295: ‘Signing Up to Take Some Vitamins’, With Peter Kafka
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Peter Kafka, it's good to have you on my show.
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I did your show, God, that was years ago now
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at this point, isn't it?
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- It was years ago and then we had a crossover
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and so I think this is our third podcast conversation.
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Thanks for having me, Jon.
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- It's a pleasure.
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Before we get in to all of the streaming,
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Michigan-ness, we can just recap yesterday.
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We're recording on Wednesday.
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Yesterday Apple had their remote virtual,
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however you want to describe it, Time Flies event.
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I have presumed that you watched.
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- I have watched because I'm not in the business
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of paying a lot of attention to their watches and iPads,
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but when it came time to talk about content bundles,
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I perked up a little bit.
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- The funny part about that is it's an hour event,
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nice and tight.
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They only announced really three things,
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new watches, new iPads, and a streaming bundle.
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The streaming bundle, I actually double checked.
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My notes were under two minutes
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and then I watched the video again.
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It was literally under two minutes.
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- Yeah, it's not, I mean, it's Apple
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and dutifully people come out saying
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this is a game changer, et cetera,
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'cause you have to, I think still reflexively
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when Apple has an event, you have to justify
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the time spent paying attention to it.
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And it's much less now, right?
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You don't have to fly anywhere.
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It's just an hour long webinar, so it's easier to go,
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yeah, they got some new stuff.
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But yeah, I thought Apple was not overselling
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the importance of this bundle.
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- No, but well, we'll get into it then.
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But what do you, are you an Apple Watch wearer?
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- I am, but I am not, I'm kind of reluctant about it.
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I was just taking it off my wrist to tell you
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what model it was, 'cause I pay that little attention.
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It's a Series 3.
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And I won't say I was shocked when they came out
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with a new line, including like the lower end one
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that started at what, was it 300 bucks?
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- 279, but it's like-- - What was the S?
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The S, for the SE?
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That's the cheap model?
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- Well, it's the cheap new model, right?
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It's brand new product, and it's sort of best thought of
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as last year's Series 5, but without like the ECG.
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I always wanna say EKG, but ECG sensor.
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- It's bananas, it's to me.
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I mean, I know they sell well.
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And people will ask me about my watch periodically.
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I say, hey, Apple Watch, how do you like it?
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And should I get the wireless version?
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And I'll say, it's an odometer, and I wear it.
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And when I don't wear it, I feel bad that I didn't wear it,
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but that's the entire utility.
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So the idea of like selling a super premium version of it
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is bananas to me, but I'm sure Apple knows.
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Well, no, I don't know that Apple knows what they're doing,
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but presumably there is a market for that.
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- I think that people, I think your take is very typical,
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and you're obviously juiced in more to this
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than the average person out there.
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For most people, getting a $300 digital watch
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is a pretty expensive digital watch.
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And that is what it is, right?
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It is, I mean, we can get into nerd out,
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and you're running apps, and you're doing all this stuff,
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but it's a digital watch.
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And 300 bucks is more than most people spend on a watch.
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And if they do get one, they're gonna wear it forever,
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by some definition of forever,
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which is less than a watch, a super watch,
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mechanical watch nerd's definition of forever,
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which is like decades,
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but way, way more than like a tech person would think,
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hey, that's not the latest version.
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- Yeah, the last time I spent a lot of time thinking about
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is when they introduced wireless,
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because I thought that was pretty interesting,
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and we finally got the sort of Dick Tracy land,
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and what if this thing would allow me
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to not take my phone with me on verit, too,
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when I went out, and I borrowed a watch from Apple
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using that premise, and Apple, to their credit,
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pretty much said, the thing you wanna do is not gonna work.
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You cannot use this as a phone substitute.
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And they're right, but when you tell people that,
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they get ash in the face.
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They're like, well, what's the point of that?
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I'm like, I don't know.
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- Yeah, I wonder, too.
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And I do have it, I have the,
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I bought a new one for myself last year,
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'cause I hadn't had one in a couple years,
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and I did get the cellular option,
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and I just justify it all as, well,
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I write Daring Fireball, I should have the cellular thing.
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- Yeah, exactly. - And I can,
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I pass off my whole, not singular, Verizon bill,
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as a tax, it's a business expense
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that I charge $10 a month to put my watch on.
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I almost never, ever use the cellular thing on my phone,
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or on my watch.
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But I will say this, and I'm not saying it's worth it,
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'cause I think Verizon charges me 10 bucks a month for it.
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It's at least-- - That sounds right, yeah.
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- I will say this, there was one time,
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and I don't remember, I'm not trying to obfuscate
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a personal detail, I forget what it was,
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but at some point, a couple months ago,
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but I know it was during the quarantine,
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'cause I've sort of got quarantine time locked in my head,
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there was a minor iOS update, just 13.1 points, whatever,
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and I'm like, okay, I'll update my phone.
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And it was like noon, and I got,
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while my phone was updating, I got a call
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I had been waiting for, I forget what it was,
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but it was a fairly important call
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from somebody who I was waiting to call me,
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and so I was really, and my, it went off on my wrist,
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and I was like, whoa, what's going on?
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And I look, and my phone has got that Apple logo
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that it takes five, you don't even know
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how long it's gonna take till your phone's updated.
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I'm like, oh, I can answer on my wrist,
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and I took the entire important phone call on my watch
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while my phone was incapacitated,
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and I was like, I don't know if this is worth $120 a year,
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- It works remarkably well as a speakerphone,
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I will say that, it's way better
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than you would expect that to work.
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What I wanted was something that allowed me
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to go to my kid's soccer game,
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and if I needed to see an email or see a text
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or reply to one, that I could do that
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and not bring my phone, and then thus,
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I wouldn't be looking at my phone,
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or I'd be more in tune to my kids,
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and even as you say this out loud,
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you're saying, wait, you're gonna spend several hundred
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dollars plus $10 a month so you could
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not look at your phone, why don't you just not look
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at your phone, and of course, if you're listening
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to this podcast, you know that's very hard,
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and it sounds pathetic to say that,
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but it doesn't allow you to do that.
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Mail won't work, text will kind of work
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if it's iMessage, but not, you know,
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it doesn't, like the Apple people said,
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it doesn't do what you want it to do in that case.
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- No, it definitely does not.
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The other thing is, and this is the interesting thing
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that they announced yesterday, was this sort of
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cellular watches for your young children
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and for your elderly, confused parents.
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And I don't know, it's like I've got one kid
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and now he's in 11th grade, so I'm out of that,
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and you know, he's got a phone.
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If you don't wanna buy a phone for your kid,
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which I get, and I totally, you know,
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I'm not telling anybody how to parent their kids
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and what age should a kid get their own cell phone
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is a huge question, it's like the parental question,
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one of the big parental questions of our generation.
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But if you're on the fence about it,
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whether it's expense-wise or whatever else,
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are you gonna buy your kid a $350 or $400 watch?
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- Yeah, that baffled me as well.
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I thought the exact same thing,
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which is, my kids have a tracking device,
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it's the phone I bought for them.
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Or the phone, and buying that phone's a big deal,
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and I bought a used phone from Amazon, Amazon renewed,
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now I got battery problems and all that.
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But yeah, it's the tracking device is the phone.
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We don't need a second tracking device.
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- And it's like if you're the kid who's like 11 or 12,
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and your parents are willing to get you a $400 thing
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to add to the family's cell phone plan,
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don't you want the iPhone SE?
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Like, I want the phone, I want the thing I can play with
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and take pictures with.
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- I kind of assume that everyone in that market
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has the phone too.
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That's what I imagine in Apple.
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- Yeah, but they really sold that feature as like your kid.
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They didn't, and it's weird, 'cause it's like Apple can't
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say if you don't wanna get your kid a phone,
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because they're Apple, they want everybody to have a phone.
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So you had to, it was a weird sort of, not doublespeak,
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what's the opposite of doublespeak,
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where you don't mention something?
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Like a conspicuous--
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- You walk all the way up to it.
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- The version of that that I really noticed was the
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blood oxygen reader, which I never would have thought
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prior to March of this year, but when you talk about
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blood oxygen levels, and I'm like, oh, that's a COVID
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detector, but of course they can't say that,
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'cause it's not.
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- Yeah, and--
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- And you have all kinds of liability problems,
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but I thought, I mean, I don't think there's anyone
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who saw that presentation and wasn't thinking about,
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will this tell me if I'm getting, if I'm sick
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or getting sick?
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And they conspicuously did not say that out loud.
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- Yeah, and it's, the other factor is that it's partially
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coincidental, because clearly these sort of sensors
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are years in the making, both in terms of just that
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the components technically take years, and then with these
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watch things, they take even longer, I think,
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than most of Apple's technology, 'cause they have to get
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FDA approval, and then the FDA equivalents around the world,
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you know, it's a regulatory nightmare.
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- Right, it's not like one of these drop shipping people
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who came out with masks, you know, in the middle of March,
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and said, this will help you, this will protect you.
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They weren't, it wasn't that, but it was still very clear
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that this was an application that you could use it for,
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but they weren't gonna suggest that out loud.
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- Right, and it, there's just, but let's,
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exactly what you said, nobody's listening to this
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and not thinking that, because other than medical
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professionals, I don't know of anybody who hasn't heard
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blood oxygen as a term and thought about it
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more than in the last six months.
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I mean, I don't, I mean, I guess I've heard of it
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beforehand, but I mean, 99% of the times it's ever come up
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in my awareness is COVID.
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- So it was in, you know, they have these off the record
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briefings for the media after events, and they're,
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you know, they're getting better at 'em, it was, you know,
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and it's off the record, so I can't really spill
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the details of it, but people did ask, you know,
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and it's like they can't say it, it's, you know,
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it's more than the typical Apple not wanting to say,
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get knocked off message, they just legally can't talk
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about it in that context.
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- Yes, that's right, yeah.
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As by the way, they should, they should be very reticent
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to make medical claims, which is, I mean, again,
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and I don't follow the watch stuff carefully,
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but I do know as a watch user that, you know,
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when I'm sitting on the subway and I'm traveling
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under the East River and all of a sudden the watch tells me
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that I passed my movement goal for the day,
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or my standing goal for the day, I get a chuckle,
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and I go, ah, you know, it's harmless,
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it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other,
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but I do think about sort of people who are relying
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on these devices for actual medical information,
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and because, you know, Apple half-positions this now
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as a, they no longer say it's, you know, for work, right,
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it's for health and fitness, and the fitness part
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I sort of get, and there's people who really,
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it really does matter to them how many miles they clock
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and how many minutes, but for most people, I think,
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are probably more in my group, right, it's casual,
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but the medical stuff really unnerved,
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would unnerve me if I was Apple and had people relying
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on me for medical information.
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Yeah, I wouldn't, and I'll defer to actual experts on that,
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but I do think about that a lot, 'cause it's clearly
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a device that has a limit on its accuracy,
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which is fine in most cases.
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- And I kind of feel like, you know, he's such a
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bizarro second version of Tim Cook,
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but that Jeff Williams being in charge of the watch
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is sort of unsurprising, like he's clearly a bit
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of a cipher personality-wise, but he definitely seems
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like the, you know, the old carpenter saying,
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measure twice, cut once, Tim Cook and Jeff Williams
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seem like measure 100 times, cut once type of people.
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- Yeah, they're not freelancing a lot at these things.
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- Right, and so on the one hand, they definitely
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are clearly incentivized to sell a lot of watches,
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but neither of them really feel like, well,
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let's cut some corners and make some bold claims
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on the medical efficacy of these sensors, you know,
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they seem to be doing a pretty good job on that stuff.
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- Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, they're not telling you
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what's gonna, they're not misleading you.
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But on the other hand, they are saying these things
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have benefits and these can help you track your health,
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and I think there's a, for me, there's an uncomfortable
00:13:27
◼
►
middle ground there.
00:13:28
◼
►
- The bigger one to me, and they spent less time on it,
00:13:31
◼
►
like they showed kids, but the bigger one to me
00:13:34
◼
►
is the question of getting it for your, quote, older parents.
00:13:39
◼
►
That seems to me the, and I forget if it was a year ago
00:13:44
◼
►
or two years ago when they added fall detection,
00:13:47
◼
►
and they keep showing people on mountain bikes
00:13:50
◼
►
and making jokes about a guy yesterday getting chased
00:13:53
◼
►
off a cliff by a bear, and that's real.
00:13:55
◼
►
And I know in California, the mountain biking thing is real
00:13:58
◼
►
and the mountains are, you know, real mountains,
00:14:01
◼
►
not our East Coast mountains.
00:14:06
◼
►
- They also have bears.
00:14:06
◼
►
- Yeah. (laughs)
00:14:09
◼
►
But they also danced around that when they introduced it too
00:14:12
◼
►
where they did show like a grandmother type in a kitchen
00:14:17
◼
►
on a stool, and then there was a little, you know,
00:14:19
◼
►
she was like watching her grandkid who was running in,
00:14:22
◼
►
and then they definitely cut away,
00:14:24
◼
►
and then all of the actual simulations of an adult
00:14:28
◼
►
falling in the home weren't photographed,
00:14:31
◼
►
they were pictograms, you know, like the Olympic style
00:14:35
◼
►
stick figures of somebody.
00:14:37
◼
►
And I remember talking to people at Apple about it,
00:14:40
◼
►
like that was pretty, and they were like, yeah,
00:14:42
◼
►
we were, you know, we really had to be careful
00:14:44
◼
►
'cause we wanted people to know that it is good for this,
00:14:46
◼
►
and we actually designed it with like older people in mind
00:14:50
◼
►
so that when they, you know, that their type of falls
00:14:53
◼
►
are going to be less violent,
00:14:56
◼
►
and we really wanna be in tune to it,
00:14:58
◼
►
but we can't show it, you know, it's, you know,
00:15:01
◼
►
it's grotesque, you can't just show an old person
00:15:04
◼
►
falling off a stool in an Apple event, it's, it--
00:15:07
◼
►
- Well, you're not in an Apple event,
00:15:09
◼
►
but it has been done before, but here's my question,
00:15:12
◼
►
I think we're roughly the same age,
00:15:13
◼
►
is the clapper and iPhone and I can't get up,
00:15:16
◼
►
is that the same thing?
00:15:18
◼
►
Okay, yeah, that's what I thought.
00:15:20
◼
►
- No, I think I've fallen and I can't get up
00:15:23
◼
►
was the medic alert.
00:15:24
◼
►
Remember that?
00:15:26
◼
►
It was a-- - Okay, okay, yes.
00:15:28
◼
►
You're right, but that did show the older people
00:15:31
◼
►
on the ground yelling for help,
00:15:33
◼
►
and it's, I would say it's burned indelibly in our minds,
00:15:36
◼
►
but of course I just, I'm confused about which brand it was,
00:15:39
◼
►
but yeah, if you were a certain age
00:15:40
◼
►
and you watched a certain kind of TV,
00:15:41
◼
►
you saw a lot of us at.
00:15:42
◼
►
- Right, and as media junkies, you and I saw all of them.
00:15:45
◼
►
Right, 'cause what was the other one?
00:15:47
◼
►
There was another one where the old lady,
00:15:48
◼
►
there was a burglar outside her window.
00:15:50
◼
►
Do you remember?
00:15:53
◼
►
- No, I don't remember that.
00:15:54
◼
►
I remember the rascal that would take you up the stairs
00:15:57
◼
►
and then the clapper, and they all seemed to be sort of
00:16:00
◼
►
aimed at the exact same target market.
00:16:02
◼
►
- I think it might have been the same product
00:16:04
◼
►
as the I've fallen and I can't get up, the medic alert,
00:16:06
◼
►
but it was, in addition to falling,
00:16:09
◼
►
there was a burglar outside an old lady's window
00:16:13
◼
►
conveniently on the ground floor,
00:16:15
◼
►
and he was making faces at her through the window
00:16:19
◼
►
to show that he was about to come in and, you know, burglars.
00:16:23
◼
►
- You know, the most alarming passage in time
00:16:25
◼
►
is when you go from laughing at those ads
00:16:27
◼
►
that are aimed at old people to gradually getting closer
00:16:30
◼
►
and closer to the target market.
00:16:31
◼
►
It's definitely happened to me with pharma stuff.
00:16:33
◼
►
- Yeah, totally.
00:16:34
◼
►
- Those pharma ads that run during football or 60 minutes
00:16:37
◼
►
I never paid any attention to,
00:16:38
◼
►
and I'm still not really the market for it yet,
00:16:41
◼
►
but I'm definitely getting closer.
00:16:42
◼
►
And I keep thinking, all right, you know, one day
00:16:44
◼
►
I'm gonna pay a lot of attention to that small type.
00:16:47
◼
►
- Yeah, I think what happens with that, with the sports,
00:16:50
◼
►
is you run out of, I'm 47, so I've run out of athletes
00:16:55
◼
►
who are my age, you know, it was, as a Yankees fan,
00:17:00
◼
►
one of the nice things about being a Yankees fan of my age
00:17:05
◼
►
is that Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera had,
00:17:08
◼
►
in addition to extremely successful careers,
00:17:11
◼
►
played until they were like 41, 42 years old,
00:17:15
◼
►
and they were roughly my age, and so I still had guys,
00:17:18
◼
►
my guys, my age, you know, playing professional sports.
00:17:22
◼
►
Now I'm 47, nobody's left, you know, Tom Brady is,
00:17:25
◼
►
I don't know, a remarkable 43
00:17:26
◼
►
and still playing an NFL quarterback, but--
00:17:29
◼
►
- And perhaps washed up, yeah.
00:17:31
◼
►
Yeah, kickers, I think, is our last chance
00:17:34
◼
►
to find someone, Morton Anderson or someone like,
00:17:36
◼
►
oh my God, we're so old.
00:17:38
◼
►
- And every once in a while there'd be a baseball pitcher
00:17:41
◼
►
who could pitch until his 40s
00:17:42
◼
►
'cause he was a knuckleball thrower or something like that.
00:17:45
◼
►
- Phil Nicro, I remember being very old, yeah, yeah.
00:17:48
◼
►
But yeah, this has been Old Timey Radio
00:17:50
◼
►
brought to you by Jimmy Jeter.
00:17:51
◼
►
- Well, but what happens is you go from having the last gasp
00:17:56
◼
►
of athletes your age to suddenly watching the commercials
00:18:01
◼
►
between there, and it's clearly a product
00:18:03
◼
►
for an older gentleman, and you're like, wait a minute,
00:18:06
◼
►
that actor looks younger than me.
00:18:10
◼
►
Whatever the medical problem that's ailing him
00:18:14
◼
►
that you tend to think of as being a generation older
00:18:17
◼
►
than you, all of a sudden I'm looking at the casting
00:18:19
◼
►
and I'm like, well, he's a professional actor,
00:18:22
◼
►
but damn, he looks--
00:18:24
◼
►
- A handsome fellow, yes.
00:18:26
◼
►
Yeah, I got an Instagram ad inviting me
00:18:28
◼
►
to join a COVID vaccine test, I think it was Pfizer,
00:18:32
◼
►
and it's clearly one of those things where they are A/B
00:18:35
◼
►
testing different images and targeting different people,
00:18:37
◼
►
and the gentleman in my Instagram ad was,
00:18:41
◼
►
I'm guessing at least 10 years older than me,
00:18:43
◼
►
but it was gnarly to realize that they had pegged me
00:18:46
◼
►
as someone in that general bracket who might be interested
00:18:50
◼
►
in getting COVID testing through an Instagram ad,
00:18:52
◼
►
which is a whole other story.
00:18:54
◼
►
- Instagram, people ask me, I keep saying this,
00:18:56
◼
►
people ask me like, hey, you're a Facebook critic,
00:18:58
◼
►
why do you still have Instagram?
00:19:00
◼
►
And it's like, partially because I've got friends
00:19:04
◼
►
on Instagram and I'm hooked, I get it,
00:19:07
◼
►
that I do like all the other craziness,
00:19:10
◼
►
but professionally, I'm obsessed
00:19:13
◼
►
with the accuracy of their ads.
00:19:17
◼
►
- Yeah, no, I just went through this with someone who said,
00:19:19
◼
►
I'm quitting Facebook because of this latest outrage,
00:19:22
◼
►
and I'm going, meet me over on Instagram,
00:19:25
◼
►
and I gently pointed out, and she knew,
00:19:27
◼
►
she knew that they were owned by the same thing.
00:19:29
◼
►
She said, I know, I just can't tolerate Facebook,
00:19:32
◼
►
and this is the compromise I'm making in my head,
00:19:34
◼
►
but I can't give up Instagram.
00:19:36
◼
►
- The bizarre accuracy of their ads
00:19:38
◼
►
is like passing a street performer
00:19:41
◼
►
who's good at sleight of hand magic,
00:19:43
◼
►
and it's like, sometimes you see the same trick,
00:19:47
◼
►
it's like, okay, you got me, I like old watches,
00:19:50
◼
►
so yeah, yeah, here's another vintage,
00:19:52
◼
►
either vintage-style watch or something, you know, all right.
00:19:56
◼
►
But then they'll show me an ad for something else,
00:19:58
◼
►
and I'm like, wait, how did you know?
00:20:00
◼
►
- The savviest people I know, people who are in tech,
00:20:05
◼
►
people who write about tech will continue to tell me
00:20:07
◼
►
that Instagram or Facebook must be listening to them,
00:20:10
◼
►
and that's how they do the ad targeting,
00:20:11
◼
►
and then you explain it, that can't be possible,
00:20:14
◼
►
and they refuse to believe you 'cause it's too eerie.
00:20:18
◼
►
And the sad reality, right, is a lot of,
00:20:20
◼
►
we're much less interesting than we think we are,
00:20:23
◼
►
and there's much bigger pools of people who look like
00:20:25
◼
►
and act like us than we realize or want to observe.
00:20:27
◼
►
- Yeah, I'm not a hobbyist sleight of hand magician,
00:20:32
◼
►
but I am a big devotee of just observing it,
00:20:37
◼
►
and that's exactly how sleight of hand magic works
00:20:40
◼
►
at a very macro level.
00:20:42
◼
►
Everybody's guess, well, they must be blank,
00:20:44
◼
►
and that's never it, right,
00:20:46
◼
►
that's never the explanation for the trick.
00:20:48
◼
►
But if you ever do get the explanation for a trick,
00:20:51
◼
►
it is always so mundane.
00:20:53
◼
►
It is like, what, really?
00:20:54
◼
►
- Yeah. - That's how you do that?
00:20:55
◼
►
- Yeah. - The--
00:20:57
◼
►
- Yeah, that's it. - Yeah, you just scoop
00:20:58
◼
►
the coin into your lap, that's it, you know.
00:21:02
◼
►
And the, oh no, they must be blank is like the equivalent
00:21:06
◼
►
of they must be listening to us,
00:21:08
◼
►
and it's like, nope, that's not it.
00:21:11
◼
►
- Are you a Ricky J fan? - Oh, the biggest.
00:21:13
◼
►
- Okay, I figured, I figured, I love it too.
00:21:17
◼
►
Great, and a great New Yorker profile of him
00:21:19
◼
►
from years ago, if you don't know that.
00:21:20
◼
►
- Oh, I have, I've read all of it.
00:21:22
◼
►
When he died, I went back and watched all of it,
00:21:27
◼
►
and there's like YouTubes that are like,
00:21:29
◼
►
I don't even know what's under 480p,
00:21:32
◼
►
but some of his old VHS stuff is really, really low res,
00:21:37
◼
►
and even there, it's like amazing.
00:21:40
◼
►
I love Ricky J.
00:21:42
◼
►
Also, what a great character. - Put him in, put him in.
00:21:44
◼
►
So great, so he'll go in your show notes.
00:21:46
◼
►
- Yeah. - And I feel like
00:21:47
◼
►
I've contributed, good. - Yeah.
00:21:49
◼
►
Here, let me take a break and thank our first sponsor
00:21:53
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of the show, our, my good friends at Linode, L-I-N-O-D-E.
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I used to pronounce them Li-node,
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but it's Linode like Linux 'cause it's Linux hosting.
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Basically, if you have something that uses Amazon S3,
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you can just plug and play connect your code
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They also have one-click installs of all the popular stuff
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Every time I mention that when I do these reads for Linode,
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people write and say, yeah, they got one for their kid,
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and it has made them like the most popular parent
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My thanks to them, not just for sponsoring the show,
00:23:57
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but for keeping my website up.
00:23:58
◼
►
So I've got the new watch that came this morning,
00:24:03
◼
►
which was kind of an unbelievable story.
00:24:06
◼
►
So I don't know, you didn't follow real closely.
00:24:09
◼
►
You know, they've got these new,
00:24:11
◼
►
they call them solo loop bands.
00:24:14
◼
►
So they're--
00:24:15
◼
►
- Yeah, it looked like the loop
00:24:17
◼
►
that I have on my Series 3.
00:24:19
◼
►
There's the bass one. - At a glance,
00:24:20
◼
►
it looks exactly like the Apple Watch straps
00:24:23
◼
►
that most people have, the rubber ones.
00:24:24
◼
►
But there's no, there is no clasp.
00:24:27
◼
►
They just stretch. - Right.
00:24:29
◼
►
- And they are very--
00:24:30
◼
►
- And is it one size fits all,
00:24:32
◼
►
and then you sort of stretch into it?
00:24:33
◼
►
- Nope, it is, this is the part
00:24:35
◼
►
that I cannot stop thinking about,
00:24:37
◼
►
and I don't know what to do.
00:24:38
◼
►
'Cause again, it seems like I'm the victim
00:24:42
◼
►
of a sleight of hand magic trick.
00:24:44
◼
►
They have 12 sizes.
00:24:45
◼
►
Nine, so there's nine each.
00:24:48
◼
►
You know how there's like the larger watch
00:24:50
◼
►
and the smaller watch.
00:24:51
◼
►
Roughly men's, women's, but I know a lot of men
00:24:54
◼
►
who have the 40 millimeter one.
00:24:56
◼
►
For each one, there's nine.
00:24:58
◼
►
So like sizes one through nine
00:25:00
◼
►
are for the 40 millimeter smaller watches,
00:25:02
◼
►
and sizes four through 12 are for the 44 millimeter watches.
00:25:07
◼
►
And again, my take on this is that it's like buying shoes.
00:25:13
◼
►
It is meant for an in-person retail experience.
00:25:16
◼
►
Go into the store, they have a whole bunch.
00:25:18
◼
►
You find the one you like, fit this is great,
00:25:21
◼
►
and then you walk out.
00:25:22
◼
►
You can't do that in the COVID era.
00:25:24
◼
►
So they have this thing you print out, a PDF.
00:25:26
◼
►
You print it out, cut it out like you're in kindergarten.
00:25:28
◼
►
- You wrap it around your wrist?
00:25:30
◼
►
- Yeah, and it, but, and so I do this last night,
00:25:34
◼
►
and I didn't publish my post
00:25:35
◼
►
until after midnight on the East Coast.
00:25:37
◼
►
And I know that's not where they got it,
00:25:40
◼
►
because the package arrived at my house this morning
00:25:46
◼
►
I took mine out, and mine is a size seven,
00:25:50
◼
►
according to their scale, one to 12,
00:25:53
◼
►
and closer to an eight than to a six,
00:25:57
◼
►
but definitely in the seven,
00:25:58
◼
►
and they're only about a centimeter difference,
00:26:01
◼
►
maybe even less than a centimeter.
00:26:02
◼
►
They're pretty fine-grained.
00:26:04
◼
►
They sent me two straps, a seven and an eight.
00:26:07
◼
►
How did they do this?
00:26:11
◼
►
Actually, they sent me four.
00:26:13
◼
►
They sent me the rubber one and the braided yarn one,
00:26:15
◼
►
but each of those they sent in the size seven and eight.
00:26:18
◼
►
And I wrote to Apple PR.
00:26:21
◼
►
I was like, I'm blown away by this.
00:26:23
◼
►
How did you know?
00:26:24
◼
►
And they were like, that's the magic
00:26:26
◼
►
of the Apple Watch team.
00:26:28
◼
►
And I'm like, that's not an answer.
00:26:30
◼
►
Like, they've got, I think it's like a carnival,
00:26:33
◼
►
you know, like guess your weight or guess your age.
00:26:36
◼
►
They have somebody.
00:26:37
◼
►
- How much variance can there be in wrist size?
00:26:40
◼
►
You can be very skinny or very heavy, I guess,
00:26:43
◼
►
and then everyone else is kinda in the middle, right?
00:26:45
◼
►
- Well, it's, but think about like the regular strap
00:26:49
◼
►
with the one you have with the pins, right?
00:26:52
◼
►
It's effectively like guessing exactly
00:26:54
◼
►
which pin size you take, you know,
00:26:57
◼
►
which hole your pin goes through.
00:26:59
◼
►
And so they sent me two, you know,
00:27:00
◼
►
but it's out of all those holes in your straps,
00:27:04
◼
►
they got me the exact right size.
00:27:07
◼
►
It's unbelievable.
00:27:08
◼
►
- Yeah, I bet you most people have the same hole
00:27:11
◼
►
on their strap too.
00:27:13
◼
►
- Maybe, I mean--
00:27:14
◼
►
- Is my guess.
00:27:15
◼
►
- You have to--
00:27:15
◼
►
- Is in keeping with the carnival trick.
00:27:17
◼
►
Like there's actually much less variance than you think.
00:27:19
◼
►
- Yeah, so what I need to do after we record
00:27:21
◼
►
is I gotta ping a couple of my friends in the racket,
00:27:24
◼
►
you know, like I'll ping like Joanna, Stern,
00:27:27
◼
►
and maybe Nely, who obviously have very different wrists
00:27:31
◼
►
and see if they got this, but they must, you know,
00:27:34
◼
►
they, I'm sure they didn't send the same size to everybody,
00:27:37
◼
►
but you know, did they guess that Nely needed a thicker one?
00:27:40
◼
►
I don't know, but whoever's doing the carnival wrist size
00:27:43
◼
►
guessing for the Apple Watch team nailed me spot on.
00:27:47
◼
►
I love this strap.
00:27:48
◼
►
It is very, very nice and comfortable.
00:27:50
◼
►
- Can I ask you something about that?
00:27:53
◼
►
Because like I said, I do wear the watch,
00:27:55
◼
►
and I have the, at one point I went out
00:27:57
◼
►
and got the fancier straps and would take the,
00:27:59
◼
►
put 'em on and off if I was exercising,
00:28:01
◼
►
and then I realized I'm just gonna keep the one on.
00:28:03
◼
►
And that one, I don't wanna gross anybody out,
00:28:06
◼
►
but it gets a little gamey over time,
00:28:08
◼
►
and I have to sort of wash it down,
00:28:10
◼
►
and if I'm exercising with it, and I,
00:28:12
◼
►
periodically I'm like, oh yeah,
00:28:13
◼
►
that thing needs a little wipe.
00:28:15
◼
►
How does that factor into a thing that you,
00:28:20
◼
►
I guess it's the same thing, right?
00:28:22
◼
►
It's a strap is a strap, and whether it's got a pin
00:28:25
◼
►
or a stretchy thing, it shouldn't matter.
00:28:27
◼
►
I was thinking about that as they talked about the one band,
00:28:30
◼
►
it's harder to move.
00:28:31
◼
►
- Yeah, well, it still slides in and out just as easily.
00:28:34
◼
►
You know, it's like you don't really disconnect it,
00:28:36
◼
►
but you know, I think anything rubbery like that,
00:28:39
◼
►
you're gonna wanna wash with soap and water once in a while.
00:28:42
◼
►
And that's sort of, as a, again,
00:28:44
◼
►
not to get into a watch nerd discussion,
00:28:46
◼
►
but it is sort of the problem with leather watch straps
00:28:49
◼
►
of all kinds, is they don't last, if you wear one,
00:28:53
◼
►
if you get like a watch with a leather strap,
00:28:55
◼
►
it's not gonna last for years.
00:28:57
◼
►
It just falls apart.
00:28:59
◼
►
- Yeah, but you want it to sort of have that weathered look.
00:29:01
◼
►
- Yeah, but eventually it's sort of,
00:29:03
◼
►
it goes from looking like cool and weathered
00:29:06
◼
►
to looking like disgusting or maybe having a bit of a smell.
00:29:11
◼
►
And leather doesn't take to a soap and water
00:29:14
◼
►
as well as other materials.
00:29:16
◼
►
- I'm grossed out, it's my wrist I'm talking about.
00:29:20
◼
►
- But anyway, it is a very nice strap.
00:29:21
◼
►
I feel it'll be very popular.
00:29:23
◼
►
And I will say their cutout system nailed my size perfectly.
00:29:27
◼
►
The seven is, the one that I thought from the paper cutout
00:29:30
◼
►
is exactly the most comfortable.
00:29:32
◼
►
The eight that Apple sent me as like a second best guess
00:29:36
◼
►
fits, but is a little loose for my taste.
00:29:40
◼
►
Like, and it feels like maybe somebody
00:29:42
◼
►
who likes a looser watch would prefer it,
00:29:46
◼
►
but it's really nice.
00:29:49
◼
►
And it's definitely lighter.
00:29:50
◼
►
I use my kitchen scale.
00:29:52
◼
►
The regular rubber straps, the sport bands, they call them,
00:29:56
◼
►
are about 25 grams.
00:29:57
◼
►
This one's only 13 grams, so it's about half the weight.
00:30:01
◼
►
Feels like nothing on your wrist.
00:30:02
◼
►
- Can I ask a meta question here for you?
00:30:04
◼
►
- Of course.
00:30:05
◼
►
- They had one hour, two, 2.5 announcements to make.
00:30:10
◼
►
Do you prefer, and they no longer, right,
00:30:14
◼
►
they can have their announcements
00:30:15
◼
►
at whatever schedule they want,
00:30:16
◼
►
and they don't need to bring press out there.
00:30:19
◼
►
Do you prefer sort of these discrete chunks of announcements
00:30:22
◼
►
versus sort of one mega announcement,
00:30:23
◼
►
and here's six different things,
00:30:25
◼
►
and we're doing it all in one day?
00:30:26
◼
►
Does it matter to you as a professional Apple observer?
00:30:30
◼
►
- I prefer the smaller ones, personally.
00:30:32
◼
►
I would, and over the years, I struggle.
00:30:37
◼
►
And part of it is my personal nature.
00:30:43
◼
►
Part of it is what I talked to you about on your show
00:30:46
◼
►
is the weird sort of semi-unique nature
00:30:50
◼
►
of my media empire, which is me,
00:30:54
◼
►
and it makes it harder for me,
00:30:56
◼
►
but I'm also, personality-wise,
00:30:58
◼
►
just not as good at covering a shotgun approach.
00:31:02
◼
►
Here's 12 things, here's my thoughts.
00:31:04
◼
►
I do much better with one thing to concentrate on,
00:31:07
◼
►
even if it's not something that's my favorite thing.
00:31:10
◼
►
- Yeah, that's what I figured,
00:31:12
◼
►
and again, since there's no travel,
00:31:13
◼
►
it's not like you have to complain
00:31:14
◼
►
about getting on a plane in September and October.
00:31:18
◼
►
- Yeah, and the other problem, too,
00:31:20
◼
►
and I find dealing with Apple professionally in the media is,
00:31:26
◼
►
I feel like, in some ways, they're not that atypical,
00:31:31
◼
►
but they're always very Apple-y,
00:31:33
◼
►
and the one thing I always say to people,
00:31:35
◼
►
in all these years that I've been doing this,
00:31:36
◼
►
I have never once, in my opinion, been lied to by Apple.
00:31:40
◼
►
They've never said anything that I've thought was a lie,
00:31:43
◼
►
and I've never really felt like they screwed me
00:31:46
◼
►
on their response to something.
00:31:48
◼
►
If they don't wanna answer a question,
00:31:49
◼
►
they just don't answer it,
00:31:51
◼
►
or more typically, they give you
00:31:53
◼
►
a very Apple-y non-answer,
00:31:56
◼
►
that they acknowledge is a non-answer.
00:31:58
◼
►
And I miss, one of the things I miss about being in person
00:32:02
◼
►
is they'll give you a look that says,
00:32:04
◼
►
"I know it's a non-answer,"
00:32:05
◼
►
but in the words coming out of their mouth are a non-answer,
00:32:08
◼
►
but there's sort of a nod of the head that's like,
00:32:12
◼
►
that's the best I'm gonna give you.
00:32:14
◼
►
- Yeah, I think that is more common than not.
00:32:18
◼
►
The people who are actually gonna lie to you, to your face,
00:32:22
◼
►
if they're professionals,
00:32:23
◼
►
they don't tend to last that long in the industry,
00:32:26
◼
►
and if it's a company, same problem.
00:32:28
◼
►
You can get away with it once or twice,
00:32:31
◼
►
but generally, it's not a good way.
00:32:35
◼
►
And everyone sort of accepts that a non-answer
00:32:37
◼
►
is a non-answer, and they understand why you're doing it.
00:32:39
◼
►
- Well, there was a good story, I'm sure you saw it.
00:32:41
◼
►
There was a good story about a month ago,
00:32:43
◼
►
I think it was the Columbia Journalism Review
00:32:45
◼
►
who had a story about dealing with Facebook,
00:32:47
◼
►
and that Facebook is sort of the exception to the rule
00:32:50
◼
►
where a lot of people in the media
00:32:52
◼
►
feel burned by Facebook PR.
00:32:54
◼
►
- Yeah, there was, you know,
00:32:59
◼
►
Casey Newton has an anecdote about being deceived
00:33:02
◼
►
about the plane, and to me,
00:33:03
◼
►
that seems like more of an outlier.
00:33:05
◼
►
I pretty much group Facebook in that same group
00:33:08
◼
►
of they might waste your time
00:33:11
◼
►
and not tell you things they wanna tell you,
00:33:12
◼
►
and hold press events, and which is very little to say,
00:33:15
◼
►
but I think they are less often,
00:33:18
◼
►
they're less likely to lie to you,
00:33:19
◼
►
and I think that story has a lot more to do
00:33:21
◼
►
with sort of the change in the way people perceive Facebook
00:33:25
◼
►
and the kinds of questions they ask Facebook now,
00:33:29
◼
►
as opposed to four or six years ago,
00:33:32
◼
►
and I think that's the difference,
00:33:34
◼
►
is you're asking much more serious questions
00:33:36
◼
►
about Facebook that are much more important
00:33:38
◼
►
than whether a plane is actually in the air,
00:33:40
◼
►
or this widget does that.
00:33:42
◼
►
It has more consequence, and I think,
00:33:46
◼
►
when I read that story,
00:33:47
◼
►
that I don't think this is terribly dissimilar
00:33:49
◼
►
from a lot of other companies,
00:33:50
◼
►
but I think it was also shaded a bit.
00:33:52
◼
►
- Well, the other factor is that Facebook PR,
00:33:57
◼
►
for all of Facebook's properties,
00:33:59
◼
►
it's just not the worst place to work,
00:34:04
◼
►
but the busiest, because they have the most PR issues
00:34:07
◼
►
to put out that aren't of their own doing, right?
00:34:10
◼
►
You can't go through a week without at least two stories
00:34:15
◼
►
about Facebook popping up that they kind of have to address
00:34:19
◼
►
in some way as a professional PR team
00:34:22
◼
►
that aren't based on their announcements.
00:34:25
◼
►
They're about these constant fires that keep popping up.
00:34:28
◼
►
- Right, that's what I'm getting at, right?
00:34:30
◼
►
It's one thing if you're Apple,
00:34:31
◼
►
and you're generally just getting asked
00:34:33
◼
►
about the new whatever, right?
00:34:35
◼
►
And when is it coming out, and what are the stats?
00:34:37
◼
►
And occasionally, there's something unpleasant
00:34:39
◼
►
you have to discuss involving China or something,
00:34:42
◼
►
but usually it's not, right?
00:34:43
◼
►
And Facebook, now they're asking you about
00:34:45
◼
►
sort of the existence and essence of Facebook,
00:34:49
◼
►
and are they responsible for this atrocity?
00:34:51
◼
►
It's a very different set of questions.
00:34:53
◼
►
- And I will say this.
00:34:56
◼
►
The one exception to the Apple PR doesn't say things
00:34:59
◼
►
that aren't true would be going back to
00:35:02
◼
►
when Steve Jobs' health was in decline,
00:35:04
◼
►
and there were some definite issues there
00:35:07
◼
►
where what they said in hindsight clearly wasn't true.
00:35:12
◼
►
And again, it's such a unique situation,
00:35:15
◼
►
and I was nowhere near in the position I am now
00:35:20
◼
►
when that happened, around 2009, 2010.
00:35:24
◼
►
But there was an issue.
00:35:28
◼
►
- I remember a lot of that.
00:35:30
◼
►
I remember Henry Blodgett saying,
00:35:31
◼
►
"Steve Jobs looks very sick on stage.
00:35:34
◼
►
"What's going on?"
00:35:35
◼
►
And they were indignant about it,
00:35:36
◼
►
and there were all kinds of variants of that.
00:35:38
◼
►
And I was gonna say the other exception to that
00:35:39
◼
►
is just Jobs in general, right?
00:35:42
◼
►
He was famous for saying,
00:35:42
◼
►
"We're not gonna do the following and then do that."
00:35:45
◼
►
And that's--
00:35:47
◼
►
- It was less Apple than Steve Jobs personally,
00:35:50
◼
►
deciding, "I'm not going to be forthcoming
00:35:52
◼
►
"about what's going on."
00:35:53
◼
►
And it was like right before he took
00:35:55
◼
►
his first medical leave, and it was like,
00:35:58
◼
►
I don't know, it seems, or second medical leave,
00:36:00
◼
►
and it was like everybody knew he had had cancer before,
00:36:02
◼
►
and it's like, "Is it back?"
00:36:03
◼
►
And it was like, "No, yeah, I have a dietary issue,"
00:36:06
◼
►
or something, I forget what it was, but it was like--
00:36:08
◼
►
- Yep, yep, yep.
00:36:09
◼
►
He had a cold, it was gaunt, and yeah, yeah.
00:36:12
◼
►
So I will just say that was a notable exception,
00:36:15
◼
►
but it was more like the exception that proved the rule
00:36:18
◼
►
than indicative of dealing with Apple
00:36:21
◼
►
and anything related to their products.
00:36:23
◼
►
It was all very, very personal,
00:36:25
◼
►
and I feel like there was,
00:36:26
◼
►
who at Apple was gonna stand up and say,
00:36:28
◼
►
"You can't do this," you know?
00:36:31
◼
►
- Yeah, I mean, since we're having the meta conversation,
00:36:33
◼
►
I mean, again, this probably seems obvious,
00:36:35
◼
►
but it has taken me quite a while to figure it out,
00:36:37
◼
►
is that everyone in the company
00:36:39
◼
►
takes the cue from their leader,
00:36:40
◼
►
and if you're upset about Facebook's PR or Apple's PR,
00:36:44
◼
►
whoever it is, that is,
00:36:46
◼
►
they're doing what they think their boss wants them to do,
00:36:50
◼
►
and their boss usually does want them to do it,
00:36:52
◼
►
and if there's a disconnect,
00:36:53
◼
►
that usually gets solved one way or another,
00:36:55
◼
►
and so if you're upset with a certain way
00:36:57
◼
►
a company's treating you, it's as a press person,
00:37:00
◼
►
that's what their CEO wants.
00:37:02
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah.
00:37:02
◼
►
That's all I'll say now for the,
00:37:06
◼
►
getting back to the watch.
00:37:11
◼
►
I do like the strap, I think it's nice,
00:37:13
◼
►
I think people are gonna wanna try 'em on.
00:37:15
◼
►
I do think the paper thing is an accurate gauge,
00:37:17
◼
►
but that's really all I have to say for now.
00:37:19
◼
►
It's not a super exciting product, so I don't feel,
00:37:22
◼
►
to me, I'm most interested in those two minutes of the,
00:37:27
◼
►
this is why I wanted to talk to you this week,
00:37:29
◼
►
is to me, it's the bundle and the streaming,
00:37:32
◼
►
and where this stuff is going.
00:37:35
◼
►
So what are your thoughts on the Apple One bundle
00:37:37
◼
►
that they announced?
00:37:40
◼
►
- Uh, I am, I think it is,
00:37:44
◼
►
my mentions were flooded with people disagreeing with me,
00:37:47
◼
►
and that's their right,
00:37:48
◼
►
but I think it is an unimpressive bundle.
00:37:50
◼
►
I don't think it's meaningful for consumers or for Apple.
00:37:55
◼
►
My thought on bundles in general is they work
00:37:58
◼
►
when they are anchored by something that you really want.
00:38:01
◼
►
So if it's cable TV, you're paying for a bunch of channels
00:38:04
◼
►
because you want sports or live news or whatever it is,
00:38:07
◼
►
and Amazon Prime gives you a bunch of stuff,
00:38:09
◼
►
but you're not subscribing to Amazon Prime
00:38:11
◼
►
because you want Prime Video,
00:38:13
◼
►
you're subscribing because you want the free shipping.
00:38:16
◼
►
And I don't see the live sports
00:38:20
◼
►
or free shipping part of the Apple bundles.
00:38:24
◼
►
And so we can start there, but that to me is,
00:38:27
◼
►
it's not a meaningful thing until they connect it
00:38:30
◼
►
to the must-have Apple product, which is the device.
00:38:33
◼
►
And we can talk about why that maybe
00:38:36
◼
►
isn't the case right now.
00:38:38
◼
►
- I guess my,
00:38:41
◼
►
I don't completely disagree,
00:38:44
◼
►
but I think I feel more like Apple Music
00:38:47
◼
►
is that linchpin service.
00:38:49
◼
►
And that is how, that's what I did to guess
00:38:53
◼
►
what their pricing would be, which was pretty accurate,
00:38:55
◼
►
as I thought, well, why don't you take
00:38:57
◼
►
the Apple Music pricing and add $5, and there's your bundle.
00:39:01
◼
►
And that's pretty much exactly the pricing
00:39:03
◼
►
for individual and family.
00:39:05
◼
►
Take the 10 and $15 that Apple Music costs
00:39:08
◼
►
as individual or a family, and add $5 a month
00:39:13
◼
►
and include not everything else,
00:39:16
◼
►
but the arcade and the TV Plus,
00:39:21
◼
►
and some iCloud storage, which I still really feel
00:39:25
◼
►
like they're nickel and diming people on.
00:39:27
◼
►
Like, for the individual thing,
00:39:30
◼
►
it's like to upgrade the people to the 50 gigabytes
00:39:33
◼
►
when they're selling these phones
00:39:35
◼
►
that have 512 gigabytes of storage
00:39:38
◼
►
and shoot 4K video that easily fills up 50 gigabytes
00:39:43
◼
►
if you're shooting it a lot.
00:39:45
◼
►
It's like, wow, I can't believe that.
00:39:48
◼
►
If these people are gonna give you $20 or $15 a month,
00:39:50
◼
►
why not just give them more of that storage
00:39:53
◼
►
for their backups?
00:39:55
◼
►
- I used to feel the same way about storage in general
00:39:59
◼
►
on the device, right?
00:40:01
◼
►
The markup for whatever the base level iPhone,
00:40:03
◼
►
which early on became an unusable amount of storage, right?
00:40:07
◼
►
You had to get a higher level.
00:40:09
◼
►
It was an enormous markup to go to the next level.
00:40:12
◼
►
Especially when it's almost irresponsible
00:40:13
◼
►
to sell the phone at sort of the base level,
00:40:15
◼
►
whatever that used to be.
00:40:16
◼
►
I remember having a tell-- - It was 16.
00:40:17
◼
►
- I remember having a tell relative,
00:40:19
◼
►
it was like, you don't buy that.
00:40:20
◼
►
Like, you think you're saving money,
00:40:21
◼
►
but you don't want to have a functioning job.
00:40:23
◼
►
- Yeah, it was 16 gigabytes that they stuck with
00:40:25
◼
►
as the base for way too long, because at 16 gigabytes,
00:40:29
◼
►
it was like half of it was taken up by the operating system.
00:40:32
◼
►
You know, like once they burst past 16,
00:40:36
◼
►
even the 32, it's like you mostly get 32.
00:40:40
◼
►
But with 16, you didn't even get close to 16
00:40:43
◼
►
of usable storage, because the OS and everything else
00:40:46
◼
►
had to be in there.
00:40:46
◼
►
And they had to reserve enough space
00:40:49
◼
►
so that you could do software updates, you know?
00:40:52
◼
►
And even if they only reserve like two gigabytes
00:40:54
◼
►
so that when a software update comes,
00:40:55
◼
►
there's space to write the update before doing the update,
00:40:58
◼
►
it's like if you're only giving people 16,
00:41:01
◼
►
you're taking away one eighth of their storage.
00:41:04
◼
►
- Yep, and I think you're right.
00:41:05
◼
►
I think, I mean, music is by far,
00:41:07
◼
►
music and the data are by far the most widely used
00:41:10
◼
►
of those offerings, and I think there are probably
00:41:13
◼
►
tens of millions of people who are using both music
00:41:15
◼
►
and data, and so right there, you're getting pretty close.
00:41:18
◼
►
- But the big difference between those two, though,
00:41:21
◼
►
is music is fun.
00:41:22
◼
►
People want to listen to music, and people,
00:41:25
◼
►
why do people listen to music?
00:41:27
◼
►
Because music makes them happy, right?
00:41:30
◼
►
It's very, you know, it's the one form of our media
00:41:34
◼
►
that is just the closest, it's just purely emotional, right?
00:41:39
◼
►
It makes you happy.
00:41:40
◼
►
That's why you pay for streaming music.
00:41:43
◼
►
Why do you pay for iCloud storage?
00:41:45
◼
►
It is the most cerebral aspect of this offering.
00:41:48
◼
►
It is medicine, to be honest.
00:41:50
◼
►
It is, you're signing up to take some vitamins,
00:41:53
◼
►
and you should be taking them,
00:41:55
◼
►
and you should have enough storage in your iCloud plan
00:41:58
◼
►
so that you can back up your devices,
00:42:00
◼
►
because having those backups in iCloud is really fantastic
00:42:04
◼
►
and a great way to make sure you don't lose your photos
00:42:06
◼
►
and stuff like that, but it's medicine, right?
00:42:09
◼
►
It's no fun at all.
00:42:11
◼
►
Upgrading from the base storage to more storage,
00:42:16
◼
►
you don't see anything, you don't get to watch
00:42:18
◼
►
a funny episode of Ted Lasso, you don't get to listen.
00:42:21
◼
►
- You don't get to brag to someone
00:42:23
◼
►
about how big your storage is?
00:42:24
◼
►
- No, you get, it's medicine.
00:42:27
◼
►
It's good, but that's why I feel like
00:42:30
◼
►
they should just offer everybody who gets into
00:42:32
◼
►
this Apple One bundle the two gigabytes, honestly,
00:42:35
◼
►
that, or terabytes, so that, and it's like,
00:42:38
◼
►
well, that's more than anybody needs.
00:42:40
◼
►
Well, then fine, then they don't have to worry about it,
00:42:42
◼
►
but isn't that a great, anyway,
00:42:44
◼
►
that's my argument on that.
00:42:46
◼
►
- Well, yeah, and frankly, I think that should be
00:42:48
◼
►
factored into your $1,000 phone.
00:42:50
◼
►
- Right, right.
00:42:51
◼
►
- You're paying this much, or you're paying this much
00:42:53
◼
►
for Apple Care, the storage should come with that.
00:42:55
◼
►
Like, it should just be a thing you don't have to decide
00:42:58
◼
►
you need to buy when the thing you wanted to access
00:43:01
◼
►
is no longer available and you thought it was, right?
00:43:04
◼
►
That's, it's not just medicine, right, or exercise,
00:43:08
◼
►
it's finding out you needed, you should have had the storage
00:43:11
◼
►
but didn't, and now you have a,
00:43:13
◼
►
there's something bad has happened.
00:43:15
◼
►
- Yeah, so I--
00:43:17
◼
►
- Oh, you wish, oh, I would have just gone ahead
00:43:18
◼
►
and bought it in advance.
00:43:20
◼
►
- So anyway, I think music might be that linchpin.
00:43:24
◼
►
It, you know, if you like listening to music,
00:43:27
◼
►
you need at least one streaming music plan in today's world.
00:43:32
◼
►
And, you know, if it's gonna be Apple Music,
00:43:34
◼
►
then why not spend $5 more a month and get the Apple One
00:43:37
◼
►
and then you get the TV shows and whatever else,
00:43:40
◼
►
the arcade games?
00:43:41
◼
►
- Yeah, I just, I, to me, if they said, yeah,
00:43:47
◼
►
Apple Music now comes with these following three services,
00:43:50
◼
►
that makes, that's the Amazon model, right?
00:43:52
◼
►
Here's the thing you're already buying,
00:43:54
◼
►
now we're throwing more stuff in.
00:43:56
◼
►
And maybe gradually over time, we up the price
00:43:59
◼
►
and you're not complaining 'cause we've,
00:44:01
◼
►
we're making it harder, we're making it stickier, right?
00:44:05
◼
►
- Less churn by adding more stuff, but trying to say,
00:44:08
◼
►
look, you're already paying for this thing,
00:44:09
◼
►
why don't you pay a little more and get more stuff?
00:44:12
◼
►
If it's not stuff you want,
00:44:14
◼
►
that's where it falls flat for me.
00:44:17
◼
►
- Yeah, so, and I guess that is sort of, you know,
00:44:22
◼
►
how important is this?
00:44:25
◼
►
You know, why even bother with Apple Music?
00:44:28
◼
►
Why let, you know, why it's,
00:44:31
◼
►
why not walk away from the music business?
00:44:35
◼
►
I mean, I guess I think I see why, you know,
00:44:38
◼
►
Apple cares about it, but what the iTunes
00:44:41
◼
►
buy a song for 99 cents revolution meant to the company
00:44:45
◼
►
20 years ago, it really helped rejuvenate the company,
00:44:50
◼
►
you know, and it's what drove the iPod sales.
00:44:54
◼
►
And I remember when Apple retail stores
00:44:56
◼
►
first started opening in malls,
00:44:58
◼
►
if you perked your ears open, you'd hear kids saying,
00:45:01
◼
►
hey, let's go to the iPod store, right?
00:45:05
◼
►
It was really what made the company relevant.
00:45:08
◼
►
Does Apple need to be in the music business today?
00:45:12
◼
►
I mean, it's too late, they're obviously
00:45:14
◼
►
not gonna get out of it, but it's not essential
00:45:17
◼
►
to what they do or, you know,
00:45:20
◼
►
all that meaningful to them financially.
00:45:23
◼
►
- No, it's, I mean, it's in the billions of dollars now,
00:45:27
◼
►
right, so it starts to become meaningful
00:45:31
◼
►
and they couldn't take it away without having a problem.
00:45:34
◼
►
And I think we're sort of explaining
00:45:36
◼
►
why they need to be in the music business.
00:45:38
◼
►
If you wanna create a bundle of services,
00:45:39
◼
►
you need to have something that people want
00:45:41
◼
►
and that's the thing, it's not games,
00:45:44
◼
►
it's not Apple news, and it's not Apple TV+ for the moment.
00:45:47
◼
►
So here's the one thing that tens of millions of people
00:45:50
◼
►
are willingly paying for.
00:45:51
◼
►
- And, you know, and I think that's what they were thinking,
00:45:55
◼
►
you know, that this is something
00:45:56
◼
►
we don't wanna walk away from, and there's their linchpin.
00:45:59
◼
►
But then, now this gets into the competitive aspects.
00:46:03
◼
►
You had a comment yesterday,
00:46:05
◼
►
right after the event from Spotify.
00:46:07
◼
►
Here, here's their statement that you tweeted.
00:46:10
◼
►
Once again, Apple is using its dominant position
00:46:12
◼
►
and unfair practices to disadvantage competitors
00:46:14
◼
►
and deprive consumers by favoring its own services.
00:46:17
◼
►
We call on competition authorities to act urgently
00:46:20
◼
►
to restrict Apple's anti-competitive behavior,
00:46:23
◼
►
which if left unchecked will cause irreparable harm
00:46:26
◼
►
to the developer community
00:46:27
◼
►
and threaten our collective freedoms
00:46:29
◼
►
to listen, learn, create, and connect.
00:46:31
◼
►
It's a little purple.
00:46:38
◼
►
I take solace in a little bit like that being purple.
00:46:42
◼
►
Like, in normal times, I'd hurt my eyes,
00:46:48
◼
►
rolling my eyes at that.
00:46:50
◼
►
In our times, I'm like, oh no, this is fun.
00:46:54
◼
►
It's fun to get all indignant about something
00:46:57
◼
►
as trivial as streaming music,
00:47:01
◼
►
when it's possible that come November,
00:47:04
◼
►
we're gonna have armed riots in the streets,
00:47:06
◼
►
and a president who lost an election
00:47:09
◼
►
and refuses to acknowledge it,
00:47:10
◼
►
and nobody knows what to do, right?
00:47:13
◼
►
It's sort of like, yeah, let's argue
00:47:15
◼
►
about anti-competitive aspects
00:47:17
◼
►
of whether it's fair or unfair for Apple
00:47:19
◼
►
to include music in a streaming
00:47:21
◼
►
when it's the platform provider of the operating system.
00:47:25
◼
►
- Yeah, I mean, the whole idea that this stuff
00:47:28
◼
►
is gonna get eventually kicked up to,
00:47:31
◼
►
some government agency or group of politicians
00:47:34
◼
►
will rule on this, is impossible to imagine
00:47:37
◼
►
in the United States.
00:47:38
◼
►
And by the way, it's not a coincidence
00:47:42
◼
►
that the Spotify/Apple fight is happening in the EU.
00:47:46
◼
►
It's not happening in the US.
00:47:48
◼
►
But yeah, it's impossible to imagine.
00:47:50
◼
►
I do, I'm not surprised that Spotify said
00:47:54
◼
►
we're indignant about this.
00:47:56
◼
►
I think they have, and I'm not an antitrust expert,
00:47:59
◼
►
nor do I play one on TV,
00:48:01
◼
►
but I do think they have much less of a ground
00:48:03
◼
►
to stand on here than the base argument they have,
00:48:07
◼
►
which is that Apple music tied to the device
00:48:10
◼
►
is anti-competitive.
00:48:11
◼
►
If you're just gonna say, all right,
00:48:12
◼
►
a bunch of stuff tied to other Apple services
00:48:15
◼
►
is anti-competitive, it's a harder argument to make.
00:48:17
◼
►
- And I do wonder, I wonder how much it's even worth arguing
00:48:20
◼
►
about how many people are like,
00:48:22
◼
►
well, this is my first iPhone,
00:48:24
◼
►
and I've taken it out of, I've unwrapped the box,
00:48:26
◼
►
and I'm turning it on, and I'm going through this,
00:48:29
◼
►
and I have no backup to restore, I'm new to this.
00:48:32
◼
►
Oh, and there right in my dock is a music app,
00:48:35
◼
►
and I tap the music app,
00:48:37
◼
►
and I'm prompted to sign up for Apple Music.
00:48:41
◼
►
That's basically the gist
00:48:43
◼
►
of what Spotify's complaining about, right?
00:48:48
◼
►
- It's that plus pricing.
00:48:49
◼
►
- Right, because they don't have to pay the 30%.
00:48:51
◼
►
Apple doesn't have to pay itself 30%
00:48:54
◼
►
for an in-app purchase to sign up.
00:48:57
◼
►
And I do feel that there's arguments to be made there.
00:49:00
◼
►
Again, I'm not a legal expert,
00:49:03
◼
►
but just common sense tells you,
00:49:04
◼
►
well, that is something to argue about, right?
00:49:07
◼
►
I mean, common sense says whether that should be allowed
00:49:11
◼
►
or not, it's at least in this sphere of a debatable,
00:49:15
◼
►
this is something that's logical to debate.
00:49:20
◼
►
I think that what Spotify's arguing here with the bundle
00:49:23
◼
►
to me is sort of getting into the tiny violin,
00:49:28
◼
►
playing the world's saddest song,
00:49:30
◼
►
because Apple could do so much more here, really.
00:49:34
◼
►
The bundle that would really be both lowercase a,
00:49:39
◼
►
now I'm not saying legally anti-competitive, I don't know,
00:49:42
◼
►
but certainly lowercase a, anti-competitive
00:49:46
◼
►
in the common sense term would be if they said,
00:49:48
◼
►
pay us X dollars a month,
00:49:51
◼
►
and we'll give you a new iPhone every two years too, right?
00:49:55
◼
►
So this is the most interesting thing,
00:49:58
◼
►
and it's a thing that didn't happen, right?
00:50:01
◼
►
But why did that not happen?
00:50:03
◼
►
People like you and I have been speculating
00:50:04
◼
►
about an Apple bundle that would,
00:50:06
◼
►
basically you'd an all-in Apple subscription service
00:50:09
◼
►
where you're paying for your phone and AppleCare
00:50:11
◼
►
and a bunch of other stuff, and it's one monthly fee,
00:50:14
◼
►
and a lot of people say, give me that, I want that.
00:50:17
◼
►
And so why didn't they do it?
00:50:18
◼
►
And a really obvious guess, a semi-informed guess on my part
00:50:24
◼
►
is maybe they do wanna do it,
00:50:26
◼
►
but they certainly can't do it in today's political climate
00:50:29
◼
►
when they're fighting antitrust rights.
00:50:31
◼
►
And then the question is, okay,
00:50:34
◼
►
is this something they think they can get to
00:50:36
◼
►
X number of years down the road?
00:50:38
◼
►
Is this something they've held off on doing
00:50:40
◼
►
because they were hoping to be able to do it,
00:50:41
◼
►
and they've concluded, look,
00:50:43
◼
►
we just can't do that anytime soon,
00:50:46
◼
►
so this is what we got.
00:50:47
◼
►
But to me, it's the obvious thing,
00:50:50
◼
►
that's to answer, to respond to the thing I was positing
00:50:54
◼
►
earlier, that's the thing, their version of sports, TV,
00:50:58
◼
►
and free shipping is the phone,
00:51:00
◼
►
and so you should bundle it with the phone,
00:51:02
◼
►
and why aren't they doing that?
00:51:04
◼
►
And they're certainly not gonna come out and say,
00:51:05
◼
►
we'd love to do it, but we'll get killed
00:51:07
◼
►
by the antitrust guys.
00:51:08
◼
►
And for all I know, they're gonna announce it next fall,
00:51:12
◼
►
next with the iPhone.
00:51:14
◼
►
They'll say, ah, now here's the super-duper bundle,
00:51:16
◼
►
but I don't, I think they would wait, right?
00:51:18
◼
►
You wouldn't announce the bundle until,
00:51:20
◼
►
if you were gonna do a super bundle, you'd do it all.
00:51:22
◼
►
- Yeah, I think so too,
00:51:23
◼
►
especially since they've already called
00:51:25
◼
►
the one-tier Premier, and not that they couldn't add
00:51:27
◼
►
a Super Premier that includes a new iPhone.
00:51:30
◼
►
- Super Premier Max.
00:51:31
◼
►
- But that is the, and it is the thing
00:51:37
◼
►
that I still think has at least,
00:51:40
◼
►
I don't wanna project more than 10 years in the future,
00:51:42
◼
►
but I think for the next 10 years,
00:51:45
◼
►
the idea that people will still want a new phone
00:51:48
◼
►
every two or three years is pretty, pretty solid bet,
00:51:53
◼
►
just in terms of camera improvements and stuff, right?
00:51:58
◼
►
If only camera improvements.
00:52:00
◼
►
I really think that five years from now,
00:52:04
◼
►
we'll look back at what our cameras do now on these phones
00:52:07
◼
►
and be like, oh my god, can you believe that piece of junk?
00:52:09
◼
►
Whereas now, we're amazed by it.
00:52:10
◼
►
So I think there's legs on that,
00:52:13
◼
►
that it would be a huge appeal if they said,
00:52:15
◼
►
okay, here, just pay us,
00:52:16
◼
►
I don't know what it would be a month,
00:52:18
◼
►
and every two years, you get a new iPhone,
00:52:20
◼
►
and you get all these services.
00:52:23
◼
►
It's just one, one bet.
00:52:24
◼
►
- Yeah, and whether you care about any spec at all,
00:52:27
◼
►
you just say, look, I just don't care.
00:52:28
◼
►
I know that whatever phone I have is the best phone.
00:52:30
◼
►
I don't need to worry about it.
00:52:32
◼
►
I can afford not to worry about it.
00:52:34
◼
►
This would obviously be towards a wealthier tier
00:52:36
◼
►
of Apple customers who are wealthy to begin with,
00:52:39
◼
►
generally speaking.
00:52:40
◼
►
That's a gross generalization,
00:52:43
◼
►
but compared to an Android consumer,
00:52:47
◼
►
that seems like the no-brainer,
00:52:49
◼
►
and so its absence is super interesting to me.
00:52:52
◼
►
- And it just happens to be,
00:52:54
◼
►
in the wake of Microsoft announcing
00:52:57
◼
►
the same sort of kind of idea
00:53:00
◼
►
with the new Xbox console hardwares,
00:53:02
◼
►
the Series S and the Series X,
00:53:06
◼
►
which I really, it's almost like a speech therapy exercise
00:53:11
◼
►
to make sure that audibly I say S and X differently,
00:53:16
◼
►
but with their game streaming service,
00:53:18
◼
►
and it's, Ben Thompson and I have talked about this
00:53:21
◼
►
on Dithering, it's really a very appealing deal
00:53:24
◼
►
because it's not like a credit card thing
00:53:27
◼
►
where you're paying interest
00:53:30
◼
►
and you wind up paying more over two years
00:53:32
◼
►
than you would have if you just bought it outright.
00:53:35
◼
►
As long as you're interested in the monthly game service,
00:53:40
◼
►
you do this for two years for a monthly fee,
00:53:43
◼
►
and including the game service,
00:53:45
◼
►
you wind up owning an Xbox console at the end
00:53:48
◼
►
for a very appealing monthly rate,
00:53:50
◼
►
and you don't really pay a penalty for it
00:53:52
◼
►
in terms of interest or whatever,
00:53:55
◼
►
and all of a sudden, this multi-hundred dollar console
00:53:59
◼
►
and a library of lots of games has this very appealing,
00:54:03
◼
►
oh, it's 25 bucks a month, that's it.
00:54:05
◼
►
- Yeah, it's super compelling,
00:54:07
◼
►
and we're a household where we're considering
00:54:09
◼
►
making our first sort of big console purchase
00:54:11
◼
►
in a long time, and we're thinking through this right now,
00:54:14
◼
►
and they've had that for a while now,
00:54:16
◼
►
but they're certainly pushing more and more
00:54:18
◼
►
towards gaming as a service,
00:54:21
◼
►
where the device is secondary,
00:54:24
◼
►
and Apple is definitely not in that mode, right?
00:54:27
◼
►
Apple is still, the device is primary.
00:54:28
◼
►
- And so we have to go meta for a moment here
00:54:31
◼
►
and just acknowledge, and you and I, again,
00:54:34
◼
►
we're of a certain age, where can you imagine
00:54:36
◼
►
going back 25 years, 20 years, and telling our former selves
00:54:41
◼
►
that in the year 2020, we're gonna be talking
00:54:44
◼
►
about Microsoft and Apple and one company
00:54:49
◼
►
feeling free and liberated antitrust-wise
00:54:54
◼
►
to offer these content bundles,
00:54:55
◼
►
and the other one sitting on its hands
00:54:59
◼
►
missing an obvious opportunity,
00:55:01
◼
►
and it's Apple that's sort of staring down the barrel
00:55:05
◼
►
of anti-competition regulators,
00:55:08
◼
►
and Microsoft that is like,
00:55:10
◼
►
here, here's this super compelling deal.
00:55:12
◼
►
- Yeah, and also Microsoft being the company
00:55:16
◼
►
that could conceivably have spent 20 or $30 billion
00:55:19
◼
►
to buy the hottest new social media/video service,
00:55:23
◼
►
and all the rest of its competitors couldn't
00:55:25
◼
►
because they were too powerful.
00:55:26
◼
►
- Right, that does sort of go unsaid
00:55:30
◼
►
in the whole TikTok fiasco, was that Microsoft was...
00:55:35
◼
►
- There was no other consumer tech company
00:55:40
◼
►
that could have plausibly tried to get that deal through.
00:55:43
◼
►
- Right. (laughs)
00:55:45
◼
►
I know somebody, there was a report somebody had earlier
00:55:47
◼
►
that Apple at least took a meeting or something,
00:55:50
◼
►
and it's like, I couldn't imagine that,
00:55:51
◼
►
because I guess...
00:55:54
◼
►
- Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple was excited to bat that down.
00:55:58
◼
►
- It doesn't make any sense.
00:55:59
◼
►
- That's one of those, like, yeah,
00:56:01
◼
►
someone called someone from Apple or a banker
00:56:03
◼
►
said they talked to Apple once or something like that.
00:56:05
◼
►
Apple, they went from, we don't comment
00:56:07
◼
►
on rumor and speculation, to hell no.
00:56:10
◼
►
There's no way we're doing this.
00:56:11
◼
►
- It was just sort of the old salesman trick of,
00:56:15
◼
►
hey, you know that rich guy?
00:56:16
◼
►
He's interested. (laughs)
00:56:18
◼
►
- Yeah, I got a lot of people coming down
00:56:20
◼
►
to look at this car, so I can't promise it's here tomorrow.
00:56:24
◼
►
- Very, very true.
00:56:25
◼
►
I wanna keep going on streaming,
00:56:26
◼
►
but I have one more sponsor I wanna thank on this episode,
00:56:28
◼
►
and it's, oh, man, do I love this company, Mack Weldon.
00:56:32
◼
►
Mack Weldon believes in smart design, premium fabrics,
00:56:35
◼
►
and simple shopping.
00:56:36
◼
►
They sell all sorts of stuff.
00:56:39
◼
►
They got started selling underwear, socks,
00:56:42
◼
►
all the sort of dependables that you need in your lower,
00:56:45
◼
►
I keep 'em in my lower drawers, you know,
00:56:46
◼
►
undershirts and underwear and socks and stuff like that.
00:56:49
◼
►
But they've got all sorts of stuff now, hoodies and polos.
00:56:53
◼
►
I had a polo on yesterday from Mack Weldon, love it.
00:56:57
◼
►
One of my all-time favorites.
00:56:59
◼
►
They have a new line of silver underwear and shirts
00:57:01
◼
►
that are naturally antimicrobial,
00:57:04
◼
►
which means they eliminate odor.
00:57:05
◼
►
It's a very friendly way of saying they don't get stinky.
00:57:10
◼
►
But they're super comfortable, very stylish.
00:57:12
◼
►
I love all the color options.
00:57:14
◼
►
They have great, even just great packaging.
00:57:17
◼
►
I'm a nerd for stuff like that,
00:57:19
◼
►
but I like it when I open a new thing
00:57:21
◼
►
and like the packaging is nice and it smells good
00:57:23
◼
►
just coming out of the packaging.
00:57:25
◼
►
Mack Weldon stuff is like that.
00:57:27
◼
►
They have even created their own new, totally free,
00:57:32
◼
►
loyalty program that they call Weldon Blue.
00:57:35
◼
►
Now, you just buy more stuff.
00:57:37
◼
►
All you have to do is buy the stuff you're already buying
00:57:39
◼
►
from Mack Weldon and they just escalate you
00:57:42
◼
►
through the thing.
00:57:43
◼
►
Once you get to level one, you get free shipping for life.
00:57:46
◼
►
So you sort of get that, hey,
00:57:48
◼
►
if you just need some underwear, you just buy it
00:57:50
◼
►
and you know you're getting free shipping.
00:57:52
◼
►
And then once you reach level two,
00:57:54
◼
►
you only have to spend 200 bucks to get there.
00:57:57
◼
►
You start getting 20% off every order for the next year.
00:58:03
◼
►
So you spend 200 bucks, not that much.
00:58:05
◼
►
You've already got level one, which is free shipping,
00:58:08
◼
►
and now you save 20% on every order for the next year
00:58:11
◼
►
as long as you stay at level two.
00:58:12
◼
►
It's a great deal.
00:58:13
◼
►
And there's no fee or anything like that.
00:58:16
◼
►
You just buy good stuff.
00:58:17
◼
►
I wear their stuff all the time.
00:58:19
◼
►
Really do like it.
00:58:21
◼
►
Here's the deal.
00:58:22
◼
►
Go to Mack Weldon, M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com/talkshow.
00:58:27
◼
►
Mack Weldon.com/talkshow.
00:58:32
◼
►
Enter the promo code, talk show, same code,
00:58:35
◼
►
and that'll get you 20% off your first order.
00:58:38
◼
►
It's like you're already at level two.
00:58:40
◼
►
There you go.
00:58:41
◼
►
Mack Weldon, go and buy nice clothing.
00:58:44
◼
►
- Dude, I thought I'd do good Mack Weldon ads,
00:58:47
◼
►
but that was great.
00:58:48
◼
►
- You know what?
00:58:49
◼
►
I love it when it's a, and it just sounds corny
00:58:52
◼
►
and it's like, you know, but I just love it
00:58:54
◼
►
when it's a sponsor whose stuff I really love.
00:58:56
◼
►
And it's like--
00:58:57
◼
►
- My line is I spend my own money on their product,
00:59:00
◼
►
which is true.
00:59:01
◼
►
- Oh, I should mention too, a year ago,
00:59:04
◼
►
Merlin Mann was on the show and I was telling him
00:59:06
◼
►
about the Mack Weldon slippers and then they sold out
00:59:11
◼
►
and they were not a sponsor.
00:59:12
◼
►
We were just talking about them.
00:59:14
◼
►
But I love their slippers 'cause they have a little back
00:59:17
◼
►
so that they stay on.
00:59:17
◼
►
I don't like a backless slipper.
00:59:19
◼
►
And lo and behold, a pandemic hits.
00:59:23
◼
►
I didn't put real shoes on.
00:59:24
◼
►
I wore out a pair of the slippers.
00:59:27
◼
►
But they were the, I've probably spent like 10 years
00:59:31
◼
►
worth of time in slippers in the last six months
00:59:33
◼
►
with the Mack Weldon slippers.
00:59:34
◼
►
They're fantastic.
00:59:35
◼
►
They're the best slippers I've ever owned.
00:59:39
◼
►
- So let's talk streaming in the big world, right?
00:59:45
◼
►
Where Apple is.
00:59:47
◼
►
I kind of feel like, here's an interesting thought I had
00:59:51
◼
►
as I was going off to sleep last night
00:59:53
◼
►
after absorbing all of this.
00:59:56
◼
►
So Apple comes out with this new Fitness Plus thing,
00:59:59
◼
►
which is not for me.
01:00:00
◼
►
- Oh my God, that Twitter fight.
01:00:03
◼
►
- Oh, what's this?
01:00:04
◼
►
- I don't know, it was a Twitter fight.
01:00:04
◼
►
No, no, you were involved in it.
01:00:05
◼
►
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:00:06
◼
►
- Watching you and Horace and Ben.
01:00:07
◼
►
- Oh, and the Peloton, yeah, yeah.
01:00:09
◼
►
- Oh my God, yeah.
01:00:10
◼
►
- People that, you know what, Peloton is, I've said this,
01:00:15
◼
►
I've been staying with Ben.
01:00:16
◼
►
So we have a Peloton.
01:00:18
◼
►
I don't use it, my wife does.
01:00:20
◼
►
She won't even let me use it.
01:00:21
◼
►
She's very serious about it.
01:00:23
◼
►
I guess she would let me use it if I asked to.
01:00:26
◼
►
But we are a Peloton family.
01:00:28
◼
►
Ben has one too.
01:00:30
◼
►
It is exactly like arguing with people
01:00:34
◼
►
about Macintosh computers 20, 25 years ago,
01:00:36
◼
►
where people who've never used one, never seen a Macintosh,
01:00:40
◼
►
will just tell you blindly that they're overpriced garbage
01:00:44
◼
►
and you're buying hype and you could buy this other thing
01:00:46
◼
►
for less and it's better.
01:00:48
◼
►
And people saying that you should just buy a regular bicycle
01:00:51
◼
►
and put it on a treadmill or something
01:00:53
◼
►
and then you get the same thing.
01:00:54
◼
►
And it's like, you don't get it.
01:00:56
◼
►
This is like one of the nicest pieces of kit
01:00:59
◼
►
I've ever seen in my life.
01:01:02
◼
►
- They're very good.
01:01:03
◼
►
And I was a reluctant buyer
01:01:06
◼
►
'cause I didn't wanna own one of them.
01:01:07
◼
►
There was a pandemic.
01:01:08
◼
►
I'm like, all right, 'cause I'm not going to the gym.
01:01:09
◼
►
But, and it's very good and all of that.
01:01:11
◼
►
And yes, there's definitely a cult around it.
01:01:14
◼
►
I'm not in the cult.
01:01:15
◼
►
It's a fine product.
01:01:16
◼
►
I'm happy to buy it,
01:01:17
◼
►
but I'm not gonna go sing its praises.
01:01:19
◼
►
The thing that I find confusing from people
01:01:21
◼
►
who should know better is saying
01:01:22
◼
►
that the Apple exercise thing is competitive with Peloton,
01:01:26
◼
►
but that makes no sense.
01:01:27
◼
►
- It makes no sense at all.
01:01:28
◼
►
- It's competitive with a million other free
01:01:31
◼
►
and paid workout apps and videos, not with a device.
01:01:36
◼
►
- Right, and the device is, it's the starting point.
01:01:40
◼
►
It's not like you sign up for Peloton classes
01:01:42
◼
►
and then, oh, maybe you get the bike.
01:01:44
◼
►
It's like you decide to get the bike
01:01:46
◼
►
and then you sign up for the classes.
01:01:47
◼
►
It's a great product.
01:01:48
◼
►
- Right, you could technically,
01:01:50
◼
►
I mean, and Peloton has sold some people,
01:01:52
◼
►
it's subscription service who don't use the bike,
01:01:55
◼
►
but that's a very small group of people.
01:01:56
◼
►
It doesn't make any sense.
01:01:57
◼
►
- Yeah, and it's not central to their success.
01:02:00
◼
►
That's not their company's story
01:02:02
◼
►
and it's not why people who are bullish on them are bullish.
01:02:06
◼
►
Anyway, I think that the fitness thing
01:02:09
◼
►
is orthogonal to Peloton.
01:02:11
◼
►
I don't wanna get sidetracked on that,
01:02:12
◼
►
but the one thought I had going to sleep last night is,
01:02:14
◼
►
okay, what is the fitness plus thing?
01:02:18
◼
►
In a sense, if you, they talked about it all
01:02:21
◼
►
in the context of actual fitness
01:02:24
◼
►
and you wear your watch and you measure all this stuff,
01:02:27
◼
►
fitness, fitness, fitness, that's what you sign,
01:02:29
◼
►
it's certainly why you would sign up for it,
01:02:30
◼
►
but really all it is is a streaming video platform, right?
01:02:35
◼
►
It looks like they've signed up about 30 trainers.
01:02:41
◼
►
I didn't do a headcount in the class photo,
01:02:46
◼
►
but they have, looks like somewhere around 30 or 40 trainers.
01:02:51
◼
►
To do these, and some of them have specialties.
01:02:54
◼
►
Some of these might be in bicycling or somebody,
01:02:56
◼
►
strength training is obviously very different
01:02:58
◼
►
than cardio training.
01:03:00
◼
►
And it seems like, and they talked about,
01:03:04
◼
►
the diversity's obvious just when you look at it,
01:03:07
◼
►
but apparently personality-wise and background-wise,
01:03:10
◼
►
it's very diverse, but it's sorta like a reality show
01:03:12
◼
►
where there's like, they've got a cast of trainers
01:03:16
◼
►
and you can get to know them and they have personalities.
01:03:20
◼
►
It's 10 bucks a month,
01:03:21
◼
►
and Apple TV+ is five bucks a month.
01:03:26
◼
►
Which one costs more to produce?
01:03:28
◼
►
It's clearly TV+, right?
01:03:33
◼
►
TV+ is, they're spending billions of dollars a year
01:03:36
◼
►
on original content. - That's right.
01:03:38
◼
►
- And it costs five dollars.
01:03:40
◼
►
The scope, I'm not saying that me and you, Peter,
01:03:44
◼
►
can go out and hire 30 trainers,
01:03:46
◼
►
but I feel like I could understand the scope
01:03:50
◼
►
of setting up a direct competitor to Fitness+, right?
01:03:53
◼
►
Get 30, 35 trainers of a diverse background
01:03:57
◼
►
and various skills and studio space and a couple of cameras,
01:04:01
◼
►
and every week we'll have a bunch of these classes.
01:04:03
◼
►
I understand the scope of that.
01:04:05
◼
►
I don't understand the scope of making one top-tier TV+
01:04:10
◼
►
original content series, let alone all of them
01:04:13
◼
►
and the movies that they're--
01:04:14
◼
►
- Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon
01:04:17
◼
►
got what, two million bucks a piece per episode?
01:04:20
◼
►
I may have inflated a 2X, but that's a lot, yeah.
01:04:23
◼
►
The cost, yeah, and now you'd have to bring in someone
01:04:27
◼
►
who's an actual fitness expert here.
01:04:28
◼
►
I mean, again, during the pandemic,
01:04:30
◼
►
our first thought was, oh, we gotta exercise,
01:04:32
◼
►
let's see what we can get for free on YouTube.
01:04:34
◼
►
And we didn't try very hard,
01:04:35
◼
►
but obviously there's a ton of that free stuff,
01:04:37
◼
►
and there are subscription services,
01:04:38
◼
►
those that have existed for a long time.
01:04:41
◼
►
I can see Apple saying, all right, yeah,
01:04:42
◼
►
people are paying five bucks a month for online yoga,
01:04:45
◼
►
we can charge a premium for that, fine.
01:04:47
◼
►
Or by the way, the Peloton standalone service
01:04:50
◼
►
is however many dollars a month,
01:04:51
◼
►
we can charge less than that, fine.
01:04:53
◼
►
- Right, right, yeah, it's like 30 bucks.
01:04:56
◼
►
- I mean, I don't know.
01:04:58
◼
►
I don't wanna argue about fitness trends.
01:05:01
◼
►
It is hard to imagine a lot of people sticking with that
01:05:05
◼
►
for the same reason that everyone's joke
01:05:07
◼
►
about the Peloton, right, is that it's gonna collect,
01:05:09
◼
►
it's gonna be a good towel rack in a year,
01:05:12
◼
►
because that is the traditional trajectory
01:05:14
◼
►
for any home exercise machine.
01:05:16
◼
►
You can get the Nordic Track or whatever it is,
01:05:18
◼
►
and then it goes unused,
01:05:19
◼
►
and I would imagine fitness will have the same life cycle.
01:05:24
◼
►
But I mean, as we were just talking about, right,
01:05:27
◼
►
there is a bundle of stuff, you can throw that in there.
01:05:29
◼
►
Is it in the bundle, did I miss that?
01:05:31
◼
►
- No, it is if you get the Premier level,
01:05:34
◼
►
which is above family, and it's,
01:05:37
◼
►
so Premier gets you, the editions are News Plus
01:05:41
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and Fitness Plus, and I asked Apple why,
01:05:46
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I get why News Plus is in a different tier,
01:05:48
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because there's, Apple doesn't own the content.
01:05:51
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There's marginal cost to each subscriber
01:05:53
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'cause they're paying the participating publications,
01:05:56
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and I get why News Plus is, for lack of a better term,
01:05:59
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region locked, because the publications
01:06:02
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are largely US-centric, and the other countries
01:06:05
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where it's available, it's a country-by-country rollout,
01:06:09
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and if you live in a Spanish-speaking country,
01:06:13
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it doesn't do you any good to sign up
01:06:15
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for a News Plus subscription
01:06:16
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for a bunch of English-language publications.
01:06:19
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Why is Fitness Plus in there?
01:06:22
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'Cause Apple owns all the IP, and the answer is,
01:06:27
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it's not really, it's not, they were like,
01:06:29
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don't read too much about the similarities to News,
01:06:32
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but at a basic level right now,
01:06:35
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their initial cast of trainers, they all speak English,
01:06:40
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and so the countries where Fitness Plus is available
01:06:42
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are places where English is the primary language,
01:06:45
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and typical Apple, they have nothing to announce
01:06:48
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about further plans for other languages.
01:06:50
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- But that's a very easy solve.
01:06:51
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You can find Spanish-speaking trainers.
01:06:54
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- Right, but why, think about it.
01:06:57
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When you buy hardware devices from Apple,
01:07:00
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or most companies, just about any company,
01:07:03
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if one of them is half the price of another,
01:07:06
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even a casual observer can figure out why.
01:07:10
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Why is the iPhone SE half the price of the iPhone 11 Pro?
01:07:15
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Well, it's smaller, and it's older,
01:07:18
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and it doesn't have Face ID, and it has the old design,
01:07:20
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and the camera's not as fancy, and there you go.
01:07:24
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It's not as good a device.
01:07:26
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But TV Plus is way more stuff
01:07:30
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that is way, way, way more expensive to produce,
01:07:34
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and it's only $5 a month,
01:07:35
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and Fitness Plus is way easier to produce,
01:07:39
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way more limited, and it's $10 a month.
01:07:41
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It's like an inverse correlation to spending
01:07:45
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for how much it costs Apple to produce the Surface.
01:07:48
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- I don't know, maybe you can do the math
01:07:51
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where you figure out dollar spent per time used,
01:07:54
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but I mean, look, why is music $10 a month,
01:07:57
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but Netflix is $13 a month?
01:08:00
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There isn't necessarily a math you could do in your head,
01:08:04
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or the New York Times $15 a month, but the prices are,
01:08:07
◼
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I mean, I can tell you why Apple TV Plus is $5 a month,
01:08:10
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or really free, right?
01:08:12
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It's 'cause no one would pay for it right now.
01:08:15
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And Apple will concede that.
01:08:18
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They're like, "We're not, you give us a year minimum
01:08:21
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"before we can sort of have a fully competitive product,"
01:08:23
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is what they have told me in the past.
01:08:25
◼
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And that's fair, right?
01:08:26
◼
►
You just can't, and presumably, Apple's saying,
01:08:28
◼
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"Yeah, this fitness thing, we're gonna come out
01:08:30
◼
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"out of the gates, and it'll be competitive
01:08:32
◼
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"with any other subscription training service."
01:08:36
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- Right, so yeah, your take more or less matches mine,
01:08:40
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which is that Fitness Plus is a real product where,
01:08:44
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what I mean by that is they're saying $10 a month,
01:08:48
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we can turn a profit, it's a profitable business
01:08:51
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for us to sign up X million people to pay $10 a month,
01:08:54
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or to get it in their upgraded Apple One bundle,
01:08:58
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and the cost it costs us to do this.
01:09:01
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Whereas TV Plus isn't intended at all
01:09:05
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as we plan to make a profit selling this for $5 a month
01:09:10
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and giving it away to as many people
01:09:12
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as we possibly can excuse ourselves to give it away
01:09:15
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for year-long extensions at a time.
01:09:18
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It's the strategy reasons behind them getting
01:09:21
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into their own original content with TV Plus
01:09:26
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►
have nothing to do with making money selling it
01:09:28
◼
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for $5 a month, and I think that's more clear now
01:09:32
◼
►
and the Fitness Plus thing clarifies that
01:09:34
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►
than it was even when they announced it.
01:09:37
◼
►
- Yeah, and I guess I just would hammer on the idea
01:09:38
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that presumably they're saying,
01:09:40
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►
"This is a finished product, this thing is competitive.
01:09:44
◼
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"If you were using a different subscription service,
01:09:46
◼
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"you can compare this to that,
01:09:47
◼
►
"or if you were taking classes at your local gym,
01:09:50
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►
"which you can no longer go to,
01:09:51
◼
►
"you can compare this to that."
01:09:53
◼
►
Whereas you cannot compare, or you shouldn't
01:09:55
◼
►
if you're Apple, you don't want to compare TV Plus
01:09:58
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►
to HBO or HBO Max or Netflix or Disney Plus, right?
01:10:01
◼
►
There's just way more stuff on those other services.
01:10:04
◼
►
- Yeah, but also each of those companies
01:10:07
◼
►
has sort of very different levels of investment in it, right?
01:10:12
◼
►
Like Netflix, what is Netflix?
01:10:15
◼
►
It's nothing but the streaming service, right?
01:10:17
◼
►
- Right, those are different questions
01:10:20
◼
►
than those from the consumer though, right?
01:10:22
◼
►
Like you're gonna spend $10 or $5 or no dollars,
01:10:26
◼
►
and so you don't care why Netflix is priced one way
01:10:29
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►
and Disney is priced another,
01:10:31
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►
you just know what you're getting for your money.
01:10:32
◼
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- Right, right.
01:10:35
◼
►
I can't think of another competitive landscape
01:10:39
◼
►
that is so disparate though like that, right?
01:10:42
◼
►
It's like just to pick three, right?
01:10:46
◼
►
So Netflix, everything, the entire company,
01:10:48
◼
►
and they have a massive valuation,
01:10:51
◼
►
and I think rightly so.
01:10:52
◼
►
They're just a huge cultural touchstone worldwide
01:10:56
◼
►
and incredible sell-through
01:11:01
◼
►
in terms of how many people have a Netflix subscription,
01:11:04
◼
►
but there is nothing else to the company
01:11:06
◼
►
than the monthly streaming subscription.
01:11:09
◼
►
Disney sort of in the middle, right?
01:11:11
◼
►
Disney does lots of things and makes money lots of ways
01:11:14
◼
►
with theme parks and cruise lines,
01:11:16
◼
►
and God bless 'em for trying to fill cruise ships
01:11:20
◼
►
going forward, but motion pictures--
01:11:25
◼
►
- Right, they are trying to create their own Netflix
01:11:30
◼
►
in a significant way, and the other would-be competitors
01:11:34
◼
►
are still trying to, they're not trying to do that yet.
01:11:37
◼
►
They may say they are, but they're hedging their bets,
01:11:39
◼
►
and they're not making that same kind of commitment.
01:11:41
◼
►
- Right, and Disney also is a longtime Disney nerd,
01:11:46
◼
►
and I always feel, I feel like the long-term trajectory
01:11:50
◼
►
for Apple in some ways, Disney has always been
01:11:53
◼
►
an interesting pattern to follow, right?
01:11:56
◼
►
There's the charismatic founder who died too young,
01:12:01
◼
►
you know, and what does the company do
01:12:04
◼
►
after Steve Jobs is gone, after Walt Disney is gone?
01:12:07
◼
►
But one of the things that,
01:12:10
◼
►
there's so many similarities between them,
01:12:12
◼
►
but one of the things was that Disney
01:12:16
◼
►
embraced TV at a time when movie studios were anti-TV, right?
01:12:21
◼
►
They were like, the movie studios, you know,
01:12:24
◼
►
movies were movies, and TV was this garbage
01:12:27
◼
►
black and white thing that was staticky,
01:12:29
◼
►
and Walt Disney was like, no, we can be in their homes.
01:12:33
◼
►
Hell yeah, we're gonna have Mickey Mouse on every day,
01:12:36
◼
►
right after school, you know, what time does school end?
01:12:38
◼
►
Three o'clock, 3.30 every day, Mickey Mouse Club.
01:12:42
◼
►
We'll have kids running home to catch the show every day,
01:12:46
◼
►
unlike every other movie studio, and you know,
01:12:49
◼
►
culturally, Disney has always sort of had that idea
01:12:52
◼
►
of they need to stay relevant
01:12:54
◼
►
and not just keep doing what they did,
01:12:56
◼
►
and the way to be relevant in today's world
01:12:58
◼
►
is to have a streaming service, right?
01:13:01
◼
►
TV channels aren't it for kids anymore, right?
01:13:04
◼
►
It's as great as it was.
01:13:06
◼
►
- Yes, yes, and it's also the model
01:13:08
◼
►
the consumer wants, right?
01:13:11
◼
►
- Broadly, right, I want on demand,
01:13:13
◼
►
and there are still a lot of people,
01:13:15
◼
►
there's 80-some million people
01:13:17
◼
►
who are getting linear cable TV,
01:13:18
◼
►
but that is going to continue to shrink,
01:13:20
◼
►
and they're saying, yeah, we're gonna try to transition
01:13:23
◼
►
out of our existing business while keeping it going
01:13:27
◼
►
and move into streaming.
01:13:29
◼
►
Yeah, it's working.
01:13:31
◼
►
I mean, it's working so far.
01:13:32
◼
►
- I'm, you know, and I remember being a kid,
01:13:35
◼
►
and I don't know how I did it,
01:13:36
◼
►
'cause it's one of those things that seems like,
01:13:40
◼
►
my parents are, you know, just put it
01:13:44
◼
►
as belovedly as I can, a bit tight with the money,
01:13:47
◼
►
and so I kind of can't believe that we got cable TV
01:13:52
◼
►
as early as we did, and I can't believe we got HBO.
01:13:55
◼
►
We had HBO like in the early '80s,
01:13:58
◼
►
and we eventually got rid of it,
01:14:00
◼
►
and I was very upset about it,
01:14:02
◼
►
because it was like, they were like,
01:14:03
◼
►
nobody watches it except you, and I'm like.
01:14:05
◼
►
- Yeah, you were watching Porky's,
01:14:08
◼
►
and there was a Ninja movie, I think, with the big,
01:14:11
◼
►
the big draws.
01:14:13
◼
►
- Nobody watches it but you, John,
01:14:14
◼
►
was not a great way of selling the,
01:14:17
◼
►
we're downgrading from HBO.
01:14:19
◼
►
But I just remember the same thing,
01:14:22
◼
►
where it was like, well, you know,
01:14:24
◼
►
a majority of households don't have cable TV.
01:14:26
◼
►
They still get their TV over the air,
01:14:28
◼
►
and it's like, yeah, that's, you know,
01:14:30
◼
►
that was, you know, it's hard to believe,
01:14:32
◼
►
but yeah, that's how the '80s went,
01:14:33
◼
►
where there were still lots of people who didn't have cable
01:14:36
◼
►
and had, you know, rabbit ears, you know,
01:14:38
◼
►
getting their TV reception.
01:14:40
◼
►
- Yeah, and that turned out to be a giant expansion
01:14:42
◼
►
of the media business, and in the same way,
01:14:45
◼
►
like the CDs were a giant expansion of the music business.
01:14:49
◼
►
What you are seeing now
01:14:50
◼
►
with all these big streaming companies is,
01:14:53
◼
►
they are inevitably going to have smaller profit margins
01:14:57
◼
►
because they do have to throw so much more into programming
01:15:00
◼
►
because it is so much more competitive,
01:15:02
◼
►
because they're not gonna have that really,
01:15:04
◼
►
really fat bundle that they can sort of
01:15:06
◼
►
force people to take.
01:15:07
◼
►
And so you are gonna see a lot of sort of the fun of,
01:15:11
◼
►
and fun and compensation taken out of working
01:15:15
◼
►
in the media business, which again,
01:15:16
◼
►
doesn't matter if you're the consumer,
01:15:18
◼
►
and for the consumer, it's great right now.
01:15:19
◼
►
You have more choice than ever.
01:15:21
◼
►
- What do you think of where Time Warner is,
01:15:26
◼
►
and HBO in particular?
01:15:29
◼
►
- I find HBO, I have it, you know, and we're in HBO.
01:15:32
◼
►
We've always been an HBO family,
01:15:34
◼
►
and I have some shows I like there,
01:15:35
◼
►
but I think HBO Max is a mess, brand-wise.
01:15:40
◼
►
- It is a mess, brand-wise, the actual sort of UI,
01:15:46
◼
►
and I'm not someone who spends a lot of time
01:15:47
◼
►
thinking about UI, except that I've been watching
01:15:50
◼
►
a lot of video in the last six months,
01:15:52
◼
►
or however long the pandemic's gone on for,
01:15:54
◼
►
and I'm a fan of Netflix, the product,
01:15:58
◼
►
but I didn't realize how much better they were
01:16:01
◼
►
at sort of getting you the thing you want
01:16:03
◼
►
than everybody else.
01:16:04
◼
►
I've been trying to watch a bunch of Amazon Prime recently.
01:16:06
◼
►
It's terrible at saying, "This is the show you were watching.
01:16:10
◼
►
"Would you like to continue watching it?"
01:16:12
◼
►
All of that stuff, they're terrible at.
01:16:14
◼
►
I mean, you know, HBO Max, AT&T just brought on Jason Kyler,
01:16:19
◼
►
who ran Hulu in its glory days.
01:16:21
◼
►
He's a product guy.
01:16:22
◼
►
That product will look better eventually.
01:16:25
◼
►
It will no longer, when you're trying to watch a download
01:16:30
◼
►
of Perry Mason in your mother-in-law's Philadelphia house,
01:16:35
◼
►
to name an example that I can think of recently,
01:16:37
◼
►
and you have downloaded it, it won't require six extra steps
01:16:41
◼
►
for you to find that thing on your phone.
01:16:43
◼
►
It will get better.
01:16:44
◼
►
And similarly, it's a grab bag of stuff, right?
01:16:48
◼
►
Friends and the Criterion Collection.
01:16:51
◼
►
I think they'll sort that out over time.
01:16:53
◼
►
And the bigger question is, does AT&T,
01:16:55
◼
►
which is still a phone company
01:16:58
◼
►
and has an enormous amount of debt
01:16:59
◼
►
that it has to service and has to pay out dividends,
01:17:02
◼
►
it has all these financial obligations,
01:17:04
◼
►
do they want to spend competitively
01:17:06
◼
►
to keep up with Netflix and Disney?
01:17:10
◼
►
And we don't know the answer to that yet.
01:17:11
◼
►
And even Apple, who I think, you know,
01:17:14
◼
►
I mean, just like the way that Apple scooped up the,
01:17:16
◼
►
I forget the name of it already,
01:17:17
◼
►
the Tom Cruise, or not Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks,
01:17:20
◼
►
World War II. Greyhound, yeah.
01:17:22
◼
►
Yeah, Greyhound, which was totally a COVID opportunity.
01:17:26
◼
►
It was supposed to be a big theatrical movie,
01:17:27
◼
►
but it couldn't.
01:17:28
◼
►
And it's just one of those things where,
01:17:32
◼
►
well, why did Apple win the bidding?
01:17:34
◼
►
One of the reasons is that it's a pittance for Apple, right?
01:17:38
◼
►
You know, oh, $100 million, whatever, you know.
01:17:44
◼
►
Sounds good.
01:17:44
◼
►
Apple is, the most recently described to me is,
01:17:48
◼
►
this is pre-COVID, but the new dumb money in Hollywood.
01:17:52
◼
►
That Eddy Cue is the most important guy,
01:17:54
◼
►
but he's the person you bring your project to first
01:17:57
◼
►
because he may pay the most,
01:17:59
◼
►
which isn't really a ringing endorsement.
01:18:01
◼
►
And again, they'll probably sort that over time.
01:18:04
◼
►
I mean, Amazon has also done money.
01:18:06
◼
►
They're burning money on this Lord of the Rings prequel,
01:18:10
◼
►
which doesn't exist yet.
01:18:12
◼
►
And it's sort of astonishing that they've been at video
01:18:14
◼
►
for so long and really have not made a ton of progress.
01:18:18
◼
►
But again, Amazon can afford to screw around
01:18:21
◼
►
and not get it right for a long time.
01:18:23
◼
►
So can Apple.
01:18:25
◼
►
Netflix is getting it right.
01:18:27
◼
►
They're still spending $3 billion a year more
01:18:30
◼
►
than they're bringing in to finance all this stuff.
01:18:33
◼
►
But Wall Street's okay with it.
01:18:35
◼
►
And then, but for these other companies
01:18:37
◼
►
that are in the middle, where it is their core business,
01:18:41
◼
►
but it's unclear how much they're gonna be able
01:18:43
◼
►
to throw at that, that's the real question mark.
01:18:45
◼
►
And it's weird to talk about the company
01:18:47
◼
►
that used to be called Time Warner being sort of
01:18:50
◼
►
in the middle of the tier of giant media companies,
01:18:55
◼
►
but that's kind of where they are right now.
01:18:57
◼
►
- That's a good way to wrap up.
01:18:58
◼
►
Thank you, Peter Kafka.
01:19:00
◼
►
Anything else you wanted to talk about?
01:19:04
◼
►
- I'm delighted to be on the internet with you, John.
01:19:06
◼
►
Thank you for having me.
01:19:07
◼
►
- Let me thank our sponsors, Mack Weldon and Linode.
01:19:10
◼
►
And everybody can catch Peter's own podcast, Recode Media,
01:19:14
◼
►
just on your favorite podcast player.
01:19:16
◼
►
- Oh, I'll plug something I already did.
01:19:19
◼
►
We did, my colleague and I, Ronnie Mola,
01:19:20
◼
►
did a seven-part series on Netflix called Land of the Giants,
01:19:23
◼
►
which you can also get where you hear your favorite podcast.
01:19:26
◼
►
So if you like hearing about Netflix and streaming,
01:19:28
◼
►
we've got seven episodes of that for you.
01:19:30
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- Excellent.
01:19:31
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Thank you, Peter.