The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► So for anybody who doesn't know, you are Joanna Stern.

00:00:03 ◼   ► This is your first time on the show.

00:00:05 ◼   ► I know.

00:00:05 ◼   ► Thank you for having me.

00:00:06 ◼   ► And the big question is, why can't you hold a job?

00:00:11 ◼   ► It's a good question.

00:00:12 ◼   ► So you were at Engadget.

00:00:14 ◼   ► And then you were a founding member of The Verge.

00:00:17 ◼   ► And then you went to ABC News.

00:00:19 ◼   ► And now you're at The Wall Street Journal.

00:00:22 ◼   ► I mean, is there a problem?

00:00:24 ◼   ► Let's just make sure for the people here, the listeners who don't know me--

00:00:28 ◼   ► I think all those places are very happy with my performance.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I did not live on food stamps at any point in between those jobs.

00:00:37 ◼   ► It was not on unemployment.

00:00:39 ◼   ► But yeah, it's been a good run so far.

00:00:42 ◼   ► Just trying to keep up the good work.

00:00:43 ◼   ► You know what?

00:00:44 ◼   ► I joke that you can't hold a job.

00:00:46 ◼   ► But honestly, I think it's more that you are a perfect example of just how dynamic – and

00:00:53 ◼   ► It's a little inside baseball, but just how dynamic the tech media world is right now.

00:00:59 ◼   ► I mean, everybody is moving around except me.

00:01:02 ◼   ► It's true.

00:01:03 ◼   ► But I agree.

00:01:04 ◼   ► I agree.

00:01:05 ◼   ► And I think one of the really interesting things that I've been learning is sort of

00:01:09 ◼   ► you've got to find the right platform for you.

00:01:13 ◼   ► And sometimes someone like you, and you're very lucky, it's just your own platform.

00:01:20 ◼   ► And I think the great thing about now being at the Journal is it's really interesting

00:01:25 ◼   ► to see the other types of reporting here and sort of the other types of readers that it

00:01:30 ◼   ► brings in, especially with one of the comments we're going to discuss today, like the reaction

00:01:36 ◼   ► to things like that versus if I had written that at ABC News or even written that for

00:01:40 ◼   ► The Verge.

00:01:41 ◼   ► So my goal partially has been to kind of reach a mainstream audience and that's definitely

00:01:48 ◼   ► figuring out which is the right platform.

00:01:50 ◼   ► Right.

00:01:51 ◼   ► And obviously at ABC News, you wrote for them too and they have a website and they have

00:01:58 ◼   ► writing but clearly, I mean, it's just common sense would tell you that video is a huge

00:02:03 ◼   ► part of that.

00:02:05 ◼   ► But you're carrying that over at the journal where your weekly personal tech is always

00:02:10 ◼   ► – or I guess it's always – is it sort of the format where it's always going to

00:02:13 ◼   ► have a video to accompany it?

00:02:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:16 ◼   ► That's why I'm talking a lot about the platform, like what some publications are

00:02:23 ◼   ► wanting to put towards technology coverage and the journalist is really putting a lot

00:02:26 ◼   ► of great resources right now into technology coverage and around video, not only just great

00:02:32 ◼   ► reporting and good reviews and that kind of stuff, but also around video.

00:02:36 ◼   ► So I'm sort of spearheading some of the video plans out of New York.

00:02:41 ◼   ► Every column has sort of my signature video style which I keep working on as we keep doing

00:02:47 ◼   ► these every week and we're doing some other video series.

00:02:50 ◼   ► So yeah, videos supposed to be the next big thing in publishing.

00:02:56 ◼   ► People feel like I've been saying that for 15 years or since the internet has started.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Dave Asprey I believe it and I know that like I said,

00:03:03 ◼   ► you were one of the founding members there but The Verge clearly is a big part of that

00:03:08 ◼   ► too where their product reviews are always accompanied by a video and the

00:03:13 ◼   ► video stands on its own it's not just the the reviewer reading their review

00:03:18 ◼   ► you know it's it's a standalone piece in their case I I think in most cases the

00:03:24 ◼   ► video is actually better at least as a as an overview of the product then then

00:03:30 ◼   ► the review itself the review review is almost more like the let's get into the

00:03:35 ◼   ► the nitty-gritty director's commentary.

00:03:37 ◼   ► - Totally.

00:03:38 ◼   ► And that's sort of what I'm designing here too,

00:03:41 ◼   ► is just have the video stand on its own.

00:03:44 ◼   ► And I think with video,

00:03:46 ◼   ► typically tech video has been shot in some studios

00:03:50 ◼   ► and it's just kind of,

00:03:53 ◼   ► it is very product focused, which it should be.

00:03:54 ◼   ► People wanna watch videos

00:03:56 ◼   ► to see the products you're reviewing,

00:03:57 ◼   ► especially if you happen to be reviewing hardware.

00:03:59 ◼   ► But I just, my mission with some of these videos

00:04:02 ◼   ► and we're just kind of getting started

00:04:03 ◼   ► playing around with it is like shoot these things where you're using technology and when

00:04:09 ◼   ► you're out and about and try and match the subject to what you're talking about.

00:04:14 ◼   ► So yeah, been having fun with it.

00:04:17 ◼   ► And the personal technology thing is going to expand into more of a section?

00:04:24 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:04:25 ◼   ► So next week we're launching – there is a section now, but it's going to have sort

00:04:28 ◼   ► of a new look and feel to it.

00:04:31 ◼   ► So that's really nice.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And again, more focus there on the reviews versus sort of the hardcore tech reporting

00:04:39 ◼   ► that the journal is known for.

00:04:40 ◼   ► We're really trying to push forward that sort of personal tech stuff.

00:04:45 ◼   ► So yeah, me and Jeff Fowler, who write the weekly columns now, and Wilson Rothman, who's

00:04:51 ◼   ► been editing and just doing some great stuff as well.

00:04:54 ◼   ► So we've just got all that kind of rolled up into a new fancy portal that will launch

00:04:58 ◼   ► next Tuesday.

00:04:59 ◼   ► Right, and it is sort of at a high level two very different things, which is one, the breaking

00:05:06 ◼   ► news angle, where it's look, trying to get scoops on things like acquisitions or daily,

00:05:14 ◼   ► you know, keeping up with daily product announcements and stuff like that, versus the personal tech

00:05:21 ◼   ► angle, which is look, here's an actual new product, or here's a couple of them in the

00:05:25 ◼   ► same product category.

00:05:28 ◼   ► Here's how you, a normal person, can make sense of this and maybe think about whether

00:05:36 ◼   ► you want to actually buy this or if you did, how you'd use it, which is a very different

00:05:40 ◼   ► thing.

00:05:41 ◼   ► It is.

00:05:42 ◼   ► It's completely different.

00:05:44 ◼   ► One of the first jobs where I've kind of been separated from the news, I mean obviously

00:05:47 ◼   ► I sit near reporters and I talk to reporters, but my main job is to kind of look around

00:05:52 ◼   ► and see what are the questions that people have about the technology they're using.

00:05:57 ◼   ► To me, I'm really interested in some of the changes and how we adapt to some of the changes.

00:06:01 ◼   ► I know you liked the typo keyboard review.

00:06:03 ◼   ► Of course, that's a little bit of a personal problem that I shared there, my addiction

00:06:07 ◼   ► to hardware keyboards.

00:06:09 ◼   ► But looking, I mean, there was another column I did, which was fun, that was about business

00:06:14 ◼   ► cards.

00:06:15 ◼   ► And I just didn't understand why we keep using these pieces of paper.

00:06:18 ◼   ► We all have phones.

00:06:19 ◼   ► The idea came out of CES because I hadn't had business cards and people kept asking

00:06:23 ◼   ► me like, "Where's your business card?"

00:06:24 ◼   ► And I was like, do you really need a business card to get in touch with me?

00:06:27 ◼   ► And so, yeah, the point is to kind of look at problems we have with our technology, how

00:06:33 ◼   ► do we make them better, problems that just haven't been solved by technology, and then,

00:06:37 ◼   ► of course, just doing the fun gadget reviews too.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:40 ◼   ► The business card thing, I hadn't thought about that, but I have never, still, I mean,

00:06:45 ◼   ► never say never, I guess, but, wait, hold on, let me do the math.

00:06:53 ◼   ► and a half years 11 and a half years into daring fireball I've never made a

00:06:57 ◼   ► business card for it really yeah I would think also you'd have like a really cool

00:07:01 ◼   ► designed business cards you know what you'd be that guy that's the main reason

00:07:06 ◼   ► I don't I never cuz you feel like you can't talk right yeah I've got like

00:07:10 ◼   ► some drafts I've got like like draft designs but but never I feel like it

00:07:15 ◼   ► would be really clean you know maybe you wouldn't even have your name on it

00:07:18 ◼   ► exactly I've thought of that too maybe it's just a card that's gray on both

00:07:22 ◼   ► I thought about that.

00:07:28 ◼   ► I thought about like a playing card.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Gray would be interesting but it doesn't even matter what color is but if it only – it

00:07:33 ◼   ► had nothing printed on it but it did have the star in a circle imprinted on it.

00:07:41 ◼   ► That would be cool too.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:44 ◼   ► But then that seems a little pretentious giving out cards that don't even have any information

00:07:47 ◼   ► on it.

00:07:48 ◼   ► You could just give out free t-shirts.

00:07:51 ◼   ► I've tried that.

00:07:52 ◼   ► Really?

00:07:53 ◼   ► I thought you had to pay for the t-shirts.

00:07:55 ◼   ► No, you do.

00:07:56 ◼   ► You do.

00:07:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:58 ◼   ► I need to buy one.

00:07:59 ◼   ► I'm sorry for not buying one.

00:08:00 ◼   ► I've been too busy trying to hold down jobs.

00:08:02 ◼   ► It is a good point, though, that we don't have a digital interchange for business cards.

00:08:11 ◼   ► It ought to be cross-platform in some way.

00:08:15 ◼   ► But it's not even – what's the word for anti-cross-platform?

00:08:21 ◼   ► There's no Apple way.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Proprietary.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Right.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Yeah, there's no Apple way.

00:08:25 ◼   ► There is the Android way, which is Beam, but that hasn't caught on.

00:08:31 ◼   ► You don't see Android people knocking their phones up against each other at shows.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Even then, it's not Android-wide.

00:08:36 ◼   ► It's certain Android phones that have the Beam.

00:08:39 ◼   ► Yeah, NFC.

00:08:41 ◼   ► I have to say, I was never a huge fan of the Newton, although there were things I liked

00:08:47 ◼   ► about it, but that was one thing that Newton could do from like day one is if

00:08:51 ◼   ► if you happen to meet another person who had a Newton you could exchange

00:08:57 ◼   ► effectively like a digital business card with each other through I think it was

00:09:01 ◼   ► the IR part. And if I and I have to say there was that was a major glaring error

00:09:06 ◼   ► in the column I mean we do have a word count and so I couldn't fit in

00:09:09 ◼   ► everything I wanted but I got the column did incredibly well on our site I mean

00:09:14 ◼   ► just given the audience but also I think it was just this topic people like

00:09:16 ◼   ► hadn't really thought about. And I got like probably 10 emails like, "How could you not

00:09:21 ◼   ► mention Palm?" Because Palm had it too. And like, and I apologize to all of those readers personally.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Yeah, but it seems like something, it is a weird step backwards, and it's just stupid. And there

00:09:35 ◼   ► are solutions to it. And in fact, every time I go to like a trade show, there's somebody there

00:09:40 ◼   ► selling it because that's, it's like ground zero of where you run into the problem, right? Your

00:09:45 ◼   ► pocket is already bulging with cards you've picked up and somebody is hawking a thing,

00:09:51 ◼   ► you know, maybe it's an app. A lot of the times it seems like that's the new way to

00:09:55 ◼   ► do it is you, you know, take a picture of the card with an app and it does OCR and all

00:10:00 ◼   ► of this.

00:10:01 ◼   ► And those work pretty well. I mean that's where I, where I net out at the end of the

00:10:04 ◼   ► – you should watch the video too, I have to say the video. One of the great things

00:10:08 ◼   ► is just like I'm working with this producer here and he's just like, "Yeah, sure, let's

00:10:11 ◼   ► I was like, "I would like to be laying in a bed of business cards."

00:10:15 ◼   ► And he's like, "Okay."

00:10:16 ◼   ► And I'm like, "We will do that shot."

00:10:18 ◼   ► And we did that shot.

00:10:19 ◼   ► So yeah, we had a lot of fun with it.

00:10:20 ◼   ► But yeah, that's where I net out is that we're kind of stuck with these cards now, so the

00:10:25 ◼   ► only way to get rid of them is to scan them.

00:10:27 ◼   ► Dave: All right.

00:10:28 ◼   ► But even then, it just feels like you've picked up a menial, a manual labor job on the side.

00:10:34 ◼   ► It just seems like something you shouldn't have to do in the first place.

00:10:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, and one of them that I reviewed,

00:10:38 ◼   ► the one that's called Card Munch,

00:10:41 ◼   ► which is unfortunately named by LinkedIn,

00:10:43 ◼   ► you have to, you scan it and it then goes

00:10:46 ◼   ► to Amazon's human processing servers or whatever.

00:10:50 ◼   ► - The Mechanical Turk.

00:10:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, and you have to wait 24 hours almost

00:10:56 ◼   ► to get your card back.

00:10:57 ◼   ► And I'm like sitting here, I'm like,

00:10:59 ◼   ► I can write these faster.

00:11:01 ◼   ► Like, and then one of the, well, they got it back

00:11:03 ◼   ► and there was an error.

00:11:06 ◼   ► So it's an area ripe for innovation.

00:11:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, totally.

00:11:12 ◼   ► I don't know how you'd get everybody on board

00:11:15 ◼   ► with something cross platform, but it's, you know.

00:11:18 ◼   ► - NFC, I think, has lags, but there's issues with that.

00:11:22 ◼   ► Of course, the iPhone being the main one.

00:11:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know, it just seems like

00:11:28 ◼   ► it's a problem waiting to be solved.

00:11:30 ◼   ► Let me take a break,

00:11:32 ◼   ► 'cause I have a couple sponsor reviews to fit in,

00:11:35 ◼   ► Let me do the first one and then I want to get back and talk about your piece last week

00:11:40 ◼   ► on tablets for work.

00:11:42 ◼   ► Dr. Sarah Sayeed I want to hear what the sponsor is.

00:11:44 ◼   ► Dave Asprey Our first sponsor is our good friends at

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00:12:04 ◼   ► PDF pen is just a great, great, great PDF app. It's for editing. You can manipulate.

00:12:11 ◼   ► You can get in there, open a PDF, change the text.

00:12:15 ◼   ► They want you to talk about TextExpander? That's not part of it.

00:12:22 ◼   ► Nope. They just want me to. Today, TextExpander is a great app, but today we're just talking

00:12:26 ◼   ► about it.

00:12:27 ◼   ► TextExpander is, I just paid for it.

00:12:28 ◼   ► Just paid for it. Oh, it's wonderful.

00:12:29 ◼   ► I just paid for TextExpander. It's a great app.

00:12:32 ◼   ► It's like a bonus for them that they squeeze that in.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Their newest app, it's almost…

00:12:39 ◼   ► I just said, "Just a disclaimer, Smile does not pay me any money.

00:12:42 ◼   ► Had no idea they were the sponsor."

00:12:43 ◼   ► And now I go back to being quiet.

00:12:45 ◼   ► It's a happy coincidence or happy accident.

00:12:49 ◼   ► What was his name?

00:12:50 ◼   ► Bob, what was that painter?

00:12:51 ◼   ► Remember the guy on PBS?

00:12:53 ◼   ► He had a big afro.

00:12:55 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:12:56 ◼   ► And he passed away a couple of years ago.

00:12:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:00 ◼   ► I didn't even think about this when we were talking about the business cards, but their

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00:13:13 ◼   ► It's a great little user mobile camera as an OCR scanner app.

00:13:19 ◼   ► Great stuff.

00:13:20 ◼   ► PDF Pen Pro for the Mac, which I just used last week for something and it saved my bacon

00:13:27 ◼   ► because I had an old PDF that I didn't have the, I'd made an InDesign years ago

00:13:34 ◼   ► and didn't have the original anymore. Needed to make a minor change to it and

00:13:38 ◼   ► PDF pen Pro saved my bacon on that one because it in about 30 seconds I did

00:13:44 ◼   ► something that would have taken me like half an hour to recreate. Great app for

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00:13:53 ◼   ► Where do you go to find out more about these great apps?

00:13:57 ◼   ► Go to Smilesoftware.com/thetalkshow and they have a new video on that site and it introduces

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00:14:08 ◼   ► So my thanks to Smile.

00:14:12 ◼   ► So last week, you had a piece.

00:14:14 ◼   ► This is the whole idea that it prompted me to ask you to be on the show on using tablets

00:14:20 ◼   ► for work.

00:14:21 ◼   ► I did.

00:14:22 ◼   ► And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but the gist of it is that you have an iPad

00:14:28 ◼   ► for personal use.

00:14:29 ◼   ► You use it at night.

00:14:30 ◼   ► You read with it.

00:14:31 ◼   ► You watch movies with it.

00:14:32 ◼   ► You watch video.

00:14:34 ◼   ► And then you go to bed and you wake up in the morning and it's time for work and you

00:14:37 ◼   ► pull out a real laptop with a keyboard and I guess a MacBook probably, right?

00:14:43 ◼   ► An Air, yeah.

00:14:44 ◼   ► But regardless, it's a little bit more—

00:14:45 ◼   ► Also one of the demands I made when I came to the journal.

00:14:50 ◼   ► Was that an issue?

00:14:51 ◼   ► Well, you know, this was an issue at ABC too.

00:14:54 ◼   ► These are primarily these larger media companies and most companies have our PC world.

00:15:01 ◼   ► Not the magazine, but you know, they're they're a Windows PC world.

00:15:07 ◼   ► It's in its, everybody talks about bring your own device as a mobile thing.

00:15:11 ◼   ► But I think it's sort of turning into a like, laptops are sort of counting as mobile in

00:15:16 ◼   ► that regard now.

00:15:17 ◼   ► Yeah, at ABC, actually, interestingly, and here, there's actually a lot more

00:15:20 ◼   ► I also sit with the video guys and there's a ton of Macs.

00:15:23 ◼   ► Obviously, they've got iMacs and lots of fancy stuff.

00:15:27 ◼   ► But at ABC, so many desks, and this is kind of to the point,

00:15:33 ◼   ► either some people had iPads that they were using, right,

00:15:35 ◼   ► and they were definitely personal,

00:15:36 ◼   ► or they were using their Macs on the side

00:15:39 ◼   ► of their terrible towers at their desks,

00:15:43 ◼   ► at terrible HP old towers

00:15:45 ◼   ► that had just gotten upgraded from XP.

00:15:48 ◼   ► - Wow, wow.

00:15:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, definitely a much better situation here

00:15:52 ◼   ► in terms of tech that everyone has.

00:15:54 ◼   ► - All right, so you spent a week where you tried,

00:15:57 ◼   ► or I guess you did, you spent a week

00:15:59 ◼   ► not using your MacBook for work,

00:16:01 ◼   ► but instead tried to use, you tried out four tablets

00:16:05 ◼   ► as like full-time work devices, an iPad Air,

00:16:08 ◼   ► the Surface-- - Yeah, with the Logitech.

00:16:11 ◼   ► - The Surface 2,

00:16:13 ◼   ► which is the full version of Windows, right?

00:16:19 ◼   ► Yep. The Lumia. I'm gonna get the number wrong. 2520. You got it. Stupid name, which is running

00:16:28 ◼   ► the Windows RT. And last but not least, the brand new galaxy mega pad. What's it called?

00:16:38 ◼   ► That? Yes, the galaxy mega super plan. It's the galaxy note 12.2. Right. Things you can

00:16:47 ◼   ► only learn when you've had to say that a number of times.

00:16:50 ◼   ► Right. And I really enjoyed the piece because I feel like it's one of those third rail topics

00:16:58 ◼   ► which is the tablets are for consumption, not for creation. And people can exaggerate

00:17:07 ◼   ► that to a great degree, I think. And I've linked many times over the years, I linked

00:17:12 ◼   ► to people doing amazing creative work on an iPad and you know,

00:17:17 ◼   ► like bring that up sarcastically.

00:17:19 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:17:20 ◼   ► - But I also--

00:17:21 ◼   ► - It's also by the way like,

00:17:23 ◼   ► and what I think one of the best Apple commercials in years,

00:17:26 ◼   ► the new, I guess it's what it's the verse,

00:17:28 ◼   ► I don't know what the name of it is.

00:17:30 ◼   ► - Right.

00:17:30 ◼   ► - And that's the premise of that video to me, right?

00:17:33 ◼   ► Is that look at all these things people are doing,

00:17:35 ◼   ► they're not in that video, they're not watching Netflix.

00:17:38 ◼   ► - Right.

00:17:38 ◼   ► - They're not chatting, they're doing awesome things

00:17:40 ◼   ► on awesome apps that were mostly made for specific types of work.

00:17:45 ◼   ► Dave Asprey Right.

00:17:46 ◼   ► But I think though that that ad, I think it's a great ad.

00:17:49 ◼   ► I do agree too.

00:17:50 ◼   ► But I also think that it shows that a lot, if not most of the things that you could call

00:17:58 ◼   ► work or creation that you can do on tablets are things that weren't really good or still

00:18:06 ◼   ► aren't good for doing with a laptop.

00:18:08 ◼   ► It's new things, right?

00:18:10 ◼   ► It's like, I don't know, one of the examples, there's a hockey team and they've got some

00:18:14 ◼   ► kind of app.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:18:16 ◼   ► And they're using the camera and they're showing this and they've got like a play or something

00:18:20 ◼   ► and the guy can draw on the screen.

00:18:24 ◼   ► It wouldn't make any sense at all.

00:18:25 ◼   ► It seems totally natural that the coach is right there on the ice with an iPad in his

00:18:30 ◼   ► hand and it would look ridiculous if he was there holding a laptop.

00:18:34 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:18:35 ◼   ► And there's the other one there on some mountain and they've got some sort of map app running

00:18:40 ◼   ► Yeah. There's a yeah, no, I totally agree with you that you don't see any scenes there. Actually,

00:18:49 ◼   ► there is because I did watch the commercial very carefully when I was writing this piece,

00:18:52 ◼   ► I thought about sort of leading with it. There is a scene where there is somebody doing some sort of,

00:18:57 ◼   ► you assume a suit working on his iPad in the airport.

00:19:01 ◼   ► some sort. But when you talk about the type of work that people have been doing for 15-20 years

00:19:13 ◼   ► on PCs and you know broadly speaking Mac and Windows those things largely I think are not as

00:19:22 ◼   ► as for most of us especially those of us with the habits ingrained are not as it's not as easy to

00:19:29 ◼   ► to use an iPad or any other tablet for those things?

00:19:33 ◼   ► Lauren: Yeah, absolutely.

00:19:35 ◼   ► That was the challenge for me.

00:19:38 ◼   ► I actually hid my air under my bed because I knew I would be really, really tempted to

00:19:43 ◼   ► keep going and grab it because basically the story of my life is I'm sitting on my couch,

00:19:48 ◼   ► I'm watching something, I'm on my iPad, then some sort of urgent email comes in or

00:19:53 ◼   ► my last job there's some sort of urgent news.

00:19:55 ◼   ► I grab my laptop.

00:19:56 ◼   ► I have to write the article super fast, or I'm writing something really fast.

00:20:00 ◼   ► I'm toggling between a photo app or something like that.

00:20:04 ◼   ► And it's just, it's my second, it's not even second, it's just, I've got to get on my laptop.

00:20:08 ◼   ► I can't do that kind of thing on my iPad.

00:20:11 ◼   ► And you know, I thought a lot of it might be, might have to do with the keyboard.

00:20:16 ◼   ► And that's why I felt like, okay, I'm going to give the iPad a fair shake in this too,

00:20:21 ◼   ► because I want to see if I can actually morph this thing in.

00:20:23 ◼   ► And of course, this isn't the first time I've used an iPad keyboard with my iPad.

00:20:28 ◼   ► But yeah, I came out, you know, really looking at all of these for my typical stuff, which

00:20:34 ◼   ► I don't work in Excel every day.

00:20:37 ◼   ► I write, I surf the web, I look at Twitter, I toggle between all types of apps.

00:20:44 ◼   ► And that's, yeah, that was the kind of the nut of the piece.

00:20:47 ◼   ► Can the iPad fit in there?

00:20:49 ◼   ► Or can any of these tablets fit in there?

00:20:53 ◼   ► And what was your bottom line?

00:20:57 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, it depended on,

00:21:00 ◼   ► so the way I broke it down actually was looking at

00:21:04 ◼   ► specifically by each type of category,

00:21:06 ◼   ► the things that I felt that my laptop

00:21:08 ◼   ► still does better than these tablets.

00:21:11 ◼   ► I felt like that was kind of the fair way

00:21:13 ◼   ► to look at these all.

00:21:14 ◼   ► So that was multitasking, that was text input,

00:21:18 ◼   ► so the keyboard, app selection,

00:21:19 ◼   ► and then performance and battery life,

00:21:21 ◼   ► the fact that people still think their computers are going to be faster.

00:21:26 ◼   ► And so on each of them, it really did come that Windows 8, whether you want to consider

00:21:32 ◼   ► it a tablet operating system or whatever they have, I'm not sure they know anymore, did

00:21:41 ◼   ► come out ahead, especially in multitasking.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Samsung did some interesting things on top of Android, I think, to push multitasking

00:21:48 ◼   ► on top of some of the features Google already has natively.

00:21:53 ◼   ► So in most cases, Windows did come out ahead,

00:21:56 ◼   ► and especially in app selection

00:21:59 ◼   ► where you tried some VPN stuff,

00:22:01 ◼   ► and there is actually a lot of stuff

00:22:03 ◼   ► that they now have for the iPad

00:22:05 ◼   ► that you can't get as a Metro app,

00:22:06 ◼   ► so there's that sort of hesitation.

00:22:09 ◼   ► And then speed, yes, the Surface 2

00:22:11 ◼   ► has this crazy processor inside.

00:22:14 ◼   ► You're basically looking at a laptop inside of a tablet,

00:22:16 ◼   ► But in the end, that's the perfect example where you've got lots of sacrifices for

00:22:21 ◼   ► the fact that you're trying to cram in all of these traditional quote-unquote traditional

00:22:26 ◼   ► features into a tablet.

00:22:28 ◼   ► And in Edit Outware, I don't want to give up my iPad because it's a better tablet

00:22:32 ◼   ► than all of these, and I don't want to give up my laptop or the MacBook Air because it's

00:22:36 ◼   ► a better laptop than all of these.

00:22:38 ◼   ► DAVE BROWN I do think, and I have to admit, I mean I've

00:22:41 ◼   ► - I've used both versions of the Surface,

00:22:44 ◼   ► and I'm familiar with it,

00:22:45 ◼   ► although I'm not with Windows 8.1.

00:22:48 ◼   ► But I, you know, with the,

00:22:51 ◼   ► I forget what they call it,

00:22:52 ◼   ► but when you tile the two things on screen.

00:22:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, the two apps side by side.

00:22:55 ◼   ► - Right.

00:22:56 ◼   ► - I love that.

00:22:57 ◼   ► - But it works in a way

00:23:01 ◼   ► because it was part of the fundamental design of Metro.

00:23:06 ◼   ► I know they don't call it Metro anymore,

00:23:08 ◼   ► but the whole, you know, it debuted with that feature,

00:23:11 ◼   ► where you can lock an app like 50/50 and share the screen,

00:23:16 ◼   ► or you could just have, like for example,

00:23:18 ◼   ► a Twitter app is a perfect example of something

00:23:20 ◼   ► that you could give just one third of the screen to.

00:23:23 ◼   ► And it's not at our, you can't, it's not like Windows,

00:23:27 ◼   ► not lowercase W Windows on Windows,

00:23:31 ◼   ► on capital W Windows or Mac,

00:23:33 ◼   ► where you can drag it to any arbitrary size.

00:23:35 ◼   ► There's a couple of set sizes you can snap

00:23:38 ◼   ► the multiple apps on screen too.

00:23:41 ◼   ► And then developers just know that we need to handle

00:23:45 ◼   ► full screen case, half screen, and third screen.

00:23:47 ◼   ► - Exactly. - And two-thirds screen.

00:23:50 ◼   ► And to me, that works in a way that the,

00:23:53 ◼   ► that Samsung's solution doesn't.

00:23:57 ◼   ► I have to admit, I haven't used the Galaxy MegaPad.

00:24:00 ◼   ► But just looking at it and knowing that the apps

00:24:04 ◼   ► have to be like specifically written to support that

00:24:06 ◼   ► because it's not an Android standard feature.

00:24:09 ◼   ► It's--

00:24:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was something, yeah, yeah.

00:24:12 ◼   ► And there's major resolution issues on some of the apps

00:24:16 ◼   ► and even with some of the apps that Samsung has worked on,

00:24:18 ◼   ► there's some flaky stuff.

00:24:20 ◼   ► - So here's a, I have a question for you.

00:24:22 ◼   ► So is the web browser on the Galaxy Note Pro,

00:24:26 ◼   ► is it their own browser, like just called browser,

00:24:30 ◼   ► or is it Chrome?

00:24:32 ◼   ► - No, they have both.

00:24:33 ◼   ► Does Chrome support the crazy windowing,

00:24:37 ◼   ► snapping it to within a window thing?

00:24:40 ◼   ► - Well, see, they don't have a necessarily set snappy thing.

00:24:44 ◼   ► You can drag around the size.

00:24:47 ◼   ► It is very similar to Windows,

00:24:50 ◼   ► the traditional desktop windows

00:24:53 ◼   ► where you can resize the size of the window.

00:24:55 ◼   ► No, they use, it's just the stock Android browser,

00:25:02 ◼   ► not Chrome.

00:25:03 ◼   ► Right, and so if you do launch Chrome, Chrome is going to run like it does on a regular

00:25:08 ◼   ► Android device and that's full screen.

00:25:11 ◼   ► Yes, though I think you can put it in its like… no, because they have the split screen.

00:25:20 ◼   ► It's weird, right?

00:25:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean they force you towards using the internet, which says internet, it's

00:25:28 ◼   ► browser.

00:25:29 ◼   ► It's just assuming it's a stock Android browser.

00:25:31 ◼   ► the one that they have in their multitasking pane.

00:25:34 ◼   ► And, you know, I don't think it's any secret that the best browser for Android is Chrome.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:41 ◼   ► Right?

00:25:42 ◼   ► It's not just, you know, the internet one is really just sort of a...

00:25:45 ◼   ► Oh, it's like their leftover.

00:25:46 ◼   ► Right.

00:25:47 ◼   ► It's WebKit, but it doesn't have all that stuff that people love with Chrome, like tab

00:25:51 ◼   ► syncing and stuff like that.

00:25:55 ◼   ► And it just, to me, it's the fundamental problem with an effort like that where it's just not

00:26:00 ◼   ► baked into the platform.

00:26:03 ◼   ► Yeah, and I mean, I said in the column, like, Samsung's doing some interesting things on

00:26:07 ◼   ► top of Android.

00:26:11 ◼   ► I do knock them in the piece for just their usual, it looks like crap in a lot of places.

00:26:21 ◼   ► But the idea that you can kind of minimize apps and drag them around.

00:26:25 ◼   ► So interesting way of thinking about it sort of reminded me of the Facebook chat head thing.

00:26:29 ◼   ► you can kind of move the little circles around.

00:26:31 ◼   ► And if I close one app, if I hit the minimize,

00:26:35 ◼   ► I can then go tap the other circle

00:26:37 ◼   ► and open that full screen.

00:26:39 ◼   ► I actually didn't use so much of,

00:26:41 ◼   ► I mean, they say you can put four apps on the screen

00:26:43 ◼   ► at the same time.

00:26:44 ◼   ► I would have never really did that.

00:26:45 ◼   ► I just, it was mostly two.

00:26:48 ◼   ► - All right.

00:26:49 ◼   ► - But still, I mean, I have to say, you know,

00:26:51 ◼   ► the where I came out from looking at a lot of these things

00:26:56 ◼   ► was really hoping that I would get better multitasking

00:27:01 ◼   ► features on my iPad, that that would be the dream scenario.

00:27:04 ◼   ► And that's where I think I could end up doing much more of,

00:27:08 ◼   ► you know, my quote unquote work on my iPad

00:27:10 ◼   ► if I had the ability to toggle between apps in a better way,

00:27:14 ◼   ► if I had the ability to put my email on one side

00:27:17 ◼   ► and see, you know, my Google Doc or whatever.

00:27:22 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I think you get a lot of the way there

00:27:25 ◼   ► I mean with two at a time, you know.

00:27:30 ◼   ► - I do too, yeah.

00:27:32 ◼   ► - A thing where you're writing

00:27:33 ◼   ► and a thing on the side where you're reading

00:27:34 ◼   ► or a movie or a baseball game

00:27:37 ◼   ► or something that you've got in a video on one side

00:27:40 ◼   ► and the thing you're, you know,

00:27:41 ◼   ► the email you're responding to on the other side.

00:27:43 ◼   ► But two gets you a lot of the way there.

00:27:46 ◼   ► - Absolutely, and look, I'm not saying,

00:27:48 ◼   ► even in that case, you know,

00:27:49 ◼   ► I happen to do a lot of things on my computer

00:27:52 ◼   ► even though it doesn't sound like I do,

00:27:53 ◼   ► but I just, I live in expose,

00:27:56 ◼   ► I'm constantly flicking between apps

00:27:58 ◼   ► and using the trackpad.

00:27:59 ◼   ► So I think even then I'm not sure,

00:28:04 ◼   ► but I think I'd feel much more confident working on my iPad

00:28:07 ◼   ► for a much longer period of time

00:28:09 ◼   ► if I had just a little bit more to lean on for multitasking.

00:28:13 ◼   ► - You know, the one thing that really gets me,

00:28:15 ◼   ► and I say this as somebody, like I said before,

00:28:17 ◼   ► I've long been, as soon as I saw the iPad,

00:28:21 ◼   ► I really foresaw a bright future for it.

00:28:25 ◼   ► But I didn't know, like on the marketplace,

00:28:27 ◼   ► I thought this is gonna be great for most people.

00:28:31 ◼   ► I didn't know from the get-go

00:28:32 ◼   ► whether it would be great for me.

00:28:34 ◼   ► And it still isn't really for what I would consider work.

00:28:37 ◼   ► I love it, for example, for triaging email.

00:28:41 ◼   ► Like, you know, I've got 60 unread emails.

00:28:44 ◼   ► Go through them on the iPad first

00:28:46 ◼   ► and just archive all the ones I don't need to respond to.

00:28:49 ◼   ► But then I go to my Mac when I wanna write

00:28:52 ◼   ► the ones I have to write. - Right, you wanna sit down

00:28:53 ◼   ► and hammer out stuff.

00:28:55 ◼   ► - 'Cause I am a terrible iPad typist on the glass.

00:29:00 ◼   ► - Same.

00:29:00 ◼   ► - But I-- - I've gotten much better.

00:29:02 ◼   ► - I know for a fact, though,

00:29:04 ◼   ► that that's just me being stubborn old crotchety.

00:29:07 ◼   ► I know how to type on a clicky keyboard

00:29:09 ◼   ► and that's what I learned

00:29:10 ◼   ► and I'm not gonna learn to do anything else.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Like kids and teenagers are typing faster

00:29:17 ◼   ► than I type on a real keyboard on the glass.

00:29:20 ◼   ► It's a problem that's, you know, it's just a habit.

00:29:25 ◼   ► - Generational.

00:29:26 ◼   ► - Right.

00:29:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean that's what you actually had ended up

00:29:28 ◼   ► saying about that typo keyboard that your son

00:29:32 ◼   ► thought it was insane.

00:29:33 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

00:29:34 ◼   ► That's the little snap-on thing for the iPhone

00:29:39 ◼   ► that gives it like a Blackberry style keyboard.

00:29:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:29:42 ◼   ► And I actually, you know, in this piece,

00:29:44 ◼   ► I did do typing tests on all of these laptop keyboards.

00:29:47 ◼   ► And that was another place, you know,

00:29:49 ◼   ► as much as you can say this mega tablet,

00:29:52 ◼   ► you know, this mega pad is big,

00:29:55 ◼   ► the fact that you get the wider screen real estate

00:29:57 ◼   ► gives you a wider keyboard.

00:29:59 ◼   ► So I was able to type slightly better on that,

00:30:02 ◼   ► though still the Surface just has a better keyboard.

00:30:06 ◼   ► And so I was able to type 92 words per minute

00:30:10 ◼   ► on my laptop, on my Air,

00:30:12 ◼   ► but I was sort of down in the 80s on the Samsung keyboard,

00:30:16 ◼   ► which is made by Zag and is not made very well.

00:30:19 ◼   ► And then the Surface keyboard,

00:30:20 ◼   ► which actually feels a lot better,

00:30:22 ◼   ► even though it's narrower.

00:30:24 ◼   ► - Right, though I think this whole area is so fascinating

00:30:27 ◼   ► and it's such an exciting time

00:30:30 ◼   ► to be writing about technology

00:30:31 ◼   ► 'cause we don't know how it's gonna turn out.

00:30:33 ◼   ► And I feel like 10 years from now,

00:30:34 ◼   ► and there's gonna be a lot of answers to these questions.

00:30:37 ◼   ► But there's so many trade-offs involved.

00:30:41 ◼   ► - Totally.

00:30:41 ◼   ► form factor wise, ideally you get good at typing on the glass keyboard on any of these

00:30:48 ◼   ► devices because like you showed in the video, there's a real fundamental difference between

00:30:54 ◼   ► the literal word laptop and using one of these tablets on a keyboard on your lap because

00:31:01 ◼   ► it doesn't work, right?

00:31:02 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Oh, no.

00:31:04 ◼   ► It's like it's really frustrating for someone like me who does spend a lot of time on the

00:31:08 ◼   ► couch and you're just like this thing is either digging into my leg or it's falling off or

00:31:14 ◼   ► yeah.

00:31:16 ◼   ► And when I'm on an airplane, I like to type with my MacBook on my – literally on my

00:31:23 ◼   ► lap, not on the tray because the tray, I feel like I'm up there at like my chin level.

00:31:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:28 ◼   ► And then you're screwed when somebody puts their seat back.

00:31:30 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:31:31 ◼   ► Even with MacBook Air, it can be a problem when they tilt back.

00:31:35 ◼   ► So I do like to type on my actual lap, lap.

00:31:39 ◼   ► And same thing with a lot of conferences.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Any conference where you go to,

00:31:43 ◼   ► where it's just chairs without any kind of desk

00:31:46 ◼   ► in front of you, if you wanna type notes,

00:31:47 ◼   ► you've gotta type on your lap.

00:31:50 ◼   ► And there's just no way to do that

00:31:52 ◼   ► with these tablets and a third-party keyboard.

00:31:55 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I actually think like,

00:32:01 ◼   ► and I didn't get into that in this piece,

00:32:03 ◼   ► but when you think about all this quote unquote innovation

00:32:05 ◼   ► that's gone on with some of these Windows tablets,

00:32:09 ◼   ► laptop, laplets, whatever they've all been called,

00:32:13 ◼   ► things like the Lenovo Yoga and the twisting screens

00:32:17 ◼   ► and all of those kind of things.

00:32:18 ◼   ► I mean, sometimes the form factor makes sense

00:32:21 ◼   ► with one of those,

00:32:21 ◼   ► but there's just too many compromises with those.

00:32:24 ◼   ► - Well, like what?

00:32:28 ◼   ► - Well, the fact that you've got a tablet

00:32:30 ◼   ► locked on top of a keyboard

00:32:32 ◼   ► and you can never take the keyboard off.

00:32:34 ◼   ► - Oh, exactly, right.

00:32:35 ◼   ► - Or that you've got a track pad

00:32:38 ◼   ► sitting on the opposite side of your leg.

00:32:39 ◼   ► Like, why do I have a track pad on the back of my leg?

00:32:42 ◼   ► Like, it's weird.

00:32:43 ◼   ► - Exactly, right.

00:32:45 ◼   ► - I'm happy to get a track pad implanted in my leg,

00:32:47 ◼   ► but like, eh, I don't know if, you know,

00:32:49 ◼   ► it's trying to combine these two into the situation

00:32:53 ◼   ► where again, it comes back to,

00:32:55 ◼   ► and I've reviewed a number of these,

00:32:57 ◼   ► and there are sometimes,

00:32:58 ◼   ► you do feel like this is a really good laptop,

00:33:01 ◼   ► But you never really feel like this is a really good tablet.

00:33:03 ◼   ► - Right.

00:33:04 ◼   ► Now the other trade-off,

00:33:06 ◼   ► here's another one of those trade-offs that's involved,

00:33:08 ◼   ► is when you are typing on the glass.

00:33:11 ◼   ► And then that does allow you to type with the device

00:33:14 ◼   ► if you're good at it, you know,

00:33:15 ◼   ► you can type with it on your lap.

00:33:17 ◼   ► Half your screen is taken up by the keyboard.

00:33:20 ◼   ► So that's, you know, there's clearly a big trade-off there

00:33:22 ◼   ► where if you do use an external keyboard,

00:33:25 ◼   ► whether it's, you know, like the Surface

00:33:27 ◼   ► where it's a cover and it connects,

00:33:30 ◼   ► or if you're using one of the ones that doesn't even connect like a cover, just a Bluetooth

00:33:35 ◼   ► keyboard.

00:33:36 ◼   ► Either way, you keep the full screen available for the content, which is a huge advantage.

00:33:40 ◼   ► Marie Forleo Right.

00:33:41 ◼   ► You're not scrolling as much to see two lines above in your email.

00:33:45 ◼   ► Dave Asprey But physically, form factor-wise, the glass

00:33:49 ◼   ► keyboard is what you want to use.

00:33:51 ◼   ► Marie Forleo Yeah, I agree.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Like I said, there's been a lot of innovation in this space or messing with the form factor,

00:33:58 ◼   ► the slide out keyboards, the keyboards that turn,

00:34:01 ◼   ► but then you're, it's just, there's been too many,

00:34:05 ◼   ► too many shortcomings and too many compromises

00:34:07 ◼   ► to make for that.

00:34:09 ◼   ► - So I, my work style is, I don't even have an iPad Air,

00:34:13 ◼   ► I just have iPad Mini and I use it for, you know,

00:34:18 ◼   ► reading and watching.

00:34:20 ◼   ► I don't really type much on it.

00:34:22 ◼   ► You know, tweets, which is about the length

00:34:27 ◼   ► that I'd feel comfortable typing on an iPad.

00:34:30 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I also have the Mini too.

00:34:32 ◼   ► The Air I just brought in for this,

00:34:33 ◼   ► but I mean, it's more portable for me

00:34:36 ◼   ► to take the Mini on the train every morning.

00:34:38 ◼   ► - But I do, like when I travel to cover a conference

00:34:41 ◼   ► or a press event or something like that,

00:34:43 ◼   ► I don't feel burdened by it.

00:34:45 ◼   ► I feel like different devices for different uses.

00:34:49 ◼   ► I don't mind carrying both an iPad and a MacBook.

00:34:53 ◼   ► - No, me neither.

00:34:55 ◼   ► I mean, I also carry a million other things though,

00:34:58 ◼   ► so I'm not really the person there.

00:35:02 ◼   ► And I did get some flack for this column

00:35:07 ◼   ► in the sense that, well, the iPad is just good enough

00:35:09 ◼   ► for most people.

00:35:11 ◼   ► And I think that's interesting.

00:35:15 ◼   ► You had just covered the, is it Benedict Evans piece?

00:35:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:35:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's a really,

00:35:22 ◼   ► it comes down to asking these questions,

00:35:24 ◼   ► questions that he brings up that I kind of forgot about that we used to ask about desktops

00:35:28 ◼   ► versus laptops, right?

00:35:29 ◼   ► Like what are you doing with it?

00:35:30 ◼   ► How much power do you need?

00:35:33 ◼   ► And there are these situations where, yeah, the iPad is probably just good enough for

00:35:39 ◼   ► most people.

00:35:40 ◼   ► My mom still travels only with her first generation iPad.

00:35:42 ◼   ► Dave Asprey I believe it.

00:35:45 ◼   ► Rachel Teagle Yeah.

00:35:46 ◼   ► She loves it for email and she's actually very fast on it.

00:35:48 ◼   ► Dave Asprey Well, that's the thing that struck me right

00:35:51 ◼   ► from the first one when they unveiled it in 2010 and we saw the event and then we had

00:35:57 ◼   ► the hands-on area.

00:35:59 ◼   ► I thought this is it.

00:36:00 ◼   ► This is a computer that everybody can understand.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Here's your apps.

00:36:06 ◼   ► You open an app.

00:36:07 ◼   ► It gets the screen and everything on the screen is something you can see that you can touch.

00:36:12 ◼   ► To me, it was so clearly this is a computer that won't confuse people.

00:36:17 ◼   ► And I think, you know, and you remember 2010 for me was when I was in the height of covering

00:36:23 ◼   ► netbooks, right?

00:36:25 ◼   ► And so I was hesitant, I wasn't as clear on seeing that.

00:36:32 ◼   ► And I think of course, Apple, I mean, the story has been written, we know what happens.

00:36:37 ◼   ► The iPad has become the alternative for netbooks.

00:36:40 ◼   ► There's no doubt that in that in between area, like I've just described about my mom and

00:36:44 ◼   ► people who just do some light work on the go are completely fine with the iPad.

00:36:48 ◼   ► Dave Asprey Right. Yeah, and it was even in hindsight,

00:36:52 ◼   ► I think, I think it was even though Steve Jobs was still there, in that netbook run-up,

00:37:01 ◼   ► when they would ask like on the quarterly conference calls, you know, what are you guys

00:37:05 ◼   ► going to do about these netbooks? I think it was always Tim Cook because Cook was the

00:37:08 ◼   ► one who was always on the calls. Jobs usually wasn't and he would just say, "We have an

00:37:13 ◼   ► an interesting idea in that regard.

00:37:15 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:37:16 ◼   ► And you know, I think--

00:37:19 ◼   ► - But it's not a $400 MacBook.

00:37:22 ◼   ► - Right.

00:37:25 ◼   ► - But I do, it's definitely the same use case of--

00:37:29 ◼   ► - It's the same use case, and then you think,

00:37:30 ◼   ► really, Microsoft, who actually hated netbooks, right,

00:37:34 ◼   ► cut into their bottom line, 'cause they didn't like

00:37:36 ◼   ► selling the licenses for less.

00:37:39 ◼   ► They, like, you know, and I've said this,

00:37:41 ◼   ► Like they've kept trying to reinvent the netbook

00:37:43 ◼   ► into these Windows 8 tablets.

00:37:46 ◼   ► And that's not quite working for them.

00:37:49 ◼   ► - Right, I think that it's, there's a purist in me,

00:37:54 ◼   ► and I think your column touches on it,

00:37:57 ◼   ► where it does seem somewhat wasteful

00:37:59 ◼   ► that we're carrying too many gadgets.

00:38:02 ◼   ► Why can't we have, there's some way it just feels

00:38:06 ◼   ► like there ought to be a way to have just one thing

00:38:09 ◼   ► that's roughly 11 or 10 inches diagonal

00:38:14 ◼   ► and it's the only computer you need of that size.

00:38:17 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I mean I was having dinner

00:38:19 ◼   ► with David Pierce from The Verge a couple weeks ago

00:38:21 ◼   ► and we said like, well what if Apple did make

00:38:25 ◼   ► some sort of iPad for work, right?

00:38:28 ◼   ► Would that make a difference to us?

00:38:30 ◼   ► Like would we use that?

00:38:32 ◼   ► And you know, then we kind of started thinking,

00:38:34 ◼   ► well we have so much that we love

00:38:36 ◼   ► about the Mac operating system,

00:38:38 ◼   ► What if, and then we just started describing it,

00:38:40 ◼   ► we're like, well then we just described the 11 inch air.

00:38:43 ◼   ► - Right.

00:38:44 ◼   ► - You know, we kinda came back to like,

00:38:45 ◼   ► oh, well what if the 11 inch air

00:38:46 ◼   ► could get its screen taken off?

00:38:48 ◼   ► Like we could take the screen off, you know?

00:38:49 ◼   ► And so it's like, well then we're back to square one,

00:38:52 ◼   ► which is, we want the iPad, right?

00:38:54 ◼   ► And then we, like I kinda said, well like,

00:38:57 ◼   ► everyone's been trying to do this forever

00:38:59 ◼   ► and there's too many compromises

00:39:01 ◼   ► of when you take the screen off and you dock it

00:39:03 ◼   ► and it's a different operating system, it's just a mess.

00:39:05 ◼   ► - Right.

00:39:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, and then it's, you know, there's all these blurring in the lines and I get

00:39:12 ◼   ► a, we've been getting a lot of questions like, do I need this phablet if I have a tablet?

00:39:16 ◼   ► Do I have a phone?

00:39:18 ◼   ► Can I get rid of one if I have the other?

00:39:20 ◼   ► So it's no doubt that one of these next big type of trends is how do we consolidate these

00:39:27 ◼   ► into one or two devices?

00:39:31 ◼   ► It just seems to me that in the abstract sense, it seems like there should be just one device.

00:39:37 ◼   ► And maybe someday soon, there will be.

00:39:41 ◼   ► But in the meantime, in the real world, people don't mind carrying two.

00:39:46 ◼   ► And I see it in airports and on airplanes all the time where there are clearly business

00:39:52 ◼   ► travelers just based on how they're dressed.

00:39:56 ◼   ► And they do something on like ThinkPad or you know, often even now it's more and more

00:40:03 ◼   ► like I noticed a lot of business travelers with Mac books.

00:40:06 ◼   ► But you know, and it's usually a lot of the times if you just you know, nosily looking

00:40:11 ◼   ► over their shoulder, an awful lot of the time it's Excel or Outlook.

00:40:17 ◼   ► Right.

00:40:20 ◼   ► And then they close the lid and take out an iPad for the rest of the flight.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Right.

00:40:25 ◼   ► They actually have an iPhone right well. It doesn't even matter, but rights I see on the plane

00:40:30 ◼   ► And you know they do something that is clearly work related on a notebook

00:40:34 ◼   ► PC and then take out an iPad for the rest right three news or something like that. Yeah, I mean I agree

00:40:43 ◼   ► I think people are are fine, but that that's the dream right the dream is one device

00:40:48 ◼   ► The dream has been this one device or maybe two devices with no compromise

00:40:55 ◼   ► The problem is there's just always too much compromise.

00:40:59 ◼   ► I understand why iOS on the iPad doesn't have multiple apps on screen at once.

00:41:06 ◼   ► Maybe if these rumors of a bigger screen iPad Pro are true, maybe that would involve…

00:41:11 ◼   ► What's the point of making the screen bigger if they're not going to allow more than

00:41:15 ◼   ► one thing on screen at once?

00:41:17 ◼   ► But even then, I wouldn't be shocked if it was still one…

00:41:21 ◼   ► app gets the whole screen because of the simplicity angle and that for maybe 75-80%, maybe even

00:41:27 ◼   ► more of everybody out there, that's good enough because it makes everything simpler.

00:41:35 ◼   ► But the one thing that always gets me when I try to use a keyboard with my iPad is why

00:41:39 ◼   ► Command-Tab doesn't work.

00:41:41 ◼   ► Right, yeah.

00:41:44 ◼   ► No, I mentioned in the piece too.

00:41:47 ◼   ► That would be great for me.

00:41:49 ◼   ► Even if that just took me to whatever it's called where you double tap on the home button.

00:41:54 ◼   ► Right, exactly.

00:41:55 ◼   ► Because they already have that interface.

00:41:57 ◼   ► You can double tap the home button.

00:41:59 ◼   ► In fact, iOS 7 makes it even better where you've got these thumbnails of the windows

00:42:05 ◼   ► that you can go between.

00:42:06 ◼   ► You can peek into them.

00:42:08 ◼   ► That's like a trick I love.

00:42:10 ◼   ► I peek in.

00:42:11 ◼   ► I'm like, "Okay, that's the number that I need to put in this email," or something like

00:42:14 ◼   ► that.

00:42:16 ◼   ► Totally agree.

00:42:17 ◼   ► I really don't understand why, I don't know.

00:42:20 ◼   ► That to me is one of the biggest WTFs of iOS 7,

00:42:25 ◼   ► especially iOS 7.

00:42:26 ◼   ► - When I think about all the features

00:42:28 ◼   ► they've brought from iOS to the Mac OS,

00:42:32 ◼   ► one of them being full screen apps, right?

00:42:36 ◼   ► I don't use it that much, it's useful.

00:42:37 ◼   ► There's of course other features they've brought over.

00:42:40 ◼   ► But if I think about the things that I most want

00:42:42 ◼   ► from my Air or from my Mac OS or from Mavericks

00:42:46 ◼   ► or whatever to come to the iPad.

00:42:49 ◼   ► It's some sort of expose mission control type of thing,

00:42:54 ◼   ► where which is similar to the multitasking view,

00:42:59 ◼   ► where I can see into the apps and tap on them

00:43:02 ◼   ► and easily move between them in an easier way.

00:43:05 ◼   ► And perhaps yes, of course,

00:43:08 ◼   ► see more than one app at the same time.

00:43:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I just, I don't know, I just really,

00:43:14 ◼   ► 'cause I do, I actually hit Command + Tab

00:43:16 ◼   ► when I have a keyboard hooked up to my iPad.

00:43:18 ◼   ► - Really? - 'Cause it's just, yeah.

00:43:20 ◼   ► Because it's like a habit.

00:43:21 ◼   ► - And you use Command + Tab a lot on your Mac.

00:43:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, just nonstop.

00:43:27 ◼   ► I mean, it's just probably one of the most hardwired.

00:43:30 ◼   ► - What kind of Mac do you have?

00:43:31 ◼   ► You use a desktop?

00:43:32 ◼   ► - I have a big external keyboard.

00:43:38 ◼   ► It's a MacBook, but it's connected to an external keyboard.

00:43:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, and see, I'm on Exposé all day long,

00:43:44 ◼   ► like swiping four fingers up on the trackpad all day, which is my way of moving around.

00:43:50 ◼   ► Dave Asprey But either way, I need to switch. I'm writing

00:43:54 ◼   ► an email and I know I want to paste this URL in and I know the URL is right there in Safari

00:44:00 ◼   ► and I know I was just in Safari, so it just feels like one hit of Command Tab should take

00:44:06 ◼   ► me back to Safari.

00:44:07 ◼   ► Lauren Ruffin Right. Or easily be able to get between Safari

00:44:11 ◼   ► and Twitter or whatever you're there.

00:44:13 ◼   ► If they added that to iOS 7, it would come at absolutely no cost to the regular user

00:44:19 ◼   ► who never hooks up a third party keyboard, you know, an external keyboard to their iPad.

00:44:24 ◼   ► Right.

00:44:25 ◼   ► And even if they did, even if a non-technical, typical consumer did connect like a Bluetooth

00:44:32 ◼   ► keyboard to their iPad, wouldn't they expect Command Tab to do that?

00:44:36 ◼   ► I mean, because Command Tab is one of those things that's, yeah, it's a little abstract

00:44:39 ◼   ► and nerdy, but it's so universal.

00:44:41 ◼   ► No, I think it, yeah.

00:44:42 ◼   ► And it does work on that Samsung.

00:44:44 ◼   ► It does work natively in Android.

00:44:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:44:47 ◼   ► It just seems like a glaring hold to me because it's, you know, just, I don't know, I'll shut

00:44:53 ◼   ► up about it.

00:44:54 ◼   ► No, it's a, I mean, also, my dream is also that Apple ends up making one of these keyboards

00:44:59 ◼   ► because these other keyboards are just not very good.

00:45:02 ◼   ► Oh, you mean like a cover?

00:45:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:06 ◼   ► Or something else?

00:45:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, the Logitech is the best that you're going to get, but it's still not very

00:45:10 ◼   ► good.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I lost a bet with somebody at the iPad press event, the most recent one

00:45:20 ◼   ► in October.

00:45:24 ◼   ► I think it was because the invitation – I could be wrong.

00:45:26 ◼   ► I think the invitation, you know how they always put a slogan on it.

00:45:29 ◼   ► It said, "We have a lot to cover."

00:45:30 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:45:31 ◼   ► And everyone thought they were going to have a surface-like cover.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Yep.

00:45:35 ◼   ► I lost like a – I'll bet you a beer bet with somebody.

00:45:38 ◼   ► I think it was Clayton Morris.

00:45:40 ◼   ► I forget.

00:45:41 ◼   ► - I mean, it would have been awesome.

00:45:43 ◼   ► I mean, and Apple sells the Logitech in their stores,

00:45:45 ◼   ► I believe, I think that's the one that they sell.

00:45:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know, I think there's potential there.

00:45:50 ◼   ► You know, to sort of, to bridge this gap,

00:45:54 ◼   ► you know, like, you know, more or less,

00:45:55 ◼   ► there's just this whole middle ground that is sort of,

00:45:58 ◼   ► you know, there's things that are the best for laptops,

00:46:01 ◼   ► and there's things that are clearly the best for tablets,

00:46:04 ◼   ► but there's this middle ground where all of these devices

00:46:07 ◼   ► approach it in some way, but none of them is ideal.

00:46:10 ◼   ► Totally. And you know what, that might be the small thing to me that, you know, one or two features that lets me keep my laptop home for the weekend and go on a trip with just my iPad.

00:46:22 ◼   ► Though, I mean, I sometimes do that anyway when I try and say to myself, "I'm not going to work."

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00:51:53 ◼   ► Here's a question for you.

00:51:55 ◼   ► I've been thinking about this a lot because the last couple of hotels I've stayed in

00:51:59 ◼   ► have had-- it's just different hotels.

00:52:02 ◼   ► But it seems like a standard piece of electronics

00:52:09 ◼   ► now are these bedside table lamps with an AC adapter built into the base

00:52:18 ◼   ► so you can plug.

00:52:19 ◼   ► But they never fit the iPad size adapter.

00:52:25 ◼   ► It doesn't quite fit.

00:52:27 ◼   ► you have to use like the iPhone adapter.

00:52:30 ◼   ► - Right, it's like a very small space

00:52:32 ◼   ► for the prong to fit in.

00:52:33 ◼   ► - Right. - Yeah.

00:52:35 ◼   ► - And it's annoying because a lot of times when I travel,

00:52:38 ◼   ► I don't take a phone size adapter,

00:52:40 ◼   ► I just take the iPad adapter because it's higher wattage

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00:52:45 ◼   ► whereas an iPad doesn't charge on an iPhone.

00:52:48 ◼   ► - Right, it takes forever.

00:52:49 ◼   ► - Right.

00:52:50 ◼   ► But they don't plug into the base.

00:52:53 ◼   ► And it's like, I feel like these hotels, they can't win,

00:52:55 ◼   ► you know, because they, you know, five, six, seven years ago,

00:52:58 ◼   ► they were all putting the 30-pin iPod adapters

00:53:02 ◼   ► on the bedside radios, and now, you know, those things--

00:53:05 ◼   ► - Look, John, I would love to have you file

00:53:08 ◼   ► your thoughts on this.

00:53:09 ◼   ► - Well, here's my question for you.

00:53:10 ◼   ► - For acadaptorreview.com.

00:53:12 ◼   ► - Here's my question for you.

00:53:13 ◼   ► How long do you think--

00:53:14 ◼   ► - Now taking submissions.

00:53:15 ◼   ► - How long is USB, the standard USB port,

00:53:19 ◼   ► going to be with us?

00:53:22 ◼   ► Because wouldn't that be the ideal,

00:53:24 ◼   ► is to have, just have a USB port.

00:53:27 ◼   ► And so you don't even need your adapter,

00:53:28 ◼   ► you would just plug the cable in.

00:53:30 ◼   ► - Right, well they sell the,

00:53:33 ◼   ► like you can rewire the, what's it called,

00:53:36 ◼   ► your outlet to have a USB.

00:53:38 ◼   ► Yeah, they should just have that there for sure.

00:53:40 ◼   ► - That's what I think hotels should do, is put, you know--

00:53:44 ◼   ► - I think I've seen that at some high-end hotel.

00:53:44 ◼   ► - Put a USB slot next to every bed.

00:53:47 ◼   ► And then you don't have to worry

00:53:48 ◼   ► whether they're using iPhone or Android,

00:53:51 ◼   ► because everybody's cable has a USB plug on the one side

00:53:55 ◼   ► and then the phone, whatever plugs into your phone

00:53:58 ◼   ► on the other.

00:53:59 ◼   ► But I worry-- - And then the same USB

00:54:01 ◼   ► will be around with us for a while.

00:54:02 ◼   ► The USB consortium will probably be set if not.

00:54:06 ◼   ► - I think so, but famous, as someone who follows Apple,

00:54:10 ◼   ► it's like, I guess it's never safe to get too attached

00:54:13 ◼   ► to any port. - Yeah.

00:54:16 ◼   ► - But I can't see USB going away.

00:54:19 ◼   ► - Me neither.

00:54:20 ◼   ► I mean, I can't see the standard going away,

00:54:25 ◼   ► but the question is, do they change at some point

00:54:29 ◼   ► the size of the connector because it can be smaller,

00:54:34 ◼   ► because everything can be smaller.

00:54:36 ◼   ► - Right, but it's not too big.

00:54:38 ◼   ► I can't, you know, again, famous last words.

00:54:42 ◼   ► I can't see the MacBook Air getting so thin

00:54:46 ◼   ► that a USB port would be.

00:54:49 ◼   ► Too high.

00:54:52 ◼   ► So I, you know.

00:54:53 ◼   ► We're kind of getting there.

00:54:54 ◼   ► I guess it's kind of close.

00:54:56 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:54:57 ◼   ► But there's, you know, certain minimum distance just for the keyboard to have keys that go

00:55:02 ◼   ► down.

00:55:03 ◼   ► Right.

00:55:04 ◼   ► Right.

00:55:05 ◼   ► So the travel's good.

00:55:06 ◼   ► But maybe that's, you know, part of my lack of foresight is, you know, the fact that I'm

00:55:10 ◼   ► too attached to a keyboard with keys that go down.

00:55:12 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:55:14 ◼   ► But anyway, that's my idea of hotels.

00:55:15 ◼   ► To sum up everything we've talked about.

00:55:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:17 ◼   ► I'll write it up for AC adapter review.

00:55:20 ◼   ► Good.

00:55:20 ◼   ► We're looking forward to having your submission.

00:55:22 ◼   ► Same thing with airplane seats.

00:55:23 ◼   ► They should have USB ports.

00:55:26 ◼   ► Virgin does.

00:55:27 ◼   ► Virgin does.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Everybody should do that.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Does Virgin have it?

00:55:32 ◼   ► Delta has-- does Delta have it?

00:55:36 ◼   ► Well, underneath the seat, they still have the traditional outlet.

00:55:40 ◼   ► Or was I just flying that had a-- hmm.

00:55:45 ◼   ► But yeah, I agree with you.

00:55:47 ◼   ► We should have USB ports everywhere.

00:55:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:50 ◼   ► And it just feels to me like they could do that.

00:55:51 ◼   ► It should be easier to put USB ports on the seats than to put AC adapters.

00:55:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:57 ◼   ► I see USBadapterreview.com.

00:56:00 ◼   ► But I do worry that they're going to take my advice and then by the time they roll it

00:56:04 ◼   ► out in the fleet, USB is going to be antiquated in some way.

00:56:11 ◼   ► So the flip side of this same thing of where tablets for work.

00:56:16 ◼   ► you know.

00:56:17 ◼   ► $15 for USB adapter review.com at Hubber.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Just throwing it out there for any viewers.

00:56:26 ◼   ► The tablets as laptop replacements is I think for obvious reasons, you know, and your review

00:56:33 ◼   ► did so centered around the 9, 10, 11 inch tablets because that's, you know, the size

00:56:40 ◼   ► of a keyboard and the size that we consider for work.

00:56:44 ◼   ► And the using tablets for things but not worrying about replacing a PC laptop side are the small

00:56:52 ◼   ► tablets.

00:56:53 ◼   ► The MacBook, I mean the iPad mini, Nexus 7, the smaller Kindle and probably the better

00:57:03 ◼   ► competition because I don't think any of those have really put too much of a dent in the

00:57:08 ◼   ► market but the bigger thing is the phablet craze.

00:57:12 ◼   ► As much as I hate that word, I really do.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I think there's no doubt though that what is driving the big ass phone market is people

00:57:26 ◼   ► who want the best of – that's one way of consolidating two devices into one.

00:57:33 ◼   ► They want to do tablet-y type things and they need a cell phone and one device with like

00:57:40 ◼   ► a five and a half inch diagonal screen, or even some of these even have like a six inch

00:57:44 ◼   ► screen gets it done. And it's, you know, it's clearly a thing. It's, it's, and I think it's

00:57:54 ◼   ► a huge part of the high end of the Android market.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Definitely, it is definitely a thing. And I just wonder how far of a thing it's going

00:58:02 ◼   ► to be.

00:58:05 ◼   ► And I sit here playing the gender card, which is that I don't necessarily love to hold these

00:58:12 ◼   ► big phones and just find that I just prefer using the 7" to 8" and I think that's a sweet

00:58:21 ◼   ► spot versus a bigger tablet than carrying around this massive phone that I can't really

00:58:27 ◼   ► fit in the back of my pocket.

00:58:30 ◼   ► That said, you're right.

00:58:32 ◼   ► You definitely get more of that screen real estate

00:58:34 ◼   ► when I'm using it.

00:58:35 ◼   ► I've used the Note.

00:58:36 ◼   ► I'm not a huge fan of the pen.

00:58:39 ◼   ► I think it does some interesting things,

00:58:40 ◼   ► but I don't end up using it on a day-to-day basis.

00:58:43 ◼   ► That yes, it does take that place of the tablet,

00:58:46 ◼   ► but I'm not in most of my day-to-day tasks

00:58:49 ◼   ► using my phone for some tablet-y things.

00:58:54 ◼   ► Yeah, do I wanna see more of Google Maps on my screen?

00:58:59 ◼   ► Maybe, yeah, that's actually a good case right there.

00:59:04 ◼   ► But for the most part on my phone all day, I'm like text messaging, looking something

00:59:10 ◼   ► up real quick, and then probably looking at Twitter or some sort of social feed.

00:59:15 ◼   ► Dave Asprey Well, I mentioned a few weeks ago on this show,

00:59:17 ◼   ► I think it was when Jason Fried was on, that it's actually a remarkably similar size.

00:59:23 ◼   ► iPhone 5 or 5s, the screen size, just the screen is about the size of a standard business

00:59:31 ◼   ► card.

00:59:32 ◼   ► It is.

00:59:33 ◼   ► That's one thing I discovered in my business card piece.

00:59:37 ◼   ► And it's interesting if you think about that because you would never read in the old days,

00:59:40 ◼   ► pre-digital.

00:59:41 ◼   ► You wouldn't buy, like if you're getting at the airport, getting on a plane and you're

00:59:45 ◼   ► going to buy a paperback to read.

00:59:47 ◼   ► You wouldn't buy one where the pages were the size of business cards.

00:59:51 ◼   ► But like if you're going to try to read an iBook or a Kindle book on your phone, you're

00:59:55 ◼   ► effectively reading a book with business card size pages.

01:00:00 ◼   ► Whereas, you know, on these really big phones, the five to six-inch phones, you've effectively

01:00:07 ◼   ► got a screen size that's about the size of a small paperback.

01:00:09 ◼   ► Right.

01:00:10 ◼   ► I mean, I think five is not large at all, right?

01:00:14 ◼   ► Five is you're looking at like something like the Galaxy S and the – I happen to think

01:00:20 ◼   ► the 4.7-inch Moto X is the perfect size for a phone.

01:00:23 ◼   ► I love the size of that phone.

01:00:25 ◼   ► I love holding that phone.

01:00:27 ◼   ► It's the six-inch, where then you're making

01:00:30 ◼   ► some of the compromises.

01:00:31 ◼   ► Like you say, paperback, you might put that paperback

01:00:34 ◼   ► in your pocket, or if you've got a bag, no problem.

01:00:36 ◼   ► But it just seems--

01:00:39 ◼   ► - One hand use is out the door at that point.

01:00:40 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:00:41 ◼   ► - I mean, it's not even an argument.

01:00:45 ◼   ► It's, you know, you've really gotta hold it in two hands.

01:00:49 ◼   ► I think even with the new Galaxy S5, which isn't huge by those standards, but it's

01:00:59 ◼   ► big, it seems pretty clear though that they intended to often or largely be used with

01:01:04 ◼   ► two hands just because of the way that the fingerprint scanner works, that you have to

01:01:08 ◼   ► do this swipe down.

01:01:10 ◼   ► There seems like there's no way that you could practically do it while holding it in

01:01:13 ◼   ► one hand.

01:01:14 ◼   ► You kind of need to hold it in one hand and you do your finger with the other hand.

01:01:19 ◼   ► - Right, I guess I think there's these different segmentation, there's a different classification

01:01:26 ◼   ► to these sizes, which is like, I don't think anymore that a 4.5 to 5 inch screen, or 5.1

01:01:34 ◼   ► in the case of the Galaxy S5, is big.

01:01:37 ◼   ► I don't see that and think, oh man, that person has a really big phone.

01:01:40 ◼   ► I think that's normal now.

01:01:42 ◼   ► But I do see someone with the 6-inch HTC, what is it, HTC One Mega or the Samsung Galaxy

01:01:49 ◼   ► S Mega or whatever Samsung, whatever, they're all Mega.

01:01:54 ◼   ► And I see that and I'm like, "That is giant.

01:01:56 ◼   ► That looks like a tablet to me."

01:01:59 ◼   ► Dave: I totally agree.

01:02:02 ◼   ► But it's clear that some people want that.

01:02:04 ◼   ► And it makes sense if you don't want to buy a separate tablet.

01:02:08 ◼   ► Yeah, and as much as I do use my iPad, I do end up looking at a lot of things on my phone.

01:02:19 ◼   ► Sometimes I think there, maybe Apple or some of these companies are just not doing a good

01:02:24 ◼   ► enough job letting me pick up, when I leave my phone, letting me pick up on my iPad.

01:02:33 ◼   ► It's not seamless enough there because I'm like, "Oh, let me just grab my phone because

01:02:36 ◼   ► because I know I was doing something on there or my text was there, my iMessages aren't

01:02:41 ◼   ► always coming through to my iPad.

01:02:44 ◼   ► So there are definitely situations where I spend – I'm laying in bed and I'm looking

01:02:47 ◼   ► at my iPhone more than I am my tablet sometimes.

01:02:50 ◼   ► Dave: I've been thinking about this a lot because I think – I'm willing to try it

01:02:57 ◼   ► but I'm a bigger fan of iOS than I am of iPhone hardware.

01:03:04 ◼   ► So just as a hypothetical, it'll never happen, but as a hypothetical, I would rather use

01:03:09 ◼   ► iOS running on some other device, like say the Nexus 5 hardware.

01:03:16 ◼   ► I'd rather have that hardware running iOS than have Android or Windows Phone running

01:03:24 ◼   ► on an iPhone 5s.

01:03:25 ◼   ► Oh, interesting.

01:03:26 ◼   ► You never knew you felt that way.

01:03:28 ◼   ► No, it's iOS that I'm...

01:03:30 ◼   ► And same way with PCs, I would rather buy, if need be, if I had to choose, I'd rather

01:03:36 ◼   ► have a ThinkPad running Mac OS X than a MacBook running Windows or something else.

01:03:43 ◼   ► Not even close.

01:03:44 ◼   ► I mean, I wouldn't even hesitate on that one.

01:03:45 ◼   ► But you would definitely, definitely rather just have a MacBook Air.

01:03:51 ◼   ► Right, running Mac OS X.

01:03:54 ◼   ► But it's the software that I'm more attached to than the hardware, even though I appreciate

01:03:59 ◼   ► all the details of Apple hardware.

01:04:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's funny.

01:04:03 ◼   ► Well, there's some cases where I would much rather have,

01:04:09 ◼   ► see, I would much rather,

01:04:13 ◼   ► I think I'd just much rather have my iPhones in some cases.

01:04:15 ◼   ► I mean, I really love the hardware of the Moto X.

01:04:18 ◼   ► But yeah, I've been carrying around

01:04:21 ◼   ► both of the Moto X and my iPhone.

01:04:23 ◼   ► - It's an interesting thought experiment though, right?

01:04:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is.

01:04:26 ◼   ► Because-- interesting.

01:04:30 ◼   ► I mean, I wouldn't mind having Android.

01:04:31 ◼   ► If I could bring the iPhone apps and the iPhone camera

01:04:42 ◼   ► to the Moto X--

01:04:43 ◼   ► Yeah, but the camera's hardware.

01:04:46 ◼   ► Yeah, well then why would I get it?

01:04:47 ◼   ► I mean, there's--

01:04:48 ◼   ► All right.

01:04:49 ◼   ► I'm not going to give up my iPhone because of the camera.

01:04:51 ◼   ► Like, the camera is better than any other phone out there.

01:04:54 ◼   ► and I'm, you know, yeah, if the Lumia fans are listening to me, you can find me on Twitter.

01:04:58 ◼   ► Like you know, that's the thing about the Moto X, which is, you know, it's a really

01:05:05 ◼   ► nice phone to use. It integrates way better with my Google services. I just, I really

01:05:09 ◼   ► like using the phone, but like it's not the phone I'm taking out to take a photo.

01:05:14 ◼   ► And I just also don't love the apps that I have on my iPhone feel better.

01:05:18 ◼   ► Well, I say this because I think, you know, and if the rumors are right that Apple is

01:05:24 ◼   ► working on a bigger screen iPhone and I've gone back and forth, I don't know how they're

01:05:29 ◼   ► going to play it.

01:05:30 ◼   ► Is it going to be just like all previous years where here it is, this year's new top of the

01:05:35 ◼   ► line iPhone and now the screen is 4.7 inches diagonal or whatever?

01:05:42 ◼   ► Or are they going to do it like they did with the iPad last year where here's two sizes

01:05:50 ◼   ► of the exact same, you know, the new A8 system on a chip and you don't really, you know,

01:05:55 ◼   ► the same camera, there's no qualitative, you don't have to make a decision on which one's

01:06:00 ◼   ► the higher end machine, you just pick which one's the size you want.

01:06:04 ◼   ► Because I think I'm still going to prefer the smaller size, the four inch size.

01:06:09 ◼   ► I don't think, yeah, I really do.

01:06:11 ◼   ► I'm willing to test it and live with it.

01:06:14 ◼   ► And I'm lucky enough that hopefully I'll get a review unit

01:06:18 ◼   ► and I can try it without actually buying it.

01:06:20 ◼   ► But I'll try to keep an open mind.

01:06:23 ◼   ► But I really like using my iPhone one-handed.

01:06:27 ◼   ► And it's, I don't know, I've always liked gadgets

01:06:29 ◼   ► getting smaller. - But you'll see,

01:06:30 ◼   ► I mean, have you used the Moto X?

01:06:32 ◼   ► - No. - You should.

01:06:35 ◼   ► I just think it is the perfect sized phone.

01:06:39 ◼   ► And it is 4.7, which is the rumor about Apple.

01:06:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have used--

01:06:43 ◼   ► - And I just, I mean, there's,

01:06:45 ◼   ► I'm holding both of the 4.7 inch Moto X,

01:06:49 ◼   ► let me take my case off my iPhone,

01:06:51 ◼   ► and I do not feel a difference in my hand.

01:06:54 ◼   ► They've stretched the screen to the bezel,

01:06:57 ◼   ► and I think, you know, Apple will probably do

01:06:58 ◼   ► some really interesting type of trick.

01:07:00 ◼   ► - To make the actual overall device size smaller.

01:07:05 ◼   ► - I mean, it's like a, you know,

01:07:07 ◼   ► it's probably a half an inch wider than the Moto X.

01:07:12 ◼   ► But if this phone is sitting on a table,

01:07:17 ◼   ► nobody says to me, like, oh, your phone's so big.

01:07:21 ◼   ► You know, like, what's wrong with you?

01:07:22 ◼   ► When I first started carrying around the Galaxy S,

01:07:25 ◼   ► when the 3, you were like, what, your phone's huge.

01:07:29 ◼   ► People have also gotten used to that,

01:07:31 ◼   ► but it doesn't feel that different

01:07:36 ◼   ► than my iPhone 5.

01:07:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I feel like the bigger phones,

01:07:40 ◼   ► it's exactly to me the same sort of socialization progress

01:07:44 ◼   ► that using a full-size tablet as a camera,

01:07:48 ◼   ► you know, that it, as the time goes on,

01:07:51 ◼   ► it just seems sillier and sillier,

01:07:52 ◼   ► or less silly and silly,

01:07:54 ◼   ► because you see so many people doing it

01:07:56 ◼   ► that it becomes normal, you know?

01:07:58 ◼   ► And it's the same thing with these bigger phones,

01:08:00 ◼   ► where at least at the, you know,

01:08:03 ◼   ► in the five inch-ish range, it is normal.

01:08:07 ◼   ► 'Cause you just see so many of them.

01:08:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I mean, who knows?

01:08:11 ◼   ► I mean, now I'm also holding the Galaxy,

01:08:14 ◼   ► sorry, the LG G Flex, which I reviewed a couple weeks ago.

01:08:18 ◼   ► And with the curved screen,

01:08:21 ◼   ► and this has a six inch screen, and it's just huge.

01:08:25 ◼   ► - So I don't know, I really, I talk about this

01:08:30 ◼   ► probably with every other week on this show,

01:08:32 ◼   ► is what is Apple gonna do with this big phone thing?

01:08:35 ◼   ► 'Cause I just don't see them abandoning the four inch size

01:08:40 ◼   ► because it's so popular.

01:08:41 ◼   ► And I know that the reason that people buy,

01:08:45 ◼   ► go into a store and come out with an iPhone

01:08:48 ◼   ► is not just screen size.

01:08:49 ◼   ► It's not that people go in and say,

01:08:50 ◼   ► well, I want a four inch phone.

01:08:52 ◼   ► The dynamics of why people choose which phone they get

01:08:55 ◼   ► are super, super complicated.

01:08:58 ◼   ► What if Tim Cook or Schiller will do the presentation, right?

01:09:04 ◼   ► Comes out and says, "We've put a 4.7 inch screen in basically the same size form factor

01:09:13 ◼   ► as the iPhone 5S."

01:09:15 ◼   ► Yes, there's no way they have to…the screen has to be drawn to the edges and the small

01:09:23 ◼   ► bezel has to go away, but something to that effect.

01:09:28 ◼   ► - I would guess that if they do it,

01:09:30 ◼   ► I would guess that that's how they would pitch it.

01:09:32 ◼   ► And I guess I think, you know, not just pitch it.

01:09:34 ◼   ► - They're getting more screen

01:09:35 ◼   ► and then they show all these Android phones

01:09:37 ◼   ► that are like, look at this bezel.

01:09:39 ◼   ► And it's some also better screen technology,

01:09:43 ◼   ► which is what Tim Cook has said now for two years almost.

01:09:47 ◼   ► They'll do it if it makes sense,

01:09:49 ◼   ► if there's a better, if the screen technology catches up.

01:09:52 ◼   ► - Right.

01:09:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I wonder what he means by that.

01:09:56 ◼   ► I can't help but think that it might have something to do with going edge to edge.

01:10:03 ◼   ► Right.

01:10:04 ◼   ► That's what I think.

01:10:05 ◼   ► Right.

01:10:06 ◼   ► I don't think it's so much about…

01:10:08 ◼   ► Resolution.

01:10:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:10 ◼   ► I don't think it's so much about resolution because I think if they wanted to, that's

01:10:15 ◼   ► a licked problem.

01:10:16 ◼   ► They could make it whatever resolution they wanted to at this point.

01:10:19 ◼   ► I totally agree.

01:10:20 ◼   ► That's why I think they come out and say, "Look what we did."

01:10:25 ◼   ► to the Moto X because that's what Motorola talked about.

01:10:28 ◼   ► Oh, and the other engineering, the other technology thing I think too is screen size, or I mean

01:10:34 ◼   ► battery life. Because the bigger the screen, regardless of resolution, the bigger the screen,

01:10:40 ◼   ► the more energy it takes because it's just you're lighting up a bigger area.

01:10:43 ◼   ► You're totally right. I'm actually going to dig up that quote because he said something

01:10:47 ◼   ► about the compromises we have to make for these bigger screens.

01:10:51 ◼   ► And I know, like for example, that they, you know, you have to just pick a few constraints

01:10:56 ◼   ► that you won't budge on.

01:10:58 ◼   ► And with iPads, it's always been one of the like things that the rules that they will

01:11:04 ◼   ► not break and they'll do anything they can, you know, whatever they have to do to keep

01:11:08 ◼   ► it, they'll do it is 10 hours of battery life.

01:11:13 ◼   ► And so for example, that's why when they first went retina with the iPad, with the iPad 3

01:11:20 ◼   ► that it got thicker and heavier because they had to put in a thicker, heavier battery because

01:11:26 ◼   ► they weren't going to break that 10 hour battery life thing. I don't know what, if they would

01:11:31 ◼   ► have kept the thickness the same as the iPad 2, I don't know what the battery life would

01:11:35 ◼   ► have been. It would have been reasonable. It would have been like, I don't know, maybe

01:11:38 ◼   ► let's just pull a number out, 7 hours of battery life, which isn't bad, but 10 hours is, that's

01:11:45 ◼   ► their definition of an iPad.

01:11:47 ◼   ► And there's some similar metric for the iPhone too.

01:11:51 ◼   ► And I can't help but think that that's one of the reasons

01:11:53 ◼   ► they haven't had a bigger screen yet.

01:11:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're probably dead on right there.

01:11:58 ◼   ► That's probably exactly part of it.

01:12:00 ◼   ► Though, which is exactly when you think about something,

01:12:05 ◼   ► well, the Galaxy S4 didn't have bad battery life,

01:12:10 ◼   ► but with some of these bigger screen phones,

01:12:12 ◼   ► they fit in a bigger battery because they just,

01:12:15 ◼   ► There's more size and there's space for it,

01:12:19 ◼   ► which you can't see them doing

01:12:21 ◼   ► 'cause they wouldn't,

01:12:22 ◼   ► then you'd be sacrificing a slate form factor.

01:12:25 ◼   ► - All right, so I want a prediction from you.

01:12:27 ◼   ► Do you think Apple is going to come out

01:12:29 ◼   ► with a bigger screen iPhone this calendar year?

01:12:32 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:12:34 ◼   ► - All right, I agree.

01:12:35 ◼   ► Do you think that they will come out with it

01:12:42 ◼   ► alongside another new phone in the existing size?

01:12:47 ◼   ► Or do you think that the bigger size will be,

01:12:49 ◼   ► that's the new iPhone?

01:12:50 ◼   ► - You know, my gut tells me,

01:12:59 ◼   ► like what I've been saying here is that

01:13:01 ◼   ► they are gonna figure out a way

01:13:03 ◼   ► to put a bigger screen size,

01:13:05 ◼   ► and there's been all these rumors of 4.7 to six, right?

01:13:08 ◼   ► I don't, whenever I read these rumors of the six,

01:13:12 ◼   ► or higher than five, I'm like,

01:13:15 ◼   ► is that really what Apple's gonna do?

01:13:18 ◼   ► But maybe they figure out on the 4.7 inch side

01:13:24 ◼   ► that they're able to make the phone the same size

01:13:27 ◼   ► in a way as the current five, as a 5S.

01:13:32 ◼   ► And then there's basically,

01:13:34 ◼   ► you're getting more screen space for no bigger size phone.

01:13:38 ◼   ► I mean, I think it has to be a little bit wider,

01:13:39 ◼   ► but maybe that's not really noticeable to people.

01:13:43 ◼   ► And then maybe they have another bigger size phone,

01:13:47 ◼   ► but that's still, I'm shaky in that territory.

01:13:50 ◼   ► I'm just not sure they're gonna go higher than that.

01:13:53 ◼   ► So I don't know, that part I'm unsure of.

01:13:55 ◼   ► But there still will be four inch screens.

01:13:59 ◼   ► - But they'll be the older ones.

01:14:01 ◼   ► - They'll be the previous versions.

01:14:02 ◼   ► - My gut feeling is that they're only gonna do one.

01:14:06 ◼   ► and it'll probably, this is what I'm thinking,

01:14:09 ◼   ► is that it'll be like 4.5, 4.7, somewhere in that range.

01:14:13 ◼   ► And that's the new iPhone.

01:14:14 ◼   ► And I think that this form factor, the five,

01:14:20 ◼   ► the metal 5S form factor goes away.

01:14:25 ◼   ► And they keep the 5C form factor

01:14:29 ◼   ► and they just put the fingerprint sensor

01:14:34 ◼   ► and the A7 in there.

01:14:35 ◼   ► - That makes sense.

01:14:37 ◼   ► That just drops down to the 90, whatever,

01:14:40 ◼   ► the lower tier, the mid tier.

01:14:42 ◼   ► - Right, it just seems more appley to me

01:14:45 ◼   ► that they'll say, "We've figured out this is the best size

01:14:48 ◼   ► "for a phone with today's technology."

01:14:51 ◼   ► Even though I'm worried about it

01:14:53 ◼   ► because I like this size so much,

01:14:55 ◼   ► but I feel like the Apple way of doing it

01:14:56 ◼   ► is to say, "Don't worry."

01:14:58 ◼   ► - You gotta check out the Moto X.

01:15:00 ◼   ► I don't like to send you mine in the mail.

01:15:02 ◼   ► - All right.

01:15:03 ◼   ► Or just go to the store and pick it up because I mean, I think you really like it.

01:15:09 ◼   ► No, I will.

01:15:10 ◼   ► I should.

01:15:11 ◼   ► You know what?

01:15:12 ◼   ► I saw a guy on the train this morning with it and he had his finger in the back.

01:15:14 ◼   ► There's like this little dimple in the back and he just looked so happy.

01:15:17 ◼   ► I was like, "You just look so happy."

01:15:18 ◼   ► Then I saw a guy working on his Blackberry Q10 and he didn't look any less happy but

01:15:22 ◼   ► I knew inside he was less happy.

01:15:24 ◼   ► Let me take another sponsor break and then we'll get to that because I want to talk

01:15:26 ◼   ► to you about smartphone upgrade plans, which you just wrote about this week.

01:15:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:31 ◼   ► Favorite topic.

01:15:32 ◼   ► But I want to take a break first and thank our third sponsor.

01:15:35 ◼   ► Take as long as you need with a break.

01:15:38 ◼   ► And our next sponsor is our good friends at Ann Event Apart.

01:15:43 ◼   ► Ann Event Apart is the design conference for people who make websites.

01:15:48 ◼   ► They have upcoming events in San Diego, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Austin, Texas, and San Francisco.

01:16:00 ◼   ► easily one of the best aspects of an event apart is they come near you it's

01:16:05 ◼   ► not just one thing each year and you have to travel somewhere they have more

01:16:10 ◼   ► events than that too that when you check out the website you can see other cities

01:16:13 ◼   ► that they're coming to in 2014 an event apart was founded by web visionaries

01:16:18 ◼   ► Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman and it's dedicated to the proposition that the

01:16:23 ◼   ► creators of great web experiences deserve a great learning experience I've

01:16:28 ◼   ► I've been to an event apart at least twice, I think three times, and it is really one

01:16:34 ◼   ► of the best conferences I've ever had.

01:16:36 ◼   ► Every time I've gone, and it was each one never within the same year, but every time

01:16:40 ◼   ► I leave, I come out and think, "I've got to redo this part of my website."

01:16:47 ◼   ► Really great stuff, really great content.

01:16:50 ◼   ► Everything about it is good.

01:16:51 ◼   ► The food's good.

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01:16:57 ◼   ► Where do you go to find out more?

01:16:58 ◼   ► to, here's the website, aneventapart.com/talkshow and then they'll know you came from the show.

01:17:07 ◼   ► Check them out.

01:17:08 ◼   ► If you build websites and you haven't been to an event apart or if you haven't been recently,

01:17:12 ◼   ► you really owe it to yourself to go.

01:17:14 ◼   ► My thanks to them.

01:17:17 ◼   ► So one of the things that's gotten easier…

01:17:19 ◼   ► Cheryl Kane-Piasecki Did you like how I didn't bother you there?

01:17:22 ◼   ► I didn't even interrupt your sponsorship there.

01:17:25 ◼   ► Well, I didn't mind because your previous interruptions were solid gold.

01:17:31 ◼   ► I mean, I think you've actually like purchased things while I was reading them.

01:17:35 ◼   ► True.

01:17:36 ◼   ► True.

01:17:37 ◼   ► I think it's too much to ask you to sign up for a conference while I'm reading it.

01:17:45 ◼   ► But though joannasturn.com, which does redirect from acedafterreview.com, does need some work.

01:17:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:53 ◼   ► So, smartphone upgrade plans. Now this is very, very US centric because the US cell

01:18:02 ◼   ► phone market is perverted compared to the rest of the world. It's really weird.

01:18:10 ◼   ► It's really terrible.

01:18:12 ◼   ► Everybody else in the rest of the world looks at our cell phone market and it's like the

01:18:20 ◼   ► equivalent of not having running water. But it's starting to change a little bit

01:18:27 ◼   ► and I think you know there have been a couple of pieces that people have

01:18:29 ◼   ► written recently that I think rightfully attribute it to T-Mobile. That

01:18:34 ◼   ► T-Mobile is shaking things up and you know I think you know everybody

01:18:40 ◼   ► complains about the government when the government makes mistakes or stands by

01:18:44 ◼   ► and lets bad things happen. But I think this is a case where government

01:18:47 ◼   ► regulation regulators did the right thing where they rejected AT&T's attempted

01:18:54 ◼   ► merger or acquisition of T-Mobile two years ago on the basis that it would

01:18:58 ◼   ► harm competition you know that four was already maybe too little and three would

01:19:04 ◼   ► would just it would just make things worse and I think we're seeing that they

01:19:09 ◼   ► were right because it's T-Mobile who you know was AT&T wanted to swallow who's

01:19:15 ◼   ► shaking things up with really different plans.

01:19:19 ◼   ► It started with them trying to do away from traditional subsidized two-year contract pricing.

01:19:31 ◼   ► What else is T-Mobile doing that is shaking up the industry?

01:19:34 ◼   ► Dr. T

01:19:34 ◼   ► Well, yeah, I mean, subsidies was the main big thing, right, which is actually what's

01:19:40 ◼   ► enabling these early upgrade plans.

01:19:42 ◼   ► And again, T-Mobile was the first to start with this JUMP plan.

01:19:46 ◼   ► JUMP does actually stand for something that's like, I forget now.

01:19:53 ◼   ► They were the first this summer to say you can get a phone now, they had said originally

01:19:59 ◼   ► like at every six months, now you can actually get the phone whenever you want, just as long

01:20:03 ◼   ► as you pay half the full price of the phone off.

01:20:06 ◼   ► So that was one area, right, these upgrade plans, which I talked about this week.

01:20:10 ◼   ► And then they've got free international texting and a lot of good international discounts

01:20:17 ◼   ► as well.

01:20:18 ◼   ► And when you look at it, especially on the data fees, I mean, the idea that you can pay

01:20:22 ◼   ► I think it's $70 for unlimited data from them is just nothing offered like that from AT&T

01:20:29 ◼   ► and Verizon.

01:20:30 ◼   ► And does that includes tethering?

01:20:33 ◼   ► They have an extra add on for tethering.

01:20:37 ◼   ► I believe going to the site, I should know this, I should memorize the sites, at least

01:20:43 ◼   ► for the early upgrade plans.

01:20:45 ◼   ► I mean, honestly, quiz me.

01:20:48 ◼   ► And I'll tell you, you know, termination and all that.

01:20:53 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, I just heard from a couple of people who have switched and have been

01:20:57 ◼   ► really happy.

01:20:58 ◼   ► My big hesitation on switching has been just data speeds and availability of data.

01:21:11 ◼   ► So it's $70 per month for unlimited.

01:21:17 ◼   ► Where's that thing that says…

01:21:21 ◼   ► If you really want to get me just super angry about everything, it's about these carrier

01:21:25 ◼   ► websites and had just such bullshit.

01:21:27 ◼   ► Can we curse on this place?

01:21:29 ◼   ► Is this…?

01:21:30 ◼   ► Yeah, let it fly.

01:21:34 ◼   ► We were just talking about that the other week on the show.

01:21:37 ◼   ► We don't swear a lot, but we do.

01:21:39 ◼   ► But somehow I've escaped the wrath of the iTunes explicit label police.

01:21:44 ◼   ► Yeah, well actually the video I did on these early upgrade plans, I just did a quick video

01:21:49 ◼   ► because I did this.

01:21:51 ◼   ► We were Galaxy S5 hell all week, but the piece started with me cursing and bleeping and bleeping

01:21:58 ◼   ► because it was just--

01:22:00 ◼   ► But are any of these plans actually a good idea though?

01:22:03 ◼   ► I'm trying to find this data thing.

01:22:05 ◼   ► It seems to me like they're all too complicated and whenever I see a plan that's complicated,

01:22:11 ◼   ► I just assume I'm getting a bad deal.

01:22:13 ◼   ► And that is like, it would have been so easy if I could have just said that, but I had

01:22:18 ◼   ► to get into the weeds on all of these plans and there are so many weeds. It is just unbelievable

01:22:26 ◼   ► how many little places that they are upcharging you. And over the cost of two years, it comes

01:22:32 ◼   ► out to about $300 to $400 more depending on the carriers you're paying. And T-Mobile does

01:22:40 ◼   ► offer the best deal. The reason for that though is that T-Mobile has significantly cut down

01:22:47 ◼   ► wireless fees and service charges. So you get $70 unlimited data. You can't even get

01:22:52 ◼   ► unlimited data at Verizon or AT&T anymore. But if you were, you'd be paying $200 or $300

01:22:57 ◼   ► a month.

01:22:58 ◼   ► So…

01:22:59 ◼   ► So…

01:23:00 ◼   ► And everybody I know who still has the AT&T Unlimited plan, if you go past five gigs,

01:23:04 ◼   ► they throttle you.

01:23:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:06 ◼   ► They've got their eye on the people who hold on to those plans, and it's not unlimited.

01:23:10 ◼   ► Absolutely. And so T-Mobile is actually… T-Mobile said, "We're cutting the subsidies,

01:23:16 ◼   ► So we're also able to cut the data down because we're not upcharging you every month for you

01:23:21 ◼   ► paying off the subsidy, which is a good model.

01:23:25 ◼   ► But then these other carriers, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon have gotten in and said, "Oh,

01:23:28 ◼   ► we're going to offer the same upgrade plan," but yet they aren't really lowering your monthly

01:23:32 ◼   ► data cost.

01:23:33 ◼   ► So you end up paying more.

01:23:37 ◼   ► And they get you everywhere and it's like, you know, then getting out of these plans

01:23:41 ◼   ► is miserable because then you've gotten a new phone and then you're still paying towards

01:23:44 ◼   ► to the other phone.

01:23:48 ◼   ► And then just the websites, really.

01:23:49 ◼   ► The websites are the killer.

01:23:51 ◼   ► Dave: Yeah.

01:23:52 ◼   ► So confusing.

01:23:53 ◼   ► I have to say, I switched from AT&T to Verizon over a year ago.

01:23:58 ◼   ► I'm happier than I was.

01:24:00 ◼   ► I guess I switched when I got the iPhone 5, so it's a year and a half-ish ago.

01:24:07 ◼   ► I am happier because it just was easier to put mine and my wife's phone on the same plan

01:24:14 ◼   ► and share data.

01:24:18 ◼   ► But even so, every single month when I look at our bill, it's like some crazy number and

01:24:22 ◼   ► there's some – it's not just the number they quoted as the plan.

01:24:26 ◼   ► It's all these crazy upcharges.

01:24:28 ◼   ► Right.

01:24:29 ◼   ► Well, at least you have a family plan because on the family plans in most of these places,

01:24:33 ◼   ► you end up saving a little bit of money.

01:24:35 ◼   ► Right.

01:24:36 ◼   ► But I can have a framily plan on Sprint,

01:24:40 ◼   ► which I'm still trying to figure out

01:24:41 ◼   ► what frickin' framily is.

01:24:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:24:43 ◼   ► - How do they spell that?

01:24:45 ◼   ► - It's F-R-A-M, yeah, framily.

01:24:48 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:24:54 ◼   ► - That's horrible.

01:24:55 ◼   ► - Right, so this is your friends and your family.

01:24:58 ◼   ► And that was one of the in the weeds thing with Sprint.

01:25:02 ◼   ► Like, if you wanna get this early upgrade plan,

01:25:04 ◼   ► well, if you're on the framily plan

01:25:05 ◼   ► and you have 10 lines, you really will make it out.

01:25:08 ◼   ► You'll really get all the money.

01:25:10 ◼   ► And it's like, who is putting together a 10 person framily?

01:25:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:25:15 ◼   ► I mean, the hours I spent cursing at my computer

01:25:21 ◼   ► over the last week.

01:25:22 ◼   ► - Do you think it was like it's one guy,

01:25:24 ◼   ► one marketing person who decided to combine

01:25:27 ◼   ► friends and family into framily

01:25:29 ◼   ► and just sort of just put it out there?

01:25:31 ◼   ► Or do you, I think it was more like

01:25:33 ◼   ► a three-day series of meetings, intense meetings in a conference room with a whiteboard and

01:25:40 ◼   ► …

01:25:41 ◼   ► Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

01:25:43 ◼   ► Everybody was sleeping on cots and had body odor by the end and then they came out of

01:25:47 ◼   ► the meeting and there's somebody that hasn't had a shower in three days and they just shout,

01:25:52 ◼   ► "Framily!"

01:25:53 ◼   ► Yeah. And you know what he got? A $5 million raise. Why we have to sit here putting together

01:26:00 ◼   ► a freaking framily …

01:26:01 ◼   ► Right.

01:26:02 ◼   ► to get the deals.

01:26:03 ◼   ► Dave Asprey And in the meantime, in most of the civilized

01:26:06 ◼   ► world, in like in, you know, most of the places I know of in Europe, you buy a phone, you

01:26:12 ◼   ► pay a fair price for it, you know, which is by Americans and sounds like a lot, but we

01:26:18 ◼   ► are paying for, you know, there is no free cake, you know, it's, you know, your $199

01:26:24 ◼   ► iPhone, you're not getting it for $199.

01:26:27 ◼   ► You're paying $2,000 in contract fees over the next two years.

01:26:32 ◼   ► In most of Europe, you buy the phone for a fair price and so it's a lot more money upfront.

01:26:37 ◼   ► Then you just pay a very reasonable amount like 50 bucks a month or something and you

01:26:43 ◼   ► get a SIM card that gets data and that's it.

01:26:46 ◼   ► If you want to, you stop paying it and you get a new SIM card from another provider and

01:26:51 ◼   ► pop it in your phone and it works.

01:26:53 ◼   ► JAIME TARDY Yeah, which is what T-Mobile is really trying

01:26:55 ◼   ► to do here.

01:26:56 ◼   ► It's working.

01:26:57 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:26:58 ◼   ► It seems to be working.

01:26:59 ◼   ► I don't know. I mean it seems to be working. Well, I it's it it resonates

01:27:04 ◼   ► It's you know it it their their marketing pitch sounds appealing because it is appealing, you know that there's no

01:27:10 ◼   ► Right, there's no framily there's no framily

01:27:15 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, well t-mobile CEO did retweet my article yesterday he was very happy with it. Oh really what's his name?

01:27:26 ◼   ► If he's listening, you're a little nuts.

01:27:28 ◼   ► You know it.

01:27:29 ◼   ► But it's cool.

01:27:30 ◼   ► We seem to be enjoying the nuts of you.

01:27:33 ◼   ► I also tweeted it.

01:27:34 ◼   ► I think who tweeted this weekend that they were considering or they were going to switch

01:27:40 ◼   ► to T-Mobile and I retweeted and I said, "John LeGier is doing keg stands right now to celebrate."

01:27:47 ◼   ► And he tweeted back and said, "Yeah, I am."

01:27:49 ◼   ► Dave Asprey Did he send a picture?

01:27:51 ◼   ► Dr. Kaitlyn

01:27:52 ◼   ► Let me take this moment right here and do our fourth and final sponsor break.

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01:30:12 ◼   ► You came from this show this month, Yankees.

01:30:16 ◼   ► I presume they picked that because baseball is in spring training.

01:30:21 ◼   ► I was just watching a preseason game earlier today before recording.

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01:30:28 ◼   ► Check them out.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Great, great friends to the show.

01:30:33 ◼   ► The last thing I wanted to talk to you about is wearables.

01:30:39 ◼   ► It seems like, I think back to 2010 when the iPad came out and in the run-up.

01:30:47 ◼   ► The basic run-up was that Steve Jobs in 2009 was on a medical leave.

01:30:52 ◼   ► I think that's when he had the liver transplant and he came back to work in like the June-July

01:30:59 ◼   ► timeframe and everything I heard from friends inside the company is that he was working

01:31:04 ◼   ► on one thing.

01:31:05 ◼   ► And it was, you know, a lot of people said it was, they just called it the tablet.

01:31:09 ◼   ► And that, you know, ends up that was right, that, you know, that that's when Apple went

01:31:14 ◼   ► heads down and went from let's maybe do a tablet to let's do this, let's make this happen.

01:31:19 ◼   ► And there were a lot of rumors in the run up, you know, there was, you know, wasn't a shock

01:31:23 ◼   ► when Apple unveiled the iPad.

01:31:26 ◼   ► Nobody knew exactly what it looked like, but the idea that Apple was working on a quote

01:31:29 ◼   ► unquote tablet was, there was a lot of smoke for that fire.

01:31:35 ◼   ► And I remember at CES, like a month or two beforehand, that was the one where Steve Ballmer

01:31:40 ◼   ► came out and had all these, he was calling them slates.

01:31:42 ◼   ► Yeah, the HP slate.

01:31:44 ◼   ► Right.

01:31:45 ◼   ► Which never shipped, right?

01:31:46 ◼   ► No, well, it did ship.

01:31:49 ◼   ► And I actually, I don't have mine anymore, but it only shipped to business users.

01:31:54 ◼   ► But remember, they completely scrapped it when they bought HP, which seemed like a defensive

01:31:58 ◼   ► move to then the iPad, which was after that.

01:32:01 ◼   ► Right.

01:32:02 ◼   ► And that, you know, so Microsoft seemed to come out with a sort of preemptive strike,

01:32:07 ◼   ► you know, like, "All right, you want to do tablets?

01:32:09 ◼   ► This is going to be tablets?

01:32:10 ◼   ► We show you tablets.

01:32:11 ◼   ► Here's the tablets."

01:32:12 ◼   ► Right.

01:32:13 ◼   ► And it was only after the iPad when the modern tablet market took form, which was, you know,

01:32:19 ◼   ► largely in the form of the iPad.

01:32:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:22 ◼   ► You know, there's obviously differences and, you know, but it's the basic gist of what

01:32:25 ◼   ► a modern tablet is was defined by the iPad.

01:32:29 ◼   ► Now we've got rumors widespread for months going back to last year that Apple is working

01:32:36 ◼   ► on one or more wearables including like a watch type thing.

01:32:42 ◼   ► It seems like, again, maybe it's not.

01:32:46 ◼   ► Maybe I'm too Apple centric and I attribute it to this.

01:32:50 ◼   ► It just seems to me like an awful lot of companies are trying to get out in front of it by putting

01:32:56 ◼   ► out something.

01:32:57 ◼   ► Yep.

01:32:58 ◼   ► I'm 100% with you and I'm not all that Apple-centric.

01:33:02 ◼   ► I mean, I'm somewhat Apple-centric.

01:33:06 ◼   ► Well, I just can't help but think, though, that if it's true that Apple's coming out

01:33:10 ◼   ► with some wearables this year, that it's going to be just as much a—what they come out

01:33:16 ◼   ► with doesn't look like any of the stuff that we've seen so far.

01:33:20 ◼   ► And then after Apple comes out with it, all those things that we've seen, they all just

01:33:24 ◼   ► go away and everybody comes out with something that looks a lot like the thing Apple's going

01:33:27 ◼   ► to show.

01:33:29 ◼   ► Because I don't see anything that is compelling so far at all.

01:33:33 ◼   ► And you know, a lot of hype this week with the Galaxy Fit, the Gear Fit, you know, but

01:33:38 ◼   ► again, it's so Samsung-like, you know, in my video, I was like, but, you know, Samsung

01:33:43 ◼   ► didn't only have one wearable this year, they've now got three, and that's in addition to the

01:33:48 ◼   ► one that they had last year, which was a total flop.

01:33:50 ◼   ► Right.

01:33:51 ◼   ► So anyway, there's this Gear Fit which has the curved OLED screen, touchscreen.

01:33:58 ◼   ► It makes you wonder why they even were bothering with the other one.

01:34:02 ◼   ► And it looks nice.

01:34:04 ◼   ► It definitely looks nice.

01:34:07 ◼   ► We'll see if it's any – I really didn't get to play with it long enough to see if

01:34:10 ◼   ► it has any significant improvement over the Gear software situation.

01:34:13 ◼   ► DAVE: Okay.

01:34:14 ◼   ► But you've seen the Gear Fit.

01:34:15 ◼   ► AITA Yeah.

01:34:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:34:17 ◼   ► I saw it this week.

01:34:18 ◼   ► DAVE It has like a long strip curved – I'll put

01:34:20 ◼   ► a link in the show notes, but it's a very different screen size than the original Gear,

01:34:26 ◼   ► which is like a square screen. It's sort of...

01:34:28 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, you can think of it as, if people are familiar with the Nike Fuel Band, that

01:34:32 ◼   ► there's just sort of a curved screen going along the...

01:34:35 ◼   ► But am I nuts? It's oriented the wrong way.

01:34:39 ◼   ► Yeah. It doesn't seem to change the orientation based on either when you turn it or why is

01:34:46 ◼   ► it not vertical. Right? Are you asking why is it not vertical?

01:34:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, well there's a reason why,

01:34:51 ◼   ► like on a traditional wristwatch where--

01:34:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

01:34:55 ◼   ► - What's top, you know, the 12,

01:34:58 ◼   ► is, you know, with your,

01:34:59 ◼   ► you're looking at your wrist with your thumb down

01:35:03 ◼   ► and your pinky on top.

01:35:04 ◼   ► - Right, like it should be icon stacked likely,

01:35:09 ◼   ► rather like top to bottom vertically.

01:35:12 ◼   ► - I haven't-- - Than going horizontally.

01:35:14 ◼   ► - Right, it just looks to me like you would need

01:35:16 ◼   ► to really be like a contortionist

01:35:18 ◼   ► to get the Gear Fit screen oriented

01:35:21 ◼   ► in the way that it wants to be oriented.

01:35:24 ◼   ► - I don't know if there's a setting that lets you do that.

01:35:27 ◼   ► All I did was put it on,

01:35:29 ◼   ► I played with the pedometer for a little bit.

01:35:32 ◼   ► I saw you could tap on the notifications,

01:35:34 ◼   ► it had no notifications 'cause it wasn't paired

01:35:35 ◼   ► with the right phone at this event.

01:35:37 ◼   ► There was some other stuff in there.

01:35:40 ◼   ► But they're really, again, saying that this doesn't have

01:35:43 ◼   ► the app platform, quote unquote, as the gear does.

01:35:48 ◼   ► Which again, I think is kind of where everything

01:35:51 ◼   ► seems to be missing the boat,

01:35:53 ◼   ► 'cause I don't necessarily want to run an app on my wrist,

01:35:57 ◼   ► unless there's really some significance

01:36:00 ◼   ► that it's gonna add.

01:36:01 ◼   ► So, you know, this one is, you know,

01:36:04 ◼   ► it says that the word fit in it,

01:36:05 ◼   ► it's mostly supposed to be a souped up fitness band.

01:36:08 ◼   ► - All right.

01:36:10 ◼   ► - Though I think it does, because it has the LCD,

01:36:12 ◼   ► It does support some more advanced cell notifications, some smartphone notifications.

01:36:19 ◼   ► It looks cool.

01:36:20 ◼   ► Dave Asprey Yeah, it definitely looks cooler than the original

01:36:25 ◼   ► gear.

01:36:27 ◼   ► It just seems to me though like it just doesn't solve any actual real problems that people

01:36:32 ◼   ► have.

01:36:33 ◼   ► Rachel Teagle No, and I've said this a number of times,

01:36:37 ◼   ► said this around CES.

01:36:38 ◼   ► like I'm gonna put on the gender there is not one of these that I would wear

01:36:43 ◼   ► And I mean on a full-time basis

01:36:46 ◼   ► What I and I'm not I'm not counting fitbits and I'm not counting

01:36:50 ◼   ► The jawbone up, you know, I do sometimes put on the jawbone up and and wear it for a couple of days

01:36:56 ◼   ► And then forget about it someplace

01:36:58 ◼   ► But in terms of the smartwatches

01:37:01 ◼   ► the pebble to me is still an eyesore for someone like me a woman who cares what I look like and

01:37:07 ◼   ► I just can't wear any of this stuff.

01:37:12 ◼   ► I do see some, there's one woman in this office that has the gold Nike Fuelband and I think

01:37:17 ◼   ► that looks really nice.

01:37:19 ◼   ► That's a nice looking design.

01:37:21 ◼   ► Dave: Yeah, but it does a lot less, right?

01:37:26 ◼   ► It's not a, you know, band is the right word.

01:37:32 ◼   ► It's not a full computer display.

01:37:35 ◼   ► I mean, that's sort of the problem that these ones like the Pebble and everything else have

01:37:40 ◼   ► is that they're trying to put a live computer display on your wrist and nobody's figured

01:37:48 ◼   ► out a way to do it with the balance between, look, it's got to be big enough to put some

01:37:54 ◼   ► amount of useful information on it.

01:37:56 ◼   ► But then if it's that big, how does it get power that lasts long enough that it's not

01:38:01 ◼   ► super annoying?

01:38:04 ◼   ► There's just so many problems that to me, all these problems and nobody has really solved

01:38:08 ◼   ► them right.

01:38:09 ◼   ► And –

01:38:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:38:11 ◼   ► And the notification thing, that is appealing to someone like me because I watch myself

01:38:15 ◼   ► on the subway and I think to myself, "Someone has got to think I'm insane."

01:38:18 ◼   ► Because I don't keep my phone out the whole time but I pull it on and off of my – out

01:38:23 ◼   ► of my jacket pocket.

01:38:24 ◼   ► I was counting this morning, maybe 10 times on my commute to work.

01:38:28 ◼   ► And I am looking for do I have a new email?

01:38:31 ◼   ► Do I have any new Twitter notifications and texts?

01:38:35 ◼   ► So I'm really looking for those three things.

01:38:38 ◼   ► And I'm constantly looking at the front of my iPhone.

01:38:42 ◼   ► So something like that, that gets the notifications right for me, would make a lot of sense.

01:38:49 ◼   ► But the Pebble has so many limits in terms of what you can get in notifications, there's

01:38:55 ◼   ► There's just no way to narrow it down because it relies on iOS and so basically it's only

01:39:03 ◼   ► pulling the notifications from the banners.

01:39:07 ◼   ► So when you go and set your notifications, it's kind of like a hack around it.

01:39:10 ◼   ► Right.

01:39:11 ◼   ► It just wasn't meant for it.

01:39:14 ◼   ► I mean it's not Pebble's fault.

01:39:16 ◼   ► Pebble's getting around it in a decent way.

01:39:19 ◼   ► But it's not good enough.

01:39:21 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:39:22 ◼   ► I don't even know so like they're not designing for normal people I think but

01:39:27 ◼   ► that's yeah I really do agree with that and I feel like I'm whenever I speak up

01:39:31 ◼   ► about it it's like I get a lot of flack for it and and I understand why and it's

01:39:37 ◼   ► because they are a true upstart you know they're a small team they're truly

01:39:42 ◼   ► independent you know it's it's you know it's not the same as criticizing Samsung

01:39:49 ◼   ► who is literally one of the biggest companies in the world and kind of a

01:39:55 ◼   ► jerky company. You know that I can see why people take it personally you know

01:40:01 ◼   ► because they're rooting for Pebble or they like what Pebble does that you know

01:40:05 ◼   ► that I call them out on some of these things but I my bottom line though and

01:40:10 ◼   ► it gets back to like the whole personal technology angle and I know the readers

01:40:15 ◼   ► are during fireball are not mass-market but I still try to have that humanistic

01:40:19 ◼   ► view. And to me, it comes down to just a dollar is a dollar. And if you're going to charge somebody

01:40:24 ◼   ► $150 for your Pebble or $250 for the Pebble Steel, that's a lot, you know, that's real money. And to

01:40:32 ◼   ► me, a $250 device from Pebble needs to be judged on the same curve as a $250 iPod from Apple,

01:40:41 ◼   ► even though Apple is a billion dollar company. And it's not exactly fair. And it's hard to be

01:40:46 ◼   ► the upstart. But still, a $250 gadget is a $250 gadget.

01:40:53 ◼   ► I agree with you there. And I think if you read most of the reviews of the Steel, it's

01:40:58 ◼   ► best smartwatch yet, right? I mean, there was, as we started this conversation, how

01:41:05 ◼   ► many tablets yet till the iPad arrived. And I'm not saying Apple will be the one to crack

01:41:10 ◼   ► There are a lot of other interesting people throwing around names.

01:41:15 ◼   ► And this week, you know, lots of rumors of Google working on the platform.

01:41:19 ◼   ► And it sounds like they might go the same route as letting their hardware makers take care of the hardware design.

01:41:25 ◼   ► And they'll make some sort of interesting platform.

01:41:28 ◼   ► Though from some of the leaked stuff, it doesn't look all that appealing.

01:41:33 ◼   ► But I'm sure there are, I mean, HTC and LG, they can pull together some nice designs.

01:41:40 ◼   ► You know, and to me it's like I almost get it's I'm so lacking in imagination as to how anybody

01:41:49 ◼   ► could solve this right. Apple or anybody and how to make one of these things that's truly compelling

01:41:54 ◼   ► and feels like oh yeah that's something I'd go get in line to buy. Because like just for example

01:42:00 ◼   ► like I'm a wristwatch wearer. I like to wear a watch. I like to know what time it is. But I

01:42:06 ◼   ► But I just glance, it takes like a quarter of a second.

01:42:10 ◼   ► I just glance at my wrist and I see the time.

01:42:13 ◼   ► So if it's a color display, like an LCD, it can't stay on all the time because the battery

01:42:18 ◼   ► would wear right out.

01:42:19 ◼   ► So like when people like the TikTok band that you could put the old square iPod Nano in,

01:42:28 ◼   ► you had to hit a button on it to get the time.

01:42:30 ◼   ► So that just ruled it out for me.

01:42:32 ◼   ► Style, everything else aside.

01:42:35 ◼   ► I mean, to me, it's useless as a watch.

01:42:39 ◼   ► I know that there's some now you can shake them or something like that and it uses a

01:42:42 ◼   ► motion detector and comes on, but that's still too much.

01:42:44 ◼   ► It's like I just want a glance.

01:42:46 ◼   ► Marie-Claire And actually, it's interesting again.

01:42:48 ◼   ► I'm still sad that Google sold off Motorola because I think what they were doing with

01:42:53 ◼   ► the Motorola, where you get this act, this—I forget what they call it now, where it flashes

01:42:58 ◼   ► the time and how many notifications you have.

01:43:03 ◼   ► I have it turned off right now, but it pops that up every couple of seconds.

01:43:06 ◼   ► So with the backlight off, it's this low powered mode.

01:43:10 ◼   ► I think there's interesting things that could be done there.

01:43:13 ◼   ► But yeah, that's, I mean, that's one of the main criticism I had of the

01:43:19 ◼   ► gear was that like, it was not a good watch.

01:43:21 ◼   ► Also because like it took, I would spend, if the point of these watches are

01:43:28 ◼   ► to be able to easily glance at stuff.

01:43:31 ◼   ► I don't want to be tapping in and out of menus.

01:43:34 ◼   ► I'll grab my phone if I want to do that.

01:43:37 ◼   ► So it's that there has to be some sort of intelligence

01:43:41 ◼   ► in these watches and some customization options on our end

01:43:44 ◼   ► to say these are the things I do want to see

01:43:47 ◼   ► in a more consistent manner of obviously

01:43:51 ◼   ► the time being one of them.

01:43:53 ◼   ► - Right, what I see with the Pebble is that they,

01:43:57 ◼   ► and it's a reasonable thing, but that they started

01:43:59 ◼   ► with the idea that, look, we wanna have

01:44:01 ◼   ► much better battery life.

01:44:03 ◼   ► 'Cause I think you need to, right?

01:44:04 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause that's what they're the E Ink.

01:44:06 ◼   ► - And so yeah, but then everything they did after that,

01:44:09 ◼   ► you know, is based on that starting point,

01:44:11 ◼   ► and so they have E Ink, and E Ink,

01:44:13 ◼   ► at least it's on all the time and you can glance at it,

01:44:16 ◼   ► but it looks like a Palm Pilot screen from 1997, right?

01:44:21 ◼   ► I mean, like if Apple came out with a device

01:44:25 ◼   ► with a screen like that, everybody would go ballistic

01:44:28 ◼   ► and start selling their Apple stock

01:44:31 ◼   ► and calling for Tim Cook's head.

01:44:33 ◼   ► So I don't see why Pebble can get a pass for that

01:44:38 ◼   ► when Apple wouldn't.

01:44:39 ◼   ► And it does solve the problem of battery life,

01:44:41 ◼   ► I realize that, but boy, it really is sort of--

01:44:44 ◼   ► - And outdoor readability.

01:44:46 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:44:47 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause the gear is also hard to see in the sun.

01:44:50 ◼   ► - Well, and Pebble kind of is too,

01:44:51 ◼   ► even though the E Ink is on all the time,

01:44:54 ◼   ► you have to give it a shake to get the backlight on

01:44:56 ◼   ► to see it, for me to see it in a lot of lighting contexts.

01:45:00 ◼   ► - Right.

01:45:01 ◼   ► - Like it's there, but it's not glanceable.

01:45:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:45:05 ◼   ► No, I mean, I think it's,

01:45:07 ◼   ► that is the question.

01:45:09 ◼   ► It's like, we can't even really imagine

01:45:11 ◼   ► what's gonna be the perfect wearable for us.

01:45:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I really can't.

01:45:14 ◼   ► I don't know how to manage that.

01:45:16 ◼   ► Where it seems to me like to have a display

01:45:20 ◼   ► that feels modern,

01:45:23 ◼   ► which to me almost certainly implies color

01:45:26 ◼   ► and it definitely implies some sort of retina-esque

01:45:30 ◼   ► resolution and is visible at all times.

01:45:34 ◼   ► I don't see how that's possible to keep it powered.

01:45:37 ◼   ► So I don't know, I really, it's--

01:45:40 ◼   ► - Maybe some sort of low-powered mode

01:45:42 ◼   ► that just shows you certain things at certain times.

01:45:45 ◼   ► - I really, I have no idea, I don't--

01:45:47 ◼   ► - It's funny, I'm actually sitting in a conference room

01:45:49 ◼   ► and the guy right outside here is wearing a pebble.

01:45:52 ◼   ► God, so many guys buy pebbles.

01:45:55 ◼   ► - Is it the old plastic one or the new?

01:45:57 ◼   ► - The plastic one.

01:45:58 ◼   ► I mean, it's a man, like, look,

01:46:00 ◼   ► I'm sure many women do not mind wearing it,

01:46:03 ◼   ► but it is primarily a male device.

01:46:06 ◼   ► I've seen a lot of men on the subway wearing it too.

01:46:08 ◼   ► - Well, and I think that the steel,

01:46:10 ◼   ► it got more masculine design-wise.

01:46:13 ◼   ► - And I actually have a big chunky Michael Kors watch

01:46:16 ◼   ► that I love to wear, but it's also stylish and feels nice.

01:46:21 ◼   ► Well, and it's absolutely true that, you know, I mean, I say this as an expert in fashion

01:46:27 ◼   ► and style, but I don't think there's any doubt that women's wristwatches currently are big.

01:46:33 ◼   ► Yeah, they are.

01:46:34 ◼   ► They're like, I mean, when I went to go buy this Michael Kors watch, I almost bought a

01:46:39 ◼   ► male men's watch.

01:46:41 ◼   ► But even then, they're not as, you know, and in some sense, bigger is in watches, bigger

01:46:49 ◼   ► Bigger tends to be more masculine and smaller certainly is more feminine when you get to

01:46:55 ◼   ► the really small ladies' size wristwatches.

01:46:59 ◼   ► But when I see women wearing 40-millimeter width or even bigger wristwatches, they're

01:47:07 ◼   ► not masculine masculine.

01:47:10 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:47:13 ◼   ► They're not like the pebble steel.

01:47:15 ◼   ► There is something about the pebble steel that to me is –

01:47:17 ◼   ► Well, part of that is like the rectangular screen.

01:47:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:47:22 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:47:23 ◼   ► I think that's part of it.

01:47:25 ◼   ► I mean, I only did play with it at CES, but I also said that it just felt like a cheap

01:47:30 ◼   ► watch.

01:47:31 ◼   ► It just felt cheap to me.

01:47:32 ◼   ► Well, and that's one of the things that I just can't imagine what Apple's doing in this

01:47:36 ◼   ► regard because I can't imagine Apple – A, I certainly can't imagine them coming out

01:47:40 ◼   ► with something that seems suitable or geared only towards men.

01:47:46 ◼   ► But on the other hand, I don't know how you make something designed for the wrist that

01:47:49 ◼   ► is equally appealing to men and women.

01:47:53 ◼   ► Right.

01:47:54 ◼   ► That's what I'm saying, and I've been thinking about this a lot too, and I've been looking

01:47:58 ◼   ► at a lot of what women wear on their wrists.

01:47:59 ◼   ► I see a lot of women wearing Fitbits.

01:48:01 ◼   ► I see a lot of women wearing Jawbone Ups, and I definitely see them wearing the Nike

01:48:06 ◼   ► Fuelband.

01:48:08 ◼   ► So something in between that that doesn't necessarily look so sporty and does bring

01:48:16 ◼   ► some sort of real value to wear every day.

01:48:20 ◼   ► You know, maybe we take some sacrifice,

01:48:25 ◼   ► we bend some rules there.

01:48:27 ◼   ► I mean, like I said, I think the Nike Fuel Bin,

01:48:30 ◼   ► that gold version looks really nice.

01:48:32 ◼   ► It's like a rose gold clip, clasp, I mean.

01:48:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've seen it.

01:48:38 ◼   ► But it looks like jewelry, not like a gadget.

01:48:41 ◼   ► - Right, I mean, I also have a rose gold engagement ring.

01:48:43 ◼   ► Like, I think it's just like my style.

01:48:47 ◼   ► Have you seen the gold Galaxy S5 in person?

01:48:54 ◼   ► I haven't.

01:48:55 ◼   ► I haven't.

01:48:56 ◼   ► Though I sort of blew up the Internet with that.

01:49:01 ◼   ► You had a viral tweet.

01:49:03 ◼   ► I completely went viral, apparently in Korea.

01:49:06 ◼   ► I woke up.

01:49:07 ◼   ► Oh, really?

01:49:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:49:09 ◼   ► I went to bed that day and it had like 3,000, 2,000 retweets.

01:49:14 ◼   ► And I woke up and it had 5,000.

01:49:17 ◼   ► And I was like, "Holy crap, what happened?"

01:49:20 ◼   ► My Twitter feed was in tons of different languages.

01:49:24 ◼   ► I got some tweets back from people saying,

01:49:27 ◼   ► "You've gone viral in Korea."

01:49:29 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh."

01:49:30 ◼   ► And I opened my Instagram and random people

01:49:34 ◼   ► had been posting it on Instagram.

01:49:37 ◼   ► - For anybody who hasn't seen it, Joanna,

01:49:39 ◼   ► it was an image she posted to Twitter

01:49:42 ◼   ► the day of the S5 announcement,

01:49:44 ◼   ► comparing the gold S5 to a band-aid.

01:49:50 ◼   ► - But it is so dead on.

01:49:52 ◼   ► So we got it under embark, we had the news,

01:49:55 ◼   ► and I opened up the press release,

01:49:56 ◼   ► and I was on the phone with Wilson Rothman,

01:49:58 ◼   ► who's my editor and just all around great guy,

01:50:01 ◼   ► and I go, "Wilson, it fucking looks like a band-aid."

01:50:04 ◼   ► Like, it was like, "You gotta see the gold version."

01:50:06 ◼   ► he hopes that he's like, "It looks like a fucking band-aid!"

01:50:10 ◼   ► It's funny too because it's like you think gold, well how could you botch gold? And there's

01:50:14 ◼   ► a lot of ways. And you'd think it would be more in the bling direction. And that's what

01:50:20 ◼   ► everybody, when everybody kind of did like that tooth suck when rumors were that Apple

01:50:24 ◼   ► was going to do a gold iPhone, it was like, "Ooh, really?" And I think everybody was thinking

01:50:28 ◼   ► like, you know, like when somebody replaces the chrome on their car with gold chrome,

01:50:34 ◼   ► you know, door handles and stuff. It's, there's a gaudiness. And that, yeah, you're, that's

01:50:40 ◼   ► what I think made the tweet so good is that the problem with the gold S5 isn't that, and

01:50:45 ◼   ► again, I haven't seen one in person, but this is their own promotional photo that you were