The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Jason Snell, you know what?

00:00:01 ◼   ► This is the first time in two and a half years that I've been able

00:00:05 ◼   ► to say to a guest on this show.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Boy, it was good to see you recently.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it was good.

00:00:10 ◼   ► It was good to see you in person for the first time since I want to say

00:00:15 ◼   ► probably maybe the fall of, of 2019.

00:00:20 ◼   ► I don't, I don't know that I may, I can't remember.

00:00:22 ◼   ► I'd have to look at my notes, but I know that I, we were, we were

00:00:25 ◼   ► both at the Mac book pro briefings.

00:00:28 ◼   ► I believe in the, in New York in the fall of 2019, which was my last Apple briefing.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I'm not sure if we were at the same time.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Yeah, we were, I was there for in New York for that, but I missed the September

00:00:41 ◼   ► iPhone one in 2019 with yet another can't get on an airplane eye surgery in August.

00:00:48 ◼   ► So otherwise it would have been three years ago, WWDC 2019.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:53 ◼   ► And why, why were you in New York for that one?

00:00:57 ◼   ► Because that was where the briefing was.

00:00:59 ◼   ► I've had a couple of those where I get a call from Apple that says, I think

00:01:03 ◼   ► that one, it was even, we're going to have you in Cupertino on a Tuesday.

00:01:07 ◼   ► And I was like, okay.

00:01:08 ◼   ► And then they called back and said, actually, we're going to have

00:01:10 ◼   ► you in Tribeca on a Monday.

00:01:13 ◼   ► And I'm like, okay.

00:01:15 ◼   ► And so then I had to make like plane reservations and hotel reservations and

00:01:18 ◼   ► stuff, but they've done a couple events where they, I think it's tied to the fact

00:01:23 ◼   ► that they do, we've done some interviews with them for upgrade and

00:01:27 ◼   ► the people who they wanted to have as the interviewee, they offered somebody

00:01:31 ◼   ► and said, this is a product manager.

00:01:33 ◼   ► We can have them on your podcast, but you they're going to be in New York.

00:01:37 ◼   ► So you have to come to New York because they usually do like a secondary set of

00:01:40 ◼   ► interviews and briefings in, in Cupertino.

00:01:42 ◼   ► But in this case, the interview we was in New York.

00:01:46 ◼   ► So we went to New York.

00:01:47 ◼   ► I don't know why I have deep sympathy for you having to go to New York, but don't

00:01:53 ◼   ► sympathize with myself for going to California all the time.

00:01:57 ◼   ► We're going to California.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:59 ◼   ► It is, it is weird.

00:02:01 ◼   ► I will say having events out here.

00:02:02 ◼   ► It's kind of funny.

00:02:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:04 ◼   ► Everybody I know comes out in there in the hotel rooms and stuff like that.

00:02:07 ◼   ► And I'm schlepping up and down from, from home.

00:02:10 ◼   ► And it's just a different feeling when you're at home and there's a thing going

00:02:13 ◼   ► on then when you're kind of all in on travel and you know, you're not, you're

00:02:18 ◼   ► not at home and it's just a different kind of feeling, but, but yeah, I, I, they,

00:02:23 ◼   ► they announced WWDC for media 13 days in advance and obviously flights are very

00:02:30 ◼   ► expensive and you got to get a hotel and all those things.

00:02:32 ◼   ► And I was talking to all my friends about all the logistics about all this stuff.

00:02:36 ◼   ► And then I thought, Oh yeah, I just, I'm going to drive down.

00:02:39 ◼   ► It's just not, I am, there are not many of my peers in doing what we do

00:02:46 ◼   ► who actually are in the Bay Area.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And so it's a, it's kind of a funny, it's a funny thing where I feel kind of bad.

00:02:54 ◼   ► Cause it's like, it's really easy for me.

00:02:55 ◼   ► I talked to Apple PR people and they're like, we're going to do this briefing

00:02:58 ◼   ► in Coopertune.

00:02:58 ◼   ► I'm like, okay, two 80.

00:02:59 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:03:00 ◼   ► I can drive down.

00:03:00 ◼   ► It's okay.

00:03:01 ◼   ► It's yeah.

00:03:02 ◼   ► I, I, I, I do want to talk about the meta aspects of getting back to normalcy, but

00:03:07 ◼   ► one of them is I've completely, not completely, but almost completely lost my

00:03:12 ◼   ► ability to function outside the home.

00:03:14 ◼   ► Like, not that I don't leave the home.

00:03:17 ◼   ► I think that I've been, especially, you know, for me and my family, it's been a

00:03:23 ◼   ► very, very decisive line between being fully vaccinated and not, and once we got

00:03:28 ◼   ► fully vaccinated in March of last year, we really stopped sheltering in place or

00:03:33 ◼   ► whatever you want to call it.

00:03:34 ◼   ► But that said, we took some vacations last summer, but vacations aside, work

00:03:40 ◼   ► travel has always been sort of, well, a limited it's an only started to creep

00:03:46 ◼   ► back up in a few weeks before WWDC.

00:03:48 ◼   ► They're new.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Apple had a briefing for Friday night baseball in New York, which was nice, but

00:03:54 ◼   ► it's not even a day trip for me.

00:03:57 ◼   ► It's like an afternoon trip.

00:03:58 ◼   ► You know, it's a 90 minute train ride up, go to the meeting 90 minute train ride

00:04:03 ◼   ► back to Philly and I'm home for dinner.

00:04:06 ◼   ► So it still feels like I'm somewhat tethered to home.

00:04:10 ◼   ► I really, I should have booked my air travel to WWDC many more weeks in advance

00:04:16 ◼   ► than before Apple made it official, which I do, I realize I do in most years.

00:04:21 ◼   ► I take a good guess as to when WWDC is going to be, even if they haven't

00:04:25 ◼   ► announced dates yet.

00:04:26 ◼   ► And it seemed pretty clear that it was going to be June 7th or whatever it

00:04:31 ◼   ► actually was, my guess would have been correct and I would have got direct

00:04:34 ◼   ► flights, but because I waited until it was official, I only had indirect

00:04:39 ◼   ► flights and it was sort of a disaster.

00:04:42 ◼   ► It's exactly, it reiterates why I go out of my way to only take nonstop flights.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I was supposed to fly.

00:04:48 ◼   ► I did have the foresight to go out on Saturday instead of Sunday.

00:04:53 ◼   ► Oh, usually I fly in on a Sunday if it's a Monday keynote, you know, the day before

00:04:56 ◼   ► and I, you know, just take a morningish flight from the East coast and figure if

00:05:00 ◼   ► something goes wrong, if there's a delay or whatever, I'll just get in late.

00:05:04 ◼   ► But I thought, you know, everybody's saying all these flights are getting

00:05:07 ◼   ► canceled.

00:05:07 ◼   ► Maybe I should go on Saturday just in case.

00:05:10 ◼   ► And it turned out like 20 minutes before my flight, I was supposed to go Philly to

00:05:14 ◼   ► Chicago, Chicago to SFO, 20 minutes before my flight was supposed to start boarding.

00:05:18 ◼   ► It just went from on time to canceled.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Just wasn't delayed.

00:05:24 ◼   ► It was on time.

00:05:25 ◼   ► I just gone through security where there was nobody and the, and my notif- I got a

00:05:30 ◼   ► notification on the phone that, and I had my phone out to go through security and

00:05:34 ◼   ► use the boarding pass on the phone.

00:05:35 ◼   ► So I knew it was fine.

00:05:37 ◼   ► 90 seconds later canceled and quickly scrambled to an American desk, rebooked

00:05:42 ◼   ► four hours later that day.

00:05:44 ◼   ► So I did still get there on Saturday, but I did, I didn't get into like, I don't

00:05:47 ◼   ► know, like 1130 at night Pacific time.

00:05:49 ◼   ► It was a very long day and very close to, to being a day late, you know, it was very

00:05:54 ◼   ► close to, you know what, you better go tomorrow.

00:05:57 ◼   ► But yeah, that's the, that's the world we live in.

00:06:00 ◼   ► I mean, it's good.

00:06:01 ◼   ► We got there.

00:06:01 ◼   ► I I'm with you.

00:06:02 ◼   ► I did not have, I'm really out of practice.

00:06:05 ◼   ► It was interesting seeing people, but I had that moment where I'm like, oh yes, I

00:06:08 ◼   ► need to be interacting with humans and looking them in the eye.

00:06:11 ◼   ► And it was because I, I, my wife go work as a librarian.

00:06:18 ◼   ► She goes to the library every day and works with the public.

00:06:20 ◼   ► My son just finished high school.

00:06:22 ◼   ► So he was going to high school every day and dealing with all the high school stuff.

00:06:25 ◼   ► I work in my garage.

00:06:27 ◼   ► So I, even before the pandemic, I was a little bit of a shut-in and then the

00:06:33 ◼   ► pandemic just kind of magnified that.

00:06:35 ◼   ► And so I am way out of practice with seeing other human beings.

00:06:39 ◼   ► I had a, I had a, just a doctor's appointment checkup yesterday and then

00:06:43 ◼   ► went and, and went to the, the local liquor store, basically, and bought

00:06:47 ◼   ► some beer because we were out of beer.

00:06:48 ◼   ► And I, I thought to myself, it's like, how many times have I made multi-stops for

00:06:55 ◼   ► anything outside the house in the last three years?

00:06:58 ◼   ► And the answer is not very many times.

00:07:00 ◼   ► I just don't.

00:07:01 ◼   ► So I'm trying to do it more, but it is, it is being back in that social

00:07:04 ◼   ► atmosphere of an Apple event was a real, it was a kick, but it was also a

00:07:09 ◼   ► reminder of how long it has been since we've had anything like that.

00:07:14 ◼   ► I, one thing I noticed the whole time out there was I've really lost my ability to

00:07:19 ◼   ► keep track of more than two items at once.

00:07:22 ◼   ► I, and I'm not really a leave person, a leave stuff behind person, you know,

00:07:27 ◼   ► like, but during the keynote, I almost left my jacket at my seat and some kind

00:07:32 ◼   ► person was like, Hey, is this your jacket?

00:07:33 ◼   ► And as I was about to wander over to the Steve Jobs theater where the hands-on

00:07:38 ◼   ► area for the media was, I was like, yes, that is my jacket because it was hot and

00:07:43 ◼   ► sunny and so I took my jacket off even though I was in the shade.

00:07:46 ◼   ► It gets, you know, and I wasn't like I had a lot of stuff.

00:07:49 ◼   ► I just had like a water bottle and my bag with my laptop and notebook in it.

00:07:55 ◼   ► And that was enough though.

00:07:56 ◼   ► I had the water bottle, had the bag, left the jacket.

00:07:59 ◼   ► And I found myself nearly doing that at every step of the way as I went about.

00:08:04 ◼   ► Like if I couldn't have it in, I had like one thing in my left hand, one thing in my

00:08:08 ◼   ► right hand and anything else, couldn't remember it.

00:08:11 ◼   ► Very strange.

00:08:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:13 ◼   ► Well, you get out of habit of all of that stuff.

00:08:16 ◼   ► I had to have the exact same thing, which is like, you know, I'm walking over here.

00:08:19 ◼   ► I'm going to go see these people.

00:08:20 ◼   ► I'm going to, you know, I've got to make sure that I've got the stuff with me.

00:08:23 ◼   ► And do I have packing for the, for the day was also like, like what do I need?

00:08:28 ◼   ► And what do I not need?

00:08:29 ◼   ► And it was all just like, I know how to do this, but I'm way out of practice.

00:08:34 ◼   ► And, and these are not little scripts that I've been running in my head all this time.

00:08:38 ◼   ► And so I've got to get back to it.

00:08:39 ◼   ► I did, I did have one funny thing that I want to share, and I know Apple doesn't

00:08:43 ◼   ► love a lot of the inside baseball stuff, but this is, this is little, and it's a

00:08:46 ◼   ► little fun, you know, they don't like the magic is don't talk about PR, but I did

00:08:50 ◼   ► have a funny moment where they did a bunch of briefings and I saw you there in

00:08:53 ◼   ► shadow with you at the Steve jobs theater where they have a briefing center.

00:08:56 ◼   ► They built it there, even though the event wasn't at the theater, the briefings were

00:08:59 ◼   ► there and I got a text from Apple PR person saying, Jason, can you come to the

00:09:04 ◼   ► entrance to Apple park so I can take you to your briefing?

00:09:07 ◼   ► And I texted her and I said, I'm sitting in the, in the.

00:09:10 ◼   ► See jobs theater.

00:09:11 ◼   ► Is this where I need to be?

00:09:13 ◼   ► And she was like, oh yeah, nevermind.

00:09:15 ◼   ► And it was just a funny moment where they're also kind of getting up to speed on it.

00:09:18 ◼   ► And they had obviously there you have to usher you in.

00:09:21 ◼   ► If you're outside of Apple park, they have to usher you in and vouch for you in order

00:09:24 ◼   ► for you to get inside and then they can send you to the theater.

00:09:27 ◼   ► They walk you to the theater.

00:09:28 ◼   ► And so I know why they did it that way, but it was just kind of funny.

00:09:31 ◼   ► Cause they, they didn't have it so wired that they like knew that I was already

00:09:37 ◼   ► waiting for a different briefing and therefore didn't need to be sort of

00:09:40 ◼   ► brought out and brought back in.

00:09:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:42 ◼   ► It was just, you know, we're all getting up to speed.

00:09:43 ◼   ► It was all dead briefings.

00:09:45 ◼   ► It all went very well.

00:09:47 ◼   ► I'd, you know, give Apple, I'd give them an a plus for everything that

00:09:51 ◼   ► had to go right for this to work.

00:09:53 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:09:54 ◼   ► They did such a good job and, and, you know, and everything to go right.

00:09:57 ◼   ► I think I could be proven wrong.

00:09:59 ◼   ► Maybe somebody at Apple would say something different, but my sense when I

00:10:02 ◼   ► was there and before was, I don't think having people in the ring was ever part

00:10:09 ◼   ► of the plan, right?

00:10:10 ◼   ► Like the whole layout of the Steve jobs theater, you come in at Tantau Avenue

00:10:16 ◼   ► to the entranceway, their little like guard station where that PR person

00:10:19 ◼   ► wanted me to go and you turn left to go to the Steve jobs theater and

00:10:22 ◼   ► you turn right to go to the right.

00:10:24 ◼   ► And so they built Steve jobs theater on the corner of the campus away from

00:10:29 ◼   ► everything else and filled it with briefing rooms and the theater itself

00:10:33 ◼   ► and the showcase area and all those things.

00:10:35 ◼   ► It was built for these kinds of events and COVID happens and they're like,

00:10:39 ◼   ► oh, we really need to do it outside.

00:10:41 ◼   ► Well, you know, we, we can't count on having a big indoor audience.

00:10:44 ◼   ► And, and so they, to their credit, they said, you know what, let's, somebody

00:10:49 ◼   ► said, it's okay to have civilians.

00:10:51 ◼   ► In the ring, or at least at the edge of the ring, we can do this at cafe max and

00:10:57 ◼   ► put up a screen and we can show off our campus and, and this is the funny thing

00:11:02 ◼   ► is I don't think it was ever part of the original plan, but it was spectacular.

00:11:06 ◼   ► It really, they, they carried it off really well.

00:11:08 ◼   ► And that building is so amazing that to get.

00:11:12 ◼   ► Us like I've never been anywhere near it.

00:11:15 ◼   ► I've only ever turned left, gone to the Steve jobs theater.

00:11:18 ◼   ► So it, I don't think it was their plan, but it all worked out for them.

00:11:22 ◼   ► It was kind of neat being inside.

00:11:25 ◼   ► I've been close.

00:11:26 ◼   ► There was an event a couple of years ago where I think it definitely

00:11:30 ◼   ► involved a new Apple watch.

00:11:32 ◼   ► I don't know if it was probably like 2019, maybe 2018, something like that.

00:11:36 ◼   ► Where part of the media tour was to go to their fitness center, which is, I

00:11:42 ◼   ► couldn't tell you on a map, but I mean, I actually, I guess if you look at

00:11:45 ◼   ► Apple maps, it would show you, but it's similarly, I think it's the opposite

00:11:49 ◼   ► side of the camp of the square from the Steve jobs theater, but it is similarly

00:11:53 ◼   ► in a corner, but they insisted on everybody taking golf carts and I was

00:11:57 ◼   ► like, I could walk in there.

00:11:58 ◼   ► A couple other of us who were like, Hey, you know, we're from the East coast,

00:12:01 ◼   ► you know, we're enjoying this weather.

00:12:03 ◼   ► We can walk in there.

00:12:04 ◼   ► Like, please take a cart.

00:12:05 ◼   ► And it's like, okay, I get it.

00:12:06 ◼   ► You don't, you don't want us wandering around.

00:12:08 ◼   ► I get it.

00:12:09 ◼   ► It's not really for our wear and tear on our shoes.

00:12:13 ◼   ► It is, you don't want us wandering around.

00:12:15 ◼   ► So, okay, I'll take it.

00:12:16 ◼   ► But at some point that it took us right by the main ring building.

00:12:21 ◼   ► And so I was like on the pathway right around it and sort of saw the scope.

00:12:24 ◼   ► I mean, that's the one thing I, I can only compare it to like Disney world and

00:12:29 ◼   ► the way that Disney very famously plays perspective tricks to make things look

00:12:37 ◼   ► bigger or smaller, like the main street in Disneyland and Disney world and the

00:12:41 ◼   ► Magic Kingdom and all the other parks around the world.

00:12:45 ◼   ► They, they make the second floor of the buildings smaller than the first floor,

00:12:52 ◼   ► which makes, but, but use perspective tricks to make them seem normal size.

00:12:57 ◼   ► So it looks to you like you're walking down a street of two story buildings, but

00:13:01 ◼   ► they're really more like one and a half story high so that they don't interfere

00:13:06 ◼   ► with the sight lines from other parts of the park and vice versa.

00:13:09 ◼   ► They do tricks to make the castle in the center seem bigger

00:13:12 ◼   ► than it really is, et cetera.

00:13:14 ◼   ► I think that Apple very much has done the same thing with the ring building

00:13:18 ◼   ► where it is a very humble appearance.

00:13:22 ◼   ► It wouldn't make any sense.

00:13:23 ◼   ► And I'm sure zoning wise, it just wouldn't even be allowed in Cupertino.

00:13:27 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense to build it as a skyscraper, which is what most single

00:13:32 ◼   ► building corporate headquarters of the last 100 plus years are like the Chrysler

00:13:37 ◼   ► building, the Sears Tower in Chicago.

00:13:39 ◼   ► It doesn't make sense to build a skyscraper in Cupertino, but if you took

00:13:43 ◼   ► the ring and just, you know, straightened it out and put it up end to end, it

00:13:49 ◼   ► would be a very high skyscraper.

00:13:51 ◼   ► It is a big building.

00:13:52 ◼   ► You can kind of, you know, just do some simple math about square footage and

00:13:55 ◼   ► think, wow, it is a big building.

00:13:57 ◼   ► But when you see pictures of it, it just looks low to the ground, very humble.

00:14:02 ◼   ► Being next, whatever your mental image is of the ring building, double in size.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Like that's how I felt.

00:14:09 ◼   ► It's like, I thought I knew how big it was and I was not even remotely close.

00:14:13 ◼   ► I couldn't believe it.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Like the, the, the area they had for the media to get coffee, Danish water,

00:14:19 ◼   ► whatever else before the keynote was on the second floor, but it took

00:14:23 ◼   ► four flights of stairs to get there.

00:14:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:14:27 ◼   ► It's like, well, that's cause cafe max is open air.

00:14:30 ◼   ► And so I think that there's like a floor that is not there for that.

00:14:34 ◼   ► And then you're overlooking it, but it's yeah, it's a huge space.

00:14:36 ◼   ► And then there's still more floors above.

00:14:38 ◼   ► We were in like the little balcony, essentially overlooking cafe max for that.

00:14:42 ◼   ► And it was all, and it's all like an Apple store.

00:14:44 ◼   ► I mean, that's the, that's the thing.

00:14:45 ◼   ► Like I expected this, but it's still, it's one thing to see it where it's

00:14:48 ◼   ► like literally the stairs they've got the handrails, just like at the Steve

00:14:52 ◼   ► Jobs theater, they're incredible attention to detail, all the wood is that

00:14:55 ◼   ► kind of light wood from the Apple store.

00:14:57 ◼   ► It's an enormous facility where every single bit of it, other than the elevator

00:15:01 ◼   ► in the parking garage with the buttons that are misaligned, your favorite feature.

00:15:04 ◼   ► And when you're inside, it's all like super high attention to detail

00:15:07 ◼   ► at every turn in around every corner.

00:15:09 ◼   ► It is the world's largest Apple store.

00:15:12 ◼   ► It's what it is.

00:15:13 ◼   ► It's amazing.

00:15:13 ◼   ► Did you, I think cable Sasser, of course, who I actually ran into there.

00:15:17 ◼   ► He was attending and it was so good to see him.

00:15:19 ◼   ► But he had a Twitter thread about it that all the elevators in Apple

00:15:24 ◼   ► Park are there's like, there's Otis and some other company in the U S that

00:15:28 ◼   ► make like, I don't know, probably almost every elevator that's of use in the

00:15:32 ◼   ► United States, but outside the U S especially in Asia, I think it's Mitsubishi

00:15:37 ◼   ► who of course makes like everything.

00:15:38 ◼   ► It's like a typical Japanese conglomerate where they make everything from

00:15:42 ◼   ► like toasters to cars, to elevators.

00:15:44 ◼   ► Apple of course got their elevators because they're generally regarded

00:15:48 ◼   ► as the best elevators in the world.

00:15:50 ◼   ► And one of the features that they have standard, it's not just special

00:15:54 ◼   ► for Apple, but it's a mystery.

00:15:55 ◼   ► I think it's Mitsubishi, but whatever the company is, if you press a button by

00:15:59 ◼   ► accident and you didn't mean to go there, like let's say you get in on ground

00:16:02 ◼   ► floor one and you want to go to four, but you press three by accident.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Well, in a U S elevator, guess what the door is going to open on three you're

00:16:12 ◼   ► stuck, but in a Mitsubishi elevator, if you press the button by accident, you can

00:16:16 ◼   ► double press it and it'll it'll unstick.

00:16:18 ◼   ► It'll go away, which is a neat feature.

00:16:21 ◼   ► They're also very smooth elevators and that's, they have like glass

00:16:25 ◼   ► doors to show off.

00:16:26 ◼   ► They, they look good, right?

00:16:28 ◼   ► Like the, it's almost like the old see-through iMac from 1998.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Like, Hey, the inside is so cool.

00:16:34 ◼   ► We want to show it to you.

00:16:35 ◼   ► It's like, you can kind of, it's like the, here, you can see the wheels and

00:16:39 ◼   ► the cables of the elevator system while you're waiting because they're so pretty.

00:16:42 ◼   ► I also noticed that all of the buttons, the little signs, whatever legal

00:16:49 ◼   ► stuff has to go inside an elevator.

00:16:51 ◼   ► It's all typeset in San Francisco.

00:16:53 ◼   ► Of course.

00:16:54 ◼   ► Of course it is.

00:16:55 ◼   ► That's, that's the thing is that that's what actually makes the weird misaligned

00:16:59 ◼   ► thing in the sub basement parking garage.

00:17:01 ◼   ► So funny is like very clearly a line was drawn.

00:17:05 ◼   ► That's like, we don't care beyond this point, but everything on the inside, they

00:17:09 ◼   ► care so much about things that, that most companies wouldn't care about.

00:17:12 ◼   ► And I know it's silly.

00:17:13 ◼   ► I mean, it's just, it's a corporate facility.

00:17:15 ◼   ► It is what it is, but they, they it's very Apple in its way.

00:17:18 ◼   ► And I did have that moment when I was sitting there.

00:17:20 ◼   ► We've, we've all thought about how Apple park is sort of Steve jobs, his last

00:17:25 ◼   ► product and, and Steve jobs and Johnny Ives last collaboration.

00:17:28 ◼   ► And I, I took a moment while I was thinking about it.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Be like, yeah, I can see it.

00:17:31 ◼   ► Like it is, I'm glad we got that experience to go in there.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Cause like I said, I'm not sure they ever really wanted outsiders.

00:17:39 ◼   ► A large group of outsiders to be at Apple park, but I'm glad I got to see it.

00:17:45 ◼   ► Cause it is a fascinating look into sort of like, not only this thing, we talk

00:17:49 ◼   ► about all the time, but also that the, into the last collaboration of, of Steve and

00:17:54 ◼   ► Johnny.

00:17:54 ◼   ► Yeah, because they really did build it from scratch.

00:17:57 ◼   ► I mean, they just built a whole, bought a whole lot of land that I think all of, I

00:18:01 ◼   ► don't know if all of it or most of it was previously owned by Hewlett Packard, but

00:18:05 ◼   ► raised it, did all the landscaping.

00:18:08 ◼   ► It is truly, you know, Disney ask in its control of everything from the sightlines

00:18:13 ◼   ► to the, the greenery to just every aspect of it was designed and is, is the way it

00:18:21 ◼   ► is for better or for worse by intention.

00:18:24 ◼   ► And it, to me does give insight into the company's culture.

00:18:28 ◼   ► It is a manifestation of the jobs, the Ivy collaboration and the, the sort of state

00:18:37 ◼   ► of the company when it was, when it was constructed.

00:18:39 ◼   ► And I would say one thing you talk about Disneyland.

00:18:43 ◼   ► One of the things that struck me, I was talking to David Sparks, who obviously

00:18:46 ◼   ► spends a lot of time at Disneyland.

00:18:47 ◼   ► The, one of the perspective things that they do is the way that the, the building

00:18:52 ◼   ► is situated.

00:18:53 ◼   ► When you look out at the interior of the ring, all you see other than the trees at

00:18:58 ◼   ► the interior of the ring and the rainbow stage and all of that is the other side of

00:19:01 ◼   ► the ring.

00:19:02 ◼   ► And then the Hills in the background.

00:19:04 ◼   ► And, and you are, when you are there, you feel very much like there's nothing around

00:19:10 ◼   ► you.

00:19:10 ◼   ► When Steve Jobs said it, it's like a spaceship landed when you're at the ring.

00:19:14 ◼   ► It's a little bit like you are in a spaceship that just landed and there's no

00:19:18 ◼   ► world outside of that space.

00:19:21 ◼   ► And I think that's very intentional.

00:19:22 ◼   ► So you can't see, they're not like other buildings you see outside.

00:19:25 ◼   ► Like the, the ring is high enough that.

00:19:27 ◼   ► That, uh, from at least ground level in the first few floors, all you can really see

00:19:33 ◼   ► is the ring and the Hills beyond.

00:19:35 ◼   ► And that's about it.

00:19:36 ◼   ► There's no city, you know, there's no city views there.

00:19:38 ◼   ► They're all blocked by that giant ring.

00:19:40 ◼   ► And the trees on the outside block it too.

00:19:41 ◼   ► It's it's right.

00:19:42 ◼   ► So it is, you know, kind of a world away and you can say positive or negative things

00:19:46 ◼   ► about that.

00:19:46 ◼   ► You can say it's isolated.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Are they trying to cut themselves off from the world, but, or are they trying to create

00:19:51 ◼   ► a beautiful space for their people to do their best work?

00:19:53 ◼   ► I'm struck.

00:19:54 ◼   ► I grew up in the countryside.

00:19:55 ◼   ► We had 45 acres in the middle of nowhere.

00:19:58 ◼   ► And I believe the interior of the ring is larger than the property that I grew up on.

00:20:03 ◼   ► And it's again, one of those things where you don't think about how big it is.

00:20:07 ◼   ► And then you're there and you realize, no, that's an enormous space on the inside of the

00:20:12 ◼   ► ring, let alone all the space on the outside.

00:20:14 ◼   ► So I'm glad I, I'm glad I got to see it because the pictures don't really do it justice.

00:20:19 ◼   ► Yeah, you really have to experience it.

00:20:21 ◼   ► You really do.

00:20:22 ◼   ► And it really was something to see.

00:20:23 ◼   ► I have to say one of the things that's so incongruous to me as somebody who lives in the

00:20:30 ◼   ► middle of a city and really does not drive very much at all is how Cupertino itself, I

00:20:38 ◼   ► stayed at a hotel.

00:20:39 ◼   ► I did.

00:20:39 ◼   ► One of the weird things is I didn't know where to stay.

00:20:41 ◼   ► So I just booked a Hilton that's literally across the street from Apple Park, but it's the

00:20:45 ◼   ► opposite side of Apple Park as the visitor center.

00:20:49 ◼   ► So it's, it's amazing because you'd get to the street outside the hotel I stayed at and you

00:20:54 ◼   ► can even see the ring.

00:20:55 ◼   ► It's right there.

00:20:56 ◼   ► It's right across one street.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Yep.

00:20:58 ◼   ► And not really walkable.

00:21:00 ◼   ► It is, Cupertino is not a walking city.

00:21:04 ◼   ► It is a driving city.

00:21:06 ◼   ► It is very California in that regard.

00:21:08 ◼   ► Even calling it a city is, I mean, it is technically, but the truth is, and this is for

00:21:14 ◼   ► people who have not been to Silicon Valley or spent a lot of time there.

00:21:18 ◼   ► It's this area with suburbs and it still is basically like suburbs.

00:21:23 ◼   ► There, there is, so you turn it's Wolf Road and Tan Tao, and then I forget, is it, is it

00:21:28 ◼   ► Homestead that's in between them that you'd make a turn on, but like literally you're on the

00:21:32 ◼   ► street that Apple Park on one side of you as you're driving to the Tan Tao visitor center on

00:21:36 ◼   ► one side of you is the metal fence and the giant berm and all the trees.

00:21:41 ◼   ► And then behind it is the ring, right?

00:21:42 ◼   ► On the other side of the street are houses, literally single family homes sitting on that

00:21:49 ◼   ► street.

00:21:50 ◼   ► And this is the great, and where do you find a hotel?

00:21:54 ◼   ► Where is there a restaurant?

00:21:55 ◼   ► There are, there are like a couple of restaurants and a hotel where you stayed.

00:21:58 ◼   ► There's nothing on the other side at all.

00:22:00 ◼   ► There's no downtown per se.

00:22:02 ◼   ► And it's all because this is just a suburb that's had, it's not urban, it's suburban.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And I think as a result, Silicon Valley culture is very much like, well, we need to

00:22:12 ◼   ► provide for our employees because like the places that I've worked in cities have generally

00:22:17 ◼   ► had, like you just go out to lunch and like all the stuff is out in the city.

00:22:22 ◼   ► So you don't, we don't need to provide it.

00:22:23 ◼   ► In the suburbs, you kind of need to provide it.

00:22:25 ◼   ► And so you get that insular campus kind of thing that happens in a lot of Silicon Valley

00:22:30 ◼   ► companies and including Apple.

00:22:32 ◼   ► It is weird though, coming from WWDCs in San Francisco and San Jose, that like, where do

00:22:38 ◼   ► you stay?

00:22:39 ◼   ► We stayed in Sunnyvale, which is just north, a couple of miles north of Apple park.

00:22:43 ◼   ► And there is like a shopping center and stuff around there.

00:22:45 ◼   ► So I was able to get dinner and stuff like that.

00:22:47 ◼   ► But again, and Sunnyvale has a little downtown, but really it's the burbs.

00:22:52 ◼   ► And like, if you think San Jose is a sleepy city, it is, but at least it's a city.

00:22:57 ◼   ► Cupertino, I mean, again, it's just, it's just not, it's a suburb with a bunch of

00:23:01 ◼   ► corporate campuses in it.

00:23:02 ◼   ► And, and it's, it's weird.

00:23:04 ◼   ► It's different.

00:23:05 ◼   ► It's not what you would expect if Apple had, I'm not sure they ever would have done

00:23:09 ◼   ► this, but if Apple had said, no, we're going to be like Twitter, we're going to go to

00:23:12 ◼   ► downtown San Francisco.

00:23:14 ◼   ► It would be a very different kind of vibe, but they're, they're not, they're a, they're

00:23:19 ◼   ► a classic Cupertino company and they have most of the, most of the buildings in

00:23:23 ◼   ► Cupertino, my understanding are Apple offices even now, because they have so many

00:23:28 ◼   ► employees.

00:23:29 ◼   ► It is the incongruity to me is that as unwalkable or not clearly not meant to be

00:23:35 ◼   ► walked as all of Cupertino is the actual Apple park campus is clearly designed for

00:23:41 ◼   ► walking both inside the ring and then outside the ring to go there's foot paths and

00:23:47 ◼   ► hills and you know, it, that it really was clearly informed famously Steve Jobs liked

00:23:54 ◼   ► to take people if he had something to say, he'd say, let's go on a walk and, you know,

00:23:58 ◼   ► employees, Walt Mossberg, other people, this is what he liked to do clearly was.

00:24:02 ◼   ► And he lived in a kind of hilly, more, more rural part of still not very far from

00:24:07 ◼   ► Silicon Valley, but a little town kind of off on the outskirts where they could, where

00:24:11 ◼   ► they had that.

00:24:12 ◼   ► And so it is replicating that you're totally right.

00:24:13 ◼   ► If you want to go for a walk by yourself and you work at Apple just to clear your

00:24:18 ◼   ► head, gather your thoughts.

00:24:19 ◼   ► It is wonderful for that.

00:24:20 ◼   ► If you want to go for a walk with with a colleague or two colleagues and talk out an

00:24:26 ◼   ► issue or something like that, it is truly wonderful for that quiet, isolated and locks

00:24:31 ◼   ► in.

00:24:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:32 ◼   ► You know, it and once you're walking around inside, you don't feel like you're at a

00:24:36 ◼   ► place where literally thousands of your colleagues all work at the same time.

00:24:40 ◼   ► You really feel like you're on your own.

00:24:42 ◼   ► It is, it's remarkable.

00:24:44 ◼   ► It's, it's really something to see.

00:24:45 ◼   ► I don't know if it didn't feel very populated.

00:24:48 ◼   ► I think some of that is the pandemic, right?

00:24:50 ◼   ► And we were there on an event day, so probably even fewer people were there who were not

00:24:54 ◼   ► part of the event management, but I would imagine it's so huge that even if it was

00:24:58 ◼   ► fully packed with people, it would be, it's so huge that you could, you could get away,

00:25:03 ◼   ► you know, down a path, past some trees and clear your head a little bit.

00:25:07 ◼   ► It's yeah, it's, it's very interesting, very interesting design and a very interesting

00:25:13 ◼   ► use use of space.

00:25:14 ◼   ► And the building is not small, right?

00:25:15 ◼   ► But it is, they did make a point of having all that open space and all those trees.

00:25:19 ◼   ► And it's yeah, it's, it's, it's a landmark.

00:25:22 ◼   ► I mean, it's already a landmark.

00:25:23 ◼   ► When I was coming in, I flew in from, I forget where I'm visiting my mom.

00:25:26 ◼   ► Maybe I flew into SFO and like, you can't miss it as you're flying in.

00:25:31 ◼   ► Like there's nothing like it.

00:25:32 ◼   ► There's city grids and suburban grids, and then there's this ring with trees.

00:25:37 ◼   ► It's it's like nothing else.

00:25:39 ◼   ► All right, let me take a break here and thank our first sponsor.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Revenue cat in app subscriptions made easy.

00:25:46 ◼   ► If you've ever worked on an app, you know how much of a pain in app purchases are.

00:25:51 ◼   ► Revenue cat makes them easy.

00:25:53 ◼   ► With just a few lines of code revenue cat provides payments, infrastructure,

00:25:57 ◼   ► analytics, data integrations, and more.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Plus it gives you back time, which is our most precious resource from dealing with

00:26:06 ◼   ► edge cases and changes from Apple and Google thousands of the world's best apps,

00:26:11 ◼   ► including notion buffer and class dojo.

00:26:14 ◼   ► Use a revenue cat to power their app business.

00:26:17 ◼   ► Revenue cat is free until you hit $10,000 of monthly revenue.

00:26:22 ◼   ► And it's always free to try until you ship.

00:26:25 ◼   ► That's it.

00:26:25 ◼   ► That's the whole message.

00:26:26 ◼   ► Go to revenue cat, R-E-V-E-N-U-E revenue cat.com to find out more.

00:26:32 ◼   ► My thanks to revenue cat.

00:26:33 ◼   ► Once again, that's revenue cat.com in app purchases made easy.

00:26:39 ◼   ► Before we move on to the actual content of the show, I will say this.

00:26:42 ◼   ► It was weird.

00:26:42 ◼   ► One of the cool things I have, like, it clarified to me, to me, they blurred

00:26:47 ◼   ► together my circles of Apple event friends, right?

00:26:51 ◼   ► But the event was very, it's like the prototypical guy who goes to the

00:26:56 ◼   ► gym and only works on his arms and his legs remain like toothpicks.

00:26:59 ◼   ► It's like my media friends were all there, right?

00:27:04 ◼   ► And for all of the sort of, Hey, they only announced it 10 or 11 days in advance.

00:27:09 ◼   ► And there seemed like a bit of a down low and the actual email invitations

00:27:12 ◼   ► that everybody in the media got.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Weren't about attending in person.

00:27:17 ◼   ► They were like, here, watch online on Monday, you know, 10 AM or whatever time

00:27:21 ◼   ► it, or 1 PM Eastern, 10 AM Pacific.

00:27:24 ◼   ► Yep.

00:27:25 ◼   ► But then they called everybody.

00:27:26 ◼   ► It seemed like they called everybody, everybody I know in the media, you

00:27:29 ◼   ► know, friends, acquaintances, it seemed like everybody was there and

00:27:33 ◼   ► it was so good to see everybody.

00:27:34 ◼   ► And I have another smaller, much smaller circle of friends of people who work at

00:27:40 ◼   ► Apple, who I often run into at WWDC.

00:27:44 ◼   ► I ran into several of them and it was good to see them.

00:27:47 ◼   ► But most of my developer friends weren't there.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Most of the people I know who were developers either didn't enter the lottery

00:27:54 ◼   ► to get those special day passes or entered and weren't selected.

00:28:00 ◼   ► Cause I, it sounds like there were only about a thousand of them from around

00:28:03 ◼   ► the world as opposed to the 5,000 attendees at a traditional in-person WWDC.

00:28:10 ◼   ► In a convention center.

00:28:12 ◼   ► And that seemed weird.

00:28:13 ◼   ► It was like, so good to see everybody.

00:28:14 ◼   ► It's like, Hey, how come everybody I'm running into is in the media?

00:28:17 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Cause that's the only people who are here.

00:28:18 ◼   ► It is.

00:28:20 ◼   ► I mean, and I think this is the future.

00:28:24 ◼   ► Who knows, but this feels like a model for them for the future.

00:28:27 ◼   ► Perhaps it'll be at the Steve jobs theater next year.

00:28:29 ◼   ► Right.

00:28:29 ◼   ► I think they would like to get it in the theater because that's why they built it.

00:28:32 ◼   ► But the model is WWDC is online.

00:28:35 ◼   ► There's a media event because the keynote is always a media event.

00:28:39 ◼   ► It's not just for developers.

00:28:40 ◼   ► In fact, I don't know if you noticed, but in the keynote, they refer to developers

00:28:45 ◼   ► in the state of the union, they refer to you and it's like literally the state

00:28:49 ◼   ► of the union is for developers.

00:28:51 ◼   ► The keynote is about developers sort of, but not, but it's for everybody.

00:28:57 ◼   ► And so that's a media event.

00:28:59 ◼   ► So of course we were all there for the media because we're the media event people.

00:29:02 ◼   ► We come for that.

00:29:03 ◼   ► And then they had their small group of developers, which was great.

00:29:06 ◼   ► And like, you can still make it the trip of a lifetime.

00:29:08 ◼   ► I got to go to Cupertino.

00:29:09 ◼   ► I got to see the ring.

00:29:10 ◼   ► It wasn't that great.

00:29:11 ◼   ► And, and it gives Apple a, an excited audience that may be in a theater live

00:29:15 ◼   ► setting would be really great for applause and things like that, whether it was at

00:29:18 ◼   ► the theater or whether it was just outside again, but I feel like that

00:29:21 ◼   ► that's a good mixture and they've got their developer center, right?

00:29:24 ◼   ► That's a good mixture to have.

00:29:26 ◼   ► And the truth is if you think about it, it's like, yeah, it's not the 5,000

00:29:30 ◼   ► people or whatever who came to San Jose.

00:29:32 ◼   ► But the truth is whether it's a thousand people or 500 people or 5,000 people who

00:29:37 ◼   ► go as developers, it's still just a, how many nines after 99.9% of Apple

00:29:45 ◼   ► developers are watching online.

00:29:46 ◼   ► Like you will never get a representative sample because unless you did it like a

00:29:51 ◼   ► stadium and even then you wouldn't really.

00:29:53 ◼   ► So what you really want is have the opportunity for some developers, key

00:29:58 ◼   ► developers and lucky developers to come and make the pilgrimage and have that

00:30:02 ◼   ► moment to be really excited, get the media there for your event.

00:30:06 ◼   ► And then the rest of the world gets the sessions as videos.

00:30:09 ◼   ► And that's not a bad package.

00:30:12 ◼   ► I think they, I think this was really viable for the future of this conference.

00:30:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

00:30:17 ◼   ► And it's funny because Apple famously, I don't know if you know this, but Apple

00:30:20 ◼   ► often seems not to want to speak about the future, but they, they didn't say

00:30:25 ◼   ► anything.

00:30:25 ◼   ► Nobody told me anything off the record about like what they planned to do long

00:30:29 ◼   ► term, but just what they did say about how they thought this was going and what

00:30:34 ◼   ► they thought about the future was surprisingly forthright that the actual

00:30:39 ◼   ► content, the sessions of WWDC almost certainly, I mean, I would say in 99.9%

00:30:49 ◼   ► sure, are going to be like this forevermore that this is, this is just a total

00:30:54 ◼   ► win for everybody involved.

00:30:56 ◼   ► It's better because all developers around the world get the same access to the

00:31:01 ◼   ► sessions.

00:31:01 ◼   ► It is better for the Apple employees who present them because they, they're all

00:31:07 ◼   ► filmed in advance and it removes any sort of stage fear of public speaking, you

00:31:13 ◼   ► know, that, that, that you, you know, you can rehearse, rehearse, rehearse in front

00:31:16 ◼   ► of, you know, your colleagues, and then all of a sudden you're on stage in front of

00:31:20 ◼   ► hundreds of, or maybe thousands for certain sessions, attendees speaking, you

00:31:26 ◼   ► know, and you've never spoken in front of more than a few dozen people before it.

00:31:30 ◼   ► Now there's 500 people in front of you.

00:31:31 ◼   ► It's different.

00:31:32 ◼   ► In my time going to old WWDCs, the speakers from Apple were always, you know,

00:31:37 ◼   ► very good.

00:31:37 ◼   ► It wasn't like there was a lot of, Ooh, that person really was scared up there,

00:31:40 ◼   ► but it's easier this way.

00:31:42 ◼   ► I think I also think the actual, what you get on the video is just better when it

00:31:47 ◼   ► was meant for video than when it was presented on a stage.

00:31:51 ◼   ► It's just, they're just better.

00:31:53 ◼   ► And, and there's no going,

00:31:55 ◼   ► I was going to mention time slots, right?

00:31:57 ◼   ► Like that used to be, you had to fill a 30 minute or 60 minute time slot and

00:32:00 ◼   ► sometimes they'd put different groups together and be a mishmash or you get a

00:32:03 ◼   ► session that would be short and then you'd be like, well, what do I do for the

00:32:06 ◼   ► next half hour?

00:32:07 ◼   ► And these sessions, if it only, if it only needs to be 12 minutes long, it's 12

00:32:12 ◼   ► minutes long.

00:32:12 ◼   ► And then you move on.

00:32:13 ◼   ► If it needs to be 45 minutes long, it's 45 minutes long.

00:32:16 ◼   ► And then they go in the archive where they can be viewed forever at your leisure

00:32:20 ◼   ► for reference.

00:32:21 ◼   ► It's, it's just, it's better in every conceivable way, I guess, other than the

00:32:26 ◼   ► fact that there's no interaction, but you know, Apple took interactivity out of WWDC

00:32:30 ◼   ► like 10 years ago.

00:32:31 ◼   ► There used to be feedback sessions.

00:32:33 ◼   ► There used to be Q and A at the end of sessions.

00:32:35 ◼   ► And for the last, you know, five or 10 years there, there's no interactivity in

00:32:40 ◼   ► the sessions themselves.

00:32:41 ◼   ► So at that point, this is, if you're going to not have interactivity in the sessions,

00:32:46 ◼   ► they've got other ways that they do that.

00:32:47 ◼   ► Now, this is way, way better all the way.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Have you ever been to a WWDC where you've gone into a session saying, I'm really

00:32:53 ◼   ► excited about this and you get five minutes in and they put up the code and as

00:32:57 ◼   ► a media person, you're like, I want the big picture, but I'm not a developer.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And you're like, damn it.

00:33:01 ◼   ► Now I got to get out of here.

00:33:02 ◼   ► And is there another session going on and what did I miss and can I get in or is it

00:33:07 ◼   ► full?

00:33:07 ◼   ► Like get all of that out of here.

00:33:09 ◼   ► Like we don't need any of that.

00:33:10 ◼   ► And you don't want to be the only person getting up to leave, you know?

00:33:13 ◼   ► You know, I've done that.

00:33:16 ◼   ► I've absolutely done that.

00:33:17 ◼   ► It's like, oh, look, now the code has come out.

00:33:19 ◼   ► Goodbye.

00:33:19 ◼   ► It is.

00:33:20 ◼   ► It's one of those things.

00:33:21 ◼   ► I would just wait and see somebody else leave.

00:33:23 ◼   ► Okay.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Somebody else left out.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Now I can get up and leave.

00:33:25 ◼   ► No, no, I can, now I can get, now I'm not leaving in a huff.

00:33:28 ◼   ► I'm just part of the crowd that's leaving.

00:33:30 ◼   ► Well, the truth is, I mean, this is a weird thing about being a, a, a media

00:33:33 ◼   ► person covering a developer conference is we're there for the most part, you know,

00:33:39 ◼   ► if you're John Saracusa, you might have an app or two that you're thinking of,

00:33:42 ◼   ► but, uh, most of us are there for the big picture about like what's new in the

00:33:46 ◼   ► OS and how does it work?

00:33:47 ◼   ► And a lot of these sessions are fantastic, especially now that they're on video,

00:33:51 ◼   ► because you can glean like how it works.

00:33:54 ◼   ► And then they like say, we'll dive into the code now and, and, and.

00:33:57 ◼   ► Then it's less interesting to us.

00:34:00 ◼   ► It's great for developers and it's not for us, but there's

00:34:02 ◼   ► so much that can be gleaned.

00:34:03 ◼   ► I love watching developer sessions because you learn how it works and

00:34:09 ◼   ► can explain that to your audience without actually needing to know how

00:34:13 ◼   ► to build it because I don't, I don't need that part.

00:34:15 ◼   ► I just need to know how it works.

00:34:16 ◼   ► I remember that was one of my favorite sessions of all time was when they

00:34:19 ◼   ► introduced time machine and they did a session about time machine and they

00:34:23 ◼   ► got to the code eventually and I had to run away, but it was the only place

00:34:28 ◼   ► they explained the whole time ever in public at that conference.

00:34:33 ◼   ► How does this new feature actually work?

00:34:35 ◼   ► And it was so great.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Cause then people would say, how does this time machine thing works?

00:34:38 ◼   ► And I said, well, I couldn't build you an app, but I know how it works.

00:34:42 ◼   ► And that's, that's what I love about WWDC is, is the, the, the little

00:34:46 ◼   ► details that you get in those sessions.

00:34:48 ◼   ► I do think it's just interesting because they obviously did not need to do this.

00:34:53 ◼   ► I mean, and they could have done something much smaller with the media only.

00:34:57 ◼   ► They certainly didn't need to invite a thousand developers from around the

00:35:00 ◼   ► world to be there and do this big thing outside.

00:35:02 ◼   ► And like you said, I really don't think that when Johnny Ive and the

00:35:08 ◼   ► architects envisioned that space, whatever, I don't know if that I have,

00:35:12 ◼   ► generally have a poor sense of north, south, east, west, whatever side of the

00:35:15 ◼   ► ring that of the lawn they used for the, it seemed like more than a thousand.

00:35:20 ◼   ► Cause all thousand invitees were there, but then there were hundreds and

00:35:24 ◼   ► hundreds, maybe even an extra thousand people who were inside the ring with the

00:35:29 ◼   ► doors open viewing on additional screens.

00:35:32 ◼   ► I think those were largely Apple employees who were watching live, but.

00:35:36 ◼   ► Seemed like at least, you know, ballpark, there were 2000 people watching live.

00:35:40 ◼   ► That space, I don't think was ever envisioned for that yet.

00:35:43 ◼   ► It did not seem retrofitted for it at all while I was there.

00:35:49 ◼   ► It seemed like this is perfect.

00:35:50 ◼   ► This is perfect.

00:35:50 ◼   ► And I mean, so I could imagine that the answer is next year, it'll be another

00:35:54 ◼   ► thousand invitees, same space, same number of people.

00:35:58 ◼   ► Maybe they'd invite a few hundred more and, and widen.

00:36:02 ◼   ► It seemed like they could have widened it a little.

00:36:05 ◼   ► You know, there was some kind of.

00:36:06 ◼   ► Spitball math that they did with regard to COVID precautions, you know, in terms

00:36:13 ◼   ► of how many people they really wanted there and how many people they could handle.

00:36:17 ◼   ► But I really do think at the same time, I know I'm just reiterating a point.

00:36:20 ◼   ► You made a space that was never designed to be used that way.

00:36:24 ◼   ► Seemed perfect to be used that way.

00:36:26 ◼   ► It's yeah, I think the only, the only question I would have is do they want

00:36:31 ◼   ► ultimately to have everything be a video, a pre entirely pre-produced video, or

00:36:36 ◼   ► would they like to get back to the media event that has a live component for the

00:36:42 ◼   ► audience because we were watching, it was a watch along, right?

00:36:45 ◼   ► Like Tim and.

00:36:45 ◼   ► And Craig came out at the beginning to it live and said, Hey, we're

00:36:49 ◼   ► going to show you a video.

00:36:50 ◼   ► Now it was like going to comic con or something, right?

00:36:53 ◼   ► And then they were, now we're going to play the video or a film

00:36:55 ◼   ► festival or something like that.

00:36:56 ◼   ► Would they.

00:36:58 ◼   ► Do they like the idea of doing a live event so much that even if their media

00:37:02 ◼   ► event has a lot of pre-taped stuff in it, would they like to go back to having the

00:37:06 ◼   ► basics of it and the intros of the segments and the high level stuff beyond

00:37:10 ◼   ► the stage at the Steve jobs theater.

00:37:11 ◼   ► And then play those bits.

00:37:14 ◼   ► And if they do that right, like that's the theater is a better venue for that

00:37:18 ◼   ► probably than outdoors, although they could do it outdoors.

00:37:22 ◼   ► So that's the only question I've got is what do they want their media events to be

00:37:25 ◼   ► like ultimately, and do they want them to be entirely pre-taped or do they

00:37:28 ◼   ► want a little live element to it?

00:37:31 ◼   ► That that's the mystery because otherwise, yeah, they could totally just repeat what

00:37:33 ◼   ► they did this year and it would work.

00:37:35 ◼   ► Fine.

00:37:35 ◼   ► The big difference.

00:37:36 ◼   ► The keynote is obviously different.

00:37:38 ◼   ► And, and I've said this multiple times over the last two years of COVID that

00:37:42 ◼   ► effectively they've, they've created their own branded TV show, an episodic

00:37:48 ◼   ► continuing series of shows that don't, doesn't really have a name.

00:37:53 ◼   ► It's just Apple keynotes in the COVID era where there's no live audience.

00:37:57 ◼   ► But if you watch them or just go back and just watch the opening five minutes of a

00:38:01 ◼   ► bunch of them right from the first one, which I think was WWDC 2020, or maybe,

00:38:07 ◼   ► maybe the, I guess technically the first one would be the, the sort of really

00:38:13 ◼   ► almost emergency event in April of that year when they, when they unveiled the

00:38:18 ◼   ► magic keyboard for iPad and the trackpad support in iPadOS, which didn't have the

00:38:24 ◼   ► full flavor of the, these events and, and the, the branding of the show where,

00:38:31 ◼   ► where they zip around parts of Apple park, you know, and transition and, and

00:38:37 ◼   ► warp from, Oh, we're up upstairs in the Steve Jobs theater.

00:38:41 ◼   ► Now we're going underground to Johnny Suruji's secret lab, which we're

00:38:46 ◼   ► pretending is, you know, in some kind of, you know, a bomb bunker, but they're very

00:38:51 ◼   ► consistent with those transitions in the way that TV episode, TV shows always have

00:38:56 ◼   ► the same feel, you know, like an episode of the X-Files feels like an episode of

00:39:00 ◼   ► the X-Files, like you could just tune into an X-Files rerun.

00:39:04 ◼   ► And even if it's not showing Scully and Mulder, but you know, the characters of

00:39:09 ◼   ► the episode, you could like, Oh yeah, I'm watching the X-Files cause you just, you

00:39:12 ◼   ► know, just the music and the feel of it.

00:39:14 ◼   ► The WWDC, even if they want to stick with that for the most part, and I think they

00:39:19 ◼   ► will to some regard, WWDC is different because it's the only event left on

00:39:24 ◼   ► Apple's calendar now that Mac world expo is a decade dead, where there's a live

00:39:30 ◼   ► audience filled with actual people, right?

00:39:34 ◼   ► People who will, people who are like regular people who will cheer and be a

00:39:38 ◼   ► good studio audience for sure.

00:39:40 ◼   ► Whereas the media are bad at that.

00:39:43 ◼   ► And so they pack it with, they pack the theater with VIPs and Apple employees who

00:39:46 ◼   ► will cheer because the media aren't cheering so much, but the developers are

00:39:50 ◼   ► right now that expo is gone and you can't get a ticket to an Apple keynote.

00:39:54 ◼   ► The only way you get a ticket to an Apple keynote now is to be a developer

00:39:57 ◼   ► and win the lottery essentially.

00:39:59 ◼   ► And they're a good audience and it is good theater to do that.

00:40:03 ◼   ► I wonder, I don't know if you remember, you're a little younger than me, but

00:40:06 ◼   ► Saturday Night Live back in the early eighties, when Lorne Michaels left, Dick

00:40:11 ◼   ► Ebersole came in and he, this is TV trivia, but they did a lot of pre recorded

00:40:16 ◼   ► stuff on Saturday Night Live, which was very controversial at the time because

00:40:19 ◼   ► it was live, it was a live show.

00:40:21 ◼   ► And suddenly Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest and all these people are doing,

00:40:24 ◼   ► Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy are doing filmed segments that they do during the

00:40:28 ◼   ► week essentially, and then they run them during the show and it's not live.

00:40:32 ◼   ► And I've been thinking about that because that, that is kind of my question is what

00:40:36 ◼   ► does Apple want it to be?

00:40:37 ◼   ► A completely not live pre-taped thing that has a lot of advantages, including the

00:40:41 ◼   ► music and the transitions and all of that and the classic Steve Jobs, live on stage,

00:40:47 ◼   ► cheering people in the audience kind of thing.

00:40:49 ◼   ► And it's like, I don't know how addicted they are to that kind of stagecraft, but I

00:40:53 ◼   ► can see there being a hybrid where it's a live show, right?

00:40:57 ◼   ► With the big air quotes, it's a live show, but a lot of it, I don't know how much,

00:41:02 ◼   ► but a lot of it is still the pre-taped bits because they, they were always

00:41:05 ◼   ► expanding how much pre-taped stuff they had in the keynotes.

00:41:08 ◼   ► So they could do even more of that and still like claim that it's live because

00:41:12 ◼   ► Tim Cook was live and Greg Joszowiak was live and, and you know, a handful of people

00:41:17 ◼   ► were live throwing it into the videos and that, and that they could even pipe in the

00:41:21 ◼   ► cheering from the audience while the videos were playing.

00:41:24 ◼   ► And, and would that be better for stagecraft?

00:41:26 ◼   ► I'm sure they've had these conversations and I'm fascinated to see what they decide

00:41:30 ◼   ► in terms of, do we just completely lock it down?

00:41:32 ◼   ► Like we've, like we've been doing, or is there value in having some sort of a live

00:41:36 ◼   ► before a studio audience kind of component just for the stagecraft of it?

00:41:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:41 ◼   ► The last thing I want to say about that was that you mentioned the intro from Tim,

00:41:45 ◼   ► the live intro on stage in front of 2000 people that Tim Cook and then Craig, he

00:41:51 ◼   ► invited Craig Federighi up to say hello to.

00:41:54 ◼   ► I knew something was up because that happened at like 9 55.

00:41:59 ◼   ► I forget what time it was.

00:42:00 ◼   ► It wasn't at 10 AM Pacific.

00:42:01 ◼   ► It was like 9 55.

00:42:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:03 ◼   ► And one thing about the Tim Cook keynotes is they start exactly on time.

00:42:07 ◼   ► Like if it's a 10 o'clock keynote, you can almost set your watch by it.

00:42:12 ◼   ► But if you're wearing an Apple watch, of course you don't need to set your watch,

00:42:15 ◼   ► but if you're wearing a watch that needs to be set, you can pretty much set, set it

00:42:19 ◼   ► to the minute that when Tim Cook comes out and says, you know, hello or whatever his

00:42:24 ◼   ► go-to greeting is, or welcome, whatever.

00:42:26 ◼   ► Good morning.

00:42:27 ◼   ► Right.

00:42:27 ◼   ► That's what he says.

00:42:28 ◼   ► Good morning that it's 10 o'clock.

00:42:30 ◼   ► And so 9 55, everybody I was seated near, we were like, Oh, this must not be part of

00:42:36 ◼   ► the keynote, right?

00:42:37 ◼   ► Cause we just knew that there's no way he's coming out early.

00:42:39 ◼   ► He's not coming out late jobs.

00:42:40 ◼   ► I mean, it wasn't like jobs was super late, but he might be, you know, he could give

00:42:45 ◼   ► him at least five minutes, right?

00:42:46 ◼   ► I mean, sometimes the keynotes were five minutes late and it wasn't part of the

00:42:49 ◼   ► keynote.

00:42:50 ◼   ► So if you watched from home, you didn't see this.

00:42:53 ◼   ► And that did surprise me a little because I, they could have, they could have just

00:43:00 ◼   ► done the intro.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Here's the keynote.

00:43:03 ◼   ► Hope you enjoy it.

00:43:04 ◼   ► And then at the very end, Tim Cook could have come back on stage and said, thank you

00:43:08 ◼   ► for coming.

00:43:08 ◼   ► This is, you know, a unique day in Apple's history.

00:43:11 ◼   ► We're, you know, we've got a great afternoon with the state of the union and we have a

00:43:15 ◼   ► great week of sessions ahead for everybody around the world to watch go by, you know,

00:43:20 ◼   ► go wait for a Mac book air.

00:43:21 ◼   ► Goodbye.

00:43:23 ◼   ► And then it's gone.

00:43:25 ◼   ► That could have been part of the actual broadcast, but wasn't, I don't know why.

00:43:29 ◼   ► Cause the other thing that would have allowed them to show, which I think they like to

00:43:33 ◼   ► show is the audience, right?

00:43:36 ◼   ► And to show, look, we've got thousands of people here who are ecstatic and

00:43:41 ◼   ► enthusiastic and happy.

00:43:44 ◼   ► And you know, uniquely for this one in a beautiful California sunshine, it was a

00:43:49 ◼   ► beautiful day.

00:43:50 ◼   ► That's something to see.

00:43:51 ◼   ► I don't know if you noticed it.

00:43:52 ◼   ► There was a big drone flying overhead and lots of speculation.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Was this an unauthorized drone?

00:43:59 ◼   ► And a lot of people were like, if it were, you know, it would be shot down by now.

00:44:02 ◼   ► And it's like, you know, you say that I'm not quite sure if Apple has anti drone

00:44:07 ◼   ► technology on campus, maybe jammers, maybe they get to jam it or something.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:44:12 ◼   ► But then I thought, I thought that was going to be like a live shot of like, oh, of the,

00:44:16 ◼   ► of the, and maybe it's an experiment.

00:44:18 ◼   ► To see if they can do that, right.

00:44:21 ◼   ► Maybe they were trying it out to say, well, what if, is this viable?

00:44:24 ◼   ► Because I think there is a viable scenario where they do something like they did this

00:44:28 ◼   ► time except the, the, that wrapping segment, the the the envelope around the rest of the

00:44:34 ◼   ► presentation with Tim Cook saying hello and goodbye.

00:44:37 ◼   ► If that was live and the rest of the thing was pre-taped, but the live part was streamed

00:44:44 ◼   ► live and they showed Apple Park and they again, cause it's stagecraft, right?

00:44:48 ◼   ► It's all showmanship.

00:44:48 ◼   ► So it's like, how do we make a bigger impact?

00:44:51 ◼   ► And I don't know, Tim Cook coming out to a live studio audience, instead of just

00:44:54 ◼   ► wandering down a hallway at Apple Park, I think has a bigger impact, but I, you know,

00:44:59 ◼   ► I, that's their decision to make, but the drone shot, I absolutely thought, are we

00:45:04 ◼   ► going to open this live stream with a drone shot of Apple Park?

00:45:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:07 ◼   ► Or open it with Tim Cook and then say there's thousands of people here and then

00:45:12 ◼   ► the, the people at home, it would cut to that drone shot.

00:45:14 ◼   ► And again, you could do the Letterman bit, right?

00:45:17 ◼   ► Where he's like inside and you think that it's a pre-taped thing.

00:45:20 ◼   ► And then he walks out and there's a whole group of people there and it, and it turns

00:45:23 ◼   ► out it is live, right?

00:45:24 ◼   ► Like that would be great.

00:45:25 ◼   ► There's a lot of ways you could play with it, but as always with you and me, it

00:45:29 ◼   ► comes back to sports, but in televised sports, I think it's a worldwide

00:45:34 ◼   ► phenomenon, but I certainly in the U.S.

00:45:36 ◼   ► for your, in my lifetime, it has been a big deal that any major sporting event

00:45:41 ◼   ► has a blimp flying outside to provide the overhead shots, which makes sense for

00:45:47 ◼   ► outdoor sports, like the world series and the Superbowl and NFL playoff game or any

00:45:51 ◼   ► NFL game, you know?

00:45:52 ◼   ► And, and it is fascinating and it's something I never thought about growing up

00:45:57 ◼   ► because it was always the case.

00:45:58 ◼   ► There's always, it used to always be the Goodyear blimp and now there's a couple

00:46:02 ◼   ► other brands that have blimps, but you know, they spot, you know, they pay

00:46:05 ◼   ► something, Goodyear gets a promotional consideration, but then they fly a blimp

00:46:09 ◼   ► over the stadium and then they provide overhead shots and there's no other way

00:46:13 ◼   ► to get a perspective.

00:46:15 ◼   ► Like what does it look like when 70,000 people are in a stadium?

00:46:19 ◼   ► You can't photograph them from within the stadium and from the ground, you don't

00:46:23 ◼   ► get that perspective.

00:46:24 ◼   ► You need that overhead shot.

00:46:26 ◼   ► I thought that's what the drone was, but apparently not.

00:46:28 ◼   ► And they, they are actually using drones in sporting events now.

00:46:32 ◼   ► I've seen it a few times.

00:46:32 ◼   ► I think even Apple's Friday night baseball used a drone in a, in a couple, for a

00:46:36 ◼   ► couple of shots.

00:46:37 ◼   ► And, and we're going to see more of those too, because then you've got like the

00:46:42 ◼   ► Goodyear blimp is way up above and you can see the parking lot and the traffic

00:46:45 ◼   ► outside the stadium and all of that.

00:46:47 ◼   ► Those drone shots, you can be, you know, you can perfectly position it like a

00:46:50 ◼   ► video game, literally anywhere you want.

00:46:53 ◼   ► And so we'll, we'll see more of that.

00:46:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:54 ◼   ► I, I, I, if I had to guess what that drone was, it was Apple seeing what it would be

00:47:01 ◼   ► like for them to do that shot.

00:47:03 ◼   ► And, you know, and if it wasn't that, then I apologize and send my commiser,

00:47:08 ◼   ► commiserations to whoever owned that drone.

00:47:10 ◼   ► Cause they're probably not ever getting it back.

00:47:12 ◼   ► Anyway, it was good.

00:47:15 ◼   ► Let me thank another sponsor here.

00:47:17 ◼   ► It's our good friends at Collide.

00:47:18 ◼   ► Oh man, I love Collide.

00:47:20 ◼   ► That is the company with a new take on endpoint management.

00:47:23 ◼   ► And here's the simple question they ask, how can we get end users more involved?

00:47:28 ◼   ► This is in contrast to the old school device management tools like MDM, which

00:47:32 ◼   ► lock down your employees' devices without considering their needs at all, or even

00:47:36 ◼   ► attempting to educate them about the aspects of security that, that are the

00:47:41 ◼   ► whole reason you want to do something with their laptops.

00:47:44 ◼   ► And what happens, a lot of cases with traditional MDM is your employees, they

00:47:48 ◼   ► take the work laptop, see how locked down it is, and they just use their personal

00:47:52 ◼   ► laptop for work stuff with no protections at all, defeating the whole point.

00:47:56 ◼   ► Uh, instead of locking down the device, Collide takes a user focused approach

00:48:02 ◼   ► that communicates security recommendations to your employees directly on Slack, the

00:48:07 ◼   ► communication tool you're already using.

00:48:08 ◼   ► You're not even asking them to sign up for something else to get notifications.

00:48:12 ◼   ► It all goes through Slack, which you're already using.

00:48:14 ◼   ► After you start using Collide, device security turns from a black and white

00:48:18 ◼   ► state into a dynamic conversation.

00:48:20 ◼   ► It starts with the end users installing the endpoint agent on their own.

00:48:24 ◼   ► And then they go through a guided process that happens right inside

00:48:27 ◼   ► their first Slack message.

00:48:29 ◼   ► And from there, Collide regularly sends your employees recommendations when

00:48:33 ◼   ► their device is in an insecure state, or if they just have recommendations

00:48:37 ◼   ► to make, just, Hey, you know, you've got like a file full of passwords in a text

00:48:42 ◼   ► file in your downloads folder.

00:48:43 ◼   ► You should do something about that.

00:48:44 ◼   ► That's Collide, K-O-L-I-D-E, cross-platform endpoint management for

00:48:50 ◼   ► Linux, Mac, and Windows devices that puts end users first for teams that Slack.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Get endpoint management that puts your users first.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Visit collide.com/the-talk-show to learn more and activate a free 14 day trial.

00:49:08 ◼   ► Enter your email when prompted to receive your free Collide gift bundle

00:49:11 ◼   ► after trial activation, no credit card required.

00:49:15 ◼   ► Collide.com/the-talk-show.

00:49:17 ◼   ► I it's funny.

00:49:18 ◼   ► I always do this where I always think, Hey, I shouldn't wait a couple of weeks

00:49:23 ◼   ► after WWDC to have my first regular show after the live show.

00:49:27 ◼   ► And then here we are a couple of weeks later and it's my first show.

00:49:30 ◼   ► But on the other hand, it is clarifying.

00:49:33 ◼   ► It is like, and I w it's always the reason I'm so

00:49:38 ◼   ► stressed out about my live show.

00:49:39 ◼   ► Doing it like on Tuesday, the day after the keynote is everything they've

00:49:43 ◼   ► announced and plus things they didn't even announce in the keynote, but I've

00:49:46 ◼   ► learned about from the state of the union or, or just bumping into people and

00:49:50 ◼   ► Hey, did you hear about X?

00:49:51 ◼   ► Which, you know, makes sense that it wasn't in the keynote, but it's some

00:49:56 ◼   ► obscure thing that I really care about.

00:49:58 ◼   ► And I've, my head's filled with ideas.

00:50:00 ◼   ► My notebook's filled with stuff that's not necessarily in any kind of order.

00:50:03 ◼   ► And it's hard to organize it.

00:50:06 ◼   ► Time is such a wonderful sifter.

00:50:08 ◼   ► I feel like I have a much better perspective on what was a big deal.

00:50:11 ◼   ► What wasn't I'm curious for, for my, for my show with Mike Hurley upgrade,

00:50:16 ◼   ► we try, we try to do it right after as close to the event as possible.

00:50:20 ◼   ► And I think there's value in being there as the first kind of voices

00:50:24 ◼   ► and the quick hit right afterward.

00:50:25 ◼   ► But but doing it is really in a bubble of like, all we know is what was at the

00:50:31 ◼   ► keynote and when you know that like all the apple.com web pages have more

00:50:34 ◼   ► information and, and then for WWDC, the sessions have more information and,

00:50:38 ◼   ► and it's always a first cut at it, which is like big reactions.

00:50:42 ◼   ► And one of my favorite episodes we ever do is the week following,

00:50:45 ◼   ► because it's all the other stuff, right?

00:50:47 ◼   ► It's all the details and it's all the big picture of like what, you know,

00:50:50 ◼   ► now that we've had a week to think over it and it really does put in sharp

00:50:54 ◼   ► relief, the difference between walking out of a keynote and having

00:50:59 ◼   ► some time to think about it.

00:51:01 ◼   ► And, and they're both, they both have their advantages.

00:51:04 ◼   ► But, but yeah, it really does benefit from learning all the details

00:51:07 ◼   ► and getting time to kind of ponder.

00:51:09 ◼   ► I, I keep thinking about stage manager actually.

00:51:13 ◼   ► It is it, what strikes me about, so having used the betas a little bit,

00:51:18 ◼   ► I mean, stage manager is fascinating because it is the solution to one

00:51:21 ◼   ► problem that has been like asked, but not answered for years now,

00:51:27 ◼   ► which is iPad multitasking.

00:51:29 ◼   ► And it is also yet another solution to a constant problem that has

00:51:34 ◼   ► been asked and answered repeatedly, but not to anyone's satisfaction,

00:51:38 ◼   ► apparently, which is Mac OS window management.

00:51:41 ◼   ► And the fact that you dug up that, that the, the, the, you know, somebody's

00:51:45 ◼   ► leaked something that then they retracted that this was a project that they were

00:51:50 ◼   ► talking about 15 years ago inside Apple.

00:51:53 ◼   ► Shrinky Dink as a window manager.

00:51:56 ◼   ► And I'm fascinated that, you know, what got it over the hump, I believe, is that

00:52:01 ◼   ► it was an interesting solution to the iPad problem of grouping windows together.

00:52:07 ◼   ► And yet they also deployed it on the Mac.

00:52:09 ◼   ► And of course the way they announced it is they announced it for the Mac.

00:52:12 ◼   ► And I said to everyone around me at the event, I was like, well, that's

00:52:15 ◼   ► iPad multitasking right there.

00:52:17 ◼   ► And then that got a lot of nods.

00:52:18 ◼   ► Everybody was like, yep, that's it.

00:52:19 ◼   ► We knew what was coming, but what interests me is like how it will be

00:52:23 ◼   ► received and it's early yet in the betas and all of that, you know,

00:52:26 ◼   ► because my brief usage of these in beta, what it tells me is that stage manager

00:52:32 ◼   ► stands does not stand or fall based on the concept of stage manager, but it

00:52:39 ◼   ► stands or falls based on the underlying window infrastructure of the operating

00:52:47 ◼   ► system, because I used stage manager on the Mac and I was like, oh yeah, I can

00:52:52 ◼   ► see how this, I don't use spaces or anything like that.

00:52:55 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, well this way it's not out of sight out of mind.

00:52:57 ◼   ► You talked about that on the, on the talk show interview at the event, right.

00:53:01 ◼   ► Is I have a problem with spaces because if it's out of sight, it's out of mind.

00:53:05 ◼   ► And I want to keep my eye on it.

00:53:06 ◼   ► And, and stage manager lets you kind of keep your eye on it while also working

00:53:11 ◼   ► with, I think how a lot of people work, which is with groups of apps or groups

00:53:15 ◼   ► of windows and kind of switching between them.

00:53:17 ◼   ► And so on the Mac, I was like, you know, I don't know if I would use this.

00:53:21 ◼   ► All the time, but it, I can see the value of this and I know Apple has, has

00:53:26 ◼   ► strived for years, they must have a lot of feedback from users and from observing

00:53:31 ◼   ► users that people still struggle with window management on the Mac that, that

00:53:35 ◼   ► that non-expert users lose windows under other windows and, and they get frustrated

00:53:40 ◼   ► by it and they are constantly trying.

00:53:42 ◼   ► You got to give them credit that with all these things they've tried, they don't

00:53:45 ◼   ► think that they figured out window management yet.

00:53:47 ◼   ► They didn't say like, oh, with the Mac, we solved it.

00:53:49 ◼   ► It's it's over.

00:53:50 ◼   ► They're like, no, they, they still don't think that they've solved it.

00:53:53 ◼   ► On the iPad though, it's the same.

00:53:56 ◼   ► It's like literally the same thing.

00:53:58 ◼   ► And yet, at least in the early betas, it doesn't quite work.

00:54:04 ◼   ► And that was really instructive to me because I realized the problem is

00:54:07 ◼   ► they're putting it on an operating system that doesn't have 30 years

00:54:12 ◼   ► of window management thought.

00:54:15 ◼   ► And it has a year maybe, or two of window management thought of any kind or

00:54:21 ◼   ► anything resembling window management.

00:54:23 ◼   ► And that's, I'm fascinated by that.

00:54:25 ◼   ► And also I think that in the end, maybe if we're posing, if we're thinking

00:54:29 ◼   ► about center stage as the, as the thing to focus on in terms of the development

00:54:33 ◼   ► of the iPad, the iPad, maybe we're looking in the wrong place because I

00:54:37 ◼   ► don't think it's center stage itself.

00:54:38 ◼   ► I think it's like, how do you move windows?

00:54:40 ◼   ► How do you minimize windows?

00:54:41 ◼   ► How do you close windows?

00:54:43 ◼   ► And that's the part that there's no infrastructure in iPad OS

00:54:47 ◼   ► for any of that stuff.

00:54:48 ◼   ► And so this summer, cause it's not all there, even now in the betas, they're

00:54:53 ◼   ► going to have to invent that.

00:54:55 ◼   ► Whereas the max just got it.

00:54:56 ◼   ► And so center stage is like, Oh, this is kind of cool.

00:54:59 ◼   ► And on the iPad, it's like, Oh, well, yeah, but how do I, how do I minimize

00:55:03 ◼   ► a window and with, or close a window with a keyboard shortcut and the answer is,

00:55:07 ◼   ► I don't know, like they just don't know.

00:55:09 ◼   ► You just called it center stage three times.

00:55:12 ◼   ► I'm sorry.

00:55:13 ◼   ► I did it again.

00:55:13 ◼   ► I I've been doing it nonstop.

00:55:16 ◼   ► I can't believe I did.

00:55:17 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure I did not do it once in my live show and I was so happy.

00:55:21 ◼   ► I didn't, but I think, I do think it's a, I think it's a bad name.

00:55:24 ◼   ► And not in and of itself, but it is a bad name alongside center stage

00:55:30 ◼   ► because in both cases, what the stages is entirely different in center stage.

00:55:36 ◼   ► The thing with the camera, where you can move around in front of your iPad or

00:55:39 ◼   ► your studio display and the camera pans, because it's ultra wide, the stage is

00:55:45 ◼   ► your real world space where your sack of meat with teeth that is yourself is

00:55:54 ◼   ► operating your kitchen, your office, wherever the hell you are, it is the

00:55:59 ◼   ► actual real world where you are in front of a camera in stage manager.

00:56:03 ◼   ► The stage is the screen, which could not be more opposite.

00:56:08 ◼   ► It is, it is through the looking glass, but they're calling both of them the

00:56:13 ◼   ► stage and it is very confusing, right?

00:56:17 ◼   ► Like we all have, we all have real world desktops.

00:56:21 ◼   ► If you work in an office with a desk, but Apple has never called things the

00:56:26 ◼   ► desktop feature as to like where to put your mouse, they don't emphasize

00:56:31 ◼   ► that you put it on the desktop.

00:56:33 ◼   ► You know, it's the desktop in Apple's parlance is the, the background wallpaper

00:56:40 ◼   ► of your Mac behind all your windows.

00:56:42 ◼   ► That's the desktop.

00:56:43 ◼   ► And then there's clarity, this stage manager center stage thing.

00:56:46 ◼   ► I cannot, I keep doing it.

00:56:48 ◼   ► I'm so glad you made the mistake first, so I can call you out, but

00:56:51 ◼   ► I know that I'm going to do it.

00:56:53 ◼   ► It's it's impossible to keep straight.

00:56:54 ◼   ► And Apple likes their Apple likes cute names and cute names that are metaphors.

00:57:00 ◼   ► And so I see what they're doing here.

00:57:02 ◼   ► It was a mistake to, I think, maybe roll these out so close to each other.

00:57:04 ◼   ► I wonder if a more prosaic name for this feature would be better if it was called

00:57:08 ◼   ► something like window manager or window sets or something like that, where it's

00:57:13 ◼   ► just what it does because that's, that's what it is because it's like, and again,

00:57:20 ◼   ► I admire them for doing, they did expose and then they said, well, now we're going

00:57:24 ◼   ► to call it mission control and it includes these other things and like, they keep

00:57:27 ◼   ► trying to come up with ways to make this stuff work and, and, and I'm

00:57:31 ◼   ► appreciate that they keep trying, but yeah, the name isn't great.

00:57:35 ◼   ► And like the feature, like I said, I was surprised.

00:57:37 ◼   ► I was expecting to hate the feature on the Mac and I was like, yeah, actually

00:57:40 ◼   ► I can see how this might actually fit with how a lot of people use their Macs,

00:57:44 ◼   ► which is in these little window groups, but they want to have them accessible

00:57:48 ◼   ► and not like hidden in an invisible space.

00:57:50 ◼   ► That's all good.

00:57:51 ◼   ► It's just that on the iPad, like you literally can't do command W to close

00:57:56 ◼   ► a window, which is just, it's, it's just not there the infrastructure beneath it.

00:58:00 ◼   ► Isn't there.

00:58:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:01 ◼   ► Window manager, if they called me up right now and said, all right, smart ass, we

00:58:05 ◼   ► listened to you and Snill on your podcast.

00:58:07 ◼   ► What do you think we should call it?

00:58:09 ◼   ► And I can give them one answer.

00:58:10 ◼   ► I guess I would say window manager.

00:58:12 ◼   ► I think desktop manager would be a great name.

00:58:15 ◼   ► I'm stealing that from blogger and listener of the show, Jack Wellborn.

00:58:19 ◼   ► Who wrote a, I still haven't linked to it, but it's a good post arguing.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Just, just bitching about the name for the same reason I just did.

00:58:26 ◼   ► You know, that stage means stage shouldn't mean two entirely different things.

00:58:30 ◼   ► You're going to conflate them.

00:58:31 ◼   ► The problem with desktop, window sets, window sets, what I'm going to throw

00:58:34 ◼   ► in there, because it's literally, that's what it is is it's different sets of

00:58:37 ◼   ► windows that you switch among and that you, that's what it is.

00:58:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:40 ◼   ► You kind of group them together and then you switch between the sets.

00:58:43 ◼   ► Window groups, window groups, window sets, something windows, something.

00:58:46 ◼   ► I think desktop manager.

00:58:48 ◼   ► It works for me, but I can see why Apple would say, yeah, we can't use that because

00:58:55 ◼   ► that would work on the Mac, but doesn't work on the iPad because the iPad doesn't

00:59:00 ◼   ► have a desktop, right?

00:59:01 ◼   ► Like you can't put things on your, you know, it has a home screen instead of a

00:59:04 ◼   ► desktop.

00:59:05 ◼   ► And you know, that, that distinction is important.

00:59:08 ◼   ► You know, the desktop actually, everybody knows what it is on the Mac and it's a

00:59:12 ◼   ► place where you can put files.

00:59:14 ◼   ► Some people put lots and lots of files on their desktop and therefore it's, it's,

00:59:18 ◼   ► it's an important concept to people.

00:59:19 ◼   ► So I could see why they'd shy away from it, but stage to me is the wrong metaphor.

00:59:24 ◼   ► It doesn't seem like a stage, but anyway, I haven't used it on the Mac nearly as

00:59:29 ◼   ► much as I have on iPad because I haven't installed on the iPad air review unit

00:59:34 ◼   ► that I still haven't sent back from a couple of months ago.

00:59:36 ◼   ► Same.

00:59:37 ◼   ► Um, same, but I did play around with it briefly back when I was in California and

00:59:43 ◼   ► I could see it, you know, and, and I really appreciate it.

00:59:46 ◼   ► It was one of my favorite moments from my live show where Federighi, when we talked

00:59:50 ◼   ► about it, emphasized that when they introduce new things and stage manager is

00:59:55 ◼   ► just one of them, when they introduce new things like exposé and spaces, it's never

01:00:01 ◼   ► to say, if you're happy with the way you've been working on the Mac, we're not

01:00:05 ◼   ► taking that away from you.

01:00:07 ◼   ► And we're not saying that what you're doing is wrong, but we're enabling people

01:00:12 ◼   ► who didn't like it for a reason to have an alternative.

01:00:15 ◼   ► And I think that's great.

01:00:17 ◼   ► And I think it has worked out.

01:00:18 ◼   ► And I said on my show, you said you feel the same way.

01:00:21 ◼   ► Spaces never has never clicked for me and I never will because it's not how my

01:00:26 ◼   ► brain works and I can work with two.

01:00:29 ◼   ► I have in the past worked with two displays.

01:00:31 ◼   ► I can imagine working with three displays and thinking my email is on the left.

01:00:38 ◼   ► And like when I had did have two displays, that's what, that's where I put my email.

01:00:41 ◼   ► It was on the left display and I think spatially.

01:00:44 ◼   ► And when I want to check my email or copy from the email or drag from a message I

01:00:48 ◼   ► know I had opened from a minute ago, I turn my head to the left.

01:00:52 ◼   ► There it is.

01:00:53 ◼   ► And I drag it.

01:00:54 ◼   ► When I try to do that with spaces, I just never look at my email.

01:00:57 ◼   ► It's gone.

01:00:59 ◼   ► It's off in the space.

01:01:00 ◼   ► And the space can be over on the left.

01:01:03 ◼   ► I just don't go there.

01:01:05 ◼   ► And then I command tab to mail and I'm still in the second space and mail doesn't

01:01:10 ◼   ► come forward really.

01:01:12 ◼   ► It like activates the menu bar.

01:01:13 ◼   ► And it, it like, it, it's like static.

01:01:16 ◼   ► It's like getting an electric shock to my brain.

01:01:18 ◼   ► Like where is it?

01:01:19 ◼   ► Why isn't it here?

01:01:20 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:01:21 ◼   ► It has never worked.

01:01:22 ◼   ► It's like your stuff is on a second monitor that is unplugged.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Meanwhile, I know, I know that there are lots and lots of people who love spaces,

01:01:31 ◼   ► couldn't live without it.

01:01:32 ◼   ► It's good that they're not taking it away.

01:01:34 ◼   ► It's not a replacement.

01:01:35 ◼   ► It's, it's additive.

01:01:36 ◼   ► But I do think having used it on the iPad for a couple of weeks now in beta, I can

01:01:41 ◼   ► see using it.

01:01:42 ◼   ► I, but I do think, I think what shows, I don't think it's unsolvable, but I think

01:01:49 ◼   ► it makes it a very difficult proposition for Apple to get right.

01:01:53 ◼   ► And at this point, the clock's ticking, right?

01:01:56 ◼   ► Because you know, it's going to be shipping software come September or October

01:02:02 ◼   ► at the latest.

01:02:03 ◼   ► You know, there's not a lot of time to make significant changes, but I think what

01:02:08 ◼   ► really shows is where, where the platforms started, where the Mac started with just,

01:02:16 ◼   ► just overlapping windows.

01:02:18 ◼   ► And I mean, if you go back far enough, you only had one app at a time, but that's,

01:02:23 ◼   ► you know, that's so far in the past in the eighties that the ID, you know, your

01:02:28 ◼   ► windows stack on top of each other.

01:02:29 ◼   ► And if you have multiple applications visible at once, the windows for all those

01:02:36 ◼   ► applications that are open are all stacked on top of each other.

01:02:39 ◼   ► And that's the starting concept.

01:02:41 ◼   ► And yes, and it seems to me like Craig Federighi personally is annoyed by the

01:02:48 ◼   ► clutter and the, for lack of a better term, janitorial work of cleaning up that

01:02:52 ◼   ► mess.

01:02:53 ◼   ► But that is clearly shared by many other people.

01:02:56 ◼   ► And I think going back to Steve Jobs, who clearly was a major force behind the, the

01:03:03 ◼   ► purple button, I did, did Federighi bring that up in my show?

01:03:06 ◼   ► I think he might have.

01:03:07 ◼   ► Yeah, he did.

01:03:08 ◼   ► Yeah, single window mode or whatever it was.

01:03:10 ◼   ► It was only in like DP3, developer preview three of Mac OS X around 2000 or 2001.

01:03:18 ◼   ► John Siracusa was, of course remembers it because he was writing, you know, 25 page

01:03:24 ◼   ► reviews for Ars Technica of each of those.

01:03:27 ◼   ► Every single release.

01:03:28 ◼   ► Right, but one of those developer releases added what seems crazy, there was the red,

01:03:34 ◼   ► yellow, green buttons all along in Mac OS X that do what the red, yellow, green

01:03:38 ◼   ► buttons do today.

01:03:39 ◼   ► But then there was a purple button over in the other corner and that triggered single

01:03:44 ◼   ► window mode, which meant there's only one window at a time and that the other windows

01:03:48 ◼   ► weren't closed.

01:03:49 ◼   ► They just weren't shown.

01:03:50 ◼   ► And then you'd click the other app in the dock or, you know, there were ways to, if,

01:03:55 ◼   ► if you were in the same application that had multiple windows open, there'd be some

01:04:00 ◼   ► other way to get to one of those other windows.

01:04:02 ◼   ► But when you activated one of those other windows in single window mode, the current

01:04:07 ◼   ► window went away and then that window came up and you had one thing at a time to focus

01:04:11 ◼   ► on.

01:04:11 ◼   ► In concept, that sounds great.

01:04:13 ◼   ► It stage manager seems to address the similar need.

01:04:17 ◼   ► The problem with that single window mode back 22 years ago was in practice, it didn't

01:04:25 ◼   ► really work that well.

01:04:26 ◼   ► In a system that was kind of starting point was you could have dozens and dozens of

01:04:31 ◼   ► windows at a time for multiple applications.

01:04:34 ◼   ► And the iPad has the opposite problem where it started with literal single window mode,

01:04:40 ◼   ► right?

01:04:40 ◼   ► There was no split screen for years and years and years on iPad.

01:04:43 ◼   ► It was go back to the home screen, open up an app, and the app got the whole screen.

01:04:48 ◼   ► That screen was the window.

01:04:50 ◼   ► The window was the screen and that's it.

01:04:52 ◼   ► And there's much good things to speak about that.

01:04:56 ◼   ► And it's clearly a major reason why the iPad is so popular with so many people of

01:05:01 ◼   ► various technical inclination.

01:05:04 ◼   ► You know, for people who are savvy and technically savvy and can and do also use the Mac or

01:05:10 ◼   ► Windows or whatever else and have dozens and dozens of windows on screen at a time, it

01:05:15 ◼   ► just brings focus, right?

01:05:17 ◼   ► Focus is like a big part of a lot of people's desire for changing their workflow, right?

01:05:24 ◼   ► Like I feel scattered, hard to concentrate.

01:05:26 ◼   ► I would just like to write this article or this big, long, important email.

01:05:31 ◼   ► I just want to focus on it.

01:05:32 ◼   ► Just show me one thing at a time.

01:05:34 ◼   ► Lots of apps do it.

01:05:35 ◼   ► It's a great feature.

01:05:36 ◼   ► But the iPad starting from that as the concept behind the whole system to get to this, there's

01:05:42 ◼   ► like just something.

01:05:44 ◼   ► There's like an uncanny valley to it.

01:05:46 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:05:47 ◼   ► Maybe one way of putting it is why not just put red, yellow, green buttons on the iPad

01:05:53 ◼   ► windows when it's in this mode?

01:05:54 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I think they put the little lozenge at the top of iPad windows, but you have to

01:06:01 ◼   ► click it to reveal what the controls are, which I think is a mistake.

01:06:05 ◼   ► I think that when you're in this mode, they should be visible all the time.

01:06:09 ◼   ► And I know that that's like or when you move your pointer over it if you're using the

01:06:13 ◼   ► pointer, but I think that's where they're going to have to go is that they need keyboard

01:06:17 ◼   ► shortcuts and they need visual affordances for window management.

01:06:21 ◼   ► And that's the challenge, right?

01:06:23 ◼   ► Is that in any of these things, it's like, well, on the Mac, you can look at the window

01:06:26 ◼   ► menu or whatever, but on the iPad, there isn't one.

01:06:31 ◼   ► So that's why they have to grow these things and they can make their choices.

01:06:35 ◼   ► And I like the idea that this is like the pointer support on iPad OS.

01:06:39 ◼   ► It is a modern take on multi-window interface.

01:06:42 ◼   ► It's not, it's accepting that the Mac has a good thing in having a multi-window interface,

01:06:49 ◼   ► but that we're going to do a modern take on it.

01:06:51 ◼   ► Because I think the pointer support on iPad OS is fantastic, right?

01:06:55 ◼   ► It's like we didn't just ape the Mac.

01:06:58 ◼   ► We did an iPad version of a pointer that is like what we would do if we were building

01:07:04 ◼   ► the pointer today.

01:07:05 ◼   ► And I think the windowing is what they're trying to do is the same thing.

01:07:08 ◼   ► It's just they're missing a bunch of pieces of it.

01:07:12 ◼   ► And now, as you said, the clock is ticking and, you know, it's like, are we going to

01:07:16 ◼   ► have a debate about whether that little widget can unfurl or stays open by default so that

01:07:22 ◼   ► I have control over it?

01:07:23 ◼   ► Like, do we need title bars on iPad windows?

01:07:26 ◼   ► Cause we sort of don't have them, but we sort of do.

01:07:29 ◼   ► Like that's all the, again, I think that stage manager, it got it right that time, is not

01:07:35 ◼   ► the issue about it.

01:07:38 ◼   ► Like I think the stage manager concept is not bad.

01:07:40 ◼   ► It's the, it's like, how do you do windowing on iPad?

01:07:42 ◼   ► And that's where it's still kind of not all there.

01:07:45 ◼   ► And that's what their summer, I feel like is going to be.

01:07:48 ◼   ► It's funny, you mentioned single window mode and there's full screen mode, which the

01:07:51 ◼   ► Mac has had for a long time and people wanting to do focus modes in their apps.

01:07:55 ◼   ► One thing that struck me about stage manager to get back to the Mac for a second is when

01:08:00 ◼   ► I saw it at the keynote, the first thing I thought was this is an acceptance of the fact

01:08:05 ◼   ► that full screen mode on the Mac doesn't work very well.

01:08:08 ◼   ► And I know there are people who like full screen mode.

01:08:10 ◼   ► But like when they showed that you can click on the desktop and it brings the desktop up

01:08:13 ◼   ► because people keep stuff on the desktop, I thought, ah, see, this is it.

01:08:18 ◼   ► Because every time I try full screen mode with apps that I think should probably be

01:08:22 ◼   ► in full screen, like logic or final cut, I need to get a file somewhere.

01:08:27 ◼   ► It's like, ah, I can't get it.

01:08:29 ◼   ► So I'm like, I got to get out of full screen mode or I got to show the desktop or whatever.

01:08:32 ◼   ► And, and I looked at center stage and I thought, oh, this is, we're going to give you, sorry,

01:08:37 ◼   ► I called it center stage, stage manager.

01:08:39 ◼   ► This is us saying, well, if you want one big window, that's fine, but you can also click

01:08:46 ◼   ► and get your desktop like, yes, yes, that's what we want.

01:08:49 ◼   ► So it's like a less extreme full screen mode if you want it to be.

01:08:56 ◼   ► And I think that's, I think that's better.

01:08:57 ◼   ► I think that's a better approach, at least for some tasks, because yeah, I keep things

01:09:02 ◼   ► on my desktop or I want to open a finder window and drag a file in.

01:09:06 ◼   ► And when you're in full screen mode, the OS is basically saying, you know, nope, you will

01:09:12 ◼   ► only live in this one app.

01:09:14 ◼   ► And there are lots of jobs where you live in two apps or you just need two windows.

01:09:18 ◼   ► And, and so having the system manage those I'm, you know, I'm, I'm excited about that

01:09:22 ◼   ► part, but again, the Mac is much better at all of that than the iPad is.

01:09:26 ◼   ► And it's not stage manager's fault.

01:09:28 ◼   ► It's, it's the rest of the OS not being built around windows.

01:09:32 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, totally.

01:09:34 ◼   ► And I do like it though, overall, it's, it is kind of fun when you get in the zone, like

01:09:39 ◼   ► for me in the morning, if I'm just catching up on email, Safari and messages, to have

01:09:45 ◼   ► all three of them visible, like windows, like I put Safari in the middle and mail sticking

01:09:51 ◼   ► out, like when Safari is active, a little bit on the left and messages a little bit

01:09:55 ◼   ► on the right.

01:09:56 ◼   ► I like it a lot.

01:09:57 ◼   ► It is a nice way to bang between those three apps.

01:10:01 ◼   ► And I like the spatial orientation.

01:10:04 ◼   ► It's very pleasing to me, but it also feels to me like, why, why is split screen still

01:10:11 ◼   ► around?

01:10:12 ◼   ► Like at one point I was like, what happens when I have all these, when I'm using stage

01:10:16 ◼   ► manager, what happens if I go back to control center and turn it off and it's like, it

01:10:20 ◼   ► puts you in split screen with, if you have three apps currently like in your set, like

01:10:26 ◼   ► the two most recently used ones become a split screen pair.

01:10:30 ◼   ► And it's like, why, why, why?

01:10:32 ◼   ► I'm not sure that was the right decision.

01:10:33 ◼   ► It, it, it just feels weird.

01:10:36 ◼   ► But of course, it would lead us into the next part, part of the stage manager discussion,

01:10:40 ◼   ► the, the stage manager gate part of, well, of course, split screen has to still be there

01:10:48 ◼   ► in the OS because the vast majority of iPads in use don't qualify for stage manager yet

01:10:54 ◼   ► because it's an M1 iPad only feature.

01:10:58 ◼   ► So I get it, but it's like, it just, I don't know.

01:11:01 ◼   ► There's a, I like stage manager a lot.

01:11:04 ◼   ► To me, it's the biggest conceptual change to iPad OS since they've switched from being

01:11:09 ◼   ► single window, all screen all the time that I really like.

01:11:12 ◼   ► Yet it also feels bolted on because it's coming on to me and unsteady conceptual foundation.

01:11:20 ◼   ► Yeah, that's, I think, I think that's the, that's the challenge with stage manager on

01:11:27 ◼   ► the iPad.

01:11:28 ◼   ► iPad is, is what do you really, okay.

01:11:31 ◼   ► Now that we've all admitted that there are windows on the iPad, what do they look like?

01:11:34 ◼   ► How do they interact?

01:11:35 ◼   ► How do, how do apps gather their own windows?

01:11:38 ◼   ► Do they know about them?

01:11:39 ◼   ► How can I, how can I manage windows on iPad?

01:11:43 ◼   ► And like a lot of those questions have been left as a, as a, as, as an exercise for the

01:11:49 ◼   ► user, right?

01:11:50 ◼   ► Like, I don't know, let's think about it.

01:11:52 ◼   ► And now it's like, well, now it's real.

01:11:53 ◼   ► And what is, what's the answer?

01:11:56 ◼   ► And it feels like there isn't one or it's half of an answer or it's sort of a, you know,

01:12:03 ◼   ► in progress, check back later in another beta kind of thing.

01:12:06 ◼   ► And that's the, that's what we're all kind of waiting for.

01:12:08 ◼   ► Like, cause in, in, in iPad, I was 15.

01:12:10 ◼   ► If you have multiple windows open, you can like touch the, cause there are windows, they're

01:12:15 ◼   ► just multitasking weird windows.

01:12:17 ◼   ► You touch the icon for the app in the dock and it will show you what windows exist, which

01:12:22 ◼   ► is like, okay, that's something, but it's still kind of weird.

01:12:27 ◼   ► And I still don't think it does a thing that makes sense in iPad OS 16.

01:12:32 ◼   ► So it's like, you know, that's, that's, that's what I want is, is I'm not, the early betas

01:12:38 ◼   ► don't suggest to me that Apple knows what the metaphor for iPad windows is.

01:12:43 ◼   ► It's more like, look, we built a window manager.

01:12:45 ◼   ► Now we got to figure out the window part.

01:12:47 ◼   ► I mentioned this on my live show, but a friend of the show, friend, your friend, everybody's

01:12:52 ◼   ► friend, the internet's friend, Matthew Panzarino observed right after the keynote that if they

01:12:56 ◼   ► had debuted stage manager iPad only three or four years ago, the people who feared for

01:13:03 ◼   ► the Mac's future would have lost their minds because they would have said, this is it.

01:13:07 ◼   ► They're there.

01:13:08 ◼   ► They've added this feature.

01:13:10 ◼   ► Game over, man.

01:13:10 ◼   ► They've added this feature to iPad because they're going to discontinue the Mac.

01:13:14 ◼   ► And this is their answer for Mac users who would in that hypothetical scenario, need

01:13:21 ◼   ► to switch to the iPad as their main computer, if they wanted to stay on an Apple platform.

01:13:26 ◼   ► And I think he's right that it would have only added fuel to that.

01:13:31 ◼   ► It turns out incorrect fear, but now when everybody is, everybody who's a Mac fan is,

01:13:39 ◼   ► is incredibly confident about Apple's commitment to the platform with the whole Apple Silicon

01:13:45 ◼   ► initiative and how amazingly well it's gone and just, you know, keyboards that work and

01:13:50 ◼   ► other, other things that have improved since four years ago.

01:13:53 ◼   ► I think what we're left with is the truth, which is that the iPad is the sort of forgotten

01:14:04 ◼   ► platform, not forgotten, but the one that gets the least attention, right?

01:14:07 ◼   ► The iPhone is the, you know, billion user product that has turned Apple from a smaller,

01:14:15 ◼   ► you know, peripheral player in the industry to the biggest, literally the biggest company

01:14:21 ◼   ► in the world.

01:14:21 ◼   ► The Mac, they've shown their commitment and it remains the, to use my now very old analogy,

01:14:28 ◼   ► the platform that's heavy so that the other platforms can remain light conceptually, the

01:14:33 ◼   ► one that the workhorse, the workstation.

01:14:36 ◼   ► The iPad is still third in their mind and attention, right?

01:14:40 ◼   ► Like if some Thanos type situation came and a bad guy could snap their finger and make

01:14:49 ◼   ► the Mac disappear and that they had to make the iPad be, do more of the things the Mac

01:14:56 ◼   ► did, it would be better than it is today.

01:14:59 ◼   ► And you can kind of see that, right?

01:15:00 ◼   ► It's still sort of, you could just see the gaps between these concepts.

01:15:06 ◼   ► It just, there's a lot of, there's so much work to be done with stage manager before

01:15:10 ◼   ► it ships.

01:15:10 ◼   ► Yeah, it is.

01:15:12 ◼   ► I mean, it's, it's, it puts, you think about Safari last year and you're like, wow.

01:15:16 ◼   ► Oh, there's, there's a lot, a lot more.

01:15:18 ◼   ► And honestly, not just before ships, but presumably after, right?

01:15:21 ◼   ► Like, I feel like they need to keep refining iPad windowing for a while now, but you're

01:15:25 ◼   ► right.

01:15:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:25 ◼   ► There would have been a lot of doom and gloom, I think.

01:15:27 ◼   ► They'd be like, oh, they're doing it.

01:15:28 ◼   ► They're copying everything on the Mac.

01:15:29 ◼   ► And I think that Apple maybe views the iPad as the place where they're building very

01:15:36 ◼   ► slowly.

01:15:36 ◼   ► They're building their vision for what the future of the Mac looks like to the future

01:15:42 ◼   ► of computing looks like, like long term.

01:15:44 ◼   ► But at least the last few years have made it clear that it's not short term.

01:15:49 ◼   ► They're like the Mac, the Mac is going to be, if the Mac ends up being essentially a

01:15:54 ◼   ► super set of iPad iOS in the long run and that you can more seamlessly move between

01:15:59 ◼   ► modes then so be it.

01:16:01 ◼   ► But like iPad iOS just isn't there yet.

01:16:03 ◼   ► We, you know, they need, there's more that work that needs to be done before they ever

01:16:07 ◼   ► could get to that point.

01:16:08 ◼   ► And I like that they're going there because I think that they're going to, they're

01:16:12 ◼   ► going to create something.

01:16:13 ◼   ► They have the potential to create something that is that like modern take on.

01:16:16 ◼   ► It's the 2024 take on 1984, let's say something like that.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Right.

01:16:23 ◼   ► I think that's cool, but thank goodness it's not a Thanos, like I'm going to snap.

01:16:27 ◼   ► And one of these things is going to disappear because it's not there yet.

01:16:31 ◼   ► Even as somebody who loves the iPad and working on the iPad and loves the progression

01:16:35 ◼   ► that's happening here.

01:16:36 ◼   ► It's, it's, it's just not there.

01:16:39 ◼   ► There's so much of it that, that the Mac brings that the iPad can't do yet.

01:16:46 ◼   ► And, and vice versa is also true, but like, they're just, they're just not, this is

01:16:50 ◼   ► a big hurdle for them.

01:16:51 ◼   ► This is a big step for them and it's hard and it's going to take some time.

01:16:54 ◼   ► I think.

01:16:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:55 ◼   ► I just think in hindsight, we were worried about the wrong platform, but I think it's

01:17:00 ◼   ► going to become clear now.

01:17:01 ◼   ► And it's the iPad that still, it has so much potential, like it's, it has more potential

01:17:06 ◼   ► ahead of it than it does already have behind it.

01:17:10 ◼   ► Right.

01:17:10 ◼   ► Whereas I'm not saying the Mac's best days are behind it, but the Mac is, is, you know,

01:17:15 ◼   ► 40 years old, almost.

01:17:17 ◼   ► It is conceptually, you know, the, the very definition of an established platform.

01:17:23 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a solved problem, right?

01:17:25 ◼   ► It's a solved problem.

01:17:26 ◼   ► It does, the Mac makes sense and it does what it does.

01:17:28 ◼   ► And it doesn't mean that it can't be improved and the bugs can't be fixed.

01:17:31 ◼   ► That's not what I'm saying, but I am saying the Mac sort of has reached its, its final

01:17:35 ◼   ► form in many ways and that what it gets now, it's getting in lockstep with the other platforms,

01:17:39 ◼   ► but like the Mac does the job that the Mac was meant to do.

01:17:41 ◼   ► You couldn't change the Mac now if you wanted to that much because its appeal is that it

01:17:46 ◼   ► is the Mac.

01:17:48 ◼   ► And iPad is like, yeah, it's still like a lump of clay a little bit.

01:17:51 ◼   ► Like what does it want to be in the end?

01:17:53 ◼   ► And, and I don't know.

01:17:54 ◼   ► I also think though, it is safe to say that there was probably a moment there where Apple

01:17:58 ◼   ► and I know that they poo-pooed this on the talk show, but like, I think there was a moment

01:18:02 ◼   ► there where Apple was confused about what it wanted the Mac to be.

01:18:05 ◼   ► Maybe the Mac wasn't going to die.

01:18:07 ◼   ► For the 25th anniversary of the Mac, 30th anniversary of the Mac, I forget, I did an

01:18:11 ◼   ► interview with Phil Schiller and he said, the Mac goes on forever.

01:18:14 ◼   ► That was literally what he said.

01:18:15 ◼   ► The Mac goes on forever.

01:18:17 ◼   ► And I never doubt Apple's commitment to the Mac, but I do think that in that period, their

01:18:23 ◼   ► commitment to what the Mac would be was kind of wavering.

01:18:26 ◼   ► Like, would it just be a legacy platform or would it be something that merges with iPad?

01:18:31 ◼   ► And like, I think they didn't quite know what they wanted the Mac to be.

01:18:35 ◼   ► And I don't know exactly what happened, but I think they figured it out.

01:18:39 ◼   ► I think they decided this is what the Mac is going to be.

01:18:41 ◼   ► And we have seen the fruits of that.

01:18:43 ◼   ► So it's not quite that they abandoned the Mac, but I think they, there was like a real

01:18:47 ◼   ► midlife crisis almost where they're like, what do we want the Mac to be?

01:18:50 ◼   ► What, where is it ending up?

01:18:51 ◼   ► Where do we want to put our attention?

01:18:53 ◼   ► And you couldn't miss it in the last five years that that has changed dramatically.

01:19:23 ◼   ► You can go to Linode.com/the-talk-show.

01:19:26 ◼   ► That's the URL and see why Linode has been voted the top infrastructure as a service

01:19:31 ◼   ► provider by both G2 and TrustRadius from their award-winning support, which is offered 24

01:19:37 ◼   ► hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of every year to every level of user from the

01:19:44 ◼   ► smallest account to the biggest, to the ease of use of setup and configuration.

01:19:49 ◼   ► It is clear why developers have been trusting Linode for projects, both big and small since

01:19:54 ◼   ► 2003.

01:19:55 ◼   ► They have new stuff, new product release databases.

01:19:59 ◼   ► MySQL started in May, MongoDB Postgres SQL in June.

01:20:06 ◼   ► It's fully managed database service for MySQL, Postgres and MongoDB Redis.

01:20:12 ◼   ► I think I'm pronouncing that right.

01:20:14 ◼   ► R-E-D-I-S Redis, Redis, probably guessing wrong.

01:20:17 ◼   ► Maybe it's Redis.

01:20:18 ◼   ► But anyway, support for that is coming later this year.

01:20:21 ◼   ► It is simple and reliable managed databases.

01:20:24 ◼   ► You can easily deploy high-performance database clusters.

01:20:28 ◼   ► Managed databases allow you to quickly deploy a new database and defer management tasks

01:20:34 ◼   ► like configurations, managing high availability, disaster recovery, backups, data replication.

01:20:42 ◼   ► With managed databases, you get fast and simple deployment, secure access.

01:20:46 ◼   ► Daily backups are included and flexible plans, depending on your needs, the size of your

01:20:53 ◼   ► databases, how much access you need a day, that sort of thing.

01:20:57 ◼   ► Linode makes cloud computing fast, simple, and affordable, allowing you to focus on your

01:21:02 ◼   ► projects, not your infrastructure.

01:21:04 ◼   ► Once again, the URL is Linode, L-I-N-O-D-E, linode.com/the-talk-show.

01:21:11 ◼   ► Go there, use that URL, create a free account.

01:21:14 ◼   ► You can do that with your email address or sign in with Google or GitHub, and you will

01:21:19 ◼   ► get 100 bucks in credit just for going to linode.com/the-talk-show.

01:21:25 ◼   ► As I waited to record this show post WWDC, I wondered how relevant the controversy over

01:21:31 ◼   ► the M1 requirement for stage manager would remain.

01:21:35 ◼   ► It seems like it is as relevant as ever.

01:21:38 ◼   ► I was talking with you in a thread on Twitter the other day, and the thought popped into

01:21:42 ◼   ► my head.

01:21:43 ◼   ► So anyway, for those who...

01:21:44 ◼   ► God bless you, and I hope you've enjoyed your June.

01:21:49 ◼   ► But if you are unaware, this feature that we've been talking about, stage manager for

01:21:54 ◼   ► iPad, is only available as announced at the keynote and currently as we record with developer

01:22:01 ◼   ► beta 2.

01:22:01 ◼   ► It's only available for iPads with an M1 chip, which I believe is just three iPads.

01:22:07 ◼   ► That's the iPad Pros 11 and 12.9 inches from last year, 2021, and the iPad Air fifth generation,

01:22:18 ◼   ► which came out, I think, in April of this year.

01:22:21 ◼   ► Maybe it was announced in March, but it's a couple of months old.

01:22:24 ◼   ► Those three are the only ones that have an M1, so they're the only ones with the feature.

01:22:28 ◼   ► And Federighi got asked by it, by a few, about it in a few interviews he did during WWDC

01:22:35 ◼   ► week, and the explanation came down to they basically...

01:22:39 ◼   ► I don't want to put words in his mouth, but their envisioning of the feature requires

01:22:45 ◼   ► everything that you can see in stage manager to remain active so that when you do switch,

01:22:50 ◼   ► you don't have to wait at all for anything that maybe got...

01:22:54 ◼   ► When you multitask on iOS, and by iOS, I mean iPhone and iPad traditionally, apps that are

01:23:02 ◼   ► in the background can get killed so that the system can reuse the RAM and whatever other

01:23:08 ◼   ► resources they were using.

01:23:09 ◼   ► And then when you go back to them, like with Command Tab or clicking their icon on the

01:23:13 ◼   ► home screen, they technically relaunched, but they were frozen, and so they just kind

01:23:19 ◼   ► of thaw back to right where they were, and it happens fast enough that you kind of don't

01:23:25 ◼   ► even notice, and you just...

01:23:26 ◼   ► It just works, supposedly.

01:23:30 ◼   ► And I think it truthfully has.

01:23:32 ◼   ► Basically, though, the explanation is it needs the M1 to do everything they want it to do,

01:23:37 ◼   ► and part of that is swap, virtual memory swap, which has never been available on iOS before.

01:23:43 ◼   ► That's one of the reasons iOS freezes applications in the background as opposed to just letting

01:23:48 ◼   ► everything just run.

01:23:49 ◼   ► Swap is basically...

01:23:51 ◼   ► It's pretty easy to explain in layperson's terms, where RAM...

01:23:56 ◼   ► Let's say you have eight gigs of RAM on the device you're running, and all eight is used

01:24:01 ◼   ► up, but something on the system needs more memory.

01:24:04 ◼   ► It'll just take something that isn't currently being used and write that portion of the RAM

01:24:09 ◼   ► to the storage, which used to be a spinning hard disk, and now everything is an SSD.

01:24:15 ◼   ► And then now you've freed up some RAM to use for something else, and then if you need that

01:24:20 ◼   ► thing that was written to disk, you write something else to the storage and unfreeze

01:24:26 ◼   ► the part from storage, put it back into RAM, and if it all happens fast enough, you don't

01:24:30 ◼   ► really notice or complain about it.

01:24:32 ◼   ► And the M1 famously has extremely fast IO, very fast SSD storage, and so something like

01:24:41 ◼   ► swap, which used to be dreadfully slow, but better than not having virtual memory, is

01:24:47 ◼   ► so fast that you don't even notice it happening.

01:24:50 ◼   ► But it's only on the M1 where the iPad can do it, which... you know... where to start?

01:24:57 ◼   ► One of the bits of controversy about this is that one of the devices that qualifies is

01:25:05 ◼   ► the 64 gigabyte of storage iPad Air, which just came out, which in a footnote Apple has

01:25:12 ◼   ► said won't be using swap because it only has 64 gigabytes of storage, and so presumably

01:25:18 ◼   ► Apple doesn't want to use any of it for swap, even like a tiny little 4 gigabyte area of

01:25:26 ◼   ► it or 5.

01:25:27 ◼   ► No swap.

01:25:29 ◼   ► But therefore the explanation that stage manager on iPad requires swap and therefore requires

01:25:35 ◼   ► the M1 sort of shoots a hole in it because that 64 gig iPad Air does get stage manager,

01:25:41 ◼   ► and that's led all sorts of people who have older iPads, including, and I have great

01:25:46 ◼   ► sympathy for them, people who bought an iPad Pro in 2020 with the A12Z, you know, who would

01:25:52 ◼   ► like to have stage manager and feel like this machine is faster than... seems fast enough

01:25:58 ◼   ► to do what I'm seeing.

01:26:00 ◼   ► And those 2020 iPad Pros have more... a more reasonable RAM amount too, which was the other

01:26:07 ◼   ► argument is, right, it's like you need enough RAM to keep multiple windows, all those windows

01:26:13 ◼   ► open at once.

01:26:14 ◼   ► No matter how fast your swap system is in the I/O system, you can never beat actual

01:26:19 ◼   ► RAM, right?

01:26:19 ◼   ► It's, you know, it's sort of why RAM even exists.

01:26:23 ◼   ► If that weren't true, everything could be swapped, you know.

01:26:26 ◼   ► RAM, you can't beat it.

01:26:29 ◼   ► This seems like this is not going away.

01:26:30 ◼   ► So do you think that this is...

01:26:33 ◼   ► because I also have sympathy for anyone who bought an iPad Pro that they feel like is

01:26:40 ◼   ► recent enough that they really kind of expected this feature to be there.

01:26:44 ◼   ► I have a personal thing.

01:26:45 ◼   ► I know I've said it in a bunch of places, like you should probably never, ever, ever buy

01:26:49 ◼   ► hardware speculating that there will later be software that will enable new features

01:26:54 ◼   ► on it.

01:26:54 ◼   ► And this is a little extreme because it took a long time and Apple made no promises.

01:26:59 ◼   ► But like, I also understand the people who felt like the iPad Pro had been... was so

01:27:04 ◼   ► powerful and you really couldn't max out those processors that they were hoping and

01:27:12 ◼   ► they were kind of taking a gamble that they would be able to do more in future updates.

01:27:17 ◼   ► And then here comes this big feature and they're shut out of it.

01:27:20 ◼   ► And I totally understand the frustration about it.

01:27:22 ◼   ► It is...

01:27:23 ◼   ► It's infuriating, right?

01:27:25 ◼   ► It's like, I just bought an iPad Pro and you want me to buy another one?

01:27:27 ◼   ► And this is a thousand dollar iPad.

01:27:29 ◼   ► What am I doing here?

01:27:30 ◼   ► I get all of that.

01:27:32 ◼   ► I wonder, and I'm curious what you think, if this is one of those cases, and these happen

01:27:37 ◼   ► from time to time, where Apple's disinclination to get into technical details, gory details

01:27:45 ◼   ► about why they do what they do has bitten them.

01:27:49 ◼   ► Because, like, they could have just said it requires the M1 and walked away.

01:27:55 ◼   ► But by opening the door with RAM and swap and as excuses, you allow people to look at

01:28:01 ◼   ► the tech specs and say, but what about this one?

01:28:04 ◼   ► And my feeling is that this is probably a very complex story.

01:28:10 ◼   ► I don't believe that this is Apple just conspires to make you buy a new iPad.

01:28:13 ◼   ► I don't think it's that.

01:28:15 ◼   ► I really don't.

01:28:16 ◼   ► I think they looked at the swap and the RAM.

01:28:21 ◼   ► They looked at the speed of the memory and the storage on the M1, which is appreciably

01:28:26 ◼   ► faster than on the A14, A12Z, and A12X, right?

01:28:32 ◼   ► Like, it's appreciably faster.

01:28:33 ◼   ► The M1 is a better chip.

01:28:35 ◼   ► Remember when the M1 iPads came out and we said, why aren't there features that take

01:28:40 ◼   ► advantage of the M1?

01:28:41 ◼   ► The answer is, well, here it is.

01:28:43 ◼   ► But the bad news is, if you don't have an M1, you don't get it.

01:28:46 ◼   ► And I wonder if, you know, what they were doing was trying to balance all these things

01:28:50 ◼   ► and saying like, well, we could do this on these models, but not with external display

01:28:54 ◼   ► support.

01:28:55 ◼   ► And we could do it on these models, but we would have to limit it to only three windows

01:28:59 ◼   ► at a time.

01:29:00 ◼   ► And they looked at it, and then somebody at Apple said, OK, let's just cut it here.

01:29:05 ◼   ► Saying it's only M1 is the cleanest explanation.

01:29:09 ◼   ► And so you end up in a situation where their explanations are sort of simplified, and they

01:29:14 ◼   ► don't tell the whole story, and they contradict their tech specs.

01:29:17 ◼   ► And they don't want to get into it.

01:29:20 ◼   ► But now that they've broken the glass a little bit, they kind of have to get into it, because

01:29:27 ◼   ► what they've said is contradicted by the tech specs.

01:29:30 ◼   ► When I think the truth is, this was a messy decision.

01:29:35 ◼   ► And that maybe they decided to omit certain systems because they didn't want to get into

01:29:39 ◼   ► the complexity of like, maybe it was about implementation, maybe it was about like, we

01:29:44 ◼   ► don't want to have a footnote that says no external display support on these systems,

01:29:48 ◼   ► and only through windows on these systems.

01:29:50 ◼   ► We just want to keep it clean and simple.

01:29:52 ◼   ► And my guess is that that is what they're guilty of, is wanting to keep it clean and

01:29:59 ◼   ► simple, or just conceiving of it as like, what could we do now that we've got the M1?

01:30:04 ◼   ► It's like, oh, we can finally do windowing.

01:30:06 ◼   ► So let's build it for the M1.

01:30:08 ◼   ► And either way, they end up in a situation where there are a bunch of people on the outside

01:30:13 ◼   ► looking in, which is why you asked me on Twitter, what if they had announced this with the M1

01:30:18 ◼   ► would people have been as angry?

01:30:21 ◼   ► And you think that people would not have been, that they would have reacted differently to

01:30:25 ◼   ► it.

01:30:25 ◼   ► And I thought to myself, I don't know, I think those people with the older iPads would

01:30:30 ◼   ► still be kind of mad, but I think it would be a different narrative if it was all about

01:30:34 ◼   ► like, this is how we can do this feature is the M1.

01:30:37 ◼   ► The M1 is the answer, even on that little iPad Air.

01:30:40 ◼   ► The reason it can do it at all is because it's got an M1.

01:30:45 ◼   ► Yeah, so my spitball idea is last year when they introduced the first M1 iPad Pros, which

01:30:52 ◼   ► was just two models, if they had announced Stage Manager for iPad at that same time and

01:30:59 ◼   ► said, now that we've got the M1 in our highest end Pro iPads, it enables us to do this.

01:31:06 ◼   ► And we thought about how can we take advantage of this amazing desktop quality silicon?

01:31:15 ◼   ► How about this?

01:31:15 ◼   ► Here's Stage Manager, and this wasn't possible before.

01:31:19 ◼   ► As great as all of our previous iPads are, this requires the power of the M1.

01:31:25 ◼   ► And I don't think it would have completely nipped the controversy in the bud, but I think

01:31:31 ◼   ► it would have tamped it down significantly.

01:31:35 ◼   ► If right when it first entered you as an iPad enthusiast's mind that this is a neat new

01:31:42 ◼   ► way of managing multiple windows and applications on iPad, if right from the very moment it

01:31:50 ◼   ► entered your mind you realized it was only for these brand new M1 iPads, I think it would

01:31:57 ◼   ► have tamped it down significantly.

01:31:59 ◼   ► I think you're right.

01:32:00 ◼   ► People keep mentioning that the A12Z was the chip in the developer kit for Apple Silicon

01:32:07 ◼   ► two years ago.

01:32:08 ◼   ► And so if the A12Z could power Macs two years ago for developers who were developing, porting

01:32:16 ◼   ► their Intel-based software to Apple Silicon for the Mac, isn't that proof that it can

01:32:21 ◼   ► do swap, that it can do multiple windows, blah, blah, blah?

01:32:25 ◼   ► So that's—I'm just tossing that out there as part of the controversy.

01:32:28 ◼   ► That's—

01:32:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, my response would be, that's macOS, and this is iPadOS, and they're not

01:32:36 ◼   ► the same, right?

01:32:37 ◼   ► Well, I don't think—the proof is like—it's like saying, "Oh, that would be an easy feature

01:32:43 ◼   ► to fix."

01:32:43 ◼   ► Like, well, we don't know.

01:32:44 ◼   ► There may actually be some complexity in how they would choose.

01:32:46 ◼   ► And bottom line is I think they chose not to see or saw it and didn't like it.

01:32:53 ◼   ► And they're like, "No, we're just going to not go that far back."

01:32:56 ◼   ► But my pushback to you, my response to your tweet was, I think there's an undercurrent

01:33:01 ◼   ► in iPad, especially iPad power users, people who buy iPad Pros.

01:33:05 ◼   ► I think there has been a frustration that the hardware has been outpacing the software

01:33:09 ◼   ► for a while now.

01:33:10 ◼   ► And I think there was an expectation that if I bought the high-end iPad, eventually Apple

01:33:14 ◼   ► would get there with the software and that I would be able to take advantage of it.

01:33:18 ◼   ► And they finally did it, and I can't, because they blocked me off.

01:33:21 ◼   ► And I think we can talk about, like, should you feel that way?

01:33:26 ◼   ► Or was that a reasonable thing to believe?

01:33:28 ◼   ► But I think that's where it's coming from.

01:33:30 ◼   ► And I think that there is—I get it.

01:33:33 ◼   ► Like, I get the idea that the narrative has been all along, Apple needs to catch up with

01:33:38 ◼   ► its software, and here they are catching up, but you—it's too bad.

01:33:43 ◼   ► Even though your hardware was so great and Apple just needed to catch up, now that they've

01:33:47 ◼   ► caught up, your hardware is not good enough anymore.

01:33:49 ◼   ► I get that.

01:33:50 ◼   ► And I think that frustration would have existed no matter what the narrative, but I do think

01:33:53 ◼   ► you're right that if it had been introduced as an M1-enabled thing and that was the storytelling,

01:34:00 ◼   ► it would be less than it is now.

01:34:03 ◼   ► We can argue about how much less.

01:34:08 ◼   ► But—and again, it gets back to this—it's been there right since Steve Jobs introduced

01:34:14 ◼   ► the first iPad back in 2010.

01:34:17 ◼   ► And it, you know, truly one of the great Steve Jobs keynotes of all time, in my opinion.

01:34:24 ◼   ► I really think it was great, but just didn't dance around it, but actually centered the

01:34:30 ◼   ► whole introduction around the, "Hey, you've got your phone, you've got your laptop.

01:34:36 ◼   ► Is there room in the middle for something new?"

01:34:39 ◼   ► And saying, "Yes, we think there is.

01:34:42 ◼   ► We think there is room in the middle, but it has to be better at some things than both

01:34:46 ◼   ► other—both devices.

01:34:47 ◼   ► For some things, it has to be both better than a phone and better than just using your

01:34:52 ◼   ► laptop."

01:34:53 ◼   ► And the iPad has lived in that space ever since.

01:34:56 ◼   ► And to this day—and I think we're seeing it with Stage Manager—but I think, to go

01:35:00 ◼   ► back to your point, that iPad users in the last few years, you know, at a point—let's

01:35:07 ◼   ► just draw the point where we saw it coming with benchmarks.

01:35:11 ◼   ► Like, just to say "geek bench," just because it's so common.

01:35:15 ◼   ► It was very clear before it happened that Apple Silicon was going to go past Intel in

01:35:21 ◼   ► single-core performance, and that the multi-core performance was limited only by the fact that

01:35:26 ◼   ► we were using chips meant for phones.

01:35:28 ◼   ► You know, that there was no reason Apple couldn't just add more cores if they wanted to create

01:35:35 ◼   ► Apple Silicon for, let's say, the Mac, when that was a hypothetical scenario.

01:35:40 ◼   ► And I think iPad users rightly have seen these devices hamstrung by the physical constraints

01:35:47 ◼   ► of iPhone screens, right?

01:35:49 ◼   ► Right?

01:35:49 ◼   ► Like—

01:35:49 ◼   ► I can give you a date.

01:35:52 ◼   ► It was October 30, 2018, where Apple kind of called out—because that's when they

01:35:58 ◼   ► announced that new iPad Pro and said it's faster than most PC laptops.

01:36:03 ◼   ► That was the moment they laid it down, right?

01:36:04 ◼   ► And they said, "We're going to be able to beat—our Apple Silicon stuff is faster

01:36:08 ◼   ► than PCs."

01:36:08 ◼   ► It was the moment where we knew that it was coming to the Mac definitively, because they're

01:36:12 ◼   ► already bragging about how it's faster than PC laptops.

01:36:15 ◼   ► But also, it was them saying, "The iPad is faster than laptops; it's more capable than

01:36:19 ◼   ► laptops."

01:36:20 ◼   ► And I think that's when the narrative really picked up that was like, "Okay, we agree

01:36:26 ◼   ► the hardware is amazing.

01:36:28 ◼   ► Why is the software so limited?"

01:36:30 ◼   ► And if you live that for a little while, and then they finally unlimit the software, and

01:36:34 ◼   ► you're like, "Well, wait a second.

01:36:36 ◼   ► But I bought this thing in October of 2018, and it doesn't do that?"

01:36:40 ◼   ► I would be mad, too.

01:36:42 ◼   ► I get it.

01:36:42 ◼   ► I mean, nobody likes to have their hardware that they spent money on not get a new feature,

01:36:49 ◼   ► right?

01:36:49 ◼   ► Like, it sucks.

01:36:50 ◼   ► It does, absolutely.

01:36:52 ◼   ► Cote: Yeah, and I just really feel like, in large part, the hardware clearly was there.

01:36:57 ◼   ► Apple even said so, like you said, that it's faster than most PC laptops.

01:37:00 ◼   ► And I know it was one of those statements from Apple that a lot of people who observe

01:37:04 ◼   ► the industry at large and not the Apple ecosystem hyper-focused, like me and you do, were like,

01:37:11 ◼   ► "Ah, more bullshit from Apple."

01:37:13 ◼   ► And then you start looking at actual tests and use cross-platform apps to export video

01:37:20 ◼   ► and do all these things.

01:37:21 ◼   ► And it's like, "Oh, wow, they're not kidding."

01:37:23 ◼   ► But yet, at such a basic conceptual level, the actual interface of iPadOS was largely

01:37:30 ◼   ► limited by the needs of the iPhone's iOS, which is single window for almost everything.

01:37:39 ◼   ► Because even the biggest iPhone you could buy is actually very tiny as a display.

01:37:44 ◼   ► And it's like, "Well, wait, my iPad Pro is 13 inches diagonally.

01:37:48 ◼   ► Why in the world am I limited by an interface that feels so meant for a five and a half

01:37:55 ◼   ► inch display?"

01:37:56 ◼   ► And okay, that's clearly exactly what stage manager for iPad is meant to address, right?

01:38:04 ◼   ► Like, okay, your display can hold a couple things.

01:38:07 ◼   ► And we can do neat 3D things and have these window groups on the left side.

01:38:12 ◼   ► We'll tilt them in 3D in perspective to make more room, right?

01:38:16 ◼   ► Because if we showed them in complete 2D, it would take up more space.

01:38:20 ◼   ► We'll just tilt them backwards.

01:38:21 ◼   ► It'll save space.

01:38:22 ◼   ► You can...

01:38:23 ◼   ► And they're spatially oriented so you can remember that your group with messages and

01:38:29 ◼   ► mail is up there at the top and your photos one is down at the bottom and not for you.

01:38:35 ◼   ► And yeah, I will say this, and I heard this.

01:38:37 ◼   ► I don't think Apple has mentioned it because Apple will...

01:38:41 ◼   ► The other thing that Apple, I think, is hamstrung, you mentioned that once they started going

01:38:45 ◼   ► into technical details like swap, it raises the exception like the one iPad Air with only

01:38:51 ◼   ► 64 gigs of storage that doesn't get swapped but still gets stage manager.

01:38:55 ◼   ► They don't like to say anything negative about other products.

01:39:02 ◼   ► They'll talk up what's great about the M1 but don't want to publicly say what's not

01:39:08 ◼   ► so great about like any of the A-series chips.

01:39:11 ◼   ► But since this became a controversy, and I don't think this should be a surprise, but

01:39:16 ◼   ► the SSD storage on all of the A-series chips, including the A12Z and A12X that were only

01:39:23 ◼   ► used on iPad Pros, is not meant for the number of read-write cycles that swap inherently

01:39:33 ◼   ► mean.

01:39:34 ◼   ► When you have an OS that has virtual memory swap, you end up reading and writing to the

01:39:41 ◼   ► storage way more often than you do if you don't have swap.

01:39:45 ◼   ► It's just the nature of it.

01:39:47 ◼   ► Unless you as a user are using so few apps at a time that you don't actually go past

01:39:54 ◼   ► the physical RAM and use it.

01:39:56 ◼   ► But if you are using swap, it's incredibly intensive on the storage.

01:40:00 ◼   ► And because all of the A-series chips to date were meant for operating systems that didn't

01:40:08 ◼   ► have swap, they never spec the storage for swap capable long-term.

01:40:15 ◼   ► I mean, obviously, it would work.

01:40:17 ◼   ► If they just flipped a switch and let it work, it would work.

01:40:20 ◼   ► But it would wear out the SSDs.

01:40:23 ◼   ► And going back to those dev kits for Apple Silicon, for the Mac that ran the A12Z, that's

01:40:31 ◼   ► one of the reasons why they didn't sell those to developers.

01:40:34 ◼   ► They were like leased.

01:40:35 ◼   ► You'd sign up and put a deposit down and get them.

01:40:38 ◼   ► Then they collected them all.

01:40:40 ◼   ► They weren't meant for long-term use because they didn't have SSD that was meant for

01:40:44 ◼   ► the long-term wear and tear that a system like macOS has on the storage.

01:40:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, while, I mean, again, because I know people are really angry about this

01:40:55 ◼   ► and I hear from them.

01:40:55 ◼   ► I'm totally sympathetic.

01:40:58 ◼   ► I get why people are mad about this.

01:41:00 ◼   ► My frustration is that it feels sometimes like it's a version of the old, I know I

01:41:08 ◼   ► mentioned this earlier, the old, come on, this would be an easy feature addition to

01:41:13 ◼   ► this app that I use and you email the developer and say, it's gotta be easy, probably take

01:41:16 ◼   ► you a day.

01:41:17 ◼   ► And you don't know anything about the complexity of it.

01:41:20 ◼   ► You flattened it out to something that seems very simple.

01:41:22 ◼   ► And I think that, right, knowing what we know from the outside and maybe knowing what we

01:41:28 ◼   ► might know from talking to people on the inside, maybe a little, this is a complex issue.

01:41:35 ◼   ► And Apple PR doesn't want complexity.

01:41:39 ◼   ► And so their statements, like I said, have opened the door to a kind of a maze of questions

01:41:46 ◼   ► about like what exactly is going on here.

01:41:48 ◼   ► But I think what you say is exactly one of these issues, which is like, are we concerned

01:41:53 ◼   ► about the rewrite?

01:41:54 ◼   ► Are we concerned about the unclear messaging?

01:41:55 ◼   ► Are we gonna have to explain how this iPad works, but these iPads don't work?

01:42:01 ◼   ► And you can see why they might've just decided, like, first off, how many people are gonna

01:42:07 ◼   ► use this feature who have the 2020 iPad Pro?

01:42:11 ◼   ► Probably not that many.

01:42:12 ◼   ► And how many did we sell?

01:42:14 ◼   ► And like, is it worth, how much engineering effort when we need to figure out the windowing

01:42:18 ◼   ► system this summer?

01:42:20 ◼   ► How much engineering effort should we put into backward compatibility?

01:42:24 ◼   ► And you could see why they'd be like, no, let's just say it's the M1 makes this so much

01:42:27 ◼   ► easier.

01:42:27 ◼   ► Let's just focus on the M1.

01:42:29 ◼   ► But I do wonder now if because this has become an issue and because Apple sort of like stepped

01:42:35 ◼   ► in it a little bit by providing excuses that were not good enough, were not consistent

01:42:43 ◼   ► enough, if we might see something that is, you know, okay, the A12Z iPad Pro can run

01:42:51 ◼   ► it, but it can't drive an external display and maybe it can only display three windows.

01:42:56 ◼   ► And like, my question is, will they do that?

01:42:58 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe not.

01:42:59 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:43:00 ◼   ► And two, will it make anybody happy about it?

01:43:02 ◼   ► Because in the end, it's all just gradations of unhappiness where you're like, I can't

01:43:07 ◼   ► run it.

01:43:07 ◼   ► I can run it sort of, or I can run it fully.

01:43:09 ◼   ► And that's the truth of being a computer user is eventually you do have to buy a new

01:43:14 ◼   ► computer if you want the fancy new thing.

01:43:16 ◼   ► But I can see the argument that maybe I'm sympathetic to the argument that maybe Apple

01:43:20 ◼   ► should have been aware of how grumpy iPad Pro users were and tried to extend it back.

01:43:27 ◼   ► But I also totally understand why they said M1, it's clean, it's clear, the chip is much

01:43:31 ◼   ► better at this.

01:43:32 ◼   ► It's going to be a better experience for users.

01:43:34 ◼   ► And so I'm really curious along with all the fixes that they need to do in the betas,

01:43:40 ◼   ► if they will reconsider some sort of like limited support for older systems.

01:43:45 ◼   ► Yep.

01:43:45 ◼   ► And that was my spitball idea too, is what if you just said, okay, we'll enable it for

01:43:49 ◼   ► more iPads, but without any external display support and, and, or maybe like you said,

01:43:55 ◼   ► some kind of limit, like only up to three or four windows or apps at a time.

01:44:00 ◼   ► I would throw in display scaling because that's the other piece here that they've conflated

01:44:04 ◼   ► together that is another issue, which is, do you have the ability to do the display scaling

01:44:07 ◼   ► on the internal?

01:44:08 ◼   ► Because if you can't make the, the, the, the resolution, you know, you change the scaling

01:44:13 ◼   ► so that it's all, everything's a little bit fuzzy, but you can get more on the screen.

01:44:16 ◼   ► If, if you can't do that, then this feature is not very good.

01:44:20 ◼   ► Like it's not that great.

01:44:22 ◼   ► You need, without an external monitor, you really kind of need the more space feature.

01:44:27 ◼   ► And so I don't know the details of all the video circuitry that's in those, those iPad

01:44:32 ◼   ► pros from 2020, but that's the other piece of this.

01:44:35 ◼   ► So there's like, it's a complex system, right?

01:44:37 ◼   ► And like, this is why Apple didn't want to get into it, but then they, they kind of got

01:44:41 ◼   ► into it.

01:44:41 ◼   ► So now they're in it.

01:44:42 ◼   ► All right.

01:44:43 ◼   ► Let's take one last break and thank our final sponsor of the episode.

01:44:48 ◼   ► Our good friends at Squarespace.

01:44:50 ◼   ► Squarespace, you know what they are.

01:44:53 ◼   ► They're the all-in-one platform for building your brand, growing your online business,

01:44:58 ◼   ► stand out with your own beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything.

01:45:04 ◼   ► Your products, the content you create, even your time, you can do it all right on your

01:45:10 ◼   ► own website that you make with Squarespace.

01:45:13 ◼   ► They make it easy for creators.

01:45:14 ◼   ► They even have member areas.

01:45:16 ◼   ► You can monetize your content and expertise in a way that fits your brand with member

01:45:20 ◼   ► areas. You can unlock a new revenue stream for your business and free up time in your

01:45:25 ◼   ► schedule by selling access to gated content like videos, online courses, or newsletters,

01:45:31 ◼   ► right from Squarespace.

01:45:32 ◼   ► You can use their analytics to gain insight and grow your business.

01:45:37 ◼   ► I love their analytics interface.

01:45:39 ◼   ► It's so clear.

01:45:40 ◼   ► Lots and lots of information, but presented in a way that doesn't look like a airplane

01:45:46 ◼   ► cockpit, but instead looks like it is what it is, which is designed by real designers

01:45:52 ◼   ► to give you insight into who's coming to your website from where based on what search

01:45:59 ◼   ► terms or keywords and let you know what's popular on your website and what isn't.

01:46:03 ◼   ► Everything else, stores, you can build them.

01:46:05 ◼   ► They do all the commerce.

01:46:06 ◼   ► Email campaigns, you can handle that with Squarespace.

01:46:09 ◼   ► Email campaigns, custom templates that you can customize to your heart's desire or just

01:46:15 ◼   ► use right out of the box that look great on every device from an iPhone mini to a Pro

01:46:22 ◼   ► Display XDR with 32 inches.

01:46:24 ◼   ► Everything scales.

01:46:25 ◼   ► Everything looks great.

01:46:27 ◼   ► Everything is customizable.

01:46:28 ◼   ► Just I can't tell you enough how great Squarespace is.

01:46:31 ◼   ► Go to squarespace.com/talkshow squarespace.com/talkshow.

01:46:37 ◼   ► You get a free trial by going to that URL 30 days later.

01:46:41 ◼   ► When you're ready to launch, you can use the offer code talk show and using that code to

01:46:45 ◼   ► save 10% off your first purchase of any website or domain.

01:46:49 ◼   ► You can order a whole year in advance.

01:46:51 ◼   ► Save 10% on a whole year squarespace.com/talkshow.

01:46:54 ◼   ► You know, rather than item by item, which, you know, I'll link to the upgrade the week

01:47:01 ◼   ► after the WWDC where you and Mike went through all the details.

01:47:04 ◼   ► I think this is good to just spend a lot of time on stage manager because I do think it's

01:47:09 ◼   ► the I in hindsight, it's sort of like they spend a lot of time up front talking about

01:47:14 ◼   ► the new lock screen feature for the iPhone, which is cool.

01:47:17 ◼   ► And I do think is worth the time, but stage manager is the one that has like so much more

01:47:24 ◼   ► to come.

01:47:25 ◼   ► Whereas the lock screen thing, yeah, they have, you know, features and bugs to fix and

01:47:30 ◼   ► stuff like that, but it is what it is, right?

01:47:33 ◼   ► Stage manager is sort of a worthy topic of a long podcast discussion.

01:47:40 ◼   ► I think, I mean, it says a lot about the interface on two of Apple's platforms, right?

01:47:44 ◼   ► And interesting ways that they differ.

01:47:47 ◼   ► And I think those two things along with the, you know, M2 and the MacBook Air are the most

01:47:54 ◼   ► interesting things to come out of the developer conference.

01:47:57 ◼   ► And the M2 is kind of what we thought it was.

01:48:00 ◼   ► And the MacBook Air is sort of what we were told it would be by the people who are reporting

01:48:06 ◼   ► on leaks from sources.

01:48:09 ◼   ► But the stage manager and the lock screen, I mean, the lock screen is funny because the

01:48:13 ◼   ► lock screen is going to be way more interesting when it's on a phone that can keep its screen

01:48:17 ◼   ► on all the time, right?

01:48:18 ◼   ► Like an Apple watch.

01:48:20 ◼   ► And we all know that that's almost certainly coming in the fall, but in the meantime, you

01:48:25 ◼   ► know, they've got it in this other version, you know, widgets on the lock screen.

01:48:29 ◼   ► It's great.

01:48:29 ◼   ► It's smart.

01:48:29 ◼   ► It's one of those things where it's like, it's an important part of people's iPhone

01:48:32 ◼   ► experience and yet it's kind of not been given the attention that it deserves.

01:48:37 ◼   ► And so now it has.

01:48:38 ◼   ► I'm happy about that.

01:48:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:48:40 ◼   ► The widgets on the lock screen, there's been people I've seen asked over and over again,

01:48:45 ◼   ► why do they look like this?

01:48:46 ◼   ► Why do they not have like a sort of card background like widgets do on your home screen or other

01:48:53 ◼   ► places where we've had widgets now?

01:48:55 ◼   ► And it all makes complete sense and only makes sense when you imagine it in the context of

01:49:00 ◼   ► an always on display that just shows the date, time, and these widgets that don't have a

01:49:05 ◼   ► card background.

01:49:06 ◼   ► They're just text on the black screen.

01:49:07 ◼   ► It's literally the only place that Apple has done an always on display before is the

01:49:11 ◼   ► Apple watch.

01:49:12 ◼   ► And these are complications from the Apple watch essentially.

01:49:15 ◼   ► And that's why.

01:49:17 ◼   ► That's exactly why.

01:49:18 ◼   ► I did want to touch on the M2 because I thought, you know, it's actual hardware coming at

01:49:25 ◼   ► WWDC, which is always, you know, it's not unprecedented, but it doesn't happen every

01:49:29 ◼   ► year.

01:49:29 ◼   ► And I think it makes sense scheduling-wise.

01:49:31 ◼   ► The M, the new, this is so confusing, the Mac, MacBook Pro 13 inch with the M2 13 inch is

01:49:43 ◼   ► orderable.

01:49:44 ◼   ► I don't think it's in customer hands yet, but reviews drive this week, including yours.

01:49:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I think, I think maybe it's shipping as of our recording today on the, on the 24th

01:49:54 ◼   ► of June.

01:49:54 ◼   ► I think maybe it's shipping now.

01:49:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:49:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:49:56 ◼   ► Like the order started a week ago and now today customers are getting them.

01:50:01 ◼   ► Controversial.

01:50:02 ◼   ► So they introduced two, two machines and all new MacBook Air with a truly all new industrial

01:50:09 ◼   ► design and an M2 13 inch MacBook Pro with literally a completely unchanged industrial

01:50:19 ◼   ► design.

01:50:19 ◼   ► Could not be more different.

01:50:20 ◼   ► In fact, they were very clear in, in my briefings with them after the keynote.

01:50:25 ◼   ► I had, I had a brief, I don't know if you had the same briefing where it was, I know

01:50:28 ◼   ► this is one where we weren't together, but it was the two MacBook Pro or MacBooks next

01:50:34 ◼   ► to each other, one briefing.

01:50:35 ◼   ► And the, the part they were ready for before they opened up to questions was telling us

01:50:43 ◼   ► everything that was new and improved in the air.

01:50:45 ◼   ► Reduced weight, reduced volume, a brighter screen, 400 to 500 nits max, better sound

01:50:53 ◼   ► system, better microphones, other things that were new and something, something about, you

01:50:59 ◼   ► know, the, the 13 inch MacBook Pro.

01:51:02 ◼   ► And I just asked just to clarify, is there anything different in the M2 13 inch MacBook

01:51:07 ◼   ► Pro from the M1 model that looks exactly the same other than going from the M1 to M2?

01:51:15 ◼   ► And they were just very clear.

01:51:16 ◼   ► Nope.

01:51:17 ◼   ► That's the only thing that's different.

01:51:18 ◼   ► Same speakers, same display, same weight, same dimensions, same touch bar.

01:51:23 ◼   ► Absolutely nothing's changed except they tore out the M1, put in an M2 and that's it.

01:51:28 ◼   ► So it couldn't be easier to explain.

01:51:31 ◼   ► I mean, that's, it literally is a pure test of the difference between the M1 and M2.

01:51:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:51:39 ◼   ► I, I don't know about your briefing on my briefing.

01:51:41 ◼   ► It was very much like, can I touch the MacBook Air?

01:51:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:51:45 ◼   ► And then, and then the MacBook Pro sitting there is like, whatever.

01:51:49 ◼   ► Cause it's, it's literally no different.

01:51:50 ◼   ► I think that's the funny thing about it.

01:51:52 ◼   ► Certainly there's no world where Apple wanted their first M2 processor based Mac to be that

01:51:57 ◼   ► laptop.

01:51:59 ◼   ► It's not interesting at all, but it, it, it exists for reasons and it's still got a touch

01:52:04 ◼   ► bar and it doesn't have MagSafe.

01:52:05 ◼   ► And I think it's not a computer almost anybody should buy, but the M2 is, you know, it's

01:52:10 ◼   ► what we thought it was plus a little bit more, I would say, you know, it's got that, it's

01:52:13 ◼   ► got a nice per core speed boost and, and the next generation GPU, next generation core,

01:52:19 ◼   ► next generation, like secure enclave and neural engine and all of that.

01:52:24 ◼   ► And the part that surprised me was the 4k video encode stuff where they like, they took

01:52:28 ◼   ► the, the high-end video encoding blocks that they put in the M1 Pro and Max, and they just

01:52:33 ◼   ► put them in the M2, which is sort of like, what is going to be in the M2 Pro and Max,

01:52:38 ◼   ► I wonder.

01:52:39 ◼   ► But, and then also I'm reminded cause I wrote my review this week of that uninteresting

01:52:43 ◼   ► laptop and I'm reminded that like most people don't need much more power.

01:52:50 ◼   ► I like the, most people are coming from Intel.

01:52:52 ◼   ► First off, most people are going to buy one, an M2 laptop are coming from Intel and they're

01:52:57 ◼   ► going to still get that huge boost.

01:52:59 ◼   ► And the power in there is so much so like it already was killing it at 1080 HD video

01:53:04 ◼   ► encodes and stuff.

01:53:06 ◼   ► It's now it's 4k that it can kill it at too, which is like, is that even a consumer

01:53:10 ◼   ► application yet?

01:53:10 ◼   ► I guess maybe a little, but kind of not.

01:53:12 ◼   ► And like, this is where Apple is.

01:53:14 ◼   ► Like it is, it's.

01:53:16 ◼   ► I am constantly fascinated by the fact that when Apple does these Apple Silicon announcements

01:53:21 ◼   ► that they're like, they're so, they're so confident in their ability to do this.

01:53:25 ◼   ► And, and you see those moves be confident in things like taking things right out of

01:53:30 ◼   ► the Pro chips on the previous generation and rolling them in, because that strongly suggests

01:53:35 ◼   ► that they're not too worried about what they've got up their sleeve for the next generation

01:53:39 ◼   ► of Pro chips as well.

01:53:40 ◼   ► And it's just like, I, it's been a while since I've seen Apple quite this confident

01:53:46 ◼   ► in this kind of a story, this chip story.

01:53:49 ◼   ► I mean, on the, on the iPhone, it's been like that for a little while, but on the Mac,

01:53:52 ◼   ► now it's just a completely different tune than back when they were rolling out Intel

01:53:56 ◼   ► updates, right?

01:53:57 ◼   ► Cause this is our first update in Apple Silicon era.

01:53:59 ◼   ► And like, it's just like, it was all along on the iPhone where they're like, yep, here