0:00:00Let's do something unusual.
0:00:01Let's actually talk about stuff that's in the news.
0:00:03OK.
0:00:04It's your show.
0:00:05Is it?
0:00:07Is it?
0:00:08That's what I've been given to understand.
0:00:10Till somebody comes in and takes it away from me.
0:00:12Is there a hostile takeover happening
0:00:14that I don't know about?
0:00:15Well, I don't know.
0:00:16I grew up thinking that if you have a talk show,
0:00:19then eventually somebody comes and takes it away from you.
0:00:22I guess that's true, yeah.
0:00:23But you had Guy on last week, right?
0:00:24He didn't take it away.
0:00:25So if Guy didn't take it away, then--
0:00:27Yeah.
0:00:28Yeah, if anybody's going to take it away, it's probably Guy.
0:00:30Do you see Letterman is going to be on the late night
0:00:34with Seth Meyers on Tuesday.
0:00:36I did, yeah.
0:00:37That'll probably be worth watching.
0:00:39I'm extremely excited because, of course, a big Letterman fan.
0:00:42I also-- my personal favorite of the current late night talk shows
0:00:48is Seth Meyers' show.
0:00:49I really enjoy it.
0:00:50I feel like their closer looks should
0:00:53be winning some sort of awards.
0:00:55I don't know.
0:00:55They're very good little mini political current event
0:00:58essays that are also funny.
0:01:00But also, Letterman, I mean, he's my favorite host.
0:01:03But he's also-- he's like the prototypical good guest on a show.
0:01:07So--
0:01:07Yeah, absolutely.
0:01:09--ready to nerd out on Tuesday night.
0:01:11You've seen him in the--
0:01:12I think those are the outtakes for the movie of Between Two Ferns.
0:01:16Yes, I think so, yeah.
0:01:17They're very funny.
0:01:18I forget what he called it, Crystal Meth Santa Claus?
0:01:24Yeah.
0:01:24[LAUGHTER]
0:01:26Oh, man.
0:01:28He was absolutely amazing.
0:01:30Yeah, the outtake-- I like the movie.
0:01:31I love the Between Two Ferns.
0:01:33That's Zach Galifianakis' not really fake talk show or interview show.
0:01:39It is real interviews.
0:01:40Hillary Clinton famously did it before the 2016 election.
0:01:44A lot of good at dinner.
0:01:45Yeah, really.
0:01:46Maybe, who knows?
0:01:47Maybe it helped.
0:01:47But real people with Zach Galifianakis asking absolutely absurd
0:01:54questions.
0:01:55Very rude.
0:01:56Right, very rude.
0:01:57And then they made a motion picture of it, which was--
0:02:01it was OK.
0:02:02I thought it was OK, too, yeah.
0:02:03Yeah.
0:02:03I enjoyed it well enough.
0:02:04The outtakes were actually--
0:02:06But the outtakes are absolutely the best.
0:02:09It's worth renting, even if you get into the movie.
0:02:12I don't love the movie.
0:02:14I might just stop.
0:02:15Skip ahead to the credits, because they're amazing.
0:02:17It's just seeing him break.
0:02:19That's always my favorite part of Saturday Night Live,
0:02:21where they break form and start-- they can't control themselves.
0:02:24They're laughing so hard.
0:02:25And just seeing him start cracking up and then
0:02:29apologize, just like, I'm so sorry.
0:02:32Hillary has to be asked, Brie Larson, if her parents' breakup was her fault.
0:02:39Yeah.
0:02:40Anyway, in the news, we've got Apple results.
0:02:47We've got new betas of Mac OS 12.3 and iOS 15.4 coming out and anything else.
0:02:54I don't know.
0:02:55I guess we should start with the results.
0:02:57Because one thing-- I think you've been on the show at some point
0:03:00shortly after results before.
0:03:02And I always say, if one thing savvy investors always do
0:03:05is tune into this podcast for their--
0:03:08For their results information?
0:03:09Yeah.
0:03:10Five-minute results information.
0:03:12But it is-- it's like my quick takeaway that I wrote on Darren Fireball,
0:03:16is if you can have, as the most profitable company and biggest
0:03:20by market cap in the world, a boring, record-breaking quarter,
0:03:25Apple has been doing it pretty consistently.
0:03:28Yeah, and I was thinking about that.
0:03:29We used to hang on these results a lot.
0:03:31And now they just seem like a non-event, to a certain degree.
0:03:36Obviously, sometimes it's a big deal.
0:03:38And various things can happen.
0:03:40But I don't feel like it's as dire as it used to be.
0:03:46And maybe that was still a hangover from the days
0:03:49when we thought that Apple might go out of business at some point.
0:03:52I do think what comes up must come down.
0:03:55Eventually, Apple is going to not be the biggest company in the world.
0:03:58They will-- is it a five-year thing, a 10-year thing?
0:04:03Is it after you and I are dead, 25, 30 years from now?
0:04:06But it will happen, right?
0:04:08I mean, the East India Trading Company is not that big a deal anymore.
0:04:12How were their results this week?
0:04:14I don't know if they've announced them yet.
0:04:16It's going to change eventually.
0:04:18But in the near term, it is hard to see how Apple's--
0:04:23they really seem to have a very consistent and solid business.
0:04:29Like, the primary things that are driving revenue and profit,
0:04:33the devices, iPhone and iPad and Mac and AirPods and watches and the services
0:04:40is growing.
0:04:41And there just is not that much cyclical fluctuation
0:04:45like there were in times past.
0:04:46And I can't help but think, too, that how long are we?
0:04:50We're like, what?
0:04:51Just past-- yeah, we were just celebrating Tim Cook's 10 years as CEO,
0:04:56I believe.
0:04:57Yeah, exactly.
0:04:5711.
0:04:58Yeah, so the end of 2021.
0:04:59So it's a whole decade, which is a long run.
0:05:03But it's like, towards the latter few years of this decade of Tim Cook
0:05:08as CEO, the company has taken more and more of his personality,
0:05:12in my opinion.
0:05:14And in the way that it's--
0:05:17obviously, what we think of with Steve Jobs and Apple
0:05:21were his product decisions and his taste in the products.
0:05:24And Tim Cook doesn't do that.
0:05:26He doesn't try to.
0:05:26He never pretends like, hey, I'm the genius who's
0:05:29going to come up with the next big thing.
0:05:31But it's his personality.
0:05:32What is his personality?
0:05:34It's like competent, smart, consistent.
0:05:37And that's the company now, the company.
0:05:41And I just think about little things.
0:05:43Remember when Jobs was CEO--
0:05:46I forget what year it was, but there was a somewhat serious stock options
0:05:51scandal, controversy, where they'd--
0:05:56They backdated a bunch of stock ins for him.
0:05:59And for other executives, I think.
0:06:01But I think it was for him, too.
0:06:03But it was fishy.
0:06:04And you just say, backdated stock options.
0:06:07And you already think, that doesn't even-- that already sounds like it's fishy.
0:06:10Just sort of a fast and loose approach to dealing with it.
0:06:15And it seemed like the long story short of, hey, can we do this?
0:06:18And somebody was like, I don't know if we should do this.
0:06:21And they're like, well, Steve says to do it.
0:06:23And they're like, OK.
0:06:25And that's how they got into trouble.
0:06:26Nobody went to jail.
0:06:27And they worked it out.
0:06:28And I don't know if they paid a fine or whatever.
0:06:30I can't remember the guy's name, the guy who was the CFO at the time.
0:06:34But he retired not long after that.
0:06:37And I think he ended up-- he might have gotten fined or something.
0:06:40I think that--
0:06:41I probably shouldn't say that because maybe that's not true.
0:06:43But I feel like he was at least interviewed.
0:06:46There were some definite concerns about what happened.
0:06:48I'll find a link to the backdated options scandal.
0:06:52And we don't have to talk about it.
0:06:53Is it Anderson?
0:06:54Is that the guy?
0:06:54Yeah, it was in his name.
0:06:56Yeah.
0:06:56Yeah, that's it.
0:06:57Fred Anderson.
0:06:57Fred.
0:06:58Yeah, he looked like a Fred.
0:07:02I would say, in the same way-- many people have made this joke.
0:07:06But if you live in Great Britain and you name your son Jeeves,
0:07:14the kid is probably going to grow up to be a manservant or a butler,
0:07:17whatever you call it.
0:07:19I mean, what else has he got?
0:07:20I say I like a CFO named Fred.
0:07:25Just saying, it's a good name for a CFO.
0:07:27It's got the F.
0:07:28Yeah, it was Fred Anderson.
0:07:30I got it right.
0:07:31Yeah, it wasn't shocking, though.
0:07:32Ah, they're going to work it out.
0:07:34It's not that big a deal.
0:07:34It doesn't seem like anybody actually stole anything.
0:07:36It just seems like they didn't dot every I, cross every T,
0:07:39and they're not supposed to do what they did.
0:07:41And you can pay a fine or throw one employee under the bus
0:07:44and you keep going.
0:07:46So yeah, the SEC filed a complaint against him.
0:07:48But it wasn't shocking, right?
0:07:50It's not--
0:07:50No, and it wasn't that unusual at the time either, really.
0:07:54There were lots of companies that were doing the same.
0:07:56It's not right.
0:07:57You're not supposed to do it.
0:07:59But there were a number of companies that were doing it
0:08:02during that period.
0:08:03But if it happened under Tim Cook, wouldn't it be--
0:08:06it would be shocking.
0:08:07Yeah, it would be much more shocking.
0:08:09And it's just that he is more of a--
0:08:12I don't know, how would you describe it?
0:08:14By the book?
0:08:14But that sort of makes it seem like he's conservative,
0:08:18in the lowercase c, conservative.
0:08:21And I don't think he is.
0:08:23It's just not in his personality to play fast and loose.
0:08:27Whatever the opposite of fast and loose is, that's Tim Cook.
0:08:31And you just--
0:08:32He's more careful.
0:08:32If he's going to break the rules,
0:08:34he's going to make sure that he covers.
0:08:36Right.
0:08:37And I just think that it just shows in the company's results.
0:08:41And they famously had very consistent profit margins.
0:08:44But under Steve Jobs, they had bad quarters and good quarters.
0:08:47And the company was different too.
0:08:49If Jobs hadn't had cancer and had lived longer,
0:08:54it's quite possible that under Steve Jobs
0:08:56still as CEO or as the chairman of the board with Tim Cook
0:08:59as CEO, but still with Steve Jobs around,
0:09:03the company would have gotten more consistent in this way
0:09:05anyway as they grew bigger.
0:09:07They're so much bigger than they were when Steve Jobs died.
0:09:10It's just absolutely mind boggling
0:09:13how much more money they make and how many more of everything
0:09:17they sell.
0:09:18But they're just--
0:09:19I look at these results, and it's
0:09:21like huge mind boggling sums of money.
0:09:24And it's just very consistent and somehow predictable.
0:09:28Yeah.
0:09:29I think Microsoft used to get dinged
0:09:31for shuffling around revenue between quarters,
0:09:36like trying to move revenue back and forth in order
0:09:39to smooth out their revenue.
0:09:41And I wouldn't be surprised that Apple does something similar,
0:09:45but much more careful than--
0:09:48probably less hamfisted than maybe
0:09:49that Microsoft was doing it.
0:09:51One of the things that they talked about in the conference
0:09:53call was the fact that iPad sales were down,
0:09:57but they blamed constraints.
0:09:59They blamed part constraints, right?
0:10:01Yeah, component constraints.
0:10:02Yeah, but also at the same time, there
0:10:05was that story a few months back about the fact
0:10:07that they were repurposing iPad chips for iPhones.
0:10:11So in a way, I mean, that's a constraint.
0:10:13But you decided that the constraint
0:10:15was going to be on iPads rather than on iPhones.
0:10:17I do think, too, iPad is--
0:10:19of the three computing platforms--
0:10:22and I know that Apple Watch is actually a little Unix
0:10:25computer, and there's actually little Unix computers
0:10:29in your AirPods.
0:10:30I mean, everything's a computer now.
0:10:31But the three that we think of as personal computing devices--
0:10:34the phone, iPad, and Mac--
0:10:36iPad has always been weird in its chart
0:10:42of unit sales and revenue.
0:10:46It's like it had these crazy first handful of go-go years,
0:10:51where as a nine-month-old product
0:10:53or as a 18-month-old product, it was ahead of the iPhone
0:10:57from when the iPhone was nine months old or 18 months old.
0:11:00From introduction to now, for years--
0:11:03at first, a couple of years-- the iPad
0:11:05was ahead of the iPhone.
0:11:06And I'll admit to buying into-- maybe it's
0:11:09just so many more people have been exposed
0:11:12to Apple who never really thought about buying Apple
0:11:15stuff.
0:11:15Maybe this line will keep going, and it's just always
0:11:19going to stay ahead of the iPhone and the iPad's going
0:11:21to be the bigger deal.
0:11:23Turns out that wasn't the case.
0:11:25And eventually, they went from like $20 million per quarter
0:11:28down to like $10 million, $9 million.
0:11:31They don't release unit sales anymore.
0:11:33They just release revenue.
0:11:34But it was weird.
0:11:36It cut in half.
0:11:37And I really do think it was a simple explanation, which
0:11:40is that iPads last forever.
0:11:44You don't abuse them like you do your phone physically.
0:11:47You don't tend to drop them.
0:11:48They're not in your pocket all the time.
0:11:49They don't go everywhere with you.
0:11:51And what people tend to do on an iPad,
0:11:55it doesn't matter if it's four years old or five years old.
0:11:58People just find four or five-year-old iPads
0:12:00to be just as good as the day they bought them.
0:12:02And maybe they'd be pleasantly surprised
0:12:04if somebody replaced their regular coffee with Folgers
0:12:07crystals.
0:12:08Somebody came in and said, ha, the iPad you've been using
0:12:11is actually the new iPad Air.
0:12:13And they'd be like, huh, I thought my home button
0:12:15disappeared.
0:12:16[LAUGHTER]
0:12:18Yeah, I think I roll mine over about as often
0:12:20as I roll my Macs over, I would say.
0:12:23Yeah, and I keep my Macs for years and years too.
0:12:25I've got the first 11-inch iPad Pro.
0:12:28I actually have it right here with my show notes.
0:12:30So it's from 2018?
0:12:322018, yeah.
0:12:33That's the one I have.
0:12:34I've even reviewed newer ones, because they send them to me
0:12:37and I write reviews.
0:12:38And it's, yeah, these are nice.
0:12:39And I still can't think of a damn thing
0:12:41that would be any better or faster than this.
0:12:45Well, that was what we--
0:12:47I'm sure you did this as well, but Jason Snell every year
0:12:50asks for people to do a report card.
0:12:53I'll spoil mine a little bit, but for Apple.
0:12:55And the thing that I said about the iPad
0:12:57was the new iPad Mini is the coolest device
0:13:00that I just simply have absolutely no reason to buy.
0:13:04I really want one, but I am not going to use--
0:13:07I have my 11-inch Air--
0:13:10or not Air, 11-inch Pro.
0:13:11And I'm not going to--
0:13:12there's no reason for me to buy that.
0:13:14And yet, every once in a while, I'll go onto the website
0:13:17and just look at it and think, oh, man, that'd be cool to have.
0:13:20It was worse for me, because they sent me one.
0:13:22I had to review you, and I really did enjoy it.
0:13:25But it really did feel to me--
0:13:27I feel like my--
0:13:30I was actually-- I actually put this in the show notes
0:13:32that somebody, R. Stevens, reminded me
0:13:35that the iPad was introduced 12 years ago, I think yesterday.
0:13:39What was his-- he had a little quip about it.
0:13:42Yeah, I think he said he'd only owned three.
0:13:45I've owned three.
0:13:46I'm still not entirely sure what they're for.
0:13:49And that's still how I feel.
0:13:51I still feel like I depend on, need, and love both my iPhone
0:13:58and my MacBook Pro.
0:14:01And if I really could only have one, recreationally,
0:14:06I'd rather have the iPhone.
0:14:07But for work, I'd rather have the MacBook Pro.
0:14:10If I were sentenced to prison, and they said,
0:14:13but you can take one device with you,
0:14:15I would take the MacBook Pro.
0:14:16But both of them feel essential to me.
0:14:19And the iPad feels to me like this is very nice to have,
0:14:23and I enjoy using it for long--
0:14:25I really enjoy using it to read a long article,
0:14:27or even an e-book, or something like that.
0:14:30But I don't need it.
0:14:32That's interesting.
0:14:33If you included the iPad in that question,
0:14:36if you could only have one, I might pick the iPad.
0:14:39Because the iPad with the Magic Keyboard is pretty good,
0:14:43and does most everything.
0:14:45And it's more portable, and it lets me--
0:14:47There's some, there's still some--
0:14:48I guess there's probably--
0:14:48I'm sure you could do it through the website, maybe.
0:14:51But like, HBO Max, and some other ones.
0:14:53And even Amazon just came out with a viewer thing for--
0:14:56not just, but maybe a month or two ago-- for the Mac.
0:14:59But it was a little skippy for me
0:15:01when I watched something using their viewer on the Mac.
0:15:04And it's much more smooth on the iPad.
0:15:06So I just prefer watching stuff on the iPad.
0:15:09That's true.
0:15:10That's true, if you could stream.
0:15:12It depends if I wanted to work or be entertained.
0:15:14And it is--
0:15:15If I'm going to jail, I think I want to be entertained.
0:15:17Yeah, to hell with this.
0:15:18Somebody else-- to hell with my family.
0:15:20I'm not writing this website while I'm in prison.
0:15:23Take care of yourselves.
0:15:25I'll be back in 5 to 10.
0:15:27But it would be preposterous for me
0:15:29to both keep my 11-inch 2018 iPad Pro,
0:15:33and get an iPad Mini.
0:15:34Like, just to have a dessert on my dessert device,
0:15:39it just doesn't have a role for me.
0:15:42And I don't need to replace my iPad.
0:15:44And if I did replace my iPad, I really
0:15:46would rather have one that's big enough
0:15:48to have a Magic Keyboard.
0:15:49And so it's not.
0:15:50But it is an adorable device.
0:15:52And I've always loved the form factor of the iPad Mini.
0:15:55For many-- most of the early years of iPad,
0:15:58my personal iPad was a Mini.
0:16:00And I really enjoyed it.
0:16:01Here, let me take a break.
0:16:03And we'll get back to the results.
0:16:05But I'll take a break here and thank our first sponsor,
0:16:07our good friends at Linode.
0:16:09Oh, man.
0:16:09Go to linode.com/thetalkshow and see
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0:16:16provider by both G2 and Trust Radius.
0:16:20Linode's award-winning support offered 24 hours a day,
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0:17:22Linode, that's where I host Daring Fireball.
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0:17:44So iPad sales were down like 14% year over year,
0:17:47quarter to quarter.
0:17:48I didn't realize it.
0:17:50There were some things I looked up.
0:17:51The last time I was on CNBC for one
0:17:54of those little three-minute things that I--
0:17:56it was like three minutes of torture for me.
0:17:58I don't know why I ever agreed to do it.
0:18:00I get so stressed out.
0:18:01But I looked up.
0:18:02I remember it was like right after a bunch of the fall
0:18:05October devices came out.
0:18:07And it was like the Apple Watch was already backordered
0:18:11into late November.
0:18:12It feels-- and again, I think it's one of those Tim Cook
0:18:16things.
0:18:17We just take Tim Cook for granted, the things
0:18:19that he's the best at.
0:18:20And operations and the supply chain stuff,
0:18:23for all of the hand wringing that everybody around the world
0:18:27went through for supply chain constraints and shipping
0:18:31boats that were backed up outside Los Angeles waiting
0:18:34for room at the harbor because everything got all backed up.
0:18:37Stuck in a canal.
0:18:38Stuck in a canal.
0:18:39Right, somebody actually--
0:18:42that's exactly what would happen, by the way, if I ever--
0:18:45if they ever said, Gruber, take the wheel.
0:18:47Oh my god.
0:18:48And I'd say, are you sure?
0:18:49And they'd say, yeah, well, five minutes.
0:18:51What could go wrong?
0:18:52Five minutes.
0:18:53Just take the wheel.
0:18:54I got to hit the head.
0:18:55I'll be back in five minutes.
0:18:56Next thing--
0:18:56Just keep it pointed straight.
0:18:57Yeah, next thing you know.
0:19:00You're in a canal.
0:19:01What could go wrong?
0:19:02I've blocked the Suez Canal.
0:19:04That would happen.
0:19:04I guarantee it.
0:19:05I cannot-- did you ever drive a rental moving truck?
0:19:09Oh, yeah.
0:19:10One time-- oh god, it must have been 1999.
0:19:14Amy was moving from Pittsburgh back to Philadelphia.
0:19:17And me and a friend were going to rent a truck here
0:19:20in Philadelphia and then drive out to Pittsburgh,
0:19:24load up her stuff, and then hit right back.
0:19:27It's about a five-hour drive, maybe a little longer.
0:19:31And a rental truck, they don't go my speed.
0:19:33No.
0:19:34So a long day, five hours one way, load up a truck.
0:19:37Five hours the other way, unload the truck.
0:19:40It was going to be a long day, but better to knock it out.
0:19:43Anyway, I go in the morning.
0:19:44I pick up the rental truck and pull out of the lot.
0:19:48And I got to make a right-hand turn.
0:19:51And I took the right-hand turn at a light a little too close.
0:19:55Boom.
0:19:56I could hear it.
0:19:57The tire hit the curb.
0:20:00And by the time I got to the next corner,
0:20:02I could tell I had blew the tire right out of the lot.
0:20:06So I just went around the block, pulled right back
0:20:08into the budget.
0:20:09It was a budget.
0:20:10And I said, hey, what's the deal?
0:20:12You gave me a lousy tire.
0:20:14You gave me a bum tire.
0:20:15And the guy is like, oh, I'm sorry.
0:20:17I'm so sorry, because he was the same guy who just gave me
0:20:19the keys about four minutes before.
0:20:21I was like, what the hell?
0:20:22I got to get to Pittsburgh.
0:20:23He's, hold on, let me see what else I got.
0:20:25Gives me another truck.
0:20:27But this one didn't look the same.
0:20:28This one was-- remember Isuzu?
0:20:32You don't hear about Isuzu.
0:20:34Whatever happened to that company?
0:20:35No, I know.
0:20:35I thought about them the other day.
0:20:36I was like, for some reason, Joe Isuzu popped into my head.
0:20:39Yeah, now I got to put that in the show notes.
0:20:41What the hell ever happened to Isuzu?
0:20:43The other one just looked like-- the first one looked like a regular budget
0:20:46rental truck, the type of thing you would think
0:20:48you would need to move a 26-year-old single woman from Pittsburgh to Philly.
0:20:53Not too big, but not a van.
0:20:55It was a truck.
0:20:56It was like the smallest truck.
0:20:57And he gave me an Isuzu.
0:20:58It was the same size, but it was one of those ones that had no nose.
0:21:03So you're sitting right over the--
0:21:05You're sitting right over, yeah.
0:21:07Right over the front.
0:21:08And I pick up my friend, and we drive.
0:21:10And then, like the idiots that we are, we stop at the very first rest station
0:21:15to get some food.
0:21:17It's a long drive to Pittsburgh.
0:21:18And we decide to stop at the first one.
0:21:20We get, I don't know, some burgers or something like that and get back in.
0:21:24And the thing won't even start.
0:21:26Won't start.
0:21:27Son of a bitch.
0:21:28And it took four or five hours to get a service guy out there
0:21:33to change the battery.
0:21:35So now we're like five, six hours behind.
0:21:37Anyway, it all worked out.
0:21:38Also, Amy will verify this.
0:21:40I did on the way back after-- this is nighttime.
0:21:42We're driving back from Pittsburgh to Philly.
0:21:45Almost drove off a cliff.
0:21:46They say we had like a wheel or two over the edge.
0:21:52I say it wasn't quite that close.
0:21:54But--
0:21:55This is why you can't drive it.
0:21:56It's one of the reasons I can.
0:21:57I definitely do not have a truck driver's license.
0:22:00Yeah.
0:22:00The crazy thing-- so I grew up in Connecticut.
0:22:02And a Connecticut driver's license, at least for years--
0:22:05I don't know if it's like this anymore-- was also considered
0:22:07a limousine driver's license.
0:22:10For some reason, I have absolutely no idea.
0:22:12I didn't take some sub-course in limousine driving
0:22:16in order to get my license.
0:22:17But when I went to college, I was
0:22:19looking for a part-time job to try and make some money
0:22:22while I was going to school.
0:22:23And one of the things that I found
0:22:25was driving for the school, they would pay--
0:22:28because they would have sometimes parents, but also
0:22:32people who were coming to speak at the school
0:22:34and would need a ride from the airport.
0:22:35So they had a van.
0:22:37And if you had a Connecticut driver's license,
0:22:39you were licensed to drive the van.
0:22:40And so I drove the van.
0:22:43I had no special skills.
0:22:45I have no idea how that happened.
0:22:47And I feel kind of lucky that nobody got injured
0:22:51while I was driving that van.
0:22:53Huh.
0:22:53That's very funny, because my friend John is--
0:22:57also named John, John--
0:22:59my roommate from college who was--
0:23:01Should have him on the podcast with me.
0:23:02I should.
0:23:03We all know him.
0:23:03No confusion at all.
0:23:04No, none.
0:23:05My friend John, who was the guy who went with me out
0:23:08to Pittsburgh, and very-- what a friend, right?
0:23:11What a friend who's willing to ride all the way to Pittsburgh
0:23:13to help you.
0:23:14Any friend that helps you move, that's a solid--
0:23:16But a day trip from Philly to Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh
0:23:19round trip, that's a hell of a thing.
0:23:21But anyway, he had a job in college.
0:23:23Now Drexel and Penn are right next to each other,
0:23:26big shared border.
0:23:27It's effectively one big conglomerate of college campus.
0:23:33And he was a van driver for the University of Pennsylvania,
0:23:38even though we went to Drexel.
0:23:39He got a job at Penn driving like the--
0:23:42you just sort of have a route, and you just stop.
0:23:46It's like a bus, but it was a van.
0:23:47And you'd stop, and if kids at Penn had student ID,
0:23:51they could just get on for free and ride around.
0:23:54Well anyway, he liked it.
0:23:56He enjoyed the job.
0:23:57It paid good money, I guess.
0:23:59But one time, he hit somebody.
0:24:01But it was absolutely not his fault.
0:24:04It was like an intoxicated college student who
0:24:08ran in front of his van.
0:24:10And there were all sorts of witnesses.
0:24:12It was like a Friday night at 9 o'clock, all sorts
0:24:15of witnesses.
0:24:16And he was in no legal trouble.
0:24:18And everybody agreed it was the kid's fault.
0:24:21The kid who got hit, I think it was a girl,
0:24:23but even she admitted it was her fault.
0:24:25And still, he got fired.
0:24:27It was company policy.
0:24:28As soon as you hit somebody, you're fired.
0:24:30So he lost his job, even though it wasn't his fault.
0:24:34Yeah, I-- yeah.
0:24:36And they even said to him, they're like,
0:24:38that's a tough one, because it really-- this one,
0:24:40it's usually not so clear cut.
0:24:41This one wasn't your fault. Policy's policy.
0:24:44You know who should have that policy is Spotify.
0:24:46[LAUGHTER]
0:24:50If you hit somebody?
0:24:51[LAUGHTER]
0:24:54Or if you spew COVID nonsense for years on end.
0:25:01Yeah, maybe.
0:25:02All right, what else?
0:25:03Anything else stick out from-- oh, the Mac sales were up.
0:25:06And that's-- of course.
0:25:07Also, I don't think you have to be Jim Cramer.
0:25:11You don't have to be a deep thinker of Wall Street
0:25:13to figure out what's going on.
0:25:15The M1 Macs came out at the beginning of last year,
0:25:18end of 2020.
0:25:20They're incredibly well-reviewed.
0:25:22And they've percolated throughout the lineup
0:25:25to all of the most popular models.
0:25:28The only remaining ones are the big iMac
0:25:31and the professional Mac Pro.
0:25:34And yeah, it's not surprising Mac sales are up.
0:25:38Record breaking, more Macs being sold in a quarter than ever
0:25:41before, although they-- again, they don't break down units
0:25:44anymore, so we can't say, but at least by revenue.
0:25:47Yeah.
0:25:48Yeah, right.
0:25:49And it does not seem surprising.
0:25:51And they also said the last--
0:25:52gosh, now I can't remember the number.
0:25:556 quarters were the best 6 quarters for the Mac ever.
0:26:00Yeah, because there was an unusual thing where
0:26:03part of us, people like us, are like, what kind of an idiot
0:26:07would buy an Intel Mac in September?
0:26:10When you knew that Apple Silicon was going.
0:26:12But they had a record breaking quarter,
0:26:14like the last quarter of Mac sales
0:26:16before they even announced the transition.
0:26:19Even though they announced the transition was coming at WWDC
0:26:22already, it was as much as Apple ever talks about the future.
0:26:25But people--
0:26:266 quarters is a year and a half.
0:26:28So I think what that times to is the period after--
0:26:34I mean, for a while, Apple kind of screwed the Mac up, right?
0:26:38I mean, the MacBook Pro, the keyboard things, the Touch Bar--
0:26:43The lack of a retina MacBook Air.
0:26:45Yeah, I mean, all these things probably
0:26:48depressed Mac sales to some degree for a while.
0:26:51And once they addressed those issues,
0:26:55I think that probably helped a lot.
0:26:58Yeah, I do too.
0:26:59Yeah, and I do think--
0:27:00I don't think it was so much that the company had
0:27:03lost interest in the Mac.
0:27:04I just think they knew--
0:27:05No, I think they were just going in the wrong direction.
0:27:07Well, and I think they knew this transition was coming.
0:27:10And they were like, so do we really
0:27:12want to do x before we actually make this transition?
0:27:15Why don't we save it?
0:27:16And they have good ideas for things
0:27:18to do with the Mac and Mac hardware.
0:27:20Why don't we save it for when we do Apple Silicon?
0:27:23And some of the things really depend on it,
0:27:25like the fact that you get a much, much better
0:27:28significantly better FaceTime camera for video conference
0:27:31calls and whatever else you use your MacBook camera for.
0:27:35You get such better picture out of it
0:27:38because it gets the image processing
0:27:40pipeline of Apple Silicon.
0:27:41Like the first round of--
0:27:43still for sale, like if you buy the MacBook Air with an M1,
0:27:47it literally has the same camera as the Intel ones.
0:27:50And the picture looks like 10 times better
0:27:52because it's better chips.
0:27:55And I don't know.
0:27:56I feel like even with the Mac Pro that there was sort of a,
0:28:00oh, you know, it's like we really have to do something.
0:28:04The trash can design isn't working.
0:28:05But do we really want to throw all of the effort
0:28:09into going with one generation of Xeon to do all of this?
0:28:13And then we're going to throw it all out.
0:28:15And they're like, oh, OK, I guess we have to.
0:28:17And like the iMac Pro is like that.
0:28:19The iMac Pro was like--
0:28:21it still is.
0:28:22It's like a technical marvel of cooling
0:28:25that they have these chips that even Intel admits runs hot.
0:28:28And they've got like this real svelte form factor.
0:28:32And it doesn't make a lot of noise.
0:28:34And they made one of them.
0:28:35And I'm sure that it's not like that their Mac's hardware
0:28:42engineers have developed muscles for designing and implementing
0:28:48cooling systems that aren't applicable in the Apple Silicon
0:28:53world.
0:28:53I'm sure they are.
0:28:54And look at how thin the M1 24-inch iMac is.
0:28:58The fact that it's so crazy thin with no pimple or bulge
0:29:03anywhere on the back, the fact that they've
0:29:05honed their chops making cooling systems like the iMac Pro 1.
0:29:08But still, you can see why they were--
0:29:12I just think that they were hoping that maybe the Apple
0:29:14Silicon transition would happen a year or two earlier
0:29:18than it actually did.
0:29:19And no one would notice that these Pro Macs were
0:29:24getting long in the tooth.
0:29:26And I don't know how much of the keyboards delay.
0:29:28What clearly, in hindsight, looks like procrastination
0:29:32on their part.
0:29:33The problem isn't that they tried these butterfly keyboards.
0:29:36It made sense.
0:29:37And some people like less travel or more travel on their keys.
0:29:40But once it turned out that breadcrumbs and stuff were all
0:29:43of a sudden your B--
0:29:44Destroying them.
0:29:44Yeah, destroying your B key.
0:29:46And the answer was, well, you need a whole new top case.
0:29:48It should have been replaced sooner than it was.
0:29:51And Apple, to their credit, as a company, tends to--
0:29:54it's not that they don't make mistakes,
0:29:56but they tend to rectify mistakes somewhat quickly.
0:30:00This isn't working.
0:30:00Let's do something different.
0:30:02Whereas they stuck with a bunch of Mac stuff for years
0:30:04when they shouldn't have.
0:30:05And I just don't think it's a coincidence
0:30:07that they had this transition on the horizon
0:30:09and sort of wanted to save the good stuff for it.
0:30:12And I know people who held onto Macbook, older Macbook
0:30:15pros for years, and completely skipped that generation just
0:30:19because of the things that they had heard about it.
0:30:20Yeah, absolutely.
0:30:21Because you might be thinking, hey,
0:30:23my MacBook's getting kind of slow.
0:30:25And you think, but I've never once
0:30:26had a single problem with the keyboard.
0:30:28And you hear all these problems.
0:30:30Yeah.
0:30:31I mean, I think I was--
0:30:33at one point during the keyboard saga, I even wrote that.
0:30:36And it's like, you can talk about whatever
0:30:38they say that most of our customers
0:30:39have no complaints, whatever.
0:30:41But it's like, I've been using computers, just computers,
0:30:44period.
0:30:44As long as I can remember.
0:30:46And I just don't ever remember where there was a problem,
0:30:49like when you're typing, where you'd try to type 1s
0:30:52and you'd get three of them or something like that.
0:30:54It just never happened with anybody's computer.
0:30:57Yeah.
0:30:58It just-- it was a problem.
0:31:01It's also the number of ports, too, I think.
0:31:03Yeah.
0:31:03Yeah, that was true.
0:31:04But anyway, it was a good year for the Mac, corresponding.
0:31:08Like reviewers and nerds like us look at these new Macs
0:31:11that Apple's coming out with with Apple Silicon.
0:31:13We say, these are excellent computers.
0:31:15And it seems people, tens of millions of people
0:31:18who are in the market for them agree.
0:31:20Yeah.
0:31:21Yeah.
0:31:22The other things, the other two things
0:31:23that I noticed were both related,
0:31:25they said that around half of the customers purchasing
0:31:27an iPad during the quarter were new to the product.
0:31:30And also, 2/3 of the customers purchasing an Apple Watch
0:31:33were new to the product.
0:31:35But that's another one, too, where I feel like people just
0:31:37buy one and then they're going to keep it for years and years.
0:31:40Because that's how people think of their watches.
0:31:42I don't even remember which one my watch is.
0:31:45I forgot which model I have.
0:31:47It's definitely a few years old, but I can't
0:31:49remember which model it is.
0:31:51Which is--
0:31:52I think it's a five.
0:31:53Yeah, I think that's the way it should be, though.
0:31:55I really do.
0:31:57But that really speaks to, especially with the iPad,
0:31:59if half-- so sales are down, half of them were new.
0:32:03To me, it just says that there are just tens and tens, maybe
0:32:07hundreds of millions of people with iPads who are just like,
0:32:11I'm good.
0:32:11Yeah.
0:32:12I think the amazing thing to me about the iPad line
0:32:14is that eponymous iPad.
0:32:15Because you can get them for-- they go down to like $230
0:32:20or something like that at Costco.
0:32:22I mean, that is a lot of machine for that amount of money.
0:32:27That is probably the best value that Apple offers.
0:32:30Yeah, I think the official retail price is $329.
0:32:34But yeah, they definitely dip below.
0:32:35Maybe I'm thinking, maybe it's more like $270 or something.
0:32:37Yeah, they go below $300.
0:32:39Bang for the buck, it is really just remarkable.
0:32:42And it goes against the everything
0:32:45Apple makes is expensive.
0:32:46It's like, I don't know.
0:32:48I dare you to find a better computer.
0:32:50Maybe you don't like iPad OS for whatever reasons.
0:32:54But in terms of--
0:32:56Yeah, that's not to say there aren't knocks on it compared
0:32:58to other devices.
0:32:59But dollar for dollar, I don't think
0:33:02you're going to get a better value.
0:33:04Karen has one-- gosh, she's got one that's a year and a half
0:33:07old, something like that.
0:33:08Yeah, I think it's about a year and a half old.
0:33:10And I was just thinking, maybe for Christmas,
0:33:12maybe she would like a new one.
0:33:14She was not interested.
0:33:17She's like, it's great.
0:33:18It does everything that I want.
0:33:19She even doesn't mind the old pencil, particularly.
0:33:22I mean, I'm sure if she got a new one,
0:33:23she'd like the new one better.
0:33:25But she was perfectly happy.
0:33:27And I was just like, why spend--
0:33:28I spent a few hundred bucks on this thing,
0:33:30just shoving something in front of her because it's new.
0:33:34Anything stand out from you from the analyst call,
0:33:36the this is Tim, the transcript, not much for me.
0:33:40I guess the news people are focusing on
0:33:43is that he said there's 1.8--
0:33:45Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
0:33:47--billion Apple devices in use.
0:33:49I'm not quite sure what they count as a device.
0:33:51Yeah, and how they were in use.
0:33:53Because to me, that's the question.
0:33:55If it's still signed into iCloud or something like that, OK.
0:33:59I'm not sure if that really counts
0:34:01because I have a lot of devices that are still
0:34:02signed into iCloud.
0:34:03Does my Apple TV remote control count as a device?
0:34:08I doubt it.
0:34:10I doubt the remote control counts as a device.
0:34:12The TV does.
0:34:13The TV does, but the mouse connected to my iMac
0:34:16or whatever does not count as a separate device.
0:34:19It's a lot for a planet with only, I believe,
0:34:227 billion people.
0:34:24Last I checked, but yeah, it's been a few years since I looked.
0:34:27It's weird because it's like you internalize things.
0:34:29I just remember when I first became
0:34:31aware of the population of the Earth,
0:34:33it was 5 billion.
0:34:34Yep, me too.
0:34:35Me too.
0:34:36Exactly.
0:34:37Similar age.
0:34:39And I just thought, that's the number.
0:34:41And then at some point, talking about 6 billion,
0:34:43I'm like, no, 5 billion.
0:34:44And then it's, oh, I see how it works.
0:34:46Goes up pretty quick.
0:34:51So I don't know.
0:34:52It could be 13 billion at this point.
0:34:54I just haven't paid attention.
0:34:56I believe it's 7.
0:34:57So with a planet of 7 billion people,
0:34:591.8 billion devices in use is pretty good reach
0:35:03for a company that was formerly beleaguered.
0:35:07Let me take a break here, and I will thank our next sponsor.
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0:38:09What else have we got?
0:38:10What's next on the agenda?
0:38:12I wanted to talk about the OSs.
0:38:14So it seems like it's funny because I feel like poor iOS 15.3
0:38:18and Mac OS 12.2, which just came out like two days ago--
0:38:23aw.
0:38:24Not long for the world.
0:38:25We never had a chance to talk about you guys
0:38:28because there aren't a lot of new features in either of them.
0:38:31They feel very bug fixy, sort of stability releases.
0:38:35And the next versions of both, Mac OS 12.3 and iOS 15.4,
0:38:42both have a bunch of features.
0:38:44This sort of new Apple past the new year,
0:38:49this is when we dropped some extra cool stuff.
0:38:52Like two years ago is when the keyboard support and the mouse
0:38:56pointer, the little circle thing for iPad OS,
0:38:58dropped out of the blue unannounced.
0:39:00I don't think any of these features
0:39:03are surprises like that, but universal--
0:39:06I mean, these were supposed to come in the fall,
0:39:08or at least not the face mask thing, right?
0:39:10I don't think that was announced.
0:39:12Yeah, I guess--
0:39:12The universal control was supposed to come in the fall.
0:39:15Well, they don't tell you when it's supposed to come anymore.
0:39:18I think that they're hoping--
0:39:20everything they announce in June, they're sort of like,
0:39:22we hope it all comes in September, October.
0:39:25Yeah, I guess it's more like, these
0:39:26are things coming in this number of the software,
0:39:31and the number of the software will come in the fall.
0:39:34The Swift playgrounds for making full-fledged apps
0:39:39that you could submit to the app store right from Swift
0:39:42playgrounds, that just shipped I think in December.
0:39:45I think it was before Christmas.
0:39:47But there's a guy who did that app,
0:39:49To Don't, which is supposedly the first app in the app store
0:39:53that was built that way.
0:39:55And nobody disputes it, so it probably is.
0:39:57But that's a similar type feature,
0:39:59where they announced it at WWDC.
0:40:02They don't say, like, coming in September.
0:40:04They just say, it's coming.
0:40:05And it came in December, not September.
0:40:07Whatever, it took a while.
0:40:09Universal Control was, if not the star of WWDC last year,
0:40:14it was certainly a star.
0:40:16Federighi was the demo-er, showing
0:40:19how you could move your mouse from--
0:40:21you set up your iPad right next to your MacBook
0:40:24and use your trackpad on your Mac
0:40:26to move the mouse cursor over the screen, over to the iPad.
0:40:30And now you're dealing with iPad apps.
0:40:32It's one of those WTF demos, right?
0:40:37Your mind is slightly blown by what they're showing you.
0:40:40Right.
0:40:41So I have not tried it firsthand,
0:40:43because A, there was no in-person WWDC,
0:40:46where they would have had some kind of early version set up,
0:40:49perhaps, for the media.
0:40:51And B, I don't have spare machines
0:40:53to install all these betas on.
0:40:55Although, I would throw my iPad--
0:40:57going back to what we said about the iPad not really being
0:41:00essential to me--
0:41:01I would put the beta or an alpha--
0:41:03I'd put anything on the iPad.
0:41:05That's usually where I put the first-- yeah, like the--
0:41:09first betas.
0:41:10But people who are braver than me
0:41:11and have installed it across the board--
0:41:13I think Joe Rossignol--
0:41:15Rossignol?
0:41:16I don't know.
0:41:17I'll go Rossignol.
0:41:18At MacRumors has a video out, and he seems very impressed.
0:41:22It certainly sounds cool.
0:41:23But it's not using your iPad as a secondary screen,
0:41:27and you move Mac windows over there.
0:41:28We've had that for a while.
0:41:30This is actually like you just run your cursor over the side,
0:41:33and now your Mac trackpad is controlling your iPad running
0:41:36iPad apps.
0:41:37Very cool.
0:41:38It is--
0:41:38I'm not sure if I have a use case for it particularly.
0:41:41I use-- I do use the iPad as a--
0:41:46like a-- like a Wacom tablet sort of thing.
0:41:49I do that a fair amount for making--
0:41:51like doing design stuff in Affinity Designer.
0:41:55And that I love and get a lot of use out of.
0:41:59But I'm not sure--
0:42:00I haven't figured out what I would use this for exactly yet.
0:42:03Yeah, I don't know either.
0:42:04But on the other hand, Apple must
0:42:06think it's going to be useful because it seems like it
0:42:09would--
0:42:10it's hard enough to do.
0:42:12I mean, I guess if you're sitting at a desk
0:42:14and you have multiple devices, I can see how--
0:42:16you don't want to like set up an ergonomic nightmare where
0:42:19you're suddenly having to reach out for your iPad
0:42:22when you're using your Mac.
0:42:23You just move your mouse over, and you can use the iPad.
0:42:26So I can see--
0:42:27I can see how it might be useful,
0:42:28but I don't-- probably don't set up that way.
0:42:30I don't think it's going to work very much.
0:42:31Color me intrigued to play with it,
0:42:34and color me skeptical that I have a need for it.
0:42:37Because I also feel--
0:42:38and I know that there's stuff like the--
0:42:40under the umbrella name Continuity,
0:42:42there's very cool features that have been around for years now
0:42:45where if you copy something on your iPhone,
0:42:47you can paste it on your iPad or your Mac.
0:42:50And it works just well enough that I
0:42:53assume it's going to work.
0:42:54But at least once a week, it doesn't.
0:42:56And it's-- you copy it on your iPad, and you go to your Mac,
0:42:59thinking you're going to paste this URL you just copied,
0:43:02and you get whatever crappy nonsense, whatever
0:43:05the random thing that used to be on your Mac clipboard
0:43:07is still there.
0:43:08I don't know.
0:43:09It doesn't work perfectly.
0:43:10That's the thing that makes me a little bit leery of it as well.
0:43:13One of the things that drives me absolutely crazy--
0:43:15like, little bugs like that drive me crazy.
0:43:17And one of the things that drives me berserk currently
0:43:19is when you have the automatic switching on for AirPods,
0:43:23and I'm watching something-- like,
0:43:25because I have a desk with my Mac Mini that
0:43:28has my Plex server on it, and sometimes I'll
0:43:30be watching something and doing something on my MacBook Air,
0:43:35and listening to something on the Mac Mini,
0:43:37and a notification comes in--
0:43:40like, an email comes in or a text comes in,
0:43:43and it switches the audio input to the Air.
0:43:46And that drives me absolutely bonkers.
0:43:48I wish there was a setting where it's like,
0:43:50don't do system alerts.
0:43:52If I suddenly stop listening to--
0:43:54stop watching what I'm watching on the Mini
0:43:55and switch over to listening to music on my Air, sure, do that.
0:43:59But an email comes in, I don't care.
0:44:03Don't stop everything just because an email came in.
0:44:05Ching.
0:44:06Yeah.
0:44:08Or a text.
0:44:09They come in all the time.
0:44:10I think the ATP guys have talked about this.
0:44:12I forget which of them--
0:44:14one of them continues to insist on trying to use it,
0:44:17and I think Syracuse is the pessimist who says,
0:44:21don't even do it.
0:44:22I have it turned on.
0:44:23I still do, but I get frustrated when it goes the wrong way.
0:44:27And for me, it's often when I want
0:44:30to make a phone call using my AirPods, which I love.
0:44:35I just love hearing it in both ears.
0:44:37I just feel like I actually hear the person so much better when
0:44:40I use my AirPods for a phone call.
0:44:43And I don't have-- famously, I don't have a lot of work phone
0:44:48calls.
0:44:49But man, oh man, whenever one does, it seems like that--
0:44:52oh, somebody is going to call me to talk about something,
0:44:54and OK, we'll do it at 2 o'clock on Tuesday, and it's scheduled,
0:44:58and I want to be professional.
0:44:59And then here it is, 1 59, and my AirPods
0:45:03will not disconnect from my Mac.
0:45:05There's nothing-- close the lid.
0:45:08I don't know.
0:45:09Put this to sleep.
0:45:10Shut it down.
0:45:10What do I do?
0:45:11How do I fix this?
0:45:12And it seems like when it's--
0:45:14if there's no pressure involved, if it's just
0:45:17me listening to a podcast on my own,
0:45:19it just all works perfectly.
0:45:21And when I know that somebody is going
0:45:22to call me 15 seconds from now, I cannot make it switch
0:45:27to my iPhone, and instead it's playing beeps and boops
0:45:30from my Mac.
0:45:30And then I think to myself, why did I ever even--
0:45:33why don't I just keep them on my phone all the time?
0:45:35I don't know.
0:45:36So it's stuff like that that makes me leery of things
0:45:38like this, because I think, it looks good,
0:45:42but is it going to work?
0:45:43Or is there going to be something that's just going
0:45:45to drive me absolutely crazy about it?
0:45:47And usually they iron that stuff out over time.
0:45:49It's so close to being good, but the gold standard
0:45:53is wired headphones, where it--
0:45:57Which device--
0:45:58Where you know exactly what's going to happen.
0:45:59Like, it gets back to the keyboard thing from before,
0:46:02too, right?
0:46:03Where like 99.9% keyboard accuracy,
0:46:06like where you press the E key, do you get an E,
0:46:10isn't good enough.
0:46:1199.9% isn't good enough.
0:46:13You really, literally, should be able to use a computer
0:46:17nonstop every day for six years, and every single time you
0:46:20press E, you get one E. That's what wired headphones are like.
0:46:24You plug it in, and it's like you know which device
0:46:26it's going to.
0:46:27Yeah.
0:46:28Says me, a guy--
0:46:29I'm a big fan of the wireless headphones.
0:46:31I love them.
0:46:31Yeah, me too.
0:46:32I mean, I--
0:46:33and I'm so glad to be rid of wires, honestly.
0:46:36I mean, when podcasting, I'm connected with wires,
0:46:39and these headphones are not super old,
0:46:42but they're already janky at the connector part at the port,
0:46:46because I have to-- and I have to--
0:46:47every time I sit down to podcast,
0:46:49I have to fiddle with it to make sure
0:46:50that I'm getting the full audio.
0:46:51So I don't like wires, and I particularly
0:46:54don't like audio wires.
0:46:55And there's so many other things to love about AirPods,
0:46:57but it's just that one that automatic switching thing
0:47:00is not perfect yet.
0:47:02Again, it's just frustrating, because nothing
0:47:04short of 100% accuracy is going to be satisfying,
0:47:06and 100% accuracy sort of requires the AirPods
0:47:10to read your mind.
0:47:11[LAUGHTER]
0:47:13So I get it.
0:47:14I just need one more setting, which is ignore system alerts.
0:47:18We were talking about how cold it is.
0:47:19It is very cold.
0:47:20It's winter here, and you've got to go out with a winter coat.
0:47:23And so many people now seem to have AirPods
0:47:26or other wireless headphones.
0:47:27But now, when I do see somebody, like at the grocery store
0:47:30with a winter coat and the actual cable snaking
0:47:34under their coat or out of their pocket,
0:47:36it's, buddy, you really--
0:47:38just $100.
0:47:39You know?
0:47:40How about there's new emoji or emojis?
0:47:43People used to make fun of me, because I would pluralize emoji
0:47:47to emojis, and people would make fun of me
0:47:49and say that it was one of the many things I--
0:47:52because it's Japanese.
0:47:54It's Japanese.
0:47:54There's no plural in Japanese, yeah.
0:47:56Yeah, but the Emojipedia guys, who I would think
0:47:59know what they're talking about, it seems as though both
0:48:02are accepted.
0:48:02I think it's fine.
0:48:03Yeah.
0:48:04Yeah.
0:48:04[LAUGHTER]
0:48:05Whatever you want to do.
0:48:06Anyway, there's new-- whether they are emoji or emojis,
0:48:10there's more of them in the new OSes coming out.
0:48:15And I'm still-- I love this back story, that it's like the--
0:48:19there's a long tail of people who don't like installing
0:48:22OS updates, but the thing that will make people install
0:48:25a new update--
0:48:26Is getting new emoji.
0:48:28Yeah, and that you can tell which version Apple thinks.
0:48:32This is the one that everybody should update to.
0:48:34If you have a phone that's compatible
0:48:36with this version of iOS, this is the one
0:48:38you definitely should do, and that's
0:48:39when they put the new emojis in.
0:48:41Yeah.
0:48:42Yeah.
0:48:43Nobody wants to be left behind.
0:48:45I don't use that many emoji, so it's not at the top of my list.
0:48:51Although it ties into something that we
0:48:53were going to talk about--
0:48:53I don't know if we want to segue into that or not--
0:48:55but I have tried to use more emoji instead of the reactions
0:49:00because we have at least one friend who is on Android.
0:49:06Ah, the green bubble story.
0:49:08We should talk about it.
0:49:08The green bubble thing.
0:49:09Why not talk about it?
0:49:10Actually, there's more.
0:49:11Yeah, because we are in a carpool with people
0:49:14because we drive Hank to school, which is like a half an hour
0:49:16away, and so we're in a carpool with a bunch of people.
0:49:19And so that group, obviously, there
0:49:21is a couple of people who have Android devices as well.
0:49:25And Karen will always react to things
0:49:27that people say on that with the Apple reactions, which
0:49:29drives me crazy because she doesn't see it.
0:49:31She doesn't see Karen liked whatever.
0:49:34Right.
0:49:35What do they say?
0:49:36Like, I guess, is the thumbs up reaction or tap back
0:49:41you're talking about?
0:49:42Yeah, I think that's the thumbs up thing, yeah.
0:49:43And then loved is the heart.
0:49:45But what do they say if you give it a ha ha?
0:49:48Laughed at, I think.
0:49:49Laughed at.
0:49:50Yeah.
0:49:51Yeah.
0:49:51And then what's the exclamation marks?
0:49:55That I don't know.
0:49:56People don't use that much.
0:49:57I think I use that more than other people do, but--
0:49:59Yeah, I do too.
0:50:00I don't use the question marks.
0:50:02I've said-- I said the one I would like to pay for,
0:50:04I would like a middle finger.
0:50:08Which, of course, raises the point--
0:50:09Not an eggplant?
0:50:10Or, you know, eh, that's not bad.
0:50:12But why are they separate?
0:50:14Why can't you just tap back with any emoji?
0:50:17That'd be the way it works, you know?
0:50:19And that's sort of like how Slack reactions work.
0:50:21And I know that Slack has sort of a superset of emoji
0:50:25where you can react on Slack with any emoji.
0:50:29And Slack has some custom ones.
0:50:32And for each Slack group that you're in,
0:50:36you can add custom images.
0:50:38I think the one that-- one of the ones
0:50:40that you and I are on together, there's like a-- we
0:50:43have a playdate.
0:50:44Somebody stuck in there, so you can like type colon playdate
0:50:47and get a little yellow panic playdate controller.
0:50:50But even if you just stuck to emoji,
0:50:52why are the reactions different than just-- you could just
0:50:56send any emoji you want as a reaction,
0:50:58and it shows up as a little bubble in the corner?
0:51:01I guess it's just how Apple's implemented it,
0:51:04but they implemented their own.
0:51:07Does it seem unhappily to implement their own?
0:51:09Remember when Safari didn't support favicons in tabs?
0:51:14And they had the pin tabs, but pin tabs
0:51:18didn't use your favicon either.
0:51:20Apple specified that if you wanted
0:51:22to have an icon in your pin tab for Safari,
0:51:25you had to create a SVG file that was monochrome.
0:51:30And so you would just have a monochromatic icon
0:51:34that would be your pin tab thing, and no color favicons.
0:51:39And then I made a stink about it on Daring Fireball,
0:51:41and whether that helped change the thinking or not,
0:51:43after I made--
0:51:44wrote way too many words about it, a new version of Safari
0:51:49came out with an option for favicons in tabs.
0:51:51But apparently what I heard while I
0:51:53was making a stink about it is that there
0:51:55is some contingent within Apple--
0:51:57I don't know if it was in the Safari group or the Human
0:51:59Interface team--
0:52:00but some contingent of designers who
0:52:04didn't like the idea of color icons
0:52:05that they didn't control, junking up the Safari
0:52:09interface.
0:52:10And that's why the pin tabs were, OK,
0:52:13we have to give you an icon because the pin tabs are just
0:52:15little, but we're going to make you do them in black and white
0:52:18because we don't want your garish CNN red in a tab.
0:52:24And I just wonder if that's the thinking with tapbacks.
0:52:27It's like we have these beautiful monochromatic just
0:52:30blue and white thumbs and exclamation marks,
0:52:34and we don't want your garish any color goes emoji?
0:52:38I don't know.
0:52:39That seems crazy because you could still send emoji,
0:52:42so it's almost the same thing.
0:52:44I don't know.
0:52:44It just seems weird.
0:52:47It just seems like the easiest way
0:52:48to upgrade the tapback feature would just be,
0:52:51oh, you could just pick whatever emojis you want
0:52:53and set five of them as your favorites
0:52:55and have a dot, dot, dot that would let you pick any emoji
0:52:59as the last spot.
0:53:00Anyway.
0:53:01Yeah.
0:53:02Aren't they moving to the more universal standard thing?
0:53:06For what?
0:53:06I forget what it's called.
0:53:08There is a-- isn't there something that you can--
0:53:11that Android phones can use as well?
0:53:13No, I don't think so.
0:53:14Oh, really?
0:53:15I thought there was some thing that they were like,
0:53:17we're going to try them.
0:53:19No, what happened is that I think the Google Messages
0:53:22app on Android will interpret those text messages
0:53:26like for a mixed iPhone and Android group chat, where
0:53:30it'll say like, John liked--
0:53:32Oh, right.
0:53:33--quote the message.
0:53:34They interpret-- because that just comes across as its own SMS
0:53:38message.
0:53:38It's just a string of text that says John liked space quote,
0:53:43and then it's a quote of the message the previous--
0:53:47it's like turning SMS into email where there's
0:53:50like underneath your message, there's
0:53:52every single quoted version of the previous emails
0:53:57in the chain, even though every modern email client could just
0:54:00show them all together.
0:54:02Now all of a sudden with the tap backs,
0:54:04we're quoting messages.
0:54:06Anyway, Google's Android Messages client
0:54:10will take those and turn them into fake tap backs,
0:54:14supposedly.
0:54:15I don't have much more to say about the green bubble, blue
0:54:17bubble thing I wrote about it.
0:54:19I just think-- I do think it's just so damn curious
0:54:23that no single messaging platform around the world
0:54:27has come to dominate.
0:54:29Like with social networks, a handful have.
0:54:33Twitter are to some degree, but then of course Facebook
0:54:36and Instagram.
0:54:38And China is weird because they have the great firewall.
0:54:41So of course they have their own--
0:54:43the fact that China has their own social networks
0:54:45is not surprising.
0:54:46But otherwise Facebook sort of dominates worldwide.
0:54:50Yet for messaging platforms, there's
0:54:53all these little country by country fiefdoms.
0:54:56That to me is the strangest part.
0:54:58Yeah, and that's kind of why I think that sort of bullying
0:55:00thing didn't really ring true to me because my kid,
0:55:04he uses messages sometimes.
0:55:06But I'm pretty sure they--
0:55:07I don't even know what it is, but Snapchat or whatever
0:55:10he's using to communicate with his friends
0:55:12because he won't tell me and I don't ask.
0:55:14But he's communicating with his friends using other stuff
0:55:17for sure.
0:55:18Discord is big with Jonas and his pals.
0:55:21You know, I've used Discord a little.
0:55:23I've used it enough that I get it.
0:55:25It's more like Slack, though, where you get on a group.
0:55:28There's like a channel in Discord.
0:55:30And there could be dozens and dozens of people,
0:55:32way more people than you would want in a group chat in anything
0:55:37like a WhatsApp or iMessage.
0:55:38You wouldn't really want to have three dozen people in an iMessage
0:55:42group.
0:55:42Discord is more like it's meant for groups in the public
0:55:45hangout place online.
0:55:47Yeah, I don't know.
0:55:48Maybe it wasn't even worth venting about on Daring
0:55:52Fireball, but I don't know.
0:55:53It just made-- the bullying angle made me angry.
0:55:55Yeah, well, and it's also in the Wall Street Journal.
0:55:58It's not--
0:55:58Wasn't in the National Enquirer or something.
0:56:00Yeah, a little bit of Paul Theron was going off on it.
0:56:05I did think it was weird that Google latched onto it.
0:56:07And I don't think the Wall Street Journal used the word
0:56:10"bullying" at all.
0:56:11Google took their anecdotes of teenagers
0:56:14being given a hard time over having green bubbles in a group
0:56:18chat and turned it into--
0:56:20introduced the word "bullying."
0:56:22But then once that happened, it went everywhere.
0:56:25And then there was like a story--
0:56:26USA Today has a story about teenagers
0:56:28being bullied over green bubbles.
0:56:30And it's like, no, no, that wasn't even in the Wall Street
0:56:34Journal story.
0:56:35Yeah, OK.
0:56:37Yeah, I didn't--
0:56:38yeah, I don't subscribe, so.
0:56:40Have you-- would you use any other chats?
0:56:43I use Signal, which I have opened.
0:56:45I do have Signal, yeah.
0:56:47And I've used a little bit, but not much.
0:56:50Yeah, I have it open so that anybody
0:56:53who wants to send me a secure message can do it.
0:56:55It's worked out pretty well.
0:56:56I don't get very many messages from random readers
0:56:59or listeners through Signal.
0:57:01But I do occasionally, and it's there, and it's good enough.
0:57:04I'm on one group chat with a couple of friends on Signal.
0:57:08I don't really see much of a difference than if we
0:57:10were doing it on iMessage.
0:57:11And I'm not even quite sure why we're on Signal,
0:57:13since we all have iPhones.
0:57:15But no.
0:57:15I know why we're on--
0:57:19I know why my group is on Signal.
0:57:20But it's not-- like I said, I don't use it much.
0:57:23I've got the WhatsApp too.
0:57:25And I'm on one group in WhatsApp now.
0:57:27And I do see Ben Thompson, my dithering pal,
0:57:31has been on me for a while about the fact
0:57:32that WhatsApp has better group messaging
0:57:35features, like quoted replies.
0:57:38And it is.
0:57:38It actually is a nicer way.
0:57:40If you're asynchronous, which when Ben and I chat
0:57:44is often the case, because we're literally either 12 or 13
0:57:47hours apart all year long.
0:57:49And if you wake up and a bunch of the chat
0:57:52had taken place while you were sleeping
0:57:53and you want to reply to something nine messages ago,
0:57:56you can tap on it and hit Reply.
0:57:59The way that WhatsApp does that is much more--
0:58:04it's a much better presentation than the recently added
0:58:07iMessage feature that does it.
0:58:09Would it make me try to convince a group
0:58:12that I'm on on iMessage, hey, everybody,
0:58:14sign up for this new WhatsApp thing that's owned by Facebook.
0:58:18Let's move it over there?
0:58:19No.
0:58:20But that really is--
0:58:22that is like the sort of mass behavior, right?
0:58:25Nobody really wants to sign up for an entirely new app,
0:58:28even if you put the Facebook's ownership aside.
0:58:30If you just-- like Signal.
0:58:32Let's say Signal is generally widely regarded
0:58:35as excellent cryptography, and it's not even a company.
0:58:38I think it's a foundation.
0:58:39But they're in it for the right reasons.
0:58:41They really just want to provide good, secure messaging
0:58:44to everybody.
0:58:45You could encourage people to try Signal
0:58:47without seeming like you're telling them to sign up
0:58:50for a bad company like Facebook.
0:58:52It's still-- it's like nobody wants to download a new app,
0:58:55create an account, remember to have this,
0:58:57get notifications from a different app,
0:58:59just to have one more group chat there.
0:59:00If everybody's already getting by with what they have,
0:59:03they're just going to keep doing it.
0:59:05Yeah.
0:59:06It's crazy how quickly Zoom took off after the pandemic, though,
0:59:09because that was an instance of a sort of a void of good video
0:59:18chat--
0:59:18That worked on all devices.
0:59:20--that worked on all platforms and was able to handle people--
0:59:24like millions and millions of people suddenly using it.
0:59:28Yeah, kudos to them.
0:59:29Right place, right time.
0:59:30Can't predict it.
0:59:31I don't even know.
0:59:32Yes, I did write about Zoom before the pandemic,
0:59:35because there was some mini brouhaha about their Mac
0:59:38software doing shady stuff behind the scene--
0:59:41or the installer doing some shady stuff behind the scenes.
0:59:44But it's like I hardly even remembered
0:59:46the name of the company.
0:59:47And then all of a sudden, it became a verb.
0:59:50It's like one of the best known, most used utilities
0:59:55around the entire globe, all thanks to a simple pandemic.
0:59:59[LAUGHTER]
1:00:02All they had to do was re-sequence some bad genes.
1:00:07Here, let me take one last break here
1:00:09and thank our third and final sponsors, our good friends
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1:01:34Go to memberful.com/talkshow today to sign up.
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1:01:43Bunch of good sites I subscribe to.
1:01:45You've got one, right?
1:01:46Yeah, the rebound is--
1:01:48The rebound?
1:01:49Rebound Prime.
1:01:51Rebound Prime.
1:01:52Oh, that's a good name.
1:01:53I like that.
1:01:54Rebound Prime.
1:01:55People can sign up for the rebound.
1:01:56That's-- who's on-- we don't have to save it
1:01:58for the end of the show.
1:01:59Who's on the rebound with you?
1:02:01Lex Friedman and Dan Moore.
1:02:04Dan Moore, our pal Dan Moore.
1:02:06Dan, I know.
1:02:07Late of Macworld.
1:02:08Lex Friedman.
1:02:09And Lex also late of Macworld.
1:02:10That's true.
1:02:11Not familiar with that guy.
1:02:12Dan, though, I know.
1:02:13He's a science fiction author.
1:02:16That's right.
1:02:16By Dan's book.
1:02:18Yeah.
1:02:18Well, he's got a new book coming out.
1:02:20Yeah, that's right.
1:02:20The Nova Incident, I believe.
1:02:22Yeah.
1:02:22It's already coming out.
1:02:24Pre-orders, they're taking them.
1:02:25What else?
1:02:25What do we got here?
1:02:26Face ID with a mask is coming out in iOS 15.4.
1:02:30Now, that's different from what they already have.
1:02:32They've already got a thing that they introduced--
1:02:34With the watch.
1:02:34With a watch.
1:02:35But now they're just straight up saying,
1:02:37Face ID will be able to pick you out by your--
1:02:41Which is interesting to me that they're not saving this as--
1:02:44they got to buy the watch.
1:02:45It seems like they could have done that.
1:02:46If you want this magical feature where
1:02:48you can unlock your phone with a mask on, just get the watch.
1:02:52It's only 200 and whatever it is for the SE.
1:02:55But they're rolling out to everybody, which is cool.
1:02:58And the only thing I wonder is if a couple of weeks from now,
1:03:01a bunch of people are going to say, well, I was able to do it.
1:03:03My brother did it without--
1:03:05Right.
1:03:06That kind of thing.
1:03:07Yeah, when Apple does something that could--
1:03:09I mean, sometimes they do stuff where you're like--
1:03:12they just want you to buy another thing.
1:03:13That's why they're doing this.
1:03:15And other times, you could look at it that way,
1:03:17and people might jump to that conclusion.
1:03:19But when they do something like this, where they've already got
1:03:22a very interesting feature that requires at least a $200 Apple
1:03:26Watch to make it work, and now they're making it work,
1:03:29they're saying, look, this is less secure
1:03:31because it's only like half your face.
1:03:33And so I think you have to set it up
1:03:35while you're wearing a mask.
1:03:36And you make the decision, I would like Face ID only
1:03:39to work when it sees my whole face, which is more secure.
1:03:42Or less secure, I'll have it work,
1:03:44and it'll identify me by my eyes while I'm wearing a mask.
1:03:47And I accept the lower level of security,
1:03:49and I'll do it that way.
1:03:50It's a great feature.
1:03:52I've mentioned this on the show before.
1:03:54I've heard, ever since the iPhone X came out,
1:03:56at least a handful of readers who regularly correspond to me
1:03:59who work as medical professionals, who
1:04:01have mentioned that Face ID sucks
1:04:04when you're wearing a mask.
1:04:05And this is pre-pandemic.
1:04:07This is people in hospitals and other doctor-type situations,
1:04:11dentists or something like that, where you might be wearing
1:04:13a regular--
1:04:15I don't know if you know this, but people used to wear--
1:04:18these medical masks before the pandemic--
1:04:20general purpose-- well, no, not general purpose,
1:04:22but specific purpose masks.
1:04:24And that not having Touch ID and having Face ID,
1:04:26which did not work with these masks, sucked.
1:04:28Yeah, I can imagine that.
1:04:30And now it's like, we're all like, yeah,
1:04:31it really does suck.
1:04:32This is terrible.
1:04:34Even if, in some optimistic scenario, which I'm no longer--
1:04:38I just assume this pandemic is going
1:04:40to go on for the rest of our lives at this point.
1:04:42And if it doesn't, then I'll just be happily surprised.
1:04:45But I'm sick of convincing myself that--
1:04:47We're just around the corner.
1:04:49I'm sick of it.
1:04:51But let's just say, in the theoretical, hypothetical
1:04:55universe, where things actually get better and stay better,
1:04:58and masking for COVID-19 no longer becomes
1:05:02a daily part of our life all around the world,
1:05:06it still is a good feature to have for, say,
1:05:09medical professionals, say, for a new variant that
1:05:13might arise next year, the year after, whatever,
1:05:17just regular cold and flu season, which I think is going to be--
1:05:22I think one thing of COVID is going
1:05:23to be transformative around the world is
1:05:25that, even in regular cold and flu season for decades
1:05:29to come, people, I think, are going to feel comfortable
1:05:32wearing a face mask when they go out,
1:05:34either because they feel like, hey, I've got a sniffle.
1:05:36I should do the right thing when I go to the store
1:05:37and put a mask on.
1:05:39Or if you just want to wear one just
1:05:42to avoid picking up whatever random crud people
1:05:45are sneezing into the air.
1:05:47Basically, the way Asian countries
1:05:49have been doing it for years.
1:05:50Yeah, exactly.
1:05:51Where it's just completely normal, if not typical,
1:05:54in a bunch of Asian countries, you get on the subway
1:05:57in cold and flu season, everybody just puts on a mask
1:06:00to keep from catching whatever's in the air.
1:06:03It's great that Face ID has it.
1:06:04So 15.4 is adding this as a feature.
1:06:07I look forward to it.
1:06:08I'll set it up.
1:06:10I love the watch feature.
1:06:12Yeah, I would just stick--
1:06:13I mean, I wear the watch anyway, so I'm perfectly fine with that.
1:06:17And it works almost all the time.
1:06:19Yeah.
1:06:19Every once in a while, for some reason,
1:06:21it stopped, it'll just refuse to open.
1:06:22I got to type in my password.
1:06:24But for the most part, it works pretty well.
1:06:26Again, it's common sense.
1:06:28But you can tell which features people at Apple use the most.
1:06:31And there's long running gags, things
1:06:34that don't really apply to non-Silicon Valley weather.
1:06:38I mean, the best way to exaggerate it
1:06:40is the idea that maybe they're going
1:06:41to come out with this Apple car in a couple of years.
1:06:44And it doesn't work in the rain or ice.
1:06:47Yeah.
1:06:49It works perfectly if it's 72 degrees and sunny.
1:06:52But everybody's wearing masks these days.
1:06:55And so I feel like ever since this feature came out,
1:06:58and it was very good for me even when it was in beta,
1:07:01it's gotten better.
1:07:02For a while, it would get confused and say,
1:07:04hey, is your Apple watch nearby?
1:07:06And meanwhile, I'm actually holding my phone in the hand
1:07:09that--
1:07:10where the watch is on my wrist.
1:07:12It's like, it's really close.
1:07:13I didn't get a lot closer.
1:07:15I've had fewer and fewer problems with that.
1:07:17But it's made Face ID seem less poorly timed.
1:07:23It just seems-- we went all these years without a pandemic.
1:07:26And then lo and behold, a year and a half or so
1:07:28after the first Face ID phone ever get stuck with this.
1:07:32Yeah, I got my first Face ID phone during the pandemic.
1:07:35Oh.
1:07:36[LAUGHS]
1:07:36It was perfect.
1:07:37Perfect timing.
1:07:38Because I had SEs.
1:07:38I had SEs for years.
1:07:40Yeah, perfect timing.
1:07:41Yeah, I was like, well, that was dumb.
1:07:42Let me see here.
1:07:43What else?
1:07:43What is the other features?
1:07:45There's like an Apple Card widget.
1:07:46Who cares?
1:07:47I don't know.
1:07:48There's not that many features.
1:07:49It's midway through the cycle, it seems about it.
1:07:51Last thing I had on my list, I was--
1:07:53you want to talk about Neil Young and Spotify?
1:07:55Yeah, sure.
1:07:55Ben Thompson and I, you probably didn't listen to it.
1:07:58I think it just came out this morning.
1:07:59But we disagree about this.
1:08:00Ben on dithering last night--
1:08:02I say last night, but it came out this morning--
1:08:04but seems to have a free speech sort of argument that, hey,
1:08:07we shouldn't be trying-- maybe you disagree with what Joe
1:08:10Rogan says, but you shouldn't try to get him kicked off,
1:08:12have his podcast shut down.
1:08:14We need more speech.
1:08:15The answer to speech is always more speech, blah, blah, blah.
1:08:17I was a little taken-- and I think
1:08:19because of what I wrote about it,
1:08:20he seemed to think that I was thinking
1:08:22that Spotify should kick Joe Rogan off Spotify, which
1:08:26was not my take at all.
1:08:27Spotify made their bed with him.
1:08:28They signed a $100 million deal.
1:08:30Clearly, when Neil Young issued this ultimatum,
1:08:35he's a very smart guy.
1:08:36He did not think Spotify was going to kick Joe Rogan off.
1:08:39He said, look, you can have Joe Rogan or Neil Young,
1:08:42but you can't have both.
1:08:44He did issue an ultimatum, but he
1:08:45knew what they were going to do.
1:08:46Right.
1:08:47I don't think-- yeah.
1:08:48I don't think anybody thought anything other than what
1:08:51happened was going to happen.
1:08:52But I think-- see, to me, that is free speech too, right?
1:08:58Yeah, absolutely.
1:08:59Right?
1:08:59Yeah.
1:09:00And he got a lot of publicity for it and deserved to be--
1:09:04If you go into a bar and you sit down and you're sitting there
1:09:07having a drink and you look around,
1:09:09you're like, man, there are a lot of Nazis in here.
1:09:10You don't have to keep going back to that bar.
1:09:14You talk to the bar general, you're like,
1:09:15can you kick these Nazis out?
1:09:17And the guy's like, well, hey, so I'm not
1:09:19going to kick them out.
1:09:20I'm not going back to a Nazi bar.
1:09:22I'm not saying Joe Rogan is a Nazi.
1:09:24I'm just saying he's an idiot.
1:09:25But it's a good point where you could say, hey,
1:09:28what's with all these guys with the swastika
1:09:30tattoos on their knuckles?
1:09:31And if the answer is, eh, it's a free country,
1:09:34part of it being a free country is you can go to a different
1:09:36bar.
1:09:37Exactly.
1:09:39Yeah, I mean, and he said 60% of his--
1:09:43Streaming.
1:09:4460% of the money that he gets from his songs
1:09:46comes from Spotify, I think.
1:09:47Or 60% of the plays or something.
1:09:5060% of the streaming revenue.
1:09:53Yeah, right.
1:09:54And for an artist like Neil Young, who's slightly older--
1:09:59Yeah.
1:09:59And whose audience is older.
1:10:00That's probably not the bulk of his income.
1:10:01There's probably still a lot of his audience still buys music.
1:10:04But on the other hand, too, when you're in your 70s--
1:10:08He gets it mostly from car commercials.
1:10:10You can also assume that most of your fans
1:10:13already own most of your music, especially the older stuff,
1:10:17which is what people like.
1:10:18You may not make a lot of money as a classic artist,
1:10:22for lack of a better term, from your music sales.
1:10:26But he's putting his money where his mouth is, right?
1:10:29And it was, if it's--
1:10:3160% of it was Spotify.
1:10:32And I guess the rest comes from Amazon and Apple.
1:10:36But the publicity that came out over it,
1:10:38and the fact that it's inspired some number of people to say,
1:10:43hey, yeah, this isn't right.
1:10:45I don't know why Spotify is associating themselves
1:10:48with Joe Rogan.
1:10:49I'm going to cancel my Spotify, or I want Spotify
1:10:53to cancel Joe Rogan's podcast.
1:10:56That's the argument you get to have.
1:10:57It was Spotify's decision to sign Joe Rogan.
1:11:00And like I said to Ben, I don't think any of this
1:11:04has been a surprise.
1:11:06I don't think that his hot takes on vaccines and ivermectin
1:11:12and whatever else-- and I don't think Joe Rogan's podcast does
1:11:15not interest me, but it doesn't offend me.
1:11:18I don't think it's anywhere close to the lunatic fringe
1:11:21of stuff that's out there.
1:11:24And if people want to talk about taking these alternate things,
1:11:28have at it.
1:11:29If you take what Joe Rogan says seriously, I don't know.
1:11:32I don't think that him stopping his podcast or somebody
1:11:35booting his podcast off Spotify is really
1:11:37going to help you much.
1:11:40You know what I mean?
1:11:41I don't think your next source of information--
1:11:43like if Joe Rogan comes out with an episode today and says,
1:11:46you know what?
1:11:47I listened to Neil Young's argument.
1:11:49I respect him so much.
1:11:50I'm just going to take a break.
1:11:51I'm going to take a break.
1:11:52I'm not doing an episode for six months.
1:11:54I'm going to take a break and think about what
1:11:56I've done with my life.
1:11:57And that's it.
1:11:57He's going to take a six month hiatus.
1:12:00I don't think the people who were getting
1:12:02their medical information from the Joe Rogan experience,
1:12:05their next choice is not going to be that much better.
1:12:10They're not going to like the New England Journal of Medicine.
1:12:13Yeah.
1:12:14And I guess I called him an idiot.
1:12:15And maybe that's the wrong term to use.
1:12:17It's more like an asshole because he could just
1:12:21be making a financial decision.
1:12:23He could just be deciding smartly to say, yeah,
1:12:28I'm providing misinformation, but I'm also
1:12:30making a lot of money doing it.
1:12:32And Spotify signed him.
1:12:34It's not-- it is different.
1:12:35Neil Young is telling his fans, you want to stream my music?
1:12:38Go to Apple Music or go to Amazon
1:12:41or there's a list of other services.
1:12:43But those are for at least people in North America.
1:12:46Those are the big ones.
1:12:47And why isn't Neil Young complaining
1:12:50that Apple Podcasts, if you search for Joe Rogan,
1:12:54would turn up--
1:12:55I guess his new show, which is Spotify exclusive,
1:12:58but it would have turned it up while Joe Rogan's podcast was
1:13:02a regular podcast, would turn up Joe Rogan similar podcasts?
1:13:08And why isn't he objecting to that?
1:13:10That's because it's like Apple Podcasts is like a web browser
1:13:15where it just pretty much--
1:13:16and yes, iTunes runs their own index
1:13:20of known podcasts for search.
1:13:22And controversially, I guess to some degree,
1:13:26does take some out that have outright hate content.
1:13:30What's the Alex Jones thing called? Info Wars
1:13:32was delisted from iTunes for being beyond the pale, which
1:13:37some people object to.
1:13:38People who say, yeah, Alex Jones is a horrible person
1:13:42and an idiot and his show is terrible,
1:13:45but it shouldn't be delisted from a podcast index.
1:13:48There's some people whose free speech fundamentalism
1:13:51is that deep, but there's got to be a line somewhere, right?
1:13:54I mean, Apple's not going to put their--
1:13:57it's not a stamp of approval to be listed in Apple Podcasts.
1:14:01They're not paying you, which is the big difference.
1:14:04They list both of our podcasts.
1:14:06The flip side of this is people who
1:14:07don't want Spotify to cave and think
1:14:10that Neil Young is doing Joe Rogan dirty by trying
1:14:15to pressure them to cancel his show are missing the fact
1:14:20that's what Spotify signed up for by signing Joe Rogan.
1:14:23Yeah, you decided what your platform was going to be.
1:14:26You know, and I could imagine somebody else
1:14:29might look at any network.
1:14:31And I'm not of the sensitive, I don't like listening.
1:14:36I can't stand to listen to somebody who I disagree with.
1:14:39I try to read some level of rational conservative thought
1:14:45and politics and watch shows like the Bill Maher show
1:14:49where he has guests who I often think, wow,
1:14:52that person's an idiot.
1:14:53Or Bill Maher often says things and I think, wow, Bill Maher
1:14:56is being a bit of an idiot here.
1:14:58But that doesn't make me like I can't
1:15:00stand hearing somebody say something I disagree with.
1:15:03I'll at least listen to it.
1:15:04And it may not change my mind, but it's not
1:15:07like sunshine to a vampire to me to be exposed to somebody
1:15:11who I disagree with.
1:15:13But I can also see how somebody who's controversial enough
1:15:17on a certain network or a provider like Spotify
1:15:21might make me say, well, that person is so beyond the pale
1:15:25that I don't want to be associated with this group.
1:15:28Yeah.
1:15:29This is-- we're talking about stuff that is just simply
1:15:31objectively incorrect as well.
1:15:35That's become such a problem, such a ridiculous problem
1:15:40that we--
1:15:40Right.
1:15:41--that it's not a matter of opinion anymore.
1:15:44I mean, you can--
1:15:45Some of this stuff.
1:15:45Right.
1:15:45You can have an opinion.
1:15:46You can definitely have opinion about the effectiveness
1:15:48of masks or something like that.
1:15:50Right.
1:15:51But like whether or not a vaccine works
1:15:53or whether vaccines are killing people.
1:15:56Right.
1:15:57The John Stockton take, NBA great John Stockton,
1:16:01who believes 150 professional athletes around the world--
1:16:04Have dropped dead.
1:16:04--not just have died of the vaccine,
1:16:06have dropped dead on the field or court,
1:16:08and it's all being covered up.
1:16:10Mm-hmm.
1:16:11Yeah.
1:16:12It's-- well, I don't know.
1:16:15You know, and the other thing too about Neil Young
1:16:18that I was thinking about, I think last night,
1:16:20but I was thinking about it, is there
1:16:22is something to be said for an artist who has spent literally
1:16:26his entire career, whether you like his music
1:16:29or dislike his music or feel ambivalent or just like it
1:16:34when he's with the Crosby, Stills, and Nash or something,
1:16:37everybody I know has the utmost respect for his integrity.
1:16:41Right?
1:16:42Or you could certainly disagree with his stance
1:16:45on no compression music and that goofy Panos player
1:16:49he was trying to sell.
1:16:51But he wasn't trying to make a quick buck.
1:16:53He was coming at it from a perspective
1:16:55of genuine integrity.
1:16:57That's the thing.
1:16:58Yeah, and in this instance, he's not
1:16:59going to make money off of this.
1:17:02Right.
1:17:03There's no-- I don't think--
1:17:04you could say, well, he's just pandering to certain people.
1:17:07And I think the fact that he's giving up
1:17:0960% of his streaming revenue is kind of a sign
1:17:13that that's not going to work out very well for him,
1:17:15if that's his plan, which I don't think it is.
1:17:17And it's not like he's selling Neil Young's COVID protection
1:17:21vitamins.
1:17:21It's not like there's some kind of scam back there.
1:17:23Right, there's some sort of alternative.
1:17:25Yeah, don't use ivermectin.
1:17:26That stuff doesn't work.
1:17:27But what does work is Neil Young's protective vitamins.
1:17:31Right, and eye drops or something.
1:17:34What does work is listening to uncompressed music.
1:17:36Yes, yes.
1:17:37That keeps the COVID right out of your nasal passage.
1:17:41What lets those damn COVID--
1:17:45those little COVID bits get in there is MPEG-3 compression.
1:17:51It slips through the gaps in the ones and zeros.
1:17:53No, there's--
1:17:57Yeah, I was trying to remember it,
1:17:58because I knew he had said some stuff that was eye-rolling.
1:18:00And I didn't-- and I couldn't remember exactly what it was.
1:18:03And so I had to lick it up when this came up.
1:18:06I was like, oh, yeah, that's right, it was audio stuff.
1:18:09It's funny, too, because a lot of the--
1:18:11I don't know about him in particular,
1:18:12but a lot of the artists of his generation
1:18:15have serious hearing problems.
1:18:17I mean, Pete Townsend famously, because they just
1:18:20didn't know back then, and they'd play their music loud,
1:18:22and they didn't have all of the earplugs in the--
1:18:27it's not just plugging up your ears
1:18:29so you don't go deaf from the loud music,
1:18:31but also that now they have the little wireless thing
1:18:34so the artist can hear the feedback
1:18:37so they can tell they're playing the music.
1:18:38But I forget.
1:18:39Amy was telling me-- it was very funny,
1:18:41but I think it was Billie Eilish and her brother
1:18:43met Elton John, and somebody was on a talk show talking about it.
1:18:48And they were like, he can't hear anything.
1:18:51You have Adam.
1:18:52And it's like, who knew?
1:18:54But a lot of the people, the artists who came up
1:18:58in the '60s and '70s, they have some hearing problems.
1:19:00So Neil Young seems to think he can
1:19:02hear the difference between high quality MPEG-3s
1:19:05and uncompressed audio.
1:19:08Who knows?
1:19:08Maybe he can.
1:19:09I don't know.
1:19:10If anybody could, maybe it's him.
1:19:13Maybe he just feels it.
1:19:14Yeah.
1:19:15Yeah.
1:19:16That's it for me.
1:19:17You got anything else?
1:19:18Do you understand this?
1:19:19I don't understand this thing with Dropbox.
1:19:20Yeah, we should talk about the Dropbox thing.
1:19:22I forgot about that.
1:19:24I guess what I don't understand is what is actually being--
1:19:27like, some underlying Apple thing
1:19:29is changing so that Dropbox and Microsoft--
1:19:33OneDrive.
1:19:34OneDrive will no longer be able to sync in the way
1:19:38that they used to, or no--
1:19:41explain it to a dumb person who is me.
1:19:44All right.
1:19:45So I think it's the fact that they both use kernel extensions
1:19:51to implement some of the file system stuff that they do.
1:19:54And kernel extensions in general are dangerous and a source
1:20:00of system instability, because a bug in a kernel extension
1:20:05could cause the whole system to shut down
1:20:07and/or a security problem for the same reasons.
1:20:10And so Apple-- even if you want to say that Apple is being too
1:20:15protective with the Mac and the whole general argument
1:20:19of turning the Mac into more like iOS,
1:20:23steering third-party developers away from kernel extensions
1:20:26is at the far end of that.
1:20:27It's probably a good idea.
1:20:29And I think it was--
1:20:30I'm pretty sure it was macOS Catalina 10.15.
1:20:34And they announced it at WWDC 2019,
1:20:38that they have these file provider extension
1:20:41APIs that started on iOS, which is
1:20:44how third-party things like Dropbox or like--
1:20:48you could connect your web server with SFTP
1:20:52and have them show up in the Files app.
1:20:55They're called file provider extensions.
1:20:58They were going to bring those APIs or a version of them
1:21:01to the Mac for similar services.
1:21:04And that way, instead of running in the kernel space,
1:21:08meaning system level, they'll run in user space.
1:21:12So it's just like running a regular app as a user--
1:21:16more secure, more forward thinking.
1:21:19And I think that this is where it's-- there's only
1:21:24a handful of providers like this, right?
1:21:28And Dropbox and Microsoft are the two
1:21:30who seem to be affected by this cutoff.
1:21:32But effectively, in 12.3, which is now in beta, macOS 12.3,
1:21:38those kernel extension APIs that they're using
1:21:41are not going to be there anymore,
1:21:43so that their kernel extensions that currently are in use
1:21:47will not work.
1:21:49It seems like a weird thing to come in a 0.3 update.
1:21:53Like, why didn't it come in 0.0?
1:21:54But I'm under the impression, somewhat informed,
1:21:58that it was supposed to happen with 12.0.
1:22:00And because Dropbox and Microsoft weren't ready,
1:22:03Apple was like, OK, now--
1:22:04They pushed it back.
1:22:05They pushed it back.
1:22:06But it was like two years warning back in 2019,
1:22:10and now is when it's coming due.
1:22:13Microsoft has a thing in beta that
1:22:15has all their functionality.
1:22:17Dropbox, I think, looks like it's going
1:22:20to be at least till summer.
1:22:21Dropbox is-- whatever complaints people have about Dropbox
1:22:24on the Mac, it's gotten worse, because they only came out
1:22:27with an Apple Silicon native version a couple of weeks ago.
1:22:30I mean, and that's over a year, right?
1:22:32I mean, and it's funny, because I still use it.
1:22:35I used it throughout the whole period in Dropbox.
1:22:37I didn't really notice that Dropbox was any worse
1:22:40while it was running as an Intel-compiled binary.
1:22:44But it was weird.
1:22:45And every once in a while, I'd go to Activity Monitor,
1:22:47and you can turn on--
1:22:48there's like a column.
1:22:49You can have all your processes listed
1:22:51and see which ones are Apple Silicon
1:22:53and which ones are Intel.
1:22:54And the only ones I had running were Dropbox's stuff.
1:22:57That's it.
1:22:58It just seems like it's like this weird thing
1:23:01where running Intel binaries on Apple Silicon Macs,
1:23:06they run so fast.
1:23:07They're actually faster than most Intel Macs
1:23:09running the same things.
1:23:10That's how good Rosetta 2 is.
1:23:14But at the same time, it seems like almost all the software
1:23:18I use was updated to be native for Apple Silicon so quickly
1:23:21that it didn't matter.
1:23:22Like, even if the running the Intel stuff was really slow,
1:23:26it wouldn't have really kept me from being
1:23:28a proponent of the Apple Silicon Macs,
1:23:30because so little of it was there.
1:23:33But it's just, to me, a sign that Dropbox's commitment
1:23:37to the Mac or just their competence
1:23:40developing the Mac stuff is not entirely there.
1:23:43And so they're the laggard who's--
1:23:46and again, it doesn't seem like Dropbox entirely
1:23:48won't work on 12.3.
1:23:49What's not going to work is--
1:23:52I forget what they call it.
1:23:53It's like Selective Sync, where you
1:23:55can have 4 gigabytes of stuff in your Dropbox account.
1:23:59But you could say, I only want this subset of my folders
1:24:03in my Dropbox to actually sync to my Mac
1:24:06and just leave the other stuff as downloaded only if I need it
1:24:12and tell Dropbox, OK, now I want to download this big movie
1:24:15that I had sitting there.
1:24:16But previously, it was just like a stub.
1:24:19But they've had-- the thing that, to me, is the key
1:24:23is it's not like Apple just announced--
1:24:26and Dropbox's help file makes it seem like they just
1:24:29found out about this last week.
1:24:32Oh my god, we just saw this 12.3 beta.
1:24:35It's going to break a bunch of stuff.
1:24:36We're working really hard on it.
1:24:38This stuff was all announced at WWDC 2019.
1:24:41And the fact that the--
1:24:44hey, Apple, of course, publicly emphasizes
1:24:47we've got these great new file provider APIs that
1:24:50are safer and more secure and more forward thinking.
1:24:53They don't emphasize the, and we're
1:24:55going to take away the old thing because that
1:24:57doesn't sound like fun.
1:24:58But it's implied that they're going to take away
1:25:01the old thing at some point.
1:25:02And I think it's safe to assume that Dropbox and Microsoft are
1:25:06high enough up that Apple's developer relations have
1:25:09let them know it was not as--
1:25:12and the big tell is that Box, which
1:25:14is another competitor in that exact same space,
1:25:17they announced full support for the new stuff in October,
1:25:21so like months ago.
1:25:22Box is ready to go and has no missing features.
1:25:25And when 12.3 comes out, people who are using Box
1:25:29don't have to know any of this, and it'll all just work.
1:25:31Microsoft, I think, will probably--
1:25:33it's going to be very close to maybe when in March MacOS
1:25:3612.3 actually ships to consumers.
1:25:39They're probably going to come in right under the gun.
1:25:41Dropbox, I think, based on their communications,
1:25:44is going to be late.
1:25:45But they shouldn't have been.
1:25:47That's the key.
1:25:48And so I think--
1:25:49Well, and you can argue, certainly,
1:25:51and I think there is some merit to the argument
1:25:54that they're not making as much of an effort
1:25:57because Apple has basically decided
1:26:00that they're going to move into the things that Dropbox does.
1:26:03Apple is deciding that they're going
1:26:05to try and make it easier for people
1:26:06to do the simple things that people used to use Dropbox for.
1:26:09And so Dropbox does not care about Mac users that much
1:26:13anymore.
1:26:14I guess, but I don't know.
1:26:16Box does, obviously, or they care enough
1:26:18that they did the right thing.
1:26:20I mean, and that was the speculation.
1:26:22A friend of the show, Stephen Hackett,
1:26:24had a post that I thought was a little surprising, where
1:26:27he just spitballed the idea of, hey,
1:26:29maybe Apple is pulling a rug out on Dropbox and OneDrive
1:26:34because they've got iCloud Drive that has similar features
1:26:37and doesn't have a problem in MacOS 12.3 with files
1:26:42that are only in the cloud.
1:26:43And again, I think it speaks--
1:26:45that the idea would even pop into Stephen Hackett's head.
1:26:48To me, speaks to the growing resentment and skeptical eye
1:26:52that even longtime Apple users look at the company now.
1:26:57Like, if there's any angle where maybe they're
1:26:59trying to get people to sign up for Apple services
1:27:02or upgrade to a higher tier of services,
1:27:05that idea pops into our heads in a way that
1:27:08didn't five years ago, maybe.
1:27:11I wouldn't-- it doesn't seem like, again,
1:27:13when we talk about the things that
1:27:14are a rounding error for Apple, this
1:27:16seems how many more people are they going to get to sign up
1:27:18for higher storage tiers of iCloud.
1:27:21Maybe.
1:27:22I guess it's possible.
1:27:23It's even more likely that they're
1:27:24going to get people who are just going to sign up
1:27:26for the Apple One, the whole getting caboodle thing.
1:27:28And that is what they're eyeing for everything.
1:27:35And every little thing--
1:27:36no one thing is going to tip people over,
1:27:39but it's all this stuff together that's going to say--
1:27:41that's going to make it--
1:27:42and that's what it's done with me, certainly, is,
1:27:44why not get that thing?
1:27:45It's $25 a month or whatever it is, and $29?
1:27:48I don't even remember.
1:27:49But it's got enough in there that it makes sense.
1:27:52Tim Cook is listening, and he's thinking, yes, that's exactly
1:27:55it.
1:27:55You don't even remember.
1:27:56[LAUGHTER]
1:27:58Perfect.
1:27:59Steepling his fingers.
1:28:01Yes.
1:28:01Excellent.
1:28:02Perfect.
1:28:03And now he's got a little dial there on his desk,
1:28:05and he's turning it up.
1:28:08$29 a month?
1:28:09$35 a month.
1:28:11And the vault said $29 a month.
1:28:15He doesn't remember.
1:28:16He wouldn't even notice.
1:28:17No, because it's under $30.
1:28:18I would say the other thing, though, to think about
1:28:20is the fact that for people like me who like to complain now
1:28:23about Dropbox, even though previously having
1:28:26been fans of the service, it falls under the same thing
1:28:30that people have been complaining about now
1:28:33with the direction 1Password is taking their company
1:28:36and the product, where they're moving to the enterprise.
1:28:39And Dropbox raised billions and billions of dollars.
1:28:43And to make that money, they're not selling $10 a month plans
1:28:47to individuals or families.
1:28:50It's business and the enterprise.
1:28:53And iCloud isn't in that space.
1:28:56iCloud Drive, from my perspective
1:29:00and your perspective, competes with Dropbox.
1:29:04You can like, well, should I put--
1:29:06I have both.
1:29:06I've got iCloud Drive and I've got Dropbox.
1:29:08Where should I put it?
1:29:09Which one should I pay?
1:29:10Should I maybe cancel my Dropbox and just try
1:29:12to go all in on iCloud Drive?
1:29:14That's not Dropbox's business, right?
1:29:17It certainly isn't where it was originally, maybe,
1:29:20where it was sort of like an enthusiast tool.
1:29:22But now it's an enterprise thing.
1:29:24And so Apple, even if some contingent at Apple
1:29:30really wants to get as many people
1:29:31to pay for more iCloud Drive storage as possible,
1:29:35that's the number one priority across all of Apple.
1:29:38Even in that scenario, which I think
1:29:40would be a really foolish way for Apple
1:29:43to try to raise their revenue for the next year,
1:29:46but even if it was their number one thing,
1:29:49I don't think it would make them any less interested in fully
1:29:53supporting Dropbox and OneDrive with their modern APIs, right?
1:29:59Like, it's not about trying to get people
1:30:02to switch to iCloud Drive.
1:30:04It is, we want to get these things out
1:30:07of the kernel, out of the kernel.
1:30:08We don't want Microsoft's, and certainly not Dropbox,
1:30:11running kernel extensions anymore.
1:30:13I will say, I think Apple is also
1:30:16famous for having it both ways, though, too.
1:30:19They often try to err on the side of,
1:30:21well, this will make a better experience,
1:30:23and also we can charge more for it.
1:30:26Well, and the other thing, too, is they are famous, too,
1:30:29maybe infamous for--
1:30:31Yeah, yeah, maybe that's a better word.
1:30:33But they don't necessarily dog food the same thing,
1:30:36where they could say, we've got these great new APIs
1:30:38for Dropbox and OneDrive, and they're not the APIs
1:30:42that iCloud Drive is using, because iCloud Drive is blessed
1:30:45and is part of the system.
1:30:47But I really do think that for the Mac in particular,
1:30:50Apple wants it to be a good corporate citizen.
1:30:52They know that it's a big part of the Mac's success
1:30:54is that the Mac is like in a--
1:30:55you know, it's no longer if you work in the enterprise,
1:30:58you have to use Windows.
1:30:59The Mac is a big part of that, and using services
1:31:01like Box and OneDrive and Dropbox and et cetera
1:31:04is a big part of that.
1:31:05All right, I'm glad you remembered that.
1:31:07Glad to have you back.
1:31:07Yeah, I wanted to explain to me, because I didn't quite get it.
1:31:11So we shall see.
1:31:12My thanks to our sponsors.
1:31:14Who do we have?
1:31:14We had Memberful, where you can sign up to monetize your passion
1:31:18with membership.
1:31:19We had Linode, the web hosting, and--
1:31:22oh, man, that's where I host Staring Fireball.
1:31:24That's all you need to know.
1:31:25And last but not least, Mac Weldon.
1:31:28Oh, my god, how could I forget Mac Weldon?
1:31:30Like I said, I've got--
1:31:31Wearing it right now, yeah.
1:31:33Wearing it right now, including my lucky pair
1:31:35of Mac Weldon underpants.
1:31:37Your one pair of Mac Weldon underpants.
1:31:40Everybody who enjoys their molts,
1:31:42you can get more molts on the Rebound podcast.
1:31:45What's the address for that?
1:31:46Why am I supposed to know?
1:31:48I believe it's reboundcast.com.
1:31:51Reboundcast.com.
1:31:52I'll bet if you go to DuckDuckGo and type molts rebound,
1:31:55it'll take you right there.
1:31:55Oh, you can definitely find it there, yeah.
1:31:57And you got the Biff with a superhero show
1:32:00with the last week's guest.
1:32:02That's on the incomparable.
1:32:03Go buy a t-shirt.
1:32:04I sell t-shirts too on Cotton Bureau.
1:32:08It's under Giant Squid Productions.
1:32:10Giant Squid Productions on Cotton Bureau.
1:32:12Some of the best--
1:32:12A bunch of nerd shirts.
1:32:13Nerd shirts, yeah.
1:32:14I'm sure there's something there you'll enjoy.
1:32:16Yeah, you're probably barking up the wrong audience on this show.
1:32:20I'm sure.