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The Talk Show

82: ‘We're Allowed to Make Stuff Up; It's a Podcast’ With Dan Frommer

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► Well, I enjoyed the first new show on the new network.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Did you notice any difference?

00:00:06 ◼   ► No, not at all.

00:00:07 ◼   ► The RSS worked and sounded good.

00:00:11 ◼   ► A couple of people--

00:00:12 ◼   ► It was funny.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Put a little extra effort into it.

00:00:16 ◼   ► It seems like it went pretty well in terms

00:00:20 ◼   ► of all the stuff that was supposed

00:00:22 ◼   ► to forward getting forwarded.

00:00:25 ◼   ► The RSS feed redirects.

00:00:27 ◼   ► And it's just crazy though, because it's like there's like four different redirects. There's like feeds dot mule

00:00:34 ◼   ► Radio dot net slash the talk show is really a C name

00:00:38 ◼   ► Is that feed burner now feed

00:00:42 ◼   ► Press. Okay. Feed press is like the new indie

00:00:46 ◼   ► Totally indie version of feed burner. I should probably get on that. I'm still using feed burner. I still don't know though. It's like

00:00:55 ◼   ► Mike I'm torn because they do seem to have some good analytics, but on the other hand I always like just controlling my feed

00:01:03 ◼   ► Totally and they you know and their defeat press seems like the best option for something like this by far

00:01:08 ◼   ► And you know you could there's like a you you know they have an API so you can always do a manual rebuild say hey

00:01:15 ◼   ► look, I you know I made an edit to my last entry rebuild the feed so that you have the

00:01:19 ◼   ► Current version of everything you know I don't know I might

00:01:25 ◼   ► Seems like they do a decent job estimating subscribers, which is the big thing

00:01:28 ◼   ► Right. Yeah, and that's and I think you're on SoundCloud as well. Yeah. Yeah

00:01:34 ◼   ► That's why I signed up there because they're the only ones who even try to tell you how many times it's been played

00:01:40 ◼   ► Yes, I don't know how they are

00:01:42 ◼   ► Determining, you know, what counts as a play. This was like the old YouTube question of

00:01:47 ◼   ► 2006 like right how much of the video do they actually watch?

00:01:53 ◼   ► And I actually owe the listeners a correction on that.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I was at the Moltz last week, I said SoundCloud was free.

00:02:01 ◼   ► And they do have a free tier, but for like unlimited downloads, it's not free.

00:02:07 ◼   ► It's $30 a month, I think, which is what I have now for this show.

00:02:13 ◼   ► But compared to what I would pay to host the audio on S3, which I think

00:02:20 ◼   ► would probably be around two or three grand a month.

00:02:23 ◼   ► It is free, right?

00:02:24 ◼   ► When you're comparing two or three grand

00:02:26 ◼   ► for hosting on S3 versus $30 a month for SoundCloud,

00:02:30 ◼   ► all right, that's free, you know, with an asterisk.

00:02:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's crazy that S3 gets expensive.

00:02:39 ◼   ► It doesn't really scale that well

00:02:40 ◼   ► in terms of pricing for media.

00:02:43 ◼   ► - No, not yet.

00:02:45 ◼   ► - Like video, I mean, I can't even imagine

00:02:47 ◼   ► what a popular video download would cost.

00:02:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause I would think video would have to be

00:02:53 ◼   ► at least an order of magnitude bigger than audio.

00:02:58 ◼   ► - Right.

00:03:00 ◼   ► All of which just makes YouTube's infrastructure

00:03:03 ◼   ► more impressive when you think about it.

00:03:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

00:03:06 ◼   ► Yeah, 'cause my show, this show is usually

00:03:09 ◼   ► around 70 megabytes, 60, 70, 80 megabytes

00:03:14 ◼   ► depending on how far past the hour mark we blow.

00:03:18 ◼   ► - The one hour, you mean the two hour mark?

00:03:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, two hours, you know,

00:03:23 ◼   ► you're still, I think it's usually under,

00:03:25 ◼   ► still under, I think it's like 50 megabytes

00:03:28 ◼   ► for about an hour, and then,

00:03:29 ◼   ► with the audio compression settings we use.

00:03:34 ◼   ► And so, you know, somewhere between 50 and 100

00:03:36 ◼   ► for an hour plus show.

00:03:39 ◼   ► - My first big story at Forbes when I was there was trying,

00:03:43 ◼   ► and this was early 2006, trying to guess

00:03:48 ◼   ► how much YouTube's bandwidth bill was based on their,

00:03:53 ◼   ► and this is YouTube pre-Google acquisition,

00:03:57 ◼   ► they're a venture-funded company,

00:03:59 ◼   ► and back then there were very few options

00:04:01 ◼   ► for hosting video, so they were using

00:04:04 ◼   ► these content delivery networks,

00:04:06 ◼   ► and I think the one they were using was Limelight.

00:04:09 ◼   ► The big one is Akamai, which is,

00:04:11 ◼   ► actually they're both public companies now,

00:04:13 ◼   ► but and they refuse to talk to me, they wouldn't tell me.

00:04:18 ◼   ► And so I just use kind of publicly available data

00:04:22 ◼   ► of how many hours of video they streamed a day,

00:04:27 ◼   ► the kind of rate, going rate for video streaming or video,

00:04:32 ◼   ► they actually did not stream,

00:04:34 ◼   ► it was a progressive download,

00:04:36 ◼   ► which was cheaper than streaming

00:04:38 ◼   ► because back then to stream,

00:04:40 ◼   ► you had to have some Adobe license.

00:04:42 ◼   ► And then yeah, and I made a guess,

00:04:46 ◼   ► and I guessed that it was a million dollars a month.

00:04:50 ◼   ► An educated guess based on interviews

00:04:53 ◼   ► with all these experts and that kind of stuff.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And we published this article and people went crazy.

00:04:59 ◼   ► It was just a huge, it got a lot of attention

00:05:02 ◼   ► because I think the Digg headline was something,

00:05:05 ◼   ► this was when Digg was massive,

00:05:07 ◼   ► it was like YouTube burning up cash,

00:05:10 ◼   ► spending a million dollars a month on,

00:05:13 ◼   ► of their VC money on bandwidth.

00:05:15 ◼   ► And the first thing I heard of back,

00:05:20 ◼   ► kind of through like a second degree grapevine

00:05:24 ◼   ► was that I was kind of off by 10x,

00:05:28 ◼   ► which is kind of not ideal.

00:05:30 ◼   ► It was very clear that it was an estimate

00:05:33 ◼   ► and you never wanna be off by that much.

00:05:36 ◼   ► So, a million dollars a month would have been a lot

00:05:40 ◼   ► back then especially, this was before the era

00:05:42 ◼   ► of the $50 million VC round.

00:05:45 ◼   ► - So which way were you off though?

00:05:47 ◼   ► You were off high?

00:05:48 ◼   ► - I was high, yeah.

00:05:49 ◼   ► - So they were running YouTube pre-Google,

00:05:52 ◼   ► they were running it for $100,000, roughly a month?

00:05:55 ◼   ► - Maybe, something like that.

00:05:57 ◼   ► But then-- - That's impressive.

00:05:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, well it was much smaller then.

00:06:01 ◼   ► But then I think I saw an interview more recently

00:06:04 ◼   ► with one of the founders where they said

00:06:07 ◼   ► that it cost almost a million dollars a month

00:06:09 ◼   ► in the early days.

00:06:10 ◼   ► So I don't know, I don't really know.

00:06:12 ◼   ► I mean, someone has the bill somewhere, so we know.

00:06:16 ◼   ► But then if you looked at Limelight's financials,

00:06:18 ◼   ► there was no way that YouTube was that big of there

00:06:22 ◼   ► 'cause they were not a huge company at that point.

00:06:25 ◼   ► There was no way that YouTube was generating

00:06:26 ◼   ► like a third of their revenue or whatever it was.

00:06:28 ◼   ► So anyway, it was like one of the first business tech stories

00:06:33 ◼   ► I did where we kind of played the wire,

00:06:37 ◼   ► the follow the money game.

00:06:38 ◼   ► and it was a lot of fun.

00:06:40 ◼   ► It was a really fun story, it got a lot of attention.

00:06:43 ◼   ► I hope it was more accurate than it was,

00:06:45 ◼   ► and I actually don't even know how accurate it was,

00:06:48 ◼   ► 'cause people from YouTube just would never comment

00:06:51 ◼   ► or give a suggestion either way, but it was fun.

00:06:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a fun, like, modern equivalent

00:06:58 ◼   ► of how many jelly beans are in the jar type of question.

00:07:01 ◼   ► - Totally, yeah.

00:07:02 ◼   ► And back then, now video delivery is a lot cheaper, I think,

00:07:06 ◼   ► And video is bigger too 'cause it's HD,

00:07:10 ◼   ► but it's, you know,

00:07:13 ◼   ► and I'm sure there are quite a lot of companies

00:07:15 ◼   ► with billion dollar AWS bills.

00:07:18 ◼   ► - Oh, it's gotta be.

00:07:19 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:07:20 ◼   ► - Well, Google, I wonder what,

00:07:21 ◼   ► you know, a good question now is what is Google paying

00:07:24 ◼   ► for bandwidth for YouTube a month?

00:07:26 ◼   ► - I wonder because I think that a lot,

00:07:30 ◼   ► and this is where now I'm making stuff up

00:07:32 ◼   ► 'cause I don't actually know,

00:07:33 ◼   ► but I think a lot of their bandwidth is on a peering basis.

00:07:38 ◼   ► So they don't have to pay actual cash.

00:07:40 ◼   ► They just kind of plug in to the other ISP

00:07:43 ◼   ► and they, I don't know, great question.

00:07:46 ◼   ► Probably, I'm not sure.

00:07:48 ◼   ► - It must be.

00:07:49 ◼   ► And yeah, you might be right

00:07:51 ◼   ► that Google is in such a unique situation

00:07:53 ◼   ► that they don't pay for bandwidth like normal companies do.

00:07:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, and there were always all these murmurs

00:07:58 ◼   ► that like Google was buying up all kinds of dark fiber

00:08:03 ◼   ► and I would not be surprised if they have

00:08:05 ◼   ► the most advanced network infrastructure of any company

00:08:10 ◼   ► that's not like a straight up telecom company.

00:08:15 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:08:17 ◼   ► Now I'm just making stuff up.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Which is, you know, that's commentary, right?

00:08:23 ◼   ► That's how.

00:08:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, we're allowed to make stuff up.

00:08:25 ◼   ► It's just a podcast.

00:08:28 ◼   ► I wonder too, like for user submitted videos to YouTube, they still have the 10 minute

00:08:35 ◼   ► limit, right? I don't know. I haven't uploaded a video to YouTube in a long time. I know

00:08:43 ◼   ► that for stuff that there's like a commercial partnership, I mean when some people can host

00:08:49 ◼   ► their whole movie on YouTube. Right. But that's not just like guy signs up for YouTube account

00:08:54 ◼   ► and uploads an hour video.

00:08:56 ◼   ► Like the 10 minute thing is still a real limit.

00:09:00 ◼   ► But I'm not quite sure when--

00:09:01 ◼   ► - I think so because you still see videos chopped

00:09:05 ◼   ► into multiple parts when they're clearly not partner videos

00:09:09 ◼   ► like some rip of a Apple keynote or something like that.

00:09:14 ◼   ► A lot of them are still chunked up.

00:09:17 ◼   ► I don't know though, good question.

00:09:22 ◼   ► making web videos is one of those things that every like two or three weeks I'm

00:09:26 ◼   ► like oh man I wish I was making cool videos and then that's the end of that

00:09:31 ◼   ► but someday maybe I don't know yeah I don't know the podcast audio thing you

00:09:40 ◼   ► know again we talked about I talked about it last week but it's it's it's

00:09:44 ◼   ► weird I don't know but SoundCloud is cool and you're right that they do just

00:09:48 ◼   ► to circle back five minutes that they seem to do more work trying to figure

00:09:52 ◼   ► out how many downloads you have than anybody else.

00:09:55 ◼   ► And it isn't just, okay, you started a download.

00:09:59 ◼   ► - Right, well, we think, you know.

00:10:03 ◼   ► But it's important because a podcast

00:10:06 ◼   ► is delivered many different ways.

00:10:08 ◼   ► I'm sure some people are actually listening to it

00:10:10 ◼   ► via the actual SoundCloud player, but a lot of people,

00:10:14 ◼   ► probably most people are just pulling the file

00:10:18 ◼   ► through either iTunes or the iOS podcast app

00:10:22 ◼   ► or any other pod catching type thing.

00:10:24 ◼   ► So that's where--

00:10:25 ◼   ► Well, and the other thing too is it gets to be like RSS too,

00:10:28 ◼   ► because podcast is RSS.

00:10:30 ◼   ► But the same way with RSS feeders,

00:10:34 ◼   ► the numbers don't equate to people.

00:10:36 ◼   ► Because let's say you signed up in Apple's podcast app,

00:10:39 ◼   ► and you have a subscription to the show,

00:10:41 ◼   ► and now you're using Castro or something else that's new.

00:10:47 ◼   ► People don't unsubscribe from the other one.

00:10:50 ◼   ► So you might be copying it twice.

00:10:52 ◼   ► you might be downloading it once in iTunes on your Mac

00:10:54 ◼   ► where you don't even listen to it.

00:10:55 ◼   ► And then once in Castro on your iPhone,

00:10:58 ◼   ► you're just one person, you're only gonna listen once,

00:11:00 ◼   ► but you might have two or even three copies of it.

00:11:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I often listen to this show

00:11:07 ◼   ► on three or four different devices

00:11:09 ◼   ► throughout the course of the show.

00:11:11 ◼   ► So who knows what?

00:11:13 ◼   ► Well, it's better for everyone

00:11:15 ◼   ► if all of those count as a place.

00:11:18 ◼   ► - No, but yeah, I mean, I'm not complaining about it.

00:11:21 ◼   ► I'm just only pointing out that it's a very hard thing to put a number on and it always has been I mean even the

00:11:26 ◼   ► Nielsen numbers for TV they were

00:11:28 ◼   ► Nonsense, you know, oh, I mean have you ever been part of the arbitron radio survey where you actually have like a paper book?

00:11:35 ◼   ► And you're supposed to fill in what you're listening to on the radio. No, I think I heard that when I was like 12

00:11:40 ◼   ► It's like oh yeah fine for five bucks, I'll write down the radio

00:11:47 ◼   ► Right shows that I'm not listening to all right. That is actually how radio ratings. I don't know if they're still

00:11:52 ◼   ► Computed that way, but they might be I think I think it's a little more digital now, but it's still

00:11:57 ◼   ► They're still I believe I was talking to someone about this somewhat recently

00:12:03 ◼   ► I don't remember if it was radio or TV though, but it's still based on I think it's I think we were talking about TV

00:12:08 ◼   ► Nielsen I think it's still based on like, you know Nielsen households that have

00:12:14 ◼   ► Some sort of equipment or yeah now it's it's at some point in the 80s or 90s

00:12:18 ◼   ► They switched to equipment, but it know when I was a kid in like the 70s

00:12:24 ◼   ► I remember reading that it was like Nielsen. It was a log book that yeah, the family would do it and that it

00:12:29 ◼   ► Not that there was it back in those days not that there was a lot of inappropriate stuff on but that people would

00:12:36 ◼   ► Because you had to self-report it people would write

00:12:39 ◼   ► Wouldn't write the trashy stuff that they watched that they were embarrassed and they'd say oh

00:12:43 ◼   ► "Oh, I watched the MacNeil-Lanier report on PBS."

00:12:46 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:12:48 ◼   ► - When in fact--

00:12:49 ◼   ► - I watched Rick Steves all night.

00:12:50 ◼   ► That's all I was watching.

00:12:51 ◼   ► - When in fact they were watching, you know,

00:12:52 ◼   ► Brady Bunch reruns or something.

00:12:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:12:55 ◼   ► - Let's take a break.

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00:15:55 ◼   ► Last month out in San Francisco and I was out there for the build conference

00:15:58 ◼   ► If you can do it if you're listening right now, you're going to WWDC

00:16:02 ◼   ► You should quick order one right now. See if you can get it before you before you get out there

00:16:06 ◼   ► I can't believe that's a week away. I

00:16:08 ◼   ► Cannot either a week from we're recording on Memorial Day. This is Monday the 26th of May

00:16:14 ◼   ► So literally one week from today. It'll be

00:16:17 ◼   ► Keynote will be over right? It'll be one one o'clock Pacific as we speak

00:16:24 ◼   ► week. So we will be cracking open the health book app and pricking our fingertips and measuring

00:16:31 ◼   ► our blood, doing a blood test on the, no I don't know. I use an app called Ida. Ida?

00:16:40 ◼   ► Ida? I don't know how to pronounce it. I-T-A. IOS app and it lets you make little checklists

00:16:48 ◼   ► and you can sit, you know, probably dozens of apps that make checklists but I have one

00:16:53 ◼   ► like packing for a conference and then when I'm done and then I just uncheck

00:16:57 ◼   ► them all and then the next conference I can do it again. Last year like a dumbass

00:17:01 ◼   ► I did not bring an old iPhone to the WDC and so I had to sit there and

00:17:08 ◼   ► think well I did there's no way you have to be a crazy person to install the

00:17:12 ◼   ► first beta of iOS on your daily use iPhone especially when you're like away

00:17:20 ◼   ► from home away from you know you're on your phone all day it's insane and

00:17:25 ◼   ► especially when it's iOS 7 exactly well exactly when it's a major release like

00:17:30 ◼   ► that right so I never others I don't know why but it so I've added a

00:17:33 ◼   ► checklist to my car and that you know all year long every time I go to

00:17:36 ◼   ► anywhere else any kind of business trip I get the spare iPhone for iOS beta

00:17:40 ◼   ► check thing and I just check it off because I know I don't want it but then

00:17:44 ◼   ► when I pack for for next week I'll I'll bring my nice iPhone 5 I guess I ran out

00:17:50 ◼   ► and bought a iPod touch for that and then there were so many people last year

00:17:56 ◼   ► who went to the one that I guess it's closed now the Apple store on Market

00:18:00 ◼   ► Street in San Francisco yeah I think they're remaking it right right they're

00:18:04 ◼   ► moving up to where Levi's used to be a Union Square I'm not sure if they're

00:18:08 ◼   ► done with that yet that I don't have no idea but anyway the one that's right up

00:18:11 ◼   ► there on Market Street a couple blocks from Moscone I don't know if they sold

00:18:15 ◼   ► out or they came close to but there was like a just you know 40 50 60 people

00:18:21 ◼   ► from WWDC going in to buy the the super cheap owed 199 iPod touch that's awesome

00:18:29 ◼   ► the one that doesn't even it doesn't even have a camera yep that's when I got

00:18:33 ◼   ► right took it back like a week later when I realized that there was no need

00:18:39 ◼   ► to have an iPod touch but but you took it back running the iOS beta yeah well I

00:18:45 ◼   ► - Oh, I wiped it, I don't know what it wipes to.

00:18:47 ◼   ► - It wipes back to the iOS beta.

00:18:50 ◼   ► - Oh well.

00:18:51 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:18:51 ◼   ► I'm sure they, yeah, I wonder what they do with that.

00:18:53 ◼   ► - They can figure it out.

00:18:55 ◼   ► I'm sure Apple can figure it out.

00:18:56 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, I can't help but think we're gonna get betas

00:19:04 ◼   ► of all that stuff next week.

00:19:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm wondering, the big question I have,

00:19:09 ◼   ► and I'm thinking about writing about this tonight

00:19:12 ◼   ► or tomorrow is how drastically different the new OS X

00:19:17 ◼   ► is gonna seem.

00:19:19 ◼   ► Like just thinking about how when iOS 7 came out,

00:19:24 ◼   ► people freaked out.

00:19:26 ◼   ► And obviously not the Mac nerd types,

00:19:28 ◼   ► but a lot of other people did.

00:19:32 ◼   ► And I wonder if changing someone's Mac that drastically

00:19:36 ◼   ► would also cause people to freak out.

00:19:39 ◼   ► And so I wonder how different it'll be.

00:19:42 ◼   ► Theoretically, they would change a lot of the Mac OS stuff

00:19:48 ◼   ► to more closely resemble iOS 7 or whatever iOS 8

00:19:53 ◼   ► is going to look and feel like, but I don't know.

00:19:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do not know what to expect

00:20:00 ◼   ► and my spidey sense is failing me.

00:20:04 ◼   ► I mean, clearly it's gonna change to some degree

00:20:06 ◼   ► cosmetically, but just how radically, I don't know.

00:20:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, and also the idea of running this now

00:20:15 ◼   ► almost four year old MacBook Air with a new software

00:20:20 ◼   ► running it also seems strange because OS X has really

00:20:25 ◼   ► not changed that much visually since then.

00:20:29 ◼   ► They've added a lot of stuff that I don't use,

00:20:31 ◼   ► like the launcher and all that kind of stuff,

00:20:33 ◼   ► but I don't remember a different feeling Mac OS.

00:20:38 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I think that when they,

00:20:43 ◼   ► I forget which version number it was,

00:20:45 ◼   ► might have been 10.6, maybe it was 10.5,

00:20:48 ◼   ► but one of them, when they got rid of

00:20:50 ◼   ► the separate metal windows and just said,

00:20:53 ◼   ► all the windows just have one appearance,

00:20:55 ◼   ► and it's this gray, you know what I mean?

00:20:59 ◼   ► There's not gonna be two types of windows anymore.

00:21:00 ◼   ► We're gonna-- - Yeah, it's simple.

00:21:01 ◼   ► - That was Leopard, right?

00:21:02 ◼   ► Yeah, it was probably 10.5 and then 10.6 was Snow Leopard.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Yeah, so 10.5 was the one where they made it look...

00:21:10 ◼   ► And it certainly looked different than what came before it

00:21:13 ◼   ► because I got rid of a lot of the candy colored stuff.

00:21:16 ◼   ► But it was like a gentle flattening.

00:21:20 ◼   ► It wasn't a radical flattening.

00:21:22 ◼   ► - Right. - It was, this is the sort of...

00:21:24 ◼   ► And I think that's what a lot of people were expecting

00:21:27 ◼   ► with iOS 7, was that kind of flattening.

00:21:31 ◼   ► And a perfect example of that, if you can,

00:21:33 ◼   ► anybody wants to look it up,

00:21:34 ◼   ► just look up the screenshots from last year's WWDC app.

00:21:39 ◼   ► - Ah yes, I remember this.

00:21:42 ◼   ► And everyone was like, oh,

00:21:45 ◼   ► this is what iOS 7 is gonna look like.

00:21:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I even saw on Twitter,

00:21:48 ◼   ► Mark Gurman from 9to5Mac the other day was writing,

00:21:51 ◼   ► 'cause he had written about it, you know,

00:21:53 ◼   ► that hey, this is what iOS 7's going to look like.

00:21:56 ◼   ► And he still thinks it did,

00:21:57 ◼   ► that it was a clue as to what iOS 7 looked like.

00:22:00 ◼   ► And I would say no, it was a step in that direction,

00:22:04 ◼   ► but like a half step as opposed to the actual iOS 7,

00:22:07 ◼   ► which was like--

00:22:08 ◼   ► - Holy shit. - Yeah, holy shit.

00:22:10 ◼   ► - That was my, you know, and a lot of people's reaction

00:22:12 ◼   ► when that video came out, just showing all the new graphics

00:22:17 ◼   ► and all that kind of stuff.

00:22:20 ◼   ► - Right, and I've said this before

00:22:22 ◼   ► over the last couple of weeks on this show,

00:22:23 ◼   ► like, flat is overused in talking about these interfaces

00:22:28 ◼   ► used in talking about these interfaces. But there's no other word to say it. In a lot

00:22:34 ◼   ► of the ways in iOS 7 on the iPhone and iPad, it is flatter. There's a lot less 3D treatments

00:22:43 ◼   ► between elements. That when something scrolls underneath a navigation bar, there's no shadow

00:22:48 ◼   ► there. It's just a one-pixel line. I just don't see how the Mac can get away with that

00:22:54 ◼   ► that much flatness when you have by definition

00:22:56 ◼   ► these overlapping windows.

00:22:59 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah.

00:23:00 ◼   ► By the way, I love, this is like,

00:23:03 ◼   ► as someone who learned web design in the mid 90s

00:23:06 ◼   ► and didn't really learn much since then,

00:23:09 ◼   ► no 3D or gradient modeling or any of that kind of stuff,

00:23:13 ◼   ► I love flat design 'cause it's all I've ever known.

00:23:16 ◼   ► So I'm actually a competent designer again.

00:23:19 ◼   ► But, and I'm already nervous about

00:23:23 ◼   ► when it's gonna start getting more technical again.

00:23:26 ◼   ► - And textured, yeah.

00:23:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, we still have an original iPad running,

00:23:31 ◼   ► well, I guess it's iOS 5 now,

00:23:35 ◼   ► and I use it every few weeks and it's super weird.

00:23:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's weirder.

00:23:40 ◼   ► - In many ways great, but in also many ways,

00:23:42 ◼   ► I'm very used to iOS 7 now and I really like it.

00:23:45 ◼   ► There are some annoyances,

00:23:48 ◼   ► but that's probably never not gonna be the case,

00:23:50 ◼   ► but I really like the way it feels.

00:23:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that it's for all the,

00:23:56 ◼   ► I'm gonna botch this, what's the German term,

00:23:58 ◼   ► Sturmendrong?

00:23:59 ◼   ► - Yes, something like that.

00:24:03 ◼   ► - Well, you guys know what I'm talking about.

00:24:04 ◼   ► Well, for all of the consternation that iOS 7 caused

00:24:07 ◼   ► and as vocal as some of its critics are

00:24:11 ◼   ► about the plainness of its visual style,

00:24:13 ◼   ► in hindsight, when I go back and fire up

00:24:15 ◼   ► one of those devices from my stack of old iPhones

00:24:18 ◼   ► and look at iOS 6 or look at an old original iPad

00:24:23 ◼   ► that has to be running iOS 5 or whatever the last version

00:24:28 ◼   ► that it supports is.

00:24:29 ◼   ► It looks so much older.

00:24:31 ◼   ► It just looks way more than,

00:24:34 ◼   ► it's hard to believe that until like eight months ago,

00:24:37 ◼   ► that was what everybody was using.

00:24:39 ◼   ► It really feels like it's just the distant past,

00:24:45 ◼   ► visual style-wise.

00:24:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I don't see that changing.

00:24:50 ◼   ► I mean, they might perhaps make some tweaks.

00:24:52 ◼   ► Like there are some of the iOS 7 icons

00:24:56 ◼   ► that just don't really make sense.

00:24:58 ◼   ► Like I think Game Center and then maybe also

00:25:04 ◼   ► the Newsstand one which is hiding all the apps in there.

00:25:08 ◼   ► I don't know what's gonna happen with Newsstand.

00:25:10 ◼   ► They might just vaporize, but.

00:25:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe with Newsstand it's actually appropriate

00:25:14 ◼   ► because I feel like they don't know what to do

00:25:16 ◼   ► with Newsstand and so an icon that sort of doesn't really know what it is either, kind

00:25:20 ◼   ► of it, not to be a jerk, but it kind of fits. Whereas Game Center, yeah, I don't know. I

00:25:26 ◼   ► kind of feel like they punted on it. It's attractive to me, but it doesn't say Game

00:25:31 ◼   ► Center.

00:25:32 ◼   ► No, it says balls.

00:25:33 ◼   ► Yeah, it just says like, I don't know, it just looks like something, you know, we don't

00:25:38 ◼   ► have an icon yet, but we want to start giving beta builds out. So, you know, it could be

00:25:41 ◼   ► any app. It could be any app at all. It could be a photo app, a notes app, could be a game.

00:25:48 ◼   ► We'll just put this placeholder icon here. I'm excited about it though. I do think, in

00:25:54 ◼   ► a big part, I think it's really cool. Here we are one week out from WWDC. We have no

00:25:59 ◼   ► idea what this Mac OS X thing is going to look like. And as a long time Mac guy, as

00:26:06 ◼   ► someone who really got drawn into the whole

00:26:09 ◼   ► following Apple closely, specifically,

00:26:12 ◼   ► and only because of the Mac.

00:26:14 ◼   ► I think it's pretty awesome that here we are in 2014

00:26:16 ◼   ► and the most exciting thing we have coming up next week

00:26:18 ◼   ► is a Mac interface overhaul.

00:26:22 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, I'm pumped.

00:26:23 ◼   ► I remember when I switched from six to seven on the Mac

00:26:28 ◼   ► and that was crazy, 'cause that was the first one

00:26:32 ◼   ► where the folders were colored in.

00:26:34 ◼   ► Six was, system six was traced outlines,

00:26:39 ◼   ► and then seven had the beginning of that

00:26:43 ◼   ► kind of 3D folder look, and that was just--

00:26:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, six supported color on certain models,

00:26:49 ◼   ► but it was, you know what's funny?

00:26:50 ◼   ► It was a very flat color, because remember like,

00:26:52 ◼   ► the, when they, yeah, it was very, very flat.

00:26:57 ◼   ► I think it still had a black and white Apple logo, though.

00:27:00 ◼   ► I think the color Apple logo didn't come in,

00:27:02 ◼   ► You know for the menu bar until system 7 but but everything was flat

00:27:07 ◼   ► You know the wind even though you had color the windows were still drawn just blue not grayscale black and white

00:27:12 ◼   ► it was just black pickles pixels and white pixels for the windows and and

00:27:17 ◼   ► Open and save dialogues and everything and then 7 had like the scroll bar had a gradient to it

00:27:24 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I know the folders the window title bar had a gradient

00:27:29 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Sort of thing.

00:27:30 ◼   ► And it was clearly an evolution of the System 6 look.

00:27:35 ◼   ► They just kind of colored in certain parts,

00:27:37 ◼   ► but they didn't color in much.

00:27:38 ◼   ► I think it was sort of,

00:27:40 ◼   ► I wouldn't call that an exciting overhaul though.

00:27:43 ◼   ► To me going from six to seven, it was a huge change,

00:27:45 ◼   ► but the interface wasn't really that hugely changed.

00:27:48 ◼   ► - I also think that it slowed down our old Mac so much.

00:27:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was the thing I remember

00:27:56 ◼   ► is that System 7 really slowed down your computer.

00:28:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't remember, I think that was,

00:28:02 ◼   ► I think we had a LC running 6,

00:28:04 ◼   ► or maybe a plus or something, I don't know.

00:28:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause people used to,

00:28:10 ◼   ► people used to complain

00:28:13 ◼   ► about the old original open and save dialog boxes, a lot,

00:28:19 ◼   ► because they were modal and they were kind of ugly.

00:28:23 ◼   ► And it was System 7 actually originally didn't fix that.

00:28:26 ◼   ► I forget when the nav services open

00:28:29 ◼   ► and save dialog boxes came about,

00:28:30 ◼   ► which were a little bit more modernized UI wise.

00:28:33 ◼   ► But the thing about the old open and save dialog boxes

00:28:36 ◼   ► was that if you knew the keyboard commands,

00:28:38 ◼   ► the command up arrow and down arrow,

00:28:41 ◼   ► and you knew that you could type ahead

00:28:43 ◼   ► to match items in a list, right?

00:28:45 ◼   ► Like to match, if it's a list of people's last names,

00:28:49 ◼   ► I could just type fr and get fromer.

00:28:52 ◼   ► you could really fly through those dialog boxes

00:28:55 ◼   ► because when you'd hit command up to go up a level

00:28:58 ◼   ► in the hierarchy and down, down, down, command down,

00:29:00 ◼   ► command down, it would update instantly.

00:29:03 ◼   ► It was like you could, if you knew the incantation

00:29:06 ◼   ► and knew your way around that,

00:29:07 ◼   ► you weren't using the mouse, you were using the keyboard,

00:29:09 ◼   ► you could kind of zip around your hard disk

00:29:12 ◼   ► at the similar pace as to somebody who was an expert

00:29:15 ◼   ► on like a command line system.

00:29:17 ◼   ► And then when system seven came out,

00:29:20 ◼   ► just seemed like everything got slowed down

00:29:21 ◼   ► and you'd hit command up and you'd get the watch cursor

00:29:24 ◼   ► for a little bit.

00:29:26 ◼   ► Just little, all sorts of little things really slowed down.

00:29:28 ◼   ► - And that was the thing that I hated

00:29:30 ◼   ► about visiting friends houses with PCs

00:29:33 ◼   ► was that even though Windows was pretty awful,

00:29:36 ◼   ► it felt so fast versus System 7.

00:29:39 ◼   ► And I wonder if maybe that's the kind of thing

00:29:41 ◼   ► that the new Mac OS, will it be a 10 or are we at 11?

00:29:46 ◼   ► - No, it'll be 10.10.

00:29:50 ◼   ► I wonder if that's the kind of thing that a flatter, simpler UI could actually achieve.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Like, hey, P.S., we made your computer faster.

00:29:57 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:29:59 ◼   ► Maybe not.

00:30:00 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:30:01 ◼   ► I feel like we've gotten to the point where even the cheapest Mac can render.

00:30:05 ◼   ► Pretty quickly.

00:30:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:30:07 ◼   ► And especially if they're going to go in a less exuberant style.

00:30:10 ◼   ► Like there's certain things in the transparency in iOS that maybe they're pushing the limits

00:30:14 ◼   ► on -- not even maybe.

00:30:15 ◼   ► They kind of are pushing the limits on some of the iOS devices that support it.

00:30:20 ◼   ► True.

00:30:21 ◼   ► And the parallax and stuff like that.

00:30:23 ◼   ► Like they didn't have good frame rate on some of those effects.

00:30:27 ◼   ► And it's gotten better with 7.1, but they were pushing.

00:30:30 ◼   ► But any Mac, you know, even the cheapest Mac mini, which hasn't even been updated in 600

00:30:36 ◼   ► days or something like that, can just chew that stuff up.

00:30:40 ◼   ► I mean, the days when a Mac can't render,

00:30:43 ◼   ► Windows dropping down and stuff like that,

00:30:45 ◼   ► menus dropping down quickly, I think we're past that.

00:30:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so too, with SSDs and all that.

00:30:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's definitely a big change.

00:30:56 ◼   ► - I think it's kind of cool though that we,

00:31:00 ◼   ► hopefully that's the reason that it's kind of cool

00:31:03 ◼   ► that we haven't seen any major leaks yet

00:31:06 ◼   ► about what's going on.

00:31:09 ◼   ► That could just mean that there's nothing worth knowing.

00:31:12 ◼   ► I don't know if that's true. - Yeah, I don't know.

00:31:13 ◼   ► - But I think it's kinda cool.

00:31:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I'd be curious.

00:31:18 ◼   ► The leaks often come closer to the event.

00:31:22 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, especially when they're software leaks.

00:31:24 ◼   ► The hardware leaks kind of have been coming too early

00:31:29 ◼   ► 'cause of the supply chain stuff.

00:31:31 ◼   ► But when it's stuff that never left Cupertino to begin with,

00:31:35 ◼   ► that typically is like the night before.

00:31:38 ◼   ► Like wasn't last year, didn't someone nine to five

00:31:42 ◼   ► or someone else have all the icons

00:31:45 ◼   ► either the night before or the morning of?

00:31:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I think that they had it

00:31:49 ◼   ► as recreations somehow.

00:31:52 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, someone had like dictated to them

00:31:54 ◼   ► and then they drew them.

00:31:56 ◼   ► - And they did really good.

00:31:58 ◼   ► I think they even joked about it with Mark Gurman.

00:31:59 ◼   ► It was like a police sketch where the,

00:32:02 ◼   ► and it's like a dead ringer.

00:32:05 ◼   ► It's like, holy hell, that's the guy.

00:32:07 ◼   ► You know, they like they like police sketched the icons and they did a really good job and it was

00:32:12 ◼   ► And they nailed it and there was so many people of course because the icons are probably it's either the first thing you see and

00:32:20 ◼   ► be they are were kind of radically simplified and

00:32:25 ◼   ► There were so many people who are like no way is Apple gonna do icons that right like that

00:32:31 ◼   ► - That was awesome.

00:32:33 ◼   ► Yeah, and then you gotta wonder,

00:32:34 ◼   ► for the apps that have the same app in OS X and iOS,

00:32:39 ◼   ► do they have the same icons now?

00:32:43 ◼   ► Like does Safari get this new icon the same as iOS

00:32:48 ◼   ► or is it still Mac has their own icon set?

00:32:51 ◼   ► - Right, and are they going to do a thing

00:32:53 ◼   ► like give Mac icons an official shape, like a circle?

00:32:57 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, interesting.

00:32:59 ◼   ► - They've done a lot of circles,

00:33:01 ◼   ► like the iBooks is new and has a circle

00:33:03 ◼   ► and App Store's been a circle.

00:33:05 ◼   ► - Though the iWork numbers and that kind of stuff

00:33:10 ◼   ► are still freeform shapes.

00:33:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, arbitrary shapes, I don't know.

00:33:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:33:16 ◼   ► - I don't know, I feel like,

00:33:17 ◼   ► well, I don't know, I wouldn't be surprised,

00:33:21 ◼   ► but I feel like there's so much,

00:33:24 ◼   ► I mean, there's, what, there's gotta be 30 years of history

00:33:27 ◼   ► of Mac icons taking whatever shape they want.

00:33:31 ◼   ► Whereas iOS always had, you're gonna make it

00:33:35 ◼   ► a little round cornered square.

00:33:37 ◼   ► - Right, that's true.

00:33:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I used to make Mac icons.

00:33:41 ◼   ► That was a weird hobby in like high school, I think,

00:33:46 ◼   ► with ResEdit, just kind of goofing around.

00:33:50 ◼   ► 'Cause there was, I forgot which,

00:33:52 ◼   ► maybe it was eight or eight, five,

00:33:55 ◼   ► had kind of these 3D folders.

00:33:57 ◼   ► and I would draw the icons of apps.

00:34:01 ◼   ► Back then, I wouldn't keep my apps in the apps folder,

00:34:04 ◼   ► I would just keep them in their own folders

00:34:07 ◼   ► in Macintosh HD, so there was the QuarkXPress folder.

00:34:11 ◼   ► And so I made a special Quark icon for that folder.

00:34:15 ◼   ► Actually, I think Quark had a good icon.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Some of them had awful icons.

00:34:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I remember customizing icons, though.

00:34:20 ◼   ► Same thing.

00:34:21 ◼   ► You'd either go in and actually be an idiot

00:34:25 ◼   ► and go in and edit the actual resource in the application,

00:34:29 ◼   ► or you would make your own icon

00:34:31 ◼   ► and then copy and paste it in the finder's get info.

00:34:34 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And then you could

00:34:35 ◼   ► just delete it and it would go back

00:34:36 ◼   ► to the regular icon for the app.

00:34:38 ◼   ► - Right, and then some of them I even made aliases,

00:34:40 ◼   ► and I think an alias could even maybe have its own icon.

00:34:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I think it could.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I'm almost sure you could,

00:34:47 ◼   ► which was crazy and confusing.

00:34:50 ◼   ► - Right, well, yeah, anyone who would sit down

00:34:53 ◼   ► my computer wouldn't have no idea how to use it.

00:34:55 ◼   ► But did you ever, do you remember when,

00:34:58 ◼   ► I don't remember which Mac OS, maybe it was 8.5 or 8,

00:35:03 ◼   ► which had, it shipped with maybe one or two themes,

00:35:08 ◼   ► and then there was the idea that there would be

00:35:10 ◼   ► more themes coming, but then they just never came?

00:35:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was, I think it was system, or Mac OS 8.

00:35:20 ◼   ► They didn't expect when they stopped calling it system aid and right the first version of Mac OS 8 and

00:35:25 ◼   ► Sir, Syracuse is listening to this show right now and his head is exploding because he can't just jump in and correct us and tell

00:35:34 ◼   ► us exactly what I think it was 8.0 and it was called the

00:35:38 ◼   ► Appearance manager. Yes, and the appearance manager was a control panel and it had a list of themes and there was platinum

00:35:47 ◼   ► Which was the default look?

00:35:50 ◼   ► Gizmo which was the one that was like a

00:35:52 ◼   ► kids theme look like something from like Nickelodeon and I think it was called techno which was sort of the

00:36:00 ◼   ► I

00:36:02 ◼   ► don't know looked like something from

00:36:04 ◼   ► That would have been art directed for like

00:36:07 ◼   ► Like a Terminator movie or something like that like a sci-fi movie where they have you know a custom theme for the GUI that the compute

00:36:15 ◼   ► You know that the characters are using now. Did you know about the?

00:36:19 ◼   ► leaked unofficial fourth theme though?

00:36:24 ◼   ► - No, I don't-- - There was the drawing board.

00:36:28 ◼   ► - Oh, of course, yes.

00:36:29 ◼   ► - That was awesome. - Of course I knew that.

00:36:31 ◼   ► - I love that.

00:36:32 ◼   ► I wish I could run that now.

00:36:33 ◼   ► If OS 10.10 was drawing board, I would take that.

00:36:37 ◼   ► - Right, drawing board made it look

00:36:39 ◼   ► like an architectural sketch.

00:36:41 ◼   ► Like the windows were made out of paper

00:36:43 ◼   ► and that the buttons and everything were sketched in

00:36:47 ◼   ► by an architect.

00:36:48 ◼   ► And it even shipped with an architect handwriting font.

00:36:51 ◼   ► I forget the name of the font.

00:36:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't remember.

00:36:53 ◼   ► - It set the system font to that.

00:36:55 ◼   ► So like your menus and your window titles

00:36:57 ◼   ► were in that architect handwriting font.

00:37:00 ◼   ► But that never shipped to customers.

00:37:03 ◼   ► It shipped as like developer betas.

00:37:06 ◼   ► So like, you know, people who were in the developer program

00:37:08 ◼   ► got those themes so that you could make sure

00:37:10 ◼   ► your app looked good in gizmo and techno.

00:37:13 ◼   ► You're right that the architectural one

00:37:15 ◼   ► was the one that actually was like,

00:37:16 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe I would use that.

00:37:18 ◼   ► - I mean, it was totally, it felt like playing

00:37:21 ◼   ► one of those old SimCity games where it was like

00:37:24 ◼   ► back in the, or maybe, I don't know,

00:37:26 ◼   ► one of those Sim games where it was like the expansion set.

00:37:29 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:30 ◼   ► - And, you know, just was never as fun as the main SimCity.

00:37:33 ◼   ► But it was cool.

00:37:34 ◼   ► I think I ran it for a couple months.

00:37:36 ◼   ► - I'm not looking this up.

00:37:38 ◼   ► I'm going from memory here.

00:37:39 ◼   ► I'm trusting my memory, which is dangerous.

00:37:41 ◼   ► But my recollection though is that this,

00:37:45 ◼   ► Mac OS 8 didn't come out until after the next acquisition.

00:37:49 ◼   ► And the next team had come in,

00:37:50 ◼   ► and Steve Jobs was the interim CEO,

00:37:52 ◼   ► and Avi Tavenian was the CTO, or whatever his title was.

00:37:56 ◼   ► And while most of their efforts were focused

00:37:59 ◼   ► on getting this next step, Mac OS, Carbon,

00:38:04 ◼   ► next generation OS that they kinda had to start in '96

00:38:10 ◼   ► and build it, and they were hoping to ship it in a year,

00:38:12 ◼   ► and they wound up not even shipping it until 2001 or whenever.

00:38:16 ◼   ► They were four or five years out from it.

00:38:18 ◼   ► But in the meantime, they had to keep the company running.

00:38:20 ◼   ► And so that team took over,

00:38:22 ◼   ► or at least overseeing the last few years of Mac OS evolutions.

00:38:27 ◼   ► Mac OS 8, 8.1, 8.5, and 9, I guess, was the last one.

00:38:32 ◼   ► 8.6.2.

00:38:34 ◼   ► Right, and they were ready to ship it with these themes.

00:38:36 ◼   ► And Steve Jobs was like, "What is this bullshit? Get it out. Get it all out.

00:38:40 ◼   ► It ships with platinum.

00:38:42 ◼   ► That's what it looks like.

00:38:43 ◼   ► And so it shipped with an appearance manager,

00:38:47 ◼   ► and it would say theme, and there was one choice.

00:38:50 ◼   ► So they ripped the themes out.

00:38:52 ◼   ► The alternate themes were ripped out at the last minute,

00:38:54 ◼   ► but they couldn't rewrite all the software.

00:38:56 ◼   ► So it was this interface that looked like

00:38:58 ◼   ► it was meant to have a list of themes, and it did,

00:39:01 ◼   ► but there was only one to choose from.

00:39:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was hilarious.

00:39:05 ◼   ► And was that when you could change the colors

00:39:09 ◼   ► to match the different iMac colors as well,

00:39:11 ◼   ► like tangerine and lime and that kind of stuff?

00:39:15 ◼   ► Or was that later?

00:39:16 ◼   ► I don't remember.

00:39:17 ◼   ► - I think that was later because they didn't come out

00:39:18 ◼   ► until, '98 was the original iMac,

00:39:21 ◼   ► and then '99 was when the colored ones came out.

00:39:23 ◼   ► But then they did, yeah, they had like,

00:39:26 ◼   ► I forget if the software could tell

00:39:28 ◼   ► what color your iMac was though and default to it.

00:39:31 ◼   ► But yeah, you could pick like highlight colors

00:39:34 ◼   ► that matched your candy colored iMac.

00:39:38 ◼   ► Now you can't do any of that stuff.

00:39:39 ◼   ► That's probably okay.

00:39:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I don't know.

00:39:42 ◼   ► Is there anything?

00:39:43 ◼   ► I've gotten old and crotched-y, so I don't--

00:39:45 ◼   ► - I don't know, I don't look either.

00:39:46 ◼   ► Maybe there is.

00:39:48 ◼   ► - I wonder whether there's still something like that,

00:39:50 ◼   ► 'cause there used to be something in the early days

00:39:52 ◼   ► of Mac OS X where you could switch the theme.

00:39:55 ◼   ► It was from Sanity. - Right, yeah.

00:39:57 ◼   ► Oh yeah, hey, look at that appearance.

00:39:59 ◼   ► You can go, oh, guess, these are many different options here.

00:40:03 ◼   ► You can pick blue or graphite.

00:40:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:40:07 ◼   ► and then you can change the highlight color.

00:40:09 ◼   ► But yeah, blue or gray are your choices now.

00:40:13 ◼   ► That's all right.

00:40:13 ◼   ► Maybe, yeah, and this is obviously now

00:40:18 ◼   ► just fan fiction almost,

00:40:22 ◼   ► but I wonder if the Mac hardware

00:40:26 ◼   ► will ever kind of more closely reflect the iOS hardware,

00:40:31 ◼   ► like the 5C type plastic,

00:40:33 ◼   ► like the return of the iBook or something like that.

00:40:36 ◼   ► I was testing out that new Microsoft Surface this week,

00:40:41 ◼   ► and it reminded me just how old the MacBook Air design is.

00:40:46 ◼   ► I mean, it's now six years old, almost,

00:40:51 ◼   ► the current MacBook Air.

00:40:53 ◼   ► So it's funny 'cause Microsoft's like,

00:40:55 ◼   ► "Hey, look, this thing is lighter than a MacBook Air."

00:40:59 ◼   ► But I'm like, "Yeah, that MacBook Air is six years old, man."

00:41:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it looks, to me,

00:41:04 ◼   ► the part that really kind of looks a little dated is the the bezel around the

00:41:09 ◼   ► screen right is right so they over yeah you've got like this inch thick frame

00:41:14 ◼   ► around this screen and that the only part that is black glass or plastic I

00:41:18 ◼   ► guess it's not glass but you know shiny black screen is the screen whereas on

00:41:24 ◼   ► the MacBook Pros they've got this much to me much more modern look which looks

00:41:31 ◼   ► like it matches the phone, it matches the iPad, it matches the iMac, which goes edge

00:41:37 ◼   ► to edge now, matches the current displays, where the whole front surface is black glass

00:41:47 ◼   ► or black shiny screen material. And then not all of it is actually screen pixels, but it's

00:41:52 ◼   ► just surrounded by, you know, black screen.

00:41:56 ◼   ► - It strikes me as a kind of thing that they've learned

00:41:58 ◼   ► so much since then with the iPhone and with the other Macs

00:42:03 ◼   ► that there's a lot of improvements they could make

00:42:06 ◼   ► if they were redesigning the laptop from scratch today.

00:42:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, my guess though is that they're waiting

00:42:15 ◼   ► for retina errors to update that.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Because they just came out last month

00:42:21 ◼   ► with new MacBook Airs.

00:42:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think they're gonna--

00:42:25 ◼   ► And their latest CPU kit from Intel and et cetera, et cetera.

00:42:30 ◼   ► But it's what we call in the business a speed bump update,

00:42:38 ◼   ► not a major update.

00:42:39 ◼   ► But given that it just came out last month,

00:42:41 ◼   ► I can't imagine they're gonna go retina soon.

00:42:43 ◼   ► And I can't, therefore I think that when they do go retina,

00:42:46 ◼   ► they'll get the modern look where the whole front,

00:42:49 ◼   ► when you open it up, is black.

00:42:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, unless they introduce that as a new line,

00:42:55 ◼   ► which they kind of did with the retina pro

00:42:58 ◼   ► because they kept the older pro around.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Who knows, now this is silly.

00:43:04 ◼   ► - Well, that's the sort of thing, that's a good ques,

00:43:07 ◼   ► I mean, if they did it with the pros, they could do it.

00:43:10 ◼   ► They could. - They could do whatever

00:43:10 ◼   ► they want, right?

00:43:11 ◼   ► - But I kind of think they wouldn't

00:43:13 ◼   ► because it seems to me that that sort of bifurcation

00:43:17 ◼   ► of the product line, you can do it with a device that's pro

00:43:22 ◼   ► and you kind of can't with the air

00:43:24 ◼   ► because the air is just sort of the default. The air is you walk

00:43:27 ◼   ► in the Apple Store and they say, How can I help you? And you say,

00:43:30 ◼   ► I want to get a laptop. They're gonna you know, the odds are

00:43:34 ◼   ► pretty good. You're coming out with a 13 inch MacBook Air.

00:43:37 ◼   ► Yeah. Because it's just the default. It's the one that's the

00:43:40 ◼   ► cheap, it's cheaper, you know, and and I know that the pros

00:43:44 ◼   ► have gotten it's crazy. If you remember how much powerbooks

00:43:47 ◼   ► used to cost back in the day. It's crazy that you can get a 13

00:43:51 ◼   ► MacBook Pro with a retina display for $1,299, I think the starting price is,

00:43:55 ◼   ► which is crazy, but $999 is a lot less than $1,299. You know, you're talking 25%

00:44:02 ◼   ► less. Yeah. More than 25%, right? Yeah, and when you add $100 for tax or

00:44:07 ◼   ► whatever, it's, you know, you know, and it's that there's, you know, there's, it's

00:44:13 ◼   ► just one of those, all those, every time you go up a digit, it's a magic price.

00:44:17 ◼   ► Like 999 is a lot less than $1,000 in people's minds

00:44:23 ◼   ► Yeah

00:44:27 ◼   ► In real life it's a dollar. A penny if you charge the 99 cent, but it just feels it just feels like it's cheaper

00:44:35 ◼   ► So are you shipping a new Vesper by WWC this year?

00:44:41 ◼   ► It could be any day

00:44:44 ◼   ► Because I remember that's when you launched last year, right? Yeah, I would if if we were approved I would tell you right now

00:44:50 ◼   ► but we're not but it should be

00:44:52 ◼   ► Knock on wood if everything goes through it should be before WWDC should be well before WDC last year was it was pretty tight

00:45:00 ◼   ► And this but is not the sync update or maybe you shouldn't tell me what it is

00:45:05 ◼   ► I'll tell you don't tell anybody else though. All right, it is the sync update. Oh, wow. Okay

00:45:12 ◼   ► While we were let me take another break before we keep going

00:45:15 ◼   ► And tell you about our second sponsor and it's our good friend

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00:46:19 ◼   ► it's two bucks for this video three bucks for this fee. I

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00:47:58 ◼   ► stuff. My thanks to lynda.com. So you mentioned your Surface Pro review or first look. This

00:48:07 ◼   ► is not a review. Well, let's take a step back though. So since last you were on the talk

00:48:12 ◼   ► show, you've picked up a new gig. You're now I don't know, forget your title, but you're

00:48:17 ◼   ► like the new technology columnist at Quartz.

00:48:20 ◼   ► - Yes, this started a week ago.

00:48:23 ◼   ► I'm the tech editor at Quartz,

00:48:25 ◼   ► which means I'll be writing several posts a week,

00:48:30 ◼   ► probably one a day, maybe a little more than that,

00:48:32 ◼   ► maybe less depending on the news flow.

00:48:35 ◼   ► And then also building out a team of journalists

00:48:39 ◼   ► around the world actually.

00:48:40 ◼   ► That's one of the really cool things about Quartz,

00:48:42 ◼   ► which I guess I should explain what Quartz is.

00:48:46 ◼   ► It's a relatively new business news site

00:48:49 ◼   ► owned by the Atlantic that started in 2012.

00:48:54 ◼   ► And their whole thing is that it is what,

00:48:58 ◼   ► they sat down and they said,

00:49:00 ◼   ► if you were starting a business news site in 2012,

00:49:03 ◼   ► what would it be?

00:49:04 ◼   ► Well, it would be designed first for phones and tablets

00:49:09 ◼   ► and less for a desktop computer because--

00:49:12 ◼   ► (coughing)

00:49:13 ◼   ► - Talk show during fireball.

00:49:15 ◼   ► I'm sorry, keep going, Dan.

00:49:19 ◼   ► 'Cause that's where people will be reading it.

00:49:21 ◼   ► It'll be global because people fly around a lot

00:49:24 ◼   ► and real business leaders are thinking about

00:49:26 ◼   ► what's going on in Asia just as much as

00:49:29 ◼   ► what's going on at home.

00:49:31 ◼   ► And it'll have new forms of advertising

00:49:37 ◼   ► and they've never really, I've never seen

00:49:40 ◼   ► in the history of the site any standard banner ads

00:49:43 ◼   ► on the site.

00:49:43 ◼   ► They do these special custom kind of big ads

00:49:47 ◼   ► that work for a mobile site and for a desktop site.

00:49:52 ◼   ► So it's really cool.

00:49:53 ◼   ► The staff is pretty small.

00:49:55 ◼   ► It's really smart people there.

00:49:58 ◼   ► The editor in chief is this guy, Kevin Delaney,

00:50:00 ◼   ► who was at the Wall Street Journal for a long time

00:50:02 ◼   ► and was one of their leading tech journalists there.

00:50:06 ◼   ► So I was not looking for a job.

00:50:08 ◼   ► I mean, I've been working on my startup, City Notes,

00:50:12 ◼   ► for a long time now,

00:50:13 ◼   ► and we're gonna be shipping a brand new app

00:50:16 ◼   ► in the next few months that could be a big thing someday.

00:50:20 ◼   ► But when the existing tech editor from Quartz left recently

00:50:26 ◼   ► for the Wall Street Journal, I emailed Kevin and said,

00:50:29 ◼   ► "Hey man, let's get together and talk."

00:50:31 ◼   ► Because I've long been a huge fan of the site.

00:50:34 ◼   ► I think they do really cool stuff.

00:50:36 ◼   ► One of the really interesting things there

00:50:39 ◼   ► is that they have a team of engineers

00:50:41 ◼   ► that sits in the newsroom and work with journalists

00:50:44 ◼   ► and our journalists themselves and make little apps

00:50:48 ◼   ► and interactive stories and tools for the newsroom

00:50:52 ◼   ► to either do reporting or to tell stories.

00:50:56 ◼   ► Like we have a chart building tool that, you know,

00:51:01 ◼   ► was made by one of the courts engineers

00:51:05 ◼   ► for the courts newsroom.

00:51:06 ◼   ► So it's really cool.

00:51:07 ◼   ► It's kind of, you know,

00:51:09 ◼   ► if you were taking all the elements of a news organization

00:51:12 ◼   ► and creating them from scratch in this era.

00:51:17 ◼   ► It's a really good representation of that.

00:51:18 ◼   ► So I'm really excited to join the team.

00:51:21 ◼   ► I have not been writing much lately, so I'm quite rusty,

00:51:25 ◼   ► but I posted a few things last week

00:51:27 ◼   ► and hope you'll all follow me there.

00:51:30 ◼   ► It's a very simple URL designed for the mobile era.

00:51:34 ◼   ► It's qz.com, the element courts, I believe.

00:51:39 ◼   ► Is that there?

00:51:41 ◼   ► Is that the--

00:51:42 ◼   ► - That's where I was.

00:51:42 ◼   ► - It's been a while since the periodic table,

00:51:45 ◼   ► but it's really cool.

00:51:47 ◼   ► I'm really happy to be there.

00:51:49 ◼   ► I'll be covering the same stuff that I did

00:51:52 ◼   ► on my old site SplatF, which is Apple, Microsoft, Google,

00:51:57 ◼   ► kind of big tech, mobile.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And I'll hopefully get to do some travel as well,

00:52:03 ◼   ► looking up cool stories around the world

00:52:06 ◼   ► that most desk-bound tech sites aren't really talking about.

00:52:11 ◼   ► aren't really touching.

00:52:12 ◼   ► - They do.

00:52:13 ◼   ► Quartz has been interesting to me ever since it debuted.

00:52:16 ◼   ► And it's cooler for me that somebody who I know like you

00:52:21 ◼   ► is gonna be writing there.

00:52:22 ◼   ► But they've always had good stuff.

00:52:23 ◼   ► They've always had an interesting design

00:52:25 ◼   ► where it doesn't really look like anybody else's stuff.

00:52:28 ◼   ► They were really early to me on that, the infinite scroll,

00:52:34 ◼   ► where when you get to the end of an article

00:52:37 ◼   ► and instead of a bottom of the page,

00:52:38 ◼   ► they just sort of algorithmically predict,

00:52:41 ◼   ► well, this might be something else you're interested in.

00:52:44 ◼   ► You can close the window if you want,

00:52:45 ◼   ► but if you wanna keep scrolling down,

00:52:47 ◼   ► here's another article.

00:52:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's for better or worse.

00:52:50 ◼   ► I think it works really great on mobile

00:52:53 ◼   ► when, hey, if you're still connected to the network,

00:52:57 ◼   ► here's something else to read.

00:52:59 ◼   ► Sometimes with a computer, it's a little frustrating

00:53:02 ◼   ► 'cause you wanna share the previous story that you'd read

00:53:05 ◼   ► and then all of a sudden you're at the next one.

00:53:07 ◼   ► But they've written, again, they have engineers

00:53:10 ◼   ► in the newsroom, so they're making changes in real time

00:53:13 ◼   ► as they decide whether something's working or not.

00:53:16 ◼   ► - Well, that reminds me of Adrian Holovaty.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Do you know Adrian Holovaty?

00:53:20 ◼   ► He was like-- - I know the name.

00:53:22 ◼   ► - Co-creator of the Django Python framework

00:53:25 ◼   ► and a bunch of other stuff, he's from Chicago.

00:53:27 ◼   ► But he's been on, I mean, longer than anybody,

00:53:30 ◼   ► and maybe even close to a decade,

00:53:31 ◼   ► but at least from like 2006, 2007,

00:53:34 ◼   ► on programming as journalism.

00:53:38 ◼   ► Now that the output device for so much journalism

00:53:46 ◼   ► is a computer, that it's not a piece of paper with ink on it

00:53:49 ◼   ► and it's not a TV screen getting something broadcast

00:53:54 ◼   ► to millions of people identically,

00:53:55 ◼   ► that it's this device that can compute,

00:53:58 ◼   ► that it's almost criminal not to take advantage of it.

00:54:01 ◼   ► that you can't just hire, or not can't,

00:54:04 ◼   ► but that the way to take advantage of it

00:54:06 ◼   ► is not just to hire programmers to build you a CMS

00:54:10 ◼   ► and then they go away and you just sit there

00:54:12 ◼   ► and type text into it and paste pictures into it,

00:54:16 ◼   ► but that they're a full-time part of the team.

00:54:18 ◼   ► In the same way that a TV studio, a TV news

00:54:22 ◼   ► is always gonna have cameramen,

00:54:23 ◼   ► that a website should always have programmers.

00:54:26 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And that you wouldn't,

00:54:27 ◼   ► the same way that you wouldn't get rid of cameramen

00:54:29 ◼   ► at a TV station, you wouldn't just have them come in

00:54:32 ◼   ► at the beginning and set the cameras up in the studio

00:54:35 ◼   ► and say, here's the angles they should be at.

00:54:36 ◼   ► Now you're on your own, just hit this button

00:54:39 ◼   ► when you want the camera to record.

00:54:41 ◼   ► You wouldn't want it, you don't want to dismiss

00:54:43 ◼   ► the programmers after they've built the system.

00:54:45 ◼   ► - No, and I think like having worked in a few newsrooms now,

00:54:49 ◼   ► in many organizations, there tends to be

00:54:52 ◼   ► a combative relationship between product

00:54:54 ◼   ► and the journalists because sure,

00:54:59 ◼   ► every CMS has flaws.

00:55:00 ◼   ► So if you're just sitting around

00:55:02 ◼   ► and ragging on this crappy CMS,

00:55:05 ◼   ► you're probably not thinking the nicest thoughts

00:55:09 ◼   ► about the people who made it for you.

00:55:11 ◼   ► And often are trashing them.

00:55:14 ◼   ► Whereas if they're sitting next to you

00:55:15 ◼   ► and you are working on stuff together,

00:55:19 ◼   ► it's a really cool opportunity.

00:55:21 ◼   ► It's also made me personally realize

00:55:24 ◼   ► that I need to learn to code too.

00:55:28 ◼   ► I've been programming websites since the mid 90s.

00:55:31 ◼   ► So I've known HTML and later CSS since it was a thing,

00:55:36 ◼   ► but I never took the dive into kind of more advanced stuff.

00:55:42 ◼   ► And now I realize, especially the last six months

00:55:46 ◼   ► working with my friend, Mark Dorison on City Notes,

00:55:50 ◼   ► kind of feeling like a helpless loser,

00:55:52 ◼   ► not being able to help out with building our iOS stuff.

00:55:56 ◼   ► So I know it's gonna take a lot of time,

00:55:59 ◼   ► and it's kind of corny, but in this era,

00:56:02 ◼   ► it feels like coding skills are almost like freedom.

00:56:06 ◼   ► So that's one of the things I'm gonna spend

00:56:09 ◼   ► some of my spare time on now.

00:56:12 ◼   ► I've already started actually.

00:56:13 ◼   ► - I don't wanna abuse the metaphor,

00:56:15 ◼   ► but I'll compare it to camera work again,

00:56:18 ◼   ► where there was a time when it was so comp,

00:56:22 ◼   ► in the film days when you had so much going on

00:56:24 ◼   ► just to take pictures where not many people

00:56:26 ◼   ► learned to take photographs.

00:56:28 ◼   ► But now everybody has cameras with them all the time.

00:56:31 ◼   ► And not that everybody is going to be a pro photographer,

00:56:34 ◼   ► and not that you are going to become a top notch developer,

00:56:37 ◼   ► but it's like you should have-- maybe everybody should

00:56:40 ◼   ► have a basic fluency in it.

00:56:42 ◼   ► Be able to write a little code.

00:56:43 ◼   ► And everybody should learn a little bit

00:56:45 ◼   ► so you can take a decent picture.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Like maybe--

00:56:47 ◼   ► Especially-- oh, yeah.

00:56:49 ◼   ► Well, you're out.

00:56:50 ◼   ► You're a journalist.

00:56:51 ◼   ► You see something.

00:56:52 ◼   ► You should be able to get as good a photograph

00:56:54 ◼   ► as your iPhone is capable of taking.

00:56:57 ◼   ► - I think also the mobile era has a lot to do with it,

00:57:01 ◼   ► at least for me, because back in the day,

00:57:04 ◼   ► I would buy, oh boy, I bought student edition of,

00:57:09 ◼   ► what was it, Code Warrior?

00:57:10 ◼   ► What was the old, and I tried learning that.

00:57:13 ◼   ► I bought books like Learn C on the Macintosh.

00:57:15 ◼   ► - MetroWorks.

00:57:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:57:18 ◼   ► And it never took, I never got past Hello World,

00:57:21 ◼   ► in part because I'd sit there at my desk and think,

00:57:25 ◼   ► well, if I could make a Mac app, what would I make?

00:57:28 ◼   ► I'm not gonna make like an email client

00:57:30 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:57:31 ◼   ► So, and then the web came out,

00:57:33 ◼   ► so I just kind of started goofing around on the web.

00:57:36 ◼   ► But now in the iPhone era,

00:57:38 ◼   ► like I have an unlimited list of cool apps

00:57:41 ◼   ► that I would wanna make.

00:57:42 ◼   ► And so one of the things that has kind of stuck with me

00:57:47 ◼   ► over the last week is I've been starting

00:57:50 ◼   ► to learn JavaScript, just kind of getting my feet wet,

00:57:54 ◼   ► is it's strange and unfortunate that there is no

00:57:58 ◼   ► kind of iPad native programming environment.

00:58:01 ◼   ► And maybe I'm totally missing it,

00:58:03 ◼   ► but I've never heard of one that has any traction

00:58:06 ◼   ► or has any acclaim.

00:58:08 ◼   ► And so I'm like starting with these programming lessons

00:58:13 ◼   ► and I have to sit at my computer at a desk.

00:58:16 ◼   ► It feels weird in this, okay.

00:58:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know about that.

00:58:20 ◼   ► C-O-D-E-A. Definitely worth checking out.

00:58:24 ◼   ► OK, cool.

00:58:25 ◼   ► I forget the one.

00:58:26 ◼   ► This wouldn't be good for you.

00:58:27 ◼   ► It's more for kids.

00:58:28 ◼   ► There's a great one for kids that Jonas has on his iPad.

00:58:31 ◼   ► Oh, cool.

00:58:32 ◼   ► It's less code and a little bit more visual.

00:58:35 ◼   ► Codea is probably the one worth checking out.

00:58:38 ◼   ► People who are out there, send us Twitter.

00:58:41 ◼   ► Hit us up on Twitter.

00:58:43 ◼   ► Yeah, FromDome on Twitter is my Twitter handle.

00:58:46 ◼   ► Let me know what I should be doing.

00:58:48 ◼   ► All right.

00:58:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a good question.

00:58:50 ◼   ► - Any noob tips.

00:58:51 ◼   ► But you know, and this is one of the things

00:58:53 ◼   ► like I cover during the day is the post PC shift,

00:58:58 ◼   ► like I did an article this week at Quartz

00:59:01 ◼   ► about tablet sales are actually on pace

00:59:05 ◼   ► to match PC sales this year, or at least come very close.

00:59:09 ◼   ► And by next year, far surpass them.

00:59:12 ◼   ► But you still can't make a tablet app on a tablet.

00:59:16 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Well, and that's the problem that CODEA ran into,

00:59:19 ◼   ► is that they ran into-- it's out, you get it,

00:59:22 ◼   ► but they've run into a lot of hassle with the App Store

00:59:25 ◼   ► in terms of--

00:59:27 ◼   ► Oh, like the interpreting code or something like that?

00:59:30 ◼   ► Well, I think that they're using JavaScript.

00:59:33 ◼   ► So there's a rule that you're not

00:59:35 ◼   ► supposed to include a third party interpreter.

00:59:38 ◼   ► But if you want to have interpreted code,

00:59:40 ◼   ► you could use WebKit's JavaScript and have at it.

00:59:43 ◼   ► But you can't-- they wanted to have it where you could maybe

00:59:46 ◼   ► like save your sample project and then I could download your sample project and

00:59:51 ◼   ► run it in Kodiya but then all of a sudden that runs afoul of the hey are

00:59:55 ◼   ► you distributing apps right yeah like you make a game in Kodiya and then you

01:00:00 ◼   ► send me the game thing and now I can open it in my copy of Kodiya and I have

01:00:04 ◼   ► a new game running and I didn't get it through the App Store and so that was

01:00:09 ◼   ► like they so I forget all the crazy hoops they have to jump through but it's

01:00:13 ◼   ► It's all worse for the overall experience,

01:00:17 ◼   ► for the benefit of Apple's control overall app distribution.

01:00:22 ◼   ► - And there are constraints,

01:00:25 ◼   ► like typing in stuff on an iPad is kind of annoying still,

01:00:29 ◼   ► and I get it, but it'd be cool if either Apple

01:00:33 ◼   ► or a third party were to come out

01:00:34 ◼   ► with a fairly sophisticated yet iPad designed coding app.

01:00:39 ◼   ► yet

01:00:41 ◼   ► iPad designed coding environment. Yep. Well remember remember I'll do it right remember when we were kids

01:00:47 ◼   ► And we would get magazines with programs in them, right? It would be yeah, you know, here's a program that you know

01:00:54 ◼   ► Here's a simple one. I mean, this is stupid

01:00:55 ◼   ► You could write this in ten lines or you know, three lines of basic, you know, but you know enter your weight on earth

01:01:02 ◼   ► Here's what you weigh on the moon and here's what you would weigh on Jupiter and then you would type it into your you know

01:01:07 ◼   ► your Apple 2 or your TI 99 for a basic and then you'd save it and then you type run the name of the program and

01:01:15 ◼   ► It would run but to duplicate these programs

01:01:17 ◼   ► they were printed in magazines and you'd sit the magazine next to the computer and type them in and

01:01:22 ◼   ► That's how I learned of a lot of HTML actually from the net magazine. It's teaching me like tables and that kind of stuff

01:01:29 ◼   ► you know and it's crazy that when when now that we've invented things like the internet and copy and paste and

01:01:35 ◼   ► downloading and stuff like that, that that's sort of how you have to use Kodiya because

01:01:39 ◼   ► they don't want you to distribute things that you just tap and open and run. And so you're

01:01:46 ◼   ► stuck retyping all this stuff. It's, you know, but anyway, it's worth checking out.

01:01:50 ◼   ► Yep. Yeah. And I remember actually, I think Google made some sort of very simple Android,

01:01:56 ◼   ► you know, like almost drag and drop programming tool, but I don't think it took off and they

01:02:02 ◼   ► probably shut it down.

01:02:03 ◼   ► what that's an interesting point because Android doesn't have the iron-fisted

01:02:09 ◼   ► control over executing code that by design not like it's you know right

01:02:15 ◼   ► this is a weakness this is a difference of opinion you know so you know you

01:02:21 ◼   ► could buy a Nexus and you know stock app you know this is the stock Google

01:02:25 ◼   ► Android device a Nexus whatever the latest phone is and you can go into

01:02:29 ◼   ► settings and say allow, you know, applications from third

01:02:33 ◼   ► parties. And then it'll say, sure, this is, you know, could

01:02:36 ◼   ► open up to security problems, you say, Don't worry, I know

01:02:38 ◼   ► what I'm doing. And then you can install apps from anywhere. And

01:02:42 ◼   ► you, you know, with no developer signing and stuff like that, you

01:02:45 ◼   ► can just install apps on your device. So there's an

01:02:50 ◼   ► opportunity there where they could have something like a sort

01:02:53 ◼   ► of next generation hypercard, right? I mean, that's, that's

01:02:56 ◼   ► what everybody always comes back to is they come back to

01:02:58 ◼   ► hypercard because hypercard and the reason people keep coming

01:03:02 ◼   ► back to hypercard is that hypercard when people you know,

01:03:07 ◼   ► if if if I don't know what the percentage of people who can

01:03:12 ◼   ► program is let's just ballpark and say 5% of people if they

01:03:16 ◼   ► want to can program like an objective see apps probably

01:03:19 ◼   ► lower than that. I would say less than one. Yeah, let's say

01:03:22 ◼   ► all right, let's be more realistic 25% let's say 1% of

01:03:26 ◼   ► people have that that aptitude and it's a combination of ability and desire

01:03:33 ◼   ► because it's so hard and complicated you just can't make yourself do it unless

01:03:37 ◼   ► you're driven to do it and absolutely you know hyper card was a thing where

01:03:43 ◼   ► way more maybe five percent of people who looked at hyper card and had ideas

01:03:48 ◼   ► for a little thing they could program or you know if you click a button this

01:03:52 ◼   ► happens and you could click this button and then you'd have a list of things

01:03:55 ◼   ► that you could drag and drop to rearrange, that there was way more people

01:04:00 ◼   ► who could just look at it, get it, and not in terms of intelligence, I think

01:04:06 ◼   ► entirely, although part of it is clearly intelligence, but it's also that

01:04:11 ◼   ► level of obsession where if it was so much easier to do it and you didn't have

01:04:18 ◼   ► to commit so much and learn at such a low level, you'd be willing to do it.

01:04:23 ◼   ► You'd be willing to try you know a little less abstract

01:04:26 ◼   ► It's not you know a text editor with gibberish in it it. There's a lot more visual

01:04:32 ◼   ► aspects they just removed a lot of friction and

01:04:36 ◼   ► It just and the lack of friction would encourage more people to try it in the same way that digital photography

01:04:42 ◼   ► You know

01:04:44 ◼   ► Ultimately the best pictures we take are they any better than the best pictures that were taken 50

01:04:49 ◼   ► 60 years ago no, but way more pictures are being taken period because there's so much less friction

01:04:56 ◼   ► you just turn on these simple devices and

01:04:58 ◼   ► Exposure is computed automatically

01:05:01 ◼   ► you know the the aperture is computed automatically and

01:05:06 ◼   ► It's friction is removed

01:05:09 ◼   ► And so people do it and that's what hyper card was hyper card was like a point-and-shoot camera for programming

01:05:15 ◼   ► And there's yeah, well, let's get that for iOS

01:05:18 ◼   ► So if Phil Schiller if you're listening, I'll help you out with this. We'll

01:05:22 ◼   ► We'll do it

01:05:24 ◼   ► Yeah

01:05:24 ◼   ► I think and I think people you know if people have tried stuff like that and I think sometimes people maybe get caught up because

01:05:30 ◼   ► They want to boil the ocean all at once and they think well, let's not just do iOS

01:05:33 ◼   ► Let's do iOS and Android and let's have run in web browser too so that anybody you could open it

01:05:38 ◼   ► I say start simple and maybe you know do that down but get do it and have it just run on the iPad

01:05:43 ◼   ► Right and then worry about worry about

01:05:47 ◼   ► Other things next get it running on the iPad and then expand to the iPhone and then think about Android and then you know

01:05:54 ◼   ► But get it running one place at first

01:05:56 ◼   ► anyway, I think Google has an opportunity there to do something Apple couldn't because Google could build a thing like that and

01:06:03 ◼   ► not worry about

01:06:05 ◼   ► The distribution of these you know the in hyper card parlance the stacks right you hyper card was the app and it ran stacks

01:06:13 ◼   ► Whatever you want to call them, but you know that you they could allow people to distribute these things to other Android users

01:06:19 ◼   ► And not they don't care if you're not going through the Play Store anymore

01:06:22 ◼   ► Totally yeah, and I think they started to try it, but then they I don't know what happened with that weird

01:06:30 ◼   ► Thing that they made maybe it was just too simple. I remember

01:06:34 ◼   ► I think it was a typical Google thing where somebody you know some three people built the thing and there was never really anything behind

01:06:39 ◼   ► and they were like, well, ship it, who cares?

01:06:42 ◼   ► And then nobody ever even remembers it anymore.

01:06:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the Mac kind of has that with Automator,

01:06:48 ◼   ► but that's, well, not really,

01:06:50 ◼   ► that's not even close to HyperCard,

01:06:52 ◼   ► but I remember in the early Automator days,

01:06:55 ◼   ► actually my friend ran a site called Automator World,

01:06:59 ◼   ► which was a community of Automator recipes

01:07:04 ◼   ► or whatever they were called, and that was pretty cool.

01:07:06 ◼   ► Automator is cool and AppleScript still remains,

01:07:10 ◼   ► it's alive and well, but it's not thriving.

01:07:13 ◼   ► - Right, no, not at all.

01:07:15 ◼   ► - But there's little signs of health for it.

01:07:19 ◼   ► Like for example, I mean,

01:07:20 ◼   ► the biggest sign of health for AppleScript to me is

01:07:24 ◼   ► that when the new versions of iWork apps came out,

01:07:28 ◼   ► the new pages, numbers and keynote

01:07:33 ◼   ► with this unified file format across iOS and the web

01:07:38 ◼   ► and the Mac apps.

01:07:39 ◼   ► And they took out all these features that were in the Mac

01:07:42 ◼   ► were gone because they solidified the whole platform

01:07:47 ◼   ► on this common denominator of features.

01:07:51 ◼   ► AppleScript was gone.

01:07:52 ◼   ► But in the months since, they've brought it back.

01:07:55 ◼   ► I don't think that they've brought entirely back,

01:07:57 ◼   ► but it's mostly back.

01:07:58 ◼   ► That most of the things you could do in AppleScript

01:08:00 ◼   ► those apps before you can do again. You know it clearly wasn't enough of a priority to

01:08:06 ◼   ► be there in their initial release but it's enough of a priority that they got to it with

01:08:11 ◼   ► before before the end of the year. Yeah that's good. Do you buy into the concept of multi

01:08:18 ◼   ► view you know two apps two up apps on iOS or because I've been playing with that surface.

01:08:28 ◼   ► hold that let me do the third sponsor. Okay, let's combine that with that for iOS combined

01:08:33 ◼   ► with the surface. Okay, great. Third sponsor final sponsor of the show. Great, great company.

01:08:40 ◼   ► Harry's. What does Harry's provide? They provide men's shaving goods. So the team behind Harvey's

01:08:49 ◼   ► is there. I think one of the founders is one of the guys from Warby Parker, the eyeglass

01:08:55 ◼   ► also a sponsor of the show. Same basic idea though, where Warby Parker's thing was why

01:09:00 ◼   ► in the world are prescription eyeglasses so crazy expensive. The team with Harry's is

01:09:06 ◼   ► like why does it cost so much to buy razor blades to shave? Why is this stuff so crazy

01:09:10 ◼   ► expensive? Well, it doesn't have to be. So what they've done is they've gone right to

01:09:16 ◼   ► the source. They even make their own razor blades. They purchased a 93-year-old German

01:09:23 ◼   ► factory that makes precision engineered German engineered razor blades so they're making their

01:09:30 ◼   ► own blades they're not just like white labeling something that they're buying you know from some

01:09:35 ◼   ► abandoned factory or something they're making brand new blades brand new razors to hold them

01:09:40 ◼   ► really cool stylish stuff really good equipment and it gets shipped right to your door they focus

01:09:49 ◼   ► on providing men with a great shaving experience for a fraction of the price of the big name

01:09:54 ◼   ► competitors had. At least half the price of other brand name razor blades. Better product

01:10:00 ◼   ► design, less but better. None of these fancy, you know, no fake chrome and stuff like that,

01:10:05 ◼   ► plastic stuff. You just go take a look at their stuff and you'll see what I mean. It's

01:10:10 ◼   ► classic design, not like the fake good design like you see from the Gillette or the other

01:10:16 ◼   ► companies like that. Easy convenience. You don't have to go to a drugstore where all

01:10:20 ◼   ► the shaving stuff is blocked behind the cabinet because people shoplift it or something like

01:10:24 ◼   ► that. You just order online and it shows up at your door. So you don't have to go out.

01:10:29 ◼   ► I don't want to go out buying stuff like that. Really good. They've sent me a kit when they

01:10:34 ◼   ► first signed on as a sponsor and I've used it. Great stuff. It's good shaving cream,

01:10:40 ◼   ► razor blades great stuff so what do you do how do you take advantage of this

01:10:45 ◼   ► well they have a promo code talk show ta LK SH o W that's the promo code and

01:10:54 ◼   ► here's the offer use that promo code and you save five bucks off your first

01:10:59 ◼   ► purchase now the prices are already low just go to Harry's calm harr y s.com use

01:11:06 ◼   ► Use that promo code and then five bucks off your first purchase and it was already great

01:11:11 ◼   ► prices.

01:11:12 ◼   ► Go there, check it out.

01:11:13 ◼   ► They have a $15 kit that gives you a handle, three sets of blades and shave cream.

01:11:20 ◼   ► That's a great deal.

01:11:21 ◼   ► It's everything you need to get started.

01:11:23 ◼   ► 15 bucks.

01:11:25 ◼   ► And they even have a custom engraving option if you want to get your initials on the razor

01:11:28 ◼   ► or if you want to give it as a gift.

01:11:30 ◼   ► Father's Day is coming up.

01:11:31 ◼   ► God, it seems like a no brainer.

01:11:34 ◼   ► So my thanks to Harry's.

01:11:35 ◼   ► Go to harrys.com and remember the promo code talk show.

01:11:39 ◼   ► No the, just talk show.

01:11:41 ◼   ► So my thanks to them.

01:11:44 ◼   ► - The other Harry's guy, the non Warby Parker guy,

01:11:49 ◼   ► is an old friend of mine.

01:11:50 ◼   ► - Oh really?

01:11:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, his wife married me.

01:11:54 ◼   ► Not married me, she officiated our wedding.

01:11:56 ◼   ► - There is a big difference.

01:12:00 ◼   ► - There is a big difference, yeah.

01:12:01 ◼   ► He was there too, it was cool.

01:12:02 ◼   ► - Well, that's actually, you know,

01:12:04 ◼   ► That's not like, hey, I met him the one time.

01:12:06 ◼   ► That's actually like the guy was there

01:12:07 ◼   ► for an important person in your life.

01:12:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, he's a good guy.

01:12:11 ◼   ► That's a really neat company that is

01:12:15 ◼   ► smartly vertically integrated, much like Warby Parker

01:12:20 ◼   ► and a massive industry full of a bunch of clowns.

01:12:24 ◼   ► So I hope they do really well.

01:12:26 ◼   ► - I love all these stories of people

01:12:29 ◼   ► who are getting into hardware of any kind.

01:12:31 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

01:12:32 ◼   ► And and I feel like there's so many opportunity

01:12:35 ◼   ► You know, we are our whole generation

01:12:37 ◼   ► We were all digital for so long and the web was such an eye-opener and we all built websites and spent

01:12:42 ◼   ► You know first decade two decades of our professional careers shipping ones and zeros and it was awesome

01:12:48 ◼   ► And I still you know, everything I do is still mostly ones and zeros right vespers digital

01:12:53 ◼   ► Daring fireballs digital even the show is digital

01:12:58 ◼   ► Although not entirely and I'll get back to that

01:13:02 ◼   ► But I just love these people who are taking the same sort of,

01:13:07 ◼   ► let's just stay lean and mean and vertically integrated

01:13:11 ◼   ► and not have the waste of like a Proctor and Gamble

01:13:14 ◼   ► gazillion headcount conglomerate behind it.

01:13:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, let's take this thing and let's just do it right.

01:13:24 ◼   ► Let's start without all the baggage and do it right.

01:13:28 ◼   ► and ultimately it ends up being cheaper for the consumer

01:13:33 ◼   ► and in many cases better.

01:13:35 ◼   ► - I feel like it's like something

01:13:37 ◼   ► that nobody really imagined,

01:13:39 ◼   ► but like to me going down the consumer aisles

01:13:43 ◼   ► and like a drug store or like a Target

01:13:46 ◼   ► if you're in the like shopping for deodorant

01:13:48 ◼   ► or toothpaste or shaving cream or something like that,

01:13:51 ◼   ► like 40 or 50 years ago,

01:13:53 ◼   ► it would look like something out of science fiction,

01:13:55 ◼   ► like the way that when you go to buy Crest,

01:13:57 ◼   ► you have to choose between literally like 12 or 15 kinds of crest.

01:14:02 ◼   ► You know, that used to, you know,

01:14:04 ◼   ► used to be you'd switch between crest and Colgate, right.

01:14:07 ◼   ► And they were the rivals and then like they've,

01:14:09 ◼   ► they've gotten into this race to take up shelf space and the only way they'll

01:14:13 ◼   ► get the shelf space is if they have a bunch of varieties.

01:14:16 ◼   ► So they have like 20 each other own aisle at this point. Yeah.

01:14:19 ◼   ► 20 different kinds of crest to choose from or, or ed shaving gel. There's,

01:14:24 ◼   ► there's 17 kinds of it. And like, I mean,

01:14:27 ◼   ► I don't know which one to get. I mean, I'm not an expert on it

01:14:29 ◼   ► Like I like these startups that are you know, it's like here look here's good shave cream. Here it is. Yeah Harry's

01:14:35 ◼   ► Yeah, there's one flavor. Yeah, here it is and it's good. Here it is it and that's it

01:14:40 ◼   ► Yeah, I love it

01:14:44 ◼   ► Anyway, I mean it I know they're a sponsor

01:14:47 ◼   ► I am literally getting paid to tell you to go check them out

01:14:49 ◼   ► But I mean it there it's it's what I love about the show and doing this and getting these sponsors like this

01:14:54 ◼   ► is that to me they're doing fascinating and great work.

01:14:57 ◼   ► - But that's actually, and not to plug your show,

01:15:00 ◼   ► but that's part of doing that right

01:15:03 ◼   ► is actually being in the right place

01:15:05 ◼   ► to promote your company.

01:15:07 ◼   ► Procter & Gamble, to my knowledge,

01:15:10 ◼   ► is not sponsoring tech podcasts,

01:15:13 ◼   ► but if you wanted to reach the types of people

01:15:16 ◼   ► that load up Amazon and drop 100 bucks on nonsense,

01:15:19 ◼   ► that would be a good place to start.

01:15:22 ◼   ► - Okay, tablets.

01:15:25 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:15:26 ◼   ► - So you were at the Surface announcement?

01:15:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was very strange.

01:15:32 ◼   ► It was like one of the first emails I got

01:15:34 ◼   ► to my new Quartz address was,

01:15:35 ◼   ► "Hey, do you wanna come to this Surface thing next week?"

01:15:38 ◼   ► And I said, "Yeah, sure."

01:15:40 ◼   ► And I didn't even know what it was.

01:15:42 ◼   ► I thought, I had no idea.

01:15:44 ◼   ► I didn't realize it was the unveiling of a new Surface.

01:15:48 ◼   ► I didn't realize that.

01:15:49 ◼   ► - 'Cause you're not as tuned into that world

01:15:51 ◼   ► as you are the Apple world where--

01:15:53 ◼   ► - No, right.

01:15:54 ◼   ► - And they're not on that regular schedule

01:15:56 ◼   ► that Apple has, right?

01:15:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's in New York, and it's Tuesday, I don't know.

01:16:01 ◼   ► So I just wasn't expecting that.

01:16:03 ◼   ► And then I showed up and they're like,

01:16:04 ◼   ► "Here's the new Surface, and here's one to take with you."

01:16:08 ◼   ► And it was interesting.

01:16:10 ◼   ► - So they did give you one to take with you?

01:16:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have one, it's in my desk at the office.

01:16:16 ◼   ► I don't have it here in front of me, but it was,

01:16:20 ◼   ► And Satya Nadella, the new CEO of Microsoft was there.

01:16:24 ◼   ► He kicked off the event.

01:16:26 ◼   ► And what he said sounded good actually, which was,

01:16:30 ◼   ► I had seen Balmer and Gates speak a few times

01:16:33 ◼   ► at various things.

01:16:34 ◼   ► And it always seemed like a lot of puffed up

01:16:37 ◼   ► kind of corporate speak.

01:16:39 ◼   ► And Satya actually sounded more human.

01:16:42 ◼   ► And what he said was smart,

01:16:45 ◼   ► that they're making these devices

01:16:46 ◼   ► and that every single product has to fit

01:16:49 ◼   ► into their cloud strategy and all this stuff.

01:16:52 ◼   ► And then the guy who came on and kind of demoed

01:16:55 ◼   ► the hardware was kind of a bozo

01:16:56 ◼   ► and they were making all these really stupid jokes

01:17:00 ◼   ► about Joanna Stern, the new Wall Street Journal reviewer.

01:17:04 ◼   ► I don't know if you watched the video.

01:17:05 ◼   ► It was just really awkward and not funny at all.

01:17:08 ◼   ► - I didn't watch the video,

01:17:10 ◼   ► but I was following along on Twitter

01:17:13 ◼   ► and I got the gist that they were referencing Joanna a lot.

01:17:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it was kind of funny the first time,

01:17:20 ◼   ► but then they did it like four more times.

01:17:23 ◼   ► Can you imagine like, you know,

01:17:25 ◼   ► Phil Schiller stopping an Apple keynote four times

01:17:29 ◼   ► to rib Walt Mossberg about something?

01:17:32 ◼   ► - Right, or me, right, what if he did it to me, right?

01:17:35 ◼   ► - Hey, John, remember that post you wrote?

01:17:37 ◼   ► - Right.

01:17:37 ◼   ► - And maybe once, it's kind of funny.

01:17:39 ◼   ► - Well, and I guess it's because Joanna,

01:17:42 ◼   ► she was just on the show a couple months ago,

01:17:45 ◼   ► but talking about these issues with tablets

01:17:47 ◼   ► laptops and kin tablets. It was right after she had done I'm

01:17:50 ◼   ► sure this is why they referenced her is that she's done. She's

01:17:53 ◼   ► been on this beat for a couple of years now of, you know,

01:17:57 ◼   ► what's the ideal form factor for like a one and a half one to two

01:18:01 ◼   ► pound portable computer that you're going to do real work on?

01:18:04 ◼   ► Is it a tablet? If so, how do you put it in a lab? How do you

01:18:07 ◼   ► get a keyboard? How do you type fast? If it's not if it's a

01:18:09 ◼   ► laptop, you know, does it have a touchscreen? What what where's

01:18:12 ◼   ► this going? She's written a lot about it. And she's done. I it's

01:18:16 ◼   ► fantastic work reviewing a wide variety of stuff.

01:18:19 ◼   ► So I'm sure that's why--

01:18:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think she came from reviewing laptops.

01:18:24 ◼   ► So she has probably, if not the best,

01:18:27 ◼   ► one of the best kind of histories in her brain

01:18:31 ◼   ► of the evolution of these devices.

01:18:33 ◼   ► So it makes sense that they would reference her

01:18:36 ◼   ► during a keynote, I suppose once.

01:18:38 ◼   ► But then, I don't know, it was very--

01:18:42 ◼   ► - Weird.

01:18:43 ◼   ► - I think I tweeted something like,

01:18:44 ◼   ► "Microsoft, you're still so Microsoft,"

01:18:46 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:18:47 ◼   ► - Right, and she was there.

01:18:48 ◼   ► - She was there in the front row,

01:18:49 ◼   ► and she was curious why she was in the front row,

01:18:53 ◼   ► and then she found out why.

01:18:54 ◼   ► It's 'cause she was part of the play.

01:18:57 ◼   ► - She went to take a regular seat in the middle,

01:18:59 ◼   ► and they're like, "No, no, no."

01:19:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

01:19:01 ◼   ► - Down in front, Joanna.

01:19:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, so some of the stuff they did

01:19:04 ◼   ► was actually kind of funny.

01:19:05 ◼   ► They made a kind of self-deprecating comment

01:19:09 ◼   ► about how everybody in the audience

01:19:10 ◼   ► was typing on a MacBook Air,

01:19:13 ◼   ► But then, I don't know, then I kind of dragged along

01:19:18 ◼   ► and then I grabbed my Surface and got out of there.

01:19:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's funny.

01:19:24 ◼   ► That's like an interesting,

01:19:25 ◼   ► and I definitely noticed that they made a joke

01:19:29 ◼   ► about the fact that the MacBook Air is like stock issue

01:19:34 ◼   ► for mid, I don't know what we call this decade, the 10s.

01:19:39 ◼   ► In the 10s, tech journalists have MacBook Airs.

01:19:42 ◼   ► It's just ridiculous what percentage.

01:19:47 ◼   ► And most of my press events are Apple events,

01:19:50 ◼   ► but even at like Build, when I was at Build,

01:19:52 ◼   ► in the press room, not everybody,

01:19:55 ◼   ► and clearly there's a lot of Windows devices

01:19:56 ◼   ► in the Build press room,

01:19:58 ◼   ► but there was a crazy amount of MacBook Airs too.

01:20:01 ◼   ► - Crazy, yeah.

01:20:02 ◼   ► And at this thing, it was pretty much all Macs.

01:20:04 ◼   ► I rarely see Windows PCs in my life,

01:20:10 ◼   ► which is kind of funny, but good life, I guess.

01:20:13 ◼   ► - The thing to remember is that journalists,

01:20:16 ◼   ► most of them are on a tight deadline.

01:20:19 ◼   ► They've got to file, if they're there today

01:20:22 ◼   ► to cover the Microsoft Surface event,

01:20:24 ◼   ► they've got to have something ready to go

01:20:27 ◼   ► pretty soon after the end.

01:20:29 ◼   ► And a lot of people now, most sites now,

01:20:31 ◼   ► they're taking photos and they're putting photos in,

01:20:33 ◼   ► and it's more than just typing in a text area field

01:20:37 ◼   ► and hitting a button.

01:20:37 ◼   ► There's a CMS production system,

01:20:40 ◼   ► And you kind of need your--

01:20:42 ◼   ► I don't test that many devices, but a lot of people do.

01:20:48 ◼   ► But in terms of actually doing the work of covering the event,

01:20:51 ◼   ► you want your go-to trustee, this is my main thing.

01:20:55 ◼   ► And it's got all the apps I need to get into the CMS

01:20:59 ◼   ► to format this the way I want it formatted,

01:21:03 ◼   ► to get the photos into where the photos go in the CMS

01:21:06 ◼   ► so I can put them in the article and all this.

01:21:08 ◼   ► And for most of the people working today,

01:21:10 ◼   ► it's a MacBook Air.

01:21:12 ◼   ► - Totally, and especially if you're carrying it around,

01:21:15 ◼   ► the Air is an amazing portable computer.

01:21:20 ◼   ► So then, Microsoft's argument seems to be

01:21:25 ◼   ► that a tablet with a keyboard is better than a laptop.

01:21:31 ◼   ► Because, and then they have different,

01:21:35 ◼   ► One was that it's lighter than a MacBook Air,

01:21:38 ◼   ► which I don't, when you put that big keyboard thing

01:21:42 ◼   ► on there, I don't think it's lighter.

01:21:44 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:21:45 ◼   ► - Well, their comparison, and this is, to me,

01:21:48 ◼   ► everybody called this out, is that their weight comparison

01:21:51 ◼   ► was the uncovered surface compared to the MacBook Air,

01:21:56 ◼   ► which has an attached cover.

01:21:58 ◼   ► And if--

01:21:59 ◼   ► - The 13-inch, six-year-old MacBook Air,

01:22:03 ◼   ► versus the brand new uncovered 12 inch surface.

01:22:08 ◼   ► - Well, the fact that the design is six years old,

01:22:10 ◼   ► doesn't, that's fair game.

01:22:14 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I mean, it's still shipping, so.

01:22:16 ◼   ► - Right, and they just came out with new ones last month.

01:22:18 ◼   ► - Right. - That's fair game, but,

01:22:20 ◼   ► it just doesn't seem like a fair comparison to say,

01:22:25 ◼   ► here's this device where a big part of it

01:22:28 ◼   ► is that we've built this great cover with a keyboard

01:22:31 ◼   ► and a great, much improved over last year's trackpad.

01:22:34 ◼   ► And then when we compare it to this device

01:22:36 ◼   ► that has a built-in keyboard and trackpad,

01:22:37 ◼   ► we're not gonna put the cover on

01:22:39 ◼   ► when we talk about the weight.

01:22:41 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, so that's, I mean,

01:22:43 ◼   ► and that's also the kind of thing like,

01:22:44 ◼   ► okay, but in your backpack with a few other things,

01:22:47 ◼   ► there's really, in use, I will say,

01:22:49 ◼   ► there's no noticeable difference in, you know,

01:22:53 ◼   ► how light one of those things feels next to the other one.

01:22:56 ◼   ► And that's not even really the point.

01:22:58 ◼   ► Like weight is not really the deciding factor in this.

01:23:02 ◼   ► It's is this better for,

01:23:05 ◼   ► and I guess they're straight up just going after people

01:23:08 ◼   ► who are using this for work.

01:23:10 ◼   ► Like if you're the kind of person

01:23:12 ◼   ► who is doing work on a laptop,

01:23:14 ◼   ► which is really the only thing I use my laptop now for

01:23:17 ◼   ► is straight up work,

01:23:19 ◼   ► is a tablet with a keyboard better.

01:23:21 ◼   ► And it's still, to me, it just felt off.

01:23:25 ◼   ► And I haven't used it much and I really should use it more.

01:23:28 ◼   ► but the idea of balancing this heavy screen

01:23:32 ◼   ► and with this lighter keyboard

01:23:34 ◼   ► that's kind of attached to it, but not very rigid

01:23:38 ◼   ► just seems very awkward.

01:23:40 ◼   ► I just, I would always rather have a laptop.

01:23:44 ◼   ► And then, you know, for the stuff that I use

01:23:46 ◼   ► a touch tablet for, have a separate tablet that is,

01:23:51 ◼   ► you know, really designed for that.

01:23:54 ◼   ► and hardware and software and size

01:23:58 ◼   ► and all that sort of stuff.

01:23:59 ◼   ► - For weight to really matter,

01:24:01 ◼   ► it has to be like a next level.

01:24:05 ◼   ► I mean, it's all a little arbitrary,

01:24:07 ◼   ► but it's gotta be like,

01:24:09 ◼   ► hey, this is actually like a game changer.

01:24:11 ◼   ► And an example I'll bring up is the MacBook Air.

01:24:15 ◼   ► - Totally.

01:24:16 ◼   ► - Where a year ago when it was the iPad 3 and then the 4,

01:24:20 ◼   ► and these were the,

01:24:21 ◼   ► the Retina iPad still had the full bezel around the whole size.

01:24:25 ◼   ► It doesn't matter.

01:24:26 ◼   ► They were the same weight, the three and the four.

01:24:28 ◼   ► Versus the first generation iPad Mini, it was like, "Wow, this one has...

01:24:35 ◼   ► It's a lot faster and has a beautiful retina to screen, but man, it's so much heavier than

01:24:40 ◼   ► the Mini, which doesn't have a retina screen and it's using year-old system on a chip,

01:24:47 ◼   ► but man, is it light."

01:24:48 ◼   ► And it just seemed like a real easy, easier decision.

01:24:53 ◼   ► You want to go lightweight and easier to carry around or do you want to go beautiful screen,

01:24:58 ◼   ► little bit heavier.

01:24:59 ◼   ► Whereas this year with the Air, it was so much lighter.

01:25:02 ◼   ► Like everybody who was at the original press event, you know, last October for the iPad,

01:25:09 ◼   ► everybody was like, "Geez, I don't know how to decide which one of these to get now because

01:25:13 ◼   ► the Air is so much lighter."

01:25:15 ◼   ► The whole reason I wanted a Mini in the first place

01:25:17 ◼   ► was it was easy to hold in one hand,

01:25:19 ◼   ► but this is easy to hold in one hand.

01:25:21 ◼   ► 'Cause it was so much lighter than what it came before.

01:25:23 ◼   ► The Surface Pro is not like that.

01:25:25 ◼   ► The Surface Pro is over a pound.

01:25:26 ◼   ► So it's, you know, it's not heavy.

01:25:29 ◼   ► - And it's thick, it's not, it's not, and that's fine.

01:25:33 ◼   ► I mean, it's, you know, I guess it's thinner than a laptop

01:25:37 ◼   ► and maybe a little lighter than one,

01:25:39 ◼   ► but it's not the difference between,

01:25:41 ◼   ► to me the best example is still actually

01:25:44 ◼   ► the MacBook Air versus my old plastic MacBook,

01:25:48 ◼   ► which was so heavy that I dreaded carrying it around.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Whereas the minute I got the 13-inch MacBook Air,

01:25:55 ◼   ► it was the first computer I'd ever owned

01:25:57 ◼   ► that I'm happy just to take anywhere.

01:25:59 ◼   ► It never is annoying to carry it around.

01:26:02 ◼   ► And there were other benefits too,

01:26:04 ◼   ► like the battery life and that kind of stuff.

01:26:06 ◼   ► But this, so the surface is not like that.

01:26:10 ◼   ► And I don't know, again, I should use it more

01:26:14 ◼   ► and I'm not a Windows guy,

01:26:15 ◼   ► so the OS is kind of foreign to me still.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Although I did pop open Twitter

01:26:22 ◼   ► and Internet Explorer side by side,

01:26:25 ◼   ► and that was actually pretty cool.

01:26:26 ◼   ► Like I would totally--

01:26:27 ◼   ► - So how does, what is the interface

01:26:29 ◼   ► for putting two apps side by side

01:26:32 ◼   ► instead of taking over the full screen?

01:26:35 ◼   ► - I'm sure there is a way to do it

01:26:37 ◼   ► that is the actual way to do it,

01:26:39 ◼   ► but in my case it was poke around

01:26:41 ◼   ► until it happened by accident.

01:26:44 ◼   ► It's some secret gesture like swiping in from one of the sides or something like that, which,

01:26:48 ◼   ► again, I'm sure there's an actual right way to do it.

01:26:51 ◼   ► I just haven't figured that out yet.

01:26:53 ◼   ► So...

01:26:54 ◼   ► See, that's my...

01:26:55 ◼   ► And you asked, and I wrote about this this week, is that I'm not opposed to it.

01:27:00 ◼   ► I got some pushback, but I wrote something.

01:27:03 ◼   ► I was like, "To put it in Randzian terms, to steal Michael Lop's Twitter schtick, you

01:27:09 ◼   ► I want to run two apps side by side on my iPad and I hear I want

01:27:15 ◼   ► The iPad to become more complicated

01:27:18 ◼   ► Right, and that doesn't mean that I think that they shouldn't do it or that they're not going to do it

01:27:23 ◼   ► But all I want to shine a light on is that if they do it no matter how clever it is

01:27:29 ◼   ► It will therefore make the iPad more complicated than it was before maybe justly so maybe it's a good decision

01:27:36 ◼   ► You know when when when the iPhone couldn't copy and paste when you couldn't select text and copy and paste

01:27:42 ◼   ► Adding

01:27:44 ◼   ► That made the iPhone more complicated and I think everybody would agree

01:27:50 ◼   ► It was complication for the better. Yes, it's more complicated, but it's better now because it's just so essential

01:27:57 ◼   ► Maybe Apple will come up with something for side-by-side apps that we'll look at the same way and it'll work for everybody

01:28:03 ◼   ► But to me, I think about it as a UI designer and I can't think of anything that really is

01:28:08 ◼   ► Approachable that most people would use it to me

01:28:15 ◼   ► the only things I can think of are something where you double tap the home button to go into the multitasking thing and then

01:28:22 ◼   ► drag

01:28:24 ◼   ► drag those little window versions that you see in the

01:28:28 ◼   ► Multitasking somehow drag two of them together and they yeah, and I just thought of that too independently. So maybe we're onto something there

01:28:34 ◼   ► Yeah, but I would I'm gonna go out in a limb and say it's only gonna work for apps that explicitly support it because it's a

01:28:41 ◼   ► New yeah

01:28:41 ◼   ► Half the screen is gonna be a new

01:28:43 ◼   ► Pick and what if it's an app that you ran a long time ago the other one that you want on there, right?

01:28:48 ◼   ► And it's not up to find it, right?

01:28:50 ◼   ► How are they gonna tell you how are they gonna suggest to you that this app is you can select it?

01:28:56 ◼   ► - Ah, yeah.

01:28:57 ◼   ► - You know, I don't know.

01:28:57 ◼   ► Turn the other ones black and white, I don't know.

01:29:00 ◼   ► Have them bounce.

01:29:01 ◼   ► It's a complicated, complex question, UI design wise.

01:29:05 ◼   ► - I mean, it's kind of like how you join phone calls

01:29:09 ◼   ► that are in session.

01:29:10 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:29:10 ◼   ► - You can either put one on hold, start another one,

01:29:13 ◼   ► and then join the two of those,

01:29:15 ◼   ► or you can put one on hold and create a new one

01:29:18 ◼   ► and then join them.

01:29:19 ◼   ► But it's not that simple because that's just kind of

01:29:22 ◼   ► audio running in the background, whereas this is--

01:29:25 ◼   ► If it takes three or four taps to get two of them together,

01:29:29 ◼   ► you don't wanna have it completely undone

01:29:31 ◼   ► by just hitting the home button once to do something else.

01:29:34 ◼   ► Right?

01:29:35 ◼   ► If you've set this up and it's taken three or four taps

01:29:38 ◼   ► and you've got your Twitter client running next to Safari.

01:29:41 ◼   ► And oh, I gotta check--

01:29:43 ◼   ► - Which is like my ideal like living room setup.

01:29:46 ◼   ► - Right, but I quick wanna check my email

01:29:49 ◼   ► because there's a thing I wanna copy and paste

01:29:51 ◼   ► from the email to put into Safari

01:29:53 ◼   ► and then you hit the home button.

01:29:54 ◼   ► You don't wanna have to rebuild that Twitter thing.

01:29:57 ◼   ► You wanna be able to somehow go back to it.

01:29:59 ◼   ► And I don't know what that is

01:30:00 ◼   ► because the only thing you can go back to

01:30:02 ◼   ► in iOS as we know it is an app.

01:30:05 ◼   ► - Right, and on the surface, if I recall correctly,

01:30:08 ◼   ► the way that that works is that it basically starts

01:30:10 ◼   ► a third window and you can then decide

01:30:13 ◼   ► where that third window goes, if anywhere.

01:30:16 ◼   ► I don't have it in front of me,

01:30:17 ◼   ► so maybe that's a false memory,

01:30:19 ◼   ► but that's what it seemed like.

01:30:21 ◼   ► So, I know Mark Gurman said they're working on it,

01:30:24 ◼   ► although he did not say that they're doing it for sure.

01:30:27 ◼   ► It seems to me like he doesn't even have that much stuff

01:30:30 ◼   ► this year in terms of what's for sure

01:30:32 ◼   ► other than like the health book thing.

01:30:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:30:35 ◼   ► - So I wouldn't be surprised.

01:30:36 ◼   ► I wouldn't like to bet on that.

01:30:37 ◼   ► I wouldn't bet on seeing that next week.

01:30:40 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I mean, I would like it if it were elegant.

01:30:43 ◼   ► Twitter on the iPad is the same with column

01:30:51 ◼   ► That it should be on a phone and then it's taking up the rest of the screen

01:30:55 ◼   ► So it'd be really cool to have Twitter as like a side

01:30:58 ◼   ► bar while I'm you know, whatever using Safari or

01:31:02 ◼   ► Email or anything like that

01:31:05 ◼   ► But as you say they'll have to do it in a way that that is elegant and makes sense

01:31:09 ◼   ► Otherwise they're messing with their clean OS

01:31:13 ◼   ► other thing that they would be messing with and

01:31:16 ◼   ► Gurman acknowledged this in his report where he's like I don't even I don't know and there's no word on whether it would be for

01:31:21 ◼   ► The full-size iPad air only or for the iPad mini too

01:31:24 ◼   ► But the thing is is just in terms of the physical just physical size

01:31:28 ◼   ► Half of the iPad mini screen is not a lot of screen

01:31:31 ◼   ► Yeah, but in terms of pixels, it's the same as an air, isn't it? No, I don't know. Yeah

01:31:38 ◼   ► Yeah in terms of pixels is the same but now you're talking about a lot a very small physical space and yet date

01:31:45 ◼   ► The the OS is exactly the same pixel for pixel is exactly the same between the two

01:31:50 ◼   ► There's nothing you can do on the one on the air that you can't do on the other just because it's bigger

01:31:54 ◼   ► Everything is the pixel for pixel the same right? I can't help

01:31:57 ◼   ► I think that if you're gonna split it in half, it may not work out as well

01:32:01 ◼   ► Yeah, that would be an interesting thing to do some some mock-ups of I mean and that was the most compelling thing to me about

01:32:07 ◼   ► That surface is wow. This is what a 12-inch touchscreen feels like this is kind of cool

01:32:13 ◼   ► Like I could see a big iPad,

01:32:17 ◼   ► but that was kind of the angle of my piece about this was,

01:32:19 ◼   ► hey, I could actually see a big iPad being useful.

01:32:21 ◼   ► Like my kind of dream setup now would be a big iPad

01:32:26 ◼   ► that I don't really take places.

01:32:28 ◼   ► And then a big iPhone that kind of replaces my small iPad.

01:32:32 ◼   ► But now I'm just fantasy designing Apple hardware,

01:32:37 ◼   ► which is not something that I'm probably supposed

01:32:41 ◼   ► to be doing.

01:32:42 ◼   ► But I'm excited for it though. I mean just in terms of if it does come out, I can't help

01:32:47 ◼   ► but think that the only, if it is going to come out, that they've got something really

01:32:51 ◼   ► thoughtfully designed. Because I don't think they're under any market pressure to do it.

01:32:55 ◼   ► No. Right? So Microsoft has been banging the drum for this sort of not technical multitasking,

01:33:03 ◼   ► not computer science two processes running on the same operating system at the same time,

01:33:09 ◼   ► But visual multitasking, two things on screen at the same time.

01:33:14 ◼   ► Twitter and a YouTube video or your email and a web browser on screen at the same time.

01:33:21 ◼   ► Yeah, or for my work, a web browser and Excel or something like that.

01:33:25 ◼   ► So I could get data and spreadsheet it at the same time.

01:33:29 ◼   ► Right, and it certainly hasn't.

01:33:30 ◼   ► Microsoft having gotten to it first two years ago, I guess, or a year and a half ago,

01:33:35 ◼   ► hasn't really helped them make a dent, put a dent in the tablet market. So it's not like Apple's

01:33:40 ◼   ► under market pressure to do so in the same way that they seem to be under market pressure to

01:33:47 ◼   ► come out with a bigger iPhone. Right. And that is, you know, that there are people who are buying

01:33:53 ◼   ► other brand phones because they want a bigger phone. You know, how big of that market, you know,

01:33:59 ◼   ► how many people there are you could argue about,

01:34:01 ◼   ► but it's inarguable that it's a number worth caring about.

01:34:06 ◼   ► - Totally, yeah.

01:34:07 ◼   ► - Whereas I don't see that

01:34:09 ◼   ► for this multitasking on tablets.

01:34:10 ◼   ► To me, they're not gonna do it

01:34:13 ◼   ► unless they have something clever.

01:34:14 ◼   ► So I'm excited because if they show it,

01:34:16 ◼   ► I feel like we're gonna see something pretty interesting.

01:34:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hope so.

01:34:21 ◼   ► And one of the things I was thinking about then is,

01:34:24 ◼   ► and as you mentioned,

01:34:26 ◼   ► Microsoft has not caught any traction with tablets

01:34:31 ◼   ► or phones.

01:34:32 ◼   ► I wonder if they should make a laptop

01:34:35 ◼   ► or is that too competitive with all their partners?

01:34:39 ◼   ► - I don't know how is it.

01:34:41 ◼   ► To me, they've already broken the seal.

01:34:43 ◼   ► - I think they kind of have, haven't they?

01:34:44 ◼   ► - But see, here's the thing I think though,

01:34:46 ◼   ► and this is what I took away from the coverage last week

01:34:49 ◼   ► and your piece in particular is that to me,

01:34:53 ◼   ► Seems like what they were saying at last week's event is that they think this is the future of the laptop right a tablet

01:35:00 ◼   ► That attached, you know, you know, the screen part is a tablet and the keyboard part to detaches

01:35:07 ◼   ► yeah, and it's a cover and

01:35:09 ◼   ► To me that's why they kept bringing up the MacBook Air or not Mac

01:35:14 ◼   ► Yeah MacBook Air not the iPad that they weren't talking about iPads

01:35:17 ◼   ► Really they were talking about the MacBook Air that they're saying if you want to do work

01:35:21 ◼   ► This is the form factor, you know and like the way I put it is that they're saying this tablet form factor

01:35:27 ◼   ► Isn't just for iOS type devices media

01:35:30 ◼   ► Simplified well and not just media stuff but simplified one thing at a time a

01:35:35 ◼   ► Simple system that anybody can kind of get the gist of you know, you you tap an app

01:35:41 ◼   ► You're in the app you tap home you go back to your apps and that's it

01:35:44 ◼   ► They're saying this form factor is useful for more complicated systems like Windows

01:35:51 ◼   ► Or you know in theory now Microsoft isn't saying it but in theory that they're there they're by implication

01:35:57 ◼   ► They're saying that Apple is wrong

01:36:00 ◼   ► Not to be doing a Mac OS device in this form factor. Yeah, and that this is your next laptop. It's this

01:36:07 ◼   ► Tablet right that Apple Apple's stance is that the form factors are tied to the complexities of the systems

01:36:15 ◼   ► That the simple tablet form factor is meant for the simple iOS

01:36:21 ◼   ► interface and that the more complicated MacBook form factor with the attached

01:36:27 ◼   ► keyboard and a trackpad and this layer of abstraction between the trackpad and

01:36:32 ◼   ► the pointer on screen is inherently suited to the more complex OS Mac OS.

01:36:37 ◼   ► Yeah. And Microsoft is saying that I you know that to me is what I took away from

01:36:41 ◼   ► it is they're saying no this form factor is the future of portable computing for

01:36:46 ◼   ► any level of complexity. Yeah and then well the trick the trouble I had with

01:36:50 ◼   ► that was that the minute they got into anything

01:36:53 ◼   ► rather complicated,

01:36:55 ◼   ► immediately the stylus came out and the keyboard.

01:36:57 ◼   ► So is that better than just a keyboard

01:37:02 ◼   ► that's not a touchscreen?

01:37:05 ◼   ► I suppose for some applications it is,

01:37:08 ◼   ► like you linked to the people drawing on it

01:37:11 ◼   ► and that kind of stuff.

01:37:12 ◼   ► I don't know if that's better

01:37:16 ◼   ► than a purpose designed drawing tablet,

01:37:20 ◼   ► like one of the Wacom, Wacom, whatever they're called.

01:37:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, long term though,

01:37:24 ◼   ► what I've always thought about with that,

01:37:26 ◼   ► and yeah, Wacom and I forget who else,

01:37:28 ◼   ► and apparently the Surface is really good for this.

01:37:32 ◼   ► I think it's Gabe, the Penny Arcade guy who's the artist,

01:37:35 ◼   ► who's been using one for a while,

01:37:36 ◼   ► and he has got the Surface Pro 3 right away

01:37:39 ◼   ► and says it's really good for precision drawing

01:37:43 ◼   ► in a way that the iPad screens are not precise like that.

01:37:48 ◼   ► But there's nothing that stops Apple

01:37:50 ◼   ► from eventually making an iPad that has a screen

01:37:53 ◼   ► that is that precise.

01:37:55 ◼   ► And I don't think they'll ever ship with a stylus,

01:37:58 ◼   ► but they could make one

01:38:00 ◼   ► that you could get a third party stylus

01:38:02 ◼   ► that would have professional level precision.

01:38:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I actually bought a Kickstarter stylus

01:38:08 ◼   ► that was the most precise iPad stylus I've seen so far.

01:38:13 ◼   ► Very small tip.

01:38:15 ◼   ► And it's all right,

01:38:16 ◼   ► but I just don't really have any use for it.

01:38:18 ◼   ► I never use it, but--

01:38:20 ◼   ► - Syntec, is that the other one?

01:38:23 ◼   ► It's like a, I think the Pixar people use.

01:38:26 ◼   ► - I don't remember.

01:38:27 ◼   ► Oh, cool.

01:38:28 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's, I don't know.

01:38:30 ◼   ► I'm not sold on that.

01:38:33 ◼   ► I'm not sold.

01:38:34 ◼   ► And I'm sure there, my guess is that this will be

01:38:39 ◼   ► the most successful tablet PC ever made

01:38:43 ◼   ► because that's basically saying that more than 20 people

01:38:47 ◼   ► but when I think about writing a lot

01:38:52 ◼   ► or building a document in a spreadsheet program

01:38:57 ◼   ► or doing graphic manipulation,

01:39:01 ◼   ► I'm still much happier with a keyboard

01:39:04 ◼   ► and a real trackpad than what they're shipping.

01:39:09 ◼   ► That's not to say that they can't keep improving it,

01:39:12 ◼   ► but it just like that,

01:39:14 ◼   ► that keyboard still feels like a cheapo add-on keyboard

01:39:18 ◼   ► relative to the real rigid kind of bottom half

01:39:23 ◼   ► of a good laptop.

01:39:25 ◼   ► - Let me just stop right here

01:39:26 ◼   ► and cut off all the people

01:39:27 ◼   ► who are probably already halfway through emailing me.

01:39:30 ◼   ► Cintiq, C-I-N-T-I-Q is,

01:39:35 ◼   ► it's a line of touchscreen tablets from Wacom.

01:39:40 ◼   ► - Oh, cool.

01:39:41 ◼   ► That's that that's that's what I was thinking of but that's why you thought Wacom. It's Wacom's line of touchscreen tablets

01:39:48 ◼   ► Do you think they would do that Apple would do a touchscreen?

01:39:51 ◼   ► Mac OS device whether it's a

01:39:55 ◼   ► Macbook thing with no

01:39:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I really think no. I think we're I think we're more likely to see a laptop

01:40:03 ◼   ► iOS device than

01:40:06 ◼   ► Touchscreen Mac, huh? Interesting. I just you know what though? Well, I

01:40:11 ◼   ► I don't think that they'll announce the hardware next week, but that's something to keep an eye on when they show us Mac OS 10.10 is look at what

01:40:20 ◼   ► Ah, the chips?

01:40:21 ◼   ► Well, no, look at how big the screen the elements are on screen

01:40:25 ◼   ► Are they spaced in such a way that they look like they're amenable to big fat fingers?

01:40:30 ◼   ► Ah, interesting. Yeah, because

01:40:32 ◼   ► Mac OS as we know it is totally, totally horrible for fingers

01:40:36 ◼   ► Like just the simplest thing like the red yellow green buttons in the windows for yeah closing not gonna happen

01:40:44 ◼   ► Well, they're so close to each other you'd know nothing on iOS is ever that close to each other because you're they're all right next

01:40:50 ◼   ► I mean

01:40:51 ◼   ► I'm looking at a Safari window right now and the close button the minimize button and the back button are all

01:40:57 ◼   ► You know within all of those three buttons are all within the target area of one button. That's the size of my fingertip, right?

01:41:04 ◼   ► Yeah, and the menu the little icons in the menu bar, you know with the

01:41:09 ◼   ► Sound and the Wi-Fi and that kind of stuff. None of that would really be right and

01:41:14 ◼   ► Combine it. Yeah combine it with the file menu like the top window in Safari on my Mac right now

01:41:20 ◼   ► The the close button is right under the file menu

01:41:23 ◼   ► So there's actually three touch targets for touch targets that are all within you know

01:41:29 ◼   ► - With drastically different consequences.

01:41:32 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:41:33 ◼   ► - Open and do, oh, I didn't mean to close that whole app.

01:41:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:37 ◼   ► - Right, it would be a recipe in frustration

01:41:39 ◼   ► if they just turned on touch.

01:41:41 ◼   ► They'd have to resize everything and it would just be,

01:41:45 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's impossible,

01:41:46 ◼   ► but you'll be able to tell just by looking at iOS 8

01:41:49 ◼   ► if it's designed with future touch in mind.

01:41:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's interesting.

01:41:54 ◼   ► And if they were to ever converge them into one,

01:41:59 ◼   ► whether it's fully the same operating system

01:42:02 ◼   ► or at least the same look and feel,

01:42:05 ◼   ► that's where we would start to see the cues there.

01:42:09 ◼   ► I thought you were gonna say,

01:42:10 ◼   ► look and see if it'll run on non-Intel ARM chips.

01:42:15 ◼   ► - Well, we wouldn't be able to know that.

01:42:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're not gonna mention that.

01:42:19 ◼   ► - I will eat my hat if they don't have a version

01:42:21 ◼   ► of Mac OS X running on ARM chips,

01:42:24 ◼   ► probably in the same freaking lab where they used to have.

01:42:27 ◼   ► That's how Tim Cook's MacBook Air lasts all the way to Taiwan or whatever.

01:42:32 ◼   ► Right. They'd be nuts not to have it compile, especially now. I bet.

01:42:36 ◼   ► And maybe they couldn't do it. In fact, I was thinking about it.

01:42:40 ◼   ► Maybe they couldn't do it until the arm went 64 bit with the last year's

01:42:45 ◼   ► devices because Mac OS 10 had already gone 64 bit and there was no way they

01:42:50 ◼   ► could keep 64 bit Mac OS 10 running on 32 bit arm chips.

01:42:55 ◼   ► But now that they have 64-bit ARM chips,

01:42:57 ◼   ► if they don't already have it running,

01:42:59 ◼   ► they're full steam ahead making it running.

01:43:01 ◼   ► - It's on.

01:43:02 ◼   ► - But we won't know that because in the same way

01:43:04 ◼   ► that we never knew that iOS 7 was gonna be 64-bit

01:43:09 ◼   ► until they shipped those devices,

01:43:12 ◼   ► till they announced the iPhone 5S,

01:43:13 ◼   ► because the versions, the betas they shipped

01:43:16 ◼   ► starting at WWDC last year and all summer long,

01:43:19 ◼   ► they just shipped 32-bit betas.

01:43:21 ◼   ► And they never--

01:43:22 ◼   ► - And nor did we know that there would be

01:43:23 ◼   ► an Intel version of macOS.

01:43:25 ◼   ► - Right.

01:43:26 ◼   ► - Versus the old PowerPC chips.

01:43:28 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause they just never distributed

01:43:30 ◼   ► outside their internal lab.

01:43:32 ◼   ► Hey, so speaking, I mentioned before about the fact

01:43:34 ◼   ► that everything's mostly ones and zeros,

01:43:36 ◼   ► but I do have a physical thing to announce,

01:43:39 ◼   ► which is the live version of the talk show.

01:43:41 ◼   ► I said this in the last episode.

01:43:43 ◼   ► - Whoa.

01:43:44 ◼   ► - I would have ticket information.

01:43:45 ◼   ► I've done this--

01:43:46 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

01:43:48 ◼   ► I thought this show was live and then we had an audience.

01:43:52 ◼   ► - Oh, God, no, I would never do that.

01:43:54 ◼   ► - Oh cool, you launched a new podcasting suite.

01:43:57 ◼   ► Nice, man.

01:43:58 ◼   ► - No, it's a live event next week in San Francisco.

01:44:02 ◼   ► Tuesday, six to nine p.m. at Mezzanine,

01:44:06 ◼   ► which is right there on, what's it, Mint Square,

01:44:10 ◼   ► or whatever the hell it's called.

01:44:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:44:12 ◼   ► Well, the address will be on the website.

01:44:14 ◼   ► Here is where you go.

01:44:15 ◼   ► This is the announcement for ticket information.

01:44:17 ◼   ► Selling the tickets on a new system from my friend

01:44:22 ◼   ► Paul Campbell, the guy behind the Wool Conference, Tito. So you go to ti.to, super short domain

01:44:29 ◼   ► name, ti.to/daringfireball. And right now, as soon as--if you're listening to this, you

01:44:36 ◼   ► can go and you'll see a link to the talk show live from WWDC and you can buy tickets. It's

01:44:44 ◼   ► going to be a limited space. We sold out pretty quickly last year, same facility. I think

01:44:50 ◼   ► have at least 350 tickets, maybe more, but probably 350 to start.

01:44:56 ◼   ► So if you're hearing this now, you should go and check it out if you want to come.

01:45:01 ◼   ► And anybody can go.

01:45:02 ◼   ► You don't have to be a WWDC attendee.

01:45:03 ◼   ► I think most people this year don't have badges.

01:45:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:45:07 ◼   ► Do you?

01:45:08 ◼   ► It's complicated.

01:45:09 ◼   ► Okay.

01:45:10 ◼   ► Don't ask.

01:45:11 ◼   ► I have been told that I will have a press badge for the keynote.

01:45:18 ◼   ► And I don't have a paid attendee badge.

01:45:21 ◼   ► - Okay, got it.

01:45:22 ◼   ► - But we'll see.

01:45:23 ◼   ► - I'm gonna scalp some tickets to this thing now

01:45:25 ◼   ► 'cause it's gonna sell out by the time anyone--

01:45:27 ◼   ► - Are you going?

01:45:28 ◼   ► You're gonna be in San Francisco?

01:45:29 ◼   ► - No, I'm actually gonna be in Seattle that day

01:45:31 ◼   ► because Quartz is having a conference there.

01:45:34 ◼   ► - Monday and Tuesday?

01:45:36 ◼   ► - Monday, and then I'm actually spending Tuesday in Seattle

01:45:40 ◼   ► and then coming back.

01:45:41 ◼   ► I should have gone to San Francisco from Seattle.

01:45:46 ◼   ► But I've been to the one that you did two years ago

01:45:48 ◼   ► and it was super fun, it was really great.

01:45:50 ◼   ► - Last year's was better at-- - Cable Sasser, right?

01:45:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, two years ago it was Cable Sasser

01:45:54 ◼   ► and last year I had Guy English.

01:45:56 ◼   ► Better facility, we're at the same place

01:45:58 ◼   ► we were last year, Mezzanine.

01:45:59 ◼   ► More seats, better acoustics, it's a really great place.

01:46:05 ◼   ► It's gonna be an open bar, everybody, you know,

01:46:08 ◼   ► you can enjoy any adult beverage of your choice.

01:46:11 ◼   ► Top shelf liquor, we're gonna have great sponsors.

01:46:15 ◼   ► Although I think the bar sponsorship is still open, so anybody who wants to sponsor it,

01:46:20 ◼   ► I'll be promoting this on Daring Fireball this week, should get in touch with me through

01:46:25 ◼   ► the usual channels on the website.

01:46:29 ◼   ► So we're still looking for a sponsor for the bar.

01:46:32 ◼   ► And special guests, special guests this year at this live show.

01:46:37 ◼   ► This is amazing.

01:46:38 ◼   ► I don't know how it's going to work, but I'm going to have the whole ATP crew.

01:46:44 ◼   ► Arment, John Siracusa and Casey Liss. Oh yeah yeah Casey Liss all three of them

01:46:57 ◼   ► will be joining me on stage at the beginning of the show for the nerd the

01:47:01 ◼   ► nerd part we're gonna talk about the day before his news at WWDC and then and

01:47:06 ◼   ► then my pal Scott Simpson's gonna come on and and lighten it up a little bit

01:47:10 ◼   ► And musical guest dr. Dre musical drink musical guest dr. Dre everybody will get a free pair of Beats headphones. Yeah

01:47:18 ◼   ► Cool. Well, that sounds fun. I'm bummed. I'm missing it but Tito ti.to

01:47:24 ◼   ► Slash during fireball and if you're in Seattle come to the courts

01:47:30 ◼   ► 69 Tuesday in San Francisco

01:47:36 ◼   ► So there will be that that'll be the show part come out tomorrow

01:47:39 ◼   ► So you'll have one week in advance to make your make your get your tickets

01:47:43 ◼   ► Anything else no, that's good. It feels like a Memorial Day. Yeah. Happy Memorial Day to you happy

01:47:51 ◼   ► Congratulations on the new gig always good to see you writing more. I'm excited

01:47:56 ◼   ► I've kind of have had a lot of thoughts in my head over the last six months that have been too

01:48:02 ◼   ► Kind of busy lazy to express so now I have to do it and you know, can I just say a big picture?

01:48:07 ◼   ► I've been doing this for a while during fireball and even the talk show

01:48:11 ◼   ► I

01:48:11 ◼   ► Am more excited about what's going on in all this stuff that we talked about this year than I've been in a long time because I

01:48:18 ◼   ► Feel like I don't know. I feel like there's a lot a lot of turning points. I

01:48:22 ◼   ► Agree, I had less the last I would say the second half of last year

01:48:27 ◼   ► I was super bored.

01:48:28 ◼   ► Like I just did not really,

01:48:30 ◼   ► I was almost offended by kind of how little progress

01:48:34 ◼   ► was going on, but I don't know what,

01:48:36 ◼   ► maybe it's just the spring after an awful winter,

01:48:41 ◼   ► but I'm really, I'm excited.

01:48:43 ◼   ► I think there's a lot of,

01:48:45 ◼   ► and I hope I'm not disappointed by what ends up

01:48:48 ◼   ► coming out of it, but I think that Apple in particular

01:48:51 ◼   ► and other companies, Google and Microsoft and Amazon

01:48:54 ◼   ► and even Facebook and Twitter are in a position

01:48:57 ◼   ► to really do some cool stuff now.

01:48:59 ◼   ► So I hope they don't disappoint.

01:49:02 ◼   ► - I compare it to 2007 when the iPad,

01:49:05 ◼   ► our iPhone first came out and nobody,

01:49:07 ◼   ► we knew it was awesome.

01:49:08 ◼   ► It's a little different 'cause there's not one device

01:49:10 ◼   ► that to me has centered our attention.

01:49:13 ◼   ► But it was like, we just didn't know where it was gonna go.

01:49:17 ◼   ► It was clearly going somewhere new

01:49:19 ◼   ► but we couldn't tell where.

01:49:21 ◼   ► And I kinda have that feeling--

01:49:21 ◼   ► - Right, we knew there was a phone coming

01:49:23 ◼   ► but we didn't know how drastically new it was gonna be.

01:49:27 ◼   ► - I feel that way with the interface stuff for Mac OS X,

01:49:30 ◼   ► I feel that way with the health monitoring stuff

01:49:33 ◼   ► that everybody says is coming to iOS.

01:49:35 ◼   ► So it's coming and it feels like it's cool ideas,

01:49:38 ◼   ► but I can't tell where it's going.

01:49:40 ◼   ► And so I feel like it's a very exciting time

01:49:42 ◼   ► to be writing about and talking about this stuff.

01:49:45 ◼   ► - Me too.

01:49:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, all right, well thank you, Dan.

01:49:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, thank you.

01:49:49 ◼   ► - QZ.com.

01:49:50 ◼   ► - QZ and @fromdome on Twitter

01:49:52 ◼   ► where you can sound off and tell me I'm a moron.

01:49:55 ◼   ► - Right, what do we ask people?

01:49:56 ◼   ► We want them to send us their, oh, programming on,

01:49:59 ◼   ► if you have any ideas for--

01:50:00 ◼   ► - We had nuke tips for early coding.

01:50:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, like hypercard type stuff like Kodiya

01:50:06 ◼   ► and stuff like that, like ways that you can

01:50:07 ◼   ► teach yourself programming on iOS.

01:50:10 ◼   ► - Awesome, thank you everyone.

01:50:11 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:50:12 ◼   ► - Thanks, John.

01:50:13 ◼   ► - I'm hitting stop.