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57: One For The Pedants

 

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00:00:23   See I upgraded to the what do you call it, the Mavericks on this machine that I record

00:00:29   the show on. I'm woefully under informed on Mavericks.

00:00:35   I still have never even seen, I mean you know besides the keynote, I've never even seen

00:00:38   it running because nobody I see in real life is brave or stupid, whatever, brave enough

00:00:46   to run it on their computer yet and I'm not going to run it on anything that I need to

00:00:51   use and I would normally just install it on my laptop because normally my laptop sits

00:00:55   my desk closed not being used because I never go anywhere. But recently I've been going

00:01:00   places. And so the last thing I want to do is blow up my laptop with some beta as I'm

00:01:05   bringing it on a trip to work on it.

00:01:08   I found this summer that I'm… I think it was clear from the last couple of versions

00:01:13   of Mac OS X, but especially this one where it really coincided with a new version of

00:01:17   iOS, that my attention is so much more on iOS than Mac OS X that… It's not that

00:01:24   I'm not interested in Mavericks, but I'm willing to wait and then just have Syracuse

00:01:28   to teach me everything about it.

00:01:30   Oh, yeah. And the changes in OS X, it's so much more of a mature product. The changes

00:01:33   are so much smaller in the grand scheme of things. In day-to-day use, what's really

00:01:38   going to be different for me if I upgrade to Mavericks? Besides, it might not work as

00:01:41   well at this point. Once it's out, I might even wait until point one just because I don't

00:01:48   really have any motivation to update to it. Also, I've always felt, you famously have

00:01:55   never let me forget about how I installed iOS 5 Beta 1 in California on my phone.

00:02:00   That's the kind of thing I think every iOS developer does once. With iOS, I always felt,

00:02:10   even though this device is always on me and it has to do things that are, I guess, somewhat

00:02:15   important like phone calls. I don't know, phone calls aren't that important in my

00:02:18   life, but supposedly they're supposed to be important. And I've always kind of felt

00:02:22   like iOS, like I was safe to mess that up. But the Mac is where I get my work done. And

00:02:29   so the Mac, I'm very conservative with upgrading. And even when a 10 point something point seven

00:02:37   or point eight update, one of the mid-cycle updates, even when one of those comes out,

00:02:42   I won't install it for a few days after it comes out.

00:02:44   Just to see if anyone else has a whole bunch of major problems.

00:02:48   Because there's just no motivation for me.

00:02:51   There's almost always something in the App Store app bothering me

00:02:55   that I have to reboot my computer for an update.

00:02:57   I just put it off for like a week.

00:02:59   It's always-- that's how things have been going with me, too.

00:03:06   Because again, it's like, what am I really

00:03:09   going to get if I upgrade to some bleeding edge

00:03:12   version of OS X. Like if it's a security update, okay. But if it's just like, we added support

00:03:17   for new printers, like who cares? Like I don't really need that. We fixed some things in

00:03:21   Safari. Well, Safari is never fixed. So, you know, like…

00:03:25   And I just feel like you need, I need, and I don't even know if I can logically defend

00:03:30   this, but I feel like I need some stability in my computing life. And for me, that's

00:03:35   become the Mac. Like I'll…

00:03:36   Right, because that's your work.

00:03:38   Right. So I didn't upgrade to iOS 7 on my phone right away. I think I waited till beta

00:03:42   3. But I was running it most of the summer on my main phone. And I would say as the betas

00:03:48   have gone over the years, even given how radical the UI changes are, it was actually, you know,

00:03:54   it was not that bad of an experience. I mean, there were very few bugs that I ran into that

00:03:58   were serious problems. Every once in a while, there'd be like a version would come out and

00:04:02   one of the apps I use would crash all the time on it. And that kind of stunk. Because

00:04:06   I'm not going to go, you know, you can't go and complain to developers that their app

00:04:10   is crashing on a beta OS even though, you know.

00:04:13   Believe me, people do.

00:04:14   Oh yeah, I know.

00:04:16   You know, so it was annoying, but it was, you know, but I felt like, you know, having

00:04:21   my Mac still running the, you know, the standard 10.8 whatever, you know, was standard all

00:04:28   summer, you know, gave me something stable to build on.

00:04:34   So there's this iPad event coming up.

00:04:36   Well, who knows what kind of event it is?

00:04:39   Oh, did the invitation not specify iPads?

00:04:41   No, they never do.

00:04:44   Even for the iPhone one, which really was something.

00:04:45   Well, usually there's some kind of really obvious hint in the text of it.

00:04:49   What was the one this week?

00:04:51   Hold on.

00:04:52   I don't even look.

00:04:54   Every article about the invitations going out is usually so insufferable that I stopped

00:05:00   reading them.

00:05:02   It reads into everything way too deeply.

00:05:04   And usually, if they're going to tell you anything useful,

00:05:07   they'll beat you over the head with it, basically.

00:05:09   It'll be really clear.

00:05:12   This one, it says, we still have a lot to cover.

00:05:17   So maybe they're not releasing new iPads,

00:05:20   and they're only releasing new smart covers.

00:05:22   I did see somebody on Twitter suggested exactly that.

00:05:28   Like, imagine if it was just new smart covers.

00:05:31   and then even reasonable people could say,

00:05:36   you know what, this company's losing it.

00:05:39   - Well, my theory, we did our show last night,

00:05:42   and my theory was that they have the mini,

00:05:47   which one of its most important roles

00:05:50   is to try to close the price gap

00:05:52   with the other crap tablets out there,

00:05:54   and they have the high-end features

00:05:57   they wanna cram in there, like retina screens.

00:05:59   I assume they're trying to cram in there

00:06:01   probably have done it by now, but trying to achieve super low cost and all these high-end

00:06:07   features is always a challenge.

00:06:09   Apple historically has just avoided the super low and just kind of gone for mid-range and

00:06:13   upper range.

00:06:15   And so my theory is that the existing iPad mini sticks around and just has a reduced

00:06:20   price.

00:06:21   And not 200 bucks probably, but maybe like 279 or 300 even, 30 bucks less.

00:06:28   And then the retina can come in at a higher price to cover the retinas of it, maybe $399.

00:06:34   Well, the only problem with that, and I think there's some logic to that, and I definitely

00:06:39   think if they go retina with this year's model, which I now think they probably will.

00:06:43   I have no inside juice about it, though.

00:06:46   It's just a gut feeling, mostly informed by iOS 7, that I think iOS 7 just looks so thin

00:06:54   and wispy on a non-retina screen that I really think that, I don't know, just gives me,

00:07:02   just the look of iOS 7 makes me think they're not going to have a major iOS device.

00:07:06   And I think the mini is a serious, you know, I think it's a huge part of the iPad mix.

00:07:12   I just don't think that they're going to go another year without it as a retina.

00:07:16   But I definitely think that if they do go retina, because retina is such a big jump

00:07:20   and cost, I think, component-wise, that they'll definitely do that thing that they did with

00:07:28   the iPad when it went Retina, which is keep the non-Retina one around at a lower price

00:07:32   point.

00:07:33   But the thing is, here's the other thing, though.

00:07:36   When other devices have gone Retina, like the iPhone and the iPad, they kept older year

00:07:43   models around to have lower prices, but they kept the prices the same.

00:07:47   So I don't know if starting the Retina Mini at $399 would work.

00:07:52   Well, when the iPad 3 came out, the iPad 2 dropped $100, right?

00:07:59   So there is precedent for that.

00:08:01   And also, I think everyone under the sun is arguing about how Apple should go lower end,

00:08:06   as always, you know, netbooks, etc.

00:08:08   But I think it might be problematic if they go into this holiday season with their cheapest

00:08:14   tablet being $329.

00:08:16   Like that, it feels like if they can bring that down any lower at all, they could just

00:08:21   sell even more.

00:08:23   And I know the minis sell ridiculously well even at $329, but that was also a year ago

00:08:27   that that launched.

00:08:28   And you look at what Google and Amazon and all the no-name people are doing with their

00:08:34   crap tablets, and they're getting less crappy at those low price points.

00:08:41   And again, I don't think Apple's going to have to hit $200, but coming down even just

00:08:45   a little bit you know even from 329 to 300 or to 279.

00:08:49   I think that could...

00:08:50   I think might be a sweet spot for that device.

00:08:53   That if they if they can do that I think that'd be great.

00:08:56   Also it's got to help.

00:08:58   One of the reasons I don't think they would push it even maybe that far down and certainly

00:09:01   not lower than that is because the iPad mini kind of hurt their margins for a while didn't

00:09:08   it?

00:09:09   Well as best as we can tell they don't spell that out but...

00:09:14   So assuming it did, then keeping the old one around for another year at a lower price,

00:09:21   but where the delta there is less than the actual manufacturing delta of making it a

00:09:26   year ago versus making it today, they can boost their margins a little bit just by having

00:09:31   the cheap one be a little bit higher margin than it was last year, even if it's still

00:09:34   cheaper.

00:09:35   I think part of the clues for that, too, is just as simple as the pricing.

00:09:39   That $329 was such a slightly odd price for them.

00:09:43   they like stuff to end in a 99. And if not 99, a 49. Right on the 100.

00:09:49   Right, like a 359 is kind of inelegant.

00:09:50   Yeah, and they've done it before. I don't think it's unprecedented. And as the iPods

00:09:56   got lower and lower priced over the decade that they were so popular, especially once

00:10:02   they got under $200, they had like 179 models and weird prices like that. Because once you

00:10:10   that low in price, it's hard to drop another whole 50 bucks at a time.

00:10:16   So I think that $329 price is probably because at their normal margins, it would have been

00:10:21   $349, and they really wanted to push it.

00:10:25   I don't think $299 would have been feasible for it.

00:10:28   I don't think that they raised the price and milked it.

00:10:31   I think that they took a hit on their margins so that it wouldn't be $349 to start.

00:10:36   Yeah, that sounds about right. But I don't know, I'm having a hard time even getting

00:10:41   excited about this because, you know, for the last year or so I've had this Mini and

00:10:44   I've kind of made that my primary iPad, but I also hate the screen so much that I keep,

00:10:50   I've used my iPad 3, I never even bought the 4, but I've used the iPad 3 as like games

00:10:56   or sometimes reading, so it's kind of weird to have like two iPads and I'm actually,

00:11:01   I hardly ever even use iPads.

00:11:04   In fact, my iPad Mini has been used more

00:11:07   for Verizon tethering than it has for any other purpose.

00:11:11   It is a really nice little hotspot.

00:11:13   It's wonderful.

00:11:15   And having-- my phone's always AT&T because my house

00:11:17   sucks for Verizon.

00:11:19   So having both services available for tethering

00:11:23   is awesome when you're traveling.

00:11:24   Because you're in a spot where one of them sucks.

00:11:26   And Verizon tends to be the better option for tetherers

00:11:29   because way more of their network is LTE. And so Verizon's great for tethering, but

00:11:34   I can't use it for voice. So it's really nice having the option for both carriers.

00:11:39   Now, I remembered, I forget, I guess when I upgraded to the 5 and we switched our phones

00:11:45   to Verizon, we went all Verizon. And there are some advantages to that billing wise.

00:11:51   There's like this family plan thing. So instead of paying for my iPad data plan on the iPad,

00:11:57   I just added the device to our Verizon plan.

00:12:02   Right.

00:12:03   Yeah, Verizon has a thing where you can do that.

00:12:05   And that's nice.

00:12:06   It actually saves us a little bit of money.

00:12:08   I mean, we still pay an ungodly amount of money to Verizon every month.

00:12:11   But it's cheaper than it would have been to just have the iPad independently.

00:12:16   But it was nice when I had a Verizon iPad and an AT&T phone like when I was on the train

00:12:22   to like between Philly and New York.

00:12:25   dead spots for both but you could you know I would like tether most of the way

00:12:30   on Verizon and then when it dropped out drop off the tethering and see if AT&T

00:12:35   had a signal yeah usually you can get at least one and like when you have both

00:12:41   it's it's it's very it becomes very clear that neither network is overall

00:12:46   better than the other like they both have yeah dropped spots and and crappy

00:12:51   areas they're just slightly different right and you know it could just be like

00:12:55   like where the antenna is. There are certain hotels that I've stayed at regularly where

00:13:00   sometimes I'll get a room and get a good signal and same hotel, I guess maybe, I always get

00:13:05   twisted around in a hotel, but I'm on the other side of the building and I don't get

00:13:09   a good signal.

00:13:10   Tim Weiss-Germain-

00:13:20   Tower and I can actually like there's a window in my house from which I can just barely see a line of sight to the AT&T

00:13:28   antenna so

00:13:30   The AT&T covers the town fantastically and I guess Verizon didn't make a deal

00:13:35   So they don't and yeah, it doesn't really matter

00:13:38   But anyway, so I I'm having a hard time getting excited about the iPad because I've kind of stopped using iPads

00:13:43   Yeah, there's a lot of my whole who love them who use them like for work

00:13:47   work. And I've just, I've never really gotten, I've never crossed that line or gotten into

00:13:53   that pattern I guess.

00:13:54   Dave: It depends on what I'm doing. I do, some days I do a lot of reading on my iPad

00:13:59   and some days, of all the, you know, of the three things Mac, iPhone, iPad, not a day

00:14:05   goes by where I'm not using my Mac. Well, I guess like if I'm on my vacation or something

00:14:10   like that. Actually, I guess iPhone is the one where every single day I use it. Mac,

00:14:13   use every day that I'm "working." iPad, who knows? I get enough where I think it's

00:14:20   worth it. I think it was well worth the purchase, but it's clearly, if I had to leave one behind,

00:14:25   it was clearly what I would do.

00:14:27   Tim Cynova I think, I mean, that same thing, part of

00:14:30   that is why I like the Mini because it's at least smaller and lighter. So if I'm trying

00:14:35   to make a bag reasonably light to carry somewhere, it's not that big of a deal to throw that

00:14:40   in. But I don't know. I mean, I can totally understand the market for these giant screen

00:14:47   phones because ideally, if Apple made a bigger screen iPhone, I'd almost certainly get it

00:14:52   for myself because I do more of the things that people do on tablets. I do so much of

00:14:57   that just on my phone with everything else.

00:14:58   Dave: Yeah, I've come around on that too a little bit.

00:15:00   Steven: I think I would – I wouldn't miss the extra pocket space because I'm a nerd

00:15:04   and who cares? I have big pants.

00:15:06   And even for like, you know, like ebook reading or Instapaper reading, that sort of thing,

00:15:12   something that's like a big ass, that's to me is where the big ass phones really shine,

00:15:17   I think.

00:15:18   I mean, maybe, certainly, but, and you know, now I'm thinking about, you know, maybe the

00:15:21   problem, maybe the reason why I haven't used iPads for the last year for the most part

00:15:25   is that I don't want to read on the mini because the screen sucks.

00:15:29   Right.

00:15:30   And the big one, like now that I have this point of comparison of the mini, the big one

00:15:34   feels so giant and heavy. It just feels ridiculous. So I don't know, maybe the Retina Mini will

00:15:40   change things.

00:15:41   I don't want to get too excited about a Retina Mini because I almost, for so long, I felt

00:15:47   like if it took all the other iOS devices two years to go from non-Retina to Retina,

00:15:51   it'll take the iPad Mini at least two years too. But maybe, you know, it's one of those

00:15:56   --

00:15:57   Well, how big is your sample size here?

00:15:58   Right. It's not very big. And it might be one of those things too where just the, you

00:16:02   know, just the way that the whole industry, everything goes

00:16:05   forward so much faster that, you know, that like, just let's just

00:16:08   say not just the screen itself, but like the, the improvement,

00:16:12   necessary improvement to the GPU comes faster to, you know, that

00:16:16   it's not that surprising that it's just one year later.

00:16:19   Also, you know, look at when the iPhone four with that with the

00:16:22   first retina screen when that was launched, look at the

00:16:25   landscape of what everyone else had, you know, everyone else had

00:16:27   low resolution screens, right? You know, relatively speaking,

00:16:29   Right, they were ahead of the curve.

00:16:31   Now, all these cheap tablets have really high resolution screens that I'm pretty sure all

00:16:36   of them are dense enough that they could be "retina screens."

00:16:41   The iPad Mini is the only one that doesn't have it at this point.

00:16:44   And the other thing, too, is that the difference between retina and non-retina is so dramatic.

00:16:50   I've heard from a handful of people who are like, "You know, I really don't see that big

00:16:54   a difference."

00:16:55   think that they must be either visually impaired or mentally impaired.

00:17:03   But it's a rare opportunity if they wanted to keep the old – if they're ever going

00:17:09   to switch to a model where they have a lower price point and – but want to make a lot

00:17:15   of people who could afford – who aren't overly price sensitive still splurge on the

00:17:21   higher priced, higher margin ones,

00:17:24   margin, retina versus non-retina is the moment to do that.

00:17:27   'Cause I don't think there'll ever be a feature

00:17:31   that's that easily, oh, I see exactly what this feature does,

00:17:36   right there in the store.

00:17:38   - I think also, you can look at how retina is scaling up.

00:17:42   With the phone, it was basically free,

00:17:45   because the amount of data, the size of the screen buffer,

00:17:50   becoming four times larger, on a phone-sized screen,

00:17:54   that was less of a big deal.

00:17:55   And so, yeah, the GPU had to get better,

00:17:57   but phone GPUs were kind of in that line anyway.

00:18:01   Then you saw when it moved to the iPad size

00:18:03   that there are substantial trade-offs.

00:18:06   And still, I mean, who knows

00:18:07   what they're gonna announce next week,

00:18:08   but still, there are, even the best Retina iPad today

00:18:13   is big and heavy, and is noticeably bigger and heavier

00:18:17   than the comparable iPad that was not,

00:18:19   the iPad 2. And then you look at the laptops and they have these Retina MacBook Pros which

00:18:24   are basically MacBook Airs but thicker because they need way more power than a MacBook, way

00:18:30   more battery power than a MacBook Air. And so obviously like as you go up, you know,

00:18:36   multiplying the number of pixels you're dealing with by four matters more and takes more horsepower

00:18:40   and is that exponential? I don't know. It's at least, you know, math is working against

00:18:47   here. And so it's possible that at the iPad size, maybe they just, like at the phone they

00:18:55   can just kind of make them all retina and be fine. But as you get upscale, you can't

00:19:00   do that yet. And maybe in three to five years, it'll just be like you could fit a retina

00:19:06   screen in something the size of the MacBook Air with no battery problems. But I don't

00:19:10   think we're there yet, and I think it's still a couple years off.

00:19:13   Yeah, I think there's a contingent of people who always complain.

00:19:18   I love them because I do like, I love a pedant.

00:19:21   But if I...

00:19:22   Wait, is that how you pronounce that?

00:19:24   I don't know.

00:19:25   It might be one of those words.

00:19:26   That would be the best word to mispronounce.

00:19:27   How do you pronounce it?

00:19:28   I thought it was pedant, but who knows?

00:19:31   I really don't know.

00:19:32   Oh, we'll figure this out.

00:19:34   We should both mispronounce it, just to anger them.

00:19:37   Pedantic.

00:19:38   You say pedantic, so pedant, pedant, pedant.

00:19:42   Anyway, I love picky people.

00:19:48   And over the years, when writing about retina

00:19:52   versus non-retina as these devices move,

00:19:54   whenever I say that retina is double the resolution,

00:19:56   there's a contingent of people saying, actually, it's

00:19:58   four times the resolution.

00:20:00   Because they're talking about area as opposed to--

00:20:04   Linear resolution.

00:20:05   Right.

00:20:06   That it's four times the pixel, so you

00:20:08   should say it's four times the resolution.

00:20:09   And I've always stuck to double because to me, by their logic, doubling the resolution

00:20:16   would just be sort of an incremental increase.

00:20:18   To me, yes.

00:20:21   And I always felt like it was better to downplay the marketing-ese aspect of it.

00:20:28   That if I say it's four times the resolution, it's going to seem like catering to Apple's

00:20:36   wishes.

00:20:37   you probably get way more angry emails from about saying that than you were

00:20:41   saying twice the resolution. But I think it's useful to keep that in mind

00:20:45   though when you think about things like the the graphics card and the power

00:20:51   consumption. You know that you really are lighting up four times more pixels so it

00:20:55   really might be four times the energy consumption. You know like from an

00:20:58   engineering perspective in a lot of ways it does make sense to think of it as a

00:21:02   4x increase not a 2x increase. Right like all the costs go up 4x. Right. You know

00:21:08   you know not the backlight necessarily it goes up some but not 4x but still

00:21:11   like so many other things the RAM all the pixels the GPU has to be pushing and

00:21:15   rendering and certainly all like the little transistors in the actual pixels

00:21:19   there's more of those so yeah you can basically assume it's four times as

00:21:22   expensive to support it hardware wise. Like even now a year and a half after

00:21:26   the iPad first went retina, it still is, it kind of blows my mind that a device that's

00:21:34   never really operated while it's plugged in to power is pushing that many pixels at 60

00:21:41   frames per second.

00:21:42   Oh yeah, I mean even look at the 15 inch Retina MacBook Pro and that has a higher resolution

00:21:46   than my 30 inch desktop monitor, which I cannot wait until they make a, every podcast I'm

00:21:53   I'm on, I'm going to wish for a Retina desktop display until it happens.

00:21:57   This is going to be my Gene Munster TV.

00:22:00   Let's hold off on that and stick to iPads for now.

00:22:04   Because the other thing, though, so I think the other product,

00:22:08   I mean, you have to talk about, but it's the one that I'm finding the hardest to get excited about,

00:22:13   is the regular iPad.

00:22:17   They still making those?

00:22:18   Yeah, but I think that they're still the best-selling models. I do.

00:22:22   That would be news, I think. I don't know. I'd be curious to know that if anyone's run the numbers.

00:22:27   I think that they still are, but it's hard to tell how many. And some of that is just from me eyeballing what people are using on airplanes and stuff like that.

00:22:35   I don't know. I don't know how you would break that down. It's hard.

00:22:40   I always hear from people that there's a ton of iPad 2 still being sold, especially to education, because it's big and cheap.

00:22:47   and assuming they kill the iPad 2 this year,

00:22:51   which I kind of hope they do,

00:22:52   it's been around for quite a while,

00:22:54   I'm getting a little tired of supporting A5s,

00:22:56   but assuming they kill that,

00:22:59   then what replaces it at that price point?

00:23:03   Nothing, or does that become the Retina Mini?

00:23:06   Like do they just tell education people,

00:23:08   just buy the Mini, and then you can choose

00:23:09   between the cheap one or the Retina one,

00:23:12   and then do that? - I think it'll be

00:23:12   It'll be a big tell as to how well that iPad 2 did continue to sell.

00:23:18   If they keep a big sized iPad at that price point, whether it's the iPad 3 dropped in

00:23:24   price or whether they actually still keep the iPad 2 around another year, it would be

00:23:30   a sign of how well it's selling though, I think.

00:23:34   So I think there's two big things I can think of to get excited about with the full-size

00:23:37   iPad.

00:23:38   I know that there have been leaks of the case,

00:23:43   the hardware case that is now a lot more like a big,

00:23:47   it's a big iPad mini, which sounds stupid,

00:23:49   but the bevel on the side is narrow,

00:23:54   and it's that same curvy sort of thing.

00:23:56   I can't help but think it's gonna be a lot thinner too,

00:23:58   and I would hope lighter,

00:24:00   you know, because the screen is still gonna be the same,

00:24:03   that they can pack everything into a smaller thing

00:24:07   and get it back to like an iPad 2 weight and thickness.

00:24:10   And I think that would be exciting,

00:24:11   'cause I think it would be a dramatic, you know,

00:24:13   percentage-wise, it may be measured in millimeters,

00:24:16   but percentage-wise, it could be a lot thinner.

00:24:18   - I think Apple also, you know,

00:24:21   they wanna capture the margins of the high-end buyers,

00:24:25   the early adopters, the nerds, the power users.

00:24:28   They wanna get them back buying the big one,

00:24:30   because they can get a lot more money out of that one.

00:24:32   And we all bought the Mini this past year,

00:24:35   because it was new and awesome and tiny.

00:24:38   So I think they're gonna do some segmentation there.

00:24:40   For instance, obviously if you look at the economics

00:24:42   of the Mini, pretty sure it's not gonna have the A7.

00:24:45   So if it doesn't have the A7,

00:24:46   it's not gonna have Touch ID.

00:24:48   And so I'm guessing if they bring Touch ID to the iPad,

00:24:51   which I wouldn't actually think is a guarantee quite yet,

00:24:54   but if they do bring Touch ID to the iPad this year,

00:24:57   I would say it will be only in the big one.

00:24:59   And that'll be kind of a way to help.

00:25:02   And of course, it'll be only the A7 in the big one,

00:25:04   or the A7X probably.

00:25:05   And then the mini will still only have the A6X

00:25:10   that's currently powering the iPad 4.

00:25:12   - See, that's how I would bet that it's gonna play out.

00:25:15   That, you know, but again, it's like you said earlier,

00:25:17   it's a small sample size to draw on

00:25:19   to look at last year's iPad mini

00:25:21   and where it was on the annual chain of,

00:25:25   you know, A whatever processors.

00:25:28   You know, last year it was a year behind.

00:25:29   It was still on retina, or non-retina.

00:25:32   it might be dangerous to just take that one year of iPad mini and extrapolate from that,

00:25:37   but I still, that's what I would bet.

00:25:39   Well, you can look at the iPod touch also. The iPod touch has always been the low-cost

00:25:43   phone-sized thing, and you can think of the mini as the low-cost iPad-sized thing. And

00:25:49   the iPod touch always has like last year's CPU.

00:25:51   Right. Now it has two years ago's CPU because they didn't revamp it.

00:25:56   Oh, yeah.

00:25:57   Although we could get to that soon, because that's another one of my items to speculate

00:26:01   for next week is will they maybe, you know, will they do new iPods and maybe instead,

00:26:08   you know, maybe the fact that they didn't appear alongside the iPhone at the quote-unquote

00:26:12   music event, you know. I'm guessing no because they still did call that the music event and

00:26:17   it would seem weird for Apple marketing-wise to have the music event without the iPods

00:26:23   and then have the iPods come out five weeks later but...

00:26:25   Well, on the other hand, how much does an iPod touch really have to do with music at

00:26:29   this point?

00:26:30   Yeah, that's a good question.

00:26:32   I mean, it's kind of more like an iPad at this point.

00:26:35   Yeah, it's sort of like the iPad Nano in a sense.

00:26:39   I can't see them going into a holiday season without new iPod touches.

00:26:43   But I don't know, they could surprise us.

00:26:45   Maybe they could drop the prices a little bit on the current ones.

00:26:47   I think Touch ID for the full-size iPad, I think I'm going to bet yes on that.

00:26:53   Because you know that the full-size iPad is going to get an A7 of some sort.

00:26:58   sort. And so if it's going to have the A7, it seems like why not put the touch sensor

00:27:04   in there?

00:27:05   Yeah, that's a good point.

00:27:06   Unless they're really supply constrained on those touch sensors, which I don't know. I

00:27:10   mean, it's one of those things where it's, you know, Tim Cook and like two other people

00:27:13   know. But I think, though, that the full-size iPad, I think, so far has remained roughly

00:27:21   in parallel to the top-of-the-line iPhone in terms of major advances.

00:27:27   Although it didn't get Siri at first, but that was more of a software thing.

00:27:31   Yeah, that was I think more Siri being beta.

00:27:34   Yeah, like probably server load reasons.

00:27:37   Although starting out on the brand new iPhone is probably not an easy way in for your servers.

00:27:43   It's not like an easy ramp up there.

00:27:45   Yeah, definitely not.

00:27:47   But one reason for me, and I know a lot of readers of Darren Farbawl have just randomly emailed me or tweeted me the same exact thing,

00:27:54   It was just that they bought an iPhone 5S and within like 48 hours, every time they

00:27:59   go to unlock their iPad, they're just holding their thumb on the thing and they're like,

00:28:03   "Hey, what's going on?"

00:28:04   And then they realize, "Oh."

00:28:07   And so, I mean, I'm not saying that they make product decisions based on experience like

00:28:12   that, but you know within Apple, they've been using the iPhone 5S internally for a while

00:28:18   and have surely had the same experience inside Apple, you know, that, "Hey, now that I've

00:28:24   my phone this way. I can't get used to not unlocking my phone this way." And so, I don't

00:28:29   know. I feel like it's addictive enough that it might push them to put it in in the first

00:28:34   year.

00:28:35   Yeah, I'd say it'll probably be there, but I wouldn't say it's a sure thing.

00:28:39   I'll also bet, though, that however few—and I know they said, what, it was more than half

00:28:45   of all smartphones don't have a passcode. I can't even imagine what the percentage of

00:28:50   iPads that don't have a passcode is.

00:28:52   Yeah.

00:28:53   And for some, you know, it's, you know, there's actually some logic behind that.

00:28:56   You're a lot less likely to, you know, leave a bigger thing behind in a cab or something

00:29:02   like that.

00:29:03   You know, it's, you know, a phone could fall out of a pocket in theory.

00:29:08   An iPad is a lot less likely to fall out of your pocket.

00:29:12   But you know, it's still, you know, when I travel, I always have to remember to do that.

00:29:17   When I keep it at home, I turn the passcode off.

00:29:20   But then when I travel, I turn a passcode on my iPad.

00:29:24   I think yes.

00:29:25   I never thought about that.

00:29:27   No, you don't do that?

00:29:28   Well, because my iPad usually-- well, I guess,

00:29:31   what could possibly happen to this thing

00:29:33   that I leave in my hotel room when I go out all day?

00:29:35   But yeah, as a matter of fact, that

00:29:37   might be worth considering.

00:29:39   I wish-- I've said this before-- I

00:29:41   wish that they would do something where you could name

00:29:46   a safe Wi-Fi network and say that when you're on this Wi-Fi network, prompt for the passcode

00:29:55   the first time since you were away from it, out of the range of this Wi-Fi.

00:30:01   So the first time you – it could just be your phone. You leave the house. You go somewhere.

00:30:06   You come home. You need to unlock your phone because you just came home. And then until

00:30:12   you leave that Wi-Fi network just stay unlocked?

00:30:16   That would actually be really good.

00:30:17   I'm trying to think of all the different ways that could fail or be hacked.

00:30:23   Making it prompt the first time you join it or every time you rejoin that network, I think

00:30:28   that's pretty solid.

00:30:29   Right.

00:30:30   Because that way, if somebody stole your iPhone but then stood outside the front door of your

00:30:33   house, it wouldn't automatically unlock.

00:30:35   I think the problem is when the phone's in your pocket for an hour and you don't even

00:30:40   take it out at all, pretty sure it disconnects from your Wi-Fi network.

00:30:43   Yeah, see that might be the killer.

00:30:49   Might be, you know, maybe just tying it to Wi-Fi might be wrong.

00:30:51   It might just be the basic location services thing.

00:30:56   And even if it falls to the wider geofence, the phone's been sleeping for a while and

00:31:05   it gets a little sloppier in terms of the precision of the geofence to keep the battery

00:31:11   from draining too fast. Even that might be close enough.

00:31:14   I think the other problem is, how annoying would it be if every time you took your phone

00:31:20   into your pocket, you'd have to think about whether you need to unlock it or not?

00:31:26   If it becomes like you have to unlock it a quarter of the time instead of most of the

00:31:32   time, that's a little weird.

00:31:34   Yeah, and maybe I'm overthinking it too now that Touch ID is out, because maybe Touch

00:31:39   ID is the answer, which is put a Touch ID sensor in and then you don't have to worry.

00:31:43   I don't know. I find Touch ID a little bit too much effort to be convenient. I used it

00:31:50   when I went to Singleton, which all the cool people were at. I used it when I went there

00:31:56   for the first time, and it worked out great. But as soon as I got in the car to drive home,

00:32:00   I turned it off.

00:32:01   Oh, really?

00:32:02   Yeah.

00:32:03   because I was using my phone to play podcasts in the car using my new podcast app, which

00:32:11   almost works. It's always fun using a beta app while driving.

00:32:19   Even just common things like unlocking my phone to do something quick in the app when

00:32:25   I'm stopped at a rest stop. It was so inconvenient to have to unlock it every single time that

00:32:32   It was just not worth it.

00:32:34   So you don't keep your phone locked?

00:32:38   Now I'm only doing it when I'm out at conferences or something.

00:32:40   Because normally I'm in my house all day.

00:32:42   Who's going to steal my phone with the people at the deli?

00:32:49   I'm one of those compulsive pocket people that I never leave my phone or my wallet on

00:32:55   the table anywhere.

00:32:56   I never even take them out really.

00:32:59   When I'm out, my phone and my wallet and my keys stay in my pockets.

00:33:02   Dave: Right.

00:33:03   Either in pocket or in hand at all times.

00:33:05   Tim: Right.

00:33:06   It's never out of my physical possession.

00:33:09   Yeah, somebody could pickpocket me in New York, but I don't live in the city.

00:33:14   I only go to the city once every three months.

00:33:17   I'm hardly ever even in the city.

00:33:19   When I travel, maybe when I go to the city, I'll turn it on.

00:33:24   But day-to-day life, I'm sitting in my house and I don't really need to constantly be

00:33:28   unlocking my phone. Let me take a break here to tell you about our first sponsor.

00:33:34   It's our good friends, Backblaze. Not to be confused with, I think, I think the last

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00:33:50   had registered that URL. Are you sure it's not Backblaze? It could be

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00:35:00   restore everything or hard drive failure, of course, probably the most common reason

00:35:05   that we back up.

00:35:08   You can restore everything easily.

00:35:11   It's founded by ex-Apple engineers and that's a good talking point because to me, as soon

00:35:15   as you say that, to me that says, "Okay, their Mac software is going to be legit.

00:35:19   not installing some kind of janky thing written by people who mostly write

00:35:23   Windows. It's already mavericks ready so that also tells you just how Apple

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00:36:09   Jeff: That's good. That avoids the ambiguity of whether the "the" is included.

00:36:13   Exactly. I don't like to put the sponsors down who don't put the "the" in their code.

00:36:18   I won't do that. They're a sponsor. I thank them. I appreciate it. I don't care what they

00:36:21   say. They could say the code is – the grouper is a dummy and I'd still read it. But if

00:36:27   you do put the "the" in, I like to compliment you for it.

00:36:32   Attention to detail.

00:36:33   Yeah. Backblaze.com/daringfireball.

00:36:34   Love them.

00:36:35   Love 'em.

00:36:36   So, I don't know, maybe that covers iPads for next week, I think, right?

00:36:43   Retina for the mini and a new, smaller, thinner case for the big one and maybe Touch ID.

00:36:50   You know, I don't even expect the big one to get that much lighter because it is a really

00:36:55   large Retina screen.

00:36:57   It's gonna have a high-powered CPU with a high-powered GPU.

00:37:01   I'm guessing it's probably, it's gonna be smaller, like physically smaller, but I bet

00:37:05   it's not gonna be that much lighter, because most of that weight is the battery.

00:37:08   Yeah, we'll see. I don't know. It certainly would be Apple-like to focus on that.

00:37:12   Yeah, I would love to see it happen. This is one of the things I'd love to be proven

00:37:15   wrong on that.

00:37:16   Yeah. There's gotta be some Mac news next week, too. I would expect, at the very least,

00:37:21   in the same way that Federighi was called up by Tim Cook to rehash what's new in iOS

00:37:30   new in iOS 7. And here's the 8 or 10 features that they thought was most important. And

00:37:35   he kind of ran through them in about 10 minutes. I would expect the same thing with Mavericks,

00:37:40   where they're going to, and it's good marketing. You repeat your message. But I think it's

00:37:46   going to be mostly, here's everything they told us about back at WWDC. They're going

00:37:49   to tell it to us again more concisely. I definitely expect that. And I expect, clearly, since

00:37:58   they've already shipped a GM, something called a GM to developers, it's probably coming soon.

00:38:04   I don't know if it's going to be released next week, but if not next week, I would expect

00:38:07   a week later at the latest.

00:38:09   Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if they, because the event's what, like on Tuesday or something?

00:38:12   Yeah.

00:38:13   Wouldn't surprise me if it's available Friday.

00:38:14   Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, that's probably my guess, is the event is Tuesday and then

00:38:19   Friday it hits the app store.

00:38:21   Right.

00:38:22   For people to, you know, buy and download.

00:38:25   'cause they already told developers to submit their apps

00:38:27   like almost a week ago now.

00:38:28   And so that to me says this is it.

00:38:32   'Cause like with iOS they gave you about a week.

00:38:35   They released the GM, they say submit your apps

00:38:37   to the App Store with the GM SDK today,

00:38:40   and then a week later it comes out.

00:38:41   - Yeah, that's what I think.

00:38:43   - I'm guessing they're right on the edge here.

00:38:44   - What is that, I think that's Friday the 25th?

00:38:46   Yeah. - Something like that.

00:38:47   - Yeah, that's my bet.

00:38:48   I can't help but think since they also at WWDC

00:38:53   pre-announced the Mac Pro and said it was coming this year, I can't help but think

00:38:58   it's going to be at this thing next week. And whether it goes on sale immediately or

00:39:07   I'm guessing the Mac Pro is never going to run 10.8. That's usually when they release

00:39:12   hardware and a new OS at the same time. The hardware is tied to that OS. So I don't

00:39:18   So I don't know if it'll be available for sale, you know, immediately after the show

00:39:22   is over or like in a couple of days. But I expect that the new Mac Pro is going to go

00:39:26   on sale.

00:39:27   Although weirdly they did just release new iMacs. Like, not that long ago that didn't

00:39:33   come with 10.9 obviously because that's not out yet. That was a little bit odd timing

00:39:37   on that.

00:39:38   Yeah, I guess, you know, I guess there's always a fine line to balance between, you know,

00:39:43   what they want to hold for an event and what they want to just release as it's ready.

00:39:47   I wonder if, you know, the MacBook Air being released in June, that probably has a lot

00:39:53   to do with back to school buying. And so the iMac being released like a month ago or whenever

00:39:58   that was, I wonder if that has to do with like school budgets or something like that.

00:40:03   Maybe, but I was always under the impression that schools, especially like K-12, do most

00:40:09   of their purchasing in like April and May for the next year. That it's a months in advance

00:40:15   sort of before the summer break, you know, that when... And that if there was any product

00:40:22   that was sort of timed to that schedule, it was the old iPads, the first couple of years

00:40:27   where they would come out in April, that that was education buying season. So I don't know.

00:40:33   But on the other hand, I think, like that's institutional education. There's also the

00:40:37   back to school angle of, "Hey, you know, my 18-year-old is going to college and needs

00:40:42   a computer."

00:40:43   But I think like, you know, the errors were timed well for that. The iMacs were too late

00:40:46   for that.

00:40:47   Yeah, I think so too. And I think the percentage of college students today going with like

00:40:55   an iMac style desktop computer has got to be like single digits. I think, you know.

00:40:59   Oh yeah. I think everyone has laptops at this point. I mean, even when I was in college

00:41:02   12 years ago, 10, 13 years ago, yeah. When I was in college forever ago, I was one of

00:41:09   only people there with a desktop. I mean, that was forever ago. I mean, it's only

00:41:13   been going more and more laptop heavy since then.

00:41:16   I think it'd be weird if you brought a desktop today. It was weird then.

00:41:20   I think maybe the iMacs coming out when they did was just a factor of, you know, it's

00:41:26   just a speed bump. Nothing new. Because they came out, they were announced at last year's

00:41:31   October event, the one that was in San Jose.

00:41:38   Intel's also been staging out the new CPU releases.

00:41:41   They came out pretty soon after the CPUs were available from Intel that it uses.

00:41:48   It looks like the entire roadmap might just be being dictated by Intel releasing the low-voltage

00:41:53   CPUs, and then the desktop CPUs.

00:41:55   And the Mac Pro, the CPUs that the Mac Pro is going to use are not out yet for anybody

00:42:00   else.

00:42:01   You can't buy a workstation from Dell with that CPU today.

00:42:06   It seems like maybe everything's just waiting on that.

00:42:08   - Here's a big one tied to the Mac Pro.

00:42:11   And I know you guys spoke about it

00:42:13   on the Accidental Tech Podcast a couple times.

00:42:17   Everybody's talking about that.

00:42:19   4K cinema displays.

00:42:20   You just mentioned it earlier in this show.

00:42:23   I think that they've gotta do it.

00:42:25   I do.

00:42:26   I mean, I guess got to is maybe a little strong,

00:42:28   but I really, I can't help but think

00:42:30   if they're gonna come out with this fancy new Mac Pro

00:42:33   and spend the time to make cool commercials for it

00:42:35   and stuff and go with the Syracusian--

00:42:39   it's the race car in the lineup.

00:42:43   And it's capable of driving three 4K displays

00:42:47   at the same time.

00:42:49   Why wouldn't they want to sell a 4K display, then,

00:42:52   to be one of the 4K display you hook up to it,

00:42:57   even if it's ungodly expensive?

00:42:59   Because that's the thing is I think

00:43:01   that they're going with the Mac Pro is it's really-- they're

00:43:04   Pro back in Pro where it really is, you know, they can charge a lot more because they've

00:43:09   got these consumer level products that are a lot lower priced and are great, right? The

00:43:15   iMac is a great desktop computer. It has a beautiful display. And the MacBook Air is

00:43:19   a great laptop and it has a good display. So they can charge a lot more or some sort

00:43:25   of premium for devices with retina displays and, you know, if you think, well, I don't

00:43:30   know what what do you think like a 4k Apple cinema display might run? Oh man it

00:43:36   well it depends on the size and the density too you know like if if they

00:43:39   just took the the 27 inch approximate size like the what they sell now give

00:43:45   that 4k resolution and I think it comes pretty close to retina you know it's not

00:43:49   quite it's not a doubling of that display today but it's it's like it's

00:43:54   near a doubling yeah things on screen would have to be bigger just just like

00:43:59   like the same thing with the 50 nukes laptops.

00:44:01   - They can call it retina though by just fudging

00:44:04   the distance of how far away your eyes are from the device.

00:44:09   I think that a retina, and I don't even,

00:44:11   I think by their definition of what retina means,

00:44:13   I think that's actually not even like marketing trickery.

00:44:16   I think it's fair.

00:44:17   - Yeah.

00:44:18   - You know, people tend to be about an arm's length away

00:44:21   from a desktop display.

00:44:23   - Right, so I think if, I mean, and you can look,

00:44:25   there already are a few 4K displays in the market today.

00:44:28   and most of them are like 32 inch size,

00:44:31   like they're bigger.

00:44:33   If Apple's able to get good panel deals

00:44:36   and is able to make a 27 inch at 4K resolution,

00:44:40   first of all, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

00:44:42   I might even buy two of them, God knows.

00:44:44   Second of all, I would guess that's a $3,000 display.

00:44:48   And that's why I think they probably won't do it yet.

00:44:51   - See, I think maybe, why not?

00:44:53   Why not do it?

00:44:54   - Well, if you look historically,

00:44:56   when the original 30 inch cinema display came out,

00:44:59   I believe the initial price was $3,500.

00:45:01   It was over $3,000.

00:45:03   And that was, what, like 2005 or something?

00:45:06   It was a long time ago.

00:45:08   But that was back when Apple was still--

00:45:11   like, Apple could release a $3,000 monitor

00:45:13   and nobody would care.

00:45:15   But Apple's a different company today.

00:45:16   Not entirely different, but everything they sell

00:45:21   is really designed much more for the mass market

00:45:23   and is under much more scrutiny.

00:45:25   and they try to bring those prices, the entry prices, down over time. And so you could really,

00:45:31   you could make a good argument that maybe they won't do a retina desktop display at

00:45:36   $3,000. Maybe they'll just wait until that can be $1200 and do it then. But just certainly

00:45:42   not this year.

00:45:43   Yeah, it's possible, but I tend to think, no, because I think the whole idea of the

00:45:47   Mac Pro is, I would have been more amenable to that argument before they unveiled the

00:45:52   the Mac Pro at WWDC because the new Mac Pro to me says we're serious about selling really

00:45:59   expensive high-end stuff.

00:46:01   Yeah, I could see that.

00:46:02   For the professional Mac market.

00:46:05   I think what we'll be telling also, if for some reason at the event they announce new

00:46:10   Retina MacBook Pros but they don't announce a new cinema display for whatever reason,

00:46:14   I think it will be interesting to see, I would assume, the new Retina MacBook Pros will have

00:46:19   Thunderbolt 2 ports.

00:46:22   And you can look at the Mac Pro.

00:46:23   And Thunderbolt 2 is the update to Thunderbolt

00:46:26   that's fast enough to support resolutions like 4K.

00:46:28   The Thunderbolt 1 can't, or at least not at a good frame rate.

00:46:32   So the Mac Pro, there's good reasons

00:46:35   for that to have Thunderbolt 2 that aren't a monitor.

00:46:38   You can argue that Mac Pro users might

00:46:40   be using those ports for future high-end RAID arrays

00:46:44   and to replace fiber channel cards and stuff like that,

00:46:47   like high-end I/O. There's a lot less of a need for that

00:46:51   on a modern Retina MacBook Pro, on a modern laptop.

00:46:55   Unless the main reason Thunderbolt 2 is there

00:46:58   is to drive giant Retina displays.

00:47:02   And so I think if the laptop comes out

00:47:04   with Thunderbolt 2 port, I think Retina displays

00:47:06   are not that far behind.

00:47:08   - Yeah, I would like to see 'em next week.

00:47:10   So you think we're gonna see new MacBook Pros next week too?

00:47:14   - Yeah, 'cause we, I mean, that was another thing.

00:47:16   Intel didn't release those CPUs yet in June,

00:47:18   so I think that's one of the reasons we didn't see it then.

00:47:20   but I'm guessing we see... My ideal scenario is...

00:47:24   I don't care about the iPad, they can do whatever they want. My ideal scenario...

00:47:28   I would love to see a Retina Mini, that's about it. My ideal scenario for what we get next week is

00:47:32   Retina MacBook Pro update with Thunderbolt 2. Mac Pro

00:47:36   announcement, like price and ship date and you can

00:47:40   go and pre-order it now, even if we can't get it immediately.

00:47:44   And Retina Cinema Display is released at the same time with them. That would be my ideal event.

00:47:48   However, if you look at where the technology is

00:47:51   for those retina displays, where the pricing is,

00:47:52   where the economics work out for those giant panels,

00:47:55   I'm not that confident that we're gonna get them this year.

00:47:59   I think we might still be another year out in there.

00:48:01   So I would say that the chances of getting

00:48:03   a retina display are like 50%, maybe.

00:48:05   Not great chances.

00:48:07   - I just, I don't know.

00:48:09   I'm gonna put it higher than that.

00:48:10   I'm gonna say it's like a two out of three chance

00:48:13   that they come out with a new 4K cinema display

00:48:16   to go along with it.

00:48:17   And it might be, but it probably would be like $3,000 each.

00:48:21   - The other thing is if they make like a big one,

00:48:25   like a 32 inch 4K, that is kind of too big

00:48:29   to be retina at that resolution.

00:48:31   So they'd have to get it small.

00:48:32   They'd have to like use the 27 inch size

00:48:34   at that resolution to really get that to be meaningful.

00:48:37   But we'll see what happens.

00:48:38   I really hope that I'm proven wrong

00:48:41   on almost everything I just said,

00:48:42   just because I'm predicting things fairly conservatively

00:48:45   that regard and so I'd love to be proven wrong on that. So we'll see.

00:48:51   What about iPods? I could see them releasing new iPods but I know two years ago they didn't.

00:48:59   They went two years without refreshing them and it wouldn't fit. And even if it's not

00:49:04   for next week, here's just a basic idea, just a what if. Let me just throw a wildcard at

00:49:11   is what about something that's more like an iPod Nano,

00:49:16   but actually running iOS?

00:49:18   - That's interesting.

00:49:21   I mean, you could kind of argue that they almost

00:49:24   like accidentally created the smartwatch movement

00:49:27   by the old Nano, just happened to be watch sized kind of,

00:49:31   and having a wrist strap that somebody made in Kickstarter.

00:49:33   Like you can kind of argue like,

00:49:36   that that would be an interesting way to get into that,

00:49:38   that wearables area that everyone's talking about.

00:49:41   Right, like with some of these smartwatches that have come out,

00:49:45   it's like--

00:49:46   I forget which one I said it about.

00:49:47   But it's like, if you're not more elegant and look better

00:49:50   on the wrist than a two-year-old iPod Nano that was never

00:49:55   designed to be worn as a watch on your wrist,

00:49:57   then you've got a problem.

00:49:59   If you're designing a product that is specifically a watch.

00:50:03   I-- here's why.

00:50:04   I'll tell you the one thing.

00:50:06   The reason I would like an iPod Nano that runs iOS

00:50:09   is for one thing and one thing only, and that's podcasts.

00:50:12   Is I would like to be able to just set up

00:50:18   an iPod nano size thing, and just have that

00:50:22   be the only place where I manage my podcasts.

00:50:25   Or in theory, like if you, you know,

00:50:29   if we're really running iOS and you could have apps

00:50:31   running on it, then somebody like, say, you,

00:50:34   could come out with a version of your app

00:50:36   that ran on that too, and it would sync between that

00:50:38   phone. You know, syncing would be great if it, you know, if there's multiple versions

00:50:42   of a podcast app. But all I want is an iPod that automatically, without me plugging it

00:50:48   into anything other than occasionally charging it, just is up to date with podcasts.

00:50:53   Jared Ranerelle See, I think, first of all, I think there's

00:50:57   a big issue with battery life in a watch. And so, I don't think we're anywhere near

00:51:03   running a full featured OS like iOS on a watch.

00:51:07   I think that the display is the biggest power grab.

00:51:11   Yeah, probably, but also radios would be a power grab.

00:51:15   So, I think if Apple goes into the watch area,

00:51:19   whether it's with just like kind of a boosted up nano or whether

00:51:23   it's a separate product, I think if they go into the watch area, I think it's just

00:51:27   going to be like a satellite device for your phone.

00:51:31   For your iPhone. Or, right, and I say

00:51:35   And it could be that it's just more iOS-like and it's still running the the pixel OS or whatever

00:51:41   That is the embedded thing that the iPod still run but has some more features like that like

00:51:47   Maybe instead of you know, why Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and something else? Maybe it's just Bluetooth, but it uses the Bluetooth

00:51:56   4.0 low energy and

00:51:58   An iOS companion app can just push those podcasts to it

00:52:03   Right or the watch does not store all the podcasts on it the watch is more like a Bluetooth headset

00:52:09   It's like it just it can receive the audio from your iPhone, and I think you're right

00:52:14   I think that you know if Apple were to release a watch today

00:52:17   I think it's pretty obvious that Bluetooth for low energy would be its main communication protocol

00:52:23   And it might even be its only radio, and if you think about like what would make an awesome smartwatch

00:52:28   You can argue. You know the case you go outside and exercise right I?

00:52:32   I do sometimes.

00:52:33   Okay, well I'm not familiar with that world.

00:52:35   I know a lot of people do that and a lot of people don't bring their phones because they

00:52:38   don't want to drop them or damage them or, you know, sports clothes don't really have

00:52:42   deep secure pockets.

00:52:44   So I run buck naked.

00:52:46   Yeah, well, I mean, you might as well.

00:52:48   The pockets on most running shorts are terrible.

00:52:50   So it's the same thing.

00:52:53   So there's that market of, you know, people who want to exercise who don't want to have

00:52:56   their phone on them.

00:52:58   And so obviously a smartwatch in that kind of context would be less useful the way I'm

00:53:01   describing it.

00:53:02   I think Apple's whole thing with the digital hub,

00:53:06   with the Mac being the digital hub back,

00:53:08   I don't know, 15 years ago now, whenever that was,

00:53:11   the thing is, that was a great idea,

00:53:13   and that was correct for the time.

00:53:14   Overall though, now, especially the modern era,

00:53:18   that was correct, but the digital hub is now the phone.

00:53:21   Your smartphone is your digital hub for everything now.

00:53:24   - Because it's with you all the time.

00:53:26   - Right, now I'm obviously very into the podcast thing now.

00:53:32   My theory has always been, people ask me if I'm going to do, like Stitcher is a popular

00:53:36   client, and they go and work with all the car manufacturers to try to get car integration

00:53:41   for Stitcher so that you can run Stitcher right on your head unit or have your phone

00:53:48   plug into your car and everything.

00:53:51   I think the market for that is pretty limited, and I think it's not a great use of effort

00:53:55   because ultimately, the best way to listen to podcasts

00:53:59   in your car is to just use a phone that can play audio

00:54:03   over Bluetooth and have your car, you know,

00:54:06   a lot of cars now are getting Bluetooth,

00:54:08   it's filtering down pretty well into even lower end models.

00:54:10   And so the audio in the car problem is now being solved,

00:54:14   and it's just your phone playing things over Bluetooth.

00:54:17   Internet in the car is the same way.

00:54:19   Car manufacturers try to put internet connectivity

00:54:21   in the cars, and really the best way to do it

00:54:23   is to just have internet on your phone

00:54:25   maybe at best have your car tethered with your phone.

00:54:28   You know, that maybe will go there in the future.

00:54:30   But ultimately, the phone is the center of everything now.

00:54:33   It's where you have the data connection.

00:54:35   I don't think we're gonna see a future

00:54:37   where everything has its own data radio.

00:54:39   I think the carriers are gonna block that worldwide

00:54:42   pretty effectively or make it really infeasible

00:54:44   economically for customers.

00:54:46   - Wait, what are they gonna make unfeasible?

00:54:49   - Having like a billion devices that you own

00:54:51   all have their own cell radios

00:54:52   and all their own data connections.

00:54:54   I don't think we're going to see that for a long time, if ever.

00:54:57   Ultimately, I think, again, everything's

00:54:59   going through the phone right now.

00:55:01   That's the way to do it.

00:55:02   It's really powerful.

00:55:02   It's very-- that's where the market is-- that's

00:55:06   what the market is doing.

00:55:07   Whether it's technologically ideal or conceptually ideal,

00:55:10   that's what the market is doing.

00:55:11   So for a smartwatch to just be a phone accessory, basically,

00:55:15   to just be a window into the data on your phone

00:55:18   and for it to use all the radios on your phone,

00:55:21   except for the one super low power Bluetooth LE one

00:55:24   that it would have itself.

00:55:26   Like a watch with GPS, that would never work,

00:55:28   because the batteries are way too small.

00:55:30   So you can look at all that stuff.

00:55:32   I think a watch that-- any smartwatch that

00:55:34   comes out in the next couple years that's actually good,

00:55:36   it's probably going to have that kind of design.

00:55:38   And so whether Apple's going to have your dream podcast set up,

00:55:41   I don't think that's going to be it.

00:55:43   I think it's going to be you're going

00:55:45   to play podcasts on your phone and play it through your watch

00:55:47   if that's what you really want.

00:55:49   or you're just gonna ignore that capability

00:55:51   and just play it with headphones on your phone?

00:55:54   - I don't know, I just can't help but think

00:55:56   that there's gotta be a way for the thing to,

00:55:58   and you know, I, and this is really pushing it,

00:56:01   to say that what if it was really more like a full iPod Touch

00:56:04   but just shrunk to that nano size,

00:56:06   and it had Wi-Fi too,

00:56:12   that would, it would make it work,

00:56:14   it would make it usable with iTunes radio.

00:56:17   I mean, who knows?

00:56:19   Is iTunes Radio something they see as that important

00:56:21   that they would engineer the devices

00:56:23   to be able to support it?

00:56:24   I don't know, but it just seems--

00:56:26   - That's a good question.

00:56:27   - It just seems to me though that maybe we collectively

00:56:30   have all sort of taken our eyes off the iPod lineup

00:56:34   in terms of the potential for future improvements.

00:56:38   And that there, you know,

00:56:40   you couldn't make it much smaller, right?

00:56:43   That's like the iPod Nano.

00:56:44   If you're gonna put a screen on a device,

00:56:46   there's not much room there for more than a finger.

00:56:51   It's already so small that you kind of wish it was bigger if it was easier to use.

00:56:54   Easier not to. I'd be less likely to lose it. My iPod Nano is literally, as I speak,

00:57:00   it's been lost for like four days somewhere, hopefully here in my office. But I feel like

00:57:07   maybe now that they've shrunk it to that size, now they can use advances in technology

00:57:11   and battery life and stuff like that to get it to do more on the software, maybe put some

00:57:15   some little antennas in there. I don't know, just something to spitball, I think.

00:57:19   Maybe. I just don't see it happening. Just, you know,

00:57:23   radios are so power hungry and watches are so small.

00:57:27   Like, to make a... I mean, do you have a Pebble or have you seen one?

00:57:31   I do have a Pebble. It's ridiculously big. Like, when you sit on somebody's wrist,

00:57:35   unless they're like a giant football player, it looks like...

00:57:39   it's like the modern calculator watch.

00:57:43   It is. I actually have it right here in my hand as I speak. It's big, but there actually

00:57:50   are a lot bigger watches on the market today. Like men's wristwatches, the trend over the

00:57:55   last couple of years has been to get bigger. And some of them are actually preposterously

00:57:59   big, way bigger than a Pebble. So it's not just size alone, but it's...

00:58:04   Are they Samsung?

00:58:07   If you just go and look at like, just go to the mall and look at like a watch store and

00:58:11   just go look at a jewelry store and look at some of the men's watches. You'll see some

00:58:15   that are really pretty, a lot bigger than a Pebble. But it looks, it doesn't sit right

00:58:19   on the wrist. And the ones that are real big are watches as jewelry. They're big for the,

00:58:27   they're purposefully big. It's not that they couldn't make them smaller. You're showing

00:58:33   off that you have this watch. It's jewelry. Whereas the Pebble is just big. I don't know.

00:58:40   Do you think it's possible to make a smartwatch that doesn't...

00:58:44   to make a smartwatch that looks as nice fashion-wise

00:58:49   as like a jewelry watch?

00:58:54   No, in some ways, because jewelry watches are made out of materials like

00:58:58   stainless steel

00:58:59   or even higher-end gold.

00:59:02   Well, I guess you could make one out of that. I mean, it could be a smartwatch

00:59:06   with, you know,

00:59:07   or like a, you know, certainly Apple works a lot with aluminum that has more of a refined

00:59:13   metallic appearance. But it's one of the things where if you call it a watch, this is one

00:59:18   of the reasons where I'm tossing out what if they really push the borders on what we

00:59:23   think an iPod can do, like an iPod Nano, not iPod Touch, like an iPod Nano can do. It has

00:59:27   been the way that I've been sort of thinking in my head of what could this so-called iWatch

00:59:32   do because what's the difference other than whether it's on a strap that goes on your

00:59:35   wrist or not. What we're talking about are little roughly inch-sized peripherals to your

00:59:42   iPhone, right? It's the same thing. And so why not make one that doesn't even have a

00:59:48   strap that you clip on for people who don't want to wear it on a wrist or whatever?

00:59:54   I think the problem with calling it a watch in particular, and to me, if they came out

00:59:58   with a thing and it was just called the new iPod Nano, and in fact, it has all of these

01:00:03   or some of these smart watch style integration Bluetooth back and forth features makes a

01:00:10   lot more sense marketing wise because you can sell and everybody knows what an iPod

01:00:14   is and they cost like 200, 250, $300 depending on the size. And they can just put that right

01:00:19   in there and it will just sell better than, you know, the two year old iPod Nano we have

01:00:25   now sells. Whereas if they call it a watch, it's they run into this, it's a really hard

01:00:30   market because most people who do wear a wristwatch, I'm guessing, probably spend somewhere around

01:00:36   $50 to $100 on their watch. That's a typical price for a watch. If you just go to Amazon

01:00:43   and search for watches, you see a lot of watches, $50, that's what people pay.

01:00:50   I haven't bought a watch since eighth grade.

01:00:53   But a high-end watch costs thousands of dollars, right?

01:00:57   Like a new watch from Omega or Rolex or one of those type companies is two, three, four

01:01:03   thousand dollars at the low end of their lines.

01:01:06   And it goes up from there depending on whether it's made of gold or stuff like that.

01:01:11   So how do they make a watch?

01:01:12   When is the last time Apple's ever made a product that isn't the best of whatever

01:01:15   it is on the market, at least in some people's minds?

01:01:19   I see.

01:01:20   there are those like solid gold blackberries from that V company?

01:01:23   What?

01:01:23   Virtu.

01:01:24   Yeah, there's those. I mean, you know, they... Is that a fair parallel?

01:01:29   I think it is in some sense, because I think the thing with Virtu is that what the iPhone revealed

01:01:34   with Virtu, Virtu, whatever you want to pronounce it, wasn't that they were making actual luxury

01:01:40   cell phones, is that they were pantomiming luxury cell phones. They faked it with just

01:01:48   literally putting a luxurious shell around a $15 Nokia Symbian phone.

01:01:57   That it wasn't actually luxurious.

01:01:58   Whereas when you buy a Rolex and you spend $5,000, $6,000 or whatever on it, you're getting

01:02:05   a watch that truly has, by all accounts, an exquisite mechanical movement inside.

01:02:12   It's not just that you're paying for the brand and you get a nice gold exterior around the

01:02:18   same internals as a $50 watch from Amazon. It really is a nice—now whether it's worth

01:02:25   spending that money on, it's obviously something that appeals just to people who are into collecting

01:02:30   watches and stuff like that. It's not like it keeps better time, but it is in a sense

01:02:36   to some people clearly a superior product, whereas the Virtu was not. It was never actually

01:02:41   a better product. It was literally just the exact same internal guts as phones that Nokia

01:02:45   sold for like 15 bucks.

01:02:47   Right. So, I don't know. I mean, do you think there's any way that Apple could even compete

01:02:54   in that high-end watch market? Or do you…

01:02:56   No. Because that's the…

01:02:57   It seems like that would be the wrong goal.

01:02:59   Right. Because even though… And I feel like it's different from, say, selling a $3,000

01:03:06   4K monitor, which is only meant for like professional developers and film editors and photographers

01:03:12   and graphic designers and stuff like that, people who really need pro tools. Whereas

01:03:19   a watch or an iPod, there is no pro line. You can't come out with a pro version of the

01:03:24   watch that costs $4,000 because it looks as nice as a Rolex.

01:03:29   **Matt Stauffer** Maybe Virtu will.

01:03:31   **Ezra Klein** Yeah. That's why I think it's better to think

01:03:34   about Apple's entry in this as some kind of iPod, or even just call it an iPod watch.

01:03:39   I don't know.

01:03:40   **Matt Stauffer** I mean, certainly, even if they don't even

01:03:42   call it a watch, even if they just let the iPod Nano, you know, give it a Bluetooth 4

01:03:47   radio.

01:03:48   Right.

01:03:49   Let it show notifications from your iPhone if you want it to.

01:03:51   Right.

01:03:52   And, you know, like let it do some basic interaction with your iPhone and then just keep it small

01:03:56   and squarish and sell a watch band accessory for it.

01:04:00   Right.

01:04:01   An armband accessory for it.

01:04:02   Right.

01:04:03   Right.

01:04:04   And, again, the same way that they've designed the smart covers to be integrated, you know,

01:04:07   it's part of the whole…

01:04:08   Right.

01:04:09   …it wasn't just something they came up with at the end.

01:04:10   The whole process of developing it was meant for that.

01:04:12   It might be designed from the get-go to have a wrist strap.

01:04:16   - 'Cause it's entirely possible

01:04:17   that the smartwatch market is just non-existent.

01:04:19   And it's entirely, we as the tech industry

01:04:23   have been talking about this forever,

01:04:25   but it's very possible that nobody wants these things.

01:04:28   And so that would kinda be a way for Apple

01:04:30   to dip their toe in it very gently

01:04:33   and in a way that if it doesn't sell well,

01:04:35   it's not like a massive PR problem for them forever.

01:04:38   - Yeah, and I think that it's sort of, in a way,

01:04:40   marketing-wise, the—and I know, I know, nobody has to write in. I know they filed

01:04:45   a whole bunch of trademarks around the world for an iWatch.

01:04:48   Let me just digress here for a second and say that I have received—I think this might

01:04:52   be one of the most common, single most common emails I've received over the last like five

01:04:57   months which is, "What if iWatch has nothing to do with the wristwatch but it's actually

01:05:03   the name of the new Apple TV because get it, iWatch, you watch the TV."

01:05:07   Well, also, like, you can't – you can't keep a trademark in most conditions without

01:05:13   using it after a while. Like, you can – you can pre-file it but not that far before you

01:05:18   start using it. And you have to use it, otherwise you lose it. Like, it's possible they could

01:05:23   have filed them – filed those trademarks defensively so that no one else could create

01:05:27   something called the iWatch.

01:05:28   That's – see, that's what I think they did. And here's the reason why –

01:05:31   But then they're going to have to use it for something.

01:05:33   Let's or or at least it would keep people from coming out with an iWatch soon

01:05:37   Right, right

01:05:39   Like Apple comes out with the thing and at least for the next two years or whatever the limit is on those trademarks

01:05:44   Nobody come out with an iWatch and by the time they're unused iWatch trademark expires

01:05:48   It's too late because they've already, you know dominated the market with the product that did come out with under a different name

01:05:55   but anyway, here's the thing about the iWatch being

01:05:59   Right underneath our noses the name of the Apple TV product the trademark

01:06:02   Applications that they filed around the world that you can't you don't just file a name you have to say what it does and they all

01:06:07   Say something about you know that it's a watch

01:06:10   Right. Yeah trademark like you. Yeah, you're right

01:06:13   You have to because you could release something called the iWatch that's a watch and then somebody else could make like a piece of industrial

01:06:20   equipment that makes bread called the iWatch and

01:06:23   That would not be a likely conflict, right? There's Apple is still gonna

01:06:28   Sure, but you have to specify when you file a trademark like what like what areas is being used in and

01:06:34   The trademark office at least in the u.s. Tries to push that to be as narrow as possible. Yeah

01:06:40   So no, I do not I think there's zero chance that I watch is actually Apple TV or some kind of TV product even

01:06:47   You know that and I and I feel like it's it's not even a good name for that

01:06:51   I think everybody who's come up with that you're being you're overthinking it. It's too clever

01:06:55   No, it wouldn't it wouldn't work right as a name of an app of a product you watch on TV

01:07:00   They've also never

01:07:02   Never used the I prefix

01:07:04   Have they ever used it as a verb like that? No

01:07:07   No, and I think that it's another reason that they wouldn't

01:07:11   It's kind of weird. Yeah

01:07:14   That was why people say you shouldn't say I touch I

01:07:18   Don't hear as many people saying that anymore, but maybe it's because I don't see many people using I follow there

01:07:24   They're all in the Apple store.

01:07:26   Where's the iTouch?

01:07:28   It's horrible.

01:07:29   I do think though, and I think just circling back a minute or two to something you said about the name and setting the expectations, I feel like it's almost the opposite problem with iPhone,

01:07:39   where we all know now, and a lot of us realized early on, that the iPhone wasn't really a phone.

01:07:44   It was a little pocket computer and it just had phone features.

01:07:49   The brilliance of it was that they've taken all of being a cell phone and just turned

01:07:55   it into two apps, phone and messages, or three if you count contacts, right?

01:08:00   That they just took these phone features, including making phone calls, and now it's

01:08:03   just an app on this general purpose device.

01:08:06   But calling it the iPhone really helped pave the way for why, just entering the market

01:08:13   and why people would want one because people already, the world, the Western world was

01:08:18   already all set on, you know, I need a cell phone, I buy a new one every two years. And

01:08:25   it framed it well. Whereas I feel like some kind of smart iPod style size thing that even

01:08:32   if you wear it on your watch, calling it a watch sets up all of these wrong expectations

01:08:38   that you don't want to enter the market with that name, I think. But I mean, I could be

01:08:43   be wrong. I'm terrible at guessing Apple product names.

01:08:46   **BEN HONG:** Yeah. I mean, and they also, you know, a lot of times they will choose

01:08:50   the name that the market wants it to be called, like the iPhone 5, which I'm still mad about.

01:08:56   **JEFFREY WISDOM:** Oh, because you thought it should have been iPhone 6?

01:08:59   **BEN HONG** Well, it just, it wasn't the fifth iPhone.

01:09:00   **JEFFREY WISDOM** Right.

01:09:01   **BEN HONG** The iPhone 4 was the fourth iPhone. That made

01:09:03   sense. The iPhone 5 was not the fifth iPhone. And the whole public was, like, for years,

01:09:10   the foresters, "This wasn't a real iPhone 5. We want an iPhone 5." So the next year,

01:09:15   Apple gave them something called the iPhone 5, and they complained a little bit less.

01:09:18   It just felt like giving in to me.

01:09:21   That would be like someday as like a "wouldn't it be great," like it would be great like

01:09:27   10, 15 years from now to like get like Phil Schiller and just do like a—it probably

01:09:35   You probably wouldn't be like a big book, but you could do like a little mini ebook and just do a book just

01:09:40   Just based on how they can you know the fights they had over product names?

01:09:45   For like 20 or 30 years because you know that there were you know people have pointed that out within Apple

01:09:51   It wasn't like somebody you know oh, yes said iPhone 5 and didn't think about it

01:09:54   But like just look at the fact like the way things are now where they've iPhone still gets a number

01:10:01   Every year, but then it gets an s some years and the whole iPhone 5c doesn't make a lot of sense either

01:10:08   because it

01:10:12   At least up until the 5c then when they had you know with the 4 and a 4s and the 3g

01:10:18   And the 3gs at least it meant they were case compatible that it was the same form factor

01:10:25   And that's why they're not bumping the number so that if you found a case that fit your iPhone 4

01:10:30   and now you have an iPhone 4S, you could just stick it right in. And with the iPhone 5S,

01:10:35   you can put it in. Whereas the iPhone 5C, it has that name, but it breaks that. It's

01:10:39   an all-new form factor. It doesn't make any sense at all.

01:10:42   I think it's that they want the name to just make sense today.

01:10:46   Right.

01:10:47   And they don't really care if it makes sense historically.

01:10:49   Right.

01:10:50   You know, like so, you know, the iPhone 5 came out fine. Like that's why I think next

01:10:54   year I think we're going to have, if they decide to use number six, which I don't

01:10:58   I don't know, a lot of cultures find it unlucky,

01:11:00   and so maybe they'll skip it, I don't know.

01:11:02   But if they decide to use the number six,

01:11:04   then I think we're gonna have the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6C,

01:11:07   even though there was, like, the 6C would kinda be

01:11:11   like the 5S's internals in something called the 6C.

01:11:15   Like, it doesn't make logical sense, like, historically,

01:11:19   but if you just look at the product line

01:11:21   as it will probably exist next year,

01:11:22   and you figure there's gonna be a cheaper plastic one

01:11:24   and a nice metal one, it's probably gonna be the 6

01:11:27   in the 6C.

01:11:28   See, I was thinking maybe the 6 and the 5CS.

01:11:35   I don't know.

01:11:36   I mean, they've already, with the 5S,

01:11:38   they've already ruined everyone's minds

01:11:40   and editors and typists, or have no idea what to do.

01:11:44   So having another one that ends in S,

01:11:46   I guess wouldn't be that bad.

01:11:47   But I just don't see it happening,

01:11:49   because that would make it look old, I think, next year.

01:11:53   But at the same time, with the siblings in the lineup, the iPads, they've dropped the

01:12:00   numbers and it's just iPad.

01:12:02   And then they...

01:12:03   Well, 'cause there was iPad third generation.

01:12:06   Well, the first was the new iPad.

01:12:09   But it was...

01:12:10   When they came out with what we all call the iPad 3, they just said, "Here it is, the new

01:12:14   iPad."

01:12:15   It was just called the new iPad.

01:12:16   And then they awkwardly added iPad third generation and all the support documents.

01:12:20   Right.

01:12:21   And that's what they have to do.

01:12:22   done for years and years and years with Macs, ever since they stopped giving crazy names

01:12:27   like the Mac 2FX and stuff like that to Macs.

01:12:30   Right, you have an early 2012 MacBook Air or something.

01:12:34   Exactly. And cars, of course, do the same thing, where there's models but they don't

01:12:41   change every year when they're revamped, even though sometimes it's a total revamp. It's

01:12:47   It's a total do-over in a brand new car, but it still is just called a Honda Accord.

01:12:52   It's just a 2011 model, 2013 or whatever.

01:12:59   Let's get back.

01:13:00   We have a couple other things I want to talk about for the event next week, but let me

01:13:03   take a break for the second sponsor.

01:13:04   Sure.

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01:15:53   It was nice. It was like instructions on how to open the box or ideal takeout. It had a

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01:16:16   Right. There's pretty much no way you'd open the wrong end and it would fall out and shatter.

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01:16:24   Right. It's clearly a detail-oriented company.

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01:16:39   So what else could they do next week?

01:16:41   Well, they've got to have some software, right?

01:16:42   Something's got to be demoed.

01:16:43   You can't have a device without software to demo.

01:16:46   But they've already unveiled iOS 7.

01:16:49   So yeah, it looks--

01:16:50   iOS is obviously different on an iPad than on an iPhone.

01:16:53   But it's not that different.

01:16:55   So I feel like they need apps to demo.

01:16:58   Does iLife still exist on the Mac?

01:17:00   And can they even do that with Mavericks or probably not?

01:17:03   Are they still updating that?

01:17:04   I wonder about the Mac.

01:17:05   So here's what I think.

01:17:06   I think they're going to do new iLife works for iOS and probably iWorks apps because they

01:17:14   just made a big deal over the fact that they're like the most popular mobile office apps on

01:17:21   smartphones.

01:17:22   I think they said in the keynote at WBCC, I think they said that an update to iWork for

01:17:29   the Mac was coming.

01:17:30   Which was news because they're still like the '09 apps.

01:17:34   They're very old, long in the tooth.

01:17:36   I still use them all the time.

01:17:37   They still work just fine, but they really could use an update.

01:17:40   Just new features.

01:17:42   The only thing they've done since 2009 is add iCloud support, really.

01:17:46   I mean, I'm sure there's bug fixes and some minor things, but in terms of what you would

01:17:50   actually think off the top of your head, it's just iCloud support.

01:17:53   Right. It's still like the same features from all the way back then, the same, you know,

01:17:56   like numbers still has all the same capabilities that it had back then, just plus iCloud. That's

01:18:01   it.

01:18:02   And I think that could make, if they did both iOS and Mac versions, and it doesn't seem,

01:18:07   you might think like, well, you're asking for too much to hope that they did both. But

01:18:11   on the other hand, it's been so many years since the Mac version had a major revision.

01:18:15   It doesn't seem like you're asking for much. I mean, presumably, they're, you know, they

01:18:18   still have full-time teams who work on the iWork Mac apps. They've got to be, have been

01:18:23   working on something.

01:18:24   Tim Cynova,

01:18:25   Microsoft

01:18:25   of the problem that Microsoft has with upgrade revenue in Office. We haven't had a meaningful

01:18:31   iWork update since 2009, and it's not that big of a problem. I still use numbers almost

01:18:39   every day, and I use Keynote a couple times a year. I would like new features, but they

01:18:45   still work just fine. Every time I use them, I don't notice, "Oh my God, this is so

01:18:51   old."

01:18:52   Whereas-- - Imagine Microsoft Office

01:18:54   being released like every two or three years.

01:18:56   Like trying to get people to pay for that upgrade

01:18:58   is probably a nightmare.

01:18:59   They're like, that's why they wanna move

01:19:00   to subscription stuff.

01:19:02   - Whereas the iOS versions look ancient

01:19:05   because they look like iOS 6 apps.

01:19:07   - Right.

01:19:07   - And as time goes on, I mean, I think everybody agrees.

01:19:11   Even people who don't like iOS 7,

01:19:13   they don't like the visual direction they went.

01:19:16   I think even they have to acknowledge

01:19:18   that the old apps still stick out like sore thumbs.

01:19:21   So I feel like they almost have to have iOS versions of these apps.

01:19:25   Are they even built with the 7 SDK yet?

01:19:27   Like, do they show the 7 keyboard?

01:19:30   No, I don't think so.

01:19:32   That's rough.

01:19:33   That's the biggest problem when I'm using Tweetbot, which doesn't have a 7

01:19:36   update out yet.

01:19:39   The keyboard, if you look at all the resource files in 7,

01:19:43   it includes a complete copy of the entire UI from 6.

01:19:48   so it can run those apps in their simulation mode

01:19:51   for iOS 6.

01:19:52   And it sucks because the keyboard is just so slightly

01:19:57   different between six and seven in a few ways.

01:19:59   And it's enough that once you're used to one,

01:20:02   you make a bunch of typos in the other one.

01:20:04   Have you found this to be the best way to run?

01:20:06   - I have definitely found it to be a case.

01:20:08   - It really sucks when an app is not updated for seven now

01:20:11   'cause anything with text input

01:20:13   because you hit that problem hard.

01:20:16   Yeah, and especially, yeah, and Tweetbot's probably the one that I hit it the most in

01:20:23   because that's probably the app where I type the most in an app that still has the old

01:20:29   keyboard. Whereas a lot of my other typing on iOS is in messages and mail, and they're

01:20:35   obviously, they're built in so they're updated. So that's where I've sort of acclimated to

01:20:39   the new keyboard. Oh, and Safari, you know, typing in forms in Safari and stuff like that.

01:20:44   So, Tweetpot's keyboard really does get me every time.

01:20:47   - But yeah, besides that, besides like, you know,

01:20:51   demoing iWork and maybe iLife for the Mac,

01:20:54   on iOS, I don't really see it happening.

01:20:57   I mean, like every year at the iPad event,

01:21:00   they've brought out something new, right?

01:21:02   Like was it last year that it was iPhoto,

01:21:03   or was it the year before?

01:21:05   There was like, there was GarageBand, there was iPhoto,

01:21:07   like you know, in these crazy years.

01:21:09   - iMovie. - iMovie, right.

01:21:11   - Right.

01:21:11   - I don't know what they're gonna do this year

01:21:14   in that regard for the iPads. Maybe they have so much stuff in this event, like if they

01:21:19   really are going to cram in MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Mavericks, iPads, maybe even iPads, a

01:21:26   smartwatch and a TV, if they're going to cram all this stuff into one event, maybe they

01:21:32   don't have time to do in-depth software demos like that. And so maybe the iPad section of

01:21:38   for the update will just be about a little bit of iOS 7

01:21:42   plus new iPads, models, prices, specs, and then move on.

01:21:46   - I think they've gotta have software to demo.

01:21:50   And I, I don't know, I just fired up numbers on my phone.

01:21:54   - I'm surprised you even have it installed.

01:21:57   I deleted them a while ago.

01:21:58   I'm just like, I never use them.

01:22:00   - I have it because I keep the Daring Fireball

01:22:05   sponsorship schedule in a numbers spreadsheet.

01:22:08   And usually, almost, I don't remember the last time I opened it.

01:22:12   It certainly hasn't been open since I bought this new phone.

01:22:15   So it's probably been months. But I keep it in iCloud.

01:22:18   And that way, if I ever do need to answer some sort of sponsorship question

01:22:23   while I'm on the phone, I can access it.

01:22:25   But it looks ridiculous. It is so over-the-top, skeuomorphic.

01:22:30   Just to use the word to--everybody knows what I mean.

01:22:33   But with the marker felt for the tabs and the paper texture on the tabs

01:22:37   on the tabs and a wood background and everything's in there. It's got wood, linen, paper, the

01:22:44   keyboard. I think they've got to have new versions of these apps. Got to.

01:22:48   Well, but I mean, you could say that about a lot of things that they don't have new versions

01:22:53   for.

01:22:53   Right. There's a lot of things that have to be there.

01:22:54   You could say that on the Mac for a while. But again, you're right though, that it's

01:22:59   like more in your face there, that it's old. Like I said, on the Mac, you don't really

01:23:02   notice day-to-day use on iOS 7, you really do notice when things are not updated.

01:23:08   Yeah. And there's other little things, too, like that... So they... And I've seen people...

01:23:15   Some people have written to me about the fact that iOS 6 apps get these old UI controls.

01:23:22   Why not give them the new keyboard? Why do they make them have an ugly keyboard? And

01:23:28   I'm not sure how much of that is technical about what version of the SDK apps are compiled

01:23:32   against and what they can expect and how much of it is, well, they actually do kind of want

01:23:38   to make your apps look dated because they want you to, you know, they want that gentle

01:23:44   pressure to update and recompile and redesign for iOS 7.

01:23:48   I don't think it's necessarily that. I think if you consider what an app would look like

01:23:53   it had like half iOS 7 style stuff and half iOS 6 style stuff it would look bad

01:24:00   and it would have potentially big problems and so I think they just did it

01:24:05   this way because an app that has elements of both mixed in haphazardly

01:24:10   is a way worse situation for everybody involved and then just making it look

01:24:14   like a good like just making it look exactly like it did on iOS 6 and there

01:24:18   are some things that are updated like UI Alert is new everywhere although you get

01:24:24   a different tap-down color you get like that bright blue color when you're

01:24:27   running a non updated app. And some of the things too like the the male compose

01:24:31   sheet you can call up from an action sheet that's newer right seven you know

01:24:35   but but still yeah most of it is iOS 6 style when you're running an old app and

01:24:39   I think it's I think it's just because it would just break so many things if

01:24:43   if they tried to mix in more elements of 7 into the UI.

01:24:47   This is a complete utter digression

01:24:49   from talking about next week's event, but it wouldn't

01:24:51   be an episode of the talk show with a long parenthetical

01:24:55   digression.

01:24:58   Guy English and I last week had spent some of the time

01:25:01   on the show talking about the people holding out and not--

01:25:04   willfully not upgrading to iOS 7.

01:25:08   And how many are there?

01:25:09   Is it going to be bigger this year?

01:25:11   Yes, we did see another huge first week upgrade to iOS 7.

01:25:16   And at one point it was tracking faster

01:25:20   than iOS 6 did as updates.

01:25:22   But maybe there will be,

01:25:23   because the changes are so different

01:25:25   and some people feel so strongly about them,

01:25:27   maybe there will be a bigger contingent this time

01:25:29   that holds on.

01:25:31   More or less what we talked about.

01:25:32   One thing we didn't talk about,

01:25:34   and I guess I don't think it just didn't occur to us,

01:25:36   but a bunch of people wrote to me and said,

01:25:39   Here's why I'm staying with iOS 6.

01:25:41   My phone is jailbroken, and I wanna keep it jailbroken

01:25:45   for reasons X, Y, Z.

01:25:47   And a lot of the people who wrote to me

01:25:48   have perfectly valid reasons.

01:25:50   Some people, it's because they live in a country

01:25:53   or something where you need a jailbroken phone

01:25:55   to get it on the network you want it on

01:25:56   or something like that.

01:25:58   But the thing is is that iOS 7 has not yet been jailbroken.

01:26:02   - Really, I didn't realize that.

01:26:04   I don't pay that much attention to it,

01:26:05   but that surprises me.

01:26:07   - 'Cause I don't jailbreak,

01:26:08   I don't really care about it. I just don't have strong feelings about it. I I hadn't really thought about that

01:26:14   but once the readers pointed it out to me, I realized that I I

01:26:18   hadn't seen the

01:26:21   Holy cow iOS 7 is jailbroken day on tech meme yet

01:26:25   Which you know every every previous year it's always been presented as you know

01:26:30   You know some kind of scandal that that the iPhone new version of iOS has been jailbroken

01:26:36   Jailbreaking is always a lot more popular than people like us think it is. Oh, I definitely know that

01:26:43   Definitely well, you know and I think in that you know and I even had I know that it's true

01:26:48   But I know that I always lapse into forgetting that it's true. Just like on last week's show right right

01:26:54   Right like I I it wouldn't surprise me at all if a sizable chunk

01:26:59   What is iOS 7 at now like 70% or something? I think it's somewhere around there

01:27:05   It wouldn't surprise me at all if like 15% of that like 15% total

01:27:09   Was jailbroken and that's why those people are holding out that would not surprise me at all

01:27:13   because it's really very popular especially in you know certain parts of the world really almost everyone's jailbroken and

01:27:19   certain communities of like certain kinds of nerds and and certain kinds of

01:27:24   People with certain needs or people who want like a tethering hack or something like that. Like it's very very popular

01:27:31   Yeah, and so yeah, that wouldn't surprise me at all if that was a big chunk of it

01:27:35   I didn't even realize that it wasn't job working it because they've gotten so fast at it generally with new releases, right?

01:27:40   it always pops up whenever there's a

01:27:43   Like a game developer and you know, I think because it's I think jailbreaking clearly skews younger, you know

01:27:50   It's like a teenager and 20s type thing. I think just in broad terms

01:27:54   I mean, I'm sure that there's people of every age who jailbreak for whatever reason but you know, it's a hacker type thing

01:27:59   And so, games are popular. And one of the big things with jailbreaking is it becomes

01:28:07   possible to pirate iOS games. And whenever developers release numbers, developers have

01:28:12   like an online part of the game so they can see how many users they have. They end up

01:28:17   with these user numbers that are way higher than the paid number of apps that they've

01:28:23   sold.

01:28:24   Oh yeah, I mean even, like I had, when I was running Instapaper, I had integrated Crashlytics,

01:28:30   which is this crash tracking thing, and they, in their analytics, they will tell you for

01:28:35   each crash what percentage of the people who had that crash are jailbroken, because they

01:28:40   just try to detect that, which is useful to know.

01:28:43   So I had this one crash that was affecting, like, a nice, like, even slice of the market.

01:28:49   Like, it wasn't just affecting a certain edge case, it was affecting, like, you know,

01:28:53   tenth person or something like that every so often. So it was a nice, fair, random slice

01:28:57   of the user base. And it was something like 20% jailbroken. And certainly Instapaper's

01:29:03   user base is probably more geeky than the average, but not by as much as you'd think.

01:29:07   And that's an incredible number for a non-game app that is pretty widespread and isn't

01:29:16   nerds or isn't all people in a certain country. That's really incredible.

01:29:23   So I wonder with iOS 7 not yet being jailbroken, is it just the luck of the draw? You know,

01:29:29   like, I mean, the way that these jailbreaks work, my, you know, layman's understanding

01:29:33   is, you know, the jailbreak community looks for or hoards even exploits where they can

01:29:39   get code to run. And then once they can get code to run through some sort of exploit in

01:29:44   the OS, they know the certain, you know, paths that they can take and which files to modify

01:29:51   in the system to, you know, defeat the aspects of the OS that, you know, that jailbreaking

01:29:59   is meant to defeat.

01:30:01   Is it just the fact--and those bugs are so hard to find, and I'm sure that they're harder,

01:30:05   you know, as the years have gone on and Apple's added more security features, you know, randomizing

01:30:12   memory locations and stuff like that, that it's just gotten harder to defeat?

01:30:18   Or maybe, has Apple done something specifically with the design of iOS specifically to make

01:30:24   it harder to jailbreak?

01:30:27   It's always been very unclear to me just how strongly Apple feels at the executive level

01:30:32   about jailbreaking and how much they should bother to sort of try to defeat it.

01:30:38   You should get Grandpa on here.

01:30:41   he would be able to talk about that in a more qualified way.

01:30:43   - Oh, obviously, 'cause he's actually like a wizard

01:30:46   in the community.

01:30:47   - Yeah, he was on some show.

01:30:48   It wasn't yours though, was it?

01:30:49   He was on a show I heard six months ago.

01:30:51   It was really good.

01:30:52   I think it might have been debug.

01:30:53   Yeah, you should get him on here.

01:30:55   But yeah, I'm curious about that too.

01:30:57   But ultimately, so there's jail breakers

01:31:00   and that's a whole thing.

01:31:01   I think a lot of people, I saw my mom today

01:31:04   and she has the free iPhone 4,

01:31:06   which I told her not to buy, but she bought it anyway,

01:31:09   like six months ago recently.

01:31:11   Why did she ask?

01:31:12   That's the thing when your parents go against you.

01:31:14   I don't know.

01:31:14   Why did you ask me?

01:31:16   She said she was thinking about getting an iPhone.

01:31:18   And I said, all right, whatever you do, don't get the free one.

01:31:21   Get the one that's $100 if you want, like the 4S.

01:31:23   At least get that one.

01:31:24   And I showed her.

01:31:25   She was at my house.

01:31:25   I showed her all three.

01:31:26   I have my drawer full of old iPhones.

01:31:28   I'm like, here's the three phones that are available right now.

01:31:32   Don't get this one.

01:31:33   This one's $100.

01:31:34   This one's $200.

01:31:35   I'll even buy the $100 one for you if you want.

01:31:38   just don't get the free one.

01:31:39   And then she goes a few weeks later,

01:31:41   not even telling me, and just gets the free one.

01:31:44   Anyway, so she had seen the things

01:31:48   on the news about motion sickness.

01:31:49   And she said one friend on Facebook

01:31:51   said that he had to restore his phone

01:31:53   and wiped everything out.

01:31:54   And I don't know if that's true.

01:31:55   I have no idea.

01:31:56   It doesn't really matter.

01:31:58   She was scared by the media into not upgrading.

01:32:00   So she's like, I'm going to hold on to this iOS 6 phone

01:32:02   forever.

01:32:03   And I had to explain to her, you know, mom, first of all,

01:32:06   All the things you've heard are overblown and not really a problem.

01:32:11   Second of all, every time Apple releases anything new, you're going to see all these crazy

01:32:15   news reports about it because that's how people make money in the media.

01:32:18   Third, you can't hold onto the old version forever.

01:32:22   Like there's going to be a point, and I did a whole episode of Build and Analyze about

01:32:26   this forever ago, like it's really hard to be like a member of modern computing society

01:32:31   in any way and hold onto a really old version of something forever, especially in the world

01:32:35   of Apple.

01:32:36   - You can hold on for a year pretty easily.

01:32:38   - Maybe, yeah, but if that phone ever gets damaged

01:32:43   and has to be replaced, or if the screen fails,

01:32:46   or the home button fails, like it did sometimes on the 4,

01:32:49   if there's any failure that requires replacement,

01:32:53   or if you ever need to do a fresh install,

01:32:57   I think you can do a fresh install

01:32:58   of the same version you have, but worst case scenario,

01:33:03   when this phone is no longer that useful

01:33:05   the battery is terrible in two years and you buy a new one because it's free, any new phone

01:33:11   you get is going to have the new OS. So you can't really hold on to an old version for

01:33:16   very long. In the grand scheme of things, that's just going to get harder and harder

01:33:21   to do, and at some point you're going to be forced to upgrade, and you're going to realize,

01:33:25   "Oh, okay, it's not that bad, and actually it's kind of nice in all these ways, and actually

01:33:29   I kind of like it." That's always how it goes.

01:33:33   Did you ever run into any problems with Instapaper or even the magazine app when you were running

01:33:39   that where you had crashing bugs that only affected or seemingly disproportionately affected

01:33:45   jailbreak users?

01:33:48   Not really.

01:33:49   Usually the problem where you hit that, usually the problem was, especially with the older

01:33:53   devices that didn't have a lot of RAM, some of the jailbreak tools would stay resident

01:33:57   in memory and would take up more RAM than an unjailbroken device would have, so you'd

01:34:02   have less RAM available.

01:34:03   And on iOS, there's no paging out to a page file

01:34:08   or a swap file.

01:34:09   It doesn't do that.

01:34:10   You know, in iOS, if you ask for a certain amount of RAM,

01:34:12   you don't get it.

01:34:13   You know, tough shit.

01:34:14   And you probably didn't accommodate for that.

01:34:17   You'll probably crash.

01:34:18   Instead of getting the memory back,

01:34:19   you're just going to get the nope.

01:34:21   Exactly.

01:34:22   Exactly.

01:34:23   Or iOS will say, oh, low memory warning.

01:34:26   You better use less.

01:34:27   And you're like, I can't.

01:34:28   And then they kill you.

01:34:30   So that's usually the problem with jailbreak stuff,

01:34:33   is not that it necessarily interferes

01:34:35   with things your code is doing, but it takes up so much RAM

01:34:39   that your app doesn't have enough space to run

01:34:42   and gets killed.

01:34:43   And it's hard to test for that, and it's kind of hard

01:34:46   to avoid that.

01:34:47   Instapaper and the magazine never really used enough RAM

01:34:50   for that to be a problem.

01:34:51   It's more of a problem for games and really heavy productivity

01:34:54   apps.

01:34:54   Yeah, I think the memory thing is probably

01:34:57   one of the main issues.

01:34:58   Because I think that they diddle with so little that it doesn't make it more likely you're

01:35:05   going to crash.

01:35:06   As opposed to—and this might be predating your time on the Mac, but when Mac OS X first

01:35:11   came out, people ran these hacksies.

01:35:15   That's actually what they were called, H-A-X-I-E from Unsanity.

01:35:20   And there were other people, too.

01:35:21   People used to run these—what were they?

01:35:23   Symbol plug-ins, S-I-M-B-L-E.

01:35:24   It was a—

01:35:25   Oh, yeah.

01:35:26   I got some of those.

01:35:27   Yeah.

01:35:28   I guess people still use them, but they were a lot more common in the first five six years of Mac OS 10

01:35:34   And I think they are now, but if you were a Mac developer

01:35:37   You inevitably you'd get crashes

01:35:41   You know some of these things would just make your app crash and your app would never

01:35:45   You'd never see this crash unless you had like this specific

01:35:49   Haxi or symbol plug-in in the stack trace that you got with the bug report all of them were there and the question is what?

01:35:56   do you do? Do you support that? Do you work around it? Like at bare bones, they didn't.

01:36:02   I'm pretty 99% sure they still don't. They'll be polite about it, but the response from

01:36:07   support is that we can't support third party extensions that modify the system itself.

01:36:15   Some people would—

01:36:16   I don't really think you have a good alternative there as a software company. I think that's

01:36:19   pretty much what you have to say. You can make some effort to be like, "All right,

01:36:22   If you send me the crash log, if there's like an obvious easy way that we can work around

01:36:26   this, we'll try, you know, but in reality it's pretty hard to support that kind of stuff.

01:36:30   Right.

01:36:31   And from the user's perspective, they just want that one.

01:36:33   They just want you to support that one system hack.

01:36:36   And why can't you just support that one?

01:36:38   The problem is, from the developer's perspective, it becomes an infinite array of platforms

01:36:43   that you support.

01:36:44   It's the one guy has the one extension and the other.

01:36:46   The other guy has this one and that one.

01:36:49   you've got to test it, you know, and sometimes to reproduce it, you've got to have that exact

01:36:54   configuration.

01:36:55   And then like when 10.n+1 comes out and all these extensions change the way they interact

01:37:01   with things because something changed, then you've got to test it for all those versions

01:37:04   too.

01:37:05   So I don't think jailbreaking is a support problem that way. I think the memory is. But

01:37:09   I do know that there are developers who detect it or try to detect jailbreaking. You know,

01:37:16   know, there's various ways to take a guess. And then if they do, they won't give you support

01:37:21   because they just don't want to support people. They don't want to spend tech support resources

01:37:26   on people who pirated the app.

01:37:29   - You know, I thought about doing things like that, but the problem is, as you said earlier,

01:37:34   like there's a lot of fairly legitimate reasons why somebody would jailbreak you. One of the

01:37:41   biggest being the phone's not available in their country

01:37:44   or on their carrier of their choice.

01:37:46   And usually for me the second biggest being

01:37:50   tethering hacks, which I guess you could argue

01:37:51   whether that's legitimate or not,

01:37:53   people trying to get tethering for free.

01:37:54   Okay, but so not every jail breaker is doing it

01:37:58   quote, "optionally" in their mind at least.

01:38:03   In fact, probably none of them are.

01:38:06   So it's hard morally and customer satisfaction-wise,

01:38:10   hard to say, "I'm just not going to support Jailbreakers," because in their minds, that's

01:38:17   a pretty inflammatory view, and you're going to hear about it. They could still one-star

01:38:22   you, and they could still trash you in public or something. It's not a great situation to

01:38:28   put yourself in if you don't really need to.

01:38:30   Even if it's not like... I'm pretty familiar with the Vesper reviews. Every developer knows

01:38:37   what they're doing.

01:38:38   You read your reviews?

01:38:39   I did for a while. I haven't looked in a while. I looked at the first we have good reviews though because we're paid app if

01:38:44   We were if we were free we would not

01:38:46   That's true, but every once in a while

01:38:48   I see him more often when I'm actually looking and thinking about buying an app and I'll say well

01:38:52   What are the reviews and you can always tell that you know?

01:38:54   It's all lowercase or else all uppercase and even before you start reading you can just see

01:39:01   like sometimes you can just see how poorly punctuated a

01:39:04   comment is, you know, and you just know to skip it. And they'll say stuff like, "Crashes

01:39:09   all the time." And you just know that if it crashes all the time for you, but not for

01:39:13   everybody, there's, you know, there's a chance that the problem is your device.

01:39:17   Yeah, it's tough. It's... And the other problem is sometimes apps really do crash all the

01:39:25   time because sometimes, like, the developer didn't test on, like, an iPad 1 or an iPad...

01:39:31   The iPad 3 is actually very hard to support because it could handle retina but just barely

01:39:35   and the CPUs were slow.

01:39:41   There are these handful of devices that are way more likely that you're going to run out

01:39:46   of memory on one of them or hit one of the timeout killers.

01:39:50   If you take too long to launch, Springboard will just terminate your app and crash it

01:39:54   out.

01:39:55   So if you do a lot on startup or even if you don't do a lot on everyone's startup, but

01:39:59   Let's say someone has a lot of data in your app.

01:40:02   Maybe you'll have to do a lot on the startup.

01:40:04   And then maybe on the lowest end device

01:40:07   that it will run on, like a 3GS, maybe it will take too long

01:40:11   and crash.

01:40:13   And developers don't usually test those kind of edge cases.

01:40:16   App review doesn't test those kind of edge cases.

01:40:18   So a lot of times, that really is legitimate.

01:40:21   Right.

01:40:22   And something that maybe only comes up on the low end device,

01:40:25   you don't test for it.

01:40:26   Maybe you test for the extreme data set,

01:40:28   but you're testing on your phone, which is a 5S, and it's way faster than the 4, which

01:40:33   is where the springboard is reaping the process.

01:40:37   Exactly.

01:40:38   All right. A little bit more. I'll get back to our last thoughts on what we might see

01:40:44   next week. But let me do the third sponsor.

01:40:46   Yep.

01:40:47   It's our good friends at Audible. They're the leading provider of downloadable audio

01:40:53   books and they have a special offer extensive exclusively for our listeners

01:40:59   audible offers a hundred thousand books covering virtually every genre now I

01:41:03   just heard today on your show that they have a hundred and fifty thousand books

01:41:06   I think they gave me bad data here yeah they told me a couple of months ago I

01:41:10   could almost do this ad read it from memory they told me a couple of months

01:41:13   ago to to update the number to 150 that they had they had finally crossed that

01:41:18   barrier and you know they wanted me to put that in they have a lot of books if

01:41:22   If you want to listen to a book, Audible has it.

01:41:24   Listen to audiobooks anytime, anywhere.

01:41:26   - I don't even know that there were

01:41:27   that many audiobooks being produced.

01:41:29   Like, it always seemed like when you go to the library,

01:41:31   well, you know, back in the Stone Ages,

01:41:33   there'd be like, you know, 30 of them, maybe.

01:41:35   - It's a lot. - But they found all of them.

01:41:37   - Yeah.

01:41:38   You can listen to them on your iPhone,

01:41:41   your iPad, computers, Kindles.

01:41:43   They're just MP3 audio files, or AAC, or whatever,

01:41:48   but you could play them on your iPad.

01:41:49   You could have an iPod classic listen to the audiobook there.

01:41:53   Anywhere where you think you could play downloadable audio, you can play an audible book.

01:41:57   Here's the best part.

01:41:59   They've got an offer for talk show listeners to get a free audiobook and a 30-day trial.

01:42:04   You go to www.audiblepodcast.com/talkshow to take advantage of this special offer.

01:42:18   By doing so, you get the chance to check out a great service and you support our show at

01:42:23   all as well because they know you're coming from the show when you use that code to go

01:42:27   there and get the deal.

01:42:30   They always like us to offer.

01:42:31   Every time they sponsor the show, they want a book recommendation.

01:42:35   So I don't know.

01:42:36   I didn't know what to suggest.

01:42:37   I'm never sure.

01:42:38   I read books, but I don't know what to suggest.

01:42:40   But I thought of one.

01:42:43   Here's one that I thought.

01:42:44   And I know they have it.

01:42:46   Stephen King is a sequel to The Shining.

01:42:49   I haven't read The Shining since I was sometime in high school or junior high.

01:42:55   Obviously, famously, I'm a big fan of the movie.

01:42:58   But he has a sequel out to The Shining where little young Danny from The Shining is now

01:43:05   tracked in real life and is now a 40-year-old man.

01:43:11   In hindsight, I never really thought about it, but Danny in the real world is roughly

01:43:15   my age.

01:43:16   was about my age when The Shining came out and now in this new sequel, Doctor Sleep,

01:43:20   he's still my age. So there's actually two recommendations, The Shining and Doctor Sleep.

01:43:27   I haven't read Doctor Sleep yet, but I'm going to. And the reason why I'm suggesting it is

01:43:33   that Stephen King, as he makes the publicity rounds for Doctor Sleep, has reopened his

01:43:41   beef with Kubrick's adaptation of the movie. He was never a fan. And apparently, he used

01:43:49   to badmouth it all the time when it first came out. And then apparently, I guess what

01:43:52   happened is that when he re-secured the film rights to the book so that he could make the

01:43:59   god-awful ABC miniseries, like in the 90s, which was his vision for a movie of The Shining,

01:44:08   like legally agreed to it or just like gentleman's handshake agreed to just

01:44:12   stop talking about Kubrick's version but now with this doctor sleep promotional

01:44:16   tour he's he's opened it up again I'm thinking about a show sometime in the

01:44:24   next few weeks where maybe I'll have somebody on and talk about this whole

01:44:27   thing and about like the obligations of you know what what are the obligations

01:44:32   for a movie adept adapted from a book to sort of stay true to the material and

01:44:36   and that sort of thing.

01:44:39   But I think it would help.

01:44:40   In the meantime, before I do it, though--

01:44:42   I mean, I know the movie, like the back of my hand,

01:44:44   but I feel like I should reread the book and maybe read the sequel, too,

01:44:49   even though the sequel is, I guess, somewhat irrelevant.

01:44:51   But why not, if I'm on a roll?

01:44:53   Because I'd like to reread the original book before I read the sequel anyway.

01:44:57   So there you go.

01:44:58   If you want to be ready for that, ready for that discussion on the talk show

01:45:01   sometime, I don't know, before the end of the year,

01:45:04   you could do it by listening to the audio book. Audible has both. They have both The Shining and

01:45:09   they have the new Doctor Sleep. So my thanks to them. And again, the URL is www.audiblepodcast.com/talkshow.

01:45:20   Jared Ranerelle You know, in addition to podcasting, it's kind of hard to think of a medium

01:45:25   that has taken more advantage of variable bit rate encoding than audio books. Because he's figured,

01:45:30   like back in the old days when you couldn't make like a lower bit rate cassette that would

01:45:35   play longer.

01:45:36   Right.

01:45:37   So you'd have like these audio books where you'd have to, they'd all be abridged, and

01:45:39   you'd have to get like the binder of like 14 cassettes out of the library.

01:45:46   Well, on your show this week, you guys had Audible, I mean this is a coincidence, I mean

01:45:50   this is not, I certainly didn't ask you to be on the show because we both had Audible

01:45:54   as a sponsor, but I mean all of our shows have a lot of it.

01:45:56   That would be a pretty weak reason.

01:45:59   But on your show, John Siracusa recommended a book, and his book was an unabridged, thousand-page

01:46:05   book, and it was 66 hours.

01:46:08   And confirm...

01:46:09   I mean, this is like totally true.

01:46:11   That was not a joke.

01:46:12   Like, it's actually 66 hours.

01:46:15   So if you bought that on cassette tape, even if you got...

01:46:18   I think the biggest tapes were 120 in that era?

01:46:22   Neat.

01:46:23   Or 90 even.

01:46:24   90 was big.

01:46:25   think they might have had some 120s, but I think the 120s would gum up some of the tape

01:46:29   players.

01:46:30   Yeah, if the tape was really thin to fit that much in there.

01:46:33   But even if you did get it onto 120-minute cassettes, you're still talking about 33 cassette

01:46:38   tapes. And if it was 60-minute tapes, it would be 66 cassettes.

01:46:42   Yeah, that's...

01:46:44   I mean, it would have to come with a free...

01:46:47   It'd be like an encyclopedia. Like a big encyclopedia set.

01:46:51   Well, you see, this is what this is. I'm sure this is way, way before your time.

01:46:55   You're too young. But like when I was in high school and we all had cassette

01:46:58   tapes, like we'd all had like these briefcases where you would keep your

01:47:02   tapes, you know, and you could like take the briefcase in your car. You'd have to...

01:47:06   So there was a cassette version of the CD binder? Yes, yeah, but it was a briefcase.

01:47:11   It was more like a briefcase looking thing where you'd unclasp it and then

01:47:16   they'd be in there, sort of like a shelf almost.

01:47:23   That's amazing.

01:47:24   Yeah. But anyway, go listen to Audible. I've always thought that was a great match. I've

01:47:31   heard Audible sponsoring podcasts ever since before I even had a podcast, but it's such

01:47:36   a natural fit. I don't think there's anybody who's ever been a more natural fit because

01:47:39   the only people who hear the ad are people who are listening to spoken word audio material.

01:47:45   It's almost like you're advertising for a competitor.

01:47:49   I've thought of that too, but what I have come to realize from feedback from listeners

01:47:54   of the show is that the show, I don't do enough shows.

01:47:58   The people who listen to the podcast the most have so much time that they need to fill or

01:48:03   want to fill, whether it's a long commute or whatever.

01:48:08   Maybe they listen to podcasts while they work.

01:48:09   Whatever it is, they can't get enough.

01:48:12   - Yeah, most people either listen to no podcasts

01:48:15   or a lot of podcasts.

01:48:16   - Like none, one, or a lot.

01:48:19   - Yeah, exactly.

01:48:21   - What else?

01:48:22   Do you think they're gonna do anything

01:48:22   with Apple TV next week?

01:48:23   - I doubt it.

01:48:25   I don't know.

01:48:26   I mean, it's possible, but I really doubt it.

01:48:28   It's certainly like a TV set.

01:48:29   I don't see that happening, possibly ever.

01:48:32   But even with the Apple TV box,

01:48:34   I mean, the figures did a big software update.

01:48:36   I don't think we're gonna see new hardware.

01:48:39   I don't think there's much of a reason.

01:48:41   For what the box does today, I don't think there's a whole lot of motivation to have

01:48:46   a hardware update.

01:48:47   Yeah, I don't either.

01:48:48   I think that the next one might be a year out or two years out, but at some point when

01:48:54   they can put like an A7 into a $99 iPad TV box, and then maybe you'll have something

01:49:02   that could really be different.

01:49:04   Yeah, I don't know.

01:49:06   Maybe it's just me being weird, but I don't see the TV market as this massively exciting

01:49:11   thing for Apple. I think they're already in it a little bit with the Apple TV as we know

01:49:16   it today. I don't think there's a massive amount more that they're likely to actually

01:49:22   do and succeed at.

01:49:23   I don't think so either.

01:49:24   It's just such a messy market with so many entrenched interests and it's so hard to penetrate

01:49:31   that wall and get anywhere useful. I don't really see it happening. And it's such a weird

01:49:38   market too in the way that, you know, the reason why I don't expect them to make a TV

01:49:42   set because how often do you upgrade your TV set and what's the margin on that? Like,

01:49:48   it's not, you upgrade it like every, you know, five to ten years maybe and like it's different

01:49:55   like with phones and iPads and computers where like you can buy a new one every couple years

01:49:59   or even with phones like every year and it doesn't feel ridiculous or wasteful. If you

01:50:04   buying a new TV every year, you'd feel like a dick. You have to take this, like where

01:50:09   are you going to put the old one? You got to get rid of it. It's a big, I don't know.

01:50:13   It just feels more wasteful when the things are that big and that expensive to just go

01:50:18   through them every year. I don't see the business being that profitable in selling the TV.

01:50:25   Dave: I think that I wouldn't be surprised if, and I've said this before, if Apple's

01:50:31   Apple TV strategy is write what we see in front of us.

01:50:35   - Yeah, I think you're right.

01:50:37   - It's this $99 thing.

01:50:38   They gotta have a better remote eventually,

01:50:40   some kind of Bluetooth type thing.

01:50:41   But a couple of channels, maybe no App Store.

01:50:46   I'm not quite sure whether letting anybody write a channel

01:50:51   for it makes sense, but it would be mostly

01:50:55   for just for video content.

01:50:57   - Yeah, I don't think an App Store makes sense today

01:50:59   with the input method.

01:51:01   Obviously, and you've had shows about this,

01:51:02   I'm not gonna get too far into this,

01:51:04   obviously if they were like,

01:51:07   if they were to release a game controller for it,

01:51:10   that would be a little bit different maybe,

01:51:12   but I don't see them really having a ton of interest

01:51:14   in that market even.

01:51:15   I think you're right.

01:51:16   I think what we see today is what they plan to do

01:51:20   for the foreseeable future.

01:51:22   Maybe they wanna break into the game market

01:51:25   in a couple years more aggressively,

01:51:27   but I think they already have with the iOS devices.

01:51:30   Like I don't see that even being relevant.

01:51:32   Like who cares about the console game market

01:51:34   when they're dominating handheld games and casual games?

01:51:37   - Yeah, and I think that they're selling

01:51:39   and renting a ton of movies and TV shows.

01:51:42   Obviously it could be a lot more,

01:51:44   but the only way to get to a lot more

01:51:46   would be to somehow break the cable TV monopoly.

01:51:50   And that's just not gonna, it's just too complex an issue.

01:51:56   And that might also cause them trouble

01:51:59   in their content business.

01:52:00   Like, it would make them a lot more enemies.

01:52:03   And many of those enemies, like the cable companies,

01:52:06   also own TV networks or production companies.

01:52:09   And that would be a problem for their content business.

01:52:12   But it's another example of Apple's incremental approach

01:52:16   to improving products that I think

01:52:18   gets overlooked because people keep waiting

01:52:20   for this spectacular, amazing, this

01:52:22   is from 25 years in the future, wow moment,

01:52:26   Whereas if you compared today's Apple TV against an Apple TV from like four years ago, it's

01:52:30   amazingly better.

01:52:32   And it has things like HBO.

01:52:33   And yes, you only get the HBO if you sign up for HBO on your cable contract or whatever.

01:52:39   But there's no way Apple can't solve that on their own.

01:52:41   If HBO says we can do it, but only if we ensure that the person has cable TV HBO, then, you

01:52:47   know, what's Apple going to do?

01:52:49   They can't go around them.

01:52:50   But now we have it, you can get HBO on your Apple TV.

01:52:53   There's also a lot of room for improvement just doing the same feature set they're

01:52:57   doing now. Like, you know, as I said, if they improved text input, so when you're searching

01:53:02   for a show, you can do anything besides that stupid way to do it, or pairing your iOS device

01:53:09   and trying to use the remote app, which is clunky at best.

01:53:12   And they can make it easier to scrub video. You know, go a little forward and a little

01:53:15   back.

01:53:16   There's so much, and also, you know, things like if they would, and this is questionable

01:53:20   with business priorities, but if they would ever have a universal search where I can search

01:53:24   one place and it would search iTunes and Netflix and, you know, if you're a member of Hulu,

01:53:29   search that, stuff like that, you know, like that.

01:53:31   Search everything that you're signed up for.

01:53:33   Right, because otherwise, you know, people are doing this, now they're already going

01:53:37   and typing in the same thing into Netflix and then if they don't see it on Netflix,

01:53:40   then they'll go to the iTunes. Like, people already do this and it sucks, so maybe, this

01:53:45   is wishful thinking, maybe they would someday have a universal search, but, you know, so

01:53:49   You can look at the problem set as it exists today without adding any major new capabilities.

01:53:54   You can say there's still a lot of room for improvement here in both hardware and software.

01:53:57   You're right. I think this is what we're going to have for a while.

01:54:01   Dave: Yeah, I think so too. I have two other things on my list. I know the show has been

01:54:06   long. We'll just try to get through these quickly.

01:54:07   Tim: See, I love how your show is unapologetically long.

01:54:10   Dave; I really thought last week's with Guy was going to be short. There was a funny thing

01:54:16   where Amy and Paul's Just the Tip ended with Amy saying to Paul, "We don't have

01:54:26   anything going on." The first thing I said to Guy in the cold opening of last week's

01:54:33   The Talk Show was me saying, "I don't think there's much going on."

01:54:36   Steven: Yeah, that was pretty great. They were released like Just the Tip was released

01:54:40   shortly before the talk show. If you had them both in a playlist, it would go one way or

01:54:44   the other. Like it was perfect. I heard it that way like organically. It was. And it

01:54:48   everybody thought we planned it but I don't know. You know it was I don't even

01:54:53   I didn't even know where our show opened. Like you know I don't edit the show.

01:54:57   Caleb Sexton does and he does a great job of it. But he'll be he picks a good

01:55:01   part in the entry to do it. But but Paul and Amy edit their own show. So they and

01:55:07   I didn't listen to it in advance. So it was truly just a coincidence but it was

01:55:13   very funny forget where I was going with that oh I was gonna say that I thought

01:55:18   last week's show with guy was gonna be short because I really didn't think we

01:55:20   had a lot going on well but it was what's good about about your show you

01:55:26   know being long is like you know you a show like twit which is boring as hell

01:55:31   like you don't want that to go long sorry if you like that show anyone you

01:55:35   know you don't you don't want the shows like that to go like two hours and

01:55:39   especially because they often do, but you know like when your show with Guy ended I

01:55:46   was like oh man I wish there was a little bit more of this discussion still happening.

01:55:50   Like it's all about whether you want more of it or not. Like whether you noticed that

01:55:54   it's been two hours.

01:55:55   And it's been a while since I've gotten a complaint about the length of the show.

01:55:58   Right, like for a good show like what you know once you blow past the cellular download

01:56:03   limit which we're way past you know what once you blow past that then who cares that you

01:56:08   You know, then that's the only complaint that's really valid for like show links besides it

01:56:12   being boring.

01:56:13   And so, you know, if people are liking what you're saying, keep going.

01:56:16   You know, one thing, I have a third thing I want to say.

01:56:19   And this is a couple of them from your show, the ATP.

01:56:22   I'm going to call it ATP because I find accidental tech podcasts to be a mouthful.

01:56:27   Yeah, it's fine.

01:56:30   It makes me realize that, I mean, I try to do a show every week, but I end up not.

01:56:35   I tend to back in my head I think I miss a couple weeks a year but then I

01:56:38   realized I got a one year anniversary I was only at like episode

01:56:41   forty I was like oh shit

01:56:44   it's not even close to fifty two

01:56:47   you guys are you guys are like catching up to to this show in episode numbers

01:56:52   like on this run of the talk show

01:56:57   I'm at this the episode you and I are recording as we speak is episode fifty

01:57:01   seven

01:57:04   And you guys at ATP are already at 37.

01:57:06   And I still think of ATP--

01:57:07   Well, no, last night we recorded 35.

01:57:09   35.

01:57:10   All right, well, you're close.

01:57:11   But it's spitting distance.

01:57:14   And I still think of your show as brand new.

01:57:16   I still think of the car show you had before that ATP

01:57:19   spilled out of as being kind of new.

01:57:21   Right, that was in February.

01:57:23   I mean, it is brand new.

01:57:24   We're all the kind of nerd that never missed a day of school.

01:57:29   But that's amazing to me.

01:57:31   I can't believe--

01:57:32   I still think of ATP as being brand new. I can't believe you guys are at episode 35 already.

01:57:37   - Neither can I. It is brand new. I mean, we just started it. The first episode of ATP,

01:57:41   I think, was in March. I mean, it was not that long ago. But yeah, it's going great.

01:57:48   It's going fantastically. Our numbers are fantastic. It has gotten popular very quickly,

01:57:53   way more than I thought. And what's funny is, all the reviews are pretty much the same. The reviews

01:57:58   are like, "I'm an arrogant asshole. Who the hell is Casey?" But John Siracusa is

01:58:03   amazing. Everyone loves John. No one has a complaint about him, ever. It's pretty comical.

01:58:11   I remember an episode from a couple weeks ago where Casey was—wasn't he reading

01:58:16   some of the bad reviews about Casey?

01:58:19   Yeah.

01:58:20   I think he called it "Doing a Groover." I remember. I was like—and that's always

01:58:23   a little bit of a jolt when I'm mentioned on some other show. Anyway, the thing on this

01:58:29   week's show, I even wrote about it on During Fireball today. It was a bit about Syrian

01:58:35   latency and it all came from a bit on your show where Casey mentioned that on this week's

01:58:38   or last week's episode of the Agents From Shield show or whatever it's called, the Marvel

01:58:47   Universe show that doesn't actually have superheroes on ABC.

01:58:49   Yeah, you're asking the wrong person.

01:58:51   What?

01:58:52   You're asking the wrong person.

01:58:53   Well, whatever.

01:58:55   It's the shield show.

01:58:57   Not to be confused, I guess, with the shit show.

01:58:59   But there was a joke on the show that somebody

01:59:05   said it had other agents whispering in their ear

01:59:08   through an earpiece or something.

01:59:09   And the agent was giving them information

01:59:12   about what they were seeing.

01:59:13   And it was like, this would be like, if Siri worked,

01:59:15   this is awesome.

01:59:16   Some kind of joke like that.

01:59:17   And Casey observed, isn't that interesting

01:59:19   that on national network TV shows, Siri is the butt of jokes, that people even know enough

01:59:24   to get the joke. And you know, went on from there and it was just more or less a really

01:59:32   great discussion of why doesn't, why can't Apple get something like Siri to work really

01:59:36   good and really fast? Like let's say the way that they, you know, online stuff they don't

01:59:41   do that well. On device stuff, they're great at, like for example, Touch ID. Touch ID is

01:59:46   like a perfect Apple thing where yes, it's not the first cell phone that shipped with

01:59:50   a fingerprint scanner. There were a couple others and they all sucked and everybody hated

01:59:54   them and they were terrible. And they took long and they were finicky and you had to

01:59:57   do funny things like roll your finger. And Touch ID, just put your finger on and then

02:00:02   it works. They're great at that but why can't they get better at online stuff? And the thing

02:00:08   I didn't write about today though is comparing them to Google. It's a funny inverse because

02:00:16   Because on the other hand, Google gets that online latency and accuracy.

02:00:20   It's just ingrained in their culture.

02:00:22   It's the whole thing that they started with,

02:00:24   is that they're going to give you accurate search results really fast.

02:00:28   But on Android, the touch latency has always been terrible.

02:00:34   >> Yeah, you're definitely going to hear about that.

02:00:39   >> You think I'm going to hear it?

02:00:41   Hear about it how?

02:00:42   Well, every release of Android, Google says it's improving it.

02:00:47   Oh, right.

02:00:48   Well, Android's always getting better.

02:00:50   Right.

02:00:51   And I'm sure that when Android 5 comes out, that there's going to, you know, it's as though

02:00:56   they've never said it before.

02:00:58   They're going to say, "This time we've solved it, and the latency, you know, the frame rate

02:01:02   is up and latency is down."

02:01:04   Right.

02:01:05   And, you know, like they had that, like, buttered toast release or whatever it was, and that

02:01:08   was, like, it was measurably improved.

02:01:11   You know?

02:01:12   They do improve it.

02:01:13   But yeah, you're right.

02:01:14   Overall responsiveness just seems

02:01:16   like it's way more of a priority on iOS.

02:01:18   And the entire OS is architected differently to emphasize that.

02:01:24   Right, and there is something to it

02:01:26   where even in a big company, and you somehow

02:01:29   think from the outside that, well,

02:01:32   if you had all the resources that Apple or Google had,

02:01:34   aren't these solvable problems?

02:01:36   Isn't it solvable to put an Android device next to an iPhone

02:01:42   and say, look, by next year we want this Android to have just

02:01:46   that type of frame rate, and put top engineers on it

02:01:49   and give them a year.

02:01:50   Isn't that reasonable?

02:01:51   Sounds like it.

02:01:52   But that's not really how problems get solved

02:01:55   in real life engineering.

02:01:58   And you also think, can't Apple just throw money at the Siri

02:02:01   team and fix it?

02:02:04   And it just doesn't work that way.

02:02:06   There's something to do with the founding cultures of companies

02:02:11   that it prioritizes what they're good at.

02:02:15   - Right, and that tends to not change over time.

02:02:19   Companies that are really good at one thing

02:02:22   and really don't care about another,

02:02:24   those priorities are rarely changed over time.

02:02:28   Because the entire company is set up around that,

02:02:31   and it's set up to reinforce their priorities

02:02:35   and to support the things they want to care about

02:02:38   and to ignore the things they don't.

02:02:40   and it's just, once a company gets the size of something like Google or Apple, like, the

02:02:47   chances of making a meaningful shift and going all of a sudden into, like, look at the great

02:02:54   example of this, of an attempt to do this, I think, is Microsoft with the internet. You

02:03:01   know, this is a very highly publicized thing where, like, Bill Gates ignored the internet

02:03:05   for too long, realized he ignored it for too long, and, like, tried to turn the company

02:03:09   on a dime to all of a sudden be like, "Oh crap, the Internet's a real thing and we have

02:03:13   to get it on this quickly." And if you look at what they did, retroactively or retrospectively,

02:03:19   you look at what they actually did here, and they really didn't embrace the Internet very

02:03:24   well. They made Internet Explorer, which was doing what they already did well, a desktop

02:03:29   app, integrating it into a desktop operating system. They were just playing the same game

02:03:34   and they always play, just involving the internet,

02:03:38   but not really being of the internet.

02:03:41   And so then all the stuff that a true internet,

02:03:45   like Google is a true internet company.

02:03:47   They've been, the internet is their platform.

02:03:50   Android is a side project.

02:03:52   The internet is their platform.

02:03:54   So that's their DNA.

02:03:57   Everything they do is about internet services

02:03:59   and the needs of internet services.

02:04:02   And so Microsoft, they thought they were pivoting the whole company and focusing on the internet

02:04:10   full steam, but if you look at what they actually did, they just kept doing what they were already

02:04:13   good at, and they didn't become Google.

02:04:15   They didn't launch major web services for years after that, and they still don't succeed

02:04:22   that well in web services, and there's still a lot they don't do.

02:04:25   They're still focused on desktop software only, or primarily on desktop software these

02:04:29   days and server software, like the stuff they've always done. So even that giant, massive turnaround

02:04:36   that we know about in computer history didn't really actually change the company that much.

02:04:41   And so you can look at Apple and Google now and you can say, "Well, Google is all of a

02:04:47   sudden shifting to focus on UI and Android." Well, you know, somewhat, but not great. And

02:04:53   Apple trying so hard to focus on these new web services that power their cool stuff.

02:04:58   well, you know, they don't seem to be putting that much of a priority on it. Like, the whole

02:05:02   company's not going to suddenly turn around and Apple become fantastic at web services

02:05:07   or Google become fantastic at UI and local software.

02:05:11   Steve: Yeah. I think, you know, with your Internet Explorer example, in hindsight, especially

02:05:18   with what they did once they got to IE6 and put Netscape under and really sort of got

02:05:24   to the point where their browser had, just like Windows, 90-something percent market

02:05:30   share. It was really... And then they stopped innovating with it. I mean, they really just

02:05:34   stopped putting out new versions. They really just saw it as a way to sort of, not kill

02:05:38   the internet, but to encapsulate it within IE.

02:05:42   Right, to neutralize the effects of it. Right. Because they didn't do things. So,

02:05:49   Bing is an attempt to be of the internet. And I want to make fun of it, because it's

02:05:54   almost like God bless them because if not for Bing, what would be the number two search

02:05:59   engine? I don't use it, but I'm glad it's there.

02:06:04   Yeah, me too. I don't know what … I mean, Yahoo! stopped running theirs years ago.

02:06:10   I know a lot of people don't know. Whenever their financial stuff comes out every quarter,

02:06:13   a lot of people make hay about the fact that they continually just bleed money in Microsoft

02:06:18   out of their Internet services division, like the Bing division. But I almost want to say

02:06:23   like, "Hey, stop making fun of him for that," because if they weren't, who would be keeping

02:06:29   Google honest as a second?

02:06:31   It should be like a public foundation to fund Bing.

02:06:33   Right. But they didn't even start that until much later. That wasn't, you know, they didn't...

02:06:37   Yeah, that was like a decade after.

02:06:38   Right. Imagine if they had tried to build Bing in 1995 or '96, whenever it was when

02:06:46   Bill Gates had that memo. It could have been very different.

02:06:48   Even right after it was clear that Google was becoming huge, like 2001.

02:06:52   Right.

02:06:53   build it then. Nope. I mean, Bing, I think, came from MSN search and everything, but even

02:07:00   that didn't start at that kind of scale until a few years after that.

02:07:03   Dave: Right. And the MSN stuff wasn't really... MSN was really more of like an AOL, like an

02:07:10   alternative to AOL, not like a part of the internet.

02:07:13   Tim: Right. Well, and they applied the MSN name and then the live name and then the Bing

02:07:18   name and then the Windows name all over so many things over the years. It's kind of hard

02:07:22   to say what each thing was and wasn't.

02:07:26   And so, I don't know. I think maybe the explanation... And I think they will get better in the long

02:07:30   run. Give it some years and Android's frame rate and etc. is certainly going to get better.

02:07:36   And there's a certain point where there's no point in getting better than 60 frames

02:07:41   per second. And I'm sure that there was that interesting study from last month about the

02:07:49   touch responsive times on devices. And at Apple's, you know, like an iPhone 5 was like

02:07:54   five times more responsive than even the best Android phone in terms of the like milliseconds

02:07:59   it takes for a touch to register on screen. But I'm sure that like those Android phones

02:08:06   probably have a touch responsiveness that's better than the original iPhone from 2007.

02:08:11   So you know, they're catching up and I'm sure Siri will keep getting better. But I do think

02:08:15   that they're both just evidence that even in a big company like that, there's only

02:08:20   so much attention to go around. If your attention is on making what your top priority is as

02:08:28   best as it can be and insanely great, there's just not that much attention to go around

02:08:32   to the secondary and tertiary priorities.

02:08:35   Right. It can't be like, "Oh, everything's a priority." That's not a real thing.

02:08:41   As Merlin tells us, that doesn't mean anything.

02:08:45   And it can't be like Microsoft, no compromises.

02:08:49   We know that that's bogus too.

02:08:51   You have to focus on something and necessarily,

02:08:55   if you're gonna do one thing really well

02:08:58   and have an intense focus to be able to do it really well,

02:09:01   chances are other areas are going to be neglected or ignored.

02:09:05   - Right.

02:09:05   Here's my last topic, and this is very specific to you

02:09:10   as the arrogant asshole.

02:09:12   Is the other thing you said on the show,

02:09:14   Just as an example, you'd mention something about that...

02:09:18   Same type of problem. You said like, "Hey, Microsoft, let's say they hire a new CEO,

02:09:24   and the new CEO says, "You know what one of our problems is?

02:09:27   One of our problems is that our products just are not as cool as Apple's,

02:09:31   or some other companies too.

02:09:33   We need to invest in cool and throw money.

02:09:37   I'm going to put more money into cool."

02:09:41   Well, it doesn't work like that.

02:09:42   You can't just throw money at it.

02:09:43   And it's really, if, and I agree with you that Microsoft, that actually is a problem

02:09:48   that they have, is a sort of institutional deficiency of cool.

02:09:54   It's ingrained in all of the people who are there, everybody.

02:09:57   Now, I'm not saying that there's no cool people who work at Microsoft.

02:10:00   In fact, I know the opposite, that there are very cool people who work at Microsoft.

02:10:05   But on the whole, on average, if you took 40 Microsoft employees and 40 Apple employees,

02:10:11   I would call, I think collectively, I would find the Apple people to be cooler.

02:10:17   Yeah, like who would you rather hang out with at a party?

02:10:22   And that's not to say that there's not somebody else who wouldn't find the Microsoft people

02:10:30   to be cooler and say, "Well, those Apple people are assholes.

02:10:33   you know, I don't know what the problem they would see them. But I think, and this is like

02:10:39   the sort of thing I don't even want to write. It's like I feel like it's, I'd rather just

02:10:43   talk about it. And it's like, but I've thought for years that part of what gets Apple this,

02:10:49   that fuels this, why in the world does Apple get treated so much differently than other

02:10:52   companies in the press? And when they, you know, do things, everything is in different

02:10:58   proportions to how other companies get treated. And it can't just be about the

02:11:02   fact that Apple's the biggest company because it's been true from when Apple

02:11:06   was far from the biggest company. It's always been true that Apple gets treated

02:11:10   differently. I think it's because they get treated differently because they're

02:11:14   they are so cool. And it sounds so stupid to say but it is and you know like Steve

02:11:21   Jobs was a cool guy. He really was. He was a very cool guy. Bill Gates was

02:11:27   definitely not cool. I mean, Bill Gates is like the opposite of cool. And it just sort

02:11:33   of infused the company DNA. But for people who aren't cool themselves, they either don't

02:11:39   see it, and so it really is seemingly like a mystery, and hence all the, you know, Apple

02:11:45   is a cult type thing. You know, because they just don't see it. They don't have that fine

02:11:50   sense of what is cool and what's not cool. And so if they don't detect it, it does look

02:11:54   like people are behaving irrationally or like religious zealots or something. Or if they

02:12:00   do see it, they resent it.

02:12:02   Steven: Right. That's the big thing. Cool is polarizing. First of all, you look at other

02:12:10   things in our culture that get a lot of attention. Things like celebrities, the president. You

02:12:18   You can look at other figures or companies that are very much in the public eye. It's

02:12:25   often a very popular thing. It's a whole industry to take them down and point out all

02:12:32   their failures. The whole tabloid industry is this massive, worldwide phenomenon. People

02:12:39   love when the cool kid messes up or you get a bad picture of them. People crave that.

02:12:48   it's really sad actually. It's pretty terrible for society. But that's how people are. And

02:12:54   I think Apple has reached that point. They're popular, they are cool, they're very much

02:12:59   in the public eye, and certainly you're right that a lot of that was Steve Jobs. But I think

02:13:06   now that has transcended him and now it's just the company is that cool and is that

02:13:11   public and I think they're bound to not only get a lot of negative attention at all times,

02:13:19   just like celebrities do, just because there's a lot of money in it, but also there are a

02:13:25   lot of people that really don't like Apple. And part of that, like I wrote this thing

02:13:30   like a year ago, first for the magazine and then for my site, about how the culture of

02:13:33   Apple is polarizing to people because Apple products say no a lot and they say we know

02:13:41   better a lot. And a lot of people, that rubs them the wrong way. But cool itself, cool,

02:13:47   and it's funny that you and I are talking about this because I don't know about you,

02:13:51   but most of my life nobody would ever consider me a cool guy.

02:13:54   No, I don't want to be there.

02:13:58   Yeah. And I have to imagine that that is probably true for at least some portion of an audience

02:14:03   of a technology podcast. But as far as I know, so take all my theories with a grain of salt

02:14:10   because this is foreign territory, but cool also comes from a position of confidence.

02:14:18   And there's a very fine line between confidence and arrogance.

02:14:22   And even just the reasons you're confident, if someone disagrees with those reasons, then

02:14:28   they will see your coolness as arrogance.

02:14:31   And so it's a very fine line, and it's very polarizing, and it brings a lot of emotional

02:14:36   responses in people.

02:14:38   And I think that's really the root of the crazy amount of negative attention that Apple

02:14:46   draws.

02:14:47   Well, I think there's a multitude of sources, but I think that the coolness angle is one

02:14:53   that's underexplored and under-considered.

02:14:57   Maybe.

02:15:01   But, you know, and certainly, you know, like with the Microsoft example, cool is not usually

02:15:09   something that you can buy and it's not usually something that you can switch to easily.

02:15:15   It's cool is kind of an inherent quality.

02:15:18   Like people either are cool or they're not.

02:15:21   And yeah, a lot of it is confidence and things like that.

02:15:23   But yeah, usually these are like ingrained characteristics that are very hard to convincingly

02:15:29   suddenly fake or to suddenly adopt out of the blue. And I think the same thing applies

02:15:35   to companies and their products. Apple stuff is cool because Apple is cool and Apple's

02:15:39   people are cool and Apple's leaders are cool. I don't see that happening at Microsoft.

02:15:47   You might get a couple of cool employees here and there because there's a lot of people

02:15:50   who work there. A lot of them are pretty awesome. But I think as a culture, it reflects the

02:15:58   founders. Right. And a perfect recent example of that was that the sendoff that Balmer had

02:16:04   at the big 14,000 person meeting. Did you watch that video? I still haven't, but I think

02:16:11   I've heard enough descriptions of it from you and everyone else to have a pretty good

02:16:14   idea of what's going on. I don't want to spoil it, but then he gets real emotional, which

02:16:19   in and of itself isn't bad. It's not the emotional part of it, but it's the... And then he's

02:16:24   talking about how he's wanted to play this song in an event for years, but just never

02:16:27   had the right time but now it clearly it's perfect and this is one of his all

02:16:31   time favorite songs

02:16:33   i don't know who sings it it's i've had the time of my life

02:16:36   uh...

02:16:37   haha that's the song but like

02:16:40   the crowd and who knows it's always hard to tell it there's fourteen thousand

02:16:44   people there and it could be that eight thousand of them were cringing and six

02:16:48   thousand were cheering and six thousand cheering people is still going to sound

02:16:51   like a lot of

02:16:53   cheering

02:16:54   but it just seemed, at least on a video, that the crowd was just eating it up.

02:16:58   And again, I didn't want to make fun of it when I linked to it, and I hope I didn't come across as that.

02:17:02   I meant it sincerely, where it was, you know, it was definitely Balmer. He went out his way.

02:17:09   That is a good send-off song. That is not a good song to say you've been trying to play at an

02:17:14   event for years. Because what other context would that have ever been a good idea?

02:17:20   The words, "I've had the time of my life here" and whatever, is, I guess, a good sentiment

02:17:26   for a send-off.

02:17:27   But the actual song itself is such a corny song that it's not cool.

02:17:33   It's just not a cool song.

02:17:35   Was it even cool when it was new?

02:17:36   No.

02:17:37   When it was new, like the '70s?

02:17:38   Early '80s, maybe?

02:17:39   It probably wasn't even cool then.

02:17:41   No.

02:17:42   It's like Celine Dion type stuff.

02:17:46   It's just never been cool.

02:17:47   be very popular, but it's not cool. Or at least not the kind of cool that I care about.

02:17:53   Here, I'm going to Google it.

02:17:56   You know, I think one of the—this is off the top of my head, so this may be poorly

02:18:00   thought out, but—

02:18:01   It's the finale from Dirty Dancing.

02:18:04   Yeah.

02:18:05   When was that at?

02:18:06   Like '83 or something?

02:18:07   Or '85?

02:18:08   Yeah.

02:18:09   So, you know, I think Apple people are people.

02:18:15   They're individuals.

02:18:18   They are identified as individuals.

02:18:20   And while they work at Apple and they respect it, I get the overall impression from the

02:18:24   people I've met and from the executives I've seen in person that like, you know, if

02:18:29   Apple went away tomorrow, they would be sad and then they would go do something else.

02:18:34   They would like, you know, create something else. It wouldn't be the end of their careers.

02:18:38   Whereas Ballmer using a song like that is kind of like saying, "I'm dying. Like,

02:18:43   this is it. This company was my entire life and now my time here is over and therefore

02:18:47   my life is over." And that's a very different attitude and it's this type of like loyalty

02:18:53   and identification, like a self-identification with your workplace that cool people don't

02:18:59   usually have. Cool people are like, you know, more into like self-identification as themselves

02:19:07   and their personalities and not so much like team player at all costs.

02:19:13   And I, yeah, that's, and another way to look at it is maybe to look at the opposite of

02:19:19   it because cool is one of those words that maybe is so overused and means different things

02:19:22   to different people.

02:19:24   And like I said, one person's cool

02:19:26   can definitely be different from another person's.

02:19:28   But to me, cool is the opposite of corny and awkward.

02:19:34   Yeah, that seems right.

02:19:38   And corniness in particular is to me sort of the antithesis

02:19:42   to corporate cool.

02:19:44   And that's what to me Microsoft often is, is corny.

02:19:49   And when there was somebody linked up last week,

02:19:52   there used to be these spoof videos that Balmer and Gates would make when they were working

02:19:56   together. There's one where they dressed up as Dr. Evil and Balmer was Dr. Evil and Bill

02:20:02   Gates was Austin Powers. Just so corny. Or the video that they yanked last month where

02:20:10   they had somebody in a fake Apple product meeting. They were trying to make fun of the

02:20:16   iPhone 5S for only introducing the color gold or something like that. Did you see those

02:20:22   No, that sounds like a train wreck. Well, it's really—and it was a train wreck

02:20:27   in a corny way. What made it uncool was the fact that it was so corny. And I just feel

02:20:34   like, though, that that's not something that's easily changed. It's just in the

02:20:39   company's DNA. And cool is also—an easy way to be uncool

02:20:45   is to be extremely insecure.

02:20:47   And so many of Microsoft's actions have come off that way

02:20:51   at the executive level.

02:20:53   You see all the stupid comments that Ballmer's made

02:20:54   over the years about their competitors,

02:20:57   and especially about Apple products,

02:20:59   and having the iPhone funeral and stuff like that.

02:21:03   They keep doing this stuff every year or two.

02:21:06   And obviously this is not like a one-time mistake they made.

02:21:13   this is like their culture creates this stuff and encourages it and doesn't see what's wrong

02:21:19   with that. And I've always heard from people who work there or who work nearby, I've always

02:21:26   heard that Microsoft was very culturally insular. Like the whole area of Redmond where they

02:21:34   are, that's where they are Redmond?

02:21:36   Yeah.

02:21:37   Yeah. The whole area of Redmond where they are is like I basically heard it's like just

02:21:41   a little biodome of Microsoft, like pure Microsoft culture right there. And they don't really

02:21:48   know, like they don't really get any idea of how they're perceived outside of that.

02:21:55   Because inside that little tiny hotspot of Microsoft activity, they are the world. And

02:22:00   everyone loves them and everyone loves what they do and everyone loves Microsoft. But

02:22:05   That's one of the reasons why I think their marketing is so weirdly out of touch so often.

02:22:13   Because they're making stuff that would work in the world that they know, but they don't

02:22:18   realize that's not the whole world.

02:22:21   Yeah, and I think that that plays into even product decisions, too.

02:22:26   It just came up again today as all the Windows 8.1 reviews came out, and most of them are

02:22:31   are like, well, it's a nice improvement over Windows 8,

02:22:34   but the fundamental weirdness of having two completely

02:22:37   different interfaces that you toggle between in mysterious

02:22:41   ways is just weird.

02:22:43   Pogue said that, a couple other people said that.

02:22:46   It just seems like that's the consensus again.

02:22:48   And it just seems like that idea of, well, we'll

02:22:53   do something better.

02:22:54   We'll do an iPad-like OS.

02:22:57   So far, so good.

02:22:59   which they had very original ideas for. You know, nobody would claim that the Metro interface

02:23:05   on Windows 8 and Windows Phone is a ripoff of anything Apple did. If anything, iOS 7

02:23:12   is more along the lines that they carved out with this typographic heaviness and flatness

02:23:18   and those type of things. But then did say, "But we'll just..." and then we'll make it

02:23:23   even better by saying that you don't even have to leave your old Windows goodbye. We'll

02:23:27   have that running one button away. And there you've just lost everything. And I think

02:23:33   it probably made tons of sense inside. I think the fact that they didn't revisit it in

02:23:38   a year just shows that they still think it's a good idea.

02:23:42   Well, I mean, I had an interesting conversation a little while back with somebody at Microsoft.

02:23:48   And we were talking about Windows Phone. And this person was saying that they were asking

02:23:56   if I was going to make overcast for Windows Phone and I said that I have no plans to even

02:24:02   address Android, let alone Windows Phone, and if I was going to make it for anything

02:24:08   else besides iOS, it would probably be Android, because that's where all the people are.

02:24:13   And basically I said that I don't really see a future where it makes sense for Windows

02:24:18   Phone at all, because it's just not taking off at all. There's no motivation to develop

02:24:23   apps for that. And this guy who worked at Microsoft and was pretty steep in their culture,

02:24:31   he basically denied that. He basically said that, he kept repeating that it was like,

02:24:39   it was just a matter of time before Windows Phone takes off and really takes over the

02:24:43   market. And he really honestly believed that. And I think it's hard to look at Windows Phone

02:24:51   objectively at all, and to have the opinion

02:24:55   that it's just a couple years away

02:24:56   from taking over the market.

02:24:57   I mean, to even think that's in its future at all,

02:25:00   let alone coming up soon, I think

02:25:03   just does not reflect reality at all.

02:25:06   And the problem with Windows Phone is that

02:25:11   it doesn't do anything for the carriers.

02:25:12   The carriers love control and lock-in and everything else,

02:25:16   so it doesn't help them.

02:25:17   It is as unhelpful to the carriers as the iPhone.

02:25:21   However, the carriers reluctantly carry the iPhone

02:25:25   because there's such incredible demand for it

02:25:28   from consumers that they kind of have to.

02:25:31   Windows Phone doesn't have that.

02:25:33   So one of those two things has to change.

02:25:35   Either it has to start bending extremely

02:25:37   to the carrier's will, which I think is unlikely.

02:25:41   And even if they did, I don't think they would be able

02:25:44   to help the carriers as much as Android does.

02:25:47   Or consumers have to suddenly out of the blue

02:25:51   massively want those phones and I don't see that happening either. I think if it was going

02:25:55   to happen it would have happened already. So I don't see a future where Windows Phone

02:25:59   makes massive differences from where it is now. Similarly with Windows 8 on tablets and

02:26:05   God knows what else, it seems like Microsoft is unable to see why that's a bad idea. And

02:26:14   maybe we're wrong. Maybe they actually realize it's a terrible idea and are working on the

02:26:19   next idea, but it's going to take a few more years. That's very possible. Obviously, a

02:26:24   major revamp is going to take some time. But I don't ... I think the more likely explanation

02:26:32   is that they don't see the problem. They really don't see why this is not selling. To them,

02:26:36   it's just some bizarre fluke in the market that this hasn't sold so well yet. Why doesn't

02:26:42   everyone want this? It's just a matter of time.

02:26:43   Yeah, and I think part of that is sort of, again, it's like built into the company's

02:26:48   DNA. And the company's DNA is, I mean, obviously, it wasn't always the case, because they, you

02:26:53   know, were like a 13 person startup, you know, at one point, but the by the time their identity

02:27:01   solidified, Mike, what was Microsoft, Microsoft was the 1600 pound gorilla of the software

02:27:09   industry, right? Then they had the platforms that everybody ran.

02:27:14   I mean, they basically dominated software for like 20 years. Like, they've had so much

02:27:21   success.

02:27:22   Right. And that if they were going to come out with an operating system for a form factor,

02:27:26   that people who made devices were going to adopt it. I mean, even look at the early days

02:27:31   of mobile, where like Palm at one point was making Windows mobile devices, right? And

02:27:38   it's like...

02:27:39   People who were fans of Palm, it was like, oh, it was as if Apple started making Windows

02:27:46   boxes.

02:27:48   It was just so gross.

02:27:50   But that's the sort of success that Microsoft assumed and I think still assumes.

02:27:55   And to drop a sports analogy on you, it's like with the Yankees, the Yankees have always

02:28:01   been, at least since like the Babe Ruth era of the 1920s, the best team.

02:28:08   the years where they didn't win a World Series, even though, you know, they've won an unbelievable

02:28:12   number of them. 27 World Series since like the 1920s. But it's not a majority. But as a Yankee

02:28:19   fan, and I think even as the Yankee institution, as an organization, they saw the years they didn't

02:28:25   win as the flukes. The years they didn't win a World Series are always seen as a fluke. And that

02:28:29   if they didn't, we'll get them next year. And, but then like when I was a teenager in the 80s,

02:28:35   they went through this long drought where not only did they not win World Series, they

02:28:39   were actually like a bad team. They had losing seasons. It wasn't like, "Oh, they missed

02:28:43   the--" Finished second this year.

02:28:45   Right. They missed by a lot.

02:28:47   Right. They were below 500. They lost more games than they won. But I think institutionally,

02:28:53   they just never computed for them. Rather than any kind of radical cleaning house, they

02:29:01   would just do what they've always done and just spend a ton of money on one guy

02:29:05   who they thought was maybe gonna you know hit a lot of home runs and as a fan

02:29:10   it really you know even as a kid I got caught up in that sort of thinking but

02:29:14   then like by the mid-80s I was like no this this team is bad but I think this

02:29:19   wonder like does Microsoft even know how to be an underdog exactly that's Apple

02:29:26   knows how to be an underdog Apple in fact Apple at its worst is when it's not

02:29:31   the underdog. Like some of the worst things they do are when they have too much power

02:29:35   and control and they need to be able to put a little bit into check and have some, you

02:29:39   know, have a fire under their ass or whatever.

02:29:41   Right.

02:29:42   Microsoft, like, in mobile, not only is Microsoft not number one, they're like barely number

02:29:48   three. They're like a distant number three or four maybe. Are they ahead of BlackBerry

02:29:51   finally? I don't even know.

02:29:52   They might be. I think they might be. At least...

02:29:54   Assume they are. They're like a distant number three.

02:29:57   Right.

02:29:58   And I don't think they know how to be that.

02:30:03   They don't know how to be a losing team.

02:30:06   And I think in the same way, I think it actually in some ways, and I know a lot of...

02:30:09   I'm not by far in a way not the first person to suggest this, but that Apple and people

02:30:15   who've been there for a long time working in the company still have memory of when the

02:30:18   company was smaller.

02:30:20   And even for some people who date back long enough, was actually beleaguered, to use that

02:30:25   word.

02:30:26   I think that's kind of good for the company overall

02:30:29   because it's like if they see themselves

02:30:32   as the upstart still and the little guy,

02:30:35   that it might be good for them

02:30:37   'cause it keeps them from getting complacent

02:30:39   and that in some ways the incessant media,

02:30:43   any little thing wrong with Apple is somehow catastrophic

02:30:46   and they're going to go out of business again

02:30:49   or going to collapse and become small again

02:30:52   might not actually be bad for the company.

02:30:54   be bad for the stock price but in terms for the you know temporarily in the short term but in the

02:31:00   long run it might be good for the company because it'll it's it's a way of emphasizing the fact that

02:31:06   you cannot rest on your laurels and it keeps it fresh in everybody's mind right but i think that

02:31:13   that actually is where apple gets today's apple i think run i think the worst of apple today is when

02:31:19   when they still act like a small company in certain ways.

02:31:23   And they're not.

02:31:28   It's like they have to realize

02:31:31   that they're in a position of power now.

02:31:34   Like a lot with a certain,

02:31:36   like in the early years at the App Store,

02:31:37   I think that was the case where they were,

02:31:39   and to their credit, they've gotten better with that.

02:31:45   We don't see so many complaints

02:31:46   about App Store rejections being arbitrary anymore.

02:31:50   But that arbitrariness could fly when you're a small company

02:31:54   and it doesn't fly when you're selling

02:31:56   20 million iPhones a quarter.

02:31:59   - Right, it stops working when every time you do anything,

02:32:03   blocking any kind of rule,

02:32:05   you get a Justice Department inquiry.

02:32:07   - Right.

02:32:08   - That's when it starts becoming a little scary,

02:32:09   like, oh, this is really big that we're playing with here.

02:32:12   I do think that in the last couple years,

02:32:16   and maybe this is Tim Cook's personality

02:32:18   showing through a lot,

02:32:20   I think they've really ironed out

02:32:21   a lot of those rough edges.

02:32:23   - Yeah, I think so too.

02:32:24   All right, well that's a short show.

02:32:29   - Yeah, that's pretty short.

02:32:30   Yeah, people should be able to listen

02:32:31   to this in their commute for a month.

02:32:34   - Marco Arment, thanks for doing this.

02:32:37   - Anytime, it's been fun.

02:32:38   - All right, thanks.