0:00:00What kind of microphone do you have?
0:00:01I know you were gonna give me like a
0:00:03how to improve my audio, some help a while ago
0:00:06and then we never followed through.
0:00:07What kind of mic do you have?
0:00:09- So I have both of the ones that everyone says
0:00:12are the best mics for this purpose.
0:00:14I have the Heil PR40 that Dan Benjamin
0:00:16and all those people use, and I have the Shure SM7B.
0:00:20And I prefer the Shure, I prefer the way my voice
0:00:22sounds with the Shure.
0:00:23The Heil PR40 makes people sound a little bit more nasal
0:00:26and has like weird, it's like,
0:00:28It's missing like the mid bass, but it has a lot of the lower bass.
0:00:32So you sound like really bassy but not that present and not that warm with the PR-40.
0:00:38So the SM7B is a really, really nice sounding mic, probably the best sounding mic for this purpose,
0:00:44but has the giant asterisk that it needs a really nice and generally very expensive preamp to power it properly.
0:00:51Yeah, screw that.
0:00:52[laughs]
0:00:54So that's what I use, of course.
0:00:56I've got the old road podcaster, which is probably I don't I could I guess I could do better
0:01:01You could I mean there's a question on how much it matters because your show has guests
0:01:07It entered that rotate out every week
0:01:09Like you don't want to sound that different from the guests now
0:01:11There have been a lot of episodes your show where I think you sound worse than the guests
0:01:15But that might be because of like weird EQ or going on or something else going on
0:01:19You know, that might be something else in the process being not that great. I don't know
0:01:25And the other thing is how do you talk into your mic I keep the mic
0:01:29Underneath my face like I'm not it's sticking straight up and I'm you know, it's close to my mouth
0:01:36But I have it where it's underneath my face. It's more or less like at my chin and going down. Yeah, you're doing it wrong
0:01:42Yeah, you're supposed to I'm supposed to be like staring right into it, right?
0:01:46Yeah, pretty much like my and and like yeah like so for mine like because I have the the crazy low output sm7b
0:01:52I am like my lips are almost touching the pop filter. Sometimes they do touch the pop filter
0:01:57I'm like right on top of it talking directly straight on into it
0:02:00Yeah, see what happened. I'm asking all these questions because I came in
0:02:04I spent a big chunk of the holidays not working in my home office was downstairs, you know, Nick dining room
0:02:11you know being more of a
0:02:13You know part of the family
0:02:15And I came up to record the
0:02:22Star Wars episode of the show with Sir Q'son Guy.
0:02:27- That was good, by the way.
0:02:29I thought I would hate that, 'cause it was so long.
0:02:31I don't care that much about Star Wars,
0:02:33but that was actually really good.
0:02:34I really enjoyed it.
0:02:35I listen to those people. - Those are the compliments
0:02:36from people who said, "I don't even like Star Wars,
0:02:38but I like that show."
0:02:38That, to me, was, that's all that matters.
0:02:40That meant that it came out the way I wanted it to.
0:02:43I came up to my office, and my mic arm was on the ground
0:02:47in front of my desk, and I thought,
0:02:50I knew I didn't put it there,
0:02:51And Amy records her show up here.
0:02:54And I didn't think she'd recorded her episode recently.
0:02:57But I thought it must have been her.
0:02:58And I was like, why in the world would she disconnect it from the desk
0:03:01and put it on the floor?
0:03:02And I was a little annoyed.
0:03:04And then I looked, and it was the fact that the arm mount had broken.
0:03:07It just like-- just right where you would think,
0:03:09right where the clamp goes on the desk, just like a stress fracture.
0:03:15Which kind of makes sense, because it supports a fair amount of weight.
0:03:18And it's the same arm that I had had ever since I started doing the first run of the show
0:03:22Which I think was like 2007. I don't even know when the when that was so
0:03:26But anyway, I had to get a new podcast arm and
0:03:30Of course, I didn't set it up until right when we were supposed to record tonight
0:03:35Naturally, and I'm looking at the instructions and it's like wow
0:03:38They're showing me to set this mic up in a very different way than I have ever
0:03:42Ever used the microphone
0:03:45Yeah, no, you're definitely doing it wrong. I mean certain mics are made to be addressed like on the side
0:03:50But that's not one of them. Yeah, but I'm not talking into the side. I am talking into the top of it
0:03:55Well, you're kind of talking like over the top of it like you play. Yeah. Yeah, exactly exactly. Yeah, that's not good. I
0:04:01Don't know. Maybe I could try to fix it right now
0:04:04It seems to me though that if I do it their way
0:04:06I'm gonna it's what I'm gonna be seeing I won't be able to see like my computer or anything
0:04:10Yeah, you kind of got to like look through them like through the arm and kind of look, you know
0:04:14I mean yeah I don't know maybe I'll put it at an angle or something does this
0:04:21sound any better um yeah you sound a little bit louder a little bit clearer I
0:04:25mean it's not a huge difference but it's a little different all right if this if
0:04:30you see here a terrible noise it means that I've unscrewed this thing I mean
0:04:35the road podcaster is not an amazing mic like you're not gonna see you're never
0:04:38gonna sound amazing from it but you can sound good enough from it I can't get
0:04:43the thing screws on to it. Alright. Oh shit. This will make for excellent audio. What a
0:04:50broadcast. Alright. Now it's all floppy. These things are ridiculous.
0:04:57Also the Rode Boom Arm that I assume you're using, I'm also using one. It's not the best
0:05:05arm. It's pretty shitty. It works, but like mine, any slight vibration anywhere like this
0:05:12Anywhere like in the desk or anything a spring inside the arm rattles
0:05:16Which is completely opposite of the kind of thing. It's supposed to do
0:05:19And it's just like I just I haven't ever
0:05:23Replaced it because like, you know, it's not broken yet
0:05:26It still works, but I even had the thought when I had the real when I had to order one
0:05:30I just went to Amazon and I saw that it said road and I thought well, I've got a road Mike might as well get it
0:05:35Yeah
0:05:36You know and the old one was a heil. Is that you pronounce it? Yeah
0:05:39That's how other people pronounce it. I don't know. All right
0:05:42And even though I like I said it was seven years old and I sort of don't I'm not really angry that it broke
0:05:48I still feel like well it broke. I'm not gonna buy another Heil, right?
0:05:51So I just bought the road but then I had this and it was one of those things where I you know
0:05:56Amazon makes it so easy. So it's like that's my thought process. My thought process was not a Heil
0:06:02I already have a road mic and
0:06:05It looked highly rated on Amazon and so like two clicks later
0:06:09It was on its way. And so then with a little bit of thought I thought hmm, maybe I should have
0:06:14Taken the usual advice and ask Marco
0:06:16No, I mean that's what I'm I'm using the exact same arm like the road, you know, PS whatever arm. It's their only arm
0:06:22I think I'm using the same one just because I had the podcaster
0:06:26I like I bought the kit for five by five and then I upgraded my mic but never upgraded the boom arm because it still
0:06:32Works the desk lamp does look sturdier than the aisle like the heil
0:06:35After having looked at it. It's like I'm kind of surprised it didn't snap off right away
0:06:39Yeah, I'm like, I don't really know where the road one would break
0:06:43Like looking at the construction like, you know what? I don't know what part of this would be the weak point
0:06:47But I don't think I mean
0:06:49I think it's more likely that like one of the springs in the arm would snap and it would lose tension and just drop to
0:06:55The desk. Yeah, I think that we're likely to fail
0:06:57Yeah
0:06:58And that actually was starting to happen with my house that it was starting starting to lose some tension and I could not there's no way
0:07:03to like adjust that
0:07:05Yeah, the road has these weird screws on the arm, but I don't know if those do anything.
0:07:11Yeah. What are these Velcro straps for?
0:07:13Those are for attaching the cable. Like, you basically attach the cable to the arm on its
0:07:19way down using those. So that way you can have, like, a nice tidy cable going down to the base
0:07:24of the arm. Oh, that would be nice. Yeah, that's what they're for.
0:07:28All right, anyway. Yeah, I'll take a picture of my setup.
0:07:31Quiet week for you. Yeah.
0:07:34Yeah.
0:07:34Yeah, nothing's ever going on.
0:07:37For the record, we're recording on Thursday the 8th,
0:07:43which is a night after you recorded ATP,
0:07:47where I presume you talked about probably
0:07:48all the same things we're gonna talk about tonight,
0:07:50but I couldn't have listened to it yet
0:07:52because I didn't catch the live broadcast.
0:07:55But people like you, they won't mind hearing you
0:07:57talk about it twice.
0:07:59Yeah, they should be all right.
0:08:01When did you publish your piece, Sunday?
0:08:04- Yeah, it was Sunday night.
0:08:05Part of the problem, I think, was that I published it
0:08:08on a Sunday night, right before a,
0:08:13right as a holiday vacation for a lot of people was ending,
0:08:16and there's nothing going on in the news.
0:08:18- Right.
0:08:19- And so, a lot of the places that picked it up,
0:08:22a lot of people were telling me,
0:08:23yeah, never publish things at that time,
0:08:25because people are so desperate for news
0:08:29at some of these bigger sites,
0:08:30that like, you know, there's nothing going on in tech,
0:08:33you know, on a random Monday.
0:08:35I mean, CES was starting,
0:08:36but nothing had really been announced of any meaning yet.
0:08:40And so everyone was saying like,
0:08:43I couldn't have possibly had worse timing
0:08:45if I didn't want it to be that noticed.
0:08:47- Like if you had published the exact same piece,
0:08:49word for word, not changed one bit, but maybe on Wednesday,
0:08:54it might've, you know,
0:08:56I think it would have gotten the attention it deserved,
0:09:00but it wouldn't have gotten the attention it didn't deserve?
0:09:03I don't know how even to put it.
0:09:05- Yeah, that's basically it.
0:09:06I mean, honestly, it didn't deserve the attention it got,
0:09:10that's for sure.
0:09:11It wasn't good.
0:09:14The regret I have about it is that it just wasn't very good.
0:09:17It was nowhere near my best work.
0:09:19I didn't put enough effort into it.
0:09:23I made a bunch of little mistakes in it,
0:09:25and it just wasn't very good.
0:09:26And then for that to become extremely widespread
0:09:30and to have it be under quite a bit of scrutiny,
0:09:34that is just frustrating.
0:09:36- Yeah, so for the record--
0:09:37- And it's my fault.
0:09:39- People listening extemporaneously,
0:09:41people who are listening when this episode first comes out
0:09:43will know exactly what we're talking about,
0:09:44but for the record, we should say what it was,
0:09:47which is that on Sunday,
0:09:48you published an article titled,
0:09:50headlined, "Apple Has Lost the Functional High Ground."
0:09:54I think if if I may a nutshell summary is I you've detected that over the last few years the quality of Apple's
0:10:02Software has gotten worse
0:10:04Correct. Not any one particular thing
0:10:07just in general and that it concerns you about the future of the company and
0:10:13It's the reason you've switched to the Mac in the first place a decade ago is that you were sick of having little stupid things
0:10:19Like little annoying bugs here there everywhere all day long
0:10:24that it just works factor is sort of fading from Apple's software platforms.
0:10:29Right, and like a lot of the a lot of the pushback I mean the reason it spread so
0:10:35quickly so incredibly quickly I mean it had hundreds of retweets within a few
0:10:40hours of publishing it and then it spread from there. The reason it spread
0:10:45I think is because a lot of people agree and and a lot of people still argued
0:10:50with it, of course. But I think if I was totally wrong, it
0:10:54wouldn't have spread. You know, it's not like I'm publishing
0:10:55this on some major news site where people like you would make
0:10:58fun of me if I got it wrong. Like, I'm publishing this on my
0:11:01personal site. Like, it's not widely read most of the time.
0:11:04And so, you know, I don't think it would have spread if there
0:11:08wasn't some truth there.
0:11:10Yeah, I think the word I used and I saw a couple of other
0:11:13people use it. I know Hockenberry did too. And I think
0:11:15it's because it's the perfect word that it resonated.
0:11:17Right. Or it hit a nerve one of those.
0:11:20I think Resonate is better.
0:11:22- Yeah, probably.
0:11:23That's why you're the pro writer.
0:11:26- I don't know, to me Resonate is exactly what happened.
0:11:29It's like it felt true more so than thought true.
0:11:34It just felt right.
0:11:35- Right, and very few people have said
0:11:38you are completely wrong.
0:11:39Most people have just said,
0:11:41well, I would have said it differently,
0:11:43or it isn't as severe as you say.
0:11:45And that's like, what I regret,
0:11:47and where I felt my failing was that
0:11:50I worded some things too severely,
0:11:52and which of course is a frequent problem I have.
0:11:56But so I worded some things too severely
0:11:58and that detracted from the validity of what I wrote.
0:12:02But the fact is, I think the overall sentiment
0:12:06of Apple's software has some quality problems
0:12:09in recent years and it doesn't seem to be getting better,
0:12:13that I think is what resonated with people
0:12:15pretty unambiguously.
0:12:16- Yeah, you do, you have a sort of,
0:12:20it's almost like a no-nonsense style.
0:12:21Like, and I'll vouch for it.
0:12:24You certainly aren't doing it.
0:12:25You're not sensational.
0:12:26You don't overstate things for sensational purposes
0:12:30because you're not looking for hits or page views
0:12:33'cause you don't even have, you know, you use the deck.
0:12:35You don't even get paid by page views.
0:12:37You know, like, you're not gonna get extra this month
0:12:39because you had an explosive story this week
0:12:41that got, you know, a couple hundred thousand
0:12:43extra page views.
0:12:44It doesn't give you a nickel.
0:12:44In fact, it could actually cost me money if I end up going over some bandwidth allocations at my host
0:12:49So right more popular an article is it actually might cost me more money. That's funny. It's actually true, right?
0:12:54Which is the opposite of when you know?
0:12:56You know when Dan Lyons trumps up something at Valley wag
0:13:02It's because you know, they measure their success month to month by page views. You're not in that game
0:13:07You know, that's not why that's not the way that you overstated it. It's just sort of a no-nonsense style
0:13:13Well, but you know and and you're right that that's what I intended
0:13:17But because I did I did use like so what like one of these samples like I originally said quality has taken a nosedive
0:13:24And that was the wrong word really it hasn't taken a nosedive
0:13:28It's been a gradual decline and what I meant really was a decline
0:13:31That's just now in really bad shape
0:13:33But a nosedive suggests like an acceleration of like all of a sudden. It's now dropping quickly, and that's not really the case
0:13:40case. It's more of a gradual progression. But anyway, so like, you know, there are things
0:13:43like that. And yeah, overall, like, I regret having written it simply because it put some
0:13:51of my most mediocre to worst work in front of so many people and put my name on it forever.
0:13:58Whereas like, I don't regret having said that Apple has problems. I just regret that I didn't
0:14:04say it better.
0:14:05>> Right. And what happened then is that it really went explosive.
0:14:08I mean, like you --
0:14:09>> Oh, my God.
0:14:09>> You even said -- I guess it was your Google Analytics, but whatever.
0:14:12You -- you know, you had -- your analytics showed that it was more popular
0:14:16than anything you had written in all of 2014.
0:14:18>> Correct.
0:14:19>> Which is amazing, really, that, you know,
0:14:21five days into the year you've already topped last year.
0:14:24It just got picked up.
0:14:25It got picked up and relinked and relinked and relinked.
0:14:28And I guess Business Insider got it started.
0:14:31Here's their headline.
0:14:33Apple's software is in a quote, nose dive, end quote,
0:14:37that is deeply concerning longtime Apple supporters,
0:14:40as Jairo writing a perfect Business Insider headline.
0:14:45- Right, and the thing is, like, usually,
0:14:47I could pick on Business Insider and say,
0:14:49"You guys are such pieces of shit for this,"
0:14:51'cause usually they are.
0:14:52In this case, they really, the original version
0:14:55had a couple of, like, paraphrases in it
0:14:58that were not what I said, that were more inflammatory,
0:15:01but I since complained about them
0:15:03and he updated them to be more accurate.
0:15:05So over, and the headline, like, I did say that.
0:15:09I didn't really mean to say it that severely,
0:15:12but I did say that.
0:15:13So overall, of all the hat jobs they've done to me
0:15:16over the years, this is one of the better ones.
0:15:19- Yeah, but it's, I guess it's not, yeah,
0:15:22it's not necessarily that as it stands right now
0:15:24that it's unfair, but it's fuel to the fire.
0:15:28- Right, and actually,
0:15:30A lot of people don't realize this.
0:15:32A lot of people have no clue how insanely popular
0:15:38and pervasive Business Insider is.
0:15:40Like, whenever I mention on Business Insider any context,
0:15:45I will have everybody who has ever met me,
0:15:49my mom's friends, my friends' parents,
0:15:52like people who are outside of the tech news sphere,
0:15:57they will all contact me and be like,
0:16:00"Oh my God, I read this article about you
0:16:01on Business Insider, congratulations."
0:16:04They consider it a good thing whenever I mention there,
0:16:05even though it's always so trashy.
0:16:07Sometimes one of my products will occasionally get mentioned
0:16:12in some major tech publication like Mac World,
0:16:15or occasionally I've even been in New York Times
0:16:17or Wall Street Journal or something like that.
0:16:19Never a peep from anybody.
0:16:21When I'm in Business Insider
0:16:23for the stupidest smallest thing,
0:16:25everyone in my life comes forward,
0:16:26"Oh my God, I haven't seen you in 15 years,
0:16:29but I read this article about you in Business Insider.
0:16:31That site, I don't know why it's so popular,
0:16:34but it is really popular.
0:16:36And so whenever they write anything about me
0:16:39or one of my products, it gets picked up everywhere.
0:16:43It gets carried everywhere,
0:16:45and they ultimately dictate the narrative.
0:16:47If you look, almost every other site
0:16:50that republished this article
0:16:52was republishing from Business Insider.
0:16:54A lot of them were linking back to Business Insider
0:16:55instead of my site.
0:16:56A lot of them were taking the Business Insider headlines
0:16:59in quotes word for word.
0:17:00It really was Business Insider that led the promotion
0:17:05on this, whether willingly or not, I don't know,
0:17:08it doesn't really matter, but people do not realize,
0:17:11your site seeds all the tech sites.
0:17:14Whenever you write about something,
0:17:16all the tech sites write about it a day later.
0:17:17Business Insider seeds everything else.
0:17:20It's really weird, and I wish it wasn't that way,
0:17:23but it really is.
0:17:24- It's sort of the opposite of my sort of popularity.
0:17:28My popularity is super niche.
0:17:30And so it is a big deal for some people.
0:17:32Like if I link to somebody,
0:17:34first time I ever linked to their blog,
0:17:36a lot of people will tweet to me like,
0:17:38"Oh my God, you just made my day."
0:17:39And that's hard for me.
0:17:42I don't, I'm still not yet.
0:17:44I can't say I'll ever get used to that,
0:17:45but I understand it.
0:17:47I know.
0:17:48I know what it was like.
0:17:49I know what it was like the first time
0:17:51that Slashdot linked to Daring Fireball way back in 2002.
0:17:54And it was just crazy.
0:17:55And it's not even that I loved Slashdot,
0:17:57but it's like I knew that holy shit, that's a big deal.
0:18:00- Right, it was like getting on the dig front page
0:18:01back in 2006.
0:18:03- Right, I also remember that my site didn't go down
0:18:05and it was, I thought, up until that point,
0:18:09I had no idea whether, there was no way for me to fake it.
0:18:12I couldn't know if I would survive a slash starting.
0:18:15But I don't think it, like some guy,
0:18:21somebody writes a blog post,
0:18:22I've never linked to them before, I link to them.
0:18:24They're not gonna get their mom calling them and say,
0:18:26"Hey, I saw a Daring Fireball link to you."
0:18:28'Cause her mom doesn't know who I am either.
0:18:31- Unless the mom is really cool.
0:18:32- Yeah, I mean, it would be an exception.
0:18:34It would have to be like Brent Simmons,
0:18:36where his mom's like a programmer and stuff.
0:18:38- Right, right.
0:18:39- And I shouldn't even say mom, dad, anybody,
0:18:41who's not in the thing
0:18:43and is already one of my regular readers.
0:18:44Whereas Business Insider has a very, for whatever reason,
0:18:47has a very broad readership of typical people.
0:18:51- Yeah, what they write goes very far.
0:18:53Which is really unfortunate, 'cause it's so bad usually.
0:18:56Yeah, it's something to do with, you know, that they're a certain brand of, I don't know, sensationalizing stuff.
0:19:03Well, look, I mean, you know, there are things in the world that, like, there are choices people can make
0:19:09where you can do things like the good, high-quality, morally sound way,
0:19:15or you take this one little shortcut here, if you're willing to give up a little bit of integrity here,
0:19:20or a little bit of sensationalism here, you can boost your numbers by 15, 20, 30%.
0:19:25and they choose the latter all the time.
0:19:29Like, so, like, whereas you choose the former,
0:19:31and that's what we consider in our community to be, like,
0:19:34the right way to do it, if you're shameless enough,
0:19:39and if you prioritize numbers and success in that kind
0:19:43over integrity and quality,
0:19:46then you can get insane numbers and insane popularity,
0:19:49and they have chosen that.
0:19:51Yeah, and let's not overstate things here either.
0:19:53They're certainly not the worst.
0:19:55They're there, you know and the other thing too they have talented people and they have had talented people Dan Fromer used to write there
0:20:01Yeah, that's where I met him. I used to hate him and then like he came to the tumblr offices
0:20:04I met him there first and then like he left and became a normal good person
0:20:08It was amazing and I know Jay Jay arrow who wrote this piece on you. I uh, you know, he's good. He's smart
0:20:14You know, I you could just tell from like reading some Twitter
0:20:17Nick Carlson who I think is his name the guy who just wrote the published the book on Yahoo and Marissa Meyer
0:20:24You know, he's a good reporter and yes, I'll give him that. Yeah, you know, and I think it's interesting too
0:20:30I think I think the success he's having promoting his book because it seems I'm reading a lot of stuff about his book
0:20:35It's just popping up a lot of places
0:20:37I think it just goes to show that at Business Insider, they're good at promoting stuff including themselves
0:20:42You know like that's part. It's not just that they're whether you're good bad or whatever as a writer a reporter
0:20:49Being able to self promote is a skill and that it's to me is part of there a big part of their success
0:20:54Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you know and Henry Blodgett's always had that to founder of the site
0:21:00Among some other issues, but that's fine
0:21:02But that's a definite thing though, you know, it's like there's there's certain people, you know, like he's good at getting on TV
0:21:11You know and there's that certain type of Wall Street person who?
0:21:15Is like just goes on CNBC all the time and I would drive me nuts. I I would hate going on TV
0:21:21I would I wouldn't think I'd want to go on once I
0:21:23Can't imagine like the the amount of stress that would bring
0:21:27Hey, I would I would definitely if I was ever invited I would definitely decline
0:21:32I've had invitations many times and I almost oh
0:21:34I mean I went on Charlie Rose that one time and that was cool and it was also pretty easy because it was like five
0:21:39in the afternoon
0:21:40Getting to New York at five in the afternoon is super easy
0:21:43I just take like a one o'clock train from Philly and I like going to Manhattan anyway
0:21:48So that was cool. And that was I had a blast and it was well worth, you know
0:21:51It wasn't that much of a time commitment
0:21:54But like I've had offers to go on like Bloomberg TV and it's like, you know, they want me in New York by like 5 a.m
0:22:01Eastern yeah, and it's like no it's not gonna work and but it really doesn't
0:22:06Compute with them that somebody would not want to be on TV like people who are in TV
0:22:12seem to be people who've
0:22:14Whether they're on the air or not like that or whether they're just working as like a producer or whatever
0:22:19It seems like the TV industry is only composed of people who've spent their whole lives wanting to be in the TV industry
0:22:24And they can't it just doesn't compute it doesn't they can't grasp it and I say, you know
0:22:30I I really don't think I ever want to be on your show. Thanks for asking. I'm flattered but
0:22:34You know being in New York by 5 a.m
0:22:37It's not gonna work.
0:22:39- Well also, it's similar to the whole,
0:22:42you should do this for exposure kind of arguments.
0:22:45A lot of times they can't imagine why anybody would say no
0:22:49to this great honor that they're bestowing upon you.
0:22:51And the fact is, there's a cost to you being on TV,
0:22:54and there's risks to you being on TV,
0:22:57and it just might not be worth it.
0:22:59That's how I'm realizing as I'm getting older
0:23:03and hopefully wiser, but I keep making the same mistakes
0:23:05over and over again, so probably not wiser,
0:23:07but as I at least get older, I'm realizing that
0:23:10talking to journalists for interviews,
0:23:12for stories about anything,
0:23:14when they call you for a quote or anything,
0:23:17it is almost never worth agreeing to that
0:23:20because the risk is so high that
0:23:22they're going to distort your words to fit their narrative
0:23:25in a way that you don't approve of,
0:23:27that you can't, that's totally out of your control.
0:23:29And it's like, in this day and age,
0:23:31if I have something to say, I can say it on my blog.
0:23:34Now granted, now that has the other problem,
0:23:36just happen, which is like, I better be sure I say it well there, and everything I write
0:23:41there can be taken and quoted elsewhere, but at least I wrote it my way. Like, it seems
0:23:46like less of a risk to do it that way than, like, to just be quoted in some random news
0:23:50story and, like, you have no control over that, you usually, unless you have a very
0:23:55strong relationship with them, usually you can't get, like, review, like, quote review
0:23:58or anything, and if somebody screws up and publishes something that you didn't quite
0:24:03there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.
0:24:05Even if they publish a correction, the damage is done.
0:24:08- Yeah.
0:24:09- So it's, and going on TV is probably even worse,
0:24:12because you're live, you can't even carefully
0:24:15think about your words for very long.
0:24:16You're live, you need to get a comment right now
0:24:19and try to sound smart, and it just,
0:24:22and everyone's watching.
0:24:24- Yeah, and it's also, it's not leisurely.
0:24:27- Yeah, exactly.
0:24:27- I think I, it's funny, I was gonna say,
0:24:31think I did pretty well on Charlie Rose but they've never asked me back so maybe
0:24:34not I remember I think I watched it I remember just like like you know I think
0:24:39I immediately forgot about it so it couldn't have been good or bad really it
0:24:42was me and David Pogue talking about the iPhone 5 I want to say like I'm gonna
0:24:48place it two years ago pretty sure it was iPhone 5 well you probably did
0:24:53exactly what you what is like the optimal scenario for a TV appearance
0:24:57like that, which is be good but completely forgettable
0:25:01because we all forgot it.
0:25:03And that's good because it could go a lot worse.
0:25:06It can't really go much better.
0:25:08And so that's, and now you can say,
0:25:11I've been on the Charlie Rose show.
0:25:13You can tell your parents, they can see it.
0:25:15Like, it's all good.
0:25:16So you have all the benefits, but nothing went wrong.
0:25:20- Sitting in a chair that was warmed by Matt Damon's ass.
0:25:24- Is that an honor?
0:25:25I'm not sure.
0:25:26- I don't know.
0:25:26they're walking into a room as he walks out.
0:25:30Did you stop by and say, hey, I like your site, man.
0:25:33Yeah, yeah, he wanted a t-shirt.
0:25:36Sure he's a reader.
0:25:36No, I learned what to do in that scenario from Merlin Mann.
0:25:41It's such great advice that you just
0:25:43have to know this before-- just think about it now,
0:25:46before when there's no famous people around.
0:25:48And if you ever meet somebody who's famous, truly famous,
0:25:51and you're going to get a chance to say something,
0:25:53all you say is, "Huge fan of your work."
0:25:57- Oh, that's good.
0:25:58Merlin's so good. - That's it.
0:25:59You just say, "Huge fan of your work," and you mean it.
0:26:01Don't say it if you don't mean it.
0:26:02Just look at him and say,
0:26:03"Hey, great to meet you.
0:26:04"A huge, huge fan of your work."
0:26:06And then that's it.
0:26:07And then you let him go.
0:26:08You just, maybe neither, I think with Damon,
0:26:10we didn't even stop walking.
0:26:12But it was, there was a moment, I could say something,
0:26:15I just said, "Hey, huge fan of your work."
0:26:17And he goes, "Thanks."
0:26:18And then he left.
0:26:20- See, and you have that story too.
0:26:22So it worked out.
0:26:23Right?
0:26:24Yeah, and anyway, what you said is exactly right, though,
0:26:29about talking to reporters, where,
0:26:31and it's definitely my experience,
0:26:32where almost all of them have the story written,
0:26:35whether it's actually written, written,
0:26:37or it's just like an outline in their head.
0:26:39They've already got it written,
0:26:41and they will take your quote and make it fit
0:26:43what they've already written, nine times out of 10.
0:26:45So I don't talk to reporters anymore, either,
0:26:47unless I know them, unless I know,
0:26:49either know them personally,
0:26:50or if I'm familiar with their work and trust them.
0:26:54- Yeah, and it's different when you know them personally.
0:26:57And I'll talk to people I know,
0:26:58but that's a pretty small list, really.
0:27:01- Yeah, or just familiar with their work.
0:27:04But yeah, again, but Joe Schmo from Bloomberg, no way.
0:27:08- Not a, yeah, terrible idea.
0:27:10It can only go badly, and it probably will.
0:27:12- Right.
0:27:13- I almost worked there.
0:27:16- At Bloomberg?
0:27:17- Yeah, when I was interviewing
0:27:18for what became the Tumblr job,
0:27:21I was weighing those two offers.
0:27:22I had gotten an offer from both,
0:27:23I interviewed at both places.
0:27:25And I got to choose between Bloomberg
0:27:28and this giant glass building
0:27:30where all the walls inside were glass,
0:27:32and this caused problems because you couldn't see
0:27:34how to exit the conference room you were in.
0:27:36There's like optical illusions everywhere.
0:27:38And they told me they had to add this like row of stickers
0:27:43that were just like the company logo.
0:27:45This row of decals on every wall
0:27:47that approximately eye level,
0:27:49just so you wouldn't run into things,
0:27:50like run into walls.
0:27:52You know, a typical corporate design of like,
0:27:54it looks really cool, it doesn't work at all.
0:27:57And so I get to weigh that,
0:27:59of crashing into glass walls
0:28:01and sitting in a very long table
0:28:04with about four feet of width of the table assigned to me.
0:28:08Little six inch rim around the desk,
0:28:11like not even cubicle wall,
0:28:12it's like a six inch rim around my little four foot space,
0:28:15typing on a PC working on Fortran code.
0:28:19- No. - Or.
0:28:20- Yeah, yeah, that was the job.
0:28:22- Really?
0:28:23- And everyone I interviewed with was not that nice,
0:28:27and I thought I bombed the interview.
0:28:29And so I got an offer for an interview
0:28:32that I thought I bombed from people
0:28:34I don't really wanna work with
0:28:35in this terrible environment,
0:28:37like this giant boiler room kind of environment,
0:28:39just like this little strip of a desk
0:28:41with a Fortran terminal.
0:28:42Or I could go work for this guy who looks like he's 15, David Karp, and he's working
0:28:49out of some office that I don't quite understand that a bunch of other people are in, but he
0:28:53doesn't work for them.
0:28:54There's some arrangement where they're sharing the office or something.
0:28:56Everything is red and colorful, and the office is full of children's toys.
0:29:00And he told me that he'd buy me a Mac and I could work on a Mac.
0:29:04So I went with that.
0:29:06That was literally why I went there.
0:29:08I can't believe they've still got Fortran code in production.
0:29:11I mean, that was literally a joke.
0:29:12- Yeah.
0:29:12- I think it was this week's Simpsons.
0:29:15- No, I actually, I was recently,
0:29:17I was on a flight recently sitting next to
0:29:19a guy who works for IBM and he was a young guy.
0:29:22He was in his probably mid-20s.
0:29:24But he works in IBM's mainframe division,
0:29:28which is still running and there's like, you know,
0:29:30big banks and insurance companies and things like,
0:29:32they still use IBM mainframes.
0:29:35And he writes all in Fortran or, no, I think it was COBOL.
0:29:38One of those two, like that's what he does all day,
0:29:41is write low-level mainframe operating system code
0:29:45in Cobalt or Fortran.
0:29:47- Yeah, that's crazy.
0:29:48- In this, and he's, I mean, he wasn't even born
0:29:50when this thing was originally written.
0:29:53- I feel bad 'cause there's probably people
0:29:54who listen to the show who have a job like that.
0:29:56- Oh, I'm sure.
0:29:57It's more common than you think.
0:29:58That's the crazy part.
0:30:00- Yeah, I don't really wanna make fun,
0:30:01I'm not trying to make fun.
0:30:02I'm just sort of stunned that there's that much,
0:30:05what would you call it, like inertia
0:30:10with programming languages, that they just,
0:30:12once they get any kind of mass success, they just never die.
0:30:15- Well, in a system like that, I mean,
0:30:17if you think about it like from like a programmer
0:30:20out of college viewpoint, and you think,
0:30:22why are you using Fortran for your bank's large systems?
0:30:26You're stupid, that's dumb, I wanna rewrite this whole thing
0:30:28in Node or whatever. (laughs)
0:30:31And then, you know, but the reality is like,
0:30:33the wise programmer would look at that and be like,
0:30:35all right, this bank's massive financial backend
0:30:38that has been running fine for the most part
0:30:40for like 30 years is written in some crazy language,
0:30:44do I want the job of rewriting it from scratch?
0:30:48Hell no.
0:30:48Like that's it, that has red flags all over it.
0:30:51You do not want that kind of responsibility.
0:30:54Get out of there.
0:30:55I don't know any wise programmers who would take that job.
0:30:59- It's sort of if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
0:31:02If it ain't broke, don't rewrite it.
0:31:04- And certainly don't touch it
0:31:05when there's like massive amounts of money at stake.
0:31:07Right.
0:31:09Crazy.
0:31:10Let's take a break, I'll do the first sponsor,
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0:32:05been in Marco's office they look great on the wall. Two really really big ones
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0:33:22Yeah, I'm looking right at five fracture prints in my office right now.
0:33:27Oh my god, they're all we have them all over the place and they're great gift idea, too
0:33:31So, I don't know the immediate backlash not backlash over over
0:33:38Over
0:33:41Representation of your thing is kind of interesting and it's sad and depressing but I feel like the better topic is to actually talk about
0:33:48some of the problems apple software has
0:33:51Yeah, because one of the things I got
0:33:53Is it definitely because it hits such a mainstream media thing? I mean people within Apple definitely noticed and I
0:34:01Heard from a couple friends at Apple not like PR not like Apple PR reach out and telling me, you know
0:34:08Trying to spin it or anything just you know, like engineers and some of them
0:34:12III it was really interesting what they said all of them said different things but like one of them was pretty surprised and
0:34:17More or less of do you really think that because I you know, I you know
0:34:21This is the friend at apples more or less paraphrase that you know, I think that we've been doing pretty good
0:34:29It seems to me like, you know the bug, you know, the open bugs and radar are lower than they used to be years ago
0:34:35Do you really think that I said I have to say there is something to it though
0:34:39It seems to me like there's more annoyances than there used to be
0:34:43But there were definitely some people with an apple who disagreed and then there were some who did agree
0:34:48But I'm curious I'm curious specifically like because that's one thing your article didn't have it didn't really have like a list of here's some
0:34:56of the bugs right and and that was
0:34:58That was ultimately a failing. I wasn't really talking about like here's five things that are that are the problems today
0:35:06I was really talking about the general trend and so it's hard to give a
0:35:10comprehensive list of examples because many of these things are like little annoyances or little, you know, occasional failures or occasional bugs.
0:35:20heard from from from a few different engineers and and and I read a couple of reddit comments
0:35:25from people who are who are allegedly with an Apple and stuff and and it seems to be a
0:35:31few people thought that everything's fine, but most of the people seem to think that that yeah, like finally
0:35:40"Thank you for saying this," like that kind of attitude,
0:35:42like, "Yes, this is a, like, no one listens,"
0:35:45that kind of thing.
0:35:46And it's hard to get a read on what the truth is,
0:35:48or even with these people, or the real people, you know,
0:35:50who actually work at Apple, who knows?
0:35:53It could've just been some random person on the internet.
0:35:55But I think there's, like, your comment about, like,
0:35:59you know, the number of radars, like,
0:36:01Apple could be measuring things that don't reflect
0:36:06the overall usage of annoyances and bugs
0:36:10that actually hit people in real life.
0:36:12They could just be measuring the wrong things
0:36:14or the things they're measuring aren't changing.
0:36:16And so for instance, they have the built-in crash reporter
0:36:20in every recent version of every OS
0:36:23that you can say automatically send diagnostics to Apple
0:36:25when stuff breaks.
0:36:27But that only will send a report if a crash happened.
0:36:32Like if you hit a bug that wasn't a crash,
0:36:36That's not gonna include that.
0:36:38And most of the bugs I see recently aren't crashes.
0:36:42Like, I'm not getting kernel panics at my computers,
0:36:44you know, or back when I was,
0:36:46that was the fault of some IO driver, you know.
0:36:49- Yeah, and that's one of the things I heard
0:36:51from one of the people who was sort of
0:36:53not really believing in that.
0:36:55It was that, specifically, that crashes are down.
0:36:58You know, and that's something that they can measure
0:37:00because they have a crash reporter,
0:37:02and that it just made him surprised
0:37:06that this was a thing.
0:37:08And it really was, it was not like a defensive take.
0:37:12It's like typical Apple person, very thoughtful.
0:37:15Really, really genuinely curious
0:37:17because he found it surprising.
0:37:19Really wanted to know.
0:37:20And also absolutely believed in the sort of,
0:37:24hey, when there's smoke, there's fire.
0:37:27Clearly this, Marco's post resonated with a lot of people.
0:37:30So I wanna get to the bottom of what this is.
0:37:34But crashes definitely aren't it.
0:37:36- Exactly, and like earlier tonight,
0:37:39one of the many annoyances when using an Apple TV,
0:37:42you know, I turn on the Apple TV
0:37:45after it being asleep for most of the day,
0:37:48and it shows three prompts in a row that say,
0:37:51"Your Apple TV is not gonna connect to the internet."
0:37:53Like you hit Menu and it just shows you another one.
0:37:55And like, so there's three of those that were queued up.
0:37:57So those aren't being coalesced.
0:37:59And then I go back to the home screen,
0:38:02It is connected the internet and we're showing new stuff
0:38:05So they were pointy to weren't canceled right at which point those things should have been
0:38:09Disregarded anyway never mind it right file under nevermind, right?
0:38:13Why were they even showing when it was asleep and nobody was trying to do anything with it? Good question there, too
0:38:17So those are all quality issues right not crashes
0:38:21They're not gonna show up any bug reports because I'm not gonna report it. Look I'm talking with you
0:38:24I I'm not gonna report that on radar like it's not worth the time to even type it up and go through the all the
0:38:29forms
0:38:31Then I hit menu a couple times to get out of the the like deep hierarchy of the movie structure
0:38:38I was in to get back to the home screen. I know you can just hold it down, but I didn't
0:38:41The first time I hit it it went boop and it did it did its thing and then the second time I hit it
0:38:46It just went boop boop boop boop and I kept hitting it and nothing was happening and all the clicks just queued up and queued up
0:38:52And queued up and nothing happened and I'm like, all right
0:38:54Do I do I reset it and then like 30 seconds later it executes all of them like these they had all queued up
0:39:00So everything's moving around like crazy.
0:39:01I'm like, "No, no, no, no, that's not what I wanted."
0:39:04Again, another bug.
0:39:06Two nights ago, I had to actually unplug it
0:39:09and plug it back in to get it to respond
0:39:11to any remote commands.
0:39:13I tried two different remotes.
0:39:15We have multiple Apple TVs in the house.
0:39:17They both have similar bugs,
0:39:18so I know it's not just one of them being dying or flaky.
0:39:21And I know, I mean, certainly Merlin has talked a lot
0:39:25about his Apple TV issues too.
0:39:27That there's issues with authenticating content.
0:39:29It's like that. He's like the Jeffrey Zeldman of Apple TV, you know, like the way everything
0:39:33Zeldman just has the worst Murphy's Law with anything technology like like Merlin clearly has it has caught like the Apple TV
0:39:41branch of that that syndrome
0:39:43Right, exactly. And I don't think I'm common, you know and like, you know
0:39:48I so often like we'll go to watch a movie and
0:39:50It'll sit there on authorizing forever and then eventually fail and it's really like come on. I bought this at these are movies
0:39:57We bought my kid is like sitting down. He wants to watch something if it doesn't show him in a minute
0:40:02He's gonna start getting antsy and possibly scream like come on. Just just come on work
0:40:06That's all like and this is just the Apple TV, right and and and airplay to the Apple TV
0:40:12Works about a quarter of the time and it doesn't work
0:40:16I can vouch for the fact that it doesn't work with a two or three year old to
0:40:20Try to explain how in the old in the old days
0:40:23We'd have to get in the car and drive to blockbuster and the disc might be scratched
0:40:27Right. Yeah, it does. Yeah kids kids don't want to hear it kids expect the thing that they see on the screen to
0:40:33Play when you punch the button exactly so
0:40:37And so this is just Apple TV
0:40:39This is just like one week's worth of just like what I can recall not even one week
0:40:45What I can recall over the last two days
0:40:47This is like this is what comes over the Apple TV and that's not even not even including various like
0:40:53infinite timeouts and failures with Netflix,
0:40:56which I'll give Apple the benefit of the doubt
0:40:58and assume that's Netflix's problem.
0:41:00But even with Apple stuff,
0:41:02authorizing the Apple purchase stuff,
0:41:03even that, that has all those problems.
0:41:05So that's just one product, right?
0:41:07And it's an AirPlay, and I hear from everybody
0:41:10that AirPlay doesn't work well for them.
0:41:12AirPlay works fine for me if I'm going to
0:41:15an airport express that I have
0:41:17connected to a speaker in my kitchen.
0:41:19It works fine for that.
0:41:20It fails every time for Apple TV.
0:41:22or sorry, it fails 75% of the time for Apple TV.
0:41:25Like I'll do it a couple times, eventually it will take.
0:41:27- AirPlay is on my list and it's high on the list
0:41:31and in terms of like Canary and the coal mine,
0:41:34because it used to be rock solid for me.
0:41:36And my typical AirPlay scenario is almost always
0:41:40is either from my phone or from an iPad to Apple TV.
0:41:44A good example of it is we didn't have Amazon instant video
0:41:51on TV until we got a new TiVo sometime like I think in the last year and it has Amazon
0:41:56built in because Amazon I don't know why but they don't have an app on Apple TV whether
0:42:01it's politics or what but if you wanted to watch something.
0:42:05Oh it's definitely politics.
0:42:06Yeah I'm guessing it's politics.
0:42:07Why do you think they're advertising watches so heavily to every man who visits the site?
0:42:13Are they really?
0:42:14Yeah ask any ask any man who visited Amazon recently like what's on the front page and
0:42:20It's the bottom of the first screen
0:42:24on Amazon.com's front page is all top men's watches.
0:42:28I have never viewed a link to a watch on Amazon.
0:42:31I've never searched for a watch on Amazon.
0:42:33I have done nothing that would influence that recommendation
0:42:36and it's heavily promoting watches.
0:42:37And I've heard, I tweeted about it a couple weeks ago
0:42:40and a bunch of other guys were like, yeah, me too.
0:42:41They showed screenshots.
0:42:42Like, they're so heavily pushing watches right now.
0:42:45It's like, come on, obviously this is about politics.
0:42:48Mine is literally men's blue dial luxury watches.
0:42:53(laughing)
0:42:54I swear to God, I'm gonna send you the link right now.
0:42:56- And have you ever looked at a watch on Amazon?
0:42:58- See, that's the thing, that's why--
0:43:00- You might have, all right.
0:43:00- Yeah, 'cause I don't own, I only own two watches,
0:43:03but I love, I've always loved watches,
0:43:05but it's like, I only buy them
0:43:07if I think they're absolutely perfect,
0:43:08which is why I've only got two.
0:43:10But I look at watches all the time.
0:43:13I don't, and I don't really look for them on Amazon,
0:43:14because Amazon, I don't think it's the type of place
0:43:16where I would buy a watch.
0:43:17I did actually I did buy one there years ago. I bought my my citizen there, but
0:43:22No, I didn't actually I did the right thing with the citizen where I found it on Amazon
0:43:26But I wanted to see it in person and I went to a jewelry store here in Philadelphia
0:43:30So I could see it and it was $15 more expensive in the jewelry store
0:43:34And I thought well, this is exactly what I should do
0:43:36I'm gonna buy it right here because I I'm so glad there's a jewelry store here where I could see it
0:43:41You know, I wanted to give him 15 more dollars. Wow, you know room. That's great, right?
0:43:45I know that that's like and I thought you know what? I'm like the I'm not like the 1% like top financial people
0:43:51I'm the 1% you know who shops thinking like that like
0:43:55The Amazon 1%
0:43:59Yeah, it reminds me there was a New Yorker a couple weeks ago around the cover. There was a woman
0:44:03Answering her door to take an Amazon box from UPS
0:44:08That was clearly like the size of the ones that they ship the books in
0:44:12Looking awkwardly at her neighbor who runs a little neighborhood bookstore
0:44:16But anyway, I do have men's blue dial luxury watches right on the front page of my Amazon, right
0:44:25So anyway, so Apple TV, so I had to I although until we had the TiVo
0:44:29I had to airplay Amazon to the Apple TV and
0:44:32It always worked. It just worked. It was great and a couple days ago. I wanted to watch
0:44:39Alpha house, which is a cool a really fun show. I like on Amazon
0:44:43and I was too lazy to switch the TV from Apple TV where I already was to
0:44:49TiVo and the TiVo is such a pain in the ass anyway
0:44:53so I tried using an airplane and and it I just got like a spinner and it just spun and spun and spun and
0:44:59Spun and spun and eventually I just did have to switch to the TiVo and use the Amazon app there
0:45:04Yeah, that spinner should be the Apple TV logo
0:45:07It used to run on the front for me. It used to work very very very consistently
0:45:13Well any any video that wasn't you know, I think there's a flag you can set to say don't you can't airplay?
0:45:19But almost nobody said it back then almost any video that I could watch on iPhone or iPad I could
0:45:25Switch I could just flick it continuity style to the Apple TV in I don't know how many seconds but a few enough seconds that
0:45:33It felt like magic every time and now it's really really a crap shoot
0:45:37- Exactly, and yeah, I mean, I've owned every generation
0:45:41of Apple TV, and we use them constantly,
0:45:43'cause we don't have cable, like that's,
0:45:45the Apple TV is our primary video player.
0:45:48We are, like, the only media playback we have in our house
0:45:51is Apple TV and a PS3 for Blu-ray discs, that's it.
0:45:55And so we use them heavily, and it has definitely
0:46:00been a noticeable decline, like they weren't,
0:46:02they didn't used to be this bad.
0:46:04And so again, we can sit here all night
0:46:05and point out things about the Apple TV.
0:46:07I mean, like, it's, which is, I mean,
0:46:09this is probably as interesting as hearing somebody's
0:46:11like terrible airline story,
0:46:13or their dream from last night, you know?
0:46:14So I don't want to bore the audience
0:46:16with all the different little nitpicks
0:46:18of like how my stuff has failed.
0:46:20But you can look at a lot of their products recently
0:46:23and see a lot of stories like this from everybody.
0:46:26Glenn Fleischman solicited things on Twitter
0:46:28and had a really good post, like kind of summarizing,
0:46:30like here's what everyone's complaining about.
0:46:32- Oh, did he? I didn't see that.
0:46:33Where did he post that?
0:46:34- On glog.glennf.com.
0:46:36And I think, yeah, check it, anyway.
0:46:40You can sort through his tweets for the last two days
0:46:42to try to find a link if you're brave.
0:46:44- My Twitter client doesn't go back that far.
0:46:46It's a carry two days of Glenn Fleischman tweets.
0:46:51- So-- - I don't know what client
0:46:53you use.
0:46:54I think you'd need like a special API.
0:46:56I don't even think the Twitter API can handle.
0:46:57Anyway, it is on the front page of his blog
0:47:00and I will put it in the show notes.
0:47:02- Yeah, so do that.
0:47:03And then so that's part of it.
0:47:04And I've had issues with Yosemite,
0:47:08similar to, I know Neven Murgen was talking on Twitter
0:47:11a couple of weeks back about,
0:47:14he showed a screenshot of how many copies of his computer
0:47:17there were in the finder source list
0:47:19of the network share area of the finder left pane.
0:47:22And it was like, "Neven Murgen's laptop, two, three, four,
0:47:25five, six," and it's this giant list
0:47:27of all these different copies.
0:47:29I've had a lot of issues with that of things,
0:47:32losing my original computer's name,
0:47:34showing up as parentheses two,
0:47:36or certain computers just disappearing off my network.
0:47:39We have three computers on our home network here,
0:47:41and one printer, and a NAS box in the closet
0:47:46for network share stuff.
0:47:47And at any given time, I can usually only see
0:47:50between zero and two of them.
0:47:52Usually you have to reboot, not the one that's browsing,
0:47:57but you have to reboot the one that's not showing up.
0:48:00- I haven't read Glenn's article yet.
0:48:01Obviously, since I was unaware of it,
0:48:03but I can't wait to.
0:48:04But I don't know if his summary goes like this,
0:48:07but yours does so far,
0:48:08and a couple that I have jotted down
0:48:10all fit in the category of things
0:48:13that don't even have error,
0:48:14they're not crashers,
0:48:15and they don't have error messages.
0:48:17- Exactly.
0:48:18- They're just silent failures.
0:48:20- Exactly.
0:48:21And even-- - And so printing is--
0:48:23- And there are some crashers,
0:48:24but usually, like most people aren't hitting them
0:48:26most of the time, I think.
0:48:27Like, you know, there are, like,
0:48:29crashers, they're a bigger problem on iOS, I think.
0:48:32And iOS 7, I think, was worse than iOS 8
0:48:35in regards to crashes.
0:48:36But, so for instance, on iOS 8,
0:48:38Overcast crashes more than it did on iOS 7
0:48:42in a few key areas.
0:48:43And I don't know if it's my fault or not,
0:48:44but I've heard from a lot of other developers too.
0:48:46One developer even posted stats.
0:48:48Their app still runs on both, and they posted stats
0:48:50like percentage of installs that have crashed
0:48:52on 7 versus 8, and the percentage on 8
0:48:56was five times higher.
0:48:57And I've had crashes like deep in system frameworks.
0:49:02like image IO, I have crashes,
0:49:04like decoding JPEGs for show art.
0:49:07That crashes a lot, and I always say it never happened on 7.
0:49:10Stuff like that, and the background downloading system
0:49:15occasionally has crashes.
0:49:16The audio subsystem will crash
0:49:18and everyone will blame me for it.
0:49:19There's so many subsystem or API,
0:49:24like low-level failures or crashes
0:49:26that happen just rarely enough
0:49:28that it's really hard to ever track it down,
0:49:30but frequently enough that if you have a crash logger
0:49:32in your app, you're gonna see a lot of reports for it.
0:49:35- Another one for me, and I tweeted about this,
0:49:38and I actually got somebody from Apple reached out
0:49:40and they said they're gonna look into it,
0:49:42but for me, it's the keyboard shortcuts,
0:49:46not command keys, but like when you have
0:49:48T-E-H go to T-E--
0:49:52- Oh, like the Texas Band of Rip-Off?
0:49:54- Yeah, well, I think that, all right, yeah,
0:49:58the Texas Band of Rip-Off.
0:49:59- Well, okay, the feature is similar to TextExpander.
0:50:02Go ahead.
0:50:03- I think that's a perfect example, though,
0:50:05of them adding a feature to the system
0:50:08in an appropriate way where it still leaves
0:50:11TextExpander plenty of room.
0:50:13- Oh, yeah. - Right?
0:50:14'Cause they just do, you type this, you get that,
0:50:17whereas TextExpander has all of the interactive stuff
0:50:20where you can have, you know--
0:50:22- You have like forms almost from TextExpander.
0:50:23- Yeah, or like I've got the TextExpander ones
0:50:26to put the date in certain formats.
0:50:27- Right, right. - So I just type,
0:50:28you know, type my key, you know, my little shortcut
0:50:30and I get today's date right the way I like it.
0:50:32You can't do that, you know, dynamic ones, variables.
0:50:35Anyway, but they used to sync between devices
0:50:40and then they stopped syncing.
0:50:44And they stopped syncing when I switched
0:50:46to the iCloud documents in the cloud beta.
0:50:51- The drive?
0:50:52- iCloud drive beta, which I had to do over summer,
0:50:53I didn't have to, but I did over summer
0:50:55'cause I was beta testing some stuff that, you know,
0:50:58I wanted to use it and try it.
0:50:59And so the fact that it stopped working then, I understood.
0:51:02Because maybe they were using, you know,
0:51:03and they warn you, hey, when you switch, you can't go back,
0:51:06you know, you're always on it.
0:51:07And so I thought, oh, so that's interesting.
0:51:09They must have been using the old storage APIs
0:51:12for these keyboard shortcuts, and that's how they did it.
0:51:15But now, you know, here it was like two months
0:51:17after everything had come out of beta, you know.
0:51:19I was running a new phone, running iOS 9.
0:51:23I was running a new,
0:51:26It's just to make it even more likely that it should work,
0:51:29a brand new retina MacBook Pro
0:51:32running the non-beta version of Yosemite.
0:51:36And they still weren't syncing.
0:51:40Nothing was syncing.
0:51:41None of the most shortcuts were syncing.
0:51:43And then, and this to me emblemizes the sort of thing
0:51:48I'm thinking that is the modern Apple unsteady software.
0:51:55They did start syncing, but not all of them.
0:51:58And now, like on my phone and on my Mac,
0:52:02almost all of them are the same.
0:52:06And I definitely never once,
0:52:07'cause I wanted to see what would happen.
0:52:09I never once said, okay, just take 10 minutes
0:52:11and reproduce them in both places so you have them all.
0:52:15I just waited, and they're mostly there.
0:52:16But there's one in particular,
0:52:18it's sort of like a game of Where's Waldo,
0:52:20like scrolling the two lists,
0:52:21trying to find the ones that are missing.
0:52:22And it's even made more difficult
0:52:23because they sort in a different order,
0:52:26in terms of the way ones that--
0:52:28- Terrible.
0:52:29- The way that ones, like, regular,
0:52:31if it's just alphabetical characters,
0:52:33they sort alphabetically,
0:52:34but the Mac puts the ones with punctua,
0:52:36leading punctuation at the top,
0:52:38and the iPhone puts ones with leading punctuation
0:52:40at the bottom.
0:52:41So it's a little hard to compare them.
0:52:44- Again, none of this is a reportable bug,
0:52:47like, or rather, none of this will report itself to Apple.
0:52:50- Yeah, and it's so hard, but I know, for example,
0:52:53I have a custom one because you can use it to add custom words.
0:52:57It's not even like an expansion, but I use the word navbar as all one word,
0:53:03N-A-V-B-A-R, all the time when I'm talking with Dave Whiskus about Vesper.
0:53:08It's just why I call the thing at the top the navbar.
0:53:12And it's always on the iPhone, like when I'd be iMessaging him,
0:53:16auto-correcting it into who knows what.
0:53:18Just random guesses from the dictionary that were close.
0:53:21So I put it in my thing, and it's on my phone, which is the place where I need it, but it's
0:53:26not on my Mac.
0:53:28Whereas the other, I don't know, there's maybe 30 of them, seem mostly in sync.
0:53:33Crazy.
0:53:34And there's never an error message, there's never an error on any device that says, "Hey,
0:53:39you've got a problem with your keyboard shortcut syncing, turn it off, turn it back on again,"
0:53:44or anything.
0:53:45Nothing.
0:53:46No errors.
0:53:47I just don't have some of them on both devices.
0:53:49It's even worse with this cloud stuff because you have so little insight as to what the
0:53:53problem is, if there's even a problem, or how to fix a problem once it happens.
0:53:59So if you look at Apple's crash rate history, let's say somebody inside Apple is looking
0:54:07at like, "Well, we have the same rate of crashes now that we did five years ago," or whatever
0:54:12it is.
0:54:14I think you have to also consider that now
0:54:17we are doing a lot more with our devices and our computers.
0:54:21We have more devices and computers interacting
0:54:23with each other per person, especially around
0:54:26in these crowds.
0:54:27And the cloud services are this other factor.
0:54:31And so I said this in ATP, so I won't go too far
0:54:34into it here, but let's say you have like a 1% bug rate
0:54:39for like, when you're using this app or this service
0:54:43of the OS, 1% of the time it won't work right.
0:54:46Obviously this is made up, but bear with me.
0:54:48If then you consider the interaction
0:54:52of two different apps or services that have the same rate,
0:54:55it's 2%.
0:54:57If you consider it again, it's not three,
0:55:00if you consider a third one, it's not 3%, it's 4%.
0:55:02'Cause these things don't add, they multiply.
0:55:05Because every, as you add more possible ways
0:55:08of interaction between applications, services,
0:55:11cloud services, devices, all those failure rates,
0:55:15the chances that any one thing is gonna go wrong somehow
0:55:18is the multiple, the product of all of those factors,
0:55:23not the sum.
0:55:24So this grows geometrically.
0:55:26And so as you make things more complicated,
0:55:28as our devices can do more,
0:55:30as we have more devices interacting with each other
0:55:32and also interacting with the cloud services,
0:55:34all of these error factors are all multiplied.
0:55:38And so you have to, you can't just keep quality
0:55:41the same as it used to be,
0:55:43like the quality rate per service or per app.
0:55:47It has to actually get better over time
0:55:49to keep the same overall error rate
0:55:51from happening to somebody.
0:55:53- Yeah.
0:55:54Yeah, and I'm not accusing anybody at Apple of incompetence,
0:55:59'cause I don't think any of these bugs are universal.
0:56:02It's not like nobody can play AirPlay.
0:56:04I'm sure-- - And I've written
0:56:05worse bugs today.
0:56:06I mean like I fixed a really embarrassing bug two hours ago in overcast like really embarrassing. I would bet good
0:56:13I mean, that's how real bugs are real bugs are edge cases to some degree
0:56:17Maybe that's a big edge, but it's you know, something you didn't think of this is a big edge
0:56:20I'm thinking most of the time I'm thinking if you go to an Apple store and buy a new Apple TV and you pick up
0:56:27a new iPhone or iPad and you set them up and create a brand new iCloud account and
0:56:34Go to use airplay. It'll just work. It'll I'll bet 99 times out of 100 that will just work
0:56:41There's no bug that's keeping most people from doing it
0:56:44But there's clearly some bugs that you know, and who knows it might be like a hundred different bugs
0:56:49you know that result in the same thing and they're all you know, just
0:56:521/10 of 1% of people have taken that path
0:56:57But then it in the aggregate it winds up where there's a lot of people who are having trouble trouble with stuff like this
0:57:03- Exactly, and again, so many of these things
0:57:06are hard to report or too minor to report
0:57:10individual problems through the bug reporter system.
0:57:12And the bug reporter system too
0:57:14is about as hostile as it can be.
0:57:17If you go to actually report a bug on Apple's bug reporter,
0:57:22you'll be greeted, first of all,
0:57:24is it still iOS 6 themed?
0:57:26I think it is, right?
0:57:28- Yeah.
0:57:29- So you-- - Which was a big improvement
0:57:30over the Aqua theme it used to have.
0:57:33Well, they gave it the iOS 6 theme like three days before iOS 7 was unveiled
0:57:37Remember it had but it had like a 10-point Oh
0:57:40I don't like like when it was bad when aqua was really stripy
0:57:45it had the big pinstripes horizontal pinstripes a long time and
0:57:48Yeah, they updated it to like an iOS 6
0:57:52Look right right before iOS 7 came it was like it was like days or weeks before it was hilarious
0:57:58Like it was like obviously these two groups weren't talking to each other about that. Oh anyway
0:58:02So you're greeted with this pretty terrible web app,
0:58:07first of all, and it asks you for like 17 different fields,
0:58:12and then you fill your stuff out,
0:58:13and then you submit it, and they say,
0:58:15"All right, thanks, we'll look into it, here's a number."
0:58:18And in most cases of bugs I've filed,
0:58:21I've filed maybe, I don't know,
0:58:2250 bugs so far in my life with Apple,
0:58:26in almost every case you will never hear about it again.
0:58:28They won't even tell you if it's a duplicate,
0:58:30they won't even tell you if it's closed,
0:58:31it'll sit there open forever.
0:58:34Sometimes they will tell you after like three months,
0:58:39this is a known bug, it's a duplicate of this other bug ID,
0:58:42thank you.
0:58:43But then you lose all visibility.
0:58:45Then you can't tell when that other bug ID is closed.
0:58:47Like they just basically close your bug saying,
0:58:50all right, thanks.
0:58:51- All right, I just logged into my radar account
0:58:53and here's one that I filed on the 20th of March, 2009.
0:58:59state open rank no value and it's here's what I said I said when you control it said products
0:59:06of fari when you control click right click on a background tab in safari for you get
0:59:12a menu with options for things like creating a new tab closing the tab reloading the tab
0:59:16and so forth it would be nice if there were an option to copy the URL for that tab that
0:59:22way you could copy the URL for a background tab in a background window without either
0:59:26activating that window or that particular tab. I think it's a reasonable
0:59:30request. I'm not saying it's great, but it's the fact that it's just
0:59:34there green open. Yep, like still waiting for response from Apple and that's and
0:59:40it's this is this is not uncommon. This is the common case. I'm not mad that they
0:59:47haven't done it. Actually let me see. No, you still can't copy a tab. Nope, it's the
0:59:55the same option for our listing.
0:59:56So I'm not mad that they haven't taken my suggestion
0:59:58and done something.
0:59:59But that's what, for everybody at Apple always telling me,
1:00:02that's what I should do with an idea like that,
1:00:04is file a radar.
1:00:05- Right. - Right?
1:00:06But the fact that it's open,
1:00:07like I wouldn't mind if they just said closed,
1:00:09no, we don't think copy belongs in that menu.
1:00:12Okay, you know, thanks for considering the idea.
1:00:15It's the fact that it looks to me
1:00:16as though nobody's ever looked at it.
1:00:18- Right, and they probably never will until at some point,
1:00:21some intern is tasked with going through that list,
1:00:24and they just like bulk close them all
1:00:25or send like a form letter to all of them saying,
1:00:28all right, you know, is this still a problem?
1:00:30Please provide a sample project to illustrate the problem.
1:00:32And then if you don't,
1:00:33this will automatically close in a day.
1:00:34Like that's the kind of thing you get.
1:00:37I mean, it's just, I mean, let's see, I have,
1:00:40so my oldest is 2011.
1:00:43I have four bugs here in one of my accounts,
1:00:472011, 2011, 2013, all green, no responses.
1:00:52I mean, so this is the problem I have with,
1:00:54you know, the typical Apple answer is,
1:00:57well, please, you have to file a bug for any bugs you find
1:01:00or any feature requests you have or et cetera.
1:01:02If you're gonna say that,
1:01:04if that's gonna be your default response,
1:01:07this system has to be better.
1:01:08This system has to, it has to be less hostile
1:01:11and it has to somehow give some kind of satisfactory result.
1:01:16Even if it's as simple as after like a week,
1:01:20You say, thanks, we're taking this into consideration,
1:01:24or we'll have somebody look at this and then close it.
1:01:27Some kind of something that indicates
1:01:29to the person who filed the bug
1:01:31that it was worth their time to have filed it.
1:01:34And that's the problem.
1:01:35Right now you don't have that.
1:01:36And so there's no incentive for individuals to file bugs
1:01:41if you think anyone else will have ever filed the same bug.
1:01:44- Well, there's the adage that insanity
1:01:46is doing the same thing, the definition of insanity
1:01:49is doing the same thing over and over and over again
1:01:51and expecting different results.
1:01:54And it's, you know, that makes a lot of sense,
1:01:57it's actually true.
1:01:58That's, to me, it seems almost insane
1:02:00to keep filing radars when you,
1:02:04expecting them to be dealt with when your experience is,
1:02:08this is just a waste of my time.
1:02:09- Exactly, and I've had so many people
1:02:11who work at Apple tell me, please file radars,
1:02:14they really do matter, they really do help,
1:02:16please keep filing them.
1:02:18And they all say too, they all say that they get
1:02:20a surprisingly low number of radars filed.
1:02:24Like you would expect certain things to have a lot
1:02:26and they say certain feature requests
1:02:27or major feature requests will have like seven radars
1:02:30ever filed on them or something.
1:02:31But the problem is they're yelling at us saying,
1:02:35"Please file bugs."
1:02:36Their actions don't back that up.
1:02:39What we see on the outside is extremely hostile
1:02:43and demotivating.
1:02:46- Yeah, hold that thought 'cause I wanna come back to that.
1:02:47But yes, I want to come back to it with a big section, but I'll do a break
1:02:51But before I take the break, I just wanted to say another thing too
1:02:53was
1:02:55That your article that one of the things that had me nodding my head with your article as sort of
1:02:59yeah, like now I kind of feel like one of them being like a Windows user is
1:03:04So we've got a laser printer here
1:03:07It's an HP and I'm pretty happy with the quality and it does Wi-Fi and you want the same one I did right? Ah
1:03:13maybe I do it's the
1:03:15CP 1525NW.
1:03:20- Yeah, it's one of HP's wonderful,
1:03:22yeah, you asked me what to buy and I told you,
1:03:24but get that one.
1:03:25- Yeah, I did take my usual just ask Marco.
1:03:28Yeah, and it exposes--
1:03:29- I still have mine, it works fine.
1:03:31- It exposes it? - Well, except when it dies,
1:03:32except when it disappears from my network for--
1:03:34- And it lies, oh, it lies so bad
1:03:36about how much toner it has left.
1:03:37It lies like a thief in the night.
1:03:39- Mine has been saying it has extremely low supply levels
1:03:42for about three years and is still printing just fine.
1:03:45It is telling me I'm low on color.
1:03:48I print color, I swear to God, like once a year Jonas has like a school product that
1:03:52needs color.
1:03:53I print everything black and white.
1:03:54I know you've got plenty of color.
1:03:56You lying bastards.
1:03:58Anyway, and you know what?
1:04:00With the black, it told me that I ran out of black and eventually I really did run out.
1:04:04But it was telling me, it was like giving me this error message like, "I've got no toner,
1:04:08none, nothing."
1:04:09And then the paper would come out and it looks great.
1:04:11It just looks great. And I know what I've from working as
1:04:15student newspapers and doing print graphic design for years before I know what low toner looks like it's pretty obvious
1:04:23It's not a subtle change like this. It's like yeah when when your printer is actually running a toner
1:04:28It looks like it like yeah, it's right there right into your face. Like it looks exactly what it sounds like
1:04:34It's like wow, I can hardly read this. The letters are almost right. Everything's all spotted and yeah, like you could definitely tell anyway
1:04:40it exposes itself over bonjour and so yeah I don't know but so that set it up
1:04:48is really kind of easy and I'm gonna have to say and going back even further
1:04:53the thing that cracked me up about the Business Insider headline is calling you
1:04:56a longtime Mac user or longtime Apple supporter I don't know it's like anybody
1:05:00who joined the team in 2003 you're not a long time 2004 I was even and I was
1:05:05using Windows until 2005 like I was in them both for a while one of the things
1:05:09that was never as good on Mac OS X as classic Mac OS was setting up printers.
1:05:14Like in the old days, because you know, and it used to be that you had to get
1:05:17like an Apple printer, like either one from Apple, Apple believe it or not used
1:05:21to make printers, or you know like some kind of Apple compatible printer. But it
1:05:25always just worked. It was the the maybe the one of the canonical examples of the
1:05:31differences between Apple's it just works experience and the PC world. You
1:05:36never had to worry about drivers, anything like that. You just plug it in
1:05:39There it is shows up in your chooser you pick the printer and boom it works like just it was never a problem and
1:05:46In Mac OS X I thought that just got worse and it was sort of the shift to industry standard printers and short of
1:05:53just the
1:05:56that those
1:05:57Underpinnings of next were never as hooked up to like, you know
1:06:01The print world is Apple's classic Mac OS was but anyway, it got better for a while
1:06:07This printer when I first got it was great
1:06:09It's you go to the printer thing and system preferences and there it is listed you hit plus there it is listed
1:06:15It's like here's a bone sure printer. Is this the one you want? Yes, there it is
1:06:18just the last week I went to print something and it
1:06:23You know and I it's the only printer I have the only printer I use I hadn't
1:06:28Changed it and it just said it, you know printer can't be reached or something and nothing would it just wouldn't come out
1:06:34Like it was just the jobs were queuing up in that thing in the dock
1:06:38So I deleted it
1:06:39I deleted the printer and I went to read it and it wasn't even listed and in the old and I you know what I did
1:06:45I just thought I screw it
1:06:47I'll print from Amy's and I like went to it emailed it to Amy and printed from Amy's computer
1:06:51and it worked and then I just left it at that and I realized when I read your article that in the old days like
1:07:00three four or five years ago when I I would have instantly thought it's got to be the printer and
1:07:04went upstairs and just turned the printer on and off and in fact that actually worked I did
1:07:10After you know, it was your article that made me test it
1:07:12I went up turn the printer off turn it back on and then boom it just worked
1:07:15Reconnecting it to my Mac. So it was the printers fault, but in the old days
1:07:20I would have just assumed it was the printers fault. Whereas now I thought screw it something's wrong with Yosemite. I
1:07:27I think, well, I've had the same issue, and it's like I have the same issue with other Yosemite
1:07:33Macs that are on the network. So I think it's an issue with Yosemite losing its connection to the
1:07:40printer, like losing its discovery of the printer. So Yosemite, they rewrote some part of the
1:07:46networking stack. I don't know the details, but they basically combined some of the discovery and
1:07:51and that related stuff into this new thing
1:07:53called Discovery-D.
1:07:55- Yes.
1:07:56- And people keep reporting a lot of WiFi
1:08:00and network discovery issues with Yosemite.
1:08:02It's probably related to that,
1:08:04because they changed a bunch of that
1:08:05to enable things like continuity and handoff
1:08:07and stuff like that,
1:08:08and airdrops between the two.
1:08:10So that stuff all changed in Yosemite,
1:08:13so that's most likely the source of the problem.
1:08:14- So my spidey sense that it was Yosemite
1:08:16probably is right.
1:08:17It's just that the solution of turning the printer
1:08:19off and on probably isn't even HP's fault.
1:08:23- No, it almost certainly isn't,
1:08:24'cause I have the same problem
1:08:25with every Mac on the network.
1:08:27- I believe it.
1:08:28Networking problems in general,
1:08:31and again, not one networking issue,
1:08:33but just Hockenberry's description of it
1:08:36as a thousand paper cuts is exactly right,
1:08:38is a big chunk of them seem to be networking.
1:08:40- And networking is hard.
1:08:41This is what, as you said earlier,
1:08:45we know Apple has great people working for them.
1:08:48we know that these aren't idiots doing this.
1:08:51But the fact is, my point in the piece was,
1:08:55they're doing too much, and it's really starting to show,
1:08:58it always feels like we're using a 1.0 release or a beta.
1:09:03There used to be some kind of stability
1:09:07between betas and the GMs.
1:09:10It was never perfect, but there used to be
1:09:13a differentiator, like, okay, well,
1:09:14stuff's gonna stop changing right before the GM
1:09:17by some interval of time, and the GM will be a higher degree of quality than the betas
1:09:22were, and then a couple revisions down the line, once you have like a .3, .4 kind of
1:09:27range, it'll be really stable for the next year and a half until they release a new major
1:09:32version.
1:09:33If you treat it, it used to be, I think, for a number of years, and I would say it probably
1:09:36covers the years, your early years on the platform, like that 2004 to 2008-ish, '09-ish
1:09:43period.
1:09:44you just had the conservative patience to treat every release as like minus one
1:09:51you do pretty well so in other words trust that the betas are gonna suck and
1:09:57trust that the GM is really just a beta and then trust that the 1.0 release of
1:10:04the OS is really like a public beta and wait for like the first major public
1:10:10update after the 1.0, you know, after system, you know, iOS 5.0 ships. Wait for 5.01 or
1:10:18maybe 5.02 and you'll have a really solid OS.
1:10:23Exactly. And these days it feels like we never reach that point of like a few point X's in
1:10:31and now it's stable. Like now we're always in the beta 1.0, 1.1 loop it seems. And I
1:10:37though like, you know, technically version wise, they've they've passed 1.1 with some of these but like it just seems like yeah
1:10:43we and any and the GM seem
1:10:45so
1:10:47Minimally different from the betas in terms of quality like even worse than they used than they used to be like
1:10:51It seems like we're just always in beta now seems like they're they only get around to fixing the crashers
1:10:56You know the big one, right and they never get around to the cleanup and it's guy
1:10:59English's point that the annual cycle means that and you know
1:11:03we're probably hitting that point right now where a lot of engineering talent at Apple is probably going towards the
1:11:10WWDC releases of what I you know are I'm guessing will be iOS
1:11:169 9 and
1:11:19System 10.11 exactly like this cycle. It doesn't leave time for
1:11:25stability really it doesn't leave time for all those boring little bug fixes to be applied to the old ancient version that we're all still using
1:11:33because nothing ever gets that old.
1:11:36- Yeah.
1:11:37Let me take a break and thank our second sponsor
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1:14:03So, the URL to know that they came from the show is squarespace.com/gruber.
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1:14:14I don't know why they don't match up.
1:14:17But it's that code that you need.
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1:14:21Go there, just go to squarespace.com and sign up because you're going to get a free trial.
1:14:25pay you know take the free trial to start it's when the free trial is over
1:14:28you got to remember the code JG and when you use that code you'll save 10% so not
1:14:34only will you help support the show but you'll save some of your own money as
1:14:38well so my thanks to Squarespace if you need a website you're nuts if you don't
1:14:42look at Squarespace first that's my new slogan for Squarespace I could have you
1:14:48do all my ad for each so much better I like yours I like the one because you
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1:14:56and they were gonna spend $7,000 on a website. I think it was three it was
1:15:00three or thirty five hundred. I don't know anybody and if you everybody knows there is not a
1:15:05schools don't have money to burn it's no it's like a little co-op preschool like
1:15:10this is not like they don't have money it is like the kudos to you for being an
1:15:16involved parent at the school but you were like will you give me like two days
1:15:19[laughter]
1:15:20You took like two days and billed them a website and now they pay...
1:15:26Two hours and days.
1:15:27[laughter]
1:15:28Now they pay $8 a month.
1:15:29Yeah, instead of $3,000.
1:15:31Which for a website, let's face it, who knows who they were going to pay the $3,500 to,
1:15:36but you know what?
1:15:37It was probably going to suck.
1:15:38Anyway, I love that story.
1:15:39That was great.
1:15:40Yeah, it's such a clear win for Squares.
1:15:42And now, and like, I'm not even the person who's responsible for keeping the website
1:15:45updated.
1:15:46Somebody else does that.
1:15:47Yeah.
1:15:48to like have something that they can use that isn't like my crappy CMS or some really complicated
1:15:54WordPress install and then if they need support I'm not their tech support. Squarespace is their
1:15:59tech support. I'm totally out of it. Like I did my job, my job is done, my hands are clean,
1:16:03and it's all like their system now that they can do whatever they want to and when they have a
1:16:08question they can get support from Squarespace and not me. It's perfect. Yeah, 10 years ago that same
1:16:12story might have been, you know, that you would have said "hey, hey" and then go sign them up for
1:16:17like an $8 a month hosting account and put up an install of WordPress and
1:16:22Pick a theme and do this and get like mostly the same thing
1:16:25But that you're exactly right though then like like six months later and you're reading tech meme and there's like a big
1:16:30Vulnerability and WordPress that was exposed and you're like, I don't think that's cool. That's cool
1:16:35You know, there's no way they know and it's on you whether you just like
1:16:39silently whistle and let the school keep going or whether now you're you know,
1:16:43You're permanently on the hook for being like the you know, the guy who's gonna fix it or they're like, hey
1:16:48You know, we want to add another widget to the sidebar
1:16:50Can you do that for us because there's no clear way for them to do it, you know stuff like that
1:16:54It's just it's so much better to just outsource this to Squarespace
1:16:57The other thing I love about that anecdote of yours is I feel like it perfectly exemplifies why Squarespace
1:17:03Advertises the way that they do that the way that they advertise over and over and over again on shows like ours
1:17:09Never used to make sense to me, but I think it's so that you know
1:17:13How many people really need to make a website right now?
1:17:16Who knows?
1:17:17Probably very few.
1:17:18But how many over the course of the next year
1:17:20are gonna find themselves in a situation
1:17:22where they do need to make a website?
1:17:23And at that moment,
1:17:24if the first thing they think of is Squarespace,
1:17:27boom, they go there.
1:17:28- Exactly, yeah.
1:17:29I think it works out very well for them that way.
1:17:31- Right.
1:17:32It's not about needing a website
1:17:33while you're listening to it on the show.
1:17:34It's seeding it in your mind
1:17:35so that when you hit that situation
1:17:38where your school wants to spend $4,000 on a website
1:17:41that you say, "No, don't do that."
1:17:44I wanna go back to what you were talking about.
1:17:48And here's the, I have this in my notes here for the show,
1:17:51and talk about dev relations.
1:17:53And I think it's a big part of the problem
1:17:56that we're talking about here.
1:17:58And I think Apple's developer relations is overwhelmed.
1:18:03Now, I don't know the numbers,
1:18:06and so it's this ballpark figure.
1:18:09But talking with somebody at Apple,
1:18:12their rough estimate is that
1:18:15Microsoft's developer relations team
1:18:19is somewhere between 10 and 50 times larger than Apple's.
1:18:24And I said, "50?"
1:18:26And he was like, "Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised."
1:18:29And if you're like a serious,
1:18:31and you might know more about this than I do.
1:18:32I've never been at,
1:18:33I've never written a goddamn line of code for Windows.
1:18:37But the basic idea is if you're a professional developer
1:18:42and doing some kind of serious work on Windows,
1:18:44you can get the attention of somebody competent
1:18:48and who can get stuff done on their developer relations team.
1:18:52And so if you're being driven up the wall
1:18:54by this obscure bug in a framework,
1:18:59you may not get a solution right away.
1:19:01And you certainly may not get a version of Windows release
1:19:06that has a fix for it right away.
1:19:08But you can at least get somebody's attention
1:19:10to get it in front of the right people.
1:19:13And it doesn't feel like when you're reporting things
1:19:16to Microsoft, it doesn't feel like you're, you know,
1:19:20just filing things into a black hole.
1:19:23And that Apple's developer relations,
1:19:26not that they're not well-meaning,
1:19:27but that they're just overwhelmed,
1:19:29absolutely positively overwhelmed.
1:19:31and it's like Microsoft's developer relations team
1:19:36is of a size that is appropriate for a company
1:19:40that had and saw as its rightful place
1:19:44that 90 some percent of all software in the world
1:19:47is written for it.
1:19:49And Apple's developer relations is still of a scale
1:19:52of a company that has like three or 4%
1:19:55of the software in the world.
1:19:57- Well also like the whole structure of how
1:20:00like how it's set up with the public or with the developers
1:20:03is radically different.
1:20:06Now, I don't know how Microsoft is set up,
1:20:07but the way Apple is set up is,
1:20:09it's fairly hostile at first.
1:20:13Like, Apple appears to just be this brick wall
1:20:17that you have no way in.
1:20:20Like, there is nowhere on, as far as I know,
1:20:23I don't think there's like, you know,
1:20:25a list or an email address to say like,
1:20:27"Hey, ask a developer evangelist a question."
1:20:29So I just searched, I've always wondered,
1:20:34is there a public list anywhere
1:20:35of who the Apple evangelists even are?
1:20:39And if you search Google for Apple developer evangelists,
1:20:42nowhere on the first page is anything from Apple.
1:20:45There's a GitHub gist where somebody else,
1:20:48some random person just compiled the list from WVDC
1:20:51and there's a bunch of question marks on it too.
1:20:59Every year at WBC, you can always tell,
1:21:03again, in the first few days,
1:21:05if you look around some of the bigger sessions,
1:21:07the very last slide, they will show the presenter's name,
1:21:11their email address, and their title.
1:21:13That is usually the first time you see their title.
1:21:17It is almost certainly the first time
1:21:19you see their email address.
1:21:20And you look around the room,
1:21:21and when that slide is on screen for about eight seconds,
1:21:23and you see half the room racing
1:21:25to write down that email address.
1:21:27- Taking pictures of it.
1:21:28Yeah. I've noticed that in recent years now. Right. He has an iPhone. Yeah, because like,
1:21:34that's like the that's like the first time that most people see like, Oh, my God, there's an
1:21:39email address with somebody who works in Apple, in the developer group somewhere that I can contact.
1:21:43Plus, I think people worry rightfully, that they want to write it down or get a picture of it now.
1:21:49Because who knows if they're going to cut it out of the published version of the video,
1:21:53because they cut a lot out of those videos. Right? cut mistakes out. Who knows?
1:21:57Who knows it?
1:21:58They cut out laughter and applause.
1:21:59They cut out a lot.
1:22:00Right.
1:22:01Like if all of a sudden this guy gets overwhelmed with email, maybe they're going to take his
1:22:04email out.
1:22:05So you better get it down while you can.
1:22:07I know exactly what you're talking about.
1:22:10Right.
1:22:11And that's weird.
1:22:12If these people's job is to interact with the public, with the developers at least,
1:22:17with the developer public about these frameworks and these areas of development, there's no
1:22:22list on Apple's site anywhere that lists them?
1:22:24Like that's weird, isn't it?
1:22:26I don't think that it's malice. I don't think it's that they don't mean well.
1:22:30I, and in fact,
1:22:31the people I know in Apple developer relations for the most part are great
1:22:34people. And at least I've never met anybody who's like,
1:22:36I would call unpleasant. I would say really sharp.
1:22:39I think that they are overwhelmed though. I think that they,
1:22:42I'm sure they've staffed up somewhat, but I think for the most part,
1:22:45they're of a basic magnitude that was appropriate for Apple
1:22:5010, 15 years ago. Yeah. And now they're one of,
1:22:55if not the most popular developer platform in the world,
1:22:58and they're just overwhelmed.
1:23:00Again, the number that I heard from somebody,
1:23:02again, a rough estimate, but that Microsoft's team
1:23:04is 10 to 50 times larger.
1:23:08- Yeah, I mean-- - It's entirely different.
1:23:10- And this list on GitHub of who the evangelists are
1:23:12at Apple has like 12 people on it.
1:23:14It's a pretty small list.
1:23:16So, and like, and they are, if they're overwhelmed,
1:23:21that would explain a lot because, you know,
1:23:23Even like, there's developer relations managers
1:23:27or representatives, like people will say,
1:23:29oh, I talked to a developer rep or my developer rep.
1:23:32I don't know how you go about getting a developer rep.
1:23:36For the first, I don't know, five years
1:23:40that I had an app in the app, for all of Instapaper
1:23:42and all of the magazine, I could never find one,
1:23:46no one ever contacted me.
1:23:48I didn't have a developer rep, if that even is a thing.
1:23:52It wasn't until Overcast that somebody emailed me
1:23:57from some press thing, like they reached out.
1:24:00And so it wasn't really until that
1:24:04that I had a contact that I could email at Apple
1:24:08to ask a question to or to bring a concern to.
1:24:12It wasn't until last year.
1:24:15And I've been in the App Store since 2008.
1:24:21And when I mentioned this to the person, they--
1:24:24- Let's just, and let's not mince words,
1:24:26with some success. (laughs)
1:24:28- Yeah.
1:24:29- I mean, it's, again, I'm not, you know,
1:24:31it's not like you wrote YouTube, but, you know,
1:24:35pretty popular apps.
1:24:36- Right, and yeah, it didn't matter.
1:24:38And when I mentioned this to this person
1:24:40that I had never found any contacts
1:24:42in Developed Relations before,
1:24:43they were like, they were surprised,
1:24:44they were like, "Really?
1:24:45"Are you sure?"
1:24:46Like, that, really?
1:24:48Like, that's, like, they were even surprised at that.
1:24:50But I don't think that people in the developer relations
1:24:54division, I don't think they have a good idea of how it
1:24:58looks from the outside, of how the developer relations system
1:25:03and how Apple as a whole appears to and communicates
1:25:07with developers who are not in with somebody.
1:25:10- The gist of it, what I've heard, and I believe it,
1:25:13and it definitely plays on developer relations,
1:25:15but they're so overwhelmed, developer relations,
1:25:17that the reps are just, and they're not, and not known,
1:25:21and hard to initiate contact with,
1:25:24and even once they do, it just never becomes a priority
1:25:27that the whole internal, I'm gonna call it radar,
1:25:30but maybe it's not just radar,
1:25:32maybe radar's just the database,
1:25:34but the whole radar system is entirely geared internally
1:25:37toward fixing bugs from within Apple itself, right?
1:25:41So if you're one of the engineers on pages
1:25:45and you run into a text kit bug,
1:25:48it gets taken care of exactly as you would think.
1:25:51And it goes up the post
1:25:52and it gets put in front of the right person
1:25:54and they run your example project and say,
1:25:57"Oh, I see," and fix it.
1:25:58And then, you know, it just works.
1:26:01It's all, but it's,
1:26:02there's nothing like that from the outside.
1:26:04Like it's like 99% internal and like 1% external.
1:26:09And I'm not saying the balance should be 50/50.
1:26:12you know, I think it's obvious that of course Apple's gonna fix their own bugs first, but
1:26:18it's just not even close. And it's not even like, "Oh, poor us, poor third-party developers,
1:26:25we're not getting our bugs fixed." These are things that affect users, everybody. We're
1:26:30fighting for these bugs because they affect the experience of the users.
1:26:34Right, exactly. I don't know. I don't know how you solve this problem except by making
1:26:41certain parts of Apple much bigger and that's obviously not an easy thing to do
1:26:45like you know they're all they like Mythical Man month kind of things like
1:26:48and I think it's a staff up I think it's a scary thing for them to do too because
1:26:53you know they've seen it over the you know everybody's seen this industry for
1:26:5820 years and everybody knows that Microsoft got a lot bigger and then it
1:27:02got it got slow and lumbering right and and they also you know they're gonna
1:27:08to have trouble staffing up possibly because when you work for Apple you have, you know,
1:27:14you have to, first of all you have to be there. Like they don't do remote work for most things.
1:27:19They have a couple of remote offices for certain like isolated projects but for the most part
1:27:23they don't do remote work. So you have to be there. They're competing with everyone
1:27:28else in the Silicon Valley region for top talent and that is, that is extremely competitive.
1:27:36And I would imagine they probably have trouble retaining a lot of these good people because
1:27:41like, I mean, you know, we know tons of like our friends and people we knew at Apple who
1:27:46like they were at Apple for a while and then they want to go out and try being an iOS developer
1:27:50or being a Mac developer themselves like independently because when you're in Apple you can't really
1:27:55have side projects.
1:27:56Yeah, and it's funny I bet being a developer relations rep is even more easily poached
1:28:02because your whole job is reaching out to other people and they're going to be like,
1:28:05you're awesome, you can work for us. Right, yeah. I bet it happens. Yeah, and if you're like an iOS
1:28:11expert who has worked for Apple, that's a pretty good qualifier. I would imagine it makes you
1:28:16pretty valuable on the market. So I expect that they probably have a lot of trouble first
1:28:23attracting and then retaining great talent there, in addition to any cultural issues and challenges
1:28:29that would come with trying to grow the company substantially larger. But I don't really see a way
1:28:34around that being the eventual outcome. Like, I don't think they can keep the company the
1:28:40current size. And I know they also have issues with, like, they don't have the space. Like,
1:28:44that's why they're building this giant new campus. Like, they're out of room, too. But,
1:28:47you know, it's--there's all these problems. But, you know, these problems aren't just
1:28:51going to disappear. Like, and I think they are working towards that. I hope they're working
1:28:57towards that. But I think there's going to be some uncomfortable migration, uncomfortable
1:29:01growth as the company becomes a bigger organization, but I think it has to be.
1:29:07Yeah, I think people are, third-party developers are exercising things that
1:29:11just don't get exercised within Apple, you know. I would say like the extensions
1:29:17are a perfect example of that, like the sharing extensions, where Apple knew what
1:29:22they would be used for, but the things that Apple itself really wants in there,
1:29:26they were already there anyway, because if Apple is collectively agreed,
1:29:30"Hey, this should be in the sharing extension for everybody."
1:29:33Then it was built into the systems sharing panel.
1:29:36It was only when third-party developers started doing it.
1:29:38But that thing is so full of little tiny bugs,
1:29:41like the way that when you reorder them,
1:29:43the order doesn't stick.
1:29:44And there's just a bunch of little things like that.
1:29:48It's just a perfect example of something
1:29:49that to me doesn't quite work right.
1:29:52- Right, and there was a couple of little limitations
1:29:56that ended up having pretty big ramifications.
1:29:58I believe it was Brian Irae of Tumblr,
1:30:00made a nice blog post right before iOS 8 came out,
1:30:04listing all the little challenges
1:30:06that they had with the Tumblr extension.
1:30:07- It was Brian Iraes.
1:30:09- Yeah, and he did the right thing.
1:30:10He reported them all as radars
1:30:11and listed all the radar numbers in the post and everything.
1:30:14But they actually, I remember,
1:30:19well, I don't know if that's public.
1:30:21Anyway. (laughs)
1:30:24- What we learned building the iOS,
1:30:26Tumblr iOS share extension.
1:30:28- Yeah, exactly, exactly.
1:30:30It will be in the show notes.
1:30:32- So we have, you know, the system itself, it has bugs,
1:30:35it has all these limitations, it's, you know,
1:30:37that's gotta get better, and you know, hopefully it will.
1:30:39Over time it probably will.
1:30:41But I think, you know, and all the stuff
1:30:44around the app rejection is pretty substantially worse too.
1:30:48Like all the rejections around this,
1:30:49I think what we're seeing is the policy
1:30:54from Apple is pretty clear.
1:30:56The policy is, the implied policy rather,
1:31:00is keyboards should not contain anything
1:31:03that isn't a keyboard.
1:31:04Like, you know, it shouldn't be able to do anything
1:31:07that is not like text entry.
1:31:09You know, it shouldn't have any other cool features
1:31:13built in, like a calculator built into your keyboard.
1:31:15Like, they obviously, like, this is the implied rule.
1:31:18Your keyboard should only be a keyboard of some sort.
1:31:21- Yeah. - No extras.
1:31:23- Can't put a version of Desert Golfing in as a keyboard.
1:31:25- Correct, similarly, your today view,
1:31:28your today extension or widget, whatever they're called,
1:31:30your today view should or must be in general
1:31:35a quick glance kind of thing.
1:31:37It shouldn't be the place where you spend time,
1:31:39it shouldn't be a place where you complete
1:31:41a long running task, it should just be a quick view.
1:31:45Those are the implied rules.
1:31:47But they won't come out and say that.
1:31:48Like they won't codify that and say, this is the rule,
1:31:51it's a high level rule, this should only be used for this.
1:31:55Like, that's clearly what they want,
1:31:58but what they're saying instead is,
1:32:01well, we're gonna try to draw the line exactly where,
1:32:04like more precisely where they should be, more lower level,
1:32:06and they're gonna say, well, you can't have buttons
1:32:07that launch your app, or you can't complete the task,
1:32:09or you can't have too many buttons,
1:32:11or you can't have this kind of button,
1:32:12or you can't simulate a keyboard in here today,
1:32:14or you're like, they try to come up
1:32:15with all these little tiny explanations
1:32:17of lower level implementation detail rules,
1:32:21but that's clearly not, like, those are all just,
1:32:24you know, that is somebody not wanting to state
1:32:27the real rule, the higher level rule,
1:32:30which is this system is intended only for this,
1:32:33you're only allowed to do this.
1:32:35And it's just not, I don't know,
1:32:39I don't know why they won't just say the higher level rule,
1:32:41because I think that would actually generate
1:32:44less controversy and would be easier
1:32:46for developers to follow and to know,
1:32:48like, certainly some developers would be like,
1:32:50well, does this count?
1:32:51But you know, you see the high level rule
1:32:52and that would at least give you some idea
1:32:54Like if I stray from this, it's gonna be rocky territory
1:32:57and a rejection risk.
1:32:58- I think the App Store stuff definitely plays into it.
1:33:01I don't know how different that is
1:33:02from typical dev relations, but it ought to be tied up
1:33:05because it's, in Apple's view, the App Store is,
1:33:08and for iOS, it absolutely is the only way,
1:33:11other than the enterprise stuff, you know,
1:33:13it's the only way, it's an inextricable part
1:33:16of the development process.
1:33:17So App Store problems should be considered
1:33:19developer relation problems.
1:33:21The whole thing, like with the recent things,
1:33:24panic has gone through and like where they had the the issue with their
1:33:28Saving feature in transmit where you know
1:33:34they didn't want them to be able to save to iCloud Drive and therefore they had to take the whole thing out because
1:33:38Even the stuff that hooks up to Dropbox and box.net because there's no control over that
1:33:43And then you know, I wrote about it a couple other people wrote about it
1:33:47And then you know, saner saner mines prevailed and okay
1:33:51They got it fixed and there's this whole angle that everybody agrees on everybody that you shouldn't have to have you know
1:33:57Daring fireball publish it to get your story fixed
1:34:02you shouldn't have to go public to get that and you shouldn't have to be of the
1:34:07prominence of panic
1:34:11To do that, you know like some upstart who nobody's heard of yet should be able to get this, you know the same reasonable
1:34:17correction
1:34:19with an App Store problem that Panic got.
1:34:22Right, and they have the appeal system set up there. So like in theory this it should work.
1:34:29You should be able to go to the appeal which like, you know, from what I understand,
1:34:33so, you know, you have the reviewers on one level and from what I understand the appeal doesn't just go to the same people, it
1:34:38goes to like a level above those people. And so if some reviewer just made a bad call,
1:34:42the appeal should work. The system that's in place there should work.
1:34:47The question is why doesn't it work as well as we're into the press like right we're into the press and making a big stink
1:34:54Yeah, that's gonna work just by the way PR works that that's gonna work a little bit better. You know on occasion, but
1:34:59It shouldn't work so much better
1:35:02It shouldn't be like like and and in panic even said I mean panic will say these things in the nicest way possible
1:35:07Because you know they don't want to start on a any stuff, but but you know they even said like it's unfortunate
1:35:14But you know this method is what works. Yeah, and we've gotten a queue branch
1:35:19we've gotten bugs fixed because we know people who work on the framework that we're having the problem with and we could
1:35:27You know
1:35:28I think literally at at WWDC Brent had like coffee with somebody and showed
1:35:33The example product which he had already submitted months ago in a radar, you know
1:35:37Here's a simple 13 line example prod project that shows the bug exactly
1:35:41But he got to show it to a guy from the framework team
1:35:44Right in his face, you know, not not a confrontation, you know Brent
1:35:48But it was like drinking, you know drinking coffee at the hotel bar and the guy was like, oh I see
1:35:52Oh, I bet I know what that is
1:35:53And he like, you know made a note of it and but you shouldn't have to know somebody and have coffee with an engineer
1:35:59You know, it's just because Brent knew that, you know knew him for years
1:36:02That doesn't scale to say that that doesn't scale is you know?
1:36:08self-evident. Right, I mean, so you have, in the reality of the iOS ecosystem and the
1:36:14Mac, the reality of the Apple dev ecosystem is that you have the official channels up
1:36:20that are just this tremendous wall and filter. And what you said earlier makes sense that
1:36:26they are extremely understaffed in these areas or they're not skilling very well. That explains
1:36:31a lot because it seems like where the general public is shown to go is just a wall that
1:36:38is extremely ineffective, has very few ways in, and it is just very off-putting and just,
1:36:45you know, they're trying to deflect everyone. It's like when you call a big company and
1:36:49you get put on hold for 35 minutes on some touch-tone menu that really wants you to follow
1:36:53its self-help options. Like, they don't want you to get in through the public way because
1:36:58they can't handle it all. Then you have all of us going through, like, the side door because
1:37:03we know somebody, and that ends up working better. That's not good. Like, that should
1:37:08be embarrassing that should be a major problem.
1:37:10And it seems like something they could fix because you know, like, and again, I think
1:37:14the biggest problem is what you said, which is just that hiring talented people in general
1:37:18is hard. And it's especially hard in the valley. But, you know, guess what works money and
1:37:25guess what Apple has to have money. So I can't help but think it is fixable.
1:37:30Well, and you know, who's to say they have to always keep everybody in Cupertino? Right?
1:37:36Like there are parts of their business that can be easily at some other location.
1:37:41Like I work as in Pittsburgh.
1:37:43Like there are parts of Apple's business that can be other places.
1:37:47And I think Gus was saying they're opening up an office in Seattle.
1:37:51So like it looks like they might be starting to be more willing to branch this out a little
1:37:55bit.
1:37:56But yeah, I think the Seattle office is going to be cloud stuff.
1:37:59I don't know.
1:38:00Yeah, that's the rumor.
1:38:01I don't know if we have any good info on that yet.
1:38:04So I think they need to start breaking down some of these barriers with themselves of
1:38:12the way they've always done things or the rules they have internally.
1:38:17If they say everyone has to work on site, you better make more sites and more places
1:38:22because they have to become a bigger company.
1:38:26There are so many areas where they are clearly understaffed or under-resourced.
1:38:30And as you said, it's not for money.
1:38:32It's not because of money.
1:38:33far as we can tell. Unless they foresee a near-term future where they're not
1:38:39going to have so many third-party developers, and I don't see how they
1:38:42could possibly think that because it doesn't seem, I don't see how that's
1:38:46possible, they really need a bigger developer relations team. Much bigger.
1:38:51Like factor of ten. With not just headcount but with authority within the
1:38:57company to get issues escalated and put in front of the right people. And as
1:39:03this week has gone on and this has been the topic of the week, I'm thinking, my
1:39:07thinking has shifted more and more that it's a lot more a developer relations
1:39:11problem and a lot less due to what I initially had been thinking for a long
1:39:16time, which is the annual release cycle of the two OSes. Well, I think there's two
1:39:21different problems. I mean, I think there's, I think it's, you know, it's
1:39:25clearly multi-variable and those are both definitely two of the variables,
1:39:29Absolutely, but my thinking has shifted in terms of which one is a bigger problem and I
1:39:35Think to which one to my eyes meshes with the timeline of what I'm seeing
1:39:43I've you know, I think that it's as iOS has gotten more complicated and therefore there are more things that could go wrong
1:39:51and as the the the
1:39:55ratio of developers to
1:39:58developer relations people within Apple
1:40:00has gotten more and more absurd,
1:40:03that correlates to me, to my eyes,
1:40:05with the shift in quality.
1:40:08And again, I think Hockenberry nailed it.
1:40:10It's like loose screws.
1:40:13It's the software equivalent of loose screws.
1:40:16- Yeah, just like sloppy little flaws that aren't fatal,
1:40:19but yeah, I mean, and I think these problems are intertwined.
1:40:23You know, like, it's hard to say,
1:40:27well, developer relations is responsible
1:40:28for a general decline in quality
1:40:31in Apple software and services.
1:40:32- Right, that's too simple, that's way too simple.
1:40:34- Right, but-- - And that's why--
1:40:36- But you can look at certain parts,
1:40:37you can say like, well, if they're saying
1:40:41that they're not seeing more bugs being reported,
1:40:43and therefore they don't know what problems to fix,
1:40:45they don't have enough information to fix them,
1:40:47why aren't more bugs being reported?
1:40:49And then you can start following that rabbit hole,
1:40:50and be like, oh, well, actually,
1:40:52this is related to developer relations,
1:40:54or related to the bug reporter system,
1:40:56or related to the image Apple has among developers,
1:40:58and the personality, 'cause the personality
1:41:02of individual people within Apple I've spoken with
1:41:04or that I know couldn't possibly be more different
1:41:08than the public persona of Apple.
1:41:10The public persona of Apple is, as I said,
1:41:12it's a brick wall and it's pretty terse
1:41:15and it's pretty unwelcoming to developers
1:41:18and to public input of any kind, really.
1:41:21But the individual people I've met and spoken with at Apple
1:41:25are the complete opposite.
1:41:26They're friendly, normal people.
1:41:27They're a lot of our friends.
1:41:29So why is that disconnect there?
1:41:31- They take enormous pride in their work.
1:41:33Like if you are lucky enough to get your bug
1:41:36in front of the person who can,
1:41:37like an engineer who can fix it,
1:41:39they're gonna take care of it.
1:41:40They are offended by any and all bugs.
1:41:43- Right, because they're good engineers.
1:41:45So what is the disconnect here?
1:41:47Is it a process issue?
1:41:49Is it a policy issue?
1:41:50Is it just like inertia going in the wrong direction
1:41:54and certain things?
1:41:54I don't know.
1:41:55But the issues at Apple are seemingly deep rooted.
1:42:00It's something that's like not budging,
1:42:03you know, like some part of the culture inside
1:42:05or the process, the way things are done
1:42:08is it needs to be modernized and it hasn't been yet.
1:42:12And that's not an easy thing to do.
1:42:13You know, that's, I mean,
1:42:14I don't know anything about big companies, but.
1:42:16- I wonder how much too, that the historical artifacts
1:42:20of the size of their developer relations team
1:42:23being relatively small,
1:42:24how much of that relates to not just the fact that 10, 15,
1:42:2820 years ago, Apple was a smaller company,
1:42:32B had far fewer users and C had far fewer developers,
1:42:36but also with the peculiar nature of the third party
1:42:41to modernize peculiar to our current eyes of that,
1:42:44it was dominated by just like three or four huge companies,
1:42:48Adobe, Microsoft, you know, go so far as the macro media.
1:42:53Macromedia, you know, just a hand, you know,
1:42:57maybe more than four or five, but you know,
1:42:58that you, just 10, 11, 12 big, big developers
1:43:02who I think, and by all accounts that I've heard,
1:43:05you know, did have, you know, like,
1:43:08platinum card developer relations treatment from Apple,
1:43:11and that they were, they're sort of built up
1:43:14for that sort of world.
1:43:15- Yeah, and that's a very, very good point.
1:43:19I mean, and it seems like a lot of Apple,
1:43:21Like, even if you look at the SVP roles,
1:43:24why is the entire developer relations system
1:43:30under the head of marketing?
1:43:32Why is the entire cloud infrastructure system,
1:43:35why is the same guy responsible
1:43:38for the entire cloud infrastructure system
1:43:40and also negotiating deals with record labels?
1:43:42Like, I think they need to get wider as an organization.
1:43:47They need like more divisions
1:43:50and they need some of these divisions to have
1:43:52more power at the top or more say.
1:43:55I tweeted a while ago, if you wanna see
1:43:59areas where Apple doesn't do so well,
1:44:02look at which SVPs have way too much on their plate.
1:44:05And again, I don't think it's personal.
1:44:09I don't think Phil, Shiller, and AnyQ
1:44:11are weak at their jobs.
1:44:13I'm saying if that's the way the organization is structured,
1:44:16where all these things are under
1:44:18You know the like fairly disparate things are under one organization with one person representing them at the top
1:44:24I think that's too much on their plate. Yeah, if anything it's that they're effective at their jobs. I mean, I mean it was it was
1:44:31Explicit it was a rare instance where they publicly said
1:44:35Like when they added maps to Eddie Q's plate, you know that usually they don't make announcements like that publicly
1:44:41But right forced all thing was you know had to be done somewhat publicly and the explanation was Eddie
1:44:47You know get stuff done. So maps need stuff done
1:44:50So now it's Eddie's and at you know, truth be told maps has gotten significantly better
1:44:54Yeah
1:44:55People so people point to maps maps is a bad example in my opinion because maps is a product that I think is clearly headed
1:45:01In the right direction, is it possible that it could be headed in that direction faster?
1:45:05I guess of course you can always do somewhat better
1:45:07And is it is it as good quality wise as Google Maps?
1:45:12No, but that's I think that's mainly because Google still has the pedal to the metal on Google Maps and Google is improving
1:45:19Google Maps at a very quick rate and so
1:45:22Apple Maps might lag
1:45:24behind it for years to come until they sort of get to the
1:45:28You know the point of diminishing returns where they're both, you know, as close to perfect as they can get
1:45:33I think Maps is a bad example because I think they're getting a lot better at that
1:45:36Well, I disagree with with the with the chances of maps being you know
1:45:40eventually tying up with Google Maps.
1:45:41Because those kind of large big data problems,
1:45:45Apple has never shown that they're very good at them.
1:45:47They, where I think Apple gets a bum rap
1:45:51is the general cloud services term.
1:45:54- I think Maps today, Apple Maps today
1:45:56is already better than Google Maps was a few years ago.
1:45:58I'm not quite sure how many a few is.
1:46:00- I don't know about that.
1:46:01- But I get, I used to get bad driving directions
1:46:05from Google Maps, you know, it was always better.
1:46:08It was just like with search where I was I guess I used MapQuest before and right when I switched to Google Maps
1:46:14It was like this is better and it wouldn't do stupid things like getting me from my house to you know, I 95
1:46:20It's like, you know gave me reasonable directions
1:46:22For the first few steps of a trip
1:46:25In my experience, I mean again, this is the sort of thing where everybody depending on where you live might be having different results
1:46:31But I think Apple Maps is already better than Google Maps used to be some number of years ago
1:46:36It's not as good as Google Maps is today, but it's it's getting there
1:46:40I like I don't think that it's I think it's already good enough that it's proof that they can do a large data set problem
1:46:45to some degree of quality
1:46:47Maybe I don't know then I look at App Store search and I cry
1:46:50I but I think overall well, that's actually now that is a great example
1:46:54Let's forget about math, but App Store search is a great example of something. That's always been shit is
1:47:01is still shit and there's no evidence at all
1:47:04that they're getting better at it
1:47:05or that they've hired anybody.
1:47:07To me the solution is so obvious.
1:47:10Just find someone who's done a good work
1:47:12at Bing or Google search and hire a team of,
1:47:17poach a team of engineers with experience
1:47:19at one of the successful search engines.
1:47:22- I think the problem there is,
1:47:25in general the app store, the store itself,
1:47:27not the politics that go on behind it,
1:47:29like the store itself, the interface to the store,
1:47:31the infrastructure that runs the store,
1:47:34the store apps themselves, the categories in the store,
1:47:38the ability that the store pages have,
1:47:40like the different fields, the descriptions,
1:47:42like all this stuff, that stuff changes incredibly slowly.
1:47:47A lot of it has never changed.
1:47:48The App Store, it seems like--
1:47:52- The install button for the Yosemite App Store
1:47:56still looks like the old Mac OS.
1:47:58Right, yeah, and boy, if you think the iOS App Store app
1:48:03is a little rough on the edges,
1:48:04the Mac App Store app is pretty rough.
1:48:07That's been a frequent source of bugs.
1:48:09It's just rough.
1:48:12The iPhone one is the least bad.
1:48:15The iPad one is kind of pretty bad.
1:48:18And the Mac one is really bad.
1:48:20But anyway, like all that stuff, it seems like,
1:48:23I don't think this is an instance of like,
1:48:26this team needs 50 more engineers,
1:48:29I think it's an instance of,
1:48:31Apple thinks this is good enough.
1:48:34And that's what frustrates me about the App Store
1:48:37and its various quality issues.
1:48:39And again, I'm not talking about like, you know,
1:48:40the policies in this case,
1:48:42I'm actually talking about the store,
1:48:43like the actual App Store itself.
1:48:46There are so many things they could do
1:48:47that would make it better,
1:48:48that they seem to think they don't need to do.
1:48:51But overall though,
1:48:53I think Apple's cloud services get a bum rap.
1:48:56I think if you look at what we do on our Apple devices
1:49:01that rely on Apple's cloud services,
1:49:05most of it just works fine.
1:49:07And it's, again, it's that error rate multiplier thing.
1:49:10Like the edges stick out and then we all scream and say,
1:49:13"Apple's cloud services suck."
1:49:15But the reality is like most of them,
1:49:16like the biggest, as far as I know,
1:49:19what I would expect at least,
1:49:20the biggest Apple cloud service is the system
1:49:23that delivers push notifications and iMessage.
1:49:26And that works extremely well.
1:49:29And if you think about the scale that that's operating on,
1:49:31that's insane.
1:49:32Like the amount of messages that get delivered,
1:49:35and like all my interactions with that server
1:49:38as a developer, like the servers that take in push requests
1:49:42are just lightning fast.
1:49:44Like it will take requests as quickly as your network
1:49:47can stream them to it.
1:49:48It never fails.
1:49:51I've never had a connection error reported
1:49:53by any of those tasks that run on my servers,
1:49:55like at least one that wasn't my fault on my network.
1:49:59It is ridiculous how well that system works.
1:50:03From what I've heard, CloudKit works.
1:50:04I mean, I haven't used it yet,
1:50:05but from what I've heard, CloudKit works.
1:50:07Like this new infrastructure that they built CloudKit on,
1:50:10that they're building all the photo library stuff on,
1:50:13all the indications so far, it is a little early,
1:50:15but all the indications so far say that that's rock solid.
1:50:18So it does seem like most of their cloud services
1:50:21do work and are solid, but you definitely hear
1:50:25about the ones that don't.
1:50:26- Yeah, yeah, so I think the people who are holding
1:50:28that stuff up as examples of this are,
1:50:31I think they're wrong.
1:50:32Let me take a break, and I wanna talk,
1:50:34I guess the last thing we could talk about
1:50:35would be the annual schedule.
1:50:36And maybe we can talk about that crazy new MacBook
1:50:41that Mark Gurman says is coming.
1:50:43- That's gonna be weird.
1:50:45You know we're both gonna buy one.
1:50:46- No, I don't wanna, no, 'cause I just bought a MacBook Pro.
1:50:49- You say that now.
1:50:50No, I just I my MacBook Pro is what I want. I want you still have your 11 inch I do
1:50:56I'm actually recording this but all I literally all I use it for is to record the show and
1:51:02to
1:51:04Take a look at anything. It's still running
1:51:0610.9 so to take a look at anything in the old UI that I want to what was it like when you what do we?
1:51:13Do before Yosemite right the only two things I use this machine for does it look totally garish and outdated now. Yes
1:51:19- Absolutely.
1:51:20- It's been such a short time.
1:51:22- Yeah, looking at 10.9 is, oh my God, it's ridiculous.
1:51:26It's not quite as ridiculous as looking at pre-iOS 7 iOS,
1:51:30but it's, 'cause they never quite blinged,
1:51:33or they de-blinged it at one point and left it there.
1:51:36- It's even worse when, like,
1:51:37so you now use a retina iMac full-time, right?
1:51:40- Right.
1:51:41- So how bad is it when you see a non-retina screen now?
1:51:45- That's, well, my 11-inch has the non-retina screen,
1:51:48and it's like, ugh.
1:51:50- Yeah, I got a Mac Mini for some auxiliary duties here.
1:51:54It runs headless, but we have an old 27-inch LED,
1:51:58whatever, cinema display in the closet,
1:52:01so I took that out to set it up.
1:52:02And so I kept going back and forth
1:52:05between my 27-inch Retina iMac
1:52:07and the 27-inch Thunderbolt display,
1:52:08which at the time it came out was an amazing display.
1:52:11They still sell it.
1:52:12It's now, well, now it's Thunderbolt.
1:52:13I have the pre one anyway.
1:52:14- Right, it's the same panel. - It's an amazing display.
1:52:16Yeah, like incredibly good, like bright, nice colors,
1:52:20great brightness, great contrast, like by all specs,
1:52:24it is an amazing display.
1:52:25And when it came out, I remember like I had some other
1:52:26like HP monitor and I looked at the tool, I'm like,
1:52:29oh my God, my HP monitor looks like crap compared
1:52:31to this wonderful Apple monitor.
1:52:33And now that I have, you know, the retina version
1:52:36of that same thing, basically, going between the two,
1:52:39as I was setting up the, like the first time I saw
1:52:42the Thunderbolt one, the non-retina one, I'm like,
1:52:45oh, is this the wrong resolution?
1:52:46Like what is wrong with this?
1:52:48It looks terrible.
1:52:49Like what, oh my God, this was normal?
1:52:51I looked at this all day?
1:52:52Like it's, I know this sounds awful,
1:52:55but it's such a difference.
1:52:58But yeah, I would imagine, yeah,
1:52:59like looking back at Mavericks,
1:53:02once you're accustomed to Yosemite,
1:53:04it probably looks quite ridiculous.
1:53:06- Yeah.
1:53:07The other thing that makes me think I might not like,
1:53:09assuming that the German thing is true,
1:53:10that, well, we'll talk about it in a second.
1:53:12- Yeah, all right.
1:53:13- But I don't think I would like the keyboard.
1:53:16- I'm concerned, yeah, 'cause it's too close together, right?
1:53:18- Yeah, and that's the thing I never liked
1:53:19about my 11-inch Air, and not,
1:53:21I don't even know if it's close enough,
1:53:22but it doesn't have the key travel
1:53:24that the bigger PowerBooks do, and it's one of the--
1:53:27- Oh, it doesn't? - No.
1:53:28Well, at least mine didn't.
1:53:29I got the, my 11-inch Air is the last Air
1:53:33that doesn't have keys that light up.
1:53:36- Yeah, you have the 2010.
1:53:37- Yeah. - It was the only one
1:53:38that ever, it was only, like, the first one did,
1:53:40the 2008 old crappy one, that did light up.
1:53:43Then the 2010 ones initially didn't,
1:53:44And then they brought it back in 2011 now the keys when you press them don't go as far down as on other power books
1:53:50And it's the nicest probably the single nicest thing about the well the screens the nicest thing
1:53:55But the second nicest thing after the retina screen is the keyboard. I just totally news to me
1:54:00I thought that they all use the same part like all the all the current Apple app
1:54:03I thought I thought the keyboard was the exact same in all of them
1:54:05You know and for obvious reasons the main thing I use a power book for instead of art
1:54:10I still call them power books the main thing I use a MacBook for instead of an iPad in any
1:54:14Situation is typing so right right the nice keyboard really so I'm worried about that
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1:57:45so the annual schedule that's
1:57:48Shit, my disc is full
1:57:52Hold on a second. I got it delete some podcasts here. That's fine
1:57:57all right, I
1:58:00Want to talk about the annual schedule, which I think is
1:58:03For Yosemite and iOS which they've stuck to for a couple of years and as a source for this trend that we're seeing
1:58:10And I think part of this too is sort of from within Apple is sort of a they can't win scenario
1:58:16because
1:58:18in the early years of the iPhone
1:58:202007 2008 the Mac
1:58:22They admitted they even had like a press release the one time they had to publicly say we pulled engineers from Mac OS 10
1:58:30To help get the new iOS 2.0 out the door. Right that was lesser, right? Yeah, so we're delaying the Mac OS till
1:58:37October I think it was supposed to come out at WWDC in June and it's now it's not coming out till October
1:58:43You know Steve Jobs even had his name on it, you know
1:58:46You know that that you know that that hurt them to have to say something like that
1:58:50Yeah, but like nothing bad happened as a result of that. No, but there I I'm not even saying something bad happened for it
1:58:58I'm just saying though that I feel like within Apple,
1:59:01they're like proud of the fact that they've gotten
1:59:04to the point where they can do,
1:59:07keep both OS's in states of constant development.
1:59:12You know, that they're-- - Well, can they?
1:59:14- Well, I don't think either Yosemite or iOS 8
1:59:18is so bad that I wish I hadn't upgraded.
1:59:21- No, they're not.
1:59:22And that's, see that's the problem.
1:59:24Like it's, maybe this is part of the problem.
1:59:27Like they're not bad enough that like alarm bells are going off, right?
1:59:31But the rate of tiny paper cuts seems to be increasing
1:59:36Yeah, and I don't know like is it is it you know, if they're going to do that is this the in it?
1:59:41Is this the way it has to be you know?
1:59:44Is there no way to either they slow down one or the other operating systems or this is what we're gonna get
1:59:50I don't know. Well, I don't think a slowing down would necessarily be that bad
1:59:55I mean, you know and right now
1:59:57We're going through a future a few big transitions in the OS's and we've been going through them over the last couple of releases
2:00:03Where you know iOS 7 was the massive redesign in addition to a whole bunch of new frameworks under the hood
2:00:09iOS 8 added the whole extension system, which is a pretty substantial thing
2:00:15Well and the whole the whole idea of having these
2:00:17cross inner inner application
2:00:20Not just extensions in particular extensions are like one version of it
2:00:24But the way that so much of how we interact with the system is going through these
2:00:28You know, yeah the XPC thing yeah the XPC stuff
2:00:34Yeah
2:00:34And so instead of having things that run in your app
2:00:37and if they go bad crash your app there outside your app in a sandbox and it's it's not just one thing like
2:00:43Sharing extensions. It's a whole bunch of things. It's a big transition, right? And so like so they're going through transitions like that
2:00:50you know they
2:00:52So maybe the last few releases have just been bigger
2:00:55than the releases will usually be.
2:00:58Maybe this problem will settle down
2:01:01in the next couple of releases just by nature of
2:01:04they're now on the other side of these giant transitions.
2:01:08But, and like, when you call something a stable release,
2:01:13some part of it is just like a marketing value.
2:01:15Some part of it is like, we're gonna declare this X.0
2:01:18and that's just a number, it doesn't mean anything.
2:01:21And so you could always choose to just put less in each one
2:01:25and still kind of have the best of both worlds.
2:01:28But some part of it also is like what Guy was saying,
2:01:30like the way, like the whole development pace
2:01:33of like how the year is spent,
2:01:36how the time between releases is spent
2:01:38between like, you know, launching, fixing the bugs,
2:01:41then, you know, kind of quiet period
2:01:43where you start developing the next stuff
2:01:44and then, you know, beta for the next thing
2:01:46and then launch the next thing.
2:01:48That will still be a problem.
2:01:50that will still be this compressed version,
2:01:53even if you just do less in each version.
2:01:55I still think it'll be better than what you have now
2:01:57of doing a lot in each version
2:01:58and releasing them every year.
2:02:00I also, you know, it's important to point out
2:02:02for the marketing value of this,
2:02:04that this is a pretty young thing.
2:02:07It isn't young for iPhones necessarily.
2:02:09You know, most iPhones have coincided with new iOS releases
2:02:15or at least been fairly close to them.
2:02:18But they don't, first of all, they don't have to be.
2:02:20- No, I think there's always been.
2:02:22I don't think there's ever been an iPhone
2:02:23that hasn't coincided with a new iOS.
2:02:26It's just that I think-- - I think you're right.
2:02:27I just couldn't think of,
2:02:28I couldn't think of the earlier ones.
2:02:29- No, there's never been,
2:02:31and there'd never been one that can run the old OS.
2:02:34And some of them, like in the iOS 3, iOS 4 era,
2:02:37were not so heavily new features,
2:02:41and was a little bit more just expanding the foundation.
2:02:46but it was always a new .0 to coincide with the new phone.
2:02:50- Right, but sometimes they haven't been that way.
2:02:53Like iPads, like the famous or the first iPad
2:02:56shipped with iOS 3.2.
2:02:58It was a special build or special track for the iPad
2:03:01that wasn't unified until iOS 4.2 I think or 4.1.
2:03:05It was even iOS 4 shipped first on the iPhone
2:03:08wasn't didn't even run on the iPad
2:03:10and then 4.1 or 4.2 unified them.
2:03:12So like they have released hard.
2:03:14So much of the recent high profile hardware
2:03:17has launched with new OS versions,
2:03:19but not all of it has.
2:03:21And when it hasn't, nothing bad happened.
2:03:24Like there was no real downside to the iPad
2:03:28shipping with 3.2 instead of waiting for 4.0
2:03:31to be ready to ship this hardware product.
2:03:33There was also no major downside to the iPad
2:03:37not even getting 4.0 'cause it wasn't ready yet.
2:03:39And like, you know, a few people complained,
2:03:42but it wasn't a huge deal.
2:03:44Didn't hurt the sales of the iPad really it didn't hurt the iPhone
2:03:47It didn't hurt iOS for like it just didn't it wasn't a big deal, right?
2:03:51Famously the iPad in particular had more explosive sales in those early years than it has now now they've stuck, you know
2:03:57flat right exactly for other reasons but still right so and you know Macs are released all the time and if
2:04:04If if a new version of Mac OS X is going to be due soon
2:04:09They'll usually hold it same like they did with the retina iMac
2:04:13They usually hold it for that for that same event, and then they'll ship together
2:04:16But you know a Mac could be released next month
2:04:19and it'll run the OS that's from four months ago or five months ago whatever and
2:04:24Doesn't matter nothing nothing bad happens
2:04:26You know no one says oh apple should have released a new OS with these new MacBook Airs like nope doesn't matter at all
2:04:30Doesn't even come up so I question like
2:04:33the value of having this this like lockstep of
2:04:38of major OSs tied to major hardware releases,
2:04:41I think is mostly self-imposed.
2:04:43I think they do it that way
2:04:44because they like to do it that way
2:04:46or they think they should do it that way,
2:04:47but when it hasn't gone that way,
2:04:50I think the market has spoken loud and clear
2:04:52that it doesn't really matter.
2:04:54- Yeah, I kind of agree with that.
2:04:55I do, you know, and I don't think that it's as superficial
2:04:58as that they want to do it
2:05:00so that they have more to show in a keynote.
2:05:03But, you know, I think there's something loosely
2:05:06along those lines though where they,
2:05:09it's easier to market when there's more new features.
2:05:14- Right, and that's what I mean when I say
2:05:17that marketing is becoming too high of a priority.
2:05:21It's not that, and one of the things that bothered me,
2:05:24I never said the marketing department,
2:05:27because what I didn't want to say is
2:05:30Phil Schiller is personally controlling Apple
2:05:32and killing Craig Federighi's goals,
2:05:34'cause that's not what I meant.
2:05:36I mean the idea of marketing, the marketing benefits
2:05:40of this annual schedule and of lock-stepping them
2:05:43with the hardware, that is too high of a priority.
2:05:46That is taking priority seemingly over software quality
2:05:49and that is what I have a problem with.
2:05:51And that is not a departmental thing as far as I know.
2:05:55You know, I don't think, you know,
2:05:57Phil Schiller is personally taking over the company
2:05:59and having these battles everywhere.
2:06:00I seriously doubt that.
2:06:01I think it's like the company has decided as a whole
2:06:05at the high level, like this schedule is right
2:06:09for the company, this is what we're going to do.
2:06:11We're going to have these annual releases,
2:06:13we're going to tie these things lockstep
2:06:16so that hardware releases with software.
2:06:18- Yeah, and I've always said,
2:06:19I think your point is well put,
2:06:22and I've always said that marketing at Apple
2:06:26doesn't work like it does at a lot of other companies.
2:06:29I don't know about most other companies, I don't know,
2:06:30but I think the traditional way where marketing
2:06:34is like icing on the cake and it's like products go through development and when they're done
2:06:38being developed they hand them over to marketing and marketing figures out a box and a tagline
2:06:43and finishes it. You know it's better, I've always said like one way to think of it is it would be
2:06:49better to, you'd better understand Phil Schiller's responsibilities if you took the word marketing
2:06:54out of his title and just thought of him as senior vice president of product.
2:06:59Exactly. It's inextricably time time, you know it the the
2:07:03advertising of the products the marketing of the products is inextricably tied to
2:07:09the development of the products from the get-go
2:07:12It's it's one in the same
2:07:15Right, like they're not they're not gonna make a product that that there's no clear market for or that doesn't fit into their marketing message
2:07:21As a whole right and there that makes their marketing
2:07:24I think
2:07:27Refreshingly honest that what they are bragging about about their products is usually true
2:07:32I mean most of their marketing is like here is what our product is
2:07:36Period like when they don't need to do that much more than that look like when the MacBook Air first came out
2:07:42And you know they had to add where it came out of an envelope, and they were like look at this laptop
2:07:47It's crazy thin and crazy light. Well. That's exactly what it was yeah, you know there was no no spin on it
2:07:53No lie you know
2:07:56Yeah, which we'll get to in a few minutes I bet.
2:07:58- Maybe.
2:07:59- But yeah, so I mean, I think the annual review cycle,
2:08:04I think is a major part of the quality problems.
2:08:07The quality decline did, I think, precede it.
2:08:11'Cause the annual review cycle is pretty young.
2:08:12I mean, where did they start that, with Lion?
2:08:14Or when they went, I think when they went
2:08:17from Lion to Mountain Lion, I think that was
2:08:19the first one year interval, wasn't it?
2:08:21- Yeah, it was a little bit more than a year.
2:08:23It was, I'm looking at the Wikipedia page now.
2:08:28Mac OS 10, 10.7 Lion shipped in October 2010.
2:08:33And Mountain Lion was announced February 2012.
2:08:38That was February 2012, that was the one
2:08:41where they had like the private briefings.
2:08:43Like where I'm--
2:08:44- Right, is that the one where Schiller told you
2:08:46we're gonna do things differently now?
2:08:47- Yeah. - Yeah.
2:08:48Yeah, I think that was when this started,
2:08:50was roughly then, you know?
2:08:52I think that's what they meant. They're doing things differently, you know in a few ways, but so you know that
2:08:56You know and I should say yeah, I maybe I I overemphasized the cyclical nature of Apple
2:09:02We've really only had two releases that follow the current cycle of a June
2:09:06announcement and an October
2:09:08Debut right iOS has been more consistent because because the phone schedule has been pretty much the same
2:09:13I mean, you know, it shifted from June to September or whatever, but otherwise, it's pretty much the same
2:09:16Yeah getting a summer to end of summer, right exactly. But yeah overall, you know iPhone has been consistent
2:09:22It's only really Mac that has become inconsistent recently or that is now consistent
2:09:28Yeah, and it used to be annual in the early years because it was so bad and needed so much improvement
2:09:34Well, it was young. Yeah, like now it like I
2:09:37Don't see that as a Mac user. I don't really see a lot of value in
2:09:42Revving the the main OS I use for all of my work
2:09:47Frequently like I don't see the point like the only reason I got Yosemite when I did was because I bought a new computer that
2:09:53Came with it. I would have waited probably until like a point to most likely before I installed it
2:09:58I never installed it on my old computer. I only I only got it because the new computer came with it and can't be downgraded
2:10:03and
2:10:06Because like I'm very risk-averse with my work computer, right?
2:10:09Like I'm if I'm in the middle of a project which I almost always am I will put off any updates
2:10:15Even even like an x.2 or x.3 like I'll put that off until I'm like done editing the podcast for the week
2:10:21Just in case something bad happens. You know something like that. Yeah, my way has always been to have a computer at my desk
2:10:26That's my quote main computer. Yeah, I'm a 5k
2:10:29I'll keep that at a conservative pace and then have a laptop that I
2:10:33Don't really give two craps about if it not that I don't care about it, but that I don't care if it gets buggy
2:10:39Right. I'll get all installed developer betas on
2:10:42Yeah, my laptop actually runs the like the it's it's on the USM ad beta chain like through the App Store
2:10:47So yeah, so it's currently on on 10 10 2 or whatever it is. Yeah, and I regret it terribly
2:10:52My actually that actually I mean I hardly use that computer, but that's actually not been a problem for me
2:10:56Well, there's one particular bug that really it's driving me nuts the diction
2:11:00And I don't even know how universal is but for me at least, you know
2:11:03The dictionary lookup feature where you can do I've changed my shortcut. I think the standard one might be control command D
2:11:09Oh, I always forget that I still launch the dictionary app from spotlight every time or launch bar
2:11:13You know, this is a cool shortcut. You can triple tap on the trackpad over a word not click tap
2:11:19Right, right triple tap and you get an inline dictionary lookup of whatever word you want use it all the time
2:11:25That's a crime. It crashes Mars edit it. It doesn't crash BB edit button BB edit it leaves the yellow
2:11:33Highlighted thing of the word on screen. Oh, that's it's something changed between 10 1 and 10 2 with third-party apps in the dictionary
2:11:40Lookup and I do it all the time and I know I know it's gonna crash, but I don't think about it
2:11:45I think I got a look at that. I spell this right triple tap to
2:11:48Boom now all the apps I use are like Mars edit and BB edit. They all autosave everything
2:11:54So I don't lose data, but it's still an annoyance
2:11:56Yeah, and it's just this is the problem. There's so many little things like that. I mean, but it's a beta so I'm not complaining
2:12:02Yeah, yeah, obviously here's the here's the historical schedule for Mac OS X so 10.0 came out in early
2:12:082001 and that really even counts. It was a heap and pile of shit and then 10.1 came out in July
2:12:14Later the same year
2:12:18When just from March to July they came out with a with a major version of Mac OS X
2:12:2610.2 was May 2002 10.3 was June 2003. These are announcement dates not release dates. I guess I should do release dates
2:12:34Then we waited like almost two years for 10 for tiger
2:12:39Which is really where I feel like they tied it off and we're like, okay
2:12:42We're done with like the early years of Mac OS X. Yeah
2:12:46I came in with tiger even went all the way to tiger went all the way to ten point four point eleven
2:12:51Which I think is the highest they ever got. Yeah, it's the highest they ever got
2:12:55- 10.6 didn't get that high?
2:12:57- No, 10.6 only went to 10.68.
2:12:59- Oh.
2:13:00- But there was, Wikipedia lists a 10.68 v1.1,
2:13:04which is some kind of weird patch.
2:13:06(laughing)
2:13:07But that's where they switched to like two years.
2:13:10And in fact, 10.5 didn't come out until October 26, 2007.
2:13:15That's the one where--
2:13:16- That was the delayed one.
2:13:17- The delayed one.
2:13:18So it was about two and a half years.
2:13:20- And that was a really stable time, by the way.
2:13:23This I think is the high watermark that you know, and again like as jalkett had a web web log post in response to your thing
2:13:30You know don't
2:13:32Don't don't use too much
2:13:34You know
2:13:35Yeah, rose-colored glass exactly don't have too strong a prescription in your rose-colored glasses, right?
2:13:40Like all the people who would like to leave like web OS
2:13:43But you know, I do think there's something to you know
2:13:47The it being a high watermark this era a high watermark for stability system-wide
2:13:52Yeah, I mean and everybody glorifies ten six also
2:13:56Because that was the famous one that they said no new features
2:14:00We're just gonna like, you know work on the work on the under the hood stuff, right?
2:14:03And it was successful and it was that brought in tons of modern stuff that brought in Grand Central dispatch among other things and included
2:14:09Though included in the fact that it had no new features is it was two years after?
2:14:13Ten five leopard came out. So it was two years since the release it was this is you know, it was released in 2009
2:14:21This is interesting. It was announced in June 2008, but didn't get released until August 2009.
2:14:29I don't remember that. Do you remember it being a year in beta?
2:14:32No, but it doesn't matter.
2:14:34Well, I don't know. If it's on Wikipedia, it's got to be true.
2:14:36Of course.
2:14:38But it was two years and it had no new features, and it was two years until we got Lion.
2:14:44So there was like this four-year period. And again, no new features is kind of bullshit.
2:14:48adding Grand Central Dispatch.
2:14:50It's not a feature because it's not like a thing
2:14:52that they can put in a commercial,
2:14:54but it's clearly a huge feature.
2:14:57It's just a behind the scenes developer feature.
2:14:59But that's like a four year period
2:15:02where they didn't really have a lot of
2:15:04user facing features added.
2:15:07And is widely viewed, and I think accurately so,
2:15:09is sort of the high watermark of stability.
2:15:12- Yeah, and part of that could be rose colored glasses,
2:15:16But I think there is a lot of truth to that.
2:15:19- Yeah, we might see something like that soon though,
2:15:21like you said, they're going through transitions now.
2:15:24And iCloud is certainly one of them.
2:15:27I think the other transition they're going through
2:15:29is this general idea of iOS and Mac being siblings.
2:15:34- Right.
2:15:36- Like, you know, tied together.
2:15:39The best example of that, best example,
2:15:40has gotta be the iWork,
2:15:42the new versions of all the iWork apps,
2:15:44where now they're saying,
2:15:45these are the exact same file formats between the two,
2:15:48even if that means that the Mac version
2:15:50is gonna lose a bunch of cool features.
2:15:53And eventually, presumably, they're gonna get them,
2:15:56get those features back,
2:15:57but then we'll have them on both platforms.
2:15:59We'll have nice kerning for fonts on iOS
2:16:03in addition to Mac.
2:16:06And that's a perfect example.
2:16:07But they're doing that in little ways in a bunch of apps.
2:16:10- Right, and a lot of the underlying frameworks
2:16:13are also being unified.
2:16:14a lot of the underlying API stuff, the SDKs,
2:16:17a lot of that has been unified in the last couple releases.
2:16:19They've both gone through the major visual redesigns,
2:16:23more so on iOS, but still,
2:16:25just somebody who knows Slouch in that department.
2:16:27So they have gone through a lot in the last couple years.
2:16:31- And I don't expect either of those things
2:16:33to happen again anytime soon either.
2:16:34I think we're at least five, six, seven years
2:16:36from either OS getting a major visual refresh.
2:16:39- Right.
2:16:40- Just an annual tightening up.
2:16:42Yeah, Swift gives me a little bit of pause
2:16:45because right now, like Swift was announced,
2:16:49nothing written inside of Apple was using Swift yet.
2:16:53And none of the frameworks use Swift natively.
2:16:55None of them are written in Swift natively,
2:16:56at least not as of last year.
2:16:58So introducing a whole new programming language
2:17:02that certainly begs for a lot of things
2:17:05to be rewritten in it,
2:17:06that might be a major thing that is potentially a burden
2:17:11or a distraction on the engineering teams.
2:17:13I also question whether that is what they should be doing
2:17:15with their time, but in general though,
2:17:19I think the next couple releases have very good reason
2:17:23to be less ambitious and more stable.
2:17:27- Yeah, I hope so.
2:17:29Before we move on and talk about that MacBook thing,
2:17:33the other thought I had is that a lot of the complaints
2:17:37that I've seen with regard to these little nagging,
2:17:41It's supposed to just work, but it doesn't just work.
2:17:43A lot of it has to do with wireless networking and stuff
2:17:49that's supposed to happen between two devices.
2:17:50Like for me, in particular, AirDrop is amazing.
2:17:53AirDrop works absolutely great.
2:17:55And I use it all the time.
2:17:57Like where I'm on the phone, and I have-- ooh,
2:17:59I want to link to this from Daring Fireball.
2:18:01And instead of doing what I used to do,
2:18:02I'd like send it to Pinboard or something,
2:18:04and then go to my Mac and get it.
2:18:06I just AirDrop it to my Mac as soon as my Mac wakes up.
2:18:08And it-- boom, it's there.
2:18:10and there's nothing to clean up.
2:18:13I don't have to erase or let language forever
2:18:16an old pinboard bookmark that I really just wanted
2:18:19to shuffle between the two.
2:18:20It's great, but I've heard from people who say
2:18:23AirDrop never works for them.
2:18:25But anyway, what gives me pause is that a lot of these things
2:18:29are these little nagging two things that are supposed
2:18:32to talk to each other over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or whatever
2:18:34don't really quite work the way they're supposed to,
2:18:38is that is the entire description of Apple Watch, right?
2:18:42- Yep. - It's like the sort of things
2:18:44that don't just work are the only things
2:18:47Apple Watch exists for.
2:18:49There's nothing else, other than telling time,
2:18:51there's nothing else the thing does
2:18:52other than these little wireless interactions
2:18:57sort of dancing all day long with other devices.
2:19:01- I even thought earlier,
2:19:02like you can't even sync Apple Watch with a cable.
2:19:07- No.
2:19:08- Like there's no ports on it.
2:19:09It can only charge.
2:19:11Everything else is wireless.
2:19:13So like, you know, this stuff has to be,
2:19:15one thing though, the Apple Watch,
2:19:18it can go either way.
2:19:19I think you can look at it from one side
2:19:21and you can say, well, this is gonna be a brand new 1.0
2:19:25of everything and it's gonna be potentially a huge drain
2:19:29on engineering resources at Apple and focus from Apple
2:19:32which could bode very poorly
2:19:34for their quality going forward.
2:19:36Or you can look at it as maybe the Apple Watch
2:19:39will take some of the marketing burden for a while
2:19:42and let them be a little more boring with iOS and OS X.
2:19:47- And pour enormous resources into things
2:19:49like getting the Bluetooth stack in really tip-top shape.
2:19:54- Right, so I think this is a wild card.
2:19:58I think the Watch, I don't, I mean,
2:20:02again, I could be wrong.
2:20:04I don't think the watch is gonna require
2:20:06a massive amount of engineering, of software engineering.
2:20:09It simply can't do that much yet.
2:20:10The hardware is very simple.
2:20:12Relative to all the things iOS does, for instance,
2:20:17all the things Mac OS X does,
2:20:18I don't think it's gonna require massive
2:20:21engineering resources to get it through
2:20:23its first couple of years.
2:20:25Again, that could be totally wrong, I don't know.
2:20:28But just as a relative thing,
2:20:30I think it's probably a much smaller project.
2:20:33but it will, and I also don't know how well it's going to sell. You know, it could end
2:20:37up being, you know, just like new iPods, basically. Like it could just be like, it could disappoint
2:20:43a lot of analysts, it could disappoint Apple, it could sell, you know, a few million here
2:20:48or there, you know, but not set the world on fire and not be ubiquitous among Apple
2:20:52people. Or it could set the world on fire and it could sell tremendously and it could,
2:20:56like, we have no idea how it's going to sell yet and I think that might determine some
2:21:00of its few some of the company's future priorities and direction I think the
2:21:03single single I think it's if it works as advertised it's gonna sell very well
2:21:07and I think the single thing that could sink it would be if it comes out in the
2:21:13next month or two two months whenever it's supposed to come out and there's a
2:21:17bunch of little nagging bugs with the interactivity with your iPhone and you
2:21:23know your text messages are supposed to be showing up on your wrist and they
2:21:26don't or it's not supposed to drain your battery but when you sink you know when
2:21:32you have an eye you know you put your Apple watch on and your phone which used
2:21:36to typically get you through the whole day is in the red by noon that's good
2:21:40that would be a huge problem because I it it's not that they can't fix those
2:21:44bugs it's that the perception will hit while it's young that the thing doesn't
2:21:49work like it's supposed to and that sort of thing is very very hard to shake oh
2:21:52Oh, yeah, I mean like it becomes part of people's tech superstitions to like oh you better like only turn on Bluetooth when you're doing
2:21:59Something the watch and turn Bluetooth off on your phone to save your battery like yeah
2:22:02It's that kind of stuff starts getting into like the the culture as common wisdom
2:22:06You know, it could it could become the next quit all your apps thing where that's actively harmful
2:22:10That's why I wrote when I linked to your thing that it's the perception
2:22:14like to me the biggest problem with this trend and the resonation that your post got is that it's
2:22:21By Apple leaving these things
2:22:23You know like as you put it, you know leaving some ground at the functional
2:22:28Leaving some of the area at the functional high ground, whatever you call it. Yeah. Yeah
2:22:33Not my best title ever
2:22:35Although I don't I disagree with your analysis that you have to lose the high ground to someone else
2:22:40I think you can lose like because if you think about the moral high ground
2:22:43You can lose the moral high ground without someone else becoming better than you at it
2:22:49You can just become worse out of yourself. Yeah, I I know what you mean. It's not quite it
2:22:54It's not quite fair that I said it's that you have to lose it to him. I do think it's an important point
2:23:00I worry though that the fact that that I thought that way
2:23:03It occurred to me later
2:23:06Rethinking that that it could be a worrisome sign that if Apple people inside Apple see it the same way
2:23:11Well, who did we lose it to that? You're blind to a problem
2:23:15Right and what I did see though right away is that it's that to me is already a problem and is the fact that so
2:23:21Many people seem to agree with you is a problem and it's the perception
2:23:26Because and it doesn't matter whether we're overreacting or whether most people are if it if that becomes their perception
2:23:33It's hard for Apple to shake that they can fix the bugs they can
2:23:37significantly improve the quality of their
2:23:40platforms across the board and people won't notice
2:23:43because there's this perception
2:23:45that the stuff doesn't work right.
2:23:47- And there's a lot of reasons
2:23:49why that perception is reasonable.
2:23:51If you look at the various issues people have had
2:23:54applying iOS updates over the last couple of years,
2:23:58if you look at how iOS updates have performed
2:24:00on old hardware over the last couple of years,
2:24:02a lot of people are understandably wary.
2:24:05They've gotten burned before.
2:24:07And now they're like,
2:24:08"Well, I don't want to install the new update
2:24:09Because I heard it broke some people's phones or it broke my phone or it made my phone really slow
2:24:14Well the one that they pushed it was bad because there's always gonna be bugs and there's always gonna be there's always gonna be weird
2:24:19You know who knows like a freaking ion from outer space hits your phone the wrong way and corrupts some part of the OS
2:24:27You know and if something in the flash memory gets corrupted
2:24:30And a software update
2:24:32Bricks your phone and doesn't break your wife's phone
2:24:36Well, you know one in a one in ten thousand gets bricked by an update. Well those sort of bugs happen
2:24:41They suck but they happen you can't say you can never do that
2:24:44But you I think it's fair to say you can never push out an over-the-air update that bricks every phone that takes it
2:24:49right like that just is that was just an inexcusable slip and
2:24:54Creates again this perception that when you see it when your phone tells you hey, there's a new iOS
2:25:00You should not be worried. You shouldn't think oh god
2:25:04You know, I know some people who don't you know who just keep that red badge on you know, the Settings app
2:25:10Because they don't want to install it. Oh, yeah, my mom's phone is still running iOS 6
2:25:14Because when iOS 7 came out she saw on the news about the motion sickness and she got scared and she refused to install iOS 7
2:25:20She's never even seen it. Alright, so she's just got a red badge on her
2:25:23last two years
2:25:26She'll get it once she gets a new phone. Yeah
2:25:28It's so funny
2:25:33Anyway, I think that perception is important and you know
2:25:36I'll relate it to the Newton and I know it was a very different Apple in the 90s and they were so small and
2:25:43You know something like the Newton
2:25:45Appealed to so few people but it was mainstream enough. You know that it everybody cites the Dunesbury
2:25:51Cartoon that made fun of it and the Simpsons made fun of it, too
2:25:56So, I mean it was popular enough that it was grist for Simpsons gags
2:26:01It got that stink on it that the handwriting recognition doesn't work so that you could make
2:26:06Doonesbury and Simpsons gags about it. It didn't take that long though before the handwriting got pretty darn good on
2:26:13You know like the the message pad 2000 it was pretty it was about as good as you could hope that like a
2:26:201995 1996
2:26:23Computer could recognize your handwriting. It was really pretty good
2:26:27Nobody really got everybody you'd say Newton they'd say goofy terrible handwriting recognition. Well, most of them also had never tried one
2:26:34No, but if if Apple watch comes out and in the first year, it seems like none of the stuff
2:26:41It's supposed to do works reliably
2:26:43That would be hard to shake even if they fix it. Yeah, that's true
2:26:47Like it's really important that it that it does everything it's supposed to do pretty well
2:26:54And again, that sounds like a stupid thing to say it sounds like well everything you should do what it's supposed to do
2:26:59pretty well, but like with a new product it's essential because the first impression is
2:27:04So much it informs, you know a decade of what you're gonna think of it
2:27:10Like the first iPhone it was so important that it really was an amazing device
2:27:15it really couldn't be a bad device and there and there's a
2:27:19substantial number of people both
2:27:22just who can't wait for Apple to fail so they can talk about it and make fun of it and and point it out and
2:27:27Laugh and also a lot of people who are going to be looking for a reason are gonna be looking for a reason for Apple
2:27:33You know not just to fail somehow
2:27:35They're like waiting for Apple to fail and it's also gonna be a lot of people out there who are looking
2:27:41For reasons why they don't need to care about the Apple watch. They're looking for an excuse not to buy it
2:27:46they're looking for a way to a reason to rule it out in their in their head as irrelevant fail move on and
2:27:52And so any ammo that is provided to that
2:27:55is going to get amplified like crazy.
2:27:58And they have to be very careful
2:28:00not to give much ammo to that.
2:28:01There's gonna be some kind of gate
2:28:02with everything Apple launches now.
2:28:04Every stupid gate that comes out
2:28:06every time there's a new iPhone.
2:28:08There's gonna be some kind of watch gate
2:28:10and they have to make sure that it's something
2:28:12that's reasonably stupid like Bendgate
2:28:17and not something serious.
2:28:18- Right, well, imagine if it's a real thing.
2:28:21If Ben Gate got as much publicity as it did,
2:28:24and it was mostly nonsense,
2:28:26and Antennagate got the enormous publicity it got,
2:28:29and was in the long run mostly nonsense,
2:28:33imagine a real problem.
2:28:37You're supposed to be able to hold the button
2:28:40and dictate your texts to your watch,
2:28:44and if instead you just get a spinner
2:28:46that spins and spins and spins,
2:28:47and you never get your text, that's a problem.
2:28:50- Right, exactly, and so like, these quality things
2:28:53are extremely, you know, this is like,
2:28:55like when I've been critical of their developer policies
2:28:57recently, one of the things I've said is like,
2:29:00this is strategically a very bad time to have problems
2:29:03in this area, because the watch is coming out.
2:29:05And when the watch is coming out, you need the quality
2:29:09of everything that's powering it on the phone side,
2:29:12you know, everything that's supplying it with the data,
2:29:14the Bluetooth stuff, as you said, like,
2:29:16you need the quality of that to be tip-top,
2:29:18so that way the watch can at least focus on
2:29:20It's like, you know, those teams can rely on that
2:29:22and then the watch can have the solid foundation under it.
2:29:25And you also need developers who are empowered
2:29:29and willing and happy to be developing apps
2:29:32for this platform and that are gonna push the boundaries
2:29:34and make cool apps for it.
2:29:36- So two things that Mark Gurman reported,
2:29:39I think on the same day this week,
2:29:41but he reported first about that,
2:29:43this, you know, showing mock-ups of a 12-inch MacBook Air.
2:29:47but he also said the date that Apple's planning
2:29:50for a March release date of Apple Watch.
2:29:52Did that, that surprised me a little, if it's true.
2:29:55- That sounded late to me.
2:29:56I, 'cause-- - Oh, really?
2:29:57I thought that sounded early.
2:29:58I really expected like April or May.
2:30:02- Maybe, I don't know.
2:30:03I think we heard rumblings a couple of weeks ago
2:30:05that it would be like February,
2:30:07but it doesn't really matter.
2:30:08I mean, it'll come out when it's out.
2:30:10I would rather have it come out when it's better
2:30:14than come out when it's not quite ready yet.
2:30:15So that's fine, it doesn't really matter.
2:30:18- Yeah, I guess it's just the pessimist in me.
2:30:21They say early 2015, I hear before June.
2:30:25- Yeah, you hear May 31st.
2:30:27- Right.
2:30:28Whereas I guess the more honest way of looking at it
2:30:31is early is first quarter, I don't know.
2:30:33So maybe it will.
2:30:34I'm a little surprised by that.
2:30:36It also makes me wonder whether I should be on my feet
2:30:41for an Apple event sooner rather than later.
2:30:44I mean, I think an Apple event is fair game anytime.
2:30:49I mean, I wouldn't expect it like next week,
2:30:52but if there was an event in February
2:30:55with availability a couple of weeks later,
2:30:57that wouldn't surprise me.
2:30:59- Yeah, me neither.
2:31:01So, Germin's other story is this Blockbuster
2:31:0312-inch MacBook Air.
2:31:04- Yeah, with one port.
2:31:07- With one port, which is so crazy
2:31:10that I think it's probably true.
2:31:13- Yeah, well, two with the headphone,
2:31:14But that doesn't really count right and I at the it's I thought Snell's reaction was perfect where he was just like that
2:31:21That's great. Well, yeah, okay. Yeah, it's like if you would have if we would I don't remember if the first MacBook Air had
2:31:29Any rumors leads? I don't think it did. No, it was it was a total surprise
2:31:33Yeah, as I recall I recall it being like a holy shit. I cannot believe that right exactly. I think you're right
2:31:38So anyway, and I think the slogan I think it was a I think it was at WWDC
2:31:43I just remember there's something that said there's something in the air. Yeah. Yeah, and
2:31:46So like I like if we would have heard rumors about that
2:31:50Beforehand and we would have heard crazy things like because that what that was also
2:31:55Was that the first one that didn't have an optical drive? Yeah, I think it was yeah
2:31:58Yeah, cuz they launched the external one with it. Yeah, so everybody among the many know how can they do this impossible?
2:32:04It's like how can they ship a thing with how you're gonna install the OS right? So it's so, you know, they shipped this
2:32:093.0 pound right laptop at the time when everything else was 5.5 pounds
2:32:14they shipped this 3.0 pound laptop that fit in a mailing envelope and
2:32:18was super thin and had this like sharp edge in the front and had no optical drive and
2:32:24Sometimes no hard drive one USB port like it was it was so it it was so much smaller
2:32:32They had to make a separate power adapter for that
2:32:35Even the power adapter was smaller.
2:32:36Even the plug on the end of it was a different shape
2:32:39to fit the beveled edge.
2:32:40You had this door that the ports folded out from this door.
2:32:43I mean, there was so much about it
2:32:45that if you would have heard it ahead of time,
2:32:46and even when it did come out,
2:32:48everyone was like, that's crazy.
2:32:49- It was January, 2008, it was Macworld Expo.
2:32:53- There you go, all right.
2:32:54- So it was the year after the iPhone introduction
2:32:58at Macworld, it was another big introduction at Macworld.
2:33:01- Yeah, I have to go back and rewatch that
2:33:03and try to like gaze the reaction.
2:33:04'Cause like, and I actually, I had one of those.
2:33:07David at Tumblr got me one of those as a bonus,
2:33:09'cause I had mentioned how I wanted to light a laptop.
2:33:11And it was very nice of him.
2:33:12And I had one of those and it was ungodly slow.
2:33:16I mean, 'cause I had the hard drive model,
2:33:18so it was like, it was this 1.8 inch iPod hard drive
2:33:22in there, 'cause the SSD option was $1,000 more
2:33:26and 64 gigs, or you can get the iPod hard drive,
2:33:30which was 80 gigs, which is what I got.
2:33:32- I remember Shipley got the SSD version
2:33:35and it was like, I know it sounds crazy,
2:33:36but it's a great development machine
2:33:38because SSDs are so great for development
2:33:41because you're dealing with hundreds of tiny little files.
2:33:44- Yeah, and in 2008, when this thing came out,
2:33:46SSDs were extremely rare.
2:33:49It was one of the first computers
2:33:50to even offer it as an option.
2:33:52I don't think it was the first, but it was one of the first.
2:33:55And so that machine, when it came out,
2:33:58had all these crazy limitations
2:34:01And a lot of flaws, I mean, like the CPU,
2:34:04we talked a little bit on ATP,
2:34:05like the CPU on a lot of them would overheat and throttle.
2:34:08So you couldn't watch YouTube videos,
2:34:10like you couldn't play flash video
2:34:13for more than a few seconds before it started dropping frames
2:34:15'cause the CPU was overheating and throttling.
2:34:17I actually, on mine, I ran an underclocking utility
2:34:20that would underclock and undervolt the chip
2:34:22to keep it running cooler,
2:34:23so that way it could sustain its peak usage
2:34:26for enough time to play videos smoothly.
2:34:29- Wow.
2:34:30It was a crazy machine, it was way ahead of its time,
2:34:35and in many ways that was a bad thing.
2:34:37It made it, the performance was just dismal.
2:34:39It was extremely inconvenient to move files to it
2:34:44because it only had 802.11g,
2:34:48or I think it was the draft N wireless.
2:34:50So wireless was still a lot slower back then,
2:34:54and it only had a single USB 2.0 port.
2:34:57No FireWire, no Thunderbolt.
2:35:00USB 2 and you could like, you could send files to it
2:35:03over wireless which would take forever,
2:35:05or you could get the wired ethernet adapter,
2:35:07the USB one that was only 10/100 and ran over USB 2
2:35:11and USB 2 was a horrible protocol.
2:35:13And so like transferring files to it would just take hours.
2:35:17It like, if you wanted to like put a bunch of like
2:35:18movies on it when you go on a big trip or something,
2:35:20it would just take hours.
2:35:22It was unbearable to use in many contexts,
2:35:25but what was so new about it,
2:35:28being so incredibly thin and light, mostly light,
2:35:32the thinness was kind of a nice bonus,
2:35:33but it was mostly the weight being so radically
2:35:36much smaller than everything else.
2:35:38That was so good that this machine was quite compelling
2:35:42for a lot of people.
2:35:44It was not good enough to be your only computer
2:35:47for most people.
2:35:48And some people pulled it off, but for the most part,
2:35:50it wasn't gonna be your only one.
2:35:51- Right, because it only had 64 gigs of storage.
2:35:54- Right, or 80 if you had the beautifully slow one.
2:35:57- Right.
2:35:58At a time when you had a lot less cloud storage.
2:36:02- Yeah.
2:36:03Yeah, like you had to keep a lot more,
2:36:05you had to keep everything you had locally.
2:36:07Like there was no such thing as like,
2:36:09oh, I'm gonna keep everything I have on Dropbox,
2:36:11and only sync this one little folder over,
2:36:12or I'm gonna keep everything on,
2:36:14I don't think iTunes Match was out yet.
2:36:16- No, not even close.
2:36:17- It was a much worse time to have very limited storage.
2:36:20(laughs)
2:36:23But people made it work,
2:36:25and it wasn't overall a great machine,
2:36:28but it was really compelling in a few key areas.
2:36:31So now, bring it forward,
2:36:32and in 2010, they made the better MacBook Airs,
2:36:35and SSDs started getting bigger and cheaper,
2:36:38and they went all SSD,
2:36:39and the 2010 and forward MacBook Airs
2:36:41are far better machines.
2:36:43And now, like they pointed out on Connected this week--
2:36:49- I don't even think there's any argument
2:36:51that for most people who,
2:36:53- It's the most popular Mac Apple sells,
2:36:55and for most people it's their only Mac.
2:36:57- Yeah, I mean, if someone comes to me and says,
2:37:00what Mac should I buy?
2:37:01And they don't give me any other information.
2:37:04If I need to have a no questions asked answer to that,
2:37:08the answer is a 13 inch MacBook Air.
2:37:10- Yep.
2:37:11- Like that's it, that's the answer.
2:37:12That's the default. - I interrupted you.
2:37:13You said something about the connected?
2:37:15- Yeah, so they mentioned this on this week.
2:37:17They were saying, pointing out how like,
2:37:19you know, the MacBook Air used to be this high end.
2:37:23It started out it was 1800 or 1600 dollars.
2:37:26It was priced above the 13 inch MacBook.
2:37:31- Yep.
2:37:32- And it was a premium product to be slower
2:37:35and smaller and everything.
2:37:37But it was so much more portable.
2:37:39- It was like getting a little convertible coupe.
2:37:41- Exactly, perfect analogy.
2:37:44And so yeah, it probably shouldn't be your family sedan.
2:37:47But it is a fun little portable.
2:37:51And so like the original MacBook Air was this premium thing
2:37:56that's had above the rest of the line relative to its size.
2:38:00- Yeah, imagine for like business travelers
2:38:01who do a lot of typing on coach seats on an airplane.
2:38:05It was, I hate to say it, it's such a cliche,
2:38:08it was a game changer.
2:38:09- Yeah, and for those that got the SSD,
2:38:12I think it was like $3,400.
2:38:14It was some crazy amount of money.
2:38:17But you know, so it was this premium, awesome sports coop
2:38:21kind of thing.
2:38:22Since then, as I pointed out on Unconnected,
2:38:24it has actually become the bottom of the line.
2:38:26Like it is filtered down now,
2:38:29like there is no regular MacBook anymore,
2:38:31or there's that one model left over
2:38:33that they bury on the site.
2:38:35But for the most part, like the bottom of the Mac line
2:38:37is the MacBook Air.
2:38:39And so this, if you think about this crazy new
2:38:42one port rumor that Germin had with the 12 inch
2:38:45being this crazy new premium thing.
2:38:48If you think about that not as a replacement
2:38:51to the 11 inch MacBook Air that exists today,
2:38:54but if you think about it in more of the style
2:38:56that the original was relative to its siblings
2:38:58in the lineup, this kind of mid-range,
2:39:02or this mid-price thing, probably $1500 range type thing,
2:39:07or maybe a little bit more, we'll see how it specs out.
2:39:10But think about it as not the low end of the lineup,
2:39:13but a mid-range of the lineup
2:39:15that in some ways is more limited and worse
2:39:17than the MacBook Airs that we know today,
2:39:20possibly by having this one port,
2:39:22or if it uses any of these new Intel Broadwell core
2:39:26and processors, it'll be a lot slower.
2:39:27It'll be roughly iPad speed,
2:39:29which is not slow by absolute terms for the most part,
2:39:33but relative to the other CPU,
2:39:35it's not gonna be in the same class.
2:39:37- It's always a moment when a next generation machine
2:39:43it's slower than what came before.
2:39:45- Exactly.
2:39:46- And there might be good reasons for it,
2:39:47but it still is not the way the industry works.
2:39:49- Right, and the first MacBook Air was a big example of that
2:39:52and it got trashed initially.
2:39:54I remember when Macworld first reviewed it,
2:39:56I think it was Jason who wrote it,
2:39:57when they first reviewed it,
2:39:58they were like, this is the slowest Mac
2:40:00we've tested in a while.
2:40:02It was the slowest one in the whole lineup at the time.
2:40:05But anyway, if we think about it in that context
2:40:08as maybe it's something like that,
2:40:11I think that leaves room for it to suck in a few ways, that leaves room for it to be
2:40:15limited in a few ways, for it to say, "This is gonna be a niche, premium thing that's
2:40:21gonna extremely prioritize certain physical factors in exchange for, you know, extreme
2:40:28something, extreme portability, maybe extreme battery life, probably not--I'm actually guessing
2:40:32the battery life is gonna be mediocre on it--but, you know, it's gonna prioritize thinness and
2:40:38lightness and size, it seems."
2:40:40If these--
2:40:41Exactly, above all else, including battery life, most likely.
2:40:43It's gonna make your existing MacBook Air feel thick and heavy.
2:40:46Exactly, the same way the original MacBook Air made even the 13-inch MacBook feel just
2:40:51like a brick.
2:40:55If they can pull that off, it's gonna be really interesting.
2:40:58I do have a slight concern in this area that I do think, you know, you certainly have to
2:41:06some degree you have diminishing returns here.
2:41:10When the original MacBook Air came out it was like half the weight or close to it of
2:41:14the 13 inch MacBook at the time.
2:41:19How much lighter can it get while still having a keyboard, a screen, a battery of some kind,
2:41:26an aluminum case around the whole thing?
2:41:28I don't think they're going to be able to nail half the weight.
2:41:32It probably can't go that low.
2:41:34And we're already talking, these are already very thin and light computers as they are
2:41:37today.
2:41:38So to make it even thinner, even lighter for something that is not handheld, like it matters
2:41:43more in an iPad or an iPhone because it's handheld.
2:41:46For something that's on a desk or a lap most of the time or a tray table, the weight is,
2:41:51you know, it matters to a point but like if the computer goes from, I mean, what the kernel
2:41:57oven is what like 2.2, 2.5, something like that pounds?
2:42:00>> Yeah, I'm bad at remembering what they are.
2:42:02>> It's something like that.
2:42:03>> Like I know what it feels like, I don't know what the number is.
2:42:06- Right, but if it goes from 2.5 pounds to 1.8 pounds,
2:42:11or if it goes from 2.2 to 1.5,
2:42:13that's a big difference on paper,
2:42:15it's a big percentage difference,
2:42:16but your whole bag weighs like 15 pounds.
2:42:21A backpack empty weighs more than that usually.
2:42:24And so you might not even notice the weight difference.
2:42:27So I do worry they might be prioritizing thinness
2:42:33and extreme lightness a little bit too much in this case
2:42:38if it'll come at the expense of battery life.
2:42:43Because I think this is the kind of machine that,
2:42:45the battery life on the current MacBook Airs is good.
2:42:49It's not, it doesn't, it isn't to use a term
2:42:52that used to be a verb and is now an adjective,
2:42:55thanks to Apple, it isn't blow away.
2:42:58But it's good, they're good.
2:43:01Like, you know, when they came out, they were impressive, but you know, time has moved on.
2:43:04That's now that's not a baseline.
2:43:05Yeah, all all modern Mac books have amazing battery life compared to the old days where
2:43:10it was stuck at like three to four hours.
2:43:13Exactly.
2:43:14Effective battery life, no matter what, no matter which one you bought, no matter what
2:43:17you did, you know, turn the screen dimness down, right?
2:43:21You know, three or four hours is about what you could get.
2:43:25And it would lose about an hour per year of age to
2:43:27Yeah, pretty quickly.
2:43:28- Yeah, I just-- - And they don't do that
2:43:29anymore. - As a coaster,
2:43:31I just always knew you could never really go coast to coast,
2:43:34even with a new machine. - Right, exactly.
2:43:36- You know, you kind of, you know,
2:43:38if you were gonna work on an airplane
2:43:39while you flew to San Francisco from the East Coast,
2:43:42get your work done, because you're not gonna, you know,
2:43:44it's gonna die with an hour to go.
2:43:45- Exactly, and like today, if you're using a laptop,
2:43:49if you're doing like, you know,
2:43:50medium lifting on it throughout the day,
2:43:53it can almost, but generally not, run all day on battery.
2:43:58Like they say like, you know, oh you have all day battery life. Well, it depends on what you're doing with it
2:44:03Yeah, and if and if you leave your house with a solid charge you can watch movies on the whole flight. No problem
2:44:08Right, but but you know, the question is like, you know, if you have a you know, a 40-minute layover somewhere
2:44:14Do you have to plug it in or is it just kind of optional whether you plug it in?
2:44:19Yeah, that kind of thing. Anyway, so I
2:44:21Think they if they're using this this super low power, you know fanless broadwell chip that uses
2:44:28I forget what the wattage is on it, but it's very low,
2:44:30like 10 watts or something like that.
2:44:33They could, if they put in a similar size battery
2:44:37to the current MacBook Airs,
2:44:38that could be a very substantial battery life.
2:44:41But they might instead choose to just keep roughly,
2:44:46what's the 11 inch today?
2:44:47Like roughly like five hour life,
2:44:49something like that in real use, something like that?
2:44:52- I would say more than that, I think.
2:44:53- Six, seven, whatever it is.
2:44:54- Mine's old, so it's hard to say, but it's pretty good.
2:44:58whatever it is, like the 11 is worse than the 13
2:45:00by a pretty good margin,
2:45:01'cause the 13 just has a much bigger battery,
2:45:03but it wouldn't surprise me at all,
2:45:06given what they've done with iOS devices,
2:45:08with the iPhone 6 and with the iPad Air 2 and Air 1.
2:45:13- I wonder how much, if, again, this is a huge if,
2:45:16but if it's true that it really only has this one port,
2:45:19I wonder how much that is about cost
2:45:23and how much it is about using
2:45:24whatever space is left for battery, you know,
2:45:27that it's not so much that it would cost too much
2:45:30to add a second USB port,
2:45:32but that it's really, really, really intensive to save space.
2:45:37- I would guess it's about two things,
2:45:39neither of which are very good answers.
2:45:41I would guess it's about symmetry,
2:45:43having one port on each side, and about thinness.
2:45:47That if Germin's scoop is correct,
2:45:49then it still retains the wedge teardrop shape,
2:45:52so it still is thicker at the back than it is at the front.
2:45:56And if his thickness claims are accurate,
2:45:59then there actually is not much room
2:46:01for more than the ports that it has thickness-wise.
2:46:04- Right.
2:46:05- And also, I would not discount the value of symmetry.
2:46:09I think symmetry is the reason why,
2:46:10on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus,
2:46:12why the sleep/wake button is directly across
2:46:15from the volume up button,
2:46:16even though it makes it way harder to hit just one of them.
2:46:19- Right, and it's the same size.
2:46:21- Yeah, exactly.
2:46:22So I would definitely not discount that
2:46:25as a possible reason why it would only be one port.
2:46:27Also, just electrically, if a computer has a USB port
2:46:32and a FireWire port, those specs each demand
2:46:36the port be able to supply at least X amps of current
2:46:38through it at most to supply a device with power.
2:46:42So the more ports it has on it,
2:46:44the higher the total power output for that computer
2:46:47has to be able to have capacity for.
2:46:50- Somebody on Twitter pointed out,
2:46:51and I'm so sorry I forgot your name,
2:46:53but that if it had even just two USB ports
2:46:57and they were both USB-C and it might have to be USB-C
2:47:00'cause I think the device is too thin
2:47:02to have a traditional USB port.
2:47:04- Yeah, I think you're right.
2:47:05- I think the minimal size of a USB three port
2:47:08is thick enough that it would be a gating factor
2:47:12to make the overall devices thin.
2:47:13So it has to be the new USB, but if it had two
2:47:16and you can, and they're going to use it
2:47:19for supplying power to the machine,
2:47:22you couldn't risk having two power adapters
2:47:24plugged in at the same time.
2:47:25That, I don't know if that's true or not,
2:47:28that it would, you know, like break the machine or something.
2:47:31And conversely, how do you tell people
2:47:34you can use this one for power,
2:47:36and this one, which is the same port,
2:47:39it's exactly the same size,
2:47:41it can take every other thing you can plug in the other one,
2:47:44but that one won't take a charger.
2:47:45- Right, in the PC world,
2:47:46they would just color one of them like blue or something,
2:47:48and say, well, just plug in the blue one.
2:47:50but Apple won't do anything like that.
2:47:52- Right, and it would just lead to confusion
2:47:54because maybe you're running on battery power
2:47:56and you've got a mouse plugged in one
2:47:57and a hard drive in the other, but now you need power,
2:47:59so you think, well, I'll unplug the mouse.
2:48:01Oh, but I plugged the mouse in the other one
2:48:04and the hard drive, which I can't unmount
2:48:05because I'm still copying files to it, is in the power one.
2:48:08It just doesn't, you know.
2:48:10- Yeah, that's the kind of inelegant solution
2:48:11Apple is very unlikely to do.
2:48:13- It actually makes some sense
2:48:14that if you're going to use USB for power
2:48:17and you can only have power plugged into one port,
2:48:19therefore you can only have one port.
2:48:21- Exactly.
2:48:22So yeah, I would expect,
2:48:24I'm guessing, like the more I think about it,
2:48:29the one port thing actually sounds plausible,
2:48:31and the more I learn about USB 3C.
2:48:34These new C ports are extremely versatile,
2:48:37and I don't know the extreme details yet,
2:48:39but they designed the specs so that the port can carry power
2:48:44seemingly in either direction.
2:48:48you could have a computer that powers the monitor
2:48:50and drives a display.
2:48:52So you can also route display signals over it
2:48:54and you can route high bandwidth buses over it
2:48:56and everything.
2:48:57It's crazy how much this thing can do.
2:48:59We'll see how it works out in practice.
2:49:00But it's designed such that you could have
2:49:05just this one cable running from a monitor into a PC
2:49:09and have the PC both power the monitor
2:49:10and show the display signal over this one little cable.
2:49:13- Yeah.
2:49:14- Which is crazy.
2:49:15- You know, and in terms of skating
2:49:17to where the puck is going,
2:49:18which is what the MacBook Air was at its beginning.
2:49:21So the original MacBook said no optical drives.
2:49:24And now this one says no more SD cards port
2:49:28and no USB port, extra USB port
2:49:31where you could plug one in.
2:49:33Well, guess what?
2:49:34I think SD cards are going away the dodo
2:49:36and that your photos are gonna travel
2:49:39over the air between devices.
2:49:42And of course we're not there yet.
2:49:43And if you're the more serious a photographer you are,
2:49:46you know, the less doable that is.
2:49:48But more and more regular people
2:49:50are shooting all of their photos
2:49:52with their phones and iPads,
2:49:54and they're, you know, in the Apple universe
2:49:56will therefore be using iCloud PhotoSync,
2:49:59and that's how your photos will get to your Mac.
2:50:01And a lot of consumer cameras have WiFi now,
2:50:04and you can transfer photos that way.
2:50:07- Right, so I think,
2:50:09I think you're right, this computer,
2:50:14Again, if this was real, it seems increasingly plausible.
2:50:19If this was real, I think this is a forward-looking computer,
2:50:22aggressively so, just like the first AR, as you said.
2:50:26They couldn't go, you know, basically portless.
2:50:29They couldn't go portless on the whole lineup yet.
2:50:32But they can have one weird outlier
2:50:35that is really good in some other way,
2:50:37most likely thinness and weight.
2:50:39They couldn't have this one crazy outlier
2:50:41that is awesome at this one aspect of itself
2:50:45and gives up a lot to get there.
2:50:46- I think it's true too.
2:50:49And let's, you know, Germin's report, and I believe it,
2:50:53I mean, it could be details are off,
2:50:56but I mostly believe it, but he seems very sure about it.
2:50:59And I think he attributed the source
2:51:00to someone with an Apple who's used one,
2:51:02or at least, you know, like used the current prototype.
2:51:05And then the source told him everything about it.
2:51:07And then he gave that to an artist who made those renderings.
2:51:10So, you know, there's some pass it down the alleyway,
2:51:15you know, stuff that was probably not quite right
2:51:19in terms of, you know, the degree of tapering
2:51:21or some stuff like that.
2:51:22But it wasn't Germin who said anything
2:51:25about what chip is in it, you know,
2:51:27whether it's this new M chip or anything like that.
2:51:29Germin's report was just what the thing looks like.
2:51:32- Right, and we don't like, Intel did just release
2:51:35a Broadwell series chip that is fanless
2:51:37or that can run fanless, that it just uses,
2:51:39it uses so little power that it can run fanless.
2:51:41- Did German say that it's fanless?
2:51:43- No, I think everyone's guessing
2:51:45that it is probably fanless.
2:51:47I don't think he actually said it is.
2:51:49And the way CPU cooling works,
2:51:52all the current MacBooks have fans.
2:51:56Most of the time, most people won't hear them,
2:51:58especially the newer ones are even better.
2:52:00They're even quieter, the Retina series.
2:52:03But you can have something that's totally fanless
2:52:08like an iPad and have it basically just use the chassis
2:52:11as a giant heat sink and just basically radiate heat,
2:52:16through contact, like radiate heat into the exterior shell
2:52:20or some interior thing that touches the shell eventually.
2:52:22If you have a little heat sink
2:52:26and you have any air moving it at all,
2:52:29even if you have the slowest, quietest fan
2:52:32that most people don't even realize is there,
2:52:34like the original Apple TV had a fan,
2:52:36I don't know if you even know that,
2:52:37even if you have the tiniest little fan in there,
2:52:41blowing the slowest speed it can possibly go,
2:52:44barely moving any air over it,
2:52:46that cools way better than any kind of passive cooling.
2:52:50Like the slightest bit of air movement
2:52:52is substantially better,
2:52:54and you can dissipate a lot more heat that way.
2:52:56So--
2:52:57- It reminds me of the world's tiniest violin
2:52:59playing the world's smallest fan.
2:53:01(laughing)
2:53:01The world's tiniest fan,
2:53:02blowing the world's smallest amount of air.
2:53:05- Yeah, like it makes a huge difference,
2:53:07and that gives you a much higher thermal budget.
2:53:09And modern processors are pretty much all limited
2:53:13by their thermal budgets.
2:53:14Like their performance is gated by that factor.
2:53:16So they don't have to use a fanless chip in this
2:53:20if they don't want to.
2:53:21They still could if they wanted to.
2:53:24I think they can fit a fan in there.
2:53:26I think they like--
2:53:27- Well if the Surface has a fan,
2:53:30the Surface Pro does at least.
2:53:31- Yeah, it's really thin, right?
2:53:33- It's well, it's certainly thinner than,
2:53:36I think it's just I'm not quite as sure if it's as thin as this MacBook is because the surface thinness doesn't have it
2:53:43Doesn't have a hinge right although. I think it has ports somewhere, so it probably isn't this thing
2:53:47but it's probably in the ballpark and and
2:53:49so yeah like I think they could put a fan in there if they want to they could be using a
2:53:54CPU that that has that is like
2:53:56The same in class as the existing MacBook Air CPUs of like that that class of performance
2:54:01So German's report does say above the keyboard are for redesigned speaker grills that actually double as
2:54:07Ventilation holes for the fanless device to keep cool. So german says it's fanless, but we shall see I
2:54:15Think you're right I'm with you and I think that these verge guys are
2:54:22just misreading the whole thing when they they're they're saying that it's like a
2:54:28Low end device that will compete with Chromebooks not a chance
2:54:32I think it's gonna be more expensive and I think therefore just like when they introduced the retina macbook pros and they kept non
2:54:40retina ones around to anchor the low end of the
2:54:43Pricing tier. I mean you could still buy non retina MacBook pros, you know, I think they started
2:54:49I think they're only like 10 a thousand bucks. I think you can get like a 13
2:54:53Yeah, I think there's one that's why I was like there's like one buried in the store
2:54:56that's like 1,100 bucks.
2:54:58They mentioned that on connected also.
2:54:59- Yeah, so I think this will be more expensive
2:55:01than the current starting price
2:55:02for even the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
2:55:05And I don't think it'll be much more.
2:55:06I think it'll probably start at like,
2:55:09I don't know, 1,300 bucks, 1,400 bucks, maybe.
2:55:11And that they'll keep,
2:55:15I don't know if they'll keep both the 11 and 13,
2:55:17but they'll keep at least the 13 around at 899
2:55:22or maybe even drop it to 799.
2:55:24- Yeah, maybe, I don't know.
2:55:26for the foreseeable future.
2:55:28I do think it would be kind of weird
2:55:29if they had 11, 12, and 13 on sale at the same time.
2:55:33Just seems like two, that seems a little unappley.
2:55:36Seems like to me like maybe the 11,
2:55:38you know, what's the point of the 11?
2:55:40Is it to be 11 inches or is it to be the,
2:55:42even, you know, the super smallest and lightest?
2:55:46Well, I think that this 12 inch,
2:55:47which seems to have a footprint mostly like the 11,
2:55:50and width-wise is apparently the same width as the 11,
2:55:54and has a bigger screen 'cause it has a smaller bezel,
2:55:56I'd say there's no reason for the 11 to exist.
2:55:59- Yeah, the 11 has such a wide bezel
2:56:01that it really has, it does not make good use
2:56:04of its size for the screen.
2:56:05The keyboard makes good use of the size, the body,
2:56:07but the screen, you look at that and you're like,
2:56:09"Man, I wish that bezel was thinner
2:56:10and the screen was bigger."
2:56:11- I'm looking at it right now and it just looks ridiculous.
2:56:14It looks outdated, no, it looks outdated.
2:56:15It looks like the laptops from when I was in college
2:56:19and they were just like tiny little thing
2:56:22in the middle of a huge bezel that they didn't even come close to taking up the full size
2:56:28of the display panel.
2:56:30Yeah, exactly.
2:56:31Yeah, I'm guessing this thing is real.
2:56:35I'm guessing it comes out in the next couple of months, like soon, not June.
2:56:39I'm guessing this comes out like this winter.
2:56:43Possibly announced at the same event as the Apple Watch release date.
2:56:46I don't know.
2:56:47And possibly the iPad Maxi.
2:56:49I don't know. See, I'm still not entirely convinced that's a real thing or that it's
2:56:53imminent rather. I don't know. We'll see what happens.
2:56:56A lot of people are -- I've seen a lot of people and I think it's just -- you're not
2:57:00thinking this through. People thinking that, "Well, remember the old jobs trick where there
2:57:04was the internet communicator, a phone and a wide screen video iPad, you know, dun, dun,
2:57:09dun." Not three products. It's one product.
2:57:11Right.
2:57:11Well, there's a 12-inch MacBook and a 12-inch iPad and a MacBook and a Mac. Guess what? It's
2:57:17device and it's an iPad and it has a keyboard and it's like no no I
2:57:21definitely don't like and I even said like I even tweeted the other day like
2:57:25I've long suspected that that the rumors are for one device but I meant that in
2:57:31the sense that like people are misinterpreting the room yeah yeah yeah
2:57:34in the sense that this is a combined iPad and MacBook like that right that
2:57:37apples out in Asia sourcing these 12-inch right right they all the
2:57:42display things oh that must be for a bigger iPad but no maybe it's also just
2:57:46for a smaller MacBook.
2:57:47But a few people have told me that they have solid
2:57:51information from rumor sources, blah, blah, blah,
2:57:53that this really is two different devices
2:57:55that are really separate, so fine.
2:57:56It doesn't really matter.
2:57:57But I, yeah, I don't know, I can't possibly be less excited
2:58:02about a 12-inch iPad.
2:58:03- No.
2:58:04Even though that's what Syracuse wants.
2:58:06- It is what Syracuse wants, but he also wants
2:58:08like Pro OS features to be added to make it better
2:58:12to be for multitasking and pro work.
2:58:13and I just, I don't see a good way
2:58:16for that to be built onto iOS.
2:58:18It's not to say they're not gonna try.
2:58:19They might try, I don't know.
2:58:21But I think the MacBook Air and this new, quote,
2:58:26MacBook Stealth, whatever this new 12 inch thing
2:58:29is gonna be called, I think that is Apple's answer
2:58:32to pro-ultramobile computing.
2:58:35Like, it's the Mac, but smaller.
2:58:36- Yeah.
2:58:37- It's not trying to bolt on a bunch of pro-multitasking
2:58:41power user features onto the iPad.
2:58:43- I think, what do you,
2:58:46Germin doesn't say, the most curious thing to me
2:58:48is he doesn't mention retina display.
2:58:50Doesn't say it has one, doesn't say it doesn't have one,
2:58:52doesn't say, which to me is crazy.
2:58:54I think it has to have a retina display
2:58:56because I don't think you can introduce new products anymore
2:58:59or at least Apple can't that aren't.
2:59:01Like there's never gonna be a non-retina watch.
2:59:03The watch starts retina.
2:59:05- Right.
2:59:06- Everything new is retina.
2:59:08- Yeah, I think it would have to be, right?
2:59:10And then I think the name is obvious. You just call it the MacBook Air with retina display
2:59:14And it does you don't even have to say that it's 12
2:59:17Yeah, that makes sense MacBook Air with retina display and now it's it they can use the air name
2:59:22which I think has great brand equity and
2:59:25Also make it very clear that it's the new thing because it's the retina display just like the MacBook Pro with retina display. I
2:59:32think the
2:59:34The the rumor I don't know if it was in German reporter someone else's but the rumor that it might come in space gray
2:59:39It's kind of exciting. Yeah and gold that's less exciting but the space
2:59:43Well, right because I would definitely buy the the space gray one if it comes in space cray
2:59:49that would be the first thing that puts a
2:59:51Tinge of desire in my heart. Yeah, because I mean I'd say like like the the Mac Pro then the new cylinder Mac Pro
2:59:57That looks awesome in person like have it because that that is basically a space great color
3:00:02It's I don't think it's exactly the same color as the phones but it's very close and it has a glossy finish
3:00:06so it's, but it's in the ballpark. It looks so awesome in person. Like you just feel like
3:00:11a badass having that on your desk. It just looks fantastic. And I definitely think the,
3:00:16you know, bead blasted aluminum look that we've had in Apple products for my entire
3:00:22time using Apple products, I think that is in many ways a timeless look that will never
3:00:28go fully out of style. However, it'd be nice to see something a little bit new, a little
3:00:32bit fresh in that area if it's possible and if it doesn't suck. So if they can
3:00:36make a space gray version of it I think it would be it would be a nice change of
3:00:39pace. Yeah and wouldn't the the white version be lighter? Like I don't have a
3:00:45white iPhone handy here but I'm I'm thinking that like an upside down white
3:00:52iPhone is a lighter shade of aluminum than a MacBook. I don't think that's true.
3:00:57Maybe it's the same. Yeah I think it's the same but it would look different if
3:00:59they use white for the bezel though yeah that's like yeah that is true assuming
3:01:04it has like that because like you know the current MacBook Airs have the metal
3:01:07bezel the way the old I refuse to if it adopts the like you know glass goes edge
3:01:12to edge and the bezel is like this black surround or yeah then it could be white
3:01:16you're right yeah but space gray would be cool the most inexplicable thing that
3:01:19Gurman's renderings have and I just don't get this is why they have the
3:01:24power key where the escape key has been since forever I hope that's wrong I
3:01:29I saw that too and I'm like, ooh, that's gonna be annoying.
3:01:33- I can't help but think that that's just a mistake
3:01:35because they're commissioning.
3:01:36But then again, wouldn't it be easier
3:01:39to just use a keyboard layout that you've already had?
3:01:44Seems like it would be more work in Photoshop
3:01:46or whatever you use to build this to move that.
3:01:48- Well, and the existing 11 inch fits it just fine.
3:01:51It puts it above backspace, right?
3:01:54- Well, by definition, it could go on either side.
3:01:58Right, you just slide over all the other keys
3:02:00and put it in the top right where it's been forever.
3:02:02And it's not so much that I wanna hit that power key,
3:02:04but that I do use the escape key,
3:02:06and I don't wanna put my MacBook to sleep
3:02:08when I just reach up there blindly
3:02:10and hit the top right key.
3:02:11- You know what though, I just realized,
3:02:13I think we are numbered here.
3:02:15I think most people hit backspace
3:02:17a heck of a lot more often than they hit escape.
3:02:19- Oh, and then maybe that's why they move it.
3:02:20- That's plausible.
3:02:21Oh, man.
3:02:23- Oh, so the explanation, maybe,
3:02:24and then they'll move it on all the keyboards.
3:02:26- Yeah.
3:02:27- Because already you can't just tap it.
3:02:29You have to hold it down for a second.
3:02:31- Yeah, I've never thought of that.
3:02:33- But yeah, now that you're looking at a keyboard,
3:02:35you're looking at where it is in the 11 inch now,
3:02:36it's above backspace, or delete rather, sorry.
3:02:38I have a Microsoft keyboard.
3:02:39- That's the first logical explanation
3:02:41I've heard about that, I've thought about that.
3:02:43- I guess I thought about that now,
3:02:43but that's unfortunate,
3:02:44'cause that sounds extremely plausible and reasonable,
3:02:48even though it would suck for people like us.
3:02:50- Somebody on Twitter said that they're a Vim user,
3:02:53and they can't believe Apple would do that.
3:02:57escapee is too important to vim users and it's like yep I'm a vim user when I'm
3:03:01on server stuff and it also it's also autocomplete and textmate like yeah man
3:03:06well it's autocomplete system-wide isn't it it always I don't know f5 is - I've
3:03:11only ever tried it in textmate but yeah but I I think now that I think about the
3:03:15power button being above backspace instead I think that's very plausible
3:03:18yeah whoo I never thought of that oh we're screwed well let's keep the show
3:03:24short let's wrap it up you're always very good at keeping the show I am I am
3:03:28very good at the in the last 30 seconds of keeping the show short Marco Arment
3:03:33thank you thank you for the time and a lot of good conversation tonight people
3:03:39can find out more at your suddenly very popular website Marco org that's right
3:03:45your Twitter is at Marco Arment my goal to lose as many people as possible for
3:03:52audience by blogging about really boring developer stuff for a while.
3:03:55And of course we've got to mention ATP. Anybody, I can't, there's got to be so much overlap,
3:04:00but if you're out there and you like it when Mark goes on the talk show, you've got to
3:04:03listen to ATP. It's my favorite podcast, and I say that completely honestly.
3:04:11Thank you.
3:04:12So ATP is at ATP.fm. Six characters, including the dot.
3:04:18So that's yeah FM is pretty wide open to the cost like 70 bucks a year to register
3:04:22So it's pretty easy to still get pretty good stuff there. Yeah, and it works, you know works with the podcast angle. Yeah, exactly
3:04:28So check those three things out and
3:04:32Wait for Marco to burn the internet down next week
3:04:36All right, thank you thank you thank you it was so great
3:04:42I love it now that I just given up on keeping shows a reasonable length. Oh, yeah screw it