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79: Whatever Jobs Had His Pants on Fire For

 

00:00:00   Mark Gurman, so we haven't we've never spoken before right? Yeah, that's right. We haven't spoken before

00:00:05   All right. Yeah for those who don't know mark is what you have a title you just reporter

00:00:11   I mean I go by a senior editor not if I Mac but I

00:00:15   Report that it right manage all sorts of stuff senior editor nine-to-five Mac. I

00:00:21   How long have you been writing for nine-to-five Mac

00:00:26   Since right when the first iPad was announced within give or take a couple weeks of that so early 2010

00:00:33   It's about four years, right? Right and you are

00:00:36   Only 11 years old. Yes, exactly 11 years old. No, I'm about double that. So 20. Are you really?

00:00:43   No, how old are you funny? So you're still not even of drinking age, correct?

00:00:48   You but you started writing professionally for nine-to-five Mac when you were 16 years old

00:00:55   Yeah around 16 years old maybe in 15 actually

00:00:59   depending on and

00:01:01   Honestly, I don't even I'm not you know, this shows you how much research I do for the show

00:01:05   Are you in college? Yeah, so I'm a sophomore at the University of Michigan. I'm in my apartment here right now

00:01:13   Yeah, and yet you are and I mean this I'm not just saying it because you're a guest on the show

00:01:19   But you're seriously one of the you know, most influential reporters on the Applebee

00:01:24   Really appreciate it today, especially from you. Of course. I mean, I think you're the most influential

00:01:28   So well, but I don't really do reporting and I think that'll make for an interesting conversation, you know

00:01:33   Sure, and I you know and I think over the last few years

00:01:35   I've even gotten further away from that where I sort of see myself more as a commentator on the reporting of others as opposed to

00:01:43   someone who

00:01:44   Does a lot of a rid, you know breaks a lot of original news. There's not too much news

00:01:48   That's been broken on daring fireball recently

00:01:50   Yeah, I mean your opinion is just so sharp and strong and matters so much

00:01:55   So I guess you know either way you look at it whether it's original recording or you know original commentary, you know, either is great

00:02:01   Well, thank you

00:02:05   Hi, let's go back. So how did you get started writing for a nine-to-five Mac?

00:02:10   So before the first iPad came out, I was doing some digging around on you know

00:02:16   domain names and who his search is to see if Apple was snapping up any domain names

00:02:23   having to do with tablets, because I remembered that someone spotted that they registered

00:02:28   Macbook Air dot com or something like that before the first Air was announced in '08.

00:02:33   And so sure enough, Apple had, under a shell company, registered iSlate dot com.

00:02:41   And there was some New York Times executive who had some internal meeting in months in

00:02:49   late 2009 talking about how, like he said, the impending Apple slate.

00:02:53   So I mean, I figured they're not going to call it Apple slate, but you know, I slate

00:02:56   made some sense.

00:02:58   And I pieced it together and that really got me started with, you know, digging around

00:03:02   and getting the news out there.

00:03:04   And you know,

00:03:05   Pete: Well, how did you put that out there?

00:03:07   Do you have your own blog or did you use Twitter?

00:03:08   I tipped Mac rumors actually funny enough

00:03:13   And do you got credit for it though? Yep. Yep. Yep. They accredited me there and

00:03:19   Kind of put me on the map a bit and then I talked to

00:03:23   Set that nine to five and you know, we work something out and here we are today

00:03:27   That's Seth

00:03:30   Weintraub

00:03:31   Yeah, who I guess he's the what founder of yeah. Yeah publisher nine to five whatever Empire

00:03:38   Right, right. That's really really interesting. And I think that there's sort of a

00:03:43   I wouldn't say a strong tradition. But so, you know, there's a strain though of

00:03:48   Apple

00:03:51   And I don't want to quite call it rumor reporting. We'll get back to that

00:03:54   We'll get back to that art that the our word as I call it

00:03:56   but you do break, you know a lot of and a lot of your better known stuff is for

00:04:01   Breaking news about on you know stuff that's supposed to be secret right? Yeah more or less, right?

00:04:08   So rumors is the is the wrong word and we can get back to that in a bit

00:04:11   but sort of the wrong word, but there's a history of that though coming from

00:04:15   Teenagers really I mean and I'm the example I'm thinking of and I hadn't thought of him for a while

00:04:23   But Nick C or Ellie who was wrote under the pen name of Nick Diplume, right?

00:04:28   Right in secret right on think secret now. This is weird though

00:04:32   See, this is a thing where if you're 20 years old the think secret stuff must seem like ancient history to you

00:04:38   Yeah, yeah, I was way before my time

00:04:40   So you were not when that whole thing went down that was that was you weren't you were probably like

00:04:46   I don't know 10 years old or something like that. Yeah, probably

00:04:48   Exactly

00:04:51   Yeah, if you go to think secret calm now, it's it's turned off. So think secret

00:04:56   They were shut down like in the early iPhone days

00:04:59   Founded in 1998. So that was Eddie that preceded even during fireball by four years and shut down in

00:05:07   2008 so yeah, I will you know, you must have been somewhat paying attention to the media though if by 2010

00:05:14   You were breaking stories on domain registrations first that you know

00:05:18   But you know, Nick Ciorrelli was you know, really young for most of the run of think secret, you know teenager

00:05:26   And then I think he was at Harvard when this stuff went down with the lawsuit that effectively shut it down, right?

00:05:32   Yeah

00:05:32   That's pretty much what I remember as well

00:05:34   Like he was in high school and then moved into college and that went down

00:05:37   You know, I can't imagine being in his shoes going through, you know, the Apple lawsuit

00:05:41   On top of you don't go to school, you know that I don't I don't envy him in that way

00:05:47   Well, I don't know. I don't really envy you going to school and being effectively a full-time reporter

00:05:53   When I was in school, I just sat around played video games. I

00:05:56   Guess that's not really true

00:05:58   I actually worked at the you know, did a lot of writing and editing at the student newspaper

00:06:02   but you know, but it's it's you know, I was writing for an audience of

00:06:08   3,000 other students at Drexel University, whereas you're writing for an audience of I don't know

00:06:14   I'm guessing at least a hundred thousand or more

00:06:16   Readers of 9 to 5 Mac which is remarkable for someone who's you know, like I said still can't even legally buy beer

00:06:25   Yeah, appreciate that

00:06:27   Why do you think there's anything to that? I don't know to me there is something to the idea of like a truly enthusiastic

00:06:34   Teenager who just has like an obsession with with this sort of stuff getting information

00:06:44   that

00:06:47   For lack of a better word older and more established reporters aren't getting right even though you're on the outside

00:06:53   You're not even in the area, right? Did you grow up in Michigan?

00:06:56   No, I'm from Los Angeles. So huh? Well, no, we're even close. Yeah, but still you're still not from the you know

00:07:03   The valley or San Francisco. No, so not at all. No, where are you from there? No

00:07:08   You know, I'm in Philadelphia now and I grew up in outside Philadelphia. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah same story for you

00:07:14   But you know to your point there's a lot of talk about that

00:07:17   I mean starting at the young age that I started at and what Nick think secret started at

00:07:23   I mean, when you're working under 20 years old on this type of stuff, it's not really

00:07:29   like the, for lack of a better term, the 9-5 day job where you get up every morning, do

00:07:35   your stuff, finish up and then go home.

00:07:38   It's more of a hobby.

00:07:40   Like I didn't need to have that job luckily enough.

00:07:43   I mean, it was just something that I really enjoyed and that gave me passion to run after

00:07:48   it.

00:07:49   No one was forcing me to do any of that and that takes a lot of the burden off of me allowing

00:07:53   me to focus on what I like doing.

00:07:55   Did you know, I mean, was it Apple specifically that you've always been interested in?

00:07:59   Yeah, you know, I've always really been a huge Apple fan. Like, you know, waited in

00:08:03   line for the first iPhone. I was just, you know, so thrilled. And I remember, you know,

00:08:10   actually to show you how much you know, I really love Apple. I, when I was 13 years

00:08:15   old and needing to be preparing for by bar mitzvah, the the rabbi was working with kept

00:08:19   I mean you need to stop watching that iPhone keynote on repeat and get and know your stuff for the

00:08:24   For the big event, so alright, so it wasn't like you were watching it because it was the day of the keynote

00:08:28   You were just watching it repeated the the the videotape. Yeah

00:08:32   obsessed yeah, I guess the thing that I did that strikes me as

00:08:37   Interesting and I think it's also proof of sort of being in the modern internet age

00:08:43   is

00:08:45   that

00:08:46   Where you are doesn't really matter that much

00:08:48   I mean people I get that sometimes too where people are sometimes surprised that I'm in Philadelphia and that I'm not in San Francisco

00:08:53   Or in the valley area and that you know, why you seem really tuned in, right?

00:08:58   I don't know that it really makes a difference with you know, all of the messaging options you have and you know

00:09:03   Frankly just good old email, right? Well, I can see how if it's a team I can see why teams

00:09:11   Sometimes don't want to have remote workers depending on the style of collaboration and what what exactly the project

00:09:17   They're supposed to be working on together as I can see, you know

00:09:19   I understand I actually understand a lot why Apple doesn't have a lot of remote employees

00:09:24   It's sort of have to get an exception to the rule to be at a remote engineer or designer at Apple

00:09:30   But for the sort of stuff we do writing about them, it really doesn't make that much of a difference

00:09:36   I don't think right, of course not like in terms of communicating with people

00:09:40   You know, ten years ago this job would have been impossible living outside of the Valley,

00:09:46   San Francisco, Cupertino area.

00:09:49   But I mean, unless it was good old phone calls.

00:09:51   But these days, you know, there's so many tools for talking to people.

00:09:56   And in terms of, you know, like remote work, we don't have a 9-to-5 Mac office.

00:10:01   I mean, there's just such great collaboration tools online.

00:10:04   And, you know, in a way, doing this job, not sitting with everyone in the same room, you

00:10:09   know, could be easier.

00:10:10   I mean, I don't really have much to compare to but that's just how I look at it, right?

00:10:14   It would you know, I'm of all the ways that nine-to-five Mac and nine-to-five Google might expand

00:10:20   I'm sure opening an office space for you guys is probably not even on the list because you guys aren't even

00:10:24   Do any of you guys work in the same?

00:10:27   area

00:10:29   Not no, not really

00:10:31   I'm the only one on the west coast when I'm home for breaks in the summer everyone else that's in New York

00:10:38   Jordans in Canada and everyone's mostly stationed on the east or in the UK. So

00:10:43   They're pretty spread. I

00:10:45   Do think for me personally in my you know experience and it's just crazy

00:10:51   This is one of those things where it's crazy to me because I've been writing Daring Fireball for 12 years

00:10:56   And so that means you were eight years old when I started I don't want to keep banging on your age

00:11:01   No, it's as I'm preparing for this that must mean no tea. I'm guessing from your perception

00:11:07   I've always been writing during fireball

00:11:09   Always been writing variable

00:11:12   And what do you is that is that how you see it that there's always been some guy Gruber writes this site during fireball about Apple

00:11:19   You know the thing with thing with Gruber

00:11:21   I mean classic Gruber in my opinion is the your story back in

00:11:26   2008 I think you called it contains spoilers where you sarcastically I

00:11:31   Think pointed out all the features and all the new things are going out set that up

00:11:36   Unibody MacBook event and everything turned out remarkably, correct? So I've been following your stuff for a long time and let's uh,

00:11:43   Yeah, I mean, oh

00:11:46   Cooper's been around a while. Yeah to me

00:11:48   It still feels like it's a kind of a new site

00:11:51   I still feel like during fireball is somewhat new and that's obviously not not the case

00:11:56   But no, I mean that's what maybe that's what keeps it feeling like it's fun for me

00:12:00   But it must be it's just crazy to me to think that you were eight years old when I started

00:12:04   Yeah, that is pretty crazy. I have found though. I have found that and again, I'm not really in the the

00:12:11   Breaking leaks game or the rumor game, whatever you want to call it

00:12:15   Although I dabbled in it for a couple of years in the middle, right?

00:12:18   And we could talk about that later, but I found though that I developed my best sources

00:12:24   once I started going to things on the west coast, you know WWDC and Macworld Expo and

00:12:32   meeting people and it wasn't because I had to meet them face to face to hear the information but it was that

00:12:38   Having met them even just once face to face develops. There's a certain

00:12:43   relationship you can sort of accelerate a

00:12:46   circle of trust where they trust me and I trust them and

00:12:50   Then you know future information might come in by email or instant message or something like that

00:12:56   But having met them makes a big difference, but I get the feeling you haven't met most of your sources

00:13:02   No, I think I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I mean, I've been going to these conferences

00:13:07   for a few years now. So I've met a lot of people through the, you know, good old face

00:13:12   to face stuff. And I agree. It's extremely important.

00:13:15   So you have that. No, it is. So I'm wrong. I was saying that that I my guess was you

00:13:19   had not met them. But you're saying you have some?

00:13:22   Yeah. Yeah. That's safe to say, right?

00:13:25   Yeah. All right. Yeah. And it definitely helps. I think. I mean, like you said, just human

00:13:31   Right, develop some trust. I mean, if you're just talking through instant messages, some

00:13:37   text to another person, you don't really get a good idea if you should trust them or even

00:13:42   if they should trust you and open up to you. But when you know someone in person, it's

00:13:45   like you really get to know them, you can bond with them, and they'll feel more comfortable

00:13:52   with you and you'll feel more comfortable with them. So it's really a big deal. And

00:13:56   you said you don't have to you know fly out to San Francisco to talk to them

00:14:01   every time there's some information there's other ways of communicating I'm

00:14:05   trying to remember some of the old rumor sites I forget their names I have such a

00:14:09   bad memory for stuff like that but in the old days like the late 90s I mean

00:14:14   this is way before your time late 90s in the early years of Mac OS 10 2001 2002

00:14:21   there are you know as always I mean Apple insider was around Apple insider

00:14:25   is like the granddaddy, I think, of the sort of focus on rumors type stuff. But there was

00:14:33   Think Secret from '98 on, and I forget some of the other ones, but they had such terrible

00:14:38   track records. They still do. And it's a "spaghetti against the wall, see what sticks" approach,

00:14:50   and then the one strand of spaghetti that does stick, they're like, "See? See? We got

00:14:54   Right, and I always had this idea in the back of my head. Like what would it take to run an

00:15:00   accurate

00:15:02   Apple rumor site

00:15:04   You know what? Why why are they all so inaccurate if you take them in the aggregate?

00:15:08   Because it would just drive me nuts to have my name on something that was so wrong, you know wrong and regularly wrong, right?

00:15:15   Yeah, I mean inaccuracy is the worst thing for someone and you know our positions of what we do

00:15:20   I mean, why are people gonna read us if we're just you know, spitting BS

00:15:24   S all day.

00:15:25   Right.

00:15:26   Or why are they going to believe your future stuff?

00:15:27   Yeah, exactly.

00:15:28   It's about gaining trust of the reader.

00:15:31   And the way you do that is by consistently providing them what they're looking for.

00:15:36   Kind of my problem, to your point about rumor sites being wrong, is there seems to be a

00:15:41   lot of talk lately of people grouping all websites, even my work and how to find back

00:15:47   into that category.

00:15:49   I remember when I had the 64-bit A7 chip, someone tweeted—I think it actually might

00:15:55   have been you—about how it was just spitting spitballs out the wall to see what sticks.

00:16:02   So yeah, I don't enjoy when I see people grouping us all together. It kind of just

00:16:05   makes all that hard work. I put in other accurate sites, put in like—come out bad like the

00:16:11   rest.

00:16:12   Yeah, well any other thing too that's it's a little bit problematic. I forget his name

00:16:18   there was a guy at the unofficial apple web blog site who sort of did a

00:16:21   I don't forget if it was a mark german scorecard or a nine to five mac in general scorecard, right?

00:16:27   Must have been a nine to five mac in general. Well, what happened there was is

00:16:30   uh, he

00:16:32   Basically, you know noted that hey, we got all these stories, right perfect track record for 2013

00:16:38   and then he grouped in all of our

00:16:41   um quote unquote, you know noting or reblogging of stories from other sites into that overall track record, which

00:16:48   I didn't think was very fair seeing that every apple rumor website works the same way

00:16:53   I mean you can't like if you link to um, someone who reports something wrong

00:16:57   and

00:16:59   um, you know you link to it whatever and then

00:17:02   People end up saying oh greeber was wrong, even though you're linking to some new york times or something

00:17:06   I mean, how are you gonna feel about that?

00:17:08   well i'm a little bit it's it's the difference in the publishing models

00:17:12   there i i have to bear a little bit of respect with for me i have to bear a

00:17:16   little bit of responsibility if i post

00:17:19   a link to something that's go this is say some i'd like a lot of times you

00:17:23   know let's say

00:17:24   it's like a french-language max sight and they have pictures

00:17:29   purportedly come from the asian supply chain right shows the back of this year

00:17:35   is uh... new i've had many

00:17:37   - Right, that happened last year.

00:17:39   - Yes.

00:17:40   - If I link to it, I sort of feel like

00:17:45   if I link to something like that,

00:17:46   and I don't link to stuff like that a lot anymore,

00:17:48   but if I do, I feel like I'm on the hook

00:17:50   to sort of say whether I believe it or not.

00:17:52   Do I think this is legit or not?

00:17:55   - Sure.

00:17:56   - And if I say, I don't know, this looks fishy as hell.

00:17:58   - Right.

00:17:59   - That's different, whereas like what 9to5Mac does is,

00:18:04   and like you said, a lot of other sites,

00:18:06   You know, it's sort of that MacRumors.com model of, look, we're going to tell you what

00:18:13   everybody's reporting.

00:18:14   And you'll say, you'll credit, you'll say, you know, blah, blah, blah, dot fr, a French

00:18:18   language Mac site.

00:18:20   And you know, here's a link to the Google Translate version of their original report

00:18:24   is saying that this, here's the picture, is the back of a thing.

00:18:30   You're not saying, it doesn't say, our sources say, it's, you know, this site says this,

00:18:34   here it is, judge for yourself.

00:18:36   that yeah, and to our the to our report lumped all those in with what I believe to be mostly

00:18:42   your work the the you know, Mark Gurman, yeah, reporting for nine to five Mac says, according

00:18:48   to sources, you know, you know, here's a recent example. I don't I probably wasn't on the

00:18:54   2013 scorecard because this was 2014. But you had here's screenshots of the currently

00:18:59   in beta health book app from iOS eight. Yeah, it's gonna be like passbook except it's gonna

00:19:05   you know have integration with you know who knows what kind of devices and stuff but did

00:19:10   you know iOS users will have this past our health book app right here it is and that's

00:19:15   you not saying you know it didn't come from another site that you reporting with screenshots

00:19:20   and information from you know somehow sources in the know yeah right and that's different

00:19:25   and those stories and you know I say this this is one of the reasons I'm excited to

00:19:29   to have you on the show your record for 2013 was pretty much spot-on appreciate

00:19:36   it right I don't think you had any stories that really I know you know

00:19:40   maybe some dotted eyes and mid-cross T's you know when you're writing about this

00:19:43   stuff that's pre-release but probably but yeah nothing you needed to retract

00:19:47   pretty good here I'd say yeah yeah nothing needed to be retracted I mean

00:19:52   look I look at the I look at it as a necessary evil and not if I Mac can't

00:19:57   exists as a site that only posts original content.

00:20:01   It's impossible.

00:20:03   It wouldn't destroy the website.

00:20:05   It wouldn't destroy any Apple rumor website.

00:20:07   It would just be...

00:20:08   You would see, look, other Apple rumor websites, they can just aggregate everything from anywhere.

00:20:13   Why would anyone read us just for the original content when they can just get the original

00:20:16   content alongside everything else from another site?

00:20:18   So it's something that we have to do it.

00:20:21   But I agree.

00:20:22   do a better job and we've been trying this a lot lately to say, you know, to use your

00:20:28   words, this is fishy as hell, don't believe it. But people have the right to make their

00:20:32   own decisions and we need to provide the readers what they want.

00:20:35   That was more or less the conclusion I came to, you know, circa let's say 2008, 2007,

00:20:42   2008, 2009, when I posted a few more, I was more commonly posting sort of, I don't know,

00:20:52   I'm not I think I got I got a kicks out of it, but it was the way that I broke rumors if I had something

00:20:59   was always

00:21:01   To be very coy about it instead of saying

00:21:04   Hey, I have a source who says

00:21:07   Apple's gonna rename I forget the old name. What was it called? I tools they're gonna rename it mobile me or something like that, right?

00:21:15   I

00:21:17   Would do something coy and just be like wouldn't it be something if Apple renamed eye tools mobile me, right?

00:21:23   Yeah, right and got the domain name me calm. Yeah, doesn't that sound like something Apple would do

00:21:29   Or I did that. Oh, I remember and I did that with the Windows version of Safari. Ah, I

00:21:36   Got that like the night or two before the W. I think it was a WWDC might have been a Mac

00:21:42   Well, I right sometimes the Macworld Expos and WWDCs blur together. I think it was a WWDC keynote, right? I found out about

00:21:49   Windows first Safari for Windows and then I quick

00:21:55   crept through

00:21:57   My server logs on during fireball and found a few

00:22:00   hits from it from the night before because that was when they

00:22:05   Flip the switch like up until like the day before they had had you know

00:22:10   Some kind of I don't I think probably the user agent string just said that it was on a Mac

00:22:15   But then the night before when they actually had the real build for it. I found a few ins I was like, oh bingo

00:22:21   So I had it right but I didn't say hey, they're gonna do it. I think I again I said, wouldn't it be?

00:22:27   Wouldn't it be a neat idea if Apple came out with a version of Safari?

00:22:30   Yeah, giving a ice water to someone in hell. Yeah, I think one of the former's for engineers

00:22:36   They wrote something about how they used fake user agent, or they routed it through Asia

00:22:42   or something pretty sketchy.

00:22:44   I thought that was interesting.

00:22:45   But to your point, I always remember you in your early writing, never to be long form

00:22:50   rumor, reporting, like I do and others do.

00:22:54   It was always very coy.

00:22:57   I remember the Wall Street Journal put out some post about how they said, "Oh, Apple

00:23:02   is developing a CDMA iPhone and you're like, oh, they didn't even know about the retina

00:23:06   display, the A4 multitasking.

00:23:08   I remember that. I still do stuff like that.

00:23:11   Yeah, you know, I wish I did that more. I mean, it's just so cool. But you know, the

00:23:16   only way you can do that is if you build up a reputation for being accurate in the past,

00:23:20   you can't just come out of the woodwork and say such and such coyly. No one's going to

00:23:24   know to look for that, you know.

00:23:25   Right. But the thing that I figured out, though, I really did figure out like breaking more

00:23:30   rumors and trying to be as accurate as possible and I think I did but the truth

00:23:36   is even when you're trying to do it if you're gonna be accurate as possible you

00:23:40   you just don't get that much so you can't like you said you can't run a site

00:23:44   where that's all you have right there's just not enough and it's not enough

00:23:48   stuff to publish to have enough oxygen to breathe in terms of just having

00:23:53   readers coming every day right gotta have more stuff I mean it's the constant

00:23:57   views to the site and everyone coming for the other stuff that gives me and others the

00:24:03   opportunity to step back and focus on getting the original stuff.

00:24:07   You know?

00:24:08   Let me take a break right now and thank our first sponsor of the show.

00:24:13   It's our good friends at Smile Software and their PDF/Pen family of apps.

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00:26:20   Before we get into specifics, maybe later in the show we'll get into specifics and

00:26:22   some of the recent stuff you've reported.

00:26:24   Sure.

00:26:25   But now that you've established a name for yourself, do you find that you get random

00:26:32   stuff emailed to you or tweeted to you like privately or something like, "Hey, you

00:26:39   know me, but I, you know, I happen to know and then insert some kind of blank blank blank scandal,

00:26:44   you know, scandalous rumor here. And you've got to sort of judge, hey, is this thing on the,

00:26:51   you know, not that you would run it just because somebody emailed it to you, but is it even worth

00:26:55   looking into? I mean, I read all the emails and tweets that come in, etc. But I think I do a

00:27:02   a pretty good job parsing out the signal from the noise.

00:27:07   But do you get a lot of noise?

00:27:10   Do I get a lot of noise?

00:27:11   You know, the tip box sometimes floods up with stuff that's not true.

00:27:17   Everything that I really report comes from sources that I've developed over the years

00:27:21   who I trust immensely.

00:27:23   I don't run anything from a first-time source ever unless it's corroborated several times

00:27:29   over.

00:27:30   where someone will come out of the woodwork and tell you something and then you know you ask the

00:27:34   people you know you've known for a while you know what's up with this is this true and you know

00:27:38   sometimes you'll get the uh you know the green light and you know there you go but i i found

00:27:44   it i i don't and it was weird there was a couple of years back i got more of it and it seems like

00:27:49   i get less now but i would say at least once a month or so and it wasn't just like one kook it

00:27:53   was you know once a month or so somebody who i've never heard of before would send me email

00:27:57   It still happens now, but maybe not as often as once a month.

00:28:00   But and they'll just say, "Look, I happen to know that Apple is blah, blah, blah."

00:28:04   You know, I'll tell you like an example that I got all that I'm sure I've got some probably

00:28:10   sitting in my inbox on red right now. Is somebody saying that they know for a fact that Apple is

00:28:15   going to ship the next iPhone is going to have a bigger screen, it's going to be inserts size here,

00:28:22   5.1 inches, it's gonna be 1080p, and I know this for a fact, blah blah blah blah blah.

00:28:29   And then it's like, I don't know what they're, you know, and I know that I just know that they're

00:28:32   full of it. Like I got, I've got these last year, like where there were people saying that last

00:28:36   year's iPhone 5s was going to come in two sizes. And I knew that it was, I knew for a fact that it

00:28:41   wasn't. And I always wonder, like, what is with these people? Like, what are they trying to do?

00:28:46   They just trying to like, make a jerk out of me? Like, see if they can get me to go for it? Like,

00:28:50   I don't see what pleasure they would get if I happen to run it or what they think I'm going to do.

00:28:56   Jared: Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, I haven't really put too much thought into that. But of

00:29:00   course, there's, you know, Darren fireball, huge site, huge audience, same with Notify Mac. I mean,

00:29:05   I guess there are some people who might get a thrill out of, you know, sending something

00:29:08   that's totally not true and seeing if it ends up going on the site. You know, yeah, I agree,

00:29:14   I can think of some examples. There's like, and it's always from people who don't put their name

00:29:19   on the email. It's like legohead67@gmail.com. Yeah, I'm just going to run that. It's like,

00:29:30   have you ever read my site? It always strikes me as crazy. But then, who knows? There's

00:29:35   a lot of crazy people out there.

00:29:36   Yeah, and you know the best part, in my opinion, is when this happens, it's very likely that

00:29:40   they sent the same BS to another site, one of the competitors. And then when you see

00:29:46   another Apple rumor site, just throw it up there saying, oh, this comes from a source,

00:29:50   blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you know it's clearly BS and they post anyways.

00:29:54   It's always fascinating to see the processes of the competition.

00:29:58   Yeah, I saw that. I actually saw that last year with some of the screen size stuff where

00:30:02   I saw some second tier sites running at what I think was probably sent by the same person.

00:30:08   Yeah, probably.

00:30:09   And it's like, come on.

00:30:10   I mean, I remember not really an Apple example because I can't really remember a huge Apple

00:30:15   example, but there was some big thing about how there was an alleged Microsoft insider

00:30:21   who sent out a bunch of details about the new Xbox that turned out to be the Xbox One.

00:30:27   Some site ran it, said it's from a verified source, blah, blah, blah.

00:30:30   And then a bunch of other sites came out and said, "Oh, we all got the same tip."

00:30:33   And then the guy who sent it in made this little website or blog and said, "Oh, how

00:30:38   he tricked."

00:30:39   Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that.

00:30:40   I do remember that.

00:30:41   Yeah, that was pretty good.

00:30:42   Yeah, big deal.

00:30:43   I can find that put it in the show notes

00:30:45   right, it was I just yeah, it was and it became like

00:30:50   Like the biggest it was like the top of the day on like Hacker News and tech meme

00:30:56   It was like how to trick the press into running a rumor and you know

00:31:00   I mean it was pretty sad for me because you know, I've spent so much time

00:31:04   I know you have as well and other reporters in this industry spent so much time building up their brands

00:31:11   Trying to convince people. Oh that you know, not every rumor site is just a rumor site and then another notable site comes out

00:31:18   You know pulls this shtick just you know posts a random rumors and it's all verified and whatnot

00:31:23   It kind of you know, just puts a bad taste in your mouth for the whole entire industry

00:31:27   So I don't have it in front of me

00:31:29   But as I recall the gist of it was he mailed it out and nothing happened right away

00:31:34   But I think it was slash gear ran it and if I'm wrong and it wasn't slash gear my apologies to everybody

00:31:40   at slashgear, but I think it was slashgear, ran it and they ran it with, you know, they worded it

00:31:47   pretty accurately. They were like, look, this is unverified, but we have a source who says blank,

00:31:52   blank and blank about the next Xbox. But as soon as they ran it, it became, other sites picked it

00:32:03   up because then other sites case slashdot or slashgear, not slashdot, slashgear is saying

00:32:08   The xbox has blank blank blank and then all of a sudden that doesn't seem anywhere near as sketchy

00:32:13   Because it's not hey, we have this unverified thing from someone whose name we can't tell you all of a sudden

00:32:19   That's the first hand report. It's that then the second hand reports actually sound better sourced because they say

00:32:27   Slashgear, which is a real site that has a real reputation

00:32:30   Sure is saying the xbox has blank and then all of a sudden everybody else and then it just it just pinballs all around the entire

00:32:37   Techweb right because now everybody's reporting it now Mashable has it and

00:32:41   You know tech crunch has something right and there's a few issues there in terms of the industry in general

00:32:47   Like I mean the first issue would be whoever site this was

00:32:51   I don't remember if he was slash gear not reporting something unverified from there to tips box in the first place

00:32:56   I don't think I would ever do that or I don't think I've ever done that in the past

00:33:00   You know the next issue is sites

00:33:03   You know not taking into account the sketching nature of the original report. Another issue is them not linking out clearly

00:33:10   To the slash gear so readers can you know make their own judgment?

00:33:13   It would be like if somebody just dropped a sandwich off and at your door, you know, would you eat it? Yeah, right

00:33:20   There's just a sandwich that you never asked for sitting in. Yeah your doorstep

00:33:24   Yeah, and the whole broken telephone game with the reblogging, you know, you can start off saying oh, you know, this is complete

00:33:32   We don't even trust it. We're just publishing it for discussion and then you know like a few hours later some blog can say oh

00:33:38   Can the reports confirm such-and-such about the new Xbox so it's a shit show out there sometimes. Yeah, totally

00:33:45   Let me take a break right here and thank our second sponsor

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00:36:56   the talk show seven days free my thanks to them so let's get a little specific so here's

00:37:03   here's one and this i have to say this is the story that sort of prompted me to invite

00:37:07   you on the show i've had you on craig hockenberry was on a couple weeks ago we were talking

00:37:10   about I think your health book report. We can get to that later.

00:37:15   Sure.

00:37:16   But last week you had a story on 9to5Mac. Let's see if I have it open here in a tab.

00:37:23   The headline, "Johnny Ive shakes up Apple's software design group, iPhone interface creator

00:37:33   Greg Christie departing." Now, first thing, I think that comma should be a semicolon.

00:37:38   Okay.

00:37:39   That's a comma splice. But let's avoid the grammar and stick to the details. And

00:37:48   the first sentence of the report is, "Following friction between top human interface vice

00:37:53   president Greg Christie and senior vice president Johnny Ive, Apple's hardware and software

00:37:58   design is being dramatically shaken up according to sources familiar with the matter." So,

00:38:05   things first you were the first just to report that Greg Christie is retiring

00:38:10   from Apple yeah and so kudos to you for the scoop I congratulate you on Twitter

00:38:14   I hadn't even heard that appreciate it apparently it happened a couple weeks

00:38:18   prior did were you familiar with this timeline because I did a lot of research

00:38:22   I didn't really write much about this afterward but I've done a surprising

00:38:26   amount of work on this I'll come out here on the show I mean a couple of

00:38:30   weeks before report it makes sense I mean I was trying to well I got a tip

00:38:34   from a very reliable source who's provided reliable info for years that Christy was out.

00:38:42   And the source told me that he's leaving, he told me the Johnny Ive stuff, and he's

00:38:50   leaving by the end of the year.

00:38:52   It would be around the developers conference in June.

00:38:57   And so the couple weeks thing makes sense, but I didn't just run it after the reliable

00:39:01   source told me.

00:39:02   It took me a few days to confirm it with other people.

00:39:06   I don't really run anything by a single source.

00:39:10   So yeah, a couple of weeks, I think.

00:39:11   Yeah, what I heard was that, and I don't think it was company-wide, it wasn't like

00:39:16   to every single Apple employee, but it was at least announced entirely within the graphic,

00:39:19   or not graphic design, but user interface design group that he'd be retiring.

00:39:25   I think like three weeks or so, at least three weeks before your report came out.

00:39:30   everybody within Apple who worked under him or knew him knew about it. And that to me,

00:39:35   it shows just how tight a ship Apple runs that it took three weeks for anybody to get

00:39:41   the news that he was retiring. Apparently it was open news, and this is what I've heard

00:39:46   from a few friends. I did not go, I didn't make it out to Macworld Expo this year. But

00:39:52   apparently it was sort of an open secret there among people who work at Apple and people

00:39:58   who follow it, you know, the writer types who follow it that he'd announce his retirement.

00:40:02   But it was always under the, you know, every discussion about it was off the record. So

00:40:07   there wasn't, it wasn't like anybody knew about it and could have written it, but nobody

00:40:12   had it.

00:40:13   Right. I guess it's understandable. I mean, if you hadn't told me the off the record part,

00:40:17   I mean, I guess my response would be if you're a writer and you heard that, you should have

00:40:21   posted it. But, uh,

00:40:22   No, it wasn't. Yeah, I don't think anybody had it and just sat on it. But I have to say,

00:40:26   more I dug into this, I've got a surprising amount of pushback from, let's say, informed

00:40:32   sources that the friction with Johnny Ive angle is, in the words of one of them, quote

00:40:39   "bullshit." Now, that's not to say, again, I don't want to fight with him, because I

00:40:43   don't know. I have not, I've never met Greg Christie, I didn't speak to him, he's not,

00:40:47   you know, I don't have any first-hand information. I mean, I don't even know what the guy looks

00:40:50   like can't find a picture of him on Google?

00:40:54   I've seen him speak at WWDC, but it's very--

00:40:58   I'm like the world's worst witness.

00:41:03   He's a white guy somewhere in his probably late 40s.

00:41:07   Yeah, I mean, I only know him as a cartoon from the Samsung Trail.

00:41:11   But I have to say--

00:41:12   and I think it definitely got a result. And you can't pin it,

00:41:19   But you know there after your report your report came out and then I think the next day

00:41:25   There was a report in the Wall Street Journal. Okay. I had a quote from Apple PR. Yep, and

00:41:32   The quote from Apple PR

00:41:35   Definitely downplayed or I don't know if you would say denied

00:41:40   I don't know but but went against the grain that there was any sort of personal

00:41:45   personality conflict between him and Johnny I've sure from the quote correctly something about like after 20 years Greg Christie is

00:41:53   retiring

00:41:55   and he worked closely with Johnny for

00:41:57   Whatever a number of years

00:42:00   So yeah, I guess I agree. It's borderline. It's not really a denial nor a confirmation, but you know Apple PR has a

00:42:07   Has an agenda they're not gonna come out and say

00:42:10   That there was friction, you know

00:42:13   Well, but I it would depend on the record certainly made no effort whatsoever

00:42:19   to downplay the friction with

00:42:23   Scott for stall this is true. This is true

00:42:27   In fact, I would say that the press release that they announced when for stall, you know

00:42:35   I don't even know if they called it a resignation

00:42:38   But the the you know the whole thing in the headline about increased

00:42:42   Collaboration yeah, you know almost it's not explicit but implicitly is saying that collaboration was you know

00:42:50   Wasn't working while forestall was there, right?

00:42:54   So I would put a little you know, but there's clearly though it's in Apple's interests to

00:43:05   It it not have Johnny I've perceived as a Machiavellian

00:43:10   Wheeler and dealer like that goes against the public persona that he has and it doesn't serve Johnny Ives interests

00:43:18   And let's just say for this is you know right now for this discussion whether it's true or not sure whatever degree it is

00:43:25   It's not in Apple's interests to have Johnny I've perceived that way

00:43:30   So if it is true if he is this Machiavellian character or has that slant to it and is sort of

00:43:37   Creating a lot of friction in the user as he takes over more authority in the user interface

00:43:45   Design and is pushing people out and if that's to say that you know if it were true that he effectively pushed

00:43:51   Christie out which my report never said right right. That's true. That's very true. You know I and I'll emphasize that

00:43:59   that but I think some people came away with from your report with that

00:44:05   perception but if it is true it would be in Apple's interest or at least Apple

00:44:08   PR's interest to downplay that at least try to downplay it or get people to walk

00:44:12   it back sure and if it if it weren't true it would also be in their interest

00:44:18   so the fact that Apple's PR you know either way whether it's the true or not

00:44:23   or how whatever shade of gray it is right because the truth is almost

00:44:26   certainly somewhere in the middle. But wherever it is on the shade of gray, really, really light gray,

00:44:31   really dark gray, Apple PR would probably take the exact same response. And the quote that they gave

00:44:39   to the Wall Street Journal probably would have been the same. So it is, what's the word,

00:44:43   dispositive? It doesn't prove anything.

00:44:45   Jared: Yeah, I mean, a couple points there. Going back to our early discussion, in terms of the

00:44:50   broken telephone, I mean, my report could say one thing and then another site picks it up and says,

00:44:53   at 9to5 says that I fired Greg Christie.

00:44:59   So that's one point.

00:45:00   Another point is, I mean, Apple, they $200 billion cash in the bank company, the iPad,

00:45:07   the iPhone, all these products.

00:45:09   You don't push out these devices and have a company this large with everyone holding

00:45:13   hands and dancing around in circles.

00:45:16   There's gonna be friction to get these products out the door.

00:45:19   And Steve Jobs even said himself, "Johnny has more authority than anyone else at Apple

00:45:23   This was in the biography, not Tim Cook, not Phil Schiller, not Scott Forsall back then,

00:45:28   but you know, Johnny Ive, his spiritual partner.

00:45:31   So I don't think it's too much to say or assume, not saying I assume anything, just talking

00:45:38   as an industry watcher here, that you know, Johnny, if he wants something done, he gets

00:45:44   it done.

00:45:45   And I mean the story goes in terms of the friction that as they were working on iOS

00:45:50   or when Johnny decided that iOS 7 was going to be overhauled with his design aesthetic,

00:45:57   that Greg Christie was on board wanting to do this with him and within Federighi's group,

00:46:02   but over time Johnny really overstepped the bounds there, reaching into the user interface

00:46:09   team, really circumventing Christie's control and speaking to Christie's designers and engineers

00:46:16   and just getting things done without Christie's approval, kind of just like stepping on his

00:46:20   toes a bit.

00:46:22   And I guess with 10.10 around the corner with this new design and the whole future of iOS,

00:46:28   I guess Johnny and Christie and the other executives at Apple made the decision that

00:46:34   it was time to just move all design under Johnny Ive, not just hardware, not Johnny

00:46:39   providing influence and leadership and guidance to software, but literally putting software

00:46:44   under his belt as well.

00:46:45   The way I've heard it, and this is from multiple sources, and I think, you know, I think that's

00:46:50   an interesting—I think you combine these two takes and the truth is probably somewhere

00:46:54   in the middle.

00:46:55   Right.

00:46:56   But what I've heard, and all of this came to light—well, not all of it, but most of

00:47:00   it is stuff that I heard after your report.

00:47:03   And none of it—none of this is from Apple PR.

00:47:06   This is from other people actually in, either in, formerly in, or somehow, as they say,

00:47:17   familiar with the matter, but with User Interface Design Group, which used to be, I think, four

00:47:23   different groups.

00:47:24   I think there was the—it was a lot more scattered before the Johnny Ive is going to

00:47:31   to take over software where there was like the iLife user interface group.

00:47:35   I'm not quite sure if iOS and Mac OS 10 were two different groups, but the ones that were

00:47:40   formerly more under Forstall, but like Forstall wasn't really in charge of like the iLife

00:47:46   apps like iPhoto and iMovie and those.

00:47:48   Those were separate.

00:47:49   Right.

00:47:50   People familiar with those things, let's just say.

00:47:53   And who were definitely, there's no doubt in my mind, speaking not on behalf or prompted

00:48:00   by PR. In fact, the opposite. And I don't know that Apple PR would disagree with the

00:48:05   word they said, but I think if they found out about it, they could be in trouble. And

00:48:11   there's a certain contingent of people out there who, it doesn't matter what I say, that

00:48:17   they think Apple PR is all-knowing and all-powerful and that they see these conspiracies, and

00:48:22   no matter what, if I say it's ground level employees,

00:48:27   they're gonna say, well, it might be ground level employees,

00:48:31   but somebody from Apple PR came and said,

00:48:33   here, tell Gruber this.

00:48:35   And that's not the case, it really is not.

00:48:37   And that is not how Apple PR works.

00:48:39   If Apple PR wants to say something, they say it.

00:48:43   They're not duplicitous like that.

00:48:46   But the gist of the Greg Christie story that I've heard,

00:48:51   way I've heard it is it really wasn't friction. I don't think, I think there's certainly a

00:48:54   case to be made that stylistically, Christie may not have been on board with everything

00:49:01   related to the iOS 7 look and feel, but he was not opposed to it. It wasn't like he was

00:49:06   pushed, you know, you know, you know how there's like a lot of people out there who really

00:49:11   just don't like iOS 7 users. And I think that a lot of them read this and they see Christie

00:49:18   Is seeing it their way and that Christie was a like an iOS 7 hater and that is absolutely not true. Yeah

00:49:24   I don't disagree. I mean remember he had the whole

00:49:26   WWDC session talking about it so profoundly and with such knowledge that you know, you can really tell that it was

00:49:32   You know, he was a big part of it. So

00:49:35   And you know that the hierarchy

00:49:38   always went where Christie's group was in the engineering group and in the old days they were under Bertrand and

00:49:47   eventually they were effectively under

00:49:50   Forstall right that there was this there wasn't there was never much of a chain of command above

00:49:57   Greg Christie's head at least I mean, I don't know about 18 years ago when he started but in though

00:50:02   You know, let's say in the eye in the iPhone era

00:50:04   You know Christie originally reported to

00:50:08   Forstall and forced all of course only reported to Steve Jobs, right?

00:50:12   And then even when Steve Jobs was dead the only person really above Christie was forced all

00:50:17   Yep, at least for iOS stuff

00:50:19   and

00:50:22   So when they announced that shakeup when forced all was out and Johnny I've was taking over

00:50:26   They didn't really change the org chart and yes, Greg Christie officially reported to and I guess I don't know

00:50:33   Maybe he still does I'm not quite sure when that change is going to take but yeah until recently he reported officially to

00:50:40   Federighi, right

00:50:42   Because Federighi took over as head of engineering

00:50:47   But it has never been the case that

00:50:49   That that he really reported to Federighi because it's really you know, Federighi, you know, I think he's very popular

00:50:57   I think he's deemed as being very successful so far

00:50:59   But there is this complete separation now between design and engineering

00:51:04   Where Federighi is not a forestall type person at all

00:51:08   We're forced all if anything was more concerned with the design than the engineering even though he came up

00:51:15   you know as a next pro next step programmer and certainly understood the engineering right that

00:51:19   The org chart be damned ever since as soon as forestall was out and Johnny I've was named in charge of software

00:51:27   Greg Christie had been reporting directly to Johnny I've the whole time and that there was no there's really no difference

00:51:34   The only difference with what's been announced recently is making official on the internal org chart

00:51:40   What had been the de facto?

00:51:42   flow of

00:51:44   authority ever since that announcement was made

00:51:47   and what I've heard is

00:51:50   That again, this is like third hand, but I believe it

00:51:54   I really do that that after your report and that Apple had to go to the journal and stuff like that and

00:52:02   and issued this thing that

00:52:04   Christie was at least slightly

00:52:08   Distressed by the whole thing because he saw it as so outside the truth that he really it really is the case

00:52:16   I mean this sounds

00:52:18   This isn't quite right

00:52:19   But that he's really just a guy who's been there for 20 years and is tired and he's made an awful lot of money and just

00:52:25   Wants to take some time to enjoy it

00:52:27   You know like for all the people out there who have ever thought hey if I ever made like a couple million bucks and I was

00:52:32   You know or a lot of million bucks and I was you know, I'm not gonna wait till I'm old to enjoy it

00:52:37   Well, I think that's more or less where Greg Christie is but yet he's leaving and it seems like there's you know

00:52:42   There's this bad taste

00:52:45   now in the mouth that the story is he's leaving because he

00:52:48   Disagreed with Johnny I'm and it's not the case at all

00:52:51   Yeah, I mean I understand that perspective

00:52:56   You know, I I agree with you. I mean, it's probably in the gray area there

00:53:02   I mean, I don't think my report says that, you know, I've pushed out Christie

00:53:07   I just I think it just stated facts and if people read it a certain way they read it a certain way

00:53:12   But I didn't mean to come off as you know, Johnny pushed out

00:53:16   Christie I mean there's been clear stories about executive

00:53:20   Shakeups at Apple in recent years. I mean, I remember Bloomberg had a headline at the end of 2012 like, you know, eddie q fires

00:53:27   Williamson who ran maps? I mean I didn't come out there and say

00:53:31   I fires Christie over design differences right now and it's you know, but it's the way that people like you said like that the

00:53:38   What's it? What do you say? What's it the broken telephone? Yeah, the broken tell that telephone game where yes, you know

00:53:44   By the second or third telling it becomes a story of conflict and it's really not the case at all

00:53:50   And the examples I heard cited too in terms of like that that there's almost proof that

00:53:57   Christie is going out on on his own terms and on very good terms is

00:54:01   That it was just a few weeks ago where Apple did something very very unusual

00:54:07   Which was it was it was like the PR run up to the Samsung Apple

00:54:13   trial

00:54:15   retrial, yeah, what

00:54:17   Where they gave NPR and I think the Wall Street Journal access to Christie

00:54:23   and talk and let him talk and show the little lab where they'd end up the first version of

00:54:30   The iPhone interface they showed like how they use I thought it was pretty cool the way that they use like

00:54:37   So this was like 2006 while they were working on this they used like a three or four or five year old

00:54:43   g3 power book

00:54:45   To power it so that they'd have a device, you know that the that they couldn't cheat and have a CPU

00:54:51   That was going to be a lot faster than what the iPhone would actually be able to have right really fascinating stuff

00:54:57   It's always interesting in retrospect to see you know looking back about how certain things came to be

00:55:03   But that was actually after like so when Apple, you know clearly let Greg Christie and this is how crazy some people are

00:55:10   Is that I had a couple people write to me at Daring Fireball and say do you think that maybe they pushed?

00:55:16   Christie out because he talked to the Wall Street Journal

00:55:20   About the thing that you know that he broke the secret code about how they made the iPhone. I was like no no no

00:55:24   You know, that's that is a total, you know

00:55:27   That's a that's an exclusive that was authorized by right?

00:55:31   Of course not something that great Christie went nuts and did on his own right and you know to your point about that

00:55:37   I mean this Wall Street Journal interview in the whole

00:55:40   Samsung trial stuff this was just in the last couple of weeks

00:55:44   You don't find it interesting that

00:55:46   There was no identification by Christie at the trial or in any of those stories that you know, he's not in charge anymore

00:55:52   I mean

00:55:52   I look back at the Wall Street Journal story clearly says that Christie and still in charge of human interface design at Apple after you know

00:55:59   Working there for a number of years. So you think they would have identified that maybe oh, I'm not quite sure

00:56:05   I don't think I follow what are you saying?

00:56:06   So like who would have fallen like, you know, Greg Christie identified himself as you know, head of human interface design

00:56:13   Just a couple weeks ago in the Wall Street Journal

00:56:15   Yeah, and prior interviews, so I just found that interesting that he never noted that he's leaving

00:56:20   No, but he but everybody at Apple already knew that he was and the interview. I mean obviously it was you know

00:56:28   As a company that you know, the company's interest in those stories was to sort of emphasize look at the amazing

00:56:34   Work we have to do to crew we had to do to create the original iPhone, right?

00:56:40   And it's all in the context of you know, getting the company's side of this fight and Samsung out in the public

00:56:46   but a corollary to that like a secondary thing was that

00:56:51   Greg Christie is very here's the thing is he's a very popular guy. He's a really really well liked person within Apple

00:57:00   Really seems like the type of person who gets along with a lot of people is

00:57:04   Has had a very like you said if you can't find pictures you can try to find photos of them

00:57:09   It's very hard to find photos of him. He's had a very low profile. Yeah, but he's been hugely influential

00:57:14   You know spent a lot of time working directly with Steve Jobs on whatever, you know pet projects of you know

00:57:24   whatever jobs that you know had his pants on fire for

00:57:26   You know interface wise

00:57:29   and a lot of people within Apple who saw him and knew that you know, he's not that well-known that is his his

00:57:36   work is far, you know, outweighs his

00:57:40   Renown

00:57:43   We're really happy to set that up for him and have this thing where he got a lot more public credit than he's ever gotten

00:57:49   before right and but and but now they're all a little like

00:57:53   they think that the you know now the follow-up that it that that's being played as

00:57:58   Conflict with Johnny I've and again, like you said you didn't use the word conflict, but clearly though

00:58:03   There's that perception out there now sure in some of the second and third hand reporting that ah, man that stinks and now he's upset

00:58:10   about I mean luckily even the Wall Street Journal heard from their own sources about how

00:58:13   There was disagreements and design direction between Christy and I've so it's not like I'm the only person saying that

00:58:20   Hey there. Yeah, can you hear me? Yeah, you know, I've got this I got a loose microphone

00:58:25   USP cord on my microphone in it gravity just pulled it out

00:58:30   what it what you were saying that the Wall Street Journal had something about the

00:58:33   Conflict of a design. Yeah, the Wall Street Journal has a line in that story that you mentioned saying that going to you know

00:58:41   a person familiar with the matter

00:58:43   Greg Christie and Johnny I didn't always see eye to eye or they had disagreements over the right direction

00:58:48   So yeah, and I think that that's really pretty much how all design works at Apple, right?

00:58:53   I mean do you think like so here's a guy who spent most of his 18 years?

00:58:58   Effectively reporting to Steve Jobs, right because Christy worked on the highest profile design stuff because he was you know

00:59:05   The top of the heap and you know, it's not like every single pixel of every thing goes went through Steve Jobs

00:59:11   but it was you know, what is Steve care about now and

00:59:14   You know, that's where you know better call Christy and do you really think you know, does anybody think that there weren't disagreements?

00:59:21   So for this, you know colors or font sizes or any detail working with Steve, you know, that's just the way it is

00:59:28   I mean it seems that way.

00:59:29   I mean Apple, a lot of people who are really just in love with the company, they seem to

00:59:33   ignore or just completely disregard the fact that friction needs to happen.

00:59:37   There needs to be disagreements for these products to be released.

00:59:40   I mean the classic story of Steve Jobs pinning forestall against Tony Fidell against each

00:59:46   other who can make the better phone and that team gets that.

00:59:49   I mean you think forestall's team would have come up with something so innovative that

00:59:54   Literally change the entire technology world and so many other industries if they weren't competing against something

00:59:59   I mean if you don't have a your head against the wall, you're not gonna get much done

01:00:03   Yeah, I totally agree with that

01:00:05   and I think that you know

01:00:07   I saw in the light of all this stuff and again a lot of credit to you because you're the one who broke that

01:00:12   Christie's leaving but they got a lot I saw a lot of stuff on Twitter from readers who are saying that they're worried

01:00:17   About the whole direction of Apple software under Johnny I've you know, this doesn't sound good

01:00:24   Think that what you would worry me is if I heard stories that there weren't arguments about

01:00:30   This stuff because if if nobody's arguing then nobody's really trying to push it forward. That's fair, right? I

01:00:37   Mean, I don't think those comments make much sense

01:00:40   In light of the Christie story, I mean if people didn't like iOS 7 design or their concern about I've those comments should have came

01:00:47   What is it 10 9 months ago already? And I mean, I'm sure there there were lots of comments

01:00:52   I remember all the hate about iOS 7 back then.

01:00:55   So, I mean, this is what Johnny Ive wants

01:00:57   the software to look like, so this is nothing new

01:00:59   in particular.

01:01:00   I mean, maybe people are forward thinking

01:01:02   five, 10 years down the road, but you know,

01:01:04   right now 10.10's gonna look like iOS 7

01:01:07   and iOS 8, iOS 9 are gonna look like iOS 7.

01:01:10   So, I wouldn't think of anything imminent

01:01:12   and I think if Johnny Ive had even bigger ideas

01:01:15   or wanted the software to look a completely different way

01:01:18   than iOS 7 looks, that's what iOS 7 would look like,

01:01:21   you know?

01:01:21   He only gets one shot to revamp the whole look.

01:01:24   - Yeah, and in terms of Christie going out on his own,

01:01:27   what I've heard is, again, there's no date set,

01:01:30   but I've heard that he's probably going to stay

01:01:32   not just through WWDC, but probably more

01:01:36   towards the end of the year, like the actual calendar year.

01:01:38   - Interesting, it's very possible.

01:01:40   I mean, I heard specifically around WWDC,

01:01:43   but I could be wrong about that.

01:01:45   - Well, we'll see.

01:01:46   Well, actually, who knows, 'cause Apple's

01:01:48   so goddamn secretive, I mean, the guy, you know.

01:01:51   - A little birdie will tell you.

01:01:52   - Right, well, yeah, we'll see.

01:01:54   I do think too, though, that this is another one

01:01:56   of those cases where Apple being so secretive,

01:02:00   I feel like it can't be any other way,

01:02:03   'cause either you're a secretive company

01:02:05   or you're not a secretive company.

01:02:06   You can't be, it's like being pregnant.

01:02:08   You can't be, you know, kinda pregnant.

01:02:10   - Right.

01:02:11   - But it hurts them, I think, in terms of the way

01:02:14   that most companies, when somebody of Greg Christie's

01:02:18   internal stature announces his retirement.

01:02:21   Not that they would make a big press release out of it

01:02:25   and expect national news,

01:02:27   but they would have announced it somehow.

01:02:30   It's unusual for someone as influential

01:02:35   like at a vice president level

01:02:37   to be leaving on his own terms

01:02:38   with no internal real unpleasantness.

01:02:41   This is a guy who's had a great career, done great things,

01:02:44   and is announcing it.

01:02:46   Nobody inside the company says anything to anybody outside the company, right?

01:02:50   And then they lose the ability to control the narrative on that

01:02:54   Sure, and to that i'd say that they had a absolutely massive opportunity to get that information out there

01:03:00   um

01:03:02   in the wall street journal

01:03:04   in the samsung trial

01:03:05   With a npr and npr was you know a voice interview, too

01:03:08   Yeah, they could have gotten that information out there if they wanted to they could have made it national news

01:03:13   Yeah, I have to wonder why they didn't why they didn't say that I don't know if it has something

01:03:19   You know that they thought maybe it would

01:03:21   Lesson the weight of his testimony if it seemed as though he had one foot out the door

01:03:26   You know perhaps one foot on his you know upcoming yacht or whatever. He's gonna do. I don't know

01:03:31   I mean, I'm not sure if that was part of it or not

01:03:33   And you know who knows it could have been one of those things where maybe they were like 51% one way

01:03:40   59% the other like kind of had it written two ways and then at the last minute like yeah

01:03:44   Let's just not say anything about it

01:03:45   And then as soon as you know it the news broke that he was leaving and it didn't play

01:03:51   The way they thought it should have played they're like god damn it. We should have you know, we should have announced it

01:03:56   Yeah, I mean I wonder if Christie is who you know, everyone is making him out to be which I don't know such a you know

01:04:04   Amazing figure inside the company, you know, the 51% probably should have leaned the other way, you know

01:04:09   Yeah, if anything what I've heard is that he's got along better with Johnny I've then then, you know

01:04:15   For stall. Yeah, I think so. I mean, that's probably not too surprising and I think it's mostly Johnny's personality

01:04:23   You know and again and it's one of those things where who knows what they disagreed with in terms of hey

01:04:28   What what color should this button be when you tap on it?

01:04:30   Right, that's not that's the sort of thing where they could argue

01:04:33   You know all week long and not come to an agreement and eventually Johnny might have to say, you know what?

01:04:38   We're gonna have to do it my way and there's no hard feelings

01:04:41   That's just that's just working at Apple and doing design but that they actually got along swimmingly and consider themselves

01:04:47   You know good friends, right?

01:04:49   Let me take a final break here and thank thank our last sponsor and then we'll get back and we'll talk about a couple other

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01:06:57   So Mac OS 10.10, which I think is what they're gonna call it. Yes, they're gonna number it

01:07:03   I've heard the same thing. In fact, it's you know, it's a done deal. Yeah, it's already

01:07:09   April so there you know must have been hard at work at it, but I

01:07:13   Have not seen it. I can honestly say that I haven't seen it. Nobody's shown me

01:07:18   But in a nutshell that it's going to

01:07:23   Look like iOS 7. Yep. Yeah, that's I've heard exactly the same

01:07:27   It's quote-unquote

01:07:29   Dramatic or significant so it's gonna be the perhaps the biggest new feature

01:07:35   10.10 and they're calling it C raw after the the wine internally. I have no idea what the

01:07:40   California spot will be but I have to yeah

01:07:44   And I don't know the names like that are probably the best and tightest held secrets at Apple because I don't I think that there's no

01:07:51   Reason for those, you know

01:07:53   You know like you know like them, you know, you're talking about like the last one is Mavericks

01:07:58   I've said they're all gonna be named after places in California going forward

01:08:01   There's no reason for that sort of thing to go outside a very very tight circle. Absolutely

01:08:07   You know probably like Schiller and Johnny I've you know at that level because at the you know

01:08:14   They can brand that all at the last minute. Sure

01:08:16   My guess and this is just a guess. I'm gonna go with Yosemite. Mmm, just because

01:08:23   just because

01:08:25   It's gonna be a big change because what looks big is big branding wise right, right?

01:08:31   Even if you know like clearly the biggest up

01:08:34   versions of Mac OS X were like the shift from PowerPC to Intel because everything had to be recompiled and all sorts of

01:08:42   technical stuff had to change

01:08:44   Snow leopard was a big change

01:08:48   they added all this low-level stuff behind the scenes like Grand Central dispatch and

01:08:53   really really big stuff like at a nerdy computer science study how the operating system level works and

01:09:00   Famously they even bragged about it, you know marketing wise not many new features

01:09:06   We're really working on you know, the behind-the-scenes stuff. So they gave it a name, you know, the previous version was leopard

01:09:13   They said we're gonna call it snow leopard because it's leopard with you know, not many new features

01:09:18   This because it looks new I think they're gonna give it a big push marketing wise as being new even if

01:09:25   Technically, it's actually not that different. It's really just a new look

01:09:29   Sure, Yosemite's my guess because I don't know what else, you know to me. It's the biggest that's a great name, too

01:09:35   I totally agree

01:09:37   In terms of like Yosemite being big and it's well known and it's pretty dramatic and that goes well with what the redesign is gonna

01:09:43   Be you know, I'm a Southern California guy. So I'm hoping for something like

01:09:47   Zuma or Malibu just like a beach that represents like, you know

01:09:51   You always think of it in your head as like a sunset like a new beginning type of thing

01:09:54   Yeah, now I could see Malibu the only thing is like I can't see them going back to a beach after Mavericks

01:09:59   right away true I

01:10:01   Don't know but anyway, and then you know in the whole telephone game

01:10:05   I'm sure somebody's gonna listen to this episode and they're gonna say John Gruber says that the new version of Mac OS X will be

01:10:11   Called Yosemite. Oh for sure like without a doubt

01:10:14   I'm telling you those of you whoever you are out there who's already typing the headline into your wordpress.com

01:10:20   Front end I'm totally guessing nobody. I don't know anybody who would tell me anything like that

01:10:26   There's no like that stuff like that isn't in the seeds. That's you know

01:10:31   Like you said it's what did they the internal code names are named after like wine? Yeah

01:10:36   I'm curious. I'm really curious how they're going to deal with

01:10:44   with drop shadows.

01:10:46   And I know it seems like a weird thing to get hung up on.

01:10:48   - Not when you're talking about Apple though.

01:10:51   I mean. - Right.

01:10:52   So the iOS 7 look gets rid of almost all shadows.

01:10:59   I think to the point where some things look bad,

01:11:01   like I always say popovers on iPad in iOS 7,

01:11:05   to me look, they just look unfinished,

01:11:08   like an unfinished design because they are over,

01:11:13   they're popped over the content, but with no shadow,

01:11:16   it just looks like this weird white round rectangle

01:11:19   that's just drawn over your content.

01:11:21   - Right, kind of like male in portrait mode on the iPad.

01:11:24   I see what you mean there.

01:11:25   Kind of looks like a split view,

01:11:27   but that's not the intention,

01:11:28   and the intention is going over the content.

01:11:31   - Right.

01:11:32   - So it's interesting, and like on the Mac,

01:11:33   I mean the Mac is designed to have multiple windows

01:11:36   open at once.

01:11:37   - Exactly where I'm going.

01:11:38   - Right, so if there's no drop shadows behind these windows,

01:11:41   It's going to be a mess.

01:11:43   So I think there's going to be a decrease there, but maybe not nearly as dramatic as

01:11:49   iOS 7, but clearly the aesthetic is going to be there.

01:11:54   And basically the gist of what I heard, new icon set, you know how the corners on the

01:12:00   app windows are slightly rounded, they're getting rid of that so everything's more squared

01:12:06   off and fine now.

01:12:08   I think they're going to decrease the shade of metal across the OS quite a bit, more white

01:12:13   space.

01:12:14   We'll probably see some new translucencies, kind of where the dock is and notification

01:12:20   centers.

01:12:21   Yeah, it's a...

01:12:24   I'm really curious to see how it goes, because like I said, in a nutshell, everybody seems

01:12:28   to agree that in a nutshell it's the iOS 7 Look.

01:12:33   But there's so much about the iOS 7 Look that to me doesn't work with layered windows.

01:12:38   And you know, there's the lack of shadows and the transparency thing is another thing where you really and like wind

01:12:43   and you know windows Microsoft really found this out with

01:12:46   Was it Vista or was it I think it was Vista where they went overboard with the transparency

01:12:52   Yeah

01:12:52   But it really when you have overlapping windows the transparency becomes an unreadable mess if it's too transparent

01:12:59   Right, like it works on iOS 7. I think because you never have more than one thing stacked on a time

01:13:07   so like when you bring up one transparent thing like by sliding up from the bottom to get the

01:13:11   What's that called activity view or what's it what's the thing you slide up from the bottom on what iOS yeah control center control center

01:13:20   Yeah

01:13:21   It works because it's only over one thing right whereas that sort of you know, frosted glass

01:13:27   Look, you can't just have a bunch of windows with that floating over each other, right? You can't read anything

01:13:32   So I'm curious how they're gonna do it and I'm really curious how they're gonna handle shadows because I was seven doesn't really have any and

01:13:38   The current Mac OS X look and I think this is one of those things that hasn't really changed all the way back to Mac OS

01:13:45   10.0 back in like 2001 is that the shadow size has always bothered me

01:13:51   It's just way too big. It looks like each window is like an inch above the other one

01:13:57   Even though there's no actual

01:14:01   parallax of, you know, windows shrinking behind and stuff like that.

01:14:05   Right, like I always notice that if you take a screenshot on OS X of a window and you just open up like in Quick

01:14:11   Look or whatever, you can see that huge huge shadow. It's like an inch, right? It's yeah, it's humongous.

01:14:16   It gets annoying too sometimes.

01:14:17   Right, and it doesn't make any sense to me because it seems as though because windows

01:14:22   Nothing gets smaller. So it seems like it's they're very thin like semantically

01:14:28   They're very thin layers on top of each other very close to each other

01:14:31   But yet there's these shadows that make it look as though they're all an inch apart and yet there's no

01:14:37   There's no 3d parallax to it, right? I mean, I guess the

01:14:43   Like removing shadows would be you know more detrimental on the Mac where lots of people still use it with multiple windows open simultaneously

01:14:50   But as you know an iOS, you know

01:14:52   See you lap at a time and I guess if OS 10 was the same way shadows wouldn't be as important there

01:14:57   And there's also been a lot of talk about what a desktop version of the I/O 7 design

01:15:03   would look like, and a lot of people pointing to the iCloud.com, they did that last year.

01:15:08   I don't think that's the right way to look at it.

01:15:09   I think iCloud.com is basically a web-based replication of the iPad apps, and that's always

01:15:15   what it's been, even back to the first version of iCloud.com.

01:15:20   The leather-stitched Notes app, calendar app, reminders, etc.

01:15:25   And now it just looks like iPad apps.

01:15:28   Yeah, and the other thing too is that they don't have to deal with layering, right?

01:15:32   Because it's one thing at a time filling your browser window.

01:15:35   Right.

01:15:36   And so I don't think that's a good way to look either.

01:15:39   And the timing doesn't work out either because the iCloud.com apps have had that look for

01:15:46   many months now.

01:15:47   They changed that pretty much shortly after iOS 7 came out.

01:15:51   Right, right.

01:15:52   that's the timeline where I feel like they were really hammering away on the fundamentals of what this

01:15:58   New look for the Mac is gonna look like like she came out way too early

01:16:02   They did you know, the Mac stuff wasn't anywhere close to being done totally agree

01:16:06   Yeah, and from what I've heard like the design of 10.10 is really iterated a lot the last few months

01:16:11   So like you said it wouldn't make sense look like I cloud calm seeing they did I cloud calm like alongside

01:16:18   7 in last September and now nearly a year later. It's not going to look the same that would make sense

01:16:22   No, there's so many iterations

01:16:25   I mean that's you know, if there's any if there's any one word that describes the Apple design process its iterations for sure that

01:16:32   Here's a question about some of the your style then man, maybe it's not from you

01:16:38   It's actually sort of nine to five Mac house style and it's very very common

01:16:43   It's it's more or less. I think almost the standard for the industry

01:16:46   which is

01:16:48   That and I think correct me if I'm wrong

01:16:50   But when you when you wrote about Mac OS 10.10 having this iOS 7 look and feel you included with the story a mock-up

01:16:59   And not one that you commissioned but like here's here's some guy on the Internet's idea of what an iOS 7

01:17:05   version of Mac OS 10 would look like sure and

01:17:08   Another example and again, this isn't you but there's other sites ours does it everybody does it was somebody says

01:17:15   rumor comes out that the new iPhone is going to have edge-to-edge glass, no bezel along the side.

01:17:25   Yep.

01:17:26   And then there will be a picture of a mock-up of an iPhone with edge-to-edge glass, but it's not a

01:17:34   mock-up from the source, it's just we went out, we had to have, we had to have an illustration for

01:17:39   this story, so we went out and found one that sort of fits.

01:17:41   Right.

01:17:42   that always bothers me as a reader and like as a sort of

01:17:46   armchair

01:17:49   Journalism critic because to me it's like you have a good story and it's an interesting source

01:17:55   But then you've illustrated it with something that's just pulled out of the air. Yeah, I see what you're saying

01:18:00   I mean in terms of that 10.10 example, I think you're referring to that roundup. I did

01:18:04   10.10 I would say out of WWDC

01:18:09   That was my decision to put that mock-up there admittedly

01:18:12   I probably could have done a better job saying that that was a mock-up

01:18:15   But I do think illustration is extremely important and also to be extremely honest if I had an exact idea of what?

01:18:22   10.10 would have looked like I would have had my own mock-up made that would be you know

01:18:27   Pretty close the real thing because I have been doing that right for several years when I know exactly how something's gonna look

01:18:34   I'm going to take the time to get a great mock-up done

01:18:38   I mean I did this with the retina MacBook Pro in 2012 all the iOS stuff the last couple of years didn't you do?

01:18:45   I think you did it with some icons

01:18:47   Yes, we also did that with the iOS 7 icons last year before yeah, and they came out pretty good

01:18:54   You know like in that police sketch style way right like if police get says hey

01:18:58   Here's the guy who robbed the 7-eleven and they catch him and you look and like hey, that's actually a pretty good sketch

01:19:04   I would say that those icons that you commissioned were good in that sense

01:19:08   Right. The thing with those icons, that was the night before WWDC. If we got those,

01:19:16   the design of the icons a couple weeks before WWDC, we would have had stellar mock-ups that

01:19:21   would look exactly like the icons on the homescreen.

01:19:23   Well, that's why, to me, because you do that, and you, you know, if you know,

01:19:29   and you can commission a mock-up based on what you know or what you've seen or what,

01:19:36   like a sources scene, then when you do this, like, where you'll just say, "Well, I don't

01:19:40   have that, but here's some other guy's, you know, guess as to what it could look like."

01:19:46   To me, it takes away from when you actually have it.

01:19:49   I agree.

01:19:50   And I know, because I, you know, this circles back to like what we were talking about at

01:19:54   the very beginning. I read your stuff very, very closely, and I note the exact words that

01:19:59   you use, but most people don't.

01:20:01   Sure, sure.

01:20:02   Right you include that screenshot with your story and most people are going to who see it are going to think that's supposed to be

01:20:08   What it looks like you're right. That's a good point because that particular story

01:20:12   It was a mix of iOS 8 stuff and 10 points and all the ios 8 stuff those mock-ups and images up there

01:20:17   That's what the real thing looks like and then at the bottom

01:20:19   I put a totally bogus image of what template 10 will look like

01:20:22   There wasn't a great call on my part. Yeah

01:20:24   What do you what are you hearing about Mac OS or not Mac OS iOS 8?

01:20:29   I would say hearing a lot. I mean the big feature is gonna be the health book, which is

01:20:33   Basically pass book for your health. It's gonna aggregate lots of data like blood sugar

01:20:38   Calories burned other fitness statistics. Yeah, but for most people it's not gonna have the blood sugar

01:20:45   It's not gonna have my blood sugar because it's not gonna be able to read my blood sugar the phone

01:20:49   It was course not it's gonna work with the I mean the big question here is is it gonna work with some Apple hardware?

01:20:55   At first will it be like iTunes coming before the iPod?

01:20:59   Will it just work? Yeah, good analogy. Yeah

01:21:01   It I mean, I think the most likely scenario for the very imminent future would be hooking up to the plethora of health

01:21:10   iPhone connected accessories that Apple's been hyping up for years

01:21:13   You know, like I remember when they announced iPhone OS 3 way back in 2009

01:21:18   They had that demo of the I don't I think it was a glucose blood sugar checker on stage

01:21:24   And that was a huge deal and now there's Wi-Fi based scales blood pressure checkers all sorts of stuff

01:21:31   pedometers that they could you know hook up and aggregate in a singular place

01:21:35   Yeah, I that's how I kind of see it

01:21:38   And and again there might be a you know

01:21:40   I don't want to go on too much longer, but we can talk about the the wearable rumors and stuff

01:21:44   And so clearly there's an awful lot of rumors that Apple is going to come out with some devices that are you know?

01:21:51   Some sort of fitness health monitoring type stuff and they've made hiring they've hired people with backgrounds and that sort of thing

01:21:58   So it certainly wouldn't at this point shock anybody if Apple came out with a peripheral

01:22:03   that took some of these measurements and then you know synced by a

01:22:07   Bluetooth to your iPhone and iPad with health book, right the smokes on there

01:22:12   But I think a lot of this stuff though is going to be left to third parties and you know

01:22:17   You know like for example like blood sugar

01:22:20   So if you're you know, if you have diabetes, that's a huge deal, right, but they're gonna leave that to

01:22:25   Medical companies and then let I you know more or less like what the App Store is to apps and yeah

01:22:32   Apple does some apps and they have new apps, you know, and and they you know

01:22:37   Obviously they care about things like email and the web and calendar

01:22:40   But they don't worry about having every little thing

01:22:43   Sure that they're happy to let thousands and thousands of developers fill in all those gaps and I feel like it'll be the same way

01:22:49   with the medical devices.

01:22:51   - Right, they'll fill in the software gap.

01:22:52   They'll give it to every iPhone user,

01:22:55   the opportunity to hook up their accessories to that.

01:22:57   They'll have beautifully presented graphs,

01:22:59   all sorts of data comparison features.

01:23:02   So I think, you know--

01:23:03   - Apple doesn't need to sell every diabetic

01:23:06   a blood sugar monitoring device.

01:23:08   It's more than enough for Apple if it becomes well-known,

01:23:12   hey, if you have diabetes, you really wanna get an iPhone

01:23:15   because if you do, boom, boom, boom, this is fantastic.

01:23:18   Right, and even the design of the application, the name, Health Book, the icon, it all screams

01:23:23   Passbook for Health. I mean, it's literally a duplicate of Passbook, but with health statistics,

01:23:28   health data. So I think it's pretty clear that it's going to be an aggregator, at least

01:23:32   at first.

01:23:34   You had screenshots of the actual app.

01:23:36   Yes.

01:23:37   Do you wonder whether that is like a stand-in for pre-release? Because it looked... The

01:23:45   One thing that struck me about it is it looked so much like Passbook, it almost looked confusingly

01:23:50   like Passbook.

01:23:53   More similar than I would think the two apps would look as two different apps.

01:23:57   I mean, I kind of had the exact opposite opinion.

01:23:59   I thought that it was extremely polished compared to the other stuff regarding iOS 8 that I've

01:24:06   seen.

01:24:07   So it seems definitely more polished than other parts of the operating system.

01:24:10   They've clearly been working on it for a long time.

01:24:12   Of course the design can and probably will change a bit, but I know that's the design

01:24:17   that's been used and tested with iOS 8 for several months now.

01:24:22   But it's like the real...

01:24:23   You're sure...

01:24:24   Yeah, again, not that it's final.

01:24:26   Everything gets tweaked up until the end.

01:24:28   But at the time that you had the screenshots, that was what the app was intended to look

01:24:33   like at this moment.

01:24:34   Yes.

01:24:35   It's not like, "Hey, we'll gin up this thing that looks like Passbook while we show it

01:24:40   to our partners because we don't want them to see the real thing.

01:24:43   No, I didn't sit on that.

01:24:47   It was pretty immediate.

01:24:48   Do you hear anything else?

01:24:50   I have not heard.

01:24:51   I've heard much more about the visual changes to Mac OS X than iOS 8.

01:24:56   I would say, yeah, I heard a bunch of stuff besides the health book, improved maps app,

01:25:02   polished up data, better views of where streets are, and of course the transit mode, which

01:25:08   I have heard they're having a hard time with in terms of sorting the data

01:25:12   They don't want a repeat of the data aggregation problems from iOS 6 is launch

01:25:16   so we'll see if transit will make it to the I've heard that transit is extremely hard because it's

01:25:22   none of it is

01:25:24   And it's almost like a hats off to Google for getting it as well as they do

01:25:27   because none of it is

01:25:30   regularized there's no standard for how a

01:25:34   Municipal transit authority should put the transit info on the web. It's just it's almost like back to the days

01:25:42   Before RSS feeds where people had to screen scrape HTML and parse the HTML and every site's HTML was different

01:25:49   So you more or less had to like special case every single

01:25:53   City, right or website for in the web scraping days

01:25:58   But for transit now you pretty much have to do each every single transit authority

01:26:03   you pretty much have to do individually because everybody reports the data differently.

01:26:06   Right. And it's not like Apple went out and just created or took all this data for itself.

01:26:11   This is a direct, what it seems on the surface to be just similar to what they did before,

01:26:15   acquired a bunch of companies and data sources and they're mixing it up all together. And

01:26:20   I think that at this point, following the, I guess, disaster of iPhone, iOS 6 maps, launched

01:26:26   in 2012 is they'd rather pull the feature, even though they're testing it now, than launch

01:26:30   something that's not ready to go.

01:26:32   Yeah, especially in the maps out. I also think I think look and feel wise

01:26:36   I think this is sort of that Johnny I've influence where I think Johnny I've

01:26:40   in all aspects sort of goes for a sort of

01:26:44   More timeless look like away from trendiness and even though it sounds ridiculous because flat design

01:26:51   Became such a off to use term in the last 18 months or so Saturday

01:26:56   right, but I don't think it is I think he sees it as as

01:27:01   a more timeless style and maybe it went too flat I said I think I think maybe they'll dial back in a little bit more texture

01:27:08   I hope but just a little just a touch perhaps

01:27:11   I don't haven't heard anything to point to that but in the way that like, you know

01:27:16   The Porsche 911 has looked like the same car for 50 years

01:27:20   just as slowly evolved year over year in a way that especially starting with the

01:27:29   The iPhone 4 that all iPhones since have been sort of Oh quick, you know

01:27:34   You can just tell when somebody has an iPhone in their hand, right? It's great point

01:27:37   Although the 5c, you know, obviously is its own unique thing, but that the unique in many ways

01:27:43   Yeah, but the the ones with the you know more rectangular corners and this metal frame around the sign

01:27:49   you know that I think that that we're done with

01:27:54   Radical changes to the iOS 7 UI for years to come for sure

01:27:59   We'll see tweaks year over year, but that this general flat look is

01:28:03   To the software what the iPhone 4 shape was to the hardware couldn't agree more. I mean

01:28:10   All indications from I always say it's just gonna be tweaks here and there to the user interface, but nothing in terms of the overall

01:28:16   Philosophy or style behind it

01:28:19   Of course, they're gonna fix up, you know, the screw-ups in the voice memos app in terms of it being confusing

01:28:24   Simplified notification center a bit but no nothing to move away from the this aesthetic

01:28:31   Yeah, they did a lot of that with iOS 7.1 really I mean and it's just one of those little things where they've got to

01:28:38   be on

01:28:39   The the OS has to be on the same

01:28:42   Shipping schedule as the hardware and if right because the hardware had to have iOS 7, you know

01:28:47   And whatever new phones and iPads they have coming out this year are going to be running iOS 8

01:28:54   There's like they're gonna be devices that can't boot iOS 7. That's how it is every year

01:28:58   Of course, so there had to be something called iOS 7 that shipped in September because that's when the iPhones came out. I

01:29:04   Think that iOS 7.1 if iOS it was just software only and Apple didn't do their own hardware

01:29:12   7.1 was the first version that I think they would have shipped

01:29:17   Yeah, it's not just about bugs. But also that they like you said they cleared up a lot of

01:29:23   navigational

01:29:24   Ambiguities for sure. Absolutely. I mean you can see how much care really went into the move from 7 to 7.1 in terms of design

01:29:32   I mean forget the new more rounded slider and power offline, but even if you go into the weather app, I mean something as

01:29:38   not important as the little glyphs to show

01:29:42   The snow or the the rain or the clouds and like the days to come in like the week view

01:29:47   Those have been changed immensely as well. So just a small thing that shows the level of detail. Yeah, I'm almost surprised

01:29:54   I think they had to I think they felt like they had to because they know that I was seven because it was so much

01:29:58   And so little time that you know that they really needed to dig in and do a pretty significant point one release

01:30:05   I think it's probably the most significant point one release in iOS history

01:30:11   Surprise because it took so long because it clearly was eating into the time where iOS 8 development was ramping up

01:30:17   Right, that's why you know because they want to do these things annually

01:30:22   They don't have much time from when they ship iOS 7 to where they've really got to have most of their engineers working

01:30:29   You know all week long every day on iOS 8

01:30:32   Right and you can see the shift there like every year the the fewer major point updates iOS like

01:30:40   There was like iOS 4.3, iOS 4.3, that was three major point updates to iOS 4.

01:30:49   I don't remember how far 3.0 went, maybe the 3.3.

01:30:53   But now, I mean, like, we're going from 7.0 to 7.1, and the next big one's going to be

01:30:58   8.0.

01:30:59   6 to 6.1, 7.0.

01:31:01   5, 5.1, 6.0.

01:31:03   So they're moving quickly.

01:31:07   Last but not least.

01:31:08   Let's say this. What do you have any inklings on?

01:31:10   Apple's calendar schedule for the rest of the year, you know, I actually that's something I wanted to talk about and I

01:31:16   Believe it was the second quarter the third quarter earnings call last year Tim Cook said hey

01:31:22   2013 we're gonna really do everything in the fall, but 2014 is gonna be a big year

01:31:27   We have big plans for a cross and he said the word across

01:31:30   2014 and this was not only on the call itself, but in the press release -

01:31:35   And here we are here. We are mid-april nothing or end of april almost and not a word not even

01:31:42   So Latin in two years ago. I think it was two years ago

01:31:46   They had a January event in New York for ebooks and education right and it was sort of a one-off. They've never followed it up

01:31:53   But I kind of felt like it was a hey, we don't you know

01:31:56   You know, don't forget about us while we're in the quiet period after the holidays

01:32:03   Last year they didn't do anything until

01:32:06   WWDC and they put that out there they kind of spread the word that hey

01:32:13   We're not gonna you know, we're not gonna have anything to say until WWDC

01:32:19   In this year, they just didn't say anything it is just let it go they've just let that that late March

01:32:28   Early February or February and March timeframe where for a couple of years they were announcing new iPads

01:32:33   They've just let it go without announcing anything like I kind of thought months ago if they had new

01:32:38   product categories to announce like what the iPad was in 2010 and 2011

01:32:43   That that would be the time when they would do it because they've moved the iPads to the fall

01:32:47   That's when everybody expects new iPads this year again

01:32:50   But it opens up that February March area for new product categories

01:32:55   And I was thinking that the, I mean, I know that an Apple TV was planned for introduction

01:33:00   in the first half of 2014.

01:33:02   It could have been pushed back, it could have been delayed for who knows why.

01:33:06   But I mean, with Tim Cook saying that there's going to be new stuff across 2014, including

01:33:12   a new product category at some point during the year, you know, something had to go wrong.

01:33:18   I mean, the CEO of Apple wouldn't say new products across 2014 and then not release

01:33:23   New products across 2014. Yeah it or well, I wonder I'm maybe something slipped or maybe

01:33:30   It's you know, we know the date for WWDC. It's the first week of June right that still leaves plenty of room

01:33:37   I think for across the year where if you know, but I think it would require

01:33:41   Hardware announcements at WWDC not just software announcements. Yeah, and I think that's a given at this point

01:33:47   I mean that I don't know though given for what announcing what kind of hardware laptops at the very?

01:33:53   Well, see, I don't think that counts. I think something that beyond laptops, I think

01:33:58   Not that they have to not that they're going to but that to sort of hit that that definition of announcing new products across the year

01:34:06   It has to be more than just updated MacBook Airs or MacBook Pros could be the best could be the watch, you know

01:34:13   never know yeah, or

01:34:15   and again, I don't think this is true because the the phone stuff is so

01:34:21   substantial in terms of the ramp up in

01:34:23   The supply chain that they can't they just can't keep it secret weeks in advance anymore, right?

01:34:30   But you know, I thought before in theory what if they you know announced a new iPhone then what if the iPhone

01:34:37   You know how like the two years ago they came out doing the first iPads with the retina displays the iPad 3 and then six

01:34:44   Months later. They said here's the iPad 4 with a retina display and you know a better a a6 processor, right?

01:34:51   I mean that does make sense in terms of the recent talk about how there is the 4.7 inch model on the 5.5

01:34:55   Maybe the 4.7 will commit WWDC and later in the the year. They'll have the

01:35:00   iFab lit I

01:35:02   Don't know or maybe they just say here's the next you know

01:35:05   Here's iPhone 6 and it comes out 6 6 months or 7 months after well

01:35:09   I guess would be more like 8 months

01:35:10   But there's no promise that you get it that if you bought your iPhone 5s on day 1 right that you are going to get

01:35:17   12 months of

01:35:19   This is the top-of-the-line iPhone, right? Yeah, of course. I mean, but I don't know Apple TV could be a WWDC announcement, too

01:35:26   Yeah, I've thought the same thing that that could be

01:35:29   I'm not hearing anything about it

01:35:32   I'm just pulling stuff out of my hat and thinking what they could announce the only thing I know about

01:35:36   Apple TV is I know that there are

01:35:39   some amazing

01:35:41   Engineers working on Apple TV like pressure type of engineers who there's no way that they're working on

01:35:48   The Apple TV as we know it, you know course simple little up down left right select thing

01:35:55   That there's some really good people on it

01:35:58   I mean whether it's something that's coming this year or later or I don't know but could be two different products

01:36:04   I mean, there could be a minor Apple TV refresh perhaps with the new software

01:36:09   SDK iOS I mean look at the Apple TV interface is still stuck in the four cell days as well

01:36:15   So, you know, they need updates on both sides of the coin. Okay, you know and having been at

01:36:20   Microsoft's build conference two weeks ago and

01:36:23   You know that they announced, you know, and it was so fun

01:36:27   You know and I linked to a couple of pieces today from Brent Simmons and Justin Williams about how

01:36:31   Because it was at Moscone West which is where WWDC is. It was like this bizarro

01:36:36   world

01:36:38   WWDC

01:36:39   Where in so many ways it looked like WWDC and then so many, you know, then you just see oh my god

01:36:44   But that is so weird, you know, and this is so weird

01:36:46   and

01:36:48   One of them, you know, not really weird

01:36:51   But one of the ways that that struck me about build was this day of this

01:36:54   But there I forget if they're calling them universal apps or whatever they're calling them

01:36:58   But that there's one, you know way to write an app that runs on

01:37:01   Windows PCs Windows phones

01:37:04   tablets and

01:37:06   Xbox now obviously the interface is totally different, but it's the same, you know developer tools and API's

01:37:13   for shared stuff. So the stuff that could be shared is shared. But the thing that got me was that, you know,

01:37:21   they're really, really, you know, right now Microsoft with the Xbox One and the current runtime and their developer tools

01:37:26   is pushing, hey, you can write apps that run in people's living rooms on their Xbox One, you know, that's a ship that's taking off.

01:37:36   Yeah, for sure. And the living room opens up so many different opportunities for apps, too.

01:37:40   That just makes me think you know and if they're gonna do it if part of the story of a next generation

01:37:45   Apple TV doesn't even matter what what the gist of the hardware is

01:37:49   You know that if it's a TV with an integrate the actual TV set with an integrated thing

01:37:53   Or it's a separate box that you plug in doesn't matter if it has has to do with apps and third-party apps in an app store

01:38:00   WWDC is the time to do it. Yeah, because there's no other you know, they have to wait another year

01:38:05   Otherwise, I mean not that they would that they couldn't release it in October and just release the developer info is stuff on the web

01:38:12   But the perfect time to do it is a WWDC agreed

01:38:17   I mean, I mean they have they have a keynote to fill to anything about it

01:38:20   I mean

01:38:20   They're not going to just have a keynote for iOS 8 which is not that big of an update and a new operating system

01:38:26   It just has a new look and mostly the same features that as Mavericks

01:38:29   I mean, there's a formula here the formula includes some hardware of some sort

01:38:33   Well and the other thing too about Mac OS X

01:38:35   I mean obviously Mac OS X is gonna have a huge part in the keynote

01:38:38   but just because of the new look right gonna have all sorts of information and and

01:38:41   You know how you're gonna get your apps to take advantage of the new look and still, you know run on Mac OS

01:38:48   10.9 and all this stuff

01:38:50   But the truth is the Mac and it you know in the Mac's a great business and I really do think Apple's heart is in

01:38:56   It but it's just not big enough for Apple to be a centerpiece of the keynote anymore

01:39:00   It has to be iOS or has to be a new product right for sure and like you said even like psychologically

01:39:06   announcing updated errors and MacBook Pro's

01:39:09   WWDC a wouldn't cut it for new heart, right?

01:39:12   Because it's just not big enough business really isn't not that that won't get good time and that you know

01:39:17   That they're not proud of it and it it certainly means a lot to the people who were in the room at WWDC

01:39:22   because every single all 5,000 developers are

01:39:26   Using max to develop their apps where they're writing Mac software iOS software. Absolutely, but it's just not big enough

01:39:33   Will you be there at a WWDC this year? Uh, I expect to be yeah cool. Yeah, I'll be there too

01:39:39   I mean, I don't have a ticket or a press pass or anything, but I'll be there during the week. So

01:39:43   Yeah, well then you will have to get together. So that's a good question. I was gonna ask about that

01:39:49   So you do you you've never gotten a press pass for the Apple event? I haven't only not gonna gotten a press pass

01:39:55   I haven't gotten a press email reply

01:39:57   So yeah, no relationship there with Apple at this point and you but you ask

01:40:05   Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've caught you ask do you ask each time like every time WDC gets announced you do you try to you know?

01:40:12   Throw throw another request in to get a press pass

01:40:16   Yeah last couple years or so. I haven't really gotten any replies

01:40:21   For that or stories. I mean I asked them for comment on the Greg Christie story and they gave the comment to

01:40:26   everyone else, you know, so I

01:40:29   Don't know. I don't know, you know, but it doesn't seem like they really interact with the Apple

01:40:35   Only websites. I mean during fireball is not an Apple rumor site. All right

01:40:41   Fortune is not an Apple rumor site

01:40:43   But I mean I'd be more concerned or more I guess I don't know if obsessed the right word because I probably wouldn't be upset

01:40:48   either way but I'd be more concerned if like MacRumors was getting invited to

01:40:53   those events which they're yeah so I don't think so either no it's a good

01:40:57   point and part of it they do seem to have had a couple of years ago a sort of

01:41:03   reflection inflection point where they they really all of a sudden opened up to

01:41:10   online only publications like where previously they'd really only given top

01:41:17   tier press access to print-based journalists so and it was a lot more

01:41:27   limited so like the first couple of years iPhone review units only went to

01:41:33   like pogue Mossberg Begley at the USA today

01:41:40   Steven Levy while he was at Newsweek but that you know Newsweek you know went

01:41:44   under. But it was really, you know, like the first iPhone I think only went to like four

01:41:49   four writers, four or five. Yeah, Kogan, his famous video. And they were all had roots in print,

01:41:56   you know, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today. And it seemed like they had a

01:42:00   moment like where I started getting like I had press passes back then, but then I never had

01:42:05   review units of anything. And then they really opened up and started giving a lot more review

01:42:11   Units and the you know off-the-record briefings that go with them right not just to me. It wasn't like they elevated me

01:42:18   Next to poggan mosberg, but that you know a lot of others too. What was her first?

01:42:23   Review unit from Apple. Was it the iPhone 4 or 4s? Just kind of thing in the timeline. It's an excellent question. I

01:42:29   Believe in fact, I'm almost certain that it was the Verizon iPhone 4

01:42:38   Which is yeah a little interesting because it was

01:42:41   Not a major event I

01:42:45   Think I could be wrong, but I think that this is one of those things where my memory shot

01:42:52   but I'm pretty sure that I was out on the west coast for Macworld Expo and

01:42:56   it worked out that I could just swing down to Cupertino and get a briefing and sign all the NDA's and pick it up and

01:43:03   You know

01:43:05   Have it but otherwise I would have gone like from Philly up to New York because they they went you know

01:43:11   They had a team go to New York to write distribute them to writers there

01:43:14   But I think I'm almost certain that the that was when it started and I think I've gotten a review unit of every

01:43:20   iOS device since and right if I missed anything, it wasn't anything major, right? Right. Right. Yeah

01:43:28   Your reviews are always interesting three. I love how like the embargo lifts at a certain time and then you just post yours up

01:43:34   Three hours later or the next day and everyone just jumps to read your opinion. I always try I try I

01:43:40   Try to get I try to hit the embargo deadline, but I I never do. I'm really terrible with that

01:43:47   I mean like who cares at this point, but I know but I think some people think I do it on purpose now that I

01:43:52   Think you do it on purpose

01:43:54   No, I don't and it used to be that I'd get you know that that they'd

01:44:01   Call me or like email me and by hey what you know, where's your review?

01:44:05   I'd be like, why am I reading and it wasn't like I was in trouble. There's no there is absolutely no

01:44:11   Hey, you know there's there's a rule that says you cannot publish before nine o'clock on Thursday Pacific time

01:44:17   There's no rule that says you have to publish by

01:44:19   905 Pacific, you know

01:44:22   I just think though that everybody else wants to publish right away that it never occurred to them that someone would

01:44:27   Would miss it by four hours. Yeah

01:44:30   Like it was like that. They just never it wasn't like they were angry

01:44:33   They were just confused and wanted to make sure everything was alright. What's wrong with our phone? Yeah, right

01:44:38   Before we wrap up. What do you think about the the watch? I

01:44:42   Think that's interesting. I mean, it'll be interesting to see which direction they go into

01:44:47   I mean based on all the recent hires

01:44:48   It really seems like it's gonna be a medical appliance or have a medical medical. I think meta

01:44:54   I don't think so. I think that's off because I think it's too limiting and it's no fun

01:44:57   It's not I mean, I think it's one component

01:44:59   I mean if you remember the iPhone, it was the phone, web browser, and iPod.

01:45:03   I don't think it would be far-fetched to think that, hey, the watch is going to be your media,

01:45:07   your health, and some cool mapping functionality, or something like that.

01:45:13   I mean the hires, in terms of those from the medical space, it's really been a thing across

01:45:19   2013 and into 2014.

01:45:21   You know, how the Apple product cycles work, I mean the iPhone was in the works two and

01:45:25   a half years, three years before that launched.

01:45:27   if they got all these medical hires over the last year or two or so, and we're talking

01:45:31   about people's lives here, FDA regulations, I don't think they would be able to ship a

01:45:36   device that does everything their newly hired engineers are capable of creating this year

01:45:42   or even early next year.

01:45:44   So all this health stuff could be for future generations and they could start off like

01:45:48   you know the original iPhone not shipping with 3G.

01:45:50   It could be just a few medical things here and there, some cool maps functionality, getting

01:45:56   your notifications and then over time they could you know of all the product to be something

01:46:01   much bigger.

01:46:03   I do think and a couple people have been writing about it recently that it it doesn't seem

01:46:08   to add up financially to be an iPhone or I even iPad style business now because iPhones

01:46:19   from Apple's perspective accounting wise sell for six five six seven eight hundred dollars

01:46:24   Yeah, you don't pay that when you go to the carrier, but the carrier pays Apple like you buy a new 5s

01:46:29   Starts it like 650 bucks, right?

01:46:32   iPads, you know now clearly you can get the iPad mini without cellular for you know

01:46:41   350 bucks but the bigger ones, you know are four five six hundred dollar devices

01:46:46   I don't think you can sell a thing you wear on your wrist for five six seven hundred dollars or you could sell it

01:46:51   But it wouldn't be it wouldn't sell to enough people right? It all right. There's this ridiculous talk of the

01:46:57   Thousands of dollars for the I watch. I mean, yeah, yes, that makes sense if it's gold or platinum-plated or something

01:47:03   But that's totally not apples and johndas

01:47:06   No, I was going back and forth with some people on Twitter the other day about it and somebody else I forget who but some

01:47:11   Reader, you know type to chimed in and said sure lots of companies sell thousand dollar watches multi-thousand dollar watches

01:47:17   But those watches are heirlooms you're expected if you go and buy

01:47:21   a

01:47:22   Four or five thousand dollar watch or even two or three thousand dollar watch from Rolex or Omega

01:47:27   Or any of the companies that make watches like that

01:47:30   You're expecting to have a watch that you're gonna own for the rest of your life and that you can pass on to your children

01:47:36   Yeah, that's still going to be

01:47:38   You know useful and even better

01:47:41   It's gonna be even better than it was right because if you had like your grandfather's Rolex and it still keeps great time

01:47:46   It's gonna have this great old style

01:47:48   It's gonna be timeless and you've you know got this connection

01:47:51   Computer devices, you know don't worry, right?

01:47:55   I mean, whatever the thing is three or four years from now things gonna be in everybody's desk drawer because it's gonna be three or

01:48:00   Four-year-old technology. Yeah. Yeah, probably be useless by them too. I mean if you look at the Apple update cycle

01:48:05   I mean even the iPhone

01:48:07   What is it 3gs at this point? All right, I mean useless you mean again any latest software?

01:48:13   So yeah, no, I think you got to think about it in terms of iPod

01:48:17   Pricing I really do and I for sure I also feel like maybe the thing that we're all overlooking

01:48:22   It's just the way that like the iPhone came out and had all these sensors that just nobody had ever really thought of before

01:48:28   Not that the technology was amazing

01:48:29   But that all together it was like a proximity sensor so that the phone goes off when you hold it up to your face to

01:48:35   make a call so right cheek doesn't register as a touch and

01:48:38   the

01:48:40   accelerometer I mean

01:48:41   Colorometer right and you know and they had the super monkey balls game right there on day one in the App Store taking advantage of it

01:48:47   Coolest thing ever but now it's like a nothing right but it was the combination and you know that you could put on

01:48:53   Any one of them maybe wouldn't be all that expensive and wouldn't be all that amazing, but you put

01:48:58   four five six of these sensors in a device that you put on your wrist and all of a sudden maybe you do kind of

01:49:06   Get an amazing array of you know fitness information about yourself, right?

01:49:11   But I don't know and I also feel like display wise it's if it's anything

01:49:16   It's got to be like some kind of like new

01:49:18   Technology that nobody's thinking of like these devices that like Samsung's putting out that are like just take a take a 2014

01:49:25   Cellphone and shrink it to two inches and put it on your wrist is got to be the wrong way of thinking about for sure

01:49:31   Speaking of Samsung. I love that

01:49:33   that tumblr of the original Samsung designs

01:49:36   Samsung design tumblr.com. Yeah, I mean it took me admittedly like a minute to think about like why is this website playing?

01:49:43   Who are you looking to this and I'm like, ah, I got it. I

01:49:47   think that that's the

01:49:50   That's all I did is last night. I tweeted I just I didn't have any context to it all I wrote

01:49:55   I just pasted the URL and I think am I getting it right is it's done a quick look it up

01:50:00   Sorry anybody listening and see it. I don't think I've that made. Yeah, Samsung design tumbler.com

01:50:06   And then you go there and it just said I don't know who did this. It's not me, but it's brilliant. It just says

01:50:12   Original designs by Samsung this blog is dedicated to showcase all the innovative and original designs by Samsung

01:50:20   And then it says there are no posts yet. And did you see which Apple employee favorited that I did

01:50:27   I saw you linked to it today you linked to a screenshot showing that

01:50:32   Somebody I don't know who he is. He's like a some kind of marketing

01:50:37   Or something named Phil Schiller favored it from his Twitter account. Yeah, how did you spot that?

01:50:43   That was that's a good might be a good way to end the show that the thing that got me the thing that made me

01:50:48   Interesting about that. It wasn't that Schiller favorited my tweet. It was that you saw that Schiller favorited my tweet

01:50:54   Oh in the Twitter apps and tweets a car went off. There's an activity tab. It shows you all that kind of stuff

01:50:59   Yeah, but what made you look no activity tab is like it's like a stream of people following favoriting

01:51:06   And I follow both of you so it shouldn't that

01:51:10   Technology huh? Yeah

01:51:14   Well, Mark Gurman, thank you for being on the show. Thanks for having me. It was great. Yeah

01:51:20   I've got to have you back but everybody can follow your your reporting and nine-to-five Mac where you are senior editor

01:51:27   And then on Twitter you have a good Twitter account

01:51:29   Mark with a K

01:51:31   Germin G you are

01:51:33   Man, yeah, you should follow it to John

01:51:36   Do I not follow you? Yeah, when you DM me I couldn't reply says oh shit. Why didn't you tell me?

01:51:42   Hold on a second. I couldn't tell you couldn't reply. Okay, here live live on the show

01:51:46   I'm gonna I'm gonna follow Mark German quite the endorsement

01:51:49   Everybody else as you listen, you should do the same thing mark German. Here we go follow

01:51:55   Now I you know what I how many I don't I follow like four or five hundred people

01:52:00   I just assumed that I was following you. Yeah, but now yeah, I mean, I'm very similar to Gruber it's gonna be

01:52:06   Me talking about the Lakers and basketball over

01:52:09   What's your team Phillies Yankees? Oh the Yankees Yankees. Sorry, but uh, I don't know if you like basketball and Apple

01:52:18   Get a kick out of some stuff. Yeah shoulders a Red Sox man, so I doubt that he favorites many of my tweets

01:52:23   (laughing)

01:52:26   (laughs)