The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Well, not much has changed in the world since April of last year.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Nothing at all.

00:00:07 ◼   ► I think-- I know.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Every time it comes up, I always say-- yeah, it looks like it was April 30,

00:00:13 ◼   ► 2019.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Every time Skype comes up on a podcast, it gets real meta real quick,

00:00:20 ◼   ► and people complain.

00:00:21 ◼   ► And I know people use other things, and there's-- who knows?

00:00:24 ◼   ► Maybe I'll move on to something better.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Ben and I use something called Zencastr for dithering,

00:00:33 ◼   ► which is really weird but works really well, even when the things that are bad

00:00:40 ◼   ► that could happen.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Have you ever used Zencastr?

00:00:42 ◼   ► Yeah, the web version, you mean?

00:00:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:44 ◼   ► So it's this web thing.

00:00:46 ◼   ► You have to run it in Chrome or a Chrome browser.

00:00:49 ◼   ► It doesn't work on Safari.

00:00:50 ◼   ► And you start thinking weird things like, well, wait a minute.

00:00:56 ◼   ► If it's in a browser, couldn't you accidentally close a tab,

00:00:59 ◼   ► and then you lose it?

00:01:00 ◼   ► And I did that a couple days ago.

00:01:04 ◼   ► And it's all pretty-- it defends against it in pretty smart ways.

00:01:08 ◼   ► I closed Chrome before everything was uploaded, and I just reopened it.

00:01:14 ◼   ► And it was there.

00:01:15 ◼   ► And it uses local storage to save a WAV file, and it was still there.

00:01:21 ◼   ► But it's terrifying because while that worked, like, oh my god,

00:01:24 ◼   ► I shouldn't have closed that, reopen, there it is.

00:01:27 ◼   ► On the other hand, Ben and I will go from--

00:01:31 ◼   ► it always happens from Thursday to Sunday.

00:01:33 ◼   ► The biggest gap in our weekly schedule is that Thursday night

00:01:38 ◼   ► we record for Friday morning, and then Sunday night we record for Monday

00:01:41 ◼   ► morning.

00:01:42 ◼   ► And when I come back on Sunday night after two nights off,

00:01:45 ◼   ► it's all forgotten me.

00:01:48 ◼   ► It might have my login, but it doesn't know anything.

00:01:50 ◼   ► And I got to reload Chrome a couple times.

00:01:53 ◼   ► And it's just not the way desktop apps work at all.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

00:02:00 ◼   ► It's not-- so I have recorded a number of podcasts using Zencastr

00:02:05 ◼   ► because it seems to be, for whatever reason, the preferred method by a lot of folks.

00:02:09 ◼   ► I have lost an entire episode, which is obviously beyond frustrating.

00:02:14 ◼   ► And the worst case scenario.

00:02:15 ◼   ► The worst case scenario in the world.

00:02:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:16 ◼   ► Yeah, using it.

00:02:18 ◼   ► I'm very surprised that they don't have a native app.

00:02:20 ◼   ► You think like of all things to all your points, this is something that probably should be a native app.

00:02:26 ◼   ► So I'm surprised.

00:02:26 ◼   ► I mean, obviously it's more involved and you have to do it for--

00:02:31 ◼   ► then you'd have to do it for Mac, for Windows.

00:02:33 ◼   ► But I'm pretty surprised that they don't do that.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:37 ◼   ► And maybe it's on their list.

00:02:39 ◼   ► You know, I should be the last one to complain about people not getting just stuff lower on their list.

00:02:44 ◼   ► And maybe if they do an iOS app, then they can make it their Mac app by bringing it over with Catalyst.

00:02:52 ◼   ► And it might be the perfect use of Catalyst.

00:02:59 ◼   ► In theory, if Zencastr is doing it, if they make an iPhone app, which you'd think they'd want to do.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Because it seems to me like people might want to use the computer that's with them everywhere.

00:03:09 ◼   ► And the one that--

00:03:11 ◼   ► there's like a billion of them out there.

00:03:13 ◼   ► Right.

00:03:14 ◼   ► And it's not really a-- at all.

00:03:18 ◼   ► It's not like a professional editing tool, right?

00:03:21 ◼   ► So it's like I think that that's the sort of use case for Catalyst where it could be really good for the Mac.

00:03:28 ◼   ► Like, oh, well, we weren't going to do a Mac native app, but we have this iPhone one.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Here it is.

00:03:34 ◼   ► And it's better than running it in your browser.

00:03:36 ◼   ► That really could be the case.

00:03:39 ◼   ► But anyway, back to Sky.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's right.

00:03:44 ◼   ► Yeah, and you know, I was an investor in Anchor, the podcasting startup that sold to Spotify.

00:03:48 ◼   ► And they made a native iOS and then iPad app.

00:03:52 ◼   ► And the iPad app was actually great.

00:03:53 ◼   ► And it seems like the perfect sort of tool for recording a podcast, right?

00:03:57 ◼   ► Because to your point, it's sort of a computer you're more likely to have with you wherever you are.

00:04:02 ◼   ► And it's certainly, obviously, way more than powerful enough to do this type of thing.

00:04:08 ◼   ► But yeah, you're probably right.

00:04:09 ◼   ► They might be holding off and going to do an iOS app and then port it over when Catalyst stuff is working.

00:04:17 ◼   ► Yeah, and a little bit more stable.

00:04:18 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:04:20 ◼   ► But my thing with Skype is, and again, you could set your clock by it three, four times a year.

00:04:26 ◼   ► At some point, I'm going to talk about it on my show.

00:04:28 ◼   ► But the weirdest thing to me about Skype is that, and I use it literally three to four times a month, every month,

00:04:36 ◼   ► because this is what I record my show on.

00:04:38 ◼   ► And every once in a while, including today, I open it up and it looks entirely different.

00:04:43 ◼   ► And I don't know where anything is.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Right.

00:04:45 ◼   ► They add stories, they add, you know, whatever the thing de jour is to the social experience.

00:04:51 ◼   ► It's ridiculous.

00:04:51 ◼   ► I opened it up today and I haven't changed it.

00:04:54 ◼   ► But the window looks like it's like a little iPhone sized window.

00:04:57 ◼   ► But you're there and, you know, it's working.

00:05:00 ◼   ► So I'm going to let it go.

00:05:01 ◼   ► But I have never used an app in all of my life that changes so completely every couple months and just completely discombobulates my awareness of where everything in the app is and how to do stuff.

00:05:18 ◼   ► But, you know, it sounds good.

00:05:21 ◼   ► It does sound good.

00:05:23 ◼   ► And what is, I mean, but what is Microsoft doing with it?

00:05:25 ◼   ► They have, obviously they have, they're putting all their effort or a lot of their effort into the Teams product, which is, you know, a huge part of that.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Is this exact use case, right?

00:05:33 ◼   ► It's video conferencing and obviously audio is part of that.

00:05:37 ◼   ► But they still have Skype and Parallel.

00:05:40 ◼   ► So, I mean, at some point do they fold them together and then you'll have to move over to Microsoft Teams or something to be able to do this?

00:05:46 ◼   ► You would think so.

00:05:48 ◼   ► I mean, and I know we hashed over before, you know, we started talking like what topics to talk about.

00:05:54 ◼   ► And I don't really want to go into the whole antitrust thing with the house.

00:05:57 ◼   ► But in broad terms, without getting into the details of the report, there is a sort of sense of, like, without getting into the details, I feel like the higher level stuff is more interesting.

00:06:10 ◼   ► And I kind of feel like if you read the prelude to their report, they're like, these companies have gotten really big and have made a lot of acquisitions.

00:06:18 ◼   ► Something must be wrong.

00:06:21 ◼   ► Right?

00:06:22 ◼   ► That's sort of their conclusion.

00:06:23 ◼   ► And they're not so good at telling you exactly how this is wrong for the country or for consumers or for, you know, and have specific cases of competitors who have complaints.

00:06:34 ◼   ► But there is a sort of sense like, okay, Microsoft is so big that they own Skype, which they paid a fortune for and which has changed hands multiple times.

00:06:44 ◼   ► Like eBay paid a fortune for it.

00:06:47 ◼   ► Right.

00:06:48 ◼   ► It is.

00:06:49 ◼   ► And spun it out and Andreessen was a big investor.

00:06:51 ◼   ► And then they, yeah, right.

00:06:53 ◼   ► It's like too big and too good to disappear, but also nobody seems to know what to do with it.

00:07:01 ◼   ► Right?

00:07:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:03 ◼   ► It still has brand mindshare, right?

00:07:05 ◼   ► Like if you say Skype, most of the world, I think, would know what it is still.

00:07:10 ◼   ► But right.

00:07:11 ◼   ► It's not the go, it's no longer the go-to for what it was.

00:07:14 ◼   ► And the technology is sort of, you know, it was very novel at the time.

00:07:18 ◼   ► But now, you know, it's been sort of, I don't want to say eclipsed, but it's definitely sort

00:07:24 ◼   ► of been sidetracked, sidelined by everything else.

00:07:28 ◼   ► I mean, it's old at this point.

00:07:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:31 ◼   ► And well, and let's face it, like what is the app of 2020?

00:07:35 ◼   ► It's got to be Zoom.

00:07:36 ◼   ► I mean, TikTok, I guess, is on the list.

00:07:38 ◼   ► Like if you're going to do, you know, all right, I don't even want to say that we have

00:07:42 ◼   ► to pick one over the other.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Let's just say we'll have an, just being nominated is an honor.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Right?

00:07:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:50 ◼   ► But like, TikTok, to me, is, isn't specific to the nature of 2020, whereas Zoom specifically

00:08:01 ◼   ► is, right?

00:08:02 ◼   ► Like the nature of being quarantined and having everything be remote, whether it's a school

00:08:10 ◼   ► or meetings or just social stuff, right?

00:08:15 ◼   ► Zoom cocktail hours.

00:08:16 ◼   ► And Zoom is the thing that is sort of taken.

00:08:19 ◼   ► And Skype is on the list of, well, wait, why wasn't Skype the thing that we're doing?

00:08:25 ◼   ► Skype was there for years in advance.

00:08:28 ◼   ► It's a good point.

00:08:29 ◼   ► It's something I think about a lot on the, you know, in my current world of investing.

00:08:33 ◼   ► It's basically, it boils down to, this is, you know, just sort of the highest level thesis

00:08:37 ◼   ► I have of things being in the right place at the right time, right?

00:08:40 ◼   ► Because no ideas are really new.

00:08:41 ◼   ► Everyone knows that.

00:08:42 ◼   ► And things come up again and again and new, you know, it's just new takes on old ideas.

00:08:48 ◼   ► And at some point, you know, something's in the right place at the right time for it to

00:08:53 ◼   ► hit.

00:08:54 ◼   ► And, you know, Skype was obviously, you know, massively popular, as you noted.

00:08:56 ◼   ► It sold for many billions of dollars, first to eBay, then to Microsoft later.

00:09:01 ◼   ► So it's not like it wasn't a success, but you could argue had it existed, you know,

00:09:05 ◼   ► now 10 years later or whatnot, it would have been a much bigger success.

00:09:08 ◼   ► And that's what we're seeing with Zoom.

00:09:10 ◼   ► And I think Zoom is, you're right, that it's obviously benefiting from all the work from

00:09:15 ◼   ► home and the COVID stuff.

00:09:17 ◼   ► I think that was part of a trend that was, you know, happening, all the remote work.

00:09:21 ◼   ► Everyone knows that that was like, you know, slowly but surely sort of coming into focus.

00:09:25 ◼   ► But this, I mean, the whole situation in the past six months now has accelerated it to

00:09:29 ◼   ► the point and Zoom was sitting right there in the perfect place to take advantage of

00:09:33 ◼   ► it.

00:09:34 ◼   ► And that sort of, and I, you know, I've been a critic of several aspects of Zoom's,

00:09:41 ◼   ► for lack of a better term, sloppiness in terms of the technical aspects of like, you know,

00:09:46 ◼   ► the Mac app and how it was installed and what it left behind and the liberties its installer

00:09:51 ◼   ► took.

00:09:52 ◼   ► But on the other hand, I definitely appreciate the fact that it started with a very opinionated,

00:10:00 ◼   ► this should be easier.

00:10:02 ◼   ► Yes.

00:10:03 ◼   ► And you shouldn't have to complain.

00:10:06 ◼   ► And what's easy, okay, what if we just made, everybody who's invited gets a URL and when

00:10:11 ◼   ► you click the URL, it either pops you right in because you're ready to go or you're literally

00:10:17 ◼   ► about one or two more clicks from being there.

00:10:23 ◼   ► Right.

00:10:24 ◼   ► And they actually made it harder, right?

00:10:25 ◼   ► Because of some of the security stuff you're alluding to.

00:10:27 ◼   ► It's much harder than it used to be.

00:10:28 ◼   ► So they sort of benefited from being small enough when they implemented that solution

00:10:33 ◼   ► to not draw the eyes of both people who would take advantage of that, but also of the press

00:10:40 ◼   ► and all that kind of stuff to know that there could be some downsides to that ease of use.

00:10:46 ◼   ► And then once that was sort of discovered, they were able to move to fix it and it hasn't

00:10:53 ◼   ► sort of sunk the company in a way that ruined the value proposition.

00:10:57 ◼   ► Yeah, one way I try to think about, and I feel like part of it is a long-term cultural

00:11:05 ◼   ► issue, and I think it's driven by the internet.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And I think part of it is exacerbated by short tempers in 2020, which are natural, right?

00:11:15 ◼   ► It is just natural that everybody has just had enough and our patience has worn thin

00:11:22 ◼   ► across the board.

00:11:24 ◼   ► But people, to me, are a lot less forgiving of mistakes across the board.

00:11:34 ◼   ► And I'm really trying to be—it's one of those things, you know, I'm just trying

00:11:39 ◼   ► to keep a consciousness about it.

00:11:41 ◼   ► And me, I don't want to be the one who doesn't forgive mistakes.

00:11:46 ◼   ► And mistakes are inevitable.

00:11:48 ◼   ► Everybody makes mistakes.

00:11:49 ◼   ► But the way to be right all the time is to be smart enough and curious enough to be right

00:11:58 ◼   ► most of the time, but also be aware that you're going to be wrong some of the time and be

00:12:03 ◼   ► constantly open-minded about what you might be wrong about and figure it out and then

00:12:09 ◼   ► say, "Oh, I was wrong about that.

00:12:11 ◼   ► Here's the right."

00:12:12 ◼   ► And correct yourself.

00:12:13 ◼   ► And don't be embarrassed to say, "I was wrong."

00:12:15 ◼   ► And definitely don't be embarrassed to say, "I don't know."

00:12:18 ◼   ► Right?

00:12:19 ◼   ► The smartest people—I always say this—the smartest people I know are the people who

00:12:22 ◼   ► are the most willing to say, "I don't know."

00:12:26 ◼   ► I think that's right.

00:12:27 ◼   ► I think, you know, that's obviously top of mind in our political climate right now.

00:12:32 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, I view it as—I think that you're right that there seems to be more

00:12:40 ◼   ► of a focus on things that are, I don't know, calling out things that are mistakes or whatnot.

00:12:46 ◼   ► I think part of that is, you know, in our world, in the tech world, it's just there's—it's

00:12:51 ◼   ► now fully mainstream, right?

00:12:53 ◼   ► It obviously has been for a while, but it's now—it's so integrated in everyone's lives,

00:12:57 ◼   ► especially in work from home, as we were just talking about.

00:13:00 ◼   ► We rely on these things so much that any little mistake like, you know, Slack went down yesterday

00:13:07 ◼   ► or the day before, and it's like, you know, the internet is up in arms about it.

00:13:11 ◼   ► And why?

00:13:12 ◼   ► Because everyone's using it to do their business.

00:13:15 ◼   ► And when it goes—when something like that goes down, it's not just that it's like a

00:13:19 ◼   ► nice-to-have, even like Twitter, right?

00:13:21 ◼   ► It's not just like Twitter's become an information flow for people.

00:13:25 ◼   ► Like, how do we know what the—if Twitter goes down and the president is trying to tweet

00:13:28 ◼   ► that he's about to attack a country, like, that has real, now, ramifications.

00:13:35 ◼   ► Imagine if, for the next four weeks, Twitter had the uptime that it had circa, let's say,

00:13:41 ◼   ► 2009.

00:13:42 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:13:43 ◼   ► Remember the fail-well?

00:13:44 ◼   ► Oh, I don't know.

00:13:45 ◼   ► I mean, yes, of course.

00:13:47 ◼   ► I, you know, I was as guilty as anyone as for writing about that every single time it

00:13:51 ◼   ► went down back in the day.

00:13:53 ◼   ► I don't know what they would—like, what would they do?

00:13:55 ◼   ► Would the government have to step in to take over control of Twitter to make sure?

00:13:59 ◼   ► How would we know what the president has to say?

00:14:01 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:14:02 ◼   ► They'd have to nationalize Twitter?

00:14:03 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:14:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:14:05 ◼   ► But my take on mistakes and Zoom and trying to be forgiving is that if you assume that

00:14:12 ◼   ► everybody is always going to make mistakes and nothing's ever going to be perfect, a

00:14:17 ◼   ► lot of times you have to decide which way you're going to approach the perfect ideal.

00:14:24 ◼   ► And for this sort of remote video collaboration, Zoom approached it from the side of being

00:14:31 ◼   ► as easy to use as possible.

00:14:33 ◼   ► And so their mistakes were things like, "We'll just have these URLs with a string that's

00:14:40 ◼   ► randomized and that's how you get in.

00:14:42 ◼   ► And if you know that, you're in."

00:14:44 ◼   ► And it made Zoom bombing possible because attackers could just start guessing within

00:14:53 ◼   ► the pattern of what a Zoom URL might be.

00:14:56 ◼   ► Just keep trying them all until you find one and then jump in and there you are.

00:15:02 ◼   ► And it was a mistake.

00:15:03 ◼   ► They fixed it.

00:15:04 ◼   ► I mean, one thing they have is they're like, "Oh, that was bad.

00:15:07 ◼   ► We'll fix it."

00:15:08 ◼   ► And there you go.

00:15:09 ◼   ► They're out.

00:15:10 ◼   ► And I think the popularity of Zoom is that they're approaching it from that side.

00:15:16 ◼   ► And it's so easy to get in.

00:15:18 ◼   ► And nobody's got a good solution to any of this.

00:15:24 ◼   ► But it's no surprise that it's the best one or the most popular one.

00:15:28 ◼   ► It's the one that we've sort of turned into a verb.

00:15:30 ◼   ► I mean, it went from a product to a verb so fast.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I don't know of anything that's gone that fast to verbified.

00:15:38 ◼   ► I think that's right.

00:15:42 ◼   ► I also am curious of your thoughts.

00:15:44 ◼   ► I haven't thought about this in a while, but this was something I think I wrote about,

00:15:48 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe six months ago or so, probably around the time that quarantine started.

00:15:52 ◼   ► Because to your point, we were all getting this type of solution we needed all of a sudden,

00:16:00 ◼   ► even if we didn't realize it at first.

00:16:02 ◼   ► And it's sort of fascinating to me that Apple has had FaceTime for many years now, and it's

00:16:07 ◼   ► a great product.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Everyone would say it's really fantastic, easy to use, great quality.

00:16:14 ◼   ► But they were never able to connect it in a way for this type of use case, right?

00:16:20 ◼   ► Like, you know, you connect to your family, sure.

00:16:22 ◼   ► And I'm sure the usage is up immensely because of that.

00:16:26 ◼   ► I use it to talk to my family on a regular basis.

00:16:29 ◼   ► But there's not like the use case of work, certainly.

00:16:32 ◼   ► And you know, that's not Apple's focus, so it's hard to ding them for that.

00:16:35 ◼   ► But I think it does seem like, especially in the era of services and everything that's

00:16:39 ◼   ► going on with Apple, there was a real opportunity there to sort of own this space.

00:16:45 ◼   ► Because to your point, they are famous for the ease of use.

00:16:48 ◼   ► And I think that they could have probably done it even better than Zoom has done it

00:16:51 ◼   ► if they made like a, I don't want to say an enterprise-grade version of it necessarily,

00:16:55 ◼   ► but certainly one for the living room, right?

00:16:56 ◼   ► Like if you imagine what they could have done with using either Apple TV or the HomePod

00:17:02 ◼   ► for a new product and just made it like the perfect device, sort of like what Facebook

00:17:07 ◼   ► randomly oddly did with the portal, which I haven't used myself.

00:17:11 ◼   ► I know a lot of people who have it and actually love it.

00:17:15 ◼   ► I made a lot of fun of it when it first came out because it came out in the middle of probably

00:17:19 ◼   ► the worst possible time for a product like that to come out when Facebook was in the

00:17:23 ◼   ► middle of the Cambridge Analytica stuff.

00:17:25 ◼   ► You know, like, okay, so Facebook is going to launch a connected camera, you know, from

00:17:31 ◼   ► a company that you don't necessarily trust with your data.

00:17:33 ◼   ► That sounds like the worst idea in the world.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Like at least postpone this thing six months.

00:17:37 ◼   ► But now it's in a perfect position, right?

00:17:39 ◼   ► And why does an Apple have a product like that?

00:17:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I wonder.

00:17:43 ◼   ► And with the group chat feature that they added in particular, I forget, probably multiple

00:17:48 ◼   ► people observed this, but it almost feels in hindsight after people actually tried using

00:17:55 ◼   ► it that it's really felt built for demoing.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Like the best case scenario for FaceTime group chat was the on stage demo when Apple showed

00:18:09 ◼   ► it and it looks cool.

00:18:12 ◼   ► But in practice, there's a lot of aspects of it that just aren't that it just isn't

00:18:18 ◼   ► cut out for it.

00:18:19 ◼   ► And that's even if you just accept the baseline, it only works on Apple products, right?

00:18:23 ◼   ► If you even just accept the fact that that's who it's for, and you have to have one and

00:18:29 ◼   ► therefore, you know, it can't be used for school or something like that, where they

00:18:32 ◼   ► can't say you have to have a device from this one company.

00:18:37 ◼   ► But even there, it just isn't that great.

00:18:39 ◼   ► And I you know, it's, it is the case that, you know, all of these remote briefings and

00:18:45 ◼   ► stuff that Apple's had over the last six, you know, in the whole COVID era, they do

00:18:49 ◼   ► over WebEx.

00:18:51 ◼   ► Which is amazing Cisco product.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Like an old school Cisco product.

00:18:56 ◼   ► And I don't blame them.

00:18:59 ◼   ► But it's just because, you know, there's features in the WebEx that just aren't possible in

00:19:04 ◼   ► FaceTime, you know, there's and part of it, they're not great and interface wise, but

00:19:10 ◼   ► there's ways for like people who at Apple who are in PR who aren't on the call to be

00:19:19 ◼   ► who aren't talking on the call, but want to be, you know, sort of like, if it was the

00:19:24 ◼   ► real world, they'd be in the room, but they're not participating.

00:19:27 ◼   ► You know, you can be in the room and not participate and in a way that FaceTime doesn't really

00:19:31 ◼   ► make possible other than having their face there, you know, and adding, you know, you

00:19:36 ◼   ► can't be in that state.

00:19:38 ◼   ► There's other features too.

00:19:39 ◼   ► But it just sticks out to me, though, that they're using that instead of their own product

00:19:44 ◼   ► when their own product is in this sphere.

00:19:46 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:19:47 ◼   ► It's, I think you're right.

00:19:50 ◼   ► I think there's a utilitarian aspect to sort of the certainly WebEx, but also to Zoom,

00:19:55 ◼   ► right, where Apple just doesn't fill that use case well right now.

00:20:00 ◼   ► And as you're noting, like the multi person thing is more, it's more like cute, right?

00:20:05 ◼   ► It's more of a cute UI that they're trying to do and less utilitarian.

00:20:08 ◼   ► So it'd be sort of frustrating, I imagine, to use it for a lot of these use cases.

00:20:12 ◼   ► But it does remind me of, it's like when the Apple stores before they were using the

00:20:17 ◼   ► iPhone to actually do payments, right?

00:20:20 ◼   ► Like so they had, you know, they had a mechanism to do it with Square, certainly, but, you

00:20:25 ◼   ► know, a number of different ways.

00:20:27 ◼   ► PayPal had a version at one point.

00:20:31 ◼   ► But they were still using an old school POS system, right?

00:20:34 ◼   ► Up until I think, what, last year, something like that.

00:20:37 ◼   ► They use them now and they have this sort of, I don't even know who makes it.

00:20:40 ◼   ► I'm sure you've seen it though, you know, the one where you can do Apple Pay, it sort

00:20:43 ◼   ► of like snaps off the back of an iPhone, I think.

00:20:45 ◼   ► And then you can use it.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Yeah, it's weird.

00:20:47 ◼   ► It's like related to the iPhone, but isn't just an iPhone.

00:20:51 ◼   ► Yeah, you know.

00:20:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

00:20:55 ◼   ► But it's sort of like that, how they, you know, they have sort of solutions they could

00:20:58 ◼   ► use and they eventually get there.

00:21:02 ◼   ► But yeah, not right out of the gate.

00:21:04 ◼   ► I remember, and I don't do this to be a jerk.

00:21:07 ◼   ► I just, and I, in hindsight, as soon as I did it, I was like, I should not have done

00:21:12 ◼   ► this.

00:21:13 ◼   ► This was a mistake because it's just not me.

00:21:15 ◼   ► But it must have been like five years ago or six years ago when the first Apple Watch

00:21:19 ◼   ► came out and it had Apple Pay right from the beginning.

00:21:23 ◼   ► And I had a review unit before they, you know, were in customer hands and I wanted to try,

00:21:29 ◼   ► I didn't know where to try Apple Pay.

00:21:30 ◼   ► So I went to the Apple store to buy something.

00:21:34 ◼   ► And I would choose, and I forget what I bought, some, you know, I don't know, something I

00:21:38 ◼   ► needed like a cable or something that I could use.

00:21:41 ◼   ► But you know, it's like 30 bucks.

00:21:42 ◼   ► How do you want to pay?

00:21:43 ◼   ► I want to pay Apple Pay.

00:21:44 ◼   ► And she held the thing out and I took out my watch and they didn't even have watches

00:21:48 ◼   ► for sale yet.

00:21:49 ◼   ► And she was like, whoa.

00:21:50 ◼   ► And I'm like, oh no, please just keep this on the down low.

00:21:53 ◼   ► She's like, how do you have that?

00:21:54 ◼   ► And I'm like, oh no, I just wanted to see how it works.

00:21:57 ◼   ► And I was like, I really wanted to just drop the product and just run out of the store

00:22:02 ◼   ► and just be like, oh no, this is a terrible mistake.

00:22:04 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like, remember the, you'll remember back in the day when Steve Jobs would use

00:22:10 ◼   ► the iPhone like at a baseball game.

00:22:11 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:22:12 ◼   ► He's like, yeah, yeah, it's no big deal, whatever.

00:22:15 ◼   ► Right.

00:22:16 ◼   ► He was like, it is kid soccer gamer, but ever just standing by the fence.

00:22:21 ◼   ► Like, you know, all of a sudden, you know, it's like, you know, he's like a real person

00:22:24 ◼   ► too.

00:22:25 ◼   ► He's just the dad at a soccer game and he's got an iPhone and they're not out yet.

00:22:29 ◼   ► He has this thing that's about to change the world in many ways, but you know, whatever.

00:22:34 ◼   ► Predicting every single parent at a soccer game for the next decades of civilization.

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00:25:26 ◼   ► Hey, before we get into upcoming stuff, you had a good piece on Apple Watch 6, which I

00:25:34 ◼   ► didn't even notice before I invited you on the show, but I thought you had a good take

00:25:38 ◼   ► on it.

00:25:40 ◼   ► In particular, that you switched from the graphite steel to the blue aluminum, which

00:25:47 ◼   ► I still haven't seen in person because where do you go to see watches that you don't have?

00:25:55 ◼   ► But the photos of which I really like and your photos too, just you shooting photos

00:26:03 ◼   ► of the watch in your hand.

00:26:04 ◼   ► It's like, man, this blue aluminum looks really cool.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I think it does look great.

00:26:14 ◼   ► I read your review, I think I had the same one that you did.

00:26:18 ◼   ► I had the graphite stainless steel.

00:26:20 ◼   ► That's the one you had.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the one Apple sent me.

00:26:24 ◼   ► I ordered that one at first, mainly honestly because that was the one that would get here

00:26:29 ◼   ► the fastest of all the shipping times.

00:26:33 ◼   ► But I was interested in that one too.

00:26:35 ◼   ► Sort of a new take on the color that they've done for a long time.

00:26:41 ◼   ► But then I was a little bit curious about the blue one because I just thought I would

00:26:47 ◼   ► like that color.

00:26:48 ◼   ► So, I was able to get one that shipped, I think, two weeks or so later.

00:26:52 ◼   ► And I was glad that I did because, to your point, I do think it looks great.

00:26:57 ◼   ► I'm wearing it right now.

00:26:59 ◼   ► It's like, as I put in there, it's not blue blue, it's sort of darker cobalt, is how I

00:27:08 ◼   ► described it, and then a lighter navy.

00:27:11 ◼   ► It's in between those.

00:27:12 ◼   ► But it looks really good.

00:27:14 ◼   ► And I do hope that the rumor of an iPhone in this color, sort of replacing the hunter

00:27:19 ◼   ► green or whatever they called it for the last one, I hope that they do one in this color

00:27:23 ◼   ► because I think it's great.

00:27:26 ◼   ► It's a little weird having a colorful one, right?

00:27:29 ◼   ► Because obviously some of the bands it will clash with.

00:27:33 ◼   ► But I think blue is a nice sort of elegant solution to it.

00:27:36 ◼   ► Red would be a little bit in your face, but I like the blue one a lot.

00:27:41 ◼   ► Yeah, red is probably not for me and you.

00:27:43 ◼   ► We're not really in your face.

00:27:44 ◼   ► But I could see why it might be popular.

00:27:46 ◼   ► And that's another color I'm really interested to see because it's so different from the

00:27:53 ◼   ► watches they've made to date.

00:27:55 ◼   ► And again, I don't like to do what I'm about to do except that I actually do like it, which

00:28:04 ◼   ► is speculate on executives who are no longer with the company and how things are different,

00:28:10 ◼   ► which is to me maybe some of the Johnny Ive influence.

00:28:16 ◼   ► And I couldn't help but feel all along from the get go that part of the Johnny Ive influence

00:28:26 ◼   ► on the Apple Watch was too informed and unrestrained by his affinity and deep appreciation for

00:28:38 ◼   ► the traditional watch industry.

00:28:40 ◼   ► Johnny Ive is a longstanding Apple or regular watch person.

00:28:46 ◼   ► Luxury watches has, you know, like we're an investor in a Hodenki, which, you know, is

00:28:50 ◼   ► one of the, you know, the preeminent sort of high end watch, you know, destinations.

00:28:56 ◼   ► And he's done, you know, he's done interviews with them and just goes on and on about how

00:29:00 ◼   ► much he loves his luxury watches.

00:29:02 ◼   ► And I think you're right.

00:29:04 ◼   ► Like you're basically suggesting that there was a reason that they did the gold one, the

00:29:11 ◼   ► edition ones, you know, was obviously driven by him.

00:29:15 ◼   ► And now the fact that he's no longer there, is that why we're now seeing, you know, a

00:29:19 ◼   ► range of colors?

00:29:20 ◼   ► Yeah, and you know, and you're being too humble.

00:29:26 ◼   ► Hodenki is the premier site for stuff like that.

00:29:30 ◼   ► I love it.

00:29:31 ◼   ► And I've known Ben Clymer, founder of Hodenki for a while.

00:29:35 ◼   ► Great site.

00:29:36 ◼   ► But yeah, I'll put that in the show notes.

00:29:38 ◼   ► I swear to God, I'm adding it right now.

00:29:40 ◼   ► But the Hodenki profile of Johnny Ive was terrific, really, really terrific.

00:29:49 ◼   ► But I feel like the gold thing is ridiculous in hindsight.

00:29:54 ◼   ► It was as ridiculous when it happened.

00:29:56 ◼   ► And it doesn't get any less ridiculous in hindsight that Apple was selling $20,000 solid

00:30:04 ◼   ► gold watches, the internals of which were technology that lasted a year, you know, and

00:30:12 ◼   ► it was so technologically that the, you know, what we now call in hindsight, the Series

00:30:17 ◼   ► Zero, that they didn't when they came out with the Series Two, they couldn't keep selling,

00:30:25 ◼   ► you know, this is Apple's pattern, right?

00:30:26 ◼   ► We saw it again, you know, we see it now where they're still selling the Series Three watches

00:30:30 ◼   ► for $199 is that the last 10 years of Apple as they've gotten bigger, the way that they've

00:30:37 ◼   ► gotten more democratic and lowered their price points across the board is by selling older

00:30:44 ◼   ► products at lower prices.

00:30:48 ◼   ► And it's really worked well for them.

00:30:51 ◼   ► And the times where they've tried to introduce new products at a lower price, like the iPhone

00:30:55 ◼   ► 5C, it hasn't worked so well.

00:30:58 ◼   ► And I almost feel like maybe they gave up on it too soon.

00:31:01 ◼   ► I still think the iPhone 5C is one of the most best looking iPhones Apple ever made.

00:31:05 ◼   ► I agree.

00:31:06 ◼   ► I got one even though I wasn't my primary phone.

00:31:10 ◼   ► I got one just to see what it would look like.

00:31:12 ◼   ► This is back when I was still reviewing tech products for a living and stuff.

00:31:16 ◼   ► And it was a beautiful device.

00:31:17 ◼   ► I think I still have it in a drawer somewhere, a blue one.

00:31:20 ◼   ► It was great looking.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Yeah, it really was.

00:31:22 ◼   ► But it didn't set the world on fire marketing wise.

00:31:25 ◼   ► And I feel like, or sales wise, and I feel like the lesson Apple internalized from that

00:31:31 ◼   ► was that what works is taking former top of the line products and then a year, two years,

00:31:38 ◼   ► three years later, selling them at lower price points so that even if you're buying the $199

00:31:45 ◼   ► series three watch today, you're getting an Apple watch that just three years ago was the

00:31:49 ◼   ► best Apple watch you could buy.

00:31:54 ◼   ► Two things in there that you bring up, which I think is interesting.

00:31:57 ◼   ► One is that I think that the iPhone 5C was actually, it's almost like it was the perfect,

00:32:04 ◼   ► you said, you know, marketing when you meant sales wise, but like it was the perfect marketing

00:32:08 ◼   ► product, right?

00:32:09 ◼   ► It looked great on those posters.

00:32:10 ◼   ► And it's almost like, you know, did they, it's almost like it existed to be like the

00:32:15 ◼   ► perfect marketing product for Apple, but not a great actual product for Apple because,

00:32:20 ◼   ► you know, the colors just popped on all the posters that you see around the city and it

00:32:24 ◼   ► ended up being great, like for them to use in those promotional images.

00:32:28 ◼   ► But then yeah, just didn't resonate for whatever reason with the audience.

00:32:32 ◼   ► Then you bring up, you know, the idea of what that was, which was trying to re to create

00:32:38 ◼   ► a new product at a lower price point and how that hasn't worked for Apple in the past,

00:32:41 ◼   ► which is interesting now because that's sort of exactly what they're doing with the iPhone

00:32:45 ◼   ► or sorry, the Apple watch SE, which I don't really understand.

00:32:50 ◼   ► I mean, I conceptually understand what they're doing.

00:32:52 ◼   ► It's essentially an Apple watch series five with a few features removed including I think

00:33:00 ◼   ► the always on screen, right?

00:33:03 ◼   ► But it's sort of a weird choice in my mind because it's in between, as you noted, the

00:33:08 ◼   ► series three, which are still selling.

00:33:10 ◼   ► So it's not the cheapest one.

00:33:12 ◼   ► It's obviously not the best one or the highest end one.

00:33:16 ◼   ► But it's not just the series five sold at a lower price.

00:33:19 ◼   ► It's a new product.

00:33:21 ◼   ► And why do you think they did it like that?

00:33:27 ◼   ► I forget what chip it has.

00:33:28 ◼   ► I think it actually has the sit has the S five.

00:33:32 ◼   ► I looked at it recently.

00:33:33 ◼   ► So I know that it has the one that's the same as what the series five had.

00:33:38 ◼   ► So it I guess my take on the SE nomenclature is as they start to use it more is it is a

00:33:50 ◼   ► way for them to make a product and put it out and keep it unchanged in the lineup for

00:33:57 ◼   ► years to come.

00:33:59 ◼   ► And then they don't have to do it every year, right?

00:34:01 ◼   ► And the name doesn't sound like it's getting older.

00:34:04 ◼   ► So the series three watch isn't a bad product, but it is the older form factor.

00:34:10 ◼   ► And when you look at them side by side, even with the screen off, you can you can see Oh,

00:34:16 ◼   ► yeah, it's not you know that, you know, when they change the actual form factors for the

00:34:20 ◼   ► series for it, it definitely got sleeker and better looking just as a piece of jewelry

00:34:26 ◼   ► on your wrist.

00:34:28 ◼   ► Right and but the series three is still a nice product.

00:34:32 ◼   ► But the biggest problem with it is it sounds so old compared to the series six, right?

00:34:38 ◼   ► Three generations old, right?

00:34:40 ◼   ► Whereas they come out now with the SE and two years from now that we'll be talking about

00:34:47 ◼   ► the iPhone, the Apple Watch series eight, if they still have the I the series, the SE

00:34:54 ◼   ► in the lineup, and now it's only $179 or something two years from now.

00:34:59 ◼   ► It doesn't sound so old.

00:35:02 ◼   ► And that's so I think that's what it is.

00:35:03 ◼   ► I feel like the SE isn't really there so much for this year.

00:35:07 ◼   ► I know there's, you know, there may be they're selling a zillion of them because the other

00:35:10 ◼   ► angle is, okay, we say, and you know, it's the oldest sales tactic in the world or one

00:35:16 ◼   ► of them where you get people in the door with start the whole lineup starts at 199.

00:35:23 ◼   ► But then you get in and as soon as you you know, you talk to somebody and you're like,

00:35:27 ◼   ► well, for 80 bucks, this isn't that I really would like the SE.

00:35:31 ◼   ► So I'm not saying they're not going to sell it this year.

00:35:33 ◼   ► But I kind of feel like it's, it's there to be exactly what it is unchanged for at least

00:35:38 ◼   ► two or three years.

00:35:40 ◼   ► I think that that's a really smart take.

00:35:42 ◼   ► I think that that's probably right.

00:35:43 ◼   ► It's sort of like resetting the baseline expectation.

00:35:47 ◼   ► And it's going to be this weird overhang for this year because of the things that we just

00:35:51 ◼   ► talked about.

00:35:52 ◼   ► But going forward, it sort of makes sense strategy wise that also answers a question

00:35:56 ◼   ► which I had when it was unveiled, and I wasn't the only one but it almost felt like it would

00:36:01 ◼   ► have made more sense to call the SE the Apple Watch and then call the Series 6 the Apple

00:36:06 ◼   ► Watch Pro, you know, start sort of going down that path.

00:36:09 ◼   ► But if as you're suggesting that they're going to keep the SE sort of as as they do with

00:36:13 ◼   ► the iPhone that it's like a an update every two years, not every one year that makes a

00:36:18 ◼   ► lot more sense because then it would just be weird to only update the Apple Watch Pro

00:36:22 ◼   ► line and not the Apple Watch every year.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:26 ◼   ► And I think the reason they can't go pro with the watch for just the new one is then you

00:36:30 ◼   ► run into, we're right back to talking about the difference between the aluminum models

00:36:34 ◼   ► and the steel models.

00:36:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:36 ◼   ► And you know, at least with the phones, steel versus aluminum is the distinction or part

00:36:41 ◼   ► of the distinction between pro and not pro.

00:36:44 ◼   ► And yeah, it's a good point.

00:36:46 ◼   ► And I was there was actually one, you know, to bring it back to the blue aluminum model,

00:36:52 ◼   ► there was one hesitation, right?

00:36:53 ◼   ► Get it going down, downgrading as it were to aluminum because frankly, the last aluminum

00:36:58 ◼   ► one I had was I think two generations ago, and that's one where I had all sorts of problems

00:37:03 ◼   ► with it.

00:37:04 ◼   ► The screen kept popping out on its own.

00:37:05 ◼   ► And I had this whole thing back and forth with Apple about it because like, you know,

00:37:08 ◼   ► they suggested that I did something to it and I really didn't do anything to it.

00:37:11 ◼   ► The screen just popped out one day and eventually, you know, I got them to replace it after a

00:37:16 ◼   ► lot of back and forth.

00:37:18 ◼   ► But so I was hesitant to do it because obviously the screens are also better.

00:37:23 ◼   ► They're more, you know, they once called like ion X and the others, the crystal sapphire.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Is that right?

00:37:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:30 ◼   ► So the screens are better on the non aluminum ones as well.

00:37:33 ◼   ► And so I was hesitant to do it.

00:37:34 ◼   ► It seems like it's fine now, but that was another hesitation for sure about downgrading

00:37:40 ◼   ► quote unquote to aluminum.

00:37:41 ◼   ► So it is much lighter.

00:37:42 ◼   ► You can tell by picking them up how much lighter the aluminum is versus certainly the stainless

00:37:47 ◼   ► steel.

00:37:48 ◼   ► And the one I had for the five was the titanium, which is a little bit lighter than the stainless

00:37:51 ◼   ► steel.

00:37:53 ◼   ► Not surprising given the material.

00:37:57 ◼   ► But yeah, it's nice to have the sort of lightweight one.

00:38:00 ◼   ► And to go back to the, the Johnny Ive point about like, you know, I think they did a good

00:38:04 ◼   ► job that it does look pretty elegant.

00:38:08 ◼   ► Did it, will it, do they eventually go down the path of having like pink ones and like

00:38:12 ◼   ► really garish looking colors?

00:38:14 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:38:15 ◼   ► I mean, you could make an argument that there's a market for that, right.

00:38:18 ◼   ► With swatch and everything else that, you know, that has long done these sort of like

00:38:24 ◼   ► you know, just design forward bright colored looking pieces.

00:38:29 ◼   ► But that also is what you were talking about with, with Ive in particular.

00:38:33 ◼   ► He obviously set up the Apple watch and they, and they released it thinking it would be

00:38:36 ◼   ► a fashion device and instead it ended up being a fitness device.

00:38:39 ◼   ► And that was a fundamental mistake that they made in those early days.

00:38:43 ◼   ► And it's, I think it's an interesting question to know if it ever could potentially get back

00:38:47 ◼   ► to being a fashion device that's on par.

00:38:50 ◼   ► I think part of it is certainly a fashion device right now, but can it ever be on par

00:38:54 ◼   ► with the fitness stuff that they're doing and the health stuff that they're doing?

00:38:57 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:38:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:59 ◼   ► And so my take, I think, and I think if I had, and I would love to have him, Johnny,

00:39:03 ◼   ► if you're listening to the show, please.

00:39:06 ◼   ► Pick up the phone and come on down.

00:39:07 ◼   ► Give me a call.

00:39:08 ◼   ► I would love to talk to Johnny Ive again.

00:39:11 ◼   ► And I think he would vehemently disagree and in an honest way, and I think he would it

00:39:16 ◼   ► not, not disseminating, but I think he would disagree with what I'm about to say.

00:39:21 ◼   ► But I, I feel like they sort of penalized the aluminum models in the early years, fashion

00:39:30 ◼   ► wise, where the only colors were regular aluminum and dark gray aluminum.

00:39:37 ◼   ► And they don't look bad, you know, and they're clearly the best selling models because they're

00:39:41 ◼   ► lower priced and they have all the functionality.

00:39:44 ◼   ► And to be, you know, to be clear, all of the functionality has always been available in

00:39:48 ◼   ► those models.

00:39:49 ◼   ► It's just the aluminum versus steel and the ceramic finishes, you know, in some of the

00:39:55 ◼   ► years and now titanium in some of the addition models.

00:40:00 ◼   ► But the functionality is always the same.

00:40:02 ◼   ► The sensors are the same.

00:40:03 ◼   ► And even with the ion glass, ion X glass, whatever they call it, and the Sapphire, the

00:40:09 ◼   ► display itself is the same.

00:40:11 ◼   ► Like the OLED display has the same brightness.

00:40:14 ◼   ► It's just that the actual glass that you can tap your fingernail on is glass versus sapphire

00:40:20 ◼   ► and glass can be scratched like your phone can.

00:40:25 ◼   ► And the Sapphire is remarkably scratch proof.

00:40:30 ◼   ► But the thing about scratches too, and the whole real watch industry has moved to Sapphire.

00:40:36 ◼   ► I mean, it's really hard to find a watch for more than $500 that doesn't have a Sapphire

00:40:43 ◼   ► crystal.

00:40:45 ◼   ► And it's great.

00:40:46 ◼   ► And there's optic advantages to it.

00:40:48 ◼   ► And some watch brands make their Sapphire very, very flat, like a Rolex, a modern Rolex

00:40:54 ◼   ► is perfectly flat.

00:40:57 ◼   ► Because Rolex sort of doesn't like to show off stuff.

00:41:00 ◼   ► You know, like the back of a Rolex never shows the movement, which is what a lot of fancy

00:41:05 ◼   ► watches do now is they have actually and they use Sapphire for that too, which is funny,

00:41:10 ◼   ► because it's on your wrist when you're wearing it, like you're never going to scratch it,

00:41:16 ◼   ► but they still use Sapphire because you're spending, you know, I don't know, 10, 15,

00:41:20 ◼   ► $20,000, whatever it is, but they show off, they put a crystal on the back of the watch.

00:41:24 ◼   ► So you can see the internals and watch people really love that.

00:41:30 ◼   ► Rolex doesn't play that game, but other brands will use, you know, shape the Sapphire into

00:41:34 ◼   ► a bubble and it has these neat optical effects.

00:41:37 ◼   ► It looks very, very pretty.

00:41:38 ◼   ► It can.

00:41:40 ◼   ► And having it be scratch proof is always better than getting a scratch.

00:41:45 ◼   ► Nobody likes to get a scratch on anything they own.

00:41:47 ◼   ► I know that.

00:41:49 ◼   ► And I know, you know, that's just why people, you know, people are so opposed and adverse

00:41:54 ◼   ► to scratching that they'll buy their phone, put it in a case and never take it out of

00:41:59 ◼   ► the case, knowing that...

00:42:01 ◼   ► Or put those plastic shields over it.

00:42:03 ◼   ► Right.

00:42:04 ◼   ► Put the plastic shields over it.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And it's not because they can't afford to fix the screen.

00:42:09 ◼   ► It's just that they're so averse to the idea of needing to someday, but then therefore

00:42:14 ◼   ► they never actually use and appreciate the phone and it's unscratched to state without

00:42:20 ◼   ► all this protective gear.

00:42:22 ◼   ► But I'm not even saying they're making a mistake because I feel like they're so, you know,

00:42:27 ◼   ► they would be so heartbroken and upset by scratching or a minor crack on the screen

00:42:32 ◼   ► or something that they'd rather have it this way.

00:42:35 ◼   ► So the Sapphire is great for that regard.

00:42:38 ◼   ► But the truth is that the way you see scratches on a watch crystal is the best way to see

00:42:44 ◼   ► them is when you angle it towards a light source to get like a... what's that called?

00:42:50 ◼   ► Refraction?

00:42:51 ◼   ► You know, like you have to try to see the scratches.

00:42:55 ◼   ► Whereas when you're actually trying to read your watch, whether it's a digital Apple watch

00:42:58 ◼   ► with an OLED screen or a mechanical watch, the last thing you want to do is have like

00:43:04 ◼   ► a reflecting light source in it.

00:43:06 ◼   ► You turn your wrist in a way that you don't see the scratches.

00:43:09 ◼   ► You know, it's... and I've looked at my son's watch.

00:43:11 ◼   ► My son has a... I think we got him the Series 4 when the Series 4 came out.

00:43:15 ◼   ► So it's two years old.

00:43:16 ◼   ► So a 16-year-old, you know, it was not reckless.

00:43:20 ◼   ► He's very careful with this stuff.

00:43:21 ◼   ► But, you know, it's... when I look at his Apple watch, it is definitely scratched up.

00:43:26 ◼   ► The eye on glass definitely gets scratches.

00:43:28 ◼   ► But when you actually go to read it, you don't see any of the scratches.

00:43:33 ◼   ► It's not something that people should really be overly worried about in terms of, "Ooh,

00:43:37 ◼   ► should I... is the main reason you should upgrade and spend $300 more on a steel Apple

00:43:43 ◼   ► watch to get the sapphire?"

00:43:45 ◼   ► No.

00:43:46 ◼   ► Right, right, right.

00:43:47 ◼   ► But anyway, I just think that the blue and the red is a sign that Apple is trying their...

00:43:53 ◼   ► doing the best they can to make the aluminum models as cool and just beautiful objects

00:44:01 ◼   ► as they can in a way that I don't think they tried in the early years.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's right.

00:44:07 ◼   ► I think they did a good job with it.

00:44:09 ◼   ► And yeah, I mean, I would anticipate these things will sell like crazy as a result of

00:44:14 ◼   ► that.

00:44:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:44:16 ◼   ► And the blue in particular, it's just...

00:44:17 ◼   ► I can't wait to see it in person.

00:44:19 ◼   ► It's the first...

00:44:21 ◼   ► I would never think I'd want a blue watch, but I see the pictures of it and I'm like,

00:44:25 ◼   ► "Well, if I ever did want a blue watch, though, it would be this kind of blue."

00:44:30 ◼   ► One other thing about this, which you'll appreciate, because I know you wrote one of the pieces

00:44:36 ◼   ► about the whole trying on the loop thing.

00:44:39 ◼   ► Oh, God.

00:44:40 ◼   ► Yours is actually useful because you did the lining up of the holes with what the size

00:44:46 ◼   ► should be, which I found immensely useful in trying to think about which size they should

00:44:50 ◼   ► get because...

00:44:52 ◼   ► So obviously, Apple made a mistake in not allowing people to return them when...

00:44:59 ◼   ► Without returning the whole watch.

00:45:01 ◼   ► Right, without returning the whole watch when they probably weren't going to pick the right

00:45:04 ◼   ► size.

00:45:05 ◼   ► And to the point where I actually did go to an Apple store this week, I actually went

00:45:09 ◼   ► to go just to take back...

00:45:11 ◼   ► I was driving around anyway, and so I put my life in my own hands to go into a store,

00:45:17 ◼   ► and I wanted to return the previous model.

00:45:23 ◼   ► And so I could do that in the store, and so I just ran in there to go do it.

00:45:26 ◼   ► But while I was in there, I decided, "Well, since I'm here, I'm going to try on one of

00:45:29 ◼   ► the loops," because I didn't get the loop for the very reasons that we're talking about.

00:45:33 ◼   ► I was terrified that I just would pick the wrong size, even with their printout and everything.

00:45:39 ◼   ► And it turns out...

00:45:40 ◼   ► So I went to the Apple store, and I used their...

00:45:42 ◼   ► In the Apple store, they have this more professional version of the printout thing, including you

00:45:51 ◼   ► unwrap it yourself, and it's nicely made, as you might expect.

00:45:56 ◼   ► But when I tried to use it to see what size I would be, and then went to go try on the

00:46:01 ◼   ► size that they suggested, it was wrong!

00:46:03 ◼   ► I swear, it was wrong!

00:46:05 ◼   ► It said that I should be an 8, and I should be a 7 when I actually tried on the thing.

00:46:10 ◼   ► The 8 was too loose, and I care about that because with the blood oxygen monitor, it

00:46:17 ◼   ► has to be tight.

00:46:18 ◼   ► It doesn't work.

00:46:19 ◼   ► It's always complaining that it's too loose.

00:46:21 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:46:22 ◼   ► And so, obviously, Apple wrote out this feature with the loop, and these things together in

00:46:31 ◼   ► parallel need to work in perfection in order for that feature to work.

00:46:35 ◼   ► But I swear, the in-house tool that they use gives you the wrong size.

00:46:41 ◼   ► I still remember...

00:46:43 ◼   ► And I've got a teenager, so I'm going through it.

00:46:47 ◼   ► I remember, as a kid and now as a parent, what growth spurts are like and how annoying

00:46:54 ◼   ► it is to not know what shoe size you take.

00:46:58 ◼   ► And I know what it's like to have shoes that are too tight.

00:47:02 ◼   ► It's miserable, right?

00:47:04 ◼   ► And I also know what it's like to have the attention span and have zero interest in shoe

00:47:10 ◼   ► shopping, right?

00:47:14 ◼   ► But if you ever actually look at the thing they have at a shoe store, the thing you put

00:47:21 ◼   ► your foot on, the little scale or ruler, whatever you want to call it, the difference between

00:47:26 ◼   ► shoe sizes between a 10 and an 11, it's really small.

00:47:31 ◼   ► And most people shop by half sizes, which are really, really small.

00:47:35 ◼   ► But you know, I've had shoes, I've bought new pairs of shoes and had them like, I feel

00:47:40 ◼   ► like this is a half size, too big or small, and it makes you miserable.

00:47:45 ◼   ► The loop bands are exactly like that.

00:47:47 ◼   ► You can measure it.

00:47:48 ◼   ► And again, if you've ever been to the shoe store and you put your foot on the thing and

00:47:53 ◼   ► the guy says, "You are an 11," and then you try on the 11, you're like, "Feels tight."

00:47:59 ◼   ► And then the salesperson will be like, "You know what?

00:48:01 ◼   ► You're right.

00:48:02 ◼   ► That does feel tight.

00:48:03 ◼   ► Here, let me go get an 11 and a half."

00:48:05 ◼   ► And you're like, "Yeah, that's much better."

00:48:07 ◼   ► And it's exactly like that with the loop bands.

00:48:10 ◼   ► I feel like you can measure it as perfectly as you can with the tool.

00:48:14 ◼   ► Do it exactly the right way, and you still might not get the right size.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Because the difference between a 7 and a 6 or a 7 and an 8, it's like 5 millimeters.

00:48:25 ◼   ► It's really small.

00:48:26 ◼   ► I'm surprised at Apple.

00:48:30 ◼   ► Obviously it's a good-looking product, both the loop and the braided loop.

00:48:33 ◼   ► They look great.

00:48:34 ◼   ► It's nice to have this one seamless loop, continuous loop.

00:48:38 ◼   ► But it seems like such a headache from a SKU perspective and everything, right?

00:48:42 ◼   ► And obviously that's proven to be the case in these early days.

00:48:45 ◼   ► But even still, going in and having to have all these people try on multiple different

00:48:49 ◼   ► versions of it, I'm surprised.

00:48:54 ◼   ► I obsess over the things like this.

00:48:56 ◼   ► This is why I've spent more pixels on Daring Fireball writing about the loop size, because

00:49:00 ◼   ► I just find it so fascinating because it's so minor but yet still so interesting.

00:49:08 ◼   ► I've heard about the tool they have at the stores.

00:49:10 ◼   ► I keep meaning to go because I want to get one.

00:49:12 ◼   ► A couple people who work at the stores have said, "You should come in and just get one

00:49:15 ◼   ► of these things because they're kind of cool."

00:49:19 ◼   ► But I would love to… the fly-on-the-wall conversations at Apple, some of the ones I'm

00:49:25 ◼   ► most interested in are the ones everybody's interested in.

00:49:28 ◼   ► I would love to be a fly on the wall for the annual "Let's negotiate how much Google

00:49:36 ◼   ► pays for default search placement in Safari."

00:49:39 ◼   ► Everybody knows that must be really fascinating because it's tens of billions of dollars.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I would love to have been in the meeting where the Apple Watch band design team pitches Jeff

00:49:53 ◼   ► Williams and/or Tim Cook on, "We would like to sell these stretchy bands."

00:49:59 ◼   ► And…

00:50:00 ◼   ► We're going to have eight or nine different sizes of them.

00:50:05 ◼   ► For both widths, so it's 12 total.

00:50:08 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:10 ◼   ► And if they don't fit right, you're really not going to be happy.

00:50:15 ◼   ► And as you've noted in the past, they have one of the most elegant solutions for this

00:50:24 ◼   ► with the current, the non-loop model of the sport band that just tucks under.

00:50:30 ◼   ► It's such a great solution and it remains obviously in the lineup.

00:50:36 ◼   ► They're calling out that we think we can do this better and then this is what we get.

00:50:41 ◼   ► I can see why the designers wanted to do it because it is clever and when it fits perfectly,

00:50:46 ◼   ► it does feel incredibly elegant.

00:50:49 ◼   ► It just feels amazing.

00:50:50 ◼   ► It's just a rubber watch band.

00:50:52 ◼   ► And again, that sort of thing is often very popular in the real watch world too.

00:51:00 ◼   ► Like these NATO straps, these nylon bands that are sort of from the military world are

00:51:08 ◼   ► super popular and with certain sport watches, people will wear them with like $30,000 vintage

00:51:14 ◼   ► Rolexes.

00:51:16 ◼   ► Sometimes you have to.

00:51:17 ◼   ► There's military versions of the Rolex where the spring bars…

00:51:21 ◼   ► You know what a spring bar is, right?

00:51:23 ◼   ► Everybody knows that's the thing in the watch that you have to push in and out to

00:51:26 ◼   ► change the band.

00:51:27 ◼   ► On certain older military Rolexes, those spring bars aren't springy at all.

00:51:32 ◼   ► They're welded in place for the military purpose of, "Well, we want this to be something

00:51:38 ◼   ► that can't possibly come out because these watches were made to…"

00:51:41 ◼   ► I mean, it sounds ridiculous that like in the '60s, the British military was buying

00:51:46 ◼   ► Rolexes for the troops, but Rolexes only cost like $200 then.

00:51:51 ◼   ► In terms of like how to make a fortune as a time traveler, going back in time and buying

00:51:55 ◼   ► a bunch of Rolexes in 1968 and burying them somewhere safe and then coming back to the

00:52:00 ◼   ► present is probably better than buying stock in Berkshire Hathaway.

00:52:08 ◼   ► But those spring bars are welded in place, so you can't take them out to swap bands.

00:52:13 ◼   ► So you need one of these…

00:52:16 ◼   ► They're meant to be used with the NATO bands that thread through the slots that are there

00:52:20 ◼   ► with the spring bar.

00:52:24 ◼   ► There are people in the watch world who love super simple bands, but these are amazing.

00:52:28 ◼   ► They're so elegant, but I just would love to have been there.

00:52:31 ◼   ► I could see why the designers wanted them, but to pitch it on what's considered an

00:52:36 ◼   ► operations-first company?

00:52:41 ◼   ► You want how many SKUs?

00:52:43 ◼   ► We can fit all of the SKUs on the table for all Apple products unless we include the Apple

00:52:48 ◼   ► Watch loops, then we cannot.

00:52:50 ◼   ► In which case, we need a warehouse.

00:52:52 ◼   ► Right.

00:52:53 ◼   ► I love it.

00:52:56 ◼   ► Let me take a break here and thank our next sponsor.

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00:54:29 ◼   ► One last thing before we get to news.

00:54:31 ◼   ► You had a great piece.

00:54:32 ◼   ► I've been meaning to write about this.

00:54:34 ◼   ► iOS 14 clips, app clips.

00:54:37 ◼   ► Yeah, app clips, right.

00:54:38 ◼   ► And there's this game that has an app clip.

00:54:42 ◼   ► And I saw this.

00:54:43 ◼   ► I still haven't linked to it from Daring Fireball, but I was like, this is amazing.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Why wasn't this the demo at WWDC?

00:54:50 ◼   ► I totally agree.

00:54:51 ◼   ► It's called Phoenix 2.

00:54:53 ◼   ► And I think it came on my radar.

00:54:55 ◼   ► I think MacRumors linked to it first, maybe Touch Arcade, one of their affiliates.

00:55:02 ◼   ► And so, yeah, so when they did the demo of app clips, they basically highlighted how

00:55:07 ◼   ► good it would be for things like walking into a neighborhood restaurant where you don't

00:55:11 ◼   ► have the app necessarily, but they have an app, but you don't necessarily want to download

00:55:15 ◼   ► the entire app to use, to have to use in the restaurant.

00:55:18 ◼   ► And it seems like that's a great use case.

00:55:19 ◼   ► It's obvious, makes all sense in the world.

00:55:22 ◼   ► I feel like they totally underplayed something like this.

00:55:25 ◼   ► So basically there's this game, Phoenix 2.

00:55:28 ◼   ► It is a sort of space shooter game.

00:55:32 ◼   ► And you can go on your iPhone to the site that they have for just the website, and it

00:55:40 ◼   ► will pop up a little thing at the top.

00:55:43 ◼   ► And it's just, you click it and it says play, and then you click on that, and then it pops

00:55:48 ◼   ► up on an iOS device, it pops up an overlay that's sort of like, you know, it's what the

00:55:55 ◼   ► app clip one looks like.

00:55:56 ◼   ► It's basically from the bottom and it shows like a little bit about the game.

00:56:01 ◼   ► And then you click play again, and then you wait about 10 to 15 seconds in the few times

00:56:06 ◼   ► that I've done it, and then you're in the app playing.

00:56:10 ◼   ► Because it's basically not downloading the entire game.

00:56:13 ◼   ► It's downloading, I think the first level of it.

00:56:16 ◼   ► And it downloads it as a, it is like an app from what I can tell, but it's not the full

00:56:20 ◼   ► app, right?

00:56:21 ◼   ► And they do it, you know, in a clever way where it has like this like a scissor cut,

00:56:26 ◼   ► you know, outline around it.

00:56:27 ◼   ► So you know that it's like not the full app.

00:56:30 ◼   ► But it's amazing how seamless it is.

00:56:32 ◼   ► And the app runs just like a regular native app.

00:56:34 ◼   ► I mean, presumably, again, it is all native code.

00:56:37 ◼   ► And it's just like the first level of it.

00:56:38 ◼   ► I was just blown away by how seamless it is.

00:56:40 ◼   ► And you know, when I wrote about this, and others have, you know, linked to it and the

00:56:44 ◼   ► touch arcade stuff, it's like everyone seems to have the same reaction, which is like,

00:56:47 ◼   ► wow, this is this is absolutely the way that you should do game demos.

00:56:51 ◼   ► And how is everyone not using this?

00:56:52 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's sort of, you know, and it would even work.

00:56:56 ◼   ► I don't I'm not even sure what Phoenix two is doing as their sales model.

00:57:00 ◼   ► But you know, in terms of that whole try before you buy, do you need an in app purchase?

00:57:05 ◼   ► Or do you want to just sell it for three bucks, and you have to pay the three bucks before

00:57:09 ◼   ► you play the app clip idea gets around that, where yeah, clip is free.

00:57:14 ◼   ► It's a quicker download, because you only have to put the first level in.

00:57:18 ◼   ► And then you could make the app three bucks, five bucks, whatever the app, I think that's

00:57:24 ◼   ► actually what they're doing to I'm not 100% I did play to the end of the demo.

00:57:29 ◼   ► And then when you get to the end, it just has a screen that shows like, you know, I

00:57:32 ◼   ► think it says like, yeah, 299.

00:57:34 ◼   ► So then download the entire thing, it's possible, it's free.

00:57:36 ◼   ► And then, you know, they just are going to do, you know, monetize via in app, but I think

00:57:41 ◼   ► that it is paid, and then you you just get to it.

00:57:44 ◼   ► So it's exactly what you're saying.

00:57:45 ◼   ► It is like, I mean, I don't know why, again, everyone is doing this.

00:57:49 ◼   ► And I actually talked to the developers of the game about it a little bit.

00:57:55 ◼   ► And, you know, they, they obviously say that it's, it's maybe not as easy as it as it makes

00:57:59 ◼   ► it seem like just when you're playing it, and I'm sure that's true.

00:58:03 ◼   ► But I'm surprised that Apple just hasn't sort of pushed forward this notion, maybe they're

00:58:07 ◼   ► holding it back till, you know, they feel like app clips have been out in the wild for

00:58:10 ◼   ► a little bit and to test it out a little bit more, but I have to believe that this is sort

00:58:14 ◼   ► of the future of demos.

00:58:17 ◼   ► And yeah, free trials.

00:58:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:19 ◼   ► And it was the first app clip, I was really excited to try because I'm not really going

00:58:24 ◼   ► to restaurants.

00:58:25 ◼   ► I haven't parked my car anywhere except at my house in seven months.

00:58:29 ◼   ► Well, you know, other than occasional errands, you know, I haven't used a parking garage.

00:58:36 ◼   ► And all of a sudden here, well, I would like to try this game.

00:58:39 ◼   ► It's like a Galaga sort of 1942.

00:58:42 ◼   ► 1942 was huge when I was in high school.

00:58:46 ◼   ► Just sort of a ship that goes up the screen and shoots everything it sees.

00:58:52 ◼   ► You know, it's not really my type of game for the iPhone, but I enjoyed playing.

00:58:55 ◼   ► I enjoyed the heck out of playing the demo.

00:58:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm the exact same.

00:59:00 ◼   ► The thing I ran into then after this was that because it was my first excuse to use an app

00:59:05 ◼   ► clip, I suddenly realized, well, wait, how do you get rid of an app clip?

00:59:09 ◼   ► What if I'm like done?

00:59:11 ◼   ► And I honestly feel like because we didn't get to try third party app clips over the

00:59:18 ◼   ► summer, or at least I didn't, you know, because they're not in the app store, you'd have to

00:59:21 ◼   ► be like on a test flight or something.

00:59:25 ◼   ► It's very strange the way it interacts.

00:59:28 ◼   ► The clips interact with the new app library concept.

00:59:32 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:59:33 ◼   ► So like, because they go into recently downloaded, yeah, recently, whatever, recent apps, and

00:59:41 ◼   ► you can't delete it, though.

00:59:43 ◼   ► I noticed that too.

00:59:45 ◼   ► It seems like they're taking the mentality exactly like that you shouldn't be manually

00:59:49 ◼   ► quitting apps, right?

00:59:50 ◼   ► Like they view it that let the system take care of that, don't worry about it.

00:59:54 ◼   ► So it basically goes away after an upset period of time, which is not clear.

00:59:59 ◼   ► But I'm with you.

01:00:00 ◼   ► I tried to do that and you can't do anything with it.

01:00:02 ◼   ► I don't even think you can drag the app clip onto your screen if I'm right.

01:00:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't think so either.

01:00:07 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like it has to stay in the library and only be launched like from the library

01:00:14 ◼   ► or from the series.

01:00:16 ◼   ► Recently used app.

01:00:17 ◼   ► The search at the top.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Yeah, spotlight search, whatever they call it.

01:00:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:22 ◼   ► Well, and then it turns out you can delete it in settings.

01:00:25 ◼   ► There's like somewhere to go.

01:00:26 ◼   ► I know, actually, I was about to tell you how to go but the phone in my pocket right

01:00:30 ◼   ► now is still running iOS 13.

01:00:32 ◼   ► So I can't, but you go into settings, something and then you like or just at the bottom of

01:00:39 ◼   ► settings, you know how like, all of your apps are listed in settings at the bottom.

01:00:43 ◼   ► If you just scroll through the main, if you go all the way to the bottom, there's a listing

01:00:46 ◼   ► of clips and then you can go into the clip there and there's a button that says delete

01:00:51 ◼   ► this clip and you can delete an app clip, but you have to go into settings to do it.

01:00:57 ◼   ► But regular apps, you can only delete from the home screen.

01:01:00 ◼   ► So it's this weird thing where I've always wanted to, I've always wished that there was

01:01:04 ◼   ► a way to just give me an alphabetical list of all my apps because I would just like to,

01:01:09 ◼   ► I'm in the mood to clean up, right?

01:01:11 ◼   ► Like I'm in a tidying up mode.

01:01:13 ◼   ► I would like to just see an alphabetical list of all my apps and just go swipe, swipe, swipe,

01:01:17 ◼   ► never use it.

01:01:19 ◼   ► That Caviar that was acquired by DoorDash, don't need it.

01:01:23 ◼   ► Delete it, delete it.

01:01:24 ◼   ► And you can't, you always have to go on the home screen and go into jiggle mode and it's

01:01:28 ◼   ► like one at a time, hit the little X and then confirm it and it takes time.

01:01:34 ◼   ► And clips are the opposite where you can't just delete the app icon, you have to go into

01:01:38 ◼   ► settings.

01:01:39 ◼   ► It's a very strange, interesting.

01:01:40 ◼   ► Yeah, I have to, I need to complain about it and see if.

01:01:44 ◼   ► And even now, so what you're sort of asking for app library, when you click on the app

01:01:49 ◼   ► library search thing, it does list them alphabetically, which is weird too, because it obviously like

01:01:54 ◼   ► it gives prominence to anything that's named within a, but you can't do anything beyond

01:01:59 ◼   ► launch them there.

01:02:00 ◼   ► You can't delete them or anything.

01:02:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:02:03 ◼   ► Let's talk about TV shows.

01:02:06 ◼   ► Is Apple TV plus the new HBO?

01:02:09 ◼   ► That's your proposed section.

01:02:10 ◼   ► That's my prompt for you.

01:02:13 ◼   ► So obviously this is not a new thought, but I do think that it's coming more into focus

01:02:18 ◼   ► in particular with a few things that are happening right now.

01:02:20 ◼   ► So first and foremost, I think you've seen online, I believe you've watched it as well.

01:02:27 ◼   ► I have everyone's talking about Ted Lasso.

01:02:29 ◼   ► I love Ted Lasso.

01:02:31 ◼   ► It's a great show and it's a great show because, partially because I think people thought it

01:02:35 ◼   ► wouldn't be a great show because it's, the premise of it is ridiculous.

01:02:38 ◼   ► It's based on a commercial that ran, right?

01:02:41 ◼   ► Like the idea that an American football coach can go and take over an English soccer club,

01:02:47 ◼   ► an English football club.

01:02:49 ◼   ► And it seems like, yeah, it's a cute ad.

01:02:52 ◼   ► It's a cute gimmick for an idea.

01:02:55 ◼   ► Maybe it's even a cutesy Adam Sandler 90 minute movie, but can it be like a TV show, like

01:03:00 ◼   ► a full season?

01:03:01 ◼   ► And it turns out not only can it, it's definitely the best show that's been on Apple TV plus

01:03:07 ◼   ► so far.

01:03:08 ◼   ► And I find it incredible, the response to it just online.

01:03:13 ◼   ► You won't find a person who doesn't seem to love that show.

01:03:16 ◼   ► And obviously part of it is the world in which we live.

01:03:18 ◼   ► And this is like such a refreshing break from both high drama.

01:03:24 ◼   ► A lot of the best shows on TV right now are all like hour long, very serious, very well

01:03:29 ◼   ► done dramas and are violent and are something else that just reminds you of the crazy world

01:03:35 ◼   ► in which we live.

01:03:36 ◼   ► And this is just so refreshing.

01:03:37 ◼   ► It's a half an hour.

01:03:39 ◼   ► It's funny, it's cute, it's heartfelt.

01:03:42 ◼   ► And I have to believe, obviously, that's why it's resonating with people so much.

01:03:45 ◼   ► But it's also just really well done.

01:03:47 ◼   ► It's really well done.

01:03:48 ◼   ► Moltz and I talked about it a couple episodes ago when it was earlier in the run.

01:03:53 ◼   ► And I feel this feels like something I would have been late to and somehow I got early

01:03:57 ◼   ► on and it was something about like, it was almost because I wanted it to be a different

01:04:02 ◼   ► show.

01:04:03 ◼   ► I was like in the mood for a stupid dumb guy comedy.

01:04:08 ◼   ► And I thought, you know, and I was familiar with the, and that's sort of how the commercials

01:04:14 ◼   ► were years ago when the Ted Lasso character was created.

01:04:17 ◼   ► It was played as the silly gag that it is.

01:04:22 ◼   ► You know, something like a 30 Rock absurd joke, joke, joke type thing.

01:04:28 ◼   ► And I was a big fan of 30 Rock.

01:04:29 ◼   ► I love that show.

01:04:31 ◼   ► And hopefully, and I thought, you know, it's funny, I didn't think of Adam Sandler, but

01:04:35 ◼   ► that would have been, and again, I'm not an Adam Sandler hater.

01:04:39 ◼   ► And you know, I can get into a dumb Adam Sandler movie if it's, you know, if it's one of the

01:04:43 ◼   ► better ones.

01:04:47 ◼   ► But that was sort of what I was hoping it wasn't, you know, because I was like, how

01:04:50 ◼   ► are you going to, because again, yeah, like you said, you could do 90 minutes of that,

01:04:54 ◼   ► fish out of water, but then how do you do 10 weeks of it?

01:04:57 ◼   ► Full season.

01:04:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:59 ◼   ► And it's not it at all.

01:05:01 ◼   ► And it's just a really amazing show.

01:05:04 ◼   ► I'm telling you, anybody out there, I know you've heard me talk about it on the show.

01:05:08 ◼   ► I'm telling you, I don't know anybody who doesn't like it.

01:05:11 ◼   ► And it's just, it's uncanny how many people of different tastes and whose tastes and shows

01:05:16 ◼   ► is different and it closest I can come.

01:05:20 ◼   ► And again, it's not like Cheers, but it's like in the way that everybody liked Cheers,

01:05:25 ◼   ► you know?

01:05:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I can see that analogy.

01:05:28 ◼   ► It reminds me, it's not like this either, but because the plot, the high level plot

01:05:33 ◼   ► is similar to Major League.

01:05:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:35 ◼   ► I know it well because I grew up in Cleveland and it's about the Indians, but you know,

01:05:38 ◼   ► it's like an owner, you know, in both cases, a female spouse of a former owner is taking

01:05:47 ◼   ► over a team to basically try to run it into the ground to be able to sell it or to move

01:05:51 ◼   ► it elsewhere.

01:05:52 ◼   ► And so that's like the high level premise of both.

01:05:54 ◼   ► And so that ends up being like, you know, the kickoff point and Ted Lasso is definitely

01:05:59 ◼   ► more, again, heartfelt than Major League is, but Major League is also a great movie for

01:06:05 ◼   ► some of the same reasons, right?

01:06:07 ◼   ► And I think you're right that the Cheers, like the camaraderie aspect of it, again,

01:06:11 ◼   ► going back to what we were talking about earlier, I also just think it's the perfect place,

01:06:16 ◼   ► the perfect time for this type of thing, right?

01:06:19 ◼   ► And so they just nailed it in that regard.

01:06:22 ◼   ► And I think that that speaks to, you know, what my setup for the question about is Apple

01:06:28 ◼   ► TV Plus, the new HBO.

01:06:29 ◼   ► I don't know if this is necessarily a show you would have seen on HBO, though I don't

01:06:33 ◼   ► think it's totally different either, right?

01:06:35 ◼   ► Like HBO has long had the sort of 30 minute more fun style shows.

01:06:41 ◼   ► I don't even know if 30 minutes, maybe what it, because there's no commercial thing.

01:06:43 ◼   ► What about Curb Your Enthusiasm?

01:06:44 ◼   ► Curb Your Enthusiasm is a good example.

01:06:48 ◼   ► Entourage back in the day.

01:06:50 ◼   ► The Ballers show.

01:06:51 ◼   ► I don't know how long that actually is, but all of those things are sort of in a vein

01:06:55 ◼   ► that you could sort of feel like is of that.

01:06:58 ◼   ► But that mixed with sort of the morning show, which I don't know your view on, but I went

01:07:05 ◼   ► into that as the first Marquee show and I was super skeptical at first, certainly for

01:07:09 ◼   ► the first few episodes.

01:07:10 ◼   ► It sort of felt a little bit too much like an Apple commercial, like they were going

01:07:14 ◼   ► out of their way to use iPhones as the alarm clock and things like that.

01:07:17 ◼   ► But then by the end of the run of the first season, I thought it was actually really good

01:07:21 ◼   ► and I was surprised by how good it got.

01:07:24 ◼   ► And then we just actually last night started watching another one, I don't know if you've

01:07:28 ◼   ► seen it yet, it's called Tehran.

01:07:29 ◼   ► I have not started that one yet.

01:07:31 ◼   ► It's good, it's really good.

01:07:32 ◼   ► It's sort of like a Bourne Identity type show that's talked about, that has a lot of nuance,

01:07:40 ◼   ► it seems like at least in these first few episodes about the Israeli-Iranian situation,

01:07:44 ◼   ► conflict and the suicides there.

01:07:47 ◼   ► It's really well done.

01:07:49 ◼   ► And so all of these are leading me to wonder, I know that this is sort of the premise that

01:07:54 ◼   ► maybe Apple kicked off with, that they could create these very high value, high production

01:08:00 ◼   ► value shows in the vein of HBO back in the day.

01:08:04 ◼   ► And meanwhile, it feels like HBO has totally ceded that ground, partially, obviously because

01:08:09 ◼   ► of what AT&T, their parent company, has asked them to do.

01:08:13 ◼   ► And when they came in and sort of said, "We need to scale this in order to compete with

01:08:18 ◼   ► Netflix," they've ceded, I think, what has been the historical stronghold of HBO.

01:08:25 ◼   ► And I think Apple can now fill that slot, oddly, with Apple TV Plus.

01:08:29 ◼   ► And we were all skeptical that, "Can Apple actually do content?"

01:08:32 ◼   ► And I think they're proving to do a good job, which is surprising to me.

01:08:35 ◼   ► It's an interesting notion.

01:08:37 ◼   ► The other show that I really liked, our whole family did, and it's getting, it's rarer

01:08:43 ◼   ► these days with a 16-year-old to find a show that all three of us like.

01:08:46 ◼   ► But the other one that we really liked was Servant, which is M. Night Shyamalan's.

01:08:50 ◼   ► Ah, yeah, I never watched that.

01:08:52 ◼   ► That was good?

01:08:53 ◼   ► It is.

01:08:54 ◼   ► It's creepy.

01:08:56 ◼   ► Again, I think because it's so creepy, it's not for everyone.

01:09:02 ◼   ► You've got to be into a sort of horror mindset.

01:09:07 ◼   ► It happens to shoot not just in Philadelphia, but in our neighborhood, which is—

01:09:12 ◼   ► All right, because he's a big Philadelphia guy, right?

01:09:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:15 ◼   ► With all the movies that are there.

01:09:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:17 ◼   ► It's really, really close to where we live, where they shoot a lot of the exteriors, such

01:09:22 ◼   ► that we're in the neighborhood where we get the protest posters from people who are

01:09:30 ◼   ► like—

01:09:31 ◼   ► Yeah, the door, right.

01:09:32 ◼   ► And again, it's because it's a nice neighborhood.

01:09:33 ◼   ► It's people who are upset about parking.

01:09:35 ◼   ► And it's like, "Oh, my God.

01:09:36 ◼   ► Just shut up.

01:09:38 ◼   ► There's a cool TV show shooting in the neighborhood.

01:09:41 ◼   ► Park your car somewhere else."

01:09:43 ◼   ► But we liked it, and it's well done.

01:09:45 ◼   ► I don't think it has the universal appeal of Ted Lasso, but it is good.

01:09:49 ◼   ► It's a good show.

01:09:53 ◼   ► I see it, and I feel like the similarity here is—and I think Apple is going for this,

01:10:01 ◼   ► which is we'll go for quality over quantity, right?

01:10:07 ◼   ► Because Netflix owns quantity, and you're never going to out Netflix.

01:10:11 ◼   ► You're never going to compete with that.

01:10:13 ◼   ► Right.

01:10:14 ◼   ► You're already there.

01:10:16 ◼   ► What else?

01:10:17 ◼   ► How could you out-compete Netflix?

01:10:20 ◼   ► That's right.

01:10:21 ◼   ► AT&T is trying to get HBO to do that with HBO Max, but the reality is that they just,

01:10:28 ◼   ► as a public company, they have a different business model than what Netflix has come

01:10:32 ◼   ► up with, and the flywheel's already going.

01:10:36 ◼   ► And you're not going to be able to out to just dump money.

01:10:39 ◼   ► Even Apple, which has obviously more money than anyone to be able to spend on that, they

01:10:42 ◼   ► don't have the right business model to be able to do that type of thing.

01:10:46 ◼   ► And so they do seemingly have the right model, though, to recreate an HBO.

01:10:51 ◼   ► And with HBO, again, I view it as seeding the ground, like when you think about HBO.

01:10:56 ◼   ► So obviously I still have it.

01:10:57 ◼   ► I have HBO Max now, and there are still good shows on it.

01:11:03 ◼   ► So Succession is one of them, for sure.

01:11:05 ◼   ► Just won a bunch of Emmys, and rightfully so, I think.

01:11:08 ◼   ► But I think a lot of the shows, and from what I've heard through the grapevine, is that

01:11:13 ◼   ► a lot of the stuff that's still great on there was from the last regime.

01:11:16 ◼   ► It was already greenlit, it's already in production.

01:11:18 ◼   ► I think maybe Watchmen was maybe the last one that's the single-season run, and once

01:11:25 ◼   ► that's over now we're getting into these newer shows, which are just not resonating as well.

01:11:29 ◼   ► I haven't watched the Lovecraft one.

01:11:32 ◼   ► No, we haven't either.

01:11:34 ◼   ► So I think that that's pretty well received, but it's not getting the type of zeitgeist

01:11:38 ◼   ► stuff that some of the other HBO shows have gotten in the past, and maybe it'll get there.

01:11:43 ◼   ► But some of the other ones, there's like a Jude Law one that doesn't seem to be going

01:11:47 ◼   ► much of anywhere.

01:11:48 ◼   ► The Pope show, or whatever?

01:11:49 ◼   ► There was the Pope one, I think there's another one, though, now.

01:11:53 ◼   ► And from what I've heard, again, that there would be an overhang of time where there were

01:11:57 ◼   ► these shows that were greenlit by the old regime that were in production, and/or old

01:12:01 ◼   ► shows that are going into new seasons like Succession, which will continue for a few

01:12:05 ◼   ► years, but then we're going to hit this wall and there's just not going to be—it's TBD,

01:12:11 ◼   ► how well they'll do going forward at that point.

01:12:14 ◼   ► And HBO's answer to that is to just pump out more and more type of content and try

01:12:19 ◼   ► to get to the Netflix, maybe not fully Netflix scale because they won't be able to, but

01:12:23 ◼   ► still get closer to that.

01:12:26 ◼   ► And I'm pretty skeptical of that.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I do like—I was super skeptical once the AT&T crew came in and basically ran Richard

01:12:36 ◼   ► Plepler, who was running HBO for years and years, they ran him out, obviously.

01:12:39 ◼   ► And there was that famous town hall meeting with John Stanky, who's now in charge of

01:12:45 ◼   ► all of AT&T at the time, I think he was just in charge of WarnerMedia, and now he's in

01:12:49 ◼   ► charge of the whole thing.

01:12:50 ◼   ► And there was this weird town hall that they did with the HBO folks, and it was clear at

01:12:54 ◼   ► that point that things were not setting up well.

01:12:57 ◼   ► And that played out over the next six, 12 months.

01:13:00 ◼   ► And now we're at this point where they brought in new people, including Jason Kyler, who

01:13:07 ◼   ► I think is really well regarded.

01:13:09 ◼   ► I don't know him personally, but I do think what he did at Hulu definitely seems like

01:13:14 ◼   ► it was ahead of its time, and he's really highly regarded.

01:13:18 ◼   ► So there's a chance that they can do something interesting here, but it's not going to

01:13:21 ◼   ► be what HBO was, regardless.

01:13:24 ◼   ► And again, I think Apple can step in and fill that void.

01:13:28 ◼   ► It's sort of like you have to accept that some good ideas have a maximum scale of how

01:13:41 ◼   ► much money it's going to make, how pervasive it's going to be.

01:13:45 ◼   ► And I feel like in the cable TV era, HBO was about as successful as it could have been.

01:13:53 ◼   ► It's hard to imagine a scenario where the premise of, okay, you pay 30, 40, 50 bucks

01:13:59 ◼   ► a month for cable TV.

01:14:01 ◼   ► And I'm talking about when HBO came up, because I realize people pay a lot more than

01:14:05 ◼   ► that for cable TV now.

01:14:07 ◼   ► But the idea was, when I was a kid, that it was like, okay, you pay 30 bucks a month for

01:14:12 ◼   ► cable TV, and you get all these channels and these cable channels.

01:14:17 ◼   ► It was such a distinction, like ESPN was so clearly not one of the networks.

01:14:23 ◼   ► It was like, it's nothing but sports all day.

01:14:29 ◼   ► And Turner Classic Movies, what a strange channel compared to network TV.

01:14:36 ◼   ► It's nothing but old movies.

01:14:38 ◼   ► But if you like old movies, then they're good, and then you watch it, and there's

01:14:42 ◼   ► commercials.

01:14:43 ◼   ► And then here was this thing that was different, and it was, here's what we've got.

01:14:46 ◼   ► We've got new movies, like really recent, like ones that you remember being in the theater,

01:14:51 ◼   ► because they were in the theater like a year and a half ago.

01:14:54 ◼   ► And we're going to show them with no commercials.

01:14:57 ◼   ► And that sounded, when I was a kid, it just seemed crazy to me, this idea that they're,

01:15:02 ◼   ► what do you mean?

01:15:03 ◼   ► They're new movies with no commercials.

01:15:06 ◼   ► Neither of those things were possible on the regular TV.

01:15:12 ◼   ► But you got to pay like 10 bucks a month.

01:15:14 ◼   ► And if you can watch, get 10 bucks of family enjoyment per month watching this stuff, these

01:15:23 ◼   ► movies, which it's the whole movie, that's the name, Home Box Office.

01:15:27 ◼   ► It was all movies.

01:15:28 ◼   ► And then they started making shows.

01:15:31 ◼   ► It was really easy to say, this is easily worth 10 or 15 bucks for us, The Sopranos,

01:15:37 ◼   ► and Six Feet Under, and so many great shows.

01:15:41 ◼   ► The Wire, it's the one that so many people think might be the best show ever made.

01:15:46 ◼   ► That and The Sopranos, a lot of the arguments over what's the best show ever are all between

01:15:50 ◼   ► HBO shows.

01:15:51 ◼   ► Those early HBO shows, yep.

01:15:54 ◼   ► And is that worth 10 or 15 bucks?

01:15:57 ◼   ► And then even when there was home video, it's like, what does it cost to rent a movie?

01:16:01 ◼   ► Well, it costs like to get a tape for two nights, it's five or six bucks or something

01:16:05 ◼   ► like that.

01:16:06 ◼   ► So it's easy to get to work the 10 or 15 bucks that HBO costs into that equation and say,

01:16:11 ◼   ► yeah, well, this is great, then we don't have to go anywhere, nothing to send back.

01:16:17 ◼   ► But the maximum scope of the idea of HBO, we're only going to show good stuff, and you're

01:16:23 ◼   ► going to pay extra for it, and that's it.

01:16:26 ◼   ► There's a maximum scale to how big that was going to be, and it's not as big as Netflix,

01:16:31 ◼   ► right?

01:16:32 ◼   ► Netflix is a bigger idea.

01:16:34 ◼   ► It just is.

01:16:35 ◼   ► You're comparing a very big planet to a sun, you know?

01:16:39 ◼   ► I think that's right.

01:16:40 ◼   ► And it's interesting to look back upon because there was this famous idea that would Netflix

01:16:48 ◼   ► be able to become HBO faster than HBO can become Netflix was a thing that people said

01:16:53 ◼   ► back in the day, right?

01:16:54 ◼   ► And it actually ended up not being the case at all because they ran a playbook which was

01:17:00 ◼   ► similar in different eras, right?

01:17:02 ◼   ► So you noted that HBO basically bootstrapped off of Hollywood movies without commercials,

01:17:09 ◼   ► and then they eventually moved into their own content, and that own content eventually

01:17:12 ◼   ► became the main product.

01:17:15 ◼   ► Netflix did a very similar thing where they bootstrapped off of old shows, basically,

01:17:19 ◼   ► more than movies, but they had movies too, and then were able to move into original content,

01:17:23 ◼   ► and that eventually became the thing.

01:17:24 ◼   ► And now it's to the point where not only is it, I mean, it is being done at a scale

01:17:29 ◼   ► that was previously, could not be believed that they were spending this amount, doing

01:17:35 ◼   ► this amount of new content on a yearly, on a monthly basis that they are right now.

01:17:40 ◼   ► And it's like they just zoomed right past HBO, and I'm not sure that Netflix wanted

01:17:48 ◼   ► to, Netflix even knew that they would do, basically create a show for every type of

01:17:54 ◼   ► person, every type of genre, all these different countries, rather than being what HBO was,

01:17:59 ◼   ► you know, sort of the high quality bar thing.

01:18:01 ◼   ► Maybe they thought in the beginning, like with House of Cards, that yeah, they would

01:18:03 ◼   ► aim for the HBO-style show, high quality, and we'll just do a few of these because

01:18:07 ◼   ► it's going to be so expensive.

01:18:08 ◼   ► And somehow they were able to figure out a way to do this at scale that HBO now, as we're

01:18:13 ◼   ► talking about, maybe thinks that they can try to do that, but they're not going to

01:18:16 ◼   ► be able to because they don't have the right model to be able to do that.

01:18:21 ◼   ► And Apple can, Apple doesn't need necessarily, like HBO does, to have this be one of the

01:18:28 ◼   ► key pillars of the company.

01:18:29 ◼   ► They view it as part of the services narrative, right?

01:18:31 ◼   ► It's a nice thing that adds to their services story.

01:18:36 ◼   ► It obviously helps sell Apple devices in some way, and so it makes sense for them to do

01:18:41 ◼   ► it.

01:18:42 ◼   ► And so HBO is like in this very precarious situation now.

01:18:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it's really interesting because I feel like all of those, oh, well, so this

01:18:51 ◼   ► new thing Netflix has to be like HBO, and it's like, no, that's not their plan at

01:18:55 ◼   ► all.

01:18:56 ◼   ► That's right, that whole, will Netflix become HBO faster than HBO can become Netflix.

01:19:01 ◼   ► That really was a bad framework.

01:19:03 ◼   ► And I've used that, I know I used that myself.

01:19:06 ◼   ► And it was, it's natural to look at a new thing and think it's going to be like the

01:19:12 ◼   ► old thing.

01:19:13 ◼   ► And I don't think it was wrong at the time either.

01:19:16 ◼   ► I just think that Netflix realized, to their credit, at some point, this is a way bigger

01:19:21 ◼   ► opportunity than what HBO was doing.

01:19:23 ◼   ► Right.

01:19:24 ◼   ► And Netflix became a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn.

01:19:30 ◼   ► And HBO is just like a nice planet, like a Venus.

01:19:33 ◼   ► And then AT&T buys them up and they're like, okay, guys, turn into a gas giant.

01:19:39 ◼   ► And it's like, it doesn't work that way.

01:19:43 ◼   ► And it's like kind of ruining the thing that we had.

01:19:47 ◼   ► We had a nice thing and it just doesn't work.

01:19:49 ◼   ► And I've talked about this on other podcasts before.

01:19:53 ◼   ► I just find that just the branding alone tells you everything you need to know about how

01:19:58 ◼   ► misguided HBO is under current leadership.

01:20:02 ◼   ► Like just call it HBO.

01:20:05 ◼   ► Just it.

01:20:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Or do the bigger thing and call it Warner Max or something like that and have HBO be

01:20:11 ◼   ► a part of it as being the high end part.

01:20:14 ◼   ► And you should be able to subscribe to that separately if you want to.

01:20:17 ◼   ► There's reasons why they didn't do that that I understand.

01:20:20 ◼   ► There's agreements with the cable operators that they couldn't necessarily do it in that

01:20:26 ◼   ► seamless of a way.

01:20:27 ◼   ► But at the end of the day, that's obviously like, that's the play that they sort of missed.

01:20:32 ◼   ► And I think that you could see it again back in that original town hall with John Stankey

01:20:37 ◼   ► and Richard Kleppler.

01:20:39 ◼   ► You just knew that they were not going to be able to do it in the way that they thought

01:20:45 ◼   ► it would be, that it would go down seamlessly.

01:20:47 ◼   ► And it hasn't so far.

01:20:48 ◼   ► So we'll see what the new team in there is able to do.

01:20:52 ◼   ► And they have talented people there.

01:20:53 ◼   ► But I don't think they're going to be Netflix.

01:20:56 ◼   ► And are they going to then pivot back to try to become HBO as it was again?

01:21:01 ◼   ► I think the cat's out of the bag there.

01:21:02 ◼   ► And I think, again, Apple might end up sort of beating them to get back to that.

01:21:07 ◼   ► There was a sense of HBO.

01:21:11 ◼   ► Like it's not magic.

01:21:13 ◼   ► Like the person who doesn't see the difference between a good show and a bad show and just

01:21:18 ◼   ► doesn't have the taste but just knows, well, this show's making gazillion dollars.

01:21:23 ◼   ► And this one's dud.

01:21:24 ◼   ► And this one, all the stars are on magazine covers and on TV.

01:21:27 ◼   ► And this one's not.

01:21:30 ◼   ► And HBO has this one that everybody's talking about.

01:21:33 ◼   ► And somebody other channel has this one.

01:21:35 ◼   ► And so just saying it's on HBO, that's the difference, right?

01:21:39 ◼   ► Get your show on HBO and it becomes it.

01:21:41 ◼   ► That's not how it works.

01:21:42 ◼   ► Like it's that you've got it backwards.

01:21:44 ◼   ► It was that HBO, the leadership, they were keenly aware of what's a good show.

01:21:50 ◼   ► And they were really, really protective of the brand.

01:21:55 ◼   ► It's a lot like Apple where there's that thousand no's for every yes.

01:22:01 ◼   ► And how do you make it so that every new product from Apple is a good product?

01:22:05 ◼   ► Well, by saying no to everything else and only going with the hits.

01:22:09 ◼   ► How does HBO keep putting out good shows by being very careful and having good taste?

01:22:15 ◼   ► I know, I don't remember the exact details, but you probably have a better idea.

01:22:18 ◼   ► But I know the one that slipped through their fingers was Mad Men.

01:22:21 ◼   ► Mad Men, yep.

01:22:22 ◼   ► Yeah, they passed on it.

01:22:26 ◼   ► And that basically made AMC then, right?

01:22:28 ◼   ► I mean, AMC was obviously in existence before then, but it became a prestige channel where

01:22:33 ◼   ► it wasn't before.

01:22:34 ◼   ► It was showing old movies before, movie classics, right?

01:22:38 ◼   ► And then it became Mad Men and then it became Walking Dead and it became Halt and Catch

01:22:45 ◼   ► Fire, which is one of my all time favorite shows.

01:22:48 ◼   ► And so it became Prestige Television.

01:22:50 ◼   ► Now they have AMC Plus, I think that just launched as, I think it's an Apple TV channel

01:22:56 ◼   ► now.

01:22:57 ◼   ► But yeah, that is one that they missed.

01:22:59 ◼   ► And they talk about that.

01:23:01 ◼   ► They totally missed on that.

01:23:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:23:03 ◼   ► And so it's almost more notable that they missed a good show, not that they put out

01:23:06 ◼   ► a dud.

01:23:08 ◼   ► Whereas now it's just sort of like, "Oh, we've got a gazillion things."

01:23:11 ◼   ► And I don't know, it's kind of sad.

01:23:14 ◼   ► But I do, and I feel like it's such an interesting way to frame it.

01:23:18 ◼   ► And I know that there are still people who are Apple TV Plus haters who are thinking

01:23:21 ◼   ► they're really rolling their eyes.

01:23:23 ◼   ► And they're like, "Oh my God, one good show, Ted Lasso, and you guys are calling it the

01:23:26 ◼   ► new HBO."

01:23:27 ◼   ► But I kind of, I see it.

01:23:30 ◼   ► And I feel like the big difference is that Apple is 100% willing to just let Apple TV

01:23:36 ◼   ► Plus be what it is and try to have, just make it synonymous with good shows.

01:23:45 ◼   ► And they also, and they're doing movies too, right?

01:23:47 ◼   ► This is like, you know, they bought the Tom Hanks' Greyhound one, which is a great movie.

01:23:52 ◼   ► It's a nice sort of quick watch.

01:23:55 ◼   ► Obviously it was an opportunity that came about because of the COVID situation.

01:23:59 ◼   ► But that's like, I can see that working as well.

01:24:01 ◼   ► They can do just like HBO used to do.

01:24:04 ◼   ► They did their own movies too, and you could do great movies, great shows, and just keep

01:24:08 ◼   ► the bar, the quality bar high.

01:24:12 ◼   ► You know, there was early trepidation that Apple would be too hands-on with the shows

01:24:17 ◼   ► and the reports that maybe that was happening.

01:24:20 ◼   ► And it seems like now that's quieted down.

01:24:22 ◼   ► I think they've made a number of racy sort of episodes of various shows, if not the entire

01:24:27 ◼   ► shows themselves.

01:24:28 ◼   ► And so I think there's less fear about that.

01:24:30 ◼   ► The talent then can be less fearful.

01:24:32 ◼   ► Because that was the main concern, right?

01:24:34 ◼   ► The talent felt like that Apple was meddling.

01:24:36 ◼   ► They're not going to go there.

01:24:37 ◼   ► Because that's why HBO, with Plepler, they love that guy because they felt like he was

01:24:41 ◼   ► on their side.

01:24:42 ◼   ► He was the guy who was going to be their biggest champion to make sure that their show was

01:24:48 ◼   ► a success.

01:24:49 ◼   ► Once you sold him and HBO on your show, they're like, "Okay, we're sold.

01:24:54 ◼   ► Go do your thing.

01:24:55 ◼   ► We'll get you a budget, and we'll let you do your thing.

01:24:59 ◼   ► We trust you.

01:25:00 ◼   ► You're on Team HBO now.

01:25:01 ◼   ► Go do it."

01:25:02 ◼   ► And I feel like that stuff with Apple is one of those things I need to do a claim chowder

01:25:07 ◼   ► on.

01:25:09 ◼   ► Because I feel like none of that panned out and nobody says it anymore because it obviously

01:25:13 ◼   ► doesn't hold water.

01:25:15 ◼   ► There are reports that Tim Cook was giving notes to the showrunners to be nicer.

01:25:20 ◼   ► And it's like, man, you know, none of these...

01:25:23 ◼   ► A lot of these...

01:25:24 ◼   ► Well, Ted Lasso is very nice, but not in a corny way, right?

01:25:28 ◼   ► It still has crude things about it, right?

01:25:30 ◼   ► You know what?

01:25:31 ◼   ► I bet Tim Cook loves Ted Lasso.

01:25:33 ◼   ► Oh my God.

01:25:34 ◼   ► Oh, you know he does.

01:25:35 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

01:25:36 ◼   ► But in a good way.

01:25:37 ◼   ► But like, the morning show is obviously Apple's premiere to date award winner.

01:25:45 ◼   ► Won a bunch, you know, got a bunch of Emmy nominations.

01:25:47 ◼   ► And I thought it was good.

01:25:48 ◼   ► I agree with you.

01:25:49 ◼   ► I actually feel that I wanted to say this before we move on to a new topic.

01:25:53 ◼   ► For me and Amy, it was a lot like Succession where at least for the first half, maybe even

01:25:59 ◼   ► the first six episodes of the first season, we were kind of lukewarm.

01:26:04 ◼   ► But just enough to keep going.

01:26:06 ◼   ► And then it heated up.

01:26:07 ◼   ► I totally agree.

01:26:08 ◼   ► I think that we were in the exact same boat with Succession and with the morning show.

01:26:12 ◼   ► And then, yeah, they both got good around the end, those last three episodes or so of

01:26:16 ◼   ► the first season.

01:26:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:18 ◼   ► And then Succession took off from there.

01:26:19 ◼   ► And now it's, you know, multiple seasons in and the morning show's about to, I think,

01:26:23 ◼   ► start production on the second season.

01:26:24 ◼   ► So but yeah, I'm totally with you.

01:26:27 ◼   ► And it wasn't that the first episodes were bad.

01:26:29 ◼   ► It was that they served to set up stuff.

01:26:32 ◼   ► It was like they did a lot of work.

01:26:34 ◼   ► And we're asking a bit of patience of you as the viewer to, you know, give us five hours

01:26:38 ◼   ► to go through these episodes.

01:26:40 ◼   ► Not that it's a slog, but that it's just a lot of foundational work for payoff later.

01:26:46 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden, it can start moving fast because it's building on this stuff from

01:26:51 ◼   ► these other episodes.

01:26:52 ◼   ► And I really thought it was, I was like, this is just like Succession when we were watching

01:26:57 ◼   ► the morning show.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And then the other thing too, and again, I don't want to give any spoilers for people

01:27:01 ◼   ► who haven't watched it yet, but any idea that they were going to shy away from R-rated

01:27:08 ◼   ► subject matter.

01:27:09 ◼   ► Subject matter, yeah.

01:27:10 ◼   ► It's like, forget it.

01:27:11 ◼   ► And this is their premiere show.

01:27:12 ◼   ► This is the one where Tim Cook was there at the gala premiere.

01:27:17 ◼   ► And you know, it's their award winner and they've spent a fortune promoting it and advertising

01:27:21 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:27:23 ◼   ► And it's, you know, it is absolutely R-rated.

01:27:26 ◼   ► I mean, it's, there's no, we're going to go with a Disney level of subject matter to it.

01:27:36 ◼   ► You know, Servant, the only thing I would, Servant is a very creepy R-rated show.

01:27:40 ◼   ► Oh yeah, that's where I head to the point where whenever it does the autoplay, I keep

01:27:44 ◼   ► swiping away from it.

01:27:45 ◼   ► I think it's like, what am I looking at here?

01:27:49 ◼   ► But the only thing I would say on that, I think you should do the claim charter piece

01:27:55 ◼   ► and hunt those things down.

01:27:57 ◼   ► I will say I did hear from people, you know, I worked in Hollywood as a very low level

01:28:02 ◼   ► production assistant for a time and I still know some people there and I will say I did

01:28:06 ◼   ► hear that as well.

01:28:08 ◼   ► Like the same type of idea that Apple was meddling from people there.

01:28:13 ◼   ► So I do think that there was some element of truth to that.

01:28:16 ◼   ► I don't think that it was completely BS, but I almost wonder now if that doesn't signal

01:28:22 ◼   ► well to Apple that they sort of quickly realize like, look, we're setting up to do, you know,

01:28:28 ◼   ► we need to set this up for success.

01:28:30 ◼   ► We're doing a big push.

01:28:31 ◼   ► We're spending millions and tens of millions of dollars on this new initiative and trying

01:28:36 ◼   ► to really make this a big thing and one of our, one of the jewels of the Apple crown.

01:28:41 ◼   ► Let's you know, let's run the playbook the way that, that, you know, a Hollywood studio

01:28:45 ◼   ► would run it the way that HBO would run it and let's let the creative talent do their

01:28:49 ◼   ► thing.

01:28:50 ◼   ► I think there will be more hands off and we recognize that this is not like an Apple product

01:28:53 ◼   ► type thing.

01:28:54 ◼   ► All right, let me just tell you the worst Apple TV plus show I've seen the worst.

01:28:58 ◼   ► Okay.

01:28:59 ◼   ► Amazing stories.

01:29:00 ◼   ► The Spielberg one.

01:29:02 ◼   ► I didn't watch it.

01:29:03 ◼   ► Oh my God.

01:29:04 ◼   ► We only got, I think we, I forget if we watched three or four, but it was the only reason

01:29:09 ◼   ► we stuck with it was the idea that it has to be better.

01:29:13 ◼   ► We had, you were like, why would they make the first episode so bad?

01:29:16 ◼   ► You'd think they'd put it at least make the first one good.

01:29:18 ◼   ► And we're like, well, with the pedigree, it has to get better.

01:29:23 ◼   ► And so we, I think we might've watched four, but, and after four, we were just like, this

01:29:27 ◼   ► is a dreck.

01:29:29 ◼   ► This is really, are they just like, are they hokey?

01:29:32 ◼   ► What about hokey and just, just unengaging.

01:29:36 ◼   ► It's just, you know, it's like trying to strike a wet match, you know, and it's like, just

01:29:41 ◼   ► not good.

01:29:42 ◼   ► Really?

01:29:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:29:44 ◼   ► So, you know, they got to, you got to work out some cakes, but I mean, that's, that's

01:29:48 ◼   ► an obvious sort of mistake to make, right?

01:29:50 ◼   ► Like who would not work with Steven Spielberg on a show, like a remake of a show that was

01:29:54 ◼   ► popular.

01:29:55 ◼   ► Of course they're going to do that.

01:29:57 ◼   ► And the one last point I think, you know, that speaks to why people are at some level

01:30:03 ◼   ► were rooting against, it seemed like Apple TV plus, because I think like the way that

01:30:06 ◼   ► they presented it to the world, right.

01:30:07 ◼   ► In that weird, weird conference that they did, press conference events was, you know,

01:30:14 ◼   ► sort of misguided in many ways, right?

01:30:16 ◼   ► Because it's not something, they tried to make an Apple event out of like, what was

01:30:20 ◼   ► like an upfront basically.

01:30:22 ◼   ► And it was weird.

01:30:23 ◼   ► It was very weird with Oprah and everything.

01:30:26 ◼   ► And you know, they needed to let the content speak for itself and there they didn't show

01:30:28 ◼   ► any of the content.

01:30:29 ◼   ► All they did was try out stars on stage to talk about how great it is to work with Apple.

01:30:33 ◼   ► That was, you know, it was like a talk, it's like a, like a political theater type situation.

01:30:39 ◼   ► It was very strange.

01:30:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:30:41 ◼   ► That's another one where I feel like it, it, it was sort of like Apple has its way of doing

01:30:46 ◼   ► announcements and Hollywood has its way of doing announcements and they are the way they

01:30:50 ◼   ► are for good reasons.

01:30:51 ◼   ► And then it came time to announce it and it was like a car crash.

01:30:54 ◼   ► It was like, wait, it's like a collision, you know, like car crashes, bad analogy, but

01:30:59 ◼   ► it's like two people who aren't paying attention to each other, who bump into each other and

01:31:04 ◼   ► spill everything.

01:31:05 ◼   ► It was like this style of presentation doesn't work with this.

01:31:08 ◼   ► And it was truly, and, and it, I don't know that Apple even foresaw it.

01:31:13 ◼   ► Like with the skepticism people had that, ah, I don't just don't believe that a tech

01:31:17 ◼   ► company is going to do good in Hollywood.

01:31:20 ◼   ► And then when they didn't show anything, it was like, yeah, there was a re the reason

01:31:24 ◼   ► you don't show anything is that it's bad.

01:31:26 ◼   ► And which is actually true, right?

01:31:28 ◼   ► That is a reasonable assumption to make.

01:31:30 ◼   ► All right, let's take a break and I will do and tell you about, uh, our third and final

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01:33:16 ◼   ► So while we're talking entertainment, we got to talk movies.

01:33:19 ◼   ► And you are probably the biggest Christopher Nolan fan I know.

01:33:24 ◼   ► And I'm a huge Christopher Nolan fan.

01:33:28 ◼   ► And I am.

01:33:30 ◼   ► I'm a big one.

01:33:31 ◼   ► And so this past obviously few months has been fascinating to watch mainly because like

01:33:35 ◼   ► I totally disagree with his stance on Tenet, what they've done.

01:33:41 ◼   ► Because so, you know, as you know, they had Tenet done, it was going to be one of the

01:33:47 ◼   ► big marquee movies this summer.

01:33:49 ◼   ► Obviously plans change, plans had to change.

01:33:52 ◼   ► And rather than doing what everyone else has done and postpone to next year, obviously

01:33:58 ◼   ► they postponed Tenet a couple times to later in the summer, but they eventually just opened

01:34:02 ◼   ► it and you know, it hasn't done well at the box office, which is no surprise given the

01:34:07 ◼   ► state of the world.

01:34:08 ◼   ► But I think it's, I just think it was a mistake to launch it because I think it sets a bad,

01:34:15 ◼   ► you know, I think it's the wrong tone.

01:34:16 ◼   ► I think it's a bad idea to try to entice people to go to a movie theater if they're not at

01:34:22 ◼   ► all comfortable with it.

01:34:23 ◼   ► And obviously some people are going to be comfortable with it and some of the theaters

01:34:27 ◼   ► I'm sure are doing a great job, you know, making sure everything is safe and clean and

01:34:32 ◼   ► all that.

01:34:33 ◼   ► And we haven't heard of any, as far as I know, any major outbreaks as a result, but still,

01:34:37 ◼   ► I just think it's, he didn't read the room right and neither did the, you know, the studio.

01:34:45 ◼   ► And I just think they should have, they should have postponed it if they really wanted to

01:34:48 ◼   ► make it a theatrical thing until next year.

01:34:50 ◼   ► It's hard to imagine a movie that's more in my wheelhouse.

01:34:52 ◼   ► I would go see, I had a friend years ago.

01:34:57 ◼   ► I mean, this is back in the late nineties because it was when he was still alive, but

01:35:00 ◼   ► somebody was talking about when Eyes Wide Shut was announced and was coming out and

01:35:06 ◼   ► somebody was like, I don't know, that one doesn't sound interesting to me.

01:35:09 ◼   ► And my one friend said, I would, if somebody said Kubrick made a movie about paint drying,

01:35:12 ◼   ► I would go, I would go buy a ticket.

01:35:14 ◼   ► And I was like, yeah, because he just trust, you know, Christopher Nolan, you know, his

01:35:18 ◼   ► new movie, paint drying on a wall.

01:35:19 ◼   ► I would watch it because I'll bet it'd be good.

01:35:22 ◼   ► I don't know why.

01:35:23 ◼   ► I don't know what his...

01:35:25 ◼   ► Not only that, you know, it's going to be great in the theater because he does legitimately

01:35:28 ◼   ► care about this more than anyone.

01:35:30 ◼   ► He cares about sound.

01:35:31 ◼   ► He does the, I meant he just filming on IMAX cameras.

01:35:34 ◼   ► Like he cares about this to the utmost of anyone, obviously.

01:35:38 ◼   ► And so you can understand why he doesn't want to launch it on one of the streaming services

01:35:42 ◼   ► or direct to, you know, direct to iTunes and, and all the PVOD services.

01:35:48 ◼   ► But again, just postpone it then like everyone else is doing till next year.

01:35:53 ◼   ► Which was the Batman that was like partially IMAX.

01:35:57 ◼   ► I think it was the second one.

01:35:58 ◼   ► I actually did the dark knight or no dark knight.

01:36:01 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:36:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:36:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:04 ◼   ► They, they had a few scenes in the dark knight that were shot exclusively for IMAX.

01:36:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:09 ◼   ► That's right.

01:36:10 ◼   ► My son and I went to see it at the Franklin Institute here in Philadelphia where their

01:36:12 ◼   ► IMAX screen is the real IMAX.

01:36:17 ◼   ► And it was sort of a weird experience.

01:36:18 ◼   ► So we saw that one twice in the theaters.

01:36:20 ◼   ► We saw it in a regular theater and then we went to see it in the IMAX.

01:36:23 ◼   ► I guess we went to IMAX first.

01:36:26 ◼   ► And it takes a little bit of time to get used to.

01:36:29 ◼   ► It's sort of like, like maybe like if you like went back in time and brought Thomas

01:36:36 ◼   ► Jefferson to the modern day and showed him a movie and, and you know, it might take him

01:36:40 ◼   ► a while for his brain to handle seeing a motion picture on a hundred foot screen.

01:36:45 ◼   ► It's like seeing Batman on a real IMAX screen took some time for your brain to process.

01:36:52 ◼   ► But then once you got into it, it was amazing.

01:36:54 ◼   ► It really was so immersive.

01:36:56 ◼   ► It's so I, I saw Interstellar twice in IMAX because it's like, it was the most immersive.

01:37:01 ◼   ► They've shot a huge percentage of that in with IMAX cameras.

01:37:05 ◼   ► And I mean, it's like one of the most immersive experiences I've ever had.

01:37:09 ◼   ► Right.

01:37:10 ◼   ► And, and he's a huge, speaking of Kubrick, Christopher Nolan is big Kubrick fan.

01:37:14 ◼   ► And in fact supervised the last cleanup of 2001, which actually, I didn't even, I didn't

01:37:22 ◼   ► realize that.

01:37:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:37:24 ◼   ► In terms of like the color correction and stuff to keep it the way it should be.

01:37:27 ◼   ► And we saw that I took my son, I had been holding out on letting him see 2001 until

01:37:33 ◼   ► he could see it in the theater.

01:37:34 ◼   ► And we went to see it on an IMAX screen and you know, it was shot 70 millimeter, but the,

01:37:40 ◼   ► and we went to see it on a regular IMAX movie screen, but that's the point of 70 millimeter

01:37:44 ◼   ► is that you can show it big.

01:37:46 ◼   ► Yes.

01:37:47 ◼   ► It looks huge.

01:37:48 ◼   ► Good.

01:37:49 ◼   ► Right.

01:37:50 ◼   ► And I think it on a digital production projection of it on an IMAX screen does is it just, it's

01:37:54 ◼   ► big.

01:37:56 ◼   ► And there is, I'm a big believer in this.

01:37:58 ◼   ► I really do.

01:37:59 ◼   ► There's a psychological effect of seeing something big that your brain knows is big.

01:38:06 ◼   ► You know, it's a giant 200 foot screen or however big the screen is.

01:38:11 ◼   ► That is more than just the effect of field of view.

01:38:15 ◼   ► Right.

01:38:16 ◼   ► And the most profound way of doing it is you can hold the phone close enough to your eyes

01:38:21 ◼   ► to fill a movie theater.

01:38:23 ◼   ► Right.

01:38:24 ◼   ► To be bigger than the equivalent of that.

01:38:25 ◼   ► Right.

01:38:26 ◼   ► It's more than that, you know, and having a nice big 70 inch TV in your house and sitting

01:38:31 ◼   ► close to it, it still is not the same psychological effect of something that your brain knows

01:38:36 ◼   ► is big.

01:38:37 ◼   ► It's more the field of view doesn't explain it all.

01:38:40 ◼   ► I'll give you two other sides to that.

01:38:43 ◼   ► One is that the other thing that I think about a lot and what I really miss about movie theaters,

01:38:47 ◼   ► and we can get into movie theaters themselves in a second, but I also just think a big part

01:38:52 ◼   ► of it is yourself knowing that you're not going to check your phone during it and knowing

01:38:58 ◼   ► that everyone around you is not going to check your phone during it.

01:39:01 ◼   ► You're all fully immersed in the same experience.

01:39:03 ◼   ► And I think that that's like, it seems like a subtle distinction, but I think that that's

01:39:06 ◼   ► a really important one.

01:39:09 ◼   ► The other thing as a brief aside, I would say the most recent time I saw 2001, we actually

01:39:14 ◼   ► saw it with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

01:39:18 ◼   ► It's an amazing experience.

01:39:19 ◼   ► I don't know if you've ever done that, where you go and see a movie with the orchestra.

01:39:22 ◼   ► So I've seen now, I've seen 2001, I've seen Breakfast at Tiffany's in London with the

01:39:28 ◼   ► orchestra there, and then I've seen Batman, the Tim Burton Batman.

01:39:33 ◼   ► All three are amazing, if you can see them in that regard.

01:39:37 ◼   ► You know, obviously the audio is the key part of that.

01:39:40 ◼   ► They bring down a big screen.

01:39:42 ◼   ► It's not an iMac screen, but it's a big, nice-sized screen, and that's great.

01:39:46 ◼   ► But seeing it with 2001 was quite the experience, as you might imagine, so I highly recommend

01:39:52 ◼   ► that if they ever do something like that near you.

01:39:56 ◼   ► We almost went to see The Empire Strikes Back that way, and something fell through because

01:39:59 ◼   ► it's the sort of thing where it's like, they don't do it every day for a month.

01:40:03 ◼   ► It's like special engagement.

01:40:05 ◼   ► We had some kind of conflict.

01:40:06 ◼   ► I really wanted to, I'm sure it would be.

01:40:09 ◼   ► Immersive.

01:40:11 ◼   ► The Batman iMac thing, it was so immersive.

01:40:13 ◼   ► Immersive is just the best way to put it, and I know it sounds like a catchphrase, it's

01:40:17 ◼   ► hype or whatever, but it was like, man, when Batman jumped off that building in Hong Kong

01:40:23 ◼   ► to crash through the window and take that guy back to Gotham City, I mean, it was more

01:40:31 ◼   ► immersive than Disney rides where they blow wind on you and pump smells into the air and

01:40:42 ◼   ► stuff.

01:40:43 ◼   ► But I love all that stuff at Disney, too.

01:40:46 ◼   ► It was just purely visual.

01:40:48 ◼   ► No wind, no smell, but there was like a palm sweatiness.

01:40:52 ◼   ► You know, like, oh my god.

01:40:55 ◼   ► One of the best ones I've seen of that is actually not a Christopher Nolan one.

01:41:00 ◼   ► One of the Mission Impossibles, it wasn't the most recent one, I think it was two or

01:41:04 ◼   ► three ago.

01:41:05 ◼   ► It's the one where they're at the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.

01:41:09 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

01:41:10 ◼   ► That's the one Brad Bird directed.

01:41:12 ◼   ► Yes, it is.

01:41:13 ◼   ► That's right, Brad Bird.

01:41:14 ◼   ► Pixar, yes, famous Pixar director.

01:41:16 ◼   ► So there's a scene where they're outside, Tom Cruise is walking outside and is about

01:41:23 ◼   ► to walk scale down the side of the tallest building in the world.

01:41:27 ◼   ► And right when that happens, they do this brilliant thing where if you're seeing it

01:41:31 ◼   ► on IMAX, they just open up the field of view to full IMAX scale and you're just looking

01:41:35 ◼   ► down and I mean, it's an incredible experience when you first see that.

01:41:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:40 ◼   ► Oh, man.

01:41:41 ◼   ► So anyway, I'm a big believer in it.

01:41:43 ◼   ► So I hold Tenet till next year.

01:41:45 ◼   ► I could see doing it.

01:41:46 ◼   ► I'm glad.

01:41:47 ◼   ► And you know, so what's up my wheel?

01:41:49 ◼   ► I'm a huge fan of my favorite directors.

01:41:51 ◼   ► Like, there are certain directors who once you're on my list, I'll watch anything.

01:41:55 ◼   ► I'm just don't even don't show me the preview.

01:41:57 ◼   ► Don't show me the trailer.

01:41:58 ◼   ► I'm in.

01:41:59 ◼   ► I know.

01:42:00 ◼   ► The new Sofia Coppola movie.

01:42:02 ◼   ► Yeah, the Bill Murray one.

01:42:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:42:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:42:06 ◼   ► Did you even before you told me Bill Murray's in it though, you tell me Sofia Coppola made

01:42:08 ◼   ► a new movie.

01:42:09 ◼   ► I'm in line.

01:42:13 ◼   ► Christopher Nolan, I'm in line.

01:42:15 ◼   ► Spy movie.

01:42:17 ◼   ► Typical Nolan-esque time twisting.

01:42:19 ◼   ► You'd stop.

01:42:20 ◼   ► Stop telling me.

01:42:21 ◼   ► I'm in line.

01:42:22 ◼   ► I just all.

01:42:24 ◼   ► You know, I cannot wait for the new James Bond movie.

01:42:27 ◼   ► I cannot wait.

01:42:30 ◼   ► I really kind of feel like they went off the rails with Sam Mendes a little bit where it's,

01:42:36 ◼   ► you know, we could do a whole podcast about what I think is wrong with Skyfall and Spectre.

01:42:43 ◼   ► And I always mispronounce his name.

01:42:47 ◼   ► What's his code?

01:42:48 ◼   ► Co-chee-fook-nawa.

01:42:49 ◼   ► The guy who's directed the new Bond movie.

01:42:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:42:54 ◼   ► The, uh, carry, carry, carry G Fukunawa.

01:42:59 ◼   ► I will screw it up to famously did true detective season one, which was a maze.

01:43:06 ◼   ► Speaking of HBO, right?

01:43:07 ◼   ► Yes.

01:43:08 ◼   ► Right.

01:43:09 ◼   ► Yeah, totally.

01:43:10 ◼   ► One of the best ever that season one.

01:43:11 ◼   ► Yeah, that's great.

01:43:12 ◼   ► And in terms of like having like multiple hour long episodes that build that are just

01:43:17 ◼   ► there to serve the point of something that happens in episode six, man.

01:43:24 ◼   ► But they're, you know, they postponed, they were supposed to open last spring, postponed

01:43:28 ◼   ► till November.

01:43:29 ◼   ► November is obviously not going to happen.

01:43:30 ◼   ► We already know that.

01:43:31 ◼   ► So they've already said, Oh, we'll go to next spring.

01:43:34 ◼   ► You know, right.

01:43:36 ◼   ► I feel like Tenet should have done that.

01:43:38 ◼   ► I really do.

01:43:40 ◼   ► They absolutely should have.

01:43:42 ◼   ► And you know, all these movies that I think it speaks to sort of where we're headed with

01:43:48 ◼   ► movies in general as well, because you know, as has been the trend for a long time, there's

01:43:53 ◼   ► now these tentpole movies, the Christopher Nolan, you know, prom, prom, prominent example,

01:43:58 ◼   ► James Bond movies, obviously tentpole movies that are going to be in theaters.

01:44:01 ◼   ► And now we're seeing more and more movies because of the result of, of COVID and everything

01:44:06 ◼   ► that's happened.

01:44:07 ◼   ► There's now these like other tier of movies, which are still great movies, which can go

01:44:11 ◼   ► straight to streaming and can go straight to the living room.

01:44:14 ◼   ► They don't necessarily need to be seen.

01:44:16 ◼   ► The directors may want them to be seen and that's fine.

01:44:18 ◼   ► I think it should be at their discretion.

01:44:21 ◼   ► You know, for a high profile enough director, I would say, but even like, look, Martin Scorsese

01:44:25 ◼   ► put the Irishman, you know, with Netflix and his new movies is going to be that way too,

01:44:30 ◼   ► it sounds like, right?

01:44:31 ◼   ► I think with Apple.

01:44:32 ◼   ► And so it just feels like we're heading to a world where it seems inevitable.

01:44:41 ◼   ► That a bunch of smaller movies go direct to streaming the movies.

01:44:46 ◼   ► Like one of my favorite movies is a movie called Michael Clayton.

01:44:48 ◼   ► I don't know if you've seen it.

01:44:49 ◼   ► Yes.

01:44:50 ◼   ► Oh, many times.

01:44:51 ◼   ► It's a great movie.

01:44:52 ◼   ► It's something though, that would never, it seems like it would never be a theatrical

01:44:56 ◼   ► movie.

01:44:57 ◼   ► Maybe because of George Clooney, because he's still a big enough star that he would, you

01:44:59 ◼   ► know, basically drive people to theaters, but it didn't do all that well, I think when

01:45:03 ◼   ► it was in theaters, but it's the type of movie that probably would be a Netflix or, or an

01:45:08 ◼   ► Apple TV plus movie these days.

01:45:10 ◼   ► So you're going to have those types of movies, which go to streaming.

01:45:13 ◼   ► We're going to have the big tent poles, which go, and obviously Disney is the preeminent

01:45:16 ◼   ► example of, of all those tent poles.

01:45:18 ◼   ► Every Disney movie is basically a tent pole movie at this point.

01:45:21 ◼   ► And so I wonder if we don't get back to the world where because of what unfortunately

01:45:26 ◼   ► has happened to the movie theaters with Regal now re-shutting down everything and AMC, the

01:45:34 ◼   ► biggest one, you know, striking deals with Paramount to try to make some money on the

01:45:38 ◼   ► side.

01:45:39 ◼   ► And it doesn't just go back to the world, which is one of the original antitrust things

01:45:42 ◼   ► where the theaters end up being owned by studios again.

01:45:45 ◼   ► Doesn't it make sense for Disney to own its own studios now and basically have that as

01:45:49 ◼   ► a, as part of the product offering.

01:45:51 ◼   ► So they have Disney plus and then maybe they offer it in theaters as well for the biggest

01:45:56 ◼   ► movies.

01:45:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:45:58 ◼   ► And if you, if you already subscribed to Disney plus, you can show your phone and maybe get

01:46:00 ◼   ► in free or discount or something like that.

01:46:03 ◼   ► Right.

01:46:04 ◼   ► Or some sort of upsell like they did with Mulan.

01:46:06 ◼   ► And yeah, I mean, I think that that's like the world that we're, that we're going to

01:46:10 ◼   ► see much faster as a result of the COVID situation that we have previously, because I love going

01:46:15 ◼   ► to movie theaters and I want them to exist.

01:46:18 ◼   ► Some of the best movie theaters in the world are some of the great experiences in the world.

01:46:22 ◼   ► There's this place in London that I used to love to go to called Electric Cinema.

01:46:26 ◼   ► There's a few of them, but there's one in Notting Hill in particular that people who

01:46:29 ◼   ► hear this, who have been there will know what I'm talking about.

01:46:31 ◼   ► It's a one screen, amazing experience theater.

01:46:35 ◼   ► Those are the greatest things in the world.

01:46:36 ◼   ► The Alamo Drafthouse is a great theater.

01:46:38 ◼   ► The AMC is the world's are not great theaters.

01:46:40 ◼   ► And you know, I think we're all okay if there's fewer of those, but I think that we can, we

01:46:45 ◼   ► can recreate a world now from the ground up where the theatrical experience is like a

01:46:48 ◼   ► more magical thing across the board again.

01:46:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:46:51 ◼   ► And it speaks to, and again, not to put on a free enterprise, you know, at all costs

01:46:57 ◼   ► hat, but you know, it speaks to the way that regulation gets so caught up in current events

01:47:05 ◼   ► and then it lasts forever.

01:47:07 ◼   ► Like it was news to me.

01:47:08 ◼   ► I'm a nerd for the entertainment industry and I sort of follow politics and it was news

01:47:16 ◼   ► to me.

01:47:17 ◼   ► I didn't know until like at some point this year in the context of the danger of theater

01:47:23 ◼   ► change going completely bankrupt and COVID that it's illegal for the, for the studios

01:47:30 ◼   ► to own their own theaters.

01:47:31 ◼   ► Yeah, the paramount decree, which they just are making changes to right now so that we

01:47:37 ◼   ► will be able to go back to that world because to your point, it may have made sense, you

01:47:42 ◼   ► know, in 1940 or 70 years ago.

01:47:44 ◼   ► Right.

01:47:45 ◼   ► It does not make sense anymore because the world is just totally different now.

01:47:48 ◼   ► And in fact, that may end up being the savior of many of these movie theaters.

01:47:53 ◼   ► You know, Netflix has already bought a couple of theaters and I think Disney and the other

01:47:58 ◼   ► studios are going to be in the same, the same position to do that as just another offering

01:48:02 ◼   ► in their, their sort of tool belt.

01:48:04 ◼   ► And I always call it a usual suspects moment where it's that, that the denouement at usual

01:48:12 ◼   ► suspects where the detective figures out, you know, again, without spoiling it, everybody

01:48:18 ◼   ► who's seen it knows what I'm talking about.

01:48:20 ◼   ► And there's this moment where he drops his coffee cup and it's like, oh, and you, it's

01:48:25 ◼   ► so great because you and the audience are like, no.

01:48:29 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:48:30 ◼   ► Right.

01:48:31 ◼   ► And I love those moments, but there was this thing to go back in Disney lore at the tail

01:48:36 ◼   ► end of the Michael Eisner era in the nineties, Disney had this plan.

01:48:41 ◼   ► I forget what they were called, but they were going to build these entertainment complexes

01:48:46 ◼   ► in cities instead of theme parks.

01:48:49 ◼   ► It was like their next, instead of building a new theme park in Orlando or something like

01:48:52 ◼   ► that, our new Disneyland in another country, somewhere around the world, they were going

01:48:57 ◼   ► to build these things.

01:48:58 ◼   ► And one of the places they were going to build it was here in Philadelphia.

01:49:02 ◼   ► And there was a, it's a great location.

01:49:03 ◼   ► It was like right here in center city, Philadelphia.

01:49:06 ◼   ► And it was on the spot of what used to be like a hundred years ago, one of the big department

01:49:12 ◼   ► stores and long ago was destroyed.

01:49:15 ◼   ► And it was just, it's a prime spot of real estate right on market street.

01:49:21 ◼   ► Just couldn't find a better spot.

01:49:23 ◼   ► That was literally not a parking garage, just a parking lot, prime real estate.

01:49:29 ◼   ► It's like, it's like things that happened in Philadelphia that would never happen in

01:49:32 ◼   ► Manhattan is just prime real estate as a parking lot.

01:49:36 ◼   ► But because it used to be a building, it had a grow, you know, like a basement.

01:49:42 ◼   ► And so the parking garage was built on top of this.

01:49:44 ◼   ► It was hollow.

01:49:45 ◼   ► And every couple of years it would, it was like a sinkhole waiting to happen.

01:49:49 ◼   ► It was like, I wouldn't park my car there.

01:49:50 ◼   ► That lot is concave.

01:49:52 ◼   ► It looked like a bowl.

01:49:54 ◼   ► But they were, they didn't want to do anything like put any more permanent there because

01:49:58 ◼   ► they just kept thinking somebody's going to buy it.

01:50:00 ◼   ► And Disney was going to buy it and spend billions of dollars to make this entertainment complex.

01:50:04 ◼   ► Never came to fruition, but the plan never included movie theaters.

01:50:07 ◼   ► And I always thought that was weird.

01:50:10 ◼   ► And right.

01:50:11 ◼   ► Of all the things.

01:50:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:50:13 ◼   ► It was like, they're going to have laser guns, you know, like laser guns and other stuff

01:50:16 ◼   ► and all sorts of interactive stuff, but no movie theater.

01:50:19 ◼   ► I was like, that's crazy.

01:50:20 ◼   ► Why there there's a need in center city, Philly for great movie theaters.

01:50:24 ◼   ► In fact, they did.

01:50:25 ◼   ► It's so tragic because it opened right before COVID.

01:50:27 ◼   ► They did.

01:50:28 ◼   ► Actually, there is a new movie theater in downtown Philadelphia, very close to the spot

01:50:32 ◼   ► where Disney was going to build this.

01:50:34 ◼   ► But it turns out it's like my usual suspect moment.

01:50:37 ◼   ► Oh, they weren't going to put movie theaters in because that would have been illegal, which

01:50:41 ◼   ► is crazy.

01:50:42 ◼   ► You could build like laser tag and indoor roller coasters and other things, but you

01:50:48 ◼   ► can't have a movie theater because you're a movie.

01:50:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:50:51 ◼   ► I like the idea of them building that in secret.

01:50:53 ◼   ► And then at the grand opening them taking away like Michael Eisner and handcuffs.

01:50:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:50:57 ◼   ► Because you build a movie theater to show the lion or whatever.

01:51:02 ◼   ► Well, speaking of theaters and people being in a room together, Apple has an event next

01:51:09 ◼   ► week as we speak.

01:51:11 ◼   ► They're calling it high comma speed.

01:51:14 ◼   ► And it again, for obvious reasons, will not be held in an actual theater.

01:51:19 ◼   ► It'll be remote.

01:51:20 ◼   ► And I guess we can wrap up by talking about what we expect to see.

01:51:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:51:27 ◼   ► So this is obviously event number two.

01:51:29 ◼   ► I'm curious if this is the last one, if this is going to be everything and we'll get to

01:51:33 ◼   ► that in a second, but obviously it is the iPhone event, but there the naming of it,

01:51:38 ◼   ► right?

01:51:39 ◼   ► There's always these, these Zapruder film analysis of the invite and what it means.

01:51:45 ◼   ► The name is interesting.

01:51:47 ◼   ► It does seem like, given what the rumors have been that there's some element of it being

01:51:53 ◼   ► a pun on maybe the high speeds of the phones, but also like the look of it as sort of home

01:51:58 ◼   ► pod-esque, right?

01:52:00 ◼   ► And like the rumor that there would be a new home pod device with concentric circles showing

01:52:06 ◼   ► the audio element of it.

01:52:08 ◼   ► But is there something else to that?

01:52:10 ◼   ► Is it Apple chips, Silicon chips?

01:52:12 ◼   ► Is it something else?

01:52:13 ◼   ► It's funny because I, my take was, I don't think there's much to read into on this invitation.

01:52:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I saw that.

01:52:20 ◼   ► Right.

01:52:21 ◼   ► And because everything could be, speed is like the easiest thing to talk about.

01:52:24 ◼   ► Everything is always getting faster.

01:52:26 ◼   ► They're computers.

01:52:28 ◼   ► So it's, to me, it's sort of a blank slate that they could, they could have used this

01:52:32 ◼   ► invitation in title last year.

01:52:33 ◼   ► They could have used it five years ago.

01:52:35 ◼   ► They could write five years from now, but you tell people that, and it's part of the

01:52:39 ◼   ► reason I do it.

01:52:40 ◼   ► It's an insider secret if you're listening to the show is I like to do that to hear,

01:52:45 ◼   ► because the best way to get people's theories on what it means is to tell them you don't

01:52:49 ◼   ► think it means anything.

01:52:52 ◼   ► So there's people, I mean, there are people who are willing to like bet their mortgage

01:52:56 ◼   ► that it's about 5G.

01:52:58 ◼   ► There are people who think it means that the Apple Silicon Macs are coming and they're

01:53:03 ◼   ► going to be super fast.

01:53:06 ◼   ► And the latency, the latency of HomePod audio responses with the voice assistant.

01:53:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:53:14 ◼   ► What about high fidelity?

01:53:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:53:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:53:18 ◼   ► Because it's, people think it's any and all of those things.

01:53:21 ◼   ► It could be.

01:53:22 ◼   ► I just don't feel like the, oh, and somebody who, somebody thinks that it's the, because

01:53:28 ◼   ► there are rumors that Apple has, while they scrapped the charging pad, you know, the AirPower

01:53:36 ◼   ► and I'm sure they won't use, reuse the name, but that they haven't given up on their own

01:53:41 ◼   ► wireless charging thing and that it might be, that might be power, you know, they might,

01:53:47 ◼   ► those circles might symbolize the power coming out of a wireless charging pad.

01:53:53 ◼   ► And they, and they look a bit like the AirTags, which is sort of leaked out like in these

01:53:57 ◼   ► visually, right?

01:53:58 ◼   ► Right.

01:53:59 ◼   ► And maybe they're with the AirTags where you find your devices that you put the tags on