10: The Next Big Thing, with MG Siegler
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That seems nuts though. You're saying that there's hotels that have Wi-Fi access that
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you can't do on a phone, like on an iPhone.
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Right, because of the pop-up thing. Because there's a lot of them out there that want
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you still to watch some kind of, you know, either ad or click on something that requires
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a pop-up, and the iPhone doesn't like that too much. And then not to mention all the
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ones that are not just tailored at all for a mobile experience.
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And so, you know, it's either a combination of quick zooming so you can get it and hit
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a button before it zooms back out because it's just completely not tailored.
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I saw one where you had to go through – you had to click to a terms and agreements thing
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in a web view.
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And I don't know how they programmed it, but it was a tiny, tiny little button.
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And I don't know how they did it, but every time you pinch-zoomed on the iPhone, it would
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instantly go back out to the full size.
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Yeah, yeah, I've seen the exact same thing.
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It's an unzoomable web page.
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And so it leaves you like the tiniest touch target in the history of touch.
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It's like one pixel on the iPhone screen that you have to get your touch centered on.
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You really would need sandpaper to whittle down your fingers at that point.
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So we're recording, today is Tuesday, July 24, but we're not releasing the show until
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tomorrow and that will be after the Mountain Lion embargo.
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So we will talk, we can talk Mountain Lion.
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Because everybody, we're all signed up on the NDA and everything like that.
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But before we get to that, I was thinking we should talk about Marissa Mayer.
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Is it Mayer or Mayer?
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Even though it's spelled like Mayer.
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So that's one of those things where I don't think I've ever talked about her on the
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And if I don't talk about somebody, I don't really know how to pronounce their name often.
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So it ends up, I think this is a good move for Yahoo.
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I don't see how they could possibly have gotten a better CEO.
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Yeah, and it was totally out of left field.
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It makes sense in hindsight, but no one was really thinking that.
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I'm not sure exactly why, but no one was.
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There was no rumor.
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There was no whisper about it.
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thinking that this was a possibility. I guess it's just because Yahoo has had such a string
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of either boring hires or kind of obvious things. And there were reports that the Ross
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Levinson guy, who was the interim CEO, was just going to get the job and they were kind
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of going through the motions, interviewing a few of the people.
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That's what I expected, too.
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Did you read, I think Stephen Levy had a good post, I think it was yesterday, for Wired,
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talking about Marissa Mayer's role at Google where, obviously she was there for a long
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time and her role evolved over the time she was in charge of search and then most recently
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she was in charge of the local stuff, but she also started and ran the program called
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APM, which is Associate Product Manager, I think.
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No, I didn't see this.
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So basically she was running what is effectively inside Google a leadership training program.
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And they had a few hundred people go through this under her through, you know, the decade
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or so that she was running it.
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And these people include like Brett Taylor, who is the guy who eventually would go on
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to become CTO of Facebook.
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They have the guy who's in charge of Chrome, not Sundar Pichai, another guy who's just
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under him who's kind of spearheading that program.
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And he's the one who actually took over the APM project.
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But anyway, the long story short is that Steven Levy writes this pretty good post suggesting
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that Marissa Meyer is even more better equipped to handle this Yahoo CEO job because she really
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trained the cream of the crop at Google and now has these great relationships.
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They've all stayed in touch.
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They're supposedly all very close.
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They would go on these long trips together and for one of them, Levy was embedded somewhere
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in Africa, I think, or Eastern Europe. And they would do these once a year, and they
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would all form these tight bonds, and they'd stay in touch after all these years. Most
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of those people have obviously since left Google, but now, of course, Meyer still has
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those relationships that she could potentially bring in. If she could even bring in, you
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know, five or six of those people, that's potentially huge right there for Yahoo.
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I've long had the sense that, not that she was on the outs at Google, but that, and other
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people have said that she hit a glass ceiling. But she wasn't going – there was nowhere
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above at Google that she was going to get to move up to.
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And I kind of get the sense that she hasn't been as influential as she was in the past.
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Yeah. It seems like the early days, she was whatever the 10th employee or something like
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that. And everyone was probably doing a lot of work back then and through the time when
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there were 100 employees. And she was one of the senior people and she was in charge
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you know, there's the talk that she was in charge of the design aesthetic and all that kind of stuff and then as they slowly
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Transition from to more than a search engine. I think her role just kept getting diminished and diminished and then finally
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Whenever it was a couple years ago or something when they moved her off and who knows if they moved her off
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She has to be moved off because she had just been working on it for so long
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But moved off of search which is of course the bread and butter of Google still
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You know it seemed from the outside that you know
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They were just decided to go in a different direction and it was pretty telling that they didn't give her an SVP position
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Even though you know of her seniority
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You know, they had someone else running local this guy Jeff Huber
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I believe was elevated to SVP of kind of local and commerce above her
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So yeah, I think the writing was on the wall that she was eventually going to leave and it's surprising that they didn't
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Elevate her to an SVP status, but who knows?
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That's what the difference is.
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Yeah, you never know what the inside politics are.
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But from the outside, I always thought that she was of the Google that I liked best.
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And I think that – and it's also – it's the sort of thing like with Apple where you
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just – you take some of this stuff for granted that it's as simple as it is.
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But I think like the fact that the Google homepage is just a search field and two buttons,
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you can say, "Well, anybody could do that."
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But I think that by … I can't even imagine how many times she had to say no to things
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that other people at Google wanted to do on that homepage.
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I mean, I remember, you know, every … since 10 years, 5 years, everyone keeps saying,
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"Just imagine if they had like a giant display ad behind, you know, behind Google on Google.com.
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You know, how many tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars would that generate
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in revenue every single year?"
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They just didn't do it.
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Most accounts, that was her job and her insight to not mess up that main experience.
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And that's what makes me optimistic about her being a good CEO for Yahoo is that she
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obviously has that ability to say no.
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I mean, that's like the famous Steve Jobs quote, that he's prouder of the things they
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said no to than the things they actually said yes to because that's what keeps the company
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say along those lines, I've met her a number of times. I don't know her all that well,
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but we've chatted from time to time. I've talked to her on stage a few times. I will
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say that my impression of her is that she's extremely opinionated, which I think is great
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because she has things that she likes and she has her own ideas of what she wants to
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do, and she's going to get them done because that's just who she is. All the accounts from
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people who've worked under her at Google will say the same thing. It's just she's
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not wishy-washy. She doesn't really have any understanding of what she's trying to
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do. She knows what she wants to do and she goes for it. That's awesome.
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Right. Ideally, I think the best type of leaders have extremely strong opinions loosely held.
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Right? Like in other words…
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Yeah, so they're valuable.
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Right? In other words, like with Tim Cook talking about Steve Jobs, that guy had the
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strongest opinions of anybody in the world, but he might change them tomorrow. Any of
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And those people often, at the time they may get upset or whatever in an argument, it seems
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like they always fall back on the idea that they love it if someone can stand up to them
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and can actually make their case to change their mind about it.
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That's the best thing in the world for those people.
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I often think, and it's just one of those ways that everything comes full circle a lot
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of times is that famously, almost infamously, Yahoo had the chance to acquire Google in
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the early days.
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And, you know, didn't quite offer enough money and never happened.
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But I think it's always been pretty clear that Google held up Yahoo as a, "Look, they
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made mistakes that we don't want to make."
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Mad Fientist Yeah, yeah.
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And that helped them, no doubt.
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It's funny because I still think of Google as the upstart and Yahoo as the old guard.
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By now, by today's date, they're actually relatively the same age.
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Yahoo wasn't formed that much earlier than Google.
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It's just that those first few years of Yahoo were the explosive years of the dot
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Yeah, you still hear though, I talk to startups every once in a while who either cut some
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kind of deal with Yahoo or do something with them where they kind of run a test on their
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their homepage, and it's still an insane amount of crushing traffic that anyone would be happy
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And that's why it's great that someone can actually steer that in the right direction.
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There's no question that they still have a lot of people going there.
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I think, what is it now?
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It's not the number one most trafficked website anymore.
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It might be two, it might be three, I don't know what it is, but it's way up there still.
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And I think that's an opportunity.
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I think that'll be the first thing that you see a change about.
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I think that there – and I don't think any previous CEO at Yahoo has really left
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a personal – like, "Wow, there's a new CEO in charge of Yahoo.
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Look at the Yahoo.com."
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Yeah, that's definitely true.
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I think that should be the first thing that she does is make some changes that Yahoo.com
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is – there's a new sheriff in town and there's focus at this company now.
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She should put up – did you see that picture circulating around?
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it's the Obama Hope picture, but it's of Marissa's face.
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It's supposedly being plastered around Yahoo's campus right now. It's pretty awesome.
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I talked to a friend who works at Flickr, and there's definitely some optimism.
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I'm excited for that. I mean, I just randomly logged on to Flickr for the first time. It
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was so bad that I had to reset my Yahoo password. I didn't even remember what it was. So that's
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That's how bad Yahoo was in my head.
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So I reset my password and I logged into my Flickr account and it was expired.
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I think it had just expired like six months ago because I had signed up for a two-year
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So I'm excited to see if they can really not only turn the Yahoo brand around, but all
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these sub-brands.
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I really would like to use Flickr for something cool again and I'd like to sign up for my
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Pro account.
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I mean, they have tens of thousands of pictures just saved.
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It's really nice that they actually don't delete them, even if you let your Pro account
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They only let you see 100 of them, but they keep them all just in case.
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That's great.
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Yeah, there's definitely some opportunities there.
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I also think...
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What do you think she's going to do with the Microsoft deal in terms of, obviously, Bing
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powers their search now.
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They handle some of the front-end stuff.
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They do some different things than Bing does itself with search.
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How do you think that she'll approach that?
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Well, that's what I honestly don't know.
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I'm not close enough to…
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I could see it going one of two ways.
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I could see it where that gets abandoned in Yahoo and Google sort of because of their
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personal relationships becomes semi-allies.
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Or if it's bad blood, maybe it goes the other way.
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In the initial stories of her leaving, there was one, I think it was a New York Times report
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that said, "Mayor called Larry Page by phone that day to resign on the spot."
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There's no two weeks notice or anything.
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She just called by phone.
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But of course, Larry Page has his voice issues or whatever, so maybe he wasn't around.
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Who knows what the deal is with that.
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But it seems like there's a little bit of bad blood between them, but who knows?
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Maybe that's reading too much into it.
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But I think you're absolutely right.
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think it really that kind of is a pretty major factor in what she ends up doing. Maybe she
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just looks at the numbers and realizes that the Microsoft deal is too good to kind of
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dissolve. It's interesting that when Microsoft was trying to buy Yahoo a few years ago, remember
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obviously Yahoo pushed back heavily and they were looking for anyone to help them, including
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Google. And at one point they had kind of at least had a handshake agreement to do some
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sort of similar advertising or search deal with Google that they ended up doing with
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Microsoft, but they had to drop it because the government didn't officially look into
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it, but all indications were that the government was going to look into it. But that was also
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because Yahoo was by far the number two search engine at the time to Google, and Microsoft
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was a non-player. Now Microsoft is number two, and I don't know, maybe the government
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would be okay with Yahoo and Google tying up together, or maybe they still wouldn't.
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Yeah, I don't know. I think it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.
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And I think in hindsight, it'll become obvious how acrimonious it is that she left them.
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You know, is it seen inside Google as a betrayal? Or is it, you know, good for her? And now
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we're sort of like partners, sort of like and the comparison that I've seen other people
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make is to Steven Elop, who was a Microsoft executive left for Nokia. And then as soon
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as he got to Nokia forged this extremely tight bond.
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You know, that whereas it seems pretty obvious and the Nokia diehards, the people who don't
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like that they don't have their own operating system anymore, see it as, you know, that
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this was planned from the start, that he was like a mole in Nokia.
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I think I alluded to that when it first happened.
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That it was awesome that Microsoft got a plant in Nokia's area and I think that drew some
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Iyer from Frank Shaw who's head of Microsoft Corporate Communications. They did not like
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that too much. Well, I mean, however much it was planned and however much that, you
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know, that this was agreed upon in advance. It certainly, in hindsight, has shown though
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that Steven Elop's experience as a Microsoft executive certainly influenced his leadership
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at Nokia in a very pro-Microsoft way. Yeah, that's definitely. Right, I mean, it doesn't
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really matter whether you think that it's good or bad for Nokia, but that certainly
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is the way it's played out.
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I think we'll have to see if it's going to happen like that with Marissa Mayer.
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There's something to be said for just doing what you know and what you've done for the
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past decade or more, and that's like Marissa Mayer, Google runs very thick through her
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blood, so maybe she does just turn to them for certain things that previous Yahoo CEOs
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wouldn't have done.
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thing that you brought up right after it happened which was interesting, you tweeted about,
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does she use an iPhone or not? And I think a lot of people have kind of dug up that you
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would see the little indications on Twitter and stuff that she was tweeting from an iPhone
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and using Instagram in the early days and stuff like that. That's interesting because
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it kind of also shows that she wasn't so ingrained in the Android culture that she's going to
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bend over backwards to fork, make some kind of Yahoo phone or something that's only working
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on Android. It seems like that won't happen, and that's great.
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It wasn't just me trying to view everything from a "what's it mean for Apple" perspective.
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Right. I think it shows that she has an open mind more than anything. That she wasn't just
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another cog in the Google machine that just uses Android because you have to use Android
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there. She was willing. And maybe it's great from her viewpoint of a competitive landscape.
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Maybe she wanted to use iPhone. Maybe she liked it more. Maybe she wanted to use it
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because she really felt like she needed to stay on top of what are the big emerging trends
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Well, and the other thing that makes it interesting now that she's the CEO at Yahoo is that Yahoo,
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it is quiet, but they have a bunch of partnerships with Apple as a content provider for the iPhone.
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Yeah. And it's even more with iOS 6, right? Because they've already talked about the Siri
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and sports integration. I think that's Yahoo Sports, right?
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It's all the sports stuff in iOS 6 is powered by Yahoo Sports.
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And Yahoo Sports is actually one of the powerhouse properties at Yahoo.
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I mean for anybody who's not a huge sports fan, it's sort of quietly, everybody thinks
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of things like Flickr and then search and Yahoo Mail and stuff like that.
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But Yahoo Sports is easily top five sports site on the web.
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I think it's two, it might be two. You know, you always hear these reports, like on ESPN,
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you'll hear it on SportsCenter where they talk about a report from Yahoo Sports, and
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that happens all the time. Part of it is because, a huge part of it is because they actually
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invested quite heavily in original journalism on that side of things. And the plan, I think
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way back when the plan was to kind of start that with Yahoo Sports, see if it would work,
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and then go into other verticals, and they just never really did that to see if they
00:17:58
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They could replace the AP or Reuters and become one of the main sources of wire news and whatnot.
00:18:04
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But they did do a great job hiring at Yahoo Sports, and it remains a great place for breaking
00:18:10
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sports news.
00:18:11
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Yeah, and I think it's either number one or number two, probably after ESPN, I'm guessing.
00:18:18
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Yeah, I would imagine ESPN's one.
00:18:21
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Probably two, maybe CBS Sports, but I think it's probably Yahoo Sports.
00:18:24
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And it's by far the biggest of the online-only properties.
00:18:29
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So the ones that it competes with are mostly the TV ones, like ESPN and CBS Sports is big,
00:18:39
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and probably Sports Illustrated.
00:18:40
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Right, which CNN owns.
00:18:43
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Yeah, that's part of it.
00:18:45
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That's really interesting.
00:18:46
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They're also huge, obviously, in finance rights.
00:18:51
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That's what powers the iOS Stocks app, is still Yahoo financial information.
00:18:57
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So that's another big vertical for them.
00:18:58
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Yahoo News is still huge.
00:19:00
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I think Google News may have overtaken it as a bigger property, but it's still a major
00:19:06
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driving factor in what people use Yahoo for.
00:19:11
◼
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And I think that mobile is obviously a huge question going forward for Yahoo.
00:19:20
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And Apple obviously has the whole shebang.
00:19:26
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Google obviously has Android.
00:19:28
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Microsoft has Windows Phone.
00:19:32
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Yahoo doesn't really have its own, or not even, I shouldn't even say really, just doesn't
00:19:37
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have any kind of mobile…
00:19:40
◼
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Right, they have no "in" of their own.
00:19:45
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They're completely at the beck and call of these other players.
00:19:48
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And I think it would be pointless for them to start.
00:19:51
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I think that their play for mobile is, I think, to be a content provider.
00:19:58
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They absolutely should.
00:19:59
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And that's working so far for iOS.
00:20:00
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You would imagine that it won't work for the Google-flavored Android because they have
00:20:04
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►
their own competing services across the board for all that stuff, for search, for sports.
00:20:10
◼
►
Well not really for sports. Maybe they could do for sports, but for finance and for news.
00:20:14
◼
►
But yeah, maybe sports and certainly maybe they could do something with Microsoft given
00:20:18
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►
the Bing deal for Windows Phone. I think that's the way to do this.
00:20:23
◼
►
Well and the other thing that struck me about Microsoft is now Microsoft is out of MSNBC.com.
00:20:31
◼
►
They got out of the TV channel a while back, but they were still partners on the website
00:20:39
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and now they're not.
00:20:40
◼
►
So I do think there's some opportunities there where they can sort of try to play it
00:20:45
◼
►
up across, not just Apple, but across the board try to get the Yahoo properties established
00:20:53
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►
as the leading mobile providers.
00:20:56
◼
►
Eric Meyer Yeah, that's smart.
00:20:58
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►
I forget who it was.
00:21:00
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►
who said like one simple goal for Yahoo, you know, like just talking about right
00:21:05
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►
after the the hiring, talking what Yahoo should focus on, like just just try and
00:21:10
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get one app on the main screen of like every iOS and Android device out there.
00:21:16
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►
And I think that's good strategy I think. Yeah I think that's
00:21:20
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►
absolutely, it's a clear goal, I think it's doable. Yeah,
00:21:27
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►
Yeah, and so Apple also has the deals for Yahoo Mail.
00:21:32
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Obviously, they've had that since the beginning.
00:21:34
◼
►
And Yahoo Mail is sort of interesting,
00:21:36
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►
because it's also-- I think Hotmail is bigger,
00:21:38
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►
which is weird, but I think that's the biggest one.
00:21:41
◼
►
And I think Yahoo Mail is still number two,
00:21:43
◼
►
with Google quickly catching up to it.
00:21:45
◼
►
But that's another property that's huge.
00:21:48
◼
►
There's Yahoo Messenger.
00:21:49
◼
►
It seems like IM is sort of falling by the wayside.
00:21:52
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►
Maybe they can do some interesting video stuff
00:21:54
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►
and compete with Skype more or something like that.
00:21:56
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►
But these are things that tens of millions of people use every day, if not a hundred
00:22:01
◼
►
million people.
00:22:02
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►
It's kind of a crazy thing, their scale at that point.
00:22:06
◼
►
And I think the other thing they've got to do is they've got to start thinking about
00:22:09
◼
►
what's the next big thing.
00:22:11
◼
►
Yes, absolutely.
00:22:13
◼
►
And that will require bringing in some real outside thinkers, not just the people who
00:22:21
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►
have obviously been at Yahoo for the past ten years.
00:22:24
◼
►
You know, it sucks, but I hope that they do clear house quite a bit.
00:22:28
◼
►
It seems like there's, you know, you don't want to call them dead weight, but it seems
00:22:31
◼
►
like there's just a lot of people.
00:22:33
◼
►
You talk to former and current Yahoo employees even, they just say, "People are just there
00:22:37
◼
►
collecting a paycheck and they're not really inspired.
00:22:40
◼
►
Maybe this hiring inspires 50% of them, but there's still going to be 50% who are just,
00:22:44
◼
►
you know, just there kind of kicking around their B players when they need to be A players
00:22:49
◼
►
kind of situation."
00:22:50
◼
►
I totally agree.
00:22:53
◼
►
I think they got to clean house, focus, focus, focus, get an app on, try to get one app on
00:23:00
◼
►
everybody's home screen and then figure out what the next big thing that Yahoo can
00:23:05
◼
►
start the market for.
00:23:08
◼
►
I like our chances.
00:23:10
◼
►
I really do.
00:23:13
◼
►
I think there's a reason why the consensus is that this is a good thing.
00:23:17
◼
►
There's a few naysayers who say like, "Oh, well, she didn't get along with anyone at
00:23:20
◼
►
at Google. But there's always going to be stories of, you know, and you can report any
00:23:25
◼
►
story that you want. You can always find someone to say that. But I think that the general
00:23:29
◼
►
consensus, you know, 90% of the people are saying that this is a good thing. I think
00:23:33
◼
►
it actually is a good thing. And you never have seen this before, at least in recent
00:23:37
◼
►
memory of Yahoo. Even when Jerry Yang came back.
00:23:40
◼
►
It was, you know, it was like, eh, okay, so they're going to try and do like a Steve Jobs
00:23:44
◼
►
rejuvenation type thing. But is this really going to work? And of course it didn't work
00:23:48
◼
►
Right. Certainly success is definitely not assured, but I think it's definitely a possibility.
00:23:54
◼
►
The opportunity is there. I also think, too, that anybody who says no a lot is obviously
00:24:01
◼
►
going to make enemies. Maybe enemies is the wrong word, but they're going to have people
00:24:05
◼
►
say, "I didn't like working under her because she said no to all this stuff."
00:24:08
◼
►
Right. Yeah.
00:24:09
◼
►
All right. Let me take a break, and let me thank our first sponsor. I love these guys.
00:24:15
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Love these guys.
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They started, the first time I noticed them, they have a product called the Glyph.
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It's a tripod mount and stand for the iPhone 4 and 4S.
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And it's a brilliant little design because it's multi-use.
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It's one little piece of plastic and rubber with a little tripod mount on one side.
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So you snap it on the side of your iPhone and it fits on any standard tripod if you're
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using it to shoot video.
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great in conjunction with something like a GorillaPod, a little flexible tripod that
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you can mount on just about anything. And you take the Glyph off, turn it sideways,
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and it turns into a little prop up your iPhone like as an easel type thing. Use it all the
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time for that. I watch baseball games on my iPhone. Use the Glyph to prop it up.
00:25:07
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They've got another great little product called the Cosmonaut. It's a wide grip stylus,
00:25:14
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sort of like a this sort of like a fat magic marker stylus for any touchscreen
00:25:21
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first thing I think anybody thinks when they see it is well why is it so fat
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why why isn't it a finer tip because the touch screens we have aren't meant for
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fine tip styluses they're meant for something the size of a finger so the
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cosmonaut has like a finger size stylus tip works great use it all the time my
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My son loves it for using apps on the iPad like Color.
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They also have, what else do they have?
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They have an app.
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It's Framographer.
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It's a stop motion, time lapse, movie making app.
00:25:56
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So if you make little movies like with Lego figures or something like that, stop motion.
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Obviously works great in conjunction with the glyph.
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Just two guys making products, selling them.
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Studio Neat, I want to thank these guys.
00:26:33
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We wouldn't be doing the show without them.
00:26:38
◼
►
Use a stylus with your iPad at all?
00:26:41
◼
►
This cosmonaut thing is sort of interesting.
00:26:44
◼
►
I've seen it around before, but it looks kind of like a crayon.
00:26:49
◼
►
One of those big fat crayons.
00:26:53
◼
►
There was that story a couple days ago that, I forget who reported it, but that Microsoft
00:26:59
◼
►
is looking into next generation styluses to use with their Surface devices or whatnot.
00:27:06
◼
►
You're kind of reminded of the Steve Jobs quote that if you see a stylus, they blew
00:27:13
◼
►
But this one's good, huh?
00:27:14
◼
►
This cosmonaut?
00:27:15
◼
►
Yeah, well, it's good for – it's great for what the iPad is.
00:27:19
◼
►
In fact, when they designed it, they had a blog post about it and they said, "Look,
00:27:24
◼
►
if the tip has to be fat," and all the other styluses you see for the iPad, ones that it
00:27:29
◼
►
will look like more like a regular pen's dimensions, still have like a pinky finger
00:27:34
◼
►
size tip at the end because that's what the touch sensor is optimized for.
00:27:41
◼
►
So no, it's not like writing with a fine tip pen and you can get tiny little handwriting.
00:27:46
◼
►
It's like a marker.
00:27:47
◼
►
But if that's what the tip has to be, why not give you a big thick marker in your hand?
00:27:52
◼
►
It's almost like writing on a small white board instead of pen and paper.
00:27:57
◼
►
**Matt Stauffer** Huh, that's interesting.
00:28:01
◼
►
Like given the practical aspects of what the iPad screen already supports as a touchscreen,
00:28:07
◼
►
it's like an optimal marker for that.
00:28:09
◼
►
**Matt Stauffer** Nice.
00:28:11
◼
►
**Ezra Kleinman** And people often say to me, people often, you know, because I quote
00:28:15
◼
►
the, "If you see a stylus, they blew it."
00:28:19
◼
►
What Jobs meant about that though is a device that ships with a stylus and is intended...
00:28:24
◼
►
**Matt Stauffer** Right, that requires it.
00:28:25
◼
►
**Ezra Kleinman** Right, either requires it or is intended to be used a lot of the time.
00:28:30
◼
►
Not that there's never a case for it.
00:28:32
◼
►
I think an app like Paper or any of the drawing apps for the iPad absolutely work better with
00:28:38
◼
►
a stylus than with a finger.
00:28:40
◼
►
Eric Meyer Yeah.
00:28:42
◼
►
And I think that's what the Galaxy Note has one, right?
00:28:45
◼
►
The giant phablet.
00:28:46
◼
►
And it's just so ridiculous the fact that it ships with one.
00:28:57
◼
►
the – because I guess it is a big seller, especially in Korea, that they're going
00:29:02
◼
►
to use the Note brand as a –
00:29:04
◼
►
Well, it makes sense. I mean, it always – you know, someone once – I've only seen it
00:29:09
◼
►
a couple times, but someone once had one on stage, and you know, you had them hold it
00:29:13
◼
►
up to their face just to see how big it is. It's not that much different than the size
00:29:17
◼
►
of the Galaxy 7, which is – or the Nexus 7, which is sort of funny. Yeah.
00:29:22
◼
►
And speaking of which, about two weeks ago, you reviewed the Nexus 7 over at TechCrunch
00:29:28
◼
►
and you liked it.
00:29:31
◼
►
And I liked it a lot more than I expected to.
00:29:34
◼
►
You know, I was gone.
00:29:37
◼
►
I was abroad when Google I/O happened where they unveiled it.
00:29:40
◼
►
And I was watching the Twitter chatter and I had heard a few things here and there about
00:29:45
◼
►
what was coming.
00:29:47
◼
►
And so it intrigued me because I wanted to see what the form factor was like.
00:29:50
◼
►
I mostly wanted to see if Google would be able, Google and their partner Asus would
00:29:54
◼
►
be able to create a decent even tablet for under $200 because we've all seen the Kindle
00:30:01
◼
►
Fire, it sucks, you know, it's under $200 but Amazon's not making any money selling
00:30:07
◼
►
it and it still sucks.
00:30:08
◼
►
So I was very curious to see what, if it would be any good.
00:30:12
◼
►
And so the initial reports coming out seemed to suggest that it was pretty good and so
00:30:16
◼
►
Google was nice enough to send me one to take a look at.
00:30:19
◼
►
you know, props to them, they know that I'm pretty negative towards Google in recent years
00:30:25
◼
►
in general, but they know, I think, that if they actually make a good product, I'm going
00:30:29
◼
►
to call it like I see it and say that it's a pretty good product, and I do believe that
00:30:32
◼
►
this is a pretty good product. I think that, you know, a lot of people want to frame it,
00:30:39
◼
►
of course, versus the iPad. It's different right now because one is, you know, a 9.7
00:30:46
◼
►
One is a seven inch tablet and you you hear that in your mind and you think like oh, that's not the big difference
00:30:52
◼
►
But diagonally speaking the screen size and everything. It's actually a pretty huge difference and that's I love the form factor of it and
00:30:59
◼
►
You know as I said in my review
00:31:01
◼
►
I think that this is the strongest case yet for why Apple should do something in this in this form factor and all indications
00:31:09
◼
►
you know seem to be that they're going to do something maybe a little bit bigger of course, but
00:31:15
◼
►
You know the main thing is the form factor the second thing is that?
00:31:20
◼
►
4.1 the Jellybean variety is is finally to the point where it feels smooth enough, and it's interesting
00:31:27
◼
►
I also have it installed on a galaxy Nexus
00:31:30
◼
►
Which is you know their last flagship device, and I definitely like it more on the Nexus 7
00:31:34
◼
►
I don't know if you know I this device is obviously a little bit faster than that but for whatever reason
00:31:40
◼
►
I just I think it's it's much more nicely attuned to to that 7-inch tablet than it is to the
00:31:45
◼
►
4-inch or whatever size screen the the Galaxy Nexus has yeah, maybe because there's less scrolling involved
00:31:51
◼
►
Yeah, could be because I still feel like I still feel like that's the one thing on Android that is very jarring is scrolling
00:32:01
◼
►
It's you know they made a big point about saying how buttery they even call it butter right there their new
00:32:06
◼
►
Accelerated thing it's still it's not as smooth as as iOS for you know, whatever reason they can't get that to happen
00:32:14
◼
►
But it's you know, it's something that I think the majority of consumers would would would not care about and/or notice
00:32:21
◼
►
Except subconsciously which I do think is still important
00:32:24
◼
►
I think you know when people think about quality there's subconscious things going on
00:32:27
◼
►
You know when they use a device when they pick it up at an Apple store and just don't even realize like oh
00:32:31
◼
►
This is so much smoother
00:32:32
◼
►
It's just kind of a little thing.
00:32:34
◼
►
But I think for the most part, the price and the size of this makes it compelling to a
00:32:39
◼
►
lot of people.
00:32:40
◼
►
And I think they're going to have strong sales.
00:32:42
◼
►
The indications are that they're already failing to meet some demand for it.
00:32:47
◼
►
It's a very good sign.
00:32:48
◼
►
And I do think that they've explicitly pitched it as a consumption device.
00:32:54
◼
►
To their credit, I actually think that that sort of focus is why the product is getting
00:32:58
◼
►
I haven't I actually haven't seen a bad review of the Nexus of
00:33:02
◼
►
Yeah, and I think that that having that sort of focus like here's what it's meant for it is meant for buying stuff from our
00:33:11
◼
►
Google Play Store
00:33:13
◼
►
Yeah, and to the point where they put all that stuff on the main screen like they have this widget and in jellybean
00:33:19
◼
►
That's basically like you can rearrange things a bit, but they have you know a giant picture of a magazine
00:33:24
◼
►
You know that that comes shipped with it. It's like an esquire or something and then they have a
00:33:28
◼
►
a Transformers movie box artwork.
00:33:33
◼
►
So you have that on there too.
00:33:35
◼
►
And then you have a couple books that they ship with it.
00:33:37
◼
►
They make it front and center very obvious that this is about media consumption in the
00:33:41
◼
►
Google Play Store.
00:33:43
◼
►
And I also think, and I know for three years now we've had these arguments about the iPad
00:33:48
◼
►
and is it for consumption, is it good for creation, is it a general purpose computer.
00:33:54
◼
►
And as a platform, it's for anything.
00:33:57
◼
►
I mean, eventually these tablet OSes like Android and iOS could be used.
00:34:04
◼
►
That's the future of computing in general for everything.
00:34:09
◼
►
So the argument isn't, is the iPad mostly used for consumption?
00:34:13
◼
►
Yes, probably it is.
00:34:14
◼
►
But that, you know, Windows is mostly used for consumption.
00:34:16
◼
►
Most people don't make websites.
00:34:18
◼
►
Most people just read them, right?
00:34:19
◼
►
I mean, that's the fact.
00:34:20
◼
►
The entire internet is that way.
00:34:22
◼
►
I mean, there's the rule where it's 10% creators and 90% consumers of the information.
00:34:29
◼
►
But I do think that that's the argument in favor of—or a big part of the argument
00:34:34
◼
►
of Apple jumping into this smaller tablet market is for people who are just, "Look,
00:34:41
◼
►
I just want to watch some TV shows while I sit in bed with something that just comfortably
00:34:45
◼
►
sits on my—while I'm propped up in bed."
00:34:49
◼
►
It's a great form factor, I think.
00:34:51
◼
►
Going back really quick to the media side of things and kind of these devices being
00:34:57
◼
►
set up for the Google Play Store, you know, one of the biggest criticisms I had of the
00:35:01
◼
►
Nexus 7 is that while Google is playing this up as a device for consumption of the Google
00:35:06
◼
►
Play content, the Google Play content is still not nearly where it needs to be in relation
00:35:12
◼
►
to both Apple and Amazon.
00:35:14
◼
►
I mean, they still don't have Warner Music on there, so that, you know, they don't have
00:35:17
◼
►
quarter of the music catalog out there in the world on this that you can get on
00:35:21
◼
►
this device. What do you do if you have REM or something or some other
00:35:25
◼
►
Warner artists that you really want and you can't get it? You could use of course
00:35:29
◼
►
Spotify or RDO or one of those but you know Google's trying to get you to
00:35:33
◼
►
use the Google Play Store and they just don't have the same amount of content.
00:35:37
◼
►
Same goes with magazines, same goes with books, same goes with even even films.
00:35:41
◼
►
They don't have everything. And so it's kind of... I still don't really
00:35:46
◼
►
think that Google has the complete picture worked out of how this should
00:35:50
◼
►
work. It's kind of confusing as to why they're forcing everyone into this
00:35:55
◼
►
mentality that this is for the Google Play Store when the Google, you know, the
00:35:58
◼
►
Play Store isn't quite ready for prime time yet. But I think that they saw the
00:36:02
◼
►
the Amazon threat of the Kindle Fire, you know, taking control of Android itself
00:36:07
◼
►
for the tablets and they just felt like they had to make this move right now.
00:36:10
◼
►
Right, and I think it was a very, right, it's very much, it really is exactly what they
00:36:20
◼
►
said it was.
00:36:21
◼
►
There's no hidden purpose to it.
00:36:23
◼
►
It's to have a device to support their online media, you know, the Play Store.
00:36:30
◼
►
Yeah, yeah, and you know, while it's definitely, it's definitely a hit on the device that
00:36:37
◼
►
don't have any 3G or wireless capabilities whatsoever, I also think that that's a great
00:36:42
◼
►
move on their part just because of the fact they can show the carriers finally that they
00:36:47
◼
►
have some leverage, that they can actually sell these things without needing the carriers
00:36:54
◼
►
to do it. And so they can finally ship the new Android updates and not have to worry
00:36:58
◼
►
about any carrier having any say over when these rollouts actually come.
00:37:03
◼
►
I do think that brings us back to the commercial.
00:37:06
◼
►
The commercial is this dad camping with his son and they're using the Nexus 7 to do
00:37:13
◼
►
all sorts of cool things at night.
00:37:18
◼
►
The big reveal at the end of the commercial is that they're actually just camping in
00:37:22
◼
►
their backyard, which explains how they had internet access because it's Wi-Fi only.
00:37:29
◼
►
I mean, the other explanation would be that the dad had a MiFi or something in his backyard.
00:37:33
◼
►
but that's not going to make for a sexy commercial.
00:37:36
◼
►
Yeah, it's sort of funny the way that they did it, just kind of nodding to the fact that
00:37:40
◼
►
you probably don't want to use this thing actually in the middle of the woods, that
00:37:44
◼
►
you will just want to use it close to your house or close to a place of work somewhere
00:37:49
◼
►
I do wonder, I wonder if the lack of a 3G version, if they're about to be hit on two
00:37:56
◼
►
sides on that front though, because what if the Kindle 2, Kindle Fire 2 has a...
00:38:02
◼
►
Yeah, that's a great point. Because Amazon already has those relationships, right, with
00:38:08
◼
►
the Kindle itself. They had, who did, at first I think they had T-Mobile and then they got
00:38:12
◼
►
AT&T to provide for free. It was baked into the cost of the device, but you could get
00:38:17
◼
►
updates of your books and download books for free without having to worry about a monthly
00:38:21
◼
►
bill thing. I do wonder how they would negotiate that if it was a general consumption device,
00:38:26
◼
►
meaning you could browse the web and download movies. It seems like it would be a little
00:38:33
◼
►
pricey for them to try and negotiate something without a deal.
00:38:37
◼
►
Yeah, and I don't think they could possibly do that for free. They got away with it on
00:38:42
◼
►
the E and Kindles because…
00:38:44
◼
►
That's so little data.
00:38:45
◼
►
Right. And if you've ever tried using the web browser on one of those things, it's
00:38:51
◼
►
It's like a parlor trick. It's not really feasible. It's like getting web pages by fax.
00:38:58
◼
►
Right. But maybe they would have to, I imagine, do the same kind of deal that Apple did with
00:39:04
◼
►
the iPad where you have a come as you want type plan where you can pay one month and
00:39:11
◼
►
not pay the next. I imagine they have to do that unless they did some deal with one of
00:39:16
◼
►
the carriers and they subsidized the price of the Kindle Fire down to free because you
00:39:20
◼
►
signed up for $10 a month or something like that.
00:39:23
◼
►
Maybe they could do that, but it still seems like the bar has been set with these tablet
00:39:28
◼
►
devices that you're going to pay whatever you pay, whatever the retail price is, and
00:39:32
◼
►
you're not going to worry about a monthly bill.
00:39:35
◼
►
Which brings us to Apple's purported iPad mini and whether or not it will have 3G.
00:39:43
◼
►
I think it will.
00:39:44
◼
►
I think it'll have the exact same SKU configurations as the big iPad.
00:39:49
◼
►
So you think it will have 4G as well then, or LTE?
00:39:52
◼
►
No, I, well, I don't know about that.
00:39:59
◼
►
I guess that comes down to battery and…
00:40:02
◼
►
Yeah, that's the biggest factor I would imagine for what they're deciding.
00:40:07
◼
►
But maybe, because a lot of what I've been seeing lately speculates that a bigger power
00:40:12
◼
►
drain on the iPad 3 is the retina display, not the LTE, compared to the iPad 2.
00:40:18
◼
►
the screen is actually consuming a bigger reason why the battery is thicker than the
00:40:25
◼
►
That's interesting.
00:40:26
◼
►
Also, you have to consider the fact that we're six months removed, I guess, from the
00:40:33
◼
►
So even now, they probably have slightly better chips in terms of power consumption management
00:40:38
◼
►
for LTE, I would imagine.
00:40:41
◼
►
Actually, now that I think about it, I think it's going to be.
00:40:42
◼
►
I think it probably would be.
00:40:44
◼
►
If it has 3G at all, it would have LTE.
00:40:47
◼
►
Yeah, and if they do that, that's a killer feature right there.
00:40:51
◼
►
I mean, a lot of people are going to love that.
00:40:53
◼
►
What do you think?
00:40:54
◼
►
My thought on price is $299.
00:40:57
◼
►
I don't think they're going to go to $199.
00:40:59
◼
►
What do you think they're going to do?
00:41:00
◼
►
I think they'll do $199 Wi-Fi only.
00:41:04
◼
►
That's interesting.
00:41:05
◼
►
And a measly amount of storage, but they'll hit that price point.
00:41:09
◼
►
And you'll have to pay—I forget what the—what's the premium for getting 3G on iPad?
00:41:17
◼
►
I think it's, is it only $30? No, it's $130, right?
00:41:21
◼
►
Yeah, it's $130. That's right.
00:41:23
◼
►
So I would think, you know, $199 gets you a Wi-Fi only one, and $299 gets you one with 3G.
00:41:30
◼
►
So how do you reconcile that then, you know, with the, there was just reports yesterday,
00:41:35
◼
►
and you know, who knows, these are one-time reports out of like Japan or China or wherever,
00:41:39
◼
►
where, you know, talking about a new iPod touch. It seems like a new iPod touch is coming because
00:41:43
◼
►
they haven't refreshed it in over a year. It's been two years basically. And if that device,
00:41:49
◼
►
which now sells for $1.99 at the base level, how do you reconcile the price discrepancy,
00:41:54
◼
►
like those being the same price? I just, I don't think it's a problem. I think it's clear. I think
00:41:59
◼
►
that with devices like laptops, it's a one-way correlation. Smaller is cheaper, bigger is more
00:42:09
◼
►
expensive because the bigger displays are more expensive. But laptops only shrink to
00:42:16
◼
►
a certain size, whereas stuff that fits in your pocket, you actually pay a premium for
00:42:21
◼
►
miniaturization. And to me, it's exactly the same as the dilemma over the original,
00:42:29
◼
►
going back to 2004, the iPod mini.
00:42:32
◼
►
Right, which you wrote about the other day. There's not a huge price discrepancy, even
00:42:38
◼
►
though it had less memory and it was just smaller, but people were paying almost the
00:42:42
◼
►
same amount.
00:42:44
◼
►
It had less storage.
00:42:45
◼
►
It only had 4GB of storage, which was less than the original iPod from three years prior.
00:42:49
◼
►
So people were like, "This is nuts.
00:42:51
◼
►
No one's going to buy this."
00:42:52
◼
►
And the truth is people see, "Wow, that's way smaller and cooler looking.
00:42:57
◼
►
I want that one."
00:42:59
◼
►
That's true.
00:43:00
◼
►
So that's what I think.
00:43:01
◼
►
Maybe there's an issue where they don't want both of them priced exactly $199 and they
00:43:05
◼
►
they dropped the intro of the base model of the iPod Touch to 179, something like that.
00:43:13
◼
►
But I don't think it's an issue because it's two entirely different sizes.
00:43:20
◼
►
Yeah. So presumably a new iPod Touch would have a retina display because the old one
00:43:26
◼
►
already does, and it would presumably also have a better camera. Just as a camera device,
00:43:32
◼
►
If it is just as good of a camera as the iPhone 4S does, that's a killer camera device for
00:43:37
◼
►
kids to buy for $199 and carry around with them, and on top of everything else it does.
00:43:43
◼
►
So I agree with you, because the iPad mini will not be considered a camera device except
00:43:50
◼
►
for those few jackasses at concerts that will hold it up as they always do with the regular
00:43:56
◼
►
iPad, right?
00:43:58
◼
►
I've thought of that too, with how many people I see using the iPad as a camera.
00:44:02
◼
►
I can't even imagine how many people are going to use the iPad Mini as a camera.
00:44:06
◼
►
They'll have head-mounted displays with this little device.
00:44:10
◼
►
Probably two of them up there to be able to capture two different angles.
00:44:14
◼
►
And it's the same thing going back to stuff like Game Boys and the PlayStation portables
00:44:20
◼
►
and stuff like that.
00:44:22
◼
►
People know that to shrink it to fit in a pants pocket costs a lot of money.
00:44:27
◼
►
Why does a PSP, a Playstation Portable cost as much as the whole console?
00:44:32
◼
►
Right. Right. I wonder, you know, so there's battery life as well.
00:44:38
◼
►
So the Nexus 7 has great battery life. Part of the reason though is that it doesn't have the wireless chips in it.
00:44:44
◼
►
So it's only relying on Wi-Fi to be able to do that. Nor does it have a retina display.
00:44:48
◼
►
But we assume that the iPad Mini will not have a retina display.
00:44:51
◼
►
display because you've made the great case for why it would, if they do it, it would
00:44:56
◼
►
be cut from the same display as the iPhone 3.
00:45:01
◼
►
And I don't know that for a fact.
00:45:02
◼
►
That's just my own speculation.
00:45:04
◼
►
So maybe it would actually be a different technology.
00:45:06
◼
►
But I still think though the fact that they have experienced massive amounts of experience
00:45:10
◼
►
for five years making exactly 163 pixel print screens, that it's got to work out in their
00:45:17
◼
►
favor operations wise, even if it's not literally cut from the same sheets as the 3GS.
00:45:22
◼
►
But I would be very surprised, I wouldn't be surprised at all if when we get them and
00:45:26
◼
►
we look at it, that it looks like a quadruple size 3GS.
00:45:32
◼
►
And that's another differentiating factor between, well we just talked about the differentiating
00:45:37
◼
►
factors between the iPod Touch and this iPad Mini.
00:45:41
◼
►
You also have to think obviously the iPad Mini versus the regular iPad.
00:45:45
◼
►
Yeah, absolutely.
00:45:46
◼
►
So I don't think that, I would expect that even if it's true and Apple does release
00:45:53
◼
►
this 7.85 inch iPad mini at an aggressive price point.
00:45:58
◼
►
Maybe it starts at $249 instead of $199.
00:46:01
◼
►
That way it's not more than half the price.
00:46:05
◼
►
I think $249 is a very good bet.
00:46:08
◼
►
If you've got an office pool on what the iPad mini starting price is going to be, $249
00:46:12
◼
►
to me is maybe even better than $199.
00:46:15
◼
►
Yeah, and it's still, I mean, they could easily get away with doing that in a world of a 199
00:46:20
◼
►
Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire because there's so much more just value in the ecosystem.
00:46:25
◼
►
They have all these apps that are made for the iPad.
00:46:28
◼
►
They have all this content that's already out there.
00:46:30
◼
►
They have millions of users that already have all their apps that they've downloaded.
00:46:36
◼
►
And so you're going to have tens of millions of users right off the bat who buy this thing.
00:46:40
◼
►
Even if they do it, I don't expect that sales of the big iPad, the regular one, the
00:46:45
◼
►
only one we know now, I don't think that they'll drop at all.
00:46:48
◼
►
I think that they'll continue to grow.
00:46:50
◼
►
I think it's expanding into a different market, not eating into the same market.
00:46:55
◼
►
And I wonder, the margin question would be fascinating to kind of get into.
00:47:02
◼
►
They're getting down there because the iPad is already a lower margin device than the
00:47:05
◼
►
iPhone, right?
00:47:06
◼
►
But that's a lot to do with subsidies and that's a huge issue there.
00:47:10
◼
►
But it's still a healthy margin that they're making.
00:47:14
◼
►
If you get down to $249 and $199, how much of a margin is that going to be?
00:47:19
◼
►
Can they really make these things for $100?
00:47:22
◼
►
Can they make them for $130, all said and done?
00:47:27
◼
►
I wouldn't be surprised, especially if they can already make an iPod Touch for $199.
00:47:34
◼
►
I think that spec-wise, once the iFixit guys take one apart and once we run benchmark stuff
00:47:41
◼
►
on it, it's not going to be the latest and greatest system on a chip.
00:47:48
◼
►
It's not going to have the retina display.
00:47:49
◼
►
I think it's going to have the equivalent system on a chip as like the iPhone 4 maybe.
00:47:55
◼
►
Maybe the 4S, but the 4S is a year old now, so that's cheaper.
00:48:01
◼
►
And I think that's that whole Tim Cook angle on Apple is that they reuse these certain
00:48:07
◼
►
core technologies in a way that they just leverage the hell out of the economies of
00:48:14
◼
►
I mean, I would love to know what it costs them to make a 3GS now.
00:48:21
◼
►
What would be the break-even price on an iPhone 3GS?
00:48:23
◼
►
Well, so it's subsidized down to zero, but they – so what do they actually sell it
00:48:29
◼
►
What can you get an unlocked one for?
00:48:30
◼
►
Is it $2.99 now or is it $2.99?
00:48:32
◼
►
Somebody just had a story last week that in India, they're selling it as a prepaid device
00:48:40
◼
►
The equivalent of once you convert the – it's about $200.
00:48:47
◼
►
So that's interesting, yeah.
00:48:48
◼
►
Because that's along the lines of an iPad touch now, I guess, right?
00:48:59
◼
►
It seems like this is this is going to happen now
00:49:01
◼
►
There's been too many reports out there right when there's this much smoke around something
00:49:05
◼
►
It's you know there's got to be something out there that it's coming
00:49:07
◼
►
It's always possible of course that Apple would delay it at the last second because of some issue. Maybe there. Maybe there's a supply issue
00:49:14
◼
►
Right you know who knows what can happen along those lines, but if they get this thing out in time for the holidays
00:49:19
◼
►
This could be you know the the greatest selling holiday device that they've that they've ever launched
00:49:25
◼
►
You know at a holiday time right and I think it could get it it could get silly real fast that
00:49:31
◼
►
All the market share numbers consider the tablet to be its own category not the PC
00:49:38
◼
►
Right right like and I realize that iPad is not a PC as we know it
00:49:42
◼
►
But I think that it just shows that it's silly in today's day to to count PC sales as a market you
00:49:48
◼
►
You know don't worry about whether it's a PC or not
00:49:52
◼
►
just embiggen the category and say computing devices, mobile computing, you know.
00:49:56
◼
►
Yeah, I totally agree. All that matters is how people are using computers on a daily
00:50:03
◼
►
basis. The iPad/tablets are coming with a vengeance now. The Nexus 7 numbers are going
00:50:10
◼
►
to be huge. The Kindle Fire was big for a bit and then it dropped off, but all indications
00:50:14
◼
►
are that Amazon is getting ready to release another one.
00:50:17
◼
►
The other two things to talk about is that, so we've got the Nexus 7 and you've got the
00:50:23
◼
►
Kindle Fire now.
00:50:24
◼
►
The reports yesterday are that Amazon's going to have another device coming out, a refreshed
00:50:30
◼
►
Kindle Fire, but they'll also have a 10-inch version.
00:50:35
◼
►
And so that's going straight on with the current iPad.
00:50:39
◼
►
And the other line of thinking is that Google called the Nexus 7 the Nexus 7 because they're
00:50:44
◼
►
going to have another size device to come out with down the road too.
00:50:48
◼
►
Right, a Nexus 10 or something like that.
00:50:50
◼
►
Right, a Nexus 10. So what do you think about them going directly after the iPad? I mean,
00:50:54
◼
►
obviously, no one made any inroads in all this time, these two plus years going after
00:50:59
◼
►
the iPad. Do you think that's like a good way to get a foothold in the door, like with
00:51:03
◼
►
the Nexus 7 doing well, then the Nexus 10 does better as a result of the Nexus 7 doing
00:51:08
◼
►
Yeah, I think it could, especially if it continues to sell. I think it's the way to go. And I
00:51:13
◼
►
I think the argument for multiple tablet sizes is exactly the same as the argument for multiple
00:51:18
◼
►
laptop sizes, that different people are willing to make different trade-offs.
00:51:23
◼
►
Why would somebody carry around a 15-inch, 4.5-pound MacBook Pro when I'm living the
00:51:30
◼
►
luxurious life with my little stack of paper, weighs like MacBook Air?
00:51:35
◼
►
Well, because some people are doing pro audio and video, or some people just like to have
00:51:40
◼
►
a big screen everywhere they go.
00:51:42
◼
►
I definitely think that anybody who has any kind of lasting success in the tablet market
00:51:47
◼
►
is going to have some sort of range of sizes.
00:51:52
◼
►
And the Surface is going to be slightly bigger, right?
00:51:54
◼
►
It's like a 10.6-inch screen, I think, at least the initial version that Microsoft will
00:51:59
◼
►
be coming out with?
00:52:00
◼
►
I don't think it was quite that much bigger, but it was definitely 10-point something.
00:52:05
◼
►
I thought it was like 10.1.
00:52:07
◼
►
Maybe it is.
00:52:09
◼
►
So it's slightly larger.
00:52:10
◼
►
you know, not focusing at least at first on the smaller tablet space and going directly
00:52:15
◼
►
after the iPad space.
00:52:17
◼
►
Right. And I think it gets back to your point about people who are using tablets as laptop
00:52:22
◼
►
replacements. I mean, that's clearly, I mean, explicitly what the Surface is aimed at.
00:52:27
◼
►
Right, as we've seen with the keyboard itself, the keyboard cover, which, you know, I was
00:52:32
◼
►
pretty, I ripped apart pretty quickly just because I think it's a silly thing to do it
00:52:38
◼
►
it's built into the device itself. And I know it's an add-on. I don't know, are they giving
00:52:44
◼
►
it, have they announced if they're going to give it with the Surface or if you have to
00:52:48
◼
►
buy it as a separate add-on? Have they said anything about that?
00:52:50
◼
►
No, I think it's, it must be a separate add-on because there's two different ones.
00:52:54
◼
►
That's right, okay, you're right. So that's good, okay. Because like, I kind of ripped
00:52:57
◼
►
it apart as like, it just kind of, you know, moves the mentality from like, oh, we're breaking
00:53:02
◼
►
new ground in computing and we're moving on from this PC world, to instead, we're keeping
00:53:07
◼
►
the same ideas of the PC world, we're just kind of making it look different. And there
00:53:12
◼
►
was that great image of a laptop versus a surface where the laptop has the thick bottom
00:53:20
◼
►
and the thin screen versus the surface with the thick screen and the thin bottom for the
00:53:24
◼
►
keyboard. And so that's what I kind of had a problem with.
00:53:27
◼
►
But I will say, since just a few days ago, I happened to be at an Apple store and I randomly
00:53:34
◼
►
decided to pick up one of those Logitech keyboard case things for the iPad.
00:53:39
◼
►
That thing is great.
00:53:40
◼
►
It's amazing.
00:53:42
◼
►
I can type just as well on that as I can on my computer and I fully plan to the next trip
00:53:49
◼
►
I'm taking a trip in a few weeks just for a few days.
00:53:51
◼
►
Not bring a laptop at all.
00:53:52
◼
►
Just going to bring the iPad, which I probably would have done anyway, but now I don't have
00:53:55
◼
►
to worry about a thing.
00:53:56
◼
►
I mean, I can send any email and type at full speed.
00:53:59
◼
►
And I recognize too that some people are great at typing on the iPad already with the software
00:54:05
◼
►
keyboard, but for whatever reason I was brought up in the world where you learn how to type
00:54:11
◼
►
on a keyboard and I'm significantly faster at doing it that way.
00:54:13
◼
►
And so people like me are going to feel a little bit more comfortable for the time being
00:54:19
◼
►
at least using that keyboard.
00:54:20
◼
►
And so I'm a big fan of this Logitech thing.
00:54:23
◼
►
And so the Microsoft Surface cover is starting to make quite a bit more sense to me.
00:54:29
◼
►
But I don't think though it's exclusive to them. I mean, I just think that the number of you know
00:54:34
◼
►
And if it turns out to be a good idea, I mean Apple will just put a keyboard in the next smart cover. Yeah
00:54:41
◼
►
You know and have it be like Bluetooth or something like that
00:54:43
◼
►
There is something clever about the way though that they're drawing power over their magnetic connection
00:54:48
◼
►
Yeah, right because this logitech one that I have has is battery-powered
00:54:56
◼
►
You have to recharge it and it is Bluetooth and it works with the magnets though
00:55:01
◼
►
It does oddly enough, you know
00:55:02
◼
►
They say it works fine with a 4GS because the sorry with it with the new iPad because the new iPad is slightly thicker
00:55:09
◼
►
Than the the previous iPad I've attached it to both
00:55:13
◼
►
there's you can definitely tell that it's definitely more attuned for the the last generation iPad to rather than
00:55:19
◼
►
Because it's the magnets slightly slip a little bit. It's kind of a weird thing, but
00:55:24
◼
►
Yeah, so the the powering thing for the surface keyboard is definitely an interesting opponent
00:55:29
◼
►
And they also have it's not just a keyboard they've they've touch elements to write where you can you have like all a trackpad like
00:55:36
◼
►
Thing right yeah, so you can use your mouse cursor
00:55:39
◼
►
That's ridiculous
00:55:43
◼
►
Microsoft I don't know it's gonna be an interesting the rest of the year is gonna be fascinating
00:55:51
◼
►
I also saw, before we got off the subject, I saw that the stories about the new Kindle
00:55:56
◼
►
fires that are apparently imminent, that there's five or six SKUs.
00:56:02
◼
►
Yeah, I saw, my sense of that is that they'll have two different sizes.
00:56:08
◼
►
So I had actually, you know, like a year, it was a little over a year ago that I got
00:56:11
◼
►
my hands, oddly enough, on a prototype of the Kindle fire before it was even named or
00:56:15
◼
►
anything like that.
00:56:16
◼
►
Right, I remember that.
00:56:17
◼
►
I remember in—
00:56:18
◼
►
It was my last great scoop while I was still at TechCrunch.
00:56:21
◼
►
And so I talked to someone who was telling me basically the entire product pipeline and
00:56:28
◼
►
everything, and they already had in the lab at that point a 10-inch version. There were issues
00:56:33
◼
►
they were having with it and they were going to delay it, and I think that they also just wanted
00:56:37
◼
►
to see how well the Kindle Fire itself as the 7-inch version would sell. And so the plan was
00:56:41
◼
►
to release it in Q1 or Q2 of this year, which obviously came and went and they didn't do it.
00:56:46
◼
►
I think that they saw the Kindle Fire had some issues. It wasn't getting great reviews and who knows they may have had component problems as well
00:56:53
◼
►
But so the 10-inch has always been in the pipeline
00:56:56
◼
►
I think with these multiple SKUs that they're talking about now
00:56:59
◼
►
I think the plan is still to do a 7-inch and a 10-inch and they would just have different
00:57:04
◼
►
Varieties of them like they would have one with more memory in it
00:57:07
◼
►
That's my sense of what they're going to do with that right because the other thing I thought you know people were I saw a lot
00:57:12
◼
►
Of speculation that it meant that they're gonna come out in a whole bunch of different sides, right?
00:57:15
◼
►
But I don't I would expect two sizes maybe even only maybe still even only one size
00:57:20
◼
►
Yeah, because you got to remember like the iPad 2 had 18 different SKUs
00:57:24
◼
►
Because it had yeah all the different carriers and black and white three sizes
00:57:33
◼
►
Verizon compatible AT&T compatible and and the iPad 3 still has I think 12
00:57:39
◼
►
Yeah, it's you don't have to get a different I
00:57:43
◼
►
I don't know. But counting SKUs doesn't imply counting different sizes. It would be
00:57:48
◼
►
easy to have six different SKUs and just have it be color and storage.
00:57:54
◼
►
Yeah, right. I doubt Amazon, which is still very much trying to figure out this market,
00:58:01
◼
►
comes out with a five-inch, a six-inch, a seven-inch. That seems a little bit of an
00:58:08
◼
►
Well, I was just going to take a second break here and thank our second sponsor.
00:58:13
◼
►
And I am super, super excited about having this company.
00:58:16
◼
►
Just because I like having different types of companies sponsor the show.
00:58:21
◼
►
Second sponsor is Tonks Coffee.
00:58:26
◼
►
And they sent me some coffee when we first started talking about their sponsorship and
00:58:30
◼
►
It is absolutely great.
00:58:33
◼
►
You pay them for a subscription and it's just no hassle.
00:58:38
◼
►
You subscribe to Tonks and every two weeks you just get fresh coffee in the mail.
00:58:47
◼
►
They find coffee from top producers all over the world, literally.
00:58:53
◼
►
They sent me stuff, the sample pack they sent me, it had stuff from Kenya and another one
00:58:57
◼
►
I think it was from Brazil and it was delicious.
00:59:01
◼
►
And they've got a free trial right now.
00:59:06
◼
►
So you can just sign up and get a sample and taste what all the fuss is about.
00:59:12
◼
►
I love everything about them.
00:59:13
◼
►
I like the name, Tonks.
00:59:14
◼
►
I just like saying it, T-O-N-X.
00:59:16
◼
►
I love their branding.
00:59:18
◼
►
They have sort of a brand that reminds me of the credits from Dr. Strangelove, this
00:59:23
◼
►
sort of big, tall, handwritten letter style.
00:59:26
◼
►
I even like their copywriting.
00:59:28
◼
►
It is unpretentious.
00:59:29
◼
►
Yes, you're buying fancy, top quality coffee, having it sent to the world.
00:59:35
◼
►
But the language they use to describe it, I just love the copywriting.
00:59:39
◼
►
It's very, very down to earth, very, very straightforward.
00:59:45
◼
►
And the coffee itself is just terrific.
00:59:48
◼
►
Take it from my pal Marco Arment.
00:59:50
◼
►
Marco Arment, who's far more fussy about coffee than I am.
00:59:54
◼
►
Here's a quote from Marco Arment.
00:59:57
◼
►
I have a great universal answer whenever anyone asks me how to make great coffee.
01:00:03
◼
►
Get a burr grinder, get an arrow press, and subscribe to Tonks.
01:00:08
◼
►
Couldn't recommend them more highly.
01:00:12
◼
►
It's really, really great stuff.
01:00:13
◼
►
Go to Tonks.org.
01:00:16
◼
►
T-O-N-X dot org and find out more.
01:00:22
◼
►
Tonks coffee.
01:00:23
◼
►
Famously, I'm telling you right now, if you want to be a success on the internet, you
01:00:26
◼
►
need three things.
01:00:27
◼
►
You need a fussy way to make coffee.
01:00:31
◼
►
Just buying your beans from Tonks alone qualifies as fussy.
01:00:34
◼
►
You need a SodaStream so you can overcarbonate your own water.
01:00:38
◼
►
And really, there is no step three.
01:00:42
◼
►
You drink coffee, MG?
01:00:45
◼
►
Mad Fientist I do.
01:00:48
◼
►
Steven: Almost called you Marco.
01:00:49
◼
►
Mad Fientist That would have been cool.
01:00:54
◼
►
I never make my own though, oddly enough.
01:00:57
◼
►
I don't know why. I just never got into that. I feel like I just never have had a good coffee
01:01:02
◼
►
maker, and that's why I don't do it. I should get into that because God knows how much money
01:01:07
◼
►
I waste at coffee shops on a daily basis. I'm also a little weird though because I don't
01:01:13
◼
►
really like hot coffee. I only like iced coffee. There's a little bit more of a process involved
01:01:20
◼
►
in doing that. You can make it at night and put it in the fridge and stuff like that.
01:01:23
◼
►
It does seem more, but it takes planning.
01:01:28
◼
►
Actually on the Tonks website, they had a blog post about making iced coffee.
01:01:35
◼
►
I'll have to check that out.
01:01:36
◼
►
That could be interesting to me.
01:01:37
◼
►
But the big problem for me is that you can't just do it and then have coffee 10 minutes
01:01:44
◼
►
For me, it's way too – I need the instant gratification.
01:01:49
◼
►
All of a sudden, I need coffee and I need it really, really quick.
01:01:53
◼
►
Well, it's awesome that you're getting coffee sponsorships on the show.
01:01:58
◼
►
You're moving up in the world here.
01:02:00
◼
►
I could not be happier about that.
01:02:02
◼
►
I love sponsorships from apps.
01:02:04
◼
►
If you've got an app and you want to promote it, get in touch.
01:02:09
◼
►
It's obviously going to be a huge source of sponsorship on a show that I'm hosting.
01:02:13
◼
►
I love the idea of everything from coffee suppliers to the studio neat guys with the
01:02:23
◼
►
little glyph and the stylus and stuff like that sponsoring the show too.
01:02:28
◼
►
Yeah, that's great.
01:02:30
◼
►
So Mountain Lion.
01:02:32
◼
►
So Mountain Lion.
01:02:34
◼
►
It's coming out.
01:02:35
◼
►
We can talk about this under embargo, which is sort of weird.
01:02:38
◼
►
I don't think I've ever tried to do this.
01:02:40
◼
►
I haven't either.
01:02:41
◼
►
something before it's legal, but it will be legal tomorrow to talk about it.
01:02:46
◼
►
Right. It would be against the embargo for us to release this recording now, and it will
01:02:53
◼
►
be a-okay to record it in advance and release it when it's done.
01:02:56
◼
►
Yes, as many people do. And, you know, and Mount Lion itself is sort of interesting because
01:03:04
◼
►
while it shocked the world, it really did. Like, no one had any idea that it was coming,
01:03:07
◼
►
And it was a big surprise.
01:03:08
◼
►
It was the first legitimate surprise that no one had any inkling of that I can remember
01:03:12
◼
►
in a long time when they did it earlier this year.
01:03:18
◼
►
But now it's been out in developer preview for a while.
01:03:20
◼
►
And because of all those...
01:03:22
◼
►
There's many sites out there who get these great anonymous developer tipsters who are
01:03:30
◼
►
willing to break their NDAs to leak this information.
01:03:34
◼
►
It sounds suspiciously like some of these tipsters are actual writers for some of these
01:03:37
◼
►
sites who are breaking their own NDAs, but we cannot be sure of this.
01:03:43
◼
►
So regardless of how it happens, a lot of the info is already out there.
01:03:46
◼
►
So it's always fascinating to write a review after most everyone knows, who really cares
01:03:52
◼
►
about it knows what's coming.
01:03:56
◼
►
And I think feature-wise, Apple has done the run-through twice now.
01:04:00
◼
►
I mean, they did it in February, not publicly, but they unveiled the website and listed the
01:04:06
◼
►
top features, and then they did the whole third of the WWDC keynote was devoted to Mountain
01:04:14
◼
►
And as always, I think that they do a very good job of highlighting the features that
01:04:19
◼
►
are the most universally applicable.
01:04:23
◼
►
So just in terms of a rundown of features, I don't really have that much to add.
01:04:27
◼
►
Yeah, I mean, so I've been using it, I've been using the developer preview since that
01:04:33
◼
►
initial developer preview and I've kind of, you know, I've had it, I had it at first on
01:04:37
◼
►
just one machine and now I'm actually running it on my main iMac and I'm running it on the
01:04:45
◼
►
Retina MacBook Pro that I have as well as a MacBook Air.
01:04:50
◼
►
And so it's, you know, I found it to be by far stable enough at this point, obviously
01:04:54
◼
►
the Golden Master is out and it will be out tomorrow in its full form.
01:05:00
◼
►
And it's great.
01:05:01
◼
►
I mean, on my IS Apple specifically, you know, are there any performance things you're talking
01:05:07
◼
►
Because, you know, normally when a new OS comes out, that's what people talk about,
01:05:09
◼
►
you know, is there a performance gain or anything?
01:05:11
◼
►
Even with Snow Leopard from Leopard, they talked about how it's been kind of tailored
01:05:16
◼
►
and whittled down to just its essentials and they made it much smaller.
01:05:20
◼
►
But there really is nothing like that, I guess, that they at least want to say with Mountain
01:05:24
◼
►
at least on my three-year-old iMac, which is nearing the end of its life in that it's
01:05:30
◼
►
nearing the end of how much I'm willing to put up with compared to how slow it is compared
01:05:33
◼
►
to my other computers.
01:05:35
◼
►
It does seem to make it faster.
01:05:36
◼
►
I don't know what the reason for that is, but it definitely starts up faster.
01:05:39
◼
►
I noticed, because I've been using it nonstop since the initial developer preview in February
01:05:45
◼
►
on my 11-inch MacBook Air.
01:05:49
◼
►
And I have noticed, especially the last few builds, especially since WWDC, I have noticed
01:05:55
◼
►
that waking from sleep is a lot faster.
01:05:59
◼
►
Yeah, I've noticed that as well.
01:06:01
◼
►
And I asked them, I did ask Apple about that because I didn't see them mention that anywhere,
01:06:06
◼
►
but I wanted to make sure that I hadn't placebo affected myself and convinced myself that
01:06:12
◼
►
it was waking from sleep faster.
01:06:14
◼
►
And then the truth is, no, we didn't touch that.
01:06:16
◼
►
But they said no, they actually put a huge amount of effort.
01:06:19
◼
►
It was actually a really big engineering thing to improve wake from sleep times.
01:06:25
◼
►
Everything related to sleep.
01:06:26
◼
►
Well, and they're doing one of the new big features is that Power Nap thing, which I
01:06:31
◼
►
haven't actually tried yet.
01:06:32
◼
►
So it's a weird thing too because it only works, it doesn't work for example on my
01:06:38
◼
►
It only works on I believe the newer MacBook Airs and the Retina MacBook Pro.
01:06:46
◼
►
my MacBook Air, because my MacBook Air is two years old.
01:06:49
◼
►
Yeah, I don't think it does either.
01:06:50
◼
►
I think it's only the newest versions.
01:06:52
◼
►
Yeah, starting...
01:06:53
◼
►
Well, I don't think it's just the newest versions that just came out at WWDC.
01:07:00
◼
►
I think it works.
01:07:01
◼
►
Right, but the one before that.
01:07:02
◼
►
Yeah, the one where the 11-inch Air got the light-up keyboard.
01:07:06
◼
►
Yeah, that's right.
01:07:08
◼
►
Yep, I have the note.
01:07:09
◼
►
I asked about that.
01:07:10
◼
►
It's mid-2011 MacBook Air, the new Retina MacBook Pros, and none of the iMacs.
01:07:19
◼
►
But that's why I was unsure whether I was seeing things by thinking that Maya doesn't
01:07:21
◼
►
qualify for Power Nap, MacBook Air seems to be waking from sleep even snappier.
01:07:27
◼
►
Like even getting ever, ever closer to the ideal of the iOS instant wake from sleep.
01:07:35
◼
►
That's interesting.
01:07:37
◼
►
One of the features that I've actually used quite a bit and has been extremely helpful
01:07:41
◼
►
has been the airplane mirroring of the Mac itself to an Apple TV. This came up the other
01:07:46
◼
►
day we were trying to watch Wimbledon and my girlfriend and I actually don't have cable
01:07:52
◼
►
and so we were unable to watch it in a traditional sense but it was streaming on ESPN 3 I believe
01:07:59
◼
►
and previously and it wasn't on the watch ESPN app on the iPad or iPhone so you couldn't
01:08:06
◼
►
do it that way but I could watch it on a browser and just stream my entire computer right right
01:08:11
◼
►
right to the Apple TV and that was awesome.
01:08:15
◼
►
Well, the other thing I've been thinking of
01:08:19
◼
►
big picture wise is that I think it's been a total success
01:08:24
◼
►
for Apple to get away from these monolithic
01:08:30
◼
►
extravaganza OS updates and sort of focus on ones
01:08:35
◼
►
that are maybe not as exciting but year over year
01:08:40
◼
►
adding features and I feel like by by by shooting for smaller less
01:08:46
◼
►
extravaganzic updates it's it's just it just seems like it's a win for everybody
01:08:53
◼
►
I think it's easier on their engineering I think it's easier to hit the ship
01:08:58
◼
►
dates and I think it's a lot less for users who are updating to each new
01:09:05
◼
►
version as they come along, there's a lot fewer chances for them to feel like, "Whoa,
01:09:13
◼
►
this is too much all at once."
01:09:14
◼
►
Yeah, right. There's basically no learning curve from Lion to Mountain Lion. There's
01:09:20
◼
►
new notification center, which is awesome. It's probably my favorite feature of it.
01:09:23
◼
►
But even that feels natural, especially if you've used iOS devices before. They've
01:09:29
◼
►
done a good job, I think, making it a very easy transition.
01:09:34
◼
►
And it's great the fact that you can update from Snow Leopard
01:09:39
◼
►
to Mountain Lion as well.
01:09:40
◼
►
So if you happen to skip Lion for whatever reason,
01:09:42
◼
►
now you can pay $19 instead of--
01:09:45
◼
►
was it before-- was it $29 for Lion when it came out?
01:09:48
◼
►
So now you can pay even less and get upgraded
01:09:50
◼
►
to the newer version.
01:09:51
◼
►
I do think what you were talking about,
01:09:52
◼
►
kind of the focus on the smaller updates and everything,
01:09:56
◼
►
I totally agree with that.
01:09:57
◼
►
But I think there's a potential for some small backlash just because of the fact that Windows
01:10:03
◼
►
8 is coming out this fall.
01:10:05
◼
►
And they'll say, "You know you'll see stories that Windows 8 is a major upgrade, whereas
01:10:11
◼
►
Apple has only been kind of tinkering with small little things here and there."
01:10:17
◼
►
Microsoft has been really focusing on going after their core audience and improving things
01:10:24
◼
►
Oh no, there's, you know, I could probably write Jesus Diaz's piece for Gizmodo right
01:10:30
◼
►
now. No, but it is, to me, it is a super sharp contrast with Microsoft and Apple in multiple
01:10:41
◼
►
ways where on the one front, Windows 8 is a radical interface change. I mean, it's
01:10:49
◼
►
easily, I mean, really no hyperbole involved. The biggest interface change from one version
01:10:54
◼
►
to the next in Windows history.
01:11:00
◼
►
And Mountain Lion is absolutely the opposite of that.
01:11:04
◼
►
I think most users, if you sat them down in front of Lion or Mountain Lion, would have
01:11:08
◼
►
to poke around a bit before they'd figure out which is which.
01:11:12
◼
►
At a glance, the easiest way is probably just look for Notification Center up in the upper
01:11:16
◼
►
right-hand corner.
01:11:17
◼
►
Notification Center and the slightly white tray for the that the apps it on now
01:11:23
◼
►
Oh, yeah for the dog the glass dock is is slightly more
01:11:27
◼
►
So you know it is a refinement. I mean there's definitely I think it's a good question
01:11:33
◼
►
What do you get for your $19 or your 20 bucks? Yeah?
01:11:36
◼
►
I think there's definitely a lot there, but it certainly is a lot less than than Windows 8
01:11:42
◼
►
And on the other side, it's also in sharp contrast to Microsoft, where Microsoft has
01:11:47
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gone with this – well, you're an MG, so I'll go with it.
01:11:51
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I'll go with the Lord of the Rings analogy, this one OS to rule us all.
01:11:57
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One OS that is meant for everything from phones to desktop computers.
01:12:03
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And Apple is very clearly and adamantly sticking to this.
01:12:07
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►
We've got shared technologies like iCloud and the names of these apps and there's
01:12:16
◼
►
certainly some similarities that hold back to the Mac thing.
01:12:20
◼
►
But it is two different OSs, one geared for touch devices and one geared for keyboard
01:12:28
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►
and pointer devices.
01:12:29
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►
Yes, I also but I feel like I totally agree with that again, but I think you know with things like notes and
01:12:37
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►
Reminders now, you know, those are straight-up ports to a new
01:12:43
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Screen size basically and in a new way of interaction with a mouse
01:12:48
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►
But it does feel like you know, if they do two more iterations
01:12:52
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►
Let's say of OS 10 or you know, if they say Kate stay at OS 10 do they do us 11?
01:12:57
◼
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who knows, but if they do two more iterations of OS X, I feel like we're going to get a
01:13:02
◼
►
lot of overlap between the two of them, and it just becomes that the Mac is now the version
01:13:12
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of all your apps that you're used to that are just being used on a bigger device that
01:13:17
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►
doesn't sell as well as an iOS device.
01:13:20
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►
Yeah, pretty much.
01:13:22
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And that's an interesting thing.
01:13:24
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I think, you know, at first, I think a lot of people were skeptical as bringing some
01:13:30
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of these iOS ideas and applications to the Mac environment.
01:13:34
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But now it's starting to make a lot of sense to people.
01:13:37
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►
I think, and that kind of leads into what I think will be the most, by far, controversial
01:13:41
◼
►
feature of Mountain Lion, which is the gatekeeper stuff.
01:13:45
◼
►
Because I've already run into a couple issues where I've tried to download an application
01:13:51
◼
►
over the web and I just had the default setting on when I installed Mountain Lion and so I
01:13:56
◼
►
couldn't do it.
01:13:57
◼
►
I had to go into my settings and switch it so that because no one, right now Apple isn't
01:14:02
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►
certifying developers just yet for Gatekeeper and so none of them are under that thing.
01:14:08
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►
Presumably most of the big ones will.
01:14:09
◼
►
I know they told me that Adobe is already on board for that so that's a huge one for
01:14:15
◼
►
for everyone else, you will be blocked from downloading internet applications without
01:14:23
◼
►
removing that thing at first, without removing the default setting. You can still do it.
01:14:27
◼
►
You don't want to freak anyone out here. Of course, you can still do it. You can download
01:14:30
◼
►
whatever you want. But by default, you will have to change that setting.
01:14:34
◼
►
Yeah, I guess that probably will be the most controversial change because it sounds perfect
01:14:40
◼
►
on paper. But in practice, yes, it is sort of... it feels like you're being told to just
01:14:49
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►
stick to the app store.
01:14:51
◼
►
Yeah. And how will parents do it? Will they even know where to go? They guide you pretty
01:14:56
◼
►
well on how to do it, but it's not as seamless as you might think. I can imagine for someone
01:15:02
◼
►
who's not really clear on how to make their way through the settings of OS X.
01:15:08
◼
►
And I wonder too, with, in the first couple of months, I think that there's going to be
01:15:14
◼
►
a lot more reasons for people to revert that, to change that setting to the more liberal,
01:15:19
◼
►
"Okay, allow apps to run from anywhere even if they're not signed."
01:15:23
◼
►
Right, right.
01:15:24
◼
►
Because there's going to be so many apps that haven't been updated yet.
01:15:28
◼
►
But then once people make that change, they're never, that's the sort of thing you've sort
01:15:32
◼
►
of set it and forget it, and you're not going to go back, and you're not going to get the
01:15:35
◼
►
advantages of Gatekeeper.
01:15:38
◼
►
I think it's going to take a year or two and people getting, "Wait until you get
01:15:43
◼
►
your next Mac," and then you leave that setting on.
01:15:46
◼
►
I feel like a year from now, it'll be a lot easier to live with Gatekeeper blocking
01:15:53
◼
►
anything that's at least not signed than it is now.
01:15:56
◼
►
I had to turn it off.
01:15:57
◼
►
There was no way to – I couldn't last that long using only the built-in apps.
01:16:05
◼
►
Right I think in that way it's it's sort of similar to the pop-up blockers built into browsers
01:16:10
◼
►
You know when they first came out
01:16:11
◼
►
It's like you had to keep turning it off because there were so many sites that needed a pop-up for whatever reason to log in
01:16:16
◼
►
Or something like that, but over time it ended up being a very good thing because it just basically killed the pop-up market
01:16:22
◼
►
That's actually a perfect. I think that's a really good analogy. I think it's a lot like that. Yeah, yeah
01:16:27
◼
►
So that's so that's a great feature, but it will be controversial to begin with another thing is
01:16:34
◼
►
So you just talked to Apple right you didn't did they send you a build a specific build of of
01:16:41
◼
►
Mountain Lion, that's did they send you the one that's through the the Mac App Store
01:16:46
◼
►
No, okay, so
01:16:48
◼
►
There's there's this weird thing going on where they have Facebook integration right like this is coming
01:16:54
◼
►
And they've already announced that it's coming right, but it's not coming till the fall right and it's not even
01:16:59
◼
►
It's not really clear
01:17:00
◼
►
why that is because so they gave me a demo you know a retina MacBook Pro with
01:17:06
◼
►
the new version of mountain lion on it but I noticed they also gave me a code
01:17:10
◼
►
to download a version for another computer so I could test it on all my
01:17:13
◼
►
machines on the one that I downloaded it does not have the Facebook integration
01:17:18
◼
►
but on the one they gave me it does and they told me specifically that it would
01:17:22
◼
►
be a little bit different because it has the Facebook integration I don't know
01:17:25
◼
►
what the holdup is like because it's ready to go it I don't think it is ready
01:17:29
◼
►
to go. I think it's, I think that I, I, my, I don't know this for a fact, but my impression
01:17:33
◼
►
is that it's beta, it's still beta quality and it's, it's, there's bugs in it that are,
01:17:39
◼
►
it's not set yet. You can get it, the other way you can get it is if you have an ADC account,
01:17:44
◼
►
it's a separate download from the GM. So if you go to the, the Mac developer page and
01:17:51
◼
►
you log in with your ADC credentials, there's a download, download the GM build of Mountain
01:17:56
◼
►
Mountain Lion. A few links down, there's "Download the Facebook development package."
01:18:02
◼
►
Ah, okay. You're right then. Okay. That makes sense. Because I was wondering if it was like
01:18:06
◼
►
maybe they signed a deal with Facebook where they couldn't technically include it until
01:18:11
◼
►
they included Facebook within iOS officially as a package deal or something. And so since
01:18:15
◼
►
that won't be out until the fall with iOS 6, maybe they couldn't do this integration
01:18:20
◼
►
with Mountain Lion. But that makes more sense. Especially while it works on the front end
01:18:24
◼
►
for users because it's in the notification center, for example, where you could send
01:18:28
◼
►
a Facebook status message right from there just like you can with the tweet button now.
01:18:33
◼
►
It makes more sense that developers might be having some bugs or issues that they have
01:18:38
◼
►
to kind of work through.
01:18:40
◼
►
I think the other very interesting and it's obviously something everybody's going to notice.
01:18:47
◼
►
It's not a detail.
01:18:48
◼
►
It's the iCloud document storage.
01:18:52
◼
►
I think that it's, I'm really happy with the way that Apple's done this.
01:18:59
◼
►
And clearly the way that Mountain Lion wants you to use these apps is to store your stuff
01:19:07
◼
►
Like that is what Apple wants you to do.
01:19:09
◼
►
Apple thinks that's the future of storage and syncing and stuff like that.
01:19:17
◼
►
And it's a huge difference from the way the Mac has always worked.
01:19:20
◼
►
The way the Mac was created was with this idea that the file system is your foundation.
01:19:26
◼
►
That's where you start.
01:19:27
◼
►
You start by looking at your desktop and on your desktop are volumes and you go into these
01:19:32
◼
►
volumes and you know where things are.
01:19:35
◼
►
You know where the document is.
01:19:36
◼
►
It's in this folder here.
01:19:38
◼
►
You start with the finder.
01:19:39
◼
►
**Ezra Klein:** Yep.
01:19:40
◼
►
**Beserat Debebe:** And then you open the document.
01:19:42
◼
►
And the new way, the iCloud way, is just like iOS, where the documents are conceptually
01:19:51
◼
►
So when you want to open a text edit document, you don't go to the Finder, you go to text
01:19:56
◼
►
edit and it's in text edit.
01:20:00
◼
►
To the point where I brought this up with them, if you have a PDF that was created in
01:20:05
◼
►
a certain app, say like Adobe Acrobat or something like that, it will show up in there, but you
01:20:11
◼
►
You would have to—it wouldn't show up by default in something like Preview.
01:20:15
◼
►
You would have to—there's a way to do it where you can dig for it and find it in
01:20:19
◼
►
the file system, but by default it's not there.
01:20:21
◼
►
It lives in whatever app it was created in.
01:20:26
◼
►
But what I like about the way Apple's done this is they've made it easy, and it's
01:20:29
◼
►
clear that that's the way they want you to do it, and I think it's the way that
01:20:32
◼
►
most people who are sitting down in front of Mountain Lion for the first time, they're
01:20:36
◼
►
going to—I think they're going to use it, and I think they're going to really
01:20:39
◼
►
want to use it. If you want to keep storing your stuff the same way you always have, you
01:20:44
◼
►
want to use Dropbox instead of iCloud, or you just want to keep your documents for privacy
01:20:51
◼
►
reasons, you don't want them going anywhere to the cloud, you only want them on your own
01:20:54
◼
►
hard drive. It's just one tab over in the open dialogue box, and it is the traditional
01:20:59
◼
►
"here's, you know, store it wherever you want" interface. And if you want to do it,
01:21:04
◼
►
you know, get to them through the finder, you can do it.
01:21:06
◼
►
Yeah, that that will be a little controversial though as well
01:21:10
◼
►
I it just because
01:21:11
◼
►
because it is one more click to be able to do it that way and they're trying to change it and I think that's
01:21:16
◼
►
the way they have to do it and I think the the benefits of it far outweigh what what the backlash will be because now
01:21:22
◼
►
Presuming you have at least one iOS device like this the seamlessness at which it will work is awesome
01:21:29
◼
►
I mean, you know
01:21:30
◼
►
everyone's seen the demo now where you can edit something on your Mac and it will change in almost real time on a
01:21:36
◼
►
an iOS device if you're doing that.
01:21:38
◼
►
And in terms of, you know, getting like a PDF from one app to another, you can still
01:21:43
◼
►
use drag and drop.
01:21:45
◼
►
I mean, and so there's, you know, you think like, well, can't I just drag it from here
01:21:50
◼
►
to the – and you know what?
01:21:55
◼
►
I think that they've managed this transition very well because there's – the way they
01:21:59
◼
►
want you to use it, they're not pushing you.
01:22:02
◼
►
They're enticing you to go there on your own.
01:22:06
◼
►
And I think that the fear people had was that Apple was going to push people to do that.
01:22:11
◼
►
And it's, you know, you can argue that with some of the policies, with all of this stuff
01:22:17
◼
►
put together with Gatekeeper and with the sandboxing restrictions in the App Store and
01:22:21
◼
►
the fact that only App Store apps get iCloud access, that, you know, that they're enticing
01:22:27
◼
►
you heavily enough that maybe it counts as pushing or that they've tilted the floor
01:22:31
◼
►
in that direction.
01:22:32
◼
►
But they're not forcing you to do that.
01:22:33
◼
►
And I really, really, truly believe that they're not going to do that.
01:22:36
◼
►
That there's not, you know, the next major version of Mac OS X is not going to be App
01:22:44
◼
►
I think Gatekeeper is their, you know, that's their solution long term to bringing the advantages
01:22:50
◼
►
of the App Store to all apps.
01:22:53
◼
►
I think that they're doing it the exact right way, which is that they're playing
01:22:57
◼
►
up the advantages of the App Store separately from apps themselves.
01:23:00
◼
►
that if you want to do the App Store, like yes, you'll have to take a hit if you have a paid app,
01:23:06
◼
►
but you're also getting access to Game Center, you're getting access to the iCloud integration.
01:23:12
◼
►
So they're playing up like the advantages of doing it, but not making you do it necessarily.
01:23:17
◼
►
So that's, you know, you lead with a carrot, not with the stick in that regard, which is smart.
01:23:23
◼
►
The two other things I had, like I think there's one quick one, which kind of brings us back
01:23:32
◼
►
to what we were talking about at the very beginning with Marissa Meyer, is it's fascinating
01:23:37
◼
►
that built-in sharing in Mountain Lion includes both Vimeo and Flickr, but it doesn't include
01:23:46
◼
►
YouTube, even though YouTube is like one of the standard apps on iOS and Apple has obviously
01:23:52
◼
►
had to deal with Google in that for the past, and that's by far the biggest video sharing
01:23:57
◼
►
They have Vimeo, but no YouTube.
01:23:59
◼
►
You know what?
01:24:00
◼
►
I noticed that.
01:24:01
◼
►
I remember noting that at the keynote.
01:24:02
◼
►
I know my notes from the WWDC keynote had that.
01:24:07
◼
►
And I forgot to – I hadn't really thought about that since, but I remember thinking
01:24:11
◼
►
like at the keynote, "Is that it, or is that like they're still in negotiation?"
01:24:15
◼
►
It's not in there for sure.
01:24:18
◼
►
And Vimeo is.
01:24:20
◼
►
So that's pretty fascinating.
01:24:21
◼
►
And Flickr is still there. Flickr has been integrated into things like iPhoto for a while.
01:24:27
◼
►
And Apple TV.
01:24:29
◼
►
And Apple TV, right. Yeah. And so it's still there. So they're still giving Yahoo and Flickr
01:24:34
◼
►
that love, which is nice. Hopefully it gets rejuvenated a bit.
01:24:38
◼
►
The other really big thing I kind of wanted to talk about was Safari itself. So I know,
01:24:44
◼
►
or I presume, that you're a big Safari user.
01:24:49
◼
►
And I am not. I use Chrome. Pretty much exclusively, except I've made exceptions for when the Retina
01:24:57
◼
►
MacBook Pro came out because Chrome was just looked god-awful because it wasn't updated
01:25:03
◼
►
with the Retina graphics yet.
01:25:04
◼
►
Right. Even the font rendering wasn't--
01:25:07
◼
►
Yeah, it was awful. It was all wrong. It was wrong too in Twitter for--it's still wrong
01:25:10
◼
►
in Twitter for Mac, and I don't know if they'll ever fix that. It was wrong in Sparrow. It
01:25:13
◼
►
was wrong in a few other things. They fixed it in Sparrow. But so they have since fixed
01:25:17
◼
►
it sort of in the Canary build which is the early build of Chrome but it's still not stable
01:25:23
◼
►
enough so I still use Safari when I'm using the the retina MacBook Pro but and I've been
01:25:28
◼
►
using it with the with the mountain lion release I still I still have a big problem with Safari
01:25:34
◼
►
I know that they say you know they gave me the the stats that according to SunSpider
01:25:38
◼
►
JavaScript test Safari is the fastest browser now compared to I think it was Chrome 19 or
01:25:43
◼
►
whatever the last version was.
01:25:45
◼
►
I still find it to be slower, and just the smallest
01:25:48
◼
►
little things that I do, including one
01:25:51
◼
►
is, of course, using Gmail, which makes some sense
01:25:53
◼
►
that Google is able to optimize Gmail for Chrome
01:25:56
◼
►
better than they could for Safari.
01:25:58
◼
►
Who knows if that's on purpose, or if it's just because they
01:26:01
◼
►
have access to that team directly.
01:26:03
◼
►
But I still have a problem with using Safari as my main browser.
01:26:06
◼
►
And the only thing that I've noticed
01:26:08
◼
►
that's pretty buggy in Mountain Lion is Safari itself.
01:26:11
◼
►
I'm having rendering issues.
01:26:12
◼
►
Are you noticing anything with that?
01:26:13
◼
►
No, I'm not.
01:26:15
◼
►
I don't know why that is.
01:26:16
◼
►
Just certain sites seem to – I'll get the thing where I scroll down and then all
01:26:20
◼
►
of a sudden part of the page, like a square of it is white.
01:26:24
◼
►
One of those situations.
01:26:26
◼
►
I don't know what that is.
01:26:27
◼
►
I could probably switch to Chrome pretty easily.
01:26:31
◼
►
Although I don't really like Chrome on iOS as much.
01:26:35
◼
►
I think they did a very nice job and I can see how some people would really like it.
01:26:38
◼
►
I mean, one of the—when there was all that talk—and I know you had it early, that they
01:26:43
◼
►
were working on Chrome for iOS.
01:26:48
◼
►
Which would have to comply with the App Store rules, use the systems version of WebKit.
01:26:53
◼
►
I remember thinking, "Well, what's the point then?
01:26:55
◼
►
If it's really just a rectangle with WebKit, why even bother?"
01:26:58
◼
►
And I think that—
01:26:59
◼
►
Well, they're syncing.
01:27:01
◼
►
Syncing is one of the things that people love the most, which I care about a little bit.
01:27:05
◼
►
I'm used to the OmniBar, which they oddly added to Safari in OS X.
01:27:11
◼
►
So they have that now, where you can either search or type a URL in, but they don't have
01:27:15
◼
►
it even on iOS 6 on Safari.
01:27:18
◼
►
Yeah, that's interesting.
01:27:21
◼
►
And I'm not quite sure what the logic is there, because there's more room for a second bar
01:27:27
◼
►
Yeah, my only thought is that it's easier to touch a second input than it is to drag
01:27:33
◼
►
a mouse up somewhere and try to do it.
01:27:35
◼
►
But I'm not sure otherwise.
01:27:39
◼
►
Just hold that thought for a second and we'll get back to that.
01:27:42
◼
►
Another little, given the nudge to Google, change in iOS 6 is that that search field
01:27:49
◼
►
in iOS 6 no longer says Google.
01:27:52
◼
►
Google says search.
01:27:53
◼
►
Search the web or something like that.
01:27:55
◼
►
Yep, yep, that's right.
01:27:57
◼
►
That's another thing that someone else brought up to me, that maybe they do it in iOS because
01:28:04
◼
►
They want people to go to the sites directly rather than using Google, which has become
01:28:09
◼
►
almost the default for a lot of people to find any site, you know?
01:28:13
◼
►
But then it still doesn't make sense why they would do it in OS X to go the other way.
01:28:17
◼
►
I don't know.
01:28:18
◼
►
I will say this.
01:28:19
◼
►
When it comes to Chrome versus Safari, especially on the Mac, I could switch to Chrome very
01:28:24
◼
►
And the times that I've used it, I like it.
01:28:25
◼
►
I can't even remember off the top of my head why the last time I tried it as my daily
01:28:30
◼
►
browser I switched back.
01:28:33
◼
►
But it's very close to me.
01:28:34
◼
►
And I do think, and I think the best thing about it is to me it does feel faster.
01:28:38
◼
►
I, at a technical level, there's a big fundamental difference between Chrome and Safari, which
01:28:46
◼
►
is that Chrome breaks off each tab into its own process.
01:28:52
◼
►
So if you have 20 tabs, there's 20 Chrome rendering processes.
01:28:57
◼
►
Safari has two processes one for the interface and a separate process that
01:29:03
◼
►
just does the rendering now that's a big security win either both both ways give
01:29:09
◼
►
you the security win where the rendering process which might be exploited by bugs
01:29:13
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in JavaScript or something like that is completely sandboxed and doesn't have
01:29:18
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access to the file system doesn't have access to all sorts of stuff huge
01:29:22
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security win. But I do think that at least to date the Chrome model of using many rendering
01:29:31
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processes, especially I think the reason that Safari gets slowed down for me is that I'm
01:29:36
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such a hyperactive reader that I end up with 20, 30 tabs open at a time. And that to me
01:29:43
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is when it really, I see the difference. I don't really see a difference in speed if
01:29:46
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I have one tab open in each app. It's when I have a bunch open. I can't help but think
01:29:52
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that at a technical level, it's gummed up by only having one monolithic rendering process.
01:29:59
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So, why do you think they do that? Why not just copy what Chrome did?
01:30:04
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I honestly have no idea. I mean, I just – and I hesitate to speculate because I'm – whatever
01:30:11
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technical guesses I could make are, you know, laughably ill-informed compared to, you know,
01:30:17
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the guys who are actually on the WebKit team at Apple.
01:30:20
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Right. Yeah. They have done some nice things to make it more compelling to use Safari with
01:30:26
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Mountain Lion, in particular the iCloud iTabs integration stuff. So if you use Safari on
01:30:34
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iOS, which most everyone does except for the few who use Chrome, you can get transfer back
01:30:40
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and forth quickly between your tabs that you have open. And that's a really nice integration.
01:30:44
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There's also the reader thing, which I don't know how many people use or don't use. It still seems
01:30:50
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kind of half-baked in my mind, but it's nice that they have it for offline now if you want to do
01:30:54
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that. So you can take a bunch of articles if you're going to be going to an airport or whatever,
01:31:00
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but you can always do that with Instapaper or one of the other services already. And so they do a
01:31:06
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a nice job of kind of unifying that experience but it's still not quite
01:31:12
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enough I think to get me using Safari on a regular basis just solely because
01:31:17
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of the speed thing and I'm for whatever reason it's a silly aesthetic thing but
01:31:21
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I'm like addicted to having pinned tabs where I have like four tabs that I pin
01:31:25
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which are you know like Gmail, Twitter and a few others that rotate tech memes
01:31:32
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one of them and because I just always have those open and kind of shoved over
01:31:35
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to the side so they're not in my face or something because there's weird spacing issues with
01:31:41
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Safari tabs. I'm sure you've noticed this where it's like certain versions of it, and
01:31:46
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I've been playing with different nightly builds and stuff, certain ones like when you open
01:31:50
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a new tab it'll open it like the entire half of however big your window is and that will
01:31:54
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be the new tab. Other versions do it as like a fifth of it and they make like these small
01:32:00
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little differences and I'm not sure what they're going for there. I just like the aesthetic
01:32:04
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I don't like the way that with tabs in Safari now, if you have two tabs in a window, they
01:32:08
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each get half the window.
01:32:09
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Yeah, right.
01:32:11
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Because, aesthetically, it just—and I realize that the idea there is that if the page title
01:32:16
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has a long string, then you see more of it.
01:32:17
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You can see the whole thing, yeah.
01:32:19
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But, yeah, aesthetically, to me, it doesn't look good.
01:32:23
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►
I do actually like—I like and don't like the non-showing of favicons, which—because
01:32:27
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a lot of sites just have shitty ones, and they're kind of ugly, and Chrome shows those,
01:32:31
◼
►
and Safari doesn't, so it keeps it more pristine and more focused on what the content is. But,
01:32:36
◼
►
you know, in some hands, like, Google does an actually kind of cool thing with their
01:32:40
◼
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favicon for Gmail, which is that they give you a little unread count on it when, you
01:32:45
◼
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know, so if there's two unread emails in there, it'll show up in the favicon as little two
01:32:50
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on the side of it.
01:32:51
◼
►
>> Yeah. Maybe I should give Chrome another shot. I don't know. It might be time. I think
01:32:56
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one of the reasons I switched the last time is I had a bookmarklet that didn't work for
01:33:01
◼
►
me in Chrome. And I eventually figured out that it was a bug in the bookmarklet. It wasn't
01:33:08
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►
that Chrome didn't support it. So anyway, I probably should.
01:33:13
◼
►
That is a big problem with Chrome for iOS, though, by the way. The bookmarklets do not
01:33:17
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work at all.
01:33:18
◼
►
Right. That's actually the deal-breaker for me. I mean, just from a practical standpoint
01:33:23
◼
►
is why I don't use it. But I understand, though, that most people don't use bookmarklets.
01:33:29
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They have no idea what they are.
01:33:31
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►
And I do see how the way that Chrome's interface for iOS, especially on the iPhone's design,
01:33:37
◼
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actually puts more emphasis on the content.
01:33:41
◼
►
Because it doesn't have both a top and bottom bar.
01:33:45
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It just has a top bar.
01:33:46
◼
►
Yeah, which was a little jarring at first, but it's actually pretty nice.
01:33:51
◼
►
The thing I love the most, though, and god, I wish Safari for iOS would copy this, is
01:33:56
◼
►
just to be able to swipe without zooming out, you know, like rather than hitting the tab
01:34:00
◼
►
button, you can just swipe on the left or right and get to the next tab.
01:34:03
◼
►
Yeah, that's genius. That really is very nice.
01:34:06
◼
►
Yeah, so that's my favorite thing. And they did kind of similar, they did a new gesture
01:34:13
◼
►
in Safari for Mountain Lion, which is that you can pinch to zoom out and it gives you
01:34:19
◼
►
this new tab view type thing that you could switch between the open tabs in Safari, which
01:34:25
◼
►
Which is pretty slick. I'm not sure how good that is for people who have tons of tabs
01:34:30
◼
►
open because you'll just be flicking through them forever. But it's a pretty nice little
01:34:34
◼
►
Yeah, but the funny thing is there, and I like it. I think it's a great feature. But
01:34:38
◼
►
there the tabs are tab size.
01:34:42
◼
►
Like, in the interface where it really doesn't matter, the tabs are tab size.
01:34:47
◼
►
They bring them down to a small little size. Yeah, that's funny.
01:34:49
◼
►
But when you zoom in there, each one gets an equal share of the tab bar.
01:34:56
◼
►
They only look good.
01:34:57
◼
►
I guess bottom line is that Safari's tabs only look good when you have at least four
01:35:00
◼
►
or five tabs in a window.
01:35:02
◼
►
Mad Fientist Yep.
01:35:03
◼
►
Totally agree.
01:35:16
◼
►
table. But I think that they're not really in it for the money. I mean, I'm sure, multiply
01:35:22
◼
►
the 50 million copies, they'll eventually sell by 20 bucks. I mean, they're going to
01:35:28
◼
►
keep the $100 million or $200 million, whatever it comes to. But I mean, that's not that much
01:35:34
◼
►
money for Apple.
01:35:35
◼
►
Yeah. When they give these pitches about what Mountain Lion's all about, they lead with
01:35:42
◼
►
the numbers, you know, 66 million people or whatever using OS X. That number has tripled,
01:35:47
◼
►
I think they said, in five years. And then they start to go in directly to like how they're
01:35:53
◼
►
focused on distributing it digitally. And they even told me this time they're not going
01:35:58
◼
►
to do the USB key thing that they did the last time because, you know, some people just
01:36:02
◼
►
couldn't comprehend how to do it through the Mac App Store.
01:36:06
◼
►
So, but that's a smart way to do it.
01:36:10
◼
►
And it led to, they said, I think 40% of the install base updated to Lion in nine months,
01:36:15
◼
►
which doesn't sound like a lot compared to iOS, but it's huge compared to any other
01:36:22
◼
►
traditional desktop operating system.
01:36:23
◼
►
You know, they give you the Windows 7 number that it took 26 months to hit that same milestone.
01:36:28
◼
►
And I think that, you know, it was, I think that the old numbers were largely the fact
01:36:34
◼
►
that prior to Lion, most people just didn't update their operating system until they got
01:36:40
◼
►
a new computer.
01:36:42
◼
►
I mean, they're just, the mass market really just buys a computer and will install, hopefully,
01:36:47
◼
►
you know, whatever software updates come over the air, security updates and stuff like that.
01:36:50
◼
►
But they don't, when it comes time to do the big update to the new major release that
01:36:55
◼
►
you have to pay for, they don't do it.
01:36:56
◼
►
And now they are.
01:36:58
◼
►
Yeah, just getting 40% to do it in the nine month span because that's how long.
01:37:03
◼
►
Because I really think that's a large part about what the, you know, Windows 7 taking
01:37:06
◼
►
26 months is, I mean, when you're talking about 26 months to hit 40%, you're more at
01:37:11
◼
►
that, you know, two year period where people get new computers every two or three years.
01:37:16
◼
►
Yes, that's totally true.
01:37:17
◼
►
That's probably what drives the majority of that number.
01:37:21
◼
►
And I really think, you know, so like you said, Apple says there's now 66 million installed
01:37:26
◼
►
base for Mac, which isn't users, it's Macs, right?
01:37:29
◼
►
And so like a family Mac might have multiple users.
01:37:32
◼
►
It's kind of hard to estimate users.
01:37:33
◼
►
But if every single one of them spent the 20 bucks to update to Mountain Lion, it's
01:37:41
◼
►
just not that much money from Apple's perspective.
01:37:44
◼
►
Clearly this thing is priced low to encourage people to update.
01:37:48
◼
►
And it's fascinating how that's influenced Microsoft because now Windows 8 is how much,
01:37:55
◼
►
I think it's, is it $29? It's something obscenely low compared to what it used to be, which
01:38:01
◼
►
is well over $100. And so it feels, of course, like they've been pressured to do that by
01:38:09
◼
►
what Apple is doing, and they've kind of set the bar for what an OS upgrade should be.
01:38:14
◼
►
Yeah, and they've also simplified it, where they don't have anywhere near as many versions
01:38:18
◼
►
of Windows to choose from.
01:38:21
◼
►
They just decided to go with that ridiculous RT name still for no apparent reason.
01:38:26
◼
►
But what's most interesting about Microsoft dropping the price significantly of Windows,
01:38:31
◼
►
which is great for consumers, of course, and that's going to lead to a lot more people
01:38:35
◼
►
upgrading to it, I think.
01:38:37
◼
►
But that's the core way they make money.
01:38:40
◼
►
It's not the core way because OEMs still pay the licensing fee to Microsoft, but it's still
01:38:46
◼
►
like a big part of the way Microsoft makes money, and they're taking whatever it is,
01:38:51
◼
►
a fourth cut.
01:38:53
◼
►
A fourth of that now.
01:38:54
◼
►
In theory, Apple could give it away free.
01:38:57
◼
►
I mean, I don't know about the accounting ... There still might be some kind of-
01:39:02
◼
►
There would be accounting practices that you couldn't do that legally, but-
01:39:06
◼
►
Or they could sell it for a ridiculously low price.
01:39:09
◼
►
In theory, they could sell it for $1.99 or something.
01:39:13
◼
►
It wouldn't matter to Apple financially.
01:39:15
◼
►
They wouldn't really be taking it on the chin.
01:39:18
◼
►
The whole reason for that is that the only people who can buy it are people who've already
01:39:22
◼
►
paid $1,000 or more for an Apple computer, whereas Microsoft needs that money.
01:39:28
◼
►
That's a core part of their business.
01:39:31
◼
►
So yeah, I don't know if the OEM relationship is any different, if they're charging the
01:39:37
◼
►
OEMs less per license because they're charging consumers less? I assume not, because that
01:39:42
◼
►
would be a significant hit on their business if they did that same cut for the OEM vendors
01:39:49
◼
►
that they work with. I mean, you're talking Windows revenues cutting by a fourth or whatever.
01:39:54
◼
►
Well, and I think that the difference is that they're pretty much pitching it as it's upgrade
01:40:00
◼
►
pricing only. Yeah, that's true.
01:40:04
◼
►
That is a question. I don't actually think – I remember somebody asked it, and I don't
01:40:07
◼
►
think we have the answer yet is let's say you buy a bare bones PC that doesn't even
01:40:11
◼
►
ship with a version of Windows on it, just a blank motherboard and hard drive. Will you
01:40:16
◼
►
be able to take the $29 retail Windows 8 thing and install Windows on it or do you have to
01:40:22
◼
►
start with some version of Windows?
01:40:23
◼
►
You know, that's always been a tricky question. I remember back in the '90s thinking about
01:40:28
◼
►
that. I want to say that at least one version, maybe it was Windows ME or something like
01:40:33
◼
►
allowed you to install the operating system even though it was the upgrade version.
01:40:39
◼
►
And it wasn't like touted or anything, but there was a way to do it.
01:40:41
◼
►
Or there might have been a small little hack that you could, you know,
01:40:44
◼
►
get some file on your computer that made it think that you had, you know, Windows XP or something.
01:40:49
◼
►
And then you could, or Windows 98 I mean, and then you could install Windows ME on top of that.
01:40:54
◼
►
There was something like that.
01:40:55
◼
►
But as far as I know, you can't do that or you shouldn't be able to do
01:40:59
◼
►
that because that'd be stupid then, you know, from Microsoft's perspective.
01:41:03
◼
►
They want you to, of course, buy the full version, which you're right, is the version
01:41:06
◼
►
that they would sell to the OEMs.
01:41:08
◼
►
The OEMs aren't doing upgrades for users.
01:41:11
◼
►
Anyway, though, bottom line, I just don't think Mountain Lion is all that earthshaking.
01:41:18
◼
►
It is absolutely not earthshaking in the way that Windows 8 is.
01:41:23
◼
►
I think it's a good thing for Mac users.
01:41:27
◼
►
That just makes reviewing it interesting.
01:41:30
◼
►
I mean, you know, I assume we're both writing our reviews today. Yeah, I don't know exactly how to frame it
01:41:36
◼
►
I think you know, you're framing it as correct
01:41:38
◼
►
And I don't like to do you know, I don't know how you you come up
01:41:43
◼
►
Do do your traditional review stuff?
01:41:46
◼
►
I know that you do it typically different than like say, you know
01:41:50
◼
►
The verge or engage it does it like especially with hardware
01:41:53
◼
►
But and I try to do that too just because I don't I don't like to go into details about all the little
01:41:59
◼
►
all the specs and everything because it just matters less and less over time it seems like.
01:42:03
◼
►
But with an OS upgrade like this, it's a tricky thing to approach from a review perspective
01:42:08
◼
►
because it's so similar to what Lion is, you know, besides these core features.
01:42:14
◼
►
Yeah, that's the problem I'm having with my review. I like it. I think everybody, certainly
01:42:19
◼
►
everybody who like listens to this show or reads during Fireball, I think it's going
01:42:23
◼
►
to be a very popular update and I think it's worth 20 bucks. But every, it's hard to
01:42:29
◼
►
to write the review though in a way that doesn't come across as saying I don't
01:42:32
◼
►
know if that you know there's not that much new right right so you almost have
01:42:37
◼
►
to do it as taking a step back and looking at the broader perspective right
01:42:40
◼
►
what you're talking right yeah yeah but anyway speaking of which we should
01:42:43
◼
►
probably get to work on that stuff mg siegler thank you very much for being
01:42:46
◼
►
here I really appreciate it of course thanks for having me again let me just
01:42:50
◼
►
quick thank also our sponsors studio neat go out there buy a glyph tripod
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