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292: ‘Not the Batman We Want or Need’, With Rene Ritchie

 

00:00:00   Nothing going on this August. I don't know. It's like the worst DC Universe movie ever and I'm just afraid what the Snyder Cut's gonna be

00:00:07   What's going on with that thing that's that's crazy right is that nuts I only following that loosely and it's like I

00:00:16   Have I'm like the rare person like and I think that this is going to be the theme of the episode

00:00:21   Is that we're going to talk about a lot of things that have very polarizing opinions

00:00:26   Yeah, and Zack Snyder seems to be a very polarizing filmmaker and my take on Zack Snyder is sort of in the middle

00:00:33   Like I feel like I'm like the one fan of superhero movies who's like, I guess I mostly like them

00:00:39   But I kind of see why you know, he's yes

00:00:41   No, I think to me it highlights exactly what you said except

00:00:45   Everybody can be wrong is my takeaway. I think Twitter hates the idea that multiple people can be right and or wrong

00:00:52   They want a clear-cut, you know sides on everything

00:00:55   But I think Justice League was a bad movie and I think this lighter cut gonna be a bad movie

00:00:59   I can't remember I honest to God. This is the truth. I can't remember if I watch Justice League

00:01:04   Like I like the Superman movie I didn't love it

00:01:09   I don't still don't think I still think that the only good Superman movie ever made was Richard Donner's original. Yes, man

00:01:15   Still think it was the only one

00:01:17   But I kind of liked moments of Zack Snyder's and you know

00:01:24   and it's like what a bold move just doing away with the theme music and going with a new one and it worked for me and

00:01:30   I you know

00:01:32   Kind of like the the feel of it, which to me is often a lot more important

00:01:36   But then you know, it's the false apart. So anyway, the whole thing with the Zack Snyder cut of the movie is that

00:01:43   He's making Justice League a couple years ago

00:01:47   Something happens in his personal life. I don't know

00:01:51   It was two things there was like a DC the DC brass decided

00:01:55   They didn't want him doing this anymore because his previous movies were doing so badly both, you know

00:02:00   not in terms of box office

00:02:01   But in terms of public reaction and then his father passed away and they sort of used that as a way to move him aside

00:02:07   In the middle of production who'd made the X Avengers right, but that's in the middle of production. Yes

00:02:13   Yeah, or maybe more than past the middle of production. Yes. It was before the reshoots, right?

00:02:19   And Joss Whedon isn't just a director if anything he's better known as a writer. I mean, he's a filmmaker

00:02:26   I don't mean to I don't mean to take away from his skills as a director, too

00:02:30   And he's obviously helmed as directors and inordinately beloved in popular movies, but he is a writer. So, you know that he's not gonna

00:02:37   He's not at somebody's just gonna come in and say okay. Give me the script. I'll start I'll just pick it up, you know

00:02:43   you know perhaps contributed to it being a

00:02:47   mismatch mishmash and now the cast are coming forward and just saying he was terrible and the producers were terrible and the whole thing was a

00:02:54   Giant mess so right on the one end. I do want to you know

00:02:58   You judge the final work right that you should be able to

00:03:02   ignore all of the backstory not even pay attention and then the movie comes out and

00:03:07   I was gonna say you take your seat and let the film star but nobody does that anymore, right?

00:03:14   We live we literally can't we hit play

00:03:17   you watch the movie and then you can make an opinion but

00:03:20   but

00:03:22   There's some back story

00:03:24   stories that

00:03:26   Are just petty politics and gossip and you know people get into digs in and then there's some where it's like

00:03:34   Well, this sounds like it's impossible for a coherent movie to come out of it

00:03:38   Yes, and then you watch it and it's like yep

00:03:41   There is no way a coherent movie could come out of that

00:03:44   and for example, I'm thinking of solo which was a

00:03:48   Disaster behind the scenes and that's not even like gossip. That was just like just flat-out

00:03:53   We have to Disney we have to say we fired these guys. We hired Ron Howard where

00:03:58   Probably never should have made this movie in the first place. I think Disney said that

00:04:03   And the movie came out and it was it was horrendous

00:04:06   It was I don't know if you saw it, but there's this movie came out on Disney Plus it

00:04:11   I believe it averted the cinemas called Arlo Finch. No, I'm so it's not Arlo Finch. I'm sorry

00:04:16   It's Artemis Fowl, not not Arlo Finch and it was hugely controversial for not being a like the book

00:04:22   The book is basically like Harry Potter

00:04:24   But Harry Potter is a supervillain and towards the end of it you start to see some redeeming qualities

00:04:29   And that was the actual movie they made but then when they realized they were putting it on streaming

00:04:34   They knew they couldn't just put it up like that because in a movie theater you pay your money up front and you're forced to

00:04:39   Put up with the movie until the end and they figured that gave them time to redeem the character

00:04:44   But on streaming if the kid was unlikable in the beginning people would just click off immediately

00:04:50   So they redid the entire first half of the movie by overdubbing

00:04:54   By overdubbing dialogue over scenes where you can't see anyone talking

00:04:59   So through the entire first half of the movie you almost never see anyone say anything on screen. Yeah, that's that's an interesting story

00:05:06   That is interesting that you kind of have to write streaming stuff in a different way, right? Yeah

00:05:10   Anyway, we shouldn't be talking about any of this we have too much no

00:05:15   too much to go on

00:05:18   So you there's a bit of news breaking at least for me. I guess it's 24 hours old

00:05:23   I don't know but the apples changing the name of beats one

00:05:27   Yeah, they're kind of finally getting away from the beat. Is there anything left beats branded other than their beats headphones?

00:05:34   No, I think that's it. It's just a few headphones left

00:05:37   So what do we so the gist is that the until recently or until yesterday the big station on Apple music was beats one

00:05:46   Yeah, now they're renaming it Apple music one. Is that the new name?

00:05:50   Yeah

00:05:51   Which is odd because when they meant when they said beats one originally a lot of us thought that meant there was going to be a beats

00:05:56   Two and it beats three like BBC one BBC two fairly quickly

00:05:59   But it's been four years and and this is the only the beginning of it

00:06:04   Yeah, but I wonder if that's why they're doing this now. I don't know. Maybe that's still

00:06:08   When they bought beats

00:06:11   2013 I

00:06:14   Want to say which is all of a sudden seems like a long time ago. They had they got two things

00:06:20   They got a big profitable headphone business and they got a streaming music service that they parlayed into

00:06:27   What we now call Apple music. I

00:06:31   always thought and still think that they bought it primarily for the streaming thing and in both in terms of a

00:06:38   Sort of and I don't know how much of this was sort of a licensing coup

00:06:42   where

00:06:45   Like the record labels who grew suspicious of Apple because in

00:06:51   2001 2002 when Apple launched the iTunes music store. I'm not gonna say they hoodwinked the music labels, but they

00:07:00   You know, which sounds like they they they misdirected them

00:07:04   But the the music labels underestimated Apple because Apple

00:07:08   Negotiated terms that would have allowed them to sell these music the music everywhere and the music labels

00:07:14   Just wrongfully assumed. Well, they've got this iPod thing

00:07:19   But it only works on the Mac and the Mac is a niche market with like under 5% market share. So why not?

00:07:26   Experiment with Apple at the most this will ever be 5% of the market if everybody on a Mac

00:07:32   buys music through it, which probably won't happen so it'll be less than 5% and

00:07:37   Instead, you know

00:07:40   The iPod became a little bit more popular than that

00:07:42   But anyway apples then, you know growing influence in the music industry led them to be grew

00:07:50   Viewed with suspicion rightfully so right like well, let's be careful negotiating with Apple. So I've always thought Apple

00:07:57   wanted to start their streaming music service by buying beats or

00:08:03   Maybe somebody else so that they could get a leg in and say well

00:08:06   Maybe you didn't want to negotiate with us

00:08:09   But you negotiated with them and we can buy them and so now we've bought them and now we have these licensing deals that were

00:08:15   Already in place. I

00:08:16   Don't know how much of that is true. I just assume it is

00:08:20   To some degree. I've always heard that the licensing deals in many

00:08:23   I don't know for the specific one

00:08:25   But in many cases are broken when they're sold or the least have to be renegotiated

00:08:30   I don't think they also just really like Jimmy Iovine and relationships and his vision for curated music because it was very anti

00:08:37   Algorithm that seemed to really appeal to Apple at a deep level, right?

00:08:42   and that's where I was going next was that even if those deals were severed or severable or

00:08:47   Expired which at this point again if it's six seven years since it happened probably did

00:08:53   that they wanted Jimmy Iovine on their side to

00:08:57   Negotiate he had great relationships with them. And again his whole that whole sort of

00:09:03   DJ slash producers ear towards

00:09:07   You know

00:09:11   Collecting the music whatever. Yeah, just and talent, right?

00:09:15   And it's interesting because they they've had beats one for a while now and they're launching beats hits

00:09:20   might be said sorry Apple music hits and Apple music country and

00:09:25   They seem to feel like they already have a lock on the hip-hop market or not a lot but a huge share

00:09:30   Or a huge community around the hip-hop market

00:09:34   But that's very modern hits or neck or what's tomorrow's hits driven and the hits channel is gonna focus on

00:09:40   music hits from the sixth and seventies eight sorry eighties nine eighties nineties and two thousands and

00:09:46   Country is going to be based in Nashville and focusing on a very different music scene for them. Hmm

00:09:52   Yeah, you know, I guess that's just the nature of the game. What do you think about what's the deals now with Beats headphones?

00:09:59   Do you think that that just continues or do you think that this does this make this is raise your?

00:10:04   Spidey sense to make you think maybe the Beats brand is

00:10:08   No more or on the way out the door

00:10:10   Yeah, I mean there were a couple rumors about that

00:10:14   I think John Prosser published something a while back saying that they were actively deprecating it

00:10:17   But if just if you look at the evidence that we have they're replacing more and more of the Beats line with AirPods branded

00:10:24   Devices and AirPods branded devices are far more popular than any of the Beats branded devices

00:10:30   I think initially they liked the Beats brand because it had a very good demographic for them. They were very there was popular

00:10:37   Culturally significant they were selling a lot but then AirPods came along and there I don't know what else to say it

00:10:44   But they're meme worthy

00:10:44   They've just become an entire subculture and that has greater value than I think them keeping the Beats

00:10:50   Label around and if rumors of new over the year and around the ear AirPods are true then it seems

00:10:57   useless to keep Beats around

00:11:00   Yeah, and there's always there's a part of me too that always thought and I think it's almost certainly true

00:11:08   that to some degree the Beats brand was

00:11:12   inherently Apple like in that it was a very

00:11:16   brand first

00:11:19   polarizing

00:11:21   Yeah thing and it was sold at a premium, you know that it was, you know, you know juicy profit margins

00:11:28   Devoted fans

00:11:31   You know that that people who got into Beats, you know

00:11:34   We're if they lost their headphones or wanted a new pair they were gonna buy another pair of Beats

00:11:38   You know, it's that they start by saying, you know, what Beach should I buy as opposed to which headphones should I buy?

00:11:44   Which is you know Apple like fundamentally?

00:11:47   But it's just weird for Apple to have a subsidiary like that, right? It's just not something they do

00:11:53   They're not a conglomerate that owns a bunch of sub brands. There's like file maker in this right and even file maker

00:12:01   You know a file maker as an independent company is truly ancient history by anyone's standards of this industry, right?

00:12:08   I mean you'd have to talk about other industries to

00:12:11   Not qualify that as ancient history and even then there's a certain

00:12:16   Very Apple enos to the file maker brand, right? They for a long time

00:12:22   They even had a website that sort of just looked like the Apple website. Yeah

00:12:27   It's you know and then again if you go around and just pull a thousand people and how many of them have heard of Beats headphones

00:12:34   And how many of them have heard of file maker?

00:12:36   Yeah, you know in the general public you might get a very decided split

00:12:41   If you talk to people who are listening to me and you right now on this show. Yeah, sure

00:12:45   They've heard of file maker, but even there I mean how many people do you know who are still using file maker on a regular basis?

00:12:51   I'm not saying it's obscure but it's just sort of you know

00:12:55   Legacy in a sense legacy, but still going strong

00:12:58   You know anything with beats for me is that they've always done things that I think is beyond what Apple would do like they have

00:13:04   Headphones in every Olympic team color. Yeah, or Mickey Mouse branded headphones, which are deals. I don't see Apple making with AirPods

00:13:11   Yeah, totally and it gets them it also I think gets them a certain segment of the market who you know

00:13:17   Let's just face it like on a mobile sense probably has an Android phone

00:13:21   Wouldn't buy wouldn't buy an an Apple pair of headphones, even if it worked it was advertised as working with Android

00:13:29   and

00:13:31   Would buy beats and so it is you know, it's but but on the whole I just don't see it as going away

00:13:38   And I kind of think the vague, you know, not that there's a specific

00:13:41   whiteboard somewhere at Apple where here's the plan to get rid of beats but as a

00:13:48   sort of loosely held notion the cooler the AirPods brand gets and the

00:13:54   More products that fall within the AirPods brand. I mean we're up to two

00:13:59   But supposedly at least a third, you know, the big new one the over the ears type thing

00:14:05   You know has been rumored for a long time and you know the sports ones, right?

00:14:10   So two two holes in the market for AirPods, so we've got regular ones

00:14:15   You've got the AirPods Pro which are noise cancelling but the same basic idea as regular AirPods

00:14:21   so the two holes would be the over the ear type and the

00:14:26   Sports ones. Yeah, right and you know somewhere Marco's listening to this and me

00:14:31   Qualifying the entire concept of over the ears headphones is one category

00:14:36   It's for me is just saying like AirPods X because I try to say this with the processors

00:14:43   I was trying to say a 12x yesterday and I kept saying a 1210 and apples destroyed any ability for me to distinguish what that

00:14:48   symbol means at any given time

00:14:50   It's very true

00:14:55   Leah at least Microsoft's very consistent. They use a lot of X's but they're always access

00:14:59   Although I guess what did know Windows 10 is it is a 1-0. Yeah. Yeah, blessed 1-0

00:15:04   Yeah, so I think that beats probably aren't going away but they're fading away

00:15:13   Yes, so I think

00:15:15   All right

00:15:16   Let me take a break before we dig into the meat of the show and thank our first sponsor

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00:17:29   Thought I would have thought that Phil Schiller stepping aside stepping up

00:17:35   Advancing in Apple's verbiage to an Apple fellow. That would be a whole show. Yeah

00:17:42   Something we got to get out of the way John we got to get out of the way quickly

00:17:47   He's

00:17:50   Step he's long time. I don't even know they don't even say how long he's been the senior vice president of worldwide marketing

00:17:56   That's his title now used to be worldwide product marketing. I

00:17:59   Don't know when they lost the product, but it's the same job. I think when jaws became VP of product marketing. Hmm, maybe

00:18:06   I'm not quite sure what that means. But like a lot of companies that probably mean something inside Apple

00:18:11   Yeah

00:18:13   at a product

00:18:15   What does it mean is the one foot out the door is this just the graceful easy way of

00:18:23   Phil Schiller heading into retirement or is he really going to be around for years to come with the App Store and

00:18:31   Events still on his plate

00:18:34   We don't know. I don't know

00:18:37   Phil Schiller probably does know

00:18:40   But they're not I mean Mansfield try to get out and they brought him back in so I really know

00:18:44   I thought that like I don't I think that

00:18:50   In certain terms of being well known by people who follow the company

00:18:56   Schiller's up there at the top of the list

00:19:01   You know not probably not quite certainly nobody's up there with Steve Jobs. Nobody anymore is up there with Tim Cook

00:19:08   He's the CEO. He is the face of the company a brightly. So Johnny I've unique

00:19:13   You know Schiller is next on that list I think without question I would say fourth

00:19:19   You know fourth on the list. I

00:19:21   Think when Johnny phone intros for years that yeah most popular visible positions to do

00:19:27   Every time whether there were a couple of years were early on, you know, where Steve Jobs was out on medical leave

00:19:35   I

00:19:37   believe the

00:19:38   3gs

00:19:40   Yes. Yes the 3gs. So the third iPhone

00:19:43   Which was still introduced at?

00:19:47   DC yeah

00:19:49   Schiller took the took the job. So there was a while where every single iPhone

00:19:55   In fact, maybe still to some degree that's true that every single iPhone has either been introduced on stage by Steve Jobs or Phil Schiller

00:20:03   Yeah, I ended the 11 last year, right?

00:20:07   I think that's the first variant client grants the right president not new vice president of iPhone marketing, right?

00:20:13   Oh, so she's got the she took Josh Joss's old title. Is that true? I didn't know though Joss was VP of product marketing

00:20:19   And he had a bunch of VPS under him like Stan was vice president of Apple watch marketing cayenne's vice president of iPhone

00:20:25   marketing, right

00:20:28   I think they just have their own divisions now. Yeah, I guess that this sort of

00:20:34   basic idea of who introduced the new iPhone each year is sort of stale anyway because

00:20:41   Yeah, the product line has expanded, you know, and what is the main iPhone?

00:20:45   Is it the iPhone 11 or is it the iPhone 11 Pro right?

00:20:49   The pro is obviously the one that's the hero in the lineup. But the iPhone 11 is the one that's the

00:20:54   Actually the better product for most people and the best-selling one

00:20:58   Yeah, absolutely

00:20:59   And I think you know

00:21:01   I think just Schiller loved the cameras so much too and the 11 Pro was all mostly about the cameras. Yeah

00:21:07   Yeah, because it was the first one to have three. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah and the sweater mode

00:21:13   That's right sweater mode

00:21:16   Yeah, I don't want to because you know and it's weird it's you know, I don't know what you call it

00:21:23   We have a word when somebody dies call it a eulogy

00:21:26   I

00:21:28   Don't know what you call it when somebody retires, you know, but it's weird

00:21:31   I don't feel I honestly don't feel like it's time to talk about Phil Schiller in the past tense

00:21:36   I really don't especially

00:21:38   With and you know, I don't know. I don't know if you looked at the show notes

00:21:42   I have here for the rest of this podcast the App Store is go where are going to mention it once or twice

00:21:48   Yeah, it's not exactly like his

00:21:52   limited

00:21:54   Plate of our limited selection of things still on his plate are are obscure

00:21:59   You know, the thing is that the senior vice presidents at Apple are all overloaded. They would all be presidents

00:22:06   If not CEOs of their own companies those divisions are huge

00:22:09   And if you look at Eddie's desk or Phil's desk previously the the sheer quantity of things they had to deal with

00:22:15   Was ridiculous, which is why I think they were aggressive in getting a whole new range of vice presidents under them

00:22:21   But even jaws taking this job

00:22:24   You know the the senior vice president of worldwide marketing and not having to deal with the App Store and with events in

00:22:30   2020 I think is just a

00:22:34   If I was you know, it would be a huge thank you, you know

00:22:36   There's gonna be a lot going on right now you keeping those two things just much appreciated, right?

00:22:41   So the two things that are still on Phil Schiller's plate as an Apple fellow are the App Store and Apple events

00:22:47   Which are in order the most controversial

00:22:51   Aspect of Apple's business. I think I think it's fair to say that it's obviously up for argument and the highest profile

00:22:59   Aspect which I think is inarguable right the Apple introduction events, especially the fall one for new iPhones

00:23:05   But WWDC is a close second

00:23:07   And you know any other special events they deem necessary throughout the year are obviously the highest proof

00:23:14   They're literally that's the whole point of them is to be high profile

00:23:17   Right. I mean it's and that's only the events we see but that organization also is huge and does a ton of other things from developer

00:23:24   kitchens to

00:23:25   Like mainstream media things to now with Apple TV plus Hollywood sort of things

00:23:30   Right. Well and speaking of Hollywood sort of things I

00:23:33   Had Adam Lisa Gore on the show a couple of weeks ago. We talked about the keynote

00:23:38   And I think I get my dates mixed up

00:23:43   I don't know about you in 2020, but I think the Samsung event came after that

00:23:47   yeah, and

00:23:49   it

00:23:51   the longer we go from

00:23:53   WWDC and the more we settle in to the

00:23:56   At least temporary, you know, it is temporary at some point

00:24:00   We'll get back to having public events without I mean, you know for the long way or the short way eventually

00:24:05   Covert 19 is going to dissipate

00:24:07   But in the meantime the longer we go from WWDC the better it looks I mean

00:24:15   I don't think anybody really complained about it when it happened. It was like wow, this is you know, maybe there were things we were surprised

00:24:20   They did it this way or that way but now watching is more time has gone on and more companies have done things

00:24:26   That are have to be remote that were previously in person

00:24:29   Boy, it really it stands apart. I mean so Facebook and Google just canceled theirs

00:24:35   They just said we're not even doing it

00:24:38   We're just not there. So there is no that the and I feel like it's fair to say, you know that that's

00:24:44   You can't say they did a bad job with their developer conferences

00:24:48   But it's a way of judging how important they are to the companies

00:24:51   Like yeah, I don't think it was ever even on the table for Apple not to have WWDC in some way online

00:24:59   like yeah, and

00:25:02   They tie their new releases so closely to the event which Google

00:25:05   Doesn't always do like the new version of Android is just announced at some point and they do three betas and then it's live

00:25:10   And over the next eight years people adopt it

00:25:13   Right and Facebook, you know, I'm not saying that you know, their developer conference has developers and there are things that

00:25:21   Facebook offers that are API's and integrations that

00:25:26   Developers follow and they have even a hardware platform that's relevant with oculus

00:25:32   But it's just not central to what they do, you know

00:25:37   and again this will tie in to the remainder of this episode but the App Store and the message from Apple to third-party

00:25:44   developers and the way that they convey those same

00:25:47   tent pole features of their platforms to users -

00:25:52   is really it's just a

00:25:57   It's a tent pole aspect of Apple's annual calendar that just cannot be

00:26:02   overstated

00:26:06   Samsung's event I saw mixed reviews of Samsung's event. I couldn't watch the whole thing, but I saw some clips

00:26:12   I thought it was I mean it wasn't unprofessional, but I thought it was really bad. I thought there were aspects of it that were just I

00:26:20   Like I can't believe that this is real

00:26:23   No, the thing is and a lot of people say oh, it's because it's 2020 or it's because you know

00:26:29   It's it's Samsung

00:26:30   But I was at a Samsung event at Radio City Music Hall years ago, and it was a disaster

00:26:36   And I knew some of the people who were working at Samsung at the time and they said basically

00:26:39   They got the script on the teleprompter was the first time they ever saw it and they tried their best to say it out loud

00:26:44   And that's apparently what happened again this time and just it must be five or six years later

00:26:50   You can make that mistake once after that. It's just not caring right and you know

00:26:55   There were there were two main co-hosts sort of like news anchors at a desk there there was an Asian woman on the left and

00:27:04   a young black man on the right and

00:27:06   You know lots of points for diversity with you know a woman and a man and an Asian and a black

00:27:16   man

00:27:18   But they clearly weren't Samsung

00:27:21   Executives, you know, they weren't people with knowledge of the products

00:27:26   I mean and some of what they were reading where I mean they were clearly just reading and it was very, you know

00:27:32   It really seemed like was it was this take one. I mean what is going on here?

00:27:36   I believe it was I believe that's the first time I saw that stuff because the script keeps getting and there also

00:27:40   Samsung America fights with Samsung Korea over who's gonna be in charge of things or who's gonna do things and you can't run a company

00:27:48   That way it's not a unified vision for an event right and that it it highlights to me and I you know that

00:27:57   Apple's WWDC was certainly more diverse and who got screen time then you know in there and their

00:28:02   Presentations are getting more diverse and they're getting more people

00:28:06   Into the events and they use the unique sort of pre-taped version of this

00:28:12   I think in a very good way to get more people involved without making it seem

00:28:18   Like at a lot of other companies if you know to look for it

00:28:23   You can see it that it's a political argument between companies that are organized

00:28:27   Divisionally where each division is are arguing for time in the keynote whether they deserve whether that works for the company's benefit or not

00:28:36   You know and it's time for somebody from the Xbox division to come up and speak even though there's nothing new for the Xbox this year

00:28:43   To do it, but they don't want to give up their 20-minute spot in the keynote

00:28:47   And and sometimes that's very transparent and the lack of a divisional nature within Apple sort of has always helped them avoid that

00:28:54   But the thing about Apple and the people you see in their events is that it's always people who are responsible

00:29:03   Yes directly for the thing that they are telling you about, you know, and if it's somebody telling you about the new

00:29:14   Wireless technology that helps the two air pods talk to each other with no latency

00:29:19   It's somebody who's directly involved in the development of the air pods product. It's not just let's pick somebody to talk about it

00:29:26   It's somebody else pick somebody who is involved with it to talk about it

00:29:30   If the power went out and you were stuck in an elevator with them and they had no prep like no preparation time

00:29:36   They could still give you an incredible education about that product, right?

00:29:39   Right, that is it's very true, right and you know that they're they're obviously involved in picking out these sort of bullet points

00:29:48   What's the best way to make somebody understand this product?

00:29:50   So I really do think that you know having seen a couple of other things and I'll throw in the Democratic National Convention

00:29:58   That's going on this week as we record which isn't bad, you know

00:30:02   But it is it's another thing like a product introduction keynote

00:30:06   that is traditionally held on a stage in front of thousands of people and

00:30:11   Interspersed with occasional pre-taped things

00:30:15   Whereas now it has to be entirely remote with no crowd, which is very unusual

00:30:21   And they're doing you know, it's to me a credible job, you know, basically you're not putting on a live show anymore

00:30:29   You're putting you're making a TV show

00:30:31   They're doing okay, but it's not they're not doing great. I think what Apple did with WWDC like

00:30:37   WWDC is the only thing that's happened so far in 2020 that used to be live wasn't live at all and

00:30:45   Afterwards had a lot of people saying oh, this is probably what they're gonna do forever. Even when COVID is over

00:30:51   That's the only one so far. Nobody is looking at this Democratic National Committee

00:30:56   Convention and saying oh four years from now, they'll do it the same way. No

00:31:00   Exactly that like and Samsung had terrific products like they like you you can either like them or not like them think they're boring or

00:31:06   iterative or they're fantastic

00:31:08   But their products were all super solid and it was just the event that let them down

00:31:12   Where Apple didn't have any like no products that required atoms like at this life in the developer kit

00:31:18   it was all software, but their production value and storytelling was just

00:31:22   Expertly done. Yeah, and it you know things that were awkward or just I don't remember anything, you know

00:31:29   It was all very smooth and rehearsed and well tight and tightened up like I with the Samsung

00:31:35   Co-hosts I I did I think it was very clear that they weren't together

00:31:39   You know and it would hopefully they weren't because I think it would you know, they were too close, you know

00:31:45   So they simulated them being close together

00:31:47   But there were times where their banter back and forth was just so poorly edited where it's like I really hope that this is just

00:31:54   Poorly edited back and forth banter because if they really were together, this is excruciating

00:32:00   It was well usually like there's a couple things that I always dunk on Samsung for every year and one is they they're very different

00:32:07   Than Apple but not in always a good way

00:32:08   They always do pre briefings which means like if it was me and you we would go to Samsung a week or two weeks before

00:32:15   We'd get time in a room. We'd get to ask them questions take photos film the devices

00:32:20   Maybe you know get review units then two weeks before the event

00:32:24   Then when the event starts the exact moment the event starts the embargo lifts

00:32:28   So like Marquez and everybody's videos go live and now I no longer know if I should be watching the event

00:32:32   Or watching the videos which are gonna be way more concise than the event

00:32:36   Where typically they spend like a they have a 20-minute speech about how they're the most innovative company in the world

00:32:41   And if Tim Cook did that I would change the channel

00:32:44   I don't hear that from any CEO when I'm a captive audience and they had like a two-person interview this time

00:32:48   Which which wasted my time in exactly the same way. I I just don't I just show me the products and tell me why I should

00:32:55   Buy them. Yeah, I don't know and why not just put the

00:32:58   Embargo a day afterwards. It's very strange. Yeah. Yeah, we're after the show anything that makes it just more literally possible like a

00:33:05   Sequential. Yeah, just you know, even just after the show

00:33:08   so anyway, do you think that we've seen the last of Phil Schiller on stage I

00:33:13   Hope not just because I it's one of the things where you just want to see it's like when Batman comes out one last time

00:33:20   It just gives you that rush and if he was had the opportunity to do something that he loved

00:33:25   Like talk about new photographic technology or new audio technology or a big change to the App Store

00:33:31   Which I'm sure we'll get into soon and he could do that on stage. I think it would be terrific

00:33:35   seeing him knowing that would be one of the last times instead of

00:33:38   You know sort of enjoying the past ones not knowing that that way they were gonna be that yeah

00:33:43   And I don't know I I could see it, you know, and he's certainly yeah

00:33:47   I think it was obvious as it happened that there was a

00:33:53   And it's a broader argument we don't have time to get into but

00:33:57   Apple's events have evolved over time and and when you go back and watch the Steve Jobs era ones

00:34:05   It it's a lot easier to notice by jumping back

00:34:09   11 12 years than it was to notice

00:34:13   Incrementally year after year event after event, but they've gotten a lot more polished. They've gotten a lot more Hollywood

00:34:23   For better or for worse, you know, and I think you can make both cases

00:34:26   But one of the other differences is that there's a lot more people who get stage time now

00:34:37   like there were times in the past where it really, you know, especially in the jobs era where it was

00:34:43   The only people who might come on stage were people from outside Apple, right?

00:34:48   You know, it's like when the iPhone got introduced and it's like well, let's bring Eric Schmidt from Google

00:34:53   And Jerry Yang from Yahoo to talk about the weather app that we're using Yahoo weather for oh and who can forget?

00:35:00   Stan

00:35:02   Last name the guy from singular. Oh

00:35:06   God, I'm blanking on it. Oh, yeah, that was those are always terrible Stan the man with the worst the worst on stage

00:35:14   Presence in an Apple keynote ever

00:35:21   But it you know

00:35:23   There's a lot more people from within the company who are involved now in recent years

00:35:28   And this is a pet peeve of mine had been but I love it now to me

00:35:33   this is one of the things that to me is a

00:35:35   Change that I've noticed but most people don't seem to comment on but I think it's only for the better

00:35:40   It's not just that you see more people

00:35:42   Throughout Apple on

00:35:45   On stage or on screen as the case may be but they get credit by name

00:35:51   You know, here's cayenne drants

00:35:54   here's you know and and just down the line and and the WWDC coach keynote credited every single person who appeared by name and

00:36:01   You know just you know with a title that told you that they work on whatever it is

00:36:06   they're you didn't really have to see their title because whatever they're talking about is what they work on but I

00:36:10   Think that's a big change and I think you could you know

00:36:13   there's a certain strategy to that to become less reliant on Phil Schiller individually and

00:36:19   You know Craig Federighi and you know, it's not just Tim Craig and Phil doing everything every time

00:36:25   And the occasional Eddie like the occasional Eddie cube, you know bright shirt

00:36:30   Well, it's so different because you would if you I watched the old events quite a lot and when they were at Town Hall at

00:36:39   Infinite Loop

00:36:40   Steve would just say and Phil's gonna tell you about it or even Johnny's gonna tell you about the new unibody and you'd literally see them

00:36:46   Step up from the chair. Yeah up on stage and turn around

00:36:50   It's very true

00:36:52   Yeah, I don't know I if I had to bet I would say we'll still see Schiller again

00:37:01   You know possibly in the exact same role. I mean it has been

00:37:05   And people just don't notice but like I even mentioned, you know

00:37:10   and it makes me a little annoyed because they're obviously not paying close attention to my WWDC talk shows, but

00:37:16   It started a few years ago when Phil Schiller didn't appear on stage at WWDC and yeah

00:37:22   And I and but he was on my show afterwards and I brought it up and I remember that which it was

00:37:27   I think we were still at 111 minute in San Francisco. In fact, I know we were

00:37:31   We're not 111 minute the wherever the other place was in San Francisco

00:37:37   But we were still in San Francisco and I asked Phil about hey, this is the first time I think in a long time

00:37:44   You haven't been at WWDC and he was like, yeah, it's like 20 years

00:37:46   Like he's been on stage every time

00:37:49   and I you know, I think it was strategic to broaden it out, you know, and and

00:37:55   it it does also follow with the whoever is saying it is responsible for it and

00:38:01   Craig Federighi in charge of software is

00:38:04   the number two after Tim Cook at WWDC where they're talking about their software platforms and

00:38:13   It's hardware people like Phil and Kayan talking about the iPhones when it's September

00:38:20   middle September and the iPhones come out I

00:38:22   Think Phil the last I remember him at WWDC was the home pod in 2017

00:38:27   He just had so many hardware products at that show and he capped it off. I think with the home pod

00:38:33   Yeah

00:38:33   I remember that that was a tough demo because I remember he even acknowledged that it was a tough demo because it's like

00:38:38   We've done all this advanced stuff to make it sound good in the living room and now we have to simulate it for you and have

00:38:43   Yeah, in a room full of six thousand people

00:38:46   But he was really deep on that product

00:38:48   But he was there for everything and you could tell he loved it

00:38:51   And I think that's why he was the one who did it at dub-dub

00:38:54   So anyway, let me take a break before we dive into the App Store

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00:40:48   App store. Oh, yeah

00:40:54   Boy it's a lot John. Hey, you know what before we go on to app so we should just say I I think that in addition to

00:40:59   Because he's been on stage so much the Phil Schiller moving on from being in charge of product marketing to its title of Apple fellow

00:41:08   With a limited number of things on his plate

00:41:10   Gets got all the a lot of publicity

00:41:13   Jaws getting promoted to the senior vice president of worldwide marketing is

00:41:21   It was very obvious to anybody who's known anything about the company for 10 15

00:41:26   Maybe longer years that jaws was number two under under Phil

00:41:30   And it you know, I'm not just saying this in the self-serving way that jaws has been on my show a couple of times

00:41:36   but he is

00:41:39   Really it it just

00:41:44   The amount of time he's been on stage is not proportionate to his influence within that marketing division

00:41:51   You know, he's just you know, humbly allowed himself to be mostly offstage over the years

00:41:57   But he's good when he's on stage he's amazing

00:42:01   He did the 10.2 inch

00:42:04   iPad at the last September event

00:42:06   Yeah, and he's also one of the smart like in my old career when I worked in product marketing

00:42:11   I was an enterprise but most of the marketing people that you dealt with were salespeople

00:42:16   And all they would do is try to sell you on a product

00:42:18   They would tell you it had any feature and if it didn't have it that you know that the sky was limit

00:42:22   They just wanted to make sales and Apple's marketing is not like that at all. He's an engineer

00:42:28   He can explain battery chemistry processor architecture

00:42:31   Everything like three layers deep and they really have an ownership of products

00:42:36   That's almost unheard of in general marketing organizations, right?

00:42:40   And I've said this before often maybe specifically about Phil Schiller

00:42:47   individually, but really is more about the entire division that people's the layperson's

00:42:54   Conception of what quote-unquote marketing means is

00:42:59   Absolutely, not what marketing means at Apple

00:43:03   Like if you think marketing means that you design the packaging and the advertising

00:43:09   For products, you know that other people ready jingles, right?

00:43:13   Do you you know that you know that you're like the in-house ad agency for the products that you know?

00:43:18   They come to you and say here and now sell this

00:43:20   That is how marketing works at some companies and maybe how marketing works at a lot of companies

00:43:25   It is nothing how marketing works at Apple marketing

00:43:29   I always said they got rid of the word product

00:43:31   But I always said that when his title was direct or senior vice president of worldwide product marketing

00:43:37   The product was more important than the marketing. Yes, and they're involved from the conception forward

00:43:42   Like you said jaws knows his stuff inside it out battery chemistry stuff like that

00:43:47   Cayenne Drants, you know her knowledge of the camera systems is so

00:43:54   intricate and she's absolutely a

00:43:58   Tremendous person to have like I've spoken to her in the off-the-record briefings after events, but it's always in the context of

00:44:06   You're talking to an expert and it's and it's it's not that she's talking down to you

00:44:12   But it's she's explaining

00:44:14   intricate

00:44:16   amounts of detailed knowledge

00:44:18   To how do I how do I take that?

00:44:20   Intricate knowledge of how this really works to explain it to you in the way that I know will answer your question, you know

00:44:26   But she handled the a-12 announcement two years ago in September and she knows the SOC everything on deeply technical levels

00:44:33   Yeah, the technical stuff is just from and so like when you speak to the people in

00:44:38   product marketing

00:44:40   And you ask a sort of technical question

00:44:44   There is never a it's not like, you know

00:44:47   Testifying before Congress and they're like, let me take a note of that and I'll have someone get back to you

00:44:51   Like it is how do I explain this to you?

00:44:54   Right, it is never like I need to get I need to talk to somebody and I'll get back to you with an answer

00:45:01   It's they know the answer and they're just you know, like good teacher figuring out how do they had you know pedagogically?

00:45:07   How do they explain this in a genuine way?

00:45:10   It always seems to me like you know

00:45:12   like the industrial design team like they they feel an ownership of the iPhone's design and the hard engineering team feels an ownership of how

00:45:19   It gets produced and the software and interface people feel ownership of how it runs and how it looks

00:45:24   but the marketing team has to

00:45:27   Keep in constant contact with all of it and make sure all those components end up to be a cohesive thing

00:45:32   That somebody wants to buy which is a really important part at the end

00:45:36   Yeah, and I do think you know in a broad sense it it gets to the advertising part the packaging part

00:45:43   the brand

00:45:46   Management part which you know is inherently nebulous right? Like what is the Apple brand worth?

00:45:52   I mean that is I know that you know

00:45:54   Forbes or somebody comes up with a number every year and says, you know, here's here's what these top brands are worth

00:45:59   You can't that's just BS right? I mean, but you can't really put a dollar amount on it. It is so nebulous

00:46:06   But there is but it's also undeniable that it's incredibly valuable

00:46:10   It does get to the heart though of what I think good marketing is good marketing is inherently honest

00:46:19   And it is informed, you know that that by helping to conceive of the scope

00:46:24   the design the nature the intended purpose the price of

00:46:32   a product

00:46:34   the advertising

00:46:36   Ideas the way to present it to the public falls out of that because you just describe it, you know

00:46:42   You just say here's what it's good for. Here's why the new iPhone 11 Pro camera is

00:46:46   Better than any camera we've ever shipped before and it's not

00:46:51   Made up nonsense it is actual technical

00:46:58   User relevant this will actually change what you do in your personal life when you take photos of your friends and families

00:47:05   And the places you go

00:47:07   Back when you were allowed to go places

00:47:10   Yeah

00:47:12   Photos, you know, but it's exactly that it's like a good bad marketers will take a product

00:47:17   No one wants and try to con them people into buying it right and you know bad good marketers

00:47:22   We'll take a good product and just let it die on the vine

00:47:24   but Apple has a lot of really good good marketers who have solid products and are

00:47:28   Highly capable in explaining to people why they're relevant for them

00:47:32   And that's why I think they've had the success that they have right and it is also very contrary to these sort of

00:47:38   Apple hater

00:47:40   view of the company which is that broadly speaking the company's products are

00:47:45   Overrated overpriced and sold by hype. I mean, I'm not trying to a bunch of diluted cultists

00:47:53   Yeah, or you know even to a lesser to ground trying to trying to be a little bit more generous to the viewpoint

00:47:59   And I'm not using

00:48:01   the cult or

00:48:03   What are some I'm trying to avoid?

00:48:05   Phrasing like that, but the idea that it's you know, you're you're buying on hype

00:48:09   I mean, I've there's some people I've seen some people say that like

00:48:13   You know argue that like a Lexus or an Acura is just a bunch of better plastic on a Honda or Toyota

00:48:21   Yeah, you know and that if you really know what's go, you know what you're buying

00:48:24   You just buy the Honda Accord instead of the the Acura you're just paying for hype or whatever

00:48:29   Whether that's true or not. I don't know about cars to say but you know

00:48:32   There's that mindset towards Apple and I really think that that's that's I disagree with it

00:48:39   But I also think you're if you start with that perspective you're going to misunderstand with what this entire

00:48:46   Division within Apple does and what their role is and why they're the ones on stage telling us about these products

00:48:51   Well, I think people also have different personal beliefs on what is valuable

00:48:56   But also an intolerance of what other people or how other people see value

00:49:00   So for some like an absolute and we'll get to this in a minute an absolute open computing environment is incredibly valuable

00:49:06   and if you deny them that you then your product is a joke and for other people an

00:49:11   Open computing system is a nightmare and they just want something that works for them

00:49:15   And if you give them that nightmare, they're gonna hate you

00:49:16   But they also don't understand why anybody would want that and I think the the hard part is understanding your subjective view

00:49:23   Not mistaking it for an objective view, but also understanding and respecting that other people have very different views and priorities and values

00:49:30   So, yeah, let's get into it, you know, it's the App Store is in a lot of news

00:49:38   How do we start I mean the Xbox thing already seems like old news

00:49:44   Yeah, but I guess I'm going but let's start with it as go in chronological order where

00:49:50   Microsoft had toiled for a long time to get their new Xbox game pass

00:49:57   working on iOS as well as Android

00:49:59   This is a

00:50:04   product that

00:50:06   It it is game streaming and so effectively in a sense and you know

00:50:11   you I think you know more about this than me, but it is it

00:50:15   Is almost more like the app is a video player that takes

00:50:22   You know, the game is running on hardware somewhere in the cloud

00:50:26   There is still a native Xbox game running on an Xbox

00:50:31   operating system on a machine and

00:50:34   that machine is not your phone or your iPad it is somewhere in the cloud and

00:50:41   Your app is just effectively a video player

00:50:44   but it takes the input from your game controller and it effectively turns your net connection to the Xbox into the

00:50:53   HDMI connection that you have with a real, you know, it's just replay if you think of it as replacing

00:50:59   Sort of and I guess that's not right because like Netflix for video games

00:51:03   It really is it just the bits they're streaming aren't like a single stream

00:51:07   You can even then like you can press play and pause and do even like our Bandersnatch on Netflix

00:51:12   You could interact with it is really just the bits and and the video and audio is for a gaming experience

00:51:18   that's the only real difference right and

00:51:20   They you know, they were working on it

00:51:24   It was somewhat highly publicized test flight beta where I presume they filled up the 10,000 spots very easily

00:51:31   But they could only do one game even in the test box environment. They could only do Master Chief for the halo game

00:51:37   Right because on

00:51:39   Android they did have multiple games. Yeah, and they will in the eventual service is going to ship with hundreds of games

00:51:44   And I guess presumably it's because test flight still has to go through

00:51:51   This is something I don't know enough about I don't think that test flight betas still go through

00:51:58   approval in some way and it's just what less a lot less scrutiny and they don't really

00:52:05   They'll let stuff fly like this, you know, I mean presumably if it's

00:52:10   I mean just to pick the most glaring example if it's something to do with pornography

00:52:15   They're just not even gonna let the test like yeah go through. Yeah, I

00:52:20   Would guess if it was actual online gambling, you know, if you could play real money blackjack in the app

00:52:28   They're not gonna even let that through in test flight

00:52:34   So it goes through but even there the rules against having like I forget the exact app store

00:52:41   Guideline rule but effectively you cannot have a game an app that contains multiple games

00:52:46   You know because you can't have an app store in the App Store

00:52:49   You can have like a video store a bookstore

00:52:51   You can have any sorts of stories except for an app or game store and we know where they draw the line on that

00:52:57   I don't know. I mean obviously there are for just to name an example. There's solitaire games

00:53:03   There's you know a hundred different ways to play solitaire. You can have a solitaire game that offers a hundred game options

00:53:10   You know that are different types of solitaire games that doesn't run afoul of it, but you can't have a solitaire game. That also

00:53:17   Is a pac-man game? I don't know where the line is drawn. I don't know this distribution

00:53:24   I think like you can have your own options

00:53:25   Maybe even if you're Hasbro, you could have a couple of your own games in an app, right?

00:53:30   I can't be distributing third-party content, right? Right makes it a store so you could make a casino game

00:53:36   You know that a doesn't use real money

00:53:38   But offers craps and blackjack and roulette in the same game

00:53:43   But you know, there's obviously a line they draw even in test flight beta

00:53:48   They Apple apparently either Apple drew the line I presume or Microsoft voluntarily drew it

00:53:55   But it seems a lot more likely that Apple was like, how about one?

00:53:58   Yeah, they seem salty enough that it sounds like it was a good choice

00:54:00   And you know it came out and

00:54:05   Bottom line is Microsoft said well, we don't see a path forward for this. So it's gonna be Android only and we're giving up

00:54:13   And a lot of people were very disappointed in this decision and at Microsoft

00:54:19   iOS users who wanted to play their Xbox games

00:54:26   We don't really know exactly what happened though, right like I've

00:54:30   You know and it's fallen off the radar with the epic fortnight thing

00:54:34   But I don't think that this was about the money the 30%

00:54:38   You know and it I'll just save the financial deal with Xbox game passes

00:54:43   It's $15 a month and then you pay Microsoft your $15 a month

00:54:48   And then you have Xbox game pass and like you said, I think at launch next month

00:54:52   They're gonna have like a hundred games, you know, Halo and this and that and they're all real Xbox games

00:54:57   And you can play them and you just keep paying

00:54:59   $15 a month and you can keep playing all these games and they'll add more games as they become available. I don't think this is about

00:55:07   Apple wanting

00:55:10   Microsoft to offer in-app purchase for that subscription and Apple would get 30% and

00:55:18   You know, I think everybody's jumps to the conclusion then, you know, not wrongly. It's not it's not idiot

00:55:23   Idiotic just to just start with the assumption that it's about money. That's actually usually a good assumption, right? You're good

00:55:31   You'll be right more often than wrong if in any of these disputes your first guess is I'll bet it's about money

00:55:38   You're probably I think in this case ultimately about money. Is it short term about money? Is it long term about money?

00:55:43   Is it about the immediate transaction? Right? Yes

00:55:48   I don't think it is I don't you know, and I think that at first thought you're thinking like well

00:55:52   One way to do it like what Apple you know

00:55:56   like the way Netflix used to work for years and years was you could sign up for Netflix at

00:56:01   Netflix.com and have a Netflix account and then get the Netflix app on your iPhone and sign in and then you're into Netflix and

00:56:09   Apple doesn't see a penny and you're watching movies for years to come and that's that or

00:56:14   You could download the Netflix app on your iPhone and you don't have a Netflix account yet and you could sign up in the app

00:56:21   Through the in-app purchasing and you've got a subscription to Netflix and that subscription works

00:56:27   Everywhere else where Netflix works on the website on other devices on Android

00:56:32   But your monthly subscription goes through your Apple account. I was gonna say iTunes account

00:56:39   I guess we're sort of getting away from calling them iTunes account

00:56:41   But you know, it's just another subscription those subscriptions are still there. I know for a long time

00:56:47   I they don't really publish top-grossing but for a while after Netflix said, you know what?

00:56:53   We're not going to offer in-app subscriptions anymore. We're just gonna do this on our own

00:56:56   Netflix remained for obvious reasons the top grossing or eight, you know

00:57:02   One or two on the list of the top grossing apps in the App Store because so many people signed up for their Netflix

00:57:09   Subscriptions in app and I don't think Netflix will ever get rid of it because it would be so disruptive

00:57:14   You know, why take the risk?

00:57:16   You know, but then obviously with that Netflix traditional situation the deal was that

00:57:22   You know you lots

00:57:24   I don't know what the breakdown is but lots of people who watch Netflix on their iOS devices already had their Netflix subscription

00:57:30   Outside the Apple ecosystem and some of them got it within

00:57:36   Is that what my Apple wanted from Microsoft I don't think so

00:57:40   I don't think that was it at all. Let alone going more hardcore and saying we're only gonna let this on

00:57:46   iOS if

00:57:48   Everybody who uses on iOS signs up in app and we get 30%

00:57:52   Yeah, I don't because now there I I don't think I think even Microsoft would be like well, that's that's you're asking too much

00:57:59   You know, we're gonna sign up a gazillion of these people right on our Xbox. I don't think I had anything to do with any of that

00:58:05   I think they've already done it haven't they for the Microsoft has other subscription services like

00:58:09   For office 365 and I believe they've come to agreement with Apple about that. So it's not like it's something that's more like

00:58:16   Unusual for them. Yeah. Yeah, and and I think that is a I think it's contentious

00:58:22   And I don't think it is ever sat right with app with Microsoft that the Microsoft 365 stuff does offer in-app

00:58:29   subscriptions at some level

00:58:31   You know and some percentage of the users using them have signed up that way and Apple is seeing

00:58:36   30 to 15 percent of that money

00:58:39   Even though a lot of other users almost certainly most by you know overwhelmingly most I would assume

00:58:46   365 users who do use iOS devices aren't paying through iTunes

00:58:51   They're getting it through work or they signed up on their computer or something

00:58:57   You know again, that's a dangerous thing to say to call something a computer in this discussion. Yeah

00:59:02   They're they're PC or Mac

00:59:05   I don't think that was it at all. And I think that everybody has sort of come to the conclusion that you know

00:59:12   There probably isn't and I think I have Microsoft statement on this sort of made it clear

00:59:17   I know you had a great video on this. So anyway, I'll leave it to you to pick this up. I

00:59:23   know thank you, but it seems like just

00:59:27   Streaming video for some reason. Sorry, let me start that again apps in general and games in

00:59:33   Specifics seem to be treated differently just in general even on Android which is famous for allowing side loading and allowing different payment options

00:59:41   Has very strict policies about games, you know, which again really we'll get to in a minute

00:59:46   But streaming games are going to be hugely disruptive because you're paying $15 of a month

00:59:52   and you're getting a hundred games and there's a lot of

00:59:56   I feel like calling them excuses why we can't let it on their platform

01:00:00   Like we can't think what Apple said is they can't review every single title

01:00:04   but they don't need to because it really is no different than Netflix or

01:00:08   Spotify and they don't review every song and they don't review every movie or every TV show and all of those have parental guidance ratings

01:00:15   already, you know, they're either have mature lyrics or they have adult content or they have PG or or whatever it is and

01:00:21   Anyone that gets respected within parental guidance controls, so that's not an issue either

01:00:26   it's just that these are streaming games instead of streaming video or or streaming audio and I

01:00:33   Honestly think and just overall, you know, like there's no mustache twirling villains in this

01:00:39   It's not like Apple is sitting there going. Ah ha ha ha we're gonna we're gonna rule this universe and and

01:00:44   Microsoft or epic are twirling their mustaches back in return

01:00:47   It's everybody has their own best interest in mind and projects those into what's best for the customer

01:00:54   Even if we as customers sometimes think that's that's not really best for us. So I think they're being

01:00:59   conservative they're being careful in how they

01:01:02   approach game streaming and Apple doesn't have a game streaming service and some people say that's why but

01:01:09   Apple didn't have a music streaming service when they allowed Spotify on and didn't have a video streaming service when they had Netflix on

01:01:16   I think that's really irrelevant as well

01:01:18   It's just I don't think I don't it's one of those things where we discussed just between us earlier

01:01:23   They were not prepared for like it was not built with these sorts of services in mind

01:01:27   Apps were very different when the App Store was created and games were very different

01:01:32   They were all discrete binary blobs that were largely seen like paid for upfront

01:01:37   They were expensive at first the prices dropped

01:01:39   but just the idea of in-app purchases and the idea of streaming video is nothing that anybody really thought of and

01:01:46   Apple tends to be a measure 20 times cut once company, even if they're being

01:01:50   Obliterated in the media during the two or three weeks. It takes them to think these things through

01:01:55   Yeah, I I I think that people just aren't hooked up

01:02:01   Just it's human nature and it's you know, and it is

01:02:04   political and it's political in the sense of the broadest sense of the word where it's both

01:02:12   Electoral politics and it's what a lot of people say they hate about politicians in general

01:02:17   regardless of where they these politicians fall along party lines and

01:02:22   It's why people get frustrated with

01:02:25   corporations and the way corporations

01:02:28   even Apple even Microsoft even Google even companies that people

01:02:34   Amazon companies that rank very highly on people's

01:02:39   Brand affinity rankings right that they don't they people aren't hooked up for the way they communicate

01:02:45   To the public where they just they they get they're very good

01:02:49   that's it's a very difficult job to be in comms for a company like that and

01:02:54   Part of it is that it is hard to give a credible non answer

01:03:00   To a question you don't want to answer right and politicians ready to answer yet, right?

01:03:06   Well, whatever whatever the reason of why you don't want to answer it

01:03:09   but you do need to give some sort of answer you give a non answer and

01:03:14   That's where and was it a bad answer

01:03:18   No, maybe not. I thought at first maybe but maybe it's fine

01:03:23   And I the fact that it actually dates back to this this Apple

01:03:29   statement on Xbox game pass

01:03:31   Which went to Business Insider and everybody just quoted Business Insider, but they were giving it to other outlets

01:03:37   I actually did ask Apple and they gave me the same statement

01:03:40   It's you know for whatever reason in this case people didn't a lot of news outlets

01:03:46   Just went with the Business Insider version, but it was the same but it wasn't new

01:03:50   It was it was new for in the context of Xbox game pass

01:03:53   But Apple had given it to Mark Gurman back in March in the context of was it stadia was a Google stadia

01:03:59   I forget which it was some other game streaming thing

01:04:02   So you ask a question and

01:04:07   Somebody gives you an answer and you just assume their answer is an answer to the question

01:04:12   And so you say why isn't Xbox game pass allowed on the App Store and Apple's answer

01:04:18   Includes this phrasing here. I'll read

01:04:21   They can absolutely

01:04:24   Gaming services can absolutely launch on the App Store as long as they follow the same set of guidelines

01:04:30   applicable to all developers including submitting games individually for review and

01:04:35   Appearing in charts and search and so everybody, you know, that is Apple's statement and everybody read that and thought well

01:04:42   That means if you need to review each app individually

01:04:45   How does that possibly work for a streaming service and everybody immediately went to the streaming video like Netflix and Spotify?

01:04:52   And you know just to name the two big ones which by the size of their libraries. It's impossible, right? It really would be a

01:05:00   Sisyphean task to try to

01:05:03   Individually review every video on Netflix. There's it's impossible

01:05:06   And everybody, you know thinks well this doesn't even make sense

01:05:10   But if you take that whole phrase, this is my take on it

01:05:13   I really I think I'm 100% right that if you take the whole phrase

01:05:17   That they follow the same guidelines applicable to all developers including submitting games individually for review and appearing in charts and search

01:05:25   Well, what what charts what search they mean App Store start? Yes charts and search

01:05:31   So it's really just a non answer way of saying why why can't Xbox?

01:05:36   Game Pass be in the App Store what Apple saying is native iPhone games can be in the App Store

01:05:42   Yeah, which is another way of saying

01:05:46   We don't allow game streaming, but they don't want to say this. They don't want to say it

01:05:50   Like they've solved this for other media

01:05:53   For example, like the things on Spotify don't show up in App Store in the Apple music charts, obviously, right?

01:05:59   But you know they if they choose and Netflix famously chooses not to but if they choose

01:06:03   They can integrate and have it show up in Siri search and have it show up in up next and do all sorts of things

01:06:08   on

01:06:09   Like the TV app interface for example. Yeah, but it's always there's ways of handling this

01:06:13   It's almost like that that the whole thing is beside the point, right? It's not really what they're saying is

01:06:19   it's it's less about a

01:06:22   Reviewing individual titles or being in charts and search. It's they're just saying there. Here's some good things about native iPhone games

01:06:30   Yes, right native iPhone games are reviewed individually and they do appear in our charts and search

01:06:35   Yeah, and that's not an answer to why can't the X why isn't the Xbox game allowed and?

01:06:42   It's you know, I think it's mostly about control and there once you start to talk about platform control

01:06:48   Then you're a couple of steps a couple of chess moves away from talking about money

01:06:53   so yes, there is money involved in what Apple is looking at here, but I

01:06:58   Really think that and let's just say this about the Xbox game pass

01:07:03   idea Xbox game pass specifically is not a threat to

01:07:09   native iPhone and iPad gaming

01:07:12   Right other than the fact that every minute somebody spends playing

01:07:18   Xbox game pass on their iPhone or iPad if it were available is a minute they wouldn't spend playing a

01:07:25   Native iPhone game and there's only a limited amount of attention in the day

01:07:30   But it's not these aren't made these aren't really iPhone games

01:07:36   These are games that all require Xbox controllers and yeah, and Apple is the one who allowed iOS to have great

01:07:42   You know first-class support for literally the Xbox controller and the PlayStation controller

01:07:47   But like you're on the bus going to work and you take out your phone to play a game for a while

01:07:55   You can't use the Xbox game pass for that unless you have a controller with you

01:08:01   And yes, there's like a thing that you can snap on to the sides of an iPhone to turn it, you know

01:08:05   Basically the switch model where you can put hardware controls on the edge

01:08:09   But again in in a lot of contexts where a lot of people spend a lot of time playing games even people who love

01:08:15   Xbox games that require the controller aren't going to do that, right?

01:08:20   You're not going to just you know while you're waiting in line to buy something at a store where there's a long queue

01:08:25   You're not going to set up your phone as a switch for 90 seconds to play a little bit of Xbox

01:08:34   You're just gonna play something else, you know, that's meant for the phone

01:08:37   Also, everybody's like well now it's it's all about Apple arcade because Apple has a subscription thing

01:08:45   Yeah, and they want you to they want you to spend five dollars a month on Apple arcade not this but then again now

01:08:52   we're talking about direct money and apples 30% of 15 is

01:08:56   Like four dollars or is exactly four dollars and fifty cents

01:09:00   Which is almost five dollars a month for a thing that they don't have any production costs for at all

01:09:05   And yes money it would drop to 15% after a year

01:09:10   so it would only be two dollars and twenty five cents instead of but two dollars and twenty five cents a month as

01:09:15   their share of

01:09:17   Xbox game pass is in the ballpark of the five dollars a month for

01:09:23   Apple arcade when you consider that they they don't have to do anything

01:09:27   right, it's

01:09:30   The thing that gets me with all of these analysis and it's gonna bleed into epic too is that

01:09:34   These a lot of things that people accuse Apple of being in it for the money or turn to these massive

01:09:40   conspiracies

01:09:43   It's this fundamental error of always assuming that you are the majority and it happens on Twitter a lot too where anyone who has a strong

01:09:49   opinion thinks that by definition 90% of other people have the same circumstances and

01:09:53   opinion and it's it's these are not big numbers for Apple and I've joked about this before like when people accuse Apple of doing

01:10:00   things to maintain their MFI they're made for iPhone accessory profit that that is

01:10:05   Literally cushion change for Apple compared to iPhone profits most of these things like the the Xbox game pass thing is not a mainstream concern

01:10:13   I fully believe streaming gaming is inevitable the same way streaming video and audio is and they'll have massive mainstream appeal

01:10:19   eventually, but right now Apple's problem isn't understanding and coming up with policy and

01:10:26   Structure for it for Xbox game pass or for Google

01:10:30   Stadia it's just figuring out handle handle it how to handle it in general and once that happens all of this will be folded in

01:10:37   but these are these are like the

01:10:39   like the smallest the smallest niche

01:10:42   Concerns and the lowest amount of margin problems. They just get an incredible amount of online attention

01:10:50   Yeah

01:10:50   I do think though that Microsoft must have thought that it was going to be about the money

01:10:55   Because they clearly thought they had a pretty good chance and I kind of think they assumed that this was going to be worked out

01:11:01   I really do think and I have no inside information on it

01:11:05   And I think the number of people who are privy to the actual negotiations is very small and on both sides

01:11:10   Aren't the sort of people who blab?

01:11:12   You know probably Phil Schiller personally, yes, honestly and Satya Nadella, yeah

01:11:22   But I really think that Microsoft went into this thinking it would be a fight over where between 30 and 15

01:11:28   And what level of prominence the in-app signup needs to have and those sort of things and then Apple was like no

01:11:35   We really we don't even want your money. You know, we don't want it. We don't want if we don't even want 30% of this

01:11:40   We're not allowing it

01:11:43   and

01:11:44   I think Microsoft was taken aback by that I do

01:11:48   Because I think if they'd known it going in I think that you know, they wouldn't have wasted the time developing it

01:11:54   And I don't know how much time they spend on the iOS version

01:11:56   Particularly that wasn't applicable just as much to the Android version

01:12:01   But you can definitely see the other thing you know is by all accounts

01:12:07   iPhone and Android aren't really equivalent demographics. I mean not even that that's

01:12:14   I'm underselling the differences, you know iOS users are more willing and likely to spend money than Android users

01:12:22   And so just counting up the number of Android devices in use versus the number of iPhone and iPad devices in use

01:12:29   Doesn't give you an accurate picture of all of the market and to me the the real eye-opening number recently was David hannemeyer Hansen's

01:12:39   Posted last month that was part of his testimony to Congress in the antitrust hearings about hey and

01:12:45   That now this is post launch of hey and after they had you know a month or six weeks of

01:12:52   You know market data

01:12:55   And they have you know, they have an Android version that I use I still use. Hey the email

01:13:00   I have it on my phone and I have it on my pixel 4 and it is as good. It's very similar app because

01:13:08   The base camp company they the way they develop software is sort of a web app first and that especially the iPhone version

01:13:15   I know this is a whole discussion

01:13:16   I don't want to have but it's not quite a web app and wrapped in an iPhone thing the iPhone app in particular is

01:13:22   native in a lot of ways

01:13:24   but

01:13:25   If you it's very very similar design you can see how they the Android version in the iPhone version are it's like

01:13:32   You know the way the games are often the same if the game is on both platforms

01:13:36   It's you know, very very minor differences

01:13:38   That they're the number of people paying for hey who are using an Apple device

01:13:44   I think they I think it was like 90% of their users use at least one Apple device now

01:13:50   I'm not sure what that number means because it could mean that they have an Android phone but use a Mac which I think would probably

01:13:57   Especially for their audience is quite possibly a large number of their Android users because they're using Android phones

01:14:04   But their developer types nerds who use a MacBook for like web app development

01:14:10   But it was and something like 75% of their mobile payers are on iOS devices

01:14:17   Which isn't what you think of as the market share for you know, this certainly it's not

01:14:23   It's not the market share for iPhone versus Android phones 75% being iPhones

01:14:28   You know that the number of people who pay for services like a $99 a year email service is way higher on

01:14:35   on iOS

01:14:37   Yeah, absolutely. Well the market that's that's one of the things you get into and you're discussing how much dominance someone has over a market

01:14:42   right, so like globally

01:14:44   Apple share is tiny. I think it's like 20 something percent in some countries in Europe. It's

01:14:50   Infinitesimal there's some countries where just Android is vastly vastly more used and it goes down

01:14:55   I think into the teens of usage and then in North America, they have a

01:14:59   Majority of usage like there's more people using iPhones with American teens

01:15:03   You never know how good the data is

01:15:05   but one of the research firms said it's like 83 percent of American teens have them and the other and two more percent want them or

01:15:12   don't have them and

01:15:14   So you do by defining those markets?

01:15:16   Oh

01:15:16   Who does who does Xbox streaming gaming appeal to if they really want to attach to North American teens?

01:15:22   Then they obviously really badly want on the iOS market, right? So skip the age

01:15:26   Demographics and just go by who spends money. Well, you want to be on the iPhone and if you go by the age demographics

01:15:33   Who do you want? Well, you probably want teenagers then you want the iPhone, you know

01:15:37   So whatever their internal spreadsheet was on the number of people they expect to be playing Xbox game pass on

01:15:43   their mobile phones

01:15:46   The iPhones role in that Excel spreadsheet

01:15:50   Was certainly not based on unit sales of devices and it was far more

01:15:56   You know and if they could pick if you just went to Satya Nadella and said well

01:16:00   I can't explain why but you have a decision

01:16:03   All I can tell you is you have a choice you can either have Xbox game pass on iPhone or have it on Android

01:16:08   And he would before you even finish the sentence. He'd say oh, I thought yeah, because there's more with their own apps, right?

01:16:15   Like they've been making mobile versions of their products or iPad before they've been picking them from right? There's more money

01:16:20   You know, there's more money to be had

01:16:22   So I think that from Apple's perspective

01:16:27   It's not you know

01:16:29   I think there's part of this idea that the gaming is so lucrative and it is you know

01:16:34   And we can get into this idea that iOS in the broad sense is a console like system for apps

01:16:40   Period but when it comes to games specifically is a one-to-one comparison

01:16:45   You know that it is like a gaming platform that also does a whole lot more

01:16:51   yeah, and

01:16:54   No gaming platform

01:16:56   That's a console like system allows game streaming

01:17:01   You know, nobody is irate that the Nintendo switch doesn't have

01:17:06   Xbox game pass, you know and even Microsoft didn't you know as far as I know there was no

01:17:13   10,000 person beta of Xbox game pass for switch

01:17:17   Or a PlayStation for them. Yeah, or PlayStation and Xbox, you know

01:17:22   They're not taking Xbox and Xbox doesn't have a version of PlayStations game streaming thing

01:17:27   Which is very cool. That's the first place I've ever seen game streaming

01:17:32   My son has a PlayStation 4 and he has I forget what PlayStation calls their thing

01:17:37   But he can play a lot of old and and there's his mix their service

01:17:41   It's the same subscription fee some of the games you download to your PlayStation and you play them as a downloaded game like other

01:17:48   PlayStation games but some you can just stream especially the older ones that are smaller and he can just

01:17:52   Stream games and if he just gets like an inkling to play an old game

01:17:57   He doesn't have to wait for it to download

01:17:59   You can just like go pick it and stream it and I'm like really you're and it was like the first time I saw somebody

01:18:04   Doing it and I was like, this is very impressive and I'm you know

01:18:08   It shows my age that I just assumed the latency of a network is you know going to make

01:18:13   Twitch like gaming not twitch the video streaming service, but twitchy

01:18:17   reflexes

01:18:20   You know, it works, you know

01:18:21   But there's no way Xbox is going to host game streaming from another company and yet people you know

01:18:27   And here we get into the contentious argument where some people are saying yes

01:18:30   So it makes sense and what the hell was Microsoft thinking that Apple was going to allow a game streaming service on their game platform

01:18:37   And whereas others are just saying what are you nuts iOS is nothing like a game platform

01:18:44   Yeah, I mean we all bring our own personal desires to it

01:18:48   But you know if you go back and watch the introduction, you know when Steve Jobs introduced the App Store

01:18:52   He was incredibly clear from the beginning that he was using a console model

01:18:56   yeah, and that's so I I've you know, I've been talking about this on dithering with Ben Thompson and

01:19:03   Arguing with people very nicely. It's actually been a very fun and it's you know, it reinvigorated my belief that human beings are capable of

01:19:10   respectful intelligent open-minded argument

01:19:14   The problem that I've gotten into by making this argument that not really that iOS is like a console

01:19:23   But it is a console system

01:19:25   Conceptually and was right from the beginning is that some people hear console as a word and they immediately

01:19:32   Go to game console that you don't have to say that it that game consoles aren't a type of computing console. They are

01:19:40   It's it's like dropping the teller from telephone. It's the same word. I say I'm gonna call you on the phone

01:19:47   I'm gonna call you on the telephone

01:19:49   It's the same thing. I say iOS is a console and there's a lot of people who hear me saying I've

01:19:56   iOS is exactly like switch and Xbox and PlayStation 4 no more than that no less than that exactly like that and they say that's

01:20:04   Nonsense and that is that would be nonsense if that's the way you hear it. That's not the way I mean it

01:20:10   I mean console in a broader term and it's just that game consoles are the ones that have been around for decades and have

01:20:16   popularized the

01:20:18   basic business model

01:20:21   Well, and also it's how we view it as opposed to how the vendor views it Apple clearly views

01:20:26   There's a console and yet don't have to agree with them

01:20:28   You can think they're completely wrong and out to lunch and bananas and you can view it as it should be an open console

01:20:35   Just just to touch briefly on epic like they were super angry that Microsoft's

01:20:39   HoloLens was closed and they couldn't have the Unreal Engine on it and they went to war with Microsoft over that

01:20:45   because Microsoft viewed it as a console like the Xbox and

01:20:49   We look at the Xbox like it's okay to be a console but most of these game consoles have web browsers

01:20:53   You can get Skype you can get Netflix you can get a host of apps that aren't video games on them as well

01:20:59   And they are literally inside almost the same as any computer that you would use to run general-purpose apps

01:21:05   It's just the philosophy behind them is different right and with the Xbox in particular and again, right?

01:21:11   I don't want to get into like a college, you know sit around smoking dope, you know talking about the philosophy nature of what's the nature?

01:21:18   What's the nature of a computer man?

01:21:20   But like the Xbox in particular going back to the very first Xbox was literally

01:21:27   the the basic idea is

01:21:29   Let's take gaming PC that we can put together into it into a size that would fit in

01:21:36   somebody's entertainment system underneath most TVs and

01:21:40   replace the PC connectors in the back with home entertainment connectors and

01:21:48   And sell Windows games using the console model and if you took the Xbox even today if you took it out of the

01:21:55   box or the the the pack, you know, what do you call it the

01:21:59   Just took it out of the case

01:22:02   And just took the internal components out and took a gaming PC out of its case

01:22:07   Which is a lot easier to do and put it out. You couldn't tell them apart

01:22:12   You you used to do that. We used to mod the original Xbox all the time, right?

01:22:15   You you know, you'd have to like look at the actual green boards and see if there's some small print that says that

01:22:20   It's the might, you know, it says something is stamped Xbox, you know before you could tell it apart

01:22:25   Conceptually I had Linux on mine for a while, right and

01:22:29   Much like I didn't even know that was possible but much like how much like how Apple shares operating system

01:22:36   Core a core OS across its platforms the Xbox runs a variant of Windows 10, you know, and so people say, okay

01:22:44   So there's a web browser, but nobody uses it as their main web browser, but that's just by design, right?

01:22:51   There's no reason that a kid couldn't go to college with their Xbox as their computer

01:22:58   you know go with the computer and a monitor and put the Xbox on their desk and

01:23:03   have the Xbox run things like an email client and they're a good version of a web browser and

01:23:09   Do all of their work on the same, you know that one device that's just by design

01:23:14   that they don't let things like that go through and that they don't it isn't designed to run in a

01:23:20   Context where you're going to open up a bunch of browser tabs and read it, you know

01:23:24   Read the news on your Xbox, but it certainly could it's just limiting, you know, it's sort of like an alternate universe where?

01:23:31   Circa

01:23:34   2008 Steve Jobs who was still on the fan or I guess it would have been 2007 Steve Jobs is still on the fence of

01:23:42   Whether they should have third-party native apps at all. What if Apple has said okay, but only games

01:23:48   Where you know, no native apps was the original iPhone message you we have a sweet solution where you can write web apps

01:23:56   What if they had said instead? Okay, we are going to allow

01:24:01   Third-party apps, but we're not a games company. So we'll let games, you know, here's

01:24:06   Same will partner with Netflix like we do with YouTube and you'll have like a Netflix app, right?

01:24:12   Yeah, and we'll have you know, it's stuff like that

01:24:14   There's the you know, it obviously would have been leaving a lot of opportunity on the table

01:24:20   But in theory, there's no reason they couldn't have done that, you know, and then what would be the argument now?

01:24:25   There's really very little argument

01:24:27   Yeah, and all I'm parsing out is that it's it's a different argument to say

01:24:31   It isn't a console that then saying it shouldn't be a console and I think that's what right sometime it does

01:24:37   But I the other thing that I've noticed so I've noticed that the word console

01:24:41   Means something specific to games to some people and when I explained that I don't mean games specifically

01:24:47   I mean the model then they say oh, okay. I see what you mean now. I thought you just an infotainment center

01:24:52   Yeah, that's also a console

01:24:54   I don't but if you know and somebody looked at the some of some smartass looked in the dictionary and the dictionary has an entry

01:25:00   that says

01:25:01   You know console like definition 3 is a computer device primarily for playing games

01:25:07   And they're like well that you know, that means a dictionary says it's just for games and I said well, okay the same dictionary

01:25:12   Merriam-websters look up at the phone

01:25:15   Yeah, and trust me the Merriam-webster entry for phones as a telephone

01:25:20   So but they're dedicated consoles like air people who control aircraft and stuff in there are purpose-built consoles for almost everything across industries

01:25:28   They're just not usually consumer related, right and you know, I

01:25:34   Get it but there's also the other way that I have lost people with this argument is

01:25:38   And and again and you're very right that there is the should

01:25:41   Angle which again that is a whole thing that we could talk about for hours and will be talking about for hours and hours

01:25:48   to come and on videos and you in columns and

01:25:53   Podcasts to come and it's a great argument and then what makes it a great argument is there's validity to multiple

01:25:59   arguments with across the spectrum on that

01:26:02   But even without the argument of whether Apple should be treating it the thing that I have noticed is

01:26:07   There is a significant number of people with very strong opinions about

01:26:12   iOS

01:26:15   who

01:26:17   Don't hadn't been under hadn't really opened their eyes to how much it is a console

01:26:24   Yeah, and when you point this out, they are

01:26:28   Angry about it. It is very it's an electric reaction and they are offended and it really does

01:26:35   date back

01:26:37   25 years

01:26:39   to

01:26:40   Mid to late 90s arguments there where Richard Stallman was talking about

01:26:44   you know certain chips that Microsoft wanted introduced into PCs for safe boot, you know, and

01:26:49   Well jobs and was were arguing about whether it should be a sealed appliance right open computing platform decades ago. Yeah

01:26:57   Yeah, and you know, I've heard I saw some people say well, you know, you shouldn't use the word console that means games

01:27:02   You should call it an appliance. But to me appliance of

01:27:05   You know like your refrigerator might have a computer in it, but you don't install apps on it, right?

01:27:11   To me the console model is is the expandability notion

01:27:15   You know that that it's sure my dishwasher. I have my dishwasher actually is some sort of computer and I hate it

01:27:21   I really do saying that I'm sure there must be an Android fridge out there and someone's installing apps on it right now

01:27:26   Well, there is remember Tim Cook made fun of Samsung for making it or maybe I forget if they came out with the fridge after

01:27:32   he made fun of it or not, but he called them on it, but

01:27:35   Appliance to me implies and I'm talking in broad terms

01:27:39   I don't know

01:27:39   Maybe we don't have a great word

01:27:41   But I think console works as long as you say that Xbox PlayStation and switch are game

01:27:46   Consoles and there are the consoles that have been established for longer iOS is an app console. It always has been and

01:27:54   But a lot of you hate that word. I mean you could call it unmanaged versus managed computing environments

01:27:59   You can choose whatever word you want, right?

01:28:00   But it's there's a lot of people out there who really see that the that iOS is

01:28:06   like the Mac

01:28:09   but for like a little

01:28:11   Asterisk like a footnote that says but right now Apple makes everything go through the App Store if they would just like erase this

01:28:17   Asterisk then they'd be it would be the same and that's what they want very much

01:28:23   they want the iPhone and iPad to be like the Mac in terms of

01:28:28   Being able to run software from anywhere

01:28:31   that does things that aren't going through the App Store that Apple would never approve and

01:28:36   You know, it's it is they're completely missing how Apple has talked about it

01:28:43   Ever since it came out

01:28:46   They're completely not really looking at how it's been run every single step of the way since it came out

01:28:52   What they're looking at and where they're not necessarily crazy is that at a technical level?

01:28:58   Yeah, you can look at it and see that it's not like

01:29:02   Not that it wouldn't take work. Not that Apple has to erase like one line of code. That's like an if statement if

01:29:08   If iOS then yeah if iOS then this and just erase that and then all of a sudden it's exactly like the Mac

01:29:16   But you can see how yes technically, you know the work

01:29:21   you know to make iOS have something like

01:29:24   You know the Mac where you can just download an app package from a website and click one

01:29:30   You know permission dialog and have it installed you could see that

01:29:35   But that's not how Apple's ever talked about it

01:29:38   And the other thing people often say is they say Apple never called it a console

01:29:41   Well, of course, they don't you know, that's not really a pleasant word. I don't really think you hear Xbox and

01:29:47   Nintendo talk about their platforms as consoles

01:29:52   Yeah, I think it's also really important to point out that most of the time when we have these discussions is with incredibly technologically savvy computer-literate people and

01:30:01   Going back to what I said earlier everyone mistakes themselves for a majority and they just believe

01:30:06   Deeply that what they say reflects the opinions of most people even when it's totally not the case and we've had open computing environments for

01:30:15   Decades and one of the things that Steve Jobs was most ardent on was making computers ever more accessible to ever more

01:30:21   the greater amounts of people of mainstreaming computing technology and

01:30:25   his vision of doing that was making them easier to use by making them more controlled and when you when you step through Apple to

01:30:32   Mac

01:30:33   To the iPhone and iPad which which he thought were far more important to mainstream people then then the Mac even

01:30:39   Was that providing that controlled managed experience opened them up?

01:30:43   He wasn't restricting their rights

01:30:45   He was relieving their burden

01:30:46   They like he didn't think that humans should have to manage or deal with that complexity and he believed that a lot of people found that

01:30:53   Off-putting if not alienating it made them feel dumb and that they deserve to have these as tools not as

01:31:00   Sort of workbenches, but as as tools that they shouldn't have to worry about, you know

01:31:06   Finding other sources can they trust it?

01:31:08   And it's also an important part of this argument that I think gets left behind is whether the iPhone as a platform is

01:31:15   Successful whether people are more willing to spend money on it whether it's adopted by users who are more willing to spend money on it

01:31:22   Because it is users who appreciate

01:31:24   the way that it works largely because of how Apple has managed the platform and

01:31:29   I always test against Android I always look and say well Android doesn't have these things

01:31:35   So show me the app that can exist under Android that can't exist under iOS that is changing the world and improving lives

01:31:42   And I'm sure there are a bunch of apps that are on Android that aren't on iOS

01:31:46   Emulators and all sorts of things but all the big ones like Instagram and Lyft and you know

01:31:53   Just any almost any app you can think of is on the iPhone almost always first quite often still

01:31:58   More polished than it is on Android and more available to people and by changing it by making it

01:32:04   I joke about this. I always talk to developers and

01:32:07   They tell me what they want and I said, but so you want the Google Play Store and they say yes

01:32:11   I said well, why aren't you on that and they say because I hate it and

01:32:13   Reconciling those statements. It seems to be really hard for people to me one of the concepts

01:32:19   That we're talking about is encapsulates encapsulation that you encapsulate

01:32:25   Complexity in a way that is easier understood and managed and

01:32:34   When you do and again, it comes back to one of the most recurring themes and everything

01:32:39   I ever talk about or write about is trade-offs and

01:32:42   People it's like you said earlier about Twitter if people want it there to be an answer

01:32:47   That's zero or a hundred and they don't want to hear that

01:32:50   The answer is actually 57 and it's mostly towards a hundred but there's actually 43 good points on the other side

01:32:57   You know and that's just the way it is, but that's where the answer is

01:33:00   they just don't want to hear it, but in

01:33:04   encapsulating

01:33:05   complexity in

01:33:07   inherently involves trade-offs

01:33:09   It's just but one of the positives is it makes it more accessible to people who don't understand the

01:33:17   technical underpinnings

01:33:20   And

01:33:23   People who do understand them often don't see the downsides to it, you know

01:33:28   But I think that that's sort of and I think this I think a lot of people who are arguing that iOS

01:33:35   Should be should not is but should be less of a console and should be more open or are just completely

01:33:42   overlooking completely the advantages that it has to many many people that it's not that it's I think there's so many people making the

01:33:52   Argument that Apple is very wrong and as an indefensible

01:33:55   ethical and perhaps legal position on this whole thing

01:33:58   That on the ethical side they don't really they just completely assume that

01:34:05   Apples that the iOS has succeeded despite Apple's tight-fisted control and not

01:34:12   Because of the tight-fisted control but think about you know

01:34:16   And and the console model if you go back and again this also comes to one of my big themes

01:34:21   Is that where you start from matters because it colors how people see things going forward

01:34:28   And if you think about game consoles you think about like the Atari 2600 and the original Nintendo NES system

01:34:35   yeah, where they were actual cartridges that the game was on chips in hardware and

01:34:41   the

01:34:44   The concept to the user was exactly what you saw, right?

01:34:49   You you had the game console in front of you hooked up to your TV

01:34:54   And if you turned it on without a cartridge in nothing happened, you didn't even there wasn't like a system, you know

01:35:00   I forget it

01:35:01   I don't think NES had one but I know Atari 2600 didn't you didn't even get a picture

01:35:05   Without a cartridge in the cartridge slot. There was nothing and you put asteroids in and

01:35:11   I think yeah with the 2600 they used to even recommend strongly that you turn it off take the cartridge out

01:35:19   put a new cartridge and turn it back on and my sister would just

01:35:22   Yank cartridge out and put it back in and I was so deathly afraid that she was gonna break you

01:35:27   Because I was like, oh my god

01:35:28   I was like I wasn't even it wasn't even like my parents won't buy us a new one

01:35:33   I was like we might have to go three days without it

01:35:35   whatever

01:35:36   I

01:35:37   Was like, you know listen

01:35:39   Yeah, exactly, but I still have that with the stupid SD cards on Macs today, right?

01:35:45   But the name original trauma the idea of how do you install asteroids was very obvious you put the cartridge in the slot

01:35:51   Yeah, how do you uninstall it? Well, you take it out and then you put Space Invaders in

01:35:57   that and

01:35:59   Where we've gotten today with the Xbox PlayStation and switches obviously incredibly more powerful

01:36:05   Computer systems and you can install things in more complicated ways, but that basic model is still there where you get the app

01:36:14   From an official source and it's completely encapsulated and the assumption that the game even on a completely

01:36:21   modern not even out yet

01:36:24   Xbox X

01:36:26   System X coming later this year

01:36:28   Which is the most you know in the PlayStation 5 the most advanced game console computers ever made

01:36:35   The idea is that no matter what you do when you get a new game

01:36:38   The game isn't going to like overwrite the system and create a launch item so that the next time you turn on your PlayStation 5

01:36:46   whatever game you just bought now puts up a pop-up menu every time your system starts up and

01:36:53   It's oh and when you delete the game because you don't even like it

01:36:56   It leaves behind a bunch of files that you have to clean up and stuff like you

01:37:01   People are like no no games consoles don't work like that. You're right

01:37:05   It's they're all and everything's neatly encapsulated and if you delete the game you delete all traces of the game

01:37:10   But it's not like a voluntary compliance thing

01:37:12   You can't even get your game into the platform unless you comply with the rules, you know that that are

01:37:19   Voluntary or otherwise whether they're sandboxing hardware things people just assume that that's the case because that's where game consoles came from because they used

01:37:27   to literally be enforced by the fact that it was a hardware cartridge and the fact that iOS and Android look like

01:37:35   Mac OS 10 and Linux

01:37:37   derivative computers that just happen to run in your pocket and you know that there's a Linux kernel on the

01:37:44   Android and a Darwin kernel and you know UI

01:37:48   Kit and app kit are similar and a lot of the frameworks like Swift UI are literally exactly the same

01:37:55   It's you know

01:37:58   Technically, yeah, there's a lot of similarities

01:38:00   But yet the the neatness of iOS where you cannot mess up your iPhone

01:38:07   By installing an app you can't do it

01:38:09   There's nothing that can be done through an app you get through the App Store that will mess up your system or leave behind

01:38:15   Traces or all of a sudden you get weird pop-up menus every time you get a phone call because you installed a thing from Facebook

01:38:23   Doesn't happen right and whereas on our Macs and PCs stuff like that happens all the time

01:38:30   I

01:38:32   Don't think people

01:38:34   Understand just how much of an appeal that is, you know, yeah, it's that it's that joking cliche

01:38:40   It just works thing but for like I had

01:38:42   Right now it's also in vogue to say that you know

01:38:45   Apple really didn't do much with the App Store that there were ways to download apps and there were ways to buy apps

01:38:50   Previously and I but I was one of those people I had you know

01:38:53   since the handspring visor and the palm trio and the windows mobile phones

01:38:58   I've had all of them and I have

01:39:00   receipts for buying like the

01:39:02   $48 sticky app that crashed constantly and me trying to remember which of the eight different web stores I bought it off of

01:39:09   It was just it was not a model where most people were doing it

01:39:14   It was a very very very niche activity and what Apple did is what they've done

01:39:19   That's generated their success for four years is that they figured out a way to package

01:39:25   To package technology in a way that had massive mainstream appeal and the App Store is or an Apple product in the same way that

01:39:31   The iPhone is did the same thing

01:39:32   it's like a bunch of sort of quirky hard to use disparate technologies and made a cohesive product out of it and

01:39:38   Huge accessible business and they did the same thing with app distribution

01:39:41   I think looking at it differently than that is non helpful and I'm not saying that I agree with how it's run

01:39:47   I think that

01:39:48   2020 is very different than 2008 and that there are strong arguments for changing the percentage base because

01:39:55   It's really not that much money for Apple people have this idea that Apple's fighting over this

01:40:00   It is it is literally pocket change for Apple

01:40:03   I forget how many billions it moves the needle but it's like it's sing

01:40:06   It's very low single digit for a company that makes hundreds of billions of dollars all the time

01:40:11   And I also think that side loading is important

01:40:14   Especially in an age where China can block VPN apps and America might block tick-tock

01:40:19   But it's it's not because I think there's anything fundamentally broken with the App Store

01:40:23   It's because I think that we're living in a time that requires

01:40:26   Requires a more flexible approach just because the world is becoming a more chaotic place

01:40:32   But I think a lot of this and this is where I get into a lot of trouble from a lot of people

01:40:37   I think there's a lot of frustration about apps and games moving from

01:40:42   valuable expensive niche scarce products into

01:40:47   abundant commodity if not unit-based then rapidly becoming subscription

01:40:53   based the same way we've seen news transformed by Google and

01:40:57   Movies and videos transformed by Netflix and music by Spotify the same forces are being applied to apps and games

01:41:05   And I don't even think Apple understands it yet

01:41:07   But I think it's making a lot of developers who want to have successful apps angry in the same way

01:41:13   It makes a lot of youtubers who want to have huge audiences and don't have them really angry and all of these things

01:41:20   Serves serve as very good targets for channeling that anger

01:41:23   Yeah, I think so

01:41:26   And just I don't think it would change like I think Apple could give developers almost everything they want

01:41:30   I still think developers would have to work really really hard to figure out how to find a valuable niche or become a breakout

01:41:37   Mainstream sensation and it wouldn't just magically make any developer super affluent overnight. Yeah

01:41:44   I really do think though just to tie off the Xbox game pass thing that it's in some ways about games

01:41:52   specifically where they don't want these meta games that are games within an app and

01:41:58   even though Xbox game pass isn't

01:42:00   mobile first

01:42:02   The technology once you're talking about streaming the technology is there where somebody could easily make one if they it's that

01:42:10   Opening the door to streaming and so I think if they were going to make an exception and they made it for Xbox game pass

01:42:16   specifically the fact that you're still playing Xbox games that require a hardware controller and

01:42:21   Aren't really meant for the sort of mobile context that most mobile games are including Apple arcade games. It's not really

01:42:30   disruptive to Apple's no current game market for iOS but

01:42:35   Opening the door to streaming software in general streaming from the cloud is

01:42:41   and I really think that it's

01:42:44   It's almost the inverse of the epic argument where the epic argument they're trying to say it's about everything

01:42:50   But they're really talking about games

01:42:52   The Xbox one everybody's talking about games and the competition with the Apple arcade

01:42:58   But I really think that from Apple's perspective

01:43:00   It's the broader perspective of they don't have a policy in place yet for streaming software, which is clearly coming

01:43:08   It's coming to games first. It's here for games. It's the present tense thing for games

01:43:12   it's obviously as as cloud computing is more prominent and latency and

01:43:18   Ubiquitous 5g and good LTE networking is in more places

01:43:24   It's it's coming and Apple isn't doesn't have an answer for it yet, you know and how in terms it

01:43:30   What what does it mean for a company that wants to have control over all of the apps on this platform?

01:43:37   You know, it's sort of like Microsoft when the web browser started becoming a thing. It's they only understood

01:43:43   Windows as office apps. They didn't have any

01:43:46   Understanding at all of what Google Docs would be and it took like 30 years

01:43:52   But Scott McNeely's thin client future is finally getting closer to reality, you know and

01:43:57   Our you know our mutual dear friend guy English sent me something about that when this whole thing broke

01:44:04   He'd sent me, you know and guys like us for he has a long memory and remember stuff like that

01:44:09   But it is true the thin client from that era and you know Oracle was a big player in that too

01:44:17   It it always did make sense that it would happen eventually

01:44:23   You know just not it's people weren't thinking it through at the time, right?

01:44:27   Same way that the web became you know web apps would be a future

01:44:31   But everybody at the time thought that the web would be the new windows and you'd run apps that were just like the apps you

01:44:37   Ran on Windows, but they go through your web browser and it's like that doesn't really make sense

01:44:41   Because it's just not good for it and the payload grew faster than the delivery system every time right and just

01:44:47   You could just look at it

01:44:49   You know, I mean like there's the reason Gmail is very super super duper popular and doesn't look like

01:44:54   Windows or Mac app at all, you know, yeah, it's just you know, hey doesn't look like a Mac app or a Windows app

01:45:01   It looks like a web app and that's you know, you know, not good or bad in and of itself

01:45:07   It just is what it is. But did you know it did become the de facto?

01:45:13   Lowest common denominator software platform. Yeah. All right. Let's take a break. I'm gonna thank our third and final sponsor

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01:46:50   So now we've got epic and I feel like I do at least feel the news happened in the right order

01:46:56   like the hold my beer order

01:46:58   Right, like wow this fight with Microsoft and Apple over the future of iOS gaming and Apple's tight-fisted control over

01:47:07   the App Store and what type of games and stuff can be on it is

01:47:10   fascinating what drama and

01:47:13   Tim Sweeney is like, oh hold my beer hold hold a keg of beer. Yes

01:47:18   Yeah, good old Tim Sweeney

01:47:21   You know and so it's fun like somebody

01:47:24   You know, why are we so interested in this? Why is it getting so much attention?

01:47:28   Well, it's a lot of drama and it is you know, I don't think it's and it is complex

01:47:34   It's not a simple clear-cut argument

01:47:37   There's a lot of money at stake. There's two big companies with or three if you count Google

01:47:44   People have very strong opinions that run a gamut. It's not just two binary positions

01:47:50   Yeah

01:47:53   It's a lot of drama

01:47:54   And it was engineered to be dramatic. I mean I had videos and it was just designed to be dramatic from the start

01:48:00   Yeah, it's you know, it's I've drawn the analogy dithering to a chess game and I'd you know, it's it very much so right

01:48:07   but there's like

01:48:09   Certain chess openings where it's like you already

01:48:11   You know

01:48:12   You got to get like three moves in before you start making choices because it's like oh

01:48:16   This is the whatever gambit and that's how you open

01:48:18   And if you know, you know that you're your opening move is this that might be a surprise

01:48:26   your opening move is a surprise, you know, and I think

01:48:30   Fortnight sneaking in their own custom payment processing into an app. They'd submitted to Apple a week before that didn't have it exposed

01:48:37   Definitely was a surprise

01:48:40   And epic clearly thought Apple is almost certainly going to pull fortnight from the store in response

01:48:47   That happened hours later and within minutes of that the lawsuit dropped and the video dropped

01:48:53   Yeah, they had that move ready to go

01:48:55   So that's like you're playing white you make a surprising opening move Apple spend some time to think makes their move and a second they do

01:49:02   You're like I knew it and then you have your move ready to go and it's and they had a Google lawsuit ready, too

01:49:07   So I'm assuming they like so they must have figured that Google would pull the app, too

01:49:10   But they didn't have a video right there was no don't be evil video, right? Right and you know, I think part of that is

01:49:17   Apples the juicier target. I mean, what would the Google version of it be?

01:49:23   But then why do the lost like so that that was the thing for me and we can get at this later, too

01:49:27   It's that it would almost have been worse for Apple if they hadn't sued Google immediately as well. I

01:49:32   Wonder and I wonder if they thought you know if they thought to themselves maybe Google would like to

01:49:41   Play both sides of this and they'll let they'll let fortnight slide, you know

01:49:48   You know that maybe their epics thinking was maybe Google would like to make hay at Apple's expense, too

01:49:54   I mean it at times Google does right I mean and you know Microsoft made

01:49:59   It put out a pithy statement about the Xbox game thing

01:50:03   I mean, they're not above these big companies that play within our expectations of corporate decorum

01:50:08   Aren't above taking jabs at each other

01:50:15   So I think maybe they didn't know I didn't know I wasn't I felt very certain

01:50:19   I would have bet a lot of money not my house

01:50:22   But I would have bet a lot of money that Apple was going to pull fortnight

01:50:26   Same however crazy that seems given how popular it is. But what else could they do?

01:50:30   I would not have bet so much on Google

01:50:33   I would have made a much smaller bet on Google and I think that they're just you know, that that epic sort of okay

01:50:39   We'll file a lawsuit against you - we kind of have to

01:50:43   But they're there everything they've done since has been less about Google and more about Apple

01:50:48   the curious thing to me though and it touches on a lot of the arguments people made is

01:50:53   And I think when a lot of these things happen a lot of the feelings that get expressed are more generic or more

01:50:59   Personal and they sort of get attached to like epic

01:51:02   So people who have had grudges or fundamental philosophical disagreements about the way the app store

01:51:07   It gets run sort of voice those in support of epic

01:51:11   Regardless of whether they have anything to do with the specifics of epic or not

01:51:14   And in this case, we saw a bunch of people saying like, you know, the s the app store is a monopoly

01:51:18   Apple needs to open it up. They should allow side loading and the interesting thing to me. Is that

01:51:23   epic shut that it should have effectively shut that down immediately because

01:51:28   They had side loading on Android they used it. They hated it so much

01:51:33   They had to go back to the Google Play Store and in their lawsuit

01:51:38   They argue that it's insufficient and for people aren't familiar with it

01:51:42   The way it works on Android is basically like gatekeeper in that you have to go in turn it on

01:51:46   Tap through a bunch of warning messages and then install the app and they said that that is enough

01:51:52   To make sure that almost nobody ever uses it. So it's effectively not there anyway

01:51:58   So when you argue that Apple should just allow gatekeeper on the iPhone that is an argument, you know

01:52:03   I will make that argument too, but it is nothing that would make epic any happier than they are right now

01:52:08   well, I but I I think I

01:52:12   Correct me if I'm wrong. I actually did the research on this and now I've already forgotten and of course, I don't have the notes but

01:52:18   The way that epic did it wasn't that they pulled at fortnight from the Play Store they debuted

01:52:25   Android the Android version of fortnight outside the Play Store and they tried to do it only on their own

01:52:33   only through side loading and like a year later were like

01:52:37   Didn't really work that well. So yeah, it is exactly storm and now it complies

01:52:42   and it is still available outside the Play Store, so I actually went through on my

01:52:48   pixel and

01:52:51   Installed it and it's actually I this is actually I have to say I just hadn't been curious until this point how side loading worked

01:52:58   On Android it is different than gatekeeper in a certain basic sense

01:53:04   Where at least on the latest version of Android? I think it's Android 10 whatever I'm running on my pixel

01:53:10   That's up to pixel 4 that's up to date. It's not a system-wide thing where you say allow apps from other sources

01:53:17   What you do is you pick apps that can?

01:53:21   install

01:53:24   apps

01:53:25   To they and they call them sources and it's a little empty case worse

01:53:30   It's confusing because you you're in so the way that you go about it is I'm in Chrome with the default browser on

01:53:38   Android and I go to the epic site and I say I want to get fortnight and they say okay start by downloading

01:53:43   the epic games store or I think that's what they call it and

01:53:47   You download it an APK file, which is like the dot app bundle for them

01:53:53   And Chrome says do you want to allow app installations from this source?

01:53:59   You know might might be dangerous blah blah blah. I wasn't sure what that dialogue. I'm not trying to be obtuse here

01:54:06   I honestly didn't know what it meant

01:54:08   Like do they mean the source is epic games calm or the source is?

01:54:13   Chrome the Chrome app on my phone what they mean is the Chrome app

01:54:19   That's the source and so what you do then there's like a security section in the

01:54:24   Android settings where you can say here are the sources you're allowed to install

01:54:28   apps from and there it's a list of apps and so

01:54:33   the path for getting fortnight on your Android phone is first use your browser to get epic games and

01:54:40   And first you have to allow your browser to install apps

01:54:44   Then you can run epic games and you have to run through the same set of permission dialogues to let the epic game store install

01:54:52   Apps because the epic game store is how you get fortnight

01:54:54   so

01:54:57   And there's no notarization requirement like there is for the standard gatekeeper

01:55:01   Like you can turn off that requirement for gatekeeper, but there's no signed or notarized as far as I know

01:55:06   Those Android apps. Yeah, maybe

01:55:10   Here's the dialog box. It says Chrome for your security. Your phone is not allowed to install unknown apps from this source

01:55:17   And then your to your two options are cancel or settings

01:55:22   So again, I think that that exact and this is on I'm on the epic games.com slash fortnight website and the dialog box

01:55:31   Just says Chrome for your security. Your phone is not allowed to install unknown apps from this source

01:55:35   I don't think it was a bad guess for me to say that the source is epic games calm but they mean

01:55:40   Chrome but if you just tap settings then you go through and it's a very clear dialogue

01:55:45   The next screen is your you jumps you right to settings says Chrome allow from this source

01:55:50   It's off by default and it says your phone and personal data are more vulnerable to attack by unknown apps

01:55:56   By installing apps from this source you agree that you are responsible for any damage to your phone or loss of data that may result

01:56:03   From their use and then you can turn it on. So I think there's a couple of things here number one

01:56:09   I think epics little a/b test on that. What what is their success outside?

01:56:14   the Play Store is

01:56:17   Corrupted by the fact that they don't let you download fortnight directly

01:56:21   Anyway, they make you download epic games and then through epic games get fortnight, right?

01:56:25   So it was on the Samsung store as well

01:56:27   But I think that also just shows us the marketing back to the Amazon store versus Google Play

01:56:31   Yeah, I definitely think so which is confusing too, right and it gets into the level of

01:56:37   Okay, you have more choices more choices is good

01:56:40   Well, not necessarily because if you have a Samsung phone and you have access to the Play Store and the Samsung store

01:56:45   Where are you supposed to go?

01:56:47   Well, it's also goes beyond that like when people say Android is open. Android is open to the vendors

01:56:51   There's very little about Android that's open to the end consumer unless you build it yourself from the open source project and very few human

01:56:57   Beings are capable of doing that to make a functional consumer phone

01:57:00   And you for example, you can't get the L

01:57:03   like if there was an LG store you couldn't get the LG store on on Samsung or the Samsung store on

01:57:07   on

01:57:09   1+ and that was part of their argument was that Google was sort of

01:57:12   forcing 1+ not to include the epic game launcher built in which would make it easier for customers and we're forcing LG not to include it

01:57:19   Which would make it easier for customers

01:57:21   And I don't think that these dialogue boxes are particularly

01:57:29   Alarming in their language. I mean, honestly, I'm not trying to be again

01:57:33   I keep saying I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I'm really not I think that these are very reasonable

01:57:36   Paths to turn on side loading. It's very difficult

01:57:41   You wouldn't happen by accident

01:57:43   Which is important and I think correct and if we really want to get fortnight the path to do

01:57:50   it is pretty obvious, but it's epics own fault that it is a

01:57:55   To level first install the epic game store then install fortnight. It's their own dumbass fault

01:58:00   However, many people they've lost

01:58:03   By not just allowing the fortnight dot APK to be downloaded directly from the web and only granting your web browser this

01:58:10   Super ability to install apps. That's their own fault for putting their their desire to have an epic game store

01:58:17   Ahead of making it as easy as possible to install fortnight. So if they've left that's sort of like I'm

01:58:24   Spoiler here, but that's why I'll get to later

01:58:26   Is that epic is not the Batman we want or need here because their goal is not to have you install

01:58:31   Fortnight their goal is to get the epic store right on like they're there

01:58:35   Their problem is not so much they hate the App Store and hate the Google Play Store in that they want to be an app

01:58:41   Store or a Google Play Store, they don't want to they don't want to give 30% of their income to Apple or Google

01:58:46   They want to charge 12% or whatever it ends up being to other game developers

01:58:50   All right, and I'm gonna be on the opposite side of that fence right and much like a lot of the stuff with

01:58:55   President Trump where it's like just listen to him right?

01:58:58   He'd literally said I'm trying to keep the post office underfunded so they can't count the millions of ballots, you know

01:59:04   And they're like you weren't supposed to say that out loud. He's like, oh, yeah, that's what I'm doing

01:59:08   It's the same way where Tim Sweeney has said

01:59:11   Yes

01:59:12   He even said like wouldn't it be great if you could buy once and have the same game on your PlayStation

01:59:19   And your switch and your phone and again, I'm not even disagreeing that from a user's perspective. That would be great

01:59:25   It would be fantastic

01:59:26   If you could buy a $60 app once and run it on two platforms and your phone with one purchase

01:59:32   I agree from the consumers perspective totally agree

01:59:36   But what what is he talking about as the mechanism for that he's talking about the epic store

01:59:41   I mean and his games right? He's not fighting any other developers battles, but his own

01:59:45   so

01:59:48   So Google I I'm not surprised that they kicked fortnight off I

01:59:53   Wouldn't have bet heavily on it I can see why they're not making a big stink about it because it

02:00:00   the existence of Android I think this would be a lot easier on Android if

02:00:06   The Play Store were a lot more like the iOS App Store and had a lot more

02:00:11   increasingly becoming like that though

02:00:12   It's like Google has moved away from the open Android model towards a far more controlled Google Play Services model over the years

02:00:18   But even with games they are far more controlling with games than they are with random software

02:00:22   But there's an awful lot of people who are what they're saying they want from iOS at a user's perspective is

02:00:29   Something like gatekeeper or what Android calls

02:00:33   I don't know if they have a name for it

02:00:35   But something that would let you install apps by clicking, you know off by everybody Oh, everybody reasonable agrees

02:00:41   It would be off by default

02:00:43   Because it even is on the Mac and everybody and yes

02:00:45   There's some diehards on the issue who maybe would say that's somehow philosophically offensive

02:00:51   Off by default easily turned on with a warning that is not that is truthful and not yes

02:01:00   unnecessarily alarming

02:01:03   And therefore it would give you the user freedom to get things that either aren't allowed or otherwise

02:01:09   They're just optional through their platforms App Store

02:01:12   They have it on Google right? That's the so there's a part of this

02:01:17   Thing where it's very uncomfortable for epic in my opinion to say well, what do you want Apple to do?

02:01:24   What could Apple do to just say? Okay, you know what Tim Sweeney and epic you're right. We're wrong

02:01:30   That's you know, we'll just

02:01:33   Do whatever you want. What do you want us to do? And I think there's a lot of people

02:01:39   on the iOS side of the

02:01:42   Debate here who are saying that iOS should be like Android but they are

02:01:46   That's obviously not the answer because they're they're suing it Google - they want something more and if you read their lawsuit against Google

02:01:55   they

02:01:57   complain

02:01:58   vociferously that those warning dialogues that I just read are

02:02:02   Are the whole reason they were a failure outside the play for Play Store and that they're unfair

02:02:08   and

02:02:10   Overly alarming. I I think they want like a one tap thing

02:02:14   we're all of a sudden there's an epic game store on your phone and that's it with no warning by default and

02:02:19   That is a bad idea

02:02:22   They want basically the epic game store to be on the App Store on the Google Play Store where you can tap it install it

02:02:28   And from then on you never have to go back to the App Store the play right and you know

02:02:31   And then that the games installed by the epic game store or every bit, you know

02:02:35   native apps on the platform that are on your home screen etc and so forth and then when

02:02:41   Because they run the epic game store very similar. So the epic game store people aren't familiar with it

02:02:45   Tim Sweeney gets angry at so many people he got angry at valve steam because they charge 30% the industry standard is 30%

02:02:53   You can love it or hate it, but it's the industry standard

02:02:56   They were charging 30% and he didn't think he was getting value from that. So he made his own store and he's aggressive

02:03:02   so he's tried to assign a lot of games to exclusive agreements that would keep them out of the steam store as a way to compete and

02:03:08   He only charges 12% that he epic only charges 12%

02:03:13   They do charge a licensing fee for the Unreal Engine

02:03:16   But if you use the Unreal Engine inside the epic store you get that 5% back

02:03:20   So it's a little more complicated

02:03:22   But I'd also caution saying that

02:03:25   He's delivering fundamentally less than what most like he's not delivering anywhere near the value that an App Store

02:03:32   Or a Play Store is I'm not sure compared to steam because he doesn't have the reach

02:03:36   He doesn't he doesn't have the ability to feature games doesn't have the the scope of the of the user commitment to it

02:03:41   But also that can change at any time. There's no law that says what a game store has to charge. So

02:03:46   He effectively just like people say it's David versus Goliath, but it's it's a young hungry Goliath who wants to be the Goliath

02:03:53   Can I just say also as an aside that the epic game store for Android that I did go ahead and install only has two games

02:04:00   It has fortnight and battle breakers, which I've never heard of so they make you jump through the hoop of

02:04:05   Installing their game store first before you can get fortnight

02:04:09   Which is the thing everybody is surely going there this week for just to have the option to install one of the game

02:04:14   I mean for now, I think the windows for I forget how many you're on the windows version

02:04:17   But they do have a bunch of apps that they're that they're effectively doing what the App Store does. They're brokering those apps, right?

02:04:22   Obviously with the Apple it's more of a fight obviously is you know, and it's a true it's a Trojan horse not

02:04:30   in the sense of being a you know, the the security industry term of a Trojan horse, but in the

02:04:36   Allegorical sense of the the story of the the original Trojan horse. They built this functionality into fortnight

02:04:44   Didn't have it enabled submitted the update got it approved and then turned it on remotely and boom

02:04:50   Fortnight is taking credit cards from outside the store and is right now to this day

02:04:56   You know, if you have fortnight on your iPhone, you can do it right now

02:05:00   You know and in terms of

02:05:02   Apple not being as heavy-handed as they could be, you know, they're allowing it to stay up at least through August 28th

02:05:08   I guess is their deadline

02:05:10   Yeah, and

02:05:12   If it sounds like you know, I'm being hard harder on epic than I am on Apple

02:05:16   That's only because epic won't stop talking if Apple and Google put out apples put out two statements Google one statement

02:05:22   Sweeney is tweeting and it's just it's so much easier when you have things that you can respond to

02:05:28   Because I you know, I think that there's much better ways that Apple can handle this and I do think to your point earlier

02:05:33   It's absolutely reckless that epic has a game engine attached to them

02:05:38   This isn't like unity which is a standalone engine and it's not like hey, which you know base camp which has an app that

02:05:45   Not a framework that everyone depends on and an Android isn't in this discussion because nobody creates

02:05:52   Unreal games on Android but on on Apple's platforms they both Apple and epic have developers who are dependent upon this

02:06:01   Relationship being mature and being managed and it's that's not what it is right now

02:06:06   And so what my most of my usually all my sympathy is not with epic

02:06:10   It's not with Apple is with the indie devs, but here it's also with the people who are

02:06:14   whose businesses depend on the Unreal Engine and right now are

02:06:18   Nervous if not terrified about what's happening

02:06:21   Yeah, I did, you know and I looked into this

02:06:23   There's not a lot of Unreal Engine games for iOS

02:06:28   I mean there have been some high-profile ones including infinity blade which is from epic and actually got them on stage at keynotes

02:06:35   Probably not gonna be on stage at future keynotes for a while

02:06:39   It's not that old gears award on Microsoft

02:06:44   But it is it even if you don't plan it on

02:06:49   if you don't have direct plans for launching your

02:06:51   in the works title for iOS the fact that it's a

02:06:55   possibility is certainly there right and

02:06:58   Platforms that really need to be stable and predictable, you know, and you can say what you want

02:07:06   And you know, that's a lot of what the predictability is

02:07:10   You mentioned hey there that's a real issue with the App Store

02:07:16   Guidelines is and it makes the platform

02:07:19   unreliable right like yes, I

02:07:23   Think this is so funny that

02:07:26   when hey

02:07:29   launched and Apple

02:07:32   Initially let the first version through and then the second version before they officially launched

02:07:37   they were like, oh you need to implement in-app purchasing this isn't in compliance and

02:07:44   Rather than sit there and stew quietly

02:07:47   Jason Fried and David Hahnemeyer Hanson collectively, you know went public with it in a very effective way

02:07:55   Right there. There isn't do anything quietly

02:07:58   No, he doesn't you know and there's such a good duo because there is sort of a it's not good cop bad cop

02:08:04   But like a loud cop quiet cop

02:08:06   dramatic and

02:08:10   But it was a very effective campaign and as so many people accused them of engineering the whole thing as a stunt for publicity

02:08:17   And you know and DHS in particular is like that's insane

02:08:22   How in the world would we possibly have predicted that you know, but all people saw was that oh you're getting a lot of publicity

02:08:30   Public sentiment is almost entirely on your side

02:08:33   Therefore this was all a publicity stunt. Whereas they're like, no we really just wanted to fit the ham app in the store

02:08:40   The launch wasn't the stunt there really the the litigation about the blockage was like they have a very prominent article on their website

02:08:46   That talks about the value of rage in in getting your opinion across online

02:08:52   and they are very effective at once something happens that they don't think is right and proper of

02:08:57   Marshalling that sort of internet rage in their direction to help them get what they want, right? And that's just good clean

02:09:04   Yes advocacy for yourself, you know

02:09:07   And it shows that however disproportionate the financial might of Apple versus the base camp company

02:09:13   LLC is in terms of righteous indignation and

02:09:17   Publicity you can fight them on equal grounds, right?

02:09:21   That's it's a fascinating story

02:09:23   but these these people who accused them of a stunt and

02:09:26   and their story at their their side of the argument is we thought hey was a lot like base camp and we've been doing this with

02:09:32   Base camp on iOS for 12 years

02:09:34   So we just and and our first 1.0 went through and that's all true

02:09:40   It's exactly what they developer who's not doing something outlandish should ever have to worry about whether their app gets on the store or not

02:09:46   Whereas what epic is done with fortnight literally is a publicity stunt. Yes. They had a publicity stunt

02:09:53   video ready to go and they

02:09:56   deliberately epic

02:09:59   Deliberately violated the clear rules of the store and they knew it

02:10:04   I mean they admit it nobody is in denial of it fortnight says oh, yeah

02:10:08   We we put a feature in our app for the App Store that completely violates one of the core rules

02:10:13   Not like an easy Apple and Google's App Store

02:10:16   Right a rule that everybody is aware of and talks about all the time not like oh you never knew about rule

02:10:22   29 D

02:10:24   Section F. Oh

02:10:26   I didn't know. Yeah. No, this is like, you know rule it might be rule 3.3

02:10:31   But it might as well be rule 1 which is that if you do online, you know

02:10:35   1's and 0 digital content transactions they go through Apple and you pay Apple thou shalt put no payment system before me, right?

02:10:43   exactly

02:10:45   but in terms of predictability that

02:10:48   What happened with hey gets to actual problems?

02:10:53   honest indie

02:10:56   Developers large and small have with the App Store is that it's not predictable and look

02:11:01   I think it ties in with Microsoft and the Xbox game pass is that I think they thought they were going to be able to work

02:11:08   This out by writing a check effectively

02:11:11   Let's just figure out what percentage you want and we'll agree to it and when Apple was like no

02:11:15   This is actually about salt, you know control of the platform going forward not money

02:11:19   It was unpredictable and that makes weird. That's a problem

02:11:24   No, it totally there's this weird thing inside Apple and I don't know why it exists this way where they would they prefer not to say

02:11:31   No to an app up front

02:11:32   Yeah

02:11:33   But when they find something they don't like they want to make an example out of a very public app immediately as a way of

02:11:37   Setting policy they don't have to write down and I think that I

02:11:42   think maybe that is a lot of legal legal ass covering or it's a way of

02:11:47   AC it as a way of maintaining flexibility, but I think it's absolutely detrimental to

02:11:52   To developer confidence in the platform and I really wish they wouldn't do that. It just

02:11:57   It takes their most ardent supporter and turns them into a disgruntled angry individual and it is just no reason for it, right?

02:12:05   I think in terms of sort of

02:12:07   Breaking free of some of the I don't know

02:12:10   What are they barnacles?

02:12:10   You know things that are stuck the way that the argument is sort of gotten rusty

02:12:14   And we're sort of making the same arguments over and over again

02:12:17   And if you really just want to let's break let's break this off snap this off and find a new perspective

02:12:23   Like one of the ways Apple could like let's rethink the App Store is how can we make this a lot more predictable?

02:12:30   now and

02:12:32   anticipating future trends

02:12:34   I think that the whole reader app category is

02:12:39   Unpredictable because it's it's it's clearly what they're just the plain terminology

02:12:45   Calling Netflix a reader app, you know, it's it just speaks to the fact that the rule is

02:12:50   Ambiguous in terms of what qualifies and what doesn't you know, and if you want to say games definitely don't qualify

02:12:56   Games are one of those things like pornography where there's a I know it when I see it, right?

02:13:01   It's you know, you can say games and people know what games are right bandersnatch is game like video

02:13:08   But everybody knows it's not a game. Yeah

02:13:13   So I I think that that unpredictability I don't think in terms of what chess moves

02:13:18   One side or the other may or may not have anticipated or predicted

02:13:21   I'm not entirely sure epic foresaw Apple saying we're going to sever your Apple developer agreement

02:13:28   Maybe they did maybe they didn't but this is the thing and like you pointed it out. This is what puts Unreal Engine at risk

02:13:34   Because it has nothing to do with iOS it's because they develop it using max so that it can run on

02:13:43   iOS

02:13:45   You know presumably, you know the PC development where it's bread and butter of the unreal target audience of games

02:13:52   Are it isn't done on a Mac?

02:13:53   But they need to be able to do the development on a Mac to keep it compiling

02:13:57   Even if it you don't even count the Mac as a target

02:14:00   it's

02:14:02   Although that's probably less relevant as time goes on and Apple and Mac's move to Apple silicon that the Mac will

02:14:08   As a byproduct of being more architecturally similar to iOS, but that's neither here nor there

02:14:13   But if they want it to run on iOS

02:14:16   they need to compile it on a Mac and if they need to compile it on a Mac they need an Apple developer license and

02:14:21   It's it, you know

02:14:24   Technically, yeah, they could just say well, you know Renee they could let you sideload it

02:14:30   I mean, yeah, they hate that whole idea or they could register a new Apple developer license

02:14:36   Agreement and it's somebody else's name, you know that you know the Renee Richie, you know personal thing

02:14:42   But that's that's actually against the rules

02:14:44   If you want to say we're sticking to rules and we're looking at these and we have lawyers involved the license agreement

02:14:49   Also says that if you're a company you can't play shenanigans by registering

02:14:54   developer lights

02:14:55   you know if they said they make a subsidiary and

02:14:58   License the engine to themselves in perpetuity and have a developer account for the subsidiary. There's all sorts of legal shenanigans, right?

02:15:04   There's all sorts of stuff they could do but in the meantime basically they put

02:15:08   Unreal Engine as a platform for targeting iOS at risk for a fight that has nothing to do with Unreal Engine specifically at all

02:15:16   Yeah

02:15:16   and that is not a good move as a platform vendor and

02:15:21   It should have been predictable because that is exactly what the other clause in the App Store thing says

02:15:25   I mean like maybe they would have thought that Apple wouldn't enforce it

02:15:28   But they had to know that it was a possibility because it is in that same agreement that they signed, right?

02:15:33   So what should Apple have done in response to fortnight doing this, right?

02:15:36   That's if we're gonna wrap up the show and and I think that there's a sentiment that I've seen from a lot of people and I

02:15:43   Think it's reasonable which is that Apple

02:15:45   threatening to pull epics entire developer license and therefore

02:15:49   Putting Unreal Engine at risk to is heavy-handed and uncalled for and a bullying tactic

02:15:59   I could preface this quickly by saying like there's a lot of things I think people look at as individuals and not as companies and we

02:16:04   Saw that like a week or so ago when Apple is suing this company that has a pear-shaped logo and everyone's like

02:16:09   Oh, look Apple's evil, but the law literally says if you don't defend trademarks you lose them

02:16:15   I mean, there's things that happen as a company that are morally, you know, I don't say reprehensible

02:16:19   But you know, they know sane person would do them

02:16:21   But because of the way laws are written and if they don't enforce the App Store agreement as written

02:16:27   I mean they obviously have discretion

02:16:29   but if they don't enforce it as written it becomes very hard to enforce it the next time when maybe it is and

02:16:34   Maybe they catch a new social network literally stealing everyone's data and they want to pull their license and the lawsuit says well

02:16:40   You didn't pull epics license. So why are you gonna pull ours? This is obviously not fair dealing

02:16:44   So you have to always look at these things in terms of companies not individuals, right?

02:16:48   And the pear-shaped license one is maybe a good example

02:16:52   Actually, it's maybe it's a bad example and that's what makes it a good example where the logo really isn't confused with the Apple logo

02:16:58   At all, right like the way I say it is it would be a problem if a company

02:17:02   Said to their designer. Okay, we want a pear logo make it look like the Apple logo

02:17:09   But a pear instead of an apple and there's different ways you can interpret that basic art direction

02:17:15   But however, it came out if they did a good job

02:17:17   You could say well, that's something Apple needs to sue to defend the logo we're talking about with this pear company is not that at all

02:17:23   it does not so

02:17:25   Looking at the two logos

02:17:28   I think most reasonable people including me would say Apple didn't need to go after this company

02:17:32   but you can see how somebody in Apple legal who's looking after their interests in their job and the company's interests would say

02:17:43   Anything even vaguely involved with computers and a piece of fruit and a leaf on top. We're gonna say you can't do it. I

02:17:49   Disagree, but it's not like out of left field, right? It's not like it's not even that like it's it's not like they're suing them

02:17:57   They're just filing an objection and the person who gets the objection will just say no you're out of your minds

02:18:01   But you did because they filed the objection, right?

02:18:03   Whereas with this with the the guidelines that's you know

02:18:08   You're you're way, you know that whoever filed that for Apple legal is way out on the edge of protecting their Apple logo trademark. Yeah

02:18:15   Apple's saying we're going to remove your we're gonna cut you off from the Apple developer program is

02:18:21   Again, it's not an obscure violation

02:18:24   It is a direct assault and the nature of it and if they want to be able to do that for other reasons

02:18:30   I think that they might have to do it here and if they didn't do it, like what else could they do?

02:18:34   What else could Apple do in the interim while this lawsuit is being fought and I will say I'm

02:18:40   by all accounts both sides there is no indication that epic needs to

02:18:47   Drop their lawsuit Apple isn't saying you have to drop your lawsuit or else we're not letting you

02:18:54   You were canceling your developer agreement

02:18:56   They're all Apple is saying that they have to do is submit a new version of fortnight that complies with the guidelines meaning takes out

02:19:02   Their payment processing and all's good

02:19:05   Meaning all's good. You can continue with your lawsuit. You can do Apple and be in the App Store

02:19:10   So it's they're not that spiteful, right?

02:19:13   What else could Apple do if they don't threaten to take the developer licensing agree away? I guess what they could do is just

02:19:20   Hit not just take fortnight out of the store, but make fortnight stop working on installed devices

02:19:29   Just fortnight instead of the license overall. I mean, yeah

02:19:34   But does that mean then that they take away, you know

02:19:37   That's I think where you're going is does that mean that in future cases with other companies where they really want to take away?

02:19:43   Their developer license agreement does it set a bad precedent where the company can say? Well the last time they just kicked the app out

02:19:50   Yeah, I mean precedent is everything that's why like like I'm not saying the pair thing wasn't ridiculous

02:19:55   It was but it's pro forma. It's like and I'm not saying this is a huge threat to the business, but it

02:20:01   Everything is based on precedent and if it says in the agreement, this is what happens 28 days after you do that

02:20:07   This is what happens 28 days after you do that

02:20:09   And if you start not doing those things as a company

02:20:11   You're setting a precedent that in who who knows what egregious case comes up next it gets litigated saying well your honor

02:20:18   They didn't do it in these three other cases. Why are they doing it now?

02:20:20   They're being punitive right and it gets to the nature of the word anti-competitive

02:20:24   Which is weird

02:20:26   Ben Thompson's been mentioning lately that the the lace the case with Qualcomm brings up the time the difference between

02:20:33   anti-competitive and hyper competitive which is interesting, but the thing about anti-competitive is that in a lot of sense

02:20:40   Whenever we bring up anti-competitive what you're really also talking about is just being competitive. You know anti-competitive behavior and

02:20:50   competitive behavior is often the same thing right and it's not really anti meaning the opposite like

02:20:56   Anti-competitive is sort of like socialist communist everybody, you know

02:21:01   You know everybody hold hands and share collectively and the common good for everybody, right?

02:21:07   Or your illegal monopoly like some cable companies are where you you give up some form of regulation and in exchange for owning a market

02:21:14   Right anti matter and matter just cancel each other out anti competition and competition aren't opposites really

02:21:20   And so what are you if you're saying that Apple shouldn't?

02:21:24   shouldn't yank or put the kill switch on fortnight and

02:21:29   Disable fortnight on all the phones that are out there and they shouldn't revoke their developers cert

02:21:34   Well, then what what should they do? There's nothing there is nothing left what they just sit and take it and let fortnight

02:21:39   completely flagrantly violate

02:21:43   the terms of the agreement

02:21:45   For and then when the next app does it what can they do then because they just they're not gonna do anything when force night

02:21:50   Did it so like every game like it look like the company that owns farm like Facebook owns

02:21:54   Farmville and the company that owns Candy Crush King, I think it is they will just switch to the same thing immediately

02:21:59   well

02:22:01   Would they I don't know because you know

02:22:04   Then the lawsuit gets settled and it's settled in Apple's favor and all of a sudden there's a reckoning for all of these

02:22:09   Yeah, I know I guess yeah, no a fair point

02:22:10   But I mean, it's like it's it's hard to have someone it's basically it's Occupy Wall Street for the App Store at that point

02:22:15   Yeah, but anybody who does want to take their chances the way epic is certainly be free game for it

02:22:20   So, I don't know. I don't think it's uncalled for for Apple to do it

02:22:24   I think it's actually just shows how reckless it was in the first place for epic to wage the battle this way

02:22:29   They certainly could have they could have pulled fortnight, right? They could have done that instead

02:22:33   They could have just said we're not gonna put fortnight on iOS devices until Apple changes their policy

02:22:37   And if you're upset about that, here's Apple's communication numbers, right? Well or

02:22:41   the the far less dramatic

02:22:44   alright, so they could have pulled it and then that disrupts all of the

02:22:49   customers the mutual customers of fortnight and iOS

02:22:54   Which again?

02:22:56   I don't want to lose them in your in my discussion of this right like Apple and epic and the courts can sort of

02:23:03   Omit them as best they can or use them as pawns to only make their side of the argument, but let's just face it

02:23:08   You know people who like playing fortnight on their devices should get to keep playing fortnight

02:23:13   And right now they are there get to keep playing fortnight and it is still hosted in the App Store

02:23:18   yeah, so if you

02:23:21   Reset your iPhone or get a new iPhone and need to redownload fortnight. It's there

02:23:25   I got it on my phone even though I never had it because my son had it and we have family sharing and so I could

02:23:31   Go to the App Store

02:23:34   purchased

02:23:35   Family member Jonas. Yeah and find fortnight and I got it

02:23:39   So it is still there include in it's the version that has the you know against the rules payment processing

02:23:46   That's to make the anti-competitive argument specifically with games because

02:23:53   You know people will say there's no choice but games are games. We were making that point earlier

02:23:59   You can play fortnight on Android you can play it on Xbox you can play it on PlayStation you can play it on switch

02:24:04   There are several markets available to to epic for selling fortnight

02:24:10   They don't and then one of the best ways to again

02:24:14   It does hurt the customers who want to play it specifically in iOS

02:24:16   But in a traditional market if you're not happy with the terms of one store

02:24:20   You go to the other stores and hopefully that's what Apple did with Verizon Verizon wasn't happy with their terms

02:24:25   They sold so many phones on AT&T Verizon came begging for an iPhone, right?

02:24:29   And again, that's competition, you know and again

02:24:33   I'll make the point I would go on the aside

02:24:36   there is this the sense that the Xbox game pass thing is anti-competitive on Apple's part because it is

02:24:44   Blocking Microsoft from doing this thing that Microsoft wants to provide and that a lot of iOS users want to use but in another sense

02:24:53   It's extremely competitive because now if you care about playing Xbox game pass

02:24:58   Games on your phone. There's a huge new competitive reason to buy an Android phone instead of an iPhone. So in a sense it's

02:25:05   competitive

02:25:07   Absolutely, but in terms of blaming me ultimately blaming epic for the putting unreal engine at risk and not blaming

02:25:14   Apple for saying that come August 28th. If you haven't fixed this we're gonna cancel sever your your developer account

02:25:21   They're the ones who decided to open this by flagrantly

02:25:27   violating the rules of the store with a Trojan horse

02:25:30   implementation of the feature the way that they could have done this and had the same lawsuit is

02:25:37   Submit the app on the up-and-up with that feature

02:25:41   Fully exposed have app store tap through and say whoa

02:25:46   This is against the rules. No, no way you I don't know what you were thinking

02:25:51   You cannot put your own payment in here as an alternative

02:25:54   It's rejected

02:25:56   file the lawsuit because the app was rejected and

02:26:00   There you go. You've got your lawsuit you

02:26:04   Submitted the app with the feature on the on its face so the Apple could see it

02:26:09   They rejected it

02:26:10   You can make your case publicly that this would have allowed them to pass 20% or 30% savings on to the you know users

02:26:17   and Apple would have no grounds to

02:26:22   Cancel their developer license agreement not only I don't think Apple would do it

02:26:28   They did I don't believe there'd be any grounds for them to do it according to the terms

02:26:32   It's all epics own doing they gave Apple the ability to do it. So I think that the people who think Apple is being a

02:26:38   Bully in this regard. Well, it's epic

02:26:42   Who's the one who started it by doing something that they knew would open the door to it?

02:26:47   And it's reckless reckless behavior as the platform

02:26:52   provider for Unreal Engine

02:26:54   Yeah, and I think that goes to a lot of the motivation behind this because I think it really was

02:26:58   Really well planned like that people have asked why they're not suing

02:27:01   Xbox or PlayStation or switch because again 30% is the industry standard and

02:27:06   You can say like Tim Sweeney will say it's because he believes that those platforms sell

02:27:12   Hardware at cost or a loss and also do better partnering deals with big studios

02:27:17   So they better earn their 30% and again, that's that's something that people can rightfully argue about

02:27:23   Also Sony owns 1.4 percent of epic 10 cent owns 40% of epic and 10 cent wants their own stores as well

02:27:30   Microsoft they made up famously and Nintendo licenses the Unreal Engine's they don't have a normal developer platform relationship with Nintendo

02:27:39   But beyond that, I think they know that under current US law and I don't know about the EU but under current US law

02:27:45   They would probably lose because there's no duty to deal you it's very hard to force a company

02:27:51   To to do business that they don't want to do so they would probably law lose a lawsuit under the current laws

02:27:57   But there is so much scrutiny, you know

02:28:00   Tim Cook and Sundar Pachai and everybody just testified in front of Congress and there is so much

02:28:06   momentum towards the regulation the breakup the the involvement in the tech industry that

02:28:13   If you wanted a story to slap down in front of Congress that would hurt Apple and probably help you

02:28:21   This is sort of like I wish I had a look at the end result and then reverse engineer how I get there and that

02:28:26   To me seems like what epic wants out of this is to change the game enough that they can become part of it

02:28:32   And I think from that lens this is a good strategy for them. I

02:28:35   Don't know. I'm not sure I think it is good and if in in broad terms

02:28:41   Are you saying that in terms of their battling this out in the court of public opinion? Yeah, I think also

02:28:46   Yeah, I think because I don't think they'd win a lawsuit

02:28:48   But I think that they that they're creating a huge controversy that plays into the idea that people who are technologically

02:28:55   Illiterate will eventually be able to regulate companies like Apple

02:28:59   Yeah, and I think that one of the things that sort of gets lost and I again

02:29:04   I don't want to teach a high school civics course, but you know

02:29:07   The judicial branch of the government is a lot less political than again

02:29:14   And it's very political but it's less political than the legislative branch who are literally elected politicians and

02:29:21   the court of public opinion

02:29:24   Doesn't hold any sway in a court of law, right?

02:29:28   Like if you don't have the law you got nothing to argue about when you do and you're arguing, you know this case legally

02:29:35   When you're arguing is no jury to nullify and these kind of courses

02:29:38   It's literally like a judge sitting there looking at you, right?

02:29:41   But when you're arguing before Congress the way things should be holds a lot of sway because what Congress can do is write laws

02:29:48   The way they should be right that you know, and again, it's we have a whole discussion that yeah

02:29:54   Well, there's certain judges have certain perspectives and they interpret laws in different ways. And yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's not you can't remove it

02:30:00   It's not absolute that Congress is completely political and the judicial branch is not but

02:30:05   the court of public opinion arguments definitely have more sway when

02:30:09   Legislators and regulators are involved not judges

02:30:13   Where do you think it's going I think I'm a little surprised it hasn't happened yet

02:30:19   but I expect I expect fortnight to have an update that removes the

02:30:24   Thing they'll say epic will say look what mean Apple the monopolist forced us to do and now everybody on iOS

02:30:32   Has to pay the higher prices for V bucks, which again aren't legal arguments at all

02:30:37   They're completely court of public opinion arguments, but they're good ones. You know, they work they certainly work for fortnight players

02:30:42   But that they'll do that and then for fortnight players who aren't paying attention

02:30:50   the only way they even knew about it is that they

02:30:53   Maybe they saw the video when they launched fortnight because I don't know if anybody else knows that but I did I found it amusing

02:30:58   that

02:30:59   1984 style video actually is like the startup video now when you launch fortnight

02:31:04   Yeah, they made it in game and they wanted to they wanted to weaponize the fortnight audience against Apple

02:31:11   Well, they should but they show it they even show it on all the other platforms

02:31:15   I didn't try it on the other I tried it on switch and I tried it on Android and you see it they had an

02:31:20   In-game debut for it as well. Yeah, it's it's in yeah, it's in game and on switch and Android an anti-apple message

02:31:27   It's almost like they have monopoly control over the fortnight market. I found it amusing

02:31:32   I don't know where it's going to end up. I don't know but I do think I the other point

02:31:39   I'll point out though is I think that

02:31:41   Okay, they they picked their targets

02:31:43   They picked Google and Apple and I think they are juicier public court of public opinion targets

02:31:48   but if they were to win and

02:31:50   You never know how these things will turn out in court right look at Qualcomm which had like a terrible, you know

02:31:56   You know, you're an anti-competitive monopolist who broke the law

02:31:59   They appealed and the appeal was like three to zero who said no. Nope. That's all wrong, right?

02:32:04   So, you know, I don't know we skipping the argument

02:32:07   One of the fascinating things is those Qualcomm lawyers who almost always fight against antitrust are now fighting for it

02:32:12   They're the same lawyers that epic hired to fight for it for them if this goes to a judge

02:32:17   You don't know how it's going to turn out

02:32:19   But if it turns out more in epics favor than apples

02:32:24   I I would be shocked if they don't epic doesn't turn around and then use it against

02:32:30   Xbox PlayStation and Nintendo

02:32:32   Not maybe not in a quite the same way because as you mentioned they have partnerships with those companies

02:32:38   But it gives you know, I think in terms of getting trying to get the epic play store on those platforms

02:32:45   They're definitely going to use it if they win some kind of everything came up Milhouse epic judgment

02:32:51   Why wouldn't they write they can say screw our previous arrangement screw your 1.4 percent ownership of our company

02:32:57   We want the epic store on PlayStation 5 and you have to do it because here's the here's the law is our president

02:33:03   Here's our president was interesting to me is

02:33:05   I did a community poll on my youtube channel because I wanted five options and Twitter only allows

02:33:10   For four because I wanted like I think apples right? I think epics, right? I think they both have points figured out

02:33:16   I think they're both dumb just stop it. And also honestly, I have way bigger problems in 2020 than this

02:33:21   And people would assume that my audience is super pro Apple but with the Microsoft

02:33:26   Xbox streaming some people did say, you know, it's Apple Store

02:33:30   They can do what they want, but almost everybody thought that Apple was being stupid and wrong about it

02:33:33   Like it wasn't even close

02:33:35   Nobody's affinity for Apple stopped them from thinking that it wasn't dumb for Apple to block Xbox streaming

02:33:40   But here like 40 41 percent of people are on Apple side 18 on epics

02:33:44   17 think that they're both right third 3 percent think they're both wrong and

02:33:49   20% think they're way bigger problems in the world right now

02:33:51   So it's like it's one of those things where I think epic had a good initial strategy

02:33:56   But they made some mistakes along the way that took away the momentum

02:33:59   Like I think the Google lawsuit was one of those mistakes and just them tweeting so much

02:34:04   I think was one of or just being so overly communicative. It's like a friend of mine Devon who runs a legal Eagle Channel

02:34:10   He just keeps saying like stop talking, you know, just don't talk. That's why you have a lawyer and they really I think should stop talking

02:34:17   But I think your assessment is is spot-on

02:34:19   The best thing they could do right now is to put the game back say that Apple forced them to do it

02:34:23   Gin up more negative sentiment against Apple try to litigate it in the courts where they may not win probably won't win

02:34:30   but then go full-on at Congress and the EU because

02:34:34   The EU and Congress have both shown a massive under misunderstanding of how tech works

02:34:40   right and I bring this up as an example, but you look at the

02:34:44   Browser ballot from Microsoft famously they wanted to help out opera and Slepnir and these other browsers

02:34:49   Which now we have like two and a half two and a fork rendering engines left

02:34:54   it's just these decimated the browser industry and

02:34:57   I don't think it'll do better for the app industry

02:35:00   I think we'll get results that all of us look on thinking what why did we let this happen instead of doing anything?

02:35:05   We can to stop it. Do you think that it do you think it's interesting?

02:35:09   To to look at that decision in the the the conquest of the browser market by

02:35:14   Chrome and the blink engine

02:35:17   Do you think without that if Microsoft were as free as ever or as free as Apple is with iOS to have their?

02:35:25   default engine in the default browser that

02:35:30   That

02:35:33   Edge would still be using them. You know, I'm not so sure that that would have stopped Chrome's

02:35:38   Rampage over Windows as the default browser

02:35:40   No, but I don't think it helped opera and it could help like I don't think it achieved what they want

02:35:45   It's the same way like the e-book case where now Amazon has 83% of the e-book market

02:35:49   I don't think that helps necessarily it was it was a huge distraction that didn't actually help the

02:35:53   Fundamental notion that it we'd in theory would be a lot better with a healthy market of multiple

02:35:59   Rendering engines for the web and no matter what we seem to do or try

02:36:06   We get down to look at Firefox these last couple weeks and geckos not I mean, who knows right?

02:36:11   Yeah, and the last thing just one thing I wanted to add to is that I really do mean that that epic is not the

02:36:17   Batman that we want or need because like if you just I

02:36:20   Would have more confidence in epic if you if they ran their store better if they ran their store the way they wanted Apple to

02:36:26   There are still ongoing lawsuits including Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

02:36:31   Over epic take because epic said that they want to they want to get rid of the intermediation they want to let game creators sell

02:36:38   Directly to other gamers they want to make sure that the people who do the work get the money

02:36:41   but at the same time they're famously being sued for taking other people's stuff and

02:36:46   Selling it as like emotes and other things in the epic store and giving the creators zero money

02:36:51   They are their behavior is more egregious than Apple in many of these circumstances well

02:36:57   it well and it ties into with the Xbox game pass where there's the mature way to do it in the immature way and

02:37:03   Yes, sneaking this thing in as a Trojan horse is immature

02:37:07   It's good for me and you because it's a lot more fun to comment about

02:37:11   You know podcaster and a youtuber and a writer

02:37:15   But it is clearly on its face a lot more childish behavior in terms of Xbox

02:37:22   you know, it's not like Xbox had a halo game for iOS and then it got approved and then

02:37:28   through an over-the-air update to the app turned the halo game into Microsoft game pass and there's a hundred games inside and

02:37:35   What are you gonna do now Apple right which would have been exactly analogous, you know, it's I think

02:37:40   Yeah, no and every like Netflix. I wasn't aware of this until I saw it yesterday

02:37:45   but Netflix is being scrutinized because of the way that they

02:37:48   People are actually saying that Netflix has a monopoly over Netflix content and aren't on

02:37:52   Don't deal well with other creators and demand all the rights and and the same arguments are going on there

02:37:58   We and I think there's just an upsell up swell of independence and creator ownership

02:38:03   That is surging and I just want to be real clear that epic does not represent any of that

02:38:08   So like I want the app store to change. I think the app store has to change

02:38:12   I think there's a whole conversation about what what the app stores can do to be better for indie developers

02:38:17   This isn't that at all. Yeah. Yeah, it's just some it's some very interesting striking and very, you know

02:38:25   similarities because Xbox and

02:38:27   Fortnight are all about games and the hay thing is interesting because it's not even Spotify where they have to pay artists

02:38:32   Like it's not like epic is literally refusing to pay the people whose money they're making me

02:38:36   It's an argument over who gets to keep all of the profits from casino like businesses. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Renee

02:38:43   That's that call it a wrap. I mean, we've got plenty more to go an episode short episode. It's short year

02:38:50   Everybody can of course find your fine work at YouTube

02:38:56   YouTube.com slash Renee Ritchie, right? Yes the channel you've got you broke a

02:39:02   What'd you break on the subscribers? I know you hundred thousand hundred thousand subscribers. We can make it a hundred and one thousand if everybody here

02:39:11   Subscribes you're doing great work there. I don't know how the hell you make so many videos a week

02:39:15   I say it every time you're on but keep it up. You're doing good work

02:39:18   And of course on Twitter same handle Renee Ritchie

02:39:22   Keep up with you there

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02:39:35   Talk to you soon Renee. Thank you, John

02:39:39   [ Silence ]