0:00:00So, the two of us plucked out that $20 and we legitimately found $20.
0:00:05That's how the plague began to spread.
0:00:07Yeah, right.
0:00:08It's a four-time better story than my previous story when I only found $5.
0:00:12I'm not sure that's how stories work.
0:00:15All right, so let's get started.
0:00:19We are required by law to do some follow-up.
0:00:21A friend of the show, allegedly, a friend of the show, Guy Rambo, has discovered an
0:00:26expansion slot utility app in Catalina, which is for the new Mac Pro.
0:00:31And I think we had seen a screenshot of this.
0:00:35I feel like I've seen this before somewhere, but this had more information than I'd seen
0:00:40previously.
0:00:41And so tell me, gentlemen, what this is about.
0:00:43So I don't pay attention to the internals of PCs anymore or about computers anymore
0:00:48because I just buy whatever sized laptop or desktop I want.
0:00:53I haven't had to worry about a tower since like college.
0:00:55So what is happening here?
0:00:56This is arranging PCI cards in the most efficient way possible?
0:01:00So first of all, this is version two of this utility because version one of this utility
0:01:05was made for John's computer and actually the one right before it.
0:01:09Because it's a way-- and I don't know, John, was there even one before this for like G5s
0:01:13and stuff?
0:01:14There were similar things, but they only told you how you were doing.
0:01:19They would show you all your expansion slots and memory slots and everything and show you
0:01:24what's in them and then it would scold you if you have put things in non-optimal places.
0:01:30And this is different though.
0:01:31OK.
0:01:32So there's a couple things going on here.
0:01:35Number one is when you have desktop components, you have a lot of slots and people can kind
0:01:40of arrange things that they want as opposed to like an iMac is kind of always optimized
0:01:44in the right way and everything.
0:01:45There's been a couple of things over time where like if you-- for certain chipsets,
0:01:50there's like an optimal number of RAM sticks or it has to be like a multiple of two or
0:01:55three or something to get optimal performance because there's like two or three memory controllers.
0:02:00And there's similar things, although two that work a little bit differently, with PCI Express
0:02:05lanes and PCI Express lane allocations for different slots and different parts.
0:02:10Now we don't have to worry about PCI Express lanes on most Macs because they allocate the
0:02:15lanes when they design the computers and there's no slots and so you can't change how they're
0:02:19allocated.
0:02:20You occasionally will see like some part of the internal limitations or designs will leak
0:02:27out in ways like how not all of the Thunderbolt ports on all of the laptops have equal bandwidth.
0:02:33They'll have like the K-based articles that say like on 13 inch MacBook Pro with four
0:02:38slots like the left two will have more bandwidth than the right two or something like that,
0:02:43right?
0:02:44PCI Express, the communication protocol used between most high speed peripherals and things
0:02:48these days inside computers and actually Thunderbolt is basically PCI Express over a cable.
0:02:54PCI Express has a certain number of lanes that come out of the CPU and every CPU family
0:03:00has a different number of these.
0:03:02One of the reasons why the high end computers use Xeons is because Xeons tend to have more
0:03:06PCI Express lanes than the consumer chips and the laptops like the reason why the escape
0:03:13only has two Thunderbolt ports and the bigger MacBook Pros have four and why the 12 inch
0:03:18only has one port and it isn't even Thunderbolt is all related to like each of those chips
0:03:23from Intel has a certain number of PCI Express lanes that it offers and how you allocate
0:03:28those lanes to different parts, you know, it's up to the engineer of the computer.
0:03:31Anyway, the new Mac Pro has a lot of PCI Express lanes.
0:03:37I think it has like 32 or 48 coming out of the CPU, something like that, but if you add
0:03:43up all the amount of PCI Express lanes that all of its slots and built in peripherals
0:03:50need, it's way more than that.
0:03:52So they actually do a few tricks to allocate these things.
0:03:56The main thing is that they have a bridge chip in there and I don't know the details
0:04:01of it but I know there is one there.
0:04:03I was told there is, they actually are using a bridge that or some kind of switch or something
0:04:07like that, like a PCI Express multiplier basically that can allocate, it can offer more lanes
0:04:14to peripherals than what the CPU actually has available and then you can kind of allocate
0:04:19how those work and I think what this is telling us with this utility, I think you can actually
0:04:24maybe dynamically allocate them as opposed to just like, oh you have to move this card
0:04:29to this other slot every time.
0:04:30But there are also certain slots that have more lanes available to them than others and
0:04:36so what this utility is telling us is like, there's going to be certain configurations
0:04:41where certain cards you put in there, they don't need meaningful bandwidth.
0:04:45Things like a USB port card doesn't need much.
0:04:49An audio card, like for sound internet, it doesn't need much.
0:04:52But a GPU needs a lot, certain other kinds of cards need more or less and so this utility
0:04:58is there to basically tell you the user when you have plugged something into a slot that
0:05:04is not offering it the amount of lanes it needs and can make recommendations to you
0:05:08of where to move it and like the example, the screen shot said move this card from slot
0:05:14five to slot three or something like that.
0:05:16And all this is to get around the fact that you don't actually have enough PCI Express
0:05:21lanes in a Mac Pro to allocate full bandwidth to all of its slots.
0:05:27And that's just, that's not Apple cheaping out in some way, that's simply limitations
0:05:32on the Xeon CPUs that Intel offers for this computer.
0:05:36And apparently there's two pools of bandwidth, again probably getting back to the switch
0:05:40type thing where there's a bunch of radio buttons where you can change, you can't change
0:05:44the speed of the slots, an AX slot, a 4X slot, like they're labeled and it's fixed, but you
0:05:49can change which pool those lanes are allocated to and presumably you're trying to strike
0:05:53some kind of balance.
0:05:54There's also a checkbox that says automatic bandwidth configuration that will theoretically
0:06:00divvy stuff up into pools according to what the computer thinks is best.
0:06:04But for most of the history of Apple's, most of the modern history of Apple's slotted computers
0:06:09in the PowerPC era and later, if you put something in a non-optimal slot, whether it be RAM or
0:06:15PCI cards or whatever, usually on the first boot some dialogue from a similar utility
0:06:20that this will pop up and tell you that you've put things in a suboptimal place, sometimes
0:06:24you just dismiss that and it will never bother you again, sometimes it'll pop up every time
0:06:27depending on how dire the situation is, but this utility, like everything else having
0:06:32to do with the Mac Pro, is getting bigger and fancier.
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0:08:24All right, so big week?
0:08:29A little bit.
0:08:31So we got word, what was it, the day after we recorded last week I think it was, as is
0:08:37off to happen.
0:08:38I was thinking about that by the way.
0:08:40Our show is kind of sort of intentionally on Wednesday because Apple does lots of announcements
0:08:44on Tuesdays, but Apple announces good news on Tuesdays.
0:08:48Apple does not announce bad news on Tuesdays.
0:08:52So I think we struck the right balance and I'd rather have the show like right after
0:08:56the good news comes out.
0:08:57I'm fine with waiting, you know, almost a week to talk about the bad news.
0:09:01So here we are.
0:09:03So the news, which may or may not be bad, is that Johnny Ive is officially leaving Apple.
0:09:08He is going to start his own consultancy, which is called what, Love From, I believe,
0:09:14or something like that.
0:09:15Terrible name, yes, that's what it's called.
0:09:17It is a truly terrible name, but you know, it is what it is.
0:09:21It doesn't matter what the name is.
0:09:22No, it doesn't.
0:09:23It's Johnny Ive's design firm, that's it.
0:09:24Yeah, design companies always have weird names anyway.
0:09:27Yeah, it's a thing.
0:09:28Yeah, it's like ad agencies.
0:09:30These are not names that the public tends to see.
0:09:32Anyway, so he's going to start this new design firm and Mark Newsome is going to, is that
0:09:38right?
0:09:39I believe I read that somewhere.
0:09:40I believe that's right.
0:09:41And I think Richard Howarth also.
0:09:43Oh, is that right?
0:09:44It seems like Ive, Howarth, and Mark Newsome, I think it seems like they all might have
0:09:50left together.
0:09:51Interesting.
0:09:52So one way or another, Apple was quick to point out that Apple will be consulting with
0:09:56Love From, or whatever it's called.
0:09:58You know, Apple will be a client.
0:10:00All is well, everyone.
0:10:01Don't worry, don't worry, everything's okay.
0:10:03Don't look behind the curtain.
0:10:06And then they have announced that Evans Hanke is going to be head of industrial design,
0:10:12and we'll talk about her a little bit more in a minute.
0:10:14And Alan Dye is going to be the VP of human interface design, and we'll talk about him
0:10:20a little more in a minute.
0:10:21Before we discuss the two of them, though, what are your guys' initial impressions?
0:10:28I actually recorded an episode of Clockwise earlier today where this was one of the subjects,
0:10:33and I feel like if you look at the tea leaves for the last several years, and I think Ben
0:10:39Thompson was the first one I noticed to get kind of in front of this, it sure seems like
0:10:44Ive has been moseying his way out the door for the last several years.
0:10:49And there was a semi-explosive piece from the Wall Street Journal, I believe it was,
0:10:54where they said basically Johnny Ive's a big turd and he's blowing off meetings left and
0:10:58right and he's caused strife and blah blah blah.
0:11:01And then Tim Cook responded saying, "Oh no, none of that's true, blah blah blah."
0:11:05So I don't know what's going on here.
0:11:06All you can do is guess.
0:11:07But it seems to me like this is mostly a non-event.
0:11:12But I don't know, one of you guys convinced me that I'm wrong, and let's start with Marco.
0:11:15Before we start with Marco, we were out in front of this, don't give Ben Thompson credit
0:11:20for this.
0:11:21I went back and listened to my shirt.
0:11:22We haven't talked about this in a long time, and it's mostly because back in the episode
0:11:26when he had his title changed, we all basically wrote him off.
0:11:28It's like, well that's it, he's on his way out in everything.
0:11:32But it took a while for it to happen, I don't remember what episode that was, but I did
0:11:35go back and dig it out.
0:11:37And I think it's part of the reason we haven't really talked about, other than occasionally
0:11:42invoking his name as an expletive when complaining about some piece of hardware or whatever,
0:11:47which is something that I think we'll talk about.
0:11:50We've mostly not discussed him in the same way that we've discussed other Apple executives,
0:11:56because I think we collectively wrote him off back when we did that show, and this doesn't
0:12:01come up again.
0:12:02Anyway, I went back and listened to the audio, and that was my impression.
0:12:05And that was everyone's take, really.
0:12:07When was it, did he get changed to Chief Design Officer, CDO or something?
0:12:11So anyway, go on, Margot, I didn't mean to interrupt you and your mute switch that
0:12:15you're fighting with.
0:12:16No, it's fine.
0:12:17- Thank you for your correction, Jon.
0:12:19- I think this isn't nothing.
0:12:22I don't think it's as big of a deal as a lot of people think, because again, I do think,
0:12:26as Jon said, that this seems to have been in the works for years.
0:12:31We've heard bits and pieces here and there of Johnny slowly backing away and being less
0:12:38and less involved in day to day.
0:12:40And I think the announcement of his promotion to the Chief Design Officer, I think, was
0:12:46a very clear move.
0:12:47Like, Johnny Ive, who is the head of industrial design, no longer is involved in day to day
0:12:52management from that point.
0:12:54It's like, okay, well then what is he doing if he's not day to day managing?
0:12:57That's usually, yeah, that person's just not really working here anymore.
0:13:01And I understand from a lot of reports that it wasn't quite so severe in this case, but
0:13:06clearly it was a step in the direction of him ascending into the sky and slowly leaving
0:13:12Apple.
0:13:13It has seemed for a while that he was probably experiencing severe burnout, that he might
0:13:20have been creatively bored and wanting to explore other areas.
0:13:24He was known to have played major roles in the design of Apple Park and a lot of the
0:13:29details of Apple Park, like interior details.
0:13:33Didn't he also design the desks and the chairs and stuff?
0:13:36And he did a bunch of stuff.
0:13:38He's a designer, he's a creative person.
0:13:40There's only so much you can do, there's only so many iPhones you can design before you
0:13:46get bored and want to do other things.
0:13:48And he very clearly, for years, has been extremely interested in branching out into other areas
0:13:54of product design.
0:13:56He did that Christmas tree a few years ago, remember?
0:13:59I think also in collaboration with Mark Knudsen, he did obviously the Apple Watch and a lot
0:14:04of the Apple Watch bands and stuff like that.
0:14:07There was a good discussion about this on the talk show this week with John Gruber,
0:14:11with Ben Thompson as the guest.
0:14:13They talked a lot about this stuff.
0:14:15Basically, you have somebody like Johnny Ive, a professional designer and a well-known,
0:14:20world-renowned designer.
0:14:22They want to do other things.
0:14:24And he especially seems very interested in the world of high design, I guess, if there's
0:14:29a thing like high fashion, but for design.
0:14:31I don't know what that world is called, but the world of high-profile design, where you're
0:14:36not going to be able to hire him.
0:14:40His studio is going to do whatever he wants.
0:14:43He doesn't need your money.
0:14:44He's going to do fun stuff that is shown off in hoity-toity exhibitions and places like
0:14:52Sotheby's and stuff.
0:14:53That's where his stuff's going to go.
0:14:54You're not going to be able to go to Target next year and buy a Johnny Ive toaster.
0:14:59Nope, that's not at all the kind of stuff he's likely to be doing.
0:15:03So creatively, I think he clearly has wanted to do other things for years now.
0:15:08Apple was able to keep him going with things like the watch for a while longer.
0:15:13I think that extended his time there.
0:15:15But ultimately, it's kind of like when somebody is unhappy with a job, you can offer them
0:15:21more money, and they might stay for a little while longer.
0:15:24But ultimately, they're going to leave because you're just buying a little bit of time, maybe.
0:15:27And so similarly, it's like Johnny Ive clearly both was suffering from severe burnout and
0:15:33also clearly wanted to design other things that Apple would never make.
0:15:37Things like, well, I was going to say things like cars, but maybe not.
0:15:40Maybe that was a bad example.
0:15:42That's one of the things that we talked about, I think, when going back and listening to
0:15:45that episode was what kind of things would keep someone like Johnny Ive around after
0:15:51he's already made the iPhone and the iPod and the iMac and stuff like that.
0:15:54I don't think Apple Park was something we discussed because maybe that wasn't a thing
0:15:59on our minds at that point.
0:16:01But I think we did talk about the cars.
0:16:04That's something you could do to keep – because he is into cars, and it's very unlike computers,
0:16:08right?
0:16:09But in the end, A, nothing car-related has shipped yet other than carplay.
0:16:15And B, like you said, Marco, that's extending your timeline for sure, but it's not really
0:16:21satisfying whatever the itch is.
0:16:23Exactly.
0:16:24So Johnny Ive had a high public profile for Apple, and it would have looked bad for Apple
0:16:31if he just all of a sudden left one day with no warning.
0:16:34And so his exit was designed.
0:16:37It was very carefully staged out over years.
0:16:40And this is – Apple clearly has a way that they do succession planning.
0:16:47Back when Steve was around, they knew when it became clear that Steve's health was
0:16:52failing and that he might not make it.
0:16:54I think they very carefully staged out the public introduction of Tim Cook as the new
0:17:02CEO until it was time to actually execute the transition, and then when Steve ultimately
0:17:07died.
0:17:08We were – like the public and the shareholders and the markets and the press, we were introduced
0:17:14to that transition gradually, and so it wasn't as big of a shock.
0:17:19And Apple wasn't immediately "doomed" or anything like that.
0:17:22For the most part, the market was okay.
0:17:24The stock didn't totally tank when Tim took over or when Steve actually did die.
0:17:29It was mostly a smooth transition.
0:17:32Johnny Ive had such a high profile, not quite Steve Jobs high, but still very high.
0:17:38And so for him to leave had to be staged out very carefully with the press, with the markets,
0:17:46with public perception.
0:17:48It was clear he was going to leave or burn out at some point soon.
0:17:53So I think that was what this chief design officer thing was.
0:17:57Clearly they knew then he was leaving.
0:18:00That was just part of it.
0:18:01I think we're also seeing this transition now.
0:18:03I think we're seeing that Jeff Williams is the backup for Tim Cook.
0:18:09Whether Tim Cook is going to retire or leave anytime soon, I don't know.
0:18:14I don't think this indicates that either way, but I do think we are seeing now Johnny Ive
0:18:20was slowly escalated into the sky and now he's just disappearing.
0:18:28And by the way, this thing about he's now a consultant to Apple and Apple's going to
0:18:31be a customer of his, that's nothing.
0:18:33Nothing's going to come out of that.
0:18:35Maybe he might design a watch band or something, but Johnny Ive is not going to be designing
0:18:39major Apple products anymore.
0:18:41That's not what this is.
0:18:43That's PR.
0:18:44That's spin.
0:18:45It worked and that's great.
0:18:46But Johnny Ive is no longer designing things for Apple in the sense that any of us would
0:18:51expect.
0:18:52The whole thing about, "Oh, now he's a consultant, that's a smokescreen."
0:18:54I was a consultant too.
0:18:55I never was a consultant.
0:19:01So they have done that.
0:19:03They did that with Steve to Tim.
0:19:05They did it with Johnny to the sky.
0:19:08And now I think they are also clearly preparing the public for Jeff Williams to be the next
0:19:15CEO.
0:19:16And I don't know whether that's the official plan, whether Tim actually does intend to
0:19:22leave in the next few years or whether they just want to always have a backup where in
0:19:28case something happens to Tim or in case he has to leave quickly, then they have somebody
0:19:33kind of groomed, ready to go to the public.
0:19:38They have a clear plan.
0:19:40If Tim Cook decided he wanted to run for president or something, he could just quit and Jeff
0:19:45Williams would take over now and it wouldn't be that big of a disruption it seems to the
0:19:49public.
0:19:50We don't know how it works internally.
0:19:51To the public it kind of seems.
0:19:52Anyway, I don't think the way Johnny left was a surprise at all.
0:19:57I don't think the timing was that much of a surprise.
0:20:00And ultimately, going back to the initial design side of this, I actually don't think
0:20:05this is going to be that big of a change because it does seem, you know, Tim's email can
0:20:10say things about how collaborative they are and everything else, but the reality is there's
0:20:13a lot of smoke behind the fire that he really wasn't that involved recently and that he
0:20:18really wasn't very hands-on in the last few years even in the actual products.
0:20:24I don't think he had zero design or zero influence.
0:20:28I think he had some, but it certainly does seem like most of the design of Apple's
0:20:34products over the last few years has been coming out of the people who are still there
0:20:38now, not Johnny Ive personally himself.
0:20:41They have a design team and actually, and Evans Hanke apparently, I've never heard
0:20:46of her before this.
0:20:47It doesn't seem like she had any kind of public profile before this, but in the wake
0:20:51of this news, we've heard rumblings here and there and stories here and there.
0:20:56She seems very well respected and she seems like she's been running stuff there for
0:21:00a while in industrial design.
0:21:01It seems like she's basically been running the team effectively for a while now.
0:21:07This is more like making formal what was already basically happening.
0:21:12I'm guessing most of the change of what's going to happen when Johnny Ive leaves Apple,
0:21:19I bet most of that change has already happened.
0:21:21I bet we're already seeing what's going to happen when Johnny Ive has left Apple.
0:21:26It wouldn't surprise me if much of the recent design coming out of Apple had little to no
0:21:32Johnny involvement.
0:21:35How much of the new Mac Pro do you think he designed?
0:21:37We know that was designed entirely in the last two years.
0:21:40How much of that do you think he designed?
0:21:41I'm guessing nearly zero.
0:21:43Do you think he designed the newest iPad Pro that had a radically different shape than
0:21:46the previous ones?
0:21:47Maybe, maybe he had some involvement, but probably not heavy involvement.
0:21:51The more recent designs, do you think he designed much of the iPhone X?
0:21:57Maybe, but I bet a lot of the people who are still there now did a lot of that work.
0:22:03I think we're already seeing post Johnny Apple.
0:22:06We've been seeing it now for years and it's fine because ultimately the design team is
0:22:12a big ... Well, it's not a big team, but it's a team of multiple people, not just the one
0:22:19guy whose name we knew, who we heard in videos in white worlds.
0:22:25It was always much deeper than that and it seems like the people who have been doing
0:22:30most of the design and most of the operating of that team for the last few years are now
0:22:35just formally in charge and before they were kind of been formally in charge.
0:22:39That's kind of how it seems.
0:22:40I'm not worried at all about this transition.
0:22:43We should get to the whole reporting to ops thing the group brought up, but before we
0:22:48do, Jon, did I get most of this right so far?
0:22:52I disagree with some of your assessments, but it's hard to admit it's just a gut feeling
0:22:57because neither one of us actually knows we're not there talking to the design team.
0:23:01It's an age-old problem we talk about all the time.
0:23:02It's hard to tell what exactly is going on inside Apple.
0:23:06One thing, the idea of him phasing out of the company, again, when he had the title
0:23:11change it was so clear that he's done a lot of things.
0:23:18He's accomplished what he wanted to accomplish in this realm and probably wants to be less
0:23:26closely involved.
0:23:27That would have been a nice smooth ramp over multiple years to him transitioning out, except
0:23:31that in the middle there, because these things are never planned out perfectly, same thing
0:23:35with Jeff Williams being a successor CEO, he might leave and go run JC Penney.
0:23:40Weird things happen.
0:23:43After he became CDO, there was a period where apparently Tim Cook or whoever convinced him
0:23:50to come back and take a more hands-on role because apparently he pulled too far back
0:23:56and maybe the transition wasn't ready, so it was kind of a bumpy ride on his way out.
0:24:00It wasn't like, "You'll just slowly fade away."
0:24:02It was like, "I'm disengaging.
0:24:04I'm going to be the CDO."
0:24:06And then it's like, "Well, we need a little bit more from you.
0:24:08Okay, I'll come back, but no, actually I'm out."
0:24:12These things never quite go as smoothly as you would want them to.
0:24:16As for what he'll do next, sure, he likes to do those weird Christmas tree things and
0:24:20the super expensive stuff for rich people.
0:24:25Certainly he'll end up doing weird things, weird from the perspective of the guy who
0:24:28makes iPhones because he's done a lot of consumer electronics.
0:24:33I don't expect him to do immediately more consumer electronics.
0:24:36I expect him to do a spatula or God knows what I mean.
0:24:39But for everything I know about him, I don't think...
0:24:45What do I know about him?
0:24:46I read a book on him.
0:24:47I've seen him in lots of videos.
0:24:48That's what I know.
0:24:49Anyway, based on that, I'm not sure he would be satisfied just doing weird designer stuff
0:24:54for rich people because there is a kind of populist, silversmith son, man of the people
0:25:04angle where he wants to make things that people actually use.
0:25:11Granted, you've got a weird Christmas tree, but I think he would be equally excited about
0:25:17a really good pen that costs $1.50.
0:25:21Can you make a good pen for $1.50 or a spatula or whatever?
0:25:24No, you can't.
0:25:26Prose.
0:25:27No.
0:25:28Anyway, I think that inevitably, if he continues to work at all, which is not a given because
0:25:37like you said, he doesn't need to work anymore, I think one of the things he may end up doing
0:25:42is more prosaic design that has a chance of being used by people other than his .001%
0:25:50rich friends.
0:25:51Because obviously, going from a company where you make something that literally billions
0:25:57of people use, you're going to step back and make something that five rich people use.
0:26:02But inevitably, if he keeps doing that, it's going to be like, "You know what?
0:26:05I'm kind of sick of making extremely expensive baubles that look really cool.
0:26:11I'd rather make something that I think some people will actually use and appreciate in
0:26:16its use."
0:26:17He's not becoming an artist or a sculptor.
0:26:21He wants to be a designer, and I really believe he has bought into the idea that design is
0:26:27about being functional for the intended purpose and all that stuff.
0:26:30So who knows?
0:26:32If he continues to work at all in the long term, I expect him to make boring things occasionally.
0:26:41Will we know that he made them?
0:26:42I suppose so.
0:26:43I don't even know how this works in the world of high profile design.
0:26:46Will he put his name on them?
0:26:49They probably won't be in Target.
0:26:50You're right about that, but who knows?
0:26:53Weirder things will happen.
0:26:54When you have somebody like him who doesn't have anything to prove, first of all, his
0:27:00resume is set.
0:27:02He never needs to do anything else significant in his life ever again, and he's fine.
0:27:08Doesn't need money.
0:27:10When someone is in that scenario, they can end up doing weird things.
0:27:14So if he wakes up one day and says, "You know what?
0:27:15I want to make that spatula for Target," by God, he's going to make that spatula for Target
0:27:19because no one can tell him not to.
0:27:22It's not going to diminish anything that he's done.
0:27:26There's no thing that he can design that will diminish his past accomplishments.
0:27:31I'm ready for weird stuff, but I'm also ready for him to just…
0:27:36He's never been the most public person, and I expect to see him not be grabbing the spotlight
0:27:44at every opportunity.
0:27:45That's just the MO for anyone important who leaves Apple.
0:27:47If you look at all the people, even if they leave on bad terms like Forrestal, he didn't
0:27:50run out and be like, "I'm going to be on every cable news channel bad-mouthing Apple
0:27:54every time someone wants a comment for the next five years."
0:27:56That is not how things work, even when you essentially get fired and leave on bad terms.
0:28:00So I really don't expect Johnny Ive to be appearing on every cable news show every time
0:28:06they need someone to talk about design.
0:28:08I don't know.
0:28:09Was it Tony Fidell who seemed to be very forthcoming with the bad-mouthing of Apple once he left?
0:28:14Is that who I'm thinking of?
0:28:15Yeah, he definitely does that, but even he had a quiet period immediately after he left.
0:28:21Whether it's because people aren't interested in hearing what he has to say or he got involved
0:28:25in other things, it's not the usual MO for the big executives.
0:28:30Again, Tony Fidell is not leaving on the same terms as Johnny Ive, like going out a hero
0:28:35to the company or whatever.
0:28:39What I'm most interested in on this topic before we get to the new folks at Apple is
0:28:48taking a little bit of time now, because if not now, then when, to look back at Johnny
0:28:55Ive's work at Apple.
0:29:01What did he mean to the company?
0:29:02What did he mean to the products, the Johnny Ive era?
0:29:07It spans all of his career where he was a publicly known person, more or less, and all
0:29:12the products we know about.
0:29:14I think it's worth looking back at that.
0:29:18I think it also, at least my view of looking back on it, also influences how I think the
0:29:25company will go forward without him, because it's sort of like, well, when he was there,
0:29:30what did he do?
0:29:31Now that he's not there, what will not be done or be done differently?
0:29:36I want to start with what I think is an easy one, but I think it's worth saying explicitly,
0:29:42especially on this program, which is, do we think that Johnny Ive's time at Apple has
0:29:51been a net positive for the company?
0:29:53Oh, yeah, definitely.
0:29:55Is that a legitimate question?
0:29:58The correct answer is yes.
0:30:00I just wanted to put that out there.
0:30:01The reason I want to say that is because if you've listened to this show, especially if
0:30:04you only listened recently, the only time you ever hear us invoke the name Johnny Ive
0:30:09is when we're complaining that the laptops are too thin or they don't have enough ports
0:30:12or the keyboard is bad.
0:30:16I said before, his name is used as an expletive, as the singular personification of all the
0:30:22design we don't like at Apple, because he was in charge of all design at Apple, and
0:30:26therefore if there's some part of design at Apple that you don't like, you get to use
0:30:29that name as your little hook to explain who you're talking about.
0:30:34But let's be clear.
0:30:37Second only to Steve Jobs.
0:30:39I feel like the two of them combined, which I think is worth discussing that team, have
0:30:47done the biggest turnaround in U.S. corporate history, added tremendous value to the company,
0:30:54made not one, not two, but three, four, five, depending on how you count them, insanely popular,
0:31:03good products that sold really well, that were beloved, that did things, that broke
0:31:08new ground, that defined entire product segments and industries.
0:31:11If you take any one of those things, the iMac, the iPhone, the iPod, the iPad, I would say
0:31:18even the Apple Watch, any of those things, pick any single one and any designer would
0:31:22kill to, if it had been remotely involved with a single one of those, and to be the
0:31:25head of design or personally responsible for major aspects of design before he was elevated
0:31:30to that level, for a single one of those is just the accomplishment of a lifetime.
0:31:34He has this ridiculous resume.
0:31:37During that time, Apple went from a company that was basically going out of business,
0:31:41because remember, he was there before Steve came back.
0:31:43He was at Apple.
0:31:44It was at the Apple that was going down the tubes, toiling away behind the scenes, making
0:31:49things that no one actually had him ship until Jobs came and said, "Look at all this great
0:31:53stuff.
0:31:54We should let this guy ship some of this stuff.
0:31:55I think it'll be cool."
0:31:56We got the iMac and all that other stuff.
0:31:59So yes, Johnny Ive, probably the best product designer that has ever existed, as measured
0:32:07by anything that you can objectively measure.
0:32:10You could have opinions about what product you think is better or more elegant or whatever,
0:32:15but as measured by, beloved by the most people, sold the most number, made the most money,
0:32:23turned around the company that he worked at, was the most positive influence in the company
0:32:26that he worked at.
0:32:27Apple is head and shoulders above anybody else, just because of the scale of things.
0:32:31We talk about this all the time, but great designers of the past who made things that
0:32:34are iconic, the designers of the Volkswagen Beetle.
0:32:38So rarely has there been a singular name associated with it, and so rarely have there been a series
0:32:45of them within the same company that have pulled that company from the brink of bankruptcy
0:32:52to the biggest company in the world.
0:32:54It's a story that hasn't existed before, and Apple is so large that if you actually compare
0:32:57any of the numbers against anything that you can think of, except maybe the wheel.
0:33:03The iPhone is the biggest, best-selling, most influential product ever made, especially
0:33:09when you consider that every phone on the market is now essentially an iPhone, in terms
0:33:13of its influence on the world of products.
0:33:19And I'm not sure if he was involved in any of the laptops, but this is the old man segment
0:33:23of the show.
0:33:25Apple basically defined what the modern laptop is, too, when they decided to make a laptop
0:33:29where the keyboard is shoved up against the screen and below it is a pointing device,
0:33:32which started as a trackball and eventually became a trackpad.
0:33:35That's what every laptop looks like now, still.
0:33:38Before Apple made the PowerBook line, that is not what laptops look like at all.
0:33:41So in the same way that before Apple made the phone, phones did not look like the iPhone,
0:33:44and then after Apple made the iPhone, now all phones look like that.
0:33:49I don't know if that was...
0:33:51I don't know if Johnny Iovine worked at the company at that point, and of course the Mac
0:33:55with the GUI.
0:33:56Apple has done that a couple of times, but Johnny Iovine has been involved with a lot
0:34:00of them, and especially all the most recent ones.
0:34:03So all that is a long-winded way to say that regardless of what we may think about his
0:34:10particular tastes versus our particular tastes as they relate to the details of an individual
0:34:15product, I'm not going to say we're nitpicking, because it's not just nits.
0:34:19They are fundamental differences, but you can't argue with the results.
0:34:23There is no arguing with his work as a designer.
0:34:26He is one of the greatest designers to ever live, probably the greatest designer we'll
0:34:31ever see in our entire lifetime.
0:34:34Doesn't mean that he's always right.
0:34:35Doesn't mean that everything he did is perfect and without flaw and without argument.
0:34:41Doesn't even mean his design philosophy has not evolved over the course of that, but you
0:34:46can't argue with the numbers.
0:34:49So I am not a avid designer by any means, and I feel like as I get older and older,
0:34:56I appreciate design more and more, but I don't really know what I'm talking about when it
0:34:59comes to design.
0:35:01But I feel like I know enough to know that Dieter Rams is frequently cited as one of
0:35:06the best designers, if not the best designer who has ever lived.
0:35:09I don't know the answer to this question because I'm not familiar enough with Rams' work, but
0:35:13if you, John, I'm hoping you're at least slightly familiar with it, if you had to pick between
0:35:18him and I, would you still pick Ive?
0:35:20Yeah, based on objective measures, for sure.
0:35:22Because yes, he did, it was very influential and he made some beautiful, elegant products,
0:35:27but did he take the companies that he worked for, his design studio, to the levels that
0:35:33Ive took Apple?
0:35:34Are his products in the hands of as many people as Ive's products have been?
0:35:37Are his products as beloved by as many people as Johnny's?
0:35:40It's just scale, right?
0:35:41And I feel like you can judge an artistic merit and say, "Well, this one designer who
0:35:46made this one thing that five people have ever seen is really the best."
0:35:49But I'm saying, "All right, that's like judging a level of art or whatever."
0:35:55But as a practical concern, if your goal is to make great things that are useful and beloved
0:36:02by people the sheer scale of Apple, it's the only thing you can objectively measure.
0:36:07Everything else is just opinion.
0:36:08But if you say fact-based, are you a successful product designer?
0:36:14How do you measure the success of a product?
0:36:16And I feel like the way you measure the success is that everybody likes it, that the company
0:36:22you work for as a designer is successful because of your designs, and the products are successful
0:36:28at what they're intended to do.
0:36:30And I feel like Dieter Rams, his scale is one bazillionth the size of Johnny Ive's scale.
0:36:35That's fair.
0:36:37So the other aspect of this, and we've talked about his legacy, and I've said all these
0:36:42nice things because now I want to bring the more difficult question, which is...
0:36:47All right, so getting back to the idea that Johnny Ive is not designing these things personally,
0:36:57this is, and also the concept that we can't actually know what goes on inside Apple, we're
0:37:02just looking in from the outside.
0:37:04Those two things combined gets back to my rule that I always invoke whenever talking
0:37:07about Apple, which is that in the end, it doesn't matter who specifically decides that
0:37:15the laptop should be this thin or shouldn't have an SD card slot or the keyboard, they
0:37:21should stick to the butterfly keyboard, or any particular design concern you might have,
0:37:25and you know, it's frequently attributed to that darn Johnny Ive, he wants the things
0:37:29to be featureless with no buttons on them.
0:37:31We have no idea if that's not like a faction inside his design studio, and in fact, Johnny
0:37:35Ive wanted to add tons more buttons, but was deferring to his design.
0:37:39We just don't know, but here's what we do know.
0:37:41We can never know those internals until they write their telebooks, but here's what we
0:37:43do know.
0:37:44He was in charge of design, and despite all the collaborative type of things where like,
0:37:50"Oh, we discussed it all together," whatever, the buck stops with the people who are in
0:37:54charge.
0:37:55So the bottom line is, if there's something that you don't like about Apple design during
0:38:00the time when Johnny Ive was the head of design, it's on Johnny Ive, whether it was his decision
0:38:05or not.
0:38:06And certainly it wasn't his design, but he was the person who made the decisions.
0:38:11He was the one who gave the thumbs up or thumbs down.
0:38:13And ultimately, what is produced design-wise by the company is his responsibility.
0:38:17That's what it means to be a leader, right?
0:38:19The buck stops with him, even if he had nothing to do with it, even if he was against the
0:38:23idea but went along with it.
0:38:25That's the job of being the leader.
0:38:27It's not to design all the things, it's to have a position and a vision and make decisions
0:38:33that people below you can have positions and argue for them or whatever.
0:38:38But in the end, it's a hierarchy.
0:38:40And I feel like, especially with the absence of jobs, that Tim Cook was highly unlikely
0:38:44to override Johnny Ive's design decisions.
0:38:48So if there is something you don't like, if you think the laptop should have an SD card
0:38:53slot, if you don't like getting rid of touch ID to have the swipey home button, if you
0:38:59don't like something about the Apple Watch, no matter what it is, I feel it is entirely
0:39:03comfortable to not blame Johnny Ive personally, but to say that is part of his legacy.
0:39:09Because during the time that he was in charge of design, Apple did certain things.
0:39:13Every single thing Apple did, I'm totally comfortable saying that's at his feet, because
0:39:18he could have stopped that from happening.
0:39:20He could have made a different thing happen, right?
0:39:23So despite the fact that we know he's not doing anything personally, and despite the
0:39:28fact that we can't know what goes on inside there, I will continue to think about the
0:39:32legacy of Johnny Ive in terms of what the company produced when he was in charge.
0:39:37Not in terms of what he did personally, not in terms of his specific opinions, but that's
0:39:44your legacy when you're at that level of an executive.
0:39:46Like were we to get Johnny Ive on the program?
0:39:48I'm sure we could ask him lots of questions about his opinions about design.
0:39:52But ultimately, you can also ask him, say, during your tenure at Design at Apple, here
0:39:56are some things that Apple did.
0:39:59Looking back on those, are the things that the company did during your tenure that you
0:40:03regret, that you are particularly proud of, that you wish could have been more like this
0:40:07and less like that?
0:40:08Like you can, as a leader, you can have opinions on your legacy in that way without it being
0:40:14personal because you're like, well, I didn't design the iPhone 5 personally and draw every
0:40:19line of it.
0:40:20I saw seven competing designs and picked one of them and herded it and refined it or gave
0:40:24a vision statement or whatever.
0:40:25But in the end, Apple ships a thing and that's a thing that you said, yes, we're going to
0:40:29ship.
0:40:30So that I feel like is the most important lens through which outsiders can judge Johnny
0:40:38Ive not so much as a designer, but as a leader of designers, as a leader of the design wing
0:40:47of the company best known for design.
0:40:49And so that's why I will continue to invoke his name despite the fact that we all know
0:40:52that he's not drawing every single design and he's, you know, at half the time he may
0:40:56be deferring to strongly held opinions by his collaborative group.
0:41:01But in the end, it's his responsibility.
0:41:02Well, the thing with that that's very interesting to me is as I'm thinking about the things
0:41:08that the three of us love to complain about, things like the keyboard, things like the
0:41:13Apple TV remote, things like the touch bar, as I sit back and think about all of these
0:41:18things, I can't think of anything other than the keyboards that I really and truly believe
0:41:27is unequivocally bad.
0:41:28I will even go to bat for the Apple TV remote.
0:41:30I know I'm the only one on the planet that will.
0:41:32It has problems.
0:41:33I'm not denying that, but I don't think it's objectively bad.
0:41:37The touch bar to me is not objectively bad.
0:41:41It may not be for the three of us, but I don't think it's objectively bad.
0:41:46So many of the laptops and computers of recently, I don't think that they're objectively bad.
0:41:54Like I want an SD card slot, but I don't think it is objectively wrong that it's not a part
0:42:00of Apple laptops anymore.
0:42:02And I'm trying to think, is there anything, and I know you're going to light me up about
0:42:05the Apple TV remote, but is there anything other than the keyboards that we can say,
0:42:11no matter who you are or what you're doing with this device, this is actually bad or
0:42:17wrong or what have you.
0:42:18Is there anything?
0:42:19Yeah, the remote definitely qualifies.
0:42:21And here's why, like you can, it's like, you can have opinions about what features a product
0:42:25might have.
0:42:26Oh, I wanted to have this port.
0:42:27I wanted to have this battery life or whatever, but every product has a job to do.
0:42:31The job of the remote is to let you control what happens on a television while you're
0:42:37sitting on the couch.
0:42:38And you can measure how well the Apple TV remote does that job.
0:42:43And you can, like, I mean, bad, what does bad mean?
0:42:46You'd measure it against other remote controls and you'd have to come up with some criteria.
0:42:50What criteria do we care about?
0:42:52You pick anything.
0:42:54You're the person who's going to say, I'm going to judge remotes against each other
0:42:57and I'm going to have a bunch of tests to see if they fulfill the purpose.
0:43:03Almost anything that you can think of, the Apple TV remote does worse than the best remotes
0:43:09for sure, which I feel like is the bar that Apple should be judged against.
0:43:12Is it worse than the worst cable box remote?
0:43:15Maybe not, right?
0:43:16Maybe it comes out as a wash, nothing.
0:43:18But against a good remote, the Apple TV remote gets destroyed.
0:43:24You can have lots of opinions about features and sort of the product design, but I feel
0:43:28like the job to be done in the parlance of all the economic whiz kids is supposed to
0:43:33let you control your television.
0:43:36And it does that, but it does that very, very badly in almost all aspects.
0:43:41That's a great example of a thing that I put at the feet of Johnny Ive, whether he had
0:43:45anything to do with that remote or not.
0:43:46The bottom line is he was in charge and they shipped that.
0:43:48Now, all that said, back when Jobs was there, it was clear to everybody involved that Johnny
0:43:54Ive got to have a say, but in the end, if Steve decided something needed to be stitched
0:43:59leather, it was going to be stitched leather.
0:44:01It doesn't really matter what Johnny Ive or anybody else thought, right?
0:44:04So when he was there, that's why I'm totally comfortable putting it at the feet of Steve
0:44:07Jobs, everything.
0:44:09And it's weird, like I said before, well, then Jobs goes and you don't put this all
0:44:12at the feet of Tim Cook.
0:44:13Yes, kind of ultimately, but my read on the dynamic inside the company is that, again,
0:44:19Tim Cook, unless there is some large economic concern, even if there is one like with the
0:44:22gold watch, it seems to me that Tim Cook is not inclined to override Johnny Ive when it
0:44:27comes to design or anything like that.
0:44:30Override maybe when it comes to pricing and maybe when it comes to what we should make
0:44:34and what we shouldn't, like Johnny Ive had to pitch Tim Cook reportedly to say we should
0:44:37make a watch.
0:44:38Ultimately, Tim Cook said, "Sure, fine, go ahead."
0:44:40Again, perhaps another thing to get Johnny to stick around, right?
0:44:45But I don't think Tim is the design decider in chief, despite the fact that rank-wise
0:44:50he could decide that, especially if Tim ever did that, Johnny would have left long ago
0:44:56because I don't think he would stay at a company where that happens.
0:44:58Would he stay at a company where Steve Jobs overrides him?
0:45:00Yeah, sure.
0:45:01But that's probably the only person on the planet that Johnny Ive would allow that to
0:45:04happen from, at the point that he's grown to the level that he is.
0:45:09So yeah, there are definitely, I think, objectively bad designs as measured by anything that you
0:45:16could objectively measure about the job that thing is supposed to do.
0:45:19Are they the worst?
0:45:20No.
0:45:21But it's like average or somewhere below good and we want apples to be the best.
0:45:26And the remote is so galling because it's obvious to almost anybody what the problems
0:45:31with the thing are.
0:45:32It's not some nuance or subtlety that you have to really understand the essence of a
0:45:38remote.
0:45:39It's like, no, it's hard to use.
0:45:41You make mistakes all the time.
0:45:42The thing gets lost.
0:45:43It's not comfortable to hold.
0:45:44I don't want to talk about the remote, but that's an easy one.
0:45:47Which part you could argue that accidental input is more of a problem than they think?
0:45:51And then, of course, obviously the keyboard.
0:45:52The reason why you gave that as a gimme is like its job is to type letters and if it
0:45:55doesn't do that right, sometimes it doesn't make any letters and sometimes make double,
0:46:00you know, that's no good.
0:46:02And you say, well, it still gets the job done.
0:46:04It's just a little bit tricky.
0:46:05I got to do that backspace part.
0:46:06Like, yeah, but we're judging it against average competence and it is below the average competence.
0:46:12Therefore we say it's bad.
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0:48:11The dynamic that you said a minute ago about like, you know, Tim wouldn't really want to
0:48:16override Johnny on Munch because like that's, that was probably like a very expensive fight
0:48:20to pick.
0:48:21I think the dynamic between like, you know, what happens when Steve died and then there's
0:48:27a new CEO who's not a product person at all.
0:48:31And there's this designer that everyone loves, you know, much the same way they loved Steve
0:48:35who is still there.
0:48:39And there, it created this weird dynamic where like it seemed in some ways that Johnny was
0:48:44more, was more powerful than, than Tim or, or at least like, you know, there was, there
0:48:50was, there were like lines drawn that like Tim probably didn't want to cross certain
0:48:54lines because it would, it would, you know, cause friction with Johnny or, or override
0:48:59Johnny in ways that Tim thought that he should be empowered or things like that.
0:49:03And so what ends up happening when, you know, when Steve left, Johnny got elevated to not
0:49:11like a dictatorship, but like, but to a position of extreme power, more power than he had before
0:49:17with very little editing going on.
0:49:19And look, many of the world's greatest creatives really benefit from some editing.
0:49:26And Johnny was that way too, you know?
0:49:28But when, because of like the, the politics and the stature of, of the higher ups, because
0:49:34of like how that all worked out over the last few years, you know, after Steve died and
0:49:39everything, Johnny had seemingly a lot more power and influence than he probably should
0:49:46have had.
0:49:48And for various political reasons with the public, especially, maybe with markets and
0:49:52whatever else, like, you know, Tim basically turned Johnny into the new Steve in like a
0:49:59power sense.
0:50:01He moved software design under Johnny.
0:50:03He moved, you know, he, he, he seemed to let design dictate a lot more about the products
0:50:09than before.
0:50:10And so like, like when Gruber initially wrote the take, you know, last week about like worrying
0:50:15that Johnny wasn't replaced because the new heads of design report directly to Jeff
0:50:21Williams.
0:50:22I don't see that as a problem because I see the current situation like up till now
0:50:29as being a weird hierarchy where basically design has been in charge of all products.
0:50:36Like the head of products, you know, we, we wondered like for the last few years, like
0:50:41who at Apple is the head of products really?
0:50:44You know, it was Steve before.
0:50:46Tim never had that job and didn't seem to want that job or have the ability to do it.
0:50:51He seemed to delegate it, but it seemed like he delegated it mostly to Johnny.
0:50:54So effectively the head of products at Apple, if you had to pick someone who it was, it
0:51:01seemed to be Johnny for the last, you know, X years.
0:51:05And so now, and I'm so mad that Gruber wrote this article today, cause I was, I was, I
0:51:11was waiting for the last few days to come on this podcast.
0:51:13That's what happens when, when it happens the wrong day for our show.
0:51:16Yeah.
0:51:17Like I've been waiting to come on this podcast and say exactly what Gruber wrote in his article
0:51:20today.
0:51:21So basically like, so you know, for the last few years, Jeff Williams seemingly has, has
0:51:28been being slowly elevated into the role where now the answer, you know, the question of
0:51:34who is the head of product design at Apple, the answer now seems to be Jeff Williams.
0:51:40And I have a lot of thoughts about that.
0:51:43And most of it is a little, you know, little trepidation cause like we don't really know
0:51:47what Jeff Williams is like as a product, as the head of product, except that we can see
0:51:52the Apple watch, right?
0:51:54Like it seems, it seems like he has effectively always been the head of product for the Apple
0:51:58watch.
0:51:59So we, we have that example seemingly, but we don't know much about Jeff Williams.
0:52:04You know, he, he, he doesn't have, you know, much personality display to the public.
0:52:09And so it's hard to really get a read on him for, from, from our side of things.
0:52:13But it does seem like now Jeff Williams is the head of product, whatever.
0:52:18Tim is like the administrator above all of this, you know, and Tim can probably like,
0:52:22you know, set the direction of large initiatives like privacy, but like services, that kind
0:52:27of stuff.
0:52:28But like, it doesn't, it doesn't seem like Tim has any interest in, in like, you know,
0:52:30product details and that's fine.
0:52:32Well, he decides whether or not they're going to make a watch for example.
0:52:35Yeah, sure.
0:52:36Exactly.
0:52:37That's his call.
0:52:38Yeah, that, that, that, yeah, that's probably right.
0:52:39But like, it seems like before the head of products was somebody who kind of was on his
0:52:47own, you know, Johnny I was like kind of on his own, kind of politically more powerful
0:52:52than Tim maybe, which, or at least closer to equals, which probably made that relationship
0:52:56a little bit awkward or a little bit hard to, you know, to edit or administer.
0:53:02And also if Johnny did indeed have this role of being the kind of de facto head of products,
0:53:07and even if not in his role as the head of design, it's kind of weird to have a head
0:53:14of design who's barely there or who is, who is, who is working out of his house in San
0:53:19Francisco when the rest of the company is an hour away working in an office every day.
0:53:23And you know, like Johnny, like even if only a little bit of that is true, that, that's
0:53:28still like when you have a manager who is very powerful, very respected, very opinionated,
0:53:35but is not always there, that makes it hard to make decisions.
0:53:40Or when you have that manager who is busy like, you know, designing the building and
0:53:43the desks and stuff, like it's for the last few years, they've had kind of a half absentee,
0:53:50highly distracted, highly burnt out head of design.
0:53:55Now they have moved the design organizationally back where it belongs in the ranks.
0:54:02Now they have some, they have two people who are clearly officially in charge.
0:54:10You have Evans Hanke as industrial design head, you have Alan Dye as VP of human interface
0:54:15design, which I think he is horrible.
0:54:16Oh God, I really don't like that he is the head of this, but he has been, you know, since
0:54:20iOS 7, so this is, you know, this is not new.
0:54:22Oh my God, I don't like Alan Dye's direction, but that's, that's for another day.
0:54:31But like now you have two clear heads of design, hardware and software, and they both report
0:54:38to the COO who is basically the head of product right now.
0:54:42That seems like an actual functioning, healthy organization.
0:54:47And I don't think you need design to be CEO level.
0:54:53You don't need like the chief design officer, like you don't need that if you have a functioning
0:54:57hierarchy where there is a head of product who is very empowered to do things, whether
0:55:01it's the CEO or not.
0:55:04It should be, I think in Apple it should be somebody very close to the CEO.
0:55:07Like I think it only works here, like with Jeff Williams being that, that's probably
0:55:10only going to work because Tim is very happy to delegate that to him.
0:55:15But you have design reporting to the head of product.
0:55:21That is the way it was under Steve.
0:55:23Steve was the head of product, design reporter to him.
0:55:26So I think this now makes a lot more sense than the kind of weird, vague, you know, minefield
0:55:33of how things were before.
0:55:35And because now we have actual full-time employees on site serving in these roles, I think things
0:55:41are going to be a lot more clear.
0:55:43And it's probably going to function better.
0:55:46So I think even though I don't know anything about these people really, the few things
0:55:52I've heard about Evans Hanke have been very good.
0:55:55I have high hopes that I think this is like cleaning up something that was kind of messy,
0:56:04putting it in a way, in a structure that is more likely to produce good, consistent results.
0:56:12So that mess is, it's part of, you know, part of any group of people doing anything,
0:56:18but certainly part of corporate America or large companies.
0:56:23I like to think of it as, you know, they make products and we talk about their products
0:56:28and we judge the various political maneuverings and the org chart and their financials.
0:56:35But in the end, in the end, these are all, this is just people.
0:56:38They're all just people.
0:56:39And people problems are always the biggest problems of any corporation, which is why
0:56:43staffing, HR, all those sort of soft skills, they call them or whatever, like that's
0:56:52the whole ball game, right?
0:56:53So in a situation like, like how did Apple find itself in this situation?
0:56:59They were so successful and they had these successful products and they had this team
0:57:02making them.
0:57:03And eventually that success, you know, your success as a company leads to the elevation
0:57:10of individual people within the company to the point where, you know, you mentioned before
0:57:15that Johnny Ive had been elevated, but then, you know, you later clarified, it's not
0:57:18like he had been elevated in the passive voice.
0:57:21Tim Cook elevated him.
0:57:22Tim Cook elevated him for several good reasons.
0:57:26One, he was your meal ticket.
0:57:28He made Apple what it is today, right?
0:57:32Two, there is a public perception, which was probably the truth, that he is Apple's meal
0:57:37ticket.
0:57:38And if there's a fight between Forrestal and Johnny Ive and you pick Ive, that's
0:57:44probably the right call.
0:57:45Like as far as the stock market is concerned, certainly, but probably as far as you're
0:57:49concerned in terms of like what is fair, who has meant more to the company, who is more
0:57:54important to keep, right?
0:57:56And so, and, you know, these kinds of decisions, you think of them academically, but in the
0:58:00end, those are actual people.
0:58:02So if you get to the point where you're in a situation where you are convinced and
0:58:06everyone around you is convinced, and it may actually even be the right thing to be
0:58:10convinced that it's really important for you to keep Johnny Ive happy and he wants
0:58:13to be in San Francisco and be less engaged from the company, you start doing things that
0:58:19if you had pulled back a little bit, like, is this actually the best for the company
0:58:23and the products?
0:58:25Or at a certain point, am I, you know, pigheadedly pursuing a goal that involves keeping a human
0:58:33happy when really, like, that's great, and it is good to keep Johnny around, but I feel
0:58:39like the company probably passed the point where they should have let him go.
0:58:45Like, if he wasn't engaged anymore, like, the goal of the company is not keep Johnny
0:58:51Ive employed and happy.
0:58:52Like, the company doesn't exist to serve Johnny Ive.
0:58:54Johnny Ive exists to serve the company, right?
0:58:57I don't know if from the inside it ever looked like that.
0:59:01From the outside, I feel like that may be the case.
0:59:04And, you know, again, trying to read the tea leaves and say, well, he's responsible
0:59:07for everything they ship.
0:59:08If there's something that characterizes, you know, the time after he was elevated to
0:59:12the head of everything, I feel like when it came time to make a product better, the philosophy
0:59:19embodied by the product and the execution by the design team was to, you know, attack
0:59:24it as designers and do things to it that had mixed success in the market, let's say.
0:59:32And I'm contrasting this with, and you go back to what Marco was saying earlier in the
0:59:35show about, like, we already kind of know what post-Johnny Ive looks like this.
0:59:38I'm contrasting this to the product design philosophy as embodied by things like the
0:59:46Mac Pro and the iMac Pro and, like, the Pro workflow team.
0:59:50Like, the idea of addressing that market and figuring out what their needs are and doing
0:59:54something that generally designed under both Steve and Johnny didn't do, which is, like,
1:00:00let's ask the customers what they want, which is the antithesis of Apple design.
1:00:03If you ask them what they want, they say, "A faster horse."
1:00:06Like, it's the whole, you know, you don't, if you ask people what they want, you don't
1:00:08get the iPhone, right?
1:00:09You don't get the iMac or the iPod.
1:00:11You don't, like, that's not how great design works.
1:00:15But you can take the other approach too far, especially if you have a singular person with
1:00:20a tremendous amount of power who the entire company thinks is very important to keep happy.
1:00:24You can end up with designs like the Apple TV remote and, you know, things like the Touch
1:00:30Bar, whatever your pet peeve is or the very thin keyboard that ends up not being reliable,
1:00:35right?
1:00:36Whatever you want to assign the blame for that, it's clear that, like, the fault in
1:00:40those things wasn't that Apple was asking for too much customer feedback and just making
1:00:45what customers wanted.
1:00:46Like, there's a spectrum, right?
1:00:48If you go too far and you just make what customers want, you will never make an innovative product.
1:00:52You will never make a hit and you will end up making, like, mainframes, right?
1:00:55On the other hand, if you just do what one very powerful person wants to do at their
1:01:00whim, despite, you know, ignoring what the customers want, you might end up with products
1:01:04that are less successful than they could be, let's say.
1:01:06And I feel like towards the end of Jonny Ive's tenure, that's how things were going.
1:01:10And I feel like the whole pro-workflow team is, like, if, look, if Jonny Ive wanted to
1:01:16have something like that, he would have had that long ago.
1:01:18It came recently, right?
1:01:20It was a change in direction for the company.
1:01:22It has demonstrably changed the kind of products Apple produces and the way they produce them.
1:01:27And I would argue for the better.
1:01:30For the better as far as we're concerned, but certainly it has changed them, right?
1:01:33You know, and we were seeing the fruits of that change.
1:01:36We like it better.
1:01:37Some people might like it worse.
1:01:38But I feel like, again, we can measure objectively how well-loved are the new laptops compared
1:01:44to the history of all the laptops that Apple has ever made.
1:01:47I would argue that these are not particularly well-loved in the pantheon of Apple laptops
1:01:50for a variety of reasons, right?
1:01:52And so you can like them or not like them, but you can judge them against history and
1:01:56you can look at why they may be less well-loved versus, for example, how well-loved was the
1:02:01iMac Pro in the pantheon of all-in-one computers from Apple.
1:02:05Pretty well-loved by the people who that product is aimed at, as far as I can tell.
1:02:09Like it's an all-in-one computer.
1:02:10Apple has made a lot of them.
1:02:12Some of them have been more loved than others.
1:02:13Everybody freaking loves the iMac Pro, like for the people who are in that market, right?
1:02:19So there are ways to measure the success.
1:02:22And I feel like the pesky human issues of the individual person who has, you know, they're
1:02:31all their own feelings and emotions and accomplishments and ego and, you know, just opinions and the
1:02:39amount of power they're given, like that all, it's not a toxic hell stew, Tim, but it is
1:02:44quite a stew.
1:02:46And even the biggest, the best companies in the end can be reduced to the decisions of
1:02:52a small number of people and those people problems can result in less than optimal situations.
1:02:58And, you know, I'm not going to say they should have got rid of him sooner or he should have
1:03:02been allowed to leave sooner or whatever.
1:03:04Like there's lots of different ways this could have gone.
1:03:05Obviously the Pro workflow team and everything happened while Johnny was ostensibly still
1:03:09there.
1:03:10So it's not like he was opposed to it or left because of its existence or felt like it was
1:03:13undercutting him.
1:03:14But like, and I totally believe in all the, you know, all the press releases about how
1:03:17they're collaborative.
1:03:18I believe that's true.
1:03:19Like they are collaborative.
1:03:21They do bounce out as each other.
1:03:22I bet even Tim is involved with in some capacity, right?
1:03:26But there is a hierarchy of where the decisions get made, right?
1:03:29The hierarchy is clear.
1:03:30The fact that they're collaborative at the highest levels is the strength of the company.
1:03:34The fact that ideas can come from anywhere that Phil Schiller, the marketing guy, can
1:03:37come up with the click wheel on the iPod, for example, and they don't just dismiss the
1:03:41idea because he's just the marketing guy, right?
1:03:43I believe all of that, that it is collaborative and it is true.
1:03:46But there are also lines of hierarchy and that's how they resolve the collaboration.
1:03:50It's not designed by committee.
1:03:52It is collaborative design within the design group, in the leadership team of Apple, all
1:03:57the way down to the rank and file levels.
1:03:58Like that's how, you know, great things get made.
1:04:02But you do need those decision points.
1:04:05And in the end, Johnny, I feel like was elevated to the point where he had, where his power
1:04:10and his engagement combined to allow some of his, I'm not going to say his worst instincts,
1:04:18but some of his instincts that were less optimal to Apple's product success than they had
1:04:24been either when his opinions were different or when his opinions were, I'm not going
1:04:29to say moderated by or edited by, I'm going to say combined with a collaborator like Steve
1:04:36Jobs, right?
1:04:37Or even Forstahl or whoever, like whatever, if you want to be an antagonistic collaboration
1:04:41or like this came up on a couple of our Slack channels or maybe it was also in someone's
1:04:44article.
1:04:45The comparison a lot of people drew between Ive and Jobs was John Lennon and Paul McCartney,
1:04:51which also at times was antagonistic, but also very fruitful collaboration of two very
1:04:56different people.
1:04:57One was not editing the other, or rather they were both editing at each other, but that
1:05:01the collaboration produced more than the individuals could have done.
1:05:04And I feel like that's why Apple collaborates at the highest level.
1:05:08And that collaboration comes down to individuals, right?
1:05:10So how will Allen Dye, Evans Hankey, and Jeff Williams collaborate together in the absence
1:05:16of Johnny?
1:05:17How will the pro workflow team be factored into that?
1:05:21Who runs the pro workflow team?
1:05:22Who decides that it's a thing that they should do or continue doing?
1:05:26How will Tim Cook collaborate with them differently than he collaborated with Johnny Ive?
1:05:30Presumably Tim Cook is less concerned about keeping Evans Hankey happy than he was about
1:05:36keeping Johnny Ive happy.
1:05:38He wants everyone to be happy, but the power dynamic between Evans Hankey and Tim Cook
1:05:42is different than it was between Johnny Ive, inventor of name and Brazilian products.
1:05:47The dynamics, the people are different, the arrangement of people are different in the
1:05:52corporate hierarchy, and the interpersonal dynamics are different.
1:05:56We're hoping that the new dynamic will produce products that are more successful, that we
1:06:03like better, whatever, pick your criteria, right?
1:06:06But honestly, we don't entirely know.
1:06:07We know a little bit if we assume that Johnny Ive has been checked out for a long time,
1:06:11but in the end, he was there, and if there was something that he vehemently didn't
1:06:15like, he could have given him a thumbs down, which is why we have all those stories about,
1:06:18"Oh, the team had to go out to San Francisco and wait around for Johnny to come, and in
1:06:24the end, he didn't even give us the decision we wanted."
1:06:25Why did they need his decision?
1:06:26Because he was in charge of design, and they had like, "We have option A and option B,
1:06:30and we have opinions in both directions.
1:06:32We need you to pick one, because that's your job as the leader."
1:06:37We bring you what we think are the best options, and we have factions internally, but none
1:06:42of us can decide because you're the boss, and they were disappointed that no decision
1:06:46was made, which happens all the time, and it's not like slamming him for not making
1:06:50the decision.
1:06:51Sometimes you just need to think about it some more or whatever, but again, getting
1:06:53back to what I said before, in the end, everything that goes out the door when he's in charge
1:06:57is on him, whether it was his idea or whether he even, maybe he just punched it and they
1:07:01just went with whatever they, you know, we don't know the dynamics, but we know it's
1:07:06his responsibility.
1:07:07Anyway, that's how I feel about the tail end of Johnny Ive's tenure at Apple, that
1:07:15it could have gone better, is what I'm going to say.
1:07:18I think that's fair.
1:07:19But you made, you said a moment ago, you know, pick any one of the gazillions of products
1:07:24that Ive has done, you know, to cite as an example, but from what I understand, Evans
1:07:30has done a ton of products at Apple and has like hundreds of patents with her name on
1:07:38them or something like that.
1:07:39And so I was digging into, you know, who are Evans and Allen, and I came across an article,
1:07:46which of course I didn't save the link for, so now I'm going to have to dig it back
1:07:48up, but that's okay.
1:07:49I came across an article.
1:07:50professional podcasters.
1:07:51Yeah, there we go.
1:07:53Therein they discussed, you know, who these people are and they cited a tweet from Maylee
1:08:00Coe, I hope I pronounced that right, who I saw speak at layers several years ago and
1:08:05is tremendous.
1:08:07And Maylee wrote on Twitter, this is with regard to Evans, and she's been making s***
1:08:12run right for a long ass time, uncredited, undercredited, excuse me, in my personal opinion.
1:08:20So this is from someone who worked at Apple design.
1:08:24In fact, on Maylee's own website, she writes, in 2014, I left a long stint at Apple where
1:08:29I designed and prototype new things to poke at with the human interface design device
1:08:33prototyping team.
1:08:35My work included blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, fundamental UI concepts for Apple's force
1:08:39touch and taptic engine, and my explorations help justify and refine the development of
1:08:43the iPad mini, iPad pro and Apple pencil.
1:08:46So Maylee is someone who I would think knows what the crap she's talking about.
1:08:51And she says that Evans is very undercredited.
1:08:55So that is kind of a big deal.
1:08:57And certainly it sounds like Evans has been running the design studio for a long time
1:09:01and is effectively the head of has been the head of design for a long time as well from
1:09:06a, from what I can tell.
1:09:07Well, everybody in the design group is undercredited.
1:09:10Like that's the whole point of having a figurehead.
1:09:11Johnny Hive is the figurehead, but and then literally everyone else is undercredited.
1:09:15He is overcredited and everybody else because of the conservation of credit is undercredited.
1:09:19Like that's just how it works.
1:09:22I remember it used to be like, they didn't even, Apple didn't even want you to know who
1:09:25worked for them in the secret room.
1:09:26They didn't even want you to know those people's names, let alone their faces because they
1:09:29were afraid of people getting poached and they would brag about how that was no turnover.
1:09:32Right?
1:09:33Yeah, of course, of course the actual work is done by the employees and the boss is just
1:09:37in charge and gets to take all the glory and credit because everyone can't be a figurehead.
1:09:41So I'm not sliding the work of the people who are actually doing the design, but there
1:09:46is a design direction and there is a head of design and that head of design makes decisions.
1:09:51And again, in the end we have to just judge the products that are put out no matter whose
1:09:55idea it was.
1:09:56It was Johnny's, you know, in the latter years, Johnny's decision to put it out.
1:10:00So that's, that's another question, right?
1:10:02So all these designers who are there doing their design, they have, design is having
1:10:06lots of ideas.
1:10:07Like, you know, if you read any of the books about the things the design team does, like
1:10:11when they were making the original iPhone, one of the original ideas they had was basically
1:10:14the iPhone 4.
1:10:15It looked kind of like an ice cream sandwich, you know, like we all know what the iPhone
1:10:184 looks like.
1:10:19That was one of the designs in the running for the original iPhone.
1:10:23They didn't pick that one.
1:10:24They picked the design that we saw as the original iPhone.
1:10:26But eventually, many years later, they did the iPhone 4, right?
1:10:30And you know, these designers all have lots of ideas about what a product could be like,
1:10:35right?
1:10:36And they have ideas about the features that the product could have, and that shades into,
1:10:39you know, the sort of, there's designing the thing to do the job, and there's deciding
1:10:44what the heck is the job, right?
1:10:46And that's all part of the same, you know, part of the same stew when Johnny Ave is the
1:10:51head of everything, right?
1:10:53But with some more divisions, I feel like, what will these designers do?
1:10:57What kind of ideas will they have when given, given direction from not just Evans Hankey,
1:11:04but also from, you know, Jeff Williams, or maybe even from Alan Dye with the software
1:11:09idea like that when more people are combined, those same designers working in a different
1:11:15situation, maybe certain ideas that before wouldn't get past the, you know, here are
1:11:20a bunch of options stage, could go farther.
1:11:23Or you know, it really depends on what opinions the new bosses have about the work that is
1:11:29produced.
1:11:30And, you know, this group of designers don't just dictate exactly what it's going to be
1:11:36and get it right on the first try.
1:11:37You try all sorts of things, you have all sorts of ideas, and you discuss them, and
1:11:41that discussion with those particular people and those particular bosses, it decides what
1:11:45actually makes it out the door.
1:11:47And so, certainly, with this new set of people, but the exact same designers, we're going
1:11:51to see different products.
1:11:52Even if they wanted to, they could make the same decisions as Johnny, because I'm sure
1:11:55Johnny, like every other person, is inscrutable, and who knows what he would affect.
1:11:58And I think that's actually a feature, not a bug.
1:12:02It seemed, especially up to about a few years ago, that Apple was kind of like running out
1:12:06of ideas of like how to move the products forward.
1:12:10And now, by having a change in design leadership, whether or not this was like kind of what
1:12:16was happening all along or not, this I think will give, almost like give them permission
1:12:22to do things differently.
1:12:23It'll certainly give the designer permission to do things differently, because they won't
1:12:25have the fear of like what if Johnny overrides this, or they'll be able to more explore
1:12:32new ideas without having to worry about what would Johnny do.
1:12:36So it's part of that, but also just like, I want to see what happens when Apple gets
1:12:40things shaken up a little bit, because when you're in a rut, which it seems for a while
1:12:46like the iPhone was in a rut before the iPhone X.
1:12:49You had like the 6, 7, they were all kind of just 6s.
1:12:53It was all kind of like, here's the most boring phone you've ever seen.
1:12:56And eventually it got improved with the X.
1:13:01The iPad was kind of in a lull for a while.
1:13:04And then the pros that came out last fall with the new industrial design are really
1:13:09cool.
1:13:10You know, the laptops I think have been in a rut for a little while, and I really can't
1:13:14wait to see what this fall's one ends up being, to see what direction that's taking.
1:13:19But I'm looking forward to having the influence of new designers able to flourish, and able
1:13:27to get products out the door with just someone else being in charge, and someone else being
1:13:33the filter at the top of that group.
1:13:35And this is why, to have Jeff Williams be seemingly the effective head of products,
1:13:42it seems a little weird to think about that, because we haven't really thought about
1:13:45Jeff Williams that way up till very recently, but he's somebody new to this role, seemingly,
1:13:53or at least new in scope of the role.
1:13:55I want to see what that brings.
1:13:57That's kind of exciting to me.
1:13:59And it isn't all going to be perfect.
1:14:01Not everything they do is ever perfect.
1:14:03But it's new, it's different, it's changed, it's moving things forward.
1:14:09It's getting new blood in there into existing roles.
1:14:13I want to see what that brings.
1:14:15And I'm kind of excited about that.
1:14:16And I know I'm not going to like everything, and that's fine.
1:14:19We wouldn't have a podcast if I liked everything.
1:14:23But I'm very excited to just see something being shaken up, and seeing some new blood,
1:14:31and seeing some people who have been apparently working for a very long time being elevated
1:14:35into new power.
1:14:37I want to see what that brings.
1:14:38Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
1:14:40I really feel like, I don't know if stagnant's the right word, but it's certainly, I feel
1:14:46like Apple has been, and again, I don't think cruising is the right word, but I can't think
1:14:51of the word I'm looking for.
1:14:52But it's just been kind of business as usual.
1:14:54And I really am excited at the thought of having this new blood really allowed to spread
1:15:01their wings and do what they want to do.
1:15:04And this is going to be a very exciting time to be an Apple fan, which is good because
1:15:08in my opinion, Apple's been pretty dominant for the last several years.
1:15:15I mean, they're occasionally, if not often, the most valuable company in America, if not
1:15:19the world.
1:15:20So it'll be interesting and cool to watch this all go down and watch this kind of work
1:15:25itself out, just like you said.
1:15:27Yeah, I'm right there with you, Marco.
1:15:28I'm really excited about where things are going from here.
1:15:32I wouldn't call it stagnation, but like this is another thing that from the outside I tend
1:15:37to map onto Jonny Ive because I assume that he is the one making these decisions.
1:15:42If you're doing any job, especially a creative job, but really any job for a very long period
1:15:48of time, like in the beginning when you're just getting started in whatever your career
1:15:54is, you're very excited to attain the skills that those skills in the art have, whatever
1:15:59the thing you're doing.
1:16:00If you're a baker, to make your first wedding cake or whatever.
1:16:04Just do the basics, do them with your own twist or flair, but become competent.
1:16:10And you can keep going along that ramp where then you start having your own style more
1:16:13and deciding what you like and what you don't like.
1:16:15But if you're doing this for a very long time and you're very successful, especially in
1:16:20creative endeavors, I think people have a tendency both because as they age and get
1:16:24more experienced, but also as they become more skilled, you're less excited by things
1:16:29that you've already done.
1:16:33And whatever your philosophy is for your craft or your art, I'm not going to say you make
1:16:40more extreme versions of it, but you pursue your muse more thoroughly.
1:16:46So in the beginning, when you're making your wedding cake, you may be like, "Well, in general,
1:16:53cakes tend to be layered with big layers on the bottom and small layers on the top, like
1:16:57a kind of thing.
1:16:59And they're made of this kind of material, and this is about how big they are."
1:17:04You're constrained by the orthodoxy a lot because you're just learning.
1:17:09In the middle, you're like, "I'm making a wedding cake that's a single layer and it's
1:17:13a cylinder straight up and down, and it's the new design trend, and now I've defined what
1:17:18wedding cakes are going to look like for the next 20 years or whatever.
1:17:20They're not pyramid-shaped.
1:17:21They're like skyscraper-shaped or something.
1:17:24And by the way, they're pink or whatever."
1:17:28Whatever your muse is, I feel like you do end up pursuing it, trying to get it the root
1:17:39of it.
1:17:40If you've seen Johnny Ive's videos in his white world over the course of the past decade
1:17:43or so, you see him talk about always trying to find the essential nature of the product,
1:17:48the essence of the product, to get rid of extraneous things.
1:17:53As expressed in those videos, his design philosophy is not about ornamentation.
1:18:00It's about figuring out what is the essence of "insert whatever the product is," whether
1:18:04it's a laptop or, you would probably say, a remote or a pencil or an iPad or a phone.
1:18:11What is the essential nature of this product?
1:18:13What parts of it that we think are integral to the product are actually superfluous?
1:18:19And can I get rid of those?
1:18:21Can I simplify the design?
1:18:23Can I use fewer parts?
1:18:25Can I remove ornamentation or extra things?
1:18:35Under his design leadership, Apple has pursued that philosophy in its products to an ever
1:18:39more extreme degree, almost entirely across the board, with only recently a slight change
1:18:45in direction with the pro products.
1:18:47And it made me think of something I saw recently.
1:18:51This is a program on Netflix that's like a sci-fi anthology series of little animated
1:18:56shorts.
1:18:57It reminds me of Liquid Television and MTV back in the day.
1:18:59A particular episode called Zima Blue.
1:19:02The series is called Love, Death, and Robots.
1:19:05It's on Netflix.
1:19:07Every episode is standalone.
1:19:08Most of them are not that good.
1:19:09Some of them are kind of exploitive and extreme.
1:19:11But I would recommend that everybody take a look at Zima Blue.
1:19:14And it's a sci-fi story.
1:19:16It's animated and it's a story of an artist.
1:19:18And this artist, I won't spoil the thing for you.
1:19:20You should watch it.
1:19:21It's like 15 minutes long.
1:19:22They're all very short.
1:19:25Pursues his muse, his passion, his artistic intent to an extreme, for an explicable reason,
1:19:34a more extreme than Johnny Ive because, again, it's a sci-fi story.
1:19:37But I would encourage everybody to check out Zima Blue on Netflix to see what could have
1:19:44become of Johnny Ive if his life turned out a little bit differently and he was in a sci-fi
1:19:50animated show.
1:19:51But anyway, getting back to Apple, I feel like that's the natural arc of someone's career.
1:19:59And by putting people in, replacing him with people in other, the people we just discussed,
1:20:06who are at different points in their career, none of those people made the iMac.
1:20:10None of them made all of those products or were responsible for a design when those products
1:20:15were produced or however you want to parse it.
1:20:18They're all at different parts in their careers.
1:20:20They all have their own personal design philosophies.
1:20:24Are they all subscribed 100% with the essentialism and all of the philosophy espoused by Johnny
1:20:29in all of his videos?
1:20:31Maybe, maybe not.
1:20:33I would imagine that the design group is filled with a diversity of opinion about what thing
1:20:38they should be pursuing in their products.
1:20:40I also think that the design group probably lacks some opinions that are important for
1:20:48Apple's products to be very good.
1:20:50Some of those opinions may be coming from the pro work group people, like some of them
1:20:54might be coming from the software side.
1:20:57When Johnny was the head of everything and he was so closely tied to the design group,
1:21:01there are aspects of successful laptops that may not be represented at all anywhere in
1:21:06the design group, not because Johnny I've expunged all contrary opinion, but just because
1:21:10it's a bunch of industrial designers and product designers.
1:21:13They think differently than someone who is a professional in some market that products
1:21:20are sold into or a marketing person.
1:21:24There are other perspectives.
1:21:28Having Apple's products now not only have a different decider in front of the design
1:21:32group, but have what has to be more influence from things outside the design group.
1:21:38I think that's the better way to make a well-rounded, successful, pleasing product
1:21:44than to have even the diversity of opinion that may be present in the design group.
1:21:49You need more perspective than that because in the end, products are more than just the
1:21:54things that people in the little walled off design group think about.
1:21:59There are also things that have prices and names and features and customers and jobs
1:22:05to do.
1:22:06And those I feel like are not well represented by the design group.
1:22:09Hopefully that will change for the better now.
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1:24:16(upbeat music)
1:24:20- Some Ask ATP.
1:24:21- Let's do it.
1:24:22- All right, we start tonight with Marcus Ernst who writes, "How does the recommendation
1:24:26engine in Overcast work?
1:24:28Did you try multiple approaches?
1:24:29Is it some fancy neural network?"
1:24:31- I have tried multiple approaches.
1:24:33It is not a neural network or anything remotely fancy like that, primarily because I don't
1:24:40know how to use those things or understand anything about them.
1:24:43- Use CoreML.
1:24:44- Honestly, I thought about that.
1:24:46CoreML and they, so as CoreML has evolved and other tools that are like CoreML, that
1:24:52are more like in the non-Apple world, I think like TensorFlow is one of these things.
1:24:57Forgive me, this is a whole world, the whole world of ML models and everything, I really
1:25:02don't understand much about it and I'm not familiar with any of the tools or any of the
1:25:08real concepts of it.
1:25:10The main reason I haven't gotten into all this stuff yet is because I haven't really
1:25:14needed to because I have some data with Overcast.
1:25:20I try to keep as little data as possible about people and their behavior and everything,
1:25:25but I do know the list of podcasts that each user subscribes to.
1:25:30So I can do simple correlations like, "People who subscribe to this tend to also subscribe
1:25:35to that."
1:25:36That's stuff that you don't need fancy ML stuff to do that if you have decent data.
1:25:43And that's all the data you really need to do that.
1:25:46So the recommendation engine, the current one is based on Twitter stuff and it's like
1:25:53what people subscribe to, who you follow on Twitter.
1:25:58I will give you an exclusive news-breaking heads up here, I'm removing that feature.
1:26:06I'm getting rid of the Twitter integration for lots of reasons.
1:26:10Number one, almost nobody uses it.
1:26:13So it's already on the chopping block for that.
1:26:16And there's a bunch of liabilities of having Twitter integration and it causes a lot of
1:26:22confusion among users.
1:26:23I got a lot of support email about people who either don't understand it or wish to
1:26:27behave differently.
1:26:29And I've actually just rebuilt the recommendation engine over the last couple of weeks using
1:26:36an even better approach.
1:26:37Again, just involving subscription data, nothing super fancy.
1:26:41But I figured out better algorithms.
1:26:44And so I'm going to ship an update soon.
1:26:48Still before I was 12, before the beta was this fall, I'm going to ship an update soon
1:26:52that switches out the Twitter feature for my new recommendation engine.
1:26:56And I've been testing it with some testers here and there and it has significantly better
1:27:02recommendations for podcasts you might like.
1:27:04So I think it'll be a positive change and it also allows me to do things, which I don't
1:27:08think I'm going to have time to do for this update, but it'll allow me to do things like
1:27:11on a podcast's individual page to be able to say, "These podcasts are similar to this."
1:27:18Or you know, "People who like this also like this."
1:27:21It allows me to do all that stuff.
1:27:23And it's a way better engine than the one I had before.
1:27:27And it will allow me to integrate a lot more stuff more nicely into the app and not have
1:27:31to deal with weird interactions with an increasingly risky and toxic social network.
1:27:39Paul Wood III writes, "What is the best way for you to enter the zone while programming?
1:27:44Do you have any tricks you plan yourself to help you focus?
1:27:47And why do you think that this trick works?"
1:27:48For me, it's listening to Daft Punk's Discovery album because I listened to it at my first
1:27:52programming job.
1:27:54I don't have any great tips about getting in the zone, although I will say now that
1:27:58I don't have a office to go to in the traditional sense, I do like once or twice a week going
1:28:03somewhere else to get work done.
1:28:05And I think the change of scenery really does help me.
1:28:08And then, as I think I mentioned several times on this program in the past, I have my secret
1:28:13weapon which I deploy extremely tactically, which is if I have a programming problem that
1:28:19I just can't figure out, Tools 10,000 Days has not yet failed in getting me through that
1:28:25problem.
1:28:26It usually takes one run-through or less to get me there, but if I deploy it very tactically,
1:28:31I can usually use that as my secret weapon to solve programming problems.
1:28:35Jon, how do you get in the zone?
1:28:37Jon
1:28:40The only thing I've found that works for me consistently, because I think about times
1:28:42in my career when I have had a difficult programming challenge that I have put myself to dealing
1:28:50with either because there was a hard external deadline or I was very motivated to do it
1:28:54because I was super into a project or something like that, I think the thing that I've used
1:28:59is not isolation, but removal of distractions.
1:29:04So to give some examples, at one point I was dealing with a particularly, I think I've
1:29:08talked about this on the show, I was dealing with a particularly thorny thing having to
1:29:10do with the e-book site that I, for the company I used to work for, had to do with the complexities
1:29:17of royalty calculations for bundled products for e-books or whatever.
1:29:22And it was a fairly complicated system and I'd taken a couple of runs at it and I just
1:29:26wasn't satisfied that we were solving the problem in an elegant way.
1:29:29So I basically took a weekend and I said all I'm going to do this weekend is I'm going
1:29:32to rewrite everything having to do with royalty calculations and everything having to do with
1:29:37product bundles or whatever.
1:29:40I'd thought about it for weeks and weeks and months leading up to that point.
1:29:44The site was running ahead of thing, but it was unsatisfactory.
1:29:48Every time a new requirement would come in, it would be a problem.
1:29:50So I'm like, "I'm just going to tackle this."
1:29:52So I isolated myself for a weekend for something I could do before kids or before kids who
1:29:56were older because I had one little tiny baby at that moment.
1:29:58Just two days at home on a weekend, me and the computer.
1:30:02Similarly, at an earlier job, I had another very complicated system designed by product
1:30:08designers or marketing people essentially.
1:30:10It's like, "Here's how we want it to work," and they described it in a 17-page Word document.
1:30:14"Here's how we want this system to work."
1:30:16And I was like, "There's no way I'm going to be able to make this thing if I just come
1:30:20in every day and try to chip away at it."
1:30:22So again, I set myself a task.
1:30:24And this time it was at work, but I set myself a task of like, "I'm not doing anything else.
1:30:28I'm just going to hide in my then actual office."
1:30:32Those were the days.
1:30:34And just for this week, I'm going to turn that eight-page Word document written by non-technical
1:30:42people into an implementation that matches it exactly, clarifying all the ambiguities
1:30:47or whatever, and just spent that week doing it.
1:30:49Every time I feel like I've had to get in the zone and tackle a programming problem,
1:30:53I feel like I've had to shut out distractions and remove context switches.
1:30:58I imagine that's true for most people because it's a common thing that people measure, like
1:31:01the context switches are bad or whatever.
1:31:03But some people may be like, "Oh, I'd rather be in a café or whatever."
1:31:06I'm like, "No, I don't want to see or hear any other human.
1:31:08I don't want to see or hear any other noise.
1:31:11It's just going to be me and the computer.
1:31:13Absolutely no distractions.
1:31:14Absolutely no one else there.
1:31:16No music, no sound.
1:31:17No things on in the background.
1:31:18No people walking around, nothing.
1:31:20That's how I get in the zone.
1:31:23Marco?
1:31:24Headphones and fish.
1:31:26Nobody saw that coming.
1:31:27Surprise!
1:31:28Mm-hmm.
1:31:29And I would also say, too, the way I work—I don't know if this is true, everybody.
1:31:32I think it might be.
1:31:33The way I work, I can't really create the zone at will.
1:31:39I can just recognize when I'm ready for it and encourage it and preserve the state
1:31:45as well as possible.
1:31:47It's like the zone is here, and I get a chance to harness it or not harness it.
1:31:53And so I choose, whenever I can, to harness it when the opportunity arises.
1:31:58When I have that motivation, when I have that focus, whatever causes that mode to happen,
1:32:03I try to recognize when that is happening and preserve that and harness it to get good
1:32:08stuff done.
1:32:10When I can tell that I'm in the zone or that I'm able to be in the zone, I'm not
1:32:14going to do things like read Twitter or answer email.
1:32:18I'm going to want to harness that to—I'm going to ideally apply that to coding and
1:32:26things that are more substantial like that, as opposed to just administrative work or
1:32:31messing around.
1:32:32But I'm not perfect at this, but that is the idea.
1:32:39Leon Zandman writes, "Do you have any idea what should or could happen to Overcast in
1:32:43your other endeavors in the unfortunate event of you dying?
1:32:46Maybe a weird/creepy question, but I'm just wondering if and how you, as a one-person's
1:32:51business with paying clients, are handling this."
1:32:53And I thought this was fascinating in no small part because I just heard Independence No.
1:32:5955, the single point of failure where this exact conversation is discussed.
1:33:05For me, I mean, it's not as big as—and certainly not the financial powerhouse, let's
1:33:12say, that Overcast is.
1:33:14But for Vignette and all the other associated stuff with my business, I have written out
1:33:20kind of the instructions on, "Hey, if I disappear, where is everything?"
1:33:24And that's true not only of the business but actually my personal life as well.
1:33:28And I've given copies of those documents to people I trust.
1:33:31And so in the unfortunate event that I pass away, then both Erin as my wife and Erin as
1:33:40probably the person who will end up dealing with my business's stuff should hopefully
1:33:45be squared away.
1:33:46And I've actually been thinking about writing a blog post about what sorts of information
1:33:49I've included on these documents because I think it would probably be helpful.
1:33:52So I'll probably get around to that one day.
1:33:55But Marco, what are you doing if, God forbid, something happens to you suddenly?
1:33:59I mean, my family's taken care of with things like life insurance.
1:34:03But for the actual business, like for Overcast, I don't really have any plans.
1:34:11I'll be dead, so I won't care.
1:34:13Fair.
1:34:14I guess people can do whatever they want with it.
1:34:16I don't know.
1:34:17Like, I have not put anything in place.
1:34:18I also heard that episode.
1:34:20And I also thought about, like, "I wonder if I should put some process in place here."
1:34:26But I have found that transitions of app ownership rarely really preserve what the app was about
1:34:35and what made it good.
1:34:38And so I don't think it really matters.
1:34:41Like if I'm gone, Overcast is going to die with me or is going to be picked up by somebody
1:34:49else and changed in a way that you're all going to hate.
1:34:53So like, it kind of doesn't really matter, honestly.
1:34:56That's an interesting point.
1:34:57You know, a couple of years ago, maybe even several years ago now, a friend of the show,
1:35:02Underscore David Smith, went somewhere and he didn't tell his friends that he was going
1:35:07anywhere, which is fine.
1:35:08Like, he doesn't have to report in to us that he's going on a vacation.
1:35:12But he went somewhere, and this was, I think, when Feed Wrangler was fairly new.
1:35:16And something happened.
1:35:17I don't know if you remember this, Marco, but something happened when Feed Wrangler
1:35:21basically took a dump.
1:35:23And this was fairly significant and nobody could get in touch with Dave.
1:35:28And I can only speak for myself, but I was getting increasingly and increasingly and
1:35:32increasingly worried about what was going on.
1:35:34And it turned out everything was fine in, well, in his world.
1:35:39It's just that some server had had an issue or something like that.
1:35:41- Yeah, and he was just like on vacation, like at a cabin in the woods with no internet
1:35:44connectivity.
1:35:45- Exactly.
1:35:46- But like, yeah, it was like his server went down like at the worst possible time, basically
1:35:48like right after he left.
1:35:50And so like, it was down for a while.
1:35:53And you know, I've taken vacations where I've been offline, and you just kind of assume
1:35:56like, well, I just hope that in the next couple days my servers don't break, right?
1:36:00And his servers happen to break during that time.
1:36:04But yeah, we all thought the worst.
1:36:06- Yeah, I was genuinely like getting really concerned.
1:36:09Well, anyways, I bring all this up because there was a time when he went on a different
1:36:14trip later, and I genuinely don't know if this is still true or not, but there was a
1:36:18window of time where he had given me like a 400 character password to use and like the
1:36:25bare bones of server information that I could use to basically like log in and just restart
1:36:31the thing and hope for the best.
1:36:32And I honestly, I'm sure if I have it, it's in one password somewhere, and I don't even
1:36:37know if I do have this information anymore.
1:36:38And even if I do, I doubt it still works.
1:36:40But I thought it was an interesting point that, you know, it may not be terrible to
1:36:44take someone you trust and give them, you know, a key or the keys to the kingdom just
1:36:51in case something happens.
1:36:52Now, obviously, I wouldn't be able to like properly debug whatever, you know, Dave's
1:36:56issues may be, but I could go in there, like I said, and restart the server and hope for
1:37:00the best.
1:37:01So that's another thing to think about as well if you ever go off the grid.
1:37:06In any case, Jon, what about you?
1:37:07Have you thought about any of this?
1:37:09- I have no kingdom for which keys must be handed to someone.
1:37:12When I'm dead, nobody cares and there's nothing that needs to continue.
1:37:15- I'll care.
1:37:16- But there's nothing that needs to keep running, so.
1:37:19- Fair enough.
1:37:20But not hypercritical.co, is that right?
1:37:22It's not com, right?
1:37:23- Nobody cares about that stuff.
1:37:24- Well, you only write on it once a year, so.
1:37:26- That's right.
1:37:27I mean, yeah, I don't have any ongoing endeavors like that.
1:37:28You know, other than the ones that actually involve me, in which case those, you know,
1:37:32no longer involve me.
1:37:33- Fair enough.
1:37:34- Thanks to our sponsors this week, Eero, Squarespace, and Casper.
1:37:40And we'll see you next week.
1:37:42- Thanks.
1:37:43- Bye.
1:37:44- Bye.
1:37:45- Bye.
1:37:46[MUSIC PLAYING]
1:37:47Now the show is over.
1:37:48They didn't even mean to begin.
1:37:49'Cause it was accidental.
1:37:50- Accidental.
1:37:51- Oh, it was accidental.
1:37:52- Accidental.
1:37:53- Jon didn't do any research.
1:37:54Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
1:37:55'Cause it was accidental.
1:37:56- Accidental.
1:37:57- Oh, it was accidental.
1:37:58- Accidental.
1:37:59- And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm.
1:38:00And if you're into it, you can visit the show notes at the ATP.fm website.
1:38:01[MUSIC PLAYING]
1:38:02- So, Jon, how can you not be so upset about this?
1:38:03- I don't know.
1:38:04I don't know.
1:38:05- I'm not sure.
1:38:06- I'm not sure.
1:38:07- You can find the show notes at ATP.fm.
1:38:14And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S. So that's Casey
1:38:21Liszt, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M, A-N-T, Marco Arman, S-I-R-A-C, USA, Syracuse.
1:38:30It's accidental.
1:38:31- It's accidental.
1:38:32- They didn't mean to.
1:38:37- Accidental.
1:38:38- Accidental.
1:38:39- Tech podcast so long.
1:38:44- I so desperately want-- I have a favorite spatula.
1:38:49Rubbermaid used to make utensils for some brief period.
1:38:52They no longer do.
1:38:53I have two Rubbermaid spatulas, one of which is my favorite spatula.
1:38:57And I cannot find one that is even remotely like it.
1:39:00It's not complicated.
1:39:01It's one piece of Rubbermaid plastic, but it's exactly the right size and shape.
1:39:05Doesn't have any weird places where gunk gets stuck.
1:39:10It's the right flexibility.
1:39:13It's a good spatula.
1:39:15Johnny might even like it.
1:39:16But I have to hope that it never breaks or accidentally melts on something or whatever,
1:39:21because I can't find a replacement.
1:39:23So yeah, he should make a spatula.
1:39:25It's a perfect Johnny Ive thing, because it should be basically featureless and white
1:39:28and just like a simple solid with no moving parts and no ports.
1:39:34Not white though, because then your sauce would discolor it.
1:39:37Mine's not white.
1:39:38It's like an off-white kind of color.
1:39:40And yeah, it is a little bit discolored, right?
1:39:42But the tomato sauce you make, of course it's going to be discolored.
1:39:46Well, no, you don't use the spatula and tomato sauce.
1:39:48But anyway, it is mostly like sort of discolored from like burny stuff being on it.
1:39:53So it's like a little bit of a brown--
1:39:54- Burny stuff.
1:39:55- Burny stuff.
1:39:56Yeah, like a little bit of a brown speckling.
1:39:58But it's not colored like purple or red or any kind of like food dye color.
1:40:04Rybur in the chat room, that's a bowl scraper.
1:40:07That's not that kind of spatula.
1:40:10- You're talking about the pancake turner?
1:40:11- Flipper, if anything, but yes.
1:40:14- Like it's shaped more like a hockey stick.
1:40:16Yes, you could like get it underneath.
1:40:18- I gotta say, what you're calling like a bowl scraper, I have been using those more--
1:40:26- For eggs.
1:40:27- Just like as like the thing that you stir stuff in a pan with.
1:40:30- Yeah, that's not the right tool for that job.
1:40:33Please stop doing that.
1:40:34- Honestly, I find, like I used to be a wooden spoon person.
1:40:37- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:40:38- But ultimately I find that a good flexible silicone spatula, that what you're calling
1:40:43the bowl scraper kind of spatula, like you know, not the pancake turner but the slots,
1:40:46but like the thing that you would like, you know, ice a cake with.
1:40:50Like that kind of thing.
1:40:51I have found that is actually a much better tool for stirring stuff around in a pan for
1:40:56most types of things that I'm stirring around in pans.
1:40:58I really enjoy it.
1:40:59I got converted to it a couple years ago by a friend and I am solidly in that camp now.
1:41:04Like that is the better tool for that job.
1:41:06- So the thing my wife does and it drives me nuts, but it is still one step up from
1:41:11the worst thing, which is using silverware.
1:41:13- Yeah, that's definitely the worst thing.
1:41:15- Oh, goodness.
1:41:16- Please do not use silverware for so many reasons.
1:41:18- Yeah, that I agree with.
1:41:20- Using the wrong cooking tool is a step up from that and then using the correct tool
1:41:24of course.
1:41:25- Yeah, Erin always used to use one of these things that you're describing, Marco, for
1:41:30scrambled eggs.
1:41:31And for the longest time I was like, "What the hell are you doing?
1:41:34That's why you use a spatula."
1:41:35And then I tried it once, sir.
1:41:36I was like, she started them and left like the little scrapery, you know, plasticy whatever
1:41:42thing right near the pan.
1:41:45And so I was like, "Oh, screw it.
1:41:46I'll just use this."
1:41:47I think both you and Erin are correct for something along those lines.
1:41:51- When you're making eggs, you are in fact much of the time scraping the bowl essentially.
1:41:56- Yeah, yeah, that's perfect.
1:41:57- You know what I mean?
1:41:58So that actually is closer.
1:41:59- Yeah, especially if you're making scrambled eggs in a nonstick pan, this thing is perfect
1:42:03because you really do want to get it all off the side.
1:42:06Yeah, it makes it look like--
1:42:07- Well, so if your pan is properly nonstick, you shouldn't need this actually.
1:42:11This is to get things off the side that are sticking to the side.
1:42:13Really you should be able to not even touch it with anything and just flip it and it should
1:42:18slide right off just like in those commercials.
1:42:20But as nonstick degrades, they become less nonstick.
1:42:24They become more stick.
1:42:26And so then you might need a scraper.
1:42:29- Every pan eventually becomes a stick pan.
1:42:32- Except for the super duper cast iron thingies, supposedly.
1:42:37I've never successfully pulled this off, but the theory is the carbonization in a long
1:42:40period of time and smooth glassy surface, yada yada.
1:42:44- Yeah, I've never been convinced by the cast iron lifestyle.
1:42:49It seems like it is--
1:42:51- You need a grandma pan.
1:42:52You need a pan that someone's used for 100 years that has that glassy surface that no
1:42:55one has put their stupid metal utensils into and screwed up.
1:42:59- John, click that most recent link in the chat.
1:43:02It's circa 1972 spatula, so that's right in your wheelhouse in terms of era.
1:43:07- I didn't get, hey, that's it.
1:43:09That's not the one that I like.
1:43:10That's the big one.
1:43:11The small version of that is my spatula.
1:43:14We also have the big one and that's what we use for pancakes and stuff, but I'm not married
1:43:17to the big one.
1:43:18I feel like the big one is too big.
1:43:19The small one is maybe half that width.
1:43:21That is my spatula.
1:43:22- Okay, this is not at all what I thought you meant.
1:43:26- Doesn't it look like a Johnny Ive thing?
1:43:28Other than obviously the giant Rubbermaid thing, which is why I know it's Rubbermaid
1:43:30'cause you can't not know it's Rubbermaid, but that's the only--
1:43:33- So you can't find anything as good as that?
1:43:36- Nope, I cannot.
1:43:38- I hear the skepticism all the way from here.
1:43:40- And again, not the big one, the small one.
1:43:42God, if anyone sees the small one on eBay, I will buy it for a ridiculous price.
1:43:48- Like I'm already running low on my grated cheese, the Oxo thing, right?
1:43:56- Oh no, I remember you mentioned that in the past, right?
1:43:59You're holding onto an old cheese grater?
1:44:00- I think I have one or possibly two left unopened, but they're lifetime.
1:44:06And my current one, I'm just like, hang on a little bit longer.
1:44:08I'm trying to get the maximum life out of it.
1:44:09I have seen on television a few more commercial kitchens with electric ones and that's totally
1:44:15what I want.
1:44:16I may not do it by hand, but I haven't found a good electric one yet.
1:44:21So I'm always on the lookout for that.
1:44:24But in the meantime, I got to keep my hand ones.
1:44:25- Oh, do you see this Etsy link?
1:44:28- Is it really from the '70s?
1:44:29Yeah, that one in the middle, there you got it, right there.
1:44:31That's my spatula.
1:44:32Boom.
1:44:33Is it from the '70s?
1:44:34How could it, I mean, we bought it after we were--
1:44:35- You can buy one for $74.99, John.
1:44:38- We bought it after we were married.
1:44:40So it's not like this is, I mean, maybe they've made it since the '70s and yeah.
1:44:44I don't know, $70, hmm.
1:44:47- Jesus, you're actually thinking about it?
1:44:50I would love so much for you to go back in time to the '70s and explain to your parents
1:44:54or grandparents, whoever bought this, that in 2019 you're gonna buy one for $75.
1:44:59- We bought it.
1:45:00We bought it ourselves.
1:45:01After we were married, when you're buying stuff for your house, you gotta buy a kitchen
1:45:04table and utensils and plates and spatulas.
1:45:07We bought a spatula.
1:45:08We just probably went to whatever the kitchen store and bought a bunch of cheap, you know,
1:45:13we were like in our 20s, we were just married, we didn't have a lot of money, this is not
1:45:16an expensive product.
1:45:18God, I've never seen that weird soup ladle.
1:45:21I'm really not on board with that probably, but.
1:45:25- $75 for this piece of plastic.
1:45:26Good God.
1:45:27- Big and the small spatula.
1:45:29Rubbermaid, why did you stop making these?
1:45:32- Oh, and it's only available in black, apparently.
1:45:34Sorry, John.
1:45:35- Black?
1:45:36Ew.
1:45:37- Yeah, you can pay $75 and get the spatula pro.
1:45:40- Wow.
1:45:41- Actually, now that I see it in black, it does look kind of Mac Pro-y.
1:45:46- It also, if you go to the very last photo where it's the black one and it's showing
1:45:49the underside, it looks like it might be used.
1:45:51You see that leading edge?
1:45:53- Oh yeah, they get scraped up.
1:45:55Mine is, it's like a cast iron pan where it becomes, you get a patina and sort of like,
1:46:00it has seen so much service, because again, I've had it for like 20 years now, that it
1:46:04is like, I don't know, I should take some pictures of it.
1:46:08It's a pretty good looking thing after 20 years.
1:46:10- Now, the real funny thing here is that at the bottom of this listing, it says, "Almost
1:46:13gone, there's only three left."
1:46:15I see that as, they have three of these, that's great.
1:46:18You could spend $225 and have three backup spatula pros.
1:46:24- John, you might want to consider it.
1:46:26- What is this picture with the thing with like a spoon with slots in it?
1:46:29I'm not on board with their spoons.
1:46:30I'm also in the market for a good wooden spoon.
1:46:32I have a lot of good wooden spoons, including wooden spoons for my grandmother, which are
1:46:35my best wooden spoons, but wooden spoons eventually do start to check and crack a little bit,
1:46:40right?
1:46:41So, a couple of my good wooden spoons have some cracks in them.
1:46:44- Are there advantages of using spatulas instead of wooden spoons?
1:46:47You can put them in the dishwasher.
1:46:48- Oh, we don't put these in the dishwasher, are you kidding?
1:46:50He's never gone in the dishwasher.
1:46:51The wooden spoons or the spatulas all wash my hand.
1:46:54- Your things from the '70s probably would melt if you put them in the dishwasher.
1:46:57They're probably--
1:46:58- I don't think they would.
1:46:59- They're probably leaching chemicals into your food when you use them.
1:47:02- They go directly into hot pans, they don't melt.
1:47:04But I wouldn't put them in the dishwasher.
1:47:06- It's plastic from the '70s.
1:47:09- It's not from the '70s.
1:47:10It was manufactured in the late '90s.
1:47:13- Fine.
1:47:14I wouldn't put plastic from the '90s into my food today.
1:47:17- Don't worry about it, it's fine.
1:47:19- It's not fine.
1:47:20We know factually it's not fine.
1:47:23- Not all plastic is toxic.
1:47:25- Yeah, but like--
1:47:26- Only the stuff they use for water bottles.
1:47:28- Yeah, right.
1:47:29- It's not a water bottle.
1:47:30- And plastic, it degrades and leaches weird chemicals out of itself over time.
1:47:34It's not a good--
1:47:36- I'm sure it's fine.
1:47:38- This is not good.
1:47:39- In John's defense, I think I misread 1972 as a release year, not a model number, because
1:47:43apparently that is a model number.
1:47:45- There you go.
1:47:46- But it does say on this listing, item details vintage from before 2000, which is now basically
1:47:5220 years ago.
1:47:53- It's vintage, yeah.
1:47:54It's vintage from when I was married in the '90s.
1:47:56- Well, it's 20 years ago.
1:47:58- All three of us are quite vintage at this point by these definitions.
1:48:00- Wow, that's good to go.
1:48:02Looking at the little codes in the back, I should look.
1:48:03Probably that code is in the back of mine.
1:48:05It's got the recycle symbol, huh?
1:48:06- Yeah.
1:48:07- So there you go.
1:48:08- 1971 spatula.
1:48:09- Is it the '71?
1:48:10I can't tell what number.
1:48:11I don't know.
1:48:12I'll go look at mine.
1:48:14- You should go right now.
1:48:15- I want those spatulas.
1:48:18- You're really thinking about spending $75 on this thing, aren't you?
1:48:20- I mean, here's the thing.
1:48:22My current ones are fine.
1:48:24They're not broken.
1:48:25And unlike my cheese grater, there's not a shelf life where I know this is gonna break
1:48:29in three years.
1:48:30They've never broken, but I fear one day something happening to it, someone leaving it on a burner
1:48:36and actually does melt or something like that.
1:48:39People are sending me links to other things on Amazon that are not my spatula.
1:48:43This is not my spatula.
1:48:44I've seen these in the store.
1:48:45This is not what I want.
1:48:46- I think you have to buy this.
1:48:49You have to get Spatula Pro for $75.
1:48:51- I think you might be right.
1:48:53- The only question is how many.
1:48:57- Which utensil?
1:48:59Narrow spatula.
1:49:00$74.99.
1:49:01No, I'm not gonna do it.
1:49:02I gotta keep my powder dry for the Mac Pro.
1:49:05- I mean, just think about how many of these spatulas you could buy.
1:49:09- The white is sold out anyway.
1:49:11I would have to get the black one.
1:49:13Yeah, no, forget it.
1:49:14I'm not, I mean, no.
1:49:15The Pro one looks cool, but it clashes with everything else.
1:49:19I like to see the food stuff stuck to it.
1:49:22It's black.
1:49:23It's hard to see what kind of gunk is on there.
1:49:24[beeping]
1:49:26[ Silence ]