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The Talk Show

348: ‘Joe Biden’s Gum’’, With John Moltz

 

00:00:00   I don't know. Should I say something about the Texas thing?

00:00:02   That's not funny.

00:00:03   I know.

00:00:04   We were laughing, and then now it's not funny anymore.

00:00:07   I know.

00:00:08   Yeah, I mean, I guess so. We probably should. It's...

00:00:10   I think I should say something quick.

00:00:13   We're both parents, right?

00:00:14   I mean, I assume that Jonas's school had drills and stuff like that as he was going through. I

00:00:22   mean, our kids are almost out, so...

00:00:24   They sort of did. Our school wasn't hardcore about the drills, but it's,

00:00:29   you know, whenever these things come up, it's always a big deal.

00:00:32   And lots of rules. I mean, so stupid. Lots of rules about the doors.

00:00:37   Blah, blah, blah.

00:00:39   Yeah, well, you know, if you talk to certain Texas politicians,

00:00:41   they'll tell you the doors of the problem.

00:00:43   Yeah. Well, maybe this is the show. I don't usually comment on current events like this

00:00:47   on the show, but this week with the school shooting, the massacre, I don't know what

00:00:51   you want to call it. I don't want to sugarcoat it in Uvalde, Texas. I don't want to spend the

00:00:57   show. I've been linking about it. I've been writing about it, so I feel like I shouldn't

00:01:02   ignore it, and I want everybody to know I'm thinking about it. I mean, I think everybody

00:01:06   is, but I also think it's good. I think it's good to have other things to think about,

00:01:10   so this show is not going to dwell on it. I mean, it's not our show, you know. And we'll

00:01:14   have a good time, and we'll laugh, and we'll do our usual John and John goofing around thing,

00:01:18   but it's in no way ever at this point leaving my mind, and probably everybody listening this,

00:01:23   everybody's thinking about it in their back of their mind to some degree.

00:01:27   Hard to pick it up after talking about it.

00:01:30   No, no. We had talked about possibly talking about Obi-Wan, but it starts out with—well,

00:01:37   if you haven't seen it, spoiler alert—it starts out with sort of a school shooting, right?

00:01:40   Yeah.

00:01:42   Which is terrible, you know, which is really unfortunate, obviously, and I don't even think—I

00:01:47   guess it didn't even occur to Disney that it was somehow similar. And I didn't notice it when I

00:01:53   watched the show, but a bunch of people were saying, "Boy, that was tough to see after,

00:01:58   you know, what happened this week." And—

00:02:01   Yeah, I watched it with Jonas last night, and again, we'll do no spoilers here,

00:02:08   no serious spoilers for the first two episodes of Obi-Wan, but I—

00:02:13   It's a flashback. It's a flashback to General Order 6.

00:02:15   Right.

00:02:15   Is that really it?

00:02:17   Yeah, but it, you know, the timing is—you know, and if funny, somebody told me—I have not watched

00:02:21   it yet, but somebody told me that Stranger Things season four, which dropped last week,

00:02:26   also has some sort of thing with kids and getting hurt, and, you know, it's not an unreasonable

00:02:32   thing to put in a work of fiction, but unfortunately, these—

00:02:36   Yeah, that's the thing that I was thinking, like, it's not the—and the problem is not

00:02:39   really the fiction. The problem is the reality.

00:02:42   Right, and it's like, imagine if you put in to a work of fiction and it happened to drop last

00:02:47   weekend a volcano erupting, you know. The odds of that actually happening in the real world around

00:02:54   the same time are pretty low. It doesn't—you know, it's pretty rare, thankfully. I guess

00:02:58   something like, you know, a gun massacre of kids at a school is the likelihood, at least in one

00:03:04   country, not naming names, in one country, you have a pretty high likelihood of running into

00:03:10   current events. Well, have you heard about the flat Apple Watch?

00:03:14   Is this the same—is the flat Apple Watch the same thing as the one that was supposedly going to have

00:03:19   edges like the current iPhones? Yeah, that's the idea.

00:03:23   Yeah, okay. Right.

00:03:24   Then yes, I've heard about the flat Apple Watch, but that was rumored earlier, right,

00:03:31   and then it never came, and the Series 7 came out with just a larger screen.

00:03:35   Yeah. And—

00:03:37   Here, let's hold that thought. Now it's back.

00:03:40   Let's work on this wonderful segue. Let me take a break here and get our first—have our first

00:03:45   break on the show and say a good word about our good friends at Squarespace. You guys know

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00:04:07   that through Squarespace. They even have things like member areas, where it's easy for creators

00:04:11   to monetize their content and expertise in a way that fits their brand with member areas.

00:04:15   You can unlock a new revenue stream for your business and free up time in your schedule by

00:04:19   selling access to gated content for your members only, like videos and online courses if you want

00:04:25   to teach people stuff or run tutorials type thing and sell access to them, or paid newsletters. You

00:04:31   can do all of that through Squarespace. It is just the place to go. And if anybody you know is looking

00:04:37   to start something like that online, you can send them to Squarespace and use the same code,

00:04:41   squarespace.com/talkshow. You get a great deal. You get 10% off your first purchase with that code,

00:04:48   talk show, squarespace.com/talkshow. Ten percent off your first order and you can prepay for a year,

00:04:53   save 10% on a whole year with that code. My thanks to Squarespace. Yeah, that's a segue. See,

00:04:59   you put a sponsor in there and now it feels a little bit more natural. Yeah, the rumor,

00:05:03   I think John Prosser of Front Page Tech on YouTube is largely responsible for the origin of this and

00:05:12   has had CAD renders last year. And the rumor was that was the Apple Watch for last September.

00:05:17   And then the really curious thing, because both of their records are so good in general, and if

00:05:23   they're not good, it's usually vagaries not being wrong, was that Mark Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo

00:05:29   in the run-up, like early September or maybe end of August, but within like 10 days of the actual

00:05:35   unveiling of the Apple Watch Series 7, both said stuff about flat crystal and flat sides,

00:05:43   and none of it matched up because if anything, the crystal on the Series 7 Watch is actually

00:05:47   more curved. And they even added, it's so curved and such a point of action that Apple even made

00:05:54   a new watch faces just for the Series 7 that show off how it curves around the side. You know what

00:06:01   I mean? Like I forget what the name of the watch face is, but maybe I could look it up here on my

00:06:05   watch. Geez. So that is, that's back. Prosser ran a thing that said it's back. It's still,

00:06:12   it might happen this year. It was sort of a big, you know, it was one of those funny things last

00:06:16   year. And I know that you enjoy this as much as me is that when a rumor is wrong,

00:06:24   a lot of times the story is not— Why would you think that I would enjoy rumors that are wrong?

00:06:28   Well, what do some people, you tell me, what do some people do when rumors are wrong?

00:06:34   It's not like I dedicated an entire site to that. When rumors are wrong, a lot of times the people

00:06:38   who promoted the rumors or reported the rumors will have, you know, the unbelievable good luck

00:06:44   of finding out that they weren't in fact wrong, but something changed. Yeah. Yeah. At the last

00:06:52   minute, they changed the design of the Apple watch. They squeezed them all into a different shape.

00:06:58   Right. And invented an entirely new crystal shape and watch faces and it came out. But anyway,

00:07:05   the story is, it might be coming out this year. And my theory all along, I got to write about it,

00:07:11   because if I don't, I've podcasted about it, but haven't really written about it, but I have a

00:07:15   theory and I still believe the theory. And in fact, I actually think my theory actually does explain

00:07:22   the whole thing. By the way, the watch face I was thinking of is called Contour. That's the one

00:07:26   where there's squished numerals around the outside of the Apple watch face on watchOS 8. My theory

00:07:32   is that the flat watch is real. It was in development last year, but it is the new Apple

00:07:38   watch SE. It is not the expedition model that is supposedly that Gurman has, I think uniquely

00:07:46   reported on that is supposedly like a, you know, like a G-Shock type thing, or I know Garmin makes

00:07:52   a lot of those in the smartwatch space. I think it's the new Apple watch SE and that it might be

00:07:58   the new low price thing. Like the Apple. So, okay. Can you explain that to me? Because

00:08:04   usually when they introduce a new look, it goes to the new models, not the one that's, you know,

00:08:10   the lower priced model, right? I mean, you look at the iPhone SE, obviously that is an iPhone 8.

00:08:16   - Right. So my theory works like this, that SE doesn't really mean take an old design and put

00:08:26   new guts in it and sell it at a low price, even though that's how it plays out for the iPhone.

00:08:32   Is there another SE? There's only iPhone SE and Apple watch SE, right? So we don't have a large,

00:08:37   and that works for the Apple or for iPhone. It works to have old ones. But to me, what the SE

00:08:44   really means is less looking old, but looking clearly less than. In other words, that it looks

00:08:53   like this is the least expensive, whatever it is. You know, like if they came out with an iPad.

00:09:01   - But that's what I don't, that's what I still don't get though. Because when they're

00:09:05   introducing a new look, they go to great lengths to say how great this new look is, look what we've

00:09:10   done. Aren't we wonderful? And if they're doing that for the one that's cheaper, I don't see how

00:09:15   that plays. - Well, I think it's a stretch. Maybe I'm, you know, I could be all wet. I have no

00:09:20   inside juice on this. It's purely my own speculation. It's sort of fueled by my watch

00:09:25   nerdery hobby, you know, like traditional watches. But watches are different than phones, right?

00:09:32   And so for one thing is very specifically with Apple watch and iPhone is there are

00:09:38   such things as older iPhones that look like older iPhones. 'Cause they, you know, the iPhone SE right

00:09:43   now still has a home button and it still has square sides on the display. And it still has

00:09:49   totally square corners on the display with a chin and a forehead where the home button goes.

00:09:53   So at just an instant glance, you can instantly see this is sort of the, you know, it's the SE

00:10:00   iPhone. The Apple watch can't really do that. Even right now where they're selling and the Apple

00:10:06   watch lineup as it stands today is sort of messed up where the SE is not the lowest price model.

00:10:11   The iPhone or Apple watch three series three is the lower price model. And the SE is actually

00:10:16   more money. And now I don't know if that's what they plan. - They should not be selling that

00:10:20   phone, but okay. - Or that watch. - Or that watch. - Right. But, you know, that maybe they just

00:10:25   realized that in this transition and with the cost of goods and as they, you know, what's the baseline

00:10:31   for like a good, you know, 199 watch that's based on like a new guts, like a new, all new SE,

00:10:38   you know, that last year wasn't the year to do it. It would have, you know, or maybe, you know,

00:10:44   maybe it was a by-product of the supply chain stuff with COVID and it was supposed to happen

00:10:50   last year. And it's just, that's not going to happen. And, you know, we can get these, this,

00:10:56   this, and this out the door on time, but we'll punt on the, the new Apple watch SE and we'll just sell

00:11:02   the app, the series three again for another year. You know, that, that's, I don't know. I don't know

00:11:07   what the backstory is. Apple never explained such things, but my thinking of why would a new look

00:11:12   be for only for the SE is they don't have something even with the series three, which we,

00:11:17   everybody sort of acknowledges at a tech level and battery life level and the screen doesn't stay on

00:11:21   and blah, blah, blah is, is really not, it's kind of outdated at this point, but at a glance, it

00:11:27   looks just like any other Apple watch. Like if you get close, you can see like when they, with series

00:11:33   four, they change, subtly changed the industrial design, the case dimensions and the shape of the

00:11:40   round rectangle, whatever, you know, three-dimensional shape the watches. It is

00:11:46   slightly bigger. You know, they went from 38 and 42 to 40 and 44, slightly bigger,

00:11:53   just different slight dimensions, but at a glance, you can't tell. I can't. And I'm a nerd. I know

00:11:59   Apple watches very well. I mean, but like when somebody walks by on the sidewalk or something

00:12:03   like that, or I walked by somebody, if I were in an airport and I saw somebody or somebody's table

00:12:08   at a restaurant and I just see, Oh, they have an Apple watch. I can't tell if it's a series three

00:12:11   or a series four, you have to sort of stop and stare at it. I don't think that serves Apple's

00:12:17   does, you know, purposes for having a sort of good, better, best lineup of watches when it looks

00:12:23   the same. And therefore I think a flat-sided watch that's instantly recognizable as the Apple watch SE

00:12:29   would serve that purpose, right? They can't use an old watch like, and they certainly, you know,

00:12:35   if we admit that series three is too old at this point, then series four would be like the starting

00:12:39   point for a new SE and the series four looks almost indistinguishable. However hard it is to

00:12:44   tell series three and series four, five, six, seven apart, it's even harder to tell the series

00:12:49   four from a series seven, right? It's like how close do you have to get to see that the display

00:12:54   curves under the sides a little bit? I mean, you got to, you know, if it's somebody else's watch,

00:12:59   you're uncomfortably close to their wrist. So how, you know, the only way they can make an Apple

00:13:06   watch SE that clearly looks at a glance like, oh, that's the Apple watch SE is to give it an all new

00:13:11   design. And to me, again, I'm basing this on CAD renders. And of course, you know, maybe in reality,

00:13:18   Apple can make this thing that fits these CAD renders, proves that they were true. It has a

00:13:22   flat top, has mostly flat sides, mostly looks, you know, the design language of the current iPhones

00:13:29   with the flat sides and obviously flat display. Maybe it'll look great on the wrist and it will

00:13:33   be the premium model. And then they can make the round one the SE and go forward. But I don't think

00:13:39   so. I think that the roundness of Apple watch is, is, and I know some people are bored. I heard,

00:13:46   I was listening to Upgrade with our friends, Jason Snow and Mike Hurley. And Mike just said something

00:13:52   offhanded about the fact that, hey, you know, every Apple watch today does look the same. I'm

00:13:56   a little bored by it. That's sort of how watches work. And I know that most people are like,

00:14:02   a lot of people who love their Apple watch have had no interest, never even wore a watch before,

00:14:06   weren't wearing a watch for decades. Don't care how the real world or the other world of watches

00:14:12   works. But like, you know, like a Rolex Submariner from 1961, like that Sean Connery is wearing in

00:14:19   the first James Bond movie, it looks exactly at a glance like a brand new Rolex Submariner that

00:14:25   you could buy today, except long story, you can't actually buy Rolex Submariners. They're all out of

00:14:30   stock around the world and have been for years. But you know, if you could get your hands on a

00:14:35   brand new Rolex Submariner today, it's a watch nerd. I could tell you all the things that are

00:14:40   suddenly different, but at a glance, people would say, oh, it's the exact same watch. It hasn't

00:14:43   changed in 40 years, 50 years. That's sort of, I think the look of the, the capsule round shape of

00:14:52   Apple watch. And I, so I sort of feel like there's room to have a shape that says, this is like the

00:14:58   $200 Apple watch. And these other ones are the $400 Apple watches. And then you can get them

00:15:03   in titanium or stainless steel or within Hermes band and pay more, but that those will all be

00:15:09   round. That's, that's my theory. You think they like the round for the more expensive models?

00:15:16   I do. And I think that they, I think they like that it's an iconic shape. It is something that

00:15:21   they own and, you know, honestly it's, it's a lot less ripped off than the iPhone. Right. It's like,

00:15:29   it's, it's I, nobody really makes like an Android wear phone that, or, or watch that looks like an

00:15:35   Apple watch. It is so distinctive. It is. Yeah. They're very, those other watches, I mean,

00:15:41   those other smartwatch companies are just definitely invested in trying to, I mean,

00:15:45   and I think it's probably a smart idea, I guess when Apple makes a square watch that you want to

00:15:49   make a round watch, I suppose, to make yours look different, but, well, I'm not, I prefer,

00:15:57   I prefer the square watch. Honestly, I prefer the, the, the screen of the square watch.

00:16:01   I've looked at those other watches and, you know, I mean, the, the, the pixel watch came out,

00:16:08   you know, it was at least revealed recently. And, you know, as you look at notifications,

00:16:12   you can see one notification at a time, really. Yeah. And you have to,

00:16:14   because the other ones, when they scroll up and down, I mean, you can't see the whole notification.

00:16:19   And they may even have people that say, Oh, you shouldn't be looking at your watch notifications

00:16:23   all the time anyway. Well, that's kind of the point of the watch, right? You're trying to get

00:16:26   information out. It doesn't have to be notifications. It could be something else.

00:16:29   And I just don't think it works as well. And the only reason that people like round watches is

00:16:36   because that's the way most watches have been in the past, but it's not the way all watches have

00:16:40   been in the past. Yeah, I agree. I really, because scrolling content is inherently rectangular in

00:16:46   nature. There's no way to do it. And so if you scroll content, whether it's like one long text

00:16:53   message that you want to read on your watch, or, you know, a couple of alerts that have come in,

00:16:58   like, Hey, I've, I felt a couple taps there. Let me see, you know, let me go catch up on these

00:17:02   alerts and you want to scroll through them. Scrolling content is inherently rectangular.

00:17:06   And the clipping that's inherent when you scroll on a circular display is annoying. I mean,

00:17:12   it's like you said, you can really, you really only get the full width of the phone right at the

00:17:16   equator and you get clipped at the bottom and the top. It's not great. And circular displays can

00:17:21   work. I know I've mentioned this. I forget when, but it's like we have the Nest thermostats and

00:17:27   those have a circular display and I love them. I think they're beautiful. I think they're,

00:17:31   it's a really beautiful device. I really like having it in my house. It makes me happy to see

00:17:35   it every time I go by, but a circular display works perfectly on a Nest thermostat because

00:17:41   except when it gets like an error condition, you'd never have to scroll. And even when,

00:17:45   even when you get an error condition, we've had a thing over the winter where the, it was losing

00:17:50   power to the, wherever it gets power through the wall. And I had to go down the cellar and flip a

00:17:55   flip a switch and it fixed it. Of course, I didn't call anybody to look at it. I just,

00:18:00   as long as I can flip a switch once every couple of weeks in the winter and keep it going. But

00:18:05   when it lost power, it would give me an error message. And even then it, it kind of optimized

00:18:10   the here's what you should do. And here's where you can go for more info for the circular display.

00:18:15   You know, it's circular data looks great in a circular display. That's why most watches

00:18:20   around because most, most regular watches just have hands that spin around the center. They,

00:18:26   they're a circular, you know, same reason that speedometers on cars can look great as circles,

00:18:31   because it's, it's just a dial that rotates around.

00:18:34   But even then they cover, you know, cover up the day and date.

00:18:39   Twice a year. I mean, like, yeah, every time, you know, like throughout the day,

00:18:45   it will cover up the day and date. The watch where's paradox. It's like the,

00:18:48   the butter toast always falling down is that the time of day that you want to check the date is

00:18:53   always about three, three 15, right? Three 15 is when I need, I need to know what is the day's date.

00:19:00   Oh, well, I better wait till three 17. I was, I was always a little surprised that Apple hadn't

00:19:06   solved that problem with its faces that have hands. You know, like it seems like, you know,

00:19:11   there's parallax on the phone and maybe the computing power of the watch isn't great enough

00:19:17   to do parallax, but it seems like if you could just tilt. Right, right. Is there something?

00:19:21   Which you do, you know, you always try to do with a regular watch, but it would be,

00:19:24   it would be something if maybe you can't tilt it enough. It just maybe didn't work,

00:19:28   but it does seem like there should have been some way that they could accommodate the hands covering

00:19:35   the day and date and they did not. Yeah. Or any other complications.

00:19:39   I don't know. I would like to see, I would love that. That would be like an interesting design

00:19:47   contest though, just to have a contest like design, design an Apple watch face where

00:19:52   the day and date are, would fall under the three, you know, the minute hand and hour hand at three

00:19:59   o'clock, but work around it when those hands would be covering it. What, what can you do?

00:20:04   It seems like the minute, with the minute hand, you could just have the complications on top

00:20:07   anyway. But that would look weird. Maybe not with the, but not with the hour hand.

00:20:10   Yeah, but they, they sort of, there is a Z access to the hands, right? It's the hour hand is below

00:20:16   the minute hand, you know, is on top of the hour hand and the second hand is on top of that. So,

00:20:20   I don't know. There's, there's gotta be a solution, but I'll be damned if I can. But anyway,

00:20:25   I really do think it's possible. And I know that it sounds counterintuitive because in the iPhone

00:20:30   world and all the other products, new industrial design always starts at the top and filters down.

00:20:35   I just think that with Apple watch is different and it can work where, and again, I don't think

00:20:41   that the curved, I think people underestimate how proud and how much work it was to get the series

00:20:48   seven with the curved display to work and look around the sides from the sides exactly the way

00:20:54   Apple wants it to look like it would be a weird, a weird year to year zigzag for them to go from

00:21:02   two years ago, series six, then series seven last year, the big new design thing is this

00:21:09   round crystal screen on all the models, aluminum and steel and custom watch faces designed just

00:21:17   to show off how the display is more curved. And then to 12 months later say, here's, here's the,

00:21:25   here's the new Apple watch series eight perfectly flat. Like I think I, you know, and I know the

00:21:32   phones are perfectly flat, but phones are different devices and flat works great for them. I kind of

00:21:37   feel my hunch. And again, I'm only looking at CAD renders and I have a very poor visual imagination

00:21:42   beyond what it actually shown to me, but to me, that looks plain. It, it curved crystal looks

00:21:49   fancier, more deluxe. It looks, you know, for lack of a better word, it looks more expensive.

00:21:54   You know, I think lots of people would like the flat one. And I think lots of people like buying,

00:21:59   you know, less than the, less than the new series eight starting price for their Apple watch. That's

00:22:05   why Apple sells lower price models, you know, 350 bucks or whatever they start at, or 400 bucks for

00:22:10   the bigger one. It's a lot of money for a watch for most people. I mean, that's, that's a lot of

00:22:15   money so I could see it, but I just feel like branding wise, it would serve Apple's purposes

00:22:19   to have a distinction. Like the lower one, lower price one is flat and a little plainer.

00:22:24   The more expensive ones have the iconic round Apple shape. Not that they got more expensive

00:22:30   for the starting price of a new one, but to keep them. And, and then maybe this rugged thing is

00:22:36   real too. I still, I know I've said it on the podcast before. I think there's absolutely,

00:22:40   positively a market for that rugged watch because whether it's A, I think, and I think it's two

00:22:45   groups of people. It's A, people who really need it because they do stuff like rock climbing or,

00:22:50   or whatever other sports they might play that, that are, you know, truly, you know, like

00:22:55   skateboarders and I don't know, all sorts of stuff that I'm way too old for. Things that you might

00:22:59   want to wear a watch for where you really are banging the watch into hard services and you

00:23:03   don't want it to break. And B, people who just, you know, same sort of people who put their iPhone

00:23:09   in an OtterBox case, you know, that's almost like a lock box, even though they don't do anything

00:23:13   particularly risky with their phones. They just are very, you know, Hey, I spent a lot of money

00:23:18   on this. I don't want to get cracked or broken or dinged. And they would, you know, I, and I just

00:23:24   don't think, I know some people, I know there are third-party things that you can put your current

00:23:28   Apple watches in, in like an enclosure, you know, to protect them. I, they, those, that's awkward,

00:23:35   right? I mean, cause putting the, you know, the watch is so small. I mean, I, but I, the fact that

00:23:40   they exist tells you there's a market for them. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking, I'm looking at these

00:23:45   renders and A, of course it's, I think part of the problem is, is that it's just a render

00:23:51   and it does look plain. Yep. It looks, it looks like a knockoff, right? It looks like,

00:23:57   it looks like something that you'd order off Alibaba and it would work for, you know, a few

00:24:03   weeks, but I don't know. I mean, I think they could make it nice. I think they could still do

00:24:08   the thing. We don't look what we've done. We've completely changed the Apple watch.

00:24:12   Oh, I, I, I think they'll, but yeah, they'll brag about it right in the same way that,

00:24:17   that like, before they tell you about the new iPhone pro models, they, they spend a huge amount

00:24:21   of time on the regular non-pro new iPhones and tell you how great they are and how great the

00:24:26   camera is. And, you know, you know, no expense spared, you know, to promote them. Right. Remember

00:24:32   when Cayenne Drance, I forget if it was last year or the year before, and they had that whole

00:24:35   amphitheater in Southern California, just, just for Cayenne Drance to be on stage in front of an

00:24:40   empty audience to tell us about it. It was impressive. And that's just for the non-pro ones.

00:24:44   Right. I mean, it's, you know, they'll definitely promote it. I, but I also think that having the

00:24:49   flat side one means that they could run separate ads for it. Right. That they could, you know,

00:24:54   they can run separate ads for the new Apple watch SEs starting at, I don't know, maybe it'll start

00:24:59   at 250 or something like that. I don't know. But then they can say starting at just 250 or, or

00:25:04   of course in their parlance, it would be 249 or, you know, maybe if we're super lucky,

00:25:08   maybe it would be, it would be awesome. I'd love it if it was started at 199, like the series three

00:25:12   does today, but then they could run a totally separate ad for that and have a different ad for

00:25:20   the new higher end models, you know? Right. Well, that's, that's my theory on that. Okay.

00:25:26   On that. Let me take another break here. Oh boy, this one is going to be fun. This is a sponsorship

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00:27:58   alexwinestein.com/thetalkshow. I don't know if I should have sung that or what, but I guess if I

00:28:15   sing it, you know, then he's got to write the music to my. Well, you'd have to have the music. You'd

00:28:18   have to be able to hear the music and sing along with the music. Also on the rumors front. I want

00:28:22   to hit this because this is the thing I've had these special episodes where I've been interviewing

00:28:26   people about their creative stuff on the show. Zach Gage and I had Trip Meikle on the last episode,

00:28:31   but now I'm behind on all the rumors and all the Apple stuff, which is kind of fun. But we got to

00:28:36   talk about this, that the rumors are ramping up that Apple's testing USB-C for the iPhone.

00:28:41   For next year. Not this year. Slow your roll, people. And again,

00:28:48   Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo, I think of both said this around the same time. I think Ming-Chi Kuo was

00:28:53   first on Twitter, but then Gurman said the same thing. And I think the way Gurman phrased it is

00:28:57   that Apple is testing it, which is a weird way to put it, sort of a hedge in my opinion. Like,

00:29:02   I kind of think at this, and again, this is for next year, not three months from now or four

00:29:07   months from now, but you know, 2023. I sort of think if Apple's going USB-C, they know it already.

00:29:12   They don't really need to test it. I mean, what are they testing if they know how to put it?

00:29:15   Right. What's the point? Yeah, exactly. What is the point? I mean, you know, there are,

00:29:17   you've seen people who have actually ripped apart an iPhone and put a USB-C.

00:29:21   Right.

00:29:22   It can be done by people on the street, obviously not me,

00:29:26   but people who have those skills. So Apple can certainly do it.

00:29:28   And I have to say that that's the sort of thing, as an old person who doesn't want to

00:29:34   take apart phones anymore, I have to say that is impressive. Like, because, you know, like in the

00:29:41   old days of computers, when it was all just electrical, if it was hooked up, then the

00:29:45   electrons were flowing and that's it. It was, you know, and it was fun to hack stuff together.

00:29:49   But now with all the security stuff and, you know, parts verification and stuff,

00:29:55   it's all the more impressive, no matter how janky the connector is.

00:29:59   I think I replaced, the last thing I did on anything small was replace a battery on an iPod,

00:30:08   like the video, I think it was the video iPod, the color video iPod.

00:30:11   And you did that by hand?

00:30:12   And yeah, I did that by hand. And then I was just, I thought like, okay, that was,

00:30:17   that was too hard for my eyes, too hard for my hands. I mean, that was too small for me.

00:30:20   I mean, I still, I'll still replace, you know, on the machines that I can, like I have a Mac Mini,

00:30:25   I'll replace the hard drive and the RAM and stuff like that on that. But I'm not,

00:30:28   I'm not dealing with an iPhone personally. I can't lift the kit. I can't lift the kit.

00:30:32   It's like 80 pounds.

00:30:33   Well, we'll get to that. We'll get to the self-repair program. But for now,

00:30:37   I don't think the self-repair, although it would be funny if the self-repair program, if they added,

00:30:43   this is where you know that Apple is losing their mind is if they added an option to the

00:30:48   self-repair program to do an ad hoc USB-C upgrade to your own iPhone. Do you want a new screen?

00:30:55   A new battery?

00:30:56   Yeah. Can you imagine like where people have places like iFix?

00:30:59   And I do think that this is a little weird. And I know that there's lots of people who've been,

00:31:04   I know this, whenever this iPhone should have USB-C thing comes up, that there are,

00:31:09   it's one of those issues where people, some people are on one side, some people are on the other

00:31:14   side. Like, no, no, keep lightning. I don't want to have new cables all over the place. And you know,

00:31:20   I'm in the middle, which is weird because the people who really want the iPhone to have USB-C

00:31:27   are adamant about it. Like, and they can't fathom either my perspective being ambivalent

00:31:34   or the idea that there are tens, maybe hundreds of millions of people out there who would rather

00:31:42   just keep the chargers they already have and would be annoyed by a new charger. It's a long time.

00:31:48   What was it? The iPhone 5 that went to you, lightning, I believe?

00:31:53   That sounds about right. Yeah. Because I know I have a, yeah, I have a, yeah, I have a 4 and it

00:31:59   definitely has the dock connector. And I assume the 4S did too.

00:32:03   Right. So the dock connector to lightning was an amazing upgrade, right? Because the dock connector

00:32:09   was big and wide and ugly. It's an ugly port. It's so big, right? You could like fit like a

00:32:16   whole quarter in there. The connector itself had sharp little prongs that snapped in. It was,

00:32:23   you know, it doesn't like it would cut you, but it's, it was not a pleasant connector.

00:32:29   Going from that to lightning was clearly an upgrade. It charged faster. It had the capability

00:32:33   of charging faster. I think it has faster data than the old 30 pin thing ever did. It just seemed

00:32:38   like a win and millions and millions of iPhone users were upset and thought it was a money grab

00:32:43   from Apple to sell more cables. Right? People don't like it when the chargers change. And I

00:32:51   don't know, I don't know how many times I have to say it, but a lot of people really don't like it.

00:32:55   And I know like my sister and her husband, I think a lot of couples do this. They get new iPhones

00:33:02   every two years, but they're on the opposite cycle of each other. So like, I don't know,

00:33:08   one year my wife gets a new phone and the next year her husband gets a new iPhone and then the next

00:33:12   year it's my wife's turn and that sort of thing. And they were annoyed because now I don't know

00:33:17   whose year it was for the new iPhone when the iPhone 5 came out, but now they, you know,

00:33:20   one charger in the kitchen couldn't work for both of them. And, you know, she wasn't angry,

00:33:25   you know, but, you know, she was like, why did they do that? And I'm like, well, look at it.

00:33:29   Look how much smaller it is. It's nicer. People, and I know people are like, well,

00:33:34   I have USB-C all over the place where there's a lot of people whose only device is the iPhone.

00:33:38   And the other weird thing is Apple's been putting lightning chargers in everything else, right?

00:33:43   The mice, the key, you know, everybody loves the mouse with the lightning port on the belly.

00:33:47   The Apple TV remote control charges by lightning. The big one I can think of is AirPods. Every

00:33:54   single AirPods case sold the date charges by lightning. So backing out of this and saying,

00:34:01   you know, going, okay, okay, let's just, let's slowly move everything to USB-C. It could do it,

00:34:07   right? You know, and I guess then subsequent, you know, the next versions of AirPods will come out

00:34:12   with a USB-C on the case instead of lightning. And those of us with lightning ones will just,

00:34:18   you know, have a several year transition away from whether we still need a lightning cable around or

00:34:23   not. But it's the thing that's weird to me is if they were going to do it, it seemed to me like

00:34:28   the time to do it was like two or three years ago. That's, that's my bottom line.

00:34:33   Well, I would say that was a better time to do it. I mean, I still think, I still think it's a

00:34:37   decent time to do it now. I, I, I am more in favor of this change simply because I,

00:34:43   every time I try and, well, I shouldn't say that, but I mean, I get a lot of frustration trying to

00:34:48   charge via lightning and that's why I hardly ever do it because I'm mostly with my phone.

00:34:52   I mostly use MagSafe all the time because mostly because my, my lightning port is full of lint

00:34:57   and because, and because I don't, I don't feel like the connector is,

00:35:06   and maybe this is not, maybe this is just my imagination, but I feel like the connector isn't

00:35:10   as long lasting as USB-C has proven to be for me. Cause every time I, every time I plug my,

00:35:15   my iPad in it charges without hesitation. And when I charge, when I, anytime I plug something that is

00:35:24   lightning in, I'm never 100% sure. And it's usually somebody's, it's almost always somebody's

00:35:29   phone because everything else I would charge, like even my AirPods, I charge by MagSafe as well,

00:35:34   or not MagSafe, you know, it's actually cheap, but whatever. So I get this impression that it's

00:35:41   slightly more reliable. So I, I would rather have the thing that's more reliable.

00:35:46   I, you know, and again, I, there, I see pros and cons on both sides. You know, the, the,

00:35:50   the biggest pro for lightning clearly is that there are lightning cables all over the place,

00:35:54   people's cars, their kitchens, their bedsides, wherever they want to have them, they have them.

00:35:58   And we have these other devices from Apple that charge by lightning and it's there.

00:36:04   The downsides are pretty obvious too. Well, number one is, well, there's two, two,

00:36:09   I don't even know which order to put them in. One is that everything else like computers and now

00:36:14   iPads, you know, growing more and more, including like the iPad mini and the new iPad Air,

00:36:19   they charge by USB-C too. And so the packing situation, you know, or, or, you know,

00:36:25   just having a spare charger somewhere and you could use the same charger. You could charge your

00:36:30   MacBook, you could charge your iPad, you could charge your phone. If, if they come out with

00:36:34   new AirPods, whatever, if everything charged by USB-C, then, you know, there's an advantage where

00:36:38   if you have anything that kind of looks like, I don't know from a distance, is that lightning or

00:36:42   USB-C? If they're all USB-C and all your devices are charged by that, that adapter, that's a win.

00:36:47   I get it. And the other big one, and this is where I feel, I know Renee, you know, Richie actually

00:36:54   uses it. So he's, he's more frustrated, but these phones record 4K video, which is really, really

00:37:00   big. And lightning USB top speed is really slow compared to what, what USB-C can transfer. And,

00:37:09   you know, who knows, maybe they'll go Thunderbolt, you know, maybe it looks like a USB-C port and the

00:37:13   iPhone 14 pro or 15 pros, whatever it would be next year, will actually have Thunderbolt speed,

00:37:18   who knows, but whatever it would be even USB-C, USB-3 over a USB-C cable is faster. And I mean,

00:37:25   so much faster that it, you know, makes it practical to shoot 4K video on a phone and get

00:37:31   it off onto your Mac or whatever for editing. It, you know, that something's got to give on that

00:37:35   front. That's the one place where lightning is really sort of at, at wits end or, or tech,

00:37:40   it's the end of its technical life. I just, so I get it. I, I wonder, see, I, I feel like the

00:37:47   natural time to make that transition would have been when they first added the word pro to iPhones,

00:37:52   which was I think the iPhone 11 pro, right? There was the iPhone 11, which was sort of like a,

00:37:58   an XR, right? A 10R and the iPhone 11 pro. And now they have pro phones that, that might've been

00:38:06   the time to do it. Cause that's sort of how they ease the iPad over. Right. And, you know, the iPad

00:38:11   shows how, how Apple can transition a thing that was previously all lightning to USB-C. It's like

00:38:18   a years long thing as it trickles down, but starts at the pro end. And then it gives them a story to

00:38:26   tell, which is look, pros are shooting these big video files. There's rumors even that the subs,

00:38:31   you know, maybe this year, maybe next year, iPhones will be capable of shooting 8K video,

00:38:36   which is, you know, like four times the size of 4K or something. I don't know how big it is,

00:38:40   but it's, you know, sounds big, you know, pros need the data speed pros need higher speed charging.

00:38:46   So we've added pro strength, the USB-C to the iPhone, whatever number pro that that's a story

00:38:52   to tell. And all the headlines all over the web can put all the final ease in that they want,

00:38:59   but it's done and there's a story and it makes sense. And then like the next year, maybe USB-C

00:39:04   trickles to, to the, to the mid range iPhones, you know, the regular non-pro ones, something like

00:39:09   that. I just feel like that the iPhone 11 pro was the year to do it. If they knew they were going to

00:39:14   do it anyway, like why string this along for so much longer? Right. I mean, at this point, if,

00:39:20   if it's two, if it's a year and a half from now, when iPhones first come out with USB-C,

00:39:25   USB-C will be eight years old at that point. Like, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's just the maturing of the

00:39:32   industry and that, you know, maybe I'm a little too biased towards the, the older days when every

00:39:39   couple of years there were new adapters for everything and just, you know, and, and improvements,

00:39:44   right. That, that speed, you know, this is so much faster than that, and this is so much faster than

00:39:49   that. And you just expect something to only have a lifespan of 10 years before it's completely

00:39:54   technically obviated. And, you know, maybe USB-C is, is a, is a port technology that really is going

00:40:00   to have decades, plural, of life and moving to it eight years in is not too late. I don't know. I

00:40:09   just also can't help though, but wonder if Apple had some sort of other plan for a port and it just

00:40:16   hasn't worked out, you know, some kind of like a mag safe type thing that does high-speed charging

00:40:22   data as well and high-speed data, right? Yeah. Because that, and the one thing that really made

00:40:28   me think like, hmm, that would be really interesting for a next generation iPhone port was the 24-inch

00:40:36   iMac that does ethernet over the power cable, right? Like you have one cable that goes from the

00:40:43   wall charger to your iMac 24-inch. And if you want to connect an ethernet cable, you connect it to the

00:40:51   thing that goes into the wall, right? That's a really interesting design because now you've got

00:40:56   this power cable that is doing, I don't know if it's a hundred bit ethernet or what, but,

00:41:01   you know, data and charging over a connector. And I guess the 24-inch iMac doesn't have mag safe,

00:41:07   you know, it doesn't, it's not like that cord comes out of the back easily, but,

00:41:09   you know, you could see how that sort of thinking would do it. But I just wonder if they've hit like

00:41:14   a brick wall on that, if they had like something that they were thinking and they're like, we

00:41:18   better just rather than switch to USB-C for just a few years before we unveil this new thing,

00:41:25   this new technology, we'll just stick with lightning so that there's only one transition,

00:41:30   right? Because that's the thing. That's the thing I want to emphasize. If they do switch the iPhone

00:41:34   to USB-C next year, they have to stick with, they have to have USB-C until there's no charger at all.

00:41:39   Right. And that is the other rumor, right? I mean, the other rumor is that there is a portless

00:41:45   iPhone coming. And it does not seem to make much sense for them to do

00:41:52   two years, right? Or however long it would be and then go portless.

00:41:57   Right. And the thing about going portless, of course, it makes sense in the abstract,

00:42:01   you know, that Apple would prefer no ports. Ports are ugly. Of course, you know, no ports

00:42:05   in the abstract is clearly more aesthetically pleasing and simpler than one port. But the

00:42:14   problem is that neither the charging speed of current inductive charging with mag safe,

00:42:20   or at least on phones, right? Like you can charge your, I mean, Apple can do it, right? Because

00:42:25   MacBooks charge really fast, you know, 87 watts on a 16 inch MacBook Pro or more, maybe, maybe

00:42:31   it's 90 some, I don't know, but you know, close to a hundred watts of charging over a thing that

00:42:36   you can just, you know, boop boop, magnet, magnet in, magnet off. So, but, but the current mag safe

00:42:43   that just goes on the back is so much slower than plugging in a lightning cable with a, you know,

00:42:48   30 watt charger in the wall and data, right? That what's, what's the data if part of the problem

00:42:54   with lightning today is that data transfer is too slow when you've shot these giant gigabyte

00:42:59   video files, what, you know, how, how does it, how does going to wireless technology help that?

00:43:06   It does not. Right. Unless they have something new, right? And theory, they could have something,

00:43:11   you know, you know, I, USB-C should not be, and this is what I wrote back when the EU was

00:43:15   mandating that all phones are all devices, whatever the rules are that, you know, anything that has a

00:43:20   charging needs to be a standard charger. You know, once that law goes, if it were to go on the books,

00:43:25   it, it, it, it's hard to change laws, right? You get a law like that and it's like, oh, well,

00:43:31   then the whole industry will come together and invent something new. That's not really how new

00:43:35   things happen. New things are much more likely to happen from one company with a great idea that

00:43:39   doesn't need to get permission and go through a consortium and reveal their plans to everybody

00:43:44   and get everybody to agree to it. You know, much more likely I, you know, it's something like the

00:43:48   way lightning came out of thin air from Apple without any, you know, need for cooperation from

00:43:54   the industry. And then lo and behold, that inspired the USB consortium to make something much more

00:43:59   lightning like than previous USB connectors. So I don't know. I don't know what to think about it.

00:44:06   I also think it's a little weird too, that it's a next year thing. I mean, and I know, you know,

00:44:11   I famously love to reiterate that, you know, the iPhones are pretty much set about a year in

00:44:16   advance. It's just, there's no other way to make a hundred million iPhones a year than to sort of

00:44:21   lock in the design at least a year in advance. Probably most decisions are made more than a year

00:44:26   in advance. And, and whenever I write about it, if little birdies give me tips, they often even

00:44:31   suggest that even I'm too optimistic about how late in the game they can make changes, you know,

00:44:37   and how, you know, you know, and it, it, but it's, you know, so I'm not saying that it, it,

00:44:45   at this point, you know, like in April, 2022, last month that Apple could say, Hey, maybe next year

00:44:51   we'll switch to USB-C, you know, this is whatever the discussion is inside Apple. It is, it has been

00:44:58   ongoing for a very long time, but it does seem slightly, I don't know, just seems like a weird

00:45:03   time. I don't know. I don't know what else to say about it. Yeah, I was, I was, I started,

00:45:12   I think I started out thinking, Oh yeah, sure. Why not? Now I am, you know, I'm,

00:45:15   actually this does this make sense at all? What's the, and I guess Gurman said they're going to ship

00:45:20   a little dongle, you know, of course, I guess, but imagine like that's, that's. Well, they already

00:45:25   ship a dongle in like certain markets, right? They should go in the other way, obviously. Yeah. But

00:45:30   man, talk about something is it'd be easy to lose. I don't know why. Yeah. Why would, Oh man. Yeah.

00:45:34   It's I don't know. When was the last time they shipped a dongle that, you know, that, I mean,

00:45:41   they make the headphone, the headphone, they shipped the headphone dongle, right? Yeah. Yeah.

00:45:46   Maybe that's what the, the lightning to USB-C thing would be like, maybe instead of like a

00:45:53   little, just a little like pen cap, you know, like the the cap for an Apple pencil lightning port,

00:46:00   you know, the original, you know how the original pencil had a lightning port and had a little cap

00:46:06   you could lose, you know, maybe instead of a little thing like that, that you snap on the

00:46:10   end of the lightning cable, turn it to a USB-C, maybe it would be a little cable, like a little

00:46:15   two inch cable, which I feel like for the headphone thing, it's not that I don't feel like making it a

00:46:20   cable made it more useful. I think it just made it less likely to lose. You know what I mean? Yeah.

00:46:26   I've always thought that that might be the reason why it's not just a little snap-on thing, that

00:46:30   it's, it's sort of a little cable, because it's, it's less likely that you'd lose it.

00:46:34   I, did I ever tell you about— People sure complained about losing, people sure

00:46:39   complained about losing them though. Did I, did I ever tell you about the time I lost—

00:46:42   I'm not sure that stopped anybody. I lost the cap to my first Apple pencil on an Amtrak train,

00:46:48   and it, it fell behind like into the butt, you know, the, the crack at your butt on the seat.

00:46:56   And I thought, "Ah!" And it was like, I don't know what happened. It was—

00:46:59   The crack in the, the, the, the seat's butt. Yeah, your butt.

00:47:01   Yeah, the seat's butt. I was like, "Ah, man!" And it was like at the time when it's like,

00:47:04   we're pulling up towards the station and everybody who's getting off—I don't know if I was getting

00:47:08   off, it was either, I always get off at either New York or I'm back home in Philly. Either I

00:47:12   was getting to New York or I was, I was getting home to Philly, and it was still daytime,

00:47:16   so I could see, and I like, got in there and like turned on my iPhone flashlight and was looking

00:47:21   back there, and I saw it, and it looked like maybe I could reach it, but there's, there's a lot of

00:47:28   stuff back there, you know, like— I was gonna say, I don't think you want to reach in there.

00:47:33   I think there's like pieces of gum that Joe Biden chewed in like 1979, you know, while riding the

00:47:38   same train to, to Congress. I mean, there is some, there is some old, old—I mean, the, you know,

00:47:44   Amtrak trains are very clean. I like riding Amtrak, but, you know, underneath the seat,

00:47:49   back there, they don't, they don't hose those, they don't hose those areas down. I,

00:47:54   I kiss that cap up to the Amtrak gods. God bless you.

00:47:58   Right.

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00:49:03   that they say uses like an odor repellent or absorbent technology, that sounds like bullshit

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00:50:08   Next on my list, I guess we could talk self-repair kit, right? I wrote about that. I honestly thought

00:50:15   I was losing my mind. I know I put it in my article about Sean Hollister's "Peace at the

00:50:19   Verge." I honest to God, I said that I could not tell if I was being pranked or joked as a sarcasm,

00:50:25   because it seems to me like the Apple self-repair program is exactly what people have been asking

00:50:29   for for this whole 10, 15-year stretch of, "Hey, this kind of stinks that people can't—there's

00:50:37   no good way to repair your own Apple stuff when it's out of warranty." Or just do something like

00:50:42   replace a cracked screen or, "Hey, my phone is great. Everything's great about it except

00:50:47   the battery. I've been using this thing for two and a half years or three years, and the battery

00:50:50   isn't as good as it used to be. I just need a new battery. Shouldn't I be able to do it at home

00:50:54   if I want to?" And they've made this program where they send you all of the professional tools—like,

00:51:01   seriously, like thousands of dollars, like $1,500 in professional tools—to do the job,

00:51:06   as well as if you follow their instructions, as well as it gets done in the Apple store.

00:51:10   And now here come the articles, and they say, "This stinks." I don't get it. I don't get it.

00:51:18   I mean, am I the only—you know, a couple people wrote to me and said, "Hey, I thought I was the

00:51:23   only one who thought I was losing my mind when The Verge ran that story." But—

00:51:26   Well, see, yeah, if Apple's going to do something, it seems like they're going to do it like, "This

00:51:30   is the thing you need," right? "This is the one thing that you need, and it's going to cover

00:51:34   everything, and we're going to ship this one thing, and there you go. You got your stuff, right?"

00:51:38   Right.

00:51:39   And that's what they did. And it does happen to be a lot bigger than you'd think for just

00:51:48   whatever the one thing is that you're trying to do, but that's not really what it's for.

00:51:51   Hollister literally wrote, "I expected Apple would send me a small

00:51:58   italics box of screwdrivers, spudgers, and pliers." If that was the case, that you could just do it

00:52:05   with a spudger, do the proper job with a spudger, a pliers, and a couple of screwdrivers, there

00:52:11   wouldn't even need to be a self-repair program. They would just, you know—and I know that's the

00:52:16   one thing people have pointed out after I wrote my article, that iFixit will sell you a kit that

00:52:21   kind of is just a bunch of spudgers and screwdrivers and pliers, and that you can,

00:52:27   you know, some people, you can repair, swap a battery out of an iPhone using things like that,

00:52:33   but that's not the right way to do the job. And a lot of the people who told me that they've done

00:52:38   it—and they're not even angry people, but then they mention things like, "Yeah, you know, like,

00:52:42   the seal isn't as good as, you know, like a factory seal, but it's good, you know, it's good

00:52:45   enough for me or good enough for this iPhone that my kid now uses because it's three and a half years

00:52:49   old." It's like, the point is, when you go to Apple, if you go to the Apple store and say, "I

00:52:54   would like to get this battery replaced," and then, you know, "I guess you need an appointment," or

00:52:57   whatever, and they say, "Okay," and then you come in and you say, "I have an appointment to get this

00:53:03   iPhone 11 battery swapped," then they, you know, you fill out some stuff on an iPad and then you

00:53:08   hand it over to one of the geniuses, and they say, like, "Come back in 45 minutes," or, you know,

00:53:13   "We can text you," or, you know, I get, you know, it's hard when they have your phone, but, you know,

00:53:18   if you have somebody with you, they could text the person, and then you come back, and then they show

00:53:23   you the phone, and the phone looks brand new, you know, or, you know, it has whatever scratches might

00:53:29   have been on the side, but, like, the seal of the screen, Apple's giving you back this phone that,

00:53:34   when they give it back to you, has the same waterproof and dustproof guarantees that it did

00:53:39   when you, when it was brand new, and, except now you have a brand new battery in it. That's what

00:53:43   they're, you know, nothing less than that would be suitable for an official self-repair program,

00:53:48   right? Like, you can't say, like, "Oh, yeah, you could do the official Apple self-repair program,

00:53:53   but now, you know, don't get your phone wet. Don't take it out in the rain."

00:53:55   People, you know, it's like a damn, it really is like the definition of damned if they do,

00:54:02   damned if they don't, and damned if they do nothing, right? Like, so for years,

00:54:06   for years, people said they should have a repair program. They should have a repair program. Now

00:54:11   they said, "Okay, we have a repair program," and the repair program involves you getting,

00:54:15   yes, 79 pounds of professional-grade tools and machinery, and in very nice cases, cases that

00:54:21   themselves, I priced them out, look like they could, about $500 worth of Pelican cases to keep

00:54:27   this stuff safe during shipping, which Apple pays for, the shipping of these 79-pound tools,

00:54:32   and, you know, they've got nice wheels, you know, so you can, you know, because they weigh 79

00:54:36   pounds, you know, you can wheel them around to get them where you need them. If Apple instead just

00:54:41   sent you a couple of spudgers and pliers and screwdrivers, people, you know, the articles would

00:54:45   say Apple's self-repair program doesn't give you the tools to do the job properly. I'd,

00:54:51   I don't see, I, my question is, what should Apple have done differently? And I can't,

00:54:55   I can't come up with anything. This seems like it's like the perfect, I almost worry that it's

00:55:00   a sign of how cynical our whole industry has gotten of, you know, anything, any, it's like

00:55:06   anything, now that Apple, you know, there's this big tech rubric and anything, any of these big

00:55:11   tech companies do is immediately viewed with cynicism and that it must be, it must be cynical.

00:55:17   It must be, there must be some catch to this. And I think, you know, sometimes.

00:55:21   Well, weirdly, weirdly, they're cynical about some things, but they're not, they're,

00:55:25   you know, I think about the Verge in particular and when the essential phone was first being

00:55:35   rumored and first, you know, going around before the thing actually shipped and they were,

00:55:40   they were gaga over the essential phone. And yet when this thing comes out, this is a big problem

00:55:46   we have to talk about. Wait, what was wrong with the essential phone though? Is it, that's not the

00:55:51   one that was like Legos. That's the one from Andy, Andy Rubin. So they, no, they were, they, they

00:55:58   were wide-eyed and just like, Oh my gosh, the essential, this is like, there's this new thing

00:56:03   it's coming. It's Andy Rubin. It's going to be, you know, and see me to my eye, very uncritical

00:56:09   about the whole idea. Right. Right. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Boy, that didn't work out.

00:56:15   And the thing is like, they're not making you buy this equipment. No,

00:56:18   but they said, they said, Oh yeah, you want to change your battery. You got to,

00:56:21   you got to spend $5,000 on them, but they, these boxes of Pelican boxes full of equipment,

00:56:27   but they will sell them to you. So, you know, like, you know, and so like, I don't, I'm taking,

00:56:34   I'm trying, my position is sort of a middle ground. Like I see how the right to repair

00:56:41   petitioners have had some, had some good points all along. And I always thought they did. And I

00:56:46   do think that their pressure on Apple has forced, you know, not forced Apple, but motivated Apple

00:56:52   to do this program before this program. It was either give it to Apple itself or give it to one

00:56:57   of Apple's certified Apple repairs. And now, you know, they're saying, look, anybody can buy this

00:57:05   equipment. So like, if you live in rural Montana or Idaho or something like that, you don't live

00:57:10   anywhere near an Apple store and there isn't an Apple certified repair center, but there is like a

00:57:16   place in town where there's, you know, like a repair your phone shop, you know, which are all

00:57:21   over the place, right? Every mall has them at a kiosk, you know, where you can pay less to get

00:57:25   third-party replacements of cracked screens and stuff like that for all sorts of phones.

00:57:29   Those people, those outfits can buy these same tools for, for doing this, right? I think that's

00:57:35   great. That's a great win that you can buy the actual tools that Apple uses and that Apple

00:57:40   certifies and follow Apple's own instructions that use those tools. This is all just a great win.

00:57:46   And yet the articles are such complaints about it. I didn't even get to Brian Chen at the New

00:57:49   York Times. Did you read that one? I did not read that one. I saw somebody else talking about it,

00:57:55   though. So Brian Chen, he, the personal technology columnist for the New York Times, whose

00:58:01   years long campaign is that people shouldn't worry about the quality of the photos that their

00:58:07   picture, that their phones take. That's the, the official stance repeatedly across numerous reviews

00:58:13   over the years is that normal, everybody out there shouldn't worry about whether a new iPhone would

00:58:18   take better photos because I don't know why, which is nonsense. But he, he wrote a column where he

00:58:25   got the toolkit and wanted to swap out the battery on an iPhone 12 and found the instructions daunting.

00:58:32   And again, that's what Apple has said all along, right? It's like, that's part of the complaint is

00:58:37   like, Hey, this is all complicated. This is a lot of work. Apple, that's why I stopped doing stuff

00:58:43   like that. Right? Exactly. Apple has been saying no for all along. Like, why don't they allow,

00:58:49   why don't they make it so you can just buy a battery and replace it yourself? And their

00:58:52   answer has been, it is, these are very complicated devices that are packed in very, very precisely

00:58:58   and require special tools, complicated steps and much precision and care while doing it to repair

00:59:05   properly. And people are like, ah, you know, you're just making money on a battery. You're, you're,

00:59:10   you're making money on batteries, which they're not. I I've, I've gotten so many emails from

00:59:14   people too, over the years who work at Apple stores who are like, Oh my God, there is no way we make

00:59:18   money on these things. Cause people come in and we'll just replace batteries. You know, it's,

00:59:22   you know, $69 doesn't even come close to, you know, you know, it's like an hour of somebody's

00:59:26   work. It's, you know, it's a great deal. It really is a good deal, but people don't believe it. They

00:59:32   just think there must be some catch and everything's about making money. And then you actually, they

00:59:38   have the program, you get the instructions and the people who've been saying, ah, for all these years

00:59:43   are like, Hey, this is complicated and requires precision. And it seems like you kind of need

00:59:47   practice and training to do it, you know, easily. And I don't know what to do. And it's like,

00:59:52   that's what Apple's been saying for years about why they don't do this. It's exactly it. And they

00:59:56   act like Apple never said it. It's you know what I mean? It's like, if you go buy a slice of pizza

01:00:02   and the guy is like, Hey, Hey, that's going to be super hot. You better wait. And then you take a

01:00:06   bite right away. And you're like, Hey, I just burnt my tongue, burnt the roof of my mouth.

01:00:11   The guy just told you that. So Brian Chen has an iPhone 12. I don't know if it was a mini or not,

01:00:18   it doesn't matter, but he wants to swap the battery. And he enlisted the help of a friend

01:00:23   who in San Francisco, who does repairs and he's helped Brian Chen with other devices over the

01:00:28   years, got his help. And the friend had a spare iPhone 12, a broken one. And they were like, well,

01:00:35   let's practice on this one that's actually a broken iPhone 12, but it's the same size. We can

01:00:40   use the same tools and we'll open it up. And they opened it up and it's like, okay, I think we got

01:00:43   it. Let's operate on the real one. And Chen puts the phone in, it's like step one is take the

01:00:50   screws out. And then step two is you put it in like the little easy bake oven to warm it up,

01:00:56   to get the glue soft. And then you take the screen off. Well, he puts it in the easy bake oven and

01:01:02   starts prying the screen off. And the guy's like, Whoa, whoa, would you take the screws out? And

01:01:05   he's like, Oh, I forgot. Well, it turns out he broke the screen because he didn't take the

01:01:10   screws out, melted it and lifted the screen and then blames Apple. Right. I swear to God. And then

01:01:17   they go through with the repair. They still swap out the battery, put it all back together. And now

01:01:22   the screen's all jacked because he pried it out while the screws were connected. And it's Apple's

01:01:29   fault. I mean, you can't make this up. I honestly felt like I was losing my mind and I didn't see

01:01:38   his story until after I was like, all right, I got to write about this Verge piece from Sean Hollister.

01:01:42   I spent the day writing it. And as soon as I'm done, somebody sent me a thing and they were like,

01:01:48   Hey, I loved your piece on the Verge self repair thing. I don't get these guys like him and Chen

01:01:53   with, you know, blaming the tools when it's clearly their problem. And I'm like, Oh no,

01:01:58   Oh no. And I go and look, he forgot to take the screws out and pried the screen off and blames

01:02:05   Apple for the complicated process. I mean, how do you even make that up? Yeah.

01:02:11   I don't get it. All right. Let me thank, let me thank our last sponsor. We have one more sponsor

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01:04:18   So you're not going to get one of these kits is what I'm hearing.

01:04:47   I get it. You know, I'm glad. This is nothing but good news that more people will have these

01:04:53   tools and be able to perform these repairs. Just with WWDCs coming up, I don't really have much to

01:04:58   say about it. I guess we know a little bit more about Apple's plans that, you know, it is... I

01:05:02   don't think they've said how many developers have been invited for the quote "special day."

01:05:06   But it is more and more clear. I don't know why they haven't said, I guess, I don't know,

01:05:20   Apple's gonna Apple. I just love it. It's like, just fine.

01:05:26   But I guess the people who are going know that right now, right? Or at least they had

01:05:29   sent some invitations or some responses out. Yeah, I think everybody who got in who won the

01:05:34   raffle or the lottery, whatever you want to call it, knows and they can make plans and I guess RSVP

01:05:39   and Apple can see if there's people who didn't RSVP and maybe invite people from a waiting list.

01:05:45   I don't know. But still unclear where and how they'll be watching. Is it indoors? Is it outdoors?

01:05:53   I sort of suspect it has to be outdoors because I don't think they have an indoor facility for as

01:05:58   many people. I think there's going to be many hundreds of developers, maybe a thousand. I would

01:06:04   expect a big crowd. So I think that means outside like Steve Jobs theater cannot fit a thousand

01:06:08   people, not even close. So we'll see. I don't really have much to say about it though. I mean,

01:06:12   I'm intrigued by how it goes and intrigued to see how this dev center that apparently will be part

01:06:19   of their day and something that they can tour, what that'll be like. Don't really have anything

01:06:23   to add though. I don't, you know, anything you're expecting from WWDC? No, it's a weird,

01:06:28   it seems like a kind of a weird year as to what the, what if any hardware announcements

01:06:35   there might be? Yeah. I know some people are sort of hoping, you know, obviously the big one would

01:06:39   be the AR goggle thing. Will they announce it in advance and say, this is coming later this year,

01:06:45   but here's what it's like and you can start building software for it, you know, by using the

01:06:52   AR stuff on iPhones and iPads with LIDAR, you know, it will there be a message like that? I

01:06:58   sort of think no, cause I just don't think that's WWDC. Like I don't think WWDC is where they would

01:07:06   announce a new platform. I sort of, if I had, if I were a betting man and you know, I don't,

01:07:11   I don't like to gamble, John. I would gamble or lie. I would, I would, I don't, I don't, I do not

01:07:17   like the lie either, but I would guess that they will not unveil any new hardware platforms at WWDC,

01:07:25   you know, maybe the, I still think the Mac Pro is a sleeper. I really think that there's a chance

01:07:30   that they might announce the, the, the M1 Ultra Mac Pro. And I know like Gurman has said, that's

01:07:37   a next year thing. It just seems weird. Seems weird to me that there wouldn't be any part of

01:07:42   before they go to the M2 later in the year and start the next generation of Apple Silicon.

01:07:48   Just seems weird that the Mac Pro would have been a no pro. No pro. I agree. I agree. I sort of,

01:07:53   I mean, I'm sort of just assumed that there would be one. And then Gurman said, no, it's going to,

01:07:58   it's going to start with the, he seems to think it makes more sense to start at the top of the M2

01:08:02   and then trickle down to the, which I find weird. Yeah. That doesn't make sense to me. And it just

01:08:08   seems to me that, you know, an Apple's a company of patterns, but always, you know, the first thing

01:08:12   can always be, be the, the abnormal one that doesn't fit the eventual pattern. But to me,

01:08:19   it makes more sense that the pattern would be, you see the M, the, the M2 family will follow the M1.

01:08:26   We'll, we'll see the just plain M2 with no adjective and baseline specs. And it'll be in the

01:08:33   main product that Apple makes the MacBook Air or maybe MacBook Airs if they go to two sizes,

01:08:40   which would be great. I think, you know, I'd love to see them make consumer price laptops in a,

01:08:45   in a bigger size or a smaller size or, you know, go, go, go 11th, 11, 13, 15 or something like

01:08:52   that or 12, 14, 16. I don't know, but, or at least two sizes, that would be great. A new Mac mini

01:08:57   with more capabilities and then roll out from there with updated MacBook Pros, eventually a new,

01:09:05   I guess, a new 24-inch iMac with the M2 just plain, et cetera, et cetera. But at some point,

01:09:11   you got to work the Mac Pro in and I just sort of feel, you know, WWDC would be perfect. That's

01:09:17   when they unveiled the current Mac Pro was at WWDC along with the Pro Display XDR. And, you know,

01:09:23   and they said it'll be coming later this year. Maybe it won't be shipping until later in the year.

01:09:28   But I feel like, you know, WWDC is the perfect place to announce it because develop, you know,

01:09:32   they're very clear about it. One of the biggest markets for buying the top of the line Mac Pros

01:09:38   are developers. So that seems natural, but it doesn't seem like people are talking about it

01:09:43   maybe because, you know, Gurman says next year and so much of our rumor ecosystem comes down to just

01:09:50   Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo, right? It's like, you know, it really, we've got like two people in

01:09:55   the world who like 90 some percent of the reliable Apple rumors come from.

01:10:00   So people—

01:10:02   It seems weird to be announcing things in opposite speed order, right? It seems like your story is a

01:10:10   lot easier to tell if you're announcing things. Every time you're announcing something, it's

01:10:14   faster than the thing that you announced the last time.

01:10:16   Right. And it doesn't seem—

01:10:17   Whereas if you announce the M2 Ultra, Max, whatever, before you announce the regular M2,

01:10:24   you're like, "Oh yeah, this is way slower than the thing that we announced at WWDC."

01:10:28   I am about to gravely gloss over the incredible hard work and expertise of Apple's entire silicon

01:10:35   team under Johnny Suruji. But basically, it seems like the way they do it is they come out with an

01:10:41   M blank, like the M1, and then they just start gluing them together, you know? And then you've

01:10:47   got one that's two M1s, and that's like the M1 Pro. And then you've got—just glue two more on

01:10:54   the bottom, and now you've got like a little square of four of them, that's an Ultra. And then,

01:10:57   you know, maybe they put two Ultras on other sides of a board, and that's the Mac Pro. Or maybe they

01:11:02   put eight of these Ultras in there and charge you $40,000. I don't know. But you just keep glue—you

01:11:07   know, you come out with the M1, the M2, the M3, and you can just glue these things together

01:11:12   and make faster—

01:11:14   That is about as reductive as you can get.

01:11:16   Yeah, it's, you know, I don't know. It doesn't sound that hard to me, but it does seem to me

01:11:20   that you can't—it just seems—but like you said, it seems backwards to say they're going to

01:11:26   announce one with eight M2s glued together before they come out with just the plain M2 and a MacBook

01:11:33   Air with a new design. It seems backwards.

01:11:35   There's two guys who won't replace a battery talking.

01:11:38   I don't even want to unscrew the thing. I don't want to take the screws out.

01:11:42   No, I don't either.

01:11:43   Oh, you know—

01:11:44   I'm going to mess it up.

01:11:45   You know how easy it would be to lose those screws with my—

01:11:47   Oh my god, I've lost them already.

01:11:49   I don't know. And I also think—I do think that the lower in quantity a product is produced,

01:11:58   the better, for obvious reasons. Like, you don't have to be a friggin' brainiac to figure this out.

01:12:02   That the more niche an Apple product is, the better they are at keeping it secret until

01:12:08   they unveil it. So the iPhone, which they sell like $100 million of a quarter,

01:12:12   leaks—every detail of it leaks, except maybe the colors and stuff like that. Because there's just

01:12:18   too many of them. There's like giant cities in China that are making these things, you know,

01:12:24   that are making iPhones. Whereas the Mac Pro, you know, they do it—maybe they're still going to do

01:12:29   it in Texas. It's like one factory. It's a lot easier to keep something like that under wraps,

01:12:33   right? The best example I can think of is the 24-inch iMac, which was a complete surprise,

01:12:37   right? It's like they sort of were rumors that there'd be an iMac, but the fact that it was so

01:12:42   thin and it came in those colors, all of it was a nice surprise. If they could keep the iMac 24

01:12:48   under wraps, I think, you know, I totally believe that they could have a Mac Pro ready to announce

01:12:53   10 days from now or whatever the date is. And, you know, that would be the hardware announcement

01:12:57   of WWDC. Goggles—that seems to me like a fall thing, whether it's going to go on sale soon or

01:13:03   whether they're going to pull an Apple Watch timeline and say, "We're announcing this now.

01:13:08   We're showing it to you now. We want developers to get started now, but this will be available

01:13:12   early next year," you know, which means April. I could see that. It just feels like a fall thing.

01:13:17   I could see that too. I would bet on that just because, man, they would want to get

01:13:25   more things in a row before they ship something like that. And I was skeptical that they would

01:13:30   be announcing it this summer. It just doesn't seem like there's enough going on around it.

01:13:35   I know that they apparently showed it to the board and stuff like that, so I guess it's getting

01:13:40   to the point where it's a real actual thing, but it doesn't seem like it's in huge production or

01:13:46   anything for sure. Yeah, that was a funny leak, and I wrote about it like, "God, I would love to

01:13:50   know how that leaked," because the story that leaked to Germin, right? I want to get this right.

01:13:56   I think so, yeah.

01:13:56   It was either Germin or Ming-Chi Kuo because that's where—

01:14:00   But that's not the kind of leak that would go to Ming-Chi Kuo.

01:14:02   No, it wasn't.

01:14:03   His stuff comes from—

01:14:04   Asia, and Germin's stuff comes from California. No, but somehow somebody was aware of the fact

01:14:08   that Apple put together a demo of the current state of the project for the Apple board,

01:14:13   and, "God, I would love to know how that leaked." I mean, I know some people are joking that it's

01:14:19   Al Gore, which would be hilarious, really, but I just think—I'd love to know it, but I don't know

01:14:26   that that means that it's imminent, right? It just seems like that's the sort of thing that,

01:14:31   "Oh, yeah, somebody on the board could say, 'Yeah, big deal. We saw the Apple Watch 18 months

01:14:36   before it shipped, and it was a prototype, and it didn't work right,' or had this, that, and the

01:14:41   other to come." I don't know that that really means anything other than that it's real, and we sort of

01:14:45   knew that it's real. The other thing, though, that would be a big tell, I think, would be if the only

01:14:50   hardware might be the Mac Pro, there's no news of any AR-specific hardware, but if the developer

01:14:56   news of the year involves lots of new AR stuff for the iPhone and iPad, right? And then it would be

01:15:04   like, "Yeah, gee, I wonder why they're trying to—"

01:15:06   Yeah, "What's this for?"

01:15:08   Yeah, "Why is Mike Rockwell up there talking about ARKit 3 when nobody—" In my opinion,

01:15:14   I just think—I think it's cool, and I've used it, and it's a nice toy, and the measuring thing

01:15:19   is a neat gimmick, but for the most part, people, as far as I can tell, aren't really doing lots of

01:15:24   AR stuff in the real world with their iPhones and iPads. But that doesn't mean that it's a waste

01:15:29   of Apple's effort that they've been building ARKit up over the last few years. It just seems like

01:15:35   it's sort of like getting developers into this and building stuff into their iOS apps

01:15:43   with future AR-native hardware in mind. I think that's pretty clear.

01:15:50   Only last thing on my list for the day is to toast the iPod.

01:15:55   Oh, yeah!

01:15:57   Yeah, so this is my first show since the demise of the iPod Touch, the last iPod.

01:16:02   Yeah, which is sort of an iPod in name only, right? I mean—

01:16:06   Yeah, yeah.

01:16:07   It's an iPhone without the phone part, so in that regard, it's a—and it plays music. But

01:16:13   I mean, the iPod iPod was discontinued quite a while ago.

01:16:18   Yeah, there was a couple articles—it's always a good time to look back, but it is funny.

01:16:22   Yeah, sure.

01:16:23   One thing that sticks out to me is how brief the iPod era really was, right? So it came out in 2001,

01:16:29   famously right after 9/11, that's how I remember. It was sort of a niche Mac-only product for two

01:16:35   years. Then around 2003 is when they moved to Windows.

01:16:39   God, it was that long? It was two years?

01:16:41   I think it was two years. It really exploded in popularity at that point. I think a combination—you

01:16:48   know, obviously going to Windows—

01:16:48   Things moved slower back then. Things moved slower. Technology moved slower, right?

01:16:53   Some things moved slower and some moved faster. It still blows my mind when I did that a couple

01:17:00   months ago and wrote that timeline of the original iPhone project. It still blows my mind that they

01:17:05   went from, "Okay, let's do it. Let's build our own friggin' phone," to "Steve Jobs holding it

01:17:10   up," to six months later, "me having one in my hand from an Apple store." It was like two years.

01:17:15   That's kind of crazy. But other stuff did go slow, right? It was funny. Somebody had a gallery of all

01:17:22   the iPods over the years. You know which one I always forget? I always forget the white one that

01:17:27   had the buttons, the four buttons above the click wheel that were in a row. I don't know. I never

01:17:36   liked that one because it seemed to me like— Those were touch buttons, right? Yeah, I think

01:17:41   I had that one. I probably still have it here someplace.

01:17:43   I don't know. It was like just having a wheel that you could click seemed so elegant, and putting

01:17:48   buttons on top of it sort of seemed—I don't know. It almost seemed like a knockoff iPod.

01:17:53   It seemed contrary to the original Spirit. There definitely were a lot of them and a myriad of

01:18:01   designs, right? I mean, compared to the phone, which has always been a rectangle with a screen.

01:18:09   Obviously, the design dictates the fact that it's not going to change very much.

01:18:16   Well, or compared to the watch to bring this episode full circle, right? This is a professional

01:18:23   podcast. Right now, we're bringing it full circle. But the fact that you could take the original Apple

01:18:29   Watch Series 0 and at arm's length not really tell it apart from today's Apple Watch, they really

01:18:35   nailed the basic form factor with Apple Watch, whereas the iPods really were such a playground

01:18:42   for industrial design. It wasn't like that the original was a bad design, but the fact that just

01:18:48   a few years into the iPods, relatively brief life cycle of relevance, right? 2001 introduction,

01:18:55   two years of obscurity, a couple of years as a smash pop culture hit, and then the iPhone came

01:19:02   out and was like, "Why do I need an iPod?" And I know there's lots and lots of people who still

01:19:06   use their iPods for other reasons and don't want to just have their $1,000 phone playing their

01:19:10   music if they go running and blah, blah, blah. But for the most part, once the iPhone came out,

01:19:14   the writing was on the wall like, "Oh, right. This is the one thing in my pocket that'll play all my

01:19:19   music," and all this other stuff. It's just so interesting that even in that brief period,

01:19:25   it went through the transition of, "Isn't this amazing? We have a 1.8-inch spinning hard drive

01:19:31   that nobody else knows what to do, and we can put 5,000 songs on this thing that's the size of a

01:19:35   deck of cards." And within like four years, there was an iPod Nano with flash memory, and you could

01:19:42   stack like eight of them in the space of an original iPod. Yeah. I had a Rio, I think,

01:19:50   before—yeah, it was a Rio before the iPod came out, which I used for quite a while,

01:19:54   but it was always such a pain because you had a tiny little flash media in it, and you had to

01:20:01   swap songs out. It would hold like 30 songs at most, and it was constantly just like, "I'm tired

01:20:07   of this song. I've got to connect it to the computer again, and I've got to move things

01:20:10   around." And then you get the iPod, and it's like, "Oh, I'm just going to throw it all on there."

01:20:16   Amy had one that held like 11 songs. It was really, really tight, but she loved it. She

01:20:21   loved it, but every day you'd be like— Oh, yeah, well, it was so much better than carrying a tape

01:20:26   or a disc, like a CD player or something like that. Well, that's it. That's it from me, John.

01:20:30   It was good to have you. My thanks to you. I love talking to you. Force be with you.

01:20:34   Force be with you as well.

01:20:37   [LAUGHTER]