0:00:00I feel like we're getting institutionalized, you know?
0:00:02- Well, yeah, I mean, it does feel like that, right?
0:00:05I mean, like you're kind of locked up,
0:00:07but don't have to get up early anymore, so that's good.
0:00:12And basically the entire family appreciates that.
0:00:16Even the dogs have gotten into that routine now.
0:00:18The big dog, he won't get, I mean,
0:00:20he doesn't get up before nine.
0:00:21(laughing)
0:00:24- That's pretty good for a dog, really.
0:00:27That's pretty good. - Well, he's old now.
0:00:28I mean, both of them are old.
0:00:30They're both 12.
0:00:31But yeah, he does not see the need to be up and around.
0:00:34He basically gets up when he has to go,
0:00:36like when he has to go to the bathroom,
0:00:37he gets up and he's like in a big hurry too.
0:00:40He's a typical old man.
0:00:43He's just like, "Oh, I gotta go to the bathroom
0:00:46and I gotta go right now."
0:00:48- I do think that is part of why dogs are so great,
0:00:51is they are very much like people in that way,
0:00:54in that they age in similar ways.
0:00:58I don't need that, right?
0:01:00(laughing)
0:01:03There's just a whole bunch of stuff in life
0:01:04that as you get older as a person,
0:01:06you're like, "Ah, I don't need that.
0:01:09I don't need to put up with that."
0:01:10That's why old people, the older you get,
0:01:12the more curt you are with bad service.
0:01:14- And he makes a lot of noises
0:01:17like getting up and getting down, like I do.
0:01:20(laughing)
0:01:22It's just, "Oh, oh, my hip, ah."
0:01:26- I remember with my childhood dog who lived,
0:01:28I believe he died when I was in college.
0:01:30He lived a long time, Chester.
0:01:32And he was, I mean, vicious to the mailman.
0:01:36I mean, I know all dogs hate the mailman,
0:01:39but I mean, he was nuts.
0:01:42And there were times when he'd get real old
0:01:43and I'd come home from college
0:01:44and there'd be times where he'd be sleeping
0:01:46and the mail would come and he'd get up,
0:01:48he'd perk his head and you could see the anger.
0:01:50'Cause he was like, they don't call him rescue dogs anymore,
0:01:55but we got him from somebody in a trailer park.
0:01:57It's, he wasn't, he was like a total mixed breed poodle,
0:02:02peek-a-poo thing, had a bad underbite.
0:02:06And when he'd get angry, the underbite would get worse
0:02:09'cause he'd grit his teeth, he'd get up and grit,
0:02:12and he'd ask for it.
0:02:13(laughing)
0:02:15- That seems like a lot of trouble.
0:02:17(laughing)
0:02:19You might expend the energy.
0:02:24- It's sorta like he was saying to the mailman, you know.
0:02:27- Just reminding him.
0:02:30- Did you ever hear that?
0:02:32- Hey Carl, hey Carl, I'm still here.
0:02:34- Man, we got a lot to talk about.
0:02:38Can you believe that old Trumpy's out of office?
0:02:40This is the first post-Trump episode of the talk show.
0:02:43- Is that right?
0:02:44- It is. - Wow.
0:02:45Yeah, I guess so.
0:02:45- Yeah, I did one with Montero after a sort of a,
0:02:50you know, there was like a little insurrection,
0:02:52a little, (laughing)
0:02:55- There was an incident.
0:02:56- There was an incident.
0:02:57But old Trumpy was still in office, and now he's out,
0:03:00and man, do I feel better.
0:03:01- Oh yeah.
0:03:04Another, I mean, yeah, I was talking about sleeping.
0:03:06I mean, really what I was doing was staying in bed.
0:03:09I wasn't sleeping much.
0:03:11- Do you have any idea?
0:03:12- Now I'm sleeping.
0:03:13- And it is true, there are so many things
0:03:16that have gone on in the last year.
0:03:18I would say over the four years of Trump,
0:03:20but 2020 in particular will be remembered,
0:03:24it's the most memorable of the four Trump years for sure.
0:03:27But it's been an obsession of mine recently,
0:03:32is the way that we as human beings convince ourselves
0:03:36that we can intellectualize certain things,
0:03:39but it's not the same thing as actually experiencing them.
0:03:42Like, it's like, you know that war is vicious and bad,
0:03:47and violent, and that it's gruesome and horrible.
0:03:50But if you see pictures of it, it hits you in a way, right?
0:03:53And it's like, you know, like when those pictures
0:03:56of the Abu Ghrail prison in the Iraq situation,
0:04:0015 some years ago, came out.
0:04:03You could hear a description of those photos
0:04:06and be appalled and outraged,
0:04:07but because the pictures actually leaked, it was worse.
0:04:11It shouldn't be, in theory, we should be able to see
0:04:14be fully outraged through the intellectual aspect of it,
0:04:18but we're not, you know, we're animals at a certain sense.
0:04:21We knew that it would be better when we had a president
0:04:27who we didn't have to check if he tweeted
0:04:29at something every morning.
0:04:31- Well, yeah, and that's the thing.
0:04:32I mean, also just having an empty platform from Twitter,
0:04:35as you guys talked about, is huge, right?
0:04:39I mean, because you imagine what he'd be saying
0:04:41- Right now. - now, and I had him muted.
0:04:45I mean, I think I had blocked him, you know, from day one,
0:04:49but you still couldn't get away from it.
0:04:52People would like screen capture, tweet, retweet.
0:04:55I mean, they would do, like, there's any number of ways
0:04:57that other people can force you to see the idiotic things
0:05:02that the president is saying, and it was exhausting.
0:05:06(laughing)
0:05:08- It was exhausting. (laughing)
0:05:12- I knew I'd sleep better, but man, do I sleep better.
0:05:15Like, do you, we're recording on Saturday.
0:05:18Do you have any idea what Joe Biden is up to right now?
0:05:20(laughing)
0:05:22I have no idea, none.
0:05:24- I don't, though I do tune into the news conferences now,
0:05:27the press conferences. - Oh, aren't they great?
0:05:29- Because it's just such a, you know, it's like,
0:05:31oh my God, there's competence.
0:05:33That's the sort, 'cause that's also relaxing.
0:05:37It's just, it's delightfully boring.
0:05:39- That is exactly the word, though.
0:05:41It's competence, right?
0:05:42And it's like, even if you don't agree
0:05:44on certain other policies, it's like,
0:05:45isn't it nice to have competent people
0:05:47talking about these things and giving answers
0:05:50that aren't screaming, yelling, confrontational?
0:05:54It's, you know, sometimes, hurry.
0:05:57- And there are still things I worry about, of course,
0:05:59because the GOP is not, it's not really improved.
0:06:02I mean, they're doubling down on the same stuff
0:06:07that they've been saying for the last two and a half months.
0:06:10And I just, I don't see this ending in a good place,
0:06:14but at least we're not in the same crappy situation
0:06:18we were in back in the fall.
0:06:20- All right, and like listening to Fauci talk now,
0:06:23it's like, man, how did that guy skate through?
0:06:25It's really remarkable.
0:06:27I mean, and again, I'm not saying that even Fauci
0:06:31in particular is without blame and that there were,
0:06:34you know, certain policies and aspects
0:06:35like with the masks and stuff early in the pandemic
0:06:38where he was wrong.
0:06:40He's not perfect.
0:06:42Like that, again, it's like one of the things
0:06:44that's so obvious is the worst thing in our media culture
0:06:49that you can be is wrong about one thing one time,
0:06:54really obviously.
0:06:55Like if you're mostly right and then you make one mistake,
0:06:58then it's like there's this giant pile on
0:07:01as opposed to other people who are wrong
0:07:04every single time they open their mouths.
0:07:06Like that Larry Kudlow guy, just talk about something.
0:07:10That guy is wrong about everything, everything.
0:07:13(laughing)
0:07:15Right?
0:07:16It's like, oh, well, you know, the CDC and Fauci
0:07:19made some pretty bad mistakes in their messaging
0:07:23on face masks early on in the pandemic.
0:07:25But it's like, okay, they were wrong.
0:07:28Mistakes happen, but for the most part they're right.
0:07:31But Fauci looks, he looks five years younger.
0:07:34- Yeah, yeah.
0:07:35And you heard that comment he made
0:07:37in like his first press conference about,
0:07:40he asked him some question and he said,
0:07:42I really, I don't know the answer to that.
0:07:43And then he said something along the lines of like,
0:07:46one of the differences between the previous administration
0:07:48and this administration is when we don't know the answer,
0:07:50we're gonna tell you
0:07:51and we're not just gonna make something up.
0:07:53- Right, which is so, that was,
0:07:57and in particular, and he's like,
0:07:59we're gonna let science and medicine guide
0:08:01all of our answers and policies.
0:08:03And that's a big change.
0:08:04And it's like, yes.
0:08:06- Not whatever makes the president look good.
0:08:08- Right, and it's like, I think we all knew that
0:08:11what makes the president look good
0:08:13or just what the president wants to hear
0:08:16or the way he wants it to be,
0:08:18and that's what he wants you to say,
0:08:20versus what we actually think
0:08:22do the best of our knowledge scientifically and medically
0:08:25is the difference in messaging.
0:08:27But that I don't know part,
0:08:31to me, was not clear while Trump was in office,
0:08:36but I suspected it.
0:08:37But that Fauci coming out and saying that I don't know
0:08:40was an unacceptable answer
0:08:42during the last administration is so important.
0:08:47It's like so many people in so many fields
0:08:50will just bullshit if they don't know,
0:08:52'cause they feel like I don't know makes them look bad.
0:08:54It's better to bullshit than say it.
0:08:55I don't know is like, once you accept it
0:08:58and you're like, when you don't know, just say, I don't know.
0:09:01It's life-changing.
0:09:02It is like one of my top 10 tricks for life is embrace--
0:09:06- It's the same thing.
0:09:07It's the same thing.
0:09:07I think you've said this before
0:09:09and other people have as well,
0:09:09but Trump is a poor person's idea of a rich person.
0:09:14- Right.
0:09:14- And he's also like a dumb person's idea of a smart person.
0:09:19- Right, very true.
0:09:21'Cause he's nothing but confident, right?
0:09:23- Yeah, mm-hmm.
0:09:25(laughs)
0:09:27Anyway, I feel good.
0:09:29(laughs)
0:09:32I do, I really do.
0:09:33- I feel better, let's put it that way.
0:09:36- I do feel, I feel better.
0:09:37- I feel a lot better.
0:09:38- My folks have a vaccine appointment for Tuesday.
0:09:43- Oh, nice.
0:09:44- Which is a huge relief and what a hassle.
0:09:47Oh my God, what a mess this whole vaccine thing is.
0:09:49But yeah, and my dad is 83, my mom is 75.
0:09:53They should be, you know, it should not be hard
0:09:57for them to get scheduled for this, but it was a mess.
0:10:01I mean, and thank God they were diligent about it.
0:10:03Like, my mom had to work the phone for days
0:10:06because they'd be like, okay, here's the number to call.
0:10:09And it, eh, eh, eh, because it's--
0:10:12- Oh, really?
0:10:13- Yeah, it was like overwhelmed.
0:10:14And they were like, they got an email,
0:10:16like some parts of the system worked.
0:10:18Like some part of the healthcare system
0:10:23that they're in sent them both an email that said,
0:10:25okay, you're eligible now for a vaccine
0:10:28and you can go to this website.
0:10:30And the website crashed, you know, and it was like,
0:10:34you know, and I'm only talking on the phone.
0:10:36I can't prove it.
0:10:37But then like they said, like the next day,
0:10:38the paper came out and said, oh yeah, the website crashed.
0:10:41(laughing)
0:10:42Just terrible.
0:10:43So I'm relieved about that.
0:10:46I figure, I feel like--
0:10:47- I don't think, yeah, my parents haven't had it yet
0:10:49and they're 87-ish, 86, 87,
0:10:54and they're in, but they're in Florida.
0:10:58And I just assume the whole system
0:10:59is completely screwed up in Florida.
0:11:01- Well, Florida has a thing where there are people
0:11:04who are flying in from other parts of the country
0:11:06to get the vaccine because it's like,
0:11:07you don't have to be a Florida resident.
0:11:09This, it's just the exact sort of thing
0:11:13that has to come top down instead of bottom up.
0:11:18And the Trump administration--
0:11:20- Each state having their own system is bananas.
0:11:22- Well, and then each state delegates it
0:11:24to like the county levels.
0:11:25Like that's who my parents are dealing with.
0:11:27It's a county level issue.
0:11:28Here in Philly, it's the city and you know,
0:11:31it's a mess, it's horrible.
0:11:33You know, we're like a national disgrace
0:11:36'cause somehow the city hired, do you see this story?
0:11:40I'll put a link in the show notes.
0:11:42I gotta link it from "Daring Firewall."
0:11:43But even Colbert had a whole segment on it last night
0:11:46where the city hired some outfit called
0:11:49Philadelphia COVID Fight and they got like a sort of
0:11:53a rocky-ish logo and apparently they ran a testing site
0:11:57earlier in the year that was somewhat successful.
0:12:00And so they somehow got a contract from the city
0:12:03to help administer vaccines.
0:12:04But the, I'm not making this up,
0:12:06the CEO of the company is a kid from Drexel
0:12:08who's 22 years old.
0:12:09They're all college students.
0:12:12None of them, nobody in the company
0:12:14has any medical expertise at all.
0:12:16Nobody's a doctor, they're all like 20.
0:12:19And they started taking appointments from people,
0:12:21turning people away at the door.
0:12:23There were senior citizens who had these appointments.
0:12:25They're crying out in the street
0:12:26'cause they won't be let in.
0:12:28And then it turned out that all these 19 and 20,
0:12:3121-year-old kids were just giving each other the vaccines
0:12:34and they're not even nurses, doctors.
0:12:37I mean, you couldn't make this up.
0:12:40- I did not see that.
0:12:41- Oh, you can't make it up.
0:12:43And everybody is like, how did this happen?
0:12:46Like somebody's head is gonna roll in the city
0:12:48'cause people are, I mean, tempers are short.
0:12:51People are at the end of their freaking ropes.
0:12:56Bad.
0:13:00I don't know, I don't expect to get the vaccine
0:13:02until like, I'm 85.
0:13:05- I think, yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm gonna get mine
0:13:10until late spring, early summer.
0:13:13For sure, I would imagine.
0:13:15I mean, I'm in my 50s, you'd think I'd be like,
0:13:18have a decent chance of getting it, but I don't go anywhere.
0:13:21Like I don't need to be anywhere in particular.
0:13:24I would imagine that puts me down a few notches.
0:13:29- Yeah, the city of Philly does have a signup form
0:13:33where you can get like on some kind of list.
0:13:35I'm not quite sure how it works,
0:13:36but my own doctor sent it to us and said,
0:13:39you should sign up here.
0:13:40I don't know what's gonna come of it,
0:13:42everybody should sign up.
0:13:43And so I signed up and it's like, what's your name,
0:13:46what's your address, what's your age?
0:13:48And it's like, do any of these apply to you?
0:13:50And there's a list of like 30 things
0:13:52and they're clearly all things
0:13:53that would make you more likely to get it.
0:13:55Like, are you a healthcare worker?
0:13:57Are you a first responder?
0:13:58Do you, you know, are you morbidly obese?
0:14:02Do you have, there's not a single thing on the list
0:14:06that I even vaguely, possibly even like squint your eyes
0:14:12and look on the horizon could possibly claim to qualify for.
0:14:15- You could pull a Homer Simpson and just start eating.
0:14:17- I know, that was my joke to Amy.
0:14:21I was like, let's start, nothing but carbs.
0:14:25- That's why you had the big pasta meal last night.
0:14:28- Yeah, exactly.
0:14:29All right, let me take a break and thank our first sponsor.
0:14:36Oh man, do I love this company, Mack Weldon.
0:14:40Look, there's probably a lot of things
0:14:42you'd like to leave behind in 2020.
0:14:44One of the most important being your old underwear drawer.
0:14:47If you're rolling into the new year with the same
0:14:49bunching, chafing, uncomfortable underwear,
0:14:51then you've got to check out Mack Weldon.
0:14:54Mack Weldon, that's where they started.
0:14:55Underwear, essentials they call them.
0:14:57Undershirts, underwear, socks.
0:14:59Anyway, they are great, it's a great thing.
0:15:03Just take all, you know what's a great tip?
0:15:05Just take all of your old socks, throw 'em the hell out.
0:15:08Buy all new socks all at once.
0:15:10Wear them evenly and then you don't have like
0:15:13half a collection of old socks, some medium socks.
0:15:16Buying your socks in bulk and then just wearing 'em,
0:15:20it's a great tip, life tip.
0:15:22I love Mack Weldon stuff.
0:15:24Don't even get me started on their slippers.
0:15:26Oh my God, the slippers, I got the slippers on right now.
0:15:29I'm wearing 'em, they're great slippers and they last long.
0:15:33The problem for me is I wear 'em 18 hours a day every day
0:15:35'cause I don't leave the house.
0:15:37But it's freezing cold here in Philadelphia.
0:15:40My feet are toasty warm, very comfortable
0:15:42thanks to their amazing slippers.
0:15:44Every time I pump these slippers on this show,
0:15:49they sell out.
0:15:50So if you're interested in a great pair of slippers,
0:15:53go check 'em out immediately as you listen to the podcast
0:15:55'cause they might sell out.
0:15:57But I love 'em and they're the type of slippers
0:15:59you can kind of just slip your feet into 'em
0:16:01without tucking over the heel.
0:16:02But they do have a little heel in the back
0:16:04so it's, you know, for safety's sake,
0:16:06so like me, you don't like a clutch fall down the stairs
0:16:08or something like that 'cause your slippers are falling off.
0:16:11I love it.
0:16:12They've got everything though, hoodies, polos, active shorts.
0:16:16Everything looks great, feels great.
0:16:17They've got advanced technology.
0:16:19Don't even get me started on this stuff, but seriously,
0:16:21they call 'em air knit, dry knit, warm knit.
0:16:25Their underwear is made out of these fabrics
0:16:28that are supposed to be anti-microbial.
0:16:32- Microbial.
0:16:33- Make sure, what they mean is you're not gonna stink.
0:16:36And it's true, I think it works.
0:16:37They're great in the summer, they're great in the winter.
0:16:40I've got a hoodie from them that I wear.
0:16:42Every time I get chilly, I just, you know,
0:16:45'cause I'm getting to be an old man,
0:16:47I don't turn up the heat.
0:16:48You know what I do?
0:16:48I put another layer on and I've got this hoodie from them.
0:16:51- You're not paying to heat the neighborhood.
0:16:53- Exactly, it's true.
0:16:55I don't know what happens.
0:16:56Something biological kicks in at some point in your 40s.
0:16:59(laughing)
0:17:00And then I look at the thermostat,
0:17:02I'm like, who turned this up?
0:17:03Just put another layer on.
0:17:05And I'm like, my God, you really do turn into your father
0:17:07as you get older.
0:17:08Anyway, Mack Weldon, they've got this
0:17:10totally free loyalty program.
0:17:13You don't have to do anything.
0:17:15Level one gets you free shipping for life.
0:17:18Once you reach level two, and you get to level two
0:17:20by spending just 200 bucks on clothes.
0:17:23Once you get there, you get 20% off every order
0:17:27for the next year.
0:17:28You could buy some stuff now, get to $200.
0:17:31And then come springtime when it gets warm,
0:17:34buy some more stuff for the summer
0:17:36and you'll get 20% off every single thing you order.
0:17:39And you don't have to do anything except buy the stuff.
0:17:42It is a fantastic deal.
0:17:44The loyalty program is wonderful.
0:17:46And if you don't like, if you buy the underwear,
0:17:48here's their guarantee.
0:17:49First pair of underwear you buy, you don't like 'em,
0:17:51you can keep 'em, don't send your used underwear
0:17:53back to Mack Weldon, they don't want 'em.
0:17:56But they'll still refund you, no questions asked.
0:18:00Now, you can also get 20% off your first order
0:18:03as a new customer by starting at mackweldon.com/talkshow.
0:18:08M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N, mackweldon.com/talkshow.
0:18:13And use that promo code talk show.
0:18:18That's mackweldon.com/talkshow.
0:18:21Promo code when you check out talk show.
0:18:23And you save 20% off, it's fantastic.
0:18:26I've got, I have so much Mack Weldon stuff on right now,
0:18:28as I speak, I can't even count at all.
0:18:31- Yeah, I did exactly what you suggested.
0:18:33Like a year or two ago, I threw out all my underwear
0:18:36and went all Mack Weldon.
0:18:38- And buy it in a big batch,
0:18:40and then they all wear out at the same time,
0:18:42and then it's like, all right,
0:18:43time to throw it all out again and start all over.
0:18:45- Yeah, mine haven't worn out yet.
0:18:47- Well, I'm hard on underwear.
0:18:49(laughing)
0:18:51- Just sitting a lot.
0:18:51- Yeah.
0:18:52(laughing)
0:18:55Right in the seat.
0:18:56All right, what do we wanna talk about?
0:19:00Let's--
0:19:01- Yeah, where do you wanna start?
0:19:02- Why don't we start with the stonks?
0:19:05That's a word that I learned this week.
0:19:08Did you know this?
0:19:10- I've never heard it.
0:19:11I mean, I assume it's just a meme thing, right?
0:19:13It's just a dumb way of saying stonks, right?
0:19:16- Yeah, I think so.
0:19:17But this is--
0:19:18- It's not anything other than that.
0:19:19- In addition to my personal thermostat policies,
0:19:22another sign of my rocketing into the deep ends
0:19:26of middle age are the fact that I just see slang now,
0:19:30and I don't even look it up.
0:19:31- Right, don't look it up.
0:19:32- I take a guess, but the kids call them stonks.
0:19:36My dad called me yesterday.
0:19:41This is a true story.
0:19:42This is how I knew that this was for real.
0:19:44This is a real sensation.
0:19:46My dad called me yesterday to ask,
0:19:48what the hell's going on with this game stock?
0:19:50(laughing)
0:19:52He actually called it game stock.
0:19:57And I'm like, and now that he said it,
0:19:59now I can't say, it's hard for me not to say.
0:20:01- It's hard to say the other way, yeah, the right way.
0:20:04- So that was a fun call.
0:20:05That was actually fun.
0:20:06I should have recorded it.
0:20:07It would have been a fun little mini podcast.
0:20:08- Oh yeah, instead of having me on, jeez.
0:20:11- Me explaining to my dad the GameStop situation.
0:20:14And where do you start?
0:20:17It's kinda nuts.
0:20:19This is the thing that's always been in the back of my mind
0:20:21with the stock market is,
0:20:23if I were Tim Cook or Jeff Bezos
0:20:27or anybody who runs a big, good, successful company,
0:20:31I would lose sleep every night knowing
0:20:33that the fate of my company is in the hands
0:20:36of this totally irrational market
0:20:40that could do something like drive GameStop up 1,900%
0:20:44in a month.
0:20:48- Institutionalized gambling is what it is.
0:20:51- But like, (laughing)
0:20:53it's very strange.
0:20:56And then you combine it with the story
0:20:58of this Robin Hood brokerage,
0:21:01and it really becomes a fascinating story.
0:21:05And a couple of explanations I've seen,
0:21:08and I believe it, is that there's really
0:21:11like three or four stories.
0:21:13And it's not that they're in conflict with each other.
0:21:15It's that they're all true, and they're different,
0:21:18and sometimes they don't even intersect,
0:21:21but that the conflation of all of them happening at once
0:21:25made this bizarre thing happen.
0:21:27- Yeah.
0:21:28Years ago, I used to know the details of shorting.
0:21:34- Right.
0:21:35- And I don't remember them anymore.
0:21:37And I almost, at the beginning of this thing,
0:21:39I was like, "I should figure out how that works exactly."
0:21:41And I started reading something,
0:21:43and I said, "They're betting."
0:21:45- Right.
0:21:45- They're placing a bet that the stock is gonna go down.
0:21:48That's all I really needed to know.
0:21:50And lo and behold, a bunch of other people decided,
0:21:54"Now we're gonna make it go up."
0:21:57- How much of internet jerks decided
0:21:59we're gonna make it go up?
0:22:00- Well, and the other aspect to it is that
0:22:03they did these, some of these, like,
0:22:07so the idea that the people who made it go up
0:22:10stuck it to, quote, "all of Wall Street"
0:22:12is, of course, nonsense, right?
0:22:14Because at some point, all of Wall Street,
0:22:16at least if you consider Wall Street
0:22:18to be the financial industry,
0:22:20they are like the casino where they just win
0:22:23the more people play, right?
0:22:25It's like, if the casino is busy,
0:22:27the casino is making money.
0:22:28And so if people are making lots of trades,
0:22:31Wall Street as a whole is doing well.
0:22:34It's a few particular hedge fund investors
0:22:37who had these short positions in GameStop
0:22:40and maybe AMC movie theaters and,
0:22:43who are the other darlings this week, I forget.
0:22:45Blackberry, for some reason, that is sort of a--
0:22:48- Oh yeah, Blackberry, yeah.
0:22:48- That's the one that really escapes me,
0:22:50because at GameStop, you get that these 20-year-olds
0:22:54have affinity for the brand, right?
0:22:56Because it was like their favorite store
0:22:58is as kids and teenagers.
0:23:00And same thing with AMC, where it's like,
0:23:03"Hey, I loved going to movies.
0:23:04"I can't wait to go back to movies.
0:23:05"I don't want AMC to go bankrupt."
0:23:08- Yeah, yeah.
0:23:09- Blackberry, I don't get.
0:23:10I don't get that. - No, I don't get that.
0:23:12That seems like that one's just sort of,
0:23:14(both laughing)
0:23:16we picked the random one because we were,
0:23:19like, to show that we're funny.
0:23:21- Right, I guess.
0:23:22- To show we have a sense of humor.
0:23:24- Because Blackberry isn't really even Blackberry anymore.
0:23:27You know what I mean?
0:23:28Like, AMC is still AMC.
0:23:30They still have the theaters.
0:23:31So, like, let's say we all get vaccinated
0:23:33and COVID goes away, as we hope it will,
0:23:36as 2021 progresses.
0:23:39When we go back to movie theaters, it will be,
0:23:41and it looks like this whole crazy scheme
0:23:45might have saved AMC from going bankrupt.
0:23:47We'll be able to go see the James Bond movie
0:23:50later this year, and it'll be like it used to be.
0:23:53Whereas Blackberry isn't even Blackberry anymore.
0:23:56If they don't run, it's not like you can still go buy
0:23:59a Blackberry running the Blackberry operating system.
0:24:02It's just like a brand that sells Android phones.
0:24:05And I don't even know if they even have keyboards anymore,
0:24:07which was, like, the whole point.
0:24:09- Yeah, yeah.
0:24:10- It's almost surprising that they exist.
0:24:14It's like--
0:24:15- Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, they have gone out of business
0:24:19and almost everything, but actually going out of business.
0:24:23- It's, do you remember mimeographs?
0:24:26- Oh, yeah.
0:24:27Yeah, you had to hand that out and you'd smell it.
0:24:29- Yeah, that was great.
0:24:30For those of you who are too young,
0:24:32there used to be a copying technology called mimeographs,
0:24:36and it was sort of a photo chemical,
0:24:39it was a chemical-based process
0:24:42rather than purely electronic.
0:24:45- Yeah, before there were copy machines
0:24:47in every school in the nation,
0:24:50they used this technology,
0:24:52which you would just write it on,
0:24:54write whatever you wanted to make copies of
0:24:56on a particular kind of, you know, the mimeograph paper,
0:24:59and then you could run it through a printing press
0:25:02sort of thing, like a roller.
0:25:04- Yeah, and it would come out blue, right?
0:25:06Ours were always blue.
0:25:08And when they were fresh,
0:25:09they would have a very pleasant sort of, you know--
0:25:14- You get a little high off of it.
0:25:15- Little high!
0:25:16- Maybe not, like, really high, but it was just like a,
0:25:18it was a weird chemical smell that it--
0:25:21- Like if somebody broke a smelling salt
0:25:23for somebody who passed out
0:25:24and gave it to the passed out person,
0:25:26and then after they got the bulk of it,
0:25:28you took like a secondhand hit off the smelling salt.
0:25:31(laughing)
0:25:32But it was a real thing, like kids, you know,
0:25:34they'd pass them out, and you know,
0:25:36if the teacher hadn't made the mimeograph
0:25:38until right before class, it would be fresh,
0:25:40and it was a very pleasant smell.
0:25:41It's like, Blackberry still being alive
0:25:44is like if there was still a mimeograph company.
0:25:46(laughing)
0:25:47Right?
0:25:48Like, it doesn't even make sense anymore.
0:25:52- Yeah.
0:25:53- I bought, I have to admit,
0:25:58I bought a bit of GameStop on Thursday morning.
0:26:01(laughing)
0:26:03So I heard, just to have some skin in the game, you know?
0:26:08(laughing)
0:26:09And I have to say, it was very distracting.
0:26:13I probably shouldn't have--
0:26:14- So what did you, do you wanna go into
0:26:15what you bought it for and what it's at now?
0:26:17- I bought it at $360, it's at $330 right now,
0:26:22and I didn't sell any of it, so I still have it.
0:26:25I bought some at $360, and then it jumped up to like $480,
0:26:29and I was like, thinking about selling,
0:26:32'cause I was like, that's pretty cool,
0:26:34and then I could, and I was like,
0:26:36well, let's see if it gets to $500.
0:26:37And then like an hour later, it was $112.
0:26:40(laughing)
0:26:41And plummeting.
0:26:42(laughing)
0:26:46And I didn't buy a lot, but I bought enough,
0:26:50but as much as I would maybe take in my pocket
0:26:53to a casino to play some blackjack.
0:26:55But enough that, which is enough
0:26:58that I don't wanna lose it all.
0:26:59(laughing)
0:27:00- Right, sure, no, of course not.
0:27:02- When it went from $400 to $300 to $200,
0:27:04down to, rocketing towards $100,
0:27:09it really started looking like you might end up with zero,
0:27:12which is what can happen when you play blackjack.
0:27:15Not what you think when you buy a stock, right?
0:27:17You go buy some Apple stock,
0:27:18and you don't look at it for a year.
0:27:20Maybe it's up, maybe it's down,
0:27:22but it's not gonna be zero.
0:27:24- Right.
0:27:25- Well, the GameStop seemed like it could've been zero.
0:27:28But then I did buy some more
0:27:30to even out my position at around, I think around $230.
0:27:35So the average of the shares that I hold are $301,
0:27:40so call it $300.
0:27:41And now that it's $330, I'm overall, I'm above water.
0:27:45- Well, okay.
0:27:46There was a piece in the Washington Post
0:27:49about this kid in San Antonio
0:27:51whose mom gave him 10 shares of GameStop.
0:27:55And she was like, in 2019 for Kwanzaa.
0:27:59And she was just trying to,
0:28:03she wanted to give him a present,
0:28:04and she wanted to give him something that,
0:28:06like as a kid, he loved to go to GameStop
0:28:08to buy games all the time.
0:28:09So she was like, oh, there's a company that he enjoys.
0:28:12I'm gonna get him some stock in this company
0:28:15to teach him a little bit about the stock market.
0:28:17And so she bought 10 shares at $6.19.
0:28:22(laughing)
0:28:24And he sold them.
0:28:25So it goes up like crazy.
0:28:27It goes up to like 320.
0:28:28And she's like, hey, did you see this?
0:28:30And he's like, and she wanted to make sure
0:28:32that it was his decision about what to do.
0:28:34And she was like, I was really hoping he would say sell.
0:28:36(laughing)
0:28:37And so he sold at 320.
0:28:39So he got like 3,100 bucks out of this.
0:28:42- That's amazing.
0:28:44Wow, what a great story.
0:28:45I will put it in the show notes, I promise.
0:28:47That's fantastic.
0:28:49But it's so great.
0:28:51What a great story.
0:28:52But perhaps, perhaps this might be damaging
0:28:55to the young man's viewpoint of adventure.
0:28:58- Yeah, and that's, yeah, she talked about that too.
0:29:00She made very clear that this is not a usual event.
0:29:05(laughing)
0:29:08You can turn $60--
0:29:10- Don't get used to this.
0:29:12- Well, there's the guy who's the main,
0:29:16I'm not gonna say instigator,
0:29:17'cause I don't think he's done anything wrong.
0:29:19But the promoter of GameStop is this guy on Reddit's
0:29:23Wall Street Bets who goes under the name,
0:29:26what is it?
0:29:29It's got the F word. - Big fucking value?
0:29:30- Big fucking value, something like that.
0:29:32And now he's been, I don't know if he got exposed
0:29:36or he chose to, but you know, the Wall Street Journal
0:29:39had an interview with the real guy.
0:29:41But anyway, he put $50,000 into GameStop back in April.
0:29:45And his position now is like 40 million
0:29:50or something like that?
0:29:52It's like he cashed out a bit to have 13 million in cash
0:29:56and is still holding the rest, which is fascinating.
0:30:00But not a bad way to do it, right?
0:30:05Because then if, you know what I mean?
0:30:07If he still believes that the stock could go higher,
0:30:12it's not a bad way to do it.
0:30:13Put a little cash in your pocket, right?
0:30:1513 million from 50,000 starting point.
0:30:18If that's really what he walks away with,
0:30:21he's still, that rags to riches story.
0:30:24I mean, not that he, I don't think he was in rags, but.
0:30:26- No, I'm sure he wasn't.
0:30:29- Let's say average Joe to riches.
0:30:32$13 million in cash is, you know,
0:30:35it's a lot of money to most people.
0:30:38You know, 40 million seems like more.
0:30:40I would be very tempted to have sold
0:30:44at some point along the way.
0:30:46But you know, but not,
0:30:50most people aren't making that type of money, but.
0:30:53- No.
0:30:54- I just wanted to follow.
0:30:55- And I get, I mean, it seems like,
0:30:56I mean, I'm sure that a lot of people are excited
0:30:58about making a lot of money,
0:30:59but it also seems like these guys are just mostly,
0:31:01I mean, a lot of them are sticking a finger
0:31:03in somebody's eye.
0:31:05- Yeah, there's definitely a part of that where they're,
0:31:06you know, and the idea is that,
0:31:10one of the ideas is that GameStop
0:31:12has been unfairly maligned by the short sellers
0:31:15and that these hedge funds pounce on troubled stocks.
0:31:20And you can see why,
0:31:21and there, GameStop in particular seemed
0:31:25open to this attack
0:31:30because the short seller's story is true,
0:31:35which is basically, hey, it's COVID,
0:31:38GameStop is a physical retailer with all these positions.
0:31:43Physical retail is already hurting before COVID.
0:31:47COVID is death to physical retail, literally.
0:31:50I mean, it's, you know,
0:31:51'cause people are staying home
0:31:53and they're supposed to stay home.
0:31:54And the larger trend in the video game industry
0:31:58is towards downloads only,
0:32:00and people aren't buying discs,
0:32:01and that's the whole thing that GameStop is about.
0:32:04And so that rings, it is true to some degree,
0:32:07and so it sounds true to other people,
0:32:09and so when they say, you know,
0:32:11you should short this stock
0:32:12because they're gonna go bankrupt, it rings true.
0:32:14But when you actually look at GameStop's numbers,
0:32:17it's not that bad, you know?
0:32:19It's like, and they had a strong holiday quarter,
0:32:21you know, so there's some truth
0:32:23that they might be more resilient to this
0:32:26than that storyline would have you.
0:32:29That bankruptcy may not be on the,
0:32:32you know, in their future.
0:32:34- Well, and part of the problem with the hedge funds,
0:32:36you know, stuff that they do
0:32:38is it creates kind of a feeding frenzy, right?
0:32:40- Right.
0:32:41- It does take, I mean, you know,
0:32:42they're generally not doing it based on absolutely nothing,
0:32:46but it becomes a fait accompli
0:32:47because they all get together and they do the same thing,
0:32:50and that drives the stock down,
0:32:52and then they cash out and they make their money.
0:32:54- Right, and when there's a very short, succinct story
0:32:57that you can tell in 30 seconds during a hit on CNBC,
0:33:01it's more compelling, and hey,
0:33:04COVID hurts physical retailers,
0:33:05GameStop's a physical retailer,
0:33:07and kids are moving towards digital downloads.
0:33:09End of story, they're going bankrupt,
0:33:11and it's like, oh, that sounds good.
0:33:13- You know, as people who follow Apple,
0:33:15we, I think we are in not necessarily a unique position,
0:33:19but we are in a good position to recognize the fact
0:33:22that a lot of the activity that happens on Wall Street
0:33:25is based on a bunch of crap that people are making up
0:33:29or are ill-informed about.
0:33:32- Yeah, that's very true.
0:33:33You know, and again, I'm not an investment expert, trust me.
0:33:37You, you know, you have more of a background in this,
0:33:39and you know more about how the stock market really works,
0:33:41but I do know the basics of how Apple in particular
0:33:46over the last 25 years, oh, maybe 30 years,
0:33:50you know, maybe the whole history of the company,
0:33:52has largely been valued unfairly on the market.
0:33:57And even at the point now where maybe
0:34:00they're valued too high, right?
0:34:02Maybe they're part of an overall bubble.
0:34:04But the basic idea of price to earnings, you know,
0:34:09where the average company over the last 100 years
0:34:12in the S&P 500 has had a price to earnings of around,
0:34:15I think it's like 19, but let's call it $20, right?
0:34:18So it's like, however profitable you are,
0:34:21your stock price is sort of like a 20 times factor
0:34:25on earnings per share.
0:34:26I think that's what price to earnings ratio is, right?
0:34:29And you know, I don't know,
0:34:33that sounds like that's the way it should be, right?
0:34:37But for a long, long stretch,
0:34:40Apple was always valued way under $20 price to earnings.
0:34:45Because the narrative was, ah, this company is on the,
0:34:49you know, they're in trouble.
0:34:50They're, you know, even when they weren't in trouble.
0:34:52- They're gonna go out of business.
0:34:53They're gonna go out of business any day.
0:34:55- Right, and every time they had a hit,
0:34:56it would be like, ah, you know,
0:34:58like the iPod is a great example.
0:35:00'Cause the iPod, we can talk about as it's over, right?
0:35:05It happened and it was a, not a flash,
0:35:09but it was sort of a decade long thing, right?
0:35:12It appeared in 2001, it was Mac only,
0:35:15and Mac only until like 2003.
0:35:19And then I think it was around 2003, maybe 2004,
0:35:21when they added the Windows support with iTunes.
0:35:26And you know, digital music really, really took off.
0:35:31And they had a couple of years
0:35:32where it was a true sensation.
0:35:34And I always remember, I just remember being at the mall
0:35:39and hearing people, kids talk about going to the iPod store.
0:35:43And it'd be like, you kids, you know.
0:35:48I mean, this is 20 years ago, so I was like 29 years old.
0:35:51And I already felt like an old man.
0:35:54You kids, that's the Apple store.
0:35:56The iPod store.
0:35:59But it became a thing.
0:36:00But when it became a thing, the narrative was,
0:36:03ah, Dell's gonna come out with a thing,
0:36:07Microsoft's gonna come out with a thing,
0:36:08and nobody's gonna buy these expensive ones from Apple.
0:36:11There's gonna be cheap ones from other companies.
0:36:14And it never happened, right?
0:36:16But their stock never really took the value of the iPod
0:36:20because the narrative was, at any given moment,
0:36:23the iPod was gonna just poof, the bubble's gonna pop.
0:36:25- Get replaced by, yeah, yeah, yeah,
0:36:26get beaten by Microsoft.
0:36:28- Yeah. - Yeah, I mean,
0:36:29there was a rumor, I still remember this,
0:36:31that Microsoft was going to give you the value
0:36:36of whatever music you had already purchased on,
0:36:40like just give it to you somehow,
0:36:42like magically transfer whatever you had already purchased
0:36:44onto the Zune when it came out.
0:36:49And of course, that never happened.
0:36:50I mean, you had to buy, you had to get a subscription
0:36:52or you had to buy it all over again to get it on digital.
0:36:56But it was just like, yeah,
0:36:56but it was that kind of thinking.
0:36:58It was like, Microsoft is too mighty,
0:37:01and there's no way that Apple's gonna be able to keep up
0:37:04when Microsoft introduces whatever
0:37:05they're gonna bring to market.
0:37:06- Right, and that basically Apple's only core audience
0:37:10was a cult.
0:37:12- Yeah. - All right.
0:37:12I mean, there's even the site, Cult of Mac.
0:37:14I mean, it's like it's been there for a while,
0:37:16but it's no exaggeration to say
0:37:20that that was the narrative on Wall Street,
0:37:22was that the people who buy Macintosh computers
0:37:24were cultists, you know?
0:37:26- Yeah. - Because they couldn't see
0:37:28any other reason why people would be buying
0:37:31these other computers that don't accept DOS floppies.
0:37:35(laughing)
0:37:37I put my floppy disk in and it said it wanted to format it.
0:37:40- What's the VGA porn on that laptop?
0:37:42- Right, these people are in a cult.
0:37:46- Yeah.
0:37:47- The trackpad works, what the hell is that?
0:37:51(laughing)
0:37:53What kind of crazy--
0:37:55- It's unsustainable.
0:37:56- What kind of crazy laptop is this?
0:38:00It actually wakes up from sleep.
0:38:02My computer shuts down if I leave the lid closed
0:38:07for 10 minutes, just like God intended.
0:38:10(laughing)
0:38:12But the thing, so it's a weird story to follow
0:38:18because I love the idea that they are, you know,
0:38:22sticking a finger in the eye of these hedge funds.
0:38:25But at the same time, you can easily see how,
0:38:27and this may be an example of one,
0:38:31but I don't even know, like I said,
0:38:33I don't know exactly how it all started necessarily,
0:38:35but you can see how this can be,
0:38:38particularly after our experience in the 2016 election,
0:38:41this could be weaponized, right?
0:38:43How actors from foreign states or, you know,
0:38:49just bad people can influence people on online forums
0:38:54and other places and try and get them to do stuff like this,
0:38:59thinking that they're doing something that's cute and funny
0:39:01or even a social good and pointed in the wrong direction.
0:39:07- Yeah, absolutely, you know, and especially,
0:39:09maybe not especially, but you know,
0:39:14Reddit in particular is,
0:39:18I've never been a big Reddit user.
0:39:21- Yeah, me neither.
0:39:22- I mean, in fact, the opposite.
0:39:23I'm a very rare and occasional Reddit user.
0:39:26But like the culture of Reddit is complete anonymity.
0:39:32Like as far as I can tell, nobody on,
0:39:35I might be the only person on all of Reddit
0:39:37who uses their actual name.
0:39:39I think I signed up when, I don't know,
0:39:45I was logged in 'cause I was looking
0:39:47at Wall Street Bets this week,
0:39:48and it says I've signed up 15 years ago.
0:39:50So I don't know if that's early, how early that is,
0:39:53but you know, but my username on Reddit is just Gruber.
0:39:57I've got like one, I've got one karma point,
0:40:00but I've been there for 15 years.
0:40:01As far as I can tell, nobody on Reddit uses their name.
0:40:04I don't know.
0:40:06But when I signed up, I didn't know.
0:40:08And I no longer know what made up name I would use.
0:40:12I mean, Daring Fireball wouldn't exactly hide my--
0:40:16- No.
0:40:17- Hide my identity.
0:40:18But, you know, and I know that there's lots of people,
0:40:23a lot of people on Twitter,
0:40:24including some of my favorite people who I follow
0:40:26who don't use their real name.
0:40:28Darth, for example, who might be the single--
0:40:32- First one I think of.
0:40:33- Right, the single greatest Twitter user in the world,
0:40:35maybe, does not use his real name.
0:40:39And it doesn't make him less credible.
0:40:41I think it's great that you don't have to.
0:40:43I think Twitter would be for the worse
0:40:45if they had originally had a real names only policy.
0:40:49But the fact that no one on Reddit uses their real name
0:40:53does seem to make it even more likely to be,
0:40:55like how would you tell if it's foreign actors
0:41:00or people with the bad intent
0:41:01of attempting to crash the stock market?
0:41:03- Yeah.
0:41:06- It's very strange.
0:41:08- Yeah, I was, the other thing I saw was that there are,
0:41:11now there are like 6.3 million subscribers
0:41:14to Wall Street Bets.
0:41:16And half of them subscribe since Wednesday.
0:41:19- It's a very weird board.
0:41:24Did you take a look at it at all?
0:41:26I mean, now--
0:41:27- Just the stuff that's been posted in articles I had.
0:41:30I don't think I've gone there directly.
0:41:31- Man, it's crazy.
0:41:34I kinda see how people are into it,
0:41:36but it's like, it's too frenetic for me.
0:41:39But I love--
0:41:41- And they have their own kind of cultural language almost.
0:41:44- Yeah, I love it.
0:41:45They say they call it, what they want,
0:41:47with the basic idea that the hardcore users of it,
0:41:51they want you to buy GameStop and AMC and hold.
0:41:56Just buy some and hold it,
0:41:58and it's gonna drive the share price higher.
0:42:01And we're all gonna get rich,
0:42:03and they post a bunch of rocket ship emojis
0:42:06to show that it's going to,
0:42:09I swear, this is part of the lingo.
0:42:10It's like, there's like going to the moon.
0:42:12Going to the moon is good, but going to Alpha Centauri
0:42:15is like, that's where they want it to go.
0:42:16'Cause they want GameStop to go to like 4,000.
0:42:19I swear, I mean, I don't think, I don't know.
0:42:23Well, you laugh, but--
0:42:25- I know, I know.
0:42:26- But it was at like $12 a month ago,
0:42:29and now it's at 300.
0:42:30So I don't know, could it, you know,
0:42:33it's gone up 30 times in a month.
0:42:36Maybe it could go up 10 times more.
0:42:37I don't know, this is what they want.
0:42:39But they call it, but buying and holding,
0:42:41they call it diamond hands.
0:42:42And if you-- - Okay, that's what that was.
0:42:45Yeah, I saw that referenced a few times, yeah.
0:42:47- That's diamond hands.
0:42:49And what you don't wanna have is paper hands.
0:42:51Paper hands would be like, let's say,
0:42:53like when I bought my GameStop at 300,
0:42:58and it went up to 480.
0:43:00If I had paper hands, I would have sold right there
0:43:02for a nice win.
0:43:04But I don't, see, yeah, but I don't wanna have paper hands.
0:43:07You know, I want diamond hands.
0:43:08So I got the, I'm in with the kids.
0:43:11I got diamond hands, John.
0:43:13I'm old.
0:43:13But I sat there, I'm sitting there thinking,
0:43:17you know, and again, this is not an investment for me.
0:43:20This is recreational gambling.
0:43:22But I am, it did occur to me, well, wait,
0:43:24if I don't sell at 400 or 450,
0:43:26well, what am I doing?
0:43:30- Yeah, right.
0:43:31And that's a question for all of these people, right?
0:43:34I mean, what's the end game here?
0:43:36Because it doesn't seem like, I mean,
0:43:38maybe it does go up to something,
0:43:40some crazy value like 4,000.
0:43:41But fundamentally, I don't think it's a $4,000
0:43:46per share stock.
0:43:47- No, I don't.
0:43:48I think--
0:43:49- And it's gotta come back down.
0:43:51And when it comes back down,
0:43:53somebody's gonna be left carrying a hole in the bag.
0:43:57- Yeah, there's no doubt about it.
0:43:59I mean, again, and I don't mean--
0:43:59- Somebody's gonna have shit,
0:44:01somebody's gonna have shit hands is what they're gonna have.
0:44:03(both laughing)
0:44:05- Somebody's gonna have to wipe their ass
0:44:08with the free newspaper at the corner
0:44:12'cause they can't buy toilet paper anymore.
0:44:15So I guess they would have shit hands.
0:44:16I don't know.
0:44:17- I never thought of that as like a last ditch,
0:44:21get the free newspaper.
0:44:22- Yeah.
0:44:23- Well, you know, I mean, it'd be hard for me
0:44:25'cause I'd have to walk far, but I could do it.
0:44:28- Remember when we couldn't buy toilet paper?
0:44:30- Yeah, I know, yeah.
0:44:32- Wasn't that a thing you'd never expected
0:44:34in life in America?
0:44:36- Yeah.
0:44:38- A mass toilet paper shortage.
0:44:40- Mm-hmm.
0:44:41- But you know what, though?
0:44:43It was a similar mania, though, right?
0:44:45It's like that herd mentality.
0:44:48'Cause people bought, and I have members of my family,
0:44:51and when we wound up placing enough orders,
0:44:54we didn't, we were at the tail end of it.
0:44:56You know, like we didn't load up early,
0:44:58but once we had trouble getting toilet paper,
0:45:01we placed orders, you know,
0:45:02like walmart.com and amazon.com,
0:45:05and it was at a time when they were saying,
0:45:07"Don't even leave the house."
0:45:08And we wound up getting more toilet paper
0:45:10to keep in the basement than we'd normally have,
0:45:14but not massive amounts.
0:45:15But I have family members who went to Costco
0:45:18and loaded up their SUVs with toilet paper.
0:45:21And we're like, you know, like Amy would be like,
0:45:24"I don't think you need that much."
0:45:25- What do you think is gonna happen?
0:45:27Like people are pooping more?
0:45:29I don't... (laughs)
0:45:30- Well, no, I think somehow it was just this weird cycle of
0:45:34everybody's saying there's a toilet paper shortage,
0:45:38and somebody went to a store,
0:45:39and they literally were out of toilet paper,
0:45:42had nothing but the worst toilet paper imaginable,
0:45:46like brand name, worst toilet paper. (laughs)
0:45:49- Yeah. - Prison toilet paper.
0:45:49- And that happened, that did happen to us.
0:45:51We had, at one point there was like,
0:45:54we had some toilet paper that was kind of sketchy,
0:45:55but that was the worst, you know,
0:45:57that was the worst that happened.
0:45:59And because we, you know, 'cause we go to Costco,
0:46:02and so we get it at Costco,
0:46:03and so we usually have way more toilet paper
0:46:06than we really need at any given moment. (laughs)
0:46:07- But there were people buying pickup trucks full of it.
0:46:10And then, you know, like I remember early on,
0:46:12like when this was happening,
0:46:13I had to go pick up a prescription.
0:46:14And so I was at our CVS down the street.
0:46:17And I went to, you know, I was like,
0:46:19well, let's see if they have any toilet paper,
0:46:20maybe I'll pick some up, you know, 'cause,
0:46:22and I went, and they literally had nothing but like,
0:46:26you know, like one sketchy roll.
0:46:28- Yeah, Soviet toilet paper, yeah.
0:46:30- We have some paper towels too,
0:46:32'cause paper towels were running low.
0:46:34And we got some really bad paper towels.
0:46:37And then, you know, now everything normal, normal out,
0:46:40and we don't have, but we still have some of this
0:46:43really cheap paper towels that we use for cleaning.
0:46:46You know, it's like, well, you know,
0:46:47let's not let it go to waste.
0:46:48But these paper towels, when they get wet, they dissolve.
0:46:53Like they're not just bad paper towels.
0:46:56They're like, what are you supposed to use it for
0:47:00if getting it wet at all makes it dissolve?
0:47:03(laughing)
0:47:04Do you ever have, did you ever get those,
0:47:06there's like eco-friendly packing material
0:47:09that they even tell you, you can put it,
0:47:11if you'd like to, you can just put it in a bucket,
0:47:13fill it with water, and it'll dissolve.
0:47:14- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:47:15Yeah, I ate one of those.
0:47:17- I did too, 'cause they said you can.
0:47:19- 'Cause they said you could eat it.
0:47:20- Yeah.
0:47:21- I gave one to the dog too.
0:47:22(laughing)
0:47:25- This is why we're pals.
0:47:26My wife was like, what are you doing?
0:47:29If you get sick, if you get sick,
0:47:32I'm never gonna let you forget this.
0:47:34And I'm like, well, they say you can eat it.
0:47:35And you know, but that's what these paper towels
0:47:38are made out of.
0:47:39You just get 'em wet.
0:47:40And like, all we ever do with paper towels
0:47:42is clean up spills, you know?
0:47:44Anyway.
0:47:45(laughing)
0:47:48Well anyway, then it leads us to,
0:47:50we gotta talk about this Robin Hood company,
0:47:52Jiminy Christ.
0:47:52- Yeah, yeah.
0:47:53Do we need a disclosure?
0:47:55They used to advertise on one of my podcasts
0:47:58that long time ago.
0:47:59- Well, that's fair enough.
0:48:00I don't know.
0:48:01They'd never advertise with me though,
0:48:02so screw, it's the hell with them.
0:48:03(laughing)
0:48:06Even if they had, I'd still be,
0:48:11it's such a bizarre story.
0:48:12They're heading towards an IPO.
0:48:14They're well-funded.
0:48:15They're very popular.
0:48:16They apparently have a very good app,
0:48:18which I haven't been able to use.
0:48:21So I signed up for a Robin Hood account five years ago.
0:48:24And I think it was when they were first new.
0:48:26There was like a, our friend Adam Lisagor's sandwich video
0:48:29did a nice sandwich video for them.
0:48:31And it sounded like a cool thing.
0:48:33So I signed up and it never actually used it though.
0:48:37And then the other day,
0:48:38when I was thinking about getting in on this GameStop,
0:48:41before the Robin Hood blockade,
0:48:43I thought, well, maybe if I'm just gonna goof around
0:48:45instead of using my real investment account,
0:48:47where I don't play day trading at all,
0:48:50I just buy some stocks and hold and never look at them,
0:48:53just index, you know, S&P 500 index funds.
0:48:56Why don't I just, why don't I try this Robin Hood thing too?
0:48:58I'll put, you know, put a couple hundred bucks in there
0:49:01and play with that.
0:49:02And I couldn't sign in 'cause they,
0:49:05I had my username and password and my email address,
0:49:08but they said they wanted to send me an SMS
0:49:10because I hadn't signed in for a long time.
0:49:13And I said, okay, and it just said, it's just a button.
0:49:15How, they were like,
0:49:16how would you like to confirm your account, colon.
0:49:18And there's only one option, SMS.
0:49:21And I hit yes and my phone never got an SMS.
0:49:25- Nothing happens.
0:49:25- And my, I have a Google Voice that I was like,
0:49:28maybe I use the Google Voice.
0:49:29I often use that, which is a great way to have like
0:49:32a throwaway account that can get and send SMS
0:49:35without having to give people your real cell phone number.
0:49:38Nope, nothing.
0:49:39So my guess is when I signed up,
0:49:41I gave them our landline number,
0:49:44which is what I typically give, you know,
0:49:46that they ask for a phone number.
0:49:47- They're trying to send a text message
0:49:49to your landline number, yeah.
0:49:50- Right, which literally isn't even hooked up.
0:49:52We don't even have a phone connected to it.
0:49:55We just have this number and we can use it for, you know,
0:49:58billing purposes with no risk of, 'cause I, you know what,
0:50:01I don't want a phone call from them, but I sent them.
0:50:05So they're like, all right, so if you can't log in,
0:50:08what do you need to do?
0:50:09You gotta send them an email to support.
0:50:11My guess is that my request to have this SMS situation
0:50:16straightened out.
0:50:20- Is not high on their list right now?
0:50:23- I'm guessing they might have a lot of emails in that.
0:50:27- You'll get that, you'll get that response to that
0:50:30when you get a COVID vaccine.
0:50:32- Exactly, so I was not able to use it,
0:50:35but apparently what people say,
0:50:36and I have friends who have a counselor,
0:50:37they say it is a very nice app.
0:50:40I use E-Trade, I have an E-Trade,
0:50:42and E-Trade's apps are, how do you say it?
0:50:47Not good.
0:50:48- Not good. - Not good.
0:50:49I tried using their iPad app,
0:50:52and I don't know how this is even possible,
0:50:54but it seems like the fields,
0:50:56like when it says how many shares would you,
0:50:58you know, what stock, GME, how many shares, you know, 30.
0:51:06The fields don't really align with the tap targets.
0:51:09It's like you have to tap above the,
0:51:12how do you, I don't even know how you do that in an iOS app,
0:51:15and then the iOS app crashed,
0:51:17and I haven't had an app crash in a long time.
0:51:20It just, or at least on iOS,
0:51:22it just doesn't seem to be a big thing anymore.
0:51:25It's clearly, E-Trade is still,
0:51:27and then I went to my Mac and just did it on the web,
0:51:29and their website, it's not, it's very,
0:51:31they have a lot going on, but it works,
0:51:34and I can understand it, and it's a lot faster than an app.
0:51:36It's just clearly meant to be an app,
0:51:40and I mean a website, not an app,
0:51:42whereas Robinhood is app first.
0:51:44It's meant to be on the phone,
0:51:46and you know, so I could see why that's appealing
0:51:49to the kids, and especially these kids who are betting,
0:51:52right, who aren't just buying and holding, you know,
0:51:55once a month, put some more money into your fund
0:51:57and buy an index fund and build an investment nest.
0:52:01Kids who are sitting there in Reddit all day long
0:52:04buying and selling and dumping and, you know.
0:52:06- But the big thing, right, is they don't have fees, right?
0:52:10- Well, E-Trade doesn't have fees anymore either.
0:52:13Fees, you know, I think once some of these brokerages
0:52:16went to no fee, everybody kinda had to go to no fee,
0:52:21'cause the whole, the fees thing turned out to be a racket.
0:52:24It was sorta like ATM fees, right?
0:52:27And it's like, imagine like,
0:52:29but you're a customer of theirs,
0:52:31and so like, even if you still pay ATM fees
0:52:34when you go like, out of your bank's network,
0:52:37it would be crazy if your own bank charged you an ATM fee.
0:52:41Right, that's, I think, I don't know,
0:52:43maybe other people have fees,
0:52:45but E-Trade doesn't charge fees anymore either.
0:52:47- Okay, I don't know, yeah,
0:52:48but I don't know E-Trade's business model,
0:52:50but Robinhood is basically making money
0:52:53off of selling all the information.
0:52:54- Right, right, so their customers for money
0:52:58is that they allow, you know, they have hedge funds
0:53:01that they allow to get access to the fire hose
0:53:05of the trade information, and what's it called?
0:53:09High frequency trading.
0:53:10Where, and it's sort of like trying to think about
0:53:14how computers work these days,
0:53:16and you know, how many computations per se,
0:53:19like when Apple tells you that when you take a photo
0:53:22with your iPhone, and it does three trillion operations
0:53:26in the instant you hit the shutter,
0:53:28and it's like, how is that even, three trillion, what?
0:53:31It's like, how is that even possible?
0:53:34And it's hard to wrap your mind around it,
0:53:36but it's like these high frequency trade things,
0:53:40it's like when they have access to the fire hose,
0:53:42basically, I think this is a fair description,
0:53:44and it's like, just John Molt's joke consumer
0:53:48decides to buy 10 shares of GameStop at $300 even,
0:53:56and the fire hose could see that somebody else
0:54:01is selling ones at $299.75,
0:54:07and so they can quick buy those shares at 299.75,
0:54:14and then sell those to you for 300,
0:54:16and make, you know, a couple of pennies.
0:54:18And it's probably even smaller, I'm saying a quarter,
0:54:21maybe it's like a penny, like, you know,
0:54:23but if you do this at the thousands of times per second scale
0:54:28you can make a large sum of money
0:54:31with the arbitrage of just a--
0:54:33- It's the change bank.
0:54:33- Right, it is, it's the change bank.
0:54:36I made that joke.
0:54:37I saw Kevin Nealon on Twitter say that that still
0:54:43is one of his all-time favorite SNL skits.
0:54:45- It's great.
0:54:46- But it's like, yeah, it's like the change bank
0:54:50come to life and somehow, you know,
0:54:55if two $10 bills are sometimes worth $20 and a penny,
0:55:00that you, you know, it doesn't make sense with cash,
0:55:05but if that's, you know, in stocks it's like
0:55:07all of a sudden two $10 bills are temporarily worth $20
0:55:11and one cent, you quick buy those and turn them
0:55:14into a $20 bill and you pocket the penny.
0:55:17Anyway, that's how these guys make money.
0:55:20But it still isn't clear.
0:55:23So anyway, this whole thing with Robinhood,
0:55:26and the basic idea is, you know, you put money
0:55:28in your account and then with your money
0:55:30you can buy stocks and, you know, these options
0:55:33and the other stuff, but they all have prices
0:55:35and you can buy as many as you are allowed to buy.
0:55:38And you buy them and sell them and you do things
0:55:41and all of a sudden Robinhood said to these people who are,
0:55:46and this is where it really gets interesting
0:55:48'cause it's not like, so for example,
0:55:50E-Trade, the one I use, apparently stopped allowing people
0:55:54to buy GameStop at like 3.30 in the after,
0:55:57like a half hour before trading closed on Thursday.
0:56:00Nobody, you don't see any articles about it
0:56:02because people weren't really using E-Trade for this.
0:56:05And it was only for half an hour.
0:56:06And it was just sort of, you know,
0:56:08it actually seems much more reasonable.
0:56:10It was just sort of like, we don't even know what's going on.
0:56:12Just give us a break, give us a chance to catch our breath.
0:56:15Whereas Robinhood just said, you can't buy it anymore.
0:56:19- Yeah.
0:56:20- And they're-
0:56:20- Didn't they, I mean, they had some sort of fiduciary
0:56:22problem with it, right?
0:56:23Because they couldn't, there was so much trading going on
0:56:26that it couldn't cover the amounts.
0:56:29- Something like that.
0:56:30I mean, it's still unclear.
0:56:32- And it gets, you know, it gets to the SEC rules about,
0:56:36you have to have a certain amount of money
0:56:38in order to be able to execute these trades.
0:56:41You can't just like, as an individual,
0:56:43I can't walk in there and say,
0:56:44I wanna trade a million shares of Apple.
0:56:47It's like, no, you can't do that.
0:56:49You don't, if it goes sour, you'll go bankrupt.
0:56:52And then, you know, the whole thing will fall apart.
0:56:55So you have to have a certain amount of money in the bank
0:56:58in order to be able to do certain kinds of large trades.
0:57:01And they didn't have enough money
0:57:03because there was so much going on.
0:57:05- One of the weird things about Robinhood
0:57:07that I didn't realize, and even before last week,
0:57:12but one of the knocks against Robinhood
0:57:14was that they promote this gambling mentality.
0:57:18And they know, and everybody knows their,
0:57:21you know, their target audience is younger,
0:57:23and that this isn't a good idea, you know,
0:57:25that it's perhaps dangerous in sort of promoting the idea
0:57:29that you can't lose, whereas, you know,
0:57:31you definitely can lose.
0:57:33But one of the weird things about it
0:57:34is that the default account for,
0:57:36if you just go through the default
0:57:39of setting up a new Robinhood account,
0:57:42your default is a margin account, not a cash account.
0:57:46Whereas a cash account is, okay, like E-Trade,
0:57:48you go there, sign up, you wire E-Trade $1,000,
0:57:53and then when that clears, you know,
0:57:55I guess maybe if it's a wire transfer,
0:57:57it can clear instantly.
0:57:58If you do like a regular bank transfer,
0:58:00maybe it takes two days.
0:58:01Then you have $1,000 in your E-Trade account,
0:58:04and you can buy $1,000 worth of stock.
0:58:08- Stock, yeah.
0:58:09- Whereas a margin account is like buying on credit.
0:58:11Do you understand?
0:58:12I'm not quite sure I understand how that works,
0:58:14but effectively-- - I don't know.
0:58:15I don't understand it any better than that.
0:58:17- Right.
0:58:18But it's, you know, I understand how casinos
0:58:20work much better.
0:58:21You know, casinos, you can play,
0:58:24but you can step up to a blackjack table
0:58:26and put $1,000 in cash down and say,
0:58:29"I would like $1,000 in chips,"
0:58:31and then they'll count out the money for the camera,
0:58:33and then they'll give you $1,000 in chips,
0:58:35and then you can play.
0:58:36But you can also get a marker.
0:58:38Now, you have to, first thing you have to do
0:58:40is you can't just walk up in a new casino and say,
0:58:42"Give me a marker for $1,000."
0:58:45You, there's a place in the casino,
0:58:48like it's usually labeled casino credit,
0:58:50and you go over there and wait,
0:58:52and you give 'em your driver's license
0:58:55and give 'em some information and fill out a form.
0:58:57And I don't even know how long it usually takes,
0:59:01but you could do it online now,
0:59:02like if you know you're traveling to Las Vegas or something,
0:59:05you could fill it out in advance,
0:59:07and then you could say,
0:59:08"I would like to be cleared for like $10,000 in credit."
0:59:12At your casino.
0:59:14And then they do some kind of check,
0:59:16and then they'll say yes or no,
0:59:18and then when you go there,
0:59:19you can use your casino player's card
0:59:22or just your driver's license,
0:59:24come up to the table.
0:59:25Once you have credit at a casino,
0:59:27you can say, "Give me a $1,000 marker."
0:59:30And then a pit boss will walk away,
0:59:31and a minute or two later come over.
0:59:33It looks like a check.
0:59:34And you sign your name,
0:59:37and it says you owe this casino $1,000,
0:59:39and you haven't given them a dollar of real money,
0:59:42and they'll give you $1,000 in chips,
0:59:44but you do owe them $1,000.
0:59:47(laughs)
0:59:49Margin account is sort of like that.
0:59:54You can buy stuff that you don't have cash for effectively.
0:59:58But the thing about when,
1:00:00so A, I think that is a very strange default,
1:00:05and seems like it could get people into trouble.
1:00:08'Cause for example, the default at a real casino
1:00:11is cash, right?
1:00:13You put real money into a real slot machine,
1:00:16or you put real greenbacks down on the table
1:00:21to play a table game,
1:00:22and then you lose, you can only lose whatever you--
1:00:26- Whatever you put in.
1:00:27- Yeah, you've already handed them the money.
1:00:29You've already put money on the table,
1:00:31and they take it away and put it down the chute,
1:00:34and give you these fun little chips that are a lot more,
1:00:38they're a lot more fun to lose and win
1:00:41than cash.
1:00:42But you've already given them the cash,
1:00:44and that's the most you can lose.
1:00:45Whereas when you're playing with markers,
1:00:48you could get into real trouble.
1:00:50I guess when you play at a legitimate casino,
1:00:53it's not quite like an episode of The Sopranos,
1:00:55but they're gonna get their money.
1:00:57Defaulting to a margin account is weird,
1:01:02but the thing you have to understand with The Robin Hood
1:01:04is they've blocked everybody from buying GameStop,
1:01:07even if you had a cash account.
1:01:09So if you gave them $1,000 in cash,
1:01:12and they had it, and it's in your account,
1:01:14you could not use that account to buy GameStop.
1:01:17And it seems to be some kind of liquidity crisis
1:01:21with Robin Hood, where it's not the relationship
1:01:25between you, the user, and Robin Hood.
1:01:30It's that Robin Hood as an institution
1:01:33didn't have the funds to cover these trades
1:01:38behind the scenes, because they don't actually
1:01:40buy the stocks, they go to a middle person,
1:01:42and I guess it takes two days for these things to clear.
1:01:45And people were looking at it, and they're like,
1:01:48you don't, you can't do this.
1:01:50And that's a bad look for a brokerage.
1:01:54- Well, I don't know.
1:02:00I mean, I guess it's bad, yeah, it's bad to,
1:02:04I mean, it's bad to the front end user, it seems bad.
1:02:08But you've gotta, if you wanna play in that casino,
1:02:13you have to make nice with the casino owner.
1:02:19You can't just walk around doing things willy-nilly.
1:02:23I mean, there are certain rules involved.
1:02:25And I mean, it's a government thing as well.
1:02:30It's not just like trying to make it good
1:02:33for Fidelity or whoever they're doing the trade through.
1:02:37It's a government requirement.
1:02:41And I mean, I think there are few enough requirements
1:02:46placed on this stuff as it is.
1:02:47It's nice to see somebody actually,
1:02:49to see one that's at least maybe working.
1:02:52- Well, then now Robin Hood's open to suspicions
1:02:57of chicanery though, because this idea that,
1:03:00hey, they're in bed with these hedge funds
1:03:03who have shorted the stock,
1:03:05and therefore in the hedge fund's interest,
1:03:07and they're the ones who actually pay Robin Hood
1:03:09for this access to the high-frequency trading information.
1:03:14It's in their interest for GameStop's stock,
1:03:19there I go trying to call it GameStop,
1:03:21GameStop stock to go down.
1:03:24And the way to keep it from going down
1:03:26is to have people buying it,
1:03:27and the people who are most interested in buying it
1:03:30are blocked out.
1:03:31And it looks bad.
1:03:34And I don't know if that's really what was going on.
1:03:37Nobody seems to really know,
1:03:38but it certainly, it passes the sniff test
1:03:42of being credible, right?
1:03:44It is a very, you know, again,
1:03:45it's like the basic story against GameStop.
1:03:48COVID equals retail bad, people buying digital downloads,
1:03:51it means disks are bad, GameStop's in trouble.
1:03:54Here, the basic story is hedge funds,
1:03:57certain hedge funds want GameStop to go down.
1:04:01The way to keep it from going down
1:04:02is to have people like us buy it,
1:04:05and we can't buy it,
1:04:07and Robin Hood's in the middle of this.
1:04:09- Right, yeah.
1:04:11I mean, the whole thing is definitely,
1:04:13you know, it's a big test of whether or not
1:04:15the rules of the casino apply to everybody,
1:04:17or if there are different sets of rules
1:04:19for one group of people
1:04:21and another set of rules for other people.
1:04:23- Right, and that's what it looks like,
1:04:25you know, it really does.
1:04:26You know, it's like the hedge funds
1:04:27aren't cut off from shorting it even further.
1:04:32It's just a fascinating story.
1:04:34- And so far, the bailouts that have happened
1:04:36have come from other people in the industry, right?
1:04:39So I think, I forget the name of the one
1:04:42that was heavily leveraged on this,
1:04:45and like lost like a third of their value
1:04:47or something like that.
1:04:47- Yeah, they got killed.
1:04:49It's like Melvin or something like that.
1:04:51- Yeah, it started with an M, right?
1:04:52I couldn't remember the name of it.
1:04:53But somebody, another company stepped in
1:04:55and like bailed them out.
1:04:57And the thing that I was afraid of happening was,
1:05:00and you heard some of these jerks
1:05:03on like the financial networks,
1:05:07you know, getting on the air
1:05:09and calling for like government bailouts
1:05:11of these companies.
1:05:12It's like, no, no, absolutely not.
1:05:17- No, it is, and you know, it does get to the heart
1:05:21of the broader outrage is the sense that
1:05:25if you're in the suit and tie wearing industry
1:05:28and you have a job and you regularly appear on CNBC
1:05:32and they call you an analyst
1:05:34and you work at a firm or whatever,
1:05:36it's a tails I win, heads you lose.
1:05:43That's the way I think Paul Krugman has put it.
1:05:47Where the idea is if the stuff you've bought goes up,
1:05:50you win because it went up.
1:05:52And if it goes down, the public loses
1:05:55because the government comes in and bails them out
1:05:57and makes you right.
1:05:59Right, I mean, basically there's a lot more people
1:06:02should have lost everything in the 2008 financial crisis.
1:06:07It really should be considered criminal.
1:06:09It's criminal that it wasn't criminal, right?
1:06:13But there were an awful lot of people who got bailed out
1:06:16and whereas the whole game was, no, you're gambling.
1:06:20You should be able to lose, you know?
1:06:22- Yeah.
1:06:23- And the public shouldn't be the one to fund making it.
1:06:26- Right.
1:06:27- It seems so obvious.
1:06:29- It does, but they justify it.
1:06:31And it's almost like you could see
1:06:33that they believe it somehow, right?
1:06:35- Yeah, I mean, this is, yeah, it's,
1:06:39yeah, I could go on for a while about this, but.
1:06:42- All right, let me take a break.
1:06:45- I mean, I'll do one story real quick,
1:06:48but I was talking to a CEO years ago
1:06:50about like, you know, he was incensed about the fact
1:06:53that he had to sign these things
1:06:55that's, you know, for the government that said,
1:06:56this is amounts that we made, these are our tax returns,
1:07:00this is verifiable, and he was like,
1:07:02I don't know how, I don't know if this is true.
1:07:03Somebody in our accounting firm came up with this.
1:07:05I don't know, I can't, and yet I have to sign these
1:07:07and take personal responsibility.
1:07:09I was like, well, maybe that's why they pay me so much.
1:07:12I mean, like, you can't just like, you can't say like,
1:07:15you know, I make a lot of money
1:07:17because I take all these big risks
1:07:18and then just try and mitigate the risks away completely.
1:07:21Anyway.
1:07:23- I don't know if these numbers are accurate.
1:07:25- Exactly.
1:07:26- I'm just the CEO.
1:07:28Like as though you just asked like the night custodian,
1:07:35you know, like.
1:07:35- You're right, I just walked in here.
1:07:37I don't know what's going on.
1:07:39- Yeah, well, put your name on this.
1:07:40You're on the hook with the FCC.
1:07:43- Sorry, Rodney Dangerfield, you're the CEO.
1:07:47- And if the numbers don't add up,
1:07:48they just come in and whisk.
1:07:49- Wait, right, well, we'll make it good.
1:07:52Well, just, you know, the government will come in
1:07:55and the entire country will pay for any mistakes you make.
1:07:58- All right, let me take a break
1:08:01and thank our next sponsor.
1:08:02Oh man, what a great, it's a podcast.
1:08:04The Tech Meme Ride Home.
1:08:08Look, I follow Tech Meme every day.
1:08:10It's just a great place to check in,
1:08:12to find out what is going on.
1:08:14It's just my number one place to look.
1:08:16Is there anything going on in tech
1:08:18that I need to know about?
1:08:21A, 'cause if there's a big story, it's big at the top.
1:08:23It stays stuck at the top.
1:08:25And B, you can just scroll down
1:08:27and is there anything that's sort of like
1:08:29right up my alley that is going on
1:08:31that may not be the biggest news of the day,
1:08:32but it is news.
1:08:33It'll be there on the Tech Meme homepage.
1:08:35I love it.
1:08:36But now they have a podcast.
1:08:38It's called Tech Meme Ride Home.
1:08:40It is a daily podcast,
1:08:42always only about 15 to 20 minutes long,
1:08:45every day by 5 p.m. Eastern.
1:08:47And it's just all the latest tech news of the day.
1:08:50But it's more than just headlines.
1:08:52You could get a robot to read your headlines.
1:08:53The Tech Meme Ride Home is all the context
1:08:56around the latest news of the day.
1:08:58It's got opinion, it's got flavor, it's a podcast.
1:09:00It's not just a recording.
1:09:02It is, you know, it's got personality.
1:09:05The top stories, the top posts,
1:09:07tweets, conversations about those stories,
1:09:09and behind the scenes analysis.
1:09:11It is like a too long didn't read service as a podcast.
1:09:16The folks at Tech Meme are online all day
1:09:19keeping up with all this stuff.
1:09:20So if you are busy with like, you know, work all day,
1:09:24and then you want to like catch up
1:09:26with a 15, 20 minute podcast,
1:09:28what the hell happened today?
1:09:30Tech Meme Ride Home is a great experience.
1:09:32Even if you're not riding home anymore
1:09:34because you're at home, working from home,
1:09:37it's a great thing because you wrap up your day,
1:09:39put your AirPods on and give it a listen.
1:09:41It is a great show.
1:09:42I've been listening, they've been sponsoring
1:09:43for a couple of weeks now, and I've subscribed.
1:09:46It is, it's a really good podcast.
1:09:48I really enjoy it.
1:09:49So listen to the one podcast.
1:09:51Anyone who's anyone in Silicon Valley
1:09:54or outside Silicon Valley,
1:09:55but pays attention to Silicon Valley like me,
1:09:58listens to every single day.
1:10:00Search your podcast app of choice right now for Ride Home
1:10:04and subscribe to the Tech Meme Ride Home podcast.
1:10:08It's a great show.
1:10:09I truly, truly recommend it.
1:10:11What else we got on the agenda here?
1:10:17Apple's quarterly results.
1:10:18Yeah, I guess we might as well follow on the,
1:10:20our, put on, keep our shirts and ties on.
1:10:23I never know what to do.
1:10:27This is one of those things where it's like,
1:10:29I always mention the quarterly results,
1:10:32but I never know how much, right?
1:10:33'Cause it's not, that's not really what I'm interested in.
1:10:36I mean, if something truly profound happened,
1:10:39you know, you wanna know, you know, like,
1:10:42you know, if you're really in trouble.
1:10:44It'd be more of interest to me if there were trouble
1:10:48than when they have a good quarter
1:10:49and they just had, I think, a great quarter.
1:10:53Yeah, I mean, for a first fiscal quarter, it was amazing.
1:10:59And I guess, you know, the thing I take away from it
1:11:03as somebody who's almost solely interested in Apple
1:11:06for the products and services, I guess, now that they make,
1:11:10and not as an investor.
1:11:11I do not own Apple stock for the reason
1:11:15that I think it would, you know, be a conflict of interest.
1:11:18I just don't want the hassle.
1:11:19So I'm not, and I know, you know,
1:11:21Daring Fireball is not an Apple investors site,
1:11:24but it is interesting to me how the results interact
1:11:28with how I feel about how their products are going.
1:11:30And I feel like everything is in pretty good shape
1:11:32and the results reflect it.
1:11:34It was a great quarter for the iPhone,
1:11:35a great quarter for the Mac, pretty good for iPad,
1:11:40and the services are on a slow, steady,
1:11:43consistent march upward.
1:11:45- Yeah, yeah, and for years, the whole thing was like,
1:11:49oh, Apple is too dependent on iPhone revenue.
1:11:53- Right.
1:11:53- And now the services revenue and the wearables revenue
1:11:58has really grown to the point where it, I mean,
1:12:00you can't really say that's much of a concern anymore.
1:12:02- I saw a tweet this morning, I think it was a tweet.
1:12:06It was on a Philip Elmer DeWitt's PED30 site
1:12:11from Horace Dedue.
1:12:12But as Horace graphed it, Apple's,
1:12:16if you subtract the iPhone from Apple's quarter,
1:12:20the rest of the company is now at the size
1:12:23that all of Apple was at in either 2012 or 2013
1:12:28or something like that.
1:12:28- Yeah, I thought it was, yeah, I think I saw that.
1:12:30I thought it was 2012, but yeah.
1:12:31- Yeah, so and 2012 was sort of at the height of,
1:12:36hey, this iPhone thing is clearly fantastic,
1:12:40but they're too dependent on it.
1:12:43It's like, it's like Apple stock for some reason
1:12:49has always attracted these Debbie Downers.
1:12:51Oh, so they've got the most profitable product
1:12:57in the history of consumer goods.
1:13:02Too dependent on it.
1:13:03- Can't last.
1:13:03Yeah, yeah, right, right.
1:13:04That's the way of finding, I mean, in the whole,
1:13:08the idea is so ludicrous on the face of it.
1:13:11I mean, the idea, what is the concern?
1:13:14Is the concern that the iPhone
1:13:16is simply just going to go away?
1:13:18I mean, it's not like you're gonna wake up tomorrow
1:13:22and there's not gonna be an iPhone.
1:13:25- Right, and it's hard to, yeah, as opposed to,
1:13:29and it's a great testimony to the idea
1:13:32of cannibalizing your own product.
1:13:34I mentioned the iPod earlier in the show,
1:13:36and nobody buys, they don't even sell iPods anymore.
1:13:38I guess they have the iPod Touch.
1:13:40- Yeah, the Touch, yeah.
1:13:42Do they have the Shuffle still?
1:13:43They had the Shuffle for a while.
1:13:44- I don't think they do.
1:13:46Well, we'll find out.
1:13:47I'm sure we'll find out on Twitter after the show airs,
1:13:50but I don't think they do.
1:13:51I do not think they still sell the Shuffle.
1:13:57But the iPod was a very big hit,
1:13:59and it was very successful,
1:14:01and they made the iPhone such that
1:14:05one of the first three things that Steve Jobs said it did
1:14:08was it was a great, what, widescreen video-playing iPod.
1:14:13And nobody, you know, and I guess if you go young enough now
1:14:20like if, like our sons, if we tried to convince our sons
1:14:24that they should buy a $400 device to put in their pocket
1:14:28that plays music.
1:14:29(laughing)
1:14:31- And does the hard drive, a physical hard drive.
1:14:37- And doesn't stream music.
1:14:38You gotta load all the songs onto the device.
1:14:42You gotta have 'em on there.
1:14:44They would, you know, look at us like we're nuts,
1:14:46because why would you do that
1:14:47when you already have a device in your pocket
1:14:49that plays all of your music and can have, you know,
1:14:53does have a network connection and streams,
1:14:56which is the only way they know how to play music.
1:14:59- Looks like there's no touch.
1:15:00- Yeah. - Yeah.
1:15:01- You mean no shuffle?
1:15:02- No shuffle, shuffle, yeah.
1:15:03- You know, so they cannibalized it.
1:15:07But it was easy to imagine how hypothetically,
1:15:10like if in 2006, the year before the iPhone was announced,
1:15:13and maybe we even did, I don't know,
1:15:16maybe you and I did have a podcast where we talked about it,
1:15:19but somebody could have easily imagined a future where,
1:15:22hey, I think MP, standalone MP3 players are gonna go away.
1:15:27I think phones, you know, maybe this rocker isn't it,
1:15:30but the idea that you only need one electronic device
1:15:34in your pocket and it can play music
1:15:36in addition to make your phone calls
1:15:37and send your text messages
1:15:39or whatever we thought phones did in 2006,
1:15:42you know, it can play the snake game.
1:15:45You only need one device, right?
1:15:48That argument makes sense, right?
1:15:50And it's credible.
1:15:51Whereas at this point, even now, 15 years,
1:15:56or almost, you know, 14 years into the iPhone era,
1:16:01it's very hard to imagine a near term.
1:16:07I mean, do I think everybody's gonna have iPhones
1:16:10in 20 years?
1:16:11I don't know.
1:16:12Maybe, you know?
1:16:14I mean, the Mac has had a life like that.
1:16:16But certainly for the next five to 10 years,
1:16:19it's very difficult to imagine a world
1:16:21where people don't have phones.
1:16:22- Yeah.
1:16:23- It's just almost impossible.
1:16:26I mean, what?
1:16:28I mean, I guess in theory, glasses or something
1:16:30could replace it, but even then--
1:16:32- I suppose.
1:16:33- I don't see it replacing the phone though.
1:16:35It's like even these glasses, I think,
1:16:37would be like the watch where, you know,
1:16:39they're tethered to your phone.
1:16:41You've got your little pocket computer
1:16:42and it wirelessly communicates
1:16:45to these other devices that you wear.
1:16:47- Yeah.
1:16:50- So anyway, good quarter for the iPhone.
1:16:52iPhone 12 seems to be a hit.
1:16:54Good quarter for the Mac.
1:16:55iPad, I don't know what else to say, you know?
1:17:00Good quarter.
1:17:01- And I think there used to be,
1:17:02I mean, when they released unit sales,
1:17:06there was a little bit more to talk about
1:17:09based on comparisons to previous quarters
1:17:11and stuff like that, and they don't do that anymore, so.
1:17:13- Yeah, and you know, I don't blame them.
1:17:16I guess it was more fun when they did, but--
1:17:18- Yeah, but nobody else did.
1:17:19- No, and you know, and you could see
1:17:21how that was highly competitive information, you know?
1:17:24- Yeah, right.
1:17:25And you know, and people would nitpick it, right?
1:17:28I mean, they would, oh, you know,
1:17:30stayed flat or it didn't go up as much as we thought,
1:17:33or I mean, just forget it.
1:17:36They can, and I don't think they massage the numbers,
1:17:43but they've gone to great lengths
1:17:46to smooth out their revenue streams, right?
1:17:48Because they've moved everybody,
1:17:50they're trying to move everybody to subscriptions
1:17:52for, and paying in, you know, the purchase plans
1:17:57and things like that, so that they're not getting the money
1:18:01in one quarter and then having to deal with the fact
1:18:05that their money is not, that their income is uneven.
1:18:10- Right, like the overall spike for the holiday quarter
1:18:13is no longer, it doesn't seem to be as disproportionate
1:18:15as it used to be, and everybody understands
1:18:18that it's the basic nature that Apple makes devices
1:18:23that are natural holiday gifts is, you know,
1:18:28even if you're stupid, you could see that, right?
1:18:31I mean, I thought it was interesting,
1:18:36I wrote about it on Daring Faribault,
1:18:37I thought it was interesting that the max sales
1:18:39actually went down a little bit from the previous quarter,
1:18:42which seems to be a little bit of column A,
1:18:45which is that the July, September quarter is back to school,
1:18:50and which is always a good quarter for the Mac,
1:18:53and then a little bit of column B,
1:18:55which is that Macs were supply constrained,
1:18:59probably for COVID-related supply chain reasons,
1:19:03and maybe because Apple Silicon's new in--
1:19:07- I would think it's, yeah, gotta be that, right?
1:19:09- Just, you know, but there, you know,
1:19:10and a couple people were like, yeah,
1:19:11I tried to buy, you know, there are certain configurations
1:19:13of the new Apple Silicon Macs that are like 30 days out,
1:19:18you know, no. - Yeah, you could,
1:19:19'cause I ordered mine the day after Christmas,
1:19:23and I just got it the other day.
1:19:26- Yeah, well, there you go, that's literally 30 days, right?
1:19:29- Right, right.
1:19:30Yeah, and I configured it, and I think you could get
1:19:34the non-configured ones relatively,
1:19:38well, I don't know about how quick,
1:19:39but you could get them faster for sure.
1:19:41- Yeah, so that makes sense.
1:19:43I think that the back-to-school thing is really,
1:19:46it's sort of like the holiday quarter
1:19:50was a little bit good for the Mac
1:19:51because these Apple Silicon machines,
1:19:53a lot of people were waiting for them,
1:19:56and they were universally well-regarded.
1:19:59We'll get to talking about yours by the end of the show,
1:20:02but I think that the back-to-school factor
1:20:05in this COVID year was a bigger factor
1:20:09than even Apple Silicon was
1:20:11to pump up that back-to-school quarter
1:20:13because it's like kids of all ages globally, right?
1:20:18It's not just a US thing.
1:20:20It's not just a high school or college thing.
1:20:23It's like middle school kids,
1:20:24any kids who might need a computer at home,
1:20:27just how many, and the fact that adults
1:20:31were working at home.
1:20:32I mean, I know this firsthand
1:20:35from our immediate greater family
1:20:37that most families aren't like the Gruber household
1:20:41where we have more Macs than people at any given time.
1:20:46That's a highly unusual ratio.
1:20:48There's an awful lot of families that,
1:20:50in normal times when there's not a pandemic
1:20:52that's locking everybody at home,
1:20:54have shared computers, shared for multiple kids,
1:20:57shared between adults and kids,
1:21:00and a longstanding complaint about iPads
1:21:02is that they do not support multi-user
1:21:05in the way that Macs do,
1:21:07where you can each, different family members,
1:21:09there's a nice friendly menu up in the menu bar,
1:21:12and you just switch it down to your name,
1:21:14and now you're in your account.
1:21:17And that doesn't work when you've got two kids in school
1:21:21at the same time and up to two adults
1:21:24who might be working at the same time
1:21:27and all need computers.
1:21:28People bought an awful lot.
1:21:30You can see it in Tim Cook's remarks.
1:21:32There's almost like an apology for how,
1:21:36he does seem to be, I know he has a taste for profits,
1:21:39and he is the capitalist CEO
1:21:41of the most profitable company in the world,
1:21:43but you can almost see it in his remarks.
1:21:46It's like, this is terrible
1:21:48that we're making all this money.
1:21:50(laughing)
1:21:52'Cause you can--
1:21:53- I feel just awful about this.
1:21:55- Yeah, well, I honestly think that if he could wish away,
1:21:58if he had one wish and could be used
1:22:01to make it so that COVID didn't happen,
1:22:03knowing that it would mean that Apple
1:22:04would have had a somewhat less successful year,
1:22:08I don't think he would hesitate to do it.
1:22:10I feel like he feels bad about that trade-off,
1:22:12whereas some people might be like,
1:22:14wow, this COVID is the best thing that ever happened to us.
1:22:16- It's working out for me, yeah.
1:22:17- Right.
1:22:18But I think the Mac in particular
1:22:20really, really benefited from that in Q3.
1:22:23- Yeah.
1:22:24- Anything else from the Apple quarterly results?
1:22:27I didn't really, I guess there's some question.
1:22:31I don't wanna go too far into it with the Apple report card,
1:22:34but the one product that is so weird of all of 'em
1:22:38is the Apple TV, right?
1:22:40Like, Snell released his Apple report card yesterday,
1:22:43and it's like, everybody has the same marks.
1:22:46It's like, and it's bizarre.
1:22:48Like, my quip on it for the report card is just,
1:22:51it is just, it's not necessarily bizarre
1:22:54that Apple isn't interested in selling set-top TV boxes.
1:22:57Like, their living room hardware interest
1:23:01has always clearly been a hobby, right?
1:23:03It goes, I think literally goes back
1:23:05to the Steve Jobs era of calling it a hobby.
1:23:07But their overall interest in living room now
1:23:11is very high because they are all in on Apple TV+
1:23:15as a service.
1:23:16- Right.
1:23:17- The city of Philadelphia, all the billboard space
1:23:20here in Center City, Philadelphia is all servant.
1:23:24It's the M Night Shyamalan show
1:23:27that actually takes place here in Philadelphia.
1:23:29But I don't think that's why, probably nationwide.
1:23:31But they've been advertising shows.
1:23:34They had Ted Lasso advertisements.
1:23:36You know, they're all in on this service.
1:23:40But their hardware interest seems like,
1:23:44oh yeah, do we, oh yeah, we still sell a box, yeah.
1:23:47(laughing)
1:23:49How do you like the remote?
1:23:49- Occasionally, they occasionally sell a box.
1:23:52They haven't up, I mean, that one's been out
1:23:54for a few years now, right?
1:23:55And there's been a rumor of a new one coming soon,
1:23:58but I think it seemed like it was gonna come this past year,
1:24:01but it didn't. - Right.
1:24:03- And now it's been kicked to this year, supposedly.
1:24:05- Right, and it--
1:24:06- But, yeah, I mean, I have, so I have a TV in my office,
1:24:10which is a bad idea, but, and I have not the Apple TV 4K,
1:24:15but the Apple TV 4, yeah, attached to it.
1:24:19And I have Apple Arcade, and I was gonna go play,
1:24:22I was, you know, 'cause I figure, this is, you know,
1:24:25what I do, I can justify it by doing it in my office.
1:24:28(laughing)
1:24:29Play some Apple Arcade games, and I went to play
1:24:32one of the games, and it didn't play on that one.
1:24:36So it's not the most recent generation,
1:24:39but it was the previous generation, and it doesn't even,
1:24:41you know, one of the Apple Arcade games
1:24:42doesn't even play on that unit.
1:24:44And then another game supposedly played,
1:24:47but played like crap, and it's just,
1:24:49that seems weird to me, like the previous,
1:24:52you have to have the most updated one,
1:24:54but I don't wanna get, like, I don't wanna go
1:24:56get another one, I'm not gonna go buy another one right now,
1:24:59because it seems like they should have released one already
1:25:02by now, and they haven't.
1:25:03- It's like, with everything in technology,
1:25:05there's always a sense that if you don't buy it
1:25:08as soon as it comes out, you're always at the edge of,
1:25:11well, maybe I should wait for the next one, right?
1:25:13I mean, that's always true.
1:25:16And it is one of the nice things about the very regular
1:25:19schedule of iPhones, right, that you just kinda know
1:25:22the Apple now, the Apple comes out with the regular iPhones
1:25:26in September, October, and it's annual,
1:25:30and if, you know, there aren't many people
1:25:33who are waiting for SEs that--
1:25:35(laughing)
1:25:36- Present to those, so you have present company excluded.
1:25:39- I know, present, I don't wanna, you know,
1:25:41present to, but you know, and you're savvy enough
1:25:44where you could, you probably were, you know,
1:25:46follow the rumors and you kinda knew when to get one,
1:25:49and, but it's, you know, the whole point of the SE
1:25:51is that it sells mostly to people who aren't, like,
1:25:54knowledgeable about whether this phone is six months old
1:25:57or whatever, it's like, how much does it cost,
1:26:00and does, you know, okay, I'll take that one.
1:26:02The Apple TV 4K, though, is so far at the extreme of that,
1:26:10because it's so expensive compared to other competing,
1:26:13plug this into the HDMI port on your TV
1:26:17and you can stream stuff, right?
1:26:20There's a whole bunch of boxes, a whole bunch of choices,
1:26:22and Apple TV 4K is at the extreme end
1:26:25of the cost spectrum on that.
1:26:26It's still, it's like 160 bucks or something like that.
1:26:29- Yeah, it's crazy, it's ridiculous.
1:26:31I mean, for a company that wants you to get in,
1:26:33I mean, that basically is selling it
1:26:35for the services aspect.
1:26:36- Right, and if, I didn't even realize
1:26:39that some of the arcade games don't even play well
1:26:41on the old one, but it doesn't surprise me,
1:26:43because the old one is so many years older
1:26:45that it really does, I'm sure, have a terrible GPU
1:26:48by Apple standards today.
1:26:50It doesn't make any sense.
1:26:52Who wants to spend $180 on a box
1:26:54that's already way more expensive than all the other boxes,
1:26:57knowing that surely Apple has to be coming out
1:27:00with a new one soon?
1:27:01I don't know.
1:27:02- Yeah, and I think most people don't even care
1:27:06about the arcade aspect of it.
1:27:07People who are, I would imagine that most people
1:27:13who are into arcade are playing on their phone
1:27:15or an iPad or something.
1:27:17- Well, I think that's--
1:27:17- I feel like I'm probably one of the few people
1:27:20who actually plays some things on the Apple TV.
1:27:23- And again, it's all very obvious,
1:27:25and I know I've talked about it before,
1:27:27but it really does make sense.
1:27:29The 4K clearly is powerful enough to play pretty good games.
1:27:33I'm almost willing to bet on the fact
1:27:38that it's a more powerful GPU than the Nintendo Switch has,
1:27:42and people play the Switch on their TV
1:27:44a million times a day.
1:27:46But it's the most obvious thing in the world.
1:27:49I bet most people don't even realize Apple TV
1:27:51can play games because it doesn't look like it plays games
1:27:54because it ships with a remote control that--
1:27:57- Crappy remote.
1:27:58- That isn't even good for playing video.
1:28:01Like if you thought that remote was bad
1:28:05for streaming playback of video,
1:28:08wait until you try to drive a cart game with it.
1:28:12- And then they're caught in the middle.
1:28:16The device is caught in the middle
1:28:17because it wants to be two different things.
1:28:19It wants to be like a TV stick,
1:28:22and it also wants to be a game console,
1:28:24and it's not good at either.
1:28:26- I don't know what the answer is.
1:28:28I hope they figure it out,
1:28:30but I kind of hope that the idea that the company
1:28:35is so interested in services,
1:28:37and that Apple Arcade is a service that they see as,
1:28:41they don't have many of them in the Apple One bundle,
1:28:44and if they treat them all as being important,
1:28:48that they're gonna come up with some, I don't know,
1:28:51would they actually put an Apple game controller in the box?
1:28:54I don't know, but some kind of--
1:28:56- Yeah, I would, yeah.
1:28:59- I don't know.
1:29:00If they wanna keep it as $160-ish, $150, $200 device,
1:29:06I don't think it's unreasonable to think
1:29:08that they would put a good remote control
1:29:10and a good controller in there.
1:29:14- Yeah.
1:29:15- And assume that they can make money on the service, right?
1:29:18That that's sort of the thing, they say,
1:29:20okay, we're not gonna make a lot of money on this,
1:29:22but we'll get people to sign up for Apple One,
1:29:25and they can watch Apple TV,
1:29:26and then they can play Apple Arcade,
1:29:28and they could still buy the new releases
1:29:31on the iTunes movie store,
1:29:33and it's not, selling stuff for break even
1:29:38and making it up on the margin
1:29:40isn't really Apple's business.
1:29:41They like to sell stuff for a profit and do it,
1:29:43but in this market in particular,
1:29:45I don't see any way around it.
1:29:47- Yeah.
1:29:48- Or they--
1:29:49- Unless you split it, right?
1:29:50You could sell a stick and you could sell--
1:29:52- Right.
1:29:53- The thing that's supposed to be a game platform.
1:29:56- Right, but they have third-party controller support
1:30:00in Apple TV, but I feel like if it doesn't come with it,
1:30:02people just don't, people don't wanna do it.
1:30:04- Yeah, I completely agree.
1:30:05- Like, nobody--
1:30:06- I'm glad I got a SteelSeries, I'm glad I got it.
1:30:08It's a really nice controller,
1:30:10and it works very well with it,
1:30:12but the fact that it doesn't come in the box,
1:30:16I think, is a big deal.
1:30:17- Yeah, and without it, it's like the games just aren't good.
1:30:21I mean, there's only so many games where the,
1:30:24what do they call it, the endless runners,
1:30:26where there's like a one button and you run.
1:30:28Some of those games are fun,
1:30:29but they really do make a lot more sense to me on the phone
1:30:33than they do when you're playing on a TV,
1:30:35where you could be playing on any other way
1:30:37to play games on your TV, you get more than one button.
1:30:41- Yeah.
1:30:41- Sometimes you get like a, you know,
1:30:43a thing that can go in directions.
1:30:45- Yeah.
1:30:47- Anyway, I'm gonna take a break here,
1:30:48thank our third and final sponsor of the show,
1:30:51oh, our good friends at Squarespace.
1:30:53Hey, the new year is when people are setting new goals,
1:30:59starting businesses, changing careers even,
1:31:02launching new creative products.
1:31:04Squarespace gives people a powerful
1:31:07and beautiful online platform
1:31:08from which to make their next move known to the world.
1:31:11Make your next move is where people can lock down
1:31:16their next move with everything you need for a website,
1:31:19a unique domain name, a website to launch the idea,
1:31:23a portfolio to get your project out there, show your work,
1:31:27if that's what you're building a website for,
1:31:29an online store to officially open for business,
1:31:32do all your commerce, let Squarespace handle
1:31:35all of the tricky stuff related to doing online commerce,
1:31:39taking credit cards, all that sort of stuff.
1:31:41Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website.
1:31:45Strike now, right now, we're locked in,
1:31:48it's the middle of winter, it's cold, it's the new year.
1:31:50That was the best time, if you've got that itch
1:31:52in the back of your mind that you wanted
1:31:53to make a new website or update some crappy old website,
1:31:57do it at Squarespace, get a unique domain
1:32:01with a beautiful website and do it all at Squarespace.
1:32:05Everything looks professional,
1:32:07they have great customer service even.
1:32:09Start your free trial today, you get 30 days free
1:32:13at squarespace.com/talkshow and when you do decide
1:32:16to sign up and start paying, you can head
1:32:18to squarespace.com/talkshow, same URL,
1:32:22with the offer code talk show and you get 10%
1:32:25off your first purchase, that's squarespace.com/talkshow
1:32:29with offer code talk show for 10% off,
1:32:32my thanks to Squarespace.
1:32:33What else, let's talk about your hardware purchases.
1:32:39So the iPhone 12 mini, you've been waiting for a small phone.
1:32:45- I've been waiting for four years for this phone.
1:32:49So yeah, I mean, I got the SE, I had a 6S, right?
1:32:53I think that was the one, yeah, so that was the last,
1:32:55the last bigger phone that I had, I got a 6S, well.
1:32:59Until I got the other SE, but the, so I had the 6S
1:33:02and then I got the SE when that came out
1:33:03'cause I really just prefer a smaller phone
1:33:06and had that for four years and couldn't,
1:33:10and it was really dragging at the end a year ago
1:33:14and was, I was just kind of dying for the next thing
1:33:17to be released and I knew that there was, you know,
1:33:19the way the rumors looked that they were gonna release the,
1:33:22you know, a 6S sized SE or seven sized, whatever
1:33:26and then release a smaller phone than that in the fall,
1:33:31which is exactly what happened,
1:33:32but I was kind of at the end of my rope with my,
1:33:35you know, 2016 SE.
1:33:36So when the SE, the 2020 SE came out, I bought that
1:33:40and that was a good phone.
1:33:41I mean, it was still bigger than I wanted,
1:33:43but it was a decent phone, it wasn't as big
1:33:45as like the 10 sized ones.
1:33:47And then of course, yeah, they came out with the 12 mini
1:33:52and so I decided I'd return my SE two and get the 12 mini.
1:33:57And this is the phone that I wanted.
1:34:00- So it's interesting.
1:34:02So that means you're like late to the game.
1:34:04You're only really now into the new iPhone 10 style,
1:34:092.0 era of interaction with iOS, right?
1:34:13- Well, except, I mean, I did have an iPad.
1:34:15So I had an iPad Pro that I bought, the 11,
1:34:19whenever the 11 inch Pro.
1:34:23So I'd had it for a couple of years, right?
1:34:26Something like that.
1:34:27- So what do you think overall?
1:34:29- I love it.
1:34:30I mean, it's what, like I said, it's this, I mean,
1:34:32it's even, I would go even a little smaller,
1:34:35but it's great.
1:34:37And I like the blue, I got the blue and it's,
1:34:42I just don't like the bigger phones
1:34:46and it doesn't really have much,
1:34:47I mean, like my hands aren't unusually small.
1:34:50They're not huge, but I just don't like trying to get
1:34:54to that upper corner.
1:34:55The, whatever icon happens to be up there.
1:34:59And I just would rather have a smaller phone
1:35:04and I don't like a huge phone in my pocket either.
1:35:07If I want to look at something on a bigger screen,
1:35:10I just grab my iPad.
1:35:11I mean, 'cause I'm in the house most of the time anyway.
1:35:13So I think that's part of it, right?
1:35:15'Cause I'm not out and about in it.
1:35:16I don't need a big screen on the move
1:35:19where I want to carry just one device
1:35:21and be able to read something or look at a video or whatever.
1:35:25I'm usually in the house and if I want to look at a video,
1:35:28I'll do it on my laptop or on my iPad.
1:35:30And the phone is really for just,
1:35:34when I'm moving around and I would rather have it be smaller.
1:35:38So, and the camera, obviously the big difference
1:35:44is the camera coming from the original SE.
1:35:47- 'Cause it's a great camera.
1:35:48It is the iPhone 12 camera with no compromises compared.
1:35:53I mean, I know the pro models have the extra lens,
1:35:56but the full, regular size, I guess I should say,
1:35:59iPhone 12 has the exact same camera system as the 12 mini.
1:36:03I've said this before, this is the hardest year.
1:36:07This is the only year with the iPhone
1:36:08where I had a hard time deciding which one I like best.
1:36:11And I honestly think I might've,
1:36:12I ended up deciding I want the regular iPhone 12, not pro,
1:36:16because I love the difference in weight so much more.
1:36:19I find the 12 pro, and forget about the max,
1:36:23which is just too big for me.
1:36:25I just don't have a taste for the size.
1:36:26And I understand why some people do, I get it.
1:36:30But I feel bad for people who just want a big one
1:36:32and that there is no iPhone 12 max that's not pro,
1:36:37that's made out of the aluminum and the lighter weight stuff.
1:36:42But you get the big size.
1:36:44Like if you really want big,
1:36:45your starting price is $1,100, which is crazy.
1:36:50- And that was the other, I mean, I liked about the,
1:36:52I guess there are probably two kinds of people
1:36:54who buy the SE, ever bought the original SE,
1:36:58people who wanted something that was cheap
1:36:59and people who wanted something that was small.
1:37:01And I was not, it was great that it was cheap
1:37:04because I could just pay for it with cash.
1:37:06I mean, I bought that phone outright
1:37:08and I did the same thing with the SE last year.
1:37:11But--
1:37:12- You would still like to have that iPhone 5 size though.
1:37:15Like if they made it, if they came out
1:37:17with an iPhone 13 Nano, that was--
1:37:19- Well, if it didn't, yeah, I mean, if it didn't,
1:37:20yeah, I mean, particularly if it didn't have bezels.
1:37:22- Right.
1:37:23- That would probably be enough for me.
1:37:25- See, I think that would be too small.
1:37:26But I've seen some, you know, Mike Davidson on Twitter,
1:37:30longtime friend of mine, but he's a longtime small,
1:37:35very similar taste to you, has always liked small phones,
1:37:40likes the iPhone 12 mini, but his, you know,
1:37:42very short tweet length take is that he still thinks
1:37:44it could be smaller.
1:37:45- It could be smaller.
1:37:46Yeah, I think it could be a little smaller.
1:37:49- I found it so hard to decide between the 12 and 12 mini.
1:37:53Like to me, I liked the idea of the better camera
1:37:57and the zoom and everything, but, and I did,
1:37:59I went through my photo library and did like a smart search
1:38:01for all the photos I took with the 2X lens.
1:38:03And it's like, but just, and I used it more often
1:38:07than I thought, but I don't think that using
1:38:09the 1X lens and cropping to zoom in a little more
1:38:12would make that big a difference, and I'm okay with that.
1:38:15And I know that for the next year,
1:38:17at least big chunk of the year, I'm not gonna travel.
1:38:20So I'm not really, not taking as many photos,
1:38:23not taking as many photos as I usually do.
1:38:26But the weight difference for me is just so much,
1:38:29I just so, I find the iPhone 12 Pro to be heavy.
1:38:32I really, I don't know, I know it looks cooler
1:38:35to some people's taste with the seal,
1:38:37but it just seems silly to me to have a heavier phone.
1:38:40And the weird, weird, totally, you know,
1:38:44rarified, bizarre status where I have all four of them
1:38:49from Apple as review units, and don't just have to stand
1:38:53there at a table in the store with one that's tethered
1:38:55to the desk and decide which, I can actually use them
1:38:58for days, you know, I really try to give that info,
1:39:03'cause I know most people don't get to do that, but.
1:39:07- Yeah. - Man, the 12 mini,
1:39:08I feel like the difference though for me,
1:39:11if it hadn't been for COVID, I might've got the 12 mini
1:39:15instead of the 12, because I feel like then
1:39:17I would've been out, and the advantages of having
1:39:21a nice small device in my pocket would be even more
1:39:24prominent when I'm at home, and it's like,
1:39:26I just have it on my desk, and it's not even in my pocket,
1:39:30it's like, who cares, I don't know.
1:39:32- Yeah. - It was a very close call
1:39:33for me, the 12 mini is so nice.
1:39:36It is so exactly like, just one of those items
1:39:39that for a couple of years was on the list of,
1:39:42boy, I hope Apple will make a smaller phone.
1:39:44- Yeah. - And if they do,
1:39:45I hope they, you know, don't give it like
1:39:47a year old processor and a year old camera,
1:39:50and it's like, nope, they did it, and it's great, and.
1:39:54- Now we'll see if they ever make one ever again.
1:39:56- Yeah, so there's reports that they've cut production,
1:40:00but A, even if it's true, that doesn't mean
1:40:05that it's not selling good enough.
1:40:08And again, I don't have, Jeff Williams
1:40:11is not one of my little birdies, so it's,
1:40:14I don't know if I've ever even like,
1:40:16said hello to Jeff Williams at a press event.
1:40:19I don't have anybody in the operations group
1:40:24whispering to me how well things are selling,
1:40:27you know, they don't do that.
1:40:28But I do know some people at Apple,
1:40:31I do have some little birdies who aren't directly involved,
1:40:33but are indirectly involved, you know, with,
1:40:36the type of people who do fly to China in normal times
1:40:39throughout the year to do work in the factories
1:40:44and make sure things are going well,
1:40:45and are therefore more reasonably informed
1:40:48about what's actually going on with Apple hardware
1:40:52in the supply chain.
1:40:54And one thing over the years that a couple of these people
1:40:56have told me is that whenever these reports come out
1:40:59about like sales cuts or stuff like that,
1:41:03almost inside Apple, they're like, where is this coming?
1:41:06This is nonsense.
1:41:07And it's not even like the opposite, it's not even,
1:41:09you know, they're like, it just has no bearing on reality.
1:41:11And in the other one that has even less bearing in reality
1:41:14are when those, and it seems like this is a thing
1:41:17that people don't write about as much as they used to,
1:41:20but those cost of goods analysis, where--
1:41:22- Oh yeah.
1:41:24- Everybody loves these things,
1:41:25where somebody will come out with,
1:41:26somebody analyzed the iPhone 12 and the--
1:41:30- Takes 15 cents to make an iPhone 12.
1:41:32- Yeah, that's a self-defense.
1:41:33(laughing)
1:41:35- It's a 15, it's like--
1:41:36- It's mostly just sand.
1:41:38(laughing)
1:41:40- And it's like-- - Sand is very cheap.
1:41:42- And like those things are like,
1:41:44I know Tim Cook has addressed those and said that
1:41:47they're nonsense, but these production cuts aren't.
1:41:51And a big reason, and I know this is true,
1:41:54this is not just my conjecture,
1:41:56it is something that people have told me,
1:41:58is that Apple doesn't trust its supply chain partners
1:42:03to keep information private,
1:42:08because they know how valuable it is,
1:42:10and they know that it leaks.
1:42:11And so it's all a big game of poker, you know?
1:42:14Where like, so like, I don't wanna throw anybody under the bus
1:42:17or I won't name a real company, but like, you know,
1:42:19maybe there's a company that--
1:42:21- You could name Hyundai, right?
1:42:23(laughing)
1:42:24I mean, Hyundai talking about like--
1:42:26- All right. - Project Titan stuff,
1:42:27and they're like, Hyundai's like, I've got two fives.
1:42:31(laughing)
1:42:32- Yeah, what was up with that?
1:42:33What, what? - I don't know.
1:42:35I think it was just like, they're new.
1:42:38I mean, like this stuff was, and maybe they didn't get it,
1:42:43that they shouldn't be like talking about it.
1:42:46- But like, you know, if there's some company
1:42:47making screens for the iPhone 12,
1:42:49and they're making the display components,
1:42:51like Apple doesn't say to them,
1:42:53we expect you to make 30 million of these iPhone 12 screens
1:42:58in the January to March quarter.
1:43:02And then, you know, and then they're like,
1:43:05just keep it between us.
1:43:06Like they might have, they have to give them
1:43:08some kind of number, but it's all, you know,
1:43:10not that they lie, it's like playing poker, right?
1:43:12Like, you know, it, I just wouldn't read into that.
1:43:17I do think there's probably some truth to the fact
1:43:19that the iPhone 12 mini is not setting the world on fire,
1:43:22that it's not some kind of smash hit.
1:43:24And, you know, they even said, you know,
1:43:27in a SEC legally liable way, you know,
1:43:30that those statements on the quarterly analyst call,
1:43:33that the pro models are selling higher than they expected.
1:43:37That's a thing they said as a fact,
1:43:39and it helps explain the bump in revenue.
1:43:42I'm not worried about the 12 minis future.
1:43:45I think it's such a good product,
1:43:49and I kind of feel like the people who it most appeals to
1:43:53are not, even if they're an enthusiast like you, right?
1:43:57Not just, it's, yeah, just give me a small phone,
1:44:00you know, I don't know.
1:44:01Or type of people who just only ever buy phones
1:44:03when their old phone literally breaks.
1:44:06It's just such a good product,
1:44:08and I can't help but think that it must be selling
1:44:11well enough that it's probably not too far
1:44:14outside their projections.
1:44:16- Yeah. - I don't know.
1:44:17- Right.
1:44:18- I feel like if it's not selling well,
1:44:19I mean, well, I mean, part of the reason
1:44:21why it might not be selling well if it isn't
1:44:23is the fact that they just introduced the replacement.
1:44:27Like if you're an SE owner,
1:44:29who's been holding out forever,
1:44:30hoping that there's gonna be a smaller phone,
1:44:33they released the SE in March, right?
1:44:38And then six months later, they released another phone.
1:44:41So I mean, I bought two 'cause I'm an idiot,
1:44:43but I mean, I couldn't wait any longer, really.
1:44:47I mean, that phone was really on its last legs,
1:44:50and I had the battery replaced,
1:44:52but it really could not hold much of a charge anymore.
1:44:55And so I mean, I got the SE,
1:44:59and then when they released the phone that I really want,
1:45:02I sold the SE and got the one that I really wanted.
1:45:05But most people, particularly in the middle of a pandemic,
1:45:08aren't gonna be willing to do that.
1:45:10- Well, anyway, I love it.
1:45:12I think it's just such a great product.
1:45:14I love the way it felt in the hand,
1:45:15and now I'm second guessing myself
1:45:18for buying the regular 12.
1:45:20But anyway. (laughing)
1:45:23- The other thing I was gonna mention,
1:45:25really getting back to Snill's report card,
1:45:28is that I felt like kinda maybe the iPhone
1:45:33got a little bit of short shrift in that report card
1:45:35because everybody was oohing and aahing over the max,
1:45:39which is understandable.
1:45:42But I think that the design change is awesome.
1:45:46I mean, I think moving back to the straight sides,
1:45:49which is a weird thing for me
1:45:50'cause I don't think I liked them
1:45:52when the iPhone 4 came out,
1:45:53but now I love them.
1:45:56And I was thrilled,
1:45:59particularly moving from the second SE to the 12 mini,
1:46:03that I mean, just the feel of it is so much nicer
1:46:06with the straight edges.
1:46:08- All right, speaking of straight edges.
1:46:11- Yeah.
1:46:12(laughing)
1:46:13- You also-- - Yeah, which I find weird.
1:46:15Okay, go ahead and introduce the story.
1:46:17- You introduced the story.
1:46:19- So we were talking about the rumors
1:46:20of the upcoming MacBook Pros
1:46:23that are supposedly coming in the third quarter, perhaps.
1:46:26- Right. - And we'll include
1:46:28a redesign along with, obviously, the new chips.
1:46:31- Right, it started with Ming-Chi Kuo on January 14th
1:46:36and then followed up a day later
1:46:38by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg,
1:46:40and then Gurman, again, a week later,
1:46:43had even more information.
1:46:45I found it odd that both of them described the redesign
1:46:48as having straight edges.
1:46:49- That's what I thought, too.
1:46:51Like, mine, you know, looking at this laptop here,
1:46:54it kind of already has straight edges,
1:46:56and is it just gonna be thicker
1:46:58so that the edges go down further?
1:47:01Which I don't, why would people want that?
1:47:03I don't, I'm not exactly sure what that was supposed to,
1:47:06how that's supposed to play out.
1:47:08- I think that they're both describing it poorly.
1:47:11What I, and again, I have zero,
1:47:13zero little birdie information on this at all.
1:47:16All I'm doing is reading what Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo wrote
1:47:20and extrapolating from what I perceive
1:47:25as Apple's design trends overall.
1:47:29And I think what they mean is that the top and bottom
1:47:32will be flat, and so the sort of belly design
1:47:37of MacBooks is going away.
1:47:41And so it'd be like a, truly more like a book
1:47:44where you could rest something on top of,
1:47:47close your MacBook--
1:47:49- Or a current iPad with like a lid.
1:47:51- Yeah, like a current, yeah, or like an iPad
1:47:55in the smart keyboard case, right?
1:47:57That it's a more geometrically perfect,
1:48:01you know, just a flat surface on the top and bottom.
1:48:04Which to me, that's what I think they mean,
1:48:07'cause the sides already are flat on these things.
1:48:11That's the crazy part of, and they both describe them
1:48:13the same way, which is very strange.
1:48:15But I think that once you see it, and my,
1:48:19I'm not, you know, I don't have a rendering here
1:48:21to show you, but I think that once we see it,
1:48:25it'll look weird at first because we haven't had
1:48:27flat-topped MacBooks, I mean, ever?
1:48:31To my recollection, I don't think Apple's ever made
1:48:34a laptop with a perfect--
1:48:36- No, the titanium.
1:48:38- Was probably the closest they got, right?
1:48:40- Yeah. - Yeah.
1:48:41Maybe the titanium was.
1:48:43But even the ones, like, let's say like the,
1:48:47there have been some that have had more of a,
1:48:51and a good comparison is just to the back of the iPad, right?
1:48:54Like remember, the original iPad was like a rocker.
1:48:58- Huge, kind of a big curve.
1:48:59- Yeah, a very big curve.
1:49:01And Apple has long used that sort of,
1:49:06curved back surface shape to disguise how thick,
1:49:11to create the illusion of a thinner device
1:49:15than it actually is.
1:49:16And it works, it actually does work.
1:49:19Where you really only realize how thick the original iPad is
1:49:23once you compare it to like a brand new one with the flat.
1:49:26And you're like, oh my God, the original iPad was fat.
1:49:28Why did I think this was so amazingly thin when I got it?
1:49:31- Right, yeah, yeah, I'm looking at a picture
1:49:33of a titanium power book and you can see,
1:49:36I mean, that would be kind of cool.
1:49:37It obviously wouldn't be nearly as thick.
1:49:40- Right.
1:49:41- But that's, you know, again, like the iPhone 12s,
1:49:45it's a nice design choice.
1:49:49- Yeah, I think once we see it,
1:49:51it'll make all the existing ones look fat
1:49:54and make them feel fat.
1:49:55(laughing)
1:49:57I do.
1:49:57That's what I think they're talking about.
1:50:00- And you're making it sound like
1:50:01it's gonna hurt their feelings.
1:50:02- Well, they use those curves
1:50:04not because they think they're good,
1:50:06but because again, I think it's entirely a trick
1:50:08to make the overall device seem slimmer than it really is.
1:50:11And the best way to look at it is the iMac, right?
1:50:14So the iMacs now, there've been like,
1:50:18the current overall design of the iMac
1:50:21has had like two eras.
1:50:22There was the one where it was an inch thick,
1:50:25even at the edges, right?
1:50:27At the edge of the display,
1:50:28it was still like an inch thick.
1:50:30And then they redesigned it like five years,
1:50:32five, six years ago to come to almost to a...
1:50:37- Point.
1:50:39- Yeah, like a point, you know?
1:50:40And I forget what they said when they described it,
1:50:43but they really made it seem as though
1:50:45that's how thick the whole iMac was,
1:50:47whereas the belly part of the back really gets thick
1:50:51by the time it gets to the middle.
1:50:53But it definitely looks sleeker
1:50:56than the ones that were thick all the way to the edges.
1:51:00Apparently, there's another one of Germin's reports
1:51:02was that the new iMac will be flat across the back as well.
1:51:05And that also confirms to me what he's talking about
1:51:08with the MacBooks.
1:51:09- MacBook laptops, yeah.
1:51:10- Right, that there won't be any curve on the back.
1:51:12And it's not even, I don't think it's a sign of,
1:51:17I think Apple would have gone flat years ago
1:51:19if they could have, but they didn't because they couldn't.
1:51:23That they internally know
1:51:24that that's more aesthetically pleasing,
1:51:26but that for the size of the components
1:51:29and the amount of cooling they need, they couldn't.
1:51:31And now that these machines are so much cooler,
1:51:34they can go smaller.
1:51:36- Right, right.
1:51:37And that was the thing that,
1:51:39I mean, it didn't stop me from buying this laptop, obviously,
1:51:41because I was working on a 2016 MacBook Pro,
1:51:46and I was pretty much done with it.
1:51:49It was getting slow enough,
1:51:51and the keyboard was bugging me enough
1:51:53that I was ready for a new device.
1:51:57But at the same time, I was thinking,
1:51:59they're gonna change the form factor.
1:52:01I know they're gonna do that.
1:52:03And I'm gonna be looking at the new ones
1:52:05that come out and being envious of those,
1:52:07but I decided to go ahead and pull the trigger.
1:52:10- Well, both of them, both Kuo and Germin are saying Q3
1:52:15at the earliest, which would be after July.
1:52:17So if you need a new computer, I wouldn't,
1:52:20these rumors do sound good,
1:52:21but if you need a new computer now--
1:52:23- And these are just the pros, right?
1:52:25- Supposedly.
1:52:26And then Germin had a report that there's a new
1:52:29redesigned MacBook Air that would be the end of next year
1:52:34or 2022, so I think that's so early,
1:52:37because they just came out with a brand new MacBook Air.
1:52:40I think it makes, and you know,
1:52:41so the timing makes sense that if Germin's information
1:52:44is accurate, it makes sense that it would come out
1:52:46like one year after the current MacBook Air or even later.
1:52:54So the other thing that's interesting about these rumors
1:52:56other than the shape is they both say the touch bar is gone
1:53:00and replaced with function keys, which I find very odd.
1:53:05So there's the, what are the, touch bar gone,
1:53:09MagSafe comes back and it's like some kind of--
1:53:12- Possibly other ports.
1:53:14- And SD slot.
1:53:17- I know, I mean, I missed MagSafe a bit.
1:53:21I didn't miss it that much though with the MacBook Pro
1:53:26because I liked being able to plug it in on either side.
1:53:30I thought that was a nice trade-off
1:53:33or good enough trade-off for me.
1:53:35Now this Air only has two ports and they're on one side.
1:53:39I wish they were on opposite sides, but it's okay.
1:53:42I'll live with it.
1:53:43- One of my questions, let's take these in order.
1:53:49So MagSafe coming back.
1:53:51I would say, hooray.
1:53:53Wouldn't you?
1:53:56I miss MagSafe.
1:53:57- Like I said, I mean, I didn't miss it.
1:54:00I didn't miss it all that much.
1:54:01I missed it okay.
1:54:02I didn't usually have a big problem with like kicking up
1:54:06because the way I like to operate is I like to have
1:54:1212 plugs all over the house.
1:54:15So any desk or table that I sit down to,
1:54:19I can plug in the device.
1:54:20I don't have, I mean, I usually have like two or three,
1:54:23and so I have them situated so that they're like draped
1:54:28over the back of the desk,
1:54:30for the different desks that I sit at.
1:54:32And so I'm never concerned about like kicking a cord
1:54:36and having the laptop go flying.
1:54:37- It's happened once or twice to me since,
1:54:41but the thing that's a little bit more unusual
1:54:44about MagSafe coming back now,
1:54:47but having gone away when it did,
1:54:49is that the biggest difference with the M1 and Intel
1:54:53is that the battery lasts so much longer
1:54:55so that you really don't need to be.
1:54:57- You don't need to plug it in as much.
1:54:58- Right, and the places where you're likely to be plugged in
1:55:02like at your desk, I would guess most people have
1:55:05a desk set up where the plug isn't kickable, right?
1:55:08It's sort of like, that's like a coffee table situation
1:55:11or working at temporarily at the kitchen counter situation.
1:55:15Like the type of situations where MagSafe seems the most
1:55:19applicable because the power plug,
1:55:21or the airport situation, remember airports?
1:55:26Right, but you know, hey, I got a seat
1:55:29with a power plug over there and I can plug my thing in,
1:55:32but now somebody might roll their suitcase over the cord.
1:55:36But it's still better than not having it, I like it.
1:55:40But my big question and neither of them answer it
1:55:42is okay, let's say they bring it back.
1:55:44And both, or at least one of them had a report
1:55:46that it's not like the phone's MagSafe
1:55:49where it's like low powered magnetic.
1:55:52It's high power, high watt, right?
1:55:54Because you can't do like 87 watt charging
1:55:57with the phone's MagSafe.
1:55:59Like in fact, the phone's MagSafe is lower
1:56:01than even plugged in lightning,
1:56:03let alone high capacity USB-C.
1:56:06- So it will probably look something like
1:56:11what it used to be, right?
1:56:12It's not gonna be just like a,
1:56:14I mean the first thing that I envisioned is like,
1:56:15well, maybe they're gonna do it differently
1:56:17and it'll be like the pencil charges on the iPad,
1:56:19but it's probably not that.
1:56:21It's just a magnet and it connects.
1:56:25- No. - So it's probably gonna be
1:56:26like some sort of exposed pins and a magnet.
1:56:30- I think it has to be to do the high watt charging.
1:56:32And I don't think that low watt charging makes sense
1:56:36for a MacBook, the batteries are too big.
1:56:39- It'll take too long.
1:56:42- Right, but my big question is,
1:56:44let's say it's true and they bring back MagSafe,
1:56:47does USB-C still work to charge too?
1:56:51And I would think the answer is yes,
1:56:55even though neither of them mention it,
1:56:56because for example, with the iPhone,
1:56:58you can charge magnetically on the back
1:57:00or plug lightning in.
1:57:02Because it would stink that,
1:57:05okay, let's say you've already got USB-C chargers
1:57:08all around your house, now you buy this new thing.
1:57:11Now you've got this new thing and it has MagSafe,
1:57:14which is cool, but it comes with only one MagSafe charger,
1:57:17hopefully, right?
1:57:20Hopefully it comes with the charger.
1:57:21But now when you carry it into your kitchen
1:57:25and there's USB chargers right there,
1:57:28if you plugged in USB-C, even though it has MagSafe
1:57:31that you could use, if you plug in USB-C,
1:57:34why wouldn't that work too?
1:57:35I mean, hopefully.
1:57:37I don't know, it's a little bit weird to me
1:57:39that they bring back MagSafe at the point
1:57:42where the battery lasts as long as it does.
1:57:44But okay.
1:57:45- Yeah.
1:57:46I mean, I think it's good, because I think in general,
1:57:49people liked MagSafe, and I think more people miss it
1:57:52than not.
1:57:53- Right.
1:57:54Bringing back the SD card slot,
1:57:56again, a little bit surprising to me.
1:57:59- Yeah.
1:58:00- Because I kind of agree with the argument
1:58:03that they took the SD card slots out too early,
1:58:06that people were still using them.
1:58:08But I kind of feel like they've weighted it out
1:58:10to this point and that people are using them
1:58:12less and less.
1:58:14And it's, you know, if anything, of all these things
1:58:17that you might need a peripheral for, like a dongle,
1:58:21SD card slot has always felt to me like it's pretty fair.
1:58:24And I know that there are some people
1:58:27who really, really, really, really, really want
1:58:30a built-in SD card slot.
1:58:31But I just, you know, maybe I'm being selfish
1:58:34'cause I don't use one that frequently.
1:58:37- Yeah, I don't either.
1:58:38- But it's hard not to see a couple of these things
1:58:42as possibly, you know, and the timing sort of works out
1:58:45with, you know where I'm going with this, right?
1:58:48A guy named, remember Johnny Ive?
1:58:52(laughing)
1:58:54- Vaguely.
1:58:55- He was a designer at Apple.
1:58:58I, you know, it's hard not to draw the conclusion
1:59:06that maybe Johnny Ive's leaving Apple
1:59:09and the return of things like MagSafe and SD card slots
1:59:14are related.
1:59:15- Has something to do with each other, yeah.
1:59:16- I mean, it could be a coincidence, you know,
1:59:18but it's, both of those seem like backtrackings to me.
1:59:23- Yeah, well, they are.
1:59:25- Right, I mean, it's--
1:59:26- I mean, literally.
1:59:28- But it's, you know what I mean?
1:59:29It would be different if they had made devices
1:59:32that didn't fit them at all, right?
1:59:35Like literally were so thin
1:59:38that they couldn't make a MagSafe connector
1:59:40that would fit the device, right?
1:59:44And, you know, I've spoken to people at Apple.
1:59:48I really do think that the headphone jack thing
1:59:51really is about space.
1:59:53And it's not that they couldn't make phones
1:59:55that had a headphone jack,
1:59:57but that by taking the headphone jack out,
1:59:59it saves a significant amount of space
2:00:01because headphone jacks,
2:00:02it's not just the diameter of the jack,
2:00:06it's how far into the device they go.
2:00:09And that is, you know, in the annual design war
2:00:14of what goes into the next generation iPhones,
2:00:18that amount of volume is a huge amount of turf
2:00:22inside an iPhone.
2:00:23MagSafe, to me, they've never made a MacBook
2:00:27that doesn't have room for MagSafe.
2:00:31So it really felt like an aesthetic decision.
2:00:36And to me, the most aesthetic decision
2:00:39they've ever made on that front
2:00:41was the just plain, no adjective, 12-inch MacBook
2:00:46that literally only had one port,
2:00:48or I guess two, it had one USB-C port
2:00:52and one headphone jack, and that's it.
2:00:54'Cause it really felt spiteful.
2:00:58I mean, it just really did.
2:01:01And if it had been one USB-C port and MagSafe,
2:01:06that would be different, right?
2:01:07And you could still see the argument that,
2:01:10hey, I would like two USB ports, you know.
2:01:12But not being able to charge the device
2:01:16while you use any USB-C peripheral really is,
2:01:21it's almost incomprehensible.
2:01:26And it's hard not to think that it was
2:01:28a purely aesthetic decision driven by Johnny Ive's team,
2:01:32'cause it certainly wasn't a functional decision.
2:01:35It's incredibly impractical, it always was.
2:01:39There's almost not much to say about it.
2:01:42Two ports really seems like the minimum,
2:01:45especially if those ports are the charging ports.
2:01:48- I mean, I think, yeah, Johnny's idea
2:01:50was that everybody would do things over the air,
2:01:53so you could charge
2:01:54because you wouldn't have anything plugged into his.
2:01:56(laughing)
2:01:57- Right, why would you plug anything in?
2:01:59- It's beautiful.
2:02:00- Yeah, why not just have no ports at all,
2:02:03and you could just use the charge
2:02:04that it comes from the factory with until--
2:02:06(laughing)
2:02:07- And then throw it out and buy a new one.
2:02:10- And well, put it on your shelf.
2:02:12And it's, quite frankly, more attractive when it's closed.
2:02:17- File your bathroom.
2:02:18- Yes, turn it off and close it up.
2:02:21(laughing)
2:02:24You've walled.
2:02:24- I was trying to remember what the original MacBook Air
2:02:27came with in terms of ports.
2:02:28- MagSafe and two USB, I think.
2:02:32- That sounds right, yeah.
2:02:34- The touch bar going away is also very interesting.
2:02:40And I've long espoused from the get-go through now,
2:02:45and now that I'm using a MacBook Pro with the touch bar,
2:02:49I am so neutral on the touch bar, it's ridiculous.
2:02:55- Yeah, I think I am as well.
2:02:57I don't hate it, but I also don't.
2:03:00I basically configured it as a control strip anyway,
2:03:03so I'm not really using it as I think Apple thinks
2:03:07that you should use it.
2:03:08- Right, and I totally get it that there are other people,
2:03:12and I know it's very divisive.
2:03:14There are some people who truly hate it,
2:03:16really, really hate it, and I believe them.
2:03:18I believe that they hate it,
2:03:19and therefore it's super frustrating to them
2:03:23that it's not configurable,
2:03:24that you can't do a build to order
2:03:27and get a 16-inch MacBook Pro
2:03:29that does not have the touch bar.
2:03:31'Cause I sympathize.
2:03:35I have strong opinions about certain things.
2:03:37I don't about the touch bar,
2:03:39but all things considered, if I could configure it,
2:03:42if I could have the exact same MacBook right now
2:03:45with or without the touch bar,
2:03:46I would probably take the touch bar.
2:03:47I think I like it better than the function keys, I do.
2:03:50Now that they have the escape key.
2:03:52The escape key was the thing that absolutely killed me.
2:03:55- That never really bothered me that much.
2:03:57- I, it turns out I use the escape key more than I thought.
2:04:01And I don't use VI, but I use it more than I thought,
2:04:05and it really bothered me.
2:04:07- Okay.
2:04:08- I also personally find that the fraction of an inch,
2:04:14like it's like a 16th of an inch,
2:04:16maybe even less than a 16th of an inch,
2:04:18that they moved the touch bar up past the number row,
2:04:22the one, two, three, four row of keys.
2:04:25Totally eliminated my occasional accidental touches
2:04:29of the touch bar.
2:04:30- Okay.
2:04:31- But once again, I know that it's very hard
2:04:33to see that difference, but on the original ones,
2:04:36I did run into that problem once in a while,
2:04:39and I no longer do.
2:04:40But I understand that other people might type faster
2:04:43and more sloppily than I do or with bigger fingers,
2:04:46and that they still run into that problem.
2:04:48But it's, I can't, if this is true,
2:04:52that they're gonna come out with,
2:04:53just get rid of the touch bar across the line
2:04:56with the 16 inch and the truly pro pro,
2:04:5913 inch MacBook Pros, I'm fascinated to see
2:05:02what they say about it.
2:05:04Because this, that seems, isn't that, like--
2:05:06- You think they'll say anything?
2:05:08- Yeah.
2:05:08- I think they won't say anything.
2:05:10- Just pretend like it was never a thing.
2:05:12- Just pretend it never existed.
2:05:13- Just never existed.
2:05:15I wonder, so maybe, maybe that's on stage,
2:05:19or if, I don't know if we'll have on stage
2:05:22by the third quarter, but in the video,
2:05:27in their prepared show to unveil them,
2:05:33I can imagine that they won't even mention it.
2:05:35But they're gonna get asked about it,
2:05:39so I'm curious what then their answer will be.
2:05:44Even off the record, in a press briefing type thing.
2:05:46I'm sure they'll come up with something.
2:05:48- Yeah, yeah, right.
2:05:50- But if it's true, that's a real backtracking.
2:05:53And I'm a little surprised, I don't know.
2:05:58In the back of my head, I thought, hmm, okay,
2:06:01clearly, even if I don't mind the touch bar,
2:06:04there's enough people who hate it where this is a problem,
2:06:08and therefore they need to do something.
2:06:11But I would have thought the solution
2:06:12is to come up with a second generation touch bar
2:06:16that solves the problems people have
2:06:18and makes it compelling.
2:06:20Okay, how do we make this more compelling?
2:06:22Because fundamentally, the basic idea that I see
2:06:25is that a row of twiddly little function keys
2:06:29is so un-Apple-like.
2:06:32It's unaesthetic, it's kinda gross, in my opinion.
2:06:36And you could say, well, but it works, right?
2:06:38But it's like, it,
2:06:42I don't know, why would you,
2:06:44why do you use that word gross?
2:06:46- I don't, it's gross.
2:06:48I'm in tune enough--
2:06:51- That seems like a little bit of an exaggeration.
2:06:54- No, I think it's gross, I don't know.
2:06:56It's like, gross is maybe a strong word, but it is.
2:07:01It's gross and fiddly in the way that a text mode
2:07:06in a computer boot sequence is gross and fiddly.
2:07:09Like when you used to boot up a Windows PC
2:07:12and you'd see all this DOS crap flying by,
2:07:15telling you to just load an autoexec bat, dot, dot, dot,
2:07:18and then you get the Windows logo, right?
2:07:20And now you're in graphical mode.
2:07:22And there's a reason why Macs never, have never booted
2:07:25with like a stream of DOS-like text
2:07:28before you see the graphical interface of an Apple logo
2:07:32or a Mac logo or whatever they boot with.
2:07:35It's gross.
2:07:36And function keys are gross in that spectrum.
2:07:40And it also is, so here's an area where like,
2:07:44all right, I think like, hey, getting rid of MagSafe,
2:07:47putting only one USB-C port on a MacBook,
2:07:50you've gone too far, Johnny Ive.
2:07:53The function keys, I'm totally aligned with Johnny Ive.
2:07:57They're gross and they should have,
2:07:59there should be something better.
2:08:00- Well, I bet you, I'm assuming you do not agree
2:08:04with the arrow keys though.
2:08:07- No, I could, no, I definitely,
2:08:08I hated the full height left and right arrow keys.
2:08:13I felt so strong about them
2:08:16that when I was using a Mac with those,
2:08:17I literally put pieces of gaff tape on the left right keys
2:08:22so that I could feel them, which is really gross.
2:08:27I had little pieces of tape on my keys, right?
2:08:29So I get it, right?
2:08:31- Well, that's good.
2:08:32I mean, I kind of feel like though that there's a minimum
2:08:34amount of like functional usage that you have to live with,
2:08:39I mean, a level of quote grossness, unquote.
2:08:43I mean, and that's an example.
2:08:46I am perfectly fine with the function keys, frankly.
2:08:51I mean, I feel like, you know,
2:08:52Johnny would have preferred if all the keys
2:08:54were the same size.
2:08:55- So like--
2:08:56- Like you'd have a square space bar.
2:08:58- Yeah, yeah.
2:08:59(laughing)
2:09:00The tab key is just the size of a key.
2:09:02Why is the space bar so large?
2:09:04(laughing)
2:09:07It's unseemly.
2:09:09- And just arrange them all on a perfect grid.
2:09:11And it's so much easier.
2:09:14It's so much easier on the eyes.
2:09:16- You're right.
2:09:17- Your fingers will adjust.
2:09:18I don't know, I can't think of a better example
2:09:22than a computer that boots up with some kind of diagnostic
2:09:26boot loading text first.
2:09:29It's just unaesthetic.
2:09:32And function keys are that type of thing.
2:09:34And you know, Steve Jobs had feelings like this too, right?
2:09:36There's this famous story of somebody who had like
2:09:38my beloved Apple extended keyboard too,
2:09:41and wanted Jobs to sign it.
2:09:43And he's like, what are all these keys?
2:09:45Do I have all these keys on it?
2:09:46And he started prying off the guy's keys.
2:09:48And then he signed his name on the back.
2:09:50But you know, why doesn't Apple ship keyboards
2:09:52with 110 keys anymore?
2:09:54Even the big ones.
2:09:55Because the extra keys are, they're gross.
2:09:59To some, you know, a little gross.
2:10:01It's a little gross, you know.
2:10:02(laughing)
2:10:04It's like one, you know.
2:10:05- I don't know, I think.
2:10:07- It's not like a whole, you know,
2:10:09like somebody dropped a bag of barber hair in your food.
2:10:11But it's like finding a hair in your food, you know.
2:10:14It's a little gross.
2:10:15So I get it.
2:10:18Like I think there's a general aesthetic.
2:10:20And part of it's marketing, and part of it I think
2:10:22is just not getting it.
2:10:24But I just saw an ad from Microsoft,
2:10:26I think it was when I was watching football on Sunday,
2:10:29where they had like a teenage kid talking about
2:10:32why he wanted a Surface instead of a Mac laptop.
2:10:36And he was saying like, look, Apple gives you
2:10:38this little touch thing up here.
2:10:40Microsoft gives me a whole touch screen.
2:10:42And I know that, you know, if you have a touch screen
2:10:46and Apple doesn't, that's a way you can market it.
2:10:50And they've been trying that for years.
2:10:52So I don't blame them for marketing it that way.
2:10:55But I've seen reviewers talk about this too.
2:10:58That thinking that the touch bar is Apple's answer
2:11:01to putting a touch screen on the Mac.
2:11:05And why not just make the whole screen a touch screen?
2:11:07We definitely don't have time for me to reiterate
2:11:11my opposition to that.
2:11:12But I'm 100% convinced that that has nothing to do
2:11:16with why they have a touch screen, or a touch bar.
2:11:18Why they tried the touch bar.
2:11:19The touch bar wasn't, okay, people want some kind
2:11:22of touch screen, we don't wanna make the top screen touch,
2:11:25so we'll give them this.
2:11:27I think it's basically, function keys are some ancient idea
2:11:31from 1973's, you know, terminal computers.
2:11:35They're gross, it's ridiculous.
2:11:37And even though we've repurposed them all
2:11:39from traditional functions to dedicated things like,
2:11:43hey, here's one for brightness, here's two for,
2:11:46or I guess three for volume, up, down, mute.
2:11:49- Well, yeah.
2:11:49And so I guess that's what I would, I mean,
2:11:51and that's how I use them.
2:11:52And that's why I configured the touch bar like that.
2:11:55And I would be, I mean, I'm looking at,
2:11:59I'm sitting in between an ancient, almost ancient MacBook,
2:12:03the unibody plastic MacBook.
2:12:07That's what I usually record on.
2:12:09And I keep, I change nothing so that my recordings work,
2:12:13'cause I know my recordings work, and I have this laptop,
2:12:15and I'm not using it for anything else.
2:12:17And so I record all my podcasts on that laptop,
2:12:20which is great.
2:12:22And then I have this new MacBook Air.
2:12:26And I would say the icons on the MacBook are better
2:12:31because they are much more oriented.
2:12:36Like the function is larger, like this stop, start,
2:12:41whatever, sleep, I mean, all those icons are larger.
2:12:44And then the F numbers are smaller and in the corner.
2:12:48I would even go so far as to like remove the F numbers.
2:12:52I don't think I ever use the F numbers personally.
2:12:56And, but on the Air, they're smaller,
2:13:00but they're in the middle,
2:13:01which makes them a little bit more prominent.
2:13:03And I think they actually better the old way.
2:13:05But anyway, I mean, like I said,
2:13:07I would think that it would be better to just have the,
2:13:11like the new functions on them
2:13:12and not have the F numbers on them at all.
2:13:14Although I guess lots of people still use the F numbers.
2:13:16- But it gets exactly to Steve Jobs's explanation
2:13:21of why the iPhone only had a home button back in 2007,
2:13:26where it's like, look, all these other smartphones
2:13:28have all these buttons at the bottom
2:13:29and it takes up all this space
2:13:31and they can only do one thing.
2:13:34Once you put like a green button for make a phone call
2:13:37and a red button for hang up a phone call
2:13:40and it's a hardware button,
2:13:42that space is always occupied by those buttons.
2:13:44And you might come up, maybe you make the device
2:13:47and then you come up with new ideas
2:13:48and you can't add buttons.
2:13:52And we figured out we already have a solution to this.
2:13:55It's called software.
2:13:56And if we made the whole screen a touchscreen,
2:13:59we could do it all in software.
2:14:00But that argument fits.
2:14:03So you've got all of these buttons.
2:14:05I almost never play music on my Macs, ever.
2:14:10If I play music, I play it on HomePods
2:14:12or I listen to it on my iPhone.
2:14:15I can't tell you the last time I've used
2:14:17the play, pause, fast forward buttons on the keyboard.
2:14:20I mean like ever.
2:14:22And going back to when they first added
2:14:24dedicated buttons for it.
2:14:25I never use them.
2:14:26So why are they there?
2:14:28I'm always looking at them.
2:14:29What about the weird button on F4
2:14:31where it's like what happens if I,
2:14:32I don't even know what happens.
2:14:33Oh, it goes to the, what's that thing called?
2:14:36That's the alternative launch screen?
2:14:39- Oh yeah.
2:14:41- I've never used it so I don't even know what it's called.
2:14:47I don't even know what it's called.
2:14:48- Launchpad.
2:14:49- Yeah, Launchpad.
2:14:50So there's a dedicated button on my keyboard for Launchpad.
2:14:53Now I could go in and use keyboard maestro
2:14:56or something in system preferences
2:14:58and make that button do something else.
2:15:00But I can never get the glyph removed from the key cap.
2:15:04Right?
2:15:05And then the one for the all windows mode,
2:15:08it's like, it's an ugly looking icon
2:15:10with a bunch of rectangles in weird spots.
2:15:14It's gross.
2:15:15The whole thing is gross.
2:15:16And the touch bar, I'm convinced,
2:15:19the whole point of the touch bar was,
2:15:21all right, let's take this fiddly old thing from the 1970s
2:15:24and let's do some, what's a new idea?
2:15:26And okay, it wasn't good enough.
2:15:28I'm just surprised they're not coming back
2:15:30with like touch bar 2.0.
2:15:32- Well, and I thought they would have done that
2:15:34before now, right?
2:15:35I mean, I thought, oh,
2:15:37they would introduce this new thing.
2:15:39It's software based.
2:15:40They will iterate it.
2:15:42And even if it's clunky like the watch,
2:15:44even if it's a little clunky to begin with,
2:15:47it'll be good by the next version.
2:15:49And then there never really was a next,
2:15:51much of a next version anyway.
2:15:52They made some very small changes to it.
2:15:55And I could not get used to the idea.
2:15:59I mean, I understand the concept for the phone.
2:16:02It's a little bit more obvious on the phone though, I guess,
2:16:07when the entire interface changes.
2:16:08But I never wanted to get into the business
2:16:12of configuring the touch bar for different applications.
2:16:17- No, me neither.
2:16:18- Because I found that crazy confusing.
2:16:20Like now I'm in a different application
2:16:22and the touch bar behaves completely differently.
2:16:25- Yeah, I don't either.
2:16:26I almost, I will admit, I almost never use it.
2:16:28And I just use it for volume and brightness.
2:16:31- Yeah, so that's what, yeah.
2:16:32I mean, that's why it changed it to a control strip
2:16:34and that's what I used it for.
2:16:36- Yeah, but the other thing for me
2:16:38is I just never looked down there.
2:16:39Even though I'm right there using it
2:16:41and in the flow using my Mac for hours,
2:16:43I'm like staring at the screen
2:16:45and I'm typing on the keyboard
2:16:46and it just never even occurs to me to look there.
2:16:49And every once in a while I'm using an app
2:16:50and it's like, hey, there's something
2:16:51I might wanna use there, you know?
2:16:53Like sometimes you'd be typing in a password
2:16:55and it'll have like a couple of email addresses
2:16:58to choose from for filling in a form.
2:17:00It's like, hey, that's actually kind of easy.
2:17:02I didn't even realize that was there
2:17:03'cause I never look at it.
2:17:05I don't know, it's just interesting to me if it's true
2:17:08that they're just getting, just saying, you know what?
2:17:10We're calling it quits on this thing.
2:17:12It's hard to think of something
2:17:14they've backtracked so far on, right?
2:17:17'Cause it's different when you backtrack on,
2:17:19okay, we took out built-in SD card slots.
2:17:21Now we're putting it back in and they can just say,
2:17:24look, we didn't have room for them for a couple years.
2:17:25Now, you know, because of the M1 or the M2
2:17:28or whatever they're up to by the time
2:17:29these machines come out, it's so small
2:17:33and so space efficient, we have room to add SD card slots.
2:17:38They're back and you can sell it.
2:17:40And they could even spin it that way with MagSafe.
2:17:45We've come back with MagSafe 3 and it's better than ever,
2:17:48but the Touch Bar is gonna be a tough one to spin.
2:17:52- That's why I think they won't mention it.
2:17:55- Yeah, other than just saying, well, you know.
2:17:57- Didn't work out. - Didn't work out.
2:17:59Anything else from these rumors that jumps out to you?
2:18:09- So the sizes, I think the sizes they mentioned
2:18:13were like a 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro, right?
2:18:17- Yeah, yeah.
2:18:19- Yeah.
2:18:20- Well, the weird--
2:18:20- Which makes sense.
2:18:21- Yeah, the weird thing about the 14 inch is it seems--
2:18:24- They've talked about a 14 inch for years.
2:18:26- Yeah.
2:18:27- It's been rumored for so long and it has not appeared.
2:18:29- And that's the part where it's like,
2:18:32gee, I wish it was my job and I had all the time,
2:18:34all day that I could look it up and do the claim check.
2:18:37- I do the claim chowder on this, so I guess I should.
2:18:40That's the thing that throws the, hey, wait a minute,
2:18:45aren't you the guys who told me
2:18:46the 14 inch was coming two years ago?
2:18:49(laughing)
2:18:51You know, it's like, where did that come from?
2:18:54It's sort of like the way that this game works
2:18:58where there's smoke, there's fire,
2:19:01and I guess somebody in the supply chain
2:19:03started working on 14 inch laptop screens for Apple
2:19:06and somebody else grossly misinterpreted
2:19:09when they might be coming.
2:19:11My guess is--
2:19:14- I mean, I can see them moving to a 12 inch error,
2:19:1714 inch and 16 inch pros.
2:19:19But I'm not sure if that's necessary either.
2:19:24- Well, the 15 inch to 16 inch transition
2:19:28for the MacBook Pro I think is exactly what's gonna happen
2:19:30with this 13 to 14 inch, where I don't think
2:19:32they're gonna make a bigger footprint.
2:19:34I think they'll just reduce the bezel size even further
2:19:37and it'll round up to 14 instead of 13 inches.
2:19:40I think Germin's report said that there's some,
2:19:44and some talk about reducing the bezel size
2:19:47on the 13 inch MacBook Air, keeping the display
2:19:51at 13 inches but reducing the bezels
2:19:53and therefore making the footprint smaller.
2:19:56Which kind of makes sense, 'cause it kind of makes sense
2:20:00that the Air would actually have a smaller footprint
2:20:02than the MacBook Pro.
2:20:04- I was actually surprised, 'cause, so the previous Airs
2:20:07that I've had have been the, what, 10, 11 inch?
2:20:1111 inch, right?
2:20:1211.
2:20:13- Yeah, 11 was the old tiny one.
2:20:15- Yeah, and this is my first 13 inch Air
2:20:19and I was kind of surprised at the bulk of it really.
2:20:22I was thinking, oh, it's an Air, it's gonna be much smaller
2:20:25and much lighter than my MacBook Pro,
2:20:30my 13 inch MacBook Pro, but it doesn't really feel that way.
2:20:33- No, it's hardly smaller at all.
2:20:36Because it tapers, it does have the tremendous advantage
2:20:43that I've still never got, I haven't had a MacBook Air
2:20:46in years, but once I got used to the ability
2:20:49to feel it coming out of my bag by touch,
2:20:53I never ever put it down in front of me wrong,
2:20:55whereas now I always, half the time,
2:20:58and it's that damn Apple logo and I agree
2:21:00that it's oriented the right way,
2:21:03but now that I can't do it by feel, I see the Apple logo
2:21:06and I put it down in front of me, hinged towards me
2:21:09and it's like, ah, I put it down, you know,
2:21:11how many years am I gonna go while I do this?
2:21:13But it's 2.8 pounds versus 3.0 pounds,
2:21:17so it's hardly lighter.
2:21:19It's actually thicker in the back,
2:21:21like the back of the MacBook Air is actually ever
2:21:24so slightly thicker than the back of the MacBook Pro.
2:21:27They're very oddly similarly sized
2:21:29for a device whose name implies that it's smaller.
2:21:33- Yeah. - Yeah.
2:21:34What did you, so you got the Air, right?
2:21:35That's your M1?
2:21:36- Yeah, yeah.
2:21:38- So how do you like it so far?
2:21:39I know you only had it today.
2:21:40- Yeah, Thursday?
2:21:43Yeah, I got it Thursday.
2:21:44I love it.
2:21:46I mean, I'm glad I'm more pleased with it
2:21:50than the Pro, I think.
2:21:52I mean, the keyboard is really, (laughs)
2:21:56it's really the big thing.
2:21:57I never had the huge problems with the keyboard,
2:21:59the old butterfly keyboard,
2:22:02but I never really liked the fact
2:22:05that it had such low travel.
2:22:07- Yeah, I never--
2:22:08- And I really hated the arrow keys.
2:22:10- Yeah, the arrow keys were what killed me,
2:22:12and I got used to the travel, and I never bought one.
2:22:17I only ever used review units for a month or two at a time,
2:22:21but it took a while to get used to the type,
2:22:23you know, a while, like days, and then I got used to it,
2:22:25but it's like, oh, this is so much better.
2:22:27This is such a better dial it back, you know?
2:22:30And again, I don't think it's backtracking.
2:22:32I think this is sort of like--
2:22:33- This is better, this is just better.
2:22:35- Yeah, it's just sort of dialing it in,
2:22:37you know, a little bit too far, ah, just right.
2:22:40- Right, right.
2:22:41- The arrow keys, I could never get used to.
2:22:45Like I told you, I went so far as to put tape on them
2:22:47so I could feel them somehow.
2:22:49- Yeah, and I was clear.
2:22:51I didn't really know that one of the things
2:22:53that I have used the touch bar for was sleep,
2:22:57or not sleep, but locking the screen,
2:23:00'cause you can add a button for locking the screen,
2:23:02and I did not realize that the power button
2:23:04on the Air does that now.
2:23:07If you just do a tap, or not a tap, but one push,
2:23:10it locks the screen.
2:23:12- Yeah, the funny thing, what's the funny thing?
2:23:14Oh, I know the, I still can't get used to it,
2:23:16and it's so hard.
2:23:17It's like, now that any key turns on your Mac,
2:23:22you know that if you power it down, you can turn it on
2:23:24by just like hitting any key?
2:23:26- I don't know that I powered it down.
2:23:30- Yeah, you probably never will.
2:23:32But it makes it hard.
2:23:33- Well, yeah, I mean, I'm probably gonna do it a lot less.
2:23:36- It makes it hard to clean the keys,
2:23:38'cause you have to like do it
2:23:39while the screen's on and locked.
2:23:41But I think that the explanation, and again,
2:23:44it's one of those things that Apple's never gonna say
2:23:46on the record, and I've never gotten anybody off the record
2:23:49to say, yeah, that's the problem.
2:23:50But now that the button doesn't have the power logo on it,
2:23:53people didn't know how to turn the Mac on.
2:23:55- Oh, yeah.
2:23:56- And I don't know if they could do that or not,
2:23:59and it's like, I don't know if they don't want to.
2:24:01If they, you know, like if the power logo
2:24:04would get in the way of the fingerprint sensor,
2:24:07or if they just think it's more aesthetic this way.
2:24:10- They should write it on the edge of the laptop,
2:24:14but that's in between the key and the screen,
2:24:17and have an arrow pointing down to this, just this power.
2:24:20(both laughing)
2:24:22You know, since Johnny's gone.
2:24:23- Or just put a sticker on it, you know?
2:24:25(both laughing)
2:24:27Put a sticker on this side with an arrow.
2:24:29- Get rid of all the function keys and just put stickers.
2:24:32(both laughing)
2:24:34'Cause you can replace stickers.
2:24:35- Yeah, yeah, maybe that is the answer.
2:24:38- If you decide that the key should be something else later,
2:24:41just send out another sticker.
2:24:43- Yeah.
2:24:44You know, I've said this before, when I was in high school,
2:24:47I learned to type on manual typewriters,
2:24:49not electric, not just typewriters.
2:24:51I'm talking manual, clackety-clack typewriters.
2:24:54And I was in seventh grade, and I weighed about 87 pounds.
2:24:59And I was, my entire torso was about as thick
2:25:03as a power cable.
2:25:05I was a very skinny kid.
2:25:07And my pinky fingers weren't strong enough to,
2:25:11I could press the A and the semicolon keys,
2:25:14and the Q and the Z, and the other ones
2:25:16you're supposed to do with your pinky.
2:25:18But I couldn't press them hard enough
2:25:19to actually get a letter to show up.
2:25:21So it would look like I hit space.
2:25:23But we had this room, classroom full of manual typewriters
2:25:29that had no key caps.
2:25:31They were all blank because they were specifically meant for--
2:25:33- Oh, 'cause you were supposed to learn how to type.
2:25:35- Right, and I feel like they could go that route
2:25:39for the Johnny Ive crowd.
2:25:42- Sure, yeah.
2:25:42- Just print these keyboards up.
2:25:44- It would look a lot better too, just blank, all blank.
2:25:47- I think the DOS keyboard company, DAS,
2:25:50like the German DOS, I think they sell a keyboard
2:25:53that's like that for the aesthetically purists.
2:25:57The black turtleneck crowd.
2:26:00Anything else?
2:26:04Oh, so what's not in the new ones?
2:26:06Last but not least is that apparently there's no face ID
2:26:09and no cellular networking, according to these rumors
2:26:12from Ming-Chi Kuo and Mark Gurman.
2:26:14The face ID, the cellular, I'm not surprised
2:26:17'cause I feel like the story on that is very complicated.
2:26:21And I just wish my Mac could have cellular
2:26:25like my iPad does is, I feel like the answer
2:26:28is more complicated than that.
2:26:30But again, Apple doesn't really like to explain it.
2:26:32The face ID thing is a little bit more disappointing to me,
2:26:35especially for the iMac where it seems like
2:26:37that would be a natural.
2:26:39- Right.
2:26:41- So I can't imagine why the iMac doesn't have face ID.
2:26:44It seems very weird.
2:26:46Because if it doesn't have face ID,
2:26:49that might mean it doesn't have any biometric authentication
2:26:52because I think that there is some kind of
2:26:55cryptographic problem.
2:27:00- You can't do it in a non-connected keyboard.
2:27:02- Right, right, so you can't do it.
2:27:05For reasons I don't think I understand
2:27:07and don't even wanna try to speculate on,
2:27:09but you can't just make a Bluetooth keyboard with it on.
2:27:13- Well, it's the same problem,
2:27:14and that's why it's the same thing with,
2:27:16it's a handshake between the sensor
2:27:20and the whatever that chip is.
2:27:22I can't remember off the top of my head.
2:27:23- The secure enclave.
2:27:24- The secure enclave, yeah.
2:27:25- Right, right.
2:27:26- And that's why they had that whole thing
2:27:31where people were incensed
2:27:32because they weren't letting third parties repair,
2:27:36do certain repairs because it would disconnect
2:27:40to those two and that would ruin the handshake.
2:27:43- And so I don't know, we'll see if the rumors pan out,
2:27:46but I hold out hope, not because I, again,
2:27:48not because I have any info,
2:27:49but just, boy, it would be nice for the iMacs
2:27:52to have face ID.
2:27:54Other handful of rumors, there's somebody,
2:27:58people are saying they're gonna actually make a display
2:28:00that costs, a standalone display
2:28:02that costs less than $5,000.
2:28:05- I'll believe it when I see it.
2:28:08(laughing)
2:28:11- You know how we always remember,
2:28:13we always remember Craig Federighi's first ever
2:28:16on stage appearance when his hand was shaking on the mouse.
2:28:20I feel like the John Turnus equivalent of that,
2:28:26it wasn't the first time we saw John Turnus
2:28:27who just got a promotion to head of,
2:28:29senior vice president of hardware across the company.
2:28:33But to me, the Turnus moment is at WWDC 2019
2:28:37when he introduced the XDR display
2:28:41and said that the stand cost $1,000.
2:28:44And I don't know, you were watching remotely, right?
2:28:51And it was obvious even on the stream
2:28:56that it got a poor reaction, right?
2:28:58I mean, but in the room, it was like,
2:29:02I don't know how somebody could fart so bad
2:29:05that all 5,000 people in the room could smell it,
2:29:09but that was what it was like.
2:29:11(laughing)
2:29:13- I know that, yeah, and I don't know how you,
2:29:16I mean, given that that was the fact, that was the price,
2:29:20I'm not exactly sure how you introduce that price
2:29:23and make it seem more palatable.
2:29:26- Well, how did they not see that coming, right?
2:29:30I think if there is such a thing
2:29:31as a $1,000 display stand, that Apple made it.
2:29:35It is a truly tremendous piece of kit.
2:29:38And now that they're in the field,
2:29:40it doesn't seem like anybody is saying,
2:29:42"Hey, I got it, and now my display droops,
2:29:44it's worn out already."
2:29:45I mean, if there is such a thing as a $1,000 display stand,
2:29:50I think that's it.
2:29:52But to me, it only makes sense in the context
2:29:55of this is the big brother to this,
2:29:58I don't know what the reasonably priced
2:30:01standalone 5K display is, but let's say the whole display,
2:30:05including a built-in stand is $1,500.
2:30:09- Yeah.
2:30:10- And it's great, and it's 5K,
2:30:12and it's just like our iMac display,
2:30:14and it does all the HDR cool stuff,
2:30:16and it's super thin, and it's really nice.
2:30:20And for the pros out there, we've got this Pro Display XDR
2:30:23that's $5,000 and has a $1,000 stand.
2:30:26But it all goes over better if there's like,
2:30:28"Well, oh yeah, that's cool."
2:30:31- Right, right.
2:30:32- Yeah, it's the crazy expensive model, and you can move up.
2:30:36- Right.
2:30:36- Yeah, it's like the gold watch.
2:30:39- And that's the only watch we have, right.
2:30:43The Apple Watch 8, it comes in one model,
2:30:46we've simplified it.
2:30:48It's called, and it's solid gold, and it costs $20,000.
2:30:53Right, the Apple Watch announcement comes out
2:30:56real differently if the edition was the only version.
2:30:59(laughing)
2:31:01And that's, but that's their display story at the moment.
2:31:04Right, the only display they sell is effectively
2:31:06the Apple Display Edition, you know.
2:31:08So hopefully that will come to pass, but otherwise.
2:31:11- Maybe they should have called it that.
2:31:13- And they maybe should have made it gold.
2:31:15- Yeah, sure.
2:31:17Or an option.
2:31:19- Yeah, at least it's hard to believe
2:31:21that that's not an option.
2:31:22- Well, gold plated.
2:31:23(laughing)
2:31:26- Anything else, I think that's about it.
2:31:28- Yeah, I mean, there's the, Tim Cook spoke at a privacy.
2:31:33- Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't watch that yet.
2:31:34I read the remarks, I do wanna watch it.
2:31:37- Yeah, I read it on Six Colors as well.
2:31:39And it was interesting 'cause I thought,
2:31:43I had seen a bunch of people say,
2:31:44"Oh, he really stuck it to Facebook."
2:31:45And it's interesting, and he did,
2:31:47but he also didn't mention Facebook by name.
2:31:50And so it's just sort of funny that it's obvious
2:31:52that like all these comments about the horrible things
2:31:56that people are doing, oh, that's Facebook.
2:31:58- It does seem like Facebook and Apple
2:32:00are going into a cold war, and it is escalating.
2:32:04- They're much more at odds than, say, Apple and Microsoft.
2:32:10- Yeah, or even Apple and Google, right?
2:32:12And I guess it probably helps that Google pays
2:32:16$20 billion a year for default search placement in Safari,
2:32:21or at least they do now.
2:32:23I feel like that is seriously in jeopardy regulatory-wise
2:32:28going forward.
2:32:29And Apple doesn't really have any sort of real,
2:32:38Apple doesn't really benefit from Facebook in any way.
2:32:41Facebook gets a lot more from Apple
2:32:43than Apple gets from Facebook insofar as that Facebook
2:32:46has a lot of customers who are using iPhones.
2:32:52And presumably, it's still the case
2:32:55that the average iPhone user is a better demographic
2:32:58advertising-wise than the general public.
2:33:02And so you can see that, and Facebook,
2:33:05they even issued it in their results last week.
2:33:09They even issued it as one of their, we have to say this,
2:33:12this is, there's negative headwinds or whatever lingo
2:33:17they use with the ad tracking change,
2:33:18which still has not, for all the publicity about it,
2:33:22the ad tracking identifier change in iOS 14,
2:33:25which was, Apple had originally said was intended to ship
2:33:28with iOS 14 in September or October,
2:33:32still hasn't shipped because of the resistance to people,
2:33:35you know, like Facebook and Google against it.
2:33:37But Apple has now said it is coming in the next version
2:33:41of iOS, which is probably 14.5 and probably coming in March.
2:33:46And they're saying it's gonna cost them money, so.
2:33:51And now, and the other story I saw was that the information
2:33:55had a story that Facebook is preparing
2:33:57an antitrust lawsuit against Apple.
2:34:00- Yeah, good luck with that.
2:34:01- Well, that's, isn't that weird?
2:34:04I didn't know that, I guess one company can sue
2:34:07another company for anything.
2:34:09I mean, that's like one of the things my wife,
2:34:10who is a lawyer, has explained to me about Trump
2:34:13over the years, that you can sue anybody for anything.
2:34:17So, you know, making it seem like it's news
2:34:20that so-and-so got sued for whatever,
2:34:22it doesn't necessarily mean anything, you know?
2:34:25It's like calling somebody a booger head,
2:34:28doesn't necessarily-- - Well, you know, I mean,
2:34:28it's like Trump's lawsuit's over the election.
2:34:31- Right. - They were like,
2:34:32they were like, oh, for 60 on those.
2:34:34(laughing)
2:34:36- Right, didn't really amount to a hill of beans.
2:34:38But I, you know, it's, that's, I guess that's Facebook's
2:34:43nuclear option, I really don't see Facebook
2:34:47as having the, you know, whatever antitrust concerns
2:34:50there are over Apple's control over the platforms,
2:34:52and I know that they're nuanced in many.
2:34:55I don't think Facebook is on the short end of 'em,
2:34:57you know, and I guess there's certain areas
2:34:59where they would like to do their own credit card processing
2:35:02and they ran into a little thing,
2:35:03but they certainly don't have as big a complaint
2:35:06as most people have, you know, who are,
2:35:09who would like to do their own credit card processing.
2:35:12Well, it'd be interesting to see how it goes.
2:35:16So is the Tim Cook video worth watching?
2:35:18- I didn't see it. - Oh, yeah,
2:35:20he did the same thing. - I read the,
2:35:21so on Six Colors they have the text of his comments,
2:35:24so I read the comments. - Yeah, yeah.
2:35:26And I, yeah, and I also saw the--
2:35:28- Not that I don't like looking at Tim.
2:35:29I mean, Timmy's a handsome man.
2:35:31- Yeah, but I did see, though, when I read his remarks,
2:35:33the other thing, it wasn't just about privacy, though.
2:35:35The particular Facebook part was about him saying
2:35:40that the algorithmic-driven social media
2:35:45that promotes inflammatory material
2:35:48because it is addictive is a danger to society,
2:35:53which is-- - And he didn't say
2:35:55anything specific, but he talked about recent events.
2:35:58(laughing)
2:35:59- I did see also that, I haven't watched it either,
2:36:02and again, it's six days old,
2:36:03so I probably ought to watch it before the next one,
2:36:05but I did see that he was on Fox News Sunday last week
2:36:09to talk about Apple's decision
2:36:10to remove Parler from the App Store.
2:36:14That's a show hosted by Chris Wallace,
2:36:17which is like the, you know, so he's on Fox News,
2:36:20but it's like the sane part of Fox News.
2:36:24- Right, right.
2:36:26- But I've heard that it's good, and you know,
2:36:28and it's, you know, you can see why he's on Fox
2:36:31to talk about that, but we shall see.
2:36:36Let me thank our sponsors.
2:36:37Our sponsors this week, oh, man, three great sponsors.
2:36:40You really came on on a good week for sponsors.
2:36:42We had Mack Weldon, who makes absolutely fantastic clothes,
2:36:45hoodies, underwear, socks.
2:36:47We had the Squarespace, where you can go to make a website,
2:36:51and the Tech Meme Ride Home podcast,
2:36:54which, if you are in the mood for another podcast,
2:36:57you could listen to right after this.
2:36:59Do you want Parler?
2:37:00(laughing)