The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Oh man, what a day.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Yeah, crazy.

00:00:03 ◼   ► We are recording on Wednesday the 16th show, probably be out tomorrow.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Wow, what's even happened so far today?

00:00:12 ◼   ► So far today, watchOS 2.0 has been postponed indefinitely.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My guess is for a few days due to some sort of last minute bug that has popped up

00:00:23 ◼   ► and which Apple is not describing.

00:00:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, it doesn't sound like a user-facing bug though.

00:00:27 ◼   ► It sounds more like a developer-facing bug.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - Do you think so?

00:00:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, and if you're on the GM or if you're on the beta,

00:00:34 ◼   ► you don't have any reason to be concerned about anything.

00:00:37 ◼   ► But if you remember last year,

00:00:38 ◼   ► I think there were problems with extension signing

00:00:41 ◼   ► and then with the health kit apps,

00:00:42 ◼   ► and it took them a week or so to figure those out.

00:00:44 ◼   ► - I was wondering if maybe it was some kind of bug

00:00:46 ◼   ► that affects the upgrade process.

00:00:48 ◼   ► - Maybe, I mean, the beta upgrade worked fine.

00:00:51 ◼   ► And it just, it seemed more like a not front-facing issue

00:00:55 ◼   ► they're a front-facing issue.

00:00:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:00:57 ◼   ► I don't know though.

00:01:02 ◼   ► It's hard to say, but I think anybody who wants to complain,

00:01:05 ◼   ► bugs happen.

00:01:07 ◼   ► I mean, it's a hell of a lot better for Apple

00:01:09 ◼   ► to find a bug before it ships.

00:01:11 ◼   ► And obviously it's a little embarrassing for them

00:01:13 ◼   ► to have pre-announced the date and then have to yank it.

00:01:16 ◼   ► But compare and contrast with the,

00:01:18 ◼   ► what was it, 9.0.1 last year?

00:01:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, 8.0.1.

00:01:24 ◼   ► - Oh, 8.0.1, nine is this year, no.

00:01:26 ◼   ► I, God damn it.

00:01:28 ◼   ► - No, it's, might as well be a Monday.

00:01:30 ◼   ► - Remember the 8.0.1 last year came out

00:01:34 ◼   ► and it didn't break everybody's phone,

00:01:36 ◼   ► but for some subset of users

00:01:37 ◼   ► who were downloading it over the air,

00:01:39 ◼   ► it temporarily bricked their--

00:01:42 ◼   ► - It killed touch ID and it killed LTE.

00:01:44 ◼   ► So if you were Jessie Chari,

00:01:45 ◼   ► you noticed no problems whatsoever,

00:01:46 ◼   ► but if you're anyone else, you had issues.

00:01:49 ◼   ► - Wait, she doesn't get LTE?

00:01:51 ◼   ► - I don't think she uses her phone as a phone.

00:01:53 ◼   ► - I think it was just the phone call part.

00:01:54 ◼   ► - Oh, I got you.

00:01:56 ◼   ► Right, but her fingers did not register.

00:01:58 ◼   ► What else has happened today?

00:02:02 ◼   ► So iOS 9 is rolling out as we speak.

00:02:06 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:02:06 ◼   ► - And one interesting thing you mentioned

00:02:09 ◼   ► before the show started,

00:02:09 ◼   ► it does have a different build number than the GM

00:02:12 ◼   ► that Apple distributed, was that last week?

00:02:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, the GM is 40 and the release version is 44.

00:02:21 ◼   ► So obviously something minor at least in there changed.

00:02:24 ◼   ► So far so good on that from what I've seen.

00:02:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely, and if you do have the GM,

00:02:28 ◼   ► you'll get a software update.

00:02:30 ◼   ► It's very small, it's a few megabytes,

00:02:31 ◼   ► I think 100 megabytes or something.

00:02:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:02:34 ◼   ► Content blockers are rolling out,

00:02:38 ◼   ► which I think is going to be a major,

00:02:41 ◼   ► it's just interesting to see how this is going to be

00:02:45 ◼   ► because this is the sort of thing that is going to change

00:02:49 ◼   ► a lot for people like me and you, maybe, I don't know.

00:02:54 ◼   ► - And it's also the only sort of app

00:02:56 ◼   ► that you can really look for this year.

00:02:57 ◼   ► I mean last year there was all sorts,

00:02:58 ◼   ► there were share extensions and action extensions

00:03:00 ◼   ► and widgets and the only really big new kind of app

00:03:03 ◼   ► you can get this year is Content Blocker.

00:03:05 ◼   ► So they're gonna get featured more than anything else.

00:03:07 ◼   ► - Right, in terms of, and it's funny too,

00:03:09 ◼   ► and I'll get to it because you've written

00:03:12 ◼   ► a massive, massive review.

00:03:14 ◼   ► But it does, it's one of those things though

00:03:16 ◼   ► that makes it hard to judge these OS releases

00:03:21 ◼   ► by based on, even if you just assume that the GM is good,

00:03:25 ◼   ► you know, is real, it's hard to judge the OS as a whole

00:03:29 ◼   ► until after it ships and you have some time to use it

00:03:33 ◼   ► with the real world stuff that ships.

00:03:36 ◼   ► In other words, nobody's gonna really form

00:03:38 ◼   ► a serious opinion of iOS 9 until after

00:03:43 ◼   ► the content blockers have come out

00:03:44 ◼   ► and people have picked the ones they want, if any,

00:03:47 ◼   ► and see how that affects their usage.

00:03:49 ◼   ► And there was ways to beta test them beforehand,

00:03:51 ◼   ► but it's like maybe you didn't get to beta test all of them.

00:03:55 ◼   ► - And you and I discussed this about the watch too,

00:03:57 ◼   ► like just testing complications

00:03:58 ◼   ► and how much that would actually change your workflow.

00:04:00 ◼   ► It's gonna be very different.

00:04:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I thought the same thing

00:04:03 ◼   ► and I don't have any beta apps.

00:04:05 ◼   ► I don't even know if that was possible with the watch.

00:04:07 ◼   ► So I have been playing with watchOS 2.0 for a few weeks now,

00:04:12 ◼   ► but I haven't written anything about it

00:04:15 ◼   ► because I don't see how I can judge it

00:04:18 ◼   ► until after the complications come out.

00:04:20 ◼   ► And really, frankly, even just native apps in general

00:04:25 ◼   ► on the watch and see if it solves some of the,

00:04:28 ◼   ► just so slow to launch problems that we've seen

00:04:33 ◼   ► with the WatchKit 1.0 watch.

00:04:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, whether it's like slow apps

00:04:37 ◼   ► or whether the watch isn't the same kind of app platform

00:04:39 ◼   ► that maybe the phone or the tablet were.

00:04:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's just impossible for me at least

00:04:44 ◼   ► to make a judgment of it until after this shakes out

00:04:49 ◼   ► and we live with it for a while.

00:04:50 ◼   ► - Me calling what I write reviews is kind of half a lie

00:04:52 ◼   ► 'cause most of them are just trying to explain

00:04:54 ◼   ► how things work and how you can juggle the different options.

00:04:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I thought of that too

00:04:58 ◼   ► 'cause I linked to your review at iMore,

00:05:00 ◼   ► your iOS 9 review, and it just says iOS 9 review.

00:05:04 ◼   ► And at this point, you're nine versions in

00:05:07 ◼   ► to writing these things.

00:05:08 ◼   ► You might as well not change it now.

00:05:10 ◼   ► But review, it sells it short in some ways,

00:05:15 ◼   ► and it's misleading in others,

00:05:17 ◼   ► because it's not really, review sort of is like,

00:05:19 ◼   ► is this good, is this bad?

00:05:20 ◼   ► And there's obviously some of that,

00:05:22 ◼   ► but it's really more just like, I don't know,

00:05:25 ◼   ► like everything you would wanna know about IO-Sign.

00:05:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm just fascinated about the technology.

00:05:32 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:05:33 ◼   ► Well, but you do more than just the technology, though.

00:05:35 ◼   ► You absolutely write about it

00:05:39 ◼   ► from the perspective of the experience.

00:05:43 ◼   ► Like it's one thing to just say here,

00:05:44 ◼   ► now you can do this and that.

00:05:47 ◼   ► But yours is more, look, I've been banging on this thing

00:05:51 ◼   ► for months, living with it, and here's what it's like.

00:05:56 ◼   ► Here's not just a list of what's new in the Notes app,

00:05:59 ◼   ► for example, here's what this enables you to do with it.

00:06:03 ◼   ► It turns it into a totally different app now.

00:06:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

00:06:07 ◼   ► - Just to name one example.

00:06:08 ◼   ► So when did you start using iOS 9 full time?

00:06:13 ◼   ► - Well, you made fun of me the day of the event

00:06:16 ◼   ► 'cause I showed you that I put it on my phone already.

00:06:19 ◼   ► - That was WWDC.

00:06:21 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:06:22 ◼   ► And I put it on my carry and immediately,

00:06:25 ◼   ► I had no data signal and it took me a while

00:06:27 ◼   ► to get that working.

00:06:28 ◼   ► - Well, I think this year was actually

00:06:30 ◼   ► a pretty good one for that.

00:06:33 ◼   ► It's funny if anybody would have reason to install it right on day one and start living

00:06:39 ◼   ► with it, it would be someone like you or Federico, somebody who's planning on writing one of

00:06:46 ◼   ► these comprehensive, and I mean it sincerely, I mean book-length reviews of it, and you

00:06:52 ◼   ► know the rough timeline.

00:06:54 ◼   ► And again, this year we can talk about the fact that Apple's not having an October event.

00:07:00 ◼   ► The October event was always the one,

00:07:02 ◼   ► if there's only gonna be one event,

00:07:03 ◼   ► that's the one that was gonna be dropped

00:07:05 ◼   ► because September is just sort of set in stone

00:07:08 ◼   ► for the phones.

00:07:09 ◼   ► I mean, and again, you never know.

00:07:10 ◼   ► Something unforeseen could happen that would delay it,

00:07:13 ◼   ► but it was a pretty good bet that iOS 9 was gonna ship

00:07:18 ◼   ► sometime in the first two weeks of September.

00:07:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

00:07:22 ◼   ► I mean, this event going all the way back to the iPod days

00:07:24 ◼   ► is the holiday event for Apple,

00:07:25 ◼   ► where they set up everything that they expect

00:07:27 ◼   ► everyone's gonna buy for the holidays.

00:07:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:07:29 ◼   ► even back to when they called it the music events.

00:07:31 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:07:32 ◼   ► - You know, and it would just be, you know,

00:07:33 ◼   ► before the iPhone, it was this is when new iPods came out

00:07:36 ◼   ► and, you know, sometimes there'd be like a,

00:07:40 ◼   ► it would be weird, sometimes there'd be like a iWork

00:07:42 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:07:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, and they occasionally, like I think they had

00:07:44 ◼   ► the first Unibody Mac event in October,

00:07:46 ◼   ► but those were always, they weren't regular for a while.

00:07:49 ◼   ► They would just be when they had something to talk about.

00:07:50 ◼   ► - Right.

00:07:51 ◼   ► So anyway, somebody like you who wants to write down,

00:07:53 ◼   ► how many words was your review?

00:07:54 ◼   ► How many words?

00:07:55 ◼   ► - Like 22,000.

00:07:56 ◼   ► - So there you go.

00:07:57 ◼   ► And that's, again, that might be short for a book,

00:08:00 ◼   ► but if you printed it out,

00:08:01 ◼   ► it's a lot more book length than it is article length.

00:08:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I did take stuff out,

00:08:06 ◼   ► like I took out stuff

00:08:07 ◼   ► that I thought was only developer appropriate

00:08:08 ◼   ► or was getting too far into the nitty gritty,

00:08:10 ◼   ► so I did cut a lot as well.

00:08:11 ◼   ► I just wanted to keep it small book length.

00:08:14 ◼   ► - I mean, like a typical,

00:08:16 ◼   ► I mean, it's hard to say what's typical these days

00:08:18 ◼   ► with the way stuff gets cut,

00:08:20 ◼   ► but something like a 4,000 word article,

00:08:22 ◼   ► if you're doing, like a freelance writer,

00:08:24 ◼   ► that's like a feature article in a magazine for length.

00:08:27 ◼   ► and I think books obviously range in thickness greatly.

00:08:30 ◼   ► But I think once you're measuring in the tens of thousands,

00:08:33 ◼   ► it's book length or booklet length rather than article.

00:08:37 ◼   ► - And iOS 8 is, sorry, iOS 9 is deceptive.

00:08:39 ◼   ► So I already did our Coles Notes version,

00:08:41 ◼   ► like this is the important stuff you need to know,

00:08:42 ◼   ► and I think that hit four, 6,000 words,

00:08:44 ◼   ► just doing the rough take.

00:08:47 ◼   ► - That's pretty amazing.

00:08:49 ◼   ► I think in broad terms,

00:08:52 ◼   ► I think everybody keeps trying to set the stage

00:08:57 ◼   ► that everybody who's writing about it

00:08:59 ◼   ► is trying to set the stage.

00:09:00 ◼   ► Just the basic expectation,

00:09:02 ◼   ► like for somebody who hasn't really been paying attention

00:09:04 ◼   ► all summer, which is actually not a bad way to go

00:09:07 ◼   ► if you're a lay person.

00:09:08 ◼   ► Take a look, take a listen at WWDC,

00:09:10 ◼   ► think about what interests you.

00:09:12 ◼   ► Tune out for the summer and wait to see what actually ships

00:09:15 ◼   ► because sometimes stuff drops and stuff like that.

00:09:18 ◼   ► But everybody trying to give people the lay of the land,

00:09:20 ◼   ► the basic gist is, okay, this is not like a radical upgrade

00:09:22 ◼   ► like Iowa 7, this is a year over year thing,

00:09:25 ◼   ► which is fair enough.

00:09:26 ◼   ► I don't disagree with that, but I don't think we're ever going to see an iOS 7 update again

00:09:33 ◼   ► for iOS.

00:09:34 ◼   ► I think iOS 7 was where they reset to a foundation to build on for years, I mean decades to come,

00:09:45 ◼   ► I think.

00:09:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I know I agree.

00:09:47 ◼   ► I mean if you look back in hindsight, maybe some of it was serendipitous, maybe some of

00:09:50 ◼   ► it was planned, but you couldn't get to iOS 9 without iOS 7 and iOS 8.

00:09:55 ◼   ► You needed the kind of an interface that could go through

00:09:57 ◼   ► the size class changes that could go from being a regular

00:10:00 ◼   ► to one of the smaller size classes.

00:10:04 ◼   ► And you needed, so much of iOS 9 is built on extensibility.

00:10:08 ◼   ► And I remember we talked last year about how transformative

00:10:11 ◼   ► extensibility could be, that it was literally uncoupling

00:10:14 ◼   ► features from apps.

00:10:16 ◼   ► It was setting them free from the binary and they're doing

00:10:18 ◼   ► everything from content blockers to Safari view controller

00:10:20 ◼   ► to the gameplay recording is to a lot of the privacy stuff

00:10:23 ◼   ► all being done through extensibility.

00:10:25 ◼   ► And all the search stuff is being done through continuity

00:10:27 ◼   ► because they're indexing our activity

00:10:29 ◼   ► so they can take us back to it.

00:10:30 ◼   ► They can use it as a reminder.

00:10:31 ◼   ► It's all coming together really well in iOS 9.

00:10:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

00:10:36 ◼   ► But a lot of that really comes back to resetting,

00:10:39 ◼   ► just resetting the table for iOS 7

00:10:46 ◼   ► and saying let's get back to somewhere

00:10:48 ◼   ► where we can build on and they knew where they needed to go.

00:10:50 ◼   ► And some of that is just purely engineering

00:10:53 ◼   ► and it didn't require necessarily a visual refresh,

00:10:56 ◼   ► you know, like size classes and extensibility.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Obviously they could have done extensibility

00:11:01 ◼   ► with the old look, I mean it's nothing.

00:11:03 ◼   ► But I think it was worth it for them

00:11:07 ◼   ► and I think this is the way they thought about it.

00:11:08 ◼   ► It was worth it to do all this resetting at once

00:11:12 ◼   ► and then build from there.

00:11:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

00:11:15 ◼   ► I mean I just can't even imagine green felt

00:11:17 ◼   ► or wood paneling changing from compact

00:11:20 ◼   ► to regular size class on an iPad with split view.

00:11:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, and now look at Mac OS X.

00:11:25 ◼   ► I think Mac OS X is a good comparison.

00:11:28 ◼   ► And it has had, there have been a few times over the years

00:11:30 ◼   ► where there's been a more significant visual refresh

00:11:33 ◼   ► than others.

00:11:35 ◼   ► Last year would be, for example, with Yosemite

00:11:38 ◼   ► going to a more, it's again, not really iOS 7 lookalike,

00:11:43 ◼   ► but more like, looks like a sibling to iOS 7.

00:11:47 ◼   ► And a few years before that, there was the one

00:11:51 ◼   ► where they got rid of all the metal

00:11:53 ◼   ► and having two different window types,

00:11:57 ◼   ► the aqua windows and the brushed metal windows.

00:11:59 ◼   ► But those weren't radical, right?

00:12:04 ◼   ► I don't, I think Yosemite maybe was arguably,

00:12:07 ◼   ► but none of the previous ones really were radical

00:12:11 ◼   ► in terms of having the sort of controversy

00:12:13 ◼   ► that iOS 7 really, almost the upheaval

00:12:17 ◼   ► and the wow, this looks all together

00:12:18 ◼   ► different sort of reaction.

00:12:20 ◼   ► And I think iOS 7, I think that this look,

00:12:23 ◼   ► I think it will evolve over time.

00:12:25 ◼   ► Everything gets stale and fashions change.

00:12:27 ◼   ► And obviously even just the system font this year changed.

00:12:30 ◼   ► So it'll evolve and there might be some year coming

00:12:32 ◼   ► where there's a more significant change

00:12:35 ◼   ► than in recent times.

00:12:37 ◼   ► But I really think that part of the plan

00:12:39 ◼   ► with the iOS 7 look and going to a much more simpler

00:12:43 ◼   ► and unadorned overall look was to get to something

00:12:50 ◼   ► that's a little bit less about trendiness

00:12:53 ◼   ► and a little bit more towards a design that's timeless.

00:12:58 ◼   ► Specifically so that they don't have to do things

00:13:02 ◼   ► like that again and that they can just keep iterating

00:13:04 ◼   ► like they have this year.

00:13:06 ◼   ► - I agree completely.

00:13:06 ◼   ► I look at it almost in architectural terms

00:13:08 ◼   ► and it's just got great bones now

00:13:10 ◼   ► and they can build out some differences.

00:13:11 ◼   ► They can put in San Francisco and it refreshes everything.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Or if they decide not to wait for Quantum Dot panels

00:13:17 ◼   ► and they go with OLED panels and they need a night theme

00:13:19 ◼   ► because that's better on OLED.

00:13:20 ◼   ► They can add all that in, but the structure, the physics,

00:13:23 ◼   ► the playfulness of iOS that they've built now,

00:13:26 ◼   ► I think that's a really long-lasting platform.

00:13:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think it was definitely the intention,

00:13:30 ◼   ► and I think part of it is just the simple fact

00:13:33 ◼   ► that even with their vast resources now,

00:13:36 ◼   ► that a lot of the teams at Apple are still relatively small.

00:13:40 ◼   ► Johnny Ive's group is relatively small,

00:13:43 ◼   ► and it's always going to be relatively small.

00:13:47 ◼   ► and not having to worry about spending specific,

00:13:51 ◼   ► a lot of time every year updating the look of iOS

00:13:55 ◼   ► and Mac OS X and watchOS, just to keep 'em looking fresh,

00:14:00 ◼   ► trying to stick to something

00:14:01 ◼   ► that's a little bit more timeless,

00:14:03 ◼   ► even if it decreases the sort of trendiness like,

00:14:09 ◼   ► wow, that looks good again this year, this is new, you know?

00:14:11 ◼   ► Like, you do lose something marketing-wise

00:14:14 ◼   ► if there's not like, wow, that looks new every year.

00:14:17 ◼   ► But it saves them the time of having to just keep reinventing

00:14:20 ◼   ► the stuff they've already done

00:14:22 ◼   ► and lets them spend times on expanding.

00:14:26 ◼   ► Like last year they could expand

00:14:27 ◼   ► and spend a lot of time on a watch.

00:14:29 ◼   ► This year they could spend a lot of time on Apple TV.

00:14:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, absolutely.

00:14:33 ◼   ► And the interesting thing is that was a painful moment.

00:14:36 ◼   ► That took a huge amount of willpower

00:14:38 ◼   ► and a huge amount of effort,

00:14:39 ◼   ► and they turned that around in less than even a year.

00:14:41 ◼   ► And then they did another massive change with iOS 8

00:14:44 ◼   ► and built out all the new frameworks.

00:14:47 ◼   ► But now that's done and they can do things

00:14:50 ◼   ► that are super interesting.

00:14:52 ◼   ► And I think you need those moments.

00:14:53 ◼   ► You need those moments of this is what we thought

00:14:55 ◼   ► the platform was gonna be.

00:14:56 ◼   ► And six years, seven years later,

00:14:58 ◼   ► this is what we understand it is now.

00:14:59 ◼   ► And if we wanna go 10 years forward,

00:15:01 ◼   ► we need to build that out now

00:15:03 ◼   ► 'cause it's only gonna get harder as we move on.

00:15:05 ◼   ► And they can do a gold phone or a rose gold phone

00:15:07 ◼   ► and that will appeal to people who just want a new color.

00:15:09 ◼   ► But the software inside it,

00:15:11 ◼   ► You know, yes, maybe the wallpaper will match

00:15:14 ◼   ► the rose gold or the gold or the new sport bands, whatever,

00:15:17 ◼   ► but the software itself will scale through all of that.

00:15:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I know that this is,

00:15:21 ◼   ► in a lot of ways, a problematic analogy,

00:15:25 ◼   ► but if you just compare it to a paint of coat on a building,

00:15:28 ◼   ► I think for the first few years of iOS,

00:15:31 ◼   ► Apple was sort of not necessarily picking,

00:15:33 ◼   ► it wasn't like radically changing every year,

00:15:35 ◼   ► but they were going back and having to repaint

00:15:37 ◼   ► a lot of the building every year.

00:15:39 ◼   ► And I think with the iOS 7 look is like a longer lasting

00:15:43 ◼   ► coat of paint.

00:15:45 ◼   ► And then they can just go back and update some of the trim.

00:15:48 ◼   ► And so okay, now it's not Helvetica Neue,

00:15:51 ◼   ► it's San Francisco as the system font.

00:15:53 ◼   ► But the whole thing didn't have to get repainted.

00:15:56 ◼   ► - It feels almost like they switched from doing iOS

00:15:59 ◼   ► as a bitmap and made it a vector.

00:16:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, sort of.

00:16:03 ◼   ► I think that's a very good way of putting it.

00:16:05 ◼   ► And I think that fitting it in with the size classes

00:16:08 ◼   ► is part of that too.

00:16:09 ◼   ► I think that that Pixel Perfect stuff,

00:16:11 ◼   ► I was, you know, and I really do hope over the years,

00:16:15 ◼   ► I'm a fan of this design, I think it was the right thing.

00:16:18 ◼   ► I know there's still people who still complain about it.

00:16:21 ◼   ► But it doesn't mean that I've suddenly dropped it

00:16:23 ◼   ► and think that the old iOS look was bad.

00:16:27 ◼   ► I mean, there's certain aspects of it that I miss,

00:16:29 ◼   ► but it just, I don't think it gave them

00:16:34 ◼   ► the flexibility that they need.

00:16:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, and we can subjectively like or dislike

00:16:38 ◼   ► individual elements of the latest iOS or iOS 6 or 5, but objectively there were huge gains

00:16:42 ◼   ► that were made by going this direction.

00:16:44 ◼   ► Yeah. Let's take a brief break and then when we come back, let's talk about the event last

00:16:50 ◼   ► week. Maybe not spend too much time on it, but then we'll go on to iOS 9. But let me

00:16:55 ◼   ► take a break and thank our first sponsor this week and it is our good friends at Hover.

00:17:02 ◼   ► guys know however they're the best place to buy and manage domain names. When you

00:17:08 ◼   ► have a great idea you want to secure a great domain for it. You want something

00:17:12 ◼   ► catchy and memorable to represent your project. You want a domain name that

00:17:17 ◼   ► looks good like a lot of times you think you have it you know the word you want

00:17:21 ◼   ► and you find it another top you know the top level domain to put it to put next

00:17:24 ◼   ► to it but then when you look at it sometimes certain letters don't look

00:17:27 ◼   ► right next to each other or if you make it all lowercase certain words combined

00:17:32 ◼   ► together and just don't look right together because it looks like it might

00:17:36 ◼   ► spell a different word or something like that it's hard to get a good domain you

00:17:38 ◼   ► have to play around with it hover makes that easy they've got great

00:17:42 ◼   ► tools to find new domains when you find one that you want and it's taken maybe

00:17:50 ◼   ► if it's the dot-com it's a very good chance it's taken they help you find

00:17:54 ◼   ► another top-level domain with the same root word all of that in less than five

00:18:00 ◼   ► minutes, even if you haven't ever even opened your hover account yet, with five

00:18:04 ◼   ► minutes you can find a domain, register it, get it up and running, and all you have

00:18:08 ◼   ► to do is search for a few keywords to get it going. And they'll show you all of

00:18:12 ◼   ► the results against all the extensions out there. If you've ever registered a

00:18:18 ◼   ► domain anywhere else, you know that a lot of the companies in the domain

00:18:20 ◼   ► registration business make it purposefully unpleasant. It's a real

00:18:24 ◼   ► scammy business. It's a race to the bottom, pricing-wise,

00:18:29 ◼   ► for the most part and therefore to make up for it. They do a lot of just like

00:18:34 ◼   ► upsell stuff to get the extra money out of you. Hover goes the other way.

00:18:41 ◼   ► They do have great prices. They're not the lowest but they shouldn't be the

00:18:45 ◼   ► lowest because they what they do they're they're competitive and I think it's

00:18:48 ◼   ► well worth the value but what they do is they just include all the stuff that you

00:18:53 ◼   ► don't have to upgrade for. A great example is who is privacy so that when

00:18:58 ◼   ► people look up your domain name, can they see your home address and phone number? Well,

00:19:04 ◼   ► everybody knows you don't want that up there in Whois stuff. But other registrars make

00:19:09 ◼   ► you pay for it. Well, that's ridiculous. Obviously, that should be included in your account. Hover

00:19:13 ◼   ► makes that so. And last but not least, in fact, last but most important, Hover has the

00:19:19 ◼   ► most amazing thing in the entire business. They call it Free Valet Transfer Service.

00:19:23 ◼   ► So if you've already got domain names at another registrar and you want to move them to Hover,

00:19:28 ◼   ► you should. What you can do instead of doing all that busy work yourself is just sign up

00:19:33 ◼   ► for a hover account, go to the valley transfer, give them your that information to log into

00:19:40 ◼   ► your registrar at the other places and their experts at hover will handle everything to

00:19:46 ◼   ► move them over. You don't have to pay for it, that's just included with your hover account.

00:19:51 ◼   ► That's just that's that's how sure they are that once you switch those domains to hover

00:19:54 ◼   ► that you're never going to switch them away. You'll just be a longtime customer and they

00:19:57 ◼   ► they just know they'll make the money from you on the renewals as the years go by. They're

00:20:01 ◼   ► that confident in it. I have a lot of friends with a lot of domains and a lot of them use

00:20:07 ◼   ► Hover and I've never heard of one person who's ever switched from Hover to another domain.

00:20:11 ◼   ► It's that good. So here's the deal. Go to Hover.com. They have a code. You'll get 10%

00:20:18 ◼   ► off your first purchase by using this code. It's just for this episode of this show and

00:20:22 ◼   ► and I always pick these clever codes.

00:20:24 ◼   ► Here it is, crappy old phone.

00:20:27 ◼   ► And you'll save 10% off your first purchase at checkout.

00:20:32 ◼   ► So my thanks to them.

00:20:33 ◼   ► Hover.com and use the code crappy old phone.

00:20:38 ◼   ► And anybody listening to this show this week,

00:20:40 ◼   ► you've got a crappy old phone in your hand.

00:20:43 ◼   ► All right, so last week's event, you were there.

00:20:51 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:20:52 ◼   ► We've sat near each other.

00:20:54 ◼   ► I was wrong in advance.

00:20:57 ◼   ► I thought, you know, I think they'll do the same thing

00:21:01 ◼   ► they usually do, have the two events, one after another,

00:21:03 ◼   ► because it would be busy and because, you know,

00:21:07 ◼   ► otherwise they're not gonna be able

00:21:08 ◼   ► to talk about the Mac at all.

00:21:10 ◼   ► So I was wrong.

00:21:12 ◼   ► They're only having one event this year.

00:21:14 ◼   ► I'm almost certain.

00:21:16 ◼   ► And talking to friends behind the scenes,

00:21:18 ◼   ► that certainly is the plan.

00:21:20 ◼   ► If there is another public event this year,

00:21:22 ◼   ► it would be something that the,

00:21:24 ◼   ► addressing some kind of surprise.

00:21:25 ◼   ► But I was right, it made for a very busy event

00:21:30 ◼   ► and it left no time at all for the Mac.

00:21:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, no time for the Mac OS X was,

00:21:36 ◼   ► it was a Easter egg in Craig's email box.

00:21:39 ◼   ► - I caught that.

00:21:40 ◼   ► It's funny because I take notes

00:21:42 ◼   ► and it's funny when I rewatch the event,

00:21:44 ◼   ► I never once catch everything.

00:21:46 ◼   ► They're too dense, especially when they go fast like this.

00:21:49 ◼   ► So I always, there's always some things I caught.

00:21:51 ◼   ► I did happen to catch that.

00:21:52 ◼   ► So what was it?

00:21:53 ◼   ► Craig was up there.

00:21:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, and he was just demoing

00:21:58 ◼   ► the email preview abilities,

00:21:59 ◼   ► the hint, peak, and pop for 3D Touch.

00:22:03 ◼   ► And he did the preview on Phil Schiller's email,

00:22:05 ◼   ► and it had secret release date

00:22:06 ◼   ► for OS X El Capitan September 30th.

00:22:09 ◼   ► Don't let anybody find out.

00:22:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then I think it said the bottom note,

00:22:13 ◼   ► Apple Confidential.

00:22:14 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:22:15 ◼   ► - That was about it for the Mac, though.

00:22:20 ◼   ► - In hindsight, I guess it makes sense,

00:22:21 ◼   ► and especially if they don't have new Mac hardware

00:22:26 ◼   ► ready to go later this year.

00:22:28 ◼   ► Although I think if they do,

00:22:29 ◼   ► and it's just Retina 21-GI Mac,

00:22:31 ◼   ► and minor refreshes to MacBook Pros or something,

00:22:35 ◼   ► they can just do those with a press release.

00:22:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, the MacBook shipped in March,

00:22:39 ◼   ► well, it was announced in March,

00:22:41 ◼   ► and Intel took so long to get Broadwell out,

00:22:43 ◼   ► and now they're just beginning to roll out Skylake

00:22:45 ◼   ► that it's hard to see that they have the chips

00:22:48 ◼   ► to make the sort of MacBooks

00:22:49 ◼   ► that they would wanna show off on a stage.

00:22:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, and otherwise there's not much left for an event.

00:22:55 ◼   ► I forget what other, a few other readers have sent in

00:23:00 ◼   ► as speculation, more or less--

00:23:02 ◼   ► - New routers?

00:23:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, who knows, I forget what somebody else,

00:23:06 ◼   ► it's just not possible, there's no way

00:23:07 ◼   ► that they can make an event that's worth it.

00:23:10 ◼   ► Would it have been worth it to have a separate event?

00:23:14 ◼   ► Now if they had held the iPads, including the iPad Pro,

00:23:18 ◼   ► I think they could have done it.

00:23:19 ◼   ► And then what they could have done, I guess,

00:23:21 ◼   ► although, maybe not.

00:23:23 ◼   ► See, I was thinking because there's a new iPad Mini 4,

00:23:27 ◼   ► which is now technically equivalent to the iPad Air 2.

00:23:31 ◼   ► - There's a slight processor difference,

00:23:33 ◼   ► but that's about it.

00:23:35 ◼   ► - That's interesting, and that's a new machine.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Actually, it does kind of make for a hard demo, though,

00:23:41 ◼   ► once you've shown off all the features

00:23:43 ◼   ► in the new OS on the iPad Pro.

00:23:45 ◼   ► So maybe it doesn't make for a good event.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Maybe part of it, you know, part of it obviously,

00:23:51 ◼   ► I think, talking to people behind the scenes

00:23:52 ◼   ► was that Apple really wanted to only have one event

00:23:55 ◼   ► because doing one event and putting all of the wood

00:23:58 ◼   ► behind that arrow is easier than doing two events,

00:24:01 ◼   ► even if one of them is sort of a smaller one

00:24:03 ◼   ► right there on Apple's campus.

00:24:05 ◼   ► But second, maybe that wouldn't have been enough to,

00:24:08 ◼   ► you know, maybe that would have left people, you know,

00:24:10 ◼   ► people who go and travel to get there

00:24:12 ◼   ► thinking this wasn't worth it.

00:24:14 ◼   ► - And the people who watch from home,

00:24:15 ◼   ► They're watching and they see 4K iMacs,

00:24:18 ◼   ► not as impressive as a 5K iMac.

00:24:19 ◼   ► The iPad Mini 3, it's not as impressive as the iPad,

00:24:22 ◼   ► sorry, iPad Mini 4, not as impressive as the iPad Air 2.

00:24:25 ◼   ► And then you have the iPad Pro, which is great,

00:24:27 ◼   ► but Apple is usually really good

00:24:28 ◼   ► when they have a double barrel event.

00:24:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and I think it's just like last year's

00:24:34 ◼   ► Retina iMac, except smaller.

00:24:36 ◼   ► And it's just like last year's iPad Air 2, but smaller.

00:24:40 ◼   ► It isn't really, that's great if what you want is smaller,

00:24:43 ◼   ► but it doesn't really make for a demo.

00:24:46 ◼   ► - I will miss Craig getting up on stage

00:24:48 ◼   ► and saying OS X is available today.

00:24:51 ◼   ► But other than that.

00:24:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, the only thing really they would have left

00:24:54 ◼   ► to demo is to rehash, and I think that would be good,

00:24:57 ◼   ► but it just, I may not make for a great event,

00:24:59 ◼   ► is to just go through, here's the top 10 best features,

00:25:03 ◼   ► the 10 poll features in Yosemite.

00:25:05 ◼   ► Or not Yosemite, okay. - They didn't even do that

00:25:06 ◼   ► for iOS this year.

00:25:07 ◼   ► I mean, iOS didn't get any time.

00:25:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, they kinda, yeah, again,

00:25:11 ◼   ► 'cause they went long enough as is,

00:25:13 ◼   ► they kind of skip that rehash of, you know,

00:25:16 ◼   ► what they call the tentapoles,

00:25:17 ◼   ► and usually it's 10 of them, you know,

00:25:19 ◼   ► but here's the top 10 things that we want you to know about.

00:25:22 ◼   ► And people forget, I know people sometimes complain about it

00:25:26 ◼   ► because they're like, "They showed all this at WWDC."

00:25:29 ◼   ► I think, you know, people who are really,

00:25:32 ◼   ► really cued into this, I mean, sometimes I get that feeling

00:25:35 ◼   ► too when I'm watching it,

00:25:36 ◼   ► but I totally understand why Apple does it

00:25:38 ◼   ► because that's how you teach people things.

00:25:40 ◼   ► You have to repeat it.

00:25:41 ◼   ► It's both a pedagogical axiom and a marketing axiom.

00:25:46 ◼   ► You have to make your point multiple times

00:25:48 ◼   ► to get it through to more people than you would.

00:25:53 ◼   ► - Absolutely, and it's not like Apple talks to us

00:25:55 ◼   ► very often, us being the greater community.

00:25:58 ◼   ► They just don't have a lot of air time.

00:26:00 ◼   ► So when they have that air time,

00:26:01 ◼   ► they wanna do that exactly.

00:26:02 ◼   ► Here's what we're gonna tell you.

00:26:03 ◼   ► We're telling it to you.

00:26:04 ◼   ► Did you see what we told you?

00:26:05 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

00:26:08 ◼   ► The event itself was, if I had known,

00:26:12 ◼   ► if I had somehow gotten advanced access

00:26:15 ◼   ► inside the facility and seen what they had built,

00:26:19 ◼   ► I would have been a lot less likely to guess

00:26:22 ◼   ► that they were gonna do two events this year.

00:26:24 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Like, it's hard for me

00:26:25 ◼   ► to, you know, in my write-up afterwards,

00:26:27 ◼   ► I don't think I'd, I had so much to cover,

00:26:30 ◼   ► but it's really hard for me to express

00:26:32 ◼   ► just how impressive the build-out inside

00:26:35 ◼   ► that the Bill Graham Civic Center was.

00:26:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, if you'd never seen the Civic Center without it,

00:26:42 ◼   ► I had never seen it before, I didn't know what it looked

00:26:44 ◼   ► like, so I went and looked at some other pictures

00:26:45 ◼   ► afterwards, and if you'd only ever seen it

00:26:47 ◼   ► without what Apple did to it, you may not appreciate it,

00:26:49 ◼   ► but they transformed that structure.

00:26:51 ◼   ► It's almost like a movie set when you come

00:26:52 ◼   ► into an empty warehouse and all of a sudden

00:26:54 ◼   ► it's The Force Awakens inside it.

00:26:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a good way to put it,

00:26:58 ◼   ► that it was like a movie set.

00:27:00 ◼   ► They built a movie set for an Apple keynote room.

00:27:04 ◼   ► I was saying that they build a building within the building

00:27:06 ◼   ► and then maybe that's not right

00:27:07 ◼   ► because it didn't have an outside structure for you to see.

00:27:11 ◼   ► It was all inside.

00:27:13 ◼   ► So a movie set is maybe a better way to put it

00:27:15 ◼   ► because it was all meant to be seen from the inside,

00:27:19 ◼   ► like a movie set.

00:27:20 ◼   ► And the outside, who knows what it looked like?

00:27:22 ◼   ► You know, it was impossible to sort of see that.

00:27:24 ◼   ► - And from one direction, I mean,

00:27:26 ◼   ► people kept saying 7,000 seats,

00:27:28 ◼   ► but they had maybe 1,500, 1,700 available in there.

00:27:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I think that was it

00:27:33 ◼   ► 'cause it's, you know, they took up a bunch of that,

00:27:37 ◼   ► what would be the floor space for like,

00:27:39 ◼   ► if you wanted to hold a concert or something

00:27:41 ◼   ► with max, you know, and sell the most tickets,

00:27:44 ◼   ► you would just set it up an entirely different way.

00:27:46 ◼   ► I mean, it really was more like a movie set.

00:27:48 ◼   ► 360 degrees all the way around.

00:27:51 ◼   ► Even the flooring, you know, the stadium seating

00:27:55 ◼   ► that we sat on was all built by Apple and temporary.

00:28:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not like they have a big warehouse

00:28:03 ◼   ► Cupertino that they cart the stuff in and then put it away again for next year's event.

00:28:06 ◼   ► They built this stuff, they build it like bespoke every time.

00:28:09 ◼   ► Yeah, they even put in an air system so the building is not air conditioned.

00:28:15 ◼   ► And I was talking to somebody at Apple and when they were talking, you know, in preliminary

00:28:19 ◼   ► talks to maybe use this building, they were like, "Well, what's the air conditioning

00:28:22 ◼   ► situation?"

00:28:24 ◼   ► And the Bill Graham people were like, "Oh, it's easy.

00:28:27 ◼   ► It's great.

00:28:28 ◼   ► You just open the windows."

00:28:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:30 ◼   ► No, their events team is spectacular.

00:28:31 ◼   ► They really could run production for any major studio.

00:28:34 ◼   ► - I was thinking about this.

00:28:37 ◼   ► What do you think that costs them?

00:28:38 ◼   ► - Oh man, I mean just the air conditioning.

00:28:41 ◼   ► And we were actually joking at the event

00:28:43 ◼   ► that we'd rather the wifi went out

00:28:44 ◼   ► than the air conditioning 'cause it was so hot.

00:28:47 ◼   ► But it must have been in the millions.

00:28:49 ◼   ► I can't believe how high.

00:28:51 ◼   ► Tons of millions.

00:28:53 ◼   ► - I'm not in that field so I could be way off.

00:28:55 ◼   ► I'm guessing 10 to 15 million dollars.

00:28:58 ◼   ► - Doesn't sound crazy to me.

00:29:00 ◼   ► - Well and think about it.

00:29:00 ◼   ► what's a Super Bowl ad cost?

00:29:02 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:29:03 ◼   ► - Like five million dollars and plus the production cost

00:29:06 ◼   ► to make the commercial.

00:29:07 ◼   ► So, you know, it's not unheard of for a company

00:29:10 ◼   ► to spend 10 to 20 million dollars on a TV campaign

00:29:13 ◼   ► or a commercial.

00:29:15 ◼   ► And Apple certainly gets super, you know,

00:29:18 ◼   ► well they get more than Super Bowl commercial exposure

00:29:21 ◼   ► out of these special events.

00:29:23 ◼   ► - And unlike a commercial, it has to be done live.

00:29:25 ◼   ► They have to get it right the first time.

00:29:27 ◼   ► - Right, but they don't have to share the day

00:29:29 ◼   ► with anybody else.

00:29:30 ◼   ► So instead of racing to, being one of 40 different,

00:29:33 ◼   ► all trying to be the commercial everybody's

00:29:36 ◼   ► talking about tomorrow, Apple knows that everybody's

00:29:39 ◼   ► gonna be talking about them tomorrow.

00:29:40 ◼   ► But I think spending 10, 20 million dollars on it

00:29:43 ◼   ► is not outlandish, and I think it looked like something

00:29:45 ◼   ► they might have spent 10, 20 million dollars on.

00:29:48 ◼   ► However long they'd rented the place out,

00:29:50 ◼   ► however many people it took to build it,

00:29:53 ◼   ► however much it cost to put all that stuff up.

00:29:57 ◼   ► I mean, the seats, again, I wrote this,

00:29:59 ◼   ► that I think that they just,

00:30:01 ◼   ► I don't know if they threw them out,

00:30:02 ◼   ► I don't know if there was someone they could donate them to,

00:30:04 ◼   ► but the seating that we sat in was all brand new.

00:30:07 ◼   ► I mean, and I don't know that there's a way to rent that.

00:30:10 ◼   ► Like it wasn't, they weren't chairs

00:30:13 ◼   ► that you can like pick up and move.

00:30:16 ◼   ► They were like rows of seating

00:30:17 ◼   ► that were connected to each other.

00:30:19 ◼   ► You know, there's certain types of folding chairs

00:30:21 ◼   ► that you can latch next to each other for ad hoc events

00:30:24 ◼   ► that you can take them down and stuff like that.

00:30:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, it didn't look like condo association seating

00:30:28 ◼   ► had used that last week.

00:30:29 ◼   ► - Right, and they all look, the ones I was in,

00:30:31 ◼   ► look around our section, they all look brand new.

00:30:35 ◼   ► But on the other hand, and some people,

00:30:37 ◼   ► when I wrote that, they were like,

00:30:38 ◼   ► well, maybe they're gonna use those on the campus

00:30:40 ◼   ► in their theater, and that's a good idea,

00:30:43 ◼   ► but they weren't that sturdy.

00:30:45 ◼   ► There was a lot of rock to them.

00:30:48 ◼   ► I mean, they were nice and they were cushioned,

00:30:50 ◼   ► but I'd be shocked if those exact seats

00:30:54 ◼   ► were the ones Apple has in their new theater on campus,

00:30:57 ◼   ► 'cause they weren't that nice.

00:30:59 ◼   ► - They didn't look Johnny Ive team designed.

00:31:00 ◼   ► - No, they definitely did not.

00:31:02 ◼   ► And they also did not feel built to last.

00:31:05 ◼   ► But they were, it just was just an unbelievable build up.

00:31:11 ◼   ► - And the crazy thing is it wasn't just that.

00:31:12 ◼   ► Like if you ever go to CES and talk to them

00:31:14 ◼   ► about how much those booths cost,

00:31:15 ◼   ► they built the equivalent.

00:31:17 ◼   ► They had pods for the Apple TV demos,

00:31:19 ◼   ► little living rooms, and I don't know how many.

00:31:21 ◼   ► It looked like 10 or 20.

00:31:22 ◼   ► And those are all, it's like that's a CES style pavilion

00:31:25 ◼   ► as well as the event they're already running.

00:31:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

00:31:28 ◼   ► The screen was enormous, the stage and screen were enormous

00:31:33 ◼   ► and that's the sort of thing that's really,

00:31:35 ◼   ► I think it's impossible to gauge if you're not there.

00:31:38 ◼   ► And again, does it really matter that we were there?

00:31:40 ◼   ► Message-wise, no, but in terms of understanding

00:31:42 ◼   ► the scale of the show, it does,

00:31:45 ◼   ► because when you're on TV, watching the video,

00:31:48 ◼   ► it reduces that scale.

00:31:50 ◼   ► You're really just watching the slides go by

00:31:52 ◼   ► and you don't really see the size of it.

00:31:54 ◼   ► It was enormous.

00:31:55 ◼   ► It was so big that I noticed several times

00:31:58 ◼   ► that when they were switching to videos,

00:32:01 ◼   ► and they're like, you know,

00:32:02 ◼   ► like when one of the Johnny Iimes narrated videos,

00:32:04 ◼   ► that whoever was speaking, Phil or Tim or whoever,

00:32:09 ◼   ► would say, you know, now we wanna tell you about it.

00:32:12 ◼   ► They'd start playing it

00:32:13 ◼   ► while they were still standing in front of it,

00:32:15 ◼   ► because it was so big that it would create an awkward pause

00:32:19 ◼   ► if they waited until they walked

00:32:20 ◼   ► until they weren't in front of it anymore.

00:32:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was almost like an IMAX version

00:32:25 ◼   ► of a tech demo.

00:32:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, like ordinarily you would never, never,

00:32:28 ◼   ► and I think it had to come through rehearsals.

00:32:31 ◼   ► I think even like your instincts,

00:32:32 ◼   ► even as, you know, not that polished of a public speaker,

00:32:37 ◼   ► you would, it would occur to you,

00:32:38 ◼   ► I'm gonna hit the button to play this

00:32:40 ◼   ► after I'm off to the side.

00:32:42 ◼   ► But it was so big that they had to do it

00:32:44 ◼   ► while they were sort of standing in front of it.

00:32:45 ◼   ► - And because it was so big, they never,

00:32:47 ◼   ► at least I didn't even notice anybody.

00:32:48 ◼   ► Once the video played, they were so small in comparison.

00:32:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, oh definitely, definitely.

00:32:56 ◼   ► And I even thought that too while I was watching it

00:32:58 ◼   ► that it didn't make that big a difference

00:32:59 ◼   ► 'cause you really just sort of saw it, you know,

00:33:01 ◼   ► little tiny bit of their silhouette instead of the screen.

00:33:05 ◼   ► It was a truly enormous screen.

00:33:06 ◼   ► Good sound, really good sound.

00:33:10 ◼   ► And again, that's a big build out

00:33:12 ◼   ► because it wasn't like there was a sound system in there

00:33:14 ◼   ► that they used, they put one in.

00:33:17 ◼   ► - They put like a couple of those new iPad Pro speakers

00:33:20 ◼   ► just in each corner.

00:33:21 ◼   ► Turned them to Macs.

00:33:23 ◼   ► And then the other thing, in addition to those cubicles they built, it was like off to stage

00:33:30 ◼   ► left was where they had all of these little living rooms to test Apple TV and iPad Pro

00:33:38 ◼   ► demos that were hosted by talented artists who already had exposure to the thing and

00:33:46 ◼   ► could show you what somebody who knows what the hell they're doing when they're drawing

00:33:49 ◼   ► can do.

00:33:52 ◼   ► And they were really nice, but it was real dark over there.

00:33:54 ◼   ► And then stage right, you went down a hallway,

00:33:56 ◼   ► and it was like you were entering a temporary Apple store.

00:33:59 ◼   ► And the most amazing thing is as you came down that hallway,

00:34:03 ◼   ► it looked like it was flooded with sunlight.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Did you notice that?

00:34:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, actually I didn't pick up that it was sunlight,

00:34:09 ◼   ► but there was almost like a golden glow coming in

00:34:10 ◼   ► as you walked through the room.

00:34:12 ◼   ► - I was waiting to get in, and I look,

00:34:14 ◼   ► and it was flooded with sunlight,

00:34:16 ◼   ► and I thought, remember that one time Apple

00:34:18 ◼   ► cut a hole in the wall at the Urban Buena Sweater Center

00:34:21 ◼   ► to get sunlight in there.

00:34:22 ◼   ► And I thought, oh, they must have cut a hole in the roof.

00:34:24 ◼   ► And then I thought, no, wait, that doesn't make any sense

00:34:26 ◼   ► because the Bill Graham Center has like three floors

00:34:30 ◼   ► above the floor they were on.

00:34:32 ◼   ► And it just, they put in like some kind of fancy

00:34:36 ◼   ► lighting system that gives off light

00:34:39 ◼   ► in the color temperature of sunlight.

00:34:43 ◼   ► - You gotta wonder if that was HomeKit.

00:34:44 ◼   ► There's just some guy there with Siri controlling all of it.

00:34:47 ◼   ► - I don't know, but again, I think it's sort of like

00:34:49 ◼   ► a movie studio quality lighting.

00:34:52 ◼   ► - Absolutely.

00:34:52 ◼   ► - Like the sort of thing that a TV show or movie would use

00:34:56 ◼   ► to simulate sunlight without having to actually

00:35:01 ◼   ► have sunlight.

00:35:02 ◼   ► - Again, that's all them.

00:35:03 ◼   ► They don't have an external events team

00:35:05 ◼   ► like some people do.

00:35:05 ◼   ► They don't hire anyone to put this together for them.

00:35:07 ◼   ► It's all internal.

00:35:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's incredibly impressive.

00:35:12 ◼   ► I don't know, I thought so.

00:35:14 ◼   ► - Well, I agree completely.

00:35:15 ◼   ► - The other thing that was interesting,

00:35:17 ◼   ► and you and I talked about this,

00:35:18 ◼   ► is even with the seating for 1400,

00:35:20 ◼   ► they did not greatly expand.

00:35:23 ◼   ► In fact, I think they might have contracted

00:35:25 ◼   ► the number of media and analysts who were invited.

00:35:29 ◼   ► In other words, outsiders,

00:35:30 ◼   ► non-Apple people who were invited to the event.

00:35:32 ◼   ► - So I heard, and I didn't hear anything official,

00:35:34 ◼   ► but I heard that the constraint wasn't the seating

00:35:36 ◼   ► of the arena, but the capacity of the on-hands area,

00:35:39 ◼   ► that you just couldn't have that many people

00:35:41 ◼   ► in the Apple TV and the iPad testing areas at one time,

00:35:46 ◼   ► and that limited how many,

00:35:47 ◼   ► 'cause you can't just have a bunch of media people there

00:35:49 ◼   ► and just never let them in.

00:35:51 ◼   ► So they had to figure out that number,

00:35:52 ◼   ► then that's as many presses they could invite,

00:35:54 ◼   ► and then the rest they used for engineers.

00:35:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, that actually, I did not hear that,

00:35:59 ◼   ► but that makes my experience, my firsthand experience,

00:36:02 ◼   ► that makes total sense to me.

00:36:04 ◼   ► 'Cause I stayed until they so politely asked

00:36:08 ◼   ► - You, likewise.

00:36:09 ◼   ► - those of us remaining to leave.

00:36:12 ◼   ► And in the old days, that trick used to get you

00:36:15 ◼   ► some really good hands-on time with stuff.

00:36:17 ◼   ► I remember very specifically, and it's just funny

00:36:21 ◼   ► because Apple's back to having a keyboard

00:36:24 ◼   ► you can latch onto an iPad.

00:36:26 ◼   ► The first iPad, it was so hard to get time with them.

00:36:30 ◼   ► And you really just felt like there's so many people waiting

00:36:33 ◼   ► at every table that after you did get some time

00:36:35 ◼   ► and got to play with some things that it would occur to you,

00:36:38 ◼   ► it was so many people you just felt like a jerk

00:36:40 ◼   ► if you didn't hand it back over to the Apple rep

00:36:42 ◼   ► and get in line again somewhere else

00:36:45 ◼   ► or think about new things to do.

00:36:46 ◼   ► But by the end of that hands-on session,

00:36:48 ◼   ► Dan Morin and I had an iPad with the hardware,

00:36:52 ◼   ► the original hardware keyboard thing to ourselves

00:36:54 ◼   ► for, oh, I don't know, like a good 15 uninterrupted minutes.

00:36:58 ◼   ► And we got to play with as many things as we could,

00:37:01 ◼   ► test out keyboard shortcuts, and it was fantastic.

00:37:05 ◼   ► And there was nobody over our shoulder

00:37:06 ◼   ► because most people left.

00:37:08 ◼   ► That's not the case anymore.

00:37:09 ◼   ► Like, it was crowded and hard to get time with stuff

00:37:14 ◼   ► right up until they asked us to leave.

00:37:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, absolutely.

00:37:18 ◼   ► - And that's with just the people they didn't fight.

00:37:21 ◼   ► - And I heard also that they tried to have

00:37:23 ◼   ► much more international balance

00:37:24 ◼   ► in the media presence this time as well.

00:37:27 ◼   ► And when you look through the media,

00:37:28 ◼   ► it was obvious that there were people from Europe,

00:37:31 ◼   ► Asia, I mean, just everywhere.

00:37:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, a lot of people from Europe, clearly,

00:37:35 ◼   ► and a lot of people from Asia, clearly.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Yeah, and the story I heard about that

00:37:42 ◼   ► was that for years what they used to do

00:37:43 ◼   ► run simulcasts around the world. I don't know how many, but let's say they'd have one in London,

00:37:48 ◼   ► and they'd have one somewhere in Asia, maybe more than those two, maybe more, but at least

00:37:54 ◼   ► one in Asia and one in London. And that way people wouldn't have to fly as far. Someone from Germany

00:38:03 ◼   ► would only have to travel to London. And Apple has PR staff on those continents already, and that PR

00:38:10 ◼   ► our staff could man those events.

00:38:12 ◼   ► - But they were all here this year.

00:38:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, well the gist of what I heard is that more and more

00:38:17 ◼   ► the people from around the world,

00:38:19 ◼   ► even with the expense and time of traveling,

00:38:22 ◼   ► wanted to be at the real show.

00:38:24 ◼   ► They didn't wanna watch on a screen at the same time,

00:38:26 ◼   ► they wanted to be at the show.

00:38:28 ◼   ► And as more and more people were,

00:38:31 ◼   ► the media people were asking for that,

00:38:33 ◼   ► it left less and less reason for them to simulcast it.

00:38:36 ◼   ► And so they didn't.

00:38:37 ◼   ► Anybody who wanted to be there was here,

00:38:39 ◼   ► but that meant though that the 400 spots for outsiders

00:38:43 ◼   ► had to be split from everybody around the world.

00:38:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, and conversely, they had so many products.

00:38:48 ◼   ► They had the all new Apple Watch stuff,

00:38:50 ◼   ► they had the iPad, they had the Apple TV,

00:38:51 ◼   ► they had the iPhones, and those teams aren't big,

00:38:54 ◼   ► like the press teams, the marketing teams.

00:38:56 ◼   ► As far as I could tell, they were being manned

00:38:59 ◼   ► by people from all over the world.

00:39:00 ◼   ► If you worked at Apple in those departments

00:39:02 ◼   ► anywhere in the world, you were there helping out that day.

00:39:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, definitely.

00:39:07 ◼   ► It's just wild.

00:39:08 ◼   ► It's just an incredible, incredible effort that goes into it.

00:39:12 ◼   ► Whatever you think of the announcements.

00:39:14 ◼   ► The meta commentary on the effort Apple puts into the show itself is truly extraordinary.

00:39:22 ◼   ► They've taken it to a level with this show, I think, that they've never done before.

00:39:26 ◼   ► It's almost like, I don't know, you mentioned before that the idea that Apple was a product,

00:39:29 ◼   ► but it's almost like the events themselves have become products.

00:39:32 ◼   ► I've gotten to go to shows by other companies, and when you see the difference in how they're

00:39:37 ◼   ► Like I won't mention any names, but some of them don't even think about streaming it

00:39:40 ◼   ► It just doesn't occur to them as they're setting it up

00:39:42 ◼   ► And then there's massive problems at the last minute or they do

00:39:45 ◼   ► Simulcasts and one starts before the other and then I remember one year I forget London New York started early

00:39:51 ◼   ► So these they started handing out phones to keep reporters busy

00:39:53 ◼   ► While they were trying to get the satellite back and those reporters sort of blocking the phones immediately

00:39:58 ◼   ► Like there's just so many things that could go wrong and that and that these tend to go right as a testament to the effort

00:40:03 ◼   ► put in.

00:40:04 ◼   ► Yeah, and it seems like the streaming held up once again very well for everybody at home,

00:40:10 ◼   ► everybody out there listening.

00:40:11 ◼   ► I bet probably a majority of the people listening to this episode probably listen live.

00:40:15 ◼   ► It seemed like there were very few, if any, complaints about the streaming.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Yeah, accidents and bad things happen to everybody.

00:40:22 ◼   ► I think it's a testament to a company that they often do not let the same bad thing or

00:40:25 ◼   ► the same mistakes happen twice.

00:40:27 ◼   ► Right.

00:40:28 ◼   ► Nobody got switched to the Chinese audio track or something like that?

00:40:32 ◼   ► No.

00:40:33 ◼   ► Anything else you want to talk about from the event itself?

00:40:37 ◼   ► It was interesting to me is when we talked to a bunch of our friends about it

00:40:41 ◼   ► how split some of the opinions are. I know there was a little bit of that at WWDC

00:40:45 ◼   ► because some people actually did like the music stuff. A lot of us didn't but some people did.

00:40:49 ◼   ► And this year there was nothing as divisive as that but there were still some people

00:40:53 ◼   ► like I know Jeff Williams owns Apple Watch at Apple, it's in his org, but he presented it and it wasn't

00:40:57 ◼   ► Phil Schiller. And some people like the fresh new voice and some people would prefer to have Phil

00:41:01 ◼   ► Phil do all those things, and some people don't find Phil

00:41:03 ◼   ► excited enough, so they like Craig,

00:41:05 ◼   ► but some people think Craig is just a bunch of dad jokes.

00:41:07 ◼   ► And then, like, there's just so many opinions now

00:41:09 ◼   ► about who should be doing what, and I think that almost

00:41:11 ◼   ► shows that they're getting to a level where we're not

00:41:14 ◼   ► worrying about their products as much anymore,

00:41:15 ◼   ► and we're worrying about Apple as a show.

00:41:17 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:41:19 ◼   ► It's, I, you know, I don't get the complaints about Schiller,

00:41:23 ◼   ► and I know that there's some people who, you know,

00:41:25 ◼   ► like Twitter and email are like,

00:41:26 ◼   ► "What's wrong with Schiller, was he depressed?"

00:41:28 ◼   ► know I like his demeanor on stage I think I think it's very carefully dialed

00:41:33 ◼   ► in and it is it is very much it's I don't find it to be lacking in

00:41:40 ◼   ► enthusiasm I find it to be completely without artificial enthusiasm absolutely

00:41:46 ◼   ► and you know even Federighi who's who is more enthusiastic I don't find it to be

00:41:52 ◼   ► phony though I really do think though that that's exactly what he thinks he's

00:41:56 ◼   ► He's just more of a jovial guy than Schiller is.

00:42:00 ◼   ► - They're all, as far as I can tell,

00:42:02 ◼   ► and you spend a lot more time with them than I have,

00:42:04 ◼   ► but they come off off stage

00:42:06 ◼   ► the same way they come off on stage.

00:42:07 ◼   ► - Yes, very much so in my experience, very much so.

00:42:10 ◼   ► Even Eddie too.

00:42:13 ◼   ► He is, you think, well, that guy might be a little goofy.

00:42:17 ◼   ► He is a little goofy.

00:42:19 ◼   ► It's funny.

00:42:20 ◼   ► - He runs iTunes, he has to be.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - You wouldn't, you know, and the idea,

00:42:25 ◼   ► Like when you hear that Steve Jobs and Tim Cook are ferociously scary negotiators, it's

00:42:33 ◼   ► believable.

00:42:34 ◼   ► And when you hear about Eddie based on his on-stage demeanor, it does seem hard to imagine.

00:42:40 ◼   ► I can't imagine it, but I think if there's ever any place where he's got a different

00:42:46 ◼   ► demeanor it's when he's at the negotiating table.

00:42:49 ◼   ► It is different, clearly different than his stage demeanor.

00:42:54 ◼   ► if you say hi to them backstage or something like that.

00:42:57 ◼   ► - And that must be so disarming

00:42:58 ◼   ► because if someone comes in like they're Darth Vader,

00:43:00 ◼   ► you're preparing yourself for Darth Vader,

00:43:01 ◼   ► but if someone comes in as your best friend,

00:43:03 ◼   ► then all of a sudden,

00:43:04 ◼   ► all the oxygen gets sucked out of the room,

00:43:06 ◼   ► you're just not ready for that.

00:43:07 ◼   ► - Right, I saw one complaint.

00:43:09 ◼   ► I saw an article that somebody wrote about,

00:43:11 ◼   ► that I don't think I linked to it.

00:43:16 ◼   ► I almost did, not because I agreed with it,

00:43:18 ◼   ► but in the spirit of sometimes

00:43:20 ◼   ► I like to link to things I disagree with,

00:43:22 ◼   ► but that I find worth considering.

00:43:25 ◼   ► It's like the rarest thing, it was an article about,

00:43:28 ◼   ► that called Apple's event creepy as hell.

00:43:31 ◼   ► And one of his complaints was that it was just

00:43:34 ◼   ► one guy after another all dressed the same,

00:43:36 ◼   ► with the exact same, almost the exact same shirt on.

00:43:40 ◼   ► And I see what he means,

00:43:41 ◼   ► we actually commented on it in the show.

00:43:43 ◼   ► It almost seems like maybe Apple needs to coordinate that

00:43:45 ◼   ► a little bit better, that it was, you know,

00:43:47 ◼   ► it really was a series of very similar bluish,

00:43:51 ◼   ► with muted dark blue button-down shirt.

00:43:55 ◼   ► - Eddie had his Product Red shirt on.

00:43:56 ◼   ► - Well, that's the thing.

00:43:58 ◼   ► I don't see how you, I see how you can complain,

00:44:00 ◼   ► and I see how Tim and Jeff Williams and Schiller

00:44:05 ◼   ► and a few others had roughly similar shirts on.

00:44:10 ◼   ► I don't see, though, how you write that sentence

00:44:13 ◼   ► without at least putting in a parenthetical about Eddie.

00:44:17 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:44:20 ◼   ► Like Eddie's shirt was so crazily Eddie

00:44:23 ◼   ► that it demanded to be mentioned.

00:44:27 ◼   ► If you're gonna talk about the shirts

00:44:28 ◼   ► of the people on stage, you gotta,

00:44:30 ◼   ► you really had to mention that.

00:44:32 ◼   ► I almost think like Eddie is going in like,

00:44:35 ◼   ► you remember Doc Severinsen, the guy who was the fan leader

00:44:41 ◼   ► on the Johnny Carson show?

00:44:43 ◼   ► - Absolutely.

00:44:44 ◼   ► - He wore deliberately outlandish costumes

00:44:46 ◼   ► and Carson could crack jokes about it.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Like I feel like Eddie's going in that route

00:44:50 ◼   ► He he he's just wears he wears goofy shirts on purpose. It's part of the negotiating

00:44:55 ◼   ► He distracts you with the shirt and then goes in for the kill, right?

00:44:58 ◼   ► Cuz he actually didn't have that shirt on before the event, you know, like pre event apples

00:45:02 ◼   ► senior executives

00:45:05 ◼   ► mingle down in front

00:45:07 ◼   ► in front of the stage

00:45:09 ◼   ► You know like in the you know half-hour 45 minutes leading up to the event and and I saw you know

00:45:15 ◼   ► Eddie down there and he was wearing I don't know what it was

00:45:18 ◼   ► I didn't really take notice but I certainly would have taken notice if he was wearing that shirt and he wasn't like so he actually

00:45:23 ◼   ► Gets into costume backstage like to come out. I

00:45:26 ◼   ► Joked about this, but I seriously want to just turn off the internet often after Apple events

00:45:30 ◼   ► I saw a whole thing about how Johnny I've didn't appear physically in the video and there must be something wrong

00:45:35 ◼   ► But we saw him all over the event. He was he was exactly like Johnny always was. Yes, exactly

00:45:39 ◼   ► No, he was all over the place afterwards

00:45:42 ◼   ► No, there's nothing right stupid. It's the fact that the fact is that they've upped

00:45:47 ◼   ► they've well

00:45:49 ◼   ► It's I guess it's a matter of taste whether they've upped the style of those narrated videos, but they have seemingly

00:45:57 ◼   ► abandoned the previous

00:46:00 ◼   ► I'm gonna call it a format, but you want to call it a style like template where it's the

00:46:06 ◼   ► white background that that seemingly infinite white

00:46:11 ◼   ► universe background and

00:46:14 ◼   ► You'd see the people doing the talking, you know

00:46:18 ◼   ► Oh, I think they were always on the right side looking to the left if you're looking at the screen

00:46:24 ◼   ► And you know this like as though they were filmed doing a sit-down interview and instead now

00:46:29 ◼   ► it's a black background and they're darker and

00:46:33 ◼   ► it's entirely shots of the products and

00:46:37 ◼   ► Pure voiceover from Johnny and just Johnny. There's I mean, they don't have Dan Ricci. Oh, they used to have

00:46:43 ◼   ► They used to have a bunch of people in those ads.

00:46:45 ◼   ► They don't have Johnny Srouji.

00:46:47 ◼   ► It's entirely a Johnny Ive.

00:46:48 ◼   ► But it was getting to the point

00:46:49 ◼   ► where people were making fake versions of those.

00:46:51 ◼   ► And I think once you have your Saturday Night Live moment,

00:46:53 ◼   ► you've gotta move on.

00:46:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think maybe that's part of it.

00:46:56 ◼   ► And that, you know, they just got old.

00:46:57 ◼   ► You know, what's his name?

00:46:59 ◼   ► Big Bob Mansfield appeared in them as well.

00:47:03 ◼   ► - Dan Riccio was in some of them.

00:47:04 ◼   ► I mean, they've had several people.

00:47:05 ◼   ► They've had Joss Wieck in some of them.

00:47:07 ◼   ► - Yes, definitely.

00:47:08 ◼   ► I always like to see him, Big Bob Mansfield.

00:47:12 ◼   ► - He was great.

00:47:13 ◼   ► It just seems so nice.

00:47:15 ◼   ► - A lot of them, they really do come off

00:47:18 ◼   ► the way they come off in those videos.

00:47:19 ◼   ► I think they really do enjoy what they're doing.

00:47:21 ◼   ► - Yes, well, absolutely.

00:47:23 ◼   ► I don't see if there's any other reason

00:47:24 ◼   ► that they would stick around.

00:47:25 ◼   ► - No.

00:47:25 ◼   ► - I'm trying to think, anything else with the event?

00:47:30 ◼   ► - No, just that it was, I mean, we spoke about it briefly

00:47:33 ◼   ► before the event and we said if they were gonna do

00:47:35 ◼   ► all this stuff, they were gonna have to yada yada

00:47:36 ◼   ► a lot of things and they did, they yada yada

00:47:38 ◼   ► a lot of things.

00:47:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, they definitely did.

00:47:40 ◼   ► - And apparently they cut a lot of stuff,

00:47:40 ◼   ► like there was apparently a lot more stuff

00:47:42 ◼   ► that just couldn't fit in.

00:47:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, I heard, yeah.

00:47:46 ◼   ► I'm curious who does that?

00:47:47 ◼   ► 'Cause previously it was without question,

00:47:51 ◼   ► it was Steve Jobs.

00:47:52 ◼   ► He was the director of those shows

00:47:55 ◼   ► and it was unquestioned and he had a gift

00:47:59 ◼   ► and they were easier to put together when he was around

00:48:03 ◼   ► because his gift was such that if you laid out

00:48:07 ◼   ► the products that, here's the stuff we'd like to announce,

00:48:11 ◼   ► here's all of it.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Jobs can just look at that table of stuff,

00:48:15 ◼   ► whether it's software, hardware, whatever the mix is.

00:48:18 ◼   ► And the show just came to his head,

00:48:22 ◼   ► like the basic structure.

00:48:24 ◼   ► What do we do first?

00:48:26 ◼   ► What do we do second?

00:48:27 ◼   ► What do we do third?

00:48:28 ◼   ► What gets cut?

00:48:30 ◼   ► And it just came to him.

00:48:31 ◼   ► And it's not that they came to him

00:48:32 ◼   ► and then they didn't have to rehearse.

00:48:34 ◼   ► And then they'd start rehearsing.

00:48:36 ◼   ► And as they're rehearsing, the flaws in the flow,

00:48:39 ◼   ► the lulls and everything just came to him.

00:48:41 ◼   ► And he would just say, "That's too long.

00:48:44 ◼   ► "That's gotta be 30 seconds."

00:48:46 ◼   ► And that's it.

00:48:47 ◼   ► And nobody, there weren't really arguments over it.

00:48:50 ◼   ► And went, and somebody who's maybe stuck.

00:48:53 ◼   ► See, and the thing that really sticks out to me

00:48:55 ◼   ► when you watch other companies' events

00:48:57 ◼   ► is that the inner company politics

00:49:00 ◼   ► just comes spewing out the sides of the event

00:49:03 ◼   ► in terms of you can just see

00:49:05 ◼   ► that it's this division and that division

00:49:08 ◼   ► and they both want time on the stage.

00:49:11 ◼   ► and they want it for the sake of their own internal

00:49:14 ◼   ► bureaucratic status.

00:49:21 ◼   ► Not whether giving equal time or 10 minutes of time

00:49:25 ◼   ► to this other thing is good for the flow of the show

00:49:28 ◼   ► and therefore best for the interest of the company

00:49:31 ◼   ► as a whole in terms of keeping people's interest

00:49:33 ◼   ► and making sure that the limited time of this event

00:49:35 ◼   ► is allocated properly.

00:49:37 ◼   ► And I think Steve Jobs could single-handedly solve that

00:49:41 ◼   ► because whatever internal quabbles there were

00:49:44 ◼   ► in turf wars under him, the buck stopped with him

00:49:47 ◼   ► and he could stop it.

00:49:48 ◼   ► Tim Cook obviously has that authority

00:49:51 ◼   ► and I think it would be unquestioned.

00:49:52 ◼   ► But he doesn't have, I don't think he's the guy

00:49:55 ◼   ► who has the sense of showmanship to know

00:49:57 ◼   ► which stuff to put in which order and stuff like that.

00:50:01 ◼   ► And I really do think that's what was wrong

00:50:03 ◼   ► with the WWDC keynote is that it was just sort of a jumble

00:50:07 ◼   ► and sort of randomly structured as opposed to ordered in a way that was harmonious.

00:50:12 ◼   ► Yeah, to your point, I felt like Steve Jobs could look at one of those weird, you know,

00:50:15 ◼   ► those weird paintings and just see the pattern that was hidden inside it.

00:50:18 ◼   ► It would just pop out at him.

00:50:19 ◼   ► He would wonder why no one else could see it.

00:50:21 ◼   ► It's so obvious.

00:50:22 ◼   ► And now Tim Cook seems to treat them where before it was Steve Jobs and Johnny Iovine,

00:50:26 ◼   ► everything radiating out from there.

00:50:28 ◼   ► Tim Cook seems to treat them as if they're running their own sub companies in a way.

00:50:31 ◼   ► And it feels like, you know, just running watch.

00:50:33 ◼   ► Who does Jeff want to present the watch?

00:50:35 ◼   ► If he wants to, that's fine.

00:50:36 ◼   ► if not, we'll find somebody.

00:50:37 ◼   ► Eddie's gonna do the iTunes or segment

00:50:41 ◼   ► if he doesn't wanna do parts of it, who's gonna do those.

00:50:43 ◼   ► And they get to make those decisions.

00:50:44 ◼   ► And maybe arguably you'd want Tim Cook

00:50:47 ◼   ► or Johnny and I have to make some of those decisions,

00:50:49 ◼   ► but he seems content to allow them to own those fields.

00:50:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, but not if he doesn't, if he,

00:50:53 ◼   ► I think one of the seemingly amazing things about Tim Cook

00:50:57 ◼   ► is that he seems extraordinarily comfortable

00:51:00 ◼   ► sticking to what he's good at

00:51:04 ◼   ► and knowing what he's good at.

00:51:05 ◼   ► and he's clearly very, very good at certain things,

00:51:09 ◼   ► and then not feeling the least bit defensive or inadequate

00:51:13 ◼   ► about the things that he's not good at,

00:51:17 ◼   ► even though those are some amazing things

00:51:19 ◼   ► that his immediate predecessor was amazingly good at.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Like, I don't think it bothers Tim Cook in the least

00:51:25 ◼   ► that he's not, he doesn't have that sense of showmanship

00:51:29 ◼   ► that Steve Jobs had.

00:51:30 ◼   ► - No, he's like a very different apple.

00:51:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, and clearly it doesn't bother him in the least

00:51:34 ◼   ► he doesn't have the sense of design that Steve Jobs had. I mean I'm sure Tim Cook offers

00:51:39 ◼   ► feedback and he's very very tuned in to the development of these products. And I think

00:51:43 ◼   ► if he does have an opinion or a question I'm sure he doesn't hesitate to ask. But he doesn't

00:51:48 ◼   ► have any problem letting Johnny Ive take over as the buck stops here sense of design for

00:51:54 ◼   ► the company.

00:51:55 ◼   ► One of my favorite moments during the event was Tim Cook walked into the Apple TV area

00:51:59 ◼   ► with OneRepublic and he wanted to show them an iPad or they were asking about the iPad

00:52:04 ◼   ► and it wasn't in that area, but there were a group of people,

00:52:07 ◼   ► some of the guides there had them,

00:52:08 ◼   ► so one of the guides offered it to him

00:52:09 ◼   ► and he just picked it up

00:52:10 ◼   ► and started giving a complete hands-on demo

00:52:12 ◼   ► to OneRepublic showing them the features,

00:52:14 ◼   ► almost like he was working at an Apple store,

00:52:16 ◼   ► it was remarkable.

00:52:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was nearby, I actually saw that

00:52:20 ◼   ► until they wandered off, but it's,

00:52:23 ◼   ► his knowledge of what's being announced

00:52:27 ◼   ► is as deep as it could be.

00:52:30 ◼   ► Like, you know, if he needed to, he could do everything.

00:52:32 ◼   ► I mean, it would take forever

00:52:33 ◼   ► because he talks so slow, but.

00:52:35 ◼   ► - Well it seems like he doesn't drive design

00:52:37 ◼   ► the way Steve Jobs did, but he really does appreciate

00:52:39 ◼   ► the details of what they do.

00:52:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, or he pays attention to what they do.

00:52:43 ◼   ► He is very much aware of it,

00:52:44 ◼   ► like there's no glossing over on that stuff.

00:52:47 ◼   ► Event-wise though, that probably wraps it up.

00:52:52 ◼   ► All right, I'll take another break here,

00:52:53 ◼   ► and we talk about our next sponsor,

00:52:54 ◼   ► and it is our very good friend at Backblaze.

00:52:57 ◼   ► Backblaze does online backup for your Mac,

00:53:03 ◼   ► or your PC, they've got PC I've heard, I don't know.

00:53:05 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:53:09 ◼   ► But more or less what you do is you install Backblaze

00:53:12 ◼   ► on your Mac or your PC, I guess.

00:53:17 ◼   ► And you get a free demo, risk-free, no credit card.

00:53:22 ◼   ► Turn it on, sign up, and it just starts uploading

00:53:26 ◼   ► everything on your computer

00:53:28 ◼   ► to Backblaze's online storage, everything.

00:53:32 ◼   ► You have an external hard drive, back that up too.

00:53:34 ◼   ► Oh, but it's, you know, three terabytes?

00:53:37 ◼   ► Nope, they'll back it up.

00:53:38 ◼   ► There's no magic to it.

00:53:41 ◼   ► Like, whatever your upstream internet connection is

00:53:44 ◼   ► from your home or your office to the internet

00:53:47 ◼   ► is going to limit how long that initial backup takes.

00:53:51 ◼   ► There's, they don't have any kind of magic involved

00:53:54 ◼   ► that's gonna get two terabytes uploaded in an hour.

00:53:57 ◼   ► So it might take a while, it might take days.

00:54:01 ◼   ► But they know that and it's engineered with that in mind.

00:54:04 ◼   ► And the other thing they do too is they don't just blindly

00:54:07 ◼   ► take all of your upstream bandwidth.

00:54:09 ◼   ► It's not like your computer is, honestly I've done it,

00:54:12 ◼   ► I've just reinstalled it on a couple of new machines

00:54:16 ◼   ► within the last few months and gone through the first run

00:54:20 ◼   ► of using backplays.

00:54:21 ◼   ► You don't notice that it's running.

00:54:22 ◼   ► You don't notice that it's doing the initial backup.

00:54:25 ◼   ► It's not like all of a sudden everything else

00:54:27 ◼   ► on your computer is slow.

00:54:29 ◼   ► It just works.

00:54:30 ◼   ► It's worked and it's written by people who use it and know what it's meant for.

00:54:36 ◼   ► Anyway, once everything's uploaded and there and you have a complete backup, it just silently

00:54:41 ◼   ► runs in the background and slowly, as you make changes and add stuff, just keeps it

00:54:46 ◼   ► up to date.

00:54:48 ◼   ► It is a remarkable, remarkable service and it's just an unbelievable price.

00:54:55 ◼   ► There are no add-ons, there's no gimmicks, there's no additional charges.

00:54:57 ◼   ► It's not like you get a terabyte free

00:54:59 ◼   ► and then you have to pay for more or whatever.

00:55:02 ◼   ► You just pay $5 per month per computer

00:55:05 ◼   ► and you get unlimited un-throttled backup.

00:55:08 ◼   ► It's just unbelievable.

00:55:09 ◼   ► When you wanna get files back, what do you do?

00:55:13 ◼   ► You can just log in if you just need one file.

00:55:15 ◼   ► Maybe you're on your iPhone, you can use their app

00:55:17 ◼   ► and just get access to one file from your Mac

00:55:20 ◼   ► from anywhere you are in the world

00:55:22 ◼   ► and then email it or do whatever you want with it.

00:55:26 ◼   ► 25% of all of the restores from BlackBlaze customers

00:55:30 ◼   ► are just one file at a time.

00:55:31 ◼   ► But if you need everything back,

00:55:34 ◼   ► you can order a USB hard drive

00:55:36 ◼   ► and it'll just show up by overnight with everything on it.

00:55:41 ◼   ► Can't be better.

00:55:43 ◼   ► So stop putting it off.

00:55:44 ◼   ► If you're not backing up offline,

00:55:46 ◼   ► even if you have backups right there in your office,

00:55:49 ◼   ► in your house, local backups to another hard drive,

00:55:51 ◼   ► which is great, I do too.

00:55:54 ◼   ► Just, you'll feel so much better with an offsite backup too.

00:55:58 ◼   ► You can't back up to enough different places.

00:56:00 ◼   ► And if you wanna get a backup that's in the cloud,

00:56:02 ◼   ► offsite, I can't recommend anything better than Backblaze.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Go to backblaze.com/thetalkshow

00:56:10 ◼   ► and they'll know that you came from the show.

00:56:13 ◼   ► And check 'em out, install it now, don't put it off, really.

00:56:16 ◼   ► Just pause this podcast and go get started.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Install it, get it started,

00:56:22 ◼   ► it'll take you like five minutes.

00:56:23 ◼   ► and then come back and listen to the rest of the show.

00:56:26 ◼   ► All right.

00:56:28 ◼   ► So, I guess we can talk about

00:56:31 ◼   ► what they announced at the show.

00:56:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:56:34 ◼   ► - I'm curious what you think of the iPad Pro with the pen,

00:56:37 ◼   ► because you are maybe not a serious illustrator,

00:56:40 ◼   ► but you're certainly a hobbyist illustrator,

00:56:43 ◼   ► or at least you're a Batman illustrator.

00:56:45 ◼   ► - Well, so I do that to screw around,

00:56:46 ◼   ► but I drew every day comic book-y stuff

00:56:51 ◼   ► when I was growing up and I went to college for art,

00:56:53 ◼   ► And then I worked as a designer for seven, eight years

00:56:56 ◼   ► using Wacom tablets every day.

00:56:59 ◼   ► And doing Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign

00:57:02 ◼   ► just constantly until I became muscle memory.

00:57:04 ◼   ► And though I had a love-hate relationship with those

00:57:06 ◼   ► because they were better than anything else,

00:57:08 ◼   ► but they were never exactly a digital pen.

00:57:11 ◼   ► And Apple's pencil, it's remarkable.

00:57:14 ◼   ► I'm sure if you just used it, you'd find that too.

00:57:16 ◼   ► But if you've been using Wacom for a while

00:57:19 ◼   ► or you've used styluses on the iPad,

00:57:20 ◼   ► it's hard to properly frame the difference,

00:57:23 ◼   ► but it just never felt like a proper pen to me.

00:57:25 ◼   ► It wasn't heavy enough, it was too slippery,

00:57:28 ◼   ► and Apple's fixed all of that.

00:57:30 ◼   ► There is no paper drag, but they've got a material

00:57:32 ◼   ► on the tip of the pencil that has just enough drag

00:57:34 ◼   ► on the screen that makes you feel like it's a real thing,

00:57:37 ◼   ► that there's real contact there.

00:57:38 ◼   ► And the weight is absolutely perfect.

00:57:40 ◼   ► And the way that it, they do this really fancy

00:57:43 ◼   ► sort of prediction algorithm for where you're gonna go,

00:57:46 ◼   ► and once in a while you can fool it,

00:57:48 ◼   ► but it catches up super quick, but it makes you feel

00:57:51 ◼   ► like you're literally drawing right on the screen.

00:57:54 ◼   ► And because there's no inter mediating layer

00:57:56 ◼   ► the way there is with Wacom,

00:57:57 ◼   ► they have a whole layer between the display

00:57:58 ◼   ► and the sensors.

00:58:00 ◼   ► It feels like you are drawing those pixels into the glass.

00:58:03 ◼   ► And I used it for about,

00:58:05 ◼   ► I did the same thing that you did.

00:58:06 ◼   ► I went there at the end and I used it for about 20 minutes.

00:58:08 ◼   ► And I put my hand down on it to test palm rejection.

00:58:11 ◼   ► I did very quick cross hatching.

00:58:13 ◼   ► And Shrenity gave me a whole long list of things to test too

00:58:15 ◼   ► because she did all the stylus reviews.

00:58:17 ◼   ► And I did everything I could to screw that thing over

00:58:20 ◼   ► and it kept with me.

00:58:21 ◼   ► And it was the first time I actually felt like

00:58:23 ◼   ► I could sit there with a pad of paper and sketch

00:58:25 ◼   ► on a digital device.

00:58:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's something that didn't really occur to me

00:58:29 ◼   ► during the event.

00:58:30 ◼   ► I thought, I was thinking of it,

00:58:32 ◼   ► I mean obviously it was rumored that it was a big iPad

00:58:35 ◼   ► and there would be some kind of optional stylus type thing

00:58:39 ◼   ► attached to it.

00:58:40 ◼   ► So drawing was obviously part of it.

00:58:41 ◼   ► It hadn't occurred to me though that they weren't

00:58:44 ◼   ► just going for a better stylus on iPad experience.

00:58:49 ◼   ► experience than what was possible with third-party styluses until now and that

00:58:54 ◼   ► instead they were going to take like the Wacom stuff and make it look bad you

00:59:03 ◼   ► know that this is the preeminent computerized drawing thing in the world

00:59:07 ◼   ► period it just didn't occur to me until afterwards in the hands-on area when I

00:59:12 ◼   ► I was walking around with Michael B. Johnson,

00:59:16 ◼   ► AKA Dr. Wave on Twitter.

00:59:18 ◼   ► Honestly, I've forewent firsthand experience

00:59:23 ◼   ► with the iPad and pen, 'cause like we said,

00:59:27 ◼   ► the hands-on area was crowded.

00:59:29 ◼   ► I've forewent doing that myself,

00:59:32 ◼   ► just to hang with Dr. Wave and listen to his questions.

00:59:35 ◼   ► He was a guest, you know, but,

00:59:38 ◼   ► you know, what he does at Pixar is build internal tools

00:59:42 ◼   ► for Pixar artists and this device is of great interest to him and to listen to

00:59:49 ◼   ► his questions about refresh rates and parallax and and and all of that stuff I

00:59:54 ◼   ► felt like I learned more by letting you know just sort of being a you know just

00:59:59 ◼   ► looking over his shoulder really really fascinating so and it became clear in

01:00:03 ◼   ► that aftermath that that's really what Apple had done is that this is you know

01:00:08 ◼   ► a dramatic step forward in terms of drawing, you know, for any kind of artist.

01:00:15 ◼   ► It's one of those things where they see an area where something is just not as

01:00:19 ◼   ► good as they want it to be and if they believe that they can make a difference

01:00:21 ◼   ► they're gonna go all out and try and do it and they doubled the refresh the

01:00:25 ◼   ► scanning rate inside the Mac, sorry, the iPad Pro so it technically doesn't work

01:00:29 ◼   ► on older generation iPads so they could update the hardware eventually for that

01:00:33 ◼   ► but they're combining that with technology like the the Force Touch or

01:00:36 ◼   ► 3D touch inside the pencil and a lot of smarts

01:00:39 ◼   ► for tilt direction positioning and they're measuring

01:00:42 ◼   ► on a bunch of different axes and they've got all

01:00:44 ◼   ► the software behind that too and it really,

01:00:46 ◼   ► it feels like magic and that's a really dumb thing to say

01:00:49 ◼   ► but they're doing so much computational work there

01:00:51 ◼   ► that it ends up just feeling like a pencil.

01:00:54 ◼   ► - There was a blog post I linked to yesterday

01:00:56 ◼   ► written by Linda Dong who, now admittedly she's

01:01:00 ◼   ► a former Apple designer so if you wanted to say

01:01:02 ◼   ► she's biased, you can but she's former.

01:01:04 ◼   ► Well, because if she was present,

01:01:06 ◼   ► she wouldn't be blogging about it.

01:01:07 ◼   ► But she's done interaction design and stuff for Apple,

01:01:11 ◼   ► and does a lot of her work, has done a lot of her work

01:01:14 ◼   ► on the Wacom Cintiqs.

01:01:16 ◼   ► I thought her little just quick,

01:01:19 ◼   ► you know, like here's all the ways that this is better.

01:01:21 ◼   ► It was amazing.

01:01:22 ◼   ► So the Cintiqs aren't retina,

01:01:24 ◼   ► so they have pixels that an artist can see.

01:01:26 ◼   ► The pen, she says, you know,

01:01:28 ◼   ► the pen you use with them is janky,

01:01:30 ◼   ► and it feels junky, and has a bunch of buttons

01:01:33 ◼   ► you can actually hit.

01:01:34 ◼   ► There's parallax between the surface of the thing and the actual display underneath,

01:01:40 ◼   ► which for almost any angle that would be comfortable for an artist is going to be an issue.

01:01:45 ◼   ► And there's latency. There's palpable latency.

01:01:49 ◼   ► So combine those highlights of "here's how this thing is better," it's blow away good.

01:01:55 ◼   ► And you can almost see them the way that they did with the smartphone.

01:01:58 ◼   ► They looked at the existing market and said, "What are the problems? What are the pain points?

01:02:01 ◼   ► we fix them?" and they made that list and they just knocked them down one after the other.

01:02:04 ◼   ► Yeah, my question, here's my big question about all of this though, is, and obviously there's,

01:02:10 ◼   ► you know, however many other uses for the iPad Pro, but how big is the market for making the

01:02:18 ◼   ► pen work as well as this is? Like, I have no idea how big that market is.

01:02:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know either. I mean, there were a lot of people who went out and bought Microsoft

01:02:26 ◼   ► services just because they wanted to do this kind of illustration work, and that's, you know,

01:02:30 ◼   ► obviously it wasn't enough to make the surface successful product but it was

01:02:33 ◼   ► interesting to me that there was that demand and I don't think I think

01:02:35 ◼   ► sometimes Apple just wants to do what they think is better and they know that

01:02:38 ◼   ► that technology will trickle down like maybe in the future an iPad Air and iPad

01:02:42 ◼   ► Mini maybe even an iPhone will benefit from this technology but it takes their

01:02:46 ◼   ► launching a big product to bring everything together to make it a reality

01:02:49 ◼   ► right because there's a there's all the magic that's in the pen and in theory

01:02:53 ◼   ► that that you know the pen could work you know with any other device but

01:02:59 ◼   ► But there's also new technology in the iPad Pro itself

01:03:03 ◼   ► that works with the pen for getting the, you know,

01:03:07 ◼   ► the pressure sensitivity and stuff like that.

01:03:09 ◼   ► Like however thin the layer now is

01:03:13 ◼   ► in the modern Apple devices between the actual display

01:03:17 ◼   ► and the surface of the glass above it,

01:03:21 ◼   ► however thin that is,

01:03:22 ◼   ► and I really do think they're not exaggerating

01:03:25 ◼   ► to call that gap microscopic,

01:03:27 ◼   ► They've got sensors in there to measure at microscopic levels the degree of pressure

01:03:32 ◼   ► that's being applied.

01:03:33 ◼   ► >> Twice the resolution of the ones in the iPad Air and the iPhone apparently.

01:03:37 ◼   ► >> Yeah, yeah.

01:03:38 ◼   ► And they do magical stuff now with the refresh rate where if they sense that you're not doing

01:03:43 ◼   ► anything that's very dynamic, they can cycle that down to save power.

01:03:46 ◼   ► There's a lot of technology in that display.

01:03:48 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

01:03:49 ◼   ► And I think that they've, again, I think they've improved refresh rates in two ways.

01:03:57 ◼   ► There's the drawing refresh rate, where just what it's displaying, what the iPad Pro is

01:04:02 ◼   ► displaying has this dynamic visual refresh rate.

01:04:07 ◼   ► So if you're watching a video where everything is changing all the time, it's refreshing

01:04:10 ◼   ► at whatever rate, but if this, you know, it stops, if you're drawing something and you

01:04:15 ◼   ► and it detects that you've stopped and nothing is animated on screen it'll slow

01:04:19 ◼   ► it down and that can you know definitely save on the energy but I also that

01:04:24 ◼   ► believe if not know that they have doubled the refresh rate of reading the

01:04:30 ◼   ► touch sensors yeah right and so as even if you're just drawing your with your

01:04:35 ◼   ► finger even if you're just sliding your finger over it it's got double the

01:04:39 ◼   ► refresh rate of checking just where your finger is yeah and it all comes together

01:04:42 ◼   ► like to Linda's post that it just does so many things that no one else is doing

01:04:46 ◼   ► right now because they're hard things to do that all those refresh rate things

01:04:51 ◼   ► those seem like things that could couldn't will eventually trickle down

01:04:55 ◼   ► to across the whole iOS lineup I mean why not I mean whether they'll work with

01:05:00 ◼   ► the pen I don't know but at the very least you know you know increasing the

01:05:05 ◼   ► touch refresh rate you know seems like it would be just you know useful and in

01:05:09 ◼   ► in ways to any iPad and phone.

01:05:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, there is so much, I mean,

01:05:13 ◼   ► they've shown their own custom timing controllers

01:05:15 ◼   ► for things like the 5K iMac and now for the iPad Pro.

01:05:18 ◼   ► They've shown that new chip that lets them flash

01:05:20 ◼   ► the iPhone screen three times as bright

01:05:22 ◼   ► to make a selfie flash.

01:05:24 ◼   ► They've shown they can do OLED with the Apple Watch

01:05:26 ◼   ► and keep things to super low refresh rates,

01:05:28 ◼   ► sorry, super low, super efficient energy rates.

01:05:32 ◼   ► Where they're going with all this,

01:05:34 ◼   ► the thing that's always so impressive to me

01:05:35 ◼   ► is that Apple, they're not like Qualcomm

01:05:37 ◼   ► and they're not even quite like Samsung,

01:05:39 ◼   ► they get to make the parts exactly for what they wanna do.

01:05:41 ◼   ► So you take a look at like the A9 processor.

01:05:44 ◼   ► And to me, this is light years ahead

01:05:46 ◼   ► of the rest of the industry now.

01:05:47 ◼   ► And if you told me 10 years ago,

01:05:48 ◼   ► Apple would be leading in any chipset business,

01:05:50 ◼   ► I would have thought it was insane,

01:05:52 ◼   ► but they're doing it and they don't have to care

01:05:54 ◼   ► about profit or loss on a chipset like Qualcomm does,

01:05:56 ◼   ► 'cause they're not selling them.

01:05:57 ◼   ► They don't have to worry about supporting Microsoft

01:05:59 ◼   ► and Android and other architectures,

01:06:01 ◼   ► 'cause they're only supporting their own.

01:06:02 ◼   ► If they wanna make a feature like this,

01:06:04 ◼   ► they can just make the silicon that supports it.

01:06:06 ◼   ► And I think that over time, that becomes a stronger

01:06:09 ◼   ► and stronger advantage for them.

01:06:11 ◼   ► - I really do wonder, and I know that something

01:06:14 ◼   ► like Geekbench is not, it doesn't give you everything

01:06:19 ◼   ► you need to know about how fast one machine is

01:06:22 ◼   ► comparable to another, but it's not bad.

01:06:24 ◼   ► It's not a bad starting point if you just want

01:06:27 ◼   ► to put a number on it.

01:06:28 ◼   ► And I think Geekbench in particular is designed in a way

01:06:32 ◼   ► that to me seems like a good balance

01:06:35 ◼   ► of the various factors.

01:06:37 ◼   ► Really, really curious to see where the iPad Pro benchmarks

01:06:42 ◼   ► because I said last week that I think it'll benchmark,

01:06:45 ◼   ► like it might beat like a 2013 MacBook Air.

01:06:49 ◼   ► I'm wondering if I sold it short.

01:06:53 ◼   ► It might beat like the MacBook Air

01:06:55 ◼   ► that you can go in and buy today.

01:06:57 ◼   ► I'm not, maybe that's too much, I don't know,

01:06:59 ◼   ► but I'm pretty sure that it's gonna be close.

01:07:02 ◼   ► - It's almost like apples and oranges now

01:07:04 ◼   ► because again, they are building the software

01:07:06 ◼   ► and the hardware down to the chipset all to work together.

01:07:09 ◼   ► And you don't see that.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Like people will complain,

01:07:11 ◼   ► oh, you know, an iPhone needs more RAM.

01:07:13 ◼   ► Android's got four gigabytes of RAM,

01:07:15 ◼   ► but that really is meaningless

01:07:16 ◼   ► because they're running an interpretive language,

01:07:18 ◼   ► they're doing garbage collection.

01:07:19 ◼   ► They're not have, they don't have,

01:07:20 ◼   ► they have software that's built

01:07:21 ◼   ► for a wide set of devices, not specifically.

01:07:23 ◼   ► If you're saying you need more RAM because,

01:07:25 ◼   ► oh, Safari can't keep a tab loaded in memory,

01:07:27 ◼   ► that's absolutely justified.

01:07:28 ◼   ► But their ability to do this lets them pick

01:07:31 ◼   ► and choose exactly the components that they need.

01:07:33 ◼   ► And I think that's where you get that performance from.

01:07:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:07:36 ◼   ► It's just sort of astounding though.

01:07:40 ◼   ► I mean, it's, to go from where the iPad started

01:07:44 ◼   ► in 2010 and 2011, and it was a compelling device,

01:07:48 ◼   ► especially starting with the iPad 2 in 2011.

01:07:51 ◼   ► But not for reasons of pure performance

01:07:57 ◼   ► compared to a Mac, or even just like a MacBook Air,

01:08:01 ◼   ► which has always been the slowest Mac in the lineup.

01:08:04 ◼   ► It's for other reasons.

01:08:06 ◼   ► It was, okay, so it's not as fast,

01:08:08 ◼   ► but you can carry it around all day,

01:08:10 ◼   ► but it'll last 10 hours.

01:08:12 ◼   ► But touch is more intimate.

01:08:15 ◼   ► It sounds touchy-feely, no pun intended,

01:08:20 ◼   ► but it really does give you a more intimate experience.

01:08:23 ◼   ► There were all these buts.

01:08:24 ◼   ► It's kind of fascinating

01:08:26 ◼   ► that performance is no longer a but.

01:08:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, well if you look at the MacBook,

01:08:32 ◼   ► the brand new MacBook, that's running Broadwell Y,

01:08:34 ◼   ► and it's hard to look at the Apple A9 and not think,

01:08:37 ◼   ► you know, Apple's just sound like

01:08:39 ◼   ► kicking their ass in mobile too.

01:08:41 ◼   ► - It really does.

01:08:42 ◼   ► And again, I think, again, we'll see, maybe I'm wrong,

01:08:45 ◼   ► but if not, if I'm wrong, it's not gonna be my much,

01:08:47 ◼   ► that the iPad Air 2, or not iPad Air 2,

01:08:52 ◼   ► iPad Pro is going to benchmark faster

01:08:54 ◼   ► than the Surface Pro 3s that are running Intel chips.

01:08:58 ◼   ► And that was like the whole thing with the Surface,

01:09:03 ◼   ► is that they had, well we've got the regular Surface,

01:09:05 ◼   ► which is ARM, and that's if you want something

01:09:08 ◼   ► thinner and lighter, and then we've got the Surface Pro,

01:09:12 ◼   ► which uses Intel's mobile chips,

01:09:14 ◼   ► because that's what you need for the speed.

01:09:16 ◼   ► And Apple has, in relatively short order,

01:09:19 ◼   ► just like two years later, has said,

01:09:22 ◼   ► you don't need to make that compromise.

01:09:24 ◼   ► You can get all of the advantages of ARM,

01:09:27 ◼   ► and beat Intel on performance.

01:09:31 ◼   ► - I used to say this and people thought

01:09:32 ◼   ► I was just being a dick, but I meant it,

01:09:33 ◼   ► that when you look at the Surface,

01:09:36 ◼   ► running Windows was not an advantage.

01:09:38 ◼   ► It was a detriment in many cases,

01:09:39 ◼   ► 'cause Windows was just not designed to do that at all,

01:09:42 ◼   ► and iOS was, and that's why I think Apple

01:09:44 ◼   ► with their tablets and even with the iPad Pro

01:09:47 ◼   ► gets that right.

01:09:48 ◼   ► I always wanted them to put,

01:09:49 ◼   ► before they started merging everything,

01:09:50 ◼   ► I always wanted them to put Windows Phone on a Surface

01:09:52 ◼   ► and see what it could really do.

01:09:53 ◼   ► But just the idea that this is a touch first

01:09:55 ◼   ► mobile operating system built on a device that is mobile.

01:09:58 ◼   ► It gives them a tremendous advantage.

01:10:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so too.

01:10:02 ◼   ► The next thing, in addition to the pencil for the iPad Pro,

01:10:06 ◼   ► is the, and here, you know,

01:10:07 ◼   ► you can't not talk about the Surface in this case,

01:10:10 ◼   ► is the smart keyboard.

01:10:11 ◼   ► Where you've got a magnetically attached keyboard

01:10:16 ◼   ► or cover that when you unfold it

01:10:18 ◼   ► has a physical keyboard inside.

01:10:21 ◼   ► - So much better than the original iPad

01:10:23 ◼   ► with that keyboard stand.

01:10:24 ◼   ► - Oh, absolutely, but it's funny how you go around

01:10:28 ◼   ► and in five years it just looks like,

01:10:30 ◼   ► what the hell were they thinking?

01:10:31 ◼   ► But at the time, they didn't know.

01:10:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:10:34 ◼   ► - They just didn't know.

01:10:35 ◼   ► But clearly this smart keyboard is,

01:10:38 ◼   ► Microsoft did it first.

01:10:42 ◼   ► I mean, so credit to them.

01:10:43 ◼   ► I'm curious why it's,

01:10:52 ◼   ► And maybe the answer is just wait a year.

01:10:55 ◼   ► Or maybe wait half a year, who knows?

01:10:56 ◼   ► Maybe there'll be an event,

01:10:57 ◼   ► I don't think there's gonna be an event this year,

01:10:58 ◼   ► but maybe there'll be like an early 2016 event.

01:11:01 ◼   ► Why there's not one for the iPad Air 2.

01:11:04 ◼   ► And I know that it's full size,

01:11:07 ◼   ► you know, it's bigger and more comfortable,

01:11:09 ◼   ► and I've tried the ones in the demo area last week.

01:11:12 ◼   ► But it seems to me like an iPad Air 2

01:11:14 ◼   ► is big enough for a keyboard.

01:11:17 ◼   ► - My guess is they're waiting for the iPad Air 3,

01:11:19 ◼   ► which will have those same three connectors

01:11:21 ◼   ► that the iPad Pro has that makes the docking and undocking

01:11:24 ◼   ► so easy for the new keyboard.

01:11:25 ◼   ► - That's exactly what I was thinking too, exactly.

01:11:28 ◼   ► I think it's gotta have those three,

01:11:30 ◼   ► it's gotta have those three,

01:11:31 ◼   ► whatever they're calling it, smart connector.

01:11:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, smart connector.

01:11:35 ◼   ► - Look at me remembering the name of something.

01:11:37 ◼   ► I think it's gotta be that they're waiting

01:11:38 ◼   ► for an iPad Air 3, it'll have the smart connector

01:11:41 ◼   ► and it just wasn't ready yet.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Or maybe they didn't want to,

01:11:46 ◼   ► maybe they didn't want to release it yet.

01:11:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, going back to your older point,

01:11:51 ◼   ► And the thing with Steve Jobs that was so great on stage

01:11:53 ◼   ► is he could not, it wasn't just that he saw the story

01:11:55 ◼   ► and could arrange the products,

01:11:56 ◼   ► but he could tell you the story.

01:11:57 ◼   ► And maybe the original iPhone and the iPad 2 events

01:12:00 ◼   ► were quintessential examples of that.

01:12:02 ◼   ► And I think this Apple knows that they're not quite as good

01:12:04 ◼   ► at telling stories yet.

01:12:06 ◼   ► And, you know, absent that narrative,

01:12:08 ◼   ► I think that they have to be more focused.

01:12:10 ◼   ► And if they start talking about an iPad Air

01:12:12 ◼   ► with the keyboard or with a pencil,

01:12:14 ◼   ► it just takes away from the iPad Pro.

01:12:16 ◼   ► And they need to be very careful about keeping the focus

01:12:18 ◼   ► on that one product.

01:12:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think you're right.

01:12:21 ◼   ► I think it makes sense even if they could have done it now

01:12:24 ◼   ► that it made sense to wait.

01:12:26 ◼   ► And maybe it will be.

01:12:27 ◼   ► Maybe they'll go off cycle with iPad Air 4,

01:12:30 ◼   ► or I guess it would be iPad Air 3,

01:12:33 ◼   ► and maybe do it in the spring

01:12:35 ◼   ► if they have something else to announce with it.

01:12:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's interesting 'cause the watch,

01:12:38 ◼   ► the watch debuted with watchOS 1,

01:12:41 ◼   ► but watchOS 2 is coming out with the same hardware.

01:12:43 ◼   ► They're not linking those product cycles,

01:12:45 ◼   ► so maybe they're willing to do that more often.

01:12:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's, you know,

01:12:50 ◼   ► I don't think they're married to it.

01:12:51 ◼   ► I think they kind of are with the iPhone.

01:12:54 ◼   ► - It's convenient though.

01:12:55 ◼   ► I mean, the best time to show it off is WWDC

01:12:57 ◼   ► and the best time to ship iPhones is in September

01:12:59 ◼   ► and those things just line up very nicely for them.

01:13:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think with something new like the watch,

01:13:04 ◼   ► it's so unpredictable, or not watch,

01:13:07 ◼   ► yeah, well the watch is new.

01:13:09 ◼   ► It's so unpredictable that it makes sense

01:13:11 ◼   ► to just not worry about getting it on the exact quarter

01:13:15 ◼   ► that you want it to come out on

01:13:17 ◼   ► until they're more regularized production and everything.

01:13:21 ◼   ► - Absolutely.

01:13:22 ◼   ► - And know more about the, you know.

01:13:25 ◼   ► - And also they need to stagger,

01:13:27 ◼   ► I mean those, Apple, like you said,

01:13:29 ◼   ► they have small teams and those teams

01:13:30 ◼   ► are continuously running marathons of sprints

01:13:33 ◼   ► and they have to, almost like when Guy talks

01:13:35 ◼   ► about the video game industry,

01:13:36 ◼   ► they have to be careful to balance those people out

01:13:39 ◼   ► because they will burn them if they're not careful.

01:13:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I totally agree with that.

01:13:46 ◼   ► So here's what's in our smart keyboard cover,

01:13:50 ◼   ► is 169 bucks, which is a lot, really.

01:13:55 ◼   ► I mean, especially since the starting price

01:13:57 ◼   ► on the iPad lineup is now like $249.

01:14:01 ◼   ► You can get an iPad, I mean, it's the old mini,

01:14:06 ◼   ► but you can get a whole iPad for 249,

01:14:10 ◼   ► but the keyboard for the iPad Pro is 169 bucks.

01:14:13 ◼   ► I think it's the most expensive Apple keyboard

01:14:15 ◼   ► since my beloved Apple extended keyboard 2.

01:14:18 ◼   ► - The Microsoft Surface Pro Type Cover keyboard

01:14:20 ◼   ► in Canadian dollars at least is 175.

01:14:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's, you know,

01:14:25 ◼   ► I think it's a complicated bit of machinery.

01:14:29 ◼   ► So I, and I think it feels like a valuable cover.

01:14:32 ◼   ► And obviously since the whole machine is

01:14:36 ◼   ► 800 to $1100.

01:14:40 ◼   ► And I think, I think most people who buy this

01:14:42 ◼   ► are gonna get the $1100 one.

01:14:44 ◼   ► are gonna get the one with 128 gigs in the cellular

01:14:47 ◼   ► for consumers.

01:14:49 ◼   ► - You go big or you go Kindle.

01:14:51 ◼   ► I think that's what we've learned.

01:14:52 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:14:53 ◼   ► Well, I think that the entry level one, oddly enough,

01:14:58 ◼   ► is more for like a internal professional setting.

01:15:02 ◼   ► Like--

01:15:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think sometimes people aren't,

01:15:04 ◼   ► like, and Apple could do more.

01:15:05 ◼   ► They could absolutely, like they used to do with the eMac

01:15:07 ◼   ► and identify those SKUs better,

01:15:09 ◼   ► but like 16 gigabyte iPhones and iPad 2s

01:15:12 ◼   ► and this entry level iPad Pro,

01:15:15 ◼   ► there are people who are buying 2,000 of them for enterprise

01:15:17 ◼   ► and all they want is business to business apps

01:15:19 ◼   ► and web portals and they will take almost no storage.

01:15:23 ◼   ► - Well I think even for like an artistic purpose

01:15:26 ◼   ► where you're doing really high-end work

01:15:27 ◼   ► but at a place like if you've got like a studio

01:15:31 ◼   ► and you're doing work on special effects on a movie

01:15:34 ◼   ► or something like that and you want all of your artists

01:15:36 ◼   ► to have this, it makes sense to just buy the Wi-Fi

01:15:40 ◼   ► low storage one because the storage isn't really

01:15:42 ◼   ► going to be on the iPad anyway. It's going to be on the server within your outfit. It's

01:15:49 ◼   ► not like the artists working on Star Wars are keeping all of the data on their local

01:15:54 ◼   ► machine.

01:15:55 ◼   ► Yeah, it's exactly the Scott McNeely or Larry Ellison thin client. That's where we've gotten

01:15:59 ◼   ► to, finally.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Yeah, it's exactly that. And so it makes sense to just get the one without the... And the

01:16:07 ◼   ► studio, these artistic machines, they're not leaving, so they don't need cellular. That's

01:16:11 ◼   ► just wasted money and wasted thickness if they're a little thicker like they were or

01:16:18 ◼   ► just a wasted antenna.

01:16:20 ◼   ► And they don't need the storage.

01:16:21 ◼   ► If they're never going to use the storage, why in the world buy it?

01:16:24 ◼   ► Why not just get the low end one?

01:16:26 ◼   ► So I think that's…

01:16:27 ◼   ► It is odd that there's no LTE SKU for that because Apple's always had the same Wi-Fi

01:16:30 ◼   ► and LTE SKUs for all of their iPads.

01:16:31 ◼   ► This is the first time where you have to get the more expensive one if you want LTE.

01:16:35 ◼   ► Yeah, that is interesting.

01:16:36 ◼   ► But I do think it's telling towards the intended use.

01:16:39 ◼   ► I think that if you wanna use it as a laptop,

01:16:44 ◼   ► this is my portable, no, I shouldn't even say laptop

01:16:47 ◼   ► 'cause laptop word is loaded in terms of how you use it,

01:16:50 ◼   ► as your portable computer.

01:16:51 ◼   ► You're gonna want the additional storage

01:16:58 ◼   ► 'cause 128 gigs of bytes of storage

01:17:00 ◼   ► is not that much for a portable computer.

01:17:04 ◼   ► - No, and it's four gigabytes of RAM too.

01:17:06 ◼   ► So I mean, it does have the constraints

01:17:07 ◼   ► of a mobile device still.

01:17:09 ◼   ► - Right, but it's, you know, that's the one

01:17:11 ◼   ► that's specked out like a, this is my portable computer.

01:17:15 ◼   ► And the 32 gig one is specked out like,

01:17:19 ◼   ► this is like an artist's--

01:17:20 ◼   ► - This is my studio computer.

01:17:21 ◼   ► - Right, this is my drawing tablet.

01:17:23 ◼   ► - Did you get a chance to try the keyboard?

01:17:24 ◼   ► I spent only a few minutes with it,

01:17:26 ◼   ► but I like the Mac, like I like low keyboards.

01:17:29 ◼   ► I like the MacBook keyboard a lot,

01:17:30 ◼   ► and I know you have very different tastes than keyboards.

01:17:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't like any laptop keyboard though.

01:17:36 ◼   ► Like, I don't even, you know, like,

01:17:37 ◼   ► I think that the MacBook Pro keyboard I have right now

01:17:42 ◼   ► is probably my favorite laptop keyboard I've ever used.

01:17:47 ◼   ► And if not, it's close.

01:17:49 ◼   ► And I still think it's kind of a crap keyboard

01:17:51 ◼   ► compared to my big, clacky Apple-extended keyboard, too.

01:17:54 ◼   ► I make do.

01:17:55 ◼   ► I mean, I write thousands of words a year

01:17:57 ◼   ► on that MacBook Pro.

01:17:59 ◼   ► - And if you could connect an IBM Selectric, you would.

01:18:02 ◼   ► - Well, probably not in any of the areas

01:18:04 ◼   ► where I would use the MacBook Pro.

01:18:06 ◼   ► I would only do that if I were using it

01:18:08 ◼   ► as my only computer at my desk.

01:18:10 ◼   ► But then when I'm away.

01:18:11 ◼   ► So I mean, I make do.

01:18:12 ◼   ► I mean, I am picky about keyboards, but I make do.

01:18:14 ◼   ► I don't find the new MacBook One.

01:18:15 ◼   ► Again, I haven't lived with that machine, so I don't know.

01:18:18 ◼   ► But just playing around with it in the stores and stuff,

01:18:20 ◼   ► I mean, I could definitely make do.

01:18:22 ◼   ► It doesn't seem that much worse than the

01:18:25 ◼   ► 11-inch MacBook Air

01:18:31 ◼   ► that I used as my portable for four years.

01:18:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I use it, it took me an hour to get used to it.

01:18:36 ◼   ► The only problem I have now is that it's still,

01:18:38 ◼   ► it goes right to the edge of the machines.

01:18:39 ◼   ► Every time I pick it up, I accidentally hit escape

01:18:41 ◼   ► or enter or something.

01:18:42 ◼   ► I have to remember to pick it up from the bottom.

01:18:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it does, having tried this thing

01:18:47 ◼   ► at the event last week, the keyboard,

01:18:50 ◼   ► the travel is obviously very low,

01:18:51 ◼   ► but it travels enough that it's,

01:18:53 ◼   ► there absolutely is a clickiness to it,

01:18:56 ◼   ► which in and of itself is a huge win over

01:19:02 ◼   ► and anything like that that I've tried before, you know.

01:19:05 ◼   ► - And I like that Apple had,

01:19:06 ◼   ► I mean Logitech announced the same day,

01:19:07 ◼   ► so Apple's letting anyone connect,

01:19:09 ◼   ► maybe not anyone, but they're letting partners connect

01:19:11 ◼   ► to those smart connectors,

01:19:12 ◼   ► and that means that there'll be a range

01:19:13 ◼   ► of different keyboards available for it.

01:19:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I thought that that Logitech announcement

01:19:17 ◼   ► was interesting and sort of another new Apple thing

01:19:19 ◼   ► where they obviously, you know,

01:19:22 ◼   ► looped them in in advance,

01:19:25 ◼   ► and you know, they haven't unveiled the details,

01:19:27 ◼   ► but they obviously looped them in,

01:19:30 ◼   ► And I think the thinking is that Apple decided

01:19:33 ◼   ► this is what we wanna build.

01:19:34 ◼   ► We wanna build one keyboard.

01:19:35 ◼   ► It's gonna be a fold-up cover.

01:19:37 ◼   ► Obviously with this port, the potential is there

01:19:41 ◼   ► for all sorts of other things,

01:19:42 ◼   ► including something that's more of like a

01:19:44 ◼   ► leave it at your desk base station, right?

01:19:47 ◼   ► So if you're just gonna use this,

01:19:49 ◼   ► and I think this is for a lot of people,

01:19:51 ◼   ► I think it's a really interesting scenario

01:19:54 ◼   ► where this is your main computer and you take it around.

01:19:58 ◼   ► When you're at your desk, why don't you,

01:20:00 ◼   ► wouldn't you want a keyboard that's even better

01:20:03 ◼   ► as a keyboard than the Smart Cover?

01:20:07 ◼   ► Well, that's exactly what this Logitech seems like.

01:20:10 ◼   ► We don't know the details.

01:20:11 ◼   ► They've only shown one little carefully cropped photo of it,

01:20:15 ◼   ► but I mean, that's what it seems like to me.

01:20:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I still have a drafting table

01:20:19 ◼   ► that I've used since I was in high school,

01:20:20 ◼   ► and I was figuring, you know,

01:20:21 ◼   ► could I put the iPad Pro on that,

01:20:23 ◼   ► and then tilt it down when I wanna draw on it,

01:20:25 ◼   ► then tilt it up and just stick it in the keyboard

01:20:27 ◼   ► I'm trying to figure out all the possible use cases.

01:20:30 ◼   ► It's almost like a lazy boy situation now

01:20:31 ◼   ► where you can recline as much as you want.

01:20:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:20:34 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:20:36 ◼   ► I wonder how much you can adjust the Logitech keyboard.

01:20:39 ◼   ► And obviously there's gonna be others.

01:20:41 ◼   ► Everybody else who makes these sort of peripherals

01:20:43 ◼   ► is going to make something for this.

01:20:45 ◼   ► And it is going to be a MFI port.

01:20:51 ◼   ► Is MFI still made for iPhone?

01:20:53 ◼   ► - Or iPod originally, but yeah,

01:20:55 ◼   ► like even the Apple Watch stuff,

01:20:56 ◼   ► I think they're calling MFI songs at MFW.

01:20:58 ◼   ► - Right, which is really weird there

01:21:00 ◼   ► because there's no I involved.

01:21:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it's gonna be MFI, it's exactly,

01:21:07 ◼   ► licensed exactly along the same way

01:21:09 ◼   ► that they license things like the Lightning adapter.

01:21:12 ◼   ► So anybody who wants to is gonna be able to play along.

01:21:15 ◼   ► But I think that's really interesting.

01:21:17 ◼   ► And it really occurs to me,

01:21:18 ◼   ► people have been chasing the dream of the docked computer.

01:21:22 ◼   ► I mean, as long as there have been portables.

01:21:24 ◼   ► I mean, and Apple's had, you know,

01:21:26 ◼   ► what were they called, the duos?

01:21:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, PowerBook duos. - The PowerBook duos

01:21:29 ◼   ► with docs, and there's pros and cons with all of 'em,

01:21:32 ◼   ► but the big thing whenever you try to do it is,

01:21:36 ◼   ► and you know, even today, maybe not,

01:21:38 ◼   ► there's no doc for a MacBook Pro,

01:21:41 ◼   ► but certainly you can, and I know lots and lots of people

01:21:45 ◼   ► who do live off one computer that's probably a MacBook Pro,

01:21:50 ◼   ► but when they get to their desk,

01:21:53 ◼   ► they have a nice big display to connect it to.

01:21:56 ◼   ► The hassle of the docked lifestyle

01:22:02 ◼   ► is in the tethering and untethering

01:22:04 ◼   ► of all the various things you need to plug in,

01:22:06 ◼   ► power and USB and,

01:22:09 ◼   ► you know, especially on the Mac,

01:22:12 ◼   ► the big annoying thing is if you have,

01:22:14 ◼   ► if you need to connect external storage,

01:22:16 ◼   ► well now you've got this thing that you can't just unplug,

01:22:18 ◼   ► you actually have to go in software and unmount it

01:22:21 ◼   ► and make sure that whatever software was using it

01:22:23 ◼   ► is no longer using those open files.

01:22:25 ◼   ► And if you just wanna get up and go,

01:22:27 ◼   ► it's a huge pain in the ass.

01:22:29 ◼   ► With the iPad Pro, you're never gonna have to do

01:22:31 ◼   ► anything but get up and go.

01:22:33 ◼   ► And you probably won't even need, in most cases,

01:22:37 ◼   ► because of the battery life that things get,

01:22:38 ◼   ► you won't even need to plug in lightning

01:22:40 ◼   ► to charge the iPad while you're using it.

01:22:43 ◼   ► You'll just charge the iPad overnight,

01:22:45 ◼   ► come in to the office, and just kachunk,

01:22:48 ◼   ► put it right on your keyboard,

01:22:49 ◼   ► and then whenever you wanna get up and go,

01:22:51 ◼   ► just pick it up.

01:22:53 ◼   ► - And it's super fascinating to me too,

01:22:54 ◼   ► because there are some companies

01:22:55 ◼   ► who really think that they can,

01:22:56 ◼   ► that was a famous Microsoft saying, right, no compromises.

01:23:00 ◼   ► And it resulted in the biggest compromise ever.

01:23:02 ◼   ► 'Cause you literally cannot be all things to all people.

01:23:04 ◼   ► You can't serve every market equally well.

01:23:06 ◼   ► And Apple is being very,

01:23:08 ◼   ► they're taking interesting choices here.

01:23:09 ◼   ► Like the MacBook is as close as you can get

01:23:11 ◼   ► to being an iPad while still being a Mac.

01:23:13 ◼   ► And this is as close as you can get to being a MacBook almost

01:23:16 ◼   ► while still being an iPad.

01:23:17 ◼   ► And they're not trying to do it all in one device.

01:23:19 ◼   ► They're giving you these devices

01:23:20 ◼   ► that both have unique identities still,

01:23:22 ◼   ► but are optimized along the same sort of line,

01:23:25 ◼   ► and you just pick which side of it you wanna be on.

01:23:27 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:23:28 ◼   ► That's a good way to put it.

01:23:33 ◼   ► And there's obviously compromises with all of it.

01:23:36 ◼   ► The compromises with the iPad Pro are obvious.

01:23:39 ◼   ► There is no external storage,

01:23:40 ◼   ► 'cause there's no concept of it in iOS.

01:23:42 ◼   ► There is no USB port or USB-C or anything

01:23:44 ◼   ► that you can plug in an external drive.

01:23:46 ◼   ► It doesn't have built-in SD card.

01:23:50 ◼   ► You have to go with the lightning to SD card thing

01:23:53 ◼   ► and it's not, it works, people use it,

01:23:56 ◼   ► but it's not something you're gonna keep plugged in

01:23:58 ◼   ► all the time.

01:23:58 ◼   ► - You have to mostly want a tablet

01:24:00 ◼   ► and then just occasionally wanna use a keyboard

01:24:02 ◼   ► or just for a certain segment of things,

01:24:03 ◼   ► use a keyboard for it.

01:24:05 ◼   ► - So I'm interested, what do you think

01:24:08 ◼   ► they're gonna sell more of?

01:24:09 ◼   ► Off the top of your head,

01:24:10 ◼   ► do you think they're gonna sell more smart keyboards

01:24:12 ◼   ► or pencils?

01:24:13 ◼   ► - I'm just assuming, and maybe I'm biased

01:24:16 ◼   ► because that's my background,

01:24:17 ◼   ► but I'm assuming the pencil because that really is

01:24:19 ◼   ► a completely better take on that technology

01:24:22 ◼   ► where we've had sort of keyboards on iPads before

01:24:25 ◼   ► and maybe Logitech will sell more than Apple even,

01:24:27 ◼   ► we don't know, there'll be fragmented

01:24:30 ◼   ► across a variety of manufacturers.

01:24:32 ◼   ► But I think the pencil's gonna be unique

01:24:33 ◼   ► to this device for a while.

01:24:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think that there's, as kids grow older,

01:24:38 ◼   ► I know the ATP guys mentioned it last week,

01:24:40 ◼   ► but I've heard about it from Apple people for years,

01:24:43 ◼   ► is that the younger you are, the less likely you are

01:24:46 ◼   ► to really give a crap about on-screen keyboard

01:24:48 ◼   ► versus physical keyboard of any kind,

01:24:50 ◼   ► whether it's built into the cover or whatever,

01:24:52 ◼   ► that kids who've grown up or are growing up

01:24:56 ◼   ► in the iOS era see an on-screen touch keyboard

01:25:01 ◼   ► as completely normal.

01:25:03 ◼   ► - It's interesting because previously,

01:25:05 ◼   ► like you and I went through the migration

01:25:07 ◼   ► from digital to become digitally native.

01:25:10 ◼   ► People weren't digitally native, they were analog native.

01:25:12 ◼   ► They were reading newspapers

01:25:13 ◼   ► and they became digitally native.

01:25:14 ◼   ► And now you have people who are touch native

01:25:16 ◼   ► and using external and intermediated input devices

01:25:20 ◼   ► is just not the computing that they understand.

01:25:22 ◼   ► Even when the MacBook launched

01:25:24 ◼   ► and people were complaining they couldn't plug

01:25:25 ◼   ► their external monitor into it,

01:25:26 ◼   ► the amount of people who plugged an external monitor

01:25:28 ◼   ► into a MacBook is tiny.

01:25:29 ◼   ► It's all of our friends on Twitter,

01:25:31 ◼   ► but it's single digit percentage points

01:25:33 ◼   ► and it's just not normal behavior

01:25:35 ◼   ► and that's I think increasingly driving Apple's products.

01:25:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so too.

01:25:38 ◼   ► Anything else on iPad Pro you wanna talk about?

01:25:43 ◼   ► - I mean, I don't have a chance to try them,

01:25:44 ◼   ► but the speakers were just, they were marvelous.

01:25:46 ◼   ► You could just turn these big echo chambers,

01:25:48 ◼   ► four really loud speakers,

01:25:50 ◼   ► and when you rotated from landscape to portrait

01:25:52 ◼   ► or just 360 degrees, it kept up with you.

01:25:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, it occurs to me that for all the bellyaching

01:25:59 ◼   ► that's gone on about the mono output of iOS devices,

01:26:04 ◼   ► that the way that they went stereo with this is like,

01:26:11 ◼   ► oh, and going with four speakers,

01:26:14 ◼   ► That had never occurred to me before.

01:26:16 ◼   ► Maybe because I'm unimaginative.

01:26:19 ◼   ► But, and that, you know, obviously,

01:26:22 ◼   ► just like the screen rotates, the speakers rotate,

01:26:24 ◼   ► or at least, you know, the speakers don't physically rotate,

01:26:27 ◼   ► but the concept of which sound is coming from whichever.

01:26:29 ◼   ► - They crossfade, yeah.

01:26:31 ◼   ► - Right, it knows what's up, what's down,

01:26:32 ◼   ► what's left, what's right,

01:26:33 ◼   ► no matter which way you're holding the device.

01:26:36 ◼   ► And boy, in the demo area, as noisy and crowded as it was,

01:26:41 ◼   ► boy, it certainly seemed like something.

01:26:43 ◼   ► like hey that's something.

01:26:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was really impressive.

01:26:47 ◼   ► I just can't wait to actually get the device

01:26:48 ◼   ► and put on like Avengers Age of Ultron or something,

01:26:50 ◼   ► full blast, and start rotating it and see how well it does.

01:26:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's kind of interesting and I wonder, you know,

01:26:56 ◼   ► I don't know, a lot of people watch a lot of video on iPads.

01:27:01 ◼   ► It's, sizes obviously makes it better

01:27:06 ◼   ► if you're willing to carry it around,

01:27:07 ◼   ► but boy the difference in sound output

01:27:08 ◼   ► if you're not using headphones is dramatic now.

01:27:10 ◼   ► - And this, I mean before people used to joke

01:27:12 ◼   ► that the iPad was a big iPhone.

01:27:14 ◼   ► I always thought it was more like an iPhone gone IMAX.

01:27:17 ◼   ► And this really is an iPad gone IMAX

01:27:19 ◼   ► because when you're holding it close,

01:27:20 ◼   ► it fills your field of view.

01:27:21 ◼   ► And whether it's a game or a movie or something,

01:27:22 ◼   ► it really is immersive.

01:27:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, totally agree.

01:27:25 ◼   ► The weight, I guess the last thing I'll just mention is,

01:27:30 ◼   ► I know that it sounds bad that it's a little,

01:27:34 ◼   ► like a three hundredths of a pound heavier