00:12:32 ◼ ► Like I said, it doesn't even have 50,000 miles, but in the Corona time, we're like, Ooh, it's
00:12:38 ◼ ► Because we, um, I wouldn't want to take an Uber and Uber would be one of the last things
00:12:43 ◼ ► I'd want to do because you're in an enclosed space with somebody who, you know, is visit,
00:13:05 ◼ ► It died like hard, like the way that you can't even like when you, you know, I have one of
00:13:09 ◼ ► those dinguses where you connect it to the, you know, plug it in the wall and it'll, you
00:13:15 ◼ ► It was like dead to dead to dead because I, and I was like, huh, I thought I started this
00:13:21 ◼ ► And then I was thinking about it and it was like, well, wait, I did drive to pick up take
00:13:51 ◼ ► Well, that's the whole thing is we were saying earlier is that days are all blending together.
00:14:10 ◼ ► Well, the Jeep that I had when I was in high school that I didn't drive, my friends drove,
00:14:17 ◼ ► And that was like actually the impetus between my parents, like letting my friends like drive
00:14:35 ◼ ► If, if your boyfriend Ben wants to drive it, if you know other people want to drive it,
00:14:44 ◼ ► Let me take a break here before we start the meat of the show and thank our first sponsor.
00:15:32 ◼ ► But anyway, what it means is that it's like scientifically designed fabric that eliminates
00:15:48 ◼ ► Months ago, maybe seven, eight, nine months ago, it was before the end times, Merlin Mann
00:16:03 ◼ ► And he instantly got it because the big debate with slippers is whether you have an open
00:16:12 ◼ ► I don't like it because then it feels like your slippers are ready to fly off your feet
00:16:16 ◼ ► You come down the stairs, you got like, how can you walk around the house with slippers
00:16:54 ◼ ► I'm telling you right now, if you need slippers and quite frankly, what a better time, what
00:16:59 ◼ ► better time to invest in slippers to wear around the house than nine months ago before all
00:17:05 ◼ ► I would say 90% of the days since this whole thing started, I haven't worn anything but
00:17:24 ◼ ► Once you reach level two, all you have to do is spend 200 bucks and once you reach that
00:18:15 ◼ ► I just, I don't know what order to go through the list, but we might as well start with
00:18:32 ◼ ► And he mentioned the G4 Cube, not because it's the 20-year anniversary, but just as an example
00:18:38 ◼ ► of a Steve Jobs keynote that gives him goosebumps in terms of the sort of difference, the evolution
00:18:55 ◼ ► And it's funny because you watch those old ones from 20 years ago and it's like the only
00:19:21 ◼ ► But it's still, it's, you know, you still, it, I wonder if you've never seen it before.
00:19:29 ◼ ► If you don't remember watching it when it was new, whether it would give you the feels like
00:19:59 ◼ ► Well, well, I thought it was kind of interesting what you were saying about how, you know,
00:20:19 ◼ ► My one takeaway is we had, we had one in my high school and it caught on fire and I was
00:21:17 ◼ ► I think the design, obviously what happened there was kind of a precursor to where things
00:21:22 ◼ ► were going and, and it was certainly in a lot of ways, like set the tone for, you know,
00:21:51 ◼ ► But like, let's not continue to, even though I think that this design is beautiful in the
00:22:00 ◼ ► Like, I hate the whole notion of, oh, this never would have happened under Steve because
00:22:15 ◼ ► Yeah, my analogy on that, I liken it to, I'm not sure which card game, but you know, like,
00:22:24 ◼ ► you think about like Uno and it's like, if you've got like a draw four, you want to keep
00:22:37 ◼ ► And it's like the, these Steve Jobs never would have done this card as a pundit or just
00:22:58 ◼ ► They did go back, they did redo it, and they did admit it as best that you could expect
00:23:31 ◼ ► So you really, the more successful you are, the more you have to consciously, really self-consciously
00:23:47 ◼ ► And I think that that's actually why so oftentimes, and it's not just Apple, it's any big company,
00:23:54 ◼ ► You do have to keep yourself in check because if you don't, you will miss the next coming
00:23:59 ◼ ► I think that's sometimes why, why some people and companies and things miss trends is they
00:24:14 ◼ ► I guess, feedback loop where if you are so successful and if what you're doing is continuing
00:24:19 ◼ ► to get you not just applause and people cheering for you, but also tons and tons and tons of
00:24:39 ◼ ► And I think it's even more important that if you start to hear, even if it's small comparatively,
00:24:48 ◼ ► some cases just outright, like outrage, like this is bad over and over again, it's important
00:24:53 ◼ ► to, if you can, to try to listen to that and take action on that because that's usually
00:25:02 ◼ ► Like when the outline article went out about the keyboard and that wasn't the first thing
00:25:37 ◼ ► And even if it doesn't become what it became, this is representative of something not being
00:25:45 ◼ ► Or like rather than taking the approach of having on background meetings with reporters
00:25:52 ◼ ► to tell them how small the actual replacement rates were and things like that, rather than
00:25:58 ◼ ► kind of taking that approach, which frankly I think comes across to your users as disingenuous
00:26:04 ◼ ► And I think both you and I commented on Jason Snell's Apple report card this year about
00:26:18 ◼ ► Like they have fixed it and it is good, but it's so much harder to win people back than
00:26:27 ◼ ► Like when you make a mistake or when you lose favor on something, it is so, so, so much
00:26:37 ◼ ► And Apple, because they've had so much success, they haven't had to deal with something like
00:26:43 ◼ ► And I honestly, it was a much more minor thing, but you look at the way the iPhone 4 was handled
00:27:01 ◼ ► So they didn't create the bumper in response, but what they did is they just said, here,
00:27:13 ◼ ► But it's funny though, you totally read my mind because I was going to bring up antenna
00:27:20 ◼ ► And the bumpers are fine and the way, because they were trying to make money with the bumpers.
00:27:35 ◼ ► I think you'd be very hard pressed to come up with a counter argument that holds water.
00:28:07 ◼ ► Like going from the original iPhone to the iPhone 4 in three years is pretty impressive.
00:28:32 ◼ ► >> Well, not only that, but not only did you have retina, but front-facing camera, which
00:28:38 ◼ ► >> I mean, honestly, I think as much as retina, I would say the front-facing camera is bigger,
00:28:49 ◼ ► Imagine selling a, and put your finger on the idea that the iPhone 12 years ago is a long
00:28:58 ◼ ► But yeah, imagine selling a phone today where there is no front-facing camera, period, and
00:29:08 ◼ ► >> So just put aside the quality of the back-facing stills, because they were at least comparable
00:29:35 ◼ ► true, to here we are, it's iPhone 4, it's a totally new design, it's gone from non-retina
00:29:41 ◼ ► to retina, but I think one of the things that happened around, and they had this thing,
00:29:46 ◼ ► and it continued for a few years, where each new iPhone for at least six or seven years
00:29:52 ◼ ► not only outsold all of the previous ones, but it outsold all of the previous ones combined.
00:30:13 ◼ ► exploded in popularity and clearly quickly went from the people who listened to the talk
00:30:49 ◼ ► spent all this time making these things look good." And yeah, the 3G and 3GS don't look
00:30:56 ◼ ► that great because we went to this plastic back for antenna reasons and blah, blah, blah,
00:31:08 ◼ ► with the iPhone 4 that's really awesome. Apparently is more what they had in mind at the outset
00:31:15 ◼ ► in 2005, 2006 when they were developing the original iPhone all along. And in fact, according
00:31:22 ◼ ► to rumors, is where they're going later this year with next generation iPhone 12s, this
00:31:27 ◼ ► sort of flat back, flat sides sort of aesthetic that we now see on the iPad Pro. It's a great
00:31:48 ◼ ► thing, how about we'll make and sell bumpers that leave the back open so you can see them."
00:31:53 ◼ ► Exactly, so it still looks nice. And you can feel it, you can see and feel this glass that
00:32:03 ◼ ► I think, clearly. I agree with that, I agree with that. I think it's also telling that,
00:32:20 ◼ ► my 11 Pro Max. And I've gone back and forth, I've been a naked phone carrier, been a case
00:32:28 ◼ ► person. Now it wouldn't matter, to be totally honest, because I don't go anywhere. But,
00:32:37 ◼ ► even though I have AppleCare, that's going to take time out of my day, and this is expensive."
00:32:41 ◼ ► And now they're so expensive, I'm like, "No, I'm going to put this in a case." But I think
00:32:59 ◼ ► bumper actually solves the whole attenuation problem if you have it, so we'll just give
00:33:02 ◼ ► it to everybody." And then I think they ran away from bumpers permanently, because bumpers
00:33:07 ◼ ► became associated with Antennagate. Oh, that's a great point. Oh, that's an excellent point,
00:33:13 ◼ ► because it would be interesting. Like, now you could actually see, I wouldn't mind if I had some
00:33:17 ◼ ► sort of thin kind of bumper thing. I would actually like that, but I think you're exactly
00:33:21 ◼ ► right, because when I think bumper, the first thing I think is Antennagate. Like, they're
00:33:25 ◼ ► inextricably twined. I wanted to ask my theory. I don't know if it would work. I'm looking at the
00:33:31 ◼ ► back of my iPhone 11 now. I don't know if a bumper would work with the camera cut out. You might have
00:33:36 ◼ ► to design a phone with the camera inset enough to accommodate it. I don't know, but the whole
00:33:41 ◼ ► idea of bumper-style cases has just gone away. I thought they were great if you were going to,
00:33:46 ◼ ► and I actually knew way more people who used Apple bumpers with the iPhone 4 and 4S than who use
00:33:54 ◼ ► Apple-branded cases now. Like, almost nobody uses Apple-branded cases, even though in my opinion,
00:34:01 ◼ ► they're pretty nice cases. They're very nice. They're very nice, but they're expensive,
00:34:04 ◼ ► and I think that's the big thing. And they're expensive to the point where, to be totally
00:34:09 ◼ ► candid, I don't think it's worth, like, okay, it's $70 or something for the clear case for the Pro Max,
00:34:16 ◼ ► I think. A Spigen case is going to be like $20. It's nicer than the Spigen case. I don't think
00:34:23 ◼ ► it's $50 nicer. So that makes it hard, I think, for, and for a lot of people, they won't even
00:34:28 ◼ ► acknowledge that there's a, they won't even know that there's a difference, you know? So I think
00:34:32 ◼ ► that's the struggle. Like, the leather cases, I feel the same way about the iPad. I'm so mad
00:34:36 ◼ ► about my Smart Cover that I got from my 11-inch iPad Pro. That thing was so expensive, and it's
00:34:42 ◼ ► probably the worst Apple cover case anything I've ever owned. And it's falling apart. I need a new
00:34:48 ◼ ► one. But I also, like, am adamantly angry about having to spend that much money on this, you know,
00:34:57 ◼ ► like, magnet with, like, a flap. My wife has the 13-inch or 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and it's not,
00:35:07 ◼ ► not no keyboard cover, just, you know, just the cover cover. I don't know what you call it.
00:35:20 ◼ ► Keyboard is kind of smart because it's a keyboard, but like, a cover is kind of dumb. Like,
00:35:30 ◼ ► it the dumb cover. No, I think the reason they did originally was that the first ones had, like,
00:35:34 ◼ ► the magnet abilities. Right, right. It could open, it could turn it on, like, when you would open it
00:35:38 ◼ ► up. And so the ones that were like, like, polyethylene or vinyl or whatever, they would,
00:35:43 ◼ ► you know, be able to kind of fold and she would stand. I think that was the big difference was
00:35:47 ◼ ► that when you open it up, your iPad would turn on and when you closed it, it would turn off.
00:35:51 ◼ ► It's the same way that I completely forget. Once it's two years out of date, I completely forget
00:35:57 ◼ ► the which named version of Mac OS goes to which version number, like, yeah, like I do. And I love
00:36:03 ◼ ► it when they go and they do lion then mountain lion because I know mountain lion came after lion,
00:36:12 ◼ ► yeah, all the cats. I know all the cats and it's when they get into like the the Sierra and
00:36:18 ◼ ► high Sierra Mavericks and all that. So that's what I'm like. I don't know. I do know high Sierra came
00:36:23 ◼ ► after Sierra. But yes, but anyway, I feel the same way with smart blank. But anyway, my wife's
00:36:30 ◼ ► smart cover for iPad Pro looks like she picked it out of the trash. I mean, it is mine too. Yeah,
00:36:37 ◼ ► it is frayed at the corners and, and every other thing she owns in her life, whether it is technical
00:36:45 ◼ ► or Apple or I almost every other thing she owns from clothing to makeup to kick cooking, equip
00:36:56 ◼ ► stuff, anything she owns or her weightlifting equipment and exercise equipment and her gym stuff.
00:37:03 ◼ ► It all looks like she could send it back and get a refund as new even though she's been using it like
00:37:10 ◼ ► she takes tremendous care of everything she owns. The iPad itself, again, looks like if you just,
00:37:16 ◼ ► you know, wipe the fingerprints off the screen, you could take it back. But the cover, it looks
00:37:22 ◼ ► like she trash picked it. It's unbelievable. I don't understand how that how something so
00:37:28 ◼ ► expensive could be so fragile. But anyway, anyway, we're very short digression on the difference in
00:37:35 ◼ ► how long it took them to address and tennegate and the keyboard. And boy that that antenna gate thing
00:37:41 ◼ ► was very Steve Jobsian. And I wonder I do I often think about that. And I've thought about that. And
00:37:47 ◼ ► it's like, what would happen if they had the something exactly analogous to antenna gate? Now,
00:37:52 ◼ ► would they address it as quickly as they did? It was truly one of the most extraordinary of all
00:37:59 ◼ ► my time covering Apple, it was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever went through. And
00:38:06 ◼ ► I'm so glad that I did I would have been if I had been like a couple years behind on getting into
00:38:10 ◼ ► getting press passes and stuff like that for things like that. I would have been so you know,
00:38:17 ◼ ► like before my time like I wasn't there for like the original iPod introduction in 2012.
00:38:23 ◼ ► After 911. And I always wish boy that would have been a good one. Like Jason Snow was there. And it
00:38:30 ◼ ► seems like that was a good event. Just into in the context of post 911 America, and it was a small
00:38:36 ◼ ► thing. Yeah, and sort of a device that came out of nowhere. But the antenna was so bizarre because it
00:38:42 ◼ ► was like, I'm trying to remember what day the week it happened. It was like, I want to say that that
00:38:51 ◼ ► was I'm pretty sure that it was like, it might have even happened on like a Friday or something.
00:38:56 ◼ ► It was Yeah, that's what I feel like it was really late. Yeah. Because I remember so I was
00:39:01 ◼ ► the first Apple event I ever actually got like a press credential to was for the iPhone four.
00:39:07 ◼ ► And then my flight got in late and I wasn't able to go and I had to send someone else in my place.
00:39:12 ◼ ► And then that person was rude at the antenna gate event the following week. And then that messed up
00:39:18 ◼ ► my Apple relationship for like another two and a half years. So like it set me back and I was so
00:39:24 ◼ ► pissed like like like like Yeah, well, I'm not gonna like put the guy on blast. But if I did,
00:39:29 ◼ ► like people would understand like I totally I'm positive like I'd heard from other people. I was
00:39:34 ◼ ► like, Yeah, I can completely believe that. And so that you know, like mess up my relationship then
00:39:40 ◼ ► like for years like took me like effort to kind of claw back or whatever. And but I remember like
00:39:47 ◼ ► covering it and yeah, so the event happened and then the following week or maybe a few weeks later
00:39:52 ◼ ► whenever it shipped. Yeah, it was like late in the week was like a Thursday or Friday. And it was
00:39:58 ◼ ► early the next week when they had pivoted from the you're holding it wrong to having the the kind of
00:40:06 ◼ ► emergency meeting and issuing everybody the free bumpers or credit if you'd already bought one,
00:40:12 ◼ ► you know, you could get an Apple one or a third party one. And like it's stunning like it
00:40:17 ◼ ► completely it was so quick and it totally I mean, they completely managed the situation in a way
00:40:22 ◼ ► that like, not just comparing it to other Apple issues, but if you look at like an obviously
00:40:28 ◼ ► completely different level, like not even close, but when the when the note seven caught on fire,
00:40:37 ◼ ► so slow to respond to that. And then it caught on fire the second time, like, obviously the
00:40:45 ◼ ► antenna gate completely different thing apples to oranges, but they still responded so quickly that
00:40:51 ◼ ► it was pretty incredible. Honestly, I can't imagine what other event it would have been. So
00:40:56 ◼ ► it must have been antenna gate. And I don't know if it was a Friday or a Thursday or what but
00:41:00 ◼ ► it was like there was one day of the week where somebody from Apple PR called me and inquired
00:41:07 ◼ ► about my availability like maybe Monday. And I was like, yeah, probably and you know, and again,
00:41:12 ◼ ► typical Apple PR wouldn't say what it was about, but it was sort of like but also Apple PR, not
00:41:19 ◼ ► really, you know, was over the phone. So there's no literal winking, but there is when you deal
00:41:26 ◼ ► with them, they won't say anything that would confirm but there's also an acknowledgement
00:41:31 ◼ ► that you know, that I know that we both know this is about the antenna thing. And they don't,
00:41:37 ◼ ► you know, it it, I guess it's sort of not telling you what it's about, but also not gaslighting you
00:41:45 ◼ ► about it. Right? There is sort of a Yeah, you know, like, we won't say it, but yeah. And then
00:41:52 ◼ ► it was like a callback. And instead of like talking about Monday, it was like, could you be
00:41:56 ◼ ► here tomorrow morning? And it was, you know, from Philadelphia, that's actually like, I don't know,
00:42:01 ◼ ► that's hard. And I remember it because the thing that I remember is I flew an airline that I've
00:42:06 ◼ ► never flown before or after probably the Delta or United like Delta and United are major airlines,
00:42:19 ◼ ► US Air now it's American. But at the time, also American when US Air and American were different,
00:42:26 ◼ ► they were actually both pretty big in Philly and Southwest. And it was like the only flight,
00:42:31 ◼ ► not the only way to get to San Francisco that night was like a United flight. It was like two
00:42:38 ◼ ► in the afternoon, it was like a 430 flight didn't actually cost that much. I guess it's sort of like
00:42:45 ◼ ► that that whole game you play with last minute travel where it's like, sometimes they'll,
00:42:49 ◼ ► they'll like charge you first class flight prices for the seat next to the toilet in the back of the
00:42:56 ◼ ► plane. And other times they're like, Oh my god, you'll buy this an empty seat on this plane that's
00:43:01 ◼ ► leaving in two hours? Sure, here is 400 bucks. And it's like, Oh, that's not bad. You know, and like,
00:43:13 ◼ ► Right? It's like, it's like, is there enough time, right? And I just checked. It was actually 10
00:43:18 ◼ ► years ago last week, the time that it changed was July 12, when Consumer Reports, which was a Monday,
00:43:24 ◼ ► and Consumer Reports basically said that it couldn't recommend the iPhone for because of
00:43:28 ◼ ► the antenna issues. And then they had the event on the 16th, which would have been a Friday. So
00:43:33 ◼ ► it was a Friday. So it was like a Thursday, and it was Thursday. And I didn't. So I got the call,
00:43:37 ◼ ► like, Philadelphia time, like two in the afternoon, like, hey, we're gonna do it. We're gonna have
00:43:41 ◼ ► it a thing tomorrow morning. I was on like a 415 United flight to SFO, you know, and I pack light
00:43:49 ◼ ► and I live close to the airport. So actually, I remember it was actually wasn't even hectic.
00:43:53 ◼ ► It was like, it wasn't even like, I'm, oh, God is how old I am. OJ Simpson running down the
00:43:58 ◼ ► airport terminal. You know, it was like casual, but it was like, all of a sudden, I'm like,
00:44:05 ◼ ► you know, on an airplane to California and two and a half hours before I thought I was, you know,
00:44:10 ◼ ► sitting at home. But it was that quick, that fast. And it's sort of, you know, not that they were
00:44:18 ◼ ► winging it, but that they literally at the last minute, you know, and again, would Apple do this
00:44:22 ◼ ► today impossible to it's really hard to conceive that they would that they opened the event with
00:44:27 ◼ ► Jonathan Mann's iPhone for antenna song, which in jobs was dancing to it, which is so great. Like,
00:44:34 ◼ ► there's the little moment where you could like see him dancing to if you don't like it, don't buy it.
00:44:38 ◼ ► Like, you don't like it. And I, I don't think john I've, I've spoken to Jonathan Mann several times
00:44:45 ◼ ► about it. It was a huge thrill for him. They did get his permission. It was and again, very last
00:44:50 ◼ ► minute, it was like they got a hold of him somehow. And we're like, Hey, can we can we would you sign
00:44:57 ◼ ► this thing that says we can use this song? And he's like, what serious? What? Still had no idea
00:45:01 ◼ ► what he was like, of course, here, whatever you need. And then to find out that they opened the
00:45:05 ◼ ► event with it, he had no idea. All he knew is that he'd given him permission to use it.
00:45:09 ◼ ► And it's because the song expressed what they wanted to say, which Steve wanted to say,
00:45:16 ◼ ► in a friendly, funny, this is all a big joke way. But the, the lyrics, if you don't want it,
00:45:26 ◼ ► don't buy it. It's almost like I almost feel like jobs. I wanted to say, you know what,
00:45:34 ◼ ► we actually had a thing to tell you about, but that song actually says it also. There you go.
00:45:38 ◼ ► Here's a free bumper. Anyway, but it was different, and it did nip it in the bud in a way.
00:45:46 ◼ ► But it does go to the so I think they dealt with it very effectively. I think it is a textbook
00:45:53 ◼ ► example that you could do not just a lecture on but an entire set of Yeah, it's like, it's like,
00:46:00 ◼ ► no, it's like bear or Tylenol or whoever. It was super. It's one of those levels. And obviously,
00:46:06 ◼ ► again, the stakes are completely different. I in no way want to equate people dying because people
00:46:11 ◼ ► were, you know, poisoning medicine with, you know, your attenuation on yeah, cyanide, yeah,
00:46:23 ◼ ► it now it's been a decade, I'm sure it's being taught in business schools. Like, I'd be shocked.
00:46:26 ◼ ► Trenton Larkin And PR schools too, you know, like totally how to do public relations. And
00:46:30 ◼ ► it actually would make a good back to back thing with the Tylenol. Where here's, here's high stakes
00:46:35 ◼ ► life and death, but only like 10 people and they actually, you know, they actually knew, which and
00:46:41 ◼ ► that's, that's sort of the a B scenario that makes it so different. So you've got a totally different
00:46:46 ◼ ► thing in the stakes where one was, there really were people who bought, you know, a handful of
00:46:52 ◼ ► people, but they really did buy containers of Tylenol that were laced with cyanide. So that's
00:46:57 ◼ ► a real life and death issue. Can't, stakes don't go any higher. And then you're, you know, yeah,
00:47:01 ◼ ► we're talking about iPhone attenuation. And it wasn't like your phone couldn't make phone calls,
00:47:06 ◼ ► you know, unless you lived on a somewhere where you had really sketchy service to begin with.
00:47:11 ◼ ► It's like, come on, right? It's not it. Not that totally. But it was, it was a big contrast in how
00:47:19 ◼ ► many people were affected. Tylenol knew exactly which vials had the cyanide. They really didn't.
00:47:24 ◼ ► They wasn't like they took it all off the shelves because they weren't sure. They knew exactly which
00:47:29 ◼ ► ones, you know, that the kook who did this had access to, you know, if you just look at all of,
00:47:35 ◼ ► it's not like a new thing. Even back in the 80s, they had numbers on the bottom of the thing that
00:47:40 ◼ ► told them which ones were packed on which day and stuff like that. But they just did that for the
00:47:44 ◼ ► public relations. Whereas the iPhone attenuation issue wasn't just a bad batch of 10 iPhones,
00:47:56 ◼ ► yeah, so it affected everyone. So they obviously couldn't do the thing. They're not going to recall
00:48:00 ◼ ► the phone. But coming up with a way to mitigate it and handle it. And yeah, I agree with you,
00:48:06 ◼ ► I think that it, it largely was successful. I mean, there were people who would still kind of
00:48:10 ◼ ► make the cracks and whatnot. But I interestingly, and the similar thing happened with Ben Gate,
00:48:15 ◼ ► which was much smaller, where what happened would be that people would test other phones,
00:48:20 ◼ ► which in some ways gives Apple like clearance, because then you're not alone, right? So it's
00:48:25 ◼ ► like, okay, this other phone has this issue too, just like this other phone, if you are purposefully
00:48:31 ◼ ► bending it, I'm rolling my eyes, and you know, is going to going to break. So that that's the
00:48:38 ◼ ► that's the I guess, was the good thing for them is that any long lasting damage because they handled
00:48:44 ◼ ► it so quickly. I think they had a lot of cover because everybody was testing every phone at that
00:48:48 ◼ ► point, not just iPhones. Yeah. Which brings us to my point, which is why why not pull a Steve Jobs
00:48:56 ◼ ► with the App Store stuff? Yeah, I agree. And I wonder if it part of it is that hubris thing you
00:49:03 ◼ ► talk about, they've been so successful. And they've kind of created this market that other people
00:49:09 ◼ ► have followed. I mean, they weren't the first digital market, but they with iTunes, definitely
00:49:15 ◼ ► the first substantial one. And, you know, their their commission model has been, you know, copied
00:49:20 ◼ ► by everyone. But they're the criticisms that have been lobbied against them by by developers been
00:49:27 ◼ ► happening for years. And it's just building and building and building. And I wonder if it's the
00:49:32 ◼ ► hubris of we've been so successful, and we continue to generate so much more revenue that blinds
00:49:37 ◼ ► people from seeing that. And then there's a really cynical part of me that also thinks revenue is now
00:49:43 ◼ ► the thing that is driving growth of the company or not revenue services are now the thing that
00:49:47 ◼ ► are driving growth of the company. So it's no longer phone sales, it was phone sales and hardware
00:49:51 ◼ ► sales for many, many, many, many years. That's no longer what's driving the company growth. The only
00:49:56 ◼ ► way the company continues to grow is if it is which is what Wall Street wants. Now, whether it
00:50:01 ◼ ► needs to grow or not, I think is a different question. But if the company is going to continue
00:50:05 ◼ ► to grow the way that Wall Street wants, their one real avenue is to increase services. And that's
00:50:11 ◼ ► why we've seen this tremendous, tremendous like, like push of services, whether it's putting, you
00:50:17 ◼ ► know, different like ads in your in the wallet app, and, you know, trying to encourage people to
00:50:22 ◼ ► upsell to either, you know, Apple Music, if you have Apple Music, buy a family plan. I'm like, I
00:50:28 ◼ ► don't have anybody else in a family account, like, why? Why are you showing me that, you know, to
00:50:34 ◼ ► Apple News Plus and whatnot, they are really, really doubling and tripling down on services.
00:50:40 ◼ ► So I think the cynical part of me is that the people who might be arguing that Apple go back
00:50:49 ◼ ► and kind of have the Steve Jobs moment and revisit things are being talked over by the people who are
00:50:56 ◼ ► like, okay, but if we do that, we potentially lose this much money, which we need to continue to show
00:51:03 ◼ ► growth. There's a lot to unpack there. That was absolutely excellent. I can't believe that it
00:51:08 ◼ ► came out extemporaneously that you could just like to transcribe that posted. I let's actually put it
00:51:18 ◼ ► but that's so good. And there's so much to unpack. Let's put a put a finger on it because we'll come
00:51:22 ◼ ► right back to it. And let me just take a break here and thank our next sponsor, good friends at
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00:53:42 ◼ ► 10% on a whole year. Squarespace.com/talkshow. So yeah, let's unpack this bit by bit. So
00:53:51 ◼ ► one way to do it is, and what I'm saying, and so there's the app store angle and then there's the
00:54:15 ◼ ► a lot of what people are complaining about and on the laundry list of things, some people want
00:54:21 ◼ ► to see changed at the app store is the issue of Apple's 30% commission and the rules over
00:54:27 ◼ ► which apps and for which reasons have to use the in-app purchases to go through commerce.
00:54:33 ◼ ► And Apple gets 30% of that and it's a lot of money and it all counts as quote unquote services. And
00:54:39 ◼ ► services is their narrative growth, their narrative to Wall Street of how the company's
00:54:44 ◼ ► growing. It's the division that we break out, we being Apple breakout that is growing. So I get it,
00:54:51 ◼ ► they're not unrelated, but I think we can kind of unpack them separately. So what's the list of
00:54:59 ◼ ► things some people would like to see changed at the app store? One of them is the 30/70 split
00:55:06 ◼ ► that turns to 85/15 for a subscription after a year. And some people would like to see Apple
00:55:13 ◼ ► charge less than 30% at least to start. Like for example, you could say, what if you started
00:55:20 ◼ ► 85/15 and then subscriptions go to seven and a half percent after a year or something like that,
00:55:26 ◼ ► or just 85/15 and that's it. Just skip right to the 85/15 and keep it there. Just go to the one
00:55:33 ◼ ► year mark and do everything 85/15. There's that. There's the, you can't use other payment stuff.
00:55:42 ◼ ► You can't just say, well, I'm not using your in-app purchase. I'll just take the credit card
00:55:48 ◼ ► in my app to turn it from the free trial to the full version. Then there's the outside thing,
00:55:57 ◼ ► which I like to call the Netflix rule, right? So you download Netflix. Netflix is on your phone and
00:56:02 ◼ ► you launch it and it says, what's your email and password to sign into Netflix. And if you have one,
00:56:09 ◼ ► you sign it in and then you're using Netflix. And if you don't, you have to figure out on your own.
00:56:15 ◼ ► You have to go to Netflix, sign up, pay them there, then come back and do it. That's where the whole,
00:56:22 ◼ ► hey, email thing blew up because that's what the Basecamp company is doing with Basecamp and has
00:56:31 ◼ ► been doing for a while. Very successful product that's been around for years, but their iOS app
00:56:37 ◼ ► strategy is that they have an app that you download and you launch it and it says, what's
00:56:43 ◼ ► your Basecamp email and password. And if you don't have one, you kind of have to go figure it out,
00:56:48 ◼ ► but then they collect all the money on this side. They do it like Netflix. They assumed they could
00:56:53 ◼ ► do the same thing with, hey, their email app and service because there are in fact, that's because,
00:56:59 ◼ ► A, that's what they did with Basecamp. B, that's what apps like Netflix, et cetera, do. And C,
00:57:03 ◼ ► that's what other email apps even do, specifically email. And then they found out from Apple that,
00:57:10 ◼ ► no, if you want to be in the app store, you've got to have an option to sign up in the app,
00:57:33 ◼ ► you could just go to hey.com and download their app and install it on your phone separately,
00:57:43 ◼ ► but let us go outside the store and even have that off by default, like the Mac with all the,
00:57:52 ◼ ► Gatekeeper. So on by default, only app store only, then you'd go into settings and say,
00:57:58 ◼ ► turn off Gatekeeper and let me, and then there'd be a warning that says something hopefully not
00:58:09 ◼ ► turn it off. And now you can install apps from apps at the app store. People want them to allow
00:58:20 ◼ ► would be separate. Yeah, it's a separate thing. They want an alternative distribution thing. So
00:58:25 ◼ ► they want like someone like Epic or Steam or someone like that to be able to have their own
00:58:30 ◼ ► rules and store or specific things. Right. But just the reason I had to correct myself there is
00:58:36 ◼ ► just allowing sideloading through Gatekeeper would not necessarily would not allow you might think
00:58:47 ◼ ► if they allow you to install whatever you want, whatever you want might be a thing that's also an
00:58:53 ◼ ► app store. But that that the thing I was forgetting is that we even with Gatekeeper, you can be
00:58:59 ◼ ► sandboxed. And the idea would be even with sideloaded apps, they would still be sandboxed.
00:59:04 ◼ ► And the sandbox is a technical thing, not a voluntary thing. And you would have to sign your
00:59:10 ◼ ► app. You know, that's the thing where you would need to be signed, it still needs to go through
00:59:14 ◼ ► me no rise and Apple could revoke your developer certificate to disable the app, even if it's not
00:59:19 ◼ ► going through the app store, if it was found to be malware or otherwise harmful or dangerous,
00:59:24 ◼ ► etc, etc. So I think that's a basic list of the things. And you know, some of them are about money,
00:59:32 ◼ ► and some of them are not. But all of them, you might argue, at some degree would mean Apple's
00:59:38 ◼ ► making less money from third party apps. And so therefore, it's a non starter. And I think that's
00:59:43 ◼ ► foolish. I think it's, it might be true. But basically, my argument, it comes down to not
00:59:51 ◼ ► everything can have a dollar value. And and I think that it in, if you're looking at the world,
01:00:00 ◼ ► through Wall Street, Wall Street is sort of set up the whole idea of a stock price is to take the
01:00:07 ◼ ► entirety of a company and these the companies that we're talking about, you know, like your apples
01:00:13 ◼ ► and Microsoft's and Google's and even Facebook and these giant companies, it's very hard to encapsulate
01:00:19 ◼ ► them into a very neat package, let alone one number. But that's what the idea of a stock price
01:00:28 ◼ ► is that you take all of the complexity and the future, the entire future of a giant multinational
01:00:35 ◼ ► corporation, and you assign a dollar value to to it. And you say that's what the company's worth.
01:00:39 ◼ ► And that's what it would cost for you to buy a fractional share of the company. So what it is
01:00:45 ◼ ► now, if to me, I'm not saying the stock market should be abolished. I'm not saying it's a bad
01:00:50 ◼ ► idea. You know, it's it. That's not my argument. What I'm saying, though, is that that is one way
01:00:57 ◼ ► of looking at it, that might be necessary, it is necessary to have publicly held corporations.
01:01:03 ◼ ► But that doesn't actually encompass all of it. It's like saying that, you know, a movie is what
01:01:10 ◼ ► it makes at the box office. And therefore, the box office, the best, you know, whichever movies
01:01:15 ◼ ► make the most money or the best movies. Well, very few people would agree with that, even if
01:01:20 ◼ ► their favorite three movies happen to be the three movies that made the most, they'd still,
01:01:25 ◼ ► I think even those people would agree, well, that's, that's just, I happen to like blockbusters,
01:01:29 ◼ ► or I like these blockbusters. I'm not arguing that that's a measure of the value of movies.
01:01:34 ◼ ► I mean, I mean, some Marvel fanboys and some like Lord of the Ring fanboys would probably take that.
01:01:39 ◼ ► But I think in general, right. That's, that's not the case. But, yeah. So is, are there other things
01:01:48 ◼ ► that can't put a value that Apple can't put a value on, you know, financial dollar amount?
01:01:54 ◼ ► I would say that it is impossible to put a dollar amount on the regulatory headwinds they're
01:02:01 ◼ ► currently facing. Tim Cook is currently scheduled to testify next week before Congress.
01:02:07 ◼ ► It was originally scheduled for Monday. And that's not going to happen Monday because of the
01:02:11 ◼ ► ceremonies involving John Lewis, who died last week. He'll be resting in state. So I think,
01:02:19 ◼ ► I don't know if they officially announced this postponed. But I think all of that testimony is,
01:02:24 ◼ ► I don't know if it's postponed days a week or whatever, but it's coming, it is definitely
01:02:28 ◼ ► going to happen. And, and all of this, I mean, that that testimony isn't going to be the end of it.
01:02:39 ◼ ► concerned about the European Commission, because of their history with, with what they do with
01:02:45 ◼ ► that. But yeah, sorry, go on. I just don't think that even if you might be able, you probably could
01:02:50 ◼ ► take some of those policies that I listed. And, you know, just say the easiest one to me
01:03:15 ◼ ► what if we just said, we'll have third party app stores, and Google can have an app store,
01:03:20 ◼ ► and Facebook can have an iPhone app store, and Epic can have one where they sell games.
01:03:29 ◼ ► and financial ways for Apple. Let's just talk 8515. Right there, you really could mostly measure
01:03:36 ◼ ► this in money, it would be more money to developers without raising without changing the prices of
01:03:42 ◼ ► their products in this app store. Yep. You know, because 15 and 30 are different numbers, and it
01:03:50 ◼ ► would be less money for Apple. I thinking, you know, off the top right away. But maybe if it got
01:03:57 ◼ ► more developers to get into the store and do it this way, like what if I don't think they would
01:04:04 ◼ ► in particular, but let's just say that if Apple said it's 88515, maybe the Basecamp people would
01:04:11 ◼ ► say, hey, that's good enough for us, we will put in the app store and more apps would do it. So
01:04:17 ◼ ► you can't quite say that doing that would reduce Apple's money, right? And it, you know,
01:04:22 ◼ ► without devolving. Yeah, it's hard to say. And because I think I think the big thing there would
01:04:26 ◼ ► be would you be able to retain the services that are the number one apps are the number one
01:04:31 ◼ ► services like would you know, the Spotify is and the Netflix is, would they not remove the in app
01:04:39 ◼ ► purchase module? That that I think is the question would a 15% you know, split be worth it to them.
01:04:46 ◼ ► And in some cases it might be it depends on the margin of the business because you can make the
01:04:50 ◼ ► argument and I think it's a very good argument to say, okay, by being in the App Store and having
01:04:55 ◼ ► this mechanism you this is essentially a way to onboard new users who you might not otherwise be
01:05:02 ◼ ► able to get. I think that what Netflix in particular is so opposed to and they're not wrong
01:05:07 ◼ ► is that at this point, I don't know if anyone is going to learn about Netflix for the first time
01:05:20 ◼ ► App Store is doing nothing to bring me a net new customer. They already know about the service.
01:05:25 ◼ ► They are already going to be using this on other devices too, especially if they're using any sort
01:05:30 ◼ ► of TV device, which is where a tremendous amount of Netflix content is consumed. Apple TV has gone
01:05:36 ◼ ► from being a large share of what the premium services, the percentage of things watched to
01:05:41 ◼ ► a very small share. And so I think from Netflix's perspective, they're like, we're not getting new
01:05:53 ◼ ► subscription services that have to maybe adjust their rates because of the App Store percentage,
01:06:00 ◼ ► if it were cut down, there's a possibility that they might not take the hay approach and be like,
01:06:11 ◼ ► compensates for what we're getting both in terms of billing and some of the support things and
01:06:17 ◼ ► currency, you know, negotiations and whatnot, as well as bringing us net new users who we wouldn't
01:06:24 ◼ ► be able to grab directly from our website or whatever sort of paid media we would have to do.
01:06:31 ◼ ► Right. So that's why I would say more than 85/15, even though it's gotten the most attention,
01:06:45 ◼ ► John, we really, you know, we hear you on this App Store stuff, you've got five minutes with Tim Cook
01:06:53 ◼ ► to bend his ear on this and maybe change his mind. I would focus entirely on the idea of extending
01:07:01 ◼ ► what I call the Netflix rule to all developers. Yes. And I would just say on my, when my five
01:07:08 ◼ ► minutes is over and they're escorting me out the door and he's thanking me, and of course,
01:07:11 ◼ ► you know, poker face that Tim Cook has, giving nothing, right? Like, that to me is the difference
01:07:17 ◼ ► between like Steve Jobs and Tim Cook is that you could read Steve Jobs like a book, right? Like,
01:07:22 ◼ ► doesn't matter what he's saying. If he thinks you're a bozo, you're a bozo. Whereas Tim Cook,
01:07:27 ◼ ► you get nothing. Thank you, John. And as I'm leaving, I would just say, and by the way,
01:07:31 ◼ ► maybe think about 85/15 instead of 70/30. Right? But I would spend the whole time trying to
01:07:38 ◼ ► pitch him on just open the Netflix rule to everybody because as it's instituted right now,
01:07:43 ◼ ► with this quote unquote, they call them reader apps, which is ridiculous. But it speaks to the
01:07:49 ◼ ► fact Apple, again, it gets to the fact naming things is hard. And Apple is actually really
01:07:55 ◼ ► good at naming things in general, maybe not their products. Hey, look, I work at I work at a place
01:08:02 ◼ ► where naming is not what we're good at. So I think they're pretty good with naming honestly. Yeah.
01:08:07 ◼ ► But yeah, you know, they're pretty good at naming things. And when it comes to things like that,
01:08:12 ◼ ► they're usually pretty good and calling Netflix a reader app or Spotify a reader app, which is
01:08:17 ◼ ► fantastic. It's a fantastic one two combo. Because one of them you pretty much just listen to and the
01:08:23 ◼ ► other one you pretty much are watching shows. Yeah. You know, my theory on that is, my theory
01:08:30 ◼ ► on that is that it all started with with the with the Kindle. So that was the first time that they
01:08:34 ◼ ► started to enforce these rules. And this was in 2011. And Sony was hit first because Sony had
01:08:40 ◼ ► an e reader store that was only available in their app, you couldn't actually go to their website.
01:08:45 ◼ ► And so Sony was hit first, and Sony was banned. And I actually remember because I had a conversation
01:08:50 ◼ ► with Apple PR, and they explained that to me that because that the store exists only inside the
01:08:57 ◼ ► application. That's why Sony would need to pay 30% for all their ebook purchases. And what Sony wound
01:09:03 ◼ ► up doing because they didn't have the infra to create and set up like a full web store, is they
01:09:09 ◼ ► just ended the store. And that I think was one of the things that led to them exiting that part of
01:09:13 ◼ ► the e reader business. So for a while for another few weeks, Kindle was fine. Because you know,
01:09:20 ◼ ► the original Kindle app on an iPad and iPhone you could buy within like a web view on in the
01:09:26 ◼ ► application. Then that switched. And Kindle had to comply or get out. And even at first,
01:09:36 ◼ ► I think very briefly, they were allowed to have a link to the store. And then that was very quickly
01:09:41 ◼ ► turned down. And so the the way around that I think was that, you know, Amazon created like an
01:09:47 ◼ ► HTML five, like a version of the the Kindle store that was kind of optimized for iPad, and they
01:09:54 ◼ ► would have instructions where they'd show you how you could put it on your home screen and kind of
01:09:57 ◼ ► have to teach people how to do that process. It was it was difficult for them to be explicit about
01:10:03 ◼ ► it, but they were as explicit as they could be. And so my view is that the reason they call them
01:10:09 ◼ ► reader apps is because it started with that it extended to Netflix and Spotify. And that became
01:10:14 ◼ ► the much bigger thing. But I think because it started with the Kindle, because that was the
01:10:18 ◼ ► first one that was the first time that they ever started enforcing that kind of 30% on these
01:10:23 ◼ ► digital goods purchase from other you know, third parties that okay, Apple gets a cut to even even
01:10:29 ◼ ► though, you know, presumably, I don't even know how you would bring something like the Kindle store
01:10:36 ◼ ► to the iPhone, right? Like you'd have to upload every single item for an in app purchase. Like
01:10:41 ◼ ► there'd be no way to even do that. But they were just saying, Okay, if you want that, then we need
01:10:45 ◼ ► to get a cut. And I that's my theory is why they call it reader apps, even though it's completely
01:10:54 ◼ ► And you know, and they've made other exceptions. There are email apps that are in there using the
01:11:01 ◼ ► same sort of thing and a couple of there are although although I've heard from people because
01:11:06 ◼ ► there have been a number of apps that have gone through this. And I've heard from some very,
01:11:10 ◼ ► very large app developers that this has been like a over the last few months, an issue of negotiation.
01:11:17 ◼ ► And that it's been one of those things where even some of their updates have been delayed until they
01:11:22 ◼ ► can kind of work out how they remove fast mail or just their fast mail went on the record because
01:11:27 ◼ ► fast a great, great email provider fast mail. Yeah, I think they own the P o box now like p o box
01:11:34 ◼ ► calm, which has been a long standing independent email provider. Maybe not. I don't know. Maybe I
01:11:39 ◼ ► might be confusing. But I know fast mail does fast mail has a great service. It's pure imap. So you
01:11:44 ◼ ► can use it with Apple mail or Microsoft Outlook or Gmail or whatever, anything that speaks imap,
01:11:50 ◼ ► which is the lingua franca of email. And one of the problems with imap is that there are all
01:11:55 ◼ ► sorts of different imap implementations. Trust me, I know this. It's a long story. But imap is
01:12:00 ◼ ► not just imap that all over the map in terms of how it's standards compliant. But fast mails is
01:12:05 ◼ ► actually very great. They even have great push email service. So like you don't have to do
01:12:11 ◼ ► anything, you just put in your credentials. And Apple mail will give you push email so you don't
01:12:15 ◼ ► have to check frequently. It's great for your phone. But they also have a fast mail app that
01:12:21 ◼ ► I don't know what else it does and why you might use it. But because I don't use fast mail
01:12:25 ◼ ► personally, but they do. And people pointed to it because you download the fast mail app. And it just
01:12:29 ◼ ► says what's your email and password and there's no way to sign up. And fast mail publicly said on
01:12:34 ◼ ► Twitter because people it you know, we're saying hey, fast mail, you know, did you see this thing
01:12:37 ◼ ► with hey, and they're like, yes, Apple and very politely, you know, delicately in the way that
01:12:41 ◼ ► companies talk to each other, especially when there's a power imbalance. Yes. We're like,
01:12:46 ◼ ► yes, Apple has been in contact with us. And it's actually on our list for a future update to adopt
01:12:51 ◼ ► in app purchasing going forward. Yeah. So, okay, but I would just say, just just do it. Just give
01:12:57 ◼ ► everybody the Netflix option. Agreed. And, and make a very clear distinction that if you do
01:13:04 ◼ ► commerce for digital content, again, something like the way that you can buy real world stuff,
01:13:10 ◼ ► like you can go you can open the Amazon app and buy a six pack of soda and have it delivered to
01:13:15 ◼ ► your house. And it's not an in app purchase that Apple gets, they draw the distinction for digital
01:13:20 ◼ ► content. If it's an in app purchase for digital content, it and you do it in the app, you have to
01:13:26 ◼ ► use Apple's in app purchasing things, and pay Apple their cut, whatever their cut is, and that
01:13:33 ◼ ► changing that cut is a separate discussion. And if you don't want to use it, you have to do it
01:13:39 ◼ ► outside the app. And so no web view in the app, you have to go to a website and do it there. And
01:13:45 ◼ ► if you want to do it that way, you do it that way. And then say we think in app purchasing
01:13:51 ◼ ► is so much more convenient, so much more secure, and not secure in this spooky sense that like 20
01:13:58 ◼ ► years ago, people are like, No way am I putting my credit card on the internet. It's more like,
01:14:03 ◼ ► and it's sort of coincidence that I mentioned it, but like the way that if you sign up for a New
01:14:07 ◼ ► York Times subscription, I was just thinking this, right? Exactly. So I you sign up for a New York
01:14:11 ◼ ► Times subscription at New York times.com, and you want to unsubscribe, and you have to call them
01:14:17 ◼ ► on the telephone and spend 45 minutes with them talking you out of it before they let you do it.
01:14:28 ◼ ► through an in app purchase, and you would like to unsubscribe, you go to Settings, iCloud
01:14:38 ◼ ► you're unsubscribed, and they'll never get your dollar again, you know. So like, it is a tremendous
01:14:43 ◼ ► advantage to users that you can feel, you can know if you bought it through the app, you know,
01:14:49 ◼ ► it went through your iTunes account, and you know, that you are not going to get billed more than you
01:14:55 ◼ ► agreed to. And you know that if you would like to cancel a subscription, it is easy and obvious how
01:15:01 ◼ ► to do it. And you do it. It's easy, obvious, and it's exactly like canceling any other subscription.
01:15:06 ◼ ► Yeah, no, I'm in full agreement. I would, I would probably make the same plea because to me,
01:15:17 ◼ ► they could do one, they could do the other, they could do both. But to me, if they only do one,
01:15:22 ◼ ► I would just say extend that Netflix rule to everybody. Yeah, no, I would agree with that.
01:15:25 ◼ ► I would agree with that. I mean, I think that there are, and I, the reason I like that is that
01:15:29 ◼ ► part of the thing that concerns me with this move to services that I think has been kind of lost in
01:15:35 ◼ ► some of the discussion around these broader things has been that what's happened is that
01:15:41 ◼ ► the system has become gamified around, frankly, really shady and really gross practices by
01:15:49 ◼ ► like really scummy app developers who do really gross things to push people into paying
01:15:55 ◼ ► several hundred dollars a year for a basic utility app because of the way that they show,
01:16:15 ◼ ► to make money. And those apps, the more people point them out, aren't being taken down. Like,
01:16:20 ◼ ► I can buy the argument about why you need to have these rules to keep up the quality of the app
01:16:25 ◼ ► store. If the quality of the app store is actually in a good place, I would argue that it's not.
01:16:31 ◼ ► And so to me, it's, it's a, it's a bad faith argument to say, oh, well, we have to have,
01:16:35 ◼ ► the reason we can't allow customers to sign up for a service outside the app like they can with
01:16:41 ◼ ► Netflix is because it's a bad user experience. That's really disingenuous because there are so
01:16:53 ◼ ► having to maybe go to a website or be confused and decide to delete the app. Like to me, that
01:16:58 ◼ ► is, is the wrong argument. And so I'm with you. If you could only pick one, I think extend the,
01:17:05 ◼ ► the Netflix rule to everyone. And honestly, I think that the vast majority of services and
01:17:12 ◼ ► developers who don't have, you know, a massive built in user base or have a massive ability to
01:17:19 ◼ ► bring people in and pay for on their own platforms would still find it very reasonable to at least
01:17:27 ◼ ► have the option to have people sign up, you know, maybe not be the only way people can sign up,
01:17:31 ◼ ► but, but at least have the option. Like, I do think that you would see the drop off on some of your
01:17:43 ◼ ► on it and you, and you know, I'm sure internally somebody, you know, Tim Cook would commission
01:17:47 ◼ ► somebody inside the company to put a dollar amount on it. You can't put a dollar amount on the
01:17:54 ◼ ► regulatory weight that would be lifted off Apple's shoulders if they did that and just said, Hey,
01:18:00 ◼ ► you know, I keep saying, Hey, I think I say, Hey, all the time. Like, and a whole bunch of people
01:18:05 ◼ ► told me that when I did my live episode from WWDC that I should start the show by telling people,
01:18:10 ◼ ► you know, say the word, Hey. And it's like, I would probably do that anyway. I think every time
01:18:15 ◼ ► I start talking, I say, Hey, it's just sort of good word, not really a joke. It's actually just
01:18:29 ◼ ► about Hey.com, the email, but they've even said that that's, that's their big thing. They don't
01:18:35 ◼ ► really, you know, it'd be nice if their 70/30 was split, but they just want to be able to sign
01:18:39 ◼ ► people up and they trust themselves to do it. And even exactly, even with the Apple has never said
01:18:45 ◼ ► this out loud, but it is obvious. And you see what they promote in the app store that they don't
01:18:53 ◼ ► promote apps that don't like to my knowledge, they've never had an app store story profiling
01:19:01 ◼ ► Netflix, you know, no, but they do have things about what you can watch on Netflix and shows you
01:19:07 ◼ ► can stream. And that's because you talked about power dynamic earlier and that were power been
01:19:12 ◼ ► balanced rather earlier. This is what's so interesting to me about this is that at a certain
01:19:17 ◼ ► point, you know, Netflix and Spotify and some of the other places, you know, Amazon video, whatnot,
01:19:22 ◼ ► Apple clearly was in the power position at a certain point. And I think this is why Netflix
01:19:29 ◼ ► gets special rules and can get special rules is that that power imbalance has shifted. I think
01:19:34 ◼ ► it's slight. I think that they're probably near equal, but at this point I pause it and I feel
01:19:39 ◼ ► pretty strongly about this. I've said this on Twitter and I feel very strong about this, that
01:19:42 ◼ ► Netflix now has more power than Apple does in that relationship because Apple needs Netflix on their
01:19:49 ◼ ► devices. You can't sell iPhones and iPads and say there is no Netflix. Exactly. Even more to the
01:19:55 ◼ ► point, you know, like Apple TV, like it's famously not part of the TV's app and it won't be. And yet
01:20:02 ◼ ► they still have to show these are things you can watch and, and integrate with it. And they, it has
01:20:07 ◼ ► serious support. Like they, yeah, at this point, Netflix has the dominant position there. And so
01:20:13 ◼ ► they can do that. Most companies aren't going to have that. And, but for those that do, or those
01:20:19 ◼ ► that want to take the base camper out and say, we can do this ourselves. I don't see the harm.
01:20:24 ◼ ► Cause again, I mean, my, my thought is that I, other than maybe some of the biggest players who
01:20:31 ◼ ► already have special agreements, like the bizarre Amazon agreement, um, where you can actually do
01:20:36 ◼ ► in-app purchase through your Amazon account for Amazon video, which is that's, you know,
01:20:41 ◼ ► completely bizarre. Uh, at this point, it's one of those things where I don't think that you would see
01:20:48 ◼ ► developers just fleeing the app store entirely. Some of them might, but I don't, I, but what it
01:20:54 ◼ ► would do to your point would be really reduced the, the, uh, you know, kind of the, the, uh, trade
01:21:01 ◼ ► winds coming from regulation. And to me, like you want to be real careful with the regulatory climate
01:21:08 ◼ ► because what the regulators could introduce would be things that I think would be both bad for Apple
01:21:14 ◼ ► and frankly bad for users like alternative app stores. I think alternative app stores is bad
01:21:19 ◼ ► for users. I think that alternative payment platforms is actually bad for users. And if you
01:21:25 ◼ ► don't want that, right. And that's the thing is you have to, and I know that there are, I'm
01:21:30 ◼ ► interrupting you only because I know that there are people listening who have the good, the points of
01:21:34 ◼ ► alternative payment that would be good and they want to raise their hand. But I think a full
01:21:39 ◼ ► listing of all the things that could happen that are bad and the reduction in trust of knowing that
01:21:43 ◼ ► if you're in the app, you can, you're doing it the Apple way through your iTunes account is an
01:21:49 ◼ ► overall negative. Sorry to interrupt. No, no, no, no. You're you're not, I, I agree. It is trade
01:21:55 ◼ ► offs. And look, I do understand why people would make those arguments. I don't disagree, I guess
01:22:00 ◼ ► like top level, but I think when you, when it comes down to it, the bottom line is that when
01:22:05 ◼ ► people use, we've been trained for 13 years, 12 years, I guess since there've been apps that if
01:22:09 ◼ ► you buy something, it's going through Apple. And if you switch that, so you feel secure. If you
01:22:14 ◼ ► switch that to, it could be going someplace else and you don't have that trust your relationship.
01:22:19 ◼ ► That's really negative. And that could be really devastating if the payment provider isn't
01:22:24 ◼ ► scrupulous or if something happens and someone's hacked, you know, and, and, or, or, you know, that
01:22:29 ◼ ► whoever the app service was using, you know, if the, if the, the payment processor was hacked or
01:22:39 ◼ ► subscription hard to cancel? Yes. Agreed. Totally. Even if it's just makes it more difficult to
01:22:45 ◼ ► cancel your New York times subscription, that is a negative. And so, you know, to me, it would be
01:22:51 ◼ ► obviously be very bad for Apple, but it would be bad for users. And so, yeah, I I'm with you
01:22:55 ◼ ► because I feel like if you don't get ahead of this and make some concessions, you risk having
01:23:01 ◼ ► concessions forced on you. That could be so much worse for predictable, right? Regulators don't
01:23:09 ◼ ► really get it. They don't, I mean, they don't get it over the years and they don't get it and they
01:23:14 ◼ ► have bad ideas. I mean, honestly look at an ad to me, what makes it all the more confounding that
01:23:19 ◼ ► Apple doesn't seem more concerned about this is how badly the iBooks eBooks, uh, thing turned out,
01:23:29 ◼ ► which I guess is eight, seven, eight years ago, uh, Apple got robbed on that. In my opinion,
01:23:41 ◼ ► does it make prices to consumers go up? Yes. Therefore you're in the wrong and you've abused,
01:23:47 ◼ ► uh, uh, you know, anti-competitive antitrust. Uh, meanwhile, uh, Amazon's the one with the literal
01:23:55 ◼ ► monopoly on ebook sales. Like everybody knows, like whatever your ballpark back, your, whatever
01:24:06 ◼ ► you're probably underestimating how much stronger Kindle was. And there were competitors like Barnes
01:24:10 ◼ ► and Noble with the Nook who for Apple iBooks was like a lark. Like, yeah, that's another thing we
01:24:16 ◼ ► can get into Barnes and Noble. It's an existential threat. And especially even then, like, I kind of
01:24:23 ◼ ► feel like, I don't know how well Barnes and Noble is doing. And I know that the coronavirus thing is
01:24:26 ◼ ► probably terrible, but I kind of feel like, not to go on too much of an aside, I kind of feel like
01:24:32 ◼ ► paper books are holding their own in a lot of ways. But seven or eight years ago, that was very
01:24:38 ◼ ► unclear. No, it was, it was very, yeah, there was, I used to write a ton about this and I used to talk
01:24:43 ◼ ► with publishers and with device makers about this. And there was this massive, massive fear in
01:24:48 ◼ ► publishing that it was going to go the way of the music industry or that it was going to, what did
01:24:54 ◼ ► happen, it's interesting, books have persisted and actually, if anything, they've started to outsell
01:24:59 ◼ ► in some categories. And it's very interesting that you see a lot of physical books sold. It's kind of
01:25:05 ◼ ► like vinyl, but at much bigger volumes. Whereas magazines were completely decimated, right? Like,
01:25:11 ◼ ► like print magazines, print newspapers have been completely decimated, but print books have not
01:25:16 ◼ ► been. But that wasn't the thought. The thought was, and that was why Barnes and Noble and Borders
01:25:21 ◼ ► before they went bankrupt, they had to deal with, with, with Kobo, who now Rakuten owns, you know,
01:25:27 ◼ ► like they were having to kind of get into this space. They were fighting for their life,
01:25:31 ◼ ► literally thought that we need to do this or we might just go out of business. Yeah, exactly.
01:25:35 ◼ ► And they had to disrupt ourselves. They gained nothing on Kindle. And yet Kindle was not the one,
01:25:40 ◼ ► Kindle and Amazon wasn't the one the regulators looked at. Well, not only that, but when the
01:25:46 ◼ ► settlement came out, you got Kindle credit. Do you remember this? Like I ended up getting,
01:25:52 ◼ ► because I buy a ton of eBooks, I ended up getting a ton of money back from Amazon. I got like $47
01:25:57 ◼ ► or something. And, um, I was like, which that to me was the, it was the insane thing. I was like,
01:26:03 ◼ ► you know, if you were somebody who didn't know anything about it and hadn't read any of the
01:26:07 ◼ ► briefs and you just heard, you know, ebook price fixing scandal, your first thought I think would
01:26:12 ◼ ► be, Oh, Amazon was involved in something and they were, you know, like, um, slapped down. No,
01:26:18 ◼ ► it was, it was Apple. And ironically, the deal that Apple was trying to make then was to be more
01:26:23 ◼ ► fair to the publishers, which is the complete opposite of the, the, you know, the 70 30 split.
01:26:28 ◼ ► Now with developers, they were actually trying to make things more fair and more even for publishers
01:26:34 ◼ ► and say, you can't undercut things and take a different margin. You have to set the same price
01:26:38 ◼ ► everywhere. That was actually, you know, a very pro publisher, pro book business move. And the,
01:26:46 ◼ ► you know, um, what was it? The FTC or whoever, um, or FCC, I'm not sure which, which who DOJ,
01:26:51 ◼ ► whatever, whatever government the DOJ, because the DOJ read that and said, no, you are price fixing
01:26:58 ◼ ► and are artificially pushing prices up. And what's happened ironically is that now Amazon is in this
01:27:06 ◼ ► place where, you know, cause they used to undercut the eBooks all the time. Like that was a very
01:27:09 ◼ ► common tactic and that was how they sold them at a loss where the publisher would say, here's,
01:27:14 ◼ ► here's a new Stephen King novel, right? Or you know, here's, here's the new book from insert
01:27:18 ◼ ► big, big name author. Who's going to sell a ton of books. It's brand new, you know, it's 9 99.
01:27:27 ◼ ► but Amazon would sell it for 9 99 and just eat the price. Right. And what's happened though,
01:27:32 ◼ ► is that now you do still have some of that, but most of the big houses and also publishing has,
01:27:38 ◼ ► even though they've made like print books have, have survived publishing itself is like most forms
01:27:43 ◼ ► of written media is, is a shit show. Um, they've all consolidated even more. And most of those
01:27:48 ◼ ► publishers have arrangements like Hatch and Simon and Schuster and others where they set the price
01:27:53 ◼ ► and Amazon can't undercut them. So ironically, the whole thing that the DOJ is like, you know,
01:28:00 ◼ ► like rule has come to pass anyway. Amazon and, uh, you know, um, uh, Rakuten and, uh, who owns,
01:28:07 ◼ ► uh, uh, um, you know, um, uh, uh, Kobo and, and, and I books don't have the ability to adjust prices
01:28:15 ◼ ► for a lot of the best sellers. Right. But I book, uh, uh, kindles, Apple, Amazon strategy with
01:28:20 ◼ ► Kindle was, I'm not going to say nefarious, but it was, it was a loss leader. And their idea was,
01:28:25 ◼ ► we'll sell them all for nine 99 cause that's a great price. And even if it's a loss, we'll eat
01:28:31 ◼ ► it, we'll dominate the market. And then when, you know, then we'll be the only one selling,
01:28:36 ◼ ► you know, we, we would like to build a monopoly on eBooks and then we could change prices later.
01:28:40 ◼ ► And then we can change prices. And not only that, they then started to become publishers.
01:28:48 ◼ ► I don't want to get too sidelined on this, but the whole problem is that all of these antitrust
01:28:52 ◼ ► laws in the U S and in Europe and around the world, we're all based on the idea that the abuse
01:28:59 ◼ ► of a monopoly would be to artificially increase prices. Right. Which makes intuitive sense and
01:29:05 ◼ ► also makes historical sense, right? That once, uh, like Rockefeller or whoever it was who owned
01:29:11 ◼ ► the whole railroad from coast to coast and could control all of the steel going from steel foundries
01:29:19 ◼ ► in Pittsburgh to the West coast, where they were building San Francisco and you know, the,
01:29:23 ◼ ► you know, the modern West coast world, uh, that the person selling the steel also owned the
01:29:28 ◼ ► railroad and it was the only way to get it there and could set the price for his competitors to
01:29:33 ◼ ► whatever he wanted to while his own steel wasn't being charged at all, et cetera, is all about
01:29:43 ◼ ► None of the laws anticipated, well, what if there's a publicly held company that the shareholders
01:29:49 ◼ ► buy into the argument that all we're looking for is ever increasing revenue and no profits at all,
01:29:55 ◼ ► just break, don't need that. Exactly. Just build market share and dominate and then, you know,
01:30:01 ◼ ► good things will happen in the future. Yeah. What if you could be Walmart, but you didn't have to
01:30:06 ◼ ► turn a profit. Right. And you know, none, none of the regular, none of the laws were built with
01:30:11 ◼ ► that in mind. And then the thing with the eBooks case with Apple was that the regulators themselves
01:30:23 ◼ ► Amazon wants to sell these books for 9 99. If w you know, Apple's deal with the publishers meant
01:30:29 ◼ ► that the books would cost whatever the publishers say, which was often more than 9 99. Therefore,
01:30:33 ◼ ► that's price fixing and higher prices of consumers you lose. And that was it. And you're out. And it
01:30:38 ◼ ► was like that, that casino hearing in the movie casino, where they never even gave Robert De Niro's
01:30:45 ◼ ► character a chance. And they're like, Nope, your license is out. And that's it. Case closed. It's
01:30:50 ◼ ► over. So why in the world would Apple trust the regulatory process on this to come to a sensible
01:30:55 ◼ ► conclusion? Like, if you're thinking, well, I don't blame Apple for taking their chances on this,
01:31:00 ◼ ► because if the worst case, if they lose, the regulators will just impose very fair rules on
01:31:07 ◼ ► Apple. And Apple can certainly live with those. You don't know that that's what they're going to
01:31:11 ◼ ► impose at all. It is an incredible gamble, right? So in addition to not being able to put a price on
01:31:17 ◼ ► it, there's also the idea of like, how do you know, how do you value risk avoidance? You know,
01:31:23 ◼ ► the risk avoidance of this is like, what happens if there's a major earthquake? What happens? Let's
01:31:29 ◼ ► just say, theoretically, Christina, what if there's a pandemic? Who knows, right? You can't value that,
01:31:38 ◼ ► right? You don't know how. Nobody knew or knows going forward what the cost of this pandemic is
01:31:45 ◼ ► going to cost. You have no idea what regulatory rules imposed upon the App Store could do. So why
01:31:55 ◼ ► not do what you can to sidestep it now and just tell the shareholders, look, this is, you know,
01:32:01 ◼ ► I don't know, sharp services are still growing. They will grow. We have great faith in it, but we
01:32:07 ◼ ► we're more proud of selling our own services. We are so sure about Apple Arcade and Apple TV Plus
01:32:14 ◼ ► and Apple News. And the longest standing of our ongoing subscription service is iCloud, which we
01:32:21 ◼ ► still think, you know, we have 98% of or whatever they want to say the number is of people who are
01:32:26 ◼ ► into it and just say we want to sell our own services. And we're so confident that our App
01:32:31 ◼ ► Store is such a great deal for third party developers that we'll let you sidestep it if
01:32:36 ◼ ► you want because we think you'll make more by being in the store and doing it in app. There you
01:32:40 ◼ ► go. I that's what I would I would sell Tim Cook on. The other thing I would like to see them do
01:32:52 ◼ ► expand the Netflix rule to at least let apps tell you what to do. Yeah, let when you download
01:33:01 ◼ ► Netflix and you say I've, I've, you know, I've heard about this Netflix thing. I can't believe
01:33:10 ◼ ► You don't have Netflix yet. But if they must be out there, but you have an iPhone, right?
01:33:16 ◼ ► Um, you know, and maybe it is an older audience, you know, you know, maybe my mom, I don't think
01:33:21 ◼ ► my mom has Netflix, she does have an iPhone. So maybe she decides she's going to sign up for
01:33:25 ◼ ► Netflix. At least tell her what to do. I mean, it should just say call John. Yeah, that's true.
01:33:32 ◼ ► Contact, contact your son, but he'll walk you through it. Part of the Netflix rule as it stands,
01:33:44 ◼ ► even though some of them clearly aren't readers at all. Part of it is that they're they keep
01:33:48 ◼ ► talking like and and again, it's very strange for Apple, it would be very strange for Apple not
01:33:53 ◼ ► to to acknowledge that yes, this part of our business is not friendly to our customers at all.
01:34:01 ◼ ► It is counter counter, you know, it is what's the opposite of friendly it is in. It's a bad
01:34:07 ◼ ► experience for customers. It would Yeah, it's hard to imagine Apple saying that. But yet the idea
01:34:13 ◼ ► that you're allowed to, you know, download Netflix, you Netflix is allowed not to have in app purchases.
01:34:21 ◼ ► But Netflix can't tell you that what to do is go to Netflix.com and sign up there that they're not
01:34:28 ◼ ► allowed to say that, let alone making it a link that you can tap. I'm not even saying that, right?
01:34:34 ◼ ► Because I kind of get here's the thing with the tap. I kind of understand the lack of the click.
01:34:39 ◼ ► I'm with you on that because tell people something. Well, it's for people listening to this show,
01:34:44 ◼ ► I'm sure that a majority of them are going to think I've lost I'm off my rocker here and disagree.
01:34:49 ◼ ► But I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the type of user who is confused about what's a
01:34:57 ◼ ► browser and what's an app, right. And if you just tap it, and it jumps you over to Safari,
01:35:03 ◼ ► but starting in the fall could be a different browser because iOS 14 is going to support third
01:35:09 ◼ ► party browsers, but it'll go to your default browser. Let's assume that it's Safari because
01:35:14 ◼ ► anybody who will know starting in the fall, how to change their default browser or what a default
01:35:19 ◼ ► browser is, isn't as confused about what's in a browser and what's in an app. So you're jump over
01:35:25 ◼ ► to Safari. But, you know, how do you know? I mean, do does everybody know that you've left the app
01:35:31 ◼ ► and now you're in Safari? Whereas if the instructions don't even let you tap it, although
01:35:39 ◼ ► No, I wouldn't be opposed either. But I can see why they don't. But just let them go to Netflix,
01:35:45 ◼ ► hit the big sign up button in the top right corner and sign up there, then come back and sign into
01:35:50 ◼ ► this app using the email and password you created at our at our website 1234. See you when you sign
01:35:57 ◼ ► back, come back to the app. Let them do that. Let them say go to hey.com and sign up there,
01:36:04 ◼ ► then come back and sign into this app. Just say this, let them say it. Because the way it is now
01:36:09 ◼ ► where you can't even say that is insane in terms of how confusing it is. Right. And it's, you know,
01:36:22 ◼ ► Exactly, exactly. And I think I mean, like, right. And it doesn't. I think when you put those
01:36:32 ◼ ► not just for the reasons you mentioned, but I'll be honest, I think that that is maybe Apple giving
01:36:38 ◼ ► up too much of its business to someone else. I don't think they necessarily need to have a link
01:36:42 ◼ ► there. I don't think that that is necessarily something a company needs to do to basically say
01:36:46 ◼ ► we are going to give a direct like vector for someone to like purposefully avoid our our payment
01:36:53 ◼ ► system. Right. Like, I don't think they need to do that. Like from a business perspective, I don't
01:36:57 ◼ ► think that that needs to happen. But you make a good point to it's also just a bad user experience
01:37:02 ◼ ► when the user is in a situation where the read it because it's not as if the developers don't want
01:37:07 ◼ ► to tell them how to sign up is that they can't right. And therefore, anybody who is vaguely
01:37:13 ◼ ► confused about what happens when you tap it says netflix.com slash sign up and you tap it. And then
01:37:21 ◼ ► you lift your finger and next thing you know, you're at a sign up form. Right? Are you still
01:37:26 ◼ ► in the app? Have you jumped to your browser? I'm not going to be confused by that you're not going
01:37:31 ◼ ► to be confused by that. I would venture to say just about every single one of the thousands of
01:37:36 ◼ ► people listening to me and you talk about this are not going to be confused by that. But out of
01:37:40 ◼ ► Harris might parents might be there's all sorts of people who might be just make it instructions,
01:37:46 ◼ ► make it clear. I think, you know, if you're getting to the point where if you're just following the
01:37:51 ◼ ► instructions and have to go to the website to sign up, and you still aren't sure you're in the app,
01:37:55 ◼ ► well, then you're a lost cause. That's exactly that's a bigger problem. No, I think I think
01:37:59 ◼ ► exactly and I think also like it would be good for Apple in some ways, again, not to have the link
01:38:04 ◼ ► because that could cause confusion but to have the instructions because Apple doesn't want people to
01:38:09 ◼ ► think that they have a one to one relationship with these services if they don't, you know,
01:38:14 ◼ ► so to your point, if you need to unsubscribe, like make it very clear, I didn't sign up in the app,
01:38:20 ◼ ► you know, like, because otherwise, even for people who might think that they're savvy, I could see
01:38:25 ◼ ► that the confusion well, I remember signing up on my phone, like I remember opening the app and
01:38:30 ◼ ► signing up. So of course, it's in my subscriptions, because that's how it's worked. If that's going to
01:38:34 ◼ ► change, yeah, you don't necessarily need to have the link, but have the instructions to be very
01:38:39 ◼ ► simple. This is what you do. And, and go from there. And I genuinely think that the number of
01:38:47 ◼ ► people who would completely askew using the App Store at all, is relatively small. So when they
01:38:54 ◼ ► whereas having that option would buy both goodwill with developers, which I think is an important
01:39:01 ◼ ► thing, but also the incalculable thing to your point is, okay, this could help get the get the
01:39:07 ◼ ► feds off off our back. And Apple does this all the time. And this argument that well, I see it come
01:39:13 ◼ ► up all the time. And again, I I'm not going to say that we've been collectively brainwashed. That's a
01:39:19 ◼ ► strong word. And there are people who are apparently brainwashed at the moment on other
01:39:24 ◼ ► issues. But there is this widespread belief that publicly held corporations are beholden to
01:39:30 ◼ ► shareholders to quote unquote, maximize profits at all costs. And I see people who are even amenable
01:39:37 ◼ ► to this and who are like, Yeah, I wish Apple could do this. But you know, they have to do what's best
01:39:42 ◼ ► for shareholders. And so they, you know, they've, they've got to do this, you know, they got to
01:39:47 ◼ ► squeeze every penny they can out of the App Store. That's not true at all. It is absolutely not true.
01:39:53 ◼ ► I mean, there's the the responsibility that the board has to shareholders and that the CEO has to
01:39:59 ◼ ► the board is to do right by the shareholders and to run the company in a legal way in a responsible
01:40:05 ◼ ► way. And, you know, but you don't you're not there's no legal obligation. It doesn't even make
01:40:11 ◼ ► any sense. If you really think about it, it makes no sense. No, the fiduciary responsibility is about
01:40:17 ◼ ► making sure that you're not hiding money or doing things unethically with the with your profits or
01:40:23 ◼ ► with your salaries that you're reporting things the right way. And that shareholders are aware of how
01:40:27 ◼ ► money is being spent and how it comes in. It has nothing to do with, oh, because we're public,
01:40:33 ◼ ► the shareholders are beholden to us squeezing every cent we can out of everything. Because
01:40:38 ◼ ► companies make decisions all the time. If that were the case, then you could say, well, why does
01:40:43 ◼ ► Apple spend so much on its components and on its machining and on, you know, the things that make
01:40:50 ◼ ► their products higher quality? Because obviously that reduces margins. They could be making so
01:40:54 ◼ ► much more money if they use these cheaper components. That would benefit the shareholders.
01:41:04 ◼ ► invest in what you want to invest in. And you could that I think goes into your business models.
01:41:09 ◼ ► You can choose to say, this is the right thing for our business, which ultimately is being responsible
01:41:15 ◼ ► for the shareholders. If, you know, it's this is the right thing for business, not this is
01:41:23 ◼ ► Right. It's, you know, and it's it just is not there. It's, you know, and Tim Cook has even
01:41:28 ◼ ► said this at some point, you know, where he was like a shareholders meeting years ago, and
01:41:33 ◼ ► the closest I've ever heard him just swear and in public, it was like somebody was talking about,
01:41:39 ◼ ► like accessibility as a cost or something. And Tim Cook got angry and was like, I don't care about
01:41:44 ◼ ► the bloody ROI, you know, and, you know, Tim Cook, I pretty sure is not British. Let me look.
01:41:53 ◼ ► Yeah, but is Alabama in Great Britain? No, it turns out Alabama is in the US South. So no,
01:41:58 ◼ ► he's not British. So bloody, it was not part of his natural vocabulary. But I, you know,
01:42:05 ◼ ► you can imagine what other words he might have wanted to substitute there. Yeah, it's not always
01:42:10 ◼ ► about the ROI. It's about the whole thing. And Apple is Apple a well run company that is making
01:42:15 ◼ ► profits, you know, and even if they do make a strategic change that significantly decreases
01:42:26 ◼ ► that is totally in line with Apple's strategic value. And they can totally make a very strong
01:42:31 ◼ ► case that it's actually in shareholders interest in the long run, that this is a better idea. It's
01:42:43 ◼ ► developer partners, we want them to be happy. It's better for the ecosystem. It's better for us in a
01:42:47 ◼ ► regulatory landscape. It's all good for us, even if it means less money in the short run from what
01:42:54 ◼ ► we draw from third party applications. That's it. Same way that I think that Apple could,
01:43:00 ◼ ► and probably should, and again, it's a side thing, but I think that they could and probably should
01:43:05 ◼ ► get out of the casino business of participating and allowing the sort of pay to win games like
01:43:12 ◼ ► Candy Crush that are built around the concept of whales who get hooked on the game and spend
01:43:27 ◼ ► and have Apple taking 30% of that money. I always say there's a reason why the Disney cruise ships
01:43:34 ◼ ► don't have casinos. The reason all the other cruises have casinos is because there's no laws
01:43:41 ◼ ► regulating having a casino and casinos are profitable and people like to gamble. I like to
01:43:46 ◼ ► gamble. If I were on a Disney cruise and they had a casino, I would love it. I think Disney could
01:43:52 ◼ ► make an amazing casino. I would like to see a Disney casino. I would actually, I was going to
01:43:56 ◼ ► say I don't usually like cruise ship casinos. You'd go to the Disney one. I would love a Disney one.
01:44:00 ◼ ► The Disney one would be great. People would be paying money just to have the decks of cards.
01:44:09 ◼ ► They could make the chips collectible the same way that they do like the little Mickey Mouses.
01:44:15 ◼ ► But Disney doesn't do it because they don't want to be involved with gambling. And again,
01:44:23 ◼ ► I say this as someone who loves to gamble, but I also totally see why Disney doesn't want their
01:44:28 ◼ ► brand associated with it. I don't see how Apple's dalliance with the candy crushes of the world
01:44:36 ◼ ► isn't effectively having an Apple casino in Las Vegas, which I don't think they would do. Again,
01:44:43 ◼ ► they make a lot of money, I think, from the candy crush type games by drawing 30% of that money.
01:44:49 ◼ ► A lot of it is coming from people who are, for lack of a better word, addicted in an unhealthy way
01:44:57 ◼ ► to these games. And for Apple to be taking 30% of that is, in my opinion, morally wrong.
01:45:05 ◼ ► And I think it's actually in Apple's... I'm not preaching to them that they should walk away from
01:45:11 ◼ ► this money for no reason other than the ethics. I actually think, though, that there's brand value
01:45:16 ◼ ► in not being associated with that, and that that brand value outweighs whatever the dollar value is
01:45:22 ◼ ► of the money that they're getting from it. Yeah, it's interesting that there's not a moral,
01:45:27 ◼ ► I guess, aversion to that model, whereas there is if you want to have adult content, or other types
01:45:35 ◼ ► of content, which there are rules about them that Apple has made a very clear stance. Steve Jobs
01:45:39 ◼ ► was very clear at the beginning, he didn't want Playboy in the App Store. He didn't want that
01:45:43 ◼ ► stuff in the App Store. And that is a decision. There was nothing legally that would mandate that
01:45:52 ◼ ► content they sold on their payment processor, but also Apple's big enough that they think they'd be
01:46:02 ◼ ► I don't disagree with what you're saying. Again, I'm very cynical in the sense that I think that
01:46:10 ◼ ► the amount of money they get from those types of games has to be so massive that that would be a
01:46:16 ◼ ► very difficult thing. Yeah, but why not, though? But isn't that the Steve Jobs thing that maybe
01:46:21 ◼ ► it's difficult? Isn't it difficult to just say, "Okay, yeah, there's an antenna problem. Here it
01:46:25 ◼ ► is." No, no, you're completely correct. Let's rip the band-aid off. The one thing that's harder,
01:46:30 ◼ ► I think, is that in this case, you have a history of how much money you know that you're losing.
01:46:38 ◼ ► So it's a much bigger risk. What a tremendous benefit it is to be a part of a lucrative business
01:46:44 ◼ ► like this and have it be a fraction of your income and without question will always be a fraction of
01:46:51 ◼ ► their income. Services is never going to outweigh this device sales. It shouldn't and never will.
01:46:58 ◼ ► They don't need it. So why not have the liberty of doing it? And why take the risk? Here's the risk.
01:47:07 ◼ ► What if—this would be my message to Tim Cook in advance of this testimony—why not be the one to
01:47:18 ◼ ► do it and say, "Look, we're going to open this up and let you use the Netflix rule, and we're going
01:47:24 ◼ ► to go $85.15. We're going to do it and let other people follow." Because what if Sundar Pichai gets
01:47:31 ◼ ► up there and says, "Hey, we're just going to go $85.15," or "We're going to go $90.10," and then
01:47:38 ◼ ► all of a sudden you look like the jerk who's coming in after Sundar Pichai and you're there.
01:47:47 ◼ ► Everything you've prepared is, "Hey, we're $70.30, but so is everybody else," and you're coming in
01:47:53 ◼ ► after somebody who just took the carpet out from under your feet. Why not be the one to do it? Act
01:47:59 ◼ ► first and look like the leader. So an interesting model is one that exists in the Microsoft store,
01:48:10 ◼ ► there is still, I guess, whatever the standard split is, if you discover and buy the app directly
01:48:16 ◼ ► on your own in the store. But if you get to the store from a link that the developer has put on
01:48:22 ◼ ► their own website or their own advertisements or whatever, then there's no commission. There's no
01:48:31 ◼ ► Yeah. And I think that's an interesting way around some of that. It's like, "Okay, if you can bring
01:48:36 ◼ ► the audience, then you get all the money. The payment and everything is still going to be
01:48:41 ◼ ► handled by us, and we're still going to be making the rules over other stuff. But if the audience
01:48:48 ◼ ► comes to this through us, then we get the commission." Yeah. And that's not a bad idea.
01:48:57 ◼ ► Certainly seems fair. And again, I know that the people who defend Apple and the App Store's
01:49:02 ◼ ► current policy exactly as is the most are almost to a T. I mean, there's always an exception,
01:49:08 ◼ ► but they're not developers. They are users. And there's an intuitive sense that they're...
01:49:19 ◼ ► and they buy it, which is that, "Hey, Apple is doing all this great work to make the App Store
01:49:24 ◼ ► and new versions of the OS, new APIs every year, and they promote apps within the App Store,
01:49:30 ◼ ► and it's a great distribution channel." So they deserve some amount of money. And if you want
01:49:35 ◼ ► to argue about whether it should be 70/30 or something else, sure, but they certainly deserve
01:49:40 ◼ ► it. And anybody who's trying to cut around it is looking for a free ride, right? And Apple said
01:49:46 ◼ ► this, and there's a lot of people who buy into it. And in some sense, it is true that they are looking
01:49:51 ◼ ► not to pay anything like with the Netflix rule, but to call it a free ride is something else.
01:49:56 ◼ ► And the promotional aspect, sure. Okay. And Jason Fried and David Hennemeyer Henson have said it
01:50:01 ◼ ► with, "Hey, okay, fine. If you guys don't want to promote us in the App Store ever, fine." We're
01:50:07 ◼ ► very confident in our abilities to promote the app. We know how many people are signing up for
01:50:12 ◼ ► it, and we're on our wait list. We're fine with our own ability. Just let us have the app in the
01:50:16 ◼ ► store. So if somebody goes in and searches for, "Hey, email," there it is. They can download it, and
01:50:22 ◼ ► there it is. You don't have to promote us at all. Just let us be in the store. We'll handle everything
01:50:26 ◼ ► else and handle all of our own promotion. That's fine. Did you see this thing before we move on?
01:50:32 ◼ ► Apple had a commission to study this week from a group called the Ant Analysis Group, which, again,
01:50:41 ◼ ► I made this joke on dithering, but I haven't made it again. It sounds to me like Analysis Group,
01:50:46 ◼ ► as the name of your company, reminds me so much of the company James Bond works for, which is
01:50:53 ◼ ► Universal Exports. Right. No, totally. Well, it was interesting. And then reading through this
01:50:59 ◼ ► report with this whole thing is like, this looks just like any McKinsey report ever. And it's so
01:51:05 ◼ ► hard to imagine Steve Jobs sitting through this report. It's not poorly written, but yeah, it just
01:51:13 ◼ ► seems like, "Oh my God, this is like generic corporate Fortune 500 America." Yeah, no, this
01:51:19 ◼ ► is straight out of McKinsey and some of the other big consulting firm playbook. It's well formatted,
01:51:27 ◼ ► it's well written, but it's totally that. I love what you said during Fireball about how if you
01:51:33 ◼ ► have to compare yourself to Ticketmaster, like we're not as bad as Ticketmaster, then you're
01:51:38 ◼ ► into losing argument. Oh, right. And I agree. I'm like, okay. And if you look at their table four,
01:51:44 ◼ ► the thing is like on page nine, if anybody wants to look at this report, where they're showing the
01:51:49 ◼ ► different percentage of these things, the only services that have more than what Apple's
01:51:57 ◼ ► commission is are ticket resale and potentially food delivery. And even then, it's close. So it's
01:52:05 ◼ ► like, okay, we all know how lecherous, and there's been so much discussion right now about the very,
01:52:11 ◼ ► very predatory nature of these food delivery services and how they're effectively helping
01:52:16 ◼ ► put restaurants out of business. So it's like, okay, you're going to compare yourself to Uber
01:52:22 ◼ ► Eats or Ticketmaster. Who've been in the news for like scamming restaurants and being so foolish and
01:52:28 ◼ ► fueled by VC money that they will let themselves get into an arbitrage situation where they
01:52:35 ◼ ► miss scraped the company's menu and are willing... And then forward to a different phone number that
01:52:41 ◼ ► they control. Right. And are willing to pay $20 for a $9 pizza and stuff like that. Anyway,
01:52:48 ◼ ► here, let me read CNBC's summary of the report, in my opinion, is outstanding, cannot be beaten,
01:52:55 ◼ ► and therefore, you tell me if you agree that this is an apt and complete summary of the entire
01:53:01 ◼ ► report. The Appleback study has four major findings. Most app stores charge the same 30%
01:53:06 ◼ ► on digital goods. Point two, retailers, travel booking services, and other marketplaces can
01:53:14 ◼ ► charge more than 30 for their services. Three, distributing software through an app store is
01:53:20 ◼ ► less expensive than distributing through brick and mortar retailers. And then point four,
01:53:25 ◼ ► other app stores and digital marketplaces often require users to use their in-app purchase
01:53:30 ◼ ► mechanism and forbid sellers from redirecting buyers to finish the transaction in another venue.
01:53:35 ◼ ► So 30%, everybody does it. Two, some companies outside of app stores charge even more than 30.
01:53:45 ◼ ► Three, brick and mortar was worse. Four, the other app stores make you use the app store too.
01:53:55 ◼ ► Apple's participation and commission of this report and their help promoting it into the
01:53:59 ◼ ► news media suggests very strongly to me that this is a preview of Tim Cook's defense and testimony
01:54:06 ◼ ► before the regulatory people next week. We don't know, but it certainly would seem so because
01:54:12 ◼ ► if Apple wasn't thinking of this as the blueprint for their defense, why would they release it?
01:54:19 ◼ ► They commissioned it, but then if they didn't like it, they could just say, "Ah, we don't like this.
01:54:23 ◼ ► Here's your money. We're going to bury the report." Point three, everybody is pointing out. Nobody,
01:54:30 ◼ ► even people who are generally like, "Yeah, I'm with Apple on this. I think Apple's in the right."
01:54:35 ◼ ► Even those people are like, "Brick and mortar? What? What the hell are you talking about?"
01:54:40 ◼ ► It's like all of a sudden, if Apple was a car maker and they're going before Congress to
01:54:46 ◼ ► testify about the industry moving to electric vehicles and they issue a report talking about
01:54:53 ◼ ► what a pain in the ass it was back in the day when you had to use a crank to start your car.
01:55:01 ◼ ► No, exactly. To me, it also ignores a bunch of other things. There was an argument that
01:55:07 ◼ ► some people were making during the Hay fiasco last month about how, "Okay, well, back in the day when
01:55:14 ◼ ► you had to sell box software in stores, it was a much worse experience." I don't doubt that. I'm
01:55:21 ◼ ► not in any way trying to claim that the margins there were different and that was bad. But, okay,
01:55:26 ◼ ► I can't remember the last... I think the last time I bought a box piece of software was probably
01:55:34 ◼ ► How would you explain to somebody the idea? How would you even get box software onto a phone?
01:55:41 ◼ ► Exactly. Well, that's the thing too. I'm like, "Okay, I've been downloading and paying for
01:55:46 ◼ ► mobile software." Okay, I do remember in the Palm days that you could buy box software and you would
01:55:54 ◼ ► install it on your computer and then you'd have to transfer it to your Palm. So I do remember that.
01:56:07 ◼ ► Tech as an industry, and I'm generally loathe to just group all tech companies together.
01:56:12 ◼ ► But, if anything, my whole career is about parsing out the differences between tech companies. And
01:56:20 ◼ ► there's a lot of nuances, but whatever. But tech as a whole, and those of us who are enthusiasts
01:56:25 ◼ ► as a whole, we take it as a... My entire career is based on the idea that tech moves fast. It is fast
01:56:32 ◼ ► and it's exciting. And so it's fun and exciting to follow and it's changing our lives, not between
01:56:38 ◼ ► generations, but within our own life. I mean, just in the course of this show, we've talked about how
01:56:50 ◼ ► I will make a correction. I bought games. That's probably the one thing that I've continued to buy
01:56:56 ◼ ► physical copies of. Not anymore, but probably well into the 2000s. But anything else, I mean,
01:57:12 ◼ ► like physical video games, are at the risk of going out of business. So making the retail
01:57:19 ◼ ► comparison, especially in a medium that has never existed, like the iPod was always digital only.
01:57:25 ◼ ► There was never a way where you were buying a physical MP3. That would be a stupid idea.
01:57:37 ◼ ► It was a great experience. But if you wanted to actually buy from the, but it was a great
01:57:49 ◼ ► right? Which was just by one track that was massive, right? Like that was like bringing
01:57:54 ◼ ► what everybody had always kind of went to Napster for, right? Like was I can just do that. And I can
01:57:59 ◼ ► I can do it digitally. I don't have to have the physical copy. So yeah, I think that making that
01:58:05 ◼ ► comparison, it's like, well, yes, retail has much different margins and it's a completely different
01:58:10 ◼ ► thing. Like it's, to me, it also seems disingenuous when the issues at play are not about how Apple
01:58:18 ◼ ► collects a commission on physical goods from retailers because they don't. It's all about
01:58:22 ◼ ► digital distribution. So why are you bringing retail into this? Right. And it completely
01:58:27 ◼ ► skips over. And if there's one regret I have from my live talk show with Federighi and Jaws is that
01:58:34 ◼ ► I didn't push back on Jaws on this point. It just didn't pop into my head, unfortunately, because
01:58:39 ◼ ► I'm a very slow thinker. But my one regret is not pushing back on his response on this, which is
01:58:45 ◼ ► along the same lines, which is that it presupposes that the transition from software being sold in
01:58:52 ◼ ► boxes and other physical disks to the App Store doesn't have an intermediary step, which is that
01:59:00 ◼ ► software could just be distributed digitally over the web without the App Stores, which Apple
01:59:06 ◼ ► thrived the entire early era of Mac OS X was entirely predicated on that. And that there are
01:59:11 ◼ ► entire in the indie Mac movement. I think the reason that people like like me like became
01:59:17 ◼ ► massive Mac fans was based on that I wasn't going to the few retail stores that existed like Apple
01:59:23 ◼ ► retail stores and buying box software. I was finding apps online and downloading them and
01:59:28 ◼ ► then paying for them. And it still is true today. It's not even like that was, you know, like retail
01:59:35 ◼ ► software bygone era. The Mac App Store famously is nowhere near as successful as the iOS App Store.
01:59:43 ◼ ► And it's, you know, an awful lot of great Mac software still is sold outside the App Store.
01:59:50 ◼ ► And those companies are, you know, making money and there is it's a feasible business. I mean,
01:59:57 ◼ ► I can't just sit here and even list this amount of software in my dock right now that I bought
02:00:02 ◼ ► that way. Yeah, I mean, if anything, I think that there is like a knowledge because at least for
02:00:06 ◼ ► those of us who are plugged in, we know what the cut can do. So at least for me, I go out of my way
02:00:13 ◼ ► to buy the non App Store version, because a I usually don't want some of the sandbox restrictions
02:00:18 ◼ ► if those exist. And B, I want to like directly support the developer, you know, like, which,
02:00:25 ◼ ► which I realized, you know, that it's different on mobile. And I'm not even I'm not even necessarily
02:00:31 ◼ ► like a proponent of having a sideloading ability. I think that's interesting, but I'm not even
02:00:37 ◼ ► necessarily a proponent. I'm not either. I think I'm very much desktop, right? I mean, desktop,
02:00:42 ◼ ► I am for sure. That's my my basic my stance is that the Mac is the Mac and therefore is the Mac
02:00:48 ◼ ► and and, you know, other PC platforms like Windows should be like that too. And that phones are
02:00:53 ◼ ► phones and that it's okay for the phone to be effectively a computer console. And it just in
02:00:59 ◼ ► the same way that I think it's fine that the consoles are all like that, that you know,
02:01:11 ◼ ► that you have to wait for those things to happen in those communities, you know, crop up and that's
02:01:15 ◼ ► great. But that's gaming PC is a gaming PC. And you could just, you know, make your own game,
02:01:21 ◼ ► mods, right? You can do mod, which are very popular. And that's the distinction. And that's,
02:01:30 ◼ ► you know, you're exactly right. It's not as if that middle area of being able to go and buy
02:01:36 ◼ ► directly hasn't existed. And it's also frankly, it's not as if I mean, there were mobile app
02:01:41 ◼ ► stores beforehand. And yeah, you know, the the carrier based ones were really egregious, but
02:01:47 ◼ ► I mean, none of them ever took off the way but there were still usually ways you could get
02:01:53 ◼ ► applications otherwise, like I used to side load things on to like my Sony Ericsson phones and on
02:01:57 ◼ ► my razor, you know, like you could find like jar files and stuff and you know, it was ridiculous
02:02:02 ◼ ► things you would do. So yeah, it just I feel like that's that's the one argument where I'm like,
02:02:07 ◼ ► okay, retail's different. And that's a straw man. If you have, if there are better arguments to make,
02:02:14 ◼ ► I would hope that they would make them but if all you're saying is Ticketmaster does it too.
02:02:18 ◼ ► And everybody else charges 30% and everybody else makes you go through the app. Like since when has
02:02:23 ◼ ► been the argument for Apple anything been everybody else does. Right. It's just like everybody else.
02:02:30 ◼ ► That's, you know, that's Apple just like everybody else. That's that's the opposite of Apple, right?
02:02:34 ◼ ► Like, why not do it the other way? And and why not, you know, and isn't there, you know, whatever
02:02:40 ◼ ► happened to bragging about the App Store being the first app store and you know, again, you know,
02:02:46 ◼ ► it's typical Apple Steve Jobsian we did when we did it. It's the first one that counts like
02:02:52 ◼ ► ignoring the fact that there were things for the Palm Pilot and whatever going back further that
02:02:56 ◼ ► were maybe App Store like and predecessors and arguably isn't first. But Apple's stance is that
02:03:01 ◼ ► the App Store revolutionized everything for mobile phones, and in large part, mostly true. So I think
02:03:07 ◼ ► that's completely true. Why not take responsibility for the fact that the 70/30 split that everybody
02:03:12 ◼ ► follows is quite probably mostly because that's what you do. You know, that's not like, oh,
02:03:17 ◼ ► we're just one of these 70/30 people. We don't know how it happened. But we're, you know,
02:03:21 ◼ ► everybody's in the same bus. Well, the bus has a big Apple logo on it called the App Store.
02:03:27 ◼ ► It's like the bus started literally with you, you built the bus, created it. No, I totally agree. I
02:03:33 ◼ ► was thinking that too. When I was reading this, it was like, yes, everyone does this because they've
02:03:37 ◼ ► all followed your lead. And what's interesting is that if they made this very, I think would be a
02:03:43 ◼ ► good decision, that would also force everyone else to follow their lead, which, okay, I just had this
02:03:51 ◼ ► thought. This is sort of interesting. So if Apple were to cut their commission rate, and presumably
02:03:57 ◼ ► then lose whatever their potential revenue could be, if Google has to do that too, and Microsoft
02:04:02 ◼ ► has to do that, and any other kind of stores have to do that, that also cuts their effective,
02:04:07 ◼ ► you know, service revenue rate, meaning that when we're talking about like our share price and
02:04:12 ◼ ► things like that, like all things being relative, guess what, like Apple still has the advantages
02:04:17 ◼ ► that Apple has. Yeah, I just see it as something that they could do and get buy-in from shareholders.
02:04:24 ◼ ► All they have to do is spin the right story. And then spin as a bad connotation, as a verb,
02:04:29 ◼ ► but you know, just put it in, you know, be honest about it. I think there's an honest explanation
02:04:35 ◼ ► about it that shareholders would buy into. No, I mean, I think they were simple saying,
02:04:39 ◼ ► this is the right thing to do. And this is the right thing for the future of our business.
02:04:42 ◼ ► Shareholders are going to be fine. And unless you could show a demonstrable, you know, say,
02:04:48 ◼ ► like this change has negatively impacted revenue, like where we're losing money, and we're losing
02:04:54 ◼ ► things, then I don't think anybody would go crazy. And honestly, if it were, if that were to happen,
02:05:00 ◼ ► and they needed to recalibrate, do the G4 thing, right? Like, I don't know, it's hard to be agile
02:05:08 ◼ ► when you're as big of a company as Apple. And I can't even imagine trying to make those decisions
02:05:11 ◼ ► when, you know, you have that many employees and that much revenue you're responsible for.
02:05:16 ◼ ► That to me is, that's what would make Tim Cook a great CEO. And again, I'm not saying he's not,
02:05:21 ◼ ► that makes it sound like I'm saying he's not. But the bigger the ship, the faster you can turn it,
02:05:25 ◼ ► is proof that you're really, you know, you can turn on a dime, right? That's the thing.
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02:06:53 ◼ ► before we move on? I have two other topics. I know we've gone long. I appreciate your time.
02:06:57 ◼ ► We've gone super long, but no, no, no, no problem. All right, let me toss this out. Aaron Seppenwall wrote a story.
02:07:04 ◼ ► I don't know, Alan Seppenwall, I'm sorry, at Rolling Stone TV, Rolling Stone TV Critic,
02:07:12 ◼ ► calling out the terrible user interfaces of most streaming services. Yeah. And I, oh, this sounds
02:07:18 ◼ ► dangerous. This sounds like we could do all show on it, but we could. We'll be brief. Here's
02:07:28 ◼ ► answer I can think of that I could think, you know what, I don't even know how, I would say you're good.
02:07:33 ◼ ► But I don't want to say what it is yet. I'll ask you, who do you think is doing a good job?
02:07:37 ◼ ► Okay, I actually do think that Netflix is doing a relatively good job. Relatively. My problem with
02:07:45 ◼ ► Netflix is, so it just, I know it's the top of my mind. Amy and I are watching, we're like one
02:07:52 ◼ ► episode to go of The Innocence Files, which is fantastic. If I were going to do a segment of the
02:07:57 ◼ ► show where I recommend something to watch, I'd say, oh my God, watch The Innocence Files. It's
02:08:01 ◼ ► like a nine episode mini series on The Innocence Project. And, you know, obviously years in the
02:08:08 ◼ ► works, but to come out now at this moment in our political climate about, you know, the police,
02:08:21 ◼ ► My God, this is, it, you cannot, the luck they have that this show came out when it did is just
02:08:27 ◼ ► unbelievable. Great show. Nine episodes. Every single time we go to watch it, what's at the top
02:08:35 ◼ ► of our Netflix? Not the next episode of The Innocence Files. It's something else that Netflix
02:08:39 ◼ ► has knew that wants to promote. And I got it. And it's not hard. So the, hey, Netflix is pretty good
02:08:46 ◼ ► is that I can go like down twice and it's like continue. And there it is at the top of my
02:08:51 ◼ ► continue list the next episode, but why it should be the top. No, I agree with that. Okay. So I'm
02:08:59 ◼ ► trying to think because most of them are terrible. And so I'm trying to think what is the least
02:09:03 ◼ ► worst? I mean, the app, the Apple TV plus interface isn't bad. My only issue with that is that it's
02:09:08 ◼ ► mingled in with all the other things. So I don't have access to just the Apple TV plus content,
02:09:14 ◼ ► which I would like. Yeah, right. There's like a little bit. It's like, I think given what they're
02:09:20 ◼ ► trying to do, the TV plus interface is actually pretty good, but there's too many that what
02:09:27 ◼ ► they're trying to do is include content from other sources that they don't have complete control over.
02:09:33 ◼ ► Right. Right. And I love that idea. I like having that centralized kind of organic watch list. My
02:09:39 ◼ ► only issue is that if I want to watch the morning show, if I want to watch like another, like Apple
02:09:43 ◼ ► TV plus content, I would like to see all of their, they're too humble about the TV plus content.
02:09:49 ◼ ► I would like to see them have just a TV plus app where it's just the Apple content. It's,
02:09:54 ◼ ► I would love that. And I think that would be good to that point. This is okay. This is what I'll
02:09:57 ◼ ► say. And it's funny cause it's going away. Um, and in a couple of days, um, I actually think that the
02:10:03 ◼ ► pre HBO max HBO go slash HBO now interface was really good. Huh? I'm an HBO go user. I am
02:10:12 ◼ ► already, I think I've successfully deleted it in anticipation of it being, uh, put to bed at the
02:10:19 ◼ ► end of the month for HBO max. I haven't used the HBO max one as much. Uh, I find it hard sometimes
02:10:26 ◼ ► though, like to an HBO go to find my favorite shows, like, cause I only watch, you know,
02:10:32 ◼ ► I don't watch all of it, you know, but it's like, Hey, every Sunday night I watched the John Oliver
02:10:36 ◼ ► show. So why isn't that, why is it so hard to find? Yeah. I mean, I guess the thing I like about it
02:10:42 ◼ ► is that of all the services, it's the one that does the least amount of like algorithmic stuff.
02:10:47 ◼ ► So it's basically you have a search, it puts things in collections and categories. There is hand
02:10:52 ◼ ► curation, which is really good. I can see like, you know, documentaries or sports things or other
02:10:57 ◼ ► stuff I might like. So that I guess it would be my pick. But again, I mean, this is Danny with
02:11:02 ◼ ► that with faint praise. I really, and I subscribe to an, I mean like a truly disgusting number of
02:11:18 ◼ ► I've started a spreadsheet where I've, I'm, I'm tracking everything I'm subscribed to and it is,
02:11:23 ◼ ► it's ridiculous. Like every newsletter, whether I pay for it or not, but most of them I pay for it.
02:11:29 ◼ ► No, same for, for me when it comes to immediate, like me and, and, and Nilay Patel of the verge
02:11:34 ◼ ► often joke with one another that we're like the only two remaining like cable subscribers.
02:11:38 ◼ ► Oh, I am too. Okay. So there's three of us. We, we have, we have, we should have like a, a therapy
02:11:44 ◼ ► group because we're the only three left because we're, we're the biggest source of idiots because
02:11:49 ◼ ► we not only subscribe to the cable stuff, but we also subscribe to the other services. Like that's.
02:11:55 ◼ ► All right. Let me just, let me just tell you this. This is why I'm still subscribed to cable
02:11:59 ◼ ► and I still have, we have a, like, it's now old. I forget what, what the model name of Artivo is,
02:12:03 ◼ ► but Artivo has effectively infinite storage and it has a remote that always works. Pause and fast
02:12:10 ◼ ► forward are always, it's the best. It's still, I still don't understand why nobody else has fast
02:12:15 ◼ ► forward and rewind that work as well as TiVo. Uh, I agree. TiVo was, was the best. Okay. This
02:12:20 ◼ ► is funny because now we, you, me and Nilay are also the only three people who have a TiVo.
02:12:24 ◼ ► I, I let yesterday, I'm not going to talk sports, but I did yesterday. The baseball season started
02:12:29 ◼ ► and the Yankees were on against the Washington Nationals. It was the national game, nationally
02:12:34 ◼ ► televised game on ESPN. So I could watch it. I had two choices. I could watch on my TiVo through the
02:12:41 ◼ ► eight ESPN channel I get, or I could watch on the ESPN app on Apple TV. And I, you know, nerd that I
02:12:47 ◼ ► am between innings, like the second and third inning, I switched from the TiVo to the ESPN app.
02:12:52 ◼ ► Now, no surprise. I haven't used the ESPN app. It, oh, I guess I did. I watched the, the Michael
02:12:59 ◼ ► Jordan, uh, yeah, I was going to say I watched 30 for 30 on it. That's all I do. I watched the
02:13:02 ◼ ► Michael Jordan show, uh, the, the, the last dance, um, but I haven't watched sports. I haven't watched
02:13:08 ◼ ► sports on ESPN app in many months because there haven't been any sports. Anyway, guess what you
02:13:14 ◼ ► can't do in the ESPN app. You can't pause. You cannot pause. You cannot fast forward. You can't
02:13:21 ◼ ► go back. So if you like miss something in the baseball game, I went to like, go back a pitch,
02:13:25 ◼ ► you know, let me go back. Let me see that again. There's no, it's, it's like watching old-fashioned
02:13:30 ◼ ► TV. There is no, there's no DVR aspect at all. It's not just a bad fast forward. You, you,
02:13:35 ◼ ► right. There's none. There's no pause. Which means that we, which means that we have effectively,
02:13:39 ◼ ► like, regressed 20 years. Now, they do have all, all of the features, as far as I could, this is on
02:13:45 ◼ ► Apple TV and the ESPN app, all of the features they have about, like, when I click the trackpad
02:13:51 ◼ ► on the TV remote, we're about adding a second thing. So I can, like, do, like, three up or four
02:13:57 ◼ ► up, you know, and I could put four games on at once. Well, guess what? There weren't four games
02:14:01 ◼ ► on at once. There's one game. One game in the whole world is being played. It was the Yankees
02:14:06 ◼ ► and Nationals. There wasn't anything to put up. That is interesting. You can't do that on TiVo.
02:14:11 ◼ ► I can't watch four games. I don't want to watch four games at once. I want to watch one game.
02:14:15 ◼ ► You can't pause? What? What the hell? I got out of that so fast, went back to TiVo, and I thought,
02:14:26 ◼ ► - Yeah, no, I'm in a similar situation. Like, Comcast, well, I don't get their internet,
02:14:33 ◼ ► - Well, no, no, no, no, no. Here's why I'm doing it. I'll go on a brief tangent on this.
02:14:38 ◼ ► I pay for fiber through Wave G. They're fantastic. Not getting rid of them. But my bill will actually
02:15:09 ◼ ► - But like managing everything else is horrible. No, it's the, it's Apple's Movies app.
02:15:14 ◼ ► And I guess that doesn't count as streaming. I think technically streaming is you pay a
02:15:20 ◼ ► subscription and you watch all you want for free. And the Movies app is you pay for movies
02:15:24 ◼ ► as you rent and buy them. But to me, what the hell are you talking about? It's the same fucking thing.
02:15:33 ◼ ► - Here's what's popular. Here's what's new. And if you paused a movie last night, here it is.
02:15:39 ◼ ► Pick it up. It is the interface that is like, everybody forgets it. And I don't know if it's
02:15:47 ◼ ► because everybody has effectively decided, I'm spending so much on subscriptions every month.
02:15:53 ◼ ► There's no way I'm paying a rental fee for something else. You know, whatever. They don't
02:15:59 ◼ ► look at it. But that Movies app is so good in my opinion. I would be very hard pressed to
02:16:05 ◼ ► all of these other apps. I would love to spend an afternoon with their team and tell them what
02:16:10 ◼ ► annoys me about their app. - Oh, same. Same. Peacock. I did a mini Twitter thread and I had to give up
02:16:16 ◼ ► because it's so bad. And what's actually terrible about that is that the base NBC app, pretty good.
02:16:23 ◼ ► - Yeah, 'cause I've used that. I've used that to watch, like, I've used the NBC app to watch like,
02:16:28 ◼ ► oh, somebody good was on The Tonight Show last night. Oh, I want to go back and watch that.
02:16:33 ◼ ► I've used the NBC app. Yeah, the Peacock app is bad. The Quibi app is actually kind of good
02:16:41 ◼ ► on the phone, right? It's actually is a good app. It's just that everything else is so fakakta.
02:16:48 ◼ ► It's like, what the hell are you thinking about? - No, it is. I mean, they did finally introduce
02:16:53 ◼ ► the ability to do screenshots after everyone's canceled their subscriptions. At least I
02:16:59 ◼ ► definitely did. Like I had the free trial and then I was like, am I gonna, I'm gonna pay $5 a month
02:17:02 ◼ ► for this? Yeah, no, they, you know, refused to let people do screenshots. - That tells you everything
02:17:07 ◼ ► you need to know about the Jeffrey Katzenberg mindset. - I know, and it's insane to me 'cause
02:17:17 ◼ ► - There is some-- - He didn't get the social element. - There is some line that you want to draw
02:17:21 ◼ ► between making piracy through your content so difficult as to not be worth it, but yet not
02:17:29 ◼ ► interfering with the experience of your users and the benefits you can get from your users being
02:17:36 ◼ ► able to take screenshots and tweet and promote it, right? There's a huge benefit of that. And the
02:17:43 ◼ ► idea that you would take advantage of technical features in the operating system to make
02:17:47 ◼ ► screenshots technically impossible is the maximalist, you know, you couldn't possibly--
02:17:53 ◼ ► And what is the idea that you've, all right, so you've paid all this money to put a Kevin
02:17:58 ◼ ► Hart movie on Quibi, and you think somebody is going to take a screenshot of what, every frame
02:18:07 ◼ ► of the movie? - Exactly, it's like, what are you doing? You're ruining the ability to promote.
02:18:11 ◼ ► It's also like, look, the piracy is gonna happen. Like, that's a given. - What? - What you should do,
02:18:16 ◼ ► I mean, the way that iTunes won, the way that, you know, Netflix and those things ultimately won,
02:18:29 ◼ ► there are, it's always a subset of people who won't, but I'm a strong believer, and I say this
02:18:32 ◼ ► as someone who has been a hardcore pirate, but also someone who has been a hardcore buyer of
02:18:38 ◼ ► media like my whole life. It's been one of those things. And the reason I used to download torrents
02:18:41 ◼ ► all the time wasn't because I was cheap, it was because I couldn't get the movie or the TV show
02:18:46 ◼ ► any other way, or they would put draconian restrictions on where I could watch them, what I
02:18:50 ◼ ► could do, and I would get, like, just mad on principle. So, at this point, you know, it's easier
02:18:56 ◼ ► for me to use a Usenet group than it is to rip my, like, thousands of Blu-rays. So, okay, you do what's faster. - Like, in the old days, what if you pay for HBO, but you really want to watch The Sopranos, but you've got to watch on your laptop because you're not at home. So, what do you do? - Exactly. - You do pay, you pay for HBO. - You already pay for it, but you can't get access. So, yeah,
02:19:16 ◼ ► so the thing to me is, like, the best way to combat that is to make it more accessible.
02:19:20 ◼ ► In, for something like Quibi, where it's short, it's like, that would, that would open it up, like, if
02:19:27 ◼ ► you let people do GIFs and let people, you know, tweet screenshots and do other stuff. Like, it could
02:19:32 ◼ ► go viral, but when you don't do that, now you can. Like, you lose out on that whole thing. So, yeah, I'm,
02:19:38 ◼ ► you're not wrong. Like, the rest of the app is bad, but the interface is, at least, not bad. - If you really want to, if you want to get into the idea that you're going to police the
02:19:45 ◼ ► copyright of people posting clips of Quibi shows, you know, by taking a phone to video another phone
02:19:53 ◼ ► or taking a video, you know, because, you know, the phones don't let you, I guess you can record video,
02:19:58 ◼ ► now that I think about it, but, but... - Well, you can do screen recording, but the thing is they, they, but the, but they
02:20:03 ◼ ► will actually block that. Like, you can't do a screen recording. - Yeah, but what, but what do you think somebody's going to do with the screen recording of the show?