0:00:00So, uh, before I came down here to the old podcast dungeon, um,
0:00:04Amy asked me, she goes, who's on your show this week? I said,
0:00:07moltz. And she goes, oh,
0:00:09and I just tell her, I said, hi to, I gave her a look and she laughed,
0:00:16you know, she just gave that great Amy laugh. And she goes, honestly,
0:00:19I don't know why I did. And I love moltz. She goes,
0:00:22actually of all the boring people you have on your show,
0:00:24moltz is one of the few I like to hang out with.
0:00:29She doesn't want to listen to me talk. That's all like she doesn't know
0:00:32It was a very good drink
0:00:34But you know it was just like listen to me talk for like two hours or whatever
0:00:38There's literally nobody who I could say who's on my show that she wouldn't go
0:00:43Let's give that reaction to
0:00:46I bet she wouldn't do it to serenity, but no no probably not and
0:00:52You know maybe not if I had if I had somehow got ryan johnson back on the show yeah, maybe yeah
0:00:58Yeah. That's still kind of amazing. That's isn't that still kind of amazing. That's still
0:01:04really amazing. I tell I tell people like, I'm sometimes on the podcast on a podcast
0:01:09that Ryan Johnson was on. Right? No, no, you know, I wasn't on the same time as he was.
0:01:15But now I've mentioned it now I have to put it in the show notes and I have to dig it
0:01:19up. It's there's I'm so I'm getting bad at just crossing things off my to do list. Do
0:01:27Do you find that you're more organized or less organized or the same as when you were
0:01:34younger?
0:01:35Uh, probably about the same, which is not great.
0:01:38I suspect that I'm getting worse.
0:01:39Like I've been meaning to put those old episodes from when I was on the mule quote unquote
0:01:45network into my RSS feed for the show so that they're there because I have them all.
0:01:50They're not lost and you can get them now at the internet archive, which is such a wonderful
0:01:55resource.
0:01:57right now it's, you know, they're not really there. So I've had, I'm so proud of it. I
0:02:02had Rian Johnson on my podcast and right now that episode at the peak of—
0:02:06John: Oh, you can't get that one?
0:02:07Michael DeMuth – Not through the feed. You have to go to the Internet archive. I really
0:02:12ought to fix that.
0:02:14John – That would be one. I would think that would be one that people would want to
0:02:18hear. The first one with me on it, don't worry about that one.
0:02:24(laughing)
0:02:26I don't know.
0:02:27I think I'm just rocketing.
0:02:30I don't think I've had a shortage of crotchediness,
0:02:34but I just feel like I'm getting an angry old man
0:02:38at a frightening clip.
0:02:41Today I had to go to the bank.
0:02:42Daring Fireball is a LLC,
0:02:48and every couple of weeks I write a check to myself.
0:02:53It's all a little bit confusing because I'm signing a check John Gruber to John Gruber
0:03:00and then endorsing it on the back as John Gruber and it all feels a little it all feels a little
0:03:05shady you know what I mean like it just seems like I don't even know what check kiting is but
0:03:10it seems like maybe that's it. I go and it it took like 15 minutes it's like I had to wait in the line
0:03:22or as I say in New York, you do this physically and you have to go. I do because my bank has like
0:03:28a stupid small limit on what you can deposit electronically. Like I can't, we can't deposit
0:03:34more than like a $500 check or a $300 check electronically. You have to, so really what the
0:03:41long story short is I should find a new bank is what I should do. Yeah. It also seems weird and
0:03:48maybe there is a better way. Maybe I'm just a big dummy, you know, that there should be, you know,
0:03:52my business account and my personal account are at the same bank and maybe there's a better way than
0:03:56writing a check. I don't know. I guess. I have a sole proprietor, so I just, you know,
0:04:03it all pretty much almost goes into the same pot. I mean, I have separate accounts, but it doesn't
0:04:09really really matter as much for that situation. But even my credit union has a great iOS app,
0:04:18And they don't, you know, I'm like, I've deposited checks of like, man, a lot, vast sums of money.
0:04:26I don't know. Yeah, sure. You know, it just seems not that much. But yes,
0:04:32it just seems like it would. I gotta look into it. I'm just it. But it's just one other one of
0:04:35those items on my to do list, like figure out how to do banking better. And it's like just vague
0:04:40enough that it never really feels like today's the day where I'm gonna spend all day. Yeah.
0:04:45Yeah, but that's always the thing with the stuff that sticks down around the bottom of
0:04:49the list is like that stuff tends to just never get done.
0:04:52All right.
0:04:54What else is new?
0:04:57You order a HomePod?
0:05:00I did not order a HomePod.
0:05:02I'm waiting to hear.
0:05:05My use case is pretty specific for it, I think, because I don't picture...
0:05:10I don't know.
0:05:12We don't sit in the living room and listen to music that much.
0:05:15Maybe we would if we had one.
0:05:16But I actually listen to music mostly in the kitchen, and I've already got a Sonos in the
0:05:22kitchen, which I like.
0:05:25And so my use case for the thing is probably more like a soundbar for the TV.
0:05:34I don't know that it's good for that.
0:05:35I want to hear how that works.
0:05:36Right.
0:05:37Well, see, that's the thing.
0:05:38I mean, right now, I'm not sure that it is because it's just AirPlay One.
0:05:40And I don't really trust AirPlay One very much.
0:05:44So I have not had a great experience with AirPlay One.
0:05:47Right.
0:05:48Like that's one of the—it's an interesting product and I feel like the complaints that
0:05:57everybody has about it are—it just feels like we're on a merry-go-round.
0:06:03It's the same thing every time Apple releases any product, right?
0:06:06Like it doesn't have any input other than AirPlay.
0:06:12So you can talk to it and if you have Apple Music, it'll play the music from your cloud.
0:06:21And otherwise you can airplay to it. It's an airplay speaker and that's it. There
0:06:24is no line in as the autophiles would say. And some people seem irrationally angry about
0:06:32that but there are other products that have line in. So I don't know. I'm not quite
0:06:40sure why people are angry and it dropping everything except the wireless over the air
0:06:46connection feels like a very Apple thing to do. Yeah, definitely. I could definitely.
0:06:53That's not something I like. Where do you? I don't know. I guess you could put you could
0:06:57put a physical line from your TV or something in. Right. I mean, you're not going to hook
0:07:01up your iPhone for us. So I ordered one and it was funny because I didn't know if it was
0:07:10going to be like a midnight thing. They just said it was going on sale Friday. And so I
0:07:16thought maybe like the phone, it would have to be at like 3 a.m. Eastern, midnight Pacific
0:07:21time. So I stayed up and I was very tired. And nothing happened. There was no way to
0:07:29buy and I waited like 20 minutes. I really didn't have a choice. I could either go upstairs
0:07:38and go to bed and fall asleep,
0:07:39or I would fall asleep right there on the couch
0:07:42because the lights were going out.
0:07:44Woke up in the morning and it was on sale
0:07:47and it doesn't seem like there's any kind of shortages
0:07:50or anything.
0:07:51- No, it's still delivery February 9th.
0:07:54- Which I don't think is necessarily a sign of poor sales.
0:07:57I think that, 'cause all the rumors I had heard
0:08:00from multiple little birdies were that the entire holdup,
0:08:05Versus you know why it was late from last instead of shipping as promised in
0:08:09I shouldn't say promise but as intended
0:08:12Before the end of the calendar year 2017 was software quote unquote software
0:08:18I don't know if it was if it's the software on the that runs on the in the home pod
0:08:23I don't know if it's the software and the servers that connects, you know makes all the Apple music stuff work
0:08:29Just software, but that make you know, that would explain why the hardware is shipping in quantity
0:08:34Yeah. And I don't, I mean, right now, I don't expect it to be that sought after.
0:08:43Right. Right.
0:08:44I mean, because it does seem like, you know, it's a fairly expensive device,
0:08:47and particularly for the category. And it seems like, like, for me,
0:08:50it's something that you might want to read a few reviews of before you pull the trigger on.
0:08:54Yeah, I think it's funny. Renee was on the last episode, and we talked about it. I do think it's
0:09:01funny. I mean, even the name AirPod and HomePod, I'm probably going to slip up and call the damn
0:09:06thing AirPod twice during the show. But I think they're obviously intended as siblings, right?
0:09:12One is the little, little guys that go in your ears and one, you know, sits on your countertop
0:09:18or your tabletop. But they're so similar in spirit. And I kind of feel like the way that like,
0:09:27like when AirPods first came out, now they were hard to get,
0:09:29they were very, you know, were delayed
0:09:32and weren't available, widely available.
0:09:36But I feel like you see them more and more these days
0:09:38and I just feel like that's the sort of uptake
0:09:41if HomePod is successful.
0:09:44And I think that's what's interesting about it is to me,
0:09:46it's a huge F, I really, this is very hard to predict,
0:09:50it's very hard for me to predict how this is gonna do.
0:09:53But if it is a hit, I don't think it'll be an instant hit.
0:09:55I think it'll be the sort of thing where somebody gets it and then you're over at their house
0:10:00and you hear it and you see how easy, you know, it's fun to just tell it to, you know,
0:10:06hey dingus play whatever and it works.
0:10:14That's how it was with TiVo for me and Amy.
0:10:16Like I remember when I first went to work at Barebone Software back in 2000, Rich Siegel
0:10:22invited us to his house for dinner because we'd just moved from Philadelphia up to Massachusetts,
0:10:26went to his house. And I specifically remember, it must have been the fall because the Yankees
0:10:30were in the playoffs and there was, so we watched a bit of baseball, but we were blown
0:10:35away by TiVo. We were like, holy cow, I got heard of it. I had, I knew the basic idea
0:10:40and you could fast forward commercials and pause it, whatever. But once you saw it, it's
0:10:44like, oh my God, this is nothing like a VCR, right? And we went out the next morning and
0:10:51Like, I feel like HomePod could be like that for some people.
0:10:54Yeah.
0:10:55Yeah, there's certain, I mean, there's certain things that you kind of just have to get.
0:10:59We were talking about before that when the Shuffle came out, we had our friend Albert
0:11:06over for dinner and we were sitting around talking and Karen said something derogatory
0:11:10about the Shuffle.
0:11:11It's like she just thought it was stupid.
0:11:12And we had some music playing and he said, he's like, well, it's just, you know, plays
0:11:15this place a shuffle lesson.
0:11:16And she was like, yeah, I think that's dumb.
0:11:17That's all it does.
0:11:18And he said, what are you playing right now?
0:11:20now. Oh yeah, it's a shuffle list. And that's almost always what we play.
0:11:27Right.
0:11:28And so I got a shovel when it came out.
0:11:30It is funny too, because when we were kids, you couldn't shuffle. There was no way to shuffle.
0:11:42Yeah.
0:11:43Everything was sequential.
0:11:44You had to hit the fast forward button on the tape thing to go to the next song.
0:11:47Right. Which would chew up your tape half the time. Right. So I
0:11:53you know, I can spend the opening thing of the show
0:11:57complaining that I spent five minutes at a bank. But meanwhile,
0:12:02I spent my entire youth rewinding and fast forwarding
0:12:05cassette tapes to listen to music and never thought twice
0:12:09about it.
0:12:09Do you ever have a track? No, I never had a track. We had a car
0:12:14and we had one car that had a track in it. Briefly, I think I
0:12:17think it like broke down really quickly and we ended up not
0:12:20having it for more than like a year or something like that. And
0:12:24I just I don't even know how that worked. But it was just it
0:12:26was very strange. Like it was I think it was Yeah, I guess it
0:12:28was just eight, eight separate. It was like tape, but it was
0:12:31eight separate tracks at once. And you could just flip between
0:12:35songs. That's just pick up a song midway through depending on
0:12:42I isn't isn't it the case to that a track was had much higher
0:12:46Fidelity than cassette tapes. I think it might have yeah
0:12:48I mean the name alone makes it seem like it did but and and cuz cassette tapes were just terrible just
0:12:55absolutely dreadful technology they were
0:12:57They didn't have they didn't sound great. They were you had to rewind and fast-forward them
0:13:03They would you could make your own you could make your own playlist, right? Exactly. I mean that was the that was the hook
0:13:08I that was the thing to get about that, you know, I mean that was like, you know
0:13:11It created a whole I've been creating a play a playlist. We're getting a mixtape for somebody
0:13:16Yeah, that was a whole thing
0:13:18I used I used to have I'd be listening to the radio and I would have a tape in my
0:13:23Player ready to go and then every time it got to the end of a song I would move my hand over
0:13:29Just in case the next song was a good one
0:13:32And then I if it was I would hit record and want to get it, you know
0:13:37So I had these tapes where I had all this music I'd taped off
0:13:40FM radio and the beginning of every song is sort of like that that like Oh cut off cry
0:13:46We're either cut off or like the cross fade between songs, you know
0:13:50And those were the days those were the days that's what kids boy boy are we getting old
0:14:04All right, let me take a break here and thank
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0:15:30I've had a couple of these, I like them a lot.
0:15:35I didn't know what dates tasted like.
0:15:37I don't remember if I've ever eaten dates.
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0:15:49oh, you don't have to cook anything,
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0:16:19Did you buy a lot of stuff online I buy so much we don't it's like it's gotten to the point
0:16:25Amy and I went shopping last weekend and we were like, you know what?
0:16:28When's the last time we went shopping together like just browsing around like out? Yeah, like, hmm. You just don't do it
0:16:34Well, yeah, we certainly don't I mean we don't do it together anymore, right? It's like too much credit
0:16:40No, you go do that. I gotta go do this other thing. I
0:16:43Don't know how picky they're gonna be
0:16:46I'm gonna the I'm supposed to tell you what my favorite rx bar that I've tried so far
0:16:50I haven't tried all 11, but I will tell you that the one I like the best so far is chocolate sea salt
0:16:54I love that. Sounds good. Oh
0:16:57Chocolate and salt go whatsoever together. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know
0:17:00I don't know when I found out that dates were dates like I mean, I would have thought for years that dates
0:17:04Oh god, I don't want to get a date. That sounds terrible. Yeah
0:17:06Yeah, and then I think we get this cereal this some like nut crunch thing that had dates and I was like man
0:17:13these are really good. I don't I don't know where I got the idea. I got the idea that they were like
0:17:18prunes or something. Right. Well, they're dried, but that's but it's well, I mean, yeah. And the
0:17:24only other thing I remember about dates, of course, is the great scene in Raiders of the
0:17:29Lost Ark. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Maybe that I wonder if that had a bad effect on date sales.
0:17:34I think it might have poisoned my brain. For those of you who don't recall, there's,
0:17:39There's a a monkey bedeviling Indiana Jones throughout the movie and uh an assassin comes in
0:17:45to kill Indiana Jones and pour some poison on some dates spoiler alert yeah yeah and then the monkey
0:17:51eats a date and I'll leave the pun up to your imagination. Anyway, dates amazing. File that under
0:18:0140 some years of wasted opportunity.
0:18:04It's true.
0:18:07Like how much stuff else out there that I'm supposed to have been eating for the last
0:18:1230 years that I just have filed away as something I don't like? I don't know.
0:18:17There's a few things. I mean, I think there's a few things that I don't like that I, but I
0:18:22definitely know I don't like them. Like I've tried them. I've tried them recently. I don't think,
0:18:27I don't think there's a thing that I've had for ever.
0:18:30I'm not crazy about cherries. I've never been crazy about cherries just because
0:18:35that was like always the flavor of medicine when I was a kid.
0:18:41And so I always sort of associate it with some like, "Oh god, I gotta take this crap because I'm sick."
0:18:47But my new exception is liquor-soaked cherries are really good.
0:18:56you get in a drink you know and they're like they're really dark and they're full of like
0:19:00bourbon or something yeah so not like a not like a maraschino cherry you're talking about like it
0:19:05no not like a maraschino cherry but like a like a liquor infused cherry yeah that does
0:19:09eat those that does sound good um friend of the show uh scott simpson is is a you as you probably
0:19:17remember is a very very big fan of the maraschino cherry yes right what was the drink that the that
0:19:23that the boys made. They made the Aunt Nancy. Remember, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Is it from the
0:19:28show? Yeah, from you look nice today. The boys came up with their signature cocktail
0:19:32of the podcast. I believe in Aunt Nancy is quote a fistful of maraschino cherries and
0:19:40then makers makers mark to garnish. I think I think so. That sounds familiar and I it
0:19:48It fits because Scott has a knack of finding the worst bars possible. You go to a town
0:19:54with Scott and he will just instinctively wander into the most horrible bar you could
0:20:01find. And not horrible and like, "Oh my God, it's a terrible dive," but just crappy
0:20:05like TGI Friday's kind of bar.
0:20:09Yep. Like a TGI Friday's that hasn't been inspected in a few years.
0:20:16Which is to say a TGI Friday's.
0:20:18and the town, everybody in whatever town it is just assumes it's been closed for a while,
0:20:23so they haven't sent an inspector. I've been out with him. I've been out with him and he literally
0:20:29will order a drink with a fistful of maraschino cherries and then the bartender will start plopping
0:20:35like two or three in and Scott is so great. It's not like he's bossing them and telling them what
0:20:40to do. He's like, "Oh no, no, I'm so sorry. I literally meant a fistful. Put a whole fistful in."
0:20:44I don't know. Maybe that's a good way of getting a snack while you're yeah. Well,
0:20:51that's part of his, you know, you get a free, like, you know, you might have to pay for a bowl of
0:20:55pretzels or something. That's just part of the drink. They charge extra for that.
0:21:02HomePod. We were talking about. So people, some people got access last week. Apparently
0:21:08a friend of the show, serenity Caldwell had a writeup at, uh, I'm more, um,
0:21:14I think it was Brian heater had a write-up at TechCrunch seems like people like it
0:21:19It sounds like what people got was sort of a similar demonstration as the one we had it back at WWDC where they
0:21:26Were had side-by-side comparisons
0:21:29But including now the Google home max, which is actually four hundred dollars more than a home pod
0:21:37Not sure what to say though if without me having heard one so I don't know
0:21:43(laughs)
0:21:46I'm looking forward to it though.
0:21:47- So it doesn't, I mean, it sounds like there's a few things
0:21:50to pull out of some of this information,
0:21:52just that it will play,
0:21:54you don't have to have Apple Music per se.
0:21:58- No.
0:21:59- 'Cause it'll play iCloud Music library stuff
0:22:01that's subscribed to via iTunes match.
0:22:04- Yes, it was a surprising source of confusion.
0:22:08I really do think entirely Apple's fault.
0:22:11I mean, and all straightened out now, I think,
0:22:13and certainly will be straightened out
0:22:15before people get these HomePods.
0:22:17But there was, it was like in their fervor
0:22:21to emphasize Apple Music and encourage people,
0:22:26that the two things go hand in hand,
0:22:30that if you have HomePod, you'll love Apple Music,
0:22:32and if you have Apple Music, you'll love a HomePod.
0:22:35It seemed to get, it almost came out
0:22:39the only thing I could play was Apple Music, and that is not the case. So if you have iTunes
0:22:46Match or iCloud—whatever it's called, there's a lot of different things there—but
0:22:52iCloud Music Library? Isn't that what it's called?
0:22:55So if you have iCloud Music Library and you have songs like Bootlegs or just, for whatever
0:23:01reason, music that's not in iTunes Store or Apple Music, it'll play it. And you don't
0:23:09have to airplay it to do it. You can just tell Siri and she'll play it, which is as you would
0:23:15expect. You would like I wrote on during fireball when it when it sounded like maybe it didn't work
0:23:21that it was kind of confounding because the entire stack is apples. Like they're not,
0:23:24you know, I mean, I, I, iTunes is Apple's thing, so it ought to work. Yeah, you'd think. And it
0:23:33apparently it, well, it's at least supposed to. So, you know how well it works, we'll have to see,
0:23:37but it does work. And then you can earplay from whatever you can earplay from.
0:23:44I'm really looking forward to it. I've said this before, but we have the Amazon Echo in our
0:23:51kitchen. And Amy spends a lot of time there. It's like a nice room. It's got a big island thing in
0:24:01in the middle, you can hang out. And, you know, she listens to music on the echo. And
0:24:07I think it sounds terrible. You know, I don't know how much better. Right? Like, I don't
0:24:13know how much better home pod really will sound compared to an Amazon echo in our kitchen.
0:24:19You know, I remember the demo I got at WWDC. And it clearly sounded better. I mean, but
0:24:24you know, and and, you know, it to Amazon's credit, they don't really bill it as a as
0:24:29as being a music thing.
0:24:32- It's clearly way cheaper too.
0:24:33- Right, it is way cheaper.
0:24:35It is a lot more like sort of like a good
0:24:38clock radio type thing.
0:24:41But for us, and it really was,
0:24:44we were on the cusp thinking about getting a Sonos
0:24:49back when they announced it.
0:24:51And so put it off, we'll wait for this thing.
0:24:53So I'm looking forward to it.
0:24:56So we'll definitely have one in the kitchen.
0:24:58whether we like it enough that I'll get one from my office. I don't, I don't know.
0:25:01Yeah. And well, I mean, I think, well, I get, are you,
0:25:06those are separate zones, right?
0:25:08So you wouldn't be trying to play necessarily the same stuff to each,
0:25:12to both of them at the same time. Now I, I,
0:25:14is that you can't that you can't do until you get your plate too. Yeah. And uh,
0:25:18yeah. And that's a weird thing too. Like, so you can't do multi-room audio.
0:25:23That would be like playing like for a party or something,
0:25:26playing the same song in multiple rooms
0:25:28at the same synchronization.
0:25:30- Right, and that's the thing I could see us doing.
0:25:33I think that we, because currently we just like,
0:25:35we have a party, we play the music from the Sonos
0:25:37in the kitchen and most people, frankly, it's a party.
0:25:39Most people hang out in the kitchen for whatever reason.
0:25:42But I would think that we would wanna have it
0:25:47in the living room too.
0:25:48- Yeah, I'm still curious how they're gonna do it
0:25:52in the stores.
0:25:54I really am, 'cause it's, those Apple stores are so noisy
0:25:59and acoustically seem like nightmares
0:26:05because it's hard floors, hard tables.
0:26:08I don't, I think the walls are hard, aren't they?
0:26:11A lot of them have like the, it just glass front, you know?
0:26:15- Yeah. - A big,
0:26:16just sounds like a loud echo. - Yeah, and like
0:26:17a wide open thing to the mall.
0:26:19- Right, so I'm really curious about that.
0:26:23And as usual, Apple is, they don't,
0:26:27- They won't tell you.
0:26:28- Well, we'll find out when they're in the stores,
0:26:30whether they're actually, who knows,
0:26:33maybe you won't really be able to play them.
0:26:35It just seems weird.
0:26:36It seems like a hard product to sell given their...
0:26:40- They let you play with the Apple TV.
0:26:42- Yeah, but that's not noisy, right?
0:26:44- Yeah, no, I mean, I know, yeah.
0:26:46But I mean, I was wondering about that at the time too,
0:26:49how they were gonna demonstrate that,
0:26:51but they just have it there.
0:26:53- Yeah.
0:26:54- Go at it.
0:26:54- And it's like a different retail setup.
0:26:59You could have like a fake living room.
0:27:02You know, like when you go to Ikea,
0:27:04they have little fake kitchens
0:27:06and you can pretend like you live here.
0:27:07And I don't see how Apple could do that effectively
0:27:12in the Apple store.
0:27:14- Well, I'm sure you've been to,
0:27:15I mean, years going back in time again,
0:27:18those stereo stores where they have the sealed off rooms.
0:27:22- Yeah.
0:27:23- 'Cause that was like, you know, like you buy,
0:27:24you buy the components separately and get, you know,
0:27:27you get your tape deck, you get your receiver,
0:27:30and then you gotta buy the speakers.
0:27:32You gotta go into the room to try the speakers out
0:27:34'cause you gotta get the back.
0:27:35- Right.
0:27:37And they would have like a little, like an apparatus
0:27:39where they could switch, you know, like they wouldn't have
0:27:42to plug and unplug them.
0:27:43They'd have like a little ABCD type thing
0:27:46they could turn a dial and and I don't know I don't think I don't know of any place that does
0:27:52that anymore maybe their places and big bigger cities than where I live but but they but the
0:27:57one place that they do have stuff like that still is like the car stereo places yeah yeah
0:28:02yeah I guess they would wouldn't they yeah because I was in one of those like a few years ago and
0:28:08that that business seems like it's still still relatively the same because the aftermarket car
0:28:14stuff. You know, people people still do that a lot. I mean, they I guess people still do speakers
0:28:19too, but I had probably less than they used to because it seems like people are switching to
0:28:24these these sort of connected devices that are Yeah, somebody was just telling me I knew I knew
0:28:31that it was a thing I was somehow I don't forget if it was on my podcast or where but somehow it
0:28:37came up where I was talking about the fact that we have a our one car is a 2006 and and therefore
0:28:44pre is it was predates not just the iPhone but it was also it didn't even have the 30 pin connector
0:28:51like the 2007 models came with a 30 pin connector and I remember thinking like man that would have
0:28:56been sweet and I think we've had this car so long we've had this car so long where I went from having
0:29:02a pang of jealousy that we didn't have a 30-pin connector to hook up like an iPod to now being,
0:29:08wow, did we dodge a bullet on that one? Yeah, right. Like all those hotels that have the…
0:29:15But anyway, somebody mentioned… The dock connector.
0:29:16Yeah. Somebody mentioned that you can go to one of those car stereo places and get like a car
0:29:22play set up. Like you don't have to, you know, I guess this all came up in the aftermath of the
0:29:26BMW thing where BMW was rumored to begin charging $80 a year just to keep your carplay working.
0:29:34And somebody said that you can just go to and buy an aftermarket carplay thing and that a lot of
0:29:42them are better because the car makers don't screw up. That's what I should do eventually. God,
0:29:46I wonder how that works with like, it seems like all these, I mean like, you know, I now have an
0:29:49integrated screen in the car. So I got a new car a couple years, three years ago, something like
0:29:54that um but yeah but prior to that i had a you know you need to have your car get you you have
0:30:01to have your um stereo get stolen that's what you need that's what happened that's what happened to
0:30:05me and then i got because i had i had the tape deck thing where you just you know like you put
0:30:10a tape deck and you push that thing into the tape deck to play um you know and then it's just a wire
0:30:18that you connected to your iphone yeah that's what we've got i've got that's what we've got
0:30:22That way is that what you're still yeah our car has it
0:30:25You definitely need to get your stereo still our car has like a six disc CD player and a cassette tape player
0:30:33God I got stolen and I was like, I'm getting Bluetooth
0:30:38It's funny. We've gone in the course of half an hour
0:30:41We've gone from me thinking cassette tapes were likes like a relic of my childhood to me it
0:30:47technology that you're still relying on that technology right the car that's right above me right now is
0:30:52Still has that technology
0:30:55Go write yourself another check
0:31:06All right, let me take another break here and thank our next
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0:33:03is where you go, and when you enter the code "talk show," no "the," just "talk
0:33:08show one word at checkout, you will get 10% off, you can go
0:33:13there, get a free trial, use it for a couple of weeks. And then
0:33:15when you pay remember that code talk show. I don't have much
0:33:22else to say about home pod. I feel like we got to get we got
0:33:24to get them before we can talk more about it. I had this on my
0:33:28list of topics. Did you hear that the iPhone 10 was
0:33:31canceled?
0:33:33I had heard that.
0:33:38This is still a thing.
0:33:40Yeah.
0:33:41So, Ming-Chi Kuo wrote in one of his famous notes that because of weak demand, and I think
0:33:55he only said in China that the iPhone X would not be continued. And I forget his exact words,
0:34:06but he said something about summer, that they would stop. He didn't say stop production.
0:34:15He said something vague, though.
0:34:17It – René and I talked about it last week, but it's the week – in the week since,
0:34:22It's just now it's just part of the air out there that people think the iPhone 10 has been cancelled
0:34:27When what it really was was something something to the effect of if they're not gonna keep selling it after the 2018 phones come out
0:34:34Yeah, they'll stop production at some point in the summer because they'll have enough of them to sell up until September
0:34:40Whatever the date is September 20th or whatever. It's going to be you don't stop making them when you stop selling them, right?
0:34:48But then it quickly it quickly the story so it spun out of control and became
0:34:53That they're going to stop selling them as soon as they stop making them in the summer and that we're gonna have like a weeks
0:35:00Long gap with no iPhone 10
0:35:02And then it quickly changed to there it being canceled right now
0:35:07In January, it's any minute imminent. Like I think I said, I think I saw someone say like, you know shortly or imminent or something
0:35:16just like yeah but in I mean within the last few days though also I've seen a
0:35:23whole bunch of things that said that it's actually selling quite well right
0:35:26and it's all it's it's like clockwork I every January it comes at these these
0:35:32bullshit reports come out that say that that there's production is being you
0:35:38know apples have told its suppliers that it's cutting forecasts well so you you'd
0:35:46You'd retweeted Ryan Jones, who plowed through some of the numbers.
0:35:53So the Wall Street Journal says, "iPhone 10 Q2 cut was from $40 million planned to $20
0:36:01million."
0:36:02And he points out that usually, the last two years, Apple sold about $50 million in that
0:36:07quarter.
0:36:08Right.
0:36:09And does $40 million for that quarter make any sense whatsoever?
0:36:14Do you think they really thought that they were gonna sell,
0:36:16like 80% of their sales were gonna be the iPhone 10?
0:36:20So no, I mean, it seems like 20 million
0:36:22is actually what it would have realistically been.
0:36:25- Yeah.
0:36:26I think it was, and I think it was ATP Tipster, I believe,
0:36:33who asked me whether I thought this was malfeasance
0:36:41or are these suppliers just being cherry-picked?
0:36:46And as Apple moves,
0:36:51here's the company that makes the volume buttons,
0:36:56and they're gonna, Tim Cook's figured out
0:36:59that they could save five cents per button
0:37:02if they go to somebody across town.
0:37:05And so they cut the supplies from company A
0:37:09and increase the ones from company B,
0:37:11but company A has no idea because Apple, of course,
0:37:13is probably a nightmare to deal with
0:37:16because they're so secretive
0:37:18and they're so good at being secretive.
0:37:20So company A just hears,
0:37:21oh, we don't need as many volume buttons
0:37:23as we thought we would from you anymore.
0:37:25And then they go and blab to somebody that,
0:37:28hey, the iPhone 10, they're cutting the production in half.
0:37:32And I think it's more malfeasance.
0:37:36I really do think it's people spreading rumors,
0:37:41either for competitive reasons or to short the stock.
0:37:44And the reason why is 'cause you never hear
0:37:47from the other suppliers.
0:37:49You never hear some other supplier say,
0:37:53oh, well, it sounds to me, it sounds to us
0:37:56like iPhone demand has doubled.
0:37:58(laughing)
0:38:01I guess if I want to try to find a way,
0:38:04if I try to, you know, devil's advocate,
0:38:06try to figure out, maybe it could be
0:38:10that the suppliers who get the increased demand from Apple
0:38:15are so happy about it and they don't wanna piss Apple off
0:38:19so they keep their mouths shut
0:38:21and it's the supplier who Apple cuts.
0:38:24The demand is sour grapes
0:38:26and then they go and talk to the Wall Street Journal?
0:38:28I don't know.
0:38:29I guess that's possible but it seems to me like if you want,
0:38:33even if you still have 20 million--
0:38:35- I mean the thing that drives me crazy
0:38:36Most of this stuff comes from financial analysts, right?
0:38:41And these, and I think he does,
0:38:45I mean, he does a pretty good job, basically,
0:38:48as far as they all go, he does a pretty good job.
0:38:50But a lot of these guys just,
0:38:52they get out there and they say the craziest,
0:38:53I mean, what's his name?
0:38:55Choudry.
0:38:58- Yeah, Trip.
0:38:59- Trip Choudry, yeah.
0:39:00I mean, how does that guy view his,
0:39:06what is his game there in saying the crazy stuff that he does? I mean, I guess he's just he doesn't
0:39:10he doesn't care about that. But it just it seems like if you're a financial analyst,
0:39:14why would you say stuff that is demonstrably wrong all the time?
0:39:17How does that make a good case for people? You know, like subscribing to your your material
0:39:25or investing through you? Right? I have no idea. Like I, I guess I can see why somebody would want
0:39:31to pay for Ming Chi Kuo's stuff because it seems like he you know he's not perfect but a lot of his
0:39:37stuff is accurate you know what I don't know 60 70 percent right and you can kind of you can kind
0:39:46of see the you know from his history you can see which are the type of things he's speculating
0:39:50about and which ones are not you know I mean like the basically like if he says something's going
0:39:59on at Foxconn, you can be pretty sure about it. There's some people—he's more or less taken
0:40:05Foxconn people out and getting them drunk and they tell them secrets.
0:40:08[Laughter]
0:40:09John: Those people need a drink, too.
0:40:15All right, I just I googled my uh, I did a search here for some trip trip claims
0:40:21Here's one I wrote in uh, January 2012 January 2016 so that was
0:40:31Two years ago, uh trip claim chowdhury woke up from another bender
0:40:36Garrett cook reporting for yahoo finance last week in a recent note chowdhury called for the quote
0:40:44"completely clueless," Tim Cook to be replaced.
0:40:48He cited a culture of "bozo's" at Apple, destroying $486 billion
0:40:57in shareholder value under Cook's management. $486 billion.
0:41:03There is hope, though, for Apple's management, and it starts with Jonathan Rubenstein taking over
0:41:12Do you remember this?
0:41:14Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:41:16It's unbelievable.
0:41:17Cook needs to be replaced and mercifully noted Cook can "go back to his operations role."
0:41:23Sure, that's how that works.
0:41:26So he thinks—
0:41:27You just get demoted back to the role that you had.
0:41:31It wouldn't be humiliating at all.
0:41:33No, no.
0:41:35And certainly figuring out the, you know, like his salary and his benefits, that would be very easy.
0:41:40be very easy. You just roll them back to what he was getting before.
0:41:43I forgot that I wrote this. This is so good. So my quip on this post was,
0:41:48"Has anyone considered the possibility that 'Trip Choudry' doesn't actually exist and is really some
0:41:54sort of experiment to test whether the business press will question anyone claiming to be an
0:41:59analyst, no matter how I name their statements?" Yeah. I think the famous one was when he said
0:42:07that Apple needed to release a watch within like 60 days or it was going to go out of business.
0:42:11That's true.
0:42:12And that guy probably makes a decent living, you know. He probably does quite well.
0:42:25I think.
0:42:26And it's clearly, I mean, you know, and so I assume that this is some sort of performance art.
0:42:31Right? I mean, he's, they definitely do this, you know, they, it's the same thing with like
0:42:37people who are selling books who will come out and say, "Somebody has some book about
0:42:44the techno--the top seven tips from smartest technology managers in Silicon Valley or something
0:42:53like that."
0:42:54In order to pump the book, they'll make some crazy claim about Apple and put down at the
0:43:01bottom.
0:43:02know I so and so is the author of the new book whatever yeah um so there's there's definitely
0:43:08that going on and I I just assume that he has decided somehow that and some of these
0:43:13other ones have decided that they're that's going to be their thing I guess so it just doesn't make
0:43:20sense to me it doesn't make sense to me either because you sound like an idiot if I were that
0:43:24accurate writing it during fireball like I
0:43:27Would be like that have like three viewers and one of them would be my mom, you know, I mean like who would read it
0:43:35Trip chow, we were read it
0:43:39Like if our podcast my podcast word is regularly wrong and profoundly is that like wouldn't people be furious like if I
0:43:51If I if I was railing that Tim Cook is a bozo who needed to be fired wouldn't people be furious
0:43:57He'd be like I cannot listen to this guy anymore. I mean, maybe people think they can't listen to me anymore regardless
0:44:02Alright let's shift from bozos to somebody who's really smart. Did you see this Twitter thread a
0:44:13Woman who I guess she'd recently left out. Yeah, but Bethany Bongiorno
0:44:20I'm curious what she's working on because she and another longtime
0:44:24Apple employee
0:44:28Just left and are doing something together
0:44:32But anyway she tweeted
0:44:36Now that she's out of Apple and can talk
0:44:39About the iPad launch
0:44:44And
0:44:48She told this great great story
0:44:50One she says that Steve carefully chose the the lark who I don't know how to pronounce this Laura lay
0:44:58Corbusier chair, but it's that chair that
0:45:02you know sort of
0:45:05Very modern leather chair, but there were a sea of them
0:45:12And each one was carried out so he could inspect it in the stage lighting
0:45:16Did it have the right coloring was there where in the right places? Did it have the right sit?
0:45:23When the third-party developers were brought in if this sounds like a nightmare this is the one part
0:45:29Oh, yeah, when third-party developers were brought in a few weeks before the event they were told
0:45:34They were only flying in for the day for a meeting and when they found out they would be stuck there for weeks
0:45:41we had to take them to Target to get more clothes and other necessities.
0:45:45I guess, you know, I mean, like, yeah, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? I mean, like,
0:45:51see, this is, you know, I think this is kind of acid, you know, like a real jerk move by Apple,
0:45:55really. But I mean, I guess if you're the developer, you got to make that decision
0:45:59on the spot and kind of go, "Well, my family's gonna be really angry with me, but if this,
0:46:06you know, we're gonna be on stage at the launch of this frickin' device."
0:46:10It makes me wonder whether that's the sort of thing that is different in the post-Steve Apple
0:46:16Like was it like without Steve Jobs there?
0:46:19Would they really do that? Would they really fly people out thinking it's a one-day meeting and then say look you have it
0:46:26Here's the opportunity you have to say yes or no right now. You can spend the next three weeks and build an app for this device
0:46:32Which we're not gonna really show you
0:46:35right, right, which is like
0:46:39underneath some like thing right I mean like they were covered up right they were like in a case that disguised the real stuff
0:46:45And if you do this we might
0:46:50We might show your app on stage if we like
0:46:54maybe
0:46:57Yes, or no you in that's amazing
0:47:01Let's go to target
0:47:04So the third-party devs were escorted and monitored at all times. We all signed up for shifts even on the weekends
0:47:10They weren't able to bring their phones into the workroom or use Wi-Fi and the iPads written in stealth cases
0:47:17So they couldn't see the industrial design before the event
0:47:22knew a little bit about this because a
0:47:24friend of mine Jennifer Brooke
0:47:27Was at the New York Times at the time and actually was on stage at the iPad
0:47:33that the New York Times app was shown.
0:47:35So I've heard this same story from her perspective
0:47:39as somebody found out she was spending three weeks
0:47:43in a windowless room at Apple.
0:47:45I think that's the other part.
0:47:46I don't think Bethany Bongiorno mentioned
0:47:48that it was windowless because they didn't--
0:47:50- Oh, it had to be.
0:47:51(laughing)
0:47:51- 'Cause nobody could look at it and see an iPad.
0:47:54- Yeah. - It was crazy.
0:47:56But then here's the one I love.
0:47:57This is the story, I love this.
0:47:58At one point, Steve wanted to turn UI kit elements orange,
0:48:02not just any orange, he wanted a particular orange
0:48:05from the button on a certain old Sony remote.
0:48:08We got a bunch of remotes from Sony with orange button
0:48:11to try and find the right one.
0:48:13In the end, Steve hated it.
0:48:16It's the greatest.
0:48:18When I retweeted it, I said there are entire books
0:48:20about Steve Jobs that have less information
0:48:23than that one tweet.
0:48:25I just love it, and I don't know how close she was
0:48:28to running out of 280 characters.
0:48:30But it looks, it's a pretty long tweet,
0:48:34so I'm guessing it was close.
0:48:36I don't know if it's forced brevity
0:48:38because she was running out of characters or not,
0:48:40but it's such great writing that it's just this whole saga
0:48:44about this particularly orange
0:48:46and changing the whole interface.
0:48:48I guess the idea was that instead of like mostly
0:48:50a blue interface of the iPhone,
0:48:53you know, like when you, you know, back pre-Io7,
0:48:57when you would tap a row, it would light up blue.
0:49:01Like in a UI table view.
0:49:05And I'm guessing that he had the idea
0:49:09to make the iPad like a sort of orange-based interface.
0:49:12And I think I had a Sony remote control
0:49:15with the orange that he's talking about.
0:49:17I know I used to have a Trinitron,
0:49:19and it did have a very nice orange for the power button.
0:49:22I kind of think I know which,
0:49:25maybe not the exact model,
0:49:26but I know the basic vibe of the orange
0:49:30that she's talking about.
0:49:31And I can see how it was a good idea,
0:49:35but I just love that sentence.
0:49:36In the end, Steve hated it.
0:49:38(laughing)
0:49:39Just nevermind.
0:49:40And--
0:49:42- I'm sure that happened a lot.
0:49:44I mean, you know, it happens in software development.
0:49:49I mean, you know, like you spend a bunch of time
0:49:51working on something and then you're like, no.
0:49:53- Yeah.
0:49:54- That's no good.
0:49:56particularly with him, I'm sure. And he had a very particular idea of what he wanted and then
0:50:01decided that he was wrong in the end. I think that with him too, it was also the case that
0:50:07things like that could happen closer to the end. At any point, it might be like literally like one
0:50:13week before they're supposed to unveil it. And he's like, I want the whole thing orange. And then
0:50:17everybody scrambles for 72 hours, finding old remotes on eBay, and finding an orange,
0:50:24and then trying to figure out how to translate the orange
0:50:27from a real rubber button to an onscreen button
0:50:30that's backlit and to have it come across the same way.
0:50:32And then they hook it all up and Steve takes a look at it
0:50:35and says, "I hate it, this is terrible."
0:50:37(laughing)
0:50:39I just love it though.
0:50:41And the thing about Steve Jobs
0:50:43that I love about that story is the phrase,
0:50:45I don't know who invented the phrase,
0:50:47but the idea of strong opinions loosely held.
0:50:52In other words, if you're gonna have an opinion,
0:50:54be adamant about it, but also don't be so egotistical
0:50:58as to refuse to change your mind, right?
0:51:01Like that was like his unbelievable,
0:51:04like Tim Cook has said this so many times
0:51:06and in so many ways, but Steve Jobs' ability
0:51:09to change his mind might've been the single most genius thing
0:51:14about the man.
0:51:16Like he, 'cause, and I think it was infuriating,
0:51:21it could be at times, because I feel like
0:51:23at the point where he hates the orange. He's like, who's the moron who spent all this time
0:51:26making this orange? Why did you waste the time? And it was like, uh, that was you.
0:51:29Well, people, people always wanted to call him a hypocrite too, or, or, or, you know, contradictory
0:51:37because he would say, you know, that's, uh, that's, that thing's terrible. Our competitors
0:51:42had that thing. It's awful. And then, you know, three years later they introduced the same thing.
0:51:45I had that thought too, when, when these tweets came out and I was rereading them
0:51:52And I thought, "Hey, you know what? This is the first time I heard a story about Steve Jobs."
0:51:57And my first reaction was laughter and not sadness. And I thought, "We've kind of crossed."
0:52:04It's been enough time where it sounds morbid, but it's like I already—my first thought isn't
0:52:16sadness. It's like, of course, he's dead already. You know, he's, he's filed away as
0:52:20someone who's no longer with us. I think the chair, the chair thing is sort of the only thing
0:52:25that gives me, you know, a little bit of that feeling just because he was he was pretty sick.
0:52:29Yes. Yeah. And he could not, he couldn't stand for the whole thing. I also but at the same time,
0:52:34they were also pitching it as a device that you're just gonna be sitting on the couch using this
0:52:38thing. I had a lot of the a lot of the art that they released was just like people sitting around
0:52:45in the ads, where people sitting around with it, like, we, we joked about this, like, you know,
0:52:50it was in that, you know, for people who wear jeans, it was in that sort of like,
0:52:55fold that is on the front of the jeans when you sit down, right? That was the that was the iPad
0:53:02stand. I, I think it's interesting, because he was sick at the time, it was even a little surprising.
0:53:09I think he was actually on a medical leave at the time in 2010. So he died.
0:53:15**Matt Stauffer** Yeah, he might not have been CEO back then.
0:53:18**Ezra Kleinman** He died at that point. He died in 2011. So he lived about another year and a half.
0:53:24But he obviously, in hindsight, we now know he wasn't doing well. And he was very thin. And so
0:53:31we all from the outside suspected might be what actually happened, a recurrence of cancer.
0:53:37And we've heard stories that, yes, it was physical, because he was frail, that he needed
0:53:46to sit. He couldn't stand for a whole keynote. But I think that even if he had been healthy,
0:53:51I think that there still would have been a—they still would have had the chair. I think he
0:53:55still would have demoed the iPad sitting down. It just wouldn't have been out of necessity.
0:54:00It would have been, like you said, this is—it's just the posture to use it.
0:54:06I mean, you can. I mean, I certainly walk around with an iPad a lot. It's, you know,
0:54:13certainly a better device for walking around with than a laptop, but, you know, it's definitely
0:54:18more of a sit-down type thing.
0:54:20Yeah.
0:54:21What a great story. Trying to think about what else I have on the old agenda.
0:54:28Were you at that?
0:54:29Yes, I was there.
0:54:30Okay.
0:54:31I started going to, the one that I was lucky for
0:54:36was the iPhone, the Macworld Expo,
0:54:41'cause that was, that might have been the first,
0:54:43it might have been the first Macworld keynote
0:54:45that I saw in person, like 2006, or I guess it was 2007?
0:54:50Yeah, 2007 was right around the time
0:54:54when it was not ridiculous that during Fireball's revenue
0:55:00could justify me buying an airplane across the country. So I was within, I don't think
0:55:08I was at the one a year prior to that. I think I was watching on, so it was pretty cool that
0:55:13I got to see that one. But by 2010, I think I was in regular attendance for all these
0:55:18events. It was weird. It was fun. The thing I remember specifically about it was being
0:55:23in the room. And it was a topic of conversation. Do you think Steve Jobs will be here? Do you
0:55:30think he'll be here? Because we knew he was on leave. So I didn't have my hopes up. I
0:55:36thought, "Well, probably not." But then when he came out, it was like a moment in
0:55:42the room because it was a surprise. Nobody knew if it was going to be Steve or not. And
0:55:47I think he said something to the effect of, "Hey, I didn't want to miss this." Tim's
0:55:51You know Tim's doing a great job running the company. I didn't want to miss this event though. You know, it's
0:55:56We're very excited blah blah, you know
0:55:58Yeah, but there was definitely it was an extra buzz because you know people knew
0:56:04there was a lot of weird spending like a lot of
0:56:07crazy speculation about the device before
0:56:10There was a lot of speculation about the iPhone 2 but I don't think I don't think in the same weird way that that
0:56:17Ended up being wrong
0:56:20Yeah, because there was a lot of emphasis placed on publishing
0:56:23Mmm around the yes had and like is this gonna save publishing? Yeah, and it you know, it certainly didn't know
0:56:31It's successful device and it's great at many things, but it was not it was not some sort of
0:56:38Gods into the publishing and it's a very Steve Jobs device
0:56:41I mean in the backstory is that when he first went on a medical leave in 2009?
0:56:47I think that might have been when he had the liver transplant
0:56:50But when he came back to work he was obviously, you know, you know
0:56:57I don't think it's I don't think it's you have to be a doctor to realize that after a liver transplant
0:57:02You may not have the highest energy levels. Yeah
0:57:05and
0:57:07So he you know, he had limited time, you know
0:57:10limited focus he couldn't you know, he you know
0:57:15As you may or may not know Steve Jobs that had his fingers and a lot of a lot of the pies at Apple
0:57:19When he came back after his liver transplant, he more or less was like let's do this tablet thing
0:57:24You know and that was that was his baby
0:57:26Yeah, and you know in hindsight what came out is so so totally Steve Jobs in some ways more than the iPhone I think
0:57:34Because I think the iPhone is sort of it's so genius but it's for everybody whereas the iPad is a little bit more
0:57:43Not for everybody, right? Mm-hmm
0:57:45You know, I think the fact that we're still debating it, you know ten years later how much you know
0:57:52How much work can you do on an iPad and stuff like that?
0:57:54I think it but a lot of it, you know goes back to Steve
0:57:56But you're exactly right about the publishing and that was the weird thing about being at the event to being in the press
0:58:01Because there was this
0:58:03consensus up
0:58:05Leading up to the device that this was great journalism is in so much trouble, you know, all these people, you know
0:58:12You know, literally it was it's the group of people who were there, the media people
0:58:18all thought that this device was going to save their jobs. They really did. I mean,
0:58:22that's not an exaggeration. They it was like, hey, what they did for the it's what they
0:58:27did, you know, when the music industry was collapsing under piracy, Apple saved them
0:58:31with the iTunes store, they're going to do that with this. And then we'll go back to
0:58:36having a safe, secure job for the next 20 years.
0:58:41And then the event came and went,
0:58:42and it was really, it was griping people,
0:58:45and they were like, well, wait a minute.
0:58:46And then they're replaying the New York Times demo,
0:58:50'cause they did have a demo,
0:58:53and the New York Times is a news publication,
0:58:56but there was so many people talking,
0:58:59and they were all like, well, wait,
0:59:01there was nothing there about
0:59:02how they're gonna make money from this.
0:59:03And it was like, nope.
0:59:05Yeah.
0:59:07That's not their problem.
0:59:08I mean, it's a nice experience.
0:59:12I mean, I think reading The New York Times on an iPad
0:59:15is a very nice experience in their app.
0:59:19And kind of the best-- has the best parts of reading it
0:59:25physically as you could do electronically.
0:59:30Have you noticed this more and more?
0:59:31I've noticed that-- did you ever hear
0:59:34an app called Nuzzle and use easy. Yeah, heard of it. Yeah, it's really good app. And I almost
0:59:41worry that I like it a lot. And I almost worry that it is like in the back of my brain. I've
0:59:48got this idea that I've got a job that can't be replaced by a robot. Surely my job can't
0:59:58be right. And it's like there will be days that go by where everything I posted during
1:00:03Fireball I first became aware of through Nuzzle. Like basically you log in with your Twitter
1:00:09credentials and you're just a glorified Nuzzle. But it's a really clever idea. So you granted
1:00:17access to your Twitter account. I'm 99% sure that it does not do anything stupid like tweet
1:00:25"I'm using Nuzzle, join me." Because I certainly haven't seen it in your history.
1:00:31I would have deleted it in anger if that had happened. That's always my concern when
1:00:37you're blogging with Twitter. I'm always—and I have no idea—irrationally afraid of it.
1:00:42I'm irrationally afraid of some service tweeting one tweet from my account that says
1:00:47that I'm using it.
1:00:48But anyway, it just goes through all of your followers and if enough—you can adjust the
1:00:54thresholds but if like three or four of the people you follow all tweet the same URL,
1:01:00it bubbles up in your list and sometimes you get notifications and it seems to me like
1:01:04their hit rate on whether I'm actually glad I got the notification or not is amazing.
1:01:11It is absolutely amazing. It sounds like something if it was done poorly, it would it would be
1:01:16infuriating, but it's done well and their hit rate on yes, I'm glad that you gave me
1:01:22a notification about this news story is amazing. Anyway, the one thing that made me think about
1:01:29it. As you said, the New York Times is a nice app to read. The downside to Nuzzle is that
1:01:34when you're in the Nuzzle app, they don't use the modern—I'm going to mess up the
1:01:40term—but you know how there's a modern way to put WebKit in an iOS app and in the
1:01:45old way? The old way is just sort of a dumb WebView, and the new one is like you got a
1:01:49nice little mini version of Safari. So it has your content blockers and et cetera. The
1:01:56The Nuzzle one is just like an old dumb web view.
1:01:59And so I see more online ads than I think I usually do
1:02:04'cause I don't try to block ads.
1:02:05I just have Odd Blocker set up
1:02:07just to get rid of annoying ads.
1:02:09But the way that online ads are now
1:02:13is like if you just touch it somehow,
1:02:16it instantly takes you to the thing.
1:02:18And they put them at the bottom,
1:02:20which is where the sharing control auto hides, right?
1:02:25So it's like the world's worst video game, trying to tap at the bottom to bring up the
1:02:32sharing button but not tap the ad.
1:02:37And I'm really bad at this video game.
1:02:41It's like the opposite of those, like tap the monkey.
1:02:43Yes, it's the opposite.
1:02:44It is like you don't tap the monkey.
1:02:49There are times where it seems to me like I didn't tap near the ad and yet somehow here
1:02:53I am going to this stupid ad that I don't want to yeah, I'm sure the Dutch target is like way beyond I
1:02:59Find it because it all this all came into my mind when you said it's I do you like reading the New York Times and
1:03:04In the app and I do too and I find sometimes on their website now, especially on the phone
1:03:08They have too many things in the middle of an article
1:03:12Be they ads or like call outs to other
1:03:15Related news stories, but meanwhile, I just want to keep reading right? I'm reading a story. I'm engaged
1:03:22it's this is an interesting story and now I've got to scroll past all of this stuff and
1:03:27figure out where where to rejoin the story and
1:03:31I feel like their app is better at that than their website
1:03:36Yeah
1:03:39Actually, I canceled my subscription
1:03:42Yeah, because I got mad at them but
1:03:48How was it as nightmarish as people say the the downside to the New York Times is
1:03:53Do they have an iTunes version or can you only subscribe through their website?
1:03:57You well or call yeah, you can subscribe to the website or call I don't
1:04:04Pretty almost positive. You cannot subscribe through iTunes, right? So
1:04:08The New York Times has a no you get it. They make it very easy to sign up and they make it apparently very very hard
1:04:16Comcast right yeah, was it hard you had to have to call the trick is that you so yeah
1:04:21I mean you they say that you you have to call them and then you know be berated by somebody
1:04:26To you know like trying to cajole you into into staying a subscriber
1:04:32But you can also do it through web chat ah
1:04:35That was right, so I did it. I did it that way
1:04:39And and you still get you still get them. They still try and you know they are for you
1:04:45They apologize profusely or you know, like maybe you've misunderstood what you read about the you know, the nice Nazi gentleman
1:04:51But you know, here's you know, like how about if we give you like a year of like, you know
1:04:58I'll reduce rate or something like that. It's like
1:05:00That's one Nazi too many one is one too many
1:05:06Did you watch the the State of the Union
1:05:11Trumpy I try
1:05:14There is not enough liquor in the house for me to do that and there's a lot of liquor in this house
1:05:19I missed it live I was
1:05:23Traveling and I did it I tivo did I had a TV. I requested that she tivo
1:05:29Tivo and
1:05:34cracked open a beer
1:05:36and I started I started just a beer and I started watching and
1:05:42uh i was okay with the the five minutes later you're shaking martini i i was okay with the opening
1:05:50and and it's like you know i'm i don't i don't like the guy i i didn't like george w bush either
1:05:58and but i always watched george w i always watch the state of the union i feel like it's something
1:06:02you know the civic responsibility yeah civic responsibility and when george w bush would
1:06:07get up there and dick cheney's behind him because the vice president sits behind him
1:06:12I would think, "I don't like these guys." But I thought to myself, "This is the nature
1:06:18of a democracy, though. I've got decades ahead, and there will be times when there's
1:06:24a president who I like and respect, and there will be presidents who I disagree with, and
1:06:29that's just the way it goes." So I was okay with that part of it. Like, I don't
1:06:33like Trump. I don't like Mike Pence. I think he's really weird. I think they're doing
1:06:38bad things. But the whole intro part, you know, like, here he is, President of the United
1:06:43States, and he comes in and people are clapping and he's soaking it up. But then he starts
1:06:47talking. And then he opened his mouth. He he did this thing, Amy, why Amy was already
1:06:54asleep, but she watched some of it live and she had to stop to I don't know how far I
1:06:59got into I think I got about 20 minutes, I had to turn it off. And it was it was either
1:07:03that or like you said, go make a martini. Bush used to make me angry too. But I did
1:07:08watch a few of his at least, and I would, you know, like, yell at the television and stuff like that,
1:07:13but I could watch him. But I can't even listen to him.
1:07:18The thing that got me—and Amy noted the same thing, and she's like, "Did you notice this thing
1:07:22where he'd say something and it would be an applause line for, like, the Republicans in
1:07:27the audience, and they would break into the speech with applause, and when that would happen,
1:07:35he would back away from the podium and clap himself. And you can just imagine the way,
1:07:41you know, like the Trumpy way that he like kind of takes two steps back and gets a smirk on his
1:07:46face and he starts clapping for himself. He clapped in his own speech. Like that. I couldn't
1:07:53take it. I had to shut it off. It was just, it was torture. I really, and the other thing that
1:08:01got me was it was it was a bizarre combination of he would say things that it's clearly not
1:08:08that's not what you're doing you're you you just i don't know you say you're protecting the
1:08:14environment you're not actually actually you're the epa chief is actually like ripping out
1:08:19regulations to keep water clean you're not doing selling off public you know vast swaths of public
1:08:25land right you're saying that you're doing this great work for the public land and the environment
1:08:30and you're actually doing the opposite. And that made it, I couldn't take it.
1:08:33And then the other thing is that he would say things that it's like, yes,
1:08:36that's exactly why I hate you.
1:08:38Like he was very clear about, uh,
1:08:44non white people, not, not being welcome. Like he had,
1:08:48that's just the part where I had to, I had to shut it off.
1:08:51It was talking about immigration and he says something like, uh,
1:08:54this is for citizens,
1:08:57But he's complaining about the fact that immigrants, citizens of the United States who are immigrants
1:09:02from other countries are allowed to bring family members over.
1:09:07He's like, "They're bringing over all of these people."
1:09:09But these are—
1:09:10And he, you know, he lied too, because he was, he expanded the list of people that you're
1:09:15allowed to bring over.
1:09:16And this is, there's another, there's a great Twitter exchange about this today.
1:09:19Like there's a woman who said that he lied and, you know, because that's not true that
1:09:24these all these other you know like he's more different distant relatives you're allowed to
1:09:28bring in and some somebody actually actually heard her actually at heard i can't say that right
1:09:37obviously um and uh she just replied i'm a fucking immigration lawyer oh my god that's so great
1:09:45well but do you really do what do you really know about immigration yeah right right man
1:09:52- Clearly you know nothing about this,
1:09:55says guy with 18 followers on Twitter.
1:09:57- Right, actually.
1:09:59Oh my God.
1:10:02All right, let me take a break here
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1:12:48Anything else? What else is going on? How about the Super Bowl? You excited about the
1:12:51Super Bowl?
1:12:53No.
1:12:54It's weird being a non-Eagles fan in Philadelphia with the Eagles in the Super Bowl. The city
1:13:03is nuts and deserves it.
1:13:05Oh, I would imagine.
1:13:07Because Philadelphia is sort of a long-suffering town.
1:13:11The last big team championship was the Phillies in 2008.
1:13:16And then prior to that, I swear to God, I think it was, I'm not making this up, I think
1:13:20it was the 1983 Sixers.
1:13:23So it's quite a long stretch there.
1:13:26Whereas when I was a kid, Philly was like championship city.
1:13:30The Flyers won in '77, the Phillies won in '80, the Sixers were fantastic every year.
1:13:37won in '83. And then they had this long stretch. And the Eagles have never won a Super Bowl.
1:13:42They've won—the weird thing about the Super Bowl is that they only started calling it the Super
1:13:48Bowl 52 years ago. Prior to that, it was just the NFL championship game. So the Eagles won that
1:13:53at some point in the '60s, but the '60s is a long time ago.
1:13:57So a bit. And the Patriots, I think the Patriots have won once or at least. So there's a very
1:14:10interesting, you know, Boston and Philly are good natural rival towns. It's not quite up
1:14:16to the level of like New York and Philly. New York and Philly was pretty, it's pretty
1:14:21always pretty exciting. But Boston's pretty good. It's such a strange mixture of one team
1:14:29that is literally there every single year.
1:14:32Yeah, right, right. And yeah, I mean, and now you I mean, it's funny is like, I think
1:14:37for some reason, Hank has latched on to the Patriots. I don't I don't I think maybe it's
1:14:41because his cousin who he loves, my brother lives in Vermont, and he, so my nephew tends
1:14:49two like Boston area teams so he's a big Red Sox fan and um and I don't I don't know if he's like
1:14:55much of a Patriots fan frankly though um but I think maybe Hank has like uh
1:14:59got the gotten the idea that he is um and I also think it's a it's just like he knows that it's
1:15:05something that makes people mad so so he likes to say you know like boy I hope the Patriots
1:15:12beat so you know whoever um so he's he's rooting for the he's rooting for the Patriots which is you
1:15:18you know, I think clearly the wrong team to root for but it's a good feeling I my
1:15:22Beloved Dallas Cowboys used to be that team, you know in the 90s
1:15:26They were almost unbeaten
1:15:28The only team that could beat him was the San Francisco 49ers
1:15:30and then whichever there was like a five-year run in there where whoever won the NFC championship between
1:15:36San Fran and Dallas would then go on to steamroll
1:15:39The Buffalo Bills. Yes. Yeah
1:15:47It's such a strange dichotomy though. The Eagles fans are so desperate for a championship and and I honestly I it's a football town
1:15:55I think of all the teams in Philly the one that has the most fans is the Eagles
1:15:59People are nuts for the Eagles here. They're in particularly nuts for this team, right any Eagles team
1:16:05It was going to Super Bowl would be popular
1:16:07But they really there seem to be some characters on this team that really that the city just loves. Yeah
1:16:12There's a lot of Eagles fans in New Jersey - Oh tons
1:16:15I mean like I would think that they're more I don't know the demographics
1:16:18But I would think there are more Eagles fans in New Jersey than there are like Giants fans. Ah
1:16:21That's you know, it's exactly what you think geographically, you know, there's parts of it
1:16:26So just you know, they're North this yeah, you know further north of New Jersey is you know
1:16:31It's like which networks do you get you get do you get New York channels or Philly channels?
1:16:35the lousy parts of New Jersey for the Giants
1:16:38parts of the Eagles I
1:16:43Forget his first name, but it's you know, you know how he longed the TV announcer and used to please we were kids
1:16:48He was a all pro and the Raiders. His son is on the team. I think he's Chris long
1:16:53I think that's his name, but he donated his his whole salary to like schools
1:16:59He's you know, like in the tenth year of his career and he's you know, he's like I've made tons of money playing football
1:17:05So here I'll just give my money only donate my old salary this year to like schools
1:17:09Like people love this guy, of course, right? I mean, that's amazing. What a pretty cool thing to do
1:17:15So anyway, I fear for the soul of this city if they if they lose
1:17:20In the property, I don't think
1:17:24If they win, I think that it might I think the property might be more of a problem if they win
1:17:30I think that if they lose people are just it's gonna just crush their they won't have the the spirit to go riot
1:17:35Yeah
1:17:37usually yeah usually i mean the one the one uh counterexample i can think of that rule is is uh
1:17:43vancouver right didn't vancouver lost the oh yeah yeah championship yes like trash to the place
1:17:49yeah really to really trash the place i mean like like wow i mean like like calling it a riot was
1:17:55not an exaggeration that was bad news i mean and i don't get i know i don't i don't sanction either
1:18:02one, really. But when I kind of understand—I feel like I understand the winning thing a little bit
1:18:07more, maybe? Which doesn't—maybe that doesn't make sense.
1:18:10Ted
1:18:10Dave: Did you see the thing where they have to grease the poles here in Philly? The Crisco
1:18:15cops? It's like an Italian thing. It comes from South Philly. In Italy, there's a tradition
1:18:27of if there's some holiday in Italy, like in the Godfather, there's going to be singing
1:18:35and dancing in a parade. And one of the traditional contests is like climbing up a greased pole.
1:18:45Who can climb to the top of a greased pole? So the fact that the cops are greasing the
1:18:50poles, that's not really stopping anybody. I think I'm stealing Paul Kefas's—
1:18:54It's just more of a challenge.
1:18:55Paul Kefas has tweeted me a thing about how it's like a tradition in South Philly Italian
1:19:01festivals to climb a greased pole. He's like, "They train for this!"
1:19:04(laughing)
1:19:06- Good luck with that.
1:19:10- I remember when the Phillies won in 2008,
1:19:14I went out and the big street here is Broad Street
1:19:17where people go to celebrate.
1:19:20And there was a young man who was at the top of a light pole
1:19:23and there was a cop standing at the foot of the base,
1:19:27a woman, and I said to her, I said,
1:19:29"Are you just waiting for him to come down
1:19:30"so you can write him a ticket?"
1:19:31And she goes, "Yep."
1:19:32And I was like, and you're just going to wait. And she's like, yep. I told him not to go
1:19:38up. She was like, I gave him a chance and he, that's great. I've got a theory. Here's
1:19:46my theory. My, my, my, are you going to watch the game? Do you watch the Superbowl? Yeah,
1:19:51we'll probably, yeah, we usually, we usually watch just because it's just, and yeah, so
1:19:57may actually go over to Karen's parents' house or their apartment and watch with them.
1:20:03Here's my theory. I come up with a theory about why the Patriots will lose every year,
1:20:08and I'm often wrong, much to the detriment of my wagering. But I've got it.
1:20:14That's why you had to go to the bank.
1:20:16That's why I had to go to the bank. I think I've got this one figured out. We'll see how this
1:20:21stands out. But here's my theory, Jon. My theory is that I salute the Patriots for being very good
1:20:27every year. And that's hard to do in any sport. And it's particularly hard in the NFL. The NFL
1:20:33is a sport, even if you're not a fan. It's a sport where teams come out of nowhere. Like in the team
1:20:38that was good last year might not be good this year, just one year to the next. The Eagles were
1:20:43like seven and nine last year. This year, they were 13 and three. They're heading to the Super
1:20:47Bowl. It happens all the time. Somehow the New England Patriots under Bill Belichick and Tom
1:20:52Brady. God damn it, they're good every year. So I salute them for that. No other team has a stretch
1:20:59like they've had in the last 15 years. But my theory is that the price of being very good every
1:21:07year means that they are never great. Because to be great, you have to load up for one year,
1:21:13and then you lose the guys next year. I looked up there, the Belichick-Brady teams, the final
1:21:19score of their Super Bowls, win or lose. It's like three, three, four, three point losses to the
1:21:26Giants, a four point win. Every game is three or four points. It's always close. They never have
1:21:31one of those teams that loads up and wins 55 to 10 or something like that. So that's my theory,
1:21:38is that they're always in close games. You're going to try and beat the spread?
1:21:41Well, the Eagles are getting four and a half points. So I think it's a sound financial
1:21:45investment to wager on the eagles. And even if you think, even if you think,
1:21:52you can't bet on eagles because somehow, some way, Belichick and Brady, those two evil geniuses,
1:21:59are going to find a way to win. You might be right, but they'll find a way to win by like
1:22:02three points. Right. So that's my famous last words. So okay. All right. I will look forward
1:22:09With interest
1:22:11John moltz, thank you so much for being on the show good luck this Sunday
1:22:18Everybody can get all the moltz they want at
1:22:22Where you got the turn this car around turning this car around and the rebound and moltz at Twitter moltz
1:22:30good old moltz