The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Let's do something unusual.

00:00:01 ◼   ► Let's actually talk about stuff that's in the news.

00:00:03 ◼   ► OK.

00:00:04 ◼   ► It's your show.

00:00:05 ◼   ► Is it?

00:00:07 ◼   ► Is it?

00:00:08 ◼   ► That's what I've been given to understand.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Till somebody comes in and takes it away from me.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Is there a hostile takeover happening

00:00:14 ◼   ► that I don't know about?

00:00:15 ◼   ► Well, I don't know.

00:00:16 ◼   ► I grew up thinking that if you have a talk show,

00:00:19 ◼   ► then eventually somebody comes and takes it away from you.

00:00:22 ◼   ► I guess that's true, yeah.

00:00:23 ◼   ► But you had Guy on last week, right?

00:00:24 ◼   ► He didn't take it away.

00:00:25 ◼   ► So if Guy didn't take it away, then--

00:00:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Yeah, if anybody's going to take it away, it's probably Guy.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Do you see Letterman is going to be on the late night

00:00:34 ◼   ► with Seth Meyers on Tuesday.

00:00:36 ◼   ► I did, yeah.

00:00:37 ◼   ► That'll probably be worth watching.

00:00:39 ◼   ► I'm extremely excited because, of course, a big Letterman fan.

00:00:42 ◼   ► I also-- my personal favorite of the current late night talk shows

00:00:48 ◼   ► is Seth Meyers' show.

00:00:49 ◼   ► I really enjoy it.

00:00:50 ◼   ► I feel like their closer looks should

00:00:53 ◼   ► be winning some sort of awards.

00:00:55 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:00:55 ◼   ► They're very good little mini political current event

00:00:58 ◼   ► essays that are also funny.

00:01:00 ◼   ► But also, Letterman, I mean, he's my favorite host.

00:01:03 ◼   ► But he's also-- he's like the prototypical good guest on a show.

00:01:07 ◼   ► So--

00:01:07 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

00:01:09 ◼   ► --ready to nerd out on Tuesday night.

00:01:11 ◼   ► You've seen him in the--

00:01:12 ◼   ► I think those are the outtakes for the movie of Between Two Ferns.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Yes, I think so, yeah.

00:01:17 ◼   ► They're very funny.

00:01:18 ◼   ► I forget what he called it, Crystal Meth Santa Claus?

00:01:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:24 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:01:26 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:01:28 ◼   ► He was absolutely amazing.

00:01:30 ◼   ► Yeah, the outtake-- I like the movie.

00:01:31 ◼   ► I love the Between Two Ferns.

00:01:33 ◼   ► That's Zach Galifianakis' not really fake talk show or interview show.

00:01:39 ◼   ► It is real interviews.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Hillary Clinton famously did it before the 2016 election.

00:01:44 ◼   ► A lot of good at dinner.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Yeah, really.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Maybe, who knows?

00:01:47 ◼   ► Maybe it helped.

00:01:47 ◼   ► But real people with Zach Galifianakis asking absolutely absurd

00:01:54 ◼   ► questions.

00:01:55 ◼   ► Very rude.

00:01:56 ◼   ► Right, very rude.

00:01:57 ◼   ► And then they made a motion picture of it, which was--

00:02:01 ◼   ► it was OK.

00:02:02 ◼   ► I thought it was OK, too, yeah.

00:02:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I enjoyed it well enough.

00:02:04 ◼   ► The outtakes were actually--

00:02:06 ◼   ► But the outtakes are absolutely the best.

00:02:09 ◼   ► It's worth renting, even if you get into the movie.

00:02:12 ◼   ► I don't love the movie.

00:02:14 ◼   ► I might just stop.

00:02:15 ◼   ► Skip ahead to the credits, because they're amazing.

00:02:17 ◼   ► It's just seeing him break.

00:02:19 ◼   ► That's always my favorite part of Saturday Night Live,

00:02:21 ◼   ► where they break form and start-- they can't control themselves.

00:02:24 ◼   ► They're laughing so hard.

00:02:25 ◼   ► And just seeing him start cracking up and then

00:02:29 ◼   ► apologize, just like, I'm so sorry.

00:02:32 ◼   ► Hillary has to be asked, Brie Larson, if her parents' breakup was her fault.

00:02:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:40 ◼   ► Anyway, in the news, we've got Apple results.

00:02:47 ◼   ► We've got new betas of Mac OS 12.3 and iOS 15.4 coming out and anything else.

00:02:54 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:02:55 ◼   ► I guess we should start with the results.

00:02:57 ◼   ► Because one thing-- I think you've been on the show at some point

00:03:00 ◼   ► shortly after results before.

00:03:02 ◼   ► And I always say, if one thing savvy investors always do

00:03:05 ◼   ► is tune into this podcast for their--

00:03:08 ◼   ► For their results information?

00:03:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Five-minute results information.

00:03:12 ◼   ► But it is-- it's like my quick takeaway that I wrote on Darren Fireball,

00:03:16 ◼   ► is if you can have, as the most profitable company and biggest

00:03:20 ◼   ► by market cap in the world, a boring, record-breaking quarter,

00:03:25 ◼   ► Apple has been doing it pretty consistently.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Yeah, and I was thinking about that.

00:03:29 ◼   ► We used to hang on these results a lot.

00:03:31 ◼   ► And now they just seem like a non-event, to a certain degree.

00:03:36 ◼   ► Obviously, sometimes it's a big deal.

00:03:38 ◼   ► And various things can happen.

00:03:40 ◼   ► But I don't feel like it's as dire as it used to be.

00:03:46 ◼   ► And maybe that was still a hangover from the days

00:03:49 ◼   ► when we thought that Apple might go out of business at some point.

00:03:52 ◼   ► I do think what comes up must come down.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Eventually, Apple is going to not be the biggest company in the world.

00:03:58 ◼   ► They will-- is it a five-year thing, a 10-year thing?

00:04:03 ◼   ► Is it after you and I are dead, 25, 30 years from now?

00:04:06 ◼   ► But it will happen, right?

00:04:08 ◼   ► I mean, the East India Trading Company is not that big a deal anymore.

00:04:12 ◼   ► How were their results this week?

00:04:14 ◼   ► I don't know if they've announced them yet.

00:04:16 ◼   ► It's going to change eventually.

00:04:18 ◼   ► But in the near term, it is hard to see how Apple's--

00:04:23 ◼   ► they really seem to have a very consistent and solid business.

00:04:29 ◼   ► Like, the primary things that are driving revenue and profit,

00:04:33 ◼   ► the devices, iPhone and iPad and Mac and AirPods and watches and the services

00:04:40 ◼   ► is growing.

00:04:41 ◼   ► And there just is not that much cyclical fluctuation

00:04:45 ◼   ► like there were in times past.

00:04:46 ◼   ► And I can't help but think, too, that how long are we?

00:04:50 ◼   ► We're like, what?

00:04:51 ◼   ► Just past-- yeah, we were just celebrating Tim Cook's 10 years as CEO,

00:04:56 ◼   ► I believe.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:04:57 ◼   ► 11.

00:04:58 ◼   ► Yeah, so the end of 2021.

00:04:59 ◼   ► So it's a whole decade, which is a long run.

00:05:03 ◼   ► But it's like, towards the latter few years of this decade of Tim Cook

00:05:08 ◼   ► as CEO, the company has taken more and more of his personality,

00:05:12 ◼   ► in my opinion.

00:05:14 ◼   ► And in the way that it's--

00:05:17 ◼   ► obviously, what we think of with Steve Jobs and Apple

00:05:21 ◼   ► were his product decisions and his taste in the products.

00:05:24 ◼   ► And Tim Cook doesn't do that.

00:05:26 ◼   ► He doesn't try to.

00:05:26 ◼   ► He never pretends like, hey, I'm the genius who's

00:05:29 ◼   ► going to come up with the next big thing.

00:05:31 ◼   ► But it's his personality.

00:05:32 ◼   ► What is his personality?

00:05:34 ◼   ► It's like competent, smart, consistent.

00:05:37 ◼   ► And that's the company now, the company.

00:05:41 ◼   ► And I just think about little things.

00:05:43 ◼   ► Remember when Jobs was CEO--

00:05:46 ◼   ► I forget what year it was, but there was a somewhat serious stock options

00:05:51 ◼   ► scandal, controversy, where they'd--

00:05:56 ◼   ► They backdated a bunch of stock ins for him.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And for other executives, I think.

00:06:01 ◼   ► But I think it was for him, too.

00:06:03 ◼   ► But it was fishy.

00:06:04 ◼   ► And you just say, backdated stock options.

00:06:07 ◼   ► And you already think, that doesn't even-- that already sounds like it's fishy.

00:06:10 ◼   ► Just sort of a fast and loose approach to dealing with it.

00:06:15 ◼   ► And it seemed like the long story short of, hey, can we do this?

00:06:18 ◼   ► And somebody was like, I don't know if we should do this.

00:06:21 ◼   ► And they're like, well, Steve says to do it.

00:06:23 ◼   ► And they're like, OK.

00:06:25 ◼   ► And that's how they got into trouble.

00:06:26 ◼   ► Nobody went to jail.

00:06:27 ◼   ► And they worked it out.

00:06:28 ◼   ► And I don't know if they paid a fine or whatever.

00:06:30 ◼   ► I can't remember the guy's name, the guy who was the CFO at the time.

00:06:34 ◼   ► But he retired not long after that.

00:06:37 ◼   ► And I think he ended up-- he might have gotten fined or something.

00:06:40 ◼   ► I think that--

00:06:41 ◼   ► I probably shouldn't say that because maybe that's not true.

00:06:43 ◼   ► But I feel like he was at least interviewed.

00:06:46 ◼   ► There were some definite concerns about what happened.

00:06:48 ◼   ► I'll find a link to the backdated options scandal.

00:06:52 ◼   ► And we don't have to talk about it.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Is it Anderson?

00:06:54 ◼   ► Is that the guy?

00:06:54 ◼   ► Yeah, it was in his name.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Yeah, that's it.

00:06:57 ◼   ► Fred Anderson.

00:06:57 ◼   ► Fred.

00:06:58 ◼   ► Yeah, he looked like a Fred.

00:07:02 ◼   ► I would say, in the same way-- many people have made this joke.

00:07:06 ◼   ► But if you live in Great Britain and you name your son Jeeves,

00:07:14 ◼   ► the kid is probably going to grow up to be a manservant or a butler,

00:07:17 ◼   ► whatever you call it.

00:07:19 ◼   ► I mean, what else has he got?

00:07:20 ◼   ► I say I like a CFO named Fred.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Just saying, it's a good name for a CFO.

00:07:27 ◼   ► It's got the F.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Yeah, it was Fred Anderson.

00:07:30 ◼   ► I got it right.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Yeah, it wasn't shocking, though.

00:07:32 ◼   ► Ah, they're going to work it out.

00:07:34 ◼   ► It's not that big a deal.

00:07:34 ◼   ► It doesn't seem like anybody actually stole anything.

00:07:36 ◼   ► It just seems like they didn't dot every I, cross every T,

00:07:39 ◼   ► and they're not supposed to do what they did.

00:07:41 ◼   ► And you can pay a fine or throw one employee under the bus

00:07:44 ◼   ► and you keep going.

00:07:46 ◼   ► So yeah, the SEC filed a complaint against him.

00:07:48 ◼   ► But it wasn't shocking, right?

00:07:50 ◼   ► It's not--

00:07:50 ◼   ► No, and it wasn't that unusual at the time either, really.

00:07:54 ◼   ► There were lots of companies that were doing the same.

00:07:56 ◼   ► It's not right.

00:07:57 ◼   ► You're not supposed to do it.

00:07:59 ◼   ► But there were a number of companies that were doing it

00:08:02 ◼   ► during that period.

00:08:03 ◼   ► But if it happened under Tim Cook, wouldn't it be--

00:08:06 ◼   ► it would be shocking.

00:08:07 ◼   ► Yeah, it would be much more shocking.

00:08:09 ◼   ► And it's just that he is more of a--

00:08:12 ◼   ► I don't know, how would you describe it?

00:08:14 ◼   ► By the book?

00:08:14 ◼   ► But that sort of makes it seem like he's conservative,

00:08:18 ◼   ► in the lowercase c, conservative.

00:08:21 ◼   ► And I don't think he is.

00:08:23 ◼   ► It's just not in his personality to play fast and loose.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Whatever the opposite of fast and loose is, that's Tim Cook.

00:08:31 ◼   ► And you just--

00:08:32 ◼   ► He's more careful.

00:08:32 ◼   ► If he's going to break the rules,

00:08:34 ◼   ► he's going to make sure that he covers.

00:08:36 ◼   ► Right.

00:08:37 ◼   ► And I just think that it just shows in the company's results.

00:08:41 ◼   ► And they famously had very consistent profit margins.

00:08:44 ◼   ► But under Steve Jobs, they had bad quarters and good quarters.

00:08:47 ◼   ► And the company was different too.

00:08:49 ◼   ► If Jobs hadn't had cancer and had lived longer,

00:08:54 ◼   ► it's quite possible that under Steve Jobs

00:08:56 ◼   ► still as CEO or as the chairman of the board with Tim Cook

00:08:59 ◼   ► as CEO, but still with Steve Jobs around,

00:09:03 ◼   ► the company would have gotten more consistent in this way

00:09:05 ◼   ► anyway as they grew bigger.

00:09:07 ◼   ► They're so much bigger than they were when Steve Jobs died.

00:09:10 ◼   ► It's just absolutely mind boggling

00:09:13 ◼   ► how much more money they make and how many more of everything

00:09:17 ◼   ► they sell.

00:09:18 ◼   ► But they're just--

00:09:19 ◼   ► I look at these results, and it's

00:09:21 ◼   ► like huge mind boggling sums of money.

00:09:24 ◼   ► And it's just very consistent and somehow predictable.

00:09:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:29 ◼   ► I think Microsoft used to get dinged

00:09:31 ◼   ► for shuffling around revenue between quarters,

00:09:36 ◼   ► like trying to move revenue back and forth in order

00:09:39 ◼   ► to smooth out their revenue.

00:09:41 ◼   ► And I wouldn't be surprised that Apple does something similar,

00:09:45 ◼   ► but much more careful than--

00:09:48 ◼   ► probably less hamfisted than maybe

00:09:49 ◼   ► that Microsoft was doing it.

00:09:51 ◼   ► One of the things that they talked about in the conference

00:09:53 ◼   ► call was the fact that iPad sales were down,

00:09:57 ◼   ► but they blamed constraints.

00:09:59 ◼   ► They blamed part constraints, right?

00:10:01 ◼   ► Yeah, component constraints.

00:10:02 ◼   ► Yeah, but also at the same time, there

00:10:05 ◼   ► was that story a few months back about the fact

00:10:07 ◼   ► that they were repurposing iPad chips for iPhones.

00:10:11 ◼   ► So in a way, I mean, that's a constraint.

00:10:13 ◼   ► But you decided that the constraint

00:10:15 ◼   ► was going to be on iPads rather than on iPhones.

00:10:17 ◼   ► I do think, too, iPad is--

00:10:19 ◼   ► of the three computing platforms--

00:10:22 ◼   ► and I know that Apple Watch is actually a little Unix

00:10:25 ◼   ► computer, and there's actually little Unix computers

00:10:29 ◼   ► in your AirPods.

00:10:30 ◼   ► I mean, everything's a computer now.

00:10:31 ◼   ► But the three that we think of as personal computing devices--

00:10:34 ◼   ► the phone, iPad, and Mac--

00:10:36 ◼   ► iPad has always been weird in its chart

00:10:42 ◼   ► of unit sales and revenue.

00:10:46 ◼   ► It's like it had these crazy first handful of go-go years,

00:10:51 ◼   ► where as a nine-month-old product

00:10:53 ◼   ► or as a 18-month-old product, it was ahead of the iPhone

00:10:57 ◼   ► from when the iPhone was nine months old or 18 months old.

00:11:00 ◼   ► From introduction to now, for years--

00:11:03 ◼   ► at first, a couple of years-- the iPad

00:11:05 ◼   ► was ahead of the iPhone.

00:11:06 ◼   ► And I'll admit to buying into-- maybe it's

00:11:09 ◼   ► just so many more people have been exposed

00:11:12 ◼   ► to Apple who never really thought about buying Apple

00:11:15 ◼   ► stuff.

00:11:15 ◼   ► Maybe this line will keep going, and it's just always

00:11:19 ◼   ► going to stay ahead of the iPhone and the iPad's going

00:11:21 ◼   ► to be the bigger deal.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Turns out that wasn't the case.

00:11:25 ◼   ► And eventually, they went from like $20 million per quarter

00:11:28 ◼   ► down to like $10 million, $9 million.

00:11:31 ◼   ► They don't release unit sales anymore.

00:11:33 ◼   ► They just release revenue.

00:11:34 ◼   ► But it was weird.

00:11:36 ◼   ► It cut in half.

00:11:37 ◼   ► And I really do think it was a simple explanation, which

00:11:40 ◼   ► is that iPads last forever.

00:11:44 ◼   ► You don't abuse them like you do your phone physically.

00:11:47 ◼   ► You don't tend to drop them.

00:11:48 ◼   ► They're not in your pocket all the time.

00:11:49 ◼   ► They don't go everywhere with you.

00:11:51 ◼   ► And what people tend to do on an iPad,

00:11:55 ◼   ► it doesn't matter if it's four years old or five years old.

00:11:58 ◼   ► People just find four or five-year-old iPads

00:12:00 ◼   ► to be just as good as the day they bought them.

00:12:02 ◼   ► And maybe they'd be pleasantly surprised

00:12:04 ◼   ► if somebody replaced their regular coffee with Folgers

00:12:07 ◼   ► crystals.

00:12:08 ◼   ► Somebody came in and said, ha, the iPad you've been using

00:12:11 ◼   ► is actually the new iPad Air.

00:12:13 ◼   ► And they'd be like, huh, I thought my home button

00:12:15 ◼   ► disappeared.

00:12:16 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:12:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I roll mine over about as often

00:12:20 ◼   ► as I roll my Macs over, I would say.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Yeah, and I keep my Macs for years and years too.

00:12:25 ◼   ► I've got the first 11-inch iPad Pro.

00:12:28 ◼   ► I actually have it right here with my show notes.

00:12:30 ◼   ► So it's from 2018?

00:12:32 ◼   ► 2018, yeah.

00:12:33 ◼   ► That's the one I have.

00:12:34 ◼   ► I've even reviewed newer ones, because they send them to me

00:12:37 ◼   ► and I write reviews.

00:12:38 ◼   ► And it's, yeah, these are nice.

00:12:39 ◼   ► And I still can't think of a damn thing

00:12:41 ◼   ► that would be any better or faster than this.

00:12:45 ◼   ► Well, that was what we--

00:12:47 ◼   ► I'm sure you did this as well, but Jason Snell every year

00:12:50 ◼   ► asks for people to do a report card.

00:12:53 ◼   ► I'll spoil mine a little bit, but for Apple.

00:12:55 ◼   ► And the thing that I said about the iPad

00:12:57 ◼   ► was the new iPad Mini is the coolest device

00:13:00 ◼   ► that I just simply have absolutely no reason to buy.

00:13:04 ◼   ► I really want one, but I am not going to use--

00:13:07 ◼   ► I have my 11-inch Air--

00:13:10 ◼   ► or not Air, 11-inch Pro.

00:13:11 ◼   ► And I'm not going to--

00:13:12 ◼   ► there's no reason for me to buy that.

00:13:14 ◼   ► And yet, every once in a while, I'll go onto the website

00:13:17 ◼   ► and just look at it and think, oh, man, that'd be cool to have.

00:13:20 ◼   ► It was worse for me, because they sent me one.

00:13:22 ◼   ► I had to review you, and I really did enjoy it.

00:13:25 ◼   ► But it really did feel to me--

00:13:27 ◼   ► I feel like my--

00:13:30 ◼   ► I was actually-- I actually put this in the show notes

00:13:32 ◼   ► that somebody, R. Stevens, reminded me

00:13:35 ◼   ► that the iPad was introduced 12 years ago, I think yesterday.

00:13:39 ◼   ► What was his-- he had a little quip about it.

00:13:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I think he said he'd only owned three.

00:13:45 ◼   ► I've owned three.

00:13:46 ◼   ► I'm still not entirely sure what they're for.

00:13:49 ◼   ► And that's still how I feel.

00:13:51 ◼   ► I still feel like I depend on, need, and love both my iPhone

00:13:58 ◼   ► and my MacBook Pro.

00:14:01 ◼   ► And if I really could only have one, recreationally,

00:14:06 ◼   ► I'd rather have the iPhone.

00:14:07 ◼   ► But for work, I'd rather have the MacBook Pro.

00:14:10 ◼   ► If I were sentenced to prison, and they said,

00:14:13 ◼   ► but you can take one device with you,

00:14:15 ◼   ► I would take the MacBook Pro.

00:14:16 ◼   ► But both of them feel essential to me.

00:14:19 ◼   ► And the iPad feels to me like this is very nice to have,

00:14:23 ◼   ► and I enjoy using it for long--

00:14:25 ◼   ► I really enjoy using it to read a long article,

00:14:27 ◼   ► or even an e-book, or something like that.

00:14:30 ◼   ► But I don't need it.

00:14:32 ◼   ► That's interesting.

00:14:33 ◼   ► If you included the iPad in that question,

00:14:36 ◼   ► if you could only have one, I might pick the iPad.

00:14:39 ◼   ► Because the iPad with the Magic Keyboard is pretty good,

00:14:43 ◼   ► and does most everything.

00:14:45 ◼   ► And it's more portable, and it lets me--

00:14:47 ◼   ► There's some, there's still some--

00:14:48 ◼   ► I guess there's probably--

00:14:48 ◼   ► I'm sure you could do it through the website, maybe.

00:14:51 ◼   ► But like, HBO Max, and some other ones.

00:14:53 ◼   ► And even Amazon just came out with a viewer thing for--

00:14:56 ◼   ► not just, but maybe a month or two ago-- for the Mac.

00:14:59 ◼   ► But it was a little skippy for me

00:15:01 ◼   ► when I watched something using their viewer on the Mac.

00:15:04 ◼   ► And it's much more smooth on the iPad.

00:15:06 ◼   ► So I just prefer watching stuff on the iPad.

00:15:09 ◼   ► That's true.

00:15:10 ◼   ► That's true, if you could stream.

00:15:12 ◼   ► It depends if I wanted to work or be entertained.

00:15:14 ◼   ► And it is--

00:15:15 ◼   ► If I'm going to jail, I think I want to be entertained.

00:15:17 ◼   ► Yeah, to hell with this.

00:15:18 ◼   ► Somebody else-- to hell with my family.

00:15:20 ◼   ► I'm not writing this website while I'm in prison.

00:15:23 ◼   ► Take care of yourselves.

00:15:25 ◼   ► I'll be back in 5 to 10.

00:15:27 ◼   ► But it would be preposterous for me

00:15:29 ◼   ► to both keep my 11-inch 2018 iPad Pro,

00:15:33 ◼   ► and get an iPad Mini.

00:15:34 ◼   ► Like, just to have a dessert on my dessert device,

00:15:39 ◼   ► it just doesn't have a role for me.

00:15:42 ◼   ► And I don't need to replace my iPad.

00:15:44 ◼   ► And if I did replace my iPad, I really

00:15:46 ◼   ► would rather have one that's big enough

00:15:48 ◼   ► to have a Magic Keyboard.

00:15:49 ◼   ► And so it's not.

00:15:50 ◼   ► But it is an adorable device.

00:15:52 ◼   ► And I've always loved the form factor of the iPad Mini.

00:15:55 ◼   ► For many-- most of the early years of iPad,

00:15:58 ◼   ► my personal iPad was a Mini.

00:16:00 ◼   ► And I really enjoyed it.

00:16:01 ◼   ► Here, let me take a break.

00:16:03 ◼   ► And we'll get back to the results.

00:16:05 ◼   ► But I'll take a break here and thank our first sponsor,

00:16:07 ◼   ► our good friends at Linode.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Go to linode.com/thetalkshow and see

00:16:12 ◼   ► why Linode has been voted the top infrastructure as a service

00:16:16 ◼   ► provider by both G2 and Trust Radius.

00:16:20 ◼   ► Linode's award-winning support offered 24 hours a day,

00:16:24 ◼   ► seven days a week, 365 days a year to every level of user.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Even if you're on, like, a $5, $10 a month account,

00:16:31 ◼   ► you still get their award-winning tech support.

00:16:35 ◼   ► Their ease of use and setup, it is clear

00:16:37 ◼   ► why developers and people hosting websites

00:16:39 ◼   ► have been trusting Linode for projects both big and small

00:16:42 ◼   ► since 2003, almost 20 years of Linode.

00:16:46 ◼   ► You can deploy your entire application stack

00:16:48 ◼   ► with their one-click app marketplace

00:16:51 ◼   ► or build it all from scratch and manage everything

00:16:55 ◼   ► yourself with supported centralized tools

00:16:57 ◼   ► like Terraform.

00:16:58 ◼   ► They offer amazing, the best price to performance value

00:17:02 ◼   ► for all compute instances, including GPUs, block storage,

00:17:07 ◼   ► Kubernetes, and their upcoming bare metal release.

00:17:12 ◼   ► They make cloud computing fast, simple, and affordable,

00:17:14 ◼   ► allowing you to focus on your projects, not

00:17:16 ◼   ► your infrastructure.

00:17:18 ◼   ► So visit linode.com/thetalkshow.

00:17:22 ◼   ► Linode, that's where I host Daring Fireball.

00:17:24 ◼   ► I would do that even if they weren't sponsoring the podcast.

00:17:26 ◼   ► I love them.

00:17:27 ◼   ► And you can create a free account

00:17:29 ◼   ► at linode.com/thetalkshow.

00:17:31 ◼   ► You can use your Google ID, your GitHub account,

00:17:34 ◼   ► or just use your email address to create a free account.

00:17:37 ◼   ► And by going there to linode.com/thetalkshow,

00:17:40 ◼   ► you get $100 in credit, $100.

00:17:44 ◼   ► So iPad sales were down like 14% year over year,

00:17:47 ◼   ► quarter to quarter.

00:17:48 ◼   ► I didn't realize it.

00:17:50 ◼   ► There were some things I looked up.

00:17:51 ◼   ► The last time I was on CNBC for one

00:17:54 ◼   ► of those little three-minute things that I--

00:17:56 ◼   ► it was like three minutes of torture for me.

00:17:58 ◼   ► I don't know why I ever agreed to do it.

00:18:00 ◼   ► I get so stressed out.

00:18:01 ◼   ► But I looked up.

00:18:02 ◼   ► I remember it was like right after a bunch of the fall

00:18:05 ◼   ► October devices came out.

00:18:07 ◼   ► And it was like the Apple Watch was already backordered

00:18:11 ◼   ► into late November.

00:18:12 ◼   ► It feels-- and again, I think it's one of those Tim Cook

00:18:16 ◼   ► things.

00:18:17 ◼   ► We just take Tim Cook for granted, the things

00:18:19 ◼   ► that he's the best at.

00:18:20 ◼   ► And operations and the supply chain stuff,

00:18:23 ◼   ► for all of the hand wringing that everybody around the world

00:18:27 ◼   ► went through for supply chain constraints and shipping

00:18:31 ◼   ► boats that were backed up outside Los Angeles waiting

00:18:34 ◼   ► for room at the harbor because everything got all backed up.

00:18:37 ◼   ► Stuck in a canal.

00:18:38 ◼   ► Stuck in a canal.

00:18:39 ◼   ► Right, somebody actually--

00:18:42 ◼   ► that's exactly what would happen, by the way, if I ever--

00:18:45 ◼   ► if they ever said, Gruber, take the wheel.

00:18:47 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:18:48 ◼   ► And I'd say, are you sure?

00:18:49 ◼   ► And they'd say, yeah, well, five minutes.

00:18:51 ◼   ► What could go wrong?

00:18:52 ◼   ► Five minutes.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Just take the wheel.

00:18:54 ◼   ► I got to hit the head.

00:18:55 ◼   ► I'll be back in five minutes.

00:18:56 ◼   ► Next thing--

00:18:56 ◼   ► Just keep it pointed straight.

00:18:57 ◼   ► Yeah, next thing you know.

00:19:00 ◼   ► You're in a canal.

00:19:01 ◼   ► What could go wrong?

00:19:02 ◼   ► I've blocked the Suez Canal.

00:19:04 ◼   ► That would happen.

00:19:04 ◼   ► I guarantee it.

00:19:05 ◼   ► I cannot-- did you ever drive a rental moving truck?

00:19:09 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:19:10 ◼   ► One time-- oh god, it must have been 1999.

00:19:14 ◼   ► Amy was moving from Pittsburgh back to Philadelphia.

00:19:17 ◼   ► And me and a friend were going to rent a truck here

00:19:20 ◼   ► in Philadelphia and then drive out to Pittsburgh,

00:19:24 ◼   ► load up her stuff, and then hit right back.

00:19:27 ◼   ► It's about a five-hour drive, maybe a little longer.

00:19:31 ◼   ► And a rental truck, they don't go my speed.

00:19:33 ◼   ► No.

00:19:34 ◼   ► So a long day, five hours one way, load up a truck.

00:19:37 ◼   ► Five hours the other way, unload the truck.

00:19:40 ◼   ► It was going to be a long day, but better to knock it out.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Anyway, I go in the morning.

00:19:44 ◼   ► I pick up the rental truck and pull out of the lot.

00:19:48 ◼   ► And I got to make a right-hand turn.

00:19:51 ◼   ► And I took the right-hand turn at a light a little too close.

00:19:55 ◼   ► Boom.

00:19:56 ◼   ► I could hear it.

00:19:57 ◼   ► The tire hit the curb.

00:20:00 ◼   ► And by the time I got to the next corner,

00:20:02 ◼   ► I could tell I had blew the tire right out of the lot.

00:20:06 ◼   ► So I just went around the block, pulled right back

00:20:08 ◼   ► into the budget.

00:20:09 ◼   ► It was a budget.

00:20:10 ◼   ► And I said, hey, what's the deal?

00:20:12 ◼   ► You gave me a lousy tire.

00:20:14 ◼   ► You gave me a bum tire.

00:20:15 ◼   ► And the guy is like, oh, I'm sorry.

00:20:17 ◼   ► I'm so sorry, because he was the same guy who just gave me

00:20:19 ◼   ► the keys about four minutes before.

00:20:21 ◼   ► I was like, what the hell?

00:20:22 ◼   ► I got to get to Pittsburgh.

00:20:23 ◼   ► He's, hold on, let me see what else I got.

00:20:25 ◼   ► Gives me another truck.

00:20:27 ◼   ► But this one didn't look the same.

00:20:28 ◼   ► This one was-- remember Isuzu?

00:20:32 ◼   ► You don't hear about Isuzu.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Whatever happened to that company?

00:20:35 ◼   ► No, I know.

00:20:35 ◼   ► I thought about them the other day.

00:20:36 ◼   ► I was like, for some reason, Joe Isuzu popped into my head.

00:20:39 ◼   ► Yeah, now I got to put that in the show notes.

00:20:41 ◼   ► What the hell ever happened to Isuzu?

00:20:43 ◼   ► The other one just looked like-- the first one looked like a regular budget

00:20:46 ◼   ► rental truck, the type of thing you would think

00:20:48 ◼   ► you would need to move a 26-year-old single woman from Pittsburgh to Philly.

00:20:53 ◼   ► Not too big, but not a van.

00:20:55 ◼   ► It was a truck.

00:20:56 ◼   ► It was like the smallest truck.

00:20:57 ◼   ► And he gave me an Isuzu.

00:20:58 ◼   ► It was the same size, but it was one of those ones that had no nose.

00:21:03 ◼   ► So you're sitting right over the--

00:21:05 ◼   ► You're sitting right over, yeah.

00:21:07 ◼   ► Right over the front.

00:21:08 ◼   ► And I pick up my friend, and we drive.

00:21:10 ◼   ► And then, like the idiots that we are, we stop at the very first rest station

00:21:15 ◼   ► to get some food.

00:21:17 ◼   ► It's a long drive to Pittsburgh.

00:21:18 ◼   ► And we decide to stop at the first one.

00:21:20 ◼   ► We get, I don't know, some burgers or something like that and get back in.

00:21:24 ◼   ► And the thing won't even start.

00:21:26 ◼   ► Won't start.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Son of a bitch.

00:21:28 ◼   ► And it took four or five hours to get a service guy out there

00:21:33 ◼   ► to change the battery.

00:21:35 ◼   ► So now we're like five, six hours behind.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Anyway, it all worked out.

00:21:38 ◼   ► Also, Amy will verify this.

00:21:40 ◼   ► I did on the way back after-- this is nighttime.

00:21:42 ◼   ► We're driving back from Pittsburgh to Philly.

00:21:45 ◼   ► Almost drove off a cliff.

00:21:46 ◼   ► They say we had like a wheel or two over the edge.

00:21:52 ◼   ► I say it wasn't quite that close.

00:21:54 ◼   ► But--

00:21:55 ◼   ► This is why you can't drive it.

00:21:56 ◼   ► It's one of the reasons I can.

00:21:57 ◼   ► I definitely do not have a truck driver's license.

00:22:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:00 ◼   ► The crazy thing-- so I grew up in Connecticut.

00:22:02 ◼   ► And a Connecticut driver's license, at least for years--

00:22:05 ◼   ► I don't know if it's like this anymore-- was also considered

00:22:07 ◼   ► a limousine driver's license.

00:22:10 ◼   ► For some reason, I have absolutely no idea.

00:22:12 ◼   ► I didn't take some sub-course in limousine driving

00:22:16 ◼   ► in order to get my license.

00:22:17 ◼   ► But when I went to college, I was

00:22:19 ◼   ► looking for a part-time job to try and make some money

00:22:22 ◼   ► while I was going to school.

00:22:23 ◼   ► And one of the things that I found

00:22:25 ◼   ► was driving for the school, they would pay--

00:22:28 ◼   ► because they would have sometimes parents, but also

00:22:32 ◼   ► people who were coming to speak at the school

00:22:34 ◼   ► and would need a ride from the airport.

00:22:35 ◼   ► So they had a van.

00:22:37 ◼   ► And if you had a Connecticut driver's license,

00:22:39 ◼   ► you were licensed to drive the van.

00:22:40 ◼   ► And so I drove the van.

00:22:43 ◼   ► I had no special skills.

00:22:45 ◼   ► I have no idea how that happened.

00:22:47 ◼   ► And I feel kind of lucky that nobody got injured

00:22:51 ◼   ► while I was driving that van.

00:22:53 ◼   ► Huh.

00:22:53 ◼   ► That's very funny, because my friend John is--

00:22:57 ◼   ► also named John, John--

00:22:59 ◼   ► my roommate from college who was--

00:23:01 ◼   ► Should have him on the podcast with me.

00:23:02 ◼   ► I should.

00:23:03 ◼   ► We all know him.

00:23:03 ◼   ► No confusion at all.

00:23:04 ◼   ► No, none.

00:23:05 ◼   ► My friend John, who was the guy who went with me out

00:23:08 ◼   ► to Pittsburgh, and very-- what a friend, right?

00:23:11 ◼   ► What a friend who's willing to ride all the way to Pittsburgh

00:23:13 ◼   ► to help you.

00:23:14 ◼   ► Any friend that helps you move, that's a solid--

00:23:16 ◼   ► But a day trip from Philly to Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh

00:23:19 ◼   ► round trip, that's a hell of a thing.

00:23:21 ◼   ► But anyway, he had a job in college.

00:23:23 ◼   ► Now Drexel and Penn are right next to each other,

00:23:26 ◼   ► big shared border.

00:23:27 ◼   ► It's effectively one big conglomerate of college campus.

00:23:33 ◼   ► And he was a van driver for the University of Pennsylvania,

00:23:38 ◼   ► even though we went to Drexel.

00:23:39 ◼   ► He got a job at Penn driving like the--

00:23:42 ◼   ► you just sort of have a route, and you just stop.

00:23:46 ◼   ► It's like a bus, but it was a van.

00:23:47 ◼   ► And you'd stop, and if kids at Penn had student ID,

00:23:51 ◼   ► they could just get on for free and ride around.

00:23:54 ◼   ► Well anyway, he liked it.

00:23:56 ◼   ► He enjoyed the job.

00:23:57 ◼   ► It paid good money, I guess.

00:23:59 ◼   ► But one time, he hit somebody.

00:24:01 ◼   ► But it was absolutely not his fault.

00:24:04 ◼   ► It was like an intoxicated college student who

00:24:08 ◼   ► ran in front of his van.

00:24:10 ◼   ► And there were all sorts of witnesses.

00:24:12 ◼   ► It was like a Friday night at 9 o'clock, all sorts

00:24:15 ◼   ► of witnesses.

00:24:16 ◼   ► And he was in no legal trouble.

00:24:18 ◼   ► And everybody agreed it was the kid's fault.

00:24:21 ◼   ► The kid who got hit, I think it was a girl,

00:24:23 ◼   ► but even she admitted it was her fault.

00:24:25 ◼   ► And still, he got fired.

00:24:27 ◼   ► It was company policy.

00:24:28 ◼   ► As soon as you hit somebody, you're fired.

00:24:30 ◼   ► So he lost his job, even though it wasn't his fault.

00:24:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I-- yeah.

00:24:36 ◼   ► And they even said to him, they're like,

00:24:38 ◼   ► that's a tough one, because it really-- this one,

00:24:40 ◼   ► it's usually not so clear cut.

00:24:41 ◼   ► This one wasn't your fault. Policy's policy.

00:24:44 ◼   ► You know who should have that policy is Spotify.

00:24:46 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:24:50 ◼   ► If you hit somebody?

00:24:51 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:24:54 ◼   ► Or if you spew COVID nonsense for years on end.

00:25:01 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe.

00:25:02 ◼   ► All right, what else?

00:25:03 ◼   ► Anything else stick out from-- oh, the Mac sales were up.

00:25:06 ◼   ► And that's-- of course.

00:25:07 ◼   ► Also, I don't think you have to be Jim Cramer.

00:25:11 ◼   ► You don't have to be a deep thinker of Wall Street

00:25:13 ◼   ► to figure out what's going on.

00:25:15 ◼   ► The M1 Macs came out at the beginning of last year,

00:25:18 ◼   ► end of 2020.

00:25:20 ◼   ► They're incredibly well-reviewed.

00:25:22 ◼   ► And they've percolated throughout the lineup

00:25:25 ◼   ► to all of the most popular models.

00:25:28 ◼   ► The only remaining ones are the big iMac

00:25:31 ◼   ► and the professional Mac Pro.

00:25:34 ◼   ► And yeah, it's not surprising Mac sales are up.

00:25:38 ◼   ► Record breaking, more Macs being sold in a quarter than ever

00:25:41 ◼   ► before, although they-- again, they don't break down units

00:25:44 ◼   ► anymore, so we can't say, but at least by revenue.

00:25:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:48 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

00:25:49 ◼   ► And it does not seem surprising.

00:25:51 ◼   ► And they also said the last--

00:25:52 ◼   ► gosh, now I can't remember the number.

00:25:55 ◼   ► 6 quarters were the best 6 quarters for the Mac ever.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Yeah, because there was an unusual thing where

00:26:03 ◼   ► part of us, people like us, are like, what kind of an idiot

00:26:07 ◼   ► would buy an Intel Mac in September?

00:26:10 ◼   ► When you knew that Apple Silicon was going.

00:26:12 ◼   ► But they had a record breaking quarter,

00:26:14 ◼   ► like the last quarter of Mac sales

00:26:16 ◼   ► before they even announced the transition.

00:26:19 ◼   ► Even though they announced the transition was coming at WWDC

00:26:22 ◼   ► already, it was as much as Apple ever talks about the future.

00:26:25 ◼   ► But people--

00:26:26 ◼   ► 6 quarters is a year and a half.

00:26:28 ◼   ► So I think what that times to is the period after--

00:26:34 ◼   ► I mean, for a while, Apple kind of screwed the Mac up, right?

00:26:38 ◼   ► I mean, the MacBook Pro, the keyboard things, the Touch Bar--

00:26:43 ◼   ► The lack of a retina MacBook Air.

00:26:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, all these things probably

00:26:48 ◼   ► depressed Mac sales to some degree for a while.

00:26:51 ◼   ► And once they addressed those issues,

00:26:55 ◼   ► I think that probably helped a lot.

00:26:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I do too.

00:26:59 ◼   ► Yeah, and I do think--

00:27:00 ◼   ► I don't think it was so much that the company had

00:27:03 ◼   ► lost interest in the Mac.

00:27:04 ◼   ► I just think they knew--

00:27:05 ◼   ► No, I think they were just going in the wrong direction.

00:27:07 ◼   ► Well, and I think they knew this transition was coming.

00:27:10 ◼   ► And they were like, so do we really

00:27:12 ◼   ► want to do x before we actually make this transition?

00:27:15 ◼   ► Why don't we save it?

00:27:16 ◼   ► And they have good ideas for things

00:27:18 ◼   ► to do with the Mac and Mac hardware.

00:27:20 ◼   ► Why don't we save it for when we do Apple Silicon?

00:27:23 ◼   ► And some of the things really depend on it,

00:27:25 ◼   ► like the fact that you get a much, much better

00:27:28 ◼   ► significantly better FaceTime camera for video conference

00:27:31 ◼   ► calls and whatever else you use your MacBook camera for.

00:27:35 ◼   ► You get such better picture out of it

00:27:38 ◼   ► because it gets the image processing

00:27:40 ◼   ► pipeline of Apple Silicon.

00:27:41 ◼   ► Like the first round of--

00:27:43 ◼   ► still for sale, like if you buy the MacBook Air with an M1,

00:27:47 ◼   ► it literally has the same camera as the Intel ones.

00:27:50 ◼   ► And the picture looks like 10 times better

00:27:52 ◼   ► because it's better chips.

00:27:55 ◼   ► And I don't know.

00:27:56 ◼   ► I feel like even with the Mac Pro that there was sort of a,

00:28:00 ◼   ► oh, you know, it's like we really have to do something.

00:28:04 ◼   ► The trash can design isn't working.

00:28:05 ◼   ► But do we really want to throw all of the effort

00:28:09 ◼   ► into going with one generation of Xeon to do all of this?

00:28:13 ◼   ► And then we're going to throw it all out.

00:28:15 ◼   ► And they're like, oh, OK, I guess we have to.

00:28:17 ◼   ► And like the iMac Pro is like that.

00:28:19 ◼   ► The iMac Pro was like--

00:28:21 ◼   ► it still is.

00:28:22 ◼   ► It's like a technical marvel of cooling

00:28:25 ◼   ► that they have these chips that even Intel admits runs hot.

00:28:28 ◼   ► And they've got like this real svelte form factor.

00:28:32 ◼   ► And it doesn't make a lot of noise.

00:28:34 ◼   ► And they made one of them.

00:28:35 ◼   ► And I'm sure that it's not like that their Mac's hardware

00:28:42 ◼   ► engineers have developed muscles for designing and implementing

00:28:48 ◼   ► cooling systems that aren't applicable in the Apple Silicon

00:28:53 ◼   ► world.

00:28:53 ◼   ► I'm sure they are.

00:28:54 ◼   ► And look at how thin the M1 24-inch iMac is.

00:28:58 ◼   ► The fact that it's so crazy thin with no pimple or bulge

00:29:03 ◼   ► anywhere on the back, the fact that they've

00:29:05 ◼   ► honed their chops making cooling systems like the iMac Pro 1.

00:29:08 ◼   ► But still, you can see why they were--

00:29:12 ◼   ► I just think that they were hoping that maybe the Apple

00:29:14 ◼   ► Silicon transition would happen a year or two earlier

00:29:18 ◼   ► than it actually did.

00:29:19 ◼   ► And no one would notice that these Pro Macs were

00:29:24 ◼   ► getting long in the tooth.

00:29:26 ◼   ► And I don't know how much of the keyboards delay.

00:29:28 ◼   ► What clearly, in hindsight, looks like procrastination

00:29:32 ◼   ► on their part.

00:29:33 ◼   ► The problem isn't that they tried these butterfly keyboards.

00:29:36 ◼   ► It made sense.

00:29:37 ◼   ► And some people like less travel or more travel on their keys.

00:29:40 ◼   ► But once it turned out that breadcrumbs and stuff were all

00:29:43 ◼   ► of a sudden your B--

00:29:44 ◼   ► Destroying them.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Yeah, destroying your B key.

00:29:46 ◼   ► And the answer was, well, you need a whole new top case.

00:29:48 ◼   ► It should have been replaced sooner than it was.

00:29:51 ◼   ► And Apple, to their credit, as a company, tends to--

00:29:54 ◼   ► it's not that they don't make mistakes,

00:29:56 ◼   ► but they tend to rectify mistakes somewhat quickly.

00:30:00 ◼   ► This isn't working.

00:30:00 ◼   ► Let's do something different.

00:30:02 ◼   ► Whereas they stuck with a bunch of Mac stuff for years

00:30:04 ◼   ► when they shouldn't have.

00:30:05 ◼   ► And I just don't think it's a coincidence

00:30:07 ◼   ► that they had this transition on the horizon

00:30:09 ◼   ► and sort of wanted to save the good stuff for it.

00:30:12 ◼   ► And I know people who held onto Macbook, older Macbook

00:30:15 ◼   ► pros for years, and completely skipped that generation just

00:30:19 ◼   ► because of the things that they had heard about it.

00:30:20 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

00:30:21 ◼   ► Because you might be thinking, hey,

00:30:23 ◼   ► my MacBook's getting kind of slow.

00:30:25 ◼   ► And you think, but I've never once

00:30:26 ◼   ► had a single problem with the keyboard.

00:30:28 ◼   ► And you hear all these problems.

00:30:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:30:31 ◼   ► I mean, I think I was--

00:30:33 ◼   ► at one point during the keyboard saga, I even wrote that.

00:30:36 ◼   ► And it's like, you can talk about whatever

00:30:38 ◼   ► they say that most of our customers

00:30:39 ◼   ► have no complaints, whatever.

00:30:41 ◼   ► But it's like, I've been using computers, just computers,

00:30:44 ◼   ► period.

00:30:44 ◼   ► As long as I can remember.

00:30:46 ◼   ► And I just don't ever remember where there was a problem,

00:30:49 ◼   ► like when you're typing, where you'd try to type 1s

00:30:52 ◼   ► and you'd get three of them or something like that.

00:30:54 ◼   ► It just never happened with anybody's computer.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:30:58 ◼   ► It just-- it was a problem.

00:31:01 ◼   ► It's also the number of ports, too, I think.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Yeah, that was true.

00:31:04 ◼   ► But anyway, it was a good year for the Mac, corresponding.

00:31:08 ◼   ► Like reviewers and nerds like us look at these new Macs

00:31:11 ◼   ► that Apple's coming out with with Apple Silicon.

00:31:13 ◼   ► We say, these are excellent computers.

00:31:15 ◼   ► And it seems people, tens of millions of people

00:31:18 ◼   ► who are in the market for them agree.

00:31:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:22 ◼   ► The other things, the other two things

00:31:23 ◼   ► that I noticed were both related,

00:31:25 ◼   ► they said that around half of the customers purchasing

00:31:27 ◼   ► an iPad during the quarter were new to the product.

00:31:30 ◼   ► And also, 2/3 of the customers purchasing an Apple Watch

00:31:33 ◼   ► were new to the product.

00:31:35 ◼   ► But that's another one, too, where I feel like people just

00:31:37 ◼   ► buy one and then they're going to keep it for years and years.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Because that's how people think of their watches.

00:31:42 ◼   ► I don't even remember which one my watch is.

00:31:45 ◼   ► I forgot which model I have.

00:31:47 ◼   ► It's definitely a few years old, but I can't

00:31:49 ◼   ► remember which model it is.

00:31:51 ◼   ► Which is--

00:31:52 ◼   ► I think it's a five.

00:31:53 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's the way it should be, though.

00:31:55 ◼   ► I really do.

00:31:57 ◼   ► But that really speaks to, especially with the iPad,

00:31:59 ◼   ► if half-- so sales are down, half of them were new.

00:32:03 ◼   ► To me, it just says that there are just tens and tens, maybe

00:32:07 ◼   ► hundreds of millions of people with iPads who are just like,

00:32:11 ◼   ► I'm good.

00:32:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:12 ◼   ► I think the amazing thing to me about the iPad line

00:32:14 ◼   ► is that eponymous iPad.

00:32:15 ◼   ► Because you can get them for-- they go down to like $230

00:32:20 ◼   ► or something like that at Costco.

00:32:22 ◼   ► I mean, that is a lot of machine for that amount of money.

00:32:27 ◼   ► That is probably the best value that Apple offers.

00:32:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I think the official retail price is $329.

00:32:34 ◼   ► But yeah, they definitely dip below.

00:32:35 ◼   ► Maybe I'm thinking, maybe it's more like $270 or something.

00:32:37 ◼   ► Yeah, they go below $300.

00:32:39 ◼   ► Bang for the buck, it is really just remarkable.

00:32:42 ◼   ► And it goes against the everything

00:32:45 ◼   ► Apple makes is expensive.

00:32:46 ◼   ► It's like, I don't know.

00:32:48 ◼   ► I dare you to find a better computer.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Maybe you don't like iPad OS for whatever reasons.

00:32:54 ◼   ► But in terms of--

00:32:56 ◼   ► Yeah, that's not to say there aren't knocks on it compared

00:32:58 ◼   ► to other devices.

00:32:59 ◼   ► But dollar for dollar, I don't think

00:33:02 ◼   ► you're going to get a better value.

00:33:04 ◼   ► Karen has one-- gosh, she's got one that's a year and a half

00:33:07 ◼   ► old, something like that.

00:33:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's about a year and a half old.

00:33:10 ◼   ► And I was just thinking, maybe for Christmas,

00:33:12 ◼   ► maybe she would like a new one.

00:33:14 ◼   ► She was not interested.

00:33:17 ◼   ► She's like, it's great.

00:33:18 ◼   ► It does everything that I want.

00:33:19 ◼   ► She even doesn't mind the old pencil, particularly.

00:33:22 ◼   ► I mean, I'm sure if she got a new one,

00:33:23 ◼   ► she'd like the new one better.

00:33:25 ◼   ► But she was perfectly happy.

00:33:27 ◼   ► And I was just like, why spend--

00:33:28 ◼   ► I spent a few hundred bucks on this thing,

00:33:30 ◼   ► just shoving something in front of her because it's new.

00:33:34 ◼   ► Anything stand out from you from the analyst call,

00:33:36 ◼   ► the this is Tim, the transcript, not much for me.

00:33:40 ◼   ► I guess the news people are focusing on

00:33:43 ◼   ► is that he said there's 1.8--

00:33:45 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

00:33:47 ◼   ► --billion Apple devices in use.

00:33:49 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure what they count as a device.

00:33:51 ◼   ► Yeah, and how they were in use.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Because to me, that's the question.

00:33:55 ◼   ► If it's still signed into iCloud or something like that, OK.

00:33:59 ◼   ► I'm not sure if that really counts

00:34:01 ◼   ► because I have a lot of devices that are still

00:34:02 ◼   ► signed into iCloud.

00:34:03 ◼   ► Does my Apple TV remote control count as a device?

00:34:08 ◼   ► I doubt it.

00:34:10 ◼   ► I doubt the remote control counts as a device.

00:34:12 ◼   ► The TV does.

00:34:13 ◼   ► The TV does, but the mouse connected to my iMac

00:34:16 ◼   ► or whatever does not count as a separate device.

00:34:19 ◼   ► It's a lot for a planet with only, I believe,

00:34:22 ◼   ► 7 billion people.

00:34:24 ◼   ► Last I checked, but yeah, it's been a few years since I looked.

00:34:27 ◼   ► It's weird because it's like you internalize things.

00:34:29 ◼   ► I just remember when I first became

00:34:31 ◼   ► aware of the population of the Earth,

00:34:33 ◼   ► it was 5 billion.

00:34:34 ◼   ► Yep, me too.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Me too.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:34:37 ◼   ► Similar age.

00:34:39 ◼   ► And I just thought, that's the number.

00:34:41 ◼   ► And then at some point, talking about 6 billion,

00:34:43 ◼   ► I'm like, no, 5 billion.

00:34:44 ◼   ► And then it's, oh, I see how it works.

00:34:46 ◼   ► Goes up pretty quick.

00:34:51 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:34:52 ◼   ► It could be 13 billion at this point.

00:34:54 ◼   ► I just haven't paid attention.

00:34:56 ◼   ► I believe it's 7.

00:34:57 ◼   ► So with a planet of 7 billion people,

00:34:59 ◼   ► 1.8 billion devices in use is pretty good reach

00:35:03 ◼   ► for a company that was formerly beleaguered.

00:35:07 ◼   ► Let me take a break here, and I will thank our next sponsor.

00:35:10 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:35:12 ◼   ► You wouldn't even believe how much Mack Weldon clothing

00:35:16 ◼   ► I have on right now.

00:35:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:18 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:35:18 ◼   ► Same.

00:35:19 ◼   ► Because I'm freezing.

00:35:20 ◼   ► So I've gone the layered route.

00:35:24 ◼   ► I believe I'm wearing--

00:35:27 ◼   ► I've got their cotton t-shirt on,

00:35:29 ◼   ► and then I've got the ace sweatshirt.

00:35:33 ◼   ► And then I've got the ace hoodie on top of my ace sweatshirt.

00:35:36 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:35:37 ◼   ► Mack Weldon.

00:35:39 ◼   ► Look, their stuff looks great.

00:35:40 ◼   ► You want to look good in the winter.

00:35:42 ◼   ► Mack Weldon, they're the experts when

00:35:43 ◼   ► it comes to essential clothing.

00:35:44 ◼   ► That's perfect for the cold.

00:35:46 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:35:47 ◼   ► This sponsor read is right what I need.

00:35:49 ◼   ► Whether you need a legit warm shirt

00:35:51 ◼   ► or looking to upgrade your sweats collection,

00:35:53 ◼   ► Mack Weldon has exactly what you're looking for.

00:35:55 ◼   ► And if that's not convenient enough,

00:35:57 ◼   ► they've got the daily wear system.

00:35:59 ◼   ► All the clothes work together for real.

00:36:02 ◼   ► So whether you're headed to work and you

00:36:04 ◼   ► need to look professional, or you're going for a run,

00:36:06 ◼   ► or you're just sitting around on the couch

00:36:08 ◼   ► and you really want the sweatpants, getting dressed

00:36:10 ◼   ► takes no effort at all.

00:36:12 ◼   ► They've got the ace sweatshirts, the sweatpants.

00:36:14 ◼   ► I'm not a sweatpants guy, but Syracuse

00:36:17 ◼   ► had talked me into trying them years ago.

00:36:18 ◼   ► You've got to have some sweatpants.

00:36:20 ◼   ► I have to say, they're the best sweatpants I've ever had.

00:36:23 ◼   ► Because they don't look like sweatpants from when I was

00:36:25 ◼   ► younger.

00:36:26 ◼   ► You look a little bit less like you're in pajamas,

00:36:29 ◼   ► and you look like you can go somewhere.

00:36:31 ◼   ► And they've got nice pockets that are actually useful.

00:36:33 ◼   ► Whereas back in the day, you put anything in sweatpants pockets,

00:36:36 ◼   ► it's going to fall out.

00:36:37 ◼   ► No, their stuff stays together.

00:36:40 ◼   ► They've got the warm knit collection.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:36:42 ◼   ► The warm knit stuff is--

00:36:43 ◼   ► I don't know how they do it.

00:36:44 ◼   ► It's like some kind of scientific fabric,

00:36:46 ◼   ► but it keeps you warm.

00:36:47 ◼   ► They've got flannel shirts and stuff

00:36:50 ◼   ► that are made out of the warm knit fabric, very warm.

00:36:53 ◼   ► And of course, they've got underwear and socks.

00:36:55 ◼   ► I've got one pair of Mack Weldon underwear.

00:36:58 ◼   ► I wear it every single day.

00:37:00 ◼   ► And nothing ever goes wrong with it.

00:37:02 ◼   ► No, I kid.

00:37:05 ◼   ► I've got a whole drawer full--

00:37:07 ◼   ► I'm not going to ask how often you do laundry.

00:37:09 ◼   ► I've got a whole drawer full of Mack Weldon underwear.

00:37:12 ◼   ► I do not just wear the same pair every day.

00:37:14 ◼   ► But you could if you wanted to.

00:37:16 ◼   ► The stuff really lasts.

00:37:17 ◼   ► Anyway, everything from your sock and undied drawer

00:37:20 ◼   ► to sweatshirts and this warm stuff.

00:37:22 ◼   ► Man, they have so much warm stuff.

00:37:24 ◼   ► It is great.

00:37:25 ◼   ► Layers, that's the secret to winter.

00:37:26 ◼   ► Go there.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Go to Mack Weldon.

00:37:28 ◼   ► And you can get--

00:37:29 ◼   ► save 20% off your first order by going to m-a-c-k-w-e-l-d-o-n,

00:37:36 ◼   ► mackweldon.com/the-talk-show.

00:37:40 ◼   ► And just remember, I think if you just go to the URL,

00:37:43 ◼   ► it's pre-entered.

00:37:43 ◼   ► But the promo code is thetalkshow.

00:37:46 ◼   ► And that's what gets you 20% off.

00:37:48 ◼   ► You can find your perfect look for this winter.

00:37:52 ◼   ► Don't forget the slippers.

00:37:53 ◼   ► I've got them on right now.

00:37:54 ◼   ► They're keeping my feet toasty warm.

00:37:56 ◼   ► My feet are actually not cold.

00:37:58 ◼   ► My feet get cold all the time.

00:37:59 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:38:00 ◼   ► Not with warm Mack Weldon socks and these damn slippers.

00:38:03 ◼   ► Oh.

00:38:04 ◼   ► I don't think I have the socks.

00:38:05 ◼   ► I'm going to try the socks.

00:38:06 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:38:07 ◼   ► Anyway, great stuff.

00:38:08 ◼   ► I love Mack Weldon.

00:38:09 ◼   ► What else have we got?

00:38:10 ◼   ► What's next on the agenda?

00:38:12 ◼   ► I wanted to talk about the OSs.

00:38:14 ◼   ► So it seems like it's funny because I feel like poor iOS 15.3

00:38:18 ◼   ► and Mac OS 12.2, which just came out like two days ago--

00:38:23 ◼   ► aw.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Not long for the world.

00:38:25 ◼   ► We never had a chance to talk about you guys

00:38:28 ◼   ► because there aren't a lot of new features in either of them.

00:38:31 ◼   ► They feel very bug fixy, sort of stability releases.

00:38:35 ◼   ► And the next versions of both, Mac OS 12.3 and iOS 15.4,

00:38:42 ◼   ► both have a bunch of features.

00:38:44 ◼   ► This sort of new Apple past the new year,

00:38:49 ◼   ► this is when we dropped some extra cool stuff.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Like two years ago is when the keyboard support and the mouse

00:38:56 ◼   ► pointer, the little circle thing for iPad OS,

00:38:58 ◼   ► dropped out of the blue unannounced.

00:39:00 ◼   ► I don't think any of these features

00:39:03 ◼   ► are surprises like that, but universal--

00:39:06 ◼   ► I mean, these were supposed to come in the fall,

00:39:08 ◼   ► or at least not the face mask thing, right?

00:39:10 ◼   ► I don't think that was announced.

00:39:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess--

00:39:12 ◼   ► The universal control was supposed to come in the fall.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Well, they don't tell you when it's supposed to come anymore.

00:39:18 ◼   ► I think that they're hoping--

00:39:20 ◼   ► everything they announce in June, they're sort of like,

00:39:22 ◼   ► we hope it all comes in September, October.

00:39:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess it's more like, these

00:39:26 ◼   ► are things coming in this number of the software,

00:39:31 ◼   ► and the number of the software will come in the fall.

00:39:34 ◼   ► The Swift playgrounds for making full-fledged apps

00:39:39 ◼   ► that you could submit to the app store right from Swift

00:39:42 ◼   ► playgrounds, that just shipped I think in December.

00:39:45 ◼   ► I think it was before Christmas.

00:39:47 ◼   ► But there's a guy who did that app,

00:39:49 ◼   ► To Don't, which is supposedly the first app in the app store

00:39:53 ◼   ► that was built that way.

00:39:55 ◼   ► And nobody disputes it, so it probably is.

00:39:57 ◼   ► But that's a similar type feature,

00:39:59 ◼   ► where they announced it at WWDC.

00:40:02 ◼   ► They don't say, like, coming in September.

00:40:04 ◼   ► They just say, it's coming.

00:40:05 ◼   ► And it came in December, not September.

00:40:07 ◼   ► Whatever, it took a while.

00:40:09 ◼   ► Universal Control was, if not the star of WWDC last year,

00:40:14 ◼   ► it was certainly a star.

00:40:16 ◼   ► Federighi was the demo-er, showing

00:40:19 ◼   ► how you could move your mouse from--

00:40:21 ◼   ► you set up your iPad right next to your MacBook

00:40:24 ◼   ► and use your trackpad on your Mac

00:40:26 ◼   ► to move the mouse cursor over the screen, over to the iPad.

00:40:30 ◼   ► And now you're dealing with iPad apps.

00:40:32 ◼   ► It's one of those WTF demos, right?

00:40:37 ◼   ► Your mind is slightly blown by what they're showing you.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Right.

00:40:41 ◼   ► So I have not tried it firsthand,

00:40:43 ◼   ► because A, there was no in-person WWDC,

00:40:46 ◼   ► where they would have had some kind of early version set up,

00:40:49 ◼   ► perhaps, for the media.

00:40:51 ◼   ► And B, I don't have spare machines

00:40:53 ◼   ► to install all these betas on.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Although, I would throw my iPad--

00:40:57 ◼   ► going back to what we said about the iPad not really being

00:41:00 ◼   ► essential to me--

00:41:01 ◼   ► I would put the beta or an alpha--

00:41:03 ◼   ► I'd put anything on the iPad.

00:41:05 ◼   ► That's usually where I put the first-- yeah, like the--

00:41:09 ◼   ► first betas.

00:41:10 ◼   ► But people who are braver than me

00:41:11 ◼   ► and have installed it across the board--

00:41:13 ◼   ► I think Joe Rossignol--

00:41:15 ◼   ► Rossignol?

00:41:16 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:41:17 ◼   ► I'll go Rossignol.

00:41:18 ◼   ► At MacRumors has a video out, and he seems very impressed.

00:41:22 ◼   ► It certainly sounds cool.

00:41:23 ◼   ► But it's not using your iPad as a secondary screen,

00:41:27 ◼   ► and you move Mac windows over there.

00:41:28 ◼   ► We've had that for a while.

00:41:30 ◼   ► This is actually like you just run your cursor over the side,

00:41:33 ◼   ► and now your Mac trackpad is controlling your iPad running

00:41:36 ◼   ► iPad apps.

00:41:37 ◼   ► Very cool.

00:41:38 ◼   ► It is--

00:41:38 ◼   ► I'm not sure if I have a use case for it particularly.

00:41:41 ◼   ► I use-- I do use the iPad as a--

00:41:46 ◼   ► like a-- like a Wacom tablet sort of thing.

00:41:49 ◼   ► I do that a fair amount for making--

00:41:51 ◼   ► like doing design stuff in Affinity Designer.

00:41:55 ◼   ► And that I love and get a lot of use out of.

00:41:59 ◼   ► But I'm not sure--

00:42:00 ◼   ► I haven't figured out what I would use this for exactly yet.

00:42:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know either.

00:42:04 ◼   ► But on the other hand, Apple must

00:42:06 ◼   ► think it's going to be useful because it seems like it

00:42:09 ◼   ► would--

00:42:10 ◼   ► it's hard enough to do.

00:42:12 ◼   ► I mean, I guess if you're sitting at a desk

00:42:14 ◼   ► and you have multiple devices, I can see how--

00:42:16 ◼   ► you don't want to like set up an ergonomic nightmare where

00:42:19 ◼   ► you're suddenly having to reach out for your iPad

00:42:22 ◼   ► when you're using your Mac.

00:42:23 ◼   ► You just move your mouse over, and you can use the iPad.

00:42:26 ◼   ► So I can see--

00:42:27 ◼   ► I can see how it might be useful,

00:42:28 ◼   ► but I don't-- probably don't set up that way.

00:42:30 ◼   ► I don't think it's going to work very much.

00:42:31 ◼   ► Color me intrigued to play with it,

00:42:34 ◼   ► and color me skeptical that I have a need for it.

00:42:37 ◼   ► Because I also feel--

00:42:38 ◼   ► and I know that there's stuff like the--

00:42:40 ◼   ► under the umbrella name Continuity,

00:42:42 ◼   ► there's very cool features that have been around for years now

00:42:45 ◼   ► where if you copy something on your iPhone,

00:42:47 ◼   ► you can paste it on your iPad or your Mac.

00:42:50 ◼   ► And it works just well enough that I

00:42:53 ◼   ► assume it's going to work.

00:42:54 ◼   ► But at least once a week, it doesn't.

00:42:56 ◼   ► And it's-- you copy it on your iPad, and you go to your Mac,

00:42:59 ◼   ► thinking you're going to paste this URL you just copied,

00:43:02 ◼   ► and you get whatever crappy nonsense, whatever

00:43:05 ◼   ► the random thing that used to be on your Mac clipboard

00:43:07 ◼   ► is still there.

00:43:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:43:09 ◼   ► It doesn't work perfectly.

00:43:10 ◼   ► That's the thing that makes me a little bit leery of it as well.

00:43:13 ◼   ► One of the things that drives me absolutely crazy--

00:43:15 ◼   ► like, little bugs like that drive me crazy.

00:43:17 ◼   ► And one of the things that drives me berserk currently

00:43:19 ◼   ► is when you have the automatic switching on for AirPods,

00:43:23 ◼   ► and I'm watching something-- like,

00:43:25 ◼   ► because I have a desk with my Mac Mini that

00:43:28 ◼   ► has my Plex server on it, and sometimes I'll

00:43:30 ◼   ► be watching something and doing something on my MacBook Air,

00:43:35 ◼   ► and listening to something on the Mac Mini,

00:43:37 ◼   ► and a notification comes in--

00:43:40 ◼   ► like, an email comes in or a text comes in,

00:43:43 ◼   ► and it switches the audio input to the Air.

00:43:46 ◼   ► And that drives me absolutely bonkers.

00:43:48 ◼   ► I wish there was a setting where it's like,

00:43:50 ◼   ► don't do system alerts.

00:43:52 ◼   ► If I suddenly stop listening to--

00:43:54 ◼   ► stop watching what I'm watching on the Mini

00:43:55 ◼   ► and switch over to listening to music on my Air, sure, do that.

00:43:59 ◼   ► But an email comes in, I don't care.

00:44:03 ◼   ► Don't stop everything just because an email came in.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Ching.

00:44:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:44:08 ◼   ► Or a text.

00:44:09 ◼   ► They come in all the time.

00:44:10 ◼   ► I think the ATP guys have talked about this.

00:44:12 ◼   ► I forget which of them--

00:44:14 ◼   ► one of them continues to insist on trying to use it,

00:44:17 ◼   ► and I think Syracuse is the pessimist who says,

00:44:21 ◼   ► don't even do it.

00:44:22 ◼   ► I have it turned on.

00:44:23 ◼   ► I still do, but I get frustrated when it goes the wrong way.

00:44:27 ◼   ► And for me, it's often when I want

00:44:30 ◼   ► to make a phone call using my AirPods, which I love.

00:44:35 ◼   ► I just love hearing it in both ears.

00:44:37 ◼   ► I just feel like I actually hear the person so much better when

00:44:40 ◼   ► I use my AirPods for a phone call.

00:44:43 ◼   ► And I don't have-- famously, I don't have a lot of work phone

00:44:48 ◼   ► calls.

00:44:49 ◼   ► But man, oh man, whenever one does, it seems like that--

00:44:52 ◼   ► oh, somebody is going to call me to talk about something,

00:44:54 ◼   ► and OK, we'll do it at 2 o'clock on Tuesday, and it's scheduled,

00:44:58 ◼   ► and I want to be professional.

00:44:59 ◼   ► And then here it is, 1 59, and my AirPods

00:45:03 ◼   ► will not disconnect from my Mac.

00:45:05 ◼   ► There's nothing-- close the lid.

00:45:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:45:09 ◼   ► Put this to sleep.

00:45:10 ◼   ► Shut it down.

00:45:10 ◼   ► What do I do?

00:45:11 ◼   ► How do I fix this?

00:45:12 ◼   ► And it seems like when it's--

00:45:14 ◼   ► if there's no pressure involved, if it's just

00:45:17 ◼   ► me listening to a podcast on my own,

00:45:19 ◼   ► it just all works perfectly.

00:45:21 ◼   ► And when I know that somebody is going

00:45:22 ◼   ► to call me 15 seconds from now, I cannot make it switch

00:45:27 ◼   ► to my iPhone, and instead it's playing beeps and boops

00:45:30 ◼   ► from my Mac.

00:45:30 ◼   ► And then I think to myself, why did I ever even--

00:45:33 ◼   ► why don't I just keep them on my phone all the time?

00:45:35 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:45:36 ◼   ► So it's stuff like that that makes me leery of things

00:45:38 ◼   ► like this, because I think, it looks good,

00:45:42 ◼   ► but is it going to work?

00:45:43 ◼   ► Or is there going to be something that's just going

00:45:45 ◼   ► to drive me absolutely crazy about it?

00:45:47 ◼   ► And usually they iron that stuff out over time.

00:45:49 ◼   ► It's so close to being good, but the gold standard

00:45:53 ◼   ► is wired headphones, where it--

00:45:57 ◼   ► Which device--

00:45:58 ◼   ► Where you know exactly what's going to happen.

00:45:59 ◼   ► Like, it gets back to the keyboard thing from before,

00:46:02 ◼   ► too, right?

00:46:03 ◼   ► Where like 99.9% keyboard accuracy,

00:46:06 ◼   ► like where you press the E key, do you get an E,

00:46:10 ◼   ► isn't good enough.

00:46:11 ◼   ► 99.9% isn't good enough.

00:46:13 ◼   ► You really, literally, should be able to use a computer

00:46:17 ◼   ► nonstop every day for six years, and every single time you

00:46:20 ◼   ► press E, you get one E. That's what wired headphones are like.

00:46:24 ◼   ► You plug it in, and it's like you know which device

00:46:26 ◼   ► it's going to.

00:46:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:28 ◼   ► Says me, a guy--

00:46:29 ◼   ► I'm a big fan of the wireless headphones.

00:46:31 ◼   ► I love them.

00:46:31 ◼   ► Yeah, me too.

00:46:32 ◼   ► I mean, I--

00:46:33 ◼   ► and I'm so glad to be rid of wires, honestly.

00:46:36 ◼   ► I mean, when podcasting, I'm connected with wires,

00:46:39 ◼   ► and these headphones are not super old,

00:46:42 ◼   ► but they're already janky at the connector part at the port,

00:46:46 ◼   ► because I have to-- and I have to--

00:46:47 ◼   ► every time I sit down to podcast,

00:46:49 ◼   ► I have to fiddle with it to make sure

00:46:50 ◼   ► that I'm getting the full audio.

00:46:51 ◼   ► So I don't like wires, and I particularly

00:46:54 ◼   ► don't like audio wires.

00:46:55 ◼   ► And there's so many other things to love about AirPods,

00:46:57 ◼   ► but it's just that one that automatic switching thing

00:47:00 ◼   ► is not perfect yet.

00:47:02 ◼   ► Again, it's just frustrating, because nothing

00:47:04 ◼   ► short of 100% accuracy is going to be satisfying,

00:47:06 ◼   ► and 100% accuracy sort of requires the AirPods

00:47:10 ◼   ► to read your mind.

00:47:11 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:47:13 ◼   ► So I get it.

00:47:14 ◼   ► I just need one more setting, which is ignore system alerts.

00:47:18 ◼   ► We were talking about how cold it is.

00:47:19 ◼   ► It is very cold.

00:47:20 ◼   ► It's winter here, and you've got to go out with a winter coat.

00:47:23 ◼   ► And so many people now seem to have AirPods

00:47:26 ◼   ► or other wireless headphones.

00:47:27 ◼   ► But now, when I do see somebody, like at the grocery store

00:47:30 ◼   ► with a winter coat and the actual cable snaking

00:47:34 ◼   ► under their coat or out of their pocket,

00:47:36 ◼   ► it's, buddy, you really--

00:47:38 ◼   ► just $100.

00:47:39 ◼   ► You know?

00:47:40 ◼   ► How about there's new emoji or emojis?

00:47:43 ◼   ► People used to make fun of me, because I would pluralize emoji

00:47:47 ◼   ► to emojis, and people would make fun of me

00:47:49 ◼   ► and say that it was one of the many things I--

00:47:52 ◼   ► because it's Japanese.

00:47:54 ◼   ► It's Japanese.

00:47:54 ◼   ► There's no plural in Japanese, yeah.

00:47:56 ◼   ► Yeah, but the Emojipedia guys, who I would think

00:47:59 ◼   ► know what they're talking about, it seems as though both

00:48:02 ◼   ► are accepted.

00:48:02 ◼   ► I think it's fine.

00:48:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:04 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:48:05 ◼   ► Whatever you want to do.

00:48:06 ◼   ► Anyway, there's new-- whether they are emoji or emojis,

00:48:10 ◼   ► there's more of them in the new OSes coming out.

00:48:15 ◼   ► And I'm still-- I love this back story, that it's like the--

00:48:19 ◼   ► there's a long tail of people who don't like installing

00:48:22 ◼   ► OS updates, but the thing that will make people install

00:48:25 ◼   ► a new update--

00:48:26 ◼   ► Is getting new emoji.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Yeah, and that you can tell which version Apple thinks.

00:48:32 ◼   ► This is the one that everybody should update to.

00:48:34 ◼   ► If you have a phone that's compatible

00:48:36 ◼   ► with this version of iOS, this is the one

00:48:38 ◼   ► you definitely should do, and that's

00:48:39 ◼   ► when they put the new emojis in.

00:48:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:43 ◼   ► Nobody wants to be left behind.

00:48:45 ◼   ► I don't use that many emoji, so it's not at the top of my list.

00:48:51 ◼   ► Although it ties into something that we

00:48:53 ◼   ► were going to talk about--

00:48:53 ◼   ► I don't know if we want to segue into that or not--

00:48:55 ◼   ► but I have tried to use more emoji instead of the reactions

00:49:00 ◼   ► because we have at least one friend who is on Android.

00:49:06 ◼   ► Ah, the green bubble story.

00:49:08 ◼   ► We should talk about it.

00:49:08 ◼   ► The green bubble thing.

00:49:09 ◼   ► Why not talk about it?

00:49:10 ◼   ► Actually, there's more.

00:49:11 ◼   ► Yeah, because we are in a carpool with people

00:49:14 ◼   ► because we drive Hank to school, which is like a half an hour

00:49:16 ◼   ► away, and so we're in a carpool with a bunch of people.

00:49:19 ◼   ► And so that group, obviously, there

00:49:21 ◼   ► is a couple of people who have Android devices as well.

00:49:25 ◼   ► And Karen will always react to things

00:49:27 ◼   ► that people say on that with the Apple reactions, which

00:49:29 ◼   ► drives me crazy because she doesn't see it.

00:49:31 ◼   ► She doesn't see Karen liked whatever.

00:49:34 ◼   ► Right.

00:49:35 ◼   ► What do they say?

00:49:36 ◼   ► Like, I guess, is the thumbs up reaction or tap back

00:49:41 ◼   ► you're talking about?

00:49:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's the thumbs up thing, yeah.

00:49:43 ◼   ► And then loved is the heart.

00:49:45 ◼   ► But what do they say if you give it a ha ha?

00:49:48 ◼   ► Laughed at, I think.

00:49:49 ◼   ► Laughed at.

00:49:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:51 ◼   ► And then what's the exclamation marks?

00:49:55 ◼   ► That I don't know.

00:49:56 ◼   ► People don't use that much.

00:49:57 ◼   ► I think I use that more than other people do, but--

00:49:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I do too.

00:50:00 ◼   ► I don't use the question marks.

00:50:02 ◼   ► I've said-- I said the one I would like to pay for,

00:50:04 ◼   ► I would like a middle finger.

00:50:08 ◼   ► Which, of course, raises the point--

00:50:09 ◼   ► Not an eggplant?

00:50:10 ◼   ► Or, you know, eh, that's not bad.

00:50:12 ◼   ► But why are they separate?

00:50:14 ◼   ► Why can't you just tap back with any emoji?

00:50:17 ◼   ► That'd be the way it works, you know?

00:50:19 ◼   ► And that's sort of like how Slack reactions work.

00:50:21 ◼   ► And I know that Slack has sort of a superset of emoji

00:50:25 ◼   ► where you can react on Slack with any emoji.

00:50:29 ◼   ► And Slack has some custom ones.

00:50:32 ◼   ► And for each Slack group that you're in,

00:50:36 ◼   ► you can add custom images.

00:50:38 ◼   ► I think the one that-- one of the ones

00:50:40 ◼   ► that you and I are on together, there's like a-- we

00:50:43 ◼   ► have a playdate.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Somebody stuck in there, so you can like type colon playdate

00:50:47 ◼   ► and get a little yellow panic playdate controller.

00:50:50 ◼   ► But even if you just stuck to emoji,

00:50:52 ◼   ► why are the reactions different than just-- you could just

00:50:56 ◼   ► send any emoji you want as a reaction,

00:50:58 ◼   ► and it shows up as a little bubble in the corner?

00:51:01 ◼   ► I guess it's just how Apple's implemented it,

00:51:04 ◼   ► but they implemented their own.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Does it seem unhappily to implement their own?

00:51:09 ◼   ► Remember when Safari didn't support favicons in tabs?

00:51:14 ◼   ► And they had the pin tabs, but pin tabs

00:51:18 ◼   ► didn't use your favicon either.

00:51:20 ◼   ► Apple specified that if you wanted

00:51:22 ◼   ► to have an icon in your pin tab for Safari,

00:51:25 ◼   ► you had to create a SVG file that was monochrome.

00:51:30 ◼   ► And so you would just have a monochromatic icon

00:51:34 ◼   ► that would be your pin tab thing, and no color favicons.

00:51:39 ◼   ► And then I made a stink about it on Daring Fireball,

00:51:41 ◼   ► and whether that helped change the thinking or not,

00:51:43 ◼   ► after I made--

00:51:44 ◼   ► wrote way too many words about it, a new version of Safari

00:51:49 ◼   ► came out with an option for favicons in tabs.

00:51:51 ◼   ► But apparently what I heard while I

00:51:53 ◼   ► was making a stink about it is that there

00:51:55 ◼   ► is some contingent within Apple--

00:51:57 ◼   ► I don't know if it was in the Safari group or the Human

00:51:59 ◼   ► Interface team--

00:52:00 ◼   ► but some contingent of designers who

00:52:04 ◼   ► didn't like the idea of color icons

00:52:05 ◼   ► that they didn't control, junking up the Safari

00:52:09 ◼   ► interface.

00:52:10 ◼   ► And that's why the pin tabs were, OK,

00:52:13 ◼   ► we have to give you an icon because the pin tabs are just

00:52:15 ◼   ► little, but we're going to make you do them in black and white

00:52:18 ◼   ► because we don't want your garish CNN red in a tab.

00:52:24 ◼   ► And I just wonder if that's the thinking with tapbacks.

00:52:27 ◼   ► It's like we have these beautiful monochromatic just

00:52:30 ◼   ► blue and white thumbs and exclamation marks,

00:52:34 ◼   ► and we don't want your garish any color goes emoji?

00:52:38 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:52:39 ◼   ► That seems crazy because you could still send emoji,

00:52:42 ◼   ► so it's almost the same thing.

00:52:44 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:52:44 ◼   ► It just seems weird.

00:52:47 ◼   ► It just seems like the easiest way

00:52:48 ◼   ► to upgrade the tapback feature would just be,

00:52:51 ◼   ► oh, you could just pick whatever emojis you want

00:52:53 ◼   ► and set five of them as your favorites

00:52:55 ◼   ► and have a dot, dot, dot that would let you pick any emoji

00:52:59 ◼   ► as the last spot.

00:53:00 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:53:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:02 ◼   ► Aren't they moving to the more universal standard thing?

00:53:06 ◼   ► For what?

00:53:06 ◼   ► I forget what it's called.

00:53:08 ◼   ► There is a-- isn't there something that you can--

00:53:11 ◼   ► that Android phones can use as well?

00:53:13 ◼   ► No, I don't think so.

00:53:14 ◼   ► Oh, really?

00:53:15 ◼   ► I thought there was some thing that they were like,

00:53:17 ◼   ► we're going to try them.

00:53:19 ◼   ► No, what happened is that I think the Google Messages

00:53:22 ◼   ► app on Android will interpret those text messages

00:53:26 ◼   ► like for a mixed iPhone and Android group chat, where

00:53:30 ◼   ► it'll say like, John liked--

00:53:32 ◼   ► Oh, right.

00:53:33 ◼   ► --quote the message.

00:53:34 ◼   ► They interpret-- because that just comes across as its own SMS

00:53:38 ◼   ► message.

00:53:38 ◼   ► It's just a string of text that says John liked space quote,

00:53:43 ◼   ► and then it's a quote of the message the previous--

00:53:47 ◼   ► it's like turning SMS into email where there's

00:53:50 ◼   ► like underneath your message, there's

00:53:52 ◼   ► every single quoted version of the previous emails

00:53:57 ◼   ► in the chain, even though every modern email client could just

00:54:00 ◼   ► show them all together.

00:54:02 ◼   ► Now all of a sudden with the tap backs,

00:54:04 ◼   ► we're quoting messages.

00:54:06 ◼   ► Anyway, Google's Android Messages client

00:54:10 ◼   ► will take those and turn them into fake tap backs,

00:54:14 ◼   ► supposedly.

00:54:15 ◼   ► I don't have much more to say about the green bubble, blue

00:54:17 ◼   ► bubble thing I wrote about it.

00:54:19 ◼   ► I just think-- I do think it's just so damn curious

00:54:23 ◼   ► that no single messaging platform around the world

00:54:27 ◼   ► has come to dominate.

00:54:29 ◼   ► Like with social networks, a handful have.

00:54:33 ◼   ► Twitter are to some degree, but then of course Facebook

00:54:36 ◼   ► and Instagram.

00:54:38 ◼   ► And China is weird because they have the great firewall.

00:54:41 ◼   ► So of course they have their own--

00:54:43 ◼   ► the fact that China has their own social networks

00:54:45 ◼   ► is not surprising.

00:54:46 ◼   ► But otherwise Facebook sort of dominates worldwide.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Yet for messaging platforms, there's

00:54:53 ◼   ► all these little country by country fiefdoms.

00:54:56 ◼   ► That to me is the strangest part.

00:54:58 ◼   ► Yeah, and that's kind of why I think that sort of bullying

00:55:00 ◼   ► thing didn't really ring true to me because my kid,

00:55:04 ◼   ► he uses messages sometimes.

00:55:06 ◼   ► But I'm pretty sure they--

00:55:07 ◼   ► I don't even know what it is, but Snapchat or whatever

00:55:10 ◼   ► he's using to communicate with his friends

00:55:12 ◼   ► because he won't tell me and I don't ask.

00:55:14 ◼   ► But he's communicating with his friends using other stuff

00:55:17 ◼   ► for sure.

00:55:18 ◼   ► Discord is big with Jonas and his pals.

00:55:21 ◼   ► You know, I've used Discord a little.

00:55:23 ◼   ► I've used it enough that I get it.

00:55:25 ◼   ► It's more like Slack, though, where you get on a group.

00:55:28 ◼   ► There's like a channel in Discord.

00:55:30 ◼   ► And there could be dozens and dozens of people,

00:55:32 ◼   ► way more people than you would want in a group chat in anything

00:55:37 ◼   ► like a WhatsApp or iMessage.

00:55:38 ◼   ► You wouldn't really want to have three dozen people in an iMessage

00:55:42 ◼   ► group.

00:55:42 ◼   ► Discord is more like it's meant for groups in the public

00:55:45 ◼   ► hangout place online.

00:55:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:55:48 ◼   ► Maybe it wasn't even worth venting about on Daring

00:55:52 ◼   ► Fireball, but I don't know.

00:55:53 ◼   ► It just made-- the bullying angle made me angry.

00:55:55 ◼   ► Yeah, well, and it's also in the Wall Street Journal.

00:55:58 ◼   ► It's not--

00:55:58 ◼   ► Wasn't in the National Enquirer or something.

00:56:00 ◼   ► Yeah, a little bit of Paul Theron was going off on it.

00:56:05 ◼   ► I did think it was weird that Google latched onto it.

00:56:07 ◼   ► And I don't think the Wall Street Journal used the word

00:56:10 ◼   ► "bullying" at all.

00:56:11 ◼   ► Google took their anecdotes of teenagers

00:56:14 ◼   ► being given a hard time over having green bubbles in a group

00:56:18 ◼   ► chat and turned it into--

00:56:20 ◼   ► introduced the word "bullying."

00:56:22 ◼   ► But then once that happened, it went everywhere.

00:56:25 ◼   ► And then there was like a story--

00:56:26 ◼   ► USA Today has a story about teenagers

00:56:28 ◼   ► being bullied over green bubbles.

00:56:30 ◼   ► And it's like, no, no, that wasn't even in the Wall Street

00:56:34 ◼   ► Journal story.

00:56:35 ◼   ► Yeah, OK.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I didn't--

00:56:38 ◼   ► yeah, I don't subscribe, so.

00:56:40 ◼   ► Have you-- would you use any other chats?

00:56:43 ◼   ► I use Signal, which I have opened.

00:56:45 ◼   ► I do have Signal, yeah.

00:56:47 ◼   ► And I've used a little bit, but not much.

00:56:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I have it open so that anybody

00:56:53 ◼   ► who wants to send me a secure message can do it.

00:56:55 ◼   ► It's worked out pretty well.

00:56:56 ◼   ► I don't get very many messages from random readers

00:56:59 ◼   ► or listeners through Signal.

00:57:01 ◼   ► But I do occasionally, and it's there, and it's good enough.

00:57:04 ◼   ► I'm on one group chat with a couple of friends on Signal.

00:57:08 ◼   ► I don't really see much of a difference than if we

00:57:10 ◼   ► were doing it on iMessage.

00:57:11 ◼   ► And I'm not even quite sure why we're on Signal,

00:57:13 ◼   ► since we all have iPhones.

00:57:15 ◼   ► But no.

00:57:15 ◼   ► I know why we're on--

00:57:19 ◼   ► I know why my group is on Signal.

00:57:20 ◼   ► But it's not-- like I said, I don't use it much.

00:57:23 ◼   ► I've got the WhatsApp too.

00:57:25 ◼   ► And I'm on one group in WhatsApp now.

00:57:27 ◼   ► And I do see Ben Thompson, my dithering pal,

00:57:31 ◼   ► has been on me for a while about the fact

00:57:32 ◼   ► that WhatsApp has better group messaging

00:57:35 ◼   ► features, like quoted replies.

00:57:38 ◼   ► And it is.

00:57:38 ◼   ► It actually is a nicer way.

00:57:40 ◼   ► If you're asynchronous, which when Ben and I chat

00:57:44 ◼   ► is often the case, because we're literally either 12 or 13

00:57:47 ◼   ► hours apart all year long.

00:57:49 ◼   ► And if you wake up and a bunch of the chat

00:57:52 ◼   ► had taken place while you were sleeping

00:57:53 ◼   ► and you want to reply to something nine messages ago,

00:57:56 ◼   ► you can tap on it and hit Reply.

00:57:59 ◼   ► The way that WhatsApp does that is much more--

00:58:04 ◼   ► it's a much better presentation than the recently added

00:58:07 ◼   ► iMessage feature that does it.

00:58:09 ◼   ► Would it make me try to convince a group

00:58:12 ◼   ► that I'm on on iMessage, hey, everybody,

00:58:14 ◼   ► sign up for this new WhatsApp thing that's owned by Facebook.

00:58:18 ◼   ► Let's move it over there?

00:58:19 ◼   ► No.

00:58:20 ◼   ► But that really is--

00:58:22 ◼   ► that is like the sort of mass behavior, right?

00:58:25 ◼   ► Nobody really wants to sign up for an entirely new app,

00:58:28 ◼   ► even if you put the Facebook's ownership aside.

00:58:30 ◼   ► If you just-- like Signal.

00:58:32 ◼   ► Let's say Signal is generally widely regarded

00:58:35 ◼   ► as excellent cryptography, and it's not even a company.

00:58:38 ◼   ► I think it's a foundation.

00:58:39 ◼   ► But they're in it for the right reasons.

00:58:41 ◼   ► They really just want to provide good, secure messaging

00:58:44 ◼   ► to everybody.

00:58:45 ◼   ► You could encourage people to try Signal

00:58:47 ◼   ► without seeming like you're telling them to sign up

00:58:50 ◼   ► for a bad company like Facebook.

00:58:52 ◼   ► It's still-- it's like nobody wants to download a new app,

00:58:55 ◼   ► create an account, remember to have this,

00:58:57 ◼   ► get notifications from a different app,

00:58:59 ◼   ► just to have one more group chat there.

00:59:00 ◼   ► If everybody's already getting by with what they have,

00:59:03 ◼   ► they're just going to keep doing it.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:06 ◼   ► It's crazy how quickly Zoom took off after the pandemic, though,

00:59:09 ◼   ► because that was an instance of a sort of a void of good video

00:59:18 ◼   ► chat--

00:59:18 ◼   ► That worked on all devices.

00:59:20 ◼   ► --that worked on all platforms and was able to handle people--

00:59:24 ◼   ► like millions and millions of people suddenly using it.

00:59:28 ◼   ► Yeah, kudos to them.

00:59:29 ◼   ► Right place, right time.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Can't predict it.

00:59:31 ◼   ► I don't even know.

00:59:32 ◼   ► Yes, I did write about Zoom before the pandemic,

00:59:35 ◼   ► because there was some mini brouhaha about their Mac

00:59:38 ◼   ► software doing shady stuff behind the scene--

00:59:41 ◼   ► or the installer doing some shady stuff behind the scenes.

00:59:44 ◼   ► But it's like I hardly even remembered

00:59:46 ◼   ► the name of the company.

00:59:47 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden, it became a verb.

00:59:50 ◼   ► It's like one of the best known, most used utilities

00:59:55 ◼   ► around the entire globe, all thanks to a simple pandemic.

00:59:59 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

01:00:02 ◼   ► All they had to do was re-sequence some bad genes.

01:00:07 ◼   ► Here, let me take one last break here

01:00:09 ◼   ► and thank our third and final sponsors, our good friends

01:00:11 ◼   ► at Memberful.

01:00:13 ◼   ► Oh, man, Memberful is where you can monetize your business,

01:00:18 ◼   ► your passion with memberships.

01:00:20 ◼   ► And it's the easiest way to sell memberships to your audience.

01:00:23 ◼   ► And it's used by some of the biggest and best creators

01:00:26 ◼   ► on the web.

01:00:27 ◼   ► Maybe your creative endeavors business situation

01:00:31 ◼   ► has changed in the past year or two,

01:00:32 ◼   ► maybe because of the pandemic, maybe just for natural reasons.

01:00:36 ◼   ► But you would like to grow it, maybe

01:00:39 ◼   ► expand beyond advertising or whatever else

01:00:41 ◼   ► you're already doing to monetize it and add something new.

01:00:45 ◼   ► Membership is a good way to do it.

01:00:47 ◼   ► Could just be a small part of your business.

01:00:48 ◼   ► Could be the whole business.

01:00:50 ◼   ► You can have your creative endeavor where it's--

01:00:52 ◼   ► membership only is the only way you monetize it.

01:00:54 ◼   ► Memberful has features and plans to help you do that

01:00:59 ◼   ► and build a sustainable recurring revenue.

01:01:01 ◼   ► And they take care of all the hard stuff

01:01:03 ◼   ► so you can concentrate on what you do best

01:01:05 ◼   ► while earning revenue.

01:01:07 ◼   ► They pay directly to your Stripe account.

01:01:10 ◼   ► You just sign up.

01:01:11 ◼   ► You have a Stripe account.

01:01:12 ◼   ► You sign up.

01:01:13 ◼   ► When people sign up for your memberships,

01:01:14 ◼   ► the money goes right into your Stripe account.

01:01:17 ◼   ► You don't have to wait 60 days and then get

01:01:19 ◼   ► like a lump sum or something.

01:01:21 ◼   ► They pay directly to your account.

01:01:23 ◼   ► And you can get started at Memberful for free.

01:01:27 ◼   ► No credit card required just to sign up and get started.

01:01:29 ◼   ► You can check it out, kick the tire, see all the features.

01:01:34 ◼   ► Go to memberful.com/talkshow today to sign up.

01:01:38 ◼   ► And once again, that's memberful.com/talkshow.

01:01:43 ◼   ► Bunch of good sites I subscribe to.

01:01:45 ◼   ► You've got one, right?

01:01:46 ◼   ► Yeah, the rebound is--

01:01:48 ◼   ► The rebound?

01:01:49 ◼   ► Rebound Prime.

01:01:51 ◼   ► Rebound Prime.

01:01:52 ◼   ► Oh, that's a good name.

01:01:53 ◼   ► I like that.

01:01:54 ◼   ► Rebound Prime.

01:01:55 ◼   ► People can sign up for the rebound.

01:01:56 ◼   ► That's-- who's on-- we don't have to save it

01:01:58 ◼   ► for the end of the show.

01:01:59 ◼   ► Who's on the rebound with you?

01:02:01 ◼   ► Lex Friedman and Dan Moore.

01:02:04 ◼   ► Dan Moore, our pal Dan Moore.

01:02:06 ◼   ► Dan, I know.

01:02:07 ◼   ► Late of Macworld.

01:02:08 ◼   ► Lex Friedman.

01:02:09 ◼   ► And Lex also late of Macworld.

01:02:10 ◼   ► That's true.

01:02:11 ◼   ► Not familiar with that guy.

01:02:12 ◼   ► Dan, though, I know.

01:02:13 ◼   ► He's a science fiction author.

01:02:16 ◼   ► That's right.

01:02:16 ◼   ► By Dan's book.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Well, he's got a new book coming out.

01:02:20 ◼   ► Yeah, that's right.

01:02:20 ◼   ► The Nova Incident, I believe.

01:02:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:22 ◼   ► It's already coming out.

01:02:24 ◼   ► Pre-orders, they're taking them.

01:02:25 ◼   ► What else?

01:02:25 ◼   ► What do we got here?

01:02:26 ◼   ► Face ID with a mask is coming out in iOS 15.4.

01:02:30 ◼   ► Now, that's different from what they already have.

01:02:32 ◼   ► They've already got a thing that they introduced--

01:02:34 ◼   ► With the watch.

01:02:34 ◼   ► With a watch.

01:02:35 ◼   ► But now they're just straight up saying,

01:02:37 ◼   ► Face ID will be able to pick you out by your--

01:02:41 ◼   ► Which is interesting to me that they're not saving this as--

01:02:44 ◼   ► they got to buy the watch.

01:02:45 ◼   ► It seems like they could have done that.

01:02:46 ◼   ► If you want this magical feature where

01:02:48 ◼   ► you can unlock your phone with a mask on, just get the watch.

01:02:52 ◼   ► It's only 200 and whatever it is for the SE.

01:02:55 ◼   ► But they're rolling out to everybody, which is cool.

01:02:58 ◼   ► And the only thing I wonder is if a couple of weeks from now,

01:03:01 ◼   ► a bunch of people are going to say, well, I was able to do it.

01:03:03 ◼   ► My brother did it without--

01:03:05 ◼   ► Right.

01:03:06 ◼   ► That kind of thing.

01:03:07 ◼   ► Yeah, when Apple does something that could--

01:03:09 ◼   ► I mean, sometimes they do stuff where you're like--

01:03:12 ◼   ► they just want you to buy another thing.

01:03:13 ◼   ► That's why they're doing this.

01:03:15 ◼   ► And other times, you could look at it that way,

01:03:17 ◼   ► and people might jump to that conclusion.

01:03:19 ◼   ► But when they do something like this, where they've already got

01:03:22 ◼   ► a very interesting feature that requires at least a $200 Apple

01:03:26 ◼   ► Watch to make it work, and now they're making it work,

01:03:29 ◼   ► they're saying, look, this is less secure

01:03:31 ◼   ► because it's only like half your face.

01:03:33 ◼   ► And so I think you have to set it up

01:03:35 ◼   ► while you're wearing a mask.

01:03:36 ◼   ► And you make the decision, I would like Face ID only

01:03:39 ◼   ► to work when it sees my whole face, which is more secure.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Or less secure, I'll have it work,

01:03:44 ◼   ► and it'll identify me by my eyes while I'm wearing a mask.

01:03:47 ◼   ► And I accept the lower level of security,

01:03:49 ◼   ► and I'll do it that way.

01:03:50 ◼   ► It's a great feature.

01:03:52 ◼   ► I've mentioned this on the show before.

01:03:54 ◼   ► I've heard, ever since the iPhone X came out,

01:03:56 ◼   ► at least a handful of readers who regularly correspond to me

01:03:59 ◼   ► who work as medical professionals, who

01:04:01 ◼   ► have mentioned that Face ID sucks

01:04:04 ◼   ► when you're wearing a mask.

01:04:05 ◼   ► And this is pre-pandemic.

01:04:07 ◼   ► This is people in hospitals and other doctor-type situations,

01:04:11 ◼   ► dentists or something like that, where you might be wearing

01:04:13 ◼   ► a regular--

01:04:15 ◼   ► I don't know if you know this, but people used to wear--

01:04:18 ◼   ► these medical masks before the pandemic--

01:04:20 ◼   ► general purpose-- well, no, not general purpose,

01:04:22 ◼   ► but specific purpose masks.

01:04:24 ◼   ► And that not having Touch ID and having Face ID,

01:04:26 ◼   ► which did not work with these masks, sucked.

01:04:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I can imagine that.

01:04:30 ◼   ► And now it's like, we're all like, yeah,

01:04:31 ◼   ► it really does suck.

01:04:32 ◼   ► This is terrible.

01:04:34 ◼   ► Even if, in some optimistic scenario, which I'm no longer--

01:04:38 ◼   ► I just assume this pandemic is going

01:04:40 ◼   ► to go on for the rest of our lives at this point.

01:04:42 ◼   ► And if it doesn't, then I'll just be happily surprised.

01:04:45 ◼   ► But I'm sick of convincing myself that--

01:04:47 ◼   ► We're just around the corner.

01:04:49 ◼   ► I'm sick of it.

01:04:51 ◼   ► But let's just say, in the theoretical, hypothetical

01:04:55 ◼   ► universe, where things actually get better and stay better,

01:04:58 ◼   ► and masking for COVID-19 no longer becomes

01:05:02 ◼   ► a daily part of our life all around the world,

01:05:06 ◼   ► it still is a good feature to have for, say,

01:05:09 ◼   ► medical professionals, say, for a new variant that

01:05:13 ◼   ► might arise next year, the year after, whatever,

01:05:17 ◼   ► just regular cold and flu season, which I think is going to be--

01:05:22 ◼   ► I think one thing of COVID is going

01:05:23 ◼   ► to be transformative around the world is

01:05:25 ◼   ► that, even in regular cold and flu season for decades

01:05:29 ◼   ► to come, people, I think, are going to feel comfortable

01:05:32 ◼   ► wearing a face mask when they go out,

01:05:34 ◼   ► either because they feel like, hey, I've got a sniffle.

01:05:36 ◼   ► I should do the right thing when I go to the store

01:05:37 ◼   ► and put a mask on.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Or if you just want to wear one just

01:05:42 ◼   ► to avoid picking up whatever random crud people

01:05:45 ◼   ► are sneezing into the air.

01:05:47 ◼   ► Basically, the way Asian countries

01:05:49 ◼   ► have been doing it for years.

01:05:50 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:05:51 ◼   ► Where it's just completely normal, if not typical,

01:05:54 ◼   ► in a bunch of Asian countries, you get on the subway

01:05:57 ◼   ► in cold and flu season, everybody just puts on a mask

01:06:00 ◼   ► to keep from catching whatever's in the air.

01:06:03 ◼   ► It's great that Face ID has it.

01:06:04 ◼   ► So 15.4 is adding this as a feature.

01:06:07 ◼   ► I look forward to it.

01:06:08 ◼   ► I'll set it up.

01:06:10 ◼   ► I love the watch feature.

01:06:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I would just stick--

01:06:13 ◼   ► I mean, I wear the watch anyway, so I'm perfectly fine with that.

01:06:17 ◼   ► And it works almost all the time.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Every once in a while, for some reason,

01:06:21 ◼   ► it stopped, it'll just refuse to open.

01:06:22 ◼   ► I got to type in my password.

01:06:24 ◼   ► But for the most part, it works pretty well.

01:06:26 ◼   ► Again, it's common sense.

01:06:28 ◼   ► But you can tell which features people at Apple use the most.

01:06:31 ◼   ► And there's long running gags, things

01:06:34 ◼   ► that don't really apply to non-Silicon Valley weather.

01:06:38 ◼   ► I mean, the best way to exaggerate it

01:06:40 ◼   ► is the idea that maybe they're going

01:06:41 ◼   ► to come out with this Apple car in a couple of years.

01:06:44 ◼   ► And it doesn't work in the rain or ice.

01:06:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:49 ◼   ► It works perfectly if it's 72 degrees and sunny.

01:06:52 ◼   ► But everybody's wearing masks these days.

01:06:55 ◼   ► And so I feel like ever since this feature came out,

01:06:58 ◼   ► and it was very good for me even when it was in beta,

01:07:01 ◼   ► it's gotten better.

01:07:02 ◼   ► For a while, it would get confused and say,

01:07:04 ◼   ► hey, is your Apple watch nearby?

01:07:06 ◼   ► And meanwhile, I'm actually holding my phone in the hand

01:07:09 ◼   ► that--

01:07:10 ◼   ► where the watch is on my wrist.

01:07:12 ◼   ► It's like, it's really close.

01:07:13 ◼   ► I didn't get a lot closer.

01:07:15 ◼   ► I've had fewer and fewer problems with that.

01:07:17 ◼   ► But it's made Face ID seem less poorly timed.

01:07:23 ◼   ► It just seems-- we went all these years without a pandemic.

01:07:26 ◼   ► And then lo and behold, a year and a half or so

01:07:28 ◼   ► after the first Face ID phone ever get stuck with this.

01:07:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I got my first Face ID phone during the pandemic.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Oh.

01:07:36 ◼   ► [LAUGHS]

01:07:36 ◼   ► It was perfect.

01:07:37 ◼   ► Perfect timing.

01:07:38 ◼   ► Because I had SEs.

01:07:38 ◼   ► I had SEs for years.

01:07:40 ◼   ► Yeah, perfect timing.

01:07:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I was like, well, that was dumb.

01:07:42 ◼   ► Let me see here.

01:07:43 ◼   ► What else?

01:07:43 ◼   ► What is the other features?

01:07:45 ◼   ► There's like an Apple Card widget.

01:07:46 ◼   ► Who cares?

01:07:47 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:07:48 ◼   ► There's not that many features.

01:07:49 ◼   ► It's midway through the cycle, it seems about it.

01:07:51 ◼   ► Last thing I had on my list, I was--

01:07:53 ◼   ► you want to talk about Neil Young and Spotify?

01:07:55 ◼   ► Yeah, sure.

01:07:55 ◼   ► Ben Thompson and I, you probably didn't listen to it.

01:07:58 ◼   ► I think it just came out this morning.

01:07:59 ◼   ► But we disagree about this.

01:08:00 ◼   ► Ben on dithering last night--

01:08:02 ◼   ► I say last night, but it came out this morning--

01:08:04 ◼   ► but seems to have a free speech sort of argument that, hey,

01:08:07 ◼   ► we shouldn't be trying-- maybe you disagree with what Joe

01:08:10 ◼   ► Rogan says, but you shouldn't try to get him kicked off,

01:08:12 ◼   ► have his podcast shut down.

01:08:14 ◼   ► We need more speech.

01:08:15 ◼   ► The answer to speech is always more speech, blah, blah, blah.

01:08:17 ◼   ► I was a little taken-- and I think

01:08:19 ◼   ► because of what I wrote about it,

01:08:20 ◼   ► he seemed to think that I was thinking

01:08:22 ◼   ► that Spotify should kick Joe Rogan off Spotify, which

01:08:26 ◼   ► was not my take at all.

01:08:27 ◼   ► Spotify made their bed with him.

01:08:28 ◼   ► They signed a $100 million deal.

01:08:30 ◼   ► Clearly, when Neil Young issued this ultimatum,

01:08:35 ◼   ► he's a very smart guy.

01:08:36 ◼   ► He did not think Spotify was going to kick Joe Rogan off.

01:08:39 ◼   ► He said, look, you can have Joe Rogan or Neil Young,

01:08:42 ◼   ► but you can't have both.

01:08:44 ◼   ► He did issue an ultimatum, but he

01:08:45 ◼   ► knew what they were going to do.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Right.

01:08:47 ◼   ► I don't think-- yeah.

01:08:48 ◼   ► I don't think anybody thought anything other than what

01:08:51 ◼   ► happened was going to happen.

01:08:52 ◼   ► But I think-- see, to me, that is free speech too, right?

01:08:58 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely.

01:08:59 ◼   ► Right?

01:08:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:00 ◼   ► And he got a lot of publicity for it and deserved to be--

01:09:04 ◼   ► If you go into a bar and you sit down and you're sitting there

01:09:07 ◼   ► having a drink and you look around,

01:09:09 ◼   ► you're like, man, there are a lot of Nazis in here.

01:09:10 ◼   ► You don't have to keep going back to that bar.

01:09:14 ◼   ► You talk to the bar general, you're like,

01:09:15 ◼   ► can you kick these Nazis out?

01:09:17 ◼   ► And the guy's like, well, hey, so I'm not

01:09:19 ◼   ► going to kick them out.

01:09:20 ◼   ► I'm not going back to a Nazi bar.

01:09:22 ◼   ► I'm not saying Joe Rogan is a Nazi.

01:09:24 ◼   ► I'm just saying he's an idiot.

01:09:25 ◼   ► But it's a good point where you could say, hey,

01:09:28 ◼   ► what's with all these guys with the swastika

01:09:30 ◼   ► tattoos on their knuckles?

01:09:31 ◼   ► And if the answer is, eh, it's a free country,

01:09:34 ◼   ► part of it being a free country is you can go to a different

01:09:36 ◼   ► bar.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, and he said 60% of his--

01:09:43 ◼   ► Streaming.

01:09:44 ◼   ► 60% of the money that he gets from his songs

01:09:46 ◼   ► comes from Spotify, I think.

01:09:47 ◼   ► Or 60% of the plays or something.

01:09:50 ◼   ► 60% of the streaming revenue.

01:09:53 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

01:09:54 ◼   ► And for an artist like Neil Young, who's slightly older--

01:09:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:59 ◼   ► And whose audience is older.

01:10:00 ◼   ► That's probably not the bulk of his income.

01:10:01 ◼   ► There's probably still a lot of his audience still buys music.

01:10:04 ◼   ► But on the other hand, too, when you're in your 70s--

01:10:08 ◼   ► He gets it mostly from car commercials.

01:10:10 ◼   ► You can also assume that most of your fans

01:10:13 ◼   ► already own most of your music, especially the older stuff,

01:10:17 ◼   ► which is what people like.

01:10:18 ◼   ► You may not make a lot of money as a classic artist,

01:10:22 ◼   ► for lack of a better term, from your music sales.

01:10:26 ◼   ► But he's putting his money where his mouth is, right?

01:10:29 ◼   ► And it was, if it's--

01:10:31 ◼   ► 60% of it was Spotify.

01:10:32 ◼   ► And I guess the rest comes from Amazon and Apple.

01:10:36 ◼   ► But the publicity that came out over it,

01:10:38 ◼   ► and the fact that it's inspired some number of people to say,

01:10:43 ◼   ► hey, yeah, this isn't right.

01:10:45 ◼   ► I don't know why Spotify is associating themselves

01:10:48 ◼   ► with Joe Rogan.

01:10:49 ◼   ► I'm going to cancel my Spotify, or I want Spotify

01:10:53 ◼   ► to cancel Joe Rogan's podcast.

01:10:56 ◼   ► That's the argument you get to have.

01:10:57 ◼   ► It was Spotify's decision to sign Joe Rogan.

01:11:00 ◼   ► And like I said to Ben, I don't think any of this

01:11:04 ◼   ► has been a surprise.

01:11:06 ◼   ► I don't think that his hot takes on vaccines and ivermectin

01:11:12 ◼   ► and whatever else-- and I don't think Joe Rogan's podcast does

01:11:15 ◼   ► not interest me, but it doesn't offend me.

01:11:18 ◼   ► I don't think it's anywhere close to the lunatic fringe

01:11:21 ◼   ► of stuff that's out there.

01:11:24 ◼   ► And if people want to talk about taking these alternate things,

01:11:28 ◼   ► have at it.

01:11:29 ◼   ► If you take what Joe Rogan says seriously, I don't know.

01:11:32 ◼   ► I don't think that him stopping his podcast or somebody

01:11:35 ◼   ► booting his podcast off Spotify is really

01:11:37 ◼   ► going to help you much.

01:11:40 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:11:41 ◼   ► I don't think your next source of information--

01:11:43 ◼   ► like if Joe Rogan comes out with an episode today and says,

01:11:46 ◼   ► you know what?

01:11:47 ◼   ► I listened to Neil Young's argument.

01:11:49 ◼   ► I respect him so much.

01:11:50 ◼   ► I'm just going to take a break.

01:11:51 ◼   ► I'm going to take a break.

01:11:52 ◼   ► I'm not doing an episode for six months.

01:11:54 ◼   ► I'm going to take a break and think about what

01:11:56 ◼   ► I've done with my life.

01:11:57 ◼   ► And that's it.

01:11:57 ◼   ► He's going to take a six month hiatus.

01:12:00 ◼   ► I don't think the people who were getting

01:12:02 ◼   ► their medical information from the Joe Rogan experience,

01:12:05 ◼   ► their next choice is not going to be that much better.

01:12:10 ◼   ► They're not going to like the New England Journal of Medicine.

01:12:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:14 ◼   ► And I guess I called him an idiot.

01:12:15 ◼   ► And maybe that's the wrong term to use.

01:12:17 ◼   ► It's more like an asshole because he could just

01:12:21 ◼   ► be making a financial decision.

01:12:23 ◼   ► He could just be deciding smartly to say, yeah,

01:12:28 ◼   ► I'm providing misinformation, but I'm also

01:12:30 ◼   ► making a lot of money doing it.

01:12:32 ◼   ► And Spotify signed him.

01:12:34 ◼   ► It's not-- it is different.

01:12:35 ◼   ► Neil Young is telling his fans, you want to stream my music?

01:12:38 ◼   ► Go to Apple Music or go to Amazon

01:12:41 ◼   ► or there's a list of other services.

01:12:43 ◼   ► But those are for at least people in North America.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Those are the big ones.

01:12:47 ◼   ► And why isn't Neil Young complaining

01:12:50 ◼   ► that Apple Podcasts, if you search for Joe Rogan,

01:12:54 ◼   ► would turn up--

01:12:55 ◼   ► I guess his new show, which is Spotify exclusive,

01:12:58 ◼   ► but it would have turned it up while Joe Rogan's podcast was

01:13:02 ◼   ► a regular podcast, would turn up Joe Rogan similar podcasts?

01:13:08 ◼   ► And why isn't he objecting to that?

01:13:10 ◼   ► That's because it's like Apple Podcasts is like a web browser

01:13:15 ◼   ► where it just pretty much--

01:13:16 ◼   ► and yes, iTunes runs their own index

01:13:20 ◼   ► of known podcasts for search.

01:13:22 ◼   ► And controversially, I guess to some degree,

01:13:26 ◼   ► does take some out that have outright hate content.

01:13:30 ◼   ► What's the Alex Jones thing called? Info Wars

01:13:32 ◼   ► was delisted from iTunes for being beyond the pale, which

01:13:37 ◼   ► some people object to.

01:13:38 ◼   ► People who say, yeah, Alex Jones is a horrible person

01:13:42 ◼   ► and an idiot and his show is terrible,

01:13:45 ◼   ► but it shouldn't be delisted from a podcast index.

01:13:48 ◼   ► There's some people whose free speech fundamentalism

01:13:51 ◼   ► is that deep, but there's got to be a line somewhere, right?

01:13:54 ◼   ► I mean, Apple's not going to put their--

01:13:57 ◼   ► it's not a stamp of approval to be listed in Apple Podcasts.

01:14:01 ◼   ► They're not paying you, which is the big difference.

01:14:04 ◼   ► They list both of our podcasts.

01:14:06 ◼   ► The flip side of this is people who

01:14:07 ◼   ► don't want Spotify to cave and think

01:14:10 ◼   ► that Neil Young is doing Joe Rogan dirty by trying

01:14:15 ◼   ► to pressure them to cancel his show are missing the fact

01:14:20 ◼   ► that's what Spotify signed up for by signing Joe Rogan.

01:14:23 ◼   ► Yeah, you decided what your platform was going to be.

01:14:26 ◼   ► You know, and I could imagine somebody else

01:14:29 ◼   ► might look at any network.

01:14:31 ◼   ► And I'm not of the sensitive, I don't like listening.

01:14:36 ◼   ► I can't stand to listen to somebody who I disagree with.

01:14:39 ◼   ► I try to read some level of rational conservative thought

01:14:45 ◼   ► and politics and watch shows like the Bill Maher show

01:14:49 ◼   ► where he has guests who I often think, wow,

01:14:52 ◼   ► that person's an idiot.

01:14:53 ◼   ► Or Bill Maher often says things and I think, wow, Bill Maher

01:14:56 ◼   ► is being a bit of an idiot here.

01:14:58 ◼   ► But that doesn't make me like I can't

01:15:00 ◼   ► stand hearing somebody say something I disagree with.

01:15:03 ◼   ► I'll at least listen to it.

01:15:04 ◼   ► And it may not change my mind, but it's not

01:15:07 ◼   ► like sunshine to a vampire to me to be exposed to somebody

01:15:11 ◼   ► who I disagree with.

01:15:13 ◼   ► But I can also see how somebody who's controversial enough

01:15:17 ◼   ► on a certain network or a provider like Spotify

01:15:21 ◼   ► might make me say, well, that person is so beyond the pale

01:15:25 ◼   ► that I don't want to be associated with this group.

01:15:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:29 ◼   ► This is-- we're talking about stuff that is just simply

01:15:31 ◼   ► objectively incorrect as well.

01:15:35 ◼   ► That's become such a problem, such a ridiculous problem

01:15:40 ◼   ► that we--

01:15:40 ◼   ► Right.

01:15:41 ◼   ► --that it's not a matter of opinion anymore.

01:15:44 ◼   ► I mean, you can--

01:15:45 ◼   ► Some of this stuff.

01:15:45 ◼   ► Right.

01:15:45 ◼   ► You can have an opinion.

01:15:46 ◼   ► You can definitely have opinion about the effectiveness

01:15:48 ◼   ► of masks or something like that.

01:15:50 ◼   ► Right.

01:15:51 ◼   ► But like whether or not a vaccine works

01:15:53 ◼   ► or whether vaccines are killing people.

01:15:56 ◼   ► Right.

01:15:57 ◼   ► The John Stockton take, NBA great John Stockton,

01:16:01 ◼   ► who believes 150 professional athletes around the world--

01:16:04 ◼   ► Have dropped dead.

01:16:04 ◼   ► --not just have died of the vaccine,

01:16:06 ◼   ► have dropped dead on the field or court,

01:16:08 ◼   ► and it's all being covered up.

01:16:10 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:16:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:12 ◼   ► It's-- well, I don't know.

01:16:15 ◼   ► You know, and the other thing too about Neil Young

01:16:18 ◼   ► that I was thinking about, I think last night,

01:16:20 ◼   ► but I was thinking about it, is there

01:16:22 ◼   ► is something to be said for an artist who has spent literally

01:16:26 ◼   ► his entire career, whether you like his music

01:16:29 ◼   ► or dislike his music or feel ambivalent or just like it

01:16:34 ◼   ► when he's with the Crosby, Stills, and Nash or something,

01:16:37 ◼   ► everybody I know has the utmost respect for his integrity.

01:16:41 ◼   ► Right?

01:16:42 ◼   ► Or you could certainly disagree with his stance

01:16:45 ◼   ► on no compression music and that goofy Panos player

01:16:49 ◼   ► he was trying to sell.

01:16:51 ◼   ► But he wasn't trying to make a quick buck.

01:16:53 ◼   ► He was coming at it from a perspective

01:16:55 ◼   ► of genuine integrity.

01:16:57 ◼   ► That's the thing.

01:16:58 ◼   ► Yeah, and in this instance, he's not

01:16:59 ◼   ► going to make money off of this.

01:17:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:17:03 ◼   ► There's no-- I don't think--

01:17:04 ◼   ► you could say, well, he's just pandering to certain people.

01:17:07 ◼   ► And I think the fact that he's giving up

01:17:09 ◼   ► 60% of his streaming revenue is kind of a sign

01:17:13 ◼   ► that that's not going to work out very well for him,