Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade Episode 183.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Linode, Squarespace, Away, and CleanMyMac3 from MacPaw.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hello, Mr. Myke Hurley!

00:00:23 ◼   ► I thought I'd do that like you that time.

00:00:25 ◼   ► I like it, I like it. That was your true introduction voice.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Jason, our #SnellTalk question this week comes from Tim, and Tim asks, "Do Jason's kids

00:00:35 ◼   ► appreciate his internet fame?"

00:00:37 ◼   ► Tim Cynova So I'm always reminded that of Andy Inato quoting

00:00:45 ◼   ► from a Mel Brooks movie, there's a scene where a man and a woman are waiting on a train platform

00:00:51 ◼   ► and a train pulls in and a guy walks, steps off

00:00:56 ◼   ► and he's mobbed by a crowd.

00:00:58 ◼   ► And across the way, one of the people who's looking at this

00:01:02 ◼   ► says, "Who is he?"

00:01:05 ◼   ► And the other one says, "Oh, he's world famous in Poland."

00:01:08 ◼   ► Which I like because as Andy puts it, that's many of us,

00:01:14 ◼   ► which is well known in a very small group of people,

00:01:18 ◼   ► famous to small amount of people.

00:01:21 ◼   ► and world famous for one week in a Californian city.

00:01:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's right.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yeah, walking around the street in WWDC time,

00:01:29 ◼   ► any of us could get spotted and be like,

00:01:31 ◼   ► "Hey, it's Myke Hurley, get him," or whatever.

00:01:35 ◼   ► - They get their pitchforks and chase me down the street.

00:01:40 ◼   ► - Could be, I'm just saying.

00:01:42 ◼   ► - "Recommit yourself to the Macintosh."

00:01:46 ◼   ► - Well, I was thinking it's like,

00:01:48 ◼   ► Does Marco get more positive about Apple

00:01:51 ◼   ► in the weeks preceding WWDC so that he's not harangued

00:01:55 ◼   ► when he is walking around the streets of San Jose?

00:01:58 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:02:00 ◼   ► So, I have a funny story here, which is,

00:02:03 ◼   ► Jamie has a friend,

00:02:09 ◼   ► it's actually her best friend's boyfriend,

00:02:11 ◼   ► and he apparently, in their Spanish class,

00:02:17 ◼   ► you had to do a report in Spanish about a famous person.

00:02:22 ◼   ► And Jamie's friend Bastian did a report about me.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, he did.

00:02:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:33 ◼   ► - I said, "Jamie, that is so embarrassing."

00:02:35 ◼   ► And she's like, "Oh, I wasn't in that class.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Thank God I was not in that class."

00:02:39 ◼   ► I didn't have to hear that.

00:02:40 ◼   ► But I thought that was really hilarious that he,

00:02:45 ◼   ► And I think a few of her other classmates, but definitely Bastian knew who I was from

00:02:52 ◼   ► podcast things, I guess, which I just find hilarious.

00:02:55 ◼   ► Does Bastian listen to this show, do you think?

00:02:57 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:03:00 ◼   ► We'll find out.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll find out.

00:03:02 ◼   ► Or maybe we won't because he's never spoken to me.

00:03:04 ◼   ► In fact, we were at a college counseling conference thing and we were waiting to go in.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Bastian and his parents were across the room and he didn't say hi.

00:03:12 ◼   ► And I don't think I've ever been introduced to him by Jamie, so she's fallen down on the

00:03:16 ◼   ► job there.

00:03:17 ◼   ► Well, if so, hello Bastian.

00:03:18 ◼   ► Hello.

00:03:19 ◼   ► I've listened to the show.

00:03:20 ◼   ► That is wonderful though.

00:03:21 ◼   ► That is just wonderful.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Isn't that hilarious?

00:03:23 ◼   ► So anyway, do my kids appreciate my internet fame?

00:03:25 ◼   ► I think they are vaguely aware of the fact that people know who I am in this certain

00:03:31 ◼   ► sphere and they don't.

00:03:34 ◼   ► I think the point is appreciate.

00:03:36 ◼   ► Are they aware?

00:03:37 ◼   ► Yes.

00:03:38 ◼   ► They probably just find it embarrassing.

00:03:39 ◼   ► - I don't think, well, anything a parent does

00:03:42 ◼   ► is gonna be embarrassing, right?

00:03:44 ◼   ► So I don't appreciate is not the word I would use,

00:03:47 ◼   ► but are they aware?

00:03:48 ◼   ► Sure, they definitely are,

00:03:50 ◼   ► but I think that's as far as it goes.

00:03:53 ◼   ► They're impressed every now and then

00:03:55 ◼   ► when I drop some sort of knowledge or reference to something

00:03:58 ◼   ► because of my tech industry, things where I'm like,

00:04:00 ◼   ► "Oh, did you know that I met that person?"

00:04:02 ◼   ► And they're like, "What, you met that person?"

00:04:03 ◼   ► I'm like, "Yeah, I did."

00:04:04 ◼   ► But that's about it, that's as far as it goes.

00:04:07 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question like Tim did to open the show, just tweet with

00:04:11 ◼   ► the hashtag SnellTalk and we may pick it out for a future episode.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Thank you Tim for your great question.

00:04:16 ◼   ► Jason, you have finally, I will use the word finally, posted your HomePod review over at

00:04:23 ◼   ► Six Colors and obviously people should go and read it and enjoy it because it is there

00:04:30 ◼   ► for people's enjoyment.

00:04:32 ◼   ► But I just wondered if you had anything that you wanted to share after having completed

00:04:37 ◼   ► the review. After having written 2,600 words about the HomePod several weeks after it came

00:04:42 ◼   ► out. I, yes, I am really happy. Sometimes this is just how it shakes out, right? Like,

00:04:49 ◼   ► there isn't a thing to say until you've had multiple weeks of time with it, you know,

00:04:53 ◼   ► more than what anybody else has said. This is actually, it's a little bit like Gruber

00:04:57 ◼   ► reviewing the iPhone X, and it's happened to me before too, which is if you're not in

00:05:00 ◼   ► in that first vanguard of reviews,

00:05:02 ◼   ► there's often like no real benefit.

00:05:08 ◼   ► There's no real benefit in rushing through a,

00:05:12 ◼   ► quick turnaround first impressions review of a product

00:05:16 ◼   ► that a dozen people have already written,

00:05:21 ◼   ► I spent a week with it reviews of, right?

00:05:24 ◼   ► Because like, what's the point?

00:05:27 ◼   ► And sometimes the timing works pretty well

00:05:28 ◼   ► where like with the iPhone 10, I wrote a review

00:05:32 ◼   ► and it came out the day the iPhone 10 came out.

00:05:34 ◼   ► And I only had like an overnight to write it,

00:05:37 ◼   ► but I felt like I was able to kind of like hit it

00:05:39 ◼   ► enough to write it right there.

00:05:42 ◼   ► - For one of those like first impressions reviews,

00:05:46 ◼   ► honestly, you really only need it for like 24 to 48 hours

00:05:49 ◼   ► to get most of what can be gotten out

00:05:51 ◼   ► of a short period of time.

00:05:53 ◼   ► - Well, what's the point?

00:05:55 ◼   ► So I got the HomePod the day

00:05:55 ◼   ► that everybody else got the HomePod.

00:05:57 ◼   ► In fact, if you're in Australia, you know, you got it a day before me, essentially.

00:06:03 ◼   ► Other than that I've used a lot of Apple products and that I'm somebody who gets paid to write

00:06:08 ◼   ► things, beyond that, like, my experiences with the HomePod are essentially no different

00:06:14 ◼   ► from the experiences of everybody else who got a HomePod.

00:06:18 ◼   ► So on one level, it's sort of like, you know, I've got these people who spent a week with

00:06:23 ◼   ► it and wrote these articles in detail about it, and then what can I add to that?

00:06:26 ◼   ► And the answer is probably not a lot

00:06:28 ◼   ► until I spend that amount of time with it.

00:06:29 ◼   ► At which point, it's not new anymore.

00:06:31 ◼   ► People aren't just trying to glean

00:06:33 ◼   ► like a quick first impression of this brand new product.

00:06:36 ◼   ► It's been out there a while.

00:06:37 ◼   ► So you end up in this weird space in between

00:06:39 ◼   ► where I just decided, okay, I will review it,

00:06:41 ◼   ► but I'm just not gonna review it yet.

00:06:42 ◼   ► I'm gonna just let it live in my house

00:06:44 ◼   ► and I'm gonna listen to it in my office

00:06:47 ◼   ► and I'm gonna listen to it in my living room

00:06:48 ◼   ► and I'm gonna have that experience

00:06:50 ◼   ► and I'm gonna think about like how I'm experiencing

00:06:53 ◼   ► the HomePod and what I like about it and what I don't

00:06:55 ◼   ► and how I feel about this market.

00:06:56 ◼   ► And then I will eventually write something about it.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And then there was a week in there

00:07:00 ◼   ► where I was trying to write a HomePod review

00:07:02 ◼   ► and nothing was happening, which was super frustrating.

00:07:07 ◼   ► And then in terms of like my workflow,

00:07:11 ◼   ► like I tried to write it at my desk and I couldn't.

00:07:13 ◼   ► I tried to write it at the bar countertop in my kitchen

00:07:17 ◼   ► and I couldn't.

00:07:18 ◼   ► I ended up taking my iPad to Starbucks

00:07:21 ◼   ► and putting in headphones

00:07:22 ◼   ► and sitting there with a hot chocolate.

00:07:24 ◼   ► and 2000 words poured out like right then.

00:07:29 ◼   ► So the dam finally burst.

00:07:31 ◼   ► I finally wrote the story.

00:07:32 ◼   ► I was very happy when I came home that day.

00:07:35 ◼   ► - Were you struggling to try and find your angle?

00:07:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, that's exactly it.

00:07:39 ◼   ► And I had some conversations with people

00:07:40 ◼   ► that were really helpful about different aspects of this

00:07:45 ◼   ► from people who'd used it and liked it,

00:07:47 ◼   ► from people who used it and didn't like it.

00:07:49 ◼   ► Some conversations in Slack for Relay

00:07:52 ◼   ► and for the Incomparable where we were having

00:07:53 ◼   ► kind of conversations about the HomePod.

00:07:55 ◼   ► And that helped kind of burst the log jam a little bit,

00:07:58 ◼   ► because it was useful to start to just think of like,

00:08:02 ◼   ► who's this product for?

00:08:04 ◼   ► And I had a moment where I thought,

00:08:06 ◼   ► I think I actually woke up in the middle of the night

00:08:08 ◼   ► and I thought, oh, you know,

00:08:10 ◼   ► one of the angles here is,

00:08:13 ◼   ► this was a great product two years ago,

00:08:16 ◼   ► if they had released it then,

00:08:18 ◼   ► but now it's kind of too late.

00:08:20 ◼   ► It's not like too late, it can't be successful,

00:08:22 ◼   ► but it's more like they had a real window there

00:08:24 ◼   ► when Apple Music had come out.

00:08:26 ◼   ► And Apple is a brand that is strongly associated with music.

00:08:30 ◼   ► And all that was really out there was the Echo,

00:08:32 ◼   ► which doesn't sound very good.

00:08:33 ◼   ► And Apple had Siri, which, you know,

00:08:36 ◼   ► it was more or less equivalent to Alexa at that point.

00:08:39 ◼   ► And they didn't have a product.

00:08:42 ◼   ► And now two years later, we got it.

00:08:44 ◼   ► - I was hearing you and Dan talk about that

00:08:45 ◼   ► on the Six Colors Secret Subscriber podcast.

00:08:49 ◼   ► And I think that part of what happened

00:08:51 ◼   ► is when the Echo came out, everybody just thought it was dumb and ignored it.

00:08:56 ◼   ► And it took a long time before everybody else paid attention, to which point Apple

00:09:04 ◼   ► got really behind.

00:09:05 ◼   ► And like maybe if they would have been either paying attention beforehand to

00:09:09 ◼   ► where some of the market was going or when the Echo originally came out, maybe they

00:09:14 ◼   ► could have got something out quicker.

00:09:15 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know what it was actually like inside when looking at this product

00:09:19 ◼   ► was made, but my kind of feeling was everybody rolled their eyes and laughed at the Echo,

00:09:25 ◼   ► and I think that that didn't help.

00:09:27 ◼   ► My theory is that there are people inside Apple who felt like, I felt like Dan Morin

00:09:31 ◼   ► felt like a bunch of people felt when they tried the Echo and they're like, "Oh, there's

00:09:35 ◼   ► something here.

00:09:36 ◼   ► This is really interesting."

00:09:37 ◼   ► And for whatever reason, some people in positions of authority at Apple to make product decisions

00:09:43 ◼   ► didn't believe it.

00:09:45 ◼   ► That's my best guess.

00:09:46 ◼   ► guess is not that Apple knew immediately that this was a product category that was interesting

00:09:51 ◼   ► to them, but was unable to put a product in the market for two plus years. Like, I don't

00:09:57 ◼   ► believe that. I think Apple would have been capable of doing that if they had wanted to.

00:10:04 ◼   ► So it feels to me like that's the most likely scenario, is that there were people inside

00:10:08 ◼   ► Apple who also scoffed at this product category and said, "No, it's dumb. Who needs that?

00:10:13 ◼   ► You've got your phone." I mean, I heard it. Whenever I wrote about it, whenever Dan wrote

00:10:16 ◼   ► about it. We would hear from people who are like, "Why do you need that? You've got your

00:10:19 ◼   ► phone with you. It's got Siri on it. You don't need a canister in your house." And we would

00:10:25 ◼   ► say, "It's different if it's available just in the air where you're walking around and

00:10:30 ◼   ► you've got your phone in your pocket and it can't hear you and you can't pull it out because

00:10:33 ◼   ► your hands are covered with chicken because you're making dinner and you just want to

00:10:38 ◼   ► put on a timer and what do you do?" Right? There are so many scenarios like that where

00:10:42 ◼   ► your kids are sitting at the dinner table and they can shout out the name of a song

00:10:45 ◼   ► and it starts to play, like there's so many of these use cases. And everybody seems to

00:10:49 ◼   ► have come around, again, it's not for everybody, but the world seems to have finally kind of

00:10:53 ◼   ► understood there's something here. And it's, I'm disappointed if it is true that this is

00:10:59 ◼   ► the scenario. I'm disappointed in Apple's failure to recognize that this was a good

00:11:07 ◼   ► product category. And if they did recognize it, then I'm disappointed in their failure

00:11:12 ◼   ► to execute in a timely fashion in order to get this product in the market when it would

00:11:15 ◼   ► have made a much bigger impact, because they had all the pieces. They had the assistant,

00:11:21 ◼   ► they had the music expertise, they had the music service, they had it all. So what happened?

00:11:28 ◼   ► And that's the thing, because it's not a bad product, but it's like two years ago it would

00:11:31 ◼   ► have been a great product. And now it's just one of, I think what I said was it's a face

00:11:36 ◼   ► in the crowd. And, you know, I could even argue that the only real reason to buy a HomePod

00:11:41 ◼   ► now is if you are an Apple Music subscriber who very specifically wants to use your voice

00:11:46 ◼   ► to control the music playback. That's it. Because, like, if you're an Apple Music subscriber

00:11:50 ◼   ► who's okay using an app, you can just use Sonos. And it costs half the price, more or

00:11:55 ◼   ► less. You can buy two of them and it'll be in stereo, which the HomePod still doesn't

00:11:58 ◼   ► do with, you know, even if you did buy two of them for twice the price. And so, you know,

00:12:03 ◼   ► are you left with? Or you can control, with the Sonos One, you can control Spotify and

00:12:08 ◼   ► Amazon Music Prime Music or Music Unlimited or whatever, all the various Amazon services.

00:12:15 ◼   ► So that's, it's also hard to write a review that's basically like, "hmm, that'd be, well,

00:12:23 ◼   ► because it's not like, yeah, this is good or this is bad." It's like, it's kind of a

00:12:26 ◼   ► missed opportunity, except it does exist and it's fine, but who's it for? That's a lot

00:12:32 ◼   ► less interesting in some ways story to write. But I got to, you know, I got to write a little

00:12:40 ◼   ► bit, take a little, a few little asides about things like my relationship with music, like

00:12:45 ◼   ► the idea that, you know, when I grew up listening to music, we listened on an AM radio for most

00:12:51 ◼   ► of it, which is terrible sound quality. And I think that says something about the Amazon

00:12:55 ◼   ► Echo is like, yeah, it doesn't sound good compared to all of these other speakers, but

00:12:58 ◼   ► I'm not sure most people care.

00:13:00 ◼   ► And so that's a harder, harder sell.

00:13:02 ◼   ► - Convenience trumps quality for a lot of people

00:13:05 ◼   ► in a lot of instances and that's fine.

00:13:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, and out of context of like A/B comparisons,

00:13:12 ◼   ► the Echo sounds fine and it's super convenient.

00:13:17 ◼   ► And so unless you're playing another speaker next to it

00:13:21 ◼   ► and then you're like, oh yeah,

00:13:22 ◼   ► actually that does sound way better.

00:13:23 ◼   ► But when you're just using something like an Echo,

00:13:26 ◼   ► it sounds fine.

00:13:27 ◼   ► And my proof is that most of the songs

00:13:31 ◼   ► that I listened to as a kid,

00:13:33 ◼   ► like I was exposed to the entire Beatles catalog

00:13:36 ◼   ► via an AM radio on a 50,000 watt station

00:13:39 ◼   ► from San Francisco, a hundred miles away.

00:13:41 ◼   ► Like that was not good audio quality.

00:13:44 ◼   ► And it was probably a little terrible piece of hardware too,

00:13:48 ◼   ► little transistor radio speaker or something like that.

00:13:51 ◼   ► But I love those songs, right?

00:13:53 ◼   ► So it, it, it, people's ability to listen to bad audio

00:13:58 ◼   ► is actually pretty tremendous.

00:14:01 ◼   ► So that makes it a harder sell too.

00:14:02 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:14:03 ◼   ► It's, I also came to the realization

00:14:06 ◼   ► that I've been using connected music players

00:14:08 ◼   ► for well over a decade because the Slim P3

00:14:13 ◼   ► from Slim Devices was the first one I had

00:14:15 ◼   ► and that was like 2004 or something like that.

00:14:17 ◼   ► So 15 years I've had like network music players in my life.

00:14:22 ◼   ► So it's not that part of it's not new.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I love network music players.

00:14:25 ◼   ► I'm glad Apple has one, but you know, it's fine.

00:14:30 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:14:31 ◼   ► I feel like it's not a product that most people

00:14:33 ◼   ► should buy right now, but that it's got a lot of potential

00:14:36 ◼   ► and it's early days.

00:14:37 ◼   ► That was my sort of pep talk at the end is

00:14:39 ◼   ► it's also early days for this category.

00:14:41 ◼   ► And anybody who's telling you that Apple's first swing

00:14:44 ◼   ► means that they're out or that Amazon's lead

00:14:47 ◼   ► is insurmountable, none of that is true.

00:14:50 ◼   ► it's all to play for. Anybody could win.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Any, you know, you could end up with one or two

00:14:55 ◼   ► or three dominant players or no dominant players.

00:14:58 ◼   ► If anybody rests on their laurels right now,

00:15:00 ◼   ► they're gonna feel the pain because it's early days yet.

00:15:04 ◼   ► There's so much, none of these AI voice assistants

00:15:08 ◼   ► is particularly good, I would say,

00:15:10 ◼   ► if you don't grade them on a curve.

00:15:13 ◼   ► There's plenty of work to be done.

00:15:14 ◼   ► - Joe still made a really good point in the chat room,

00:15:18 ◼   ► kind of about Apple's attitude.

00:15:19 ◼   ► Like for a long time, they were giving quotes,

00:15:22 ◼   ► like Fushilo were giving quotes and saying that like,

00:15:24 ◼   ► if these things don't have a screen, then no good.

00:15:27 ◼   ► - Right. - Right.

00:15:28 ◼   ► That was their position for a very long time,

00:15:30 ◼   ► which is really interesting considering the thing

00:15:32 ◼   ► that they released doesn't have a screen in the end.

00:15:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I actually think that was another moment

00:15:38 ◼   ► of realization I had in writing the story

00:15:39 ◼   ► is that I really don't like the top of the HomePod.

00:15:42 ◼   ► One of the things I noticed is that if you put the Echo

00:15:45 ◼   ► up on a shelf somewhere, because it's got a ring around it,

00:15:48 ◼   ► you can see that it's activated from below.

00:15:50 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And the HomePod

00:15:51 ◼   ► has to be below you,

00:15:52 ◼   ► or you can't see that it's been activated.

00:15:54 ◼   ► - I'm never that close to the device,

00:15:57 ◼   ► typically when I'm giving it a command,

00:15:59 ◼   ► and I agree that little thing just shooting up at the ceiling

00:16:02 ◼   ► doesn't illuminate brightly enough even for me to see

00:16:05 ◼   ► that it's even on in the first place.

00:16:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I don't really particularly like

00:16:09 ◼   ► the two kind of silk screened on touch buttons

00:16:12 ◼   ► for volume either.

00:16:13 ◼   ► I don't like how that's built, but it's true.

00:16:18 ◼   ► When we talk about Apple's failure of imagination

00:16:20 ◼   ► regarding this product, that is one of the questions

00:16:23 ◼   ► is when Phil Schiller was saying things like that,

00:16:25 ◼   ► was he saying that in the typical kind of Steve Jobs

00:16:28 ◼   ► maneuver of nobody wants to watch video on an iPod,

00:16:31 ◼   ► which he said up to the point

00:16:33 ◼   ► where they released a video iPod.

00:16:35 ◼   ► So was it one of those like, no, no, no,

00:16:37 ◼   ► it's dumb until we do it.

00:16:39 ◼   ► Or was that truly their philosophy,

00:16:43 ◼   ► which was built around using Siri on a phone

00:16:46 ◼   ► And I've always criticized Siri for that.

00:16:50 ◼   ► So way too often, Siri, something gets too complex

00:16:54 ◼   ► and it just gives up and says, "Here, I found this for you."

00:16:57 ◼   ► And if you're using a voice assistant,

00:17:01 ◼   ► I get frustrated when it finally says,

00:17:03 ◼   ► "No, no, you have to look at the screen and tap on it.

00:17:04 ◼   ► I can't help you.

00:17:06 ◼   ► This is all I can do is bring this back."

00:17:08 ◼   ► And it's possible that that was just their belief

00:17:11 ◼   ► is that they either couldn't do anything

00:17:14 ◼   ► that didn't punt to the screen,

00:17:16 ◼   ► or that it was just better to have that integration

00:17:19 ◼   ► like that.

00:17:20 ◼   ► I will also say, having used an Amazon Echo Show

00:17:22 ◼   ► for the last six months or whatever,

00:17:24 ◼   ► that I'm not convinced that the screen

00:17:26 ◼   ► is really that much help.

00:17:28 ◼   ► I like the Echo Show.

00:17:29 ◼   ► It hasn't evolved at all since I bought it.

00:17:31 ◼   ► It's got some nice things.

00:17:32 ◼   ► It'll show me my timers, so I can actually see the timers.

00:17:36 ◼   ► It'll show me my to-do list.

00:17:37 ◼   ► I can actually add things to the to-do list

00:17:39 ◼   ► and then see what's on the to-do list

00:17:41 ◼   ► for my shopping list and stuff like that.

00:17:43 ◼   ► It's got some good features.

00:17:44 ◼   ► shows song lyrics as it's playing music, that's nice.

00:17:47 ◼   ► But I don't look at that product and think,

00:17:50 ◼   ► "Oh, this changes everything."

00:17:52 ◼   ► I just don't think that's accurate.

00:17:55 ◼   ► So it's a real mystery about quite what the story is

00:17:58 ◼   ► with the HomePod.

00:17:59 ◼   ► And I feel like either it's a failure of imagination

00:18:03 ◼   ► or it is a failure somewhere in terms of Apple's

00:18:08 ◼   ► product design skills, their product design prowess.

00:18:14 ◼   ► But I don't think anybody could legitimately argue

00:18:18 ◼   ► that the HomePod is exactly the product Apple wanted it

00:18:21 ◼   ► to be at exactly the time they wanted it to exist.

00:18:24 ◼   ► And that it's the perfect time for it to hit the market.

00:18:27 ◼   ► 'Cause I think it's not a bad product,

00:18:31 ◼   ► but something happened and it really decreases its impact.

00:18:35 ◼   ► - Should we take a break?

00:18:37 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:38 ◼   ► - Today's episode is brought to you in part

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00:21:17 ◼   ► I, uh, was just in LA and I used that little, uh, travel, uh, laundry bag.

00:21:24 ◼   ► And it's just, it delights me.

00:21:25 ◼   ► I know I could just throw the stuff in the corner or put it in the suitcase,

00:21:29 ◼   ► but I love having that little hidden laundry,

00:21:31 ◼   ► 'cause I'm never gonna remember to pack a laundry bag,

00:21:33 ◼   ► but it just, it lives right in the suitcase, it's great.

00:21:36 ◼   ► - So we spoke a little bit about the rumor

00:21:41 ◼   ► of Apple headphones last week. - Yes.

00:21:44 ◼   ► - Right, and kind of talk about AirPods

00:21:46 ◼   ► and a rumor that had come out

00:21:47 ◼   ► that Apple were gonna make their own headphones.

00:21:50 ◼   ► Well, there was a Mark Gurman report today,

00:21:52 ◼   ► which confirmed it from his end, right,

00:21:55 ◼   ► from what his people have told him.

00:21:59 ◼   ► And Mark also confirmed a few little details that we didn't have from the original report,

00:22:04 ◼   ► which I believe came from KGI Securities, if I'm remembering correctly.

00:22:08 ◼   ► I think so.

00:22:10 ◼   ► Mark Gurman says that they will be noise cancelling over ear headphones.

00:22:14 ◼   ► That was a question that I thought about after we were recorded, like will they go for the

00:22:18 ◼   ► noise cancelling route?

00:22:20 ◼   ► Because my theory on this would be that noise cancelling feels like one of those things

00:22:25 ◼   ► where Apple can say "we found this new way to do it and this is why it's better."

00:22:30 ◼   ► Our advanced processor in these headphones can make these noise cancelling headphones

00:22:34 ◼   ► amazing in a way that they never could be before.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Exactly, right, so there'll be like something that the Apple headphones can do.

00:22:44 ◼   ► They're hoping to launch by the end of the year and obviously Apple are aiming at the

00:22:48 ◼   ► high-end market, you know, like kind of where Bose is and stuff like that. That's kind of

00:22:52 ◼   ► what they will be aiming for with their headphones, which makes sense, right? They're not going

00:22:57 ◼   ► to make a $150 pair.

00:22:59 ◼   ► No, it's that, you know, you're going to be paying for the Apple brand, for the Apple

00:23:03 ◼   ► logo to be on your headphones. That's part of what goes on here. And then having them

00:23:07 ◼   ► be a little, you know, higher end and selling that as a, you know, you're paying for quality

00:23:11 ◼   ► as well. I think it makes sense. I'm a little baffled. This is two stories in a row where

00:23:16 ◼   ► Mark Erman has reported something for Bloomberg that we had already heard from KGI. And just

00:23:21 ◼   ► from a journalistic standpoint, I am very confused at why KGI is never cited in this

00:23:28 ◼   ► story. I assume that he's got his own sources who confirmed this, but generally you cite

00:23:37 ◼   ► the previous reports of what you're reporting, but that doesn't happen here. It's very weird

00:23:43 ◼   ► to me because like we literally saw this story last week from KGI as reported from like Mac

00:23:48 ◼   ► rumors or something like that but KGI was the source of it and I'm a little baffled why if you

00:23:54 ◼   ► read this story on Bloomberg you would think that this was broken entirely by them and nobody knew

00:23:59 ◼   ► about it before but that's not true so I don't understand that but the story makes sense like

00:24:03 ◼   ► we said last week when we talked about it when it came from its first report um it I can see why

00:24:08 ◼   ► Apple would do this.

00:24:10 ◼   ► It makes perfect sense, right? But once you hear it. But yeah, I do agree with you. I've

00:24:16 ◼   ► seen this a few times. I don't know if this is like a Bloomberg thing or whatever, but

00:24:22 ◼   ► my thinking would be that if Mark worked it out or got the information himself that he

00:24:29 ◼   ► would just publish it without acknowledging it. But I agree, I don't think that's right.

00:24:33 ◼   ► If something is widely publicised, you've at least got to make reference to it. Otherwise,

00:24:36 ◼   ► looks like you're trying to omit it. Which is weird.

00:24:41 ◼   ► So yeah, that's something that, I mean, based upon this, this obviously isn't something

00:24:48 ◼   ► that you want, we've been through that, you don't like over-ear headphones. And I'm keen

00:24:52 ◼   ► to see what they do, but I have such limited use cases for these types of headphones that

00:24:58 ◼   ► I just don't necessarily see them in my future. But it is a logical step for Apple to take

00:25:05 ◼   ► with this with the success that they've seen with the AirPods. It makes so much sense to

00:25:09 ◼   ► make more and more expensive headphones than they currently do. So the end of this week's

00:25:16 ◼   ► show, we're going to be doing a mic at the movies and we're going to be discussing Aliens,

00:25:22 ◼   ► which was 1989 or something for Aliens. That's going to be at the very end of this week's

00:25:28 ◼   ► show.

00:25:29 ◼   ► Yeah, when is that? It counts as an 80s movie. No, 1986. 1986.

00:25:34 ◼   ► Oh great, thank you. I don't know where I got 89 from. Who knows? Doesn't matter.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Let's move into Upstream now. I have a few good stories this week, Jason.

00:25:43 ◼   ► First off, Netflix plans to spend $8 billion on content in 2018, with a goal of bringing

00:25:54 ◼   ► their catalog up to 700 available original shows. So I really struggled to find out how

00:26:05 ◼   ► many shows Netflix currently has. I couldn't find a good resource to say just how many

00:26:12 ◼   ► is right because I want to know how many are they looking to bring on this year.

00:26:16 ◼   ► And what do they call originals because Netflix originals are essentially the movies that

00:26:24 ◼   ► they or TV shows or movies that they funded that might be original to them or

00:26:30 ◼   ► they might have bought them from a foreign distributor so it's a little bit

00:26:34 ◼   ► of both that number the 700 number or like the increase that he wanted it

00:26:38 ◼   ► doesn't include movies like this is just shows and I think there is no series

00:26:41 ◼   ► alright yeah but I think that also means documentaries and comedy specials as

00:26:45 ◼   ► well but like to give you a comparison in 2016 Netflix added a hundred and

00:26:52 ◼   ► 26 new shows. So the thought of like their increase in budget, it must be a couple of

00:27:02 ◼   ► hundred, 250, something like that they're looking to add this year, which is wild.

00:27:06 ◼   ► Well keep in mind that they're doing it, they're doing it worldwide. So they have series that

00:27:12 ◼   ► they're developing in all sorts of different markets. It's not just sort of English language

00:27:16 ◼   ► even. They've got them all over the place.

00:27:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, and they specifically mentioned that

00:27:21 ◼   ► 80 non-English language original productions

00:27:24 ◼   ► coming from outside of the US, they're also looking.

00:27:27 ◼   ► And that number, 80, is interesting

00:27:30 ◼   ► because they're also looking to add

00:27:32 ◼   ► 80 original movies this year to their overall thing.

00:27:36 ◼   ► - So keep in mind, more than one original film release

00:27:39 ◼   ► a week on Netflix.

00:27:42 ◼   ► That's what they're going for here.

00:27:44 ◼   ► I will point out, Netflix won an Oscar last night.

00:27:49 ◼   ► They won the best documentary feature for "Icarus."

00:27:53 ◼   ► And that's not their first Oscar, but they won that.

00:27:57 ◼   ► So they do that.

00:27:58 ◼   ► Another interesting thing about Netflix

00:27:59 ◼   ► is they actually do a bunch of interesting documentary stuff.

00:28:02 ◼   ► It's not all Cloverfield and Will Smith action movies.

00:28:07 ◼   ► It's also lots of documentaries.

00:28:11 ◼   ► - But again, so that is eight times Apple's budget.

00:28:14 ◼   ► So we're going to talk about a couple of things that Apple are doing today.

00:28:17 ◼   ► I mean, you've been hearing us talk about Apple for the past few weeks,

00:28:19 ◼   ► and it seems like they're doing a bunch of really interesting stuff,

00:28:22 ◼   ► but they have a significantly smaller budget than Netflix has.

00:28:26 ◼   ► And I wonder what that's going to end up resulting in.

00:28:30 ◼   ► Like, what does $8 billion do for you in a year?

00:28:34 ◼   ► We're going to find out.

00:28:35 ◼   ► It's true. It's true. But you got to start somewhere.

00:28:38 ◼   ► I think Apple's budget is...

00:28:40 ◼   ► It's not a criticism.

00:28:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, you gotta build, you can't go from zero to 60

00:28:46 ◼   ► or zero to eight billion overnight.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - 'Cause it doesn't matter that Apple has that money

00:28:51 ◼   ► to spend, it's just a matter of scale, right?

00:28:53 ◼   ► Like Netflix knows how to do this now,

00:28:55 ◼   ► but my point was more like, not like a ha ha, Apple sucks,

00:28:59 ◼   ► Netflix is the winner, but it's like,

00:29:02 ◼   ► Apple's making some really interesting moves,

00:29:05 ◼   ► but Netflix has so much more budget,

00:29:07 ◼   ► like what does that end up shaking out like?

00:29:10 ◼   ► And talking about interesting moves,

00:29:13 ◼   ► Apple have got another huge name to add to their roster.

00:29:17 ◼   ► M. Night Shyamalan is going to be producing

00:29:20 ◼   ► a series for Apple.

00:29:21 ◼   ► It is a straight to series order

00:29:23 ◼   ► for a psychological thriller TV show.

00:29:25 ◼   ► 10 half hour episodes have been bought by Apple

00:29:29 ◼   ► for this series.

00:29:30 ◼   ► So one of the big things that me and you talk about

00:29:33 ◼   ► constantly with Apple's efforts

00:29:35 ◼   ► is diversifying the genre.

00:29:38 ◼   ► And this is part of that, I think.

00:29:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, and this is, and again,

00:29:42 ◼   ► Shyamalan is producing and directing the pilot,

00:29:46 ◼   ► which is not the same as it being like,

00:29:50 ◼   ► 'cause that's a distinction that's important to make,

00:29:51 ◼   ► is that a lot of these people who are sort of like producers

00:29:54 ◼   ► who've got their whole production company,

00:29:57 ◼   ► they're bringing, JJ Abrams is a good example of this,

00:29:59 ◼   ► they're bringing other people's shows

00:30:03 ◼   ► and making deals for other people's shows,

00:30:04 ◼   ► and they may not be involved beyond the basics.

00:30:08 ◼   ► they may agree in some cases to direct the pilot.

00:30:11 ◼   ► We saw that with one of the previous Apple hirings

00:30:15 ◼   ► where they got the director to direct

00:30:20 ◼   ► all the episodes of their show

00:30:21 ◼   ► after Amazon only got the commitment for the first episode.

00:30:24 ◼   ► So here, Shyamalan is gonna direct episode one,

00:30:27 ◼   ► but the writer is a guy named Tony Baskalup,

00:30:30 ◼   ► who people might know.

00:30:31 ◼   ► He wrote some episodes of "Berlin Station,"

00:30:34 ◼   ► which is an interesting show,

00:30:36 ◼   ► and 24 and Hotel Babylon.

00:30:40 ◼   ► He was the creator of Hotel Babylon,

00:30:41 ◼   ► if people know that show,

00:30:43 ◼   ► which some people will recognize that.

00:30:45 ◼   ► So it's an existing known showrunner,

00:30:49 ◼   ► who is, this is his latest project

00:30:52 ◼   ► and Shyamalan is producing and will direct the pilot.

00:30:56 ◼   ► - Whenever I see this stuff,

00:30:57 ◼   ► I'm always kind of reminded of Boardwalk Empire.

00:31:02 ◼   ► Like Boardwalk Empire, for me,

00:31:05 ◼   ► It's like one of those shows that really started this like

00:31:08 ◼   ► change in television about like some of the people

00:31:12 ◼   ► that you have attached.

00:31:13 ◼   ► And of course it had Steve Buscemi in it,

00:31:16 ◼   ► but Martin Scorsese was attached, right?

00:31:18 ◼   ► Like he directed and produced, I think.

00:31:21 ◼   ► - And this happens a lot these days, you're right.

00:31:23 ◼   ► This is a trend.

00:31:24 ◼   ► We talked about it on the TV Talk Machine podcast

00:31:27 ◼   ► I do with Tim Goodman from The Hollywood Reporter.

00:31:29 ◼   ► The idea there is that as a pilot director,

00:31:32 ◼   ► you're brought in not just to be a,

00:31:35 ◼   ► I mean, you are a hired hand on a certain level,

00:31:38 ◼   ► but often those pilot directors also get a producer credit.

00:31:41 ◼   ► And what they're doing is they're setting

00:31:45 ◼   ► the visual template for the show.

00:31:47 ◼   ► So generally what happens in television,

00:31:50 ◼   ► since they're not generally all directed by one person,

00:31:53 ◼   ► although that's starting to happen now too,

00:31:55 ◼   ► generally what you get is a high powered director

00:31:59 ◼   ► will come in to shoot a pilot

00:32:00 ◼   ► or maybe the first couple of episodes.

00:32:02 ◼   ► And they set the look for the show.

00:32:04 ◼   ► They talk to the producers and they're like,

00:32:06 ◼   ► they work together and they create a look.

00:32:08 ◼   ► And then they can go away.

00:32:11 ◼   ► Martin Scorsese is a good example,

00:32:12 ◼   ► can go away and do other projects.

00:32:14 ◼   ► But what happens is the next directors they bring in,

00:32:17 ◼   ► they basically say, do what we did in the pilot.

00:32:21 ◼   ► Like extend that, that's the look we want.

00:32:24 ◼   ► Shoot it like that.

00:32:26 ◼   ► And, you know, TV directors are frequently

00:32:29 ◼   ► not long-term collaborators.

00:32:31 ◼   ► They're brought in to direct a couple of episodes a year

00:32:34 ◼   ► and along with four or five other people.

00:32:37 ◼   ► And so it's very helpful.

00:32:39 ◼   ► How do you keep that visual consistency?

00:32:41 ◼   ► This is one of the ways that shows have decided to like

00:32:44 ◼   ► get that visual consistency and keep it

00:32:46 ◼   ► and like have a look and a feel is

00:32:48 ◼   ► you bring in a really good director who's maybe well known.

00:32:51 ◼   ► So you're getting a PR push from them

00:32:53 ◼   ► but it can also be a not well-known director

00:32:54 ◼   ► and still like a director you really like

00:32:56 ◼   ► and you work with creatively,

00:32:58 ◼   ► they work with you to build the look of the show

00:33:00 ◼   ► as the producer.

00:33:02 ◼   ► And then you hand it off to other directors and say,

00:33:04 ◼   ► do this.

00:33:05 ◼   ► So that will probably happen with this show, right?

00:33:07 ◼   ► Shyamalan is gonna work, he's producing it,

00:33:09 ◼   ► he's working with the show runner,

00:33:10 ◼   ► that pilot episode is gonna have a certain look.

00:33:13 ◼   ► And then presumably they're gonna say

00:33:14 ◼   ► for the other nine half hours, do it like this.

00:33:18 ◼   ► And that's kind of a model for TV.

00:33:20 ◼   ► And that's, it kind of makes sense

00:33:22 ◼   ► because a TV series is a series,

00:33:24 ◼   ► unless it's something like Black Mirror,

00:33:25 ◼   ► that's an anthology,

00:33:26 ◼   ► you kind of want it to be consistent visually.

00:33:28 ◼   ► You don't want to feel like every week

00:33:30 ◼   ► is a completely different show.

00:33:31 ◼   ► It's the same show.

00:33:33 ◼   ► And as a result,

00:33:34 ◼   ► you kind of want to have a directorial vision,

00:33:38 ◼   ► even if it's one that's kind of originates

00:33:41 ◼   ► and then they just kind of point at it and say, do that.

00:33:44 ◼   ► Be that's what our show looks like.

00:33:45 ◼   ► Shoot it like that.

00:33:46 ◼   ► And then the directors generally will oblige that

00:33:49 ◼   ► because in the end,

00:33:50 ◼   ► television is more of a writers and producers medium

00:33:53 ◼   ► and then a director's medium, they are, you know, the director doesn't have final cut

00:33:57 ◼   ► on a TV show generally, it's the producers. So, anyway, that is the new model and you're

00:34:04 ◼   ► quite right to point out the Scorsese example, that's a really great example. Steven Soderbergh

00:34:07 ◼   ► has done that as another good name of somebody who will define a visual look for a show and

00:34:12 ◼   ► then he goes away.

00:34:13 ◼   ► David Pappas>> Amazon strikes a deal with the UFC to sell pay-per-view events. It doesn't,

00:34:20 ◼   ► It doesn't really appear to be any benefit to Amazon customers for this.

00:34:25 ◼   ► You just pay the full ticket price of a pay-per-view event.

00:34:29 ◼   ► You don't have to be a Prime subscriber to be able to do this, and if you are, you don't

00:34:33 ◼   ► get any benefit for it.

00:34:35 ◼   ► This is just another avenue for UFC to sell their product.

00:34:41 ◼   ► So here's my theory about this, which is Amazon has really aggressively tried bundling.

00:34:48 ◼   ► inside Amazon's video service, you can buy other video services like CBS All Access.

00:34:53 ◼   ► If you want to watch Star Trek, you don't have to use the CBS All Access app. You can

00:34:56 ◼   ► actually just sign up inside Prime Video and watch it there. And that's true for a whole

00:35:00 ◼   ► bunch of other services that are right inside Prime Video. And I think Amazon likes that.

00:35:04 ◼   ► I think Amazon is really positioning itself as a container for other video services so

00:35:09 ◼   ► that you're inside the Amazon ecosystem. You're a Prime person. You've already got Prime Video.

00:35:13 ◼   ► know, come on inside and subscribe to streaming services inside Amazon and use our app and

00:35:21 ◼   ► it's all in one place, which is really interesting, right? The idea that instead of opening a

00:35:27 ◼   ► different app, you just have those shows too, because now they're inside Amazon. And I think

00:35:33 ◼   ► the pay-per-view thing is just another thing on the pile of every, you know, Amazon trying

00:35:39 ◼   ► to put a whole bunch of stuff inside their container.

00:35:44 ◼   ► Yeah I find it really strange that that was all it was but I guess you're right. They

00:35:50 ◼   ► just want you to I guess associate anything that you want to watch you just go to Amazon

00:35:58 ◼   ► and it will be there right? I think that's what they're attempting to do right?

00:36:02 ◼   ► Yeah exactly.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Apple hires Angelica Guerra as the head of Latin American programming.

00:36:10 ◼   ► Guerra was hired away from Sony Pictures Television.

00:36:14 ◼   ► She was Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Production for Latin America at

00:36:19 ◼   ► Sony.

00:36:20 ◼   ► Guerra is now the sixth person to join Apple from Sony Television.

00:36:25 ◼   ► So there have been a bunch of hires across the spectrum of them from Sony Pictures production

00:36:31 ◼   ► team.

00:36:32 ◼   ► Guerara is an addition to that. And so now I expect, so one other way that we'll start

00:36:38 ◼   ► to see, I guess within the next few months, is some Latin American focused programming

00:36:44 ◼   ► being signed by Apple, right? I guess that's what you were saying.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Tim Cynova Yeah. So remember, there was that British

00:36:48 ◼   ► TV exec who got signed to do European, and now they've got a head of Latin American.

00:36:54 ◼   ► Also the two guys who had this Apple video initiative were Sony execs, so it's not surprising

00:36:59 ◼   ► that they're hiring people who they used to work with.

00:37:03 ◼   ► And it makes up some, but not all of the executives

00:37:06 ◼   ► that they brought on board.

00:37:07 ◼   ► But this just is an additional idea

00:37:10 ◼   ► of the scope of Apple's ambitions here.

00:37:12 ◼   ► Apple is not planning to launch a little video service

00:37:15 ◼   ► that's in one or two countries.

00:37:17 ◼   ► They have global ambitions for this service

00:37:19 ◼   ► and they're starting small, right?

00:37:21 ◼   ► If $1 billion can be counted as small,

00:37:23 ◼   ► but they're in this for the long run.

00:37:26 ◼   ► People who kind of poo-poo Apple's video ambitions

00:37:28 ◼   ► because we haven't seen the details yet,

00:37:30 ◼   ► which is very Apple.

00:37:31 ◼   ► Like they're making these deals

00:37:32 ◼   ► and people know about the deals,

00:37:33 ◼   ► but the product has not been announced.

00:37:35 ◼   ► Who knows when that will be.

00:37:36 ◼   ► But they're going big.

00:37:38 ◼   ► This is not half measures.

00:37:40 ◼   ► They intend this to be a worldwide thing

00:37:43 ◼   ► with worldwide content.

00:37:44 ◼   ► - They are quite clearly building a foundation, right?

00:37:47 ◼   ► Well, like hiring key people from the industry,

00:37:50 ◼   ► like they are building a foundation for the future.

00:37:52 ◼   ► And it is also funny to me that like,

00:37:56 ◼   ► we don't hear about this stuff in other parts of Apple's divisions, but basically everything

00:38:05 ◼   ► that is happening for Apple's TV efforts is public. All of it.

00:38:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, the entertainment industry, this is how it works, right? There's The Hollywood Reporter,

00:38:13 ◼   ► and Variety, and Deadline, and they cover, and Hollywood talks, Hollywood rumors,

00:38:18 ◼   ► where the execs are going and what they're doing, what deals are being made, all of that stuff is

00:38:24 ◼   ► just, this is how this business works. And it is constantly fascinating to see how Apple

00:38:29 ◼   ► will navigate it. And that's what I was saying earlier. Like, the parts that Apple can't

00:38:33 ◼   ► control like these announcements, they just, they don't. And that's just how it is. The

00:38:38 ◼   ► part they can control, which is their announcement of their product that Apple likes to hold

00:38:43 ◼   ► and control completely, they are doing that. That's the part that they have been able to

00:38:49 ◼   ► control up to now. Like the rollout and the name and the price and the strategy and all

00:38:54 ◼   ► of that, that has not yet come out. But moving entertainment executives around and making

00:39:00 ◼   ► deals, that's just, that's not, that's what this industry does. So Apple just has to roll

00:39:06 ◼   ► with it. It is funny though, because you create, I see these entertainment journalists now

00:39:09 ◼   ► who, there's this sort of like, but they still won't tell us where it's all going. And I

00:39:15 ◼   ► get it. Like I get the frustration of that. But that seems to be that's where Apple has

00:39:19 ◼   ► drawn the line, which is yes, we are buying lots of shows. And where is that going? We

00:39:26 ◼   ► will tell you sometime. And who knows when that will be? WWDC, the iPhone launch event

00:39:32 ◼   ► in the fall, later, possibly, who knows? Who knows?

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00:41:00 ◼   ► So there was a report from our friend Ming-Chi Kuo, friend of the show now over at KGI Securities.

00:41:06 ◼   ► It's very, very simple.

00:41:07 ◼   ► There's kind of a one line as part of some other stuff that we've got to link in the

00:41:11 ◼   ► show notes to 9to5Mac where Kuo suggests that there will be an update to the 13-inch MacBook

00:41:19 ◼   ► Air in the second quarter of this year with a lower price tag than the current $999.

00:41:27 ◼   ► So I want to pontificate with you, Mr. Snow, kind of about the hows and whys for this product

00:41:34 ◼   ► to even continue to exist. So I think first off, what do you think the price could be

00:41:41 ◼   ► and do you think that this would be anything more than just a simple price change to the

00:41:46 ◼   ► MacBook Air?

00:41:47 ◼   ► I mean, this is such a weird story. I, let's walk through it, okay? Let's walk through

00:41:55 ◼   ► it. Why does the MacBook Air exist at all? It's because the MacBook Air fills a niche

00:42:04 ◼   ► that the MacBook doesn't, because the MacBook is more expensive than the MacBook Air. The

00:42:11 ◼   ► MacBook Air is the $999 laptop, and it's still like, it still sells. It's a funny case where

00:42:21 ◼   ► Apple, in Apple's ideal world, the MacBook would have appeared and everybody would have

00:42:26 ◼   ► said, "I don't want this stupid MacBook Air. Give me my MacBook." But the MacBook

00:42:34 ◼   ► 1299 and the MacBook Air is 999. And yeah, and let's throw in there, although the MacBook

00:42:40 ◼   ► has the retina, it also has USB-C, every time somebody asks me about buying a Mac laptop,

00:42:44 ◼   ► I say, you know, you will, it is more expensive and you will need to buy adapters. Like it's

00:42:50 ◼   ► a double whammy there. And it's light and beautiful and has a beautiful screen. This

00:42:54 ◼   ► is all true, but it is more expensive, $300 more expensive and you'll have to buy adapters.

00:42:59 ◼   ► So they kept the MacBook Air around. My understanding is that it sells well in education, but it

00:43:03 ◼   ► also sells well in general. We hear from people in Apple stores who say that the

00:43:06 ◼   ► MacBook Air sells really well in Apple retail, potentially even better than

00:43:11 ◼   ► other MacBook models. So this is a case where Apple would like everybody to

00:43:18 ◼   ► buy the more expensive newer laptop, but they don't want to, and Apple's not

00:43:24 ◼   ► willing to close the door.

00:43:25 ◼   ► That's the other part of it, right? And just say, "Too bad. 1299 MacBook are nothing.

00:43:30 ◼   ► they're not they're not willing to do that so we're left in this weird limbo

00:43:35 ◼   ► state where you've got a MacBook Air that's based on an old chipset so even

00:43:40 ◼   ► though they updated the processor they literally updated it to the last

00:43:43 ◼   ► processor that was made that works with that chipset it seems like they they

00:43:46 ◼   ► will they've tried very hard not to put any engineering effort into this thing

00:43:49 ◼   ► so where are we now what would a new MacBook Air be and this is the vexing

00:43:54 ◼   ► thing is like do they any work they do to make this thing newer is going to be

00:44:01 ◼   ► you know they're building a new revision of this product it's not just dropping

00:44:05 ◼   ► in a new processor it's like a whole new thing

00:44:07 ◼   ► all right Apple's gonna make in 2018 Apple's gonna make a laptop without USB

00:44:14 ◼   ► C Apple's gonna make a laptop that doesn't have a retina screen it seems

00:44:19 ◼   ► not very Apple like and yet at the same time especially if they're gonna have a

00:44:23 ◼   ► a lower price tag, like what the heck are they gonna do?

00:44:28 ◼   ► 'Cause they're not gonna have a retina Mac for 799.

00:44:32 ◼   ► It seems unlikely anyway, that they would do that

00:44:34 ◼   ► with them given that the MacBook is at 1299.

00:44:36 ◼   ► So I am kind of caught in the middle here

00:44:40 ◼   ► where there's this question of like,

00:44:41 ◼   ► I can see them building that product,

00:44:43 ◼   ► but also it's not something that they've ever done before

00:44:47 ◼   ► to create some sort of retro product.

00:44:50 ◼   ► - Well except the iPhone SE.

00:44:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I guess so, but the iPhone SE

00:44:54 ◼   ► had modern hardware in it.

00:44:56 ◼   ► It would be like if the iPhone SE had a dock connector

00:45:01 ◼   ► on it or something, right?

00:45:02 ◼   ► I mean, it does have a headphone jack, but it doesn't-

00:45:04 ◼   ► - And it doesn't have 4's 3D touchscreen.

00:45:08 ◼   ► - It's true, but how, I mean, we could argue, yes.

00:45:12 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure it's the best comp,

00:45:14 ◼   ► but it's the closest one we have, so we can mention that.

00:45:17 ◼   ► The lower price tag thing is the part of this

00:45:19 ◼   ► that really baffles me.

00:45:20 ◼   ► Like, I could sort of see Apple making a, like, cheaper MacBook kind of thing, but not

00:45:30 ◼   ► for less than $9.99.

00:45:32 ◼   ► I could see Apple saying, like, "How do we build a modern Mac laptop for $9.99?" and

00:45:38 ◼   ► doing that, but for less than $9.99.

00:45:41 ◼   ► And the best I can come up with is, what if Apple decided that they were going to create

00:45:45 ◼   ► essentially like an iBook, something that was designed to be a cheap entry

00:45:53 ◼   ► Mac laptop. It's kind of like the Mac Mini actually might be a good analog too,

00:45:58 ◼   ► because people don't buy desktop computers so much anymore, they buy

00:46:01 ◼   ► laptops, and the Mac Mini was, when it came out of $4.99 Mac, it was groundbreaking

00:46:05 ◼   ► in that sense because it was so cheap. So could you do that for a laptop and what

00:46:10 ◼   ► would it be? It would probably be thicker and heavier, it might or might not have a

00:46:14 ◼   ► retina screen? Probably not. Would it have USB-C? Maybe, but it might also have USB-A

00:46:19 ◼   ► on it. I don't know. I don't know what the different cost issues are, and there's also

00:46:23 ◼   ► compatibility issues. Would they build something? Is it a little like the eMac? Is it with the

00:46:28 ◼   ► schools in mind, because they want to keep selling into schools for that? And of course,

00:46:33 ◼   ► every choice you make, you know, you have to realize if you're Apple that every $7.99

00:46:36 ◼   ► or $8.99 laptop that you sell is a $12.99 MacBook that you're not selling, or a $12.99

00:46:43 ◼   ► MacBook Pro escape. So it's a weird idea. And it comes back to Apple feeling very strongly

00:46:54 ◼   ► and unlike them, I would say, that they, or at least unlike them historically in the Mac,

00:47:02 ◼   ► that they can't just kick the MacBook Air out of their product line and wait for the

00:47:08 ◼   ► MacBook to drop in price because it's not happening. And so, since they can't bear to

00:47:16 ◼   ► let go of the MacBook Air, at some point they have to do something with it. It's fascinating

00:47:23 ◼   ► because it's like a product. I've read this, and I have an 11-inch Air. I have loved the

00:47:28 ◼   ► MacBook Air since the very beginning, despite all of its flaws, and it's turned into a really

00:47:31 ◼   ► amazing product. I get why people want it. It just has felt like Apple doesn't want it.

00:47:36 ◼   ► It has been on the chopping block for years now, and so this is fascinating that somebody

00:47:41 ◼   ► at Apple might have said, "Look, this is ridiculous.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Why are we selling this old computer?

00:47:46 ◼   ► Let's make a new great computer for $9.99 or $8.99 or whatever."

00:47:51 ◼   ► But it's a weird one.

00:47:53 ◼   ► It's a weird story.

00:47:54 ◼   ► Yeah, there are multiple routes from this, and none of them make any sense based upon

00:48:00 ◼   ► previous actions.

00:48:03 ◼   ► is, let's imagine that they drop the price of this and they bring it down to probably

00:48:08 ◼   ► $899. If you're going to take the price down from $999, you make it $899. That's probably

00:48:14 ◼   ► what you do. In that world, like an $899 MacBook Air, and let's imagine in this scenario they're

00:48:25 ◼   ► not doing anything to change it. Isn't that just really weird and kind of just going to

00:48:34 ◼   ► make the situation worse?

00:48:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I wonder if it's just leaning into it. It's like, you know what? People keep

00:48:41 ◼   ► buying MacBook Air, they love the MacBook Air. Who are we to stand in the way of people

00:48:45 ◼   ► loving one of our products? How do we make it better while keeping everything that they

00:48:50 ◼   ► love about it? Which at this point is largely price and compatibility.

00:48:53 ◼   ► - Yes, that's what I mean.

00:48:54 ◼   ► Do people actually love it or are they just buying it

00:48:57 ◼   ► because it's the cheapest one?

00:48:59 ◼   ► - I think people love it.

00:49:00 ◼   ► I think as much, well, let's look at the differences, right?

00:49:05 ◼   ► I know a lot of people who don't notice

00:49:07 ◼   ► or care about retina displays,

00:49:09 ◼   ► especially on computers, right?

00:49:10 ◼   ► I hear, I love my retina iMac

00:49:13 ◼   ► and when I see a non-retina Mac, I feel sad.

00:49:16 ◼   ► But the fact is a lot of people don't care.

00:49:18 ◼   ► It's like we were saying about the Echo and audio.

00:49:20 ◼   ► Like a lot of people don't, it doesn't bother them

00:49:23 ◼   ► that it's not a retina display.

00:49:25 ◼   ► And then USB-C, I could argue is a liability

00:49:28 ◼   ► and not an asset.

00:49:29 ◼   ► Like MagSafe is great.

00:49:31 ◼   ► And USB-A, you don't have to have any dongles

00:49:34 ◼   ► for all of the stuff that you already have,

00:49:36 ◼   ► which is using USB-A.

00:49:37 ◼   ► So those are, you know,

00:49:39 ◼   ► so the two main advantages of the MacBook,

00:49:41 ◼   ► oh, and it's thinner and lighter, right?

00:49:43 ◼   ► And that's true.

00:49:44 ◼   ► But like the MacBook Air is pretty thin and pretty light.

00:49:46 ◼   ► So, you know, one of your advantages,

00:49:49 ◼   ► retina, nobody cares about,

00:49:50 ◼   ► like, or some percentage of the population

00:49:52 ◼   ► does not care about. And your other advantage, which is the modern connection stuff with

00:49:57 ◼   ► USB-C, is something that's actually a liability. So I do think people love the MacBook Air.

00:50:02 ◼   ► I think they've always loved it and they have not stopped loving it just because there are

00:50:05 ◼   ► other computers. So then you have to be like, "Well, what do we do?" If you're Apple, like,

00:50:11 ◼   ► "Well, they won't stop buying this computer. What do we do? At some point, we've run out

00:50:15 ◼   ► of chips for it. How do we do this?" And I think the most likely scenario is what you

00:50:20 ◼   ► which is the iPhone SE, which is what if we don't touch the industrial design, it's still gonna look,

00:50:25 ◼   ► it's still gonna have the silver frame around the screen, it's gonna have that old keyboard, maybe,

00:50:31 ◼   ► maybe? All of those things stay the same, and all they really do is they take the little, you know,

00:50:36 ◼   ► the little motherboard, it's very tiny, that's on the inside, and they build a new one that is based

00:50:42 ◼   ► on a more modern Intel chipset, which gets the more modern chips that are faster and cooler,

00:50:47 ◼   ► and they just keep it going and just keep it keep it rolling and it's not very apple-like when we

00:50:52 ◼   ► think of the mac but it's actually very apple-like as you said when you think about the iphone it's

00:50:58 ◼   ► it actually does fit in there which is we're keeping an old model around because that's the

00:51:02 ◼   ► one that we can sell for cheaper and people love it so why not keep it around but it does seem like

00:51:08 ◼   ► really like really they're just going to keep an old mac design that they've completely replaced

00:51:15 ◼   ► just keep it kicking around with with lesser technology that doesn't do the the big leaps

00:51:21 ◼   ► in technology advancement but this is you know maybe that's part of the root of people's

00:51:26 ◼   ► complaints about apple's current laptop lineup is some of these things that apple thinks are

00:51:30 ◼   ► our assets are either neutral or are liabilities like retina i love but if a certain percentage of

00:51:39 ◼   ► the buying public just doesn't care then it's adding price for you know adding

00:51:44 ◼   ► cost for not a lot of value USB-C is a complication that is definitely a

00:51:50 ◼   ► liability even though we can argue about like the great things it does it's a

00:51:53 ◼   ► liability if you've got a decade of USB cables and devices and things like that

00:51:59 ◼   ► and you need dongles new dongles for everything so you know this fits into

00:52:04 ◼   ► that like that's part of the appeal of the MacBook Air is that it's just the

00:52:07 ◼   ► laptop everybody expects instead of the laptop that Apple's trying to get you to want.

00:52:13 ◼   ► But I think it's safe to assume that this was not the plan when the Macbook was introduced,

00:52:18 ◼   ► right? Oh, definitely not.

00:52:19 ◼   ► Like, surely the Macbook was supposed to replace this product.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think that—I wonder if that's part of the source of this, because you're

00:52:27 ◼   ► right, the Macbook—when people say, "What about a replacement for the MacBook Air?"

00:52:31 ◼   ► it's like, the MacBook is the replacement for the MacBook Air, very clearly.

00:52:34 ◼   ► already made that product. Very clearly. So part of Apple's calculation is probably,

00:52:40 ◼   ► do we want to reduce our margin on the MacBook by cutting its price, or would we rather just

00:52:50 ◼   ► keep the margin where it is, protect the margin on our fancy super light Retina laptop, and

00:52:58 ◼   ► keep this old product around, where presumably the margins are also pretty good. So in terms

00:53:02 ◼   ► a profit margin, this is the right answer. But, you know, in terms of Apple's track

00:53:08 ◼   ► world, track record, what has happened is that they kill, they keep the MacBook Air

00:53:13 ◼   ► around for a year or two maybe, and then it dies and the MacBook goes down to $999. But

00:53:18 ◼   ► they aren't willing to lose that $300 of profit margin on every sale of the MacBook,

00:53:25 ◼   ► and they still sell the MacBook, and I think it sells pretty well, but they also still

00:53:30 ◼   ► sell the Air that sells pretty well. So like, I get that. I get the idea economically of

00:53:35 ◼   ► saying, look, why would we do that when we can keep these two products and we have huge

00:53:39 ◼   ► profit margins on both of them? And then, you know, and it's not like the existence

00:53:44 ◼   ► of the MacBook Air is killing MacBook sales because I don't think it is. I think it's

00:53:47 ◼   ► selling pretty well too. So maybe they look at it and say, why would we upset this? Why

00:53:51 ◼   ► would we change this dynamic? It actually benefits us to have an older low cost, low-ish

00:53:56 ◼   ► cost Mac laptop in the line just like it benefits Apple to have older, cheaper iPhones in the

00:54:02 ◼   ► line. It's different, but there's precedent for it. But I agree with you, I think perhaps

00:54:10 ◼   ► that was not their original intent, and that the MacBook Air sales were so strong that

00:54:16 ◼   ► they just couldn't kill it.

00:54:18 ◼   ► Does this feel like Apple?

00:54:20 ◼   ► Does this like, does this feel like a, what is the off-use phrase, like an Apple thing

00:54:27 ◼   ► to do, like to be boxed into a corner because of pricing and then just like, oh screw it,

00:54:33 ◼   ► like let them eat cake?

00:54:34 ◼   ► Like is that like a, does that feel like Apple?

00:54:40 ◼   ► Like I know the SE exists, but like the SE was at least a new product, right?

00:54:46 ◼   ► they brought out a new product to fill a need when what they'll most likely do, I mean really

00:54:52 ◼   ► what they will most likely do is just bring the price down and the current Mac can't keep

00:54:55 ◼   ► selling it.

00:54:56 ◼   ► Yeah but the five, well I mean this rumor says they will do something else to it, like

00:55:00 ◼   ► there will be something to it and was the Mac SE a new product? It was basically a 5S

00:55:05 ◼   ► with a new hardware inside. I get that that actually makes it a new product.

00:55:10 ◼   ► Right, but they did put some new stuff in it.

00:55:12 ◼   ► Sure.

00:55:13 ◼   ► There were new internals, there were new things that went inside of it.

00:55:16 ◼   ► But I think this rumor suggests that, right?

00:55:19 ◼   ► That this isn't just a price cut on the MacBook Air.

00:55:22 ◼   ► Ming-Chi Kuo didn't really say much more than Apple is planning a more affordable 13-inch

00:55:27 ◼   ► MacBook Air this year.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Like it really isn't much more than just like, it was like a single line, it is a new MacBook

00:55:35 ◼   ► Air with a lower price tag during the second quarter of 2018.

00:55:38 ◼   ► That was basically the quote.

00:55:39 ◼   ► I think the question then is,

00:55:41 ◼   ► are they going to do something to the insides

00:55:42 ◼   ► or are they literally just gonna cut the price

00:55:44 ◼   ► and keep selling it?

00:55:45 ◼   ► Which they could do, and that's a lot less interesting.

00:55:47 ◼   ► That is a lot less Apple, I would say.

00:55:50 ◼   ► I don't know, I think the real question is

00:55:54 ◼   ► about Apple's assumption that when it comes up

00:55:57 ◼   ► with new hardware features, which it needs to do

00:55:59 ◼   ► because Apple has this sort of brand perception

00:56:01 ◼   ► of being on the cutting edge, it needs,

00:56:03 ◼   ► and we were all clamoring for Retina MacBook Air, right?

00:56:05 ◼   ► We were clamoring for it.

00:56:08 ◼   ► that they need to do things that advance the category,

00:56:12 ◼   ► new technologies that are going to excite you.

00:56:14 ◼   ► You gotta get the new MacBook Pro

00:56:16 ◼   ► because it's got the touch bar on it

00:56:18 ◼   ► and it's got a retina display and it's beautiful

00:56:20 ◼   ► and it's thin and it's light and all those things.

00:56:22 ◼   ► And the challenge is when at least a segment

00:56:26 ◼   ► of your audience says, "I don't really care about that.

00:56:29 ◼   ► I'm good, I'm okay."

00:56:32 ◼   ► And that is a challenge for a company that prides itself

00:56:34 ◼   ► on kind of like driving new sales

00:56:36 ◼   ► by being on the cutting edge of technology

00:56:39 ◼   ► so that you've got to buy the new thing

00:56:40 ◼   ► 'cause it's got this awesome new tech feature in it.

00:56:42 ◼   ► What happens if your customers say,

00:56:45 ◼   ► we're actually very comfortable where we are

00:56:47 ◼   ► and we don't need that new thing?

00:56:49 ◼   ► And the challenge there with Apple is

00:56:51 ◼   ► if the new thing ends up being something

00:56:53 ◼   ► that you don't know you want,

00:56:54 ◼   ► but you find out you do want and you love it,

00:56:57 ◼   ► then that's a success.

00:56:58 ◼   ► That's the secret to Apple's success.

00:57:00 ◼   ► But what happens when that doesn't happen?

00:57:02 ◼   ► What happens when USB-C comes out and you're like,

00:57:04 ◼   ► eh, dongles, I don't need that.

00:57:06 ◼   ► Or what happens if a certain percentage of the audience

00:57:09 ◼   ► looks at the retina display and says,

00:57:10 ◼   ► "300 dollars more?

00:57:11 ◼   ► "Eh, I don't need that."

00:57:13 ◼   ► Then you end up kinda stuck

00:57:15 ◼   ► when some of your customer base

00:57:17 ◼   ► does not wanna come with you on that journey.

00:57:19 ◼   ► A little footnote here, I mean,

00:57:22 ◼   ► how many people do we know who have extolled the virtues

00:57:25 ◼   ► of buying the previous generation MacBook Pro hardware?

00:57:28 ◼   ► That's the same symptom, right?

00:57:30 ◼   ► Which is there are people who don't think it's worth it

00:57:32 ◼   ► to go on this journey with you

00:57:33 ◼   ► to your new laptop with new features.

00:57:35 ◼   ► and that's not how it's supposed to work.

00:57:38 ◼   ► The new features are supposed to drive sales

00:57:40 ◼   ► of the new laptop, but when you've got some people saying,

00:57:42 ◼   ► "Mm, I don't actually, I would rather just stay with this,"

00:57:46 ◼   ► then, and your Apple, who prides itself on pushing forward,

00:57:49 ◼   ► you've got a decision to make about, do you serve them?

00:57:52 ◼   ► Do you bifurcate?

00:57:53 ◼   ► Do you have more products, some that have the old vibe

00:57:56 ◼   ► and some that are new, and let people come along

00:57:58 ◼   ► at their own pace?

00:57:59 ◼   ► It's weird, it's a hard problem,

00:58:03 ◼   ► and I think it's biting them now,

00:58:04 ◼   ► where some of this stuff, like seriously,

00:58:07 ◼   ► I've had several people ask me about laptops

00:58:09 ◼   ► in the last few weeks because their Mac laptop's

00:58:14 ◼   ► getting old and I've had to do this whole,

00:58:16 ◼   ► I really wanna just say the MacBook is great,

00:58:18 ◼   ► my daughter has one, it's wonderful.

00:58:20 ◼   ► But instead I'm like, well, I like the MacBook,

00:58:22 ◼   ► but it's 1299 or whatever,

00:58:24 ◼   ► you're gonna not just need to do that,

00:58:27 ◼   ► but buy a bunch of adapters for your old stuff.

00:58:29 ◼   ► It's got one port, so if you wanna charge it

00:58:32 ◼   ► and plug something in, you need another adapter for that.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Like there's this whole litany of things that I have to say

00:58:36 ◼   ► instead of saying, oh, just buy the MacBook.

00:58:38 ◼   ► And instead it's sort of like,

00:58:39 ◼   ► well, maybe you just want another MacBook Air.

00:58:42 ◼   ► I've said that to more than one person in the last two weeks

00:58:44 ◼   ► which is I think telling about where the MacBook Air is

00:58:48 ◼   ► and why it's still popular.

00:58:50 ◼   ► - All right, let's put our money on the table here.

00:58:53 ◼   ► Right, like what is this going to be?

00:58:54 ◼   ► Is it going to be a price drop?

00:58:56 ◼   ► Is there going to be new features?

00:58:57 ◼   ► Like what do you think this will result in?

00:59:01 ◼   ► Oh boy. I'm gonna say, I could go either way, like I'm just gonna pick something to pick

00:59:11 ◼   ► it. I'm gonna say that they are going, they're realizing that they're at the end of their

00:59:17 ◼   ► life with the motherboard generation, the chipset generation that's in there. And so

00:59:24 ◼   ► they're gonna upgrade it to a new chipset. And the outside's not gonna change. And it's

00:59:28 ◼   ► literally just going to be a faster Intel processor on the inside and I think

00:59:34 ◼   ► maybe even the ports don't change, although you know they could do that, but

00:59:37 ◼   ► my guess is it'll be the least they can do. It'll still look the same, it'll

00:59:41 ◼   ► still be not retina, it'll still have the USB-A ports and Thunderbolt port, you

00:59:47 ◼   ► know, maybe they change the Thunderbolt part out to a USB-C port or something

00:59:50 ◼   ► like that, depends on what chipset they're using, but that would be my

00:59:55 ◼   ► guess is that they're literally just going to replace it with a newer Intel

00:59:59 ◼   ► chipset that lets them build the same product.

01:00:02 ◼   ► I am gonna say that I mostly agree with you but like I think that we'll probably if we see anything it will be a processor change but just for fun I'm gonna say just a price drop.

01:00:17 ◼   ► I'm just gonna go with that. Just take what they currently have, lop $100 off it, keep selling it.

01:00:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, and somebody in the chat room

01:00:26 ◼   ► while we were talking basically said,

01:00:27 ◼   ► they seem to have these two choices

01:00:28 ◼   ► and those are our two choices, that's about it.

01:00:30 ◼   ► David Schaub in the chat room said that.

01:00:31 ◼   ► I think that's it.

01:00:32 ◼   ► I think the most likely scenarios are either

01:00:34 ◼   ► it's literally just a price drop,

01:00:36 ◼   ► that 13 inch MacBook Air is now 799

01:00:38 ◼   ► 'cause they gotta make so much profit on each one of those

01:00:41 ◼   ► 'cause that's just like old tech.

01:00:43 ◼   ► There, it's at the point now where to my point,

01:00:47 ◼   ► like I'm more concerned that they don't make those,

01:00:50 ◼   ► some of those parts anymore.

01:00:52 ◼   ► Like, are there enough of those displays

01:00:54 ◼   ► to fulfill the demand?

01:00:56 ◼   ► Or are people winding up the manufacturer of those displays

01:01:00 ◼   ► 'cause everyone wants higher resolution displays

01:01:02 ◼   ► or other parts that are used in making that product?

01:01:04 ◼   ► That becomes a concern,

01:01:05 ◼   ► which is why I think they might rev the motherboard

01:01:09 ◼   ► and use a new chip set so that they can use some stuff

01:01:11 ◼   ► that's still in production

01:01:14 ◼   ► without hurting their margins very much.

01:01:16 ◼   ► But I think those are the options, right?

01:01:18 ◼   ► Like, because I don't see them designing a whole new laptop

01:01:23 ◼   ► and putting all that work in just to sell it for 799

01:01:27 ◼   ► or something that seems like they would do

01:01:29 ◼   ► an iPhone SE thing and then just like do some

01:01:32 ◼   ► internal changes, not do a product redesign on the outside

01:01:35 ◼   ► and just keep selling it.

01:01:37 ◼   ► - All right, this episode is brought to you

01:01:41 ◼   ► by CleanMyMac from MacPaw.

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01:03:11 ◼   ► First question comes from Brock. Brock asks "I want to get a HomePod but the best places

01:03:16 ◼   ► I have for it are either on top of a bookshelf or one of the shelves on that bookshelf. Will

01:03:23 ◼   ► Will it being high up or recessed in a shelf negatively affect the sound output?

01:03:28 ◼   ► Jason, do you know about this?

01:03:30 ◼   ► I don't know, I need to try this.

01:03:32 ◼   ► I thought about it.

01:03:34 ◼   ► I have put one high up and it was okay.

01:03:37 ◼   ► I mean the idea here is that the HomePod is listening to you.

01:03:39 ◼   ► It knows that if it knows that the sound environment that it's in because it's listening to

01:03:43 ◼   ► the microphone so it would probably be okay.

01:03:46 ◼   ► A top of a bookshelf I don't think it's going to be a problem.

01:03:48 ◼   ► I think that that's a perfectly fine place for it.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Although as I pointed out,

01:03:53 ◼   ► you won't be able to see it, activate,

01:03:55 ◼   ► or touch it to control it, you know,

01:03:58 ◼   ► the volume or play/pause or anything like that.

01:04:00 ◼   ► But that worked okay.

01:04:02 ◼   ► Completely surrounded in like a bookshelf or something

01:04:04 ◼   ► with stuff above and right behind and all of that.

01:04:07 ◼   ► It's probably not gonna sound as good,

01:04:09 ◼   ► but it will adjust itself automatically.

01:04:11 ◼   ► - Chris asks, "I bought a Samsung 4K monitor,

01:04:15 ◼   ► but now my max brightness up and down keys

01:04:18 ◼   ► on my keyboard don't do anything.

01:04:20 ◼   ► Are there any third-party utilities?

01:04:23 ◼   ► I can make a Mac's keyboard brightness keys

01:04:25 ◼   ► adjust a Samsung monitor's brightness.

01:04:27 ◼   ► I don't think so, right?

01:04:29 ◼   ► Like I think that these are like independent things,

01:04:32 ◼   ► or am I wrong?

01:04:33 ◼   ► - I was hoping you had an answer

01:04:35 ◼   ► since you put this question in here,

01:04:37 ◼   ► 'cause I haven't the faintest idea.

01:04:38 ◼   ► I've never used a Samsung monitor.

01:04:40 ◼   ► I don't know anything about that.

01:04:41 ◼   ► I used to have a third-party, I used to have a Dell monitor,

01:04:45 ◼   ► and I think I had to adjust the brightness

01:04:46 ◼   ► with the little buttons on the monitor.

01:04:49 ◼   ► So I used to use a Samsung TV at one point

01:04:53 ◼   ► with a Mac mini and I had to use

01:04:55 ◼   ► the whole adjustment on the thing.

01:04:57 ◼   ► The reason I put this in is I was hoping

01:04:59 ◼   ► you might have an answer or what I sometimes do

01:05:02 ◼   ► is we put these questions in there

01:05:04 ◼   ► to see if anybody out there in the world

01:05:06 ◼   ► knows of a way to do this.

01:05:08 ◼   ► I don't think it's possible,

01:05:09 ◼   ► but if it is, I would love to hear about it.

01:05:12 ◼   ► Logan has asked, "What is the difference between

01:05:15 ◼   ► "An i5 and an i7 in an iMac or a Mac Pro.

01:05:19 ◼   ► I'm looking into getting a Mac for school this fall

01:05:21 ◼   ► and trying to decide which processor to get.

01:05:24 ◼   ► My biggest priority is future proofing,

01:05:26 ◼   ► followed closely by budget."

01:05:28 ◼   ► - i7, I think i7 has virtual processor cores

01:05:36 ◼   ► that the i5 doesn't have.

01:05:37 ◼   ► The i7 is a faster, more efficient class of processor.

01:05:42 ◼   ► Although I think a lot of the i7s

01:05:44 ◼   ► are lower clock speed when they're single-threaded

01:05:49 ◼   ► and then, or then the i5.

01:05:52 ◼   ► It's, i7 is a better processor,

01:05:55 ◼   ► but you may not really get all the benefit

01:05:58 ◼   ► if you're not doing a lot of multi-core,

01:06:00 ◼   ► multi-threaded stuff.

01:06:01 ◼   ► And if you don't know what that is,

01:06:03 ◼   ► you're probably not doing it.

01:06:05 ◼   ► But it's, that's, I'm trying to simplify.

01:06:09 ◼   ► And I think my confusion is that some of those features

01:06:12 ◼   ► have come into the i5 at one point,

01:06:14 ◼   ► which it makes me confusing too.

01:06:16 ◼   ► Details of Intel chip architectures,

01:06:21 ◼   ► maybe not the best thing that this podcast does.

01:06:24 ◼   ► - I mean, my feeling would be,

01:06:26 ◼   ► considering that this is a computer for school,

01:06:28 ◼   ► so it's gonna last you a couple of years,

01:06:31 ◼   ► unless you're doing something

01:06:33 ◼   ► that is specifically very intensive,

01:06:37 ◼   ► I would just say go for the budget

01:06:39 ◼   ► and then use the money you save

01:06:41 ◼   ► on something like RAM or storage.

01:06:44 ◼   ► I think that you'll probably be fine on an i5.

01:06:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, the number of things that you,

01:06:50 ◼   ► if you get an iMac, like put that money toward

01:06:52 ◼   ► fusion drive or even better yet, SSD,

01:06:55 ◼   ► rather than a processor, like that's gonna save you more.

01:06:58 ◼   ► - You'll feel that more every day.

01:07:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:07:03 ◼   ► - Jake asked, "Do you think the 2018 iPhone X

01:07:05 ◼   ► "will have camera hardware parity to the iPhone X Plus?"

01:07:09 ◼   ► That's been rumored.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Huh. That's a good one. Basically, the question here is, does Apple have something more up

01:07:19 ◼   ► its sleeve in terms of having a new camera module that is so awesome on the X Plus because

01:07:30 ◼   ► it's using that extra space? If I had to bet, I would say that they'll be the same. What

01:07:38 ◼   ► What do you think, Myke?

01:07:39 ◼   ► I don't think there will be.

01:07:41 ◼   ► Are they going to do something magical and special for the Plus Club?

01:07:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

01:07:45 ◼   ► I think that we're going to go back to the world of Apple trying to show some real differences

01:07:51 ◼   ► between those two phones.

01:07:54 ◼   ► And one of the really easy ways to do that is to have differences in the camera because

01:07:59 ◼   ► it's something that people really care about.

01:08:01 ◼   ► It's like if you want to push people towards the expensive phone, give it some difference

01:08:06 ◼   ► in a camera that the extra space can afford, right? Because you've got more space because

01:08:09 ◼   ► the phone's bigger, which is, I'm assuming, the exact reasoning behind the dual lens and

01:08:14 ◼   ► the plus and why historically, the plus has always had a better camera, right? Like, I

01:08:21 ◼   ► don't know if it's the case with the 8, right? But like, I think throughout all of the time

01:08:26 ◼   ► that the plus existed, there was always something that the plus camera did that the non-plus

01:08:32 ◼   ► camera didn't do, right? Whether it was like optical image stabilization and all that kind

01:08:37 ◼   ► of stuff, like there's always been advancements and I think that there will be advancements again

01:08:41 ◼   ► that the regular phone won't have. All right, I mean, I think that's possible. My gut feeling

01:08:48 ◼   ► is just that Apple did a lot of work to get the iPhone X camera to be great and to do all the

01:08:55 ◼   ► things that the Plus cameras did. And since they've done that, I think it would be easy for

01:09:00 ◼   ► for them to just progress that on both devices rather than do a second thing. But you could

01:09:06 ◼   ► be right. It is a differentiator other than size to have the camera to use some of that

01:09:11 ◼   ► space to do more with cameras.

01:09:17 ◼   ► Dave asks, "The smart keyboard that I got with my 9.7" iPad Pro is limping along now.

01:09:23 ◼   ► I don't want to replace it as I'm thinking about upgrading to a new 10.5 whenever that

01:09:27 ◼   ► might come. Any suggestions for a keyboard that will work for now isn't too clunky and

01:09:31 ◼   ► something I can just throw in my backpack. I figured that an Apple Magic Keyboard with

01:09:38 ◼   ► the Studio Nuke Canopy is probably a pretty good option for this. What do you think?

01:09:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's a great option because it'll also give you a stand for your iPad.

01:09:52 ◼   ► The other product that I will mention is the one of the Logitech Bluetooth, like the Easy

01:09:59 ◼   ► Switch, which is sort of my backup keyboard for everything.

01:10:03 ◼   ► And that's nice because it'll pair with multiple Bluetooth devices and you can switch among

01:10:06 ◼   ► them so you can be like on your Mac and then switch and now it works with your iPad and

01:10:11 ◼   ► then you switch with some other device, which is nice.

01:10:15 ◼   ► And there are plenty of generic Bluetooth keyboards out there.

01:10:18 ◼   ► The nice thing about the Kanopy from Studio Neat is that it's exactly the size of the

01:10:22 ◼   ► Magic Keyboard. So if you can get a Magic Keyboard or you have a Magic Keyboard that

01:10:26 ◼   ► came with a Mac, you put it in the canopy, it kind of sticks in and it snaps up into

01:10:31 ◼   ► a carrying case, but when you get to your destination you can unfold it and it will

01:10:35 ◼   ► be a stand to hold your iPad and that will work with the 9 7 and the 10 5 just the same.

01:10:43 ◼   ► And the reason that I think we're both going down the route of not recommending a keyboard

01:10:47 ◼   ► case is because you're looking to upgrade. So you may as well get a keyboard that you

01:10:53 ◼   ► could use for other things once you upgrade your iPad Pro. Because if you want a case,

01:10:59 ◼   ► the Logitech Create for the 9.7 is just a product that I couldn't say nicer things about.

01:11:05 ◼   ► I absolutely loved that and was just so sad that they ruined it for the future.

01:11:12 ◼   ► But he wants a keyboard that will work with both. So something like the Kanopy, the nice

01:11:16 ◼   ► thing about that is that not only does the keyboard work with both, but the stand will

01:11:20 ◼   ► work with both. And so that's not a bad option if you like the Apple Magic Keyboard, which

01:11:26 ◼   ► is a very nice keyboard.

01:11:27 ◼   ► Yep, so that's kind of the route that you want to go down.

01:11:29 ◼   ► And you may have one.

01:11:31 ◼   ► Yeah, this is another thing about the Kanopy is you probably already have a Magic Keyboard,

01:11:36 ◼   ► right? You may use it for your Mac currently, so that could make it a little bit tricky,

01:11:40 ◼   ► You probably have one. I'm expecting. Who knows, but I'm guessing you might.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Rob asks, "What is your favorite iPhone gimbal, Jason?"

01:11:49 ◼   ► What's the one you had me buy?

01:11:52 ◼   ► The DJI Osmo is the one that I made you buy, and it is my pick.

01:11:57 ◼   ► Osmo Mobile. Yeah, that's my favorite in that it is the one that I have, and I have not tried any others.

01:12:02 ◼   ► So I have no buying advice to give you, but I use that one, and Myke told me about it.

01:12:08 ◼   ► it and I like it. They have new ones now so there is a new one which is cheaper I think

01:12:17 ◼   ► the Osmo Mobile 2 which is an updated version. It is I think better and cheaper so it's

01:12:25 ◼   ► worth looking at but the DJI products. DJI is an incredible company that does really

01:12:33 ◼   ► really interesting things. They're known for their drones mostly, right? They make the Mavic and the

01:12:40 ◼   ► Spark and the Phantom and I'm very interested in the drone technology even though I don't really

01:12:46 ◼   ► have a lot of use for it myself but I find it just to be really interesting and I think it was Casey

01:12:51 ◼   ► Neistat recently said something that I thought was really really cool that like at this point DJI are

01:12:56 ◼   ► just competing with themselves they're so far ahead of everybody else that like in drone tech

01:13:01 ◼   ► no one's even close to them and they just keep releasing new drones that compete with their

01:13:05 ◼   ► other drones and that's kind of just the whole the whole drone market right now is kind of just

01:13:10 ◼   ► swept up in DJI. Really really interesting company. All right and finally today Rajeev asks,

01:13:16 ◼   ► do you think that iPads will eventually get wireless charging like the iPhones have?

01:13:21 ◼   ► Eventually. Like on an infinite time scale maybe but I think that there's much less need for it

01:13:31 ◼   ► because first off it's they're huge and you have to make a little contact area

01:13:38 ◼   ► for the wireless charging to happen and it's a much larger thing so now you're

01:13:43 ◼   ► trying to get it positioned exactly right and all of that so I think

01:13:47 ◼   ► eventually maybe but I can't see it happening anytime soon I don't think it's

01:13:53 ◼   ► gonna happen like with the technology we currently have like what what the Qi

01:13:58 ◼   ► charging that exists right now I don't see a benefit like I just it's like all

01:14:04 ◼   ► also it will take forever exactly do I think that macbooks are gonna get g

01:14:10 ◼   ► charging no I don't right and so it's like the same thing because so you'd be

01:14:14 ◼   ► taking this big thing and putting it down on it you may as well just plug it

01:14:17 ◼   ► in like it I don't think the convenience aspect is there in the same way so I

01:14:22 ◼   ► mean you know it'd be cool because I I have found myself recently needing to

01:14:28 ◼   ► charge my iPad pro up in the day I don't know what's going on I don't know maybe

01:14:32 ◼   ► it's just age or I've got some something weird happening but I'm not on any

01:14:35 ◼   ► betas or anything but my battery life seems to be taking a bit of a dive so it

01:14:40 ◼   ► would be nice to have something that could charge it more easily but I just

01:14:43 ◼   ► don't think that Qi in its current form would really give me what I'm looking

01:14:47 ◼   ► for. Alright so thank you so much to everybody that sent in their Ask upgrade

01:14:52 ◼   ► questions you can send us these questions in by just tweeting out into

01:14:55 ◼   ► the world with the hashtag #AskUpgrade and we'll pick them up for a future episode so

01:14:59 ◼   ► any technology based questions you would like our advice on you can send them in with the

01:15:03 ◼   ► hashtag #AskUpgrade and we will get to them.

01:15:06 ◼   ► But now it is time for us to discuss aliens but before we do that let me take our final

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01:16:45 ◼   ► Alright, so it is at this time, as always, Jason, where I pick up my other notebook that

01:16:50 ◼   ► I have here, where I was taking notes earlier today when I watched Aliens.

01:16:55 ◼   ► I really, whilst it is a very strange thing to do in the middle of the afternoon to watch

01:17:00 ◼   ► a movie, I do really like watching these before we record, because it means that it's the

01:17:07 ◼   ► most fresh in my mind.

01:17:08 ◼   ► But there is that weird thing where, like, I'm drawing the blinds at 11am to sit down

01:17:13 ◼   ► and watch a movie from 1986. It is very strange and like it is one of those things where it's

01:17:19 ◼   ► like what is what is this life I lead in which I'm doing this but this is the life that I

01:17:26 ◼   ► have and I will thank all of our listeners for allowing me to watch Aliens in the middle

01:17:31 ◼   ► of the afternoon as part of my job. But here we are so I would do what I always do I'll

01:17:38 ◼   ► give my thoughts before and then my thoughts after and then we can jump into breaking down

01:17:42 ◼   ► some of the parts of the movie. Does that work?

01:17:45 ◼   ► Sure.

01:17:45 ◼   ► So I was very nervous of this movie because I was very upset. The first watching Alien,

01:17:53 ◼   ► it made me very uneasy. So I was nervous of that. And you had told me, you tried to console me,

01:18:00 ◼   ► feel better that this is more of an action movie where Alien is definitely more of a thriller

01:18:06 ◼   ► horror movie. And Aliens is more of an action movie. And it's kind of

01:18:12 ◼   ► replicated in the director, right? So this, so we had Ridley Scott for the

01:18:18 ◼   ► first one and he's good at making really really tense environments. We have

01:18:23 ◼   ► James Cameron for Aliens, so it's, you know, James Cameron is more of a big

01:18:29 ◼   ► action guy, right? Like that's what he's more known for, big action movies with impressive visuals.

01:18:35 ◼   ► And in many ways this is the movie that made him a bankable

01:18:40 ◼   ► action director, Terminator. The original Terminator, which was low budget, which we

01:18:46 ◼   ► watched, was like the, "Oh, there might be something to this guy. He looks really interesting."

01:18:49 ◼   ► And on the back of the Terminator, he was given Aliens. And then Aliens was a big hit,

01:18:59 ◼   ► and this is the thing that propelled him to being like, "No, no, he can make big-budget

01:19:05 ◼   ► action movies like Terminator 2, for example, and then on and on and on. But this is the

01:19:11 ◼   ► one that really made his name as a big-budget, big-grossing action movie director.

01:19:19 ◼   ► The budget felt huge for this movie. So IMDb tells me that the budget was $18.5 million,

01:19:27 ◼   ► is the estimation for the budget. And it felt like a really big-budget movie. A lot of

01:19:35 ◼   ► the practical effects stuff like the tanks and kind of the environments that

01:19:39 ◼   ► they're in it all felt really well done and I liked that I think my favorite

01:19:47 ◼   ► thing about this movie is the way everything looked everything looked

01:19:51 ◼   ► really real real you know because it was practical stuff and but it also looked

01:19:56 ◼   ► convincing and I thought that was really cool I liked I liked the overall look of

01:20:02 ◼   ► this movie in a way that kind of like Alien was cool but it was all really contained,

01:20:10 ◼   ► you know, within a relatively small environment and this movie had way bigger environments

01:20:15 ◼   ► and way bigger props and spaceships and you know there was a lot more going on in this.

01:20:22 ◼   ► I was struck in watching it this time because I've only seen Aliens once and that was a

01:20:27 ◼   ► a long time ago on VHS on a little TV.

01:20:32 ◼   ► So I got to see a lot more of the movie this time.

01:20:35 ◼   ► And one of the things that struck me

01:20:37 ◼   ► having seen "Alien" a bunch of times

01:20:39 ◼   ► is I really appreciate how this movie

01:20:43 ◼   ► takes its cues from the world that "Alien" built

01:20:47 ◼   ► in terms of what the future technology looks like

01:20:52 ◼   ► on the ship and like in the car and the tank

01:20:56 ◼   ► and in the buildings on the ground,

01:21:01 ◼   ► I felt like it was of a kind.

01:21:02 ◼   ► And then when it makes reference to the monsters

01:21:05 ◼   ► and their life cycle, the aliens and what they do,

01:21:08 ◼   ► that's all, they're honoring that concept.

01:21:13 ◼   ► It's a bigger canvas in every dimension,

01:21:19 ◼   ► but it does sort of feel like they took

01:21:22 ◼   ► that little tiny part that we saw in "Alien"

01:21:25 ◼   ► and said, "That's the starting point, and now we're going to expand on it," rather than

01:21:30 ◼   ► it feeling, if this makes any sense, feeling like it's a totally different world. Like,

01:21:34 ◼   ► you know, they expanded on it without making you feel like this is not the same world as

01:21:38 ◼   ► the original Alien.

01:21:39 ◼   ► Joe Stieler in the chat room has informed us that the tank is a radio-controlled car,

01:21:45 ◼   ► but nevertheless, even though it's not, I don't think I thought it was live-s... I don't

01:21:51 ◼   ► I don't know, but these things still carry with them

01:21:56 ◼   ► an increased budget.

01:21:56 ◼   ► - There are some shots that made me believe

01:21:59 ◼   ► that there was both a model tank and a life scale tank

01:22:03 ◼   ► for some shots and that they cut between them.

01:22:06 ◼   ► And I was like, now is this the tiny tank

01:22:08 ◼   ► or is this the full size tank?

01:22:09 ◼   ► But I don't know, so.

01:22:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, they clearly had something that was part of the set,

01:22:13 ◼   ► right, but what was driving around was not this big thing.

01:22:15 ◼   ► But nevertheless, the way this film looks

01:22:19 ◼   ► comes with a bigger budget, right?

01:22:20 ◼   ► it comes with needing to have a bigger budget. I think they had a bigger cast. And I would say

01:22:26 ◼   ► overall this is a really really good movie. I can see that in watching it.

01:22:33 ◼   ► I just don't think it's my movie. I don't think this is a thing for me.

01:22:39 ◼   ► Like I didn't dislike it. I wasn't bored of it. But there are just parts of it that like

01:22:47 ◼   ► I just flat out don't like the aliens.

01:22:50 ◼   ► I know I'm supposed to not like them.

01:22:54 ◼   ► - But lots of them die in this one, so that's good.

01:22:56 ◼   ► - That's true.

01:22:57 ◼   ► But I really just don't, I really don't like them

01:23:01 ◼   ► and it makes me not like the movie as much.

01:23:05 ◼   ► So I don't have particular problems with this movie.

01:23:11 ◼   ► Like I don't have things that like,

01:23:14 ◼   ► you tend to frustrate me.

01:23:16 ◼   ► You know, typically plot things frustrate me, right?

01:23:19 ◼   ► Like weird anomalies in the plot

01:23:21 ◼   ► or like peculiar decisions that somebody would make, right?

01:23:25 ◼   ► That's the sort of stuff that usually annoys me

01:23:27 ◼   ► about movies.

01:23:28 ◼   ► And this didn't really have that for me.

01:23:30 ◼   ► Like there wasn't anything where I was like,

01:23:31 ◼   ► well, somebody wouldn't do that.

01:23:33 ◼   ► I just, I think, I just think I like,

01:23:36 ◼   ► I dislike the aliens so much.

01:23:38 ◼   ► They creep me out so much that it,

01:23:40 ◼   ► it pulls me out of enjoying the movie.

01:23:43 ◼   ► - They are creepy.

01:23:43 ◼   ► And this has the new queen at the end,

01:23:45 ◼   ► who's like extra creepy.

01:23:47 ◼   ► - Oh dear, really?

01:23:47 ◼   ► - She gets in an elevator.

01:23:49 ◼   ► - I really wished that there was just me.

01:23:54 ◼   ► I wanna just see her press the buttons.

01:23:56 ◼   ► I wanna see that happening

01:23:59 ◼   ► because if you're gonna put it in the elevator,

01:24:01 ◼   ► make me watch the alien in the elevator.

01:24:03 ◼   ► What's the alien doing?

01:24:04 ◼   ► Is it like listening to the--

01:24:06 ◼   ► - It's a little elevator music that's going on.

01:24:08 ◼   ► (mimics elevator music)

01:24:09 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly right.

01:24:11 ◼   ► It's just waiting.

01:24:12 ◼   ► (mimics elevator music)

01:24:13 ◼   ► Somebody gets in on the third floor,

01:24:15 ◼   ► no no I'll take the next one. You've got all the space taken care of in this one.

01:24:20 ◼   ► Yeah I was when I I bought this on iTunes and I was given the opportunity the opportunity I was

01:24:26 ◼   ► given the option to either play the original or the 1990 special edition and I chose the original.

01:24:33 ◼   ► Yeah me too. Okay I don't know what the difference is but like. I so when I watched this the one time

01:24:39 ◼   ► I watched the special edition and my memory of it is that it was overwhelming and that

01:24:46 ◼   ► I thought this time I would be like, you know what, I'm going to choose the least, uh, the

01:24:50 ◼   ► shorter runtime just because the last time I watched this movie, I felt like it was a

01:24:54 ◼   ► sensory assault and that I want to like, I don't need more of that. So let's just take

01:24:59 ◼   ► the original and go with that. This is a long movie. It's like a two and a half hour long

01:25:04 ◼   ► movie, right? Like, which, I don't know, that, for movies that we tend to watch for

01:25:08 ◼   ► this segment, this is a long, this is on the long side.

01:25:11 ◼   ► It's 2, 2.17 the original, I think. Right.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Two hours, 17 minutes. But it's, it's, it definitely is, I, I, I can put it in context

01:25:19 ◼   ► for you a little bit. Like, this, first off, this was a huge hit.

01:25:23 ◼   ► Yeah. It was, it's remarkable in the sense that

01:25:26 ◼   ► you can see how clever it is to take the original concept, and like I said, honor it, and yet

01:25:33 ◼   ► also expanded. So it, I mean, because you can imagine what the elevator pitch is. So

01:25:39 ◼   ► standing, you know, James Cameron was standing next to me.

01:25:40 ◼   ► The alien elevator pitch. In the elevator. Saying, okay, imagine that

01:25:46 ◼   ► they go back to that planet 50 years later and all of those eggs hatched. Like, oh my

01:25:53 ◼   ► god, you mean there was one alien for that whole movie and now you're going to have like

01:25:56 ◼   ► 50 or 100 aliens? Well, yeah, that's exactly it. But we're going to have a bunch of space

01:26:02 ◼   ► Marines with machine guns and flamethrowers and they're gonna fight it out and it's gonna

01:26:06 ◼   ► be like a war with the aliens. That's what this movie is, like that's it. It is what

01:26:14 ◼   ► if we took the claustrophobic spaceship, the Nostromo, and a group of four people and one

01:26:22 ◼   ► alien, and instead we made it a semi-claustrophobic housing center down on a planet, but had a

01:26:30 ◼   ► a whole battalion of space marines and dozens of aliens, and they blow stuff up and shoot

01:26:35 ◼   ► and get eaten by aliens and all that stuff happens. Like, that's what this movie is.

01:26:42 ◼   ► And to pivot from the one genre to the other, it's very clever, it's very well done. In

01:26:49 ◼   ► looking back at it, the, um, I think the issue that I have with it, and this may be going

01:26:57 ◼   ► into how you feel about it is this is a really early example

01:27:02 ◼   ► of what we think of now as a modern summer action movie.

01:27:09 ◼   ► This is an early example of movies

01:27:13 ◼   ► that they make a dozen of now,

01:27:15 ◼   ► which is special effects, science fiction,

01:27:17 ◼   ► lots of explosions, lots of gunfire kind of movie.

01:27:23 ◼   ► We get these all the time now.

01:27:25 ◼   ► And as a result, I actually think,

01:27:28 ◼   ► I couldn't believe when I was watching this movie

01:27:31 ◼   ► that I thought this was an overwhelming,

01:27:33 ◼   ► intense experience to watch it.

01:27:37 ◼   ► Because I didn't feel that way.

01:27:39 ◼   ► I felt like it was a nice little, I was like,

01:27:41 ◼   ► "Oh, it's so cute.

01:27:42 ◼   ► It's a nice little action movie."

01:27:43 ◼   ► It doesn't have like, the plot isn't overstuffed

01:27:45 ◼   ► where like there are eight twists to get to the end.

01:27:48 ◼   ► Like it's really linear.

01:27:50 ◼   ► - It's very simple.

01:27:52 ◼   ► - It's there aren't too many characters.

01:27:54 ◼   ► It just flows kind of naturally.

01:27:57 ◼   ► It's got the one twist at the end

01:27:58 ◼   ► that's the same as in the other one,

01:27:59 ◼   ► and that's fine, whatever.

01:28:01 ◼   ► But it's like, it was more impressive at the time,

01:28:07 ◼   ► I would say.

01:28:08 ◼   ► And it's so influential,

01:28:10 ◼   ► like so many of these old movies you watch,

01:28:11 ◼   ► and you're like, "Oh, it doesn't seem,

01:28:12 ◼   ► I don't see what the big deal is.

01:28:13 ◼   ► There are lots of movies like this."

01:28:15 ◼   ► And you have to say, "Yeah, but this is the first one,

01:28:17 ◼   ► or one of the first ones that did it."

01:28:19 ◼   ► And I do think it's a template,

01:28:21 ◼   ► and it led to "Terminator 2,"

01:28:22 ◼   ► which I think really is like the prototypical summer science fiction action blockbuster

01:28:27 ◼   ► that really set this on a trajectory to where every movie is like that.

01:28:32 ◼   ► I mean, I get like Star Wars, true, it's true, but like Star Wars feels a little different.

01:28:37 ◼   ► This is the with more explosions and gunfire and personal damage and stuff

01:28:41 ◼   ► than you may be getting in a gentler Star Wars kind of movie.

01:28:44 ◼   ► This was a rated R, so.

01:28:45 ◼   ► - What Terminator 2 has that aliens doesn't is like an action figure superhero,

01:28:52 ◼   ► right? Like, the Terminator is like a sellable action figure cartoon character, right? Where,

01:29:00 ◼   ► like, aliens doesn't have that, it's real human beings dealing with this, right? And I think

01:29:06 ◼   ► that's one of the big differences. And of course Sigourney Weaver at the center of it doing an

01:29:10 ◼   ► amazing job. This is right after she was in Ghostbusters. An amazing job being Ripley again,

01:29:17 ◼   ► and there's a great moment where the lieutenant gets, like, bumped on the head or something and

01:29:21 ◼   ► He's a jerk anyway. And then she's just in charge at that point. By the time he wakes up,

01:29:25 ◼   ► it's like, "Sorry, dude. She's in charge now." That's why she's there. It's really good.

01:29:31 ◼   ► She finds the little girl, Newt, who's the only survivor, other than the ones who are webbed up

01:29:39 ◼   ► and say, "Kill me," and they're incubating hosts. But she's the one, like, un-doctored survivor.

01:29:45 ◼   ► And so she's got—there's like a mother-daughter kind of relationship that's going on while she's

01:29:49 ◼   ► she's got her flamethrower and her gun. But she's also-

01:29:52 ◼   ► I loved that part at the end when she duct tapes the two guns together. It's like so

01:29:57 ◼   ► extra I love it. I just loved it. Is that the best way to do this?

01:30:04 ◼   ► And it's a fun collection of characters, you know, you get your collection of Marines and

01:30:08 ◼   ► you know they're all gonna probably die by the end but you get to kind of get to know

01:30:12 ◼   ► them a little bit and then so you feel something when they're ambushed initially and then you

01:30:19 ◼   ► over time, more of them are gradually killed.

01:30:22 ◼   ► I like that there is, again, something I didn't really understand

01:30:25 ◼   ► when I watched it the first time, that it's very clear this time,

01:30:28 ◼   ► is how Lance Henriksen, who is Bishop, the android,

01:30:34 ◼   ► like, the android is the bad guy in the first movie, an alien.

01:30:37 ◼   ► And here, she doesn't trust him because he's an android.

01:30:40 ◼   ► And she's like, "Stay away."

01:30:42 ◼   ► And he ends up being completely honorable and saves the day in the end,

01:30:45 ◼   ► which I think is really cool.

01:30:47 ◼   ► Like that's a great, and it's Paul Reiser,

01:30:50 ◼   ► your jovial company representative,

01:30:53 ◼   ► who is the rat in all of this, not the android.

01:30:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, the difference, I guess, in this movie

01:30:58 ◼   ► is that the human is the real villain, right?

01:31:02 ◼   ► Where like in the previous one, it was a robot,

01:31:04 ◼   ► but it's like it's the human who's the villain this time.

01:31:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:31:07 ◼   ► - Well, 'cause the company is the villain.

01:31:09 ◼   ► The text of both these movies, a little less in this one,

01:31:12 ◼   ► but it's still very clear, is that it's the corporation,

01:31:16 ◼   ► the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, they are the villains

01:31:19 ◼   ► because they don't care about people.

01:31:21 ◼   ► They just want to research this alien stuff

01:31:25 ◼   ► and use it as a weapon.

01:31:26 ◼   ► That's the whole reason Paul,

01:31:28 ◼   ► there is that moment where they're like,

01:31:29 ◼   ► it's a classic moment.

01:31:30 ◼   ► It's one of the most quotable lines.

01:31:32 ◼   ► It's not the most quotable,

01:31:33 ◼   ► but one of the most quotable lines from this movie is,

01:31:36 ◼   ► I say, we take off, nuke the site from orbit.

01:31:40 ◼   ► It's the only way to be sure.

01:31:41 ◼   ► And that would have been, and Paul Reiser's like,

01:31:43 ◼   ► no, no, no, we can't do that because it's important.

01:31:46 ◼   ► And it's like, no, no, that's the right answer here.

01:31:48 ◼   ► Take off, nuke the site from orbit, end of movie.

01:31:52 ◼   ► But of course that doesn't happen.

01:31:54 ◼   ► By the way, the most, I don't know if you know this,

01:31:55 ◼   ► the most quotable line from this movie is Bill Paxton,

01:31:59 ◼   ► who says, "Game over, man, game over."

01:32:02 ◼   ► - I hated Bill Paxton's performance in this movie.

01:32:06 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:32:07 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, he's a whining, freaking out guy.

01:32:12 ◼   ► It's kind of awful, but there is that moment

01:32:14 ◼   ► where he freaks out and he's like,

01:32:16 ◼   ► when they lose the one flying thing that came down from the spaceship,

01:32:21 ◼   ► and he just starts freaking out and he's like, "Game over, man, game over!"

01:32:24 ◼   ► I like that he's like super panicky guy and they're like, "Calm down!"

01:32:26 ◼   ► But yeah, you're not supposed to like him. He's a panicky jerk.

01:32:30 ◼   ► I love all of the, like, 1980s view of the future. I love this stuff.

01:32:38 ◼   ► Oh, god, yeah.

01:32:40 ◼   ► Right, so like, there's that meeting at the beginning,

01:32:43 ◼   ► And everyone's smoking and using pen and paper.

01:32:48 ◼   ► It's like--

01:32:49 ◼   ► Everybody's smoking indoors, they're using pen and paper,

01:32:52 ◼   ► and there's a line about how a spaceship costs $14 million.

01:33:01 ◼   ► And I just cackled.

01:33:02 ◼   ► I was like, this is the most '80s thing ever,

01:33:04 ◼   ► like, million dollar spaceship?

01:33:07 ◼   ► And the smoking indoors and the pen and paper,

01:33:09 ◼   ► it's just hilarious.

01:33:10 ◼   ► Like, yeah, this is the things that you

01:33:13 ◼   ► don't bother to imagine what it would be like

01:33:16 ◼   ► in the actual future.

01:33:19 ◼   ► Just like, it's a meeting,

01:33:20 ◼   ► there's some computer screens on the walls.

01:33:23 ◼   ► There's also a moment that you probably noticed

01:33:25 ◼   ► where they're looking at a map and it's on a screen,

01:33:28 ◼   ► which looks really cool.

01:33:30 ◼   ► It's like a flat screen, but it's down.

01:33:32 ◼   ► It's on the table.

01:33:33 ◼   ► It's like a table screen.

01:33:34 ◼   ► It's got the map of a complex in it

01:33:36 ◼   ► and they want to move around on it.

01:33:40 ◼   ► And so they have to do computer things

01:33:42 ◼   ► to move the map and I'm like no no no you just reach out and pinch.

01:33:46 ◼   ► I love watching this stuff. I don't think that there is a specific problem that people

01:33:51 ◼   ► from the 80s have no imagination right because I imagine that like in 30 years time our the

01:33:58 ◼   ► stuff that we're doing in future movies will look just as ridiculous like oh they didn't

01:34:03 ◼   ► know you could just imagine it right like or like whatever you know like whatever it

01:34:07 ◼   ► ends up being but like it's just always funny to be like what did people think that like

01:34:11 ◼   ► Like, I mean, how far in the future is this even set?

01:34:15 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like it's 57 years after the first one.

01:34:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

01:34:20 ◼   ► It's an unstated, unstated far off future,

01:34:23 ◼   ► you know, a couple hundred years probably.

01:34:26 ◼   ► And it's, yeah, the, what gets me is that mixture,

01:34:31 ◼   ► which is like, okay, they've got a flat screen on a table

01:34:35 ◼   ► with a readout on it that's like a live map.

01:34:39 ◼   ► And actually, I think that they did really well

01:34:41 ◼   ► that I liked is that all the soldiers have cameras,

01:34:44 ◼   ► and they've got a control center

01:34:45 ◼   ► where they can see the video from all the soldiers.

01:34:48 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, good job.

01:34:50 ◼   ► I think you kinda nailed it.

01:34:52 ◼   ► That's a really good vision of future soldiers and tech.

01:34:57 ◼   ► And they've got the control center,

01:34:58 ◼   ► but they've got that screen with the map,

01:35:00 ◼   ► and it's like a flat plan of glass.

01:35:03 ◼   ► It doesn't look like a CRT, I think.

01:35:05 ◼   ► And I thought, wow, that looks really good.

01:35:07 ◼   ► but it looks so good that I expected them to touch it

01:35:11 ◼   ► like an iPad.

01:35:13 ◼   ► And they don't, 'cause that's that part, that conception,

01:35:18 ◼   ► either that conception didn't get to them

01:35:20 ◼   ► or the other thing is like,

01:35:21 ◼   ► how much money and time do we wanna spend

01:35:23 ◼   ► having the actors put their fingers on the glass

01:35:25 ◼   ► and miming that, tracking that perfectly with our computer.

01:35:29 ◼   ► It's like, it's not worth it.

01:35:30 ◼   ► Let's just not do that.

01:35:32 ◼   ► Sometimes it might not be a lack of vision.

01:35:34 ◼   ► it's just a lack of the budget

01:35:37 ◼   ► to realize other parts of the future.

01:35:39 ◼   ► And that's true.

01:35:40 ◼   ► It's less true now where we've got amazing VFX

01:35:44 ◼   ► to rewrite almost everything you see on screen

01:35:47 ◼   ► if you've got enough money again,

01:35:48 ◼   ► but it's a different kind of a thing

01:35:50 ◼   ► than it was back in the day

01:35:51 ◼   ► where they had to do a lot of stuff,

01:35:53 ◼   ► practically and just stay inside the budget.

01:35:56 ◼   ► - I also really liked the Exosuits, the loaders.

01:36:00 ◼   ► That's really cool.

01:36:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, James Cameron liked them too

01:36:03 ◼   ► 'cause he brought him back in "Avatar."

01:36:05 ◼   ► But yeah, right, where it's people in exosuits.

01:36:09 ◼   ► But that's a nice use of the,

01:36:12 ◼   ► it seemed extraneous at the time,

01:36:13 ◼   ► where she's like, "Yeah, I can load things.

01:36:14 ◼   ► "I worked at the loading docks,

01:36:16 ◼   ► "mentioned in a previous scene.

01:36:17 ◼   ► "I will move something around."

01:36:19 ◼   ► And it shows her, character-wise, makes sense.

01:36:21 ◼   ► She's earning a little more respect from these Marines

01:36:24 ◼   ► who had no respect for her as this civilian

01:36:26 ◼   ► who's been asked to tag along with them,

01:36:28 ◼   ► who they don't know.

01:36:29 ◼   ► But of course, it pays off at the end,

01:36:31 ◼   ► where the door opens and she's in the exosuit

01:36:34 ◼   ► and she's gonna punch--

01:36:35 ◼   ► - In a really awkward, drawn out fight scene.

01:36:39 ◼   ► Like when nothing's really happening,

01:36:42 ◼   ► like there's a tail whipping

01:36:43 ◼   ► and she's kind of holding the alien's head a bunch, right?

01:36:46 ◼   ► But like there are great--

01:36:48 ◼   ► - There's some great moments where she grapples

01:36:50 ◼   ► and the alien's face is near her

01:36:51 ◼   ► and the alien opens its mouth

01:36:53 ◼   ► and that other like little sub mouth comes out

01:36:55 ◼   ► and tries to snap at her and you're like, ah, right?

01:36:57 ◼   ► That was so great.

01:36:58 ◼   ► But yeah, by modern standards,

01:37:00 ◼   ► that is a really slow sequence where there's just sort of some grappling and it's not nearly

01:37:07 ◼   ► as I think tense as that they wanted it to be maybe or at least as we read it today.

01:37:14 ◼   ► But again back in the day it was a that was a that was a big a big turn.

01:37:18 ◼   ► I thought that the fashion decision to kind of like upturn the top of the collar and lapel

01:37:25 ◼   ► on suit jackets. Very strange. It's like look really weird. It's like oh in the future

01:37:31 ◼   ► this is how we wear our suit jackets. It was very very very strange.

01:37:36 ◼   ► I mean it's like Back to the Future 2 where it's like okay I guess it's just like let's

01:37:40 ◼   ► just do wacky things and we'll say that's future.

01:37:43 ◼   ► Oh I enjoyed the Back to the Future 2 escape scene at the end of the movie where like you

01:37:49 ◼   ► know the whole building's falling down and there's no spaceship anymore and the spaceship

01:37:54 ◼   ► just appears from behind. Yeah, he says, "Oh, I had to take off. It was getting too unstable.

01:38:00 ◼   ► I just had to take off," because they're preparing to die there. And he's like, "No, no, no.

01:38:04 ◼   ► I just was--rather than hovering over the platform, I decided to go somewhere where

01:38:09 ◼   ► you couldn't see me and just come back at the opportune time, but I'm back now." So

01:38:14 ◼   ► is this--the guy who played Corporal Hicks, his name is Michael--how do you say surname?

01:38:18 ◼   ► it Bein? Bean, Michael Bean. So he was in Terminator 2, right? Terminator also. Yes.

01:38:26 ◼   ► That was interesting. Clearly Cameron likes him. Well he's the guy from the future who

01:38:32 ◼   ► sent back in time. Yup. And father's John Connor in Terminator and then dies and it's

01:38:38 ◼   ► sad. They had a one night together and that's all. The really awkward one night. And he's

01:38:43 ◼   ► the Abyss. He's actually the bad guy, if a bad guy there could be a single bad guy in

01:38:48 ◼   ► The Abyss, which is a James Cameron movie from 1989, which I love and I would recommend

01:38:53 ◼   ► that we watch at some point. The downside of it is that the theatrical edition has a

01:38:59 ◼   ► really dumb ending and the special edition has an amazing ending and is a much better

01:39:03 ◼   ► movie. It's also very long. And the special edition hasn't been released in HD. I don't

01:39:08 ◼   ► know why. I think because James Cameron's too busy with Avatar movies. And it really

01:39:12 ◼   ► frustrates me because I love The Abyss special edition. It is amazing. And it kills me that

01:39:18 ◼   ► it's not available in an HD version because it is great. Anyway, he's the bad guy in that.

01:39:22 ◼   ► He's a marine who kind of goes crazy in the high-pressure situation at the bottom of the

01:39:27 ◼   ► sea floor and steals a nuclear bomb and is carrying it around for a while. So yeah, James

01:39:33 ◼   ► Cameron really likes Michael Biehn and put him in a lot of stuff.

01:39:39 ◼   ► So you know, there were lots of aliens. Almost too many aliens. Like there were just aliens

01:39:46 ◼   ► constantly like that was one of the big differences right there was one alien

01:39:49 ◼   ► and it was like the tension of the one alien but this time there's just like

01:39:53 ◼   ► how many at some points how many aliens can there be on screen we'll have all

01:39:58 ◼   ► the aliens but you know it I guess that's more of what this movie was going

01:40:03 ◼   ► for right it's more action to be just shooting guns at like 50 aliens if

01:40:08 ◼   ► you've seen alien and then you see that scene where suddenly you see them all

01:40:11 ◼   ► kind of like coming off the walls and the ceiling it is a moment of like oh

01:40:15 ◼   ► Oh God, no.

01:40:16 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:40:17 ◼   ► - I did feel like that.

01:40:18 ◼   ► - Only one killed everybody,

01:40:20 ◼   ► but the cat and the one lady, only one.

01:40:23 ◼   ► And now there's just, they're everywhere.

01:40:25 ◼   ► And there's that scene where they're like,

01:40:28 ◼   ► beep, beep, beep, and it's coming closer.

01:40:30 ◼   ► And it's like, but I don't see them.

01:40:33 ◼   ► And they look up and it's like, no, they're everywhere.

01:40:37 ◼   ► - Aliens falling from the ceiling.

01:40:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think my moment is the alien

01:40:42 ◼   ► and alien was so hard to kill.

01:40:44 ◼   ► and they just plow through these aliens.

01:40:46 ◼   ► And you have to remind yourself, it's like,

01:40:47 ◼   ► well, yeah, but these guys have like flamethrowers

01:40:50 ◼   ► and giant machine guns.

01:40:52 ◼   ► So, which the crew of the Nostromo didn't really have.

01:40:56 ◼   ► - And also like they know these aliens exist now.

01:40:59 ◼   ► So like they might know enough about them,

01:41:02 ◼   ► maybe possibly to know like these specific weapons

01:41:05 ◼   ► will be good.

01:41:06 ◼   ► Like this is what you want to use.

01:41:08 ◼   ► - Nobody has formulated any acid proof armor.

01:41:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I love that.

01:41:13 ◼   ► - I love that addition. - Isn't that a nice complication?

01:41:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, because that wasn't really explored,

01:41:17 ◼   ► and I mean, we knew the acid was dangerous, right?

01:41:20 ◼   ► - Right, it burned through the hull.

01:41:22 ◼   ► - But it wasn't explored as like a,

01:41:24 ◼   ► if you shoot one of these and you're too close,

01:41:27 ◼   ► your skin's gonna melt.

01:41:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're gonna get totally--

01:41:30 ◼   ► - And I really like that. - Splattered by acid.

01:41:31 ◼   ► Yeah, no, I like that a lot.

01:41:33 ◼   ► That's an added complication where it's like,

01:41:34 ◼   ► yeah, it's fun to shoot these aliens,

01:41:36 ◼   ► except if they splash on you, you will be horribly injured.

01:41:41 ◼   ► like whoever, like Hicks, Hicks, right?

01:41:46 ◼   ► They have to carry him out

01:41:47 ◼   ► because he's been horribly burned by acid.

01:41:50 ◼   ► - I mean, there are a couple of the Marines

01:41:52 ◼   ► who were basically killed by it.

01:41:53 ◼   ► I don't remember in their names exactly,

01:41:56 ◼   ► but like one guy has his entire face melted off.

01:42:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh yeah, right, right.

01:42:02 ◼   ► It's just that Hicks survives,

01:42:04 ◼   ► he gets splashed a little bit,

01:42:05 ◼   ► but he's still horribly injured

01:42:06 ◼   ► because we know that that's that monomolecular acid

01:42:09 ◼   ► or whatever that just eats through many,

01:42:10 ◼   ► And there is a callback to that, which I really like,

01:42:12 ◼   ► where they find the hole that is going all the way down

01:42:15 ◼   ► and all the way up, and it's like,

01:42:17 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, we've seen this before, an alien."

01:42:19 ◼   ► This is proof that these aliens are there.

01:42:20 ◼   ► I really like the tension at the beginning

01:42:22 ◼   ► when they come into that.

01:42:23 ◼   ► That setup is so great.

01:42:24 ◼   ► It's like, we've landed, we're on an alien planet,

01:42:27 ◼   ► we know there's probably aliens here,

01:42:28 ◼   ► but there are also people here.

01:42:30 ◼   ► We've lost touch with this facility.

01:42:32 ◼   ► We don't know what happened to the people.

01:42:34 ◼   ► And they're going through and there's like,

01:42:37 ◼   ► I just, I love that whole segment.

01:42:39 ◼   ► the fact that they go through the doors and like,

01:42:41 ◼   ► stuff's pulled out of the ceiling and stuff,

01:42:43 ◼   ► and it's like, what happened here?

01:42:45 ◼   ► Like, it's a mystery at that point.

01:42:46 ◼   ► Like, we're seeing-- - Yeah, there's a half-eaten

01:42:48 ◼   ► meals, right?

01:42:49 ◼   ► Like, so, you know, it happened, like, all of a sudden.

01:42:52 ◼   ► That kind of stuff is cool. - Yeah, I really like that.

01:42:55 ◼   ► And then, you know, in the end, we find out that they,

01:42:57 ◼   ► it, you know, they all got killed,

01:42:59 ◼   ► other than the girl in the ventilation ducts,

01:43:02 ◼   ► they all got killed.

01:43:03 ◼   ► - On that last thing that I wanted to mention was,

01:43:05 ◼   ► I really liked the actual beginning of this movie,

01:43:08 ◼   ► because it moves very quickly.

01:43:10 ◼   ► Like you are not waiting around a bunch

01:43:13 ◼   ► for like something to happen to Ripley.

01:43:16 ◼   ► Like she is saved, you see that she gets back to health,

01:43:20 ◼   ► you know she's having bad dreams, right?

01:43:21 ◼   ► So it gets the kind of the fake out there.

01:43:23 ◼   ► She presents her case, they say,

01:43:25 ◼   ► "No, you're not going there."

01:43:26 ◼   ► And then like jump cut, right?

01:43:28 ◼   ► Like multiple years later or however long it is,

01:43:32 ◼   ► now they're going, right?

01:43:33 ◼   ► And I liked that 'cause I was expecting like,

01:43:35 ◼   ► "Oh, here we go.

01:43:36 ◼   ► like, there's gonna be a bunch of committee meetings or like, you know, where she's like pleading her case

01:43:41 ◼   ► and then there's gonna be this and a bit like, "Nope, nope, you gotta go, everyone's dead."

01:43:45 ◼   ► The only problem I have with those scenes is that I feel like she's, I mean, and I guess it's like,

01:43:50 ◼   ► what did, what did Ripley learn when she was on the Nostromo? But we know that the company

01:43:56 ◼   ► was behind it all. And she mentions it at one point, but it's like, she is not nearly adversarial

01:44:03 ◼   ► enough when she's in that meeting with the company. She could have been like, she

01:44:07 ◼   ► should have been like, "I know what you guys did. I know what what the Android's

01:44:13 ◼   ► job was. We were sacrificed. Those people died because of you." Like, I wanted her to

01:44:20 ◼   ► be way more aggressive because she knows what happened and that it was the--and I

01:44:25 ◼   ► understand that the movie doesn't want to do that because the movie wants to

01:44:28 ◼   ► like slow play that and then have the company guy, have Paul Reiser be totally

01:44:32 ◼   ► like, you know, he's kind of squirrely,

01:44:34 ◼   ► but then we find out that he's really bad.

01:44:36 ◼   ► And it's like, oh yeah, right, this corporation is terrible.

01:44:38 ◼   ► But that's the one problem I had with it

01:44:40 ◼   ► is that Ripley should be aware all the time

01:44:44 ◼   ► how terrible the company is and be pushing back.

01:44:47 ◼   ► And, you know, they can use their power to kick her out

01:44:49 ◼   ► and disgrace her and all of that.

01:44:51 ◼   ► But that scene played more like they were not believing her

01:44:54 ◼   ► and she was kind of in good faith

01:44:56 ◼   ► trying to explain what happened.

01:44:58 ◼   ► When I felt like that's not how I picture that scene going.

01:45:02 ◼   ► I picture that scene going that she knows full well

01:45:04 ◼   ► what went on, she's aggressive about it,

01:45:07 ◼   ► and they shut her down because they don't,

01:45:10 ◼   ► first off, all those executives retired.

01:45:12 ◼   ► It was 50 years ago.

01:45:13 ◼   ► And second, they've got plans

01:45:15 ◼   ► and her plans don't interest them

01:45:19 ◼   ► and she's just gonna get in their way.

01:45:21 ◼   ► So I just, that's the frustration I had

01:45:23 ◼   ► is she should have started out

01:45:25 ◼   ► considering the corporation, the villain,

01:45:28 ◼   ► and that might've made the dynamic

01:45:30 ◼   ► between her and Paul Reiser

01:45:31 ◼   ► when he finally has to try to recruit her

01:45:33 ◼   ► because she knows something about this

01:45:35 ◼   ► to be a little more adversarial.

01:45:36 ◼   ► And for whatever reason, I think James Cameron

01:45:38 ◼   ► just didn't wanna go down that path

01:45:40 ◼   ► because that's what "Alien" is all about

01:45:42 ◼   ► is that all of those people got screwed by the company.

01:45:45 ◼   ► So anyway, that's a complaint I've got

01:45:47 ◼   ► about the beginning of the movie,

01:45:48 ◼   ► but you're right, it does move fast.

01:45:50 ◼   ► I also wanna complain about the end of the movie.

01:45:54 ◼   ► Can I do that?

01:45:55 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:45:56 ◼   ► - Or after the end of the movie, which is,

01:45:59 ◼   ► And I'm gonna spoil something for Alien 3, which you should not watch.

01:46:03 ◼   ► So I'm gonna spoil it now. Don't watch it. I hate that movie.

01:46:07 ◼   ► I'm gonna spoil it now, though, which is, um, the entire emotional arc of this movie is that Ripley saves Newt.

01:46:15 ◼   ► Um, and this movie ends in victory with, yeah, Bishop's been ripped in two and has milk coming out of every surface,

01:46:22 ◼   ► but he saves Newt from falling out of the airlock, and they go in to spend an animation,

01:46:28 ◼   ► and they've managed to save Hicks, who's injured,

01:46:31 ◼   ► and they all go into suspended animation,

01:46:33 ◼   ► kind of like the end of "Alien."

01:46:35 ◼   ► And it's a victory she has taken care of,

01:46:38 ◼   ► Newt, who she promised to save,

01:46:40 ◼   ► and they've got that relationship there, and it's great.

01:46:43 ◼   ► "Alien 3" begins with the pod being found on a planet,

01:46:54 ◼   ► and they wake Sigourney Weaver up and say, "Oh yeah, everybody else is dead."

01:46:59 ◼   ► So, and this is, this is, and also, oh, and one of you had an alien face hugger on you,

01:47:09 ◼   ► but we don't know which one, which is not supported in aliens at all. It's just made up.

01:47:13 ◼   ► And so, I, and I got to see that movie, I reviewed that movie from my college newspaper.

01:47:22 ◼   ► I think it is amazing that a franchise on the back of an incredibly successful movie

01:47:29 ◼   ► would in its first scene extend two middle fingers at the entire fan base of the franchise and the

01:47:35 ◼   ► entire audience who is coming to see this movie and say "remember that emotional arc that was the

01:47:39 ◼   ► entire point of that last movie? Uh, well forget it, she's dead. Let's move on, let's let's tell

01:47:46 ◼   ► a movie now." And it's like it's one of the most inexplicable decisions, created decisions, in a

01:47:51 ◼   ► movie and especially in a movie series I have ever seen that literally the alien franchise said hey

01:47:58 ◼   ► you know Ripley's relationship with Newt it didn't matter she died on the way back to their planet

01:48:03 ◼   ► and now Ripley's in another thing with stuff that we're gonna gaslight you and tell you happened in

01:48:07 ◼   ► aliens but it totally didn't happen in aliens it's terrible that's from David Fincher's first feature

01:48:12 ◼   ► film and I believe David Fincher is on the record and saying nobody hates that movie as much as he

01:48:18 ◼   ► does but it's a disaster so I don't recommend Myke I don't recommend you

01:48:22 ◼   ► watch any more alien movies great this is it I'm happy about that because they

01:48:27 ◼   ► they give me the heebie-jeebies thanks so much for listening to this week's

01:48:32 ◼   ► episode of upgrade if you wanna find out show notes go to relay FM slash upgrade

01:48:36 ◼   ► slash one eight three you can find Jason's work at six colors calm and the

01:48:41 ◼   ► incomparable calm and we both host a variety of shows at relay FM you go to

01:48:45 ◼   ► relay.fm/shows to find more there. Thanks again to MacPaw, Away, Squarespace and Linode

01:48:52 ◼   ► for their support of this week's episode, but most importantly, thank you for listening

01:48:57 ◼   ► and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye Jason Snell.

01:49:01 ◼   ► Goodbye Jason Snell.

01:49:02 ◼   ► [GASP]

01:49:03 ◼   ► It was for that guy! That guy who hasn't been listening long enough to having heard it.

01:49:07 ◼   ► I said it.

01:49:08 ◼   ► There's always one.

01:49:09 ◼   ► You gotta listen through the mic of the movies to get to it.

01:49:11 ◼   ► [MUSIC]