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The Talk Show

112: ‘Retina Quality’ With Guest Paul Kafasis

 

00:00:00   Feel like we got to talk about the thing which thing my thing how was your with your eyeball? Yeah

00:00:05   I'm game

00:00:08   How was your week

00:00:10   I don't know. I don't think I've talked to you about it

00:00:16   We haven't we haven't had a working refrigerator in five weeks Amy mentioned that to me

00:00:20   yeah, it's a hell of a thing and that you're it's like you've got like

00:00:25   Yeah, I mean obviously you could for five within the last five weeks

00:00:29   You could have just run out and bought a new refrigerator, but you're in you're in some kind of a spat with your refrigerator

00:00:34   Well, no, no, like it's not even just on principle. It's first of all getting a fridge in here requires a crane

00:00:41   So that's a whole thing

00:00:45   So we were trying to get it fixed because instead of needing to hire a crane to bring a new fridge in and take the old

00:00:50   Why would you need a crane? Is this like a step situation a staircase situation? Yeah staircase

00:00:56   They're too narrow and and modern refrigerators are in size of a car exactly. Okay, so it's a whole thing and finally

00:01:04   They were trying to fix it and I was like fine fix it. I don't care and finally they said okay, we can't fix it

00:01:09   Here's two grand and I said great

00:01:12   I'll buy a new fridge and then I found out that I needed to get it repair need to get it craned in rather and

00:01:17   So the two grand doesn't even cover it

00:01:20   It's it's it hasn't been good. So what do you what are you doing with your perishables?

00:01:26   I mean it is on the other hand you guys are in the midst of record cold

00:01:29   So I mean like you could you could keep like frozen stuff outside, right?

00:01:33   Right, but the temperature fluctuates too much such that like, you know

00:01:37   If you got your if you got something that only you only needs to be refrigerated. It's no good

00:01:41   Yeah, it's no good too cold. And then some days it gets warm enough that anything you have out there. It's frozen is no good

00:01:46   I got a little mini fridge. That's that's all I've got right now. Did you buy that?

00:01:49   that especially just for this no fortunately I guess it was a wine cooler

00:01:55   it's it's but it gets down when you crank it like as cold as it goes I'm

00:01:59   looking at it right now when it get when you crank it down as low as it goes it's

00:02:02   it's cold enough to keep some milk and what the hell's do I have in there I got

00:02:07   some pasta sauce and some butter I'm living like a savage John what about ice

00:02:14   that's outside I can just grab a handful right now you have like ice cubes or do

00:02:19   you just taking like snow or something like that?

00:02:21   - I have not been using ice.

00:02:23   I've been drinking my drinks straight up.

00:02:26   - So how much snow do you have outside still?

00:02:29   Is it come down at all?

00:02:31   I mean, is it like up over your ears?

00:02:34   - We crossed 32 degrees.

00:02:36   It was above freezing today for the first time in,

00:02:38   I think the second time in like a month.

00:02:40   So we lost a little bit today, that was good.

00:02:43   Like depth wise, if I look outside,

00:02:45   a small child would still be buried.

00:02:48   We got a we got a good couple two three four feet

00:02:51   It's crazy

00:02:54   Which also doesn't help when you need to get a fridge in and it's you know, like I'm saying this whole thing

00:02:59   It's not like I'm I'm just saying no I refuse to buy a new fridge. I'm trying to buy a new fridge

00:03:03   It's still a whole headache

00:03:06   It's just one of those things you just never really anticipate having to do without

00:03:12   No, exactly. I've never and I've never had to buy one either. I've never bought appliances before for example

00:03:18   - I can imagine if your toilet stopped working.

00:03:21   Like it could happen, right?

00:03:22   Especially, you know, I think it's a lot more likely

00:03:26   that let's say if you live in a small apartment

00:03:28   with only one toilet, that it could break.

00:03:31   And then, you know, obviously you would accelerate,

00:03:34   you know, you'd call your plumber

00:03:35   and explain the situation

00:03:36   and hopefully get an expedited service.

00:03:38   But in the meantime, I feel like it would never stop.

00:03:42   You just, every 15 minutes you'd forget

00:03:44   and you'd go to pee or whatever.

00:03:45   - You'd just go and use the toilet again?

00:03:47   Well, not that you would actually use it.

00:03:48   I'm sure that by the time you look at the broken toilet,

00:03:51   you'd realize, ah, crap.

00:03:52   But it's like, what would you do?

00:03:55   I mean, I guess you'd pee in a jar or something.

00:03:57   I don't know.

00:03:58   - I guess, I don't know.

00:03:59   Hopefully that doesn't come up.

00:04:00   We got a couple bathrooms.

00:04:01   So that one, I should be good on that one.

00:04:03   But only got one fridge.

00:04:05   - Right, but it's the same.

00:04:06   You just take modern, these modern luxuries for granted.

00:04:10   We don't even think of them as luxuries, but they are.

00:04:13   - Oh yeah, well, it's funny.

00:04:14   I was talking to my grandmother.

00:04:16   She's 90 years old and she used to have an ice box like a literal ice box

00:04:19   Where they would put a piece of ice in there to keep things cold

00:04:23   right, it's just like a big steel box and then a guy would come once a week with like a

00:04:28   Chunk of like 20 pound block of ice. Yeah, like a microwave oven sized block of ice, right and drop it in there

00:04:35   and then that would yeah, you'd keep your

00:04:37   Keep your perishables in there. Well, the thing she told me is that you had to drain it all the time

00:04:41   We're obviously ice melt. That's that's a huge pain in the ass. You're draining your fridge once a day

00:04:45   Right. It's crazy. But we take it for granted.

00:04:50   I have a new appreciation for the goddamn refrigerator.

00:04:54   Yeah.

00:04:54   Eat now.

00:04:55   I'll trade you problems.

00:04:57   I don't know. Yeah.

00:04:59   Oh, I would trade you in a heartbeat. You could have my toilet and my refrigerator.

00:05:05   Well, do I have to start from scratch or do I start from where you are now?

00:05:08   I just start from where I am now.

00:05:10   And you start from where I am? Because I feel like I'm near in the end.

00:05:14   Oh, you could I'll go back to the beginning of years all the way. I don't know

00:05:19   I don't know. I had I had a lot of 8 a.m

00:05:21   Wake-up calls for this John the service people try and come at 8 a.m. You wouldn't like that. I

00:05:26   You know I had

00:05:29   I had 8 a.m. Follow-up with my surgeon. All right. All right. So what's the difference? So here's the thing

00:05:35   I got to talk about it. So because it's gonna come out within the next week because I'm missing the Apple event

00:05:40   so a week ago I

00:05:43   Suffered a detached retina in my left eye, which is not good

00:05:47   This that's like a you can't see type of situation they're supposed to say to stay attached. All right, so that was

00:05:55   Tuesday

00:05:57   Wednesday one day later. I had surgery at the Wills Eye Hospital right here in Philadelphia

00:06:03   And ours on Yelp five stars

00:06:08   They do advertise themselves as the world's finest eye hospital. So I've got that going for me

00:06:14   But the

00:06:18   This is not a quick recovery. This is a long slow recovery and in the procedure that I had involves a

00:06:25   gas bubble

00:06:28   injected in the back of my eye that that

00:06:30   Holds the repaired retina in place

00:06:34   So like right in front of the guy went in he repaired my retina then

00:06:39   At the very end of this procedure. They put a gas bubble back there and that's crazy, right?

00:06:45   I mean it told me this it's it's when they told me I thought they were making it up

00:06:50   It's like a little guy is pushing the retina all the time though, right?

00:06:55   I a little bubble a little bubble but it's like it's like you got a little dude in there just keeping everything in place

00:07:00   place. Yeah, keeping it in place. So it is, I was very confused at first. I thought it was that they

00:07:06   were saying that it was like a sack or like a balloon filled with gas or something. And then I

00:07:11   thought, oh, this sucks. Because then, you know, obviously, at some point, I'm gonna have to go

00:07:15   back and they're gonna have to take this thing out. But no, it's just a gas bubble. They just

00:07:18   inject the gas and my eye will naturally absorb it over the course of six to 10 weeks and it will

00:07:26   It'll shrink in my field of vision.

00:07:30   But anyway, long story short, one of the results of this is that while I have this gas bubble

00:07:38   in my eye, I cannot step foot on an airplane, or at least I can't step foot in an airplane

00:07:42   that is up in the air.

00:07:43   And you're probably not supposed to climb mountains.

00:07:46   No, well, that's recommended against altitude changes.

00:07:51   So the way it was explained to me is absolutely, positively, no airplanes.

00:07:57   If you can avoid it, don't go to the Poconos or anything like that.

00:08:01   Okay.

00:08:02   What about Denver or like...

00:08:03   Well, I would presume if the Poconos are out, Denver would...

00:08:08   Denver's definitely out.

00:08:09   Denver's definitely out.

00:08:10   And, you know, how would I get to Denver?

00:08:13   You know, I'd have to...

00:08:14   It would be a long drive.

00:08:15   Long drive, yeah.

00:08:17   So I will miss the Apple event, which is...

00:08:20   recording right now on Monday March 2nd seven days from now I will not be able

00:08:24   to to make that I think a live stream yeah I hope so I don't know it'll be

00:08:29   weird it's sort of like the old days I mean it's you know at least for the

00:08:32   first half of the run at daring fireball I never went to the press events so I

00:08:37   got a back out unfortunately of the all conference too which is at the end of

00:08:42   the month I said you should just cruise over to Ireland yeah that would be the

00:08:46   option. So that conference is in Ireland. I guess my only, I think that would be my only option

00:08:52   would be to cruise there. I looked it up. I think it's like an eight day each way cruise,

00:08:57   which you would have to do. And I don't know that they run them until like April or May,

00:09:03   because it's pretty cold out there right now. Right, because it wouldn't even be enough to get

00:09:08   to England. Because, you know, you think, you know, like when you're booking flights to Ireland

00:09:13   or something like that. If it goes through Heathrow or something, you don't really give

00:09:16   it any second thought because it's like a 15-minute flight, you know what I mean?

00:09:21   But if you can't get in an airplane, you know, like the difference between England and Ireland

00:09:27   is actually pretty significant. It's decent, yeah. Like, it never really matters when you're

00:09:34   flying everywhere that Ireland is actually, you know, an island. But once you can't get in a plane,

00:09:40   Yes, it matters.

00:09:41   (laughing)

00:09:42   - Well, so you've had to bail on,

00:09:45   you're bailing on the watch event, unfortunately.

00:09:47   You're bailing on this conference.

00:09:49   Are you just in a bed?

00:09:51   What do you have to do?

00:09:52   Do they let you walk around?

00:09:53   - Yeah, I am allowed to, you know,

00:09:55   obviously, I mean, there's been no disruption

00:09:57   on Daring Fireball.

00:10:01   I was posting, it was so, it's just weird.

00:10:05   The way modern anesthesia works is just crazy.

00:10:07   It's like at 11 o'clock, I was high as a kite.

00:10:12   They didn't fully put me under, which is terrifying.

00:10:15   And I know, like for anybody who's out there,

00:10:17   it sounds absolutely, positively terrifying

00:10:19   that you're awake for some kind of operation on your eye.

00:10:22   But you're-- - You're poking at your eye.

00:10:24   - You're so far out of it that it really,

00:10:28   I actually found it to be rather enjoyable.

00:10:30   And modern anesthesia, and I've had unfortunately

00:10:36   more of it than I would like lately.

00:10:38   They've really gotten good at making,

00:10:42   not just putting you under,

00:10:43   not just making sure that you're out or whatever,

00:10:45   but actually making your mood euphoric.

00:10:50   These guys-- - During or after?

00:10:52   - During. - Okay.

00:10:54   - Like, when you're in the operating room,

00:10:55   at least with the fine anesthesiologists

00:10:59   at Will's Eye Hospital, you feel good.

00:11:02   (laughing)

00:11:04   - So now you're kind of wishing

00:11:05   that they had to go back in there

00:11:06   and pull this little sack out.

00:11:08   - Well, no, I wouldn't go that far.

00:11:10   (laughing)

00:11:11   - Wasn't that good.

00:11:12   - No, it wasn't that good.

00:11:14   But there were moments when I was, you know,

00:11:17   sort of kind of there, like, aware of my,

00:11:20   what was going on, and I have to say,

00:11:23   it was sort of a euphoria.

00:11:24   It was a very good feeling.

00:11:26   But the procedure was like an hour long or so,

00:11:29   you know, so 11 to 12, I'm in there, they're operating,

00:11:32   I'm out of it for the most part, but not unconscious,

00:11:35   but, and there were moments where I could hear

00:11:38   my surgeon talking, and it was bizarre,

00:11:43   but it's, you're so high, so crazy, crazy high.

00:11:48   - But do you remember anything he said?

00:11:52   Like, should he be careful about what he's saying

00:11:55   when he's working on you?

00:11:56   - Yeah, obviously.

00:11:57   At one point he was talking about some kind of fold,

00:12:00   and it was very, very clear to me,

00:12:01   and it was very reassuring.

00:12:03   It was like an air of competence and precision that was inspiring.

00:12:11   But it was, and he was clearly talking to his fellow, like, you know, I don't know if

00:12:19   they call him resident anymore.

00:12:20   They call them fellows.

00:12:21   But in other words, a young doctor who was like his Padawan, effectively, his apprentice.

00:12:26   It was clear that he wasn't talking to anybody else in the ER.

00:12:29   He certainly wasn't talking to me.

00:12:30   He was talking to his fellow, and it was something about a fold, like in the corner or something,

00:12:39   something, something fold, and that you don't want to do it like that, you want to do it

00:12:43   like this, and it was, you know, super--

00:12:45   - Did they give you like a little eye tuck?

00:12:47   Did they do a little work while you were under?

00:12:49   - No, no, the retina, it was definitely about the retina.

00:12:52   It was some part of the torn portion of the retina, I don't know, that it was folded under.

00:12:58   I don't know, something about a fold.

00:13:00   I don't know, maybe they throw in a little plastic surgery

00:13:02   while you're under.

00:13:03   - Well, I don't know, if so,

00:13:05   that didn't really help me much.

00:13:07   (laughing)

00:13:09   But anyway, that's what it is. - So you're out,

00:13:10   and then you're back to work?

00:13:13   - By three o'clock, I'm, you know,

00:13:15   like noon, 11 to noon is like my surgery.

00:13:19   1230 or so is when I remember seeing Amy

00:13:24   in the recovery room.

00:13:28   So apparently I was still out for maybe a half hour

00:13:31   after the procedure was over.

00:13:32   And I was definitely unsteady, not right.

00:13:37   It's a good thing that they make you have like a,

00:13:41   they don't sign you out on your own.

00:13:42   Like Amy had to sign me out.

00:13:44   But we literally, I mean, obviously this whole situation

00:13:49   is a very unfortunate run of bad luck.

00:13:52   But there's all sorts of,

00:13:54   it's mixed in with little bits of good luck.

00:13:58   Like just by pure coincidence,

00:14:01   we certainly didn't pick our house because of it,

00:14:03   but we literally live four blocks away

00:14:05   from Wills Eye Hospital.

00:14:06   It's less than a five minute walk.

00:14:09   We live incredibly close, so we just walked home.

00:14:11   - And did you walk there and back?

00:14:14   - Yeah.

00:14:15   - All right.

00:14:16   - I mean, we live, it's so close that it wouldn't even--

00:14:19   - But there's no better way to do it, right?

00:14:21   - You know, if it were raining or something,

00:14:23   I guess we could take a cab, you know,

00:14:25   but it would make zero sense to drive.

00:14:27   I mean, there's, I mean, I think some people, you know, they do have a parking garage, so

00:14:32   it would be closer to our house.

00:14:33   But it's, I think by the time you waited for the elevator in the parking garage and it's

00:14:38   all said and done, it probably takes about the same amount of time to walk in the front

00:14:40   door as it does from our house.

00:14:43   So we walked home and by like three o'clock I was writing and reading, working during

00:14:48   Fireball.

00:14:49   It's crazy.

00:14:50   But now what day was this?

00:14:51   Because maybe we should look at this and—

00:14:52   Yeah, maybe.

00:14:53   That was Wednesday.

00:14:55   So it would have been Wednesday—

00:14:56   It's the 25th I think yeah, I

00:14:59   Love to check and see if it if any of it makes sense

00:15:03   That didn't actually occur to me

00:15:06   Maybe I maybe I shouldn't have done

00:15:09   Like were there any odd posts on Wednesday? I don't know

00:15:13   Let me see here. I'm scrolling down

00:15:16   Uh, I don't think so. It looks pretty normal

00:15:22   All right, they do give you a piece of paper

00:15:25   I think I sent this to you because I knew that you would enjoy it. Yeah, here's Wednesday

00:15:29   I don't think I was very busy here got far had manju

00:15:32   Google plans new headquarters

00:15:35   Yeah, I think it was you know was obviously I was not a prolific but

00:15:42   You know, I could read and write

00:15:45   What were we saying or I was a

00:15:52   I was just talking about how you've got a you know, you got a bail on this stuff, but I'm sharp as a tack that

00:15:57   There's no long-term

00:15:59   Reprecussions of the sedatives that they had me, you know, I mean, it's the basics just though

00:16:03   But when they first told me that though, I I you know, you hear what you want to hear and my thought is well

00:16:08   You know, I'm not supposed to fly but I guess I can still do it. But no, it's not like

00:16:12   You know, maybe you shouldn't fly. This is you you're go blind if you fly. Yeah, I hear gas bubble in the eye

00:16:19   I think probably probably don't want to change my my elevation too much. Yeah

00:16:24   Well, you know like when you take a sealed bag of chips on a plane like you buy it at the airport

00:16:28   You buy a bag of chips and you take them on the plane and then when you open it up mid-flight

00:16:32   It's puffed out like a balloon because you can change an air pressure. You don't want that in your eyeball

00:16:36   No, that would I mean, I think that's exactly what would happen. I'm not sure that my eye would burst but

00:16:41   It's it doesn't seem like it's half the question. I

00:16:47   I wouldn't risk it. It would be like that. What was that stupid commercial where the guy was like,

00:16:51   uh, the guy's getting on an airplane and it's like his back hurts and he's like,

00:16:56   Oh, it's like a Tylenol or something commercial. Yeah.

00:16:58   Yeah. No, but she's like, we have aspirin and he goes, aspirin? I'm not having a heart attack.

00:17:04   I'm not having a heart attack. My back hurts.

00:17:06   I think that guy was a real racist. Don't you?

00:17:10   Why? Why a racist?

00:17:15   because it was clearly an international flight and she was uh i think i think it was a japanese

00:17:19   airline and she's he's talking to her as if like she doesn't understand english

00:17:23   like no no i'm not having a heart attack it's my back she's like yeah dumbass here's some

00:17:30   aspirin i didn't read it to that i just got that like at bear they've had a meeting where they've

00:17:36   been so successful with this you know the way that the aspirin is now prescriber you know like

00:17:42   if people over a certain age are supposed to pop one aspirin a day and it just somehow,

00:17:46   reasons they don't understand, don't really know, but they just, clinical studies show,

00:17:51   if you pop an aspirin a day, there's less chance of heart attack.

00:17:54   Dr. Zaino Like blood thinning or something.

00:17:55   Dr.

00:18:10   widely used like, you know, in the 1800s or at the end of the 1800s. And, you know, it was like in

00:18:16   the snake oil era, and it was something that actually did work. You know, it does actually

00:18:19   decrease pain. But I, you know, you just know the meeting that they had where they're like,

00:18:27   "Well, now everybody's forgotten that you can take aspirin for pain relief."

00:18:30   - Nobody's forgotten. No one thinks it's only for a heart attack.

00:18:35   - Well, can you imagine, can you imagine like hitting that little thing to call the flight

00:18:39   attendant ding and they come by I'm holding my eye and I'm like do you have

00:18:43   any aspirin my my eyeball just burst oh is it in your hand or is it what are you

00:18:52   picturing I'm picturing just like a water balloon that pops like it's just

00:18:56   gone it's just gone and I've just and maybe a couple wet naps to clean up

00:19:01   around yeah also can you imagine like if you know if you somebody was seating

00:19:08   next to me and having to apologize because your your eyeball just burst all over them.

00:19:14   Well, you just hold the air sick bag up to your face. Yeah, I guess.

00:19:19   Well, anyway, I'm not gonna find out. Good plan. Good plan.

00:19:25   All right. 1853 is when we discovered aspirin. I thought it was older than that.

00:19:31   Yeah, I knew it wasn't ancient, but I knew it was like, you know, like a Wild West era,

00:19:35   you know discovery and it just it's crazy because I don't I it might be the

00:19:40   one and only medical treatment from 1853 that it's still in here still in here

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00:20:03   - Go on, I'm sorry.

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00:22:02   something that you're gonna wear like every single day,

00:22:05   something that goes right on your face,

00:22:07   without trying them on first?

00:22:09   Like, even if you look at the webpage and you say,

00:22:12   well, those look cool,

00:22:13   but how do you know they're gonna look on you?

00:22:14   I mean, it's crazy.

00:22:15   Like, every time I've ever bought glasses,

00:22:18   even right there in the store, you look at some,

00:22:19   you say, well, those look cool, then you try them on,

00:22:21   you're like wow I look like an idiot in these they have a great try at home

00:22:26   program you pick like I think it's up to five you get five five picks find five

00:22:31   that you think you like pick pick a variety they send them to you without

00:22:35   the lenses you know the corrective lenses at first send them to you at home

00:22:40   you try them take a couple days ask your friends ask your you know friends and

00:22:46   family which ones they like take a look in the mirror and then you pick the one

00:22:51   you like the best, send the whole thing back to them. It's all pre-shipping. It's all pre-labeled.

00:22:56   You don't have to do any kind of work other than just hand it off back to the UPS guy.

00:23:00   Boom, a couple days later, your glasses, brand new glasses, come with the actual lenses.

00:23:07   Could not be easier. I've lost count of how many Warby Parker glasses we've got laying

00:23:13   around the house now between me and Amy. Great, great stuff. They do sunglasses, all sorts

00:23:20   styles to pick from really could not be easier. It's a great thing. Once you start buying glasses

00:23:27   from Warby Parker, you're not going to go back. Where do you go to find out more? Go to their

00:23:31   website warbyparker.com/thetalkshow and then you'll know that you came from here. And use that code.

00:23:43   I think they send you, I think it's expedited shipping. They'll give you free three-day shipping

00:23:50   on your glasses if you use that that code warbyparker.com/thetalkshow.

00:23:56   I was hoping I went there I was hoping maybe I could get a designer eye patch.

00:24:01   Oh I was just looking for monocles they do not sell monocles currently.

00:24:06   Yeah see that's that could be a problem for me if this doesn't I mean a prognosis is good I mean

00:24:11   it's and everybody you know if anybody I hope I made that clear that you know after this procedure

00:24:16   I had last week that I went back the next day and they took a look at I said it looks

00:24:20   Quote-unquote great for day one. So, you know, I have a good prognosis here. I don't want anybody

00:24:25   I'm only I hate even going public with it

00:24:28   but I have to because I feel like I have to explain why I'm not at the Apple event and

00:24:31   I absolutely have to explain why I won't be speaking as scheduled at all. I

00:24:36   Feel like if you just drop out of a speaking event people are gonna think you're a flake, you know

00:24:41   And I want people you got it

00:24:42   You got a pretty good excuse that you'd prefer to keep both your eyeballs

00:24:45   [Laughter]

00:24:48   I don't know that there's anybody who's that dedicated that they would voluntarily go

00:24:52   blind in one eye to make a—

00:24:53   [Laughter]

00:24:55   That'd be a really good conference. I've heard good things about Ull, but—

00:24:58   Oh my god. Can you imagine how uncomfortable that would be if that was the subject of my talk?

00:25:02   I hope you like this talk!

00:25:03   [Laughter]

00:25:06   I went blind to be here.

00:25:08   You get quite a round of applause at the end.

00:25:11   No, I think people would feel terrible. I think that you—everybody—I mean,

00:25:15   I mean, 'cause it would be such a sign

00:25:17   that you're mentally ill.

00:25:19   (laughing)

00:25:21   - All right, maybe.

00:25:22   - Right, like watching somebody destroy themself.

00:25:25   It'd be terrible.

00:25:26   - All right, I think you made the right call.

00:25:30   - You know, I mentioned, but I should go back.

00:25:32   I'm the worst, but with the Warby Parker,

00:25:34   you know, the 295 is for the progressives.

00:25:38   They're regular ones.

00:25:39   If you don't need progressives, by the way,

00:25:40   I just feel obligated to go back and mention this.

00:25:42   They start at just 95 bucks, including the lenses.

00:25:45   So I don't wanna leave the impression

00:25:47   that you gotta pay 300 bucks for glasses.

00:25:50   100 bucks gets you a high quality pair of glasses.

00:25:53   And anyway, what else?

00:25:58   What's going on?

00:25:59   - I think there's some kind of a watch coming out.

00:26:01   - Yeah.

00:26:02   What about the, before we talk about that,

00:26:05   we could talk about the Pebble Color.

00:26:07   Was it, is that what it's called?

00:26:08   Is it called Pebble or--

00:26:09   - Pebble Time, right?

00:26:10   - Pebble Time.

00:26:10   Because you know, it's a watch so well and you I know I have a pebble

00:26:17   Which I never really got into wearing. I don't think I ever wore it for more than like a day

00:26:22   But I know that you you have a original first gen pebble and you've worn it regularly I did I

00:26:30   Stopped wearing it. I think I wore it for two or three months and

00:26:34   You know, I bought it

00:26:36   But I think for the same reason you did just out of curiosity because when the Kickstarter

00:26:40   was announced, geez, like a year and a half, two years ago even, it was a curiosity and

00:26:46   nothing else like it existed.

00:26:49   And it was, I think, what was it, about a hundred bucks or so?

00:26:52   Do you remember?

00:26:53   I think it was a hundred bucks.

00:26:55   It wasn't outlandish.

00:26:56   I mean it wasn't much more than that.

00:26:58   It might have even been a little less than that.

00:27:00   And I said, you know, this seems interesting and I think I enjoyed it a little more than

00:27:04   you did but it's to me it's it sort of proved the concept of having a watch

00:27:11   connected to your phone because I think even now and I think even after the

00:27:16   Apple watch comes out people are gonna say you know what the heck do you need

00:27:18   that for you've got your phone but when you're driving it's great you can glance

00:27:23   at your wrist when you're in a meeting when you're you know talking to somebody

00:27:27   else it's a whole lot easier to just look at your wrist real quick then pull

00:27:30   out your phone and you know figure out what's going on there and I did find

00:27:34   that it was you know not the most valuable thing in the world but it was

00:27:37   certainly a useful accessory to the phone in a way that without trying it I

00:27:43   might not have believed my big one of my big complaints with it my two big

00:27:47   complaints I guess were that one I didn't feel like I was getting

00:27:51   fine-grained enough control over which notifications like I pebble specifically

00:27:57   with pebble specifically it was more or less all notifications anything you know

00:28:01   you if you pair it with your phone through your iPhone then anything that

00:28:05   would be a notification on your phone is a notification on your pebble and I tend

00:28:10   to have my phone set up to not I don't get a lot of notifications period I you

00:28:14   know most things I have turned off yeah same I only get email notifications for

00:28:19   my VIPs etc which is like I think I was just talking to someone I know if it was

00:28:25   on the show or where but it it's like one of the best features apples come up

00:28:28   with like a little feature that you take for granted but but right at the barely

00:28:32   even notice but then you know if you stop and think hey I'm only getting

00:28:36   emails from you know my mom and the wife and whoever it's it's very nice yeah but

00:28:40   there's so many little things that really just little notifications that I

00:28:47   do want on my phone but I don't want on my watch and the fact that I couldn't

00:28:50   turn them off made it feel like my watch was annoying me now was that I think

00:28:54   that's how it was initially I think eventually I you know I stopped using it

00:28:58   well. But I think eventually you did get a little more fine grained control as far as

00:29:01   some things that would notify on the phone only and not on the not on the watch.

00:29:05   Yeah, maybe. And this, you know, I might be speaking from old experience, you know,

00:29:09   but maybe it's, but it just, but I also did not, I also found it that the physical sensation of

00:29:14   the vibration to be unpleasant, even for things I wanted the pebble to notify me about, like a text

00:29:20   message, right? Like a text message is one that I would think anybody wants, you know, my wife

00:29:24   Texts me. I want that. I do want it on my watch if if my watch is gonna show me anything

00:29:29   That's something I would want

00:29:30   I found the vibration to be physically unpleasant not like in a big way

00:29:35   But in it never once made me happy that my watch buzz

00:29:39   Well, so you've you've tried on an Apple watch right and and you and they showed you the the Taptic sensor, right?

00:29:47   I don't have to feedback so

00:29:49   You can compare the two I have not yeah, it's a completely different sensation

00:29:53   I've said this before, but it's not the Taptic thing.

00:29:57   And I know that Taptic is a word that they've made up,

00:29:59   that it's tap plus haptic,

00:30:01   but it really is a kind of great name.

00:30:05   Like at some point once they had the thing working

00:30:08   and somebody said Taptic, everybody in the room,

00:30:11   I'm sure it was like, that's it.

00:30:12   Because it does feel like it's tapping you

00:30:15   and it's not at all like a vibration, a phone vibrator.

00:30:19   - It sounds weird.

00:30:22   It is weird, it's different, but it's not unpleasant.

00:30:25   It to me solves a very real problem

00:30:28   that at least the original Pebble definitely had,

00:30:31   which is that the vibrating engines that we have--

00:30:34   - Vibration motor, yeah.

00:30:35   - Right, are just not pleasant sensation.

00:30:38   - Well, so the thing to me about the new one,

00:30:40   the Pebble Time, was it looks very nice,

00:30:44   and it's interesting to me that it's gonna be

00:30:46   one of the first devices out there

00:30:48   using a color e-ink display,

00:30:51   because none of the, you know, like the Nooks and the Kindles are all still black and white

00:30:55   E Ink.

00:30:57   But it seems very much geared at Android users because they just can't get the level of,

00:31:04   you know, connection to the system on iOS that they want.

00:31:08   And I think that's sort of unfortunate because it'd be nice if there were competitors that

00:31:13   worked with the iPhone, but I think if they're carving out a niche in the market, it's on

00:31:18   the Android side.

00:31:19   Yeah, even though I think the original one I think probably was large. I maybe it was even iPhone first, right?

00:31:25   Wasn't it like that their Android software took a while?

00:31:28   It's definitely yeah, that sounds right. All right, I think that it that because of the enthusiasts market and the Kickstarter market

00:31:35   Especially from from a couple years ago when Kickstarter was you know a little bit less well-known, you know

00:31:43   It was definitely the iPhone I think made up a much bigger part of their market, right?

00:31:48   But I think it's inevitable. I think you're exactly right though there right now. It's inevitable because they need

00:31:52   They crave more control on the phone and the iPhone just doesn't offer it

00:31:58   well, and I think so I think that's it's interesting because in this space Apple's making a device and

00:32:05   You know Apple's answer is going to be get the Apple watch. That's the one that works best with the iPhone, but I got a

00:32:13   Doorbell I got a doorbell called the ring and it's a video doorbell and it connects to your phone

00:32:19   And it's great it rings your phone wherever you are when somebody's at the door

00:32:23   So if you're not at home, or you know whatever you can tell UPS guy to leave a package whatever

00:32:27   but the biggest issue that I have with it is that I keep my phone on silent most of the time and

00:32:32   on the iPhone the only thing that can override the silent switch is your alarm clock and

00:32:37   If I could have one other thing do it it would be this doorbell

00:32:42   Because I want that notification anytime that it happens and it's something where I don't think Apple's likely to ever make a doorbell

00:32:49   but because the system is locked down enough, it means that nobody else can make one that has that level of

00:32:55   Access right and you know, you see it with the watch you see it with with a bunch of things and it's I think in this

00:33:01   case

00:33:02   You know, there's an answer. It's get an Apple watch and that'll have all the

00:33:05   Authority that you need but in a lot of other cases, I think there's sort of missed opportunities right now

00:33:12   Yeah, I think it's you know, it's an unfortunate side effect, you know of and I don't think it's purely I think plays into it

00:33:19   I mean, let's face it. There's a little bit of

00:33:21   competitive spite

00:33:24   So do your doorbell thing you can like if you're away you can then use an app or something to talk through the intercom

00:33:31   yeah, so it's it's the whole thing is it's got a little video camera and it's got a battery and

00:33:38   They ring the doorbell just like you ring a normal doorbell

00:33:40   But then it rings on your phone and you accept the call and you can see them. They can't see you but

00:33:46   it's you know, so the the

00:33:48   Their angle is a security angle that I guess a lot of breaking and entering the very first thing

00:33:54   They do is ring the doorbell to make sure nobody's home

00:33:56   Hmm and with this you can your home no matter where you are is sort of the way they pitch it

00:34:00   you know, it's it's not necessarily the

00:34:05   yeah, I'm not necessarily that interested in that aspect of it, but it is nice to have a little intercom without needing to run a

00:34:11   whole bunch of wires and

00:34:13   It's great

00:34:14   Except for like I said

00:34:15   If I've got my phone on silent or if I've got it on do not disturb and somebody

00:34:18   Wants to deliver a package at 8 in the morning, and I've got my phone set up to not bother me

00:34:23   Suddenly the doorbell doesn't ring

00:34:25   Which is sort of unfortunate, right?

00:34:28   yeah, and like the way that the alarm app can override that is is

00:34:33   Black magic because the it's only the built-in system

00:34:37   alarm, you know clock app that has the ability to go outside the you know, the

00:34:44   Privileges, you know, like I don't think there's I'm 99% sure

00:34:50   There's no way that any third-party alarm clock app can know I can do those things

00:34:54   I think they're all a bit a bit of a disadvantage because of that but right, you know in that case again

00:35:01   the built-in alarm clock app is pretty good. It's decent. But yeah, for other stuff,

00:35:06   there's just no way around it.

00:35:07   Yeah, that's a perfect example though of the sort of thing that you just don't think about,

00:35:12   right? And it's in a way that Apple isn't trying to build everything, right? I mean,

00:35:18   they've only... That watches their first new products in five years. They're not building

00:35:23   thermostats and doorbells and security cameras and et cetera, et cetera. And somebody else is,

00:35:30   And once you sit there and think, well,

00:35:33   if we reinvented the doorbell, what would we do?

00:35:35   And you start thinking of cool things

00:35:37   you could do with notifications and apps and Wi-Fi.

00:35:39   I guess you have it on your Wi-Fi, right?

00:35:41   - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, it's brilliant.

00:35:43   It's really clever, I like that.

00:35:45   - It is, but it's something where

00:35:48   I don't necessarily have that much hope

00:35:49   that this will change, but it's something where

00:35:51   I think if you get enough of these types of products

00:35:53   where they do need these higher privileges,

00:35:56   higher access to the system,

00:35:58   and I'm willing to give it to it,

00:35:59   That's really the thing is I want the app to be able to say no matter what you get to ring

00:36:04   Yeah, I almost feel like it's almost at this point

00:36:07   It's almost like it would be confused, but I could see it like I would like to give this app

00:36:11   Get out of do not disturb. You know privilege right and and

00:36:16   Yeah, you don't want to you don't want to have games asking for this

00:36:19   You don't want to have I don't even know most things asking for this

00:36:22   But I can look at this as a user and say this thing should have it and I would bet that there's you know

00:36:28   a half dozen types of these products that could use the levels of access that the alarm clock app have.

00:36:35   And, you know, like I said, I don't hold out a whole lot of hope that that'll ever happen,

00:36:39   but I certainly hope that these people are talking to Apple and saying, "Look, you're not going to make this,

00:36:44   and we're trying to make it as top quality and experience for your users as we can."

00:36:49   And I think on Android, there's at least, you know, I don't have enough experience with it to say they could definitely do this,

00:36:54   definitely do this, but there's definitely more flexibility and more access on that side

00:36:58   where, you know, we just don't have it on the iPhone.

00:37:02   With Pebble, I never really wrote about it on Daring Firewall because I always felt a

00:37:06   little bad. And I often complain about other people grading somebody on a curve or something,

00:37:11   and I don't feel it's quite that way because I like the idea of Pebble. I like that they

00:37:15   seem like a good company. I'm rooting for them, and I really felt bad. I couldn't get

00:37:22   myself to just really write about it because if I were gonna write about it

00:37:26   I'd have to be honest and if I were honest it would be a very negative

00:37:28   review and I just didn't want to do it you know I'd rather say nothing than you

00:37:35   know cuz you get on the podcast right exactly and I feel like that's sort of

00:37:40   the fun thing about having a podcast it's a little bit you know like I can

00:37:44   use the intonation of my voice and and it conveys it I think I think everybody

00:37:48   listening to this can kind of knows what I'm saying right it's it's easier to be

00:37:54   put some emotion into it maybe to put a better way so I bought I signed up for

00:37:59   the new one too even though I don't expect not to like it either but I like

00:38:04   them enough that I got the cheapest pebble time that I could you know I

00:38:08   looked at it and I thought it's so close to the Apple watch and I'm interested in

00:38:14   it but it doesn't seem like there's any real benefit to getting it ahead of time

00:38:18   If I were a consumer just a pure consumer, I would not have done bought it

00:38:22   I feel like for whatever I paid for it the 200 bucks or whatever it's like 179 or something. I can I can

00:38:28   It's a perfectly valid business expense. Yes cost of doing business for you. Absolutely

00:38:33   Well, the thing to me was that again it seemed very clear that the Android experience for this was going to be superior to the iOS

00:38:40   experience and

00:38:42   Because Apple is now making a watch they're not going to be inclined to make it any better for pebble

00:38:47   So that to me scared me off of it a little bit. I was also interested that they did another

00:38:53   Kickstarter on this.

00:38:54   Yeah, I thought that was interesting too.

00:38:55   Did you look at that at all?

00:38:56   Yeah, I thought it, well, yeah, because I bought it from their Kickstarter.

00:38:59   Right, but I mean just the, I think it was two or three years ago,

00:39:02   Kickstarter had a blog post and it said, "Kickstarter is not a store."

00:39:05   Yeah.

00:39:05   That was the headline of a blog post.

00:39:07   Right.

00:39:08   And now this product, I think it's supposed to ship in May, which is two months from now.

00:39:14   now. Kickstarter is a store for this product. Yeah, totally. I mean there's there's no other

00:39:21   way to look at this than that you're buying this and in two months you'll have it and

00:39:25   you're not really you're not backing it to make it come into existence. If you don't

00:39:30   buy it there you're gonna be able to buy it somewhere else in two months no matter what.

00:39:33   So I think they opened this thing six days ago. It was sometime last week. Yeah, within

00:39:38   the past week or so. Although I seem to recall it was before my incident. But anyway, they've

00:39:43   already raised $12 million, which is crazy. It's great. They had a $500,000 goal, which they knew

00:39:48   they were going to reach. Yeah, they knew they were going to blow through that.

00:39:50   Right. But they've got 12 million and... Are they the top? I was looking a few days ago at

00:39:57   the top projects and the Pebble was like number three and the Pebble time was already number four.

00:40:02   Yeah. And the Pebble was number one for a long time. Like it was the... It had sat at number

00:40:09   one for like the longest period of anybody. I also like I know that they've hired some people with

00:40:15   who were interaction designers for web OS. I think maybe all the way back to when it was a

00:40:21   palm project, which I've always thought was a great design for an operating system. Like

00:40:26   without any hesitation, I would say this, you know, second only to iOS and the one with the

00:40:31   most ideas that I kind of feel like were better than iOS. And then almost none of them got picked

00:40:37   up anywhere no no but like the way they did notifications with a thing at the bottom i mean

00:40:43   it's you know we have it a lot now they're you know they're like what on ios we call banners

00:40:47   but on the web os they were at the bottom and they everything was designed from the get-go to

00:40:53   support them so whatever was on your interface would shrink to go above it you know and okay

00:40:59   uh just all sorts of little things like that not that that's you know not that the bottom is that

00:41:04   much greater than the top, but there was so many little things about WebOS that were really nice,

00:41:08   you know. And, you know, a lot of them have come to Android and iOS now. You know,

00:41:12   the card-based interface for switching is, you know, was WebOS. And they've, just looking at

00:41:19   the video for the new Pebble Time, there's so many little bits of animation. And I'm impressed,

00:41:26   I mean, and it looked like it was all straightforward, like that they were

00:41:30   shooting actual prototypes, like it wasn't like that they were faking it.

00:41:32   It wasn't animator, right? Yeah. So that's impressive for E Ink, I think. And it, you know,

00:41:39   it just shows it was a glaring weak spot in the 1.0 Pebble OS. The interaction design of that

00:41:45   thing was it really felt like a device from the early 90s. No animation, everything just sort of

00:41:53   jumped from one thing to another. And no real sense of, what would you call it even, spatiality?

00:41:59   I don't know, like place, like where am I in the watch?

00:42:02   I don't know.

00:42:03   Right. You were just always looking at whatever was there and then swiping to a completely new,

00:42:07   like wiping the whole screen and getting a new look at it.

00:42:10   Right. So they've come up with, you know, is it actually going to be useful? I don't know. But

00:42:15   to me, at least it's novel, which to me is always impressive. And it sounds like it could be good,

00:42:21   this timeline interface where older stuff is up and future stuff is down and the moment right now

00:42:30   is in the middle so if you want to look at what you were doing yesterday you go up and you can

00:42:34   see like what was my step count yesterday i guess where was i yesterday and if you want to see where

00:42:40   you have to go tomorrow you go down and it'll say well here's you know here's your schedule for

00:42:44   tomorrow and then you hit the middle button and you're back to now here's the time and what's

00:42:48   what's going on right now.

00:42:49   I think it was

00:42:51   that I think it was a pretty impressive

00:42:53   response because obviously when

00:42:55   was the Apple Watch announced

00:42:56   last September.

00:42:58   Yeah. So I'm

00:43:01   presumably they were already working

00:43:02   on this but and they

00:43:04   had a sense that something might be

00:43:06   coming from Apple but then suddenly

00:43:07   Apple announces it and they're

00:43:09   trying to compete with that obviously

00:43:11   as a smartwatch but it's

00:43:12   a very different product.

00:43:14   They're not they didn't suddenly say

00:43:15   you know what we better put a touch

00:43:16   screen on there and it's got to be

00:43:18   proper LED display or LCD display rather, they stuck with what they had, which was the E-paper,

00:43:27   and improved upon that in a way that makes it a different product and not sort of a direct

00:43:33   competitor to the Apple Watch. Yeah, definitely. I think if Apple Watch has had any influence on

00:43:39   this at all, I would guess it's only the timing that maybe that's it lit a fire.

00:43:45   Of the release, you mean?

00:43:45   Yeah, you know that I mean they expect to ship them in May

00:43:49   I mean

00:43:50   But maybe that was a good and maybe it was really just motivation that knowing that you know

00:43:54   when Apple finally decloaked the watch in September and said early

00:43:57   2015 that it really motivated the people who work at pebble to let's we got a ship before they do, you know

00:44:04   Right, we are we just have to announce before they do it's a good motivation

00:44:08   But I would bet though that the design of this was already largely in place and it certainly is true to the original pebble

00:44:15   vision. And that to me is also why these guys are so interesting to watch, is they clearly have a

00:44:21   very different just basic idea for what a little wrist smart computer would be like than Apple does.

00:44:30   Well, and it's much simpler. The technology inside of it is a lot simpler, which means it's

00:44:36   cheaper. It means it lasts for, what do they say, like seven to 10 days, I think. I know the first

00:44:42   one did.

00:44:42   Which was definitely true in my experience.

00:44:44   Yeah, oh absolutely. The first one definitely had good battery life and

00:44:47   Apple still hasn't announced an actual battery life, but they're saying charge it every night, right? Right. So that to me is definitely

00:44:55   Not a good thing. I mean, I don't think it'll affect things too negatively

00:44:59   But I'd rather not have to charge a watch every single night

00:45:02   Right it were to know that if you're only going away for an overnight, you know, like just one overnight

00:45:08   I'm gonna be in New York, you know for 48 hours that you still have to take your charger, right?

00:45:13   And it's a different charger than everything else you've got. So you've got your charger for your

00:45:18   phone and your laptop and now your watch. Right. And it's totally understandable why. Although,

00:45:24   I wonder, because to me the way forward would be to get the iPhone on the magnetic charger. I mean,

00:45:31   clearly a lightning port is never going to happen on a watch because it would be horrible.

00:45:35   But a magnetic charger for the iPhone, I could see that

00:45:42   In terms of like decreasing the number of things you have to pack with you,

00:45:45   but on the other hand, like when you travel, I always, you know, I charge my phone right before

00:45:50   I go to sleep. And so if I have to charge the phone and the watch, I still, I don't see how

00:45:54   you get out of two chargers, but at least you maybe, you know, you don't have to worry that you've

00:45:58   picked the wrong one. Right. Well, I guess the other thing that I sort of don't understand is

00:46:04   that there's definitely been talk of using the Taptic feedback to wake you up in the morning.

00:46:09   No, yeah. Yeah. If you're charging the watch overnight, that's not going to work, obviously.

00:46:14   Right. Yeah, I don't get it. I know Johnny Ive, I think it was, I don't think they talked about

00:46:19   it at the event, but I think there was some kind of interview with Johnny Ive, like maybe it was

00:46:23   the Vanity Fair conference that he was interviewed at, and he mentioned that it's a great alarm clock

00:46:29   and immediately you were like, I messaging me like, well, how the hell is that going to work?

00:46:34   - Right, you'll charge it every night.

00:46:37   And then you'll remember at four in the morning to wake up.

00:46:41   - Put it on.

00:46:42   - Yeah, like you have to set your iPhone alarm

00:46:44   to remind you.

00:46:45   - There you go.

00:46:46   And fortunately that alarm goes no matter what.

00:46:48   So your iPhone alarm will go off,

00:46:51   you'll put the watch on,

00:46:52   and then four hours later you'll wake up.

00:46:54   - There is some talk, I forget where it came out,

00:46:57   like in the dribs and drabs of stuff

00:46:59   that's coming out in the last few weeks.

00:47:01   There's something that came out

00:47:03   that it might charge very quickly,

00:47:05   that it won't take all night to charge,

00:47:07   that it'll charge pretty fast.

00:47:09   And that might not even be

00:47:10   because the charging technology is all that fast,

00:47:12   but simply that it's such a tiny battery that--

00:47:14   - It's got a tiny battery, right, exactly.

00:47:15   It can't have that big a battery, given how big it is.

00:47:18   - Right, that maybe like an iPad

00:47:21   that was charging at the same rate would take a week,

00:47:24   but the watch can charge in half an hour

00:47:26   or something like that.

00:47:28   - And did they say anything,

00:47:30   is the bigger watch gonna have a bigger battery?

00:47:32   - It must, right?

00:47:34   I mean, why wouldn't it?

00:47:37   I can't imagine that they would put a smaller battery in it

00:47:41   just so that it has the same, you know,

00:47:44   and presumably it's going to need,

00:47:47   the laws of physics would say that it's going to need

00:47:49   a bigger, the screen's gonna use more energy.

00:47:52   'Cause it has-- - Right, so that's actually

00:47:54   the question is, is will it have longer battery life?

00:47:57   - Right, is it like an iPhone 6, 6 Plus type thing

00:48:00   where the bigger one is gonna have noticeably

00:48:01   better battery life or is it the other way around where maybe the extra size of the screen

00:48:08   eats up all the extra battery life that they can fit in there? I don't know. It's a good

00:48:12   question.

00:48:13   I guess we'll see in a week, maybe.

00:48:14   Yeah. I hadn't really thought about this because for whatever reason, selfishly, I had known

00:48:20   that if I get one of these, I'm going to want 42 millimeters, not the 38 millimeter. So

00:48:25   I haven't really thought about the 38 millimeter ones. And then when it comes to cost, I haven't

00:48:29   really like the game that everybody's playing you know the last two weeks

00:48:33   including me I'm not pointing figures but you know how much of these things

00:48:38   gonna cost I hadn't occurred to me that the 38 millimeter one would cost less

00:48:42   right at any level aluminum steel gold gold it makes out of it the gold right

00:48:48   right because even if the price isn't really based on the price of gold it

00:48:52   there's the illusion that it is right right yeah so if you if you if they were

00:48:57   the same price, then somebody's getting something for free. Right, right. It feels like you're

00:49:01   getting, it actually feels like you're getting ripped off if they're the same price, if you're

00:49:05   getting the bigger one, or the smaller one. But anyway, we can talk about pricing in a moment.

00:49:10   But with Pebble, I don't know. The bottom line, I'm very impressed by what they've

00:49:16   showed. I don't think I'm going to like it, and I think you're right that maybe it's not even

00:49:19   fair because I'm an iPhone user, but I'm certainly rooting for them.

00:49:24   I think it's I think it's certainly great to have anybody in the space doing something to compete with Apple and doing something different where hopefully

00:49:31   Some ideas cross pollinate instead of you know, somebody coming directly head-on and and you're just trying to match features here. It's something where

00:49:39   Pebble has some very different ideas and potentially it changes the way you do things on both platforms

00:49:44   Android where I think one of the things that to me was a little surprising about

00:49:49   The when the Apple watch was unveiled in September was how at least at the hardware level

00:49:56   It's sort of the same basic idea as Android wear right like it's you know a phone type display

00:50:03   You know whether it's IPS or whether it's OLED or whatever

00:50:07   It sounds like apples is going to be OLED because they want the blacks to you know, they want the deeper blacks

00:50:14   But it's whatever the actual technology it's a you know, a light up bright color phone display with a touchscreen

00:50:21   You know, it's take a take a modern smartphone and shrink it to your watch right at a fundamental level now

00:50:27   I think Apple watch is clearly more ambitious than Android where in terms of having apps actually on the watch and Android

00:50:33   Where is a little bit more about just showing you these cards that are based on your Google now

00:50:39   profile. It's more like here's all the stuff Google knows about you. Google knows you have

00:50:43   a flight tomorrow because your Gmail adds the flight confirmation from the airline.

00:50:48   And so they put a card on here. And since they know you have a flight and you're going to

00:50:53   San Francisco, then they know to put a card on there that has your weather for San Francisco.

00:50:59   It's this card-based interface. But just at the hardware level, it's this one day of battery life

00:51:06   Bluetooth connection to your phone with a bright color screen and pebble pebble has a very different

00:51:11   take on that with the battery i mean the pebble is obviously very different with the with the

00:51:16   e-paper with the e-ink but what what might you have expected apple to do any differently i guess

00:51:20   i don't know i uh you know i i i guess it's not in the digital crown is sort of their distinguishing

00:51:28   hardware characteristic right absolutely and and i know that it sounds like a trivial little thing

00:51:33   And I pointed this out on Twitter the other day, and a whole bunch of Android people were like,

00:51:39   "Dude, all the Android Wear phones have a crown. Look." But they don't. They have buttons. It's

00:51:46   placed where it goes on a watch. It's over there in the same place where a crown is on a watch.

00:51:52   But on all the Android Wear phones that I've seen to date, it's just a button that you press to

00:51:55   wake it up or dismiss things or something. What I mean that Apple has done that is original is

00:52:01   is the spinning crown and that it's a big part of the interaction of using the device.

00:52:06   Well, I think they talked about it, right? That the, you know, the gesture on the iPad,

00:52:11   you know, 10 years ago, the spinning wheel was a big deal and then touch multi-touch on the iPhone,

00:52:17   and now this is sort of the new gesture that, you know, is distinguishing and potentially

00:52:23   changes the way you're going to use this sort of thing. Right. I think that, yeah, I think

00:52:26   you're right though that in the video, like I think Johnny Ive, you know, we're not like putting

00:52:31   words in his mouth. That's exactly what he said. Like that each one of those leaps forward came

00:52:35   with one new thing like the Macintosh with the mouse pointer, right? Right. You have a thing on

00:52:41   your desk that you slide around your desk and it moves a pointer on your screen. That's what the

00:52:45   crown is to the Apple watch. Yeah. So, so when you did the, when you got to try one on, did,

00:52:51   did you try one of the functional ones on or did you just have the, I know they had like a demo.

00:52:55   No, nobody that I know of got to try on only Apple employees got, had the functioning ones.

00:53:01   ones that I got to try on were all running the loop. But the loop included, like when

00:53:07   it included things like getting a text message. So it's like, you know, it wasn't like a movie

00:53:15   was playing on a watch. It's like a series of events. Yeah. You know, right. But it's still not

00:53:21   so did you use the digital crown at all? I got to spin it, but I did not get to

00:53:29   use it in a meaningful way. Like when I spun it, it didn't affect what was going on on the watch.

00:53:34   Matt

00:53:56   I described the feel of the digital crown as I used the word lugubrious I

00:54:03   Knew it was a really wonderful word that started with L. But lugubrious is a word that means looking or sounding sad and dismal

00:54:13   It sounds like it means like liquid yeah, which is somehow why

00:54:22   it came to mind. The word I was looking for was "lubricousness."

00:54:27   As in lubricated?

00:54:30   Yes.

00:54:31   Okay.

00:54:32   Lubricous is a word that means, well, the first sense of it is not what I mean. The first sense

00:54:37   means offensively displaying or intended to arouse sexual desire. That is not what I meant. I meant,

00:54:45   definition two, smooth and slippery with oil or a similar substance.

00:54:50   Okay.

00:54:51   And there is it's simply the only word that I've encountered that describes the feel of the digital crown. It has a wonderful

00:54:59   Wonderful almost magical lubriciousness to it

00:55:03   Alright, I'm telling you when this thing comes out and everybody gets to play with it

00:55:08   I'm telling it this is all everybody is gonna say is oh my god

00:55:11   I like to just sit there and spin that wheel. It just has this wonderful feel it feels amazing

00:55:18   It does not feel like you're spinning a mechanical thing. It feels like like it's somehow suspended in the world's like

00:55:25   Best oil and that it's like not even touching anything mechanical and it just spins in the oil

00:55:32   And it doesn't it doesn't spin. It doesn't ever reach an end point, right? No

00:55:36   It spins infinitely in both directions like a like a mouse pointer or a you know mouse wheel like a scroll wheel. Yeah

00:55:43   yeah, right, right, so if you were if if

00:55:48   And still, and people say to me, like I say, even on the show last week, I'll emphasize,

00:55:53   I really still have so many questions about Apple.

00:55:56   I mean, I'm kind of bummed that I'm not going to the event because I have so many questions.

00:55:59   But you know, and there's so many other events where I go and I don't really have that many

00:56:05   questions.

00:56:06   You know what I mean?

00:56:07   Like it's like—

00:56:08   Right.

00:56:09   When there's a new iPhone, it's not—

00:56:10   Right.

00:56:11   It's going to be terribly different from the old iPhone.

00:56:12   Right.

00:56:13   Like the better example would be the iPads last year.

00:56:15   Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:56:16   least with the iPhones last year, it's like, well, am I going to like a bigger phone? How,

00:56:19   you know, the big phone was kind of a curiosity. But with the iPads, it was like, same as last

00:56:24   year, but now they have touch ID. It's like, okay. And I'm not saying, I don't blame Apple.

00:56:28   I'm not saying that was a bad event. I'm saying that somehow that's how progress happens.

00:56:31   I'm just saying, if I had to miss that event, I don't really feel like I was missing out

00:56:36   on a chance to really learn anything. I mean, it was pretty easy to figure out, you know,

00:56:41   remotely. Whereas the watch, I have so many questions, so many questions. And I don't

00:56:46   see how anybody couldn't be chock full of questions. Because the one thing they've shown

00:56:50   that you use the crown for is zooming. So when you're on the home screen, you can turn

00:56:55   it one way, spin it one way, and the apps get smaller, and you'll see more of them.

00:56:58   And you spin it the other way, and you zoom in, which makes them easier to tap. And then

00:57:03   the photos work the same way. So you can zoom out, and you see thousands of, or hundreds,

00:57:08   I guess, of tiny little thumbnails. And then you can zoom in and make them bigger. But

00:57:13   Are you gonna be able to use it to scroll

00:57:15   or when you scroll is that like you use the touch screen?

00:57:18   I mean I can't imagine that you're gonna wanna read

00:57:22   long passages of text but it still seems to me

00:57:26   like that would work for scrolling too

00:57:28   'cause that it would for the same reason that they said

00:57:30   that they didn't wanna use touch for everything

00:57:32   which is that your big fat finger covers everything.

00:57:34   - Just gets in the way, yeah.

00:57:35   - Right.

00:57:36   I should take another break for a sponsor

00:57:40   but I just off the top of my head another thing,

00:57:42   I know I've mentioned this before but it's okay because everybody forgets all sorts of stuff

00:57:45   But I keep getting questions on Twitter about whether there are going to be left-handed

00:57:48   Models of the watch and the answer is no you can just it's a setting

00:57:55   Might even that's right. Yeah, you just turn it upside down and because the straps come right off. It's very easy

00:58:02   you'll just take the straps off put the

00:58:04   You know top strap on the bottom bottom strap on the top and then when you put it on your wrist it like knows that

00:58:10   Oh, you're left-handed and it'll just turn the whole interface upside down and the only is is it not even a setting that you need

00:58:16   to adjust I

00:58:17   Don't think so

00:58:18   Although I don't know because I I asked it might be the sort of thing that if if you do it

00:58:24   Before you go through the first run. It'll recognize it and know okay

00:58:28   But otherwise, you know, I think it's just a quick setting, you know open up settings and you know, tap a checkbox and

00:58:37   It just turns upside down. So the only difference you'll have as a left-handed user is that your crown will be underneath the button and

00:58:44   So yeah, that of the crown being above the button. It'll be below the button

00:58:48   That's the only difference which does make it a little weird

00:58:51   It still makes me you know

00:58:53   I'm still curious about the whole idea that it's not centered that the crown isn't centered because if the crown were centered

00:58:59   Which it is on a lot of watches then it would be it would be identical left-handed and right-handed. I

00:59:06   I don't think it's a big difference though.

00:59:07   And I also know I saw firsthand walking around after the event, I saw Eddy Cue wearing his

00:59:14   and he's left handed and he had it on his right hand upside down.

00:59:20   But there's only one button, right?

00:59:21   There's the crown on the button.

00:59:22   Right.

00:59:23   But the button is underneath the… when you're wearing it on your left wrist, the crown is

00:59:28   at the top and the button's underneath.

00:59:31   if you turn it upside down the crown is on the bottom and the button is at the top right

00:59:36   but even if even if the crown were centered the button would still oh yeah the button

00:59:40   would still yeah that's flipped yeah exactly I'm in my you know wonder why they didn't

00:59:45   do it this way world it would I guess it's sort of why didn't they put the button on

00:59:49   one side and the crown on the other right having both in the center but if you're gonna

00:59:53   put one above the other it would definitely not be the same left-handed and right-handed

00:59:58   - Right, yeah, yeah.

00:59:59   - Let me take a break here and thank our good friends

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01:05:58   So anyway, we talked about pebble we're talking about Apple watch

01:06:04   We could get into pricing I know I've written about this I

01:06:09   Don't I mean you've written about it and that was interesting enough. I find it sort of

01:06:14   We're gonna know in a week, right? Right. I do

01:06:17   I know I

01:06:18   That's the thing about doing this show the show before an event is fun because it's like the one time where you can you can

01:06:23   be completely wrong and just make stuff up and it's like anything could happen. But then

01:06:28   it's like, you know, six days from now, everything we said is either going to be completely wrong

01:06:32   and we look like idiots. Or even if we were right, it doesn't matter because everybody

01:06:36   knows it's true.

01:06:37   Who cares? Yeah. I mean, the most interesting thing to me is seeing just how big the range

01:06:44   is. And, you know, they've only told us one thing, that it's $349 for the very cheapest

01:06:48   Right and that to me means I figure there's like a slight chance. It's actually 299. What do you think?

01:06:54   No, you know you don't think they come down from that. Nope. Haven't they done that before I?

01:06:59   Think I feel like there was a product where they had pre announced a price and then they dropped at 50 bucks. I

01:07:05   Mean it certainly is more possible than that day that they raised the price, you know, right?

01:07:12   It's certainly not gonna be more than 349 to start right?

01:07:16   There's gonna be at least one model you can get for 349 for sure. I

01:07:20   Guess 299 is possible

01:07:23   But I don't know that just feels it feels to me like a side effect of the Tim Cook era of Apple is that?

01:07:29   They've they've really neatened up on things like that, you know like

01:07:34   Like famously with the iPhone

01:07:39   When they announced it at Macworld in January 2007 it had some kind of high

01:07:45   polymer plastic touch screen.

01:07:49   And then it was like right in May,

01:07:51   where they first announced final shipping dates and stuff,

01:07:55   and they said, "And by the way,

01:07:56   "we've upgraded the display from plastic

01:07:59   "to this amazing glass from,"

01:08:02   what's that company?

01:08:04   - Corning. - Corning.

01:08:05   And in stories that have come out in the years since,

01:08:09   it was clearly like,

01:08:14   know that it was Steve who's like, "Goddamn it, this is nicer, so we're definitely doing it. We're

01:08:18   not waiting a year. We're getting it in here now." And it's up to Tim Cook to somehow make this

01:08:22   happen. Where like- And I think the story was they had to find a factory, they had to ramp the

01:08:27   factory up to do it. It wasn't as if this existed and was being made. It was crazy.

01:08:32   Right. It was like nobody was really using it. Corning invented Gorilla Glass years before,

01:08:36   but nobody had really found a use for it. And they just didn't... They more or less needed them

01:08:42   to make more of it than they'd ever made before. And by the way, it's got to happen in the next

01:08:47   four weeks. So you're saying that I think you're right that it's a lot tighter.

01:08:52   Yeah, stuff like that doesn't happen anymore, I don't think. I think part of it is that Jobs

01:08:58   was clearly impetuous, and I don't think anybody would describe Tim Cook as impetuous. And I just

01:09:03   think that it's just a little bit more orderly. I feel like as of September, Tim Cook knew that

01:09:10   that they could sell this entry thing for $349.

01:09:12   And marketing-wise, however they decided

01:09:15   that that looks good as the entry level price,

01:09:17   I just don't see how that would change.

01:09:19   - Okay, so we're starting at $349.

01:09:21   Yeah, so to me, I don't care if it's exactly $999

01:09:26   or $1299, whatever, but I think the interesting thing to me

01:09:29   is just the three price points of the entry level

01:09:33   and then just the straight up Apple Watch and the edition,

01:09:36   which I think is, I hate that suffix

01:09:40   as to try and mean a whole 'nother thing, but.

01:09:43   - The more I write about it, the harder,

01:09:45   it never ceases being a mouthful to--

01:09:50   - Apple Watch edition.

01:09:51   - Right, because I keep wanting to use editions

01:09:54   to mean what they call collections.

01:09:57   - Right, yeah, that's just, the word edition means,

01:10:00   or often means a group of something.

01:10:03   - Right.

01:10:04   - And so I find it very awkward

01:10:05   that to be a model, but whatever. And combined with the fact, and I've still to this date,

01:10:10   still not gotten used to the fact that the mid-price or mid-level, the steel one is just

01:10:16   called Apple Watch. I really wish that it was the app, you know, the basic Apple Watch Sport,

01:10:21   Apple Watch Steel, Apple Watch Edition. I don't call it something, you know. Oh, give it, give

01:10:26   that one, give that one some sort of suffixes. That they all have a name, right? Right. There'd

01:10:31   there'd be like Sport, Steel, and Edition.

01:10:33   You know, I kind of see why they didn't,

01:10:36   I'm not even saying, 'cause I can't think of a good name.

01:10:38   I don't think Steel is a great name.

01:10:39   I think, you know, it's, you know, I don't know.

01:10:44   It's not great. - Sounds heavy.

01:10:45   - Yeah, and it maybe sounds a little masculine.

01:10:49   - Right, oh, definitely, yeah.

01:10:50   - You know, so I know, you know, I don't know,

01:10:54   and regular sounds stupid too.

01:10:56   You know, it's just called Apple Watch.

01:10:57   But it still, it makes it very hard to write about

01:11:00   because sometimes when you say Apple Watch,

01:11:02   you mean all of them, like your app.

01:11:05   Your app just runs on Apple Watch,

01:11:06   and it doesn't matter which one you bought.

01:11:09   But when you're shopping, if you just buy an Apple Watch,

01:11:12   you're buying a very specific model.

01:11:14   You're buying the stainless steel one.

01:11:17   Very confusing.

01:11:18   Perhaps worrisome, I don't know.

01:11:20   Maybe it's a little worrisome that they're coming out

01:11:23   with something that seems so,

01:11:25   sometimes it's so hard to talk about.

01:11:27   - Well, it's interesting 'cause you,

01:11:29   before we started the show,

01:11:30   sent me this image that somebody made and it was based on pricing predictions you had made.

01:11:34   They made this whole image and it was just, you know, here's all the prices. And I guess

01:11:40   you said it got circulated as if this was a real leak, right?

01:11:42   I'll put it, I will absolutely, positively, Dave, make sure I put this in the show notes.

01:11:47   I've already got a link in my show notes as we go. It's a guy, oh God, why can't anybody on a forum

01:11:55   Give themselves a real name

01:11:57   Pjur one is a Mac rumors forum member and last week he posted this image

01:12:04   And he his what he wrote. He's very honest. He's straightforward about he wrote I made this speculative

01:12:10   Priceless based in large part on Gruber's speculation colon and then here's the image that he made

01:12:17   But he he's using Apple

01:12:21   photography of the watches and he's set the names in the you know,

01:12:26   San Francisco font and he's got the prices in Helvetica

01:12:30   So it's vaguely styled or roughly styled in the format of Apple's marketing materials

01:12:36   I could tell by looking at it right away that it's not official. It's there's little subtle things that are off about the

01:12:42   fonts, but it's close enough that

01:12:47   5% of people could easily be convinced that this is from Apple.

01:12:51   - Right, and so then it got circulated

01:12:52   as if this had leaked out of Apple, right?

01:12:54   - Right, 'cause it's all one big image,

01:12:55   and of course it hit Twitter and people stop immediately,

01:12:59   especially when the source is something

01:13:00   like a forum post at MacRumors.

01:13:03   And it spun out of control incredibly fast.

01:13:08   Within 24 hours over the last weekend,

01:13:10   it went from, did you see that there was a guy

01:13:13   who posted a thing in the MacRumors forum

01:13:15   to like the poor kid, some poor kid at iDownload blog,

01:13:20   like by the next day had written,

01:13:22   these are the Apple Watch prices.

01:13:24   - And then had to retract it later.

01:13:27   - Yeah, had to retract it with a horribly,

01:13:30   he was very contrite about it, but you know.

01:13:33   - Well, what was interesting about the whole thing was--

01:13:35   - I still get it, if you look at my Twitter stream,

01:13:36   by the way, right now as we speak,

01:13:38   you won't have to go more than 20 or 30

01:13:40   before you'll find somebody asking me

01:13:42   what I think about this leaked, priceless.

01:13:45   Which is based on your own predictions

01:13:48   Right.

01:13:49   From like two weeks earlier.

01:13:50   Right, but it's actually not. I actually think that these prices are off. There's some things

01:13:55   that I think he probably got right and he was very thoughtful about, but I think once he gets

01:14:00   past Apple Watch Sport, he's vastly underestimating the price of these things.

01:14:04   Well, what I thought was interesting about it was just how clunky the image was, and it shows,

01:14:10   Yeah, I have to pull the thing up, but it shows there's like 18 rows aren't there?

01:14:15   At least right right and it's it's showing you know here's the intro sport. Here's the

01:14:22   steel sport. Here's the main Apple watch. Here's the Apple watch in space gray or whatever and

01:14:27   he's got 12 pricing tiers. Okay, and each one in two sizes 38 and 42 and we mentioned this earlier

01:14:37   They showed I think that actually makes sense that I don't know about at the sport level

01:14:41   I could see like maybe at sport

01:14:43   They're both just 349 and you just pick the size you want but then I think once you go to steel and gold

01:14:47   There there probably will be a small difference in price

01:14:50   right

01:14:53   But it was interesting just because of how clunky it actually is and you know

01:14:56   We were talking about how clunky it is to talk about the different

01:14:59   Collections

01:15:02   and I think it's I don't know it'll be interesting to see just how this plays out because

01:15:06   Apple has not really ever had anything at least not recently. It was this complex or this complicated, right?

01:15:12   It is like buying a watch

01:15:14   I mean like when you go and buy, you know a watch at a jewelry store, you know

01:15:18   you can't just say I want a you know Rolex Explorer and

01:15:22   Well, I guess Rolex Explorer is actually one where there is just one

01:15:26   You know like a Rolex Submariner has all sorts of color choices just on the dial there's blue dial

01:15:35   There's green dial the black dial is the traditional one steel steel with gold all gold, you know, etc, etc

01:15:42   And that there's you know, all sorts of matrixes like that within

01:15:47   The line of all the major watch brands where you know certain watches come in all sorts of different

01:15:53   You know dial colors and band colors and stuff like that

01:15:56   But it's absolutely nothing like any Apple product before right and and you know

01:16:02   Apple used to have these terrible major matrices of products, you know

01:16:05   the ten different models of performa back in the early 90s and so on and

01:16:09   Then I think it's in my mind

01:16:12   It's sort of burned in where Steve Jobs would have a grid and there would just be four items

01:16:17   Right, right and it's you know good better best and and I don't know I guess that's only three items, but

01:16:22   well famously the I

01:16:25   To me it was like a moment where I remember thinking like I think that this guy is gonna do it

01:16:30   I think he's going to turn the company around is that that four-way matrix for

01:16:35   It was laptop desktops

01:16:38   Yeah, right pro consumer

01:16:40   And so that's it. So it's the iBook. It's the power book. It's the iMac. It's the power mac, right? Yeah

01:16:45   Yeah, that's that's really the one i'm thinking. Yeah, and it was brilliant and it in hindsight

01:16:50   I think it's so easy to underestimate the brilliance of that decision

01:16:52   But it it cut all sorts, you know

01:16:55   Cutting products out of a company is always painful politically unless you're somebody like jobs who just doesn't give a shit

01:17:00   about the policy screw you if your job was running the performance 700 line you know

01:17:06   you know get with the program and none of the no other computer company had a had a

01:17:12   lineup like that right I mean even to this day if you go to like dell.com and try to

01:17:16   configure it it's a nightmare trying to it's hard to even figure out like even if you just

01:17:22   know I want like the the maxed out you know I want the best laptop I can get it's like

01:17:26   hard to figure it out. Right? It's this is nothing like that. And again, that's not to say that if

01:17:33   Steve Jobs were still around, they wouldn't be doing this. Who knows, you know, maybe, you know,

01:17:36   he and Johnny I've mapped out these watches, you know, five years ago, and you know, he'd be right

01:17:41   on board watches are different. You know, there's no, you know, you can't sell watches like yourself.

01:17:46   PCs and laptops. Well, well, are you? Well, they're not they're not willing to try at least

01:17:53   right now or they're looking to try doing it the way you normally sell a watch as opposed to the

01:17:57   way that they sell phones and computers. Yeah, no, I guess you're right. I shouldn't say you can't. I

01:18:01   should say it doesn't. Apple apparently doesn't think that they can or they should. Well, and so

01:18:07   the interesting thing to me is I was in an Apple store, what about a week ago? And I they haven't

01:18:13   shown how the stores are going to change, but they're clearly going to have to change. And I

01:18:18   think that's something that everyone will see in the near future. And that to me is more interesting

01:18:22   speculating on the prices. You've been in a store recently, right?

01:18:26   Yeah, a couple times.

01:18:27   Yeah, what are they going to do?

01:18:29   I don't know. I mean, and they even said in the New Yorker story on Johnny Ive,

01:18:34   that big one profile, they even mentioned that one of the things he's got going on is that he's

01:18:39   leading a redesign of the—it sounds to me like from—it was sort of an offhand remark in, you know,

01:18:46   the article was so long that it's easy to just throw something off, but it seems like a huge

01:18:51   undertaking that they're gonna redesign all of the stores you know he's working

01:18:55   hand in hand with Angela aren't on that right partly for the watch for sure I'm

01:19:02   I'm guessing partly just to build for the future because who knows what

01:19:05   they're gonna do next you know but I have no idea what they're gonna do I my

01:19:10   best guess at this point is that there's nowhere near enough time for them to

01:19:13   renovate even if it's not a total redesign of every store even if it's

01:19:17   some kind of we're gonna renovate the where the genius bar used to be or

01:19:21   something. We're gonna get rid of all the, take the spot in the stores where they used to sell

01:19:27   gift cards. And I guess if you want a gift card now, you just talk to somebody and we'll use that

01:19:32   space to sell the watches. I don't think the vast majority of stores are gonna have the edition

01:19:40   models. I think that at least to start out, my best, this is my best, 'cause I just don't think

01:19:44   there's enough time. It's already March 2nd. If they don't ship until April 30, which would be the

01:19:51   And I don't think that's good given that the event is on March 9th. I'm kind of thinking they're gonna ship in early April, right?

01:19:56   But you know the the longest period of time they have

01:20:00   Between like seven weeks right and there's no way that they could do that across however many hundred stores they have

01:20:05   So do you think I think it's like three or four hundred stores now? Yeah, so do you think?

01:20:09   the addition models will be something that you go to New York City or LA or

01:20:13   You know could be to start and certainly San Francisco, right? Right, you know, there's whatever wherever

01:20:20   they're major cities yeah well and maybe that's all the stores that are like landmarks okay you

01:20:26   know there's i don't know what i don't quite think that they have like a tier of those stores you know

01:20:31   like a name for it but they're you know the ones like in london that tim cook was just at this week

01:20:37   you know the ones that look architecturally interesting and that are physically bigger

01:20:41   that they'll have you know a separate little uh a salon you know where you'll buy the edition models

01:20:49   I think I you know and I think they could they could even start and just say it's only in three

01:20:53   cities to start in New York you know Los Angeles and San Francisco and then they'll slowly roll

01:20:59   that out over time right yeah I don't know it's the to me that's that's a very interesting aspect

01:21:06   of it that you know not a lot of people will consider and then maybe it doesn't really matter

01:21:10   that much but this is it's not it's not changing the company the way that the iPad changed the

01:21:14   company because that was or it's changing it much more than the iPad or even the iPhone changed the

01:21:18   the company because those are still computing devices that are sold the way computing devices

01:21:24   are sold and the watch clearly is not going to be sold that way.

01:21:27   Right and it's there's so many different ways where it's like you can't have it both ways

01:21:32   like if you're going to say we're going and I just I really do believe that this is true that

01:21:37   these are ten thousand dollar watches maybe you know if and again if I'm right that they're

01:21:41   that they sell a gold link band, $20,000 watches. And that's totally reasonable given the price of

01:21:50   fine watches and solid gold bracelets in the market today. But you can't have those things

01:21:58   being sold by kids wearing jeans and t-shirts, right? Who like their next, the next thing that

01:22:06   they're doing is scanning somebody's Hello Kitty iPhone case.

01:22:11   (laughing)

01:22:13   - You probably, yeah.

01:22:15   - What can I help you with?

01:22:16   I'm buying a Hello Kitty iPhone case.

01:22:18   Oh, okay, thank you, here you go.

01:22:19   Do you want a receipt?

01:22:20   Nope, all right.

01:22:21   I'm buying a $15,000 watch.

01:22:23   Okay, here you go.

01:22:25   Like, I think Molt said last week,

01:22:26   do you think they're gonna let you do the walk out

01:22:28   and pay on your own?

01:22:29   (laughing)

01:22:31   - Just walk out the door.

01:22:32   - You wouldn't even imagine how hard you'd get tackled.

01:22:35   (laughing)

01:22:37   Trying to walk out of the store

01:22:38   with a self-paid $15,000 watch.

01:22:41   Like they're just gonna have them on the shelf

01:22:43   just in a little case.

01:22:46   - Yeah, you just grab it and you flash your receipt

01:22:47   and you're good to go.

01:22:49   - No, I don't know.

01:22:50   I'm having so much fun with this watch thing.

01:22:53   And again, it's not even because I know I want one

01:22:55   and I can't wait to get it 'cause I don't even know.

01:22:57   I'm so, so many questions

01:22:59   about what I would find useful with it.

01:23:01   I just find it useful like,

01:23:02   as somebody who's professionally paid

01:23:04   to write about the company that there's so many things

01:23:06   we don't know.

01:23:07   And there don't seem to be good answers for it.

01:23:11   There just does not seem to be a good answer

01:23:13   for how do you sell a $10,000 gold watch

01:23:15   in the Apple store as we know it.

01:23:17   Like I said to Molt last week, I know in the Philly store,

01:23:21   we have an upstairs that's not retail.

01:23:23   You can't wander up there.

01:23:24   It's like the business center and they have classes

01:23:27   and stuff like that.

01:23:28   And I could see them apportioning, you know,

01:23:31   like if you go in to buy the edition,

01:23:33   you would be taken up there.

01:23:35   But even then, even if you get escorted

01:23:37   to a quiet salon-type experience

01:23:41   and get a concierge level of sales.

01:23:44   - Get some cucumber water.

01:23:45   - Yeah, cucumber water and maybe a glass of bubbly.

01:23:49   And you get to try these watches on

01:23:51   while sitting or whatever.

01:23:54   I still don't see how you go from the front of the store

01:23:56   to where you tell somebody that's what you're here for.

01:24:03   my big irritation with Apple stores in general is that sometimes it's so hard to get somebody's

01:24:07   attention, like if you know exactly what you want to get. You know, like we got Jonas a MacBook for

01:24:17   Christmas, and I knew exactly what I wanted to get. And it's like, you know, it didn't take too long.

01:24:24   And you know, I have to say, given that it was the holiday season and everything, it didn't take too

01:24:28   long. But it seemed to take a little bit too long given that I knew exactly what I wanted when I

01:24:32   stepped foot into the store right yeah yeah and and now they're adding a whole

01:24:38   separate section most likely right like if you walk into a Tiffany to buy some

01:24:44   fine jewelry you know there's no there aren't any there's no loud crowds you

01:24:48   know you don't kids sitting on round balls playing bugs life or right it's

01:24:54   you know and who knows you know maybe if it's like the Christmas or whatever

01:24:59   whatever, maybe you might have to wait to before a salesperson will come greet you.

01:25:04   But once the first salesperson who greets you is going to be able to handle your request,

01:25:09   whether it's for $150 pendant or whether it's for $15,000 pendant, right? It's like whatever

01:25:16   it is that you're there to buy at Tiffany, that your sales rep is going to make you feel

01:25:20   comfortable and like you're in the right place.

01:25:23   Right. I just don't get it with that. I think the more I think I wrote about this last week

01:25:30   I the more I look at the bands the more I think that there's gonna be

01:25:33   wide variation and pricing based on the band

01:25:38   I'm convinced of it and I think it's sort of how they fill in the gaps

01:25:42   Like if you're looking I think if you're looking and I this is high for months. I was thinking well three main price points

01:25:47   You know 349 for sport

01:25:50   Something maybe a thousand for the steel and five thousand for gold or whatever. I think that within each

01:25:55   Collection I'm making sure I use the right word within each collection. There's gonna be I think a

01:26:01   Not startlingly big but a very wide variety like I could see the still based on fans

01:26:08   Yeah, I could see the steel one like starting at like seven hundred dollars

01:26:12   With the rubber band. What do they call it? Poly you?

01:26:16   urethane what's the famous their fancy word for rubber band rubber strap

01:26:21   floral elastomer all right I would not have come up with that black floral

01:26:29   elastomer so I could see that starting at let's say 700 which would be double

01:26:35   the price of the sport watch which to me is like a reasonable like increment to

01:26:39   go from aluminum to steel you double it but then I would think like the ones

01:26:46   but the leather bands would be a couple hundred bucks more than that and I could see like

01:26:49   the metal link band one being like $1500 or even $2000 and I know everybody else is like

01:26:56   nobody else is thinking that for the steel one but I could see them doing it. I just

01:27:02   reread it before we started the show. On Apple Watch's page, you go to apple.com/watch/apple-watch.

01:27:10   Now this is probably going to change next week so you know go check it out before you

01:27:15   I'm guessing the website will be redone after it's released.

01:27:19   But here's their description for the link bracelet.

01:27:22   This is for the steel watch.

01:27:23   This isn't for the edition.

01:27:24   This is for the steel watch.

01:27:26   Crafted from the same 316L stainless steel alloy is the case.

01:27:30   The link bracelet has more than 100 components.

01:27:34   The machining process is so precise, it takes nearly nine hours to cut the links for a single

01:27:40   band.

01:27:41   In part, that's because they aren't simply a uniform size but subtly increase in width

01:27:46   as they approach the case.

01:27:48   Once assembled, the links are brushed by hand to ensure that the texture follows the contours

01:27:54   of the design.

01:27:55   The custom butterfly closure folds neatly within the bracelet and several links feature

01:28:00   a simple release button so you can add and remove links without any special tools available

01:28:05   in stainless steel and black stainless steel.

01:28:08   If it takes nine hours for them to cut one, and then after it's assembled, it's polished

01:28:13   by hand, that's not going to be like $150 extra.

01:28:19   I'm not exaggerating.

01:28:22   That might be like a $1,500 bracelet.

01:28:25   It might mean that the watch that comes with that bracelet is $2,000.

01:28:32   Reading that description, it certainly sounds much more expensive than I think what people

01:28:37   anticipating yeah right it's like at first like the way they showed it at the

01:28:41   event in September it's like you can get a bracelet that matches your taste you

01:28:45   know maybe you're you know maybe and I like I've had over the years I've had

01:28:49   many watches with like a rubber plastic strap I find them to be very comfortable

01:28:53   I think you know I always feel like you can get them nice and tight and then

01:28:56   they have a little bit of give I I think that the fluoro elastomer band is gonna

01:29:01   be great but they made it seem as though it's like pick the one that matches your

01:29:06   style and you know maybe you know I think everybody thought well maybe this

01:29:09   the link bracelet will cost a little bit more but I if you think about it if you

01:29:13   just start with the assumption that it's gonna cost a lot more that description

01:29:17   makes a lot more sense nine hours to cut the links is for what what what bracelet

01:29:23   what I'll tell you what they're saying you know that's because they chained

01:29:27   width slightly maybe they could have just made them the same width well or

01:29:31   you could have cut in about four hours well why couldn't you have one machine

01:29:34   that cuts the first link one machine you know right right right it actually it

01:29:40   seems kind of crazy that it takes nine hours you know but I mean I have no

01:29:45   reason to doubt them but there certainly seem to be setting it up it that to me

01:29:48   sounds like the description of a $1,500 bracelet of an expensive piece of

01:29:52   watch band yeah right the thing that's the thing that's so interesting to me is

01:29:58   that all of these watches are the same like the gold whatever it costs whether

01:30:04   it's only 1500 bucks or whether it's 15,000 bucks it's still the exact same device as the watch that

01:30:10   you're gonna get for 349 bucks and that's nuts well but there is precedent for that in the the

01:30:19   some precedent not scaling all the way down to 349 but that's you know like if you buy a Rolex

01:30:26   Submariner in stainless steel in the fashion world there's huge precedent right right or yeah

01:30:32   are like handbags right that they're you know there might be two Louis Vuitton bags but one is

01:30:37   made out of you know I don't know some kind of special rare leather and the other one is right

01:30:44   out of the regular leather and it's you know $5,000 difference and it's the exact same bag

01:30:49   same dimension same pocket same zippers everything's the same except one is made out of a different kind

01:30:54   of leather and it costs $5,000 more you know but in terms of technology what has

01:31:01   besides besides the outlier like what's the virtue is the one that makes a case

01:31:06   for your phone that makes it worth like no not a case it is a phone but it's it's

01:31:10   a whole phone right right but it's a well but the value in it is all in the

01:31:13   case right the case of the phone the casing moles and I were talking about

01:31:18   this last week they also offer a concierge service where there's like a

01:31:22   a special button on the phone and then it you just hit this button and then you get like a virtue person who will be like

01:31:28   We want on star for your phone. Yeah. Yeah, and you're like, oh, I want to you know, I want to go to Italian restaurant tonight

01:31:33   Well, but I mean besides these outliers in terms of selling technology

01:31:39   I don't think there's ever been anything like this. No

01:31:42   No, you cannot think of it as a technology product. You really kid doesn't make any sense, right?

01:31:48   Well, but I think I think that's completely true, but I think the $349 one as a technology product is very interesting. Yeah

01:31:55   So it's it's almost like they're selling you know an Apple watch for 349 bucks or Apple watch sport

01:32:02   Whatever and then they're also entering the fashion world with this

01:32:05   You know all these bands and all these different cases and and it's it's two completely different

01:32:11   Markets. Yeah, absolutely

01:32:13   it's it also

01:32:18   I remember the day of the event, the very day of the event back in September, I met

01:32:23   Michael Lop in San Francisco, you know, like after he got out of work at five and we got

01:32:31   a drink.

01:32:32   And the first thing he said, and I thought it was so astute, is that it seems as though

01:32:36   they're launching this product three years in.

01:32:41   You know, that the Apple way to do it would have been the first one.

01:32:43   Here's the Apple Watch.

01:32:45   one size, one color, one style as a white band. Here's what it does. And then the next year,

01:32:50   they fix it and make it better, whatever. And then maybe in the third year, they say,

01:32:55   "Okay, this has been great. It's been a great success. Now you can get it in steel,

01:32:59   you can get it in gold, et cetera. Here's all these other leather bands."

01:33:02   Michael - Right. This is fully formed in terms of they didn't just make the watch and they didn't

01:33:07   just make the watch in three different cases. They made all these bands and they've done every,

01:33:13   they've really fine-tuned every aspect of it.

01:33:16   Yeah, definitely. And I think that they're going to cover an incredible gamut of price

01:33:21   points. I think that, you know, and I think, you know, I think 90-some percent—this is

01:33:26   another thing. The Wall Street Journal had this goofy story two weeks ago about some

01:33:31   sources in the supply chain that said that they expect to sell like 50 percent sport

01:33:36   and 33% steel and 16% gold. That's crazy. The more I think about it, the more I think

01:33:43   that whoever told them that was just, you know, like a—

01:33:46   Eric Bischoff Screwing with them?

01:33:47   Trevor Burrus Yeah, just totally screwing with them. Because

01:33:50   there is no way—unless it's possible that I'm completely wrong. Could be that I'm

01:33:55   completely wrong and the gold one is only going to cost, I don't know, $1500 or something.

01:34:00   It's far more in line with the $349 price.

01:34:05   If I'm right, though, that it's—even if I'm only right that it's $5,000, let alone

01:34:09   $10,000 to start, there's no way that 16% of the ones they'd sell, they're not going

01:34:13   to sell a million of those a month.

01:34:15   That's crazy town, right?

01:34:18   I mean, Rolex only sells—I mean, Rolex is a very secretive company, but best that anybody

01:34:24   can tell is Rolex sells somewhere around 600,000 watches a year.

01:34:29   There's some weird thing where they have to submit them to some Swiss government agency

01:34:36   that's officially—

01:34:37   Jared Ranere>> A horological society or something?

01:34:38   Steven

01:34:50   That's probably less rigorous than what Rolex themselves is

01:34:53   But it lets them say it's an officially certified chronometer and that because it's like a government thing

01:34:58   The numbers come out and it's something like Rolex certifies

01:35:01   800,000 watches a year or at least they did in 2012, but that they might only sell 600,000 of them

01:35:08   I guess you don't get the watch certified you get the movement certified the

01:35:11   Okay, you know some of those might be for repairs or who knows but there's such they're almost Apple like in their secrecy and it

01:35:18   know, maybe it's just purposeful misdirection. Yeah, but it could be that they're, you know,

01:35:23   extras for repairs or whatever. But at the very least, though, long way of saying that's just a

01:35:29   baseline for what, you know, the world's premier luxury watchmaker sells in a year, 600,000.

01:35:35   Right. It's almost a ceiling. I mean, not that Apple can't sell more,

01:35:38   but it's a likely ceiling.

01:35:40   Right. And a lot of Rolex's watches do not cost more than $10,000. I mean,

01:35:44   And a lot of them do, but I think by volume, you know, a lot of them sell less.

01:35:48   So if the edition starts at $10,000, which I really do think it does, the idea that they

01:35:53   would sell a million of them a quarter in the first year, it just does not compute.

01:36:00   I mean, and this is – I think – I don't think anybody would accuse me of being a pessimist

01:36:06   on Apple, you know, future Apple products success, you know, possibilities.

01:36:11   But I'm just saying that in terms of, you know, just how the world seems to work in

01:36:16   terms of people who spend that kind of money on jewelry, it just seems out of scale.

01:36:21   So I think the Wall Street Journal is nuts.

01:36:22   I think the edition is going to be like – I think the company could wind up making tons

01:36:27   of money on them because even if only like 1 percent of the watches sold are the edition

01:36:31   ones, if they're 15,000 on average, that's tons of money, right?

01:36:36   It's 30 or 40 times – each one of them is 30 or 40 times more expensive than a sport

01:36:40   edition but there's no way it's gonna be that I don't think I think the vast majority of people

01:36:46   are gonna come in and just buy a sport as though you know like buying an iPod you know 349 bucks

01:36:52   boom right yeah the the market for the higher end and the highest end ones is certainly going

01:36:59   to be very small compared to the market for a consumer priced watch yeah yeah you know it's

01:37:07   You know did it and there's so many weird psychological things to it too where it's like

01:37:11   If they only had the one if they did what seemingly would be the more obvious route and just said here's the first Apple watch

01:37:18   It's three hundred forty nine dollars. It comes in these colors

01:37:21   That's it

01:37:21   And maybe you know maybe do the 38 and 42 millimeter size thing because there is sort of a they're not calling it men's and ladies

01:37:28   But clearly there's a sort of men's and ladies divide on average wrist size

01:37:35   If they did that, you know, there'd be so many people who would say wow 349 bucks for a watch, you know

01:37:40   You know you're going to buy a fossil watch. It's you know, $75 or whatever

01:37:44   There is that psychological thing where even if you don't even count the addition if you just look at the stainless steel

01:37:50   If it's right next to a thousand dollar watch 349 looks a lot better

01:37:55   Sure. Yeah

01:37:57   So, I don't know. I think all of that goes into the strategy that they have here

01:38:01   you know that if they want to sell a

01:38:04   zillion three hundred forty nine dollar aluminum Apple watches that it helps them to do that by

01:38:11   having these seemingly inexplicably more expensive if you think of them as little risk computers

01:38:16   right next to them well and especially because they never break break down their sales based on

01:38:23   model right so a quarter in or you know a year and they can say we sold you know whatever 10

01:38:29   million watches and if only a thousand of them are the addition watches no one's ever gonna know

01:38:34   yeah and I guess it'll do they break out the earnings based on I guess you could maybe

01:38:41   calculate calculate it that way no but they've also said though that they've even said in advance

01:38:47   so that nobody's disappointed that they're gonna be less transparent about the watch they're not

01:38:51   even gonna put the watch as a separate item they're not gonna say they're not even gonna

01:38:54   say we sold five million Apple watches they're gonna go wow okay they've they've created this

01:38:59   new other category and watch revenue will go in there. It's going to be very, very difficult

01:39:05   for outsiders to-

01:39:06   Think of anything.

01:39:07   Yeah. And to his credit, Tim Cook is very clear about it for the obvious reasons, it's

01:39:13   competitive. We don't want our competitors to know the breakdown.

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01:43:47   I have a surprise for you then Paul. Oh

01:43:51   Well, I'll tell you about it later

01:43:55   After the show. Yeah. Well before the end of the show before the end of the show, I won't make you wait long. All right

01:44:02   Are you excited about spring training?

01:44:05   It's too cold to be thinking about it yet seems impossible

01:44:08   I know and I know I'm not trying to complain to you because Philly's had a bad winner

01:44:12   Boston has had like

01:44:15   Epic like the worst winner in the history of bad winners like well, so at this point at this point

01:44:20   We are I just saw it today

01:44:21   I think we're about three and a half inches off of the all-time snowiest winter on record.

01:44:27   And it's only the beginning of March.

01:44:29   Well, but so at this point, I'm rooting for just a little bit more snow.

01:44:33   Like we're at like 104 inches and the record is like 107 and a half inches or something.

01:44:38   I want to have lived through the snowiest winter of all time.

01:44:41   I don't want any BS second place.

01:44:43   Right.

01:44:43   So it's been terrible for like a month and a half at this point.

01:44:47   It might as well be a little terrible for a little bit longer and then I'll have

01:44:51   something to you know put on my resume yeah especially since you can get there

01:44:55   with you don't even need like a bad snowstorm I mean no no talking worries

01:45:01   for a couple days and we'll be set yeah I mean you guys you know at this point

01:45:04   three four inches of snow you guys may know they may not even put that on TV

01:45:08   they may not even mention that now we talk in feet now and yeah it's it's been

01:45:12   crazy so yeah I'm not thinking about I don't know I the Red Sox I get emails

01:45:18   from them and I've been getting the information and I'm vaguely paying attention to it but I don't

01:45:24   know I don't really get into the spring training the baseball season is long enough how about that

01:45:27   the kid from Cuba that they signed all the 19 year old that they paid god only knows how much money

01:45:32   for 63 million or something like that yeah I don't know what do you think Yankee fans Yankee fans

01:45:38   are starting to get antsy because we've gone we've gone five years without a World Series and that's

01:45:46   That's right around, that's when Yankee fans start losing their shit.

01:45:50   And it's this, that's my hobby, that's my, I like to watch the Yankees, I don't

01:45:57   know if you knew that.

01:45:58   But one little rough similarity between the Yankees and Apple is this crazy figure who's

01:46:09   now dead, who haunts the organization.

01:46:11   The Yankees had George Steinbrenner, Apple has Steve Jobs.

01:46:15   And so you run into the, exactly like the this never would have happened with Steve

01:46:19   Jobs, you run into this never would have happened with George Steinbrenner.

01:46:22   And now--

01:46:23   - But it's his kids running the team, which is really sort of a--

01:46:26   - His kids, Hal and Hank, are, you know, I think they're doing an okay job.

01:46:32   I think it's too short of a period of time.

01:46:35   You've gotta, it's, you're gonna have to give them 10, 15 years before we really decide

01:46:39   whether they're up to snuff as owners.

01:46:43   But with this, what's the kid's name from Cuba?

01:46:46   Oh, it's like Yoann Mancato or something.

01:46:49   Yeah.

01:46:50   You know, and it's so many of these recent players coming out of Cuba have been so good.

01:46:55   There's clearly so much crazy talent, athletic baseball players coming out of Cuba.

01:47:03   But it's a ton of money for a kid who nobody has seen play.

01:47:06   I mean, I'm not saying I would have been shocked if the Yankees had outbid the Red Sox, but

01:47:10   I don't think it's crazy that they didn't, you know.

01:47:13   But a lot of Yankee fans are, you know,

01:47:15   George is rolling over in his grave.

01:47:17   And that in particular, if he had been on the fence,

01:47:21   there's no way he would have let the kid go

01:47:23   to the Red Sox.

01:47:24   - Right, right. - And there's,

01:47:25   the thing is, there might be some truth to that.

01:47:27   'Cause George, the thing is, is that George Steinbrenner

01:47:31   made some moves that everybody agrees were terrible.

01:47:34   That he would insist on paying big bucks

01:47:37   for like an aging slugger.

01:47:38   and everybody in the organization would be on the record.

01:47:41   You know, not on the record, but like, you know,

01:47:44   anonymous sources within the Yankees organization

01:47:47   said that nobody but George wanted this guy,

01:47:50   but that he overruled everybody and got him anyway.

01:47:53   And at this point, Yankee fans are like,

01:47:56   they missed that guy.

01:47:57   They want the Yankees to make terrible mistakes

01:48:00   and just spend money on everybody

01:48:02   that they should have signed.

01:48:02   - 'Cause it's at least interesting.

01:48:04   - Right.

01:48:06   And that ultimately, at least they want,

01:48:09   if the Yankees aren't going to win,

01:48:10   they at least want them to be hemorrhaging cash

01:48:13   as they do it.

01:48:14   (laughing)

01:48:16   - Right, 'cause at least then they've done

01:48:17   as much as they can.

01:48:18   - Right, what more--

01:48:19   - At least if they're burning money.

01:48:20   - What more could we do?

01:48:21   We spent a billion dollars and we still lost,

01:48:24   whereas now it's starting to frustrate people

01:48:27   that they're not just shooting money at the problems.

01:48:31   - Right.

01:48:32   And the Yankee, we've got Alex Rodriguez back on the team.

01:48:37   - Oh, that's a treat for the rest of us,

01:48:40   I'll tell you that much.

01:48:42   Where do you think he's gonna wind up this year?

01:48:44   - I think it is either going to be,

01:48:49   my guess is it's going to be binary.

01:48:52   He's either gonna be a complete bust and unable to play

01:48:57   and doesn't, you know, is like off the,

01:48:59   they're gonna have to like cut him

01:49:00   and just pay him the $61 million.

01:49:02   Or he's actually gonna be okay.

01:49:05   I think he maybe he'll hit like 270, 20 home runs,

01:49:09   80 RBIs as DH.

01:49:12   - I was at the last one I was gonna say,

01:49:13   you think he gets third base back or you think he's the DH?

01:49:15   - I don't think so.

01:49:16   It doesn't, it sounds,

01:49:17   the Yankees are prepared for him to be DH.

01:49:20   I mean, I think he's got a chance to play third base,

01:49:23   but they spend a surprising amount of money on Chase Headley.

01:49:27   - Yeah, exactly.

01:49:28   - And clearly with the idea

01:49:29   they're going to need him at third base. I mean, if A-Rod can do it, I guess he will, but I don't,

01:49:33   nobody really seems to be expecting that. And they're also giving them, in Florida, they're

01:49:38   giving them a lot of reps at first base, which I think is as much about, well, we've got to do

01:49:44   something with them. And I think it's also like a sort of sad statement about what they expect out

01:49:50   of Marc Teixeira's durability, you know, that they're already planning, you know, somebody's

01:49:54   Somebody else is gonna have to play some first-rate.

01:49:56   (laughing)

01:49:58   - Well, I think the, what are they?

01:50:00   They signed him for 10 years,

01:50:01   and then they re-signed him for 10 years,

01:50:03   like four years into that contract, is that right?

01:50:05   - It's a very complicated contract.

01:50:07   It is, it's something to the effect of that, yeah.

01:50:11   - Well, I think the original signing, that 10-year period,

01:50:15   it was an incredible amount of money,

01:50:16   but they got a lot of value out of that.

01:50:19   The re-signing was where I think they went wrong.

01:50:22   - Yeah, definitely.

01:50:24   it's the second half of that new contract that is now, you know, they're paying in the 61 million for maybe nothing.

01:50:30   Yeah, and the the thinking the entire thinking behind the resigning was marketing driven not baseball driven

01:50:38   because it was all based it was before any of the PED stuff had hit obviously and it was all based on

01:50:45   projections of not not any kind of like

01:50:49   oh, we think he's gonna play like his 33-year-old self forever or his 32-year-old self, you know,

01:50:54   they knew he was going to go into decline and that by the end of this contract he would, you know,

01:50:58   be a shell of his former self. But the projections all had him at, you know,

01:51:06   right around Bonds' home run mark, you know, around that time and that he'd be breaking

01:51:11   these historic home run records, filling the stadium with people, you know, in anticipation

01:51:18   of him getting his 700th home run, getting his 750th home run. Whereas now, he could

01:51:25   break the record and people are going to throw the ball back on the field. Right? I mean,

01:51:32   who gives a crap about Barry Bonds' home run? That's the thing. Even if, just imagine

01:51:37   that he does physically come back in pretty good shape and actually does start hitting

01:51:42   dingers again and plays out these three years. It doesn't even matter if he breaks the record,

01:51:48   because nobody cares about the record anyway, because everybody thinks Bond's numbers are

01:51:52   tainted and then it would be broken by the guy who's the only one who might be the more notorious

01:51:58   user of performance-enhancing drugs. Do you even know Bond's home run number?

01:52:03   No, I don't even know. Ruth was 715, right?

01:52:06   Right. And Hank Aaron was 744, right? No, I think it was 755.

01:52:11   755. All right. I knew it was a double number. Yeah.

01:52:15   So bonds is more than that, but I don't know. I don't know how much more.

01:52:19   I'm going to guess like 780. He didn't get 800. Right. I don't remember him getting another

01:52:26   landmark after breaking the record and 800 would have been something.

01:52:29   Yeah, no, I don't think it's something in the seven. It's got to be like 760.

01:52:32   All right. I'm going to look it up, but I'm not going to cheat. I'm going to say 7,

01:52:35   770. Okay. What are you going to say?

01:52:39   I think it was even closer.

01:52:40   I think he just barely, I'm gonna go 760.

01:52:43   I gotta go below you, so.

01:52:44   - All right, hold on, career home runs.

01:52:48   Here we go.

01:52:49   This is at baseballreference.com.

01:52:51   - This is good podcasting, John.

01:52:55   - Oh, we fixed it all in post.

01:52:56   Let's see here.

01:53:01   Boy, Wikipedia makes it hard to find it too.

01:53:04   Home runs, 762, you're right.

01:53:07   He just kinda snuck past him.

01:53:10   He has seven more home runs than,

01:53:11   God, you know what would have been class,

01:53:14   I mean, he never would have done it.

01:53:15   I mean, 'cause one thing when you're talking

01:53:16   about Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez,

01:53:18   class doesn't really--

01:53:19   - That is not the word.

01:53:20   - Wouldn't it have been classy if he had stopped at 754?

01:53:24   - You think one less or tied?

01:53:26   - Or tied, yeah, even if he just stopped at the top,

01:53:28   yeah, even if he had just stopped at 755.

01:53:31   - Yeah, I feel like tied,

01:53:32   maybe you could have convinced him to do it,

01:53:34   but one less, I don't think,

01:53:35   one viewer I don't think you would have gone for.

01:53:37   - Yeah.

01:53:38   - All right, well what's the surprise you got for me, John?

01:53:41   - My surprise for you, Paul,

01:53:43   is that we have a fourth sponsor this week.

01:53:46   (laughing)

01:53:49   - All right.

01:53:50   - It is, and you're gonna like 'em.

01:53:51   I know you like these guys.

01:53:53   You like to play jokes with these guys.

01:53:54   It's our good friends at Fracture.

01:53:57   - All right.

01:53:58   Fracture Photo Swap.

01:54:00   - Yeah, this is, now this, we can talk about that.

01:54:02   This is a great idea for a gag.

01:54:04   You guys know Fracture, I talk about them.

01:54:06   They've been sponsoring the show all year long.

01:54:09   They take your photos, they print them directly on glass.

01:54:13   And you get a little package and it's right there.

01:54:16   The glass has your photo right on it.

01:54:18   You don't need a frame, it is a frame.

01:54:20   You just hang it out on a wall, you can hang it up,

01:54:22   you know, prop it up on your mantle or your desk.

01:54:25   Really clever packaging, really great image quality,

01:54:30   really great prices, really great customer support,

01:54:33   all sorts of sizes and shapes to pick from.

01:54:36   You could do square ones, print your favorite Instagrams,

01:54:39   big ones, you know, all sorts of great things.

01:54:43   Have you seen this ad campaign from Apple

01:54:45   with the, it's taken with an iPhone,

01:54:48   where they're showing like photos

01:54:49   that people have taken with their iPhone.

01:54:50   They're printing them on--

01:54:51   - Phenomenal photos.

01:54:52   - Yeah, they're phenomenal photos,

01:54:53   but then now it's like a billboard campaign.

01:54:55   Like, you just sort of forget,

01:54:58   like with the megapixels that you've got,

01:55:00   like, you know, I'm sure if you got real close,

01:55:01   like when you're hanging,

01:55:02   if you're the guy hanging the billboard,

01:55:03   You can see the pixels or whatever.

01:55:04   But you said you were in the Apple Store recently.

01:55:09   I was in the Apple Store just last week, a week or two ago, and they have some of these

01:55:15   customer iPhone user photos up in the Apple Store, big, printed, really big, like panoramas

01:55:22   printed big.

01:55:23   And it's amazing how good they look, even when you're standing right in front of them

01:55:26   at the wall.

01:55:27   You can get – go to fracture it and get the big ones with your iPhone pictures.

01:55:30   They'll look great.

01:55:31   Amazing how much detail is in an iPhone picture?

01:55:33   Paul you and my wife have played games with fracture this describe the fracture photo swap, right?

01:55:41   So fracture sponsored the podcast I do with your wife Amy

01:55:44   little show called just the tip and

01:55:47   They sponsored the show and they it was actually their idea to do this

01:55:50   they gave us each a coupon code and had us send a photo or photos to the other party and

01:55:56   We trademarked this this is now a joint trademark between just the tip enterprises and fracture

01:56:02   And you can participate in the fracture photo swap all you do is you get together with a friend you say I'm gonna send you

01:56:07   a photo you send me a photo, and you just go nuts with it and

01:56:11   I have you talked to pricing on this. I you haven't talked pricing it. You can do it

01:56:15   it's very inexpensive for the small photos and

01:56:18   You can have some fun with it

01:56:20   The only rule is that whatever you send the receiving party has to keep in their house for at least a year

01:56:25   So then then it becomes a real conversation piece

01:56:28   Which so that you need to take that into account that explains why we have a photo of Pete Rose in his underwear

01:56:36   His jockeys. That's right. That's right

01:56:39   You're welcome. Thank you Paul. It's the gift that keeps on giving

01:56:45   Do you think that that was based that was an ad that that while Pete Rose was playing you could google this just google was

01:56:54   it Pete Rose jockeys? I think that's right. Yeah, it jockey underwear. And he is he is

01:57:02   not an attractive man. Not even then. No, this is the height of his career in the prime

01:57:08   of his playing career did not really look very attractive in his jockeys. Do you think

01:57:14   maybe when they had that, that maybe they got the idea and they just assumed that Pete

01:57:19   Rose with his, you know, his jersey off would look good. Because you know, there was like,

01:57:23   Jim Palmer, very handsome pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, famously did a lot of

01:57:30   underwear ads during his career. Very handsome man. Looked amazing. Looked certainly look better

01:57:36   than I've ever looked in the best day of my life in this underwear. Looked great. Looked like he

01:57:39   should be modeling underwear. Do you think that there's somebody at Jockey was like, "Well, we'll

01:57:43   get Pete Rose. He's a great player. He's going to look great. And they called him and they

01:57:50   came to terms and they signed a contract and then they got to see him in his joggies. That's

01:57:59   what I think. That's my guess as to how that came to be.

01:58:02   John: But they still could have saved money by not printing the ad. I mean, that's good

01:58:05   money after bad.

01:58:06   Well, anyway, my thanks to Fracture. Do the Fracture Photo Swap. It's great fun. Do whatever

01:58:14   you want with them. But they're a great, great company, great products, lots of fun. The

01:58:19   code that you want to remember is "daring fireball," all one word, "daring fireball,"

01:58:23   and you will save 15% on whatever it is that you order, including, I'm betting, Fracture

01:58:29   Photo Swap.

01:58:30   There you go.

01:58:31   One last thing. I got to go soon. We've been chatting for a while, but I wanted to talk

01:58:36   while I had you because I wanted to get your insight on this.

01:58:39   I think you're gonna give me a big fat I told you so

01:58:41   about app pricing.

01:58:42   So my-- - Oh yes.

01:58:43   - My friends Brent and Dave and I at Q branch,

01:58:47   we've just a few days ago released a new update

01:58:49   to our app Vesper that adds iPad support on iOS.

01:58:54   And coincident with that, it's a universal binary,

01:58:57   but we've raised the price of the app to 999, right?

01:59:02   I think for the next 10 days,

01:59:03   we're still gonna keep it at 799,

01:59:05   which is higher than it has been all along.

01:59:07   But the new default regular price

01:59:10   once this intro period is over is gonna be $9.99.

01:59:12   And I don't wanna go on a trade about it,

01:59:18   but just more or less that we've concluded

01:59:20   that the idea that you can go low,

01:59:22   and we've been at $2.99 for months

01:59:25   before this update came out,

01:59:26   that you can go low and make it up with quantity

01:59:30   because the iOS market is so big,

01:59:31   that it just, that just doesn't work.

01:59:34   or it doesn't work for the type of app that Vesper is,

01:59:37   which I would call like--

01:59:39   - A deeper app.

01:59:40   - Yeah, and like a productivity app.

01:59:41   It's not a game, it's not a gimmick.

01:59:43   - No, that's it, yeah.

01:59:44   - You know, but it's sort of, basically,

01:59:46   it's like the type of apps that indie developers

01:59:49   have been making for the Mac for decades,

01:59:51   now it's on iOS, like a Mac app on iOS.

01:59:54   And I don't think that that works.

01:59:57   And I mean Mac in terms of being something that you do,

01:59:59   like you work with it, you do things, productivity,

02:00:02   I don't know.

02:00:04   I definitely do want to say I told you so, but I think it's something where, what, six

02:00:10   years ago, my company released an iPhone app and we priced it at $9.99 and it didn't work.

02:00:18   But I felt like at least we went down swinging.

02:00:20   We went down at a price where we were content.

02:00:24   And I think, exactly like you said, trying to make it up on volume doesn't work unless

02:00:28   you wind up with one of the apps, you know, an Angry Birds or

02:00:33   that's it. It's a game. Games are different. I think games are is a totally different market and

02:00:39   you know, there's other apps that to me it's a different type of, it's just a different category.

02:00:47   I'm talking, you know, and I will also add and I don't want to be so self-centered as to presume

02:00:54   that Vesper is good enough that it should be making more money. So let's

02:01:00   just leave Vesper out. Maybe the problem is that Vesper isn't original enough.

02:01:03   Maybe the, you know, the problem is Vesper. The eye-opening thing to me was

02:01:06   in Panics' annual letter that they published on their blog back in early

02:01:13   January where Cable Sasser just flat-out said, you know, and they had a great year.

02:01:17   They had so many apps that came out, Mac and iOS, and they had iOS versions of

02:01:23   at coda the mini coda whatever they call coda like coda diet coda diet coda oh

02:01:29   what a great name that is can't believe it drew a blank on that they have their

02:01:33   terminal app prompt prompt great great stuff transmit for iOS transmit for iOS

02:01:41   which is a phenomenal app really really well done it's everything you close your

02:01:46   eyes you think well what would panic do if they did transmit for iOS and your

02:01:49   mind starts running wild with how you know detailed it would be well that's

02:01:52   That's exactly what it is. It's a remarkable, remarkable app. And truly, a Mac caliber app

02:01:59   in terms of the scope of what it does. It's a full-featured file transfer app for a whole

02:02:04   bunch of great services. And in their annual letter, Cable FlatOut said that the revenue

02:02:13   that they're making from these iOS apps doesn't justify the engineering expense of making

02:02:20   these apps compared to the revenue they get from the same amount of work on the Mac apps.

02:02:25   Right. Doing the same amount of work on the Mac is going to pay so much better than it

02:02:30   does on iOS.

02:02:31   Right. And there's no, you know, I mean, there are two different platforms, but in terms

02:02:34   of which, you know, how much it costs to pay for a talented engineer to spend, you know,

02:02:40   eight to ten hours tomorrow coding for it, it's the same, right? You don't get, you know,

02:02:46   If anything, iOS developers are more in demand, right?

02:02:51   It's even harder to hire them.

02:02:55   That to me was an eye-opener to me that if Panic is saying, "Hey, something funny is

02:03:00   going on on iOS because we're not getting the bang for our buck.

02:03:05   We have to think about how we're going to do this because we can't justify this because

02:03:08   if we put these resources toward the Mac, we'd be making more money."

02:03:13   me as an eye-opener because those apps are fantastic. I mean, I'm too close to Vesper

02:03:19   to judge Vesper objectively, but I can judge Panix apps objectively and they are best of breed.

02:03:26   Yeah, and yeah, I've got it right in front of me. Basically, they had a 50/50 split for iOS

02:03:31   versus Mac sales, and then the Mac was 83% of their revenue. So, I mean, just in terms of the

02:03:38   way the numbers work, yeah, you certainly should be devoting more of your resources to the Mac.

02:03:42   And that's unfortunate because iOS is a fun platform. It's an interesting platform to be

02:03:47   developing for. But right now, the money just isn't there.

02:03:50   Darrell Bock Yeah. And I think that we're starting to see it now. Like to me,

02:03:53   eight years in, I guess it's eight or seven years, I guess seven years since the App Store.

02:03:59   It's long enough. And the devices, you know, Moore's Law has had its effect. Like, our current

02:04:06   iPhones and iPads are so powerful. The current iPads are clearly on par with the Macbooks

02:04:15   of the time when the iPhone came out. I mean, the devices aren't limiting them. But I really

02:04:21   think that for seven years in, there's a dearth of what I would call – just name any of

02:04:27   your favorite indie Mac apps from the last 20 years. And we're not seeing them get developed

02:04:33   on iOS. I mean, not that there's none, but that we're just not seeing as many as we should.

02:04:37   Well, and I wonder if... definitely there are people inside of Apple who are aware of

02:04:44   this, but I wonder if the people who can do something about it are blinded by the fact

02:04:49   that there are these phenomenal success stories where companies come out of nowhere and suddenly

02:04:54   make millions upon millions of dollars because they have this hit 99 cent app, but it disguises

02:04:59   the fact that so many developers try and fail and move on and just can't really make a living

02:05:06   at it, let alone a good living at it.

02:05:09   Yeah, I don't know.

02:05:11   And part of it, and because we could go on for an hour, just about the App Store angle,

02:05:16   but part of it is clearly just that having to go through the App Store limits iOS development

02:05:22   in certain ways.

02:05:23   But let's ignore that for now.

02:05:24   I think it's safe to ignore it.

02:05:27   There's something more to it than that.

02:05:28   Like, Rogue Amoeba, you guys don't have any iOS apps right now, right?

02:05:33   We've got two small companion apps to our Mac apps because that's what we felt has been

02:05:38   the most valuable thing to do is to expend our resources on the Mac.

02:05:42   And we certainly want to be involved on iOS.

02:05:45   Like I said, it's an exciting platform.

02:05:47   But if the money's not there, we'd rather have them be a companion to a Mac app.

02:05:51   So here's a free Airfoil Speakers, which works with our app Airfoil.

02:05:55   you pay for the airfoil app on the Mac and you get the iOS app for free.

02:05:59   And it's not necessarily the best way to do things, but it's the way that we found works.

02:06:04   I knew I remembered it.

02:06:06   I remembered Airfoil.

02:06:07   I didn't even think of it as an app because it's not, you know what I mean?

02:06:09   Like to me, it's not an app.

02:06:10   It's a thing on your phone that it's just part of using Airfoil.

02:06:14   Right exactly.

02:06:15   So effectively, yeah, effectively you guys that were treating the iPhone the way that

02:06:20   like it's like the Apple watch, right?

02:06:22   just this little thing where you've got apps for it and you've written code for it, but it's really

02:06:26   just a peripheral to the main thing. Yeah, exactly. And that works, but I would love to see the sort

02:06:37   of thing that you're talking about where you have a first-class application experience on the phone

02:06:41   or on the iPad, and we can devote our resources to that and then charge $10, $20, $30, which is what

02:06:48   you need to charge in terms of the volume that you're going to see on an average product

02:06:53   because you can't make enough money selling it for $0.99 or $2.99 or even $4.99.

02:06:58   And I think if I'm not mistaken in the panic letter that they sent out

02:07:03   that they posted on their blog, they also mentioned talking about discounted upgrades.

02:07:08   And that's a big thing that I think the app stores are lacking and have been lacking.

02:07:13   you need to either charge full price for version 2 or that's really pretty much your only option besides giving it away.

02:07:21   And upgrade revenue is definitely a way that for 20 or 30 years now, companies have been selling software and making money.

02:07:30   And it encourages companies to make a version 2 and a version 3 and not have to worry,

02:07:35   "Oh, we got to sell all over to people." When they can just say, "Hey, this new version has a bunch of new features.

02:07:40   of new features, we think you're going to like it. Because you bought the first version,

02:07:44   you get a big discount on it, but we still get a little bit of revenue. They don't just

02:07:47   have to live off the revenue from the first product or try and sell a whole new product.

02:07:51   And I think not having that really sort of stunts the ability to make deeper products

02:07:57   and longer term products.

02:07:58   Yeah. I'll borrow, to tie the whole show together, bring it full circle, I'll borrow a term from

02:08:03   the watch world. There's a term in the watch world, a tool watch. So for example, like

02:08:07   a diver watch, a watch that can go 300 meters underwater, which you think about as terrifying.

02:08:14   That's an extraordinary depth. Watches that are meant to be treated roughly to work or

02:08:23   chronometer watches that race car drivers would wear and actually use to time their racing and

02:08:32   and stuff like that.

02:08:33   That's the type of apps, that's a good word, tool, right?

02:08:35   Like tool apps, like, you know, Audio Hijack is a tool.

02:08:40   It's a serious tool that people, you can use it for fun too,

02:08:42   but you know, BB Edit is a tool.

02:08:45   - Right.

02:08:46   - Those type of apps need continuous,

02:08:48   for long-term success, need continuous development.

02:08:52   Like you guys-- - Oh, absolutely.

02:08:53   - You guys have been working on Audio Hijack,

02:08:56   like effectively, I'm not that, not that,

02:08:58   well, nonstop, right?

02:08:59   Like for-- - For 13 years, yeah.

02:09:01   And there's no other way to do that

02:09:04   without upgrade revenue or some kind of,

02:09:07   like a subscription typing.

02:09:09   I mean, clearly that's like what Adobe is pivoting towards.

02:09:12   And successfully, I mean, it's,

02:09:14   or so far it seems like it, but to justify that,

02:09:18   because all of their apps that we think of,

02:09:20   they're tools, and the only way to keep them going

02:09:23   is with some sort of sustained revenue stream

02:09:26   from your existing users.

02:09:28   And the whole idea that once you've paid for it,

02:09:30   you get it forever, it just doesn't work.

02:09:32   And any time people have tried it, it's always fallen apart.

02:09:35   I mean, I think of poor TextMate, right?

02:09:39   Where Alan Ogdard had great success,

02:09:43   you know, came out with a new text editor,

02:09:45   it was a sensation, all the Rails developers loved it,

02:09:49   really seemed to strike a chord with like

02:09:51   the new to the Mac users who, you know,

02:09:54   maybe didn't, weren't, were somehow turned off

02:09:57   by BB edits sort of Mac likeness.

02:10:00   But then he promised that the next major upgrade

02:10:03   was gonna be a free update, you know,

02:10:05   which I thought, wow, that is a crazy ass thing to say.

02:10:09   'Cause I, you know, if it wasn't for upgrades,

02:10:11   I don't see how bare bones would still be in business.

02:10:13   I mean, I'm sure that they still get some number

02:10:16   of new customers, but you know, I've paid for upgrades.

02:10:20   I even worked for them for two years,

02:10:22   but I must have paid for, I don't know,

02:10:24   six or seven upgrades over the last 15 years of using BB edit.

02:10:29   - Right, well, and the key is that it got you new features

02:10:33   and new functionality. - Right, happily so, right.

02:10:35   - And got you, yeah, you were happy to do it

02:10:37   because it got you the top of the line product,

02:10:40   the current product, and on iOS,

02:10:43   I think you're seeing a whole lot of stuff get abandoned

02:10:46   because it doesn't make enough money up front,

02:10:48   and then you can't, like I said earlier,

02:10:52   you can't keep throwing good money after bad,

02:10:54   or good time after bad when a product isn't successful enough right up front, it's not

02:10:59   going to be successful long term because you can't afford to make it successful.

02:11:02   Yeah.

02:11:03   So my conclusion, my new working theory is that for tool apps, that the market on iOS

02:11:10   is actually not much bigger at all than the Mac.

02:11:13   It's roughly the same size.

02:11:14   And the fact that there are 200 million iOS users total is irrelevant because, I don't

02:11:20   know, 180 million of them would never even consider spending money on like, which to

02:11:26   me is not a crazy expensive app, like a 9.99 app, right? But it's just they're never going

02:11:30   to do it. Like the way that those 180 million people do it is they go to the App Store and

02:11:35   they search for what they're looking for. And if it's a notes app, they type notes and

02:11:39   then they look for one that's free and then they keep downloading free ones until they

02:11:43   find one that's good enough. And there's so many of them that they're eventually going

02:11:48   to find one that's good enough and that's it and then never go past it so it doesn't

02:11:51   matter whether you're 99 cents or 199 or 999 they're never looking past the free ones and

02:11:57   not that there aren't people you know there's I think there's you know same way that there's

02:12:01   10 20 30 million active Mac users who will consider spending a reasonable amount of money

02:12:05   on a good app I think that there's the same number of people I think that all those same

02:12:10   people have an iPhone in their pocket and would consider doing the same thing for the

02:12:13   iPhone but there's you have to price it accordingly though you still you can't

02:12:19   price it for the at lower all 200 million people right you cannot do it

02:12:23   and it might be less than the Mac version just because it's it's a smaller

02:12:27   app and it does take slightly you know slightly less time to do the iPhone app

02:12:32   than the Mac app because there might be you know you don't have to do Apple

02:12:35   script you don't have to you know there's all sorts of things you may not

02:12:37   be able to do but it still has to be commensurate to what you would charge

02:12:41   for the Mac version. Well the interesting analogy to me is it's sort of analogous to the split

02:12:46   between Mac and Windows that when we first came out on the Mac a decade ago more than that and

02:12:51   had some success people said oh you should be on Windows there's you know 10 or a hundred times as

02:12:55   many users but I think it's a very similar thing where there aren't 10 or a hundred times as many

02:13:00   people willing to pay for software. Yeah. There might be more there might even be fewer but it's

02:13:06   It's not as if you can just look at the size of the user base and say, "Okay, that's the

02:13:11   possible number of people we can sell to."

02:13:13   And I think on the iPhone it's very similar where of those, however, 200 million devices,

02:13:18   how many of those are in the hands of kids or are secondary devices?

02:13:23   So it's not really that there's that many active users out there.

02:13:27   The market isn't necessarily that much bigger.

02:13:31   You think it might be the same size, it might be smaller, it might be bigger.

02:13:34   I don't have a good number, but I think it's silly to just look and say, oh, they sold

02:13:37   so many hundreds of millions of devices, that's obviously the market to attack.

02:13:40   Yeah, I just think it doesn't actually work.

02:13:42   You have to pick a price that's commensurate with how you would price the equivalent Mac

02:13:45   app.

02:13:46   And I really do believe that.

02:13:48   And it's, you know, and I but I realized that the App Store is not set up to promote apps

02:13:53   like that.

02:13:54   Like you're not going to get on the best selling chart that way.

02:13:56   And being on the best selling chart does get you downloads.

02:13:59   It's, you know, well, the only the only thing that Apple added, what a couple years

02:14:04   in was the top revenue generating apps.

02:14:08   And that's the one sort of SOP that we got that if you do have a more expensive app,

02:14:14   potentially you could wind up on that chart and that could be useful.

02:14:17   But I don't think it's in the end played out that way because I think a whole lot of that

02:14:21   is in-app purchase stuff where it could be a free or a freemium game type thing where

02:14:27   you got it for free and then you spent a whole bunch of money on coins or whatever and that's

02:14:30   what winds up topping those charts.

02:14:32   So I think it's, as you said, the stores just aren't set up to promote an app that is priced

02:14:36   sustainably.

02:14:37   Right.

02:14:38   Totally agree.

02:14:39   So you were right, I was wrong.

02:14:44   Well I only wish, you know, hopefully people listen and developers listen and say, "You

02:14:48   know what?

02:14:49   I'm not making enough money at $2.99 or $4.99.

02:14:52   I should try a higher price," because that's really what it is, is that you can't be the

02:14:56   only one that does it.

02:14:57   That's what we tried in the first place and it didn't work.

02:14:59   Even even someone like you who's got you know an audience who will listen to this

02:15:03   I don't know that it needs a title change from everybody really to make it sustainable

02:15:07   Oh, you know ever since we wrote about it and Jason Snell of Lincoln and shown us

02:15:11   Jason still had a brief interview with me about it today that I thought was came off pretty good

02:15:15   I've got a lot

02:15:16   We've got a lot of feedback about it

02:15:17   And it does seem like I think that there's a movement afoot to maybe do this and it might have to

02:15:22   It is I think harkening back to almost the pre App Store days where you know

02:15:26   You're gonna have to do your marketing on your own outside the App Store

02:15:29   But that you know that that for a certain class of tool app that the prices I think are going to go up

02:15:35   I think there's momentum. I

02:15:37   Hope so. Yeah. Yeah, so let's wrap it up. But let's put a shout out to audio hijack. So audio hijack

02:15:44   The new version is three point. Oh, right. That's right. It is version 3.0 big hit

02:15:50   For you guys at rogue amoeba. Do you guys have a patch upgrade? Do you up to 301 yet?

02:15:56   302 and I think 303 will probably be probably not before this errors, but yeah, we're at 302 now. What's the price?

02:16:02   It's

02:16:04   $49, but if anyone has bought any audio hijack in the past any product with audio hijack in the name

02:16:09   Which there were a couple different versions whenever it's a $25 upgrade. That's it. It's a bargain. That's absolute positive bargain

02:16:16   I bet you get a lot of very well

02:16:18   I'll bet there's a lot of diehard audio hijack users who are begging you to take their $25

02:16:24   It has been incredible to get a whole lot of feedback from people

02:16:27   who have been using it forever and love the new version and

02:16:30   You know, I'm sure everybody who ever puts out a new version says this is the best version and Apple always says that but in

02:16:37   This case it's it's just been phenomenally well received to the point where I would not have expected it. Yeah

02:16:43   well, I think it's really I had had your

02:16:45   Your colleague Krista on a few episodes ago and we talked about the interface which is to me fantastic

02:16:51   I think you guys got I think just from my sense from talking to Krista was that you guys got too close to the interface

02:16:58   During its development and you lost sight of just how radically better it was

02:17:02   Because in terms of the past several years of developing version 3

02:17:06   Yes

02:17:06   that you guys you guys were nose to the grindstone on that interface for so long and you became infamit intimately familiar with it and

02:17:14   And then it came out and I think it was just I think it's that interface that's driving that the hit because to me

02:17:20   I always I always knew what audio hijacked it, but I have to admit that when I looked at it

02:17:25   I was always little like I have to I have to read and think about what I'm doing here

02:17:29   Whereas with the new interface it's in an instant. You can see exactly what is going on and it's you know

02:17:34   Yeah, I mean that that was certainly the idea was we've got a pipeline and you can visually see my audio is going from here

02:17:41   to here and it's doing what I expected to do and

02:17:43   Previously we had most of the power that's in this version, but it was a lot more difficult to suss out, right?

02:17:49   But and you know and on the back end you guys have been through so much

02:17:53   It's always been a Mac OS X product. It hasn't it debuted on Mac OS X so you don't have any classic Mac OS roots, right?

02:17:59   There was there was a plug-in version back on Mac OS 9

02:18:03   But as a product it was it's always been on Mac OS X you guys have been through so many technical

02:18:08   Differences in at the level that you that audio hijack needs to operate in terms of you know

02:18:14   I mean, there was no core audio back in 2001

02:18:18   What's there? I don't think so. I

02:18:20   Mean, yeah, we've gone through we've gone through what 11 different versions of the operating system and it's it's it's it's been it's been a

02:18:28   Pretty long journey as far as getting to where we are

02:18:31   But the only way that that worked was through upgrade pricing and having a sane

02:18:35   Sustainable price to start with right? Yeah

02:18:38   I think the bigger thing for us was having a price that you know made money as opposed to selling for 99 cents

02:18:43   But certainly version 3 having an upgrade price has been essential right because there's no other way

02:18:49   I mean, how could you justify three years of development on it if you weren't going to do it?

02:18:52   So anyway, my congrats well-deserved success on that app. It's thank you

02:18:57   It should win all the awards in my opinion. It's you know, it's funny. Somebody said that and

02:19:02   It got me thinking there aren't very many Mac Awards left anymore. No because we lost Macworld's

02:19:09   Eddie Awards are they gonna do that? Are they didn't they didn't do it at the end of last year with their with their slim down staff

02:19:15   You know the the the ada's are now only for the App Store which audio hijacked can't be in

02:19:22   We lost I mean all the Mac magazines have disappeared and that was really the people that were doing a lot of the awards. Yeah

02:19:29   So it's that actually somebody said that somebody said exactly that but it should win all the awards and and I said that's that's a lovely

02:19:35   Thing to say and it made me depressed because there really aren't any

02:19:39   of these sort of community recognition awards anymore.

02:19:42   Yeah, the ADA is, you know, it's an achievement more than an award. If you get an ADA, you've done

02:19:51   good work. There is no way to get one that does not involve good work. But it's not really an

02:19:57   award. It's, you know, you've done good work that is exactly where Apple wants you to be doing good

02:20:02   work this year. It's, you know, not that, again, I'm not downplaying it. I would certainly,

02:20:07   I would happily accept one. But it's to call it an, you know, I don't know. It's not like

02:20:13   the Eddies used to be, where it was more objective and had more of like a year to year

02:20:21   fairness to it. Like the ADA's shift radically. I mean, there was one year where they were like,

02:20:25   you know, iOS only. Well, and they had like, they'd add a category like best dashboard widget.

02:20:31   And you know it was clearly it was in Apple's promotional interests.

02:20:36   Right.

02:20:37   Whereas right the Eddies and other awards like it were you know just this is the best

02:20:41   software and best products we saw this year.

02:20:43   Right.

02:20:44   And yeah so the one that is I actually I emailed our friend Renee Ritchie at iMore because

02:20:50   they do an annual award and I said you know somebody made me realize that so many of these

02:20:54   are gone I'm glad that iMore is still doing them and you know certainly I hope we are

02:20:59   in the running for one, but ignoring that, it's just nice that someone is looking at the whole

02:21:03   community and looking at everything as a whole and saying, "These are things that actually deserve

02:21:07   some recognition and some attention." Yeah. There's the crunchies.

02:21:11   Doesn't that have a gorilla statue? I think it's got a 2001 gorilla style statue.

02:21:19   Did you see I got nominated, Daring Fireball got nominated for the best bootstrapped startup

02:21:24   this year. What year?

02:21:26   This year. What?

02:21:28   Go look it up daring fireball was nominated in this year's crunchy awards for best bootstrapped startup

02:21:35   This in my uh, what 13th year for writing the website? Wow. Did you oh you didn't win? You didn't win

02:21:43   Thank god

02:21:45   Oh god, we got some kind of autoplay video. All right. All right, let's wrap it up my thanks to our sponsors

02:21:49   We have four great sponsors this week

02:21:51   And my thanks to them all casper the mattress people warby parker the eyeglass people who do not yet make monocles or ipad

02:21:58   which is fracture your photos on Glass

02:22:01   and last but not least, hover the world's best place

02:22:04   to manage and register domain names.

02:22:07   Paul Kefastas, I thank you.

02:22:10   - Thank you and get better soon, John.

02:22:12   - All right, I'll keep an eye out for you.