00:00:09 ◼ ► You know, I had a friend just text me yesterday, and he had like a link to somebody who's...
00:00:19 ◼ ► It's just like a random tweet that was just like, you know, it's kind of hard to believe that Skype
00:00:23 ◼ ► dropped the ball on video conferencing because they had such a huge lead. And I think that's so
00:00:29 ◼ ► true. Because when Skype was new, the fidelity and latency, low latency, were just game-changing.
00:00:40 ◼ ► Honestly, I mean, I don't know how in the early days of me podcasting, because I have been
00:00:45 ◼ ► podcasting relatively long for the industry, like my old talk show with Dan Benjamin. I think we
00:00:58 ◼ ► I would never claim that because then Dave Weiner will get angry at me. And I do not want Dave
00:01:03 ◼ ► Weiner, of all people, angry at me. He invented podcasting. Let's just say that. But Skype,
00:01:09 ◼ ► really made it possible in a way for remote, you know. And I don't know anybody who lives near me
00:01:16 ◼ ► who I want to podcast with, so it had to be remote. 100%. So here's a couple of fun facts
00:01:22 ◼ ► about Skype. One, I got my start in tech working at a PR agency on the Skype client. So I was
00:01:35 ◼ ► like sort of partnering with. And so my job was to pitch tech journalists on covering these like
00:01:42 ◼ ► new mics and webcams. And I realized when I was doing that, that this is not a good job for me.
00:01:48 ◼ ► I would rather be reviewing these types of things. That's fun fact number one. Number two is I wrote
00:01:53 ◼ ► a column this week about how we actually should be cutting back on video calls, like that nonstop
00:01:58 ◼ ► video calling has to stop. And it was about audio calls, right? Like that makes sense. Like we should
00:02:03 ◼ ► just make audio calls before the... When I called the pre-pandemic era, we just made calls. We would
00:02:09 ◼ ► just be like, "Hey, did you have a second? Can I give you a call?" We didn't say like, "Can I give
00:02:12 ◼ ► you a video call?" Anyway, I got in touch with Skype, or I reached out to Microsoft to get in
00:02:18 ◼ ► touch with Skype. And nobody wanted to talk about Skype. Like, they were like, "Hey, have you heard
00:02:25 ◼ ► of Microsoft Teams?" They didn't say that. But like, you know, they were like, "Here's all the
00:02:29 ◼ ► new features in Microsoft Teams." And it's like, but any stats on Skype and people using Skype for
00:02:40 ◼ ► Dave: I totally agree about the video call thing. And I will also admit, though, that I'm in a
00:02:47 ◼ ► position of extraordinary privilege, because I would say as someone who does their entire job
00:02:55 ◼ ► typing at a computer, I have probably had the fewest minutes on video calls of anybody I know
00:03:05 ◼ ► Stephanie: I want to change your sentence from before, which is I'm extremely privileged not to
00:03:17 ◼ ► Dave You know, it can be a pain when it's a bunch of chores and stuff I don't want to do. And it's
00:03:22 ◼ ► like, well, there's nobody else to do it. So guess who's, you know, emailing sponsors about bugging
00:03:27 ◼ ► them for assets and blah, blah, blah. And it's, you know, but no video calls. And I have friends,
00:03:33 ◼ ► you know, everybody, I mean, everybody's on video calls, but I have friends and and I think the same
00:03:37 ◼ ► thing now I have had, and always do have, I do have a fair amount of phone calls, you know, you
00:03:44 ◼ ► got to talk on the phone, I find a phone call so much less stressful than a video call. I really do.
00:03:49 ◼ ► Stephanie Same. And I and I pointed all these things out in the piece, especially like,
00:03:53 ◼ ► I feel like right now, and I tried to make this point in the in the column, which is that it's
00:04:00 ◼ ► like zooms are exhausting. And so the best like it's sort of like the leftovers, the table scraps
00:04:05 ◼ ► that are leftovers, like, okay, do an audio call. There's all these reasons and audio calls actually
00:04:10 ◼ ► can be better than a video call. And we don't really think about those. I mean, for me,
00:04:17 ◼ ► Dave Exactly. And you, you can do some silly, stupid stuff that it doesn't mean you're not
00:04:25 ◼ ► paying attention, but you can just sort of, you know, I don't know, like, if you just need to
00:04:30 ◼ ► carry something from one room to another, you can do it while you're on an audio call, you know,
00:04:36 ◼ ► you just need to the kid left something out in the living room, let me just take it into the kitchen,
00:04:44 ◼ ► you know, like you can't you can't do that in the video call. Anyway, I, I love video calling,
00:04:49 ◼ ► FaceTime and all other video calling is amazing. And I talked about that in the piece. But because
00:04:56 ◼ ► Dave Yeah. The other thing about Skype versus Zoom and the headstart Skype had and should have been
00:05:01 ◼ ► able to keep technically is to me, and it's a little thing, but it's the sort of little thing
00:05:06 ◼ ► that really bothers me. Skype is a much better name than Zoom. I guess you're not zooming
00:05:13 ◼ ► anything. Whereas Skype is a made up name. And it's a great made up name. It rolls off the tongue.
00:05:26 ◼ ► Stephanie I feel like it even because I feel like we've gone through these phases of it becoming the
00:05:30 ◼ ► verb, right? Like, Skype was like, oh, we should get together and Skype right, like with early days
00:05:35 ◼ ► of video calling it was Skype. But then FaceTime came along. And I feel like most people were like,
00:05:40 ◼ ► if you had an iPhone, let's FaceTime. Or have you and at least in my house, too, when we had a kid,
00:05:46 ◼ ► everyone wanted to FaceTime with us, right? It just became the default. And then through the
00:05:51 ◼ ► pandemic, Zoom became the default because it was this group feature. I think that Zoom really
00:05:55 ◼ ► marketed the grid and the like, I mean, it feels like almost they like invented it, but we know
00:06:02 ◼ ► they didn't the group the grid, right? The just like, hey, everyone lives in a box. And this is
00:06:07 ◼ ► the best way to see everybody. It's, it's always makes me think of the Brady Bunch. But it's like,
00:06:12 ◼ ► well, what if the Brady Bunch weren't a bunch of kids? It was a bunch of colleagues and peers. And
00:06:19 ◼ ► also, there are 20 of you, instead of nine. But it always looks like the opening to the Brady Bunch
00:06:25 ◼ ► to me and people are looking around and everybody, you know, most of the people are poorly lit,
00:06:37 ◼ ► MacBooks with shit cameras, and the angles bad because the laptops down at their desk. And so
00:06:43 ◼ ► it's just like, there was unflattering. They look craptastic, right? Was that it? Craptastic?
00:06:48 ◼ ► Yeah, craptacular. Right, every time I can't, I can't. Now I can't remember which one's mine
00:06:59 ◼ ► You know what we should do here? Just lift the old podcast and like paste it in here. No one's
00:07:02 ◼ ► going to know the difference. What do you think, while we're on it, this is not on my list. I don't
00:07:09 ◼ ► really have much of a list, but because I figured we'd just go off on tangents like this. Now that
00:07:15 ◼ ► we're pulling out of this, and you know, we've gone through this year plus of the pandemic.
00:07:34 ◼ ► really had no role in anybody's professional. And I'm, of all people know, lots of people who
00:07:40 ◼ ► their entire circle is all on Apple platforms. So the fact that FaceTime is Apple only isn't even
00:07:46 ◼ ► relevant to this. Even if you wanted to say that, even people I know who are Apple only don't use
00:07:57 ◼ ► professional use, I totally agree. And also, like a couple of colleagues that I work with who don't
00:08:09 ◼ ► I think FaceTime audio is just the superior audio quality. It's, if you get two really good FaceTime
00:08:16 ◼ ► audio connections, it's superior. You're like, are you in the room with me? Like it is, it is a crazy
00:08:22 ◼ ► good quality. So I do that with some colleagues that, you know, either are upstate and living
00:08:27 ◼ ► in places that they're just don't have the best service, cellular service. But for sure,
00:08:35 ◼ ► during the pandemic, a lot of our personal contact, you know, especially the first number
00:08:40 ◼ ► of months where we couldn't see my parents, we were pretty much always on FaceTime. And I'm sure
00:08:51 ◼ ► Yeah, yeah, that is true. And I can actually verify that from some folks I know at Apple,
00:08:55 ◼ ► that FaceTime usage spiked early, and stayed crazy high. And, you know, it felt like a feather in
00:09:03 ◼ ► their cap, like, hey, we always hoped we would be able to handle a level like what we're seeing,
00:09:10 ◼ ► but we are handling it. And it all just seems to work. And nobody really thinks about it. And we
00:09:15 ◼ ► feel good about it. So FaceTime as a personal thing, talking to parents, you know, that sort
00:09:29 ◼ ► it worked great for that. And that is what it was designed for. And I think talking to some people
00:09:37 ◼ ► at Apple, they're like, well, FaceTime just was never designed as a business tool. And, you know,
00:09:46 ◼ ► It might be interesting to see what they do with the Mac app in the future. I think, also,
00:09:51 ◼ ► it's so clear. I mean, this is just such a funny thing about the Mac app. And I'm sure you've
00:09:55 ◼ ► thought about it. It's just like it defaults to the vertical view. Yes. It looks like the like,
00:10:02 ◼ ► phone app was just put on the Mac. The group FaceTime still basically sucks. They've done
00:10:09 ◼ ► some things through the pandemic, they believe iOS 13.5, where they fixed some things for group
00:10:16 ◼ ► FaceTime. And then in 14, they changed the like, you know, the bubble resizing, which was
00:10:22 ◼ ► kind of a mess. But still not great. Right? Like, maybe something we see at W3C, I would assume.
00:10:29 ◼ ► Yeah, something related. Yeah, because I think that the original group FaceTime implementation
00:10:43 ◼ ► remember like, my tweet was something snarky. Like, I don't know, 27 people. So this is,
00:10:54 ◼ ► The implementation was like, too cute by far, though, with all of the way that people were
00:11:00 ◼ ► moving around based on who's talking and it was like, I don't know, like it was purposefully
00:11:08 ◼ ► trying to keep you confused as to which person was where because every time somebody talks,
00:11:15 ◼ ► and then I think they kind of realized, like it looked cool in a demo, it was sort of like a UI
00:11:20 ◼ ► that worked best on stage in the demo where they unveiled it. And it's like, in practice,
00:11:26 ◼ ► now you kind of want something simpler and more stable. Where if Joanna is in the lower left
00:11:33 ◼ ► corner, she stays in the lower left corner. You don't want her booping and bopping around the
00:11:38 ◼ ► screen. Totally. And I think they, the improvements on Mac, I think can go hand in hand with the
00:11:46 ◼ ► improvements in the webcam stuff, too. I mean, it's, you know, if there's some tie in there
00:11:56 ◼ ► I am. But I've never really, I'm not using it as my full time machine. I have it set up. And I set
00:12:06 ◼ ► it up in Amy's sort of, I wouldn't call it an office, but like her little private room where
00:12:12 ◼ ► she can have stuff because she had like a nice orange desk, and I got an orange iMac, and it
00:12:16 ◼ ► looked really nice there. And she wanted to try it. She hasn't had an iMac in years. She's been
00:12:20 ◼ ► like on the MacBook Pro style since we moved to a new house, like four or five years ago,
00:12:25 ◼ ► and has been thinking for years that she should get an iMac for her little room upstairs. And
00:12:37 ◼ ► how can I have gotten this old and not realize that, you know what, if you need a computer,
00:12:42 ◼ ► buy a computer, stop thinking about the future, you're gonna wait forever. Like, because I thought
00:12:46 ◼ ► like four or five years ago, Apple Silicon Macs were coming 2018, you know, like, this is gonna
00:12:53 ◼ ► happen because I know they're frustrated with Intel. And I know their iPhone chips are already
00:12:58 ◼ ► benchmarking faster than MacBook Pro chips. So this is gonna happen. And then, you know,
00:13:02 ◼ ► we had to wait till last year. What year did you tell her to wait in? Like 2010? I don't know. I
00:13:07 ◼ ► didn't have any gray hair at the time. So it was a long time. I don't know. Yeah, probably. No,
00:13:11 ◼ ► I would say like five years ago or something like that. Oh, so we've got it up there. And,
00:13:16 ◼ ► you know, and it is it's one of those things that that it stuck out to me, I didn't put it in my
00:13:20 ◼ ► review. But it still is one of those like, hmm, why I get it with the iPhone, but the iPad and I
00:13:28 ◼ ► know it's this is like one of the most common requests is how come on the Mac, you can set up
00:13:33 ◼ ► two user accounts, and it they make it really easy to switch between them. And on the iPad,
00:13:38 ◼ ► you can't like you can't just say this is a family iPad. And here's an account for one of your kids.
00:13:50 ◼ ► limitation of iPad because I know that people have, you know, iPads they want to share with
00:13:56 ◼ ► their kids. And setting up the iMac where she had an account and she could use it and give me
00:14:01 ◼ ► her thoughts on on how to use it. And then I could set it up and use it. It's like, wow,
00:14:06 ◼ ► I wish I could do this with iPads. Well, yeah, I think so I'm using it right now. And I you know,
00:14:13 ◼ ► I'm like, world's number one laptop user kind of hate desktops. And I, I really like it. I mean,
00:14:20 ◼ ► that was kind of my review, which is like, this could make me a desktop person. But there's too
00:14:25 ◼ ► many things that I love about the flexibility of a laptop to really do this. So my ultimate thing was
00:14:30 ◼ ► like, just give me this screen. And I buy that in a second from Apple. But back to the webcam,
00:14:35 ◼ ► the webcam on it is amazing. Yeah, it really is. It's just so much better. And so that's one of the
00:14:41 ◼ ► reasons I've kept it around back to the video calling thing. I still do video calls for
00:14:46 ◼ ► important calls. And I do it for TV too. This thing looks like I don't really have to set up
00:14:51 ◼ ► the iPhone and this whole like system I had for for CNBC. I don't do that anymore. I've just been
00:14:56 ◼ ► used iMac. So the camera here is really good. But again, the FaceTime is like FaceTime.
00:15:03 ◼ ► All right. So let's do it. Let's do iMac first. The camera to me, it was it was clearly it was like
00:15:13 ◼ ► step one was with these M1 MacBooks last November. And it was it's literally I believe if you go to
00:15:21 ◼ ► like iFixit, the camera is literally the same physical component as on the Intel MacBooks from
00:15:28 ◼ ► before, which is a real piece of crap 720p with a tiny sensor that is terrible with light. And I
00:15:36 ◼ ► believe you had had some comments on the old MacBook keyboards over the years. And with the
00:15:42 ◼ ► M1, they have the same crappy camera, but piping it through the M1's image signal processing,
00:15:48 ◼ ► they really cleaned it up and made it a lot more useful and famously or at least famously between
00:15:54 ◼ ► me and you. I used it to go on CNBC with you when the M1 MacBooks were new. And and it created a
00:16:08 ◼ ► but it was improved, but it still wasn't great. That's the main thing. It's still it's like they
00:16:16 ◼ ► cleaned up the noise and the color and definitely we're doing something to realize that hey,
00:16:22 ◼ ► the only thing that really matters are people's faces in front of this thing. And clearly their
00:16:27 ◼ ► image signal processing was optimized for that. But it still was kind of muddy, right? In terms of
00:16:33 ◼ ► it just was still really crappy. I mean, even in the comparisons I did of the 13 image MacBook Pro
00:16:40 ◼ ► and this new iMac. It's like, yeah, it's like looking at a, like a blurry photo. You know what
00:16:47 ◼ ► it's like? Remember when photos would you use like AOL and they would like take a while to load and
00:16:52 ◼ ► they would be super blurry and then they'd come into focus? Yeah, yeah. Progressive progressive
00:16:57 ◼ ► JPEGs, right? Yes, exactly. That's it. That's what the webcams are like. Yeah, like this new iMac,
00:17:03 ◼ ► everything is so clear. Like you can make out what's in the background, which is a bad thing
00:17:08 ◼ ► for me because it means I have to clean my office. Like it's, it's substantially improved. And to your
00:17:13 ◼ ► point, I didn't get to compare it. I don't know if you did. Well, it doesn't sound like you did. But
00:17:17 ◼ ► they use the same camera hardware, the same 1080p module in this new 24 inch iMac, then as they used
00:17:25 ◼ ► in the 27 inch iMac from last year. No, I didn't know that. Yeah. And I mean, I didn't get to do
00:17:32 ◼ ► side by sides. But I don't know, I just felt like this new 24 inch iMac is just one of the best.
00:17:37 ◼ ► Yeah, webcams period that I've seen. Yeah, that's what was my question for you is how do you think
00:17:43 ◼ ► it compares as somebody who's done much more comparisons on this stuff. So it's clearly the
00:17:47 ◼ ► best built in camera Apple's ever shipped the combination of actually better 1080p camera
00:17:54 ◼ ► hardware with the M1 image processing. Now you've got two things that are better, better hardware
00:17:58 ◼ ► and better image processing. But how does it compare to like a the the standalone webcams that
00:18:07 ◼ ► people have been desperately fighting in the black market for over the last year because they're
00:18:12 ◼ ► all sold out? I mean, it compares pretty well to a Logitech, a Logitech 1080p webcam that I have,
00:18:20 ◼ ► I would, I don't have one of the 4k ones, I not gone down that far. But and I don't even use the
00:18:27 ◼ ► Logitech one usually when I set up I really like to use the I use the I use an iPhone a lot of times
00:18:34 ◼ ► when I'm like doing an actual hit because I'm like, okay, I have the flexibility of the three
00:18:38 ◼ ► lenses. I use that camo software, which is great and just hook it up. It's I mean, it's a little
00:18:43 ◼ ► bit clunky the whole experience, but it works. And definitely compared to any built in laptop that
00:18:50 ◼ ► I've tested, it's way better. And that's, you know, has to do with Windows and Chromebooks. And
00:18:56 ◼ ► I mean, definitely Macs. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about the chin on the iMac? Because that
00:19:03 ◼ ► seems to be like I was skeptical and I wrote in my review that I was anticipating that new iMacs
00:19:11 ◼ ► would just get rid of this chin, because they wouldn't need it, they could just put the computer
00:19:14 ◼ ► behind the display. I just didn't think they would try to make the whole thing so crazy thin. And
00:19:22 ◼ ► then I you know, it's like, Oh, well, now we have this chin. And it's I don't know what that's going
00:19:27 ◼ ► to look like. And then once I had it set up, and I was in front of it, the chin just disappears. I
00:19:32 ◼ ► honestly and some people complained like, Oh, you know, it's, you're just saying that because you
00:19:38 ◼ ► don't want to say bad things about Apple products. Like, No, I love to say bad things about Apple
00:19:42 ◼ ► products. I just I'm telling you that when I use the iMac, I the chin just disappears for me and I
00:19:47 ◼ ► don't notice it. I it was like to your point, I was jarring at first when I took it out of the box.
00:19:55 ◼ ► I was like, I did not notice this during the presentation. I'm just like, Ew, right? Like,
00:20:00 ◼ ► I was kind of like, Ew, I don't know why this is there. Over time, I think I was more upset. And
00:20:04 ◼ ► I said this in the review. I like the colors of the back much better than this pastel color of
00:20:11 ◼ ► the chin. Yeah. And that was like, I just don't I mean, maybe I don't like pastels. I think in my
00:20:18 ◼ ► review, I called them sort of bridesmaid dress colors. That's so true. Like, and maybe from like
00:20:24 ◼ ► the 70s, like 70s 1970s. And then like, I was telling you, like, the other thing is I have the
00:20:31 ◼ ► blue one. And like, it looks like I've like got a baby boy's baby shower all the time. Like, it's
00:20:38 ◼ ► just blue and white and the white. To me, I was more I know why they did the white bezel. I get
00:20:45 ◼ ► it like walls are white and it blends in. But I'm just so used to like a sleek black frame around a
00:20:52 ◼ ► really beautiful screen. So I look I'm fine with the chin. I definitely gave them. Yeah, I wrote
00:20:59 ◼ ► about that a little bit and mentioned it in the video. Actually, in the video on that part,
00:21:04 ◼ ► because I was comparing it to the the G3 Mac, and I pulled a quote from Steve Jobs when he was
00:21:09 ◼ ► introducing the first one, where he said, the front of the or the back of this one looks better than
00:21:14 ◼ ► the other guys, which the other guys were PCs at the time. But you know, in this context, I feel
00:21:19 ◼ ► like the back of this iMac looks better than the front of it. Yeah, no, that was the quote is that
00:21:23 ◼ ► Jobs said that the back of the iMac looks better than the front of the other guys PCs. You know,
00:21:28 ◼ ► that. Yeah, that's the exact quote. Yeah. You know what, that's a good point, though. And, and
00:21:33 ◼ ► my wife had the same observation. And that, that in her setup, if she were to buy one, and she would
00:21:41 ◼ ► get the orange, she really likes it. And like I said, she has this orange desk, it would be perfect.
00:21:47 ◼ ► But like she said, the best part of the orange is the back and in her setup, which I think is
00:21:53 ◼ ► probably a, you know, the most common setup, it's it's effectively against the wall. So you
00:21:59 ◼ ► kind of never see it. So I know and Apple had all these demos of like, well, you could set it up as
00:22:05 ◼ ► a retail kiosk, or like, you know, like, if you're checking in to a doctor's appointment, or a salon
00:22:15 ◼ ► or something, and the person that the check in has an iMac as their, their thing, then you use,
00:22:21 ◼ ► you the customer see the back, right. And there are definitely places where you see the back of
00:22:26 ◼ ► a display. But not in typical home scenarios, right. And there's also there's the you're
00:22:33 ◼ ► working in an office, like an open office space, and like all the monitors are lined up. Right?
00:22:38 ◼ ► Yeah, I mean, that same as me, like I'm sitting against the, like a wall in my office, and I'm
00:22:42 ◼ ► staring at the baby boy blue, baby shower, right. And let's just say like, purple is your favorite
00:22:49 ◼ ► color. And you're so excited, because now Apple, you know, after 20 years has gone back and made
00:22:55 ◼ ► like a really awesome purple, not like a little purple, but like, you know, Minnesota Vikings,
00:23:01 ◼ ► capital P purple iMac. And you set it up in your desk is putting it up against the wall,
00:23:08 ◼ ► and you never get to see, you never get to see the purple, you get to see this sort of lavender that
00:23:13 ◼ ► looks like a sweetheart or something. What's the deal with the purple, John? Like, what's Come on,
00:23:18 ◼ ► like, they released this purple iPhone and the world goes crazy. Am I missing something?
00:23:23 ◼ ► All right, here's what I think. And I'm you're asking. I think as an observer, I'm right. But
00:23:29 ◼ ► as somebody who could have picked the color, I would have been wrong. Is that there's, there's
00:23:34 ◼ ► like a trendiness and colors. And Apple has like a team who are like, trend spotters who either are
00:23:44 ◼ ► helping to define the colors of the year, or have like their finger on the pulse of fashion and
00:23:51 ◼ ► style and and trends and pick it out. But there is somebody and somebody told me this when they
00:23:56 ◼ ► announced it when they announced that purple phone, they're like, this thing's gonna sell
00:23:58 ◼ ► like crazy. And I'm like, it looks cool. But what do you mean? They're like, oh, purple's the color
00:24:02 ◼ ► of 2021. And I'm like, it is. And they're like, yeah, yeah. And this was the thing, like, I
00:24:08 ◼ ► couldn't believe the coverage of it. Like, I just couldn't. And I was like, this is what's wrong
00:24:13 ◼ ► with media. Yeah. So it's a color. So I got a haircut yesterday. And my stylist asked me,
00:24:21 ◼ ► she knows what I do. You know, she's not a nerd. But she asked me about, you know, what are the
00:24:25 ◼ ► what are the cool new features of the new iPhone? And I'm like, well, there's not really a new
00:24:29 ◼ ► iPhone. She goes, Yeah, there is. And she couldn't believe I didn't know it. And she goes, the purple
00:24:32 ◼ ► one. And I'm like, well, but that's but that, you know, like, she knew about the one she knew about
00:24:38 ◼ ► the ads, the crazy ads for the purple one. Yeah. And she just assumed it meant it was new and had
00:24:44 ◼ ► cool features and stuff. And she thought, and she even said, I think I'm getting that one.
00:24:50 ◼ ► And I was amazing. Yeah. I mean, this is like the Apple marketing machine is just amazing when you
00:24:54 ◼ ► think about it that way. Yeah. And they were all over the rose gold thing early a couple years ago,
00:25:00 ◼ ► you know, that. Oh, yeah. And now that rose gold is gone. It's out. It's out. I wrote it into a
00:25:06 ◼ ► script for my piece for next week, actually. And I was like, I'm not sure this is gonna land. Like,
00:25:11 ◼ ► I'm not sure like people remember rose. I mean, they remember it, but like, it's not in the,
00:25:21 ◼ ► And the other factor is that it's like t minus five, four, three, until Samsung comes out with
00:25:28 ◼ ► a purple phone. Yeah. It's true. Well, I've always been like fascinated by like the colors,
00:25:34 ◼ ► because it seems like it's always a marketing thing. But like you said, very, very specific
00:25:43 ◼ ► and carefully selected. And for people that are listening, we go to these briefings where truly
00:25:50 ◼ ► they talk about the colors of the phone sometimes I'm not even just talking about Apple here,
00:26:02 ◼ ► development of the color is as important as some other new feature. I remember very specifically,
00:26:10 ◼ ► I don't go to lots of briefings for non Apple stuff. But I was at I was I went up to New York
00:26:16 ◼ ► a couple of years ago for a pixel thing with Google. And it was I really enjoyed being there.
00:26:24 ◼ ► It was I don't know if you were there. You must have been there because it was New York. Maybe
00:26:28 ◼ ► we even had lunch afterwards. I don't know. But it was the one where they had the basketball hoop
00:26:32 ◼ ► in inside. Do you remember that? I think I went to that they had this weird loft space and they
00:26:37 ◼ ► had a basketball hoop and they wanted to it was like for something about testing one of their
00:26:44 ◼ ► products for fitness or something. And I was like, hey, basketball is the only sport I'm
00:26:49 ◼ ► any good at I can do and they're like, oh, you're too late. It was already it's over because
00:26:53 ◼ ► somebody got hurt. And they stopped letting people shoot the hoops. And I was like, Oh, come on. I
00:27:00 ◼ ► was like, let me shoot a couple free throws. They're like, No, no, no, that's close. But they'd
00:27:04 ◼ ► spent so much time talking about the color of the side button on the Pixel phones. Right? Yeah. It
00:27:10 ◼ ► was like talking about the specific shade of orange, peach and and this like 500 words about
00:27:19 ◼ ► it. And it's like, I do think it looks kind of cool. And it's an unique look to just have this
00:27:23 ◼ ► like pop orange on a white and otherwise like white and black phone. But you know, it's just
00:27:30 ◼ ► orange, right? Right. And then they got things like oh, so orange and or I don't know if that's
00:27:35 ◼ ► what that one was called. Yeah, but age and but this is like, that's Google. But like, Samsung's
00:27:41 ◼ ► like, I don't want to say 10 times worse, but worse like they they also will talk to you for
00:27:48 ◼ ► a long time about the color options. All right, let me take a break and thank our first sponsor
00:27:55 ◼ ► got it. I got it. Got to get going on the business aspect. Oh, I love this sponsor. This is great.
00:27:59 ◼ ► They sponsored my website last week. They're sponsoring the podcast now. It's it's a game
00:28:11 ◼ ► on Apple Arcade. It is in fact, the new song pop party is exclusive to Apple Arcade. Basically,
00:28:19 ◼ ► it's a bit like name that tune where if you want to play against people, it starts playing a song
00:28:25 ◼ ► and you have like a list of four options of like, oh, who's the artist and the first person to tap
00:28:30 ◼ ► the correct artist is the winner of that round. They have 10s of 1000s of songs and you have to
00:28:37 ◼ ► guess as fast as you can. But it's the real songs. These aren't like samples or like covers like
00:28:44 ◼ ► it's the real songs. They've got the rights to the legit hits. And they've got new stuff. I've played
00:28:51 ◼ ► we played over the weekend because I like to test the sponsor stuff. I don't know any new music.
00:28:55 ◼ ► I don't. The one I got what I got right was john legend and I didn't know the song. I just know his
00:29:00 ◼ ► voice and I but I'm really bad with that. But if you get me going on the 80s, I can I can compete
00:29:07 ◼ ► pretty well. So they've got like a library that really, really works depending on whether you
00:29:11 ◼ ► want new music or you want to go to the 70s or the 80s or the 90s or something like that.
00:29:16 ◼ ► They've got all I mean, literally 10s of 1000s of songs, they've got all the genres who
00:29:26 ◼ ► or arena mode against strangers online randos. Or it the best mode, the one where it really shines
00:29:35 ◼ ► is in party mode, you can play up to eight people in the same room. For example, and because it's an
00:29:41 ◼ ► Apple Arcade game, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. And this is where like Apple TV is a game
00:29:48 ◼ ► thing is really awesome. And you can even play with the Siri remote, including the new one.
00:29:54 ◼ ► The old one, I guess works, but we I don't know, I think everybody threw their old Siri remotes
00:30:00 ◼ ► in the garbage. Anyway, every platform, it is native on the M one on the Mac. It also works on
00:30:07 ◼ ► the old Intel Macs, your Apple TV, everything syncs automatically. So you can take a game
00:30:12 ◼ ► from one Apple device to another. And because it's on Apple Arcade, there are no ads, no in app
00:30:19 ◼ ► purchases, never asks for an email never asks you to sign in, never tracks anything. There's no data
00:30:27 ◼ ► collection at all. Apple. Let's and I maybe they even demand it. But Apple lets game developers
00:30:34 ◼ ► for Apple Arcade gather zero metrics and data about you. It's a privacy first. I don't even
00:30:40 ◼ ► have a URL to tell you because it's Apple Arcade exclusive. If you already have Apple Arcade,
00:30:45 ◼ ► or you subscribe to Apple one, you can just go to the App Store and download sound song pop party.
00:30:50 ◼ ► And if you don't, you could if you really want to try it, you could sign up for a demo of Apple
00:30:56 ◼ ► Arcade or Apple one and get it there. But if you do have Apple Arcade access already, it's a no
00:31:02 ◼ ► brainer to try this if you have any interest in a fun party game. It's a lot of fun and really well
00:31:07 ◼ ► done the poly, you know, it's polished and looks great and everything like that. So my thanks to
00:31:11 ◼ ► song pop party get it on Apple Arcade. What I love that that's the name of the app and they
00:31:19 ◼ ► you have to say it so many times song pop party. It's a good day. Good job. It's a good job. It's
00:31:38 ◼ ► one thing I realized is like, I can talk. Well, I can type quieter on my MacBook Pro keyboard.
00:31:45 ◼ ► Now, then I can on what is this the magic keyboard? Extern and they're both called magic keyboards. I
00:31:52 ◼ ► don't know. It's a branding thing at this point. Everything's a magic keyboard. It's a magic
00:31:57 ◼ ► keyboard. Yeah. That's my biggest complaint. I love the like feedback. And I've actually like,
00:32:02 ◼ ► really, I I've now gotten used to the desktop setup. So the fact that I have the I've been
00:32:08 ◼ ► using the trackpad, the magic trackpad and the keyboard and I like it, you know, I miss a lot
00:32:14 ◼ ► about my laptop setup, but I like it. It's just loud. They did give us the I assume every reviewer
00:32:21 ◼ ► got the same kit. They gave us both the mouse and the trackpad. And it's funny because I've gone
00:32:27 ◼ ► laptop only over the last few years to for various reasons. And I used to be a diehard mouse person
00:32:38 ◼ ► on the on the desktop, if I had a desktop setup, and I have to say that it's like I finally have
00:32:55 ◼ ► well, I didn't try I need to convert myself from just sitting at laptop and with a big monitor
00:33:01 ◼ ► to a more of a desktop setting because it's just really bad for my back. And I feel like
00:33:07 ◼ ► ergonomically, it's been bad for me because I've been sitting at this desk for so long.
00:33:10 ◼ ► So I already was trying to move to a keyboard accessory and external mouse. And I don't know,
00:33:19 ◼ ► I was using a Logitech mouse. I like, like, I mean, there's a lot of things about the magic
00:33:24 ◼ ► mouse that I just don't like. But there are certain times I'm like, this just feels nice
00:33:28 ◼ ► to push this mouse around. It is a it's a very opinionated mouse. And I know everybody loves
00:33:33 ◼ ► to complain about the lightning hole on the bottom. And I did I did I really made a thing
00:33:39 ◼ ► about it. It is goofy. I know. I know it is. But my my defense of it is you can't make a mouse the
00:33:48 ◼ ► shape that it is with an exposed lightning port, you'd have to make an all new mouse now.
00:33:54 ◼ ► They could make maybe that's the answer. They should make a whole new mouse in a different
00:33:58 ◼ ► shape. They should make a whole new mouse like like for example, as we'll get to, you know,
00:34:02 ◼ ► in a bit, they they did a little bit more than just tweak the Apple TV remote, they made an all
00:34:08 ◼ ► new remote. But that's if somebody at Apple really thinks this shape and fundamental design where the
00:34:16 ◼ ► clickable area goes all the way down to the tabletop, there's no room for a lightning thing.
00:34:21 ◼ ► And I also subsequently think that they really don't want I don't know why I don't think they
00:34:27 ◼ ► want people using the mouse plugged in for some reason. And it doesn't take long. I it is weird,
00:34:33 ◼ ► though. And yeah, I agree with you. They don't want you using the mouse plugged in. And I
00:34:37 ◼ ► complained about it. And I, you know, made some jokes about it in the video. I think for me,
00:34:52 ◼ ► I want to use the word girth, but I don't want to put this in the sentence because I think it's just
00:34:58 ◼ ► going to come out really bad. It demands a certain mouse grip. Right? Yes. Yeah. Yes. And that feels
00:35:08 ◼ ► good. Like when you have a mouse that is like you are actually holding this thing is so flat.
00:35:20 ◼ ► I guess a couple of them from Razer. And the Razer ones are the gaming mice seem to be more
00:35:28 ◼ ► like how I traditionally grip a mouse. And I have they still giant. Yeah, they're, well,
00:35:41 ◼ ► there was like a long time when when the debate was, hey, Apple mice only have one button and
00:35:46 ◼ ► PC mice have two buttons and a scroll wheel. And that's better. And it's better to just get one of
00:35:52 ◼ ► the PC mice and plug it in your Mac, because the Mac will recognize you and blah, blah, blah,
00:35:57 ◼ ► two buttons versus one button. And then all of a sudden, the world went to like 10 button mice for
00:36:02 ◼ ► power users and gamers. And they got enormous. You know, it's like, yeah, that's what I'm asking.
00:36:07 ◼ ► Because I remember when I was doing laptop PCs and desktop PCs reviews, I would get all these
00:36:13 ◼ ► accessories and the mice were huge. And they had all these programmable buttons. And you know,
00:36:19 ◼ ► also, they were also awesome, because they would like turn different colors and stuff, but I never
00:36:23 ◼ ► could remember which one to use. And they were huge. They would just like take up half the desk,
00:36:27 ◼ ► like the half the mouse pad was the mouse. Yeah, but you know, and Jonas is only, you know,
00:36:32 ◼ ► you got I'm gonna say only and you're gonna go I can't believe he's that old, but he's only 17. So
00:36:36 ◼ ► he's still his his mind is still fluid. And he's, he's easily adaptable to to new things. But even
00:36:45 ◼ ► he thought when I had him try the iMac, he thought that the that the that the Apple mouse, it just is
00:36:50 ◼ ► not compatible with the way he wants to grip a mouse. And every time he tried to use it, it
00:36:54 ◼ ► it's like this is just so weird to grip. And it's clicking when he doesn't want to click and stuff
00:37:00 ◼ ► like that. But I know some people love it. I don't know I've gotten full trackpad though. And the
00:37:04 ◼ ► other thing for me is that for me, a mouse is always better if you have to drag long distances,
00:37:11 ◼ ► right? Like the trackpad, the downside to the trackpad lifestyle is if you want to drag like
00:37:15 ◼ ► a file in the finder from the upper, upper left all the way to the trash can in the bottom right,
00:37:31 ◼ ► you know, large part of my my daily life, years ago, I would have never ever wanted to use a
00:37:37 ◼ ► trackpad. I'd want a mouse because it's like you're dragging things corner to corner all the
00:37:42 ◼ ► time and with more, more precision, but for what I'm doing writing and just clicking between tabs.
00:37:47 ◼ ► It's like my mind just goes to a trackpad. Yeah, same. It's funny, I went to go interview a guy
00:37:54 ◼ ► a couple months ago, he was, I did this piece on vaccines. And anyway, ended up in this guy's house
00:37:58 ◼ ► who was booking all of these vaccines for elderly people. And he had two IMAX and he had, I think it
00:38:04 ◼ ► was probably like, I want to say like three or four magic mice on his desk. And I asked him,
00:38:11 ◼ ► I was like, what's going on? Like, why do you need these? He's like, I mean, this guy's a programmer
00:38:16 ◼ ► engineer, he just was always at his desk. And he's like, well, when one dies, I just swap the
00:38:20 ◼ ► batteries or I'm charging and I have another one. And I was like, Oh, okay. And yeah, he had like,
00:38:33 ◼ ► you did. And I mean, did amazing things. I think he ended up booking a couple 1000 appointments for
00:38:37 ◼ ► people getting vaccines sort of amazing. I do think and I said this on my show last week with
00:38:43 ◼ ► Marco Arment, like, I don't want to throw Johnny Ive under the bus, but they're and you never know,
00:38:49 ◼ ► because Apple doesn't explain who decided what it's always Apple did this, but it does seem
00:38:55 ◼ ► post Johnny Ive. And if you figure that they're on, you know, 12 to 18 month look ahead cycles
00:39:03 ◼ ► for everything they're building. It just seems though, that now that Johnny Ive has been out
00:39:10 ◼ ► of Apple for a few years, we're starting to see maybe some of the things that he was hung up on.
00:39:18 ◼ ► And now that I'm going to say like the Apple TV remote is a Johnny Ive ism. And now they've gone
00:39:26 ◼ ► back. So it was on my mind when they you know, when it was clear that they were doing new IMAX,
00:39:33 ◼ ► like, I wonder if they're going to redo the mouse is this mouse shape a Johnny Ive thing where he's
00:39:39 ◼ ► like, you know, you don't have to charge it. It's so light and airy. And you know, it's it just,
00:39:45 ◼ ► you know, this top surface forms, you know, molds into the tabletop. It was that, or, you know,
00:39:57 ◼ ► Marie-Claire Well, yeah, and I would say the same of the keyboard, though, like, you know, for when
00:40:01 ◼ ► you look at the keyboards, like, okay, they lifted the touch ID from the iPhone, what, eight, and
00:40:07 ◼ ► just put it in the corner. And then they changed the color. So they did some changes here.
00:40:16 ◼ ► Marie-Claire Right. But they did some, you know, they they did change these things. I mean,
00:40:20 ◼ ► yeah, obviously, it's not a full, just a color swap back to our conversation about colors. And
00:40:42 ◼ ► it, it didn't feel weird or unusual to me to use the iMac keyboard and just go to the top right
00:40:48 ◼ ► corner of the keyboard with my index finger to do all the touch ID stuff. But I was actually even
00:40:53 ◼ ► just before we recorded this today, I was chatting with some people on Twitter about, well, why not
00:40:59 ◼ ► face ID? Why touch ID instead of face ID on the Mac? And I answer? Well, I don't know. Nobody,
00:41:08 ◼ ► you know, again, Apple doesn't explain stuff like that. I mean, one thing I could think of
00:41:12 ◼ ► before was the aesthetics of it, right? Like, they're not going to put a notch in the Mac.
00:41:17 ◼ ► Like it just, it just wouldn't work. I mean, it would be whatever you think of the notch on the
00:41:24 ◼ ► phone. I don't think it would look good on the Mac. So it would have to go in the bezel. But if
00:41:27 ◼ ► they wanted to have this white bezel, then it would be like, not just a little tiny hole punch
00:41:33 ◼ ► in the middle for the one camera. It's like you'd have this whole oval up there. I guess though,
00:41:38 ◼ ► then they could, you know, you could say, well, then don't make it a white bezel, make it a black
00:41:41 ◼ ► bezel, then you could hide it in there. I think, though, that there's a security, a scam aspect to
00:41:50 ◼ ► it. Obviously, there's a security aspect to all of these biometrics. But I think that there's a
00:41:57 ◼ ► scam angle to it, where it's like Apple doesn't talk about stuff like this, because it's unpleasant.
00:42:05 ◼ ► But I do think that there was this whole, like, by the tail end of Touch ID phones, there was a
00:42:12 ◼ ► sort of cottage industry of scam apps in the App Store that would have in-app purchases
00:42:17 ◼ ► that would come up at unexpected times. And I've heard the story from a bunch of people,
00:42:24 ◼ ► and I've read, you know, there have been reports of it. And people are like, they don't know what
00:42:27 ◼ ► it is. They didn't expect it. They don't want it in-app purchase. And years of iPhone use trained
00:42:36 ◼ ► them. If you ever get caught in a situation where you don't know what's going or the app seems
00:42:41 ◼ ► locked up or whatever, hit the home button and you'll, you know, it's an escape hatch to go back
00:42:45 ◼ ► to the home screen. Well, if you're facing an in-app purchase prompt, and you hit the home
00:42:57 ◼ ► And I know that, I don't think it was a huge, I don't know how big a problem it was, right? I
00:43:02 ◼ ► don't know how many people got scammed that way, but definitely people got scammed. And there,
00:43:07 ◼ ► I've never verified it with anybody even off the record, but I'm nearly certain from hints that
00:43:15 ◼ ► I've gotten that they recognize that the confirmation of a payment with a Face ID iPhone
00:43:31 ◼ ► and a thing you really want to buy, just putting your thumb on that sensor was so easy. Now,
00:43:37 ◼ ► you have to hold the phone and the Face ID part is pretty easy if you're looking at it,
00:43:47 ◼ ► But the side button click cannot be faked by software. There's no access, there's no way,
00:44:00 ◼ ► Right, and making it a double-press means that somebody who's like, "I don't know what this is,
00:44:14 ◼ ► Is that there would still need, like for unlocking your Mac, like just sitting down in front of it,
00:44:25 ◼ ► wave in front of it or whatever. Face ID would be fantastic. It would just unlock your Mac
00:44:29 ◼ ► and authenticate you and say, "Okay, I recognize you, Joanna, you're in, you're unlocked."
00:44:34 ◼ ► But for purchases, you would need some kind of secondary confirmation. And what, on the Mac,
00:44:42 ◼ ► what would that be that can't be faked by a malicious app? So, if it's just like a regular
00:44:50 ◼ ► keyboard key, like, "Oh, press return," well, apps can simulate a return key on the Mac.
00:45:02 ◼ ► software. Well, once you're talking about that, you're talking about the Touch ID button that
00:45:10 ◼ ► button anyway? And anything on screen, if it was like an on-screen button that you had to click
00:45:16 ◼ ► that says, "Confirm that you'd like to purchase this," I think that there's just ways that apps
00:45:21 ◼ ► can fake that, right? That they can like just fake the button press or put something up over it,
00:45:28 ◼ ► and you think you're clicking this thing that's over it, but it's actually the click is going
00:45:40 ◼ ► now I've written this down as a story idea for one day. It's crazy. I never really thought about it,
00:45:52 ◼ ► too, because I did some reporting earlier in the year because I was looking at the new Samsung
00:45:57 ◼ ► Galaxy S21, and I was just thinking when I got that, I was like, "Well, you know, there's a lot
00:46:02 ◼ ► of multi-factor authentication," and I think—I'm not sure if we talked about this on your podcast,
00:46:06 ◼ ► but the in-fingerprint sensor in the screen has gotten really good, and it got me wondering,
00:46:24 ◼ ► it seems like they definitely had teams, and I had one source start telling me they've been playing
00:46:28 ◼ ► around with this for a number of years, and there was this interest, too, it seemed, to bring back
00:46:33 ◼ ► the fingerprint sensor in a—they have a lot of patents around the in-screen fingerprint sensor,
00:46:41 ◼ ► but the question that I had was like, "Well, is that just to get rid of the other—you know,
00:46:45 ◼ ► you have an iPhone SE and people love that sort of home button, or is it to combine both of them?
00:46:50 ◼ ► Would they want to have a phone and any other device where you'd have two ideas, two choices,
00:46:58 ◼ ► or use them in tandem?" And even what you're talking about here makes a lot of sense, right,
00:47:02 ◼ ► because they've had to have the verification be in another hardware factor on the device.
00:47:08 ◼ ► - Yeah. I think they must be working in that regard, and my argument and favorite that they
00:47:14 ◼ ► must be is that just think about the way we as human beings recognize each other, right? Like,
00:47:20 ◼ ► all I've got right now—because, again, we're on Skype—all I've got is your voice, but I do know
00:47:25 ◼ ► your voice, and I know it's you, but I'd be a lot more certain it were you if we were face-to-face
00:47:31 ◼ ► recording in person, right? And I could see you, right? We use multiple senses, you know? It's
00:47:48 ◼ ► "I'm in my parents' house," you know? It can't be faked. So, I feel like that's inevitable,
00:47:55 ◼ ► but I feel like it's working out those user experience flows of, well, when do you use what?
00:48:02 ◼ ► Sure, you could just unlock the phone with your face, but then what do you do for a purchase?
00:48:07 ◼ ► And that might be the answer for the Mac. Maybe the answer for the Mac is they will add face ID,
00:48:12 ◼ ► and it will just unlock your Mac by face ID, but they will also have a touch ID button on
00:48:17 ◼ ► the keyboard, and if you want to make a purchase, you've got to use the touch ID button.
00:48:22 ◼ ► Stephanie: Right. It seems like the obvious place, too, to like really play with this is on the—well,
00:48:31 ◼ ► Tom: Yeah. All right, let me take another break here and thank our next sponsor. It's our good
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00:48:56 ◼ ► Now, here's the point where they say in the notes that I can talk about my own experience
00:49:07 ◼ ► I made it, so I don't have any personal experience, and as we mentioned, by coincidence,
00:49:12 ◼ ► I don't have any employees either, but if I did, I would certainly be willing to look at LinkedIn
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00:50:17 ◼ ► Terms and conditions do apply. A lot of people are looking for work. A lot of people are changing
00:50:42 ◼ ► email or friend requests, like messages there. Far more sophisticated and clear than I would get on
00:50:56 ◼ ► Pete: Yeah, I have to say, I put off signing up for LinkedIn until a few years ago, but I did,
00:51:00 ◼ ► and I don't use it a lot, but when I do, it's sort of like this weird alternate universe where social
00:51:06 ◼ ► media is completely sane and calm and a lot more like the real world. So I got a package for
00:51:16 ◼ ► somebody down the street by accident. They just dropped it off, or maybe it was small. I forget.
00:51:20 ◼ ► I think it might have even gone through the mail slot, but I was like, "I don't know who this is,
00:51:24 ◼ ► but I see the address." And I was like, "I wonder how I can get in touch with them." And I
00:51:33 ◼ ► I have LinkedIn." And I like LinkedIn, and I opened a chat, and he was like, "Oh, that's me. I don't
00:51:40 ◼ ► even know what that is, but I'll come pick it up." And he was like, "Where are you?" And I'm like,
00:51:44 ◼ ► I gave him my address and he's like, "Oh, you're right down the street." And it was delightful.
00:52:04 ◼ ► Pete; Let's talk iPad. So here's my biggest complaint about the iPad. And I kind of regret
00:52:10 ◼ ► not putting in my iPad Pro review. And I don't know what the answer is. But my biggest problem
00:52:16 ◼ ► with the new iPad Pro is, okay, they've done all of this work to make it work as in a laptop form
00:52:23 ◼ ► factor. And they have this nice new keyboard cover that came out last year. And it works pretty great.
00:52:30 ◼ ► And I think for people who really like the iPad, they love it. But once you've got the iPad in the
00:52:36 ◼ ► Magic Keyboard cover, the camera is off to the left and it's down low. And so even on a regular
00:52:45 ◼ ► laptop, the camera is usually too low to be flattering if your laptop is at a comfortable
00:52:52 ◼ ► desk height and you're taller than the top of the laptop. But with the iPad Pro, it's even lower.
00:53:00 ◼ ► And it always makes it look like you're not paying attention to the person you're video chatting with,
00:53:09 ◼ ► Heather; I mean, most of the time, I'm probably not paying attention, but I totally agree.
00:53:14 ◼ ► But this is—and I will say I didn't review the iPad Pro. Nicole Nguyen, my colleague, did. And
00:53:21 ◼ ► she highlighted a lot of this, but she also talked about how good center stage is. So what did you
00:53:28 ◼ ► uncanny. And every bit as the demo that Apple showed during the event was a genuinely honest
00:53:35 ◼ ► demo of how it works in terms of the fluidity of the panning and the zooming in and out of people
00:53:42 ◼ ► jumping in. And it was it was a great excuse to get to get my 17 year old who is a delightful young
00:53:55 ◼ ► because he's 17 and would rather be playing video games. But it was a great excuse to fire up
00:54:00 ◼ ► FaceTime and talk to family and get him in and, you know, have him walk in and out of frame and
00:54:05 ◼ ► have the zooming in and out. It works great, but it's just such a weird angle. And when it's in
00:54:11 ◼ ► the state, you know, the keyboard, it, yeah, you really want that camera at the top. And I get it
00:54:17 ◼ ► because then when you're holding the iPad up and down, then your your hand might be covering it,
00:54:23 ◼ ► and then it would be on the side and you can't. It's just a weird thing, like having a device to
00:54:34 ◼ ► I think they should just move it really. I mean, on especially on these pros, which it would be
00:54:40 ◼ ► I've always I think I said this in a couple of iPad reviews previously, like I'd love to see data
00:54:44 ◼ ► about how many people are holding it. Like when you have the pro if you're really just using a
00:54:49 ◼ ► lot of it vertically, horizontally. Because the keyboard, if you're buying the keyboard with it,
00:54:54 ◼ ► it means like, I have an iPad Pro here from last year, I guess with the keyboard dock. And it's
00:55:00 ◼ ► always horizontal. Right? Like it's just that's the way I type on it. It's even how I watch on
00:55:08 ◼ ► like it's just that's the traditional way. Why not have the camera on at least on the pros in
00:55:15 ◼ ► that location, I can see on the air and the regular iPad, keeping it vertical, because a lot of that
00:55:20 ◼ ► use case may still be vertical. Did you notice that recently, I think in either iPad OS 14.5,
00:55:28 ◼ ► or I think it was 14.5. But it was pretty recent. They've they've updated it so that when you power
00:55:34 ◼ ► it on or restart it, the Apple logo is actually oriented whichever way the iPad is, as opposed to
00:55:40 ◼ ► up until now, it was always the Apple logo on on the boot was always oriented as though you were
00:55:46 ◼ ► holding it up and down. And so vertical, yeah, vertical. And so if you had it horizontal in the
00:55:51 ◼ ► keyboard, every time you installed a software update, or otherwise restarted it, the Apple logo
00:55:56 ◼ ► was sideways. And I was like, well, they have to pick one, you know, this is like the camera,
00:56:01 ◼ ► they have to pick one. I guess they, you know, up and down vertical is the default that that's
00:56:06 ◼ ► the official iPad orientation. And so they had to do it. And how are they ever going to make the
00:56:12 ◼ ► Apple logo adjust dynamically? Because it hasn't booted yet. So how does it even and somehow they
00:56:16 ◼ ► fixed it? I don't know how they did it. But I love the idea that someone at Apple was so bothered by
00:56:21 ◼ ► it that they they committed engineering resources to let's get this Apple logo to go both ways.
00:56:28 ◼ ► I love that. But they also, when was it that they made the tweak where the what's the sidebar called?
00:56:36 ◼ ► I think it must have been iOS 13. Like around, I think when they forked iOS, iPadOS, right, where
00:56:43 ◼ ► they really started to make the case of, hey, this interface is going to feel different in horizontal
00:56:48 ◼ ► mode. Yeah, it just feels like there was this shift where they really were addressing, okay,
00:56:52 ◼ ► we're really going to embrace the keyboard, the hard the horizontal setup. And it feels like the
00:57:02 ◼ ► camera's just leftover. Yeah, I don't know what they can do, right? If they could move it to the
00:57:09 ◼ ► side, I kind of feel like you do like if they're gonna say that the for the pros, it you've got
00:57:15 ◼ ► this keyboard, maybe just put the camera on the side. And it's like I had the idea. Well, what if
00:57:20 ◼ ► they put it in the corner? And then it would always say the side you mean on the so it would
00:57:26 ◼ ► be at the top when it's in the in the keyboard in horizontal. Yeah. But see, I view that as the top.
00:57:32 ◼ ► Yeah. Because like for these iPad pros, it's bats the top to me, like I very rarely I'm using that
00:57:38 ◼ ► holding and as an invertical. Like even when I take it out of the keyboard, and I'm like in bed
00:57:43 ◼ ► scrolling and looking, it's still horizontal. Like I'm really never using it like iPhone style.
00:57:53 ◼ ► I don't read a lot on the iPad. So maybe that's the difference. Like a lot of people who read
00:58:01 ◼ ► and use this as like a as an e reader still. Like that's the default, right? Like as a book.
00:58:07 ◼ ► Yeah. No, definitely. Amy loves her iPad Pro. And she likes the big one. She has the the I wish it
00:58:16 ◼ ► was 13 inches, the 12.9 inch iPad Pro. And she uses it all the time. She always uses it in
00:58:22 ◼ ► vertical mode, though. So interesting. And she doesn't even have to do on it. She just likes to
00:58:28 ◼ ► read and play games and just text and she sits there and text with one finger on the thing,
00:58:34 ◼ ► but she just reads it. She just loves it for reading and reading the web and just doing it in a
00:58:40 ◼ ► you know, she's it's exactly like Steve Jobs predicted when it came out that she likes to sit
00:58:46 ◼ ► back, right? She's on the couch. And instead of sitting forward in a desk chair doing her reading,
00:58:50 ◼ ► she likes to sit in a comfortable chair and lean back and read all of her news and email and stuff
00:58:56 ◼ ► there. Yeah, I don't I don't. And I was actually thinking about that a lot in the case of this
00:59:02 ◼ ► iMac, because maybe I could be an iMac iPad person. But I'm really a MacBook iPhone person.
00:59:12 ◼ ► And that is to say, like when I'm at my desk, I use a laptop with a screen, but then I want to
00:59:20 ◼ ► leave my desk, but I still go to my laptop. So like, at night, if I have to send a quick email,
00:59:26 ◼ ► I grab my laptop, or I'm on my iPhone. Yeah. That's sort of thinking, okay, well, if I move to an
00:59:32 ◼ ► iMac, because I'm home a lot more, and I like this screen here, well, then I might use an iPad on the
00:59:38 ◼ ► couch. Maybe I go use my iPad Pro. I do this thing where I find that with the iPad Pro, it's a it's a
00:59:47 ◼ ► time sink for me. And it's not it's not a complaint per se. It's just that when I'm at my most
00:59:52 ◼ ► productive, it's when I'm at my Mac, by far. 100%. And so like in the morning, I wake up and I'm
01:00:00 ◼ ► making coffee and I'm in the kitchen and I have my I should what I should do is get my iPad out of
01:00:04 ◼ ► the kitchen, but I keep it in the kitchen. And if I sit down and start using my iPad, I'll find like
01:00:11 ◼ ► two hours have gone by. And I've, I've worked and I've read stuff. But for the most part, I don't
01:00:17 ◼ ► like doing my actual blog posting from iPad. And so all I've really done is flag a bunch of articles
01:00:24 ◼ ► that I want to link to or write about or something, but I haven't actually done it. Whereas if I had
01:00:29 ◼ ► just been sitting at my Mac, I'd have already posted two or three things. And if I instead
01:00:34 ◼ ► just force myself to just use even on my iPads right there, use my phone instead, I will,
01:00:39 ◼ ► while I'm making coffee and maybe having the first sips of it, I will think I should go downstairs
01:00:46 ◼ ► to my office and get to work. And it's just it's not a complaint per se. It's just that,
01:00:52 ◼ ► but I'll get sucked into the iPad and it's just good enough to keep me there. But I don't feel
01:00:57 ◼ ► productive enough to actually do the full work. I'm sitting there like flagging emails like,
01:01:02 ◼ ► Oh, when I get to my Mac, I'll actually answer this email because I want to find a file in
01:01:06 ◼ ► Dropbox and drag it in and do this other thing or and it's like, I don't want to do that on the
01:01:12 ◼ ► iPad. So I'll just flag emails and it's like, it's it's sort of like the way that some people can get
01:01:19 ◼ ► sucked into a to do system and you're not actually getting anything done. All you're doing is
01:01:24 ◼ ► organizing your to do's exquisitely with tags and projects and and you feel like you've accomplished
01:01:30 ◼ ► something but you haven't actually done any of it. All you've done is organized this exquisite
01:01:34 ◼ ► to do system. And I'm the same way on like, on the Mac, I just feel like, Oh, I can get this done.
01:01:40 ◼ ► And I'm still the same type of person where I'm like, you know what, this is an email I really
01:01:44 ◼ ► need to think about. I'm not doing it on my phone. Even though I can type very fast on my phone,
01:01:48 ◼ ► and I can really like, think it out on the phone. I just like save that kind of work for my Mac.
01:01:54 ◼ ► Yeah, I do. Even like, you know, it just feels like, oh, I had to sign a PDF and send it back
01:02:01 ◼ ► the other day. And I was like, I know I can do this on this phone. I know I could do it on the
01:02:05 ◼ ► iPad. The iPad actually might be easier because you have like the pen. I don't even know if
01:02:10 ◼ ► that was really true anymore because I've like had my signature saved in preview and it's just easy.
01:02:32 ◼ ► No, you know what Apple didn't send it to me. I bought it. It's still stuck in shipping.
01:02:41 ◼ ► I have hated my remote so much. I've, I've reviewed alternate remotes. I have tweeted at every
01:02:52 ◼ ► second I can that I when I lose the remote, I make a big fuss about it. And I said, I'm just
01:02:56 ◼ ► going to buy this remote and I'll see. I'll wait as long as I have to. But I liked your review of
01:03:03 ◼ ► I made a mistake though. And I think I reiterated it in my podcast last week with Marco, where
01:03:10 ◼ ► I somehow thought that you could use the the click wheel where you just run your finger around in a
01:03:18 ◼ ► wheel to scroll up and down lists the way that you could on an old iPod. But you can't what happens
01:03:25 ◼ ► is if you try that it does move the selection. But as you go down, it's going down and you get
01:03:31 ◼ ► to the bottom of the circle and your thumb starts going up, it just makes the selection go back up.
01:03:47 ◼ ► and you want to scroll down and you start running your thumb down the wheel. It's like it goes down
01:03:53 ◼ ► four, and then you get to the bottom and your thumb goes up and it goes back up and it just
01:03:58 ◼ ► cycles between the top four items. And I so I don't know what made me think that was working,
01:04:04 ◼ ► but it did. I thought it was maybe it's because I didn't try to go far enough down. I just scrolled
01:04:09 ◼ ► a little bit and it went down and I was like, cool. But it really at the moment in tv OS,
01:04:14 ◼ ► it really that the scroll wheel thing only works for scrubbing and video, but it's fantastic for
01:04:20 ◼ ► scrubbing and video because you don't have to keep picking your thumb up going swipe, swipe,
01:04:24 ◼ ► swipe, swipe, you could just run your finger over and you're like, I'm going halfway through this
01:04:30 ◼ ► two hour movie to get to the part I want to watch. And it doesn't work for volume, right? You have the
01:04:34 ◼ ► dedicated volume there. Yeah, the wheel does not work for volume, you just use the volume buttons.
01:04:50 ◼ ► stupidly excited about the power button. It's nice. It really is. It's because sometimes you're
01:04:56 ◼ ► hitting the menu button to turn on and you're not sure if that's working. And you keep hitting menu
01:05:02 ◼ ► and then you see the light on the Apple TV turn on. You're like, I think that's what the menu
01:05:06 ◼ ► button did. But yeah, and then it takes a while to load. I'm just I think the power button is
01:05:10 ◼ ► a nice shortcut. And it's like, you know what you did with it. Apple's always had this thing where
01:05:15 ◼ ► they obviously are the the most button averse technology company known to known to mankind.
01:05:22 ◼ ► And like the original Apple TV remote looked like it only had like three buttons. And it's,
01:05:28 ◼ ► they love to reduce buttons. And one of the buttons they always think they can get rid of
01:05:34 ◼ ► is a power button. And it's like then it all then they always bring it back. It's like, yeah,
01:05:38 ◼ ► you kind of want a power button. And it's like holding down something that you wouldn't think
01:05:43 ◼ ► of a power button to say that's how you turn it off. It it it I could not agree more. And I really
01:05:50 ◼ ► hope we see the power button come back on the MacBook Pro. I don't know how they could do that.
01:05:57 ◼ ► But why not? Why not? Just make it a little piece of aluminum in the corner like they did with the
01:06:01 ◼ ► remote and then it doesn't stick out. It's not it's not like on this. It used to be remember it had
01:06:07 ◼ ► you had the little black the little silver aluminum button in the top right. Yep. And it was bare. It
01:06:14 ◼ ► was, you know, flush with the silver and with the aluminum and it was great. Yeah. So here's constantly
01:06:23 ◼ ► is the fingerprint sensor turning this on? Like what is something happening here? Yeah. So here's
01:06:28 ◼ ► another story I've heard. I have no official confirmation of this. But do you know you how like,
01:06:41 ◼ ► and or press any of the keys like the J key or the Q key, any key, it turns on the MacBook,
01:06:53 ◼ ► And it's like, oh, that's interesting. That's cool. But it's like, how do you clean the keyboard?
01:06:59 ◼ ► Like if you would just like to take a cloth and just rub it over the keys, and just sort of take
01:07:05 ◼ ► off your finger grease and everything like that. You can't do it without turning on the MacBook.
01:07:10 ◼ ► And I it's not a the greatest use case because I guess while it's powering up, if you're pressing
01:07:16 ◼ ► mashing all these keys down as you wipe the grease off, it's fine. But why? What's what's the point?
01:07:23 ◼ ► Like what? Who wants this? And apparently, this is what I've heard, but I have no confirmation of.
01:07:29 ◼ ► But it that feature came after they added the touch ID button that doubles as a power button.
01:07:34 ◼ ► And the touch ID button doesn't have a power logo on it, I guess because if they put the
01:07:40 ◼ ► screen printed logo on top, it would interfere with the sensor's ability to see your fingerprint.
01:07:46 ◼ ► And because there's no button that looks like a power icon, people didn't people didn't know how
01:07:52 ◼ ► to turn their MacBooks on. And they were like going to the Apple Store, like I don't know how
01:07:56 ◼ ► to turn this on. I swear I don't believe it. I totally believe it. Because I'm that's what
01:08:01 ◼ ► I'm sort of saying is that I just always am like pressing the fingerprint button pretty hard to like
01:08:07 ◼ ► turn it on. And actually, I think I thought that's how you turned on the computer. Could you just
01:08:13 ◼ ► thank you for telling me that's not because it works. But it just seems like such a funny FAQ
01:08:19 ◼ ► that no other computer company would ever have like an app turn on this fucking product. Like
01:08:26 ◼ ► the Apple, the company that famously makes the easiest to use computers anybody's ever made.
01:08:35 ◼ ► Also with the iMac, like I've set this thing up. I mean, I don't want to say that I spent like,
01:08:41 ◼ ► much more than, I don't know, 20 seconds looking for that power button. But I definitely was like
01:08:46 ◼ ► fumbling around with it to find the power button in the back, which is the same color as the
01:08:52 ◼ ► back. Right. So you're kind of like, you know, like, no, it should be back here. Where is it?
01:08:57 ◼ ► Where is it? And you're like, you know, moving this thing around. Luckily, this is very light
01:09:00 ◼ ► and thin. So it's not a big deal. Yeah, bring the color. I mean, bringing the color conversation
01:09:10 ◼ ► Power button. Hmm. Yeah, maybe I do. They make it two tone power button. Yeah, I just I, I, I,
01:09:18 ◼ ► I'm, I'm all in favor of a dedicated power button and just make it little they could just use the
01:09:25 ◼ ► on that. And also I so I have bought, I've done two things to try to fix the shitty old Siri
01:09:31 ◼ ► remote. The first thing was I bought one of those cases on Amazon this like, you know, have you seen
01:09:36 ◼ ► these like silicon? I've had several. They're all had several because they're all fine. They're all
01:09:41 ◼ ► like $7. You know, yeah. But they're fine. You know, it makes it a little bit bigger. You can
01:09:47 ◼ ► tell up from down its color. So you can kind of recognize it when it falls in between the cushions.
01:09:52 ◼ ► But then I also bought this other one, which was actually sent to me for review, because I'd been
01:09:57 ◼ ► tweeting about how much I hated the remote at some point. And this company called function 101,
01:10:09 ◼ ► it doesn't do voice, but it does everything else. And it's like big, and it has a power button up in
01:10:19 ◼ ► And I love this thing. Oh, I think I do know that. Yeah, what the name was function. One on one wasn't
01:10:24 ◼ ► ringing a bell, but there are a couple no name. But it is also how crazy is it? Like, whatever you
01:10:32 ◼ ► want to say about the price of the Apple TV hardware starting at like 180 or I know they
01:10:37 ◼ ► still sell the $150 one that's crazy. It's the old it's like an a seven chip and it only does 1080.
01:10:44 ◼ ► But how crazy is it that there's $180 set top box that comes with the remote that there's a cottage
01:10:50 ◼ ► industry not just for these $7 rubber sleeves, but for entirely replacing the remote control?
01:10:57 ◼ ► Yeah, this is a $40 remote. And it was like, the best purchase I think I made last year.
01:11:11 ◼ ► Oh, I think it's so much better. I just love to hold it in my hand while I while we watch TV now.
01:11:16 ◼ ► And I just keep it there and like kind of fit, you know, like fidget with it, like just spin it around
01:11:20 ◼ ► in my hand. It's sure your wife loves that you know, hold my hand. No, sorry, I'm holding the remote.
01:11:30 ◼ ► But it is it's it's just a beautiful slab of aluminum that feels great in hand. And it just
01:11:46 ◼ ► You had recently I forget when what this was in response to was it after the event where
01:12:08 ◼ ► Yeah, right. This was sort of instead of talking about the privacy stuff in iOS 14.5 during the
01:12:16 ◼ ► event, they didn't even mention it. They instead did some press and Craig's interview video
01:12:24 ◼ ► interview with you was my favorite. And it was crazy. This is where I really do. I would love to
01:12:31 ◼ ► razz you. But it's like I just have to praise you that you got this crazy short amount of time,
01:12:37 ◼ ► didn't they say you have like you've got like 15 minutes with them or something like that?
01:12:42 ◼ ► You've got 15 minutes with Craig Federighi to talk about these complex issues. And you ended up with
01:12:49 ◼ ► this six minute six, seven minute video that was super tight and just like, boom, boom, boom,
01:12:54 ◼ ► this is great. Including my favorite question, which was why does the button it's like,
01:13:01 ◼ ► you get asked, you know, an app wants to track you. And the one button says, allow and the other
01:13:07 ◼ ► button says, ask not to track. Why not disallow? Right? Why not? Or do not track do not track.
01:13:15 ◼ ► And the answer was, they have to ask, they still have to you're asking some some part is that
01:13:22 ◼ ► Apple is saying, we will not allow them to track some things, but some things are up to the
01:13:27 ◼ ► developer. Right. And so you have to you're basically asking that app not to track you.
01:13:32 ◼ ► There's some technical reasons behind the scenes that they can't be sure. Right. Apple doesn't see
01:13:39 ◼ ► all the data flow. So it has to sort of rely and trust this developer not to do it. Right. And I
01:13:46 ◼ ► that's sort of what I was thinking. But hearing Federighi say it, it was like, yeah, that makes
01:13:52 ◼ ► a lot of sense. Because the basic gist is, okay, you click ask not to track. And Apple can cut the
01:13:58 ◼ ► app off from API access to the device identifier and the ad identifier. And there's these API's
01:14:05 ◼ ► that the app just no longer has access to same way. If you say this app does not have access to
01:14:11 ◼ ► location, then that app can just can't ask the phone, hey, where are we? What's our GPS? It just
01:14:17 ◼ ► that the API says no, you don't have permission for it. They can do that for these identifiers,
01:14:22 ◼ ► but they can't keep the app from coming up with other schemes to fingerprint and, and right and
01:14:29 ◼ ► track you even though you asked not to be. So all you can do is ask and Apple isn't willing to make
01:14:35 ◼ ► it seem as though if you if you had a button that said don't track, you would expect that you can't
01:14:44 ◼ ► be tracked. Right. Yeah. It's sort of an honor policy part on the developers. And you kind of
01:14:51 ◼ ► get the feeling like a lot of these developers maybe don't have so much honor. Yeah, I think
01:14:58 ◼ ► that there's probably some shady things. I mean, now that I think about it, as you're saying it,
01:15:02 ◼ ► Apple could have probably done and this also goes to something else he said, which is they probably
01:15:06 ◼ ► could have done a two pop up, right? One, don't have this ad ID track me. And then to ask the
01:15:13 ◼ ► developer not to use other ways to track but that would have been a bad user experience, right? Like
01:15:18 ◼ ► you wouldn't. So, which is what he talked a lot about, which was that we tried to make this simple,
01:15:23 ◼ ► it's a really complex thing to begin with ad tech is so mad. It's just like crazy confusing. We want
01:15:31 ◼ ► to try to make it as easy for the user. But this is the best we could basically do right now.
01:15:34 ◼ ► I read, I will put it in the show notes, I'm going to make a list right here, because I was going to
01:15:41 ◼ ► link to it later today anyway. But I read an interesting Twitter thread today from somebody
01:15:45 ◼ ► who works in not the tracking part, but in the privacy part of trying to make things more private.
01:15:54 ◼ ► I'm not even sure where he works. But he had a Twitter thread where he said he was just visiting
01:15:59 ◼ ► his mother. Oh, I saw that's about the toothpaste. Yeah, about the toothpaste. And it's this specific
01:16:05 ◼ ► brand of toothpaste that his mother uses at her house. And he'd been there for a few days. And
01:16:11 ◼ ► then all of a sudden on Twitter, he started getting ads for this brand of toothpaste. And he
01:16:15 ◼ ► said, we never talked about it. Nobody while I was there, nobody ever talked about whatever brand it
01:16:20 ◼ ► is, he doesn't mention it. And all of a sudden, he's getting these ads. And this is the sort of
01:16:24 ◼ ► thing that spooks people. But his explanation for how is this even possible is basically,
01:16:31 ◼ ► okay, he's given Twitter his email, he also has his email connected to his credit card. So he
01:16:40 ◼ ► if he makes purchases using his credit card at a drugstore, that the purchase can be associated
01:16:50 ◼ ► we know this guy's email. He's this, you know, at whoever on Twitter. That's the same guy. What did
01:16:55 ◼ ► he buy? What did he buy at Walgreens? Oh, he bought Colgate. He said, okay, but he didn't buy
01:17:01 ◼ ► the toothpaste. His mother did. But then they can if any of the apps involved have access to location,
01:17:07 ◼ ► then they can say, Well, who else has been near him? Oh, he's been near this woman. And she's
01:17:13 ◼ ► bought Colgate. And therefore, it all goes through the system. And then all of a sudden, he's getting
01:17:27 ◼ ► right? I mean, I guess I've been covering this for now since three or four or five years now. And
01:17:34 ◼ ► yeah, some of the things are more nuanced. But it's like, it's always shocking to me how little
01:17:41 ◼ ► the user really knows. And how complex these systems are. But also, like, at this point that
01:17:48 ◼ ► it's like, yeah, of course, that's how it happened. And like, how big these databases are of all of
01:17:56 ◼ ► this information. But then it does come down to these very specific and like, oh, yeah, I guess
01:18:04 ◼ ► so focal points of how to make the connections between this soup, this absolute massive soup of
01:18:12 ◼ ► data. But it's like, you're it's the same email address there and the same email address here.
01:18:20 ◼ ► Marie-Claire Yeah, I mean, I did this piece, you know, a couple years ago, when everyone was really
01:18:25 ◼ ► trying to figure out how Facebook, you know, it was all in response to Facebook listening to our
01:18:29 ◼ ► mics. And I did this piece a number of years ago, where it was like, they're not listening. And this
01:18:34 ◼ ► is because I thought I was like, they how did they know I was sick? Like, I went and I got like,
01:18:39 ◼ ► Sudafed and all this stuff. And I started getting all the ads for all like, all this allergy.
01:18:44 ◼ ► Yeah, I think it was I had like the flu or something. And I was like, how did they know?
01:18:48 ◼ ► Right? Like, it's like, oh, they listening to me sneeze all this like, and it was so clear after
01:18:54 ◼ ► I just put together the fact that I went to Walgreens, and my Facebook account has the same
01:19:09 ◼ ► Marie-Claire Yeah, and I think, you know, so much of the algorithms powering all of this stuff now,
01:19:14 ◼ ► too, is just like, this stuff is all being shared. And so it's not to me, it's like, sometimes like,
01:19:22 ◼ ► Yeah. That's why I know it's complex. And I think Apple, in my opinion, is making it a little bit
01:19:30 ◼ ► worse to to be staunchly on Apple's side of this debate, by also ramping up their own advertising
01:19:41 ◼ ► stuff to a small degree in the App Store, right, like they just added a new ad unit on the search
01:19:47 ◼ ► page, where before you even search in the App Store, now there's an ad unit there. And they say,
01:19:54 ◼ ► you know, because their their whole thing is about third party ad tracking. And first party tracking
01:19:59 ◼ ► is a okay, right. So like, whatever you do in Facebook can affect what you see in Instagram,
01:20:05 ◼ ► because that's all first party, it stays within Facebook's properties. And the App Store is
01:20:11 ◼ ► considered first party to Apple. And that they say, you know, based on your previous downloads,
01:20:17 ◼ ► and the maybe the type of games you like to, to download to your iPhone, that they will use that
01:20:23 ◼ ► to show ads in the App Store to you. And none of it is it. The pro Apple part of this is I have
01:20:34 ◼ ► never heard one person ever say I got a creepy ad in the App Store for an app, right. And in fact,
01:20:42 ◼ ► most of the ones I see, and I download apps all the time. They're all just for nonsense games that
01:20:46 ◼ ► I have no interest in. It's all games and I have no interest in it. And they're nothing like any
01:20:50 ◼ ► of the games I've ever played. It's not creepy, right? There's sort of and I know I overuse this
01:20:56 ◼ ► phrase. Neelai always complains about it that that I overuse the justice potter thing about obscenity
01:21:02 ◼ ► that I know it when I see it. But the legal argument about that is Neelai's argument that it's
01:21:11 ◼ ► it's not a good way to do it legally, but it in a common sense, real life way, I know it when I see
01:21:17 ◼ ► it is such a great rule of thumb. And I know a creepy ad when I see it. And the stuff Apple's
01:21:25 ◼ ► doing isn't creepy. But it just seems like a conflict of interest that they're doing this thing
01:21:33 ◼ ► that Facebook publicly to their credit is very public. They're not just like back channeling
01:21:40 ◼ ► their complaints. They're very public that they think what Apple's doing is wrong and hurting
01:21:45 ◼ ► small businesses and whatever else. But at the same moment that they're rolling this out, they're also
01:21:53 ◼ ► expanding their advertising in the App Store and they don't need it's like of all the things that
01:21:57 ◼ ► they don't need that money. That is literal pocket change to Apple. So why why do it? Why not just
01:22:04 ◼ ► eliminate the conflict of interest? I just guess the to play devil's advocate, and I don't know
01:22:10 ◼ ► enough about this, the journals had a few stories about it, is also part of this to appease some of
01:22:16 ◼ ► the developers who are worried about getting that sort of cross, losing out on the in app ads. And
01:22:24 ◼ ► so we're, how do I explain this, where the idea is that some developers are where they stand to
01:22:30 ◼ ► lose people coming to their apps is to not be able to advertise anymore in one app, right? Because
01:22:38 ◼ ► you don't know as much information now because of ATT because of all the tracking that's being
01:22:48 ◼ ► maybe I should put this in simpler terms. Let's say you are the maker of a coffee mug company,
01:22:55 ◼ ► and you want to advertise to other people who have downloaded coffee apps. Well, you might not get
01:23:01 ◼ ► that information anymore. So it's harder to advertise in those apps. Right? Yeah, now, but so
01:23:08 ◼ ► here, you can still reach some of those people. Well, it's not for the product is for the app.
01:23:14 ◼ ► But like, let me reverse it and not really think through this this metaphor here. But now you can
01:23:21 ◼ ► place those ads in the store, which are using the first party data from Apple, if any of this
01:23:25 ◼ ► makes sense. Yeah, I guess it I don't know, it's just all a bit, it just would be so much. It would
01:23:35 ◼ ► be almost 100% clean as an argument if they just weren't if they just moved away from advertising
01:23:42 ◼ ► in the App Store, right. And I agree. And the other thing too, is I don't think that the search
01:23:49 ◼ ► result ads are a good user experience. I don't think I pay attention to those. I just I just
01:23:56 ◼ ► it's like when you type in the name of a very specific app, like overcast, overcat, you type in
01:24:02 ◼ ► overcast podcast and you hit return. And the first result is some other podcast app that placed it,
01:24:09 ◼ ► you know, outbid Marco Arment for the word overcast today on on the App Store. It's like,
01:24:16 ◼ ► I'm not fooled. I know what I'm looking for. I just typed overcast. It's like there it is the
01:24:24 ◼ ► Is it that and it just seems like so many of the ads aren't like like if somebody just types in
01:24:33 ◼ ► podcast app, okay, sure, maybe then it's a good time to to to allow somebody to advertise on the
01:24:40 ◼ ► term. But so many of the terms that that the advertisers are clearly bidding on our rival apps
01:24:47 ◼ ► names. And I know that Apple mentioned this when they rolled out these ads, they specifically
01:24:52 ◼ ► address that concern. And they pitched it as it gives small developers a chance to get prominence
01:25:02 ◼ ► over the big name apps that might otherwise show up first. But what I see in day to day use is it's
01:25:08 ◼ ► the bigger name apps that always have those spots because they've got the money to spend on the ads.
01:25:13 ◼ ► Exactly. I mean, and I feel like I never really noticed them unless it's something that doesn't
01:25:19 ◼ ► really make sense. Yeah. Right. I guess I'm also usually like you're saying I'm searching for a
01:25:24 ◼ ► specific app and I'm going to find it in. I'm going to look for that specifically. So I'm not
01:25:30 ◼ ► really usually focused for Oh, maybe there's a better solution here. I don't usually search for
01:25:35 ◼ ► like a generic. I'd like a workout app or I'd like a streaming app. It's like, hey, I want Netflix.
01:25:43 ◼ ► Right. But you and I are, you know, not typical. We know a lot of the apps we're looking for already.
01:25:49 ◼ ► And I suspect a lot of real people do search for generic terms. But it's sort of like they're
01:25:54 ◼ ► repeating the maybe not even mistakes. But you could you could watch this happen to Google search
01:26:00 ◼ ► results over the last 20 years, you can see how it users started ignoring remember when the ads were
01:26:11 ◼ ► in a blue box, and it was kind of you know, it wasn't like a it was like the powder blue from
01:26:16 ◼ ► the iMac, right? It was like a subtle blue box, but they were definitely in a box and you knew
01:26:20 ◼ ► which ones were ads. And there was often only one or two. And they got less and less relevant when
01:26:28 ◼ ► you were for some search terms, and people just trained their eyes to go from the box you type
01:26:34 ◼ ► your Google search in to underneath the ads, you would just your eyes, it's like you developed like
01:26:41 ◼ ► a natural blind spot to it. And then as users got that blind spot, Google started adding more ads so
01:26:48 ◼ ► that you know that the ads would jump down, scroll down lower to where your eyes were going. And then
01:26:55 ◼ ► all of a sudden, now they've got a lot of ads, right? And it's like if you showed a screenshot
01:26:59 ◼ ► of Google search today for some results to a Google user from like 2005, they would be like,
01:27:10 ◼ ► I can sort of see that happening to the App Store now. It's like, and I just think that given that
01:27:17 ◼ ► Apple has taken this, we're taking on the tracking advertising industry, which effectively is the
01:27:24 ◼ ► online advertising industry. It's it just adds this little bit of a sour taste to a position where I
01:27:32 ◼ ► think they're 98% correct on. Yeah. And I think you're right just about the general. Yes, like,
01:27:40 ◼ ► if you're going to take this stance and be so hard on the ad industry, which really is I do
01:27:46 ◼ ► believe benefiting in some really important ways. And anytime I interview people within the ad
01:27:51 ◼ ► industry, they they seem to like, I don't know if it's just, you know, that's what they want to say,
01:27:54 ◼ ► because they're talking to a reporter, and they want to be like, you know, they don't want to
01:27:57 ◼ ► sound like Facebook and say, Hey, we want all this data. But if you're going to play that role,
01:28:03 ◼ ► like, maybe just Yeah, put put up the wall, right? Just just don't be in that business.
01:28:08 ◼ ► Right. All right. Let me take a break here and thank our third sponsor, another new sponsor first
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01:30:05 ◼ ► - What else? What else with the Craig interview? I thought that was so good. I was so jealous
01:30:12 ◼ ► because I feel like, and now I'm like, I don't know who, I'm working on plans for a WWDC talk show.
01:30:21 ◼ ► I don't know what's going on yet. It will be, I guess, remote again this year since all of WWDC
01:30:33 ◼ ► I remember watching it, but then I rewatched it for preparing for this because, well, for two
01:30:39 ◼ ► things. One, I wanted to get a feeling for what he's like in an interview. And of course, I've
01:30:42 ◼ ► watched a lot, but I needed to refresh my memory. And then two, I was like, what was the tech setup
01:30:47 ◼ ► that you had? And I was, I mean, I texted you because I was like studying it. I was like, okay,
01:30:52 ◼ ► so he's got a different camera in front of him. So, but are they all using iPhone cameras and how
01:31:03 ◼ ► it's all, now that we're getting close to WWDC, it all just feels like this giant pit of despair.
01:31:12 ◼ ► - And as nervous as I am when I do the show in front of a theater audience, I feel like,
01:31:19 ◼ ► well, that it can't really go wrong. Like, and if somebody's there, a professional camera person
01:31:24 ◼ ► is there and I don't have to worry about the camera and the audience is there. I just walk out
01:31:29 ◼ ► on stage and if I misspeak, I can recover. Whereas I was terrified in this doing the WWDC thing
01:31:36 ◼ ► last June where it was like, I couldn't really have anybody for quarantine helping me. And I
01:31:43 ◼ ► was so terrified that it wasn't actually recording. - Well, this year, hopefully you can, but you did
01:31:48 ◼ ► a great job because I was looking at it. So I was like, somebody must have been there with him.
01:31:52 ◼ ► - I did have help setting it up. But then when we did the show, I was in the room by myself,
01:31:57 ◼ ► but it was that we just, everybody, me, Federighi and Jaws were all using iPhone cameras.
01:32:03 ◼ ► I had a real lav mic, but the trick with using the iPhone camera to record it while looking at them
01:32:12 ◼ ► on screen on a MacBook was to set the phone up on a tripod behind the MacBook with just as close as
01:32:22 ◼ ► possible to the top of the screen and with just the camera peeking over the top, but also not so
01:32:28 ◼ ► low. You don't want to get a little bit of the MacBook in the frame either, right? - Well, and
01:32:32 ◼ ► then were you watching, you were watching them on some video chat? Because it looked like everyone
01:32:38 ◼ ► was basically looking directly in the camera. So I was like, maybe they just did this audio.
01:32:43 ◼ ► - No, and it was, I forget which app we used. I forget if, I know Apple likes to use that
01:32:48 ◼ ► Cisco WebEx, but I don't think we used WebEx for the show. But whatever we did, what I did was I
01:32:54 ◼ ► shrunk the window as small as I could where I could still see the facial expressions of Jaws
01:33:00 ◼ ► and Craig, but put it at the top of the screen. So as I was looking at them, it looked like I was
01:33:05 ◼ ► looking as close as possible to the camera. And I have to say, I do have to say it turned out as
01:33:11 ◼ ► good as I thought it could possibly turn out. - Yeah, it was really good. I mean, it just
01:33:15 ◼ ► felt like everyone was looking at the camera and the conversation. I was also very jealous
01:33:22 ◼ ► as what it was, like an hour, hour or something. - Yeah, well, officially an hour, and I think we
01:33:26 ◼ ► went like 70 minutes or something like that. - Yeah, and like the editing, you could tell
01:33:31 ◼ ► there was no real editing. It was just kind of cuts back and forth, but it flowed really nicely.
01:33:37 ◼ ► - Yeah, well, that was my friends at Sandwich Video who did the editing between the three
01:33:41 ◼ ► cameras of footage. And the Apple guys cheat because they have a whole crew there to help
01:33:50 ◼ ► five cameras of footage. And my friends at Sandwich Video did the editing and just sort
01:33:55 ◼ ► of made it, you know, it looked like a TV show where you don't even notice that it's cutting
01:33:59 ◼ ► between different camera angles. - Yeah, I mean, that was this huge challenge on our part. My
01:34:04 ◼ ► producer, Kenny, I was like, "You just got to make me look as good as Apple's going to make
01:34:08 ◼ ► Federighi look, so good luck." - I know, and the other cheat that they have too is that they set up
01:34:14 ◼ ► in these sunlit hallways, you know, with these full 18-foot floor-to-ceiling windows of California
01:34:24 ◼ ► sunshine in the genuine architectural marvel that is the Apple Park Ring. - And I think they've just
01:34:31 ◼ ► got a ton of lights on the back. It's just like, yeah, it's not fair. And, you know, he just,
01:34:36 ◼ ► he looks great. But, I mean, I think I looked pretty good too. Kenny did a great job. - Yeah,
01:34:42 ◼ ► you did. - Yeah, Kenny did it. Yeah, it's, but yeah, that was super, I was stressed. I was so
01:34:51 ◼ ► you know, it's hard because it was about a topic. And I was excited to talk about that topic. But
01:34:59 ◼ ► you also have access to somebody where, like, you want to talk about so many other topics, like,
01:35:05 ◼ ► like, on this sort of podcast I have with you. It's like, how many topics do I talk about a year
01:35:10 ◼ ► where I'm like, if I could just ask someone at Apple on the record, why there are no power
01:35:15 ◼ ► buttons, you know, or, and I did, some things didn't make it to the edit, but like, you know,
01:35:21 ◼ ► I just had to get in a couple questions. Like, so do you charge your iPhone, I just want to ask,
01:35:25 ◼ ► like, do you charge your iPhone with a cord? - Yeah, and he does. - He does. He's a cord guy.
01:35:31 ◼ ► And I was like, I just need to know that for my own, you know, because like, yeah, wireless
01:35:37 ◼ ► charging kind of sucks, right? Like, I mean, we didn't really get into that because I was so
01:35:41 ◼ ► pressed for time, but I was just like, you know, so a couple of questions I did throw in, I wasted
01:35:45 ◼ ► probably a minute on like some things I was interested in and some of those made it in.
01:35:49 ◼ ► But yeah, it's tough. It's, I mean, it's, you got to go in with a strategy. I had a very clear
01:35:55 ◼ ► strategy. I had my minutes blocked out. I was keeping an eye on the time. You know, I got to
01:35:59 ◼ ► keep it moving. I got to get to the stuff that I want to get to. And of course, like, it's,
01:36:07 ◼ ► you watch Oprah and you're just like, it's amazing because you know she has a strategy.
01:36:11 ◼ ► You know, she is so careful about where she's starting and where she's going, but it does,
01:36:24 ◼ ► the prince and what's her name? Markle. - Yeah. Yeah. - And I watched it and I was thinking,
01:36:31 ◼ ► it was, you know, a couple months ago, I guess at this point, but I was already starting to worry
01:36:35 ◼ ► about my WWDC article and I did. And I was like, let me think about this at that sort of study.
01:36:52 ◼ ► just like the butter on a hot piece of bread and it's just, it's like, it's just so smooth and it
01:36:59 ◼ ► just disappears. And it's like, oh yeah, but she has a total strategy and agenda here. And she is
01:37:05 ◼ ► totally, it seems like they're driving this because she's letting them talk. And they're
01:37:10 ◼ ► saying these things that became major celebrity news worldwide, but it's like, oh, Oprah is totally
01:37:17 ◼ ► driving this bus. - Yeah. I mean, interviewing is such an art and I do a lot of onstage interviewing
01:37:23 ◼ ► or pre-pandemic was on stage, just like you're saying, like, you know, you're up on stage
01:37:27 ◼ ► and that's a very different art than doing it on Zoom. I mean, this is like, you know, this video
01:37:33 ◼ ► calling interview type of thing is very hard. It's not like podcasts where there's like this
01:37:41 ◼ ► conversation, it just, it's very stifling I find because you don't have the audience, it's somewhere
01:37:47 ◼ ► between the like podcast and the stage, but you don't have the audience to really drive and you
01:37:54 ◼ ► don't know what the reactions are. And I felt like, you know, I was getting pretty good on stage.
01:37:59 ◼ ► We do a lot of these big tech events at the journal and I get to interview some of the biggest
01:38:03 ◼ ► people. And I was like, okay, I'm finding my voice here. I'm really moving. And then we all are under
01:38:08 ◼ ► lockdown and I'm like, I'm horrible at this. - The audience reactions in a live audience to me
01:38:14 ◼ ► is like, it's like when I, I haven't played, when I used to play basketball and it's like,
01:38:22 ◼ ► well, there's a timeout a couple minutes in and I'm already sweaty and thirsty and there's water
01:38:28 ◼ ► and I can get, you know, it's like, ah, now I'm thirsty. Whereas doing it without the audience
01:38:33 ◼ ► over Zoom or WebEx or whatever is like playing a whole game of basketball without ever getting a
01:38:39 ◼ ► glass of water. It's like, it's like those, those audience reactions, laughter or applause or
01:38:45 ◼ ► anything like that. It's like, it's like an emotional, just slurp of water when you're thirsty.
01:38:52 ◼ ► - Totally. And you can read it. Like, even if there isn't that it's like, okay, people seem
01:38:57 ◼ ► really interested in this topic or, you know, like it might not inform like a follow-up question,
01:39:03 ◼ ► but it definitely can inform like, I should stay here or I should move to something else.
01:39:07 ◼ ► So, yeah. - Well, I laughed at your interview with Federighi though, because you did work in
01:39:15 ◼ ► funny questions. You literally asked him if it's true that Tim Cook calls him Superman.
01:39:20 ◼ ► - I mean, he said no, but I don't believe him. - And then you, I thought it was very interesting
01:39:28 ◼ ► and a good use of your time, even though it, you know, the topic was app tracking transparency.
01:39:33 ◼ ► And I feel like, you know, you got four solid minutes of it in, you challenged Craig to do it.
01:39:39 ◼ ► He was like, how quickly can you do it? And he was like, I don't know. I think I could do it in
01:39:42 ◼ ► six seconds. And it was like six and a half seconds. You got the stuff, but then you asked
01:39:48 ◼ ► about, there was a recent Tim Cook interview where he was asked, do you, you know, do you think you'll
01:39:53 ◼ ► still be CEO of Apple 10 years from now? And he said, well, 10 years is a long time, probably not,
01:39:59 ◼ ► but I have no plans right now. And, you know, he is, I think 61 or so, 60, you know, and so
01:40:07 ◼ ► that makes sense, you know, that 10 years from now he'd be 71 and, you know, he might retire between
01:40:11 ◼ ► now and then. But you, yeah. So you, but you get, you know, locked into thinking Tim Cook is the
01:40:20 ◼ ► CEO of Apple, right? And he's been there now since Steve Jobs died in 2011. So he's been there 10
01:40:28 ◼ ► years, you know, and I guess, you know, some somewhere 15, 16, 17 to 20 year run would be a
01:40:34 ◼ ► heck of a run at, you know, good, you know, especially for a high pressure job. But then it
01:40:42 ◼ ► does, it makes you wonder, well, who's next? And the, Jeff Williams would be the, well, if they do
01:40:49 ◼ ► the same thing before where the COO takes over as CEO, it would be Jeff Williams. But Jeff Williams
01:40:54 ◼ ► is like only like one year younger than Tim Cook. And so you asked, you know, Federighi, would you
01:41:00 ◼ ► do it? I thought his answer was so funny, but also sort of like, hmm. Right. Yeah, like, I'm a big
01:41:09 ◼ ► shot. You know, like, yeah, I mean, he, what did he say? That's insanity. Yeah. He's like, ah,
01:41:26 ◼ ► you have a strategy as the interviewer, but then you know the interviewee has a strategy.
01:41:32 ◼ ► And they, you know, it was so clear to me. Well, first of all, he's just so good. I mean,
01:41:37 ◼ ► he's just such a well, he's so well spoken, but also clearly believes in what he's saying. Right?
01:41:44 ◼ ► Like, I mean, I can't say how many executives I interview and just like, oh, you're reading your
01:41:49 ◼ ► marketing points. Okay. And so yeah, I mean, that like the first, I mean, it was really 10 minutes
01:41:56 ◼ ► on ATT. And then I bought some extra time, you know, asking privacy in general, and then some
01:42:01 ◼ ► of these extra questions. But I mean, he was, you could tell, like, prepared, but also knew sort of
01:42:08 ◼ ► what he wanted to get across. Yeah, I don't think he was ready for you to ask him if he might be the
01:42:13 ◼ ► next CEO of Apple. So, Siracusa on the ATP podcast, when that came out, said that he thought he would
01:42:21 ◼ ► have thought going in that Craig Federighi sees himself as having achieved the pinnacle because
01:42:25 ◼ ► he's an engine. He is an engineer. I mean, he really, he really gets it. And so, you know,
01:42:29 ◼ ► he and he's a software engineer in particular, he's not a hardware person. So, as a software
01:42:35 ◼ ► person who's interested in in the sort of software Apple makes, how can you go higher than being the
01:42:42 ◼ ► head of software, all software for Apple, and that he's already, you know, gotten there. And then,
01:42:46 ◼ ► like Siracusa said, when he watched your video, it was sort of like, huh, maybe he is thinking
01:42:51 ◼ ► about it. Like, there was just something about the answer that was just... Well, I think he's a
01:42:56 ◼ ► builder. Yeah. Right. And so I think that's, Tim Cook, I mean, is an amazing builder, but more of
01:43:04 ◼ ► this vision. It's not the visionaries, the strategy guy. And just map it out. And it's kind of amazing
01:43:11 ◼ ► where he's come from and what he's done with the strategy of the company. But you could get the
01:43:17 ◼ ► sense that the next leader would be more of a visionary and a builder of product. Like, you
01:43:23 ◼ ► could, right? Like, yeah, exactly. Like the engineer type, right? Let me take one last break
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01:45:04 ◼ ► for their continuing support of the show. Last licks here, last topics. I'm curious if you—I
01:45:14 ◼ ► know you had a recent column that I somehow missed, and then you pointed out to me, I was
01:45:18 ◼ ► like, "Oh, this is exactly what I needed to know, the air tags versus tile." Oh yeah, air tags. That
01:45:24 ◼ ► feels like 10 years ago, but it was just like two or three weeks ago that I had a drug dog in my
01:45:30 ◼ ► house. This is just another day. What do you use? Marco and I talked about this last week. I don't
01:45:38 ◼ ► know if it's a pandemic thing because I'm still not really going a lot of places. I haven't
01:45:47 ◼ ► have anything yet to put a tracker on. I do because—so I have started going back to the office
01:45:55 ◼ ► a bit. We shoot some of the videos there, and I've been doing some conferences from there. So
01:45:59 ◼ ► my work ID, I constantly lose. And I mean, even just finding it after months of not going to the
01:46:07 ◼ ► office. So it's on my work ID. It's on my keys, and I put one in my wallet. Right. And you can't
01:46:13 ◼ ► even use it. I'm sure you can't even get in the door to say, "I lost my work ID." You need that
01:46:19 ◼ ► work ID. Yeah, exactly. And there's people there, but I just set my license and get this and get
01:46:25 ◼ ► that security thing. But also I lose my keys a lot. I don't lose them, but I just misplace them.
01:46:31 ◼ ► I feel like I am not a keys loser. And I don't know why because I lose all sorts of other things.
01:46:40 ◼ ► I lose my Apple Pencil all the time. God, I would instantly—insta, you know, $200 for a new Apple
01:46:46 ◼ ► Pencil with the U1 chip so that I could make it beep. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.
01:46:50 ◼ ► I could do it. I would just buy it, and there are no other features. It's just the same Apple
01:47:06 ◼ ► And by the way, I think it is total BS that they didn't put it in the remote. I saw the comment
01:47:11 ◼ ► from—I forget the name of the executive—that it's now too big to lose. That engineer or whoever,
01:47:20 ◼ ► the executive, does not have a kid, let me tell you that. My son is constantly hiding the remotes.
01:47:33 ◼ ► the remote doesn't have a U1 chip?" And they acted—and it's the typical Apple reaction,
01:47:43 ◼ ► in a complete vacuum, like if I took it into outer space?" You know, like a totally random,
01:47:51 ◼ ► weird question like, "We did not build this to go into a complete vacuum. We don't know."
01:47:56 ◼ ► That's what they acted like when I asked about the U1 chip. They're like, "Who would ever need
01:48:02 ◼ ► that for a skinny little remote control?" It's like, no, I think that's a good question. And
01:48:09 ◼ ► it's interesting because I feel like they got asked enough where they came up with a new answer,
01:48:13 ◼ ► and instead of acting like it's a crazy question, they're like, "Oh, nobody—this is a big remote,
01:48:34 ◼ ► We're super excited about what we're doing with the U1 and yeah, with the changes we've made to
01:48:40 ◼ ► the Siri remote, including making it a bit bigger so it won't fall in your couch cushions as much."
01:48:55 ◼ ► Rebekah "But he also is hiding things. He thinks it's funny to hide. He hid my wife's engagement
01:49:11 ◼ ► Rebekah "I should have done the whole video with him if I wanted to show his face a lot, but yeah."
01:49:15 ◼ ► Tim "That's—you know what, it's only funny because I presume he eventually revealed the location."
01:49:24 ◼ ► Tim "No, we used to have a problem with Jonas when he was that age, even younger. I think it was just
01:49:29 ◼ ► like from like as soon as he could walk where he wanted the TV remote and he didn't even know how
01:49:37 ◼ ► to use it. But he could see that that was the thing to have, right? If we're in front of the TV,
01:49:42 ◼ ► the thing you want is the remote and he'd want it. And then it would be like, "OK, you can have it."
01:49:47 ◼ ► And then it's like you turn your head and two and three year olds just like to wander off. And guess
01:49:53 ◼ ► what he wanders off with? The remote. Rebekah "Yeah. I mean, we have three Apple TV remotes
01:49:58 ◼ ► in our living room. Two old Siri remotes. Actually, I have four in the house, but two old Siri,
01:50:12 ◼ ► Tim "And it's funny too because when Jonas was that age, our remote was the TiVo remote,
01:50:24 ◼ ► it can wander off, but it certainly is nowhere near as hideable as an Apple remote. Like you
01:50:36 ◼ ► only so many places he could go with it. But putting it in the toy box there, there you go.
01:50:42 ◼ ► Rebekah "Right. Right. But overall, I really like the AirTags and I think the tile conversation is
01:50:49 ◼ ► an interesting one. I know you had mentioned in your post one of the reasons, I think it was in
01:50:55 ◼ ► context of why they may not go into the Find My ecosystem or use that platform. And I did have a
01:51:02 ◼ ► couple of discussions with tile and even with the CEO right before I was finishing the column and
01:51:07 ◼ ► it's very clear. They just feel like they'd have to give up so much control and they don't want to
01:51:12 ◼ ► do that." Jonas "Yeah, they're not just selling the trackers. They are also building their own
01:51:17 ◼ ► network and that participating in Find My is completely contrary to that. I'm not sympathetic
01:51:26 ◼ ► to their anti-competitive arguments about Apple because I don't think it's wrong for the platform
01:51:33 ◼ ► owner like Apple to build this into the platform because I think it belongs there. And I think it's
01:51:37 ◼ ► always the case with innovators. People think of innovative ideas, but if the innovative idea
01:51:44 ◼ ► belongs in the parent product and it's going to be popular, it's going to end up built in.
01:51:50 ◼ ► I mean, Benedict Evans has tweeted this several times, but it used to be – he always tweets up
01:51:55 ◼ ► this old ad from 1983 where there was this product you could buy for $300. It was a software product
01:52:01 ◼ ► that would let you print your Lotus spreadsheets in landscape because by default Lotus only printed
01:52:08 ◼ ► them vertical. And you could print them in landscape and then if you had like a dot matrix
01:52:14 ◼ ► printer, it could be really wide, right? It could just keep spewing across. You could make a really
01:52:19 ◼ ► super wide spreadsheet. That was their product. Well, guess what? Eventually, every spreadsheet,
01:52:26 ◼ ► everything that you can ever print with added a little button that you can switch between
01:52:31 ◼ ► landscape and horizontal, right? Of course it got built in. But when Lotus built it in,
01:52:36 ◼ ► this company was like, "Hey, you're ripping off our idea." So I'm sympathetic, but I don't think –
01:52:43 ◼ ► but on the other hand, I don't blame Tile for not participating in Find My because I do see that
01:52:47 ◼ ► strategically they want to own their own network of location. Yeah. And I mean, I've been thinking a
01:52:52 ◼ ► lot about this and I'm writing a piece pre-WWDC about the Apple garden, the walled garden. And
01:53:00 ◼ ► really thinking about what's the harm, right? Because we've been hearing a lot about it. We
01:53:06 ◼ ► heard about it through the Epic case and certainly there's a lot of, you know, when you think about
01:53:10 ◼ ► the developer situation around the App Store, that is a harm sometimes to consumers, but certainly
01:53:21 ◼ ► But when you think about that Apple keeps building some of this into its own platforms, whether it be
01:53:26 ◼ ► some of the services, whether it be some of the software features, whether it be accessories that
01:53:31 ◼ ► can work better, what ends up being the consumer harm? What is bad for us, right? And I don't want
01:53:39 ◼ ► to give away too much of the video, but I may have found myself at a garden and it is beautiful in
01:53:44 ◼ ► there, right? And so I've been thinking – I mean, I'd ask you, what do you feel? What is bad for us?
01:54:02 ◼ ► technologists forget that more – there are always trade-offs with power and more, right? And so
01:54:13 ◼ ► it is great that on the Mac you can just download stuff from anywhere and you can just go to Google
01:54:18 ◼ ► and get a copy of Chrome and it's this entirely alternate browser with its own browser engine
01:54:23 ◼ ► and you don't have to get it – you can't get it through the App Store because that's against the
01:54:28 ◼ ► App Store rule. Even on the Mac, you can't go through the App Store if you're doing the stuff
01:54:32 ◼ ► that Chrome does, but you can just install it on your Mac and it's great. And you can't do that on
01:54:38 ◼ ► the iPhone. The only way that they can have Chrome is to go through the App Store and they have to
01:54:41 ◼ ► use Apple's WebKit engine. And there are limits to that and there are features that the real Chrome
01:54:47 ◼ ► has on the desktop that Chrome can't have on iOS because of that. And you're missing out on those
01:54:51 ◼ ► features and technologists see, well, then that's – therefore, that's bad and Apple's being bad.
01:54:56 ◼ ► But on the other hand, there's benefits to it where you cannot install a browser that's going
01:55:02 ◼ ► to chew up your battery the way Chrome has on and off over the years, right? There's benefits to it.
01:55:08 ◼ ► And Chrome does this thing that they run in the background to update Chrome and there was a whole
01:55:13 ◼ ► thing where Lauren Brikter found that the background agent was like crazily running up the CPU.
01:55:20 ◼ ► The fact that you can't do anything on iOS to mess up your iOS device is a huge feature. It's a huge,
01:55:28 ◼ ► huge feature and it's the thing that people learned, especially on Windows, don't install
01:55:34 ◼ ► software because if you install software, you're going to mess up your computer. And the fact that
01:55:39 ◼ ► you can install anything you want from the App Store and it'll never mess up your computer and
01:55:43 ◼ ► if you don't like it, you just tap and hold on it, hit the X button and every trace of it is gone and
01:55:49 ◼ ► there's nothing left behind that's technically possible to be running in the background.
01:55:54 ◼ ► That's a feature. So that to me is the positive aspects of being in a walled garden, right?
01:56:00 ◼ ► And I guess that's what you're getting at is that technologists say walled garden and they always
01:56:05 ◼ ► mean it as bad. It's bad and limiting. You're in a walled garden. It's not good. And no, but
01:56:11 ◼ ► actually it can be really nice and peaceful and calm and safe. Now you're getting, you're taking
01:56:17 ◼ ► my piece from next week. So I will come back on the show and then just to bring it also full
01:56:21 ◼ ► circle. I just was rapidly, did you hear my magic keyboard typing? I'm taking notes on what you're
01:56:27 ◼ ► saying for my piece. So there you go. That's great. See now, now listen, we got to keep this in
01:56:33 ◼ ► on the show. We got to keep those keyboard noises in because then everybody who listens to my show,
01:56:49 ◼ ► telling you how high I am on allergy drugs. And not making you think I'm like a crazy person.
01:57:00 ◼ ► There really isn't. Joanna, always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks. Thanks for being
01:57:04 ◼ ► here. Everybody of course can read your work at the Wall Street Journal and on Twitter at Joanna
01:57:11 ◼ ► Stern. Yeah. And Instagram. I'm really trying to build the Instagram. I keep saying like,