0:00:00It does kind of feel like like I just discovered Phil's in San Francisco once last year and
0:00:07I'm probably never gonna go there again. Uh
0:00:10guess what though I looked on the map and there is a Phil Z within a few blocks of
0:00:15The San Jose Convention Center. Oh, yeah. All right
0:00:19It's like not right across the street but it's probably about as close as the one
0:00:27Just a couple blocks. That was a good place. That's I I do wonder how different the culture of Santa
0:00:34I've never been to San Jose. Like I've been only only a handful of times in Silicon Valley at all and
0:00:40and so San Jose is even less familiar to me than the rest of it and
0:00:45But you've gone to a couple events here and there right? Yeah, including the only time I ever set foot in
0:00:51In San Jose was the 2012
0:00:56October event so it was a the one a month after the big iPhone event they did
0:01:00iPads and I think that was when the current form factor of the iMac debuted with the thin side not yet retina
0:01:09Of course, yeah and was the last public
0:01:12Event Apple held while Scott for stall was was an executive
0:01:17Yeah, that was that was I remember so I still remember like the day that that he was officially announced as being out
0:01:25We 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
0:01:31I'm trying to catch up on what the heck just happened. Everyone was exploding about it. It's pretty cool. Yeah
0:01:35No, so speaking of our of our IMAX though
0:01:39I have a bone to pick with you about because I believe that that you and I have the same
0:01:442014 first gen 5k iMac, correct
0:01:47Does yours have problems with image retention? No
0:01:53You're lucky either that or apparently I don't see it
0:01:57It's possible that maybe I you know, maybe if my eyes were what they used to be
0:02:01I would see it, but it doesn't seem here's here's why here's why you would see it in particular
0:02:05because the the most common place I see it this this just started happening over the last few months and
0:02:12And it's I know exactly what you're gonna say
0:02:14Yeah, exactly. It just started happening over the last few months and it's getting worse quickly
0:02:19And so what happens is, I'm not talking about burn-in,
0:02:22like on Plasma TV, you have something burned in forever.
0:02:25I'm talking about LCD image retention,
0:02:26where basically you kind of see the ghost image
0:02:30of what was there before for a few minutes,
0:02:33and it fades over a minute or two.
0:02:36So if you have something high contrast up
0:02:39for five or 10 minutes, say.
0:02:41So for instance, when you're podcasting,
0:02:42and you have a couple windows up that might have
0:02:44text notes or the Skype window or whatever else,
0:02:47and then you go to your web browser
0:02:48and you load a dark gray website,
0:02:52then you will see the shadows of your formerly in those spots
0:02:57black and white windows.
0:02:59You will see those very clearly against the gray background
0:03:02of the website you're looking at.
0:03:04Yeah, it's like 4a5--
0:03:05So this almost always gets me.
0:03:074a5, 2, 5a.
0:03:09Exactly.
0:03:10On my previous display-- and it was ancient.
0:03:14I used to talk about it on a podcast.
0:03:16But before getting this 5K iMac, what was that,
0:03:21like two and a half years ago now, I guess?
0:03:23- Yeah, something like that. - Yeah.
0:03:24- I was using a 20 inch Apple Cinema Display,
0:03:28not 24 inch, 20 inch from, oh geez,
0:03:32must be like 2000 or 2002 or something.
0:03:35I mean, I don't know, it was really,
0:03:37maybe it wasn't quite that old,
0:03:38but it was really pretty old.
0:03:39And I was sort of in a Syracuse's situation
0:03:44where I-- it was long past the point where I could have easily
0:03:49afforded to replace it.
0:03:51And there were all sorts of good options I could have bought.
0:03:53But I was sort of hoping for something retina forever
0:03:57and ever and ever.
0:03:58And so I just kept putting it off.
0:03:59It's like, there's no way I'm spending $1,000 on an apple.
0:04:02Even no matter how--
0:04:03I guess they were 30 inch for a while,
0:04:05and then they went to 27 inch.
0:04:06But I just didn't feel like buying it not to have retina,
0:04:10knowing that retina would come out any year now.
0:04:12For years and years and years.
0:04:13So my, I was using, and that display, after,
0:04:17it must have been, it had to be at least 10 years old,
0:04:19and I'd used it every day, had terrible image retention,
0:04:22and I knew exactly where you were going
0:04:23because my website was the number one culprit.
0:04:26- Yeah, 'cause like most, if you're dealing
0:04:28with other black and white windows,
0:04:30you don't really see it as often,
0:04:31but when you've had something black and white
0:04:33up for a while, and then you switch to a large expanse
0:04:36of gray, you see it very clearly,
0:04:38and my initial thought is always,
0:04:41I didn't realize that Safari was translucent.
0:04:43- That's exactly what I thought.
0:04:44- I always think it's like window translucency,
0:04:47and I'm like, oh, that's a weird design decision.
0:04:49Oh wait, that isn't a design decision.
0:04:50- Right, when I first encountered it,
0:04:52that's exactly what I thought,
0:04:53is I thought that maybe at some point
0:04:54I'd hit some kind of weird,
0:04:56I'd diddled something in the terminal
0:04:58with defaults right,
0:05:00translucent, you know,
0:05:01com.apples.safari/translucency=91,
0:05:06or something like that.
0:05:08- Right, exactly.
0:05:09- 'Cause that's exactly what it looks like.
0:05:11Sorry about that.
0:05:11Now that now it's an iMac, and it's my main computer,
0:05:14and so it's like, I don't want to send this thing
0:05:17in for repair and not be with my main computer
0:05:19for like two weeks or however long it takes
0:05:21to get it actually fixed.
0:05:22- Two and a half years under even daily use
0:05:24seems like too soon, honestly.
0:05:26- Yeah, and I don't know, and then it's like,
0:05:30am I gonna get one that has just the same problem?
0:05:32I'm always worried that they're not even gonna believe me
0:05:34or that they're not gonna replace it
0:05:35'cause they don't think it's bad enough.
0:05:38Even though I don't have a lot of basis
0:05:41for those feelings, it's just like,
0:05:42it's such a hassle to send away my main computer
0:05:46for repair, especially 'cause it's large.
0:05:49Like if it's a laptop, I could bring 'em to a Genius Bar
0:05:50and maybe have something faster, maybe,
0:05:53but like, because it's such an ordeal
0:05:55to haul this thing anywhere and ship it anywhere,
0:05:58I don't know.
0:05:59My current plan is to just hope that they do something
0:06:03with like an iMac Pro or a Mac Pro sometime this year
0:06:08before my AppleCare runs out in October.
0:06:11And then I can just buy the new one,
0:06:14send this in for repair,
0:06:16and then when I get it back from repair, sell it.
0:06:18- Oh, if you've got AppleCare,
0:06:19you should definitely do it,
0:06:20although you have to be without it.
0:06:21- But it's a pain, yeah.
0:06:22It's like, I don't wanna switch
0:06:23to my new crappy keyboard touch bar.
0:06:26- You know I haven't bought it.
0:06:27I haven't bought AppleCare since 1991.
0:06:29- The only reason I bought it on this,
0:06:32and I'm with you most of the time,
0:06:33the only reason I bought it on this
0:06:34is that AppleCare, the pricing is based
0:06:36on these tiers of the product they apply to.
0:06:40A $1,400 iMac has the same AppleCare cost
0:06:44as a $4,500 fully loaded one.
0:06:47- Right.
0:06:48- And so, and I was buying the very first generation
0:06:51of a new thing, of the 5K.
0:06:53And so I thought, you know what,
0:06:54it was only like 200 bucks or something.
0:06:56It was not a lot of money for what was something
0:06:59like a $4,400 configuration, 'cause I got really maxed out,
0:07:02'cause my main computer.
0:07:04And I figure, you know what, the ratio there pays off.
0:07:06I don't really get it for anything else,
0:07:08but in cases where you're buying a really maxed out
0:07:10config of something, it often does pay off
0:07:13because it's such a low relative cost.
0:07:15- I think we might have literally the same machine.
0:07:17I know I maxed out the RAM, 32 gigs.
0:07:21And I would have--
0:07:21- If you have a terabyte.
0:07:22- Right.
0:07:23I think I have a terabyte drive,
0:07:26'cause I don't know why I wouldn't have bought it,
0:07:27'cause it's the only drive I keep attached most of the time.
0:07:30I actually don't even know.
0:07:33That's something.
0:07:34(laughing)
0:07:35Wow.
0:07:36- It's gotta be a terabyte.
0:07:37I don't see how I would be able to function
0:07:39if it wasn't a terabyte.
0:07:41And then what I get, the four gigahertz Intel Core i7.
0:07:44- Yep, yeah, same thing.
0:07:46Enjoy your wonderful screen.
0:07:49You will know quickly if it ever becomes a problem.
0:07:51- Yes, it is a terabyte drive.
0:07:53999.38 gigabytes, which is bullshit.
0:07:56- Oh, you got ripped off.
0:07:57You didn't get the full terabyte.
0:07:58(laughing)
0:07:59Yeah, oh boy.
0:08:01I just hope I can fix this easily.
0:08:04I don't know, ATP Tifster said that this was a problem
0:08:07with the one that we have, the 2014,
0:08:09but that they fixed it for the 2015 model,
0:08:12which is still the current model.
0:08:14But he also says they're gonna have new ones
0:08:15like in March or whatever, who knows.
0:08:18- Yeah, we can get to March soon.
0:08:19We'll have to get to that.
0:08:22Did you see-- - It kinda sounds like
0:08:23Apple's gonna release like 15 things in March.
0:08:25That's kind of what, like all the rumors are pointing to,
0:08:28Like four iPads, new iMacs, new 12-inch MacBook One,
0:08:33and new watch bands and who knows what on the software side,
0:08:38new iPad stuff maybe.
0:08:40I mean, there is such a giant list of things
0:08:43that rumor people expect to be launched and marked.
0:08:45It's kind of ridiculous.
0:08:47- Did you see this?
0:08:48I've been meaning to link to it,
0:08:49and I haven't 'cause I forget why.
0:08:52I think it might be because I can't find the guy's name.
0:08:54You and I ran into the same thing
0:08:57with somebody on Twitter recently,
0:08:58that guy OMD or something like that, or?
0:09:02- Yeah, yeah, he didn't have his name anywhere
0:09:04on any of his stuff, and we both wanted to link to him
0:09:06and name him, you know, like he's nice.
0:09:09- Right, like I always--
0:09:11- I think he didn't, he responded,
0:09:12and it's not like he didn't want to be named,
0:09:14like at least he gave only a first name
0:09:15or something like that.
0:09:16- I heard, and he said something like he's building
0:09:17his brand on OMD or something like that,
0:09:19and it's harder for me to link to somebody who's anonymous.
0:09:22And the other thing that really gets me,
0:09:24And I hate to say it to you, but it's true.
0:09:28It seems like I link a lot less frequently anymore
0:09:31to people who have Tumblr blogs, just anecdotally.
0:09:34But back when Tumblr was sort of at its peak
0:09:36as a blogging platform-- I'm not saying that Tumblr is
0:09:40in decline, but I think it's in decline for the sort of blogging
0:09:44that I tend to link to it during Fireball.
0:09:46An awful lot of Tumblr sites don't
0:09:48have the person's real name on.
0:09:51It's just their Tumblr handle.
0:09:53And that was always a big hassle for me,
0:09:55and I'd have to figure out what their Twitter name was
0:09:57and go to their Twitter page
0:09:59and find their real name from there.
0:10:00It didn't even seem like it was people
0:10:02who were trying to hide their name.
0:10:03It's just sort of idiomatic for Tumblr.
0:10:06But anyway, there's this site here.
0:10:07- No, and that was actually designed that way.
0:10:09We meant it to be,
0:10:11like it's the same way that one account
0:10:14could have multiple blogs,
0:10:16and that there would be no way to tell,
0:10:18unless you put it there,
0:10:20which blogs belong to which account.
0:10:22- Right, right.
0:10:23it was very easy to create anonymous things
0:10:26that weren't tied to your main identity,
0:10:28and that was very much intentional.
0:10:30Because like everything else at the time,
0:10:32keep in mind we made Tumblr as kind of a response
0:10:35to Myspace and Facebook and the big social networks
0:10:39that were big when we started it in 2006.
0:10:42And so Twitter wasn't really,
0:10:43Twitter existed but it wasn't big.
0:10:45So it was really a response to those
0:10:46that were all about getting your real name
0:10:48and putting all your stuff out in public
0:10:50under your real name.
0:10:51And a lot of people can't or won't give their real name
0:10:56for a lot of the stuff they want to do online.
0:10:57And so you enable a lot more creativity
0:11:02and different types of uses if you allow people
0:11:05to be anonymous.
0:11:06So that was kind of like the ethos from the beginning
0:11:08of you can make a different blog, it's no risk,
0:11:11it's not gonna look bad upon you.
0:11:14This was before all the hate crap that we have today.
0:11:17Today it might be a little bit different calculation there.
0:11:19But back then, most of the hate was confined to these fringe forms and stuff, and they weren't really on Tumblr.
0:11:24I 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.
0:11:36Anyway, I just sent you the link. It's to a guy named Thomas Verschorin at Verschorin.com.
0:11:42He has a Twitter link, so I got his name from there. But anyway, he has an interesting speculation here that
0:11:47it's purely his guess. He's not claiming any sort of sources.
0:11:52But what he's saying is that when Apple made standalone displays, they tend to sell them for a long time.
0:11:57The 27-inch LED display was on sale for three years. The 27-inch Thunderbolt display was on sale for five years.
0:12:03for five years, I guess they're still selling it?
0:12:05Or do they still sell that, right?
0:12:07I don't even know.
0:12:08- No, no, no, they just continued
0:12:10like a year and a half ago or something.
0:12:11- So you can't even buy an outdated Apple Display
0:12:14at this point?
0:12:14- No, I mean, you might be able to find somebody
0:12:16who has one in stock, but they haven't sold them new
0:12:18for a while. - Cancel.
0:12:19So here's his guess, is his guess is that Apple
0:12:25didn't wanna release a 5K standalone cinema display
0:12:28back in October when they did all the new MacBooks
0:12:31that could use them because they weren't yet ready
0:12:34to sell one with True Tone,
0:12:36because they don't have True Tone in the iMac either.
0:12:38None of the desktop Macs do.
0:12:40And so, as he says here, his conclusion,
0:12:42if you were Apple, what would you choose to do?
0:12:44Release an Apple 5K Cinema Display in 2016
0:12:48and then sell it for a few years unchanged without True Tone
0:12:52or push the LG display in 2016 as a stopgap
0:12:56and release an Apple 5K True Tone display sometime in 2017.
0:13:01So is anybody who's still holding onto a thread of hope
0:13:05that Apple hasn't abandoned the standalone display game, which
0:13:08I would not bet on.
0:13:09I kind of suspect that they are done.
0:13:12But there's a wee bit of sense here, in my opinion.
0:13:17I mean, so the thing about they tend
0:13:19to have these displays that last for a certain amount of time.
0:13:22Throw that right out, doesn't matter.
0:13:23It doesn't matter how long things have been out,
0:13:25like five years.
0:13:26This is a very small sample size.
0:13:28Apple does not artificially hold things back
0:13:30simply because the last one is only three years old
0:13:32instead of four years old or whatever.
0:13:34Like that's, this is too small of a correlation to matter
0:13:38and that's not how they really work.
0:13:39I think the only question here is
0:13:42whether we believe that they would hold back this display
0:13:45and go through the kind of,
0:13:48and assume the LG display was perfect, which it isn't,
0:13:51but assume the LG display was perfect,
0:13:52they still took a big PR hit
0:13:55in order to push that as the solution
0:13:57and to have the idea out there
0:13:59unchallenged for months and still so far that they are out of this display
0:14:03business. Yeah but what if they had no choice? Is that more like is that
0:14:07is that more likely than them wanting to save True Tone for the iMac? They don't
0:14:12sell them any iMacs, they sell a lot more laptops. It would not surprise me if when
0:14:17the Thunderbolt display that they just when they discontinued recently, that one
0:14:22when it was new, it wouldn't surprise me if that outsold the iMac when it was new.
0:14:27It might not, but they sell a lot of laptops.
0:14:31And they sell a lot of these displays for laptops,
0:14:33for their laptops.
0:14:35And so I don't see them holding back something
0:14:39that their customers very clearly want,
0:14:42replacing a product that was incredibly out of date,
0:14:45only for the purpose of one of its really minor features,
0:14:50like jumping ahead of the iMac getting that same feature.
0:14:53It doesn't seem like that would be important enough to them
0:14:55to justify all the downsides of that strategy.
0:14:57What if the original plan though was like a year in advance or well over a year ago
0:15:01if they had hoped to also have 5k IMAX at the end of 2016 too with True Tone and the
0:15:08whole thing just fell apart?
0:15:09Maybe.
0:15:10That's plausible but it just seems—
0:15:12I'm not saying how likely it is but the whole thing seems plausible to me that it's
0:15:16some sort of engineering/supply chain screw up or you know maybe screw up is too harsh
0:15:23of a word but something didn't go according to plan and that's where they are.
0:15:26I don't know.
0:15:27I still love it.
0:15:28I brought it up the other week on this show.
0:15:29And there must be an awful lot of people
0:15:31who listen to my show who don't listen to ATP,
0:15:33because I got so much--
0:15:35the best feedback I got was that the observation--
0:15:39I got so much email about ripping off
0:15:41Syracuse's observation from ATP, which I did credit him with,
0:15:45that what does Apple plan to do in their beautiful new campus?
0:15:48Stuff all of these--
0:15:49which supposedly has a more open floor plan, where you'll see
0:15:53more of your colleagues' desks.
0:15:55Are they going to put one of these ugly LG monitors
0:15:59on every single one of these Johnny Ive designed desks?
0:16:02Like Johnny Ive is bought these off in the woods,
0:16:05nailing desks together out of wood
0:16:08that comes from one special brand of tree
0:16:10that grows in northern Italy or something.
0:16:13And they're going to put ugly LG monitors on all these desks?
0:16:18And that's also a good counterargument.
0:16:20But I think it's just as likely that you could just say,
0:16:23well, their solution is just they're
0:16:24you're gonna give most of their engineers and stuff,
0:16:26like iMacs.
0:16:27It really does seem like,
0:16:30and again, this could be blown under the water
0:16:33when Apple releases a brand new Mac Pro, iMac Pro,
0:16:35whatever it is in July, but I think that's very unlikely.
0:16:38I think if that was gonna happen,
0:16:40we would have a lot more than casual speculation
0:16:42about it by now.
0:16:43The fact that there's nothing in the pipeline
0:16:46to suggest that's happening makes me believe
0:16:48it's definitely not happening this year, if ever.
0:16:51And so I really do think it's very clear
0:16:53that we all have wishful thinking
0:16:56that goes in a different direction,
0:16:57but the reality is it's most likely
0:17:00that Apple really is out of the display business
0:17:02and the Pro Desktop business and the Mac Mini business
0:17:06and is really just gonna make the iMac and the MacBook Pro
0:17:09their only computers going forward.
0:17:11- I've heard that, I think I figured
0:17:13if I've talked about this,
0:17:14I've heard that there is a new Mac Pro in the pipeline,
0:17:17but that it is, it sounds ridiculous,
0:17:21but that it's effectively in a slot
0:17:24where there's so many other machines,
0:17:26whether they're Macs or other things,
0:17:27that are getting testing and validation engineering
0:17:31resources ahead of it,
0:17:33that there's no way it's gonna ship by WWDC.
0:17:36Which seems ridiculous, but.
0:17:38- Well, yeah.
0:17:38Even if they, I mean, here's the thing.
0:17:42Most people who feel bad about Apple
0:17:47because of the lack of Mac Pro updates at all,
0:17:50they don't necessarily need it to ship at WDC.
0:17:53I think what would calm a lot of fears, my own included,
0:17:56would just be an acknowledgement and confirmation
0:17:59that something else is coming.
0:18:01Just confirmation, even if it's one of their BSE replies
0:18:04to the press, keep an eye out, this space,
0:18:07you know, whatever else, something.
0:18:10And Tim Cook's little Q&A response
0:18:12to that internal bulletin board thing a few months back,
0:18:14that wasn't enough.
0:18:15That was actually, in fact, making things worse, I think,
0:18:17by kind of implying that the iMac was gonna be it,
0:18:20going forward. That's all we really want here. But again, I just, it's what I want to be
0:18:27true. I want there to be a new Mac Pro of some sort. And if it's shaped like an iMac,
0:18:34and it has a built-in 5K screen, and it just has a Xeon processor in it with like a thicker
0:18:38back for a bigger heatsink, that's fine. I'll take that. That actually sounds kind of nice
0:18:42to me. It wouldn't be as ideal as standalone, because then I'd have the same problem I have
0:18:45now when it gets image retention, and I have to send the whole thing in. But I'd take it.
0:18:49It's better than nothing, that'd be great.
0:18:51- Yeah, and it leads to weird situations.
0:18:54I mean, again, better than nothing if they made an iMac Pro
0:18:57and somehow put a Xeon in there and solved the heat problems
0:19:01that that would, you know,
0:19:02I say that's technically possible.
0:19:04The biggest-- - Well, and I think
0:19:07it's possible, although, talking to ATB Tipster
0:19:10about this a little bit in our chat a few weeks ago,
0:19:12he pointed out that the logic board in the iMac
0:19:15faces the wrong way to really make that happen.
0:19:18I think the CPU faces towards you when you're sitting at it.
0:19:21And to drastically improve the heat capacity
0:19:25to be able to cool a high-powered Xeon chip
0:19:27to make it more Mac Pro class processing power,
0:19:30you need to flip the whole logic board around,
0:19:31which is kind of be like a redesign
0:19:33on the level of a whole new iMac generation.
0:19:36So the question is, would Apple really do that
0:19:39for this relatively low volume,
0:19:42I mean, I guess they designed a whole case before,
0:19:44but it sure does seem like they couldn't possibly care less
0:19:49about keeping the Mac Pro updated in any reasonable fashion.
0:19:52And so it really, it's a pretty big question
0:19:55whether they would basically redesign
0:19:57the entire iMac enclosure and a whole new computer
0:20:01just for this line that they haven't given two craps about
0:20:04for three years.
0:20:05- It's a real mystery.
0:20:07I think it's possible, I think the iMac Pro is possible
0:20:11or that they'll sell it as a Pro somehow.
0:20:14I don't know.
0:20:15But--
0:20:16I hope-- I wish for it to be true, but I just don't see it.
0:20:19But there's got to be a reason why they don't just
0:20:22stop selling the Mac Pros.
0:20:23There's some contingent within the company that's clearly
0:20:26hoping for new Mac Pros.
0:20:28Otherwise, it would be easier.
0:20:30It would be easier, and they'd look less foolish
0:20:33if they had canceled the Mac Pro like it last WWDC,
0:20:36if they had just said, hey, these new iMacs are so great,
0:20:38that it's all that-- the time for the standalone is gone,
0:20:43whatever, people would disagree, obviously,
0:20:45and there'd be people who'd be heartbroken,
0:20:47and there'd be people who were furious,
0:20:48but at least Apple wouldn't look foolish, right?
0:20:51- Yeah, 'cause it really looks bad now.
0:20:53Like, it really, the situation now is
0:20:55egregiously bad.
0:20:58It's kind of embarrassing.
0:21:00- It's hard to believe.
0:21:01It's really kind of hard to believe how old it is.
0:21:03It really is.
0:21:04And still my biggest regret is that I didn't ask Schiller
0:21:08about it on stage last year, and I had the card.
0:21:10I had it on a card, and I did not.
0:21:14Some people understand, but it's so hard
0:21:16to keep that thing going live.
0:21:18And it's my one and only regret from that whole show.
0:21:22The year before, when Schiller was on the first time,
0:21:25I had way more regrets afterwards.
0:21:26And I felt like my self-criticism really helped,
0:21:30and I did a better job last year.
0:21:31But my one-- oh, I can't believe it.
0:21:35And now look at this.
0:21:36We're already at the point where WWDC has been announced again,
0:21:39and it still hasn't been answered.
0:21:41And the one reason why I put it at a lower priority at first,
0:21:45and then towards the end when I was wrapping up,
0:21:47I was flipping through the cards I had left,
0:21:50and I didn't see that one, which I might have,
0:21:53is like a last question.
0:21:54But the reason I originally had it lower in the stack
0:21:57was I thought, well, they've got to do something in September,
0:21:59right?
0:22:00[LAUGHTER]
0:22:04Yeah.
0:22:04I can get them on the record now,
0:22:06It's only for the next two, three months.
0:22:09So anyway, I don't know.
0:22:10- Well, and it's hard.
0:22:12When you're in a situation like what you're doing
0:22:15with these executive interviews, it's hard.
0:22:18And we got a little bit of this from when ATP interviewed
0:22:22Chris Lattner a few weeks ago.
0:22:23- Which was great, by the way.
0:22:25- And we had a couple people ask us afterwards
0:22:28on Twitter and email and stuff,
0:22:29why didn't you ask me about the Mac Pro?
0:22:31- Oh, you can't.
0:22:34Yeah, it's like, A, even if he knew about Mac Pro stuff,
0:22:39you know, you're not gonna answer that.
0:22:41And B, the guy who writes the compiler
0:22:44probably has no clue about what the Mac Pro hardware team
0:22:47is doing and what might or might not be released
0:22:49in that department.
0:22:50Like, it's a big company.
0:22:51And so like, anyway, your context,
0:22:54like interviewing Schiller on stage,
0:22:55like, it's tough to know whether you should bust out
0:23:00a question like that which is slightly antagonizing
0:23:03and really puts them on the spot.
0:23:06'Cause like, there's a very good chance
0:23:09that you would just get like a non-answer,
0:23:12you know, just like a nice PR-friendly non-answer,
0:23:14kind of like Tim Cook's post,
0:23:15like we really love desktops,
0:23:17we have great desktops coming in the future,
0:23:18you know, like stuff like that.
0:23:19And that's not very helpful,
0:23:21and then you've just like shifted the tone of the interview
0:23:24in a way that now they are on edge
0:23:27or are less likely to go to you in the future.
0:23:29So it's a tricky balance.
0:23:32So I don't blame you for not asking that last year.
0:23:34- No, but it wasn't because I thought it was--
0:23:35- I wouldn't blame you for not asking it this year.
0:23:36- Yeah, this year it would have to happen.
0:23:38- This year's gonna be the first question you ask.
0:23:40- Yeah, but watch, I'll end up getting,
0:23:43I don't know, somebody that has nothing to do
0:23:46with Mac hardware or something like that.
0:23:48(laughing)
0:23:50- You can get Chris Ladder.
0:23:51- Right, like all of a sudden
0:23:52Schiller doesn't return my calls.
0:23:53No, I would have, 'cause there's ways to ask it,
0:23:58and I feel like that's something that I,
0:24:01maybe why I've gotten to this position where I can do this,
0:24:04is where I can ask the question, but do it in a way that's not
0:24:07confrontational.
0:24:09I mean, the framing I would have used is, look,
0:24:11this audience in particular is largely
0:24:15comprised of people who use Xcode, which
0:24:16is one of the apps where every bit of CPU power
0:24:21can really help at times.
0:24:24And we're in this transition moving towards from Objective-C
0:24:29to Swift.
0:24:29Swift, I think it's fair to say, is more taxing on the CPU than Objective-C. It seems like
0:24:35the Swift compiler is, you know, you can write Swift code that takes a lot longer to compile,
0:24:40but whatever, it certainly isn't easy to compile. And there's just a general sentiment that
0:24:47Apple's priorities for pro hardware in general are lower than they used to be. The Mac Pro
0:24:56is I don't know, whatever it was, 900 days old at this time,
0:24:59after an incredibly splashy debut.
0:25:02What the heck is going on here?
0:25:03I don't think that is making-- it's not
0:25:06like I'm putting him on the spot.
0:25:07And he can easily say-- and maybe that's all he would have
0:25:10said is, hey, we love you guys.
0:25:13We got you.
0:25:14But you know I can't talk about future stuff.
0:25:17I don't have anything to say about it.
0:25:18And then that's the end of it.
0:25:22So it's possible, but at least I would have asked.
0:25:24Yeah.
0:25:26Anyway, there's always there's always future executive podcast interviews live at everybody. I loved the latner interview, by the way
0:25:32I don't I it was really and especially for a show that
0:25:35Almost never does interviews. I mean you guys never
0:25:41I thought there was one a long time ago or no, I guess you guys swapped you guys swapped with another show
0:25:47Yeah, we had John trade spots with Christina Warren right for one episode
0:25:50Which actually turned out really nice, but it wasn't really an interview show
0:25:52It's just like she just was another host on our show for that episode, right?
0:25:55You know, I thought that for a show that has an established rhythm between the three of you
0:26:00in which really none of it is really interview style and there's an incredible comfort level between your
0:26:06personalities to have somebody new on and
0:26:09Do a three-way interview where it eats all three of you asked good questions
0:26:14I thought it was really impressive because that's hard to do because it was a really different show. Yeah
0:26:20It's like all of a sudden instead of driving a car you're you're riding bicycles or something
0:26:23Yeah, it was a lot of fun though and Chris was you know
0:26:28He made it easy on us like he wasn't like a prima donna about anything and you know
0:26:32Just 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
0:26:38You know, it's obviously not true from top to bottom
0:26:40But it is generally true that Apple tends to attract very nice people. There are yeah
0:26:48You know, I mean Federighi is a great example where you know, I don't know what he's like in real personal life
0:26:52But you know like backstage and stuff like that and when you see him at WWDC and and people come up and and you know
0:26:59Just random attendees are like, hey, can I get a selfie or whatever?
0:27:02He stops and talks for you know, five minutes with them and asks what they're doing
0:27:05He he comes across like talking to a group of five
0:27:09You know first time in WWDC at WWDC attendees wearing the WWDC jacket
0:27:16He comes across exactly with the same demeanor that he has on stage. So like that affection that people seem to have for him
0:27:21It's true. That seems to be his personality and Latiners exactly that type of personalities
0:27:26He's you know, just just a nice guy
0:27:28Yeah, did I ever did I tell you about last year WC when I visited apples and Facebook's campuses in the same day? Yeah
0:27:36It all sort of blurs together
0:27:39I remember you doing it, but I don't remember what the details were really interesting like so
0:27:43- Yeah, in both cases, me and Casey
0:27:47and a couple other friends, we had a friend
0:27:50at each company that wanted to just give us
0:27:53a quick tour, let us in, and show us around,
0:27:55and stuff like that, and Apple, I only saw
0:27:57the center courtyard and Cafe Max,
0:28:01'cause you can't bring people into the buildings,
0:28:03really, there.
0:28:04- Frowned upon.
0:28:06- Yeah, exactly, so I didn't see any actual offices,
0:28:09but I was able to see the courtyard and hang out
0:28:11and have lunch with everybody there,
0:28:13and we had lunch with something like 15 people
0:28:15at this giant table.
0:28:16So I got to meet a lot of people there
0:28:18and hang out for a good amount of time
0:28:20and they have pretty good coffee at Apple,
0:28:21even at Cafe Max, I gotta say.
0:28:23And kind of get a feel for the vibe of the campus,
0:28:27even though I didn't see any offices.
0:28:28And then a couple hours later we went to Facebook
0:28:31and I had never been to either of these campuses before.
0:28:34I had been to the Apple retail store,
0:28:36but I'd never gone through the doors into the courtyard.
0:28:40And I'm actually not sure I was allowed to.
0:28:42They have some kind of weird rules about bloggers,
0:28:44but I think I'm just under--
0:28:46like, I'm not really officially Apple Press in any capacity.
0:28:49I never have been.
0:28:50And so I think that's why it wasn't a problem
0:28:52that I was there.
0:28:53Because I had a friend who tried to go--
0:28:56who was Apple Press and was not allowed in.
0:28:58So that was interesting.
0:29:00But anyway, so seeing Apple and then seeing Facebook
0:29:07could not have been two more different company culture
0:29:11environments, at least visibly from these brief visits I did. And Facebook, I just
0:29:18felt horrible the whole time I was there. Like, I felt kind of creeped out and
0:29:23intimidated by just how bizarre and kind of intense, high energy but not high
0:29:30positive energy it seemed to be. Like, just really like, I don't know, it's hard to
0:29:36explain. I really did, I really got a very bad feeling from Facebook. A
0:29:39combination of like how does anybody get any work done here
0:29:43and where are the adults and and it just didn't feel good. It
0:29:48felt like a dysfunctional workaholic culture that was
0:29:51hard to get any real work done in an in an environment. That's
0:29:54kind of weirdly like like trapped in youth forever
0:29:58bizarro college fantasy world and then Apple was so like calm
0:30:05and adult and just like nicely like low key.
0:30:08The people there were just like nice and calm.
0:30:11And it kind of felt like, oh, this is where the adults work.
0:30:14Like this is like where people come
0:30:17to actually do serious work.
0:30:19And it was a much, it just,
0:30:21whatever the environment actually is,
0:30:24again, because I've never worked at these companies
0:30:26and didn't even go inside the offices at Apple,
0:30:28it's hard for me to really say this,
0:30:30but it just felt like the little tiny windows
0:30:34into these cultures I saw really just seemed like
0:30:37Apple was the place where the nice, mature adults
0:30:41go to work.
0:30:42- Mm, I could see that.
0:30:43I don't know.
0:30:45It definitely seems like people who go to Apple,
0:30:48company cultures attract like-minded people,
0:30:53but it does seem to me, in general,
0:30:54like when I've been there,
0:30:56people know how to turn it off,
0:30:58that when you're going to lunch
0:31:00and they're gonna have lunch with a friend,
0:31:01they're just having lunch with a friend.
0:31:04- Right, yeah.
0:31:05- Get back up to speed when they get back to work
0:31:07or whatever.
0:31:08- I mean, I'll tell you one thing.
0:31:10I don't hear a lot of stories about Facebook and Apple
0:31:13stealing talent from each other,
0:31:15and maybe that's 'cause I don't really pay attention,
0:31:16but I'll tell you one thing, seeing them both those places,
0:31:19I cannot imagine that anybody who works for one
0:31:22would want to work for the other in either direction.
0:31:25Like, I don't think they're competing
0:31:26for the same people at all.
0:31:28- Yeah, I've never really heard that either.
0:31:30I mean, and obviously at a certain level,
0:31:32There's probably some like maybe like sysadmins
0:31:35or something like that.
0:31:36But, and you know what, there was that one team at Facebook
0:31:39that was largely poached from Apple,
0:31:40but now they're all dispersed, right?
0:31:42They're gone.
0:31:43The mic man is--
0:31:44- All the designers, yeah, they bought a bunch of designers
0:31:45for a while and then just slowly eroded their sanity
0:31:48until they all quit.
0:31:49- Right, and they built a very Apple-like beautiful system
0:31:53and custom tools to support it with Facebook paper
0:31:55or whatever they call, whether it was just paper
0:31:58or Facebook paper or whatever.
0:31:59- One of the names they stole, yeah, it's fine.
0:32:02- Well, but you know what I mean.
0:32:04It's a tough call because the paper app,
0:32:08the other paper app, the one that you draw on,
0:32:10was there first.
0:32:11But it's the risk you take when you
0:32:13pick a regular, a plain word is your app name.
0:32:17- It seemed like for a while there,
0:32:19Facebook was just gobbling up as much design talent
0:32:22as they could at about the same time
0:32:23that Google was gobbling up as much email talent
0:32:25as they could.
0:32:26And it seems like both of those have just kind of fizzled
0:32:28and faded over the last year or so.
0:32:30I haven't heard anything about them recently.
0:32:32- I think in broad terms what happened
0:32:34was that there was a period where Zuckerberg,
0:32:36I think it coincides with,
0:32:38'cause if there's one, I don't get Facebook,
0:32:43I've never signed up for it.
0:32:44And so I'm not, it does feel foreign to me.
0:32:48It feels like studying a foreign country.
0:32:51But from my observations, it is clear,
0:32:54I don't think there could be any question
0:32:55that Zuckerberg has a tremendous gift for changing his mind.
0:32:59People often said that about Steve Jobs.
0:33:02Tim Cook has often, when he talks about working
0:33:05with Steve Jobs, usually just talks about him
0:33:08on a personal level, but if you can get him talking
0:33:10about working, Tim Cook tells stories about his
0:33:14absolutely amazing ability to change his mind.
0:33:16But the Steve Jobs style is that when he comes in
0:33:19with his mind change, he acts as though it was
0:33:21his opinion all along.
0:33:22And I think Bill Gates had some of that too, right?
0:33:26Like when Bill Gates famously, like Microsoft
0:33:29building this early '90s strategy to sort of do their own custom stuff for connecting
0:33:34computers to each other. And then all of a sudden, Gates writes like a 10-page manifesto
0:33:39that we've got to get on this internet thing. And all of a sudden, I mean, how long did
0:33:43it take for Explorer to decimate Netscape? Didn't take long.
0:33:49Yeah, but at the same time, they made an active desktop. So I don't know if that was a net
0:33:53win.
0:33:54I'm not saying that it was seamlessly executed. I'm just saying that we did change his mind.
0:33:59And the broad strokes Facebook was a website.
0:34:04It was a website you went to and you did all these things.
0:34:06And the iPhone came out.
0:34:08And an awful lot of products that
0:34:10were popular websites in 2007 in the iPhone era
0:34:17just weren't getting the engagement that things that
0:34:20could be done as a native app got.
0:34:23And--
0:34:23Oh, yeah.
0:34:25Not to go too far off into the weeds, but one reason
0:34:27is that an awful lot of websites were built.
0:34:30I don't think this is true anymore because mobile is--
0:34:32I don't think anybody overlooks it.
0:34:34But the back end of the website was inextricably tied
0:34:37to the front end of the website.
0:34:39And instead of having everything go through nice APIs,
0:34:42even the front end of the website,
0:34:43so that you could make clients for other devices,
0:34:47like a native Mac client, or-- and people would say,
0:34:52well, I forget.
0:34:52You don't need a native Mac or Windows client.
0:34:54We'll just go through the web browser.
0:34:55And for a lot of things, for a lot of years, that was fine.
0:34:57But then with the phone, that wasn't good enough.
0:34:59And Facebook had an app that was largely just
0:35:02a front end for HTML and JavaScript.
0:35:05And then they seemed to get it.
0:35:06And it's from Zuckerberg on down that, no, we
0:35:09should do this with as much native stuff as we can.
0:35:12This app is important.
0:35:13This is more important than our website.
0:35:16And that's around when he hired all those designers.
0:35:18And I think there was sort of a look.
0:35:21Apple's a company to look at.
0:35:23they value A+ design talent, maybe we should too.
0:35:28And then I think in the intervening years,
0:35:30Facebook realized that that wasn't really
0:35:32that important to them.
0:35:34That the native part was, but the design caliber wasn't.
0:35:38- Or rather, I think it seemed like there was
0:35:41a lot of trouble, you know, like they were able
0:35:43to get the talent, but just, you know,
0:35:45by applying sheer force of will and lots of money,
0:35:48they were able to get the talent.
0:35:49But then the question is, well, what do you have,
0:35:50all these incredibly talented people do at Facebook.
0:35:54And that was, it seemed like they had a harder time
0:35:57having a good answer to that question
0:35:59and maintaining that over time.
0:36:01But who knows, it's hard to keep good people interested
0:36:05in working for a giant established product.
0:36:08You know, like Apple has this problem too.
0:36:10Like once you have something that's big and successful
0:36:12and boring like Facebook or the iPhone,
0:36:14it's hard to get people interested in working on that,
0:36:18the same kind of people who would make something like that
0:36:19'cause they wanna go make something else.
0:36:21- Yeah, I know Mike Mattis a little bit,
0:36:23and I haven't spoken to him much since he left Facebook,
0:36:28so I'm just sort of speculating here,
0:36:31but I know from a couple of the people on the team
0:36:33that they were used to being the A team at the company.
0:36:36Mattis was, I think, I know he designed a whole bunch
0:36:40of stuff in the original iPhone,
0:36:41but I think he literally did the actual pixels
0:36:44for the slide to unlock.
0:36:49And if you're the person who designs both the visuals
0:36:53and the interaction for a thing, doing Slide to Unlock
0:36:56is pretty big.
0:36:57Because I remember Steve Jobs actually demoed it
0:36:59like three times.
0:37:00He was like, that's so cool.
0:37:01I'm going to do it again.
0:37:01He locked the phone and did it again.
0:37:04So when you're designing the feature that Steve Jobs
0:37:08decides, I'm just going to do this three or four times
0:37:10on stage because I just love it so much,
0:37:13and then to go to Facebook, and you're not designing the app
0:37:18that's in front of a billion users,
0:37:20you're designing the app that's in front of like
0:37:22one tenth of one percent of the users
0:37:24who care more about how things look
0:37:26than the regular Facebook experience.
0:37:29I just think it's hard to get excited about that.
0:37:33- Yeah.
0:37:33- I'll take a break, let's take a break.
0:37:36I'm gonna thank our first sponsor,
0:37:37it's our good friends at Audible.
0:37:40You guys know Audible, Audible is where you go to get
0:37:42just about anything and everything audio related.
0:37:47I used to think of it as a place you go to get audio books.
0:37:49And it's true.
0:37:50They have more audio books than anybody.
0:37:54But they have so much more than audio books now.
0:37:57You go there, you sign up for an account,
0:37:59and you can get all sorts of stuff.
0:38:01They have news, daily news shows.
0:38:03They have comedy shows.
0:38:04All of this stuff, and a lot of this stuff, is original to Audible.
0:38:08If you want to listen to it, Audible has it.
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0:38:28You're not going to get bored.
0:38:30Every minute where you need to listen to something to not be
0:38:32bored, you can fill it up with stuff from Audible.
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0:38:36is one of the greatest advertising opportunities ever.
0:38:40Why do they sponsor podcasts?
0:38:41Because they know that everybody who's
0:38:43listening to me tell you about Audible
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0:38:57go to Audible.
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0:39:09Audible.com/talkshow.
0:39:13I think I wrote that script.
0:39:15Yeah, maybe.
0:39:16[LAUGHTER]
0:39:19I was telling her--
0:39:24I forget if it was on air or not.
0:39:26But Bill Simmons--
0:39:28I've been listening to him.
0:39:29I read the football season I was listening.
0:39:31He does a sports thing.
0:39:32He does a thing called the ringer.
0:39:33Thank you.
0:39:36Very popular.
0:39:36You probably see it.
0:39:37It's probably pretty high up in overcast.
0:39:39So that'd be interesting to see if it was actually
0:39:40all that high up in overcast.
0:39:41maybe Overcast skews towards non-sports stuff. Maybe like sports stuff is a little bit more,
0:39:48I don't know, they'd be in our syndicate. It does pretty well in Overcast. It is not as high as tech
0:39:53shows and like the really popular, you know, NPR-style storytelling shows like This American
0:39:58Life, though. I think it was Ben Thompson and I who were talking about it. I forget if it was on
0:40:01the show or off. But the gist of it is that when Bill Simmons first started doing sponsors reads
0:40:06on his show. He was awful at it, as was I when I first split off and started doing this
0:40:12show on my own. Just brutal. Maybe the shows were okay, but the sponsor reads were just
0:40:18brutal. I don't know why. It's a hard thing to do.
0:40:22You got the hang of it eventually. It took you maybe a couple of months, and you were
0:40:25pretty good at it.
0:40:26Yeah, but Simmons has actually taken it to a new level. I would venture to say he was
0:40:31worse than me at the beginning, and now he's better than anybody I've ever seen.
0:40:35He's like in Howard Stern territory at being able to do it. Because sometimes
0:40:41when I listen to Stern anymore, it almost seems like when Stern does one, where
0:40:44he does the read, he's phoning it. You could tell he's phoning it in.
0:40:47Whereas Simmons does it, and he's got a real tight script, and it seems like
0:40:51he's trying to literally stick it to 30 seconds, get in and out, and he really
0:40:57starts talking faster.
0:40:59And it just alleviates-- it just completely alleviates
0:41:03any urge I have to skip ahead.
0:41:05I tend not to--
0:41:06Interesting.
0:41:07I tend not to skip ahead on sponsor reads, on podcasts,
0:41:10simply because I-- you know, I know some people do.
0:41:14And if you do, you know, that's why the feature's there.
0:41:16It's OK.
0:41:17It's my job to try to make it as interesting.
0:41:19You and I have talked about this before.
0:41:20It's my job to try to make it so interesting
0:41:21that you don't want to skip.
0:41:22But when I'm listening to podcasts,
0:41:24I tend not to skip because I want to listen.
0:41:26I'm curious at a professional level,
0:41:29how is this person going to keep me interested?
0:41:31- Yeah, I often will listen to other people
0:41:34who are doing reads for the same sponsors that I have
0:41:36just to hear, like, you know, how are you doing this read?
0:41:39And like, maybe there's something I can learn
0:41:41and do better in my reads for the same people
0:41:43from the way you're doing this read.
0:41:45- Yeah.
0:41:45So what else we got?
0:41:48We got a lot to talk about, we gotta hurry up.
0:41:50(laughing)
0:41:51- We're really good at that, yeah.
0:41:52- So we got the, what about WWDC moving?
0:41:55- Yeah, it's cool.
0:41:56I mean, I don't know anything about San Jose,
0:41:58so it's gonna be interesting.
0:41:59- We talked a little bit about that.
0:42:00I was completely surprised by this.
0:42:03This just wasn't even on my radar.
0:42:05But I kind of, once it happened, it was an initial shock,
0:42:09and then I thought, oh shit,
0:42:10what am I gonna do about my live show?
0:42:11Of course, my thoughts turned to myself immediately.
0:42:15(laughing)
0:42:17- Everyone else's did too.
0:42:18Everyone else is like, oh, how can I fly there?
0:42:20Is Arno hotels expensive?
0:42:21I mean, everyone's thinking the same general stuff.
0:42:25Most of the people aren't thinking,
0:42:25where can I host my live podcast?
0:42:27- It just never occurred to me
0:42:28that they would do this though.
0:42:30I guess the rough thinking was,
0:42:34and we've all had this, people who go regularly,
0:42:36that San Francisco's not great.
0:42:39I mean, there are parts of San Francisco
0:42:42that are absolutely gorgeous,
0:42:44but south of Market where Moscone is, it's not great.
0:42:47I don't hate it, some people really hate it.
0:42:49Some people, it is what it is,
0:42:51but it is sort of the touristy, hotel-y,
0:42:55maybe touristy's the wrong, but it's--
0:42:59- It's kind of like the worst of San Francisco.
0:43:01The area that we see when we go to WBC
0:43:04is a terrible image of the city as a whole.
0:43:08- Well, and it's not too far from Union Square, though,
0:43:11and Union Square is nicer,
0:43:12but Union Square is just high-end retail.
0:43:15It's not, you know what I mean?
0:43:16Like, what are you supposed to do,
0:43:18go shopping for jewelry and stuff like that?
0:43:20It's OK.
0:43:22But it is what it is.
0:43:24But the fact is that Apple, we'd say, well,
0:43:26what could they do different?
0:43:28Well, there's no other facility with 5,000 people.
0:43:31And then we would just say, well, it used to be in San Jose,
0:43:33but they moved out of San Jose for a reason.
0:43:35And there's nothing else.
0:43:38And they're not going to go further away,
0:43:39because it's already a major stress on Apple
0:43:42to get 1,000 engineers from the South Bay area
0:43:45to San Francisco for labs and to just hang out and do stuff
0:43:48and still get work done.
0:43:50I, for one, had just completely overlooked the,
0:43:57well, they could move back to San Jose angle for years.
0:44:00It just never really,
0:44:01I never even really gave it serious thought,
0:44:03but then once they said, yeah, here's what we're doing,
0:44:05I could totally see the logic of it,
0:44:06and it seems like a very Apple-like move.
0:44:09- I mean, really, it makes a ton of sense logistically too.
0:44:12I mean, not only is it closer to them,
0:44:13but like San Francisco is a dense, competitive,
0:44:18very expensive city, there's a reason why
0:44:21you don't see a lot of tech conferences in Manhattan.
0:44:24It's because if you put on a tech conference in Manhattan,
0:44:28the space that you hold it in is going to be
0:44:30extraordinarily expensive.
0:44:32All the logistics, getting the food in there,
0:44:35getting all the equipment, that's all gonna be
0:44:37extraordinarily expensive.
0:44:38And then for the attendees, they're gonna have to pay
0:44:41ridiculous hotel prices because they're going
0:44:44to this major city that is itself
0:44:46a massive tourist destination.
0:44:48And so it's very unappealing to hold a major conference
0:44:52in New York City unless it really needs to be
0:44:56specifically in New York City for some reason.
0:44:59WBC could be anywhere.
0:45:00As far as the attendees are concerned,
0:45:03it doesn't matter where it is.
0:45:05You're going to see talks and labs and stuff
0:45:07and that could be in any conference center
0:45:09in any city in America.
0:45:11You don't have to be paying the extreme premium
0:45:16and dealing with all the logistical challenges
0:45:18and downsides of being in a massive tourist
0:45:21expensive dense city just to go watch some talks and go to lab.
0:45:26And either you already have friends and colleagues
0:45:29who will also be there, and you'll see them,
0:45:32and it doesn't matter where you are.
0:45:33Or even if you don't, even if you're like a first timer,
0:45:36if you're new, you're going to be surrounded
0:45:38by like-minded individuals.
0:45:41And it's not hard to make friends, or even just
0:45:44temporary friends while sitting at a bar
0:45:46or something like that.
0:45:47You're very, you know, you can start talking about Xcode
0:45:50and all of a sudden, you know, you're not bored.
0:45:52- Right, I mean like, if anything,
0:45:53the city's kind of wasted on you
0:45:55because if you're attending the conference,
0:45:58you don't really have time to go out
0:46:00and explore much of the city.
0:46:01Like for the most part, you're waking up,
0:46:04you're trying to get to that 9 a.m. session in the morning,
0:46:06you're in sessions and stuff all day,
0:46:08you might have a little hour for lunch
0:46:09but you can't go that far, and then you're back
0:46:11and then like five o'clock rolls around
0:46:12and you just wanna go to the hotel bar with your friends,
0:46:15have a couple of drinks, and go to dinner,
0:46:18and that's the night.
0:46:19You can do that anywhere.
0:46:20You're not seeing the whole city.
0:46:23It doesn't really make sense.
0:46:25One of my favorite conference venues I've ever been to
0:46:28is where Ool has been held the last couple years,
0:46:31in Killarney, Ireland, in this hotel called The Europe.
0:46:34And it's this very, very remote location.
0:46:38And the hotel itself, you've been there.
0:46:40Have you been there, actually?
0:46:41- I don't think so.
0:46:42I don't, uh.
0:46:43- Yeah, 'cause you missed the, yeah, anyway, it's awesome.
0:46:47It's the third remote. - It depends how many years
0:46:48in a row they've been at the same one.
0:46:50I was at one that was at a remote location,
0:46:52but I think they've switched to a different remote location.
0:46:55- Yeah, this is, I believe this is their third one
0:46:58that they're about to do next month.
0:46:59I'm going, I recommend it.
0:47:01Anyway, so it's just like this one giant hotel venue
0:47:06kind of in the middle of nowhere, it's beautiful,
0:47:09but like you're all kind of self-enclosed there.
0:47:11There is a nearby city of Killarney,
0:47:14but you don't really,
0:47:16the attendees don't really have to go there.
0:47:17You're all on premises, and you're surrounded
0:47:20by all the people that are there for your event,
0:47:23and so there is no time to go out and enjoy some other city.
0:47:28That's what you're there for.
0:47:29You're there to hang out with those people
0:47:31and see those talks and do those events.
0:47:32So to have a conference in a massive city
0:47:35that you're paying a big premium to be in
0:47:38doesn't actually make a lot of sense.
0:47:39(laughing)
0:47:40I love Ireland. I remember the last time I was there and there was a band, remember,
0:47:46and their lead singer, were you there this year? And there was a lead singer named Paddy,
0:47:50P-A-D-D-Y.
0:47:51I've never been there on the same time that you were there.
0:47:54I don't think so either. So Paddy was there and he was the lead singer of this band and
0:47:58he had nothing interesting. He had no connection to Apple-related stuff. But he came up to
0:48:04the pub without leaving the building.
0:48:08It's sort of like a compound.
0:48:09He came up and was gonna have a drink or two,
0:48:12and he just, you know, he's a gregarious showbiz performer,
0:48:15but very nice.
0:48:17And it quickly struck up conversations
0:48:19with all sorts of people, and he was having a good time,
0:48:22and never left. (laughs)
0:48:25And then at like midnight, they were doing Last Call,
0:48:28and everybody was like, "Oh, man, what are we gonna do?
0:48:30"Everybody wanted to stay up a little bit later."
0:48:32And Patty went up to the bartender and just off--
0:48:36it wasn't like whispering in his ear,
0:48:37but he just spent about two minutes talking to him.
0:48:39And the next thing you know, the bartender's
0:48:41like slapping on the back.
0:48:42And the bartender says, all right,
0:48:43we'll stay open two more hours.
0:48:44[LAUGHTER]
0:48:45That's awesome.
0:48:46I've never heard of anything like that in my life,
0:48:48like we're the staff of a place.
0:48:50And he got-- he called over--
0:48:52he didn't make it unilaterally.
0:48:53He called over another bartender and was just like,
0:48:55hey, what do you-- these guys want to keep going.
0:48:57How about we do two more hours?
0:48:59[LAUGHTER]
0:49:01It was a good conference.
0:49:04Why do you think WWDC moved from San Jose to San Francisco
0:49:08when it did?
0:49:08I think it was 2003 or 2004.
0:49:11- I don't know, that was before my time.
0:49:12I think some of the other things I've heard,
0:49:15I think Jason was talking about it on Upgrade,
0:49:18about how back then Apple really wanted to be
0:49:23in more of the media spotlight with this stuff.
0:49:25It's more prestigious to go there.
0:49:27It's really owning, yeah, we're big, we're awesome,
0:49:30It kind of attracts more media attention being there.
0:49:32But now the attention comes to them,
0:49:33so they don't need to do that as much.
0:49:35- Yeah, I think that's it exactly.
0:49:36I think it was Steve Jobs.
0:49:38And I think Steve Jobs, you know,
0:49:39Apple was firing on all cylinders.
0:49:41The iPod was slowly turning into a massive hit.
0:49:46The retail stores were slowly turning into a success story.
0:49:50They were, it was the, you know, the last, famously,
0:49:55I know that, I think Jason and Mike even went over this,
0:49:58And the last one at San Jose was the one
0:50:01where they had a funeral for Mac OS 9, which was actually
0:50:05kind of forced.
0:50:07Like, the only reason they had to--
0:50:09you think that's a weird thing to do
0:50:11is have a funeral on stage for your product.
0:50:13But it was actually because it wasn't dead.
0:50:16It was because so many people were still using Mac OS 9.
0:50:20But it was at the point where they
0:50:21felt like they were in the clear.
0:50:24It was three or four years into the--
0:50:25I guess at least three years into the Mac OS 10 era.
0:50:28But they were at the point where I think they could see the light at the end of the tunnel that yes
0:50:31We're we're going to make this transition all max will be running Mac OS X
0:50:37You know
0:50:38This 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
0:50:44Was so I think that after that one, you know, the Mac was clearly had a bright future. The iPod was great retail was great
0:50:50I think Steve Jobs wanted a bigger spotlight
0:50:53And I think doing I hope that you have having like a hopeful funeral
0:50:57Like, we really hope this is it, guys. Please, Richard, we're begging you, please make this
0:51:03dead.
0:51:04I remember they had it, and it was before my time of attending WWDCs, but I still had
0:51:08two Macs at my desk. I had a Power Mac 9600 that was still running Mac OS 9 as my main
0:51:17machine, and then I had an iBook running OS 10.
0:51:21Oh, see, now I have one with a keyboard I can use and one with another one.
0:51:26So that's what I think.
0:51:27I think they moved to San Francisco for the publicity.
0:51:30I think that's exactly right,
0:51:31that they wanted more attention.
0:51:33They felt like they could use it.
0:51:35They had stuff to say.
0:51:36They had stuff that deserved more attention,
0:51:38and now they don't.
0:51:39And I don't think San Francisco
0:51:40was ever a good fit for Apple, culturally.
0:51:43They're not a San Francisco city.
0:51:44- Yeah, they have a very different vibe about them
0:51:50than what I've, I mean, again, I've never worked for Apple,
0:51:53and I've never lived in San Francisco,
0:51:55so it's hard for me to say this,
0:51:56But just my kind of bird's eye view of it,
0:51:59it does seem like they didn't really fit in there.
0:52:01- Like there's no, put travel aside.
0:52:04Like 'cause when they move to the new Apple,
0:52:06when they open a new Apple, I shouldn't say move,
0:52:08'cause that's exactly my point,
0:52:09but when they open the new Apple Campus too,
0:52:11they're not leaving the Apple Campus,
0:52:15the original Infinite Loop Campus.
0:52:17They need all the space they can get.
0:52:19And so, I mean there might be some empty offices for a while
0:52:22but there's gonna be back and forth
0:52:24between the original Apple Campus and Apple Campus 2
0:52:27on a daily basis.
0:52:28So having them both in Cupertino is a big deal.
0:52:32And they have new office space in San Jose.
0:52:34They have space in a few other places in the South Bay area.
0:52:37But the fact that getting between anywhere in the South
0:52:40Bay is easier than getting from anywhere in the South Bay
0:52:42to San Francisco is a big deal.
0:52:44There's no universe where Apple Campus 2 is a skyscraper
0:52:50with the same square footage in San Francisco.
0:52:52It's just culturally--
0:52:53And travel aside, even if part of it
0:52:56was like a tunnel dug by Elon Musk
0:52:58that could get you between them in 10 minutes,
0:53:01even if you could get between them in 10 minutes,
0:53:03there's just no way they would do it.
0:53:04It's just San Francisco is not an Apple town
0:53:06in a way that San Jose, I think, is.
0:53:10- I'm looking forward to it,
0:53:12'cause it really is like going
0:53:14to a whole new conference now.
0:53:15And at WBC, I've gone now for something like seven years,
0:53:20something like that, and I've enjoyed it,
0:53:23but I'm looking forward to something new,
0:53:26something fresh and it's kind of more exciting now
0:53:29'cause it's gonna be something a little bit different.
0:53:31- I forget if I went in 2006,
0:53:33so I either went 10 years in a row or nine years in a row.
0:53:37Yeah, it's one of my favorite things about covering Apple
0:53:39is that they're very predictable,
0:53:42so if you try to approach them
0:53:43and analyze them in a logical standpoint,
0:53:45you can have success,
0:53:47but they're also resistant to complacency, right?
0:53:50So they're not gonna like ping pong around
0:53:53and move WWDC to random cities every year.
0:53:56But they're not going to keep it in San Francisco
0:53:59just because that's where it's been for 10 years,
0:54:03which we'll get to when we talk about iPhone and iPad form
0:54:08factors.
0:54:10The other thing, too, is you've heard it.
0:54:12I've heard it.
0:54:12Everybody who's gone in recent years
0:54:13has heard that from the longtime attendees who
0:54:15remember the San Jose era, there's
0:54:17a reputation that downtown San Jose was kind of sleepy,
0:54:20that restaurants and bars close early.
0:54:23There's quote unquote nothing to do.
0:54:26Two things on that is one, back then WWDC
0:54:29didn't even sell out.
0:54:31I forget when the first sell out was,
0:54:33but I don't think it was in San Jose.
0:54:35And the second thing is that talking to a couple people,
0:54:41downtown San Jose has improved a lot in the last 10 years,
0:54:45that there's been a lot of-- I just looked it up.
0:54:51first WWDC to sell out was 2008.
0:54:53Gee, I wonder what happened 2008
0:54:55that would cause the first sale.
0:54:57So up until 2008, even the first few years at Moscone,
0:55:00you could buy a ticket the day before WWDC.
0:55:02I think the fact that this is obviously going to sell out
0:55:05and that there are going to be people in San Jose
0:55:08who don't even have tickets,
0:55:10it's gonna be a different vibe.
0:55:12And a couple people have said that downtown San Jose
0:55:15has really improved a lot.
0:55:17I was just talking to a friend of the show, Jim Dalrymple.
0:55:19- I was saying on Twitter,
0:55:20you don't really need much.
0:55:21Like, when you're there for a conference,
0:55:24like, you need a handful of, you know,
0:55:25you need good hotels that you can hopefully get
0:55:28for a reasonable price.
0:55:29You need a bunch of restaurants
0:55:32to be able to get food at.
0:55:33And you need, you know, a handful of decent bars
0:55:36and bars in the hotels.
0:55:38And that's about it.
0:55:39Like, you don't need tons and tons of nightlife
0:55:42for a tech conference for five days.
0:55:44- Right, it's actually better
0:55:45if the bars are generally empty,
0:55:47but are willing to stay open late,
0:55:48so you can take over.
0:55:49Dow Rumple, I was talking to about it,
0:55:52now he's familiar with the area now,
0:55:54and he goes to hockey games at the San Jose,
0:55:58I forget, I don't know what the name of it is,
0:56:00but wherever the Sharks play,
0:56:01which is only one mile away from the convention center,
0:56:04so it's, by city standards, not a far walk.
0:56:07That's the thing about San Jose,
0:56:09is that downtown San Jose is all in one area.
0:56:12It's not spread out.
0:56:13And he said after hockey games, 10, 30, 11,
0:56:17and there's all sorts of stuff to do,
0:56:18bars to get beers at and places to eat late
0:56:20and stuff like that.
0:56:21So I'm looking forward to it.
0:56:24- Yeah.
0:56:25- Are you gonna go no matter what?
0:56:28- I'm going, yeah.
0:56:29I actually, last year I told myself,
0:56:32you know what, I'm not gonna get tickets anymore.
0:56:34'Cause I'm going to fewer sessions.
0:56:37I'm like, you know what, I feel now
0:56:39that I'm wasting a ticket
0:56:41because I keep trying to do more and more other things.
0:56:44I keep getting double booked for time slots
0:56:46with meetings and social events and podcast events
0:56:48and everything else, like you know what,
0:56:49I'm just not gonna take it.
0:56:51Now actually I'm questioning that
0:56:53because now it's gonna be different.
0:56:54Well, maybe I should get a ticket this year, I don't know.
0:56:57I'm definitely going out there.
0:56:59- Yeah, I mean I'll go just to cover the keynote
0:57:02and I have nothing to announce
0:57:04but hopefully to do my live show again.
0:57:08But I always do that and try to always do it
0:57:10on Tuesday evenings.
0:57:12My question is how long to stay?
0:57:13Like I don't know if I'm gonna stay all week.
0:57:16- Yeah, I don't know.
0:57:17'Cause the thing is, we don't know.
0:57:20It is a whole new conference, effectively.
0:57:22So we don't know if you plan to go in Sunday
0:57:27and leave Wednesday or something like that,
0:57:29are you gonna regret that you didn't stay
0:57:31until the cool things that were gonna happen
0:57:32on Thursday night?
0:57:33You don't know.
0:57:34And that's why I'm kinda thinking,
0:57:36I might just do my usual Sunday
0:57:39through Friday afternoon thing.
0:57:41The worst that can happen is I have a couple bonus days
0:57:45California. Oh no, you know, there are worse things in the world than that.
0:57:51Yeah, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but anyway, what a surprise. So that came out
0:57:55like what, the day after ATP last week, so you guys didn't get to talk about it yet.
0:57:58Yeah, haven't talked about it yet. I think the gist of it, and I think everybody's sort of
0:58:02wrapping their heads around it, is I think Apple can spend the money on
0:58:06surrounding stuff around the Convention Center, and the number of people that
0:58:11will be there, you know, attendance is not going up, but even if it's just
0:58:145,000 plus a couple thousand people who you know come in we're out of a couple
0:58:20thousand come but if a thousand people come just to be there and simultaneous
0:58:24with it and then cut the other factor is combined with all the South Bay companies
0:58:29whose employees might come after work when they couldn't if it was all the way
0:58:32up in San Francisco I think it's I think it's gonna feel like apples taken over
0:58:37for San Jose.
0:58:39- Yeah, my main concern is if I don't get
0:58:43a conference ticket, will I not be able to get
0:58:46into major events that I will then want to get into?
0:58:49- Yeah, I know.
0:58:50- You know, that's been my one concern of like,
0:58:53should I go anyway or not?
0:58:55And because in San Francisco, there was so much
0:58:59to do everywhere that whether you had a WDC badge
0:59:03didn't really matter for anything except for the beer bash.
0:59:07That was the only thing where it really mattered
0:59:10whether you had it or not, but all the other events
0:59:11that happened around the conference were for anybody.
0:59:14And I hope that's gonna keep being the case,
0:59:16but I don't know yet.
0:59:18- Yeah, I think it'll be the same, I do.
0:59:20I do think, here's my theory, one of my theories
0:59:23is that they'll have the Bash on campus at Apple Campus too.
0:59:26'Cause I think they used-- - That would be awesome,
0:59:29but I don't think it's ready.
0:59:31- Maybe by June it will be, I don't know.
0:59:32- I mean, it's certainly cutting it close.
0:59:34- Yeah, I don't know.
0:59:35Or maybe they'll have it back at Infinite Loop,
0:59:36I don't know, that's what they used to do.
0:59:39- Is it big enough?
0:59:39Like is the courtyard there big enough
0:59:41to hold today's WDC crowd?
0:59:43I don't know.
0:59:44- Yeah, I don't know.
0:59:45I mean, the new courtyard certainly is.
0:59:47- Like Yerba Buena felt crowded.
0:59:49And that's a big yard, you know?
0:59:51- Yeah, but it got crowded by the stage,
0:59:54but yeah, I don't know.
0:59:57- No, no, it was empty by the stage.
1:00:00- I guess you're right, you know what I mean.
1:00:01- It was very crowded.
1:00:03The further back you got from the stage,
1:00:05the crowd more crowded at God because none of the nerds at the conference ever
1:00:09wanted to be near the band we all wanted to talk to each other right you can't
1:00:11hear I can't hear you let's go to the back it's the worst gig for a band to
1:00:15ever play some of them had success it's I felt bad for them every year because
1:00:20it's like oh god like you you're playing to a bunch of nerds backs who are like
1:00:24plugging their ears because they don't want to hear you right oh it's terrible
1:00:28all right let's uh it's shift gears to there's supposedly a March Apple event
1:00:34and they're gonna do iPads, new iPads,
1:00:38possibly a 128 gigabyte upgrade to the iPhone SE
1:00:44and then what else, a new red color for the iPhone SE.
1:00:49Or maybe a new red color for all iPhones.
1:00:53- No, I think the rumor was a new red color
1:00:55for the main iPhone 7 line.
1:00:56- Oh, maybe.
1:00:57- Which is kind of odd to do halfway through Recycle,
1:00:59but I mean, who knows?
1:01:01You know, again, like this is the kind of thing
1:01:02where if we look back and say, well, Apple never does that.
1:01:06The iPhone makes a lot of money,
1:01:08Apple's an evolving company.
1:01:10They can do whatever they want, and they will.
1:01:12If they think there's a good reason to do something like this,
1:01:14they would do it.
1:01:15- So I think one of the interesting things
1:01:17is that just about everything we know about,
1:01:19or have heard, I shouldn't say we know,
1:01:21but just about all the rumors we have
1:01:23about upcoming Apple products all come from Ming-Chi Kuo,
1:01:27the analyst at KGI Securities.
1:01:29- He certainly seems like he has the best info the earliest.
1:01:34- Right, like, Gurman has had some stories at Bloomberg,
1:01:38but it hasn't really been a lot.
1:01:40He had like an Apple TV thing recently,
1:01:41but it's just 4K coming to Apple TV.
1:01:45In terms of like iPads and iPhones,
1:01:46he hasn't had a lot recently.
1:01:48It seems like it's all coming from Ming-Chi Kuo.
1:01:51- It seems like Gurman's sources
1:01:53are maybe more in the Mac area.
1:01:55- Yeah, maybe.
1:01:56- Because he seems to have more Mac info,
1:01:58and Ming-Chi Kuo seems to have more iOS supply chain info.
1:02:02- It's all supply chain info.
1:02:03I don't think Ming-Chi Kuo has any sources at Cupertino.
1:02:06I really don't.
1:02:07And a lot of what he gets wrong
1:02:08is from not having those sources,
1:02:11but that he has seemingly drinking buddy status
1:02:14with some Foxconn executives.
1:02:17But it was interesting 'cause just yesterday,
1:02:23I'm looking at the date, Mac Otakara,
1:02:26Japanese rumor site who has a pretty good track record too.
1:02:30Yeah, they're pretty good.
1:02:31I mean, I'll put a link in the show notes to the one, but I'll put it the Mac Rumors
1:02:34version because it's in English.
1:02:37What they're saying is, much like KGI or Ming Chi Kuo, the new 9.7 and 12.9 inch iPad Pros,
1:02:48so take the iPad Pros, we already have new ones.
1:02:52bizarre to me rumor of a 10.5 inch iPad which basically has the same footprint
1:02:59as the 9.7 inch as we know it but with an edge to edge display so get rid of
1:03:04the bezels at the top and bottom so it has a 10.5 inch diagonal display because
1:03:09it gets rid of the bezels now the reason I call that bizarre getting rid of bezels
1:03:13sounds like something Apple would do but the reason it sounds bizarre to me is
1:03:16that all these rumors say that it's going to come alongside a new 9.7 inch
1:03:21iPad Pro.
1:03:22To me, what would make the--
1:03:25what both makes sense and fits the historical pattern is,
1:03:30if they're going to do that, introduce that
1:03:32as the new high-end model at this footprint
1:03:34and put the iPad, the 9.7-inch iPad
1:03:37Pro at a minus $100 or minus $200 price point
1:03:42lower down the chain.
1:03:44But there's an awful lot--
1:03:46all these rumors say that they're going to do both.
1:03:48And now, Mac Atacara yesterday says
1:03:51there's also going to be a 7.9-inch iPad Pro.
1:03:56So in other words, an iPad Pro Mini.
1:03:59Yeah.
1:04:00Which should be the first update to the Mini in quite some time.
1:04:03Yeah, but I think that they've done that before.
1:04:05I think if you look at the updates to the Mini
1:04:07that they've skipped years before.
1:04:09Yeah, I mean, so let's--
1:04:12easy things first.
1:04:13The 7.9-inch iPad Pro Mini, that makes a lot of sense.
1:04:17And it's probably got last year's specs, right?
1:04:18That's what I would think.
1:04:19Yeah.
1:04:19It's going to have--
1:04:20It probably has the specs of the current 9.7 Pro, which
1:04:23is now a year old.
1:04:24So that makes sense, right?
1:04:26Apple doesn't need to save the Pro name only
1:04:29for the higher end products, because Pro
1:04:31means they can sell $100 pencil and $150 keyboard
1:04:35with these things.
1:04:35So they love spreading Pro all over the whole line.
1:04:38I wonder what a--
1:04:40I mean, a keyboard that would fit--
1:04:41I have an iPad Mini in front of me right now.
1:04:43That's a cramped keyboard.
1:04:45- Yeah, I used like a Logitech one once a long time ago
1:04:48and it was nearly impossible to use, it was tough.
1:04:51Like the 9.7 size allows for a just barely usable
1:04:55keyboard case on it, but the 7.9, that's tough.
1:04:59I mean, they do exist and I guess somebody's buying them,
1:05:01but that's certainly not a good keyboard.
1:05:04But anyway, so that makes sense.
1:05:07So between 9.7 and 10.5, you know,
1:05:11there are these kind of similar rumors
1:05:15that we'll probably get to also with the whole
1:05:17iPhone 7S and 8 being also simultaneously released
1:05:22in the fall and they're basically being like,
1:05:24the iPhone quote eight would be this similar
1:05:27bezel-less, larger screen, smaller case,
1:05:29higher priced model.
1:05:31So that's, if they're gonna do that for the iPhone line,
1:05:36whatever their reasons are for doing it there,
1:05:38they had, maybe they finally got their
1:05:40edge to edge design and technology lined up
1:05:42so they can finally do this,
1:05:43so they're very excited to do this,
1:05:44but it costs more to do it for various reasons
1:05:46or whatever else, or they just wanted,
1:05:48you know, they wanted to have a premium product
1:05:50'cause they wanna start, you know,
1:05:51if people are really treating their phones
1:05:54and their iPads as computers,
1:05:57both in what they're doing with them
1:05:59and in their replacement cycles,
1:06:02then Apple probably wants them
1:06:03to boost those prices up a little bit.
1:06:04It's like, well, if you're only gonna buy
1:06:06a new phone every three years or an iPad every five,
1:06:08and you're gonna treat it like
1:06:10you used to treat your $2,000 laptop,
1:06:11well, if we can get you to pay 1,100 bucks for it,
1:06:14that's better for us and we can give you higher end specs
1:06:17and higher end, you know, more storage
1:06:19and fancier screen technology and all this other stuff.
1:06:22So it makes lots of sense why they would have
1:06:25higher priced ones at all.
1:06:27And it's totally plausible with modern Apple
1:06:31that they would also keep making lower end ones
1:06:34that, you know, rather, 'cause, you know,
1:06:36when Apple releases new things like this,
1:06:39you know, new iOS devices, new form factors,
1:06:41One of the ways that they can release these things
1:06:44that they have in the past is you release the new thing
1:06:47at the old price point and push everything down 100 bucks.
1:06:50The other way you do it is you leave everything
1:06:52at the same price point and you bring the new one in
1:06:55that's 100 bucks more than the old one was
1:06:57because the new one's higher end.
1:06:58So that's what I see them probably doing here.
1:07:00That's probably what the 10.5 inch iPad
1:07:03and the quote iPhone 8 with this weird edge to edge display,
1:07:05both of those are probably that latter kind of product
1:07:08where they both probably come into an existing lineup
1:07:10itself doesn't really change or changes only in minor ways and they come in at
1:07:14higher price points with more premium stuff. Yeah, so I think it's almost
1:07:18like you have to because the pattern is the same that there's going to be new
1:07:21models in the old form factor and there's amazing edge-to-edge, you know,
1:07:28blow away design without the bezels. It's the same story for the iPad and the
1:07:32iPhone so we might as well talk about the iPhone. Did you just forestall the blow away thing as a verb? I might have.
1:07:37Oh jeez or it wasn't an adjective it was an adjective. Yeah, I
1:07:41Might have
1:07:45It's big league. That's a big league design
1:07:48I thought it was big Lee. No, it's not every time
1:07:52No
1:07:52Everybody 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
1:07:59Say bigly it wouldn't he says big league and but it comes out
1:08:03I don't think not making sense is necessarily a per a yeah, but big league big league
1:08:08Yeah, but big league is what he's saying. Trust me. All right, and Dave's you're gonna have these blowaway designs for install
1:08:14All right. Keep going. You can even see it when the White House transcribes his remarks. It's it's big league
1:08:19It's gonna be a big league design
1:08:21You sure I'm just auto-crafting for
1:08:23You know, I mean what I bet on it now, but I
1:08:29No, I-- it's the same story.
1:08:36But to me, it makes more sense with the iPhone than the iPad.
1:08:39And so the story with the iPhone is
1:08:41that there would be what would presumably be called,
1:08:44or at least described-- I mean, again,
1:08:46marketing names are the hardest thing to know for sure,
1:08:48because they're the tightest held secrets.
1:08:50But it sounds like they're going to do the 7S and 7S+ exactly
1:08:56like you would think, where it's the same form factor,
1:09:00close enough down to the tenth of a millimeter,
1:09:03where you can probably use the same case with presumably
1:09:09a better camera and maybe a next generation A series CPU.
1:09:16Everything-- exactly what you think a 7S would be.
1:09:19And then also this new iPhone.
1:09:24I don't, if this is any, if there's any truth to this,
1:09:27I don't think there's any chance that they call
1:09:29this new iPhone the iPhone 8.
1:09:31There's just no way.
1:09:32I think that they would call it the iPhone Pro.
1:09:34Because I think that's the only way that you can have
1:09:38a reasonable amount of excitement for the new 7S and 7S+
1:09:42and have this new phone.
1:09:46Like it doesn't make sense to me to have an iPhone 8
1:09:49and a 7S in the same year.
1:09:51Like why not just, 'cause who wouldn't just buy the 8?
1:09:54Well, it's going to be expensive though, right?
1:09:57Like it's the part of the room where it's going to be like a
1:09:59thousand dollars, which is like, if you actually look at like
1:10:01the, the full price of iPhones, that is not that ridiculous.
1:10:04It's like 150 bucks more than a, than a similar respect.
1:10:08Plus model would be right.
1:10:09My assume if you assume that it probably starts at 128 or 256,
1:10:14right?
1:10:14Like which it probably does the 256.
1:10:16No rumor came out today that it's going to have to two models
1:10:2064 and 256.
1:10:21Really?
1:10:24So I would guess it might be like 1049 for 64 and 1149 for 256.
1:10:30At least it's only two.
1:10:33But the idea would be that this would get slotted
1:10:36in at a new higher price point.
1:10:38That the 7S and 7S+ would take the existing price points,
1:10:42and that they're actually-- instead of going lower,
1:10:44they're actually going more upscale.
1:10:47And that is a very Apple-like thing to do.
1:10:50Yeah, it makes sense on a lot of levels.
1:10:52I mean, the cynical take is of course,
1:10:54they're going to make a lot more money
1:10:55because the ASP is going to go up
1:10:56on their most profitable product and all that.
1:10:58That's a big deal for them financially,
1:11:01for their performance on Wall Street, et cetera.
1:11:02Okay, but also, there's good reasons for it also.
1:11:05Like, one of them is they can afford
1:11:08to put higher priced parts in this one.
1:11:11So you could have something that maybe
1:11:14they couldn't afford parts price-wise
1:11:17to put in all the iPhones for a year,
1:11:19'cause that's a lot of phones,
1:11:20then they can have it in this model for people who are willing to pay another couple hundred
1:11:23bucks. And then also, you know, if the rumors are true that they're doing this crazy edge-to-edge
1:11:28screen thing, I think it's pretty clearly going to be OLED. OLEDs are at this scale,
1:11:34like possibly they're having production yield problems with the type and quality and whatever
1:11:39that they're making. And so maybe they can't make like 80 million of them a quarter, whatever
1:11:43the number is. So they have to have like a mainstream iPhone for this coming year that
1:11:49isn't this crazy new screen, but they also
1:11:52want to have this crazy new screen in whatever quantity
1:11:54they can make for people who are willing to pay for it.
1:11:57And it lets them keep the kind of innovation crown going.
1:12:03Because it's like this wonderful showpiece
1:12:06at the top of the line, even if like 60% of the buyers
1:12:09aren't buying it.
1:12:12I think, though, if they do this,
1:12:14it has to be in sufficient quantity
1:12:17that they can meet demand as well as they've met it
1:12:19in recent years with whatever the new top of the line is.
1:12:23Because I think a ton of people are going to want this,
1:12:26if this exact rumor comes true.
1:12:29I don't know if it's 40%, but it's going to be,
1:12:32it's not going to be like just a sliver.
1:12:34There's going to be an awful lot of people who,
1:12:37for an extra 100 or $200 or even $300,
1:12:40are going to say, I want the new hotness.
1:12:42And if it's like, I could see this,
1:12:46I think it's a risk if they're really going to do this.
1:12:49And I think the idea-- if your complaint about Apple
1:12:51is they don't take risks anymore, here's your story.
1:12:54Because the risk I see happening is
1:12:56if they make this announcement and 40% of everybody who
1:13:02wants to buy a new iPhone in September wants this one,
1:13:05and it's instantly backordered three months or something,
1:13:09and nobody can get it instantly--
1:13:11It will be.
1:13:12--none of those people are then going to say, oh, cancel
1:13:15my order, I'll get the 7S.
1:13:17Nobody's going to do that.
1:13:18They're all going to say, I'll wait.
1:13:20So what I could see happening, if they can't meet demand,
1:13:24at least as well as they've done in recent years,
1:13:26with just to say, like in the quarter they just reported,
1:13:31if they can't meet demand for this iPhone Pro
1:13:33as well as they did for the 7 and 7 Plus three months ago,
1:13:38in what turned out to be the best selling iPhone quarter
1:13:42ever, then I think they're in real trouble,
1:13:46because everybody who's waiting for it
1:13:48is not going to settle on the 7S and 7S Plus.
1:13:50And then year over year, it's going
1:13:51to look bad, because they're going to take a big hit.
1:13:55It'll even out eventually, because eventually-- it's
1:13:57not like these people waiting for the iPhone Pro
1:13:59are going to switch to Android.
1:14:01They'll wait till January or February or March
1:14:03or however long it takes to get it.
1:14:06But it's going to look bad at that year over year,
1:14:09quarter over quarter demand.
1:14:11So I think that the idea, I've seen people say, oh, they'll do this, and it's sort of just like
1:14:17a, like the 20th anniversary Mac, you know, it's like a little thing at the fringe for just a
1:14:23handful of people who are willing to spend a little bit more. I don't think that's the case
1:14:29at all. I think this might be the best-selling phone they come out with next year. And I happen
1:14:34to know, I just, anecdotally, I see lots of people on Twitter, the people who really care. I mean,
1:14:38I mean, I've gone on then this along with the iPhone 7
1:14:43looking so much like an iPhone 6 and 6s.
1:14:47I can't see why people are so obsessed
1:14:49with the exterior of the phone.
1:14:51But it's true that an awful lot of people
1:14:53are, that they're not even getting
1:14:55into what the camera does, how good the screen looks,
1:14:58how good the touch sensor is, how good the new virtual home
1:15:01button is, and all the other things
1:15:03that there are to like about it.
1:15:04There's an awful lot of people.
1:15:06And you see it in all the tech reviews.
1:15:07you certainly see it in most of the gadget reviews
1:15:09that it's like, ah, it looks like the old iPhone, meh.
1:15:11There's an awful lot of people who think like that
1:15:13who've been waiting for years for, you know, screw it,
1:15:17I'll hold onto my old phone for another year
1:15:19because I know Apple's gonna come out
1:15:20with a new thing eventually.
1:15:22- Yeah, I mean, it matters, it matters a lot.
1:15:24And I think you're right, like I think a lot of people
1:15:27are going to want this new thing.
1:15:29I mean, I think we've shown that as customers
1:15:32that no matter what the new iPhone is,
1:15:35matter how happy we are or aren't with it, you know, in
1:15:39our social media posts and tech reviews and everything, we all
1:15:42want it and we're all gonna buy it and we're all gonna pay
1:15:45whatever it costs. So, yeah, they're gonna if this thing is
1:15:49real, unless it unless it has some obscene downside which it
1:15:53probably won't and and an extra 150 bucks is probably not
1:15:57enough of a downside for enough people. Then they're gonna sell
1:16:01this thing like literally just they're gonna sell as many as
1:16:04as many as they can possibly make.
1:16:06- I really wonder why people would buy the 7S and 7S Plus.
1:16:11I can totally see why they would keep selling the 7
1:16:15and 7 Plus at lower prices, but I just can't see
1:16:18why people would sign up.
1:16:21I guess it's people who have more sense, you know,
1:16:24than I do financially and who are like,
1:16:25"Well, it is $200, I'll just get the 7S."
1:16:29- Yeah, and that's a lot of people.
1:16:32Like, it's everybody who doesn't buy the top-of-the-line model in any other year.
1:16:38Right. Right. People who don't, you know, don't buy the 256, even though they only
1:16:45use 128 of their storage, just in case they—
1:16:48I don't even buy the 256.
1:16:49I do.
1:16:50I know.
1:16:50I can't stand the thought of not having the best one. I just can't. And I often think,
1:16:56like—and then I talk—I say to myself, like, "What happens if you're, like, out and about,
1:16:59and like breaking news happens and you start shooting video like of this like major event like I don't want to run out of
1:17:06Space to shoot video because by I cheaped out on my phone by $100
1:17:10You'd have to be shooting a lot of video. Well, I don't know just thought that occurs to me
1:17:16I think the battery would die before you fill it up
1:17:18We'll come back to this
1:17:20I'm gonna take another break here for a sponsor
1:17:22But 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
1:17:28and story works with the iPad.
1:17:31But I'm going to take a break here, and thanks
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1:20:34So anyway, I don't think that this middle iPad
1:20:40that doesn't have a bezel, I don't think that it has
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1:20:47Like, would I pay an extra $200
1:20:50to get a way cooler looking iPhone?
1:20:52Yes.
1:20:53Would I pay an extra $200 to get a cooler looking iPad?
1:20:55No.
1:20:56I don't think so.
1:20:58- Well, I think it's, you know,
1:21:00the iPad approach that Apple has taken in recent years
1:21:04has been pretty much scattershot.
1:21:06Just like, we have this product category,
1:21:09it's not performing as well as we want it to or need it to.
1:21:13So, let's try a bunch of stuff.
1:21:16And that has resulted in a lot of weird attempts for things
1:21:19and a lot of things that are really good.
1:21:21And the whole iPad Pro branch of the product line,
1:21:25the whole thing with making a pencil
1:21:28after everyone assumed Apple never would
1:21:30'cause Steve Jobs made one comment 20 years ago.
1:21:33They've been just trying a bunch of stuff.
1:21:38And the fact is, what most people need out of their iPads
1:21:44to get more work done or more of their work done
1:21:47is really tricky, difficult, long-term software stuff
1:21:52that's much harder to do.
1:21:53It's much easier to just,
1:21:55let's try some new screen sizes
1:21:56and some new hardware abilities.
1:21:58That's actually easier to do than,
1:22:00let's figure out file management on iOS or windowing.
1:22:04Those are way harder.
1:22:06Or let's fix the App Store pricing ecosystem.
1:22:10That's way harder than Apple,
1:22:13who's already an excellent hardware company,
1:22:15making one more screen size,
1:22:16or making one more hardware configuration.
1:22:18- The iPad has never been, to my mind,
1:22:21an ooh and aah industrial design product,
1:22:25except for maybe the first one.
1:22:28The first one was like,
1:22:30'cause it was just like a quote unquote,
1:22:32they're making a tablet,
1:22:33nobody knows it's gonna be thick,
1:22:35is what, how big is it, nobody knew, you know,
1:22:38what it was gonna be like.
1:22:41And then we saw it and it was like,
1:22:42this is really nice and it's wow this is really kind of cool to have something with the touch
1:22:46latency of an iPhone on a big screen. It was impressive but then every iteration since then
1:22:53has been very iterative to my mind. Like there's never been one generation where you're like
1:22:58whoa with the possible exception of the move from non-retina to retina but even then it's not really
1:23:06the way it looks without turning it on,
1:23:11you know, like the rumors about this iPhone Pro or iPhone 8
1:23:15or whatever you want to call it, are that it's going to look
1:23:17like, wow, what is that before you even turn it on?
1:23:22It doesn't seem-- you know, that was never really the case
1:23:24with iPads.
1:23:25I mean, the current iPads look an awful lot
1:23:28like the original one.
1:23:29I mean, the backs are flat now, and the bezel on the side
1:23:33is narrower.
1:23:34But like the top and bottom bezel
1:23:35is almost exactly the same.
1:23:38- I think what it is, it's a combination of them
1:23:41trying to figure out what else can we try here
1:23:44to turn around the sales curve and to let this product
1:23:47really come into its own.
1:23:49And then also just like the iPad,
1:23:52I don't think it's about flashiness.
1:23:54I think this is actually just about utility.
1:23:56The iPad really struggles between how much screen size
1:24:01you get versus how nice it is to use.
1:24:03It's really this incredibly polar opposite relationship
1:24:07where if you want to get anything more done on it
1:24:11than browsing the web and watching video,
1:24:14you really want more screen space.
1:24:16If you try multitasking at all, the 9.7 can do it,
1:24:21but it's pretty tight.
1:24:23And the people we know in the community
1:24:26who are big pro iPad users who get a lot of their work done
1:24:30on iPads almost always prefer the 12.9 now
1:24:34for getting like quote work done,
1:24:36because it has more screen space.
1:24:38But anyone who's ever used a 12.9 can tell you
1:24:42like it's pretty big for an iPad.
1:24:45Like for a laptop it's still nice and small,
1:24:47but for an iPad the way you use and hold an iPad,
1:24:52it really is quite large.
1:24:55And so adding that screen space to get the 12.9
1:25:00and its ability to have multitasking be better
1:25:02and to get more work done and more effectively
1:25:05has come at a great cost of this kind of unwieldy size
1:25:09for hand-holded iPad use.
1:25:11That's why I think a lot of 12.9 users use keyboards
1:25:15and stuff where it's kind of more like a laptop
1:25:17propped up on a table more of the time
1:25:19'cause if you're actually using it one-handed,
1:25:21one hand to hold it and the other hand to tuck shit
1:25:23or use the pencil, that's a pretty big iPad to do that with.
1:25:26It's kind of awkward, it's kind of unwieldy.
1:25:28So this 10 point whatever I think is an attempt to cram
1:25:33that screen resolution into the smaller body,
1:25:37which for iPad power users,
1:25:40and I guess we don't know how many of those there are,
1:25:43but for iPad power users, that sounds incredible.
1:25:46That sounds like exactly what so many people would want
1:25:49in I want an iPad that is still small enough
1:25:54to feel and handle like an iPad.
1:25:57and that means 9.7 roughly physical dimensions.
1:26:01But that would have more screen space
1:26:03so I could better multitask
1:26:04and get more of my work done on this device
1:26:06or get my work done more efficiently on this device.
1:26:08- And the speculation I think is that the pixel resolution,
1:26:11instead of being at 266 pixels print,
1:26:15it's gonna be 326,
1:26:17which is the pixel resolution of the Retina Mini.
1:26:21- And the iPhone. - And the iPhone.
1:26:23That seems really small to me
1:26:26for a device that you would hold at a further away distance,
1:26:29but maybe that's just my aging vision speaking.
1:26:32I don't know.
1:26:33- It's just like the iPad Mini.
1:26:34You know, it's like if the iPad, you know,
1:26:35the iPad Mini just has like the 9.7 resolution shrunk down,
1:26:39it's gonna be that same relationship.
1:26:40So like if the iPad Mini looks acceptable to you
1:26:43and you can use it without eye strain,
1:26:44then this would probably work for you too.
1:26:46- It just seems like a confusing decision though,
1:26:50which one you would buy, doesn't it?
1:26:52You don't think so.
1:26:53- Well, it's probably gonna be more expensive
1:26:54than the equivalent 9.7.
1:26:56So it's probably gonna be like 100 bucks more at least,
1:26:58so you know, and it may be slightly cheaper
1:27:01than the 12.9 version of it.
1:27:03So who knows?
1:27:04I mean, we'll see what they do.
1:27:07I think at this point, it's very clear
1:27:09that Apple's strategy with the iPad,
1:27:10again, it's scattershot, it's like,
1:27:12let's just try a bunch of stuff and see what works,
1:27:15and just give people tons and tons of options.
1:27:17You know, they will now sell you an iPad
1:27:21at pretty much every $100 price point from $250
1:27:24on up to like $1100.
1:27:27And it's like any of these price points,
1:27:28pick your price, whatever you're willing to pay for an iPad,
1:27:31we got one to sell you at exactly that price point,
1:27:33but a little bit more after accessories.
1:27:35And I think for what they're trying to do with the iPad,
1:27:40like I think it's very clear that again,
1:27:41I think they maybe don't really know what will work
1:27:46and what won't to boost sales
1:27:49or to carry this platform forward.
1:27:51So they are just trying a bunch of random stuff
1:27:53at this point.
1:27:54And I'm sure there's more thought that goes into it
1:27:55than that, but it certainly seems like they're taking
1:27:58a lot of hardware risks here in order to just cover
1:28:01more of the market in hopes that people will want
1:28:05what they're now making without having to really
1:28:07dramatically change iOS to be more PC-like.
1:28:10- I don't know, it just seems really,
1:28:11it just seems really curious to me that it would,
1:28:13that this new bezel design would debut alongside
1:28:17the iPad Pro 2, you know?
1:28:20I don't know.
1:28:21I believe, I'm not saying I don't--
1:28:23- You probably wouldn't under Steve,
1:28:24but I think this is kind of a hallmark of Tim Cook's Apple,
1:28:26is like, you know, just, is not an aversion
1:28:31to throwing a bunch of different options out there
1:28:33for people to choose from. - I don't think
1:28:34that's Tim Cook, I really don't.
1:28:36I don't know.
1:28:37I don't know what to think.
1:28:39I think there's something we're missing if this is true.
1:28:41I just don't get it.
1:28:42I don't know.
1:28:46I do think-- have you played around with the math?
1:28:49MacRumors had a report from Ming-Chi Kuo on this new--
1:28:52the iPhone, as I'm calling it, the iPhone Pro,
1:28:54as others are saying, the iPhone 8, which supposedly
1:28:57has a 5.8-inch OLED display.
1:29:00But that's the whole device.
1:29:03And only 5.15 inches of it are really
1:29:07what we think of as the iPhone display now.
1:29:09And the rest is the chin.
1:29:11And presumably, there'll be new features in the OS that
1:29:14can light stuff up down there.
1:29:15But basically, if you do the math,
1:29:22and he's exactly right, it's a device
1:29:25that's a very different aspect ratio than the iPhone
1:29:28as we know it.
1:29:29Yeah, like it's too tall and skinny.
1:29:30Yeah, it's basically a device that the hardware
1:29:35is as narrow as an iPhone SE, because it's
1:29:38an edge-to-edge display.
1:29:40And if you actually put an iPhone SE or an iPhone 5
1:29:44on top of a 4.7-inch iPhone and turn the screen on,
1:29:48and then put this, like an iPhone SE on top of it,
1:29:51it's pretty much exactly the same width.
1:29:53- Hang on, I'm doing this now.
1:29:55- Yeah.
1:29:56- I got this right here, all right.
1:29:57- So it's a device-- - Yeah, you're right.
1:29:59- It's a device that's actually narrower in hand
1:30:02than an iPhone 7, you know, than a 4.7-inch.
1:30:05It's more like an SE in hand,
1:30:07but it's as tall as an iPhone 7.
1:30:09In other words, it's as tall, almost exactly the height,
1:30:12and it's a device of the iPhone with a 4.7 inch screen.
1:30:17So as a piece of hardware in your hand,
1:30:18not even turning it on, it would be smaller than an iPhone 7,
1:30:21about the same height and a little narrower.
1:30:23But the aspect ratio that KGI is saying,
1:30:31instead of being 16 to 9, it's more like 2.15 to 1.
1:30:37It's more like a widescreen movie,
1:30:39like a anamorphic movie.
1:30:41It's a lot wider.
1:30:43It's not just a little bit wider than 16 to nine.
1:30:45It's a lot wider.
1:30:47- Yeah, I mean, that's why I think
1:30:50the most likely explanation for this is just like,
1:30:55there's some other key piece of information
1:30:56that we don't know about how the screen is used,
1:31:00how it's shaped around the device.
1:31:02Maybe there's this function area at the bottom
1:31:06where presumably some kind of like home button area will go.
1:31:10Maybe there's one at the top also,
1:31:11which we could slice off that other part of the aspect ratio
1:31:14and therefore make it look right, who knows.
1:31:17But this is getting into really nitty-gritty specifics
1:31:21that I think we probably don't have enough information
1:31:25to really gauge what's real here and what's not.
1:31:29I mean, it's so early and there's no other information
1:31:33backing this up besides KGI stuff
1:31:36which again, KGI stuff has been good
1:31:38about a lot of details about stuff.
1:31:40- Especially on component type stuff, right.
1:31:43- Right, but all this is saying is the panel resolution.
1:31:48And there's lots of things that could affect
1:31:53that being correct or not, and that being like
1:31:56how we think of the screen shape on the phone or not.
1:31:59OLED allows lots of flexibility.
1:32:01It allows not only different shape things,
1:32:03but it allows holes to be cut in panels,
1:32:05and stuff like that, you can do all sorts of crazy stuff
1:32:08with OLED.
1:32:09So it could be something weird that we don't,
1:32:11that we can't explain this yet with what we know,
1:32:14but it could be a much less interesting story
1:32:16than, oh, it's gonna be a new shaped phone.
1:32:20Like, well, it might just be, it might look like
1:32:22what we have now in general proportions and aspect ratios
1:32:26and just have this weird implementation detail
1:32:28about why the screen happens to be this certain resolution.
1:32:31- Would you want it to be that tall, do you think?
1:32:33Like what if it really is just, it's as wide as iPhone 7,
1:32:38but tall, you know, way taller.
1:32:41So like you'd see more messages in a list in mail.
1:32:45If you're reading an article,
1:32:46you'd see more of the article on screen at once,
1:32:49but at the exact same width.
1:32:51- Hmm, as the designer of an app
1:32:56that has to lay out a giant square
1:32:57in the middle of its now playing screen,
1:32:59that would be awesome.
1:33:00But as a user of the phone,
1:33:02I don't think I need that really.
1:33:03I mean, I think there's a lot of advantages
1:33:06to the phone display being 16 by nine.
1:33:08One of them is when you turn it sideways and shoot video,
1:33:11you have the whole screen and it looks right.
1:33:13So there's a lot of advantages to that.
1:33:1616 by nine allows you to lay out a lot of different shapes
1:33:19fairly nicely within it.
1:33:21Squares, four by three, so it's,
1:33:25I don't think I really want the screen
1:33:28to be taller and skinnier, but who knows?
1:33:30I mean, I'd have to actually see it and use it.
1:33:32Well, the screen wouldn't be any skinnier.
1:33:34And the numbers add up.
1:33:35So he's saying that this is-- his number's
1:33:37for the pixel resolution.
1:33:392,436 high.
1:33:40This is for the display area, not the whole panel,
1:33:43but the part that would be used as a display area by 1,125
1:33:47wide.
1:33:48Now 1,125 wide is really interesting
1:33:50because an iPhone 7 and the iPhone 6S and the 6,
1:33:54the ones that were 4.7 inches, have 375 point
1:34:01and at 2x and it's in pixels, it's what is 375 times two.
1:34:06It's 750.
1:34:09- Yeah.
1:34:10- And so if you take 375 times three, guess what?
1:34:13You get 1125.
1:34:15- So basically it's saying we're gonna have 3x.
1:34:17- It's exactly 3x.
1:34:19So it would be the exact same point for point size
1:34:22as the iPhone 4.7 inch screens that we know,
1:34:26except instead of being at 2x resolution, it would be 3x.
1:34:29And unlike the Plus phones, it would be a real 3X
1:34:32with no downsampling.
1:34:34- I mean, that would look great,
1:34:36'cause the Plus phones with their like,
1:34:38rendered 3X scaled down to 1080p,
1:34:41that already looks really nice.
1:34:43- It does.
1:34:44- It isn't a massive difference over 2X,
1:34:47but it is a difference.
1:34:48It does just kinda look nicer. - It does look better.
1:34:50- And I can't explain why.
1:34:52I don't think I can really see the pixels for making it,
1:34:55but it just does look nicer.
1:34:57So to have it be true 3X and not even have to do
1:35:01the downsampling compared to what we have now
1:35:04in the 4.7 inch line I think would look really great.
1:35:06- Yeah, I think that like 10 years ago or prior,
1:35:10the downsampling technique, even if it was technically
1:35:13a higher resolution screen, but if you downsampled,
1:35:16it might look bad.
1:35:17I think it probably would have.
1:35:18But I think at this point the pixels are so small
1:35:20that downsampling actually makes it look better
1:35:22so long as the actual pixels are smaller.
1:35:24But anyway, this rumored phone would actually be true
1:35:27to 3x resolution, which, and the fact that the numbers
1:35:30really add up makes, gives me, makes me think
1:35:33that he's onto something.
1:35:34- Yeah, I think, 'cause like, these are weird numbers
1:35:39to just make up or to like, to misinterpret, you know?
1:35:43Like, so there is probably something here,
1:35:46I think again, the only question comes down to like,
1:35:49how are these pixels actually allocated
1:35:51to the various screen elements?
1:35:53- Right, and what does the app get
1:35:54and what does the system get?
1:35:56So anyway, the other last aspect of this
1:35:59is that it seems like nobody knows what the hell is
1:36:01going on with Touch ID.
1:36:03It seems like some of this stuff is like, well,
1:36:05Touch ID must go away because the display goes all the way
1:36:08to the bottom, so there's nowhere
1:36:09to put the little Sapphire button.
1:36:11Which is wrong.
1:36:12I think so, too.
1:36:13I don't think-- I think that there's a way
1:36:16to integrate it into the screen.
1:36:19Just put it in the middle.
1:36:21And clearly, the move away from the physical button
1:36:25last year to a virtual button that has haptic feedback would play right into this.
1:36:32But then there's all these rumors, also rumors that they're going to use a new fancy new
1:36:35camera to do face recognition or something like that.
1:36:39I wouldn't be surprised if they do that, but I would be a little surprised if they did
1:36:42it in place of Touch ID because I feel like Touch ID, it seems like it's a habit people
1:36:47already have.
1:36:48I don't feel like they could take that away.
1:36:50Well, I mean, they again, they could they could try whatever they want, especially if
1:36:55it's only this weird high end one that is already kind of like selecting for fewer buyers.
1:36:59But but I think it's unlikely. I'm with you on that. I mean, again, we'll see what happens.
1:37:04I mean, I think we all thought the headphone jack was unlikely to but no, I didn't. Okay,
1:37:08yeah, that's right. You didn't I couldn't wait for him to get rid of my headphone jack.
1:37:13(sighs)
1:37:14Anyway, so that's, I don't have the energy for that today.
1:37:18But yeah, the whole face recognition thing,
1:37:22I'm sure they wouldn't do it
1:37:26if they couldn't do it really well.
1:37:27- Right, the same thing with the fingerprint,
1:37:29where the first fingerprint sensor was pretty darn good.
1:37:32- Yeah, and like when you compared
1:37:33to previous fingerprint sensors at the time,
1:37:36they were all really awkward and garbagey,
1:37:39and Apple came out with a really good one,
1:37:40and now they're all pretty, you know,
1:37:42they're all a lot better than they used to be.
1:37:44People saying now that they're like face recognition
1:37:47on their Samsung whatever whatever was crappy,
1:37:51I think again like I don't see Apple doing this
1:37:54unless they could do it really well.
1:37:56So I wouldn't worry too much about what these things
1:37:58have been like in the past from other people.
1:38:00But I still, despite saying that,
1:38:02I still think it's unlikely that this is what they have
1:38:06in mind just 'cause it doesn't sound like it would be better
1:38:09it sounds like it would be worse.
1:38:11I guess the other thing, too, is that when I first
1:38:14heard these rumors a few months ago,
1:38:16I was really, really skeptical.
1:38:17Because again, same thing with the iPads.
1:38:19It's so atypical for Apple to introduce
1:38:24two generations of new stuff at the same time.
1:38:28If they do this, the 7S and 7S Plus
1:38:30are totally going to get lost because they're
1:38:32debuting as mid-range phones.
1:38:34And that just hasn't happened before.
1:38:38And the other aspect is that Apple
1:38:39has had so much success since the iPhone 6
1:38:42by selling two-size phones.
1:38:44And really, three-size, if you count the SE,
1:38:46which is obviously a surprise hit.
1:38:48I mean, they've admitted that they underestimated demand
1:38:51for that.
1:38:54So multiple sizes have proven so popular.
1:38:56Why in the world would they come out with a brand new design
1:38:58at only one size?
1:39:00But when you do all the math and think about this,
1:39:03it's actually a pretty good size to be a one-size-fits-all,
1:39:07because the usable display area is 0.45 inches more
1:39:17than the 4.7 inch phone diagonally.
1:39:20It's 0.35 inches less than the 5.5 inch phone.
1:39:24Yeah, so it's right in the middle.
1:39:25Right in the middle, and air is a little bit on the bigger side.
1:39:29But physically in hand, it's narrower than the 4.7 inch
1:39:33phone, which is, to me, the biggest
1:39:34factor of what makes the iPhone SE so nice to hold, is that it's so narrow.
1:39:40So in terms of like, well, you like something that fits in your hand really securely and
1:39:45that you can go from side to side with your thumb, and you like the fit more information
1:39:50on screen at once, like an iPhone 7 Plus.
1:39:53And the last aspect to all these rumors is that it's supposedly going to have an iPhone
1:40:007+ caliber, at least in the general range, battery, as opposed to the 4.7, because that's
1:40:06the other factor. I mean, I know it. I mean, there's some people who just love the big
1:40:09phone. And you and I both know people who have the 7+, and they don't even like the
1:40:14size, but they do. I mean, I think you were even talking about it where the battery life
1:40:18alone is sometimes a reason enough to get it. Like, "Ah, it doesn't fit my pocket.
1:40:23It's too big to hold." But I could use it all day and still have battery life at the
1:40:28end of the day.
1:40:29Although to be fair, that was a lot more true
1:40:31of the 6 versus 6 Plus than it has been
1:40:34of the 6S or 7 generations.
1:40:36The gap is now smaller, and to the point where now,
1:40:40the battery life on the 7 is actually pretty decent.
1:40:43And on the 7 Plus, it is better,
1:40:45but it's not better by as much as it used to be
1:40:47in the previous ones.
1:40:48- Yeah, it's gotta say, the 7 has the best battery life
1:40:52for me, I think, of any iPhone I've ever had.
1:40:54- Yeah, me too.
1:40:55- The only time I ever get down into red
1:40:57is on days when I somehow in a circumstance
1:41:01where I didn't even start the day with 100%,
1:41:03which is rare 'cause usually I sleep with it charging.
1:41:06But anyway.
1:41:07All right, let me take another break here
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1:43:12give you any better hint of whether you're
1:43:13going to light the mattress you buy anyway.
1:43:15So why don't you just trust Casper?
1:43:17Buy it.
1:43:18Next time you need a mattress, they give you
1:43:19a 100-night home trial.
1:43:21If you don't love it, they'll just give them a ring
1:43:23or go to the website, they'll pick it up at your house
1:43:26and give you a full refund.
1:43:27No questions asked, no hard sell.
1:43:29This is not like, it's not like sending your cable box back
1:43:32and cord cutting where they send like a Gestapo after you
1:43:36to try to keep you.
1:43:37No, they'll just say, okay, sure, sorry.
1:43:39Here's your money back, we'll come pick up the mattress.
1:43:42Here's the asterisk.
1:43:43They also sell a dog mattress.
1:43:45And I keep hearing from people who've bought it
1:43:46for their dogs that their dogs love.
1:43:49Yeah, they have a dog mattress, and it's very, very popular.
1:43:51People who've got it-- listeners of the show
1:43:54who've gotten it love it.
1:43:55But here's the deal.
1:43:56You don't save the $50 on it, because it's
1:43:58like a lower cost mattress.
1:44:00And this is the gist of it, is I got a whole bunch of email
1:44:02from people who bought the dog mattress.
1:44:04And then they said, hey, I just wanted to say,
1:44:05I love the mattress.
1:44:06My dog loves it, but the $50 code didn't work.
1:44:08I botched it the first time they had the dog mattress.
1:44:11So anyway, go to casper.com/thetalkshow.
1:44:13Remember that code, thetalkshow.
1:44:14Save $50 towards your mattress, unless it's a dog mattress.
1:44:17But you'll get $50 of love from your dog
1:44:20that'll make up for it.
1:44:22Oh, yeah.
1:44:23All right.
1:44:24Why don't we talk about Overcast?
1:44:26Overcast 3.0 just shipped yesterday.
1:44:30Yeah, big update.
1:44:31I knew you were working on this.
1:44:32But I somehow had no idea that it was that close to shipping.
1:44:36I think I was even on the beta.
1:44:38Was I on the beta?
1:44:39You were definitely on the list.
1:44:41I don't know if you actually ever installed it,
1:44:42but you were on the list.
1:44:43I think I did.
1:44:44I think I remember my Overcast having the orange dot next
1:44:47to it, but I don't--
1:44:48I never remembered any--
1:44:51I remember the switch to cards and talking to you about it.
1:44:54And I remember playing with the slide on the card.
1:44:56This was months ago, though, and you had it really--
1:44:59Yeah, well, when I was in Philly,
1:45:00I showed you a prototype.
1:45:02And I had you play with it on my phone
1:45:03and tell me what you thought.
1:45:04I had Hop Sing, right.
1:45:05We were at Hop Sing, and I was playing with it.
1:45:07And it was already--
1:45:08the prototype was very, very good.
1:45:10I had very minor feedback, but I couldn't even
1:45:13find anything to complain about.
1:45:16I forget what I wrote today.
1:45:17Did I write this today?
1:45:18I know I wrote a bit about the business model,
1:45:20but did I write about how if you-- casual user not paying
1:45:23attention isn't going to be-- even though there's a yet.
1:45:26So that's my two points is that it's a great update,
1:45:29because all these things-- every single thing you documented
1:45:32on your blog about the changes, I think every single one
1:45:35of them is like, yes, I totally agree.
1:45:36This is better.
1:45:37This is better.
1:45:37This is better.
1:45:38But I think a casual person who just
1:45:40wants to listen to podcasts, and if they have auto updates on,
1:45:43and they may not even notice that it's a new version.
1:45:47- Yeah, it's odd because here I was like,
1:45:51you know, really busting my butt and just changing,
1:45:54it was a lot of work going into these changes
1:45:57in Overcast 3.
1:45:59And then at the end, when it comes time to like,
1:46:01you know, write the release notes
1:46:02and start like promoting it to people,
1:46:05and it's all right, well what's the list
1:46:06of new features in 3.0?
1:46:09And it's like, uh,
1:46:12I redesigned a lot of the UI.
1:46:14That's about it.
1:46:16There's like a couple of like Q features here and there,
1:46:18but it's, and there's a new watch app.
1:46:20That's, which actually does less than the old one,
1:46:23but is way faster.
1:46:25And that's about it.
1:46:27Like the bullet point list of what is new in this update
1:46:30is incredibly short.
1:46:32Unless you wanna go through and like itemize
1:46:34all the little UI changes,
1:46:35but nobody wants to read that 'cause nobody cares.
1:46:37What you care about is the whole thing,
1:46:38like how the whole thing feels and works for you
1:46:41and everything else.
1:46:41And there were tons of changes and tons of time
1:46:46that went into this, that most of which is fairly subtle
1:46:51or hidden or is the kind of change that you notice
1:46:54the very first day you use it and then it just becomes
1:46:57normal and you immediately stop noticing.
1:47:00That's how this app is now.
1:47:02And things like the whole, the card UI,
1:47:07that took forever to get working.
1:47:08(laughing)
1:47:10That took so long.
1:47:11and so much work and there are still so many
1:47:15weird little considerations with it.
1:47:17Like one of the things, I had to issue a quick 3.0.1 update
1:47:22because I moved all of the secondary screens in the app
1:47:27into these cards 'cause I have a reusable controller
1:47:30that I can use for anything now
1:47:32to put it in one of these cards.
1:47:33And the problem is that when an iOS standard table view
1:47:39is in one of these cards in certain modes,
1:47:42the reorder controls, like the drag handles
1:47:45when a table's in reordering mode just don't work.
1:47:48Like it moves like two pixels and then stops.
1:47:52And it's only because it's in this card environment
1:47:54and a few of the implementation details of that.
1:47:58And so I had an update today that just moved
1:48:01the playlist editor out of the cards
1:48:04'cause otherwise you can't reorder
1:48:06the priority podcast setting.
1:48:08And it's like, when I was in development,
1:48:10there were so many weird cases like this
1:48:11where like some part of the UI would fail in a weird way
1:48:16if it was moved to this card thing.
1:48:19And so I had to either try to figure out why
1:48:22and see if I could work around it
1:48:23or re-implement it in a different way so it wouldn't fail.
1:48:26And that's just, that card thing is just one of the changes.
1:48:31And there were just so, like,
1:48:34I mean, just so much time going into
1:48:37seemingly minor things like that.
1:48:40Even other things like the full-time drag handles
1:48:42now on the playlist.
1:48:44That is not easy to do in UI table view.
1:48:48- No, I know that.
1:48:50I do. - I did it.
1:48:50It's not a collection view.
1:48:51It is still a table view.
1:48:53And the way I did it is such an incredible hack.
1:48:57And that took a long time too.
1:48:59Similarly, having the Tweetbot style
1:49:03where you tap on the episode and a little row of buttons
1:49:06expands out from the bottom of it
1:49:07that you can then select actions from.
1:49:10Again, a seemingly small thing in the UI,
1:49:13but that takes a long time to implement
1:49:15and to figure out how you have to abuse
1:49:18the system frameworks to let them let you do this.
1:49:21Like, it's all like, and you know from Vesper stuff,
1:49:24like a lot of times it's these little tiny
1:49:27implementation details or these little tiny interactions
1:49:30or UI affordances that they make all the difference
1:49:33in the world when you're using the app
1:49:34and like how nice it is to use or how easy it is to use.
1:49:37But like one of those little behaviors
1:49:41or little animations or implementations
1:49:43might take you weeks to just develop that one little thing.
1:49:47- It is my opinion that the modern touchscreen UI
1:49:53that started with the iPhone
1:50:00is a trickier and inherently more limited interaction model
1:50:07than the mouse pointer interface that we've had since the Mac
1:50:14and go back to the Xerox thing that was before the Mac
1:50:20in a lot of ways.
1:50:21And I think that most people don't think about it.
1:50:24You don't have to.
1:50:24You shouldn't have to if you're not a designer.
1:50:26But when you are a designer, you suddenly
1:50:28that you're limited in a certain way.
1:50:30So for example, let's just say a list of things.
1:50:33You have a list of rows, and you can drag them to reorder.
1:50:37There's all sorts of apps that do stuff like this.
1:50:40On a Mac, you would think, well, I could just click
1:50:44on the row I want to move up, and hold the mouse button down
1:50:47and drag up, and that's exactly how you do it.
1:50:50You click on it and drag, and you don't have to click
1:50:52and wait, you could click and wait and then drag,
1:50:56or you could just click and drag immediately,
1:50:57and it just works.
1:50:59Well, you can't do that on a touch screen
1:51:01because if you're in a list and you just touch
1:51:04and immediately move down or move up,
1:51:06you're scrolling the list because touching on the list
1:51:09and moving your finger is how you do it.
1:51:11So how do you take an item and move it up
1:51:15if you can't just touch on it and move up?
1:51:17So it's--
1:51:19- Yeah, you can't have like a modifier key.
1:51:20Oh, just hold down Command.
1:51:21- There is, and the truth is there's no perfect solution.
1:51:23There's a perfect solution with a mouse pointer,
1:51:25which is just allow the user to click and drag up.
1:51:29On touch screens, I could think of-- there's three ways
1:51:32I can think to do it.
1:51:33Apple's usual way is to have an Edit button in the top right
1:51:37that you tap this Edit button, and then it switches it
1:51:42to a mode where there's like a little grippy strip over there.
1:51:45And you can use that grippy strip
1:51:46to drag things up and down.
1:51:48And if you touch on the grippy strip and drag,
1:51:50it won't scroll the list, it'll drag the thing up.
1:51:53The way Vesper did it, and a lot of other apps do,
1:51:55is you tap and hold.
1:51:56And after a brief-- and again, this
1:51:58is the sort of thing where you sit there
1:52:00and you play with little fractions of a second
1:52:02to see how long is too short and how long is too long.
1:52:05But you know you're drag-- you know
1:52:07you're moving it because it visually pops up off the screen.
1:52:10And you can see that it's sort of like raised,
1:52:12and then you're moving the item up and down.
1:52:16I like the solution you came with,
1:52:18where you just put the grip strips there all the time.
1:52:20And so you can't scroll the list from over
1:52:22at the edge of the screen.
1:52:23but most of it you can.
1:52:27- Yeah, and most people don't scroll
1:52:28that far of the edge anyway, so it's fine.
1:52:30Because what I found, I made this whole blog post about,
1:52:34and actually this blog post was the release of Overcast 3
1:52:39and kind of the announcement of Overcast 3,
1:52:41but I titled it Design Walkthrough
1:52:43because this release really was effectively a redesign.
1:52:48Not like 100% redesign, a lot of things look
1:52:50kind of similar or the same, but.
1:52:53There's a lot more redesigning than anything else
1:52:55in this release.
1:52:56And that's because over the last couple years,
1:53:00since I made 1.0, I've gotten literally thousands
1:53:04of emails and tweets from people with feedback
1:53:07and some support questions and things like that.
1:53:11I basically had a lot of feedback to show me
1:53:13all the ways in which the old design failed.
1:53:16And by that I mean people weren't able to find features
1:53:20that they wanted to find or they couldn't understand
1:53:22way something worked or something caused errors to people to
1:53:26erroneously invoke it or things like that. And so
1:53:30there were, one of the major themes I learned
1:53:34over the last couple years is these built-in
1:53:38iOS standards. Things like tapping edit in the top right corner
1:53:42and then having a table view switch to this mode where you can delete or
1:53:46reorder or batch operate on things in a list.
1:53:50or even just swiping a table cell to delete it,
1:53:55these things that we, like power users,
1:53:58have known literally since iOS 1.0 introduced most of them,
1:54:03most people who use iPhones these days
1:54:06don't know those things, they never find it.
1:54:08They don't know you can swipe on a table view
1:54:09to reveal a delete button.
1:54:11They never tap the edit button in the corner,
1:54:14and if they do, they quickly undo it
1:54:16'cause they don't really understand what it does
1:54:17and don't care.
1:54:18So there's lots of assumed knowledge of platform standards
1:54:23that I went into with this,
1:54:27that I think a lot of iOS developers still do,
1:54:29that the reality is the customers don't have
1:54:33that vocabulary in enough quantity.
1:54:35- Yeah, I think that you can only really count
1:54:38on them finding what they can see.
1:54:41- Exactly.
1:54:41- Right, and if you can't, if the only way to do it
1:54:43is a way that you don't see, you have to do something
1:54:47to see it, like slide the row, they all won't find it.
1:54:50That's why, you know, if you look at an app,
1:54:52like I think it's a super successful app,
1:54:53is an app like Apple's Mail for iPhone.
1:54:57That's why there's a trash can when you're in a message view
1:55:00but also why you could swipe on the message
1:55:02in the list of messages and delete it from there.
1:55:05- Yeah.
1:55:06- But that trash can has to be there.
1:55:09- Exactly. - Because some people
1:55:10would be shocked to find out
1:55:11that you can delete a message any other way.
1:55:13- Yeah, 'cause like even, you know,
1:55:14even like the edit button in the corner,
1:55:16that is visible, but it's not even obvious enough.
1:55:19Like what it does or why, like if you're in a list,
1:55:22like what does that even mean to edit
1:55:25in the corner of this entire list of episodes?
1:55:27Like a lot of people just don't think that way.
1:55:30They don't try to poke everything and see,
1:55:33well what does this weird word do
1:55:35that doesn't seem to specify anything in particular?
1:55:39- I hate to spring this on you, but all right,
1:55:41I'm in all episodes and there is an edit button up there.
1:55:46- Still there. - I don't understand
1:55:48what it does.
1:55:49I hit edit and then it says done
1:55:51and it just toggles between edit and done,
1:55:53but what's different?
1:55:54- Do you actually have the latest version?
1:55:57- I think so.
1:55:58(laughing)
1:55:59- 'Cause normal, what's supposed to happen
1:56:00is if you hit edit, you're supposed to get
1:56:02a little header on top that says,
1:56:03edit playlist on one half and delete playlist
1:56:05on the other half, and then all of the rows
1:56:07turn into the multi-select toggle dots on the right.
1:56:10- Oh, maybe I don't have the latest version.
1:56:12(laughing)
1:56:14I don't know, I thought I updated to the App Store version.
1:56:16Let me see if I make a new playlist.
1:56:19I mean, you might have found a bug, but--
1:56:20You might have.
1:56:21I don't know.
1:56:22Not how it's supposed to work.
1:56:23Anyway, I agree with you, though.
1:56:31What about the-- so the other factor, and we talked about it.
1:56:36And one of the things that lets you do this-- and you
1:56:38and I have had discussions about this over the years,
1:56:40going back to Vesper and Overcast and that-- OK,
1:56:46But let's just give-- the old model for indie software
1:56:49developers is you pre-app store.
1:56:51You sell a version.
1:56:52Let's say it's $30.
1:56:53And then you do version 2.0.
1:56:56And you still sell it for $30.
1:56:57But you give your existing users an upgrade price.
1:57:00Maybe they get it for half off.
1:57:01Maybe they get the new version for $14.99.
1:57:04Maybe you sell the upgrade for just $9.99.
1:57:06But then the idea is you keep building users.
1:57:09And the ones who keep using the app will, every year
1:57:13or however often you come out with a major upgrade,
1:57:15keep giving you upgrade money.
1:57:18And that's what funds the continued development
1:57:23of the app.
1:57:24Because eventually, you stop getting--
1:57:27you max out on new users, and you
1:57:30need to monetize your existing user base.
1:57:32Well, there's no upgrades in the App Store.
1:57:35And so new models are called for if you want to sustain an app.
1:57:39I think you've come across an interesting one.
1:57:44Because the downside to the old model, and as much as everybody--
1:57:48I still kind of wish the App Store supported it
1:57:50and allowed developers the option of doing it.
1:57:53The downside to it is that everybody
1:57:55seems to agree that the way-- most cases, people
1:57:59would decide whether to buy the upgrade to the new app
1:58:02or not based on what are the new features.
1:58:05And so like Overcast 3, where you say it's hard to say,
1:58:09here's all the new features.
1:58:10It may not sell as a paid upgrade, because it's just a modernized version of the same
1:58:20UI.
1:58:22But to me, this is the sort of thing I'm glad to pay for, because it's exactly what I want
1:58:27in an app.
1:58:28Well, yeah, because if you do it the other way, where you're dependent on that upgrade
1:58:33revenue for new features every release, then you get Microsoft Office, where you have all
1:58:39all this pressure to just add more and more and more
1:58:42features even if it kind of makes the app worse
1:58:45to have more features added to it.
1:58:47But that's what the incentive structure
1:58:50kind of forces you to do.
1:58:51And that's one of the reasons why you see
1:58:54these major apps like Office and Adobe Creative Suite
1:58:57trying to get away from that model
1:58:59and moving towards subscriptions so aggressively
1:59:00over the last few years.
1:59:01And I think they've both pretty much completed that move.
1:59:04Where like, now they're kind of free to do things better.
1:59:09as opposed to the old model of having to try
1:59:13to justify your revenue every single year
1:59:15with a bullet list of features that you added.
1:59:18- Right.
1:59:19Eventually, even the, however much it was ever in dispute
1:59:24within those companies, it becomes obvious to everybody
1:59:26that it's not sustainable forever.
1:59:28You can't just keep adding more
1:59:30and assume that that means better.
1:59:33- Well, and you can for a while.
1:59:37it's generally like when things are young.
1:59:39So when the applications are young,
1:59:42or like in the case of Adobe and Microsoft,
1:59:46a lot of their revenue came from people,
1:59:49like OSes were still young.
1:59:52And as OSes would change,
1:59:53you'd have to get the new versions of the apps
1:59:55to just work on the new OS.
1:59:57Computers were still young.
1:59:58You'd be buying a new computer every three to five years
2:00:01or whatever it was that would be so different
2:00:04from your old one and so much better
2:00:06that you would buy new software to take advantage of it
2:00:08or whatever and like now everything's a lot more
2:00:10settled down in these industries.
2:00:12And it's true of mobile as well.
2:00:13Like the upgrade cycles are getting longer for these things
2:00:15and all the OSs are kind of settling down and maturing.
2:00:20And so, and all these, and if you've had any kind of
2:00:25long-standing product, I mean hell, my podcast app
2:00:28is only like two and a half years old
2:00:31and I'm already running out of features
2:00:34that I think I want to add to it.
2:00:35Like, at a certain point, you add pretty much everything
2:00:39that you think it needs, and it's kind of done feature-wise.
2:00:44But that doesn't mean it can't be improved.
2:00:46- Right, so what you've arrived at after like,
2:00:50and again, you've changed it subtly
2:00:53with each major release, but where you are now is,
2:00:56it's a free download, so anybody can get it,
2:01:00try the Overcast for free, which I think is essential
2:01:03in today's world.
2:01:04It's been free since day one.
2:01:05I don't regret that for a minute.
2:01:06Right.
2:01:07And I think it's proven right.
2:01:09It's just-- I've said this before,
2:01:15but I really do think it's true that when people-- there's
2:01:17just too many people who, if they're
2:01:22looking for a podcast app, or they're
2:01:23looking for a notes app, or whatever the app is,
2:01:26they'll start looking.
2:01:28And they will start trying free ones.
2:01:31And eventually, one of the free ones--
2:01:33I guess this is good enough.
2:01:35And they never get past that.
2:01:37They never get past it, even if your app is 99 cents.
2:01:40There's just too many people who never ever say,
2:01:42I'm gonna try, I'm gonna cough up a dollar
2:01:44before I even try it, just because the screenshots
2:01:47look good.
2:01:48I mean, some people will, but it's not enough.
2:01:50And there's too many free ones, and there's too many
2:01:53free ones that really are good enough.
2:01:55- Yeah, well, and you know, there's that saying,
2:01:57like you always fight in the last war.
2:01:58Like, I apologize to John Syracuse for butchering that,
2:02:02but when I was running Instapaper,
2:02:05it was never free during the time I ran it.
2:02:07It was paid up front the whole time
2:02:09and I was really adamant about that.
2:02:11It had to be paid up front
2:02:12'cause that's how you have to make revenue.
2:02:13And that was okay for the first couple years
2:02:16at the App Store, but then every competitor I got
2:02:21from that point forward, they were all free.
2:02:24Like every major competitor was free
2:02:27and then Apple made Reading List,
2:02:29which was free of course because it's built in.
2:02:31And it's just like, I really was marginalized
2:02:35to a large degree by all of my competitors being free
2:02:40and by the platform having this thing for free
2:02:44and by my app having a big paywall in front of it
2:02:47before anybody could even try it.
2:02:48And so that's one of the reasons why,
2:02:51and I was always afraid that a new competitor
2:02:55would come out that would be awesome and free.
2:02:59'Cause I didn't have that for a long time.
2:03:01And so, it was like every morning I would wake up afraid
2:03:06to look at the news on my phone,
2:03:08'cause what if today was the day my business was crushed
2:03:11by a new awesome free competitor?
2:03:13And so with Overcast, I launched it free,
2:03:15in part out of that, because I was just like,
2:03:17you know what, I don't wanna leave,
2:03:19I don't wanna leave that gap for anybody.
2:03:21Like, I don't wanna wake up every morning with that fear.
2:03:23- Well, you also had the advantage though,
2:03:26and I mean it that it's an advantage,
2:03:28that Apple already had its podcast app.
2:03:31- Exactly, I was pretty Sherlocked.
2:03:33- Right. - And so, yeah,
2:03:34so it was, and that was a big reason why I was free,
2:03:37because A, I didn't wanna leave what Apple calls
2:03:40a price umbrella for competitors to beat me only on price.
2:03:45If you wanna beat me on quality, fine, I'll play that game,
2:03:48I will happily fight on that battlefront,
2:03:52but I didn't want price to be the only thing
2:03:55people could compete with me, or I'd rather,
2:03:57I didn't want to be losing a lot of customers
2:04:00to someone else because of price.
2:04:02- I think you had--
2:04:02- Because I always was with Instapaper,
2:04:04and it killed me, and so, and I was,
2:04:07at the time I was not a good enough business person
2:04:10in this regard to recognize at the time
2:04:12that I should have gone free
2:04:13and figured out something else back then,
2:04:15but in the meantime I kind of figured that out,
2:04:17and so that's why I launched with this.
2:04:18- I think you had an advantage that podcasts,
2:04:20Apple's podcast app isn't always,
2:04:22it always has been pretty good,
2:04:24and it's free and it's there,
2:04:26and it's got the iTunes store backing it,
2:04:27and the fact that it's Apple's app.
2:04:30Does it come with the phones,
2:04:31or do you have to get it from the app store?
2:04:32I forget if it's--
2:04:33- They go back and forth from that,
2:04:34like every few releases.
2:04:36I forget what it is now.
2:04:37I think it's separate.
2:04:38- The fact that it's pretty good and very popular
2:04:40is a much better situation.
2:04:42I feel like we, at Vesper, it was a disservice to us
2:04:47that at that time Apple Notes was garbage.
2:04:50It was a really bad app with really bad sync.
2:04:53The only way to get sync was through IMAP.
2:04:56- That was a mess.
2:04:58- God bless him for having made it work,
2:05:00but it just didn't work well.
2:05:03And it worked terrible if your email was Gmail
2:05:05because you'd get copies of messages over and over again.
2:05:08It was terrible.
2:05:08I think it was starting with iOS 9.
2:05:12I think it was two years ago where they redid notes
2:05:14and they built it on CloudKit, and it's super good.
2:05:17It's a really great, it's a great notes app,
2:05:19and it's really great sync.
2:05:20The sync is terrific.
2:05:22would have been better if that was already out because it would have calibrated our expectations.
2:05:27It wasn't like we assumed Apple would never improve notes, but we didn't know what it
2:05:30would be.
2:05:31Yeah, exactly.
2:05:32So right now, what you do, you get it for free.
2:05:38And for free, you show ads.
2:05:40And you started this...
2:05:41When did you start?
2:05:43September.
2:05:44So just in September.
2:05:45And you were using Google's mobile ad services.
2:05:48And if you want to, if you want to get rid of the ads and you want to support the app,
2:05:52you can subscribe for 10 bucks a year.
2:05:55And it's auto-recurring or no,
2:05:57it just reminds you in a year?
2:05:58- Now it's recurring, 'cause now we get a raise
2:06:00after year one if we do recurring.
2:06:02- Right, 'cause you get, yeah, right.
2:06:04So anybody who's with you for more than a year,
2:06:05if it's recurring, you get an 85/15 split.
2:06:08- Exactly.
2:06:09- Right, which is a big deal.
2:06:10- Yeah, 'cause like 30% is a lot.
2:06:14And having that cut from 30 to 15 after a year,
2:06:17that adds up a lot as well.
2:06:19- Well, it means you make more--
2:06:20- You make a 15-- - It's getting a raise.
2:06:21You get a 15% raise from your existing users.
2:06:24It's actually kind of putting the old upgrade model
2:06:27the other way around, where you would get less money
2:06:30from your longtime users because they're only
2:06:31paying the upgrade price.
2:06:32Now you're getting more, even though they don't pay more.
2:06:35This is actually--
2:06:36I have a strong incentive now to keep
2:06:38people subscribed long term.
2:06:40This is one of those areas where it really is Apple--
2:06:43everybody's interests aligned.
2:06:47It's not necessarily that Apple is putting developers ahead
2:06:49Apple itself because Apple still makes money. But the motivation is they're putting motivation
2:06:55out there to build apps and services that are worth keeping a multi-year subscription
2:07:01to. And that's in their interests in terms of not maximizing their revenue from the app
2:07:09store at any given transaction or any given renewal, but in terms of making the platform
2:07:14more popular and getting, you know, which leads to people doing things like buying crazy
2:07:19new $1100 iPhones. And it's great for users because the user doesn't pay more. I pay the
2:07:27same 10 bucks on my renewal for overcast and you just get more of the money you get $8
2:07:31and 50 cents instead of $7.
2:07:33Yeah, and a long time ago, like when I when I launched the magazine, it was it was a new
2:07:38stand app. And new Stan was the first thing to have these auto renewing subscriptions.
2:07:42and this was back in iOS 5 and 6.
2:07:47And at the time, this big blog post basically was saying
2:07:50like auto-renewing subscriptions are terrible
2:07:54and I would never do them again.
2:07:55And I wouldn't if they were the same,
2:07:58but they're a lot better now.
2:07:59Like everything about them now,
2:08:00they still have a lot of shortcomings,
2:08:02but everything about them now is a lot easier to implement
2:08:04and easier for both developers and customers to deal with
2:08:07than it was in iOS 5.
2:08:07And so now it is, again, there are still limits.
2:08:12In particular, it's like you still can't tell
2:08:15if somebody has told their subscription not to renew,
2:08:20so effectively if they've canceled.
2:08:21You don't know until it expires.
2:08:24Like you know the date that it's supposed to renew,
2:08:26but until that date comes and it doesn't renew,
2:08:29you don't know they've canceled it.
2:08:30And so there's weird things with like,
2:08:33if you want to also sell subscriptions
2:08:36through your website maybe,
2:08:38and it like offer both payment options,
2:08:40it's really hard to reconcile these things,
2:08:43'cause like you don't know if the person
2:08:45has canceled on their phone, if they are extending,
2:08:47so there's a whole bunch of weird cases.
2:08:49But the way I'm doing it now, which is very simple,
2:08:51and there is no web payment option,
2:08:53along with the improvements they've done
2:08:56to the system since iOS 5, make it a much easier sell now,
2:09:00and then add the raise to it, and it's a no-brainer.
2:09:02- Yeah.
2:09:04- And it was starting now with version 3.0.
2:09:07You've switched the, you seem to have narrowed in
2:09:11on the $10 a year recurring subscription for the Pro,
2:09:14you know, what do you call it, iPhone or Overcast Pro?
2:09:17- I call it Premium.
2:09:18- Premium.
2:09:18- Yeah.
2:09:19- Well, all right, you can call it that.
2:09:22- I was kind of like going off of like, you know,
2:09:23like what streaming music services call their ad-free tiers.
2:09:27- Yeah.
2:09:27- Which are almost all premium.
2:09:28- I guess it semantically it makes sense.
2:09:30Pro's shorter.
2:09:32- And pro is kind of, it's kind of weird
2:09:34to call something pro that adds almost no features.
2:09:37- Right.
2:09:38- Like it's like what, like so premium,
2:09:39like there was basically like, you know,
2:09:41I'm kind of going off of like what people
2:09:43are accustomed to here.
2:09:44And streaming music services are way more popular
2:09:47than Overcast, so like if they're all saying
2:09:50their ad free tiers are called premium,
2:09:52and if I call mine that, I think people basically get it.
2:09:55- But the big change is on the ad side,
2:09:58where instead of using Google's mobile ad services,
2:10:01you've dropped it for your own homegrown system
2:10:04where you're going to sell, or you are selling ads that--
2:10:08you sell the ads and they get shown with the novel idea,
2:10:13but which is very obvious.
2:10:14And it kind of gets into my thing
2:10:16when I was talking about Audible before that, hey,
2:10:18guess why Audible advertises on a podcast?
2:10:21Because they know everybody who listens to it
2:10:23is listening to spoken word content.
2:10:26And so one of your ideas is that podcasts
2:10:28can buy these ads to promote their podcast.
2:10:32So I could buy ads for the talk show,
2:10:34and people would be listening to other shows.
2:10:36And if they're free users of Overcast,
2:10:38I get a little ad at the bottom, and I can try
2:10:39to pitch them on listening.
2:10:41And if they tap it, it doesn't take them
2:10:44to my website or something.
2:10:46It does something far smarter than that.
2:10:48It takes you to the page-- not the page,
2:10:50but the card in Overcast, where you
2:10:53would be able to either subscribe to my show
2:10:56or listen to the latest episode to see what it's like.
2:11:00- Yeah, you browse the whole episode list,
2:11:01the whole history of the show and everything.
2:11:03Exactly what you get from the ad podcast screen.
2:11:06It's the same thing.
2:11:07Yeah, I mean, it's,
2:11:08this was kind of, I mean,
2:11:11I've kind of like fallen into all my business models
2:11:14for Overcast here. (laughs)
2:11:16- I don't know if it's gonna work.
2:11:18I mean, you never know.
2:11:18You have to try them. - Neither do I.
2:11:19- And you know, like my RSS feed sponsorships
2:11:22have worked way better than I thought they would,
2:11:24or than I even hoped they would.
2:11:25But I'm sure glad I tried it because it worked a lot better than I thought it would.
2:11:31Who knows? Maybe it will, maybe it won't.
2:11:34But it at least fits the basic description of
2:11:37advertising that is sustainable and works in my experience.
2:11:41It isn't just a flash in the pan,
2:11:43which is that it's got to be that win-win-win scenario,
2:11:47where it's a good value for the advertiser.
2:11:49It's not super annoying to the user and it makes money for the person selling the ad.
2:11:55And it kind of has that.
2:11:56And part of the way that you get that to work
2:11:58is to not try to make ads that are exactly
2:12:03like the ads for a previous medium,
2:12:05or to reuse the analogy, fighting the previous war.
2:12:09But what is native for this?
2:12:12And I've given talks about it, but in the early days
2:12:16when people would try to monetize RSS,
2:12:18they would have two ad strategies.
2:12:19The big one that was super common for a long time
2:12:22was that you wouldn't put the full article in the RSS feed.
2:12:25So you didn't have to put ads in.
2:12:27You'd get a list of articles.
2:12:28And if you wanted to read one, you'd
2:12:30get a two-sentence summary.
2:12:31And then you'd double-click it and go to the website.
2:12:33And then you'd see the website ads.
2:12:36Well, it works in terms of not giving away
2:12:39your content for free.
2:12:40But it wasn't what people who used RSS readers want to do.
2:12:44They were using RSS readers because they wanted to read
2:12:46your stuff in the RSS reader.
2:12:48Yeah, basically ruin the feed.
2:12:49Right.
2:12:50So the next thing people would try to do
2:12:52put banner ads in each article, which made them
2:12:55like little web pages.
2:12:57And they paid pennies, and everybody just
2:12:59skipped over them.
2:13:01And so my idea was, well, why not just have a paid entry
2:13:04in the feed once a week?
2:13:05Give them the whole entry.
2:13:07Don't put something in the entries.
2:13:09Just sell an entry.
2:13:11And it has worked out very, very well.
2:13:14And I think selling a podcast--
2:13:15I think if your idea works, I think actually having
2:13:18and the podcasts sell by other podcasts buying the ads
2:13:24is going to work.
2:13:25And one of the things that occurred to me
2:13:27is, what do you see a lot-- when you watch regular commercial
2:13:29TV, what do you see a lot of commercials for?
2:13:31TV shows.
2:13:32TV shows.
2:13:35And it's not because the network couldn't sell the spot.
2:13:39And oh, well, we'll put an ad for Modern Family
2:13:42during the football game because we didn't sell the spot.
2:13:48They do it because they know it's super valuable to get people to watch the show
2:13:53Like I can't even tell you how many times during the Super Bowl. They told you how many
2:13:56forget what the show was but
2:13:59It 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
2:14:05Yeah, it was like the new 24 reboot or something like that
2:14:08Over and over and over again because it works because you're already watching TV
2:14:13Right exactly and listening to a podcast
2:14:17Yeah, and so like that's like I think this the only question in my mind basically is like
2:14:23Do enough podcasters have enough money to want to pay for ads right that and that's a big question mark
2:14:31And that's what I'm like. This isn't just podcasters
2:14:34Like I also have like a hover ad and a Squarespace ad and a Linode added my like I can advertise for I put the
2:14:40Whole thing to be fairly generic so I can advertise for podcasts or just any website or apps in the App Store
2:14:46So any of those things can be advertised with these with these ad units and I can control all server sides
2:14:53I can you know, I'm a mentally insert them as necessary. I
2:14:56Just it remains to be seen like whether podcasters actually will buy these at
2:15:03The prices that they end up being worth or not
2:15:06What 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?
2:15:14- Yeah, and basically what allowed me the freedom
2:15:17to even try this at all is that what I found
2:15:19since September, since using the Google Ads,
2:15:22the Google Ads in apps, and I mean this is true
2:15:26of any in app advertising basically,
2:15:28how much it works for you is extremely dependent
2:15:33on your click through rate.
2:15:36Basically how many clicks do you get
2:15:37per 1,000 impressions of the ad as it's shown?
2:15:41And my click-through rate in the Google Ads was awful.
2:15:46It was so far below industry averages and everything.
2:15:49It was terrible.
2:15:50Because who wants to jump out to a web browser?
2:15:53That's certainly part of it.
2:15:54I mean, another part of it is just like--
2:15:55And how many people think if they tap it
2:15:57and it goes to a web browser that the podcast is
2:15:59going to stop playing?
2:15:59It didn't, because it's overcast.
2:16:01It can run in the background.
2:16:02But how many people wouldn't even--
2:16:05it may even be vaguely interested,
2:16:06but wouldn't tap it out of fear that the podcast would
2:16:08stop playing, which would be like the worst thing ever?
2:16:10- Yeah, I never thought about that.
2:16:12So basically, there was that big problem of
2:16:14my tap-through rate was terrible.
2:16:18And also, just things that advertise
2:16:22in these kind of bulk ad networks on mobile,
2:16:26they weren't often very high-quality ads.
2:16:28So the result of this was both that they look kind of junky
2:16:34and also they made very little money.
2:16:38And the only reason that this has succeeded
2:16:42as a business model at all is because
2:16:45having the ads there made a lot more people
2:16:48subscribe as premium members than the previous system,
2:16:52which is basically like subscribe if you like me.
2:16:54It was kind of like a voluntary patronage thing.
2:16:56That got very few people to subscribe.
2:16:59And so having the ads there,
2:17:02I thought it would be a nice balance of like,
2:17:03all right, I'll make a lot of money from ads
2:17:04and some money from subscriptions.
2:17:06and it ends up I made more money from subscriptions
2:17:09than I thought and way less money from ads than I expected.
2:17:12So the advantage there though, the silver lining there
2:17:15is that I could replace the ads
2:17:17with basically any other ads.
2:17:20It doesn't really matter, whatever I replace them with,
2:17:24as long as it brings in some money,
2:17:28I can come out basically the same or ahead
2:17:32from the little bit I was making from Google
2:17:34just because as I said, my tap rate was terrible
2:17:37from those ads.
2:17:37- And it doesn't make you hang your head in shame
2:17:40about the quality of the ads.
2:17:41As long as it's-- - Exactly.
2:17:42- You had a good point.
2:17:43- And I only have about 24 hours worth of numbers so far,
2:17:48but my tap rate on the new ads is something like,
2:17:52I think it's like 100 times better than it was.
2:17:55It's some obscene multiplier.
2:17:58Again, I only have 24 hours of data
2:18:00and everyone's trying them out to see what they are,
2:18:01So this is not representative of long-term trends,
2:18:05but I'm confident so far that I think
2:18:08I hit something better this time.
2:18:09- I think it's gonna work.
2:18:16I think it's a good idea,
2:18:17but it's definitely better than the old ads.
2:18:20No question. - I mean, my only question
2:18:21really is like, in six months,
2:18:24are most of the ads that you see in Overcast
2:18:26going to be for websites like Hover and Squarespace,
2:18:29or are they gonna be for podcasts?
2:18:31And I have no idea.
2:18:32- Yeah, but it's good to keep an open mind
2:18:34and let it sort out.
2:18:35- Exactly. - As it falls.
2:18:37Water seeks its own level.
2:18:38I think this is one of those things too
2:18:39where you underestimate your personal skillset
2:18:42in terms of your,
2:18:44I mean, the main part of Overcast is,
2:18:48you know, it's an iOS app and it's programming,
2:18:51you know, and you've done,
2:18:52we talked extensively already about all the UI stuff
2:18:55that you've done and changed and customized
2:18:57and customizing the table view and all this stuff that's just pure, this is what iOS developers
2:19:04of good apps do.
2:19:06But your background as a CMS developer gives you such a leg up in terms of, "Oh, I'll just
2:19:12build my own ad network."
2:19:17Because you did this before where you built the system that we use, I use it, ATP uses
2:19:23is it to just set up the schedule of podcast ads,
2:19:28which ads are in which episode and what do you say?
2:19:32It's just something you build out of the frustration
2:19:36of whatever jury-rigged system.
2:19:39I don't even remember what we did before, but--
2:19:41- I used a terrible Excel spreadsheet before.
2:19:43I think that most people have some kind of
2:19:45awful combination of spreadsheets and stuff.
2:19:47- Yeah, it was a numbers spreadsheet.
2:19:50And it was just awful.
2:19:53So your ability to have this second skill set
2:19:58where you can build the backend of a dynamic,
2:20:03on the fly, up to the minute ad thing
2:20:06is a huge advantage of being able to think
2:20:08of something like this.
2:20:09'Cause I can see a lot of people might come up
2:20:10with this idea, but then they will wait.
2:20:12How would I actually manage the ads on the backend
2:20:16so that they get served?
2:20:18And maybe it would never percolate up to the level
2:20:21where they do it because they don't have that skill set.
2:20:23- Well, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say
2:20:27that it's much of a skill set, honestly.
2:20:29It's more of like a willing,
2:20:33or it's more of a confidence to do it
2:20:35because so many app developers don't have
2:20:38a lot of server-side experience.
2:20:40And so they have experience developing
2:20:42the local native app, but maybe not necessarily
2:20:44the server-side chops, or they don't want
2:20:46to run the server themselves or have to depend on a server.
2:20:49And I just, whatever it is that intimidates people
2:20:54or turns people off about running servers,
2:20:56I don't have that.
2:20:57Because my job, before making apps,
2:21:00my job was all about running servers
2:21:01and running applications on servers.
2:21:03And so I just became comfortable with that.
2:21:05Running servers and running apps on servers
2:21:07and writing backend code is actually way easier
2:21:10than writing app code in so many ways.
2:21:12It's, sorry backend developers,
2:21:15I know I'm one of you sometimes,
2:21:16but I'm telling you, it's so much easier most of the time
2:21:20than writing most app code that you have to do
2:21:23to make a reasonable quality app.
2:21:25And so it isn't that most developers can't do this,
2:21:28it's that most of them think they can't do this,
2:21:30and so they don't even try.
2:21:31The main challenge for me, trying to do all this ad stuff,
2:21:36is that I just find it incredibly uninteresting.
2:21:39Like, the idea, like, I actually really got
2:21:42a lot of enjoyment out of designing the ad format,
2:21:45and integrating them into the app
2:21:46and making that work really nicely.
2:21:48But doing the back end of putting in the ads
2:21:51and tracking how many clicks they get,
2:21:53that I could not be less interested in doing that.
2:21:57I put it off forever.
2:21:59(laughing)
2:22:03- Well, you did it.
2:22:04I don't know, we'll see how it goes.
2:22:05- I literally did it three days ago.
2:22:07(laughing)
2:22:09- The other little details I have are some of the changes.
2:22:13you call it a DIOS 7-ification.
2:22:15So one of the good things about the timing of Overcast
2:22:19is it debuted with iOS 7, so it never
2:22:21had to go through that shift from the old world of iOS 6
2:22:25to iOS 7 visually, in terms of the way that you code an app
2:22:31and assume stuff.
2:22:32It went through the shift, just no one saw it except me.
2:22:35Right.
2:22:38And it is interesting.
2:22:42I was never an iOS 7 hater, but iOS 7 definitely
2:22:45debuted at the extreme end of the direction that it went,
2:22:50which I think is the way that you go.
2:22:52I think it's the right way to--
2:22:53I think it was right for Apple to go push it
2:22:55as far as they could with the thin fonts
2:22:58and the translucency everywhere.
2:23:02But they've dialed it back a lot of ways each step iOS 8 to 9
2:23:07to 10.
2:23:10And a lot of the changes you made in Overcast 3
2:23:13really bring them to the forefront,
2:23:15'cause there were some things that have been there
2:23:17in Overcast since 1.0 that are now gone,
2:23:20but that didn't disappear until now,
2:23:22like the popover that you would get
2:23:24for the info on a podcast,
2:23:26which you said you hated from the beginning.
2:23:28- I did, I hated those popovers.
2:23:30- Included in the use of popovers was translucency.
2:23:36Like, iOS 7 introduced an awful lot of things
2:23:38that were like a semi-translucent piece of glass,
2:23:42or like it's, like the popover that I'm talking about
2:23:45looked like it was printed on like frosted glass.
2:23:48So you could like see that, like in a shower,
2:23:50you can see that there's somebody in the shower,
2:23:52but you can't see what they look like.
2:23:54- Yeah, a lot of use of blur.
2:23:56But because what happened was like,
2:23:57at the time that iOS 7 came out,
2:24:00whatever combination of hardware and software tricks,
2:24:03blur is computationally intensive.
2:24:06And so they basically couldn't do it before,
2:24:08And on that year, I think it was 2013 that came out,
2:24:13on that year of iPhones, they were finally powerful enough
2:24:17to really do it and they came up with a couple
2:24:19of neat software tricks to do it a little bit faster.
2:24:22And so it was like they had this new technical ability
2:24:25that was pretty rare before, especially,
2:24:27and was not seen at all on mobile
2:24:29'cause it was too complex to do on mobile hardware.
2:24:32And so they went nuts with it.
2:24:33It was like, you know, typical,
2:24:34when you get a new tech ability,
2:24:36you first go nuts with it and then you dial it back.
2:24:38and they certainly did.
2:24:40- But I think what this update really focuses is
2:24:43where we still use Blur, Apple still uses Blur extensively
2:24:47in iOS 10, but instead of being like this foreground panel
2:24:51that's in the front and that you see through,
2:24:54it's the background that gets blurred.
2:24:56So for example, when you do the force touch on an episode
2:25:00to peak at it, the panel is not translucent,
2:25:05but the background around it is,
2:25:07which is, it's a subtle difference,
2:25:10but I think it works much better.
2:25:13Because it doesn't make the thing
2:25:14you're looking at hard to read,
2:25:16but it gives you this immediate context
2:25:19of oh, this is temporary, this is just a little,
2:25:22'cause it's all blurry in the background,
2:25:23I've popped this thing up.
2:25:24- Yeah, 'cause the other thing about blur is like,
2:25:29besides being computationally difficult,
2:25:31it's also very hard to design around.
2:25:34- Yes.
2:25:35When you have these blurry foreground panes
2:25:38and these large blurry expanses,
2:25:41and then you have like, behind them you have
2:25:43some bright pink icon shining through
2:25:45and you have this pink blob in the blur area,
2:25:48it's very hard to design around that
2:25:51and to make that both legible and attractive
2:25:55in all situations.
2:25:56It's nearly impossible.
2:25:57- And then the other difference that's definitely
2:26:02moving directly away from iOS 7 is slightly thicker lines,
2:26:06like icons and stuff like that,
2:26:08like the sharing icon and stuff.
2:26:11Everything isn't so wispy anymore.
2:26:13It's a little, I wouldn't say it's thick lines,
2:26:16but they're much more like regular lines.
2:26:19- Oh, you should have seen the conversation
2:26:21between me and Louis Mantia.
2:26:23I designed the entire rest of the app myself,
2:26:26and then I went to him, 'cause he made the original icon,
2:26:29so I went to him to refresh the icon,
2:26:32and I showed him the screenshot of the toolbar
2:26:37on the main screen that has those four icons across the top
2:26:39and he's like, what are you doing with the stroke width?
2:26:42Because the lines on all the icons and everything
2:26:47in all previous versions were one point wide,
2:26:51which is two pixels on the 2X phones
2:26:54and then three pixels or six, yeah, three pixels on,
2:26:58anyway, so one point was what we had before.
2:27:02I wanted to make everything a little bit thicker.
2:27:04Two points in most things look too thick.
2:27:07So the actual stroke width of most of the icons
2:27:12in Overcast is 1.5 points.
2:27:15And this makes everything suck.
2:27:18This makes everything about icon design harder
2:27:22because you can either have it blurry on all devices
2:27:26or you can align things to quarter point boundaries
2:27:30and have it work.
2:27:32So that's what I did.
2:27:33And when I tried to make another designer do that,
2:27:37I got some pushback.
2:27:38(laughing)
2:27:40Eventually we worked it out.
2:27:42But the result is that almost all the icons
2:27:47in Overcast 3 have a 1.5 point stroke width
2:27:50and it works and it looks sharp.
2:27:53- So is that gonna work out well on the 3X iPhone X?
2:27:57- So that's a question.
2:27:59So basically, the way it works, the way I've aligned them
2:28:02on these quarter pixel boundaries,
2:28:03it is sharp on 2x.
2:28:06On 3x, it is a little bit less sharp.
2:28:09But there are so many pixels,
2:28:11I'm kind of thinking you might not notice.
2:28:12- Yeah, but on-- - 'Cause I don't,
2:28:13I don't notice on the plus phones, now.
2:28:15- Right.
2:28:16We'll have to see.
2:28:20Anyway, I think it's good work.
2:28:22- Thanks.
2:28:22- Anything else you wanted to talk about?
2:28:24- I don't think so.
2:28:26I mean, we've only been going for two and a half hours.
2:28:28I mean, we still have three more to go, right?
2:28:30- That's short for us, we gotta wrap it up.
2:28:32- It really is short for us.
2:28:34- How'd the release go?
2:28:36You had that one bug you had to fix,
2:28:37so you had to have one emergency bug in it,
2:28:39but it seems like that got through.
2:28:40Did you have to do an expedited review?
2:28:43- No, it was just fast.
2:28:45It was just that fast.
2:28:48So yeah, I actually fixed, here, let me pull it up,
2:28:50I fixed 13 kind of important day one bugs.
2:28:55One of the things, I had a couple people on Twitter saying,
2:28:58Why didn't you beta test this more with a bigger group?
2:29:00Your beta group sucked.
2:29:01And the reason why, literally, is secrecy.
2:29:06Like, that's it.
2:29:07It's a boring reason, but that's true.
2:29:09I have done bigger betas before.
2:29:10I've done betas where I've tried to fill
2:29:12all 1,000 of my test flight slots,
2:29:15and I came pretty close,
2:29:16and I had like 800 people on one of them.
2:29:18And I've done like kind of mediums,
2:29:19where it's like 150 people,
2:29:22and this one was something like 40 or 50 people.
2:29:24And the reason why I kept it small
2:29:27is because every previous beta I've done,
2:29:29I've said in the instructions,
2:29:31please don't share screenshots of this with anybody.
2:29:33Please don't show this to people who aren't on the beta.
2:29:35Like, please try to keep this under wraps.
2:29:37And every single time it's been bigger
2:29:39than my group of friends that I did this beta with,
2:29:42people leak it.
2:29:43Because, and it's not that they're trying to be devious,
2:29:45they just don't read the directions.
2:29:47And they think it's okay,
2:29:48or they want to show it off or whatever else.
2:29:49So I just didn't want that.
2:29:51Like there was enough new stuff in this visually
2:29:55that I did not want anybody sharing a screenshot
2:29:57before I emailed it to the world.
2:29:59And whether you think it's a valid excuse or not,
2:30:03that was the reason.
2:30:04And I knew I could trust this group of people
2:30:07to be attentive to that and to be trustworthy of that,
2:30:10so I tested it just with trusted friends.
2:30:12And I found the number of bugs that you find
2:30:16with larger groups of people actually isn't that much more.
2:30:19- I don't think so either.
2:30:20That's my experience. - It really isn't.
2:30:22- I think the only way you could do it is do a public beta,
2:30:24and then you will shake out more bugs in the aggregate,
2:30:28but then you're completely blowing any kind of secrecy
2:30:31'cause it's a public beta.
2:30:32- Yeah, exactly, and you kinda can't do that on iOS.
2:30:35Like, that is kinda what I simulated
2:30:36with my test flight invitation form
2:30:39and with those previous tests, but it's, yeah.
2:30:42It basically is, like, now I would do it
2:30:46for a bug fix update because now, like,
2:30:48there's nothing secret for the next few releases.
2:30:50The next few releases are gonna be bug fixes
2:30:52and minor feature additions.
2:30:53So, like, I would consider doing it now,
2:30:54but now it's not necessary anymore.
2:30:56I really have found that keeping the beta small
2:30:58is the way to go.
2:30:59So anyway, fixed a couple of bugs.
2:31:01- We had about 60 with Vesper, and our rule was,
2:31:03I'm looking at the list right now,
2:31:04'cause we put them in the credits.
2:31:06I would say out of the 60, at least 40 of them
2:31:08are people who I would give my wallet to.
2:31:10And our general, but that was like our general rule.
2:31:12And the other 20 are ones that either Brent or Dave
2:31:16would vouch for, you know, but the rule was
2:31:18if you wanted somebody on the beta,
2:31:19you'd have to be someone that you would verify
2:31:21you'd trust with your wallet.
2:31:23- Yeah, exactly.
2:31:24And again, the benefit of having a lot more people on that
2:31:28than that on a beta is fairly small.
2:31:31It's severely diminishing returns.
2:31:33So yeah, it was fine.
2:31:34So anyway, I fixed all those bugs in a release
2:31:37that went through today.
2:31:38I created one also major bug during that release,
2:31:41which is that now you can't create new playlists anymore.
2:31:45So I have to fix that.
2:31:46But otherwise, besides those things,
2:31:51it's actually been great.
2:31:52The servers haven't collapsed or anything.
2:31:55Everything's pretty stable there.
2:31:56So yeah, so far so good.
2:31:58- I uncovered that bug while we were talking
2:32:00about this earlier and I didn't want to tell you.
2:32:02I didn't want to-- - The create playlist bug?
2:32:04- Yeah, there's no save button.
2:32:07- Yeah, that's a tough one.
2:32:09- That's all right.
2:32:10- That's all right.
2:32:11Probably by the time that you actually publish this episode,
2:32:14it might even be fixed.
2:32:15- That's probably a good one. - 'Cause I'm probably gonna
2:32:16have to issue an update tomorrow to fix that one
2:32:18and hope it gets through App Review somewhat quickly.
2:32:20I feel kind of I feel kind of guilty putting through like something in app review two days in a row
2:32:25But I feel like they've got the wheels to turn it over there where that's not you shouldn't feel guilty
2:32:31It seems like they've just got you know, they've really upped up the capacity
2:32:35I mean, I've heard because like I'm not requesting fast reviews like they just happen to be going through quickly
2:32:40Yeah, yeah, I think especially if you don't request an expedited review just just fix it however often you want
2:32:47Yeah, I feel like I'd be like put on some like bad list, you know, I don't like every day for a while
2:32:53I don't know maybe if it kept up for a very long time
2:32:55But even then it might be more like let's make sure this guy isn't do anything suspicious. Yeah, that's true
2:33:01Well Marco, thank you for your time
2:33:04Thank you. Everybody can listen to your the dulcet tones of your voice on a very regular weekly basis at
2:33:11ATP FM which is literally my favorite podcast
2:33:16Thank you.
2:33:18I do notice, though, you cheat, and it
2:33:20sorts to the top of the list in Overcast.
2:33:25You would not believe how many people think that--
2:33:30well, I mean, it's not a lot of people.
2:33:31You think that ATP is first because it's the shares?
2:33:35I do get the occasional angry email or one-star App Store
2:33:40review from people who think that the entire reason I made
2:33:45overcast was to promote my own podcast and that that's why it shows up in the most recommended
2:33:51list sometimes that I've hard coded it to appear there.
2:33:55Oh, did I tell you I'm changing the name of my show?
2:33:59AAA talk show.
2:34:02Like the yellow pages.
2:34:03AAA talk show.
2:34:04AAA talk show.
2:34:05Exactly.
2:34:06Oh, I wanted that.
2:34:07That reminds me.
2:34:08That's amazing that you said that.
2:34:09I want I have I have some follow up from like an episode 10 weeks ago on ATP.
2:34:13You were.
2:34:14Of course.
2:34:15You were confused about minor league baseball and why single A and double A. Yes. Triple A.
2:34:22It's just more A's are better. So why aren't the major leagues quadruple A?
2:34:28They are in concept. You could think of them as...
2:34:34My whole question was like why is triple A like the top tier in video game budget terms?
2:34:41Right. But like this kind of minor league thing in baseball?
2:34:44Yeah, I think that it's a different I think that I don't know that's actually a good question on the video games
2:34:49I 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
2:34:56Some other route so are there single-a and double-a teams? Yes, they're single-a
2:35:02Which is really regional and then double-a is a little bit bigger triple-a is is elite
2:35:08it's people most of the people on a triple-a team are the
2:35:14or at least have the potential to play Major League Baseball.
2:35:17And then you can think of Major League Baseball
2:35:19as Quadruple-A baseball, but nobody calls it that.
2:35:23Nobody ever would, 'cause it's not minor league.
2:35:25- What are the Columbus Clippers?
2:35:27- I have no idea.
2:35:28And there's also-- - Oh, it says Triple-A.
2:35:30- There's also-- - They're all Triple-A
2:35:31affiliated with the Cleveland Indians.
2:35:32- There's also independent leagues, which are,
2:35:37so I believe it's the case, I could be wrong,
2:35:39but I believe it's the case that every single A,
2:35:41AA and AAA team is affiliated with a major league team.
2:35:46So like the Yankees own a AAA team and a AA team
2:35:50and an A team.
2:35:51But then there's independent leagues
2:35:52which aren't affiliated with a major league team.
2:35:56I think right over the river here in Philly,
2:35:58the Trenton, whatever they're called,
2:36:01Land Sharks or Rat Sharks or whatever the hell
2:36:03they're called are unaffiliated.
2:36:05- The Rat Sharks, that's it, yeah.
2:36:06- Yeah, they're an independent team.
2:36:09And so they're not affiliated with a major league team.
2:36:11So, but they, they, they, some of them are like single A and some of them are even like
2:36:18double A they say, but for the most part, they're, they're just players who are having
2:36:22trouble getting picked up by a major league team.
2:36:24Anyway, I figured I'd explain that to you.
2:36:26Thanks.
2:36:27Yeah.
2:36:28I actually, I didn't realize that, that like they weren't just all triple A. No, like I'm
2:36:31seeing now like, like the only two teams I know of are the Columbus Clippers.
2:36:34Cause that's, that was my team growing up in Columbus.
2:36:36Like we'd go there like on school field trips cause it costs nothing and they actually are
2:36:41AAA apparently associated with the Indians and then now that I'm in New York the nearest team
2:36:47I think of this of this caliber is the Long Island Ducks
2:36:50which are apparently independent there in the
2:36:53The Liberty division of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, which is not affiliated with the MLB
2:36:59Here to have no A's
2:37:02They don't have any days. No a baseball team. It's not Trenton. It's Camden. It's the Camden River Sharks
2:37:09You were close. Yeah. Yeah the Trenton rat sharks close enough. Yeah
2:37:12What I love about these games like cuz I don't you know, I I wish I cared about sports
2:37:17I really do and because I like I know the rules of all the games
2:37:20I just don't care about the teams and so I don't get into it. But like I I like the
2:37:25Experience of seeing a game in person with friends who care about it
2:37:29Like that's a that's a nice thing to do
2:37:31And so I love triple-a baseball because you can go to these stadiums with basically no advanced notice whatsoever
2:37:37You can get amazing seats for almost no money
2:37:39And you can go have a really good time and you can watch a game
2:37:43With great seats and everything and you know, the food is not exorbitant
2:37:47or relatively speaking and you know
2:37:50You just have a really nice time and it's much less of an ordeal and much less expensive and much better quality of
2:37:55Like, you know your seats and everything compared to a major league game as long as you don't care about teams
2:38:01Which I don't so it's perfect
2:38:04Yeah, 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
2:38:09front row and then you get and it's even cooler if the kids are you know, like a younger age
2:38:14You know
2:38:16like 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
2:38:20The players and stuff like that and you know, it seems super cool. It's like holy cow
2:38:24This guy was out there playing professional baseball 15 minutes ago. Now he's signing my hat. You can't get that in a major
2:38:30Here's it. Here's a Quora answer. Why are big-budget games called triple-a?
2:38:33This seems this seems pretty credible. I mean although is always the best
2:38:37Way 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
2:38:45with your developers and they were your main products the B titles were either add-on content for your a titles or
2:38:51new but slightly more humble games created by third-party developers that you
2:38:56Would specify and then C titles were the older classic SK use now reduced to a value price or small games people brought in and?
2:39:03a nearly finished state to be published, even non-game add-ons like Screensavers and stuff
2:39:10like that.
2:39:11And of course, the industry is full of hyperbole and bluster, so everything was new, was bigger
2:39:15and better, and so the biggest A titles eventually began to be described as AA, or A+ to emphasize
2:39:23that they were even better than A games.
2:39:26And it wasn't long until the AAA moniker arrived.
2:39:29like the number of blades in disposable razors. Watch for 5A games coming soon.
2:39:34That's a pretty good answer. Yeah, I find that to be a very good answer. A, B, and C,
2:39:40and then it went to double A just to plus it up a little bit. That's probably how minor
2:39:46league baseball got it too. Probably used to be the same thing, and then they have a
2:39:50better team and they say that. I will leave that as your homework this week to research
2:39:54that. All right, thank you, Marco. Thank you.