The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► What an amazing technology indoor plumbing is.

00:00:03 ◼   ► You're a Stephen Johnson fan, right?

00:00:05 ◼   ► Yes.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Yeah, so you know his book Ghost Map from several years ago, like a decade ago, 2006.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It was about the fellow who basically invented epidemiology.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Yes.

00:00:17 ◼   ► And, but it also has a really long discussion about how before, I mean, there was indoor

00:00:24 ◼   ► plumbing then.

00:00:25 ◼   ► This is actually when we had generally had indoor plumbing in cities.

00:00:28 ◼   ► how, what happened to all the effluvia? Where did it go? There were all these specialized

00:00:33 ◼   ► professions to deal with, like, night soil and other kinds. So, there were various products

00:00:39 ◼   ► and various people whose professions were to handle the products of society. And it's

00:00:46 ◼   ► really incredible, like, the book is great because it's about sort of how empirical

00:00:51 ◼   ► science becomes a thing that we then start to rely on and it changes the nature of medicine

00:00:54 ◼   ► and health, but it's also like, wow, there were a lot of people employed dealing with

00:00:58 ◼   ► shit in London. I mean, you had to. You had to be.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Well, it's—if you think about it, it's not just—I first thought it often just seems

00:01:07 ◼   ► like, wow, that would be inconvenient.

00:01:09 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:01:10 ◼   ► But the volume!

00:01:12 ◼   ► Right, that it's—

00:01:13 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:01:14 ◼   ► And the smells, right? Like, it's like once a year or so, I end up having to go in like

00:01:20 ◼   ► a porta potty for some reason or another, you know, I'm at some sort of event where

00:01:25 ◼   ► you've got to go in a porta potty. And porta potty technology, I think has advanced to

00:01:30 ◼   ► a significant degree where where there's that blue stuff that's in the hole that I think

00:01:36 ◼   ► does take care of an awful lot of the unpleasant odors of just releasing your your waste into

00:01:45 ◼   ► all, literally just a big bucket.

00:01:47 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:01:48 ◼   ► Pete: A little cabin, camping recently, and experienced more sort of "feel the tree"

00:01:56 ◼   ► style.

00:01:57 ◼   ► It's very different.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Jared: It always occurs to me, though, that that was what going to the bathroom was like

00:02:01 ◼   ► every single time you went to the bathroom.

00:02:03 ◼   ► Pete; Oh yeah, I try to think, like, when we think about the past, we think about inconveniences

00:02:07 ◼   ► and we think about horses and muddy streets and all that.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Like, were you watching Westworld just finish up?

00:02:14 ◼   ► I have watched Westworld.

00:02:16 ◼   ► The series is extraordinary, I think. The finale is great. I really liked it. We have

00:02:22 ◼   ► an episode coming out on the incomparable about the whole, with all full spoilers. But,

00:02:27 ◼   ► you know, that's the vision of the West where it's really neat and clean. So, the

00:02:29 ◼   ► people are shooting each other and there's fornication and so forth, but there is no

00:02:34 ◼   ► horse manure on the streets of Westworld because it's cleaned up. And I've often thought

00:02:37 ◼   ► the thing that we can't replicate when we think about the past is the smell and the

00:02:43 ◼   ► constant mess. Like, everything was dirty and everything smelled until like 1910 or 1890 or

00:02:49 ◼   ► something like that. And then it started to improve gradually. And then by the 1930s, cities

00:02:56 ◼   ► smelled a lot less and by the 50s, it was sort of like if things smelled, something was terribly,

00:03:00 ◼   ► terribly wrong.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Pete: Right. I've heard, maybe it was even in the Steven Johnson book. But, you know, and it makes

00:03:07 ◼   ► sense. But like, in like the late at the turn of the last century, the streets of major cities like

00:03:14 ◼   ► New York and Philadelphia and London were just it ever just curb to curb horseshit. It was just the

00:03:22 ◼   ► streets were just paved with a layer of horseshit because there was no way to keep up with.

00:03:26 ◼   ► Pete: Yeah. Sean, is this a metaphor for this year?

00:03:29 ◼   ► Pete: It could be.

00:03:30 ◼   ► Pete; I sort of feel like that's what we're, we're talking about one thing, but we need another.

00:03:33 ◼   ► But I did think that Westworld I I thought that it was weird that they never addressed the the sort of

00:03:40 ◼   ► The roughing it aspects of I mean this is not a spoiler

00:03:46 ◼   ► The basic concept of the show is not a spoiler that it's at some point in the future

00:03:50 ◼   ► there's like a theme park where people go and

00:03:52 ◼   ► For a lot of money you get to pretend to live in the Old West for a couple of days

00:03:57 ◼   ► And there's action and adventure that you can take part in

00:04:02 ◼   ► But, yeah, nobody mentions that, you know, you gotta go shit in an outhouse.

00:04:07 ◼   ► Pete: Yeah, it's pretty, it's a very, it's clean. I mean, there's a lot of, there's

00:04:12 ◼   ► some, a lot of certain bodily fluids, mostly blood, but there's no other kinds of bodily

00:04:16 ◼   ► fluids. You know, there's a sensibility thing, like, there's things you can't, there's

00:04:20 ◼   ► things you can't do and talk about, even on HBO, apparently, which is good. But yeah,

00:04:25 ◼   ► it was kind of, it was supposed to be a theme park, so for all we know, Hidden in the Bushes

00:04:29 ◼   ► were like, you know, little potties that broke the spirit. But I think, yeah, I think that's

00:04:36 ◼   ► the thing that people don't get—people who camp know about this, of course, because

00:04:39 ◼   ► they deal with it. You go out in the woods, you're a hunter, or you like to go out and

00:04:42 ◼   ► camp, and you're in areas that have no facilities at all, you know. But most of us do not have

00:04:47 ◼   ► to deal with the basic human realities that people did for billions of years, or hundreds

00:04:51 ◼   ► of millions of years, I should say.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Right. And I mean, it's getting cold in Philadelphia. It's very cold today. I mean,

00:04:59 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure how cold, but it certainly felt cold when I was outside. And it's like,

00:05:03 ◼   ► imagine, I had to go outside every time to take a leak.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Oh, man. We had an inch or two of snow in Seattle, which is a snowpocalypse for us.

00:05:11 ◼   ► So, they shut down—no, I'm kidding. It mostly melted, but they started the schools two hours

00:05:16 ◼   ► late because the bus routes were very steep hills. So, whenever it snows, they can't

00:05:22 ◼   ► really send the buses up, they run snow routes, and it's sort of a safety for that rather than,

00:05:27 ◼   ► like, you know, the streets are impassable. So, they don't want to have—I think bus

00:05:31 ◼   ► plunge is not a headline you want to see. It's really bad.

00:05:35 ◼   ► Pete: Did you ever watch Deadwood?

00:05:38 ◼   ► Pete; I didn't! I heard it was fantastic. I think it came out when I had Small Children,

00:05:43 ◼   ► so I never really got, oh, and you had to have, that was on HBO, wasn't it?

00:05:46 ◼   ► Pete; Yeah, it was on HBO. From 2004 to 2006.

00:05:48 ◼   ► I missed it. I bought HBO Now where I'm subscribing specifically to watch

00:05:52 ◼   ► Westworld. So in those days I would have had to pay the cable thing.

00:05:56 ◼   ► You can probably get Deadwood then, right? I think that the HBO has—keeps most of their old shows in

00:06:01 ◼   ► there. You have to know this going—I thought it was a marvelous show. I really loved it. I was a

00:06:09 ◼   ► big fan. It was created by a guy named David Milch who was, I guess—it was like before people called

00:06:15 ◼   ► called Showrunner Showrunners, but he was the guy behind NYPD Blue, which was back in

00:06:21 ◼   ► the 90s, probably the first serious TV show that I ever really fell in love with. And

00:06:27 ◼   ► it was weird because it was a network show and I guess it was fairly cheap to produce

00:06:31 ◼   ► and it went on forever and ever, long past when it was, and I kept watching because I

00:06:35 ◼   ► liked it enough, but it sort of, NYPD Blue sort of ended with a whisper because it just

00:06:41 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, that was the worst thing.

00:06:43 ◼   ► I mean, it was on for like ten years or something like that, but it was a great show.

00:06:48 ◼   ► And still had, you know, there was enough good in the characters to, you know, make...

00:06:53 ◼   ► There were a couple of episodes a season that were always good, but it was kind of hard.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And it was on ABC, and those ABC shows had to do like 22 shows a year, which is too much.

00:07:04 ◼   ► Like, part of the secret of the modern resonance or renaissance in, like, movie-quality TV

00:07:11 ◼   ► shows is that they only do, like, 10 episodes at a time, and sometimes not even once a year.

00:07:17 ◼   ► It might take 18 months to get the next 10 episodes out.

00:07:20 ◼   ► There's a sort of quality instead of quantity aspect to these HBOs and Netflix.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Pete: Oh yeah, season two of Westworld is coming out in 2018.

00:07:29 ◼   ► But, although I think, isn't there a little sequential thing?

00:07:32 ◼   ► Like, they sort of, they play it a little by ear.

00:07:34 ◼   ► I don't know when they got the renewal request, but I believe Westworld has been, I think,

00:07:38 ◼   ► one of the most popular shows. I mean, I'm sure Games of Thrones swamps it, but they,

00:07:43 ◼   ► I think they are okay at HBO. They're very good about funding things with no strings

00:07:48 ◼   ► attached, I've heard. I keep reading about how they're such a, they're an amazing organization

00:07:52 ◼   ► by just saying, they don't throw money at something, but they trust, they trust people,

00:07:57 ◼   ► right? But they, I don't think they gave them the dollars for season two or really

00:08:02 ◼   ► fully committed until it was underway and the showrunners, Nolan and Joy, are saying,

00:08:06 ◼   ► "We need time to do this right." They had to stop production twice to do some retooling. I think

00:08:11 ◼   ► once was kind of tool up and the other was to sort of rejigger because they realized they'd gotten

00:08:15 ◼   ► some mechanics wrong and they wanted to fix those, which is admirable. And they had the freedom to do

00:08:20 ◼   ► that, which is incredible. And then it rolled out.

00:08:22 ◼   ► Pete: Narrative mechanics?

00:08:23 ◼   ► Pete; That's right.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Pete; What did you mean by mechanics?

00:08:25 ◼   ► Pete; Oh, oh, I think, oh, world mechanics. Apparently they built, they built the world. I

00:08:29 ◼   ► I mean, it's really clear watching the whole season that they really understood what it

00:08:34 ◼   ► was about.

00:08:35 ◼   ► They had an arc, they had a circle, they had, there are time bombs in episode one that pay

00:08:40 ◼   ► off in ten and aren't referred to in the interim.

00:08:42 ◼   ► So, I trust them having watched it, but I think they had the freedom to go back and

00:08:46 ◼   ► say, you know, we thought the world was going to work.

00:08:48 ◼   ► I mean, this is what they said, it's something along the lines of, we thought this is how

00:08:51 ◼   ► the world worked and then we realized that changed, but in episodes, I think it was one

00:08:56 ◼   ► to three, maybe it was a little even more, they had elements that were now wrong inside

00:09:01 ◼   ► their ecosystem. So, they reshot and fixed them, so they were consistent. And I'm thinking,

00:09:06 ◼   ► how wonderful they did that, had the time to do it, that that's the conscientiousness

00:09:10 ◼   ► they had. What an incredible thing. And I'm sure the show benefited from it, because otherwise,

00:09:14 ◼   ► especially with the level of attention it got. Can you imagine by episode five, people

00:09:18 ◼   ► were like, "No, well, excuse me, but in episode three, they bled from the left." And

00:09:22 ◼   ► we know that's not true in Westworld.

00:09:23 ◼   ► Yeah. I'm actually... anyway, Wes, the thing about Deadwood, to go back one digression,

00:09:31 ◼   ► was that Deadwood wound up getting cancelled before, and they didn't even have time to

00:09:38 ◼   ► give it a proper final episode.

00:09:39 ◼   ► Oh no!

00:09:40 ◼   ► So it just sort of ends. So I want to warn anybody before they get into it that it's

00:09:47 ◼   ► a very dissatisfying ending. It's like you don't go into it looking for any kind of complete

00:09:53 ◼   ► loop on any of the characters or anything. You just kind of have to take it for what it is.

00:09:57 ◼   ► But anyway, Deadwood was a Western, took place based on real people, actually,

00:10:02 ◼   ► in Deadwood, South Dakota. And it was probably the grittiest Western I've ever seen,

00:10:09 ◼   ► where there was some shit on the streets, you know? And they showed people, you know,

00:10:16 ◼   ► urinating out in the middle of the street and stuff like that.

00:10:18 ◼   ► And a Baroque swearing, I heard. I heard just endless, incredible, eloquent, obscenity.

00:10:24 ◼   ► Yeah. It's probably the greatest Al Swearengen. He's based on a real character,

00:10:32 ◼   ► a real person. But it was—

00:10:34 ◼   ► That's great.

00:10:35 ◼   ► It was the filthiest mouth I've ever heard. It was poetry.

00:10:38 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:10:45 ◼   ► So, I guess—I don't want to spoil Westwood, you can't really talk details about it.

00:10:50 ◼   ► But—

00:10:50 ◼   ► Pete: Generally, I think.

00:10:52 ◼   ► John: I thought it was, I really enjoyed it a lot, and I'm actually up to episode,

00:10:57 ◼   ► there's 10 episodes in a season, I'm actually up to episode three rewatching it.

00:11:02 ◼   ► Pete; Oh, that's good. I haven't gone back, I've watched some episodes twice when they came out,

00:11:07 ◼   ► and I haven't rewatched the whole thing. Kelly Guimont and Don Melton have a podcast, actually,

00:11:15 ◼   ► called, was it Hello from the Uncanny Valley? It's now on the Incomparable Network. But they've done,

00:11:20 ◼   ► they did episodes, they started a little late, they did a bunch of episodes about the show,

00:11:24 ◼   ► and now they're going to rewatch and do more episodes about it, because we've got a whole

00:11:28 ◼   ► year to kill, so they'll be doing more. But—

00:11:30 ◼   ► It's one of those things like the usual suspects, where when you rewatch it and you know

00:11:35 ◼   ► future plot twists, and then you watch, and you're like, "Oh, they totally set that up!"

00:11:42 ◼   ► There's so many moments like that in the first few episodes that play completely differently.

00:11:46 ◼   ► Just throw away lines and it's all of a sudden—the first time watching it, you didn't even notice

00:11:52 ◼   ► the line of dialogue, but then the second time, it gives you chills.

00:11:56 ◼   ► It's like, "Whoa, that's creepy," because you know things that you didn't know then.

00:12:00 ◼   ► It's that layering.

00:12:01 ◼   ► It's like, I think you can tell when something—this is always my thing.

00:12:05 ◼   ► I actually feel this way about software, too—is you can tell when stuff is rich and deep,

00:12:09 ◼   ► when people go back.

00:12:10 ◼   ► I mean, it works in literature, it works in filmed entertainment, it works in software.

00:12:16 ◼   ► There's the discovery and there's the richness.

00:12:18 ◼   ► So, you go and you look at something and you find out that what you thought was a certain

00:12:21 ◼   ► depth is deeper and deeper because they went, they layered, they went back around and around

00:12:25 ◼   ► and around.

00:12:26 ◼   ► And you know, you could overwork stuff too, like a bad, you know, a bad dough when you're

00:12:30 ◼   ► baking, but if it's done right, the richness kind of like, comes up from the bottom and

00:12:35 ◼   ► the more you pay attention, the richer it becomes.

00:12:38 ◼   ► Pete: Do you think you would like to, like, if you were in that future, would you like to go

00:12:42 ◼   ► on vacation to Westworld?

00:12:44 ◼   ► Pete: That's a great question because, right, this is the, you know, are you William or are you,

00:12:48 ◼   ► I don't want to give any spoilers away, are you another character in the show? Other characters,

00:12:53 ◼   ► like, I don't know that I would because I think this is the, I think people have different amounts

00:12:58 ◼   ► of dopamine in their brain, right? There's different ways of expressing dopamine and

00:13:01 ◼   ► other chemicals that give us happiness and there's people who get great joy in their life

00:13:07 ◼   ► out of, like, doing ice cliff climbing, right? And I don't need that. I have this kind of natural brain chemistry

00:13:14 ◼   ► I'm very fortunate to have where I think I am not far off the—when I have a success in my life

00:13:20 ◼   ► or I'm doing something that I really enjoy doing and I'm feeling very good about my performance doing it,

00:13:24 ◼   ► I think I achieved maybe 90% of ice cliff climbing. I don't really need that extra 10%.

00:13:30 ◼   ► Excuse me. And some people—it's not even thrill-seekers.

00:13:33 ◼   ► It's more like a way to achieve a certain state of like, advanced happiness requires

00:13:38 ◼   ► doing something extreme.

00:13:39 ◼   ► And I think Westworld is that, it's a great representation of that, because, you know,

00:13:44 ◼   ► right now, that used to be something like, you know, just to say, it's like people

00:13:47 ◼   ► go to Thailand, or they go to other places where there was a, you know, Demimonde, or

00:13:52 ◼   ► really off-the-grid kind of quality, and they can pay for anything they want.

00:13:55 ◼   ► They can do things, they might be able to harm other people, like go do bare-knuckle

00:14:00 ◼   ► fighting and worse.

00:14:02 ◼   ► Westworld is kind of an encapsulation. It's like a cleaned up version of it where, you

00:14:06 ◼   ► know, it's not giving anything away to say that there are robots called hosts who look

00:14:10 ◼   ► very, very human. They're Android, they're indistinguishable, essentially, and you can

00:14:14 ◼   ► do stuff to Android, so it doesn't count, right? You're in this other place, it's,

00:14:17 ◼   ► you know, what happens in Westworld stays in Westworld, and I don't think I have that

00:14:21 ◼   ► desire to—I like the idea of being able to step outside myself into a different time.

00:14:25 ◼   ► If I was going to explore, like, something like Colonial Williamsburg that was Westworld

00:14:30 ◼   ► quality and are part of the story, that sounds interesting, but I don't really have the

00:14:34 ◼   ► desire to leap into a less controlled environment. There's actually a series of books called,

00:14:40 ◼   ► it starts with The Many Colored Land by Mary, or was it LeMay? I'm blanking on the name,

00:14:47 ◼   ► I'll see if I'm wrong. But it's a future where, again, this isn't a spoiler because

00:14:52 ◼   ► it's explained in the first few pages, it's a future beyond ours in which things are much

00:14:58 ◼   ► more advanced and totally civilized, and there's a small galactic community of different species

00:15:03 ◼   ► that interact very well, and it's very boring and there's no risk, and people are definitely

00:15:09 ◼   ► boring. And someone discovers a tiny portal to the past. It's a one-way portal, takes

00:15:13 ◼   ► you six million years into the Pliocene, I think, and the idea is that when you walk

00:15:17 ◼   ► through it, you'll never come back. There's no way to return. So, a lot of people, they

00:15:20 ◼   ► actually, governments try to repress it, then they set it up as kind of an exile thing.

00:15:24 ◼   ► who really want a totally uncontrolled experience, they're not allowed to take technology back,

00:15:29 ◼   ► just their own knowledge, and they go there, and it's actually a really beautiful exploration

00:15:33 ◼   ► of that same kind of thing. Like, Westworld is that. Like, all right, I want to go some

00:15:36 ◼   ► place where the normal rules don't apply, but there are no consequences. Oh, Julian

00:15:42 ◼   ► May, I'm sorry, is her name. Would you go to Westworld is my question. Do you want a

00:15:48 ◼   ► Westworld experience?

00:15:49 ◼   ► I it's a very close call for me. I

00:15:52 ◼   ► Would note no joking I

00:15:57 ◼   ► I have no desire to have a sexual intercourse with an Android no matter how

00:16:05 ◼   ► Realistic for the same reason that

00:16:10 ◼   ► Because if they're not super realistic, it's gross and if they're indistinguishable from humans

00:16:15 ◼   ► it's indistinguishable from cheating on your wife.

00:16:18 ◼   ► - Exactly, right. - I don't, I, you know.

00:16:21 ◼   ► So, going back to sex with robot hookers,

00:16:25 ◼   ► no, I probably-- - Robot hooker, coming through.

00:16:27 ◼   ► - Right, but they're very nice,

00:16:29 ◼   ► so I might chat them up at the bar,

00:16:31 ◼   ► because they're all very good talkers.

00:16:34 ◼   ► I would enjoy having a drink with Maeve.

00:16:36 ◼   ► But that part, now--

00:16:39 ◼   ► - You know, here's a secret I've read

00:16:41 ◼   ► by reading accounts of sex workers.

00:16:43 ◼   ► Sex workers say they spend a lot of time

00:16:45 ◼   ► talk to their clients. There are some sex workers that say most of the regulars, they

00:16:50 ◼   ► don't actually have any form of sexual contact with them. They just need somebody they can

00:16:54 ◼   ► pay to talk to and they don't want to go to a therapist and they have a long-term relationship

00:16:57 ◼   ► where that's the case. So, that would be totally within the scope, I think, of the

00:17:02 ◼   ► Westworld design.

00:17:03 ◼   ► So, I just want to go and talk to an intelligent robot about whatever with no holds barred.

00:17:06 ◼   ► Pete: Right. And I, would I like to go back and have like an adventure where I go out

00:17:14 ◼   ► with a crew and try to catch a bandit and shoot him dead,

00:17:18 ◼   ► knowing that if I get shot, it's more like getting

00:17:20 ◼   ► hit by a paintball type thing.

00:17:24 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:17:25 ◼   ► I think when I was younger, definitely.

00:17:27 ◼   ► Because I was never serious about it,

00:17:30 ◼   ► but I've played paintball a couple of times

00:17:31 ◼   ► and had fun doing it.

00:17:34 ◼   ► I don't know that at age 43.

00:17:37 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:17:39 ◼   ► My time for stuff like that is maybe over.

00:17:42 ◼   ► Skylighting and Westworld.

00:17:44 ◼   ► But it also seems like there's other people there who are just sort of exploring, right?

00:17:49 ◼   ► Remember the family that—there was a black family with a small child who met Dolores down by the

00:17:57 ◼   ► river one time. So it seems like there are people who go there not for any kind of debauchery,

00:18:03 ◼   ► but just, you know, like a family vacation, like, "Let's go," right? I do think—I think that it's

00:18:08 ◼   ► It's a very thoughtful show.

00:18:11 ◼   ► There were-- I regretted it to some degree,

00:18:15 ◼   ► where I started reading the wrap-up shows that go into detail

00:18:20 ◼   ► and people taking screen captures.

00:18:23 ◼   ► There was one point where they have these iPad-like devices, which

00:18:26 ◼   ► I think were pretty well done.

00:18:28 ◼   ► They're very thin, but not quite see-through.

00:18:31 ◼   ► But they also are like tri-folds, like a tri-fold wallet.

00:18:35 ◼   ► So they kind of fold up.

00:18:37 ◼   ► they fold up to be like a, maybe like an iPhone Plus type thing,

00:18:42 ◼   ► and then you can unfold it twice and get more of an iPad style thing.

00:18:47 ◼   ► And somebody took a screen capture at one point of one of them

00:18:50 ◼   ► that seemed to say that the show takes place in the 2150s or 2015

00:18:57 ◼   ► or something.

00:18:58 ◼   ► Oh, I wasn't paying attention to that.

00:18:59 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:19:00 ◼   ► Or 2050?

00:19:01 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:19:02 ◼   ► 2050 sounds more reasonable because--

00:19:05 ◼   ► well, I don't know.

00:19:06 ◼   ► - No, no, no, but it's 2050.

00:19:07 ◼   ► 'Cause you're looking at what the culture is

00:19:09 ◼   ► of the employees, but the employees are really sequestered

00:19:12 ◼   ► at the park, they seemingly all live there,

00:19:14 ◼   ► or that's where they, you know,

00:19:15 ◼   ► they don't seem to go anywhere else.

00:19:17 ◼   ► - Right, I think that, I don't know

00:19:18 ◼   ► if the screenshot really indicates, I don't know.

00:19:21 ◼   ► I think they do pay attention to details,

00:19:22 ◼   ► who knows if that's right.

00:19:23 ◼   ► But I think gut feeling-wise, that's when the show,

00:19:25 ◼   ► it clearly isn't like super far in the future,

00:19:28 ◼   ► but it's clearly significantly beyond where we are.

00:19:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I like the computers.

00:19:35 ◼   ► I like the presentation of technology in it, and oh, you know, the thing that I think is

00:19:39 ◼   ► the best telling detail they got right is the way Anthony Hopkins controls Androids.

00:19:46 ◼   ► Did you love that? That it's subtle? That he does one finger or he just says, "That's

00:19:52 ◼   ► enough now." And he just say it in a normal tone of voice. It's like a Siri thing. He

00:19:55 ◼   ► doesn't have to say, "Android 75, halt action and proceed to program 5B," which

00:20:00 ◼   ► is what I feel like everything in the 1970s would have been.

00:20:03 ◼   ► I saw a funny cartoon on Twitter the other day where somebody was talking to somebody

00:20:09 ◼   ► else and they didn't like where the person was going and they just said, "analysis."

00:20:13 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:20:14 ◼   ► Oh, man. Shannon Woodward, who is one of the cast members of the show, who I follow on

00:20:19 ◼   ► Twitter, and without giving any spoilers, one of the interesting things in the show

00:20:25 ◼   ► is, you get to the end of season one and you're like, "Whatever happened to—did they really?"

00:20:30 ◼   ► So there's people we don't know who has contracts for season two, but there are clearly things

00:20:34 ◼   ► planted that make it clear. And if you go, there's a Westworld, a site for Delos, the

00:20:38 ◼   ► company that apparently owns Westworld. And there's details being revealed. Like, they

00:20:42 ◼   ► must have a one-year-plus social media, like, marketing plan, because they are already,

00:20:48 ◼   ► like, leaking stuff, and you have to go through. It's like a little online adventure stuff.

00:20:52 ◼   ► So Shannon Woodward posted this very funny thing. She plays Elsie in the show. She's

00:20:56 ◼   ► one of the behavioral technicians, works directly for—

00:20:59 ◼   ► One of my favorite characters.

00:21:01 ◼   ► Yeah, she's great. She's great. And, you know, again, no spoilers. I loved her early in the

00:21:05 ◼   ► season, and she's also a very righteous person on Twitter, so great to follow, because she's very

00:21:10 ◼   ► active in promoting for, you know, things like justice and equality. But she tweeted

00:21:14 ◼   ► something last night. She said, "My dad, who was a real programmer, was excited to see how

00:21:18 ◼   ► Siri had been updated. He said to Siri, 'analysis,' and Siri dumped out a bunch of hacks." And her

00:21:26 ◼   ► father, I think her father recognized it, or what do you say, he went to Reddit? It's

00:21:30 ◼   ► Unicode text, and if you look it up, it's a bunch of emoji that relate to the show.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Pete: Really?

00:21:36 ◼   ► Pete; Yeah. If you, if you said to Siri, if you say, you can ask Siri questions that are sort of

00:21:41 ◼   ► Westworldish related and she will respond and say things like, "That doesn't look like anything to

00:21:45 ◼   ► me." So, they updated it right away, I think. I don't know what happened earlier, but people

00:21:50 ◼   ► weren't reporting on it. And then after the finale, Don Melton was saying, "Probably a Westworld fan."

00:21:55 ◼   ► you know, super fan, somewhere in the Siri team,

00:21:59 ◼   ► adding more responses, but the hexadecimal

00:22:02 ◼   ► emoji code was pretty good.

00:22:04 ◼   ► I only looked up one of them.

00:22:05 ◼   ► - Who says Siri isn't getting better?

00:22:08 ◼   ► - It's great.

00:22:09 ◼   ► One of them was just like a cactus.

00:22:10 ◼   ► I didn't look up all of them, but I looked up one.

00:22:12 ◼   ► - Let me take a break and thank our first sponsor.

00:22:18 ◼   ► It is our good friends at MailChimp.

00:22:20 ◼   ► 12 million people use MailChimp to connect

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00:22:44 ◼   ► This is a huge thing.

00:22:45 ◼   ► MailChimp has grown so far beyond just email newsletters.

00:22:50 ◼   ► The store stuff is amazing.

00:22:51 ◼   ► I can't get into the details in the sponsor read here,

00:22:53 ◼   ► but it's so much stuff.

00:22:54 ◼   ► and they really hook up to a lot of the main e-commerce platforms that are out there.

00:23:00 ◼   ► So if you do have some kind of store, what they can do is help you, for people who opt

00:23:04 ◼   ► in to an email thing from you, is based on what the people have bought and opted into,

00:23:11 ◼   ► not like a creepy type thing, but send them emails that they might actually want to get

00:23:15 ◼   ► with stuff they might actually want to buy.

00:23:18 ◼   ► It is super...

00:23:21 ◼   ► There's like a renaissance in email newsletters.

00:23:24 ◼   ► Because I think, you know, back in the day, people signed up for everything was going through email

00:23:29 ◼   ► because that was like the first way people got on the internet and then all of a sudden everybody

00:23:32 ◼   ► realized I'm getting way too many emails for stuff that I don't want and it kind of got a bad rap.

00:23:37 ◼   ► But then it's like water seeks its own level and I feel like there is a right amount and there are

00:23:43 ◼   ► a lot of newsletters, a fair amount that I sign up for that I love and I'm happy every time I see

00:23:47 ◼   ► them in my inbox. MailChimp is a way that you can create your own. So the store stuff, that's great.

00:23:54 ◼   ► if you have a store. All sorts of other great reasons. It integrates with

00:24:00 ◼   ► WordPress, you can integrate with Facebook, Shopify, there's one that

00:24:05 ◼   ► integrates with an online store. All sorts of ways that you can hook MailChimp

00:24:10 ◼   ► up to whatever platforms you're already using for whatever kind of thing that

00:24:15 ◼   ► you want to send people to. Pricing. You can send 12,000 emails a month to a list

00:24:20 ◼   ► up to 2,000 subscribers with MailChimp's forever free plan, though a few features are only available

00:24:27 ◼   ► to paying users. So you could send an awful lot of email to a lot of people for free with MailChimp.

00:24:31 ◼   ► As a paying customer, you can send more than 12,000 emails a month, you can access additional

00:24:39 ◼   ► features, and you can remove MailChimp's badge from your campaign footers. So where do you go

00:24:45 ◼   ► to find out more. Just go to MailChimp.com. No secret code, no slash or anything like that. Just

00:24:51 ◼   ► go to MailChimp.com and you can get started. Great service, long-time sponsor of the show.

00:24:56 ◼   ► They always sponsor the bar at the live talk show. So, my thanks to MailChimp for, once again,

00:25:02 ◼   ► sponsoring the show. Wow, they're brave. That's a very brave thing to do. Sponsoring the bar.

00:25:08 ◼   ► Well, the first time, I've often said this, and I do the intro at the show,

00:25:14 ◼   ► I have such very nice-- the Daring Fireball audience is very good people.

00:25:20 ◼   ► And the first time I did the live talk show-- well, it was the second time, I guess,

00:25:28 ◼   ► because it was the first time at the place where we always have it now in San Francisco,

00:25:33 ◼   ► a place called Mezzanine. And we had a minimum, and it seemed easily hit.

00:25:41 ◼   ► the first year we did it, though, we didn't hit the minimum for the bar. Because people—and

00:25:46 ◼   ► I think what happened was that—I said that it's an open bar and it's free, but I didn't emphasize

00:25:53 ◼   ► enough that, seriously, drink as much as you want. Go have a second or a third.

00:25:57 ◼   ► Oh, that's sort of sweet. People were so reserved.

00:25:59 ◼   ► Right. People were like, "Well, I'll have one, but I don't want to stick Gruber with a big tab."

00:26:04 ◼   ► But it was—we actually didn't reach the minimum. So ever since I always tell that story to the

00:26:09 ◼   ► audience, you know, that like, seriously, drink, you know, we've, we've never had problems

00:26:12 ◼   ► hitting the minimum.

00:26:13 ◼   ► That's, that's pretty, that's adorable. That is a very lovely audience when you have to

00:26:17 ◼   ► encourage them to spend, you know, to use the money that sponsors.

00:26:21 ◼   ► And they have different tiers of booze. Like you could just do beer, beer and wine. You

00:26:27 ◼   ► can, you know, um, you know, you could, but I get the top shelf booze, you know, like

00:26:32 ◼   ► the name brand, you know, vodka and stuff like that. Like instead of, you know, uncle

00:26:36 ◼   ► Joe's, you know, Uncle Joe's Russian special, you know. I gotta say, you know, whatever

00:26:42 ◼   ► you want. If it's back there, it's supposed to be there. Have as much of it as you want,

00:26:46 ◼   ► and MailChimp will just pick it up. It's very easy for me to be generous, too.

00:26:51 ◼   ► "Uncle Joe's booze. I like it. The fire's bathtub gin. Money will buy."

00:26:55 ◼   ► Right. Well, it's funny, though. It's gotten the other way around now. Like, there's—it's

00:27:02 ◼   ► like I think when we were kids, like if the gin was made locally, it's like, "Watch out!"

00:27:07 ◼   ► You know? It's like, "Better schedule a trip to the eye doctor because you might go blind."

00:27:13 ◼   ► Whereas now there are so many craft distilleries. I can't even tell you, I was just looking the

00:27:18 ◼   ► other day, there's a section in the liquor store here where it's like made in Pennsylvania,

00:27:22 ◼   ► and there's so many gins being made in Pennsylvania now, and they all have like these

00:27:27 ◼   ► amazingly exquisite, designed labels, you know, they all look excellent. It's not,

00:27:33 ◼   ► you know, like, the local stuff is expensive now. It's not, it's not…

00:27:36 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:27:36 ◼   ► Pete: Oh man, I had a friend who wanted to start years ago, like, I think it was almost

00:27:40 ◼   ► 20 years ago, he wanted to start a local craft distillery as a distill pub. No such thing

00:27:46 ◼   ► existed in Washington state. He'd been a brewer, had run, you know, brew pubs and worked

00:27:50 ◼   ► in breweries, had, you know, done the craft thing. He was totally capable of it and the

00:27:54 ◼   ► the state didn't know how to license it. But he was trying to buy this bar in the Georgetown

00:27:59 ◼   ► area in Seattle, which is this little weird spot that bars operated during prohibition.

00:28:04 ◼   ► There was this very weird exception or exclusion or scam or something. So, it was like the

00:28:09 ◼   ► longest operating bar in North, continuously operating bar in North America. He was almost,

00:28:14 ◼   ► he was going to try to buy it with investors to turn it into the state's first distill

00:28:18 ◼   ► pub and one of the first ones in the country, I think, maybe at the time. And they couldn't

00:28:22 ◼   ► pull it off because no one knew how to license it. But now it's like, I don't know if you

00:28:25 ◼   ► have, no, there are distill pubs. I've seen places, I don't know what they call it, sorry,

00:28:29 ◼   ► distill pub is not the right word.

00:28:30 ◼   ► But uh,

00:28:31 ◼   ► Pete: I know what you mean though.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Pete; Place of eunuch's command, distill pub.

00:28:33 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:28:34 ◼   ► But yeah, but any places that are doing like, certain kinds of liquor on site, which is,

00:28:39 ◼   ► which is, I think that's really cool. It's like, you know, this is, we're trying, we

00:28:43 ◼   ► sort of, Westworld's indicative of this, right? There are things about the 19th century

00:28:46 ◼   ► that we idealize and we'd like the neat, clean, cool component of it because it seems

00:28:52 ◼   ► more real to us.

00:28:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:54 ◼   ► It's just another one of those little things, though, that makes me feel like I was born

00:29:00 ◼   ► at the right time.

00:29:01 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:29:04 ◼   ► Maybe it's my personality where whenever I had been born, whether it was the future

00:29:08 ◼   ► or further in the past, I would have—I have a personality type or I would think I was

00:29:14 ◼   ► born at the right time.

00:29:15 ◼   ► But just little things like the fact that I was around as a kid when computers were

00:29:19 ◼   ► were super simple and you could totally understand

00:29:22 ◼   ► the entirety of how the computer worked

00:29:24 ◼   ► as like a 12 year old.

00:29:25 ◼   ► I love that.

00:29:28 ◼   ► There's a part of me that is a little jealous

00:29:30 ◼   ► that my son is growing up in a world where

00:29:34 ◼   ► at the age of 12 he's got a MacBook Pro.

00:29:36 ◼   ► I mean, it would have been very impressive

00:29:38 ◼   ► to 12 year old John Gruber,

00:29:40 ◼   ► but I feel like it was right for me

00:29:42 ◼   ► that I was clacking away on an Apple IIe at school.

00:29:48 ◼   ► my 12-year-old is programming in JavaScript and other stuff, and I'm like, "You know,

00:29:51 ◼   ► at 12 I was soldering RS-232 C ports on my 8K computer, so I feel bad. I mean, I'll open up

00:29:58 ◼   ► a computer to change something out," and the kids freak out slightly, like, "Can you really do that?"

00:30:02 ◼   ► Not like it's illegal, but more like, "Won't that break it?" I'm like, "No, no, you can actually

00:30:06 ◼   ► fix things." It's sort of a sad—

00:30:09 ◼   ► But in terms of consumable beverages, I like to drink coffee, but I like really, really,

00:30:15 ◼   ► really good coffee, and a generation ago, there was no such thing. I mean, I realize

00:30:21 ◼   ► there were some people who kept the art of it alive, but as a mass-market product, you

00:30:26 ◼   ► know, like, people went into the supermarket and bought a can of Maxwell.

00:30:32 ◼   ► I think this is the best time in history to be alive for coffee, because for most of coffee's

00:30:36 ◼   ► history it was not made well, except in limited places, if you could get the beans and it

00:30:42 ◼   ► was all there, like you had to be in just the right spot at the right time.

00:30:45 ◼   ► But when we were kids, the coffee that our parents drank wasn't even made out of Arabica

00:30:50 ◼   ► beans.

00:30:51 ◼   ► It was made out of—it wasn't even really coffee.

00:30:54 ◼   ► It was made out of some other, like, weird cheap bean.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Were they chicory-based or is that something else?

00:30:59 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:31:00 ◼   ► There's some difference.

00:31:01 ◼   ► I could ask Marco.

00:31:02 ◼   ► I'm sure he could.

00:31:03 ◼   ► It was a brown—I thought they melted brown crayons in water.

00:31:07 ◼   ► The basic story is that good coffee from Arabica beans needs a certain kind of climate and

00:31:14 ◼   ► certain type of atmosphere, and that's why it tends to grow at the top of mountains and certain,

00:31:19 ◼   ► you know, regions of the world where the temperature's right. It's very particular about

00:31:24 ◼   ► where it will grow well. And then there's another type of coffee bean that'll grow anywhere. And

00:31:30 ◼   ► that's like what the coffee of like the late 20th, you know, this post-World War II 20th century

00:31:37 ◼   ► America was made out of, because it was super cheap.

00:31:40 ◼   ► The coffee cycle is so funny too, is our mutual friend Tonks, as Tony connects me, he, I met him

00:31:47 ◼   ► first, I think we talked about this in some episode before, but in 2004, I met him when he

00:31:52 ◼   ► was the head roaster at a local coffee shop that had started up that was trying to be more of a

00:31:57 ◼   ► community coffee shop again. They were trying to reclaim from Wi-Fi already, and I went to my first

00:32:01 ◼   ► cupping in the back of that store when I was reporting the story, and then Tony left and,

00:32:05 ◼   ► you know, kind of traveled a bunch, and he started his own brand. That got sold to Blue Bottle.

00:32:09 ◼   ► And then, you know, and he's, you know, he's kicking around doing stuff, but I'm like, now

00:32:15 ◼   ► cupping is like such a standard thing.

00:32:18 ◼   ► Like, it's a thing people expect.

00:32:20 ◼   ► Like the sophistication, even of 2004, now seems almost quaint.

00:32:25 ◼   ► And when Howard Schultz just announced that he was stepping down to see Starbucks, he

00:32:29 ◼   ► did it at the 15th Avenue, I think it was the 15th Avenue, roasting place, which is

00:32:33 ◼   ► Starbucks' new model for a place that is like a roasting center with cuppings and high-end

00:32:38 ◼   ► coffees and the whole bit. Like, it's now a thing they are commercializing and pushing out as a,

00:32:43 ◼   ► you know, high-end experience, as a, you know, repeatable deal. And that's, you know,

00:32:48 ◼   ► that's already where we're at. So what's the next refinement? Like, there's got to be, like,

00:32:50 ◼   ► 10 years from now we're going to be looking at that as course and quaint, I'm sure.

00:32:54 ◼   ► Pete: And, you know, in the evening hours, I enjoy the occasional adult beverage,

00:32:59 ◼   ► and it's, there's never been a better time. I mean, it's, if you like beer, like, when my

00:33:06 ◼   ► My dad was my age. The only beer that there was was the mass-market Pilsners, you know,

00:33:13 ◼   ► they all tasted the same.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Yeah, unless you lived in a small town someplace or people did, you know, the home brewing

00:33:18 ◼   ► thing was starting up, but those were usually, they were, you know, they're quirky. No,

00:33:24 ◼   ► there's never been a better time to have a sophisticated palate, probably in the history

00:33:29 ◼   ► of the world, in terms of—this ties into technology. So you know how Mark and Dries

00:33:32 ◼   ► and other people have pushed these charts that shows how everyone has the kind of stuff

00:33:37 ◼   ► that previous generations would have dreamed of. Everyone has a TV, everyone has a DVD,

00:33:41 ◼   ► a lot of people have phones, even if they're like living below the poverty line, they have

00:33:44 ◼   ► a cell phone on a pay-as-you-go-pant—like, all of these certain signs of material success.

00:33:49 ◼   ► But this is the point that people made about the Apple phone, you have made this point

00:33:53 ◼   ► over and over again, is the iPhone is the same price no matter how rich or poor you

00:33:58 ◼   ► And I think the beverage thing falls in the same thing.

00:34:01 ◼   ► You can get, I mean, obviously you can spend a lot of money on beverages, but you can spend a few dollars for a drink,

00:34:07 ◼   ► let's say $5 to $10 for a drink and get one of the finest drinks ever made in human history.

00:34:12 ◼   ► Now, you can go up from there, you can spend $15 for civet poop coffee or whatever for a cup of it and a million dollars for champagne,

00:34:20 ◼   ► But this lower tier, generally accessible, even if it's a special occasion price, is achievable by like most of humanity in the developed world.

00:34:29 ◼   ► Yeah, it's amazing. And you know, I think that there was a… I don't know, you know, I think there was sort of a pride in post-World War II America at the sort of homogenization of culture.

00:34:44 ◼   ► Mm. Mm hmm.

00:34:45 ◼   ► It seemed right, like when my grandfather was a young man,

00:34:49 ◼   ► all the beer came from local breweries.

00:34:51 ◼   ► Every town of a certain,

00:34:53 ◼   ► every town with 10 to 15,000 people had a brewery

00:34:56 ◼   ► that made the beer for the town.

00:34:58 ◼   ► And then in my dad's generation,

00:35:00 ◼   ► the Anheuser-Busch's and the Coors became such a thing,

00:35:06 ◼   ► and TV rammed this home that,

00:35:11 ◼   ► you didn't drink like Philadelphia beer,

00:35:14 ◼   ► drank the same Budweiser that everybody drank. You drank American beer. But it was all bland,

00:35:21 ◼   ► all watered down for the--

00:35:22 ◼   ► - I hate that taste.

00:35:23 ◼   ► - Right.

00:35:24 ◼   ► - Metallic taste.

00:35:26 ◼   ► - And the craft brewing revolution certainly started-- I was in college in the late '90s. It

00:35:33 ◼   ► had already started, but it was still obscure. And so when you'd go to parties, if they had beer,

00:35:38 ◼   ► it was just cheap bland stuff. So I just thought, "Well, I don't like beer."

00:35:43 ◼   ► Which is crazy in hindsight, because I love beer.

00:35:47 ◼   ► But I love very particular kinds of beer.

00:35:50 ◼   ► And I just also think that it's such a wonderful world right

00:35:55 ◼   ► now for somebody who truly is obsessive about something

00:35:58 ◼   ► like that, like Tonks, and that he can just go and start

00:36:01 ◼   ► his own coffee company.

00:36:03 ◼   ► Whereas in the 1960s, that's not how it worked.

00:36:06 ◼   ► It was infeasible.

00:36:07 ◼   ► You had to be like Procter and Gamble.

00:36:09 ◼   ► It was like a billion dollar thing.

00:36:12 ◼   ► there was no way for somebody, you know, like two people, you know, to start a business

00:36:16 ◼   ► where we're going to send coffee around the world by mail order.

00:36:20 ◼   ► There's a great book by an editor I've worked with for years at The Economist, who's now

00:36:24 ◼   ► the deputy editor, Tom Standage, called History of the World in Six Glasses. It's maybe like

00:36:29 ◼   ► a decade old now, and he looks at it's beer, spirits, coffee, tea, what's the other one?

00:36:39 ◼   ► like, "I forgot all six." It's tea and coffee, beer and spirits, and I forget the two. But it's

00:36:45 ◼   ► basically a history of how civilization advanced through the perpetuation of certain kinds of

00:36:51 ◼   ► drinks because of how—

00:36:52 ◼   ► Pete: What was the name of this book?

00:36:53 ◼   ► Pete; A History of the World in Six Glasses.

00:36:55 ◼   ► Pete; Huh.

00:36:55 ◼   ► Pete; And it's six different things, but like, tea is an amazing thing because it's got antibacterial

00:37:02 ◼   ► properties, you boil the water to drink it, it replaced the small beer, which is like a very

00:37:07 ◼   ► low-alcohol beer that was drunk, that was given out to factory workers in England and

00:37:11 ◼   ► other places. They were given a certain quantity of beer to drink every day and it was very

00:37:14 ◼   ► low alcohol, but they were always mildly, you know, inebriated. Tea was a healthful

00:37:19 ◼   ► beverage.

00:37:20 ◼   ► And it revolutionized factories because people were—

00:37:22 ◼   ► Pete: It focuses the mind.

00:37:23 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:37:24 ◼   ► David: Exactly. But people were living in places with bad water supplies, you know,

00:37:27 ◼   ► whatever, so it improved health, so it was healthy, it was anti-bacterial, and it didn't

00:37:31 ◼   ► get you drunk. And so, it became the beverage of temperance and so forth. And anyway, it's

00:37:35 ◼   ► a lovely book because he argues, and very persuasively, that certain, like, the advancement

00:37:42 ◼   ► of society isn't, it's not that we got tea because we're at a certain point in civilization

00:37:47 ◼   ► where it's possible to have like a global supply chain, it's more like tea actually

00:37:50 ◼   ► influenced the industrial revolution significantly.

00:37:53 ◼   ► Which is cool.

00:37:55 ◼   ► Pete: Fascinating.

00:37:59 ◼   ► I have long, I, it's one of those things where I've never really done the deep dive, but

00:38:04 ◼   ► I will at some point find a couple of good books on it and really go deep on it.

00:38:12 ◼   ► But I have a fascination with the Prohibition in the United States.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Because it's another one of those things where it happened—I knew the basic years of when

00:38:26 ◼   ► it happened, around 1920 or so, and it only lasted about 12 years, and it led to the rise

00:38:34 ◼   ► of gangsters who'd run booze into the cities and Al Capone, blah, blah, blah. But as a kid,

00:38:39 ◼   ► it just seemed like, "Well, that was a long time ago, and it's over." But then when you become an

00:38:47 ◼   ► adult and you realize just how 100 years ago really isn't that long, right, in some ways.

00:38:54 ◼   ► Pete: No.

00:38:55 ◼   ► Michael, in the world did making alcohol illegal ever gain popular support?

00:39:03 ◼   ► that they'd pass a constitutional amendment. Like, to pass a constitutional amendment,

00:39:08 ◼   ► something has to be overwhelmingly popular.

00:39:10 ◼   ► Pete: You know what it was? It was fake news, John. It was fake news.

00:39:14 ◼   ► It was, like, mothers spread these, you know, the lies about drinking were spread and believed.

00:39:21 ◼   ► John "Slick" Baum: In light of our recent election here in the United States and how the

00:39:26 ◼   ► fuck did this happen? It's soothing to me mentally to think back to other times where,

00:39:33 ◼   ► you know, there were what the fuck were we thinking moments in U.S. politics.

00:39:39 ◼   ► And—

00:39:39 ◼   ► We have cycles. Hey, we're about to have our first tea-totaling president,

00:39:43 ◼   ► and I don't know how long.

00:39:44 ◼   ► That's an interesting thought.

00:39:45 ◼   ► I—that's—

00:39:46 ◼   ► He doesn't drink, and I, you know, I reflect—like,

00:39:48 ◼   ► Trump has no vices except lying, and he's lying about that, right?

00:39:53 ◼   ► Right.

00:39:53 ◼   ► But he said he didn't drink, so I assumed it was a lie. It turns out he's absolutely sincere. People

00:39:59 ◼   ► have said they've seen him drink in the past, but it may have been decades ago and there have been

00:40:03 ◼   ► confirmation people have been with him, you know, enemies and friends and people who are former

00:40:07 ◼   ► friends. Like, he doesn't drink alcohol. He doesn't seem to have any alcohol, which is,

00:40:11 ◼   ► and it's not a, it doesn't seem to be a moralistic thing. His brother, I mean, he has a family history.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Pete: He had an older brother who, you know, literally a long time ago, I guess,

00:40:21 ◼   ► It's a drunk himself.

00:40:22 ◼   ► Jared: In early '80s?

00:40:23 ◼   ► It died, but he, you know, pretty much drank himself.

00:40:25 ◼   ► Pete: Yeah, drunk himself to death, right, yeah.

00:40:26 ◼   ► And I'm, so I mean, you know, you can see that, like, there are signs of Trump, like

00:40:29 ◼   ► things like that, that I think maybe the man has some empathy, compassion, or at least

00:40:34 ◼   ► insight, self-corrective capability, but it is fasting.

00:40:38 ◼   ► It is fasting to have a president who, I don't know how much Obama drank, I think he liked

00:40:43 ◼   ► the beverage.

00:40:44 ◼   ► We know he indulged in some cigarettes before he was elected and then, maybe he didn't

00:40:47 ◼   ► –

00:40:48 ◼   ► Jared; No, he smoked, he didn't quit until after he was elected.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Pete; Oh, that's right.

00:40:50 ◼   ► And then occasionally, there's reports, maybe he sneaked a cigarette here and there,

00:40:53 ◼   ► right, at sight. But he's mostly quit, stuffed thing. But it's Trump being a teetotal. I don't

00:41:00 ◼   ► think it'll have any impact. I don't think he's going to go out. He's never been a temperance

00:41:03 ◼   ► advocate. But I think when I've read things, here's the weird thing about this guy, right?

00:41:09 ◼   ► There are times that I read things he says and I go, "But this is very reasonable." And I've read

00:41:13 ◼   ► things he said in some middle of long interviews about his brother. And sometimes he's a little

00:41:18 ◼   ► harsh about it, but often he is very sympathetic to what the brother went through and very

00:41:22 ◼   ► sympathetic to the effect it had on the whole family and how sad it was he died young. And

00:41:26 ◼   ► I'm like, "All right, well, you know, I like to know there is a human being under

00:41:30 ◼   ► there somewhere."

00:41:31 ◼   ► Pete: He is a bit of a cipher. It is one of the weird, I mean, whether you, you know,

00:41:34 ◼   ► again, whether you like him, don't like him, or somehow are indifferent.

00:41:39 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:41:40 ◼   ► Pete: A very small percentage of Trump voters are actually celebrating, from what I can

00:41:45 ◼   ► tell. They're all concerned what's coming next too because they don't know if he's

00:41:48 ◼   ► going to do what they promised him either.

00:41:49 ◼   ► One of the odd-- well, he's not.

00:41:53 ◼   ► One of the odd things about him, though, is that he does--

00:41:56 ◼   ► his personality seems to be a bit of a cipher.

00:42:01 ◼   ► Whereas Obama, I think, wears his personality

00:42:04 ◼   ► on his shirt sleeve, much like Bill Clinton and, I think,

00:42:08 ◼   ► too, George W. Bush.

00:42:10 ◼   ► I think Elsa, yeah.

00:42:11 ◼   ► That's right.

00:42:12 ◼   ► I think Hillary is guarded, famously.

00:42:15 ◼   ► But there are widespread reports, though,

00:42:17 ◼   ► from the people who are close to her that in person she's very warm, funny, and empathetic.

00:42:24 ◼   ► But on the campaign trail, for reasons that we won't get into, because it's, you know...

00:42:30 ◼   ► But she publicly put up sort of a more serious, guarded personality.

00:42:41 ◼   ► But—

00:42:42 ◼   ► Pete: Yeah, I'm wondering if we'll see, we'll probably see the Hillary in the Woods

00:42:45 ◼   ► photos "Give Me Life" because she looks like a great weightless drop-offer despite

00:42:51 ◼   ► what's coming next.

00:42:52 ◼   ► But isn't—

00:42:53 ◼   ► Jared: But you never hear stories about like, the real Trump from the people close to him.

00:42:56 ◼   ► Like there doesn't seem to be one.

00:42:57 ◼   ► Pete; There's no real Trump.

00:42:59 ◼   ► Jared; But talking about his older brother really does, I do believe, I'm with you,

00:43:03 ◼   ► where 99% of the stuff out of his mouth I don't believe, but when he talks about his

00:43:07 ◼   ► brother it seems sincere that he, you know, and that it really did, you know, he saw what

00:43:11 ◼   ► happened and he decided, "I'm not going to drink." And the other thing that's very self-aware about

00:43:15 ◼   ► it that I saw, the New York Times had a good story about this way earlier in the campaign,

00:43:20 ◼   ► was the other thing that he said about it was, it wasn't just, "Well, I saw what happened to

00:43:24 ◼   ► my brother and decided not to drink." He also, very self-aware, said, "I also know that I'm not

00:43:31 ◼   ► much for moderation, personally." You know?

00:43:34 ◼   ► Pete: It's amazing from him. Wow!

00:43:35 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:43:36 ◼   ► Jon Hayser, Ph.D. You know, and looking, like, look at the way he decorated at his home!

00:43:40 ◼   ► Pete: Yeah, well, and he also occasionally, like, the unguarded Trump is fascinating because he's,

00:43:44 ◼   ► he's, you know, a bully and a fascist in certain ways. And then he says things like,

00:43:48 ◼   ► when it came up about transgender bathroom bills, like in North Carolina and elsewhere,

00:43:53 ◼   ► his first reaction, someone asked about it, he said, "Well, people should go to whatever

00:43:57 ◼   ► bathroom they're comfortable with." And I was like, "Well, that's cool! Like, I'm good with

00:44:00 ◼   ► that." And then his campaign walked it back and wrapped it and put it into Republican phraseology

00:44:04 ◼   ► and, you know, whatever. But his first reaction, you know, is people should just make whatever

00:44:09 ◼   ► choice they want for themselves, it doesn't really affect other people, which you could

00:44:12 ◼   ► argue is a little bit of a narcissist choice too. But it was a more, that was his honest

00:44:16 ◼   ► reaction. I'm like, I'm curious how much of that kind of blunt honesty we're going to see versus

00:44:22 ◼   ► the, you know, tendencies towards much worse behavior. I'm not optimistic per se, but I'm

00:44:27 ◼   ► trying to be curious because we will see things that are going to be totally unexpected

00:44:32 ◼   ► from a Republican elected president. They're going to not conform with any of my, my wife says,

00:44:37 ◼   ► she said this a number of times, the reason that we're feeling anxiety, and I think this goes for

00:44:41 ◼   ► Trump voters as well. I think there are a number of Trump voters who feel exactly the same way.

00:44:45 ◼   ► I mean, some are elated, but I think that's a small percentage compared to the largest number

00:44:50 ◼   ► of people who voted for him, is she said he defeats our ability to predict the future. We

00:44:54 ◼   ► all have a little internal prediction capability, and he breaks that and you feel anxious. And

00:44:59 ◼   ► that's also what people talk about with fascism, not necessarily directly for him, is that fascists

00:45:04 ◼   ► and abusive domestic partners and people in those categories, they try to unsettle you so you never

00:45:09 ◼   ► know what's coming next, so you live in a constant state of anxiety. I don't think that's his plan,

00:45:13 ◼   ► but I think that's how we feel, that's how I feel, that's how my wife feels.

00:45:16 ◼   ► Pete: Right.

00:45:17 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:45:19 ◼   ► Pete; How about that technology? How about that new power dual-charter?

00:45:27 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:45:28 ◼   ► Pete; Let's talk about something that we know works.

00:45:30 ◼   ► Pete; Who says I'm not good at segues?

00:45:33 ◼   ► That's great. So you had a story at Macworld. I think it just came out yesterday. Wait, wait, I would interrupt you. All right

00:45:38 ◼   ► segue

00:45:40 ◼   ► Magic loop. Did you see about the ostensibly faked magic magic leap demonstration? No, tell me about it

00:45:46 ◼   ► You may want to talk about it. I own all the details

00:45:48 ◼   ► But you know, it's a it's one of these new VR things and Kevin Kelly wrote a really breathless piece earlier this year for Wired

00:45:54 ◼   ► He got a demo. He got to see it and it's a bunch of super intelligent people involved in it

00:45:59 ◼   ► They're running the lab in Florida away from Silicon Valley. Oh

00:46:02 ◼   ► Like next level like whatever everyone's working on now that's being released in demo. This is the thing beyond it is how it's being hyped

00:46:09 ◼   ► Well, they put out a demonstration video and then it came out that it was actually like a Hollywood produced Hollywood style produced video

00:46:16 ◼   ► That does not actually reflect any hardware they have already

00:46:18 ◼   ► So I was just thinking this when you said segue I was thinking like yes

00:46:22 ◼   ► Remember how the segue changed the world magic leap is right up there with it. Sorry. That's my segue

00:46:27 ◼   ► They there's a some sort of tour here in Philadelphia where you can I don't know if it's I guess it's history historic sites

00:46:35 ◼   ► But oh, yeah historic sites are all very close to each other frankly

00:46:40 ◼   ► But I see them occasionally where there's obvious tourists with helmets on on segues on a tour

00:46:46 ◼   ► You know like usually somewhere around eight to ten of them

00:46:49 ◼   ► There's somebody in the front who's clearly the tour leader

00:46:54 ◼   ► And it just seems like the dumbest way to get around.

00:46:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:46:59 ◼   ► Like I do, I love the idea, I'm fascinated by the idea

00:47:04 ◼   ► that the thing self-balances on two wheels,

00:47:08 ◼   ► but the segues themselves are so stupid.

00:47:11 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I mean, I just remember the whole,

00:47:13 ◼   ► the breathless, it's gonna change the world,

00:47:15 ◼   ► the patent filings are amazing,

00:47:16 ◼   ► they think the people investing, like Jeff Bezos,

00:47:19 ◼   ► think this will be, change the way cities are built.

00:47:22 ◼   ► - Right.

00:47:23 ◼   ► Steve Jobs trashed it.

00:47:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not surprised.

00:47:26 ◼   ► It's like, eh, and it's a really cool scooter

00:47:28 ◼   ► that has certain applications, it's done pretty well.

00:47:31 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt,

00:47:32 ◼   ► but Magic Leap just got me with that.

00:47:35 ◼   ► Like they thought no one was gonna figure out

00:47:36 ◼   ► it was a faked or produced demonstration.

00:47:39 ◼   ► - Do you know what I got?

00:47:41 ◼   ► I have the Google Pixel.

00:47:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. - Pixel phone.

00:47:47 ◼   ► And I got the VR headset, I forget what the,

00:47:51 ◼   ► I forget what the, I can't remember what the name of it.

00:47:53 ◼   ► They have a Daydream.

00:47:55 ◼   ► I haven't used it a lot yet, but it's pretty neat.

00:48:00 ◼   ► I mean, I forget how much I paid for the headset,

00:48:02 ◼   ► but it wasn't too much.

00:48:04 ◼   ► I mean, once you've bought the phone for $800

00:48:06 ◼   ► or whatever it costs, the $75 headset is a neat add-on.

00:48:11 ◼   ► It's really pretty good.

00:48:13 ◼   ► Although it does, Jonas was really into it,

00:48:17 ◼   ► but it does get hot.

00:48:19 ◼   ► It eventually tells you that it couches.

00:48:24 ◼   ► It's sort of like, remember when the Wii would tell you

00:48:27 ◼   ► to take a break, the Nintendo Wii?

00:48:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

00:48:31 ◼   ► - It told Jonas to take a break,

00:48:33 ◼   ► but it wasn't really for his well-being.

00:48:35 ◼   ► It was because the phone had overheated

00:48:38 ◼   ► and needed to cool down.

00:48:40 ◼   ► But it's actually pretty good.

00:48:41 ◼   ► The latency is really, really good.

00:48:43 ◼   ► Like, I was, what I thought was wondering

00:48:44 ◼   ► if it would pick up.

00:48:46 ◼   ► But I can also completely see why Apple

00:48:49 ◼   ► hasn't built such a thing.

00:48:51 ◼   ► That's not ready yet.

00:48:52 ◼   ► They want the thing.

00:48:53 ◼   ► They want the thing whatever magically intends to make,

00:48:56 ◼   ► which they may not be able to achieve.

00:48:59 ◼   ► That's what Apple would prefer.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Right.

00:49:02 ◼   ► I don't-- it baffles me that people don't see this in Apple.

00:49:06 ◼   ► So one of the things when people complain about the new MacBook

00:49:09 ◼   ► Pros, that they're not pro enough,

00:49:12 ◼   ► that they're not performance heavy enough.

00:49:14 ◼   ► Like, they're like, other companies are making laptops

00:49:17 ◼   ► that you can drive high-end VR helmets from.

00:49:21 ◼   ► And it's like, well, that's, of course they are,

00:49:26 ◼   ► 'cause that's what the PC industry always does,

00:49:30 ◼   ► is build whatever, you know.

00:49:32 ◼   ► That's why gaming PCs exist, that the PC,

00:49:36 ◼   ► for some people, it's just a generic box

00:49:38 ◼   ► that you can use it to drive any computing task you want.

00:49:41 ◼   ► That is not what Apple does.

00:49:44 ◼   ► Apple doesn't make generic boxes that you can make other things from.

00:49:47 ◼   ► If Apple's going to make a VR helmet, the VR helmet itself will be the computer,

00:49:52 ◼   ► and it will have the graphics and screen that it needs to be--

00:49:56 ◼   ► Oh, yes.

00:49:57 ◼   ► That makes a lot of sense.

00:49:58 ◼   ► Right.

00:50:00 ◼   ► They're not going to work on making the phone into a jerry-rigged VR screen,

00:50:06 ◼   ► even though it's possible.

00:50:07 ◼   ► And the Pixel thing is good enough that it's neat.

00:50:10 ◼   ► But it's, you know, you can also, it's also, it's not retina resolution. I mean, you can totally see the pixels of the things that you're, that you're seeing.

00:50:18 ◼   ► And it's, you know, it's just clunky to stick your phone into a helmet. And same way that it's clunky to have a helmet that's literally tethered to a laptop computer.

00:50:29 ◼   ► Like, maybe if you hold your watch up really close to your face, it'll simulate, no, I'm sorry. But no, I think you're right. I think it's unlikely.

00:50:37 ◼   ► Apple makes an operating system that is capable of being adapted to a lot of different circumstances,

00:50:45 ◼   ► but they don't make hardware that has general purpose. I mean, I think that's the MacBook

00:50:49 ◼   ► Pro is really more of a niche computer now. It doesn't have the same general appeal.

00:50:55 ◼   ► I've been saying that about the 12-inch MacBook since it was released. It's not like the MacBook

00:50:59 ◼   ► Air, which was for a lot of people. The 12-inch MacBook is more particular because it makes

00:51:04 ◼   ► you make choices and if it doesn't fit your needs then it's not the laptop for you and

00:51:07 ◼   ► the MacBook Pro is much more restrained or restricted than the previous models of MacBook

00:51:13 ◼   ► Pro.

00:51:16 ◼   ► But speaking of those…

00:51:17 ◼   ► So you wrote a review this week of this Nuertech NuPower, N-U-P-O-W-E-R. I've already got

00:51:24 ◼   ► a link in the show notes. NuPower, it's a 60 watt power adapter that has two outputs.

00:51:31 ◼   ► One of them is a USB-A, the old school USB, and then the other one is USB-C. And you can

00:51:36 ◼   ► use them at the same time.

00:51:38 ◼   ► So you could plug this into the wall and then take your existing cable you charge your phone

00:51:45 ◼   ► with, the rectangular USB-A, plug that in, plug your phone in, and then with a new 13

00:51:53 ◼   ► inch MacBook Pro or the just plain MacBook, you could charge that from the USB-C at the

00:51:58 ◼   ► same time.

00:51:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it's pretty slick and it comes with a six foot AC cable. So you're using your six foot

00:52:04 ◼   ► USB-C charging cable that came with the MacBook or MacBook Pro you have you know 12 feet suddenly if you want that from Apple you

00:52:11 ◼   ► Have to pay a the adapter is I think more ungainly

00:52:14 ◼   ► B you have to pay if you don't have one around you got to pay I think it's $20 or $90 to get the six foot

00:52:21 ◼   ► Extension for the power adapter that comes with your with your Apple laptop, so I like that

00:52:26 ◼   ► I mean, so right, so it's like a cable, it's kind of like an offset.

00:52:30 ◼   ► So if you've got a 12-inch MacBook, it's sort of ideal because you plug this in to one port

00:52:34 ◼   ► and you plug in your, you know, iPad or iPhone to charge the new power thing, and you also

00:52:40 ◼   ► have six foot of cable beyond that, so you can have your cable, you know, your Type-A

00:52:45 ◼   ► to whatever cable, and your laptop cable, and a long AC cable, and it's 50 bucks for

00:52:51 ◼   ► the whole thing.

00:52:52 ◼   ► I think it's a great replacement or traveling alternative because it seems to fit all these

00:52:57 ◼   ► bases.

00:52:58 ◼   ► And 60 watts is an interesting number because it's clear they design it more around, they're

00:53:02 ◼   ► like 45 watt PCs that this also works with.

00:53:07 ◼   ► It works with anything with USB-C charging, power delivery 2.0 is the spec, which is a

00:53:12 ◼   ► lot of devices.

00:53:13 ◼   ► And so the, you know, the MacBook, 12 inch MacBook is 29 watts.

00:53:16 ◼   ► There's some 45 watt laptops and so forth.

00:53:19 ◼   ► The MacBook Pro 13-inch models are 61 watts.

00:53:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, which is crazy, right?

00:53:25 ◼   ► Where, what? - Yeah.

00:53:26 ◼   ► - I don't understand that.

00:53:27 ◼   ► - Apple's very specific about how they like

00:53:29 ◼   ► to map batteries to charging,

00:53:30 ◼   ► and they just do exactly what they want.

00:53:32 ◼   ► It's weird.

00:53:33 ◼   ► - Well, it's the first one I can think of, though,

00:53:34 ◼   ► that's such an odd number.

00:53:36 ◼   ► Like, the-- - Well, no, the MacBook

00:53:37 ◼   ► is a 29-watt charger.

00:53:38 ◼   ► - Oh, I guess you're right.

00:53:39 ◼   ► - And the MacBook Pro is 87 watts,

00:53:41 ◼   ► and somebody told me, I didn't look this up,

00:53:43 ◼   ► that the previous MacBook Pro, the 15-inch one, I'm sorry,

00:53:45 ◼   ► was also 87 watts.

00:53:47 ◼   ► So they have a very specific power profile.

00:53:51 ◼   ► They don't like to make a generic charging thing.

00:53:53 ◼   ► So the new power is probably not appropriate

00:53:57 ◼   ► for a 15-inch MacBook Pro because it will be hard

00:53:59 ◼   ► for it to keep up if you're doing anything

00:54:00 ◼   ► that's pulling power down.

00:54:01 ◼   ► For the 13-inch, it'll keep up almost as quickly.

00:54:05 ◼   ► I mean, it's 3% off.

00:54:07 ◼   ► So it will charge while you're using it,

00:54:09 ◼   ► and it might charge a tiny bit slower.

00:54:11 ◼   ► If you plug in a USB Type-A device to charge,

00:54:15 ◼   ► it'll take away from the charging

00:54:16 ◼   ► going to the USB-C port.

00:54:19 ◼   ► So if you're charging an iPad at 2.4 amps,

00:54:22 ◼   ► that's 12 watts at five volts.

00:54:24 ◼   ► And that, so that'll be, you know,

00:54:25 ◼   ► 12 watts would be subtracted from the 60

00:54:28 ◼   ► if you're doing that and you have a 13-inch MacBook.

00:54:30 ◼   ► But I think in a lot of cases,

00:54:31 ◼   ► it's a really nice alternative.

00:54:32 ◼   ► And it's got, you know, it's not a square little thing.

00:54:35 ◼   ► It's like longer, it looks more like a traditional one,

00:54:38 ◼   ► but it's very lightweight and it's got rounded edges.

00:54:40 ◼   ► - Only thing I think I don't like about it though

00:54:41 ◼   ► is I don't like that to plug this into the wall,

00:54:44 ◼   ► you have to use a cable.

00:54:46 ◼   ► It has, you know, it's one of the,

00:54:48 ◼   ► so this is the brick, but it's,

00:54:50 ◼   ► you plug a power cable into the back,

00:54:52 ◼   ► and then it's a six-foot cable that goes to the wall.

00:54:54 ◼   ► So like, there are some cases,

00:54:56 ◼   ► some situations where you do want that,

00:54:58 ◼   ► but there's others, like when you're,

00:54:59 ◼   ► like when I'm in a hotel,

00:55:01 ◼   ► usually most hotels now have like a desk

00:55:04 ◼   ► where there is like a power on the desk.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And it's not, you know, like I don't need it.

00:55:09 ◼   ► The six-foot cable is just gonna be in the way there.

00:55:11 ◼   ► Like I kind of-- - No, it's true.

00:55:12 ◼   ► - I wish that I could just plug it right in, you know,

00:55:15 ◼   ► like it had the prongs on the thing.

00:55:18 ◼   ► - That's true, I think that's the drawback,

00:55:19 ◼   ► is if that's what you want,

00:55:21 ◼   ► then you can always carry the original one.

00:55:23 ◼   ► But no, I think that is the drawback,

00:55:26 ◼   ► 'cause you get extra cable that way with that option.

00:55:28 ◼   ► But I think, and I have that same issue,

00:55:31 ◼   ► although I'll get to a hotel,

00:55:32 ◼   ► and by the time I got stuff plugged in,

00:55:33 ◼   ► or if you're gonna wanna work,

00:55:34 ◼   ► I'm often hunting around for an AC outlet.

00:55:37 ◼   ► And some of them have power strips,

00:55:38 ◼   ► I bet in some newer, or not newer hotels,

00:55:39 ◼   ► but retrograde ones, power strips.

00:55:41 ◼   ► - Right, or maybe it would be nice if it,

00:55:43 ◼   ► again, this would obviously make it a lot physically bigger.

00:55:46 ◼   ► So maybe I'm not thinking it through,

00:55:49 ◼   ► but it might be nice if it had one of those cables

00:55:51 ◼   ► that you could like, it would retract,

00:55:53 ◼   ► you know, like the way like most vacuum cleaners work now,

00:55:56 ◼   ► you can retract the cable.

00:55:58 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, we're gonna see a lot more USB-C chargers too.

00:56:01 ◼   ► I mean, it's taken the power delivery spec.

00:56:04 ◼   ► So I actually interviewed for an article

00:56:05 ◼   ► that's gonna come out in Fast Company about USB-C,

00:56:08 ◼   ► like why it's so hard to figure out what cables are good.

00:56:11 ◼   ► Like why isn't there some group?

00:56:13 ◼   ► I mean, my conclusion, spoiler, is that the death of magazine test labs is basically why

00:56:18 ◼   ► we're having problems with USB-C. Like, it's not – so, I talked to the head of the USB

00:56:21 ◼   ► implementers forum, the USB-IF and the chief operating officer, and had a great talk about

00:56:26 ◼   ► like where does Type-C fit into the ecosystem and what are you guys responsible for? Like,

00:56:30 ◼   ► where does your point end? And one of the things the president told me is he said really

00:56:36 ◼   ► frankly, this isn't your grandma and grandpa's USB 2.0. He said it's much more complicated,

00:56:42 ◼   ► and we're seeing more problems because it's a

00:56:45 ◼   ► much more complicated and difficult spec.

00:56:46 ◼   ► It does so much more.

00:56:47 ◼   ► And so, they're not surprised, but it's what

00:56:49 ◼   ► manufacturers want.

00:56:50 ◼   ► It's not like the USBIF invented a difficult spec

00:56:54 ◼   ► and it's being inflicted on customers.

00:56:56 ◼   ► It's like all of the major computer and mobile

00:56:58 ◼   ► makers are all involved with USBIF or they're on

00:57:01 ◼   ► the board or they're deeply involved in the

00:57:03 ◼   ► standards process.

00:57:04 ◼   ► They wanted this to happen.

00:57:05 ◼   ► Ultimately, in a couple years, maybe a year,

00:57:07 ◼   ► we're all going to be delighted that we have,

00:57:10 ◼   ► maybe we still have lightning, but we're

00:57:11 ◼   ► of lightning, that seems like it's going to happen, but we have one cable and one thing

00:57:15 ◼   ► that works every goddamn place, and then new displays will all have USB-C support, and

00:57:20 ◼   ► new everything will have it, and we'll say, "Why do we make such a big deal about this?"

00:57:25 ◼   ► Because the pain of transition and finding the adapters that don't exist and legacy support

00:57:30 ◼   ► is a pain, but I think it's really a net positive for it.

00:57:35 ◼   ► And so the power part is particularly difficult.

00:57:36 ◼   ► There's something called Power Delivery 2.0, which is, as far as I can tell, is the first

00:57:41 ◼   ► widespread implementation in products of a non-proprietary,

00:57:45 ◼   ► standards-based, but trade group-owned,

00:57:47 ◼   ► but non-proprietary spec for doing power

00:57:50 ◼   ► that's above like 15 to 30 watts.

00:57:52 ◼   ► It can go up to 100 watts.

00:57:54 ◼   ► There are previous USB specs that allowed this,

00:57:56 ◼   ► but from what I can tell,

00:57:57 ◼   ► I don't know that many devices use them.

00:57:59 ◼   ► They're very specific and you need a specific adapter.

00:58:02 ◼   ► This is the first generic way that's already in millions

00:58:05 ◼   ► or maybe even tens of millions of shipping products

00:58:07 ◼   ► that supports above 12 or 15 watts.

00:58:10 ◼   ► a standard way and interoperable, interchangeable adapters. So, the ecosystem I think is about

00:58:15 ◼   ► to sort of like, the chipset issue is a big deal. Every, John, you know this, right, like

00:58:21 ◼   ► lightning, every lightning and Thunderbolt 2 cable had a computer in the tip of every

00:58:26 ◼   ► cable, right?

00:58:27 ◼   ► Pete: Right.

00:58:28 ◼   ► I did know that.

00:58:29 ◼   ► Pete: And so, the same thing is true with USB-C and that makes it more complicated.

00:58:30 ◼   ► It's all, USB-C is like, you're plugging a computer that looks like a cable into your

00:58:35 ◼   ► computer's port that has a controller and they have to talk to each other. And so, like,

00:58:39 ◼   ► that right means the controller chipsets and the USB-C cable chipsets all have to

00:58:45 ◼   ► be in this incredibly perfect alignment and that is I think what's been taking

00:58:49 ◼   ► so long and we're starting to finally see the benefits of it you know already

00:58:52 ◼   ► like a almost two years into the rollout and next year will be very different.

00:58:57 ◼   ► I think one of the underestimated easily overlooked but fascinating to me the

00:59:03 ◼   ► things that's going on in hardware everywhere today.

00:59:08 ◼   ► Whether you're in the consumer electronics business in the car

00:59:14 ◼   ► business, everything is that every individual component is

00:59:21 ◼   ► slowly but surely turning into its own to being a computer. I

00:59:25 ◼   ► know, right? Oh, you're totally right. And I know Joanna Stern

00:59:27 ◼   ► and I talked about this on about the Mac, but about the touch

00:59:30 ◼   ► But it's fascinating to me.

00:59:32 ◼   ► It just is.

00:59:33 ◼   ► Every time I look at this review unit and I just think about it,

00:59:36 ◼   ► it just pleases me to no end that the Touch Bar is an iOS

00:59:40 ◼   ► computer in my Mac computer.

00:59:44 ◼   ► I find it just makes me smile.

00:59:47 ◼   ► It just cracks me up.

00:59:48 ◼   ► Because just like we were talking about half an hour ago,

00:59:51 ◼   ► like when we were kids, a computer was super expensive.

00:59:57 ◼   ► And you'd get like 64 kilobytes of memory, and it was enough money.

01:00:02 ◼   ► Luxury!

01:00:03 ◼   ► Right!

01:00:04 ◼   ► And it was a lot of money, and you had to be very careful, and it was quite large.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And now there's a much better computer than that in the tip of your Lightning cable.

01:00:15 ◼   ► The analog-to-Lightning adapter has a GSP in it.

01:00:19 ◼   ► I mean, it's a $9 cable, and that computer is probably more powerful than my first personal

01:00:24 ◼   ► maybe even my second person.

01:00:26 ◼   ► I mean, could it do, is it as powerful as a Commodore 64?

01:00:29 ◼   ► Maybe not, I'm not sure, but it's certainly

01:00:32 ◼   ► as powerful as my first computer.

01:00:33 ◼   ► - In some ways, it surely is.

01:00:35 ◼   ► There are certain, some aspects of it

01:00:37 ◼   ► that are surely faster than a Commodore 64.

01:00:39 ◼   ► It's crazy.

01:00:40 ◼   ► - Well, this is like storage.

01:00:41 ◼   ► How many terabytes of storage do you own now, personally?

01:00:43 ◼   ► Like 10?

01:00:44 ◼   ► - I don't even know.

01:00:45 ◼   ► - You don't even know.

01:00:46 ◼   ► I have at least, I don't know, I've got seven or eight

01:00:47 ◼   ► lying around, maybe more, and I probably got

01:00:49 ◼   ► two or three terabytes in the cloud,

01:00:51 ◼   ► and we are gonna laugh at how small it is,

01:00:53 ◼   ► that is, like the way that 50 gigabytes seems ridiculously tiny. Like, I backed up 80 gigs,

01:01:00 ◼   ► I added more, I use Backblaze for my desktop machine backup, and I'm like, "Oh, you know,

01:01:05 ◼   ► I didn't have this part of this drive backed up." So, I add it, it says, "Oh, that's 80 gigs,

01:01:09 ◼   ► I got gigabit internet." It added it in like an hour or something. And it just seems so laughably

01:01:14 ◼   ► small, even though it's enormous. And so, you know, in five years, we'll have like 50 terabytes

01:01:18 ◼   ► of storage and we won't be thinking about it much either.

01:01:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:01:22 ◼   ► Gets bigger, everything gets bigger, faster, better.

01:01:25 ◼   ► - Let me take a break and we'll come back to that

01:01:30 ◼   ► because one of the computers in our computers now

01:01:34 ◼   ► are the computer that's inside AirPods,

01:01:37 ◼   ► which still haven't shipped and I'd like to talk about that.

01:01:40 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah.

01:01:41 ◼   ► - I'm gonna take a break here and thank our next sponsor

01:01:44 ◼   ► and it's our good friends at Fracture.

01:01:47 ◼   ► You know Fracture, it's the photo company

01:01:48 ◼   ► that you send them your photos,

01:01:50 ◼   ► they print your photos directly on class.

01:01:51 ◼   ► They sponsored the show two episodes ago

01:01:54 ◼   ► and I told you then, I told you,

01:01:56 ◼   ► order now for the holidays

01:01:58 ◼   ► because they're gonna get backed up.

01:02:00 ◼   ► Well guess what, they're already backed up.

01:02:02 ◼   ► Orders placed today are shipped after Christmas.

01:02:05 ◼   ► We are recording, you're hearing us record

01:02:07 ◼   ► on Friday, December 9th.

01:02:10 ◼   ► I'll bet the show comes out on Saturday, December 10th.

01:02:13 ◼   ► So whatever point you're listening to me tell you this, if you were going to get people

01:02:18 ◼   ► fracture gifts for Christmas, you had a great idea.

01:02:21 ◼   ► And if you didn't order them already, I'm really sorry to tell you that you're too late.

01:02:24 ◼   ► But what you can do, what you can do is you can order gift cards from fracture.

01:02:32 ◼   ► You can give them, you can give out a gift card so that people can print their own fractures.

01:02:37 ◼   ► And you could do that all the way up to December 19th and still get Christmas delivery.

01:02:42 ◼   ► So you could still do it.

01:02:43 ◼   ► You're not totally shit out of luck.

01:02:47 ◼   ► These are great, great products.

01:02:49 ◼   ► So again, if you're thinking about it for Christmas, too late, hope you listened to

01:02:52 ◼   ► me last time.

01:02:53 ◼   ► Some of you probably did.

01:02:55 ◼   ► But it's such a great product.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Holiday aside, Fracture is just the best way, really is.

01:03:02 ◼   ► I would say this even if they weren't a long-time sponsor of the show, but if you want to print

01:03:07 ◼   ► your photos, it's the best way to do it because there's no fuss and they look great.

01:03:13 ◼   ► looks better than putting it on paper and then putting it into a traditional frame.

01:03:17 ◼   ► It looks better and it's easier to deal with because if you've ever done the thing where

01:03:21 ◼   ► you go to Ikea and get a picture frame and then you have a picture printed out and you

01:03:26 ◼   ► put it in and then you secure the back and then you look at the front and the picture's

01:03:29 ◼   ► off by like two degrees and you've got to undo the whole thing and put it back in. What

01:03:34 ◼   ► a pain in the ass.

01:03:36 ◼   ► Fractures are just printed right on the glass and they ship in this super clever little

01:03:40 ◼   ► cardboard thing that comes with everything you need to hang it on a wall or to prop it

01:03:45 ◼   ► up on your desk or on a mantle or wherever you want to put it. And it looks so cool because

01:03:50 ◼   ► it's just this edge to edge design. There is no frame that's necessary. It's just a

01:03:54 ◼   ► piece of glass with the picture edge to edge. Looks so great. So go check them out. Get

01:04:03 ◼   ► your own pictures printed. Pick up some gift cards if you want to for the holidays and

01:04:08 ◼   ► haven't ordered already, and go to fractureme.com/podcast. That's the name, that's the URL. They don't

01:04:17 ◼   ► care which podcast. Everybody's podcast gets the same URL. But then, when you order, they

01:04:23 ◼   ► ask a one-question survey, which is, "Where did you hear a fracture from?" And you can

01:04:26 ◼   ► tell them you heard about it right here on the talk show. My thanks to Fracture. Told

01:04:31 ◼   ► you it was going to be—they're going to get backed up. Listen to me next time.

01:04:35 ◼   ► Love their stuff. I need to order some but I didn't need them for presents. I got a I'm gonna remember that so airbrite

01:04:40 ◼   ► You know air pods still haven't shipped as I said, we are recording on Friday December 9th

01:04:45 ◼   ► And so it's like HBO and Westworld. They had a stock production. They had a reengineer the world to Apple and Apple's and they're getting

01:04:52 ◼   ► Very close to being to missing the holidays. I have heard just in the last 24 hours

01:04:59 ◼   ► I have heard not from like a very well-placed little birdie, but from a birdie

01:05:04 ◼   ► that there's a possibility that there are whispers in Apple,

01:05:09 ◼   ► among people who work in Apple retail,

01:05:11 ◼   ► that they might actually come in quote unquote

01:05:13 ◼   ► the next few days.

01:05:15 ◼   ► - Oh my God. - But nobody has,

01:05:16 ◼   ► but I asked and I was like, well, is it like a token amount?

01:05:20 ◼   ► Like, well, some of them are coming

01:05:22 ◼   ► and we're gonna sell them to some people,

01:05:24 ◼   ► but you've got no chance of actually getting one

01:05:26 ◼   ► because they're gonna be instantly back ordered

01:05:28 ◼   ► six to eight weeks.

01:05:29 ◼   ► Is it that type of shipping?

01:05:31 ◼   ► Or is it like you have a reasonable chance of getting them,

01:05:36 ◼   ► walking into an Apple store and walking out with AirPods?

01:05:41 ◼   ► And the answer was no idea.

01:05:44 ◼   ► This is, in my opinion, the biggest Apple

01:05:51 ◼   ► screw up in recent memory.

01:05:54 ◼   ► - I gotta agree, 'cause, so, let me,

01:05:58 ◼   ► I'm gonna bump up one level. - The only thing I can

01:05:59 ◼   ► - I'll compare it to one other thing,

01:06:02 ◼   ► and I think that this is worse,

01:06:03 ◼   ► is the, I think it was the white iPhone 4.

01:06:08 ◼   ► - Oh yes.

01:06:12 ◼   ► - So when the iPhone 4 came out,

01:06:14 ◼   ► that was the one with the glass front and back,

01:06:17 ◼   ► and I think that was the one that didn't ship, right?

01:06:22 ◼   ► And it kind of got lost, I think,

01:06:25 ◼   ► in the shuffle of Antennagate,

01:06:27 ◼   ► because that was the phone that had Antennagate.

01:06:29 ◼   ► - That's right.

01:06:31 ◼   ► - It was supposed to, there were black ones and white ones,

01:06:33 ◼   ► and the white ones, the black ones came out in June

01:06:38 ◼   ► on schedule, and then Apple said something to the effect

01:06:41 ◼   ► of we're having a little problem with the white production,

01:06:43 ◼   ► we expect them in July, like one month late.

01:06:46 ◼   ► And July came and went, and then Antennagate hit,

01:06:50 ◼   ► and everybody remembered that.

01:06:51 ◼   ► But the white iPhones didn't ship until May,

01:06:56 ◼   ► the next year, April or May, like almost a full year.

01:06:59 ◼   ► And I remember it vividly because my wife wanted

01:07:03 ◼   ► to get the white one and she waited.

01:07:07 ◼   ► And then by the time it got to April or May,

01:07:09 ◼   ► she was like, well, I'm not stupid,

01:07:11 ◼   ► I'm not gonna buy a new iPhone now,

01:07:12 ◼   ► the new one's come out.

01:07:13 ◼   ► Even though the 4S, that was when they first moved

01:07:16 ◼   ► the schedule back from June to like September.

01:07:20 ◼   ► So she ended up with her, I think she was using her 3GS

01:07:23 ◼   ► or whatever for two years.

01:07:25 ◼   ► But I would say this is a worse mistake because at least with the iPhone 4, if you wanted an iPhone 4 you could get it, you just didn't get it in the color you wanted.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Whereas if you want AirPods, you can't get them.

01:07:40 ◼   ► Yeah, this is, it seems bad to introduce something that is a fundamental part of a major change

01:07:49 ◼   ► you're making and then not have the engineering and production in place to release it. Seems

01:07:54 ◼   ► like a big F up. I was gonna say, I want to bump up one level, not to avoid the topic,

01:08:01 ◼   ► but I mean, there's always this metaphor. Like, you know, Apple is Hillary Clinton,

01:08:06 ◼   ► Samsung is Trump, right? You know, without even a political discussion, it's kind of

01:08:09 ◼   ► And so, Apple removes headphones and you have think pieces and whatever.

01:08:13 ◼   ► You posted something about this other day.

01:08:15 ◼   ► Samsung says, "We're not going to have a headphone jack."

01:08:18 ◼   ► I'm sorry, headphone jack, rather.

01:08:19 ◼   ► Samsung says, "We're not going to have a headphone jack on our next flagship phone."

01:08:22 ◼   ► Everyone's like, "Well, it's just Samsung, right?

01:08:24 ◼   ► Of course."

01:08:25 ◼   ► You're like, "But wait, but you're so angry!

01:08:27 ◼   ► Why were you so angry?

01:08:28 ◼   ► Like, it's a technology company.

01:08:29 ◼   ► It's a decision.

01:08:30 ◼   ► There's all these trade-offs.

01:08:31 ◼   ► Why were you so, like, furious?

01:08:33 ◼   ► Like, there was white-hot fury about it."

01:08:35 ◼   ► And you could argue it's because there's more of an emotional connection with the iPhone

01:08:38 ◼   ► with the iPhone and there are fewer models

01:08:41 ◼   ► and there is not that emotional connection with Samsung,

01:08:44 ◼   ► but it is sort of hilarious.

01:08:45 ◼   ► But if you're gonna take the headphone jack out

01:08:47 ◼   ► and you're gonna deal with the repercussion

01:08:49 ◼   ► 'cause you know people have been keyed up

01:08:51 ◼   ► to be angry for weeks and months

01:08:52 ◼   ► as the rumors are out there,

01:08:54 ◼   ► there is something desperately wrong with that.

01:08:56 ◼   ► Something very bad happened to reach this point.

01:08:58 ◼   ► I mean, 'cause--

01:08:59 ◼   ► - There's no doubt in my mind.

01:09:00 ◼   ► I've talked to several people, you know,

01:09:04 ◼   ► I can't say with 100% certainty,

01:09:05 ◼   ► but I'm as certain as I could be

01:09:07 ◼   ► that there was absolutely zero coincidence to the fact

01:09:11 ◼   ► that the iPhone 7 is the first iPhone

01:09:14 ◼   ► without the headphone jack

01:09:16 ◼   ► and was introduced alongside AirPods and W1 chip.

01:09:21 ◼   ► That was completely in coordination.

01:09:22 ◼   ► AirPods-- - They wanted

01:09:23 ◼   ► to ship simultaneously.

01:09:24 ◼   ► - AirPods were in development for three years.

01:09:27 ◼   ► Engineering and design started three years ago

01:09:31 ◼   ► and it was a year ago when they felt like they were

01:09:34 ◼   ► at the point where they can say,

01:09:35 ◼   ► yes, these will be ready in September 2016.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Therefore, we can go ahead with this design of the iPhone that

01:09:44 ◼   ► doesn't have the headphone jack and this, that,

01:09:47 ◼   ► and the other thing, or now we can make the camera bigger

01:09:50 ◼   ► and move the battery down.

01:09:51 ◼   ► And all the other side effects of being

01:09:54 ◼   ► able to remove the headphone jack

01:09:57 ◼   ► was completely in coordination.

01:09:59 ◼   ► And yes, they did not.

01:10:00 ◼   ► And they knew then--

01:10:01 ◼   ► Apple knew.

01:10:02 ◼   ► I didn't know.

01:10:03 ◼   ► But Apple knew that they were relatively expensive

01:10:06 ◼   ► and therefore were not going to be included in the box.

01:10:10 ◼   ► So even though they're not in the box and cost $150,

01:10:18 ◼   ► and therefore-- which is a lot to pay for headphones

01:10:22 ◼   ► by most people's standards.

01:10:23 ◼   ► And therefore, they knew it's not

01:10:25 ◼   ► going to be like everybody with an iPhone 7

01:10:27 ◼   ► is going to spend $150 for AirPods.

01:10:30 ◼   ► it was absolutely in lockstep with each other,

01:10:34 ◼   ► that they weren't going to ship a phone without a headphone

01:10:36 ◼   ► jack without the new wireless AirPods,

01:10:40 ◼   ► and they weren't going to ship the AirPods

01:10:42 ◼   ► with a flagship phone that still has the headphone jack.

01:10:47 ◼   ► And so I think if Apple knew--

01:10:49 ◼   ► I really do think so.

01:10:53 ◼   ► I think if they knew that they were

01:10:54 ◼   ► going to be as late as they are, I

01:10:56 ◼   ► don't think that they would have removed the headphone jack

01:10:58 ◼   ► this year.

01:10:59 ◼   ► Well, remember, if you look at the design of the phone, am I wrong? My recollection

01:11:03 ◼   ► is after the teardowns came out that both phones have technically have room for a headphone

01:11:09 ◼   ► jack, so they must have given themselves—and there's a space where it could have gone,

01:11:13 ◼   ► so they must have given themselves wiggle room at some point.

01:11:16 ◼   ► I thought there was room for it.

01:11:18 ◼   ► No, well, I guess—

01:11:19 ◼   ► There's a space where—well, maybe I'm wrong. I was wondering how much wiggle room

01:11:23 ◼   ► they gave them, because they have to lock in the circuit board design and everything

01:11:26 ◼   ► else, you know.

01:11:27 ◼   ► in very far in advance. Like, whatever they're coming out with next year is already completely locked in.

01:11:32 ◼   ► I feel terrible for whoever on the team, whichever people on the team at whichever levels from top to bottom,

01:11:39 ◼   ► either made an error in judgment or just were ahead of—I mean, this is the thing. So, this will seem

01:11:47 ◼   ► like a sidebar. I'll be brief with it. But, you know, I wrote a piece in March, I think, for Macworld about

01:11:52 ◼   ► why you should probably not become a backer of Kickstarter and other

01:11:56 ◼   ► crowdfunding projects

01:11:58 ◼   ► involved mass manufacture items that aren't totally interchangeable and known

01:12:02 ◼   ► like a book like everyone knows how to print a book

01:12:05 ◼   ► public in a brick book printer could be late but they don't suddenly say we

01:12:08 ◼   ► don't know how to put ink on pages we try to put the ink on the pages and the

01:12:12 ◼   ► ink fell off and we have to work with you to develop a new way

01:12:16 ◼   ► to put ink on paper because the one you propose doesn't work

01:12:19 ◼   ► So, that typically doesn't happen.

01:12:21 ◼   ► It happens constantly in the production of,

01:12:26 ◼   ► especially electronics, but a lot of things where,

01:12:29 ◼   ► if you follow the folks at Studio Neat,

01:12:30 ◼   ► they have a great podcast that Mike Hurley is hosting,

01:12:33 ◼   ► where the two guys, Dan Provost and,

01:12:35 ◼   ► my black hair's name, and Tom Gerhart,

01:12:40 ◼   ► the two of them, these wonderful guys.

01:12:42 ◼   ► I've met them so many times,

01:12:43 ◼   ► I'd be embarrassed to make them their names.

01:12:45 ◼   ► Oh, geez.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Well, they're lovely people, they do really good products,

01:12:48 ◼   ► really interesting stuff they make, and they have a podcast about making their latest thing and

01:12:52 ◼   ► talking about it, and it's really fascinating because you get the insight into people who do

01:12:56 ◼   ► have a, you know, a moderate-sized company but not a very big one, and what the constraints are when

01:13:01 ◼   ► you're doing all of these manufacturing things. So, I'm just sort of backing it out into the like,

01:13:08 ◼   ► like, so I understand from talking to people at sort of Dan and Tom's level, and some folks in

01:13:13 ◼   ► bigger corporations when they'll talk more frankly about like, just what happens when you get from

01:13:17 ◼   ► there's a stage between, I think you've written about it too,

01:13:20 ◼   ► there's been people that have written articles

01:13:22 ◼   ► about this, of course, between like prototype

01:13:23 ◼   ► and production, there's this thing where you deliver stuff,

01:13:26 ◼   ► you work to get something that's closer and closer

01:13:27 ◼   ► to what's actually going on in a production line,

01:13:29 ◼   ► then there's a point in which you make units

01:13:31 ◼   ► on the production line and they work,

01:13:33 ◼   ► and then you go into this full scale thing

01:13:34 ◼   ► in which there's QA and QC for,

01:13:37 ◼   ► or QC for the products coming off the line, right?

01:13:39 ◼   ► And it's horrible, and the fact that any consumer

01:13:43 ◼   ► electronics company can produce things routinely

01:13:45 ◼   ► on any schedule is always amazing.

01:13:47 ◼   ► So Apple's track record is really good.

01:13:49 ◼   ► So is Note 7 excluded, but sort of part of it.

01:13:53 ◼   ► So is Samsung.

01:13:54 ◼   ► So are a lot of other companies

01:13:56 ◼   ► that just produce huge numbers of new models of things

01:13:59 ◼   ► and they're super complicated.

01:14:00 ◼   ► - Even with the Note 7, the problem wasn't with production.

01:14:04 ◼   ► The problem was with the design.

01:14:05 ◼   ► I mean, that's--

01:14:06 ◼   ► - Right, they made a bad choice.

01:14:07 ◼   ► - Right, I mean, I've read enough articles from people

01:14:10 ◼   ► who've taken it apart. - No, you're totally right.

01:14:12 ◼   ► - Everybody's in near unanimous agreement

01:14:15 ◼   ► about what's wrong.

01:14:16 ◼   ► put too big of a battery in too small of a space and therefore led to the positive and

01:14:21 ◼   ► negative sides touching it under physical strain.

01:14:25 ◼   ► And they, you know, the post-mortem's going to be they should have realized this in the

01:14:29 ◼   ► prototyping stage well in advance of going to production and done something about it.

01:14:32 ◼   ► But so when I—so, you know, you know all those things. There's this mystery, though.

01:14:36 ◼   ► This is what I think Dan and Tom get at well in their podcasts, and you can read stories

01:14:39 ◼   ► about this all over. Like, there's this incredible thing about—we know, and I think

01:14:43 ◼   ► It's one thing that Johnny Ives does really well.

01:14:45 ◼   ► It's something that I think Tim Cook, as coming from that deep knowledge of the supply chain,

01:14:50 ◼   ► and you know, it kind of got him onto the CEO path, understanding how you bring different

01:14:55 ◼   ► things together and what is feasible.

01:14:58 ◼   ► Kazanami used to consult on this for high-tech companies, where he would look at what they

01:15:01 ◼   ► had in the lab, he would look at what their customers actually wanted, and he would help

01:15:05 ◼   ► them match those things together, what was feasible and what people wanted, to turn it

01:15:10 ◼   ► into something that was manufacturable or producible.

01:15:12 ◼   ► It is an incredible art because you're modeling machines in your head that make things on

01:15:20 ◼   ► these massive scales.

01:15:21 ◼   ► So, it's not surprising this happens from time to time, it's just Apple is so good at,

01:15:26 ◼   ► in general, executing it that something went deeply wrong when they thought they could

01:15:30 ◼   ► make some part of this and it would work 100% of the time, and they got to it and they're

01:15:34 ◼   ► like, "This works 98% of the time."

01:15:35 ◼   ► I mean, it could be as, it's probably as little as that, too, based on what the reports were.

01:15:39 ◼   ► Yeah, secondhand talking to a friend who has a friend who works on the AirPods team, it is,

01:15:45 ◼   ► these things are a bitch to manufacture. And they knew it was going to be, but there's something,

01:15:50 ◼   ► you know, some part of, "Hey, we've got a, you know, I'm holding a pair right here in my hands,

01:15:58 ◼   ► and I'm not trying to brag, you know, but it's very surprising to me that I, here we are on

01:16:04 ◼   ► December 9th, and I've got AirPods and nobody else does."

01:16:07 ◼   ► It's that late in the process that—

01:16:09 ◼   ► that a problem occurred.

01:16:10 ◼   ► - You know, I've got right here in my hands proof

01:16:13 ◼   ► that there's somewhere there, there was, you know,

01:16:16 ◼   ► by September there was a factory in China

01:16:19 ◼   ► that was pushing out very good high quality AirPods.

01:16:24 ◼   ► And somehow though, being able to spool that up

01:16:29 ◼   ► to punch out the millions of them

01:16:32 ◼   ► that they need to punch out, they've run into something.

01:16:35 ◼   ► Now again, I've heard that,

01:16:38 ◼   ► and this is from a different source, but I've heard that it's possible that by the time you

01:16:42 ◼   ► even listen to this, they might be out if you're listening like next week. But I wouldn't be

01:16:46 ◼   ► surprised if, you know, they get pushed out to January. Something has gone terribly wrong.

01:16:53 ◼   ► Pete: My suspicion, based on the fact that they're able to ship units to you and other reviewers

01:16:57 ◼   ► that, from generally reported, you know, I think Matthew Panzareno wrote about this and I think,

01:17:02 ◼   ► I think you, I forget what your experience has been. They're reliable in your experience, right?

01:17:06 ◼   ► They work pretty much the way you do.

01:17:07 ◼   ► if this, they don't work perfectly. Uh, they glitch occasionally, but,

01:17:12 ◼   ► but if, if,

01:17:14 ◼   ► if this is as good as the AirPods 1.0 are going to get, if it's, if,

01:17:19 ◼   ► if the exact experience that I've had and continue to have with these is exactly

01:17:23 ◼   ► what everybody would experience, I would still recommend it wholeheartedly.

01:17:27 ◼   ► And I, I would describe these AirPods as is occasional problems included as my

01:17:32 ◼   ► favorite new Apple product.

01:17:37 ◼   ► I love them.

01:17:38 ◼   ► And my suspicion is this is a QC or quality control problem that they turned on the volume,

01:17:43 ◼   ► they got production units out, they had some yield issues, but they said we can fix the

01:17:47 ◼   ► yields and production.

01:17:50 ◼   ► They pulled out the best of them, sent them through viewers, and then they started turning

01:17:53 ◼   ► the dial up, and when they turned the dial up, the yield was so poor on which I don't

01:17:58 ◼   ► know what their number is.

01:17:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's like that.

01:18:00 ◼   ► That's what I think it is.

01:18:01 ◼   ► Yeah, because they're that far along.

01:18:02 ◼   ► If they're making something they can send to you that is not a one-off item, it is something

01:18:05 ◼   ► came out of production line, it has to be, it's not a software issue, or yours would

01:18:09 ◼   ► be failing all the time too, and so would all the other reviewers.

01:18:11 ◼   ► Every once in a while, the problems I've seen, and they're very similar to what Matthew's

01:18:15 ◼   ► seen, every once in a while, but it's actually, I use them all the time. They're the only

01:18:20 ◼   ► headphones I've used since September, period. Every once in a while, the audio, it just

01:18:29 ◼   ► gets a little stuttery. It's like there's some kind of Bluetooth, you know, somehow

01:18:34 ◼   ► the wireless signal gets jacked and you know usually you can just take them out put them

01:18:39 ◼   ► back in and you know wait a little bit and it fixes itself. Every once in a while one

01:18:47 ◼   ► of them drops out and I've got both in but it somehow mistakenly puts itself into oh

01:18:54 ◼   ► you just want to use one mode because you can do that you can just put one in and it'll

01:18:58 ◼   ► just play through the month even though I have both in like the audio will stop playing

01:19:02 ◼   ► to the right one for a little, and then the way to fix it,

01:19:05 ◼   ► or at least I've fixed it, is take them both out,

01:19:07 ◼   ► put them in the little Tic Tac case, and start over.

01:19:10 ◼   ► But it's only happened to me like twice, period.

01:19:14 ◼   ► And I think that's it.

01:19:17 ◼   ► I mean, that's pretty much the only problems

01:19:19 ◼   ► I've had with it.

01:19:20 ◼   ► Every once in a while, you know,

01:19:21 ◼   ► oh, and the other problem is every once in a while,

01:19:23 ◼   ► switching from one device to another,

01:19:26 ◼   ► it doesn't go seamlessly.

01:19:28 ◼   ► It's not as magic as it should be.

01:19:31 ◼   ► That, I think, though, is more of an iOS problem

01:19:34 ◼   ► than a problem with the AirPods, I think.

01:19:36 ◼   ► I suspect that software, and I've seen that less,

01:19:39 ◼   ► so I wouldn't even be surprised

01:19:41 ◼   ► if that's actually been fixed in one of the recent,

01:19:44 ◼   ► I'm actually running the betas on all my devices.

01:19:49 ◼   ► Like, my phone is still running

01:19:51 ◼   ► whatever the current developer beta of iOS is.

01:19:53 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:19:54 ◼   ► - So I wouldn't even be surprised.

01:19:55 ◼   ► - The 10.2.2, I think, just came out.

01:19:56 ◼   ► - I haven't seen that in a few weeks,

01:19:59 ◼   ► Although I pretty much just use them with my iPhone too.

01:20:02 ◼   ► - This makes me think, you know,

01:20:02 ◼   ► actually as I think about it,

01:20:03 ◼   ► I realize because they can push so much

01:20:05 ◼   ► to software and firmware,

01:20:06 ◼   ► my suspicion is even further

01:20:09 ◼   ► that it's not a quality control issue.

01:20:10 ◼   ► I just realized it's the next level thing,

01:20:12 ◼   ► which is they got a bunch of units off,

01:20:14 ◼   ► they went through quality control

01:20:15 ◼   ► and went through automated testing,

01:20:17 ◼   ► they started to pull samples to test,

01:20:19 ◼   ► and they found with samples

01:20:21 ◼   ► that the defect rate wasn't being determined

01:20:24 ◼   ► through automatic testing.

01:20:25 ◼   ► And then they started to test more

01:20:26 ◼   ► they realized that the defect rate was, whatever the defect was, was wider and more complicated,

01:20:32 ◼   ► and that whatever QC process they're using would not be adequate.

01:20:36 ◼   ► Because otherwise, excuse me, if they could make some that are good and some that aren't,

01:20:42 ◼   ► they would have perhaps made a bunch and shipped out a quantity and said, "Look, we're

01:20:45 ◼   ► getting an early amount out.

01:20:46 ◼   ► We have manufacturing problems.

01:20:48 ◼   ► We're going to catch up.

01:20:49 ◼   ► We want to get the people who committed to this earliest.

01:20:51 ◼   ► We're going to send the first 100,000 out," right?

01:20:53 ◼   ► Because even if they lost 100,000, 100,000 units were bad and 100,000 were good, they

01:20:58 ◼   ► might do it because they do like to delight their customers.

01:21:02 ◼   ► That's one thing they do.

01:21:03 ◼   ► So my thinking is they couldn't even get a yield or reliability high enough that made

01:21:08 ◼   ► them confident they could ship out any numbers in quantity until this.

01:21:12 ◼   ► And they also tend to know when they're going to catch up.

01:21:21 ◼   ► So for example, with Apple Watch,

01:21:23 ◼   ► Apple Watch, the original one,

01:21:26 ◼   ► launched and couldn't meet demand.

01:21:30 ◼   ► Not even close.

01:21:31 ◼   ► But their estimates were, if anything,

01:21:35 ◼   ► under-promising and over-delivering.

01:21:37 ◼   ► So like if you ordered an Apple Watch

01:21:41 ◼   ► right when they first started taking orders

01:21:43 ◼   ► and your preferred model said six to eight weeks,

01:21:47 ◼   ► you probably got it in like five weeks.

01:21:51 ◼   ► It seemed, you know, and there were people--

01:21:53 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, and the other thing where they pushed

01:21:54 ◼   ► the unpopular model that developers could get the blue,

01:21:57 ◼   ► whatever the parameters were, which was nice.

01:21:59 ◼   ► It was like we have some that aren't committed,

01:22:01 ◼   ► so we're gonna make them available to, you know,

01:22:03 ◼   ► and that's how a lot of developers made a lot of friends

01:22:06 ◼   ► buying those and selling them off.

01:22:07 ◼   ► - And it's also been true, for example,

01:22:08 ◼   ► with the iPhone 7, you know, where there were

01:22:10 ◼   ► certain models, you know, the Jet Black

01:22:14 ◼   ► and the plus size ones that, you know,

01:22:17 ◼   ► If you didn't get your order in right at midnight Pacific,

01:22:21 ◼   ► you were given a, you weren't gonna get it on day one,

01:22:24 ◼   ► but whenever they were promising, that's when you got it.

01:22:28 ◼   ► You did get it before, and I ordered a couple of them,

01:22:32 ◼   ► and one of them, I don't know,

01:22:33 ◼   ► six to eight weeks or something like that,

01:22:34 ◼   ► and I got it in four weeks.

01:22:36 ◼   ► - Oh, wow, great.

01:22:38 ◼   ► - So whatever's going on with the AirPods isn't like that.

01:22:41 ◼   ► It seems to me like they aren't willing to commit.

01:22:44 ◼   ► Obviously, if they could, if they felt like,

01:22:46 ◼   ► well, we can't meet demand right now,

01:22:48 ◼   ► but within two months we will.

01:22:50 ◼   ► They'd start taking orders

01:22:52 ◼   ► and say six to eight weeks delivery.

01:22:54 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:22:55 ◼   ► - And the other thing too is that whatever it is,

01:22:57 ◼   ► it was obviously a surprise

01:22:59 ◼   ► and it's sort of like an unknown known.

01:23:02 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:23:03 ◼   ► Like they don't quite have a handle on the problem

01:23:05 ◼   ► because I expected, it seemed like Apple expected,

01:23:10 ◼   ► when the invitations went out

01:23:11 ◼   ► for the MacBook Pro event in October,

01:23:15 ◼   ► it seemed as though they were expecting to launch

01:23:17 ◼   ► the AirPods at that event and say they're now available.

01:23:21 ◼   ► And I think those invitations, as per Apple's usual want,

01:23:25 ◼   ► only went out like a week before the event.

01:23:28 ◼   ► So up to like a week before that event,

01:23:30 ◼   ► they still thought that they were gonna launch

01:23:32 ◼   ► in late October.

01:23:33 ◼   ► - I also think, so the narrative about Apple always gets

01:23:37 ◼   ► spun, they're doomed because of X, and we don't do that here

01:23:40 ◼   ► because we know they've got $200 billion in the bank,

01:23:43 ◼   ► I've said, I think under a Trump administration, Apple could do very well because they will

01:23:48 ◼   ► have a deal to repatriate their money and they'll pay some different tax rate and that's

01:23:53 ◼   ► probably going to get solved, right?

01:23:54 ◼   ► So Apple will have even more money to spend in the U.S. that's repatriated.

01:23:58 ◼   ► Like, you know, they're not going anywhere.

01:24:00 ◼   ► But I actually think this is a story that one could argue is the difference between

01:24:04 ◼   ► them and Samsung, perhaps, or a sign that Apple is still on the right track even if

01:24:08 ◼   ► maybe they have too much on their plate that's not executing all in concert, you know, or

01:24:13 ◼   ► not anticipating the USB-C adapter negative response, then they lowered prices.

01:24:18 ◼   ► So Apple didn't ship the AirPods and then say, "Oops, some of them are bad, and take

01:24:23 ◼   ► them into a store and we'll send you a box to return it."

01:24:26 ◼   ► They said, "We can't ship these in good conscience because whatever reason."

01:24:31 ◼   ► Maybe they couldn't even get them off the assembly line, which seems unlikely since

01:24:34 ◼   ► they had review units.

01:24:35 ◼   ► I'm sure they are ramped up to a point to be able to produce them in the quantities

01:24:38 ◼   ► that they needed to ramp up towards.

01:24:40 ◼   ► But this tells me they're more willing to take the hit of customers who are unhappy

01:24:44 ◼   ► to get a thing that they want to delight them by just delaying indefinitely until they know

01:24:49 ◼   ► they can deliver something that's functional.

01:24:51 ◼   ► That is a good sign to me, even because you can't always hit on all cylinders on manufacturing.

01:24:56 ◼   ► And you know, they're losing sales, but are there things that are direct competitors that

01:25:01 ◼   ► someone is saying, "I'm canceling my AirPod order to buy this other thing"?

01:25:05 ◼   ► I think you just have a delay for most people who are going to be a buyer of it.

01:25:09 ◼   ► Right, right. Apple is really screwed because some people who really want wireless headphones

01:25:13 ◼   ► are buying Beats.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Or they're waiting, Apple is sitting on waiting for a few million dollars relative to their

01:25:22 ◼   ► multi-billion dollar earnings.

01:25:24 ◼   ► So I can see the possibilities would be... The best case scenario is that sometime in

01:25:31 ◼   ► the next week, Apple starts shipping them in significant quantity. And I feel like if

01:25:38 ◼   ► If that happens, it'll mostly be all's forgiven.

01:25:42 ◼   ► Although I seriously think that they've shut,

01:25:45 ◼   ► one way they shut themself in the foot

01:25:46 ◼   ► is that the most likely time for someone to buy one

01:25:48 ◼   ► is while they're buying their iPhone 7.

01:25:50 ◼   ► And so there's an awful lot of people who would have said,

01:25:52 ◼   ► well, what the hell, I'll tack on $150,

01:25:55 ◼   ► who now that their iPhone 7 doesn't even feel that new,

01:25:58 ◼   ► it's like, well, that's just my iPhone,

01:26:00 ◼   ► they're not gonna spend $150 on it.

01:26:02 ◼   ► But if they can do it in the next week

01:26:04 ◼   ► in sufficient quantity, it's also very clearly,

01:26:07 ◼   ► a stocking stuffer, right? I mean, like, quite—

01:26:10 ◼   ► Pete: Yeah, yeah.

01:26:11 ◼   ► Pete: In every aspect of the word, you know, it's something—

01:26:13 ◼   ► Pete; It's an expensive gift you get for, I mean, this is, you know, 100 and, what is it,

01:26:16 ◼   ► 200 bucks? I forgot.

01:26:17 ◼   ► Pete; 149. Or 159.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Pete; So, it's, you know, it's out of the scale of a lot. It's, you know,

01:26:22 ◼   ► I don't know what families have different limits and whatever, but it's like, you know, we got one

01:26:25 ◼   ► of my kids, one of my, it's a secret, my son doesn't listen, neither of my kids listen to this

01:26:29 ◼   ► podcast. But my older son has a—

01:26:33 ◼   ► Pete; You better hope so!

01:26:34 ◼   ► Pete; I hope so. They, I don't think they listen to, well, they get older, they will. They listen

01:26:37 ◼   ► to the game show episodes of The Incomparable where some of the hosts will say, "Oh no, Glenn's

01:26:41 ◼   ► kids are listening, you know, clean it up." But, so, my older son has a great proclivity towards

01:26:47 ◼   ► music. He is, thank God, not a prodigy because we know happy lives and prodigies do not go together.

01:26:53 ◼   ► But he has a gift. He's a musical talent. It's really neat and he's been learning a bunch of

01:26:57 ◼   ► instruments and his flute is his primary one, but he suddenly got interested in the trombone.

01:27:01 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Okay, I guess we have a small house, but you know, I love hearing him play."

01:27:06 ◼   ► okay, you know, we got a mute for it. So, his mother-in-law, or my mother-in-law,

01:27:09 ◼   ► father-in-law got that as a gift, which is, you know, got a modest model on sale and whatever,

01:27:14 ◼   ► but it's a pricey gift and he'll appreciate it. So, that's kind of, you know, that's out of our

01:27:18 ◼   ► usual scale, but the grandparents are allowed to do that and they asked.

01:27:21 ◼   ► Well, if you look at—

01:27:23 ◼   ► But like, you know, AirPods, we didn't get them AirPods, let me just tell you that.

01:27:26 ◼   ► Right. If you look—oh no, nobody's getting AirPods for good, at least not yet.

01:27:31 ◼   ► I'm getting earplugs, though, that's gonna be my gift.

01:27:34 ◼   ► - If you look at the iPod's sales history,

01:27:37 ◼   ► I mean there's a lot of reasons for the reasons

01:27:39 ◼   ► it ramped up, that the first few years

01:27:41 ◼   ► it was a Mac only product and et cetera.

01:27:44 ◼   ► But it's when they found good models

01:27:47 ◼   ► that could hit that 199 price point

01:27:49 ◼   ► is really when it exploded.

01:27:51 ◼   ► There's something magical about sub $200

01:27:54 ◼   ► in terms of, okay, this isn't something we'll,

01:27:57 ◼   ► it's not a lark, but it's a gift.

01:28:02 ◼   ► So 159 would be great.

01:28:03 ◼   ► If they can do it this week, in quantity,

01:28:07 ◼   ► that would be great.

01:28:07 ◼   ► That's the best case scenario,

01:28:08 ◼   ► and I think it's mostly all's forgiven.

01:28:10 ◼   ► If they ship in the next week or so,

01:28:14 ◼   ► but it's not in sufficient quantity,

01:28:16 ◼   ► and it's six to eight weeks back ordered past the holidays

01:28:20 ◼   ► for just about it for all practical effects, that sucks.

01:28:23 ◼   ► And that's obviously a huge miss for them.

01:28:26 ◼   ► Because it was, you know, the holiday,

01:28:30 ◼   ► getting these things out in time

01:28:31 ◼   ► the ship for the holiday is huge.

01:28:33 ◼   ► There's just no doubt about it.

01:28:35 ◼   ► It's one of those items that's gonna sell

01:28:38 ◼   ► in that spiky, whoa, look at the fourth quarter

01:28:42 ◼   ► sells double what it does in the other three quarters

01:28:44 ◼   ► of the year type product.

01:28:46 ◼   ► And then the third--

01:28:48 ◼   ► - I think it was a poll though,

01:28:50 ◼   ► oh, it was a poll though too,

01:28:51 ◼   ► when people bought AirPods,

01:28:52 ◼   ► they thought AirPod plus the new phones,

01:28:54 ◼   ► so some people delayed getting a new phone

01:28:56 ◼   ► until they could get AirPods.

01:28:57 ◼   ► - Third case scenario would be it doesn't even ship

01:29:00 ◼   ► for in low quantity this month.

01:29:02 ◼   ► - Oh my God, yeah.

01:29:03 ◼   ► - And there was, MacRumors had a story,

01:29:06 ◼   ► you know, somehow sourced to the supply chain

01:29:08 ◼   ► that it's been pushed back to January.

01:29:10 ◼   ► And then the next day they had a counter story

01:29:12 ◼   ► that said, no, no, it's shipping soon.

01:29:14 ◼   ► That's really embarrassing.

01:29:17 ◼   ► And then I guess as terms of what's actually possible,

01:29:21 ◼   ► you can't say it's impossible

01:29:23 ◼   ► that they never even ship them.

01:29:24 ◼   ► - Oh man, that would be very bad for confidence.

01:29:29 ◼   ► - Not on the financial side, a bit, very small,

01:29:32 ◼   ► but the confidence of it would be--

01:29:35 ◼   ► - I guess never seems impos--

01:29:36 ◼   ► But what if it doesn't ship until like July?

01:29:39 ◼   ► Like the white iPhone, right?

01:29:41 ◼   ► - It would just become a, you know,

01:29:42 ◼   ► becomes an albatross, right?

01:29:44 ◼   ► It's like, it's a very beautiful bird when it's flying,

01:29:46 ◼   ► not so much when it's hanging around your neck.

01:29:48 ◼   ► - Again, does not doom the company, but this is--

01:29:51 ◼   ► - No, just--

01:29:52 ◼   ► - At this point, I feel like, you know,

01:29:54 ◼   ► December 9th, I mean, it's probably too close.

01:29:58 ◼   ► I mean, it's, you know, we're talking 15, 16 days till Christmas.

01:30:02 ◼   ► There could be a bunch of people in a factory in China very, you know,

01:30:05 ◼   ► delicately opening up things and fixing a tiny thing or testing them one at a

01:30:09 ◼   ► time.

01:30:10 ◼   ► I don't know this, but I certainly would,

01:30:12 ◼   ► I would bet heavily that there are some normally Cupertino

01:30:17 ◼   ► residents who are spending on all, you know.

01:30:20 ◼   ► Do you remember that story about Tim Cook? It was a great story.

01:30:24 ◼   ► I think it was the thing. Yeah, it's the, um, they're having that meeting.

01:30:27 ◼   ► I can't remember the specific problem. Something was going on in China that was problematic.

01:30:31 ◼   ► He's sitting there as CEO. The person at the table explains it, and they go in the meeting,

01:30:36 ◼   ► and at some point Tim looks at him and says, "Why are you still here?" And the guy walked out and

01:30:41 ◼   ► literally got on a plane to China to take care of the problem. I'm telling you, right? It's close to

01:30:45 ◼   ► that.

01:30:45 ◼   ► Pete: Yeah, it's somebody, you know, Tim said, "Okay, well, you're responsible for fixing it.

01:30:48 ◼   ► You'll have to go there to fix it." And then the meeting keeps going and the guy didn't get up,

01:30:54 ◼   ► up, and Tim Cook says, "Why are you still here?" And so the guy realized that that's

01:30:59 ◼   ► how quickly he wanted him to go, and he drove—he didn't go home and pack, he just drove to

01:31:04 ◼   ► the airport and figured he'd get clothes once he gets to Beijing.

01:31:07 ◼   ► Pete: You can buy clothes in China, I've heard, very easily.

01:31:10 ◼   ► So, I like that it also wasn't that Tim was screaming and red-faced at him, he's

01:31:16 ◼   ► just like, "Why are you still here?" I thought that, to me, set a tone for the Tim

01:31:21 ◼   ► Cook administration, and I think it's followed through pretty well that we expect that he

01:31:27 ◼   ► holds people responsible without it, you know, for the right reason. When things aren't

01:31:32 ◼   ► working, it's going to get fixed, and that's what this feels like from the outside. There's

01:31:35 ◼   ► a bunch of people who are, you know, like, "We've got to get this fixed so I can

01:31:39 ◼   ► be with my family at the holidays at the end of the year."

01:31:42 ◼   ► Pete: Yeah. All right, let me take a break here and thank our third and final sponsor.

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01:35:07 ◼   ► What else is going on?

01:35:12 ◼   ► You see this thing where Apple launched

01:35:15 ◼   ► their TV single sign-on?

01:35:17 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, they sorta, they launched,

01:35:21 ◼   ► yeah, they launched it.

01:35:22 ◼   ► All right, I'll give them that.

01:35:22 ◼   ► They did launch it.

01:35:23 ◼   ► - So John Pachkowski put it in a tweet.

01:35:25 ◼   ► So just the other day, Apple launched the single,

01:35:27 ◼   ► this is the thing where you can use

01:35:29 ◼   ► your cable service username and password to sign in.

01:35:34 ◼   ► And then all of the apps on your Apple TV

01:35:40 ◼   ► that require a cable service thing to get,

01:35:45 ◼   ► you don't have to log into each one of them individually

01:35:48 ◼   ► and type the four digits from your phone

01:35:50 ◼   ► and blah, blah, blah for each app over and over again.

01:35:53 ◼   ► You sign in once at a system level

01:35:56 ◼   ► and then the apps just pick it up and then they just work.

01:35:59 ◼   ► The problem is that they launched it and they don't have Comcast, they don't have Time Warner Cable,

01:36:05 ◼   ► they don't have Fios, they don't have on the content side, they don't have ABC, CBS or ESPN,

01:36:11 ◼   ► they don't have HBO Go. So it's launched, but and I guess, you know, there's the big ones that I can

01:36:19 ◼   ► see in the list. And maybe I'm underestimating some of the ones, you know, like I've never heard

01:36:24 ◼   ► of some of these like Hawaiian telecom. Well, I guess it's probably local to Hawaii. The ones I've

01:36:31 ◼   ► heard of are DirecTV and Dish. So if you have satellite TV through DirecTV or Dish, you're in.

01:36:37 ◼   ► But without Comcast and Time Warner and Fios, boy, that's, it's, I mean, and hopefully this is

01:36:45 ◼   ► one of those things that it just takes time to get these people on board. And maybe it's not even

01:36:52 ◼   ► so much that they're reluctant to sign up but that they just need time to get it integrated

01:36:57 ◼   ► on their back ends. But this doesn't look good either because this was announced at WWDC

01:37:03 ◼   ► I think, right? And it was emphasized and reiterated in the iPhone event in September

01:37:10 ◼   ► that later this year we're going to roll this out. This is when they announced that the

01:37:15 ◼   ► video app is renamed to TV on iOS. It was announced and I don't, you know, if this is

01:37:24 ◼   ► all they're going to have by the end of the year, boy, that's, it's nowhere near what they were

01:37:28 ◼   ► promising in September. So this is another one where I feel like Apple is really falling short.

01:37:32 ◼   ► I wouldn't have thought they would have announced it when they did unless they had

01:37:37 ◼   ► the biggest services signed on, especially HBO. They have a partnership with, although,

01:37:42 ◼   ► I mean, I guess it's HBO via these providers.

01:37:45 ◼   ► So the provider is still the issue.

01:37:47 ◼   ► But HBO's app is not listed.

01:37:50 ◼   ► So conceivably, even if HBO and the providers couldn't get a deal, then, you know, maybe

01:37:55 ◼   ► HBO has contracts that prohibit them unless providers agree.

01:37:58 ◼   ► Some of the apps are iOS only and some are TVS only.

01:38:03 ◼   ► Most of those are, that are one platform only, TVOS as well.

01:38:09 ◼   ► It is weird because it seemed, I mean, if you didn't have Comcast and Time Warner,

01:38:15 ◼   ► why wouldn't you have, why would you have launched, why would you have announced this

01:38:18 ◼   ► like for pressure?

01:38:19 ◼   ► Like, well, we'll get some of the big ones, you know, they have some of them.

01:38:24 ◼   ► I mean, DirecTV makes sense because the AT&T connection and all that, but it just, it's

01:38:28 ◼   ► uh...

01:38:29 ◼   ► It seems to me to go hand in hand with the AirPods in terms of that it seems like they

01:38:35 ◼   ► were taken by surprise.

01:38:36 ◼   ► Like, they thought that they had this, and it ends up they don't.

01:38:41 ◼   ► Whether it's a negotiation thing that wasn't finalized, or if it's a technical thing,

01:38:45 ◼   ► or a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B, it seems to me that in September

01:38:48 ◼   ► they thought they were going to have this by, you know, around now, end of November,

01:38:54 ◼   ► very early December, and they don't.

01:38:56 ◼   ► Well, we've heard, you know, about AnyQ showing up with an untucked shirt and pissing

01:39:00 ◼   ► off famous detail, and pissing off TV or, you know, executives, whatever.

01:39:04 ◼   ► Right.

01:39:05 ◼   ► I think it was Time Warner, right.

01:39:06 ◼   ► was a time where, yeah, yeah, and it's like, I mean, there is a little, I'm not going to

01:39:10 ◼   ► credit that with being, how real a thing that was, because that came from the cable side,

01:39:15 ◼   ► not from the Apple side or whatever. But it may be that they were just, you know, they've,

01:39:20 ◼   ► Apple has been able to bowl through a lot of deals on the advantage of bringing a ton

01:39:25 ◼   ► of users along and it being a net benefit for subscriptions. There's this related discussion

01:39:30 ◼   ► that on, was it just on tvOS that Apple may drop the fee for subscriptions from 30 percent

01:39:36 ◼   ► to 15 percent. So which would be, it's a nice big carrot to give to any of the cable networks.

01:39:45 ◼   ► And I'm always confused about exactly, I don't follow this closely enough, which premium

01:39:50 ◼   ► channels are owned by which cable or media company. And because the cable companies now

01:39:55 ◼   ► own sort of chains of media companies, it's all slightly interrelated there too. So in

01:40:01 ◼   ► In some cases you're like, all right, well, Comcast is, all the different providers are

01:40:09 ◼   ► going to move.

01:40:10 ◼   ► I mean, everyone knows that eventually it's going to be unbundled, right?

01:40:13 ◼   ► Everything's going to be unbundled.

01:40:15 ◼   ► They're all fighting against it as hard as they can, but we've seen all the cracks.

01:40:18 ◼   ► And AT&T's new DirecTV Now deal is a part of it.

01:40:22 ◼   ► It's not necessarily even financially fantastic unless you do the early signup deal, the $35

01:40:29 ◼   ► hundred channels, like, you know, lock-in, like that's a good deal, I think, but we're

01:40:34 ◼   ► going to come to a world in which bandwidth is one thing.

01:40:36 ◼   ► I've got my gigabit internet as long as it lasts from CenturyLink, which is a, you know,

01:40:41 ◼   ► bottom tier telco that has a lot of copper installed, so they're trying to switch to

01:40:48 ◼   ► fiber, but I have to hope they actually survive and this is viable.

01:40:51 ◼   ► But you know, even Comcast is delivering higher speeds, they're delivering higher caps, there's

01:40:56 ◼   ► these zero rating issues that are coming up with AT&T in terms of how they'll count direct

01:41:01 ◼   ► TV streaming over wireless. Like, there's a whole swirling miasma of things. And I would

01:41:05 ◼   ► have thought in the middle of this that Apple would have been a great tool for the cable

01:41:08 ◼   ► operators to extend value and for the cable channels they own, which are many of them,

01:41:15 ◼   ► to have more people signed up in various ways. So it's baffling to me as a result.

01:41:20 ◼   ► - The single sign-on thing seems to me like, why not?

01:41:24 ◼   ► Like if you were at Comcast, like if you've,

01:41:26 ◼   ► all of a sudden you're an executive at Comcast.

01:41:28 ◼   ► I can see where they're wary of things

01:41:31 ◼   ► that enable cord cutting, right?

01:41:34 ◼   ► 'Cause they don't, they, you know,

01:41:35 ◼   ► they wanna fight that and they wanna milk the,

01:41:38 ◼   ► we have these customers paying us

01:41:41 ◼   ► a hundred and some dollars a month every month

01:41:43 ◼   ► for cable TV and that's a really nice deal

01:41:46 ◼   ► and we wanna keep that going as long as we can.

01:41:49 ◼   ► the single sign-on is based on that, right? It's based on the idea that you're still paying

01:41:53 ◼   ► for a monthly thing, right? It's not a cord-cutting thing, so why not get on board with it? I don't

01:42:00 ◼   ► quite get it. Unless it's just technical problems. Unless it's like—

01:42:04 ◼   ► Pete: Because I can do it now, right? Comcast, I can use a Comcast sign-in for

01:42:07 ◼   ► all sorts of things already. They're not preventing me from doing it. This just makes it harder,

01:42:12 ◼   ► right? It's not a—

01:42:12 ◼   ► - Right, it's exactly it.

01:42:14 ◼   ► It's just making something easier for the person,

01:42:18 ◼   ► for the user, that you can already do.

01:42:21 ◼   ► I already have on my, I have Comcast service,

01:42:23 ◼   ► and I have an Apple TV, and I have at least a handful

01:42:26 ◼   ► of apps from cable channels like HBO, the main one,

01:42:31 ◼   ► where I have to sign in with my Comcast credentials

01:42:34 ◼   ► to prove that I have cable.

01:42:36 ◼   ► This would just make it easier.

01:42:37 ◼   ► And so it's a little frustrating to me.

01:42:40 ◼   ► - I have to believe that Comcast

01:42:42 ◼   ► the other big ones think they're going to lose some kind of audience presence to Apple by allowing

01:42:47 ◼   ► Apple to overbrand it. There's also the melding of it, right? The TV app is going to –

01:42:52 ◼   ► Pete: Well, that's different though. Again, I can see why they're not participating.

01:42:56 ◼   ► Pete: Right. Oh, you're right. Yeah, okay.

01:42:57 ◼   ► Pete; Netflix in particular is a holdout on that. And speaking of Netflix…

01:43:01 ◼   ► Pete; But you're right, these other things will though, right? I mean, the TV app will include

01:43:04 ◼   ► a lot of stuff drawn from all these other apps, so it's not necessarily a perfect overlap that

01:43:09 ◼   ► they're not allowing this. It just seems inconvenient instead of a strategy. So,

01:43:14 ◼   ► I have to believe there's something we don't understand. Let's not just peak,

01:43:17 ◼   ► or there's some money that should be changing hands that Apple doesn't want to pay, or

01:43:21 ◼   ► Comcast, et cetera, thinks they're losing out somehow.

01:43:24 ◼   ► Pete: I saw the other day that Netflix became the top-grossing iOS app, and now I just looked as

01:43:29 ◼   ► we were talking and it slipped to number two behind Clash Royale.

01:43:34 ◼   ► Pete; Interesting.

01:43:35 ◼   ► - But it's, you know, now that they,

01:43:38 ◼   ► 'cause it used to be that they didn't take signups,

01:43:40 ◼   ► 'cause I guess they didn't want to split the money

01:43:42 ◼   ► with Apple, you had to sign up for Netflix

01:43:44 ◼   ► outside of iOS in a web browser,

01:43:47 ◼   ► and then you could sign in with your credentials.

01:43:49 ◼   ► But now that they're taking the in-app purchases,

01:43:53 ◼   ► they're the number two grossing app,

01:43:55 ◼   ► and that's only counting the people

01:43:57 ◼   ► who are paying through iOS, not all of us

01:44:00 ◼   ► who've been signed up for Netflix for years

01:44:03 ◼   ► aren't even in there.

01:44:03 ◼   ► So in terms of like, hey, is Netflix doing well?

01:44:06 ◼   ► That looks like they are.

01:44:08 ◼   ► But I'm curious, this is one of those things

01:44:10 ◼   ► that I've sort of lost track of,

01:44:12 ◼   ► is that whole, okay, we're gonna give some of you guys,

01:44:15 ◼   ► your big name TV channels an 85/15 split instead of 70/30.

01:44:19 ◼   ► Like, did Netflix get in on that, or were they too soon?

01:44:22 ◼   ► Like, is this based on an 85/15 split or 70/30?

01:44:26 ◼   ► I don't know if anybody knows that

01:44:28 ◼   ► other than Apple and Netflix.

01:44:30 ◼   ► - I don't think I've seen anything that's even hinted

01:44:33 ◼   ► that someone knew which ones were involved.

01:44:35 ◼   ► And I have to believe, see,

01:44:36 ◼   ► for Netflix has an interesting situation.

01:44:38 ◼   ► Like Apple doing that second year subscription price,

01:44:41 ◼   ► you know, they're only paying a 15% commission now.

01:44:44 ◼   ► Like that's part of, that's a change

01:44:46 ◼   ► that I think a lot of people found significant

01:44:47 ◼   ► and worthwhile, especially in the,

01:44:49 ◼   ► for smaller companies or some of the bigger ones

01:44:51 ◼   ► that sell subscription stuff

01:44:52 ◼   ► and really rely on the, on in-app purchases

01:44:55 ◼   ► or in-app based purchase system.

01:44:57 ◼   ► But the Netflix may have reached a point

01:45:01 ◼   ► saturated its ability to acquire a market from,

01:45:05 ◼   ► or to acquire customers in a way that they know

01:45:10 ◼   ► the cost is going to be lower than 30%.

01:45:12 ◼   ► So, if they're not getting 15%, they may have said,

01:45:14 ◼   ► "All right, we now need to sweep in people

01:45:16 ◼   ► that we're not getting. Our numbers, our spreadsheet

01:45:18 ◼   ► shows that giving up an extra 15% here is worthwhile

01:45:21 ◼   ► for the first year because pencils out good for us

01:45:24 ◼   ► and we get the money in the second year."

01:45:25 ◼   ► And some of these people may unsubscribe

01:45:27 ◼   ► and resubscribe through the website because

01:45:29 ◼   ► where they're now our customers and, you know, all works.

01:45:32 ◼   ► It's all good now because we're in the last

01:45:33 ◼   ► X percentage people we can reach.

01:45:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, and they seem to have done pretty well

01:45:38 ◼   ► with a fairly liberal policy of shared accounts.

01:45:43 ◼   ► You know, that they're not real,

01:45:44 ◼   ► doesn't seem like they're big on trying to lock down,

01:45:48 ◼   ► like, you know, three or four people sharing an account.

01:45:51 ◼   ► - Right.

01:45:52 ◼   ► - Across a bunch of, 'cause it seems like they're,

01:45:54 ◼   ► you know, they have the right idea, which is, look,

01:45:56 ◼   ► somebody's paying us 10 bucks a month or whatever it is,

01:45:59 ◼   ► and multiply it by the number of X millions

01:46:03 ◼   ► of other people who are paying us 10 bucks a month,

01:46:05 ◼   ► if there's some leakage here of shared accounts, who cares?

01:46:10 ◼   ► The money coming in is great and growing,

01:46:13 ◼   ► and the content, what we're paying for the content

01:46:15 ◼   ► is here, so we're, you know.

01:46:17 ◼   ► It seems like they've always had a good balance

01:46:22 ◼   ► on that front.

01:46:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree, I agree.

01:46:25 ◼   ► last topic I can think of is you want to talk about Farhad Manchu's column this week in the

01:46:30 ◼   ► New York Times, which was The Death of Gadgets.

01:46:33 ◼   ► Pete: Yeah, I kind of like this piece because I realized, it seemed like, I'm trying to think

01:46:38 ◼   ► how many years ago, it's encouraging me. I think when Gizmodo said that they were going to sort of

01:46:43 ◼   ► change how they approached what they were doing with reporting and structure, was that like three

01:46:47 ◼   ► years ago now? I'm thinking. There was a point at which it seemed like Gadgets started to go away.

01:46:53 ◼   ► Like the obsessive focus on gadgets, there was something Gizmodo was the first and then there was Engadget, then there was Gadgets,

01:46:59 ◼   ► and then there were, you know, a thousand thousand blogs that were devoted to obsessive coverage with as much leaked information and

01:47:06 ◼   ► unboxing and everything as possible of every little doodad that came out. And I'll tell you like even on my now dead,

01:47:11 ◼   ► I mean still archive, Wi-Fi networking news site, one of the most popular things I ever posted there

01:47:16 ◼   ► was a tiny, it was a post, a tiny video about this thing called Canary

01:47:21 ◼   ► something, and it was like a tiny standalone device that would show you what Wi-Fi networks

01:47:25 ◼   ► were around you. It was like a handheld Wi-Fi detector, and it would list off the networks

01:47:29 ◼   ► on an LED display, or an LCD display. And people, I mean, that still gets traffic, which

01:47:34 ◼   ► is weird to me now, but people were obsessed with gadgets for the longest time, and it

01:47:41 ◼   ► really did, you know, it was a proven way to get traffic, and it was a proven way to

01:47:46 ◼   ► proven way to get advertising, the whole ecosystem worked, and some of these sites became super

01:47:51 ◼   ► highly trafficked. And then I felt like it shifted, I felt like people were less obsessed

01:47:56 ◼   ► with it. And I was like, well, what really happened? Do people have enough gadgets? Like,

01:48:00 ◼   ► as that run out, are we replacing single-purpose things with multi-purpose things? And it slowly

01:48:06 ◼   ► kind of ebbed away. And I think, I feel like Farhad put a really good cap on it. The gadget

01:48:10 ◼   ► apocalypse is upon us, is his head, right? And it starts out, "Remember gadgets." And

01:48:15 ◼   ► I thought, you know, this is a good concept.

01:48:17 ◼   ► He's like, we had decades in which,

01:48:19 ◼   ► like, there were transistor radios.

01:48:21 ◼   ► Oh, do you remember, the big thing to me was,

01:48:23 ◼   ► do you remember the flip, how quickly the flip died?

01:48:26 ◼   ► It was this giant thing, right?

01:48:27 ◼   ► And then everyone, I'd never heard of it.

01:48:29 ◼   ► Suddenly everyone has one.

01:48:31 ◼   ► Suddenly they flame out.

01:48:32 ◼   ► It was incredible.

01:48:33 ◼   ► - Well, here's what I don't,

01:48:35 ◼   ► I think that part of this is that the smartphone

01:48:39 ◼   ► is the Uber gadget, right?

01:48:43 ◼   ► And, you know, for example,

01:48:44 ◼   ► That's exactly what happened to flip is it got killed by,

01:48:47 ◼   ► it got killed by the phone.

01:48:50 ◼   ► And I think a lot of other things have too.

01:48:52 ◼   ► Transistor radio, I mean, it's everything, right?

01:48:54 ◼   ► It's our camera, it's our Walkman, it's our iPod,

01:48:56 ◼   ► it's our newspaper, it's, you know.

01:49:00 ◼   ► - HD radio, satellite radio.

01:49:02 ◼   ► I mean, satellite radio I think is doing okay.

01:49:03 ◼   ► I mean, it's not small, but it's not as,

01:49:05 ◼   ► I think it had a bigger arc.

01:49:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you can get,

01:49:07 ◼   ► my wife listens to XM on her iPhone.

01:49:09 ◼   ► - Right, it was just smart for, you know, smart for them.

01:49:11 ◼   ► You know how much the satellites cost to launch,

01:49:13 ◼   ► made a failure with some of their satellites

01:49:14 ◼   ► with a Boeing issue.

01:49:15 ◼   ► I mean, satellites are not a great way to run a business.

01:49:19 ◼   ► But like Pebble, this was precipitated by Pebble

01:49:21 ◼   ► getting bought by Fitbit and then saying,

01:49:24 ◼   ► well, we don't know how long,

01:49:26 ◼   ► we're not gonna make or ship any more watches.

01:49:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, they didn't really,

01:49:29 ◼   ► it's not like they sold it as a platform.

01:49:31 ◼   ► It's more or less an aqua hire

01:49:33 ◼   ► where Fitbit bought their engineering and whatever.

01:49:38 ◼   ► - It had no future between smart watches

01:49:42 ◼   ► major vendors like Apple and iPhones and smartphones that have more capabilities,

01:49:48 ◼   ► like what's going to happen with Fitbit, what's going to happen with, you know,

01:49:52 ◼   ► then Nest. There's a lot of discussion about what happens to Nest. Does it have a future exactly?

01:49:59 ◼   ► You see, there's a story, I had missed this and I felt sort of terrible. 3D Robotics was founded

01:50:06 ◼   ► by a drone company, personal drone company founded by Chris Anderson and a partner. And Chris used

01:50:11 ◼   ► to be the editor-in-chief of Wire. And a few years ago he left Wire to take over full-time.

01:50:15 ◼   ► They raised $100 million in venture. They tried to produce a super premium drone that

01:50:22 ◼   ► would be like a—they kind of moved from kits and other stuff to a super premium drone.

01:50:26 ◼   ► They had a lot of problems in production. By the time they got to kind of a point where

01:50:29 ◼   ► things were okay, China had basically caught up. Like, cheap production in China had overtaken

01:50:36 ◼   ► their ability to make something that was competitively priced. And that's part of the story.

01:50:41 ◼   ► So, that is part of the issue is anything you can make, like, you look at Nest, you're like,

01:50:45 ◼   ► "Well, I could pay $200," I think it's still for the first unit. You can get IP cameras that don't

01:50:50 ◼   ► have the same cloud functionality or different and have horrible security problems, but they cost

01:50:54 ◼   ► like 30 bucks, you know, and they're slightly worse. It's the not quite good enough but not so

01:51:00 ◼   ► horrible that people just completely abandon it kind of thing. And that's, you know, we've got,

01:51:06 ◼   ► got the far-hard list off a bunch of stuff, but it's a good tie together, like MakerBot,

01:51:11 ◼   ► not really getting to the level that, and it's sort of sad because gadgets kind of drove

01:51:17 ◼   ► the entire electronics and technology industry. We've always loved them. But yeah, you know,

01:51:22 ◼   ► we saw this happen with snapshot cameras. Snapshot digital cameras are not dead as category,

01:51:28 ◼   ► but they might as well be. And even DLSRs have been eaten away. It's not necessarily

01:51:33 ◼   ► So you don't choose between a $5,000 DLSR and a smartphone,

01:51:38 ◼   ► but mirrorless cameras, which are much less expensive,

01:51:41 ◼   ► or can be much less expensive.

01:51:42 ◼   ► I think I've eaten away there too.

01:51:43 ◼   ► - I think another thing with cameras is,

01:51:45 ◼   ► in addition to being eaten by the phone

01:51:47 ◼   ► at the consumer end, at the high end,

01:51:49 ◼   ► they've also reached a point where the rapid increases

01:51:52 ◼   ► in the digital quality have slowed,

01:51:54 ◼   ► where you're, it's more like the film days, right?

01:51:58 ◼   ► Like in the film era, you could get,

01:52:01 ◼   ► You could be like a serious, even a professional photographer

01:52:04 ◼   ► and not buy new equipment for long stretches of time, right?

01:52:08 ◼   ► You'd, until they break, 'cause number one,

01:52:10 ◼   ► the high-end stuff is usually built to last,

01:52:12 ◼   ► really great build quality.

01:52:13 ◼   ► And the technology stopped changing.

01:52:15 ◼   ► It was the same 35 millimeter film.

01:52:17 ◼   ► A good lens was a good lens, you know.

01:52:20 ◼   ► And I think the digital has sort of gotten to that point too

01:52:23 ◼   ► where even the pros don't need to buy cameras as frequently

01:52:25 ◼   ► because they're not getting as much bang for the buck

01:52:28 ◼   ► by upgrading after two or three years.

01:52:31 ◼   ► You can't, I mean, the megapixel myth is a megapixel myth, right?

01:52:35 ◼   ► There's a point at which, beyond which a better sensor, a bigger, better sensor doesn't

01:52:40 ◼   ► buy you enough more to be worth upgrading, even if it is better.

01:52:43 ◼   ► That's where Lightro was trying to introduce computational photography as a gimmick.

01:52:47 ◼   ► There's a camera called the Light L16 that hasn't shipped yet that has 16 lenses on

01:52:52 ◼   ► it and will let you create like this 52 megapixel image with a tiny format camera using computational

01:52:59 ◼   ► photography.

01:53:00 ◼   ► curious approach is not going to be a mass market thing but it's very

01:53:03 ◼   ► interesting you know so but that's I think that's the truth with everything

01:53:06 ◼   ► a GoPro just stumbled they try to expand a different market and GoPro is

01:53:10 ◼   ► just the new flip I've been saying this for it feels like but they had a great I

01:53:13 ◼   ► mean they had a great run I hope people made money because they had a great run

01:53:16 ◼   ► they had a niche product and you know so I don't know I'm a little sad because I

01:53:21 ◼   ► grew up with gadgets and I feel like I wasn't like a gadget you know maybe and

01:53:26 ◼   ► I never really got into the gadget blogging side of things I do review

01:53:29 ◼   ► products and things like that. But he was also pointing out the Kindle, the Echo,

01:53:34 ◼   ► like these kinds of—the Echo is a gadget killer at some level because you don't need other stuff.

01:53:38 ◼   ► Yeah, but it is a gadget.

01:53:40 ◼   ► See, that's why I—

01:53:40 ◼   ► It is a gadget, but it's one monolithic gadget from one giant company.

01:53:44 ◼   ► Right. That's sort of—that and that is sort of the smartphone as the gadget killer is that

01:53:49 ◼   ► the computers have gotten so good that meta-gadgets are killing—

01:53:55 ◼   ► Yes, that's it.

01:53:55 ◼   ► You know, like a handful of really good smart computers, like an Echo and a Mac and an iPhone,

01:54:03 ◼   ► and all of a sudden, they combined obviate an entire drawer full of gadgets.

01:54:08 ◼   ► Right, like what else do you need? You don't need a music player, you don't need a camera,

01:54:10 ◼   ► you don't need a snapshot GoPro-style camera.

01:54:12 ◼   ► You don't need a voice recorder, you know.

01:54:14 ◼   ► Yeah, right, you get a case for your camera is now your GoPro, right? Like, I've seen a lot of that.

01:54:21 ◼   ► And, you know, I was testing some add-on lenses for iPhone 6s's that'll work with a different

01:54:25 ◼   ► case with the iPhone 7. iPhone 7 Plus is just ridiculously good, too. Like, the two lens—

01:54:32 ◼   ► Pete: It really is.

01:54:33 ◼   ► Pete: Do you have one still? I forgot.

01:54:34 ◼   ► Pete; I still have, I have my review unit here.

01:54:36 ◼   ► Pete; I just took pictures in the dark outdoor snow. It's night, it's cloudy, I'm in Seattle.

01:54:44 ◼   ► Pete; Right.

01:54:45 ◼   ► Pete; And I took pictures that I think are absolutely beautiful with the 1x lens. I'm like,

01:54:51 ◼   ► Like, I'm like, I can't get a, you know, I'd have to, I pulled out my, I have a mirrorless

01:54:54 ◼   ► camera with a, you know, it's like a, when I bought it, it was like a thousand dollar

01:54:57 ◼   ► system.

01:54:58 ◼   ► I have a pancake lens for it that's an affordable pancake.

01:55:00 ◼   ► I went out and took some pictures with that, and you know, the difference is not in that

01:55:04 ◼   ► kind of lighting.

01:55:05 ◼   ► I, in the, the mirrorless I have, I can push it to, oh, 25,600 ASA, where it's super

01:55:11 ◼   ► grainy.

01:55:12 ◼   ► So I have to bump it down.

01:55:13 ◼   ► The quality of the image from the iPhone 7 Plus and the thousand dollar mirrorless, I'm

01:55:18 ◼   ► like, uh, you know, the mirrorless has other attributes that are great, but for that kind

01:55:22 ◼   ► of shot, I'm like, I don't think it's not really.