13: Unusually Open, with Michael Lopp
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Good morning.
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Good morning, Michael Lop.
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People often… the number one complaint I think about the talk show is that I don't
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introduce my guest.
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We just start talking and we talk.
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So I'm introducing you.
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Your name is Michael Lop.
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I don't think I've ever heard you… maybe at South by Southwest you've said Michael
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Lop, but I've never heard my full name from you in a really long time.
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This microphone is huge, John.
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Thank you for the recommendation.
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But I've got this huge thing pointed at my face, which I think sounds really good.
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But it's just dominating the room.
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That would be the road podcaster, which is my recommendation.
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All the way back, dates back to a recommendation from our good friend,
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Dan Benjamin, former co-host of the show.
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More or less, the answer is, if you don't know what to get
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and you want to record a podcast,
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you get the Rode Podcaster USB mic.
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But it is enormous.
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It's about the size of a grown man's forearm.
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- But I think it actually hears better than I do.
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When I first put it on, I put on the headphones.
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I'm like, wow, this thing's huge.
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I could hear my kids in the other room, right?
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I mean, I'm like, wow, you know?
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What are they doing down there?
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And I took my headphones off
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and I couldn't hear them anymore.
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It actually makes me, as I told you in an email,
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it actually makes me feel bionic.
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can hear everything around me.
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Right, you can hear, I can hear, whenever I plug in,
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I can hear the wheels of my chair on the floor.
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Did you get the bionic arm thing for it?
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I did, my kids come in and play with it,
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and they're like, this is so awesome,
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Daddy's radio store, I'm like, no, I'm just a nerd.
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Okay, big week, wow, two big pieces from Daring Fireball.
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I felt compelled since we were talking
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to go and read them.
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You know what, I'll tell you this,
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'cause you'll appreciate this,
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And I think maybe the people who listen to it, listen to the show will appreciate it.
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Maybe it's just the early morning loopiness, but it wasn't.
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Now, you know this, that a few people have noted it, that yesterday, not yesterday, Monday,
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earlier this week, the 13th of August was, in fact, the 10 year anniversary of the first
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post on Daring Fireball.
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Congratulations.
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I didn't note this publicly.
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I didn't mention it.
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never, to my knowledge, I don't believe, noted publicly that August 13th is an anniversary
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date for Daring Fireball. So a year ago, I didn't note the ninth anniversary. I didn't
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note the eighth. I didn't note the seventh. I knew it though. I was very much aware of
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it. Like when I went to bed Sunday night, I went to bed thinking, "I hope nobody notices
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or says anything tomorrow." And when I woke up, it was the opposite. There were a bunch
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of really nice things. Kottke wrote a nice thing. There was a thing at the Atlantic.
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A couple people around the web did take notice of it, knew that it was the 10-year anniversary,
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and everything that anybody wrote about it was all very complimentary. It was very,
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very flattering. I went from waking up thinking, "I hope nobody has noticed this," to thinking,
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"Well, this is all very, very nice, and I feel very flattered."
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Do you remember the day?
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That I wrote the first one?
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Do you remember the--
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Can you describe it to me?
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Well, I don't know the day so much,
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but I do remember that I'd spent weeks leading up to it,
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working on the site.
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The design, picking the color.
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I mean, I've said this to Merlin a couple of times,
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that it took me a long time to pick the exact color.
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It's a little darker, a little lighter, a little darker,
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lighter and looking at it in multiple monitors and trying to find the right shade of ever
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so slightly blue tinted gray and various other aspects of the design.
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But eventually it was ready to go and I just needed something to write.
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And the thing I could and I can remember this feeling very palpably is that as nerve-wracking
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as it is to write something for public consumption.
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For me, it's even more nerve-wracking to write something for nobody's consumption.
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That it's like, you know, and in the same way that it's nerve-wracking to get up and speak
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in public in front of an audience, to me, it would be even more awkward to get up on a stage
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with a microphone and speak in front of an empty room with a microphone.
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Then that, to me, is what publishing the first article felt like.
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like getting up and giving a speech in front of what I'd suspected to be a completely empty room.
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And when I, the magic is the first step, I think. Because I think once you have it going,
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and to me, and it's like going, going out for a run, right? Where, you know, you know, you want
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to run four miles or three miles or something like that. And if you're halfway through,
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and you just feel beat, but you know, you're not home yet. And you know, you're having done the
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thing. You just keep your feet moving. Just keep them moving. Just keep them moving and eventually
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you're going to be home and you're going to have the miles in. But to me, the one that's hardest is
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right outside your front door when you haven't started yet. And you're not sweaty and you're
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not tired and you haven't, you know, your feet haven't even started moving yet. It's just going
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from "I'm standing still, I haven't started" to "Okay, I'm running." That transition, that's the
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the hard part.
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- Totally agree with that.
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- 'Cause once you start, it's way easier to keep going
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than it is to get started.
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Getting started is without question the hardest part.
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- I think I've had like three or four articles
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on that topic of just that nudge that you have
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to give yourself, so I've thought about this considerably.
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- No, and I will say this, I will,
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and I'm gonna be unusually open, because it's you.
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But the idea I had was that I wasn't going to publicly acknowledge the ten-year anniversary
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of Daring Fireball.
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I wasn't going to tacitly acknowledge it.
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But I would implicitly acknowledge it by publishing on the actual tenth anniversary what I thought
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to be prototypically Daring Fireball-ish article.
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But the article I was going to write was the one that I didn't write on the thirteenth.
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is the one I wrote yesterday on the further information and speculation on the iPad Mini.
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But I didn't write that on the 13th. I wrote on the 13th my review of the Retina MacBook Pro.
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And here's how that came about. It's when I woke up on the 13th. And this is true, I swear.
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And I realized that there were a couple people around the web who did notice and acknowledge
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the 10-year anniversary of Daring Fireball.
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One of them was, did you see this thing?
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It's at the Atlantic.
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This young kid, you think he's only in college,
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Robinson Meyer, wrote an article at the Atlantic
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called Happy 10th Birthday Daring Fireball.
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And it's a really nice little piece,
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very, very flattering overall.
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Anybody who got an article, my dad,
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my dad even called me on the day of the day.
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And my dad, he often doesn't acknowledge it,
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But sometimes that he can't help because there's no other way
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that he can acknowledge what he's talking about,
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but that he apparently-- I don't know if he does it every day,
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but at least a couple times a week, my dad Googles my name
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and sees what's going on.
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And he doesn't really get it.
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He's not a technology guy.
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But Googling my name on Monday, this came up.
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And the Atlantic-- that's like an A-list name.
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And he was like, hey, did you see this thing at the Atlantic?
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And my dad, you know, kind of made my dad's day.
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So Robinson Meyer, I've never heard of him before,
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but he wrote this nice piece
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on the 10th anniversary of Daring Firebomb.
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And he says at the beginning,
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and I think this is very nice,
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and I feel like this is a guy who gets it.
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He wrote, "It's a blog not just about Apple,
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"but about excellence."
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- I say that as a sentence, that's actually,
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that's a guy who gets it, and it sees what I'm going for.
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It's all very, very flattering,
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And anybody who had an article like this written about their work should be very, very flattered.
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But I wasn't flattered because at the very end was this paragraph.
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It's the third from the bottom.
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It says, "The past year, DF hasn't been as enjoyable as it has been in the past."
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>> "Apple, Gruber's Beatrice, is engorged as a company and now seems to be veering from
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interesting complex to dully complicated."
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Parentheses, I hope the next few months prove me wrong
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on both counts, end parentheses.
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10 years ago, Gruber picked the right story
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at the right time and followed the most complete
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business turnaround and aesthetic parable
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in recent history.
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But, in light of that victory, his renegade confidence
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has become an assured superiority.
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He hasn't written, for a long time,
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an engaging description of a laptop.
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and that was a link to my 2005 article on a Power Book,
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what was then called a Power Book, 15-inch Power Book,
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or an account of an anthropomorphized interface settlement.
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And that paragraph really stuck with me
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and really, it really pissed me off.
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And that made me, honest to God, that's what made me,
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instead of writing yesterday about the upcoming tablet stuff
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that I thought about and know about,
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little little bits here and there that I know a little bit here and there that I've sort of thought through and
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I thought fuck you. I'll show you a fucking engaging description
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But you know what I mean I to me and and and then I thought about it afterwards I thought well
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Why did I do that? Why would I?
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Why would I get so fired up about an article that I should be should feel flattered by not fired up by
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But I feel like that's the way you have to be I feel like you've got to if you're not looking for I
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Don't know sometimes. I feel like you need to look for an enemy not an enemy, but I
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Don't know my my my people knew the people who have actually really changed my day or been the sources of
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Articles if they actually knew who they were I don't know who a lot of them are because it's sort of anonymous people
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but the amount of energy that I get from the random critic who's sane but critical, not
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just the total troll, they'd be shocked. I can't do origin stories on all of the articles,
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but the amount of energy that I've gotten from random folks saying, "Hey, Rands is not
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resonating with me. You haven't really said anything in a month or two." This person,
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who I do not know at all, who now just ruined my weekend because now I'm going to sit there
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and write a piece about pens or something like that.
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This happens a lot.
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I'm listening, I see everything that comes by my inbox,
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and it does affect me,
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even though I don't know who these people are.
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- Right, and you'll make it fire you up.
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- Right, and I know that athletes are like this too,
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and if you say anything that can be construed
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as confrontational, it's going up on the locker room wall,
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and it's going to be framed, and they're going to use that,
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and they're going to say, oh, fuck this guy.
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You think you're going to beat us?
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If you imply that you think you're
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going to beat the opposing team, that's
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going up on the locker room board,
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and everybody on the opposing team is going to see that.
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You need something to fire you up.
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Yeah, I mean, I don't know about you, but most of my pieces,
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I literally see 70% of the piece in my head based on just some,
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again, bit flipping in my head.
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I'm like, doo, doo, doo.
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And I'm just like, oh, that's the thing I want to say.
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And it's whether it's someone kicking me
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or just being inspired by reading something,
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I can actually see the whole piece.
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And when I have that moment, it's
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just run to the nearest keyboard as quickly as possible
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or a piece of paper and just start getting it out there.
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It's a lovely experience.
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I love when I capture that.
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I just pasted a link to you.
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Did you see this?
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This guy named Kemper Smith at DistantShape.com.
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- Oh, this is beautiful.
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- And he did this with no help from me.
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And he didn't ping me in advance.
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I didn't turn down a request, but he did this.
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He downloaded all 962 full articles
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that I've written at Daring Fireball
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over the last 10 years and tagged them himself.
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Even though I've actually been tagging all of my articles all along, but the tags I've
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been applying to them aren't exposed publicly anywhere.
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They're only in movable type behind the scenes.
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And I guess someday I'll try to expose it somehow.
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But it's not publicly available.
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So this guy downloaded all the articles, read them all, and as he read them, tagged them
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And you can see the tags he applied underneath.
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And I emailed him after this came out because it's so interesting.
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And number one, I asked him, "Dude, did you tag all these yourself?"
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And he was like, "Yeah."
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And I was like, "Oh, my God, I almost feel guilty about that because I've got the tags
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behind the scenes and, you know, could have saved you some work."
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But maybe the tags he implied are more interesting, but maybe they're more honest because they're
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more objective than the tags I would have applied.
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But he even admitted that he didn't do it from the outset
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to achieve the visualization he has,
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but only realized as he was going that it would make
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for a good visualization, is that he's applied colors
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to the articles on this graph.
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Blue meaning desktop topics, typically,
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almost certainly Mac.
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And pink for mobile, meaning iOS or iPad, I guess.
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And it just so happens, if you think about it,
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that given that the iPhone came out in 2007,
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that if now is the 10-year anniversary of "Daring
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Fireball," that it's actually half of the-- the first half,
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the first five years that I've been writing "Daring Fireball,"
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there was no iPhone.
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In the last five years, there has been an iPhone.
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And you can kind of see on this graph
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that he's made this shift in topics on Daring Fireball from desktop to mobile.
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You've got blue on the left, you've got kind of purple in the middle, and then
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pink on the right. So he's also got a pivot to go to showing
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article length as well, and there's something very comforting. First off,
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it looks like you're generally writing shorter articles, but what's more interesting to me is that
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There is this flow to the size of your articles over the course of a year. It looks like yeah
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There's this little like sort of bump. It looks like what winter time
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I can't actually figure it out, but there is a cape there is a structure to the size of your articles over the course of
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the year which
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Is fascinating yeah, and it's not winter though. It's is it. I don't know no, but there is
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There is a pattern to it, but it doesn't quite seem to be
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cyclical or it doesn't quite correspond to the calendar in any way, but there is like a
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sine-wave like motion to it
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Interesting and it is interesting and it's the sort of thing where I often think about doing stuff like this
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I often think like you know what I should do is you know
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And it's the type of programming that I'm actually capable of doing is like the let me export everything
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I've ever written it during fireball and count all the words
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Or or let me I you know, I can do stuff like this
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This is the type of programming I can do.
00:16:27
◼
►
Or let me average how many words I've written a month
00:16:30
◼
►
for the last 10 years.
00:16:32
◼
►
Or is there any kind of pattern?
00:16:34
◼
►
Am I writing fewer words per month?
00:16:36
◼
►
Am I writing more art?
00:16:39
◼
►
That sort of thing.
00:16:41
◼
►
But then I get freaked out by it.
00:16:42
◼
►
I get freaked out by the self-awareness,
00:16:44
◼
►
and I don't do it.
00:16:45
◼
►
So it's interesting to see somebody else do it.
00:16:47
◼
►
And you're right, though.
00:16:48
◼
►
There's definitely a sine wave pattern here
00:16:51
◼
►
to the length of the pieces.
00:16:53
◼
►
OK, there's another tag down here
00:16:54
◼
►
that's really important because I know this is a personal issue of yours.
00:16:58
◼
►
I've got a whiny Boston Terrier outside my window. I have to go in like two seconds.
00:17:02
◼
►
But there's a tag here which is "was wrong about
00:17:06
◼
►
something" and according to him, I'm just eyeballing this,
00:17:10
◼
►
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, maybe like fifteen.
00:17:14
◼
►
There's fifteen that he measured as
00:17:18
◼
►
"was wrong about something."
00:17:22
◼
►
I know you're obsessive about this.
00:17:24
◼
►
I feel like number is low.
00:17:27
◼
►
15 wrong about something.
00:17:29
◼
►
Does that, do you feel like number's right?
00:17:33
◼
►
- I wish that it were zero.
00:17:34
◼
►
God, I wish it were zero.
00:17:36
◼
►
1.5 times a year, though, I'm wrong about something?
00:17:39
◼
►
That sounds good.
00:17:41
◼
►
And you know what, one reason that that could be low
00:17:45
◼
►
is that he's only counting, for lack of an official term,
00:17:49
◼
►
full articles, the ones that get a star in the RSS reader and show up in my archive.
00:17:55
◼
►
>> His whole methodology is actually suspect. He's got the tag right next to it is "was
00:18:00
◼
►
correct about something" and it's "for."
00:18:02
◼
►
>> My favorite, and this is why it's a little bit more interesting that he tagged the articles
00:18:12
◼
►
rather than going with if he had somehow had access to my internal tags, which don't have
00:18:17
◼
►
stuff like that. My tags are just stuff like, you know, tablets, or Android, Samsung versus
00:18:28
◼
►
Apple lawsuit or something like that. He's got one where, where is it? It was like Gruber
00:18:33
◼
►
knows something.
00:18:34
◼
►
Jonathan Wasserstein Gruber has inside information.
00:18:37
◼
►
Trenton Larkin Yeah, there it is. Gruber has inside information.
00:18:39
◼
►
Jonathan Wasserstein Yeah.
00:18:40
◼
►
Trenton Larkin And that's pretty good.
00:18:41
◼
►
Jonathan Wasserstein John Siracusa. Let's see what's going on
00:18:43
◼
►
- You've tagged John Sirkira less than you've been wrong.
00:18:48
◼
►
- Yeah, but I do feel, I will say this, I will say this,
00:18:55
◼
►
and I have said this publicly many times,
00:18:58
◼
►
that it is one of my goals with the site,
00:19:00
◼
►
overriding always, every day, always very aware of it,
00:19:05
◼
►
is it's in my mind, don't be wrong,
00:19:09
◼
►
be right about everything.
00:19:10
◼
►
But on the other hand, I wanna take chances,
00:19:14
◼
►
I wanna push myself, and I...
00:19:18
◼
►
If I'm never wrong, then I'm not pushing hard enough.
00:19:23
◼
►
I mean, I think that's true in anything in life, right?
00:19:25
◼
►
I mean, if you don't have any failures,
00:19:27
◼
►
you're not pushing yourself.
00:19:29
◼
►
And when you are wrong, immediately get on top of it.
00:19:33
◼
►
The first thing to do when you realize you're wrong
00:19:35
◼
►
is acknowledge it, and you do it publicly.
00:19:37
◼
►
You just say, "You know what?
00:19:38
◼
►
"Here's this thing, I wrote this, that's wrong.
00:19:41
◼
►
And get on top of it.
00:19:42
◼
►
Do not be the guy who, because he doesn't want to be wrong,
00:19:47
◼
►
starts working on ways to show how when he was wrong,
00:19:51
◼
►
he wasn't wrong.
00:19:52
◼
►
Don't be that guy.
00:19:54
◼
►
- I think it's a, I think it's,
00:19:55
◼
►
I think it's, well, 10 year anniversary,
00:19:57
◼
►
we can honor Fireball a little bit,
00:19:59
◼
►
but I think that's one of the defining reasons
00:20:02
◼
►
it's been successful,
00:20:03
◼
►
as it's the journalism background, right?
00:20:05
◼
►
Is you don't just, you know, you don't,
00:20:07
◼
►
not like rands where it's like kind of op-ed pieces
00:20:10
◼
►
and dreaming and poetry and whatnot.
00:20:12
◼
►
But you base your statements as best you can,
00:20:16
◼
►
unless you flag it as otherwise,
00:20:18
◼
►
you base them on facts, right?
00:20:20
◼
►
And just when you go and you see all the mass media stuff
00:20:23
◼
►
of people with opinions and going back and forth,
00:20:25
◼
►
it's sort of refreshing, and obviously I'm a fan and biased,
00:20:28
◼
►
to actually know that in both the pieces
00:20:31
◼
►
that you did this week, it's like,
00:20:32
◼
►
this is based on the best data that I have,
00:20:35
◼
►
and I'm gonna source the best I can.
00:20:36
◼
►
And yes, I will have opinions about this,
00:20:38
◼
►
But at the end of the day, this is sourced information.
00:20:43
◼
►
Does that make sense?
00:20:45
◼
►
But if I'm wrong, I'm going to get right on top of it.
00:20:47
◼
►
So let's just say it.
00:20:48
◼
►
For example, with this whole iPad Mini or iPad Air,
00:20:51
◼
►
whatever you want to call it thing,
00:20:53
◼
►
let's say that the thing ships and it doesn't have a 4, 3, 10.
00:20:56
◼
►
One of the fundamental things I've been writing about all year
00:20:59
◼
►
is that if Apple makes a smaller iPad,
00:21:01
◼
►
it's going to have a 1024 by 768, 4 to 3 aspect ratio
00:21:06
◼
►
display at 163 dpi.
00:21:08
◼
►
let's say this thing ships and it has a 16 to nine display a
00:21:12
◼
►
widescreen display or iPhone like three to display. Well,
00:21:18
◼
►
then the first thing I'm going to do is say, Well, holy shit, I
00:21:20
◼
►
was wrong and link to the instances in the past that I've
00:21:24
◼
►
written that it's going to have the 4310, six, you know, 1048
00:21:28
◼
►
by the 1024 by 768 display, and just get it all out and just
00:21:33
◼
►
say, Look, I was wrong here, here, here and here, terribly
00:21:37
◼
►
awfully completely wrong, bad assumption, and get right.
00:21:42
◼
►
Show where everything I'd been writing was wrong
00:21:48
◼
►
and immediately try to get on top of all that.
00:21:51
◼
►
Acknowledge everywhere I was wrong and then get right
00:21:54
◼
►
and then explain what that means.
00:21:56
◼
►
- There's no other way to do it.
00:21:57
◼
►
I don't understand people who do it otherwise.
00:22:00
◼
►
- I think they don't wanna be wrong.
00:22:02
◼
►
There's, oh no, they're okay being wrong.
00:22:04
◼
►
There's another tag here that's very interesting.
00:22:06
◼
►
tag is calls somebody jackass.
00:22:09
◼
►
And I think this is underrepresented too.
00:22:12
◼
►
It looks like in 2006 you were calling
00:22:14
◼
►
a lot of people jackasses, but I think you've done it more.
00:22:17
◼
►
I mean, jackass of the week is sort of,
00:22:19
◼
►
or whatever the, has it died down?
00:22:22
◼
►
- Yeah, definitely.
00:22:23
◼
►
But see, the reason why is that I think most jackasses
00:22:27
◼
►
of the week were what I call linked list items,
00:22:29
◼
►
not full articles.
00:22:32
◼
►
- Right, and I would just link to the jackass
00:22:34
◼
►
and explain why they're a jackass,
00:22:36
◼
►
but without writing a full article about them.
00:22:38
◼
►
So there's not going to be a lot of them.
00:22:41
◼
►
These tags are great.
00:22:43
◼
►
Fictitious dialog.
00:22:44
◼
►
This is another one.
00:22:45
◼
►
This is one of the first things-- my memories of you
00:22:47
◼
►
was-- what was it?
00:22:48
◼
►
The anthropomorphized-- I can't even say it.
00:22:50
◼
►
It's too early.
00:22:53
◼
►
Anthropomorphized brushed metal interface.
00:22:57
◼
►
This was-- they feel like a rare treat to me.
00:23:01
◼
►
I feel like you're literally-- a lot of your articles,
00:23:04
◼
►
it's clear you're working.
00:23:05
◼
►
and you're like, "Gotta get this right."
00:23:07
◼
►
These, I imagine you sitting back, drinking a martini,
00:23:11
◼
►
kind of giggling to yourself as you're writing the piece
00:23:13
◼
►
and getting a little drunk, right?
00:23:15
◼
►
This is what I saw in them.
00:23:17
◼
►
- Yeah, and there's no, you know, somehow I feel like
00:23:23
◼
►
I'm a little overdue for something silly on this site.
00:23:27
◼
►
- Well, we have tags to prove it.
00:23:29
◼
►
- Yeah, no, these tags are great.
00:23:31
◼
►
You know, and I should mention,
00:23:33
◼
►
and we ran through this last night,
00:23:35
◼
►
But you actually hit your 10th anniversary on Ransom Repose before I did.
00:23:39
◼
►
You say it was earlier this year.
00:23:41
◼
►
You're not quite exactly sure when?
00:23:42
◼
►
It was April.
00:23:43
◼
►
I wasn't paying attention either, but I got all that coverage on Fox, and CNN had that
00:23:49
◼
►
cover story about me.
00:23:50
◼
►
So it was a pretty big deal.
00:23:53
◼
►
I played it quiet, though.
00:23:55
◼
►
It was 10 years ago in April.
00:23:56
◼
►
I wasn't going to say anything.
00:23:59
◼
►
I got a couple notes from folks, but I was launching my web fonts at the time, so it
00:24:05
◼
►
seemed like a time to at least say something.
00:24:09
◼
►
It's ten years.
00:24:10
◼
►
I find that interesting that the two of us started completely independently and over
00:24:15
◼
►
those years in many drinks and Southbys and Las Vegas situations, here we are sitting
00:24:21
◼
►
here ten years later.
00:24:22
◼
►
There's something very synergistic about that.
00:24:26
◼
►
And there are and and you know, I think a lot of it is the nature of
00:24:30
◼
►
What's likely if you started your website circa
00:24:35
◼
►
2002 right there's a very good chance that you're running movable type and you and I are both running movable type
00:24:42
◼
►
You're still running moveable type. Yeah, I've considered other things but I mean I have no reason to leave
00:24:47
◼
►
There's nothing it does. It doesn't do that. I need it to do although I did see that have
00:24:52
◼
►
Not movable type but blogger
00:24:54
◼
►
Launched medium last night. It's I did I saw that too and it is funny because I'll tell you what on the days when I'm actually
00:25:02
◼
►
Writing a bit a bigger article and and the last two days Monday and Tuesday of this week
00:25:08
◼
►
That's what I've spent my days doing is
00:25:10
◼
►
nose down writing
00:25:12
◼
►
Like nobody's talking to me and like I'm skipping meals and I'm just writing writing writing, right?
00:25:18
◼
►
The world then passes me by right like it is kind of it is kind of much mutually exclusive
00:25:25
◼
►
To the other side of during fireball where I'm linking to what's new in technology with brief pieces
00:25:31
◼
►
Like so on days when I'm not really writing anything big
00:25:34
◼
►
I'm like on top of the industry and I'm like within five minutes aware of everything that's going on
00:25:39
◼
►
Everywhere and on the days when I'm actually writing it's like like last night
00:25:45
◼
►
I went I was I don't even know when I realized that that that medium was announced
00:25:49
◼
►
but it wasn't when it when it hit like it was hours later and I was like I'd written my article and
00:25:54
◼
►
my family was you know, my wife my son they were in bed and
00:25:58
◼
►
And then I could catch up on Twitter and then all of a sudden I realized holy shit have Evan Williams
00:26:04
◼
►
Just launched an entire new blogging platform or something, but I don't quite get it. I don't get medium. No, I don't get it yet
00:26:10
◼
►
I mean, I've given it 15 minutes and it's Evan so you've got to pay attention right, but it's I'm like, okay
00:26:17
◼
►
I haven't found a compelling thing. Although they have a very nice
00:26:20
◼
►
Slab serif M as their as their mark, I mean their logo so but I haven't actually like digested what the hell they're up to
00:26:28
◼
►
Yeah, I absolutely feel the same way you do where if the guys last couple of projects that he helped launch were blogger and
00:26:38
◼
►
Then yeah, you know you kind of want to you're gonna you're gonna give the guy the benefit of the doubt
00:26:43
◼
►
No, you're like. Yes. I will sign up. I will give you my $50
00:26:46
◼
►
I will I'm certainly interested even though I do not get it yet and even his miss
00:26:52
◼
►
Which I would describe Odeo as was the right idea which was hey podcasts are gonna be a big deal
00:26:59
◼
►
Yeah, kind of before like because and and the thing that killed Odeo
00:27:04
◼
►
I think more or less was Apple getting into podcasts. I remember a day
00:27:09
◼
►
And and Apple got into podcasts
00:27:12
◼
►
surprisingly early for Apple yes, like
00:27:16
◼
►
I'm still I still think I still think it's one of the most interesting things Apple's done in the last 10 years was the way that
00:27:23
◼
►
Apple jumped on podcasting so early right and it kind of killed audio
00:27:28
◼
►
But at least even so even even the one that they missed on the thing that didn't really amount to much
00:27:34
◼
►
Ended up being the right idea just wasn't wasn't the right it wasn't really a business model
00:27:39
◼
►
He was he was collecting bright people and this is my recollection during that time to like Dunstan
00:27:44
◼
►
And I think was Dorsey was in that at that. I mean, so he had this incubator going on in there
00:27:49
◼
►
So even though it didn't work out he had that sort of
00:27:52
◼
►
Universe of people around him that you know went off and did somewhat interesting things
00:27:57
◼
►
Right the long story short was that you know, it was the the the parent company, which is a great name
00:28:02
◼
►
I think it's one of the great names. I've said this to have I don't know have that well
00:28:06
◼
►
But I have said this to him and I've when I've seen him is that obvious corporation is one of my favorite
00:28:11
◼
►
names in the history of naming anything
00:28:14
◼
►
Then kind of helps explain it is it is sort of a like
00:28:20
◼
►
It's an app description of everything I have Williams ever does right, right?
00:28:26
◼
►
It's like blogger was sort of an obvious idea Twitter super obvious idea pod key
00:28:30
◼
►
You know, it's like a way of being like, are we on the right path?
00:28:34
◼
►
Is this obvious?
00:28:37
◼
►
But the idea was that the ODO was their big bet and the thing
00:28:40
◼
►
that they actually had money invested in and lots of time and everything.
00:28:43
◼
►
And then they gave up on it.
00:28:45
◼
►
And in the meantime, Jack Dorsey, who was working there,
00:28:48
◼
►
had this little idea for, well, what about this idea
00:28:51
◼
►
I have for a centralized server for sending status messages?
00:28:57
◼
►
And then, you know, boom, Twitter.
00:29:00
◼
►
Yeah, the dude can pick names, medium.
00:29:02
◼
►
It's a great name.
00:29:03
◼
►
And exactly describe-- I mean, whatever.
00:29:05
◼
►
I'm not sure what they're doing.
00:29:06
◼
►
But clearly, it's just like, let's try
00:29:09
◼
►
to reimagine the blogging, the content platform.
00:29:14
◼
►
Hey, let me take a break here and talk
00:29:16
◼
►
about the first sponsor.
00:29:20
◼
►
And I want to tell you, it's an iPhone app.
00:29:23
◼
►
And it's a repeat sponsor from a few episodes ago.
00:29:27
◼
►
app for your iPhone called Hue-less.
00:29:31
◼
►
It's a photography app.
00:29:32
◼
►
It's a camera app for your iPhone.
00:29:34
◼
►
And it's sort of a do one thing and do one thing well app.
00:29:40
◼
►
And the one thing that Hue-less does
00:29:43
◼
►
is take black and white photography.
00:29:46
◼
►
Now, Michael, do you like black and white pictures?
00:29:49
◼
►
Anyone who follows me on Instagram
00:29:50
◼
►
knows that I'm still furious about the removal
00:29:53
◼
►
of the Gotham filter, because I think it was--
00:29:56
◼
►
Which is like 18 months ago.
00:29:57
◼
►
I'm still mad about this.
00:29:58
◼
►
I still tag rip Gotham because I figured out how to sort of approximate it, but I'm mad.
00:30:04
◼
►
I have a conspiracy theory about why it was removed, but please continue.
00:30:08
◼
►
This was a complete setup because I know, as a guy who follows you on Instagram, that
00:30:13
◼
►
you love black and white photography.
00:30:16
◼
►
That's all Huellist does.
00:30:17
◼
►
Huellist is an app that is meant for taking.
00:30:22
◼
►
It's a black and white camera app.
00:30:23
◼
►
That's what it is.
00:30:25
◼
►
I'm a huge fan of it, and I've always been a fan of black and white.
00:30:28
◼
►
I think that there's this weird psychology behind black and white.
00:30:31
◼
►
I know it's not natural.
00:30:32
◼
►
I know that the whole origins of black and white
00:30:36
◼
►
were like technical limitations that kept us from shooting in color.
00:30:39
◼
►
But in hindsight, there's this great, great emotional effect
00:30:42
◼
►
from black and white photography.
00:30:44
◼
►
And I think there's really something to seeing your pictures in black and white
00:30:51
◼
►
as you're shooting them so that you know what you're getting.
00:30:55
◼
►
and that's what Huellist is all about.
00:30:57
◼
►
And they have a brand new version, 1.5,
00:31:01
◼
►
it's in the months since the last time
00:31:03
◼
►
they've sponsored the show.
00:31:05
◼
►
They've been hard at work and some really great features.
00:31:08
◼
►
They've got some new aspect ratios that you can enjoy.
00:31:12
◼
►
So you can shoot one to one, which means square,
00:31:16
◼
►
which means like optimized for Instapaper
00:31:18
◼
►
right in the camera.
00:31:20
◼
►
You can shoot three to two,
00:31:22
◼
►
which is the aspect ratio of the iPhone screen, or at least the iPhone that we have right
00:31:27
◼
►
So you can shoot full frame.
00:31:29
◼
►
You've got new aspect ratios.
00:31:31
◼
►
You see them right there on the screen as you shoot.
00:31:36
◼
►
A bunch of cleanup, the way that they made the user interface even more streamlined.
00:31:41
◼
►
Improved direct access to their color filters.
00:31:43
◼
►
Now the color filters, you say, "What the hell?
00:31:45
◼
►
You said it's a black and white app."
00:31:46
◼
►
The color filters, what I mean is that they simulate in terms of traditional photography
00:31:52
◼
►
the way that you would put like an orange filter over your lens or a green filter or a blue filter
00:31:56
◼
►
Which filters the light that comes through and you get different degrees of contrast or for example?
00:32:02
◼
►
And I got them and it's so early in the morning that it's like pitch black here
00:32:07
◼
►
So I can't I'm guessing wrong but like if you want the sky to pop against the clouds
00:32:13
◼
►
I think you put like a blue filter on and then the blue will look dark and the white of the clouds will look
00:32:21
◼
►
You put a color filter on and you get different types of contrast out of the black and white
00:32:26
◼
►
So in other words, it's not about making the image tinted color. It's about
00:32:30
◼
►
Altering what is dark? What is light and the thing they've improved the interface for that?
00:32:35
◼
►
Dramatically so that you can switch the color filter on the fly in the viewfinder
00:32:40
◼
►
More conveniently, it's really really nice
00:32:45
◼
►
It's a for the Gotham just to back you up here the the Gotham filter that to rebuild it
00:32:50
◼
►
which involves about two different apps,
00:32:52
◼
►
which the first app is a black and white app.
00:32:54
◼
►
The first thing that I do is actually a red filter,
00:32:56
◼
►
which actually gets that pop that you see against clouds
00:33:00
◼
►
and makes the sky incredibly black.
00:33:01
◼
►
- And Helus has a red filter built right in.
00:33:05
◼
►
There's a slider that lets you adjust how strong it is,
00:33:08
◼
►
whether it's dark, whether it's light.
00:33:10
◼
►
It really is absolutely, positively,
00:33:13
◼
►
one of my favorite apps for the iPhone.
00:33:16
◼
►
And if I'm thinking, if I'm feeling black and white,
00:33:18
◼
►
immediately that's what I know I want to go to I go to Hugh list to shoot the
00:33:22
◼
►
photo and I think everybody should check it out you can go to Hugh less h u e l e
00:33:31
◼
►
s s app.com and find out more get a link to their to their app in the App Store
00:33:38
◼
►
and if you've already got it just quick go to the App Store app and and download
00:33:42
◼
►
the 1.5 update you've you definitely want it it's it's it's a great update
00:33:47
◼
►
everybody should get it if you don't have it shame on you you less in the app
00:33:53
◼
►
store $1.99 I mean for God's sake one a dollar ninety nine buck ninety nine how
00:33:57
◼
►
who can't afford that less than a cup of coffee exactly
00:34:04
◼
►
what were we talking about what the hell were we talking about we were we were we
00:34:11
◼
►
We were talking about Ev and Medium and serial entrepreneurs and that sort of thing.
00:34:18
◼
►
I don't quite get it.
00:34:19
◼
►
I don't get what Medium is quite all about.
00:34:20
◼
►
I feel like I'll get it as more people who are on it use it.
00:34:28
◼
►
No, I'll pay very close attention.
00:34:31
◼
►
But also blogging, really?
00:34:32
◼
►
Again, we're doing this?
00:34:33
◼
►
That's right.
00:34:34
◼
►
I'm cool with that.
00:34:35
◼
►
The thing I saw that helped me explain it, and he is.
00:34:40
◼
►
He's like one of my go-to guys that I've been reading since long before, like, you know,
00:34:45
◼
►
and we're talking about me and you blogging for ten years, but like, makes me feel like
00:34:48
◼
►
it hasn't even been that long because this guy's been at it.
00:34:51
◼
►
Like when I got started, I feel like he was already at it for a long time.
00:34:54
◼
►
Dave Weiner.
00:34:55
◼
►
I saw Dave Weiner on Twitter last night, and he's already on Medium and has an account.
00:35:01
◼
►
And I mean, literally, the guy Dave Weiner arguably invented blogging, maybe even invented
00:35:07
◼
►
like the guy was writing blogging software like like while some of us
00:35:13
◼
►
hadn't even learned HTML yet in the 90s and the way he described it was that in
00:35:22
◼
►
medium that you don't you don't put a category on a post you put a put you put
00:35:28
◼
►
a post in a category right like a centralized category in the system which
00:35:35
◼
►
Which is sort of an interesting way to think about it.
00:35:37
◼
►
You don't just write a post and tag it Apple.
00:35:39
◼
►
There's like an Apple category and you put a post in it.
00:35:43
◼
►
And then somebody out there using it would be surfing the Apple category and then they'll
00:35:46
◼
►
see your post.
00:35:47
◼
►
So it's not about the individual necessary.
00:35:50
◼
►
It's like you have these buckets of stuff that if you want to go see, I don't know,
00:35:54
◼
►
interesting or new or Apple that you can just drill down and see all of the different pieces
00:35:57
◼
►
inside of it.
00:35:58
◼
►
That makes sense.
00:35:59
◼
►
It's simple, but that makes sense.
00:36:00
◼
►
Yeah, something like that.
00:36:03
◼
►
You get do what do you have a MacBook Pro with retina display I?
00:36:09
◼
►
Don't and I knew you ask me that and I have I have I feel bad because I've seen it enough around and on work that
00:36:17
◼
►
It's it's it's you just I mean so you're gonna say this anyway
00:36:21
◼
►
But you just see it in your life is completely changed and everything else starts to look just you know not so shiny
00:36:28
◼
►
Yeah, so that is sort of one of the things that kept me that like had that review that I had
00:36:34
◼
►
I kept it in the draft folder for weeks longer than I had originally anticipated is this whole angle of it being a
00:36:42
◼
►
machine and a technology that I
00:36:46
◼
►
Loved and and I say that word with no hyperbole that I absolutely adore it
00:36:52
◼
►
I mean, I love it it like strikes my
00:36:56
◼
►
childlike wonder, nerd nerve in a way that nothing, like nothing since the original iPhone
00:37:05
◼
►
has. But on the other hand, it is not the machine for me. And I it's like I couldn't
00:37:13
◼
►
square that circle. Because I don't want a 15 inch laptop anymore, even though it is
00:37:21
◼
►
noticeably thinner and noticeably lighter than any previous 15 inch laptop from Apple before I've
00:37:27
◼
►
Really gotten used to when I'm leave the house with a computer that it's this tiny little sliver of a MacBook Air, right?
00:37:36
◼
►
What is your I should know this but what is your what is your desktop setup?
00:37:40
◼
►
So I'm wrestling with the same thing right now is I've got the cheese grater right here on the floor
00:37:44
◼
►
And I've got the 30 inch and I've got the 27 inch next to it
00:37:48
◼
►
So we've got some pixels.
00:37:49
◼
►
We've got some serious pixels here.
00:37:50
◼
►
My desktop setup is totally janky.
00:37:54
◼
►
It's ridiculous.
00:37:56
◼
►
It's an old-- it actually is a 15-inch MacBook Pro,
00:38:00
◼
►
but I don't use it as a MacBook Pro.
00:38:02
◼
►
It's a MacBook Pro that never leaves the desk,
00:38:05
◼
►
and I don't use the built-in display on,
00:38:07
◼
►
driving a 20-inch, a measly little 20-inch cinema display.
00:38:14
◼
►
The MacBook Pro on my desk is so old
00:38:16
◼
►
that it has the gray keyboard, not the black keyboard.
00:38:20
◼
►
But what is your upgrade for that?
00:38:21
◼
►
Because this is the one that I feel like--
00:38:23
◼
►
Well, my upgrade-- this is it.
00:38:24
◼
►
This is the thing, is that my upgrade is I
00:38:27
◼
►
want it to be a Retina iMac.
00:38:30
◼
►
And I don't want to buy an iMac that's not Retina.
00:38:33
◼
►
And I sort of had it as a vague thought before.
00:38:36
◼
►
And now that I've seen an actual Retina display,
00:38:40
◼
►
it's like adamant.
00:38:41
◼
►
I can't imagine buying any new Mac that's not a Retina.
00:38:45
◼
►
I can't imagine it.
00:38:46
◼
►
I actually left – when I left the WWDC keynote this year in June, I was very excited about
00:38:54
◼
►
the Retina MacBook Pro.
00:38:56
◼
►
But I also thought, well, now they've updated the Airs.
00:39:00
◼
►
And my Air, my 11-inch Air, is two years old.
00:39:04
◼
►
It's from 2010, and it's the last one that Apple made that doesn't have a light-up
00:39:11
◼
►
If you remember in 2010, the 11 inch didn't have a light up keyboard and the 13 inch did.
00:39:17
◼
►
And then they came out with a 2011 update that was a real nice update.
00:39:21
◼
►
And I skipped because I just bought the previous generation.
00:39:23
◼
►
And now I felt like leaving the keynote, I thought, well, now it's two generations after
00:39:28
◼
►
The thing only costs 1000 bucks.
00:39:33
◼
►
I'm sure I can, you know, find someone else to take this two year old one.
00:39:37
◼
►
I'll get it.
00:39:38
◼
►
I left the keynote excited about the Retina MacBook Pro,
00:39:41
◼
►
but thinking, hey, I should quick jump on apple.com
00:39:43
◼
►
and pre-order a brand new 11-inch Air to replace this one.
00:39:48
◼
►
I really, I honestly was thinking maybe, you know,
00:39:50
◼
►
I would quick pre-order one immediately.
00:39:53
◼
►
Sight unseen, just quick pre-order one.
00:39:55
◼
►
And I didn't, I waited, and then the longer I used
00:39:58
◼
►
the Retina 15-inch MacBook Pro that Apple loaned me
00:40:01
◼
►
as a review unit, and now I can't bring myself to do it.
00:40:05
◼
►
I cannot spend money on a machine
00:40:07
◼
►
it's not doesn't have a retina display so you're gonna do the iMac if and when
00:40:12
◼
►
it ever comes out as your desktop that's gonna be your desktop machine that's
00:40:15
◼
►
what I'm my in theory what I would love to do is get a retina right if if though
00:40:22
◼
►
if Apple were to ship cinema displays with retina just retina right quality
00:40:29
◼
►
then I would buy one of those and I don't know I guess get a Mac Pro or Mac
00:40:34
◼
►
or something to drive it.
00:40:36
◼
►
Yeah, I think that's the move.
00:40:38
◼
►
Because I feel like I'm wondering if I'm going to go to a completely mobile solution,
00:40:41
◼
►
but I have the same quandary, which is I fly a lot,
00:40:45
◼
►
and the only thing to take on a plane is an air.
00:40:48
◼
►
There's just no doubt in my mind that it's easy,
00:40:51
◼
►
it just slides in the chair in front of me,
00:40:54
◼
►
it's light, it's the right size.
00:40:57
◼
►
And when you're in one of those airports that has like 122,
00:41:02
◼
►
No, they're not called terminals like what are they called gates like 120 and you like all right you get through security
00:41:09
◼
►
And you're like in an unfamiliar Airport, and you're like all right. I've got gate
00:41:12
◼
►
87 where am I and you look up and it says gate 2 right you're like oh
00:41:19
◼
►
You get when you get to gate 87 if you're now in the era of the MacBook Air
00:41:24
◼
►
You don't feel like like your one shoulder hurts and your other one doesn't right exactly
00:41:29
◼
►
used to. It used to be like, now I feel like I'm doing manual labor here. I feel like one
00:41:34
◼
►
of my shoulders is ready to fall off. It is addictive, the lightweight.
00:41:45
◼
►
I guess if you're in first class, you could even set up an iMac up there. But in a regular
00:41:51
◼
►
coach seat, it is an enormous advantage to have a MacBook Air.
00:41:57
◼
►
Well, even in first class, not that I'd do it a lot, but it's still-- for me, it's
00:42:01
◼
►
a nice trade-off between enough screen real estate, moving it around, but also just a
00:42:08
◼
►
perfect-sized keyboard.
00:42:10
◼
►
The smaller keyboard-- I know there's a lot of folks that like that really, really small
00:42:13
◼
►
form factor-- it drives me a little bit crazy.
00:42:16
◼
►
So it's the perfect size for me on the travel.
00:42:20
◼
►
In theory, two years from now, I assume that this will be no problem and I'll have it all.
00:42:32
◼
►
I'll have a retina, iMac, and a desk in my office, and a retina 11-inch MacBook Air that
00:42:39
◼
►
I take with me everywhere else.
00:42:41
◼
►
Is it multiple monitors?
00:42:43
◼
►
No, one monitor.
00:42:45
◼
►
The multiple monitor thing.
00:42:47
◼
►
I had it years ago, last time I had a real office job when I worked at Barebone Software,
00:42:53
◼
►
I had multiple monitors.
00:42:55
◼
►
I did appreciate it.
00:42:57
◼
►
I know exactly what people are talking about.
00:43:02
◼
►
But it doesn't really work for me.
00:43:05
◼
►
Do you do the whole expose, whatever, I forget what it's called this year, do you do multiple
00:43:10
◼
►
virtual desktops?
00:43:14
◼
►
Especially like if I'm like when I'm writing a big article is out the spaces right right and I'll put
00:43:20
◼
►
I'll have everything in space. Everything is space one except space two is
00:43:25
◼
►
Only the the the BB edit document I'm typing in and the Safari windows that are
00:43:32
◼
►
Specifically opened for that article right that I've got like as research and then I can say space two is is
00:43:41
◼
►
the stuff I'm working on for the article.
00:43:43
◼
►
But it's funny though, because like--
00:43:46
◼
►
and I've noticed this the last two days,
00:43:48
◼
►
because the last two days I've spent writing these articles--
00:43:51
◼
►
is that I'll start out and it seems perfect,
00:43:54
◼
►
where space two only has two windows, a BB Edit document
00:43:59
◼
►
and one Safari window with two tabs.
00:44:02
◼
►
But by the time I'm done, I've got like seven Safari windows,
00:44:06
◼
►
each with four tabs open over there,
00:44:08
◼
►
which is as many Safari windows as the front.
00:44:10
◼
►
and the whole thing is just as big a jumble as my space number one.
00:44:14
◼
►
Right. But it is a partitioning way. I do the same thing.
00:44:18
◼
►
It's what am I focusing on and where am I doing research. I have another one which is
00:44:22
◼
►
basically distractions. So if I'm taking that mental break, it's that window that has
00:44:26
◼
►
Twitter in it and whatever other things are zipping by my desktop.
00:44:30
◼
►
So one of the reasons
00:44:34
◼
►
I asked you about the retina display is
00:44:38
◼
►
that like, one of the ways that you and I are very much alike
00:44:41
◼
►
is a relentless pursuit of perfection
00:44:46
◼
►
and to an obsessively detailed degree.
00:44:55
◼
►
- And the retina display enables that.
00:45:00
◼
►
- Right, like I mean you've at least,
00:45:02
◼
►
you've like loaded up your website in a retina display.
00:45:05
◼
►
- Oh no, I had this, I actually was looking at your site.
00:45:08
◼
►
One point, this is before the Retina MacBook came out,
00:45:12
◼
►
was I had to redo my logo, right?
00:45:14
◼
►
'Cause I did my logo years ago,
00:45:17
◼
►
and I suddenly looked at it.
00:45:18
◼
►
I was on the iPad, the iPad 2,
00:45:20
◼
►
and I was like, what the hell happened?
00:45:23
◼
►
Suddenly all of those jaggies and all of that,
00:45:25
◼
►
like that stuff that's lost on their regular displays
00:45:29
◼
►
was suddenly just in my face, and it looked awful.
00:45:31
◼
►
And I'm like, have you been looking at this
00:45:33
◼
►
for the last 10 years, right?
00:45:35
◼
►
So that was my first moment of like, oh, the game is different regarding how we're actually
00:45:40
◼
►
going to have to have our images and what our fonts are going to look like.
00:45:44
◼
►
I noticed, and I noticed this last week because there was a day, and I hope to write about
00:45:49
◼
►
it soon, and it took me, as always with anything like this, way more time than I thought it
00:45:58
◼
►
I upgraded the favicon on Daring Fireball last week.
00:46:04
◼
►
for a couple of reasons, but it took me way longer than I thought it would.
00:46:08
◼
►
But I upgraded it, mainly
00:46:12
◼
►
to retnify it. And I did notice
00:46:16
◼
►
and as I was doing it, I went around the web and tried to see, well, who else has a retina quality
00:46:20
◼
►
favicon? And RANS has a retina favicon.
00:46:24
◼
►
I noticed that. And it is one of those things where when you're
00:46:28
◼
►
surfing, you look at your website on the Retina MacBook Pro, and if you don't,
00:46:32
◼
►
You look up at the URL and you see that little tiny FAB icon, but it's not retina.
00:46:38
◼
►
It's like, "Oh, that's not going to work."
00:46:40
◼
►
It just smudged, right?
00:46:41
◼
►
Yeah, it does. Yeah, exactly. It looks like somebody faxed it to you.
00:46:45
◼
►
And it's like, immediately, it was like pain in my heart. It was like, "This hurts me.
00:46:55
◼
►
It hurts me as though I'm listening to somebody insult my wife or my child."
00:47:02
◼
►
It hurts me because my beloved Daring Fireball favicon now looks like--
00:47:08
◼
►
Complete shit.
00:47:09
◼
►
Looks like a piece of paper, a wet piece of paper I just peeled off my shoe.
00:47:13
◼
►
I've got to fix this.
00:47:16
◼
►
But there aren't a lot of resources online for how to make a retina quality favicon.
00:47:23
◼
►
It's-- and you Google it, and it's a lot of SEO crap.
00:47:29
◼
►
Like, the SEO crap for how to make a favicon dominates the search results.
00:47:34
◼
►
So that's why I want to write about it.
00:47:36
◼
►
But I knew that you got it.
00:47:38
◼
►
But the other thing, too, and I wrote about this in my review, is that--
00:47:43
◼
►
and this is where you're way ahead of me.
00:47:45
◼
►
You're way ahead of me.
00:47:47
◼
►
And I'm way behind the times, is that on the Retina MacBook Pro--
00:47:54
◼
►
and I think it's true for the iPhone and the iPad, too.
00:47:57
◼
►
too, but I feel like it is even more prominent on the retina
00:48:03
◼
►
It's so much like print quality output
00:48:12
◼
►
that you want real fonts, not screen fonts.
00:48:16
◼
►
And you've switched--
00:48:17
◼
►
I don't know when, but you've switched this year
00:48:19
◼
►
to Ideal Sans from Hoffler and Fur Jones.
00:48:28
◼
►
It was around the time of the 10-year anniversary
00:48:30
◼
►
is when I switched.
00:48:31
◼
►
And to your credit, the idea to even consider this idea
00:48:34
◼
►
was from you.
00:48:36
◼
►
I was flying, and I landed, and I got this rabid text or tweet
00:48:42
◼
►
or something from you where you're like, oh my god,
00:48:48
◼
►
So the inception is from you, although I have turned it on.
00:48:53
◼
►
And it's beautiful.
00:48:54
◼
►
It's gorgeous.
00:48:56
◼
►
Literally, to your point, when I first loaded it up on the iPad
00:49:00
◼
►
too with all ideal sounds and I have Sentinel as a headline,
00:49:05
◼
►
I feel like the world is a better place.
00:49:09
◼
►
There's order, and there's beauty,
00:49:11
◼
►
and I can't describe the feeling of actually seeing
00:49:14
◼
►
great typography on the blog.
00:49:17
◼
►
I'd only really upgrade.
00:49:19
◼
►
I did a couple other nips and tucks.
00:49:21
◼
►
But I only upgraded the typography.
00:49:23
◼
►
The whole layout is the same.
00:49:25
◼
►
But it feels to me, whenever I see it,
00:49:27
◼
►
it feels like a brand new site.
00:49:30
◼
►
It looks great on a non-retina display.
00:49:32
◼
►
It's a great font.
00:49:33
◼
►
And one of the reasons-- and I think it's super interesting.
00:49:37
◼
►
The HNFJ web fonts, to my knowledge,
00:49:43
◼
►
are only in-- it's not publicly available.
00:49:45
◼
►
The only three sites I know of that have the HNFJ web fonts are you, Jason Kotke, and Barack
00:50:01
◼
►
Like, that's pretty good company.
00:50:04
◼
►
You, Kotke, and Obama.
00:50:06
◼
►
And one of the reasons why is that it is -- and you talk to these guys, you talk to anybody
00:50:13
◼
►
who's working on distributing web fonts.
00:50:15
◼
►
And it is really hard.
00:50:20
◼
►
It's super simple.
00:50:21
◼
►
It's as simple as linking to anything
00:50:23
◼
►
like an image or a style sheet or anything on the web
00:50:26
◼
►
to get one working, get web fonts working technically.
00:50:30
◼
►
And it is incredibly hard and painstaking.
00:50:36
◼
►
And glyph by glyph requires all of this hand-drawn work
00:50:42
◼
►
to get them to look good everywhere.
00:50:46
◼
►
Meaning on the Mac, on iOS, on Android, and--
00:50:54
◼
►
what's the other-- the OS for PCs from Microsoft?
00:51:01
◼
►
I totally don't know.
00:51:03
◼
►
I've been ignoring Microsoft for so long.
00:51:05
◼
►
Do you remember that?
00:51:08
◼
►
Oh, Christ almighty.
00:51:09
◼
►
It's on like 90% of all computers in the world.
00:51:14
◼
►
Anyway, whatever it is called, it's really, really hard
00:51:17
◼
►
to get web fonts that look good there, because all
00:51:20
◼
►
these different platforms use different anti-aliasing
00:51:24
◼
►
They have different software that actually renders
00:51:26
◼
►
the outlines into bitmaps that are pushed into pixels
00:51:31
◼
►
And these guys-- you think guys like me and you sweat
00:51:36
◼
►
the details on font.
00:51:38
◼
►
It's like the guys who actually make fonts, it's amazing
00:51:42
◼
►
that they can even get out of bed,
00:51:44
◼
►
because they really, really sweat the details.
00:51:48
◼
►
And they notice things like when one side of uppercase M
00:51:54
◼
►
is half a pixel thicker than the other side when
00:51:57
◼
►
it's rendered on this browser on this platform.
00:52:02
◼
►
And that's what's taking so long for all these guys
00:52:04
◼
►
to get these fonts out as web fonts.
00:52:07
◼
►
And the other thing for HF&J in particular, I believe,
00:52:10
◼
►
is that they're also just super concerned with making sure
00:52:15
◼
►
that it's fairly licensed.
00:52:17
◼
►
They don't want to get fonts out in the open.
00:52:19
◼
►
So they're really obsessive about that,
00:52:21
◼
►
which I think is absolutely the right thing to do.
00:52:23
◼
►
It's so easy to steal a font, if you will.
00:52:27
◼
►
And their work is, as you just described,
00:52:31
◼
►
it's painstaking work.
00:52:32
◼
►
No one-- everyone looks at fonts.
00:52:33
◼
►
They do not see any of the work involved
00:52:35
◼
►
in actually pulling it off.
00:52:37
◼
►
Anyone who stares at a set of letters and goes,
00:52:40
◼
►
that question mark is like a work of art in itself,
00:52:44
◼
►
times that by the entire character set.
00:52:46
◼
►
You're talking about a massive amount of work.
00:52:48
◼
►
And I think one of the things they're tweaking and why it's
00:52:51
◼
►
not-- and this is my opinion, it's not out there to more
00:52:53
◼
►
people-- is they're just making sure that it's rock solid
00:52:56
◼
►
in terms of protecting their hard work.
00:53:03
◼
►
But really, the bottom line, though,
00:53:05
◼
►
is that this transition from only using the fonts that
00:53:09
◼
►
are available by default with the-- what do they call them?
00:53:12
◼
►
The web save fonts.
00:53:14
◼
►
They're used-- there's this list of 15 fonts that
00:53:17
◼
►
are available on Mac and Windows and Android or whatever.
00:53:22
◼
►
I guess Android doesn't have any fonts.
00:53:23
◼
►
Android's got like serif and sans serif or something like that.
00:53:26
◼
►
It's terrible.
00:53:27
◼
►
But there's the web save fonts that everybody's
00:53:29
◼
►
known from 1997 onward.
00:53:32
◼
►
And it's like-- bottom line is you're either picking Times,
00:53:36
◼
►
Verdana, or Georgia for fonts.
00:53:38
◼
►
And now with the web font thing, you can pick any of these fonts.
00:53:42
◼
►
And there's Typekit, which has a whole bunch of fonts
00:53:44
◼
►
from Adobe and other great indie browsers, or type vendors.
00:53:52
◼
►
And they look good anywhere.
00:53:53
◼
►
And it's because they've spent an awful lot of time
00:53:56
◼
►
to make sure they look good.
00:53:57
◼
►
But my god, do they look good.
00:53:59
◼
►
They look great.
00:53:59
◼
►
On the retina display.
00:54:01
◼
►
There's only one complaint, and I don't know if you have a huge amount of people that are
00:54:06
◼
►
listening to us at this point, but there's a load issue, and it's not just HF&J's solution.
00:54:11
◼
►
I've seen it elsewhere.
00:54:12
◼
►
Maybe it's a browser issue, but there's a double load issue.
00:54:16
◼
►
When you first load the page, you first get a render, and then there's a second render.
00:54:20
◼
►
It doesn't realign, it doesn't re-flow the page, but when the fonts are actually loading.
00:54:25
◼
►
So there's this eighths of a second, half of a second,
00:54:28
◼
►
where you get the correct geometry with all
00:54:33
◼
►
the bulleted-- I mean, the underlines and whatnot.
00:54:35
◼
►
And the typefaces haven't loaded yet.
00:54:37
◼
►
And then it shows up.
00:54:38
◼
►
The faster the machine, the slower-- I mean,
00:54:40
◼
►
the faster the machine, the less of a lag there.
00:54:43
◼
►
That's the only thing that bugs me,
00:54:45
◼
►
is there's like this second or so where you're still loading.
00:54:48
◼
►
It doesn't come in as one render of the page.
00:54:53
◼
►
Minor thing.
00:54:53
◼
►
You're going to notice.
00:54:54
◼
►
You're going to be turning this on at some point,
00:54:56
◼
►
and it's going to be 4 in the morning,
00:54:58
◼
►
and you're going to be just about done.
00:55:00
◼
►
And you're going to be going to an iPad 2,
00:55:01
◼
►
and you're going to reload.
00:55:02
◼
►
And you're going to be like, oh, what's that load thing?
00:55:04
◼
►
And I'm just telling you now, I'm saving you some time.
00:55:07
◼
►
I don't think it's a HF and J thing.
00:55:10
◼
►
I think it's a browser issue.
00:55:14
◼
►
And there's a phrase for it.
00:55:15
◼
►
It's like a lingo.
00:55:16
◼
►
It's like the flash before something.
00:55:20
◼
►
I don't know.
00:55:21
◼
►
Something there, yeah.
00:55:22
◼
►
So ridiculously early in the morning for me.
00:55:24
◼
►
I cannot think of it.
00:55:24
◼
►
But I know that I've seen it and that other people have
00:55:28
◼
►
commented on it.
00:55:29
◼
►
And I also know that there's a big deal,
00:55:33
◼
►
in terms of the latency, switching from using
00:55:36
◼
►
built-in fonts to web fonts, that it really
00:55:39
◼
►
affects people who are on high latency connections.
00:55:42
◼
►
Like, for example, all of our friends down in New Zealand,
00:55:47
◼
►
which is isolated and sort of has a crappy connection
00:55:52
◼
►
to the rest of the entire internet.
00:55:56
◼
►
I know that depending on how you're serving your web fonts
00:56:01
◼
►
and where you're getting them from,
00:56:03
◼
►
that delay between the initial page render
00:56:06
◼
►
and when the actual font kicks in is even worse down there.
00:56:09
◼
►
I haven't had one complaint from folks about it.
00:56:12
◼
►
There was someone running some bizarre Ubuntu blah, blah,
00:56:16
◼
►
blah that had a complaint.
00:56:18
◼
►
But everyone else-- I was worried
00:56:20
◼
►
there was some part of the demographic that was going to, some technology, some browser
00:56:24
◼
►
that I wasn't going to be able to support. I had one complaint and it was completely
00:56:28
◼
►
edge case Linux distribution, which was satisfying for me. I felt like I was a little bit ahead
00:56:34
◼
►
of the times, but it's not. It's not at all. We've already blown past the hour mark and
00:56:39
◼
►
I promised a bunch of people that this show would only be an hour long. But we're going
00:56:42
◼
►
to, we're going to head towards the finish. We're going to head towards the finish. Let
00:56:46
◼
►
me do the second sponsor read and then, and then we've got a couple of other things I
00:56:49
◼
►
I want to cover before I let you go. And our second sponsor, this to me is Serendipity.
00:56:57
◼
►
This is a delightful one-two punch of sponsors. Our second sponsor is PhotoDelight. It's an
00:57:07
◼
►
app for the iPad from our friends at Global Delight. Now PhotoDelight is a photo colorizing
00:57:15
◼
►
app for iPad. So you've got our first sponsor, Hue-less, all about black and white photography.
00:57:22
◼
►
Now we've got an iPad app that's all about color photography on the iPad. To me, that's
00:57:29
◼
►
serendipity. I mean, this to me is a sign that the universe works.
00:57:35
◼
►
Now Photo Delight lets you create really cool pictures out of ordinary snapshots, and it's
00:57:43
◼
►
It's got this really, they call it smart touch that lets you adjust your photo with, you
00:57:50
◼
►
know, just by touching it and putting your finger on spots.
00:57:55
◼
►
And you can do color spill.
00:57:58
◼
►
You just put color right there and it's real smart about what it does as you touch the
00:58:04
◼
►
It detects the color you want to highlight by your touch on that part of the image.
00:58:08
◼
►
It continues to reveal only that color in the image wherever else you move your finger
00:58:14
◼
►
without lifting it.
00:58:17
◼
►
It produces really, really amazing photography.
00:58:20
◼
►
You have to try it to see what I mean, but it really produces striking images without
00:58:26
◼
►
spending a lot of time zooming in and erasing and stuff like that.
00:58:33
◼
►
It's just a really quick way with just a couple of quick taps on the parts of the photo you
00:58:37
◼
►
want to highlight to really, really make it super vibrant and more or less more cowbell.
00:58:44
◼
►
It's one of my--the wife and I just went to Yellowstone with the kids. And literally
00:58:52
◼
►
80% of the time on the iPhone is sitting there between the two of us battling on Instagram.
00:59:00
◼
►
And seriously--and she's better than I am, by the way, just so everyone knows. But I've
00:59:07
◼
►
I've got a set of photo editing apps that we have.
00:59:11
◼
►
And the goal for each of us is what combination of these apps
00:59:14
◼
►
and their set of features can we use
00:59:17
◼
►
to outdo the other person?
00:59:19
◼
►
We're sitting in bed at night just doing photo processing.
00:59:22
◼
►
Who would have imagined?
00:59:24
◼
►
I've got an entire page--
00:59:27
◼
►
I don't know what you call them-- home screen page
00:59:29
◼
►
on my iPhone that is just for diddling a picture that
00:59:32
◼
►
is going to go to Instagram.
00:59:36
◼
►
Photo delight for the iPad.
00:59:38
◼
►
The highlights, the new version is 2.0.
00:59:40
◼
►
Let me just, here's the highlights.
00:59:41
◼
►
Let me just read these highlights.
00:59:43
◼
►
This is great.
00:59:43
◼
►
Gorgeous UI for the retina display.
00:59:46
◼
►
Check, totally agree.
00:59:47
◼
►
It is absolutely pixel perfect on the retina iPad
00:59:51
◼
►
in parentheses three.
00:59:52
◼
►
Their intelligent smart touch,
00:59:55
◼
►
ensuring that the parts of the photo you touch
00:59:59
◼
►
are the parts that get highlighted.
01:00:02
◼
►
You get to colorize photos of up to 20 megapixels.
01:00:05
◼
►
I mean, I don't even know where you're going to get 20 megapixel pictures onto the iPad,
01:00:09
◼
►
but that's what it supports up to, so you're all set.
01:00:12
◼
►
Brush settings, accidental stroke correction options, pinch pan gestures for finer adjustments.
01:00:19
◼
►
It's integrated with iOS's Twitter and Facebook sharing.
01:00:23
◼
►
You can share it to Flickr, you can share it to PhotoBucket, or by email you can send
01:00:27
◼
►
it anywhere you want.
01:00:29
◼
►
And they've got a contest.
01:00:30
◼
►
They've got a contest where there's a photo colorizing contest, share a pic, win a gift,
01:00:34
◼
►
a user can participate to win a $20 iTunes gift card and you can find more details on
01:00:41
◼
►
their website at www.globaldelight.com. Globaldelight.com and their app is called Photo Delight and
01:00:50
◼
►
you can find out more about the contest there and buy it, buy the app for the iPad. And
01:00:57
◼
►
I recommend it completely. It's a great, great app.
01:01:01
◼
►
You know, your wife's Instagram account, to me,
01:01:05
◼
►
is almost like a fake Instagram account,
01:01:07
◼
►
where it's like the account that Instagram would show
01:01:12
◼
►
in the app store screenshots
01:01:17
◼
►
for what do you do with Instagram,
01:01:19
◼
►
because it's all of these scenic landscapes.
01:01:24
◼
►
I don't know what she does.
01:01:28
◼
►
I don't know if she's got her own personal jet airplane,
01:01:32
◼
►
but all of a sudden, it's like, here's
01:01:34
◼
►
one where it's like trees and woods and mountains.
01:01:37
◼
►
I'm like, oh, I think that's where the Lops live, right?
01:01:41
◼
►
And then the next one is like a desert landscape,
01:01:43
◼
►
and the next one's like the ocean, and the next one is--
01:01:49
◼
►
they're all over the place.
01:01:50
◼
►
I don't know how it happens.
01:01:52
◼
►
I don't know how she's getting that.
01:01:54
◼
►
We live in the Santa Cruz mountains in California,
01:01:56
◼
►
There's lots of--the coast is--look out the window right now, I can see the Pacific Ocean,
01:02:00
◼
►
we're in the middle of a redwood forest, there's lots of diversity.
01:02:05
◼
►
But the larger point is she's really fucking good at this, which is incredibly annoying
01:02:09
◼
►
to me because we obviously like, "How many likes did you get?"
01:02:13
◼
►
And she's got far less than me, but ratio-wise, just kicking my ass.
01:02:17
◼
►
I mean, kicking my ass.
01:02:19
◼
►
And she's all--and I think--she's not going to hear this because I'm not going to tell
01:02:25
◼
►
Tell her about that. I'm doing the show by the way because she can't hear this is I think what she's good at is
01:02:30
◼
►
And it's it's an important thing is if you go look at the rands the rands instagrams
01:02:34
◼
►
I go for like high contrast and deep colors
01:02:38
◼
►
I think my composition is okay
01:02:40
◼
►
But she goes with subtle right and it's and it's I don't do so because I feel like I need to like turn up the
01:02:46
◼
►
Knobs and whatever direction as loud as she's very good at that like finding a great
01:02:50
◼
►
Got a great look and then this subtle change as opposed to like throwing down the Gotham or whatever, you know intense
01:02:57
◼
►
You know saturation that Rans is going for I I think that you and I are more or less on par
01:03:02
◼
►
Photography quality wise where you and I can take some pictures are like wow
01:03:07
◼
►
That's pretty cool for a picture you took with your phone, right? Your wife though is that like she takes picture
01:03:12
◼
►
I'm like, come on you took that with your iPhone. You gotta be kidding. You've got to be kidding me. I
01:03:18
◼
►
I don't think I could get a picture like that out of my $2,500 Canon 5D.
01:03:25
◼
►
We're not telling her this. Everyone is just not. She can't hear this because I'm screwed.
01:03:29
◼
►
But she does. And you can vouch for that, that she takes those pictures with the iPhone?
01:03:32
◼
►
Oh, it's all iPhone. She doesn't have any other camera.
01:03:34
◼
►
Because I do. In my heart, I do think she cheats.
01:03:37
◼
►
I think there's one cheat. She took a picture of one of the kids at one point.
01:03:41
◼
►
I'm saying, though, that her pictures every single day look like that.
01:03:45
◼
►
All iPhones, swear to God.
01:03:46
◼
►
What else you want to talk about, dude?
01:03:52
◼
►
You know what I want to talk about is a little bit
01:03:55
◼
►
on the web fonts.
01:03:56
◼
►
Are you surprised that Apple isn't using web fonts yet?
01:04:03
◼
►
On the website?
01:04:05
◼
►
I'm loading it just to make sure that they didn't do it
01:04:08
◼
►
this morning, because that would be funny.
01:04:12
◼
►
You know, I used to work at Apple.
01:04:17
◼
►
It's just about to ask you if we can mention that.
01:04:19
◼
►
You always have to ask.
01:04:20
◼
►
You have to double check with anybody.
01:04:25
◼
►
The website--
01:04:28
◼
►
It's got to happen.
01:04:29
◼
►
It's got to happen eventually.
01:04:30
◼
►
And the same is true for me, though.
01:04:32
◼
►
Maybe it's just as surprising that I'm not using web fonts
01:04:35
◼
►
The thing about the website for me, even when we were there,
01:04:38
◼
►
is it's like-- and my friends run it,
01:04:42
◼
►
so I can rip on them because they're my friends.
01:04:44
◼
►
But it's a beautiful, beautiful site.
01:04:47
◼
►
It's a gorgeous site.
01:04:49
◼
►
But if you go look at it, this isn't an application.
01:04:52
◼
►
If you go view the source, the amount of technology
01:04:55
◼
►
behind the site is pretty low.
01:04:56
◼
►
It's like, where do you log into apple.com?
01:04:58
◼
►
And the answer is, you don't.
01:04:59
◼
►
I mean, you can go to the store and that's
01:05:00
◼
►
an application and whatnot.
01:05:02
◼
►
But it's always felt beautiful to me.
01:05:05
◼
►
But technology-wise-- and I know who's
01:05:08
◼
►
going to yell at me about this-- they
01:05:11
◼
►
haven't been leaning forward in terms of the technology.
01:05:17
◼
►
It's a static-- it's not a static site,
01:05:19
◼
►
but it is a static site.
01:05:20
◼
►
And so it doesn't surprise me.
01:05:22
◼
►
And I know people are going to yell at me about that.
01:05:24
◼
►
I would expect it at some point here.
01:05:25
◼
►
But then thinking about Apple, you have to wonder,
01:05:28
◼
►
it's like there's probably some reason they haven't done it.
01:05:31
◼
►
Like is it because web fonts are big,
01:05:33
◼
►
and that would be a huge load, or whatever.
01:05:36
◼
►
But I'm not surprised.
01:05:37
◼
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It's not like I'm sitting here going, oh my god,
01:05:39
◼
►
they haven't done it.
01:05:40
◼
►
Well, the things I can think of are that A, clearly everybody knows the homepage of any
01:05:47
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►
site is the most important.
01:05:49
◼
►
And I think the homepage, the actual Apple.com homepage is way more important to Apple than
01:05:54
◼
►
it is to most people.
01:05:56
◼
►
In the way that the first impression of anything is more important with Apple.
01:06:02
◼
►
Their stores are nice.
01:06:04
◼
►
And if you just go into the store and crawl into the corner and just examine where the
01:06:09
◼
►
floor hits the wall and look for dust bunnies, you're not going to find it. It all looks
01:06:14
◼
►
new and the actual joint where the floor hits the wall just looks as new. Maybe it's a 10-year-old
01:06:22
◼
►
Apple store in your local mall and it still looks brand new. But the thing that's most
01:06:26
◼
►
important isn't the detail. It's not like the actual wow. If you actually look at the
01:06:30
◼
►
corner of this table where all the iPhones are set up, it still looks like a brand new
01:06:34
◼
►
table right on the corner, nothing's worn off, no scuff marks, blah, blah, blah.
01:06:39
◼
►
But the thing that's most important is what it looks like from the outside when you first
01:06:46
◼
►
It's that first impression and then everything goes from there.
01:06:47
◼
►
Well, the same is true for the homepage of a website.
01:06:50
◼
►
And the homepage of Apple.com, it's all images.
01:06:55
◼
►
There is no text because it's not rendered in web browser fonts.
01:07:03
◼
►
It's all rendered in the Apple corporate myriad typeface.
01:07:07
◼
►
But the way they do it is by everything is an image.
01:07:10
◼
►
I was looking at, as you were talking, I was doing that, and that's one of the reasons
01:07:14
◼
►
that they don't have to go to web fonts.
01:07:15
◼
►
All of these headlines are actually images.
01:07:19
◼
►
And it's all retinified.
01:07:20
◼
►
And there's a WWDC session where they explain how they do it, their way of serving retina
01:07:28
◼
►
images to retina quality displays.
01:07:30
◼
►
I sorry I gotta interrupt you here the
01:07:33
◼
►
Scorsese iPhone ad what did you did you love it? Did you hate it? I know you're a fan
01:07:39
◼
►
So I love Scorsese and I'm not a hater on these celebrity Siri ads, but I do feel though
01:07:46
◼
►
Here's the thing about the Scorsese one that I feel I
01:07:49
◼
►
They're all a little cheaty because they all make Siri look a lot faster than Siri actually is sure and the thing with Scorsese is Scorsese
01:07:58
◼
►
infamously is a super fast talker and thinker
01:08:02
◼
►
Like he's a mile-a-minute talker. That's that's his thing. I mean, that's Martin Scorsese and
01:08:09
◼
►
In addition to the fact that even if he were like
01:08:15
◼
►
in like the the like a direct Ethernet connection to the backbone of
01:08:23
◼
►
the best backbone of the ethernet in Urbana, Illinois,
01:08:27
◼
►
is not going to get this sort of response time from Siri.
01:08:29
◼
►
He's in midtown Manhattan.
01:08:32
◼
►
And you go to New York enough.
01:08:34
◼
►
I mean, you know, I don't care if you're on Verizon.
01:08:37
◼
►
I don't care if you're on AT&T. I don't care what you're on.
01:08:39
◼
►
The 3G service in midtown Manhattan, midday, is sketchy.
01:08:45
◼
►
Like, it couldn't be more unrealistic in terms of what
01:08:50
◼
►
it's actually like interacting with Siri.
01:08:51
◼
►
That's the thing that gets me about the ad.
01:08:54
◼
►
It's a good ad.
01:08:54
◼
►
I thought it was clever.
01:08:56
◼
►
It was one of my--
01:08:57
◼
►
It's a good ad in terms of what Siri could be or will be
01:09:00
◼
►
But in terms of what you would actually get from Siri
01:09:04
◼
►
while you're in a cab in midtown,
01:09:06
◼
►
it's like that commercial in real time
01:09:09
◼
►
would take 90 minutes.
01:09:11
◼
►
It would be like a feature film.
01:09:14
◼
►
And also the fast talking, you'd be getting those-- I'm sorry,
01:09:18
◼
►
I don't know what you mean by-- right,
01:09:20
◼
►
because he's talking so fast.
01:09:23
◼
►
I thought it was kind of interesting that they gave him a white iPhone,
01:09:25
◼
►
because I think it's very clear that's because the cab is a dark atmosphere
01:09:29
◼
►
and he's sort of wearing a dark thing. And it actually-- I think Martin Scorsese,
01:09:33
◼
►
if he has an iPhone, if he really carries one, he's a black iPhone guy.
01:09:36
◼
►
Totally agree with that. Are you black or white right now?
01:09:39
◼
►
Oh, you know. Come on.
01:09:41
◼
►
I can't believe you had to ask.
01:09:42
◼
►
What are you, though? You, I'm not sure about. You might be a white iPhone.
01:09:48
◼
►
am a white iPhone and I think I got inceptioned on that too because I had black twice and
01:09:54
◼
►
And I'm like a new phone
01:09:57
◼
►
I'm gonna get the white
01:09:58
◼
►
But then I went back and I think these ads are all changed out after
01:10:02
◼
►
after they announced the most recent iPhone and I went back and look at the advertising and I'm pretty sure that
01:10:07
◼
►
The the white was more prominently featured and now I'm just sitting there whether I've gotten figuring out whether I got
01:10:15
◼
►
Manipulate it or not into getting away. I mean, I just wanted a change of scenery and the white is beautiful, by the way, but
01:10:20
◼
►
I'm feeling manipulated because I think they really pushed it and I think that is one of the reasons that I actually
01:10:26
◼
►
Decided to make the switch on the most recent one, but I'm going back to black
01:10:30
◼
►
It's that's that's the only one for me. This is an old story
01:10:33
◼
►
I'm sure I've told this before like in a long ago episode of the talk show and I've probably
01:10:38
◼
►
Told it to you personally because you've hung out with me and my wife. Yeah, but it's it's a good story
01:10:44
◼
►
is that when the iPhone 4 first was announced,
01:10:49
◼
►
and my wife and I were both on,
01:10:53
◼
►
hey, I get one every year,
01:10:54
◼
►
she was definitely on pace for a new phone,
01:10:56
◼
►
and I said, "You should get the white one."
01:10:59
◼
►
I've seen it, 'cause I was at the press event
01:11:01
◼
►
on the WWDC where they announced it,
01:11:03
◼
►
and I said, "It's beautiful.
01:11:05
◼
►
"I don't want it, I'm gonna get black.
01:11:06
◼
►
"I get black everything.
01:11:08
◼
►
"If anything is available in black,
01:11:09
◼
►
"I just get it in black."
01:11:10
◼
►
Anything, cars, phones.
01:11:13
◼
►
If there's a black option, I just get black.
01:11:15
◼
►
That way I don't have to think about it.
01:11:17
◼
►
And I said, but trust me, this thing is beautiful.
01:11:20
◼
►
The white one is great.
01:11:21
◼
►
And then we're gonna solve this problem
01:11:23
◼
►
we've had since the iPhone came out,
01:11:25
◼
►
where there's two phones on the kitchen counter
01:11:28
◼
►
and they're identical.
01:11:29
◼
►
And you gotta turn it on to see whose is whose.
01:11:32
◼
►
And you're never gonna accidentally
01:11:34
◼
►
pick up each other's phone.
01:11:36
◼
►
And she said, okay, I'm in.
01:11:39
◼
►
And then of course, the white iPhone
01:11:42
◼
►
infamously took Apple like 10 months to ship and
01:11:44
◼
►
By the time it actually came out
01:11:47
◼
►
You know there was the rumor was that there was a new iPhone coming
01:11:52
◼
►
And then that actually turned out to be false because it didn't come out the iPhone 4s didn't come out until October
01:11:58
◼
►
But it was a real source of of marital stress in in my life because I got blamed for this
01:12:04
◼
►
I'm sure she didn't bring that up and doesn't continue to bring that up like every week hour
01:12:11
◼
►
So she ended up not getting a new phone until the 4s came out, but she did get white and in fact though
01:12:16
◼
►
She does love it and loves the white but still I get blamed for like the lost 18 months of her having to use
01:12:22
◼
►
janky old 3gs
01:12:25
◼
►
But yeah, it's I think the white is great but
01:12:30
◼
►
It's funny. It is funny too though to think that it took them
01:12:34
◼
►
It's like one of those things are like at the time it was amusing and we thought about it and then we've sort of like
01:12:40
◼
►
forgotten it but like mighty Apple couldn't ship a white iPhone yeah I
01:12:46
◼
►
still think that's one of the most interesting things to happen in the last
01:12:49
◼
►
ten years like this company that we sort of think can do no wrong and as you know
01:12:55
◼
►
infinitely powerful couldn't ship a white iPhone that they were apparently
01:13:01
◼
►
convinced that they could you know we're ready to ship two weeks later in June to
01:13:07
◼
►
I wasn't there when it was happening, but it feels right to me.
01:13:13
◼
►
The rumors were that when it got hot, you'd start to see discoloration.
01:13:18
◼
►
To me, that feels very Apple.
01:13:20
◼
►
They went into the shake-and-bake period, or whatever that last month or so of qualification,
01:13:25
◼
►
and they found that there was a slight discoloration, or whatever it was.
01:13:29
◼
►
This is actually very Apple, which is like, "We don't ship crap."
01:13:34
◼
►
Three months if you're seeing a little discoloration where it's hot. It's like that is you know
01:13:39
◼
►
Every single phone is going to be returned at that point. So this is
01:13:42
◼
►
the other the other rumor and maybe it was like a little bit of column a and a little bit of column B I thought the
01:13:48
◼
►
other rumor was that the
01:13:50
◼
►
There was like light leakage that the like right the camera
01:13:55
◼
►
Right, so like photos didn't look as good because there was light coming in to hit the sensor
01:14:01
◼
►
That wasn't coming in from the lens or something like that
01:14:03
◼
►
Yeah, but whatever, you know, so my guess is maybe it was like all of the above right
01:14:07
◼
►
there was discoloration and there was some light leakage and that they because there's
01:14:11
◼
►
Like if you look at the schematics the white one has like a different grill right on the camera
01:14:18
◼
►
But you I'm sure you noticed this because you've got friends, you know
01:14:22
◼
►
you you did work there and you've got friends who were there is that the one of the most interesting things is what
01:14:26
◼
►
and I noticed this when I was there for the
01:14:32
◼
►
Antennagate event right when they had the that hey, hey, you better come out here
01:14:36
◼
►
We got to deal with this antenna gate situation and that was at a special press event on campus hadn't been there in a while
01:14:42
◼
►
So it was like August I think
01:14:44
◼
►
2010 like two months after the
01:14:48
◼
►
iPhone 4 it shipped and two months where the only one that had shipped was the black one and you go to the campus and
01:14:54
◼
►
You see employees walking around and half of them had white iPhones, right?
01:14:58
◼
►
And it was like you're in this bizarro universe on campus where the white iPhone existed
01:15:03
◼
►
And it was like whoa
01:15:07
◼
►
The only other place that I had seen one was on the the table right at
01:15:13
◼
►
WWDC where they had the one set up for the press but you went to the campus and employees had them
01:15:18
◼
►
It's like this la-la land where you know stuff that isn't available to the public people just walk around with them wonderland
01:15:26
◼
►
One of the things I speculated on in my piece earlier this week on the retina MacBook
01:15:30
◼
►
Pro is what font Apple might use as the system font for Mac OS X if they switch from Lucida
01:15:39
◼
►
Lucida Grande Grande Grande Grande koodle could koodle Grande
01:15:44
◼
►
You said a grand grand. I don't know
01:15:47
◼
►
I immediately thought that I should ask you since I knew you were gonna be issued you've you've you've a feel for that even a
01:15:52
◼
►
Do you have an opinion on that?
01:15:57
◼
►
I thought about it.
01:15:58
◼
►
I was thinking about it last night.
01:16:00
◼
►
I don't know what it is, but the thing about it is,
01:16:01
◼
►
I think it's going to be some Helvetica variant,
01:16:04
◼
►
but my opinion is it's more the intent of what it's there.
01:16:07
◼
►
It needs to be very readable and just very ignorable,
01:16:12
◼
►
if you will.
01:16:16
◼
►
It just has to be really, you don't even want to see it.
01:16:17
◼
►
It has to be something which there is an elegance to it.
01:16:17
◼
►
is a high readability to it.
01:16:20
◼
►
It has a lot of the things that Characteristic Lucinda does.
01:16:23
◼
►
But it's zero flash, right?
01:16:26
◼
►
Because this is the system font, right?
01:16:28
◼
►
It's going to be something which is just-- it's vanilla,
01:16:32
◼
►
beautifully vanilla.
01:16:33
◼
►
What do you think?
01:16:36
◼
►
My guess is that it's going to be Helvetic.
01:16:38
◼
►
They're going to switch to Helvetic.
01:16:40
◼
►
And I do think-- I actually do think--
01:16:42
◼
►
this is an article that is in my drafts folder.
01:16:47
◼
►
and it's probably only two sentences and a bunch of gibberish words, but I've been thinking about
01:16:51
◼
►
for a while, is that I do think that one of the most interesting design decisions Apple has ever
01:16:58
◼
►
made in 30 years of corporate history is the choice of Helvetica as the system font for iOS.
01:17:08
◼
►
because Helvetica is sort of the most obvious font that they could have chosen.
01:17:19
◼
►
>> It is a great face. It is, you know, it's super famous. It's maybe, you know,
01:17:23
◼
►
it's the font that actually has a documentary named after it. It's a font that people who
01:17:28
◼
►
don't even really think about fonts have at least heard of, even if they can't identify it.
01:17:35
◼
►
But sort of what makes Helvetica so famous is that it is so neutral.
01:17:45
◼
►
It's almost the non-font. I remember when I first got a Mac, thinking... And I didn't really even
01:17:52
◼
►
know... It's like before I really became even informed about typography, but I was intrigued
01:17:59
◼
►
by the font menu, and that I could do a "Select All," go to the font menu, and make what I
01:18:05
◼
►
just wrote look different.
01:18:08
◼
►
And I remember thinking that...or actually not even thinking that it was sort of a "Of
01:18:16
◼
►
course, it has to be this way," that of course, in any word processing document, when you
01:18:22
◼
►
make Command-N and make a new document and just start typing, of course it's going to
01:18:27
◼
►
to be 12 point Helvetica. Because that's the font that you haven't chosen a font. That's
01:18:34
◼
►
the, okay, you're just starting and this is neutral and we're not going to assume that
01:18:39
◼
►
this is supposed to feel friendly, we're not going to assume it's supposed to feel formal.
01:18:43
◼
►
It's just neutral.
01:18:45
◼
►
It's just the words. And it's Helvetica. Nobody ever says, it's a great font, but nobody ever
01:18:50
◼
►
says, "Wow, that is an interesting choice for a font. Like, you are a brilliant designer
01:18:57
◼
►
for having chosen Helvetica." But that's what they chose for iOS. And the other thing about
01:19:04
◼
►
choosing that for iOS is that Helvetica is not free. I think Linotype owns the license
01:19:11
◼
►
to it. But it's certainly widely available in any other company. And in fact, you can
01:19:17
◼
►
see there's a whole bunch of Android phones that it doesn't ship as part of the default
01:19:21
◼
►
Android distribution, but the add-ons from companies like Samsung and HTC inevitably
01:19:28
◼
►
use Helvetica for the home screen widgets, the clock and the date and time and the weather
01:19:34
◼
►
and stuff like that. Because it's Helvetica. Everybody can have access to Helvetica.
01:19:40
◼
►
But it is. I mean, it's the point about a really good face is, I mean, unless you're
01:19:45
◼
►
doing something comic-sansy and horrific like that is. The point is it needs to kind of
01:19:49
◼
►
stay out of the way. And when I go look at the web fonts on RANS and Repose right now,
01:19:54
◼
►
they still give me joy, but at the end of the day, I want them to get out of the way
01:19:57
◼
►
so that people can get to the message. So there's that balance you want to strike of
01:20:03
◼
►
highly readable, but also just get the hell out of the way so I can get to the words.
01:20:09
◼
►
The knock against Helvetica is that,
01:20:12
◼
►
or one of the knocks against it,
01:20:14
◼
►
especially for use as a system font,
01:20:16
◼
►
is that it's a font that not only is it
01:20:21
◼
►
hard to distinguish certain similar characters,
01:20:26
◼
►
in some cases it's actually impossible
01:20:28
◼
►
without the surrounding context.
01:20:30
◼
►
And the best famous example is capital I,
01:20:35
◼
►
lowercase l, and the numeral one.
01:20:39
◼
►
Now the one in Helvetica is a little different, but like a capital I and a lowercase L, the
01:20:47
◼
►
only difference between them and Helvetica is that the capital I is ever so slightly
01:20:52
◼
►
But they're just straight bars with no serif or glyph or bendy thing at all.
01:20:57
◼
►
And a lot of people feel very strongly that like a system font should have some kind of
01:21:05
◼
►
distinguishing characteristic for all of those characters, that the L should have a little
01:21:09
◼
►
bendy, the lowercase L should have a little bendy thing at the bottom, the uppercase I
01:21:14
◼
►
should have the bars, the crossbars.
01:21:18
◼
►
And Helvetica has none of those things.
01:21:22
◼
►
But God, I love Helvetica.
01:21:25
◼
►
I wouldn't mind at all if the Mac OS X switched to Helvetica.
01:21:27
◼
►
It's going to happen at some point, something, I don't know what it is.
01:21:31
◼
►
But it's one of those things where the retina makes all the difference in the world, where
01:21:36
◼
►
on pre-retina displays, it's not that Helvetica looks bad, but it doesn't look great.
01:21:40
◼
►
Yeah. Right? Whereas on a retina display, it's like, oh yeah, that's, you know, that's the
01:21:44
◼
►
Helvetica I love. It's my favorite thing, one of my favorite things to do on the site when I landed
01:21:49
◼
►
the web fonts is to pinch and it doesn't make them huge and make the article huge. I can just
01:21:56
◼
►
see word by word and just, just crisp, just gorgeous, very satisfying. It's so different.
01:22:05
◼
►
It's so different.
01:22:07
◼
►
And for me, and it really is, it's overdue.
01:22:12
◼
►
And I don't even have a good excuse for it
01:22:14
◼
►
why I haven't switched to some sort of web font
01:22:16
◼
►
at Daring Fireball other than-- what's the word?
01:22:22
◼
►
But the body font at Daring Fireball is Verdana at 11px.
01:22:31
◼
►
And I chose that.
01:22:33
◼
►
I chose that font and size in 2002 at a time when the overwhelming majority of Daring Fireball
01:22:43
◼
►
readers, not just on Windows, which at the time was actually a majority of readers, but even on Mac
01:22:49
◼
►
were using Mac OS 9, not Mac OS 10, and on Mac OS 9, it wasn't anti-aliased.
01:22:57
◼
►
it was a pure pixel font.
01:23:00
◼
►
Like, I picked that font and size at a time
01:23:03
◼
►
when anti-aliasing wasn't even enabled,
01:23:06
◼
►
except for the sliver of readers who were already on Mac OS X.
01:23:11
◼
►
Which in 2002 was actually a really, really small number.
01:23:15
◼
►
And it just doesn't hold up.
01:23:21
◼
►
Like, I linked to-- have you noticed, you go to Ikea?
01:23:23
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You're an Ikea guy?
01:23:24
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You're an Ikea fan.
01:23:25
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I know can't cover but you know that you know the brand right? Oh hell yeah, and you know that they switched from
01:23:31
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like their own custom version of Futura
01:23:37
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To Verdana like their catalogs and their signage are all printed in Verdana now, you know this I'm looking at it right now
01:23:44
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Yeah, and it really looks horrible. Yeah at print resolution
01:23:51
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Everybody nobody nobody has a good explanation for why they did this
01:23:55
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There's a convenience store/gas station chain in the greater Philadelphia area called
01:24:06
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Can you spell that for me?
01:24:11
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Everybody listening, most people listening are exactly like you, thinking, "What?
01:24:15
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And then the Philadelphia area listeners are all like, "I can't believe you had to spell
01:24:21
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You know, it's a 7-Eleven-ish type thing, but with like, you know, nicer.
01:24:28
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It's a lot nicer than a 7-Eleven.
01:24:32
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But they use—I often gas up the car at a Wawa.
01:24:35
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They use Verdana, like, on their print stuff.
01:24:39
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You know how, like, when you're buying gas, there's always an ad for something?
01:24:42
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Like the sandwiches they're selling inside or the Slurpees or whatever the hell they've
01:24:47
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They use Verdana.
01:24:48
◼
►
I noticed when they used Verdana and I think, "My god, does that look like shit at print
01:24:54
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resolution?"
01:24:55
◼
►
That's what Verdana looks like to me on a retina display.
01:24:58
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It just looks like you've chosen a font that is never meant to be output at this resolution
01:25:05
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and now you're using it.
01:25:07
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Did you ever see anybody who uses Chicago as a print font?
01:25:13
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I've seen it every once in a while.
01:25:17
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You'll see a store or something that has a sign, and they pick Chicago.
01:25:20
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And it looks so bad as a print font.
01:25:23
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►
No, I haven't-- whenever I'm walking around New York City,
01:25:28
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I know there's lots of people like those on Instagram.
01:25:30
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►
It's just the font travesties that are out there.
01:25:33
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►
It's shocking to me.
01:25:36
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►
Or as bad as Trebuchet looks on the web, when somebody prints a sign using
01:25:41
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►
trebuchet. Oh my god, it just kills me. It's like needles in my eye.
01:25:46
◼
►
Bad fonts. That's the thing about the retina display is good fonts look so
01:25:51
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►
good and bad fonts look so much worse. They look worse than they do before
01:25:56
◼
►
retina displays. I've got one more thing.
01:26:03
◼
►
And that's one more thing. That's a piece that you wrote on Rans and Repose
01:26:08
◼
►
Just a few weeks ago, you wrote about Apple's thing.
01:26:15
◼
►
That's my question for you.
01:26:17
◼
►
Is the one more thing from a keynote, is it an Apple thing or was it a Steve thing?
01:26:24
◼
►
Oh, you know, I did research into the piece and I found the YouTube video
01:26:28
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►
that someone just amalgamated them all together.
01:26:31
◼
►
And I will put that YouTube in the show notes for everybody to enjoy.
01:26:35
◼
►
And it's it's it's it's an amalgamation of Steve Jobs one more things from keynotes over the last 15 years
01:26:41
◼
►
But the question that you asked that I don't know the answer to is did anyone say it in a keynote?
01:26:46
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Before that and I don't know he certainly shaped it though, right?
01:26:50
◼
►
I mean if you go look at the video you can see you can see him
01:26:53
◼
►
Go from like it's this it's this total moment of it's the showmanship of him
01:27:01
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►
Going from like oh, it's like walking off stage, right, you know, and he's like we're all done and he turns around and goes
01:27:08
◼
►
Oh, wait a minute
01:27:09
◼
►
There's one more thing and that's how it really started and you've seen this too
01:27:12
◼
►
but it really started with him like literally trying to convince us that he almost forgot to introduce this world-changing thing and
01:27:18
◼
►
it over years it sort of refined into sort of a
01:27:22
◼
►
More it wasn't that big of a surprise
01:27:26
◼
►
It was just those three words that they actually that they actually did and you always were wondering right you were always wondering whether that
01:27:33
◼
►
Thing was gonna happen at the at the end of the of the keynote
01:27:37
◼
►
Well, he didn't always and when it did there was usually something that was it was compelling whether it was the Airport Express or I forget
01:27:43
◼
►
All the things were there but the question that I have is I think it is a Steve thing is my opinion
01:27:48
◼
►
I don't think I think they will never do it again
01:27:51
◼
►
Because it is his thing and if they do that would be that's
01:27:56
◼
►
That is a significant milestone in the post Steve world if they actually go say one more thing because it is him
01:28:02
◼
►
It's really it is literally a sign of his of his style and in the showman that he was
01:28:11
◼
►
they did and
01:28:13
◼
►
Then you know it was certain when he died it was certainly an unusual situation and right unusual to say the least a unique
01:28:20
◼
►
Situation for Apple in its corporate history that there's nobody else
01:28:24
◼
►
It was death going forward. I mean the company could still be around and still thriving a hundred years from now
01:28:30
◼
►
Absolutely, and they're still never gonna be anything like the death of Steve Jobs in terms of what it means to the company
01:28:37
◼
►
And and they had to do something and so they did something unusual and they had you know
01:28:41
◼
►
They had that picture of him right and a sort of tribute on the home page of Apple calm for a long time
01:28:46
◼
►
After I died, right?
01:28:48
◼
►
Months I think it was months. Yeah, it was it was really a long time
01:28:53
◼
►
I mean some you know, he died in
01:28:57
◼
►
Is it October? I actually don't remember exactly when I think was October and I think they had that up on the homepage through the holiday
01:29:04
◼
►
Yeah, I mean and you know, that's a particularly big deal because the Apple as big as it is is still
01:29:11
◼
►
disproportionately a holiday quarter company
01:29:14
◼
►
Still always it I don't think it's ever gonna not be their biggest quarter of the year
01:29:20
◼
►
Absolutely, and they spent the whole quarter with their homepage being a tribute to the you know, deceased founder Steve Jobs
01:29:30
◼
►
then you know now it's it's you know,
01:29:33
◼
►
Once that period was over now, they just don't talk about Steve, right?
01:29:39
◼
►
right, but I feel like when they have the events it's
01:29:43
◼
►
Impossible for anybody and I feel like years from now five years from now when they're introducing
01:29:49
◼
►
you know the the
01:29:53
◼
►
Or the 11s, I don't know what the hell they're gonna call it but whatever
01:29:59
◼
►
Whatever they're gonna call it. We're still gonna think at the beginning of the event when the music stops
01:30:06
◼
►
And somebody walks out you're gonna think god. I wish that were Steve absolutely
01:30:13
◼
►
And that's a tough thing for you know for Tim Cook and Phil Schiller and everybody who's gonna do it
01:30:19
◼
►
Is that it's never nobody's ever gonna stop missing Steve at those events because that's when we
01:30:24
◼
►
Had any kind of you know sauce with him right that's when his presence was palpable is on the events
01:30:33
◼
►
And I think I'm with you that I I feel like it would be nice and maybe they could do it
01:30:40
◼
►
You know and if anybody could pull it off, I think it's Shiller
01:30:47
◼
►
But if they ever did, the first time they did a one more thing.
01:30:53
◼
►
In an event going forward without him, it's almost as though it's almost as explicit,
01:31:05
◼
►
not even implicit, but explicit, a shout out to Steve Jobs, as if they actually just said,
01:31:12
◼
►
And we'd like to just throw up a you know just you know it's been a year since he died
01:31:16
◼
►
Here's a picture of him
01:31:17
◼
►
We just like to say a few words about Steve Jobs who's right on for a year which they're not going to do
01:31:23
◼
►
But that what if they do a one more thing?
01:31:25
◼
►
It would be if you were gonna spend that if let's say let's say like if you can actually because there would be a cost
01:31:32
◼
►
To doing that because I do think it is his his line
01:31:35
◼
►
But if you were gonna do that the what I would do if I was which I'm not
01:31:41
◼
►
But would it would have to be something of a magnitude that would be significant
01:31:46
◼
►
But it also have to be this is something that Steve would have wanted right if it's because otherwise if it's not something amazing if it's
01:31:53
◼
►
not something
01:31:54
◼
►
Huge then you're wasting that right it has it would have to be it have to be a call out to him
01:31:59
◼
►
Is this what I would what I would think is like it has to this feels like a this is a thing that Steve would
01:32:04
◼
►
Want to build all right because like you and so it's exactly like you mentioned
01:32:08
◼
►
And I think I've talked about this before,
01:32:10
◼
►
that it was the fact that it was way more powerful
01:32:15
◼
►
because it wasn't every event or even predictable.
01:32:19
◼
►
And I think what I've mentioned before
01:32:22
◼
►
is that it gets into behavioral psychology
01:32:25
◼
►
where it's this, a random reinforcement schedule
01:32:30
◼
►
is actually the most powerful way
01:32:32
◼
►
to get somebody hooked on something.
01:32:35
◼
►
And I know I've mentioned this before,
01:32:36
◼
►
but that if you have, I think it's called a Skinner box,
01:32:40
◼
►
where you put a rat in a box
01:32:42
◼
►
and give the rat a little button to push to get food,
01:32:45
◼
►
and if it's like you set up a schedule
01:32:48
◼
►
where every other time, every odd time
01:32:52
◼
►
that it hits the button, a piece of food comes out,
01:32:54
◼
►
and then you stop, and you just unhook the button,
01:32:59
◼
►
and then no matter how many times the rat pushes the button,
01:33:02
◼
►
no food comes out, the rat will give up after like,
01:33:04
◼
►
I don't know, five, six, seven pushes.
01:33:06
◼
►
And with different schedules, the rat will keep pushing the dead button after you unhook
01:33:11
◼
►
it longer and longer.
01:33:12
◼
►
But if the original schedule is random, the rat will never stop pushing the button.
01:33:19
◼
►
This is true.
01:33:21
◼
►
Oh, no, I believe you.
01:33:22
◼
►
It is one of the most interesting things about psychology.
01:33:23
◼
►
And I feel like that's the one more thing.
01:33:26
◼
►
For us, is that three years could go by from now.
01:33:32
◼
►
it's all of a sudden it's 2015 and Michael Lop is back on the talk show with with John Gruber and
01:33:38
◼
►
We're gonna talk about
01:33:42
◼
►
Hasn't been a one more thing since Steve Jobs is alive, right?
01:33:44
◼
►
You'll come on and we'll talk about and we'll say well, maybe they'll do it next time, right?
01:33:48
◼
►
And we'll be kind of hope that's what and I feel like that's the thing that makes it so interesting and so
01:33:54
◼
►
It's one of those you writing about that made me so jealous because I was like god damn I wish I wrote that
01:34:01
◼
►
It's really one of those like I really wish I had written that piece because it really kind of gets to the heart of what?
01:34:07
◼
►
Makes Apple such an interesting company is that you think about and you know that they think about it, right?
01:34:12
◼
►
Right and they wouldn't like you said like they would not take if they do it. They wouldn't take it lightly
01:34:17
◼
►
It's it's it's a little bit off topic
01:34:20
◼
►
But it's like it's one of the things I'm reading all the press about the Samsung cases
01:34:23
◼
►
I know I know I'm not there anymore and I don't you know and wasn't involved in any of these conversations
01:34:28
◼
►
But you got to know that one of the things they said hey listen
01:34:31
◼
►
We're gonna go we're gonna go to town on this case against Samsung is
01:34:34
◼
►
We're gonna have to we're gonna have to open the kimono a little bit and show them a little bit of secret sauce
01:34:40
◼
►
And I don't know how you quantify that. I don't know how you measure that but it's it's
01:34:45
◼
►
You're seeing prototypes. You're seeing a little bit more of how Apple works, and they don't want that at all
01:34:50
◼
►
They don't want of course. They don't want that at all and that's that's the thing
01:34:53
◼
►
I think it I think it pains them to have to like say well
01:34:56
◼
►
We have this room and this room that's everyone's always known about what's never been actually confirmed everyone sits around the table
01:35:01
◼
►
And they they hold prototypes in there. They don't want to share that at all because it's a cost to it
01:35:06
◼
►
It's it's it's the mystique is a little bit less
01:35:09
◼
►
Mysterious and that's a good line. I don't know but that's the thing they're wrestling with
01:35:14
◼
►
right like you know it is I
01:35:17
◼
►
Think it is very much analogous to the the adage that a magician never explained absolutely
01:35:24
◼
►
work, you know, that you don't talk about it, that it does take something away.
01:35:29
◼
►
But I do think – I agree with you completely, though, that it's absolutely – they were
01:35:37
◼
►
completely aware of that going into this lawsuit.
01:35:41
◼
►
And they feel that it's worth it.
01:35:42
◼
►
It is absolutely not the case that they just blindly in anger wanted to sue Samsung and
01:35:49
◼
►
then all of a sudden a year later they're like, "Oh, shit, we're screwed.
01:35:53
◼
►
we've got to reveal these prototypes.
01:35:55
◼
►
- Like they knew that.
01:35:56
◼
►
- All of that, I completely agree with that.
01:35:58
◼
►
- And completely see that as being worth the risk
01:36:01
◼
►
for whatever competitive reasons.
01:36:03
◼
►
I could see it, the thing that gets me thinking
01:36:07
◼
►
about the one more thing too is that this event
01:36:09
◼
►
that is rumored for next month.
01:36:14
◼
►
- 'Cause the idea, the rumors are so strong
01:36:17
◼
►
that it's gonna have both an iPhone and a new iPad,
01:36:21
◼
►
this smaller iPad thing, makes me think that one or the other of them, like maybe the event
01:36:26
◼
►
is about the iPhone and the iPad is one more thing, and that you're like getting towards
01:36:30
◼
►
the end and it seems like they're wrapping up, and then I feel like I can just imagine
01:36:34
◼
►
myself in the audience, taking my notes, thinking, "Oh shit, I've written all this shit on
01:36:39
◼
►
Daring Fireball about this iPad mini or air or nano, whatever they're going to call it,
01:36:45
◼
►
and they are not going to announce it."
01:36:47
◼
►
And there's one for that site, Gruber was wrong.
01:36:51
◼
►
And I start getting that flop sweat of, oh shit,
01:36:54
◼
►
I've got to write an I was wrong article.
01:36:57
◼
►
And then one more thing.
01:36:59
◼
►
And I can imagine being there in the audience doing it.
01:37:04
◼
►
And I can also imagine being at home following along
01:37:07
◼
►
on all the sites that live blog stuff
01:37:10
◼
►
and having that same feeling like, oh man, everybody
01:37:12
◼
►
was wrong about the iPad Mini.
01:37:13
◼
►
And then all of a sudden, there's
01:37:15
◼
►
Dan Moran on macworld.com saying one more thing
01:37:18
◼
►
Shiller one more thing
01:37:22
◼
►
I'm gonna go with no I think it's his I mean I've been wrong many times
01:37:26
◼
►
I don't have a tag, but I do want to go on the record on the name
01:37:31
◼
►
If it there is another iPad coming out. I you see you're saying mini and air
01:37:36
◼
►
I feel like there's there's exclusive names relative to platforms
01:37:40
◼
►
And I think many an error are all MacBook and I think blurring that over from that over to the iPad isn't gonna happen
01:37:47
◼
►
So nano I don't love the name if there is one
01:37:50
◼
►
But that feels more like that is the realm of more of the the portable devices not portable
01:37:55
◼
►
But the you know, I'm talking about the iOS devices. So that's just going on the record there
01:38:00
◼
►
All right, you're going on a record now the reason I don't think they'll use nano is that nano to me is really small
01:38:07
◼
►
Smallness. Yeah, and I don't think smallness is the is where they're going. I think it's a thinness and lightness. I
01:38:14
◼
►
Would go I agree. I would go with new word before air or many
01:38:20
◼
►
Okay, all right one more thing just before we go
01:38:26
◼
►
If they do if
01:38:28
◼
►
Apple does ever do whether it's next month whether it's a year from now whether it's three years from now if they ever do
01:38:34
◼
►
Another one more thing in a presentation. Mmm who does it?
01:38:39
◼
►
And I think it's either I think it's a binary choice. I think it's either Schiller or it's Tim Cook. I
01:38:48
◼
►
It's got I'm with you on the Schiller. I think Schiller I think she's watching Schiller
01:38:53
◼
►
He's just started so uncomfortable years ago. He was sort of the court gesture type and he is no longer that at all. Obviously
01:38:59
◼
►
He's I think he's a much better speaker and a much better presenter than he was five ten years ago
01:39:04
◼
►
Um, but and he may be able to do it with more flair
01:39:08
◼
►
But it's the CEO right? I think I think if you're gonna do it, it's got to be Tim Cook and it and again
01:39:15
◼
►
I don't think that they do it because I think it is a Steve thing
01:39:18
◼
►
But the CEO has to announce it even though Tim is Tim doing products. I can't even do it right now
01:39:24
◼
►
Well, he hasn't he to my knowledge. He has not done a product
01:39:28
◼
►
He does he sort of talks about the company at the beginning and introduced the event and he does the wrap-up at the end
01:39:34
◼
►
but he hasn't done a product. Right. I would go with Tim. I think I think Schiller
01:39:40
◼
►
constitutionally could totally do it, but again, if you're gonna do this, if you
01:39:44
◼
►
believe my theory that it's gonna be, it's gonna be, they're gonna spend it in
01:39:49
◼
►
a very careful way, it's something that comes from Tim. Alright. People always say
01:39:55
◼
►
I should have people on the show who disagree with me rather than agree with
01:39:59
◼
►
me. I'm gonna disagree. I'm gonna say that if they ever do it, it's gonna be
01:40:03
◼
►
Shiller, not Cook.
01:40:04
◼
►
And for the reason that
01:40:07
◼
►
Cook is the one who has to sort of
01:40:13
◼
►
toe this line of being the guy in charge.
01:40:18
◼
►
I'm now the head motherfucker in charge,
01:40:20
◼
►
but I'm not trying to be Steve Jobs.
01:40:25
◼
►
- That's a very strange and difficult
01:40:28
◼
►
and totally do not want to be that in that man's shoes
01:40:33
◼
►
line to Hugh.
01:40:35
◼
►
And I feel that him doing a one more thing
01:40:38
◼
►
would come across as, I think I'm Steve Jobs now.
01:40:42
◼
►
Whereas Schiller could pull it off and make it seem like,
01:40:45
◼
►
look, Steve always did this, but it's an Apple thing,
01:40:48
◼
►
not a Steve thing.
01:40:49
◼
►
- Yeah, but then it's smaller, right?
01:40:51
◼
►
Then it's not that Schiller is not amazing and great.
01:40:53
◼
►
- I agree, because it's coming out of somebody
01:40:55
◼
►
who's not the CEO.
01:40:56
◼
►
- Exactly, right.
01:40:58
◼
►
Again, I think we can disagree here, but my gut is they just don't do it.
01:41:03
◼
►
I think there's a certain set of things that we could debate on what this list is that
01:41:08
◼
►
are sacred and no longer there, one of them being Steve Jobs, but the other things that
01:41:12
◼
►
are associated with him.
01:41:13
◼
►
That feels like one of them.
01:41:15
◼
►
It feels like part of his show.
01:41:17
◼
►
As things were getting worse, you could see it in the present.
01:41:22
◼
►
It used to be just a Steve Jobs show and there was occasionally someone from Sony up there
01:41:27
◼
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Just embarrassing all of us, but they started to kind of build out the crew and you know forest all was there more
01:41:32
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And there was more folks. They started getting to that world of
01:41:34
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Sort of the cast of characters as opposed to just him
01:41:37
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And that's the current the current status quo, but it's to me. It's just it's that's that's his and
01:41:44
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Again, they if they're gonna spend it it better be something big
01:41:47
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Totally agree Michael op. Thank you for being here. I want to thank I want to thank our sponsors
01:41:56
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black and white photography for the iPhone fantastic app a buck 99 on the App Store
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hue less app calm and
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Unbelievable photo colorizing app for the iPad
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199 on the App Store so for $4 for $4 you can support the talk show by buying both of these apps
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in the App Store
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Best thing you could do if you ever want to support the talk shows just go buy these two apps and they're great apps
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you're gonna love them.
01:42:29
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Hue-less and
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photo delight