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

0:00:00I don't know. Should I say something about the Texas thing?

0:00:02That's not funny.

0:00:03I know.

0:00:04We were laughing, and then now it's not funny anymore.

0:00:07I know.

0:00:08Yeah, I mean, I guess so. We probably should. It's...

0:00:10I think I should say something quick.

0:00:13We're both parents, right?

0:00:14I mean, I assume that Jonas's school had drills and stuff like that as he was going through. I

0:00:22mean, our kids are almost out, so...

0:00:24They sort of did. Our school wasn't hardcore about the drills, but it's,

0:00:29you know, whenever these things come up, it's always a big deal.

0:00:32And lots of rules. I mean, so stupid. Lots of rules about the doors.

0:00:37Blah, blah, blah.

0:00:39Yeah, well, you know, if you talk to certain Texas politicians,

0:00:41they'll tell you the doors of the problem.

0:00:43Yeah. Well, maybe this is the show. I don't usually comment on current events like this

0:00:47on the show, but this week with the school shooting, the massacre, I don't know what

0:00:51you want to call it. I don't want to sugarcoat it in Uvalde, Texas. I don't want to spend the

0:00:57show. I've been linking about it. I've been writing about it, so I feel like I shouldn't

0:01:02ignore it, and I want everybody to know I'm thinking about it. I mean, I think everybody

0:01:06is, but I also think it's good. I think it's good to have other things to think about,

0:01:10so this show is not going to dwell on it. I mean, it's not our show, you know. And we'll

0:01:14have a good time, and we'll laugh, and we'll do our usual John and John goofing around thing,

0:01:18but it's in no way ever at this point leaving my mind, and probably everybody listening this,

0:01:23everybody's thinking about it in their back of their mind to some degree.

0:01:27Hard to pick it up after talking about it.

0:01:30No, no. We had talked about possibly talking about Obi-Wan, but it starts out with—well,

0:01:37if you haven't seen it, spoiler alert—it starts out with sort of a school shooting, right?

0:01:40Yeah.

0:01:42Which is terrible, you know, which is really unfortunate, obviously, and I don't even think—I

0:01:47guess it didn't even occur to Disney that it was somehow similar. And I didn't notice it when I

0:01:53watched the show, but a bunch of people were saying, "Boy, that was tough to see after,

0:01:58you know, what happened this week." And—

0:02:01Yeah, I watched it with Jonas last night, and again, we'll do no spoilers here,

0:02:08no serious spoilers for the first two episodes of Obi-Wan, but I—

0:02:13It's a flashback. It's a flashback to General Order 6.

0:02:15Right.

0:02:15Is that really it?

0:02:17Yeah, but it, you know, the timing is—you know, and if funny, somebody told me—I have not watched

0:02:21it yet, but somebody told me that Stranger Things season four, which dropped last week,

0:02:26also has some sort of thing with kids and getting hurt, and, you know, it's not an unreasonable

0:02:32thing to put in a work of fiction, but unfortunately, these—

0:02:36Yeah, that's the thing that I was thinking, like, it's not the—and the problem is not

0:02:39really the fiction. The problem is the reality.

0:02:42Right, and it's like, imagine if you put in to a work of fiction and it happened to drop last

0:02:47weekend a volcano erupting, you know. The odds of that actually happening in the real world around

0:02:54the same time are pretty low. It doesn't—you know, it's pretty rare, thankfully. I guess

0:02:58something like, you know, a gun massacre of kids at a school is the likelihood, at least in one

0:03:04country, not naming names, in one country, you have a pretty high likelihood of running into

0:03:10current events. Well, have you heard about the flat Apple Watch?

0:03:14Is this the same—is the flat Apple Watch the same thing as the one that was supposedly going to have

0:03:19edges like the current iPhones? Yeah, that's the idea.

0:03:23Yeah, okay. Right.

0:03:24Then yes, I've heard about the flat Apple Watch, but that was rumored earlier, right,

0:03:31and then it never came, and the Series 7 came out with just a larger screen.

0:03:35Yeah. And—

0:03:37Here, let's hold that thought. Now it's back.

0:03:40Let's work on this wonderful segue. Let me take a break here and get our first—have our first

0:03:45break on the show and say a good word about our good friends at Squarespace. You guys know

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0:04:07that through Squarespace. They even have things like member areas, where it's easy for creators

0:04:11to monetize their content and expertise in a way that fits their brand with member areas.

0:04:15You can unlock a new revenue stream for your business and free up time in your schedule by

0:04:19selling access to gated content for your members only, like videos and online courses if you want

0:04:25to teach people stuff or run tutorials type thing and sell access to them, or paid newsletters. You

0:04:31can do all of that through Squarespace. It is just the place to go. And if anybody you know is looking

0:04:37to start something like that online, you can send them to Squarespace and use the same code,

0:04:41squarespace.com/talkshow. You get a great deal. You get 10% off your first purchase with that code,

0:04:48talk show, squarespace.com/talkshow. Ten percent off your first order and you can prepay for a year,

0:04:53save 10% on a whole year with that code. My thanks to Squarespace. Yeah, that's a segue. See,

0:04:59you put a sponsor in there and now it feels a little bit more natural. Yeah, the rumor,

0:05:03I think John Prosser of Front Page Tech on YouTube is largely responsible for the origin of this and

0:05:12has had CAD renders last year. And the rumor was that was the Apple Watch for last September.

0:05:17And then the really curious thing, because both of their records are so good in general, and if

0:05:23they're not good, it's usually vagaries not being wrong, was that Mark Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo

0:05:29in the run-up, like early September or maybe end of August, but within like 10 days of the actual

0:05:35unveiling of the Apple Watch Series 7, both said stuff about flat crystal and flat sides,

0:05:43and none of it matched up because if anything, the crystal on the Series 7 Watch is actually

0:05:47more curved. And they even added, it's so curved and such a point of action that Apple even made

0:05:54a new watch faces just for the Series 7 that show off how it curves around the side. You know what

0:06:01I mean? Like I forget what the name of the watch face is, but maybe I could look it up here on my

0:06:05watch. Geez. So that is, that's back. Prosser ran a thing that said it's back. It's still,

0:06:12it might happen this year. It was sort of a big, you know, it was one of those funny things last

0:06:16year. And I know that you enjoy this as much as me is that when a rumor is wrong,

0:06:24a lot of times the story is not— Why would you think that I would enjoy rumors that are wrong?

0:06:28Well, what do some people, you tell me, what do some people do when rumors are wrong?

0:06:34It's not like I dedicated an entire site to that. When rumors are wrong, a lot of times the people

0:06:38who promoted the rumors or reported the rumors will have, you know, the unbelievable good luck

0:06:44of finding out that they weren't in fact wrong, but something changed. Yeah. Yeah. At the last

0:06:52minute, they changed the design of the Apple watch. They squeezed them all into a different shape.

0:06:58Right. And invented an entirely new crystal shape and watch faces and it came out. But anyway,

0:07:05the story is, it might be coming out this year. And my theory all along, I got to write about it,

0:07:11because if I don't, I've podcasted about it, but haven't really written about it, but I have a

0:07:15theory and I still believe the theory. And in fact, I actually think my theory actually does explain

0:07:22the whole thing. By the way, the watch face I was thinking of is called Contour. That's the one

0:07:26where there's squished numerals around the outside of the Apple watch face on watchOS 8. My theory

0:07:32is that the flat watch is real. It was in development last year, but it is the new Apple

0:07:38watch SE. It is not the expedition model that is supposedly that Gurman has, I think uniquely

0:07:46reported on that is supposedly like a, you know, like a G-Shock type thing, or I know Garmin makes

0:07:52a lot of those in the smartwatch space. I think it's the new Apple watch SE and that it might be

0:07:58the new low price thing. Like the Apple. So, okay. Can you explain that to me? Because

0:08:04usually when they introduce a new look, it goes to the new models, not the one that's, you know,

0:08:10the lower priced model, right? I mean, you look at the iPhone SE, obviously that is an iPhone 8.

0:08:16- Right. So my theory works like this, that SE doesn't really mean take an old design and put

0:08:26new guts in it and sell it at a low price, even though that's how it plays out for the iPhone.

0:08:32Is there another SE? There's only iPhone SE and Apple watch SE, right? So we don't have a large,

0:08:37and that works for the Apple or for iPhone. It works to have old ones. But to me, what the SE

0:08:44really means is less looking old, but looking clearly less than. In other words, that it looks

0:08:53like this is the least expensive, whatever it is. You know, like if they came out with an iPad.

0:09:01- But that's what I don't, that's what I still don't get though. Because when they're

0:09:05introducing a new look, they go to great lengths to say how great this new look is, look what we've

0:09:10done. Aren't we wonderful? And if they're doing that for the one that's cheaper, I don't see how

0:09:15that plays. - Well, I think it's a stretch. Maybe I'm, you know, I could be all wet. I have no

0:09:20inside juice on this. It's purely my own speculation. It's sort of fueled by my watch

0:09:25nerdery hobby, you know, like traditional watches. But watches are different than phones, right?

0:09:32And so for one thing is very specifically with Apple watch and iPhone is there are

0:09:38such things as older iPhones that look like older iPhones. 'Cause they, you know, the iPhone SE right

0:09:43now still has a home button and it still has square sides on the display. And it still has

0:09:49totally square corners on the display with a chin and a forehead where the home button goes.

0:09:53So at just an instant glance, you can instantly see this is sort of the, you know, it's the SE

0:10:00iPhone. The Apple watch can't really do that. Even right now where they're selling and the Apple

0:10:06watch lineup as it stands today is sort of messed up where the SE is not the lowest price model.

0:10:11The iPhone or Apple watch three series three is the lower price model. And the SE is actually

0:10:16more money. And now I don't know if that's what they plan. - They should not be selling that

0:10:20phone, but okay. - Or that watch. - Or that watch. - Right. But, you know, that maybe they just

0:10:25realized that in this transition and with the cost of goods and as they, you know, what's the baseline

0:10:31for like a good, you know, 199 watch that's based on like a new guts, like a new, all new SE,

0:10:38you know, that last year wasn't the year to do it. It would have, you know, or maybe, you know,

0:10:44maybe it was a by-product of the supply chain stuff with COVID and it was supposed to happen

0:10:50last year. And it's just, that's not going to happen. And, you know, we can get these, this,

0:10:56this, and this out the door on time, but we'll punt on the, the new Apple watch SE and we'll just sell

0:11:02the app, the series three again for another year. You know, that, that's, I don't know. I don't know

0:11:07what the backstory is. Apple never explained such things, but my thinking of why would a new look

0:11:12be for only for the SE is they don't have something even with the series three, which we,

0:11:17everybody sort of acknowledges at a tech level and battery life level and the screen doesn't stay on

0:11:21and blah, blah, blah is, is really not, it's kind of outdated at this point, but at a glance, it

0:11:27looks just like any other Apple watch. Like if you get close, you can see like when they, with series

0:11:33four, they change, subtly changed the industrial design, the case dimensions and the shape of the

0:11:40round rectangle, whatever, you know, three-dimensional shape the watches. It is

0:11:46slightly bigger. You know, they went from 38 and 42 to 40 and 44, slightly bigger,

0:11:53just different slight dimensions, but at a glance, you can't tell. I can't. And I'm a nerd. I know

0:11:59Apple watches very well. I mean, but like when somebody walks by on the sidewalk or something

0:12:03like that, or I walked by somebody, if I were in an airport and I saw somebody or somebody's table

0:12:08at a restaurant and I just see, Oh, they have an Apple watch. I can't tell if it's a series three

0:12:11or a series four, you have to sort of stop and stare at it. I don't think that serves Apple's

0:12:17does, you know, purposes for having a sort of good, better, best lineup of watches when it looks

0:12:23the same. And therefore I think a flat-sided watch that's instantly recognizable as the Apple watch SE

0:12:29would serve that purpose, right? They can't use an old watch like, and they certainly, you know,

0:12:35if we admit that series three is too old at this point, then series four would be like the starting

0:12:39point for a new SE and the series four looks almost indistinguishable. However hard it is to

0:12:44tell series three and series four, five, six, seven apart, it's even harder to tell the series

0:12:49four from a series seven, right? It's like how close do you have to get to see that the display

0:12:54curves under the sides a little bit? I mean, you got to, you know, if it's somebody else's watch,

0:12:59you're uncomfortably close to their wrist. So how, you know, the only way they can make an Apple

0:13:06watch SE that clearly looks at a glance like, oh, that's the Apple watch SE is to give it an all new

0:13:11design. And to me, again, I'm basing this on CAD renders. And of course, you know, maybe in reality,

0:13:18Apple can make this thing that fits these CAD renders, proves that they were true. It has a

0:13:22flat top, has mostly flat sides, mostly looks, you know, the design language of the current iPhones

0:13:29with the flat sides and obviously flat display. Maybe it'll look great on the wrist and it will

0:13:33be the premium model. And then they can make the round one the SE and go forward. But I don't think

0:13:39so. I think that the roundness of Apple watch is, is, and I know some people are bored. I heard,

0:13:46I was listening to Upgrade with our friends, Jason Snow and Mike Hurley. And Mike just said something

0:13:52offhanded about the fact that, hey, you know, every Apple watch today does look the same. I'm

0:13:56a little bored by it. That's sort of how watches work. And I know that most people are like,

0:14:02a lot of people who love their Apple watch have had no interest, never even wore a watch before,

0:14:06weren't wearing a watch for decades. Don't care how the real world or the other world of watches

0:14:12works. But like, you know, like a Rolex Submariner from 1961, like that Sean Connery is wearing in

0:14:19the first James Bond movie, it looks exactly at a glance like a brand new Rolex Submariner that

0:14:25you could buy today, except long story, you can't actually buy Rolex Submariners. They're all out of

0:14:30stock around the world and have been for years. But you know, if you could get your hands on a

0:14:35brand new Rolex Submariner today, it's a watch nerd. I could tell you all the things that are

0:14:40suddenly different, but at a glance, people would say, oh, it's the exact same watch. It hasn't

0:14:43changed in 40 years, 50 years. That's sort of, I think the look of the, the capsule round shape of

0:14:52Apple watch. And I, so I sort of feel like there's room to have a shape that says, this is like the

0:14:58$200 Apple watch. And these other ones are the $400 Apple watches. And then you can get them

0:15:03in titanium or stainless steel or within Hermes band and pay more, but that those will all be

0:15:09round. That's, that's my theory. You think they like the round for the more expensive models?

0:15:16I do. And I think that they, I think they like that it's an iconic shape. It is something that

0:15:21they own and, you know, honestly it's, it's a lot less ripped off than the iPhone. Right. It's like,

0:15:29it's, it's I, nobody really makes like an Android wear phone that, or, or watch that looks like an

0:15:35Apple watch. It is so distinctive. It is. Yeah. They're very, those other watches, I mean,

0:15:41those other smartwatch companies are just definitely invested in trying to, I mean,

0:15:45and I think it's probably a smart idea, I guess when Apple makes a square watch that you want to

0:15:49make a round watch, I suppose, to make yours look different, but, well, I'm not, I prefer,

0:15:57I prefer the square watch. Honestly, I prefer the, the, the screen of the square watch.

0:16:01I've looked at those other watches and, you know, I mean, the, the, the pixel watch came out,

0:16:08you know, it was at least revealed recently. And, you know, as you look at notifications,

0:16:12you can see one notification at a time, really. Yeah. And you have to,

0:16:14because the other ones, when they scroll up and down, I mean, you can't see the whole notification.

0:16:19And they may even have people that say, Oh, you shouldn't be looking at your watch notifications

0:16:23all the time anyway. Well, that's kind of the point of the watch, right? You're trying to get

0:16:26information out. It doesn't have to be notifications. It could be something else.

0:16:29And I just don't think it works as well. And the only reason that people like round watches is

0:16:36because that's the way most watches have been in the past, but it's not the way all watches have

0:16:40been in the past. Yeah, I agree. I really, because scrolling content is inherently rectangular in

0:16:46nature. There's no way to do it. And so if you scroll content, whether it's like one long text

0:16:53message that you want to read on your watch, or, you know, a couple of alerts that have come in,

0:16:58like, Hey, I've, I felt a couple taps there. Let me see, you know, let me go catch up on these

0:17:02alerts and you want to scroll through them. Scrolling content is inherently rectangular.

0:17:06And the clipping that's inherent when you scroll on a circular display is annoying. I mean,

0:17:12it's like you said, you can really, you really only get the full width of the phone right at the

0:17:16equator and you get clipped at the bottom and the top. It's not great. And circular displays can

0:17:21work. I know I've mentioned this. I forget when, but it's like we have the Nest thermostats and

0:17:27those have a circular display and I love them. I think they're beautiful. I think they're,

0:17:31it's a really beautiful device. I really like having it in my house. It makes me happy to see

0:17:35it every time I go by, but a circular display works perfectly on a Nest thermostat because

0:17:41except when it gets like an error condition, you'd never have to scroll. And even when,

0:17:45even when you get an error condition, we've had a thing over the winter where the, it was losing

0:17:50power to the, wherever it gets power through the wall. And I had to go down the cellar and flip a

0:17:55flip a switch and it fixed it. Of course, I didn't call anybody to look at it. I just,

0:18:00as long as I can flip a switch once every couple of weeks in the winter and keep it going. But

0:18:05when it lost power, it would give me an error message. And even then it, it kind of optimized

0:18:10the here's what you should do. And here's where you can go for more info for the circular display.

0:18:15You know, it's circular data looks great in a circular display. That's why most watches

0:18:20around because most, most regular watches just have hands that spin around the center. They,

0:18:26they're a circular, you know, same reason that speedometers on cars can look great as circles,

0:18:31because it's, it's just a dial that rotates around.

0:18:34But even then they cover, you know, cover up the day and date.

0:18:39Twice a year. I mean, like, yeah, every time, you know, like throughout the day,

0:18:45it will cover up the day and date. The watch where's paradox. It's like the,

0:18:48the butter toast always falling down is that the time of day that you want to check the date is

0:18:53always about three, three 15, right? Three 15 is when I need, I need to know what is the day's date.

0:19:00Oh, well, I better wait till three 17. I was, I was always a little surprised that Apple hadn't

0:19:06solved that problem with its faces that have hands. You know, like it seems like, you know,

0:19:11there's parallax on the phone and maybe the computing power of the watch isn't great enough

0:19:17to do parallax, but it seems like if you could just tilt. Right, right. Is there something?

0:19:21Which you do, you know, you always try to do with a regular watch, but it would be,

0:19:24it would be something if maybe you can't tilt it enough. It just maybe didn't work,

0:19:28but it does seem like there should have been some way that they could accommodate the hands covering

0:19:35the day and date and they did not. Yeah. Or any other complications.

0:19:39I don't know. I would like to see, I would love that. That would be like an interesting design

0:19:47contest though, just to have a contest like design, design an Apple watch face where

0:19:52the day and date are, would fall under the three, you know, the minute hand and hour hand at three

0:19:59o'clock, but work around it when those hands would be covering it. What, what can you do?

0:20:04It seems like the minute, with the minute hand, you could just have the complications on top

0:20:07anyway. But that would look weird. Maybe not with the, but not with the hour hand.

0:20:10Yeah, but they, they sort of, there is a Z access to the hands, right? It's the hour hand is below

0:20:16the minute hand, you know, is on top of the hour hand and the second hand is on top of that. So,

0:20:20I don't know. There's, there's gotta be a solution, but I'll be damned if I can. But anyway,

0:20:25I really do think it's possible. And I know that it sounds counterintuitive because in the iPhone

0:20:30world and all the other products, new industrial design always starts at the top and filters down.

0:20:35I just think that with Apple watch is different and it can work where, and again, I don't think

0:20:41that the curved, I think people underestimate how proud and how much work it was to get the series

0:20:48seven with the curved display to work and look around the sides from the sides exactly the way

0:20:54Apple wants it to look like it would be a weird, a weird year to year zigzag for them to go from

0:21:02two years ago, series six, then series seven last year, the big new design thing is this

0:21:09round crystal screen on all the models, aluminum and steel and custom watch faces designed just

0:21:17to show off how the display is more curved. And then to 12 months later say, here's, here's the,

0:21:25here's the new Apple watch series eight perfectly flat. Like I think I, you know, and I know the

0:21:32phones are perfectly flat, but phones are different devices and flat works great for them. I kind of

0:21:37feel my hunch. And again, I'm only looking at CAD renders and I have a very poor visual imagination

0:21:42beyond what it actually shown to me, but to me, that looks plain. It, it curved crystal looks

0:21:49fancier, more deluxe. It looks, you know, for lack of a better word, it looks more expensive.

0:21:54You know, I think lots of people would like the flat one. And I think lots of people like buying,

0:21:59you know, less than the, less than the new series eight starting price for their Apple watch. That's

0:22:05why Apple sells lower price models, you know, 350 bucks or whatever they start at, or 400 bucks for

0:22:10the bigger one. It's a lot of money for a watch for most people. I mean, that's, that's a lot of

0:22:15money so I could see it, but I just feel like branding wise, it would serve Apple's purposes

0:22:19to have a distinction. Like the lower one, lower price one is flat and a little plainer.

0:22:24The more expensive ones have the iconic round Apple shape. Not that they got more expensive

0:22:30for the starting price of a new one, but to keep them. And, and then maybe this rugged thing is

0:22:36real too. I still, I know I've said it on the podcast before. I think there's absolutely,

0:22:40positively a market for that rugged watch because whether it's A, I think, and I think it's two

0:22:45groups of people. It's A, people who really need it because they do stuff like rock climbing or,

0:22:50or whatever other sports they might play that, that are, you know, truly, you know, like

0:22:55skateboarders and I don't know, all sorts of stuff that I'm way too old for. Things that you might

0:22:59want to wear a watch for where you really are banging the watch into hard services and you

0:23:03don't want it to break. And B, people who just, you know, same sort of people who put their iPhone

0:23:09in an OtterBox case, you know, that's almost like a lock box, even though they don't do anything

0:23:13particularly risky with their phones. They just are very, you know, Hey, I spent a lot of money

0:23:18on this. I don't want to get cracked or broken or dinged. And they would, you know, I, and I just

0:23:24don't think, I know some people, I know there are third-party things that you can put your current

0:23:28Apple watches in, in like an enclosure, you know, to protect them. I, they, those, that's awkward,

0:23:35right? I mean, cause putting the, you know, the watch is so small. I mean, I, but I, the fact that

0:23:40they exist tells you there's a market for them. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking, I'm looking at these

0:23:45renders and A, of course it's, I think part of the problem is, is that it's just a render

0:23:51and it does look plain. Yep. It looks, it looks like a knockoff, right? It looks like,

0:23:57it looks like something that you'd order off Alibaba and it would work for, you know, a few

0:24:03weeks, but I don't know. I mean, I think they could make it nice. I think they could still do

0:24:08the thing. We don't look what we've done. We've completely changed the Apple watch.

0:24:12Oh, I, I, I think they'll, but yeah, they'll brag about it right in the same way that,

0:24:17that like, before they tell you about the new iPhone pro models, they, they spend a huge amount

0:24:21of time on the regular non-pro new iPhones and tell you how great they are and how great the

0:24:26camera is. And, you know, you know, no expense spared, you know, to promote them. Right. Remember

0:24:32when Cayenne Drance, I forget if it was last year or the year before, and they had that whole

0:24:35amphitheater in Southern California, just, just for Cayenne Drance to be on stage in front of an

0:24:40empty audience to tell us about it. It was impressive. And that's just for the non-pro ones.

0:24:44Right. I mean, it's, you know, they'll definitely promote it. I, but I also think that having the

0:24:49flat side one means that they could run separate ads for it. Right. That they could, you know,

0:24:54they can run separate ads for the new Apple watch SEs starting at, I don't know, maybe it'll start

0:24:59at 250 or something like that. I don't know. But then they can say starting at just 250 or, or

0:25:04of course in their parlance, it would be 249 or, you know, maybe if we're super lucky,

0:25:08maybe it would be, it would be awesome. I'd love it if it was started at 199, like the series three

0:25:12does today, but then they could run a totally separate ad for that and have a different ad for

0:25:20the new higher end models, you know? Right. Well, that's, that's my theory on that. Okay.

0:25:26On that. Let me take another break here. Oh boy, this one is going to be fun. This is a sponsorship

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0:27:58alexwinestein.com/thetalkshow. I don't know if I should have sung that or what, but I guess if I

0:28:15sing it, you know, then he's got to write the music to my. Well, you'd have to have the music. You'd

0:28:18have to be able to hear the music and sing along with the music. Also on the rumors front. I want

0:28:22to hit this because this is the thing I've had these special episodes where I've been interviewing

0:28:26people about their creative stuff on the show. Zach Gage and I had Trip Meikle on the last episode,

0:28:31but now I'm behind on all the rumors and all the Apple stuff, which is kind of fun. But we got to

0:28:36talk about this, that the rumors are ramping up that Apple's testing USB-C for the iPhone.

0:28:41For next year. Not this year. Slow your roll, people. And again,

0:28:48Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo, I think of both said this around the same time. I think Ming-Chi Kuo was

0:28:53first on Twitter, but then Gurman said the same thing. And I think the way Gurman phrased it is

0:28:57that Apple is testing it, which is a weird way to put it, sort of a hedge in my opinion. Like,

0:29:02I kind of think at this, and again, this is for next year, not three months from now or four

0:29:07months from now, but you know, 2023. I sort of think if Apple's going USB-C, they know it already.

0:29:12They don't really need to test it. I mean, what are they testing if they know how to put it?

0:29:15Right. What's the point? Yeah, exactly. What is the point? I mean, you know, there are,

0:29:17you've seen people who have actually ripped apart an iPhone and put a USB-C.

0:29:21Right.

0:29:22It can be done by people on the street, obviously not me,

0:29:26but people who have those skills. So Apple can certainly do it.

0:29:28And I have to say that that's the sort of thing, as an old person who doesn't want to

0:29:34take apart phones anymore, I have to say that is impressive. Like, because, you know, like in the

0:29:41old days of computers, when it was all just electrical, if it was hooked up, then the

0:29:45electrons were flowing and that's it. It was, you know, and it was fun to hack stuff together.

0:29:49But now with all the security stuff and, you know, parts verification and stuff,

0:29:55it's all the more impressive, no matter how janky the connector is.

0:29:59I think I replaced, the last thing I did on anything small was replace a battery on an iPod,

0:30:08like the video, I think it was the video iPod, the color video iPod.

0:30:11And you did that by hand?

0:30:12And yeah, I did that by hand. And then I was just, I thought like, okay, that was,

0:30:17that was too hard for my eyes, too hard for my hands. I mean, that was too small for me.

0:30:20I mean, I still, I'll still replace, you know, on the machines that I can, like I have a Mac Mini,

0:30:25I'll replace the hard drive and the RAM and stuff like that on that. But I'm not,

0:30:28I'm not dealing with an iPhone personally. I can't lift the kit. I can't lift the kit.

0:30:32It's like 80 pounds.

0:30:33Well, we'll get to that. We'll get to the self-repair program. But for now,

0:30:37I don't think the self-repair, although it would be funny if the self-repair program, if they added,

0:30:43this is where you know that Apple is losing their mind is if they added an option to the

0:30:48self-repair program to do an ad hoc USB-C upgrade to your own iPhone. Do you want a new screen?

0:30:55A new battery?

0:30:56Yeah. Can you imagine like where people have places like iFix?

0:30:59And I do think that this is a little weird. And I know that there's lots of people who've been,

0:31:04I know this, whenever this iPhone should have USB-C thing comes up, that there are,

0:31:09it's one of those issues where people, some people are on one side, some people are on the other

0:31:14side. Like, no, no, keep lightning. I don't want to have new cables all over the place. And you know,

0:31:20I'm in the middle, which is weird because the people who really want the iPhone to have USB-C

0:31:27are adamant about it. Like, and they can't fathom either my perspective being ambivalent

0:31:34or the idea that there are tens, maybe hundreds of millions of people out there who would rather

0:31:42just keep the chargers they already have and would be annoyed by a new charger. It's a long time.

0:31:48What was it? The iPhone 5 that went to you, lightning, I believe?

0:31:53That sounds about right. Yeah. Because I know I have a, yeah, I have a, yeah, I have a 4 and it

0:31:59definitely has the dock connector. And I assume the 4S did too.

0:32:03Right. So the dock connector to lightning was an amazing upgrade, right? Because the dock connector

0:32:09was big and wide and ugly. It's an ugly port. It's so big, right? You could like fit like a

0:32:16whole quarter in there. The connector itself had sharp little prongs that snapped in. It was,

0:32:23you know, it doesn't like it would cut you, but it's, it was not a pleasant connector.

0:32:29Going from that to lightning was clearly an upgrade. It charged faster. It had the capability

0:32:33of charging faster. I think it has faster data than the old 30 pin thing ever did. It just seemed

0:32:38like a win and millions and millions of iPhone users were upset and thought it was a money grab

0:32:43from Apple to sell more cables. Right? People don't like it when the chargers change. And I

0:32:51don't know, I don't know how many times I have to say it, but a lot of people really don't like it.

0:32:55And I know like my sister and her husband, I think a lot of couples do this. They get new iPhones

0:33:02every two years, but they're on the opposite cycle of each other. So like, I don't know,

0:33:08one year my wife gets a new phone and the next year her husband gets a new iPhone and then the next

0:33:12year it's my wife's turn and that sort of thing. And they were annoyed because now I don't know

0:33:17whose year it was for the new iPhone when the iPhone 5 came out, but now they, you know,

0:33:20one charger in the kitchen couldn't work for both of them. And, you know, she wasn't angry,

0:33:25you know, but, you know, she was like, why did they do that? And I'm like, well, look at it.

0:33:29Look how much smaller it is. It's nicer. People, and I know people are like, well,

0:33:34I have USB-C all over the place where there's a lot of people whose only device is the iPhone.

0:33:38And the other weird thing is Apple's been putting lightning chargers in everything else, right?

0:33:43The mice, the key, you know, everybody loves the mouse with the lightning port on the belly.

0:33:47The Apple TV remote control charges by lightning. The big one I can think of is AirPods. Every

0:33:54single AirPods case sold the date charges by lightning. So backing out of this and saying,

0:34:01you know, going, okay, okay, let's just, let's slowly move everything to USB-C. It could do it,

0:34:07right? You know, and I guess then subsequent, you know, the next versions of AirPods will come out

0:34:12with a USB-C on the case instead of lightning. And those of us with lightning ones will just,

0:34:18you know, have a several year transition away from whether we still need a lightning cable around or

0:34:23not. But it's the thing that's weird to me is if they were going to do it, it seemed to me like

0:34:28the time to do it was like two or three years ago. That's, that's my bottom line.

0:34:33Well, I would say that was a better time to do it. I mean, I still think, I still think it's a

0:34:37decent time to do it now. I, I, I am more in favor of this change simply because I,

0:34:43every time I try and, well, I shouldn't say that, but I mean, I get a lot of frustration trying to

0:34:48charge via lightning and that's why I hardly ever do it because I'm mostly with my phone.

0:34:52I mostly use MagSafe all the time because mostly because my, my lightning port is full of lint

0:34:57and because, and because I don't, I don't feel like the connector is,

0:35:06and maybe this is not, maybe this is just my imagination, but I feel like the connector isn't

0:35:10as long lasting as USB-C has proven to be for me. Cause every time I, every time I plug my,

0:35:15my iPad in it charges without hesitation. And when I charge, when I, anytime I plug something that is

0:35:24lightning in, I'm never 100% sure. And it's usually somebody's, it's almost always somebody's

0:35:29phone because everything else I would charge, like even my AirPods, I charge by MagSafe as well,

0:35:34or not MagSafe, you know, it's actually cheap, but whatever. So I get this impression that it's

0:35:41slightly more reliable. So I, I would rather have the thing that's more reliable.

0:35:46I, you know, and again, I, there, I see pros and cons on both sides. You know, the, the,

0:35:50the biggest pro for lightning clearly is that there are lightning cables all over the place,

0:35:54people's cars, their kitchens, their bedsides, wherever they want to have them, they have them.

0:35:58And we have these other devices from Apple that charge by lightning and it's there.

0:36:04The downsides are pretty obvious too. Well, number one is, well, there's two, two,

0:36:09I don't even know which order to put them in. One is that everything else like computers and now

0:36:14iPads, you know, growing more and more, including like the iPad mini and the new iPad Air,

0:36:19they charge by USB-C too. And so the packing situation, you know, or, or, you know,

0:36:25just having a spare charger somewhere and you could use the same charger. You could charge your

0:36:30MacBook, you could charge your iPad, you could charge your phone. If, if they come out with

0:36:34new AirPods, whatever, if everything charged by USB-C, then, you know, there's an advantage where

0:36:38if you have anything that kind of looks like, I don't know from a distance, is that lightning or

0:36:42USB-C? If they're all USB-C and all your devices are charged by that, that adapter, that's a win.

0:36:47I get it. And the other big one, and this is where I feel, I know Renee, you know, Richie actually

0:36:54uses it. So he's, he's more frustrated, but these phones record 4K video, which is really, really

0:37:00big. And lightning USB top speed is really slow compared to what, what USB-C can transfer. And,

0:37:09you know, who knows, maybe they'll go Thunderbolt, you know, maybe it looks like a USB-C port and the

0:37:13iPhone 14 pro or 15 pros, whatever it would be next year, will actually have Thunderbolt speed,

0:37:18who knows, but whatever it would be even USB-C, USB-3 over a USB-C cable is faster. And I mean,

0:37:25so much faster that it, you know, makes it practical to shoot 4K video on a phone and get

0:37:31it off onto your Mac or whatever for editing. It, you know, that something's got to give on that

0:37:35front. That's the one place where lightning is really sort of at, at wits end or, or tech,

0:37:40it's the end of its technical life. I just, so I get it. I, I wonder, see, I, I feel like the

0:37:47natural time to make that transition would have been when they first added the word pro to iPhones,

0:37:52which was I think the iPhone 11 pro, right? There was the iPhone 11, which was sort of like a,

0:37:58an XR, right? A 10R and the iPhone 11 pro. And now they have pro phones that, that might've been

0:38:06the time to do it. Cause that's sort of how they ease the iPad over. Right. And, you know, the iPad

0:38:11shows how, how Apple can transition a thing that was previously all lightning to USB-C. It's like

0:38:18a years long thing as it trickles down, but starts at the pro end. And then it gives them a story to

0:38:26tell, which is look, pros are shooting these big video files. There's rumors even that the subs,

0:38:31you know, maybe this year, maybe next year, iPhones will be capable of shooting 8K video,

0:38:36which is, you know, like four times the size of 4K or something. I don't know how big it is,

0:38:40but it's, you know, sounds big, you know, pros need the data speed pros need higher speed charging.

0:38:46So we've added pro strength, the USB-C to the iPhone, whatever number pro that that's a story

0:38:52to tell. And all the headlines all over the web can put all the final ease in that they want,

0:38:59but it's done and there's a story and it makes sense. And then like the next year, maybe USB-C

0:39:04trickles to, to the, to the mid range iPhones, you know, the regular non-pro ones, something like

0:39:09that. I just feel like that the iPhone 11 pro was the year to do it. If they knew they were going to

0:39:14do it anyway, like why string this along for so much longer? Right. I mean, at this point, if,

0:39:20if it's two, if it's a year and a half from now, when iPhones first come out with USB-C,

0:39:25USB-C will be eight years old at that point. Like, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's just the maturing of the

0:39:32industry and that, you know, maybe I'm a little too biased towards the, the older days when every

0:39:39couple of years there were new adapters for everything and just, you know, and, and improvements,

0:39:44right. That, that speed, you know, this is so much faster than that, and this is so much faster than

0:39:49that. And you just expect something to only have a lifespan of 10 years before it's completely

0:39:54technically obviated. And, you know, maybe USB-C is, is a, is a port technology that really is going

0:40:00to have decades, plural, of life and moving to it eight years in is not too late. I don't know. I

0:40:09just also can't help though, but wonder if Apple had some sort of other plan for a port and it just

0:40:16hasn't worked out, you know, some kind of like a mag safe type thing that does high-speed charging

0:40:22data as well and high-speed data, right? Yeah. Because that, and the one thing that really made

0:40:28me think like, hmm, that would be really interesting for a next generation iPhone port was the 24-inch

0:40:36iMac that does ethernet over the power cable, right? Like you have one cable that goes from the

0:40:43wall charger to your iMac 24-inch. And if you want to connect an ethernet cable, you connect it to the

0:40:51thing that goes into the wall, right? That's a really interesting design because now you've got

0:40:56this power cable that is doing, I don't know if it's a hundred bit ethernet or what, but,

0:41:01you know, data and charging over a connector. And I guess the 24-inch iMac doesn't have mag safe,

0:41:07you know, it doesn't, it's not like that cord comes out of the back easily, but,

0:41:09you know, you could see how that sort of thinking would do it. But I just wonder if they've hit like

0:41:14a brick wall on that, if they had like something that they were thinking and they're like, we

0:41:18better just rather than switch to USB-C for just a few years before we unveil this new thing,

0:41:25this new technology, we'll just stick with lightning so that there's only one transition,

0:41:30right? Because that's the thing. That's the thing I want to emphasize. If they do switch the iPhone

0:41:34to USB-C next year, they have to stick with, they have to have USB-C until there's no charger at all.

0:41:39Right. And that is the other rumor, right? I mean, the other rumor is that there is a portless

0:41:45iPhone coming. And it does not seem to make much sense for them to do

0:41:52two years, right? Or however long it would be and then go portless.

0:41:57Right. And the thing about going portless, of course, it makes sense in the abstract,

0:42:01you know, that Apple would prefer no ports. Ports are ugly. Of course, you know, no ports

0:42:05in the abstract is clearly more aesthetically pleasing and simpler than one port. But the

0:42:14problem is that neither the charging speed of current inductive charging with mag safe,

0:42:20or at least on phones, right? Like you can charge your, I mean, Apple can do it, right? Because

0:42:25MacBooks charge really fast, you know, 87 watts on a 16 inch MacBook Pro or more, maybe, maybe

0:42:31it's 90 some, I don't know, but you know, close to a hundred watts of charging over a thing that

0:42:36you can just, you know, boop boop, magnet, magnet in, magnet off. So, but, but the current mag safe

0:42:43that just goes on the back is so much slower than plugging in a lightning cable with a, you know,

0:42:4830 watt charger in the wall and data, right? That what's, what's the data if part of the problem

0:42:54with lightning today is that data transfer is too slow when you've shot these giant gigabyte

0:42:59video files, what, you know, how, how does it, how does going to wireless technology help that?

0:43:06It does not. Right. Unless they have something new, right? And theory, they could have something,

0:43:11you know, you know, I, USB-C should not be, and this is what I wrote back when the EU was

0:43:15mandating that all phones are all devices, whatever the rules are that, you know, anything that has a

0:43:20charging needs to be a standard charger. You know, once that law goes, if it were to go on the books,

0:43:25it, it, it, it's hard to change laws, right? You get a law like that and it's like, oh, well,

0:43:31then the whole industry will come together and invent something new. That's not really how new

0:43:35things happen. New things are much more likely to happen from one company with a great idea that

0:43:39doesn't need to get permission and go through a consortium and reveal their plans to everybody

0:43:44and get everybody to agree to it. You know, much more likely I, you know, it's something like the

0:43:48way lightning came out of thin air from Apple without any, you know, need for cooperation from

0:43:54the industry. And then lo and behold, that inspired the USB consortium to make something much more

0:43:59lightning like than previous USB connectors. So I don't know. I don't know what to think about it.

0:44:06I also think it's a little weird too, that it's a next year thing. I mean, and I know, you know,

0:44:11I famously love to reiterate that, you know, the iPhones are pretty much set about a year in

0:44:16advance. It's just, there's no other way to make a hundred million iPhones a year than to sort of

0:44:21lock in the design at least a year in advance. Probably most decisions are made more than a year

0:44:26in advance. And, and whenever I write about it, if little birdies give me tips, they often even

0:44:31suggest that even I'm too optimistic about how late in the game they can make changes, you know,

0:44:37and how, you know, you know, and it, it, but it's, you know, so I'm not saying that it, it,

0:44:45at this point, you know, like in April, 2022, last month that Apple could say, Hey, maybe next year

0:44:51we'll switch to USB-C, you know, this is whatever the discussion is inside Apple. It is, it has been

0:44:58ongoing for a very long time, but it does seem slightly, I don't know, just seems like a weird

0:45:03time. I don't know. I don't know what else to say about it. Yeah, I was, I was, I started,

0:45:12I think I started out thinking, Oh yeah, sure. Why not? Now I am, you know, I'm,

0:45:15actually this does this make sense at all? What's the, and I guess Gurman said they're going to ship

0:45:20a little dongle, you know, of course, I guess, but imagine like that's, that's. Well, they already

0:45:25ship a dongle in like certain markets, right? They should go in the other way, obviously. Yeah. But

0:45:30man, talk about something is it'd be easy to lose. I don't know why. Yeah. Why would, Oh man. Yeah.

0:45:34It's I don't know. When was the last time they shipped a dongle that, you know, that, I mean,

0:45:41they make the headphone, the headphone, they shipped the headphone dongle, right? Yeah. Yeah.

0:45:46Maybe that's what the, the lightning to USB-C thing would be like, maybe instead of like a

0:45:53little, just a little like pen cap, you know, like the the cap for an Apple pencil lightning port,

0:46:00you know, the original, you know how the original pencil had a lightning port and had a little cap

0:46:06you could lose, you know, maybe instead of a little thing like that, that you snap on the

0:46:10end of the lightning cable, turn it to a USB-C, maybe it would be a little cable, like a little

0:46:15two inch cable, which I feel like for the headphone thing, it's not that I don't feel like making it a

0:46:20cable made it more useful. I think it just made it less likely to lose. You know what I mean? Yeah.

0:46:26I've always thought that that might be the reason why it's not just a little snap-on thing, that

0:46:30it's, it's sort of a little cable, because it's, it's less likely that you'd lose it.

0:46:34I, did I ever tell you about— People sure complained about losing, people sure

0:46:39complained about losing them though. Did I, did I ever tell you about the time I lost—

0:46:42I'm not sure that stopped anybody. I lost the cap to my first Apple pencil on an Amtrak train,

0:46:48and it, it fell behind like into the butt, you know, the, the crack at your butt on the seat.

0:46:56And I thought, "Ah!" And it was like, I don't know what happened. It was—

0:46:59The crack in the, the, the, the seat's butt. Yeah, your butt.

0:47:01Yeah, the seat's butt. I was like, "Ah, man!" And it was like at the time when it's like,

0:47:04we're pulling up towards the station and everybody who's getting off—I don't know if I was getting

0:47:08off, it was either, I always get off at either New York or I'm back home in Philly. Either I

0:47:12was getting to New York or I was, I was getting home to Philly, and it was still daytime,

0:47:16so I could see, and I like, got in there and like turned on my iPhone flashlight and was looking

0:47:21back there, and I saw it, and it looked like maybe I could reach it, but there's, there's a lot of

0:47:28stuff back there, you know, like— I was gonna say, I don't think you want to reach in there.

0:47:33I think there's like pieces of gum that Joe Biden chewed in like 1979, you know, while riding the

0:47:38same train to, to Congress. I mean, there is some, there is some old, old—I mean, the, you know,

0:47:44Amtrak trains are very clean. I like riding Amtrak, but, you know, underneath the seat,

0:47:49back there, they don't, they don't hose those, they don't hose those areas down. I,

0:47:54I kiss that cap up to the Amtrak gods. God bless you.

0:47:58Right.

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0:50:08Next on my list, I guess we could talk self-repair kit, right? I wrote about that. I honestly thought

0:50:15I was losing my mind. I know I put it in my article about Sean Hollister's "Peace at the

0:50:19Verge." I honest to God, I said that I could not tell if I was being pranked or joked as a sarcasm,

0:50:25because it seems to me like the Apple self-repair program is exactly what people have been asking

0:50:29for for this whole 10, 15-year stretch of, "Hey, this kind of stinks that people can't—there's

0:50:37no good way to repair your own Apple stuff when it's out of warranty." Or just do something like

0:50:42replace a cracked screen or, "Hey, my phone is great. Everything's great about it except

0:50:47the battery. I've been using this thing for two and a half years or three years, and the battery

0:50:50isn't as good as it used to be. I just need a new battery. Shouldn't I be able to do it at home

0:50:54if I want to?" And they've made this program where they send you all of the professional tools—like,

0:51:01seriously, like thousands of dollars, like $1,500 in professional tools—to do the job,

0:51:06as well as if you follow their instructions, as well as it gets done in the Apple store.

0:51:10And now here come the articles, and they say, "This stinks." I don't get it. I don't get it.

0:51:18I mean, am I the only—you know, a couple people wrote to me and said, "Hey, I thought I was the

0:51:23only one who thought I was losing my mind when The Verge ran that story." But—

0:51:26Well, see, yeah, if Apple's going to do something, it seems like they're going to do it like, "This

0:51:30is the thing you need," right? "This is the one thing that you need, and it's going to cover

0:51:34everything, and we're going to ship this one thing, and there you go. You got your stuff, right?"

0:51:38Right.

0:51:39And that's what they did. And it does happen to be a lot bigger than you'd think for just

0:51:48whatever the one thing is that you're trying to do, but that's not really what it's for.

0:51:51Hollister literally wrote, "I expected Apple would send me a small

0:51:58italics box of screwdrivers, spudgers, and pliers." If that was the case, that you could just do it

0:52:05with a spudger, do the proper job with a spudger, a pliers, and a couple of screwdrivers, there

0:52:11wouldn't even need to be a self-repair program. They would just, you know—and I know that's the

0:52:16one thing people have pointed out after I wrote my article, that iFixit will sell you a kit that

0:52:21kind of is just a bunch of spudgers and screwdrivers and pliers, and that you can,

0:52:27you know, some people, you can repair, swap a battery out of an iPhone using things like that,

0:52:33but that's not the right way to do the job. And a lot of the people who told me that they've done

0:52:38it—and they're not even angry people, but then they mention things like, "Yeah, you know, like,

0:52:42the seal isn't as good as, you know, like a factory seal, but it's good, you know, it's good

0:52:45enough for me or good enough for this iPhone that my kid now uses because it's three and a half years

0:52:49old." It's like, the point is, when you go to Apple, if you go to the Apple store and say, "I

0:52:54would like to get this battery replaced," and then, you know, "I guess you need an appointment," or

0:52:57whatever, and they say, "Okay," and then you come in and you say, "I have an appointment to get this

0:53:03iPhone 11 battery swapped," then they, you know, you fill out some stuff on an iPad and then you

0:53:08hand it over to one of the geniuses, and they say, like, "Come back in 45 minutes," or, you know,

0:53:13"We can text you," or, you know, I get, you know, it's hard when they have your phone, but, you know,

0:53:18if you have somebody with you, they could text the person, and then you come back, and then they show

0:53:23you the phone, and the phone looks brand new, you know, or, you know, it has whatever scratches might

0:53:29have been on the side, but, like, the seal of the screen, Apple's giving you back this phone that,

0:53:34when they give it back to you, has the same waterproof and dustproof guarantees that it did

0:53:39when you, when it was brand new, and, except now you have a brand new battery in it. That's what

0:53:43they're, you know, nothing less than that would be suitable for an official self-repair program,

0:53:48right? Like, you can't say, like, "Oh, yeah, you could do the official Apple self-repair program,

0:53:53but now, you know, don't get your phone wet. Don't take it out in the rain."

0:53:55People, you know, it's like a damn, it really is like the definition of damned if they do,

0:54:02damned if they don't, and damned if they do nothing, right? Like, so for years,

0:54:06for years, people said they should have a repair program. They should have a repair program. Now

0:54:11they said, "Okay, we have a repair program," and the repair program involves you getting,

0:54:15yes, 79 pounds of professional-grade tools and machinery, and in very nice cases, cases that

0:54:21themselves, I priced them out, look like they could, about $500 worth of Pelican cases to keep

0:54:27this stuff safe during shipping, which Apple pays for, the shipping of these 79-pound tools,

0:54:32and, you know, they've got nice wheels, you know, so you can, you know, because they weigh 79

0:54:36pounds, you know, you can wheel them around to get them where you need them. If Apple instead just

0:54:41sent you a couple of spudgers and pliers and screwdrivers, people, you know, the articles would

0:54:45say Apple's self-repair program doesn't give you the tools to do the job properly. I'd,

0:54:51I don't see, I, my question is, what should Apple have done differently? And I can't,

0:54:55I can't come up with anything. This seems like it's like the perfect, I almost worry that it's

0:55:00a sign of how cynical our whole industry has gotten of, you know, anything, any, it's like

0:55:06anything, now that Apple, you know, there's this big tech rubric and anything, any of these big

0:55:11tech companies do is immediately viewed with cynicism and that it must be, it must be cynical.

0:55:17It must be, there must be some catch to this. And I think, you know, sometimes.

0:55:21Well, weirdly, weirdly, they're cynical about some things, but they're not, they're,

0:55:25you know, I think about the Verge in particular and when the essential phone was first being

0:55:35rumored and first, you know, going around before the thing actually shipped and they were,

0:55:40they were gaga over the essential phone. And yet when this thing comes out, this is a big problem

0:55:46we have to talk about. Wait, what was wrong with the essential phone though? Is it, that's not the

0:55:51one that was like Legos. That's the one from Andy, Andy Rubin. So they, no, they were, they, they

0:55:58were wide-eyed and just like, Oh my gosh, the essential, this is like, there's this new thing

0:56:03it's coming. It's Andy Rubin. It's going to be, you know, and see me to my eye, very uncritical

0:56:09about the whole idea. Right. Right. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Boy, that didn't work out.

0:56:15And the thing is like, they're not making you buy this equipment. No,

0:56:18but they said, they said, Oh yeah, you want to change your battery. You got to,

0:56:21you got to spend $5,000 on them, but they, these boxes of Pelican boxes full of equipment,

0:56:27but they will sell them to you. So, you know, like, you know, and so like, I don't, I'm taking,

0:56:34I'm trying, my position is sort of a middle ground. Like I see how the right to repair

0:56:41petitioners have had some, had some good points all along. And I always thought they did. And I

0:56:46do think that their pressure on Apple has forced, you know, not forced Apple, but motivated Apple

0:56:52to do this program before this program. It was either give it to Apple itself or give it to one

0:56:57of Apple's certified Apple repairs. And now, you know, they're saying, look, anybody can buy this

0:57:05equipment. So like, if you live in rural Montana or Idaho or something like that, you don't live

0:57:10anywhere near an Apple store and there isn't an Apple certified repair center, but there is like a

0:57:16place in town where there's, you know, like a repair your phone shop, you know, which are all

0:57:21over the place, right? Every mall has them at a kiosk, you know, where you can pay less to get

0:57:25third-party replacements of cracked screens and stuff like that for all sorts of phones.

0:57:29Those people, those outfits can buy these same tools for, for doing this, right? I think that's

0:57:35great. That's a great win that you can buy the actual tools that Apple uses and that Apple

0:57:40certifies and follow Apple's own instructions that use those tools. This is all just a great win.

0:57:46And yet the articles are such complaints about it. I didn't even get to Brian Chen at the New

0:57:49York Times. Did you read that one? I did not read that one. I saw somebody else talking about it,

0:57:55though. So Brian Chen, he, the personal technology columnist for the New York Times, whose

0:58:01years long campaign is that people shouldn't worry about the quality of the photos that their

0:58:07picture, that their phones take. That's the, the official stance repeatedly across numerous reviews

0:58:13over the years is that normal, everybody out there shouldn't worry about whether a new iPhone would

0:58:18take better photos because I don't know why, which is nonsense. But he, he wrote a column where he

0:58:25got the toolkit and wanted to swap out the battery on an iPhone 12 and found the instructions daunting.

0:58:32And again, that's what Apple has said all along, right? It's like, that's part of the complaint is

0:58:37like, Hey, this is all complicated. This is a lot of work. Apple, that's why I stopped doing stuff

0:58:43like that. Right? Exactly. Apple has been saying no for all along. Like, why don't they allow,

0:58:49why don't they make it so you can just buy a battery and replace it yourself? And their

0:58:52answer has been, it is, these are very complicated devices that are packed in very, very precisely

0:58:58and require special tools, complicated steps and much precision and care while doing it to repair

0:59:05properly. And people are like, ah, you know, you're just making money on a battery. You're, you're,

0:59:10you're making money on batteries, which they're not. I I've, I've gotten so many emails from

0:59:14people too, over the years who work at Apple stores who are like, Oh my God, there is no way we make

0:59:18money on these things. Cause people come in and we'll just replace batteries. You know, it's,

0:59:22you know, $69 doesn't even come close to, you know, you know, it's like an hour of somebody's

0:59:26work. It's, you know, it's a great deal. It really is a good deal, but people don't believe it. They

0:59:32just think there must be some catch and everything's about making money. And then you actually, they

0:59:38have the program, you get the instructions and the people who've been saying, ah, for all these years

0:59:43are like, Hey, this is complicated and requires precision. And it seems like you kind of need

0:59:47practice and training to do it, you know, easily. And I don't know what to do. And it's like,

0:59:52that's what Apple's been saying for years about why they don't do this. It's exactly it. And they

0:59:56act like Apple never said it. It's you know what I mean? It's like, if you go buy a slice of pizza

1:00:02and the guy is like, Hey, Hey, that's going to be super hot. You better wait. And then you take a

1:00:06bite right away. And you're like, Hey, I just burnt my tongue, burnt the roof of my mouth.

1:00:11The guy just told you that. So Brian Chen has an iPhone 12. I don't know if it was a mini or not,

1:00:18it doesn't matter, but he wants to swap the battery. And he enlisted the help of a friend

1:00:23who in San Francisco, who does repairs and he's helped Brian Chen with other devices over the

1:00:28years, got his help. And the friend had a spare iPhone 12, a broken one. And they were like, well,

1:00:35let's practice on this one that's actually a broken iPhone 12, but it's the same size. We can

1:00:40use the same tools and we'll open it up. And they opened it up and it's like, okay, I think we got

1:00:43it. Let's operate on the real one. And Chen puts the phone in, it's like step one is take the

1:00:50screws out. And then step two is you put it in like the little easy bake oven to warm it up,

1:00:56to get the glue soft. And then you take the screen off. Well, he puts it in the easy bake oven and

1:01:02starts prying the screen off. And the guy's like, Whoa, whoa, would you take the screws out? And

1:01:05he's like, Oh, I forgot. Well, it turns out he broke the screen because he didn't take the

1:01:10screws out, melted it and lifted the screen and then blames Apple. Right. I swear to God. And then

1:01:17they go through with the repair. They still swap out the battery, put it all back together. And now

1:01:22the screen's all jacked because he pried it out while the screws were connected. And it's Apple's

1:01:29fault. I mean, you can't make this up. I honestly felt like I was losing my mind and I didn't see

1:01:38his story until after I was like, all right, I got to write about this Verge piece from Sean Hollister.

1:01:42I spent the day writing it. And as soon as I'm done, somebody sent me a thing and they were like,

1:01:48Hey, I loved your piece on the Verge self repair thing. I don't get these guys like him and Chen

1:01:53with, you know, blaming the tools when it's clearly their problem. And I'm like, Oh no,

1:01:58Oh no. And I go and look, he forgot to take the screws out and pried the screen off and blames

1:02:05Apple for the complicated process. I mean, how do you even make that up? Yeah.

1:02:11I don't get it. All right. Let me thank, let me thank our last sponsor. We have one more sponsor

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1:04:18So you're not going to get one of these kits is what I'm hearing.

1:04:47I get it. You know, I'm glad. This is nothing but good news that more people will have these

1:04:53tools and be able to perform these repairs. Just with WWDCs coming up, I don't really have much to

1:04:58say about it. I guess we know a little bit more about Apple's plans that, you know, it is... I

1:05:02don't think they've said how many developers have been invited for the quote "special day."

1:05:06But it is more and more clear. I don't know why they haven't said, I guess, I don't know,

1:05:20Apple's gonna Apple. I just love it. It's like, just fine.

1:05:26But I guess the people who are going know that right now, right? Or at least they had

1:05:29sent some invitations or some responses out. Yeah, I think everybody who got in who won the

1:05:34raffle or the lottery, whatever you want to call it, knows and they can make plans and I guess RSVP

1:05:39and Apple can see if there's people who didn't RSVP and maybe invite people from a waiting list.

1:05:45I don't know. But still unclear where and how they'll be watching. Is it indoors? Is it outdoors?

1:05:53I sort of suspect it has to be outdoors because I don't think they have an indoor facility for as

1:05:58many people. I think there's going to be many hundreds of developers, maybe a thousand. I would

1:06:04expect a big crowd. So I think that means outside like Steve Jobs theater cannot fit a thousand

1:06:08people, not even close. So we'll see. I don't really have much to say about it though. I mean,

1:06:12I'm intrigued by how it goes and intrigued to see how this dev center that apparently will be part

1:06:19of their day and something that they can tour, what that'll be like. Don't really have anything

1:06:23to add though. I don't, you know, anything you're expecting from WWDC? No, it's a weird,

1:06:28it seems like a kind of a weird year as to what the, what if any hardware announcements

1:06:35there might be? Yeah. I know some people are sort of hoping, you know, obviously the big one would

1:06:39be the AR goggle thing. Will they announce it in advance and say, this is coming later this year,

1:06:45but here's what it's like and you can start building software for it, you know, by using the

1:06:52AR stuff on iPhones and iPads with LIDAR, you know, it will there be a message like that? I

1:06:58sort of think no, cause I just don't think that's WWDC. Like I don't think WWDC is where they would

1:07:06announce a new platform. I sort of, if I had, if I were a betting man and you know, I don't,

1:07:11I don't like to gamble, John. I would gamble or lie. I would, I would, I don't, I don't, I do not

1:07:17like the lie either, but I would guess that they will not unveil any new hardware platforms at WWDC,

1:07:25you know, maybe the, I still think the Mac Pro is a sleeper. I really think that there's a chance

1:07:30that they might announce the, the, the M1 Ultra Mac Pro. And I know like Gurman has said, that's

1:07:37a next year thing. It just seems weird. Seems weird to me that there wouldn't be any part of

1:07:42before they go to the M2 later in the year and start the next generation of Apple Silicon.

1:07:48Just seems weird that the Mac Pro would have been a no pro. No pro. I agree. I agree. I sort of,

1:07:53I mean, I'm sort of just assumed that there would be one. And then Gurman said, no, it's going to,

1:07:58it's going to start with the, he seems to think it makes more sense to start at the top of the M2

1:08:02and then trickle down to the, which I find weird. Yeah. That doesn't make sense to me. And it just

1:08:08seems to me that, you know, an Apple's a company of patterns, but always, you know, the first thing

1:08:12can always be, be the, the abnormal one that doesn't fit the eventual pattern. But to me,

1:08:19it makes more sense that the pattern would be, you see the M, the, the M2 family will follow the M1.

1:08:26We'll, we'll see the just plain M2 with no adjective and baseline specs. And it'll be in the

1:08:33main product that Apple makes the MacBook Air or maybe MacBook Airs if they go to two sizes,

1:08:40which would be great. I think, you know, I'd love to see them make consumer price laptops in a,

1:08:45in a bigger size or a smaller size or, you know, go, go, go 11th, 11, 13, 15 or something like

1:08:52that or 12, 14, 16. I don't know, but, or at least two sizes, that would be great. A new Mac mini

1:08:57with more capabilities and then roll out from there with updated MacBook Pros, eventually a new,

1:09:05I guess, a new 24-inch iMac with the M2 just plain, et cetera, et cetera. But at some point,

1:09:11you got to work the Mac Pro in and I just sort of feel, you know, WWDC would be perfect. That's

1:09:17when they unveiled the current Mac Pro was at WWDC along with the Pro Display XDR. And, you know,

1:09:23and they said it'll be coming later this year. Maybe it won't be shipping until later in the year.

1:09:28But I feel like, you know, WWDC is the perfect place to announce it because develop, you know,

1:09:32they're very clear about it. One of the biggest markets for buying the top of the line Mac Pros

1:09:38are developers. So that seems natural, but it doesn't seem like people are talking about it

1:09:43maybe because, you know, Gurman says next year and so much of our rumor ecosystem comes down to just

1:09:50Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo, right? It's like, you know, it really, we've got like two people in

1:09:55the world who like 90 some percent of the reliable Apple rumors come from.

1:10:00So people—

1:10:02It seems weird to be announcing things in opposite speed order, right? It seems like your story is a

1:10:10lot easier to tell if you're announcing things. Every time you're announcing something, it's

1:10:14faster than the thing that you announced the last time.

1:10:16Right. And it doesn't seem—

1:10:17Whereas if you announce the M2 Ultra, Max, whatever, before you announce the regular M2,

1:10:24you're like, "Oh yeah, this is way slower than the thing that we announced at WWDC."

1:10:28I am about to gravely gloss over the incredible hard work and expertise of Apple's entire silicon

1:10:35team under Johnny Suruji. But basically, it seems like the way they do it is they come out with an

1:10:41M blank, like the M1, and then they just start gluing them together, you know? And then you've

1:10:47got one that's two M1s, and that's like the M1 Pro. And then you've got—just glue two more on

1:10:54the bottom, and now you've got like a little square of four of them, that's an Ultra. And then,

1:10:57you know, maybe they put two Ultras on other sides of a board, and that's the Mac Pro. Or maybe they

1:11:02put eight of these Ultras in there and charge you $40,000. I don't know. But you just keep glue—you

1:11:07know, you come out with the M1, the M2, the M3, and you can just glue these things together

1:11:12and make faster—

1:11:14That is about as reductive as you can get.

1:11:16Yeah, it's, you know, I don't know. It doesn't sound that hard to me, but it does seem to me

1:11:20that you can't—it just seems—but like you said, it seems backwards to say they're going to

1:11:26announce one with eight M2s glued together before they come out with just the plain M2 and a MacBook

1:11:33Air with a new design. It seems backwards.

1:11:35There's two guys who won't replace a battery talking.

1:11:38I don't even want to unscrew the thing. I don't want to take the screws out.

1:11:42No, I don't either.

1:11:43Oh, you know—

1:11:44I'm going to mess it up.

1:11:45You know how easy it would be to lose those screws with my—

1:11:47Oh my god, I've lost them already.

1:11:49I don't know. And I also think—I do think that the lower in quantity a product is produced,

1:11:58the better, for obvious reasons. Like, you don't have to be a friggin' brainiac to figure this out.

1:12:02That the more niche an Apple product is, the better they are at keeping it secret until

1:12:08they unveil it. So the iPhone, which they sell like $100 million of a quarter,

1:12:12leaks—every detail of it leaks, except maybe the colors and stuff like that. Because there's just

1:12:18too many of them. There's like giant cities in China that are making these things, you know,

1:12:24that are making iPhones. Whereas the Mac Pro, you know, they do it—maybe they're still going to do

1:12:29it in Texas. It's like one factory. It's a lot easier to keep something like that under wraps,

1:12:33right? The best example I can think of is the 24-inch iMac, which was a complete surprise,

1:12:37right? It's like they sort of were rumors that there'd be an iMac, but the fact that it was so

1:12:42thin and it came in those colors, all of it was a nice surprise. If they could keep the iMac 24

1:12:48under wraps, I think, you know, I totally believe that they could have a Mac Pro ready to announce

1:12:5310 days from now or whatever the date is. And, you know, that would be the hardware announcement

1:12:57of WWDC. Goggles—that seems to me like a fall thing, whether it's going to go on sale soon or

1:13:03whether they're going to pull an Apple Watch timeline and say, "We're announcing this now.

1:13:08We're showing it to you now. We want developers to get started now, but this will be available

1:13:12early next year," you know, which means April. I could see that. It just feels like a fall thing.

1:13:17I could see that too. I would bet on that just because, man, they would want to get

1:13:25more things in a row before they ship something like that. And I was skeptical that they would

1:13:30be announcing it this summer. It just doesn't seem like there's enough going on around it.

1:13:35I know that they apparently showed it to the board and stuff like that, so I guess it's getting

1:13:40to the point where it's a real actual thing, but it doesn't seem like it's in huge production or

1:13:46anything for sure. Yeah, that was a funny leak, and I wrote about it like, "God, I would love to

1:13:50know how that leaked," because the story that leaked to Germin, right? I want to get this right.

1:13:56I think so, yeah.

1:13:56It was either Germin or Ming-Chi Kuo because that's where—

1:14:00But that's not the kind of leak that would go to Ming-Chi Kuo.

1:14:02No, it wasn't.

1:14:03His stuff comes from—

1:14:04Asia, and Germin's stuff comes from California. No, but somehow somebody was aware of the fact

1:14:08that Apple put together a demo of the current state of the project for the Apple board,

1:14:13and, "God, I would love to know how that leaked." I mean, I know some people are joking that it's

1:14:19Al Gore, which would be hilarious, really, but I just think—I'd love to know it, but I don't know

1:14:26that that means that it's imminent, right? It just seems like that's the sort of thing that,

1:14:31"Oh, yeah, somebody on the board could say, 'Yeah, big deal. We saw the Apple Watch 18 months

1:14:36before it shipped, and it was a prototype, and it didn't work right,' or had this, that, and the

1:14:41other to come." I don't know that that really means anything other than that it's real, and we sort of

1:14:45knew that it's real. The other thing, though, that would be a big tell, I think, would be if the only

1:14:50hardware might be the Mac Pro, there's no news of any AR-specific hardware, but if the developer

1:14:56news of the year involves lots of new AR stuff for the iPhone and iPad, right? And then it would be

1:15:04like, "Yeah, gee, I wonder why they're trying to—"

1:15:06Yeah, "What's this for?"

1:15:08Yeah, "Why is Mike Rockwell up there talking about ARKit 3 when nobody—" In my opinion,

1:15:14I just think—I think it's cool, and I've used it, and it's a nice toy, and the measuring thing

1:15:19is a neat gimmick, but for the most part, people, as far as I can tell, aren't really doing lots of

1:15:24AR stuff in the real world with their iPhones and iPads. But that doesn't mean that it's a waste

1:15:29of Apple's effort that they've been building ARKit up over the last few years. It just seems like

1:15:35it's sort of like getting developers into this and building stuff into their iOS apps

1:15:43with future AR-native hardware in mind. I think that's pretty clear.

1:15:50Only last thing on my list for the day is to toast the iPod.

1:15:55Oh, yeah!

1:15:57Yeah, so this is my first show since the demise of the iPod Touch, the last iPod.

1:16:02Yeah, which is sort of an iPod in name only, right? I mean—

1:16:06Yeah, yeah.

1:16:07It's an iPhone without the phone part, so in that regard, it's a—and it plays music. But

1:16:13I mean, the iPod iPod was discontinued quite a while ago.

1:16:18Yeah, there was a couple articles—it's always a good time to look back, but it is funny.

1:16:22Yeah, sure.

1:16:23One thing that sticks out to me is how brief the iPod era really was, right? So it came out in 2001,

1:16:29famously right after 9/11, that's how I remember. It was sort of a niche Mac-only product for two

1:16:35years. Then around 2003 is when they moved to Windows.

1:16:39God, it was that long? It was two years?

1:16:41I think it was two years. It really exploded in popularity at that point. I think a combination—you

1:16:48know, obviously going to Windows—

1:16:48Things moved slower back then. Things moved slower. Technology moved slower, right?

1:16:53Some things moved slower and some moved faster. It still blows my mind when I did that a couple

1:17:00months ago and wrote that timeline of the original iPhone project. It still blows my mind that they

1:17:05went from, "Okay, let's do it. Let's build our own friggin' phone," to "Steve Jobs holding it

1:17:10up," to six months later, "me having one in my hand from an Apple store." It was like two years.

1:17:15That's kind of crazy. But other stuff did go slow, right? It was funny. Somebody had a gallery of all

1:17:22the iPods over the years. You know which one I always forget? I always forget the white one that

1:17:27had the buttons, the four buttons above the click wheel that were in a row. I don't know. I never

1:17:36liked that one because it seemed to me like— Those were touch buttons, right? Yeah, I think

1:17:41I had that one. I probably still have it here someplace.

1:17:43I don't know. It was like just having a wheel that you could click seemed so elegant, and putting

1:17:48buttons on top of it sort of seemed—I don't know. It almost seemed like a knockoff iPod.

1:17:53It seemed contrary to the original Spirit. There definitely were a lot of them and a myriad of

1:18:01designs, right? I mean, compared to the phone, which has always been a rectangle with a screen.

1:18:09Obviously, the design dictates the fact that it's not going to change very much.

1:18:16Well, or compared to the watch to bring this episode full circle, right? This is a professional

1:18:23podcast. Right now, we're bringing it full circle. But the fact that you could take the original Apple

1:18:29Watch Series 0 and at arm's length not really tell it apart from today's Apple Watch, they really

1:18:35nailed the basic form factor with Apple Watch, whereas the iPods really were such a playground

1:18:42for industrial design. It wasn't like that the original was a bad design, but the fact that just

1:18:48a few years into the iPods, relatively brief life cycle of relevance, right? 2001 introduction,

1:18:55two years of obscurity, a couple of years as a smash pop culture hit, and then the iPhone came

1:19:02out and was like, "Why do I need an iPod?" And I know there's lots and lots of people who still

1:19:06use their iPods for other reasons and don't want to just have their $1,000 phone playing their

1:19:10music if they go running and blah, blah, blah. But for the most part, once the iPhone came out,

1:19:14the writing was on the wall like, "Oh, right. This is the one thing in my pocket that'll play all my

1:19:19music," and all this other stuff. It's just so interesting that even in that brief period,

1:19:25it went through the transition of, "Isn't this amazing? We have a 1.8-inch spinning hard drive

1:19:31that nobody else knows what to do, and we can put 5,000 songs on this thing that's the size of a

1:19:35deck of cards." And within like four years, there was an iPod Nano with flash memory, and you could

1:19:42stack like eight of them in the space of an original iPod. Yeah. I had a Rio, I think,

1:19:50before—yeah, it was a Rio before the iPod came out, which I used for quite a while,

1:19:54but it was always such a pain because you had a tiny little flash media in it, and you had to

1:20:01swap songs out. It would hold like 30 songs at most, and it was constantly just like, "I'm tired

1:20:07of this song. I've got to connect it to the computer again, and I've got to move things

1:20:10around." And then you get the iPod, and it's like, "Oh, I'm just going to throw it all on there."

1:20:16Amy had one that held like 11 songs. It was really, really tight, but she loved it. She

1:20:21loved it, but every day you'd be like— Oh, yeah, well, it was so much better than carrying a tape

1:20:26or a disc, like a CD player or something like that. Well, that's it. That's it from me, John.

1:20:30It was good to have you. My thanks to you. I love talking to you. Force be with you.

1:20:34Force be with you as well.

1:20:37[LAUGHTER]