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The Talk Show

3: Superman Didn’t Even Make His Own Logo, with John Moltz

 

00:00:00   "Only if you're desperate" - 2 stars.

00:00:03   Love Gruber on MacBreak Weekly, but this show is very slow and the content is iffy compared

00:00:08   to other tech shows.

00:00:10   Just my opinion.

00:00:11   By Jackdaddy5462.

00:00:15   Nearly content-free - 2 stars.

00:00:17   By Imabuddha.

00:00:19   Unfocused, surprisingly incorrect about many details, a nearly complete waste of time.

00:00:27   Was the Buddha so critical?

00:00:29   I don't know a lot about Buddhism, but I know a little bit.

00:00:34   Here's a review of the last episode by Sam Hill.

00:00:38   Gosh, I'm not exaggerating, that was written in all caps.

00:00:41   That's me reading in my all caps voice.

00:00:44   Gosh, what a waste of time.

00:00:46   Give me a break.

00:00:47   You guys talk about yourselves, your show, and your sponsors for the majority of the

00:00:51   time.

00:00:52   Completely self-absorbed trite crud.

00:00:58   Totally without direction.

00:00:59   a two-star review by CM Harrington. The hosts sound almost identical and their short run

00:01:06   length is taken up by rambling about their sponsors. In the latest episode, the hosts

00:01:11   arrogantly say the listeners who want more focus don't get it. No, John, we do get it.

00:01:18   We simply don't like it. There is a reason most "professional" podcasts This Week in

00:01:24   Tech, MacBreak Weekly, etc. conform to a formula even if informally because there

00:01:31   is an expectation on behalf of the listener. We want to know who is talking,

00:01:34   we want the topics to be front-loaded, we don't want 10% or more of the podcast to

00:01:39   be rambling about your sponsors. And lastly, Could Be Better, three stars, nice,

00:01:46   out of five by Neri. John Gruber is Tomas de Torquemada to Paul

00:01:53   Thurat's Don Quixote. When it comes to thoughtful and authoritative commentary

00:01:58   on technology, the world of Apple would be a cold and vulnerable place without

00:02:01   his insightful observations. That being said, the podcast is underwhelming due to

00:02:06   its subpar production values and planning. There are a lot of dead air,

00:02:12   um's as off-topic remarks that stretch for a long time and other minor annoying

00:02:17   things which could hopefully be fixed in future episodes wait a minute

00:02:22   yeah shoot I blew it these reviews are all from the old talk show these are all

00:02:33   - these are how did that happen I don't know

00:02:37   hold on a goof on your part let me get to the page for the new what a terrible

00:02:42   goof here we go here's the new here's some reviews for the new talk show new

00:02:47   listener four stars by Iannic I thought episode one was pretty good I really

00:02:52   don't mind the quote rambling as some call it fun listening here's one yeah I

00:02:57   was gonna say I was wondering how many people who write those reviews are just

00:03:01   simply don't like you I don't know I wonder here's another one by Patrick I

00:03:07   Igo, seems like one of the rare individuals who puts his name on these.

00:03:12   One star review, rambling, painful recording quality.

00:03:15   If you've ever wondered whether Dan Benjamin was critical to the talk show, now you know.

00:03:20   He was.

00:03:21   The new guy can't keep Gruber on track and seems to record himself through his built-in

00:03:26   laptop mic.

00:03:27   Okay.

00:03:28   All right.

00:03:29   That was not my built-in laptop mic.

00:03:31   It was, however, a microphone on the wrong setting.

00:03:35   So today, and to the person who insinuated that I did not have enough money to buy a

00:03:40   good mic, I actually have two mics, and today I'm using the better of the two, which is

00:03:45   slightly trickier to set up.

00:03:47   But I went the extra mile today, and I should have gone the extra mile the last time.

00:03:52   And I should say this is a…

00:03:53   So that's a spot on criticism.

00:03:55   I'm joined again by my good friend John Moltz.

00:03:58   I'm John Gruber.

00:03:59   This is the talk show, the new talk show.

00:04:02   Let me read one more of these.

00:04:05   This is, this is for the new one. This is for, uh, this is from Jim Lipsie. "Amateurish,

00:04:09   one star. No one knows his subject matter as well as John Gruber. When he's focused

00:04:13   and on point, it's great listening. Dan Benjamin is why the show used to consistently reach

00:04:17   its potential. He kept things on track with just the right amount of conversational tension

00:04:22   and he made it look easy. Now Gruber is trying out the driver's seat in a format that features

00:04:27   rotating guests and the whole thing has become a meandering mess. It's exactly like listening

00:04:32   to two guys bs each other at the next table at Starbucks for 90 minutes hmm I

00:04:38   see that I see a pattern from the old reviews but maybe that's just me

00:04:43   there's a good one full of hot air one star by Donald Rabideau it was good when

00:04:49   Dan Benjamin was on it now it's just Gruber stroking his own let go oh you go

00:04:56   Oh, I got you good because I I didn't want it to pay extra my wife when I told

00:05:03   her two weeks ago and you know big I mean that was a big deal I mean it was

00:05:07   the first episode of the newly relaunched talk show and she said who's

00:05:10   gonna be on and I said moltz and she was like oh my god that's great perfect

00:05:15   choice and then last week she was like who's who's on I said sandwich and she

00:05:19   goes she like plopped and then this week yeah she said who's on and I said moltz

00:05:23   and she says him again thanks for as well all your listeners thanks for being

00:05:32   here sure so what do we got this week I think probably the big thing if you're

00:05:36   an Apple Apple nerd has got to be Tim Cook's appearance at all things D uh-huh

00:05:41   so you know that's the big conference out there in California I think it's in

00:05:46   Southern California I'm not even sure where that is yeah it is it's someplace

00:05:49   in Southern California sand sand something yeah that's everything isn't

00:05:54   everything right everything in sudden yes exactly

00:05:56   sand something California Tim Cook I think it's actually that it's sand

00:06:01   something which is Spanish for something else actually and they you know and

00:06:10   that this is the only conference that I can ever recall that Steve Jobs ever

00:06:13   regularly appeared at that was not an Apple thing like Macworld or WWDC. And in fact,

00:06:21   they did a very – what I think is a very nice thing is they packaged up his six previous

00:06:25   appearances and they've made them available as high quality as they could get them free

00:06:29   of charge as like a podcast on iTunes.

00:06:32   Going back to 2003 or something like that or 2002, I forget which. But yes, so pretty

00:06:38   far back. I've seen a number of them, but I have not seen them that far back. So, I'm

00:06:43   to be interested to watch those.

00:06:45   Yeah, I think the older ones have got to be the ones that are most interesting.

00:06:49   Right.

00:06:50   Because, you know, Apple was a very different company in 2003.

00:06:53   Yeah.

00:06:54   Before the iPod.

00:06:55   Well, no.

00:06:56   The iPod was just – was pretty much brand new.

00:06:58   Yeah, you know what?

00:06:59   A couple of years.

00:07:00   A couple of years.

00:07:01   One of those weird things that I remember – I don't have a great memory for stuff

00:07:03   a decade ago, but I remember that the iPod is exactly as old as 9/11 because the launch

00:07:09   was apparently pushed back by a month because of 9/11 that they you know we're

00:07:14   gonna do it in September or so and they pushed it back to November so it's 2011

00:07:18   or 2001 did you buy one when right when it came out not for myself I bought that

00:07:25   first one though for Amy as a Christmas present and I think historically and you

00:07:30   know we've been together a very long time I believe that easily goes down as

00:07:34   maybe the greatest Christmas present I ever purchased that right for 99 I

00:07:40   believe yeah not bad I mean that's that's that's pretty good chunk of

00:07:43   change yeah cuz she's still have you had a still have mine what was the name of

00:07:50   that brand it was a solid stereo yeah I had one of those two it was a Rio and

00:07:56   she you know wore it to the gym and really liked it because you know you

00:08:01   didn't have to have it you know disc players were never good for like working

00:08:04   sound and tape players sound like crap. And we had the Napster, so we had tons of MP3s

00:08:10   and everything like that. But you got the Rio, and the Rio, I swear this is not exaggerating

00:08:17   for the sake of humor, it held eight songs. I mean, that's no exaggeration.

00:08:23   Add like 64K or something like that. Not good quality either.

00:08:29   Right. It was like 128 kilobit per second mp3s and it hold around eight to ten of them and

00:08:35   And the interface for getting songs in and off on and off of it from a Mac was just awful. I think until

00:08:42   That what was the app that became iTunes sound jam yes sound jam helped with that

00:08:50   But then getting her upgrading her to to a real original iPod was a huge one

00:08:58   She will also if you ever catch her if you

00:09:00   Catch her, you know at some place where you run into me and my wife and ask her

00:09:05   She will sing the praises endlessly of the original click wheel

00:09:08   The one that actually spun really

00:09:11   Just because of the physical feed the feedback. Yeah, she always enjoyed that she thought that was a

00:09:16   She's always been a much bigger iPod user than I was so hurt

00:09:20   She has much stronger opinions on the various iPods through the years than me

00:09:25   So Tim Cook at all things D. Yeah

00:09:28   My take on this I thought it was pretty interesting. I watched it. I read the live blog

00:09:33   And I think much like Steve Jobs he's he's good

00:09:38   You know and it's you know, it's an interesting choice and a huge score for that conference, you know for Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher

00:09:45   That Apple's CEOs two of them trust them so much to make this, you know, it truly is extraordinary

00:09:54   They don't really speak elsewhere. Tim Cook, I guess, speaks regularly at the Goldman Sachs

00:09:58   conference, so it's not quite as exclusive a get as it was for Steve Jobs, but it's pretty

00:10:05   exclusive. And I think they do a good job. But I also think that they waste an awful

00:10:10   lot of time asking him questions that they know he's not going to answer.

00:10:14   Right.

00:10:15   Like, if you've got Tim Cook on stage for 70 minutes, why keep repeatedly…

00:10:21   try to get information about new products out of them right I mean that's

00:10:27   a good I mean I guess they feel that they have to do that I mean it's sort of

00:10:30   like this it's the same thing on the quarterly conference calls where they're

00:10:33   constantly trying to get information about coming products and they say sorry

00:10:37   we're not gonna we're not gonna give you that information I mean I guess they

00:10:41   feel that that's their they have to they have to do that don't you think though

00:10:45   that they could get it out of the way and maybe all right you have to at least

00:10:48   acknowledge it and but you have to eat even if he comes back next year get it

00:10:51   out of the way early and just say you're not gonna talk about anything that's

00:10:54   coming are you and he'll say no and then that's it and then you don't really have

00:10:57   to to do it yeah I think they they sort of feel like that's the tough question

00:11:03   that they're gonna ask him I mean these things are not exactly controversial

00:11:08   adversarial it's not 60 minutes with my wall it's not and that's as that's as

00:11:13   tough as they're gonna get with him is trying to drill him on new products and

00:11:18   so they they try and do it I almost think that it's a waste of time though

00:11:23   and and I feel like he's actually and jobs too often is completely tight-lipped

00:11:29   about anything forthcoming but is surprisingly honest and to the point

00:11:36   about what they've done and why so for example just one recent I think

00:11:42   tremendous example that we're still going to be talking about repeatedly for

00:11:46   the next couple of years. That's the conference where Jobs gave his cars, trucks analogy.

00:11:54   That post PC devices like the iPad, he sees them and the iPhone, he sees them like cars

00:11:59   and he sees old traditional PCs, Windows and Mac as like trucks. And for a long time, all

00:12:05   we had were trucks, but it ends up most people don't need a truck. They're better off with

00:12:10   a smaller car and that's what people are switching to. They're more simple and people who really

00:12:15   do need trucks, there will still be trucks, but it's going to switch. And I think the

00:12:20   analogy is terrific. I think it is a very apt analogy, and it came at that conference.

00:12:26   And I think Tim Cook is similarly open.

00:12:28   Yeah. So, you think, I mean, you think it's just a waste of time for them to ask that

00:12:33   question. I agree that it is a waste of time for them to ask that question. I'm just saying

00:12:36   that that's probably their motivation.

00:12:39   Right. Our friend Mike Daisy is still at it. He was not happy with the interview with Tim Cook,

00:12:48   felt they should have been harder on him. Surprise, surprise regarding the Asian suppliers

00:12:57   and the working conditions there. I'm not opposed to some, I mean, I think in a way he's right, but

00:13:02   it's obviously not the venue for that. And obviously, what's going to happen is if they

00:13:09   they start asking questions that are these CEOs don't like they're gonna stop

00:13:14   showing up to those conferences right so in a way they're they're just doing it

00:13:20   because they have to in order to pull the conference off and get a bunch of

00:13:23   big names that they want right there's somebody somebody should be I agree with

00:13:27   him that somebody should be asking them those questions it's not obviously not

00:13:30   gonna happen at that conference right he actually lost in the lost in this point

00:13:35   that Mike Daisy has pretty much lost all of his personal credibility. He

00:13:41   actually has some decent questions that could have been asked as a follow-up.

00:13:46   Because I think the one thing, and Cook, you know, is absolutely right about this,

00:13:50   that Apple is leading the industry in this regard right now. No other company

00:13:54   that's in the same racket as Apple is open about the working conditions in

00:14:00   in their factories in China as Apple is.

00:14:05   And they're getting more aggressive about it.

00:14:07   Instead of doing annual updates, they're doing monthly updates.

00:14:10   And I think that's terrific.

00:14:11   I do think it's a step in the right direction.

00:14:13   And I think he was pretty open about the issues of manufacturing in the United States and

00:14:21   admitted – and I know this isn't a secret anymore.

00:14:23   That was an answer to a specific question about why they don't have factories in the

00:14:29   United States. Right. But he did. Which is not exactly the same question. Right. He made

00:14:35   a point of emphasizing that the Gorilla Glass that you use for the touchscreens is literally

00:14:40   made in the USA, not just designed in the USA. And the chips, the A5. Right. But I think

00:14:45   for the most part it was a pretty good interview. He also said, the big thing he said that I

00:14:50   took away was that there as a company doubling down on product secrecy. Yeah. That phrase

00:14:58   is slightly annoying, but –

00:15:01   Doubling down?

00:15:02   Doubling down.

00:15:04   Somebody pointed out – I wish I knew – I could remember his name.

00:15:06   Somebody pointed out to me on Twitter that he's doing an awful lot of doubling down.

00:15:09   Yeah, and he used it more than once, right?

00:15:12   Right.

00:15:13   They're also doubling down on Siri and I forget what else.

00:15:17   Maybe that might be the only two, but somebody said maybe you don't want to go play Black

00:15:20   Jack with James Cook.

00:15:22   It's like any two cards he gets, he's doubling down.

00:15:28   got a 15 against the dealer's King I'm doubling down sure yep they've got a

00:15:35   pretty good hand though well at least they have a big pile of chips in front

00:15:40   of them and that too so you can afford to double down when you have a gigantic

00:15:45   stack of chips but I do think I I do think it's true that secrecy if anything

00:15:53   and that's one of those things these these like what's going to be different

00:15:56   when Steve now that Steve Jobs is gone are they going to be less secretive or

00:16:01   people I know there were some people who were speculating that maybe they don't

00:16:04   want to be less secretive but people aren't going to be it was fear that kept

00:16:07   what the the planets in line you know fear of this Death Star you know where

00:16:13   the Death Star was Steve Jobs screaming at you and firing you the leaks will

00:16:19   happen but I from everything I've seen that has gotten more secretive over the

00:16:23   last year. Like the big one to me is Mountain Lion, that nobody knew that

00:16:28   Mountain Lion was coming until they briefed the press on it. There were no

00:16:34   rumors that hey you know Apple is actually gonna do 10.8 this year. Yeah

00:16:38   and you've pointed out I mean there's there seems there's a number of open

00:16:42   tracks at WWDC and nobody really seems to know what's going to be. No, we can

00:16:47   come back to that in a minute. Yeah. But I want to talk about the the rumor thing

00:16:51   The other thing, though, that is definitely true, and you see it this week with—I know

00:16:55   9to5Mac had a bunch of images—the one thing that does leak is hardware, pre-release hardware,

00:17:04   because they just don't have as much control over that once it's in Asia and they're

00:17:08   prototyping stuff as they do the software.

00:17:11   The software in Cupertino, I think, is as secret as it's ever been.

00:17:16   You'd think that because that's the biggest vector for leaks that Digitimes would do better

00:17:21   than it does.

00:17:22   Exactly.

00:17:23   That actually is true.

00:17:25   That's their source.

00:17:26   I mean, why are you not actually capable of managing that better?

00:17:33   The best and most accurate source of leaks about forthcoming Apple products is the Asian

00:17:40   supply chain.

00:17:41   And Digitimes, which is based in Asia and pretty much covers the Asian supply chain,

00:17:46   is the least accurate and that's always their source and it's always what they

00:17:50   say what their sources are sources in the supply chain right I wanted to talk

00:17:53   about this with you the first episode and didn't get around to it because the

00:17:57   show is rambling and unfocused of course and I'm a bad host but and I'm a bad

00:18:04   guest so but you ran and I know that you you just because of that your your

00:18:10   history that you like me are in a way obsessed with Apple rumor sites and have

00:18:16   long been like from the 90s yeah but almost in a meta sense where almost

00:18:23   what's most interesting about them isn't the actual rumors it's the rumor sites

00:18:27   yeah it wasn't always like that for me I think during the 90s I read them

00:18:31   obsessively just because I really wanted to know what Apple was gonna release next

00:18:35   and I took them much more seriously back then than I do now.

00:18:40   The thing that always...

00:18:42   And it was different back then. I think it was easier to get actually to get good rumors back then.

00:18:46   Maybe.

00:18:47   Before Steve came back.

00:18:48   At least enough to keep some semblance of credibility.

00:18:54   Right.

00:18:55   You know, that if only one out of so many actually ends up turning out,

00:18:59   it's enough to keep people coming back it's that whole you know risk versus

00:19:06   reward type thing where you you all right I'm gonna read this rumor and hope

00:19:11   that it's true but I'm kind of taking a risk by wasting all my time reading all

00:19:16   these rumors and you want to get the payoff of actually having some of them

00:19:19   be accurate but it's what always shocked me though is that in the grand scheme of

00:19:24   things they were all even the ones that were good were mostly inaccurate you do

00:19:29   Do you remember one, I distinctly remember this and I have not been able to find it,

00:19:35   that Apple would come out with crank powered laptops.

00:19:38   I do remember that.

00:19:39   Yeah.

00:19:40   I definitely remember that.

00:19:41   Yeah.

00:19:42   And I have not, that seems to have been 86 and I can't look at them.

00:19:46   But yeah, it was 90s though.

00:19:47   That was, to me that was the pinnacle.

00:19:49   That was the late 90s and I was just, and that was I think the cracking point for me

00:19:53   where I, and that's how I ended up starting to make fun of.

00:19:59   I remember too, I remember that rumor and correct me if, I'm pretty sure that it was

00:20:03   also pitched as being a big deal for education.

00:20:06   Yeah, sure.

00:20:07   I'm not quite sure why because I think it had something to do with kids' desks not being

00:20:12   near power plugs.

00:20:14   Yeah, kids sitting under trees cranking their laptops up.

00:20:18   Begin your day with the Pledge of Allegiance and then you'd crank your laptop.

00:20:24   I guess it's not the craziest idea, but I do remember that one.

00:20:28   I remember it was somehow pitched as being a huge deal for schools that schools can't

00:20:32   can't get kids power plugs or something.

00:20:36   Budget cutbacks.

00:20:37   Yeah, well that was before the dark days.

00:20:38   No, there's no power.

00:20:39   None of the schools have power.

00:20:40   That was before the dark days.

00:20:41   Back then schools had money.

00:20:43   Yeah.

00:20:44   No, but you ran, in a sense, the only Apple rumors site that had a perfect record.

00:20:54   Because everything.

00:20:55   Perfectly wrong?

00:20:56   on the Crazy Apple Rumors site was completely made up.

00:21:00   Yeah. Yeah.

00:21:02   So did you ever have any on Crazy Apple Rumors that you made up but then turned out true?

00:21:07   I think so. The one thing, I mean, I wrote – it wasn't on Crazy Apple Rumors, but

00:21:15   I wrote this for Macworld during the – because they do this annual – and you do this. They

00:21:20   these annual predictions for the coming year.

00:21:23   And the one they did for the January 2007 issue, I said that Apple would release an

00:21:31   iPhone and it would have one button.

00:21:35   And that was, at the time, that was the craziest thing I could think of.

00:21:39   I just thought, "One button?

00:21:40   I mean, you can't have a phone with one button.

00:21:43   How stupid is that?

00:21:44   That's great."

00:21:45   And lo and behold, iPhone with one button.

00:21:49   That's kind of awesome.

00:21:50   Basically.

00:21:51   I do remember that.

00:21:52   That is actually spectacular.

00:21:55   That's my one claim to fame, and I repeat that every chance I get.

00:21:59   And don't you just hope, you really hope that a guy like Schiller happened to catch that

00:22:04   one?

00:22:05   Yeah.

00:22:06   Because he knew?

00:22:07   Oh, yeah.

00:22:08   He must have seen it.

00:22:09   He used to ... I don't want to ... I don't want to get into that.

00:22:12   You can say it.

00:22:13   No, you can say it.

00:22:14   He used to read the site.

00:22:15   He was actually a big fan of the site.

00:22:17   Crazy Apple Rumors.

00:22:18   Yeah.

00:22:19   would print, I mean, they would print out some of the good ones and post them on people's doors if

00:22:24   I wrote something about one of the executives. And I don't know how far it went. I don't know

00:22:29   which ones. At one point, he told me that somebody, I mean, some of them liked it and some of them

00:22:34   definitely did not like it. So, I always wondered which ones enjoyed it and which ones did not.

00:22:41   No, Piltz-Sholorak definitely has a good sense of humor.

00:22:46   Yeah.

00:22:46   There's no doubt about it.

00:22:47   Yeah.

00:22:48   And the thing that made cars so funny was that it was often, to me, it was the gist of each story was

00:22:56   about a crazy Apple product prediction or something that somebody in Apple was going to do. But what

00:23:02   made them funny was the way that they played off the way that the so-called serious rumors sites

00:23:07   presented their stuff. And the only other thing that struck me is that the thing that makes a

00:23:16   website popular. This is the thing I've learned running Daring Fireball, which is not and

00:23:21   has never been a rumor site, but I've always had this infatuation in my head of, "Well,

00:23:25   how would you run a rumor site that was actually accurate?" In some sense, for a couple of

00:23:29   years there, maybe that's what Daring Fireball was, was that I had "little birdies" and

00:23:35   almost everything I got from the little birdies ended up being true. But the way that I did

00:23:39   that is only printing stuff that I knew to be true. That meant that I don't…

00:23:44   Then you can't print enough.

00:23:45   Right.

00:23:46   I would only drop one of those things every couple of months.

00:23:50   And so if all there was at Daring Fireball were the rumors, it would be a ghost town

00:23:55   because it would be a site that was updated at best once every six weeks or something

00:23:59   like that.

00:24:00   And you can't run a website like that.

00:24:02   What makes a website successful is regular publication.

00:24:06   You'd have to have some other hook.

00:24:08   Some other.

00:24:09   You'd have to do news and rumors.

00:24:11   Right.

00:24:12   No, I mean, does anybody do... I mean, I guess there are some sites that will report on the rumors.

00:24:18   But it seems so haphazard and not...

00:24:21   Well, I think that's what makes arnoldkimsmackrumors.com so popular.

00:24:25   Actually, that's a good example, yeah.

00:24:27   Right? Arnold Kim had what I think is the best idea, which was to do a meta site where it's...

00:24:34   here's what's the rumors being reported elsewhere, here's their track record, and that's it.

00:24:40   Yeah.

00:24:41   But even Mac rumors if you look at just read it every day a lot of it is actually just news

00:24:47   You know it's like here's you know

00:24:49   Here's some new stuff that's going on in the in the community because you can't you just there's just not enough rumors to

00:24:55   Only have rumors and keep the site going right

00:24:58   unless you

00:25:01   Once you just make crap up like me

00:25:04   All right, let me thank our first sponsor our first sponsor is

00:25:08   pixel mentor

00:25:11   Pixelmantor is an inspiring, easy to use, beautifully designed image editor built to

00:25:17   help you create stunning new images and edit your existing photos on your Mac.

00:25:22   I'm just going to come out and say it.

00:25:25   Here's the thing.

00:25:26   It's like Photoshop, but it's 30 bucks and it's Mac only and it's built on all these

00:25:31   great Mac technologies.

00:25:34   And for years and years and years, and John, I think you'll agree with me.

00:25:37   People used to say, as Photoshop got more expensive, and Photoshop's a great app, but

00:25:42   it's very expensive.

00:25:43   Right now, a new copy of Photoshop from Adobe costs $45,000 for a single-seat license.

00:25:49   $45,000.

00:25:51   People would say, "Why can't an indie developer, why isn't there an indie developer out there

00:25:55   who's going to make something that competes with Photoshop?"

00:25:57   It doesn't have to do everything Photoshop does.

00:25:59   Just do most of it and do it really cool, put it in a beautiful Mac interface.

00:26:04   That's what Pixelmantor does.

00:26:05   It's a great app.

00:26:06   It's 30 bucks in the Mac App Store.

00:26:08   You can find out more at their website, www.pixelmator.com.

00:26:19   It has replaced Photoshop for me.

00:26:24   I used Photoshop originally and then that became too much for me and then I went to

00:26:28   the what's the their consumer Photoshop light something like that and and even

00:26:36   that was was too much and pixelmature is even less than that even more less

00:26:41   expensive than that it does everything that there as far as I know it does

00:26:45   everything that there the Photoshop light version does because that's all I

00:26:49   ever used anyway and I think I think that the the the short answer to the why

00:26:55   Why aren't there some indie developers doing a sort of stripped-down something like Photoshop, but far less expensive and Mac-specific,

00:27:04   was that there was just even just the rudimentary, just the least version 1.0 you could feasibly ship was just too much work for a small team,

00:27:15   And so, it's not that it's not a big deal, but it's a big deal.

00:27:20   And so, it's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:22   It's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:24   And so, it's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:26   It's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:28   And so, it's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:30   It's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:32   And so, it's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:34   It's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:36   And so, it's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:38   And so, it's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:40   It's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:42   And so, it's not that it's not a big deal.

00:27:44   saying pixelmator. Let's find out. You want to bet five bucks on it? Sure, what the heck.

00:27:52   Alright. Like pixelmator, like the video game version of the truck from cars. Yes. What's

00:28:01   next? What about Windows 8? You wrote a piece for Macworld about Windows 8. Which I think

00:28:07   is hilarious. That was my hope. Right, that Macworld is running articles on Windows 8,

00:28:13   Which I think though is--

00:28:14   Oh, you just think that they ran it was funny.

00:28:16   Right.

00:28:17   But I do think though, I think that the arc of the industry in broad terms is that there

00:28:24   was sort of a, I think the Mac OS X era and the Windows XP era, starting around 10 years

00:28:33   ago, really kind of separated.

00:28:36   And Mac people were just Mac people and Windows people were Windows people.

00:28:39   I think a lot of Mac people just tuned out of Windows.

00:28:42   I mean, I've gone a long time without even touching a version of Windows.

00:28:45   It just wasn't even interesting to me.

00:28:48   I feel like with Windows 8 and with all these people switching to iOS, it's coming back

00:28:55   together and there's a lot of people – I think there's a lot more interest in Windows

00:29:00   8 from Mac people than anything Microsoft's put out in a long time.

00:29:03   I think that's true.

00:29:04   I mean, heck, I was interested and I was not – I mean, I had to use Windows at work where

00:29:10   I worked and so I got to know it that way but I would never have gone out and

00:29:15   found out about it on my own probably and this version I think is there's a

00:29:20   lot there's like I said it's it's so vastly different from previous versions

00:29:26   of Windows that it's it obviates all that stuff that we as Mac users found

00:29:32   distasteful. Well give me an example. Well just the whole the whole metro

00:29:37   interface. So basically the fact that you could really use it without ever having to touch the

00:29:43   Windows desktop. Which is one of the things that we just never really clicked for us. So,

00:29:49   and there's some great things about it. I think there's some really nice things about the Metro

00:29:54   interface. And I would be interested to try it on a tablet. I don't have a tablet I could try it on,

00:30:00   But it's, there's some strange, strange anachronisms on a desktop device because

00:30:08   it seems really oriented towards a touch device. Right, that to me is, and I haven't

00:30:13   spent a lot of time using it, but it just looks to me like it is meant for a

00:30:20   tablet. Duh, I can see why. And it is definitely, all credit to Microsoft, I

00:30:25   repeat this over and over again, it is like nothing I've seen before. And I also

00:30:30   think a lot of people when the first Windows 7 phones came out which is the

00:30:35   same Metro basic UI style or Metro debuted on the phones I think a lot of

00:30:41   people looked at it in their first impression was this looks cool but it

00:30:44   almost looks like something that's meant for a bigger screen because the on the

00:30:48   phone Metro often has like if you have like a little left to right thing that

00:30:51   you can flip through the next thing to the right you see like the first I don't

00:30:56   I don't know, 15 pixels of it over there on the right edge.

00:31:00   Like it's sitting there to give you that visual clue that there's something over there.

00:31:03   But it almost makes it look like you're getting too tight of a crop on the interface.

00:31:08   It really looks like it was meant to run on a tablet.

00:31:12   I guess we'll find out.

00:31:13   Did you see this thing by this guy, Michael Mace?

00:31:16   Yeah, you sent that to me.

00:31:18   So that was the first I had seen it.

00:31:20   It's a great post.

00:31:21   It's long.

00:31:22   It's very long.

00:31:23   Very detailed.

00:31:25   I think I completely agree with it.

00:31:28   Right.

00:31:29   Here's the thing he says, and I write in the middle, but I think it's the most important

00:31:33   thing.

00:31:34   He says, "The most important message I want you to understand is this.

00:31:37   Windows 8 is not Windows.

00:31:39   Although Microsoft calls it Windows, a lot of Windows code may still be present under

00:31:42   the hood, Windows 8 is a completely new operating system in every way that matters to users."

00:31:48   Do you agree?

00:31:50   Yeah.

00:31:51   Well, I don't know about completely new operating system, but it is a largely new operating

00:31:55   system.

00:31:57   That was one of the points that I made in my piece is for enterprises, which is where

00:32:01   most of Microsoft's customer base or their biggest paying base, they are going to be

00:32:07   faced with a real challenge in implementing that operating system because they don't want

00:32:11   to have to go through and retrain everybody on how to use Windows.

00:32:19   A lot of them, they stuck on XP for so long that they, and then Vista came out and they

00:32:25   were like, "Oh, that doesn't seem to be working very well, so let's wait for the next thing."

00:32:28   They waited for Windows 7, and then a lot of them have just finished migrating to Windows

00:32:32   7, and now they're faced with this thing that's completely new.

00:32:36   I think a lot of them are just going to give it a pass right now and see what happens with

00:32:39   the next version.

00:32:40   Yeah, I really wonder.

00:32:44   I don't know.

00:32:45   And it just seems like because it's like a tablet looking OS, it just seems like it would

00:32:50   be silly on like a 27 inch screen on your desk.

00:32:54   Yeah.

00:32:55   Just like it just doesn't seem like the iPad.