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182: ‘AAA Podcast’ With Marco Arment

 

00:00:00   It does kind of feel like like I just discovered Phil's in San Francisco once last year and

00:00:07   I'm probably never gonna go there again. Uh

00:00:10   guess what though I looked on the map and there is a Phil Z within a few blocks of

00:00:15   The San Jose Convention Center. Oh, yeah. All right

00:00:19   It's like not right across the street but it's probably about as close as the one

00:00:27   Just a couple blocks. That was a good place. That's I I do wonder how different the culture of Santa

00:00:34   I've never been to San Jose. Like I've been only only a handful of times in Silicon Valley at all and

00:00:40   and so San Jose is even less familiar to me than the rest of it and

00:00:45   But you've gone to a couple events here and there right? Yeah, including the only time I ever set foot in

00:00:51   In San Jose was the 2012

00:00:56   October event so it was a the one a month after the big iPhone event they did

00:01:00   iPads and I think that was when the current form factor of the iMac debuted with the thin side not yet retina

00:01:09   Of course, yeah and was the last public

00:01:12   Event Apple held while Scott for stall was was an executive

00:01:17   Yeah, that was that was I remember so I still remember like the day that that he was officially announced as being out

00:01:25   We were actually Tiff and I were in vacation in Seattle. I was like in this weird clothing store with her like killing time my phone

00:01:31   I'm trying to catch up on what the heck just happened. Everyone was exploding about it. It's pretty cool. Yeah

00:01:35   No, so speaking of our of our IMAX though

00:01:39   I have a bone to pick with you about because I believe that that you and I have the same

00:01:44   2014 first gen 5k iMac, correct

00:01:47   Does yours have problems with image retention? No

00:01:53   You're lucky either that or apparently I don't see it

00:01:57   It's possible that maybe I you know, maybe if my eyes were what they used to be

00:02:01   I would see it, but it doesn't seem here's here's why here's why you would see it in particular

00:02:05   because the the most common place I see it this this just started happening over the last few months and

00:02:12   And it's I know exactly what you're gonna say

00:02:14   Yeah, exactly. It just started happening over the last few months and it's getting worse quickly

00:02:19   And so what happens is, I'm not talking about burn-in,

00:02:22   like on Plasma TV, you have something burned in forever.

00:02:25   I'm talking about LCD image retention,

00:02:26   where basically you kind of see the ghost image

00:02:30   of what was there before for a few minutes,

00:02:33   and it fades over a minute or two.

00:02:36   So if you have something high contrast up

00:02:39   for five or 10 minutes, say.

00:02:41   So for instance, when you're podcasting,

00:02:42   and you have a couple windows up that might have

00:02:44   text notes or the Skype window or whatever else,

00:02:47   and then you go to your web browser

00:02:48   and you load a dark gray website,

00:02:52   then you will see the shadows of your formerly in those spots

00:02:57   black and white windows.

00:02:59   You will see those very clearly against the gray background

00:03:02   of the website you're looking at.

00:03:04   Yeah, it's like 4a5--

00:03:05   So this almost always gets me.

00:03:07   4a5, 2, 5a.

00:03:09   Exactly.

00:03:10   On my previous display-- and it was ancient.

00:03:14   I used to talk about it on a podcast.

00:03:16   But before getting this 5K iMac, what was that,

00:03:21   like two and a half years ago now, I guess?

00:03:23   - Yeah, something like that. - Yeah.

00:03:24   - I was using a 20 inch Apple Cinema Display,

00:03:28   not 24 inch, 20 inch from, oh geez,

00:03:32   must be like 2000 or 2002 or something.

00:03:35   I mean, I don't know, it was really,

00:03:37   maybe it wasn't quite that old,

00:03:38   but it was really pretty old.

00:03:39   And I was sort of in a Syracuse's situation

00:03:44   where I-- it was long past the point where I could have easily

00:03:49   afforded to replace it.

00:03:51   And there were all sorts of good options I could have bought.

00:03:53   But I was sort of hoping for something retina forever

00:03:57   and ever and ever.

00:03:58   And so I just kept putting it off.

00:03:59   It's like, there's no way I'm spending $1,000 on an apple.

00:04:02   Even no matter how--

00:04:03   I guess they were 30 inch for a while,

00:04:05   and then they went to 27 inch.

00:04:06   But I just didn't feel like buying it not to have retina,

00:04:10   knowing that retina would come out any year now.

00:04:12   For years and years and years.

00:04:13   So my, I was using, and that display, after,

00:04:17   it must have been, it had to be at least 10 years old,

00:04:19   and I'd used it every day, had terrible image retention,

00:04:22   and I knew exactly where you were going

00:04:23   because my website was the number one culprit.

00:04:26   - Yeah, 'cause like most, if you're dealing

00:04:28   with other black and white windows,

00:04:30   you don't really see it as often,

00:04:31   but when you've had something black and white

00:04:33   up for a while, and then you switch to a large expanse

00:04:36   of gray, you see it very clearly,

00:04:38   and my initial thought is always,

00:04:41   I didn't realize that Safari was translucent.

00:04:43   - That's exactly what I thought.

00:04:44   - I always think it's like window translucency,

00:04:47   and I'm like, oh, that's a weird design decision.

00:04:49   Oh wait, that isn't a design decision.

00:04:50   - Right, when I first encountered it,

00:04:52   that's exactly what I thought,

00:04:53   is I thought that maybe at some point

00:04:54   I'd hit some kind of weird,

00:04:56   I'd diddled something in the terminal

00:04:58   with defaults right,

00:05:00   translucent, you know,

00:05:01   com.apples.safari/translucency=91,

00:05:06   or something like that.

00:05:08   - Right, exactly.

00:05:09   - 'Cause that's exactly what it looks like.

00:05:11   Sorry about that.

00:05:11   Now that now it's an iMac, and it's my main computer,

00:05:14   and so it's like, I don't want to send this thing

00:05:17   in for repair and not be with my main computer

00:05:19   for like two weeks or however long it takes

00:05:21   to get it actually fixed.

00:05:22   - Two and a half years under even daily use

00:05:24   seems like too soon, honestly.

00:05:26   - Yeah, and I don't know, and then it's like,

00:05:30   am I gonna get one that has just the same problem?

00:05:32   I'm always worried that they're not even gonna believe me

00:05:34   or that they're not gonna replace it

00:05:35   'cause they don't think it's bad enough.

00:05:38   Even though I don't have a lot of basis

00:05:41   for those feelings, it's just like,

00:05:42   it's such a hassle to send away my main computer

00:05:46   for repair, especially 'cause it's large.

00:05:49   Like if it's a laptop, I could bring 'em to a Genius Bar

00:05:50   and maybe have something faster, maybe,

00:05:53   but like, because it's such an ordeal

00:05:55   to haul this thing anywhere and ship it anywhere,

00:05:58   I don't know.

00:05:59   My current plan is to just hope that they do something

00:06:03   with like an iMac Pro or a Mac Pro sometime this year

00:06:08   before my AppleCare runs out in October.

00:06:11   And then I can just buy the new one,

00:06:14   send this in for repair,

00:06:16   and then when I get it back from repair, sell it.

00:06:18   - Oh, if you've got AppleCare,

00:06:19   you should definitely do it,

00:06:20   although you have to be without it.

00:06:21   - But it's a pain, yeah.

00:06:22   It's like, I don't wanna switch

00:06:23   to my new crappy keyboard touch bar.

00:06:26   - You know I haven't bought it.

00:06:27   I haven't bought AppleCare since 1991.

00:06:29   - The only reason I bought it on this,

00:06:32   and I'm with you most of the time,

00:06:33   the only reason I bought it on this

00:06:34   is that AppleCare, the pricing is based

00:06:36   on these tiers of the product they apply to.

00:06:40   A $1,400 iMac has the same AppleCare cost

00:06:44   as a $4,500 fully loaded one.

00:06:47   - Right.

00:06:48   - And so, and I was buying the very first generation

00:06:51   of a new thing, of the 5K.

00:06:53   And so I thought, you know what,

00:06:54   it was only like 200 bucks or something.

00:06:56   It was not a lot of money for what was something

00:06:59   like a $4,400 configuration, 'cause I got really maxed out,

00:07:02   'cause my main computer.

00:07:04   And I figure, you know what, the ratio there pays off.

00:07:06   I don't really get it for anything else,

00:07:08   but in cases where you're buying a really maxed out

00:07:10   config of something, it often does pay off

00:07:13   because it's such a low relative cost.

00:07:15   - I think we might have literally the same machine.

00:07:17   I know I maxed out the RAM, 32 gigs.

00:07:21   And I would have--

00:07:21   - If you have a terabyte.

00:07:22   - Right.

00:07:23   I think I have a terabyte drive,

00:07:26   'cause I don't know why I wouldn't have bought it,

00:07:27   'cause it's the only drive I keep attached most of the time.

00:07:30   I actually don't even know.

00:07:33   That's something.

00:07:34   (laughing)

00:07:35   Wow.

00:07:36   - It's gotta be a terabyte.

00:07:37   I don't see how I would be able to function

00:07:39   if it wasn't a terabyte.

00:07:41   And then what I get, the four gigahertz Intel Core i7.

00:07:44   - Yep, yeah, same thing.

00:07:46   Enjoy your wonderful screen.

00:07:49   You will know quickly if it ever becomes a problem.

00:07:51   - Yes, it is a terabyte drive.

00:07:53   999.38 gigabytes, which is bullshit.

00:07:56   - Oh, you got ripped off.

00:07:57   You didn't get the full terabyte.

00:07:58   (laughing)

00:07:59   Yeah, oh boy.

00:08:01   I just hope I can fix this easily.

00:08:04   I don't know, ATP Tifster said that this was a problem

00:08:07   with the one that we have, the 2014,

00:08:09   but that they fixed it for the 2015 model,

00:08:12   which is still the current model.

00:08:14   But he also says they're gonna have new ones

00:08:15   like in March or whatever, who knows.

00:08:18   - Yeah, we can get to March soon.

00:08:19   We'll have to get to that.

00:08:22   Did you see-- - It kinda sounds like

00:08:23   Apple's gonna release like 15 things in March.

00:08:25   That's kind of what, like all the rumors are pointing to,

00:08:28   Like four iPads, new iMacs, new 12-inch MacBook One,

00:08:33   and new watch bands and who knows what on the software side,

00:08:38   new iPad stuff maybe.

00:08:40   I mean, there is such a giant list of things

00:08:43   that rumor people expect to be launched and marked.

00:08:45   It's kind of ridiculous.

00:08:47   - Did you see this?

00:08:48   I've been meaning to link to it,

00:08:49   and I haven't 'cause I forget why.

00:08:52   I think it might be because I can't find the guy's name.

00:08:54   You and I ran into the same thing

00:08:57   with somebody on Twitter recently,

00:08:58   that guy OMD or something like that, or?

00:09:02   - Yeah, yeah, he didn't have his name anywhere

00:09:04   on any of his stuff, and we both wanted to link to him

00:09:06   and name him, you know, like he's nice.

00:09:09   - Right, like I always--

00:09:11   - I think he didn't, he responded,

00:09:12   and it's not like he didn't want to be named,

00:09:14   like at least he gave only a first name

00:09:15   or something like that.

00:09:16   - I heard, and he said something like he's building

00:09:17   his brand on OMD or something like that,

00:09:19   and it's harder for me to link to somebody who's anonymous.

00:09:22   And the other thing that really gets me,

00:09:24   And I hate to say it to you, but it's true.

00:09:28   It seems like I link a lot less frequently anymore

00:09:31   to people who have Tumblr blogs, just anecdotally.

00:09:34   But back when Tumblr was sort of at its peak

00:09:36   as a blogging platform-- I'm not saying that Tumblr is

00:09:40   in decline, but I think it's in decline for the sort of blogging

00:09:44   that I tend to link to it during Fireball.

00:09:46   An awful lot of Tumblr sites don't

00:09:48   have the person's real name on.

00:09:51   It's just their Tumblr handle.

00:09:53   And that was always a big hassle for me,

00:09:55   and I'd have to figure out what their Twitter name was

00:09:57   and go to their Twitter page

00:09:59   and find their real name from there.

00:10:00   It didn't even seem like it was people

00:10:02   who were trying to hide their name.

00:10:03   It's just sort of idiomatic for Tumblr.

00:10:06   But anyway, there's this site here.

00:10:07   - No, and that was actually designed that way.

00:10:09   We meant it to be,

00:10:11   like it's the same way that one account

00:10:14   could have multiple blogs,

00:10:16   and that there would be no way to tell,

00:10:18   unless you put it there,

00:10:20   which blogs belong to which account.

00:10:22   - Right, right.

00:10:23   it was very easy to create anonymous things

00:10:26   that weren't tied to your main identity,

00:10:28   and that was very much intentional.

00:10:30   Because like everything else at the time,

00:10:32   keep in mind we made Tumblr as kind of a response

00:10:35   to Myspace and Facebook and the big social networks

00:10:39   that were big when we started it in 2006.

00:10:42   And so Twitter wasn't really,

00:10:43   Twitter existed but it wasn't big.

00:10:45   So it was really a response to those

00:10:46   that were all about getting your real name

00:10:48   and putting all your stuff out in public

00:10:50   under your real name.

00:10:51   And a lot of people can't or won't give their real name

00:10:56   for a lot of the stuff they want to do online.

00:10:57   And so you enable a lot more creativity

00:11:02   and different types of uses if you allow people

00:11:05   to be anonymous.

00:11:06   So that was kind of like the ethos from the beginning

00:11:08   of you can make a different blog, it's no risk,

00:11:11   it's not gonna look bad upon you.

00:11:14   This was before all the hate crap that we have today.

00:11:17   Today it might be a little bit different calculation there.

00:11:19   But back then, most of the hate was confined to these fringe forms and stuff, and they weren't really on Tumblr.

00:11:24   I don't even know what they are now. I don't think they are. But regardless, the idea of getting an anonymous identity out there very, very easily was quite a positive thing in 2006.

00:11:36   Anyway, I just sent you the link. It's to a guy named Thomas Verschorin at Verschorin.com.

00:11:42   He has a Twitter link, so I got his name from there. But anyway, he has an interesting speculation here that

00:11:47   it's purely his guess. He's not claiming any sort of sources.

00:11:52   But what he's saying is that when Apple made standalone displays, they tend to sell them for a long time.

00:11:57   The 27-inch LED display was on sale for three years. The 27-inch Thunderbolt display was on sale for five years.

00:12:03   for five years, I guess they're still selling it?

00:12:05   Or do they still sell that, right?

00:12:07   I don't even know.

00:12:08   - No, no, no, they just continued

00:12:10   like a year and a half ago or something.

00:12:11   - So you can't even buy an outdated Apple Display

00:12:14   at this point?

00:12:14   - No, I mean, you might be able to find somebody

00:12:16   who has one in stock, but they haven't sold them new

00:12:18   for a while. - Cancel.

00:12:19   So here's his guess, is his guess is that Apple

00:12:25   didn't wanna release a 5K standalone cinema display

00:12:28   back in October when they did all the new MacBooks

00:12:31   that could use them because they weren't yet ready

00:12:34   to sell one with True Tone,

00:12:36   because they don't have True Tone in the iMac either.

00:12:38   None of the desktop Macs do.

00:12:40   And so, as he says here, his conclusion,

00:12:42   if you were Apple, what would you choose to do?

00:12:44   Release an Apple 5K Cinema Display in 2016

00:12:48   and then sell it for a few years unchanged without True Tone

00:12:52   or push the LG display in 2016 as a stopgap

00:12:56   and release an Apple 5K True Tone display sometime in 2017.

00:13:01   So is anybody who's still holding onto a thread of hope

00:13:05   that Apple hasn't abandoned the standalone display game, which

00:13:08   I would not bet on.

00:13:09   I kind of suspect that they are done.

00:13:12   But there's a wee bit of sense here, in my opinion.

00:13:17   I mean, so the thing about they tend

00:13:19   to have these displays that last for a certain amount of time.

00:13:22   Throw that right out, doesn't matter.

00:13:23   It doesn't matter how long things have been out,

00:13:25   like five years.

00:13:26   This is a very small sample size.

00:13:28   Apple does not artificially hold things back

00:13:30   simply because the last one is only three years old

00:13:32   instead of four years old or whatever.

00:13:34   Like that's, this is too small of a correlation to matter

00:13:38   and that's not how they really work.

00:13:39   I think the only question here is

00:13:42   whether we believe that they would hold back this display

00:13:45   and go through the kind of,

00:13:48   and assume the LG display was perfect, which it isn't,

00:13:51   but assume the LG display was perfect,

00:13:52   they still took a big PR hit

00:13:55   in order to push that as the solution

00:13:57   and to have the idea out there

00:13:59   unchallenged for months and still so far that they are out of this display

00:14:03   business. Yeah but what if they had no choice? Is that more like is that

00:14:07   is that more likely than them wanting to save True Tone for the iMac? They don't

00:14:12   sell them any iMacs, they sell a lot more laptops. It would not surprise me if when

00:14:17   the Thunderbolt display that they just when they discontinued recently, that one

00:14:22   when it was new, it wouldn't surprise me if that outsold the iMac when it was new.

00:14:27   It might not, but they sell a lot of laptops.

00:14:31   And they sell a lot of these displays for laptops,

00:14:33   for their laptops.

00:14:35   And so I don't see them holding back something

00:14:39   that their customers very clearly want,

00:14:42   replacing a product that was incredibly out of date,

00:14:45   only for the purpose of one of its really minor features,

00:14:50   like jumping ahead of the iMac getting that same feature.

00:14:53   It doesn't seem like that would be important enough to them

00:14:55   to justify all the downsides of that strategy.

00:14:57   What if the original plan though was like a year in advance or well over a year ago

00:15:01   if they had hoped to also have 5k IMAX at the end of 2016 too with True Tone and the

00:15:08   whole thing just fell apart?

00:15:09   Maybe.

00:15:10   That's plausible but it just seems—

00:15:12   I'm not saying how likely it is but the whole thing seems plausible to me that it's

00:15:16   some sort of engineering/supply chain screw up or you know maybe screw up is too harsh

00:15:23   of a word but something didn't go according to plan and that's where they are.

00:15:26   I don't know.

00:15:27   I still love it.

00:15:28   I brought it up the other week on this show.

00:15:29   And there must be an awful lot of people

00:15:31   who listen to my show who don't listen to ATP,

00:15:33   because I got so much--

00:15:35   the best feedback I got was that the observation--

00:15:39   I got so much email about ripping off

00:15:41   Syracuse's observation from ATP, which I did credit him with,

00:15:45   that what does Apple plan to do in their beautiful new campus?

00:15:48   Stuff all of these--

00:15:49   which supposedly has a more open floor plan, where you'll see

00:15:53   more of your colleagues' desks.

00:15:55   Are they going to put one of these ugly LG monitors

00:15:59   on every single one of these Johnny Ive designed desks?

00:16:02   Like Johnny Ive is bought these off in the woods,

00:16:05   nailing desks together out of wood

00:16:08   that comes from one special brand of tree

00:16:10   that grows in northern Italy or something.

00:16:13   And they're going to put ugly LG monitors on all these desks?

00:16:18   And that's also a good counterargument.

00:16:20   But I think it's just as likely that you could just say,

00:16:23   well, their solution is just they're

00:16:24   you're gonna give most of their engineers and stuff,

00:16:26   like iMacs.

00:16:27   It really does seem like,

00:16:30   and again, this could be blown under the water

00:16:33   when Apple releases a brand new Mac Pro, iMac Pro,

00:16:35   whatever it is in July, but I think that's very unlikely.

00:16:38   I think if that was gonna happen,

00:16:40   we would have a lot more than casual speculation

00:16:42   about it by now.

00:16:43   The fact that there's nothing in the pipeline

00:16:46   to suggest that's happening makes me believe

00:16:48   it's definitely not happening this year, if ever.

00:16:51   And so I really do think it's very clear

00:16:53   that we all have wishful thinking

00:16:56   that goes in a different direction,

00:16:57   but the reality is it's most likely

00:17:00   that Apple really is out of the display business

00:17:02   and the Pro Desktop business and the Mac Mini business

00:17:06   and is really just gonna make the iMac and the MacBook Pro

00:17:09   their only computers going forward.

00:17:11   - I've heard that, I think I figured

00:17:13   if I've talked about this,

00:17:14   I've heard that there is a new Mac Pro in the pipeline,

00:17:17   but that it is, it sounds ridiculous,

00:17:21   but that it's effectively in a slot

00:17:24   where there's so many other machines,

00:17:26   whether they're Macs or other things,

00:17:27   that are getting testing and validation engineering

00:17:31   resources ahead of it,

00:17:33   that there's no way it's gonna ship by WWDC.

00:17:36   Which seems ridiculous, but.

00:17:38   - Well, yeah.

00:17:38   Even if they, I mean, here's the thing.

00:17:42   Most people who feel bad about Apple

00:17:47   because of the lack of Mac Pro updates at all,

00:17:50   they don't necessarily need it to ship at WDC.

00:17:53   I think what would calm a lot of fears, my own included,

00:17:56   would just be an acknowledgement and confirmation

00:17:59   that something else is coming.

00:18:01   Just confirmation, even if it's one of their BSE replies

00:18:04   to the press, keep an eye out, this space,

00:18:07   you know, whatever else, something.

00:18:10   And Tim Cook's little Q&A response

00:18:12   to that internal bulletin board thing a few months back,

00:18:14   that wasn't enough.

00:18:15   That was actually, in fact, making things worse, I think,

00:18:17   by kind of implying that the iMac was gonna be it,

00:18:20   going forward. That's all we really want here. But again, I just, it's what I want to be

00:18:27   true. I want there to be a new Mac Pro of some sort. And if it's shaped like an iMac,

00:18:34   and it has a built-in 5K screen, and it just has a Xeon processor in it with like a thicker

00:18:38   back for a bigger heatsink, that's fine. I'll take that. That actually sounds kind of nice

00:18:42   to me. It wouldn't be as ideal as standalone, because then I'd have the same problem I have

00:18:45   now when it gets image retention, and I have to send the whole thing in. But I'd take it.

00:18:49   It's better than nothing, that'd be great.

00:18:51   - Yeah, and it leads to weird situations.

00:18:54   I mean, again, better than nothing if they made an iMac Pro

00:18:57   and somehow put a Xeon in there and solved the heat problems

00:19:01   that that would, you know,

00:19:02   I say that's technically possible.

00:19:04   The biggest-- - Well, and I think

00:19:07   it's possible, although, talking to ATB Tipster

00:19:10   about this a little bit in our chat a few weeks ago,

00:19:12   he pointed out that the logic board in the iMac

00:19:15   faces the wrong way to really make that happen.

00:19:18   I think the CPU faces towards you when you're sitting at it.

00:19:21   And to drastically improve the heat capacity

00:19:25   to be able to cool a high-powered Xeon chip

00:19:27   to make it more Mac Pro class processing power,

00:19:30   you need to flip the whole logic board around,

00:19:31   which is kind of be like a redesign

00:19:33   on the level of a whole new iMac generation.

00:19:36   So the question is, would Apple really do that

00:19:39   for this relatively low volume,

00:19:42   I mean, I guess they designed a whole case before,

00:19:44   but it sure does seem like they couldn't possibly care less

00:19:49   about keeping the Mac Pro updated in any reasonable fashion.

00:19:52   And so it really, it's a pretty big question

00:19:55   whether they would basically redesign

00:19:57   the entire iMac enclosure and a whole new computer

00:20:01   just for this line that they haven't given two craps about

00:20:04   for three years.

00:20:05   - It's a real mystery.

00:20:07   I think it's possible, I think the iMac Pro is possible

00:20:11   or that they'll sell it as a Pro somehow.

00:20:14   I don't know.

00:20:15   But--

00:20:16   I hope-- I wish for it to be true, but I just don't see it.

00:20:19   But there's got to be a reason why they don't just

00:20:22   stop selling the Mac Pros.

00:20:23   There's some contingent within the company that's clearly

00:20:26   hoping for new Mac Pros.

00:20:28   Otherwise, it would be easier.

00:20:30   It would be easier, and they'd look less foolish

00:20:33   if they had canceled the Mac Pro like it last WWDC,

00:20:36   if they had just said, hey, these new iMacs are so great,

00:20:38   that it's all that-- the time for the standalone is gone,

00:20:43   whatever, people would disagree, obviously,

00:20:45   and there'd be people who'd be heartbroken,

00:20:47   and there'd be people who were furious,

00:20:48   but at least Apple wouldn't look foolish, right?

00:20:51   - Yeah, 'cause it really looks bad now.

00:20:53   Like, it really, the situation now is

00:20:55   egregiously bad.

00:20:58   It's kind of embarrassing.

00:21:00   - It's hard to believe.

00:21:01   It's really kind of hard to believe how old it is.

00:21:03   It really is.

00:21:04   And still my biggest regret is that I didn't ask Schiller

00:21:08   about it on stage last year, and I had the card.

00:21:10   I had it on a card, and I did not.

00:21:14   Some people understand, but it's so hard

00:21:16   to keep that thing going live.

00:21:18   And it's my one and only regret from that whole show.

00:21:22   The year before, when Schiller was on the first time,

00:21:25   I had way more regrets afterwards.

00:21:26   And I felt like my self-criticism really helped,

00:21:30   and I did a better job last year.

00:21:31   But my one-- oh, I can't believe it.

00:21:35   And now look at this.

00:21:36   We're already at the point where WWDC has been announced again,

00:21:39   and it still hasn't been answered.

00:21:41   And the one reason why I put it at a lower priority at first,

00:21:45   and then towards the end when I was wrapping up,

00:21:47   I was flipping through the cards I had left,

00:21:50   and I didn't see that one, which I might have,

00:21:53   is like a last question.

00:21:54   But the reason I originally had it lower in the stack

00:21:57   was I thought, well, they've got to do something in September,

00:21:59   right?

00:22:00   [LAUGHTER]

00:22:04   Yeah.

00:22:04   I can get them on the record now,

00:22:06   It's only for the next two, three months.

00:22:09   So anyway, I don't know.

00:22:10   - Well, and it's hard.

00:22:12   When you're in a situation like what you're doing

00:22:15   with these executive interviews, it's hard.

00:22:18   And we got a little bit of this from when ATP interviewed

00:22:22   Chris Lattner a few weeks ago.

00:22:23   - Which was great, by the way.

00:22:25   - And we had a couple people ask us afterwards

00:22:28   on Twitter and email and stuff,

00:22:29   why didn't you ask me about the Mac Pro?

00:22:31   - Oh, you can't.

00:22:34   Yeah, it's like, A, even if he knew about Mac Pro stuff,

00:22:39   you know, you're not gonna answer that.

00:22:41   And B, the guy who writes the compiler

00:22:44   probably has no clue about what the Mac Pro hardware team

00:22:47   is doing and what might or might not be released

00:22:49   in that department.

00:22:50   Like, it's a big company.

00:22:51   And so like, anyway, your context,

00:22:54   like interviewing Schiller on stage,

00:22:55   like, it's tough to know whether you should bust out

00:23:00   a question like that which is slightly antagonizing

00:23:03   and really puts them on the spot.

00:23:06   'Cause like, there's a very good chance

00:23:09   that you would just get like a non-answer,

00:23:12   you know, just like a nice PR-friendly non-answer,

00:23:14   kind of like Tim Cook's post,

00:23:15   like we really love desktops,

00:23:17   we have great desktops coming in the future,

00:23:18   you know, like stuff like that.

00:23:19   And that's not very helpful,

00:23:21   and then you've just like shifted the tone of the interview

00:23:24   in a way that now they are on edge

00:23:27   or are less likely to go to you in the future.

00:23:29   So it's a tricky balance.

00:23:32   So I don't blame you for not asking that last year.

00:23:34   - No, but it wasn't because I thought it was--

00:23:35   - I wouldn't blame you for not asking it this year.

00:23:36   - Yeah, this year it would have to happen.

00:23:38   - This year's gonna be the first question you ask.

00:23:40   - Yeah, but watch, I'll end up getting,

00:23:43   I don't know, somebody that has nothing to do

00:23:46   with Mac hardware or something like that.

00:23:48   (laughing)

00:23:50   - You can get Chris Ladder.

00:23:51   - Right, like all of a sudden

00:23:52   Schiller doesn't return my calls.

00:23:53   No, I would have, 'cause there's ways to ask it,

00:23:58   and I feel like that's something that I,

00:24:01   maybe why I've gotten to this position where I can do this,

00:24:04   is where I can ask the question, but do it in a way that's not

00:24:07   confrontational.

00:24:09   I mean, the framing I would have used is, look,

00:24:11   this audience in particular is largely

00:24:15   comprised of people who use Xcode, which

00:24:16   is one of the apps where every bit of CPU power

00:24:21   can really help at times.

00:24:24   And we're in this transition moving towards from Objective-C

00:24:29   to Swift.

00:24:29   Swift, I think it's fair to say, is more taxing on the CPU than Objective-C. It seems like

00:24:35   the Swift compiler is, you know, you can write Swift code that takes a lot longer to compile,

00:24:40   but whatever, it certainly isn't easy to compile. And there's just a general sentiment that

00:24:47   Apple's priorities for pro hardware in general are lower than they used to be. The Mac Pro

00:24:56   is I don't know, whatever it was, 900 days old at this time,

00:24:59   after an incredibly splashy debut.

00:25:02   What the heck is going on here?

00:25:03   I don't think that is making-- it's not

00:25:06   like I'm putting him on the spot.

00:25:07   And he can easily say-- and maybe that's all he would have

00:25:10   said is, hey, we love you guys.

00:25:13   We got you.

00:25:14   But you know I can't talk about future stuff.

00:25:17   I don't have anything to say about it.

00:25:18   And then that's the end of it.

00:25:22   So it's possible, but at least I would have asked.

00:25:24   Yeah.

00:25:26   Anyway, there's always there's always future executive podcast interviews live at everybody. I loved the latner interview, by the way

00:25:32   I don't I it was really and especially for a show that

00:25:35   Almost never does interviews. I mean you guys never

00:25:41   I thought there was one a long time ago or no, I guess you guys swapped you guys swapped with another show

00:25:47   Yeah, we had John trade spots with Christina Warren right for one episode

00:25:50   Which actually turned out really nice, but it wasn't really an interview show

00:25:52   It's just like she just was another host on our show for that episode, right?

00:25:55   You know, I thought that for a show that has an established rhythm between the three of you

00:26:00   in which really none of it is really interview style and there's an incredible comfort level between your

00:26:06   personalities to have somebody new on and

00:26:09   Do a three-way interview where it eats all three of you asked good questions

00:26:14   I thought it was really impressive because that's hard to do because it was a really different show. Yeah

00:26:20   It's like all of a sudden instead of driving a car you're you're riding bicycles or something

00:26:23   Yeah, it was a lot of fun though and Chris was you know

00:26:28   He made it easy on us like he wasn't like a prima donna about anything and you know

00:26:32   Just really easy to work with and a super nice guy. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, he is it's you know, it's

00:26:38   You know, it's obviously not true from top to bottom

00:26:40   But it is generally true that Apple tends to attract very nice people. There are yeah

00:26:48   You know, I mean Federighi is a great example where you know, I don't know what he's like in real personal life

00:26:52   But you know like backstage and stuff like that and when you see him at WWDC and and people come up and and you know

00:26:59   Just random attendees are like, hey, can I get a selfie or whatever?

00:27:02   He stops and talks for you know, five minutes with them and asks what they're doing

00:27:05   He he comes across like talking to a group of five

00:27:09   You know first time in WWDC at WWDC attendees wearing the WWDC jacket

00:27:16   He comes across exactly with the same demeanor that he has on stage. So like that affection that people seem to have for him

00:27:21   It's true. That seems to be his personality and Latiners exactly that type of personalities

00:27:26   He's you know, just just a nice guy

00:27:28   Yeah, did I ever did I tell you about last year WC when I visited apples and Facebook's campuses in the same day? Yeah

00:27:36   It all sort of blurs together

00:27:39   I remember you doing it, but I don't remember what the details were really interesting like so

00:27:43   - Yeah, in both cases, me and Casey

00:27:47   and a couple other friends, we had a friend

00:27:50   at each company that wanted to just give us

00:27:53   a quick tour, let us in, and show us around,

00:27:55   and stuff like that, and Apple, I only saw

00:27:57   the center courtyard and Cafe Max,

00:28:01   'cause you can't bring people into the buildings,

00:28:03   really, there.

00:28:04   - Frowned upon.

00:28:06   - Yeah, exactly, so I didn't see any actual offices,

00:28:09   but I was able to see the courtyard and hang out

00:28:11   and have lunch with everybody there,

00:28:13   and we had lunch with something like 15 people

00:28:15   at this giant table.

00:28:16   So I got to meet a lot of people there

00:28:18   and hang out for a good amount of time

00:28:20   and they have pretty good coffee at Apple,

00:28:21   even at Cafe Max, I gotta say.

00:28:23   And kind of get a feel for the vibe of the campus,

00:28:27   even though I didn't see any offices.

00:28:28   And then a couple hours later we went to Facebook

00:28:31   and I had never been to either of these campuses before.

00:28:34   I had been to the Apple retail store,

00:28:36   but I'd never gone through the doors into the courtyard.

00:28:40   And I'm actually not sure I was allowed to.

00:28:42   They have some kind of weird rules about bloggers,

00:28:44   but I think I'm just under--

00:28:46   like, I'm not really officially Apple Press in any capacity.

00:28:49   I never have been.

00:28:50   And so I think that's why it wasn't a problem

00:28:52   that I was there.

00:28:53   Because I had a friend who tried to go--

00:28:56   who was Apple Press and was not allowed in.

00:28:58   So that was interesting.

00:29:00   But anyway, so seeing Apple and then seeing Facebook

00:29:07   could not have been two more different company culture

00:29:11   environments, at least visibly from these brief visits I did. And Facebook, I just

00:29:18   felt horrible the whole time I was there. Like, I felt kind of creeped out and

00:29:23   intimidated by just how bizarre and kind of intense, high energy but not high

00:29:30   positive energy it seemed to be. Like, just really like, I don't know, it's hard to

00:29:36   explain. I really did, I really got a very bad feeling from Facebook. A

00:29:39   combination of like how does anybody get any work done here

00:29:43   and where are the adults and and it just didn't feel good. It

00:29:48   felt like a dysfunctional workaholic culture that was

00:29:51   hard to get any real work done in an in an environment. That's

00:29:54   kind of weirdly like like trapped in youth forever

00:29:58   bizarro college fantasy world and then Apple was so like calm

00:30:05   and adult and just like nicely like low key.

00:30:08   The people there were just like nice and calm.

00:30:11   And it kind of felt like, oh, this is where the adults work.

00:30:14   Like this is like where people come

00:30:17   to actually do serious work.

00:30:19   And it was a much, it just,

00:30:21   whatever the environment actually is,

00:30:24   again, because I've never worked at these companies

00:30:26   and didn't even go inside the offices at Apple,

00:30:28   it's hard for me to really say this,

00:30:30   but it just felt like the little tiny windows

00:30:34   into these cultures I saw really just seemed like

00:30:37   Apple was the place where the nice, mature adults

00:30:41   go to work.

00:30:42   - Mm, I could see that.

00:30:43   I don't know.

00:30:45   It definitely seems like people who go to Apple,

00:30:48   company cultures attract like-minded people,

00:30:53   but it does seem to me, in general,

00:30:54   like when I've been there,

00:30:56   people know how to turn it off,

00:30:58   that when you're going to lunch

00:31:00   and they're gonna have lunch with a friend,

00:31:01   they're just having lunch with a friend.

00:31:04   - Right, yeah.

00:31:05   - Get back up to speed when they get back to work

00:31:07   or whatever.

00:31:08   - I mean, I'll tell you one thing.

00:31:10   I don't hear a lot of stories about Facebook and Apple

00:31:13   stealing talent from each other,

00:31:15   and maybe that's 'cause I don't really pay attention,

00:31:16   but I'll tell you one thing, seeing them both those places,

00:31:19   I cannot imagine that anybody who works for one

00:31:22   would want to work for the other in either direction.

00:31:25   Like, I don't think they're competing

00:31:26   for the same people at all.

00:31:28   - Yeah, I've never really heard that either.

00:31:30   I mean, and obviously at a certain level,

00:31:32   There's probably some like maybe like sysadmins

00:31:35   or something like that.

00:31:36   But, and you know what, there was that one team at Facebook

00:31:39   that was largely poached from Apple,

00:31:40   but now they're all dispersed, right?

00:31:42   They're gone.

00:31:43   The mic man is--

00:31:44   - All the designers, yeah, they bought a bunch of designers

00:31:45   for a while and then just slowly eroded their sanity

00:31:48   until they all quit.

00:31:49   - Right, and they built a very Apple-like beautiful system

00:31:53   and custom tools to support it with Facebook paper

00:31:55   or whatever they call, whether it was just paper

00:31:58   or Facebook paper or whatever.

00:31:59   - One of the names they stole, yeah, it's fine.

00:32:02   - Well, but you know what I mean.

00:32:04   It's a tough call because the paper app,

00:32:08   the other paper app, the one that you draw on,

00:32:10   was there first.

00:32:11   But it's the risk you take when you

00:32:13   pick a regular, a plain word is your app name.

00:32:17   - It seemed like for a while there,

00:32:19   Facebook was just gobbling up as much design talent

00:32:22   as they could at about the same time

00:32:23   that Google was gobbling up as much email talent

00:32:25   as they could.

00:32:26   And it seems like both of those have just kind of fizzled

00:32:28   and faded over the last year or so.

00:32:30   I haven't heard anything about them recently.

00:32:32   - I think in broad terms what happened

00:32:34   was that there was a period where Zuckerberg,

00:32:36   I think it coincides with,

00:32:38   'cause if there's one, I don't get Facebook,

00:32:43   I've never signed up for it.

00:32:44   And so I'm not, it does feel foreign to me.

00:32:48   It feels like studying a foreign country.

00:32:51   But from my observations, it is clear,

00:32:54   I don't think there could be any question

00:32:55   that Zuckerberg has a tremendous gift for changing his mind.

00:32:59   People often said that about Steve Jobs.

00:33:02   Tim Cook has often, when he talks about working

00:33:05   with Steve Jobs, usually just talks about him

00:33:08   on a personal level, but if you can get him talking

00:33:10   about working, Tim Cook tells stories about his

00:33:14   absolutely amazing ability to change his mind.

00:33:16   But the Steve Jobs style is that when he comes in

00:33:19   with his mind change, he acts as though it was

00:33:21   his opinion all along.

00:33:22   And I think Bill Gates had some of that too, right?

00:33:26   Like when Bill Gates famously, like Microsoft

00:33:29   building this early '90s strategy to sort of do their own custom stuff for connecting

00:33:34   computers to each other. And then all of a sudden, Gates writes like a 10-page manifesto

00:33:39   that we've got to get on this internet thing. And all of a sudden, I mean, how long did

00:33:43   it take for Explorer to decimate Netscape? Didn't take long.

00:33:49   Yeah, but at the same time, they made an active desktop. So I don't know if that was a net

00:33:53   win.

00:33:54   I'm not saying that it was seamlessly executed. I'm just saying that we did change his mind.

00:33:59   And the broad strokes Facebook was a website.

00:34:04   It was a website you went to and you did all these things.

00:34:06   And the iPhone came out.

00:34:08   And an awful lot of products that

00:34:10   were popular websites in 2007 in the iPhone era

00:34:17   just weren't getting the engagement that things that

00:34:20   could be done as a native app got.

00:34:23   And--

00:34:23   Oh, yeah.

00:34:25   Not to go too far off into the weeds, but one reason

00:34:27   is that an awful lot of websites were built.

00:34:30   I don't think this is true anymore because mobile is--

00:34:32   I don't think anybody overlooks it.

00:34:34   But the back end of the website was inextricably tied

00:34:37   to the front end of the website.

00:34:39   And instead of having everything go through nice APIs,

00:34:42   even the front end of the website,

00:34:43   so that you could make clients for other devices,

00:34:47   like a native Mac client, or-- and people would say,

00:34:52   well, I forget.

00:34:52   You don't need a native Mac or Windows client.

00:34:54   We'll just go through the web browser.

00:34:55   And for a lot of things, for a lot of years, that was fine.

00:34:57   But then with the phone, that wasn't good enough.

00:34:59   And Facebook had an app that was largely just

00:35:02   a front end for HTML and JavaScript.

00:35:05   And then they seemed to get it.

00:35:06   And it's from Zuckerberg on down that, no, we

00:35:09   should do this with as much native stuff as we can.

00:35:12   This app is important.

00:35:13   This is more important than our website.

00:35:16   And that's around when he hired all those designers.

00:35:18   And I think there was sort of a look.

00:35:21   Apple's a company to look at.

00:35:23   they value A+ design talent, maybe we should too.

00:35:28   And then I think in the intervening years,

00:35:30   Facebook realized that that wasn't really

00:35:32   that important to them.

00:35:34   That the native part was, but the design caliber wasn't.

00:35:38   - Or rather, I think it seemed like there was

00:35:41   a lot of trouble, you know, like they were able

00:35:43   to get the talent, but just, you know,

00:35:45   by applying sheer force of will and lots of money,

00:35:48   they were able to get the talent.

00:35:49   But then the question is, well, what do you have,

00:35:50   all these incredibly talented people do at Facebook.

00:35:54   And that was, it seemed like they had a harder time

00:35:57   having a good answer to that question

00:35:59   and maintaining that over time.

00:36:01   But who knows, it's hard to keep good people interested

00:36:05   in working for a giant established product.

00:36:08   You know, like Apple has this problem too.

00:36:10   Like once you have something that's big and successful

00:36:12   and boring like Facebook or the iPhone,

00:36:14   it's hard to get people interested in working on that,

00:36:18   the same kind of people who would make something like that

00:36:19   'cause they wanna go make something else.

00:36:21   - Yeah, I know Mike Mattis a little bit,

00:36:23   and I haven't spoken to him much since he left Facebook,

00:36:28   so I'm just sort of speculating here,

00:36:31   but I know from a couple of the people on the team

00:36:33   that they were used to being the A team at the company.

00:36:36   Mattis was, I think, I know he designed a whole bunch

00:36:40   of stuff in the original iPhone,

00:36:41   but I think he literally did the actual pixels

00:36:44   for the slide to unlock.

00:36:49   And if you're the person who designs both the visuals

00:36:53   and the interaction for a thing, doing Slide to Unlock

00:36:56   is pretty big.

00:36:57   Because I remember Steve Jobs actually demoed it

00:36:59   like three times.

00:37:00   He was like, that's so cool.

00:37:01   I'm going to do it again.

00:37:01   He locked the phone and did it again.

00:37:04   So when you're designing the feature that Steve Jobs

00:37:08   decides, I'm just going to do this three or four times

00:37:10   on stage because I just love it so much,

00:37:13   and then to go to Facebook, and you're not designing the app

00:37:18   that's in front of a billion users,

00:37:20   you're designing the app that's in front of like

00:37:22   one tenth of one percent of the users

00:37:24   who care more about how things look

00:37:26   than the regular Facebook experience.

00:37:29   I just think it's hard to get excited about that.

00:37:33   - Yeah.

00:37:33   - I'll take a break, let's take a break.

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00:39:02   No "the," just "talk show."

00:39:04   And no, no, you came here and you get a free 30-day trial.

00:39:07   30 days, we can just listen to whatever you want.

00:39:09   Audible.com/talkshow.

00:39:13   I think I wrote that script.

00:39:15   Yeah, maybe.

00:39:16   [LAUGHTER]

00:39:19   I was telling her--

00:39:24   I forget if it was on air or not.

00:39:26   But Bill Simmons--

00:39:28   I've been listening to him.

00:39:29   I read the football season I was listening.

00:39:31   He does a sports thing.

00:39:32   He does a thing called the ringer.

00:39:33   Thank you.

00:39:36   Very popular.

00:39:36   You probably see it.

00:39:37   It's probably pretty high up in overcast.

00:39:39   So that'd be interesting to see if it was actually

00:39:40   all that high up in overcast.

00:39:41   maybe Overcast skews towards non-sports stuff. Maybe like sports stuff is a little bit more,

00:39:48   I don't know, they'd be in our syndicate. It does pretty well in Overcast. It is not as high as tech

00:39:53   shows and like the really popular, you know, NPR-style storytelling shows like This American

00:39:58   Life, though. I think it was Ben Thompson and I who were talking about it. I forget if it was on

00:40:01   the show or off. But the gist of it is that when Bill Simmons first started doing sponsors reads

00:40:06   on his show. He was awful at it, as was I when I first split off and started doing this

00:40:12   show on my own. Just brutal. Maybe the shows were okay, but the sponsor reads were just

00:40:18   brutal. I don't know why. It's a hard thing to do.

00:40:22   You got the hang of it eventually. It took you maybe a couple of months, and you were

00:40:25   pretty good at it.

00:40:26   Yeah, but Simmons has actually taken it to a new level. I would venture to say he was

00:40:31   worse than me at the beginning, and now he's better than anybody I've ever seen.

00:40:35   He's like in Howard Stern territory at being able to do it. Because sometimes

00:40:41   when I listen to Stern anymore, it almost seems like when Stern does one, where

00:40:44   he does the read, he's phoning it. You could tell he's phoning it in.

00:40:47   Whereas Simmons does it, and he's got a real tight script, and it seems like

00:40:51   he's trying to literally stick it to 30 seconds, get in and out, and he really

00:40:57   starts talking faster.

00:40:59   And it just alleviates-- it just completely alleviates

00:41:03   any urge I have to skip ahead.

00:41:05   I tend not to--

00:41:06   Interesting.

00:41:07   I tend not to skip ahead on sponsor reads, on podcasts,

00:41:10   simply because I-- you know, I know some people do.

00:41:14   And if you do, you know, that's why the feature's there.

00:41:16   It's OK.

00:41:17   It's my job to try to make it as interesting.

00:41:19   You and I have talked about this before.

00:41:20   It's my job to try to make it so interesting

00:41:21   that you don't want to skip.

00:41:22   But when I'm listening to podcasts,

00:41:24   I tend not to skip because I want to listen.

00:41:26   I'm curious at a professional level,

00:41:29   how is this person going to keep me interested?

00:41:31   - Yeah, I often will listen to other people

00:41:34   who are doing reads for the same sponsors that I have

00:41:36   just to hear, like, you know, how are you doing this read?

00:41:39   And like, maybe there's something I can learn

00:41:41   and do better in my reads for the same people

00:41:43   from the way you're doing this read.

00:41:45   - Yeah.

00:41:45   So what else we got?

00:41:48   We got a lot to talk about, we gotta hurry up.

00:41:50   (laughing)

00:41:51   - We're really good at that, yeah.

00:41:52   - So we got the, what about WWDC moving?

00:41:55   - Yeah, it's cool.

00:41:56   I mean, I don't know anything about San Jose,

00:41:58   so it's gonna be interesting.

00:41:59   - We talked a little bit about that.

00:42:00   I was completely surprised by this.

00:42:03   This just wasn't even on my radar.

00:42:05   But I kind of, once it happened, it was an initial shock,

00:42:09   and then I thought, oh shit,

00:42:10   what am I gonna do about my live show?

00:42:11   Of course, my thoughts turned to myself immediately.

00:42:15   (laughing)

00:42:17   - Everyone else's did too.

00:42:18   Everyone else is like, oh, how can I fly there?

00:42:20   Is Arno hotels expensive?

00:42:21   I mean, everyone's thinking the same general stuff.

00:42:25   Most of the people aren't thinking,

00:42:25   where can I host my live podcast?

00:42:27   - It just never occurred to me

00:42:28   that they would do this though.

00:42:30   I guess the rough thinking was,

00:42:34   and we've all had this, people who go regularly,

00:42:36   that San Francisco's not great.

00:42:39   I mean, there are parts of San Francisco

00:42:42   that are absolutely gorgeous,

00:42:44   but south of Market where Moscone is, it's not great.

00:42:47   I don't hate it, some people really hate it.

00:42:49   Some people, it is what it is,

00:42:51   but it is sort of the touristy, hotel-y,

00:42:55   maybe touristy's the wrong, but it's--

00:42:59   - It's kind of like the worst of San Francisco.

00:43:01   The area that we see when we go to WBC

00:43:04   is a terrible image of the city as a whole.

00:43:08   - Well, and it's not too far from Union Square, though,

00:43:11   and Union Square is nicer,

00:43:12   but Union Square is just high-end retail.

00:43:15   It's not, you know what I mean?

00:43:16   Like, what are you supposed to do,

00:43:18   go shopping for jewelry and stuff like that?

00:43:20   It's OK.

00:43:22   But it is what it is.

00:43:24   But the fact is that Apple, we'd say, well,

00:43:26   what could they do different?

00:43:28   Well, there's no other facility with 5,000 people.

00:43:31   And then we would just say, well, it used to be in San Jose,

00:43:33   but they moved out of San Jose for a reason.

00:43:35   And there's nothing else.

00:43:38   And they're not going to go further away,

00:43:39   because it's already a major stress on Apple

00:43:42   to get 1,000 engineers from the South Bay area

00:43:45   to San Francisco for labs and to just hang out and do stuff

00:43:48   and still get work done.

00:43:50   I, for one, had just completely overlooked the,

00:43:57   well, they could move back to San Jose angle for years.

00:44:00   It just never really,

00:44:01   I never even really gave it serious thought,

00:44:03   but then once they said, yeah, here's what we're doing,

00:44:05   I could totally see the logic of it,

00:44:06   and it seems like a very Apple-like move.

00:44:09   - I mean, really, it makes a ton of sense logistically too.

00:44:12   I mean, not only is it closer to them,

00:44:13   but like San Francisco is a dense, competitive,

00:44:18   very expensive city, there's a reason why

00:44:21   you don't see a lot of tech conferences in Manhattan.

00:44:24   It's because if you put on a tech conference in Manhattan,

00:44:28   the space that you hold it in is going to be

00:44:30   extraordinarily expensive.

00:44:32   All the logistics, getting the food in there,

00:44:35   getting all the equipment, that's all gonna be

00:44:37   extraordinarily expensive.

00:44:38   And then for the attendees, they're gonna have to pay

00:44:41   ridiculous hotel prices because they're going

00:44:44   to this major city that is itself

00:44:46   a massive tourist destination.

00:44:48   And so it's very unappealing to hold a major conference

00:44:52   in New York City unless it really needs to be

00:44:56   specifically in New York City for some reason.

00:44:59   WBC could be anywhere.

00:45:00   As far as the attendees are concerned,

00:45:03   it doesn't matter where it is.

00:45:05   You're going to see talks and labs and stuff

00:45:07   and that could be in any conference center

00:45:09   in any city in America.

00:45:11   You don't have to be paying the extreme premium

00:45:16   and dealing with all the logistical challenges

00:45:18   and downsides of being in a massive tourist

00:45:21   expensive dense city just to go watch some talks and go to lab.

00:45:26   And either you already have friends and colleagues

00:45:29   who will also be there, and you'll see them,

00:45:32   and it doesn't matter where you are.

00:45:33   Or even if you don't, even if you're like a first timer,

00:45:36   if you're new, you're going to be surrounded

00:45:38   by like-minded individuals.

00:45:41   And it's not hard to make friends, or even just

00:45:44   temporary friends while sitting at a bar

00:45:46   or something like that.

00:45:47   You're very, you know, you can start talking about Xcode

00:45:50   and all of a sudden, you know, you're not bored.

00:45:52   - Right, I mean like, if anything,

00:45:53   the city's kind of wasted on you

00:45:55   because if you're attending the conference,

00:45:58   you don't really have time to go out

00:46:00   and explore much of the city.

00:46:01   Like for the most part, you're waking up,

00:46:04   you're trying to get to that 9 a.m. session in the morning,

00:46:06   you're in sessions and stuff all day,

00:46:08   you might have a little hour for lunch

00:46:09   but you can't go that far, and then you're back

00:46:11   and then like five o'clock rolls around

00:46:12   and you just wanna go to the hotel bar with your friends,

00:46:15   have a couple of drinks, and go to dinner,

00:46:18   and that's the night.

00:46:19   You can do that anywhere.

00:46:20   You're not seeing the whole city.

00:46:23   It doesn't really make sense.

00:46:25   One of my favorite conference venues I've ever been to

00:46:28   is where Ool has been held the last couple years,

00:46:31   in Killarney, Ireland, in this hotel called The Europe.

00:46:34   And it's this very, very remote location.

00:46:38   And the hotel itself, you've been there.

00:46:40   Have you been there, actually?

00:46:41   - I don't think so.

00:46:42   I don't, uh.

00:46:43   - Yeah, 'cause you missed the, yeah, anyway, it's awesome.

00:46:47   It's the third remote. - It depends how many years

00:46:48   in a row they've been at the same one.

00:46:50   I was at one that was at a remote location,

00:46:52   but I think they've switched to a different remote location.

00:46:55   - Yeah, this is, I believe this is their third one

00:46:58   that they're about to do next month.

00:46:59   I'm going, I recommend it.

00:47:01   Anyway, so it's just like this one giant hotel venue

00:47:06   kind of in the middle of nowhere, it's beautiful,

00:47:09   but like you're all kind of self-enclosed there.

00:47:11   There is a nearby city of Killarney,

00:47:14   but you don't really,

00:47:16   the attendees don't really have to go there.

00:47:17   You're all on premises, and you're surrounded

00:47:20   by all the people that are there for your event,

00:47:23   and so there is no time to go out and enjoy some other city.

00:47:28   That's what you're there for.

00:47:29   You're there to hang out with those people

00:47:31   and see those talks and do those events.

00:47:32   So to have a conference in a massive city

00:47:35   that you're paying a big premium to be in

00:47:38   doesn't actually make a lot of sense.

00:47:39   (laughing)

00:47:40   I love Ireland. I remember the last time I was there and there was a band, remember,

00:47:46   and their lead singer, were you there this year? And there was a lead singer named Paddy,

00:47:50   P-A-D-D-Y.

00:47:51   I've never been there on the same time that you were there.

00:47:54   I don't think so either. So Paddy was there and he was the lead singer of this band and

00:47:58   he had nothing interesting. He had no connection to Apple-related stuff. But he came up to

00:48:04   the pub without leaving the building.

00:48:08   It's sort of like a compound.

00:48:09   He came up and was gonna have a drink or two,

00:48:12   and he just, you know, he's a gregarious showbiz performer,

00:48:15   but very nice.

00:48:17   And it quickly struck up conversations

00:48:19   with all sorts of people, and he was having a good time,

00:48:22   and never left. (laughs)

00:48:25   And then at like midnight, they were doing Last Call,

00:48:28   and everybody was like, "Oh, man, what are we gonna do?

00:48:30   "Everybody wanted to stay up a little bit later."

00:48:32   And Patty went up to the bartender and just off--

00:48:36   it wasn't like whispering in his ear,

00:48:37   but he just spent about two minutes talking to him.

00:48:39   And the next thing you know, the bartender's

00:48:41   like slapping on the back.

00:48:42   And the bartender says, all right,

00:48:43   we'll stay open two more hours.

00:48:44   [LAUGHTER]

00:48:45   That's awesome.

00:48:46   I've never heard of anything like that in my life,

00:48:48   like we're the staff of a place.

00:48:50   And he got-- he called over--

00:48:52   he didn't make it unilaterally.

00:48:53   He called over another bartender and was just like,

00:48:55   hey, what do you-- these guys want to keep going.

00:48:57   How about we do two more hours?

00:48:59   [LAUGHTER]

00:49:01   It was a good conference.

00:49:04   Why do you think WWDC moved from San Jose to San Francisco

00:49:08   when it did?

00:49:08   I think it was 2003 or 2004.

00:49:11   - I don't know, that was before my time.

00:49:12   I think some of the other things I've heard,

00:49:15   I think Jason was talking about it on Upgrade,

00:49:18   about how back then Apple really wanted to be

00:49:23   in more of the media spotlight with this stuff.

00:49:25   It's more prestigious to go there.

00:49:27   It's really owning, yeah, we're big, we're awesome,

00:49:30   It kind of attracts more media attention being there.

00:49:32   But now the attention comes to them,

00:49:33   so they don't need to do that as much.

00:49:35   - Yeah, I think that's it exactly.

00:49:36   I think it was Steve Jobs.

00:49:38   And I think Steve Jobs, you know,

00:49:39   Apple was firing on all cylinders.

00:49:41   The iPod was slowly turning into a massive hit.

00:49:46   The retail stores were slowly turning into a success story.

00:49:50   They were, it was the, you know, the last, famously,

00:49:55   I know that, I think Jason and Mike even went over this,

00:49:58   And the last one at San Jose was the one

00:50:01   where they had a funeral for Mac OS 9, which was actually

00:50:05   kind of forced.

00:50:07   Like, the only reason they had to--

00:50:09   you think that's a weird thing to do

00:50:11   is have a funeral on stage for your product.

00:50:13   But it was actually because it wasn't dead.

00:50:16   It was because so many people were still using Mac OS 9.

00:50:20   But it was at the point where they

00:50:21   felt like they were in the clear.

00:50:24   It was three or four years into the--

00:50:25   I guess at least three years into the Mac OS 10 era.

00:50:28   But they were at the point where I think they could see the light at the end of the tunnel that yes

00:50:31   We're we're going to make this transition all max will be running Mac OS X

00:50:37   You know

00:50:38   This isn't going to sink us the first two years of Mac OS X was kind of iffy really in terms of how big the uptake

00:50:44   Was so I think that after that one, you know, the Mac was clearly had a bright future. The iPod was great retail was great

00:50:50   I think Steve Jobs wanted a bigger spotlight

00:50:53   And I think doing I hope that you have having like a hopeful funeral

00:50:57   Like, we really hope this is it, guys. Please, Richard, we're begging you, please make this

00:51:03   dead.

00:51:04   I remember they had it, and it was before my time of attending WWDCs, but I still had

00:51:08   two Macs at my desk. I had a Power Mac 9600 that was still running Mac OS 9 as my main

00:51:17   machine, and then I had an iBook running OS 10.

00:51:21   Oh, see, now I have one with a keyboard I can use and one with another one.

00:51:26   So that's what I think.

00:51:27   I think they moved to San Francisco for the publicity.

00:51:30   I think that's exactly right,

00:51:31   that they wanted more attention.

00:51:33   They felt like they could use it.

00:51:35   They had stuff to say.

00:51:36   They had stuff that deserved more attention,

00:51:38   and now they don't.

00:51:39   And I don't think San Francisco

00:51:40   was ever a good fit for Apple, culturally.

00:51:43   They're not a San Francisco city.

00:51:44   - Yeah, they have a very different vibe about them

00:51:50   than what I've, I mean, again, I've never worked for Apple,

00:51:53   and I've never lived in San Francisco,

00:51:55   so it's hard for me to say this,

00:51:56   But just my kind of bird's eye view of it,

00:51:59   it does seem like they didn't really fit in there.

00:52:01   - Like there's no, put travel aside.

00:52:04   Like 'cause when they move to the new Apple,

00:52:06   when they open a new Apple, I shouldn't say move,

00:52:08   'cause that's exactly my point,

00:52:09   but when they open the new Apple Campus too,

00:52:11   they're not leaving the Apple Campus,

00:52:15   the original Infinite Loop Campus.

00:52:17   They need all the space they can get.

00:52:19   And so, I mean there might be some empty offices for a while

00:52:22   but there's gonna be back and forth

00:52:24   between the original Apple Campus and Apple Campus 2

00:52:27   on a daily basis.

00:52:28   So having them both in Cupertino is a big deal.

00:52:32   And they have new office space in San Jose.

00:52:34   They have space in a few other places in the South Bay area.

00:52:37   But the fact that getting between anywhere in the South

00:52:40   Bay is easier than getting from anywhere in the South Bay

00:52:42   to San Francisco is a big deal.

00:52:44   There's no universe where Apple Campus 2 is a skyscraper

00:52:50   with the same square footage in San Francisco.

00:52:52   It's just culturally--

00:52:53   And travel aside, even if part of it

00:52:56   was like a tunnel dug by Elon Musk

00:52:58   that could get you between them in 10 minutes,

00:53:01   even if you could get between them in 10 minutes,

00:53:03   there's just no way they would do it.

00:53:04   It's just San Francisco is not an Apple town

00:53:06   in a way that San Jose, I think, is.

00:53:10   - I'm looking forward to it,

00:53:12   'cause it really is like going

00:53:14   to a whole new conference now.

00:53:15   And at WBC, I've gone now for something like seven years,

00:53:20   something like that, and I've enjoyed it,

00:53:23   but I'm looking forward to something new,

00:53:26   something fresh and it's kind of more exciting now

00:53:29   'cause it's gonna be something a little bit different.

00:53:31   - I forget if I went in 2006,

00:53:33   so I either went 10 years in a row or nine years in a row.

00:53:37   Yeah, it's one of my favorite things about covering Apple

00:53:39   is that they're very predictable,

00:53:42   so if you try to approach them

00:53:43   and analyze them in a logical standpoint,

00:53:45   you can have success,

00:53:47   but they're also resistant to complacency, right?

00:53:50   So they're not gonna like ping pong around

00:53:53   and move WWDC to random cities every year.

00:53:56   But they're not going to keep it in San Francisco

00:53:59   just because that's where it's been for 10 years,

00:54:03   which we'll get to when we talk about iPhone and iPad form

00:54:08   factors.

00:54:10   The other thing, too, is you've heard it.

00:54:12   I've heard it.

00:54:12   Everybody who's gone in recent years

00:54:13   has heard that from the longtime attendees who

00:54:15   remember the San Jose era, there's

00:54:17   a reputation that downtown San Jose was kind of sleepy,

00:54:20   that restaurants and bars close early.

00:54:23   There's quote unquote nothing to do.

00:54:26   Two things on that is one, back then WWDC

00:54:29   didn't even sell out.

00:54:31   I forget when the first sell out was,

00:54:33   but I don't think it was in San Jose.

00:54:35   And the second thing is that talking to a couple people,

00:54:41   downtown San Jose has improved a lot in the last 10 years,

00:54:45   that there's been a lot of-- I just looked it up.

00:54:51   first WWDC to sell out was 2008.

00:54:53   Gee, I wonder what happened 2008

00:54:55   that would cause the first sale.

00:54:57   So up until 2008, even the first few years at Moscone,

00:55:00   you could buy a ticket the day before WWDC.

00:55:02   I think the fact that this is obviously going to sell out

00:55:05   and that there are going to be people in San Jose

00:55:08   who don't even have tickets,

00:55:10   it's gonna be a different vibe.

00:55:12   And a couple people have said that downtown San Jose

00:55:15   has really improved a lot.

00:55:17   I was just talking to a friend of the show, Jim Dalrymple.

00:55:19   - I was saying on Twitter,

00:55:20   you don't really need much.

00:55:21   Like, when you're there for a conference,

00:55:24   like, you need a handful of, you know,

00:55:25   you need good hotels that you can hopefully get

00:55:28   for a reasonable price.

00:55:29   You need a bunch of restaurants

00:55:32   to be able to get food at.

00:55:33   And you need, you know, a handful of decent bars

00:55:36   and bars in the hotels.

00:55:38   And that's about it.

00:55:39   Like, you don't need tons and tons of nightlife

00:55:42   for a tech conference for five days.

00:55:44   - Right, it's actually better

00:55:45   if the bars are generally empty,

00:55:47   but are willing to stay open late,

00:55:48   so you can take over.

00:55:49   Dow Rumple, I was talking to about it,

00:55:52   now he's familiar with the area now,

00:55:54   and he goes to hockey games at the San Jose,

00:55:58   I forget, I don't know what the name of it is,

00:56:00   but wherever the Sharks play,

00:56:01   which is only one mile away from the convention center,

00:56:04   so it's, by city standards, not a far walk.

00:56:07   That's the thing about San Jose,

00:56:09   is that downtown San Jose is all in one area.

00:56:12   It's not spread out.

00:56:13   And he said after hockey games, 10, 30, 11,

00:56:17   and there's all sorts of stuff to do,

00:56:18   bars to get beers at and places to eat late

00:56:20   and stuff like that.

00:56:21   So I'm looking forward to it.

00:56:24   - Yeah.

00:56:25   - Are you gonna go no matter what?

00:56:28   - I'm going, yeah.

00:56:29   I actually, last year I told myself,

00:56:32   you know what, I'm not gonna get tickets anymore.

00:56:34   'Cause I'm going to fewer sessions.

00:56:37   I'm like, you know what, I feel now

00:56:39   that I'm wasting a ticket

00:56:41   because I keep trying to do more and more other things.

00:56:44   I keep getting double booked for time slots

00:56:46   with meetings and social events and podcast events

00:56:48   and everything else, like you know what,

00:56:49   I'm just not gonna take it.

00:56:51   Now actually I'm questioning that

00:56:53   because now it's gonna be different.

00:56:54   Well, maybe I should get a ticket this year, I don't know.

00:56:57   I'm definitely going out there.

00:56:59   - Yeah, I mean I'll go just to cover the keynote

00:57:02   and I have nothing to announce

00:57:04   but hopefully to do my live show again.

00:57:08   But I always do that and try to always do it

00:57:10   on Tuesday evenings.

00:57:12   My question is how long to stay?

00:57:13   Like I don't know if I'm gonna stay all week.

00:57:16   - Yeah, I don't know.

00:57:17   'Cause the thing is, we don't know.

00:57:20   It is a whole new conference, effectively.

00:57:22   So we don't know if you plan to go in Sunday

00:57:27   and leave Wednesday or something like that,

00:57:29   are you gonna regret that you didn't stay

00:57:31   until the cool things that were gonna happen

00:57:32   on Thursday night?

00:57:33   You don't know.

00:57:34   And that's why I'm kinda thinking,

00:57:36   I might just do my usual Sunday

00:57:39   through Friday afternoon thing.

00:57:41   The worst that can happen is I have a couple bonus days

00:57:45   California. Oh no, you know, there are worse things in the world than that.

00:57:51   Yeah, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but anyway, what a surprise. So that came out

00:57:55   like what, the day after ATP last week, so you guys didn't get to talk about it yet.

00:57:58   Yeah, haven't talked about it yet. I think the gist of it, and I think everybody's sort of

00:58:02   wrapping their heads around it, is I think Apple can spend the money on

00:58:06   surrounding stuff around the Convention Center, and the number of people that

00:58:11   will be there, you know, attendance is not going up, but even if it's just

00:58:14   5,000 plus a couple thousand people who you know come in we're out of a couple

00:58:20   thousand come but if a thousand people come just to be there and simultaneous

00:58:24   with it and then cut the other factor is combined with all the South Bay companies

00:58:29   whose employees might come after work when they couldn't if it was all the way

00:58:32   up in San Francisco I think it's I think it's gonna feel like apples taken over

00:58:37   for San Jose.

00:58:39   - Yeah, my main concern is if I don't get

00:58:43   a conference ticket, will I not be able to get

00:58:46   into major events that I will then want to get into?

00:58:49   - Yeah, I know.

00:58:50   - You know, that's been my one concern of like,

00:58:53   should I go anyway or not?

00:58:55   And because in San Francisco, there was so much

00:58:59   to do everywhere that whether you had a WDC badge

00:59:03   didn't really matter for anything except for the beer bash.

00:59:07   That was the only thing where it really mattered

00:59:10   whether you had it or not, but all the other events

00:59:11   that happened around the conference were for anybody.

00:59:14   And I hope that's gonna keep being the case,

00:59:16   but I don't know yet.

00:59:18   - Yeah, I think it'll be the same, I do.

00:59:20   I do think, here's my theory, one of my theories

00:59:23   is that they'll have the Bash on campus at Apple Campus too.

00:59:26   'Cause I think they used-- - That would be awesome,

00:59:29   but I don't think it's ready.

00:59:31   - Maybe by June it will be, I don't know.

00:59:32   - I mean, it's certainly cutting it close.

00:59:34   - Yeah, I don't know.

00:59:35   Or maybe they'll have it back at Infinite Loop,

00:59:36   I don't know, that's what they used to do.

00:59:39   - Is it big enough?

00:59:39   Like is the courtyard there big enough

00:59:41   to hold today's WDC crowd?

00:59:43   I don't know.

00:59:44   - Yeah, I don't know.

00:59:45   I mean, the new courtyard certainly is.

00:59:47   - Like Yerba Buena felt crowded.

00:59:49   And that's a big yard, you know?

00:59:51   - Yeah, but it got crowded by the stage,

00:59:54   but yeah, I don't know.

00:59:57   - No, no, it was empty by the stage.

01:00:00   - I guess you're right, you know what I mean.

01:00:01   - It was very crowded.

01:00:03   The further back you got from the stage,

01:00:05   the crowd more crowded at God because none of the nerds at the conference ever

01:00:09   wanted to be near the band we all wanted to talk to each other right you can't

01:00:11   hear I can't hear you let's go to the back it's the worst gig for a band to

01:00:15   ever play some of them had success it's I felt bad for them every year because

01:00:20   it's like oh god like you you're playing to a bunch of nerds backs who are like

01:00:24   plugging their ears because they don't want to hear you right oh it's terrible

01:00:28   all right let's uh it's shift gears to there's supposedly a March Apple event

01:00:34   and they're gonna do iPads, new iPads,

01:00:38   possibly a 128 gigabyte upgrade to the iPhone SE

01:00:44   and then what else, a new red color for the iPhone SE.

01:00:49   Or maybe a new red color for all iPhones.

01:00:53   - No, I think the rumor was a new red color

01:00:55   for the main iPhone 7 line.

01:00:56   - Oh, maybe.

01:00:57   - Which is kind of odd to do halfway through Recycle,

01:00:59   but I mean, who knows?

01:01:01   You know, again, like this is the kind of thing

01:01:02   where if we look back and say, well, Apple never does that.

01:01:06   The iPhone makes a lot of money,

01:01:08   Apple's an evolving company.

01:01:10   They can do whatever they want, and they will.

01:01:12   If they think there's a good reason to do something like this,

01:01:14   they would do it.

01:01:15   - So I think one of the interesting things

01:01:17   is that just about everything we know about,

01:01:19   or have heard, I shouldn't say we know,

01:01:21   but just about all the rumors we have

01:01:23   about upcoming Apple products all come from Ming-Chi Kuo,

01:01:27   the analyst at KGI Securities.

01:01:29   - He certainly seems like he has the best info the earliest.

01:01:34   - Right, like, Gurman has had some stories at Bloomberg,

01:01:38   but it hasn't really been a lot.

01:01:40   He had like an Apple TV thing recently,

01:01:41   but it's just 4K coming to Apple TV.

01:01:45   In terms of like iPads and iPhones,

01:01:46   he hasn't had a lot recently.

01:01:48   It seems like it's all coming from Ming-Chi Kuo.

01:01:51   - It seems like Gurman's sources

01:01:53   are maybe more in the Mac area.

01:01:55   - Yeah, maybe.

01:01:56   - Because he seems to have more Mac info,

01:01:58   and Ming-Chi Kuo seems to have more iOS supply chain info.

01:02:02   - It's all supply chain info.

01:02:03   I don't think Ming-Chi Kuo has any sources at Cupertino.

01:02:06   I really don't.

01:02:07   And a lot of what he gets wrong

01:02:08   is from not having those sources,

01:02:11   but that he has seemingly drinking buddy status

01:02:14   with some Foxconn executives.

01:02:17   But it was interesting 'cause just yesterday,

01:02:23   I'm looking at the date, Mac Otakara,

01:02:26   Japanese rumor site who has a pretty good track record too.

01:02:30   Yeah, they're pretty good.

01:02:31   I mean, I'll put a link in the show notes to the one, but I'll put it the Mac Rumors

01:02:34   version because it's in English.

01:02:37   What they're saying is, much like KGI or Ming Chi Kuo, the new 9.7 and 12.9 inch iPad Pros,

01:02:48   so take the iPad Pros, we already have new ones.

01:02:52   bizarre to me rumor of a 10.5 inch iPad which basically has the same footprint

01:02:59   as the 9.7 inch as we know it but with an edge to edge display so get rid of

01:03:04   the bezels at the top and bottom so it has a 10.5 inch diagonal display because

01:03:09   it gets rid of the bezels now the reason I call that bizarre getting rid of bezels

01:03:13   sounds like something Apple would do but the reason it sounds bizarre to me is

01:03:16   that all these rumors say that it's going to come alongside a new 9.7 inch

01:03:21   iPad Pro.

01:03:22   To me, what would make the--

01:03:25   what both makes sense and fits the historical pattern is,

01:03:30   if they're going to do that, introduce that

01:03:32   as the new high-end model at this footprint

01:03:34   and put the iPad, the 9.7-inch iPad

01:03:37   Pro at a minus $100 or minus $200 price point

01:03:42   lower down the chain.

01:03:44   But there's an awful lot--

01:03:46   all these rumors say that they're going to do both.

01:03:48   And now, Mac Atacara yesterday says

01:03:51   there's also going to be a 7.9-inch iPad Pro.

01:03:56   So in other words, an iPad Pro Mini.

01:03:59   Yeah.

01:04:00   Which should be the first update to the Mini in quite some time.

01:04:03   Yeah, but I think that they've done that before.

01:04:05   I think if you look at the updates to the Mini

01:04:07   that they've skipped years before.

01:04:09   Yeah, I mean, so let's--

01:04:12   easy things first.

01:04:13   The 7.9-inch iPad Pro Mini, that makes a lot of sense.

01:04:17   And it's probably got last year's specs, right?

01:04:18   That's what I would think.

01:04:19   Yeah.

01:04:19   It's going to have--

01:04:20   It probably has the specs of the current 9.7 Pro, which

01:04:23   is now a year old.

01:04:24   So that makes sense, right?

01:04:26   Apple doesn't need to save the Pro name only

01:04:29   for the higher end products, because Pro

01:04:31   means they can sell $100 pencil and $150 keyboard

01:04:35   with these things.

01:04:35   So they love spreading Pro all over the whole line.

01:04:38   I wonder what a--

01:04:40   I mean, a keyboard that would fit--

01:04:41   I have an iPad Mini in front of me right now.

01:04:43   That's a cramped keyboard.

01:04:45   - Yeah, I used like a Logitech one once a long time ago

01:04:48   and it was nearly impossible to use, it was tough.

01:04:51   Like the 9.7 size allows for a just barely usable

01:04:55   keyboard case on it, but the 7.9, that's tough.

01:04:59   I mean, they do exist and I guess somebody's buying them,

01:05:01   but that's certainly not a good keyboard.

01:05:04   But anyway, so that makes sense.

01:05:07   So between 9.7 and 10.5, you know,

01:05:11   there are these kind of similar rumors

01:05:15   that we'll probably get to also with the whole

01:05:17   iPhone 7S and 8 being also simultaneously released

01:05:22   in the fall and they're basically being like,

01:05:24   the iPhone quote eight would be this similar

01:05:27   bezel-less, larger screen, smaller case,

01:05:29   higher priced model.

01:05:31   So that's, if they're gonna do that for the iPhone line,

01:05:36   whatever their reasons are for doing it there,

01:05:38   they had, maybe they finally got their

01:05:40   edge to edge design and technology lined up

01:05:42   so they can finally do this,

01:05:43   so they're very excited to do this,

01:05:44   but it costs more to do it for various reasons

01:05:46   or whatever else, or they just wanted,

01:05:48   you know, they wanted to have a premium product

01:05:50   'cause they wanna start, you know,

01:05:51   if people are really treating their phones

01:05:54   and their iPads as computers,

01:05:57   both in what they're doing with them

01:05:59   and in their replacement cycles,

01:06:02   then Apple probably wants them

01:06:03   to boost those prices up a little bit.

01:06:04   It's like, well, if you're only gonna buy

01:06:06   a new phone every three years or an iPad every five,

01:06:08   and you're gonna treat it like

01:06:10   you used to treat your $2,000 laptop,

01:06:11   well, if we can get you to pay 1,100 bucks for it,

01:06:14   that's better for us and we can give you higher end specs

01:06:17   and higher end, you know, more storage

01:06:19   and fancier screen technology and all this other stuff.

01:06:22   So it makes lots of sense why they would have

01:06:25   higher priced ones at all.

01:06:27   And it's totally plausible with modern Apple

01:06:31   that they would also keep making lower end ones

01:06:34   that, you know, rather, 'cause, you know,

01:06:36   when Apple releases new things like this,

01:06:39   you know, new iOS devices, new form factors,

01:06:41   One of the ways that they can release these things

01:06:44   that they have in the past is you release the new thing

01:06:47   at the old price point and push everything down 100 bucks.

01:06:50   The other way you do it is you leave everything

01:06:52   at the same price point and you bring the new one in

01:06:55   that's 100 bucks more than the old one was

01:06:57   because the new one's higher end.

01:06:58   So that's what I see them probably doing here.

01:07:00   That's probably what the 10.5 inch iPad

01:07:03   and the quote iPhone 8 with this weird edge to edge display,

01:07:05   both of those are probably that latter kind of product

01:07:08   where they both probably come into an existing lineup

01:07:10   itself doesn't really change or changes only in minor ways and they come in at

01:07:14   higher price points with more premium stuff. Yeah, so I think it's almost

01:07:18   like you have to because the pattern is the same that there's going to be new

01:07:21   models in the old form factor and there's amazing edge-to-edge, you know,

01:07:28   blow away design without the bezels. It's the same story for the iPad and the

01:07:32   iPhone so we might as well talk about the iPhone. Did you just forestall the blow away thing as a verb? I might have.

01:07:37   Oh jeez or it wasn't an adjective it was an adjective. Yeah, I

01:07:41   Might have

01:07:45   It's big league. That's a big league design

01:07:48   I thought it was big Lee. No, it's not every time

01:07:52   No

01:07:52   Everybody who says that they were talking about Trump here Trump uses big league as an adjective and he's it doesn't make any sense to

01:07:59   Say bigly it wouldn't he says big league and but it comes out

01:08:03   I don't think not making sense is necessarily a per a yeah, but big league big league

01:08:08   Yeah, but big league is what he's saying. Trust me. All right, and Dave's you're gonna have these blowaway designs for install

01:08:14   All right. Keep going. You can even see it when the White House transcribes his remarks. It's it's big league

01:08:19   It's gonna be a big league design

01:08:21   You sure I'm just auto-crafting for

01:08:23   You know, I mean what I bet on it now, but I

01:08:29   No, I-- it's the same story.

01:08:36   But to me, it makes more sense with the iPhone than the iPad.

01:08:39   And so the story with the iPhone is

01:08:41   that there would be what would presumably be called,

01:08:44   or at least described-- I mean, again,

01:08:46   marketing names are the hardest thing to know for sure,

01:08:48   because they're the tightest held secrets.

01:08:50   But it sounds like they're going to do the 7S and 7S+ exactly

01:08:56   like you would think, where it's the same form factor,

01:09:00   close enough down to the tenth of a millimeter,

01:09:03   where you can probably use the same case with presumably

01:09:09   a better camera and maybe a next generation A series CPU.

01:09:16   Everything-- exactly what you think a 7S would be.

01:09:19   And then also this new iPhone.

01:09:24   I don't, if this is any, if there's any truth to this,

01:09:27   I don't think there's any chance that they call

01:09:29   this new iPhone the iPhone 8.

01:09:31   There's just no way.

01:09:32   I think that they would call it the iPhone Pro.

01:09:34   Because I think that's the only way that you can have

01:09:38   a reasonable amount of excitement for the new 7S and 7S+

01:09:42   and have this new phone.

01:09:46   Like it doesn't make sense to me to have an iPhone 8

01:09:49   and a 7S in the same year.

01:09:51   Like why not just, 'cause who wouldn't just buy the 8?

01:09:54   Well, it's going to be expensive though, right?

01:09:57   Like it's the part of the room where it's going to be like a

01:09:59   thousand dollars, which is like, if you actually look at like

01:10:01   the, the full price of iPhones, that is not that ridiculous.

01:10:04   It's like 150 bucks more than a, than a similar respect.

01:10:08   Plus model would be right.

01:10:09   My assume if you assume that it probably starts at 128 or 256,

01:10:14   right?

01:10:14   Like which it probably does the 256.

01:10:16   No rumor came out today that it's going to have to two models

01:10:20   64 and 256.

01:10:21   Really?

01:10:24   So I would guess it might be like 1049 for 64 and 1149 for 256.

01:10:30   At least it's only two.

01:10:33   But the idea would be that this would get slotted

01:10:36   in at a new higher price point.

01:10:38   That the 7S and 7S+ would take the existing price points,

01:10:42   and that they're actually-- instead of going lower,

01:10:44   they're actually going more upscale.

01:10:47   And that is a very Apple-like thing to do.

01:10:50   Yeah, it makes sense on a lot of levels.

01:10:52   I mean, the cynical take is of course,

01:10:54   they're going to make a lot more money

01:10:55   because the ASP is going to go up

01:10:56   on their most profitable product and all that.

01:10:58   That's a big deal for them financially,

01:11:01   for their performance on Wall Street, et cetera.

01:11:02   Okay, but also, there's good reasons for it also.

01:11:05   Like, one of them is they can afford

01:11:08   to put higher priced parts in this one.

01:11:11   So you could have something that maybe

01:11:14   they couldn't afford parts price-wise

01:11:17   to put in all the iPhones for a year,

01:11:19   'cause that's a lot of phones,

01:11:20   then they can have it in this model for people who are willing to pay another couple hundred

01:11:23   bucks. And then also, you know, if the rumors are true that they're doing this crazy edge-to-edge

01:11:28   screen thing, I think it's pretty clearly going to be OLED. OLEDs are at this scale,

01:11:34   like possibly they're having production yield problems with the type and quality and whatever

01:11:39   that they're making. And so maybe they can't make like 80 million of them a quarter, whatever

01:11:43   the number is. So they have to have like a mainstream iPhone for this coming year that

01:11:49   isn't this crazy new screen, but they also

01:11:52   want to have this crazy new screen in whatever quantity

01:11:54   they can make for people who are willing to pay for it.

01:11:57   And it lets them keep the kind of innovation crown going.

01:12:03   Because it's like this wonderful showpiece

01:12:06   at the top of the line, even if like 60% of the buyers

01:12:09   aren't buying it.

01:12:12   I think, though, if they do this,

01:12:14   it has to be in sufficient quantity

01:12:17   that they can meet demand as well as they've met it

01:12:19   in recent years with whatever the new top of the line is.

01:12:23   Because I think a ton of people are going to want this,

01:12:26   if this exact rumor comes true.

01:12:29   I don't know if it's 40%, but it's going to be,

01:12:32   it's not going to be like just a sliver.

01:12:34   There's going to be an awful lot of people who,

01:12:37   for an extra 100 or $200 or even $300,

01:12:40   are going to say, I want the new hotness.

01:12:42   And if it's like, I could see this,

01:12:46   I think it's a risk if they're really going to do this.

01:12:49   And I think the idea-- if your complaint about Apple

01:12:51   is they don't take risks anymore, here's your story.

01:12:54   Because the risk I see happening is

01:12:56   if they make this announcement and 40% of everybody who

01:13:02   wants to buy a new iPhone in September wants this one,

01:13:05   and it's instantly backordered three months or something,

01:13:09   and nobody can get it instantly--

01:13:11   It will be.

01:13:12   --none of those people are then going to say, oh, cancel

01:13:15   my order, I'll get the 7S.

01:13:17   Nobody's going to do that.

01:13:18   They're all going to say, I'll wait.

01:13:20   So what I could see happening, if they can't meet demand,

01:13:24   at least as well as they've done in recent years,

01:13:26   with just to say, like in the quarter they just reported,

01:13:31   if they can't meet demand for this iPhone Pro

01:13:33   as well as they did for the 7 and 7 Plus three months ago,

01:13:38   in what turned out to be the best selling iPhone quarter

01:13:42   ever, then I think they're in real trouble,

01:13:46   because everybody who's waiting for it

01:13:48   is not going to settle on the 7S and 7S Plus.

01:13:50   And then year over year, it's going

01:13:51   to look bad, because they're going to take a big hit.

01:13:55   It'll even out eventually, because eventually-- it's

01:13:57   not like these people waiting for the iPhone Pro

01:13:59   are going to switch to Android.

01:14:01   They'll wait till January or February or March

01:14:03   or however long it takes to get it.

01:14:06   But it's going to look bad at that year over year,

01:14:09   quarter over quarter demand.

01:14:11   So I think that the idea, I've seen people say, oh, they'll do this, and it's sort of just like

01:14:17   a, like the 20th anniversary Mac, you know, it's like a little thing at the fringe for just a

01:14:23   handful of people who are willing to spend a little bit more. I don't think that's the case

01:14:29   at all. I think this might be the best-selling phone they come out with next year. And I happen

01:14:34   to know, I just, anecdotally, I see lots of people on Twitter, the people who really care. I mean,

01:14:38   I mean, I've gone on then this along with the iPhone 7

01:14:43   looking so much like an iPhone 6 and 6s.

01:14:47   I can't see why people are so obsessed

01:14:49   with the exterior of the phone.

01:14:51   But it's true that an awful lot of people

01:14:53   are, that they're not even getting

01:14:55   into what the camera does, how good the screen looks,

01:14:58   how good the touch sensor is, how good the new virtual home

01:15:01   button is, and all the other things

01:15:03   that there are to like about it.

01:15:04   There's an awful lot of people.

01:15:06   And you see it in all the tech reviews.

01:15:07   you certainly see it in most of the gadget reviews

01:15:09   that it's like, ah, it looks like the old iPhone, meh.

01:15:11   There's an awful lot of people who think like that

01:15:13   who've been waiting for years for, you know, screw it,

01:15:17   I'll hold onto my old phone for another year

01:15:19   because I know Apple's gonna come out

01:15:20   with a new thing eventually.

01:15:22   - Yeah, I mean, it matters, it matters a lot.

01:15:24   And I think you're right, like I think a lot of people

01:15:27   are going to want this new thing.

01:15:29   I mean, I think we've shown that as customers

01:15:32   that no matter what the new iPhone is,

01:15:35   matter how happy we are or aren't with it, you know, in

01:15:39   our social media posts and tech reviews and everything, we all

01:15:42   want it and we're all gonna buy it and we're all gonna pay

01:15:45   whatever it costs. So, yeah, they're gonna if this thing is

01:15:49   real, unless it unless it has some obscene downside which it

01:15:53   probably won't and and an extra 150 bucks is probably not

01:15:57   enough of a downside for enough people. Then they're gonna sell

01:16:01   this thing like literally just they're gonna sell as many as

01:16:04   as many as they can possibly make.

01:16:06   - I really wonder why people would buy the 7S and 7S Plus.

01:16:11   I can totally see why they would keep selling the 7

01:16:15   and 7 Plus at lower prices, but I just can't see

01:16:18   why people would sign up.

01:16:21   I guess it's people who have more sense, you know,

01:16:24   than I do financially and who are like,

01:16:25   "Well, it is $200, I'll just get the 7S."

01:16:29   - Yeah, and that's a lot of people.

01:16:32   Like, it's everybody who doesn't buy the top-of-the-line model in any other year.

01:16:38   Right. Right. People who don't, you know, don't buy the 256, even though they only

01:16:45   use 128 of their storage, just in case they—

01:16:48   I don't even buy the 256.

01:16:49   I do.

01:16:50   I know.

01:16:50   I can't stand the thought of not having the best one. I just can't. And I often think,

01:16:56   like—and then I talk—I say to myself, like, "What happens if you're, like, out and about,

01:16:59   and like breaking news happens and you start shooting video like of this like major event like I don't want to run out of

01:17:06   Space to shoot video because by I cheaped out on my phone by $100

01:17:10   You'd have to be shooting a lot of video. Well, I don't know just thought that occurs to me

01:17:16   I think the battery would die before you fill it up

01:17:18   We'll come back to this

01:17:20   I'm gonna take another break here for a sponsor

01:17:22   But we I'm not done with this because I want to take this back to the iPad because I don't think I don't think the iPhone

01:17:28   and story works with the iPad.

01:17:31   But I'm going to take a break here, and thanks

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01:17:41   The old model of Wi-Fi is that you get a router,

01:17:44   you hook it up to your cable modem,

01:17:45   put it somewhere, probably wherever your cable box is

01:17:48   in your house, and then hope that that one router

01:17:50   would give you good Wi-Fi throughout your whole house.

01:17:54   We've been doing that for like 15 years.

01:17:56   Guess what? That model stinks.

01:17:58   And the old way, if you did that,

01:17:59   you could also maybe get like an extender or something,

01:18:02   but then all of a sudden you're playing like

01:18:03   junior sysadmin trying to get this to work

01:18:06   to have like a second device

01:18:08   that connects to the first device

01:18:09   and somehow extends the same network

01:18:11   so that when you're just open your device,

01:18:14   it looks like the same network,

01:18:16   whether you're upstairs or downstairs or whatever.

01:18:19   Eero is a system designed from the ground up

01:18:23   to have multiple devices spread throughout your house.

01:18:26   And it just coordinates all the nerdy stuff

01:18:28   to make that happen seamlessly all by itself.

01:18:33   You don't even have to separate which device is the main one

01:18:36   and which one are the satellites.

01:18:37   They're all actually the same little Apple TV style size

01:18:42   hockey puck type things.

01:18:45   Really nice design.

01:18:46   You can put them anywhere in your house.

01:18:48   If you have a Wi-Fi router anywhere in your house,

01:18:51   the Eero is almost certainly better

01:18:53   looking than smaller device.

01:18:55   They recommend three for most houses.

01:18:57   You could just go to their website,

01:18:58   and they'll tell you, put like how many floors

01:18:59   your house in, how many square feet,

01:19:01   and they'll give you a recommendation on that.

01:19:02   If you buy four and you really only need three,

01:19:04   you can send one back.

01:19:06   You configure the whole thing through a nice,

01:19:09   really nice app.

01:19:10   Like you don't have to go to like some weird website

01:19:13   on the router at 192.168, whatever, none of that stuff.

01:19:18   It's a really nice app.

01:19:19   And you don't have to worry, you're not playing sysadmin,

01:19:23   you're just setting it up the way you want it to be.

01:19:26   You want to have a guest network,

01:19:27   you'd say, give me a guest network.

01:19:28   Then your network has a guest network.

01:19:30   That's it, you're done.

01:19:31   Really, really great.

01:19:32   I've got one here, I've set it up,

01:19:34   I've replaced an Apple base station setup in our house

01:19:39   with Eero, and the speeds are way better.

01:19:41   They even tell you in the app what your speeds are,

01:19:43   so you can check, and it'll even tell you

01:19:45   what kind of speeds you're getting from your cable company

01:19:48   or FiOS or whatever you've got.

01:19:50   They even have great customer support.

01:19:51   It's something that the company is really invested in.

01:19:53   You can call and you get a hold of a real wifi expert

01:19:56   within 30 seconds just in case you need it.

01:19:59   Because look, this stuff's tough.

01:20:00   So maybe something happens.

01:20:01   30 seconds, you're talking to an expert.

01:20:04   Where do you go to find out more?

01:20:05   Easy, go to ero.com/thetalkshow.

01:20:10   Go to the talk show, use that code,

01:20:12   and you'll get something nice.

01:20:15   I think you get expedited shipping.

01:20:18   Yeah, that's pretty-- - I'm pretty sure

01:20:19   that's it, yeah.

01:20:19   Expedited shipping at eero.com.

01:20:22   So use that code, the talk show.

01:20:24   What's your code?

01:20:25   Probably ATP?

01:20:26   - I think so.

01:20:27   - You can use ATP too, and then Marco

01:20:29   will get credit for it.

01:20:30   Either way, it's fine with me.

01:20:31   Good company, eero.

01:20:34   So anyway, I don't think that this middle iPad

01:20:40   that doesn't have a bezel, I don't think that it has

01:20:43   that same cache that this rumored iPhone does.

01:20:47   Like, would I pay an extra $200

01:20:50   to get a way cooler looking iPhone?

01:20:52   Yes.

01:20:53   Would I pay an extra $200 to get a cooler looking iPad?

01:20:55   No.

01:20:56   I don't think so.

01:20:58   - Well, I think it's, you know,

01:21:00   the iPad approach that Apple has taken in recent years

01:21:04   has been pretty much scattershot.

01:21:06   Just like, we have this product category,

01:21:09   it's not performing as well as we want it to or need it to.

01:21:13   So, let's try a bunch of stuff.

01:21:16   And that has resulted in a lot of weird attempts for things

01:21:19   and a lot of things that are really good.

01:21:21   And the whole iPad Pro branch of the product line,

01:21:25   the whole thing with making a pencil

01:21:28   after everyone assumed Apple never would

01:21:30   'cause Steve Jobs made one comment 20 years ago.

01:21:33   They've been just trying a bunch of stuff.

01:21:38   And the fact is, what most people need out of their iPads

01:21:44   to get more work done or more of their work done

01:21:47   is really tricky, difficult, long-term software stuff

01:21:52   that's much harder to do.

01:21:53   It's much easier to just,

01:21:55   let's try some new screen sizes

01:21:56   and some new hardware abilities.

01:21:58   That's actually easier to do than,

01:22:00   let's figure out file management on iOS or windowing.

01:22:04   Those are way harder.

01:22:06   Or let's fix the App Store pricing ecosystem.

01:22:10   That's way harder than Apple,

01:22:13   who's already an excellent hardware company,

01:22:15   making one more screen size,

01:22:16   or making one more hardware configuration.

01:22:18   - The iPad has never been, to my mind,

01:22:21   an ooh and aah industrial design product,

01:22:25   except for maybe the first one.

01:22:28   The first one was like,

01:22:30   'cause it was just like a quote unquote,

01:22:32   they're making a tablet,

01:22:33   nobody knows it's gonna be thick,

01:22:35   is what, how big is it, nobody knew, you know,

01:22:38   what it was gonna be like.

01:22:41   And then we saw it and it was like,

01:22:42   this is really nice and it's wow this is really kind of cool to have something with the touch

01:22:46   latency of an iPhone on a big screen. It was impressive but then every iteration since then

01:22:53   has been very iterative to my mind. Like there's never been one generation where you're like

01:22:58   whoa with the possible exception of the move from non-retina to retina but even then it's not really

01:23:06   the way it looks without turning it on,

01:23:11   you know, like the rumors about this iPhone Pro or iPhone 8

01:23:15   or whatever you want to call it, are that it's going to look

01:23:17   like, wow, what is that before you even turn it on?

01:23:22   It doesn't seem-- you know, that was never really the case

01:23:24   with iPads.

01:23:25   I mean, the current iPads look an awful lot

01:23:28   like the original one.

01:23:29   I mean, the backs are flat now, and the bezel on the side

01:23:33   is narrower.

01:23:34   But like the top and bottom bezel

01:23:35   is almost exactly the same.

01:23:38   - I think what it is, it's a combination of them

01:23:41   trying to figure out what else can we try here

01:23:44   to turn around the sales curve and to let this product

01:23:47   really come into its own.

01:23:49   And then also just like the iPad,

01:23:52   I don't think it's about flashiness.

01:23:54   I think this is actually just about utility.

01:23:56   The iPad really struggles between how much screen size

01:24:01   you get versus how nice it is to use.

01:24:03   It's really this incredibly polar opposite relationship

01:24:07   where if you want to get anything more done on it

01:24:11   than browsing the web and watching video,

01:24:14   you really want more screen space.

01:24:16   If you try multitasking at all, the 9.7 can do it,

01:24:21   but it's pretty tight.

01:24:23   And the people we know in the community

01:24:26   who are big pro iPad users who get a lot of their work done

01:24:30   on iPads almost always prefer the 12.9 now

01:24:34   for getting like quote work done,

01:24:36   because it has more screen space.

01:24:38   But anyone who's ever used a 12.9 can tell you

01:24:42   like it's pretty big for an iPad.

01:24:45   Like for a laptop it's still nice and small,

01:24:47   but for an iPad the way you use and hold an iPad,

01:24:52   it really is quite large.

01:24:55   And so adding that screen space to get the 12.9

01:25:00   and its ability to have multitasking be better

01:25:02   and to get more work done and more effectively

01:25:05   has come at a great cost of this kind of unwieldy size

01:25:09   for hand-holded iPad use.

01:25:11   That's why I think a lot of 12.9 users use keyboards

01:25:15   and stuff where it's kind of more like a laptop

01:25:17   propped up on a table more of the time

01:25:19   'cause if you're actually using it one-handed,

01:25:21   one hand to hold it and the other hand to tuck shit

01:25:23   or use the pencil, that's a pretty big iPad to do that with.

01:25:26   It's kind of awkward, it's kind of unwieldy.

01:25:28   So this 10 point whatever I think is an attempt to cram

01:25:33   that screen resolution into the smaller body,

01:25:37   which for iPad power users,

01:25:40   and I guess we don't know how many of those there are,

01:25:43   but for iPad power users, that sounds incredible.

01:25:46   That sounds like exactly what so many people would want

01:25:49   in I want an iPad that is still small enough

01:25:54   to feel and handle like an iPad.

01:25:57   and that means 9.7 roughly physical dimensions.

01:26:01   But that would have more screen space

01:26:03   so I could better multitask

01:26:04   and get more of my work done on this device

01:26:06   or get my work done more efficiently on this device.

01:26:08   - And the speculation I think is that the pixel resolution,

01:26:11   instead of being at 266 pixels print,

01:26:15   it's gonna be 326,

01:26:17   which is the pixel resolution of the Retina Mini.

01:26:21   - And the iPhone. - And the iPhone.

01:26:23   That seems really small to me

01:26:26   for a device that you would hold at a further away distance,

01:26:29   but maybe that's just my aging vision speaking.

01:26:32   I don't know.

01:26:33   - It's just like the iPad Mini.

01:26:34   You know, it's like if the iPad, you know,

01:26:35   the iPad Mini just has like the 9.7 resolution shrunk down,

01:26:39   it's gonna be that same relationship.

01:26:40   So like if the iPad Mini looks acceptable to you

01:26:43   and you can use it without eye strain,

01:26:44   then this would probably work for you too.

01:26:46   - It just seems like a confusing decision though,

01:26:50   which one you would buy, doesn't it?

01:26:52   You don't think so.

01:26:53   - Well, it's probably gonna be more expensive

01:26:54   than the equivalent 9.7.

01:26:56   So it's probably gonna be like 100 bucks more at least,

01:26:58   so you know, and it may be slightly cheaper

01:27:01   than the 12.9 version of it.

01:27:03   So who knows?

01:27:04   I mean, we'll see what they do.

01:27:07   I think at this point, it's very clear

01:27:09   that Apple's strategy with the iPad,

01:27:10   again, it's scattershot, it's like,

01:27:12   let's just try a bunch of stuff and see what works,

01:27:15   and just give people tons and tons of options.

01:27:17   You know, they will now sell you an iPad

01:27:21   at pretty much every $100 price point from $250

01:27:24   on up to like $1100.

01:27:27   And it's like any of these price points,

01:27:28   pick your price, whatever you're willing to pay for an iPad,

01:27:31   we got one to sell you at exactly that price point,

01:27:33   but a little bit more after accessories.

01:27:35   And I think for what they're trying to do with the iPad,

01:27:40   like I think it's very clear that again,

01:27:41   I think they maybe don't really know what will work

01:27:46   and what won't to boost sales

01:27:49   or to carry this platform forward.

01:27:51   So they are just trying a bunch of random stuff

01:27:53   at this point.

01:27:54   And I'm sure there's more thought that goes into it

01:27:55   than that, but it certainly seems like they're taking

01:27:58   a lot of hardware risks here in order to just cover

01:28:01   more of the market in hopes that people will want

01:28:05   what they're now making without having to really

01:28:07   dramatically change iOS to be more PC-like.

01:28:10   - I don't know, it just seems really,

01:28:11   it just seems really curious to me that it would,

01:28:13   that this new bezel design would debut alongside

01:28:17   the iPad Pro 2, you know?

01:28:20   I don't know.

01:28:21   I believe, I'm not saying I don't--

01:28:23   - You probably wouldn't under Steve,

01:28:24   but I think this is kind of a hallmark of Tim Cook's Apple,

01:28:26   is like, you know, just, is not an aversion

01:28:31   to throwing a bunch of different options out there

01:28:33   for people to choose from. - I don't think

01:28:34   that's Tim Cook, I really don't.

01:28:36   I don't know.

01:28:37   I don't know what to think.

01:28:39   I think there's something we're missing if this is true.

01:28:41   I just don't get it.

01:28:42   I don't know.

01:28:46   I do think-- have you played around with the math?

01:28:49   MacRumors had a report from Ming-Chi Kuo on this new--

01:28:52   the iPhone, as I'm calling it, the iPhone Pro,

01:28:54   as others are saying, the iPhone 8, which supposedly

01:28:57   has a 5.8-inch OLED display.

01:29:00   But that's the whole device.

01:29:03   And only 5.15 inches of it are really

01:29:07   what we think of as the iPhone display now.

01:29:09   And the rest is the chin.

01:29:11   And presumably, there'll be new features in the OS that

01:29:14   can light stuff up down there.

01:29:15   But basically, if you do the math,

01:29:22   and he's exactly right, it's a device

01:29:25   that's a very different aspect ratio than the iPhone

01:29:28   as we know it.

01:29:29   Yeah, like it's too tall and skinny.

01:29:30   Yeah, it's basically a device that the hardware

01:29:35   is as narrow as an iPhone SE, because it's

01:29:38   an edge-to-edge display.

01:29:40   And if you actually put an iPhone SE or an iPhone 5

01:29:44   on top of a 4.7-inch iPhone and turn the screen on,

01:29:48   and then put this, like an iPhone SE on top of it,

01:29:51   it's pretty much exactly the same width.

01:29:53   - Hang on, I'm doing this now.

01:29:55   - Yeah.

01:29:56   - I got this right here, all right.

01:29:57   - So it's a device-- - Yeah, you're right.

01:29:59   - It's a device that's actually narrower in hand

01:30:02   than an iPhone 7, you know, than a 4.7-inch.

01:30:05   It's more like an SE in hand,

01:30:07   but it's as tall as an iPhone 7.

01:30:09   In other words, it's as tall, almost exactly the height,

01:30:12   and it's a device of the iPhone with a 4.7 inch screen.

01:30:17   So as a piece of hardware in your hand,

01:30:18   not even turning it on, it would be smaller than an iPhone 7,

01:30:21   about the same height and a little narrower.

01:30:23   But the aspect ratio that KGI is saying,

01:30:31   instead of being 16 to 9, it's more like 2.15 to 1.

01:30:37   It's more like a widescreen movie,

01:30:39   like a anamorphic movie.

01:30:41   It's a lot wider.

01:30:43   It's not just a little bit wider than 16 to nine.

01:30:45   It's a lot wider.

01:30:47   - Yeah, I mean, that's why I think

01:30:50   the most likely explanation for this is just like,

01:30:55   there's some other key piece of information

01:30:56   that we don't know about how the screen is used,

01:31:00   how it's shaped around the device.

01:31:02   Maybe there's this function area at the bottom

01:31:06   where presumably some kind of like home button area will go.

01:31:10   Maybe there's one at the top also,

01:31:11   which we could slice off that other part of the aspect ratio

01:31:14   and therefore make it look right, who knows.

01:31:17   But this is getting into really nitty-gritty specifics

01:31:21   that I think we probably don't have enough information

01:31:25   to really gauge what's real here and what's not.

01:31:29   I mean, it's so early and there's no other information

01:31:33   backing this up besides KGI stuff

01:31:36   which again, KGI stuff has been good

01:31:38   about a lot of details about stuff.

01:31:40   - Especially on component type stuff, right.

01:31:43   - Right, but all this is saying is the panel resolution.

01:31:48   And there's lots of things that could affect

01:31:53   that being correct or not, and that being like

01:31:56   how we think of the screen shape on the phone or not.

01:31:59   OLED allows lots of flexibility.

01:32:01   It allows not only different shape things,

01:32:03   but it allows holes to be cut in panels,

01:32:05   and stuff like that, you can do all sorts of crazy stuff

01:32:08   with OLED.

01:32:09   So it could be something weird that we don't,

01:32:11   that we can't explain this yet with what we know,

01:32:14   but it could be a much less interesting story

01:32:16   than, oh, it's gonna be a new shaped phone.

01:32:20   Like, well, it might just be, it might look like

01:32:22   what we have now in general proportions and aspect ratios

01:32:26   and just have this weird implementation detail

01:32:28   about why the screen happens to be this certain resolution.

01:32:31   - Would you want it to be that tall, do you think?

01:32:33   Like what if it really is just, it's as wide as iPhone 7,

01:32:38   but tall, you know, way taller.

01:32:41   So like you'd see more messages in a list in mail.

01:32:45   If you're reading an article,

01:32:46   you'd see more of the article on screen at once,

01:32:49   but at the exact same width.

01:32:51   - Hmm, as the designer of an app

01:32:56   that has to lay out a giant square

01:32:57   in the middle of its now playing screen,

01:32:59   that would be awesome.

01:33:00   But as a user of the phone,

01:33:02   I don't think I need that really.

01:33:03   I mean, I think there's a lot of advantages

01:33:06   to the phone display being 16 by nine.

01:33:08   One of them is when you turn it sideways and shoot video,

01:33:11   you have the whole screen and it looks right.

01:33:13   So there's a lot of advantages to that.

01:33:16   16 by nine allows you to lay out a lot of different shapes

01:33:19   fairly nicely within it.

01:33:21   Squares, four by three, so it's,

01:33:25   I don't think I really want the screen

01:33:28   to be taller and skinnier, but who knows?

01:33:30   I mean, I'd have to actually see it and use it.

01:33:32   Well, the screen wouldn't be any skinnier.

01:33:34   And the numbers add up.

01:33:35   So he's saying that this is-- his number's

01:33:37   for the pixel resolution.

01:33:39   2,436 high.

01:33:40   This is for the display area, not the whole panel,

01:33:43   but the part that would be used as a display area by 1,125

01:33:47   wide.

01:33:48   Now 1,125 wide is really interesting

01:33:50   because an iPhone 7 and the iPhone 6S and the 6,

01:33:54   the ones that were 4.7 inches, have 375 point

01:34:01   and at 2x and it's in pixels, it's what is 375 times two.

01:34:06   It's 750.

01:34:09   - Yeah.

01:34:10   - And so if you take 375 times three, guess what?

01:34:13   You get 1125.

01:34:15   - So basically it's saying we're gonna have 3x.

01:34:17   - It's exactly 3x.

01:34:19   So it would be the exact same point for point size

01:34:22   as the iPhone 4.7 inch screens that we know,

01:34:26   except instead of being at 2x resolution, it would be 3x.

01:34:29   And unlike the Plus phones, it would be a real 3X

01:34:32   with no downsampling.

01:34:34   - I mean, that would look great,

01:34:36   'cause the Plus phones with their like,

01:34:38   rendered 3X scaled down to 1080p,

01:34:41   that already looks really nice.

01:34:43   - It does.

01:34:44   - It isn't a massive difference over 2X,

01:34:47   but it is a difference.

01:34:48   It does just kinda look nicer. - It does look better.

01:34:50   - And I can't explain why.

01:34:52   I don't think I can really see the pixels for making it,

01:34:55   but it just does look nicer.

01:34:57   So to have it be true 3X and not even have to do

01:35:01   the downsampling compared to what we have now

01:35:04   in the 4.7 inch line I think would look really great.

01:35:06   - Yeah, I think that like 10 years ago or prior,

01:35:10   the downsampling technique, even if it was technically

01:35:13   a higher resolution screen, but if you downsampled,

01:35:16   it might look bad.

01:35:17   I think it probably would have.

01:35:18   But I think at this point the pixels are so small

01:35:20   that downsampling actually makes it look better

01:35:22   so long as the actual pixels are smaller.

01:35:24   But anyway, this rumored phone would actually be true

01:35:27   to 3x resolution, which, and the fact that the numbers

01:35:30   really add up makes, gives me, makes me think

01:35:33   that he's onto something.

01:35:34   - Yeah, I think, 'cause like, these are weird numbers

01:35:39   to just make up or to like, to misinterpret, you know?

01:35:43   Like, so there is probably something here,

01:35:46   I think again, the only question comes down to like,

01:35:49   how are these pixels actually allocated

01:35:51   to the various screen elements?

01:35:53   - Right, and what does the app get

01:35:54   and what does the system get?

01:35:56   So anyway, the other last aspect of this

01:35:59   is that it seems like nobody knows what the hell is

01:36:01   going on with Touch ID.

01:36:03   It seems like some of this stuff is like, well,

01:36:05   Touch ID must go away because the display goes all the way

01:36:08   to the bottom, so there's nowhere

01:36:09   to put the little Sapphire button.

01:36:11   Which is wrong.

01:36:12   I think so, too.

01:36:13   I don't think-- I think that there's a way

01:36:16   to integrate it into the screen.

01:36:19   Just put it in the middle.

01:36:21   And clearly, the move away from the physical button

01:36:25   last year to a virtual button that has haptic feedback would play right into this.

01:36:32   But then there's all these rumors, also rumors that they're going to use a new fancy new

01:36:35   camera to do face recognition or something like that.

01:36:39   I wouldn't be surprised if they do that, but I would be a little surprised if they did

01:36:42   it in place of Touch ID because I feel like Touch ID, it seems like it's a habit people

01:36:47   already have.

01:36:48   I don't feel like they could take that away.

01:36:50   Well, I mean, they again, they could they could try whatever they want, especially if

01:36:55   it's only this weird high end one that is already kind of like selecting for fewer buyers.

01:36:59   But but I think it's unlikely. I'm with you on that. I mean, again, we'll see what happens.

01:37:04   I mean, I think we all thought the headphone jack was unlikely to but no, I didn't. Okay,

01:37:08   yeah, that's right. You didn't I couldn't wait for him to get rid of my headphone jack.

01:37:13   (sighs)

01:37:14   Anyway, so that's, I don't have the energy for that today.

01:37:18   But yeah, the whole face recognition thing,

01:37:22   I'm sure they wouldn't do it

01:37:26   if they couldn't do it really well.

01:37:27   - Right, the same thing with the fingerprint,

01:37:29   where the first fingerprint sensor was pretty darn good.

01:37:32   - Yeah, and like when you compared

01:37:33   to previous fingerprint sensors at the time,

01:37:36   they were all really awkward and garbagey,

01:37:39   and Apple came out with a really good one,

01:37:40   and now they're all pretty, you know,

01:37:42   they're all a lot better than they used to be.

01:37:44   People saying now that they're like face recognition

01:37:47   on their Samsung whatever whatever was crappy,

01:37:51   I think again like I don't see Apple doing this

01:37:54   unless they could do it really well.

01:37:56   So I wouldn't worry too much about what these things

01:37:58   have been like in the past from other people.

01:38:00   But I still, despite saying that,

01:38:02   I still think it's unlikely that this is what they have

01:38:06   in mind just 'cause it doesn't sound like it would be better

01:38:09   it sounds like it would be worse.

01:38:11   I guess the other thing, too, is that when I first

01:38:14   heard these rumors a few months ago,

01:38:16   I was really, really skeptical.

01:38:17   Because again, same thing with the iPads.

01:38:19   It's so atypical for Apple to introduce

01:38:24   two generations of new stuff at the same time.

01:38:28   If they do this, the 7S and 7S Plus

01:38:30   are totally going to get lost because they're

01:38:32   debuting as mid-range phones.

01:38:34   And that just hasn't happened before.

01:38:38   And the other aspect is that Apple

01:38:39   has had so much success since the iPhone 6

01:38:42   by selling two-size phones.

01:38:44   And really, three-size, if you count the SE,

01:38:46   which is obviously a surprise hit.

01:38:48   I mean, they've admitted that they underestimated demand

01:38:51   for that.

01:38:54   So multiple sizes have proven so popular.

01:38:56   Why in the world would they come out with a brand new design

01:38:58   at only one size?

01:39:00   But when you do all the math and think about this,

01:39:03   it's actually a pretty good size to be a one-size-fits-all,

01:39:07   because the usable display area is 0.45 inches more

01:39:17   than the 4.7 inch phone diagonally.

01:39:20   It's 0.35 inches less than the 5.5 inch phone.

01:39:24   Yeah, so it's right in the middle.

01:39:25   Right in the middle, and air is a little bit on the bigger side.

01:39:29   But physically in hand, it's narrower than the 4.7 inch

01:39:33   phone, which is, to me, the biggest

01:39:34   factor of what makes the iPhone SE so nice to hold, is that it's so narrow.

01:39:40   So in terms of like, well, you like something that fits in your hand really securely and

01:39:45   that you can go from side to side with your thumb, and you like the fit more information

01:39:50   on screen at once, like an iPhone 7 Plus.

01:39:53   And the last aspect to all these rumors is that it's supposedly going to have an iPhone

01:40:00   7+ caliber, at least in the general range, battery, as opposed to the 4.7, because that's

01:40:06   the other factor. I mean, I know it. I mean, there's some people who just love the big

01:40:09   phone. And you and I both know people who have the 7+, and they don't even like the

01:40:14   size, but they do. I mean, I think you were even talking about it where the battery life

01:40:18   alone is sometimes a reason enough to get it. Like, "Ah, it doesn't fit my pocket.

01:40:23   It's too big to hold." But I could use it all day and still have battery life at the

01:40:28   end of the day.

01:40:29   Although to be fair, that was a lot more true

01:40:31   of the 6 versus 6 Plus than it has been

01:40:34   of the 6S or 7 generations.

01:40:36   The gap is now smaller, and to the point where now,

01:40:40   the battery life on the 7 is actually pretty decent.

01:40:43   And on the 7 Plus, it is better,

01:40:45   but it's not better by as much as it used to be

01:40:47   in the previous ones.

01:40:48   - Yeah, it's gotta say, the 7 has the best battery life

01:40:52   for me, I think, of any iPhone I've ever had.

01:40:54   - Yeah, me too.

01:40:55   - The only time I ever get down into red

01:40:57   is on days when I somehow in a circumstance

01:41:01   where I didn't even start the day with 100%,

01:41:03   which is rare 'cause usually I sleep with it charging.

01:41:06   But anyway.

01:41:07   All right, let me take another break here

01:41:11   and thank our third and final sponsor of the day.

01:41:14   Who do you think it is?

01:41:16   Do you have a guess?

01:41:17   - Hmm, Casper, Squarespace, Hover.

01:41:21   - Well, you can only guess one.

01:41:23   - Hmm, I'm gonna go Squarespace.

01:41:25   - Ah, Casper.

01:41:26   Ah, Casper, you guys know Casper,

01:41:29   they're the obsessively engineered mattress

01:41:31   and they sell it at a shockingly fair price.

01:41:34   Go to casper.com/thetalkshow and use that code,

01:41:37   the talk show, and you will save 50 bucks

01:41:39   towards any mattress, insert X asterisk right there.

01:41:43   There's a footnote, you have to wait for it.

01:41:45   Here's the deal.

01:41:46   - From your condition to apply.

01:41:47   - Casper to me is, it's like an Apple-like company

01:41:51   where to me design is making decisions

01:41:55   And they've designed one perfect mattress.

01:41:58   You don't go to Casper and select

01:42:00   from like six different types of mattress

01:42:03   and then get the size you want.

01:42:05   No, you just pick the size you want.

01:42:06   That's it.

01:42:06   And then they send it to you.

01:42:07   And it's one perfect mattress.

01:42:09   They've engineered-- they have mattress engineers.

01:42:10   That's a real thing.

01:42:11   They spent a lot of money and time

01:42:13   to get one mattress that's just--

01:42:16   is the right mattress for most people.

01:42:18   A combination of supportive memory foam and all sorts

01:42:24   of other technology, ships to you in a little box.

01:42:27   It's the size of a little dorm room refrigerator,

01:42:31   or maybe a little bigger than that, but remarkably small

01:42:34   for a big mattress.

01:42:35   You put it in your bedroom.

01:42:36   You open the box, following their instructions.

01:42:38   It sucks all the air out of the room to fill the mattress.

01:42:41   So you get lightheaded when you do it, and you kind of get dizzy.

01:42:47   But it's fun to be in a room when it happens.

01:42:49   It makes a very cool sound.

01:42:50   And then, boom, you've got a great mattress.

01:42:53   I say it all the time.

01:42:55   Going to a mattress store is gross.

01:42:56   Because what do you want to do?

01:42:57   You want to sit on a bed that all sorts of other people

01:42:59   have come in and sat on and laid on and whatever?

01:43:02   And laying on a mattress with bright fluorescent lights

01:43:05   in a mattress store doesn't simulate sleep.

01:43:09   So the fact that you can actually sit

01:43:10   on a mattress in a retail store doesn't really

01:43:12   give you any better hint of whether you're

01:43:13   going to light the mattress you buy anyway.

01:43:15   So why don't you just trust Casper?

01:43:17   Buy it.

01:43:18   Next time you need a mattress, they give you

01:43:19   a 100-night home trial.

01:43:21   If you don't love it, they'll just give them a ring

01:43:23   or go to the website, they'll pick it up at your house

01:43:26   and give you a full refund.

01:43:27   No questions asked, no hard sell.

01:43:29   This is not like, it's not like sending your cable box back

01:43:32   and cord cutting where they send like a Gestapo after you

01:43:36   to try to keep you.

01:43:37   No, they'll just say, okay, sure, sorry.

01:43:39   Here's your money back, we'll come pick up the mattress.

01:43:42   Here's the asterisk.

01:43:43   They also sell a dog mattress.

01:43:45   And I keep hearing from people who've bought it

01:43:46   for their dogs that their dogs love.

01:43:49   Yeah, they have a dog mattress, and it's very, very popular.

01:43:51   People who've got it-- listeners of the show

01:43:54   who've gotten it love it.

01:43:55   But here's the deal.

01:43:56   You don't save the $50 on it, because it's

01:43:58   like a lower cost mattress.

01:44:00   And this is the gist of it, is I got a whole bunch of email

01:44:02   from people who bought the dog mattress.

01:44:04   And then they said, hey, I just wanted to say,

01:44:05   I love the mattress.

01:44:06   My dog loves it, but the $50 code didn't work.

01:44:08   I botched it the first time they had the dog mattress.

01:44:11   So anyway, go to casper.com/thetalkshow.

01:44:13   Remember that code, thetalkshow.

01:44:14   Save $50 towards your mattress, unless it's a dog mattress.

01:44:17   But you'll get $50 of love from your dog

01:44:20   that'll make up for it.

01:44:22   Oh, yeah.

01:44:23   All right.

01:44:24   Why don't we talk about Overcast?

01:44:26   Overcast 3.0 just shipped yesterday.

01:44:30   Yeah, big update.

01:44:31   I knew you were working on this.

01:44:32   But I somehow had no idea that it was that close to shipping.

01:44:36   I think I was even on the beta.

01:44:38   Was I on the beta?

01:44:39   You were definitely on the list.

01:44:41   I don't know if you actually ever installed it,

01:44:42   but you were on the list.

01:44:43   I think I did.

01:44:44   I think I remember my Overcast having the orange dot next

01:44:47   to it, but I don't--

01:44:48   I never remembered any--

01:44:51   I remember the switch to cards and talking to you about it.

01:44:54   And I remember playing with the slide on the card.

01:44:56   This was months ago, though, and you had it really--

01:44:59   Yeah, well, when I was in Philly,

01:45:00   I showed you a prototype.

01:45:02   And I had you play with it on my phone

01:45:03   and tell me what you thought.

01:45:04   I had Hop Sing, right.

01:45:05   We were at Hop Sing, and I was playing with it.

01:45:07   And it was already--

01:45:08   the prototype was very, very good.

01:45:10   I had very minor feedback, but I couldn't even

01:45:13   find anything to complain about.

01:45:16   I forget what I wrote today.

01:45:17   Did I write this today?

01:45:18   I know I wrote a bit about the business model,

01:45:20   but did I write about how if you-- casual user not paying

01:45:23   attention isn't going to be-- even though there's a yet.

01:45:26   So that's my two points is that it's a great update,

01:45:29   because all these things-- every single thing you documented

01:45:32   on your blog about the changes, I think every single one

01:45:35   of them is like, yes, I totally agree.

01:45:36   This is better.

01:45:37   This is better.

01:45:37   This is better.

01:45:38   But I think a casual person who just

01:45:40   wants to listen to podcasts, and if they have auto updates on,

01:45:43   and they may not even notice that it's a new version.

01:45:47   - Yeah, it's odd because here I was like,

01:45:51   you know, really busting my butt and just changing,

01:45:54   it was a lot of work going into these changes

01:45:57   in Overcast 3.

01:45:59   And then at the end, when it comes time to like,

01:46:01   you know, write the release notes

01:46:02   and start like promoting it to people,

01:46:05   and it's all right, well what's the list

01:46:06   of new features in 3.0?

01:46:09   And it's like, uh,

01:46:12   I redesigned a lot of the UI.

01:46:14   That's about it.

01:46:16   There's like a couple of like Q features here and there,

01:46:18   but it's, and there's a new watch app.

01:46:20   That's, which actually does less than the old one,

01:46:23   but is way faster.

01:46:25   And that's about it.

01:46:27   Like the bullet point list of what is new in this update

01:46:30   is incredibly short.

01:46:32   Unless you wanna go through and like itemize

01:46:34   all the little UI changes,

01:46:35   but nobody wants to read that 'cause nobody cares.

01:46:37   What you care about is the whole thing,

01:46:38   like how the whole thing feels and works for you

01:46:41   and everything else.

01:46:41   And there were tons of changes and tons of time

01:46:46   that went into this, that most of which is fairly subtle

01:46:51   or hidden or is the kind of change that you notice

01:46:54   the very first day you use it and then it just becomes

01:46:57   normal and you immediately stop noticing.

01:47:00   That's how this app is now.

01:47:02   And things like the whole, the card UI,

01:47:07   that took forever to get working.

01:47:08   (laughing)

01:47:10   That took so long.

01:47:11   and so much work and there are still so many

01:47:15   weird little considerations with it.

01:47:17   Like one of the things, I had to issue a quick 3.0.1 update

01:47:22   because I moved all of the secondary screens in the app

01:47:27   into these cards 'cause I have a reusable controller

01:47:30   that I can use for anything now

01:47:32   to put it in one of these cards.

01:47:33   And the problem is that when an iOS standard table view

01:47:39   is in one of these cards in certain modes,

01:47:42   the reorder controls, like the drag handles

01:47:45   when a table's in reordering mode just don't work.

01:47:48   Like it moves like two pixels and then stops.

01:47:52   And it's only because it's in this card environment

01:47:54   and a few of the implementation details of that.

01:47:58   And so I had an update today that just moved

01:48:01   the playlist editor out of the cards

01:48:04   'cause otherwise you can't reorder

01:48:06   the priority podcast setting.

01:48:08   And it's like, when I was in development,

01:48:10   there were so many weird cases like this

01:48:11   where like some part of the UI would fail in a weird way

01:48:16   if it was moved to this card thing.

01:48:19   And so I had to either try to figure out why

01:48:22   and see if I could work around it

01:48:23   or re-implement it in a different way so it wouldn't fail.

01:48:26   And that's just, that card thing is just one of the changes.

01:48:31   And there were just so, like,

01:48:34   I mean, just so much time going into

01:48:37   seemingly minor things like that.

01:48:40   Even other things like the full-time drag handles

01:48:42   now on the playlist.

01:48:44   That is not easy to do in UI table view.

01:48:48   - No, I know that.

01:48:50   I do. - I did it.

01:48:50   It's not a collection view.

01:48:51   It is still a table view.

01:48:53   And the way I did it is such an incredible hack.

01:48:57   And that took a long time too.

01:48:59   Similarly, having the Tweetbot style

01:49:03   where you tap on the episode and a little row of buttons

01:49:06   expands out from the bottom of it

01:49:07   that you can then select actions from.

01:49:10   Again, a seemingly small thing in the UI,

01:49:13   but that takes a long time to implement

01:49:15   and to figure out how you have to abuse

01:49:18   the system frameworks to let them let you do this.

01:49:21   Like, it's all like, and you know from Vesper stuff,

01:49:24   like a lot of times it's these little tiny

01:49:27   implementation details or these little tiny interactions

01:49:30   or UI affordances that they make all the difference

01:49:33   in the world when you're using the app

01:49:34   and like how nice it is to use or how easy it is to use.

01:49:37   But like one of those little behaviors

01:49:41   or little animations or implementations

01:49:43   might take you weeks to just develop that one little thing.

01:49:47   - It is my opinion that the modern touchscreen UI

01:49:53   that started with the iPhone

01:50:00   is a trickier and inherently more limited interaction model

01:50:07   than the mouse pointer interface that we've had since the Mac

01:50:14   and go back to the Xerox thing that was before the Mac

01:50:20   in a lot of ways.

01:50:21   And I think that most people don't think about it.

01:50:24   You don't have to.

01:50:24   You shouldn't have to if you're not a designer.

01:50:26   But when you are a designer, you suddenly

01:50:28   that you're limited in a certain way.

01:50:30   So for example, let's just say a list of things.

01:50:33   You have a list of rows, and you can drag them to reorder.

01:50:37   There's all sorts of apps that do stuff like this.

01:50:40   On a Mac, you would think, well, I could just click

01:50:44   on the row I want to move up, and hold the mouse button down

01:50:47   and drag up, and that's exactly how you do it.

01:50:50   You click on it and drag, and you don't have to click

01:50:52   and wait, you could click and wait and then drag,

01:50:56   or you could just click and drag immediately,

01:50:57   and it just works.

01:50:59   Well, you can't do that on a touch screen

01:51:01   because if you're in a list and you just touch

01:51:04   and immediately move down or move up,

01:51:06   you're scrolling the list because touching on the list

01:51:09   and moving your finger is how you do it.

01:51:11   So how do you take an item and move it up

01:51:15   if you can't just touch on it and move up?

01:51:17   So it's--

01:51:19   - Yeah, you can't have like a modifier key.

01:51:20   Oh, just hold down Command.

01:51:21   - There is, and the truth is there's no perfect solution.

01:51:23   There's a perfect solution with a mouse pointer,

01:51:25   which is just allow the user to click and drag up.

01:51:29   On touch screens, I could think of-- there's three ways

01:51:32   I can think to do it.

01:51:33   Apple's usual way is to have an Edit button in the top right

01:51:37   that you tap this Edit button, and then it switches it

01:51:42   to a mode where there's like a little grippy strip over there.

01:51:45   And you can use that grippy strip

01:51:46   to drag things up and down.

01:51:48   And if you touch on the grippy strip and drag,

01:51:50   it won't scroll the list, it'll drag the thing up.

01:51:53   The way Vesper did it, and a lot of other apps do,

01:51:55   is you tap and hold.

01:51:56   And after a brief-- and again, this

01:51:58   is the sort of thing where you sit there

01:52:00   and you play with little fractions of a second

01:52:02   to see how long is too short and how long is too long.

01:52:05   But you know you're drag-- you know

01:52:07   you're moving it because it visually pops up off the screen.

01:52:10   And you can see that it's sort of like raised,

01:52:12   and then you're moving the item up and down.

01:52:16   I like the solution you came with,

01:52:18   where you just put the grip strips there all the time.

01:52:20   And so you can't scroll the list from over

01:52:22   at the edge of the screen.

01:52:23   but most of it you can.

01:52:27   - Yeah, and most people don't scroll

01:52:28   that far of the edge anyway, so it's fine.

01:52:30   Because what I found, I made this whole blog post about,

01:52:34   and actually this blog post was the release of Overcast 3

01:52:39   and kind of the announcement of Overcast 3,

01:52:41   but I titled it Design Walkthrough

01:52:43   because this release really was effectively a redesign.

01:52:48   Not like 100% redesign, a lot of things look

01:52:50   kind of similar or the same, but.

01:52:53   There's a lot more redesigning than anything else

01:52:55   in this release.

01:52:56   And that's because over the last couple years,

01:53:00   since I made 1.0, I've gotten literally thousands

01:53:04   of emails and tweets from people with feedback

01:53:07   and some support questions and things like that.

01:53:11   I basically had a lot of feedback to show me

01:53:13   all the ways in which the old design failed.

01:53:16   And by that I mean people weren't able to find features

01:53:20   that they wanted to find or they couldn't understand

01:53:22   way something worked or something caused errors to people to

01:53:26   erroneously invoke it or things like that. And so

01:53:30   there were, one of the major themes I learned

01:53:34   over the last couple years is these built-in

01:53:38   iOS standards. Things like tapping edit in the top right corner

01:53:42   and then having a table view switch to this mode where you can delete or

01:53:46   reorder or batch operate on things in a list.

01:53:50   or even just swiping a table cell to delete it,

01:53:55   these things that we, like power users,

01:53:58   have known literally since iOS 1.0 introduced most of them,

01:54:03   most people who use iPhones these days

01:54:06   don't know those things, they never find it.

01:54:08   They don't know you can swipe on a table view

01:54:09   to reveal a delete button.

01:54:11   They never tap the edit button in the corner,

01:54:14   and if they do, they quickly undo it

01:54:16   'cause they don't really understand what it does

01:54:17   and don't care.

01:54:18   So there's lots of assumed knowledge of platform standards

01:54:23   that I went into with this,

01:54:27   that I think a lot of iOS developers still do,

01:54:29   that the reality is the customers don't have

01:54:33   that vocabulary in enough quantity.

01:54:35   - Yeah, I think that you can only really count

01:54:38   on them finding what they can see.

01:54:41   - Exactly.

01:54:41   - Right, and if you can't, if the only way to do it

01:54:43   is a way that you don't see, you have to do something

01:54:47   to see it, like slide the row, they all won't find it.

01:54:50   That's why, you know, if you look at an app,

01:54:52   like I think it's a super successful app,

01:54:53   is an app like Apple's Mail for iPhone.

01:54:57   That's why there's a trash can when you're in a message view

01:55:00   but also why you could swipe on the message

01:55:02   in the list of messages and delete it from there.

01:55:05   - Yeah.

01:55:06   - But that trash can has to be there.

01:55:09   - Exactly. - Because some people

01:55:10   would be shocked to find out

01:55:11   that you can delete a message any other way.

01:55:13   - Yeah, 'cause like even, you know,

01:55:14   even like the edit button in the corner,

01:55:16   that is visible, but it's not even obvious enough.

01:55:19   Like what it does or why, like if you're in a list,

01:55:22   like what does that even mean to edit

01:55:25   in the corner of this entire list of episodes?

01:55:27   Like a lot of people just don't think that way.

01:55:30   They don't try to poke everything and see,

01:55:33   well what does this weird word do

01:55:35   that doesn't seem to specify anything in particular?

01:55:39   - I hate to spring this on you, but all right,

01:55:41   I'm in all episodes and there is an edit button up there.

01:55:46   - Still there. - I don't understand

01:55:48   what it does.

01:55:49   I hit edit and then it says done

01:55:51   and it just toggles between edit and done,

01:55:53   but what's different?

01:55:54   - Do you actually have the latest version?

01:55:57   - I think so.

01:55:58   (laughing)

01:55:59   - 'Cause normal, what's supposed to happen

01:56:00   is if you hit edit, you're supposed to get

01:56:02   a little header on top that says,

01:56:03   edit playlist on one half and delete playlist

01:56:05   on the other half, and then all of the rows

01:56:07   turn into the multi-select toggle dots on the right.

01:56:10   - Oh, maybe I don't have the latest version.

01:56:12   (laughing)

01:56:14   I don't know, I thought I updated to the App Store version.

01:56:16   Let me see if I make a new playlist.

01:56:19   I mean, you might have found a bug, but--

01:56:20   You might have.

01:56:21   I don't know.

01:56:22   Not how it's supposed to work.

01:56:23   Anyway, I agree with you, though.

01:56:31   What about the-- so the other factor, and we talked about it.

01:56:36   And one of the things that lets you do this-- and you

01:56:38   and I have had discussions about this over the years,

01:56:40   going back to Vesper and Overcast and that-- OK,

01:56:46   But let's just give-- the old model for indie software

01:56:49   developers is you pre-app store.

01:56:51   You sell a version.

01:56:52   Let's say it's $30.

01:56:53   And then you do version 2.0.

01:56:56   And you still sell it for $30.

01:56:57   But you give your existing users an upgrade price.

01:57:00   Maybe they get it for half off.

01:57:01   Maybe they get the new version for $14.99.

01:57:04   Maybe you sell the upgrade for just $9.99.

01:57:06   But then the idea is you keep building users.

01:57:09   And the ones who keep using the app will, every year

01:57:13   or however often you come out with a major upgrade,

01:57:15   keep giving you upgrade money.

01:57:18   And that's what funds the continued development

01:57:23   of the app.

01:57:24   Because eventually, you stop getting--

01:57:27   you max out on new users, and you

01:57:30   need to monetize your existing user base.

01:57:32   Well, there's no upgrades in the App Store.

01:57:35   And so new models are called for if you want to sustain an app.

01:57:39   I think you've come across an interesting one.

01:57:44   Because the downside to the old model, and as much as everybody--

01:57:48   I still kind of wish the App Store supported it

01:57:50   and allowed developers the option of doing it.

01:57:53   The downside to it is that everybody

01:57:55   seems to agree that the way-- most cases, people

01:57:59   would decide whether to buy the upgrade to the new app

01:58:02   or not based on what are the new features.

01:58:05   And so like Overcast 3, where you say it's hard to say,

01:58:09   here's all the new features.

01:58:10   It may not sell as a paid upgrade, because it's just a modernized version of the same

01:58:20   UI.

01:58:22   But to me, this is the sort of thing I'm glad to pay for, because it's exactly what I want

01:58:27   in an app.

01:58:28   Well, yeah, because if you do it the other way, where you're dependent on that upgrade

01:58:33   revenue for new features every release, then you get Microsoft Office, where you have all

01:58:39   all this pressure to just add more and more and more

01:58:42   features even if it kind of makes the app worse

01:58:45   to have more features added to it.

01:58:47   But that's what the incentive structure

01:58:50   kind of forces you to do.

01:58:51   And that's one of the reasons why you see

01:58:54   these major apps like Office and Adobe Creative Suite

01:58:57   trying to get away from that model

01:58:59   and moving towards subscriptions so aggressively

01:59:00   over the last few years.

01:59:01   And I think they've both pretty much completed that move.

01:59:04   Where like, now they're kind of free to do things better.

01:59:09   as opposed to the old model of having to try

01:59:13   to justify your revenue every single year

01:59:15   with a bullet list of features that you added.

01:59:18   - Right.

01:59:19   Eventually, even the, however much it was ever in dispute

01:59:24   within those companies, it becomes obvious to everybody

01:59:26   that it's not sustainable forever.

01:59:28   You can't just keep adding more

01:59:30   and assume that that means better.

01:59:33   - Well, and you can for a while.

01:59:37   it's generally like when things are young.

01:59:39   So when the applications are young,

01:59:42   or like in the case of Adobe and Microsoft,

01:59:46   a lot of their revenue came from people,

01:59:49   like OSes were still young.

01:59:52   And as OSes would change,

01:59:53   you'd have to get the new versions of the apps

01:59:55   to just work on the new OS.

01:59:57   Computers were still young.

01:59:58   You'd be buying a new computer every three to five years

02:00:01   or whatever it was that would be so different

02:00:04   from your old one and so much better

02:00:06   that you would buy new software to take advantage of it

02:00:08   or whatever and like now everything's a lot more

02:00:10   settled down in these industries.

02:00:12   And it's true of mobile as well.

02:00:13   Like the upgrade cycles are getting longer for these things

02:00:15   and all the OSs are kind of settling down and maturing.

02:00:20   And so, and all these, and if you've had any kind of

02:00:25   long-standing product, I mean hell, my podcast app

02:00:28   is only like two and a half years old

02:00:31   and I'm already running out of features

02:00:34   that I think I want to add to it.

02:00:35   Like, at a certain point, you add pretty much everything

02:00:39   that you think it needs, and it's kind of done feature-wise.

02:00:44   But that doesn't mean it can't be improved.

02:00:46   - Right, so what you've arrived at after like,

02:00:50   and again, you've changed it subtly

02:00:53   with each major release, but where you are now is,

02:00:56   it's a free download, so anybody can get it,

02:01:00   try the Overcast for free, which I think is essential

02:01:03   in today's world.

02:01:04   It's been free since day one.

02:01:05   I don't regret that for a minute.

02:01:06   Right.

02:01:07   And I think it's proven right.

02:01:09   It's just-- I've said this before,

02:01:15   but I really do think it's true that when people-- there's

02:01:17   just too many people who, if they're

02:01:22   looking for a podcast app, or they're

02:01:23   looking for a notes app, or whatever the app is,

02:01:26   they'll start looking.

02:01:28   And they will start trying free ones.

02:01:31   And eventually, one of the free ones--

02:01:33   I guess this is good enough.

02:01:35   And they never get past that.

02:01:37   They never get past it, even if your app is 99 cents.

02:01:40   There's just too many people who never ever say,

02:01:42   I'm gonna try, I'm gonna cough up a dollar

02:01:44   before I even try it, just because the screenshots

02:01:47   look good.

02:01:48   I mean, some people will, but it's not enough.

02:01:50   And there's too many free ones, and there's too many

02:01:53   free ones that really are good enough.

02:01:55   - Yeah, well, and you know, there's that saying,

02:01:57   like you always fight in the last war.

02:01:58   Like, I apologize to John Syracuse for butchering that,

02:02:02   but when I was running Instapaper,

02:02:05   it was never free during the time I ran it.

02:02:07   It was paid up front the whole time

02:02:09   and I was really adamant about that.

02:02:11   It had to be paid up front

02:02:12   'cause that's how you have to make revenue.

02:02:13   And that was okay for the first couple years

02:02:16   at the App Store, but then every competitor I got

02:02:21   from that point forward, they were all free.

02:02:24   Like every major competitor was free

02:02:27   and then Apple made Reading List,

02:02:29   which was free of course because it's built in.

02:02:31   And it's just like, I really was marginalized

02:02:35   to a large degree by all of my competitors being free

02:02:40   and by the platform having this thing for free

02:02:44   and by my app having a big paywall in front of it

02:02:47   before anybody could even try it.

02:02:48   And so that's one of the reasons why,

02:02:51   and I was always afraid that a new competitor

02:02:55   would come out that would be awesome and free.

02:02:59   'Cause I didn't have that for a long time.

02:03:01   And so, it was like every morning I would wake up afraid

02:03:06   to look at the news on my phone,

02:03:08   'cause what if today was the day my business was crushed

02:03:11   by a new awesome free competitor?

02:03:13   And so with Overcast, I launched it free,

02:03:15   in part out of that, because I was just like,

02:03:17   you know what, I don't wanna leave,

02:03:19   I don't wanna leave that gap for anybody.

02:03:21   Like, I don't wanna wake up every morning with that fear.

02:03:23   - Well, you also had the advantage though,

02:03:26   and I mean it that it's an advantage,

02:03:28   that Apple already had its podcast app.

02:03:31   - Exactly, I was pretty Sherlocked.

02:03:33   - Right. - And so, yeah,

02:03:34   so it was, and that was a big reason why I was free,

02:03:37   because A, I didn't wanna leave what Apple calls

02:03:40   a price umbrella for competitors to beat me only on price.

02:03:45   If you wanna beat me on quality, fine, I'll play that game,

02:03:48   I will happily fight on that battlefront,

02:03:52   but I didn't want price to be the only thing

02:03:55   people could compete with me, or I'd rather,

02:03:57   I didn't want to be losing a lot of customers

02:04:00   to someone else because of price.

02:04:02   - I think you had--

02:04:02   - Because I always was with Instapaper,

02:04:04   and it killed me, and so, and I was,

02:04:07   at the time I was not a good enough business person

02:04:10   in this regard to recognize at the time

02:04:12   that I should have gone free

02:04:13   and figured out something else back then,

02:04:15   but in the meantime I kind of figured that out,

02:04:17   and so that's why I launched with this.

02:04:18   - I think you had an advantage that podcasts,

02:04:20   Apple's podcast app isn't always,

02:04:22   it always has been pretty good,

02:04:24   and it's free and it's there,

02:04:26   and it's got the iTunes store backing it,

02:04:27   and the fact that it's Apple's app.

02:04:30   Does it come with the phones,

02:04:31   or do you have to get it from the app store?

02:04:32   I forget if it's--

02:04:33   - They go back and forth from that,

02:04:34   like every few releases.

02:04:36   I forget what it is now.

02:04:37   I think it's separate.

02:04:38   - The fact that it's pretty good and very popular

02:04:40   is a much better situation.

02:04:42   I feel like we, at Vesper, it was a disservice to us

02:04:47   that at that time Apple Notes was garbage.

02:04:50   It was a really bad app with really bad sync.

02:04:53   The only way to get sync was through IMAP.

02:04:56   - That was a mess.

02:04:58   - God bless him for having made it work,

02:05:00   but it just didn't work well.

02:05:03   And it worked terrible if your email was Gmail

02:05:05   because you'd get copies of messages over and over again.

02:05:08   It was terrible.

02:05:08   I think it was starting with iOS 9.

02:05:12   I think it was two years ago where they redid notes

02:05:14   and they built it on CloudKit, and it's super good.

02:05:17   It's a really great, it's a great notes app,

02:05:19   and it's really great sync.

02:05:20   The sync is terrific.

02:05:22   would have been better if that was already out because it would have calibrated our expectations.

02:05:27   It wasn't like we assumed Apple would never improve notes, but we didn't know what it

02:05:30   would be.

02:05:31   Yeah, exactly.

02:05:32   So right now, what you do, you get it for free.

02:05:38   And for free, you show ads.

02:05:40   And you started this...

02:05:41   When did you start?

02:05:43   September.

02:05:44   So just in September.

02:05:45   And you were using Google's mobile ad services.

02:05:48   And if you want to, if you want to get rid of the ads and you want to support the app,

02:05:52   you can subscribe for 10 bucks a year.

02:05:55   And it's auto-recurring or no,

02:05:57   it just reminds you in a year?

02:05:58   - Now it's recurring, 'cause now we get a raise

02:06:00   after year one if we do recurring.

02:06:02   - Right, 'cause you get, yeah, right.

02:06:04   So anybody who's with you for more than a year,

02:06:05   if it's recurring, you get an 85/15 split.

02:06:08   - Exactly.

02:06:09   - Right, which is a big deal.

02:06:10   - Yeah, 'cause like 30% is a lot.

02:06:14   And having that cut from 30 to 15 after a year,

02:06:17   that adds up a lot as well.

02:06:19   - Well, it means you make more--

02:06:20   - You make a 15-- - It's getting a raise.

02:06:21   You get a 15% raise from your existing users.

02:06:24   It's actually kind of putting the old upgrade model

02:06:27   the other way around, where you would get less money

02:06:30   from your longtime users because they're only

02:06:31   paying the upgrade price.

02:06:32   Now you're getting more, even though they don't pay more.

02:06:35   This is actually--

02:06:36   I have a strong incentive now to keep

02:06:38   people subscribed long term.

02:06:40   This is one of those areas where it really is Apple--

02:06:43   everybody's interests aligned.

02:06:47   It's not necessarily that Apple is putting developers ahead

02:06:49   Apple itself because Apple still makes money. But the motivation is they're putting motivation

02:06:55   out there to build apps and services that are worth keeping a multi-year subscription

02:07:01   to. And that's in their interests in terms of not maximizing their revenue from the app

02:07:09   store at any given transaction or any given renewal, but in terms of making the platform

02:07:14   more popular and getting, you know, which leads to people doing things like buying crazy

02:07:19   new $1100 iPhones. And it's great for users because the user doesn't pay more. I pay the

02:07:27   same 10 bucks on my renewal for overcast and you just get more of the money you get $8

02:07:31   and 50 cents instead of $7.

02:07:33   Yeah, and a long time ago, like when I when I launched the magazine, it was it was a new

02:07:38   stand app. And new Stan was the first thing to have these auto renewing subscriptions.

02:07:42   and this was back in iOS 5 and 6.

02:07:47   And at the time, this big blog post basically was saying

02:07:50   like auto-renewing subscriptions are terrible

02:07:54   and I would never do them again.

02:07:55   And I wouldn't if they were the same,

02:07:58   but they're a lot better now.

02:07:59   Like everything about them now,

02:08:00   they still have a lot of shortcomings,

02:08:02   but everything about them now is a lot easier to implement

02:08:04   and easier for both developers and customers to deal with

02:08:07   than it was in iOS 5.

02:08:07   And so now it is, again, there are still limits.

02:08:12   In particular, it's like you still can't tell

02:08:15   if somebody has told their subscription not to renew,

02:08:20   so effectively if they've canceled.

02:08:21   You don't know until it expires.

02:08:24   Like you know the date that it's supposed to renew,

02:08:26   but until that date comes and it doesn't renew,

02:08:29   you don't know they've canceled it.

02:08:30   And so there's weird things with like,

02:08:33   if you want to also sell subscriptions

02:08:36   through your website maybe,

02:08:38   and it like offer both payment options,

02:08:40   it's really hard to reconcile these things,

02:08:43   'cause like you don't know if the person

02:08:45   has canceled on their phone, if they are extending,

02:08:47   so there's a whole bunch of weird cases.

02:08:49   But the way I'm doing it now, which is very simple,

02:08:51   and there is no web payment option,

02:08:53   along with the improvements they've done

02:08:56   to the system since iOS 5, make it a much easier sell now,

02:09:00   and then add the raise to it, and it's a no-brainer.

02:09:02   - Yeah.

02:09:04   - And it was starting now with version 3.0.

02:09:07   You've switched the, you seem to have narrowed in

02:09:11   on the $10 a year recurring subscription for the Pro,

02:09:14   you know, what do you call it, iPhone or Overcast Pro?

02:09:17   - I call it Premium.

02:09:18   - Premium.

02:09:18   - Yeah.

02:09:19   - Well, all right, you can call it that.

02:09:22   - I was kind of like going off of like, you know,

02:09:23   like what streaming music services call their ad-free tiers.

02:09:27   - Yeah.

02:09:27   - Which are almost all premium.

02:09:28   - I guess it semantically it makes sense.

02:09:30   Pro's shorter.

02:09:32   - And pro is kind of, it's kind of weird

02:09:34   to call something pro that adds almost no features.

02:09:37   - Right.

02:09:38   - Like it's like what, like so premium,

02:09:39   like there was basically like, you know,

02:09:41   I'm kind of going off of like what people

02:09:43   are accustomed to here.

02:09:44   And streaming music services are way more popular

02:09:47   than Overcast, so like if they're all saying

02:09:50   their ad free tiers are called premium,

02:09:52   and if I call mine that, I think people basically get it.

02:09:55   - But the big change is on the ad side,

02:09:58   where instead of using Google's mobile ad services,

02:10:01   you've dropped it for your own homegrown system

02:10:04   where you're going to sell, or you are selling ads that--

02:10:08   you sell the ads and they get shown with the novel idea,

02:10:13   but which is very obvious.

02:10:14   And it kind of gets into my thing

02:10:16   when I was talking about Audible before that, hey,

02:10:18   guess why Audible advertises on a podcast?

02:10:21   Because they know everybody who listens to it

02:10:23   is listening to spoken word content.

02:10:26   And so one of your ideas is that podcasts

02:10:28   can buy these ads to promote their podcast.

02:10:32   So I could buy ads for the talk show,

02:10:34   and people would be listening to other shows.

02:10:36   And if they're free users of Overcast,

02:10:38   I get a little ad at the bottom, and I can try

02:10:39   to pitch them on listening.

02:10:41   And if they tap it, it doesn't take them

02:10:44   to my website or something.

02:10:46   It does something far smarter than that.

02:10:48   It takes you to the page-- not the page,

02:10:50   but the card in Overcast, where you

02:10:53   would be able to either subscribe to my show

02:10:56   or listen to the latest episode to see what it's like.

02:11:00   - Yeah, you browse the whole episode list,

02:11:01   the whole history of the show and everything.

02:11:03   Exactly what you get from the ad podcast screen.

02:11:06   It's the same thing.

02:11:07   Yeah, I mean, it's,

02:11:08   this was kind of, I mean,

02:11:11   I've kind of like fallen into all my business models

02:11:14   for Overcast here. (laughs)

02:11:16   - I don't know if it's gonna work.

02:11:18   I mean, you never know.

02:11:18   You have to try them. - Neither do I.

02:11:19   - And you know, like my RSS feed sponsorships

02:11:22   have worked way better than I thought they would,

02:11:24   or than I even hoped they would.

02:11:25   But I'm sure glad I tried it because it worked a lot better than I thought it would.

02:11:31   Who knows? Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

02:11:34   But it at least fits the basic description of

02:11:37   advertising that is sustainable and works in my experience.

02:11:41   It isn't just a flash in the pan,

02:11:43   which is that it's got to be that win-win-win scenario,

02:11:47   where it's a good value for the advertiser.

02:11:49   It's not super annoying to the user and it makes money for the person selling the ad.

02:11:55   And it kind of has that.

02:11:56   And part of the way that you get that to work

02:11:58   is to not try to make ads that are exactly

02:12:03   like the ads for a previous medium,

02:12:05   or to reuse the analogy, fighting the previous war.

02:12:09   But what is native for this?

02:12:12   And I've given talks about it, but in the early days

02:12:16   when people would try to monetize RSS,

02:12:18   they would have two ad strategies.

02:12:19   The big one that was super common for a long time

02:12:22   was that you wouldn't put the full article in the RSS feed.

02:12:25   So you didn't have to put ads in.

02:12:27   You'd get a list of articles.

02:12:28   And if you wanted to read one, you'd

02:12:30   get a two-sentence summary.

02:12:31   And then you'd double-click it and go to the website.

02:12:33   And then you'd see the website ads.

02:12:36   Well, it works in terms of not giving away

02:12:39   your content for free.

02:12:40   But it wasn't what people who used RSS readers want to do.

02:12:44   They were using RSS readers because they wanted to read

02:12:46   your stuff in the RSS reader.

02:12:48   Yeah, basically ruin the feed.

02:12:49   Right.

02:12:50   So the next thing people would try to do

02:12:52   put banner ads in each article, which made them

02:12:55   like little web pages.

02:12:57   And they paid pennies, and everybody just

02:12:59   skipped over them.

02:13:01   And so my idea was, well, why not just have a paid entry

02:13:04   in the feed once a week?

02:13:05   Give them the whole entry.

02:13:07   Don't put something in the entries.

02:13:09   Just sell an entry.

02:13:11   And it has worked out very, very well.

02:13:14   And I think selling a podcast--

02:13:15   I think if your idea works, I think actually having

02:13:18   and the podcasts sell by other podcasts buying the ads

02:13:24   is going to work.

02:13:25   And one of the things that occurred to me

02:13:27   is, what do you see a lot-- when you watch regular commercial

02:13:29   TV, what do you see a lot of commercials for?

02:13:31   TV shows.

02:13:32   TV shows.

02:13:35   And it's not because the network couldn't sell the spot.

02:13:39   And oh, well, we'll put an ad for Modern Family

02:13:42   during the football game because we didn't sell the spot.

02:13:48   They do it because they know it's super valuable to get people to watch the show

02:13:53   Like I can't even tell you how many times during the Super Bowl. They told you how many

02:13:56   forget what the show was but

02:13:59   It shows how well the ads work, but but they kept telling you what should what show is gonna be on right after the Super Bowl

02:14:05   Yeah, it was like the new 24 reboot or something like that

02:14:08   Over and over and over again because it works because you're already watching TV

02:14:13   Right exactly and listening to a podcast

02:14:17   Yeah, and so like that's like I think this the only question in my mind basically is like

02:14:23   Do enough podcasters have enough money to want to pay for ads right that and that's a big question mark

02:14:31   And that's what I'm like. This isn't just podcasters

02:14:34   Like I also have like a hover ad and a Squarespace ad and a Linode added my like I can advertise for I put the

02:14:40   Whole thing to be fairly generic so I can advertise for podcasts or just any website or apps in the App Store

02:14:46   So any of those things can be advertised with these with these ad units and I can control all server sides

02:14:53   I can you know, I'm a mentally insert them as necessary. I

02:14:56   Just it remains to be seen like whether podcasters actually will buy these at

02:15:03   The prices that they end up being worth or not

02:15:06   What I don't that's I don't know what percentage I mean right now your your revenue is overwhelmingly from the premium subscribers, correct?

02:15:14   - Yeah, and basically what allowed me the freedom

02:15:17   to even try this at all is that what I found

02:15:19   since September, since using the Google Ads,

02:15:22   the Google Ads in apps, and I mean this is true

02:15:26   of any in app advertising basically,

02:15:28   how much it works for you is extremely dependent

02:15:33   on your click through rate.

02:15:36   Basically how many clicks do you get

02:15:37   per 1,000 impressions of the ad as it's shown?

02:15:41   And my click-through rate in the Google Ads was awful.

02:15:46   It was so far below industry averages and everything.

02:15:49   It was terrible.

02:15:50   Because who wants to jump out to a web browser?

02:15:53   That's certainly part of it.

02:15:54   I mean, another part of it is just like--

02:15:55   And how many people think if they tap it

02:15:57   and it goes to a web browser that the podcast is

02:15:59   going to stop playing?

02:15:59   It didn't, because it's overcast.

02:16:01   It can run in the background.

02:16:02   But how many people wouldn't even--

02:16:05   it may even be vaguely interested,

02:16:06   but wouldn't tap it out of fear that the podcast would

02:16:08   stop playing, which would be like the worst thing ever?

02:16:10   - Yeah, I never thought about that.

02:16:12   So basically, there was that big problem of

02:16:14   my tap-through rate was terrible.

02:16:18   And also, just things that advertise

02:16:22   in these kind of bulk ad networks on mobile,

02:16:26   they weren't often very high-quality ads.

02:16:28   So the result of this was both that they look kind of junky

02:16:34   and also they made very little money.

02:16:38   And the only reason that this has succeeded

02:16:42   as a business model at all is because

02:16:45   having the ads there made a lot more people

02:16:48   subscribe as premium members than the previous system,

02:16:52   which is basically like subscribe if you like me.

02:16:54   It was kind of like a voluntary patronage thing.

02:16:56   That got very few people to subscribe.

02:16:59   And so having the ads there,

02:17:02   I thought it would be a nice balance of like,

02:17:03   all right, I'll make a lot of money from ads

02:17:04   and some money from subscriptions.

02:17:06   and it ends up I made more money from subscriptions

02:17:09   than I thought and way less money from ads than I expected.

02:17:12   So the advantage there though, the silver lining there

02:17:15   is that I could replace the ads

02:17:17   with basically any other ads.

02:17:20   It doesn't really matter, whatever I replace them with,

02:17:24   as long as it brings in some money,

02:17:28   I can come out basically the same or ahead

02:17:32   from the little bit I was making from Google

02:17:34   just because as I said, my tap rate was terrible

02:17:37   from those ads.

02:17:37   - And it doesn't make you hang your head in shame

02:17:40   about the quality of the ads.

02:17:41   As long as it's-- - Exactly.

02:17:42   - You had a good point.

02:17:43   - And I only have about 24 hours worth of numbers so far,

02:17:48   but my tap rate on the new ads is something like,

02:17:52   I think it's like 100 times better than it was.

02:17:55   It's some obscene multiplier.

02:17:58   Again, I only have 24 hours of data

02:18:00   and everyone's trying them out to see what they are,

02:18:01   So this is not representative of long-term trends,

02:18:05   but I'm confident so far that I think

02:18:08   I hit something better this time.

02:18:09   - I think it's gonna work.

02:18:16   I think it's a good idea,

02:18:17   but it's definitely better than the old ads.

02:18:20   No question. - I mean, my only question

02:18:21   really is like, in six months,

02:18:24   are most of the ads that you see in Overcast

02:18:26   going to be for websites like Hover and Squarespace,

02:18:29   or are they gonna be for podcasts?

02:18:31   And I have no idea.

02:18:32   - Yeah, but it's good to keep an open mind

02:18:34   and let it sort out.

02:18:35   - Exactly. - As it falls.

02:18:37   Water seeks its own level.

02:18:38   I think this is one of those things too

02:18:39   where you underestimate your personal skillset

02:18:42   in terms of your,

02:18:44   I mean, the main part of Overcast is,

02:18:48   you know, it's an iOS app and it's programming,

02:18:51   you know, and you've done,

02:18:52   we talked extensively already about all the UI stuff

02:18:55   that you've done and changed and customized

02:18:57   and customizing the table view and all this stuff that's just pure, this is what iOS developers

02:19:04   of good apps do.

02:19:06   But your background as a CMS developer gives you such a leg up in terms of, "Oh, I'll just

02:19:12   build my own ad network."

02:19:17   Because you did this before where you built the system that we use, I use it, ATP uses

02:19:23   is it to just set up the schedule of podcast ads,

02:19:28   which ads are in which episode and what do you say?

02:19:32   It's just something you build out of the frustration

02:19:36   of whatever jury-rigged system.

02:19:39   I don't even remember what we did before, but--

02:19:41   - I used a terrible Excel spreadsheet before.

02:19:43   I think that most people have some kind of

02:19:45   awful combination of spreadsheets and stuff.

02:19:47   - Yeah, it was a numbers spreadsheet.

02:19:50   And it was just awful.

02:19:53   So your ability to have this second skill set

02:19:58   where you can build the backend of a dynamic,

02:20:03   on the fly, up to the minute ad thing

02:20:06   is a huge advantage of being able to think

02:20:08   of something like this.

02:20:09   'Cause I can see a lot of people might come up

02:20:10   with this idea, but then they will wait.

02:20:12   How would I actually manage the ads on the backend

02:20:16   so that they get served?

02:20:18   And maybe it would never percolate up to the level

02:20:21   where they do it because they don't have that skill set.

02:20:23   - Well, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say

02:20:27   that it's much of a skill set, honestly.

02:20:29   It's more of like a willing,

02:20:33   or it's more of a confidence to do it

02:20:35   because so many app developers don't have

02:20:38   a lot of server-side experience.

02:20:40   And so they have experience developing

02:20:42   the local native app, but maybe not necessarily

02:20:44   the server-side chops, or they don't want

02:20:46   to run the server themselves or have to depend on a server.

02:20:49   And I just, whatever it is that intimidates people

02:20:54   or turns people off about running servers,

02:20:56   I don't have that.

02:20:57   Because my job, before making apps,

02:21:00   my job was all about running servers

02:21:01   and running applications on servers.

02:21:03   And so I just became comfortable with that.

02:21:05   Running servers and running apps on servers

02:21:07   and writing backend code is actually way easier

02:21:10   than writing app code in so many ways.

02:21:12   It's, sorry backend developers,

02:21:15   I know I'm one of you sometimes,

02:21:16   but I'm telling you, it's so much easier most of the time

02:21:20   than writing most app code that you have to do

02:21:23   to make a reasonable quality app.

02:21:25   And so it isn't that most developers can't do this,

02:21:28   it's that most of them think they can't do this,

02:21:30   and so they don't even try.

02:21:31   The main challenge for me, trying to do all this ad stuff,

02:21:36   is that I just find it incredibly uninteresting.

02:21:39   Like, the idea, like, I actually really got

02:21:42   a lot of enjoyment out of designing the ad format,

02:21:45   and integrating them into the app

02:21:46   and making that work really nicely.

02:21:48   But doing the back end of putting in the ads

02:21:51   and tracking how many clicks they get,

02:21:53   that I could not be less interested in doing that.

02:21:57   I put it off forever.

02:21:59   (laughing)

02:22:03   - Well, you did it.

02:22:04   I don't know, we'll see how it goes.

02:22:05   - I literally did it three days ago.

02:22:07   (laughing)

02:22:09   - The other little details I have are some of the changes.

02:22:13   you call it a DIOS 7-ification.

02:22:15   So one of the good things about the timing of Overcast

02:22:19   is it debuted with iOS 7, so it never

02:22:21   had to go through that shift from the old world of iOS 6

02:22:25   to iOS 7 visually, in terms of the way that you code an app

02:22:31   and assume stuff.

02:22:32   It went through the shift, just no one saw it except me.

02:22:35   Right.

02:22:38   And it is interesting.

02:22:42   I was never an iOS 7 hater, but iOS 7 definitely

02:22:45   debuted at the extreme end of the direction that it went,

02:22:50   which I think is the way that you go.

02:22:52   I think it's the right way to--

02:22:53   I think it was right for Apple to go push it

02:22:55   as far as they could with the thin fonts

02:22:58   and the translucency everywhere.

02:23:02   But they've dialed it back a lot of ways each step iOS 8 to 9

02:23:07   to 10.

02:23:10   And a lot of the changes you made in Overcast 3

02:23:13   really bring them to the forefront,

02:23:15   'cause there were some things that have been there

02:23:17   in Overcast since 1.0 that are now gone,

02:23:20   but that didn't disappear until now,

02:23:22   like the popover that you would get

02:23:24   for the info on a podcast,

02:23:26   which you said you hated from the beginning.

02:23:28   - I did, I hated those popovers.

02:23:30   - Included in the use of popovers was translucency.

02:23:36   Like, iOS 7 introduced an awful lot of things

02:23:38   that were like a semi-translucent piece of glass,

02:23:42   or like it's, like the popover that I'm talking about

02:23:45   looked like it was printed on like frosted glass.

02:23:48   So you could like see that, like in a shower,

02:23:50   you can see that there's somebody in the shower,

02:23:52   but you can't see what they look like.

02:23:54   - Yeah, a lot of use of blur.

02:23:56   But because what happened was like,

02:23:57   at the time that iOS 7 came out,

02:24:00   whatever combination of hardware and software tricks,

02:24:03   blur is computationally intensive.

02:24:06   And so they basically couldn't do it before,

02:24:08   And on that year, I think it was 2013 that came out,

02:24:13   on that year of iPhones, they were finally powerful enough

02:24:17   to really do it and they came up with a couple

02:24:19   of neat software tricks to do it a little bit faster.

02:24:22   And so it was like they had this new technical ability

02:24:25   that was pretty rare before, especially,

02:24:27   and was not seen at all on mobile

02:24:29   'cause it was too complex to do on mobile hardware.

02:24:32   And so they went nuts with it.

02:24:33   It was like, you know, typical,

02:24:34   when you get a new tech ability,

02:24:36   you first go nuts with it and then you dial it back.

02:24:38   and they certainly did.

02:24:40   - But I think what this update really focuses is

02:24:43   where we still use Blur, Apple still uses Blur extensively

02:24:47   in iOS 10, but instead of being like this foreground panel

02:24:51   that's in the front and that you see through,

02:24:54   it's the background that gets blurred.

02:24:56   So for example, when you do the force touch on an episode

02:25:00   to peak at it, the panel is not translucent,

02:25:05   but the background around it is,

02:25:07   which is, it's a subtle difference,

02:25:10   but I think it works much better.

02:25:13   Because it doesn't make the thing

02:25:14   you're looking at hard to read,

02:25:16   but it gives you this immediate context

02:25:19   of oh, this is temporary, this is just a little,

02:25:22   'cause it's all blurry in the background,

02:25:23   I've popped this thing up.

02:25:24   - Yeah, 'cause the other thing about blur is like,

02:25:29   besides being computationally difficult,

02:25:31   it's also very hard to design around.

02:25:34   - Yes.

02:25:35   When you have these blurry foreground panes

02:25:38   and these large blurry expanses,

02:25:41   and then you have like, behind them you have

02:25:43   some bright pink icon shining through

02:25:45   and you have this pink blob in the blur area,

02:25:48   it's very hard to design around that

02:25:51   and to make that both legible and attractive

02:25:55   in all situations.

02:25:56   It's nearly impossible.

02:25:57   - And then the other difference that's definitely

02:26:02   moving directly away from iOS 7 is slightly thicker lines,

02:26:06   like icons and stuff like that,

02:26:08   like the sharing icon and stuff.

02:26:11   Everything isn't so wispy anymore.

02:26:13   It's a little, I wouldn't say it's thick lines,

02:26:16   but they're much more like regular lines.

02:26:19   - Oh, you should have seen the conversation

02:26:21   between me and Louis Mantia.

02:26:23   I designed the entire rest of the app myself,

02:26:26   and then I went to him, 'cause he made the original icon,

02:26:29   so I went to him to refresh the icon,

02:26:32   and I showed him the screenshot of the toolbar

02:26:37   on the main screen that has those four icons across the top

02:26:39   and he's like, what are you doing with the stroke width?

02:26:42   Because the lines on all the icons and everything

02:26:47   in all previous versions were one point wide,

02:26:51   which is two pixels on the 2X phones

02:26:54   and then three pixels or six, yeah, three pixels on,

02:26:58   anyway, so one point was what we had before.

02:27:02   I wanted to make everything a little bit thicker.

02:27:04   Two points in most things look too thick.

02:27:07   So the actual stroke width of most of the icons

02:27:12   in Overcast is 1.5 points.

02:27:15   And this makes everything suck.

02:27:18   This makes everything about icon design harder

02:27:22   because you can either have it blurry on all devices

02:27:26   or you can align things to quarter point boundaries

02:27:30   and have it work.

02:27:32   So that's what I did.

02:27:33   And when I tried to make another designer do that,

02:27:37   I got some pushback.

02:27:38   (laughing)

02:27:40   Eventually we worked it out.

02:27:42   But the result is that almost all the icons

02:27:47   in Overcast 3 have a 1.5 point stroke width

02:27:50   and it works and it looks sharp.

02:27:53   - So is that gonna work out well on the 3X iPhone X?

02:27:57   - So that's a question.

02:27:59   So basically, the way it works, the way I've aligned them

02:28:02   on these quarter pixel boundaries,

02:28:03   it is sharp on 2x.

02:28:06   On 3x, it is a little bit less sharp.

02:28:09   But there are so many pixels,

02:28:11   I'm kind of thinking you might not notice.

02:28:12   - Yeah, but on-- - 'Cause I don't,

02:28:13   I don't notice on the plus phones, now.

02:28:15   - Right.

02:28:16   We'll have to see.

02:28:20   Anyway, I think it's good work.

02:28:22   - Thanks.

02:28:22   - Anything else you wanted to talk about?

02:28:24   - I don't think so.

02:28:26   I mean, we've only been going for two and a half hours.

02:28:28   I mean, we still have three more to go, right?

02:28:30   - That's short for us, we gotta wrap it up.

02:28:32   - It really is short for us.

02:28:34   - How'd the release go?

02:28:36   You had that one bug you had to fix,

02:28:37   so you had to have one emergency bug in it,

02:28:39   but it seems like that got through.

02:28:40   Did you have to do an expedited review?

02:28:43   - No, it was just fast.

02:28:45   It was just that fast.

02:28:48   So yeah, I actually fixed, here, let me pull it up,

02:28:50   I fixed 13 kind of important day one bugs.

02:28:55   One of the things, I had a couple people on Twitter saying,

02:28:58   Why didn't you beta test this more with a bigger group?

02:29:00   Your beta group sucked.

02:29:01   And the reason why, literally, is secrecy.

02:29:06   Like, that's it.

02:29:07   It's a boring reason, but that's true.

02:29:09   I have done bigger betas before.

02:29:10   I've done betas where I've tried to fill

02:29:12   all 1,000 of my test flight slots,

02:29:15   and I came pretty close,

02:29:16   and I had like 800 people on one of them.

02:29:18   And I've done like kind of mediums,

02:29:19   where it's like 150 people,

02:29:22   and this one was something like 40 or 50 people.

02:29:24   And the reason why I kept it small

02:29:27   is because every previous beta I've done,

02:29:29   I've said in the instructions,

02:29:31   please don't share screenshots of this with anybody.

02:29:33   Please don't show this to people who aren't on the beta.

02:29:35   Like, please try to keep this under wraps.

02:29:37   And every single time it's been bigger

02:29:39   than my group of friends that I did this beta with,

02:29:42   people leak it.

02:29:43   Because, and it's not that they're trying to be devious,

02:29:45   they just don't read the directions.

02:29:47   And they think it's okay,

02:29:48   or they want to show it off or whatever else.

02:29:49   So I just didn't want that.

02:29:51   Like there was enough new stuff in this visually

02:29:55   that I did not want anybody sharing a screenshot

02:29:57   before I emailed it to the world.

02:29:59   And whether you think it's a valid excuse or not,

02:30:03   that was the reason.

02:30:04   And I knew I could trust this group of people

02:30:07   to be attentive to that and to be trustworthy of that,

02:30:10   so I tested it just with trusted friends.

02:30:12   And I found the number of bugs that you find

02:30:16   with larger groups of people actually isn't that much more.

02:30:19   - I don't think so either.

02:30:20   That's my experience. - It really isn't.

02:30:22   - I think the only way you could do it is do a public beta,

02:30:24   and then you will shake out more bugs in the aggregate,

02:30:28   but then you're completely blowing any kind of secrecy

02:30:31   'cause it's a public beta.

02:30:32   - Yeah, exactly, and you kinda can't do that on iOS.

02:30:35   Like, that is kinda what I simulated

02:30:36   with my test flight invitation form

02:30:39   and with those previous tests, but it's, yeah.

02:30:42   It basically is, like, now I would do it

02:30:46   for a bug fix update because now, like,

02:30:48   there's nothing secret for the next few releases.

02:30:50   The next few releases are gonna be bug fixes

02:30:52   and minor feature additions.

02:30:53   So, like, I would consider doing it now,

02:30:54   but now it's not necessary anymore.

02:30:56   I really have found that keeping the beta small

02:30:58   is the way to go.

02:30:59   So anyway, fixed a couple of bugs.

02:31:01   - We had about 60 with Vesper, and our rule was,

02:31:03   I'm looking at the list right now,

02:31:04   'cause we put them in the credits.

02:31:06   I would say out of the 60, at least 40 of them

02:31:08   are people who I would give my wallet to.

02:31:10   And our general, but that was like our general rule.

02:31:12   And the other 20 are ones that either Brent or Dave

02:31:16   would vouch for, you know, but the rule was

02:31:18   if you wanted somebody on the beta,

02:31:19   you'd have to be someone that you would verify

02:31:21   you'd trust with your wallet.

02:31:23   - Yeah, exactly.

02:31:24   And again, the benefit of having a lot more people on that

02:31:28   than that on a beta is fairly small.

02:31:31   It's severely diminishing returns.

02:31:33   So yeah, it was fine.

02:31:34   So anyway, I fixed all those bugs in a release

02:31:37   that went through today.

02:31:38   I created one also major bug during that release,

02:31:41   which is that now you can't create new playlists anymore.

02:31:45   So I have to fix that.

02:31:46   But otherwise, besides those things,

02:31:51   it's actually been great.

02:31:52   The servers haven't collapsed or anything.

02:31:55   Everything's pretty stable there.

02:31:56   So yeah, so far so good.

02:31:58   - I uncovered that bug while we were talking

02:32:00   about this earlier and I didn't want to tell you.

02:32:02   I didn't want to-- - The create playlist bug?

02:32:04   - Yeah, there's no save button.

02:32:07   - Yeah, that's a tough one.

02:32:09   - That's all right.

02:32:10   - That's all right.

02:32:11   Probably by the time that you actually publish this episode,

02:32:14   it might even be fixed.

02:32:15   - That's probably a good one. - 'Cause I'm probably gonna

02:32:16   have to issue an update tomorrow to fix that one

02:32:18   and hope it gets through App Review somewhat quickly.

02:32:20   I feel kind of I feel kind of guilty putting through like something in app review two days in a row

02:32:25   But I feel like they've got the wheels to turn it over there where that's not you shouldn't feel guilty

02:32:31   It seems like they've just got you know, they've really upped up the capacity

02:32:35   I mean, I've heard because like I'm not requesting fast reviews like they just happen to be going through quickly

02:32:40   Yeah, yeah, I think especially if you don't request an expedited review just just fix it however often you want

02:32:47   Yeah, I feel like I'd be like put on some like bad list, you know, I don't like every day for a while

02:32:53   I don't know maybe if it kept up for a very long time

02:32:55   But even then it might be more like let's make sure this guy isn't do anything suspicious. Yeah, that's true

02:33:01   Well Marco, thank you for your time

02:33:04   Thank you. Everybody can listen to your the dulcet tones of your voice on a very regular weekly basis at

02:33:11   ATP FM which is literally my favorite podcast

02:33:16   Thank you.

02:33:18   I do notice, though, you cheat, and it

02:33:20   sorts to the top of the list in Overcast.

02:33:25   You would not believe how many people think that--

02:33:30   well, I mean, it's not a lot of people.

02:33:31   You think that ATP is first because it's the shares?

02:33:35   I do get the occasional angry email or one-star App Store

02:33:40   review from people who think that the entire reason I made

02:33:45   overcast was to promote my own podcast and that that's why it shows up in the most recommended

02:33:51   list sometimes that I've hard coded it to appear there.

02:33:55   Oh, did I tell you I'm changing the name of my show?

02:33:59   AAA talk show.

02:34:02   Like the yellow pages.

02:34:03   AAA talk show.

02:34:04   AAA talk show.

02:34:05   Exactly.

02:34:06   Oh, I wanted that.

02:34:07   That reminds me.

02:34:08   That's amazing that you said that.

02:34:09   I want I have I have some follow up from like an episode 10 weeks ago on ATP.

02:34:13   You were.

02:34:14   Of course.

02:34:15   You were confused about minor league baseball and why single A and double A. Yes. Triple A.

02:34:22   It's just more A's are better. So why aren't the major leagues quadruple A?

02:34:28   They are in concept. You could think of them as...

02:34:34   My whole question was like why is triple A like the top tier in video game budget terms?

02:34:41   Right. But like this kind of minor league thing in baseball?

02:34:44   Yeah, I think that it's a different I think that I don't know that's actually a good question on the video games

02:34:49   I suspect that the triple-a for video games has absolutely nothing to do with baseball that it doesn't come from baseball that it's some other

02:34:56   Some other route so are there single-a and double-a teams? Yes, they're single-a

02:35:02   Which is really regional and then double-a is a little bit bigger triple-a is is elite

02:35:08   it's people most of the people on a triple-a team are the

02:35:14   or at least have the potential to play Major League Baseball.

02:35:17   And then you can think of Major League Baseball

02:35:19   as Quadruple-A baseball, but nobody calls it that.

02:35:23   Nobody ever would, 'cause it's not minor league.

02:35:25   - What are the Columbus Clippers?

02:35:27   - I have no idea.

02:35:28   And there's also-- - Oh, it says Triple-A.

02:35:30   - There's also-- - They're all Triple-A

02:35:31   affiliated with the Cleveland Indians.

02:35:32   - There's also independent leagues, which are,

02:35:37   so I believe it's the case, I could be wrong,

02:35:39   but I believe it's the case that every single A,

02:35:41   AA and AAA team is affiliated with a major league team.

02:35:46   So like the Yankees own a AAA team and a AA team

02:35:50   and an A team.

02:35:51   But then there's independent leagues

02:35:52   which aren't affiliated with a major league team.

02:35:56   I think right over the river here in Philly,

02:35:58   the Trenton, whatever they're called,

02:36:01   Land Sharks or Rat Sharks or whatever the hell

02:36:03   they're called are unaffiliated.

02:36:05   - The Rat Sharks, that's it, yeah.

02:36:06   - Yeah, they're an independent team.

02:36:09   And so they're not affiliated with a major league team.

02:36:11   So, but they, they, they, some of them are like single A and some of them are even like

02:36:18   double A they say, but for the most part, they're, they're just players who are having

02:36:22   trouble getting picked up by a major league team.

02:36:24   Anyway, I figured I'd explain that to you.

02:36:26   Thanks.

02:36:27   Yeah.

02:36:28   I actually, I didn't realize that, that like they weren't just all triple A. No, like I'm

02:36:31   seeing now like, like the only two teams I know of are the Columbus Clippers.

02:36:34   Cause that's, that was my team growing up in Columbus.

02:36:36   Like we'd go there like on school field trips cause it costs nothing and they actually are

02:36:41   AAA apparently associated with the Indians and then now that I'm in New York the nearest team

02:36:47   I think of this of this caliber is the Long Island Ducks

02:36:50   which are apparently independent there in the

02:36:53   The Liberty division of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, which is not affiliated with the MLB

02:36:59   Here to have no A's

02:37:02   They don't have any days. No a baseball team. It's not Trenton. It's Camden. It's the Camden River Sharks

02:37:09   You were close. Yeah. Yeah the Trenton rat sharks close enough. Yeah

02:37:12   What I love about these games like cuz I don't you know, I I wish I cared about sports

02:37:17   I really do and because I like I know the rules of all the games

02:37:20   I just don't care about the teams and so I don't get into it. But like I I like the

02:37:25   Experience of seeing a game in person with friends who care about it

02:37:29   Like that's a that's a nice thing to do

02:37:31   And so I love triple-a baseball because you can go to these stadiums with basically no advanced notice whatsoever

02:37:37   You can get amazing seats for almost no money

02:37:39   And you can go have a really good time and you can watch a game

02:37:43   With great seats and everything and you know, the food is not exorbitant

02:37:47   or relatively speaking and you know

02:37:50   You just have a really nice time and it's much less of an ordeal and much less expensive and much better quality of

02:37:55   Like, you know your seats and everything compared to a major league game as long as you don't care about teams

02:38:01   Which I don't so it's perfect

02:38:04   Yeah, the Camden River Sharks. I've gone to see them a couple times with Jonas and you can go in for like three bucks and

02:38:09   front row and then you get and it's even cooler if the kids are you know, like a younger age

02:38:14   You know

02:38:16   like when Jonas was playing Little League when he was a little younger because then it's like after the game you can get autographs from

02:38:20   The players and stuff like that and you know, it seems super cool. It's like holy cow

02:38:24   This guy was out there playing professional baseball 15 minutes ago. Now he's signing my hat. You can't get that in a major

02:38:30   Here's it. Here's a Quora answer. Why are big-budget games called triple-a?

02:38:33   This seems this seems pretty credible. I mean although is always the best

02:38:37   Way back in the old days games in old days studios had a B and C titles in the catalog a games were made in-house

02:38:45   with your developers and they were your main products the B titles were either add-on content for your a titles or

02:38:51   new but slightly more humble games created by third-party developers that you

02:38:56   Would specify and then C titles were the older classic SK use now reduced to a value price or small games people brought in and?

02:39:03   a nearly finished state to be published, even non-game add-ons like Screensavers and stuff

02:39:10   like that.

02:39:11   And of course, the industry is full of hyperbole and bluster, so everything was new, was bigger

02:39:15   and better, and so the biggest A titles eventually began to be described as AA, or A+ to emphasize

02:39:23   that they were even better than A games.

02:39:26   And it wasn't long until the AAA moniker arrived.

02:39:29   like the number of blades in disposable razors. Watch for 5A games coming soon.

02:39:34   That's a pretty good answer. Yeah, I find that to be a very good answer. A, B, and C,

02:39:40   and then it went to double A just to plus it up a little bit. That's probably how minor

02:39:46   league baseball got it too. Probably used to be the same thing, and then they have a

02:39:50   better team and they say that. I will leave that as your homework this week to research

02:39:54   that. All right, thank you, Marco. Thank you.