0:00:00That seems nuts though. You're saying that there's hotels that have Wi-Fi access that
0:00:06you can't do on a phone, like on an iPhone.
0:00:09Right, because of the pop-up thing. Because there's a lot of them out there that want
0:00:13you still to watch some kind of, you know, either ad or click on something that requires
0:00:18a pop-up, and the iPhone doesn't like that too much. And then not to mention all the
0:00:24ones that are not just tailored at all for a mobile experience.
0:00:28And so, you know, it's either a combination of quick zooming so you can get it and hit
0:00:35a button before it zooms back out because it's just completely not tailored.
0:00:39I saw one where you had to go through – you had to click to a terms and agreements thing
0:00:46in a web view.
0:00:48And I don't know how they programmed it, but it was a tiny, tiny little button.
0:00:52And I don't know how they did it, but every time you pinch-zoomed on the iPhone, it would
0:00:56instantly go back out to the full size.
0:00:59Yeah, yeah, I've seen the exact same thing.
0:01:02It's an unzoomable web page.
0:01:03And so it leaves you like the tiniest touch target in the history of touch.
0:01:08It's like one pixel on the iPhone screen that you have to get your touch centered on.
0:01:13It's crazy.
0:01:14Yeah.
0:01:15You really would need sandpaper to whittle down your fingers at that point.
0:01:18So we're recording, today is Tuesday, July 24, but we're not releasing the show until
0:01:26tomorrow and that will be after the Mountain Lion embargo.
0:01:29So we will talk, we can talk Mountain Lion.
0:01:32Yes we can.
0:01:34Because everybody, we're all signed up on the NDA and everything like that.
0:01:37But before we get to that, I was thinking we should talk about Marissa Mayer.
0:01:41Is it Mayer or Mayer?
0:01:43It's Mayer.
0:01:44Even though it's spelled like Mayer.
0:01:47So that's one of those things where I don't think I've ever talked about her on the
0:01:52show.
0:01:53And if I don't talk about somebody, I don't really know how to pronounce their name often.
0:01:56So it ends up, I think this is a good move for Yahoo.
0:02:00I don't see how they could possibly have gotten a better CEO.
0:02:03Yeah, and it was totally out of left field.
0:02:07It makes sense in hindsight, but no one was really thinking that.
0:02:10I'm not sure exactly why, but no one was.
0:02:13There was no rumor.
0:02:14There was no whisper about it.
0:02:16thinking that this was a possibility. I guess it's just because Yahoo has had such a string
0:02:21of either boring hires or kind of obvious things. And there were reports that the Ross
0:02:28Levinson guy, who was the interim CEO, was just going to get the job and they were kind
0:02:32of going through the motions, interviewing a few of the people.
0:02:34That's what I expected, too.
0:02:36Did you read, I think Stephen Levy had a good post, I think it was yesterday, for Wired,
0:02:42talking about Marissa Mayer's role at Google where, obviously she was there for a long
0:02:49time and her role evolved over the time she was in charge of search and then most recently
0:02:53she was in charge of the local stuff, but she also started and ran the program called
0:02:58APM, which is Associate Product Manager, I think.
0:03:02No, I didn't see this.
0:03:05So basically she was running what is effectively inside Google a leadership training program.
0:03:12And they had a few hundred people go through this under her through, you know, the decade
0:03:17or so that she was running it.
0:03:19And these people include like Brett Taylor, who is the guy who eventually would go on
0:03:22to become CTO of Facebook.
0:03:26They have the guy who's in charge of Chrome, not Sundar Pichai, another guy who's just
0:03:33under him who's kind of spearheading that program.
0:03:36And he's the one who actually took over the APM project.
0:03:39But anyway, the long story short is that Steven Levy writes this pretty good post suggesting
0:03:44that Marissa Meyer is even more better equipped to handle this Yahoo CEO job because she really
0:03:52trained the cream of the crop at Google and now has these great relationships.
0:03:57They've all stayed in touch.
0:03:58They're supposedly all very close.
0:03:59They would go on these long trips together and for one of them, Levy was embedded somewhere
0:04:04in Africa, I think, or Eastern Europe. And they would do these once a year, and they
0:04:09would all form these tight bonds, and they'd stay in touch after all these years. Most
0:04:12of those people have obviously since left Google, but now, of course, Meyer still has
0:04:18those relationships that she could potentially bring in. If she could even bring in, you
0:04:22know, five or six of those people, that's potentially huge right there for Yahoo.
0:04:28I've long had the sense that, not that she was on the outs at Google, but that, and other
0:04:34people have said that she hit a glass ceiling. But she wasn't going – there was nowhere
0:04:38above at Google that she was going to get to move up to.
0:04:41Right.
0:04:42And I kind of get the sense that she hasn't been as influential as she was in the past.
0:04:48Yeah. It seems like the early days, she was whatever the 10th employee or something like
0:04:53that. And everyone was probably doing a lot of work back then and through the time when
0:04:58there were 100 employees. And she was one of the senior people and she was in charge
0:05:02you 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
0:05:07Transition from to more than a search engine. I think her role just kept getting diminished and diminished and then finally
0:05:14Whenever it was a couple years ago or something when they moved her off and who knows if they moved her off
0:05:19She has to be moved off because she had just been working on it for so long
0:05:22But moved off of search which is of course the bread and butter of Google still
0:05:25You know it seemed from the outside that you know
0:05:29They were just decided to go in a different direction and it was pretty telling that they didn't give her an SVP position
0:05:35Even though you know of her seniority
0:05:38You know, they had someone else running local this guy Jeff Huber
0:05:42I believe was elevated to SVP of kind of local and commerce above her
0:05:46So yeah, I think the writing was on the wall that she was eventually going to leave and it's surprising that they didn't
0:05:52Elevate her to an SVP status, but who knows?
0:05:57That's what the difference is.
0:05:58Yeah, you never know what the inside politics are.
0:05:59But from the outside, I always thought that she was of the Google that I liked best.
0:06:06And I think that – and it's also – it's the sort of thing like with Apple where you
0:06:09just – you take some of this stuff for granted that it's as simple as it is.
0:06:14But I think like the fact that the Google homepage is just a search field and two buttons,
0:06:21you can say, "Well, anybody could do that."
0:06:23But I think that by … I can't even imagine how many times she had to say no to things
0:06:30that other people at Google wanted to do on that homepage.
0:06:33Oh, yeah.
0:06:34I mean, I remember, you know, every … since 10 years, 5 years, everyone keeps saying,
0:06:40"Just imagine if they had like a giant display ad behind, you know, behind Google on Google.com.
0:06:46You know, how many tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars would that generate
0:06:50in revenue every single year?"
0:06:52They just didn't do it.
0:06:55Most accounts, that was her job and her insight to not mess up that main experience.
0:07:02And that's what makes me optimistic about her being a good CEO for Yahoo is that she
0:07:08obviously has that ability to say no.
0:07:10I mean, that's like the famous Steve Jobs quote, that he's prouder of the things they
0:07:13said no to than the things they actually said yes to because that's what keeps the company
0:07:18focused.
0:07:19Yeah.
0:07:20say along those lines, I've met her a number of times. I don't know her all that well,
0:07:25but we've chatted from time to time. I've talked to her on stage a few times. I will
0:07:30say that my impression of her is that she's extremely opinionated, which I think is great
0:07:35because she has things that she likes and she has her own ideas of what she wants to
0:07:41do, and she's going to get them done because that's just who she is. All the accounts from
0:07:46people who've worked under her at Google will say the same thing. It's just she's
0:07:50not wishy-washy. She doesn't really have any understanding of what she's trying to
0:07:54do. She knows what she wants to do and she goes for it. That's awesome.
0:07:57Right. Ideally, I think the best type of leaders have extremely strong opinions loosely held.
0:08:03Right? Like in other words…
0:08:05Yeah, so they're valuable.
0:08:06Right? In other words, like with Tim Cook talking about Steve Jobs, that guy had the
0:08:10strongest opinions of anybody in the world, but he might change them tomorrow. Any of
0:08:15them.
0:08:16Right.
0:08:17And those people often, at the time they may get upset or whatever in an argument, it seems
0:08:22like they always fall back on the idea that they love it if someone can stand up to them
0:08:27and can actually make their case to change their mind about it.
0:08:30That's the best thing in the world for those people.
0:08:34I often think, and it's just one of those ways that everything comes full circle a lot
0:08:40of times is that famously, almost infamously, Yahoo had the chance to acquire Google in
0:08:47the early days.
0:08:48And, you know, didn't quite offer enough money and never happened.
0:08:55But I think it's always been pretty clear that Google held up Yahoo as a, "Look, they
0:09:01made mistakes that we don't want to make."
0:09:03Mad Fientist Yeah, yeah.
0:09:04And that helped them, no doubt.
0:09:06It's funny because I still think of Google as the upstart and Yahoo as the old guard.
0:09:13By now, by today's date, they're actually relatively the same age.
0:09:18Yahoo wasn't formed that much earlier than Google.
0:09:20It's just that those first few years of Yahoo were the explosive years of the dot
0:09:27com.
0:09:28Yeah, you still hear though, I talk to startups every once in a while who either cut some
0:09:32kind of deal with Yahoo or do something with them where they kind of run a test on their
0:09:35their homepage, and it's still an insane amount of crushing traffic that anyone would be happy
0:09:40to get.
0:09:41And that's why it's great that someone can actually steer that in the right direction.
0:09:45There's no question that they still have a lot of people going there.
0:09:47I think, what is it now?
0:09:49It's not the number one most trafficked website anymore.
0:09:52It might be two, it might be three, I don't know what it is, but it's way up there still.
0:09:56Right.
0:09:57And I think that's an opportunity.
0:09:58I think that'll be the first thing that you see a change about.
0:10:02I think that there – and I don't think any previous CEO at Yahoo has really left
0:10:09a personal – like, "Wow, there's a new CEO in charge of Yahoo.
0:10:15Look at the Yahoo.com."
0:10:16Yeah, that's definitely true.
0:10:18I think that should be the first thing that she does is make some changes that Yahoo.com
0:10:24is – there's a new sheriff in town and there's focus at this company now.
0:10:30She should put up – did you see that picture circulating around?
0:10:32it's the Obama Hope picture, but it's of Marissa's face.
0:10:36No.
0:10:37It's supposedly being plastered around Yahoo's campus right now. It's pretty awesome.
0:10:43I talked to a friend who works at Flickr, and there's definitely some optimism.
0:10:47I'm excited for that. I mean, I just randomly logged on to Flickr for the first time. It
0:10:53was so bad that I had to reset my Yahoo password. I didn't even remember what it was. So that's
0:10:57That's how bad Yahoo was in my head.
0:11:00So I reset my password and I logged into my Flickr account and it was expired.
0:11:04I think it had just expired like six months ago because I had signed up for a two-year
0:11:08paid plan.
0:11:10So I'm excited to see if they can really not only turn the Yahoo brand around, but all
0:11:15these sub-brands.
0:11:16I really would like to use Flickr for something cool again and I'd like to sign up for my
0:11:20Pro account.
0:11:21I mean, they have tens of thousands of pictures just saved.
0:11:25It's really nice that they actually don't delete them, even if you let your Pro account
0:11:28expire.
0:11:29They only let you see 100 of them, but they keep them all just in case.
0:11:32That's great.
0:11:33Yeah, there's definitely some opportunities there.
0:11:36I also think...
0:11:38What do you think she's going to do with the Microsoft deal in terms of, obviously, Bing
0:11:43powers their search now.
0:11:44They handle some of the front-end stuff.
0:11:46They do some different things than Bing does itself with search.
0:11:50How do you think that she'll approach that?
0:11:52Well, that's what I honestly don't know.
0:11:54I'm not close enough to…
0:11:57I could see it going one of two ways.
0:11:58I could see it where that gets abandoned in Yahoo and Google sort of because of their
0:12:05personal relationships becomes semi-allies.
0:12:10Or if it's bad blood, maybe it goes the other way.
0:12:16Right.
0:12:19In the initial stories of her leaving, there was one, I think it was a New York Times report
0:12:23that said, "Mayor called Larry Page by phone that day to resign on the spot."
0:12:32There's no two weeks notice or anything.
0:12:34She just called by phone.
0:12:35But of course, Larry Page has his voice issues or whatever, so maybe he wasn't around.
0:12:38Who knows what the deal is with that.
0:12:41But it seems like there's a little bit of bad blood between them, but who knows?
0:12:46Maybe that's reading too much into it.
0:12:49But I think you're absolutely right.
0:12:50think it really that kind of is a pretty major factor in what she ends up doing. Maybe she
0:12:56just looks at the numbers and realizes that the Microsoft deal is too good to kind of
0:13:00dissolve. It's interesting that when Microsoft was trying to buy Yahoo a few years ago, remember
0:13:08obviously Yahoo pushed back heavily and they were looking for anyone to help them, including
0:13:12Google. And at one point they had kind of at least had a handshake agreement to do some
0:13:18sort of similar advertising or search deal with Google that they ended up doing with
0:13:23Microsoft, but they had to drop it because the government didn't officially look into
0:13:27it, but all indications were that the government was going to look into it. But that was also
0:13:30because Yahoo was by far the number two search engine at the time to Google, and Microsoft
0:13:36was a non-player. Now Microsoft is number two, and I don't know, maybe the government
0:13:41would be okay with Yahoo and Google tying up together, or maybe they still wouldn't.
0:13:46Yeah, I don't know. I think it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.
0:13:49And I think in hindsight, it'll become obvious how acrimonious it is that she left them.
0:13:55You know, is it seen inside Google as a betrayal? Or is it, you know, good for her? And now
0:14:00we're sort of like partners, sort of like and the comparison that I've seen other people
0:14:03make is to Steven Elop, who was a Microsoft executive left for Nokia. And then as soon
0:14:09as he got to Nokia forged this extremely tight bond.
0:14:14Yes.
0:14:15You know, that whereas it seems pretty obvious and the Nokia diehards, the people who don't
0:14:19like that they don't have their own operating system anymore, see it as, you know, that
0:14:24this was planned from the start, that he was like a mole in Nokia.
0:14:29I think I alluded to that when it first happened.
0:14:33That it was awesome that Microsoft got a plant in Nokia's area and I think that drew some
0:14:39Iyer from Frank Shaw who's head of Microsoft Corporate Communications. They did not like
0:14:43that too much. Well, I mean, however much it was planned and however much that, you
0:14:47know, that this was agreed upon in advance. It certainly, in hindsight, has shown though
0:14:51that Steven Elop's experience as a Microsoft executive certainly influenced his leadership
0:14:58at Nokia in a very pro-Microsoft way. Yeah, that's definitely. Right, I mean, it doesn't
0:15:05really matter whether you think that it's good or bad for Nokia, but that certainly
0:15:09is the way it's played out.
0:15:11I think we'll have to see if it's going to happen like that with Marissa Mayer.
0:15:15Right.
0:15:16There's something to be said for just doing what you know and what you've done for the
0:15:19past decade or more, and that's like Marissa Mayer, Google runs very thick through her
0:15:26blood, so maybe she does just turn to them for certain things that previous Yahoo CEOs
0:15:33wouldn't have done.
0:15:34thing that you brought up right after it happened which was interesting, you tweeted about,
0:15:39does she use an iPhone or not? And I think a lot of people have kind of dug up that you
0:15:44would see the little indications on Twitter and stuff that she was tweeting from an iPhone
0:15:48and using Instagram in the early days and stuff like that. That's interesting because
0:15:53it kind of also shows that she wasn't so ingrained in the Android culture that she's going to
0:15:58bend over backwards to fork, make some kind of Yahoo phone or something that's only working
0:16:04on Android. It seems like that won't happen, and that's great.
0:16:11It wasn't just me trying to view everything from a "what's it mean for Apple" perspective.
0:16:16Right. I think it shows that she has an open mind more than anything. That she wasn't just
0:16:21another cog in the Google machine that just uses Android because you have to use Android
0:16:25there. She was willing. And maybe it's great from her viewpoint of a competitive landscape.
0:16:30Maybe she wanted to use iPhone. Maybe she liked it more. Maybe she wanted to use it
0:16:33because she really felt like she needed to stay on top of what are the big emerging trends
0:16:38out there.
0:16:39Well, and the other thing that makes it interesting now that she's the CEO at Yahoo is that Yahoo,
0:16:45it is quiet, but they have a bunch of partnerships with Apple as a content provider for the iPhone.
0:16:52Yeah. And it's even more with iOS 6, right? Because they've already talked about the Siri
0:16:58and sports integration. I think that's Yahoo Sports, right?
0:17:00Yes, it is.
0:17:01It's all the sports stuff in iOS 6 is powered by Yahoo Sports.
0:17:07And Yahoo Sports is actually one of the powerhouse properties at Yahoo.
0:17:14I mean for anybody who's not a huge sports fan, it's sort of quietly, everybody thinks
0:17:19of things like Flickr and then search and Yahoo Mail and stuff like that.
0:17:24But Yahoo Sports is easily top five sports site on the web.
0:17:29Maybe –
0:17:30I think it's two, it might be two. You know, you always hear these reports, like on ESPN,
0:17:35you'll hear it on SportsCenter where they talk about a report from Yahoo Sports, and
0:17:39that happens all the time. Part of it is because, a huge part of it is because they actually
0:17:44invested quite heavily in original journalism on that side of things. And the plan, I think
0:17:50way back when the plan was to kind of start that with Yahoo Sports, see if it would work,
0:17:54and then go into other verticals, and they just never really did that to see if they
0:17:58They could replace the AP or Reuters and become one of the main sources of wire news and whatnot.
0:18:04But they did do a great job hiring at Yahoo Sports, and it remains a great place for breaking
0:18:10sports news.
0:18:11Yeah, and I think it's either number one or number two, probably after ESPN, I'm guessing.
0:18:18Yeah, I would imagine ESPN's one.
0:18:21Probably two, maybe CBS Sports, but I think it's probably Yahoo Sports.
0:18:24And it's by far the biggest of the online-only properties.
0:18:29So the ones that it competes with are mostly the TV ones, like ESPN and CBS Sports is big,
0:18:39and probably Sports Illustrated.
0:18:40Right, which CNN owns.
0:18:43Yeah, that's part of it.
0:18:45That's really interesting.
0:18:46They're also huge, obviously, in finance rights.
0:18:51That's what powers the iOS Stocks app, is still Yahoo financial information.
0:18:57So that's another big vertical for them.
0:18:58Yahoo News is still huge.
0:19:00I think Google News may have overtaken it as a bigger property, but it's still a major
0:19:06driving factor in what people use Yahoo for.
0:19:11And I think that mobile is obviously a huge question going forward for Yahoo.
0:19:20And Apple obviously has the whole shebang.
0:19:26Google obviously has Android.
0:19:28Microsoft has Windows Phone.
0:19:32Yahoo doesn't really have its own, or not even, I shouldn't even say really, just doesn't
0:19:37have any kind of mobile…
0:19:40Right, they have no "in" of their own.
0:19:44Right.
0:19:45They're completely at the beck and call of these other players.
0:19:47Right.
0:19:48And I think it would be pointless for them to start.
0:19:51I think that their play for mobile is, I think, to be a content provider.
0:19:56Yes.
0:19:57Right?
0:19:58They absolutely should.
0:19:59And that's working so far for iOS.
0:20:00You would imagine that it won't work for the Google-flavored Android because they have
0:20:04their own competing services across the board for all that stuff, for search, for sports.
0:20:10Well not really for sports. Maybe they could do for sports, but for finance and for news.
0:20:14But yeah, maybe sports and certainly maybe they could do something with Microsoft given
0:20:18the Bing deal for Windows Phone. I think that's the way to do this.
0:20:23Well and the other thing that struck me about Microsoft is now Microsoft is out of MSNBC.com.
0:20:31They got out of the TV channel a while back, but they were still partners on the website
0:20:39and now they're not.
0:20:40So I do think there's some opportunities there where they can sort of try to play it
0:20:45up across, not just Apple, but across the board try to get the Yahoo properties established
0:20:53as the leading mobile providers.
0:20:56Eric Meyer Yeah, that's smart.
0:20:58I forget who it was.
0:20:59Was it you?
0:21:00who said like one simple goal for Yahoo, you know, like just talking about right
0:21:05after the the hiring, talking what Yahoo should focus on, like just just try and
0:21:10get one app on the main screen of like every iOS and Android device out there.
0:21:16And I think that's good strategy I think. Yeah I think that's
0:21:20absolutely, it's a clear goal, I think it's doable. Yeah,
0:21:27Yeah, and so Apple also has the deals for Yahoo Mail.
0:21:32Obviously, they've had that since the beginning.
0:21:34And Yahoo Mail is sort of interesting,
0:21:36because it's also-- I think Hotmail is bigger,
0:21:38which is weird, but I think that's the biggest one.
0:21:41And I think Yahoo Mail is still number two,
0:21:43with Google quickly catching up to it.
0:21:45But that's another property that's huge.
0:21:48There's Yahoo Messenger.
0:21:49It seems like IM is sort of falling by the wayside.
0:21:52Maybe they can do some interesting video stuff
0:21:54and compete with Skype more or something like that.
0:21:56But these are things that tens of millions of people use every day, if not a hundred
0:22:01million people.
0:22:02It's kind of a crazy thing, their scale at that point.
0:22:05Right.
0:22:06And I think the other thing they've got to do is they've got to start thinking about
0:22:09what's the next big thing.
0:22:11Yes, absolutely.
0:22:13And that will require bringing in some real outside thinkers, not just the people who
0:22:21have obviously been at Yahoo for the past ten years.
0:22:24You know, it sucks, but I hope that they do clear house quite a bit.
0:22:28It seems like there's, you know, you don't want to call them dead weight, but it seems
0:22:31like there's just a lot of people.
0:22:33You talk to former and current Yahoo employees even, they just say, "People are just there
0:22:37collecting a paycheck and they're not really inspired.
0:22:40Maybe this hiring inspires 50% of them, but there's still going to be 50% who are just,
0:22:44you know, just there kind of kicking around their B players when they need to be A players
0:22:49kind of situation."
0:22:50I totally agree.
0:22:53I think they got to clean house, focus, focus, focus, get an app on, try to get one app on
0:23:00everybody's home screen and then figure out what the next big thing that Yahoo can
0:23:05start the market for.
0:23:06Yeah.
0:23:07Definitely.
0:23:08I like our chances.
0:23:10I really do.
0:23:12I do too.
0:23:13I think there's a reason why the consensus is that this is a good thing.
0:23:17There's a few naysayers who say like, "Oh, well, she didn't get along with anyone at
0:23:20at Google. But there's always going to be stories of, you know, and you can report any
0:23:25story that you want. You can always find someone to say that. But I think that the general
0:23:29consensus, you know, 90% of the people are saying that this is a good thing. I think
0:23:33it actually is a good thing. And you never have seen this before, at least in recent
0:23:37memory of Yahoo. Even when Jerry Yang came back.
0:23:39Right.
0:23:40It was, you know, it was like, eh, okay, so they're going to try and do like a Steve Jobs
0:23:44rejuvenation type thing. But is this really going to work? And of course it didn't work
0:23:47at all.
0:23:48Right. Certainly success is definitely not assured, but I think it's definitely a possibility.
0:23:54The opportunity is there. I also think, too, that anybody who says no a lot is obviously
0:24:01going to make enemies. Maybe enemies is the wrong word, but they're going to have people
0:24:05say, "I didn't like working under her because she said no to all this stuff."
0:24:08Right. Yeah.
0:24:09All right. Let me take a break, and let me thank our first sponsor. I love these guys.
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0:24:29And it's a brilliant little design because it's multi-use.
0:24:32It's one little piece of plastic and rubber with a little tripod mount on one side.
0:24:37So you snap it on the side of your iPhone and it fits on any standard tripod if you're
0:24:42using it to shoot video.
0:24:44great in conjunction with something like a GorillaPod, a little flexible tripod that
0:24:50you can mount on just about anything. And you take the Glyph off, turn it sideways,
0:24:56and it turns into a little prop up your iPhone like as an easel type thing. Use it all the
0:25:02time for that. I watch baseball games on my iPhone. Use the Glyph to prop it up.
0:25:07They've got another great little product called the Cosmonaut. It's a wide grip stylus,
0:25:14sort of like a this sort of like a fat magic marker stylus for any touchscreen
0:25:21first thing I think anybody thinks when they see it is well why is it so fat
0:25:25why why isn't it a finer tip because the touch screens we have aren't meant for
0:25:30fine tip styluses they're meant for something the size of a finger so the
0:25:36cosmonaut has like a finger size stylus tip works great use it all the time my
0:25:42My son loves it for using apps on the iPad like Color.
0:25:48They also have, what else do they have?
0:25:49They have an app.
0:25:50It's Framographer.
0:25:52It's a stop motion, time lapse, movie making app.
0:25:56So if you make little movies like with Lego figures or something like that, stop motion.
0:26:02Obviously works great in conjunction with the glyph.
0:26:07Just great, great products from a small design shop.
0:26:09Just two guys making products, selling them.
0:26:12Love the stories.
0:26:14They've got a 20% discount for everybody who listens to the show.
0:26:18So you go to their website, Studio Neat, N-E-A-T, studioneat.com.
0:26:23Enter the talk show, all one word.
0:26:26The talk show.
0:26:27You get 20% off anything you order from the store.
0:26:31Studio Neat, I want to thank these guys.
0:26:33We wouldn't be doing the show without them.
0:26:38Use a stylus with your iPad at all?
0:26:40I never do.
0:26:41This cosmonaut thing is sort of interesting.
0:26:44I've seen it around before, but it looks kind of like a crayon.
0:26:49One of those big fat crayons.
0:26:53There was that story a couple days ago that, I forget who reported it, but that Microsoft
0:26:59is looking into next generation styluses to use with their Surface devices or whatnot.
0:27:06You're kind of reminded of the Steve Jobs quote that if you see a stylus, they blew
0:27:12it.
0:27:13But this one's good, huh?
0:27:14This cosmonaut?
0:27:15Yeah, well, it's good for – it's great for what the iPad is.
0:27:19In fact, when they designed it, they had a blog post about it and they said, "Look,
0:27:24if the tip has to be fat," and all the other styluses you see for the iPad, ones that it
0:27:29will look like more like a regular pen's dimensions, still have like a pinky finger
0:27:34size tip at the end because that's what the touch sensor is optimized for.
0:27:41So no, it's not like writing with a fine tip pen and you can get tiny little handwriting.
0:27:46It's like a marker.
0:27:47But if that's what the tip has to be, why not give you a big thick marker in your hand?
0:27:52It's almost like writing on a small white board instead of pen and paper.
0:27:57**Matt Stauffer** Huh, that's interesting.
0:27:59Okay.
0:28:00Yeah.
0:28:01Like given the practical aspects of what the iPad screen already supports as a touchscreen,
0:28:07it's like an optimal marker for that.
0:28:09**Matt Stauffer** Nice.
0:28:11**Ezra Kleinman** And people often say to me, people often, you know, because I quote
0:28:15the, "If you see a stylus, they blew it."
0:28:19What Jobs meant about that though is a device that ships with a stylus and is intended...
0:28:24**Matt Stauffer** Right, that requires it.
0:28:25**Ezra Kleinman** Right, either requires it or is intended to be used a lot of the time.
0:28:30Not that there's never a case for it.
0:28:32I think an app like Paper or any of the drawing apps for the iPad absolutely work better with
0:28:38a stylus than with a finger.
0:28:40Eric Meyer Yeah.
0:28:42And I think that's what the Galaxy Note has one, right?
0:28:45The giant phablet.
0:28:46And it's just so ridiculous the fact that it ships with one.
0:28:50Steven
0:28:57the – because I guess it is a big seller, especially in Korea, that they're going
0:29:02to use the Note brand as a –
0:29:04Well, it makes sense. I mean, it always – you know, someone once – I've only seen it
0:29:09a couple times, but someone once had one on stage, and you know, you had them hold it
0:29:13up to their face just to see how big it is. It's not that much different than the size
0:29:17of the Galaxy 7, which is – or the Nexus 7, which is sort of funny. Yeah.
0:29:22And speaking of which, about two weeks ago, you reviewed the Nexus 7 over at TechCrunch
0:29:28and you liked it.
0:29:29Yes, I did.
0:29:30I did.
0:29:31And I liked it a lot more than I expected to.
0:29:34You know, I was gone.
0:29:37I was abroad when Google I/O happened where they unveiled it.
0:29:40And I was watching the Twitter chatter and I had heard a few things here and there about
0:29:45what was coming.
0:29:47And so it intrigued me because I wanted to see what the form factor was like.
0:29:50I mostly wanted to see if Google would be able, Google and their partner Asus would
0:29:54be able to create a decent even tablet for under $200 because we've all seen the Kindle
0:30:01Fire, it sucks, you know, it's under $200 but Amazon's not making any money selling
0:30:07it and it still sucks.
0:30:08So I was very curious to see what, if it would be any good.
0:30:12And so the initial reports coming out seemed to suggest that it was pretty good and so
0:30:16Google was nice enough to send me one to take a look at.
0:30:19you know, props to them, they know that I'm pretty negative towards Google in recent years
0:30:25in general, but they know, I think, that if they actually make a good product, I'm going
0:30:29to call it like I see it and say that it's a pretty good product, and I do believe that
0:30:32this is a pretty good product. I think that, you know, a lot of people want to frame it,
0:30:39of course, versus the iPad. It's different right now because one is, you know, a 9.7
0:30:46One is a seven inch tablet and you you hear that in your mind and you think like oh, that's not the big difference
0:30:52But 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
0:30:59You know as I said in my review
0:31:01I think that this is the strongest case yet for why Apple should do something in this in this form factor and all indications
0:31:09you know seem to be that they're going to do something maybe a little bit bigger of course, but
0:31:15You know the main thing is the form factor the second thing is that?
0:31:18Android
0:31:204.1 the Jellybean variety is is finally to the point where it feels smooth enough, and it's interesting
0:31:27I also have it installed on a galaxy Nexus
0:31:30Which is you know their last flagship device, and I definitely like it more on the Nexus 7
0:31:34I don't know if you know I this device is obviously a little bit faster than that but for whatever reason
0:31:40I just I think it's it's much more nicely attuned to to that 7-inch tablet than it is to the
0:31:454-inch or whatever size screen the the Galaxy Nexus has yeah, maybe because there's less scrolling involved
0:31:51Yeah, could be because I still feel like I still feel like that's the one thing on Android that is very jarring is scrolling
0:31:59Yeah
0:32:01It's you know they made a big point about saying how buttery they even call it butter right there their new
0:32:06Accelerated thing it's still it's not as smooth as as iOS for you know, whatever reason they can't get that to happen
0:32:14But it's you know, it's something that I think the majority of consumers would would would not care about and/or notice
0:32:21Except subconsciously which I do think is still important
0:32:24I think you know when people think about quality there's subconscious things going on
0:32:27You know when they use a device when they pick it up at an Apple store and just don't even realize like oh
0:32:31This is so much smoother
0:32:32It's just kind of a little thing.
0:32:34But I think for the most part, the price and the size of this makes it compelling to a
0:32:39lot of people.
0:32:40And I think they're going to have strong sales.
0:32:42The indications are that they're already failing to meet some demand for it.
0:32:46Right.
0:32:47It's a very good sign.
0:32:48And I do think that they've explicitly pitched it as a consumption device.
0:32:54To their credit, I actually think that that sort of focus is why the product is getting
0:32:58I haven't I actually haven't seen a bad review of the Nexus of
0:33:02Yeah, 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
0:33:11Google Play Store
0:33:13Yeah, and to the point where they put all that stuff on the main screen like they have this widget and in jellybean
0:33:19That's basically like you can rearrange things a bit, but they have you know a giant picture of a magazine
0:33:24You know that that comes shipped with it. It's like an esquire or something and then they have a
0:33:28a Transformers movie box artwork.
0:33:33So you have that on there too.
0:33:35And then you have a couple books that they ship with it.
0:33:37They make it front and center very obvious that this is about media consumption in the
0:33:41Google Play Store.
0:33:42Right.
0:33:43And I also think, and I know for three years now we've had these arguments about the iPad
0:33:48and is it for consumption, is it good for creation, is it a general purpose computer.
0:33:54And as a platform, it's for anything.
0:33:57I mean, eventually these tablet OSes like Android and iOS could be used.
0:34:04That's the future of computing in general for everything.
0:34:09So the argument isn't, is the iPad mostly used for consumption?
0:34:13Yes, probably it is.
0:34:14But that, you know, Windows is mostly used for consumption.
0:34:16Most people don't make websites.
0:34:18Most people just read them, right?
0:34:19I mean, that's the fact.
0:34:20The entire internet is that way.
0:34:22I mean, there's the rule where it's 10% creators and 90% consumers of the information.
0:34:28Yeah.
0:34:29But I do think that that's the argument in favor of—or a big part of the argument
0:34:34of Apple jumping into this smaller tablet market is for people who are just, "Look,
0:34:41I just want to watch some TV shows while I sit in bed with something that just comfortably
0:34:45sits on my—while I'm propped up in bed."
0:34:48Yeah.
0:34:49It's a great form factor, I think.
0:34:51Going back really quick to the media side of things and kind of these devices being
0:34:57set up for the Google Play Store, you know, one of the biggest criticisms I had of the
0:35:01Nexus 7 is that while Google is playing this up as a device for consumption of the Google
0:35:06Play content, the Google Play content is still not nearly where it needs to be in relation
0:35:12to both Apple and Amazon.
0:35:14I mean, they still don't have Warner Music on there, so that, you know, they don't have
0:35:17quarter of the music catalog out there in the world on this that you can get on
0:35:21this device. What do you do if you have REM or something or some other
0:35:25Warner artists that you really want and you can't get it? You could use of course
0:35:29Spotify or RDO or one of those but you know Google's trying to get you to
0:35:33use the Google Play Store and they just don't have the same amount of content.
0:35:37Same goes with magazines, same goes with books, same goes with even even films.
0:35:41They don't have everything. And so it's kind of... I still don't really
0:35:46think that Google has the complete picture worked out of how this should
0:35:50work. It's kind of confusing as to why they're forcing everyone into this
0:35:55mentality that this is for the Google Play Store when the Google, you know, the
0:35:58Play Store isn't quite ready for prime time yet. But I think that they saw the
0:36:02the Amazon threat of the Kindle Fire, you know, taking control of Android itself
0:36:07for the tablets and they just felt like they had to make this move right now.
0:36:10Right, and I think it was a very, right, it's very much, it really is exactly what they
0:36:20said it was.
0:36:21There's no hidden purpose to it.
0:36:23It's to have a device to support their online media, you know, the Play Store.
0:36:30Yeah, yeah, and you know, while it's definitely, it's definitely a hit on the device that
0:36:37don't have any 3G or wireless capabilities whatsoever, I also think that that's a great
0:36:42move on their part just because of the fact they can show the carriers finally that they
0:36:47have some leverage, that they can actually sell these things without needing the carriers
0:36:54to do it. And so they can finally ship the new Android updates and not have to worry
0:36:58about any carrier having any say over when these rollouts actually come.
0:37:03I do think that brings us back to the commercial.
0:37:06The commercial is this dad camping with his son and they're using the Nexus 7 to do
0:37:13all sorts of cool things at night.
0:37:18The big reveal at the end of the commercial is that they're actually just camping in
0:37:22their backyard, which explains how they had internet access because it's Wi-Fi only.
0:37:28Right.
0:37:29I mean, the other explanation would be that the dad had a MiFi or something in his backyard.
0:37:33but that's not going to make for a sexy commercial.
0:37:36Yeah, it's sort of funny the way that they did it, just kind of nodding to the fact that
0:37:40you probably don't want to use this thing actually in the middle of the woods, that
0:37:44you will just want to use it close to your house or close to a place of work somewhere
0:37:48with Wi-Fi.
0:37:49I do wonder, I wonder if the lack of a 3G version, if they're about to be hit on two
0:37:56sides on that front though, because what if the Kindle 2, Kindle Fire 2 has a...
0:38:02Yeah, that's a great point. Because Amazon already has those relationships, right, with
0:38:08the Kindle itself. They had, who did, at first I think they had T-Mobile and then they got
0:38:12AT&T to provide for free. It was baked into the cost of the device, but you could get
0:38:17updates of your books and download books for free without having to worry about a monthly
0:38:21bill thing. I do wonder how they would negotiate that if it was a general consumption device,
0:38:26meaning you could browse the web and download movies. It seems like it would be a little
0:38:33pricey for them to try and negotiate something without a deal.
0:38:37Yeah, and I don't think they could possibly do that for free. They got away with it on
0:38:42the E and Kindles because…
0:38:44That's so little data.
0:38:45Right. And if you've ever tried using the web browser on one of those things, it's
0:38:51It's like a parlor trick. It's not really feasible. It's like getting web pages by fax.
0:38:58Right. But maybe they would have to, I imagine, do the same kind of deal that Apple did with
0:39:04the iPad where you have a come as you want type plan where you can pay one month and
0:39:11not pay the next. I imagine they have to do that unless they did some deal with one of
0:39:16the carriers and they subsidized the price of the Kindle Fire down to free because you
0:39:20signed up for $10 a month or something like that.
0:39:23Maybe they could do that, but it still seems like the bar has been set with these tablet
0:39:28devices that you're going to pay whatever you pay, whatever the retail price is, and
0:39:32you're not going to worry about a monthly bill.
0:39:34Right.
0:39:35Which brings us to Apple's purported iPad mini and whether or not it will have 3G.
0:39:43I think it will.
0:39:44I think it'll have the exact same SKU configurations as the big iPad.
0:39:49So you think it will have 4G as well then, or LTE?
0:39:52No, I, well, I don't know about that.
0:39:59I guess that comes down to battery and…
0:40:02Yeah, that's the biggest factor I would imagine for what they're deciding.
0:40:07But maybe, because a lot of what I've been seeing lately speculates that a bigger power
0:40:12drain on the iPad 3 is the retina display, not the LTE, compared to the iPad 2.
0:40:18the screen is actually consuming a bigger reason why the battery is thicker than the
0:40:24LTE.
0:40:25That's interesting.
0:40:26Also, you have to consider the fact that we're six months removed, I guess, from the
0:40:32new iPad.
0:40:33So even now, they probably have slightly better chips in terms of power consumption management
0:40:38for LTE, I would imagine.
0:40:40Yeah.
0:40:41Actually, now that I think about it, I think it's going to be.
0:40:42I think it probably would be.
0:40:44If it has 3G at all, it would have LTE.
0:40:46Yeah.
0:40:47Yeah, and if they do that, that's a killer feature right there.
0:40:50Right.
0:40:51I mean, a lot of people are going to love that.
0:40:53What do you think?
0:40:54My thought on price is $299.
0:40:57I don't think they're going to go to $199.
0:40:59What do you think they're going to do?
0:41:00I think they'll do $199 Wi-Fi only.
0:41:02Okay.
0:41:03Okay.
0:41:04That's interesting.
0:41:05And a measly amount of storage, but they'll hit that price point.
0:41:09And you'll have to pay—I forget what the—what's the premium for getting 3G on iPad?
0:41:17I think it's, is it only $30? No, it's $130, right?
0:41:21Right.
0:41:21Yeah, it's $130. That's right.
0:41:23So I would think, you know, $199 gets you a Wi-Fi only one, and $299 gets you one with 3G.
0:41:30Like $100.
0:41:30So how do you reconcile that then, you know, with the, there was just reports yesterday,
0:41:35and you know, who knows, these are one-time reports out of like Japan or China or wherever,
0:41:39where, you know, talking about a new iPod touch. It seems like a new iPod touch is coming because
0:41:43they haven't refreshed it in over a year. It's been two years basically. And if that device,
0:41:49which now sells for $1.99 at the base level, how do you reconcile the price discrepancy,
0:41:54like those being the same price? I just, I don't think it's a problem. I think it's clear. I think
0:41:59that with devices like laptops, it's a one-way correlation. Smaller is cheaper, bigger is more
0:42:09expensive because the bigger displays are more expensive. But laptops only shrink to
0:42:16a certain size, whereas stuff that fits in your pocket, you actually pay a premium for
0:42:21miniaturization. And to me, it's exactly the same as the dilemma over the original,
0:42:29going back to 2004, the iPod mini.
0:42:32Right, which you wrote about the other day. There's not a huge price discrepancy, even
0:42:38though it had less memory and it was just smaller, but people were paying almost the
0:42:42same amount.
0:42:43Right.
0:42:44It had less storage.
0:42:45It only had 4GB of storage, which was less than the original iPod from three years prior.
0:42:49So people were like, "This is nuts.
0:42:51No one's going to buy this."
0:42:52And the truth is people see, "Wow, that's way smaller and cooler looking.
0:42:57I want that one."
0:42:58Yeah.
0:42:59That's true.
0:43:00So that's what I think.
0:43:01Maybe there's an issue where they don't want both of them priced exactly $199 and they
0:43:05they dropped the intro of the base model of the iPod Touch to 179, something like that.
0:43:13But I don't think it's an issue because it's two entirely different sizes.
0:43:20Yeah. So presumably a new iPod Touch would have a retina display because the old one
0:43:26already does, and it would presumably also have a better camera. Just as a camera device,
0:43:32If it is just as good of a camera as the iPhone 4S does, that's a killer camera device for
0:43:37kids to buy for $199 and carry around with them, and on top of everything else it does.
0:43:43So I agree with you, because the iPad mini will not be considered a camera device except
0:43:50for those few jackasses at concerts that will hold it up as they always do with the regular
0:43:56iPad, right?
0:43:57Right.
0:43:58I've thought of that too, with how many people I see using the iPad as a camera.
0:44:02I can't even imagine how many people are going to use the iPad Mini as a camera.
0:44:05Yeah.
0:44:06They'll have head-mounted displays with this little device.
0:44:10Probably two of them up there to be able to capture two different angles.
0:44:14And it's the same thing going back to stuff like Game Boys and the PlayStation portables
0:44:20and stuff like that.
0:44:22People know that to shrink it to fit in a pants pocket costs a lot of money.
0:44:27Why does a PSP, a Playstation Portable cost as much as the whole console?
0:44:32Right. Right. I wonder, you know, so there's battery life as well.
0:44:38So the Nexus 7 has great battery life. Part of the reason though is that it doesn't have the wireless chips in it.
0:44:44So it's only relying on Wi-Fi to be able to do that. Nor does it have a retina display.
0:44:48But we assume that the iPad Mini will not have a retina display.
0:44:51display because you've made the great case for why it would, if they do it, it would
0:44:56be cut from the same display as the iPhone 3.
0:45:01And I don't know that for a fact.
0:45:02That's just my own speculation.
0:45:04So maybe it would actually be a different technology.
0:45:06But I still think though the fact that they have experienced massive amounts of experience
0:45:10for five years making exactly 163 pixel print screens, that it's got to work out in their
0:45:17favor operations wise, even if it's not literally cut from the same sheets as the 3GS.
0:45:22But I would be very surprised, I wouldn't be surprised at all if when we get them and
0:45:26we look at it, that it looks like a quadruple size 3GS.
0:45:32And that's another differentiating factor between, well we just talked about the differentiating
0:45:37factors between the iPod Touch and this iPad Mini.
0:45:41You also have to think obviously the iPad Mini versus the regular iPad.
0:45:44I mean.
0:45:45Yeah, absolutely.
0:45:46So I don't think that, I would expect that even if it's true and Apple does release
0:45:53this 7.85 inch iPad mini at an aggressive price point.
0:45:58Maybe it starts at $249 instead of $199.
0:46:01That way it's not more than half the price.
0:46:05I think $249 is a very good bet.
0:46:08If you've got an office pool on what the iPad mini starting price is going to be, $249
0:46:12to me is maybe even better than $199.
0:46:15Yeah, and it's still, I mean, they could easily get away with doing that in a world of a 199
0:46:20Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire because there's so much more just value in the ecosystem.
0:46:25They have all these apps that are made for the iPad.
0:46:28They have all this content that's already out there.
0:46:30They have millions of users that already have all their apps that they've downloaded.
0:46:36And so you're going to have tens of millions of users right off the bat who buy this thing.
0:46:40Even if they do it, I don't expect that sales of the big iPad, the regular one, the
0:46:45only one we know now, I don't think that they'll drop at all.
0:46:48I think that they'll continue to grow.
0:46:50I think it's expanding into a different market, not eating into the same market.
0:46:55And I wonder, the margin question would be fascinating to kind of get into.
0:47:02They're getting down there because the iPad is already a lower margin device than the
0:47:05iPhone, right?
0:47:06But that's a lot to do with subsidies and that's a huge issue there.
0:47:10But it's still a healthy margin that they're making.
0:47:14If you get down to $249 and $199, how much of a margin is that going to be?
0:47:19Can they really make these things for $100?
0:47:22Can they make them for $130, all said and done?
0:47:27I wouldn't be surprised, especially if they can already make an iPod Touch for $199.
0:47:34I think that spec-wise, once the iFixit guys take one apart and once we run benchmark stuff
0:47:41on it, it's not going to be the latest and greatest system on a chip.
0:47:48It's not going to have the retina display.
0:47:49I think it's going to have the equivalent system on a chip as like the iPhone 4 maybe.
0:47:55Maybe the 4S, but the 4S is a year old now, so that's cheaper.
0:48:01And I think that's that whole Tim Cook angle on Apple is that they reuse these certain
0:48:07core technologies in a way that they just leverage the hell out of the economies of
0:48:13scale.
0:48:14I mean, I would love to know what it costs them to make a 3GS now.
0:48:21What would be the break-even price on an iPhone 3GS?
0:48:23Well, so it's subsidized down to zero, but they – so what do they actually sell it
0:48:28for?
0:48:29What can you get an unlocked one for?
0:48:30Is it $2.99 now or is it $2.99?
0:48:32Somebody just had a story last week that in India, they're selling it as a prepaid device
0:48:39for $1.99.
0:48:40The equivalent of once you convert the – it's about $200.
0:48:45Okay.
0:48:46Okay.
0:48:47So that's interesting, yeah.
0:48:48Because that's along the lines of an iPad touch now, I guess, right?
0:48:54Right.
0:48:55Yeah.
0:48:56Yeah.
0:48:57Okay.
0:48:58Yeah.
0:48:59It seems like this is this is going to happen now
0:49:01There's been too many reports out there right when there's this much smoke around something
0:49:05It's you know there's got to be something out there that it's coming
0:49:07It'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
0:49:14Right you know who knows what can happen along those lines, but if they get this thing out in time for the holidays
0:49:19This could be you know the the greatest selling holiday device that they've that they've ever launched
0:49:25You know at a holiday time right and I think it could get it it could get silly real fast that
0:49:31All the market share numbers consider the tablet to be its own category not the PC
0:49:38Right right like and I realize that iPad is not a PC as we know it
0:49:42But I think that it just shows that it's silly in today's day to to count PC sales as a market you
0:49:48You know don't worry about whether it's a PC or not
0:49:52just embiggen the category and say computing devices, mobile computing, you know.
0:49:56Yeah, I totally agree. All that matters is how people are using computers on a daily
0:50:03basis. The iPad/tablets are coming with a vengeance now. The Nexus 7 numbers are going
0:50:10to be huge. The Kindle Fire was big for a bit and then it dropped off, but all indications
0:50:14are that Amazon is getting ready to release another one.
0:50:17The other two things to talk about is that, so we've got the Nexus 7 and you've got the
0:50:23Kindle Fire now.
0:50:24The reports yesterday are that Amazon's going to have another device coming out, a refreshed
0:50:30Kindle Fire, but they'll also have a 10-inch version.
0:50:35And so that's going straight on with the current iPad.
0:50:39And the other line of thinking is that Google called the Nexus 7 the Nexus 7 because they're
0:50:44going to have another size device to come out with down the road too.
0:50:48Right, a Nexus 10 or something like that.
0:50:50Right, a Nexus 10. So what do you think about them going directly after the iPad? I mean,
0:50:54obviously, no one made any inroads in all this time, these two plus years going after
0:50:59the iPad. Do you think that's like a good way to get a foothold in the door, like with
0:51:03the Nexus 7 doing well, then the Nexus 10 does better as a result of the Nexus 7 doing
0:51:07well?
0:51:08Yeah, I think it could, especially if it continues to sell. I think it's the way to go. And I
0:51:13I think the argument for multiple tablet sizes is exactly the same as the argument for multiple
0:51:18laptop sizes, that different people are willing to make different trade-offs.
0:51:23Why would somebody carry around a 15-inch, 4.5-pound MacBook Pro when I'm living the
0:51:30luxurious life with my little stack of paper, weighs like MacBook Air?
0:51:35Well, because some people are doing pro audio and video, or some people just like to have
0:51:40a big screen everywhere they go.
0:51:42I definitely think that anybody who has any kind of lasting success in the tablet market
0:51:47is going to have some sort of range of sizes.
0:51:52And the Surface is going to be slightly bigger, right?
0:51:54It's like a 10.6-inch screen, I think, at least the initial version that Microsoft will
0:51:59be coming out with?
0:52:00I don't think it was quite that much bigger, but it was definitely 10-point something.
0:52:04Something?
0:52:05I thought it was like 10.1.
0:52:07Maybe it is.
0:52:08Okay.
0:52:09So it's slightly larger.
0:52:10you know, not focusing at least at first on the smaller tablet space and going directly
0:52:15after the iPad space.
0:52:17Right. And I think it gets back to your point about people who are using tablets as laptop
0:52:22replacements. I mean, that's clearly, I mean, explicitly what the Surface is aimed at.
0:52:27Right, as we've seen with the keyboard itself, the keyboard cover, which, you know, I was
0:52:32pretty, I ripped apart pretty quickly just because I think it's a silly thing to do it
0:52:38it's built into the device itself. And I know it's an add-on. I don't know, are they giving
0:52:44it, have they announced if they're going to give it with the Surface or if you have to
0:52:48buy it as a separate add-on? Have they said anything about that?
0:52:50No, I think it's, it must be a separate add-on because there's two different ones.
0:52:54That's right, okay, you're right. So that's good, okay. Because like, I kind of ripped
0:52:57it apart as like, it just kind of, you know, moves the mentality from like, oh, we're breaking
0:53:02new ground in computing and we're moving on from this PC world, to instead, we're keeping
0:53:07the same ideas of the PC world, we're just kind of making it look different. And there
0:53:12was that great image of a laptop versus a surface where the laptop has the thick bottom
0:53:20and the thin screen versus the surface with the thick screen and the thin bottom for the
0:53:24keyboard. And so that's what I kind of had a problem with.
0:53:27But I will say, since just a few days ago, I happened to be at an Apple store and I randomly
0:53:34decided to pick up one of those Logitech keyboard case things for the iPad.
0:53:39That thing is great.
0:53:40It's amazing.
0:53:42I can type just as well on that as I can on my computer and I fully plan to the next trip
0:53:48I'm taking.
0:53:49I'm taking a trip in a few weeks just for a few days.
0:53:51Not bring a laptop at all.
0:53:52Just going to bring the iPad, which I probably would have done anyway, but now I don't have
0:53:55to worry about a thing.
0:53:56I mean, I can send any email and type at full speed.
0:53:59And I recognize too that some people are great at typing on the iPad already with the software
0:54:05keyboard, but for whatever reason I was brought up in the world where you learn how to type
0:54:11on a keyboard and I'm significantly faster at doing it that way.
0:54:13And so people like me are going to feel a little bit more comfortable for the time being
0:54:19at least using that keyboard.
0:54:20And so I'm a big fan of this Logitech thing.
0:54:23And so the Microsoft Surface cover is starting to make quite a bit more sense to me.
0:54:29But I don't think though it's exclusive to them. I mean, I just think that the number of you know
0:54:34And if it turns out to be a good idea, I mean Apple will just put a keyboard in the next smart cover. Yeah
0:54:40Yeah
0:54:41You know and have it be like Bluetooth or something like that
0:54:43There is something clever about the way though that they're drawing power over their magnetic connection
0:54:48Yeah, right because this logitech one that I have has is battery-powered
0:54:53right and
0:54:56You have to recharge it and it is Bluetooth and it works with the magnets though
0:55:01It does oddly enough, you know
0:55:02They say it works fine with a 4GS because the sorry with it with the new iPad because the new iPad is slightly thicker
0:55:09Than the the previous iPad I've attached it to both
0:55:13there's you can definitely tell that it's definitely more attuned for the the last generation iPad to rather than
0:55:19Because it's the magnets slightly slip a little bit. It's kind of a weird thing, but
0:55:24Yeah, so the the powering thing for the surface keyboard is definitely an interesting opponent
0:55:29And 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
0:55:36Thing right yeah, so you can use your mouse cursor
0:55:39That's ridiculous
0:55:43Microsoft I don't know it's gonna be an interesting the rest of the year is gonna be fascinating
0:55:51I also saw, before we got off the subject, I saw that the stories about the new Kindle
0:55:56fires that are apparently imminent, that there's five or six SKUs.
0:56:02Yeah, I saw, my sense of that is that they'll have two different sizes.
0:56:08So I had actually, you know, like a year, it was a little over a year ago that I got
0:56:11my hands, oddly enough, on a prototype of the Kindle fire before it was even named or
0:56:15anything like that.
0:56:16Right, I remember that.
0:56:17I remember in—
0:56:18It was my last great scoop while I was still at TechCrunch.
0:56:21And so I talked to someone who was telling me basically the entire product pipeline and
0:56:28everything, and they already had in the lab at that point a 10-inch version. There were issues
0:56:33they were having with it and they were going to delay it, and I think that they also just wanted
0:56:37to see how well the Kindle Fire itself as the 7-inch version would sell. And so the plan was
0:56:41to release it in Q1 or Q2 of this year, which obviously came and went and they didn't do it.
0:56:46I 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
0:56:53But so the 10-inch has always been in the pipeline
0:56:56I think with these multiple SKUs that they're talking about now
0:56:59I think the plan is still to do a 7-inch and a 10-inch and they would just have different
0:57:04Varieties of them like they would have one with more memory in it
0:57:07That'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
0:57:12Of speculation that it meant that they're gonna come out in a whole bunch of different sides, right?
0:57:15But I don't I would expect two sizes maybe even only maybe still even only one size
0:57:20Yeah, because you got to remember like the iPad 2 had 18 different SKUs
0:57:24Because it had yeah all the different carriers and black and white three sizes
0:57:29Wi-Fi only
0:57:33Verizon compatible AT&T compatible and and the iPad 3 still has I think 12
0:57:39Yeah, it's you don't have to get a different I
0:57:43I don't know. But counting SKUs doesn't imply counting different sizes. It would be
0:57:48easy to have six different SKUs and just have it be color and storage.
0:57:54Yeah, right. I doubt Amazon, which is still very much trying to figure out this market,
0:58:01comes out with a five-inch, a six-inch, a seven-inch. That seems a little bit of an
0:58:07overkill.
0:58:08Well, I was just going to take a second break here and thank our second sponsor.
0:58:13And I am super, super excited about having this company.
0:58:16Just because I like having different types of companies sponsor the show.
0:58:21Second sponsor is Tonks Coffee.
0:58:24T-O-N-X.
0:58:26And they sent me some coffee when we first started talking about their sponsorship and
0:58:29I love it.
0:58:30It is absolutely great.
0:58:33You pay them for a subscription and it's just no hassle.
0:58:38You subscribe to Tonks and every two weeks you just get fresh coffee in the mail.
0:58:47They find coffee from top producers all over the world, literally.
0:58:53They sent me stuff, the sample pack they sent me, it had stuff from Kenya and another one
0:58:57I think it was from Brazil and it was delicious.
0:59:01And they've got a free trial right now.
0:59:06So you can just sign up and get a sample and taste what all the fuss is about.
0:59:12I love everything about them.
0:59:13I like the name, Tonks.
0:59:14I just like saying it, T-O-N-X.
0:59:16I love their branding.
0:59:18They have sort of a brand that reminds me of the credits from Dr. Strangelove, this
0:59:23sort of big, tall, handwritten letter style.
0:59:26I even like their copywriting.
0:59:28It is unpretentious.
0:59:29Yes, you're buying fancy, top quality coffee, having it sent to the world.
0:59:35But the language they use to describe it, I just love the copywriting.
0:59:39It's very, very down to earth, very, very straightforward.
0:59:45And the coffee itself is just terrific.
0:59:48Take it from my pal Marco Arment.
0:59:50Marco Arment, who's far more fussy about coffee than I am.
0:59:54Here's a quote from Marco Arment.
0:59:57I have a great universal answer whenever anyone asks me how to make great coffee.
1:00:03Get a burr grinder, get an arrow press, and subscribe to Tonks.
1:00:08Couldn't recommend them more highly.
1:00:12It's really, really great stuff.
1:00:13Go to Tonks.org.
1:00:16T-O-N-X dot org and find out more.
1:00:22Tonks coffee.
1:00:23Famously, I'm telling you right now, if you want to be a success on the internet, you
1:00:26need three things.
1:00:27You need a fussy way to make coffee.
1:00:31Just buying your beans from Tonks alone qualifies as fussy.
1:00:34You need a SodaStream so you can overcarbonate your own water.
1:00:38And really, there is no step three.
1:00:42You drink coffee, MG?
1:00:45Mad Fientist I do.
1:00:47I…
1:00:48Steven: Almost called you Marco.
1:00:49Mad Fientist That would have been cool.
1:00:52Flattered.
1:00:54I never make my own though, oddly enough.
1:00:57I don't know why. I just never got into that. I feel like I just never have had a good coffee
1:01:02maker, and that's why I don't do it. I should get into that because God knows how much money
1:01:07I waste at coffee shops on a daily basis. I'm also a little weird though because I don't
1:01:13really like hot coffee. I only like iced coffee. There's a little bit more of a process involved
1:01:20in doing that. You can make it at night and put it in the fridge and stuff like that.
1:01:23It does seem more, but it takes planning.
1:01:28Actually on the Tonks website, they had a blog post about making iced coffee.
1:01:34Oh, really?
1:01:35I'll have to check that out.
1:01:36That could be interesting to me.
1:01:37But the big problem for me is that you can't just do it and then have coffee 10 minutes
1:01:41later.
1:01:44For me, it's way too – I need the instant gratification.
1:01:49All of a sudden, I need coffee and I need it really, really quick.
1:01:53Well, it's awesome that you're getting coffee sponsorships on the show.
1:01:58You're moving up in the world here.
1:02:00I could not be happier about that.
1:02:02I love sponsorships from apps.
1:02:04If you've got an app and you want to promote it, get in touch.
1:02:09It's obviously going to be a huge source of sponsorship on a show that I'm hosting.
1:02:13I love the idea of everything from coffee suppliers to the studio neat guys with the
1:02:23little glyph and the stylus and stuff like that sponsoring the show too.
1:02:28Yeah, that's great.
1:02:30So Mountain Lion.
1:02:32So Mountain Lion.
1:02:33Yes.
1:02:34It's coming out.
1:02:35We can talk about this under embargo, which is sort of weird.
1:02:38I don't think I've ever tried to do this.
1:02:40I haven't either.
1:02:41something before it's legal, but it will be legal tomorrow to talk about it.
1:02:46Right. It would be against the embargo for us to release this recording now, and it will
1:02:53be a-okay to record it in advance and release it when it's done.
1:02:56Yes, as many people do. And, you know, and Mount Lion itself is sort of interesting because
1:03:04while it shocked the world, it really did. Like, no one had any idea that it was coming,
1:03:07And it was a big surprise.
1:03:08It was the first legitimate surprise that no one had any inkling of that I can remember
1:03:12in a long time when they did it earlier this year.
1:03:18But now it's been out in developer preview for a while.
1:03:20And because of all those...
1:03:22There's many sites out there who get these great anonymous developer tipsters who are
1:03:30willing to break their NDAs to leak this information.
1:03:34It sounds suspiciously like some of these tipsters are actual writers for some of these
1:03:37sites who are breaking their own NDAs, but we cannot be sure of this.
1:03:43So regardless of how it happens, a lot of the info is already out there.
1:03:46So it's always fascinating to write a review after most everyone knows, who really cares
1:03:52about it knows what's coming.
1:03:56And I think feature-wise, Apple has done the run-through twice now.
1:04:00I mean, they did it in February, not publicly, but they unveiled the website and listed the
1:04:06top features, and then they did the whole third of the WWDC keynote was devoted to Mountain
1:04:12Lion.
1:04:14And as always, I think that they do a very good job of highlighting the features that
1:04:19are the most universally applicable.
1:04:23So just in terms of a rundown of features, I don't really have that much to add.
1:04:27Yeah, I mean, so I've been using it, I've been using the developer preview since that
1:04:33initial developer preview and I've kind of, you know, I've had it, I had it at first on
1:04:37just one machine and now I'm actually running it on my main iMac and I'm running it on the
1:04:45Retina MacBook Pro that I have as well as a MacBook Air.
1:04:50And so it's, you know, I found it to be by far stable enough at this point, obviously
1:04:54the Golden Master is out and it will be out tomorrow in its full form.
1:05:00And it's great.
1:05:01I mean, on my IS Apple specifically, you know, are there any performance things you're talking
1:05:06about?
1:05:07Because, you know, normally when a new OS comes out, that's what people talk about,
1:05:09you know, is there a performance gain or anything?
1:05:11Even with Snow Leopard from Leopard, they talked about how it's been kind of tailored
1:05:16and whittled down to just its essentials and they made it much smaller.
1:05:20But there really is nothing like that, I guess, that they at least want to say with Mountain
1:05:23Lion.
1:05:24at least on my three-year-old iMac, which is nearing the end of its life in that it's
1:05:30nearing the end of how much I'm willing to put up with compared to how slow it is compared
1:05:33to my other computers.
1:05:35It does seem to make it faster.
1:05:36I don't know what the reason for that is, but it definitely starts up faster.
1:05:39I noticed, because I've been using it nonstop since the initial developer preview in February
1:05:45on my 11-inch MacBook Air.
1:05:49And I have noticed, especially the last few builds, especially since WWDC, I have noticed
1:05:55that waking from sleep is a lot faster.
1:05:58Yes.
1:05:59Yeah, I've noticed that as well.
1:06:01And I asked them, I did ask Apple about that because I didn't see them mention that anywhere,
1:06:06but I wanted to make sure that I hadn't placebo affected myself and convinced myself that
1:06:12it was waking from sleep faster.
1:06:14And then the truth is, no, we didn't touch that.
1:06:16But they said no, they actually put a huge amount of effort.
1:06:19It was actually a really big engineering thing to improve wake from sleep times.
1:06:25Everything related to sleep.
1:06:26Well, and they're doing one of the new big features is that Power Nap thing, which I
1:06:31haven't actually tried yet.
1:06:32So it's a weird thing too because it only works, it doesn't work for example on my
1:06:37old iMac.
1:06:38It only works on I believe the newer MacBook Airs and the Retina MacBook Pro.
1:06:45Right.
1:06:46my MacBook Air, because my MacBook Air is two years old.
1:06:49Yeah, I don't think it does either.
1:06:50I think it's only the newest versions.
1:06:52Yeah, starting...
1:06:53Well, I don't think it's just the newest versions that just came out at WWDC.
1:07:00I think it works.
1:07:01Right, but the one before that.
1:07:02Yeah, the one where the 11-inch Air got the light-up keyboard.
1:07:06Yeah, that's right.
1:07:08Yep, I have the note.
1:07:09I asked about that.
1:07:10It's mid-2011 MacBook Air, the new Retina MacBook Pros, and none of the iMacs.
1:07:15Right.
1:07:16Yeah.
1:07:17Yep.
1:07:18Right.
1:07:19But that's why I was unsure whether I was seeing things by thinking that Maya doesn't
1:07:21qualify for Power Nap, MacBook Air seems to be waking from sleep even snappier.
1:07:27Like even getting ever, ever closer to the ideal of the iOS instant wake from sleep.
1:07:33Yep.
1:07:34Yep.
1:07:35That's interesting.
1:07:37One of the features that I've actually used quite a bit and has been extremely helpful
1:07:41has been the airplane mirroring of the Mac itself to an Apple TV. This came up the other
1:07:46day we were trying to watch Wimbledon and my girlfriend and I actually don't have cable
1:07:52and so we were unable to watch it in a traditional sense but it was streaming on ESPN 3 I believe
1:07:59and previously and it wasn't on the watch ESPN app on the iPad or iPhone so you couldn't
1:08:06do it that way but I could watch it on a browser and just stream my entire computer right right
1:08:11right to the Apple TV and that was awesome.
1:08:14- Yeah.
1:08:15Well, the other thing I've been thinking of
1:08:19big picture wise is that I think it's been a total success
1:08:24for Apple to get away from these monolithic
1:08:30extravaganza OS updates and sort of focus on ones
1:08:35that are maybe not as exciting but year over year
1:08:40adding features and I feel like by by by shooting for smaller less
1:08:46extravaganzic updates it's it's just it just seems like it's a win for everybody
1:08:53I think it's easier on their engineering I think it's easier to hit the ship
1:08:58dates and I think it's a lot less for users who are updating to each new
1:09:05version as they come along, there's a lot fewer chances for them to feel like, "Whoa,
1:09:13this is too much all at once."
1:09:14Yeah, right. There's basically no learning curve from Lion to Mountain Lion. There's
1:09:20new notification center, which is awesome. It's probably my favorite feature of it.
1:09:23But even that feels natural, especially if you've used iOS devices before. They've
1:09:29done a good job, I think, making it a very easy transition.
1:09:34And it's great the fact that you can update from Snow Leopard
1:09:39to Mountain Lion as well.
1:09:40So if you happen to skip Lion for whatever reason,
1:09:42now you can pay $19 instead of--
1:09:45was it before-- was it $29 for Lion when it came out?
1:09:48So now you can pay even less and get upgraded
1:09:50to the newer version.
1:09:51I do think what you were talking about,
1:09:52kind of the focus on the smaller updates and everything,
1:09:56I totally agree with that.
1:09:57But I think there's a potential for some small backlash just because of the fact that Windows
1:10:038 is coming out this fall.
1:10:05And they'll say, "You know you'll see stories that Windows 8 is a major upgrade, whereas
1:10:11Apple has only been kind of tinkering with small little things here and there."
1:10:17Microsoft has been really focusing on going after their core audience and improving things
1:10:23for them.
1:10:24Oh no, there's, you know, I could probably write Jesus Diaz's piece for Gizmodo right
1:10:30now. No, but it is, to me, it is a super sharp contrast with Microsoft and Apple in multiple
1:10:41ways where on the one front, Windows 8 is a radical interface change. I mean, it's
1:10:49easily, I mean, really no hyperbole involved. The biggest interface change from one version
1:10:54to the next in Windows history.
1:11:00And Mountain Lion is absolutely the opposite of that.
1:11:04I think most users, if you sat them down in front of Lion or Mountain Lion, would have
1:11:08to poke around a bit before they'd figure out which is which.
1:11:12At a glance, the easiest way is probably just look for Notification Center up in the upper
1:11:16right-hand corner.
1:11:17Notification Center and the slightly white tray for the that the apps it on now
1:11:23Oh, yeah for the dog the glass dock is is slightly more
1:11:27So you know it is a refinement. I mean there's definitely I think it's a good question
1:11:33What do you get for your $19 or your 20 bucks? Yeah?
1:11:36I think there's definitely a lot there, but it certainly is a lot less than than Windows 8
1:11:42And on the other side, it's also in sharp contrast to Microsoft, where Microsoft has
1:11:47gone with this – well, you're an MG, so I'll go with it.
1:11:51I'll go with the Lord of the Rings analogy, this one OS to rule us all.
1:11:57One OS that is meant for everything from phones to desktop computers.
1:12:03And Apple is very clearly and adamantly sticking to this.
1:12:07We've got shared technologies like iCloud and the names of these apps and there's
1:12:16certainly some similarities that hold back to the Mac thing.
1:12:20But it is two different OSs, one geared for touch devices and one geared for keyboard
1:12:28and pointer devices.
1:12:29Yes, I also but I feel like I totally agree with that again, but I think you know with things like notes and
1:12:37Reminders now, you know, those are straight-up ports to a new
1:12:43Screen size basically and in a new way of interaction with a mouse
1:12:48But it does feel like you know, if they do two more iterations
1:12:52Let's say of OS 10 or you know, if they say Kate stay at OS 10 do they do us 11?
1:12:57who knows, but if they do two more iterations of OS X, I feel like we're going to get a
1:13:02lot of overlap between the two of them, and it just becomes that the Mac is now the version
1:13:12of all your apps that you're used to that are just being used on a bigger device that
1:13:17doesn't sell as well as an iOS device.
1:13:20Yeah, pretty much.
1:13:21Yeah.
1:13:22And that's an interesting thing.
1:13:24I think, you know, at first, I think a lot of people were skeptical as bringing some
1:13:30of these iOS ideas and applications to the Mac environment.
1:13:34But now it's starting to make a lot of sense to people.
1:13:37I think, and that kind of leads into what I think will be the most, by far, controversial
1:13:41feature of Mountain Lion, which is the gatekeeper stuff.
1:13:45Because I've already run into a couple issues where I've tried to download an application
1:13:51over the web and I just had the default setting on when I installed Mountain Lion and so I
1:13:56couldn't do it.
1:13:57I had to go into my settings and switch it so that because no one, right now Apple isn't
1:14:02certifying developers just yet for Gatekeeper and so none of them are under that thing.
1:14:08Presumably most of the big ones will.
1:14:09I know they told me that Adobe is already on board for that so that's a huge one for
1:14:14them.
1:14:15for everyone else, you will be blocked from downloading internet applications without
1:14:23removing that thing at first, without removing the default setting. You can still do it.
1:14:27You don't want to freak anyone out here. Of course, you can still do it. You can download
1:14:30whatever you want. But by default, you will have to change that setting.
1:14:34Yeah, I guess that probably will be the most controversial change because it sounds perfect
1:14:40on paper. But in practice, yes, it is sort of... it feels like you're being told to just
1:14:49stick to the app store.
1:14:51Yeah. And how will parents do it? Will they even know where to go? They guide you pretty
1:14:56well on how to do it, but it's not as seamless as you might think. I can imagine for someone
1:15:02who's not really clear on how to make their way through the settings of OS X.
1:15:08And I wonder too, with, in the first couple of months, I think that there's going to be
1:15:14a lot more reasons for people to revert that, to change that setting to the more liberal,
1:15:19"Okay, allow apps to run from anywhere even if they're not signed."
1:15:23Right, right.
1:15:24Because there's going to be so many apps that haven't been updated yet.
1:15:27Yes.
1:15:28But then once people make that change, they're never, that's the sort of thing you've sort
1:15:32of set it and forget it, and you're not going to go back, and you're not going to get the
1:15:35advantages of Gatekeeper.
1:15:37Yeah.
1:15:38I think it's going to take a year or two and people getting, "Wait until you get
1:15:43your next Mac," and then you leave that setting on.
1:15:46I feel like a year from now, it'll be a lot easier to live with Gatekeeper blocking
1:15:53anything that's at least not signed than it is now.
1:15:56I had to turn it off.
1:15:57There was no way to – I couldn't last that long using only the built-in apps.
1:16:05Right I think in that way it's it's sort of similar to the pop-up blockers built into browsers
1:16:10You know when they first came out
1:16:11It'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
1:16:16Or something like that, but over time it ended up being a very good thing because it just basically killed the pop-up market
1:16:22That's actually a perfect. I think that's a really good analogy. I think it's a lot like that. Yeah, yeah
1:16:27So that's so that's a great feature, but it will be controversial to begin with another thing is
1:16:34So you just talked to Apple right you didn't did they send you a build a specific build of of
1:16:41Mountain Lion, that's did they send you the one that's through the the Mac App Store
1:16:46No, okay, so
1:16:48There's there's this weird thing going on where they have Facebook integration right like this is coming
1:16:54And they've already announced that it's coming right, but it's not coming till the fall right and it's not even
1:16:59It's not really clear
1:17:00why that is because so they gave me a demo you know a retina MacBook Pro with
1:17:06the new version of mountain lion on it but I noticed they also gave me a code
1:17:10to download a version for another computer so I could test it on all my
1:17:13machines on the one that I downloaded it does not have the Facebook integration
1:17:18but on the one they gave me it does and they told me specifically that it would
1:17:22be a little bit different because it has the Facebook integration I don't know
1:17:25what the holdup is like because it's ready to go it I don't think it is ready
1:17:29to go. I think it's, I think that I, I, my, I don't know this for a fact, but my impression
1:17:33is that it's beta, it's still beta quality and it's, it's, there's bugs in it that are,
1:17:39it's not set yet. You can get it, the other way you can get it is if you have an ADC account,
1:17:44it's a separate download from the GM. So if you go to the, the Mac developer page and
1:17:51you log in with your ADC credentials, there's a download, download the GM build of Mountain
1:17:56Mountain Lion. A few links down, there's "Download the Facebook development package."
1:18:02Ah, okay. You're right then. Okay. That makes sense. Because I was wondering if it was like
1:18:06maybe they signed a deal with Facebook where they couldn't technically include it until
1:18:11they included Facebook within iOS officially as a package deal or something. And so since
1:18:15that won't be out until the fall with iOS 6, maybe they couldn't do this integration
1:18:20with Mountain Lion. But that makes more sense. Especially while it works on the front end
1:18:24for users because it's in the notification center, for example, where you could send
1:18:28a Facebook status message right from there just like you can with the tweet button now.
1:18:33It makes more sense that developers might be having some bugs or issues that they have
1:18:38to kind of work through.
1:18:39Right.
1:18:40I think the other very interesting and it's obviously something everybody's going to notice.
1:18:47It's not a detail.
1:18:48It's the iCloud document storage.
1:18:51Yes.
1:18:52I think that it's, I'm really happy with the way that Apple's done this.
1:18:59And clearly the way that Mountain Lion wants you to use these apps is to store your stuff
1:19:05in iCloud.
1:19:07Like that is what Apple wants you to do.
1:19:09Apple thinks that's the future of storage and syncing and stuff like that.
1:19:17And it's a huge difference from the way the Mac has always worked.
1:19:20The way the Mac was created was with this idea that the file system is your foundation.
1:19:26That's where you start.
1:19:27You start by looking at your desktop and on your desktop are volumes and you go into these
1:19:32volumes and you know where things are.
1:19:35You know where the document is.
1:19:36It's in this folder here.
1:19:38You start with the finder.
1:19:39**Ezra Klein:** Yep.
1:19:40**Beserat Debebe:** And then you open the document.
1:19:42And the new way, the iCloud way, is just like iOS, where the documents are conceptually
1:19:50in the app.
1:19:51So when you want to open a text edit document, you don't go to the Finder, you go to text
1:19:56edit and it's in text edit.
1:20:00To the point where I brought this up with them, if you have a PDF that was created in
1:20:05a certain app, say like Adobe Acrobat or something like that, it will show up in there, but you
1:20:11You would have to—it wouldn't show up by default in something like Preview.
1:20:15You would have to—there's a way to do it where you can dig for it and find it in
1:20:19the file system, but by default it's not there.
1:20:21It lives in whatever app it was created in.
1:20:26But what I like about the way Apple's done this is they've made it easy, and it's
1:20:29clear that that's the way they want you to do it, and I think it's the way that
1:20:32most people who are sitting down in front of Mountain Lion for the first time, they're
1:20:36going to—I think they're going to use it, and I think they're going to really
1:20:38like it.
1:20:39want to use it. If you want to keep storing your stuff the same way you always have, you
1:20:44want to use Dropbox instead of iCloud, or you just want to keep your documents for privacy
1:20:51reasons, you don't want them going anywhere to the cloud, you only want them on your own
1:20:54hard drive. It's just one tab over in the open dialogue box, and it is the traditional
1:20:59"here's, you know, store it wherever you want" interface. And if you want to do it,
1:21:04you know, get to them through the finder, you can do it.
1:21:06Yeah, that that will be a little controversial though as well
1:21:10I it just because
1:21:11because 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
1:21:16the way they have to do it and I think the the benefits of it far outweigh what what the backlash will be because now
1:21:22Presuming you have at least one iOS device like this the seamlessness at which it will work is awesome
1:21:29I mean, you know
1:21:30everyone's seen the demo now where you can edit something on your Mac and it will change in almost real time on a
1:21:36an iOS device if you're doing that.
1:21:38And in terms of, you know, getting like a PDF from one app to another, you can still
1:21:43use drag and drop.
1:21:44Yes, right.
1:21:45I mean, and so there's, you know, you think like, well, can't I just drag it from here
1:21:50to the – and you know what?
1:21:51It works.
1:21:52So –
1:21:53Yep.
1:21:54Yep.
1:21:55I think that they've managed this transition very well because there's – the way they
1:21:59want you to use it, they're not pushing you.
1:22:02They're enticing you to go there on your own.
1:22:05Yeah.
1:22:06And I think that the fear people had was that Apple was going to push people to do that.
1:22:11And it's, you know, you can argue that with some of the policies, with all of this stuff
1:22:17put together with Gatekeeper and with the sandboxing restrictions in the App Store and
1:22:21the fact that only App Store apps get iCloud access, that, you know, that they're enticing
1:22:27you heavily enough that maybe it counts as pushing or that they've tilted the floor
1:22:31in that direction.
1:22:32But they're not forcing you to do that.
1:22:33And I really, really, truly believe that they're not going to do that.
1:22:36That there's not, you know, the next major version of Mac OS X is not going to be App
1:22:42Store only.
1:22:43Right.
1:22:44I think Gatekeeper is their, you know, that's their solution long term to bringing the advantages
1:22:50of the App Store to all apps.
1:22:52Right.
1:22:53I think that they're doing it the exact right way, which is that they're playing
1:22:57up the advantages of the App Store separately from apps themselves.
1:23:00that if you want to do the App Store, like yes, you'll have to take a hit if you have a paid app,
1:23:06but you're also getting access to Game Center, you're getting access to the iCloud integration.
1:23:12So they're playing up like the advantages of doing it, but not making you do it necessarily.
1:23:17Right.
1:23:17So that's, you know, you lead with a carrot, not with the stick in that regard, which is smart.
1:23:23The two other things I had, like I think there's one quick one, which kind of brings us back
1:23:32to what we were talking about at the very beginning with Marissa Meyer, is it's fascinating
1:23:37that built-in sharing in Mountain Lion includes both Vimeo and Flickr, but it doesn't include
1:23:46YouTube, even though YouTube is like one of the standard apps on iOS and Apple has obviously
1:23:52had to deal with Google in that for the past, and that's by far the biggest video sharing
1:23:56site.
1:23:57They have Vimeo, but no YouTube.
1:23:59You know what?
1:24:00I noticed that.
1:24:01I remember noting that at the keynote.
1:24:02I know my notes from the WWDC keynote had that.
1:24:07And I forgot to – I hadn't really thought about that since, but I remember thinking
1:24:11like at the keynote, "Is that it, or is that like they're still in negotiation?"
1:24:15It's not in there for sure.
1:24:17Yeah.
1:24:18And Vimeo is.
1:24:20So that's pretty fascinating.
1:24:21And Flickr is still there. Flickr has been integrated into things like iPhoto for a while.
1:24:27And Apple TV.
1:24:29And Apple TV, right. Yeah. And so it's still there. So they're still giving Yahoo and Flickr
1:24:34that love, which is nice. Hopefully it gets rejuvenated a bit.
1:24:38The other really big thing I kind of wanted to talk about was Safari itself. So I know,
1:24:44or I presume, that you're a big Safari user.
1:24:47I am.
1:24:49And I am not. I use Chrome. Pretty much exclusively, except I've made exceptions for when the Retina
1:24:57MacBook Pro came out because Chrome was just looked god-awful because it wasn't updated
1:25:03with the Retina graphics yet.
1:25:04Right. Even the font rendering wasn't--
1:25:07Yeah, it was awful. It was all wrong. It was wrong too in Twitter for--it's still wrong
1:25:10in Twitter for Mac, and I don't know if they'll ever fix that. It was wrong in Sparrow. It
1:25:13was wrong in a few other things. They fixed it in Sparrow. But so they have since fixed
1:25:17it sort of in the Canary build which is the early build of Chrome but it's still not stable
1:25:23enough so I still use Safari when I'm using the the retina MacBook Pro but and I've been
1:25:28using it with the with the mountain lion release I still I still have a big problem with Safari
1:25:34I know that they say you know they gave me the the stats that according to SunSpider
1:25:38JavaScript test Safari is the fastest browser now compared to I think it was Chrome 19 or
1:25:43whatever the last version was.
1:25:45I still find it to be slower, and just the smallest
1:25:48little things that I do, including one
1:25:51is, of course, using Gmail, which makes some sense
1:25:53that Google is able to optimize Gmail for Chrome
1:25:56better than they could for Safari.
1:25:58Who knows if that's on purpose, or if it's just because they
1:26:01have access to that team directly.
1:26:03But I still have a problem with using Safari as my main browser.
1:26:06And the only thing that I've noticed
1:26:08that's pretty buggy in Mountain Lion is Safari itself.
1:26:11I'm having rendering issues.
1:26:12Are you noticing anything with that?
1:26:13No, I'm not.
1:26:14Huh.
1:26:15I don't know why that is.
1:26:16Just certain sites seem to – I'll get the thing where I scroll down and then all
1:26:20of a sudden part of the page, like a square of it is white.
1:26:24One of those situations.
1:26:26I don't know what that is.
1:26:27I could probably switch to Chrome pretty easily.
1:26:31Although I don't really like Chrome on iOS as much.
1:26:35I think they did a very nice job and I can see how some people would really like it.
1:26:38I mean, one of the—when there was all that talk—and I know you had it early, that they
1:26:43were working on Chrome for iOS.
1:26:48Which would have to comply with the App Store rules, use the systems version of WebKit.
1:26:53I remember thinking, "Well, what's the point then?
1:26:55If it's really just a rectangle with WebKit, why even bother?"
1:26:58And I think that—
1:26:59Well, they're syncing.
1:27:01Syncing is one of the things that people love the most, which I care about a little bit.
1:27:05I'm used to the OmniBar, which they oddly added to Safari in OS X.
1:27:11So they have that now, where you can either search or type a URL in, but they don't have
1:27:15it even on iOS 6 on Safari.
1:27:18Yeah, that's interesting.
1:27:21And I'm not quite sure what the logic is there, because there's more room for a second bar
1:27:26on the Mac.
1:27:27Yeah, my only thought is that it's easier to touch a second input than it is to drag
1:27:33a mouse up somewhere and try to do it.
1:27:35But I'm not sure otherwise.
1:27:39Just hold that thought for a second and we'll get back to that.
1:27:42Another little, given the nudge to Google, change in iOS 6 is that that search field
1:27:49in iOS 6 no longer says Google.
1:27:52Google says search.
1:27:53Search the web or something like that.
1:27:55Yep, yep, that's right.
1:27:57That's another thing that someone else brought up to me, that maybe they do it in iOS because
1:28:04They want people to go to the sites directly rather than using Google, which has become
1:28:09almost the default for a lot of people to find any site, you know?
1:28:13But then it still doesn't make sense why they would do it in OS X to go the other way.
1:28:17I don't know.
1:28:18I will say this.
1:28:19When it comes to Chrome versus Safari, especially on the Mac, I could switch to Chrome very
1:28:23easily.
1:28:24And the times that I've used it, I like it.
1:28:25I can't even remember off the top of my head why the last time I tried it as my daily
1:28:30browser I switched back.
1:28:33But it's very close to me.
1:28:34And I do think, and I think the best thing about it is to me it does feel faster.
1:28:38I, at a technical level, there's a big fundamental difference between Chrome and Safari, which
1:28:46is that Chrome breaks off each tab into its own process.
1:28:52So if you have 20 tabs, there's 20 Chrome rendering processes.
1:28:57Safari has two processes one for the interface and a separate process that
1:29:03just does the rendering now that's a big security win either both both ways give
1:29:09you the security win where the rendering process which might be exploited by bugs
1:29:13in JavaScript or something like that is completely sandboxed and doesn't have
1:29:18access to the file system doesn't have access to all sorts of stuff huge
1:29:22security win. But I do think that at least to date the Chrome model of using many rendering
1:29:31processes, especially I think the reason that Safari gets slowed down for me is that I'm
1:29:36such a hyperactive reader that I end up with 20, 30 tabs open at a time. And that to me
1:29:43is when it really, I see the difference. I don't really see a difference in speed if
1:29:46I have one tab open in each app. It's when I have a bunch open. I can't help but think
1:29:52that at a technical level, it's gummed up by only having one monolithic rendering process.
1:29:59So, why do you think they do that? Why not just copy what Chrome did?
1:30:04I honestly have no idea. I mean, I just – and I hesitate to speculate because I'm – whatever
1:30:11technical guesses I could make are, you know, laughably ill-informed compared to, you know,
1:30:17the guys who are actually on the WebKit team at Apple.
1:30:20Right. Yeah. They have done some nice things to make it more compelling to use Safari with
1:30:26Mountain Lion, in particular the iCloud iTabs integration stuff. So if you use Safari on
1:30:34iOS, which most everyone does except for the few who use Chrome, you can get transfer back
1:30:40and forth quickly between your tabs that you have open. And that's a really nice integration.
1:30:44There's also the reader thing, which I don't know how many people use or don't use. It still seems
1:30:50kind of half-baked in my mind, but it's nice that they have it for offline now if you want to do
1:30:54that. So you can take a bunch of articles if you're going to be going to an airport or whatever,
1:31:00but you can always do that with Instapaper or one of the other services already. And so they do a
1:31:06a nice job of kind of unifying that experience but it's still not quite
1:31:12enough I think to get me using Safari on a regular basis just solely because
1:31:17of the speed thing and I'm for whatever reason it's a silly aesthetic thing but
1:31:21I'm like addicted to having pinned tabs where I have like four tabs that I pin
1:31:25which are you know like Gmail, Twitter and a few others that rotate tech memes
1:31:32one of them and because I just always have those open and kind of shoved over
1:31:35to the side so they're not in my face or something because there's weird spacing issues with
1:31:41Safari tabs. I'm sure you've noticed this where it's like certain versions of it, and
1:31:46I've been playing with different nightly builds and stuff, certain ones like when you open
1:31:50a new tab it'll open it like the entire half of however big your window is and that will
1:31:54be the new tab. Other versions do it as like a fifth of it and they make like these small
1:32:00little differences and I'm not sure what they're going for there. I just like the aesthetic
1:32:03better.
1:32:04I don't like the way that with tabs in Safari now, if you have two tabs in a window, they
1:32:08each get half the window.
1:32:09Yeah, right.
1:32:10Exactly.
1:32:11Because, aesthetically, it just—and I realize that the idea there is that if the page title
1:32:16has a long string, then you see more of it.
1:32:17You can see the whole thing, yeah.
1:32:19But, yeah, aesthetically, to me, it doesn't look good.
1:32:22Yeah.
1:32:23I do actually like—I like and don't like the non-showing of favicons, which—because
1:32:27a lot of sites just have shitty ones, and they're kind of ugly, and Chrome shows those,
1:32:31and Safari doesn't, so it keeps it more pristine and more focused on what the content is. But,
1:32:36you know, in some hands, like, Google does an actually kind of cool thing with their
1:32:40favicon for Gmail, which is that they give you a little unread count on it when, you
1:32:45know, so if there's two unread emails in there, it'll show up in the favicon as little two
1:32:50on the side of it.
1:32:51>> Yeah. Maybe I should give Chrome another shot. I don't know. It might be time. I think
1:32:56one of the reasons I switched the last time is I had a bookmarklet that didn't work for
1:33:01me in Chrome. And I eventually figured out that it was a bug in the bookmarklet. It wasn't
1:33:08that Chrome didn't support it. So anyway, I probably should.
1:33:13That is a big problem with Chrome for iOS, though, by the way. The bookmarklets do not
1:33:17work at all.
1:33:18Right. That's actually the deal-breaker for me. I mean, just from a practical standpoint
1:33:23is why I don't use it. But I understand, though, that most people don't use bookmarklets.
1:33:29They have no idea what they are.
1:33:31And I do see how the way that Chrome's interface for iOS, especially on the iPhone's design,
1:33:37actually puts more emphasis on the content.
1:33:40Yes.
1:33:41Because it doesn't have both a top and bottom bar.
1:33:45It just has a top bar.
1:33:46Yeah, which was a little jarring at first, but it's actually pretty nice.
1:33:51The thing I love the most, though, and god, I wish Safari for iOS would copy this, is
1:33:56just to be able to swipe without zooming out, you know, like rather than hitting the tab
1:34:00button, you can just swipe on the left or right and get to the next tab.
1:34:03Yeah, that's genius. That really is very nice.
1:34:06Yeah, so that's my favorite thing. And they did kind of similar, they did a new gesture
1:34:13in Safari for Mountain Lion, which is that you can pinch to zoom out and it gives you
1:34:19this new tab view type thing that you could switch between the open tabs in Safari, which
1:34:25Which is pretty slick. I'm not sure how good that is for people who have tons of tabs
1:34:30open because you'll just be flicking through them forever. But it's a pretty nice little
1:34:33element.
1:34:34Yeah, but the funny thing is there, and I like it. I think it's a great feature. But
1:34:38there the tabs are tab size.
1:34:41Yes. Yes.
1:34:42Like, in the interface where it really doesn't matter, the tabs are tab size.
1:34:47They bring them down to a small little size. Yeah, that's funny.
1:34:49But when you zoom in there, each one gets an equal share of the tab bar.
1:34:56They only look good.
1:34:57I guess bottom line is that Safari's tabs only look good when you have at least four
1:35:00or five tabs in a window.
1:35:02Mad Fientist Yep.
1:35:03Totally agree.
1:35:04Yep.
1:35:05Adam
1:35:16table. But I think that they're not really in it for the money. I mean, I'm sure, multiply
1:35:22the 50 million copies, they'll eventually sell by 20 bucks. I mean, they're going to
1:35:28keep the $100 million or $200 million, whatever it comes to. But I mean, that's not that much
1:35:34money for Apple.
1:35:35Yeah. When they give these pitches about what Mountain Lion's all about, they lead with
1:35:42the numbers, you know, 66 million people or whatever using OS X. That number has tripled,
1:35:47I think they said, in five years. And then they start to go in directly to like how they're
1:35:53focused on distributing it digitally. And they even told me this time they're not going
1:35:58to do the USB key thing that they did the last time because, you know, some people just
1:36:02couldn't comprehend how to do it through the Mac App Store.
1:36:05Right.
1:36:06So, but that's a smart way to do it.
1:36:10And it led to, they said, I think 40% of the install base updated to Lion in nine months,
1:36:15which doesn't sound like a lot compared to iOS, but it's huge compared to any other
1:36:22traditional desktop operating system.
1:36:23You know, they give you the Windows 7 number that it took 26 months to hit that same milestone.
1:36:27Right.
1:36:28And I think that, you know, it was, I think that the old numbers were largely the fact
1:36:34that prior to Lion, most people just didn't update their operating system until they got
1:36:40a new computer.
1:36:41Right.
1:36:42I mean, they're just, the mass market really just buys a computer and will install, hopefully,
1:36:47you know, whatever software updates come over the air, security updates and stuff like that.
1:36:50But they don't, when it comes time to do the big update to the new major release that
1:36:55you have to pay for, they don't do it.
1:36:56And now they are.
1:36:58Yeah, just getting 40% to do it in the nine month span because that's how long.
1:37:03Because I really think that's a large part about what the, you know, Windows 7 taking
1:37:0626 months is, I mean, when you're talking about 26 months to hit 40%, you're more at
1:37:11that, you know, two year period where people get new computers every two or three years.
1:37:16Yes, that's totally true.
1:37:17That's probably what drives the majority of that number.
1:37:20Right.
1:37:21And I really think, you know, so like you said, Apple says there's now 66 million installed
1:37:26base for Mac, which isn't users, it's Macs, right?
1:37:29And so like a family Mac might have multiple users.
1:37:32It's kind of hard to estimate users.
1:37:33But if every single one of them spent the 20 bucks to update to Mountain Lion, it's
1:37:41just not that much money from Apple's perspective.
1:37:44Clearly this thing is priced low to encourage people to update.
1:37:48And it's fascinating how that's influenced Microsoft because now Windows 8 is how much,
1:37:55I think it's, is it $29? It's something obscenely low compared to what it used to be, which
1:38:01is well over $100. And so it feels, of course, like they've been pressured to do that by
1:38:09what Apple is doing, and they've kind of set the bar for what an OS upgrade should be.
1:38:14Yeah, and they've also simplified it, where they don't have anywhere near as many versions
1:38:18of Windows to choose from.
1:38:20Right.
1:38:21They just decided to go with that ridiculous RT name still for no apparent reason.
1:38:26But what's most interesting about Microsoft dropping the price significantly of Windows,
1:38:31which is great for consumers, of course, and that's going to lead to a lot more people
1:38:35upgrading to it, I think.
1:38:37But that's the core way they make money.
1:38:40It's not the core way because OEMs still pay the licensing fee to Microsoft, but it's still
1:38:46like a big part of the way Microsoft makes money, and they're taking whatever it is,
1:38:51a fourth cut.
1:38:52Right.
1:38:53A fourth of that now.
1:38:54In theory, Apple could give it away free.
1:38:57I mean, I don't know about the accounting ... There still might be some kind of-
1:39:01Right.
1:39:02There would be accounting practices that you couldn't do that legally, but-
1:39:06Or they could sell it for a ridiculously low price.
1:39:09In theory, they could sell it for $1.99 or something.
1:39:13It wouldn't matter to Apple financially.
1:39:15They wouldn't really be taking it on the chin.
1:39:18The whole reason for that is that the only people who can buy it are people who've already
1:39:22paid $1,000 or more for an Apple computer, whereas Microsoft needs that money.
1:39:28That's a core part of their business.
1:39:31So yeah, I don't know if the OEM relationship is any different, if they're charging the
1:39:37OEMs less per license because they're charging consumers less? I assume not, because that
1:39:42would be a significant hit on their business if they did that same cut for the OEM vendors
1:39:49that they work with. I mean, you're talking Windows revenues cutting by a fourth or whatever.
1:39:54Well, and I think that the difference is that they're pretty much pitching it as it's upgrade
1:40:00pricing only. Yeah, that's true.
1:40:04That is a question. I don't actually think – I remember somebody asked it, and I don't
1:40:07think we have the answer yet is let's say you buy a bare bones PC that doesn't even
1:40:11ship with a version of Windows on it, just a blank motherboard and hard drive. Will you
1:40:16be able to take the $29 retail Windows 8 thing and install Windows on it or do you have to
1:40:22start with some version of Windows?
1:40:23You know, that's always been a tricky question. I remember back in the '90s thinking about
1:40:28that. I want to say that at least one version, maybe it was Windows ME or something like
1:40:33allowed you to install the operating system even though it was the upgrade version.
1:40:39And it wasn't like touted or anything, but there was a way to do it.
1:40:41Or there might have been a small little hack that you could, you know,
1:40:44get some file on your computer that made it think that you had, you know, Windows XP or something.
1:40:49And then you could, or Windows 98 I mean, and then you could install Windows ME on top of that.
1:40:54There was something like that.
1:40:55But as far as I know, you can't do that or you shouldn't be able to do
1:40:59that because that'd be stupid then, you know, from Microsoft's perspective.
1:41:03They want you to, of course, buy the full version, which you're right, is the version
1:41:06that they would sell to the OEMs.
1:41:08The OEMs aren't doing upgrades for users.
1:41:11Anyway, though, bottom line, I just don't think Mountain Lion is all that earthshaking.
1:41:18It is absolutely not earthshaking in the way that Windows 8 is.
1:41:23I think it's a good thing for Mac users.
1:41:26Yeah.
1:41:27That just makes reviewing it interesting.
1:41:30I mean, you know, I assume we're both writing our reviews today. Yeah, I don't know exactly how to frame it
1:41:36I think you know, you're framing it as correct
1:41:38And I don't like to do you know, I don't know how you you come up
1:41:43Do do your traditional review stuff?
1:41:46I know that you do it typically different than like say, you know
1:41:50The verge or engage it does it like especially with hardware
1:41:53But and I try to do that too just because I don't I don't like to go into details about all the little
1:41:59all the specs and everything because it just matters less and less over time it seems like.
1:42:03But with an OS upgrade like this, it's a tricky thing to approach from a review perspective
1:42:08because it's so similar to what Lion is, you know, besides these core features.
1:42:14Yeah, that's the problem I'm having with my review. I like it. I think everybody, certainly
1:42:19everybody who like listens to this show or reads during Fireball, I think it's going
1:42:23to be a very popular update and I think it's worth 20 bucks. But every, it's hard to
1:42:29to write the review though in a way that doesn't come across as saying I don't
1:42:32know if that you know there's not that much new right right so you almost have
1:42:37to do it as taking a step back and looking at the broader perspective right
1:42:40what you're talking right yeah yeah but anyway speaking of which we should
1:42:43probably get to work on that stuff mg siegler thank you very much for being
1:42:46here I really appreciate it of course thanks for having me again let me just
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