The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► - Thinking about setting up a business unlocking iPhones.

00:00:02 ◼   ► - It's easy, I hear.

00:00:05 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:00:05 ◼   ► Wow, it's going nuts though, you know?

00:00:08 ◼   ► It's like, and I kind of feel like I kind of called it

00:00:11 ◼   ► where it's like, I mean, I don't think this was very hard.

00:00:14 ◼   ► It wasn't like I'm the only one, you know,

00:00:16 ◼   ► made a unique observation, but that,

00:00:18 ◼   ► it's far from a slam dunk because it's largely,

00:00:24 ◼   ► at least so far, being tried in a court of public opinion,

00:00:28 ◼   ► not in the court of law.

00:00:29 ◼   ► - Except for today.

00:00:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this is actually late breaking news.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Can you explain this?

00:00:36 ◼   ► I think you're probably better informed than I am.

00:00:39 ◼   ► - Well, I wouldn't say that.

00:00:41 ◼   ► In another case, not the one that is really

00:00:45 ◼   ► at the forefront of all this,

00:00:47 ◼   ► a federal judge in Brooklyn today ruled

00:00:50 ◼   ► that the government could not force Apple

00:00:54 ◼   ► to unlock a phone, an iPhone.

00:00:56 ◼   ► And it was, I guess, that they--

00:00:59 ◼   ► again, was this publicized at all?

00:01:01 ◼   ► Did we know that this case was coming,

00:01:03 ◼   ► or just drop out of the thin air?

00:01:05 ◼   ► Well, there were--

00:01:07 ◼   ► they had talked about several other cases in which not

00:01:11 ◼   ► necessarily the FBI, but other district attorneys

00:01:17 ◼   ► and other jurisdictions, they were

00:01:20 ◼   ► trying to get Apple to unlock phones in order

00:01:22 ◼   ► to get information for not necessarily

00:01:25 ◼   ► terrorism related cases but just like you know racketeering drugs what I mean like a whole bunch of

00:01:30 ◼   ► right and so this one this new york case so let's just call it by the location right we'll say the

00:01:34 ◼   ► new york this is the new york case and the other one's the sand burner bernardino right um case so

00:01:40 ◼   ► the this is different and it's one of the ways it's different is uh it's a drug case so it's not

00:01:46 ◼   ► terrorism um which doesn't really shouldn't really change the law but it absolutely changes the

00:01:53 ◼   ► amount of radioactive publicity around this. You know, like you say there's a guy in Brooklyn

00:02:02 ◼   ► who's up on drug charges and everybody is like, "Oh, okay."

00:02:06 ◼   ► It's Tuesday.

00:02:09 ◼   ► Right, and then you say a bunch of a Muslim couple committed an act of terrorism and shot up 14,

00:02:18 ◼   ► killed 14 people and shot up 22 others and it's terrorism and then people are, you know, and again

00:02:25 ◼   ► I'm not even making fun of it. It's a natural reaction. It is, that's shocking and it's, it is,

00:02:30 ◼   ► you know, yeah, and I mean, as far as I know in this drug case, nobody was killed. I mean,

00:02:36 ◼   ► you know, I mean, maybe somebody was killed in relation to this guy, whoever the defendant is

00:02:41 ◼   ► dealing is that I don't actually know, but you know, it certainly wasn't a case where 14 people

00:02:46 ◼   ► Right, but in terms of the legal question of whether the United States federal law as it stands today

00:02:51 ◼   ► can have can result in the Department of Justice getting a court order to force

00:02:59 ◼   ► Apple or any other company to write new code for their devices to comply with the law. I don't think it's any different. There's nothing

00:03:07 ◼   ► magical about terrorism that's different than drugs in terms of

00:03:12 ◼   ► Can Apple be compelled to do this and the judge in this case this was his name or James Orenstein?

00:03:18 ◼   ► It seems I didn't read his order yet. It's it's too late breaking. It's a 50 page thing

00:03:21 ◼   ► But there are some highlights that came out. He really seems to have ripped the feds

00:03:25 ◼   ► What's the one that math or friend Matthew pans are into the show Matthew Panzer into the show I

00:03:36 ◼   ► Mean all this stuff gets down to this this

00:03:42 ◼   ► All Ritz Act, which we have become familiar with.

00:03:47 ◼   ► You know what? We laugh.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Since we've done our crash course as constitutional law experts.

00:03:53 ◼   ► We laugh. One of the things I've seen, and I do appreciate,

00:03:57 ◼   ► I appreciate that there are people who feel otherwise, and, you know,

00:04:01 ◼   ► it seems to me like most people who read Daring Fireball and listen to the show,

00:04:04 ◼   ► I thought before like the last episode I did with Dalrymple,

00:04:07 ◼   ► I thought that most people probably agreed with what I think.

00:04:11 ◼   ► and judging from the feedback I've seen they do.

00:04:13 ◼   ► But clearly not everybody does.

00:04:15 ◼   ► And I'll even admit that that's--

00:04:16 ◼   ► I don't agree, but it's nice to have a reasonable disagreement

00:04:20 ◼   ► with people about politics.

00:04:22 ◼   ► That no, this isn't the world we want to live in.

00:04:25 ◼   ► We really should have something where the cops can get into a phone

00:04:28 ◼   ► if they need to.

00:04:30 ◼   ► OK.

00:04:32 ◼   ► But the question of whether this All Rits Act

00:04:35 ◼   ► is the law that this should be based on.

00:04:37 ◼   ► To me, even if you think that law enforcement

00:04:41 ◼   ► should have some kind of technical way to get at a phone if they really need to. They

00:04:45 ◼   ► I really feel like it's almost you can't debate that they should try to get a new law

00:04:50 ◼   ► passed because the laws as they stand there's just no way to get there from here.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Yeah. Did you read the all writs act?

00:05:00 ◼   ► Which is no.

00:05:01 ◼   ► I did. It's actually it's very short. It's extremely short.

00:05:04 ◼   ► Well I think that's part of the problem which I've heard before.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Yeah, it's very short. And it's, you know, it was written in 1789. So there are, you know, it's not, but it's not dense, you know, I mean, the plain meaning of it, especially when you read what other people say about it, you know, people who are more expert in constitutional law, if they say that the whole point of the All-Rits Act was this was right at the beginning of the federal of our federal government, you know, the Constitution, the ink wasn't even dry on it. And this was a way so the, you know, the laws, you

00:05:36 ◼   ► all sorts of things, oh, we never thought of that,

00:05:38 ◼   ► we better make a law.

00:05:39 ◼   ► All those little things hadn't happened yet.

00:05:42 ◼   ► The All Rights Act was passed as a sort of catchall

00:05:46 ◼   ► for like, hey, if something hasn't been,

00:05:48 ◼   ► if a case comes before you that falls between the cracks

00:05:51 ◼   ► of the laws that hadn't been anticipated,

00:05:53 ◼   ► this grants the courts a bit of leeway to,

00:05:55 ◼   ► so they don't just shrug their shoulders.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And it's really, really hard to see how that applies here,

00:06:04 ◼   ► especially when so many laws have been passed

00:06:06 ◼   ► about things like encryption and digital devices and stuff like that, that they easily could

00:06:11 ◼   ► have if Congress had wanted to mandate something like this, easily could have. And in fact,

00:06:15 ◼   ► there are laws on the books that actually stipulate the other way, that tech companies

00:06:21 ◼   ► can't be compelled to do things. What was the... I had a link to it the other day on

00:06:26 ◼   ► Daring Fireball, I forget the name of the act. I guess I could look it up.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Do we have that capability?

00:06:35 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the CALEA Act, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.

00:06:43 ◼   ► So even just the name of that law really makes it clear that this is, you know, this is really

00:06:49 ◼   ► something that's very, very close.

00:06:51 ◼   ► And so here's the section of CALEA entitled Design of Features and Systems Configurations.

00:06:57 ◼   ► The statute says it does not authorize any law enforcement agency or officer to require

00:07:02 ◼   ► any specific design of equipment, facilities, services, features, or system configurations

00:07:09 ◼   ► to be adopted by any provider of a wire or electronic communications service, any manufacturer

00:07:16 ◼   ► of telecommunications equipment, or any provider of telecommunications support services.

00:07:23 ◼   ► And you know, again, it's not just me, I'm not, you know, I'm not putting on my Scooby-Doo

00:07:26 ◼   ► had here and doing like some amateur lawyering. This is, you know, real legal experts are

00:07:31 ◼   ► saying that this, you know, this was something that Apple cited in their own motion to vacate

00:07:38 ◼   ► the order Apple is saying that. And I think that there might be some slight ambiguity

00:07:43 ◼   ► there that maybe this the law was kind of written on the with phone companies in in

00:07:49 ◼   ► mind, you know, like AT&T, right, Verizon and those type of people not necessarily the

00:07:54 ◼   ► handset maker, but I don't know. I mean, I think a plain reading of the law, you know,

00:07:59 ◼   ► telecommunications, equipment, and support. I mean, it's, you know, a cell phone.

00:08:02 ◼   ► That's what, that's what a microphone is.

00:08:04 ◼   ► And that they, you know, that passage I just read very specifically seems to say you can't

00:08:08 ◼   ► make them do things like this. You can get a warrant to like investigate what they already

00:08:14 ◼   ► have, but you can't make them do new things.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:20 ◼   ► So here's the quote from Judge Orenstein that Matthew…

00:08:24 ◼   ► Now this is… so to reiterate for anybody who's following along and can't keep the

00:08:27 ◼   ► names right, this is the New York case that just broke today, Monday, 29th of February.

00:08:33 ◼   ► This wasn't the one I was thinking of, but this one's good too.

00:08:35 ◼   ► I conclude that Apple's position is more consistent than the government's with the

00:08:39 ◼   ► rule of statutory construction that requires giving meaning to all statutory words and

00:08:44 ◼   ► clauses as well as the rules prohibiting interpretations that produce absurd results

00:08:50 ◼   ► or are of suspect constitutionality.

00:08:53 ◼   ► Pete: Right. So, in other words, I mean, it's actually, it's kind of a good read. It's like

00:08:57 ◼   ► dripping with sarcasm. I mean, he's more -

00:08:59 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:08:59 ◼   ► Jared; He is. And the one that I remembered that was, there's another one that says something like,

00:09:04 ◼   ► it's basically to the effect of, you know, if the government's permission is, position is accurate,

00:09:10 ◼   ► then there is nothing stopping the government from commanding someone to commit murder.

00:09:15 ◼   ► DAVE Right. We can command you to do whatever we need to get this.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Here's this—Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept has cited this passage. "The judge also accused

00:09:26 ◼   ► the government of trying to manipulate secret judicial proceedings to obtain powers for itself

00:09:31 ◼   ► against Apple that public debate in Congress would never permit. It is," Judge Orenstein wrote,

00:09:38 ◼   ► "clear that the government has made the considered decision that it is better off securing such

00:09:44 ◼   ► crypto legislative authority from the courts in proceedings that had always been at the

00:09:50 ◼   ► time it filed the instant applications shielded from public scrutiny rather than taking the

00:09:55 ◼   ► chance that open legislative debate might produce a result less to its liking."

00:10:01 ◼   ► Back to Greenwald, because government wants the courts rather than Congress to grant this

00:10:05 ◼   ► power, the "government's interpretation of the breadth and authority of the All-Rits Act confers

00:10:12 ◼   ► on courts of limited jurisdiction" raises serious doubts about how such a statute could withstand

00:10:20 ◼   ► constitutional scrutiny under the separation of powers doctrine. So what he's more or less saying

00:10:26 ◼   ► is there's just no way that there's no way that that that by not having you know completely

00:10:31 ◼   ► circumventing the legislature and doing this in secret through the courts how in the world does

00:10:35 ◼   ► does that fit within our system?

00:10:37 ◼   ► So I really, really think, I mean, as this goes on,

00:10:40 ◼   ► and this, I mean, this is just devastating in my opinion.

00:10:43 ◼   ► I mean, and it seems to me not just what I think,

00:10:45 ◼   ► but you know, Greenwell's pretty smart

00:10:48 ◼   ► on issues like this.

00:10:50 ◼   ► It just seems like everybody who follows this stuff

00:10:52 ◼   ► really sees this as a slam dunk case in Apple's favor.

00:10:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, this ruling is a slam dunk

00:10:58 ◼   ► in Apple's favor, definitely.

00:10:59 ◼   ► I mean, obviously I think the government's

00:11:01 ◼   ► gonna appeal to this too, right?

00:11:02 ◼   ► I guess, I can't imagine that they wouldn't.

00:11:05 ◼   ► - It seems like they would.

00:11:06 ◼   ► So it's never completely over until the advisor capitulated

00:11:11 ◼   ► or it's gone to the Supreme Court.

00:11:14 ◼   ► - I'm curious, I wonder when they filed this,

00:11:16 ◼   ► because it's clearly not the,

00:11:18 ◼   ► so many of us have said that this Sandburner Dino phone

00:11:21 ◼   ► is such a perfect example for the government

00:11:24 ◼   ► because it's quote unquote terrorism.

00:11:26 ◼   ► And it was, I mean, it wasn't just like suspects.

00:11:29 ◼   ► I mean, these are two people who actually shot

00:11:32 ◼   ► killed a bunch of people. I mean, it's true, you know, they actually committed it. It wasn't even like a, you know,

00:11:36 ◼   ► right, a plan.

00:11:39 ◼   ► And it just lends them so much more emotional, and sort of, in some ways, political weight behind their request that they don't have any case like this drug case.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. I mean, the terrorism stuff obviously brings out people's emotions a lot more.

00:12:01 ◼   ► Right. And again...

00:12:02 ◼   ► Where some people think, "I like drugs."

00:12:06 ◼   ► Right. Well, but again...

00:12:08 ◼   ► Again...

00:12:09 ◼   ► "I would be lost without my drug dealer."

00:12:11 ◼   ► Again, we laugh, but I think I speak for you that... I also, though, I see that, though,

00:12:16 ◼   ► is, you know, it's common sense that some, you know, portion of the public would see this

00:12:21 ◼   ► differently and it's not necessarily unreasonable. People, you know, I mean, it gets to the root

00:12:27 ◼   ► of the real word terrorism, not the politicized one that is thrown about, but the real word,

00:12:32 ◼   ► you know, that strikes terror in people. And when you're terrorized, you know, you have

00:12:36 ◼   ► a reaction. You're actually not, if you are terrorized, then you don't really, you're

00:12:42 ◼   ► like, "I'm cool. I'm scared out of my mind, but I'm cool." You're, you know, you're not

00:12:45 ◼   ► hooked.

00:12:46 ◼   ► There's something wrong with you.

00:12:47 ◼   ► Yeah, definitely.

00:12:48 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:12:49 ◼   ► There's like evolutionary reasons why when you encounter a terrifying situation that

00:12:57 ◼   ► your body, you know, reacts in a very quick and decided way.

00:13:03 ◼   ► You know, I find this argument about, I mean, it's an interesting argument about the idea

00:13:08 ◼   ► that where this debate should take place.

00:13:10 ◼   ► And it's just, you know, to put it into simple terms for stupid people like me, I

00:13:16 ◼   ► not seen the most recent Mission Impossible movie, and I just started watching it this afternoon,

00:13:22 ◼   ► and then this came out, which is kind of funny because in the very beginning, they just banned

00:13:28 ◼   ► the IMF, you know, the Impossible Mission Force, which is a completely unregulated organization

00:13:36 ◼   ► that acts without any accountability whatsoever. And we're supposed to, you know, in watching the

00:13:44 ◼   ► movie that I'm kind of root for the people who have absolutely no

00:13:48 ◼   ► accountability yeah but even there even with the IMF and I like that movie it's

00:13:52 ◼   ► a rogue nation right this is the name right I actually enjoyed that very much

00:13:56 ◼   ► I thought it was it's it's funny I don't want to do any spoilers but there's

00:14:00 ◼   ► actually a whole bunch of parallels to specter it's almost uncanny how similar

00:14:05 ◼   ► the two movies are like the length to which you could draw you know create a

00:14:11 ◼   ► what do they call those, summaries? You know like, you know like when you on Netflix and

00:14:17 ◼   ► they give you like the quick summary. Oh yeah. Like a half a review and half of a quick plot

00:14:21 ◼   ► summary. Like you could go, you could go pretty far into detail and have it apply just as

00:14:26 ◼   ► well to, to Rogue Nation as Spectre. I find that Rogue Nation was by far the better movie.

00:14:32 ◼   ► That's my understanding. I have not seen, I've not seen Spectre yet. That is a subject

00:14:36 ◼   ► first and different episode of the show. Yes, that's a different episode. I think it's

00:14:39 ◼   ► But one difference is, at least with IMF, like, you know, Ethan Hunt would break into Apple,

00:14:45 ◼   ► and he would write the code himself, you know.

00:14:49 ◼   ► Benji would write the code.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Oh yeah, Benji would write the code. But Ethan would break in, and then he'd have glasses,

00:14:56 ◼   ► you know, so that Benji could see what he's saying, and he would steal Apple's signing key,

00:15:02 ◼   ► and then, you know, but they would do all the work themselves, and they would do so knowing

00:15:07 ◼   ► they're breaking the law to do it right and they would you know it it's still different from this

00:15:13 ◼   ► which is really of this sort of compulsory we're going to make you do what we would we tell you to

00:15:18 ◼   ► do even though you say we absolutely positive we would never what you're asking us to do is

00:15:22 ◼   ► something we would never do yeah yeah i mean and it seems to me like there may be i don't know i mean

00:15:30 ◼   ► somebody like rich mughal would have a better idea than i would but like there may be a way that

00:15:34 ◼   ► Somebody super smart could do that

00:15:36 ◼   ► And but that's not really what the point is here that the point is to create legal precedent, right? I

00:15:42 ◼   ► Know they're not even they're not even trying in the last week. I am

00:15:46 ◼   ► One of the things that's come up as this has gone on is is more and more about how

00:15:54 ◼   ► There's no way that Apple could create this and then destroy it

00:16:00 ◼   ► Well, I mean technically it's possible that they could create this use it once and then erase all you know traces of it and start over

00:16:07 ◼   ► But for any kind of any any case where they would need to show it in court

00:16:13 ◼   ► It has to be preserved

00:16:15 ◼   ► You can't have evidence that was generated using a tool that you've then destroyed because the defense has a right to inspect the tool

00:16:21 ◼   ► It I know that again this slippery slope phrase

00:16:26 ◼   ► It's like you hear it over and over and over again and it starts to lose meaning

00:16:29 ◼   ► but I really feel like it's perfectly apt here,

00:16:31 ◼   ► that you start down this path and it just leads,

00:16:33 ◼   ► and you don't even know where it's gonna wind up.

00:16:36 ◼   ► But the fact that you have to preserve tools

00:16:38 ◼   ► that are used to generate evidence in a criminal case is,

00:16:41 ◼   ► you know, and rightly so, that's the way it should be,

00:16:44 ◼   ► but it just shows that there's no way

00:16:47 ◼   ► that they could create this and destroy it.

00:16:49 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:16:50 ◼   ► - It's one of the ways that the San Bernardino case

00:16:52 ◼   ► is a perfect storm, 'cause I really don't think

00:16:54 ◼   ► there is any kind of criminal case going on,

00:16:56 ◼   ► because the two suspects are dead.

00:16:58 ◼   ► I mean, so.

00:16:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, right, what exactly?

00:17:01 ◼   ► I mean, they're not prosecuting anybody.

00:17:02 ◼   ► - But--

00:17:04 ◼   ► - They're looking for more people to prosecute.

00:17:05 ◼   ► - But what if they do find a text message on the phone

00:17:10 ◼   ► and it's to somebody else, and they're like,

00:17:12 ◼   ► "Well, we're gonna prosecute this guy."

00:17:13 ◼   ► Well, now there is a lawsuit,

00:17:15 ◼   ► and the way that they found the guy was using this tool.

00:17:18 ◼   ► So even if there's no criminal case

00:17:19 ◼   ► against the two shooters,

00:17:21 ◼   ► the whole point of wanting to look at the phone

00:17:26 ◼   ► on a surface is that they're looking for anybody else

00:17:29 ◼   ► who they might have been conspiring with.

00:17:31 ◼   ► - Right.

00:17:32 ◼   ► - What else is going on with this phone thing?

00:17:37 ◼   ► - A lot of bad commentary.

00:17:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:17:42 ◼   ► - I do find that, and again, I guess it's,

00:17:47 ◼   ► well, one of the things that's interesting about it,

00:17:50 ◼   ► I'll say this, one of the things that's interesting about it

00:17:52 ◼   ► is that it doesn't fall neatly

00:17:54 ◼   ► on the left-right political divide.

00:17:56 ◼   ► And in general, the political right

00:18:00 ◼   ► is a little bit more friendly to law enforcement,

00:18:02 ◼   ► and the left is more friendly,

00:18:05 ◼   ► or more in favor of civil rights and civil liberties.

00:18:10 ◼   ► So the ACLU is perceived, probably correctly so,

00:18:14 ◼   ► as a left-leaning organization.

00:18:18 ◼   ► And so in some sense, this is definitely about,

00:18:22 ◼   ► absolutely about civil liberties. That's Apple's entire defense, really. That if

00:18:29 ◼   ► you would predict there's any kind of left-right split, it would be, you know,

00:18:33 ◼   ► Democrats and left-leaning people siding with Apple and Republicans and

00:18:36 ◼   ► conservatives siding with... But that's a really broad

00:18:41 ◼   ► generalization, and a lot of conservatives are very libertarian-minded

00:18:47 ◼   ► and are suspicious of government. I bet those guys are those guys that

00:18:52 ◼   ► took that took over that land in Portland probably or opposed to the FBI.

00:18:57 ◼   ► It wasn't in Portland.

00:18:59 ◼   ► It was Oregon. It wasn't Portland.

00:19:02 ◼   ► Did I say Portland? I meant Oregon. Whatever it is.

00:19:05 ◼   ► That would be pretty funny though.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Occupy Portland.

00:19:09 ◼   ► Occupy like a hipster coffee shop.

00:19:12 ◼   ► Really a really nice Thai restaurant.

00:19:18 ◼   ► Take over a food truck.

00:19:22 ◼   ► We can't get rid of these guys.

00:19:25 ◼   ► But they keep buying our expensive donuts.

00:19:28 ◼   ► Really great sneakers.

00:19:29 ◼   ► No, but I've seen an awful lot of people

00:19:34 ◼   ► who I follow on Twitter for other political reasons who

00:19:37 ◼   ► are-- and ordinarily would be on a Republican conservative side

00:19:41 ◼   ► and are very much in favor of Apple in this regard.

00:19:45 ◼   ► And I've also seen a lot of them--

00:19:48 ◼   ► I see the similarities.

00:19:49 ◼   ► I almost don't want to open the door on this.

00:19:51 ◼   ► but I've seen a lot, on conservatives,

00:19:53 ◼   ► I've seen a lot of them compare it to gun ownership

00:19:57 ◼   ► and gun control legislation.

00:20:02 ◼   ► And I feel like that breaks down pretty quickly,

00:20:05 ◼   ► but at the top level, I do kinda see

00:20:08 ◼   ► what they're getting at, that there's this argument

00:20:09 ◼   ► that the Second Amendment, at a very, very high level,

00:20:11 ◼   ► that if you read it, it says it's some kind of protection

00:20:15 ◼   ► against the government, that you can protect yourself,

00:20:20 ◼   ► and that that's what encryption is, that you can have this device where you protect the

00:20:24 ◼   ► data yourself and you have a right to do this as an individual.

00:20:26 ◼   ► So I kind of see it.

00:20:27 ◼   ► It breaks, to me it breaks down very quickly because gun legislate, encryption is binary.

00:20:33 ◼   ► Your stuff is either encrypted securely or it's not encrypted securely, yes or no.

00:20:38 ◼   ► And yes, there's different strengths to, you know, you get greater and greater key lengths

00:20:42 ◼   ► and different algorithms and stuff like that.

00:20:44 ◼   ► So I'm not saying all encryption is equivalent, but it's either securely encrypted or not,

00:20:48 ◼   ► whereas gun ownership is a, or gun legislation,

00:20:52 ◼   ► in terms of which guns you can buy,

00:20:54 ◼   ► is clearly there's a spectrum.

00:20:56 ◼   ► And everybody agrees.

00:20:57 ◼   ► This is one of those things that, to me,

00:20:58 ◼   ► drives me nuts about,

00:20:59 ◼   ► when you talk about gun control legislation,

00:21:01 ◼   ► is that everybody seems to agree,

00:21:02 ◼   ► even if the hardest of the hardliners

00:21:05 ◼   ► on the Second Amendment,

00:21:06 ◼   ► that, you know, normal civilians shouldn't be able

00:21:10 ◼   ► to buy surface-to-air missiles to shoot down jetliners.

00:21:13 ◼   ► You know, that somewhere, everybody's willing to draw a line

00:21:15 ◼   ► that these arms are too powerful,

00:21:18 ◼   ► that the debate is where that line should be drawn.

00:21:22 ◼   ► But again, and I'm sure this is one of those topics where I'm sure there are people who

00:21:25 ◼   ► listen to the show.

00:21:26 ◼   ► In fact, I know a couple of friends who listen to the show who are staunch advocates of gun

00:21:33 ◼   ► ownership rights.

00:21:35 ◼   ► But I do see the connection, and I suspect, though, that those type of listeners, people

00:21:39 ◼   ► who can bear to listen to my show and the small doses of politics I drop into it, but

00:21:44 ◼   ► our staunch Second Amendment advocates, I guarantee you those listeners are on Apple's side in this.

00:21:49 ◼   ► Yeah. So I do think it makes for an interesting public debate.

00:21:52 ◼   ► Yeah. The problem is that there's sadly not enough representation of those views

00:22:00 ◼   ► in politics, really. Because most of the candidates have come out strongly in favor of the FBI.

00:22:08 ◼   ► or if they're not strongly in favor of the FBI like our man Trump, what's Trump say?

00:22:15 ◼   ► Just open the damn phone. Just open the damn phone. Just open it up. It's easy.

00:22:20 ◼   ► The thing that's a little frustrating is that the other side is kind of getting involved.

00:22:29 ◼   ► Their take is more or less wishful thinking. Like let's put smart people in a room and, you know,

00:22:35 ◼   ► from law enforcement and from these great American tech companies and I'm sure they'll come up with

00:22:39 ◼   ► something that will keep everybody's data completely safe and secure and will let the

00:22:46 ◼   ► FBI look at it whenever they want to. Nothing bad has ever come out of a smoke-filled room.

00:22:51 ◼   ► Except maybe the smoke. This one that you sent me, I didn't see this. I guess because it

00:23:02 ◼   ► came out yesterday. I didn't even know that there was a Sunday Wall Street Journal. Maybe it came

00:23:06 ◼   ► out in the newspaper today and it just has the yesterday's dateline. By L. Gordon,

00:23:10 ◼   ► L. Gordon Kravitz. Now this sounds like a made-up name.

00:23:15 ◼   ► He used to be the publisher of the journal, apparently. But I had not really heard of him

00:23:24 ◼   ► before this piece. But number one, if you're a conservative and you go by first initial

00:23:30 ◼   ► Gordon something. Don't. Stop it. And his first name is Lewis. It's not like it's

00:23:38 ◼   ► Levonsky or something. I mean it's not like some long or complicated or name that he would have

00:23:45 ◼   ► gotten teased about. L. Gordon Liddy. Yeah. Like this is a guy, he's probably about our age, so he's

00:23:52 ◼   ► doing it on purpose. Right, like he's a guy who looked at G. Gordon Liddy and was like, "Hey,

00:23:56 ◼   ► my middle name's Gordon. I'm gonna be cool. It's important to have role models. I'm gonna be cool

00:24:03 ◼   ► like a political hack who did Time for Nixon and became a, after we got out, became a right-wing

00:24:10 ◼   ► radio kook. Right. How would you summarize his uh his headline is "Apple's Rotten Core" so he went

00:24:19 ◼   ► there he went to the... Well he spends a lot of time talking about, he starts out by sort of

00:24:25 ◼   ► trying to make it seem like Apple's argument is all about whether it's difficult to do or not,

00:24:29 ◼   ► and tries to make it seem like Apple just doesn't want to do it because they're saying it's hard,

00:24:35 ◼   ► when that's really not the situation at all. And at some point he says that,

00:24:43 ◼   ► he says, let me see if I can find the quote, "Apple engineers have a..." I can't find it,

00:24:53 ◼   ► But he says that Apple engineers have basically admitted that it could only apply to this one phone.

00:24:59 ◼   ► Without linking to anything.

00:25:04 ◼   ► For Apple at first claim, this is a quote, that this work would affect millions of customers.

00:25:11 ◼   ► Now its engineers admit code can apply to a specific iPhone.

00:25:14 ◼   ► Which Apple has never said.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Well, they could make an instance of the OS that only applies to one phone, but it's, you know,

00:25:26 ◼   ► at this point you're starting to talk, it's like talking copy protection, you know, with video

00:25:30 ◼   ► games and apps, you know, where you, once you have a version of the OS that has a statement that says

00:25:37 ◼   ► if the device ID equals this exact device ID, then go ahead and, you know, let them enter as

00:25:45 ◼   ► as many passcodes as they want, then somebody who illicitly obtained a copy of the OS can

00:25:50 ◼   ► break into a debugger and just say, "Why don't we just skip that if check?" And again, I

00:25:56 ◼   ► realized, and I don't, I'm not going to start a computer science podcast, I realized that

00:26:00 ◼   ► there are ways to obfuscate that code so that it's not that easy to identify when you break

00:26:07 ◼   ► into the debugger. But on the other hand, I'll go back to my analogy of software copy

00:26:11 ◼   ► protection where you can't beat it eventually. I mean, if the, you know, the

00:26:17 ◼   ► whatever checks and that, you know, most apps and games that are serious about it

00:26:21 ◼   ► don't just have an if serial number equals legit, do, you know, go ahead and

00:26:25 ◼   ► play the game. I mean, I try to make it more complicated than that, but, you know,

00:26:28 ◼   ► anybody who's ever tried to, you know, investigate it, how much pirated

00:26:33 ◼   ► software is out floating around the world and always has been, will realize

00:26:36 ◼   ► that there's always ways around it. And it's the idea that there'd be this

00:26:41 ◼   ► version. I'm gonna go with this analogy. It's not that bad. It's sort of like they're asking

00:26:45 ◼   ► them to make a game that, you know, but we'll make sure we're the only ones with the serial number.

00:26:49 ◼   ► But then anybody could crack it and now everybody's got a, you know, phone cracking thing.

00:26:55 ◼   ► He also said, "When Apple refused the court order, Apple defenders claimed it was impossible

00:27:01 ◼   ► to unlock the phone." Now, see, nobody said that. I don't. Nobody said that. Nobody said that.

00:27:07 ◼   ► I quoted a thing today where, and maybe I even went the wrong way, but that somebody, you know,

00:27:13 ◼   ► there was this Washington Post story on the thing and they were like, somebody was trying to give

00:27:17 ◼   ► a quote like, "Bob, both sides are kind of liars." A former Justice Department official, Jennifer

00:27:22 ◼   ► Daskow, said both sides are overstating her argument. She said, "The government is wrong to

00:27:26 ◼   ► say this is just about one case. On the other hand, it is wrong to say that if Apple loses this case,

00:27:31 ◼   ► there's absolutely no limits to what the government can order a company to do.

00:27:35 ◼   ► And on during Fireball, I said, "Well, the first part is totally true. The government really is

00:27:41 ◼   ► being disingenuous about this applying to just one phone." And I said that nobody,

00:27:47 ◼   ► especially not Apple, is using words like "absolutely no limits" on what the government

00:27:50 ◼   ► can order a company to do. A couple of people emailed and said, "Well, actually Apple's

00:27:53 ◼   ► order doesn't quite say that exactly, but they do say that there's no end to the limit." And

00:27:58 ◼   ► like you said with the the other one the orenstein one that you know what or whatever else or some

00:28:04 ◼   ► would you say said the you know this could lead to the conclusion that the government could order

00:28:07 ◼   ► you to kill people that was yeah that was right that you know actually i mean that was that was

00:28:12 ◼   ► not necessarily you know that was not saying that apple i mean it was basically that was

00:28:16 ◼   ► that was a legal interpretation of the um this interpretation that all ritz act basically they

00:28:21 ◼   ► they were saying that that they were saying that the written law did not apply and so they needed

00:28:28 ◼   ► to invoke the all ritz act act and I think Gorenstein was saying no there's actually a

00:28:34 ◼   ► law on the books about this and you can't just ignore that and invoke the all ritz act because

00:28:38 ◼   ► if you start doing that then you can do anything you want that you know that's this is exactly what

00:28:42 ◼   ► the rule of law is about that right we make these rules we have a general agreement as to what words

00:28:49 ◼   ► mean and therefore you you you follow the law I've seen some people and and

00:29:03 ◼   ► and you know I don't even know if it's worth I don't know I I feel like

00:29:07 ◼   ► listeners at the show are smart they're not going this way but on Twitter there

00:29:10 ◼   ► have been some people who've approached me with the well how would I feel if one

00:29:14 ◼   ► my family members had been killed by these people. Did you see the one that somebody had quoted? No,

00:29:21 ◼   ► I don't think. That's the one that said, "How would Tim Cook feel if his wife had been murdered?"

00:29:28 ◼   ► Oh no!

00:29:32 ◼   ► There's a couple problems with that statement. He'd be very surprised.

00:29:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I think surprise would probably be his first reaction.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I think his first reaction would be...

00:29:46 ◼   ► The police called him and said,

00:29:48 ◼   ► "Mr. Cook, we have terrible news. Your wife has been murdered."

00:29:52 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:29:54 ◼   ► Say what now?

00:29:56 ◼   ► That would be something.

00:29:58 ◼   ► But this is why we don't have juries made up of the family members of the victim.

00:30:05 ◼   ► I sympathize. I really do.

00:30:07 ◼   ► And I totally agree with Apple's emphasis,

00:30:11 ◼   ► not just on PR, but I think they really mean it.

00:30:13 ◼   ► That every time they talk about this or publish something,

00:30:15 ◼   ► they say something right up front

00:30:16 ◼   ► about the tremendous sympathy they have

00:30:19 ◼   ► for the families of the victims of this incident,

00:30:22 ◼   ► and every incident, and that they cannot abide terrorism.

00:30:25 ◼   ► It's the trade-off.

00:30:27 ◼   ► There is no perfect way to cut this off.

00:30:30 ◼   ► You can either sacrifice some law enforcement

00:30:35 ◼   ► law enforcement opportunities to find clues

00:30:40 ◼   ► and protect privacy and civil liberties for everybody,

00:30:45 ◼   ► or not, but that's the trade-off that our system

00:30:50 ◼   ► and our founders made 200 and whatever years ago.

00:30:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, and as a matter of fact,

00:30:57 ◼   ► one of the relatives of one of the victims

00:31:00 ◼   ► has actually sided with Apple.

00:31:02 ◼   ► - I'm not surprised, 'cause, you know.

00:31:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, of course there's gonna be people on both sides, right?

00:31:07 ◼   ► I mean, there's gonna be people who desperately want Apple to unlock the phone,

00:31:11 ◼   ► and then there's gonna be people who want it the other way.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Right, with 14 victims, 14 dead, and 22 others who were seriously injured,

00:31:18 ◼   ► you're gonna find people who were directly involved on all sides of it.

00:31:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:24 ◼   ► It is hard, but it's, again, this is, you know, and it's...

00:31:27 ◼   ► I'm trying not to get angry at the FBI for doing it, and privately I guess I would,

00:31:33 ◼   ► at least professionally here on this very professional show, I won't. But it's

00:31:37 ◼   ► it's infuriating that people who, and clearly people who work in the Justice Department,

00:31:43 ◼   ► in the FBI, are dispassionate about this. And they understand civil liberties. I mean,

00:31:48 ◼   ► as far as I think, I don't know if it's still the case, but I think that for most,

00:31:53 ◼   ► just about every FBI agent, unless you're some kind of specialist, is you have to have a law

00:31:59 ◼   ► degree. FBI agents are not like your local police department. These guys and women, these

00:32:10 ◼   ► men and women are legal experts. They're lawyers.

00:32:13 ◼   ► Well, they're not all lawyers.

00:32:14 ◼   ► Well, a lot of them are. I think most of them are.

00:32:17 ◼   ► A lot of them are, yeah.

00:32:18 ◼   ► I think it's the standard way to become an FBI agent is to be a lawyer. I think you could

00:32:22 ◼   ► be Dana Scully and be a medical doctor.

00:32:24 ◼   ► think a lot of well but a lot of them do come from law enforcement or or the and

00:32:28 ◼   ► I don't think that's not I don't think it's a situation where they go from law

00:32:30 ◼   ► enforcement to lead to law school and then to the FBI I think I mean you have

00:32:34 ◼   ► to be I think you just you have to well they're informed it's not easy I'm not

00:32:37 ◼   ► saying it's easy but I'm but I don't believe you have to have like a specific

00:32:40 ◼   ► you don't have to be a whatever JT what I'm saying though is that they they know

00:32:45 ◼   ► what they're doing you know they know that the legal argument you don't have

00:32:48 ◼   ► be Amy Gromer's I'm saying. There's the cynicism involved to make these the

00:32:56 ◼   ► San Bernardino family members who are siding with them publicly to use that to

00:33:02 ◼   ► their advantage is it's easy to it could get me worked up if I really think about

00:33:08 ◼   ► it mm-hmm yeah I just expect better I don't know about well I guess that's my

00:33:17 ◼   ► That's the problem that I expect better from today's US federal government.

00:33:23 ◼   ► I should, maybe I should be, I should have a disclosure that my wife is a defense investigator.

00:33:32 ◼   ► So I guess in my family, we come at it from a certain perspective.

00:33:37 ◼   ► perspective and and you know some of that is born of the experience of the

00:33:43 ◼   ► cases that she's been involved with over the years right and seeing some of the

00:33:48 ◼   ► shenanigans and I mean yeah and is almost whitewash of some of the stuff

00:33:52 ◼   ► that did you know exactly yeah similar thing here where my wife was a defense

00:33:58 ◼   ► attorney and so we're perfect we're perfect to have a discussion totally unbiased

00:34:05 ◼   ► yeah we have all sides of the debate we have a guy named john whose wife works in criminal

00:34:14 ◼   ► investigations and we have a guy named john whose wife worked in uh criminal legal defense

00:34:20 ◼   ► yeah right used to work see your wife used to work right and now right exactly so that's the

00:34:26 ◼   ► difference. That's the difference. Both sides of the aisle. From two guys named John.

00:34:30 ◼   ► With no formal training in any of them. Who like apple. Who like apple.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Pretend that because they read the all Ritz Act that they know what the hell is going on.

00:34:40 ◼   ► I'm curious how this is going to play out. I'm also curious, I guess we should take a break and

00:34:46 ◼   ► I should talk about one of our friendly sponsors, but when we come back, I'm curious how this is

00:34:52 ◼   ► played out is going to play out in Congress and I'm not even sure I got the

00:34:57 ◼   ► dates all mixed up so I don't know maybe you can figure this out afterwards but

00:35:02 ◼   ► let me take a break though and thank longtime sponsor of the show our good

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00:37:33 ◼   ► You're nuts

00:37:37 ◼   ► Or pal Peter Cohen just went to work for black back. You almost said it black black base

00:37:42 ◼   ► I know I know I know you if you have practiced you you I don't even know how you do that, but

00:37:48 ◼   ► But good for you

00:37:53 ◼   ► So years ago, I did a podcast right?

00:37:55 ◼   ► I did could not say back blaze and I said black blades over and over and over again

00:38:00 ◼   ► And so yeah our friend it's very it's not easy

00:38:03 ◼   ► My friend Yev who's like their marketing guy went a listen to the show and he went over to you know

00:38:09 ◼   ► domain name register and he registered black blaze

00:38:12 ◼   ► And for that's definitely that that's definitely the salute. Yeah

00:38:16 ◼   ► It's like I really like that. I wish every time I screwed up a sponsorship read that they would just do it. Yeah, I didn't just

00:38:23 ◼   ► That one I understand pixel mature. I still don't understand

00:38:32 ◼   ► Just I don't know I don't know how you would read that I

00:38:34 ◼   ► Guess my initial guess was pixel mater, but then I thought well, maybe that's wrong and they were there. You know they're

00:38:41 ◼   ► European they don't even speak English right so I made a guess yeah

00:38:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I think they're aren't they either. Yeah, they're Germans. Yeah, so pixel metal yeah

00:38:50 ◼   ► Yeah, it's on the tour. It's good

00:38:53 ◼   ► So

00:38:59 ◼   ► It's one of those things where it's like if you don't announce if a tree

00:39:03 ◼   ► If a tree was never announced

00:39:05 ◼   ► And then it doesn't grow out of the ground doesn't make a sound

00:39:09 ◼   ► So if Apple never announced a date for a March event, can the date be moved?

00:39:14 ◼   ► No, not I say no no, no, I mean if you're if you're deciding

00:39:21 ◼   ► when you're gonna have your birthday party and

00:39:24 ◼   ► You're kind of thinking about having it on

00:39:28 ◼   ► the 15th and you move it to the 21st. That's right until the invitations go out as a mean

00:39:33 ◼   ► You know in your mind you moved it, right?

00:39:36 ◼   ► But it's you know, we shouldn't we shouldn't all be talking about it being right and the same goes for

00:39:40 ◼   ► Changing the name of the phone that hasn't been announced yet from the iPhone 5 SE to the iPhone SE

00:39:47 ◼   ► They changed the name of the phone

00:39:49 ◼   ► But anyway, that's a lot of scratch. That's a lot of scratching off the back of the couple of weeks ago

00:39:55 ◼   ► A couple of weeks ago it leaked through the usual sources that Apple was planning a March

00:40:02 ◼   ► event for this new 4-inch iPhone and the new iPad.

00:40:09 ◼   ► I guess the rumors say no major updates to the watch, not like the second generation

00:40:15 ◼   ► Apple watch, but new bands.

00:40:18 ◼   ► New bands.

00:40:19 ◼   ► I don't know what else.

00:40:20 ◼   ► that it was going to be Tuesday, March 15th.

00:40:22 ◼   ► And then I guess it was over the weekend, was it Sunday?

00:40:26 ◼   ► I think it came out, I know it was over the weekend.

00:40:28 ◼   ► But Kara Swisher at Recode broke the story actually.

00:40:32 ◼   ► And then John Petchkowski,

00:40:33 ◼   ► who usually gets those date things first,

00:40:35 ◼   ► he's at Buzzfeed now,

00:40:36 ◼   ► it was about an hour later and said so too.

00:40:40 ◼   ► And that nope, it's going to be Monday, March 21st.

00:40:45 ◼   ► So it's not on a Tuesday, it's on a Monday.

00:40:48 ◼   ► And which sucked for me

00:40:50 ◼   ► Because I tried to do the right thing. So I don't know I would let me just emphasize this right now

00:40:55 ◼   ► I have no idea nobody at Apple

00:40:58 ◼   ► Officially or unofficially has given me any indication of when this event is and on the other hand

00:41:05 ◼   ► I've never asked and I would guess that at some point in the next week or two

00:41:09 ◼   ► I'll get an email with an invitation and it'll say please join us at town hall on

00:41:14 ◼   ► Whatever date but I tried to be smart and based on the leak I booked I booked airfare

00:41:19 ◼   ► So I had airfare for the original date. Oh

00:41:22 ◼   ► You booked here for that I booked airfare then

00:41:28 ◼   ► Now I always stay I expect and again, I don't know I just take guesses on these things

00:41:34 ◼   ► I don't know but I fly out. I always stay in San Francisco

00:41:38 ◼   ► even if I know even if I know for a fact that the event is going to be in Cupertino because

00:41:44 ◼   ► Really? There's not much to do down there. You don't like the days in

00:41:48 ◼   ► I forget where I stayed the one time. When I went out for that Mercedes thing I talked about a while ago.

00:41:53 ◼   ► It was a very nice hotel. It was fine, but it's really, you could be, I mean, there's just nothing going on.

00:42:00 ◼   ► And I have friends in San Francisco, so it's less, it's more fun and it's a better trip if I just bite the bullet and wake up and somehow find a ride from San Francisco to Cupertino in the morning for the event than the other way around, than to try to fulfill.

00:42:14 ◼   ► What is that ride? Is it a half hour or 45 minutes?

00:42:16 ◼   ► her 45 minutes? Oh, it really varies by traffic. It's probably more like an hour, and I think

00:42:21 ◼   ► you got it. You really want to kind of play it. I never do the driving, though, so I'm actually not

00:42:26 ◼   ► sure. I think if you hit good traffic and you can get in the passing lane, you can make it in

00:42:32 ◼   ► 40 minutes, maybe. 40 minutes to an hour, and if you hit traffic, it's good luck. But I have

00:42:38 ◼   ► friends. Again, a friend of the show, Panzerino, is coming in for the same event, and he's going

00:42:43 ◼   ► going to have a car, so I'll just hitch a ride with him.

00:42:46 ◼   ► I mean, you know this, right?

00:42:50 ◼   ► Part of the rules, if you want to be on the talk show,

00:42:52 ◼   ► is if I ever need a ride, you--

00:42:54 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:42:57 ◼   ► I got-- I'm out.

00:42:58 ◼   ► I don't take advantage of it very often.

00:43:00 ◼   ► I'm not--

00:43:01 ◼   ► Bloop, bloop, bloop.

00:43:02 ◼   ► You can verify.

00:43:03 ◼   ► You've been on the show a lot of times,

00:43:04 ◼   ► and I've never once called you and said, hey, Molt,

00:43:06 ◼   ► I'm at the airport.

00:43:08 ◼   ► I need a ride.

00:43:09 ◼   ► No, I've given a ride to Cufasos.

00:43:11 ◼   ► Yeah, probably on my credit.

00:43:12 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:43:14 ◼   ► That's what I'm thinking, right? I think that defraes some of my, uh...

00:43:18 ◼   ► No, so anyway, I had already booked my airfare, and so...

00:43:22 ◼   ► But I knew what I was getting into. I'm not mad. I don't, I, you know, I feel like I'd sort of lost a bet, but, uh, I knew it was a bet.

00:43:30 ◼   ► I just thought, though, in times past, they give out the official invitation so late that if you book, only when you get, wake up in the morning and find the email that says,

00:43:40 ◼   ► that says, "Here's the official invitation. We're having a thing," you end up paying a

00:43:44 ◼   ► lot more for airfare than if you book it in advance. And so I took the gamble to try to

00:43:49 ◼   ► save some money.

00:43:51 ◼   ► It turns out I'm actually going to... This is the episode where I talk about the accounting

00:43:55 ◼   ► of running during fireball. Turns out though, I had to pay two...

00:43:58 ◼   ► So that's why you had me on.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Right. I had to pay a $200 change fee for both legs of the flight. So there you think,

00:44:06 ◼   ► "Well, now you're out 400 bucks." And guess what? This is shocking. This is really...

00:44:09 ◼   ► I know this is going to shock you.

00:44:11 ◼   ► American Airlines, in addition to the $200 change

00:44:14 ◼   ► fee for each leg of the fight, they charge you tax and service

00:44:17 ◼   ► fees on top of that.

00:44:19 ◼   ► What?

00:44:19 ◼   ► For the change fees.

00:44:22 ◼   ► So it's--

00:44:23 ◼   ► Well, first of all, it's horrible

00:44:25 ◼   ► that you have to fly American Airlines.

00:44:27 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:44:27 ◼   ► Don't even get me started on it.

00:44:30 ◼   ► That's--

00:44:31 ◼   ► Do you know the story?

00:44:32 ◼   ► That's really the worst part of the whole story,

00:44:34 ◼   ► regardless of the fees.

00:44:37 ◼   ► But that's terrible.

00:44:39 ◼   ► Well, Philly, long story short, Philly used to be dominated by US Air.

00:44:42 ◼   ► There was our that's where we're like the biggest US Air hub. And so US Air

00:44:48 ◼   ► acquired American Airlines. So it's US Air that bought American.

00:44:52 ◼   ► Oh, it was the other way around.

00:44:54 ◼   ► No, but they kept the American name because it's a better name.

00:44:56 ◼   ► Okay, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

00:44:59 ◼   ► And maybe American even has more flights. American might have been the bigger

00:45:03 ◼   ► airline, but they were less profitable. American was losing money. And so US Air

00:45:06 ◼   ► bought them and rebranded the whole company as American. It was sort of a mess for about

00:45:14 ◼   ► eight months where they were like, you'd be like going through like kiosks and it'd be

00:45:20 ◼   ► like an American desk and a US air desk and you show up at the US air desk because you

00:45:23 ◼   ► have a US air ticket and they're like, go to American and it's like, all right, I'll

00:45:26 ◼   ► go to American. And they're like, yeah, that's an American flight now. But anyway, they charge

00:45:33 ◼   ► you a service fee on top of the change fee. That's like it's like is it run by ticket

00:45:40 ◼   ► master exactly wait let me see there here's your here's your convenience fee how much

00:45:47 ◼   ► did I pay for this think about how many how many airlines you've flown over the years

00:45:51 ◼   ► that are just gone now I mean it's unbelievable it's like the tech it's kind of like the tech

00:45:56 ◼   ► industry for the most part I really kind of like there's a few that have stuck around

00:45:59 ◼   ► for a long period of time, and then there's a crap ton that came and went.

00:46:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I can't even think of something.

00:46:05 ◼   ► I don't think I ever--

00:46:07 ◼   ► before my time, I never flew TWA.

00:46:10 ◼   ► I flew TWA.

00:46:11 ◼   ► See, that's like a childhood memory, though.

00:46:15 ◼   ► TWA reminds me of flying where you got cloth napkins,

00:46:21 ◼   ► and you got silverware in a plastic bag, and you had--

00:46:26 ◼   ► your dinner was like a like um Salisbury steak with a you know and you had like a there was

00:46:33 ◼   ► like a dessert and a salad I mean there were like four little tray little like holder things

00:46:39 ◼   ► on your tray and the flight attendants were all in uniform you know like real like they

00:46:45 ◼   ► had hats on and those were the days and they were and and there was also a smoking section

00:46:54 ◼   ► drawback there was a smoking section but you were used to it back then taxes and

00:47:00 ◼   ► carrier imposed fees 116 dollars I don't know I it's hard to tell from the

00:47:05 ◼   ► receipt I don't know they might have charged me yeah but anyway $400 plus the

00:47:10 ◼   ► chances and fees I'm actually going to save money on the trip though because

00:47:15 ◼   ► the hotels are so much cheaper in San Francisco the next week because the

00:47:19 ◼   ► initial date that March 15th week is coincides with the game developer

00:47:23 ◼   ► conference in San Francisco GDC. And I my hotel was like $5,000 a

00:47:29 ◼   ► night. It was like so much that I was really worried about Amy

00:47:34 ◼   ► looking at the MX like thinking that I got a room at the you

00:47:37 ◼   ► know, the Four Seasons or the Ritz Carlton or something. It's

00:47:40 ◼   ► like all of the standard hotels that you know, we've stayed at

00:47:43 ◼   ► for years and years and years. And all these things are all

00:47:46 ◼   ► sold out because all the GDC is just insane. Like because Apple

00:47:50 ◼   ► has done this before they've had mid March events, and it's

00:47:52 ◼   ► coincided with GDC before. And it's just insane, John. I mean, it's like, when you get used

00:47:59 ◼   ► to being there for like WWDC or Macworld or something like that, it's like, "Oh, yeah,

00:48:03 ◼   ► this is a crowd. There's, you know, thousands of people and I see a lot of friends." GDC

00:48:07 ◼   ► is like 75,000 people or something like that. And it is like, it's just absolutely nuts.

00:48:13 ◼   ► So anyway, I'm actually saving money. So my thanks to Apple for...

00:48:15 ◼   ► And they're all wearing fedoras too.

00:48:18 ◼   ► I'm...

00:48:19 ◼   ► I'm sorry, some of my best friends are game developers, so please, please, that's just

00:48:27 ◼   ► a joke.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:48:29 ◼   ► Don't send letters.

00:48:30 ◼   ► I was a little…

00:48:31 ◼   ► I was like, "Hmm, Monday?

00:48:33 ◼   ► Why would they move it to a Monday?"

00:48:34 ◼   ► And it turns out last year's event was on a Monday too, the mid-March event.

00:48:38 ◼   ► And that's the one that I missed because my eyeball would have exploded if I got it

00:48:44 ◼   ► on a point.

00:48:46 ◼   ► So I missed that one, but it was on a Monday.

00:48:49 ◼   ► We were talking about you doing a road trip.

00:48:51 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:53 ◼   ► It was under consideration that maybe I would just

00:48:55 ◼   ► drive cross-country.

00:48:57 ◼   ► No, but--

00:48:58 ◼   ► But then the altitude was still a problem.

00:49:01 ◼   ► Yeah, it was actually--

00:49:02 ◼   ► it was like getting on an airplane is like, oh my--

00:49:05 ◼   ► You needed to stay at sea level.

00:49:06 ◼   ► No, I needed to stay at whatever sea level I was at.

00:49:09 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

00:49:10 ◼   ► So I need to stay at Philadelphia Sea,

00:49:12 ◼   ► which is very close.

00:49:13 ◼   ► Well, I think you could have gone lower, right?

00:49:15 ◼   ► I don't--

00:49:16 ◼   ► You can go lower.

00:49:17 ◼   ► I guess so.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess.

00:49:19 ◼   ► You don't want to go higher.

00:49:20 ◼   ► Well, maybe not.

00:49:22 ◼   ► Maybe not.

00:49:23 ◼   ► Maybe you could.

00:49:24 ◼   ► It would implode if you went lower.

00:49:25 ◼   ► It would explode if you went higher.

00:49:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:27 ◼   ► But the train ride from Philly to New York City was fine because it doesn't go up, doesn't

00:49:31 ◼   ► go down.

00:49:32 ◼   ► It's just New Jersey.

00:49:34 ◼   ► But going through the Rockies would have been a problem.

00:49:40 ◼   ► Going on an airplane was like, "Oh my God, your eyeball will explode and it'll be excruciatingly

00:49:44 ◼   ► painful."

00:49:45 ◼   ► like going up in elevation was like maybe nothing will happen but you know

00:49:51 ◼   ► you don't really want to take a chance yeah right well I mean anybody anybody

00:49:55 ◼   ► who's flown with a cold knows something about that right I mean you know the

00:50:00 ◼   ► effect that happens if you've flown with a cold which is horrible I mean you it's

00:50:05 ◼   ► just like you're in constant pain I've in the same way that like the first time

00:50:11 ◼   ► you've ever experimented with margaritas in your early 20s and then you wake up and you say it was

00:50:17 ◼   ► it was it was my eyes when you when you the first time you've ever told yourself i'm never drinking

00:50:22 ◼   ► again uh it's that's what flying with a cold is like i i've only done it i've always gotten lucky

00:50:30 ◼   ► in my life i don't get sick that much i'm pretty healthy and i've only i think i can only remember

00:50:34 ◼   ► a handful of times. But I remember one time, man, my sinuses, it just felt like the dentist

00:50:41 ◼   ► was going up through my eye to get to my teeth. For the whole four-hour flight.

00:50:50 ◼   ► Well, Jonas goes to a fancy school, right? So he doesn't bring a cold home.

00:50:56 ◼   ► Oh, you got to be kidding me.

00:50:58 ◼   ► Hank goes to public school, so we get cold.

00:51:01 ◼   ► I don't think there's any difference at all whatsoever. Kids are disgusting. They're all

00:51:06 ◼   ► disgusting. There's absolutely no... They really are.

00:51:09 ◼   ► No, there's no difference. Jonas is pretty healthy though. I think he got it from Amy.

00:51:14 ◼   ► He's even healthier than I am, I think. But when he was kindergarten and first grade,

00:51:20 ◼   ► man, we were all getting sick all the time. Yeah.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Terrible. Yeah.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Anyway, I thought that the Monday date was weird. Maybe they wanted Monday anyway,

00:51:29 ◼   ► But the old rumor was for Tuesday, but it turns out that there's like a congressional

00:51:33 ◼   ► This is a very long talk show digression turns out that there is a a a a some kind of thing in Washington

00:51:40 ◼   ► DC on Tuesday the 22nd involving the Apple FBI thing and so I think that they

00:51:46 ◼   ► Some kind of right but they you know don't want to have product in

00:51:50 ◼   ► Introduction the same day as that but now I saw today that Bruce Sewell is testifying tomorrow in DC

00:51:57 ◼   ► So maybe there's like two different things. I'm not quite sure what's going on there, but that there's a it just yeah

00:52:02 ◼   ► There are there are two different things. So what do you know what it is? Like tomorrow? He says to me

00:52:06 ◼   ► I'm not sure what the difference is. I I

00:52:08 ◼   ► Read both of them, but I can't I can't think of what the difference is

00:52:12 ◼   ► Maybe the 22nd is an actual hearing or something. I don't know. Yeah, I think he's just yeah, maybe he's just I

00:52:20 ◼   ► Don't think his thing is necessarily public, but I'm not positive

00:52:26 ◼   ► Let's do it. And then the other the other thing is public is this like in front of Congress, right? Yeah, that's tomorrow

00:52:32 ◼   ► Which seems like a real shit show. Oh, the public one is the public was taken public

00:52:37 ◼   ► Oh, okay. It's the one that he already released an opening statement for

00:52:40 ◼   ► Okay

00:52:42 ◼   ► That's the one where you're just parading before some grandstanding

00:52:46 ◼   ► Congress people and you just have to sit there and listen to them yell at you yell at you sure or say whatever they want to

00:52:52 ◼   ► say

00:52:53 ◼   ► Right. I think that I think it's gonna be a difficult day to be Bruce Swoll tomorrow

00:52:58 ◼   ► Tim Cook's done it cook has done it like on the I remember like remember he'd let a on the taxes then

00:53:07 ◼   ► Which I think is is

00:53:10 ◼   ► At least at least the people who disagree with apples perspective on that

00:53:16 ◼   ► I think that they actually have a leg to stand on in terms and and you know

00:53:21 ◼   ► Not that Apple is the people that people who disagree with Apple have a like yeah

00:53:25 ◼   ► They're the people who say you should be you should repatriate the money and pay your taxes that there's some

00:53:30 ◼   ► Some sense to the argument. It's not you're not arguing like a fantasy thing, but I

00:53:36 ◼   ► Don't know. I mean I think in a way

00:53:38 ◼   ► They are I mean, I think what the argument about the the iPhone is what the law right exactly and there's whereas whereas

00:53:48 ◼   ► Because that's not as ambiguous with the tax thing. They are actually complying with the

00:53:53 ◼   ► law. It's just that the law is letting them get away with murder kind of thing.

00:53:57 ◼   ► Right. Exactly. Tax murder. Right.

00:54:00 ◼   ► Tax murder. Right. Yeah.

00:54:02 ◼   ► Right. Well, we'll collect all the taxes. The only way we wouldn't collect the taxes

00:54:07 ◼   ► would be if some crazy company wanted to, I don't know, put $100 billion in an offshore

00:54:11 ◼   ► account in Ireland. I mean, who's going to keep $100 billion in a—oh.

00:54:15 ◼   ► do we not how do we not think of that oh oh that's because people in business

00:54:22 ◼   ► wrote the tax law I can't help but think though that Apple's not happy about and

00:54:27 ◼   ► who knows maybe this March 22nd thing with Bruce will in DC will come and go

00:54:31 ◼   ► and and people will be tired of the whole FBI argument by them but I can't

00:54:34 ◼   ► help but think that whatever caused them to change their date for this event it's

00:54:39 ◼   ► not good news because I think even though it's a day before I think they'd

00:54:42 ◼   ► rather have like a whole week of, I don't know what you call it, sunshine, you know,

00:54:46 ◼   ► where the news about Apple is this new iPhone and the new iPad, and maybe get

00:54:53 ◼   ► people to stop talking about the FBI thing for a week and concentrate on the

00:54:56 ◼   ► products, whereas now they've got 24 hours. Well, yeah, or maybe they think that

00:55:01 ◼   ► whatever they're announcing is gonna be good enough that they're gonna

00:55:05 ◼   ► overshadow it a little bit, or at least there's a chance of that. Well, I just

00:55:08 ◼   ► think you can't, you know, like to show it's sort of like a show must go on

00:55:11 ◼   ► situation. You know, it is what it is and they obviously weren't prepared for this.

00:55:16 ◼   ► I mean, one thing we know about this whole FBI thing is that Apple was taken

00:55:20 ◼   ► by surprise. I mean, Tim Cook said on ABC that he found out about it after the

00:55:25 ◼   ► press did. The press was notified about it before Apple was, which is, again, not

00:55:30 ◼   ► the FBI's proudest moment in my opinion. But, you know, with somebody who is, you

00:55:34 ◼   ► know, Apple who is not a criminal suspect, it's not like, it's not like when you,

00:55:40 ◼   ► When Tim Cook, you know, acts as a little bit upset, I think rightly so, that Apple

00:55:45 ◼   ► found out about it through the press. It's not like they're the subject of a

00:55:48 ◼   ► criminal investigation. They're supposedly Apple, you know, trying to

00:55:51 ◼   ► partner with the FBI to do the best they can in this situation.

00:55:56 ◼   ► They kind of got publicly sandbagged.

00:56:00 ◼   ► So, we want to talk about guesses for... Yeah, maybe. Why don't I take a break, though,

00:56:07 ◼   ► and yeah I think our next friend of the show is a brand new sponsor first time

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00:58:53 ◼   ► Yeah, so prediction, what do you want to do? Talk about what we expect?

00:58:57 ◼   ► I guess.

00:59:01 ◼   ► I don't know, I mean, you know, like, I, it sounds like

00:59:05 ◼   ► I don't think I have anything, I

00:59:09 ◼   ► certainly don't have any other predictions other than what it seems like, you know, what

00:59:13 ◼   ► we already talked about, which is a smaller iPhone,

00:59:17 ◼   ► an updated iPad, and

00:59:21 ◼   ► Apple Watch bands and maybe, I don't know, maybe some faces or something, which I just added. I just made that up.

00:59:27 ◼   ► Well, I'm much more interested in talking about the fact that I am probably going to get this phone.

00:59:35 ◼   ► All right, but that's a... so we do know a lot, or we think we know a lot, thanks to Scoop Germin.

00:59:41 ◼   ► We don't know everything though, and there's some interesting questions in there. So

00:59:47 ◼   ► One of the things is that the rumor and that you know, there's other sources for this too including

00:59:52 ◼   ► Who's that analyst?

00:59:56 ◼   ► He's got good sources over in the supply chain Ming something

01:00:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm too cool as back this up to that. The phone is gonna have the a9

01:00:06 ◼   ► System on a chip maybe under clock maybe not clock quite as fast as on the iphone 6 and 6s and 6 plus but

01:00:14 ◼   ► Same generation CPU as today's top-of-the-line iPhones. Same generation at least.

01:00:19 ◼   ► What? But so in other words it's not like, "Hey, this is like a year-old tech phone." This is like,

01:00:26 ◼   ► you know, "Hey, six-month-old phone." You know, it's only half year off the main cycle.

01:00:30 ◼   ► But it won't, but it's not supposed to have 3D.

01:00:34 ◼   ► No, it won't have 3D. The one, I guess the one flagship thing that's missing is 3D Touch. And

01:00:38 ◼   ► who knows, maybe it'll like the iPad, maybe like the iPad Mini, and maybe it'll have the

01:00:43 ◼   ► year-old Touch ID sensor that looks exactly the same, but it works a little slower.

01:00:49 ◼   ► So it's slower.

01:00:50 ◼   ► Which I actually might upgrade to that.

01:00:53 ◼   ► No.

01:00:54 ◼   ► Even after all of these years.

01:00:55 ◼   ► Some people complain about that.

01:00:57 ◼   ► I still get it. That button is so much more convenient to just wake up the phone and look

01:01:03 ◼   ► at the lock screen. The problem is, Apple has made the lock screen so much more useful now that it

01:01:10 ◼   ► it shows like your most recent notifications

01:01:13 ◼   ► that I wanna see the lock screen a lot

01:01:15 ◼   ► and they've made it impossible to get to the lock screen

01:01:17 ◼   ► using your thumb on the touch ID button

01:01:20 ◼   ► because it's so damn fast.

01:01:23 ◼   ► So anyway, I wouldn't even call that a downside.

01:01:25 ◼   ► But I'm wondering--

01:01:28 ◼   ► - I know, I-- - I'm wondering--

01:01:30 ◼   ► - I mean, our friend Albert complains about that too,

01:01:32 ◼   ► but I don't, I mean, if you, anyway,

01:01:36 ◼   ► you can tap the side, but you can use the side button

01:01:38 ◼   ► or if you use the tip of your thumb instead of the flat part, you can get it to do what you want.

01:01:43 ◼   ► I don't have a lot of patience for that argument.

01:01:48 ◼   ► It's not my strongest complaint against an Apple product.

01:01:53 ◼   ► This thing is too fast!

01:01:55 ◼   ► My Porsche is just... it's just... this car is too fast! It's too fast!

01:02:03 ◼   ► And good looking too! Oh my god!

01:02:06 ◼   ► Yeah, nobody makes me look terrible. I look terrible standing next to it.

01:02:09 ◼   ► My poor, nobody ever shuts up about how beautiful my car is. It's terrible.

01:02:14 ◼   ► I'm curious, and this is a story thing that hasn't leaked yet, what type of

01:02:22 ◼   ► storage capacities is it going to have? I think that it's going to have a couple of options,

01:02:27 ◼   ► $100 a part.

01:02:30 ◼   ► Well, at one point I had seen 16, 64, which is, I think,

01:02:35 ◼   ► what most of them go, right?

01:02:37 ◼   ► Well, don't they do 16, 32?

01:02:39 ◼   ► Oh, no, 32 is the thing we've been talking about for three years.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Right, right.

01:02:44 ◼   ► That's the terrible thing.

01:02:45 ◼   ► But that they won't have 120.

01:02:46 ◼   ► They're going to do that jerky thing that the rest of them do.

01:02:49 ◼   ► 16 and 64 makes a lot of sense, I'm guessing.

01:02:53 ◼   ► And then the other big question is, how good is the camera going to be?

01:02:57 ◼   ► And that's the sort of thing that it's--

01:03:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:03:02 ◼   ► You know, the--

01:03:03 ◼   ► Yeah, and I understand that that's important.

01:03:05 ◼   ► I mean, that's important for lots of people.

01:03:07 ◼   ► It's not important for me because I keep saying this,

01:03:10 ◼   ► but I feel like the camera surpassed my ability

01:03:13 ◼   ► to take a good picture like three generations ago.

01:03:15 ◼   ► So I'm happy going back to--

01:03:18 ◼   ► I mean, certainly if it's the 6, I'm

01:03:21 ◼   ► perfectly happy going back to that.

01:03:22 ◼   ► Even if it's like the 5S, I'm happy going back to that too.

01:03:25 ◼   ► I mean, the only thing I think I would miss is 3D touch, which I have come to rely on a little bit.

01:03:31 ◼   ► But I think for it to get a smaller phone, I will actually be willing to give that up.

01:03:36 ◼   ► Yeah, in a way, I can't wait to see how they do this and how Apple portrays the camera.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Like both, I'm most interested in how the camera actually is, of course,

01:03:46 ◼   ► but I'm very interested to see how Apple talks about the camera and the ways that it's, you know,

01:03:51 ◼   ► what's good about it and how do they position it compared to the iPhone 6s and 6s plus which by all accounts and

01:03:58 ◼   ► But just by common sense because they're almost certainly gonna be more expensive have a superior camera. I

01:04:03 ◼   ► Think it's gonna wind up my guess is that it's it is its own camera

01:04:09 ◼   ► You know that it's not like they took the camera from the blank iPhone and stuck it in this that you know

01:04:15 ◼   ► That this device is different enough from anything that's come before it that

01:04:18 ◼   ► It's got its own camera and where it falls on the spectrum is in in some degrees

01:04:24 ◼   ► technically measurable and in other ways is

01:04:27 ◼   ► subjective

01:04:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I

01:04:31 ◼   ► mean you can take a side-by-side picture at the exact same lighting from the exact same spot and then compare the resulting files and

01:04:38 ◼   ► Look for things like noise and you know how how you know how bright it looks in low lighting or something like that

01:04:43 ◼   ► But in other ways, you know, it's like it's like you said a lot of ways

01:04:47 ◼   ► It's just it it long ago surpassed most of our abilities

01:04:50 ◼   ► You know like there when the the shot with iPhone campaign started a year ago when the best phone was the iPhone 6

01:04:55 ◼   ► There are people who shot photos. They're way better than any photo

01:04:57 ◼   ► I'm ever gonna take in a million years with the with the iPhone 15. You know what I mean like

01:05:03 ◼   ► like

01:05:05 ◼   ► Ten years from now when the cameras are absolutely amazing

01:05:08 ◼   ► I'm never gonna take a picture as beautiful as the one that's that Apple chose to put on a billboard that were taken with the

01:05:13 ◼   ► iPhone 6 last year. I mean, people took some amazing photos with those things.

01:05:19 ◼   ► What's making you think that you want the phone? We've talked about that.

01:05:23 ◼   ► Yeah, just the size. I mean, I've been unhappy with the size of the 6 and the 6S.

01:05:30 ◼   ► All things considered, and maybe even up to, again, to bring up the year anniversary date,

01:05:36 ◼   ► up to 13 months ago, I wouldn't hesitate. I would be waiting in line to get the 4-inch

01:05:41 ◼   ► phone. I've got here I have one on my desk I just keep it here to make me sad. I have my iPhone.

01:05:45 ◼   ► Yeah I have actually yeah I have my my regular I have my iPhone 5s right here and now I've got it

01:05:51 ◼   ► in my hand and I'm in love. I love the way this device feels in my hand. My big thing sometimes

01:05:56 ◼   ► they sometimes they pick up a four and think of man that's really nice too. I expect to really

01:06:01 ◼   ► love the feel of this phone. My thing is with my my vision the combination of I've got one bad eye

01:06:07 ◼   ► and then my good eye is really running into the mid 40s presbyopia like I need reading glasses

01:06:14 ◼   ► and so the bigger size of the other one but on the other hand I keep thinking to myself

01:06:19 ◼   ► I don't run my six in the big screen mode you know what I mean like there's the yeah

01:06:27 ◼   ► neither neither do I and my eyesight's going to so I wonder maybe I'll be you know I'll see less

01:06:33 ◼   ► you know, but I was always fine with that, you know, like and most of all honestly

01:06:36 ◼   ► I'll tell you the truth most of what I read on the phone is Twitter

01:06:38 ◼   ► So the fact that you don't see a lot at once is fine because the whole tweet is always there and you just sit there

01:06:43 ◼   ► And flick your thumb

01:06:45 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah

01:06:47 ◼   ► The what the the one thing the one thing I do like about the 6s is how I mean, you know

01:06:53 ◼   ► Apart from though, you know, we talked about the lock screen thing, but in general it's just crazy fast

01:06:57 ◼   ► Well, and this should have the same thing, right?

01:07:00 ◼   ► because it's got even if it's an under slightly under clocked a9 it still should be way faster

01:07:05 ◼   ► than even the iphone 6 and i think a lot of the things that the iphone that the a9 makes feel

01:07:13 ◼   ► fast like you just don't wait for it stuff uh it should all i would guess will be true on this new

01:07:19 ◼   ► phone yeah and maybe yeah i mean even if it's under clocked maybe the smaller screen makes up

01:07:25 ◼   ► for it? Yeah, exactly, because there will be fewer pixels to push. So anything that

01:07:30 ◼   ► is graphics constrained, it's going to be easier. Everything should be easier. I'm

01:07:37 ◼   ► just holding this phone here. And the thing that just strikes me is there's a reason

01:07:41 ◼   ► why I never dropped one of these. And I have dropped—I haven't dropped my 6s. I've

01:07:45 ◼   ► never dropped my 6s, but I did drop my 6 last year, twice. I had two drops and broke both

01:07:51 ◼   ► both times.

01:07:53 ◼   ► I have not, I have been lucky enough not to drop it.

01:07:56 ◼   ► But I feel uneasy about it all the time.

01:07:59 ◼   ► But this feels like the type of phone that you can, you know, you just walk around anywhere.

01:08:02 ◼   ► You just walk around with the phone in your hand.

01:08:04 ◼   ► You know, don't worry about it.

01:08:05 ◼   ► It's never going to come out of your hand.

01:08:07 ◼   ► I mean, it's, you know, I think people all, everybody has their own set of parameters

01:08:11 ◼   ► that they want to satisfy.

01:08:12 ◼   ► And I mean, some people would rather have a large phone and maybe not have an iPad.

01:08:18 ◼   ► Right.

01:08:19 ◼   ► seems like there's probably a lot of people which is maybe why the iPad isn't doing as

01:08:22 ◼   ► well.

01:08:23 ◼   ► I think that's a huge part of it.

01:08:24 ◼   ► Huge part of it.

01:08:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:26 ◼   ► Um, I would rather have a small phone and a big iPad.

01:08:30 ◼   ► Right.

01:08:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that for some people maybe they don't buy iPads because it's like, "Eh, I've

01:08:35 ◼   ► already got my Mac book there," or whatever I walk around with all the time.

01:08:39 ◼   ► Um, but I definitely think that for a lot of people, I know, I know this, it's not even

01:08:44 ◼   ► a thing, I know I've heard from them who, they email me, they write to me on Twitter,

01:08:47 ◼   ► an awful lot of people who, especially the Plus users, who

01:08:51 ◼   ► are like, this is my iPad.

01:08:53 ◼   ► I read books.

01:08:55 ◼   ► I don't need it.

01:08:56 ◼   ► And it's so great.

01:09:00 ◼   ► And this is an argument we've had ever since PowerBooks

01:09:03 ◼   ► first came out.

01:09:04 ◼   ► And it's gotten so much better over the years with Dropbox

01:09:07 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:09:07 ◼   ► But the trade-offs between having multiple devices

01:09:10 ◼   ► versus one device, right?

01:09:12 ◼   ► If you've got this one device, you just

01:09:13 ◼   ► know it's already there, right?

01:09:14 ◼   ► And for however much the cloud, you know, for Dropbox or iCloud documents and all that

01:09:19 ◼   ► stuff has gotten easier and it continues to get easier.

01:09:23 ◼   ► You know, an IMAP for email instead of POP for email and all these things that keep stuff

01:09:27 ◼   ► so that you can keep multiple devices in sync.

01:09:29 ◼   ► If you just have one device, you just know it, right?

01:09:32 ◼   ► And you get – and it's like you almost like you get like that muscle memory.

01:09:36 ◼   ► If you spend all of your time on one device, it's like you just get faster and faster

01:09:39 ◼   ► and you don't even think about it.

01:09:41 ◼   ► Yeah, it used to be a big decision point between whether you got a fast laptop or you got a

01:09:51 ◼   ► slow laptop and a fast desktop.

01:09:53 ◼   ► Right, right.

01:09:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:56 ◼   ► I used to talk about that on the show in the old days, all the time.

01:09:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:01 ◼   ► And I went back and forth, and it never was on one side.

01:10:03 ◼   ► I've done it both ways, and the trade-offs were so complicated, and it was so hard to

01:10:10 ◼   ► make that decision. Yeah. And I feel, I mean, for the most part now, I've just been relying on a

01:10:16 ◼   ► fairly fast laptop, but not super fast. I mean, like, you know, I got into this problem that

01:10:23 ◼   ► I wanted to play Firewatch and it would not play on it. It doesn't play on my laptop and I didn't

01:10:28 ◼   ► have a PS4. So I, eventually I had to play it. I played it on my son's computer. So I had to buy,

01:10:35 ◼   ► That was the fastest computer in the house.

01:10:37 ◼   ► So I had to buy a PS4.

01:10:40 ◼   ► I thought about that for a long time, and then all of a sudden it hit me,

01:10:44 ◼   ► wait, I could use my son's computer.

01:10:46 ◼   ► Did you like Firewatch?

01:10:48 ◼   ► I did.

01:10:48 ◼   ► I liked Firewatch quite a bit.

01:10:49 ◼   ► Let's come back to it later.

01:10:50 ◼   ► You remind me of Firewatch.

01:10:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:52 ◼   ► Because I don't think I've talked about it on this show.

01:10:54 ◼   ► I talked about it with Topolski on his show,

01:10:57 ◼   ► but I didn't talk about it here, I don't think.

01:11:00 ◼   ► So that also brings us, though, to the iPad, the new iPad Pro,

01:11:04 ◼   ► which is supposedly coming, that the replacement, I guess,

01:11:09 ◼   ► or the next generation of what we now know as the iPad Air,

01:11:12 ◼   ► Scoop Gorman says they're gonna call it the iPad Pro.

01:11:15 ◼   ► And then just put like parentheses 9.7 inch.

01:11:19 ◼   ► Which in addition to the fact that, you know,

01:11:23 ◼   ► I mean, Gorman's record is pretty good

01:11:24 ◼   ► and the closer we get, the more likely

01:11:26 ◼   ► that the leaks are accurate.

01:11:29 ◼   ► I think it passes the common sense test.

01:11:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I guess so. I mean, I don't think, I don't, it doesn't sound

01:11:37 ◼   ► outrageous. Not that Apple hasn't ever released a product that fails the common sense test

01:11:42 ◼   ► regarding its name. But in this case, I think it makes sense that the iPad Pro is an iPad

01:11:48 ◼   ► that, you know, what are the features of the iPad Pro? Four speakers, or at least, you

01:11:55 ◼   ► know, stereo speakers. I think you have to have four though, because you can, otherwise

01:11:59 ◼   ► you can't turn it around sideways and still have it in stereo. So, you know, no more just

01:12:04 ◼   ► one big speaker. It's four speakers, you get stereo. Pencil support. I don't know what

01:12:11 ◼   ► else.

01:12:12 ◼   ► The keyboard.

01:12:13 ◼   ► Oh, yes, yes, yes. And the little thing on the side, the new port for the smart keyboard.

01:12:18 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the big one.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Right.

01:12:20 ◼   ► And any iPad that has those things is an iPad Pro. And you just pick which size you want.

01:12:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, if they're putting those things in that, it certainly doesn't make any sense

01:12:30 ◼   ► to call it the iPad Air, even if it's the same size.

01:12:34 ◼   ► And so the other argument is just call it the iPad.

01:12:38 ◼   ► But then you don't really get that sort of branding effect of, "But it's got all these

01:12:43 ◼   ► other things that go along with the iPad."

01:12:45 ◼   ► Right.

01:12:46 ◼   ► I think the difference...

01:12:47 ◼   ► And so, for example, obviously the MacBook shows that Apple is willing to just have a

01:12:53 ◼   ► that is without a modifier, no adjective, just the product, you know, the family name.

01:12:59 ◼   ► I think the difference is that the iPad Pro has these flagship features.

01:13:03 ◼   ► Again, whatever size iPad Pro is, the big one that we already have or this new one that

01:13:07 ◼   ► is supposedly imminent, but it has the smart keyboard adapter, it has pencil support, that

01:13:14 ◼   ► these things make it a pro, whereas the MacBook doesn't really have anything, except it's

01:13:20 ◼   ► extraordinary weight and size.

01:13:22 ◼   ► I didn't mean to be that dismissive of it,

01:13:23 ◼   ► but that there is no thing that the MacBook does

01:13:28 ◼   ► that you would call a pro feature.

01:13:32 ◼   ► - No, certainly not.

01:13:33 ◼   ► If anything, it's the opposite.

01:13:35 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:13:36 ◼   ► Not that it's a bad device.

01:13:38 ◼   ► - Amy and I, Amy just saw one for the first time.

01:13:40 ◼   ► I did not get a review unit or anything of that.

01:13:43 ◼   ► So I've never used one except in a store.

01:13:48 ◼   ► And we were in an Apple store the other day,

01:13:51 ◼   ► and Amy saw it for the first time, she was like,

01:13:53 ◼   ► "What the hell is this?"

01:13:54 ◼   ► She honestly didn't really,

01:13:56 ◼   ► I think she'd made her heard of it,

01:13:58 ◼   ► but she really hadn't realized,

01:13:59 ◼   ► and she said it,

01:14:01 ◼   ► it was both with disdain and kind of impressed,

01:14:07 ◼   ► like, "This is amazing, but why would anybody buy this thing?

01:14:09 ◼   ► Why not just buy an iPad?"

01:14:11 ◼   ► That was her take.

01:14:11 ◼   ► I said, "Well, people want a keyboard."

01:14:14 ◼   ► And she goes, "But this keyboard sucks."

01:14:16 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:14:18 ◼   ► And I was like, "Well, that's, you know, that's a..."

01:14:20 ◼   ► Our family key people, everybody in the family is pretty hardcore.

01:14:25 ◼   ► Pretty hardcore on the keyboard.

01:14:26 ◼   ► We're not like that. We're not like that. I've used that keyboard, and I would easily

01:14:32 ◼   ► switch to that keyboard. I like that device, and I like the trackpad, but I'm hoping that the next

01:14:39 ◼   ► one will be at least a little more powerful and possibly maybe have another port.

01:14:44 ◼   ► I think it would be a huge upgrade. I think it's got to be so much faster. I think the first one

01:14:49 ◼   ► one was about putting a flag and sticking the ground saying this is how thin and light

01:14:54 ◼   ► these things should be. And now they've got a year to actually get the tech to actually

01:14:59 ◼   ► support it.

01:15:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:04 ◼   ► But anyway,

01:15:05 ◼   ► because yeah, my so my am I've got a 10 inch is a 10 or 11 I can't remember the small air

01:15:11 ◼   ► 11 and yeah, okay 11 and

01:15:13 ◼   ► I've had it's a 2012

01:15:17 ◼   ► So I'm kind of you're pushing holding out. I thought I really thought about buying buying a new

01:15:24 ◼   ► Computer in the fall, but I thought yeah, I gotta see what that next MacBook is going

01:15:29 ◼   ► I think the next MacBook my I don't know anything about it

01:15:31 ◼   ► I just suspect that it's gonna be very compelling especially if you can get by with the keyboard

01:15:35 ◼   ► I could I'm sure I could adjust to the keyboard any hardware keyboard I could get used to it's

01:15:40 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, you're not going to use that keyboard at home anyway.

01:15:44 ◼   ► No. No. But sometimes when I'm using... I obviously do most of my writing at my desk

01:15:50 ◼   ► with my big old clickety-clack keyboard, but when I am traveling, though, sometimes I actually

01:15:54 ◼   ► have to do a lot of writing. Like, I'm more...

01:15:56 ◼   ► You're steampunk keyboard.

01:15:57 ◼   ► The only reason I am traveling half the time is because I have something to write about,

01:16:01 ◼   ► because it's an Apple event or whatever.

01:16:06 ◼   ► The big question that people have, we have to get to it, is what is the pricing on the

01:16:10 ◼   ► iPad Pro gonna be the new this new smaller one is it going to be as in the

01:16:16 ◼   ► ballpark of the expense of the big one another and then therefore meaning that

01:16:20 ◼   ► they would and and Tim Cook's Apple I mean it is obvious this is obvious to

01:16:26 ◼   ► anybody who even pays half attention to the company one of the difference in Tim

01:16:30 ◼   ► Cook's Apple and Steve Jobs's Apple is that Tim Cook's Apple keeps the older

01:16:33 ◼   ► ones around longer as opposed to wiping the family clean and saying oh you like

01:16:39 ◼   ► the you like the iPod mini now we don't make it anymore it's gone yeah it was the

01:16:48 ◼   ► most popular thing we made yes single mode actually it's the most popular thing

01:16:51 ◼   ► this company's ever made yeah but we we took all you like that guess what we

01:16:56 ◼   ► actually had a bunch of them left and we dumped them in the Pacific Ocean because

01:17:00 ◼   ► that's how much that's how much I like this I iPod nano better right that was

01:17:05 ◼   ► Steve Jobs. I think it's almost certain that the iPad Air 2 will

01:17:11 ◼   ► stay around in some way at 16 gigabytes and at some kind of,

01:17:15 ◼   ► you know, lower price point. I would I would be flabbergasted

01:17:20 ◼   ► if they don't because it would be so out of character for Tim

01:17:22 ◼   ► Cook's Apple. The question though, is with the the big iPad

01:17:28 ◼   ► Pro, the one that's already out the 12 inch one, the 13 inch,

01:17:30 ◼   ► whatever it is, it starts at 799. But boy, you know, that's

01:17:35 ◼   ► the 32 gigabyte one that with Wi-Fi. If you want cellular, you're up to 1079 for 128 gigabytes.

01:17:44 ◼   ► And those are your only options on the existing iPad Pro. You have just have three to choose

01:17:49 ◼   ► from 32, that's Wi-Fi only, 128 with Wi-Fi only, or 128 with Wi-Fi and cellular. So in

01:17:56 ◼   ► some ways, it's commendable because it's a lot simpler of a product matrix than a lot

01:18:01 ◼   ► of Apple's other products. But on the other hand, boy, that, you know, I'm not quite sure

01:18:05 ◼   ► how much less this one will cost if the only difference is the display. And does that leave

01:18:12 ◼   ► a hole in the lineup where the main, you know, people who want to spend five or 600 bucks

01:18:17 ◼   ► on an iPad are still buying the iPad Air 2. Lots and lots of people on Twitter asking

01:18:23 ◼   ► me what do I think this thing's going to cost and I really don't know. I'm terrible at that.

01:18:28 ◼   ► Yeah, it seems... is the base iPad still 16 for the Air?

01:18:37 ◼   ► Well, let's see.

01:18:38 ◼   ► I'm trying to...

01:18:40 ◼   ► [whistling]

01:18:41 ◼   ► Well, they still sell...

01:18:44 ◼   ► Talk amongst yourselves.

01:18:48 ◼   ► Right now, they still sell...

01:18:50 ◼   ► Yeah, so 16 is the $500 iPad Air 2.

01:18:57 ◼   ► for what did I say? Yeah, that's right. Then it goes to 1664 128.

01:19:04 ◼   ► They've got iPads. I mean, if you just look at the compare, I mean, I guess I I'm almost

01:19:11 ◼   ► sure I would hope that at the very least they're gonna get rid of the iPad Air one that's gone.

01:19:16 ◼   ► And they'll just have two iPad minis, the mini four and the mini two in all these different

01:19:22 ◼   ► configurations. And then the I don't know, is it a previous

01:19:29 ◼   ► incurrence? Is this a problem? I don't know. I guess I would

01:19:33 ◼   ► maybe suggest it's just weird. I don't think it's like, well, I

01:19:36 ◼   ► mean, I clearly I've had some problems, but I don't think it's

01:19:38 ◼   ► no, the fact that there's an iPad Air. No, and it's easy to

01:19:42 ◼   ► get started either. Like if you walk in a store and you don't

01:19:45 ◼   ► know which one to buy, it's easy to get started by saying, Well,

01:19:47 ◼   ► which size one do you want? And then people can start by saying,

01:19:50 ◼   ► "Well, I want this size."

01:19:52 ◼   ► And then from there, it's already simplified dramatically.

01:19:55 ◼   ► And the picking between the colors,

01:19:56 ◼   ► that's not a complicating issue.

01:19:58 ◼   ► That's just, that's easy, right?

01:20:01 ◼   ► You just know which one you like better, and you pick it.

01:20:04 ◼   ► I don't count that, like if there's three colors available,

01:20:07 ◼   ► I don't count that as tripling the complexity.

01:20:09 ◼   ► And then when it comes to,

01:20:12 ◼   ► to me, the toughest decision for somebody

01:20:15 ◼   ► who's getting an iPad is do you get the Wi-Fi

01:20:18 ◼   ► or do you get the Wi-Fi in cellular?

01:20:19 ◼   ► That to me is a really tough one.

01:20:21 ◼   ► And when family members ask me advice.

01:20:24 ◼   ► - I don't have a problem with that.

01:20:25 ◼   ► Because I mean, I,

01:20:26 ◼   ► 'cause to me I would just use tethering.

01:20:28 ◼   ► - Right, from your phone.

01:20:30 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:20:31 ◼   ► So I don't, I never, I will never buy it.

01:20:35 ◼   ► I mean, a cellular capable iPad again probably.

01:20:38 ◼   ► - I do.

01:20:39 ◼   ► I buy them because, and Amy does the same thing,

01:20:43 ◼   ► that we both have AT&T iPads and we have Verizon phones.

01:20:46 ◼   ► And when traveling that--

01:20:48 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

01:20:49 ◼   ► That can be...

01:20:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I can see that.

01:20:51 ◼   ► I've been...

01:20:52 ◼   ► I should keep track of it though.

01:20:53 ◼   ► I have found though, anecdotally in the last year, I have found that fewer and fewer times

01:21:01 ◼   ► do I need to worry.

01:21:03 ◼   ► You know, that the Verizon signal at airports and stuff like that is good enough that I

01:21:08 ◼   ► don't find myself doing that.

01:21:09 ◼   ► But...

01:21:10 ◼   ► Well, I've always found Verizon's coverage to be better than AT&T's.

01:21:13 ◼   ► So if I were to do it, I would probably...

01:21:15 ◼   ► Can you even do this?

01:21:16 ◼   ► do Verizon phone, which is what I already do, and then T-Mobile.

01:21:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I would get... If I get a new... Next time I buy an iPad, if I do get cellular,

01:21:27 ◼   ► I'm going to buy T-Mobile instead of AT&T.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Yeah, because then you'd be like, you're in downtown someplace and you can get wicked

01:21:32 ◼   ► fast.

01:21:32 ◼   ► And you also feel like you're giving your money to a company that actually maybe you

01:21:37 ◼   ► feel good about giving some money to?

01:21:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:41 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:21:43 ◼   ► I kind of regret that I didn't switch our phones to T-Mobile

01:21:46 ◼   ► and at this point what did...

01:21:48 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, and you guys are downtown.

01:21:50 ◼   ► Like you're in a pretty well covered area.

01:21:53 ◼   ► I did a review of phones last year

01:21:58 ◼   ► for or not phones of cellular providers in the Seattle area.

01:22:03 ◼   ► And so for Tom's hardware.

01:22:08 ◼   ► And so they sent me all these phones

01:22:10 ◼   ► I drove around and tried them in different areas and T-Mobile came up the best.

01:22:15 ◼   ► And so I was like, Oh, maybe we should move to T-Mobile, but not at our house.

01:22:19 ◼   ► That was the problem. In downtown Seattle, it was crazy fast. It was fantastic.

01:22:25 ◼   ► But, uh, when I drove home, no, couldn't get a signal. I mean,

01:22:30 ◼   ► couldn't get a good signal.

01:22:31 ◼   ► So here's the price lineup of the iPads now.

01:22:34 ◼   ► So the wifi ones go from 400 to 700 and that's

01:22:39 ◼   ► expands the gamut from iPad Air 1 with only 16 gigs up to 128 gigabyte iPad Air 2. Can

01:22:47 ◼   ► they just replace, can they do an iPad Pro at the 9.7 inch size that's in this 500,

01:22:55 ◼   ► 600, 700 dollar range? I don't know.

01:22:58 ◼   ► I think they won't.

01:22:59 ◼   ► It's a big...

01:23:00 ◼   ► I think it'll be, I'm gonna guess, here's my guess, and you know, it's worth what you're

01:23:05 ◼   ► paying for is a 16 gigabyte iPad Pro.

01:23:13 ◼   ► No, I don't think they'll do--

01:23:14 ◼   ► I don't think they'll do 16.

01:23:15 ◼   ► No, you don't think so?

01:23:16 ◼   ► I think that if--

01:23:16 ◼   ► Oh, no, no, no, that's right.

01:23:17 ◼   ► That's right.

01:23:17 ◼   ► No, I know.

01:23:18 ◼   ► I actually came up with this earlier,

01:23:19 ◼   ► and I'm misstating what I thought.

01:23:21 ◼   ► 32.

01:23:22 ◼   ► It'll start at 32 at 600, and then it'll do 64 at 700,

01:23:29 ◼   ► and then 800.

01:23:30 ◼   ► Maybe they'll do like the other Pro, though,

01:23:32 ◼   ► and just jump right to 128.

01:23:33 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:23:34 ◼   ► That's a big jump though.

01:23:35 ◼   ► Maybe they want to have those $100 increments.

01:23:39 ◼   ► Because that jump is $250.

01:23:43 ◼   ► So with the big 13-inch iPad Pro,

01:23:46 ◼   ► it goes from $800 to $950 if you go from $32 to $128.

01:23:51 ◼   ► So with the current 13-inch iPad Pro, the jumps from $800--

01:23:55 ◼   ► I'm going to skip Apple's Goofy 99 numbering.

01:23:57 ◼   ► I'm going to add $1 to every price.

01:23:59 ◼   ► It goes from $800 to $950 to go from $32 to $128.

01:24:03 ◼   ► So it's only $150 gap when you go all the way from 32 to 128.

01:24:08 ◼   ► Can they go $200 by going 32, 64, 128?

01:24:14 ◼   ► It seems weird that the bigger one could go from 32 to 128

01:24:22 ◼   ► for quote unquote only $150,

01:24:24 ◼   ► but then the 9.71 would go in $100 increments?

01:24:31 ◼   ► I don't think the 9.71 will go.

01:24:33 ◼   ► Well, I think maybe it won't go to 128.

01:24:36 ◼   ► - Right.

01:24:37 ◼   ► Well, but the iPad-- - It'll be 32.64.

01:24:39 ◼   ► - No, the iPad Air 2 already goes to 128.

01:24:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know.

01:24:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:24:44 ◼   ► But that'll-- - Don't annoy me

01:24:46 ◼   ► with these-- - Yeah, I know.

01:24:47 ◼   ► I don't know, who knows?

01:24:48 ◼   ► - Maybe they'll simplify and just go 32.128.

01:24:53 ◼   ► I don't know, and have a $150 jump in there.

01:24:57 ◼   ► And then if you want a 16 gigabyte iPad,

01:24:59 ◼   ► you just buy the Air 2.

01:25:01 ◼   ► - Right, by the air too.

01:25:03 ◼   ► - I think Pro definitely starts at 32.

01:25:05 ◼   ► And it's totally, and again, it's such a big difference,

01:25:09 ◼   ► given that iOS itself is around like eight gigabytes

01:25:12 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:25:13 ◼   ► Like the usable space difference between 16 and 32,

01:25:17 ◼   ► it's way bigger than the numbers alone make it seem.

01:25:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, now you get a special edition 340 gigabyte device.

01:25:29 ◼   ► But I've been getting 64 for most everything now,

01:25:34 ◼   ► and that's been great.

01:25:36 ◼   ► Whereas for a while, I was struggling with 32.

01:25:41 ◼   ► - I could get by with 32 even.

01:25:43 ◼   ► - It's hard now.

01:25:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause there's some,

01:25:47 ◼   ► I don't even play a lot of games,

01:25:48 ◼   ► but a handful of games,

01:25:50 ◼   ► or if you load up on movies for a flight

01:25:52 ◼   ► or something like that,

01:25:53 ◼   ► 64 is the sweet spot for me for an iPad,

01:25:55 ◼   ► where if I have 64,

01:25:57 ◼   ► I don't think I'm ever going to run out of space.

01:26:00 ◼   ► And if I do, I think there'd be some kind of--

01:26:02 ◼   ► I can delete the whole season of Mad Men

01:26:04 ◼   ► that I already watched or whatever.

01:26:06 ◼   ► There's something that I can delete to easily free up

01:26:08 ◼   ► the space.

01:26:10 ◼   ► And I just don't have to worry about it.

01:26:15 ◼   ► And one of the reasons-- and I have to say it.

01:26:17 ◼   ► I don't want to go into a whole digression about it.

01:26:19 ◼   ► But for me at least, the way that iCloud Photo Library works

01:26:23 ◼   ► and that it just downloads the files when you need them

01:26:26 ◼   ► you don't have to use it. It's like I feel like I can get all my photos on my iPad and

01:26:30 ◼   ► I don't have all the space taken up with all my photos on my iPad. I really hate to say

01:26:37 ◼   ► it, but it's a service that Apple really nailed. It does what it claims to on the tin. Here's

01:26:45 ◼   ► a weird one.

01:26:46 ◼   ► I still don't use it.

01:26:47 ◼   ► Here's a weird one. The iPad Air, this is so weird. The iPad Air, the AirPods Air 1.

01:26:54 ◼   ► If you get the Wi-Fi only model, or either model, the two sizes are 16 and 32, and they're

01:27:00 ◼   ► only separated by 50 bucks.

01:27:02 ◼   ► Like...

01:27:03 ◼   ► Jared Polin Really?

01:27:05 ◼   ► Steven

01:27:14 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But it's like, man, for 50 bucks, just get rid of the 16 gigabyte.

01:27:18 ◼   ► You know what I mean? I don't know.

01:27:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, they must, there must be, well, I don't know. I was gonna say they must think

01:27:27 ◼   ► they have a reason, but at the same time, they're not selling as many iPads.

01:27:30 ◼   ► All right, and it's not even $100 upset.

01:27:32 ◼   ► Maybe they are doing the wrong thing.

01:27:35 ◼   ► Just 50 bucks. So the iPad. So that's the big question is what are the new iPad, this

01:27:40 ◼   ► new iPad Pro that's only 9.7 inches, what is it gonna cost? Is it gonna be $100 more

01:27:44 ◼   ► than the comparable Air 2s right now because it's got all this fancy new stuff? I don't

01:27:49 ◼   ► know.

01:27:50 ◼   ► Well, the other thing is I probably want it to be $100 more because I just bought an iPad

01:27:54 ◼   ► Air 2 in the fall.

01:27:55 ◼   ► And you would also…

01:27:57 ◼   ► Which is just perfect timing.

01:28:00 ◼   ► You would also like to have a sharp edge that gives you a nasty paper cut.

01:28:04 ◼   ► And a shock. It'll give you a shock every once in a while.

01:28:08 ◼   ► And it only gets two hours of battery life. And it runs extremely hot.

01:28:13 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that's exactly what's gonna happen.

01:28:19 ◼   ► Right, we're releasing it in February because it's a lot warmer.

01:28:24 ◼   ► It'll keep people warm.

01:28:25 ◼   ► I guess they're releasing it in March.

01:28:26 ◼   ► No, March.

01:28:27 ◼   ► Yeah, March.

01:28:28 ◼   ► There'll be March tomorrow.

01:28:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:30 ◼   ► But not yet.

01:28:31 ◼   ► When we record it.

01:28:32 ◼   ► When we record it.

01:28:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:34 ◼   ► I saw a thing today.

01:28:35 ◼   ► So we'll record.

01:28:36 ◼   ► We'll probably never record on Leap Day again.

01:28:39 ◼   ► That's right.

01:28:40 ◼   ► record podcasts again. But it's, you know, it seems right. Yeah, it's not the chances

01:28:46 ◼   ► are slight. The chances are pretty slim that you and I will ever record on leap day again.

01:28:50 ◼   ► And a Monday and a Monday night is not also unusual.

01:28:56 ◼   ► It is a little bit. I saw a thing today that said, I guess I should write this down and

01:29:04 ◼   ► put it in the show notes, see if I can find it again. That births go way down on leap

01:29:10 ◼   ► day. And not just C-sections where you would think that there'd be some control because

01:29:18 ◼   ► a lot of times when the mother has a C-section, you can kind of plan it and you can be like,

01:29:22 ◼   ► "Eh, we'll do it tomorrow." But even natural births, even vaginal births go down on leap

01:29:28 ◼   ► day, which would suggest that...

01:29:30 ◼   ► Well, there's, I mean, aren't there supposedly like little things that you can do?

01:29:33 ◼   ► Apparently there is. And the graph is, it's not subtle. It's really, really serious.

01:29:39 ◼   ► Yeah, because like my sister-in-law, I remember, you know, like I think one of the kids was late,

01:29:47 ◼   ► and the doctor said, "Go home and have a glass of red wine."

01:29:50 ◼   ► Hmm. Really?

01:29:51 ◼   ► And so she did. And like 24 hours later, new kid.

01:29:59 ◼   ► Would you mind having a leap day birthday?

01:30:01 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know. What are you gonna do?

01:30:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I guess it's a little odd. I mean, as opposed to, if I had a choice as to have one or

01:30:16 ◼   ► not, I would say I would rather not. But my son's birthday is just a few days after Christmas,

01:30:24 ◼   ► which I think is lousy. It's a bum draw.

01:30:29 ◼   ► - Amy's is a handful of days before Christmas.

01:30:31 ◼   ► And trust me, I've heard that it's a bum draw.

01:30:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:30:36 ◼   ► - Well, she said she's at a bum draw on Christmas.

01:30:39 ◼   ► - So the way that they do it,

01:30:40 ◼   ► I've always, so the way they do it is

01:30:42 ◼   ► if your birthday's February 29,

01:30:44 ◼   ► you celebrate on the other years,

01:30:46 ◼   ► you celebrate on March 1st.

01:30:48 ◼   ► And to me, that's the thing,

01:30:50 ◼   ► and as a kid, I see the logic of it,

01:30:53 ◼   ► where your birthday is the day after February 28th.

01:30:57 ◼   ► But one of the things that I think puts a sour taste in people's mouths with a leap day birthday is, I think it would make more sense to celebrate it on February 28th and say that your birthday is the last day of February.

01:31:15 ◼   ► Because to me, part of your birthday is the month. You know, like, are you a March person? Are you an October person? Are you a December person? Oh, near Christmas. You know, it's the month matters.

01:31:26 ◼   ► So even if you're at the last day of the month,

01:31:29 ◼   ► it's like you feel like you're a February birthday person.

01:31:32 ◼   ► And that's how the--

01:31:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:31:35 ◼   ► Isn't that how the old horoscopes work?

01:31:37 ◼   ► People still do horoscopes?

01:31:39 ◼   ► Well, sure.

01:31:40 ◼   ► Some people do.

01:31:41 ◼   ► But it's like the cutoff date is the month, though, right?

01:31:46 ◼   ► So what, all of a sudden you're not a Pisces anymore?

01:31:48 ◼   ► Now you're a-- whatever the hell it is?

01:31:51 ◼   ► Well, I get it's the month you were born in.

01:31:53 ◼   ► I just feel like it changes the feel on that.

01:31:58 ◼   ► I guess in general, I guess I'm glad I wasn't born on February 29.

01:32:02 ◼   ► I think people who--

01:32:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:04 ◼   ► I think people who are pulling shenanigans not to have a baby on the day,

01:32:07 ◼   ► I don't know about that.

01:32:09 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

01:32:12 ◼   ► You're glad you're going to burn that day,

01:32:13 ◼   ► but you don't think anybody should avoid it.

01:32:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:19 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

01:32:21 ◼   ► That's typical.

01:32:22 ◼   ► That's typical I've got mine thinking.

01:32:25 ◼   ► - I got my birthday that occurs every year.

01:32:28 ◼   ► - It's February 29th for the rest of you suckers.

01:32:33 ◼   ► - Have I ever, I might've mentioned this on the air before.

01:32:35 ◼   ► Have I ever told you about the time Michael Lop

01:32:37 ◼   ► missed his birthday?

01:32:38 ◼   ► - No, I don't think so.

01:32:40 ◼   ► - So for Webstock two years ago, three years ago,

01:32:43 ◼   ► last time I went to Webstock.

01:32:44 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

01:32:46 ◼   ► 'Cause he flew around the world.

01:32:47 ◼   ► - Friend of the show, good personal friend of mine,

01:32:50 ◼   ► Michael Lop was going to Webstock, I was going,

01:32:52 ◼   ► and Michael Lop got on an airplane in California

01:32:55 ◼   ► the day before his birthday and flew over the Pacific

01:32:59 ◼   ► and got off the plane in New Zealand

01:33:01 ◼   ► the day after his birthday.

01:33:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:33:05 ◼   ► - Damn it.

01:33:06 ◼   ► - And Jonas came with us that trip

01:33:09 ◼   ► 'cause it coincided with like the fall break for his school

01:33:13 ◼   ► or spring break for his school.

01:33:14 ◼   ► And Jonas was just astounded, just absolutely positive.

01:33:19 ◼   ► like eight or nine at the time, just astounded that this could happen to you.

01:33:24 ◼   ► You could lose your birthday. Because when you're a kid, however much you love your birthday,

01:33:30 ◼   ► you know, throughout your life, when you're a kid, your birthday is a national holiday.

01:33:33 ◼   ► You're not getting cheated out of, you know, the last Snickers, you know. You're getting cheated

01:33:39 ◼   ► out of your goddamn birthday. And he came back, and then it was like you come back, and it's like

01:33:45 ◼   ► you got, you know, I guess he missed like... He had a bunch of days off, but he still missed a

01:33:49 ◼   ► dare to school and so it's like you know what'd you do on your trip and whatever and the whole

01:33:53 ◼   ► discussion was about my dad's friend who lost a birthday and and everybody all his friends

01:33:58 ◼   ► were like what and he like explained it and then the teacher was like oh yeah the international

01:34:02 ◼   ► date line and like they got out of math they had like a little thing in school and they like kind

01:34:05 ◼   ► of learned how it worked and his class was just like this is outrageous you know like it was like

01:34:10 ◼   ► the civil civil rights issue of the third grade it was absolutely outrageous that this man lost

01:34:19 ◼   ► a birthday. They're having, they walked out of school that day. You had to sit in outside.

01:34:25 ◼   ► Oh. Get Michael Lopas' birthday back.

01:34:28 ◼   ► It's a hell of a thing though. It really hurts my head when I think about it. The International

01:34:35 ◼   ► Dateline, it's still, I tried to, I understand it enough, but it's like, it still, it seems like

01:34:41 ◼   ► there should have been some point where he was somewhere where it was his birthday.

01:34:45 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense.

01:34:46 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense.

01:34:48 ◼   ► But that's what happened.

01:34:49 ◼   ► No.

01:34:50 ◼   ► You can miss the whole day.

01:34:51 ◼   ► See, what happens is you come back and you get an extra day.

01:34:53 ◼   ► You'll get to--

01:34:55 ◼   ► But not that day.

01:34:56 ◼   ► No.

01:34:56 ◼   ► You don't get to get--

01:34:59 ◼   ► You don't get to redo.

01:35:01 ◼   ► I want my extra day to be last Friday.

01:35:04 ◼   ► You don't get that.

01:35:06 ◼   ► What else is supposedly coming for this event?

01:35:09 ◼   ► Apple Watch straps and stuff.

01:35:11 ◼   ► Straps.

01:35:12 ◼   ► seems like a i don't know yeah boring do you have do you have uh multiple straps for you i have um

01:35:21 ◼   ► you don't wear it oh but you famously don't wear your watch yeah i wear it some days i do

01:35:26 ◼   ► uh i know i read no i read that you didn't

01:35:28 ◼   ► i have you must be mistaken i have the space black link thing and uh 95% of the time that's the

01:35:41 ◼   ► band I wear because I actually find that metal bracelet the most comfortable. But I have two of

01:35:48 ◼   ► the floral elastomer ones. I have the black one which I bought when I ordered to watch and then

01:35:54 ◼   ► I bought the orange one when they came out with new flavors last fall. So I have the original,

01:36:04 ◼   ► I have a space black aluminum watch and the original black band and then for my birthday I got a

01:36:12 ◼   ► leather band off Etsy

01:36:15 ◼   ► Which actually has some pretty cool

01:36:18 ◼   ► Pretty cool bands. Yeah, I think one of the reasons that those

01:36:21 ◼   ► You know the third-party ones from like an Etsy or a small company or so good is that a lot of these people have been

01:36:27 ◼   ► making watch straps

01:36:29 ◼   ► For a while anyway, so it's not they're not like getting into something new

01:36:34 ◼   ► You know and they were very they were very nice

01:36:36 ◼   ► I mean because my wife bought it for me for my birthday back in November and you know

01:36:41 ◼   ► They were very concerned about you know like as it fits and it back if it doesn't fit well

01:36:45 ◼   ► We can you can adjust it and so

01:36:48 ◼   ► You know it's like there's that group of

01:36:52 ◼   ► People who have been doing this for a while who already have like customer service, right?

01:36:57 ◼   ► You know they're good at that stuff

01:36:59 ◼   ► Yeah

01:36:59 ◼   ► And I think the difference between something like an iPhone case is that that you really want an iPhone case to be engineered with these

01:37:05 ◼   ► Incredibly accurate tolerances and otherwise it just it it's either hard to get it in and out of the case or it flipped

01:37:11 ◼   ► You know, it just doesn't fit right or whatever. Whereas a watch strap isn't really about

01:37:15 ◼   ► Precise sub millimeter perfection around your wrist because it's obviously, you know, even yeah

01:37:23 ◼   ► Even you yourself your wrist is slightly different diameters on different days based on you know

01:37:29 ◼   ► whether I'm retaining the exactly which is usually yeah that's most bloated you

01:37:36 ◼   ► are I eat a lot of salty food you know and it's about what makes a watch strap

01:37:42 ◼   ► a nice watch strap or a bracelet a nice bracelet is other things and it's you

01:37:46 ◼   ► know how it feels and you know subjective things and but you know like

01:37:49 ◼   ► the leather ones it's you know how good are you working with leather and some of

01:37:52 ◼   ► these you know like that's little mom-and-pop places on Etsy that just

01:37:56 ◼   ► work with leather. They're experts. They're really, really good.

01:37:59 ◼   ► Right. A lot of them in Texas because they have a lot of dead cows there.

01:38:03 ◼   ► It's an interesting fact.

01:38:05 ◼   ► Yeah. But the one thing that I've really enjoyed about the watch is, and it made me think about

01:38:14 ◼   ► this compared to every other watch that I've ever owned, is how fast you can change the bands.

01:38:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:38:19 ◼   ► Because I do this because I don't want to work out in my leather band, but I want to wear the

01:38:23 ◼   ► Apple Watch when I work out. So I just quickly switched back to the fluoroelastomer. And

01:38:31 ◼   ► it takes like five seconds.

01:38:34 ◼   ► You pronounce it Blackblaze. No, it's true. For all the complaints that I have levied

01:38:43 ◼   ► against Apple Watch, the one thing that's absolutely true is the brilliance of that

01:38:47 ◼   ► switching mechanism.

01:38:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I think all watches should have that.

01:38:52 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, a lot of the people who are the biggest

01:38:55 ◼   ► praisers of it are people coming from the watch world

01:38:57 ◼   ► where they're like, in some ways, Apple really,

01:38:59 ◼   ► say what you want about the functionality

01:39:01 ◼   ► of the watch itself, leave that aside.

01:39:03 ◼   ► But in terms of certain things like making bracelets

01:39:08 ◼   ► and the design and the switching and stuff like that,

01:39:09 ◼   ► they just showed that the Swiss industry

01:39:11 ◼   ► had been asleep at the wheel for decades

01:39:13 ◼   ► because they haven't really, you know,

01:39:16 ◼   ► like the top of the line watch strap from 1981

01:39:19 ◼   ► is like indistinguishable from the top of the line

01:39:21 ◼   ► strap now. Yeah, and you need a little tool to be able to switch it and you know there's a really

01:39:26 ◼   ► good chance that you're going to shoot the little metal spring thing across the room when you try

01:39:32 ◼   ► and lose it. Right. That's horrible. Or like on a link bracelet on a Swiss most you know like Rolex

01:39:38 ◼   ► or an Omega or a Tag Heuer. You don't just need a little tool you need like a special little

01:39:44 ◼   ► screwdriver but you actually have to have like you really ought to use like there's a certain kind of

01:39:48 ◼   ► of glue that you want to put in there when you put it back in,

01:39:52 ◼   ► you like to take a link out to resize it. And then when you put

01:39:55 ◼   ► the screw back in, you want to put I forget what they call it,

01:39:57 ◼   ► it's called like Loctite or something like that. But it's

01:40:00 ◼   ► like a jewelers glue that will, it's just enough so that it's

01:40:04 ◼   ► never going to come out when you don't want it. But if you

01:40:06 ◼   ► eventually want to resize the watch again, or put the link

01:40:09 ◼   ► back in, it's not so tight that you can't get it out or strip

01:40:11 ◼   ► the screw. It's like perfect glue. Well, who the hell has

01:40:14 ◼   ► that? Right? So you're just to get the thing resized, you're

01:40:17 ◼   ► off to the jeweler you know your local corner jeweler or whatever yeah so anyway

01:40:24 ◼   ► yeah I don't know what they're going what so what they would they were the

01:40:26 ◼   ► one of the rumors was about a nylon right that they would ship a nylon right

01:40:34 ◼   ► which I would be very interested in it yeah I have a watch with a nylon band

01:40:37 ◼   ► very comfortable in my opinion yeah that's what I wore for years before I

01:40:41 ◼   ► got the Apple watch so yeah I'm curious to see how Apple does the connection to

01:40:45 ◼   ► watch on that one though because I feel like the ones that I've seen so far they don't

01:40:49 ◼   ► quite look right because of just the nature of the the connector to the watch that they just

01:40:55 ◼   ► kind of they don't quite look right with just like a a bar sticking out of the bar the bar yeah

01:41:01 ◼   ► yeah well that's what my I mean that's what my leather one uses and it's it's okay but yeah but

01:41:06 ◼   ► I don't think apple yeah but somehow with the leather ones the bars don't they don't look as

01:41:10 ◼   ► out of places with a nylon strap I think because leather is typically a little thicker and it it

01:41:14 ◼   ► it pads out a little and whereas the nylon ones are, you know,

01:41:17 ◼   ► makes the bar show a little. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just,

01:41:21 ◼   ► somehow the,

01:41:23 ◼   ► the interplay between the thickness of the strap material and the bar just

01:41:26 ◼   ► doesn't seem as right to me. I don't know how they're going to do it though.

01:41:30 ◼   ► Like what are they going to, maybe it's just, you know,

01:41:32 ◼   ► Jeff Williams comes out and talks about how many, you know,

01:41:35 ◼   ► millions of people are using health care and great new apps from these airlines

01:41:40 ◼   ► and people are Apple paying with their watch 10 million times a day or whatever.

01:41:44 ◼   ► And then here's some new bands and get off the stage, which is sort of, I guess, what

01:41:48 ◼   ► he did in September.

01:41:50 ◼   ► Although they also had Apple, you know, the OS/2, the WatchOS/2 to show.

01:41:56 ◼   ► Whereas I don't think anybody's expecting a new WatchOS.

01:41:59 ◼   ► So I mean, maybe they have something in secret, some secret new feature just so they have

01:42:03 ◼   ► something to demo.

01:42:04 ◼   ► But I'm not quite sure.

01:42:05 ◼   ► It seems...

01:42:06 ◼   ► Well, new faces would be nice.

01:42:08 ◼   ► And that seems like something that would be simple to do.

01:42:10 ◼   ► But I am completely making it.

01:42:13 ◼   ► Right.

01:42:14 ◼   ► though. And that's something that if it's, I don't know what the version number would

01:42:17 ◼   ► be, watchOS 2.1 or whatever, that they could have been working on in secret and it's, you

01:42:23 ◼   ► know, no surprise that it didn't leak. Is this enough? This is my question, I keep thinking,

01:42:29 ◼   ► after I spent all this money to book an airplane. Is it enough to justify the money that you

01:42:37 ◼   ► Well, it's a phone that is in--

01:42:44 ◼   ► then there's leaks of the case, too.

01:42:45 ◼   ► And I think it looks interesting.

01:42:46 ◼   ► It's an interesting combination of the straight sides

01:42:49 ◼   ► and the curves.

01:42:50 ◼   ► And they got rid of the chamfered edges

01:42:51 ◼   ► and have just like a rounded edge.

01:42:54 ◼   ► It seems like an interesting case design.

01:42:56 ◼   ► But fundamentally, technology-wise, it's

01:42:59 ◼   ► a phone that has nothing new.

01:43:01 ◼   ► It's a size we've had before, a basic shape we've had before,

01:43:05 ◼   ► camera technology that's beneath the cutting edge of the 6S, and a screen that we've seen

01:43:12 ◼   ► before, and an A9 system on a chip, which is great that it's the current model year,

01:43:17 ◼   ► but guess what? We've already had these phones for six months with the A9. And then an iPad,

01:43:22 ◼   ► that is the exact same story. Everything that's new and novel about it was in the

01:43:28 ◼   ► 13-inch iPad Pro that we have had since November. So what do you do on stage

01:43:35 ◼   ► to talk about these things, right?

01:43:37 ◼   ► Like, here's this thing that's exactly like

01:43:39 ◼   ► what we announced in September, but smaller.

01:43:41 ◼   ► That's a tough event.

01:43:43 ◼   ► And then, what, here's new watch straps?

01:43:46 ◼   ► That seems like a tough event.

01:43:51 ◼   ► Even if they, you know, and one thing about Apple,

01:43:53 ◼   ► and I say this and I really mean it,

01:43:55 ◼   ► kudos as somebody who's, especially when the town hall

01:43:58 ◼   ► events, oh my god, it's like a coach seat in an airplane.

01:44:02 ◼   ► Not even, it's tighter.

01:44:03 ◼   ► It's like a tighter fit than a coach seat in an airplane.

01:44:05 ◼   ► If they only have 48 minutes of stuff to talk about,

01:44:09 ◼   ► they'll have a 48 minute event,

01:44:10 ◼   ► and maybe a five minute video.

01:44:12 ◼   ► Right, but they're not gonna keep you there for two hours

01:44:16 ◼   ► if they don't have two hours of stuff.

01:44:18 ◼   ► I just don't know what else they're gonna do.

01:44:21 ◼   ► I mean, I guess some people are wondering,

01:44:22 ◼   ► hoping sort of maybe,

01:44:24 ◼   ► that maybe there's new MacBooks of some kind.

01:44:26 ◼   ► I don't know how that aligns though

01:44:27 ◼   ► with what Intel's putting out.

01:44:29 ◼   ► Intel meaning the CPU company.

01:44:32 ◼   ► Right, right. Yeah, I can't think of any other shoe that's in the air that is ready to drop at this point.

01:44:41 ◼   ► It's like, I wonder how close they were, if there's nothing else that's coming, I wonder how close they were internally to doing it without an event and just having, you know, giving it to people, you know, review units, you know, in private briefings like they've done it, other things when there's no...

01:44:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:44:59 ◼   ► And you know, maybe there's something else or maybe they you know, they feel like this is good enough to

01:45:04 ◼   ► You know, maybe for reasons that escape me and are not obvious to me. Maybe there's something there's some message

01:45:10 ◼   ► They have to give that actually, you know makes for a compelling event. Oh

01:45:13 ◼   ► The wasn't there a

01:45:18 ◼   ► An update to Apple music coming - I

01:45:22 ◼   ► Don't know if it's coming in March though, right? Okay

01:45:27 ◼   ► I don't know that either, but I had heard that there was an update coming and that it's supposedly much more understandable.

01:45:37 ◼   ► There was a podcast that Eddie Q was on where he said that there's an update to the remote app for the Apple TV. I forget which show it was.

01:45:47 ◼   ► I don't listen to podcasts that much.

01:45:50 ◼   ► If they want to just sort of do a run through,

01:45:54 ◼   ► you know, here's all of our stuff,

01:45:56 ◼   ► and here's little, you know, things big and small,

01:45:59 ◼   ► the little improvements we're announcing

01:46:00 ◼   ► to all of our stuff.

01:46:01 ◼   ► If they wanna run through Apple TV,

01:46:03 ◼   ► you know, demoing the new app that lets you use your phone

01:46:07 ◼   ► as a full-fledged, you know, Apple remote.

01:46:10 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:46:11 ◼   ► Well, and maybe they have some third-party thing

01:46:15 ◼   ► that's tied into that, right?

01:46:16 ◼   ► - I wouldn't be surprised at all if the,

01:46:18 ◼   ► that that's coming is a March event thing because, you know,

01:46:22 ◼   ► it just gives them something to demo.

01:46:24 ◼   ► So at least announce it, at least they would announce it and say when it's coming.

01:46:28 ◼   ► But if they had like a game or something like that where if two players need a remote,

01:46:32 ◼   ► now there's a solution to it because one of you can use your phone and the other one can use the remote.

01:46:37 ◼   ► Was that just a few weeks ago?

01:46:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

01:46:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:46:42 ◼   ► So he said three months, right?

01:46:44 ◼   ► I thought he said a few months, honestly.

01:46:46 ◼   ► honestly. Okay. So maybe not. I mean, I think he said, he said three, I thought he said

01:46:50 ◼   ► three but it was kind of like, just like tossed it out. I mean, not like, you know, he was

01:46:54 ◼   ► not, I don't think that date was necessarily supposed to indicate that that's exactly what

01:46:59 ◼   ► it was. Yeah, he maybe doesn't even know. Yeah. I hope he made it up. What if I, I really

01:47:06 ◼   ► hope that he just made that up on the spot and just thought, you know what, we should

01:47:09 ◼   ► have that. And I really hope that like after the podcast, he was like, I had to go to the,

01:47:13 ◼   ► Oh, I should know we had to go to like some engineers and say okay

01:47:16 ◼   ► You got to make you got to make the iPhone app

01:47:18 ◼   ► Do everything that the crack the whip you got to do everything that the remote does why because I just said we were gonna do

01:47:23 ◼   ► it in a few months

01:47:25 ◼   ► This is why they don't they didn't used to let people talk, right

01:47:31 ◼   ► But it's funny to think about it and because we don't have video right it was entirely conducted by audio remotely

01:47:36 ◼   ► So wouldn't be funny if like Federighi was like Craig was like giving him like the throat cut motion like

01:47:42 ◼   ► There what the hell are you like just didn't say anything cuz he's you know in front of a hot mic

01:47:46 ◼   ► But he's just looking at Eddie like what the hell are you talking about? I don't have anybody working on that

01:47:50 ◼   ► How hard could it be yeah, right if that's like what Eddie gives him like it gives him a look like what it's get the

01:47:58 ◼   ► Get those crossy road people and they will be fine

01:48:01 ◼   ► It's worth an announcement

01:48:04 ◼   ► It seems like and well, I mean I like my Apple TV, but I

01:48:11 ◼   ► Don't really play games on it other than the few that I played when I first show I've done it. I don't anymore though

01:48:17 ◼   ► Yeah, not because because I don't play games period except for firewatch. Oh

01:48:21 ◼   ► Yeah, we got

01:48:24 ◼   ► But it just seems like

01:48:27 ◼   ► They need to do

01:48:29 ◼   ► Something else to make that to kick start that a little bit

01:48:31 ◼   ► Is there anything else that was supposedly coming smaller iPhone revamped iPad tweaks to the Apple watch line

01:48:40 ◼   ► I know I mean you know there's the loft mentioned video streaming thing but that

01:48:49 ◼   ► doesn't seem like that's yeah then that doesn't any close any closer to fruition

01:48:54 ◼   ► than it has been for a while now and it doesn't seem like something that they

01:48:59 ◼   ► would do at town hall and it's again we don't know that it's a town hall but all

01:49:04 ◼   ► the hints seem to suggest that it is and the fact that everything else is so

01:49:08 ◼   ► small would reiterate it.

01:49:11 ◼   ► I said before, I think I blogged it.

01:49:13 ◼   ► I don't think I said it on the show.

01:49:14 ◼   ► But if it is at Town Hall, I think

01:49:17 ◼   ► there's a very good chance that this will be the last public

01:49:19 ◼   ► event for the press that Apple ever holds at Town Hall.

01:49:23 ◼   ► Because if they stick to last year's schedule,

01:49:27 ◼   ► the next time we hear from Apple will be at WWDC,

01:49:30 ◼   ► and that'll be at Moscone.

01:49:31 ◼   ► The next time we hear from them will be in September.

01:49:34 ◼   ► And that'll be a big, big, big, big show in a huge venue,

01:49:38 ◼   ► because it's gonna be the new iPhone

01:49:40 ◼   ► and probably a new Apple Watch 2.0,

01:49:43 ◼   ► but anything else they're gonna do this year,

01:49:45 ◼   ► and the iPhone one is always a big deal,

01:49:47 ◼   ► is way too big for town hall.

01:49:49 ◼   ► And then starting last year,

01:49:51 ◼   ► they didn't have a little small October event.

01:49:54 ◼   ► The September event was,

01:49:56 ◼   ► here's everything we've got for the rest of the year.

01:49:57 ◼   ► And privately and from other people,

01:50:00 ◼   ► I've heard that that was not coincidence or circumstance.

01:50:04 ◼   ► It was strategy.

01:50:05 ◼   ► It was doing an event in September

01:50:07 ◼   ► And then another one, even if small in October,

01:50:10 ◼   ► is too big of a pain in the ass.

01:50:12 ◼   ► And too-- - Yeah, I would think so.

01:50:14 ◼   ► - So then that rolls, then the next time we hear from them

01:50:19 ◼   ► would be March next year, and by that time,

01:50:22 ◼   ► supposedly, the new campus is gonna be open.

01:50:24 ◼   ► - Right, right. - And it seems like

01:50:26 ◼   ► if it's really close to being open,

01:50:27 ◼   ► it would be almost criminal to have an event

01:50:30 ◼   ► at the old campus, like, oh, welcome

01:50:31 ◼   ► to our old crappy campus.

01:50:33 ◼   ► - You should take, you should take, like,

01:50:35 ◼   ► a big 48 ounce malt liquor and just pour it out right on your seat when you're done.

01:50:44 ◼   ► I've done that at most of the events at Down Hall.

01:50:48 ◼   ► I forgot that's your signature move.

01:50:50 ◼   ► Your signature move.

01:50:53 ◼   ► I even have. That's how I save my seat for the next event.

01:50:57 ◼   ► Nobody wants to sit there. Got to invite John back.

01:51:02 ◼   ► I don't think there's anything else coming up.

01:51:04 ◼   ► I don't think there's anything else.

01:51:05 ◼   ► Maybe a MacBook, I don't know.

01:51:07 ◼   ► But anyway, I don't know.

01:51:08 ◼   ► Do you think that's a good event?

01:51:09 ◼   ► Do you think it's gonna be a weird event?

01:51:11 ◼   ► - Well, I think it's gonna be a good event

01:51:12 ◼   ► 'cause I'm very interested in this phone.

01:51:14 ◼   ► - I'm really curious how they--

01:51:18 ◼   ► - Other people's mileage may vary.

01:51:19 ◼   ► - I'm really curious how they position the phone.

01:51:22 ◼   ► In addition to my previous statement

01:51:25 ◼   ► that I'm interested in how they talk about the camera,

01:51:26 ◼   ► I'm interested in how they talk about the size.

01:51:29 ◼   ► because it was, I mean they were never able to say,

01:51:34 ◼   ► starting with the 6, they were never able to say,

01:51:38 ◼   ► now we have a big phone, small phones suck,

01:51:40 ◼   ► because they've always, they've always still

01:51:43 ◼   ► had the smaller ones in the lineup,

01:51:46 ◼   ► filling out price points, so they couldn't

01:51:48 ◼   ► really bad mouth them.

01:51:49 ◼   ► But it was also clear that ever since they went to the 6,

01:51:54 ◼   ► that the smaller phones were years old models

01:51:58 ◼   ► that were being moved down to different price points

01:52:00 ◼   ► as they got older.

01:52:02 ◼   ► Whereas now they're coming out with a four inch phone

01:52:05 ◼   ► that, you know, they're obviously not going to say

01:52:07 ◼   ► that this is a top tier.

01:52:09 ◼   ► It's not the 6S mini, you know, it is different.

01:52:13 ◼   ► Whatever they're gonna call it.

01:52:15 ◼   ► You know, and the camera by all accounts

01:52:16 ◼   ► is not quite as good.

01:52:17 ◼   ► So no matter what, it's, you know,

01:52:19 ◼   ► it's some sort of cup below.

01:52:20 ◼   ► But it's also definitely new and it's got cutting,

01:52:24 ◼   ► you know, cutting edge A9, et cetera.

01:52:27 ◼   ► So I'm curious how they talk about why they're adding the 4-inch phone with these current specs.

01:52:33 ◼   ► You had said something, you had written something about how you think that this phone is going to be around for 18 to 24 months?

01:52:41 ◼   ► Yeah, probably. Now they're thinking about 36 months, probably. Because at the third year it'll be at the $0 price range.

01:52:49 ◼   ► Yeah, but I'm interested, I mean, if they do call it the SE without a number in it,

01:52:57 ◼   ► is this, they're just gonna keep, are they gonna keep upgrading that line?

01:53:05 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:53:06 ◼   ► In line, or are they just gonna have this phone and move it down and away?

01:53:10 ◼   ► Maybe like three or three years ago from now.

01:53:13 ◼   ► And then have some other, you know, have the XE or something.

01:53:15 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:53:16 ◼   ► I was gonna say XE.

01:53:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:53:18 ◼   ► I was gonna say it.

01:53:19 ◼   ► sexy yeah I think that's what they'll do I think it's a one-off phone sort of

01:53:27 ◼   ► like the iPhone 5c was I think if they do that they need to pay us I think if

01:53:34 ◼   ► it's called the iPhone I think if it's called the iPhone X II that you and I

01:53:38 ◼   ► should both get at least you know I'm not much you know just like I've some

01:53:43 ◼   ► basis point. Yeah, one percent. Yeah, well, you know, it doesn't even... come on, don't be greedy.

01:53:50 ◼   ► One percent! How much could that add up to? 50 basis points. How much could one percent of iPhone sales add up to?

01:53:58 ◼   ► Yeah, right, it's an unknowable number.

01:54:02 ◼   ► All right, let me take a break here and thank our third and final sponsor of the show, and

01:54:10 ◼   ► Another one that I could not be happier to encourage you to

01:54:15 ◼   ► To do business with our good friends at mail route

01:54:20 ◼   ► Now to find out more you can go to their website is mail route dotnet

01:54:24 ◼   ► /tts the initials of the talk show tts mail route dotnet tts

01:54:30 ◼   ► Look these guys are the email

01:54:35 ◼   ► Masters these guys the company is founded by and run by people who've pretty much devoted their careers to

01:54:42 ◼   ► handling email filtering email

01:54:45 ◼   ► protecting your email doing email, right

01:54:47 ◼   ► And IT departments everywhere are expected to do more every year and with less money every year and that includes really

01:54:55 ◼   ► important stuff like

01:54:57 ◼   ► stopping spam and

01:55:00 ◼   ► virus attacks and you know

01:55:02 ◼   ► Shitty you know phishing attacks and stuff like that that come through your email

01:55:05 ◼   ► And end-of-life announcements for trusted hardware and software options that helped you make this in the past make these decisions even more difficult

01:55:16 ◼   ► Right so first postini went away now MX logic now

01:55:20 ◼   ► I've never heard of MX logic because I'm not an IT professional

01:55:23 ◼   ► I can only guess though that it had something to do with register. You know dealing with your MX records for your email domain

01:55:30 ◼   ► Well, whatever it was it's been announced end-of-life. So who do you trust now to do the job? Well and stick around

01:55:36 ◼   ► Well, I say you try mail route mail route will protect your email your company's email your team's email

01:55:42 ◼   ► And your own hardware against spam

01:55:45 ◼   ► Viruses and other attacks because what mail route does there is no hardware to install you don't install mail routes hardware

01:55:51 ◼   ► You don't install their software on your server. What you do is if you own the domain you just

01:55:57 ◼   ► Change your MX records to focus the email have the email go to mail route first. It's just a thin filter

01:56:03 ◼   ► It just filters and then it moves right on

01:56:05 ◼   ► After mail route gets done taking all the crap out of your email all the spam all the phishing attacks everything like that

01:56:12 ◼   ► It just forwards on to your existing servers

01:56:16 ◼   ► The spam free email that you want

01:56:20 ◼   ► So you don't have any of the crap on your servers mail route takes care of it filters that they've got API's so you can

01:56:26 ◼   ► Script it you can you know hook it up to whatever other systems you have

01:56:29 ◼   ► Connected to your email. They've got really great

01:56:33 ◼   ► Interface to do things like double-check, you know, make sure all the spam that they filtered really is spam

01:56:40 ◼   ► That sort of thing you can get like an update like once a week that says here's all the top emails that we filtered a

01:56:47 ◼   ► Spam but that maybe we're like on the threshold. So if you want to double-check them, here you go

01:56:52 ◼   ► Here's your report for the week and you can like eyeball it and take a look

01:56:55 ◼   ► And just like the other companies I talked about today, you get a 30-day free trial of MailRoute.

01:57:03 ◼   ► You can just go there, try it, change your MMX records, filter your email through MailRoute, see how good it works.

01:57:10 ◼   ► And then after 30 days, only then after you've tried it for 30 days and you see for yourself how good this is,

01:57:16 ◼   ► then you can start paying for it.

01:57:20 ◼   ► Listeners of the show, this is an amazing deal, get 10% off for the lifetime of their

01:57:27 ◼   ► account.

01:57:28 ◼   ► So if you sign up through mailroute.net/tts and you use them for 15, 20 years, you are

01:57:34 ◼   ► still getting that 10% off 10 years from now, 15 years from now, however long it is, which

01:57:39 ◼   ► is a tremendous, tremendous deal.

01:57:41 ◼   ► So if you are in charge of email for your domain, your company's domain, you owe it

01:57:46 ◼   ► to yourself.

01:57:47 ◼   ► at mailroute.net/tts. Love these guys. What else before we talk?

01:57:56 ◼   ► It's mailroot, by the way.

01:57:58 ◼   ► Oh, I'm sorry. We've had that discussion before.

01:58:01 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:58:05 ◼   ► Well, there's that game we could talk about.

01:58:07 ◼   ► Yeah. "Route" and "route" for that word is one of those ones where I don't even know how I pronounce it, if I'm not thinking about it.

01:58:14 ◼   ► I do know that I say mail route.

01:58:17 ◼   ► - It's really contextual.

01:58:18 ◼   ► Because you say route 66, right?

01:58:20 ◼   ► - Nobody would ever say route 66.

01:58:22 ◼   ► - No one would ever say route 66.

01:58:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, but if you were saying like,

01:58:26 ◼   ► what route do you take to get to mom's house?

01:58:29 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:58:30 ◼   ► - I would probably say route, I guess.

01:58:32 ◼   ► I know that I deliberately say mail route with mail route

01:58:36 ◼   ► because I feel like it would be so easy to think

01:58:38 ◼   ► that it's route, like you're the route admin route,

01:58:42 ◼   ► because root is a very common word in networking.

01:58:44 ◼   ► And even if I spell it, I just feel like,

01:58:46 ◼   ► let me just put it in your head as mail route

01:58:48 ◼   ► and then anybody out there who wants to check it out

01:58:50 ◼   ► will know how to spell it and nobody, there's no ambiguity.

01:58:53 ◼   ► But there's most of those words

01:58:55 ◼   ► where there's two ways to say it.

01:58:57 ◼   ► I have very strong opinions about the right way to say it.

01:59:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:59:02 ◼   ► And what about the tomato, tomato thing?

01:59:05 ◼   ► I've never met anybody in my life ever who says, "Tomato."

01:59:08 ◼   ► - Who says, "Tomato?" - Yeah, ever.

01:59:10 ◼   ► - No. - It's like the guy

01:59:11 ◼   ► who made that song up.

01:59:12 ◼   ► just made that up. No, I bet some British people say tomato. Yeah, or like some real,

01:59:20 ◼   ► yeah, real jerk. And plus, when that was like a, that was like 100 years ago. Right, and like it

01:59:24 ◼   ► was like at a time where like, like people who, you know, like when only like five percent of

01:59:28 ◼   ► Americans had been to college, they just started saying words funny, like, you know, like it's sort

01:59:33 ◼   ► of affecting a fake semi sort of one toe in the sand British accent just to like sort of self

01:59:40 ◼   ► identify as someone who's been to a college on the East Coast. I bet it was a good sign.

01:59:46 ◼   ► If you're working in a restaurant or a bar or something like that, if you have a customer who

01:59:51 ◼   ► says something about tomatoes, you just know you're in for it. Stick your thumb in that drink.

01:59:57 ◼   ► Did you have a guy in the senior year of college? Because lots of people spent their junior year

02:00:05 ◼   ► abroad. There was a guy who came back senior year of college who had spent the year in

02:00:11 ◼   ► England and came back speaking with a British accent.

02:00:14 ◼   ► No, it happened to me in sixth grade. We had a good friend of mine, Mark. His dad got transferred

02:00:23 ◼   ► to England after fourth grade. I know he missed all of fifth grade. He might have missed part

02:00:30 ◼   ► of fourth grade, too. Maybe he was gone more than a year, but then sixth grade, everybody

02:00:34 ◼   ► was excited because Mark was back and he was a popular kid, a real nice kid, smart kid too.

02:00:40 ◼   ► And he came back and he didn't really have a British accent, but he said bloody everything.

02:00:44 ◼   ► Okay, that I can get Mark.

02:00:47 ◼   ► Yeah, because that's a really good... That's one of the great...

02:00:50 ◼   ► Yeah. That's like... And at that age, it's like a swear that you can get away with.

02:00:54 ◼   ► It's like you can really...

02:00:55 ◼   ► You can get away with a British swear.

02:00:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it was... And he really pulled it off. We made fun of him at first, but then it just...

02:01:01 ◼   ► And then you were doing...

02:01:04 ◼   ► The mock-up? No, because you couldn't pull it off. If we tried it, we'd look like... you just couldn't

02:01:09 ◼   ► do it, but he, you know, it just came out of his... it just came out naturally. It's like he...

02:01:14 ◼   ► Hank says bloody.

02:01:16 ◼   ► Oh man, that's a good one.

02:01:17 ◼   ► He says... I mean, I think it's from listening to those Minecraft YouTubers.

02:01:21 ◼   ► Oh yeah, they're all English. Yeah, that's true.

02:01:24 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah.

02:01:25 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a brilliant word. It really is. Brilliant, too. English, the...

02:01:29 ◼   ► Brilliant, also brilliant.

02:01:30 ◼   ► I think I've got a subconscious right there. The brilliant, the English make terrific use of the word brilliant.

02:01:35 ◼   ► We do have that word.

02:01:36 ◼   ► Yeah, but they use it better. We have bloody too, but we don't have it in there.

02:01:40 ◼   ► No, but it's not used in the same way.

02:01:42 ◼   ► It's just so smack dab in the middle of, boy, it sure feels like a swear word.

02:01:48 ◼   ► And no, I cannot make a compelling argument that it is a swear, but it just has...

02:01:53 ◼   ► No, it's not here. It's not a swear word.

02:01:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

02:01:57 ◼   ► Firewatch. Oh man, I don't play games and I don't know if that makes me a better critic or not critic even, but a better person to tell you to go buy this game and go play it or not. But I think it kind of does. It's like I just don't have the mindset for, I just don't have the...

02:02:14 ◼   ► Well, yeah, I think it depends on the kind of gamer you are. I

02:02:18 ◼   ► mean, if you're like, you know, if you're someone who likes

02:02:21 ◼   ► first person shooters exclusively, you might not like

02:02:25 ◼   ► well, maybe you would though maybe you'd like it as a as a

02:02:27 ◼   ► break. Well, sure. Yes, that's that's perfectly possible. Um,

02:02:33 ◼   ► if you are exclusively addicted to that particular genre,

02:02:36 ◼   ► however, I mean, and I, you know, and I read some of the

02:02:39 ◼   ► comments on um steam from some people which you know, just

02:02:43 ◼   ► just made me angry because it wasn't exactly the game that they are continually playing all the

02:02:51 ◼   ► time. Instead it actually had a story and it was interesting instead of just like shooting zombies

02:02:59 ◼   ► repeatedly. But did anybody, was anybody misled? I mean, I don't understand. I guess you could.

02:03:06 ◼   ► Well, there was that, there was a sort of ridiculous situation with this game, right?

02:03:11 ◼   ► because there was someone who wrote a review, and I think it was on Steam, who was...

02:03:18 ◼   ► or it was in a forum someplace, and I can't remember if it was on Steam or what, but it was

02:03:22 ◼   ► saying, you know, "I paid the $17 or whatever, and I had a good time playing it for the amount

02:03:29 ◼   ► of time that I spent playing it, but I'm thinking about getting my... trying to get my money back."

02:03:38 ◼   ► you paid the money, you liked the game, and you're thinking about getting your...

02:03:41 ◼   ► So I don't... I want to scrupulously avoid spoilers. I mean, the basic gist of the game

02:03:47 ◼   ► doesn't spoil anything, and it's pretty obvious that you play a... I don't even know what the hell

02:03:52 ◼   ► you are. You're not really a forest ranger. What are you? A fire watcher. Yeah.

02:03:55 ◼   ► I mean, it's like, yeah. So you're, you know, you're up in a tower, and you're in the Pacific

02:03:58 ◼   ► Northwest, and you, you know, your job is to... I think it's... I think it's Wyoming. I think it's

02:04:04 ◼   ► supposed to be one. And uh and the story unfolds and it is uh a fascinating to me. It's number

02:04:13 ◼   ► one it's a beautiful game. It really is just drop dead gorgeous and um what's his name? Ollie

02:04:20 ◼   ► Ollie Moss. Have you ever seen the Ollie Moss's Star Wars posters? I guarantee you. I think I

02:04:26 ◼   ► believe I have yeah I'm pretty sure that I have. So uh Ollie Moss worked on on setting that the

02:04:31 ◼   ► graphics of the game to some degree and it really shows the whole team though.

02:04:36 ◼   ► It's just a gorgeous game. You just cannot... I would watch a short film, or not short film,

02:04:43 ◼   ► an animated film. I'd watch a feature-length film that looked exactly like Firewatch. It's

02:04:47 ◼   ► just got a tremendous look. Well, I think the thing that I like so much about it is how it draws

02:04:53 ◼   ► you into the game. Because it starts out... it doesn't start out with any graphics at all.

02:04:57 ◼   ► it just starts out by asking you certain questions about choices that you're going to make.

02:05:02 ◼   ► Right.

02:05:02 ◼   ► Except that it's all setting up the story. It's getting you, it's drawing you into the story,

02:05:09 ◼   ► and it's, you know, by the end of answering the questions, you know, you're choked up.

02:05:17 ◼   ► Yeah, it sets you off in a melancholy frame of mind.

02:05:21 ◼   ► Right.

02:05:22 ◼   ► And the game is so well written. It's not trying to be a movie. It's not trying to be a choose your own adventure book.

02:05:32 ◼   ► It's a game, and you're playing it, and you're there, and you've got just a fundamental difference from a movie.

02:05:40 ◼   ► If it takes a long time to walk from A to B, it takes you a long time to walk from A to B that you don't cut.

02:05:46 ◼   ► I mean, you cut days out of the adventure, but you're there.

02:05:50 ◼   ► And so you've got this first person view

02:05:55 ◼   ► that feels like you're there.

02:05:57 ◼   ► It feels like you're doing stuff.

02:05:58 ◼   ► But it's obviously-- you're in a story that

02:06:00 ◼   ► is really well written with some really intriguing characters

02:06:06 ◼   ► and incredible acting talent.

02:06:10 ◼   ► The guy who plays the voice of the protagonist,

02:06:15 ◼   ► It was the guy from Mad Men who played Harry Crane on Mad Men, Rich Sommer.

02:06:21 ◼   ► And he's just-- he's terrific.

02:06:23 ◼   ► He was terrific in Mad Men.

02:06:24 ◼   ► And he's terrific here.

02:06:25 ◼   ► It's a really remarkable character.

02:06:27 ◼   ► And the other characters in the film are remarkable too.

02:06:29 ◼   ► And the mystery is truly interesting.

02:06:33 ◼   ► And it's just evocative.

02:06:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

02:06:37 ◼   ► And it leaves--

02:06:40 ◼   ► I mean, I hope-- hopefully for me, I mean,

02:06:42 ◼   ► I hope it leaves enough on the table that there'll be something following.

02:06:45 ◼   ► I really hope I would shell out again immediately, since I figured out that I can play it on

02:06:54 ◼   ► my kid's computer.

02:06:58 ◼   ► It is also a little adult.

02:07:05 ◼   ► And that was one of my questions I asked Cable.

02:07:08 ◼   ► I was trying to figure out if it was—before I put it on my kid's computer, I wanted to make sure it

02:07:13 ◼   ► was okay. And he's 12. And it's, you know, it's very thoughtful. And I think in a good way—whoops,

02:07:23 ◼   ► sorry, Siri. I think in a good way it's thoughtful. And then I think the only thing that some people