of interesting.
1:11:58So I think it was yesterday?
1:11:59I wrote a, yeah, yesterday, I actually forgot that the event was yesterday, which I was
1:12:08invited to it.
1:12:09I forgot to put it on my calendar.
1:12:10I would have totally gone and checked it out in person.
1:12:13So whoops.
1:12:16And also we probably lost a lot of traffic on Recode because I didn't write up a preview
1:12:20for it.
1:12:21But it looks like it was pretty much solely focused on the new Galaxy S8, I think it's
1:12:29called, which usually is the phone they show off in February at Mobile World Congress.
1:12:33It's Samsung's big phone, especially important this year because their last big phone, which
1:12:40which was the Note 7 was the one that was catching on fire.
1:12:45So not only was this an important flagship phone for them,
1:12:50but also kind of a back from the dead moment.
1:12:54Also, they have all kinds of weird corporate shit going on
1:12:57that's not good.
1:12:58(laughing)
1:13:00So anyway.
1:13:02- The only company that thinks Samsung's had a good run
1:13:06in the last year is probably Uber.
1:13:10Those lucky SOVs.
1:13:11But yeah, Samsung's had people go into jail,
1:13:14or at least getting criminally investigated
1:13:17for bribery scandals.
1:13:18The Node S7 thing is, I've seen it in several cases,
1:13:24and everybody, and this is the worst part if you're Samsung,
1:13:26is every single article about the S8 mentions
1:13:29that six months ago they had to recall
1:13:31their last flagship phone because they were exploding.
1:13:34And so it's like--
1:13:37- So a lot riding on this one.
1:13:38- Yeah.
1:13:39I have not seen it in person, but people who study these things really like it.
1:13:47You know, it's still, for me, the biggest problem is that it's running Android, so I
1:13:52would never use it.
1:13:53Yeah, and not just Android, but Samsung's, like, corrupted version of Android.
1:13:57Do you know what I mean?
1:14:00And now that gets to, now that becomes even more problematic, because here they have their
1:14:03their own version of Google Assistant called Bixby,
1:14:08which is a strange name.
1:14:11But people are saying the hardware looks nice,
1:14:16and so I wrote a post yesterday on Recode,
1:14:20basically pointing out, here we are again,
1:14:23where Apple is now behind the industrial design
1:14:28kind of trend with phones again.
1:14:31Last time, I would say last time I was more important,
1:14:33last time is when it took Apple, I think, a year or two,
1:14:38probably too long to see that people
1:14:40were really into big phones.
1:14:43That's more of a functional design thing than cosmetic.
1:14:47But now we're at a phase where, you know,
1:14:51Apple theoretically has a new phone coming out this fall
1:14:54that's gonna look more like these newer ones
1:14:57with no bezel and edge-to-edge screen,
1:15:01But maybe not, I don't know, what if something happens
1:15:04and it doesn't happen?
1:15:05And now here we are where they are six months behind,
1:15:09maybe a year and a half behind the trend.
1:15:12And is that a huge problem?
1:15:16Probably not in the grand scheme of things,
1:15:18but if I'm Apple, I wanna be ahead.
1:15:23I don't wanna be coming from behind all the time.
1:15:26So I don't think it's great.
1:15:28- Whether it'll affect sales or not,
1:15:30which is ultimately, I think what matters,
1:15:34I think it probably won't,
1:15:35but I think at a personal level, Apple wants to unveil,
1:15:40all the rumors seem to suggest that this is the year
1:15:45when there's gonna be a new iPhone that looks instantly,
1:15:47before you even turn the screen on,
1:15:48looks like a new iPhone.
1:15:50Not just a new color, but it's a new form factor
1:15:54with some quote-unquote edge-to-edge display.
1:15:59And I think Apple, when they have a product like that to unveil, in particular, the most
1:16:07important product in the company, and the most popular product in the company, they
1:16:11want the biggest wow factor as possible during the keynote, when they do the unveil.
1:16:19And I can't help but think that you're right, that this Samsung Galaxy S8 in particular—I
1:16:24I know there are other Android phones that are creeping closer to an edge-to-edge design
1:16:29and have smaller chins and foreheads and use curved OLEDs to get the display closer to
1:16:35the sides, but this seems like the one that is closest in general principle to the vague
1:16:43descriptions we've heard of what Apple's doing.
1:16:46I don't know that—
1:16:47This one will ship in volume.
1:16:48I mean—
1:16:49Yeah.
1:16:50I don't know if you saw the tweet from Andy Rubin, who, for most people, should know Andy
1:16:53room. Maybe he created the sidekick and then Android and ran Android for a long time. Now
1:17:01he's working on a new handset company, supposedly. I think it's called Essential or something
1:17:06like that. And he tweeted a couple of days ago, this thing that was basically a fake
1:17:12spy shot of an edge to edge Android phone and said, "Can't wait for everyone to get
1:17:18their hands on this and then yesterday Eric Schmidt tweeted it out and you know
1:17:22looks looks nice I haven't seen it in person I don't know how well it works
1:17:26but looks damn good and I think Xiaomi had one too but the Samsung ones the is
1:17:31the first one that's gonna ship in volume you know especially approaching
1:17:35volume of an iPhone so I think it's a bummer to be able to not be able to be
1:17:41the first to make you know a really truly impressive industrial design these
1:17:47days. But who knows, maybe Apple has something that will even next to this,
1:17:52you know, look like a next generation thing. You don't know. But I can't entirely possible,
1:17:59but I can't help but think that that's that they're getting beaten to the punch in some way,
1:18:04at least. And I think it's I got a little pushback on that, but I second day I hold,
1:18:10I hold pretty strong to it. I think that no, I'm not the best. I think I think it, you know,
1:18:17Who knows?
1:18:19I think one of the areas,
1:18:20with the race to bigger iPhones,
1:18:22Apple was obviously caught flat
1:18:25because I think that they really didn't foresee
1:18:29that significantly bigger screens were going to be popular.
1:18:34I really do think they got caught by surprise by that.
1:18:38- Wasn't that kind of by accident too?
1:18:40Didn't Android phones have to be bigger
1:18:41because they couldn't get,
1:18:44what was it, the battery or the LTE
1:18:46or something like that had to be--
1:18:47- That's my theory.
1:18:48My theory was that Android phones,
1:18:50to keep up with the performance of iPhones,
1:18:53had to be bigger.
1:18:54- But it turned out people liked them, and I love it.
1:18:57I'm a seven plus guy, no regrets.
1:19:01- Right.
1:19:02But I think Apple clearly got caught flat on that,
1:19:05because I think bigger Android phones
1:19:07started getting popular around 2011,
1:19:10and Apple didn't come out with one until 2014.
1:19:13And we even learned from the lawsuit--
1:19:17I forget if the email came from Schiller or just somebody
1:19:19in Schiller's product marketing group,
1:19:21but there was an email that was entered into evidence
1:19:24from Apple product marketing that the public wants what
1:19:30we don't have bigger phones.
1:19:32And the success of the iPhone SE,
1:19:37which sold in greater quantity than Apple expected--
1:19:40They even said that during a quarterly report last year,
1:19:43like three months after the iPhone SE came out,
1:19:45that they were having trouble keeping them up to demand
1:19:47'cause it was more popular.
1:19:48That's not to say everybody likes big phones.
1:19:50People like small phones too.
1:19:51They like, you know, it's a Goldilocks type thing.
1:19:56Small, medium, large, people have different tastes.
1:19:58But I think in this case, they're not caught flat.
1:20:04They've clearly been working towards reducing
1:20:06the bezel size on their devices every step of the way.
1:20:10The iPads used to have the thick bezel around all four sides,
1:20:14and years ago, reduced the bezel on the side.
1:20:17The side bezels on this side of the iPhone
1:20:20have gotten closer to the edge over the years.
1:20:23So I don't think they got caught flat,
1:20:28I just think they got beaten to the market.
1:20:30And I think part of it is because the Apple can't make,
1:20:33like Samsung has a bit of an advantage
1:20:35in terms of being aggressive with their designs
1:20:40because they don't bank on just one phone per year
1:20:43as being the new design.
1:20:45They come out with the Note 7 and Notes in the fall
1:20:49and come out with the Galaxy S models in the spring.
1:20:53- And then whatever, 200 other models in between.
1:20:58- And when they first came out with the Edge,
1:21:00they even called it the Edge, whatever,
1:21:02Samsung Galaxy Edge, I think might have been
1:21:04the full name of the device.
1:21:06It wasn't the only one.
1:21:07there was a sibling to it with very similar specs
1:21:10that came out at the same time
1:21:12that didn't have the edge-to-edge
1:21:14and I guess sold for less money.
1:21:15But that way they didn't have to come up
1:21:18with as many of the presumably more expensive,
1:21:21harder to make, flexible displays to do the edge thing
1:21:26to account for all of their sales.
1:21:28Whereas whatever Apple's coming up with,
1:21:30if it's supposed to be the flagship iPhone,
1:21:32they have to be able to make 70 million of them
1:21:36in the first quarter.
1:21:37- Which I'm not really into that edge thing anyway.
1:21:41I always found that to be obnoxious.
1:21:44So it'd be interesting to see how much curvature
1:21:48to the display Apple ends up going with
1:21:50if they do something similar to that.
1:21:52- Yeah, and what they use it for.
1:21:54Are they gonna use it for content,
1:21:56or is it going to light up with other colors
1:21:58sort of just to show you,
1:22:00I could see them doing it where it goes black
1:22:04while you're using email, and only the flat part
1:22:08is lit up with your email, but when you go
1:22:10to your home screen, maybe your wallpaper
1:22:12goes edge to edge, or something like that.
1:22:15- And if you remember, Samsung actually started off
1:22:17trying to get people to use it almost as a second screen,
1:22:21like to have more information on it,
1:22:22but I would've guessed no developers actually ended up
1:22:26supporting that for anything worthwhile,
1:22:28so they kinda gave up on that, it seems.
1:22:30- Yeah, and then, you know, filed under the,
1:22:32We actually don't have, even just speculative rumors,
1:22:35we don't really have a lot of information
1:22:37about Apple's next iPhone,
1:22:39other than the supply chain stuff
1:22:42that they're asking for a lot of these flexible OLED displays
1:22:47but what they're actually going to use it for,
1:22:50nobody knows, so who knows?
1:22:51Maybe they'll replace the volume buttons
1:22:54with virtual volume buttons.
1:22:56I kind of dread that but on the other hand,
1:23:00I'm totally on team, it took me a while to convince myself
1:23:04that I'm 100% on the team, but I am after six months,
1:23:08I'm on team virtual home button,
1:23:11the button that doesn't actually move on the iPhone 7.
1:23:14So I don't know, with some kind of proper haptics,
1:23:18I could see, maybe, switching to virtual volume buttons.
1:23:22I don't know.
1:23:23- I like the virtual home button,
1:23:25but I also like the fact that it is depressed a little there
1:23:28that you have a border to press on,
1:23:30so I don't know how that works on a bigger,
1:23:33but the new Samsung does have that virtual,
1:23:35it's all virtual buttons now, at least on the lower side.
1:23:40There is a hardware button for the assistant,
1:23:42which is weird, but.
1:23:43- Here's an idea that occurred to me,
1:23:45is you know how you can click the volume buttons
1:23:48to snap a photo on the iPhone?
1:23:50And that used to be like a hack,
1:23:52like there were third-party camera apps in the App Store
1:23:55that did it before Apple's built-in camera app did.
1:23:57and then Apple like kicked them out because it wasn't allowed you're only
1:24:03supposed to use volume buttons for volume
1:24:04and then they like well maybe that's a good idea and they added it to the
1:24:07actual system camera
1:24:09I use it all the time okay but
1:24:12they're not in a great location for snapping pictures like sometimes you do
1:24:16want a button that's not
1:24:17where the on-screen button is you want it on the side where you really want it
1:24:21is
1:24:21top right when you're holding the phone with the camera lens
1:24:25at the top left.
1:24:27- Yeah, I accidentally turned the power off
1:24:29at least half the time.
1:24:30- Right, because you squeezed.
1:24:32Yeah, which is horrible and possibly disastrous
1:24:35if you're trying to capture a fleeting moment.
1:24:37So in theory, if Apple has a touchscreen
1:24:40that wraps around the edge,
1:24:42when you're in the camera mode,
1:24:44they could make a virtual button at the top right.
1:24:47- Or just the whole phone.
1:24:49I mean, the penalty for shooting too many photos
1:24:52is pretty low.
1:24:53- Right, and just-- - Just delete 'em.
1:24:54- Right, and give you haptic feedback
1:24:56for when you actually snap the photo.
1:24:58- Yeah, interesting.
1:25:00Yeah, that could be kinda cool.
1:25:02- Oh, let me tell you one of my favorite things in clips
1:25:04was let's say you string together three pieces of video
1:25:09in a clip and there's that little timeline at the bottom
1:25:11that shows you the thumbnails.
1:25:13So if you force touch on like the middle one,
1:25:16it pops up and you can drag it to reorder them
1:25:19and when it pops up,
1:25:20you get like this beautiful little subtle pop.
1:25:24It is a super, super terrific and subtle use
1:25:27of haptic feedback.
1:25:29- I've noticed several app makers trying to tap
1:25:34into that recently.
1:25:35In fact, I think Twitter just added haptics
1:25:38when you star a tweet, when you fave a tweet,
1:25:42which is not called faving anymore.
1:25:43- No.
1:25:44It's always-- - It only works--
1:25:47- It's always faving in my heart.
1:25:49- It doesn't work most of the time.
1:25:51It works sometimes,
1:25:52- Nothing.
1:25:54Bunch of the time it just doesn't pop the taptic engine,
1:25:57so I don't know.
1:25:58But it's been interesting to see.
1:26:01A lot of polar refresh haptics and stuff like that.
1:26:06Sometimes it's nice, but a lot of times it seems--
1:26:09- So one of the things that the Galaxy S8 does,
1:26:12and in the leaked screenshot from Andy Rubin of their phone,
1:26:16which I can't help but think was purposefully timed.
1:26:19- Oh yeah.
1:26:22And especially Eric Schmidt retweeting it yesterday on the day of Samsung's event was, you know,
1:26:30Not only did Eric Schmidt retweet it, but here he said, "phenomenal new choices for Android users coming very soon."
1:26:41An example, it's like, "F you Samsung."
1:26:44Oh, then he said, "Big week for Android, Samsung looks great."
1:26:48- Okay, thank you Eric. - Right, well.
1:26:50- Someone whispered in his ear,
1:26:52"Hey man, do you know who sells
1:26:53"the most Android phones still?"
1:26:55- Yeah, he tweeted the other one first.
1:26:57- Yeah.
1:26:58- All right, I will put that in the show notes as well.
1:27:00Here I am, I'm copying and pasting right now.
1:27:02This is not a lie, it's really there.
1:27:04There's just no doubt in my mind though,
1:27:08that I really do, I don't think it's unfair
1:27:10for you to have written it.
1:27:11I really do think that Apple is gonna be late
1:27:14to the edge-to-edge design.
1:27:15I mean, maybe they've got something else
1:27:17and they're gonna kick it to the next level.
1:27:19But at the very least, as things stand right now, today,
1:27:21at the end of March 2017, Apple is behind the curve
1:27:26on the size of the bezels of the iPhone.
1:27:28- Maybe the most convincing kind of counterargument
1:27:33to that was, well, yeah, but then in December,
1:27:36they'll have the newest one, which is true,
1:27:39and that's when they sell the most phones,
1:27:41in the fourth quarter, so they will have the newest one.
1:27:44But I don't know, I don't think it looks great.
1:27:46This is similar to when they used to
1:27:51sometimes come close to not destroying
1:27:55their quarterly numbers relative to
1:27:57Wall Street's expectations.
1:27:59And the whole point is that Apple is an exceptional company.
1:28:02They're supposed to destroy expectations,
1:28:04not just come close to them.
1:28:05So, do you think they will,
1:28:09see the Andy Rubin one's interesting,
1:28:11'cause it now has curved corners of the screen too.
1:28:15Do you think we'll see rounded corners on iOS?
1:28:18- We'll take a look at it.
1:28:19The S8 has round corners too.
1:28:21I don't know if that is a trend.
1:28:26With the Andy Rubin one, if you guys look at it,
1:28:29who knows, maybe we can get this.
1:28:31Maybe you can just look down at your phone
1:28:32and there's fancy new stuff, fancy technology
1:28:35we can do in these podcasts right now.
1:28:37We could, in theory, be showing you
1:28:39Andy Rubin's leaked shot right now.
1:28:41Just look at your phone.
1:28:42You may not even have to go to a website.
1:28:44Try that.
1:28:45We'll see if we can get this to work.
1:28:46With the Andy Rubin one, it literally is edge to edge.
1:28:50There is no chin or forehead,
1:28:52or at least there's no forehead.
1:28:54We can't see the chin, but there's no forehead.
1:28:56- Chin's like three inches long.
1:28:58- Right, so the corners on the phone that he leaked,
1:29:01the corners of the display have to be rounded
1:29:04unless you are going to make a sharp cornered edge phone,
1:29:08which is possible.
1:29:10I've seen some Sony phones that have actual
1:29:12squared off corners that look good.
1:29:15But it has to be rounded.
1:29:18Samsung seems more like a design choice,
1:29:20like they wanted to round them off.
1:29:22I honestly don't know what to think about that.
1:29:26It doesn't really make sense to me in iOS
1:29:28because things go corner to corner.
1:29:30I mean, look at where the battery icon
1:29:33and the little dots to indicate your cell signal are.
1:29:36I mean, there's no room to round those off.
1:29:38And I don't want them squished towards the middle.
1:29:41Was it WebOS that had the rounded corners too?
1:29:46- Well, the original Macintosh did.
1:29:48- True, true.
1:29:49And more recently. - And in fact, yeah.
1:29:52The classic Mac had rounded off corners,
1:29:57but the display wasn't really rounded off.
1:29:58They were rounded off virtually.
1:30:00It actually just painted black pixels in the corner
1:30:03to give the overall display.
1:30:05- I remember that during startup.
1:30:07Sometimes you'd start up and it was square
1:30:10and then you'd get the--
1:30:12- And you could see it when you moved the mouse
1:30:14to the corner too, because the white mask
1:30:19around the black arrow would still light up
1:30:21around the corner, if I recall correctly.
1:30:23- Oh, really?
1:30:24- Just so that you could still see the mouse
1:30:28if it was hidden in the corner,
1:30:29'cause if they just painted it,
1:30:31if it went underneath the black,
1:30:32you might not see the mouse on screen,
1:30:34if I recall correctly.
1:30:36I don't know, I don't know what to think about that.
1:30:38Sort of I certainly don't think they should fake round the corners
1:30:42I think if they could make them square they should but I don't know it seems like a trend this year at least
1:30:46Yeah, Samsung and they're actually using that forehead and chin
1:30:51As kind of a branding thing somewhere around the office. I just saw like a booklet
1:30:57they I guess they gave out yesterday of like the design process of the
1:31:00S8 and they they're really highlighting that
1:31:03forehead and chin as like
1:31:07Line art, you know interesting. Yeah, it's a distinctive look
1:31:11I mean it, you know, and it certainly can't be accused of copying Apple on that on that front
1:31:15a couple of the other things that stuck out to me though with the s8 is that the
1:31:20Removal of the or not removal because it does have a chin and forehead
1:31:24But the forehead and chin they are symmetric
1:31:28They're the same size, but the forehead is so small that no longer they've this is the first flagship phone
1:31:33They've ever made that doesn't have a big ugly Samsung logo printed on the front
1:31:37(laughing)
1:31:39And I think it's so funny that of all the things
1:31:42that they copied shamelessly from Apple over the years,
1:31:44the one thing they never could bring themselves to do
1:31:47was to have the brand humility to ship a phone
1:31:50without a logo on the front face.
1:31:51I've never understood that.
1:31:55'Cause, and A, because I think,
1:31:56I don't wanna see a logo on the front face.
1:32:00I really want the content,
1:32:02and it goes back to you and me
1:32:03talking about the black versus white borders
1:32:05around the screen.
1:32:06I just don't want anything to distract me from the content.
1:32:11But secondarily, their logo is fucking ugly.
1:32:15It's an ugly ass logo.
1:32:17And these phones, and especially tablets,
1:32:19are often used both horizontally and vertically.
1:32:23And so the logo can't be right all the time.
1:32:27And I realize that, yes, Apple prints their Apple logo
1:32:30on the back of the iPhone.
1:32:31And every time you hold the phone sideways,
1:32:33the logo is sideways.
1:32:34But it's not facing me, it's facing out.
1:32:37I'm not saying they shouldn't do it.
1:32:40I mean, people obviously love the Apple logo on their phones
1:32:44'cause so many of the cases I see have a circle cut out of it
1:32:46for the damn thing.
1:32:48So I thought that was weird.
1:32:53There's no, not weird, but notable
1:32:55that there's no Samsung logo on the front face.
1:32:58And then the other thing is that the chin is so small
1:33:00that there's no longer a physical home button
1:33:02or fingerprint sensor.
1:33:05It gets too small, presumably.
1:33:07So now they've moved the fingerprint sensor to the back,
1:33:10and it's off-center to the side of the camera lens,
1:33:12which is totally a gross design, in my opinion.
1:33:16- Yeah.
1:33:17That's not good.
1:33:20- I have the Google Pixel,
1:33:22and it's my favorite Android device I've ever used,
1:33:26and that has a fingerprint sensor in the back of the phone,
1:33:29roughly like where the Apple logo is on an iPhone.
1:33:32But at least it's centered.
1:33:35I don't love it, I think it's worse than having it
1:33:37on the bottom of the phone.
1:33:39But it's okay, but at least it's centered,
1:33:41and at least it isn't going to cover up the camera lens
1:33:45when you're using it.
1:33:47- Where does the speaker go in the front-facing camera?
1:33:52Does that go in the top of the phone,
1:33:54or is that just built in with no grill on it?
1:33:57I think it's at the top of the phone.
1:33:59It's hard to tell.
1:34:00At least when you look, there were leaks of Samsung S8s
1:34:04that had a white face, and you could see
1:34:06there's a whole bunch of holes in the top,
1:34:08a whole bunch of sensors up there.
1:34:10But it looks to me like, and again,
1:34:11getting back to black versus white,
1:34:12I think all of the Samsung Galaxy S8s
1:34:15with the various color backs all have a black front.
1:34:17Unless I miss something.
1:34:20I don't know.
1:34:24But I think it's all at the top.
1:34:26and there's presumably a microphone
1:34:28and speakers at the bottom too, I don't know.
1:34:30One last weird thing I know about the S8
1:34:35is that they've added a dedicated hardware button
1:34:39for Bixby.
1:34:39- Yeah.
1:34:43- That seems like a mistake.
1:34:45'Cause I'm guessing Bixby is gonna be crap.
1:34:48- Is that the one that uses the Siri guy's thing or no?
1:34:52- The, no.
1:34:55Well, I don't know.
1:34:57I don't know if they've had time to integrate that.
1:34:59So what was that?
1:35:00It was like the second, the guy who invented,
1:35:02the team that invented the original Siri,
1:35:04sold it to Apple, was with Apple for a while,
1:35:06and then they all left and started a new thing
1:35:09along the same lines again, and Samsung acquired them.
1:35:12I don't know if Bixby's based on that already,
1:35:16or if it's too soon and they haven't been able
1:35:18to integrate it, but presumably,
1:35:20if it's not already, it will soon.
1:35:25Seems like a weird thing to have a dedicated
1:35:26hardware button for.
1:35:27- Yeah, I can't, Viv was the name of the other one.
1:35:33- Viv, there we see.
1:35:35- I'm looking at Google results.
1:35:40- It doesn't seem to me that the features they're saying
1:35:43that Bixby does doesn't sound anything like the stuff
1:35:47that Viv was doing.
1:35:49Like Viv was doing some pretty complex stuff
1:35:51like booking flights for you.
1:35:53And Bixby seems more like take me back to my inbox type stuff.
1:35:59Sounds like Bixby is not a Viv thing yet.
1:36:04Right.
1:36:05And I don't know if it becomes Viv Power or if Viv replaces Bixby or...
1:36:10I don't know.
1:36:12Someone said yesterday, "Get me the first app that will remap that button to summon
1:36:17Google Assistant so I can skip all this crap anyway."
1:36:21- I was wondering if somebody would figure out a way
1:36:22to hack it to map it to be a camera shutter.
1:36:25- Oh.
1:36:26- Because that's the one thing,
1:36:28if I were gonna add another button to the iPhone,
1:36:30I don't know that I would,
1:36:34but if you said you have to add a button
1:36:36and it does something,
1:36:36I'd say, well, make it a camera shutter.
1:36:38And if the camera's not open and I hit it,
1:36:40it'll jump me to the camera.
1:36:41- Yeah, the phones used to have that.
1:36:45- Yes, they did.
1:36:46I think the--
1:36:48- Apple never did it, but--
1:36:49Microsoft phones did it, I think.
1:36:51The Windows phones had shutters.
1:36:55The one button the iPhone has
1:36:57that most other phones don't have,
1:37:00but I love it, is the mute switch.
1:37:03- Yes.
1:37:04- I don't understand why the other,
1:37:05I don't understand why other phones
1:37:07don't have a mute switch.
1:37:08I love the mute switch.
1:37:10I cannot believe that all these other phones,
1:37:14to mute the phone, you've gotta actually use the screen.
1:37:17Even if it's a pretty simple unlock it, swipe down,
1:37:22tap the, you know, like the equivalent
1:37:24of putting airplane mode on an iPhone.
1:37:27I'm not saying it's onerous, but I don't know.
1:37:30I use the mute switch so many times,
1:37:31and if I'm in a situation where I definitely
1:37:34just want my phone to be muted,
1:37:36I love that I can do it without looking at it.
1:37:39- It's kind of the one thing you'd want to be able to do
1:37:41without looking at the phone.
1:37:42- Right.
1:37:43- And making sure that it's not gonna embarrass you
1:37:45in the meeting you're in.
1:37:46- Right, or like you're at a wedding or something like that
1:37:48and you're like, just let me double check for the 30th time
1:37:51that my phone is definitely mute.
1:37:52- I hate that they took it off the iPad
1:37:55'cause there I would use it for--
1:37:57- I do too.
1:37:58- Orientation lock.
1:37:59- Nope.
1:38:00- And to me that was a very, very everyday feature.
1:38:03- Yeah, it was for me too.
1:38:05And it's actually one of the reasons I've stuck with,
1:38:08again, a throwback to an hour ago on the show,
1:38:11it's why my iPad Mini still has a mute switch
1:38:13and I love it.
1:38:14- So you have the Mini too.
1:38:15- Yeah, I guess so.
1:38:17- Yeah.
1:38:19- I guess it's the first Retina Mini.
1:38:20I think that's what I've got.
1:38:21Whatever the first one.
1:38:22- Yeah, the Mini 2.
1:38:23- It's like, unlike with the iPhone--
1:38:25- Well, maybe the 3.
1:38:26- I have everything.
1:38:27I can tell you what was new in every single iPhone
1:38:30with the iPads, I have no idea.
1:38:32They're all just, I know what they looked like,
1:38:34but it's like telling the one Mini from another.
1:38:36All I know is that they used to not have Retina screens
1:38:39and now they have Retina screens.
1:38:41And everything else is sort of irrelevant to me.
1:38:44Anyway, I guess the only other thing I want to talk about with Samsung is that Samsung
1:38:51has obviously done a lot of press review. They're not hiding the fact that their last
1:38:55phone was a huge embarrassment and had an incredibly expensive recall. There was a great
1:39:06story I thought in The Verge by, I think it was Dan Seifert, let me double check before
1:39:11I keep going where he actually flew over to
1:39:16Korea to visit with Samsung and see like the the testing rigs they have up for the battery
1:39:23Yes, it was Dan Seifert at the verge got a link in the show notes
1:39:26You know, they're obviously doing press specifically to assuage people's fears that that these might explode
1:39:39Because it's one thing to have a product recall because it was a lemon just in period like like let's say the problem is
1:39:45Too many of these phones that the screens just died and just turned in a total total blowout of the screen
1:39:52And it just screen won't turn on they had to recall all of these phones
1:39:55Well, that would be a huge expensive, you know PR disaster
1:39:59But at least nobody is as is at risk of getting hurt
1:40:02Right your house isn't going to burn down if if that's the problem with the phone the defect
1:40:06Whereas if the problem if the defect with the phone is that the battery might explode and catch fire?
1:40:12That's that's actually you know dangerous
1:40:15Yeah, it's good. I mean
1:40:18Obviously you don't want that to happen, but it's good to show off although presumably some of those tests were run
1:40:24Or I don't know I I guess I should admit. I have not read the article yet
1:40:29That's all I don't know if these are new tests, or if these tests were also performed on the yeah
1:40:34I don't know about that either fire prone
1:40:36device. I will read it now when it's in the show notes.
1:40:41I did hear, I heard from a friend at Apple who works with, or knows a battery engineer at Apple, so it's secondhand, but that when the scandal first started breaking, there was a team of battery engineers at Apple who were like, "Well, we got it. Let's just see what this is like," and not as an official part of Apple's competitive, you know,
1:41:03of, what would you call it, backwards engineering.
1:41:08But just out of their own curiosity,
1:41:10a couple of battery engineers at Apple
1:41:12bought a Note 7 and opened it up
1:41:15and looked at the battery and they were appalled.
1:41:18They were like, I cannot believe
1:41:20they put this battery in this case.
1:41:22(laughing)
1:41:23That it seemed very, you know,
1:41:25just, you know, obviously the people making this judgment
1:41:28are battery engineers, so it's not like me and you
1:41:30looking at it, but that there were aspects of the size
1:41:34and dimensions of the battery and the size of the enclosure
1:41:38that it seemed like, just eyeballing it as an expert,
1:41:43this seems like it's at risk of the sort of positive
1:41:46and negative parts of the battery touching each other
1:41:50that you just can't happen with a lithium-ion battery.
1:41:54And there were reports that afterwards,
1:41:57there were other news reports from sources in Samsung
1:42:01that it was sort of a company culture type,
1:42:04'cause this is the curiosity I've had,
1:42:05did Samsung just get unlucky
1:42:07and this could have just as easily happened to Apple
1:42:09or was there a real structural problem within Samsung
1:42:13that led to this?
1:42:14And I think the answer is the latter,
1:42:16that there were management saying,
1:42:20we want a battery of X megawatt hours
1:42:23so we can get this amount of battery life,
1:42:25but we want the phone to be this thin, just make it happen.
1:42:29And over the objections of their Samsung's own engineers,
1:42:33they went ahead with a design that they knew
1:42:35they should have known was risky.
1:42:37'Cause part of the promotion for the S8
1:42:41is they're even saying, look, this has a smaller battery.
1:42:43- But you can bring it on a plane.
1:42:48- Yeah, that is probably the worst promotional part
1:42:51of the whole S7 disaster are those reminders
1:42:55when you're at the, 'cause it's not just like one time.
1:42:58They tell you before you board the plane.
1:43:00They tell you when you're on the plane.
1:43:02It's, what a--
1:43:03- I think they're over though.
1:43:04I haven't heard one.
1:43:04- Yeah, I think they are too.
1:43:05I think that, you know, thankfully, at least for--
1:43:07- Once they recalled all, I think all the phones are--
1:43:09- Right.
1:43:10- Most of the phones have been recalled at this point.
1:43:12- But I did, I took a couple of flights
1:43:13where that happened, and it was really pretty brutal.
1:43:17- Constantly. - Yeah.
1:43:18All right, let me take a break here
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1:44:53What else we got? We got a few more things and we got to wrap it up.
1:44:57How about this? What do you think of this? You see this Twitter stuff?
1:45:01Which Twitter stuff? I don't know. There's a couple of things with Twitter. What are you talking about?
1:45:05It looks like today, especially in the iOS, although you're all third party
1:45:09Yeah. Yeah. They've uh... I saw your tweet.
1:45:13Yeah. I think you're talking about... I think I know what you're talking about. Go ahead, though.
1:45:17they've kind of changed the way that replies work and look.
1:45:22So when you go to reply to someone,
1:45:27you don't see their handles in the reply anymore.
1:45:31It's like a second level of metadata.
1:45:33And what they've also done is open up the character limit
1:45:35so you can now type a full 140 character reply
1:45:39instead of the handles counting toward the character limit.
1:45:45but man, is it weird to get used to.
1:45:47And it looks like they actually changed it.
1:45:50I noticed at first in the Mac app
1:45:52and they weren't showing the handles at all,
1:45:55they were showing people's full names
1:45:59and just super strange and kind of new, but not great UI
1:46:04and just ugly.
1:46:09And it looks like today they turned it on in iOS too.
1:46:11So now a huge percentage of Twitter users
1:46:14are seeing this stuff.
1:46:16But, you know, I don't know.
1:46:19I don't know if this is the kind of thing
1:46:21where they think, oh wow,
1:46:22Twitter's gonna be so much less confusing now
1:46:24to new users, or what?
1:46:27Or if they really just wanted to strip the metadata
1:46:30of reply handles out of the tweet
1:46:33and put it in a different place,
1:46:35but it's kinda gross.
1:46:38- Yeah, I feel like they've talked themselves into knots.
1:46:43talk themselves into knots over what the problems are with Twitter and that they've convinced
1:46:49themselves that things that are not the problem with Twitter are the problem with Twitter
1:46:53and those are the problems they're tackling.
1:46:55And if anything, I think they're just making it worse.
1:47:00It doesn't make any sense to me.
1:47:01And it doesn't even seem efficient.
1:47:03Like the screenshot you posted in your tweet was like in reply to Joe Smith and one other.
1:47:09And so instead of showing @JoeSmith,
1:47:11it actually says his name, capital Joe, capital S. Smith,
1:47:16and one other.
1:47:17And then you tap that, and it shows you the other
1:47:20in like a pop-up.
1:47:22But it's like it would have taken just as much space
1:47:24just to show both usernames, right?
1:47:25Like, I understand in the case where if maybe
1:47:29there's seven people in a reply chain,
1:47:32which is already a mess on Twitter,
1:47:33but I can see how if there--
1:47:34- Of course, everyone is doing today now
1:47:36these endless canoes, so.
1:47:37So I could see how if it said in reply to Dan Fromer
1:47:41and five others, that five others is clearly more condensed
1:47:46than actually listing all six usernames,
1:47:49and then tapping that to show a list of all six
1:47:52is a reasonable UI.
1:47:54But when it just says one other, it's like,
1:47:56you've made a terrible mistake.
1:47:59- Yeah, the other thing I noticed the other day
1:48:02is if you try to string tweets together,
1:48:05It was auto-inserting the period handle thing at the beginning of the tweet, which was a
1:48:12bad hack to begin with, and was then part of the actual creation of the tweet.
1:48:22I'm looking at the Twitter app right now, and it makes me think that I should spend
1:48:26a couple of days using it because I think I'm so out of date that I'm lost.
1:48:33People always ask me, "Why don't you just use Tweetbot?"
1:48:36And I suppose I should.
1:48:38I actually really like using default apps because, especially as someone whose job is
1:48:42to analyze and write about this industry, it's helpful for me to see what most people
1:48:47are going through.
1:48:48I try to change as few things about my Mac as possible and iPhone and that kind of stuff,
1:48:55too.
1:48:56So the old Twitter for Mac, which was Tweedy for Mac originally, a fine Lauren Brikter
1:49:03creation, to me was the best Twitter interface.
1:49:07The way that it flows in real time and responses are included in there, to me, especially if
1:49:13you follow as many accounts as I do, which is currently 5,104, there's just always information
1:49:20flowing through.
1:49:21And it, to me, is the best look at what Twitter really is, just this constant conversation
1:49:26of people and sometimes they're talking to each other and sometimes they're talking to
1:49:30themselves but it just really was awesome and the way it was animated is just better
1:49:34to me than any other Twitter UI.
1:49:38But this Twitter for Mac app now is just such a disaster, so I don't know.
1:49:45And Twitter for iPhone doesn't have it.
1:49:48It's just Twitter for Mac and Twitter for iPhone, I see how they're taking the @ out
1:49:52of the tweets, but it says replying to @Gruber. It doesn't say replying to John Gruber.
1:49:57So I believe that that changed in, let's see if that changed in Twitter for Mac today.
1:50:03No, it still says replying to Dave Pell.
1:50:06Yeah, but that's on the Mac?
1:50:08So on Mac. So maybe they'll sync it up. I mean, this is, I believe the Mac app is now
1:50:13a third party creation made by an agency, so maybe they're on a week old...
1:50:20Maybe my whining helped. I don't know, probably not.
1:50:25I totally understand, and that's why I'm saying I think I should spend some time using Twitter.app
1:50:31just because I think I should be familiar with it too, knowing just to write reasonably
1:50:36about Twitter. And it is diverging further and further from the third party clients,
1:50:41the third-party clients are limited.
1:50:43A, I think that they're made by people with better design sense than Twitter's designers,
1:50:47but B, they're limited by the APIs and they can't really do a lot of the things the Twitter
1:50:52client is doing.
1:50:53And so they're sort of stuck with the old Twitter metaphor.
1:50:57But I think it's for the better.
1:51:04Did you see that the granddaddy of all third-party clients, Twitterific, they had an up-to-date
1:51:11updated their Mac version in a while,
1:51:12simply because of the economics.
1:51:15Their iPhone version is the most popular,
1:51:17and that's where their engineering time went.
1:51:19But they did a Kickstarter to raise money
1:51:21to modernize the Mac version of Twitterific,
1:51:25and it got fully funded, so it's good news.
1:51:27- I don't think I got in on that, though, so now I'm mad.
1:51:31I should have, now I wish I had it, but.
1:51:36- Yeah, but whenever they finished,
1:51:37I think you could still buy it.
1:51:39- This whole thing is because of the idiotic cap
1:51:42on user numbers that third-party clients are allowed to have.
1:51:45- Right, but there's--
1:51:47- To me, it's just so out of date.
1:51:49Twitter, I think, now needs to really open itself up
1:51:53to third-party apps again,
1:51:55because the first-party ones are not super great.
1:52:00- Yeah, I understand what they were looking around at,
1:52:07Facebook certainly took off, you know, circa 2013, 2014.
1:52:12I don't know when Twitter did the API thing,
1:52:16but you could see where Facebook was going.
1:52:18And Facebook wasn't a thing where there were
1:52:20third-party clients for Facebook.
1:52:21Everything for Facebook goes through Facebook.
1:52:24And I honestly think that's just what motivated it.
1:52:28Well, Facebook is forcing everybody to use Facebook,
1:52:30so Twitter should be a thing where you have to use Twitter.
1:52:34But I feel like that's where they started
1:52:35going off the rails because they were losing,
1:52:38Twitter, the company was losing sense
1:52:40of what it was that made Twitter great,
1:52:41which was just the network and the simplicity of the format.
1:52:45That it's just, hey, whose tweets do I want to see?
1:52:50Here are the tweets from those people.
1:52:52Here they are.
1:52:53And here's the tweets that are mentioning you.
1:52:55I feel like everything they've done
1:52:59to get away from that has been a mistake.
1:53:04You know, I used to be able to use Facebook
1:53:06through a third party Adobe Air Tweet deck.
1:53:10- Really?
1:53:10- I think that's gone. - Facebook?
1:53:12- Yeah, I think that's long gone now, I don't know.
1:53:15Yeah, I totally agree, and some of the stuff they've done,
1:53:19like the live video, it's interesting to see them
1:53:22chase after that, and I actually found a Twitter moment
1:53:26to be very useful once, when I missed a big news story
1:53:29and wanted to catch up on it quickly,
1:53:31and I just looked in Twitter moments,
1:53:34And sure enough, there it was, and it explained the whole thing to me.
1:53:36But actually, one thing I see people saying sometimes in Twitter, which is the most useful
1:53:43feature they could create is an explanation for why everyone's pissed at this one person
1:53:48right now.
1:53:49That to me, like, "Why is everyone shit talking this one guy?"
1:53:53That would be a useful feature in the Twitter app.
1:53:56How he did this thing, okay.
1:53:57How do you get to Twitter moments in the iPhone app?
1:54:00I don't even know.
1:54:01Well, they re-hit it.
1:54:03Now you have to go into this explore page,
1:54:06and then most, that top one I think is a moment.
1:54:09- Oh, all right.
1:54:10- But I don't know. - Oh, I see.
1:54:11Scroll down and it has today's moments.
1:54:13I got it. - Yeah.
1:54:14- Explore. - They've definitely
1:54:15made it harder to find them,
1:54:16which does not play well to their long-term future maybe.
1:54:21I don't know.
1:54:22I think eventually they're supposed to be in the feed, but.
1:54:26- Yeah, well. - I don't know.
1:54:29- Good luck to Twitter.
1:54:30- Yeah.
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1:57:07Ah, anything else on the agenda?
1:57:10Gotta figure out something.
1:57:12What about this-- - You tell me.
1:57:13- What's that? - You tell me.
1:57:15- Well, there's the, did you see the video
1:57:16I put in the show notes with these two guys up in Canada
1:57:19did a head-to-head comparison of Android Auto
1:57:21versus CarPlay?
1:57:24- I did, that was good.
1:57:25It was devastating.
1:57:27And I'm a guy who, in general, is on the,
1:57:30hey, everybody says Siri is total garbage.
1:57:32I disagree.
1:57:35I find Siri useful in XYZ, and it works really well for me.
1:57:39And every time I ask for a sports score,
1:57:41I get an up-to-the-minute score, and it's great at the weather,
1:57:45and this, that, and the other thing.
1:57:48But I don't have anything like autoplay or CarPlay in my car.
1:57:52My car is from 2006.
1:57:53So I don't even have a way to pump music through my stereo.
1:58:01I should probably get a new car.
1:58:03So I don't have firsthand experience with this.
1:58:05But this head-to-head video--
1:58:06I will put it in the show notes--
1:58:09absolutely devastating.
1:58:10This isn't like, oh, for A, B, and C, Android Auto is better.
1:58:14But for D, E, and F, CarPlay is better.
1:58:17And this was just a wipeout.
1:58:19This was like, Android Auto is pretty useful
1:58:22and seems to do exactly what you want it to do,
1:58:25if with a little bit of lag, you know,
1:58:28that I think like 10 years from now,
1:58:30we're gonna look back and say,
1:58:31I cannot believe how much lag there was
1:58:34on the voice input for these things,
1:58:36versus CarPlay, which was like totally busted.
1:58:39I mean, like failed at everything.
1:58:41Failed to send the guy text messages,
1:58:43couldn't understand his friend's name.
1:58:45There was no way to like convince Siri
1:58:47of what his friend's name was.
1:58:49They asked for directions to something nearby
1:58:52up in Canada and it was routing them to like Toledo, Ohio.
1:58:55(laughs)
1:58:57It was really bad.
1:59:01- Yeah, you know, I don't have a car,
1:59:02so I don't know, I don't have either of these things,
1:59:04but it just seems to show that a lot of these services
1:59:09lack context in even the most basic of queries.
1:59:14And you know, they're supposed to be getting better at that.
1:59:17Like Siri sometimes can respond to your previous query
1:59:21knowing that that's the context.
1:59:23But all the time I try using Amazon Alexa,
1:59:27I try using Siri to ask about the previous query
1:59:31and almost never is it working
1:59:34to my kind of desired level of context.
1:59:37And I guess that'll get better over time.
1:59:40And this is pretty simple.
1:59:41I mean, this should just know that they're in Canada.
1:59:43So maybe the closest, whatever you wanna call it,
1:59:46the relevance of search results
1:59:49is probably more based on location
1:59:52than on what's the number one ranking
1:59:55for this global search term.
1:59:56But I don't know.
1:59:59- I don't know, it seems like Apple really has its work
2:00:01cut out for it in this regard.
2:00:02Honestly, from this demo video,
2:00:04I mean, I don't know if this is not representative.
2:00:07And it seemed like what it was was two guys,
2:00:10go check it, you know, I'll put it, again,
2:00:12I'll put the video in the show notes, you can check it out.
2:00:13But it seemed like a very fair thing.
2:00:16It wasn't like they were out to get CarPlay.
2:00:18seemed like the one guy is an iPhone fan,
2:00:19the other guy's an Android fan.
2:00:21And so the one guy was, you know,
2:00:25it was sort of like a little friendly wager type thing.
2:00:29But so the guy who was trying to get CarPlay to do things
2:00:31was trying his best.
2:00:32Like he really wanted it to work.
2:00:36And I really don't think there was a single thing they did
2:00:38that was unfair at all.
2:00:40Anyway, pretty bad.
2:00:43Last thing I had was this whole thing
2:00:46with the ISPs and privacy and this ridiculous law
2:00:51that the US Congress passed yesterday?
2:00:56You saw this, right?
2:00:58Yeah.
2:00:59Where there was, under the Obama administration,
2:01:02that the FCC passed a thing that would prevent ISPs
2:01:06and cell phone providers from using your web traffic
2:01:11history to sell to advertisers or other people who'd
2:01:16interested in knowing everything you've done on the internet. And the US Congress and the Senate
2:01:25passed legislation abolishing this, which is ridiculous. And it was completely a long...
2:01:30Again, I don't want to get too much into the politics of it, I mean,
2:01:33a partisanship of it, but every single person in the Senate and the House who voted for it
2:01:40was a Republican and not a single Democrat voted for it. And I think there were only
2:01:4615 Republicans who voted against it. But it's the most ridiculous, like this issue should
2:01:51not be partisan. Like somebody who is a die-hard Republican, but doesn't own stock in Comcast,
2:02:02but just is a Republican and believes in low taxes and all the other strong defense spending
2:02:09et cetera, et cetera, down the line politically,
2:02:13there's no way that they're in favor
2:02:14of their cell phone provider selling their browsing history
2:02:18to advertisers.
2:02:19Like, this is not a conservative issue.
2:02:23It's absolutely unconscionable that this passed.
2:02:26And surprise, surprise, guess who's
2:02:29a big spender on lobbying in Washington, DC,
2:02:32the telecom industry?
2:02:35Yeah, what's interesting is that whatever
2:02:38was passed, and I'm not an expert in this, so whatever, but what was passed under Obama
2:02:46I guess never actually took effect.
2:02:48So nothing's actually getting worse, it's just not getting better.
2:02:52And I don't know if the telcos were actually taking advantage of their capabilities in
2:02:58this regard before, or if it was just something that they wanted to do.
2:03:04So it's not like some liberty was technically taken away,
2:03:08although I guess it was supposed to kick in at some point
2:03:11and now it won't.
2:03:12But it's crazy to me that any of these companies
2:03:17could say this is in the best interest of private,
2:03:19like what were they saying,
2:03:20like of choice or something like that?
2:03:23- Yeah, yeah.
2:03:24- Just fucking say you wanna make some money.
2:03:26(laughing)
2:03:28- Just be honest about it.
2:03:29- Yeah.
2:03:30- Right.
2:03:31- Yeah, this is a new business line for us.
2:03:32and we run the pipe, we can do whatever we want with it.
2:03:37But I guess they can't say that.
2:03:40- Well, Sam Biddle at The Intercept,
2:03:42I will put a link to this in the show notes as well,
2:03:44did the yeoman's work as a reporter,
2:03:46and what is it, the group is called the NCTA,
2:03:50I don't know what that stands for though.
2:03:54- It probably used to stand for something
2:03:58and now it does not.
2:03:59- Well, it's the Trade Group Association,
2:04:01It's a lobbying group that represents companies
2:04:03like Verizon and Comcast.
2:04:05And they were big in--
2:04:07this is the statement after last week's vote read,
2:04:11"We appreciate today's Senate action
2:04:13to repeal unwarranted FCC rules that
2:04:17deny consumers consistent privacy protection online
2:04:20and violate competitive neutrality.
2:04:23Our industry remains committed to offering services
2:04:26that protect the privacy and security
2:04:28of the personal information of our customers."
2:04:30So their statement is just purely, it really is,
2:04:34often overused, but it really apt here,
2:04:37Orwellian in terms of using words that mean
2:04:41the complete opposite of what the legislation actually did.
2:04:45- And I guess some of the argument they used was that,
2:04:49well, Facebook and Google can do this,
2:04:51so why shouldn't we be able to?
2:04:52But, and again, I don't know who actually made that.
2:04:55This is just my third day memory
2:04:58of reading articles about this.
2:04:59But the truth is that they don't.
2:05:01Like Facebook and Google see what you're doing
2:05:04on Facebook and Google and maybe what you click out on,
2:05:06but they don't get your full internet history,
2:05:09which to me is like a, you know,
2:05:12if you don't want to click something on Facebook,
2:05:14you can avoid that.
2:05:15You can't avoid using the internet
2:05:17while you're on the internet.
2:05:18So, seems kind of like the kind of argument
2:05:23that would maybe work if you're a moron,
2:05:25but if you actually know anything
2:05:26about how the internet works, does not really work.
2:05:29- Right, and Facebook and Google,
2:05:30there's no denying that they're very hard to avoid.
2:05:33I just had a, I'd still, I don't have a Facebook account,
2:05:38I never have, and I had a conversation with somebody
2:05:42last week while I was waiting to meet with people at Apple,
2:05:45and somebody just couldn't believe it, just absolutely,
2:05:47you know, really thought I was maybe pulling their leg,
2:05:50and I'm like, no, I really, I don't use it, I don't, you know.
2:05:53- Kind of amazing you can still use Instagram
2:05:55without having a Facebook account.
2:05:56- You know what, if anything would ever get me
2:05:58to sign up for it would probably be that.
2:05:59You know, I still don't see Instagram ads.
2:06:03- Me neither, but we gotta stop telling people that.
2:06:05(laughs)
2:06:06Otherwise we're gonna get--
2:06:08- I know, but I kinda wanna see 'em because I'm curious,
2:06:11but I'm worried that I'm gonna see one and be like,
2:06:14"Yeah, I can finally see what an Instagram ad is like,"
2:06:16and then all of a sudden I'll be inundated with 'em
2:06:17and I'm gonna be like, "Oh man, remember when I was
2:06:20"two years into--"
2:06:21- You know, I got a really good one once.
2:06:23I used to see them and I got a great one.
2:06:25Maybe this is when they stopped showing them to me.
2:06:27I got a great one for Suntory Whiskey.
2:06:29- Ah. - And I thought,
2:06:30oh, finally-- - See, I would like that.
2:06:31- These guys know me well, Suntory Whiskey,
2:06:34but I don't see any ads anymore,
2:06:36except now I see them occasionally between stories,
2:06:39because that is a different format.
2:06:41- I still don't, I don't see them there, I don't think.
2:06:45- I only rarely do, so that,
2:06:46either they don't have enough ads,
2:06:48or they don't like my, whatever,
2:06:51something about me does not target well.
2:06:54- Yeah.
2:06:57But again, it's a utility.
2:06:59You know what I mean?
2:07:00That's why-- and again, I understand the general--
2:07:04and in some degree, I agree with it.
2:07:06The general Republican mindset is that fewer government
2:07:12regulations are better.
2:07:13It's better to let the market work itself out
2:07:18and that overregulation is a problem.
2:07:21Totally get that.
2:07:22I actually agree with it.
2:07:25I think that when a functioning two-party system
2:07:30with one side being conservative, one side being liberal,
2:07:33that even though I'm generally liberal,
2:07:36I think the conservatives serve a very effective role
2:07:39at limiting the government from over-regulating things.
2:07:42I really do.
2:07:43I mean, I just renewed my driver's license this month.
2:07:47And it's, I would say it is,
2:07:54Government bureaucracy can be a real problem
2:07:56for doing something that you have to do
2:07:58every couple years.
2:07:59This is a case where though,
2:08:05like regulating things like water quality
2:08:09and like the electricity and service and stuff like that,
2:08:14there's a reason why we want the government
2:08:16to regulate that.
2:08:17You know, you don't wanna have people
2:08:18getting their heat shut off in the middle of winter
2:08:20just because they missed a bill or something like that.
2:08:24And telecom stuff is regulated for a reason.
2:08:28(laughs)
2:08:29And being able to sell your history
2:08:32would seem to me a clear violation of that
2:08:35as a utility service.
2:08:36And I--
2:08:37- Do you think our electrical history is for sale?
2:08:39- I don't know.
2:08:41I don't think so.
2:08:42I don't think anybody would agree.
2:08:46Who knows?
2:08:47I mean, for all I know, maybe this is on the books
2:08:49and they're doing it, but it's,
2:08:50I don't think that the phone companies can sell a list
2:08:53to advertisers of who I've made phone calls to.
2:08:57- Yeah, right.
2:08:58- Right, like, you know, and then--
2:08:59- That's probably the most, second most threatening.
2:09:03- Right, I mean, and I can see competitively
2:09:08why you would want it, you know,
2:09:09like a pizza place might wanna see that I'm always calling,
2:09:13every time I order a pizza, I get it from the same place
2:09:15and they wanna send me, call me up
2:09:17and offer me a special offer or something like that.
2:09:20But that would be terrible.
2:09:23It would be outrageous.
2:09:25I find it, I find it suspicious.
2:09:26- Well, people seem to think that VPNs are the solution,
2:09:29although I don't think that's really gonna take off.
2:09:31I mean, I don't know if you've used a VPN ever,
2:09:34but they're kind of a pain in the ass, so.
2:09:36- Well, they're kind of a pain in the ass,
2:09:38and I don't think they should be presented as a panacea,
2:09:41especially if you're not the one running the VPN.
2:09:45So, people who work at big companies,
2:09:47like when they do work, like if you work at Apple
2:09:50and you want to work from home,
2:09:51got to log on to the VPN because you can't even access the stuff you need if you're not
2:09:56because they want it to be secure. But you can kind of trust it because it's your VPN
2:10:00from Apple. As an independent person using a VPN, you're completely at the mercy of the
2:10:08VPN service you're signing up for. And they could, for all you know, they're tracking
2:10:14your history or something. I don't think it's a fantasy. And it adds some steps.
2:10:19I do wonder if somebody like if Apple could step in and do something where if you're using
2:10:27Apple products and you have an Apple base station, you know, this is in the fantasy
2:10:32world where Apple is still updating their Wi-Fi routers on a regular basis, that they
2:10:36could do something that sort of gives you an invisible VPN that would keep your ISP
2:10:44from being able to do this sort of intrusive privacy invasive stuff.
2:10:47I don't know.
2:10:48enough about it to say, but I think it seems to me like Apple could take an interest in this.
2:10:53That's another thing we haven't, has not been resolved yet, the future of the airport base
2:10:59stations. But yeah, I mean, or one of the kind of enterprising new players like Eero, that would be
2:11:05a cool thing Eero could do, or Google or any of the newish router providers. Oh, we automatically,
2:11:11although what I don't know is like if you're doing everything over a secure pipe, you're still
2:11:17sending packets over your hardware network so I don't know yeah I've seen
2:11:24other people say and I know that this doesn't work that if you just change your
2:11:28DNS from your ISP's own DNS to like open DNS or Google's DNS servers or something
2:11:35like that that might help your service in some ways you know I've done that in
2:11:41years past but that doesn't solve this problem like Comcast oh the the ones and
2:11:46arrows are still going over. The U-Porn packets are still coming over Comcast.
2:11:50It's just, I don't know, it's just sort of a depressing, amidst all the other
2:11:58political stuff going on, it's just a very depressing display of there's just
2:12:02nobody, you know, like even something like on the environment, which is obviously a
2:12:07political hot button issue. So if the Trump administration wants to
2:12:12rollback regulations on pollution, coal pollution,
2:12:17into water.
2:12:18Me personally, I'm opposed to that.
2:12:21I at least get the argument, though,
2:12:23that there are people who are saying,
2:12:25this can change the financial dynamics of this whole town.
2:12:29I don't-- I disagree with these people.
2:12:34I'll even argue with them.
2:12:35But I at least acknowledge that there
2:12:37are people who are arguing that side,
2:12:40that there are Americans who are saying,
2:12:42"No, I think they should be allowed to do this."
2:12:44Whereas with this privacy thing, there's nobody.
2:12:46It's absolute crickets chirping on Twitter.
2:12:48Everybody's outraged about it.
2:12:49I see tons and tons of tweets about it,
2:12:51and I don't see anyone, anyone arguing for the other side.
2:12:54Like there's nobody saying,
2:12:57"Yeah, I think it's a good idea to roll back this protection."
2:13:02It makes it the most bizarre thing to have passed
2:13:05because it so clearly is popular with nobody
2:13:08except the actual stakeholders in the ISPs.
2:13:12- Yeah, I don't hear, I mean, you know,
2:13:16I see an uproar among my colleagues at the Verge,
2:13:19like Nilay and those guys are strongly against it,
2:13:22but I don't know, I just don't see a ton of
2:13:25people talking about it, I don't know.
2:13:28- Well, I guess the, you know, for the most part,
2:13:31it's not gonna hit the masses until if and when
2:13:34it actually starts being abused, right?
2:13:36and you start getting creepily super-targeted stuff
2:13:41from Comcast that--
2:13:43Saw what you were looking at on WebMD.
2:13:45Right.
2:13:46And part of it--
2:13:47Would you like a pill for that?
2:13:48Part of it, though, is that we are sort of being--
2:13:50we're like frogs being slowly boiled
2:13:52to death with the creepy stuff we do see,
2:13:54where it's still getting worse.
2:13:58Although I think ever since I've installed content blockers
2:14:01on Safari, it's actually-- for me, personally,
2:14:05it's gotten better.
2:14:05but I know my wife is just telling me the other day
2:14:08where she clicked on one thing for one product
2:14:10and now all of the ads she sees everywhere for that product.
2:14:14And it was totally innocuous, I forget what it was.
2:14:16I can't even remember, it was not like in any way sensitive
2:14:20or embarrassing product, but it was just unbelievable
2:14:23though the number of sites that were showing her ads
2:14:25for this thing that she had clicked on one time on one site.
2:14:28- Well it speaks to the effectiveness or lack thereof
2:14:33of web advertising that that is immediately
2:14:36the most effective ad that you could possibly see
2:14:39is for the website you were just on.
2:14:41- All right, anything else you wanted to talk about
2:14:46this week?
2:14:47It seems like it's time to wrap it up.
2:14:49- Just getting pumped for the second Chicago Cubs
2:14:54World Series in a row, but that's about it.
2:14:56- Have you been on since the Cubs won the series?
2:14:58I don't think you have.
2:14:59- I don't think so, no.
2:15:00- Congratulations, here we are, opening day,
2:15:03- Opening day is this weekend. - I know, I'll collect my,
2:15:06and I'm currently first place
2:15:07in the Vox Media tournament bracket,
2:15:10but we'll see what happens.
2:15:12But yeah, opening day coming up, very excited.
2:15:14- I've got a, I was in Vegas before the tournament,
2:15:18and I placed a $100 prop bet on UNC
2:15:21to win the whole tournament, so I've still got that going.
2:15:23I think it pays six to one or eight to one,
2:15:26so I'll have an $800 ticket if they win.
2:15:32- Cool, we'll have to go collect.
2:15:33- Yeah.
2:15:34(laughing)
2:15:35Yeah, that'd be fun.
2:15:36(laughing)
2:15:37Be a good use of that $800.
2:15:39(laughing)
2:15:41You can actually mail them.
2:15:42- I was there last week for a day,
2:15:45and that was kind of fun, just for work,
2:15:48but I was like, oh, I should do 24 hours in Vegas more often.
2:15:52- Yeah, it's a good town to dip your toes in, it is.
2:15:54I've done that.
2:15:57I had a flight, one time we were flying to,
2:15:59Amy and I were flying to Vancouver,
2:16:01and there's no direct flights.
2:16:03And so, and it just, it's a long way from Philadelphia.
2:16:06So we just flew to Vegas, spent one night in Vegas,
2:16:09and then woke up at noon and flew to Vancouver the next day.
2:16:11And it was total fun. - That's awesome.
2:16:13- Total fun. - Nice.
2:16:15- Whereas most cities, you feel like you can't possibly,
2:16:17really get anything out of the city
2:16:22if you're only there for 23 hours total.
2:16:26Whereas Vegas, you can easily, (laughs)
2:16:28you can easily say, "I've had enough.
2:16:29"I had a good time and I'm done.
2:16:31I'm ready to go.
2:16:33Cubs, I can't believe that.
2:16:35I still can't believe that they won that.
2:16:37I can't either, and it also was completely ruined by the election a week later.
2:16:42I know.
2:16:43I had that thought.
2:16:44I feel really screwed by that.
2:16:46It was the ... That was ... It never hit me.
2:16:51The joy never really hit me, and then I got the wind knocked out of me.
2:16:55Now some days I'm like, "Oh yeah, the Cubs won the World Series."
2:16:59It's sort of like playing the lottery every day for 108 years and never winning.
2:17:07And then you finally win big and you get mugged for the money as you're walking out of the
2:17:13place where they gave you cash.
2:17:14You buy a bus.
2:17:15Yeah.
2:17:16Yeah.
2:17:17Oh, man.
2:17:18I think the Cubs look good again.
2:17:20The problem, the scary part about the Cubs is that it was clear even just two years ago
2:17:24that that was a team with legs with the talent on that team.
2:17:31Yeah, and you know, Schwaber's back this year.
2:17:35That's the, to me, was the most amazing thing. And I've said this before, and I know everybody,
2:17:40you know, anybody who wants to tune out for the sports ball, you can tune out. But
2:17:43there's two types of sports fans, fundamentally. Numbers people and story people. And like the,
2:17:50you know, like the numbers people are like the Sabre Metrix people and they like to, you know,
2:17:53that you know using spreadsheets to pick their fantasy stuff and whatever. I love math. I was
2:17:59really good at math when I was in school. I kind of like the stats of sports, but to me the reason
2:18:05I like to still like to watch them though are the stories. I liked it's it's and I don't care if the
2:18:11sabermetrics better explains who wins. I like the stories as an explanation for who wins and of
2:18:16course 20/20 hindsight, but to me the moment I thought that the Cubs were going to win was when
2:18:20and Schwaberer came back.
2:18:23Who comes back from a terrible injury and months
2:18:26of not even swinging a bat, and your first re-entry
2:18:30into the sport is at the highest possible level, the World
2:18:33Series, and then the guy knocks the shit out
2:18:36of the ball for the whole series?
2:18:39It's crazy.
2:18:40It defies everything I know about professional baseball,
2:18:43which is that for hitting, even if you're super talented
2:18:47and you're athletically in the prime of your career,
2:18:49Your timing is everything.
2:18:51And it's the whole reason they have
2:18:52this month-long spring training,
2:18:54is that getting your timing down is intricate,
2:18:57and it's so easily lost,
2:18:58and it's the worst thing about getting hurt,
2:19:00even for like six weeks,
2:19:02is that you come back and you're sure
2:19:03your knee's better now, but your timing is off.
2:19:06And when people are throwing the ball at you
2:19:08at 97 miles an hour,
2:19:10your timing being off just a little bit, you're done.
2:19:13And Schwerber comes back and it's unbelievable.
2:19:16- It's amazing.
2:19:18I kind of want to go watch that game now.
2:19:20- It made me, that's what made me think
2:19:22that they were going to win,
2:19:23because the story just fit.
2:19:24It's like, it's, you know, it's the Cinderella story.
2:19:28You know, the kid comes back, you know.
2:19:30'Cause what a heartbreak it would have been
2:19:31if he hadn't played in the World Series, right?
2:19:32You get a knee injury and you're on the Cubs,
2:19:36and the Cubs win their first World Series in 477 years,
2:19:40and you didn't get to play.
2:19:41But instead, he came back
2:19:43in the most dramatic fashion possible.
2:19:45So anyway, congratulations.
2:19:46I can't say any, I don't have any bones to pick with the Cubs. Congrats.
2:19:50We'll do it again.
2:19:54That would be the worst if
2:19:58the Cubs turned into a dynasty. Oh, jerks like the Yankees? Yeah, I know.
2:20:02They're supposed to be a lovable loser franchise.
2:20:06I think we'll go another hundred years now.
2:20:10I really think that that's possible. I don't know. Look at the Sox. The Sox
2:20:14broke a long streak and then they,
2:20:17I guess the Sox have won more World Series.
2:20:19- Who can stand them?
2:20:20Who can stand them? - Nobody, they're the worst.
2:20:22- Yeah. - They're the worst.
2:20:23All right, thank you, Dan Fromer.
2:20:25Everybody can check you out on Twitter @fromedome.
2:20:29It's a great Twitter account,
2:20:30and they could see your work
2:20:32and the work of your fine staff at Recode.
2:20:35- Recode.net. - Recode.net.
2:20:37- Remember, you used to have beef with Recode.
2:20:39That was hilarious.
2:20:41That was way before I got there.
2:20:42I've been here for a year now. - What was my beef
2:20:43with Recode?
2:20:44Remember there were some issues where they wouldn't call,
2:20:46they didn't, I mean first the slash in the name,
2:20:50which I got rid of, but there was something where,
2:20:53I think one of my former colleagues
2:20:56was not citing you properly.
2:20:59There was a phase where you would just call,
2:21:02record I think some website or something like that.
2:21:04(laughing)
2:21:06- Right, it was.
2:21:07(laughing)
2:21:09- It was like three years ago.
2:21:10We're bringing back three year old Twitter beef,
2:21:12or blog beef, but anyways.
2:21:15Recode.net.
2:21:18- It was, instead of referring to Daring Fireball,
2:21:20it was like a Mac website.
2:21:23- Mac fan blog.
2:21:25- Something like that.
2:21:26And so, yeah.
2:21:27If I spent, I spent a couple of months,
2:21:31I haven't had beef in a while, that was fun.
2:21:33And I just called them, I just called them some website.
2:21:36(laughing)