The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello there

00:00:02 ◼   ► Hello

00:00:04 ◼   ► How was the Yankee game?

00:00:06 ◼   ► It was

00:00:09 ◼   ► Emotional and then it was extraordinarily disappointing

00:00:13 ◼   ► And because I was at the Yankee game today, I probably gonna sound like I've taken the chain smoking

00:00:19 ◼   ► Well, you know they they they can set up the special events, but they can't usually can't fix the outcome

00:00:28 ◼   ► No, you know it

00:00:30 ◼   ► I'm not gonna go all baseball

00:00:33 ◼   ► We've got tons and tons of nerd stuff to talk about but it you know

00:00:36 ◼   ► It was bad that I don't even know why I haven't because it's funny when you go to a game

00:00:40 ◼   ► sometimes you don't you know and like the cell phone reception is bad because there's

00:00:44 ◼   ► 48,000 people all trying to use the same network and

00:00:47 ◼   ► So I didn't follow the Twitter. I don't I didn't follow any of the Yankee beat writers. I don't know what the explanation is, but

00:00:54 ◼   ► The Yankees designated hitter today was Steven Drew who's hitting?

00:00:59 ◼   ► 160 and has five home runs on the season

00:01:02 ◼   ► They like picked him out of like off waivers

00:01:06 ◼   ► Like three weeks ago and they never pinch hit for me. They got to the end of the game

00:01:10 ◼   ► They had a man on first they're down by two and

00:01:12 ◼   ► Drew is up again and there's nobody on the bench and this is after the the roster expansion

00:01:18 ◼   ► That's how that's how bad yeah

00:01:22 ◼   ► That reminds me as a fan of a National League team. This happens a lot when National League teams again. Yes, we're talking about baseball

00:01:28 ◼   ► When the Ashley teams try to play in the American League, sometimes they're like they're designated hitter is just some guy

00:01:34 ◼   ► We're literally the fourth outfielder because they don't have a designated hitter. So they're like, I don't know this guy

00:01:41 ◼   ► But there's like designate a classic designated hitter is David Ortiz from the Red Sox right guy

00:01:48 ◼   ► Who's always gonna try to knock the the the hide off the ball and just hit it hard and probably a good hitter

00:01:54 ◼   ► But at least also a power hitter, but in theory though

00:01:57 ◼   ► You could put anybody there like you could put each row there and he's not a power hitter

00:02:01 ◼   ► But if you had an you know, you're like he's not you're like ninth best hitter, right?

00:02:06 ◼   ► Just so bad if they were if the New York Yankees this year were the Minnesota Twins or the

00:02:16 ◼   ► Cleveland Indians or name any other team from you know, somewhere in the middle of the country. No offense to those teams

00:02:22 ◼   ► I'm just saying a team that's not a perennial powerhouse and they had this record and they had this lineup and these starting pitchers and

00:02:29 ◼   ► Nobody would be paying any attention to them all it would be a curiosity that they're theoretically still in the wildcard race

00:02:35 ◼   ► Yes, but nobody would even know there wouldn't be like nightly updates on ESPN about their where they are in the wildcard race

00:02:40 ◼   ► It's just because of the Yankees and because there's one particular guy on the roster named Derek Jeter

00:02:46 ◼   ► Right, which was the, I mean, that's kind of the point of, of, of today. So, you know, but it's true. They're, they're not, they're one of those teams. I noticed that the Padres are like six games out or something in the wild card. And it's like the technically in it still kind of category.

00:03:02 ◼   ► People aren't really paying attention, but they're, something magical could happen, but probably won't, but could.

00:03:09 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah, probably not. I'm a little worried. I got a little worried by the end of the game that it's because I think there are five games over 500.

00:03:18 ◼   ► And I actually think that that's a remarkable achievement given what's happened to them. They've had four out of their five starting pitchers on opening day had like season ending injuries or almost season ending injuries. Pineda was out, I don't know, four months.

00:03:31 ◼   ► Well, it's remarkable that the team with four out of their five starting pitchers having season ending

00:03:35 ◼   ► Possibly career ending in the case of CC. Sabathia injuries is five games over 500. That's remarkable

00:03:42 ◼   ► But here's the thing I the the takeaway I came from today where I was I left the Yankee Stadium very depressed and my thought is

00:03:48 ◼   ► Everybody's hoping that Jeter at least gets to finish the season

00:03:51 ◼   ► May be chasing down a wild card

00:03:53 ◼   ► My fear is that he's gonna finish the season chasing down the first ever losing season that he's had as a Yankee

00:03:59 ◼   ► It could happen, but then again, they could be, you know, sometimes, again, it depends on what your expectations are.

00:04:08 ◼   ► I remember there was a period in the early 2000s when the Giants were, I think they played like five or six years, where they had like three games where they were eliminated.

00:04:19 ◼   ► And most of those years, you know, the Giants have, I think, never won the division two years in a row, ever.

00:04:25 ◼   ► But there was something good about that, that they would get eliminated the last week of the season.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And even if they didn't win the division or the wild card, they weren't playing meaningless games

00:04:37 ◼   ► to late September. And I realize that's in some ways a low bar, but I do kind of like that. The

00:04:43 ◼   ► idea that you're always around and maybe some years you fall short and you're five games out

00:04:46 ◼   ► or whatever at the end. But when that all sort of fell apart and there were a couple years there

00:04:52 ◼   ► where they were out in like the end of August it felt really strange because

00:04:56 ◼   ► that's the thing you get used to is you know at least we're in it we might not

00:04:59 ◼   ► make it but we're in it till almost it's the end of the you know it's the

00:05:04 ◼   ► football season it doesn't matter anymore yeah right I actually that was

00:05:08 ◼   ► actually one of the reasons I think as a boy that I became a Dallas Cowboys fan

00:05:11 ◼   ► and one of my favorite things about my the Tom Landry era Dallas Cowboys was

00:05:16 ◼   ► that I believe the number is 20 that they had 20 consecutive winning seasons

00:05:20 ◼   ► where they won at least nine out of the 16 games. And during that era

00:05:24 ◼   ► clearly the dominant team of that era was the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers

00:05:28 ◼   ► I don't think, you know, the Cowboys I think took one from the Steelers but the

00:05:32 ◼   ► Steelers beat the Cowboys more than the, you know, the other way around and

00:05:36 ◼   ► they won four in a row. And you know you could argue then that afterwards that

00:05:42 ◼   ► the 49ers supplanted the Cowboys, the Joe Montana era 49ers. And literally in

00:05:48 ◼   ► one game you know there was like a passing of the torch with the catch but

00:05:52 ◼   ► the thing about that that 20 consecutive winning seasons to me is that's that's

00:05:57 ◼   ► an incredible thing you know that's like an amazing consistency I think with

00:06:01 ◼   ► Jeter I and again I'm just talking off the cuff here but I believe and at one

00:06:04 ◼   ► point I know it was true don't count last year because he only played 17

00:06:07 ◼   ► years because of the ankle but in all the game all the seasons he's had full

00:06:12 ◼   ► seasons with the Yankees he's only played one meaningless game one time the

00:06:17 ◼   ► last and it was the last ever game at Yankee Stadium the the old Yankee

00:06:22 ◼   ► Stadium so it wasn't even meaningless it was that that was the one game where

00:06:26 ◼   ► they were now they're technically out of the playoffs but it was the last game at

00:06:30 ◼   ► the house that Ruth built so you could argue that it wasn't meaningless it was

00:06:34 ◼   ► actually very emotional and Jeter gave a speech to a completely sold-out

00:06:38 ◼   ► completely you know emotional crowd that's one in it and that's a 20-year

00:06:44 ◼   ► career. That's the magic of, yeah, I think there's something to be said for being in it, and like I

00:06:50 ◼   ► said, that was a great era for the Giants when you could count on maybe one hand the number of

00:06:58 ◼   ► meaningless games that they played over a course of like four or five years, and they didn't win.

00:07:02 ◼   ► Actually, you know, they got to the World Series one of those years, and the rest of them, I think,

00:07:06 ◼   ► they went to the playoffs once, and the rest of them, they didn't even make the playoffs, but

00:07:09 ◼   ► it was that thing of like, you weren't playing out the string. The games were meaningful, and even if

00:07:14 ◼   ► You ended up on the wrong side of them. They were meaningful and that I know that sounds strange for especially if you're like

00:07:19 ◼   ► Well a championship is the only thing that'll do but there is something to going to a game and saying hey

00:07:24 ◼   ► Maybe something magical could happen here versus like literally these are two teams that are going nowhere and don't care anymore. Yeah

00:07:30 ◼   ► That's the worst. It is absolutely it's the Astros playing the Padres and yeah, but it's you know, that's baseball, you know

00:07:38 ◼   ► And that's what that's you know, it's a sport where and you know, we can get any complaints about the wildcard and everything

00:07:43 ◼   ► But it's still even with the wild card and even with the expansion of the wild card. It's still a sport

00:07:47 ◼   ► We're just making it to the postseason a special like I can't I can't I can't fathom the sports like the NBA

00:07:53 ◼   ► Where it's almost hard not to make the playoffs. Yeah, where it's just about seating and like clearing out the absolute dregs, right?

00:08:01 ◼   ► And then you all play, you know, then then you're in a tournament you might as well

00:08:05 ◼   ► There's that one year where I think the NHL came back from a strike and they literally just did a tournament

00:08:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I do remember that we give up

00:08:12 ◼   ► Who needs a season? Oh

00:08:14 ◼   ► Anyway busy week ahead

00:08:17 ◼   ► It's gonna be huge. I don't even know where to start. I think it's

00:08:21 ◼   ► So we're recording Sunday night. We're gonna air this tomorrow. There's people be listening on Monday

00:08:28 ◼   ► I think this is probably one of those episodes where people won't won't wait around if you did and you waited around then you're listening

00:08:34 ◼   ► To it after the fact but all those of you listening on Monday the 8th of September 2014

00:08:41 ◼   ► We're talking the prelude to to Apple's big

00:08:44 ◼   ► Well, we don't know what event but we can make some some pretty good guesses

00:08:50 ◼   ► It's gone for everybody thought it was going to be an iPhone event and maybe something else - it's quickly zeroed into

00:08:57 ◼   ► iPhones to iPhones and

00:09:01 ◼   ► quote-unquote a wearable, right

00:09:03 ◼   ► Which is funny because this is the event

00:09:06 ◼   ► we always think of as the iPhone event.

00:09:08 ◼   ► And the iPhone is Apple's biggest product.

00:09:10 ◼   ► And this is by any measure.

00:09:12 ◼   ► And I can only look at,

00:09:13 ◼   ► like I know what the Mac world traffic is like

00:09:15 ◼   ► for the last few years.

00:09:16 ◼   ► And people talk about, oh, Apple events are big.

00:09:19 ◼   ► The iPhone event is of a scale

00:09:21 ◼   ► in terms of just general interest on the web

00:09:24 ◼   ► that is beyond any other Apple event of the year.

00:09:26 ◼   ► The iPhone event always pins the needle

00:09:29 ◼   ► in a way that an iPad event

00:09:30 ◼   ► or a WWDC keynote just doesn't.

00:09:34 ◼   ► And so it's fascinating that everybody's suddenly like talking about the wearable thing because without it, this would still be the biggest apple event of the year.

00:09:43 ◼   ► Yes, that's absolutely true. Um, and I think what's weird about that. Um, I was just talking offline with Dave off the show, not on the show, but with my friend Dave Whiskas about this over the weekend.

00:09:58 ◼   ► And we were talking about with with this the rumors that there's going to be a wearable announcement called the watch or whatever kind of thing it is doesn't really matter but the rumor is that they're going to announce it and then.

00:10:12 ◼   ► It won't be may not ship right away may not even ship in calendar twenty fourteen might just be for whatever reason and we've got to speculating why would they pre announce something if it wasn't ready to go on sale yet.

00:10:25 ◼   ► and in

00:10:27 ◼   ► 2007 when the only time they really I can remember them ever doing that like a significant lead time was with the original iPhone

00:10:34 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, whether where that was the Macworld Expo in January and it didn't ship till July

00:10:40 ◼   ► Or was it June 27th? It was summer

00:10:44 ◼   ► It was and it was late June if it was June. I think it was like June 28th or so into June, right?

00:10:50 ◼   ► This is why we need a chat room because of course, there's somebody out there who's you know

00:10:54 ◼   ► I remember that because my family and I were going to summer camp and we'd made the reservations like a year in advance

00:10:59 ◼   ► And I got the iPhone the day we were supposed to leave for summer camp. And so I reviewed the iPhone in a tent. I

00:11:04 ◼   ► You know, what's funny? I I went with Amy and and her some of her family to the shore in

00:11:12 ◼   ► We are my fan my first side of the family always goes to Jersey Shore

00:11:17 ◼   ► This was Ocean City, Maryland where I'd never even been before the next day

00:11:21 ◼   ► so it was like I had stayed up all night and wrote like a first thought and then we went to the shore and I was

00:11:28 ◼   ► Have to I think I try to be a good, you know

00:11:31 ◼   ► Vacationer, you know don't don't stay, you know attached to the internet and you know the stuff

00:11:38 ◼   ► I usually do when I'm with my family but with a brand new iPhone it was impossible

00:11:42 ◼   ► It was impossible to think of anything other than the iPhone that was in my hand. Yeah. Oh, yeah

00:11:48 ◼   ► I had to we and we had no cell service at the camp

00:11:52 ◼   ► So I had to actually I had to drive like 40 minutes down the mountainside to test like the phone part of it

00:11:58 ◼   ► But but it was definitely summer

00:11:59 ◼   ► It was one of those things that like Apple was ruining every everybody's summer vacation because that was late June and yeah

00:12:05 ◼   ► Yeah, and if you were gonna extend like a weekend trip to like the 4th of July it was right smack dab there

00:12:10 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's six months six full months right wean

00:12:13 ◼   ► I remember your review your review when you say you had no cell service

00:12:16 ◼   ► you don't mean like, uh, it was like one bar or whatever. It was like, no surface.

00:12:20 ◼   ► You know, the little thing that says no surface.

00:12:22 ◼   ► Didn't even have the AT&T look.

00:12:24 ◼   ► No, no, it was a complete, a complete empty void. And so, yeah, I,

00:12:28 ◼   ► I went down the mountain about 25 minutes and sat pulled over by the side of the

00:12:32 ◼   ► road, basically when I had like a bar and made a couple of calls and did some

00:12:37 ◼   ► data, just, it was ridiculous. But that was,

00:12:40 ◼   ► that was how I can always remember that it was summer vacation right around the

00:12:44 ◼   ► end of June, beginning of July. And that was despite the fact that the event was Macworld

00:12:48 ◼   ► Expo, so that was early January. So it was a huge process, but that allowed them to keep

00:12:52 ◼   ► it secret, right? Which I think is the scenario here with this wearable, is that we all know,

00:12:56 ◼   ► I mean, not to get into more anecdotes, but like, I remember you went to New York, I was,

00:13:01 ◼   ► since I'm in California, I went to Cupertino, but they did those briefings for Mountain

00:13:05 ◼   ► Lion. And everybody walked into those briefings and basically was like, what the hell are

00:13:12 ◼   ► are you guys talking about?

00:13:13 ◼   ► 'Cause there had been no rumors about it

00:13:14 ◼   ► that there was gonna be a new version of OS X that soon.

00:13:16 ◼   ► And I remember running into MG Sigler afterward,

00:13:19 ◼   ► and we looked at each other in both kind of mouth,

00:13:21 ◼   ► oh my God, right?

00:13:22 ◼   ► And that's because, you know,

00:13:24 ◼   ► Cupertino's pretty locked down.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And so the iPhone was pretty locked down

00:13:28 ◼   ► because it wasn't in the supply chain yet.

00:13:30 ◼   ► And so many of these leaks, like about the iPhone 6,

00:13:32 ◼   ► come from the supply chain.

00:13:34 ◼   ► And this wearable isn't in the supply chain yet.

00:13:36 ◼   ► And people talk about FCC approvals, leaking things,

00:13:40 ◼   ► and that may be true,

00:13:41 ◼   ► but also like if you announce it early enough it's not outside Cupertino and

00:13:46 ◼   ► maybe maybe you know some theoretical parts are but the whole product is not

00:13:51 ◼   ► in production and that means they can make that splash and that you could only

00:13:54 ◼   ► do that once right yeah that's exactly the point that I was making over the

00:13:59 ◼   ► weekend privately is that Steve Jobs this is and this is what was thrown in

00:14:04 ◼   ► my face was well Steve Jobs said in 2007 that the reason they were pre-announcing

00:14:08 ◼   ► iPhone was FCC they didn't want to have it come out through FCC regulations

00:14:12 ◼   ► they're gonna announce it now they're gonna put it through the regulatory

00:14:16 ◼   ► process they're gonna put it through the carrier testing process with with

00:14:19 ◼   ► singular and that would spoil the secret and they wanted to show it to us now and

00:14:24 ◼   ► it's not quite finished software wise and but you know we'll be ready in six

00:14:28 ◼   ► months and that that wouldn't apply to a wearable because a wearable wouldn't

00:14:31 ◼   ► need to get all the same regulatory stuff that a cell phone was which I

00:14:35 ◼   ► don't know is true actually. I think maybe it does if it has, I don't know what the regulations are.

00:14:40 ◼   ► I think if it's got radios in it, it has to go through some sort of process.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Yeah. If it has this NFC or Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, it has to have some kind of connectivity,

00:14:49 ◼   ► presumably. But I think it's more than that though. See, here's the, I think there's a huge

00:14:54 ◼   ► difference between 2014 and 2007, which is in 2007, as big a deal as Steve Jobs' keynotes were to

00:15:03 ◼   ► Guys like me and you, people who listen to this show,

00:15:06 ◼   ► people who read Macworld and Daring Fireball,

00:15:08 ◼   ► we still hung on keynotes, right?

00:15:10 ◼   ► We got up and got in line to get in the keynotes at WWDC

00:15:14 ◼   ► or we'd listen to the live feed and stuff like that.

00:15:17 ◼   ► But it was not that many people compared to today.

00:15:20 ◼   ► And there was no, even all the speculation,

00:15:24 ◼   ► and there were so many rumor sites,

00:15:25 ◼   ► there were tons, always have been Apple rumor sites.

00:15:28 ◼   ► And Apple rumor sites have always been trying to

00:15:30 ◼   ► get the goods on upcoming stuff.

00:15:32 ◼   ► But there was nothing like the market of speculation

00:15:36 ◼   ► for new iPhones and this pressure.

00:15:39 ◼   ► And I think it's clearly financial pressure

00:15:42 ◼   ► that there's money exchanging hands to get these prototypes

00:15:47 ◼   ► and mock-ups and shell casings and screens

00:15:51 ◼   ► and home screen buttons and everything has leaked.

00:15:55 ◼   ► I'm not saying that we know everything

00:15:56 ◼   ► that the phone's gonna do,

00:15:57 ◼   ► but at least the parts have all leaked.

00:15:59 ◼   ► I mean, there'll be updates.

00:16:00 ◼   ► somebody will find literally like here's the volume buttons of the new iPhone

00:16:04 ◼   ► yeah and you know in the last couple of years the first couple of years when

00:16:09 ◼   ► that started happening everybody was like ask gotta be fake fake fake and ends

00:16:12 ◼   ► up it's like yeah that you know that was actually right well the supply chain

00:16:15 ◼   ► just I mean I think the economics of the people working in the supply chain which

00:16:21 ◼   ► is almost entirely in Asia almost entirely in China you know there are so

00:16:27 ◼   ► people involved and you know culturally it doesn't take that much for somebody who's not being paid

00:16:32 ◼   ► very much to get paid a bribe basically to slide one of the 15 samples they've got to somebody else

00:16:40 ◼   ► and I think that's how business gets done. I mean I really I'm trying not to judge this because

00:16:44 ◼   ► I think by their cultural standards it's not that big a deal that's sort of how business gets done

00:16:50 ◼   ► and how competition happens but from Apple's perspective it's you know antithetical to what

00:16:55 ◼   ► what they want to do right and so they have to do and they can't do it now they

00:17:00 ◼   ► see they can't pre-announce the iPhone let's just say I've been avoiding the

00:17:04 ◼   ► term the iPhone 6 because I don't know what Apple's gonna call it and I you

00:17:08 ◼   ► know that they I certainly didn't predict that they would stop numbering

00:17:13 ◼   ► iPads right they said iPad iPad 2 and then they just went back to I knew iPad

00:17:17 ◼   ► right new iPad and then iPad air and iPad mini so I'm you know they've stuck

00:17:24 ◼   ► with this numbering and then a stick and s after the number system for a while

00:17:28 ◼   ► but I'm not making any predictions as to name but I'll just say iPhone 6 as

00:17:33 ◼   ► shorthand yeah shorthand they couldn't they can't announce the iPhone 6 6

00:17:39 ◼   ► months in advance to avoid these supply chain links be leaks because they have

00:17:43 ◼   ► to avoid the Osborne effect exactly even the iPad was a two-month window between

00:17:49 ◼   ► ounce and ship that same deal because they weren't cannibalizing some other

00:17:53 ◼   ► product when they did it but now that once that product starts once the clock

00:17:57 ◼   ► starts ticking then you've got a you got to ship it fast because nobody's buying

00:18:01 ◼   ► it between the day you announce and the day you ship it right because so for

00:18:05 ◼   ► example and I'm sure I've spoken to Apple store employees and people who've

00:18:10 ◼   ► worked at Apple stores you know have written to me at during fireball that

00:18:13 ◼   ► people come in all the time and they're like hey I hear there's a new iPhone

00:18:16 ◼   ► coming asking sir what are you gonna and they can honestly say we don't know

00:18:20 ◼   ► anything about it they don't tell us stuff like that we don't know here's the

00:18:23 ◼   ► iPhones we have today I can tell you all about if they pre-announce it in June

00:18:28 ◼   ► and then somebody comes in in July and says I hear there's gonna be a big

00:18:33 ◼   ► iPhone coming out I'd like that sounds interesting to me to be honest they

00:18:36 ◼   ► would have to say yeah you're right it's you know we've pronounced if it's coming

00:18:40 ◼   ► in September layaway plan for ya we'll see you then they can't do that you know

00:18:48 ◼   ► So I think and as big as the iPod was and I often when I'm on these podcasts

00:18:54 ◼   ► I often start mixing up my iPods and pads

00:18:57 ◼   ► But the iPod really the music player as big as it was and as much as it kind of made Apple

00:19:03 ◼   ► the household company outside the Mac community, you know that it became a

00:19:08 ◼   ► decade ago

00:19:11 ◼   ► You know

00:19:11 ◼   ► We all used to make jokes when Apple first started opening retail stores and you'd be walking through the mall and you'd hear a kid

00:19:16 ◼   ► say mom I want to go to the iPod store right I mean I heard that several times

00:19:22 ◼   ► from you know not from the same kid the iPod was nothing like the iPhone I

00:19:29 ◼   ► thought there was no no market like this for oh my god here's the pre-release you

00:19:35 ◼   ► know screen of the new iPod or the here's the here's the new circle rocker

00:19:42 ◼   ► What do we call that? What was that thing called? The click wheel? Yeah, the click wheel.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Yeah, you know, the people, even people who think they follow this stuff don't

00:19:52 ◼   ► always understand the scale of the iPhone that like, I think, okay this is

00:19:57 ◼   ► gonna be wrong, but like I think your your run-of-the-mill brand new iPhone

00:20:00 ◼   ► model probably sells more than the entire iPod line has ever sold. And

00:20:04 ◼   ► probably in just a couple of months. I mean the scale is, is it's not even the

00:20:09 ◼   ► same number scale. The iPhone is so much more popular a product than even the iPod was in its heyday.

00:20:16 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just unfathomable and this pressure is to, and you know like from that, I think it's

00:20:21 ◼   ► largely from, it's not from the, I think, I don't think it's from the rumor sites, the people who

00:20:31 ◼   ► publish these leaks. I don't think that the money that they get from the page views that come in

00:20:38 ◼   ► from the reports comes close to covering this sort of... I know it's like you, I

00:20:44 ◼   ► don't want to pass judgment, but effectively the bribery that's going on

00:20:48 ◼   ► and theft in some cases. It's the... I think it's the casemakers. Yeah. Because

00:20:56 ◼   ► there's so much pressure to get your case to market and Apple isn't going to

00:21:00 ◼   ► tell them the measurements of the new phone until it's out and... And yeah, and I

00:21:07 ◼   ► get, I mean, we see there are cases like for the new iPhone that are being, I get PR sometimes

00:21:13 ◼   ► from people who say we've got the new iPhone case weeks before the new iPhone has even

00:21:17 ◼   ► been announced because they're confident.

00:21:20 ◼   ► And in that business, I think there's this feeling like if I can make, you know, 5,000

00:21:24 ◼   ► silicone cases based on these dimensions that I think are accurate and I can ship them into

00:21:29 ◼   ► the channel in advance, then the day that that phone drops will be there.

00:21:34 ◼   ► somebody's going to be there and it better be us because if we wait to make sure it's right

00:21:38 ◼   ► somebody is going to beat us to the punch and so they're motivated to get it right and

00:21:42 ◼   ► I'm sure there are times when they don't get it right

00:21:45 ◼   ► but I think they take the gamble because if the if their Intel is right and

00:21:48 ◼   ► the the mold that they've made based entirely on parts and

00:21:53 ◼   ► hearsay and whatever if it fits

00:21:55 ◼   ► Then they can immediately ship it to the channel and sell those and strike while the iron is hot

00:22:01 ◼   ► And so they're motivated to do it. Yeah, exactly

00:22:04 ◼   ► and you know at the other one I linked them up last week I think their name is

00:22:11 ◼   ► Feld and boss the heck is it it's this one I think they're Russian

00:22:18 ◼   ► Felden Vogue vo lk go to felled evoke calm fe LD vo lk calm and they don't

00:22:26 ◼   ► make cases what they do is they take iPhone 5 s's I guess new ones anodized

00:22:32 ◼   ► the aluminum to new colors they cut the back and put in like actual not like a wood case they

00:22:38 ◼   ► actually put like a wood panel in the back or you know like a flower pattern and they they take out

00:22:43 ◼   ► the volume buttons and replace them with 18 karat gold volume and silence rocker buttons

00:22:49 ◼   ► and sell them resell them for like nine thousand dollars and i heard from people and i'd never

00:22:58 ◼   ► heard of them before I mean I've it just seems crazy but apparently it's a big

00:23:02 ◼   ► thing like in Moscow like all the the oligarchs are into these things because

00:23:07 ◼   ► they're it's like a culture you know where these crazy billionaire Russians

00:23:12 ◼   ► want people to know they have $10,000 iPhones but isn't that better than the

00:23:16 ◼   ► that crazy luxury I can't even remember the name of it but you know it's a

00:23:22 ◼   ► virtue virtue or two I mean this is like a competitor that where it's like it's a

00:23:26 ◼   ► real iPhone but we've actually taken the parts but again there's that you've got

00:23:30 ◼   ► then you really want to know what the shape of the parts are in advance so you

00:23:34 ◼   ► can start working on it right and they had a super high quality video like sure

00:23:38 ◼   ► they made like a commercial because their clients really want the new iPhone

00:23:42 ◼   ► when it comes out right which they've got to have their molds done in advance

00:23:46 ◼   ► even though that's impossible right so right this is supply chain is a logical

00:23:52 ◼   ► place to go I also think perhaps that there are competitors you know Apple's

00:23:55 ◼   ► competitors wanna know what they're doing

00:23:57 ◼   ► and so they're paying, but all this stuff then eventually

00:23:59 ◼   ► it just sort of leaks around the edges

00:24:01 ◼   ► and you end up with these YouTube videos

00:24:03 ◼   ► that are like somebody speaking, not in English,

00:24:06 ◼   ► posted on a YouTube site

00:24:07 ◼   ► or even like on a Chinese social network.

00:24:10 ◼   ► There was an iPhone 6 video

00:24:12 ◼   ► on one of the Chinese social networks

00:24:14 ◼   ► that got reposted to YouTube.

00:24:16 ◼   ► And yeah, it's not MacRumors paying these people.

00:24:19 ◼   ► It's not Mark, Mark Gurman isn't paying these people.

00:24:22 ◼   ► it's the people paying like who are much more closely attached to

00:24:26 ◼   ► the supply chain and they just they really there's a business advantage to

00:24:30 ◼   ► knowing in advance. Yeah definitely and it's crazy it's really kind of nutty.

00:24:37 ◼   ► It does see. Would iPhones with gold volume rockers. Yeah let me take a sponsor break

00:24:43 ◼   ► and I'll come back but the point I want to come back to you I want to tell you

00:24:45 ◼   ► in advance because I often forget by the time I get to the end of a sponsored

00:24:48 ◼   ► break though is that most of them don't turn on but then all of a sudden like in

00:24:54 ◼   ► the last two days we're starting to see ones like you said there's like

00:24:57 ◼   ► apparently a fully working 4.7 inch one that actually turns on and runs iOS 8

00:25:03 ◼   ► which is crazy but I'm gonna tell you about our friends at igloo longtime

00:25:10 ◼   ► sponsors of the show igloo is the intranet that you'll actually like and

00:25:17 ◼   ► they have a super exciting release that's brand new. It's called Unicorn.

00:25:23 ◼   ► We've talked about their Unicorn update on the show before. It has a ton of new

00:25:27 ◼   ► features, but the best is integrated task management that will change how you stay

00:25:33 ◼   ► on track with your work. Igloo tasks can be assigned in different ways depending

00:25:39 ◼   ► on the way on the work you're doing. One of the coolest ways to use tasks is

00:25:43 ◼   ► creating them directly on your content. So you're requesting updates on a

00:25:49 ◼   ► graphic that somebody on your team is working on or a text correction in a

00:25:53 ◼   ► Word document. You create these tasks right on your content in the igloo

00:25:57 ◼   ► interface and then when the designer goes to update the graphic and they go

00:26:01 ◼   ► through igloo to get to it the task what you want changed is right there on the

00:26:05 ◼   ► same page. So when you're viewing content even if it's a blog, if it's an event, a

00:26:10 ◼   ► forum topic inside your igloo the tasks are all right there so the stuff that

00:26:15 ◼   ► you need to be done is right there attached to whatever it is wherever you

00:26:19 ◼   ► go in the igloo system go find out more it's a great stuff all the other stuff

00:26:25 ◼   ► about igloo is all still true all sorts of great templates to choose from the

00:26:30 ◼   ► fact that it runs it's your private internet that you get to run the fact

00:26:36 ◼   ► that you get to start for free for up to 10 people and just use it. Unlimited

00:26:42 ◼   ► time. Where do you go to find out more? This is it igloo software.com/the

00:26:49 ◼   ► talk show igloo software.com/the talk show. Great, great internet and now

00:26:56 ◼   ► they're really with this task stuff really making it into a project

00:27:01 ◼   ► management system for your small teams and organizations so my thanks to them

00:27:07 ◼   ► so in the past we've seen these leaks come out and then they always I think

00:27:13 ◼   ► there was one about a week or two ago where it at least turned on to the point

00:27:16 ◼   ► where it showed the connect to iTunes right right and it was funny because

00:27:24 ◼   ► somebody then took like screenshots of that and like kind of estimated the

00:27:29 ◼   ► measurement of the graphic because the graphic had like letterboxing at the top

00:27:33 ◼   ► and bottom and a rough estimation is that it was it might be very very close

00:27:40 ◼   ► to the size that I predicted a few weeks ago which I think makes sense that in

00:27:46 ◼   ► other words it's a same pixel per inch as the iPhone 5 and 5s but just they

00:27:50 ◼   ► just cut it to 4.7 inches right but now there's ones coming out that are

00:27:55 ◼   ► actually fully operational Death Stars.

00:27:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:00 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know enough about the production cycle, but I would imagine very late in the game, they're producing, first off, they're producing like a test units.

00:28:07 ◼   ► And then there, the, you know, there was a story about how iPhone shipments were already filling.

00:28:12 ◼   ► Uh, planes going from China to North America.

00:28:16 ◼   ► Um, so, you know, at some point they're making them, they haven't announced them yet, but they've got to get them here and there and, and around the world, assuming that they're going to drop them in a lot of countries.

00:28:25 ◼   ► in a couple of weeks, they've got to start shipping them now.

00:28:29 ◼   ► So once that, I mean, then the genie is completely out of the bottle and it's

00:28:32 ◼   ► gotta be a lot easier to, to pluck something off the production line.

00:28:35 ◼   ► And there's probably an earlier wave that are like the, the, the production

00:28:39 ◼   ► models to see if the process works and if the quality level is high

00:28:43 ◼   ► enough and those probably leak.

00:28:44 ◼   ► So there's probably a life cycle and I've never really thought of it this way of

00:28:47 ◼   ► life cycle of leaks where, you know, it starts with all the suppliers and

00:28:51 ◼   ► then the end it's the assembly.

00:28:52 ◼   ► and then it starts to be working models.

00:28:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think they must be making the real ones by now.

00:28:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, they've gotta be.

00:29:01 ◼   ► Given the volumes, I mean, we were talking about

00:29:02 ◼   ► how huge the iPhone volume is,

00:29:04 ◼   ► how much demand there is on day one,

00:29:06 ◼   ► then they've gotta be making,

00:29:07 ◼   ► and that's why when I saw that story

00:29:09 ◼   ► about how there are already lots of Apple shipments

00:29:13 ◼   ► coming from China, that it's completely believable

00:29:17 ◼   ► because they've got, let's assume that in less than two weeks

00:29:20 ◼   ► they're gonna be on sale,

00:29:22 ◼   ► they're gonna wanna fill the channel with as many as they can possibly make.

00:29:25 ◼   ► And so, yeah, they're making them now.

00:29:26 ◼   ► We don't even know what they are yet,

00:29:28 ◼   ► but they're making them and shipping them.

00:29:31 ◼   ► - The story I saw, I'm sure you saw the same one,

00:29:33 ◼   ► is that they've actually, right now,

00:29:35 ◼   ► they've consumed like a majority share

00:29:38 ◼   ► of all shipping capacity coming out of China.

00:29:40 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:29:41 ◼   ► Apple is literally like filling the channel

00:29:44 ◼   ► and it's not like its channel.

00:29:45 ◼   ► It's like the shipping channel from China to the US on planes.

00:29:50 ◼   ► It's crazy that there's only so many planes. They're not gonna they can't it's not the sort of thing that you can

00:29:56 ◼   ► Buy more plans, right?

00:29:58 ◼   ► And it wouldn't make sense for the shipping industry to have enough planes to meet this particular demand and then and then the other

00:30:06 ◼   ► 47 weeks of the year they're sitting a nerd, you know, right an airplane hangers that you know

00:30:12 ◼   ► also, I wonder sometimes about like

00:30:16 ◼   ► build to order, because sometimes you order on Apple's website and you can actually see

00:30:20 ◼   ► it get shipped to you, that you'd actually, if that's going to be an option, you want

00:30:25 ◼   ► to ship these early, because these are the ones that are going to retail.

00:30:29 ◼   ► And that at some point if they turn on pre-orders, those would be shipping from China, let's

00:30:33 ◼   ► say.

00:30:34 ◼   ► But now is the time to fill the channel with the ones that are just in the standard configs.

00:30:41 ◼   ► Or maybe they're all standard configs and they've got every single one possible.

00:30:44 ◼   ► But what they're doing is they're filling warehouses, they're filling capacity.

00:30:51 ◼   ► And we know that Apple usually can sell every single one that they've got.

00:30:54 ◼   ► And sometimes people are angriest when they can't get the model they want.

00:30:58 ◼   ► So it makes sense.

00:30:59 ◼   ► But it's mind boggling.

00:31:00 ◼   ► Again, we talked about the scale of iPhones and how it's hard to understand just how huge

00:31:05 ◼   ► the iPhone is.

00:31:06 ◼   ► And I think this fits into wearable expectations and how I think people expect more than it

00:31:12 ◼   ► can possibly deliver because it's never going to be, I think, an iPhone.

00:31:16 ◼   ► Like the iPhone is enormous, so enormous that we could take every bit of shipping capacity

00:31:20 ◼   ► from China to the U.S. and Apple is doing it right now.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:25 ◼   ► And I don't know that there's any product that they could make that would, that, that

00:31:28 ◼   ► that, there's no other product that I can imagine that, that would happen for.

00:31:32 ◼   ► No, there's no other product category.

00:31:34 ◼   ► I mean this is, this is, this is, there have been some really nice pieces written about

00:31:37 ◼   ► this, but it's this idea that, you know, somebody actually said you could write the

00:31:42 ◼   ► disappointment story like six months ago about the wearable no matter what it is

00:31:46 ◼   ► because people are going to say if the expectation is that it's literally

00:31:50 ◼   ► another product category like the iPhone that's not going to happen because

00:31:54 ◼   ► there's no product category like the iPhone. Smartphones in general are

00:31:59 ◼   ► enormous this huge class it's a shift in how the world uses

00:32:04 ◼   ► technology and you know and with Apple's product line you can see it the

00:32:08 ◼   ► iPhone is just dwarfs everything else they do and that's not going to change

00:32:11 ◼   ► There's not going to be another category in the next year or two that supplant it or match it even because it's it's just

00:32:18 ◼   ► Completely out of scale because there's such demand for for smartphones. Yeah, I

00:32:23 ◼   ► And I think it plays into I haven't written it up, but I know maybe a lot of times

00:32:29 ◼   ► I talk about it on the show and I don't write it but

00:32:31 ◼   ► I've been thinking for months now

00:32:34 ◼   ► About and I for years. I've been bothered by the whole smartphone

00:32:38 ◼   ► Versus phone distinction and that it's so misleading and that you know apples percentage increase in smartphones

00:32:45 ◼   ► Versus

00:32:50 ◼   ► Like how many more they're selling year-over-year versus their share of the smartphone market, right?

00:32:55 ◼   ► And they're very misleading things because the smartphone market is even though Apple's iPhone business has been growing steadily

00:33:02 ◼   ► every single year the smartphone market

00:33:06 ◼   ► Has grown even faster overall and that's simply because all phones are turning into smartphones

00:33:11 ◼   ► At a ridiculous rate because it's getting so cheap to make something that would qualify as a smartphone, right?

00:33:18 ◼   ► And it's really just this bizarre distinction to me. It's

00:33:21 ◼   ► it's like just like a distinction between phones with black and white screens and color screens like

00:33:29 ◼   ► like my you know, my first cell phone had a black and white screen and

00:33:32 ◼   ► Eventually even the cheap

00:33:35 ◼   ► $15 candy bar phones had color screens because eventually the color screens got so cheap that you know that they could do that

00:33:42 ◼   ► It didn't make sense to talk about somebody's share of the color

00:33:46 ◼   ► Phone market even though for a while those phones were more expensive and thus more profitable because you know for a year or two

00:33:54 ◼   ► There were like an exotic crazy thing like look the crazy little Java game. I play on my phone is in color now, right?

00:34:00 ◼   ► Over those members of some of those games like the quicks or whatever. Oh, yeah

00:34:05 ◼   ► I had one of those that was unlike a Sony Ericsson where it was terrible

00:34:09 ◼   ► I had a I had a bowling game that was like my go-to bowling game. I had a bowling game on my old Nokia

00:34:14 ◼   ► You know in and Horace did you and others who were more analysts, you know, it's more rigorous

00:34:22 ◼   ► Statistically than I number the number guys right have explained it, you know and painstaking detail that it's you know

00:34:29 ◼   ► It is interesting that that the smartphone market the percentage of all phone sold

00:34:35 ◼   ► That our smartphones is growing faster than any one company's share of that market

00:34:39 ◼   ► But really like to me

00:34:42 ◼   ► It's just we should just start calling them phones and that a phone is a thing that's a computer in your pocket

00:34:48 ◼   ► So my daughter when my daughter went to middle school

00:34:51 ◼   ► We got her a phone and it's a and it's not a smartphone and and yet I think by

00:34:58 ◼   ► the standards of maybe four or five years before that, if not less, it would

00:35:03 ◼   ► have been considered like a super featured phone because it doesn't, I

00:35:07 ◼   ► think it doesn't have data, but it has a full Blackberry style texting keyboard. I

00:35:11 ◼   ► mean it's not just like numbers, it's got a whole, you know, QWERTY keyboard on it

00:35:17 ◼   ► and it's got a color screen and it's got, I think you can install, I think it might

00:35:22 ◼   ► even have some software you can set up or install and and it's not a smartphone

00:35:26 ◼   ► phone as we consider it but it's not that far off and that was three years

00:35:30 ◼   ► ago so I would imagine and she's you know we're gonna end up putting her on

00:35:33 ◼   ► our plan and giving her my old iPhone 5 I think. Yeah. But you know so when

00:35:38 ◼   ► my son starts middle school next year I mean at one point is that phone at some

00:35:44 ◼   ► point very soon it is just easier for all concerned if that is you know if the

00:35:50 ◼   ► cheap phone they offer for kids is the cheapest Android phone that they've got

00:35:55 ◼   ► Rather than some weird just having to maintain some weird other platform of these dumb phones that is just at some point

00:36:01 ◼   ► They'll just give up at least in the in you know

00:36:03 ◼   ► The US and and some other of the richer countries and at that point there won't be anything that isn't a smartphone

00:36:09 ◼   ► Yeah, and it so there's like two interesting things that fall out of that

00:36:14 ◼   ► The first is that if you go back to 2007 and you think about the iPhone and the name iPhone that it

00:36:21 ◼   ► undersold the device vastly because it really wasn't a phone it was a

00:36:26 ◼   ► computer an

00:36:28 ◼   ► Internet connected computer in your pants. It was amazing and it happened to also work on these standard cell phone network and

00:36:36 ◼   ► Make in place at phone calls and let you you know for example one of the key features of that first one

00:36:43 ◼   ► Huge part of the demo was visual voicemail because it and what did that do it let you deal with your voicemail the way

00:36:51 ◼   ► modern graphical computers deal with messages, right? Right.

00:36:55 ◼   ► And so at first calling it a phone or the phone or the iphone was really selling

00:37:01 ◼   ► it short because it wasn't what we thought of as a phone. It was it really truly

00:37:05 ◼   ► was what we think of what we then thought of as a personal computer. Whereas

00:37:10 ◼   ► now lo these seven years later when we say phone, we mean we

00:37:15 ◼   ► don't mean a device that's just for phone calls. We mean a computer,

00:37:20 ◼   ► Right, right. If you say I like if somebody says you get you know

00:37:24 ◼   ► You arrive at a restaurant you've a group of friends and you you took an uber and you get out and somebody says oh

00:37:31 ◼   ► I left my phone in the car. You know what they left in the car. They didn't leave a cell phone

00:37:34 ◼   ► They left like an iPhone or some an Android it whatever it was. It has apps and stuff, you know

00:37:39 ◼   ► Yep

00:37:40 ◼   ► Nobody when they say I left my phone in the car means they left a device that only makes phone calls and text messages

00:37:46 ◼   ► Well and as landlines die

00:37:48 ◼   ► the whole concept of anything else a phone could be just disappears and and and

00:37:52 ◼   ► Phone is not perhaps the best term to use for these devices

00:37:56 ◼   ► But I kind of feel like it's the one that it's you know

00:37:59 ◼   ► One of those cases where the word evolves to mean something completely different

00:38:02 ◼   ► But because it's supplanting the thing that it it right it took its name from that that's what we'll call it

00:38:07 ◼   ► And at some point people are gonna be like this is weird. Why do we call it a phone and somebody's gonna say well actually

00:38:11 ◼   ► Let me tell you the story of the 20th century and the phone and that's where it came from people be like wow

00:38:17 ◼   ► I don't even you know why why would you do that and the answer is well

00:38:20 ◼   ► It was a series of small steps and at no point did somebody say this isn't a phone anymore because we had to explain what?

00:38:27 ◼   ► It was to people who who their entire frame of reference was the concept of a phone

00:38:31 ◼   ► Because I mean talking on the phone is like one of the least interesting things that I do on my iPhone and least common

00:38:37 ◼   ► It's the least pleasant. It's the only thing it's the only out of the dock. I finally got shamed

00:38:42 ◼   ► I think maybe even by by you it was a conversation on the on Twitter

00:38:46 ◼   ► I think and I realized why is the phone app even in my dock on my iPhone?

00:38:50 ◼   ► I never have it. I have it out of my dock. I took it out. My dock is messages Vesper

00:38:56 ◼   ► There's an ad

00:38:58 ◼   ► Safari and tweet pot that's honest though Vesper really is in my in my dock

00:39:02 ◼   ► I have male Safari Twitter if ik and overcast in my dock very close

00:39:07 ◼   ► That's first desperate down there, but it's not in the dock

00:39:09 ◼   ► But but yeah, I yanked the phone out because because frankly if somebody calls me

00:39:14 ◼   ► I don't need to launch the app and if I call somebody I know where I know where it is

00:39:19 ◼   ► And I call people so seldomly but yeah, so I feel like the name is gonna be phone now, right?

00:39:24 ◼   ► I doubt it will ever change. We'll just call them phones, right? So doesn't mean what it meant

00:39:29 ◼   ► it's the way language evolves it evolves in ways that the

00:39:33 ◼   ► Computer is a terrible word - yeah, I think about it. Yeah true true very true

00:39:41 ◼   ► What's the the the great divide in like dictionaries is?

00:39:45 ◼   ► prescriptivism versus

00:39:48 ◼   ► Descriptive is right. Whereas should a dictionary

00:39:50 ◼   ► Prescribe here is how you should use all of the words. Yeah, because here is what they mean or should it describe

00:39:58 ◼   ► Here is what people mean when they use these words and in some cases, you know, maybe you know

00:40:05 ◼   ► With italics say this is an in this is informal, you know, or this is slang

00:40:11 ◼   ► Um, but you're just describing the use of the words and sometimes those informal uses of the words

00:40:17 ◼   ► Are used so much that they become a new sense of the word and I think that's where we are with phone

00:40:23 ◼   ► Where maybe for the first couple of years?

00:40:25 ◼   ► calling the iphone a phone

00:40:27 ◼   ► would

00:40:29 ◼   ► In dictionary terms be informal, you know and people who knew what you were talking about would get it

00:40:34 ◼   ► But I think we're at the point now where it's like time to add a new number

00:40:38 ◼   ► to what does phone mean and you know a new integer and like meaning number four right

00:40:44 ◼   ► uh pocket computer that is connected to cellular networks and wi-fi and can install apps right

00:40:53 ◼   ► because it's it's it feels like the ship has sailed we're not gonna suddenly say okay everybody

00:40:57 ◼   ► stop on january 1st we're gonna stop calling them phones and we're gonna call them you know

00:41:03 ◼   ► communicators. Right. It's too late. And the prescriptivist will fight it tooth and nail all

00:41:08 ◼   ► the way down. But it doesn't matter. That's the language is like water. It's like trying to stop

00:41:12 ◼   ► running water with your hands. It's going to happen anyway. But the point of all the point of this,

00:41:17 ◼   ► the whole reason this inspired it is your point about how big the iPhone is and the phone market

00:41:22 ◼   ► is, is that the phone is the... And thinking of it as a phone, not thinking of it as a smartphone,

00:41:26 ◼   ► but just going to phone, meaning a cell phone, is the only thing I can think of on the planet

00:41:32 ◼   ► where almost everybody who could have one does or will have one.

00:41:39 ◼   ► Yes, you could argue that it will be the first piece of high technology that will be in the

00:41:48 ◼   ► possession of, I don't know, 90% of the human beings on earth. Because you look at the way

00:41:54 ◼   ► this technology is spreading in parts of the world that are not traditionally high-tech

00:42:00 ◼   ► societies, places that are poorer, like Africa as a really great example, where we've already seen

00:42:07 ◼   ► like wireless technology leap over wired technology because you don't need the infrastructure that you

00:42:13 ◼   ► used to need. And the internet at some point will be, their experience with the internet will be

00:42:19 ◼   ► in a phone screen, not on a computer, but in a phone screen, because that is a device that is

00:42:25 ◼   ► going to be cheap enough to reach them, going to be able to attach via the wireless network that

00:42:29 ◼   ► is going to be available and and as a result will be more transformative as a

00:42:35 ◼   ► whole I mean we can think about how the Internet's changed all of our lives and

00:42:38 ◼   ► computers and all of that but for like the average human being on planet earth

00:42:43 ◼   ► the phone is going to be the thing that is transformative because it's gonna

00:42:47 ◼   ► reach way more people yeah and I think it's really in or I think it was on pace

00:42:52 ◼   ► for that before 2007 but when it was just voice and texting right then it was

00:43:00 ◼   ► a phone rather phone phone and I think it was already on pace to you know if

00:43:04 ◼   ► there's seven billion people on the planet and I don't know I might be

00:43:10 ◼   ► missing the mark on how many people are you know very elderly or babies right or

00:43:17 ◼   ► very very very truly truly poor but let's say five billion of them could

00:43:24 ◼   ► have a cell phone it's getting very close to the point where that's true you

00:43:29 ◼   ► know where there's you know billions of cell phones in use and everybody's going

00:43:32 ◼   ► to have one and everybody because of the nature of the thing that you're banging

00:43:35 ◼   ► it around in your pocket even if you take care of it you know every couple

00:43:39 ◼   ► years you're going to get a new one right it's not going to be like your

00:43:44 ◼   ► You know like TV sets where people buy TV sets and use them for 15-20 years, right?

00:43:50 ◼   ► Cell phones aren't like that. Maybe eventually but it's their way to go. Well not now.

00:43:54 ◼   ► Right, not right now. Not in the year, you know, the world we live in where

00:43:59 ◼   ► every year there's a new iPhone, you know. So the size of this market is... I truly

00:44:04 ◼   ► wonder if it even really occurred to Apple, you know, in 2005-2006 and a run-up

00:44:09 ◼   ► up to the iPhone just how big the potential is there I don't know I mean

00:44:15 ◼   ► on one level I think they had the vision of how this was a big deal and this was

00:44:20 ◼   ► gonna make a difference but it you'd have to really be you'd have to buy in

00:44:25 ◼   ► all the way to really believe like this is the future and and and I don't know I

00:44:29 ◼   ► kind of feel like that's that was so far away at that point that they couldn't

00:44:32 ◼   ► really you know you could you could maybe dream it but you couldn't really

00:44:35 ◼   ► see it and now you can see it but back then it was more like imagine what would

00:44:39 ◼   ► happen if we could pack all this stuff in there and then the world saw that and

00:44:42 ◼   ► said oh well this is it and now every device in this class follows their lead

00:44:47 ◼   ► and now the world is is changing because that was a moment where like you said

00:44:51 ◼   ► you know sure we could have said five billion people are gonna have phones but

00:44:55 ◼   ► what it would have meant was they can call somebody and now it's they can be

00:44:58 ◼   ► on the internet with that device I still think it's interesting and I remember

00:45:03 ◼   ► this this clearly is that and in that initial keynote Steve Jobs he gave goals

00:45:08 ◼   ► for what they wanted and he said we would like you know with by a year from

00:45:12 ◼   ► now we would like to have 1% of the phone market right and it was and that's

00:45:17 ◼   ► what he said he didn't say 1% of the smartphone market he said 1% of the cell

00:45:22 ◼   ► phone market and that's one area where I truly think that Apple and Steve Jobs

00:45:27 ◼   ► clearly got it because what was then called a quote unquote smartphone was

00:45:32 ◼   ► not the Apple had no interest in that whatsoever they saw that is it was just

00:45:36 ◼   ► as much garbage as the plain old non smartphones that came before it you know

00:45:42 ◼   ► it wasn't worth thinking about it was worth thinking about just playing phones

00:45:45 ◼   ► because a phone is something everybody will have and everybody only has one

00:45:50 ◼   ► well and so the real question is with with the wearable stuff is that what

00:45:56 ◼   ► they're thinking which I think I think it's the right thing to think which is

00:45:59 ◼   ► not how do we get how do we address the smartwatch market right but thinking can

00:46:06 ◼   ► can you think of something bigger that is more addressable than then because you know

00:46:12 ◼   ► I have a pebble and I actually wear it most days and I can bounce that I have seen you

00:46:17 ◼   ► wearing your pebble yeah and I think it's fine I like the notifications on my wrist

00:46:21 ◼   ► because it means I can ignore a lot of notifications that I would otherwise take up my phone but

00:46:26 ◼   ► you know it feels like I used to have a palm trio right I think you might have had one

00:46:29 ◼   ► too it feels like that it feels like a thing that's cool and interesting but it's a kind

00:46:34 ◼   ► of a hack and in hindsight is going to be seen as the thing that happened before the

00:46:39 ◼   ► real thing. I didn't have a trio I had the handspring by the visor. All right. I was

00:46:44 ◼   ► before it even had like internet right but I was real into it I did I gave it like a

00:46:49 ◼   ► home OS yeah yeah I gave it like a full year where I was taking all my notes on it and

00:46:54 ◼   ► sinking my stuff over I forget how we cereal yeah I think it was like a cereal cable yeah

00:47:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I mean, the Pebble feels like that to me.

00:47:04 ◼   ► It feels like, reminds me of my trio,

00:47:06 ◼   ► where it's like, it's cool at the time,

00:47:08 ◼   ► but I'm under no illusion that this is the end product

00:47:12 ◼   ► of this category, because it's not.

00:47:14 ◼   ► It's an early adopter, let's experiment,

00:47:17 ◼   ► and it's exactly the kind of product

00:47:18 ◼   ► that Apple would never make,

00:47:19 ◼   ► because it's not really a product for regular people.

00:47:23 ◼   ► It's a product for people like me who want to try it out

00:47:27 ◼   ► and think about what this might mean,

00:47:28 ◼   ► but and like that there's it's cool new tech but it's not it's just not good

00:47:34 ◼   ► enough and the trio was kind of like that it wasn't really good enough it was

00:47:37 ◼   ► a weird it was a PDA attached to a cell phone and yeah it was not good enough

00:47:41 ◼   ► you know but it was ahead of its time it was oh definitely it was right was the

00:47:45 ◼   ► cutting edge it was just to happen first it right you know somebody had to think

00:47:49 ◼   ► of it first before you could get there the you know exactly well let's take a

00:47:56 ◼   ► a break let me take a break and we'll come back to that question of how big

00:47:58 ◼   ► and where I think the wearable thing is going but let me tell you about our

00:48:03 ◼   ► second sponsor and it's our good friends at fracture f-r-a-c-t-u-r-e fracture I

00:48:11 ◼   ► feel like with my voice like I'm not in unsony enunciating that clearly here's

00:48:17 ◼   ► what fracture does they response are a while back maybe you remember them you

00:48:21 ◼   ► send them your picture they print it super high quality on glass and then

00:48:28 ◼   ► they ship that rack to you it's not a picture framed in glass it is a piece of

00:48:33 ◼   ► glass with the picture printed right on it best way I can describe it is that

00:48:39 ◼   ► difference between like the old iPhones when it looked like a touch you know

00:48:44 ◼   ► there was this piece of glass over the screen and then when the iPhone 4 came

00:48:47 ◼   ► out and it looked like the pixels were actually on the screen and that they you

00:48:51 ◼   ► know it wasn't two pieces laminated together it was like one piece that's

00:48:56 ◼   ► what they do at fracture they actually print the photo on the glass and it's a

00:49:00 ◼   ► really cool effect it looks so much better than a picture underneath glass

00:49:05 ◼   ► very very cool they have all sorts of sizes available everything from little

00:49:11 ◼   ► small things for your desk to big things that you can put on the wall they ship

00:49:15 ◼   ► them to you in a really cool thing and you don't even need to frame the picture

00:49:20 ◼   ► itself can be hung right on the wall and it just looks cool it's just this piece

00:49:23 ◼   ► of glass that is a photo that you can just hang on a wall and they look great

00:49:27 ◼   ► without a frame you don't need to put a frame around them really great the whole

00:49:31 ◼   ► thing what you buy what they ship to you you just open the box you can put it

00:49:35 ◼   ► right in the wall and it looks great great idea for gifts I am totally gonna

00:49:40 ◼   ► steal this idea from Marco Arment who on last week's ATP mentioned that every

00:49:45 ◼   ► time he makes a new app before he sells it to somebody else he celebrates by

00:49:51 ◼   ► getting the apps icon on a five by five fracture and then he hangs them up on

00:49:56 ◼   ► his wall so anybody out there who's like a developer great idea and it looks

00:50:02 ◼   ► great I have seen them on Marco's wall they look beautiful so you don't couldn't

00:50:06 ◼   ► you know that's sort of an edge case but it looks great even if it's not a

00:50:09 ◼   ► photo it's just really really great we have a bunch of them here in the house

00:50:14 ◼   ► and there's some of my favorite pictures where do you go to find out more easy

00:50:19 ◼   ► their website is fracture me calm fracture me calm and if you use this

00:50:26 ◼   ► code the talk show you save 5% off any order just boom you just save money the

00:50:33 ◼   ► talk show go to fracture me send a couple pictures get a couple back see

00:50:38 ◼   ► what I mean and then like by Christmas you'll be ordering everybody in your

00:50:41 ◼   ► family fracture pictures it's a great service back to the show so how big is

00:50:49 ◼   ► the wearable market I don't know I honestly don't because here's what I

00:50:53 ◼   ► think I think I think if anything if it's big it might be sort of the

00:50:59 ◼   ► opposite of the iPhone where the iPhone has been this like here's one new iPhone

00:51:07 ◼   ► a year here's the iPhone for the next year if the wearable thing is big I

00:51:11 ◼   ► think it could be like there's 15 different wearables from Apple to choose

00:51:18 ◼   ► from hmm you know and maybe collectively they're pretty big and have a range in

00:51:24 ◼   ► prices but that it might you know it so for example just you know just think

00:51:28 ◼   ► about the old iPods you know when the iPods were big and there were you know

00:51:31 ◼   ► four or five of them right there was you know a little nano sized thing a little

00:51:36 ◼   ► clip-on thing that didn't even have a screen there was like the main regular

00:51:40 ◼   ► one that was sort of mid-size and then there was the big one the you know and I

00:51:44 ◼   ► stay still have that lineup we just don't get excited about them anymore

00:51:47 ◼   ► right but it could be that sort of thing and you know one or two of them or

00:51:51 ◼   ► watches and one or two of them or something else's and who knows yeah I I

00:51:57 ◼   ► mean I don't really know what to think about this market either other than you

00:52:00 ◼   ► know the caution that it's not going to be the size of the phone market because

00:52:03 ◼   ► nothing is and the feeling like it's going to be an accessory like it feels to me like this is a

00:52:08 ◼   ► device you know if there is something on your wrist it's a device that's meant to work with

00:52:12 ◼   ► the iPhone and that actually makes it logically part of the iPhone event to talk about it that

00:52:17 ◼   ► the iPhone is the center the you know it's a little bit like the old digital hub story

00:52:20 ◼   ► that Steve Jobs told back in 2000 except the center the hub now is the iPhone the iPhone's

00:52:25 ◼   ► with you all the time it's got the the high speed connection and then you can have something like

00:52:30 ◼   ► this whether it's one sensor that's on your wrist or whether it's a constellation of different

00:52:36 ◼   ► things on your body and in your house and wherever else and they all you know talk to your iPhone and

00:52:42 ◼   ► your iPhone collects the data and relays things to the internet and all of that but you know it

00:52:47 ◼   ► doesn't feel like you know again it feels like a it's about accessories it's about adding on

00:52:55 ◼   ► not about a category that is breaking entirely new ground. It's hard to even think about this because

00:53:05 ◼   ► it's so intertwined. It's technology and it's fashion and I do think it's going to rely on the

00:53:12 ◼   ► iPhone to some degree. So this is the question of how many of these are going to be sold?

00:53:17 ◼   ► How often is a person expected to buy one of these? If you buy something and put it on your

00:53:23 ◼   ► your wrist are you expecting to have it there for a year two years five years I

00:53:26 ◼   ► don't know yeah and you know it's funny I've in the same way that I've avoided

00:53:32 ◼   ► using the phrase iPhone 6 or try I've tried to you know wherever practical

00:53:36 ◼   ► I've avoided I've certainly avoid I think I've never used the word I watch

00:53:40 ◼   ► yeah that's and I've tried to avoid calling it a watch I've been calling it

00:53:44 ◼   ► a wearable right and I knew you know I know for a fact that they're working on

00:53:48 ◼   ► you know some sort of wearable stuff for a while but I didn't know any more than

00:53:52 ◼   ► And I didn't want to assume watch and I heard some people say it's a watch and I thought all right

00:53:57 ◼   ► That's a possibility and obviously there's a lot of companies in the last 12 months that have been

00:54:02 ◼   ► active making you know smart watches

00:54:05 ◼   ► But all that said it seems like in the run-up to this event there's suddenly a lot more smoke

00:54:13 ◼   ► You know in terms of you know my by

00:54:16 ◼   ► Triangulating these rumors I often just subscribe to if there's enough smoke there

00:54:21 ◼   ► there's got to be some sort of fire and there's an awful lot of smoke

00:54:25 ◼   ► specifically that it's a watch or two watches I guess is actually work you

00:54:29 ◼   ► know I think Nick Bilton I think from the New York Times has said that or was

00:54:34 ◼   ► it Brian Chen I yeah it looks like we're at the point now where it's it's um and

00:54:38 ◼   ► Jessica lesson it's leaks and counter leaks and and that some of this is is

00:54:42 ◼   ► about Apple this late in the game it's also about Apple trying to set

00:54:46 ◼   ► expectations so I think I think definitely there's so much smoke here

00:54:49 ◼   ► that there's no way there isn't isn't fire of some kind but if it really is a

00:54:55 ◼   ► watch and I think that's still even right now you know and like I said

00:54:59 ◼   ► there's an awful lot of people who are listening to this podcast prop possibly

00:55:02 ◼   ► after the event so enjoy as you and I are speaking on Sunday night yeah we

00:55:09 ◼   ► don't know I still think if it's a watch boy the word watch has so many

00:55:15 ◼   ► expectations like people buy a watch they do not expect to replace a watch

00:55:19 ◼   ► every two years I mean people buy a watch and they expect that thing to last

00:55:23 ◼   ► and if it's expensive they really expect it to last you know and there was a leak

00:55:29 ◼   ► I forget who had it that you know somebody said that Apple's considering a

00:55:33 ◼   ► $400 price point and that makes me laugh in one way and it makes me think hmm in

00:55:38 ◼   ► another because if it's true that it's 400 or they're thinking about 400 then I

00:55:43 ◼   ► think it's not an accessory right I think 400 bucks you're in the range of

00:55:49 ◼   ► something that's sort of got to stand on its own I don't know I don't know what

00:55:54 ◼   ► that depends on what accessory means I mean it may just be that to get on the

00:55:57 ◼   ► internet and things like that it really needs to talk to a phone or a Wi-Fi

00:56:00 ◼   ► connection or something and not be a little cell phone but but yeah it's more

00:56:04 ◼   ► than it's more than an impulse buy at 400 you really have high expectations

00:56:09 ◼   ► of what that device is going to do the part that made me laugh though was the

00:56:12 ◼   ► the 2010 Wall Street Journal story about Apple's tablet efforts that said that

00:56:18 ◼   ► they're considering a $999 iPad. That's where my thought went to, which is

00:56:24 ◼   ► it almost feels like an attempt to set the bar high so when the real price is

00:56:28 ◼   ► revealed everybody is relieved. Well I remember at the iPod there I did it

00:56:35 ◼   ► the iPad intro, original iPad intro and they are like you know the whole spiel

00:56:41 ◼   ► You know it's got a fit between this and this there has to be a reason for it has to be better than anything that this

00:56:46 ◼   ► And it all made sense and it they showed it and it was like it wow that looks great

00:56:50 ◼   ► You know I cannot wait to see this um this looks super exciting this looks really cool

00:56:55 ◼   ► And the whole time I was thinking it's got to be nine hundred ninety nine dollars look at it

00:56:59 ◼   ► It's like a Mac. You know and it's super thin and I know that making it that thin is expensive right

00:57:04 ◼   ► It's like this thing is cooler than any MacBook

00:57:08 ◼   ► It may not be faster than it because I know it's running arm, but it's cooler than any MacBook

00:57:13 ◼   ► It's gotta be 999 and then when they you know, the starting price was 499. I remember that that room it was

00:57:20 ◼   ► It was easily the biggest moment the most exciting moment of that event had nothing to do with the actual iPad

00:57:27 ◼   ► Even though there was lots that was exciting about it and lots of it

00:57:31 ◼   ► Most of it had had been completely secret. But when he when they dropped that price it was

00:57:37 ◼   ► Jodra, I mean people gasped right and not just because the device was cool, but because that 999

00:57:43 ◼   ► Number had come out and the Wall Street Journal ran it. Everybody was doing those, you know beard scratching

00:57:49 ◼   ► Yeah, you know, well, what does it mean it will people buy it for 999 and that was yeah

00:57:54 ◼   ► It was all framed around that price and and that's exactly where my mind went with with the this wearable rumor

00:58:00 ◼   ► it's like is that a real price or is that the

00:58:03 ◼   ► The the price that gets out there so that when they announce that it's really 300 instead of saying wow

00:58:09 ◼   ► 300 is a little pricey you say oh my god. I can't believe it's only 300

00:58:13 ◼   ► I don't know whether that's true or not, but it is that feel to it right right or even you know 199

00:58:19 ◼   ► You know and then all of a sudden things wow people are gonna get in line for it because you know

00:58:23 ◼   ► Electronics aside and the gadgetry and the all the health sensors and stuff presumably that the thing has

00:58:31 ◼   ► But Fitbits don't cost that much, you know, right? I mean there's none

00:58:34 ◼   ► You you can't buy like a Rolex for $199, but you can buy what most people would consider a pretty nice watch for

00:58:43 ◼   ► $199. Yes, you know it's it's again. It's not jewelry. It's not true luxury. It's mass-market luxury

00:58:50 ◼   ► it's like I have a spot I actually have a

00:58:53 ◼   ► a watch in my Amazon shopping cart and

00:58:58 ◼   ► Because I was thinking of replacing my old watch and it looks pretty nice and it's 30 bucks

00:59:02 ◼   ► and then my wife actually instead bought me a watch for our anniversary and

00:59:06 ◼   ► And like Macy's or something and it's a very nice watch, but it's it's probably a hundred and fifty dollar watch

00:59:13 ◼   ► It's not right. Yeah, you know you can go to yeah

00:59:16 ◼   ► You go to a store like Macy's and you know look at me so for you know at those prices Apple could make you know

00:59:21 ◼   ► a profitable device

00:59:25 ◼   ► But it's a lot more than most people

00:59:28 ◼   ► Spend on watches, you know, so it's you know, so somebody who does collect, you know Rolex or Omega or whatever

00:59:36 ◼   ► Watches might think well 199 that's not really a luxury watch but most people would think wow

00:59:41 ◼   ► This is gonna be the most expensive watch I've ever bought but I can't wait to have it. Mm-hmm

00:59:45 ◼   ► I

00:59:46 ◼   ► Could totally see it that way. I don't you know, I

00:59:49 ◼   ► Don't know

00:59:51 ◼   ► It's a it's a strange and the fact that Apple has hired all of these

00:59:55 ◼   ► people who come from like luxury brands.

00:59:59 ◼   ► It makes you wonder on one level and yet sometimes I think we take that too

01:00:03 ◼   ► literally.

01:00:04 ◼   ► It's like you know because on a grand scale Apple is a luxury brand

01:00:08 ◼   ► and that having them at Apple doesn't necessarily mean that they're

01:00:13 ◼   ► making a

01:00:13 ◼   ► you know a thousand dollar gold smartwatch.

01:00:18 ◼   ► It doesn't follow that that is the case but I it does make me wonder

01:00:22 ◼   ► you know, especially since this is replaceable technology, this is not stuff that's going to be valid in seven years or five years maybe or four years even,

01:00:30 ◼   ► what this product is, because if it's a luxury product and it's beautiful, what's its shelf life? How long is a reasonable amount of time?

01:00:40 ◼   ► Like, I have my dad's Rolex that he bought in Switzerland in the 60s, in the early 60s, and it, you know, I've had it like cleaned and stuff,

01:00:49 ◼   ► but he gave it to me a few years before he died and it's beautiful and

01:00:54 ◼   ► You know, it's from 50 plus years ago and works fine

01:00:58 ◼   ► These things are not gonna be like that even if they're great and made with wonderful

01:01:03 ◼   ► Materials and that the leather and the metal and all of that is good. The electronic stuff is gonna be surpassed in a year

01:01:09 ◼   ► Yeah, and it won't be interesting like you you were not able to pass that down to your son

01:01:14 ◼   ► No and have it be interesting 50 years from now. No, it might be an interesting like history item

01:01:19 ◼   ► but it's not gonna be something you would wear for a night out. Right and

01:01:24 ◼   ► think about this now now circle back to the discussion we just had about how the

01:01:30 ◼   ► word phone has taken a new meaning and it doesn't mean you know to like what

01:01:34 ◼   ► our parents mean. My dad you know thinks the phone is a thing that's connected to

01:01:38 ◼   ► the wall. Right. It's a little curly cord. Right and it's what he uses to talk to

01:01:43 ◼   ► about baseball. The same exact thing could happen to the word watch, right?

01:01:51 ◼   ► Where right now today a watch means this thing like you're talking about like

01:01:55 ◼   ► wherever you talk about a nice watch you're talking about a thing that your

01:01:59 ◼   ► dad could have bought in 1962 and which is like still in perfect working order

01:02:06 ◼   ► and serviceable and has enormous emotional resonance with you because you

01:02:13 ◼   ► know he's not with us anymore you know and there's thing for years yeah right

01:02:17 ◼   ► so now it's it's you know it's a priceless artifact exactly the watch

01:02:25 ◼   ► could take on a totally new meaning that evolves past that where even it and it

01:02:30 ◼   ► could happen quickly because look I happen how quickly it's happened with

01:02:32 ◼   ► the word phone right we're even 10 15 years from now watch doesn't mean that

01:02:37 ◼   ► anymore watch means computer on your on your wrist right the computer on your

01:02:42 ◼   ► with an expectation that it's collecting data

01:02:45 ◼   ► about your health and it's telling you

01:02:48 ◼   ► when something important is happening.

01:02:50 ◼   ► And yeah, it could do that.

01:02:54 ◼   ► I think that's what makes this story so fascinating

01:02:56 ◼   ► is 'cause again, we're looking at something

01:02:58 ◼   ► where we've seen some companies try this

01:03:00 ◼   ► and they've done some interesting things.

01:03:02 ◼   ► They're definitely interesting.

01:03:04 ◼   ► The pieces are all there for something interesting,

01:03:07 ◼   ► but there's one, the question of how you mix them together.

01:03:10 ◼   ► And two, is that thing then something that people actually want?

01:03:15 ◼   ► Because I talk to a lot of people who say they don't wear a watch or they stopped or

01:03:18 ◼   ► they never wore a watch.

01:03:20 ◼   ► And so what do you have – is Apple trying to motivate people to strap something on their

01:03:26 ◼   ► wrist and what's the value you get out of doing that?

01:03:29 ◼   ► Well, see that's very – to me that's a super interesting question because is it better

01:03:35 ◼   ► for you to be a watch wearer already

01:03:37 ◼   ► and an Apple just has to convince you to get their watch

01:03:42 ◼   ► and replace yours with theirs.

01:03:43 ◼   ► Or is it better if you're not and you've got an open wrist?

01:03:46 ◼   ► - Right, watch doesn't mean anything to you right now.

01:03:49 ◼   ► - Right, you've got an open wrist.

01:03:51 ◼   ► They don't even have to convince you

01:03:53 ◼   ► that the Apple Watch is better than your fossil watch

01:03:58 ◼   ► that you've been wearing for a while

01:04:00 ◼   ► or the Rolex that you're wearing,

01:04:02 ◼   ► that costs 10 times more.

01:04:04 ◼   ► if you have an open wrist maybe it's a wide open thing because it's solving an

01:04:13 ◼   ► entirely different problem it's you know your your fossil watch or your Movado or

01:04:19 ◼   ► your you know Omega is primarily just telling you the time and maybe that's

01:04:24 ◼   ► not even what the watch does like that's one of the things I wonder like all

01:04:27 ◼   ► these other smart watches start with the idea that by default you just look at

01:04:31 ◼   ► the screen or like with the pebble you have to turn it on right pebbles always

01:04:35 ◼   ► on right it is always on but you have to do something to make it light up if it's

01:04:40 ◼   ► if it's dark right right but primarily the first thing it's doing is telling

01:04:44 ◼   ► you the time yep and what if that wasn't the baseline what it know right what if

01:04:50 ◼   ► that's not the baseline what if it's not like that you know and there's rumors

01:04:54 ◼   ► that it has that this Apple thing has a color screen and that it's going to run

01:04:58 ◼   ► apps and that's probably running you know iOS and there's no way there's no

01:05:04 ◼   ► way Apple's gonna do a black and white display it's impossible so if it has a

01:05:09 ◼   ► display it must be a color display and all these other ones like the the moto

01:05:14 ◼   ► 360 you know came out this week or shipped this week finally right and the

01:05:19 ◼   ► other Android where phones have come out and their default watch faces are

01:05:25 ◼   ► skeuomorphic representations of what we traditionally think of as fine watches

01:05:31 ◼   ► right right and at least in pictures they look like wow that does look like a

01:05:36 ◼   ► real watch that's kind of interesting or that looks nice people say they look

01:05:39 ◼   ► nice to me they don't look nice but and you know and I think I've still not seen

01:05:44 ◼   ► an Android wear one in person but I'm pretty sure if I saw it in person I

01:05:47 ◼   ► would think it looks like a nice watch in a way that like the iPhone calculator

01:05:53 ◼   ► used to look like a nice Braun calculator it didn't look like a nice

01:05:57 ◼   ► brand calculator it was you know just a piece of glass and I had like the

01:06:01 ◼   ► buttons on it it might have been a cool it was a cool I thought it was a cool

01:06:04 ◼   ► way to make a calculator app for the iPhone but it never would have

01:06:08 ◼   ► interested me and fascinated me like if somebody said hey by the way I've got

01:06:12 ◼   ► this 1972 Braun calculator that was my dad's and that I would think look at

01:06:17 ◼   ► that see it's the uncanny valley where you're trying you're trying to be a

01:06:20 ◼   ► a thing to simulate a thing so hard that it ends up being weird.

01:06:25 ◼   ► The pebbles like this too, the pebble faces that I use are not at all attempting to look

01:06:30 ◼   ► like real watches.

01:06:31 ◼   ► There's like the one with the words and there's the one with like a little animated face on

01:06:36 ◼   ► it, but like a cartoon character face, but not like the, their actual like, this looks

01:06:42 ◼   ► like a real watch face.

01:06:44 ◼   ► Those are awful.

01:06:45 ◼   ► I can't even look at them because they hurt my eyes because they are aping a real watch.

01:06:50 ◼   ► watch and they're fighting against they're fighting against what the pebble

01:06:54 ◼   ► is good at and right fighting it in a direction where one of the things the

01:06:58 ◼   ► pebble is good at is unlike a lot of these things pebble actually gets

01:07:01 ◼   ► reasonable battery life right you know you can wear it for a couple days at

01:07:04 ◼   ► least I can get six days out of it right which is way better than all these other

01:07:09 ◼   ► ones and part of the reason they can do that is that they have this really low

01:07:13 ◼   ► resolution. I think it's like 160 by 160 ink display. Yeah, so it's never going to

01:07:22 ◼   ► be able to look pretty in a way that a watch looks pretty but then you know

01:07:26 ◼   ► they just use like the words or something like that. Right and those look

01:07:29 ◼   ► good but when they when they and yeah it's not a very good display but they

01:07:33 ◼   ► still tried to ape like a watch with hands and it looks terrible and I think

01:07:38 ◼   ► that I think that's an interesting point of what if what Apple tries to do is not

01:07:42 ◼   ► trying to make it look like you'd mistake it for a Swiss watch but it's a

01:07:48 ◼   ► new and this would be a very Apple thing to do is it's a new thing that you put

01:07:52 ◼   ► on your wrist and it might even tell you the time but it's not trying to be

01:07:58 ◼   ► mistaken for a Rolex right it's just not what it's trying to do right like

01:08:02 ◼   ► imagine 2007 Steve Jobs says here's the iPhone he takes it out of his pocket the

01:08:07 ◼   ► crowds going nuts and it it would before he turns it on it looks like it exactly

01:08:12 ◼   ► the same it's a black piece of glass and he turns it on and it turns to the phone dialer

01:08:19 ◼   ► right that would have been because then that that's using this thing to make it look like

01:08:25 ◼   ► whatever we all thought of as a phone a thing with a you know a one two three four five six seven

01:08:32 ◼   ► eight nine zero underneath a red hang up button a green call button and i don't know like a star

01:08:40 ◼   ► button underneath where you would hit the star button to then access you know

01:08:44 ◼   ► the other stuff yeah I imagine that the dialer is the home screen and if you're

01:08:48 ◼   ► right that's exactly the button right then it'll show you it'll slide up a

01:08:52 ◼   ► thing that shows you apps but like the default is dialing right that's exactly

01:08:57 ◼   ► what I was trying to say like that the home screen is a phone dialer because

01:09:01 ◼   ► that's a phone and that to me is what all the smart watches have done so far

01:09:05 ◼   ► where the home screen is analog wristwatch with an hour hand and a

01:09:11 ◼   ► minute hand and and they're all you know and and the people who are praising like

01:09:16 ◼   ► the moto 360 the people who think it looks good and you know some of the the

01:09:21 ◼   ► Samsung ones that just came out they're doing it in a skeuomorphic way that you

01:09:27 ◼   ► know aping fine analog wristwatches which is exactly the opposite of

01:09:34 ◼   ► everything Apple has done software wise in iOS 7 starting a year ago and with

01:09:38 ◼   ► Yosemite coming up imminently. Oh and do you want to compete with those devices? I

01:09:43 ◼   ► mean this is going back to your point of like is the is the wide open space of

01:09:47 ◼   ► people who don't wear a watch or don't think about watches a better place to go

01:09:51 ◼   ► to than people who love watches which is an interesting idea but I like the idea

01:09:56 ◼   ► that you know you don't want to compete with a Rolex because you were not going

01:10:00 ◼   ► to win you you know first off you're not a Rolex you're the resolution of your

01:10:05 ◼   ► screen and your battery life is never going to compete with that Rolex but you

01:10:10 ◼   ► do have some other things going for you they're not that so don't write that be

01:10:14 ◼   ► something be the thing you are be something else right that's exactly

01:10:18 ◼   ► right and you can compete with the Rolex on what the thing looks like on your

01:10:23 ◼   ► wrist at a distance sure you know it's that sort of thing nice materials and

01:10:27 ◼   ► all of that but it's not the same device and you know you're not you're not just

01:10:31 ◼   ► trying to create a computer that ends up being a watch right good wine in the

01:10:35 ◼   ► same way that every iPhone ever made especially all the ones other than the

01:10:40 ◼   ► 3g and 3gs but you know the original one and then back with starting with the

01:10:45 ◼   ► four and going through today they look like nice devices in your hand even

01:10:50 ◼   ► before you turn them on they're just to me aesthetically pleasing pieces of

01:10:56 ◼   ► of material and they can totally compete on it.

01:10:59 ◼   ► I just think when it comes to the face,

01:11:01 ◼   ► whatever it is, whether it's a square,

01:11:03 ◼   ► whether it's a band-aid strip type thing or a circle,

01:11:08 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't think Apple would do a circle

01:11:09 ◼   ► because I think a circle is way too,

01:11:14 ◼   ► I think just having a circular screen is skeuomorphic

01:11:17 ◼   ► and it anchored in the world of watching.

01:11:20 ◼   ► I mean, that's the story Motorola tells

01:11:22 ◼   ► of how they came to a circle.

01:11:24 ◼   ► They did like a they admit to doing like a focus group where they ask children

01:11:27 ◼   ► What do you think a watch looks like and they set a circle and they said okay?

01:11:31 ◼   ► We'll make our thing a circle and it's like you're asking them what it should be based on

01:11:36 ◼   ► The thing you're trying to supplant right right?

01:11:40 ◼   ► It's like imagine if Apple had decided to make start with the iPhone and ask children. Well. What does a telephone look like?

01:11:47 ◼   ► It's got push buttons

01:11:50 ◼   ► they didn't they weren't gonna say it looks like the

01:11:53 ◼   ► the monolith from 2001.

01:11:56 ◼   ► - Well, this is the old faster horse thing, right?

01:11:58 ◼   ► Which is that, you know, do you wanna just,

01:12:00 ◼   ► is your idea of the next thing,

01:12:02 ◼   ► the, you know, a better version of the old thing,

01:12:04 ◼   ► or is it something that's completely different?

01:12:06 ◼   ► And I think, I feel like, you know,

01:12:09 ◼   ► people again who have listened to this afterwards

01:12:11 ◼   ► can laugh and laugh,

01:12:12 ◼   ► but I feel like that's what Apple ideally would do,

01:12:16 ◼   ► is throw all that away and say,

01:12:18 ◼   ► if we're gonna do a wearable device,

01:12:20 ◼   ► what we're not going to do is make it pretend

01:12:24 ◼   ► to be the old thing, but instead start from zero of like,

01:12:28 ◼   ► having something on your body has a lot of benefits.

01:12:32 ◼   ► It's easier to glance at your wrist.

01:12:34 ◼   ► And this is one of the reasons I like the notifications

01:12:36 ◼   ► in the Pebble.

01:12:37 ◼   ► It's like, people always say, well,

01:12:38 ◼   ► you've got your phone in your pockets.

01:12:40 ◼   ► Like, my wrist is way more accessible than my pocket.

01:12:43 ◼   ► And women who often have to carry their phone in a bag,

01:12:47 ◼   ► you know again their wrist is way more accessible than the phone that's tucked

01:12:51 ◼   ► away in the bag so that's a benefit and being on your body and being able to do

01:12:55 ◼   ► things like read your heart rate and and and uh... sensor movements uh... all of

01:13:00 ◼   ► that is an advantage to being on their sister with the advantages of why you'd

01:13:05 ◼   ► want to be on somebody's wrist rather than start with the watch and yet

01:13:09 ◼   ► network

01:13:10 ◼   ► never underestimate how much the stuff that you've just gotten used to

01:13:14 ◼   ► is actually a huge pain in the ass

01:13:16 ◼   ► Yeah, right. I'm sure when indoor plumbing came, you know that there were people who were like, oh my god put a thing

01:13:22 ◼   ► I'm gonna crap in right in my house. No way. I'm today

01:13:26 ◼   ► You know, you're gonna put you're gonna put water pipes all throughout the house and and drains

01:13:30 ◼   ► Do you realize how much harder it's gonna be to make a house when you do that, right?

01:13:34 ◼   ► Exactly, and then you know, it's of course, of course

01:13:38 ◼   ► You don't want to go out and have a little dirty box in your backyard to go to the bathroom

01:13:43 ◼   ► Very few outhouses anymore. Yeah, very few outhouses anymore. And you know, that's one thing

01:13:49 ◼   ► I was just talking to somebody on Twitter just like a random reader who was like

01:13:53 ◼   ► Hey if this if the watch has NFC and admit, you know, everybody's excited about this stuff

01:13:59 ◼   ► So if you know he was like, I know it's a big gift

01:14:02 ◼   ► But just go with me if the watch has NFC and is part of this payments thing

01:14:07 ◼   ► Then it's got to have touch IT - right

01:14:10 ◼   ► And my answer was no, I think it definitely wouldn't have touch ID because touch ID would be ugly because it's got to be you know

01:14:17 ◼   ► reasonably fingertip sized and

01:14:20 ◼   ► There's nowhere on a watch to put a fingertip sized thing

01:14:25 ◼   ► That's just for you to put your finger on right and it's already touching your skin

01:14:29 ◼   ► And I know that's not your fingerprint underneath there, but I might guess my just random guess

01:14:33 ◼   ► I don't know, but I just said there's got to be some other biometric thing that it could maybe do to create an ID

01:14:40 ◼   ► Because I don't think it would have that

01:14:42 ◼   ► and

01:14:44 ◼   ► Then there were other people who like chirped in and they're like it doesn't need a touch ID because you'll have your iPhone with you

01:14:50 ◼   ► And that is touch ID so then you can just take your iPhone out and use that for the touch ID part

01:14:54 ◼   ► Well, then what's the point of having the thing on your wrist, right? There's no point

01:14:57 ◼   ► Don't underestimate how much of a pain in the ass it might be that we'd have to take our phone out all the time

01:15:02 ◼   ► Yep, right. That's to me the key to this, you know having the thing on your wrist like all of a sudden

01:15:08 ◼   ► Maybe we start using the iPhone less. Well, yeah

01:15:11 ◼   ► I mean if you wave if you imagine going up to the at the drugstore with your bottle of soda

01:15:16 ◼   ► and your or you're like

01:15:19 ◼   ► Milk jug because you ran out of milk and just like waving your wrist like boop and walking out or and then eventually

01:15:26 ◼   ► Presumably, you know with with RFID just walking out

01:15:30 ◼   ► Right and you get charged for the milk and that's it

01:15:34 ◼   ► Then you know that yeah that is that is easier than pulling it out of your pocket

01:15:39 ◼   ► it's marginally easier, but over time even marginally easier is

01:15:42 ◼   ► easier and and

01:15:45 ◼   ► It could be it could be you know Marco Arment linked to a

01:15:50 ◼   ► Site of one of these like mock-up sites, and it was the it was the only

01:15:55 ◼   ► Round watch thing that I've seen that I thought I thought I liked and I'm not saying that Apple would do it

01:16:02 ◼   ► but the one thing that intrigued me about this site is that it was suggesting using the watch metaphor as user interaction.

01:16:09 ◼   ► And what I liked about it was the idea, they had actually said it may not even be a touch screen,

01:16:14 ◼   ► that if you're going to have a round device, you could use the ring, kind of like the click wheel,

01:16:19 ◼   ► you could actually use the ring for navigation, perhaps you push down or tap and you can spin around,

01:16:25 ◼   ► and then you might even have like some wheels on the side.

01:16:28 ◼   ► I doubt that Apple would do it, but I thought that was kind of an interesting idea that

01:16:34 ◼   ► I hadn't really thought of before, which is could a device like this not be driven by

01:16:41 ◼   ► swipes and taps on a touchscreen, but some other, you know, in this case it was spinning,

01:16:47 ◼   ► essentially turning a dial, turning like sort of like the old iPod.

01:16:52 ◼   ► I thought it was really, it wasn't something I thought of and I thought it was really interesting.

01:16:55 ◼   ► I kind of feel, I think like you do, that they're much more likely to just kind of walk

01:17:00 ◼   ► away from the traditional watch interface and not try to make a watch that looks like

01:17:04 ◼   ► a watch but is actually not, but instead make a new thing.

01:17:07 ◼   ► But I thought it was an interesting idea of like the other part of Apple's history, which

01:17:11 ◼   ► is this kind of circular navigation thing that I guess if Tony Fidell were still at

01:17:16 ◼   ► Apple maybe that would be the direction you'd go.

01:17:17 ◼   ► I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised though.

01:17:21 ◼   ► seems to there's a great idea in there and it may not be going back to circle

01:17:26 ◼   ► but I think the right idea is just because we've gotten used to this

01:17:31 ◼   ► doesn't mean the next thing is still going to be this right so we got used to

01:17:35 ◼   ► the command line with our Apple twos mm-hmm and then the Mac came out and

01:17:39 ◼   ► there was no command line none yeah there were no way to issue commands mine

01:17:43 ◼   ► bug through the keyboard right it truly was and I know that the people who are

01:17:48 ◼   ► born post Macintosh cannot that you just can't fathom it a computer was a thing

01:17:54 ◼   ► that when you turned on you got a blinking prompt yep and you would type

01:17:57 ◼   ► computer things and they could be dangerous first time I saw the Mac I

01:18:01 ◼   ► thought how do you write programs on this thing right somebody tried to

01:18:04 ◼   ► explain to me I was like I don't understand how that can be it just it

01:18:08 ◼   ► doesn't make any sense how there could be programs on this well that my thought

01:18:11 ◼   ► when I first saw the Mac was how do you do something how do you do the things

01:18:15 ◼   ► you need to do that this I was infatuated with the graphical user

01:18:20 ◼   ► interface but you know to me it was like a game it was like the the the interface

01:18:25 ◼   ► was a game that let you play computer huh and I was like well when you need to

01:18:29 ◼   ► do something else how do you do it if you don't have it if there's no way to

01:18:33 ◼   ► close this I want to close this and get back to the black screen that has a has

01:18:38 ◼   ► a prompt yep you know and I was right and I remember thinking like oh my god

01:18:43 ◼   ► what are how are we gonna deal with those spaces on the file names when

01:18:47 ◼   ► you're on the command line I don't think I'd ever seen a system that had

01:18:51 ◼   ► backslashes at that point or if I did I'd never learned it right and then you

01:18:56 ◼   ► know there was none it's a new thing and with the this is actually kind of how I

01:19:02 ◼   ► feel about the iPod nano by the way right now which is that it is a weird

01:19:06 ◼   ► product that is does feel like it's aping yeah bad the I yeah yeah because

01:19:13 ◼   ► it's not iOS. You can swipe and tap and when you tap things happen it's just

01:19:16 ◼   ► it's not right. Here's a really great example. So a great example to me

01:19:21 ◼   ► is the original iPod and we had handheld devices and they had like navigation and

01:19:28 ◼   ► it was up and down left and right. Right. It was joystick style or up down up down

01:19:32 ◼   ► and all the music players today used that and the problem the biggest problem

01:19:37 ◼   ► was it had gotten to the point where it was easy to have a thousand songs and

01:19:41 ◼   ► and going up, up, up, up, up a thousand times is just no good.

01:19:46 ◼   ► You can't do it.

01:19:47 ◼   ► And holding the button down, it just-- you don't have enough control.

01:19:50 ◼   ► So that wheel, it was genius because it had speed.

01:19:55 ◼   ► It was completely under control.

01:19:57 ◼   ► You could flick it.

01:19:59 ◼   ► And all of a sudden, you had this new thing that we'd never used before,

01:20:02 ◼   ► but it was really useful.

01:20:04 ◼   ► And you could use it to navigate literally thousands of songs.

01:20:10 ◼   ► And then, you know, flash forward 10 years or actually it wasn't 10 years, six years.

01:20:14 ◼   ► Uh, can you believe that the iPhone was only six years after the iPod six years

01:20:19 ◼   ► and you know,

01:20:20 ◼   ► we all went in thinking that the iPhone was going to be that gag slide of a click

01:20:25 ◼   ► wheel with a phone on top. Right. Uh, no. So I, yeah,

01:20:29 ◼   ► I do kind of think that,

01:20:30 ◼   ► and I think the nano shows that like you shrink the size small enough and your

01:20:34 ◼   ► finger covers the screen, you know, and it's, it's a problem.

01:20:38 ◼   ► even on an iPad, it's always a problem that your finger covers what it is you're touching

01:20:43 ◼   ► when you touch, but if you shrink the screen small enough, you can't compensate for it.

01:20:48 ◼   ► Right.

01:20:49 ◼   ► You know, like on the way that the perfect example is the way on the standard iPhone

01:20:52 ◼   ► keyboard.

01:20:53 ◼   ► Do you love how I now have to refer to it as that the standard iPhone keyboard, when

01:21:00 ◼   ► you type a key, it shows you what you typed above your finger, it flashes up.

01:21:05 ◼   ► that's an affordance for the fact that you can't see which one you're touching

01:21:08 ◼   ► because it's underneath your your thumb or your finger on something the size of

01:21:14 ◼   ► a watch there's no way to afford that because your thumb covers over half of

01:21:18 ◼   ► it exactly so I would not be surprised at all even if it has a very nice color

01:21:26 ◼   ► display that it is not a touchscreen because I don't know that touch is right

01:21:32 ◼   ► at all for something that size especially if it's small and especially

01:21:35 ◼   ► if there's a version that women would want to wear,

01:21:39 ◼   ► or people with smaller wrists would want to wear.

01:21:41 ◼   ► At that point, you either get these devices that are huge,

01:21:44 ◼   ► or you get something that's smaller,

01:21:45 ◼   ► and there's no touch target left.

01:21:48 ◼   ► At least touch in the sense of tapping objects on a screen.

01:21:53 ◼   ► I mean, it's possible that you could do something

01:21:55 ◼   ► with touch that is swiping up and down on the side,

01:21:59 ◼   ► or something like that as a movement.

01:22:01 ◼   ► But it's not the same as like,

01:22:03 ◼   ► I am going, I see a thing and I'm going to touch it with my finger and then it'll do something

01:22:07 ◼   ► below a certain size. You just can't do it.

01:22:10 ◼   ► And the nano is sort of there where it's almost pointless to navigate because you can really only touch on

01:22:14 ◼   ► one. Maybe there's a couple things, but it's like, what's the point?

01:22:18 ◼   ► Think about the previous generation nano,

01:22:20 ◼   ► the one that was turned into a watch with the tick talk and stuff like that.

01:22:25 ◼   ► Um, and which I've mentioned before on the show that if your smartwatch

01:22:31 ◼   ► actual smartwatch doesn't look better than it than a previous generation iPod nano which wasn't

01:22:38 ◼   ► designed to be a watch right on the TikTok which was a Kickstarter project then you've got a

01:22:44 ◼   ► serious problem because that wasn't meant to be a watch and some of these smartwatches don't look as

01:22:50 ◼   ► good as my three-year-old nano on a TikTok right but I do that on that size touch screen it's a

01:22:59 ◼   ► real problem. I never know what to do. Yeah, they got like two buttons or four buttons you can tap,

01:23:05 ◼   ► but it's just and the swipe area is very small and it's just it's not it's a nice try at unifying

01:23:11 ◼   ► your product line if you're Apple and saying, look, people are used to this, so we'll do it.

01:23:15 ◼   ► But it is not if you were designing that in a vacuum, you would not design it that way because

01:23:20 ◼   ► it doesn't it doesn't fit right. And so I wonder about that, whether it's whether it's something

01:23:26 ◼   ► like what Marco showed me that is this it's circular and the ring is like the

01:23:30 ◼   ► click wheel or it's something that is a rectangular and you're not expecting to

01:23:35 ◼   ► touch on the screen but but there's some other interaction I don't know it's an

01:23:40 ◼   ► interesting interesting problem and will be interesting to see whether Apple

01:23:43 ◼   ► leans on the side of a new interaction or whether they try to make it feel as

01:23:47 ◼   ► iPhone like as possible I just can't help coming back to the idea that what's

01:23:53 ◼   ► happened is everybody in the industry has gotten the ability to make these I

01:23:59 ◼   ► found this gonna call my iPhone like devices right right there's and

01:24:04 ◼   ► everything post PC that we've had Android Windows Phone whatever you want

01:24:08 ◼   ► to call the OS and there's you know I'm not saying they're all copies I'm just

01:24:10 ◼   ► saying no they're all derivative of this idea of a touchscreen and a Unix like

01:24:15 ◼   ► operating system running on a real computer under the hood and a real

01:24:23 ◼   ► operating system on top where you can put apps and stuff like that and we've

01:24:27 ◼   ► gotten to the point where everybody can make one now that is small enough to be

01:24:31 ◼   ► called a watch and maybe not a small watch in fact all of these things are

01:24:35 ◼   ► kind of huge by the standard of watches but we can make them like Dick Tracy

01:24:39 ◼   ► watch size which is a remarkable achievement and I think that all of the

01:24:45 ◼   ► enthusiasm you do see on sites that are reviewing them and giving them positive

01:24:50 ◼   ► reviews even though they seemingly have glaring problems in terms of just is it

01:24:56 ◼   ► actually useful and is it actually a good product I think it's just general

01:25:00 ◼   ► excitement of holy crap you can have a computer on your wrist it's a

01:25:05 ◼   ► technological achievement it really writes right I mean just you know you

01:25:08 ◼   ► and I are if not identically aged we're very close in age you go back to the

01:25:14 ◼   ► 90s and tell Jason Snell and John Gruber that you're gonna have a Unix computer

01:25:19 ◼   ► running on your wrist in the year 2014 and I'm gonna I'm thinking holy shit

01:25:23 ◼   ► we're having jet cars and jet packs - right I mean that's crazy because a Unix

01:25:27 ◼   ► computer in you know 1993 was like a room yeah it was like a refrigerator

01:25:34 ◼   ► I'm imagining like like one of those wrist things that like Space Ghost had

01:25:39 ◼   ► it's like that's I like doubles the size of your wrist it's like that's what I

01:25:43 ◼   ► would think it's like well it's gonna be huge and why would you put that on your

01:25:46 ◼   ► wrist not thinking you know how could it be these are mainframes these are like

01:25:50 ◼   ► more computer than than a computer and you're gonna have that in my in your

01:25:54 ◼   ► pocket or on your wrist that's crazy talk and so just because you can build

01:25:59 ◼   ► it it's cool that I can but just because you can't doesn't mean that that's

01:26:02 ◼   ► actually a good form factor for that and it's exact same as thinking the nano and

01:26:07 ◼   ► the and the tick tock in the lunatic I mean showed that right it's like you

01:26:10 ◼   ► could do it it's not that good but you could do it right and it's exact same

01:26:15 ◼   ► thing of why didn't the original iPhone run the Mac OS where you drag little

01:26:20 ◼   ► windows around and you have a file menu in a menu bar at the top it would have

01:26:24 ◼   ► worked at some level conceptually but it it definitely would have been a you know

01:26:30 ◼   ► would have been a bad idea yeah I mean we would have bought them or we would

01:26:34 ◼   ► have reviewed them and it might have been some cool things you could do with

01:26:36 ◼   ► it I'm sure they would have you know scaled the things up it wouldn't have

01:26:39 ◼   ► been like you're trying to touch a tiny little 20 pixel thing at the top but it

01:26:44 ◼   ► you know, it just wasn't the right interaction model. I just can't help but think that that's

01:26:48 ◼   ► where the wearables are. But everybody else is stuck thinking that they should make a

01:26:53 ◼   ► tiny modern cell phone on your wrist and nobody would want, you don't want a phone that small.

01:26:59 ◼   ► Right. Well, I mean, yeah, I think no sane person would want a phone that small. In fact,

01:27:06 ◼   ► I think that's actually a strong argument. I wrote a piece about this a while ago, the idea that

01:27:11 ◼   ► I don't want something on my wrist to be a phone. I don't think it's the right place for a phone.

01:27:16 ◼   ► If you could say you don't need to carry your iPhone around anymore, I'm going to strap this

01:27:20 ◼   ► thing to your wrist and it's your iPhone, I don't think I would want that because it would have to

01:27:25 ◼   ► be so small that the way you interacted with it would be difficult. This is why bigger phones are

01:27:31 ◼   ► more popular and the rumor is that Apple's going to have larger phones. What goes on your wrist,

01:27:38 ◼   ► that real estate is great but it's different and and I don't want it to be

01:27:42 ◼   ► the same interaction because it's not the same it's not only in a different place in my body

01:27:48 ◼   ► it's it's strapped to my wrist so I've got to hold my arm in a certain way to get to it

01:27:51 ◼   ► which also means it's one-handed operation because I can't bend my other hand back and it's tiny so

01:27:58 ◼   ► it's not you know the rules don't apply even though it's convenient to say hey it follows

01:28:02 ◼   ► the same rules as your phone it's not the same place so the rules should not apply it's a

01:28:07 ◼   ► different device. Yeah, let's come back to that idea of a big-ass iPhone, but at

01:28:14 ◼   ► first I want to tell you about our third sponsor and start good friends at hover.

01:28:18 ◼   ► Hover is the domain name registrar that doesn't suck and these guys, I repeat it

01:28:28 ◼   ► every time, but it's such a scummy industry and it's like going into

01:28:34 ◼   ► the bad part of town usually when you go to a domain name register hover has been

01:28:38 ◼   ► around forever they've always just been an honest company they may not be the

01:28:43 ◼   ► cheapest yeah I'm sure you could go somewhere else and register domain name

01:28:47 ◼   ► for less that's not what they're trying to be they're trying to be the best and

01:28:51 ◼   ► they've been in business for a long time and they have so many great features the

01:28:58 ◼   ► best one the best thing that they have on my opinion is their customer service

01:29:04 ◼   ► and what they call valet transfers. They make it easy to manage all your domains

01:29:10 ◼   ► in one place. And so let's say you've been registering domain names like a

01:29:15 ◼   ► dummy since the mid 90s every time you have a goofy idea for a domain name. I'm

01:29:20 ◼   ► not looking at anybody in particular. Yeah it probably sounds familiar to a

01:29:25 ◼   ► lot of you who are listening, right? And you've got them registered all over the

01:29:29 ◼   ► place and every time they come up for renewal and you get the email you think

01:29:33 ◼   ► Oh my god, I've had that thing since 1998, but it's still such a funny domain. I better keep it, right?

01:29:37 ◼   ► It's only 15 bucks or whatever for a couple years it but they're all over the place and you've got them registered at

01:29:42 ◼   ► You know three different places and some of them you don't even like because they're the bad businesses and you go to the website

01:29:48 ◼   ► and it's terrible what you can do is you go to hover and

01:29:51 ◼   ► you sign up at hover and you just give them your information for the places where you have your domain names registered and

01:29:59 ◼   ► They'll take care of everything in terms of moving them over and even if you haven't hooked up and they're in use and you have

01:30:04 ◼   ► It pointed to a silly, you know single-purpose website where you're making a joke for one of your friends or something like that

01:30:10 ◼   ► It's not just moving the domain name into your name and putting it at hover

01:30:14 ◼   ► They'll take care of everything with the updating DNS and getting it all pointed the right way so that everything is just seamless and then

01:30:20 ◼   ► when the DNS updates all of a sudden your domains are registered at hover and all of your sites just keep working and

01:30:26 ◼   ► these guys that they know this like I I every time I have to do anything related to DNS I panic because

01:30:33 ◼   ► It's so easy to screw up because I don't deal with it on a regular basis

01:30:38 ◼   ► Whereas that's all hover does is deal with domain names

01:30:42 ◼   ► amazing

01:30:45 ◼   ► Amazing stuff and here's the best thing you do if you can find somebody find one of your friends who has domains at hover

01:30:51 ◼   ► They will tell you I they'll say you're nuts if you don't move over because it's it's that good. I have 15 domains that hover now

01:30:58 ◼   ► How many of them in actual use oh

01:31:03 ◼   ► Well, if you can't read I have a lot of them redirecting where you know

01:31:07 ◼   ► You buy one and I like oh

01:31:08 ◼   ► But I could get the dot co and I could get this alternate spelling and I could have them all

01:31:11 ◼   ► Redirect and all of that and a couple that like you said are the jokes where it's like, oh, how could I not?

01:31:17 ◼   ► we did this in the

01:31:18 ◼   ► 200th episode of the incomparable a guy said that wrote in he said we hit him in the butter zone

01:31:23 ◼   ► And we just just started laughing and we that we went with that joke for a long time

01:31:28 ◼   ► And I realized I could register the butter zone

01:31:31 ◼   ► right

01:31:33 ◼   ► See that's what you can do now with these wacky new top level remains is instead of going the butter zone calm

01:31:41 ◼   ► Now the entire domain is part of the joke and there's no superfluous non-joke part of the domain

01:31:47 ◼   ► No, it's a hundred percent pure stupid Joe

01:31:49 ◼   ► Oh and they've got all those and that and they're totally on board that I probably should mention that that there you know with all

01:31:55 ◼   ► these goofy new

01:31:56 ◼   ► top level domains

01:31:58 ◼   ► You can do that. You know I think I think there's a Marco coffee

01:32:02 ◼   ► That everybody should check out probably registered through hover

01:32:06 ◼   ► All sorts of stuff like that use this code. Here's the code for the month. It's chowder

01:32:13 ◼   ► Ch o w DER that's that's their in joke for daring fireball readers

01:32:18 ◼   ► And go to hover calm and find out more of my thanks to hover

01:32:22 ◼   ► So I would smoke so much smoke where there's fire

01:32:29 ◼   ► Yep, the thing with two iPhones four point seven and five point five inches

01:32:33 ◼   ► There's still a lot of people out there who are skeptical of it. I don't know for a fact anything. Nobody tells me anything

01:32:39 ◼   ► I'm telling you that it's got to be true because somebody would have leaked don't don't expect a 5.5 inch iPhone by now

01:32:46 ◼   ► If there wasn't one coming, I agree. There's too much. It's like what we said about a

01:32:50 ◼   ► couple of these topics earlier that you know Apple

01:32:53 ◼   ► Apple doesn't leak all this stuff they'd and they don't like that it leaks but one thing Apple does do and

01:32:59 ◼   ► and you know, you know this and I know this and certainly like the Times and the journal know this is

01:33:07 ◼   ► Apple does leak to manage expectations because they are in risk of risk of being harmed if people go into an event

01:33:15 ◼   ► Expecting things that are totally not gonna happen because then they'll be disappointed and so sometimes you will see

01:33:21 ◼   ► These stories where it'll be like look. It's they're not gonna do this or

01:33:26 ◼   ► What we saw was look. It's probably not gonna be out until next year right just like don't get don't get your hopes up

01:33:31 ◼   ► That it's gonna ship next week

01:33:33 ◼   ► It's probably not gonna be out until next year and I feel like since they haven't said that like you said they haven't said no

01:33:38 ◼   ► No, there's no bigger iPhone. It's not gonna happen

01:33:40 ◼   ► That it's probably gonna happen because they probably the buzz is so large

01:33:45 ◼   ► Probably somebody would have batted it down if it was totally untrue

01:33:48 ◼   ► Especially at this point days before yeah like and that's why I think there's a bunch

01:33:54 ◼   ► you know that does seem to be a spurt of stuff coming out like

01:33:59 ◼   ► Brian X Chen it is might be the thing you're talking about. He had a piece in the New York Times yesterday

01:34:03 ◼   ► Where among other things

01:34:07 ◼   ► he said that the new bigger iPhones have a

01:34:11 ◼   ► One-handed mode right which is the thing I made fun of on the Samsung Galaxy Note a year ago, which was you know?

01:34:19 ◼   ► Well, how did in the world do you use these giant phones?

01:34:21 ◼   ► With when you're only holding it in one hand and

01:34:26 ◼   ► You know the Samsung Galaxy Note had a thing

01:34:29 ◼   ► I forget how you engaged it

01:34:30 ◼   ► But then all of a sudden it just put like the equivalent of like a regular four inch phone in the lower

01:34:36 ◼   ► Right corner of the phone and I presume you could also put it in the lower left if you're left-handed

01:34:42 ◼   ► But then it just you know, and then all the other there's like a big L shaped

01:34:46 ◼   ► letter boxing around it I have no idea Chen does not describe the one-handed mode of

01:34:55 ◼   ► the the new iPhone, but I would not be surprised at all if that's true because 5.5 inch phones are

01:35:01 ◼   ► ridiculous as

01:35:04 ◼   ► Phones as we know and you know, I've used the 5.5 inch or something very close to a 5.5 inch Nokia

01:35:12 ◼   ► When I was at build I've said this before it is a fascinating device

01:35:16 ◼   ► It is you know, it seems very intriguing. I think an Apple iPhone that was that size will sell

01:35:23 ◼   ► Huge I don't think a majority of people want that though

01:35:26 ◼   ► I think the people who do are gonna love it, but one thing there's just no if ands or buts about it

01:35:33 ◼   ► you know like when

01:35:35 ◼   ► When the iPhone grew from 3.5 to 4 inches which is minimal change in size compared to what we're talking about with

01:35:42 ◼   ► 5.5 inches

01:35:44 ◼   ► There was all sorts of stuff in the event talking about the features in the OS that help you so that you know

01:35:51 ◼   ► Yes, now it's harder to navigate but we have this edge gesture where you can swipe back from the left to go back

01:35:56 ◼   ► So you don't have to hit that back button all the way up in the top corner

01:36:00 ◼   ► like there's no way to

01:36:02 ◼   ► Mitigate this with you know little software tricks like that

01:36:06 ◼   ► If you have a 5.5 inch display on your phone, even if all of the surrounding area, it was minimized to the most possible degree

01:36:15 ◼   ► It's still too big to use in one hand

01:36:17 ◼   ► You have to hold it in one hand and use it in the other and there's no way around it for many people

01:36:23 ◼   ► That's not that's I that what I don't think it's a deal breaker. Obviously if Apple shipping it they don't either

01:36:28 ◼   ► It doesn't mean they shouldn't build the device. It just means in the world of trade-offs

01:36:34 ◼   ► People are willing to have X Y & Z bigger video games that are bigger

01:36:41 ◼   ► Better battery life, which I want to come back to in a second

01:36:45 ◼   ► and they're willing to give up I'm able to use the phone in one hand or if Chen

01:36:52 ◼   ► is right and there's a mode they're willing to invoke what I think is good

01:36:56 ◼   ► I even if Apple does it it's gonna be silly sure it's gonna be like what

01:37:00 ◼   ► direction are you tilted and it's like oh now it's suddenly this app is smaller

01:37:03 ◼   ► and now you can now you can reach the although I don't know I don't I don't

01:37:09 ◼   ► think about it from an iPad's perspective I don't I don't worry about

01:37:13 ◼   ► not being able to use my iPad in one hand yeah but you don't walk around the

01:37:18 ◼   ► city with it I know but I mean but this is a big device I mean I yeah I get that

01:37:21 ◼   ► I get that you there's more need for it than there is on an iPad but I've got an

01:37:25 ◼   ► iPad mini and I sometimes I think there is not you know this is an interesting

01:37:29 ◼   ► intersection between this very large iPhone and the very small iPad where

01:37:33 ◼   ► there well let me put it yeah let me put it to you this way if Brian Chen hadn't

01:37:36 ◼   ► written that I wouldn't have brought up a one-handed mode with you right on this

01:37:40 ◼   ► show because it wouldn't have a because it's such a silly thing to me that it's

01:37:44 ◼   ► such a silly notion to me that it wouldn't have even occurred to me but he

01:37:47 ◼   ► wrote it he says is a you know he doesn't say he's seen it but he says you

01:37:50 ◼   ► know sources familiar with the matter say that it's going to have it and so

01:37:57 ◼   ► given that and I'm not saying that means it's true I'm just saying you know it's

01:38:01 ◼   ► the New York Times and Brian X Chen I mean you know I have some issues with

01:38:05 ◼   ► Brian exchange but his his his reporting when he says the source says X is

01:38:11 ◼   ► excellent you know it's it's typical times quality so like I said it's not a

01:38:15 ◼   ► done deal I'm sure there's some kind of wiggle room out where it could be

01:38:18 ◼   ► something else entirely and it was mistaken as a one-handed mode but or

01:38:25 ◼   ► they tried it and it didn't you know right and go it didn't make it into the

01:38:30 ◼   ► final version but I would not be surprised at all having you played with

01:38:34 ◼   ► one of these devices I wouldn't be surprised at all if they did it you know

01:38:37 ◼   ► if there's some kind of thing maybe it's just in the control center and you flick

01:38:40 ◼   ► up from the bottom and there's a new button you can hit and it shrinks the

01:38:44 ◼   ► screen to the lower right corner I don't know I think it would be silly but I

01:38:48 ◼   ► wouldn't be surprised if they did it because these phones are ridiculously

01:38:52 ◼   ► big compared to what we're used to so if you've built your usage you know here's

01:38:58 ◼   ► how I typically use my phone I have often using it while holding it in the

01:39:02 ◼   ► same device you're using it with you're not able to do that with the new right

01:39:06 ◼   ► I think that's that's where it comes into into being an issue because for me

01:39:11 ◼   ► I think about large device and I think this is basically the smallest iPad we

01:39:16 ◼   ► can put in your pocket right not the biggest iPhone and that's not true

01:39:22 ◼   ► although I saw on Twitter today that Steve trout and Smith who likes to poke

01:39:28 ◼   ► around in Xcode and find weird things seems to suggest that

01:39:33 ◼   ► if you're using a screen size like that

01:39:35 ◼   ► and you're in landscape, it actually uses iPad resources,

01:39:40 ◼   ► which is really interesting.

01:39:42 ◼   ► Like it's just big enough that you might be able

01:39:45 ◼   ► to use an iPad view.

01:39:47 ◼   ► And of course then you're almost certainly not doing it

01:39:50 ◼   ► one-handed if you're tilting it sideways.

01:39:54 ◼   ► But I don't know, it's a funny intersection.

01:39:57 ◼   ► because like I said I really love my iPad mini and I wonder sometimes about

01:40:00 ◼   ► could I get away with one device if it was bigger than my iPhone but smaller

01:40:05 ◼   ► than my mini would it be good enough that I wouldn't need to or would it be

01:40:09 ◼   ► just bad on both counts I don't know that that come back that comes right

01:40:13 ◼   ► back to that WWDC session that I've been recommending people what they think it's

01:40:17 ◼   ► session 216 which is building adaptive layouts which is Apple's terminology for

01:40:22 ◼   ► flexible layouts or responsive layouts but in their terminology they don't call

01:40:26 ◼   ► them phone width or tablet width they call it like regular width compact width

01:40:31 ◼   ► regular height compact height and so like an iPad is like regular width

01:40:39 ◼   ► regular height like you can show the full interface a phone is regular height

01:40:44 ◼   ► so you can put like a big scrolling list but it's called a compact width a

01:40:51 ◼   ► regular iPhone like an iPhone today even when you turn it in landscape is still

01:40:56 ◼   ► a compact width. Like it's not a specific number of pixels or points, it just says

01:41:02 ◼   ► like a compact width even hold horizontally just means hey male if

01:41:10 ◼   ► you're showing a list just show one list at a time and don't show the list side

01:41:15 ◼   ► by side with the content. Whereas what he's saying and that's very interesting

01:41:20 ◼   ► to me would be that just the 5.5 inch iPhone if you hold it horizontally when

01:41:26 ◼   ► you're in mail you'll suddenly see a list of messages taking like the first

01:41:29 ◼   ► third and when you select one you'll see the message on the right right like an

01:41:34 ◼   ► iPad right and that were that settings will have a list on the left side and

01:41:37 ◼   ► then the pane on the right instead of it being something you enter into right and

01:41:41 ◼   ► if you think about that I I believe that and not just because he's a great

01:41:45 ◼   ► Twitter account it is very very astute hacker in the best sense of hacker in

01:41:51 ◼   ► terms of its blue sluicing those things out of the beta X codes and stuff but I

01:41:56 ◼   ► believe it because I think that's the message Apple has been preaching

01:42:00 ◼   ► especially this year at WWDC is to stop thinking about iPhone apps and iPad apps

01:42:05 ◼   ► and so don't think of the 5.5 inch iPhone as just a big iPhone or perhaps

01:42:13 ◼   ► and there's I have so many people on to it you know Twitter and email who think

01:42:16 ◼   ► hey, maybe it's not an iPhone at all. Maybe it's a

01:42:19 ◼   ► iPad nano and it'll run iPad apps. Well, no, it's too small to run iPad apps

01:42:25 ◼   ► it you know, it's just if you really really, you know, take an iPad app and just

01:42:29 ◼   ► Shrink it to 5.5 inches and print it out on a piece of paper. You'll see immediately that everything is too small to touch

01:42:35 ◼   ► But it totally makes sense to me that if you held it sideways that you could sort of give it an iPad ish layout

01:42:44 ◼   ► if not it but not by shrinking the iPad interface exactly you know what I mean

01:42:51 ◼   ► yeah it's it's just hey use one third of the screen for the list the other two

01:42:56 ◼   ► thirds of the screen for the content and figure it out dynamically based on how

01:43:01 ◼   ► many points there are how big the things should be well it's like totally believe

01:43:03 ◼   ► it's like a response of HTML breakpoint where you're basically the OS is saying

01:43:07 ◼   ► look yeah we say that this device is big enough that it can handle to two things

01:43:11 ◼   ► at once. And then the apps go, "Alright, I'll put that up there then." Because the apps

01:43:16 ◼   ► are already thinking about sort of like, when is it too small? I mean iOS developers already

01:43:20 ◼   ► are thinking of this. When is it too small, when is it too big? I've got this one design

01:43:24 ◼   ► for iPads and one for iPhones and it's not that unreasonable to think. But it's an interesting

01:43:28 ◼   ► idea because then you've got this phone that's sort of like a phone when it's being held

01:43:32 ◼   ► in one direction and sort of like an iPad when it's held in another direction. And I

01:43:36 ◼   ► I do, I wonder about the market for this device,

01:43:40 ◼   ► because when I talk to people who've written about

01:43:43 ◼   ► or use phablets, this is what comes up a lot of the time,

01:43:48 ◼   ► is people like it because they don't really care

01:43:51 ◼   ► that it's huge, they don't really use it as a phone.

01:43:54 ◼   ► You know, that word again, a hello, how's it going,

01:43:59 ◼   ► how are the Yankees doing?

01:44:00 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause you do, and admittedly,

01:44:02 ◼   ► let's just get out of the way,

01:44:02 ◼   ► you look ridiculous talking on one of these things.

01:44:04 ◼   ► - But if you always talk on your phone

01:44:05 ◼   ► using a headset or you know like I never hold my phone to my ear anyway I've

01:44:09 ◼   ► always got headphones in and so it doesn't matter and if you got a Bluetooth

01:44:13 ◼   ► thing it doesn't matter and then you otherwise you've got the cellular

01:44:16 ◼   ► connected internet thing and it's bigger so this so the screen is bigger and you

01:44:20 ◼   ► can see well stuff and don't just don't even underestimate the fact that you

01:44:25 ◼   ► know what if you're only on the phone for two minutes who cares if you look

01:44:27 ◼   ► ridiculous you know get used to it because it's like I said I was with

01:44:31 ◼   ► Hockenberry last week I was like you know people do I've gotten over making

01:44:35 ◼   ► front of them, but people do look ridiculous using an iPad as a camera. But

01:44:39 ◼   ► guess what? There's like probably two million people right now as we speak

01:44:42 ◼   ► using an iPad somewhere in the world as a camera. And get over it. This is what

01:44:46 ◼   ► they do, you know? Yeah, because they're... it's the tool that's at hand and it

01:44:51 ◼   ► works for them and it fits into their lives. It's hard to talk to Hockenberry

01:44:54 ◼   ► about any of this stuff because, you know, he's so huge that this would be a

01:44:57 ◼   ► nicely dainty phone for him. He's finally gonna know what we've thought. He's gonna...

01:45:02 ◼   ► I think he's gonna be so happy. He's gonna be like, "Oh my god, this is what

01:45:04 ◼   ► It's been like for you guys

01:45:06 ◼   ► Yeah, cuz right the current phone you like just kind of holds between two fingers

01:45:10 ◼   ► It's like well, it's like the current phone for him is like what we were talking about using the the iPod

01:45:16 ◼   ► that's right and

01:45:19 ◼   ► How do you get your big meaty fingers on this thing? So yeah, he'll be no, you know

01:45:24 ◼   ► I was certainly a skeptic, you know at first when the Android phones got super big

01:45:28 ◼   ► Because it didn't I didn't see the appeal

01:45:33 ◼   ► But you know, I turned around and they even when I wrote my iPhone 5 review two years ago

01:45:38 ◼   ► I said look the big bigger phones are here to stay because I was skeptical

01:45:41 ◼   ► Even when I had it and reviewed it of the change from 3.5 to 4

01:45:45 ◼   ► But clearly, you know, there's desire for it I'm still a little

01:45:50 ◼   ► Interested in why they went to two bigger sizes rather than keeping the four in size and having one bigger size

01:45:59 ◼   ► - I think there's a question about what, if this is true,

01:46:02 ◼   ► what happens next year?

01:46:03 ◼   ► Because I do wonder if at some point

01:46:05 ◼   ► they abandon the smaller size, the five size,

01:46:09 ◼   ► or do they keep that size around and upgrade that size

01:46:14 ◼   ► with better hardware on the inside and sort of end up with,

01:46:17 ◼   ► 'cause I think we're gonna end up with three sizes

01:46:18 ◼   ► 'cause they'll keep around some version of the five

01:46:21 ◼   ► as their third product.

01:46:23 ◼   ► That's the question is, is that a viable size going forward?

01:46:26 ◼   ► 'Cause that would be kind of nice if they said,

01:46:28 ◼   ► no, we're gonna keep that size around

01:46:29 ◼   ► It's never gonna be our biggest newest hottest thing

01:46:31 ◼   ► But we'll we'll keep it around with the previous year's specs or whatever put into it and we've got three sizes now

01:46:37 ◼   ► Not two and the old model but three iPhone sizes, right?

01:46:41 ◼   ► Even though there doesn't seem to be one new one of that size coming this right, but I don't necessarily need to do that

01:46:47 ◼   ► I mean they could put the 5s

01:46:49 ◼   ► Keep it out. Keep it around and it's perfectly good or put a colorful shell on it and it's the 5

01:46:53 ◼   ► SC or whatever. I mean they could totally do that if they wanted to or just keep the 5c

01:46:58 ◼   ► Right, but I do think I'm predicting that the message on stage Tuesday is going to be

01:47:03 ◼   ► 4.7 is better than 4.0 for the size that you're used to now, right?

01:47:09 ◼   ► And you're gonna think it's big at first but trust us you'll get used to it

01:47:12 ◼   ► And this is the right size and you know

01:47:14 ◼   ► We've we've done it now because we can build bigger screens and we have bigger batteries and that

01:47:20 ◼   ► whether it's true or not, we won't know until we you know get to use them, but

01:47:25 ◼   ► They're gonna say I think they're gonna pitch the 4.7 is you know yes, it's bigger

01:47:29 ◼   ► But it bigger only in good ways right and then they're gonna say the 5.5 is an altogether different experience first

01:47:35 ◼   ► It's for people and they'll tell a story about who it's for and you gotta get you got a credit a company like Samsung

01:47:40 ◼   ► And I can't believe I'm saying that but but follow me here. You know Apple

01:47:43 ◼   ► Apple is a company that picks its spot, and they they looked at the bell curve and said this is the right size phone

01:47:49 ◼   ► This is like if we had can only make one

01:47:51 ◼   ► This is the one because this is gonna fit best and what Samsung did because this is what Samsung does is they made a phone like

01:47:59 ◼   ► every size possible

01:48:00 ◼   ► right just to see

01:48:02 ◼   ► What would happen and one of the things they discovered? It's like a scientist like looking for a

01:48:07 ◼   ► Planet like an exoplanet right where you're looking at data, and you're trying to find some signal in the noise

01:48:14 ◼   ► And I feel like what what Samsung did was look at that chart and say well, okay people like phones

01:48:21 ◼   ► there's a bump around where the iPhone is and there's a bump above it. People do

01:48:24 ◼   ► like the bigger screens. And then there's this weird thing that happened over here

01:48:28 ◼   ► with the Note, which is there's another market for that and it's not as big a

01:48:32 ◼   ► market as that smaller phone. It's not. It's a weird market. It's more of a niche

01:48:37 ◼   ► but it's a big niche. It's bigger than we thought and you know that is

01:48:42 ◼   ► something that maybe you know until somebody tried it nobody would know and

01:48:46 ◼   ► and to Samsung's credit with the Note they tried it and they found it out and

01:48:50 ◼   ► and it's led everybody else to realize,

01:48:52 ◼   ► oh, you know what?

01:48:53 ◼   ► It's weird and not what we thought,

01:48:55 ◼   ► but some people just wanna have the huge phone.

01:48:57 ◼   ► And so Apple going into that market

01:49:02 ◼   ► doesn't necessarily mean it's Apple's failure

01:49:06 ◼   ► because I do think Apple strategy all along was like,

01:49:08 ◼   ► look, we're gonna pick the size

01:49:09 ◼   ► and then later we'll deal with

01:49:10 ◼   ► spreading out the product line.

01:49:12 ◼   ► But it is at least in part because Samsung went there

01:49:17 ◼   ► and uncovered this market that was unexpected.

01:49:20 ◼   ► and you know Apple because Apple's already got the iPad and the iPad mini, Apple's not in a bad

01:49:25 ◼   ► position to to try that now that they are spreading it out. They would never make that their only

01:49:30 ◼   ► phone but but adding it in it's just it's none of us looked at that. I mean we all laughed at the

01:49:35 ◼   ► note right it's like why would you do this and it turns out some it works for some people so

01:49:40 ◼   ► here we are but so full credit to Samsung for you know doing the old t-shirt cannon just covering

01:49:46 ◼   ► the whole landscape and figuring it out. They certainly they certainly had the first big ones

01:49:49 ◼   ► that were hits but I remember noting I don't know three years ago when when a

01:49:56 ◼   ► lot of Android phones started going past the five-inch mark right right because

01:50:01 ◼   ► in between four and five was bigger than the iPhone but I I played with those

01:50:06 ◼   ► devices and yeah you notice that it was bigger but it didn't seem huge and then

01:50:10 ◼   ► five to me is the marker where once you're a past five that's a really big

01:50:15 ◼   ► device and a bunch of Android phones went over there and they did the thing

01:50:21 ◼   ► that I always know is that this they didn't have four inch models - they only

01:50:26 ◼   ► had the big ones and I believed them my theory then and I still think it was

01:50:31 ◼   ► true at the time was that for a lot of them they did it because it was the only

01:50:35 ◼   ► way they could get a reasonable battery life that they made this and the screens

01:50:40 ◼   ► weren't super high-res either you know they made them big and they weren't

01:50:44 ◼   ► super high-res I mean they weren't necessarily bad but it just didn't seem

01:50:49 ◼   ► to be a lot I just the fact that they didn't have iPhone size ones even though

01:50:54 ◼   ► the iPhone was by far and still is the most popular size smartphone or phone if

01:51:00 ◼   ► I'm gonna follow my own advice it just seemed to me that they had to go big and

01:51:05 ◼   ► a reason I could think that they had to go big is that they needed the battery

01:51:09 ◼   ► But then I think a side effect of that as Android evolved to software wise, you know

01:51:15 ◼   ► Take advantage of that because the other thing to the first ones they just blew the Android interface up

01:51:20 ◼   ► It was just you know an interface that was kind of designed for the original size androids

01:51:25 ◼   ► Which were about the iPhone size and they just blew it up

01:51:28 ◼   ► But and I think that might be to where Samsung does

01:51:31 ◼   ► I can't believe I'm saying it does deserve the credit where I think that the reason like the note was popular

01:51:37 ◼   ► Was that the note had software that was meant to be on a 5.5 inch screen?

01:51:42 ◼   ► It had their all their crazy stylus stuff, right?

01:51:44 ◼   ► Because they stuck a stylus on it, right and it hit it hit a segment of the market that

01:51:50 ◼   ► Wanted it and it was a different segment, you know, and it's a totally reasonable

01:51:54 ◼   ► So I do think factor one is yes

01:51:57 ◼   ► There are some people side enough of them that it's a market worth going after

01:52:02 ◼   ► Who really and truly want a bigger phone for whatever the reason doesn't matter whether it's for games whether it's because they watch a lot of

01:52:08 ◼   ► TV, you know video YouTube on the phone and undeniably if you're watching

01:52:13 ◼   ► YouTube or baseball games in our case on a phone the bigger the screen the better no doubt about it

01:52:19 ◼   ► Maybe that's it

01:52:19 ◼   ► It's like big businesses also have come to them and said, you know

01:52:22 ◼   ► We want to buy

01:52:23 ◼   ► Units for all of our people who are in the field and we want it to be big and full featured because we're not gonna

01:52:29 ◼   ► to get them a tablet we want them out there without a tablet without a laptop

01:52:32 ◼   ► they're gonna have one and we want it to be bigger and Apple listens to those

01:52:35 ◼   ► guys and says oh wow there's a sale opportunity there too I don't know it

01:52:39 ◼   ► almost doesn't matter why you can almost just abstract and say look there's a

01:52:43 ◼   ► bunch of people who want a bigger screen for these reasons and so they get the

01:52:47 ◼   ► bigger screen and secondarily and I think this is huge I would not be

01:52:52 ◼   ► surprised if this is a big part of the message on Tuesday is that making the

01:52:57 ◼   ► phone that big yes there's all sorts of other trade-offs with one-handed use

01:53:01 ◼   ► etc etc but all of a sudden you've got this enormous room to put a battery

01:53:06 ◼   ► right oh yeah and so there's there's like a battery team at Apple right and

01:53:10 ◼   ► you know that these guys and they've even been featured in the videos you

01:53:13 ◼   ► know like when they've talked about the reasons why they've stopped making

01:53:16 ◼   ► replaceable batteries and Mac books and stuff like that and about taking every

01:53:20 ◼   ► single bit of space that they can get to you know put more battery in there and

01:53:24 ◼   ► smarter batteries. There is a team at Apple that works on, you know, iPhone

01:53:30 ◼   ► batteries and when they I think when they were told okay here's how big we're

01:53:34 ◼   ► gonna make this this phone they were like oh my god that's so beautiful right

01:53:38 ◼   ► well this is the greatest day of my life. I feel like those guys are doing an

01:53:41 ◼   ► algebra problem and have been from the beginning that they've been solving for

01:53:45 ◼   ► what Apple considers sort of like optimal battery life and that that if

01:53:49 ◼   ► you've noticed over the years with the iPhone the battery life doesn't change

01:53:52 ◼   ► very much and obviously the capacity changes a lot and the energy

01:53:56 ◼   ► consumption of the device changes a lot but in the end what they quote as

01:54:00 ◼   ► battery life doesn't change very much and so it's very clear to me that they're

01:54:04 ◼   ► they're solving for that battery life like that's what the number we want to

01:54:07 ◼   ► hit that's acceptable battery life and people who really use and abuse their

01:54:11 ◼   ► phones say it's not enough and I've got to have a backup battery or I gotta put

01:54:14 ◼   ► it in a case but Apple's like decided this is this is what we can fit as a

01:54:20 ◼   ► balance that works for us with these new phones being larger and especially the

01:54:25 ◼   ► very large one that's one of my questions is is this do those battery

01:54:29 ◼   ► guys say finally we can do we can we can also address this other issue which is

01:54:34 ◼   ► if you want your iPhone to last for two days or a day and a half or whatever it

01:54:40 ◼   ► is twice what it can now this model will be able to do that that's what I think

01:54:45 ◼   ► that's I don't know if it's gonna be twice but I do think it's gonna be

01:54:48 ◼   ► something like, hey, this bigger phone - maybe they won't tell us how much this

01:54:52 ◼   ► particular number is. But it's not gonna be another 10-hour battery, right? Presumably.

01:54:56 ◼   ► Right. No, I think - so I think the 4.7 inch one will come out with iPhone as we

01:55:01 ◼   ► know it, like battery life. They'll solve for that number again. Right. And the 5

01:55:06 ◼   ► will use the same amount of energy for everything else, because I think it's

01:55:11 ◼   ► gonna have the same CPU, same camera, the same everything else, except this bigger

01:55:17 ◼   ► screen which I also expect to be even higher resolution and so I and I think

01:55:22 ◼   ► they can do that and have it only consume maybe like 20% more power maybe

01:55:29 ◼   ► 30% more power than the 4.7 inch ones screen but they're gonna have way more

01:55:35 ◼   ► than 20 or 30 percent more room for battery because the way more just the

01:55:38 ◼   ► volume when you do the math of volume of one of these devices and you add that

01:55:42 ◼   ► much screen I mean it doesn't seem like a lot but when the other dimensions are

01:55:46 ◼   ► so small you add that extra screen and the volume is just vastly larger right

01:55:51 ◼   ► and so when people have said you know like in disputing my projections on the

01:55:56 ◼   ► displays of the two phones well if the one goes 3x the other one has to go 3x

01:56:00 ◼   ► and I think one of the big reasons that it can't because you can find a 3x

01:56:05 ◼   ► resolution for the four that would solve all the other problems I brought up

01:56:09 ◼   ► about the tap target sizes and the scaling factors and showing more content

01:56:13 ◼   ► you can definitely do it. The problem is that one would take 20% more power.

01:56:19 ◼   ► And they don't have more room for the battery.

01:56:20 ◼   ► And have no more, zero percent more room for the battery. And I think they'll maybe they'll get

01:56:26 ◼   ► there eventually, you know, just through the way that everything gets more efficient over time.

01:56:30 ◼   ► But I feel like right out of the gate, side by side, one of the main features of the bigger,

01:56:38 ◼   ► the 5.5 inch iPhone is going to be amazing battery life at least amazing by the standards of iPhones

01:56:44 ◼   ► as we know them and so I think that actually is going to create a second class of people who want

01:56:49 ◼   ► the 5.5 inch I agree first class first class is who we said before people who want the bigger

01:56:55 ◼   ► screen even if they had the same battery life even side by side they both get 10 hours of battery

01:56:59 ◼   ► life well a whole bunch of people want the 5.5 but I think the second class is if it gets 18 hours of

01:57:06 ◼   ► battery life instead of 10. Yep. There will be people who get it and they'll say, damn, this thing

01:57:12 ◼   ► is big. I don't like this. This is big. But wow, I need this battery life because they live on their

01:57:17 ◼   ► phones, right? And they'll be willing to put up with it. And that might be why they're putting in

01:57:23 ◼   ► like a one handed mode. Right? Because there's, I think there's to me just, you know, sucking all

01:57:31 ◼   ► these last-minute rumors in that to me makes sense that maybe there's a

01:57:35 ◼   ► one-handed mode only on the 5.5 inch phone I don't think the 4.7 inch phone

01:57:39 ◼   ► will need it I think they're gonna maybe even if this is all true they'll even

01:57:43 ◼   ► say the 4.7 inch phone doesn't need it and we know it's bigger we know it's a

01:57:47 ◼   ► little harder to use with one hand but you could definitely still do it the 5.5

01:57:50 ◼   ► inch one you can't and if that's what you want to do here's how you do it but

01:57:54 ◼   ► I think the battery life is gonna draw people in who otherwise would never

01:57:58 ◼   ► have bought the 5.5 inch one. Yeah, I think I think you're right. I think that's going to be

01:58:02 ◼   ► part of the story. It's like you want more screen, you want bigger battery life, all these things. We

01:58:07 ◼   ► have a model for you now. Here it is. And that may also speak to those that that business scenario of,

01:58:13 ◼   ► you know, I've got somebody out on the road and I want to send them send them there with one device

01:58:17 ◼   ► and you know, and it's got 17 hour battery on top of it. So this is it. You take this out in the

01:58:22 ◼   ► field you whatever you are, cable repairman or whoever, oil industry guy or whatever those

01:58:31 ◼   ► enterprises exist. So that's another market for it. I agree because otherwise if all that they're

01:58:35 ◼   ► selling is well you know bigger screen whatever it's less compelling but you know there are the

01:58:40 ◼   ► battery is one of the very easy bits of math to do and say well you're going to have more room for

01:58:46 ◼   ► battery and the components are not going to be larger so of course there's going to be more

01:58:50 ◼   ► battery yeah I think that that one device angle is a huge part of the the

01:58:56 ◼   ► five point whatever inch phone craze you know that it's for people who don't want

01:59:01 ◼   ► to have a tablet and a thing or don't even want to take a notebook you know a

01:59:04 ◼   ► MacBook and a phone with them they you know maybe you know I maybe it's not the

01:59:10 ◼   ► only computing device in their life but maybe it's a desktop computer somewhere

01:59:15 ◼   ► sitting on a desk and a 5.5 inch phone and that's it and if you're there away

01:59:22 ◼   ► from the desk you know where they can run Photoshop you know or Xcode or

01:59:26 ◼   ► something like that that truly needs still needs like a real Mac everything

01:59:32 ◼   ► else one device right I think that's exactly what this device is supposed to

01:59:36 ◼   ► be I mean it's great if you're somebody like like us who's got an iPhone and an

01:59:39 ◼   ► iPad and a laptop but I do talk to people who who say I'm not gonna have a

01:59:45 ◼   ► tablet and a phone, right? Especially since the tablet isn't isn't subsidized. So they've got an

01:59:51 ◼   ► iPad, but it's an iPad 2, and they don't know when they're going to replace it and all, but they get

01:59:56 ◼   ► a new phone every other year, right? So for them, this is a better deal potentially, if it can

02:00:03 ◼   ► fulfill what they would use a tablet for, enough for them to get by without needing the tablet,

02:00:11 ◼   ► it and it could it's possible yeah yeah and I think it you know in terms of any

02:00:16 ◼   ► kind of skepticism because ah but this what you guys are trying to tell me that

02:00:20 ◼   ► Apple's gonna make it easier for someone to not buy both an iPhone and an iPad

02:00:25 ◼   ► that doesn't make any sense of course they want them there you know their

02:00:28 ◼   ► capitalist company I think it just gets back to that whole lack of fear of

02:00:34 ◼   ► cannibalization in Apple where as long as you're talking about not buying a

02:00:39 ◼   ► second Apple product but you're still buying an Apple product we your double

02:00:45 ◼   ► thumbs up from Tim Cook to you as opposed to somebody who's buying a

02:00:49 ◼   ► Samsung galaxy whatever that's 5.5 inches because that's when it's a problem when

02:00:56 ◼   ► it's not an Apple device I also think there's the confidence in knowing that

02:00:59 ◼   ► this this is a niche market this is this is not the mainstream that they're gonna

02:01:04 ◼   ► sell more of the smaller phones and they're gonna sell more iPads then you

02:01:08 ◼   ► know, they're not gonna the most common scenario is not gonna be everybody stops

02:01:13 ◼   ► buying iPads and small iPhones and buys a giant iPhone. They know, they know

02:01:16 ◼   ► that's not gonna happen. And so this audience is not being served by them

02:01:20 ◼   ► right now, or at least not being served well by them, right? And I think that

02:01:23 ◼   ► they have confidence knowing, you know, from decades, you know, multiple decades

02:01:28 ◼   ► of the Mac that a wide range of form factors and price ranges is just fine

02:01:35 ◼   ► and doesn't necessarily cannibalize anything.

02:01:38 ◼   ► You know, that the fact that there is an $899 MacBook Air,

02:01:42 ◼   ► which is an excellent computer,

02:01:44 ◼   ► doesn't mean that the 27-inch iMac is going away.

02:01:48 ◼   ► - Well, and actually, something that brings up too

02:01:51 ◼   ► is I don't know what they're gonna name these things,

02:01:53 ◼   ► but I've started to think of the iPhone

02:01:56 ◼   ► and think of it a little bit like the Mac,

02:02:00 ◼   ► which is I'm not entirely sure

02:02:01 ◼   ► that they won't just say these are the iPhone 6 or whatever,

02:02:05 ◼   ► and that there's a big one and a small one. I'm not 100% convinced that's true, but

02:02:09 ◼   ► I've had people tell me, well of course they're going to have different names, and I think, well, MacBook Air

02:02:13 ◼   ► comes in two sizes.

02:02:15 ◼   ► MacBook Pro comes in two sizes. iMac comes in two sizes.

02:02:18 ◼   ► The iPhone could come in two sizes without them calling one of them iPhone

02:02:22 ◼   ► Mini or iPhone Huge,

02:02:25 ◼   ► and it would be fine. It's the new iPhone and you can get the big one or the small one.

02:02:30 ◼   ► I don't know whether they'll do that or not, but they could.

02:02:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I think the and it's it's funny too cuz I'm terrible at predicting the names. I am so bad

02:02:37 ◼   ► I guess I should go on a record and make a prediction

02:02:40 ◼   ► but I if I had to my prediction would be that the 4.7 inch one would be called the iPhone air or

02:02:46 ◼   ► iPhone 6 air but that to me is already a mouthful

02:02:50 ◼   ► Yeah, so I say drop the numbers and say iPhone air and the big one is the iPhone Pro, huh?

02:02:56 ◼   ► And I I don't like it

02:03:00 ◼   ► I don't like it in a couple reasons though because one reason I don't like it is I do think they're gonna have the same

02:03:05 ◼   ► performance yeah like a

02:03:07 ◼   ► Performance and does that make sense to have Aaron Pro the pro somehow feels like it ought to be faster

02:03:13 ◼   ► But I don't know, but I I just feel pro because they've used it before and it's more expensive

02:03:20 ◼   ► It sounds like it should be more expensive. Yeah, I don't know if the iPhone can be proud that you're right

02:03:24 ◼   ► Maybe well like the thing I can't see them doing is picking some adjective that means big no

02:03:30 ◼   ► No, that doesn't it doesn't I mean I joked about iPhone huge, but right. It's a terrible

02:03:34 ◼   ► I mean you can't know if I had if I had to make a bet

02:03:37 ◼   ► I would probably bet that they're just gonna call them the iPhone 6 and there's two models right

02:03:42 ◼   ► But it wouldn't what size you want yeah

02:03:44 ◼   ► But it wouldn't shock me if if it was the iPhone

02:03:47 ◼   ► 6 and the iPhone air or if it was no

02:03:50 ◼   ► But because they're never gonna prioritize the big one because the big ones the niche products

02:03:53 ◼   ► it'll be the iPhone 6 for air and then I just have a hard time I I think the best

02:03:59 ◼   ► pro they could do but I'm inclined to just guess that they're gonna say

02:04:03 ◼   ► there's two iPhone 6 is which one do you want big one of the little one and then

02:04:08 ◼   ► well and the other thing I've seen people say that the big one will be

02:04:10 ◼   ► called the iPhone air but I think they're they're myopic doesn't make it

02:04:15 ◼   ► doesn't make it well bigger and well they're looking at the they're looking

02:04:20 ◼   ► at the iPads where the bigger iPad is the air that's true right but the other

02:04:26 ◼   ► one has a name called the mini which puts it in order and the air is really

02:04:31 ◼   ► kind of it's sort of an in-joke or not in joke but it's like a reference to all

02:04:36 ◼   ► previous iPads where it's so much lighter than the iPad used to be and

02:04:40 ◼   ► they're never gonna call the mainstream iPhone the iPhone mini that's kind of

02:04:44 ◼   ► crazy no right and they can't call a one that's 4.7 inches the mini because

02:04:49 ◼   ► Bigger it's bigger way bigger significantly, but maybe not way bigger, but significantly bigger than any iPhone ever made

02:04:56 ◼   ► So they can't say here's this new 4.7 inch screen. It's significantly bigger. It has wait million more pics of tiny and all this

02:05:03 ◼   ► Shows all this here's how much more content you see and it's called the mini. No doesn't make an app. I

02:05:09 ◼   ► Have one more sponsor to read now

02:05:11 ◼   ► And I want to get back to that this thing about us me and you know in the name, right?

02:05:16 ◼   ► All right, our last sponsor of the day is our good friends at

02:05:19 ◼   ► transporter from connected data

02:05:22 ◼   ► So would you like your own private cloud that lets you secure?

02:05:25 ◼   ► Least or and share files in a way that is completely private and resistant to governmental snooping or

02:05:33 ◼   ► To any other sort of unfortunate things that can happen through the public cloud services

02:05:40 ◼   ► Which may or may not have been publicized recently

02:05:43 ◼   ► That's what file transporter is you buy a file transporter from them or more than one?

02:05:49 ◼   ► It's a device that comes to your home

02:05:51 ◼   ► It has a hard drive built into it

02:05:53 ◼   ► You plug it in you put it on your Wi-Fi

02:05:56 ◼   ► You install software on your Mac and all of a sudden you have a Dropbox like folder on your Mac that shows the contents of

02:06:04 ◼   ► that device and you put something in the folder and it goes on the device and it's on your hard drive - and

02:06:10 ◼   ► You can then

02:06:13 ◼   ► log into a different computer, log into your transporter account, and the same

02:06:17 ◼   ► files show up there. And then you could buy a second device and you could put it

02:06:21 ◼   ► in a different location and you use the same account and the same files will go

02:06:27 ◼   ► from here to there to there. But it's only there. The data is only on if you

02:06:32 ◼   ► have one file transporter that's the only place where your data is other than

02:06:36 ◼   ► on your max that you log into. Your max. If you have a second one it'll sync

02:06:41 ◼   ► between the two the only thing they go through the cloud and their servers for

02:06:46 ◼   ► is the negotiation to poke holes through the setup appear to peer to poke through

02:06:52 ◼   ► the router they don't have any kind of storage in the cloud for your stuff your

02:06:58 ◼   ► stuff is only search stored on the devices that you hold in your hand big

02:07:05 ◼   ► difference from cloud-based services really really appealing to many people

02:07:10 ◼   ► and if it appeals to you I encourage you check this out because I don't know of

02:07:16 ◼   ► any other way to do this then file transporter I have one here works like a

02:07:23 ◼   ► charm really good stuff they have two ways to get one the regular file

02:07:31 ◼   ► transporter comes with a built-in hard disk they have 500 gigabyte 1 terabyte

02:07:37 ◼   ► 2 terabyte capacities if you buy one and want to buy one of those use this code

02:07:41 ◼   ► TTS like the talk show TTS 10 and you'll save 10% off your purchase the other way

02:07:50 ◼   ► to do it is you can buy the transporter sync that's the one that's like a little

02:07:54 ◼   ► Apple TV size puck and that one you just take a USB Drive any USB Drive you

02:08:00 ◼   ► already have big hard drives sitting around you want to buy your own hard

02:08:03 ◼   ► drives you just buy your own hard drives and plug it in by USB so that's a

02:08:07 ◼   ► cheaper gadget because you're supplying your own hard drive you could save 20

02:08:12 ◼   ► bucks when you buy one of those with this code TTS 20 all orders using either

02:08:19 ◼   ► of those codes get free shipping so use those codes by the one you want here's

02:08:25 ◼   ► where you go file transporter store.com www.file transporter store.com and

02:08:34 ◼   ► remember those codes TTS 10 and TTS 20 so wrapping up the show we give them

02:08:41 ◼   ► going a long time but there's lots to talk about but here's the thing I am

02:08:44 ◼   ► inundated this week more than any other previous Apple event with people who

02:08:48 ◼   ► think that I've already got a watch I've already got I've already got and I

02:08:54 ◼   ► that's not how it works folks it to mind I certainly has never worked that way

02:08:59 ◼   ► with me it's certainly never worked that way with anybody who I know like my

02:09:03 ◼   ► friends like you in the industry and it's also to my knowledge never worked

02:09:08 ◼   ► that way for anybody not before they announce it not before they announce it

02:09:14 ◼   ► they just don't do that now like you know that why they don't they you know

02:09:20 ◼   ► the whole point of the announcement is they don't want anybody including us to

02:09:23 ◼   ► see it and in fact the reason they invite us to the event is that they want

02:09:27 ◼   ► us to see it for the first time specifically the way that they're going

02:09:33 ◼   ► to do it right whether it's going to be projected on a screen or it's going to

02:09:38 ◼   ► come out of a pedestal in the middle of the floor like the I think there was

02:09:42 ◼   ► that the iPhone 5 yeah they've used that trick a couple of times you're right but

02:09:46 ◼   ► you know the whatever it is there's smoke whatever it's great but I know and

02:09:52 ◼   ► I don't know a lot about how they prep the keynotes. I don't know, you know,

02:09:56 ◼   ► they're very secretive just about the whole process,

02:09:58 ◼   ► but I do know that they go out like Phil Schiller and everybody else who's there

02:10:02 ◼   ► will go out to like seats in the room and like do it again.

02:10:06 ◼   ► And I want to see what it's like from here, you know,

02:10:08 ◼   ► and then when Steve jobs was, was around, you know, that he would go out,

02:10:11 ◼   ► he would go out and sit in the audience and see, you know,

02:10:14 ◼   ► that that's how we find out this stuff. You know, we don't,

02:10:17 ◼   ► we definitely don't know the names.

02:10:20 ◼   ► And I think my track record over the years of predicting product names should,

02:10:24 ◼   ► should prove that. And if we did know,

02:10:28 ◼   ► we wouldn't be able to make the predictions.

02:10:30 ◼   ► Right. That's true. That's true.

02:10:31 ◼   ► And the fact that we do make predictions shows how little we know.

02:10:34 ◼   ► Right. And if somebody whispers something to me, who's not, you know,

02:10:38 ◼   ► feeding it to me officially in any official capacity,

02:10:41 ◼   ► which is always accompanied by, um, uh,

02:10:45 ◼   ► what would you call it? The, uh, non-disclosure agreement, right?

02:10:49 ◼   ► Like when you do get an embargo or an NDA, right? I don't know. You know,

02:10:53 ◼   ► I read it, I try to skim over it.

02:10:55 ◼   ► But like when we do get like a review unit before,

02:10:58 ◼   ► after it's been announced always after it's been announced,

02:11:02 ◼   ► but before it's available in stores, it's, there's a thing that says here,

02:11:07 ◼   ► you know, and like, for example, you know, the,

02:11:09 ◼   ► usually it's like the last couple of years,

02:11:12 ◼   ► there's an iPhone event on a Tuesday and, um,

02:11:17 ◼   ► people who get reviewing it, you sign a thing and it says the embargo is until 6 p.m. Pacific the next Wednesday.

02:11:25 ◼   ► And then the fact that at 601 Pacific the next Wednesday there's everybody's story gets posted.

02:11:33 ◼   ► Yep. Right. That's not a coincidence. That's because it's everybody has agreed to that, you know, and

02:11:38 ◼   ► nobody knows anything before that and nobody is allowed to publish anything after they know it

02:11:45 ◼   ► before that date. It works. It's a lot more obvious how it works than you think. There is no secret

02:11:53 ◼   ► cabal of people who are filled in before the event. No, because then what you'd get is you'd get your

02:11:57 ◼   ► David Pogue or Walt Mossberg or whatever writing a story about the product the moment the product

02:12:04 ◼   ► got announced and that doesn't happen. I mean back when the iMac with the flat panel screen

02:12:11 ◼   ► in the arm got leaked by Time magazine, right? I mean, they used to do it back then, but they don't

02:12:16 ◼   ► do it anymore. They haven't done it for more than a decade. Right. And I do think, you know, and

02:12:22 ◼   ► part of it is just their go-to market strategy. I mean, you know, my eyes are open. I mean,

02:12:29 ◼   ► I know that that's part of it is that if the thing is announced on a Tuesday and then the embargo

02:12:35 ◼   ► date is eight days later on a Wednesday and then the thing actually goes on sale

02:12:40 ◼   ► two days later Friday that that's all according to the schedule of what they

02:12:44 ◼   ► think maximizes interest in the people who on Friday will go and you know fork

02:12:51 ◼   ► stuff over exactly but I I also do think though that part of that too though is

02:12:55 ◼   ► is that they really do want reviewers to have to spend a week yeah ice before

02:13:02 ◼   ► they write it. Yeah, that they don't want reviewer. You know, they wouldn't want you

02:13:07 ◼   ► to write a review to race, you know. Okay, you can hear here's your here's your new iPhone.

02:13:12 ◼   ► You can write your review whenever you want. I don't think they would do that. That happened

02:13:16 ◼   ► to me with the first iPad and that was the worst because they announced that and then they did

02:13:20 ◼   ► their event saying it was going to ship and there were embargo reviews that dropped and I wasn't part

02:13:26 ◼   ► that but then I got one basically the day the embargo reviews dropped or the next day

02:13:33 ◼   ► and I said is there any embargo and they're like no and it was the worst because I could literally

02:13:37 ◼   ► write about it immediately but I hadn't spent any time with it and that's awful because you feel

02:13:44 ◼   ► time pressure and yet you can't actually invest the time or you have to invest the time while

02:13:48 ◼   ► everybody is shouting at you to get your story done so the luxury of having eight days to think

02:13:53 ◼   ► about this product is great as a writer but it also means as apple that you were

02:13:59 ◼   ► you know these writers that you've hand selected are going to be writing about

02:14:03 ◼   ► it you know they're gonna have time to think about it and not they're not going

02:14:07 ◼   ► to do a cheap job on it they're gonna they're gonna like put a lot of effort

02:14:12 ◼   ► into it right and it's not like within your case that the boss was breathing

02:14:16 ◼   ► down your neck like you've got to publish it but you it's just the simple

02:14:20 ◼   ► pressure that you know that Macworld's readers are coming to the site and that

02:14:25 ◼   ► they're reloading the homepage like I can't wait to see what they have to say

02:14:29 ◼   ► about 15 and you know 15 people got it and wrote their reviews and I wasn't in

02:14:32 ◼   ► that group but now I'm in a group of a very small number of people who have the

02:14:36 ◼   ► iPad before it's out and so I've got something that nobody except for that

02:14:41 ◼   ► first wave of 10 people has has gotten their hands on so I need to do

02:14:47 ◼   ► something with that but what is that and I have no no restrictions whatsoever so

02:14:51 ◼   ► literally I could just be like do to do to do here I am on my iPad like live

02:14:55 ◼   ► update for two days and nobody wants to read that but you have to make very

02:15:00 ◼   ► difficult decisions then and it's certainly a lot easier to just say I've

02:15:04 ◼   ► got eight days to worry about what I'm gonna write yeah it's hard enough to do

02:15:08 ◼   ► a good review in eight days but it's it's I I couldn't write a review in the

02:15:14 ◼   ► way that I try to write reviews in one or two days I like I think back to the

02:15:19 ◼   ► original iPhone right you know it was I didn't get anything I think only three

02:15:23 ◼   ► or four that was back in the days when only the the newt the four newspaper

02:15:26 ◼   ► guys got the review units right I think it was Steven Levy at big pogue and

02:15:32 ◼   ► Mossberg I guess Levy wasn't at a newspaper newsweek but he was on the

02:15:36 ◼   ► list he knew everybody from covering the iPod and yeah right and it was still the

02:15:41 ◼   ► sort of Steve Jobs is you know if it's not print it's not really real and

02:15:46 ◼   ► Newsweek right I mean Steven Levy is you know it he's a special case because he's

02:15:52 ◼   ► awesome and has been around for so long but but hey the last few years when I

02:15:56 ◼   ► haven't had it in advance I mean I've had I've made a little agreement with

02:16:00 ◼   ► myself like I I get the phone on the Friday or the Thursday night before the

02:16:05 ◼   ► Friday sometimes but you know I get it I get it basically when people get it and

02:16:09 ◼   ► And my reviews wouldn't run until Tuesday or Wednesday.

02:16:13 ◼   ► I would basically say I'm gonna take the weekend,

02:16:15 ◼   ► I'm gonna use it, I'm gonna write,

02:16:17 ◼   ► I'm gonna give it some time.

02:16:18 ◼   ► Because there's no point, all the reviews

02:16:20 ◼   ► that were coming out the day of already came out

02:16:23 ◼   ► two days before, so I can't beat them.

02:16:26 ◼   ► And I don't wanna write a slapdash one day review.

02:16:29 ◼   ► There's no point in that.

02:16:30 ◼   ► So let me take my time and the people who care

02:16:34 ◼   ► about getting the depth later will care.

02:16:37 ◼   ► Because I've already missed the weekend

02:16:39 ◼   ► And so I'm not gonna write a crappy review.

02:16:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, I remember it's like, so the first iPhone,

02:16:46 ◼   ► you know, I certainly didn't have anything in advance.

02:16:48 ◼   ► I just got in line, literally waited in line

02:16:50 ◼   ► with everybody all day long at the King of Prussia Mall

02:16:53 ◼   ► here in Philly and got home at night,

02:16:58 ◼   ► had terrible problems activating it.

02:17:00 ◼   ► It felt like I was ready to die.

02:17:02 ◼   ► And then just banged out my initial thoughts,

02:17:07 ◼   ► You know, like, you know, wow, that's, I can't believe they're using Comic Sans in the Notes

02:17:11 ◼   ► app, you know.

02:17:12 ◼   ► I mean, I was excited, and I think I had some interesting first observations, but it was

02:17:15 ◼   ► more or less like I was publishing my notes.

02:17:17 ◼   ► It wasn't that I was writing an article.

02:17:20 ◼   ► I just published my notes because I couldn't, like, I had to write something.

02:17:24 ◼   ► I felt not, just because I was so excited.

02:17:25 ◼   ► Yeah, that's actually.

02:17:26 ◼   ► But it was nothing.

02:17:27 ◼   ► That's actually a really good technique, and sometimes I do that too, where it's like,

02:17:30 ◼   ► let me give you my notes of, like, first impressions.

02:17:32 ◼   ► But it's not my review.

02:17:33 ◼   ► I'm, I still need to think about it, but here's some stuff I noticed.

02:17:36 ◼   ► then you move right I guess yeah I guess what I'm trying to yeah it's one of

02:17:39 ◼   ► those things where it's only used to me the only two interesting ways to do it

02:17:42 ◼   ► is really really here's my notes and my first impressions or here's something

02:17:47 ◼   ► I've taken at least a week to sort of let it permeate totally what do you

02:17:54 ◼   ► think of the event venue moving to De Anza College whatever the Flint Center

02:18:01 ◼   ► Center I've never been there I've never been there ever been there I didn't go

02:18:04 ◼   ► the iMac event when they held it there when they introduced the first iMac yeah

02:18:08 ◼   ► I was all before my time as you know before you've daring fireball was even

02:18:12 ◼   ► existed and it's mysterious big mystery box out front nobody even knows what it

02:18:20 ◼   ► is nobody even knows if it's a building I mean some people think it's like like

02:18:23 ◼   ► just scaffolding to cover what's under yeah I I think this is I mean people

02:18:27 ◼   ► love the Apple Kremlin ology you know everybody loves that but I don't know I

02:18:32 ◼   ► I think one reason is that finding event venues is hard.

02:18:37 ◼   ► In the conference center stuff tends to get booked

02:18:41 ◼   ► sometimes years in advance.

02:18:43 ◼   ► So they may have looked for a good Moscone West time

02:18:45 ◼   ► and just not found one.

02:18:47 ◼   ► And Yerba Buena Theater is too small.

02:18:49 ◼   ► I think they really wanted to invite a larger crowd.

02:18:52 ◼   ► There've been some reports about like

02:18:53 ◼   ► some fashion industry people invited too.

02:18:55 ◼   ► It's like at some point they're gonna run out of space

02:18:57 ◼   ► for the press.

02:18:59 ◼   ► And if they can't get Moscone West,

02:19:00 ◼   ► the number of venues in the Bay Area

02:19:02 ◼   ► can that can fit that are limited. And then I also know from talking to people

02:19:08 ◼   ► at Apple that they've always you know they're based in Cupertino it anytime

02:19:13 ◼   ► you do an event in San Francisco there's a lot of overhead in people coming up to

02:19:17 ◼   ► the city and you got to get hotel rooms and they're in the city for days at the

02:19:20 ◼   ► venue before hand right because they're ours they're ours their pre-event hours

02:19:24 ◼   ► are so crazy they can't afford the back and forth yeah cuz it's at least what is

02:19:29 ◼   ► about an hour? It's about an hour. If you catch traffic well. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, yeah,

02:19:33 ◼   ► unless you're going through like exactly at the commute, it's an hour-ish between them, so you're

02:19:37 ◼   ► not shuttling back up and down, especially since a lot of times the night before the event, they're

02:19:42 ◼   ► late locking it all down, and so you've got all of your people who are setting up the venue and

02:19:49 ◼   ► are going to be participating are off-site, far away, and that's, you know, it's something that

02:19:55 ◼   ► that they do with WWDC, for instance,

02:19:58 ◼   ► and any other event they do up in the city,

02:20:00 ◼   ► but definitely it's an added bit of a pain

02:20:04 ◼   ► that I think they would rather not do.

02:20:06 ◼   ► And I'm pretty sure that they're constructing an event space

02:20:09 ◼   ► in the new campus that will allow them

02:20:10 ◼   ► to just do the events on campus,

02:20:12 ◼   ► 'cause town hall is too small too.

02:20:14 ◼   ► So I think it was close and it's big.

02:20:18 ◼   ► And then the structure, my guess is like literally,

02:20:21 ◼   ► it was close and big,

02:20:22 ◼   ► but it didn't have room for hands-on area,

02:20:25 ◼   ► Briefing room something like that and they're like, you know what?

02:20:27 ◼   ► It's better for us to rent this and build the temporary structure than it is to go somewhere else. So let's just do it

02:20:31 ◼   ► Well, because remember the one two years ago that was in San Jose, California theater, right? They've done

02:20:37 ◼   ► two events there because they did the u2

02:20:40 ◼   ► color iPod

02:20:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I know I I wasn't going to events at that time. So I missed that one

02:20:47 ◼   ► That was a beautiful theater California theater in San Jose is beautiful hands-on area was totally a nightmare

02:20:55 ◼   ► Exactly. That's exactly where I was going. The hands-on area was like going up into your parents attic

02:21:00 ◼   ► Well, imagine just hundreds of people in a space that was like barely big enough for you to go buy some juju bees at the counter

02:21:06 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly what it was. It was like here's where they're usually just selling popcorn and you know, yeah

02:21:12 ◼   ► It didn't it didn't it was it was a nice venue

02:21:15 ◼   ► but there was Apple always likes to have one hands-on area so that the press can

02:21:21 ◼   ► get their hands on the stuff and take pictures with Tim Cook coming out and looking at the new stuff and

02:21:26 ◼   ► Then they also like to have briefing areas where they can meet with a press and that's where you you know

02:21:31 ◼   ► If you're getting an advanced unit, that's where you'll pick it up

02:21:34 ◼   ► and

02:21:36 ◼   ► You know, that's a big checklist of items and I think there's very few venues like Moscone West will do it

02:21:41 ◼   ► But my guess is that Moscone West wasn't available

02:21:44 ◼   ► Or I don't think have they ever just had a pure product introduction at Moscow. I can't recall

02:21:50 ◼   ► I think my time they have I think they have done it where they've literally just taken it for the day

02:21:55 ◼   ► But but it's a big conference space and they're never gonna Tony so it's very difficult to get space and something like that, right?

02:22:02 ◼   ► So yeah, I think it's I think that that's what I think it's I'm gonna go with a nice simple Occam's razor

02:22:09 ◼   ► Explanation that they picked the venue because it has a lot of seats and they do want to invite more people

02:22:15 ◼   ► people I mean they could they could have taken it to like where the San Jose

02:22:18 ◼   ► Sharks players like that's a giant arena of Apple no see but they could in theory

02:22:23 ◼   ► they could but I think they wouldn't because they wouldn't like the the no no

02:22:27 ◼   ► it's totally true but that's the difficulty in finding a venue that's

02:22:31 ◼   ► like the right size for them that's like conference space and not sporting arena

02:22:35 ◼   ► and and then I think the big white box is a big white temporary hands-on area

02:22:43 ◼   ► because if they've invited more people there's gonna be a lot more you know

02:22:47 ◼   ► need for a big one and the last time I tried it in the theater with a tiny

02:22:51 ◼   ► little thing it was actually a very unpleasant hands-on I just that I don't

02:22:54 ◼   ► think there's any so many people that can get into the Flint Center too so it

02:22:58 ◼   ► makes it even worse that like now you've got this big venue okay but now you

02:23:01 ◼   ► really need a big hands-on area or you're gonna have members of the press

02:23:04 ◼   ► waiting for hours to get through the doors by the you know get admitted by

02:23:10 ◼   ► the fire marshal to get into a space right and so you've got a you know the

02:23:14 ◼   ► math works as soon as the venue gets bigger the hands-on area has to get

02:23:17 ◼   ► bigger like Town Hall they use the little piano lounge across the way and

02:23:21 ◼   ► that's a tight fit because yeah town hall is small the piano lounge is also

02:23:26 ◼   ► small and it doesn't fit yeah that's not that pleasant either just in term and

02:23:31 ◼   ► that's you know with the overflow crowd you know you know take however many

02:23:35 ◼   ► people and fit in town hall they maybe invite two more yeah and that's it's

02:23:41 ◼   ► just already chemical yeah so I think that's what it is I think it's a hands-on

02:23:45 ◼   ► area and maybe they also have some like temporary briefing rooms or something in

02:23:50 ◼   ► there yeah yeah probably and and maybe they have some stuff to demo that does

02:23:55 ◼   ► take more physical space home kit stuff carplay you know carplay and you know

02:24:02 ◼   ► And that all fits in I don't think it's super mysterious though, you know

02:24:06 ◼   ► I don't I don't think that they've built like a full-scale home, you know, so I've seen people speculating that I mean, that's crazy

02:24:12 ◼   ► I they don't need to do that. They did maybe they have some couches and whatever, you know

02:24:17 ◼   ► It I agree with you. I think there's the Occam's razor

02:24:21 ◼   ► Explanation is the best which is this was a venue they could get and the one thing it didn't have was space for

02:24:28 ◼   ► hands-on stuff. So, you know, and when you're playing with, uh, in

02:24:33 ◼   ► Apple's league, um, and you're shopping around for venues, you look at the cost

02:24:37 ◼   ► of setting up a temporary structure for a week and pencil it in. And maybe that's

02:24:42 ◼   ► actually as ridiculous as it seems, maybe that's the best deal.

02:24:45 ◼   ► Yeah, that's exactly what I think. Exactly. Now we'll embarrass ourselves.

02:24:51 ◼   ► People are listening back. They didn't realize they built an entire house under

02:24:55 ◼   ► there and it was full of wearable devices.

02:24:57 ◼   ► Right, but I can't wait. I can't wait because the next time I'm going to see you in two days

02:25:01 ◼   ► You know less than two days. I will see you

02:25:04 ◼   ► I will almost always run into you in the morning outside the event venue and and if they've

02:25:10 ◼   ► Uncovered it and it's something else we could just look at each other. We won't even need to talk now

02:25:14 ◼   ► Just hide our heads and change. Yep, exactly, right. We'll

02:25:17 ◼   ► Utter a silent apology to talk show listeners and right

02:25:21 ◼   ► I'll have to have you right back on as the next episodes guests so that we won't

02:25:25 ◼   ► I apologize. Right. What went wrong?

02:25:27 ◼   ► Yep

02:25:29 ◼   ► Jason self. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me. I it was a lot of fun. It's great to be on

02:25:36 ◼   ► God, you know, I just I your voice is like butter on a podcast a

02:25:41 ◼   ► Podcast that needs butter hopefully. Well, you know, you know you do a lot of pod. I do you I may have a problem

02:25:48 ◼   ► You and Renee you guys get a lot of podcasts and then plus you've got overcast in your doc

02:25:55 ◼   ► So you're listening to a lot of podcasts

02:25:57 ◼   ► but I hear your voice in my headphones a lot and I usually don't get to talk back to it and it's it's

02:26:03 ◼   ► It's been a pleasure likewise. I'll see you Tuesday morning. I'll see you Tuesday

02:26:08 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]