0:00:00I feel like you're on a roll.
0:00:01- Oh, thank you.
0:00:02- But you had a really good video the other day.
0:00:03I don't have it in the notes yet, but I will.
0:00:07On this analytics situation in the App Store.
0:00:14We're just jumping right in, no small talk today.
0:00:17- Yeah, absolutely.
0:00:18- But this analytic situation in the App Store
0:00:21and with these apps being discovered,
0:00:23it's like everything with Facebook.
0:00:26It's an unrolling scandal.
0:00:29Like it's not like never ending.
0:00:31Never ending, we learn one thing after another.
0:00:34But basically the Wall Street Journal had a story last week
0:00:40that really escalated this where they did some research
0:00:43on a bunch of apps that take by nature of the app.
0:00:48They take very personal information.
0:00:52These are things like menstrual cycle,
0:00:55calendar trackers for women.
0:00:57What are some of the other examples?
0:01:02- Real estate apps.
0:01:04- Real estate apps.
0:01:05- Houses you wanted to buy, yeah, there's a range of them.
0:01:07- And yeah, so it's like financial information
0:01:11and stuff like that.
0:01:12And they got security experts and they, I guess,
0:01:16hooked these things up to like something to look
0:01:19at the network traffic coming in and out of the phones.
0:01:21And these apps all, like as soon as you'd enter
0:01:24this information, you put your weight in.
0:01:26And as soon as you do it, it goes right to Facebook.
0:01:29- Yeah.
0:01:30And my favorite part is right after the article,
0:01:33Will Straphek, you know, @Chronic on Twitter,
0:01:35who's just absolutely fantastic on information security.
0:01:38He got involved and started decompiling
0:01:40a bunch of other ones and finding like,
0:01:41some of them were sending Google how often you had sex,
0:01:44whether it was protected or not,
0:01:45whether you were trying to conceive or not.
0:01:47- Right, which people are entering into these apps
0:01:49voluntarily because they're doing it for purposes of,
0:01:53know, like the period trackers, you know, whether it's it, you know, even if even women
0:01:59who aren't trying to get pregnant might be tracking their period for for health related
0:02:02purposes that was even wait, it didn't even roll out the second you put the information
0:02:06and it was sent to Facebook or Google or flurry or a company like that. Yeah, it's really
0:02:11strange. And you know, and there have been stories for a while about other other such
0:02:14things where retailers have been tracking people in the real world. Yeah. And Target
0:02:21can figure out or to name one example that if you buy a x, y, and z, there's an 85% chance that you
0:02:29just found out you're pregnant. And some of it's obvious, duh. It's like prenatal vitamins or
0:02:35something like that. But then, just other things, there's just weird connections where
0:02:40skin lotion or something like that, but they can make these connections and then start
0:02:47sending you if you're on their mailing list, start sending you spam, mailing you spam for baby stuff.
0:02:56Just weird. And a lot of times the companies, they'll always say, "Oh, it's anonymized." But
0:03:01unless you're doing sort of like what Apple does with unique tokens that expire immediately in
0:03:06differential, unless you're going that extra mile, anonymizing data doesn't do anything. It has been
0:03:10proven trivial for these companies to get even just one single data point to tie you into these
0:03:15profiles or shadow profiles if you don't use their services and then they know exactly
0:03:20who that data is coming from.
0:03:21Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Right. So yeah, the claims that this is anonymous, that
0:03:26they're just sending, oh yeah, it's just a person who's telling us exactly, you know,
0:03:30how much they weigh and what they've eaten today. You know, it doesn't hold much water
0:03:35to say that it's anonymized because they can connect this in other ways.
0:03:39Yeah, absolutely.
0:03:40And so anyway, you had a video about this on your channel and I thought one of the really
0:03:45interesting segments of it was you pulled up an old, well obviously old at this point,
0:03:50but I think it was from 2011, Steve Jobs at the All Things D conference talking about
0:03:56a scandal at the time that I had since forgotten, the Flurry Analytics thing. Can you describe
0:04:02that?
0:04:03Yeah, so what happened was this article came out saying that Apple was working on new iPhones,
0:04:07of course, and on tablet devices. And it was based on developers using Flurry Analytics
0:04:13and people inside Apple using those apps
0:04:15and the information on the device is being reported.
0:04:18But what's delightful on stage is like you get,
0:04:21Jobs has asked about it.
0:04:22And he just starts saying like, we learned about this
0:04:25and we were pissed off.
0:04:27You know, there was still, and he's just so angry
0:04:30that Apple immediately changed the App Store regulations
0:04:32to forbid these kinds of analytics.
0:04:35And it was immediately, you know, it bothered him
0:04:37because he's big about surprise and delight.
0:04:39And it basically betrayed
0:04:40what Apple's upcoming product roadmap was.
0:04:43And it seems like that is not at all dissimilar
0:04:45to what these apps, they're not doing it
0:04:47for devices anymore, but they're doing it for the customers.
0:04:49- And there was, yeah, and there, it was like,
0:04:52so we, you know, all this, this company came out,
0:04:54they had, they had, they used the analytics to figure out
0:04:57there was like a new iPad coming out, you know,
0:04:59'cause they could tell from, you know,
0:05:00the code running in the analytics, you know, framework,
0:05:04you know, would probe the system and say,
0:05:05oh yeah, this is iPhone or iPad model, you know,
0:05:08comma one or whatever was a new iPad and you know he said we looked at these apps
0:05:13and it turned out that they were all using this flurry analytics and we were
0:05:16like what the hell is that yeah yeah he was mad yeah well and it's an
0:05:23interesting kind of mad because he's aware that he's on stage and you know
0:05:27who can even imagine how you know what his reaction was inside Apple when he
0:05:32wasn't on camera wasn't on stage when he found out that this is what was going on
0:05:36But it was an interesting anecdote, a really good pull.
0:05:41I had forgotten about it and I feel like it really,
0:05:44you know, I don't know, it really hit me in the video
0:05:49because it really shows how this has been going on
0:05:53for a while, that Apple sort of has a blind spot to it
0:05:57because they don't collect it, right?
0:05:58Like, and I feel like that what Jobs is saying, you know,
0:06:02maybe they shouldn't have been surprised that--
0:06:04- Well, he says that they're naive.
0:06:05That was the exact word to use. Yeah. So there you go, you know, right out of the horse's
0:06:09mouth. I mean, no, no, no bones about it, right? Yeah, I feel like that. As much as
0:06:18you would like to think, well, they're Apple, you know, woke up, and they got their handle
0:06:22on it. But it's for everything we've seen in the last few years, especially the last
0:06:27couple of months with these stories from TechCrunch and now the Wall Street Journal, that it's,
0:06:31I don't know if you want to ever want to say Apple is still naive about this stuff, but
0:06:35it's clearly spiraled out of their control in some ways.
0:06:40Yeah. And what's hard too is that there are a lot of edge cases. For example, there was
0:06:43a brouhaha about apps uploading your contact information, which is sometimes good, sometimes
0:06:48bad because there are apps like you want to be able to download a third party address
0:06:52book app if you know one of our really creative friends were to make one that's way better
0:06:56than the system app. And you'd have to grant it access to the universal contacts database
0:07:00for it to do anything important to you.
0:07:02The same way like if you use Tweetbot,
0:07:04you have to give it access to your Twitter profile.
0:07:06But then there are other apps
0:07:08that wanna spam your Twitter followers
0:07:09or other apps that wanna just steal all your contacts.
0:07:12And once you grant permission,
0:07:14there has to be some way for Apple to then follow up
0:07:16and hold them accountable
0:07:17for what they do with that information.
0:07:20- Did you see, I put it in the show notes
0:07:22that our friends at Objective Development,
0:07:25that they're the makers of a bunch of great Mac utilities
0:07:29like Launch Bar and they have a long standing utility called Little Snitch, which is a utility
0:07:36you install, then basically monitors every app you're running and notifies you when they
0:07:43make a network connection. And yes, you can say, Okay, well, this is, you know, obviously,
0:07:48I want you to allow my email client to connect to the server to get my email and send email
0:07:53and you can say it don't, you know, I don't want to be noted, you know, you can dial down
0:07:58the filters so that you're not getting pinged about everything because there's all sorts
0:08:01of stuff on your Mac that you know is making network connections, but it's a way to bring
0:08:05your attention to bits of network networking that you perhaps weren't aware of.
0:08:14Yes.
0:08:15And they have something, I hadn't seen this, but they tweeted this at me, something called
0:08:20the Internet Access Policy.
0:08:24And there...
0:08:25It looks great.
0:08:26pitching it as like the equivalent of a privacy policy.
0:08:29Yeah, here's in their own words, while the latter describes in
0:08:34clear text, which personal data is processed, stored and passed
0:08:37on the internet access policy describes in machine readable
0:08:41form, which internet connections a program creates and for what
0:08:46purpose? Yeah, it sounds great. Super plain language. I really,
0:08:51really would like to see more developers get behind this. I'd
0:08:54like to see Apple get behind something like this?
0:08:56I would… So I would like… On the first level, I would love for there just to be laws.
0:09:00Like, there should really be laws protecting us. Data theft should be treated no differently
0:09:03than any other kind of theft. And if any… Like I said in the video, if any startup CEO
0:09:07or developer even thinks about stealing this kind of information, they should wake up in
0:09:11a cold sweat screaming, apologizing, and pulling out the code because they'll do real jail
0:09:16time. But, you know, that kind of stuff takes a long time. So in the meantime, if Will can
0:09:20find this stuff Apple should implement higher will or implement somebody to do this kind
0:09:25of stuff internally. And they should require right on that page where it says, you know,
0:09:28the compatibility for your app, that the age restrictions for your app should have this
0:09:32is the personal data that we collect. And this is who we share it with. And if developers
0:09:36think that's going to stop you from downloading, then they should reevaluate their business
0:09:39model because they shouldn't put anything on there that they're not proud of. There
0:09:42was something I should correct an episode or two ago, one of these ongoing scandals
0:09:47was about the framework, at least one, I don't know, I think it was a TechCrunch story, but
0:09:52basically that there's popular frameworks that apps use that record your screen activity,
0:09:59ostensibly for the purposes of like AB testing and, you know, there's certainly good uses
0:10:04for that sort of thing, like if you want to track what, see how people who first download
0:10:12your app go through the initial first run and what they tap on where they stop if if
0:10:1733% of the people stop at a certain point and never really come back to the app that's
0:10:23good to know maybe want to revisit that the problem is that they're doing this these apps
0:10:27are doing this without any kind of permission yeah they're just they're just collecting
0:10:33the data and sending it I misspoke on the show and said that it I was under the impression
0:10:38that it was just sending like sort of data, you know, the tap on this position, this button
0:10:46was pressed, the screen was open for 20 seconds, that it wasn't like a movie, but I've been
0:10:51told no.
0:10:52Yeah, it is a movie.
0:10:54That they're just that that what gets sent back to the developer, could you just hit
0:10:58the play button and they can just watch you as though they were recording your screen,
0:11:03you know, as though as though you were taking a movie, you know, they can see everything
0:11:06you did in there.
0:11:07And I asked about this if you agree to it fine and and and what you were agreeing to
0:11:13It was told you in very plain language not some kind of inscrutable
0:11:188-point type
0:11:215,000 word thing that you know, everybody is going to skip past
0:11:25Yeah, and I asked about this too because almost all the apps that were caught doing this were like banking apps or big
0:11:32hospitality companies and it seemed weird because they every time you'd use those apps is making a server call and they know what you're hitting
0:11:39And when you're hitting it, but was explained to me that they're just too
0:11:42I don't know if lazy is the right word
0:11:43But they they were looking for an easy way to package that and there are people that offered
0:11:47Easy way so instead of them having to pull their server logs and like get hire someone to parse it for them and make it
0:11:52Usable they just threw in these frameworks that were that we're making it easy for them
0:11:56And it was good to see a bunch of developers say, you know
0:11:59I would we would never use these our job doesn't need to be easy
0:12:02It needs to be done with respect for our customers and we can do this without using those sketchy frameworks
0:12:06It's just ridiculous how it just goes on and on and on
0:12:13Really do Facebook Facebook just said that they don't think they don't allow their developers to take anything without your permission
0:12:18Google refused to comment and just point at people at the policy
0:12:28it you know
0:12:30it's
0:12:32it's just such a pervasive and I
0:12:35actually misused the word in a post on daring fireball a couple days ago and then decided that
0:12:41I wanted to use pervasive but I used perverted and then I kept it when I edited it and made it pervasive and perverted it
0:12:48Really is a perverted. Yeah attitude on
0:12:51Privacy like I and I really
0:12:56Feel like I'm I've been naive about this to a certain extent like I've kind of known that it's going on
0:13:02But the more that comes out the more I'm I find myself I think of myself as cynical and I don't really trust
0:13:09the
0:13:12I've long-standing opposition to a lot of the ad tech
0:13:16Industry this whole idea of tech tracking and and personalizing advertising
0:13:25and even being a cynic on this front and being involved and supporting myself through advertising and and
0:13:32in a very purposeful way avoiding
0:13:36the privacy, you know, my whole career has been based on trying to
0:13:42Do ad supported publishing and podcasting in a way that is a hundred percent respectful of reader and listener
0:13:50privacy. Even as a cynic, I find myself almost staggered by the depths of it and the this sort
0:13:57of default mentality, both from Facebook and Google, maybe lump Amazon in with them too, as
0:14:04the gorilla, Titanic companies that are collecting these dossiers on people to all of the the little
0:14:13fish, just the individual apps from, you know, 50. I mean, how many banks have apps in the
0:14:21App Store? Hundreds, I'm sure. Probably thousands from, you know, around the world. How many
0:14:25of those apps are sending weird shit to the banks about what people are doing in the apps?
0:14:32Like, yeah, why?
0:14:33And one of the worst parts is, you know, Google has a business like Facebook and data harvesting
0:14:40and a business like Apple and running an app marketplace.
0:14:43And it's very hard to imagine Google
0:14:45doing what's best for customers and what's
0:14:47best for Google at the same time.
0:14:49They're almost divided against themselves.
0:14:51And when Will was looking at the apps for Google,
0:14:53it was way harder to try to figure out
0:14:55what they were doing than the apps from iOS.
0:14:57You know, when Brent and Dave Whiskas and I
0:15:02were making Vesper a notes app, and we
0:15:05were going to do our own sync, we were very cognizant
0:15:08that we have no idea what people are putting in their notes. We don't want to know. We
0:15:11want to set this up in a way where we can't know. There was no view that we had where
0:15:17we could look at the notes, the notes restored, encrypted on the server. But it's just a
0:15:25silly little notes app that we were selling for four bucks, but we figured who knows?
0:15:29People could write anything and everything in a notes app.
0:15:30So the most important thing in their lives could be that note.
0:15:33we take it, you know, let's, let's, let's be very deliberate every step of the way.
0:15:37I can't help but think like, if you were working on a team that was making a period tracker for
0:15:45women, you have to recognize instantly that this is super private information. This is super personal,
0:15:51you know, hard to get more personal than a woman's health. Yeah. You would just think every step of
0:16:01the way let's not screw up like that's what we were thinking with Vesper is how you know let's
0:16:06let's follow you know all the best practices we can let's be cautious I mean and I say we be Brent
0:16:12really was the one who designed and built the sync service but we were all on board with okay Brent
0:16:16take your time and you know do this in a very cautious deliberately err on the side of you know
0:16:23let's make sure this is as solid as possible that's just thinking about mistakes bugs like oh my god
0:16:29we screwed up and we expose personal information through blank accidentally were horrified.
0:16:35Let's do you know, let's fix it. Let's tell everybody. Let's know, you know, let's get
0:16:39in front of this, whatever. That's the mentality you would just like to think that everybody
0:16:45has. But on the other hand, here's these companies that it's not mistakes, it's purposeful. It's
0:16:49let's include this Facebook analytic package in that's going to instantly send all of this
0:16:54data to Facebook, like the mentality behind that doing that, clearly on purpose, right?
0:16:59You don't accidentally include a Facebook analytics framework in your app and have it
0:17:04wired up to, you know, the data. It's, I really feel like it is hard to overstate the, the
0:17:16outrage that we collectively should have. And like you said, that our lawmakers across
0:17:22the globe should have about getting on top of this.
0:17:27And frankly, again, it's hard to expect Google to do anything because they're conflicted
0:17:31on this, but Apple, if you talk to the Face ID team, for example, it wasn't like, "Let's
0:17:36make Face ID and then we'll figure out how to make it private."
0:17:38It's like you are not allowed to make Face ID unless every step along the way has been
0:17:43carefully considered for preserving privacy.
0:17:45And that's not just Face ID, that's everything that they build.
0:17:48And the same thing needs to be applied to the App Store, especially because, again,
0:17:52I don't think Google's going to do it.
0:17:54And if Apple's making this their top-down, front-facing, most important feature, then
0:17:59they've got to do that throughout their stack.
0:18:02It's the way everything is monetized, too.
0:18:05The way that these apps are all free and it's...
0:18:09And I know there's...
0:18:10Free is in your data.
0:18:11Yeah.
0:18:12The Tim Cook line that he loves a lot, which is,
0:18:15if you're not the paying customer, you're the,
0:18:19what's that, I'm? (laughs)
0:18:21- You're the product, yeah. - You're the product, right.
0:18:24And there's truth to that.
0:18:25And I realize it doesn't apply in every way.
0:18:28But there is a problem with expecting all this stuff
0:18:31to be free, and that they're selling,
0:18:33you're exchanging your privacy instead of your money
0:18:36for these products and services.
0:18:38And I think that people are starting to catch on to this.
0:18:42And I really feel like the industry has spent,
0:18:46it's not just like an app era thing,
0:18:48it's really an internet era thing.
0:18:50It goes to the whole use of the web
0:18:55and how many websites have been free
0:18:56and the tracking goes back to the origins
0:18:59of ads on the internet.
0:19:03And famously, you know, people don't like to pay for digital stuff, right? People, you know,
0:19:10famously, you know, they'll spend $1,100 on a phone and then balk at spending $2 on a game
0:19:19for the phone. But I feel like people are starting to wake up to the fact that this stuff isn't
0:19:26really free, that there's something being lost in the exchange here, and that the, the,
0:19:32the extraordinary just lack of respect that these companies have for customer privacy
0:19:40is really starting to burst out of the "oh that's just inside baseball" and break into
0:19:49the mainstream conversation about how we live our lives in this ever more digital world.
0:19:54Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And again, humans just psychologically,
0:20:00evolutionarily speaking, we are tuned to think about the present and not the future. And
0:20:04almost all the time we will mortgage our future for the present. And these are so good at doing
0:20:09that because you think, oh, it's free. You don't see data the way you see time, the way you see
0:20:13money. You don't feel it leaving your wallet. And everybody is data rich. It's a great equalizer.
0:20:18Different people have different kinds of money, different amounts of time, different amounts of
0:20:21money. But we all have invaluable data for these companies and they will happily take as much as
0:20:28we will give in exchange for what we think are free products but are really front ends
0:20:32for data harvesting services.
0:20:33You know, I use this analogy all the time that we wouldn't tolerate in the real world
0:20:39what we tolerate online, you know, like where you go shopping for a pair of boots in a store
0:20:47and then all of a sudden every tab in your browser has ads for brown boots. We wouldn't
0:20:54tolerate it in the real world. If you went into a shoe store in the real world and looked
0:20:59at a pair of boots, can thought about them and thought, you know what? I'm not going
0:21:01to buy these and you walk down the street. If somebody from the store followed you or
0:21:05somebody from a boot company followed you and started asking you, you know, Hey, how
0:21:10about these boots? How about that? How about we go into Macy's and, you know, look for
0:21:14boots. Macy's has a sale on boots. You'd be so creeped out. It would, you know, you'd
0:21:21be, you know, you'd object, you know, you would be like, you wouldn't just tolerate
0:21:27it, right? You'd freak out in a way. And yet that's how everything happens online.
0:21:33Yeah. If any of this stuff was made manifest, I think we talked about this last time. If
0:21:37you were forced to see all your nudie pics and all your personal health data go into
0:21:42a literal representation of these servers, you'd be aghast, but it's all invisible to
0:21:46you. There's no real, there's no perceived cost.
0:21:48- Yeah, it's really, I don't know.
0:21:51Where do you think this is going with Facebook?
0:21:55And on the app store?
0:21:56I think you agree with me,
0:21:58but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
0:22:01I feel like, okay, Apple actually is on the right in this,
0:22:06that they really do,
0:22:09they really do want to protect customers' privacy,
0:22:15and they really don't wanna collect this stuff themselves.
0:22:18But I think at least even though they're not doing it
0:22:22and they're not condoning it,
0:22:24it's happening in apps that are going through their store.
0:22:28And so I do feel like they bear
0:22:30a certain responsibility for this and for addressing it.
0:22:35- Yeah, absolutely.
0:22:37Again, I think it's a triple phase approach.
0:22:39I think ultimately there has to be regulation.
0:22:41Until there's regulation, it defaults down to the platforms,
0:22:44Microsoft, Apple, and Google.
0:22:46and again, pointing out that Google's conflicted on this.
0:22:49What I would love Apple to do is to require
0:22:52the privacy disclosure to be on the product page
0:22:54and then to do exactly what Will does
0:22:56and sniff the products to make sure
0:22:57that what they're disclosing is the same
0:23:00as what's on the page.
0:23:01And if it's not, they reject them.
0:23:03And if it's malicious, they do what they've done
0:23:05with other violators, and that is delete
0:23:07their developer accounts.
0:23:08And that will create an environment
0:23:10where this sort of behavior,
0:23:11like this sort of behavior, we become normalized to it.
0:23:13Like it just seems like it's what everybody does.
0:23:15is desensitizing because there's a new scandal every day.
0:23:19And the only way to stop that is to start doing things
0:23:21that are severe, things that force you to wake up
0:23:23and pay attention.
0:23:25And I feel like if Apple,
0:23:26Apple's the only one in any position to do this
0:23:28because I'm not really sure what the state
0:23:30of the Windows market is right now.
0:23:32And Google probably will never do this,
0:23:34at least not if Apple doesn't do it first.
0:23:36But they're in a real position to set the same standard
0:23:38for these apps that they're setting
0:23:39for themselves internally.
0:23:41And then things like what you pointed out
0:23:43with the little Snitch company to help developers
0:23:45who are doing this get the recognition that they deserve
0:23:48and to get our confidence as customers.
0:23:50And until those things happen,
0:23:52companies are gonna keep doing this because it's easy.
0:23:54They get bribed and extorted by the Googles
0:23:58and the Facebooks to include this stuff
0:24:00and they get benefits from doing it.
0:24:02It feeds both their laziness and their finances,
0:24:06so they're gonna keep doing it until someone stops them.
0:24:09- Yeah, but I really do feel like Apple has to,
0:24:12and they need to act quicker than legislation
0:24:15is going to happen.
0:24:16They can't just stand behind and say,
0:24:17well, this stuff is legal.
0:24:19I'm not quite sure what that is,
0:24:23but I think you're right though,
0:24:23that part of it would be having,
0:24:26taking like what Straphec does
0:24:29and make it part of the review process.
0:24:34It's probably not simple enough.
0:24:37I mean, with some of this stuff like the screen recording,
0:24:40once the story broke. Because there's a known list of these analytics frameworks that supply
0:24:49it, they could automate the process of looking through all the thousands and thousands of
0:24:56apps in the App Store and finding apps that have these frameworks. And a lot of these
0:25:02apps got like, the developers got like, "Hey, you've got three days to remove X, Y, and
0:25:07Z from your app or it's going to be taken out of the App Store. So, you know, they obviously
0:25:13have that capability. It's kind of cool that they could do that, but it's not enough.
0:25:19They don't want to get into a situation of whack-a-mole where, okay, now we know we have
0:25:23to change the name of the framework and hide it from the App Store review team. They don't
0:25:31want to go down that path. I think the thing that they can monitor is actually looking
0:25:35at the network calls that are going out of the app
0:25:38and where they're going.
0:25:39There's no way to hide that.
0:25:40I mean, they can't necessarily see within them
0:25:42'cause hopefully all those calls are using SSL
0:25:45so they're encrypted, but they can at least see
0:25:47which servers are being notified.
0:25:49- Yeah, which is what Will did.
0:25:50He pulled out like the Google Analytics data.
0:25:52There was that case of Uber saying,
0:25:54"Don't do this if you're in the vicinity of Cupertino,"
0:25:56but they still got caught.
0:25:57And to me, that would be the malicious part
0:25:59that just gets your account deleted.
0:26:01(laughing)
0:26:03I mean, obviously the rules are different when you're Uber.
0:26:05And this drives some people crazy because they feel like Facebook and Google and Uber
0:26:09get special treatment.
0:26:10And they do the same way.
0:26:11Like America will respond to China differently than it will respond to some very small country.
0:26:19And a lot of people use and depend on these services.
0:26:22And in essence, you have the web.
0:26:23So like if you ever wanted to get rid of the Facebook app, people could still log into
0:26:26Facebook on Safari.
0:26:28So I think it has to go beyond just looking at it from the punitive sense.
0:26:32It has to be really fixing this problem.
0:26:34- Problem. - Yeah.
0:26:35Well, it's an ongoing saga.
0:26:39All right, let me take a break
0:26:42and thank our first sponsor.
0:26:44It's a new sponsor, I love this company.
0:26:46It's really, really neat.
0:26:47It's called Marine Layer.
0:26:49Like marine, like water, Marine Layer.
0:26:52Marine Layer makes clothing, casual,
0:26:56stuff like sweatshirts and pullovers and T-shirts
0:26:59for men and women.
0:27:01They make their own fabric.
0:27:04They've really started from the ground up.
0:27:06And they really talked about the word soft.
0:27:09And their stuff is so very soft.
0:27:13Really, really soft t-shirts.
0:27:15And it's really kind of amazing.
0:27:17And really stylish, very cool, lots of stuff to choose from.
0:27:20It's not like, oh, this feels nice soft.
0:27:22It's just like, holy shit, how did they make this?
0:27:24I'm never taking it off soft.
0:27:26And it turns out, one of the ways
0:27:28they did this by making their fabric
0:27:29is that they make them from trees.
0:27:31It's called Micro Modal.
0:27:32that's found in marine softs, signature fabric, and it's made from recycled beechwood. The
0:27:38pulp production is self sufficient, which makes their teas sustainable, eco friendly.
0:27:44And as I said, soft. They also have some really cool stuff for sizing, where they have in
0:27:51between sizes that they call like Marge, which is in between medium and large and larger,
0:27:56which is bigger than large, but smaller than extra large. For people who just don't conform
0:28:01to standard sizes. They have an insanely good return policy, you can return pretty much
0:28:06anything for up to a year, and they stand by their clothes. And they offer free shipping
0:28:11and free returns on all us orders. Wow, that's really great. Here's the deal. They've got
0:28:16quality product, lots of selection, really, really soft fabric, really comfortable, great
0:28:23customer experience with free shipping and returns. So here's what you do. You get 15%
0:28:29your first order. That's a special deal for listeners of the show. Go to Marine layer
0:28:34dot com and enter the promo code T T S at checkout. That's promo code TTS for the talk
0:28:43show and that gets you 15% off your first order at Marine layer dot com. Absolutely
0:28:51great stuff. All right, here's something I've been thinking about. So, um, and I don't think
0:28:57I've talked about it on the show. And if I have, I've blacked out and forgotten it. There
0:29:03is an apple privacy related the elephant in the room. And it ties into Apple's services
0:29:14narrative and that look at our services revenue is growing, growing, growing. And, and the
0:29:22basic gist is hey, of these big five companies,
0:29:26especially Google and Facebook, maybe lump Amazon in,
0:29:31these guys are doing sketchy stuff with your privacy.
0:29:33We're not, we're Apple, we're not doing it.
0:29:36The elephant in the room is the money
0:29:38that Apple gets from Google
0:29:41for making Google search the default in Safari
0:29:45across the Mac and let's face it, in particular, iOS.
0:29:50Um, it's, uh, I think it's Goldman Sachs who did some work on this and estimated it at
0:29:58like 8 billion for 2018. Um, and I think that they estimate that it might go up to like
0:30:0512 billion for 2019. Um, that's a lot of money and it's a fairly high, it's a lot of money
0:30:13period, right? We're talking $12 billion. That's, I mean, that's by anybody's standards,
0:30:17and Apple and Google, that's a lot of money.
0:30:19It's also a big chunk of Apple's services revenue.
0:30:25Like a big chunk of Apple's services revenue is,
0:30:28and I'm not gonna say they don't have to do anything,
0:30:33but effectively, yeah, just keeping Google
0:30:35as the default search engine in Safari.
0:30:38So all of this stuff with Apple Music and with iCloud
0:30:43and with their upcoming video service,
0:30:46with their supposedly upcoming subscription news service
0:30:50and anything else that would be filed under the,
0:30:54look at all these new initiatives we have
0:30:56to increase services revenue.
0:30:57A big chunk of the money just comes from making Google
0:30:59the default search engine.
0:31:02And the privacy angle on this is,
0:31:05how can we say that Google has problems,
0:31:09you know, is a problematic company
0:31:10in terms of respecting people's privacy
0:31:14while Apple is pocketing $10 billion a year.
0:31:19Like where do they think that money is coming from?
0:31:21- Yeah, yeah, no, I did a video on this too,
0:31:26but there was a whole bunch of things
0:31:27that people say that, you know,
0:31:29like there's the China situation
0:31:30and there's just several of these.
0:31:32And the one that you cannot justify is Google.
0:31:36Now I've used DuckDuckGo because of the issues
0:31:39I have with Google and it's simply not as good.
0:31:41And that's Apple's overall point
0:31:42is that Google is the best search engine.
0:31:45But once, you know, if Apple just chose it
0:31:46and wasn't getting paid for it,
0:31:47that's an easy position to defend.
0:31:49Google is the best search engine still.
0:31:51We understand there's problems with it,
0:31:52but we believe it's the best for our customers.
0:31:54So we're using it, there's no money changing hands.
0:31:57The minute the money changes hands,
0:31:58then it's impossible to say
0:32:00whether it's the best or not anymore.
0:32:02If I had my druthers, there would be a box that pops up
0:32:05because you can change it.
0:32:07It's not like it's the only search engine.
0:32:08You can go into Safari settings and choose DuckDuckGo
0:32:11or Yahoo or Microsoft.
0:32:12I don't know why they're still in there, but you can.
0:32:15But if I had my draw, there's the first time,
0:32:17the first run experience for Safari would pop up,
0:32:20which search engine do you wanna use?
0:32:21And if people tap on Google because they prefer the results
0:32:24and they understand what comes with them, that's great.
0:32:28If they have concerns, they can tap DuckDuckGo,
0:32:30and that's great too.
0:32:31And maybe people who work at Microsoft could tap on Bing,
0:32:34but whatever, you'd have a conscious user decision to do it.
0:32:38And Google could even pay them a bounty
0:32:40for every person who taps on Google
0:32:41if they really wanted to.
0:32:42But to me, that sort of,
0:32:44once you make privacy your distinguishing feature,
0:32:46you've set the bar much higher.
0:32:48Because I think Firefox famously gets almost all their money
0:32:51from Google as well, which is super ironic,
0:32:53giving Firefox the statements.
0:32:54And Apple previously would say,
0:32:56"Yeah, we use Google as a default,
0:32:57"but we do everything we can to deny them information
0:32:59"with do not track and with providing garbage input
0:33:02"into the machine tracking,
0:33:04"and by killing all the social plugins
0:33:06"and killing the ads."
0:33:07And that might be true.
0:33:09still taking all the money. And they do some stuff that I would think Google would prefer
0:33:18they didn't like when you in you're in Safari and you start typing in the magic, you know,
0:33:25search or URL field. They have sometimes depending on what what you type suggested results that
0:33:34aren't from your search engine provider, you know, that Apple
0:33:37is somehow guessing what it is, you know, it's like the top
0:33:40items, sometimes, you know, Siri, I guess they call them
0:33:44Siri suggestions, right. But for the most part, you know, a lot
0:33:51of the stuff that goes through that field goes through Google.
0:33:55Yeah. And it's, you know, it must be if there's so many
0:33:59negotiations that I would love to be a fly on the wall for it.
0:34:01That is one that must be fascinating to me because Apple's obviously, I mean, if we take
0:34:08Goldman Sachs' numbers, and I think I would probably wager that if they're not spot on,
0:34:14they're close enough, you know, that it was somewhere between 8 to 12 billion 2018 and
0:34:19now 2019.
0:34:21They're obviously getting a lot of money from Google.
0:34:24But on the other hand, Google is coming at this from a very strong position of strength
0:34:28in terms of what are you going to do?
0:34:30Are you really going to make being the default search engine?
0:34:33Right?
0:34:34Are you really going to make DuckDuckGo the default search engine?
0:34:37Come on.
0:34:38So there it would be worth a lot more.
0:34:42I think about this.
0:34:43If it's worth roughly 10 billion a year now, imagine what it would be worth in a world
0:34:49where there were two or three search engines that were arguably of equal quality competitive.
0:34:58What if Bing results really were indistinguishable from Google search results?
0:35:05I suspect, I don't know, but and I suppose that they could prepare for this in advance.
0:35:11It wouldn't be sprung on them at the last moment.
0:35:14But I would wager heavily that Apple couldn't make like flip a switch tomorrow and make
0:35:20DuckDuckGo the default search engine that DuckDuckGo wouldn't be able to handle that
0:35:24sudden increase in traffic.
0:35:27And you can't really do that. This is part of Google's strength in negotiating too, is
0:35:33with so many hundreds of millions of iOS users. I mean, what does Apple estimate as the user
0:35:41base? Is it up to a billion yet? I think it's a billion devices, maybe not a billion people,
0:35:48but it's hundreds of millions of people clearly. In some way, I'm not going to say can't. Can't
0:35:53is obviously they could, but it would be very difficult to change the default on people
0:36:00just when they upgrade the OS, right? When you upgrade to iOS, I guess it'll be 14 this
0:36:08year or is it 13?
0:36:09I even did it intentionally. I switched to DuckDuckDoh and the first time I used it,
0:36:15I didn't recognize the search page results. It's just been very confusing.
0:36:21And there's an awful lot of people and it's really gets to the, you know, people aren't
0:36:27supposed to be technical experts. That's the whole, you know, Apple way of, of, you know,
0:36:33that's been Apple's motto from the get go. But Google's role, Google searches role on
0:36:41the internet is if you know how the web works and you, you know, you know how to build a
0:36:48website and you basically know you don't have to be able to write a search engine but if
0:36:53you basically know it's just a simple form you type words you hit the button and then
0:36:59it goes to the server and the server takes that query and makes its best guess as to
0:37:05what it is you're looking for. You know you realize there is no anybody could make a search
0:37:10engine there are dozens and dozens of search engines before Google really grew to prominence
0:37:15there, you know, there was no dominant search engine. There were a handful. I was always
0:37:20an Alta Vista man. Alta Vista was my go to. Yeah. You know, but but most people don't
0:37:33don't realize that like they see Google as the internet, right? You know, there's the
0:37:38famous stories about that the way people would get to Facebook is they go to Google and type
0:37:44Facebook login and hit go. The Google search field is effectively like a command line interface
0:37:54to the internet. And unlike the old command lines of Unix terminal and DOS where everything
0:38:03is super fragile and you can make terrible mistakes or you have to type the name of the
0:38:08precise, you know, make one character mistake. You know, it's wonderfully user friendly in
0:38:14that you can make all sorts of spelling mistakes and not even use spaces and somehow it figures
0:38:20out what you want anyway. And it just works. And they're at the top of your results is
0:38:25exactly what you're looking for. It I think even if people understood, if you could somehow
0:38:33sit everybody down across the world and give them a 15-minute lecture on what is a search
0:38:39engine and how do you change your default search engine and make them understand this.
0:38:45People would still be angry if the default was switched just by upgrading to iOS 13 or
0:38:50whatever, let alone the fact that they wouldn't understand. They would be like, "What the
0:38:55hell is this?" All right? So it's a tough position. I don't know that Apple… Again,
0:39:02I'm not again not gonna say can't but it would be very difficult for them to
0:39:06Not have Google as their default search engine in Safari even if they wanted to
0:39:10But nobody's forcing them to pocket money from it
0:39:15Yeah, I mean we say that it's 12 billion dollars and they offered me 12 billion dollars to use Google right? It's certainly
0:39:21Well, and it reminds me of an argument that I often have with people about sports where people will argue sports fans will will argue
0:39:30That such-and-such player, you know, it's gonna sign a 30 million dollar a year contract and they say well nobody deserves
0:39:36No, that's too much money. These plate these players are greedy. Why in the world, you know, do you need that much money?
0:39:41Well if the players weren't making the money that they're making
0:39:45It's not like they're gonna lower
0:39:49The ticket prices in the stadiums and arenas and it's not like they're gonna lower the price of the commercials. They're selling
0:39:57During the telecasts which let's face is where most of the money in pro sports comes from
0:40:01They're not going to lower the price of those ads that they see
0:40:05courtside or ring, you know along the along the ring rink of the the
0:40:10You know the hockey arena
0:40:13All of that stuff
0:40:15It's just gonna stay with the owners of the teams
0:40:17Right if they're not the less they pay the players the more it's gonna stay with the owners of the teams and is that really?
0:40:22What you want as a sports fan?
0:40:23You know the rise in sports salaries going to players is actually a good thing, you know historically 40 50 years ago
0:40:31It's almost criminal how underpaid players were in professional sports at least in the United States
0:40:35You know that owners of bait the baseball teams collectively conspired
0:40:40To under pay their players and and not allow them free agency
0:40:45I mean all of this stuff is actually relatively new to pro sports
0:40:49anyway along those same lines if
0:40:52Apple weren't taking ten billion dollars a year from Google for
0:40:56Google's being the default search engine and just did it for free to keep their hands clean that money would be in Google's pockets
0:41:03so
0:41:05You know, it's a tax or taxing
0:41:07But I really feel like this is something that gook
0:41:12It's getting untenable for Apple to keep taking this pro privacy stance without addressing this publicly
0:41:19Yeah, it will it will always be used against them until it's addressed I
0:41:22Really do wonder I know I
0:41:26Get you duck duck go I didn't write about it, but I actually visited them recently because
0:41:33The one cool thing that's happened recently is that
0:41:38duck duck go and Apple have partnered on
0:41:41Maps and yeah duck duck go now uses Apple Maps as its
0:41:48it's mapping data. So it shows you Apple Maps when you search for a location all around
0:41:56the world. And it's way, it's a huge upgrade for DuckDuckGo. They were using like open
0:42:04something maps beforehand because DuckDuckGo has, they're not just more private than Google
0:42:11or Bing or something like that. Like privacy is actually fundamental to DuckDuckGo's mission.
0:42:17actually a higher priority for them than search, you know, result accuracy. So they, they, they
0:42:24don't show or distribute any third party code. Like when you visit DuckDuckGo, there are no none
0:42:33of the ads that they do have come from third parties, and inject any kind of JavaScript or
0:42:38something like that, from a from any server other than theirs. That's a problem. They had to work
0:42:45with Apple to get this map thing to work as the maps obviously aren't just static images,
0:42:49there is a lot of code involved. But effectively, it all gets proxied through DuckDuckGo servers.
0:42:59So you go to DuckDuckGo as a user in Safari, and you type your query, and the query goes to DuckDuckGo.
0:43:05And if it's a location related query, or the results involve location stuff, DuckDuckGo on
0:43:12their server talks to maps.apple.com and gets everything it needs and it goes to DuckDuckGo
0:43:18and then DuckDuckGo delivers it to you. So maps.apple.com never sees your IP address,
0:43:24never talks to you directly. And you don't have to know this. Nobody, no regular person just using
0:43:31DuckDuckGo would know this. But that's how seriously they take your privacy. It's a really
0:43:36cool thing. And it really is the sort of thing that gives DuckDuckGo, they're too small of
0:43:45a company, I forget how many employees they have, it's somewhere like around 60 around
0:43:49the world. That's the total size of the company. They, but effectively now they have a multi
0:43:58billion dollar partner, helping them with maps, which is truly fascinating. And Apple
0:44:06is motivated to make its maps better. This is an area where clearly they are at best
0:44:13in second place to Google. They have terrific motivation in various ways to make their maps
0:44:23better and not just, you know, let's spend a year or two making our maps better and then forget it.
0:44:30This is something that the company obviously has to be committed to on an ongoing basis
0:44:34in perpetuity from now until the end of maps being the useful thing, right? And DuckDuckGo,
0:44:41as Apple Maps continues to improve and as directions and whatever else you get from Apple
0:44:46maps, the data on the maps, the base of interesting locations, where stores are. One of Apple's
0:44:58recent initiatives is where are all the stores and retailers inside airport terminals? As
0:45:05that stuff improves, DuckDuckGo just gets it all for free, effectively. I thought that's
0:45:12pretty interesting.
0:45:13There's a bunch of people who just every time we talk about this say Apple should buy
0:45:16DuckDuckDuck, make it the default search engine and invest heavily in it.
0:45:20This is where you've read my mind, this is where I'm going is yes, that this comes
0:45:25out and I've thought about that.
0:45:28I have thought about that a lot.
0:45:30I'm sure that people at Apple have thought about it but I don't think it's as simple.
0:45:41I don't think it's a very simple decision.
0:45:43I think there's a lot of very complex ramifications.
0:45:46I think it's tempting to think of it simply
0:45:49because surely Apple could write a check
0:45:54that DuckDuckGo is big enough that DuckDuckGo would say yes.
0:46:00Yes.
0:46:02I really doubt it would even be
0:46:07if Apple decided they wanted to go that route.
0:46:09I don't even know that it would be a long negotiation.
0:46:11I suppose it's possible that DuckDuckGo values its independence and maybe that number is
0:46:21higher than it would be if they were looking to sell, which I know that they're not.
0:46:30But surely Apple could, it wouldn't take too long for them to add enough zeros at the end.
0:46:34Yes, I was just thinking the same thing.
0:46:36I just saw the check getting longer.
0:46:39write a check. And then you know, instead of like crossing out the first number and
0:46:43making that one big, they just add add another zero at the end. And like, what about now?
0:46:50So I don't think that part of it would be complicated. I think though, that it would
0:47:00be comp, I think that there's a certain at a certain angle, I think Apple enjoys not
0:47:06owning a search engine, you know, and, and think about all the controversies that pop
0:47:10up all the time where, I mean, a recent one is this vaccination stuff where anti vaccination
0:47:21propaganda comes up in it at the top of these search results, either in search engines or
0:47:28Facebook, I think was just busted for promoting, you know, you search on Facebook for vaccination
0:47:34stuff and it's all anti vaccination stuff. And part of it is the fact that I just read
0:47:43a story that the pro vaccination doctors and experts have sort of given up because they
0:47:48were their stuff was getting buried anyway, and it's settled science anyway. So they really
0:47:53isn't there shouldn't be there isn't really much new stuff to write about. Apple by it
0:47:59by not having a search engine, they avoid that. I mean, and there's all you know, you
0:48:02name it. We could spend an hour listing controversial topics and
0:48:07yes, absolutely. And where they fall in search results. And by
0:48:11not YouTube has gone through two weeks of utter chaos over the
0:48:15very topic. Right lately. Right, right. YouTube. Yes, absolutely.
0:48:21It's almost in disarray. Yeah. You know, both in terms of
0:48:26algorithmic. Well, the algorithmic recommendations is at
0:48:31the heart of it. But a big part of it too is the unmoderated comments and the subject
0:48:35of the comments. And so on the one hand, I think Apple likes not owning a search engine.
0:48:47I also think they like making $10 billion a year from Google. And it would be very,
0:48:57You know, and this is where I see this as a sort of unspoken conflict of interest on
0:49:02Apple's part on privacy is let's say they do buy DuckDuckGo, and they just rename it
0:49:08Apple search. And they maintain all of these private, you know, make it as private as they
0:49:13can. And let's even further stipulate that they improve the search results to the point
0:49:23where it's on par with Google search results,
0:49:28that people are as satisfied with it as in general
0:49:31as they are with Google search.
0:49:33I really doubt that Apple would be able to make
0:49:3610 to $15 billion a year
0:49:40without changing their privacy, right?
0:49:48Like the whole reason Google make that it's so,
0:49:50Google search is so valuable,
0:49:51make so much money that Google's willing to spend $10 billion a year just to make it the
0:49:55default in these in one browser. Apple would, let's face it would have to forgo a chunk
0:50:06of that revenue. I mean, presumably they could have some kind of ads, but it wouldn't be
0:50:09ad the ads wouldn't be as lucrative as Google's.
0:50:11It's the developer ads from the App Store. But no, there's this anecdote about when Google
0:50:16started and Larry and Sergey were adamant that it would have no ads because
0:50:21when the minute you introduce ads it would fundamentally corrupt the very
0:50:25nature of the search engine they wanted to be this very pure very scientific
0:50:29very egalitarian very proper thing but then the dot-com bubble burst and their
0:50:33VCs because a minute you take VCs you are no longer in charge of your destiny
0:50:38their VCs said you have to monetize and so they turned on ads and ads are like
0:50:44ultimate power that never really leads to corruption because you are no you are
0:50:47no longer making a product to serve the customer you're now making a product to
0:50:50serve the advertiser or the monetization engine and I don't you know Apple would
0:50:54have to spend almost all that money as a giveaway just to provide a service for
0:51:00users with very little upside to it and Apple is Apple is good at spending money
0:51:05on accessibility they're good at spending money on several things that
0:51:07they get no return from and Tim Cook is famously because angry Tim is my
0:51:11favorite has famously stood up and said we don't give a damn about the ROI. But when
0:51:15you start operating services at scale, which would be like iMessage on the web or for Android
0:51:20or FaceTime on the web or for Android or a search engine, all of these things, and it
0:51:25doesn't fit into Apple's existing business model, they would either have to do it at
0:51:28a loss and there's only so many of those things they could do at a loss or they'd have to
0:51:31start doing what big companies do to support that and that would make them just like Facebook
0:51:35and Google.
0:51:36DuckDuckGo does make money and they have ads, but they do it in a way that is completely
0:51:42respectful of your privacy and doesn't track you.
0:51:48I've spoken to them about it.
0:51:53They didn't tell me exactly how much money they make and how much they make per search
0:51:57or something like that because it's obviously confidential information, competitive.
0:52:04be willing to bet though that they make less money per search than Google makes per search,
0:52:09that it's less lucrative. So Apple could—
0:52:11**Matt Stauffer:** Because Google, they're literally bidding—they've put people in
0:52:13a situation to bid on those ads.
0:52:15**Ezra Klein:** Right. That's a tough position for Apple to be in. And I think it's easier
0:52:21for Apple to say, "We don't want to own our own search engine because that's not
0:52:24our area of expertise and we don't want to be responsible for it," whatever. But
0:52:29it's hard not to also think that they also enjoy their current relationship where their
0:52:35hands are clean, but they still get now $12 billion a year from Google doing things that
0:52:42they themselves are condemning privacy-wise.
0:52:44And being pragmatically, this isn't new. A lot of people will just say, "Oh, Tim Cook
0:52:47is greedy." This relationship has been going on. Even famously, when Steve Jobs was at
0:52:51war with Google, it didn't change the default search engine in iOS. And at this point, like
0:52:57Like you said, when you change it, not only does it affect every user, but if you suddenly
0:53:00remove that income from Apple's services division, that's a whole different story
0:53:04on Wall Street as well.
0:53:06Yeah, yeah, that's exactly, you know, that they've, if anything, that's the other
0:53:11thing that I feel a little uncomfortable looking at, you know, where's, where, you know,
0:53:17the state of Apple today and where they're going.
0:53:22not just that I care about privacy, it's that I see this as a conflict, you know, that there's
0:53:28tension inside Apple where they're promoting this services narrative to Wall Street as this is the
0:53:34area of growth, you know, yes, or, I mean, Apple hasn't admit Apple hasn't said categorically,
0:53:40iPhone unit sales are never going to grow again. But, you know, the truth is, they probably aren't
0:53:48They probably have we probably have seen peak iPhone in terms of unit sales
0:53:51you know and pushing services but look we have significant growth and lots of headroom in this
0:54:00services area but where this huge chunk of it comes from just making Google search the default
0:54:07search engine really would make it hard for them to change that at all. And you start having all
0:54:12these things like when you sold computers you had to deal with resellers and when you sold phones
0:54:16You have to deal with carriers. And when you sold music and TV, you have to deal with the
0:54:19entertainment industry. But now you have to deal with medical regulation to be into health. You
0:54:23have to deal with the organizations that govern financial stuff. When you get into Apple pay and
0:54:28Apple credit cards and all these other things, and you start adding all these services businesses,
0:54:32you start having to deal with not only the regulatory bodies, but all the companies that
0:54:36are entrenched in those sectors. And it is messy. And, you know, yeah. And it's fun to, to think
0:54:43about in the what if Well, what else could Apple do? Right? And they do, like I said, they do some
0:54:47things where they have these serious suggested results that don't go through Google. But let's
0:54:51face it, one of the things Google is interested in is not just keeping track of your search results,
0:54:57but having you logged in to Google so that when you go to Google search, your your Google profile
0:55:03is already there. And you can switch to you know, you can go to other Google properties in your
0:55:07there. That obvious, you know, when you're logged into Google, and I try to log out of
0:55:13Google all the time, and I still often find myself like, Oh, I've been logged in for days,
0:55:17like, you know, I don't know that it's nefarious on Google, you log into your Gmail, then all
0:55:22of a sudden, you're automatically logged into maps into YouTube and a bunch of other apps
0:55:26as well. And that's for me is often where it happens is I do, I will log in to use Gmail,
0:55:31and it's just easier to do it in a regular tab than to make a private tab or I guess
0:55:37what I've tried to do recently is I don't really use Chrome much for anything. And I've
0:55:42kind of got my Safari content blocking setup down where I don't need to use Chrome because
0:55:49stuff I've got a nice setup where I there are very few websites I find that break in
0:55:54Safari because I've got content blockers or something and I have to go to Chrome or something
0:55:58like that. So I tend to just use Chrome just for using Google stuff. But anyway, one thing
0:56:04that Apple could obviously do would be to have some kind of okay, you know, we'll keep
0:56:09Google as the default search engine, but we'll also add a default behavior that will just
0:56:14erase cookies from Google every four hours. So you're, you know, unless you you know,
0:56:21you can go into settings Safari search and, you know, toggle a simple checkmark to say,
0:56:28well, I guess they're not checkmarks anymore. What do we call? What do we call checkmarks
0:56:33on iOS. Those little…
0:56:34I just, I still call them check marks. I don't know if there's… I'm sure we'll get
0:56:37an email now that we…
0:56:38On/off. I guess we should call them on/off switches.
0:56:41Yeah.
0:56:42Right. Well, they're not radio.
0:56:43Toggles.
0:56:44Yeah.
0:56:45Toggles.
0:56:46Toggles. Well, the thing that's effectively a check box. You could turn it on, but it's
0:56:49going to be off by default and it will, you know, it'll just keep you logged out of
0:56:54Google even after you log in after, I don't know, two hours or four hours or something
0:57:00like that. I'm pretty sure if Apple did that, that would, A, that would probably, they'd
0:57:07have to, that would have to be part of a new negotiation. I would be fairly certain that
0:57:12Google is smart enough that they've, the letter of their contract with Google, with Apple,
0:57:17for making Google the search engine, you know, as it exists right now, I'd be very surprised
0:57:24if it doesn't preclude something like that.
0:57:26The scarier thing is for Google to say fine. We don't need you to help us put right
0:57:30It's funny because I try to use Google in Chrome too and because our company a mobile nations and I'm where they we use Google
0:57:39accounts and I try not to stay logged in but I have to to use my work stuff and then it keeps saying you need
0:57:45To sign into sync and I do I don't want to sign it to sync
0:57:48So every time I refuse it takes me out of my mobile nations account and gives me this fake
0:57:53cupcake Renee avatar that I don't know what it is and I can't get out of it until I
0:57:57Close everything and relog back into my account and they just do all these little things to make your life more miserable when you're not logged
0:58:03into them
0:58:05All right, let me take a break here
0:58:08I think our next sponsor longtime sponsor of the show one of my favorite companies on the internet fracture
0:58:14Look everyone takes and shares photos online. I'll bet you
0:58:21Dear listener of the talk show. I'm willing to bet you have already taken at least one photo with your phone today
0:58:27Maybe it's the first maybe maybe you're listening on your morning commute and you can say hi John you're wrong. I haven't
0:58:34But then I'll bet you will take at least one photo with your phone today. We all do right
0:58:39How many days go by where you don't take at least one photo?
0:58:41I take them all the time our phone full with thousands of photos every year and we share them online
0:58:47We post them to Instagram
0:58:49We put them in iMessage.
0:58:53We look at them on our phones.
0:58:54We look at them on our other devices.
0:58:56You know what's great with your photos, though?
0:58:58Take the ones you like the most, the ones that really the people you love the most,
0:59:02your family, your significant others, your friends, the places you've gone that are the
0:59:09most visually stimulating.
0:59:12Print them out, get them printed, hang them on your wall in an analog form.
0:59:16There's nothing no better way to decorate your house no matter what your sense of decor
0:59:20is. It just makes you happy makes your living space better to just cover the walls with
0:59:27your personal photos of the people you love and the places you've been. And one of the
0:59:32best ways to do it is with fracture. They print your photos directly on glass. If you're
0:59:38a longtime listener to the show, you've heard me told you this before. But you really have
0:59:42to see it in person the first time anybody I know I've talked to people and they're like,
0:59:46know, you've talked my ear off about fracture on your podcast so many times. And then I
0:59:50finally saw one and I was like, Oh, you're right. It doesn't look anything like a piece
0:59:54of paper with a photo on it mounted under glass. It really looks different by printing
0:59:59directly on the glass. It looks so much better. It's so amazing. Um, and every one you get,
1:00:07whether it's really big and they have really big sizes or really small and they've got
1:00:11ones right down to like little three by three squares that you can put on your desk. Everything
1:00:17comes in the box that you need to hang it or to prop it up on your mantle on your desk, whatever
1:00:22you need. And you don't need to put these in a frame. There is no frame, the piece of glass with
1:00:27an image that goes edge to edge corner to corner. It just hangs on the wall, mounts on your desk with
1:00:34with no frame, just pure picture edge to edge. And they're handmade right here in the US
1:00:42in their quote unquote, factory in Gainesville, Florida. It's a timeless design. They really
1:00:49do. They're so minimal with no frame, just just corner to corner picture. They really
1:00:53do go with any decor. So here's where you go to find out more. Go to fracture.me. That's
1:01:01dot me and you'll get a special discount on your first fracture order just by going there
1:01:05and then don't forget to pick the talk show in there one question survey after checkout
1:01:11and that question is where'd you hear about factor factor dot me is the website you'll
1:01:16get a code you'll get a discount just by going there on your first order Mother's Day is
1:01:20coming up great gift idea my thanks to fracture for their continuing support of the talk show
1:01:27Love that company.
1:01:31What else is on the agenda today?
1:01:32I had so many.
1:01:34Oh, so much.
1:01:36How about the shot on iPhone challenge?
1:01:40Yeah.
1:01:41Apple announced the winners yesterday.
1:01:43A lot of iPhone XS Max and a lot of Americans.
1:01:47Yeah, I was wrong.
1:01:48I said I would eat my hat if at least one winner didn't come from China.
1:01:52There were no winners from China.
1:01:53I was a judge from China, which is interesting because I think that there would have been
1:01:56It's just given the size of the market. Yeah, I just linked to this before we started recording the show. I
1:02:02Love the winners. I'm not surprised that they're great. I mean, I think it's one of the
1:02:08Not just a great Apple ad campaign
1:02:12I think it's been one of the best ad campaigns in recent years is the shot on iPhone ad campaign and I feel like it's it's
1:02:18a great
1:02:20Campaign in so many ways because it makes good photographs make for good billboards, right?
1:02:26It is a thing that real people really do with their phones. I don't know if there's any single
1:02:34thing people do on their phone that more people do on their phones than take photographs, right?
1:02:39I mean, you know, I'm sure listening--
1:02:42You text and take photos and you text your photos.
1:02:44Right. And you listen to music, right? I mean, and podcasts. I mean,
1:02:51we wouldn't have had so many arguments about headphone jacks if that wasn't part of it.
1:02:55it. And you know, and they obviously did. iPhone camera is technically great. It is
1:03:03amazing. You know, it's not just the iPhone, just modern high end cell phone cameras are
1:03:09just tremendous. So I'm not surprised that these winners are good, but I really I really
1:03:15do like them. I love this one comment from Judge Austin man. Yeah, where he just says
1:03:21it's just this one picture from Nikita, Yerush in Belarus shot with an iPhone 7, which is
1:03:28pretty cool. That's the one thing I would have bet more than that somebody a winner
1:03:34would be from China would be that at least some of the winners would be on older iPhones
1:03:38because I and again, I don't think that they cook the books for it. But I, you know, I
1:03:44just know and you see it in the ad campaigns to that it's not just, oh, look what you can
1:03:49shoot with the latest and greatest $1200 iPhone tennis max it is hey the iPhone 7 from three
1:03:58years ago is still a tremendous camera. Anyway, she did announcement for the concert for the
1:04:02contest. They had success photos. Yeah, a couple of them. Yep. Anyway, Nikita's photo,
1:04:08which is is also one of my favorites is of a tennis court. Like an orange tennis court.
1:04:14Maybe that's clay, I don't know.
1:04:15Yeah, I think so.
1:04:17With the net and a line and a crack in the clay, and it's just a super simple photo.
1:04:27And I just love Austin Mann's comment.
1:04:29I love how accessible this image is.
1:04:30You don't have to travel to Iceland to capture something beautiful.
1:04:33It's right under your nose.
1:04:36And I think that's so true because that's what I love about these iPhone.
1:04:40I'm a long time avid amateur photographer. And I love looking at truly great photos from
1:04:48truly great photographers because it's, you know, it's inspiring. It makes me want to up
1:04:52my photography game. And one of the things that I think is so fascinating about seeing
1:04:59pro photographers like Austin Mann, you know, who's, who's, if the name rings a bell, Austin
1:05:06man is—last few years has been doing reviews of new iPhone cameras by taking them to exotic
1:05:15locations around the world like Africa. He was the one year he was with a bunch of silverback
1:05:20gorillas and I forget where else he's been.
1:05:22I think he—
1:05:23Jared Polin An incredibly talented photographer.
1:05:24Pete Turner Super talented photographer and a very nice
1:05:27guy. I met him—
1:05:28Jared Polin Yeah, he's amazing.
1:05:29Pete Turner —after the last iPhone event. And, you know, we've corresponded by email
1:05:34for years too, but I met him in person
1:05:37and he's super, super generous
1:05:38and really is a super great enthusiast
1:05:41about like helping people up their photography game
1:05:45with phones, but one of the things that's amazing
1:05:47looking at the images coming from a pro photographer
1:05:50like that is you just have no excuse about equipment.
1:05:53Like you can't say, well, he is using a $5,000 SLR.
1:05:58- And I love how he gives like feedback too,
1:06:00'cause he's like, I love this new Smart HDR thing,
1:06:03would you make it an impossible for me to take silhouettes
1:06:05and it's part of my artistic repertoire.
1:06:07So can we figure this out?
1:06:08- Right, that's actually very true.
1:06:11And a couple of these photos are taken in exotic locations,
1:06:17but most of them aren't.
1:06:18And that really is inspiring too, but it really is true.
1:06:21There's not much, somebody who's an expert photographer
1:06:25can use a quote unquote pro app like Halide,
1:06:33which is a great, great iPhone camera app. And you can shoot raw instead of JPEG. And then by
1:06:39shooting raw, you can get more in post than you could with the JPEG. And if you truly understand
1:06:50what the effect that different shutter speeds have on an image or exposure times,
1:06:56or ISO or whatever, there's some things you can adjust in some of these apps.
1:07:02But for the most part, though, the pros, they might know more about that, but they're not
1:07:06really using any kind of even software tools that aren't accessible to everybody.
1:07:10So like the inspiration level on these is super high to me.
1:07:15As opposed to say, like, a National Geographic photo contest, where they really are shot from
1:07:25like the four corners of the globe. I was also like, just surprised that Apple didn't pan,
1:07:31Like the it this isn't an apple pandering because there's no like oh look
1:07:34This is using the new depth effect from our iPhone 10 are you know, like there's not a single portrait there?
1:07:40They're not the usual Oh a picture of a pet picture of a face someone sitting on a corner, you know
1:07:46If they really went for different looking stuff. Well, it's funny you would bring that up. I actually noticed looking at the winners that
1:07:52So
1:07:55promotionally Apple has spent a lot of time last two years talking about the portrait effect, which is about
1:08:00blurring the background artificially, you know, through, you know, to create though, the look,
1:08:08the quote unquote Boca effect of a shallow depth of field where the subject is in focus and the
1:08:14background is out of focus and it's a lot of... Why did you bokeh Jacob? Why did you bokeh Jacob?
1:08:18I mean, it's everywhere. It is. That's a funny ad. It's great. It's terrific. Yeah. That's,
1:08:24if you haven't seen it, it's a couple of, I think it's, I think they're all women. It's a bunch of
1:08:29moms are talking and one mom is taking a photo of the other mom's child and it's a portrait
1:08:34photo and the other woman's child is in the background and she's like, "Why did you
1:08:41Boca my child?" And she says, "I would never Boca, Jeff."
1:08:44Why do you hate Jacob? What kind of person does that?
1:08:48It's really funny though to see that. I just never expected—I've known the word Boca
1:08:53for a long time as, like I said, as an amateur photo enthusiast. I never expected to see
1:08:58it in a mainstream ad, you know, on primetime TV, but it's entered into vernacular. I actually
1:09:08think it's interesting how many of these winning images actually have the opposite.
1:09:12They have a truly infinite depth of field, you know, that there's a foreground subject
1:09:19and a background that are both in focus. Here's this one. There's one of the winning photos
1:09:26by Elizabeth Skarratt here in the US.
1:09:27just looking at it now. Yeah, with an iPhone eight plus. So it's another older phone. But
1:09:32it's a portrait of I guess her daughter up close to the camera with is that El Capitan
1:09:39in the background?
1:09:40It might be I'm not good with the mountains. I don't know there's mountains behind her
1:09:43and let's just say it's a happy time. Right. But it's you know, the mountain is in focus,
1:09:48the clouds, you know, literally 10s of miles away are in focus. And of course, the girl
1:09:54little girl is in perfect focus, including individual strands of her hair. Yeah, I would
1:10:00say that it's funny how many of these winners actually have a really deep depth of field.
1:10:05And she uses contrast against the trees and the brightness of the grass to make the separation,
1:10:10not the blur effect.
1:10:11Yeah, it's a really good photo. And again, really hard to believe it's taken with a cell
1:10:17phone. Really, it's inspiring.
1:10:23They had a bunch of photographer judges, but they also had like Phil Schiller, Kayan Drance,
1:10:27Sebastian Marinou-Mes.
1:10:28They had a bunch of Apple, like people from the Apple marketing and the camera teams judging.
1:10:33So you had a wide range.
1:10:34If that's a name that might ring a bell.
1:10:36She was actually on stage for the first time at the introduction of the iPhone, this year's
1:10:43iPhones in September.
1:10:45The A12 segment.
1:10:46Yeah.
1:10:47She, yeah, she had the segment, which was really, I think one of the toughest parts
1:10:51was explaining how does the A12 AI stuff make photography better, which could easily have
1:11:01gotten out into the weeds and instead was a really succinct, "Oh, okay, I get it.
1:11:07We're making better images, not just through lenses and sensors. It really is billions.
1:11:14It's like billions of computational decisions made for each shot instantaneously as you shoot
1:11:21it. It was a really good segment.
1:11:22And I know people have said this before, but it's worth pointing out, I've spoken to
1:11:24a lot of companies where the marketing people are essentially salespeople. They're like
1:11:28a used car salesman and they have no idea how the technology works or anything behind
1:11:32it. They just want you to buy it. And Apple's team is very different. Most of them have
1:11:36engineering degrees. They all are incredibly smart and they know how it works literally
1:11:40down to the silicon. And you see that when they do present on stage. And also, Sebastian,
1:11:45if people don't know Sebastian, he's been doing State of the Union for the last couple
1:11:48Also very, very smart.
1:11:50He runs the camera team now.
1:11:52Used to be vice president of software at QNX previously.
1:11:54These are all real serious people.
1:11:57Yeah, yeah. I think my favorite, here's, I picked my favorite.
1:12:00I'm going to ask you yours. They're all good.
1:12:02My favorite though is Darren Sohs.
1:12:04He's from Singapore.
1:12:06And it's a reflection of like a, I'm guessing like an apartment building.
1:12:09It's hard to say. Some kind of high rise.
1:12:11In a puddle.
1:12:13And it, I don't know what, I don't know.
1:12:16- You know, it's so, it's very obvious, I think,
1:12:19is it Phil Schiller?
1:12:20Yeah, Phil Schiller's comments on this one.
1:12:21He was one of the judges.
1:12:23It's a reflection that looks like a painting.
1:12:24I mean, and it's the best way to say it.
1:12:27But it looks so much like a painting, it's stunning.
1:12:30And I think that, I think it would be a great photo anyway,
1:12:32but there's a bird that's captured in the sky
1:12:35that in like just the perfect location
1:12:38that really makes it.
1:12:40It's just, it's such a compelling image.
1:12:42- Yeah.
1:12:44and just great color and that's probably my favorite.
1:12:46- When you look at it every time,
1:12:47you see the building and you look again,
1:12:49you notice the puddle and you look again,
1:12:50you notice the different, like the layers of the puddle.
1:12:52It's just so many depths to it, so much depths to it.
1:12:55- Yeah, what's your favorite?
1:12:57- I like, I don't know if it's Dina or Dinah Al-Fasi
1:13:00from Israel and she just got this perfect frame
1:13:03of like this desolate sidewalk with a little tiny leaf
1:13:06in the corner, but then this perfect heart-shaped puddle,
1:13:08which is this deep blue and a person walking,
1:13:11Again, everything is just perfectly framed in that instant
1:13:15with like the world behind them, but you're not part of it.
1:13:17But maybe if you follow them, you could be.
1:13:20And it's just like, it's mystery and evocative
1:13:22at the same time, mysterious and evocative.
1:13:25- Yeah, I'm also, it's like--
1:13:28- iPhone 10, by the way.
1:13:29- iPhone 10.
1:13:30It's fascinating too, because until I noticed the leaf,
1:13:36I was even unsure of the scale.
1:13:39I kind of thought it was a relatively small puddle, but I wasn't sure. I don't know, it's
1:13:45a great image too. They're all, you know, unsurprising. And then you realize the person
1:13:48walking is upside down to make them look right side up in the puddle. And, you know, it's,
1:13:52again, many layers of perception. Yeah, it's really cool. And I'm shocked, the 10 best photos
1:14:01in this very highly promoted iPhone photo contest are all amazing images. But they really are. And
1:14:08And it's super, super inspiring knowing
1:14:10that I'm walking around every waking moment of my life
1:14:14with a camera as good or better than what was used
1:14:18to take every one of these images.
1:14:21So thank you for making me feel like a terrible,
1:14:24incompetent photographer Apple.
1:14:27- Yeah, and what I love about it still is that,
1:14:29like, you know, people argue about which camera is the best,
1:14:31but you really, for just taking a camera out of your pocket
1:14:34and taking a shot and not having to worry about the app
1:14:36taking forever to launch or figuring out
1:14:38which of 19 different AI modes you want to engage for.
1:14:41Just take it out of your pocket, take a shot,
1:14:43and odds are you're gonna get a really useful photo.
1:14:46- Yeah, absolutely.
1:14:47It's, I don't know, it's a,
1:14:51for as depressing as our opening segment was
1:14:53on the state of privacy in the industry,
1:14:55it's, it's, it's super exciting to me
1:14:59how amazing the cameras we have with us at all times are,
1:15:05you know, including video. All right, next segment. How about we talk about folding phones?
1:15:13Yeah, sure. So we have two folding phones now. We had, I think I spoke about it with
1:15:19Glenn Fleishman in last week's episode, the Samsung Galaxy Fold. Very intriguingly named.
1:15:28And the people who brought you the Samsung Galaxy Circle in previous years.
1:15:34This was introduced at Samsung's "unpacked" event like a week and a half ago in San Francisco
1:15:42at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
1:15:47And now this week at the—what's the name of the show in Barcelona?
1:15:50Michael Scott Mobile World Congress, MWC.
1:15:52Dave Asprey MWC, Mobile World Congress is a big—every
1:15:58other than Samsung and Apple introduced their phones at MWC. Huawei unveiled their Mate
1:16:07X. Is it the Mate X or Mate 10? It's spelled with a mate.
1:16:11Jon Sorrentino It's the Mate X. Yeah, it's hard. It's
1:16:12hard to use, but yeah, it's the Mate X.
1:16:14Dave Asprey All right, their folding phone. But before
1:16:17I get to them, let me actually take a moment here on the side. Here's something I didn't
1:16:22know. I think I forget if this was on the show or something I wrote about. I think it
1:16:26was when I wrote about Samsung's phone and I had a little parenthetical wondering why
1:16:31the hell do they call everything the galaxy whatever because it's just adding an extra
1:16:35word every single thing they unveiled Samsung unveiled is the Samsung Galaxy blank. The
1:16:41phones are the galaxy s 10 and s 10 plus the earbuds are the Samsung Galaxy buds. I think
1:16:49they're calling them. Yeah, why not just the Samsung buds? Why not? Why do they insert
1:16:53galaxy into all of it. And one answer I got from people is that Samsung is such a bizarre
1:17:01conglomerate that they make washing machines and refrigerators and all of these other various
1:17:10things that the galaxy thing is a way to say this is our computer stuff. I don't know.
1:17:17I wouldn't be surprised if they come out with a galaxy refrigerator, frankly.
1:17:20It's a bunch of different companies that all license the name Samsung and are owned
1:17:25to a certain percentage by the Samsung company, I believe.
1:17:28Not completely owned all the time, but partially owned at least.
1:17:32The more interesting angle, and this is news to me, is that in Japan, Korean brands are
1:17:41so frowned upon and looked upon with such disdain, and at least Samsung in particular,
1:17:46Samsung doesn't use the Samsung brand in Japan. When you buy a Samsung phone in Japan,
1:17:53it's just called like the Galaxy S10, and it doesn't say Samsung on the back,
1:17:57so it's like a different SKU. It doesn't have that Samsung logo on it.
1:18:01Like Datsun before Nissan.
1:18:04Yeah, it's really wild. A couple of readers and listeners or whatever, you know, but
1:18:09who live in Japan sent me pictures and stuff of like… And the other thing too is Japan is
1:18:15Japan is still a very carrier-centric dominated country. Probably not that different in the
1:18:22US. In Europe, there's a lot of places where your carrier is just an afterthought and people
1:18:28just pop in SIMs and nobody even really…people change carriers a lot freer and buy their
1:18:35phones independent of their carrier service. But Japan, it's still very dominated by
1:18:40carriers. But you know, somebody had a photo, I forget which one of the Japanese maybe Docomo,
1:18:46I think, but one of their stores. And like the Samsung kiosk doesn't say Samsung anywhere. It's
1:18:51just all galaxy. So they use that galaxy brand so that they don't have to say Samsung. I really was
1:18:59blown away by it. So it's kind of bizarre because I've always been hung up on the weird way that
1:19:04Samsung loves to put their logo so big. It's not even a good logo. I mean, it's just billions on
1:19:10putting it everywhere.
1:19:12- Right, and that of all the things I always used to say,
1:19:14they copied so much from the iPhone,
1:19:16and the one thing they couldn't bring themselves to copy
1:19:19was the humility of not putting your logo
1:19:21on the front of the phone.
1:19:23Like they kept that Samsung thing on the front of the phone
1:19:25until they ran out of chance.
1:19:26- Until there was no more front on the phone.
1:19:29- Right, until there was no more front.
1:19:31And then they started putting it on the back,
1:19:33but not in Japan.
1:19:34In Japan, it's Galaxy.
1:19:35So there's my aside on that.
1:19:37So I guess that means they're stuck
1:19:39and the rest of the world calling everything Samsung Galaxy, blah, blah, blah.
1:19:45Oh, man.
1:19:47Anyway, we got the Huawei Mate X and we've got the Samsung Galaxy Fold and it's fascinating
1:19:55one two punch because they literally fold the opposite way.
1:20:00They're actually, you know, fundamentally in an Audi TM, fundamentally the same basic
1:20:06idea.
1:20:07a cell phone sized smartphone that unfolds to a squarish tablet size device. But because
1:20:16the ones in any and ones in Audi, it's two very different takes on it. Neither one of
1:20:22them is practically priced. The Samsung Galaxy Fold starts at $1980 and I think the Mate
1:20:32is 2300 euros, which I did the calculation at least as of a day or two ago. That was
1:20:38$2,600.
1:20:39Chuck Liddell Yeah, which you can't get it. You'll have
1:20:42to import it because you can't buy it in the U.S.
1:20:44Dave Asprey Right, because Huawei has a very strange
1:20:48relationship with the United States. It's funny being the iPhone enthusiast and now
1:20:58being the one laughing at the prices of other people's phones.
1:21:03At least it's not Samsung expensive is everything every Apple person can say now.
1:21:08Yeah. And you know, but clearly it would be different though, if the Samsung Galaxy S
1:21:1310 were $2,000 because clearly the S 10 and S 10 plus and the S 10 E those three phones
1:21:19are the ones that are meant to they are Samsung's flagship phones for 2019. This folding thing
1:21:27is not meant to sell in huge quantities.
1:21:31- No, that's part of the reason why it's priced out
1:21:32because it's a small batch and they have to
1:21:35sort of spread out the cost of running it
1:21:37amongst the units.
1:21:38And early adopters will pay a lot
1:21:40because they're early adopters.
1:21:41- I wonder, you know, I mean it certainly is a,
1:21:45there's no mistaking it as a new phone, right?
1:21:47I mean, it is definite, you know,
1:21:51if you want somebody, if you want people to know
1:21:53that you have a very expensive new phone,
1:21:56that these are the ones to get.
1:21:58- Let me just unfold my phone and give you that answer.
1:22:02- I personally, I'm intrigued enough
1:22:06that it's a topic on the show and I've linked to them both
1:22:09and I'm following along, but I'm also convinced
1:22:12that neither one of these really should be considered
1:22:16more than a shipping prototype.
1:22:18- I should have mentioned there was a third one there
1:22:20that got much less attention, LG,
1:22:21because they hadn't made a folding phone.
1:22:24They made a case with a second display
1:22:26that you put your phone in and then it essentially becomes a folding phone. And the case is really
1:22:30expensive because it has that second display in it.
1:22:33Dave Asprey But then there must be a gap or something,
1:22:34right?
1:22:35Jon Streeter Yes. There's like a hinge in the middle.
1:22:38Dave Asprey Hmm.
1:22:39Jon Streeter So it's two discrete screens.
1:22:41Dave Asprey You know, it raises some questions. So with
1:22:45Samsung's AnyDesign, where the folding display folds in and on itself, and then you have,
1:22:53They put an extra display, therefore on the outside,
1:22:57so there'd be something you can see
1:22:58while the phone is folded.
1:22:59- And a small one with these huge,
1:23:01like inch and a half bezels on top and bottom too.
1:23:04- Absolutely huge.
1:23:05I mean, almost hard to believe chin and forehead bezels.
1:23:08Like not like, oh my God, we're back to the old--
1:23:10- Like Frankenstein's monster chin and forehead bezels.
1:23:12- Right, not like the old iPhones
1:23:15before the iPhone 10 chin and forehead.
1:23:18We're talking way, way bigger.
1:23:20Like unlike anything you've ever seen.
1:23:22You know, you know it it
1:23:24It's probably the lowest
1:23:27You know, what's the term the screen?
1:23:29Screen to bezel ratio. It's got to be the highest since like
1:23:35flip phones
1:23:36Yeah
1:23:37I can't tell if it's like
1:23:38components forced them to do that because it was just they just couldn't bury them under the screen or they thought it was so
1:23:43Thick they needed to make the screen fall smaller for you to be able to use it one
1:23:46I don't know what the what that was which wouldn't dictated the other well and how much of it's just price that you know
1:23:51- Yeah. - The bigger the display.
1:23:52I mean, clearly the idea with the Samsung One
1:23:55of their concept is that that small outer display
1:24:00in folded mode is really only meant
1:24:03for very quick casual use.
1:24:05In other words, you know, oh, you have a notification,
1:24:08who's it from? - Yeah.
1:24:09- Oh, my phone, somebody's calling me, who is it?
1:24:11- I'm walking around, I can't stop and open it,
1:24:15I just wanna get a couple quick things done.
1:24:17- Yeah, I don't even know if the camera works in that mode.
1:24:21Like I don't even know if you know.
1:24:23- Yeah, there's a whole series of cameras.
1:24:25That's the other thing is it's got a whole series
1:24:26of cameras on the back and then they have the biggest notch.
1:24:28Like it's so big, it's like a pirate patch
1:24:30on the inside for a whole bunch of internal cameras too.
1:24:33- It's clearly the idea though is that anytime
1:24:37you're actually doing anything,
1:24:38you're going to take the phone and open it up and unfold it.
1:24:42But at a fundamental level,
1:24:45I think that the Huawei Audi design is better
1:24:50because there is no extra screen, right?
1:24:53It's just one screen and you only use half of it
1:24:56when you're in phone mode.
1:24:58You know, it seems less wasteful.
1:25:01It's inelegant to have an extra screen.
1:25:03- Yeah, it's more efficient but less protected
1:25:06because now that plastic screen,
1:25:08'cause there's no folding Gorilla Glass yet,
1:25:10is just always exposed to the outside world.
1:25:13- In theory, you know,
1:25:16and I understand why nobody's really pulled this off
1:25:19and I understand why Apple hasn't done it, you know, but in theory, it's wasteful that
1:25:23we even have front facing cameras. I mean, in theory, it would be nice if there was some
1:25:27way that you could have one camera and then have it rotate. So that whether you know,
1:25:32you're facing the phone, you know, taking a picture of yourself or taking the picture
1:25:36away from the phone, it would be the same camera. You know, and in the same way, it's
1:25:41wasteful to have a second display that you only use when the phone is in a secondary
1:25:45I get it though that you know, they wanted to have it fold in and of itself. I don't know
1:25:51Yeah, they wanted to make a book and Huawei is as that that it has one camera system and it sort of does a pass
1:25:55Through when you want to take, you know selfies or else's well and yeah
1:25:59I wasn't sure how they did that
1:26:02neither of these seems super compelling to me though, and
1:26:06There's a clearly a crease on the the Huawei one like though
1:26:13You think like how do you how would you do this would not have it some kind of crease and it the answer is well
1:26:18You don't there. It's not there is no magic way that this
1:26:22You know, maybe someday we'll get there, you know, but as of now there is, you know
1:26:26There's definitely a crease in the middle that's on day one. Like these are the demo units
1:26:30You don't like it's hard to imagine what it's gonna look like a month two months a year in all right
1:26:34Yeah, well, there's a real durability question with both. Yeah
1:26:37Because especially with the wall way with where the main display is on the outside at all times
1:26:43And yeah, I don't know what percentage of people use their phone with no case. I suspect
1:26:50it's you know, I've talked about before I would guess it's a 10% or fewer
1:26:55And if you put a screen protector on does that crease now as well? I mean like the whole thing. How would you do it?
1:27:00Yeah, how would you do a screen protector?
1:27:02And even you know and I tend not to use a case so I'm you know
1:27:07Yeah
1:27:07I'm in that group that mostly but I I'm also always as somebody who doesn't use a case very
1:27:13hagdens in a which side of my phone is a display and which is not and if I'm ever setting it down on a
1:27:19Surface I tend to set it with the display up, you know
1:27:24So that yeah doesn't get scratched by something that might be on the table or surface
1:27:27How do you do that when both sides are display, you know, there is no lucky side to drop it on or to get a scratch
1:27:37Yep, and combine that with the fact that both of these because glass isn't yet
1:27:41flexible they're both plastic screens not glass and
1:27:46possibly therefore
1:27:49More scratchable. Oh, absolutely. Definitely more scratchable. You have to put it in an iPod sock the minute you close it, right?
1:27:55It's you know, how do you so I?
1:27:57Don't know. I'm not sure the foldable phones will ever be a thing for for some reason some including durability and
1:28:05The fact that people want to put them in cases, you know, and if people want to put their seven hundred and fifty dollar
1:28:11phones in a kit protective case
1:28:14Which is a total sensible totally sensible thing to do and way to think about it
1:28:18You know, maybe I'm the idiot for not putting my phones in cases most of the time
1:28:22I'll tell you what if it's two thousand dollars
1:28:25It's only going to increase their desire to put it in a case and if the design of the phone is that well
1:28:29You can't put it in a case because the whole gimmick is it unfolds?
1:28:32I'm not sure that appeals to a lot of people and I don't know how you get around that
1:28:36How do you design a phone that can fold whether it's an innie or an outie and still be able to put it in a protective?
1:28:42case
1:28:43Yeah, absolutely
1:28:44I mean to me this I
1:28:45Remember when I was at CES and they introduced the galaxy note for the first time and they put it on every table in this
1:28:50room that we went into and we all picked them up and
1:28:52Looked at them and the screens were horrible because no one really had good screen tech
1:28:56I mean there's one of the reasons Apple made the people you know
1:28:59And one of the reasons Apple made the phone smaller
1:29:00was so you could hit it.
1:29:02But also that was literally the biggest size
1:29:04they could make the screen back then
1:29:05to a quality standard that they were found acceptable.
1:29:07But Samsung's like, they just stretched it out
1:29:09and it did not look good.
1:29:10And that whole phone was deeply compromised.
1:29:13But flash forward a few years
1:29:14and we have really good big phones now.
1:29:17And that's a much easier problem set to solve for
1:29:19than the foldable phones.
1:29:21So I love the idea.
1:29:22I love the idea of having one thing that's my phone
1:29:25that can open up into a tablet.
1:29:26I think it's a brilliant idea.
1:29:29It has not been realized yet to say it like easily,
1:29:33but, and if it can never be realized well,
1:29:35I will never buy one of them, but I hold out hope.
1:29:38You know, Apple, I heard about Apple experimenting
1:29:40with the stuff, I think back in the iPhone 4S days,
1:29:43and obviously they're not happy with anything
1:29:45'cause they haven't shipped anything yet.
1:29:46They have the resources and smarts
1:29:49to basically prototype anything that they want
1:29:52as often as they want.
1:29:53So my guess is, you know, that they don't find
1:29:55this technology acceptable yet either.
1:29:57I don't know if they ever will,
1:29:59but it is a compelling idea to have that one thing
1:30:02that you can just like, almost like the Star Trek thing.
1:30:04It's just a very,
1:30:06people have been folding wallets and books for millennia.
1:30:08It's something we're very used to.
1:30:10- Well, to me, the canonical sci-fi prototype for this
1:30:15are the devices in Westworld.
1:30:19I mentioned this last week with Glenn,
1:30:21but Westworld has these,
1:30:26- What's the name of the company?
1:30:27- I don't know.
1:30:30- Basic idea of Westworld for those who aren't familiar
1:30:32is that it's like at some point, unnamed point
1:30:35in the somewhat near future,
1:30:37there's a theme park you can go to where it's,
1:30:40you're just, you get put into a cowboy outfit and you're,
1:30:44you know, it's like the real, the wild West come to life
1:30:48and you just get to be a...
1:30:50- It's an old Michael Crichton movie
1:30:52that they remade for TV.
1:30:53- Right, and it's really good.
1:30:54It's on HBO.
1:30:55I really enjoy it tremendously, but the employees of the theme park use these tablet computers
1:31:02that fold to be like cell phone size and are completely usable, folded or unfolded.
1:31:09So you can put it in a pocket, fold it, take it out and use it if you just want to use
1:31:13it, but then you can unfold it.
1:31:15And they're maybe like the thickness of a credit card.
1:31:19So they're very, very thin.
1:31:22You know, just, you know, that, that, that future dream of just having a device that
1:31:29is just a screen, no thicker than the screen, and everything is just in there.
1:31:36And they look great.
1:31:37It's they do a great job with the user interface.
1:31:39I guess there's anything I would gripe about it seems to me like they make the user interface
1:31:43too small.
1:31:44Yeah, I think that if you actually saw that much information density, and a device, it
1:31:49be untouchable. It wouldn't be unsuited to touch, but it's the sort of thing where it makes it look
1:31:55more sci-fi-y to have more information on. So I would bet that they're fully aware that it's
1:32:02actually unusable for touch information density, but looks cooler. So therefore, they went with
1:32:10that direction. But anyway, they fold and unfold exactly the way, in theory, one would want their
1:32:18phone to fold and unfold. So you can get a tablet size computer whenever you need it
1:32:23and use a phone size thing when you don't.
1:32:25Yeah, if Xiaomi had this, they haven't actually shown the phone off yet, but their CEO was using
1:32:30a phone that was a tablet and you fold both the left and the right side in behind it and
1:32:35that becomes your phone. So they're always experimenting with all sorts of crazy stuff.
1:32:38It is an interesting idea. Would you are these things, are they phones that unfold or are they
1:32:44tablets that fold up. It also speaks to the problems these companies are dealing with
1:32:52where Android is a lot better for phones than it is for tablets. I think even Android proponents
1:33:01would agree with that, that Android, however much you might like it as your phone operating
1:33:07system, it's never really done a great job on tablets. Even Google seems to acknowledge
1:33:13that by moving more towards Chrome as the OS for their tablet-sized devices than Android.
1:33:21But if Android isn't good at being a tablet, then what's the point of having a phone that
1:33:24opens up to tablet size?
1:33:26Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
1:33:28You know, in theory, iOS would be a lot better at this than Android.
1:33:33I was thinking about it too because you have the size classes already, so you just have
1:33:37a regular size class.
1:33:39When it opens up, it takes on—sorry, you have the compact size class that opens up,
1:33:43a regular size class with the same kind of mechanics that you have in iOS and iPad apps
1:33:47and you already have all those universal binaries. So their software story at least is I think much
1:33:51cleaner at this point. Yeah. I don't know. I don't think either of these are going to be. I don't
1:33:56think we're. My question is will they be popular enough that you'll actually maybe see one this
1:34:01year? Like will somebody, will I get an email from somebody by the end of year and say hey I actually
1:34:05saw somebody with the Galaxy Fold you know at the mall and wherever Peoria. I don't know. Like I
1:34:12Like I don't even know if these things are realistic,
1:34:15real products enough that we're even going to see them,
1:34:17let alone be using them.
1:34:19- Yeah, I think right now, again, these are like,
1:34:23unlike Apple, Apple keeps their prototypes
1:34:25and their shame internal.
1:34:26These companies are very happy to sort of put them in public
1:34:29and I think it benefits Apple too,
1:34:30because, you know, Apple got to watch 10 years of smartphones
1:34:33of Blackberries and Poms and Windows Mobile
1:34:35and figure out what problems they had
1:34:36and how Apple could solve them.
1:34:37Same thing with tablet PC,
1:34:39same thing with the different watch brands
1:34:41this everyone's gonna watch these they'll have the same discussions that
1:34:44we have and if you can solve a problem you can make a better product then
1:34:48they'll go and if they're just flawed by nature then and there'll be no go
1:34:51well like the idea of flexible displays is fascinating because we've you know
1:34:57from the CRT until very until very recently displays were anything but
1:35:03flexible they were completely inflexible typically would would crack very easily
1:35:08easily if you tried to flex them.
1:35:13What Apple's take on this, and one of the first ways that these flexible OLEDs have
1:35:19been used in Samsung's case is to fold a little bit of the screen over the side of
1:35:24the display.
1:35:27And they had some weird UI experiments where they would show notifications in that area,
1:35:34of like, what do they call them, chyrons, chyrons, like on TV, you know, like a little
1:35:39ticker tape thing at the bottom of CNN or MSNBC or ESPN.
1:35:42Jared Ranerelle It was like putting a little colored note sticker
1:35:45on the outside of your book.
1:35:46Dave Asprey I've never found that very compelling.
1:35:49It kind of looks cool because it's literally edge to edge and there's no bezel at all
1:35:55on the side.
1:35:56So it looks good in a product photograph, but I've never understood the point of having
1:36:01it because you can't hold the phone without covering up that part of it. Apple obviously
1:36:06isn't impressed with that design. But the one area where Apple has used flexible displays
1:36:12so far is in the iPhone X and now the XS and XS Max where they use the flexible nature
1:36:18of the OLED to curve the display at the—I think it's just the top and bottom.
1:36:25Yeah under but you don't it's only to make they're using the the the flexible nature of OLED
1:36:31to make the iPhone 10 and
1:36:3410s displays go, you know from the top to bottom with no chin or forehead or minimal minimal bezel
1:36:42That's the same as it is on the sides. The flexible part is completely hidden from view so you don't see it as flex
1:36:48It's just that's the implementation detail of how they made it get look like it goes all the way from the top and bottom
1:36:55So I think that's plugging into the module underneath it forcing a chin it can go it's right on the bottom of it
1:37:00It goes underneath it not therefore hiding the chin there
1:37:02Well, we're leaving it with the possibility making the chin area right 90 well over 99% of all iPhone 10
1:37:08Owners have no idea that they're using a display that is flexed under the bottom and top
1:37:14Because it doesn't look like it at all. Like yeah, totally
1:37:17It's it's fascinating and such a difference to me that Apple, you know is using this expensive
1:37:23state-of-the-art flexible screen technology in a way that completely hides the fact that it's flexible at all
1:37:29Well, I think implementation detail right but that to me is so super appley
1:37:33Whereas whereas like the initial Samsung thing was look at this. It's flexible
1:37:38Look, it bends around the side like it couldn't be more in your face that hey, this is a flexible display
1:37:43It goes back to that old Steve Jobs
1:37:45Speech when he said we never want to look at a technology and figure out how to use it
1:37:50that we wanna figure out a product
1:37:51and then find the technology that enables it.
1:37:53- I have a-- - And they wanted--
1:37:55- Yep, it's such a great quote, yeah.
1:37:57- Yeah, yeah, like they never looked at NFC and said,
1:38:00"Hey, we oughta put this radio in."
1:38:01They're like, "We need Apple Pay, what component?"
1:38:03It's not a chipset, it's a feature set for them.
1:38:06- I had a friend who, until recently, worked at Apple
1:38:09and his remark upon seeing the,
1:38:12I think the first of the, I think it was the Samsung one,
1:38:15he goes, "That's a total," he just said the same thing,
1:38:18That's a total Steve Jobs, that's a technology, not a product.
1:38:23Somebody at Samsung was like, "Look, we could do this."
1:38:26And then they said, "Okay, build a phone that does that."
1:38:28Whereas nobody would really think, "Hey, let's build a display with a big crease
1:38:32in the middle."
1:38:33Well, I went to CES this year and I saw the Fruit Roll-Up TV from LG.
1:38:37And at first I thought, "This is a brilliant idea because it'll just roll up to whatever
1:38:41aspect ratio of the content you want to watch.
1:38:43Like if it's a 16 by 9 show, it'll go to 16 by 9.
1:38:46but if you're watching Lawrence of Arabia,
1:38:49it'll give you like this,
1:38:50no, you'll never have to worry about bars or anything again.
1:38:53And they're like, nope, it's got two modes,
1:38:55partially up for alarm clock, all the way up for TV.
1:38:58That's it.
1:38:59Like, well, then why use the technology?
1:39:01- Well, I didn't think about,
1:39:04that one I'm a little bit more,
1:39:06I was actually gonna bring that up.
1:39:07I actually feel like that LG rollable TV,
1:39:13It's interesting to me if the nature of the room you want to put it in is such that you
1:39:19don't want a TV up all the time.
1:39:21Sure.
1:39:22I don't know what that is.
1:39:25I'm not a hide-the-TV person.
1:39:28I'm a—look, I don't know.
1:39:30Maybe—I don't know.
1:39:32If you had a penthouse overlooking the city and you didn't want it to obstruct your view
1:39:35until you wanted to watch the game.
1:39:38Right.
1:39:39And one time many years ago, I got an upgrade at Bellagio in Vegas and got a room that had
1:39:46a TV at the foot of the bed.
1:39:49And you hit a button and it would rise out.
1:39:53And apparently Oprah Winfrey has had one of these for a long time.
1:39:55My wife was very excited about that.
1:39:58It's very cool.
1:39:59- It really, it required a TV size box
1:40:04at the foot of the bed because it would,
1:40:09you know, the TV didn't,
1:40:11there was a TV that was there all the time.
1:40:13It just would go into this box and then you'd hit a button
1:40:16and it would pop out of the box so you could see it.
1:40:19In a case like that, the LG thing would be way more elegant,
1:40:23you know, where it folds up into a little tiny box.
1:40:26It doesn't have to, you know.
1:40:29I don't know.
1:40:30I'm sure we'll see it.
1:40:31And I'm seeing them in advertising contexts
1:40:34all over the place, that there's foldable displays
1:40:37that people are putting up along the sides of buildings
1:40:39and stuff like that.
1:40:40I mean, it's clearly the future.
1:40:41- Well, the rumor is, yes, you went in there,
1:40:43the displays just curved up every side.
1:40:45Like you even saw that in the Samsung event.
1:40:47It looked like almost like a Celtic cross.
1:40:48They had the displays folded around.
1:40:51- Yeah, I think the initial uses that make a lot of sense
1:40:56are in industrial—maybe that's the wrong word—installations, like lobby, if you're
1:41:04going to use a display, big displays to decorate the lobby of your fancy new hotel, using flexible
1:41:11displays would be way cooler. If you have circular columns in your building, it would
1:41:19be kind of amazing to make a seamless display that wraps around the column in a, you know,
1:41:26in a cylinder, a cylindrical display. There's all sorts of ways that flexible displays could
1:41:30look cool, but I think in consumer technology, we haven't seen anything yet that's really
1:41:35compelling.
1:41:36Yeah, no, agreed.
1:41:37And again, it is an interesting difference with Apple where Apple isn't going to show
1:41:42a cruddy flexible phone that they don't want anybody to actually buy yet, just so
1:41:46they can say first.
1:41:47Yeah, yeah, they never first is not on their in their vocabulary, right?
1:41:51you could almost see it at Samsung's event that it's like the the
1:41:55consumer technology equivalent of being in the YouTube comments and writing first and
1:42:01Huawei did the same thing first and like we just saw the Samsung one last week, but okay, right?
1:42:06It was a royale flex pie at CES, which was just horrible
1:42:09I mean, they're all making these now which was also funny because there are a bunch of people who said only Samsung could make this
1:42:14There's they're so far ahead. They've got years and years of lead. No one else can make this fold and then it's like eight of them
1:42:19Yeah, I saw that I saw that there was a note speaking of Goldman Sachs where Goldman Sachs had a note saying that you know
1:42:28I think it was overblown the reaction. I think you actually read the note
1:42:32It was just if you know, and I think that if that needs to be in all caps
1:42:37bold
1:42:40and italics if
1:42:43foldable phones become a thing Samsung might have a leg up a serious leg up on Apple because Samsung
1:42:48produces their own screen technology and Apple is a
1:42:51Buyer of screen technology made by others and I think that's actually a valid point. I think that you know
1:42:58We see that now with the iPhone 10 and 10s that Samsung just charges them a fortune for those displays
1:43:03Right, and I don't at this point. Nobody else can make them. Nobody else is making a no lead that meets apples
1:43:09exacting demands for
1:43:12You know color accuracy and etc. Etc. It is interesting now
1:43:16There's you know, and and you see it with Samsung's devices and they're in a weird place, but to some degrees it's interesting that
1:43:22Samsung's really the only other company that that can say that they follow the Tim Cook mantra of owning and controlling the core
1:43:31technologies of their devices, I mean Samsung can do their own
1:43:35CPUs and they do make their own displays
1:43:39I mean Huawei is like that they make the key run processor
1:43:42They even make the cell phone towers that it runs off of but they're just not gonna be sold
1:43:46All right, let me take a break and thank our third
1:43:53Final sponsor of the episode it is our good friends at
1:43:57Squarespace I talked about Squarespace
1:44:00At least every other episode they are one of the most long-running sponsors of this show
1:44:08The reason why is because people keep signing up to build new websites or update old websites and move them to a new platform on
1:44:15Squarespace using the code from the show
1:44:19It's really a great service and it does everything you need a web hosting provider
1:44:28to offer from domain name registration to
1:44:33templates
1:44:35dozens and dozens of professionally designed templates in a variety of styles
1:44:40that scale from everything from phones to big desktop displays responsibly.
1:44:46All of them customizable so that you can make them your own and put your own brand on it and not have
1:44:54it look like a cookie cutter site like, "Oh, that's another Squarespace site using the blank template
1:44:58or something like that." You visit sites every single day, I guarantee it, that are built on
1:45:03on Squarespace and you have no idea because Squarespace is so popular and it's so customizable
1:45:08and so easy to make it your own and put your own brand for your company or yourself or
1:45:14whatever it is you're making a website for and just beautiful and everything from you
1:45:23want to have a blog you want to have a podcast you want to do something you want to have
1:45:26a store where you sell stuff and do e-commerce all of that stuff is all built in to the Squarespace
1:45:32platform. And you just do it all from designing the site to checking the analytics and seeing
1:45:40who's visiting your site and what parts of the site people are using to actually updating
1:45:44the site and posting things like blog entries or adding items to your store. All of it.
1:45:49You do it all through Squarespace. Check them out next time you need to build a website
1:45:53or next time you take an old website and want to update it to a new platform. Where do you
1:45:57Go to Squarespace calm and remember this code talk show at checkout when you do buy after you use up your free free
1:46:04Free trial period you get 10% off and you can do that for pre paying up to a full year in advance save 10%
1:46:11That's the code talk show. No the just talk show
1:46:14Go to Squarespace calm talk show and you can get started today
1:46:19What else is on our agenda Renee
1:46:26God secret lives of Facebook moderators in America. This is a great story
1:46:30I still haven't linked to it from during fireball because it was it really a great story by Casey Newton at
1:46:37the verge
1:46:39Really what probably the most compelling thing I've read all week
1:46:43Talking about this company
1:46:47That is sort of like a contractor for Facebook to do moderation here in the US. So it's not Facebook employees
1:46:55It's what's the name of this company here?
1:46:57Cognizant
1:47:00C o g and I see a NT they have an office and I guess somewhere in Arizona and people come in you get this job and
1:47:07It sounds it's almost dystopian I mean maybe I should take out the word almost it's it's dystopian and
1:47:17Apparently that is not like like one of the bragging points that they make is that it's you know
1:47:24know, they have windows and it's like a nice, it's not some dank basement. So maybe
1:47:30that aspect of it isn't, isn't this topic, dystopian, I forget the word. But in terms
1:47:39of what it's like to work there, it is, it's like you check in, you have to leave
1:47:45your phone, you can't have any paper or pencils because they don't want people like
1:47:52down the names of the people involved in the things that they're doing. They micromanage
1:48:00your bathroom breaks, and you're expected to go through hundreds of disputed, flagged
1:48:08things on Facebook every day, whether it's identifying whether somebody's
1:48:16rant is racist or whether there's a, you know, somebody posts, they post just the worst stuff
1:48:22you can imagine. Videos of people being killed by drones in the Middle East and, and obviously,
1:48:32I'm sure tons of pornographic stuff. And you just have to go through hundreds of these things and
1:48:41they get in big trouble if you're, you know, they audit, you know, a couple of dozen of your
1:48:49everybody's things a week. And if yours don't match up with what they expect them to, you get
1:48:55in trouble. There's not much money in this. It seems like whether they only pay like $28,000
1:49:00a year for a full-time employee. And it really seems—
1:49:04Yeah, they pay nothing and they just totally—and it sounds like these people are being
1:49:07Destroyed like emotionally psychically in every way possible right because for 40 hours a week every week
1:49:14They are just looking at nothing but the worst. I mean that's you know, the stuff that's innocuous isn't isn't getting flagged for moderation
1:49:22so it's just 40 hours a day of
1:49:24Evaluating the worst stuff posted to Facebook. Yeah, let's talk about one woman in the beginning who's just watching people getting murdered
1:49:32Yeah. Yeah, and she had like a panic attack and and yeah, you know it
1:49:37You know, who can blame her? I mean, it's, you know, people aren't—most people aren't
1:49:45hooked up to consume stuff like that.
1:49:47Yeah, it's literally soul-crushing.
1:49:49Yeah, it's like snuff films and stuff. It's really crazy. Facebook.
1:49:56Yeah, player of the year. Well, you've mentioned this before. It's just like they—it's
1:50:05It's not a company that normal people work at, it's just not.
1:50:08- One of the things that was raised,
1:50:12I mean, and one of the things that's a little
1:50:15morally questionable is the relationship Facebook has
1:50:20with these moderation companies like this,
1:50:21that they're keeping this at arm's reach
1:50:24and they're not making them full-time,
1:50:26they're not making them Facebook employees,
1:50:27they're employees of a company called Cognizant
1:50:29and they have a contract with Facebook.
1:50:31To me, there's a lack of ownership there,
1:50:35that they should be full-time Facebook employees.
1:50:39This is Facebook's problem.
1:50:40This is the nature of their platform.
1:50:43Farming this out to another company is,
1:50:48there's a certain lack of,
1:50:52I'm not surprised that that's how they do it,
1:50:54but it seems like it's brushing it aside.
1:50:59Like this is something that they should know.
1:51:01- To be clear, there was an expose a couple weeks ago
1:51:03about contract workers in Silicon Valley,
1:51:06and it was Apple and Google and all the big companies.
1:51:09And they were just, none of them were treated as well
1:51:11as employees would be treated.
1:51:12They were all micromanaged.
1:51:13They all hated their jobs.
1:51:15And it's just not a good culture.
1:51:16And it seems to be endemic in the area.
1:51:20But when you're dealing with material like this,
1:51:22it seems to be especially, like verifying addresses
1:51:25for Apple or Google onto a Maps app,
1:51:27that's probably really boring work.
1:51:29But these people are again watching the absolute worst
1:51:31of humanity over and over again for nothing.
1:51:35- Yeah, or not much.
1:51:37And it helps obscure things like, you know,
1:51:40what's the average salary of an employee at Facebook?
1:51:44When all of these people making, here it is,
1:51:46$28,800 per year to evaluate this.
1:51:51And there's, you know, I don't know,
1:51:52hundreds, thousands of these people?
1:51:54Their low wages aren't bringing down
1:51:58the company-wide average salary employee at Facebook.
1:52:02You know, I saw some people in response to this saying,
1:52:06you know, and that, and they're right.
1:52:10I'm not disagreeing at all.
1:52:11That the problem is that these, this shows that,
1:52:14at least especially here in the US,
1:52:16that like mental health care isn't part of a lot of,
1:52:21even if you have health insurance,
1:52:24getting treated for the emotional problems
1:52:28that might develop doing a job like this
1:52:30should be part of your healthcare.
1:52:33I don't disagree with that all, I agree with it, sure.
1:52:36But I feel like reading this article
1:52:39and coming away with the primary take
1:52:42that hey, something's busted in our,
1:52:44another aspect of our healthcare system that's busted
1:52:47is that these people aren't getting the mental healthcare
1:52:49they need after dealing with this job.
1:52:51I think you're whistling past the primary problem,
1:52:53which is that this platform is assessable.
1:52:56And that they're, you know, I don't know what the answer is.
1:53:01You know, it obviously disband Facebook and shut it down
1:53:05isn't going to happen, but let's let everybody
1:53:08on the planet post whatever they want
1:53:10and share it to like-minded individuals
1:53:13is fundamentally a broken idea.
1:53:15You know, to me, the fundamental idea of Facebook is broken.
1:53:21Like this is not a good idea, you know, and we're seeing it, you know, and I don't know
1:53:26what the answer is, but, and I'm not surprised in the least bit that it, that keeping it
1:53:32moderated to the degree that it is moderated requires tremendous man hours to identify
1:53:39and flag this stuff.
1:53:41And even so, they still are obviously struggling with the accuracy rate.
1:53:47You know, the article goes into the fact that these odd, you know, somebody, people from
1:53:50Facebook who actually are Facebook employees do these audits.
1:53:55And you know, the goal is to have a 95% success rate.
1:54:00In other words, that, you know, if you're having this job as a moderator, 19 out of
1:54:0520 times your assessment of this is acceptable, it should stay up or this is unacceptable,
1:54:12should take it down should agree with the person at Facebook. I'm not surprised at
1:54:18all that this is human driven on both ends, not algorithmically driven. I don't, you
1:54:26know, AI just isn't there yet to do this. I mean, I'm sure there's some stuff that
1:54:29AI can flag, just like the way that spam, email spam filters are largely, you know,
1:54:36almost entirely driven by software. Obviously, some stuff, like in the way that email can
1:54:42be filtered algorithmically can work, but deciding whether the content of a video is
1:54:47acceptable requires humans. It just doesn't scale.
1:54:51Steve: The scale is impossible to understand how much content goes into these platforms,
1:54:56Facebook, YouTube, all of these every second, not just every day, but every second it's
1:55:01unmanageable let alone in total.
1:55:03Dave: You know, and it comes back, you mentioned that YouTube is, to name the other giant in
1:55:09YouTube is in the midst of a couple of controversies.
1:55:13But the one that I saw last week was one involving,
1:55:18effectively, pedophiles who are looking at videos
1:55:22of mostly young girls.
1:55:25And the algorithmic angle on this,
1:55:29'cause I don't think it would take off,
1:55:30is that once you get into this rabbit hole of these videos,
1:55:34all of your suggested videos over on the right-hand side
1:55:37YouTube are more of them. Yeah. And it's awful, awful, awful, awful stuff. But part of it,
1:55:45you know, part of it is the algorithm, not flagging it, you know, being smart enough,
1:55:50the algorithm is smart enough to, to stitch these videos together and say, okay, if you
1:55:54like this, you'll like that. And they're right. Or correct, I should say, you know, in that
1:56:00these are related videos from the same people. But it's obviously wrong in the moral sense
1:56:05that these things should ever be allowed to propagate. And quite frankly, it ultimately
1:56:12gets to the bottom line of unmoderated comments are never end well on the internet. You know,
1:56:22and it's awful to say it. And I realized that from a philosophical standpoint, and the democratization
1:56:27of, you know, free speech, in theory, it's great that the internet allows everybody to
1:56:33have a voice. But in practice, there's enough awful people in the world that having an unmoderated
1:56:39forum, it never ends well. Well, you also remember the early days of the internet,
1:56:44I used to run my own PHP Nuke and WordPress and movable type installations, and there would always
1:56:49be a vulnerability where there were porn links put in or spam links put in or malware links put in,
1:56:54just on an automated basis. And I would end up destroying the comment system just because I
1:56:58couldn't keep up that I was getting a trivial amount of comments.
1:57:01Yeah. I mean, one rule of thumb is that anything that can be abused will be
1:57:06abused. Yes. You know, and it's inevitable, you know, so letters to the
1:57:11editor in your local printed newspaper never had spam because there was no
1:57:17there. And I really doubt that there was much spam ever sent to the newspapers
1:57:21because you know, it's not going to get printed, right? There's somebody who's
1:57:24reading these letters and deciding, here's six letters about our recent news coverage
1:57:29and current events that show different perspectives and interesting points. Here's our six letters
1:57:36of the day. It's all human curated, so there was never any impetus to abuse it.
1:57:42Where it has to be delusional, not opportunistic to descend in nonsense.
1:57:46Right. Whereas we've created an automated system where anybody can fill out this text
1:57:51area for him and hit a button and whatever you typed in the field is going to show up
1:57:55at the bottom of this post. Did not take long for that to be to be taken advantage of. What
1:58:03was the six apart thing? Trackbacks? Yeah. Which weren't comments. It was like, it was
1:58:12never that they would put the link to what you blogged about it in me. I never supported
1:58:17it at Daring Fireball along the lines of why I never had comments at Daring Fireball is
1:58:23I just never wanted to—I saw the problem all along and never—and again, it's like
1:58:28many things in life, there are trade-offs where if you don't have comments, you don't
1:58:32get the good comments either, and sometimes the comments are the best thing or somebody
1:58:36could make a point that it was better than the post itself.
1:58:40Like Asimko's comments are terrific, but I have no idea what he goes through in order
1:58:45to maintain that quality.
1:58:46Right. Well, it's close to a great day, right? Yeah
1:58:49but track bats were track backs were like an automated way of linking an article or one post to another and saying like oh
1:58:57Renee posted about the
1:59:00Galaxy fold and I'm responding to his post and I put a track back in and then somehow there would be a link to my
1:59:07Post at the bottom of your post because I sent the track back. Well, it didn't take long for those to be abused
1:59:12They were all scraper. Yeah, like people just scraped your content. We're all in your talk backs, right?
1:59:16It wasn't, you know, it was, you needed to write like a script to do it because it was
1:59:21like a little simple API call. It wasn't just typing in a text area and hitting a button,
1:59:26but it was easily automated and of course it was. Here's my question. What is the point
1:59:32of YouTube comments?
1:59:34Well, I guess there's a couple reasons why they do it. It's the same reasons that there've
1:59:39always been comments on the web. One is to provide an open forum for discussion of the
1:59:43content. The other one is that when there are comments and people argue in them, you
1:59:46get way more page views because people come back,
1:59:48not just to see the content again,
1:59:49but to see what the discussion around the content is.
1:59:52And if they get into arguments,
1:59:53they come back again and again and again.
1:59:56- Do your videos get a lot of comment?
1:59:59- They get, yeah, I mean, like they get way more comments
2:00:02than I've seen in blogs or Twitter or anything a long time
2:00:05because YouTube has an incredible, and it's good and bad.
2:00:07Like there are horrible comments that I delete.
2:00:11Like I don't delete, you know, anyone arguing with me,
2:00:13but there are like some gross things
2:00:15that get posted in there, so I get rid of that.
2:00:17But there are tons of comments on a lot of them, yeah.
2:00:20- Yeah, that is the one thing about YouTube comments
2:00:22is I never look, I'm so anti-comment that I don't even look.
2:00:27Like I watch a fair amount,
2:00:30well, probably by most people's standards,
2:00:31I watch very little YouTube,
2:00:33but I think I watch a fair amount of YouTube.
2:00:36I never even look at the comments.
2:00:38I mean, the only time I ever think about it
2:00:39is at the end of all these videos from serious YouTubers
2:00:44where they always say, if you like this video,
2:00:46hit the thumbs up button or whatever,
2:00:48and subscribe and leave a comment or whatever.
2:00:51I hear them talking about it at the end of the video
2:00:54as I'm about to close the tab, but I never actually look.
2:00:57But when I do, when it occurs to me to look,
2:01:01I'm often blown away by how many comments there are.
2:01:03Like there are, holy crap, there's a lot of comments.
2:01:07Like when you look at somebody's video
2:01:09and it supposedly has 800,000 views,
2:01:14and you're like, "Hmm, that's a lot of views."
2:01:16But then you look at the comments
2:01:18and you see how many there are.
2:01:19It's like 1,200 comments or something,
2:01:20and you're like, "Well, maybe there are 800,000 views
2:01:23if 1,200 people commented on it."
2:01:25- The scale of YouTube is,
2:01:27when I started getting into it,
2:01:29and then you look at someone like Shane Dawson
2:01:31who's been making videos for a while,
2:01:32but now will put up a 145-minute conspiracy theory video
2:01:35and it gets 20 to 40 million views.
2:01:38or Desposito I think just hit six billion views.
2:01:41It just dwarfs I think anything else that's been built
2:01:44on like a content platform on the internet.
2:01:46- Yeah, at a technical level it is amazing.
2:01:49And it's kind of interesting in a historical idea,
2:01:54I forget what Google paid for YouTube,
2:01:56but it's one of those, I think it was like a billion dollars
2:02:00whatever it was, it's like up there with Facebook
2:02:05buying Instagram, I just called them face gram.
2:02:08That would be a good way to rebrand.
2:02:10Facebook buying Instagram for a billion dollars,
2:02:13or you would have to, the next reunification with Apple
2:02:18for a couple hundred million dollars
2:02:20has obviously turned out to be a great deal.
2:02:22You'd have to, but like what would have happened to YouTube?
2:02:25It's hard to imagine a future where,
2:02:28a world where YouTube isn't part of Google, right?
2:02:31Like who else could have bought them
2:02:33and scaled them to be where they are?
2:02:37- Yeah, I mean, there's a possibility
2:02:38they could have become their own Google,
2:02:39that just their growth would have been so well managed
2:02:41that they would have become a company
2:02:42like a Google or a Facebook.
2:02:44And that's always like Snap never sold
2:02:46because they want it to be the next Google
2:02:48and who knows if that'll maybe not work out for them now.
2:02:52That's sort of the two choices you have.
2:02:54Google never sold, they were offered many times,
2:02:56they never sold either.
2:02:58- Yeah, I think that that's the most likely
2:03:00alternate universe is one where YouTube stuck independent
2:03:03and became one of the big six companies.
2:03:07'Cause I just can't imagine who else could've done this
2:03:11or would've tolerated it, right?
2:03:13Like, you have to have a certain mindset to have a,
2:03:18we'll let people post whatever video they want.
2:03:22- Yeah.
2:03:22- I mean, it's kind of crazy.
2:03:26- Yeah, no, it really is.
2:03:28And again, just like Facebook, it's like an impossible problem.
2:03:33It really is.
2:03:34And it's, you know, again, it's trade-offs, you know,
2:03:39there were a lot of problems with the world of print
2:03:43and, you know, mass media prior to the internet
2:03:47where a lot of voices were locked out of the conversation.
2:03:52And part of the reason why our society
2:03:55was so much less tolerant than it is now,
2:03:58not that we've, you know,
2:03:59gotten rid of our problems with intolerance
2:04:03as evidenced by many of today's headlines.
2:04:06But the world is certainly inarguably a more tolerant place
2:04:10than it used to be in the internet
2:04:12and the providing voices and the allowing of publications
2:04:16that with other perspectives certainly is a great thing
2:04:21but it's trade-offs because it's also allowed people
2:04:25who never would have gotten more of a crowd
2:04:28than what they could assemble raving at a street corner
2:04:32with a megaphone to have a very large audience.
2:04:37- Well, I mean, the problem with YouTube and Facebook,
2:04:39their strength is their weakness,
2:04:41so they are incredible recommendation engines.
2:04:44So for example, if I listen to your post WWDC podcast,
2:04:48there's no sidebar that recommends Snell's post WWDC podcast,
2:04:52the connected guys, there's just no way for me
2:04:54to listen to more of the same thing.
2:04:56I can listen to more of your stuff,
2:04:57but not other people's takes.
2:04:58Same thing if I read an article on Daring Fireball,
2:05:00I don't also get, you know, Dalrymple's take
2:05:02and Marco's take, but with YouTube videos
2:05:05and with Facebook, they see what you want
2:05:07and they give you more of it.
2:05:08And that amplifies content.
2:05:09Like you can get unbelievable.
2:05:11Suddenly you could look up and your content's got a million,
2:05:13two million views out of nowhere,
2:05:15but also you're being shown conspiracy theory videos
2:05:18and real, real dumb stuff right along with it.
2:05:21So it amplifies both the good and the bad
2:05:22to an unbelievable degree.
2:05:24- Yeah.
2:05:25I completely agree.
2:05:29Well, lightning round.
2:05:31A few other things before we wrap up.
2:05:33There was this weird bug, well, maybe it's a bug.
2:05:36I don't know what the hell this story is,
2:05:38where Google's home speakers,
2:05:42some point in the last week,
2:05:43started showing a thing for Apple Music,
2:05:46and everybody thought it was like,
2:05:49"Oh, they prematurely launched this before it was ready."
2:05:52'Cause, you know, I mean, it's nowhere near,
2:05:56it wouldn't be as surprising as the initial news
2:05:58that Apple Music is available on Amazon's Echo ones
2:06:03from earlier this year was.
2:06:04But now that that's out,
2:06:05well, if they're gonna do it on Echo,
2:06:07if they could work out the terms with Google,
2:06:09presumably they would and will do it on Google too,
2:06:11but now they're saying it was just a bug.
2:06:14But it's a very strange bug.
2:06:16- Yeah, I mean, it works.
2:06:17It's been available for Android since launch.
2:06:19It doesn't surprise me.
2:06:20Apple's whole thing is that they want people
2:06:22who have family subscriptions
2:06:23to be able to listen to it everywhere
2:06:24because it makes it more valuable.
2:06:26And they realize that there's a whole bunch of diversity
2:06:28in people's homes and ecosystems.
2:06:30So I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out.
2:06:32I don't tend to take Google statements
2:06:33on face value anyway.
2:06:34- But then it, you know,
2:06:36and I don't blame Apple for it, you know.
2:06:41I think it kind of makes sense with the services push,
2:06:44you know, and I don't think, I do think,
2:06:47I think the HomePod is in many ways a misunderstood product
2:06:51because it isn't meant to compete with $70
2:06:56Echo and Google dots or whatever they call theirs.
2:07:01It really is, you know, the best way to understand it is to listen to the way Apple describes
2:07:05it and it really is supposed to be a nice $350 speaker system.
2:07:10And the fact that it uses Siri as the interface is an implementation detail.
2:07:15I mean, yes, you can use it for stuff.
2:07:17I use it to turn off lights and raise the shades and lower the shades.
2:07:20I do use it that way, but Apple knew at $350 that it was, even in the best case scenario,
2:07:30not going to outsell $50 little hockey puck things.
2:07:36They don't have one.
2:07:37You've seen this before.
2:07:38They're very candid.
2:07:39It really was meant to be you have an empty room.
2:07:41You want to drop one thing in that you can put almost anywhere and will sound great in
2:07:45almost anywhere that you're in the room, and that's the problem it solves.
2:07:49Siri is just the only way you control it because it's a speaker.
2:07:52I can't help but think though that this bug wasn't really that like somebody, some rogue
2:07:57individual at Google somehow put the Apple Music icon in there and just mocked it up.
2:08:04Like, here's what it would look like if we had Apple Music and then accidentally shipped
2:08:08it. Presumably, it is either a done deal and is coming and unannounced, or they're in the
2:08:14midst of it far enough along that they're working on it and it was a mistake that it showed.
2:08:20Yeah, that's what it feels like.
2:08:23Yeah. And, you know, again, it makes sense that, you know, they want Apple Music everywhere you
2:08:28listen to music. They're writing iTunes for Tizen, John. This is their service's story.
2:08:35So that brings me to the upcoming rumored event a month from now, supposedly, this leaked in
2:08:43advance. And of course, media partners are the leakiest companies. How in the world did Apple's
2:08:50supposed Monday, March 25th event at the Steve Jobs Theater, how did it leak so far in advance?
2:08:56Well, because they're talking, if it's true, they are talking to magazines and newspapers
2:09:04about a subscription Apple News Service, and they are talking to various TV movie type companies
2:09:11about, I guess, about, you know, some kind of subscription TV service, video service.
2:09:18- Including which celebrities would be on stage, you know, that's the secret,
2:09:22that's not gonna stay. - Right. I'm interested in what you think about it. And I'm guessing that if
2:09:31this is true, that this would be an event where if there are any products to announce, it might be
2:09:38there's a lot of smoke enough smoke that there's probably a fire to the fact that there's going to be some kind of reef
2:09:44You know refresh to the air pods lineup
2:09:47with the
2:09:51Case that charges. Yeah
2:09:53I'm just gonna say wirelessly but I
2:09:56Really inductively ductively because it's not really wireless if it doesn't go over the air, but the wireless charging case also a
2:10:05The air pods might come in black
2:10:07Which is interesting and I think would prove very popular
2:10:11but it's kind of interesting because they went with the we've got one set of earbuds and they're white and you're gonna like it for
2:10:19a long time while they were wired and used used that for a very
2:10:24Successful ad campaign they were iconic
2:10:29I write like what the ads made them, you know emphasize the iconic nature of Apple's white earbuds
2:10:35You remember those illest, you know, very, very colorful ads where the, you know, very
2:10:41colorful, vibrant colors of people dancing, listening to music with these white earbuds
2:10:46and wires coming out and they didn't even need to show the iPod.
2:10:49Right.
2:10:50And if anyone was wearing white earbuds, it didn't matter if they were Apple and not
2:10:53you just assumed that they were listening to an iPod.
2:10:55Right.
2:10:56And so, you know, it famously today, you know, there's AirPods are very, very popular product.
2:11:02They're, you know, subjective memes, you know, people think you're rich if you have AirPods,
2:11:08but they're so popular now and they're very, again, iconic, you know, and, and for however
2:11:12much guff that people gave them and thought that they looked goofy when they came out,
2:11:16which I never understood.
2:11:17I even wrote about this on During Fireball.
2:11:18I don't understand why people thought AirPods looked weird because they looked exactly like
2:11:22Apple's wireless wired AirPods without the wires.
2:11:27It is, I understand why people felt a little self-conscious.
2:11:33I did.
2:11:34I felt self-conscious when I first started wearing AirPods.
2:11:36I like those big old Bluetooth headsets, right?
2:11:41Not because I thought I looked goofy, but because this is so weird, right?
2:11:45After years and years of wearing wired AirPods, it felt so weird to put them in and not have
2:11:51anything holding them in place.
2:11:53Like it's, you know, you'd like to think that they designed them not to fall out of your
2:11:58ears, but it sure looks like they would fall out of your ears.
2:12:01It turns out for most people with most ears, they don't, which is amazing.
2:12:06But when you, that's what made me conscious.
2:12:08Now, maybe not self-conscious, but it just seemed to me like when I first had AirPods,
2:12:12I felt I never, I was thinking about them all the time.
2:12:15Cause I'm like, don't fall out, don't fall out, don't fall out.
2:12:18And then eventually, you know, you get used to it and they become the new normal.
2:12:21But anyway, switching to black or offering black, I guess they're not going to switch
2:12:24but offering black as an option takes away a little bit of that iconic nature.
2:12:28Yeah.
2:12:29Yeah.
2:12:30I mean, we are in the age of fashion, especially with wearables.
2:12:32We saw that with the watch where different casings and different bands.
2:12:36My only thing because when john pachowski, Mr. will friend john pachowski broke the rumor
2:12:40about the event.
2:12:41He said very specifically that he heard there were not going to be air pods and there was
2:12:45not going to be an iPad mini.
2:12:46He didn't say there was not going to be the iPad 10.2 inch refresh for the lower end
2:12:51but it's odd that they would have one, but not the,
2:12:54like it seems to me that if you're going to show off news,
2:12:56it'd be great to show it off on a new iPad.
2:12:59- Right.
2:13:00- It just seems like a good fit.
2:13:00And if you're going to show off television,
2:13:02it'd be good to show that off on new products as well.
2:13:05And like the daily was the only event I could think of
2:13:07where Apple actually showed,
2:13:08and that was a very small, very specific event.
2:13:12But just a services event would be something very different.
2:13:15And they have so much
2:13:16expectational debt around any Apple event.
2:13:19We're used to like marches where we saw the first MacBook where we they had a launch for the Apple watch
2:13:24They'll the launch for the iPhone SE the 9.7 inch iPad
2:13:28There's just so many iconic products that have come out in March
2:13:30Never mind going back a few years to like the eye the iPad itself
2:13:35That I think people will just assume there's gonna be a lot of that stuff there and it'll be hard for them to just not
2:13:40Do hardware at the show?
2:13:43Yeah, but what that hardware will be I don't know I think you know a new regular iPad would be interesting and it would be
2:13:51Yeah, you know cuz I get last year's was about a year ago. So yeah, that's interesting to think that the
2:13:57Entry model iPad is on an annual refresh rate that they're not
2:14:02Letting that sit. That's just the
2:14:05$350 one we don't you know our heart and soul is only in the iPad pros the expensive ones
2:14:11With the latest and greatest technology would be interesting if you know and who knows, you know, I'm for education
2:14:16I mean, this is when you want to sell the education iPad, right?
2:14:19Air pods would be interesting
2:14:22presumably I I can't help but think that if they are going to unveil air pods which have a
2:14:27Wireless charging case that they would also finally have
2:14:32Dare I say it the air power?
2:14:36Yeah
2:14:38I knew the new and functional air power. I can't help it. You know, I just don't see how they talk about
2:14:43Wireless even if they charge on a standard Qi charger
2:14:47Which I know I'm not sure that the air pods case will like if it charges wirelessly it might charge wirelessly only with the air
2:14:55Power, I don't think we have an answer to that
2:14:57Well, the rumor is that the this year's iPhone is gonna do bilateral inductive charging
2:15:02Which is what the Samsung phone and I forget I think the Huawei already do that where you turn them upside down and it's terrible
2:15:07It's terrible for phones. It's like 1% after 15 minutes. It shuts off but like with the Galaxy buds
2:15:13They've shown this with having small like air pods just putting on the back of your phone
2:15:17It's a realistic charging mechanism and that means it would have to be very similar to what Apple what to what she is already doing
2:15:23on my phone
2:15:24Well, who knows but I you know, that might be a product that ships in this
2:15:28March event that would be and you watch bands could get those every March, right? Right, right, and I don't want to wait till June
2:15:36on my presumption that if there's a March 25th Apple event, the next time we hear from
2:15:42Apple will be the WWDC keynote in early June. Yeah. So I would guess the spring assortment
2:15:49of watch straps will be, would be unveiled at this event. I don't know if it would
2:15:53get staged.
2:15:54Well, like a press release too. I mean, yeah, that's right. Cause sometimes they just
2:15:56a press release or you see them on apple.com around the same time.
2:15:59Right. I hope they bring back the nylon straps. Have I said this to you before? God, I'm
2:16:04Yeah, I still can't believe that they let that they that they're all gone
2:16:08I mean, it's really odd. Somebody just wrote to me some reader just wrote to me and was like
2:16:12Just professing their love for the nylon watch straps and
2:16:18Asking me if I had any insight into where they went and I said no none and they're my favorite, too
2:16:23and
2:16:25I can only presume that they just weren't selling that well because if they were selling
2:16:30Great. Why in the world would they have taken them off the market?
2:16:33And I mean everyone seems to like just so many people just wear the sport band and the sport loop are incredibly popular
2:16:39So it could just be that there was no room in between them
2:16:42Yeah, maybe anymore, but I don't like the sport loop for multiple reasons. I don't like the double
2:16:47The doubling on the one side and I'm just yeah, not really a velcro person. I people wear them like sweatpants
2:16:53They're like, no, I like the sweatpants watch. No, I know I'm you know, but I think that's part of even without even
2:16:59touching the world of third-party Apple watch straps, which is huge, you know, just within
2:17:04staying within the Apple branded ones. I really do think it's fundamental to the success of the
2:17:11platform that you've got this variety of looks and feels, you know, it's such an intimate,
2:17:19a watch is such an intimate thing and because it really is touching your skin all the time.
2:17:25having a strap that you think both feels good, fits right, and looks cool is super,
2:17:30super important. And having a variety is the only way to do that. But my favorite is the nylon strap.
2:17:37Justin: Yeah. Yeah. No, I wish it comes back to you.
2:17:41Pete: Yeah, I don't know. But I guess that's coming. Anything else? I don't expect any Mac hardware.
2:17:46Justin; It feels like iMac spec bumps should be in another press release at some point.
2:17:52Yeah, if not do anything radical they should just drop the yeah, the coffee lake and I forget what the Xeon is on now
2:17:58All right, but I don't really think I don't see how they can do anything with the display. They're already at
2:18:035k they already have
2:18:05The high dynamic range whatever you call it
2:18:08Yeah, the DCI p3 right? They already have that, you know, so it's
2:18:13If they're not going to change the size, I don't you know, I don't know what else there is, you know
2:18:19It's truly, you know, what I expect the next iMacs to be is a true speed bump where they're just hair
2:18:25They look exactly the same, but they're faster
2:18:27Eventually, we all want that redesign where it's similar to what they're rumoring for the pro display where it's like a 6k
2:18:32Mini LED panel with face ID buried in it. All right, and then you know
2:18:37Everyone will refresh at that point, but it's not like it's ready yet, right?
2:18:41Yeah, and I think I'm guessing that they'll do that standalone display first
2:18:46But yeah, and I you know, I don't think the Mac Pro is coming at a March media event
2:18:51and even even putting aside the
2:18:53German rumor from last week that that it might be coming at WWDC
2:18:58Which I think is crazy because I think if it doesn't come at WWDC
2:19:01We've got to start questioning what the hell is going on with with that
2:19:04If I was Apple like just given some of the delays
2:19:06I I would be like I know a lot of it would love them just to show it off and say it's coming in December like
2:19:11They did with the iMac Pro two years ago, but just with the delays
2:19:15I think they should be conservative in what they tease for the next little while. Well, yeah, but it's I mean
2:19:22I guess if they're not going to show it at WWDC
2:19:25They'll just leak they have to if they're not going to show it at WWDC
2:19:29That would be something they would have to leak to somebody and get the word out
2:19:33Because if there's no word at all about the Mac Pro before the keynote
2:19:38there's going to be thousands and thousands of developers who are watching us so that watching the
2:19:45WWDC keynote with yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shut up about that. Give me the macbook. Give me the macbook
2:19:49Give me that and then it's like Tim Cook says thanks. Have a great week
2:19:53WWDC people are gonna be what?
2:19:56Well, I mean there's so many problems with the expectations here too
2:20:00Because when when Apple said modular everyone in their own mind interpreted that differently some people thinking it's a new cheese grater
2:20:06Some people thinking that is something you can just plug cards into
2:20:08It was a rumor and I'm blanking on where it was where it's gonna be
2:20:11almost like a red camera where you'll have a brain module like a Mac Mini or maybe able to stack other Lego bricks on it and
2:20:17Those are all fundamentally different products, right? It's it doesn't yeah, it's
2:20:22It's one of those words that everybody yeah, you're right
2:20:26Everybody takes the word modular and they think modular in the way. I want it to be much. Yes
2:20:30Well, and I was saying to this I think it was with Glenn on the last episode where there's an awful lot of people
2:20:41who when a year ago, Pansarino got the,
2:20:46here's our update on Mac Pro, it's not a 2018 thing.
2:20:52But we, and gave him the interesting look
2:20:56at the pro musicians and video editors
2:21:01that Apple's hired full time to work
2:21:03hand in hand with the teams making their pro editing software
2:21:08for Final Cut Pro X and Logic.
2:21:13Really, really interesting story of the pros,
2:21:17actual pros working hand in hand with the development team
2:21:20and presumably also helping to inform the design
2:21:23of the pro hardware.
2:21:24But the thing that I know a lot of people,
2:21:29I've heard this from people,
2:21:30is that there are a lot of people who given the,
2:21:36I don't think the back goal is too strong a word for the trashcan Mac Pro, or at least the mistake
2:21:41that the trashcan Mac Pro turned out to be. There's an awful lot of people who were like,
2:21:46"Just make a big tower with lots of space in it. How hard can it be? There's 10,000 companies doing
2:21:53that for Windows and just do that. Just make a big tower with lots of space." And I think that when
2:21:59Apple was like, "Hey, this is going to take us into 2019," there's a lot of people who were worried
2:22:05about the Mac Pro because they're like, well, if they were just going to make, if they were
2:22:09going to do what I want them to do, which is just make a big tower, they'd be done.
2:22:12Modern cheese grater. Yeah.
2:22:13Right. They'd be done already. And so therefore they're doing something else and whatever else
2:22:18they're doing, it's going to be bad. And I don't think I, I'm just intrigued, honestly. I'm,
2:22:25you know, cause I'm probably not in the market for the Mac Pro. I'd be surprised if I were,
2:22:31but I'm sure curious what it is they've come up with that isn't just a big tower.
2:22:37Anyway though, I don't think that's a March thing while we're speculating on the March event. I
2:22:43think it's a WWDC thing. And I also, I don't expect MacBook Pros yet. I don't think that
2:22:50they would announce them at this event anyway, but yeah. Agreed. And then our poor old 12 inch Mac
2:22:57book is desperately in need of a revision, but I don't.
2:23:01And that has been a March thing, but would it be again is the question.
2:23:05Right.
2:23:05I think it shifted to WWDC two years ago.
2:23:07Yeah. And if it's just a speed bump, maybe, but then what do they do? Do they show it?
2:23:11How do you show it? Is it just a press release? I don't know. I mean, it's obviously overdue
2:23:16and it's obviously a product that would sure go great with the much rumored move to in-house
2:23:24ARM chips, but that's obviously not just going to drop at the March event.
2:23:27Yeah. Yeah. Everyone wants that computer with an ARM chip and again, face ID.
2:23:31Everyone's got their mind set on that, honey.
2:23:34Yeah. And then, so the other thing that Gurman teased was a, well, no, it wasn't Gurman. It was
2:23:41Ming-Chi Kuo, who had the idea of a 16 or 16 and a half inch MacBook Pro with an all new design,
2:23:50Which leads me to my last topic, which is—this popped into my radar last night on Twitter,
2:23:55where Joanna Stern was tweeting with somebody on Twitter, but she, as an owner of a weeks-old new
2:24:02MacBook Air, was already having trouble with the keyboard, with letters getting stuck. And I forget
2:24:07who she was tweeting with. I'll put a link in the show notes, I swear. But then, you know, and it
2:24:12And it just prompted a depressingly large number of people with the latest revision
2:24:20of these keyboards with the membrane underneath them, who are saying, "Yeah, my E key gets
2:24:24stuck," or "Blank gets stuck," "Mine's my spacebar."
2:24:28Apple has mine because the spacebar was stuck, et cetera, et cetera.
2:24:34So I can't help but think, as much as I like the new MacBook Pro in my testing and I didn't
2:24:39have any problem with the keys. It sure seems like that this, whatever they've done for
2:24:47the third generation has not solved the problem. And at this point, I think we're looking
2:24:51at this is truly unacceptable.
2:24:53Yeah, I've had the same like I've gone through, I forget how many now seven of them
2:24:57and I've had one key on one of them, the control key give me problems, but I just popped
2:25:02it off and cleaned it and it was fine. And I had a key fail on my 2014 MacBook Pro and
2:25:08to take that in and they replaced it like they would do with a modern one.
2:25:11But for me it's the same thing.
2:25:13I love the new keyboard.
2:25:14I like it way better than the old one, but the fact that so many people don't like it,
2:25:17to me when you have one manufacturer, it's different if you're like Windows and Dell
2:25:20and HP and everybody makes Lenovo.
2:25:22They all have different computers because you can have your choice.
2:25:25If you don't like one keyboard, buy another manufacturer.
2:25:26It's not a problem.
2:25:27But Apple is the only one who makes Mac OS laptops, so they can't afford to have anything
2:25:33that's divisive, whether it's mechanically or just tactically divisive.
2:25:38And I'll echo everybody who says, "Just put the damn iMac keyboard into the MacBook
2:25:43and call it a day."
2:25:44That was my takeaway.
2:25:46And I've been using it a lot.
2:25:48I've settled on my favorite iPad keyboard setup.
2:25:51My favorite iPad keyboard setup is the Apple Magic keyboard in the Studio Neat Canopy folding
2:25:59case, which I almost never even fold up.
2:26:01I just leave it open and it's just a place to put it.
2:26:05And I, for my use, because I don't do too much writing on the iPad and I like to hold
2:26:10the iPad naked without a heavy case on it so that the Apple keyboard cover is sort of
2:26:16ruled out.
2:26:17And I, the mag, you know, it's not hard to get it off the magnet, but it's not easy as
2:26:23opposed to just using this canopy where it just doesn't snap in or anything.
2:26:27You just lift it in, lift it out, lift it in, lift it out.
2:26:29And it's a great keyboard.
2:26:30is an amazing keyboard. Yep. It's terrific. It is super super it is. I'm blown away at
2:26:36how much nicer a keyboard it is than the old magic keyboard the one that had like the took
2:26:40double A batteries and yeah, on the side like it's just better than both the old MacBook
2:26:45Pro and the new MacBook. It's really it and it could be you know, you can see how it this
2:26:50could be a laptop keyboard. Yeah. Oh my god. So they have that it's even worse that they
2:26:56they have this amazing keyboard that the company is making and they're not using it. But at
2:27:01this point, the thought that occurred to me last night on Twitter after reading this thread
2:27:06on Twitter and seeing that there's enough—nobody ever complained about stuck keys. I'm not
2:27:11saying that nobody's keys got stuck on older MacBooks. It happens. You know, keyboards
2:27:16break.
2:27:17Steve McLaughlin Yeah, it happened to me.
2:27:18Dave Asprey But there's clearly, clearly a problem with
2:27:20this butterfly design that the third generation hasn't solved where it's way more prevalent
2:27:24than it should be, and they're just not dependable.
2:27:27And it's a part of the MacBook that has to be dependable.
2:27:30Like, nobody is buying a MacBook
2:27:33who doesn't need the keyboard to be reliable.
2:27:36It's just fundamental to the product.
2:27:39And the thought that occurred to me
2:27:41is that this, to me, is where Apple misses Steve Jobs.
2:27:46I think, and again, it's dangerous territory going into the,
2:27:50it would be different if Steve Jobs were still there.
2:27:53But I'm more comfortable about it lately because I really feel like we've got enough distance
2:27:58from when he died, that it's no longer like an open wound.
2:28:04But the conventional wisdom seems to be Apple is going to miss Steve Jobs or is never going
2:28:09to be the same because Steve Jobs was the only person who could lead them to create
2:28:14amazing new products.
2:28:18You don't get things like the iPod and the iPhone
2:28:21and the iPad without Steve Jobs.
2:28:23And that's what Apple's all about.
2:28:26And I don't think that's true.
2:28:27And I feel like the watch is proof of that.
2:28:32AirPods are proof of that.
2:28:33They've had new products that are terrific
2:28:37in the last few years.
2:28:39To me, where I think they miss Steve Jobs
2:28:44isn't in the creation of great new things,
2:28:46it's in addressing problems.
2:28:49Among the dozens of ways
2:28:53that he was a terrific CEO of Apple,
2:28:57I feel like what he did when things went wrong
2:29:00and his ability to accept it and embrace it
2:29:05and say, "Yes, this is terrible, we need to fix it."
2:29:08Famously, there was a story about MobileMe when it launched.
2:29:14And he held a town hall meeting,
2:29:17I forget how long after it launched,
2:29:19but the gist of it was, you know,
2:29:20there's maybe 150 people could fit in there.
2:29:22There's a hundred people in that Apple town hall.
2:29:25And he said, he's up on stage and he says,
2:29:28let's talk about MobileMe.
2:29:29What is MobileMe supposed to do?
2:29:31And I don't know, one or two people in the audience
2:29:34would give their answer.
2:29:36And somebody gave an answer that was sufficient.
2:29:38You know, like, yes, here's a brief description
2:29:40of what MobileMe is supposed to be and do.
2:29:42and he goes, "Well, why the hell doesn't it do that?"
2:29:45- Yeah.
2:29:46- And, you know, intervening, you know,
2:29:50the Apple's got, in my opinion,
2:29:52Apple has gotten its act together on iCloud.
2:29:55And I know that, you know, all of a sudden
2:29:58there's a couple hundred people listening to his podcasts
2:30:00who are like, "Well, my contacts still don't sing."
2:30:02I'm not saying it's perfect,
2:30:03but it's really a lot different than it was,
2:30:06certainly from the MobileMe era, in terms of reliability.
2:30:08- One of the things that, like,
2:30:09one of the things I think he doesn't get enough credit for
2:30:11is that he was an incredibly strong auteur.
2:30:13He was very opinionated.
2:30:14But when you look at like, he did not want iTunes on Windows
2:30:17but he trusted his team and let them do it.
2:30:19Threatening them if it didn't work.
2:30:21Same with iPad mini, did not want an iPad mini,
2:30:23trusted his team, said it's your fault if you blow it.
2:30:25Let them do it.
2:30:26He loved that G4 Cube.
2:30:28It was unacceptable, so he canceled that thing.
2:30:30Like it did not last on the market for five years,
2:30:33you know, just collecting dust.
2:30:35He killed that thing.
2:30:37And that's the part of it I think is absolutely true.
2:30:39Like you can just imagine him picking up that keyboard
2:30:42and throwing it across the lab
2:30:44and saying, why is it still getting stuck?
2:30:45This is unacceptable, fix this,
2:30:47not next year, two years, whatever the roadmap is,
2:30:49fix this today.
2:30:50- There's another story.
2:30:51It was Adam Leschinsky, who I think still writes at Fortune,
2:30:55but he had a book out a couple of years ago.
2:30:58Unfortunately, I will get it in the show notes.
2:31:01But one of the stories in his book was about,
2:31:08Apparently every time I guess there's not that many VPs at Apple, but every time somebody would get promoted to VP
2:31:13Steve Jobs had a spiel that he would give them and it was like the parable of the janitor and the vice president and
2:31:22this I'll paraphrase here, but I'll put a link where the
2:31:27passage from his book is and you can read it but just if it is
2:31:30You're getting promoted to a vice president you meet with Steve Jobs and he says look
2:31:36Here's what the difference between a janitor and a vice president. Let's say I'm here in my office
2:31:41and I notice my trash hasn't been getting emptied and my waste basket is now overflowing. And I go
2:31:47to the janitor who's supposed to be emptying my waste bucket every day and I say, "Hey,
2:31:52I noticed my trash isn't getting emptied. What's going on?" And the janitor might say, "Well,
2:31:58the locks were changed on your office door and I don't have a key anymore so I couldn't get in."
2:32:04That's a reasonable explanation and from the janitor, it's a legitimate explanation
2:32:09for why my trash isn't getting emptied and we'll have to figure out something, get
2:32:14the guy a new key or whatever.
2:32:16He goes, "When you're vice president, you no longer get excuses.
2:32:21There is no excuse.
2:32:22You need to empty the trash and if you can't get in, you need to figure it out and fix
2:32:27it."
2:32:28Which in turn reminds me of the story of Scott Forstall in the iPhone team when the one—at
2:32:33point during the development—remember the story where during the original development
2:32:37of the iPhone, somebody, some woman on the team, there was an argument, tempers were
2:32:42flaring, and she slammed the door to her office, and it broke the lock or the latch, and she
2:32:47couldn't get out.
2:32:48And did you ever hear this story?
2:32:51I think it was in Ken Kishenda's book.
2:32:54Oh, maybe then, yeah.
2:32:57And they're on a deadline, and she's locked in there, and they've got work to do.
2:33:03And so, first of all, somebody had a baseball bat and first of all, just took a baseball
2:33:06bat and just bashed her door in to get her out.
2:33:09Yeah. Right. But they weren't going to wait. It's like, you know what I mean? But it's
2:33:12almost like, it's like forestall almost exemplified what Jobs is talking about and that, you know,
2:33:19they needed her to be, you know, they needed her that night to do work and she locked in
2:33:23a room and not going to wait for like building services to come just take a baseball bat
2:33:27and tell her to stand away from the door and bash the doorknob in. Yeah. Anyway, my thinking
2:33:33on that is that there's some VP who's ultimately responsible for this keyboard. And to me,
2:33:39the time for excuses is over. And I again, I am not presumptive enough to say call for
2:33:46somebody to be fired. I mean, it's, you know, I but I and I, so I don't take this lightly.
2:33:53But to me, this is to the point where maybe somebody should be fired. Like, I think it's
2:33:57that serious? And where does the buck stop? And my fear is that in the post Steve Jobs
2:34:05Apple, this keyboard, MacBook keyboard thing is it off on its own. And the people who are
2:34:15deciding how to fix it and what to do going forward are the same people who designed it
2:34:20in the and approved it in the first place.
2:34:22Well, they have fired people in the recent past for stuff like, like not for the keyboard,
2:34:29but for issues that involve products being late and not being delivered on time or problems
2:34:33with the products.
2:34:34Like some of the people who were in charge of those two years ago, three years ago, were
2:34:37no longer there.
2:34:38They're just, it's just not very public.
2:34:41So I'm, this is just particularly bewildering because it's been so like the sentiment around
2:34:46it is so toxic.
2:34:48You just have all these like people like Joanna, people like Casey Neistat, people who get
2:34:51get a ton of attention. Casey Johnston railing on it all the time and nothing, you know,
2:34:56and they did that, you know, maybe you can see, Oh, we're going to fix it with a membrane,
2:34:59but it just, it's, it's, it doesn't get fixed. And that is not really like, to your point,
2:35:04that's not really how things got done. It's, it's doing reputational harm to the MacBook
2:35:09brand. And it is, it's truly this, in my opinion, the second most important brand at the company
2:35:16behind the phone. I mean, you can argue it would be a fine argument to make to say iPad
2:35:21is more important than MacBook, but it's at least close. But in terms of, you know, units
2:35:26that they sell a lot more iPads, but in terms of revenue, they sell more MacBooks.
2:35:30Like they didn't leave that antenna busted for three years on the iPhone four that was fixed by
2:35:35the time it was on Verizon. Right? It was Yeah, it didn't even take a year. Yeah, it was already
2:35:40fixed in the in the iPhone six, like, you know, they fixed this structural integrity of that by
2:35:45iPhone 6s, you know, all these things fixed.
2:35:49Right.
2:35:50It's, I feel like that revision last summer with the, okay, here's our third generation,
2:35:58we've added a membrane.
2:36:00Officially, they're only saying that the membrane makes it quieter.
2:36:03Yeah.
2:36:04Honestly, I mean, that was for legal reasons.
2:36:07Right.
2:36:08Well, I think for many reasons, but I think legal among them.
2:36:12but unofficially was also intended to prevent, what do you call it? Egress? Prevent particles
2:36:18from getting in there and causing problems, causing keys to get stuck or malfunction.
2:36:23I guess a lot of people are having a problem with the space bar where it doesn't get
2:36:26stuck but they hit the space bar and you get two spaces instead of one, which I guess isn't
2:36:32as bad a problem, but again, it's awful. You just expect, I've been using, I've
2:36:37a MacBook Pro here that it's a 2014 that I've used thousands of times since 2014.
2:36:46To the best of my knowledge, I've never once hit the space bar and had two spaces appear.
2:36:52Seriously, how many times have I used the space? Have I typed a space on this MacBook
2:36:57Pro? It's like one of those job interview puzzles like, "Hmm, what's a good estimate?"
2:37:05If I write a couple thousand words a day, every word is separated by a space, right?
2:37:13So thousands of words, thousands of days, right? Easily millions, right? It sounds ridiculous.
2:37:22You think, well, you've typed millions of spaces? But if I type thousands of words a
2:37:26day over several thousand days, you know, and this has been almost four and a half years,
2:37:32I don't think it's ridiculous to think I've typed a million or two spaces with
2:37:37this keyboard.
2:37:39To my knowledge, I can't recall one time, not even one in a million, where I've gotten
2:37:43two spaces.
2:37:44That's how—and that's not crazy.
2:37:46It's not like, "Oh, only Apple made keyboards where you hit the space a million times in
2:37:50a row and get one space."
2:37:52I mean, that's pretty common on quality laptops from any brand.
2:37:55I really think that this is causing irreparable—not irreparable, but serious reputational harm
2:38:02MacBook brand that will outlast the keyboards. Like even they're at the point now where they
2:38:06can fix it and it's still going to be in people's minds that MacBooks aren't don't have reliable
2:38:11keyboards. Yeah, they'll wonder every time they buy one where there's going to be reliable or not,
2:38:15which is the last thing you want them wondering. Right. And on the other side of the same surface,
2:38:21the track pads are so amazingly good. Like, yes, it's, you know, the new trackpad that doesn't use
2:38:29the diving board mechanism, you know, where it's all virtual clicking and it feels like
2:38:34real clicking and it's equally clickable at the top and the bottom and there made it nice and big.
2:38:39You know, that's right in the MacBook brand, you know, best trackpads in the industry. That's part
2:38:47of the MacBook brand best keyboards in the industry should be too. And instead, it's arguably
2:38:52the worst keyboards in the industry. I think it's got to happen. It's hard to believe the two and
2:38:58- The two things came from the same engineering division.
2:39:00- And I can't help but think,
2:39:02it's almost like Apple's in a bad spot where,
2:39:05like the MacBook Airs just came out, you know,
2:39:08and they're not, you know,
2:39:10they can either stick with this keyboard design
2:39:14and have all the, you know,
2:39:16suffer the continuing degradation of the brand
2:39:19and the confidence people have in these products,
2:39:21or they can fix it with a new keyboard design,
2:39:24which means they're upgrading, updating the hardware,
2:39:27sooner than they had expected to, you know, and at a cost to the company, you know, that
2:39:33they expect to get X number of years out of a design.
2:39:36Yeah.
2:39:37Yeah, no, and it's, it seems like we'll see with this, so the 16 inch MacBook Pro is supposed
2:39:45to be sort of like a 17 inch screen put into a 15 inch chassis, sort of like what we had
2:39:50with the iPhone and the iPad Pro and a complete redesign. So this, it's, it's kind of weird.
2:39:56We didn't see this with the MacBook Air,
2:39:58but that looks like it's using the exact same process
2:40:01as the previous ones.
2:40:02If this is a new design and they stick
2:40:04with the same keyboard, it's gonna be flabbergasting.
2:40:07- What do you think?
2:40:08So do you think if it's true that they're coming out
2:40:10with a 16 or whatever inch MacBook Pro,
2:40:15do you think it's like effectively the 15 inch footprint
2:40:19but with more of an edge to edge display?
2:40:20Not a return of the lunch tray 17 inch footprint?
2:40:25the destroyer, the battleship.
2:40:27- Which again, my wife was a huge fan of.
2:40:30She read this rumor.
2:40:31I didn't even tell her
2:40:32'cause I didn't wanna get her hopes up
2:40:33and somehow she found it on her own.
2:40:35I think a friend of the show, Paul Kefasis,
2:40:37told her in a text message
2:40:38and now she's all hepped up about it.
2:40:40But I told her, I was like,
2:40:41"I don't think it's gonna be that."
2:40:44I mean, you can get the 15-inch MacBook
2:40:46and it'll have a bigger display,
2:40:47but I don't think you're getting the big iMac,
2:40:5117-inch iMac in a laptop that we had before.
2:40:55I used to joke, where's my iMac, my iMacbook Pro?
2:41:00But really, there's so many technologies
2:41:02that Apple hasn't brought down to the MacBook line,
2:41:04including the new design language, which
2:41:06is the iPhone 10, and this year's-- sorry,
2:41:08last year's iPad Pro, that it's sort of really easy
2:41:10to see where those cues would make sense on a MacBook Pro.
2:41:14And we look at the LG Gram.
2:41:17The LG Gram is a 17-inch laptop that
2:41:18looks like something from the future,
2:41:20and that's where the industry is moving.
2:41:22Yeah, I don't know.
2:41:23And then Jackie Chang, who's now working,
2:41:27she used to be at Ars Technica,
2:41:28then she was at Wirecutter,
2:41:30and now she's at, I forget which radio station,
2:41:33she's at a classical radio station in New York
2:41:35as their editorial director.
2:41:36Sorry, Jackie, I don't remember the radio station.
2:41:39But she mentioned that at her new job,
2:41:42they got her a new 13-inch MacBook Air
2:41:45that she's, you know, work provided, so she's using it.
2:41:47But like, for her, it's replacing
2:41:50like a 2013 MacBook Air that she owned.
2:41:53And that the only real thing she notices that's better is the retina display, which is obvious.
2:41:57And it's a big, you know, it's a big thing to put an asterisk next to I mean, it's obviously
2:42:00a nicer display.
2:42:02But like I tweeted to her, I was like, and conversely, like in 2013, when you got a MacBook
2:42:07Air, if you were replacing a then five year old 2008 MacBook of some sort, you're like
2:42:13amazed in a lot of ways.
2:42:16Like there's like, wow, this is so much faster.
2:42:17And it's so much thinner, and it's so much lighter, and the display is better and the
2:42:21trackpad is better, you know.
2:42:22the list goes on and on. There's a certain lack of wow in a new MacBook today compared
2:42:32to five years ago.
2:42:33And that MacBook Air, not the first one. The second one, it redefined all laptops for half
2:42:40a decade. They became the model for the Ultrabooks. And no one else has done that yet. It's
2:42:44not just an Apple thing. There are very advanced laptops that are very nice. There are gaming
2:42:49laptops that have like all sorts of neon keys, but there's nothing that's been industry transformative.
2:42:53I think that's again similar to like, because people like to make things about Apple, but
2:42:57when you look at the phone market, the same things are true for Apple that are for Samsung
2:43:00and Huawei and everybody. We've just reached a point where this stuff has been home. It's
2:43:05like the old Excel thing. Excel looks like Lotus because that's what the job it has to
2:43:09do. And we've reached that point where we've chiseled away almost everything unnecessary
2:43:14and you can play around with it. You can give it fancy casings and light ups and things
2:43:17like that, but they're just so good at doing that job. Unless someone has a really new
2:43:21way, like the MacBook Air was a really new way of making these computers, unibody was
2:43:26a huge shift. It's hard to see what that next huge leap forward is unless it is something
2:43:30like the iPad Pro or the Surface or these transformables.
2:43:34Dave Asprey Yeah. I don't know. So anyway, bottom line,
2:43:38I don't expect MacBooks at March, but maybe. I don't know. Probably not pros, but maybe
2:43:45an updated 12-inch but nothing, I don't expect, radical. And the keyboard saga will go on.
2:43:53Yeah, yeah.
2:43:54Anything else you wanted to talk about before we cut off for the week?
2:43:58No, I mean, I think we hit all the big nails on there.
2:44:02Let me ask you this. I'm so curious about you and your continued drive into being a YouTuber. And
2:44:08like I said, I'm really enjoying it. I think, you know, it's just that you want to get better
2:44:13at something do it like yeah you've always been good at the videos but since you've like doubled
2:44:19down on vector and the the your youtube channel when did you when did that start was that like
2:44:25a year ago almost literally a year ago the year it was the home pod review was my first video
2:44:30it's you've gotten so much better you know like your recent videos all right i mean i've been
2:44:37into them and i've enjoyed i enjoyed your home pod review you know it's not like you were bad
2:44:40and now you're good, but you've clearly gotten a style down to the show.
2:44:45And I'm just curious how long, how much time that consumes of your week?
2:44:53**
2:44:53Almost all my time right now because I have this weird affliction where when I blogged
2:44:59I had to blog continuously and when I made podcasts I wanted to do it daily and now I'm
2:45:03trying to do YouTube videos daily and they take so much more time than a podcast because
2:45:09of a lot of the editing and b-roll and you have to be visual and audio and all these
2:45:13things but it feels like it's the only way to get good to me.
2:45:17I'm not good at being good otherwise.
2:45:19I learn everything by doing it.
2:45:22So I wake up and I film a video and I spend most of the rest of the day editing it and
2:45:26then I post it the next morning or in the evening if it's more urgent.
2:45:30And what's your current setup?
2:45:33How are you reading the script?
2:45:34Do you have a teleprompter type thing?
2:45:36Like do you use an iPad?
2:45:39I didn't initially and then people told me I spoke way too quickly.
2:45:43And so I got Joe Chaplinsky, a friend of the show, he does podcasts.
2:45:49He's in Whiskus' band.
2:45:51amazing they do a teleprompter plus plus app and I set it like a speed that was uncomfortably
2:45:55slow for me so I would force myself to slow down and it's working and I have a combination
2:46:02of things in there and notes and bullet points that I want to make sure I hit.
2:46:06And what's that an iPad app?
2:46:08Yeah it's an iPad app and you can run it off your iPhone so I can I sometimes I often have
2:46:11a friend with me helping me do all do everything but I can put it next to my next to me on
2:46:16when I'm reading and then just go up and down on the iPhone and that'll adjust the iPad.
2:46:21And what camera are you using?
2:46:22I'm using the Panasonic GH5 just because it was well regarded. I know a lot of people like
2:46:28the Sony's, but I like the fact that I can turn it around and see myself in the viewfinder.
2:46:33Well, I'm really enjoying it and I'm not surprised in the least
2:46:38find out that it's taking you all day every day to do it because it really does show.
2:46:45Thank you. That is the thing. That's one of the other things I've heard is that in the growth of this and I hate the word
2:46:50Influencer that's whole influence everything. But yeah, there's obviously a lot of people who you know who are
2:46:55and I
2:46:57As an independent content producer myself I
2:47:01the YouTube thing is
2:47:04Farfield from what I've done or a field maybe not far afield. Yeah, but I'm impressed
2:47:12By the success people are having and I'm not surprised because you know TV was so popular, you know in the last millennium
2:47:19Our century it's no surprise that these this, you know making these little eight minute ish
2:47:25things in this century has proven to be a
2:47:28million million viewer
2:47:31popular for a lot of people
2:47:34But I keep reading that it it is super super consuming because the way you know
2:47:41the algorithm works, the algorithms work at YouTube, getting popular is great, but to
2:47:50stay popular, you really need to keep pumping out the videos. The quality demands don't
2:47:57go down in terms of tightness of editing and camera work, et cetera, et cetera.
2:48:03I mean, that's true to some extent. The interesting thing for me is if you look at
2:48:08Like Shane Dawson, who's hugely popular, or CGP Grey, mutual friend, they don't release
2:48:13a lot of videos, but when they do, they're like absolute events, and they get just ungodly
2:48:19amounts of attention.
2:48:21For me, it's just that I'm still not good enough at filming that I can capture the story
2:48:26in the camera, so I do a lot of work in the edit, which means I can't hand it off to anybody
2:48:31else to do for me.
2:48:32And I'm not sure I would anyway.
2:48:34I've had podcasts edited for a long time.
2:48:35Jim Metzendorf does a great job with that for me.
2:48:38But with the video, I'm still telling the story in the edit
2:48:41and that's what takes so long for me.
2:48:43- I enjoy, I also enjoy,
2:48:44and I think you're getting clever at it,
2:48:46is your integration of the sponsor reads into the script.
2:48:50- Oh, thank you.
2:48:51- Where, and it's almost, it's like you're,
2:48:54I don't think you'll take it the wrong way.
2:48:57You're sort of cornball, you like a pun, you know?
2:49:00You do like a pun.
2:49:02And so sometimes the way you work it in,
2:49:04It's supposed to be a little corny
2:49:06in the way that you work it in,
2:49:07but it's not abrupt like the Skillshare one
2:49:10in the most recent one that I watched.
2:49:13It was just super funny, I thought, and very clever.
2:49:16In a world where people are blocking,
2:49:25using software to block ads,
2:49:26like to me, and it's near and dear to my heart
2:49:28as the person doing a podcast
2:49:30with these sponsorship things is,
2:49:32How do you make ads that not only people don't want to block, but they actually want to listen
2:49:36to?
2:49:37Yeah, well, I mean, you're also a huge inspiration for that because I don't turn on Google Analytics.
2:49:42I don't turn on Google.
2:49:43It's not even set up on the account.
2:49:45There's no overlay ads.
2:49:47There's no pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll.
2:49:49You're never getting interrupted with that.
2:49:51And I use the strict sponsorship model, and I want it to not feel—I want it to be as
2:49:57an enjoyable experience as possible.
2:50:00And so I try to like be tongue in cheek with it.
2:50:02And then I try to keep it as short as possible
2:50:04because videos are nowhere nearly as long as podcasts.
2:50:07And I don't want to spend a lot of your time on the sponsor.
2:50:10So I try to get in and out and make it relevant
2:50:12to the video.
2:50:13- No, it is, the podcasts are the anti, or not podcasts,
2:50:16YouTube videos are the anti-podcasts where,
2:50:18here we are approaching hour three,
2:50:20or do we just cross hour three?
2:50:21(laughing)
2:50:23You know, and your videos are, you know,
2:50:25sorry that the video is seven minutes long.
2:50:28didn't have enough time to make it six minutes. It's like that Mark Twain line about writing
2:50:33a long letter. It just takes more work to make the point in six minutes, but it's even
2:50:39better if you do. And that includes it.
2:50:42I told you this before. It's one of my favorite stories in recent years in terms of the way
2:50:47that little kids' minds think. And it stuck with me. Somebody on Twitter was blown away.
2:50:54like our age, you know, had a little girl and her and her friends all call advertisements skip ads.
2:51:00Yeah. And that's all ads, whether they actually are like YouTube ads with a skip ad button,
2:51:08they just call them skip ads. Because that's what they that's what the label says skip ad.
2:51:12And really, you know, that's but it also clearly shows their mentality of them that these,
2:51:19These are things you skip, which is, you know, not conducive to continuing to have them.
2:51:25Absolutely. Anyway, keep up the good work. I really think it's great. And it's, you know,
2:51:31it's been a very, you know, and I can only assume you're going strong. It's not like, you know,
2:51:35you're in it for a year, but it's you're in, you're more invested in it than ever. Right?
2:51:39Yeah. And I might, I might end up being totally terrible at it. We'll see. But so far,
2:51:43I'm just gonna keep working at it. Yeah. Well, it shows and I really enjoy it.
2:51:48everybody else. You can read the rest of Renee's work of course at iMore.com and he's @ReneeRitchie
2:51:54on Twitter and then the YouTube channel is Vector. You can just probably just go to YouTube and
2:52:00search for it. My thanks to our sponsors this week. Let's see if I can do it off the top of
2:52:06my head. We have Squarespace where you can go to build a website. Fracture. Fracture, of course,
2:52:13where you can go to print your pictures. And then our new sponsor, first time sponsor of the show,
2:52:17Marine layer where you can go to get super super soft t-shirts and sweatshirts made out of trees
2:52:23My thanks to them. Thanks for name