0:00:00Ah, happy new year, Jim. First show of the year.
0:00:04Yeah, happy new year.
0:00:06Did you have a good new year?
0:00:08It was very quiet. My son was here, and we just did, you know, father-son things, picked up the guitar, played some Aussie, Metallica, you know, things every father and son does.
0:00:21(laughing)
0:00:23We went out to dinner with friends early.
0:00:26So, 'cause New Year's Eve, I think New Year's Eve sucks.
0:00:30It's the worst, right?
0:00:31It's like you're young and you just think,
0:00:34well everybody goes out on New Year's Eve,
0:00:35so I'm going out, and you go out.
0:00:37And I don't remember ever having a good time
0:00:40on New Year's Eve.
0:00:41It's always crowded.
0:00:42The only time I ever remember having a good time
0:00:43on New Year's Eve, and it's very funny,
0:00:45because sometimes it's like the security question
0:00:47on your bank or whatever, they're like,
0:00:49Where were you on New Year's Eve 1999?
0:00:52- Yeah.
0:00:52- And I remember that one because we had friends
0:00:55in town here in Philly from Florida.
0:00:57And we just stayed in me and Amy's place for the evening.
0:01:02And then before midnight, we went down to,
0:01:05there's a park called Penn's Landing.
0:01:07Wasn't too, not too far of a walk.
0:01:10And it was an unusually warm New Year's Eve for Philadelphia.
0:01:14So it wasn't like we were real cold.
0:01:15We just took a bottle of champagne with us
0:01:17have fireworks, and we watched fireworks, and it was very nice. But in other words,
0:01:20we didn't spend any money, we didn't have to wait in line anywhere, we didn't have to wait for a cab,
0:01:24we didn't have to drive anywhere, we just walked.
0:01:26Pete: Yes, if anybody asked me where were you on this New Year's Eve, I could just quickly say home.
0:01:33I just, I, you know, it's so expensive to go out on New Year's Eve.
0:01:38Pete; It's like three times more expensive than like, if you go out on December 30th, right?
0:01:42Right, right. And you know, it's even worse if you have kids, because then, you know,
0:01:47you have to pay like $10,000 for a babysitter, and you know, then you have the exorbitantly
0:01:55priced dinner and drinks that you have to go for, and it just, it's the same thing
0:02:00every year, and I'd rather watch—I didn't even make it up 'til midnight. I fell asleep.
0:02:06[Laughter]
0:02:07Yeah, I mean—
0:02:08I remember a couple years ago, Amy and I went out.
0:02:11I don't remember if it was recent enough
0:02:13that we could just leave Jonas at home
0:02:15or if we had Amy's sister come and watch.
0:02:17I think we probably had her sister come and watch him.
0:02:20So we went out to one of our favorite restaurants
0:02:23and we went late so that we could ostensibly be there
0:02:28at midnight, you know, so it was a real late dinner,
0:02:30maybe like 10 o'clock dinner,
0:02:31stayed and did the countdown
0:02:34with the restaurant full of people.
0:02:36And of course it was more expensive than usual
0:02:38and it wasn't as good because I feel like it was too crowded.
0:02:43Dinner was just slightly off.
0:02:44It wasn't bad, but slightly off.
0:02:46And then we leave, and we're like, I don't know.
0:02:48It's like a mile and a half from our house.
0:02:50We're right here in Center City, Philadelphia.
0:02:52But it's cold, and Amy had heels on.
0:02:55She's not going to walk, but we couldn't get a cab.
0:02:57Just couldn't get a cab because it's New Year's Eve,
0:03:00and it was just past midnight.
0:03:02Could not get a cab.
0:03:04So we thought, hey, let's just go to a hotel
0:03:09right down the street.
0:03:10There's a hotel, they have a nice bar.
0:03:11We'll go there, we'll have one more drink,
0:03:13and then by the time we're done, there'll be plenty of cabs.
0:03:15We go in, and it's only like 20 after midnight.
0:03:17And the hotel bar is just closed.
0:03:20It's just completely shut down,
0:03:21and it's like, 'cause they want everybody out, right?
0:03:24Like ordinarily, they would never be closed
0:03:26at 12, you know, 12 midnight.
0:03:28They'd be open till like two.
0:03:29But they're closed 'cause they want everybody out
0:03:31because everybody's a drunken mass.
0:03:33So we started walking home and her feet are hurting
0:03:37and eventually a cab comes by.
0:03:39And we're only like four blocks from our house.
0:03:41And I'm like, I don't care, I'll still get a cab.
0:03:43Her feet hurt.
0:03:43And the guy just rolls down his window, the cab driver,
0:03:46and he just says, "Where you going?"
0:03:48And I told him our address.
0:03:50He knows it's only four blocks from where we are.
0:03:53And he goes, "30 bucks."
0:03:56- Oh my God.
0:03:58- And it's gonna be off the meter.
0:03:59And I was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe this."
0:04:01But if it was my feet that hurt, I would say,
0:04:05go fuck yourself.
0:04:06But it's Amy, and I'm like, all right, all right.
0:04:08I paid $30 to four blocks and a cab.
0:04:11We haven't gone out on New Year's Eve since.
0:04:13- Yeah, I don't blame you.
0:04:15- No, so we went out early, like 5.30,
0:04:18to dinner with some friends in Chinatown.
0:04:20And a guy knows a guy.
0:04:24And so it wasn't like a fancy,
0:04:25you would never even know it was New Year's Eve.
0:04:28Well, you know, a couple of friends of mine came over for a little bit and they brought,
0:04:38you know, like a pot of pulled pork and some buns, you know?
0:04:47And we had that, but that was about it.
0:04:51Still, I didn't make it till midnight.
0:04:53I was kicking the milk.
0:04:54Get out.
0:04:55Get out.
0:04:56I'm gonna go to bed.
0:04:58I'll bet you're grumpy when you have to go to bed.
0:05:01I'm grumpy when I have to go to bed and when I haven't eaten.
0:05:05I've seen you when you're hungry. You're not a good man.
0:05:11Yeah, we ended up at
0:05:14What's that place in San Francisco? The house of meat or something?
0:05:20House of prime rib.
0:05:21The house of prime rib, yeah.
0:05:23Is that where you went?
0:05:24Or did I wasn't me and you when you were hungry? Yeah. Yeah, I remember that you were in a bad mood
0:05:28Yeah, I was
0:05:31Well, they take care of you as a primary. They don't leave hungry. No, no
0:05:36So, I don't know that's you know, it's New Year's there's not a lot of news to talk about we got like year and review stuff
0:05:43we could talk about I
0:05:45Don't know if you wanted to start anything
0:05:48I saw this and this to me is one of those topics where I know it
0:05:51It's like opinions are all over the map and I know that some people
0:05:54Think that I'm off my rocker on this which is the question of where does Siri stand compared to its competitors like Google?
0:06:02assistant and Alexa from Amazon
0:06:06And I linked to a piece
0:06:09Was this guy was his name?
0:06:15this guy at birchtree.com where he did a study. He did 50 commands with Siri and
0:06:21Google Assistant, the exact same commands, and Siri actually did better on more of
0:06:26them than Google Assistant, which does not surprise me.
0:06:32And I think the bottom line is that none of these things are actually good. Siri
0:06:35is not good. Google Assistant is not good. Alexa is not good. All of these things
0:06:40stink. And like 10 years from now, we're gonna look back at the state of all these
0:06:44things and they're like ridiculous they're like it's it's it's such early
0:06:48days and they're they all fail in such frustrating ways compared to like even
0:06:54if you had a bad human a personal assistant like a personal assistant
0:06:59you're like I should fire this person hire somebody else there but they're
0:07:04there they're like it no human being is as stupid or as frustrating as these
0:07:11things are overall in terms of like if you're talking about a certain topic and
0:07:15then you're like well go get me one of those and they're like what you know you
0:07:19can't you just can't talk to them the way you really want to and we will it's
0:07:22clear that that's what we're working towards but I thought that this guy's
0:07:25thing and then I of course because people are very angry about Siri people
0:07:29this is like an emotional topic people I don't that's one thing I don't get like
0:07:35I and I'm not emotional about it and I know that there are some people in there
0:07:39you know, they think that because I tend to like Apple products, I write about
0:07:43Apple, that they think I just that I'm somehow like a home team cheerleader for
0:07:48Siri. I really don't think so. I think Siri stinks. I just think the other ones
0:07:53stink too, and that in some ways Siri is better in ways that are meaningful to me.
0:07:59But people... one of the things people said about this guy's study was that he was
0:08:04using on an Android device, but he was using Google Allo to do the queries, and you type
0:08:11it's like a little chatbot, so it's sort of like typing it in iMessage.
0:08:15So instead of dictating it verbally, he's typing, and they're saying that the argument
0:08:19is that that's not a fair comparison because the real Google Assistant is a voice-driven
0:08:24thing and it's only available on the Pixel phones, and he didn't have a Pixel phone,
0:08:28so I don't know.
0:08:30me it's about what you want to use it for. That's what it comes down to for me. So,
0:08:37Siri, and I said this yesterday about, you know, all of the things that are showing up at CES about
0:08:45Alexa, you know, that to me, Siri is the assistant that you carry with you. It's your mobile
0:08:53Assistant. But Apple doesn't seem to be taking those steps for the home. So if you want,
0:09:01you know, an assistant in the home, that right now that seems to be Alexa.
0:09:06Ted
0:09:06Ted Matt Burchler is the name of the guy who wrote this story. I'll put it in the show notes.
0:09:10The difference between Google Assistant and Siri. And what he did is he made a video about it,
0:09:14which I think was a very useful way of doing it, where you can actually see the results live.
0:09:18Pete: Yeah, I just, I mean, it's, what, what Amazon is doing right now is very smart.
0:09:26Pete: Yeah.
0:09:26Pete; I mean, they're getting Alexa into as many products as they can
0:09:30so that they just become the default. And it's a very smart thing to do.
0:09:35Pete; Yeah, I wrote about this recently where there was an announcement that
0:09:42the win Las Vegas is gonna put Alexa or the Echo
0:09:46into all 4,800 of their hotel rooms in their Vegas property.
0:09:51And that, however much you wanna say
0:09:55that this home device stuff is early days,
0:09:59hey, 5,000 hotel rooms here, 5,000 hotel rooms there,
0:10:03and all of a sudden you've got a sustained lead.
0:10:05'Cause things like that don't get replaced that often.
0:10:08It's like, how long did it take hotel rooms
0:10:11to get rid of the 30 pin chargers on their alarm clocks.
0:10:14(laughing)
0:10:15I mean, seriously, it's, every once in a while,
0:10:18I don't know the last time I saw one of those,
0:10:20but until recently I occasionally would.
0:10:23The alarm clock would have the 30 pin charger.
0:10:25I mean, that's like, what, five, six years old?
0:10:29In terms of the last time you could buy an iPhone
0:10:30that had one of those?
0:10:31Win puts 5,000 of these Alexa things in there
0:10:36and hooks up all of the lights
0:10:38and 4,000 rooms full of lights and shades
0:10:42and the window blinds to Alexa, they're
0:10:45not going to replace it with another device next year.
0:10:49Nope.
0:10:51And so it seemed-- how would you summarize
0:10:52the news coming out of CES?
0:10:55You wrote this-- you got the story on your site.
0:10:57Alexa is everywhere.
0:10:58I'll put that in the show notes.
0:10:59Yeah, I just never liked CES, to be honest with you.
0:11:04Did you ever go?
0:11:05I did.
0:11:06Yeah, I went for a few years.
0:11:08And it's just craziness because a lot of the stuff
0:11:13that you see at CES aren't real products.
0:11:19- Right.
0:11:20- And it's difficult to really assess what's happening
0:11:25in terms of consumer electronics when, you know,
0:11:3180% of the products aren't real or 70% or 60%, you know,
0:11:36They're bringing proof of concept things to CES
0:11:41to see how people react to them.
0:11:43So the news out of CES to me is just always,
0:11:49every year is just kinda, eh.
0:11:51- Well, how would you summarize the Alexa news?
0:11:54- Well, the Alexa news I find very interesting
0:11:58not because of Alexa,
0:12:00but because everybody is choosing that platform.
0:12:04And--
0:12:07Well, and partially because it's--
0:12:10it's a story done on your site, The Loop.
0:12:12Dave Mark wrote it, that they're following the Netflix strategy
0:12:16of trying to embed Alexa everywhere that they can,
0:12:19in a way that Netflix seemingly--
0:12:23if you've got a box that makes video come out of it,
0:12:26Netflix is going to do--
0:12:29is willing to put a Netflix app on that box.
0:12:32I mean, can you buy a video box
0:12:35that doesn't come with Netflix?
0:12:36I don't even know if you can.
0:12:38- I don't know, it's everywhere.
0:12:41I mean, it's even on Comcast now, that Xfinity thing.
0:12:45- Right.
0:12:46- So yeah, it's everywhere.
0:12:47- Yeah, I had a relative who had that
0:12:50with their Comcast thing, and that blew me away.
0:12:52It really surprised me that Comcast would do that,
0:12:55'cause you would kinda think Comcast wants
0:12:57to keep you tied to the cable channels.
0:13:00- Yeah.
0:13:01Yeah, so there's like other companies, among the things I've seen is that there are other
0:13:08companies coming out with Echo-like docs.
0:13:11Some of them, who was the one who was working with like Harman Kardon to make really, you
0:13:15know, like a really good speaker.
0:13:17So if you're, if you're gripe about the Amazon Echo is, "Hey, I want one of these things.
0:13:26I would get the Amazon version, but I really want better sound quality than this."
0:13:30they've instead of doing it themselves,
0:13:32they've just licensed the Alexa technology
0:13:36to these other companies.
0:13:38But other things too though,
0:13:39like Ford Motor Company announced
0:13:43that they're gonna put Alexa into their cars.
0:13:45I don't know, it just seems like
0:13:49they're running away with this.
0:13:51- Do you have a voice assistant at home?
0:13:55Do you have Google or Alexa?
0:13:57- I have the Alexa thing in the kitchen
0:13:59and we never use it.
0:14:00But on the other hand, no, we really don't, honest to God.
0:14:03I got it so I could try it, and it just
0:14:06felt like a reasonable business expense,
0:14:08and maybe we would like it.
0:14:10But one thing is we don't have any smart light bulbs
0:14:15or anything like that.
0:14:16We don't have any smart anything in the house,
0:14:18because we're moving somewhat soon, supposedly.
0:14:21That's a long story.
0:14:22But it doesn't make any sense to buy stuff like that
0:14:24for the place we live now.
0:14:26And everybody I know who does like Alexa, like Ben Thompson
0:14:29really likes it, has stuff in the house where you can say things like, "Turn out the kitchen
0:14:35lights," or whatever. But we don't have anything like that. And for the stuff I do do, it doesn't
0:14:42work as well as Siri for me. I can't stand the way—usually, I've said this before
0:14:47on the show, I don't want to be a broken record, but a lot of times, all I care about,
0:14:51especially when I'm in our kitchen, our kitchen has windows, so I can see what the weather's
0:14:55like. I can see if it's raining or sunny or whatever. All I want to know is the temperature.
0:14:59outside and Alexa if you say what's the temperature get she she understands it
0:15:03but all she does is give you a full weather report for the day which I don't
0:15:07want it takes like 30 seconds and if you ask Siri for the temperature she just
0:15:12tells you the temperature hmm but that will mean that leads me to something
0:15:18that I want to complain about Siri alright so with Siri when you ask the
0:15:24temperature if it I don't know what the threshold is but somewhere around the
0:15:28freezing maybe it's like under 40 degrees Fahrenheit or so she answers with
0:15:35Burr and then tells you the temperature every every goddamn time and this to me
0:15:44is one of the worst things about Siri like the cuteness of trying to be funny
0:15:48like when you don't if you're not asking her to be funny because it's not funny
0:15:52That's not funny at all.
0:15:54It's funny to me.
0:15:55Well, but no human being would do that.
0:16:00Like if I had a real human assistant, they never... And they knew the temperature.
0:16:05They would never say, "Brr, it's 33 degrees." And if they did, they would do it once.
0:16:12And maybe only in the context of a surprisingly cold day.
0:16:17Like if it was the middle of September and the temperature dropped to an unusual degree,
0:16:21you could say something like that.
0:16:23But on the East Coast in Philadelphia in January,
0:16:27it's completely normal for it to be 33 degrees.
0:16:29There's nothing unusual about it at all.
0:16:32And so it's not funny.
0:16:33It's just annoying.
0:16:35Every time.
0:16:36Right.
0:16:37And it's-- you know what I mean?
0:16:41I don't want my computers to work like that.
0:16:43I realize that the conversational nature of Siri
0:16:45is a little different than using the Mac.
0:16:48But it's like if I make a new numbers spreadsheet
0:16:54and I title it like 2016 Daring Fireball Company Expenses,
0:17:03because I'm getting ready to go get my taxes done,
0:17:05I don't want the computer, when I hit Return on saving the file,
0:17:08to say tax time again, huh?
0:17:11Yeah.
0:17:12Right?
0:17:13I don't want my computer making weird, obvious duh comments
0:17:17like that. But yet Siri does. Just tell me the goddamn temperature.
0:17:21Are they trying to make Siri more, I don't know, friendly? I mean,
0:17:27Yeah, but that's not friendly, though. To me, I guess that's obviously the intent,
0:17:31is to try to make it friendly. But it's not because it's so phony because it's every day,
0:17:35every single day. Right? And that, to me, has the opposite effect, where it just makes it seem
0:17:41It's more artificial than if she just said 33 degrees, you know, going down to whatever.
0:17:48Right.
0:17:49I find it incredibly annoying.
0:17:53But then on the other side, you have Alexa giving you full weather forecast when all you want is the
0:18:00temperature. The thing with this Alexa everywhere is I don't quite know how it's going to tie into
0:18:06to being personal in terms of,
0:18:10like Amazon just doesn't know that much about me.
0:18:14And you can do things like say,
0:18:16add to my shopping list,
0:18:19and it's just like your Amazon shopping list,
0:18:21but it's like,
0:18:22and I think there's a way you can hook up
0:18:24your Google Calendar, but I don't use Google Calendar.
0:18:27So Siri has an advantage on things like access
0:18:31to my actual calendar that Alexa's never going to have.
0:18:34- Right.
0:18:36I don't think, like, Alexa can't send the text messages or iMessages, though it's certainly
0:18:40not iMessages, and I don't think it can send text messages. So, I don't know, it seems more about
0:18:49information and controlling, like, just controlling your environment with the lights and playing music
0:18:54than about being a real personal assistant. Pete: Well, and I'm the same way as you. I don't have
0:19:01the light bulbs and I don't, but I, when I think of a personal assistant in the home,
0:19:06I think of having something that will be more interactive with me and my surroundings than
0:19:16what anything is right now. Maybe that's why I don't really, I haven't gone out and purchased
0:19:22one of these because it doesn't really do anything besides answer questions. You know, I mean,
0:19:29I don't know. Merlin loves his. Ben Thompson does, too.
0:19:39I don't know. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. Right now, if I sat down now, and even if there was a
0:19:50sale on Alexa this afternoon, I don't think I'd buy one. Because I just don't think it's going to
0:19:58do a whole lot for me. I mean look at the Google commercial about the you know the little boy that's
0:20:02saying trying to make the dog disappear. Right. And he's trying to figure out what the magic word is.
0:20:08I mean that's cute but it really didn't do anything. So I don't know I keep coming back to this
0:20:18solve a problem thing. How much is Alexa solving a problem? Right now none. The new products
0:20:27it may, but I just don't see what it's doing for me that is so great that I just can't do it myself.
0:20:39I see how eventually it will. I think eventually it's going to be amazing. I really do. I think
0:20:46if you could just tell your assistant, "Hey, I'm flying to San Francisco on these dates. What
0:20:57are my choices for flights from American Airlines?" And then have Siri come back in a couple of seconds
0:21:05and just have an ordered list of direct flights from Philly
0:21:09to San Francisco, that would be fantastic.
0:21:12Isn't that what that new one did that Samsung bought?
0:21:17Yeah, sort of.
0:21:19But again, I think that's a lot like CES, where Viv--
0:21:22and Viv was-- that's the one that's
0:21:23created by the people who originally created Siri.
0:21:27So they have a track record.
0:21:28It's not like they don't have a track record.
0:21:33But I don't think, I think it was sort of a proof of concept, you know, like when they demoed it.
0:21:38I don't think it was a real, you know, it really couldn't do the things that they were showing.
0:21:43But that's, that's where they, where they're going with it.
0:21:49Right.
0:21:50You know, it seemed, and this is, I mean, when everybody saw that, we all, you know, everybody freaked out because
0:21:58Siri couldn't do those things, but we don't know that Siri can't do those things
0:22:03I just know that the Siri that we have can't right so we're very
0:22:07quick to
0:22:10Jump on Apple and say that they're not doing things but Siri could do viv right now and in you know the prototype models
0:22:18Bottom line for me is not that again not that Siri is behind these other companies
0:22:24but that they all still stink overall. And they're better. But they're very different at different
0:22:29things. One of the things that most people really praise Alexa for is that once you know exactly
0:22:35what to say to it, it'll get it every time. And the response time, turnaround response time,
0:22:41is faster for a lot of people with Alexa in terms of how long do you have to wait.
0:22:46The thing that matters, the reason it all matters, and a perfect example of why it matters is AirPods,
0:22:52right? Because Siri is a big part of AirPods. And I know my wife loves her. She really,
0:22:58really loves them. And she switched from Siri to having double tap play/pause because she finds the
0:23:04need to pause without taking it out a lot. And so she even tweeted that switching it to play/pause
0:23:11was a game changer. It really made her... That preference setting made her go from mostly liking
0:23:19AirPods to loving AirPods. I set mine like that, you know, a day after I had them in when I figured
0:23:26out how to change that setting. I've kept it on Siri almost since... I had it on PlayPods for a
0:23:33little bit, but I like taking it out, and usually it works for me. You know, not works like
0:23:39functioning works, but in practical terms, it's fine for me to just take it out to PlayPods.
0:23:45So I keep it on Siri. So I use the Siri a lot. But the biggest annoyance for me is the pause
0:23:53between when I double tap it and when I get the prompt. And I'm so, what's the word, impatient,
0:24:03that a lot of times I'll start saying what I want to say before it's actually listening. The
0:24:09accuracy is probably, it's probably the most accurate Siri product I know. And I don't know
0:24:14if that's because the microphone is right there, you know, so close to my mouth. I don't know if
0:24:20it's because there's two of them. I don't know if, you know, like if they're doing funny stuff like
0:24:25getting it out of the bones in my ear or whatever. But it's very, very accurate.
0:24:30When I dictate into AirPods, the accuracy is the highest of any product. But that pause between
0:24:39the second tap and when it's actually listening is infuriating.
0:24:43Yeah, I do the same thing as you. It's like when it's on Bluetooth in the car.
0:24:49Have you tried that? It's on Bluetooth in the car and you press it and there's this long
0:24:54pause and I've already started talking just out of habit. And the pause is even longer than normal.
0:25:00Yeah.
0:25:01And I get that, you know, it's because it's over Bluetooth and it's kind of connecting as a phone
0:25:07call or however it does it, but still it's not optimal.
0:25:12I think that it's the number one way that Siri needs to improve is response time.
0:25:17Beyond any, just don't even get into the what Siri can do
0:25:22and the accuracy and whatever, but getting the response time as close to zero as possible
0:25:27I think is essential. And I think in all of computing people recognize that that's
0:25:32It doesn't matter what field you were in.
0:25:33Eventually, anything where there's a delay,
0:25:38if you don't get rid of that delay, the product falls by the wayside.
0:25:43I remember back when we had floppy disks, when you'd hit Command-S,
0:25:46you'd have to wait a bit for the--
0:25:48just for a word processing file to save, right?
0:25:50And you'd hear the floppy going--
0:25:52Oh, my.
0:25:55Right?
0:25:55You'd have to wait.
0:25:56But you don't have to wait anymore.
0:25:58Well, now it does it automatically.
0:26:00So that's the whole thing.
0:26:02We know that this is going to be a lot different
0:26:07in the coming years.
0:26:08It's just right now I have difficulty finding
0:26:13the usefulness for all of this stuff.
0:26:18Here's another example, Apple Maps.
0:26:21It's very cool, it really is.
0:26:24But if you're going somewhere where you don't know,
0:26:28Apple maps will will just say
0:26:32in a half a mile
0:26:35turn left
0:26:38whereas Google Maps is
0:26:40More
0:26:44Interactive more friendly more detailed Google Maps will say in half a mile use the left two lanes
0:26:53Turn left
0:26:56Okay, you know now I know what my options are or if you're coming to one of those
0:27:01Intersections on the the freeway, you know, Google Maps will say, you know in in one mile
0:27:07Use the right two lanes to take the exit here then keep left, you know
0:27:13Then use the left lane to keep left. I that's useful. Yeah, that is very useful. Yeah to just say
0:27:22Keep right and then a lot of times there's a fork in the road when you keep right and then it says now keep left
0:27:28You know, it doesn't it doesn't say
0:27:31Everything that you need I think to be
0:27:34To allow you to be as successful in in your journey, so I love Apple Maps, I think it's great
0:27:43It's very cool interface it
0:27:48You know for the most part it gives great directions. The directions are basically the same
0:27:53They're just more detailed in areas that you don't know to allow you and I I actually used it
0:27:59Christmas Day I went to visit a friend and I've only had only been to their house one time before and
0:28:07I had been playing around I of course like we all do we play around with the apps all the time
0:28:15and I was playing around with with Google Maps and I used it and
0:28:19It clued into me how much that mattered that little detail mattered in areas where?
0:28:27I didn't know where I was going. So that that's a situation where
0:28:33Yeah, this actually did help solve a problem for me. You know, I wasn't turning into the middle lane and
0:28:42Then waiting for Apple Maps to say which way I have to turn right but or something
0:28:46You know it is humane as saying when it when if it tells you you can be in either of the two left lanes
0:28:51And you're already in
0:28:53Like the one closer to the center then you know you're already good
0:28:56And you don't have to worry about merging one more lane over just because you know you have to make a left
0:29:00That's actually very useful information
0:29:01And it's the sort of thing that once you're familiar with with a with a route to a certain
0:29:06You just do that your brain does that automatically you're like oh, yeah
0:29:10I know I'm good. There's two lanes that go right here, because it's a busy exit.
0:29:13Pete: Yeah. And actually, after I make that left turn, I have to make an immediate right,
0:29:18so, you know, I better stay in the, you know, the second most left lane, because that's where I'll
0:29:25want to turn. And see, those are just the types of things that I, when I talk about the usefulness,
0:29:32that to me is very useful. And I really like that.
0:29:36All right, let me take a break here and thank
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0:31:49All right, what about this?
0:31:51There was a really good article by Chuck von Rossbach.
0:31:55He called it Apple's 2016 Year in Review,
0:31:58and I thought it was really thoughtful.
0:31:59I didn't agree with everything that he wrote,
0:32:00But that's the way the world works.
0:32:04But I thought he made a couple of good points, in particular,
0:32:06on the airport base stations and the Mac Pro lineups,
0:32:11in particular.
0:32:15And the thing that both of these products have in common--
0:32:17I mean, obviously, the Mac Pro is a very expensive product.
0:32:20It's core to a lot of people's relationship with Apple.
0:32:23If you're a professional that has a need for a Mac Pro,
0:32:26that's probably the most important thing
0:32:28that Apple makes for you.
0:32:30Very expensive too.
0:32:31I guess it's Apple's most expensive product, right?
0:32:34I mean, I can't imagine that there's anything else
0:32:36that's more expensive than a tripped out Mac Pro.
0:32:40The airport base stations are not.
0:32:41They're sort of a other, I don't even know what category
0:32:44they put them in on the Apple website,
0:32:45but it's sort of like a little peripheral
0:32:47and they're not very expensive
0:32:49and it's just sort of, just a way to keep you
0:32:52in the Apple ecosystem and to make sure
0:32:55that you have an Apple-like experience
0:32:57setting up Wi-Fi in your house where you get a nice little app
0:33:01on your phone, and it's very easy
0:33:03to understand how to set it up from a consumer's
0:33:06point of view.
0:33:07And because if you're using an Apple Airport,
0:33:10you know that things like back to your Mac or whatever
0:33:15should work.
0:33:17Features, the way that the features
0:33:19that Apple has for the products that
0:33:21operate over the internet.
0:33:24Presumably, they're going to work better with,
0:33:27or at least as they're expected to
0:33:28with an airport base station.
0:33:30But the thing with both of these products
0:33:31is they are terribly out of date.
0:33:33And they're still, but yet Apple is still selling them
0:33:36at the same prices as when they came out.
0:33:38And I don't know, and there was a story,
0:33:41Gurman had a story a couple months ago
0:33:42that Apple is getting out of the airport game
0:33:46and that they've reassigned the engineers
0:33:48who were previously working on airport base stations
0:33:50to other teams.
0:33:51So I don't, who knows what's going on there?
0:33:54- Yeah, you know what's interesting about 2016
0:33:58is that the products that had the least amount of updates
0:34:03are the ones that is getting the most amount of news.
0:34:07The Mac didn't have a lot of updates,
0:34:13especially the Mac Pro and iMac,
0:34:16but that's what everybody's talking about.
0:34:22I don't think that they're abandoning the Mac.
0:34:25- Well, I don't, we can get to the Mac in a bit
0:34:27and I don't think so either.
0:34:29But with the airport, it's a simpler story, I think.
0:34:32Well, it has to be because it's either they're,
0:34:35it's a simpler product.
0:34:38Do you think Apple should still be making
0:34:40the airport base stations?
0:34:43- I would love for them to still make airport base stations
0:34:46'cause I think that they're good.
0:34:51I guess the argument against it is
0:34:54that there are plenty of other companies that make just fine
0:34:57products.
0:34:58So there's no way for Apple to really stand out.
0:35:04Apple should focus on the products
0:35:07that they can build that are best in class.
0:35:10Like the iPhone, in my opinion, is far and away the best phone
0:35:14that you can buy.
0:35:15And to me, it's not even close.
0:35:17And the difference is, even if you
0:35:19disagree that it's the best, you can certainly
0:35:21it's different because it's the only phone that runs iOS and iOS is a huge thing.
0:35:25The only reason I think that Apple is not best in class in the products that it builds is because
0:35:31those are the products that it's not focusing on. I mean, there was a time when the airport
0:35:35time machine, time capsule, they were best.
0:35:42Yeah, they were definitely, I thought, especially when you take into consideration not just how
0:35:46how they function once set up,
0:35:49but the setup process itself.
0:35:51'Cause I remember the one time, at one point,
0:35:54I did have a, I forget if it was Linksys,
0:35:59I think it was a Linksys.
0:36:00And it was ridiculous how you configured the thing.
0:36:04It was like you had to go to a special,
0:36:06turn it on and you'd point your web browser
0:36:09on your computer to a certain IP address
0:36:10that wasn't outside, it was right there on the Linksys
0:36:15and type a password, and it was like nobody ever changed
0:36:18the password.
0:36:19You could, I did of course, but most people didn't,
0:36:22and it was like, it's stupid, it was like the password
0:36:25was like admin or something like that.
0:36:26- Yeah. - And then you'd configure it
0:36:29in your web browser, and it was like,
0:36:31you really had to be like a low level network engineer
0:36:35to understand what anything meant.
0:36:37It was really, really difficult.
0:36:38And whereas right from the get-go,
0:36:42airport, you'd configure it with a really nice app on your Mac
0:36:46that was just like everything else.
0:36:48It was easy Mac-style interface to configure this stuff.
0:36:52I don't know that that's-- they're not alone in that,
0:36:54though.
0:36:55And they have-- I will just say this just as a full disclosure.
0:37:01Eero has sponsored the talk show a couple of times.
0:37:04They're not a sponsor this week.
0:37:06I don't think they're coming up soon either.
0:37:08But they have sponsored the site.
0:37:10And they gave me as part of the sponsorship,
0:37:12three-pack of euros, so the euros I have set up here are, you know, were complementary as part of
0:37:17the sponsorship package. It's better, and I have a couple of friends who I know also have
0:37:23euros set up. I haven't heard from one of them who didn't get a better network in their house
0:37:30after switching from like airport, or some of them weren't even using airport before,
0:37:36but whatever they did, that euro gives them a better, you know, their house has better,
0:37:39faster internet now. Take a speed test with your old internet, take it out, put the Eros
0:37:47in, take another speed test, and you get better results. And they have a nice ad. I don't
0:37:53know that Apple could do better than Eros. I really don't. I think they could do as good,
0:37:56but I don't know that they can do better. And I know there's a couple of other companies
0:38:00that are doing the same thing with these mesh networks, where you have a couple of devices
0:38:05around your house.
0:38:07I don't know, but I do know this.
0:38:10If they're going to sell them, they
0:38:11should have updated hardware that's
0:38:13competitive with its current state of the art.
0:38:15And if they're not, they should get the hell out
0:38:18of the business and put Eros or some other brand
0:38:21in the Apple Store and tell people to buy those instead.
0:38:24As it stands right now, if you go into the Apple Store
0:38:27and you're like, hey, I just moved to a new apartment.
0:38:30I want to set up a new Wi-Fi network.
0:38:33If you go in the Apple Store and do it,
0:38:34You're going to get a-- right now, today, as we record,
0:38:37you're going to get a substandard product.
0:38:39That's antithetical to the Apple brand.
0:38:41I really do believe that--
0:38:46and I really do stand by this.
0:38:48I think it's true that the Apple brand, a big part of it
0:38:51for non-expert users is that you can go to the Apple store
0:38:57and buy-- if they sell it, what you're buying from them
0:39:00will be one of the best--
0:39:02a great product.
0:39:03It doesn't matter what it is.
0:39:04If you're going in to buy a phone,
0:39:06you're gonna get an iPhone.
0:39:07If you're gonna get a laptop,
0:39:08you're gonna get a MacBook.
0:39:09These are great products.
0:39:11And for stuff that they,
0:39:13the other type of stuff they sell from third parties,
0:39:15they're good stuff.
0:39:16Like if you get an iPhone case from the Apple store,
0:39:18it's gonna be a good case.
0:39:19It's not gonna be a piece of junk.
0:39:21But if you get a base station today,
0:39:23you're gonna get one that's slower than if you bought Eros.
0:39:26So I think they should either get out of the business
0:39:29or update the hardware.
0:39:31- I might have to try that out, Eros.
0:39:33I just don't get, do you get it?
0:39:35I don't get why they're still signed.
0:39:37- Yeah, and you know.
0:39:39- I think with the Mac Pro,
0:39:43and we can segue here into the Mac Pro.
0:39:46I think with the Mac Pro,
0:39:48my guess is that something went terribly wrong
0:39:51with that radical new design of the trashcan Mac Pro.
0:39:55Whether it's hard to make,
0:39:57whether this factory in the United States,
0:40:00where is it, Austin, isn't working out,
0:40:02And that if it's some kind of thing where they anticipated
0:40:08that it would be easy to get new updated chips and GPUs
0:40:12and put them in the same design and it's not,
0:40:15if it's proving too expensive to make
0:40:18and they need to redesign.
0:40:20And if they had to redesign a new product that
0:40:22was in the works that failed somehow,
0:40:24I think there's some kind of complicated story like that,
0:40:27where they intended to have updated hardware
0:40:30And something happened behind the scenes
0:40:33that kept them from releasing it.
0:40:35Like they were expecting X, Y, and Z from Intel in 2016,
0:40:40and Intel failed to deliver,
0:40:43and it left them holding the bag
0:40:44'cause they didn't have a plan B.
0:40:46I don't know, something like that.
0:40:48But with the airport base stations,
0:40:50it doesn't make any sense to me
0:40:51why they couldn't have an updated product
0:40:55if they wanted to.
0:40:58- Well, and what's strange is that when we,
0:41:01I don't know, what was it, like three weeks ago
0:41:03or a month ago, they released the first update,
0:41:05software update for it in God knows how long.
0:41:10- For what?
0:41:11- For the airport base station.
0:41:12- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:41:14- You know, just, I don't know, I agree with you, I do.
0:41:18See, you say that there's other products out there
0:41:26are faster there are other products out there that are just as easy to use and I haven't tried any of
0:41:34those I still have two airport base stations one time capsule and one a regular and that's what I
0:41:47use you know so I haven't had the need to to try any of the others so for me everything works fine
0:41:56If I could get more speed then that would be great
0:41:59I would love that and if Apple is is not going to keep up with it. I mean if
0:42:05The thing that we love the most about Apple products is I think is the integration or one of the things yeah
0:42:14You know everything just kind of works together
0:42:16You know the automatic backups for for time machine and you know you get one of these
0:42:24and everything just, it just works.
0:42:26Everything talks to each other, it's great.
0:42:29And I love that.
0:42:30I love not having to think about all the things
0:42:34that Apple does for us.
0:42:37So.
0:42:40- Well, it doesn't always just work,
0:42:41which is another topic of conversation,
0:42:43but sometimes it does, and when it does,
0:42:45it's easy to forget just how cool it is.
0:42:47Like, one of the ones that works for me now,
0:42:50and I hadn't actually tried it for a while,
0:42:52for a while because my iCloud account was, I don't know, I couldn't have, I
0:42:57couldn't turn two-factor authentication on. I had two, they had two, it's very
0:43:02confusing. There was like an older thing that they had that wasn't called
0:43:04two-factor. It was like two-form identification and it's like it
0:43:10did send things to my iPhone, you know, I had that turned on, but it's like when
0:43:15you have that turned on, you have to turn it off before you could switch to the
0:43:18real two-factor and then when I did that, my iCloud account couldn't have two, it
0:43:23just didn't give me the option to turn on two-factor. But without two-factor
0:43:27authentication on your iCloud, you can't use, this is what I'm getting to, you
0:43:30can't use the new "unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch" feature. Yes. So anyway, I
0:43:36got that straightened out somehow and I turned two-factor on my iCloud account
0:43:42and I've, you know, got a watch here running watchOS 3.1 and the unlock your
0:43:49Mac with the watch thing is amazing. It's absolutely amazing. Yes, love it.
0:43:54I can't believe it and it works really well and I know that it's one of those
0:44:01things I think it was Mac OS that the 10.12.2 update, the same update where
0:44:08they took out the time remaining for the battery thing.
0:44:13- Yeah.
0:44:14- The same update, one of the other features
0:44:16that was a bullet point, you know, like,
0:44:18"Hey, here's what we've got in this minor update
0:44:21to Mac OS X."
0:44:23I guess I just call it Mac OS now, Sierra,
0:44:26was that they made the unlock with your watch a lot faster.
0:44:32Now, I didn't use it before that though,
0:44:36so I don't know what the speed was,
0:44:37but the speed now is amazing.
0:44:39It tells you, as you wake up your Mac,
0:44:42it's like unlocking with Apple Watch.
0:44:43- Right.
0:44:45- And in way less time than it would take me
0:44:47to enter my password, I'm in.
0:44:50- And part of the thing that they fixed with that
0:44:54is even the language to set it up.
0:44:57- Yes. - Because before,
0:44:59they didn't really explain to you what was going on,
0:45:03and if something went wrong,
0:45:05then it just kind of went wrong, you know?
0:45:09And I was very fortunate that I had,
0:45:15well, I set up a couple that went perfectly fine,
0:45:20and then I set up one that just would not work,
0:45:24and I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work.
0:45:27So now the language is better,
0:45:31they're being a bit more interactive
0:45:33what they're doing so all of that helps you know I I really like the the unlock
0:45:40with Apple watch because I I work a lot on my laptop on my Mac right now I'm
0:45:49using a MacBook Pro and I work on that a lot so whenever I walk up to it it just
0:45:55unlocks and I don't know about you but I'll get up and go grab a coffee or you
0:46:02get on the phone or you know, just take a little walk and and then when I come back it's locked and
0:46:08It's not a big deal. Honestly to type in your password. It's just more efficient not to
0:46:15if your Apple watch is connected and
0:46:18You know again that integration and the things that that Apple saves, you know the efficiency
0:46:27To me is a big deal
0:46:29Well, let's circle back to the Mac Pro.
0:46:37People look at this and I think we're maybe so...
0:46:42I understand.
0:46:43I said it was almost like a form of paranoia and I think it's because I think people recognize
0:46:50that if you prefer a desktop-style interface, meaning a keyboard and a mouse and Windows
0:46:59that are stacked on a screen.
0:47:01And you could choose Mac, you could choose Windows,
0:47:05and then on the open source side,
0:47:08there's a bunch of Linux variants.
0:47:11I linked to a guy this week who tried like 10 of them.
0:47:13Did you see that, where he tried like 10 different--
0:47:16because he's trying to prepare for what
0:47:17happens if Mac OS goes away, or at least for his own needs
0:47:22as a Ruby developer.
0:47:25And I think what people who really love and get the Mac
0:47:30understand is that there's nothing--
0:47:32the other ones are nothing like the Mac.
0:47:34Like, I would--
0:47:36I don't know.
0:47:36Honest to God, I think I'd just stop working
0:47:39if I had to use Windows.
0:47:42I don't know.
0:47:42I'd become like a--
0:47:44I don't know, lumberjack or something.
0:47:45[LAUGHTER]
0:47:47I don't know.
0:47:47I'm not cut out for physical labor.
0:47:49I'd have to find--
0:47:50I want to see that.
0:47:51I'd have to find something else.
0:47:52I don't know.
0:47:55I don't know.
0:47:55become a podcaster and just record on tapes.
0:48:01I would find it.
0:48:01But there is something--
0:48:04The Mac OS is amazing.
0:48:06It's so good in so many ways for a power user.
0:48:13And it doesn't mean--
0:48:14and I realize, and I think the fear that people see
0:48:17is people see that iOS sells way more devices, especially phones,
0:48:22but iPads.
0:48:23However much iPads have declined in sales from their peak,
0:48:28they still outsell the Mac.
0:48:30And there are a lot of people, for a lot of people,
0:48:34the iPad can be a great main computer, and people see that.
0:48:39And it gives them the fear that Apple's going to say,
0:48:44"Well, why waste time on the Mac?"
0:48:46Much like why waste time updating airport base stations
0:48:50when iOS is where it's at,
0:48:52and we'll just make everybody move to iOS.
0:48:54I don't think that's reasonable.
0:48:58I don't think that's the case,
0:48:59but I think I'm loosely articulating
0:49:02the fear that's out there, clearly.
0:49:04I mean, you can't deny that there are people
0:49:07who are worried about this, right?
0:49:09- Oh, of course, yes, absolutely.
0:49:11- I mean, it is one of the main topics of conversation
0:49:13of Mac power users right now.
0:49:16And let's just put it out there.
0:49:20There's absolute, there's proof that something is wrong
0:49:23in so far as the Mac Pro is like 1100 days old
0:49:28and hasn't been updated.
0:49:29- Yeah. - I mean, that is a fact.
0:49:31That's un-inarguable.
0:49:33- Yeah, you can't argue the facts that are out there,
0:49:37but is there, we're very quick to believe,
0:49:42and in some cases we know that Apple has prototypes
0:49:50of different products.
0:49:54You know, they're actively working on new products
0:50:00and they have those prototypes.
0:50:02But for some reason we refuse to believe
0:50:06that they're working on new Macs.
0:50:08- Right.
0:50:09- And is that our problem or is it, you know,
0:50:14Apple's problem?
0:50:15I think it's partly Apple's problem
0:50:16because they haven't updated the damn thing.
0:50:18I think one of the problems is a misconception among people
0:50:23who I think should even know better,
0:50:25that they see Apple as almost omnipotent.
0:50:28What I think is the case is that something
0:50:33has gone horribly wrong.
0:50:35This is not their plan.
0:50:36Apple never planned to go three years
0:50:39without an update to this,
0:50:40and that something behind the scenes,
0:50:42or maybe multiple things,
0:50:43like it's a domino effect of one thing leading to another,
0:50:48has left them, and that they are, inside Apple,
0:50:53terribly embarrassed.
0:50:55And there are people up the chain who are angry.
0:50:59But because it's Apple, and Apple keep their mouth shut,
0:51:04the story doesn't leak.
0:51:06And so from the outside, it's a disastrous development process
0:51:16for either an updated Mac Pro similar to the one
0:51:20that they unveiled three years ago,
0:51:23or an all new Mac Pro that is a totally new design
0:51:28because the reason that this one went without an update
0:51:30was there were various things that were wrong with it,
0:51:33from Apple's perspective.
0:51:35One way or the other, that those development projects
0:51:37went so wrong that they're delayed by years.
0:51:41Is that possible?
0:51:42I think there's a lot of people out there
0:51:43who think that Apple has so many resources
0:51:46and is so wealthy and good at this stuff
0:51:50that that couldn't be the case.
0:51:52And therefore, Apple has willfully and purposefully
0:51:56put the Mac Pro in the state that it's in.
0:51:58I think there's a lot of people who think that,
0:51:59and I think they're wrong.
0:52:00I think Apple could, it's,
0:52:03I think they push the boundaries so hard
0:52:05that they fail all the time, and we just don't know it.
0:52:08- Well, yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly.
0:52:10But if something like the,
0:52:12if what you're describing is true,
0:52:15then it would have to be something outside of Apple's control.
0:52:19But we've seen—
0:52:21I don't know, though.
0:52:22Just think—I don't even think it could be.
0:52:24Like, just think back—and I know it seems like ancient history,
0:52:26but think back to the Mac cube in 2002.
0:52:29I love the cube. I still have a cube.
0:52:31I wish that I wanted one.
0:52:33I coveted one desperately,
0:52:34because it seemed like a perfect computer for me,
0:52:36but it was outside my budget.
0:52:38I loved it.
0:52:39But with those, like, the fine cracks that were in it, you know.
0:52:42That was out, you know, that was within their control.
0:52:45It's things like that.
0:52:47Like, remember, to me, the best example
0:52:50that things can go terribly wrong for Apple proof
0:52:53is the white iPhone 4.
0:52:57Oh, yeah.
0:52:58Right?
0:52:59With the camera.
0:53:00And the first iPhone 4, this was the last iPhone
0:53:04that was released at the June time frame.
0:53:07The 4S, I think, was the one that moved to September.
0:53:12So they announced it at WWDC, and it's a radical new design.
0:53:17It's got a glass back.
0:53:19It really was just a great improvement.
0:53:23It's the first one that went retina.
0:53:27The 3GS was sort of like the cheapest looking iPhone
0:53:31that they ever made, the 3G, 3GS with the plastic back.
0:53:34So it's like a premium upgrade in materials.
0:53:38It's just great in so many ways.
0:53:42and they say it's available in black and white.
0:53:44And the black one comes out at the end of June
0:53:46or first week of July.
0:53:47And then they say, well, there's a couple of weeks
0:53:49on the white one.
0:53:50And it's like a couple of weeks.
0:53:51And then it ends up, the thing doesn't ship
0:53:53until May of the next year, right?
0:53:55- Yeah, yeah.
0:53:56- I mean, it was so close.
0:53:57It was close to when people were anticipating
0:53:59the next iPhone would come out,
0:54:00even though it didn't come out in June.
0:54:02But that meant people, you know,
0:54:05it was almost a full year late
0:54:07of a product that they announced.
0:54:09and they've mumbled something about manufacturing process.
0:54:13(laughing)
0:54:14They never really, 'cause they don't,
0:54:15or Apple, they don't wanna explain what went wrong.
0:54:18- Right, but it was the camera, right?
0:54:20- I don't remember, no, I think it was something with,
0:54:23'cause it was the same camera as black, right?
0:54:25Or was it that the white interfered with the camera?
0:54:27- Right, right, I seem to remember that that was
0:54:30when you took a picture,
0:54:34the white would interfere with how the picture turned out.
0:54:39- Not, and it was, you know, as far as I understand,
0:54:42it was like, if everything went perfectly
0:54:45in the manufacturing of the white back thing, it was fine.
0:54:50It's just that when they started trying to pump millions
0:54:52of them out, you know, at the full production rate,
0:54:54some of them, too many of them, like, had this flaw,
0:54:57where, right, like, too much light got in
0:54:59and it ruined the thing.
0:55:00Because I remember, it was bizarre,
0:55:05it was like when they antenna gate,
0:55:06were you there for the antenna gate press?
0:55:09- I couldn't make it.
0:55:11It was on short notice, I couldn't make it.
0:55:13- Literally, same day.
0:55:14I mean, I remember whatever day it was,
0:55:16they called me and they were like,
0:55:17"It's tomorrow morning."
0:55:18So I was like, I think it's the only time
0:55:21I've ever done this.
0:55:22I got the phone call at like two o'clock Eastern time here
0:55:28and found a four o'clock flight to SFO.
0:55:33And so, I was like, I booked it.
0:55:37And it wasn't ungodly expensive, but booking
0:55:40a flight that leaves in two hours is kind of expensive.
0:55:43And I told Amy, I got to go.
0:55:45Apple's having a thing about this antenna thing tomorrow.
0:55:48I got a flight.
0:55:49And I was in a cab on the way to the airport about 20 minutes
0:55:54after I'd gotten off the phone with Apple.
0:55:58and it was like the last,
0:56:00I mean, I think I had a couple of other choices,
0:56:02but it was the only nonstop that was remaining for the day.
0:56:05But anyway, I remember going there for that meeting,
0:56:09and I was in the group of people
0:56:13that got the tour of the antenna facilities.
0:56:15I don't know, it was about 20 of us.
0:56:16And while we were doing that,
0:56:18we're walking between Town Hall
0:56:21and where they were gonna show us
0:56:22these antenna testing rooms.
0:56:24We're there in the middle of the campus.
0:56:26At the events now, they let us,
0:56:28they have us go through the middle of Infinite Loops campus.
0:56:31But back then, that was very rare.
0:56:33They'd let you in like.
0:56:35- Yeah, yeah.
0:56:37- They had like one door that you could go in
0:56:39and you were right there in front of town hall
0:56:41and that was it.
0:56:42Like you weren't going anywhere.
0:56:44Now they let us, they have us come in the main door
0:56:46and we get a little walk through the campus.
0:56:50But back in the Katie Cotton days,
0:56:51you didn't get to see anything.
0:56:53But we did to get to this thing.
0:56:55And the thing that I remember was this is just,
0:56:57when was it, it was like August, I think.
0:57:00There were Apple employees walking around with white iPhones.
0:57:03It's a very long story to say.
0:57:05(laughing)
0:57:07But anyway, the white iPhone 4 is proof that Apple,
0:57:11something can go disastrously wrong between prototype
0:57:15and saying, okay, yes, this is good to go,
0:57:19we're gonna make this in mass production,
0:57:21and then making it in mass production.
0:57:23something can go wrong.
0:57:24And I think something like that has gone wrong
0:57:26with the Mac Pro.
0:57:27I have no reason to believe it
0:57:29other than that it makes the most sense to me.
0:57:32No little birdies have told me anything like this,
0:57:34but I definitely think it's possible.
0:57:36And I think the pessimism out there
0:57:37is that there's too many people
0:57:39who think that that couldn't happen to Apple
0:57:42because Apple is too rich, too good, too smart.
0:57:47- Well,
0:57:52Do you ever see a time, oh not ever, in the next few years that Apple will come out and say
0:57:59we're done with the Mac or we're done with the pro levels?
0:58:03No, I don't. In fact, I think the pro levels are the ones that have the the biggest future. I think
0:58:08the thing that makes the Mac essential is the pro level. People often bring up, and I think it's
0:58:21It's a good point now, but it's just one of many pro use cases.
0:58:25The one thing-- I've seen this argument a lot,
0:58:27that no Apple-- the Mac will be around forever because you need
0:58:31a Mac to make iPhone apps.
0:58:34And what could Apple do if they abandoned the Mac?
0:58:38How would you make iPhone apps?
0:58:40Well, they could, in theory, port Xcode to Windows,
0:58:44and the story would be, OK, if you want to write iPhone apps,
0:58:47you have to use Windows.
0:58:49I mean, technically, that could happen.
0:58:51there is 0% chance that Apple would do that.
0:58:53- Zero. - Zero.
0:58:53- Zero.
0:58:55- Okay, so let me ask you this.
0:58:58If I say to you right now,
0:59:02John, I want you to write and post this story
0:59:07and hang up and go,
0:59:12would you go to your Mac or your iPad?
0:59:14- Well, I would go to the Mac.
0:59:15I do almost all of my work on the Mac,
0:59:17but I don't dispute the fact that there are people
0:59:20like Federico Vittucci and Ben Brooks,
0:59:22who are more productive for them.
0:59:25For different people, iOS could be,
0:59:30I see the appeal of it, I don't deny it.
0:59:33I feel like that's another mistake
0:59:36a lot of Mac proponents, people who love the Mac
0:59:39and want to really do it.
0:59:41There's some people, I see it on Twitter all the time,
0:59:43where they say you can't do real work on an iPad.
0:59:47- Yeah, that's wrong.
0:59:49and that the people who do are just sort of dilatants,
0:59:53you know, that they're, you know, they're trying,
0:59:55it's like being a hipster, you know, like, you know.
0:59:57- Federico and Ben have done some amazing things
1:00:03workflow-wise, work-wise, everything on their iPads.
1:00:08I use my iPad all the time.
1:00:10I actually use multiple iPads all the time.
1:00:13I love the iPad, but if I'm gonna sit down
1:00:18and do some work, it's gonna be on my Mac.
1:00:21- Yeah, it just fits my plan better.
1:00:22- Either my iMac or my MacBook Pro.
1:00:27That's what it's gonna be for me.
1:00:29And that's what I grew up with,
1:00:33what I did my business with.
1:00:36The iPad, the iPhone, all of those things,
1:00:39the big word is the computer in your pocket.
1:00:43That's absolutely true.
1:00:44It is absolutely true.
1:00:46And I never forced myself to use an iPad or an iPhone
1:00:51to do, you know, like as soon as the new product comes out,
1:00:56people say, oh, I'm gonna use this for a month
1:00:58instead of my Mac.
1:00:59I don't do stuff like that.
1:01:01I use it how it fits into my workflow.
1:01:05And it does, it fits very well into my workflow.
1:01:09So I have things that I can do with it.
1:01:12But the Mac for me is still,
1:01:15I mean, when I record and write music,
1:01:19that's on the 27-inch iMac.
1:01:21That's a powerful machine.
1:01:23And when the Mac Pro, the MacBook Pro came out,
1:01:28I had a Logic project.
1:01:32Logic is a, that's a professional level audio workstation.
1:01:37I had 48 tracks running simultaneously audio, MIDI,
1:01:44recording and I was editing. I mean, this is all live and the MacBook Pro had no issue at all with
1:01:52it. It just went right through. So they're all powerful computers these days. Are we at the stage
1:01:58where we actually don't need a Mac Pro? Are the other computers powerful enough for everything
1:02:05that we need to do? I do think that that's a legitimate question. I wish that Apple would
1:02:11keep making Mac Pros and putting the fastest Intel processors they can possibly get, figuring
1:02:19out a very clever engineered way to either reduce the need for a fan or to make the fan
1:02:28as utterly silent as possible.
1:02:30Because it's just one of those things that Apple cares about that I feel like if you
1:02:36had to use some other company's computers, it's like they make more noise.
1:02:40It's like having a nice quiet computer is important to me.
1:02:43And I think it's important to a lot of pros.
1:02:46And I think that's one, it's just,
1:02:48it's why people are Mac users.
1:02:49People are Mac users 'cause they care about the details.
1:02:52And like a computer that makes noise makes them angry.
1:02:55Whereas people who don't really care about the details
1:02:57are like, oh yeah, but it makes noise like a hairdryer.
1:02:59Who cares?
1:03:01I don't care, I'll put headphones on.
1:03:02You know, and it's like, no,
1:03:04you just spent a lot of money on this computer.
1:03:05It should be silent.
1:03:07So I hope they do.
1:03:08But given the evidence that they haven't updated it
1:03:11in three years, it's a legitimate fear
1:03:15that the message is no, the Mac's not dead.
1:03:17We love the Mac, the Mac has a bright future,
1:03:19but the Mac's future is iMacs and MacBooks.
1:03:22- What do you make of what Tim Cook did after,
1:03:28it was Bloomberg, I think, that wrote the story
1:03:31about that the Mac is basically gone.
1:03:36And Tim came out in a Q&A and company.
1:03:40Yeah, internally knowing that it was going to leak.
1:03:43Of course, yeah, they know all that.
1:03:45Well, I, what did he say?
1:03:48Do we have the transcript?
1:03:49They had a great max in the pipeline.
1:03:53Right.
1:03:54You know, we didn't specify, but.
1:03:57I think he said great desktops in the pipeline.
1:04:01I think he said that, which is, you know,
1:04:05could just mean IMAX.
1:04:07- It could.
1:04:08I mean, people are still pining for new Mac Minis.
1:04:14I think that's over.
1:04:16- I kinda do too, which is a shame,
1:04:18but it's nowhere near.
1:04:20It's clearly the least essential product that Apple makes.
1:04:23And I know that that's painful for the people,
1:04:25'cause that's the one thing about it,
1:04:26is that yes, I think most people who buy a Mac Mini
1:04:29are just typical Mac users who are on a budget,
1:04:34Maybe they already have a display
1:04:35that they don't want to replace.
1:04:37And so why spend all the money on an iMac with it's gorgeous?
1:04:42And in my opinion, the best, it's still,
1:04:44it's over a year since it's been updated,
1:04:45but I think it's the best display
1:04:47on the market, period, hands down.
1:04:50It's a unbelievable display.
1:04:52Mine, I have the one from the year before
1:04:55that doesn't have the high color gamut,
1:04:57and I still think it's an amazing, amazing display.
1:05:00I love it, I'm looking at it right now.
1:05:02But I realize that there are also, and I'm sure that they're listening to the show, I'm sure I hear from them all the time, I get email from them, that there are power users who use the Mac Mini in various ways.
1:05:15Maybe it is their main computer, but they have very sensible reasons why they wanted Mac Mini.
1:05:21And then there's also the enthusiasts who use Mac Minis to make their own home entertainment system.
1:05:29Instead of getting an Apple TV, they use the Mac Mini
1:05:32and they can run all sorts of stuff
1:05:33and play movies that have fallen off the bus
1:05:36and the back of the truck and stuff like that.
1:05:39(laughing)
1:05:41And for them, it's a shame because I think
1:05:43making a Hackintosh type thing to do that
1:05:48is never gonna be as nice, especially 'cause the Mac Mini,
1:05:50you just want this small, silent computer.
1:05:53But I kind of feel like Apple just,
1:05:55there's no reason for Apple
1:05:58really care too much about that. I'd love to see it updated, like just a, even just
1:06:02like a small speed bump, but I don't know. Here's what Tim said. Some folks in the
1:06:07media have raised the question about whether we're committed to desktops. If there's
1:06:11any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear. We have great desktops in our
1:06:17roadmap. Nobody should worry about that. Right. I, here's something about that. Now I've
1:06:22Skepticism is a good thing, right?
1:06:26I encourage it.
1:06:27And I think everybody should be skeptical about anything
1:06:33that somebody who works at a company
1:06:35can say, including the CEO.
1:06:37And of course, Tim Cook, it's in his interest
1:06:39to say good things about Apple.
1:06:40So of course, don't just assume that it's true.
1:06:45But one of the things about what he said is, again,
1:06:48it doesn't say anything about the Mac Pro.
1:06:50So it could mean that the future of the desktop Mac is iMacs.
1:06:54And I could see them going that route and saying, hey,
1:06:57and at the high end, we've got this iMac.
1:07:00Call it the iMac Pro.
1:07:02Maybe it's all black instead of silver.
1:07:04And the iMac Pro comes with a faster set of Intel chips
1:07:09than you could get previously and a professional GPU.
1:07:13That's possible.
1:07:16I don't know how in the current form factor
1:07:19if that could be cooled sufficiently.
1:07:20I don't know.
1:07:22Apple comes up with clever ways to cool things, so I don't know.
1:07:25I could see that being the story for pro users.
1:07:27And I know that that would be frustrating for people who
1:07:30don't want a built-in display.
1:07:31They just want standalone displays, et cetera, et cetera.
1:07:35But I could see that being the story.
1:07:36But there's no way-- the thing about Tim Cook's statement
1:07:38is that his credibility to his own employees matters.
1:07:43And if it's false-- I saw people on Twitter when I came in.
1:07:48"Yeah, Tim Cook's full of shit, of course he'd say that."
1:07:51If there are no desktops coming,
1:07:53it's not like people who worked at Apple
1:07:56are going to forget that Tim Cook said,
1:07:58you have no, literally said,
1:08:00you have no reason to worry about that.
1:08:01- Yeah.
1:08:03- His credibility goes right down the toilet, right?
1:08:05Like that's a permanent mark against his credibility.
1:08:09- How do you reconcile that with the fact
1:08:14that Steve would say things all the time
1:08:16and then turn around and do the opposite?
1:08:18you know, we're not gonna have a smaller iPad.
1:08:21Here's the iPad mini. (laughs)
1:08:23- Because this, well, but this was,
1:08:25when Steve would say things that,
1:08:32and then a year later turn around and say the opposite,
1:08:35and it was never like,
1:08:37it was never a thing where you feel like you were burned.
1:08:41- Yeah, okay.
1:08:42- So here's a good example, right?
1:08:43They come out with the, they call it the iPod Photos, right?
1:08:46Wasn't that the name of the product?
1:08:47It was the first iPod with a color display.
1:08:50You could sync it to your iPhotos,
1:08:52and you'd get your photos on there.
1:08:54And then people immediately after the product was announced,
1:08:58they'd say, well, now that you have a color screen,
1:09:00why doesn't it play video?
1:09:01And Steve Jobs said, nobody wants
1:09:03to watch video on a little two-inch screen.
1:09:05Now, why would they want to look at their photos
1:09:07on a two-inch screen but not watch video?
1:09:09I don't know.
1:09:10But that's what he said.
1:09:11Nobody wants to watch video on a two-inch screen.
1:09:13And then a year later, they came out
1:09:14with an iPod with the same size screen,
1:09:16and now it played videos.
1:09:18(laughing)
1:09:19Right, but people aren't mad because now they have,
1:09:23if what you wanted was an iPod that plays videos,
1:09:27the fact that a year later he told a totally different story
1:09:29didn't make you mad, it made you happy
1:09:32'cause now you could buy an iPod that played videos.
1:09:35The difference would be if Steve Jobs said,
1:09:38before it came out, people are asking for an iPod
1:09:42that plays videos, let me assure you,
1:09:45we are working on it and it's going to be awesome.
1:09:47And it's in the pipeline, so don't worry about it.
1:09:50It's gonna be great.
1:09:50You're gonna be able to watch video right from your pocket.
1:09:53And then it never shipped.
1:09:55Well then that would make people angry, right?
1:09:57That's what the case would be with the new desktops
1:09:59with Tim Cook and his credibility.
1:10:01Again, it's not like he isn't capable of spin,
1:10:09but when he does, it's not,
1:10:12it's very, very carefully worded
1:10:14and it's not bullshit.
1:10:16It's definitely spin it sometimes, but it's not bullshit.
1:10:20- Well, to be clear, I trust him.
1:10:24I don't believe that Tim would commode
1:10:27and say what he said if it wasn't true.
1:10:30- Right, I agree.
1:10:31Even if it's not that you trust him personally,
1:10:35and I do.
1:10:37- I do.
1:10:37- But even if you just want to take
1:10:39your own personal opinions of him out,
1:10:41It just makes no sense for him to say what he said
1:10:45if it wasn't true.
1:10:46- No, he can just do what they do most of the time
1:10:48and just let it roll.
1:10:50- Right.
1:10:51So here's an example where I think Tim Cook spins
1:10:54and says something that I don't quite think is true.
1:10:58I think that his stance on privacy
1:11:02and where Apple stands competitively with Google
1:11:05in particular, but other companies like Facebook,
1:11:08is to me a little self-serving.
1:11:11insofar as that he'll say that other companies collect
1:11:16your personal data so that they can sell it.
1:11:18It's not really what Google does.
1:11:20They don't really sell your personal data.
1:11:24It's not-- what he says isn't really untrue.
1:11:27It's not false.
1:11:27It's not a blatant lie.
1:11:29But I think it's a very euphemistic spin
1:11:33on the state of affairs to cover up for the state of Apple's--
1:11:39Apple's personalization in certain areas.
1:11:46Well, yeah.
1:11:47I mean--
1:11:48I'm just saying, it's a sidetrack.
1:11:50I just think that what he says about--
1:11:52and I do think Apple cares about your privacy, right?
1:11:55It's largely true.
1:11:57I think Apple does care about your privacy.
1:11:59I think Google cares about your privacy, too,
1:12:01insofar as it's very important that Google's users and people
1:12:05who are the most embedded in their ecosystem
1:12:07trust the company with their information, right? It is in Google's very highest
1:12:14interest to keep the information they collect about you safe.
1:12:18But they, I think that's part of it though, that Google collects so much information and
1:12:26Apple really collects none. They anonymize, you know, almost everything. So they don't want your
1:12:32information they want and you know the old saying if you didn't buy the product you are the product
1:12:39so well again no that's i believe that i've used that i you know you can find a bunch of posts on
1:12:46during fireball where i've i've used that but i do think that it sometimes when tim cook throws it
1:12:51out there it's spin and it's not again not false it's not bullshit but it is a decidedly and
1:12:58carefully worded way of saying things in Apple's favor that maybe isn't really the most objective
1:13:04way of saying it, period. I don't see that at all with his comments on the desktop, right?
1:13:09Right.
1:13:09That's the only reason I'm going down this whole path on cooking privacy is that I think that,
1:13:14you know, is spin. I think with the desktop, there's no spin. He looks like a fool if it's
1:13:19not true.
1:13:19Oh, yeah, absolutely. I don't see that at all. I mean, they saw this Bloomberg story
1:13:27and knew that they had to respond in some way,
1:13:32or they wanted to respond in some way.
1:13:34So I think it was very strong response.
1:13:37Yeah.
1:13:37I also-- and I keep reiterating this--
1:13:43I think that the software schedule that Mac OS is on
1:13:46is proof the other way, that Apple is very, very heavily
1:13:52invested in the Mac and cares about it,
1:13:54because it's annual.
1:13:58It's like clockwork now, just like iOS,
1:14:00that there's going to be a significant feature
1:14:02update to Mac OS every year.
1:14:06And it didn't used to be that way.
1:14:09It was like the early years of Mac OS,
1:14:11there were very frequent updates.
1:14:1210.1 came out like six months after 10.0,
1:14:15because 10.0 was effectively a public beta.
1:14:18They were just sick of calling it a beta.
1:14:21And 10.2 and 10.3, I think even 10.4,
1:14:24came out really quickly because there were so many problems back then. It was
1:14:28just so slow. The interface was slow. They were doing so much compared to what the hardware was capable of that they really had to work very hard to get it to.
1:14:40I think 10.4 was the first version. I think that was called Tiger. That was sort of like, "Yeah, this is actually pretty good."
1:14:45And then it slowed down, right? And especially when the iPhone first came out and they even
1:14:51one time even had to issue a press release that said hey we were gonna release you know mac os
1:14:5510 point whatever it was at wwdc in june 2007 but we've had to pull so many engineers to work on the
1:15:02first i release of iphone's os that it's going to be delayed till october you know yeah and then
1:15:08uh you remember in the the years following that it was a crapshoot about what apple was going to
1:15:16do at WDC was it going to be a Mac show or an iOS show and then finally you know a few years ago
1:15:25they I don't know if they have enough resources or you know it's it's running parallel but now
1:15:33it's both you know now when you go to to WDC it's both Mac and iOS because you know they're
1:15:39integrating and and stuff like that but for a while it wasn't it was one or the other so anyway
1:15:44Long story short, I think that the Mac OS story shows that Apple's committed.
1:15:48I think that the way that I think the touch bar as a piece of hardware is a terrific example of
1:15:54Apple's commitment to the Mac. I think the fact that the day the touch bar shipped,
1:16:00Apple's own apps, dozens and dozens of apps in the system had updates with very, very,
1:16:10you know, thorough touch bar support. Clearly throughout the company, people who work on those
1:16:15apps, you know, text edit and mail, Safari messages, just you name it, the engineers who
1:16:22work on those had spent a lot of time working on clever, thoughtful touch bar support. It shows
1:16:28that there's, you know, within Apple there's a lot of commitment to the Mac. I think the question is
1:16:32specifically the Mac Pro, and I don't think that even if Apple is getting out of the Mac Pro game,
1:16:38I don't think it means that the Mac overall, that people need to worry about it.
1:16:42I think people are losing their minds on this.
1:16:44Yeah, I agree.
1:16:46Although, if they are getting out of the Mac Pro game,
1:16:49it makes no sense to me that they're still selling these Macs, Mac Pros at the same price.
1:16:53That they should, the way that, if they were getting out of the Mac Pro game,
1:16:57the way that it would make sense to me would be if,
1:16:59"Alright, we're not going to update them, but every
1:17:02nine months, twelve months or so, we'll keep lowering the prices until,
1:17:05you know, we decide, you know, two, three, whatever that will just take them away.
1:17:10Do you think they're selling any? I can't imagine that they're selling.
1:17:13Well, did you see there was a good, I had a link to Chris Adamson just bought one last week.
1:17:17I'll put it like in the show notes. It's sort of a sad story, really, like where he
1:17:24obviously was waiting and waiting and waiting to update his old Mac Pro and he does video work.
1:17:32And I know on ATP, Marco Arment, who stays much more abreast of Intel's chips and what
1:17:43the names of the chips-- I don't even pay attention to that shit anymore, to tell you
1:17:46the truth.
1:17:46Yeah, neither do I.
1:17:47Because I did see an R's story where they reviewed the new Kaby Lake whatever from Intel.
1:17:52And the gist of the R summary was, it's pretty much like the last one, just ever so slightly
1:17:57faster.
1:17:58I mean, and so it's like, why even bother paying attention?
1:18:00It's not that interesting.
1:18:02But the gist of it is he bought it--
1:18:07I think maybe he might have been better off with an iMac,
1:18:09and that's what Marco thinks too.
1:18:11But he didn't.
1:18:13He bought the Mac Pro, I guess because what he does
1:18:16is it requires a lot of cores.
1:18:18And the video processing it does can be parallelized.
1:18:22But he didn't even buy the 8 or 12 core one.
1:18:25He bought the 6 core one.
1:18:26So he didn't even get the most cores.
1:18:29But anyway, long story short, spoiler, he spent a lot of money on a new Mac Pro because
1:18:34he needed it and he thinks it was the best thing to do.
1:18:36And he's eyes wide open about how old this is and how much money it costs.
1:18:40And then he sold all of his Apple stock.
1:18:42And he apparently had a very, very significant investment in Apple stock and sold it because
1:18:46he's so not like angry, not like he thinks he's sticking it to Apple by selling his stock.
1:18:54It obviously doesn't hurt Apple if you one individual sells your Apple stock because
1:18:57else bought it. It more though that he, you know, I think his argument was, I bought it way back when
1:19:05and he apparently bought it, you know, in the dark days when you could really get a, you know,
1:19:09the stock was way down compared to where it is now. Bought it because he believed in the company
1:19:14and thought that the market was undervaluing Apple and I think, you know, easy to say, yeah,
1:19:20he was right and anybody else who did buy stock, you know, like in the late 90s or early 2000s,
1:19:25thinking, hey, this company has a bright future,
1:19:27and I don't think the market sees that.
1:19:29You were right.
1:19:30And he just doesn't see it anymore,
1:19:31because he doesn't get Apple anymore.
1:19:34And I definitely, just on Twitter,
1:19:37there's an awful lot of people,
1:19:38and I think that they're drawing a connection
1:19:40that the people who are most disappointed in Apple today
1:19:43are the longest term, oldest users,
1:19:46the ones who got into a company in the '90s
1:19:49or even the '80s.
1:19:53I think that a lot of that comes down to loyalty.
1:19:58We have loyalty to Apple because we believe
1:20:04that they make great products.
1:20:07I mean, I'm not blind to Apple's failings,
1:20:12and I'll bring them up all day long,
1:20:16but I'm not gonna make up bad things either.
1:20:20Apple Music, I think, needs a lot of work.
1:20:23I know that they're working on it.
1:20:27And I praise them when they do good things.
1:20:31But I also hit them when they do bad things.
1:20:35And it's the same with all of their products.
1:20:37And as long as you're fair, I think that's a good thing.
1:20:42But the difference with the new Apple customers
1:20:50is that in my mind, they're general consumers.
1:20:55So if something new and cool comes out, they'll go buy that,
1:21:01whether it's Apple or whatever.
1:21:03So there's not that level of loyalty.
1:21:08- Before we move off the topic of Mac Pros,
1:21:10I wanna circle back to that thing I touched on with Xcode,
1:21:15where that's, you know, don't rest your hat on Xcode,
1:21:19because there's all sorts of professional things
1:21:21that are better on the Mac than iOS, right?
1:21:25And I think that you will, sooner rather than later,
1:21:29be able to develop apps on an iPad.
1:21:32I mean, I think that the Swift Playgrounds
1:21:34is just the first step.
1:21:35I'm not saying it's coming this year,
1:21:37but I think that,
1:21:38and whether they'll call it Xcode or not
1:21:42when it comes out for iPad, I don't know.
1:21:44'Cause I think, I don't think it would be,
1:21:47Xcode as we know it is inextricably tied to the Mac UI paradigm.
1:21:53It's got all sorts of little tiny things that don't correlate to touch or iOS.
1:21:59So I think maybe the way that you develop apps would be very different from,
1:22:04or significantly different from the way you do it now.
1:22:08So whether they call it Xcode or not.
1:22:09But I think that the ability to develop apps on an iPad is inevitable.
1:22:16And it doesn't-- the fear I have is that they'll announce this.
1:22:20Hey, we have this great new Xcode for iPad.
1:22:22And look, it's so much easier to-- it's easier than ever to make an app,
1:22:26blah, blah, blah.
1:22:27And then people are going to go, that's it, that Mac is doomed,
1:22:30because now there's Xcode on iPad.
1:22:32And that's the wrong way to look at it.
1:22:34It's just that there's so many professional things,
1:22:36whether it's like the highest end 4K video editing or pro photographers who
1:22:44go on a shoot and shoot 1,500 or 2,000 photos
1:22:48and need to sort through them and find the pics.
1:22:52All sorts of advanced things like that are so much better,
1:22:55or can be so much better on a Mac.
1:22:57And the other thing, too, is don't
1:23:00forget that Apple itself is a company
1:23:03full of creative people, not just developers.
1:23:05It's not just Apple's engineers who use Xcode who need Macs.
1:23:08But Apple is a company full of people
1:23:10use Photoshop and InDesign and just produce all their marketing materials and stuff. So
1:23:17they're fully well aware of how creative professionals rely on the Mac.
1:23:22You have to, at that point, look at Aperture. Gone. Final Cut Pro. Not gone, but...
1:23:36Well, I think they're still invested in that.
1:23:38is you know a lot of people say it's not as pro as what it once was um you know logic is still
1:23:46here but you don't often hear from them anymore yeah it's curious aperture is definitely a curious
1:23:52a curious uh yeah you know why and i know that you know lightroom exists and i personally
1:23:58preferred lightroom but that was because way back in the day like when they were both 1.0s
1:24:03Lightroom was fast and Aperture was slow.
1:24:06And I know that they fixed that with Aperture
1:24:08and Aperture eventually got fast too.
1:24:11And I definitely hear, I see it, I get so much email,
1:24:15it's great and I really welcome it.
1:24:18It helps me kinda keep my finger on the pulse
1:24:21of the people who listen to the show and read my site.
1:24:25I know that there are a lot of serious,
1:24:27either photo pros or serious photo prosumers,
1:24:33Maybe that's not their profession,
1:24:34but they have serious professional cameras,
1:24:37and they take it very seriously, who
1:24:40are still furious about the decision
1:24:42to walk away from Aperture.
1:24:45And fully informed and have tried their best
1:24:48to like Lightroom, don't like Lightroom,
1:24:50and like the Aperture way.
1:24:54And I do say, I liked Lightroom, but I definitely
1:24:56could see how Aperture was a more Appley program.
1:24:59Because it was Apple, but it just
1:25:01had like a certain appling appliness and a Macness to it.
1:25:05With, with some of these things that have happened over the past number of years,
1:25:10it's easy to see how people are.
1:25:15They have the, the thought, or can be easily convinced that Apple is getting out
1:25:22of the, the pro market, all markets, whether that's computers or, uh, you
1:25:28software or anything else because once you've been hit by this, I mean if you're a photographer and
1:25:32Aperture is dead
1:25:35Then you know you're thinking wait a minute. It's been a thousand days now since the Mac Pro has been updated
1:25:41I mean, it's it's easy to lead yourself down that that path that
1:25:46Okay, apples out of the pro market, right?
1:25:49The most important thing has always been not for Apple to make the pro apps that you use
1:25:54but to make the system where Pro apps can really fly and have all of the
1:25:59API's and capabilities and the performance that Pro apps need whether they're made by Adobe or other companies, you know
1:26:07Independent companies like pixel mater and stuff like that. Yeah
1:26:12Anyway, let me take a break and thank our next sponsor. It's our good friend Harry's who better with the
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1:28:47It's funny the the two sponsors that you've had so far are two things that I already use
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1:29:06You know
1:29:09Anyway, what do you think let's just this flash forward a little bit here we are talking first week of January
1:29:17Do you think that Apple's gonna have a March event they've had March events now for a couple of years
1:29:22Well, the March event would be what a watch or iPad. I don't think watch
1:29:28I think it would be iPad and maybe like iMac or
1:29:31Wouldn't it be neat if they surprised us and Mac Pro
1:29:35That would be neat I think the iPads are due because they did the original iPad Pro the big 12.9 inch one in September last year
1:29:46To 2015 so that's that product is now
1:29:49Over a year old and then the the mini Mac
1:29:54iPad Pro I say Mac Pro. I'm an iPad Pro
1:29:57Yeah
1:29:58The 12.9 inch iPad Pro the 9.7 inch iPad Pro is was released like five months later in March of last year
1:30:05So that'll be a year old in March and I think both of those products, you know
1:30:10it you know would be easy easy upgrades with the the
1:30:15A10 system on a chip from the iPhone 7
1:30:18yeah, I I
1:30:21guess if
1:30:24There they seem to be all over the place with the release schedule of of these things
1:30:28But it makes sense that they would have something around
1:30:32March but I I think it'll have a lot to do with what they have on
1:30:38Tapford
1:30:40WDC because it would make more sense to release
1:30:44max at
1:30:46WDC but if they don't have any max, maybe they'll release iPads instead. Yeah, I don't know that they care about holding hardware for
1:30:53WWDC they have because you know, they it's always there's always plenty of software to talk about right
1:30:59Yeah, but they're not gonna have they always like to have something and they're not gonna
1:31:03have
1:31:04There an event for a Mac
1:31:06No, I don't think so
1:31:08But if they could right do it combination with the iPad and make it all about work
1:31:12You know because I've had pros for work and Mac is for work. I
1:31:15March
1:31:18timeframe makes perfect sense to me
1:31:21If not, then dub DC. Yeah, because the other thing too the the big iPad Pro is
1:31:27You know lacking the true tone display
1:31:31right
1:31:33There's a couple of things, you know, it's it even if they you know, who knows maybe they'll come up
1:31:38they all have surprising new things to announce, but even just the obvious things, it seems like
1:31:42it's due for an update. I love True Tone. I wish True Tone was on my phone. That's the one thing,
1:31:49I've said this before, and Schiller even said it when he announced it last year, that once you get
1:31:53used to it, you can't go back, and it made me think it was coming to the phone, because I didn't think
1:31:57Schiller would say that if he didn't know it wasn't coming to the phone, and then it didn't come to the
1:32:00phone. And it really, it's the one thing that annoys me about using my iPad is, I have the 9.7
1:32:07inch pro and it annoys me because then after I've like read email on it or used it for you know like
1:32:1345 minutes I go and look at my phone and if it's like nighttime it looks terrible yeah yeah I I
1:32:20want true tone on everything it looks it makes it makes your phone look terrible yeah it's just so
1:32:27good yeah because you don't see it you just don't notice you don't note it's it's a totally it it
1:32:33plays with your head. It's like, yeah, you realize there's, I know that they're shifting the colors,
1:32:38and I'm so sensitive to that. Like every time I see somebody who uses night mode on their phone
1:32:42or whatever it's called, the thing that makes your phone yellow, I can't believe it. I believe,
1:32:47I know there's lots of people who love that feature, but it sickens me because it just
1:32:51looks like the phone is, you know, covered in urine or something. Well, it's supposed to put
1:32:56put you to sleep or something, or make you not so awake.
1:33:00So I don't know.
1:33:03- So anyway, I think there'll be a March event,
1:33:05but there's no rumors as such.
1:33:07And I don't know if that's sort of, in some ways,
1:33:12I really do think that if you take a step back and look,
1:33:16I do think that, you remember a couple years ago
1:33:18when Tim Cook said they're doubling down on secrecy?
1:33:20- Yeah.
1:33:21- I think in some ways they have.
1:33:22I think that in some ways, Apple has gotten better
1:33:25at keeping some things secret.
1:33:27And that the only place where leaks come out of anymore
1:33:31is the supply chain,
1:33:31and it's sort of outside Apple's control.
1:33:34- Yeah, but then look at some of the stories
1:33:36that Germin does,
1:33:38and those aren't coming out of the supply chains,
1:33:40you know, like that Mac one.
1:33:41- Yeah, but that, I have to publish my,
1:33:44I have in the works,
1:33:45I think I've even told Renee about it,
1:33:47and Renee and I talked back in 2016, my last episode.
1:33:51I've got a response to that,
1:33:53and it's just taken a long time
1:33:54because it's, I don't know why,
1:33:57but, 'cause I wanna be careful.
1:33:59But I really think that the more you look
1:34:03at that story from Germin, the less there is to it,
1:34:06other than the things that we know,
1:34:08which are the obvious, that the iMac
1:34:10didn't get updated in 2016,
1:34:12the Mac Pro hasn't been updated in three years,
1:34:13the Mac Mini hasn't been updated in three years,
1:34:15and the MacBook Pros were long in the tooth
1:34:20when they were just updated.
1:34:21But I also actually think the more you look at it,
1:34:23There's nothing else in his story.
1:34:25There's nothing factual.
1:34:27And he says some things that are ridiculous.
1:34:29He has this story about how they had two versions of,
1:34:33I forget which product,
1:34:34but there were two versions in development,
1:34:37I think of the original, the MacBook,
1:34:39the super thin MacBook.
1:34:41Two versions in development,
1:34:42and then they decided to go with this one.
1:34:44And it somehow presented as a sign of executive indecision
1:34:49at Apple and a lack of leadership on the Mac
1:34:52that they did two designs and then choose one.
1:34:55That's how Apple works.
1:34:57I honestly, it's like, I've never heard of a product
1:35:01at Apple that didn't have multiple versions.
1:35:02In fact, the fact that there were only two
1:35:04is the most surprising part of it.
1:35:05Usually they do more.
1:35:07And on the software side, they do like 10.
1:35:09Like everything, every new product at Apple
1:35:11usually has like 10 mockups of how the interface should look
1:35:15and the designers are, it's not like do one
1:35:18that's the real one and then as busy work,
1:35:21make nine inconsequential changes,
1:35:26knowing that you go to the meeting
1:35:27and they're gonna pick the one.
1:35:29Like if you show up like that,
1:35:30you're on your way to get fired at Apple.
1:35:32Like you're attracted to have 10 mockups.
1:35:35All of them might be the one that is,
1:35:37all right, choose number eight,
1:35:39but give us 10 more based on number eight for next week, go.
1:35:42That's how Apple works.
1:35:45They do, of course they have a plan B hardware.
1:35:48And with the MacBook, according to Germin's story,
1:35:51they went with the one that was the more radical design.
1:35:54It's a sign that Apple is peddled to the metal
1:35:57on being aggressive about what they can do,
1:36:00engineering-wise, with the Mac, as opposed to being lazy.
1:36:03- Yeah, they're not afraid to go off
1:36:06on a left field somewhere with any of their products.
1:36:11- And another point that Germin had in his story
1:36:13on Bloomberg was something to the effect of,
1:36:16that there was something with the batteries
1:36:17in the new Mac Pros that they were gonna go with a,
1:36:22this is an interesting thing if it's true
1:36:27because according to Germin, they tried to have
1:36:29a bunch of smaller batteries that fill up
1:36:32more of the space in the device
1:36:35and failed some kind of test.
1:36:38So they had to go with a more traditional
1:36:40single rectangular battery that, you know.
1:36:44I don't think it would have--
1:36:47the incremental improvement of having a sort of stair-step
1:36:52battery design that fills more of the crevices
1:36:55isn't going to radically double the battery life.
1:36:58That's a way to get 5% to 10% more battery life out
1:37:01of a device.
1:37:03It's interesting that if it's true that they couldn't pull
1:37:07that off for the MacBook Pro, because that's
1:37:10the actual design that they showed,
1:37:11that's what they're doing with the Macbooks.
1:37:13Remember that part of the product video for the Macbooks,
1:37:18I think it was like Dan Ricci that was describing how they do that.
1:37:23But anyway, the gist of Germin's story with this battery thing was that they went with this simpler battery
1:37:29that maybe, presumably Germin didn't have numbers, but I would guess maybe gets like 10% less battery life than the other design.
1:37:36They went with it so that they could ship it now.
1:37:39Because otherwise, if they had waited until they could pull
1:37:43the other design off, here we would be in January 2017
1:37:46and we still wouldn't have new MacBook Pros.
1:37:48And then this whole discussion that we're having
1:37:50about the languishing hardware, we'd also be talking about,
1:37:54well, the MacBook Pro hasn't been updated in three years
1:37:56or whatever, you know what I mean?
1:37:58Like, you can't have it both ways.
1:38:00They have to ship eventually,
1:38:02and there's always room for improvement.
1:38:04And if there's no room for improvement, then who cares?
1:38:06that right then it's fine if it's if there's no way you know if they've if
1:38:09they've developed the perfect MacBook Pro that never needs an update then what
1:38:13are we talking about right it did you know so anyway I I don't get it I don't
1:38:20either what else I lost my train of thought where we going 2017 what's
1:38:31happening oh with the rumors we were talking about the Tim Cook and doubling
1:38:37down on secrecy and if they have a March event coming nobody knows because
1:38:41they've kept their mouth shut I don't know and it could it could be I don't
1:38:44know maybe there's rumors of updated iPads that I just haven't seen but I
1:38:47haven't seen them I didn't see them but I think they're do and it would be a
1:38:51good time to release new IMAX I think.
1:38:58We kind of set the expectations though don't we? When we say, well it's been a
1:39:06year, it's time. They need to update.
1:39:11Yeah. Maybe they don't. Yeah I think they do eventually. I think the
1:39:16iPad is still... there's too much to be gained. The A10 is just so much better
1:39:21than the A9. A9 is great and the current iPad Pros are great, but it's like one of the most amazing
1:39:26stories in technology the last few years is the A series processors that Apple's turning out. It's
1:39:34like a return to the early years of the PC industry where every year you're getting these
1:39:41incredible Moore's law. I mean, they keep showing the graphs at the iPhone events of the CPU and
1:39:47GPU performance year over year. And it's like a hockey stick curve. It's getting more and more
1:39:54amazing, whereas you would think it would be more incremental because that's what it's like on the
1:39:58desktop size, right? The new MacBook Pros performance-wise, they're not... Nobody's
1:40:03bragging about how much faster the new MacBook Pros are than the previous ones because being
1:40:07faster is no longer really... That's not really where PCs are improving. Yeah. But they could
1:40:13do that for sure with the iPad just by going from the A9 to the A10.
1:40:17And how important is speed on an iPad Pro in comparison to, say, usability?
1:40:28I mean, there you're talking more the UI and UX as opposed to the actual speed of the device itself.
1:40:37I don't know, you could say the same thing about the phone too though, right? I don't know. I think
1:40:42that it is important. I think just in terms of, in some ways, I think just in terms of
1:40:50it improves battery life, right? Like, that the faster that CPU can be done doing anything,
1:40:55the less the CPU is using the battery. I think it's a big part of it. I guess there are rumors.
1:41:03I did see rumors. I do remember this before, you know, just to show that I'm not totally
1:41:08out of touch of iPad rumors, that there's rumors from the supply chain that there's
1:41:11going to be a third iPad size. Have you seen that? No, it's it's like in between 9.7. It's like an
1:41:2011 inch iPad. I don't I doesn't make any sense to me. Right. Frankly, it seems weird. I don't see
1:41:27why it doesn't make any sense to me that that they would make an iPad in between those two sizes.
1:41:32But we shall see. I don't get that. I think if it's true, it would probably be something to the
1:41:41the effect of that the nine, you know, that the older screen sizes are being moved down
1:41:45the product line to the mid range and that the new size is the new like top of the line
1:41:49iPad.
1:41:50Here, I'll send you a link.
1:41:52I'll send you right here.
1:41:54Apple planning thicker, bezel free 10.9 inch iPad Pro with 9.7 inch footprint and no home
1:42:01button.
1:42:02So in other words, the idea would be it would be like physically the device would be the
1:42:06the size of the current 9.7 inch iPad Pro,
1:42:10but the display would be bigger
1:42:12because they're gonna get rid of the bezels surrounding it.
1:42:15Let me take a break,
1:42:19since this seems like a break in the action here,
1:42:21and thank our third and final sponsor,
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1:43:42Great cause.
1:43:45- Agreed.
1:43:47- Let me see what else I have here in my notes.
1:43:49How about the Apple New York Times in China?
1:43:52News came out two days ago that Apple has pulled
1:43:58the New York Times apps from the app store
1:44:01in mainland, in the People's Republic of China.
1:44:04And I wrote about it and I got, you know,
1:44:09I got a whole bunch of shit, but.
1:44:10(laughing)
1:44:13Well, my take is that their headline is
1:44:16Apple removes New York Times apps from its store in China.
1:44:19That's what the New York Times said.
1:44:20I think a more accurate headline would be
1:44:21something along the lines of China compels Apple
1:44:23to remove New York Times apps from its store in China.
1:44:26'cause it doesn't sound to me like Apple had any choice.
1:44:28I mean, other than to actually get enough pissing match
1:44:32with the People's Republic of China,
1:44:34which would surely result in them pulling the plug
1:44:36on the App Store, right?
1:44:37- Right, right.
1:44:38- I don't understand the people who think you have a choice.
1:44:40I mean, this is the problem with authoritarian regimes
1:44:45in a place like China, where they have no freedom
1:44:47of the press or anything like that.
1:44:49It's not like here, it's not like, you know,
1:44:50and they're like, well, Apple is willing to fight the FBI
1:44:53on unlocking an iPhone, why--
1:44:54- It's different.
1:44:55Right, you can fight the FBI here because it's a free country and you can go to court
1:44:59and argue with the FBI in court.
1:45:03You can't go to court with the People's Republic of China and fight to keep the New
1:45:07York Times app in the store.
1:45:08When China comes to you and says, "You've got to take this out of the store," you've
1:45:11got to take it out of the store.
1:45:14So I don't understand what people want Apple to do other than pull out of China.
1:45:23If you want to be, what's the word?
1:45:26It certainly wouldn't make any business sense to do it,
1:45:32but if you think that in a moral regard,
1:45:34Apple should simply stop doing business in China,
1:45:37I mean, that's a reasonable take,
1:45:38and I can listen to the argument,
1:45:39but it's, Tim Cook's not gonna do it.
1:45:42I don't understand what the argument is
1:45:45that Apple could still have an app store in China
1:45:48and sell their products in China,
1:45:50and not comply with the Chinese government
1:45:55when they say you've gotta remove
1:45:56the New York Times apps from the app store.
1:45:58- Is it unfortunate that they have
1:46:01that much control over Apple?
1:46:03Yeah, of course.
1:46:05- Right, and of over a billion people, yeah.
1:46:08Wouldn't it be one of the greatest things
1:46:10that could happen in the world
1:46:10would be for the Chinese government to open up
1:46:12and support things similar to our Bill of Rights?
1:46:15And that'd be great, but that's not the way the world is.
1:46:20- No.
1:46:21- So Apple is in a very tough position.
1:46:23Like you said, there was no choice.
1:46:28- Right, and I think Apple knows that it looks bad.
1:46:29I don't think Apple is like,
1:46:30"Okay, dokey, we'll do whatever you want."
1:46:32And they don't care.
1:46:34I think Apple cares deeply about it
1:46:36and wishes that the Chinese government didn't do this.
1:46:41But the other thing that's interesting to me,
1:46:42and I think it's sort of downplayed
1:46:44in most of the stories about it,
1:46:45is that the New York Times website
1:46:46has been blocked in China since 2012.
1:46:48So the existence of the New York Times apps,
1:46:51and obviously probably most people,
1:46:54surely most people in China don't have iPhones
1:46:56because they're so expensive.
1:46:57And the average income in China is very low,
1:47:02but it's obviously a big part of Apple's market.
1:47:05They're selling more and more of them,
1:47:07more and more of their products in China every year.
1:47:08And for the people who can't afford it,
1:47:11the App Store gave them access to the New York Times
1:47:13that they couldn't get through the internet
1:47:16or through the web.
1:47:17I shouldn't say internet,
1:47:18since obviously it's coming down through the internet.
1:47:21- Well,
1:47:23when all this FBI stuff was going on,
1:47:29didn't Apple say that China wanted a version
1:47:32of their operating system as well, and Apple said no?
1:47:34- I think so.
1:47:35I wouldn't be surprised if they asked for that.
1:47:38I mean, 'cause I think that's the sort of thing
1:47:40that Apple really would, if push came to a certain shove,
1:47:42would get out of China over.
1:47:44If China said, "You have to give us the source code to iOS
1:47:47or we won't allow you to sell your iPhones in China.
1:47:50I think Apple would, I really do think that Apple would say,
1:47:53all right, we can't sell iPhones in China.
1:47:55And we'll take the hit on sales,
1:47:57we'll take the hit on the stock,
1:47:58but there's no way that they're gonna give up
1:48:00the source code to iOS to anybody,
1:48:02let alone the Chinese government.
1:48:05- So, you know, Apple will make a stand,
1:48:08but that would be a stand on their own software,
1:48:16not an app.
1:48:18So, they didn't have a choice.
1:48:22- It sucks, it's terrible.
1:48:23I feel bad for them, but I feel worse
1:48:26for the people in China.
1:48:27I mean, the problem is the Chinese government, not Apple.
1:48:31- Right, right.
1:48:33- I probably just got the talk show banned.
1:48:35- Well, there you go.
1:48:36Yeah, you're done.
1:48:38You've been banned at Apple too, so, yeah, done.
1:48:42- Derek Farval is now banned in China.
1:48:44I wonder if it's banned, I don't know.
1:48:46- I don't know.
1:48:47- I have no idea.
1:48:48What else?
1:48:51I've got this on my list.
1:48:52And I know you're still wearing your Apple Watch, right?
1:48:54- I am.
1:48:55- Because you have written extensively
1:48:57that the fitness features on Apple Watch,
1:49:00long story short, have led you to,
1:49:02you lost a lot of weight
1:49:03and you're exercising a lot more regularly.
1:49:06It's like right out of an Apple commercial.
1:49:09- Yeah.
1:49:10- Except I don't think they're gonna put someone
1:49:11that looks like you in an Apple commercial.
1:49:13- I don't think so.
1:49:14They should.
1:49:15I'm really pretty.
1:49:17- Apple sent me, I'm wearing it right now,
1:49:20they sent me the Nike Plus Apple Watch.
1:49:24- Oh yeah.
1:49:25- I think it's, honest to God,
1:49:27I think it's the best Apple Watch.
1:49:28'Cause they, when the new Apple Watches first came out,
1:49:33the review unit I had was the regular stainless steel one.
1:49:38- Yeah, yeah.
1:49:39- I think that the aluminum one is better.
1:49:41Honest to God, I really do.
1:49:43I've always suspected this and I really, you know,
1:49:47I just like it better.
1:49:48It feels to me like the Digital Crown spins better.
1:49:50I think the Taptic engine feels slightly better.
1:49:54I think that the steel is harder for the Taptics
1:49:56to get through than the aluminum.
1:49:57I don't think it's a huge difference,
1:49:58but I think it's a subtle difference.
1:50:01I think it's a great, great product.
1:50:04The rumor that came out last week, I linked to this,
1:50:06was that one rumor came out about the next Apple Watch,
1:50:10which was that the company that's manufacturing it
1:50:12saying that their primary mission from Apple is to significantly increase battery life.
1:50:18I don't have a problem with battery life.
1:50:20I have a few thoughts on that. I think the Series 2 watch gets so much better at battery
1:50:28life than the Series 1. In my review of it, I think I missed just how much better it is.
1:50:35I don't know if it's because watchOS 3.1 made it better, because it seems like watchOS 3.1
1:50:40was a tremendous bug fix release
1:50:43for what was already a great release.
1:50:45WatchOS 3.0 was a great release feature-wise
1:50:50and interface-wise, but 3.1 seems to have really fixed
1:50:55a lot of little things like every once in a while
1:51:00did you ever have when your Apple Watch,
1:51:01it's right there next to your iPhone,
1:51:03but it says it doesn't see your iPhone.
1:51:05You get that little red, the little red,
1:51:07I don't see the iPhone, and then a minute later
1:51:08it goes away and it's fine.
1:51:10I never see that anymore. Like little things like that, like,
1:51:13like being connected to what you think it's connected to or, or the, the way,
1:51:18this, the way that unlocks your iMac now, it never like doesn't see it.
1:51:21It's always there. Um, I,
1:51:25I don't know. I just think that the battery life I'm getting on this is
1:51:29tremendous. I'm getting at least two days of battery life,
1:51:32sometimes even more like where I can wear the watch to sleep and wake up in the
1:51:36morning. And it's still like, after starting the day before at a hundred percent,
1:51:38It's still at like 60%
1:51:40See, I I just I'm in the habit of I wear my watch all day long never take it off. I
1:51:48When I get a bed, I put it in the I have one of those little
1:51:52Stand
1:51:54Chargers, you know from Apple where the thing pops up from the middle
1:51:58Yeah, I put it on there as soon as I get up in the morning
1:52:01I put it on my wrist and I go so my habit is to just
1:52:05Leave it
1:52:07Charging all night and put it on in the day and it never runs out on me. So
1:52:12And I use it a lot. I actually use the Apple watch a lot. So, you know, it's not that it's just sitting
1:52:20Idol all day long
1:52:23I'm doing the the fitness stuff on it. I
1:52:26always check my
1:52:29My messages on it, you know when alerts come in and things just to see what's going on
1:52:36So I yeah, I use it
1:52:38Here's the report. This is from
1:52:41Chinese language economic daily news claimed that the next iteration of the wearable device will be manufactured by Taiwan based Quanta
1:52:50Which is already the company that's making the first and second generation watches for Apple
1:52:55So it sounds like they're changing and that citing market watchers and knowledge of Qantas plans
1:53:00The paper said improving battery life is the manufacturers quote main task
1:53:05But beside general performance improvements the devices other harder would not see much change. That's the report
1:53:12Here's one thing I wrote is that I I would love to see it and always on display. I
1:53:17it bothers me always has as a longtime watch where that
1:53:22That sometimes I look at the watch and instead of seeing the time I see the it's just black
1:53:27But I will add as somebody who's annoyed by that and still wears non Apple watches
1:53:34occasionally, not even occasionally,
1:53:36but like when I'd like my mechanical watches.
1:53:39I think that the wrist detection
1:53:44has gotten better than ever.
1:53:45I think that they've continued to,
1:53:47I think it's always been pretty good,
1:53:48but I think it's gotten even better
1:53:49where there are fewer and fewer times
1:53:50where if I look at the watch, the face isn't on,
1:53:53but I'd still like to see an always-on display.
1:53:56That would take more power
1:53:58and possibly a different display technology
1:54:01to prevent burn-in.
1:54:03That was my idea for why they-- other than--
1:54:08don't think about it as going between charges.
1:54:10Think about what could the watch do with the same charge
1:54:14it every day or charge it every other day span,
1:54:16but what could it do with more battery life?
1:54:19The other things-- and I didn't even think of these,
1:54:21but it's obvious.
1:54:23People chimed in on Twitter.
1:54:25What if they added LTE networking and/or GPS?
1:54:32Well, I think the watch is eventually going to get, I don't know, see the thing about LTE is that you've got to pay, right?
1:54:39It's like there's no way, even like look at the iPad, what's it cost like 25 bucks a month to get?
1:54:44What's the cheapest plan you can get with with an iPad?
1:54:46Yeah, well you get a a rolling plan isn't it? That is not the cheapest where it's,
1:54:54you know, you pay five dollars but then you add stuff like that.
1:54:59So if they add LTE, I mean, obviously, in terms of feature,
1:55:02that'd be great in some ways where you could just go out
1:55:04with a watch and you'd still get text messages
1:55:06and stuff like that.
1:55:07I mean, that'd be a tremendous feature,
1:55:09but I don't know if that's a top priority
1:55:14just because you have to pay for it.
1:55:16- Yeah, I don't think that's a priority for me.
1:55:18- GPS could be though, because they have,
1:55:21they've really, I feel like one of the things
1:55:23that they really figured out in between the original
1:55:25and the Series 2 hardware and watchOS 3
1:55:30is that the fitness stuff is--
1:55:32it was always one of the tent pole features,
1:55:34but I think that they've really figured out
1:55:36that this is why people buy the watches, right?
1:55:38Yeah.
1:55:39People want notifications, and people want fitness tracking.
1:55:43And the fitness tracking GPS is a huge reason--
1:55:45that's a huge, huge reason why people--
1:55:47it's probably the only reason why people would still
1:55:49buy stuff from Garmin, right?
1:55:51I mean, if it's not for GPS, I don't
1:55:53know why you would buy that.
1:55:55So in terms of just the competitive landscape,
1:55:58what are the reasons somebody would buy something other than,
1:56:00if they're gonna put something on their wrist for fitness,
1:56:03right, just I'm gonna get a gadget,
1:56:05it's gonna go on my wrist,
1:56:06it's gonna help me track my fitness,
1:56:09what are the reasons you would not,
1:56:10you would buy something other than Apple Watch?
1:56:12GPS is one of them.
1:56:13But on the other hand, you know,
1:56:16do you look at the ones with Garmin that are GPS,
1:56:18they're big, they're very large.
1:56:21- Yeah, I don't know how important that is to me though.
1:56:25- It may not be important to you.
1:56:26I don't think it would be important to me at all
1:56:28'cause I don't go anywhere.
1:56:30You know, and I do jog, but I jog the same path every day.
1:56:34So I don't need to see, I don't need, you know,
1:56:36I don't need to see a map of where I go.
1:56:38Like, I'm boring, I just know exactly the path that I take.
1:56:43I can tell you exactly, you know,
1:56:44you can look at my watch and see the runs
1:56:46and I can tell you exactly where I went
1:56:48'cause I just take the same path.
1:56:50But for some people it's huge. I know some friends who are serious about their bicycling, and GPS is fundamental to their workouts.
1:57:02They want to know exactly the trail they took on a bike ride.
1:57:07Well, the Apple Watch, the Series 2 does have GPS tracking in it.
1:57:14Not on its own though, right? Does it?
1:57:17Yeah, on its own.
1:57:18It does?
1:57:19Yeah.
1:57:20I didn't know it had GPS.
1:57:22Are you serious?
1:57:23Yeah.
1:57:24No, it goes through the phone, right?
1:57:26No, no, no.
1:57:27You don't need the phone anymore.
1:57:28Really?
1:57:29Yeah.
1:57:30Well, then, I didn't know that.
1:57:33Or at least I didn't remember it.
1:57:35For tracking, so that you can, it will track where you walk, and it makes it better, you
1:57:43know, you've walked the speed and all that kind of stuff.
1:57:46Huh.
1:57:47Wow, how about that?
1:57:48I I didn't know that I don't know if it'll do
1:57:52Like maps and stuff like that. See that's what I'm talking about. I don't think I don't think that's what I'm talking about
1:57:58I'm talking about like it always knows where you are
1:58:00it's a GPS tracking so if I go out to do a workout and
1:58:07Start a workout it knows where I am as
1:58:10I'm walking around and and when I get home and it sinks to my phone
1:58:16It actually puts a little map in in the activity. Yeah, I'm looking at the website built-in GPS
1:58:23Well where I went
1:58:25This is a real test for me Jim
1:58:26Do I let this stand where I talked for two minutes about how the watch could add GPS or do I edit it out?
1:58:31No, I
1:58:33Think we should let it stay up. All right, let it stand
1:58:36I think we should let it stand and people can know that I'm a podcaster with integrity. Yeah built-in GPS
1:58:42I forgot. I either didn't know it, wasn't paying attention, or completely forgot that the watch
1:58:46already has built-in GPS. So LTE would obviously be the addition. Don't tell me it already has LTE.
1:58:52No, it does not. See, I think in order to do, maybe in order to do the type of GPS that you're
1:59:00talking about, it would need LTE. Right? No, I don't think so. I'm talking about, I think it's
1:59:09It's got it must already have what I'm what I was talking about. Okay
1:59:12So I so the the thing that that I did with my watch when I got the series 2 I
1:59:20would always take my phone with me and
1:59:22Then it would have my my watch would have GPS but with Apple
1:59:27Watch series 2 I didn't need to take the phone with me anymore and I had the wireless headphones
1:59:33I put a music list on my watch so I could listen to music wirelessly from my watch and
1:59:39and have it track where I was walking.
1:59:42And when I got back, it would sync with my phone
1:59:45and everything would be there.
1:59:47- Yeah.
1:59:47- So that part is kind of cool.
1:59:51- The single thing that they could do for Apple Watch
1:59:53that would make me happier would be to make it easier
1:59:58to, easier to put music on the watch
2:00:03and like not make me have to do it in advance.
2:00:05And to make it easier,
2:00:07specifically for third-party developers to load content on the watch.
2:00:12Because what I want in particular is I want, I use over Marco Arman's Overcast
2:00:16to listen to podcasts. And most of what I do, and always when I go for a jog,
2:00:21always, almost always, I listen to podcasts.
2:00:23I would love to do it and be able to leave my phone at home and not have to jump
2:00:28through like 10 minutes of hoops of syncing this to that. Just have it,
2:00:32just trust that automatically the watch already has like
2:00:36You know the two most recent episodes of all the podcasts I subscribe to already on it
2:00:43so I can just go out with air pods and the watch and just play podcasts I
2:00:47Would love that that would be good because going with the phone. It's you know it's just it's it's there's no good
2:00:54There's no good place to put a phone if you're going out for a run
2:00:56It's just no just and I I usually jog in my speedos so that makes it even more difficult
2:01:01[laughter]
2:01:06There now I've abandoned Chinatown.
2:01:09Anything else that you want to talk about? Anything else in the news that's on your mind, Jim?
2:01:13No, no, it's been a pretty good
2:01:17a pretty good end of year. I think it was pretty calm except for the Mac stuff.
2:01:21You know, well, what about
2:01:25what about this new, the iPhone rumors about, you know, edge to edge
2:01:29class. What do you think about that? The rumors don't make any sense to me. I've heard that they're
2:01:35working on an edge-to-edge iPhone. I heard that a while ago, and it's, I think, no surprise. I think
2:01:40it, you know, there's a lot of, it makes a lot of sense. I think the fact that they've gotten rid of
2:01:44the physical home button, it makes logical sense that they're moving in that direction, that that
2:01:49could be one reason that they did that. Side note, by the way, the other day my iPhone ran out before
2:01:58the end of the day of battery for the first time. I think it might be the first time that
2:02:03happened to me since I've had the iPhone 7. I don't know what I've, I guess I was using
2:02:07it all day. Uh, and it ran out and it didn't run out while I was using it. It was like
2:02:13on my desk and I was like ready to call it a night. Uh, I was doing something at my computer
2:02:17really late at night and I picked it up and I went to press the home button and it didn't
2:02:21move because it was dead and it felt gross. It was almost like I wanted to drop it. Like
2:02:26I picked up a dead mouse or something.
2:02:32It felt-- because I expected it to turn on.
2:02:35I had no reason to think that the battery was dead.
2:02:37And the fact that the button didn't move,
2:02:39it didn't just feel wrong.
2:02:41It felt gross.
2:02:42Anyway, so anyway, I could see them
2:02:44moving to an edge-to-edge design.
2:02:46But the specific rumors don't make any sense to me,
2:02:48because the specific rumors are that they've
2:02:50got new phones in development at the current sizes, 4.7
2:02:54and 5.5 inch displays.
2:02:56Yeah.
2:02:57And a new one that's 5.8 inches diagonally.
2:03:01And it makes no sense to me that they would come out
2:03:03with all of those.
2:03:04Like, I could see that they would come out
2:03:07with a phone with a 5.8 inch diagonal display
2:03:10in a bezel-less case or a much smaller bezel case
2:03:15so that the physical device isn't much bigger, right?
2:03:18Like, and some people with rulers,
2:03:19you can figure out that if they really
2:03:22do get rid of the forehead and chin bezels,
2:03:25that a 5.8 inch display wouldn't really even be
2:03:28a plus sized phone, it would be slightly bigger
2:03:31than the regular iPhone 7.
2:03:32It would be a little bit wider, but mostly the same height.
2:03:36So in terms of overall size, it might be very similar.
2:03:39That going from 4.7 to 5.8 really is just the diagonal
2:03:43of those bezels.
2:03:44So I could see that, but I don't see why in the world
2:03:47would they come out with new phones with the old sizes.
2:03:49It doesn't make any sense to me
2:03:50that they'd come out with all of them.
2:03:51So the only way that the rumors make any sense to me
2:03:55is if this involves Apple still being in a plan A, plan B
2:04:01scenario, where plan A would be to go with this radical new
2:04:06edge-to-edge design.
2:04:08And plan B would be if we feel like when it gets to the point
2:04:12where we have to say, go, and put this stuff into production,
2:04:16if we don't think we're ready to make a September ship date,
2:04:20we're going to have to go with plan B, which
2:04:22is to keep the same sizes and come out
2:04:23with just the 7S and 7S Plus next year.
2:04:26But I don't see why they would do both.
2:04:29There's, it doesn't make any sense to me
2:04:30that they would come out with, for lack of a better word,
2:04:33let's just call it the iPhone 8
2:04:34with a radical edge-to-edge design,
2:04:37come out with that and come out with the 7S Plus,
2:04:40it doesn't make any sense, or 7S, you know,
2:04:427S and 7S Plus, it doesn't make any sense.
2:04:45- That's an awful big gamble, though.
2:04:47- It's a huge gamble.
2:04:48But that's the only way it makes sense to me.
2:04:51I don't see how they, why they would come out
2:04:53the third size. I think if they come out with a new edge to edge display that
2:04:59this year then the 7 and 7 plus just stay as exactly as they are and
2:05:06move to the middle price points. I don't see why they would come out with new
2:05:11phones that are of a radical design and come out with new phones that have a
2:05:15same as last year design. Who'd buy those? Nobody. Right. Well, I mean
2:05:21you're always gonna have the people that that will complain about you know and
2:05:25I talked about this with a bunch of people on Twitter too and people say
2:05:29well maybe this new edge to edge one they won't be able to make it in huge
2:05:32quantities so you know that's why they would do the 7s and 7s + 2 that's good
2:05:38well we are why would they couple if they can't do it in sufficient
2:05:42quantities that why release it yeah that would be like the most an Apple like
2:05:46thing I've ever heard of to admit to have a device that that they make and
2:05:50and that they can't make enough of on purpose?
2:05:53It doesn't make any sense. - That's not good.
2:05:56- Right, and so what, then what?
2:05:57You'd have what, one million lucky people
2:06:00who got the ones that come out,
2:06:01and 50 million people who are like,
2:06:06"Well, I wanted the cool one,
2:06:07"but I guess I'll get the one that's not cool,"
2:06:09and pay $800 for a phone that they didn't really want?
2:06:13That doesn't make any sense to me.
2:06:14- That's a doubt.
2:06:15Right, well.
2:06:19- It certainly is an interesting rumor though.
2:06:22It's very similar to the iPad rumor I told you
2:06:26where there's this third size with no bezels, right?
2:06:30It's sort of the same thing in both directions,
2:06:33but I don't know, who knows whether they're ready for it.
2:06:36- Doesn't make sense to me.
2:06:38The size part.
2:06:41But we'll see soon enough I guess.
2:06:45- Yeah, the other thing that's weird about the rumor to me
2:06:48is that this new third size, 5.8 inch, would be--
2:06:54that there's only one, that there's not a corresponding--
2:06:57that if they come out with a new edge to edge design
2:07:00and it has this 5.8 inch display that they're talking about,
2:07:03there's only one size of it.
2:07:05And that sounds unusual to me.
2:07:07It seems to me like this two-size thing
2:07:09is a big part of Apple's--
2:07:12the appeal of the iPhone lineup.
2:07:16It doesn't make any sense to me.
2:07:17What would that make bringing the other two products,
2:07:21you know, this year's products along,
2:07:25would that make that make more sense?
2:07:27- No, it doesn't make any sense to me.
2:07:29- No, but what if they only released
2:07:30one size of the edge-to-edge?
2:07:32- I don't know.
2:07:34I guess they could, but it doesn't seem to fit
2:07:40with the pattern of Apple's previous releases.
2:07:42- No, no, I agree.
2:07:44- Anyway, at least there's something for us
2:07:47to write about this year.
2:07:48(laughing)
2:07:49- Well, it seems that there's gonna be a few things
2:07:50to write about for sure.
2:07:52(laughing)
2:07:54- Jim, I thank you for your time.
2:07:56It's always good to have you on the show.
2:07:57People can get all the Dalrymple they want
2:07:59at your website, The Loop, which is at loopinsight.com.
2:08:04On Twitter, I think you're JDalrymple, correct?
2:08:08- I am, yep.
2:08:09- And that's where they can get your tweets,
2:08:11which are always a pleasure.
2:08:15(laughing)
2:08:17- Cheerful.
2:08:18If you wanna get cheered up, follow Jim.
2:08:20Follow Jim Dyer on Twitter.
2:08:23It'll cheer you right up.
2:08:25- Cheer you up, you have no problem at all.