179: ‘iPhone Is the New Hitler’ With Ben Thompson

0:00:00Have a question for you. Here's the linguistic question. I have heard this. I've heard it bill Simmons is using it

0:00:06I've heard other people using it. There's the

0:00:08The what used to be the something something 1600 podcast though that crew is now have as a new podcast

0:00:16I think it's pod save the Queen

0:00:19People are calling podcast episodes pods

0:00:22I've seen it yet

0:00:25All over the place. It seems to be, it is to me the linguistic, it's the word of the year so far for 2017.

0:00:34I'm almost down with it, even though I am generally a curmudgeon on all, anything that jiggers with the language.

0:00:44What do you think about it?

0:00:46Well, it makes, I think it's fine, because well one, it's short, right?

0:00:49And it's both short and it's very descriptive, you know exactly what it's talking about.

0:00:53And it's also fascinating because we've kind of like our careers have overlapped like the journey of the word pod

0:01:00from being this

0:01:02apparatus you plug into your computer the iPod and thus being the podcast and now pod being an entirely like it went through a

0:01:10Transfamiliaration or whatever the word is. It's really interesting. We actually when you think about it, I

0:01:15Think it's fascinating

0:01:18But it in particular it seems like people are using it though to mean episode not

0:01:22The show even though pike on pod save the Queen. I guess it kind of implies that it's the whole it's the show itself

0:01:30Yeah, at least part isn't pod save America Oh pod save America, whatever the hell their show is called

0:01:36But anyway, I'd the thing that stuck out to me is the use of pod

0:01:38yeah, but that makes sense though because podcast is the

0:01:42Entity right and then a podcast contains multiple pods

0:01:46- Yeah.

0:01:47- I mean, if you think about it too much,

0:01:49it doesn't make sense, but if you think it

0:01:51at the appropriate level, it makes perfect sense.

0:01:53I'm down with it.

0:01:55I think it's a good addition.

0:01:57- I wrote about this, I would have to find the link,

0:02:00but I wrote about this the first time Apple ever put podcast

0:02:05as a feature in iTunes, which was a long time ago.

0:02:12I mean, we're talking, it might have been like 2003?

0:02:16- No, it was 2005 because that was when

0:02:18Odeo was doing podcasts.

0:02:19- Was it?

0:02:20- Odeo, nay Twitter.

0:02:22- But just how sort of,

0:02:26at first I was sort of thinking

0:02:31way back then that, hey, Apple might put the kibosh

0:02:38on people calling these things podcasts

0:02:40because they're very touchy-touchy about

0:02:44trademarks and stuff like that and

0:02:46Then they like kind of embraced the word and it was like whoa what the heck is that

0:02:53And I it it hit me way back then like hey

0:03:00it's kind of genius for them to embrace it because it sort of makes it seem like

0:03:05Podcasts are only meant for iPods

0:03:09Like right kind of own the thing

0:03:12And at this point, I feel like there's

0:03:19more people who have listened to podcasts, period.

0:03:22You know, some podcasts.

0:03:24Now, maybe not my podcast, somebody's podcast,

0:03:26who've never even owned an iPod.

0:03:29Oh, yeah, for sure.

0:03:30But yet the word persists, but the whole origin of the word

0:03:37is based-- it's clearly based on the word iPod.

0:03:41- Yep.

0:03:43Yeah, it's a, no you're right.

0:03:45It's really, I mean 'cause if you back up

0:03:48and think about it, the benefit,

0:03:52the way it pays out to the iPod at least at that time,

0:03:56you know, it's like a, you know,

0:03:58it's like there's a classic strategy technique

0:04:01which is commoditize your compliments.

0:04:03Basically all the things that make your product really good,

0:04:06you want to make them be super common and super free.

0:04:08And this was Apple kind of doing that

0:04:10from a branding perspective.

0:04:11Like they made podcasts the name,

0:04:15they didn't trademark it, they let it spread super wide

0:04:17and all accrued to the iPod,

0:04:19which they were raking in all the money on.

0:04:22- You are indeed, your memory,

0:04:24if you were recalling it from memory is correct,

0:04:28it was from July 2005.

0:04:322005, I don't know, what do we call those years now?

0:04:35I don't know what we call them.

0:04:37- The aughts, mid-aughts?

0:04:38yachts. It was a post I wrote on the site called "Is That a Podcast in Your Pocket?"

0:04:45I'll put it in the show notes. It is a long article. I just found it as well. I didn't

0:04:54have an editor back then. I kind of like calling it "New Pod." That's what Bill Simmons, like

0:05:02Bill Simmons announcing a new episode. It'll be like, "New Pod!" And then he'll have like

0:05:06link to the show. I kind of like it. Yeah. The one thing you mentioned before about

0:05:15people who have never had an iPod, I get more and more of these emails from like,

0:05:20executive members or whatever that are like, I've officially reached the stage in life where people

0:05:26just say things in passing that just blows my mind about their relative experience with

0:05:32technology compared to mine.

0:05:35Like what?

0:05:35Give me another example.

0:05:37Well, just like, I mean, now I'm getting a brain freeze.

0:05:42It's more I remember the emotion that I

0:05:44get from reading these emails.

0:05:46Well, they'll say something in passing

0:05:47about when they got their first phone

0:05:50or their memories about something.

0:05:51And like something they'll remember, oh,

0:05:53do you remember back when it was this?

0:05:54I'm like, I remember when that was introduced or something.

0:05:57Nothing's coming to mind right now,

0:05:58but it happens frequently enough.

0:06:01It's one of those things where the emotion of the shock at,

0:06:04man, I'm old, is the reason that I remember.

0:06:06I'll give you-- somebody who writes and says they're

0:06:08a diehard, longtime Apple user, and their first Apple product

0:06:11was the iPhone 4S.

0:06:14And you're like, what?

0:06:18I'm going to send John Siracuso to your house,

0:06:20and I'm going to have you schooled on what it means

0:06:23to be a longtime Apple user.

0:06:25Totally.

0:06:26But God bless you.

0:06:26Yeah.

0:06:27[LAUGHTER]

0:06:29Oh, shoot.

0:06:30I am, apparently the, it being 12, 30 in the morning aspect is kicking in, but

0:06:35Oh, there's something that happened the other day where I officially shifted to

0:06:38like back, like back in my day mode.

0:06:41I felt just, Oh, it was about the box.

0:06:43It was basketball.

0:06:43I just talked about man, us old timers.

0:06:46And like, if you started watching, if you started going to games in the nineties

0:06:49and I felt justified in saying that, like, that was a really long time ago when

0:06:52like the nineties, like don't feel that far away to me, but it's actually, it has

0:06:57really been like 20, 30 years or whatever it is.

0:07:00And yeah, the fact that I felt I could say that and no one called me on it, but

0:07:04people were on Twitter like, yeah, oh, totally.

0:07:06I remember going to these games.

0:07:08It's like, yeah, we're a bunch of old people now.

0:07:10It's, it's, it's, it's both sort of depressing.

0:07:13It's also kind of satisfying, like to be able to like sit back and revel in, uh,

0:07:17in, in your, you know, being a part of what came before I'm embracing it.

0:07:22I'm leaning into it.

0:07:23I'm going to do a pot about it.

0:07:25[LAUGHTER]

0:07:29Let me take a break right off the bat.

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0:10:56Wanna talk about the NFL?

0:10:59(laughing)

0:11:02- Well, we were originally gonna record,

0:11:04what was it, last week, when you waited

0:11:06until my Packers were humbled after defeating your Cowboys.

0:11:10- I didn't do that on purpose.

0:11:12- I didn't get the chance to do a double or nothing

0:11:15after our unfortunate bet the last time I was on the podcast.

0:11:18- What do I owe you?

0:11:20What do I owe you, a drink?

0:11:21I owe you drinks the next time, the whole bar?

0:11:23- No, I owe you dinner.

0:11:24- Why is that?

0:11:25- Because we bet before the regular season game

0:11:27between the Packers and the Cowboys.

0:11:31And we lost soundly.

0:11:34- It doesn't seem right though.

0:11:36It doesn't seem right that you owe me

0:11:38given that the Packers beat the Cowboys in the playoffs.

0:11:41That doesn't seem right.

0:11:42- When it counts, when it counts.

0:11:43I forgot to specify the bet is about when it counts.

0:11:47- So you're a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan.

0:11:50I'm a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan.

0:11:53The Cowboys and the Packers played,

0:11:57at this point, what was it, 10 days ago?

0:12:0011 days ago?

0:12:01Was it honestly, in all, in my opinion,

0:12:04it was the only good playoff game

0:12:06the entire NFL playoffs to date.

0:12:08(laughs)

0:12:09- Really? - Oh yeah, it's been brutal.

0:12:10It's been brutal.

0:12:11Well, it wasn't just one of the only good playoff games,

0:12:13or these playoffs, it was like one of the all-time

0:12:15great playoff games of all time.

0:12:16- Yeah, so it was an all-time great game,

0:12:20but it was literally the only decent playoff game.

0:12:23I mean, the only other one that you could even

0:12:25make an argument for would be the Steelers-Chiefs game

0:12:29on the same day, which was a game that was won

0:12:32by a team that kicked six field goals.

0:12:34(laughs)

0:12:36So if you want to argue, if you're like in the greater

0:12:40Pittsburgh area and you want to argue that that was a good game

0:12:43too, in a game where your team won with six field goals,

0:12:49OK, fine.

0:12:50That was a great game.

0:12:51Yeah, sure.

0:12:53Otherwise, this was the only good game of the playoffs.

0:12:55But like you said, it was seriously

0:12:57like an all-time great game.

0:12:59And I'm curious about it.

0:13:01Our two teams have been in a few of those.

0:13:04I liked it.

0:13:05I liked it in the 90s when the Packers and Cowboys would meet every single year and every

0:13:13single year, no matter what happened, the Cowboys would beat them handily.

0:13:17That's what I like.

0:13:18Yeah.

0:13:19I don't like...

0:13:20Me not so...

0:13:21I tweeted immediately after the game that that victory was for Favre.

0:13:26Because yes, all the emotions of those 90s losses came rushing back at the end of that

0:13:35What I remember from the early, from the first years that this became a rivalry, in the early

0:13:41Favre years, when Favre was a young up-and-coming quarterback, was the ridiculous distances

0:13:47that Favre could throw a football.

0:13:49Like it, you know, they'd be like on like the 30-yard line and time would be running

0:13:55out in the first half and it would be like, well, I don't know, they're just, you know,

0:14:00throw it to like the 20 and hope something happens.

0:14:02And instead he'd throw it all the way into the end zone.

0:14:04be like, "No, wait, I thought they were at the 30." And then they'd show the replay,

0:14:06and it was like, "Oh, yeah, they were at the 30." And he still threw it all the way

0:14:09to the end zone. He could throw the ball silly distances, like throwing in a Robey.

0:14:18Yeah. No, I mean, it's hard to... I mean, obviously, all the stuff with Favre sort of

0:14:24ended badly with Green Bay, and there was some enmity there, for sure. But I think...

0:14:29And he's like, here's where I get a pull

0:14:31of that re-entorical trick.

0:14:32For us long time Packers fans who grew up

0:14:36with the team just being just brutal and awful.

0:14:39And I started in the '80s, so they've been brutal

0:14:42for like 20 years before then,

0:14:43so it's worse for other folks like my dad.

0:14:46But I mean, the way he utterly and completely

0:14:50transformed that franchise, I mean, it's,

0:14:52I mean, over the last, we were talking about this

0:14:54the other day, like over the last like 25 years, whatever,

0:14:57Like I believe it's the Packers and Patriots and Steelers

0:15:00are one, two, three as far as like both record,

0:15:03number of playoff appearances, all those sorts of things.

0:15:05And really the guy that made that all happen,

0:15:09I mean Wolf trade for him and stuff is a great GM,

0:15:12but Favre was the guy who just transformed that franchise

0:15:15and what it meant.

0:15:17- For people who aren't sports fans,

0:15:19the Packers are an interesting story

0:15:22because they are unique in America

0:15:24among all professional sports teams.

0:15:26Basketball, hockey, football, baseball, all four major sports.

0:15:33The Packers are unique in that they are owned by their fans, more or less.

0:15:40I mean, I am an owner.

0:15:43Can you explain the difference?

0:15:45I mean, every other team has one rich guy who is the owner of the team and is a jerk

0:15:51and probably a Trump supporter in all sports.

0:15:56The Packers are different.

0:15:57I'm not sure the Packers can argue about that.

0:16:00Well, because they're from Wisconsin.

0:16:03Well, not just Wisconsin, but northern Wisconsin,

0:16:05which is not a left-leaning liberal country.

0:16:09We'll put it that way.

0:16:10Can you explain the ownership structure of the Packers?

0:16:13So the Packers were owned by an owner at some point,

0:16:17but sometime way back when.

0:16:19I want to say back in the '20s or something like that.

0:16:23Like way back when.

0:16:24they're one of the original football teams. They were going to go out of business or something like

0:16:30that, but they established the articles and incorporation for the Green Bay Football

0:16:35Corporation. And it was sold to basically people in the community. They could buy it a piece.

0:16:42And then it was written into the bylaws that if it was ever sold, that all the money would go to

0:16:47the local post of the American Legion. So that's still the case today. So if the team has ever sold

0:16:53All of the proceeds go to the local American Legion post.

0:16:56And they're probably worth at least, I would guess,

0:17:00at least like $1 or $2 billion.

0:17:02Oh, yeah, for sure.

0:17:03I mean, we always talk about the Americas team, right?

0:17:08Right.

0:17:08But there's basically five big teams in the NFL

0:17:12that have national followings.

0:17:13Like, their lines in Vegas get set differently

0:17:16because they attract so much betting from fans.

0:17:19And that's your Cowboys, the Packers, the Raiders,

0:17:22the Steelers and then the Patriots are the kind of the newest addition.

0:17:25Yeah, the Patriots have sort of snuck in just by virtue of 15 years of non-stop winning.

0:17:33Right, right. And the Packers were pretty dominant in the early part of the NFL.

0:17:38And so when they won the first two Super Bowls, that was kind of the tail end of their

0:17:41multi-decade run of dominance. And then in the '70s, obviously the Steelers and the Cowboys,

0:17:48And then the Raiders came along, and then the Cowboys

0:17:50obviously had a return to glory.

0:17:54But yeah, so what happened was then a few years ago

0:17:57when they wanted to expand Lambeau Field to raise money,

0:18:00they did another share issuance.

0:18:02So they sold another 250,000 shares at $250 apiece

0:18:06and just raised a ton of money for the stadium.

0:18:09And all these shares are totally worthless.

0:18:11You can't sell them.

0:18:12I mean, you could sell them on the side,

0:18:14but you can't convert them for money or anything.

0:18:17But yeah, I have one.

0:18:18So I have it.

0:18:19It's sitting in a box right now.

0:18:21I haven't actually put it up here in Taiwan,

0:18:24but I am a proud owner of the Green Bay Packers.

0:18:28It is sort of silly, but it is to me,

0:18:31it's the way most teams should be owned.

0:18:33Like even though it's the opposite

0:18:35and the Packers are in fact this odd exception,

0:18:41it really is the way most teams should be owned.

0:18:44They should be owned by the local fans

0:18:46because it would take off the table the extortion

0:18:50that these owners put their fans through

0:18:52every time they need new stadiums built.

0:18:54There's an honesty to it where it's like,

0:18:58look, the only reason to buy shares in the Packers

0:19:00is if you're a Packers fan, right?

0:19:02And the Packers aren't going anywhere.

0:19:04Nobody is ever, the Packers are never saying,

0:19:07give us a $500 million expansion of Lambeau Field

0:19:12or we're moving to Los Angeles.

0:19:14That's never even on the table, right?

0:19:16They're not going anywhere.

0:19:17- Right.

0:19:18- And every other team, or half the teams,

0:19:21you know what I mean?

0:19:22Like maybe Dallas isn't going anywhere.

0:19:24But look at the Raiders.

0:19:25The Raiders have moved.

0:19:26They've moved to Los Angeles.

0:19:28They went back to Oakland.

0:19:29Now, is it a done deal?

0:19:32Are they going to Vegas?

0:19:33- I think it's all but a done deal.

0:19:34I don't think it's been announced yet.

0:19:35But yeah, they're gonna move to Las Vegas.

0:19:37- Because the, what's it called?

0:19:40The AOK Stadium and Coliseum in Oakland is,

0:19:43It really is a shit hole.

0:19:45So now they're moving to Vegas.

0:19:49The Eagles have gone through this in Philadelphia.

0:19:55There are no better fans or more loyal fans or diehard.

0:20:00Maybe diehard is maybe the way to go

0:20:02than Philadelphia Eagles fans.

0:20:04I'm not an Eagles fan, but I'm surrounded by them.

0:20:07They're great fans.

0:20:08Years ago, before they built the Lincoln financial field

0:20:12they have now. There were threats that they were going to move the Eagles to Los Angeles.

0:20:17It would have ripped the city apart. It's not right. But it's a privately held team.

0:20:25Yeah, it can really work in the NFL because so much of the NFL is so aggressive in its

0:20:34revenue sharing and the TV deals are so massive that Green Bay can compete on an even playing

0:20:40Field even though they make much less money locally.

0:20:44Although that was part of the refurbishment that they did of Lambeau Field when I was

0:20:47able to buy my share, my single share, was basically making sort of a year-round destination

0:20:53and people do like poker niches and stuff there.

0:20:56But relative to Jerry's, like Jerry Dome or whatever, they don't make as much locally

0:21:02but because the vast majority of the money that NLT's getting is from the TV deal and

0:21:08ticket sales have to be shared by and large, I think, except for luxury boxes. They can

0:21:14do it and pull it off. And then obviously, they're the team for Wisconsin. So their

0:21:20television market is effectively Wisconsin. And so they certainly do well. But yeah, it's

0:21:27super unique. They had to be grandfathered into the NFL's governance document because

0:21:32it does state that no team could have more than X number of owners. And the agreement

0:21:37hackers have 360,000 of them.

0:21:40- Right, it's sort of like they want to avoid the situation

0:21:43where like 10 people, you know, like me and you

0:21:48and Marco and Guy English join in and buy an NFL team

0:21:54and then we fight with each other and can't make decisions.

0:21:58They want to avoid that.

0:22:00And so that's why they have these rules that, you know,

0:22:03what they want are guys like Jerry Jones

0:22:06who just can make decisions on their own,

0:22:08just to simplify things.

0:22:11And it's, packers have like a million owners.

0:22:15- Yes, I'm on the Wikipedia page right now.

0:22:18Yeah, even though it's referred to as common stock,

0:22:21a share of packer stock does not share the same rights.

0:22:24It does not have equity interest, does not pay dividends,

0:22:25cannot be traded, has no securities law protection,

0:22:28and brings no season ticket purchase privileges.

0:22:30- It doesn't even get you a seat.

0:22:34So Packers have like a 50 year waiting list or something,

0:22:36which is insane because I actually have very little desire

0:22:39to go to a game in January in Green Bay,

0:22:42I can tell you that.

0:22:43- It's like a college team, insofar as like,

0:22:46nobody lives there.

0:22:47I mean, I'm looking at the Wikipedia page

0:22:49for the Green Bay metropolitan area,

0:22:50and there's 280,000 people.

0:22:54It's not even a real city.

0:22:58- Yeah, no, so people,

0:23:01so what they did for a long time is they had

0:23:03six games a year in Green Bay and two games a year in Milwaukee at County Stadium where

0:23:08the Rouge is to play.

0:23:09And they did that when the team was in a rough time and kind of built up the fan base or

0:23:15whatever.

0:23:16But now all the games are on Lambeau Field and you have these grand caravans that go

0:23:22up from the...

0:23:23So all the Milwaukee's season ticket holders got to keep their seats.

0:23:27So they have seats for two games a year.

0:23:29And then the Green Bay ticket holders have seats for the other six games a year or something

0:23:33that is this whole convoluted thing but the net of it is is like I mean Wisconsin is is

0:23:38I mean it's Packers country I mean more than more than anything else I mean it is it is

0:23:43you cannot go you know in football season you can't go five feet without encountering

0:23:47some sort of you know Packers paraphernalia.

0:23:50Somehow they're taken seriously yet their fans are called cheeseheads.

0:23:53Oh it's really yeah the the cheesehead thing is something that all Wisconsinites have to

0:23:57come to grips with eventually.

0:23:59Apple maps says it's a two hour drive from Milwaukee to Green Bay. Does that sound right

0:24:04to you?

0:24:05Yeah. And I think the, yeah, it's a beautiful drive, but I think on stadium days, it's probably,

0:24:11or game days, it's probably a lot longer because it's a whole caravan moving up.

0:24:15Yeah. All right.

0:24:17And yeah, well, the other thing that's more interesting to me is that you need to get

0:24:22back and do basketball. Because your Philadelphia 76ers are shaping up to be the 76ers, Milwaukee

0:24:31Bucks rivalry over the next 10 years is going to be—no, I'm serious. It's going to

0:24:35be amazing.

0:24:36I know. We've got—what's his name?

0:24:39Well, indeed.

0:24:41He's super exciting. I saw him at a restaurant here in Philadelphia a couple—actually,

0:24:47a couple, actually I was gonna say weeks ago,

0:24:49might have been months ago.

0:24:51He was, we went out to dinner

0:24:54at a nice little steakhouse here,

0:24:56and he was there, and he's a very tall man.

0:25:01- Yeah, he draws a lot of attention.

0:25:05- Yeah.

0:25:06- I am not, I have been around college basketball players.

0:25:12I'm, you know, I'm not always,

0:25:16I've been around Craig Hockenberry.

0:25:18I know what it's like to not even be close

0:25:19to being the tallest person in a room.

0:25:22I'm generally close--

0:25:22- And you're a pretty tall guy.

0:25:23- I am pretty tall.

0:25:24I'm six foot two.

0:25:26It's pretty tall, and it's usually,

0:25:28maybe if not the tallest, you're up there.

0:25:31I'm not used to being around somebody

0:25:33who would have to stoop to put his chin on top of my hand.

0:25:36(laughing)

0:25:37It is very, very large.

0:25:40But the other exciting thing about the Sixers

0:25:41is Ben Simmons, his foot is healing quite nicely, they say.

0:25:46- Yeah, and he'll be back soon.

0:25:49So, yeah, I know it should be about Tal.

0:25:51I mean, the Bucks star player is Giannis Antetokounmpo.

0:25:55- Oh, say it again, say it again.

0:25:57- Giannis Antetokounmpo, which is a Nigerian name

0:26:01that was translated into Greek and then now is here

0:26:03in the US, everyone just calls him Giannis,

0:26:05including Bucks fans.

0:26:06- Yeah, they should just change his name.

0:26:08Just get rid of that last name and just change him,

0:26:10You know, like Madonna, just like Giannis.

0:26:12(laughing)

0:26:14- He might as well be at NBA Twitter,

0:26:15but he was in Taiwan actually a couple years ago,

0:26:18and I got the chance to meet him when he was here.

0:26:20And it's on my Instagram, it's like 86 weeks ago.

0:26:23But yeah, I come up to below his shoulder.

0:26:26(laughing)

0:26:27He is, I mean, he's 6'11", he's just like, it's ridiculous.

0:26:32- So the Sixers, the Sixers are a good case study to me

0:26:36of one of my fundamental theories of sports,

0:26:39which makes no sense, but I believe it firmly,

0:26:42which is that you don't screw with your uniforms.

0:26:46You pick a uniform that is gonna last for the ages,

0:26:51and then you tweak it as minorly as possible

0:26:56through the decades.

0:26:57That's number one reason why my favorite team

0:27:00in the world is the Yankees.

0:27:01Yankees, they don't screw with the uniforms.

0:27:04Babe Ruth's uniform was like the same

0:27:06as the uniform they wear today,

0:27:08except it was made out of, I don't know, felt or something,

0:27:12some different material than the polyester

0:27:14that they can do today.

0:27:15The Yankees tried cotton in the George Costanza era,

0:27:21didn't work out.

0:27:22But in terms of the way the uniform looks,

0:27:24they don't mess with it.

0:27:25The Dallas Cowboys don't mess with the uniforms.

0:27:28When they have, they used to have a special

0:27:31Sunday night uniform with stars on their shoulders,

0:27:34and they lost every game they played with those uniforms.

0:27:37The Green Bay Packers-- - Oh, those are terrible.

0:27:38Those are bad ones.

0:27:39- They look terrible.

0:27:39It's just a stupid excuse to sell a third jersey

0:27:42to people who wanted to have every jersey.

0:27:45One of the things that's great about the Green Bay Packers,

0:27:47Green Bay Packers look like the Green Bay Packers.

0:27:49If you look at like Super Bowl I

0:27:51and you see Bart Starr leading the team

0:27:54to the first Super Bowl 51 years ago,

0:27:57they look like the team that's playing today

0:27:58'cause they don't screw with the uniform.

0:28:01The Philadelphia 76ers had a great uniform.

0:28:05I mean, it's a great name.

0:28:07I mean, who knows what sense it makes?

0:28:08But I mean, Philadelphia's where the country started.

0:28:10You call them the 76ers.

0:28:12So there you go, you go patriotic.

0:28:13You gotta be red, white, and blue, right?

0:28:16But somehow during the Allen Iverson era,

0:28:18they changed to black, gold, and red.

0:28:21How-- - Like a star,

0:28:22this weird star, yeah.

0:28:23- Right, how can a team in Philadelphia

0:28:26that's named after the American Revolution

0:28:30or independence, whatever you wanna call it, in '76,

0:28:34not be red, white, and blue.

0:28:36And yet they did.

0:28:37And then they had terrible,

0:28:39of course they had terrible records.

0:28:40How can you win when you're going against the sports gods

0:28:43by screwing with your uniform?

0:28:45Now the Sixers have gone back to,

0:28:47it's not quite the classic.

0:28:49I kinda don't like the way they spell out Sixers

0:28:51on the uniform.

0:28:52I feel like they oughta go back

0:28:54to the pure Dr. J era uniform, but it's close enough.

0:28:57- Yeah, no, I mean, the Bucks are definitely fit with that.

0:29:02So first off, their classic uniform and their classic logo

0:29:05are both amazing.

0:29:06The classic logo is this cartoony butt

0:29:10kissing a basketball.

0:29:11- Yeah, I love it.

0:29:12He's sort of like a--

0:29:13- He's got a green sweater on.

0:29:15- Sort of like Bullwinkle, yeah.

0:29:17- Right, and they had great uniforms back in the '80s,

0:29:19and that's when the team was good.

0:29:20They won the title in the '70s with then-Luel Sint-Or,

0:29:23later-Korean Abdul-Jabbar,

0:29:25and then they were good in the '80s,

0:29:26always lost to your 76ers and Celtics,

0:29:29but very strong team.

0:29:31Then 1993, they had this awful logo

0:29:35that's like the purple and this terrible,

0:29:37it was just awful, the uniforms were bad,

0:29:39and they've been pretty much terrible ever since.

0:29:40They had like one good year since then.

0:29:43And then in 2015, they did a redesign,

0:29:46which is not the old logo, but the uniforms especially

0:29:49are definitely go back to the original,

0:29:52especially this kind of, this paneling on the side

0:29:55that looks really, really good.

0:29:57And sure enough, the team's fortunes are looking up,

0:30:01but there's this hilarious tweet

0:30:02you gotta put in the show notes.

0:30:04(laughs)

0:30:05The tweet reads, you have to read it to appreciate it,

0:30:08it reads, "America's slow but very real decline

0:30:10"into a fascist state as told by the Milwaukee Bucks a long

0:30:13"ago," and just follow the link,

0:30:16you have to see the tweet to appreciate it,

0:30:17but I promise you, you will laugh your rear end off,

0:30:19because it's really funny.

0:30:21- All right, I will put it in the show notes.

0:30:24All right, before we get off sports,

0:30:25let me give you this, I'm gonna toss this out there,

0:30:27here we go, here's a contentious argument.

0:30:30top quarterbacks of all time.

0:30:33- That is a contentious argument.

0:30:37- You sent me a link last night to a video,

0:30:41you sent it, right?

0:30:42Of the, was it you?

0:30:45- No, I don't think so.

0:30:46- It wasn't you who sent me the link to the cab

0:30:49with John Elway in it?

0:30:50- Oh yeah, I did send that, yeah.

0:30:52- Yeah. - That was great.

0:30:53- So then somebody was in a cab in Pittsburgh

0:30:59and talking to their cab driver about who the greatest

0:31:02quarterbacks of all time were.

0:31:03And even though this guy was a cab driver in Pittsburgh,

0:31:05his number one pick was John Elway.

0:31:07And it just so happened that among the people in the cab,

0:31:10one of them was John Elway.

0:31:13And they let it go on for two or three minutes

0:31:15before they let the cab driver go.

0:31:18Whoever was filming in the middle was pretty devious

0:31:20about it.

0:31:21Because they're just like, oh, do you think he's attractive?

0:31:23Would you want to sleep with him?

0:31:24And then she goes, I bet you'd sleep with him.

0:31:26And it's like his wife right next to him.

0:31:29(laughing)

0:31:31- All right, top quarterbacks of all time.

0:31:33All right, let me ask you this.

0:31:34I'll just give you a simple question.

0:31:35Who's better, Favre or Aaron Rodgers?

0:31:37- Oh.

0:31:39(laughing)

0:31:42I think from a pure between the lines perspective,

0:31:49Rodgers is probably better.

0:31:53Just like Favre's recklessness made him great,

0:31:55but it went, like it cost us a lot of games.

0:31:58- You're blinded by your fandom.

0:32:00The answer is clearly Aaron Rodgers.

0:32:03- No, okay, well, but yeah, that's fair.

0:32:06But from a meaning, a legendary status

0:32:09and meaningfulness to the franchise,

0:32:11I would have to go with, I'd have to go with Favre.

0:32:13Rodgers needs to win a couple more Super Bowls

0:32:14to surpass him.

0:32:15Right now they're both at one,

0:32:17which is shamefully well in my opinion.

0:32:18- It doesn't matter.

0:32:19Aaron Rodgers could never win another Super Bowl

0:32:21and it doesn't matter.

0:32:22Aaron Rodgers is a better quarterback than Brad Favre.

0:32:25- Yeah, fair enough.

0:32:26But if you dig the totality of their contribution

0:32:29to the Green Bay Packers, it's more complicated.

0:32:32But yeah, I would agree with that.

0:32:33You're right, I am blinded by my being

0:32:36a impressionable teenage boy and Brett Favre

0:32:38basically saving my sports life.

0:32:41- Did you see my link the other day

0:32:43to Triumph, the insult comic dog at the inauguration?

0:32:48- I saw it, I haven't watched it though.

0:32:50- Well at the end, when he first has to utter the words

0:32:54president and then followed by the word Trump.

0:32:57Every time he tries to say it, he starts vomiting.

0:32:59That's how I feel with me saying that among the top five

0:33:06of all time at this point, you've absolutely positively

0:33:09gotta include Tom Brady.

0:33:11There I go.

0:33:12I'll edit it out.

0:33:13- It hurts to say it, it hurts to say it.

0:33:14- I'm gonna edit it out, here I am, I'm puking right now.

0:33:17Ah, there it goes.

0:33:18It hurts, there goes my breakfast.

0:33:23but it's undeniable at this point.

0:33:25- Yeah, I mean, the record speaks for itself, obviously.

0:33:29I mean, seventh Super Bowl.

0:33:31It's always tricky to separate the greatest quarterbacks

0:33:37from the greatest coaches.

0:33:38Like, how does that relationship actually play out?

0:33:42- Because so many of them are in the same conversation,

0:33:44right?

0:33:45- Right, well, I mean, what if Rodgers

0:33:47had been the quarterback of the Patriots

0:33:49for the last 15 years?

0:33:50Like would they be better or worse or the same?

0:33:54Like it's almost impossible.

0:33:55I mean, Mike McCarthy is an okay coach.

0:33:57I think he gets probably more grief than he deserves.

0:34:00But at the same time,

0:34:02like he's not even in the same universe as Bill Belichick.

0:34:05And you know, what difference does that make?

0:34:08Or someone like Joe Montana and like, you know,

0:34:11Bill Walsh was so far ahead of everyone

0:34:13when it comes to his scheme and things like that.

0:34:15And you had Jerry Rice, I mean like,

0:34:18but he was a great quarterback,

0:34:19But that's, and this is why I mean football is tough because it's where do you,

0:34:22where do you sort of figure out where the boundary is?

0:34:25Roger Staubach and Tom Landry.

0:34:28I mean Tom Landry literally invented the shotgun formation.

0:34:30Like that was something that was like, it's like you watch it now.

0:34:35There are some teams that never even don't,

0:34:38they even use the shotgun on running plays now.

0:34:41And to think that it was like a loophole in the rules.

0:34:45Yeah.

0:34:47He read the rule book and he was like,

0:34:49you know, there's nothing that says you have to hand the ball

0:34:51from the center to the quarterback.

0:34:53We could just toss it back five yards.

0:34:56Basically all football is discovering and exploiting

0:34:59loopholes.

0:34:59Right.

0:35:00The forward pass is basically a loophole, right?

0:35:03Sort of, yeah.

0:35:04I think in the long term, yeah.

0:35:06Dan Marino, Don Shula, right?

0:35:09All the quarterbacks that you mentioned, almost everyone

0:35:12who I think you would mention in the--

0:35:14if you're going to put together a top five list,

0:35:16coach who is arguably in the top five.

0:35:19- And that's why John Elway might be the best though.

0:35:22Like that's why he might be right.

0:35:24- Right, that Elway's the one who you're like,

0:35:26who the hell was his coach?

0:35:28- Yep.

0:35:29- Right?

0:35:30- It wasn't like Greaves or Graves or--

0:35:32- Oh, I don't even know.

0:35:33- He went to Atlanta later.

0:35:35But yeah, he finally won with Mike Shanahan

0:35:37at the end of his career.

0:35:38But yeah, I mean, to my mind,

0:35:41I'd almost attempted to pick him for that reason alone.

0:35:43Because like there's really no one else

0:35:45can ascribe his greatness to.

0:35:49All right, let's take another break

0:35:51and thank our next sponsor.

0:35:52And then we'll get onto the real meat of the show.

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0:39:39What else is on the agenda, Ben?

0:39:43- Well, I mean, Eero is, I guess,

0:39:47the go-to recommendation now

0:39:49because Apple doesn't make routers anymore.

0:39:50- Well, they do. - They sell them.

0:39:53- They sell them, but they don't, arguably,

0:39:56seemingly don't make new ones,

0:39:58and then according to Scoop Germin,

0:40:02they've canceled making new ones.

0:40:04So who knows?

0:40:05- Scoop Gerben, that's good.

0:40:08She's calling that from now on.

0:40:10- Who knows what the hell's going on with them with that?

0:40:12I don't know.

0:40:13- So I did want to talk to you about this

0:40:16because I haven't really found,

0:40:18I've kind of mentioned it in passing

0:40:19in a daily update or two,

0:40:20but I haven't really found a good occasion

0:40:21to write about it.

0:40:22It doesn't necessarily fit.

0:40:24I don't write about,

0:40:25like my whole thing is I don't write about products.

0:40:26I write about business models and stuff like that.

0:40:29But I find a lot of the Mac, Mac products

0:40:34to be both understandable, I think I get where it's coming from, and also to be way overwrought

0:40:42and over the top and not necessarily connected to reality.

0:40:47The Mac angst, meaning in a nutshell, Apple clearly doesn't care about the Mac anymore.

0:40:54They want everybody to just use iPads and iPhones, and they're doing everything they

0:40:58can to undermine the Mac and within a year or two...

0:41:03gone in five years. It'll be gone. Yeah, it'll be gone. Yeah, I think the, obviously

0:41:10it's all crescendoed with the release of the MacBook Pro, which much to my great sadness

0:41:17and consternation did not come with a Apple branded monitor, which I was looking forward

0:41:22to buying very much. And so, and then obviously there was the, you know, people were pointing

0:41:28out the memory, they were pointing out the battery life, how thin it was, the port situation,

0:41:31that. But I think that just happened to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

0:41:37Because what was so weird about the MacBook Pro being the trigger for all this angst is that the

0:41:45MacBook Pro is the single best piece of evidence that Apple is still investing in the map.

0:41:49I mean, say what you will with the touch bar and whether it's going to actually be something that

0:41:53makes using a Mac better or not. I think that will remain to be seen over the long run. But it

0:41:58it clearly required a tremendous amount of investment

0:42:02and effort, which, presuming Apple is a rationally run

0:42:06company, and by all accounts, the complaints are

0:42:09that Apple is being too rationally run,

0:42:11they would not make that investment if they were

0:42:13gonna abandon the damn platform.

0:42:15So, we can get into why the angst is there,

0:42:19but it's really kind of ironic that it happened

0:42:21around this particular product.

0:42:25I'm with you, and I don't know how better to make my case.

0:42:29I got a, I wouldn't say a friend, but a source,

0:42:33somebody I've known for years who's worked at Apple,

0:42:36and I hear from occasionally, and like many people

0:42:39who are long-time Apple employees, seems to, you know,

0:42:43every 18 months or so moves around within the company

0:42:46to different teams, worked on a certain aspect

0:42:51of Touch Bar support.

0:42:53it was a software side thing, for a while.

0:42:57And then right after it shipped,

0:42:59in like maybe like three days,

0:43:02I had like a DM conversation with him.

0:43:05And one of the things he said is,

0:43:07"I hope this puts the rest of the notion

0:43:09"that Apple doesn't care about the Mac."

0:43:12Because this is a guy who spent like 18 months

0:43:14working on that software.

0:43:16- I know, 'cause it was hardware and a custom chip.

0:43:19It had this display.

0:43:22The software support was incredible, right?

0:43:24All their apps had it built in.

0:43:25They had all these frameworks developed

0:43:27so third party developers could use it.

0:43:28Like it was a multifaceted effort

0:43:33that involved every single part of the company.

0:43:35So that trigger that Apple doesn't care about the back

0:43:38is again, I think there were justifiable reasons

0:43:41for the angst, but it was just bizarre

0:43:44that this was the triggering event.

0:43:46- Right, I will listen to you

0:43:50And maybe nod my head in agreement

0:43:53if you say, I'm not happy with the direction

0:43:56they're taking the Mac.

0:43:57If your argument is Apple and Tim Cook

0:44:03don't care about the Mac, period,

0:44:05and they're letting it wither because they're done with it,

0:44:07I can't see it.

0:44:09I really can't.

0:44:10It doesn't make any sense.

0:44:11And like somebody else, I've gotten more--

0:44:15like the reaction, that reaction to these MacBook Pros

0:44:18really did drive a lot of sources out of the woodwork

0:44:22at Apple.

0:44:22I've heard just bits and pieces from a bunch of people

0:44:25who are so frustrated by the reaction.

0:44:28And one source who would be in a position to know--

0:44:33I mean, not super high, but somebody who would know--

0:44:38said that they literally spent, quote unquote,

0:44:41"hundreds of millions of dollars developing the new MacBook

0:44:44Pros.

0:44:45And that they could have saved all of that

0:44:49by just putting updated Intel chips into the old MacBook Pro

0:44:54hardware.

0:44:55Like, which would be like--

0:44:58so if we waited this long, and then new MacBook Pros came out

0:45:01in November or October, or whenever it was,

0:45:04and they were just exactly like the old ones,

0:45:06except they had new Intel chips, and maybe they

0:45:11had the high gamut, high color gamut displays.

0:45:14but otherwise visually indistinguishable from them.

0:45:18That would be further fodder for the conspiracy theory

0:45:22that the Mac is on the way out.

0:45:24Right, because they just did the minimum viable sort of thing.

0:45:28But they literally spent hundreds of millions of dollars

0:45:30developing these.

0:45:31They expect them to be like the foundation of the product line

0:45:35for years to come.

0:45:38And yet people see this as proof that they're trying

0:45:42to get everybody to buy iPads.

0:45:44Right.

0:45:45And it's funny because even the MacBook Pro,

0:45:48there was a relatively long delay.

0:45:50The last release of the MacBook Pro was in May of 2015.

0:45:55And then that was the 15-inch.

0:45:57The 13-inch was updated in March 2015.

0:45:59So to wait a year and a half was a relatively long time.

0:46:06But it wasn't an obscene amount of time.

0:46:11And before that, it'd be mid-2014, late 2013, early 2013,

0:46:16retina 2012, mid-2012.

0:46:18So it's slowed down a little bit,

0:46:19but for all the things that have been discussed

0:46:20and I was about Intel and stuff like that,

0:46:21that's understandable.

0:46:22And also developing the touch bar

0:46:23presumably introduced delays, right?

0:46:25'Cause when you got your review units,

0:46:27they sent you the touch bar unit

0:46:30like a week later. - Two weeks later.

0:46:31No, two weeks later. - Yeah, two weeks later.

0:46:33So yeah, so the MacBook Pro has certainly been,

0:46:35it's been fine all along.

0:46:38The iMac has been fine all along,

0:46:39although it wasn't updated this year,

0:46:42which I think added to a little bit.

0:46:44I mean, clearly it seems to mostly come back

0:46:47to the sort of MacBook Pro debacle,

0:46:51and that's why your point about the hundreds

0:46:53of millions of dollars invested in the MacBook Pro,

0:46:55I think is actually a really, really interesting

0:46:57and telling point, because they're not gonna

0:47:02necessarily make up that money on this version

0:47:05of the MacBook Pro, right?

0:47:06Presumably they're gonna be using the touch bar

0:47:09in for several generations of the MacBook Pro

0:47:12and hopefully on external keyboards and things like that,

0:47:15which means they will pay it off over time, right?

0:47:18And that's how business works.

0:47:19You make these massive upfront investments

0:47:21and then every, you try to sell more units,

0:47:24you could spread out that investment

0:47:27over more and more units, right?

0:47:29And the reason why I think that's really telling

0:47:32is I think it starts to get into what went wrong

0:47:35with the MacBook Pro, or sorry, the Mac Pro,

0:47:37But that's more of a sort of a really fascinating screw up

0:47:42that might have happened as opposed to

0:47:44an abandonment of the entire platform.

0:47:47- Yeah, and let's make it clear.

0:47:50I mean, let's not brush it under the carpet.

0:47:54The fact is that the Mac Pro is a complete embarrassment

0:47:58to the company.

0:47:59It's a debacle.

0:48:02It is absolutely ridiculous that they're selling

0:48:061100 or 1200 day at this point old computer

0:48:10at the same price with no updated components.

0:48:13It's clearly a disaster.

0:48:16And it's not a great sign for the Mac as a platform.

0:48:19But I don't think you can extrapolate from it

0:48:24that the entire platform has lost the company's attention.

0:48:28- Right, so to me this Mac Pro thing is,

0:48:33again, I don't write about products per se,

0:48:35so I haven't really dug into it too much.

0:48:37I did kind of touch on it a little bit

0:48:39in a daily update for Christmas,

0:48:40but to me this Mac Pro thing is one of the most

0:48:43interesting untold stories about Apple right now.

0:48:46Like there's no, like it's impossible to draw

0:48:49any conclusion beyond that there was

0:48:51a massive, massive screw up here.

0:48:54And my, I mean do you want to theorize?

0:48:59I have my theory.

0:49:00- Yeah, that's what podcasts are for.

0:49:03So the reason I mentioned that bit about the MacBook Pros

0:49:06and all the investment that goes into it is,

0:49:09when Apple, the cost that it took to develop

0:49:11this new Mac Pro, the Trashcan Mac Pro,

0:49:13was certainly substantial.

0:49:15Hundreds of millions of dollars, I'm sure.

0:49:17Maybe even more, who knows?

0:49:19And Apple would have counted on earning back that investment

0:49:24over not just this 2013 model,

0:49:26but presumably a 2014 model, 2015 model, et cetera,

0:49:29for probably like at least 10 years.

0:49:31Like they were probably planning on having this design.

0:49:33- Yeah.

0:49:34Or the better part of a decade at the very least.

0:49:37- Right, so my best guess is that this design

0:49:40is fundamentally flawed in some way.

0:49:42I think it's fundamentally flawed in general

0:49:44because I think it makes people buy stuff

0:49:47they don't need necessarily.

0:49:48And we can get into like this,

0:49:50but there's something from a business perspective

0:49:52that's fundamentally flawed about this model.

0:49:54Maybe there's a super high failure rate

0:49:56and they're having to always return them and exchange them.

0:49:59like that, which totally destroys your margins.

0:50:01That's possible.

0:50:02But the problem is if you dropped hundreds of millions

0:50:05of dollars into a design and it fails,

0:50:10and you have to decide what are you gonna do now?

0:50:12Are you gonna stick with it?

0:50:13Well, that's not an option.

0:50:14So are you gonna redesign it?

0:50:16But then you're gonna reinvest hundreds of millions

0:50:18of dollars into a market that is pretty tiny.

0:50:22The macro market is not a big market.

0:50:24And I think my suspicion of what happened

0:50:28that this was a flawed design that Apple felt they could not continue to make. The problem

0:50:33was the Mac Pro market, they had to eat hundreds of millions of dollars in losses because they

0:50:39didn't build enough, because they abandoned the product. They couldn't make the case to

0:50:47invest another, let's say $500 million to build a new version, and now they're trying

0:50:53to figure something out.

0:50:56You could say they should do it.

0:50:57Do we have a argument they should do it?

0:50:58They should eat that cost because it's a halo product,

0:51:00all that sort of thing.

0:51:01But I can certainly sketch out a scenario

0:51:05where it just makes zero financial sense

0:51:06for them to go forward.

0:51:07Basically, this product doomed the entire line.

0:51:10That's my best guess about what happened.

0:51:12- Yeah, I think it was, you know,

0:51:15something along those lines has to be true, right?

0:51:18It has to be.

0:51:19And I think that, and then you can extrapolate from there,

0:51:25And at a certain point, Apple, even as an institution,

0:51:29and even as, in my opinion, a relatively straightforward,

0:51:33realistic institution, they still have

0:51:38a human side, and there's pride and ego involved.

0:51:45And logically, if they were purely logical,

0:51:49you could just say, you know what,

0:51:51it was a terrible mistake, we're going right back

0:51:53the old cheese grater big box.

0:51:56Here you go.

0:51:57Here's a new Mac Pro with the old cheese grater

0:52:00and updated state-of-the-art Intel chips and modern ports

0:52:05on the back.

0:52:06And an 18-time SuperDrive?

0:52:08Right.

0:52:10And there are tens of thousands of people

0:52:13waiting for new Mac Pro who would be like, thank you.

0:52:16And they would be happy.

0:52:17But Apple's not going to do that.

0:52:19And honestly, I think at some level,

0:52:21it comes down to pride.

0:52:23They're just not going to do it for pride alone, which

0:52:25is frustrating if you're the pro waiting for modern 2016,

0:52:31or honestly, even 2015 level pro hardware

0:52:36here in the beginning of 2017.

0:52:39But they're not going to do that.

0:52:40They really, in a figurative sense,

0:52:43painted themselves in a corner with this.

0:52:46Yeah, absolutely.

0:52:47And I think you winked to a really insightful article about this.

0:52:54And someone making the point that that 2013 introduction was like Apple.

0:53:00It was also pride.

0:53:01It was Apple's hubris seeing the best of them.

0:53:03And like people are complaining we're not innovating.

0:53:05Well, screw them.

0:53:06Look at this.

0:53:07And you ended up with a design that looked amazing, was beautiful.

0:53:12But again, whether it was reliability or just the core architecture or whatever it was,

0:53:19was fundamentally flawed.

0:53:21Again, we're speculating, but was fundamentally flawed in some way that had they not set out

0:53:29to prove the world to the world that they could innovate my ass, might have come up

0:53:33with something a little more practical that would pay itself off as necessary to continue

0:53:41as a viable product.

0:53:42And I still firmly believe, I think they were way,

0:53:46it's a case of being way too far ahead of their time.

0:53:50I still think that fundamentally,

0:53:53it is the future of pro-computing.

0:53:55And I think that having a big box that you plug things into,

0:53:59like internal drives and internal cards,

0:54:03is the way things were, but it's not the way of the future.

0:54:06And I think the way of the future

0:54:07is a smaller self-contained box

0:54:11that you do need to expand it for true pro reasons,

0:54:15you're gonna expand on the outside

0:54:17through very high bandwidth.

0:54:20I mean, whether USB-C and Thunderbolt 3

0:54:23is fast enough to be that or not, I don't know.

0:54:27Maybe it's the next generation thing,

0:54:28but at some point, I firmly believe that pro hardware

0:54:33is just a simple small box,

0:54:35and then the expansion will all be external,

0:54:38and you just, with one simple thing that you plug in,

0:54:42and there it goes, you get enough power,

0:54:43you get enough bandwidth that you don't need to open the box

0:54:46and put the thing inside.

0:54:48Because to me, and you know I've gotten pushback on this

0:54:52on private channels and Slack that we're on,

0:54:54but whether the world is there right now in 2017 or not,

0:54:59I don't know, but I still think that's firmly

0:55:01where the future is.

0:55:02But this Mac Pro launched at three or four,

0:55:06was it 2013, 2014?

0:55:07A long time ago, long enough ago.

0:55:09- 2013.

0:55:10- And the world wasn't there yet, you know,

0:55:13for all expansion to be on the outside.

0:55:15I think it's the right design for the long term,

0:55:16but it wasn't the right design for then,

0:55:18and it certainly isn't for now.

0:55:20But--

0:55:21- Yeah, well, the other thing too is,

0:55:22I feel like pro hardware should be the most conservative,

0:55:26though, in some respects, in the way it progresses.

0:55:29I mean, in some aspects it can be faster,

0:55:31pros will pay for it, they'll do the upgrades,

0:55:33things like that, but like, especially when it comes

0:55:35anything performance related because I think the the the Mac Pro has

0:55:40Thunderbolt 2 which Thunderbolt 2 I can't remember how many lanes it's PCI

0:55:46Express but it has not very many lanes and so you know yeah I think you're

0:55:51right there was the idea wasn't necessarily wrong the timing was wrong

0:55:55and you know you know if they were to do the other thing too is I think this

0:56:00forcing people to buy two at least at the time high-end video cards and today

0:56:05You still have to pay like the high-end video cards, even though they're super obsolete.

0:56:08I think that this had two big problems.

0:56:10One is that video card technology is progressing much faster than processor technology,

0:56:14which means that the Mac Pro got older faster.

0:56:18The processors in the Mac Pro are still totally relatively viable today.

0:56:23They're not that far behind, particularly in single-thread performance.

0:56:26But the GPUs are way behind.

0:56:29And for a computer that's predicated on GPUs, that's a big problem.

0:56:32And the other thing is you had people like developers in particular who wanted to buy this, they don't need two GPUs.

0:56:37They don't need a processing GPU per se or a high-end GPU.

0:56:42They just need an integrated GPU to be totally fine for them.

0:56:47And so if they were going to do, they're going to really make it integrated.

0:56:50I think they need to wait until they could get to a point where they could have a computer that's basically a processor in memory and a boot drive.

0:56:52And then once Thunderbolt 4 or 5 comes along, it can actually really saturate high-end graphics and stuff.

0:57:00saturate high-end graphics cards over the bus,

0:57:03that then you break those out too, right?

0:57:06You drop the cost by a thousand bucks,

0:57:07it becomes a much more,

0:57:10you know, a computer that makes a lot more sense.

0:57:12- So Mac Pro, totally screwed.

0:57:15Not necessarily, and in my opinion, definitely not,

0:57:19in my opinion, not indicative that the Mac platform

0:57:21as a whole is screwed or painted in a corner.

0:57:25The other thing I like to point out,

0:57:27And it's as much proof as the MacBook Pros,

0:57:31the new ones with the touch bar,

0:57:33that Apple hasn't lost interest institutionally in the Mac

0:57:36is the fact that the OS is still

0:57:38on a yearly annual upgrade schedule.

0:57:40And they're pretty good upgrades.

0:57:42- And we'd all like it to be slower.

0:57:44- Right, if anything, I would rather have them

0:57:46go to a two-year schedule and spend entire years

0:57:49on just like fixing bugs and spit and polish,

0:57:53you know, as opposed to adding new features.

0:57:57But it's on a much more vigorous upgrade schedule, and rigorous and vigorous, than it was in

0:58:03the early years of the iPhone, when they literally had to issue a press release saying, "We've

0:58:09had to delay the upgrade to Mac OS because we've pulled engineers to finish the iPhone

0:58:14OS."

0:58:15Right.

0:58:16Yeah, it's been this way for a long time.

0:58:19Yeah, I think that at the end of the day, too, yes, there's the Swift playgrounds or whatever on the iPad.

0:58:24But Apple's not stupid, right?

0:58:34We'll probably talk about the App Store in a little bit.

0:58:38And there's lots of things to complain about Apple's treatment of developers from a business perspective.

0:58:41I certainly have plenty of opinions in that regard.

0:58:44But from a development perspective,

0:58:49I mean, Apple has always been very cognizant

0:58:53of what its developers need and whatnot,

0:58:58and to suggest that they're going to abandon the platform

0:59:00that makes their moneymakers possible.

0:59:03I mean, it's ascribing, it just doesn't make sense.

0:59:07Like, there is an Occam's razor explanation here,

0:59:11which I think explains the Mac Pro.

0:59:13It explains why it's not updated.

0:59:16It explains why there's probably not going to be another Mac Pro.

0:59:19Because you can, I could sketch it on a spreadsheet right now.

0:59:21Why it probably makes zero sense to build another one.

0:59:23Um, and that sucks.

0:59:24It was a total screw up.

0:59:26Hopefully someone will write the tell article sometimes.

0:59:28It'd be really fascinating to, to get the full story of when Apple just

0:59:32really did totally screw up a product.

0:59:34But yeah, to extrapolate from that, there's just, it doesn't make sense.

0:59:40No.

0:59:40I am still bummed. I'm still irritated about the no Apple logo display though.

0:59:48Yeah that is and it's true because it's not just a product for Mac Pro users.

0:59:57I would guess that out over the years Apple has probably sold more standalone

1:00:03displays to MacBook Pro users than to Mac Pro users because I think the

1:00:09The Thunderbolt display was pretty explicitly marketed as a,

1:00:12the box itself has a Thunderbolt display

1:00:15attached to a laptop.

1:00:16Like it's pretty clear what it's for.

1:00:18- Yeah, I would be shocked if there are more of them

1:00:24that were hooked up to Mac Pros than to MacBook Pros.

1:00:26And that's saying that knowing that most MacBook Pro users

1:00:29never use any display other than the one

1:00:31that's built into the laptop.

1:00:33But even so, I think that the number of

1:00:37laptops that are sold compared to desktops

1:00:42is so extraordinarily lopsided,

1:00:45and that most of those laptops that are sold are iMacs

1:00:48that have a built-in display.

1:00:49I think it's so lopsided that it's clearly meant for that.

1:00:54And so it is disappointing.

1:00:55And it does seem from early going

1:00:58that people who've bought the LG 5K display,

1:01:01some of them love it,

1:01:02but people are having weird problems with it.

1:01:06out. I had somebody I didn't link to it and it's so anecdotal but somebody wrote

1:01:11in to during fireball I mean it's a perfect podcast material but so I won't

1:01:15write about it but I'll talk about it where somebody wrote in and they had

1:01:18problems and they had like weird interference and they were taking it

1:01:24into the store and then they couldn't reproduce it at the Genius Bar and you

1:01:28know just imagine what a pain in the ass it is to bring a 27 inch display back

1:01:33and forth to an Apple store, etc. And it turned out that moving, he had his airport router,

1:01:40he had an Apple airport router on his desk and moving it away from his desk fixed the

1:01:45interference on the LG 5K display. That literally, you know, and he said it's, you know, and

1:01:51he, you know, again, I'm not going to write about it because it's like one guy with one

1:01:55case and I don't know, but I've seen other people with these interference, you know,

1:01:59with weird problems on this and like what a weird problem, but it's like, it's the sort

1:02:02that a normal person is never gonna figure out.

1:02:04If it turns out that for whatever reason

1:02:07having their airport route or too close to the display

1:02:10causes it to have weird interference,

1:02:14how is a normal person gonna figure that out?

1:02:16And it's the sort of thing that Apple,

1:02:18Apple branded displays,

1:02:21they're not just aesthetically pleasing.

1:02:22They really are just terrific displays, always were.

1:02:26I can't say-- - Well, they are tanks.

1:02:30I actually have mine sitting on my desk

1:02:33because not using one of those mounts

1:02:34because I couldn't, it weighs like five times

1:02:38as much as a normal monitor of similar size.

1:02:41So I'm guessing that's probably why it handles

1:02:42the shielding better.

1:02:44But yeah, it's one of those things

1:02:46I could never understand why you would pay so much

1:02:48for a monitor until I had a job that bought one for me.

1:02:52It was like, oh, okay, I get it now.

1:02:53I will never not buy another one of these again.

1:02:56And now my Thunderbolt display's failing

1:02:58and I can't find another one and I'm very sad.

1:03:01- I had a 20 inch, I don't know what the name was,

1:03:05but it was, I couldn't, at the time when I bought it,

1:03:08I couldn't get a bigger one.

1:03:09I think there was, it was like 20 and 23s

1:03:11and I bought the 20 inch.

1:03:13I mean, it was probably like 2000 or something like that.

1:03:15- Was that the plastic framing and like the two--

1:03:17- No, it had, it was aluminum.

1:03:18It had an aluminum frame.

1:03:20I had it and I had it, I mean,

1:03:23I went through like three or four max while I was using it

1:03:26And I'm sure it was more or less,

1:03:31like when I finally got rid of it,

1:03:32it wasn't because it was broken,

1:03:34it was just like I,

1:03:35I think I used it up until I got this 20,

1:03:38yeah, I probably had it on my desk

1:03:40until I got this 27-inch iMac two and a half years ago.

1:03:42It just ran and ran and ran.

1:03:45It was unbelievable.

1:03:47- Yeah, my monitor works fine.

1:03:49It's the USB, all that stuff,

1:03:53no longer works or works very sketchily.

1:03:56And so I've been using that for the camera,

1:03:58and also I had all my stuff plugged into it.

1:04:00So now I do the laptop and I move around a lot.

1:04:03And so every time I sit down,

1:04:03I have to plug in five things every single time.

1:04:06And I have to use the sound for my laptop speakers.

1:04:08And yeah, so the display itself is fine.

1:04:11It's the sort of docking capability that is gone.

1:04:15- All right, let me take a break here and thank our third.

1:04:18- What, sorry, just a second.

1:04:20I do think though the one thing that is worth,

1:04:22as long as we're here,

1:04:23Because abandoning the Apple display,

1:04:27we started the airport thing.

1:04:29This stuff I think does fit more

1:04:31in the kind of critique of Apple

1:04:33as being too quote unquote spreadsheet driven

1:04:37or operational driven or whatever the critique is

1:04:40of sort of Tim Cook and Apple generally.

1:04:43And I think that is a fair one

1:04:44because what that gets into is,

1:04:47Apple never sold routers to make money on routers.

1:04:52They sold routers because it would ensure that the experience of using your Apple device

1:04:56was better than it would be otherwise.

1:05:00And same thing with the display.

1:05:02Apple didn't sell display because they were going to make money on displays.

1:05:05Well, they probably made money given how much they charged for them.

1:05:08But it kind of like, it lets you be a...

1:05:11It kind of lets you...

1:05:12Some respects, it was a better experience, that's true, but also having that big tank

1:05:16on your desk with the Apple logo on it.

1:05:17I mean, it lets you be an Apple person in some respects.

1:05:21And I think that part, to me that is more concerning in a way because it's, Apple is

1:05:29making decisions that are driven by, it seems like anyway, they're making decisions driven

1:05:33by the bottom line, not driven by this sort of halo sort of thinking about what it means

1:05:40to be an Apple customer, if that makes sense.

1:05:42Take a step back, take a deep breath and just be there as a customer and see what the overall

1:05:49experience is like.

1:05:50And again, to draw an analogy, I make it all over and over

1:05:52and over again, but just to compare Apple to Disney.

1:05:55And you go to a Disney theme park.

1:05:57You go to any other theme park, and you

1:05:59buy a hot dog and a soda.

1:06:01And then when you're done with it, you go to the trash can,

1:06:04and the trash can is filled to the brim, overflowing.

1:06:07And it's like, what do you do?

1:06:08Do you kind of rest the thing on top?

1:06:11What do you do with your garbage when

1:06:12the trash can's already full?

1:06:14You go to a Disney theme park, and the trash cans

1:06:16are never full because they spend the money

1:06:19to have people constantly emptying the trash cans

1:06:23so that they're always, and they're never filthy,

1:06:27you never feel like you're grossed out

1:06:30by putting your garbage in there.

1:06:32It just works, right?

1:06:33And it's such a little thing to have garbage cans

1:06:38that are not full and not covered with grime

1:06:43and you can just always throw your trash away.

1:06:47That's what having Apple branded Wi-Fi routers was like

1:06:52back in the day, where it was like,

1:06:54they didn't need to make them.

1:06:55You could buy Netgear or whatever other ones there were.

1:06:59But the fact that you could just go in the Apple store

1:07:01if you needed to and just say,

1:07:03"Just give me, I gotta set up Wi-Fi in my house.

1:07:05"Tell me what to buy."

1:07:06And you buy it and go home and hook it up and it would work.

1:07:10It was the same sort of thing.

1:07:11It wasn't about making money for the company.

1:07:13It was like, look, you're an Apple customer.

1:07:15it's gonna, you know, we'll take care of you.

1:07:18- Yep.

1:07:19- It doesn't matter whether we're making money

1:07:21on this or not, right?

1:07:22Do you really, does, you know,

1:07:24would Disney theme parks make less money

1:07:27if they cut their number of people

1:07:29emptying the trash cans in half?

1:07:31Probably not, or at least not for a long time.

1:07:33It would take a while for it to show up.

1:07:35But, you know, it's just part of the experience,

1:07:39you know, that you can do it.

1:07:40- Right, and that feels like the part

1:07:44that is, that's the concerning part.

1:07:48That's more, like the Mac Pro,

1:07:50I really feel like there's a business explanation for it

1:07:52that you can make.

1:07:53The, and it's one of those ones where it's just, you know,

1:07:57I can see it being a hard decision,

1:07:59but it's just gonna have to be made.

1:08:01The router, in this case, it's like the business decision

1:08:04is like too obvious.

1:08:05Like it's like, it's very clear,

1:08:07like this is a distraction, we're not making money,

1:08:10blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be.

1:08:11But yeah, it's hard to explain that away

1:08:16as anything other than focusing on resources and margins

1:08:21and not focusing on the experience.

1:08:24Because even today, things have gotten better,

1:08:28but I don't know how you can say that we are focused

1:08:30on delivering the best possible experience

1:08:32and becoming these peripherals.

1:08:35I mean, again, if you take the experience holistically,

1:08:37and yeah, you can go to Apple Store and say,

1:08:39oh, my computer's Wi-Fi isn't working.

1:08:40oh, it's probably a bad router.

1:08:42Yes, is that Apple's fault?

1:08:46No, maybe not.

1:08:47But does that make their customer's life more challenging?

1:08:50It does, and it's a shame that they seem

1:08:53to not care about that as much.

1:08:56- Yeah, I totally agree.

1:08:57I kind of feel it's like,

1:09:00the problem isn't that they don't care about the Mac period.

1:09:04It's kind of, like, which would be alarming.

1:09:09And I've said this before too, like I am a diehard Mac user.

1:09:12If I had to choose between only ever using iOS devices

1:09:20or only ever using Mac OS devices,

1:09:23as much as I love my iPhone, I would rather

1:09:26switch to an Android phone and have a Mac to work

1:09:31than to have an iPhone and iPad and use anything else

1:09:34at my desk for work.

1:09:36Because that's how much the Mac means to me

1:09:39in terms of my workflow for working.

1:09:41If I didn't, if I like somehow retired,

1:09:45or if I, you know, I don't know, became a lumberjack,

1:09:48whatever else I would do as a career,

1:09:50and didn't work in a way that I use the Mac,

1:09:55I would rather have an iPhone, I guess.

1:09:57You know, I know I would rather have an iPhone,

1:10:00and I guess I would choose to use iOS over Mac, period.

1:10:03But because my work is at a computer,

1:10:07the Mac means that much to me.

1:10:08That's how much.

1:10:09And so I care about this profoundly, whether Apple cares.

1:10:15But the way I see it, it's not so much that Apple

1:10:18is like moving away from the Mac,

1:10:20but more or less that Apple is just giving the Mac shit work.

1:10:25Almost like they're taking advantage of the Mac.

1:10:29- I mean, that's okay, though.

1:10:32I mean, I think the point that people are

1:10:33kind of vaguely aware of, but certainly front and center

1:10:36me being on this side of the world in Asia is that here people kind of skipped over PCs

1:10:44in some respects.

1:10:45That makes mobile really interesting because the way people use mobile here is just way

1:10:49more in-depth and pervasive than it is in the States where everyone had a computer at

1:10:54one point and people still use computers out of habit.

1:10:59That's where the growth is for Apple.

1:11:00Apple does make the vast majority of their money on the iPhone.

1:11:04The iPad is the future, and you see your kids

1:11:08use these devices and all that sort of thing.

1:11:09I totally get it, and it's a totally valid thing to say.

1:11:13But that's also where the router thing

1:11:17is particularly interesting, because the router

1:11:20is just as important to the iPhone as it is to,

1:11:23and I guess the iPhone can fall back on cellular networking.

1:11:25Maybe they think that home Wi-Fi is gonna go away.

1:11:27And again, I guess you think about it,

1:11:29in emerging markets, it is more the case

1:11:31that you may not have home Wi-Fi, but you do use Wi-Fi.

1:11:33Maybe that's it.

1:11:35Maybe that is, this is just looking forward to the future

1:11:39and the way things are.

1:11:41But yeah, I mean, I guess that's the other thing too

1:11:45is like the, you talked about the Mac Pro evolution,

1:11:50like putting in a new set of processors

1:11:52and an updated screen would have sounded great to me.

1:11:56I mean, in some respects, it's almost like this weird,

1:11:59it's like this weird codependent relationship

1:12:01between Apple and Mac.

1:12:03- You mean the MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro.

1:12:05- Yeah, sorry, MacBook Pro.

1:12:06Like, I mean, MacBook, Apple is like,

1:12:11we need to support the Mac, you're right,

1:12:12it's the truck, quote unquote,

1:12:15we're gonna dump all our shitty work on it and whatnot.

1:12:18And we all MacBook Pro users are like, that's fine,

1:12:21all we want to do is like do our shitty work.

1:12:24Just give us updated internals, we'll be totally happy.

1:12:27But I was like, no, we need to update it,

1:12:29we need to innovate it.

1:12:30It's like this weird sort of relationship

1:12:35between the two sides that is kind of weird.

1:12:38That's all I can say, it's weird.

1:12:40- All right, let me take a break here

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1:16:20All right, what else is going on?

1:16:25How about this Chris Latner story?

1:16:27So Chris Latner, creator of LLVM compiler,

1:16:34C Lang, the original engineer behind Swift.

1:16:39He kind of worked on Swift for like a year or two

1:16:41before showing it to his teammates at Apple,

1:16:44and then it was like a small team that worked on it.

1:16:46Sort of, you know, he fairly said the father of Swift

1:16:50has left Apple and is joining Tesla within a week or two.

1:16:54And a couple of other people, I mean, there's sort of,

1:17:00I wouldn't call it, like a couple of people

1:17:05have written to me and said like,

1:17:06"Wow, you're linking to all these people

1:17:07"who are leaving Apple for Tesla.

1:17:08Does this mean that there's like this huge brain drain going on where all the talent from Apple is leaving for Tesla?

1:17:15And that's I don't think that's the case and I've asked around I I don't I just think it's a couple of high-profile cases

1:17:22But I do think there's more people leaving Apple for Tesla than leaving Tesla for Apple

1:17:26Yeah, and you know, it's it's

1:17:34- It's hard to say.

1:17:35I mean, in some respects,

1:17:36I mean, what Latner has accomplished is incredible.

1:17:39And I think if you don't really know about,

1:17:42and most Apple customers have no need to know about,

1:17:45sort of the developer tool chain,

1:17:48it's hard to appreciate the contribution

1:17:52this guy has made to Apple.

1:17:53I mean, like--

1:17:54- And the stature that he has in the industry.

1:17:57I mean, it's very hard to say,

1:17:59who else is like Chris Latner?

1:18:01I mean, he's sort of a singular figure

1:18:03in terms of what he's accomplished and what he's done.

1:18:06- Oh, absolutely.

1:18:08I mean, the entire LLVM architecture,

1:18:11and now Clang is kind of a part of that now,

1:18:14that that's the front-end compiler.

1:18:15It's one, it's totally taken over the industry,

1:18:20for one, and for two, it's a,

1:18:26yeah, so for one, just the impact broadly.

1:18:28It's widely adopted, it's used everywhere,

1:18:31there's all sorts of custom tool changes

1:18:32but on top of it, it supports all sorts of things.

1:18:34And then, LLVM is sort of a broader architecture.

1:18:37Clang is for C-type languages primarily,

1:18:40so it's a narrower sort of thing that sits on top of it.

1:18:43But the other thing, I mean, just from a,

1:18:45so from an industry perspective, absolutely spot on.

1:18:47Like this guy's a giant in the field.

1:18:49I mean, like Richard Stallman level,

1:18:52like Richard Stallman is a GCC or whatever.

1:18:53Like this is kind of his, in some respects,

1:18:55his successor in that sort of thing.

1:18:57- Linus Torvald's, you know,

1:19:00there's only a handful of people you can compare to Latner.

1:19:02And for some reason, all the other ones

1:19:04are a bunch of assholes.

1:19:05And Latner is a really nice guy.

1:19:09Right.

1:19:10So yeah, he's an absolute giant.

1:19:12And then for Apple, I mean, the way--

1:19:15I mean, Apple talks about wanting

1:19:16to own their primary technologies, right?

1:19:19Like, what Latner did was made it possible for Apple

1:19:23to not only own its developer tool stack in a way

1:19:27they didn't before.

1:19:28and they were at the mercy of third parties.

1:19:30Like you remember the whole MetroWorks and Code Warrior

1:19:32and all that sort of stuff.

1:19:34And they ended up owning the entire stack.

1:19:37And he did it in a way that is like

1:19:41the best of Apple's strategy.

1:19:43I talked about the commoditizing the compliments part.

1:19:45What Apple, like people talk about Apple

1:19:47being this integrated, right?

1:19:49Because they do the OS and the hardware.

1:19:51If you think about the hardware, Apple is very modular.

1:19:53Apple's like 600 suppliers or something like that

1:19:55all over the world building all these pieces,

1:19:58competing against each other to get the lowest possible price,

1:20:03Apple can dual-source suppliers, et cetera, et cetera.

1:20:05And so Apple reaps all the benefits of having

1:20:08this massive ecosystem making their products better

1:20:12on an individual component basis.

1:20:15And then Apple fuses it all together into one thing

1:20:17and ties it to the software and says,

1:20:19"Oh, look, we're integrated."

1:20:20And they are.

1:20:22Everyone's integrated at different parts of the stack.

1:20:22That's what Latiners work what Apple do

1:20:24on the developer side.

1:20:24There is a massive community that is working on LVM,

1:20:29that's working on Clang, that now is working on Swift,

1:20:33it's a part of it being open source.

1:20:36They're working, they're making it better,

1:20:37they're contributing patches,

1:20:39they're building up new languages, new use cases,

1:20:40making it a more attractive language for students to learn

1:20:42so that new students come along who already know Swift

1:20:44and can code on Apple's platforms.

1:20:46There's all these benefits that accrue to all this stuff

1:20:48being open source and being the standard

1:20:52for all kinds of things,

1:20:50that it all accrues to Apple's benefit,

1:20:55because it's going into their core technology,

1:20:57and then Apple owns the top and the bottom parts of it.

1:20:59They own how it ties into their platforms.

1:21:02They own the IDE that you have to use Xcode

1:21:05at some step to compile iOS apps or whatnot.

1:21:09And so from a strategic and business perspective,

1:21:13his contribution is massive.

1:21:17It's absolutely massive, and it's equal to someone

1:21:17like the more famous folks you see,

1:21:19like Ivan, Ivan Industrial Design,

1:21:21or the people in the software stack,

1:21:23or in the hardware, the chip stack,

1:21:25like building a custom thing for Apple.

1:21:27It's difficult to overstate the contribution he's made,

1:21:31both to the industry and to Apple,

1:21:33and their sort of strategic position going forward.

1:21:35- Yeah, I'll probably miss this,

1:21:39'cause I wasn't directly involved,

1:21:40but Apple's developer tools are incredibly important

1:21:45to a platform.

1:21:47It's hard to overstate that.

1:21:48And it's one of those things that Microsoft has aced,

1:21:53I think, from the very earliest days

1:21:56through to the current day.

1:21:58Say what you want about using their platform as a user.

1:22:01I find Windows 10 to be as unpalatable as ever.

1:22:05But their developer tool story has always been top notch,

1:22:08from everything from the compiler to debugger

1:22:11to the languages.

1:22:16And Apple really missed out on that.

1:22:20Back in the early days, the Macintosh Developer Tools

1:22:25was called MPW, Macintosh Programmer's Workshop.

1:22:31And it was this sort of weird, for the Mac perspective, hybrid.

1:22:36It was sort of like a command line shell

1:22:40that on a system that didn't have a terminal

1:22:45or didn't have a command line, when you ran MPW,

1:22:47there was a shell and it had its own shell scripting language.

1:22:52And I remember I used to have a version of Perl

1:22:55that you could run in MPW.

1:22:56It was like, people would say, oh, you

1:22:59can't run Perl on a Mac.

1:23:00Well, you could if you had MPW.

1:23:01And there was also a thing called

1:23:02MacPerl, which was a standalone application,

1:23:04and the way you would run scripts in--

1:23:07I mean, this is really way out in the weeds.

1:23:09But you could send it like an Apple event.

1:23:12You'd send like an AppleScript command to MacPerl

1:23:14with the Perl script file you wanted to run,

1:23:18and then it would send you the results.

1:23:19So you could run Perl on a classic Mac,

1:23:21even though it didn't have anything resembling

1:23:23a traditional Unix command line.

1:23:26But eventually this became outdated,

1:23:29and by the mid '90s, just about every serious Mac developer

1:23:34I knew was using Code Warrior,

1:23:37which was a third-party IDE.

1:23:39- IDE, yep. - Right, integrated

1:23:44development environment. Right, so instead of just putting scripts together to

1:23:49compile your app, you'd have an actual visual thing. And there was, you know, the

1:23:52predecessors to that were from a company called Think. There was Think C and Think

1:23:58Pascal, which were very well regarded. I know people to this day who would

1:24:05argue that Think Pascal's debugger was the best debugger they've ever used.

1:24:08Great products, and you know, and in a Mac style where you had these projects

1:24:13that were in a window and it was click and drag

1:24:16to organize the project.

1:24:17With Mac OS X, what they inherited from Next

1:24:24was the GCC toolkit, which, and again,

1:24:29we could go on for an hour about this,

1:24:31and it's over, you know, it's really outside my expertise,

1:24:33but, you know, GCC, the best thing you could say about it

1:24:37was that it worked.

1:24:38(laughing)

1:24:40- It was flexible and it worked

1:24:41and it had all the trade-offs that came with

1:24:43working on everything and for everything.

1:24:45- Right, that you had the C and C++ compiler

1:24:50that Next had jerry-rigged over the years

1:24:52to also compile Objective-C.

1:24:55(laughing)

1:24:59Nobody was happy about it.

1:25:01And I was at, I mean, during this transition period,

1:25:05it was a good time to work at a company like Barebones

1:25:08in 2000 to 2002 to talk to people,

1:25:12back engineers who were switching from code warrior

1:25:19to the GCC.

1:25:21What was the Xcode called before it was Xcode?

1:25:24I forget, what was it?

1:25:25Project Builder. - I don't remember.

1:25:27- Right? - Oh yeah, that's right.

1:25:28- Project Builder and Interface Builder.

1:25:30And the bare bones, the engineers were great.

1:25:35I mean, they were very,

1:25:36They're pragmatic, as engineers should be,

1:25:39where they had BB Edit compiling under GCC long before they had

1:25:44to just to make sure that the source code was going to pass

1:25:48through a different C compiler.

1:25:51But it was very crude and rudimentary.

1:25:54Whereas the whole LLVM CLang stack

1:25:59is very much what Apple would have if they could just

1:26:02snap their fingers and say, we wish we had a toolkit that

1:26:04worked like this.

1:26:06That's pretty much what LLVM is, I think it's fair to say.

1:26:09- Yeah, and LLVM is really amazing.

1:26:11It's basically like, it makes the entire bottom part

1:26:15of the compiler like totally modular,

1:26:17where you compile into this intermediary language

1:26:20and then it can recompile for particular processors

1:26:22or GPUs or whatever it might be,

1:26:25but it made it totally modular.

1:26:27Basically GCC was like this spaghetti soup of stuff

1:26:31where to add on support for anything,

1:26:32you would kind of just add to the spaghetti,

1:26:35but a new kind of spaghetti, and it was totally impenetrable.

1:26:39And LLVM made this very neat sort of modular approach.

1:26:42And Latner developed LLVM to sit underneath GCC.

1:26:46So basically, GC would just compile

1:26:48to the intermediate language.

1:26:49But eventually, yeah, he built all the way

1:26:51up to the top of the stack to do the entire compiler itself,

1:26:54which then let Xcode do way more interesting things,

1:26:57because Apple now controlled the entire thing

1:26:59from top to bottom.

1:27:02Yeah, if we didn't bore people with the sports,

1:27:05to support them with talking about compilers.

1:27:07But the net of it is is that not only is he

1:27:10super only good on the industry,

1:27:12but he is important to Apple like strategically.

1:27:16Like what he has done for Apple is

1:27:18very few people in the company can really match that.

1:27:24- Yeah, and one of the practical effects of his work

1:27:29that really has an effect on Apple

1:27:30is it made it much easier for Apple.

1:27:34I mean, I think they could have done it anyway,

1:27:36even if they were stuck on the GCC tool chain.

1:27:39They could have, but I think it was,

1:27:41I don't think anybody would argue with the fact

1:27:43that it's easier for Apple to have things that run on ARM,

1:27:48things that run on Intel, have switched to new ARM 64

1:27:54and stuff like that.

1:27:55It makes them less dependent on the specific hardware

1:28:01that they're targeting.

1:28:03They can pretty much--

1:28:04- Well, when the Apple came out, it was still GCC,

1:28:07but yeah, but I think the 64-bit transition

1:28:10is a perfect example of where it just got

1:28:13way easier for them, and in all future changes

1:28:16will be much easier.

1:28:17- Yeah, like they can go to something in the future

1:28:20that's not there yet, and it'll be easier.

1:28:22They can, you know, anyway.

1:28:25Is it a problem, is it a bad sign

1:28:27that Latner has left for Tesla?

1:28:29- I mean, Latner himself, it's really hard

1:28:32to take too much out of it.

1:28:34I mean, the guy, he was on the ATP podcast,

1:28:38which was, Accidental Tech podcast, which was great.

1:28:42- Absolutely. - And--

1:28:43- Terrific.

1:28:44I've linked to it, and I'll just say,

1:28:46I mean, if you haven't listened to it, it was terrific.

1:28:50And for a show where they almost never have guests,

1:28:54- He's really the idealized ATP guest.

1:29:00- Yeah, the three of them did a great job.

1:29:02as hosts of an outside guest.

1:29:06Good questions, kept the conversation going,

1:29:07covered just about everything I hoped that they would cover.

1:29:10It was really, really a terrific show.

1:29:12- Yeah, and what you really get from him,

1:29:15and if you look at his career, you can see this.

1:29:16I mean, the guys developed LLVM as a graduate student,

1:29:20and then Apple gave him the opportunity

1:29:23to care to completion.

1:29:24He did C Lang, or Clang, is it C Lang or Clang?

1:29:26- Clang.

1:29:29- Yeah, I say Clang.

1:29:31I mean, he initiated that and carried it to completion.

1:29:33He initiated Swift basically on his own.

1:29:36Like this is a guy that likes to take on

1:29:39hard and difficult problems from first principles

1:29:43and figure them out.

1:29:44And right now the core,

1:29:47like Apple's sort of development stack

1:29:49is set for the next 20 years, basically.

1:29:52I mean, there's lots of work to do on Swift.

1:29:55It's not finished,

1:29:56but like the conceptual portion of Swift is finished, right?

1:30:00Now it's like problem solving and implementation by and large.

1:30:05And I can totally see for a guy like this, what's left?

1:30:09He's built out the Apple's entire developer stack

1:30:13from literally from top to bottom, and what's left for him?

1:30:17And you have this opportunity with Tesla.

1:30:22Who knows what he's going to do?

1:30:27Tesla is built currently on an NVIDIA stack,

1:30:26where NVIDIA has this setup where you can basically use their GPUs for general processing.

1:30:31And it's built on LLVM.

1:30:37NVIDIA has their own implementation of it.

1:30:39It's called NMVM or something like that.

1:30:41And Tesla also hired one of Apple's original A-chip designers last year.

1:30:44And you got to imagine they might be coming up with something totally custom

1:30:49and integrated on both sides.

1:30:53I don't know, it's fun to speculate,

1:30:52But I can totally see why someone like Latner,

1:30:55who has a remarkable history of solving

1:31:00really hard problems from first principles,

1:31:02just wouldn't have anything left for him at Apple.

1:31:05And there is something at Tesla.

1:31:08He's the guy, the guy's not voted by money.

1:31:11I'm sure Apple's made him rich

1:31:13beyond his wildest dreams, without question.

1:31:15You know, it's something deeper than that.

1:31:18- Yeah, and at a certain level,

1:31:19if he's just looking after his career in terms of

1:31:24if he's at Apple and he's in software,

1:31:28just in general, let alone the toolkit or whatever,

1:31:30I mean, there's already Craig Federighi at the SVP spot.

1:31:38You know what I mean?

1:31:39There's nowhere up for him to go at Apple.

1:31:41Whereas, effectively, I think he's now

1:31:43the Craig Federighi at Tesla.

1:31:45He is the head of software at Tesla.

1:31:47So there's a company where there's an opening for a,

1:31:51reports directly to the CEO head of software,

1:31:55whereas at Apple that position is not open

1:31:58and probably is not going to be open anytime soon.

1:32:01- One thing that is interesting is,

1:32:04speaking of reporting to the CEO,

1:32:05is at least a few of the guys that have left,

1:32:08the high profile ones,

1:32:09were ones who did work with Steve Jobs.

1:32:12And it's almost like they're,

1:32:16you can get the sense that they kind of miss the fire,

1:32:21for lack of a better word.

1:32:23You know, like it was brutal,

1:32:24but it was brutal in a very energizing sort of way,

1:32:29which you're certainly gonna get, I think,

1:32:32with Elon Musk.

1:32:34I mean, there's a reason people compare the two.

1:32:37- Yeah, like one of the, this isn't a new poaching.

1:32:44poaching, but Boss Ording, I hope I'm pronouncing his first name right, but he left Apple in 2014, and as of March 2015, he was designing user interfaces at Tesla.

1:33:01And I linked to this the other day, but he--

1:33:04this was before he went to Tesla, but after he left Apple.

1:33:09And he said why he left was, one,

1:33:13because he was spending a lot of time in court defending patents,

1:33:18because his name was listed on these patents,

1:33:20and they're suing HTC and Samsung, et cetera.

1:33:24And it's not complicated.

1:33:27I mean, he wanted to be designing user interfaces.

1:33:29He did not want to be putting on a suit and tie and showing up in court and answering lawyers stupid questions about

1:33:35interfaces

1:33:37And any other thing he said was I spent more time in court than designing aside from that

1:33:41I missed the interaction with Steve Jobs. We discussed matters every 14 days

1:33:45Yeah

1:33:48yeah, I mean, you know I

1:33:50the reality is and

1:33:53You know, I for all the great things that Apple has accomplished, you know

1:33:59I tend to be a bit of a fatalist about things.

1:34:02I mean, companies like people have life cycles.

1:34:06I mean, Apple came roaring back from the dead.

1:34:09They did the iPod, which really juiced the company.

1:34:12That led directly to the iPhone.

1:34:14The iPhone led directly to the iPad,

1:34:16and the Mac came along for the ride,

1:34:18but I mean, there was a very natural progression

1:34:22for Apple to reach the heights it made now.

1:34:24I mean, to be clear, what's happened is extraordinary,

1:34:26and Apple deserves all the praise

1:34:27and all their credit for what they've done.

1:34:30But if you look back at the broad history of business

1:34:34in all sectors or whatever,

1:34:35the reality is to presume that Apple is going to

1:34:40make the next world-changing product

1:34:42for all the great products they made,

1:34:45and I'm not telling that at all,

1:34:47that really is to challenge all of history.

1:34:50And it's not an issue of,

1:34:51you don't make products

1:34:53because you really want to make products.

1:34:55Apple's filled with humans just like every other company.

1:34:59And what goes into making great products is great people,

1:35:02it is great culture, but it's also,

1:35:04there's a hunger, there's a need,

1:35:07there's a market opportunity,

1:35:08and you're forming your company around that opportunity.

1:35:12The fact of the matter is that Apple has a product

1:35:15that makes up 70 to 80% of its profits.

1:35:18It's the most profitable product in the history of ever.

1:35:21And it's just impossible to form the company-wide incentives that are necessary to drive a startup

1:35:29or to drive a Tesla, to drive any number of these other companies.

1:35:33And that's not a function of Apple being a bad company or executives being bad executives

1:35:37or people being bad people.

1:35:42It's a fact of life.

1:35:43It's like a law.

1:35:45You cannot have the incentive structure of a startup when you're a $750 billion company.

1:35:52You just can't.

1:35:53And there's people that want that that thrive on that, and it's natural that they pursue

1:35:58that.

1:35:59I still think that in hindsight, nobody really foresaw that the iPhone was the culmination

1:36:05of personal computing.

1:36:08But in hindsight, it's obvious that it was, that this is where everything was going along.

1:36:11Right.

1:36:12Apple's been making the same thing all along, right?

1:36:13From day one.

1:36:14making the personal computer from day one.

1:36:17And the iPhone fits perfectly in the evolution of Apple

1:36:20as a whole.

1:36:21And the one thing that Apple missed, Steve Jobs missed,

1:36:25everybody, I think, missed up until--

1:36:29and I'm not a huge Netscape fan.

1:36:32I'm not a huge Mark Anderson fan.

1:36:35Andreessen, how do you say his name?

1:36:36I don't know.

1:36:36Andreessen, I think.

1:36:37But I do think that he and Netscape saw something that

1:36:41was missed in the entire PC.

1:36:43and I think Bill Gates missed, everybody missed,

1:36:47was that ultimately, personal computing

1:36:52was destined to fundamentally be a personal communication

1:36:57technology, that it's about people

1:36:59communicating with each other.

1:37:01And where Apple really missed out up until the last decade,

1:37:08a decade ago, when the comeback in the 2000s

1:37:12with post-iPod and when the Mac finally started picking up

1:37:17share and then ultimately with the iPhone,

1:37:20was that most people have no need or care

1:37:24for a personal computing device.

1:37:26Forget the word PC, whether you mean like Windows or Mac

1:37:29or the iPhone or whatever.

1:37:31Just a personal computing device in plain language

1:37:34until the internet.

1:37:35And the only reason they wanted the internet

1:37:36was to communicate with other people and read and write.

1:37:40And so everything pre-internet that Apple did

1:37:43was falling on deaf ears.

1:37:44I mean, it's fundamentally why, in my opinion,

1:37:48it's fundamentally why the Newton failed.

1:37:51Because the form factor was entirely

1:37:53about being more personal than a Mac, that it was smaller.

1:37:58It wasn't pocket-sized, but they could have made one pocket-sized

1:38:01if it had taken off.

1:38:02Surely, if it had gotten any kind of traction in the market,

1:38:06surely they would have made a Palm Pilot size one.

1:38:09But it was pre-internet and it didn't have,

1:38:14there wasn't a, therefore wasn't a communication device

1:38:17and therefore it gained no traction.

1:38:19And that's what the iPhone fundamentally is.

1:38:21I mean, for, you know, other than games,

1:38:23if you took away all the apps that people use

1:38:26to communicate with each other,

1:38:28they wouldn't use their phones at all.

1:38:30- Yep, this is exactly right.

1:38:32I wrote this piece last spring

1:38:35called Everything as a Service

1:38:36that basically the point of it is that the iPhone

1:38:41was the ultimate, the culmination,

1:38:43the best ever sort of manufactured device,

1:38:46broadly, and PC specifically.

1:38:49And the reason is because it was empowered by the future.

1:38:53What makes the iPhone, we talk about mobile,

1:38:57and people would make fun of Sasha Nadal as saying

1:39:00Microsoft's going to be cloud first, mobile first.

1:39:02But the reality is those are the same thing.

1:39:05The phone is nothing without the cloud.

1:39:08Facebook is nothing without the servers in the cloud.

1:39:11Google is nothing without servers in the cloud.

1:39:12Snapchat, Twitter, whatever you want to be.

1:39:14It all depends on, it's a yin and yang sort of thing.

1:39:18The iPhone was better than any other PC that came before it,

1:39:24any other device that came before it,

1:39:26because it was lit up, it was enabled by the future.

1:39:31But the future means that the iPhone is the end, right?

1:39:35the end of the line in some respects because the future will be fully in the future.

1:39:39Yeah, I totally, I think that's true, right? Like the watch is not the new phone. I think the watch

1:39:45is undersold as a success. I think Apple is, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if 2017 they become

1:39:52the number one by revenue watch company in the world. I mean, I think they were what,

1:39:56number two last year to Rolex? I mean, certainly in the top five. That's nothing to sneeze at.

1:40:02It's a fine business, but it's not the new iPhone.

1:40:05It is clearly something different.

1:40:07And as the watch has evolved, it's

1:40:09become less like the iPhone.

1:40:11The 1.0 watch was more like an iPhone

1:40:13where they were talking about this grid of apps

1:40:15that you would launch.

1:40:16And the watchOS 3, second generation hardware,

1:40:20third generation OS, is a lot more like, hey,

1:40:24it's a fitness tracker and notification display.

1:40:26Yep.

1:40:27It's an accessory.

1:40:28Which is better because it's more clearly

1:40:30what the wrist is good for, but it's not a replacement for the phone.

1:40:37Yep.

1:40:38Yeah, I agree. I think the future, when and if we get there, is probably some sort of

1:40:43thing where, in the very long run, where we're carrying some sort of, maybe it's the watch,

1:40:48but some sort of identification device where basically any screen around us can become

1:40:52our personal computer. But the reality is the phone is clearly a sort of endpoint, I

1:40:59I think, and that's fine, that's good for Apple

1:41:02'cause Apple sells the most profitable phone by far

1:41:04and they will make a lot of money off it

1:41:07for a very long time and as a company,

1:41:08as an ongoing enterprise, that's great.

1:41:11But I do think it really raises really fundamental questions

1:41:15about if you wanna look at 20, 30 years out,

1:41:19what is Apple's future?

1:41:21Because going all the way back to the late '70s,

1:41:25I mean, Apple's been a personal computer company

1:41:27And the iPhone, it was the future.

1:41:32It was the internet broadly that let the Mac sort of come back

1:41:36and be a viable platform for everyone,

1:41:40beyond the diehards like you, for like everyone else.

1:41:44But it was the cloud generally and what that enabled

1:41:47that made the iPhone the juggernaut that it is,

1:41:49but that's also the future that's gonna eventually

1:41:53obsolete the PC.

1:41:55And that's okay, again, that's the way things go.

1:41:58And better to have shown brightly

1:42:03than to have not shown at all, as it were,

1:42:05and nothing's shown brighter than the iPhone.

1:42:08- I'm not counting them out,

1:42:10but I don't know that it's any more likely than not

1:42:13that the next big thing would come from Apple.

1:42:16I don't know.

1:42:17- Yeah, no, I'm not counting them at all either,

1:42:19but I can understand why some of these really

1:42:24you know noteworthy employees who've been with Apple for a long time why they

1:42:28suddenly want to go somewhere else like you know for one maybe they just want to

1:42:32change but for two I mean if you think about the future I mean it not only are

1:42:38we moving out of Apple's sweet spot which is personal computing not only it

1:42:45but but also the you know just the company it's so consumed by the iPhone

1:42:51appropriately so.

1:42:53That's like Apple's in execution mode,

1:42:55it's not in innovation mode,

1:42:56and that's the mode it should be in.

1:42:58- Right, it's, you know, they're at the point

1:43:01where they're going from a 99% good product

1:43:04to a 99.9% good product to a 99.99% good product

1:43:09to keep adding nines as the product keeps getting better.

1:43:13And you know, I would argue that in some ways,

1:43:15the Mac is, you know, that's one of the reasons

1:43:17Mac hardware has slowed to such a degree,

1:43:19where there might be future directions for desktop

1:43:23computing that are big new areas or big new ideas or whatever.

1:43:29But the basic idea of you've got these windows you drag around

1:43:33on a screen and menus and apps that run and a mouse pointer

1:43:37that you either use a mouse or a trackpad and a keyboard

1:43:40and you sit there and do it, it's at a--

1:43:44It is what it is.

1:43:45It's an old paradigm, and it is what it is.

1:43:48and it's really getting polished out to a very large 99 point--

1:43:53it's not a new thing.

1:43:55Yeah, like we said, we would rather Apple slow down

1:43:57the OS X updates, right?

1:43:58It's fine.

1:43:59Just let it be.

1:44:00Right.

1:44:00Whereas a lot of the most talented people at Apple

1:44:02from the last 10 years are the people who stood up the iPhone

1:44:05from the world where a quote unquote smartphone was

1:44:08a ridiculous BlackBerry or Symbian thing from Nokia

1:44:15running not really a real OS, but some kind

1:44:18of embedded OS and as like an up, down, left, right metaphor

1:44:22that they stood up this entire paradigm

1:44:25of touch-based computing in a rich, gooey environment

1:44:30with no perceptible latency when you scroll.

1:44:35And all of these things that we just take for granted

1:44:38as the oxygen of the device in our pocket,

1:44:43they stood it up from nothing to a thing.

1:44:47And that's what they're good at,

1:44:49is going, taking an idea that doesn't even exist

1:44:53and getting it to the 98%, 98% good.

1:44:57That's what they live for.

1:45:00- And the other thing too is like,

1:45:01that's always been their business model.

1:45:04Like their business model has been to deliver

1:45:06the best possible experience

1:45:08and charge a premium for it, right?

1:45:10And that's the other thing,

1:45:11you get to these other categories.

1:45:13Like services is not about charging a premium

1:45:16for a differentiated product, right?

1:45:18A car is, right, today it is,

1:45:21but that's from Mercedes or BMW makes money,

1:45:24but in the future, if you get to transportation as a service

1:45:27like these sort of Uber-style networks

1:45:29or car sharing or whatever it might be,

1:45:32like the business model, it's not clear

1:45:34that they have a business model going forward,

1:45:36and licensing or building fleets or whatever,

1:45:39that's not an Apple business model.

1:45:41And again, it doesn't mean the company's

1:45:43not gonna be a viable concern going forward.

1:45:44Just that everything about the iPhone,

1:45:48if you back up far enough,

1:45:49it was no different than everything about the original Mac.

1:45:52The business model was the same, the approach was the same,

1:45:56the needs it was seeking to serve was the same.

1:45:59And that's because the personal computer is,

1:46:02Steve Jobs from data saw this for anyone,

1:46:05talking about the power of the personal computer,

1:46:06I will transform people.

1:46:08And I've said before,

1:46:09my all time, one of my all time favorite Steve Jobs moments

1:46:12was his second to last keynote,

1:46:14the iPad 2 introduction. It was right after they demoed iMovie and they had demoed GarageBand.

1:46:20It was after the GarageBand demo, Steve Jobs, always a lover of music and stuff. He came

1:46:24out and this look of contentment on his face. He's like, "Now anyone can make music."

1:46:32You could see it. I actually typed on Twitter at the time, "I think this might be his

1:46:35last keynote," because it was like his salutation, like, "My wife's work is completed here."

1:46:42an amazing thing, and that's fantastic. But the world goes on. It does.

1:46:50Did you watch—I don't think Dau Rumple and I talked about it on my last show, but the 10-year

1:46:58anniversary of the original iPhone introduction was a couple weeks ago. Did you rewatch the—

1:47:06I looked at parts of it. It's a world-changing event. It really is.

1:47:13I remember I was there. It was early, and I'm so glad that I was, but it was early in the era when

1:47:18I was regularly attending Apple keynotes. Even just a year or two before, I think I'd been to a

1:47:25WWDC note or two before that. But like Macworld keynotes, I wasn't going to because I was just a

1:47:34a guy who never left his house.

1:47:36But I was at the--

1:47:39- It's left until 11 in the morning.

1:47:40- Macworld 2007 keynote, I had a press pass for it.

1:47:43It was one of the first that I got a press pass for it,

1:47:45so I had a good seat close to the front.

1:47:46And I just remember thinking at the time

1:47:49that this is it, this is the keynote that we've,

1:47:54every single other keynote has ever has been,

1:47:57'cause we wanted this one.

1:48:00This is the one, and it somehow,

1:48:03Logically, it's the one that that we collectively want Apple to give every single time

1:48:07Right, we've changed the world again, you know

1:48:10But that they literally did but the thing that struck me was when I was looking for like YouTube clips of it

1:48:15Is that a whole bunch of them?

1:48:17Cut out like the first five or six minutes of the keynote and just start with when he starts talking about the iPhone and

1:48:25To me they're missing what was so amazing about that keynote

1:48:31Which was that the first five or six minutes were about like the Mac and something else

1:48:37No is more than that. I wrote all this the first 30 minutes were about the Apple TV

1:48:41Was that would do it? No that way I thought that came at the end after the iPhone

1:48:45No, they open with the with the Apple TV and like and that's it's kind of remarkable when you think about it, right?

1:48:51I mean clearly the jobs knew they had something right?

1:48:54I mean you don't build up like we like we did the you the my the Mac and the iPod now

1:48:59or doing a new thing and da da da da da da.

1:49:01But at the same time, you don't put in 20 to 30 minutes

1:49:05about the Apple TV if you're introducing one of the most,

1:49:08if you're making one of the biggest

1:49:10and most meaningful product announcements of all time.

1:49:13And again, it's not just the iPhone,

1:49:15it's the entire world today and the upheaval that's in it

1:49:18is all tied back to that product and what it did.

1:49:23I mean, it's remarkable in retrospect.

1:49:27- Well, the line that I remember

1:49:28was when he gave a brief update about the Mac

1:49:31at the very beginning.

1:49:32But then he said, but we're not here

1:49:33to talk about the Mac today.

1:49:36And it was like the oxygen just came out of the crowd.

1:49:40Because the context to remember is that leading up

1:49:44to that keynote, it was widely rumored

1:49:46that Apple was going to introduce a phone.

1:49:49And somehow, just the simple fact

1:49:52that Apple was going to introduce an iPhone,

1:49:56something called an iPhone, was leaked.

1:49:58And I don't know if that came just because

1:50:00of their negotiations with Singular.

1:50:02I don't know.

1:50:03But somehow, just that pure information leaked.

1:50:07But what it was going to be like didn't leak at all.

1:50:10There was absolutely no word, no rumors, no guesses.

1:50:15Nobody knew whether it was gonna be an iPod

1:50:18that could make phone calls or something else.

1:50:20And I remember that somebody reported it

1:50:26like on Saturday, like I don't know,

1:50:29like the Journal or the New York Times,

1:50:31just that it's widely rumored

1:50:32that they're going to introduce a phone.

1:50:34And I remember I got to San Francisco on Sunday,

1:50:37you know, an early flight, and it was like the afternoon,

1:50:40and I was walking down Market Street in San Francisco,

1:50:43and I ran into James Duncan Davidson and Daniel Steinberg,

1:50:48who's like a tech book author.

1:50:50They were having coffee somewhere, and they knew me,

1:50:52and I came over and joined them.

1:50:54And they were like, "What do you think's going on tomorrow?"

1:50:56and I was like, you know what the weird part is?

1:50:58Usually if something like this is widely rumored

1:51:01and it's not true, Apple somehow gets word out

1:51:04to sort of set expectations accordingly.

1:51:08Like if somebody reports that Apple is going to

1:51:12announce cold fusion on Monday and it's not true,

1:51:18they haven't invented cold fusion,

1:51:19somebody else will come out with it,

1:51:23somebody else will get the story that no,

1:51:25they're not going to have cold fusion.

1:51:27And it may not get everybody to calm down,

1:51:29but it'll calm things down.

1:51:30But Saturday, somebody said they're

1:51:33going to introduce a phone.

1:51:34And Sunday, it was just pure silence.

1:51:37And I was like, I really think they're going to do it.

1:51:39And I think everybody else is sort

1:51:41of thinking the same thing.

1:51:42So everybody kind of went in to the keynote

1:51:44with their breath held.

1:51:45And two minutes in, Steve Jobs says,

1:51:47we're not going to talk about the Mac today.

1:51:49And it was like, whoa.

1:51:53The excitement in that room was so palpable,

1:51:55it's just impossible to describe.

1:51:58- Oh, it would have been amazing to be there.

1:52:00I mean, that, yeah.

1:52:01And I mean, it's the greatest keynote ever.

1:52:04I mean, there's, it was in the tech industry.

1:52:06It's remarkable.

1:52:08And the whole thing, like it's a widescreen iPod,

1:52:12it's a phone, it's an internet communicator,

1:52:14and everyone cheers loudly on the first two

1:52:16and kind of mumbles on the third.

1:52:21And again, because this is the flip side, right?

1:52:24I write a lot of major theme on trajectory is beyond the bismuth stuff, but it's about

1:52:29the internet and its impact on not just business, but society generally, right?

1:52:34But again, it's yin and yang.

1:52:37It's the internet plus mobile.

1:52:38It's those two things go together because it's not just sitting down at your desk and

1:52:43having access to the internet.

1:52:44you having full access to everything anywhere all the time

1:52:49in every place, in every location.

1:52:51And these two things are hand in hand,

1:52:54you can't divorce their impact from the other.

1:52:57And the iPhone changed the world.

1:53:00Like Steve Jobs didn't more than put it

1:53:02dense in the world, he fundamentally changed

1:53:04the course of history, it really did.

1:53:08I can, not to be hyperbolic, but I believe you can trace

1:53:12what's happening these few years

1:53:15and the upheaval in society to that keynote.

1:53:18- Yep.

1:53:19- It's remarkable.

1:53:22(laughing)

1:53:24- If it wasn't, I mean, you know,

1:53:27let's delve into it a little bit,

1:53:29but if it wasn't for the iPhone,

1:53:31there wouldn't be Android as we know it.

1:53:34Android might have still existed.

1:53:35It was an existing project before the iPhone was introduced,

1:53:38but it was like a Blackberry clone type thing.

1:53:41And if that's what Android had been,

1:53:43I don't think Donald Trump would have used it.

1:53:46And I don't think Donald Trump

1:53:47would be a presence on Twitter.

1:53:49And if Donald Trump wasn't a presence on Twitter

1:53:52and ever presence on Twitter,

1:53:53I don't think he would have become president.

1:53:56- No, it's not just that though.

1:53:58It's the polarization and the tribalism.

1:54:02Oh, I completely agree.

1:54:03I completely agree. - I don't think

1:54:03it's like a trick pull shot.

1:54:05I don't think it's like the cue ball hits the nine

1:54:08and the nine hits the sidebar and then it hits the seven

1:54:11and the seven hits the two

1:54:13and the two goes in the corner pocket,

1:54:14I think it's a straight shot

1:54:15between the iPhone and Trump as president.

1:54:18- It is, and I mean, it was the iPhone

1:54:21and the internet combined that really broke down

1:54:25the hold that the mainstream media had

1:54:28on information dispersal,

1:54:30and that broke down the limits of geography

1:54:32when people came to kind of banding together, right?

1:54:35Now you could, on Facebook, find all kinds of people

1:54:38that agreed with you that weren't necessarily next to you

1:54:41in your hometown.

1:54:42And you could build basically-- it removed geography

1:54:44as a limitation on all sorts of things.

1:54:46And it made media less powerful.

1:54:48And you could get your news from anywhere.

1:54:49You could go around it, do whatever you wanted.

1:54:51And it broke down all these things that held society

1:54:54together as it was.

1:54:56And no, I 100% without question agree

1:54:59that you can draw a straight line from the iPhone

1:55:02introduction to Donald Trump being president.

1:55:07So clearly what we need to do is invent a time machine

1:55:10go back in time and prevent the iPhone.

1:55:13Stop the iPhone.

1:55:13Stop the iPhone.

1:55:16The iPhone is the new Hitler.

1:55:18Oh, there's a title for your podcast.

1:55:23What else do we have to talk about this week?

1:55:27Oh, you want to talk about a pay spot.

1:55:31Oh, yeah, it's a tradition.

1:55:33So we always talk about our drinks.

1:55:35I'm having a couple of beers tonight.

1:55:38I still do have a sparkling water as well.

1:55:40Oh, you mentioned the sparkling water is explode, right?

1:55:43So I realize I do have one of the original, it's the original soda stream,

1:55:46which I have, and there's no pressure release.

1:55:49You have to manually pressure release it.

1:55:51Like when you pump it and you kind of pull the bottle out and release the

1:55:53pressure. Well, I, whereas I got a new one,

1:55:55so I went from my office and went from my home, one from my house.

1:55:57I got a new one for the house and that one releases pressure automatically.

1:56:01So I'm pretty sure that the ones that exploded were using the original one and

1:56:06didn't know you had to release pressure every single time.

1:56:09You know, that's my SodaStream update.

1:56:10- For those who don't follow, this is my philosophy.

1:56:13My philosophy on being a successful internet writer

1:56:18is you need a fussy way to make coffee.

1:56:21You need endless supply of fizzy water,

1:56:25and you need a clicky keyboard.

1:56:26And so for years-- - I disagree

1:56:29on the clicky keyboard.

1:56:30- Well, you can disagree.

1:56:34I would actually put the fizzy water first,

1:56:37and the fussy way to make coffee second,

1:56:38and the clicky keyboard third.

1:56:40Because I would rather, I'd probably rather have

1:56:43shittier coffee, but still have fizzy water,

1:56:47than to have great coffee and have to drink flat water.

1:56:50Flat water, every time I take a sip of flat water,

1:56:52I feel like I'm sick, like I'm getting a cold.

1:56:55(laughing)

1:56:57- And you're gonna get more Twitter responses

1:56:59'cause we get it every time you complain about fizzy water.

1:57:01- Well, the funny part too.

1:57:03- Well, one of the funny parts about that

1:57:05is my wife hates fizzy water, absolutely hates.

1:57:07So like when we go out to dinner, if we get water,

1:57:11a lot of times we'll get two bottles of water,

1:57:12and one flat, one still.

1:57:14And sometimes like if she accidentally takes the wrong glass

1:57:18or something like that, she'll like, you know.

1:57:21As bad as it is, if you're expecting fizzy water

1:57:23and you take a sip of still, it's like dangerous

1:57:26if you think you're gonna take a big gulp of still water

1:57:28and you get a highly carbonated.

1:57:31- Right, 'cause you have the natural tendency

1:57:32spit it out, plus it's like moving around in your mouth, so it kind of accentuates it.

1:57:36Right. And so for those who are not long-time listeners, I years ago found out about a company

1:57:41called SodaStream that lets you make your own fizzy water at home, which is a true game

1:57:46changer, so that you're not buying bottles of Pellegrino or whatever.

1:57:50Perrier.

1:57:51Yeah, which is expensive, and it's a pain in the ass, and you end up with all these

1:57:55glass bottles. I could just make endless supplies of my own fizzy water. But I have the model

1:57:59I don't know if that's what they call it, the penguin,

1:58:01but it looks like a penguin.

1:58:03And I think I can't get my bottle out

1:58:05without doing a pressure release.

1:58:07But anyway.

1:58:09- The original, the Genesis is different.

1:58:11So, but yeah, but every time I'm on your podcast,

1:58:13we talk about blogger drinks.

1:58:16My favorite saying is, I think from you and Merlin,

1:58:20you can tell what time of day it is by what you're drinking.

1:58:23- Yes.

1:58:24(both laughing)

1:58:26- So usually I'm on whiskey now, but I'm just trying to take,

1:58:29I feel like I got a little tipsy last time

1:58:30I was on the podcast with you,

1:58:31so I'm trying to take it easy.

1:58:32- It was a holiday party.

1:58:33(laughing)

1:58:35- But the other thing is I feel like I've talked

1:58:37about utilities on the Mac,

1:58:39which is one of the reasons I make Mac great.

1:58:39- Yeah, but before we move on to that,

1:58:41I do have to say that the other thing is that,

1:58:42like right before Christmas, I did send you a link,

1:58:44I don't know if I can find it,

1:58:45but I sent you a link to somebody who is also a writer

1:58:50whose SodaStream blew up in his face.

1:58:52I mean, I don't mean to--

1:58:53- Right, no, that's a popular name, yeah.

1:58:55- But literally, it broke the glass.

1:58:57He had like shards of glass.

1:58:58I mean, it was all right, didn't go in his eye,

1:59:00but I mean, he really looked like he had been

1:59:02like in a terrible car accident or something.

1:59:04Like his face was all messed up

1:59:07and it scared the shit out of you.

1:59:08- It did, it did.

1:59:11'Cause it turned out it is this specific model

1:59:14and they don't sell it anymore.

1:59:16But I'm still powering through

1:59:17'cause I think I know how to release pressure,

1:59:19so I think it's okay.

1:59:20- And then the other thing you like to talk about

1:59:22are clipboard utilities.

1:59:24- Yeah, so I've talked about it almost every time.

1:59:26And I have a new update.

1:59:27I think I use something called copy and paste, which actually did have search.

1:59:30I said it didn't last time, but I have switched to paste spot, uh, by, by, uh,

1:59:36yeah, the tapouts guys make tweet bot and it's, it's fantastic.

1:59:41Uh, and I felt bad because he released it, I think at 20 bucks and then quickly

1:59:45lower the price, I think people thought it was too high or whatever I pay 20 bucks.

1:59:48I didn't ask for a refund because it's, it's fantastic work and it's, it's.

1:59:52It's, I mean, you can, not only do you have the pace generally clipboard history, but it has

2:00:00its conversion functions where you can convert from like HTML to plain text or to markdown or

2:00:06whatever it might be. Like totally built in is amazing. You can search just by typing. You have

2:00:10to click a search field, which I had to my old one to find an old clip. You can store clips. So I

2:00:16use it for customer support for Shrekery, where I just store emails that I send regularly.

2:00:22I just use that instead of... I was using TextExpander, but I don't really use TextExpander.

2:00:27I was only using it for text support basically anyway, and this is much better and nicer.

2:00:30Anyhow, I just want to say I've switched to Payspot. It's fantastic. And since I talk about

2:00:37it every time, I felt the need to update. I have it installed. I like it. It is my new...

2:00:42I was previously using Launch Bar's built-in clipboard

2:00:45manager, and I still use Launch Bar.

2:00:50But I've switched to Payspot, and I like it better.

2:00:56I still think Launch Bar's is my second favorite,

2:00:58but I like it.

2:00:59One of the little things they do that's nice

2:01:01is you bring it up with a little keyboard shortcut

2:01:04and then to start searching to not get one of your--

2:01:08you can just use the up and down arrows

2:01:10to get whichever one you want, and then you

2:01:12and it just pastes whichever one you want.

2:01:14But if you have one, like you said, that's older,

2:01:17I love the way that to search,

2:01:20you just start typing to search.

2:01:21- Right, there's no extra click or anything.

2:01:23- You don't have to click in the field,

2:01:24you don't have to hit tab to switch.

2:01:25You just start typing and it just switches to search

2:01:29and I find that to be incredibly useful.

2:01:32- Right, 'cause by far the biggest thing in my list is URLs.

2:01:35I just have tons and tons and tons of them.

2:01:37And generally speaking,

2:01:38if a site has relatively sane URLs,

2:01:41you can just start typing the general word.

2:01:42It finds it every time, it's fantastic.

2:01:45- Right, or it'll match a substring of it.

2:01:49You can type wiki and it'll just show,

2:01:54filter it down to the ones with Wikipedia links

2:01:56or something like that.

2:01:57- Right, exactly.

2:01:59- Or Verge or whatever, and it'll just filter down to that

2:02:02and you don't have to match from the beginning of the string

2:02:05or something like that.

2:02:07- Yeah, 'cause it'll do anywhere in the URL.

2:02:08So if the URL has the name of the article in the URL,

2:02:12like most sites do, like I'm looking at one here,

2:02:15like the ringer.com/wizders-auto-porter.

2:02:18You can remember I ran an article auto-porter,

2:02:20I start typing auto-porter, and it pops up right away,

2:02:23because it finds it in the middle of the string.

2:02:26- I feel like I haven't entirely internalized

2:02:29what PasteBot can do.

2:02:32Like, I understand it, but I haven't automated it.

2:02:35'Cause there's another feature it has,

2:02:36I forget what they call it,

2:02:37but you can copy three things and put it in,

2:02:41you can use a keyboard shortcut to put it

2:02:43into a certain mode where--

2:02:46- I've just started using that.

2:02:47'Cause yeah, it's a new thing,

2:02:48you have to teach yourself how to use it, right?

2:02:50But yeah, you enter a certain mode

2:02:51and you copy like 15 things in a row,

2:02:53and then you can paste them back in order.

2:02:56So I actually do use that,

2:02:57'cause I have corporate accounts,

2:02:59and I'll get like 20 names in a spreadsheet, right?

2:03:01And I want you to put them into my software to track them.

2:03:05So I'll just go through the spreadsheet

2:03:06and do name email address, name email address,

2:03:08and it'll all the way down the list.

2:03:09And then I switch to my other software and just,

2:03:11like just can just put them right in.

2:03:13- It's a great, great app.

2:03:14And if you don't have some sort of clipboard manager

2:03:18for your Mac, it really, you're missing out.

2:03:22- Yeah, why are you using a Mac?

2:03:23- Right, it's exactly, and it's the exact sort of thing

2:03:26that, again, I'm not disputing that there are people

2:03:31who are like, you know, totally power users

2:03:35who just use iPads exclusively

2:03:37and have moved away from the Mac.

2:03:40But it's the sort of thing that would keep me

2:03:41from ever being able to do that.

2:03:44Like I always feel slightly crippled on iOS,

2:03:49whether I'm on an iPhone or iPad,

2:03:51that I've only got one,

2:03:52just the most recent thing I've copied

2:03:54is the only thing I can paste.

2:03:56- Yep.

2:03:57- Whereas on the Mac, I can paste,

2:03:58I always feel like I can paste anything

2:04:01that I've done in the last few hours,

2:04:02I can still paste again.

2:04:04- Oh, totally, and it filters into your entire work

2:04:08for everywhere, like you just start copying stuff

2:04:09'cause you know you're gonna want it eventually.

2:04:12- That's true, I do that.

2:04:13- Yeah, and you know it's there, right?

2:04:15It's like your scratch pad that is just always present.

2:04:19Yeah, Clipboard Manager is by far my number one

2:04:24most essential utility and why I could never not use a PC.

2:04:28- All right, let me ask you this.

2:04:31I have not used PaySpot's ability to store frequently used snippets.

2:04:36When you do that, do you have to switch a mode or when you search, do they always…

2:04:41No, search.

2:04:42Yeah, so you can label them so they have regular things.

2:04:46So like if someone…

2:04:47Like I mentioned, the corporate things, right?

2:04:49So someone inquires about a corporate thing.

2:04:50I just type "corporate" and it immediately goes to my saved snippet.

2:04:55That's an entire email that explains the program that I have and et cetera, et cetera.

2:04:59I just see that right now.

2:05:00I see it. I see it with their little, they have like, they come, they ship with one called Creative Quotes,

2:05:05and I started searching for crazy one, crazy, and it just says, "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels."

2:05:10So it just shows up. Wow, that is incredible. I'm gonna start using that.

2:05:14Have you used the text conversion too?

2:05:16I don't. I don't. But I don't know what I would need to use it for.

2:05:20Oh, so I use it a lot, like, uh...

2:05:24So when I edit the Exponent podcasts, I always do the show notes in the text pane in Logic.

2:05:32This is actually where I end up using the most, just because it's there and I'm already in the app.

2:05:37But if you ever paste a link in, it just pastes with style, and I want to paste plain text.

2:05:43So if you go and paste spot, and there's a little filter thing, and you click it,

2:05:48and you can convert to plain text, convert to smart,

2:05:51you can do the convert to smart,

2:05:53uppercase, lowercase, title case,

2:05:55like this super powerful text conversion engine

2:05:59that is super easy to use.

2:06:00Like my old one had it,

2:06:02but you had to click into a specific mode and click a thing,

2:06:05whereas this is just,

2:06:06it's very straightforward in what to do.

2:06:08So you could basically do conversion operations on text

2:06:11that's on the clipboard as you're pasting it.

2:06:14- Yeah.

2:06:15I don't know why I never need that.

2:06:17I guess I always, I don't know.

2:06:19- You just live in plain text all the time?

2:06:20- Yeah, I just live in plain text,

2:06:21so it's never a problem for me.

2:06:22But I can see why it would be.

2:06:24- Yeah, if you're pasting into plain text editors,

2:06:26no problem, it's only if you're ever pasting

2:06:27into a stylized editor that it comes up.

2:06:32- Anything else you wanna talk about this week?

2:06:34I feel like that's a good show.

2:06:37- Yeah, I think it's a pretty solid show.

2:06:39We didn't really talk about the App Store,

2:06:40which it's fine, it's not that big a deal though.

2:06:42I mean, I'm still waiting on trials and upgrades.

2:06:46Yeah, the App Store changes--

2:06:48we can cover it in like a minute.

2:06:50I mean, more or less they've added--

2:06:52they announced this week with the upcoming--

2:06:55now shipping betas and the upcoming next point releases

2:06:59of iOS and Mac OS, they are adding the ability

2:07:04for developers to respond to reviews in the App Store.

2:07:08So in other words, if a user writes a review that says,

2:07:12I bought this app to do blah, blah, blah, and when I do it,

2:07:15it crashes, and the developer knows,

2:07:18oh, I know exactly what that bug is, I have a workaround.

2:07:21For the last 10 years, or nine years,

2:07:26the developer has been completely hamstrung

2:07:28'cause they have no way to respond,

2:07:29no way to contact that user, no way to post a response,

2:07:33even though they know exactly what it is

2:07:36that the user is complaining about.

2:07:38Or maybe the user says, I bought this app

2:07:40because I wanted to do X, Y, and Z,

2:07:44and the app only does X and Y.

2:07:45but it does do X, Y, and Z, but they just don't know how to do Z,

2:07:48and the developer knows exactly how to tell them how to do Z,

2:07:51now the developer can chime in and put a response in the App

2:07:54Store.

2:07:55So that's--

2:07:56This is what happens after nine years of the App Store,

2:07:59innovative features like this.

2:08:02And then the other change is on iOS, in particular,

2:08:06they are adding new APIs, official APIs,

2:08:10for developers to prompt the user

2:08:13to leave a review in the App Store.

2:08:15And it's got a limit of three.

2:08:18It's only right that we talk about this

2:08:20'cause this has been sort of a hobby horse of mine

2:08:21for a while.

2:08:22Three times per year or per 365 days.

2:08:28So it's not really like calendar based.

2:08:29That's the limit of how many times any particular app

2:08:34will be able to prompt you.

2:08:36And if you've already left a review

2:08:37within the last 365 days,

2:08:39it won't be able to prompt you at all,

2:08:41which is super welcome.

2:08:42The one app in particular that gets me on a weekly basis

2:08:47is fucking OpenTable.

2:08:49'Cause I use it because it's,

2:08:51I don't, I mean I don't wanna keep you here,

2:08:54we've been on the show for two hours,

2:08:55but I don't know how the hell OpenTable cornered this market.

2:08:58But they've cornered the entire market

2:09:00on making online reservations.

2:09:02And I use it because I hate making phone calls.

2:09:05I don't even like to call a restaurant

2:09:06to make a review of reservation.

2:09:09I just, I love using OpenTable,

2:09:11But the goddamn app, every fucking week,

2:09:14it asks me to leave a review.

2:09:15And I actually do what I always threaten to do with OpenTable,

2:09:19is every time they prompt me, I go and I go to the app store

2:09:22and I leave a review, and I complain that it's always

2:09:26badgering me for reviews.

2:09:27So here's your review, one star.

2:09:29And I give it one star.

2:09:31Arrogation theory, John.

2:09:33Arrogation theory.

2:09:33That's how OpenTable wins.

2:09:35I'm hoping that the ability to respond to reviews

2:09:38comes to podcasts, because there's this one review.

2:09:41There's this one review in the, well, you hope for it, especially, but there's this

2:09:45one review of Exponent that says they talk about topics that are too complex.

2:09:50It'd be better if they had a blog and it enrages me.

2:09:54Like, that's, that is amazing.

2:10:00I wish I could tell you that I wrote that review.

2:10:03I get, I get more people who email, like if they clearly didn't read the blog

2:10:10They just responded to the podcast and it's mildly irritating

2:10:13But that one in the iTunes store is just like it it's been there for like a year and it just drives me up the fucking

2:10:18wall

2:10:20I do think it it some sense. There's a way that you can complain say wow after nine years

2:10:26They're finally adding these things but I do think that in some sense. It's you know, it's only been a year since Schiller took over

2:10:33The app stores and it's they that they've sort of had an official like hey

2:10:40the buck stops here, leader.

2:10:42So, you know.

2:10:43- Yeah, it's the second meaningful change.

2:10:46I mean, because they did this description pricing

2:10:48in the summer.

2:10:49So, yeah, I still think, I mean, again,

2:10:51I will bang the trials and upgrade drum until they come.

2:10:56But, you know, and, you know,

2:11:00clearly there's an infrastructure issue here.

2:11:03Hopefully this means they're actually making changes.

2:11:08And those changes would by definition take time.

2:11:13Building software is hard,

2:11:16and building software that has to handle

2:11:18the App Store is really hard.

2:11:21So yeah, it's a good signal.

2:11:22It's a good signal, I think, is the biggest positive.

2:11:25- Yeah, that they actually are listening

2:11:32and they're doing something that developers

2:11:34have actually asked for for a long time.

2:11:35- Yeah, and I hope they change the resetting ratings thing,

2:11:36Because right now, if you're a developer,

2:11:37you're incentivized to not update your app

2:11:39if you have good ratings.

2:11:41Because to update your app resets the ratings,

2:11:43and that's the exact wrong incentive Apple should want.

2:11:46They should want developers fixing bugs,

2:11:47updating their apps.

2:11:49And so that's something that I hope they take care of.

2:11:53- Yeah, it's two incentive problems.

2:11:55Where one, if you already have a version

2:11:58that has a bunch of great reviews and ratings,

2:12:01you're incentivized not to update it

2:12:03even with a minor bug fix.

2:12:04And second, if you do issue regular minor updates,

2:12:08which in theory is a good thing

2:12:10because you're fixing bugs on a regular basis

2:12:12or making small improvements on a regular basis,

2:12:15you're incentivized to keep asking people for reviews

2:12:17because every time you update one,

2:12:18you have to get new reviews. - Right, exactly, yep.

2:12:20- So I asked them about it.

2:12:22I spoke to someone at Apple about it,

2:12:25and they did not have a good answer.

2:12:28They did not have an official answer to that,

2:12:30but they completely acknowledged

2:12:32that they are well aware of the fact that this is not right.

2:12:37So I'm optimistic that sometime, maybe by WWDC,

2:12:43maybe they'll have an answer to that.

2:12:45That some--

2:12:46- They should just give the developer the option.

2:12:48Ask them if they want to reset the ratings or not.

2:12:50- That-- - If they invested

2:12:52to do a new app, they got a new developer,

2:12:54let them reset it.

2:12:55And if they have a great rating, let them keep it.

2:12:57- That's a pretty good answer.

2:12:59'Cause then what's the worst case scenario there?

2:13:01a shitty app that keeps getting bad reviews

2:13:04and the developer keeps resetting it.

2:13:05Well, that's the same situation that they, you know,

2:13:08that's no worse than the current situation.

2:13:10- Exactly.

2:13:11- Whereas a good developer with a quality app

2:13:14that has quality reviews,

2:13:16yeah, I think you just solved the problem.

2:13:21That's actually pretty smart.

2:13:23I wish I had thought of that.

2:13:25- Well, that's what happens at 2.30 in the morning.

2:13:27- I'm gonna steal that and put that on Darren Fireball.

2:13:30- Go ahead.

2:13:30Alright, Ben Thompson, I cannot thank you enough for your time. I wish your Packers

2:13:36the best of luck in the upcoming Super Bowl.

2:13:39Ah, that's not funny. By the way, the website, the blog is Stratechery.com for those who

2:13:47only listen to podcasts.

2:13:49Stratechery.

2:13:50Yeah, Stratechery.

2:13:51Stratechery. Whatever you want to call it.

2:13:53Just Google Ben Thompson.

2:13:54Exactly.

2:13:55- No, that's exactly what I do and it works.

2:13:59- It will come up.

2:14:00You've got a terrific newsletter

2:14:02I look forward to getting every single day.

2:14:04And you're a fine presence on Twitter @BenThompson.

2:14:11- That's me.

2:14:13- Thank you, Ben.

2:14:16Oh, my thanks to our sponsors.

2:14:18I should thank our sponsors.

2:14:19We've got Casper, Go Buy a Mattress.

2:14:20We've got Eero, get yourself a mesh network Wi-Fi thing

2:14:24in your house and away, get yourself a new suitcase.