0:00:00So, on Mother's Day, there's no better way to spend Mother's Day than watching baseball
0:00:04games on TV.
0:00:07We're really going to start off with baseball?
0:00:09Well, I just have to because it's a day game.
0:00:15Yankees are playing and famed Yankees superstar Andy Pettit, after a year in retirement, is
0:00:21back on the mound for the first time since 2010 pitching in Yankee Stadium.
0:00:27the TV announcers, I'm watching of course the Yankees telecast and they're
0:00:31their poll of the day. I don't know if every other team does this but they
0:00:35always have like a text message poll of the day where they're you know they
0:00:39give you like four choices and you text message different numbers to cast
0:00:44your vote. What was Andy Pettit's signature moment of his career? And the
0:00:48winner was the 1996 World Series game against the Atlanta Braves where he the
0:00:55The Yankees won that game, won nothing, and he out-dueled Braves Hall of Fame pitcher
0:01:01John Smoltz. So now you see where I'm going with this.
0:01:04And now I see where you're going.
0:01:06And I'm explaining it to Jonas, and Jonas was like, "Well, tell me all about it. Who?"
0:01:11And he said, "Who's John Smoltz?" And all of a sudden, Amy walks into the room. She's like,
0:01:15"You've got to be kidding me. That's made up, right?" And I'm like, "No, he was an all-star.
0:01:21He was a great pitcher. She's like John Smoltz, really? I'm sure.
0:01:24And then she just wandered off. She thought that you had got a hold of the Yankees announcers.
0:01:31Yeah, I don't know. She didn't hear the TV guys talking about it. She heard me explaining it to
0:01:36Jonas and thought that I was just making up names of baseball players based on the four or five
0:01:46actual friends I have in life that'd be neat I don't know why it never really
0:01:52occurred to me until that very moment when she came in and said that never
0:01:55really occurred to me just how similar your names are yeah I mean I think
0:02:00they're completely unrelated as far as I know remember that guy he used to play
0:02:06it's certainly my skill of baseball would indicate that you remember the guy
0:02:09he used to play for the Kansas City Chiefs John Scruber there's a kicker now
0:02:16you're making it he was a he was a kicker a place kicker now you are though
0:02:23you're not John Smoltz you are John moltz I am the last time I checked which
0:02:28was earlier today I'm John Gruber yes we have to say that I usually don't say
0:02:34that's gonna cause confusion I did the whole thing is very confusing I just
0:02:38told you do you want me to I just told we just spent 30 minutes I spent 30
0:02:41minutes trying to figure out how to make a Skype call because I am always just
0:02:45wondering if that was the problem really was I mean I've had a lot of problems
0:02:50with Skype I've always had a lot of problems with Skype I everybody has
0:02:53problems with Skype I when I try to use Skype I am your grandfather with the
0:03:00with a new PC and I'm you know I don't know how I'm talking into the mouse
0:03:07It is to me the most baffling application I have ever seen in my life.
0:03:15Nothing you can do with it ever seems to be what you want.
0:03:18It seems to me like once you have somebody's contact and if you double click them, it should
0:03:21be like either start a call or like, "Hey, you want to call this person?"
0:03:25Nope.
0:03:26Not what happened.
0:03:28I'm so afraid of Skype that I have not updated it in, let's see, so it must have been since
0:03:342008.
0:03:35It looks like I'm running version 2.7 and I think it's well beyond that.
0:03:41But it's like it works and I know that other people have had trouble after they've updated
0:03:46it.
0:03:47So I'm just like I'm not – until it stops working, I'm not –
0:03:49I would recommend that.
0:03:50See now my problem is I was doing that on another computer where I had upgraded to whatever
0:03:56the new version is.
0:03:57And it really – they just made it worse, like way worse.
0:04:03But then I had, I got a new computer, I have a new error over here, and I mean I guess
0:04:07I could dig up the old copy of Skype somewhere.
0:04:09But I think it says something that they still make the old, like if you Google hard enough
0:04:12you can still find the download for it.
0:04:15Usually that's a pretty bad sign, I think.
0:04:18Right.
0:04:19Right.
0:04:20You shouldn't need to be leaving that out there for people to use.
0:04:23Right.
0:04:24Like it's one thing if you have an old version because your new version only works on operating
0:04:29system from last year and newer. And hey, if you're on an old operating system, here's
0:04:34an old version. And there's a technical limitation that would help people out by keeping an old
0:04:41version available. But when it really is, people are so confused by the new version
0:04:45that they can't make calls.
0:04:48Right. They can't actually use it to do what it's supposed to be doing.
0:04:52Right. Like at some point, you just know though, and you just know that there's a meeting where
0:04:56There's somebody who raised their hand, and they were like, hey, maybe instead of keeping
0:05:01the old version available, what if we fixed the new version so it wasn't confusing?
0:05:06And they got shot down.
0:05:08And then they just went back and had a desk drink.
0:05:17You've got a new website, too.
0:05:19Is it still new?
0:05:20Do we – how long do we –
0:05:22Yeah, I guess so.
0:05:23I mean, yeah.
0:05:24I mean, I guess in internet terms it's not that new anymore, but it's new to me.
0:05:29It's a couple months old.
0:05:30It's a very nice website.
0:05:31Well, maybe not even that much.
0:05:33Literally.
0:05:34Literally and figuratively, it's verynicewebsite.net.
0:05:40John Moltz's verynicewebsite.
0:05:41Yeah.
0:05:42I was going to mention, I was looking for something that I linked to the other day because
0:05:47it was relevant to what we were just talking about, is that you can still run Windows 8
0:05:56on Macs that you cannot run Lion on.
0:06:00Wow.
0:06:02Which I found kind of interesting.
0:06:04I installed Windows 8.
0:06:06I got the preview copy of Windows 8 just for fun and put it on an old, I had the first
0:06:12Intel Mac Mini is a course solo, and it won't take Lion, but it took Windows 8.
0:06:17That is kind of weird.
0:06:19Yeah.
0:06:20I mean, I think some of that just has to do with their different markets, I mean, I think.
0:06:26But also, it's just their different attitudes towards backwards compatibility.
0:06:31Right. And it's the fact that Apple is fundamentally a computer maker,
0:06:36not an operating system company maker.
0:06:40Right.
0:06:40Right.
0:06:41Great. Microsoft is interested in selling you the operating system. If you've got older hardware,
0:06:44yeah, we'd love to sell you the operating system. But whereas Apple, yeah, no, we'd really rather
0:06:49you go out and buy a new Mac. I've got an upcoming headache on my hands where I've got family members
0:06:55who've got Lion Macs, Macs running Lion. I think it's a Lion or is it Snow Leopard? No,
0:07:06No, Snow Leopard, gotta go back further.
0:07:09Snow Leopard.
0:07:10See, that's just the thing.
0:07:11And good old Wolf Wrench used to complain about it endlessly
0:07:15that he could only remember the two most recent cat names
0:07:20and how they correspond.
0:07:21And then otherwise, it's like,
0:07:22I remember that there was one called Tiger.
0:07:24I don't remember what the hell it was.
0:07:26Whereas if you just stick to the 10-4, 10-5, 10-6,
0:07:29you know which one was newer and older.
0:07:31Anyway, I think that they're all on 10-5,
0:07:34which was Snow Leopard.
0:07:36And so they can't do iCloud.
0:07:39And they've got mac.com or me.com, MobileMe,
0:07:44and the MobileMe apocalypse is drawing nigh.
0:07:48- 10-5 is leopard.
0:07:50- All right, whatever.
0:07:51- 10-6 is snow leopard, 10-7 is lion.
0:07:53- You would think I would know this, really.
0:07:55This is very unprofessional.
0:07:56- No, it gets me all the time too.
0:07:58And recently I noticed that I was,
0:08:00'cause I have a, I mean, as you might suspect,
0:08:03have a mess of Macs in my office of varying ages. And I mean the way that I
0:08:09remember that is I fortunately I have all the boxes from the different
0:08:14operating system releases in a row on my shelf. But right now they're all
0:08:19they're all like strewn across the room because I've been updating and I got a
0:08:23new, you know Tom Carmony. Of course. He's moving to San Francisco, he had a
0:08:28yard sale and I picked up a lime iMac from him and so I had to find something
0:08:37that would run run on that you and I are it's a sickness it's a sickness I people
0:08:43say stuff to me people said people write to me and like hey I was digging through
0:08:47my garage and I found it an old Apple extended keyboard it's in great condition
0:08:52and I'd my mind I think send it to me I had a guy a couple weeks ago who told me
0:08:58that he had a an SE 30 in the box and and that he goes I don't know what I was
0:09:03thinking he seems like he was like you know it's a couple years older than us
0:09:06but he bought it in like 1989 or 90 brand-new and never opened it thinking
0:09:12that that when he retired he would he would use it as his you know he would
0:09:18keep it and then when he retired he'd get into it that's where he got and he
0:09:24says don't laugh it made sense at the time I didn't I wasn't really thinking
0:09:27about the fact that computers really change every two years. In a sense, think about the way he went.
0:09:35I think, and I don't want to put words in the fellow's mouth, but I think that he was thinking
0:09:38about it in a way that maybe 50 years prior, a guy might have thought, "You know what? When I retire,
0:09:45I want to try to take a shot at writing a novel and buying the typewriter 20 years first, just as
0:09:52is like a little reminder that, "Hey, I'm going to retire in 15 years. What I'm going
0:09:57to do when I retire is write a novel. There's my typewriter. I'm going to keep it in the
0:10:00box and every couple of days I'm going to look at it and think about what I'm going
0:10:03to do." I think that's how he went into it with the computer, but then next thing you
0:10:07know he's got a 25-year-old SE30 he's never opened up.
0:10:13**Matt Stauffer** But in the box.
0:10:15**Ezra Klein** Right. I'm not 100% sure whether he's never even cracked the seal on it or
0:10:20whatever.
0:10:21And then he was saying that and then he thought you know I got to get rid of this thing and he thought he could
0:10:25Sell it for what he bought it for in 1991 or whatever and then he found out to know you can't
0:10:30Know you see 30 is not worth five thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah, I had my first Mac was an SE with though
0:10:39not the 30 but with the
0:10:41Double I know high density hard high density hard drive or don't fluffy drive
0:10:45and I you know I sold it to buy the next one and you know
0:10:50But I still had, like, ten years later or whatever it was,
0:10:54I still had all of the floppy disks lying around.
0:10:57I had all these little games,
0:10:58and I thought, "Oh, it'd be kind of fun to try these."
0:11:00So this was like ten years ago now.
0:11:03And I got on eBay a machine that I paid $2,000 for.
0:11:06I got it for a dollar.
0:11:08Basically got the same machine for a dollar.
0:11:11-Right. -And now it's here in my office
0:11:15with a Mac Plus that a friend found on the side of the road.
0:11:19and I'm using them for shelving.
0:11:21You I at my instincts are in the same way and I have to fight it.
0:11:26Yeah, every step of the way. I think of course I want that set it up.
0:11:29Well, that's what that's what Diane told Diane said that she had this conversation with Amy Jane.
0:11:34She said because what I bought the iMac from Tom, she said you're just like Groover.
0:11:40You know, and I don't have it set up like I don't have I don't have as many as you do.
0:11:47and I'm trying to fight the instinct to collect more, but my instinct is always to say yes.
0:11:51And if I would do the same thing, I didn't even really care for the candy-colored Mac era.
0:11:58Didn't really even care for that whole aesthetic. But if I was at Tom Carmody's house and he's
0:12:02having a moving garage sale and there's a nice lime green iMac, my instinct would be,
0:12:06"Well, I'll take that." Yeah. I missed a 12-inch power book by like 10 minutes.
0:12:12Would have bought that too. I was just kicking myself.
0:12:15But I walked out of there with a lime iMac.
0:12:19I had never had one of this generation either.
0:12:23I went straight from a Performa 6400 to a G4 power Mac.
0:12:29You know, we are – you and I, we've rehearsed this show very, very – we put a lot of effort
0:12:35into the rehearsal and preparation.
0:12:37But while we were doing that, one of the things we talked about – you talked about the site
0:12:43you used to write for.
0:12:44I guess you haven't really officially shut it down, but CARS, the Crazy Apple Rumor Site.
0:12:48Yeah.
0:12:49You were telling me about a piece you had to abandon about the – how would you describe
0:12:59her?
0:13:01The –
0:13:02The MAC –
0:13:04The clip – I mean, I assume that she's clip art.
0:13:07I mean, she was like not actually a person who worked there.
0:13:11The MAC connection.
0:13:12But the MAC connection –
0:13:13Catalog.
0:13:14buy, yeah, I mean the way that we got our information back then was you get these
0:13:17magazines. You get Macworld, you get MacAddict or whatever, and in the back you
0:13:21open it up and there are all these ads for places like MacConnection and MacMall
0:13:26that, you know, where we used to buy all that's all of our stuff for their Apple
0:13:29stores because, you know, there was chances are there was no place in town
0:13:32that you could buy anything from Apple. If you're certainly, if you were someplace,
0:13:38you know, a smaller town, maybe you could go to a Circuit City or not, what was it,
0:13:43CompUSA and go back, you know, and sandwiched between the peripherals of
0:13:48the damned there be your Mac section. But most everybody bought stuff from the
0:13:53back of these magazines and so there was always they always had some pretty girl
0:13:57who was supposedly the phone the phone the person that you would call who would
0:14:02be ready and willing to take your your order and so the piece was you know
0:14:08going to be about what she's doing now because those places don't I don't think
0:14:14they do the pool and the thing is the thing to remember is that Mac connection
0:14:17was one of the bigger names number two number two it and this really dates us I
0:14:21mean this is me and you we're getting into grandfather mode here but you have
0:14:24to remember there was no web yet I mean we're talking early night right very
0:14:28early night yeah nobody trust me nobody bought anything I mean before Amazon
0:14:33really this is before there even was a web though I mean or if there was it
0:14:36certainly couldn't buy stuff on it. Yeah, some of it, yeah. So if you wanted to buy a new modem,
0:14:41you had to have like a magazine handy where you'd call one of these 1-800 numbers and tell them
0:14:46which one you wanted and do it. But the thing with Mac Connection is it was always the exact
0:14:52same photo of this woman. It never changed. They never picked a different woman. They only had one
0:14:58picture of her, which is certainly one of the reasons I always thought it was clipart too, that
0:15:01they, you know, it wasn't like they had a series of photos. Yeah, they were taking a new picture
0:15:06of her every year. And once you ordered something from one of these companies, there was another
0:15:10big one is MacMall. I mean, I don't know these things. They might even still be around. I don't
0:15:14know. But but once you ordered them MacMall definitely you would get on their list and then
0:15:19once a month they'd send you an updated catalog. And this actually was this wasn't like annoying.
0:15:23I wish they'd stop this was actually helpful. Because then you would you know, that was like
0:15:28the only way you'd know what the new prices were for stuff. Right. And find out about new products.
0:15:32Right? It was effectively the app store and Amazon all rolled up in one, because that's
0:15:38how you actually had to buy your apps. You had to buy your apps in a box. But that connection
0:15:44always was the exact same woman. And anybody from that era will know. I mean, she was attractive,
0:15:49but she wasn't super attractive. No, girl next door.
0:15:53Yeah. Totally feasible that maybe she was somebody who answered the phone for them.
0:15:57And they're like, "Hey, Sally, would you mind if we take a picture?"
0:16:01Yeah, and maybe she was. I mean, I don't know for sure, but maybe she did work there at one point.
0:16:05Right.
0:16:06She's like, "Hey, turn around. Click."
0:16:08She didn't really... She did not look like a model, like a fashion model, who was told,
0:16:14"Hey, put this headset on and pretend you're on the phone for a second."
0:16:17You know, but she was attractive, but she also was very attractive in like a... The photo was
0:16:25was very clearly taken in 1987. She could not have looked more 80s.
0:16:31Even by the early 90s, she sort of started looking dated.
0:16:34But she effectively was the logo for Mac
0:16:42Connection. What the apple with a bite out of it, Mark, is to
0:16:47Apple, that woman was to Mac Connection. You wouldn't know it was Mac
0:16:52connection if you didn't see her. And her photo was huge. It was huge on the catalog.
0:16:56It was like, "We're the people with this woman that's…"
0:16:59And what'd you say though?
0:17:01I'm going to go to their site to see if she's still there.
0:17:09And you said you had to abandon the piece though.
0:17:11Yeah, it just got too dark.
0:17:14There's no good place to take a comedy watch.
0:17:17She's she's yeah, it didn't end up well for her
0:17:19She's in an unhappy marriage
0:17:22So I feel like there's a lot going on I feel like
0:17:27Like this is we're gonna fill up an hour here easy
0:17:31I mean today today, there's a couple things new stuff. I mean stuff that just if we had recorded yesterday
0:17:36We would already be out of date
0:17:38Right so what do we got today run run down the news today?
0:17:45Samsung loses how much?
0:17:5019 gazillion, $10 billion wiped off its value
0:17:54following a report by Digitimes.
0:17:56Digitimes, man, that's gotta hurt.
0:17:58That's the worst part.
0:17:5910 billion wiped off your value from a report by Digitimes
0:18:04indicating that Apple placed a large order for DRAM
0:18:09from a Japanese competitor, Alpida.
0:18:13It is crazy.
0:18:14Digitimes.
0:18:16Yeah.
0:18:18And I think, I mean, that's happened,
0:18:20I mean, maybe not to that degree,
0:18:21but some of that has happened to Apple in the past,
0:18:24certainly.
0:18:25And I don't know, maybe not sourced from Digitimes,
0:18:28but definitely, I mean, there's been instances
0:18:30where some rumors have negatively affected
0:18:33Apple's share of players, but this is pretty big.
0:18:36I mean, it's old news.
0:18:38I mean, and you can find examples of it every week
0:18:40where the stock market is not rational
0:18:43and it tends to overreact.
0:18:45It's a herd mentality.
0:18:46But this seems--
0:18:47I mean, and you and I, it's not like we're fans of Samsung
0:18:50in particular.
0:18:51But this seems outrageously unfair to Samsung.
0:18:55I mean, Samsung seems to be doing pretty darn well
0:18:59as a business.
0:19:00Say what you want about whether you
0:19:02like using the Galaxy Dingus phones or whatever.
0:19:04But they seem to have a really rich business,
0:19:08where they have a lot of--
0:19:09they're doing well in the phone market.
0:19:11They're the only company other than Apple
0:19:12any significant profit. I mean, there's only two companies in the world making a serious profit
0:19:17selling phones, Apple and Samsung. And then the only third company that's making like
0:19:22$10 a year is HTC. Everyone else is losing money. So that's pretty good. They make their own screens,
0:19:29they've got manufacturing, they're doing well in the TV business. They have a wide ranging,
0:19:35I mean, they're a conglomerate in every sense of the word, and it seems like they're doing
0:19:38really well. And then Digitime says Apple's buying DRAM from a Japanese company.
0:19:42And they lose six billion dollars. Is that what it was? Six billion dollars? Ten, it says ten billion dollars in market cap.
0:19:48This is, I'm looking at Electroneista, but it was on several.
0:19:51Right, I mean, I presume that that will even out and people will sober up after lunch and maybe the stock will
0:19:58Yeah. Even out, but it just seems, especially coming a day or two after
0:20:03Harry McCracken's epic. All right, let's see. Here's 25 digit time reports from the last few years.
0:20:11Right, and then they run back in and "ah, sell your Samsung."
0:20:16Right.
0:20:17And like, that's like Harry McCracken.
0:20:20I mean, that is like some serious claim chowder cooking to go not just like one at a time,
0:20:25but to do 25.
0:20:26And more or less the result was if the report from Digitimes was even vaguely sensational
0:20:32and interesting, it ended up being complete bullshit.
0:20:36The only ones that panned out were the ones that were kind of obvious, like, "Apple's
0:20:42making the new phone this year."
0:20:46Like anything that was actually like newsworthy.
0:20:49And it just appalls me.
0:20:51Over and over again, people will still credulously report things from Digitimes.
0:20:59I think most of the rumor sites now seem to at least be putting some sort of disclaimer
0:21:05in about digital right that their record is a little but they still yeah to me
0:21:10they're they're so bad it's not worth it I mean it's not even worth mentioning
0:21:14right I mean it's so bad that I think you could really you you would clean up
0:21:20I mean like at a preposterous set sense you would just clean up if you bet
0:21:24against anything they were against because they're never they're never
0:21:28Never right.
0:21:31Very strange.
0:21:32Now, you like to gamble.
0:21:33I do like to gamble.
0:21:36Do you play the stocks?
0:21:37No, I don't.
0:21:38I should, but because, you know.
0:21:40Yeah, it seems like those two things will go hand in hand.
0:21:44I can see how it's – and I think once you have a taste for it, I do – and then stuff
0:21:49like this JP Morgan stuff where the guy lost $2 billion or whatever, it's like, "Whoops."
0:21:55It really is.
0:21:56It's the same thing.
0:21:57There's no difference between blackjack and the stock market except I think that the difference
0:22:02is there's no house in the stock market.
0:22:05So if you're the big guy, I mean that's the advantage to it is that you might be able
0:22:11to actually win in the long term since there's nobody taking a mathematical cut.
0:22:17Somebody did a thing a couple of years ago.
0:22:19I forget if it was Matt Howey or somebody but they just – it wasn't super recent.
0:22:25It was before Apple really became huge.
0:22:28It was when Apple was like in, wow, Apple's making a nice recovery, but they're still
0:22:32like one of the smaller players in tech.
0:22:37Somebody had done a thing where they just tracked Apple's stock price after keynote
0:22:42announcements.
0:22:43And it like four times out of five, it went down the day of, you know, like the afternoon
0:22:50after a keynote and always recovered by the next week.
0:22:54and then climb back.
0:22:55That you could, you know, that it looked like you could really, without paying any attention
0:22:59to the specifics of the rumors or even listening to what was announced in the keynote, if you
0:23:04just bought Apple in the afternoon after it dipped 5% because they didn't announce, you
0:23:10know, 3D glasses that run on infinitely, never run dry batteries as was predicted by analysts,
0:23:18and then just sell it in a week after it recovered and everybody was like, "Hey, you know, they
0:23:22actually did announce some cool stuff.
0:23:24When they sober up.
0:23:28Yeah, you could just make money. You could just mint money on it. I feel like there's
0:23:32a lot of patterns. You probably could make a lot. There's got to be some patterns like
0:23:35that in the stock market.
0:23:37Right. There definitely are. Every once in a while, it'll buck the trend. But still,
0:23:45if you did it over time enough, you got to make a lot of money doing that. There's
0:23:52lot of – I think there's – you can see a lot of gaming. I mean, it's almost – you
0:23:56can see that there are people trying to float rumors leading up to events in order to try
0:24:05to affect the stock price.
0:24:07Right. There's two senses of that. There's the nerd sense where we just listen and we
0:24:14just want to know about the cool stuff and the sites like The Verge and Gadget. We just
0:24:20wanting here, we just want, give us the specs.
0:24:24You know, in a way that we don't, we're happy when we have surprises in the keynote that aren't spoiled.
0:24:32But if they're going to be spoiled, let me read all the details about it in advance. I can't help myself.
0:24:36Right. But we really just are doing it as nerds.
0:24:40But there's also clearly another set of people who are setting things up to try to like,
0:24:45it just seems very clear that they're trying to move the stock.
0:24:48- Right.
0:24:49- Tell us.
0:24:51- It's more like, the stock market's more like,
0:24:55it's just more like poker than like,
0:24:57you know, more like where you're sitting around
0:24:58playing poker with a bunch of different people
0:25:00as opposed to playing the house.
0:25:01- Yes, exactly.
0:25:03- I have a friend who years ago actually did that.
0:25:07I mean, decided, he got into online,
0:25:10you know, playing poker online,
0:25:11and then got so good at it that he decided
0:25:16he was gonna take six months and try and make it his job.
0:25:19And he did, I mean, and he did okay.
0:25:23His family wasn't out on the street or anything,
0:25:25but he didn't do incredibly.
0:25:28But the thing that really drove him back
0:25:31to do a regular job was that he
0:25:34just got tired of taking advantage of people
0:25:37because that's what you have to do.
0:25:39I mean, you go in there and I mean, particularly around here, he wasn't in Vegas.
0:25:43He was he was around here going to Indian casinos.
0:25:46And and then, you know, you get to know the people who would play there and then you'd know what their
0:25:51weaknesses are and you would just exploit them.
0:25:55And, you know, he he figured he either had to really like go into that
0:26:00in order to make a good living doing it or he had to just, you know, give up and do something else.
0:26:05So he decided to do something else.
0:26:07But that, I mean, it seems like that situation is more like the stock market.
0:26:11Yeah, I think definitely. But it's also the case
0:26:15too where it's almost like poker
0:26:19where sometimes the cards, you can just see everybody's cards. And I think Apple
0:26:23is that type of company. It's like one of the non-stop recurring
0:26:27themes of what I talk about, what I write about, is that
0:26:31Apple is really a fairly simple company. They really, I mean,
0:26:35by market value they're the biggest company in the world but they're really
0:26:41really pretty simple. I mean you can actually get to know the company just by
0:26:46walking into one of their stores because the stores sort of represent everything
0:26:51they do and the emphasis they put on things in the stores is pretty close to
0:26:56relative the importance it is to them as a company. You know the iPhones and iPads
0:27:01are up front. The most important Macs are the MacBooks, especially the Airs, and you
0:27:10know the iPhone cases are in the back. It's a really simple company and then you read,
0:27:18you know, if you're obsessed with the company like we are and then you sometimes you see
0:27:22the financial analysts and they're so bizarrely wrong and you just associate from that. That's
0:27:29All they do is just study the company.
0:27:31- Yeah, that's a good point.
0:27:32I hadn't thought about that.
0:27:33I mean, and it kind of,
0:27:35if you think about the Microsoft store
0:27:38and how that is not true at a Microsoft store.
0:27:42I mean, basically a Microsoft store
0:27:43is pretty much a copy of an Apple store
0:27:45and it's their consumer,
0:27:46I mean, I guess maybe it's a good focus,
0:27:48I mean, a good lens on their consumer business,
0:27:51but it's not a good lens on the company in general
0:27:53because most of their business is enterprise stuff.
0:27:57- Right, and that's, you know,
0:27:58I don't know that it has to be that way, and that the Microsoft stores might end up being
0:28:02good for them. I don't know. I just think it—but again, Microsoft is not anywhere
0:28:08near as easy as a company to understand as Apple.
0:28:11Right. Right. They do a decent—I mean, I've only been up past—there's one up about
0:28:1845 minutes to an hour from here, and it's never as packed as an Apple store is on a
0:28:24Saturday afternoon. But, and it's also, you know, it's right next to Redmond. So, I
0:28:30mean, maybe that's got something to do with it. But, um, they do a decent, they do
0:28:34a decent business in there. There's usually, I mean, you go by there on a Saturday
0:28:37afternoon and, and it's, it's full and there are a number of people walking
0:28:42around in there. I don't know how many people are buying things, but they at least have
0:28:45people in there. Hey, I should hit the money button here. Hit the money button.
0:28:50Uh, our first sponsor, Piezo from Rogue Amoeba. Recording audio on your Mac doesn't have to
0:28:59be hard. Piezo from Rogue Amoeba makes it a snap. Whether you want to record a Skype
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0:29:18rogue amoeba.com I can tell you right now right now my voice right now John is
0:29:24being recorded by piezo and not coincidentally mine is also being
0:29:30recorded by piezo piezo as opposed to piezo I say piezo or piezo eyes oh could
0:29:40be pie okay we're gonna have to redo the whole show if I'm wrong I think you're
0:29:44You're probably right.
0:29:45P-I-E-Z-O.
0:29:46P-I-E-Z-O.
0:29:47Is that what you said, right?
0:29:49Isn't it a lovely interface?
0:29:52It really is.
0:29:53You know what else?
0:29:54I would say this.
0:29:55And easy, too.
0:29:56It is super easy.
0:29:57It really is.
0:29:58I could go on and on about it.
0:29:59I will also say one of my favorite icons ever.
0:30:04It has one of the best app icons I've ever seen.
0:30:08I applaud almost any app icon that is not some sort of square thing with a pencil over
0:30:13the top of it.
0:30:14Yes, in blue. Half the reason I love the icon is that there's no...
0:30:20there's not one pixel of blue in it. Yeah, it makes it stand out. I mean it's
0:30:26completely... very noticeable in my doc. Well, that's a good segue into something I
0:30:34wanted to talk about, and I want to talk about it because I don't know what
0:30:38to write about it, because I really don't know what I think about yet. Like, I know
0:30:42I know it's something, but I really just don't have my mind about it.
0:30:48I don't have my mind made up about it, but it's Windows for ARM.
0:30:51Windows for ARM has rules that are a lot like those of iOS, where the only apps you can install are Metro apps,
0:31:01and they have to go through the Microsoft App Store, and the Metro APIs are all brand new,
0:31:09and they're not, you can't run, you can't just recompile your existing
0:31:13looks like Windows as we know it app, just hit a button and recompile it for
0:31:18ARM
0:31:18and have a version you can, it doesn't work like that, can't have it. So
0:31:22last week it came out, I mean this isn't news that that's the way it's gonna be, but
0:31:27Mozilla officially came out
0:31:29as being in opposition to this that because they can't do
0:31:33a full version of Firefox for Windows RT
0:31:37making the argument that this not just is not the way it should be, but that it shouldn't
0:31:44even be allowed to be this way because of all of the antitrust agreements Microsoft
0:31:49has made due to the unpleasantness in the late 90s with the US Department of Justice
0:31:55and I guess with Europe too.
0:32:01And so I can totally see, I absolutely see why Mozilla would push in this direction,
0:32:08because it's certainly in their interests to have Firefox, you know, to be able to do
0:32:13a full version of Firefox for all versions of Windows.
0:32:17So I don't fault them for pushing in this direction.
0:32:21But I don't know, I tend to think, the way I lean is that Microsoft is actually, isn't
0:32:28doing anything wrong here.
0:32:29Right. Well, you had linked to a piece that indicated that most of that stuff is written in terms of that the restrictions were on Intel-based hardware.
0:32:40Right.
0:32:41So, and it seems to make more sense. I mean, if you think about the tablet market, it's obvious that Microsoft is not in a monopoly position in the tablet market.
0:32:50So, it seems like this should be considered new territory.
0:32:57Right, there's a couple of ways to look at it, and I think looking at it, and I
0:33:02think the news was that Mozilla kind of cracked the seal on wanting to look at
0:33:07this from a legal perspective, and not that they filed a lawsuit, I mean, and
0:33:11and have gotten there yet, but they sort of at least like opened the door, and
0:33:17that, you know, indicated that maybe, you know, maybe such a, you know, whether it
0:33:21would be like a civil suit or whether it would be them petitioning the Department
0:33:25of Justice or the European regulators to look into this,
0:33:28but that legal action might end up being taken place.
0:33:32But I actually think Microsoft might be on good ground
0:33:34in this regard, because like you said,
0:33:36that the actual findings of facts from 1999
0:33:39and the great unpleasantness really do mention
0:33:41over and over and over again, 30-some times,
0:33:44Intel-compatible PC operating systems.
0:33:49- Yeah, and the thing that you linked to
0:33:53was specifically the Department of Justice settlement with Microsoft. So I
0:33:59mean they may have a different issue with European situations. I mean maybe
0:34:04maybe that's another right. And one of the things you know I remember this and
0:34:09I wasn't writing during fireball at the time but I was certainly following the
0:34:12tech industry just as obsessively you know and just in a pure layman's
0:34:16understanding of antitrust law is that monopolies aren't illegal in and of
0:34:21themselves. It's just that when you have a monopoly, you have to play by different
0:34:25rules. So it's not that, "Hey, you have a monopoly, you've got to be busted up." No, it
0:34:30doesn't work like that. But it's, "Hey, you have a monopoly, you can't do certain
0:34:34things that you could do if you didn't have a monopoly." But there's all... it's
0:34:41it's hard to... sometimes I think, especially in the computer industry, it's
0:34:45really kind of hard. It depends how you divide something up to say whether
0:34:50there's some things a monopoly or not. Like I think the old AT&T phone monopoly
0:34:54in the US was as clear cases could be because if you wanted to call make a
0:34:59call to somebody who didn't live in your town the one and only way to do it was
0:35:03through AT&T and you paid whatever AT&T said you wanted to pay. I mean that's
0:35:09about as classic of a monopoly as could be. I think that the old railroad
0:35:13monopolies were as classic of monopolies you wanted. If you wanted to ship
0:35:17something on a train from here to there had to go through these guys and there
0:35:22were no other options but when you start talking I mean I've heard people I have
0:35:27heard people endlessly talk about the fact that that like accuse Apple of
0:35:32having a monopoly Mac OS that right that if you want a Mac you've got it you can
0:35:39only buy an Apple computer and I don't think I think that that's I don't think
0:35:44there's any I don't think that actually is how things work but right just from a
0:35:49common sense standpoint like you said a couple minutes ago there's no I don't
0:35:52see how anybody could argue that Microsoft's monopoly on PC operating
0:35:57systems translates into tablets right that these that the machines that they
0:36:02intend to put Windows RT on Microsoft not only doesn't have a monopoly they've
0:36:07got like nothing they've got zip I mean they tried to they've tried to saw
0:36:12Windows as a tablet operating system for years and it's just not done
0:36:17anything. But also this is just, this is completely new architecture. But I do
0:36:22it, I, you know, I have to say and I've, you know, it's one of those things
0:36:26because I wasn't writing Daring Fireball at the time and so there's no, there's no
0:36:33record. I can't prove it. But I really have to say I was never all that
0:36:39comfortable with with the way that the terms that Microsoft ended up agreeing
0:36:44to in the antitrust agreement I've never I always thought that it just I kind of
0:36:53saw Microsoft side on it I do think that they did some things the way that they I
0:36:57think the things that they did that were wrong and clearly were illegal and
0:37:00deserve some sort of legal punishment were the the hardball tactics they took
0:37:06where it was like, "Hey, you're going to do this." They'd go to Dell and say, "You're going to make
0:37:11Internet Explorer the default browser, or we're not going to sell you any copies of Windows, period."
0:37:17You know, that...
0:37:19Right.
0:37:19Right. And that's illegal because they can't... They needed... Dell needed licenses for Windows,
0:37:24otherwise they'd go out of business. There were... While there were other, quote,
0:37:28unquote, Intel PC operating systems, by the '90s, you couldn't make any money selling computers that
0:37:34that had dead used them but I don't know that they should have been forced to
0:37:40make some of these rules about windows and what they can do by default it
0:37:45really does you know I always struck me as something that was gonna hamstring
0:37:48them I think at the time I was just happy that you know anything I was happy
0:37:54to see Microsoft get stuck by some right so I was you know certainly supportive
0:38:00of it at the time but probably not from a real logical stamp right Blake first
0:38:04very specifically, I remember, and this was like a huge point of contention in
0:38:07the court proceedings, was Microsoft's argument that Internet Explorer was part
0:38:11of the operating system. And it couldn't be, the way that it was made, it
0:38:17couldn't be taken out. And I think that the slashdot crowd really saw no merit
0:38:29to that argument whatsoever. Because at a technical level, it certainly didn't have
0:38:33to be that way. You certainly didn't have to make the browser part of the operating
0:38:38system. But I actually think Microsoft was right that Internet Explorer was part of the
0:38:44operating system in the same way that WebKit is part of OS X and iOS. That it's, you
0:38:54know, that they've…
0:38:55Yeah. I think at the time I found that a convenient excuse. You know, they were trying to tie…
0:39:01I mean, they were doing things like trying to make it the new Windows Explorer and that
0:39:05kind of thing.
0:39:06I thought that they were basically doing that in order to try to make it part of the operating
0:39:12system so that they could use that as an excuse.
0:39:15But I think in retrospect, some of that was just my lack of foresight as to where they
0:39:21thought they were going with it.
0:39:23Yeah.
0:39:24But I think now, fast forward, flash forward, fast forward, I guess fast forward to the
0:39:30present day. And it really, this whole argument really, to me, encapsulates the
0:39:38incredible tables are turned position between Apple and Microsoft. You know,
0:39:45where Apple's role in that whole late 90s Department of Justice investigation
0:39:51against Microsoft was sort of, like the fact that Apple didn't go out of
0:39:56business was like the best thing that ever happened to Microsoft, because they
0:40:00could say, "Hey, we've got a competitor. Look at these guys, these Apple guys. They've got
0:40:04five percent of the market, a totally different operating system."
0:40:08And there was a...
0:40:09Are they cute?
0:40:10Right. And there was... I think that there was a... I think everybody is largely in agreement
0:40:14that that was sort of Microsoft's motivation with the investment they made, the famous
0:40:20on-stage appearance, Big Brother style behind Steve Jobs at the Macworld Expo where they
0:40:24said, hey, we're going to invest a couple hundred million dollars in non-voting shares.
0:40:31We're buying some shares that have no special class of shares that doesn't give us any control
0:40:35over Apple.
0:40:36We just want to support the company.
0:40:38And we're committing to make a great version of Internet Explorer for the Mac.
0:40:44Apple's going to make it their default browser.
0:40:46And we're committing ourselves right here in public to the next version of Microsoft
0:40:52Office, which is going to be fully compatible with Windows Office, which all of it was true,
0:40:58right?
0:40:59The Internet Explorer was a good Mac browser at the time.
0:41:03Office was compatible, and it really did, I think, you know, at the time, it really
0:41:08was essential.
0:41:09I don't know that Apple would have gone out of business if Microsoft had canceled Office
0:41:13for Mac, but it certainly would have hurt a company.
0:41:16It's a big appearance.
0:41:17Yeah, it's a big appearance thing.
0:41:19There were certainly a sizable number of Mac users who, if they couldn't have had a version
0:41:25of Office, maybe couldn't have been, you know, would have had to switch to a Windows PC.
0:41:33It's funny how big a deal that was back then.
0:41:35I think about that sometimes, how big an Office suite meant in the '90s.
0:41:40It was a huge deal because it really was, I think at a very basic level, it was the
0:41:45reason that people had computers.
0:41:47Right.
0:41:48I guess we just we printed a lot more back then.
0:41:51Printed a lot more.
0:41:52Printing was a huge deal.
0:41:57Now sometimes my printer, the yellow light blinks because there's something in it.
0:42:01It's like a month.
0:42:02The only time I realize it is when I go to print a boarding pass for my next flight.
0:42:09For a long time, our main printer has been in my office, and my wife is the only one
0:42:14that uses it.
0:42:15I mean it's still every time it fires up it scares me. Yeah, I get I get startled by the noise
0:42:21And I actually had to turn it off in order to do this podcast
0:42:25That is this is your wife a printer. She prints more than I do. She prints stuff. Yeah, that's more than I do
0:42:32Yeah, she's a Karen's just a crazy
0:42:34Yeah, she will do things like and and smart stuff to like if we're going on a vacation or something
0:42:40She'll print like an itinerary with all the basic information
0:42:43And so yeah because I and I just think well it's in my phone somewhere and so like I'll just sit there like a jerk and
0:42:50Spend 20 minutes trying to find a confirmation code while I'm at the hotel checkout desk
0:42:54Whereas she's just got like eight pieces of paper that have everything you could want to know right there
0:42:58But yeah, I mean a couple months a couple months ago
0:43:01We went skiing and she you know was smart enough to have the foresight to know that we were driving up into the mountains
0:43:06And would not get good
0:43:08Cell coverage and so she printed out the the directions and you know and sure enough we got
0:43:13You know we were like we were just about lost at one point, and I'm like I have no I'm completely
0:43:19Clueless because I have no cell connection right that's it's you
0:43:24It's like you're you and I are again exactly in the same boat because I would never think that I've to me printing directions is
0:43:30Something I did when I was a kid right. It's not something Amanda has today
0:43:34Got an iPhone
0:43:38But I do it this really to me highlights the difference between Apple and Microsoft's competitive positions where clearly I
0:43:44Really don't think that this is even a matter for dispute. This isn't being an Apple fanboy or anything. I mean
0:43:50Windows RT is chasing iOS. I
0:43:53Mean and it's going to be
0:43:56You know that the other thing they're doing is
0:44:00The next version of Windows Phone is going to be based on the big boy version of Windows. It's going to be a
0:44:07It's a serious of Paul throat throughout had a good piece
0:44:11About it just last week. I linked to but
0:44:14You know, it's a big deal for developers
0:44:17It's you know, it's gonna look the metro UI will be mostly the same but it's a real significant under-the-hood thing where it's not a
0:44:23Grown-up version of the old Windows Mobile. It's a cut-down version of Windows 8
0:44:28And
0:44:31I think Apple again, there's there's legal arguments and there's technical arguments and the technical side
0:44:37I think, you know, people have cooled down and it's no longer nobody's as hot under the collar
0:44:43as they used to be about the App Store rules. There's just the basic idea, not the exceptional
0:44:49cases where it's, you know, there's some kind of edge case rejection, but just the basic idea that
0:44:56apps go through the App Store, they're all reviewed. And there's a lot of things, you know,
0:45:02you've got to play within a tight set of sandbox rules
0:45:05that keep your app from running amok.
0:45:08You don't have background privilege
0:45:10or you have very limited background privileges.
0:45:12You can't see the whole file system.
0:45:15You can only see your own data.
0:45:17>> The sandboxing does still get people,
0:45:22developers hot under the collar.
0:45:24>> Well, and it's a different issue on the Mac though.
0:45:26And part of that, it really highlights,
0:45:28and I think it shows the problems Microsoft's gonna have
0:45:30forward is that it was a huge advantage to Apple to say this is a new
0:45:36thing, this is iOS, and here are the rules and it's all, you know, in fact they
0:45:43started with literally, here's the, you know, in 2007, five years ago they said
0:45:48here's your phone running iOS, it has no apps. Like, they started
0:45:54from a point where third-party developers were told, you know, you can
0:45:58write a web page. And so they grew from there and so the App Store with all of
0:46:04its limitations was you know the proverbial glass of ice water in hell
0:46:10compared to not having any app, third-party apps at all. Whereas trying to
0:46:16impose these rules on the Mac where developers were pretty much free to, if
0:46:22if you could make it and it runs, you can do it. Put it on your website, people
0:46:27download it and you know whether it's an app that sticks to our recommended
0:46:31guidelines or whether it's you know some kind of kernel kernel plug-in that
0:46:40implements you know low-level stuff that could freeze the whole machine you can
0:46:45install it if you want right but do you think they'll always allow that on the
0:46:53Mac? I do. I don't I really I seriously do. The question I think the bigger
0:46:58question is how long does the Mac stay around? I mean is the Mac still around
0:47:0210 years from now? You know 15 years from now? That's the bigger question but
0:47:06as long as there are Macs I think that that stays. I think and I I I've talked
0:47:13to people at Apple about it and you know you never know again you can't you know
0:47:17it's not like they're gonna divulge if they really had a secret plan to to take
0:47:22that away in Mac OS 10.9, Ocelot, or whatever they're going to call it.
0:47:29It's not like they would necessarily tell me even in confidence, but just the conversations
0:47:33I've had with people makes me – I really believe it.
0:47:38And that's also why I don't believe any kind of stories about iOS and OS X merging,
0:47:43that there's going to be one OS that – I just don't – there may be similarities,
0:47:50To me, it's fundamental to the way it works.
0:47:53It's like once you start with something,
0:47:55like a set of rules for a game,
0:47:56it's almost like changing the rules of a game.
0:48:00Like you just can't change them that much.
0:48:02Like you can't go in now and say baseball,
0:48:07you can't be, there's no more left-handed batters
0:48:09because it's too big of an advantage
0:48:11because they start four feet closer to first base
0:48:14than right-handed batters.
0:48:15So now everybody has to bat from the right side.
0:48:17Well, you can't do that now.
0:48:18It might make some kind of logical sense,
0:48:19but you can't do it.
0:48:22It's too late.
0:48:22That's probably a bad example.
0:48:29- I could, oh, but you know,
0:48:31I could see Selig doing that.
0:48:32(laughs)
0:48:34- Yeah, you know what, I shouldn't say that.
0:48:35I shouldn't have.
0:48:36- That sounds like him.
0:48:39- But I just think, though,
0:48:40I think one of the reasons that everybody's cooled down
0:48:42about the iOS rules is that it's clearly worked,
0:48:45that it has proven to be wildly popular,
0:48:49and it's
0:48:50hard even for us even for the type of geeks who
0:48:55like
0:48:57i_o_s_ and love their ipads and and love their iphones
0:49:01uh...
0:49:03it's hard for us
0:49:04to and i know it's hard for me to understand how regular people
0:49:09see computers
0:49:10people who just that they're
0:49:12they just really have very little understanding of what the hell is
0:49:15actually going on
0:49:16And I just think that you just cannot, there's no way to overstate
0:49:21the relief that they see
0:49:23when they're using iPads and iPhones where they feel like they can't screw
0:49:27anything up.
0:49:28There's no way to screw it up.
0:49:30There's nothing you can do
0:49:32that is going to render this thing
0:49:34you know broken just by installing software or clicking the wrong button or
0:49:39something like that.
0:49:40Which is, you know, and it's a problem on the Mac, you know, that you can
0:49:45buy stuff and install too much crap in your menu bar that's always running and
0:49:48all of a sudden safari is slow
0:49:52i think it's a huge relief
0:49:54and it's like a peace of mind and i think it's a huge part of the ipads
0:50:00success
0:50:01in the market like why people are
0:50:03buying ipads and using them instead of using laptops uh...
0:50:07is that these rules
0:50:09are good for people and it's not the point is not in this you know i i do see
0:50:13the Free Software Foundation, you know, I see their argument that you don't want all computers
0:50:19to have this rule, but all computers don't have these rules, right? It's just this huge opportunity,
0:50:24you know, there was this huge opportunity that Apple was the first to take to make computers
0:50:29that had these rules. And it's not supposed to be for everybody. It's not, you know, all computers
0:50:34shouldn't have those rules. But most, I think, should. And I think it's, I just don't, I can't
0:50:41see how Microsoft should be disallowed from following that with Windows or you know and
0:50:47again this is another one of those things where I and I personally always attribute it to Balmer
0:50:53but that this idea that everything has to be called Windows has got to have Windows in the name
0:50:58somewhere. That's I mean I kind of think that's really holding them back and so many regards.
0:51:03I mean the names the names become increasingly ridiculous just from a you know the way they sound
0:51:10because they keep putting different things on the end of Windows.
0:51:14But also just from a branding perspective
0:51:18I think people are sort of tired of it.
0:51:22Maybe that's just from a Mac user perspective, but it doesn't
0:51:26I mean, having the Xbox not name something Windows
0:51:30I think is a great advantage for it.
0:51:34Oh, absolutely, and I think that Xbox is the best
0:51:38the best example and the bet is it's the only that's the best counter and it's the only saying
0:51:42that we need to slap windows on everything exactly and it's the best even if and i presume again i've
0:51:47never i don't i certainly haven't written an xbox game but i i presume and i i i think that it's this
0:51:53is actually true that writing games for the xbox is largely or at least in many ways similar to
0:52:00writing games for Windows.
0:52:02You know, that if you're good at writing,
0:52:04you know, like id software type games,
0:52:09you know, Quake and those type of games,
0:52:12for the PC on Windows, that a lot of the techniques you use
0:52:17and the code you use can be reused on Xbox.
0:52:19You know, that so, in the same way that iOS and OS X share
0:52:23these fundamental technologies, the Xbox does too,
0:52:25but they just don't call it that.
0:52:28- Right.
0:52:29And I do think that that really hurts.
0:52:31And I think it hurts them in this argument.
0:52:33And I see people who are,
0:52:35I see that there's a lot of people
0:52:36supporting the Mozilla argument
0:52:38that they shouldn't be allowed to do this for Windows RT.
0:52:42And again, it does kinda stink.
0:52:46And there's trade-offs.
0:52:48Nobody's saying that these rules like in the App Store
0:52:51and the way that they wanna run Windows RT,
0:52:53that there aren't downsides to these rules.
0:52:58I think clearly the fact that Macs and PCs can run alternate browsers that can be set
0:53:03as the default, that there's been way more innovation in the browser space because of
0:53:08Firefox and Google Chrome and all the WebKit type stuff than there would have been otherwise.
0:53:17Maybe somebody else is going to come out with a browser for mobile devices that iPhone users
0:53:22are going to be left out in a cold front because they can't install it from the App Store.
0:53:26It's possible.
0:53:27You know, it seems silly to think that WebKit, mobile WebKit, is always going to be the preeminent
0:53:33browser engine.
0:53:34Right.
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0:54:25so you're with me on this that you think that that
0:54:28that the uh...
0:54:29windows r_t_ the restrictions on windows r_t_ are reasonable
0:54:33if if not
0:54:34yeah i don't think i mean i don't think there's any way that you could look at
0:54:37i mean you can't
0:54:38it seems like if you look at the letter of the agreement
0:54:41in and of itself that it's clear that it's
0:54:44focused on intel based hardware
0:54:46and
0:54:47and then from a
0:54:48purely
0:54:49rational aspect of looking at the market, they have no monopoly over the tablet market.
0:54:55So that agreement does not really apply.
0:55:01And it sort of seems like, I mean, the guy from Mozilla who was, he's a lawyer, so he's
0:55:09looking at it from a legal perspective, and he seemed to be saying, I mean, he did seem
0:55:14like they might be taking action or trying to take action, but he also seemed to be sort
0:55:18of insinuating that it was against the spirit of the law of the settlement, which, you know,
0:55:26maybe you can make that case, but companies aren't bound by the spirit of a settlement,
0:55:34really, bound by the law.
0:55:38And you can't really fault them.
0:55:39I mean, Apple would do the same thing.
0:55:42Right.
0:55:43I completely agree.
0:55:46But I think it's going to be fascinating to see how it plays out.
0:55:48And I really do think, and it's, you know, the Shakespeare quote, "A rose by any other
0:55:54name would smell just as nice," whatever the hell he said.
0:55:58What the hell, Shakespeare, you can rewrite the guy.
0:56:04I really think it would make a difference if it were called Metro OS.
0:56:08You know, I always, that's my idea.
0:56:11My free consultation to them is that they should call Windows for ARM Metro OS or just
0:56:16Metro.
0:56:17Just say this is Metro and you can get it on your phones, you can get it on your tablets,
0:56:21you can even get it on a laptop.
0:56:25And if it's under the hood, the Windows kernel and all of this code that's exactly the same
0:56:32as Windows, more power to them.
0:56:35That's an engineering win where you're not duplicating effort but you don't brand.
0:56:39And I'm telling you, if they did that, I think that their argument would carry a lot less
0:56:43weight.
0:56:45It's just another reason why I think that the argument doesn't carry weight, is if they
0:56:48just change the name of the thing, it seems like all the logic doesn't apply.
0:56:52How can they have a monopoly with an operating system that isn't even out yet?
0:56:56For devices...
0:56:57It is a little weird.
0:56:58I mean, we probably agree on this too, but the fact that they still have the full desktop
0:57:04experience, and that they will ship a full version of Office for Windows RT and whatever
0:57:15other applications that Microsoft deems worthy of getting a pass.
0:57:22And having used Windows 8, it's the whole switching back and forth between Metro and
0:57:29the traditional Windows desktop is a jarring experience.
0:57:33And that I don't understand.
0:57:36And I think you've posted this before too, though.
0:57:38But just the fact, I mean, they should have jettisoned
0:57:43the Windows desktop on ARM.
0:57:47That would have made a lot more sense.
0:57:48- Right, and I just feel, it's just another one
0:57:50of those things where there's trade-offs, you know?
0:57:53And everybody knows, everybody is at least halfway
0:57:55a geek, knows that it can be frustrating
0:57:58on the iPhone, especially on the iPad.
0:58:00I think it's more of a deal on the iPad
0:58:02because you can work on the iPad.
0:58:05And sometimes you just feel like,
0:58:06I wish I could just get a list of all the files
0:58:09on this thing.
0:58:10Just show me a list of all these files
0:58:12and let me just drag, take this one and say,
0:58:14I wanna open this one in that app.
0:58:16Or I wanna take this file and send it to my Mac at home.
0:58:21And sometimes the fact that there is no,
0:58:24the equivalent of a finder,
0:58:25whether it looked like the finder or not,
0:58:27but that there's no app that's like that, it's frustrating.
0:58:31But there's a simplicity win, though,
0:58:33that if it isn't even there, then every app
0:58:37has to kind of encapsulate its data in a simpler way.
0:58:43Like the fact that it's not there,
0:58:44and that developers can't say, well, just go to Explorer
0:58:47and change the file extension, and it should fix itself.
0:58:50That if you don't even have the option of telling your users
0:58:52that you've got to do the work to present the data
0:58:57in a simpler way.
0:58:58I do think that it is gonna be,
0:59:01I think it just seems crazy that you can get
0:59:04this brand new tablet with this fancy, lovely looking,
0:59:09whether it's something you really wanna use all the time,
0:59:13I think it's up for debate, Metro.
0:59:16But it looks nice, and it certainly looks new,
0:59:18and it certainly doesn't look like anything
0:59:20Windows has ever done before.
0:59:21And then all of a sudden you hit the Explorer button
0:59:23and you're in Windows 7 all over again.
0:59:27- Yeah.
0:59:29Which I sort of take that as a compliment to us
0:59:34that we all seem to like,
0:59:35lots of Mac users have said that they like
0:59:37the Metro interface and so there.
0:59:41We weren't just knee-jerk Apple apologists
0:59:46for all those years where we said we hated Windows,
0:59:47we really hated Windows.
0:59:48- Yeah, I totally agree with that.
0:59:51totally agree with that
0:59:52uh... you know i just like nice things that's what i've always said i'd just
0:59:55like nice things and it just happens to be that
0:59:58a lot of these companies never make nice things
1:00:02what else we got here the wall street journal confirmed today or not
1:00:05they did they they left themselves in wiggle room
1:00:08but they said that uh... apple is going to switch to four inch iphone displays
1:00:12the rain luck and euro or saw one reporting for the wall street journal
1:00:17as uh... the new iphone that apple incorporated is expected to unveil this
1:00:21year is likely to have a larger display than its current models have
1:00:25with the company ordering bigger screens from its asian suppliers people familiar
1:00:29with the matter
1:00:32we would like to see if we ever form a band
1:00:35we're talking before the show that may be doing a song
1:00:38i don't know i'd
1:00:39and we'll wait on another episode
1:00:41but if we do
1:00:42i think maybe a name for our band people familiar with the matter
1:00:46Yeah, no, that's a good name for a band
1:00:48Or a band of by people who do maybe media criticism
1:00:54All the songs will be about media criticism I
1:00:58Feel like are you looking at the the the the one that has the picture of the guy holding the white iPhone
1:01:04I think so. I think that was what it was. Yeah, he's only got four fingers. No, I didn't see that
1:01:08That's true
1:01:13It's got a thumb and three fingers. I think he's one of the Simpson kids
1:01:16You know, I had a conversation with Jonas about that about why why do so many cartoon characters only have
1:01:23Three fingers and a thumb. Yeah, and he did not buy my explanation that it's easier to draw and
1:01:29And looks better
1:01:32He's well, did he have an alternate explanation? No, he thinks that I'm hiding the truth from you know that
1:01:40He's not buying that
1:01:43Huh
1:01:45There was an episode. I believe there was an episode where of The Simpsons where Homer imagined what his kids would look like
1:01:51If they were regular they were actual
1:01:54And he said something about five-fingered freaks and they showed they showed a picture of them drawing more more normal looking
1:02:01And I believe he I believe he cried out in terror. I do see this picture of the guy holding the white iPhone
1:02:09Yeah, which is a normal. You know that's the way right that he's got his index
1:02:13I don't behind it yeah the index fingers just in but it's completely yeah, but it you know it does look like he's got four fingers
1:02:19Like maybe he was got caught shoplifting in Singapore or something which of you
1:02:27That would suck to it wouldn't it suck if they if if you got caught shoplifting in one of these countries
1:02:35When you're gonna lose a finger and they go right for the index finger
1:02:38instead of the pinky. Oh, that would be terrible. And then if you gripe, I bet they're like,
1:02:44"You're lucky we didn't take the thumb."
1:02:45Exactly. Oh, man. Can you imagine taking the thumb? That's one of my worst. That's one
1:02:51of my worst.
1:02:52Yeah, that is.
1:02:53I mean, because then you're just not even human anymore.
1:02:55Well, you remember a couple of months ago when I had that goofy finger injury.
1:02:59Oh, yeah. That's right. That happened.
1:03:01And I had that cast or brace on all the way up to my elbow, but I still had my thumb.
1:03:07And it was incredibly frustrating to have my whole left hand in this thing and be unable
1:03:15to use any of my fingers for a couple of weeks.
1:03:18But the fact that I still had the thumb was surprisingly useful.
1:03:23Surprisingly useful.
1:03:24And I just remember thinking, "If I didn't have that thumb, I would be..."
1:03:29I mean, I could...
1:03:30It was hard, but if I had something in my right hand, I could...
1:03:33With that thumb, I could eventually open a doorknob.
1:03:36Yeah, yeah, I noticed also think about how hard it is for my dog. I mean the dog does not have thumbs and
1:03:43Just the way he has to the way he has to hold something. He's chewing them
1:03:47True that's no life
1:03:51That's no way to live
1:03:53we'd like to think that we're so smart and that
1:03:56We've you know, we've got these great minds that have separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom
1:04:03But really all we've got are good thumbs right if he had thumbs he could replace me in our right
1:04:07God imagine if the dolphins had thumbs oh
1:04:11We would be man. We have to be so screwed
1:04:16We're already not the smartest species on the planet right I they would just be able to better prove it right or
1:04:23Elephants imagine if elephants had thumbs yeah, they could really kick some ass
1:04:30The orangutans, so like there's a I mean, this is a stupid
1:04:33story but
1:04:35Orangutans using iPads. I saw that where I didn't read it though. I saw it and we're like what I didn't read it either
1:04:41But they're like one step away from Planet of the Apes
1:04:43You give those orangutans iPads and were you know, right now they're like communicating and stuff right? They're making plans
1:04:51They're gonna get on Facebook
1:04:53they're gonna start talking to each other and
1:04:56then and then
1:04:58The next thing you know
1:05:00You're running through the brush with Charlton Heston
1:05:02This four inch iPhone thing I've talked about this before and I've heard whispers about it. I still don't know that it's certain nobody
1:05:09Apple it people used to tell me things at Apple and now they don't tell me anymore
1:05:13I don't think that I think they've gotten way more secretive than before
1:05:16And I've I've been saying this to people I've had a lot of people ask me after Steve Jobs died
1:05:22Do you think Apple's gonna know maybe open up a little bit more?
1:05:24I honestly I for everything I've observed over the last nine months or maybe even call it a year
1:05:29because I think clearly Jobs started winding down his management before he
1:05:35actually retired. I think they've only gotten more secretive in my
1:05:40experience. But the thing I've heard is that if they go to a
1:05:46four-inch, it's gonna stay the same width and they're just gonna make it taller
1:05:50and it's gonna have the same pixel density. In other words, the same number
1:05:54pixels print. So they're gonna add more pixels, make a more like a
1:05:59wider screen display or a taller screen display, whatever you want to
1:06:03call it. And that, you know, well what about developers? Developers, you know,
1:06:09assume that this exact pixel count, but that there already are things like when
1:06:13you're on a phone call and you have like a double height status bar. You're
1:06:19already supposed to make your app a little bit flexible in that dimension.
1:06:25You know, and apparently some some apps don't do that as well as others. They
1:06:29don't shrink. They just let that green double-sized status bar take up space.
1:06:35But I think that that's, you know, that's the answer. Because I don't think the
1:06:41other thing is I don't think that they want to make a physically bigger phone.
1:06:45Like, to me, what's ridiculous with the Android giant phones is not the fact that the screen
1:06:51is bigger.
1:06:52A bigger screen is better in general for a phone, but bigger devices are worse.
1:06:58To me, that's the tradeoff involved.
1:07:01Bigger screen, yes, terrific.
1:07:03Bigger device, heavier, takes up more space in your pocket, harder to hold in one hand,
1:07:08not good.
1:07:09So, you know.
1:07:10Yeah.
1:07:11But if they can keep the device the same size and devote more of the front face to the screen,
1:07:18why not?
1:07:22Because I'm holding my iPhone in my hand right now, and I can comfortably – well, not completely
1:07:27comfortably – but I can touch all four corners with my thumb.
1:07:31And if it gets – well, maybe if it gets taller, actually, I think I could.
1:07:35Right.
1:07:36Especially if you think –
1:07:37That upper corner, maybe.
1:07:38I mean, that one, but still, pretty close.
1:07:40And if it were half of it were at the top, half the extra pixels were at the top and
1:07:43half were at the bottom.
1:07:47To me, I don't think it really would make that big of a difference.
1:07:49It might be a little bit harder to get to the corner.
1:07:52But I mean, I think Apple clearly, you know, is aware of that.
1:07:55Everybody knows that they take these phones out.
1:07:57I'm sure if you went to any beer garden in the San Jose area, greater Cupertino area,
1:08:03you could see dozens of these phones being used recklessly and left behind on barstools,
1:08:09night of the week. I mean, they famously test these things. You know, they're not going
1:08:13to make it so big that you can't, that it's harder to get corner to corner.
1:08:17They probably, I bet they have a case that makes it look like a Galaxy tab or a Galaxy note.
1:08:22The stylus on the side.
1:08:27So I think it's totally believable. What I would not believe would be if these reports
1:08:31were coming out saying that Apple is going to make a phone that is a lot bigger, physically
1:08:35bigger. You know everything I've heard is that if they go to a bigger screen it's
1:08:41bigger in that one dimension. Same physical size, taller screen. Right and I've also
1:08:45talked about this that the way that they make these screens is they make I mean
1:08:51again I'm you know I could be talking out of my ass here but my understanding
1:08:55is the way LCD screens are made is that they make big big sheets of these things
1:08:59and they find sec they identify sections that are known you know that don't have
1:09:03dead pixels and then they cut cut them to size so it's like you know like
1:09:09imagine a big sheet of paper and then you just cut little three and a half
1:09:13inch rectangles out of it and boom here's an iPhone screen here's an iPhone
1:09:17screen so if they the way that they would make these screens is they would
1:09:20be using the exact same sheets as the current iPhone retina display and they
1:09:25would just be cutting slightly taller rectangles out of them and if you think
1:09:30Think of that, you know—
1:09:31That sounds crazy.
1:09:33That sounds crazy.
1:09:34I mean, you're probably right.
1:09:35I mean, because I know nothing about that, but that just sounds like you're making
1:09:38taffy.
1:09:40I think it sort of is.
1:09:41And so from an economies of scale perspective and this sort of—
1:09:46Right.
1:09:47—the Tim Cook—
1:09:48You don't have to retool anything.
1:09:50Exactly.
1:09:51You just—you wait another nanosecond as the thing's coming through and then you—
1:09:54Right.
1:09:55From a Tim Cook operational genius perspective, it makes a lot of sense.
1:09:59Right.
1:10:00And that's also the argument behind the – it's the exact same argument behind the
1:10:05rumored 7.82568-inch iPad.
1:10:12You know, this –
1:10:13Oh, is it just the other way?
1:10:14Well, it would be the – if you took the iPhone 3GS screen, the classic pre-retina
1:10:26iPhone LCD.
1:10:30And you took that exact LCD, but imagine it as a big sheet the size of a table.
1:10:36And you cut a 1024 by 768 pixel rectangle out of it.
1:10:41It comes out to be exactly 7.82 inches or something like that, which is exactly the
1:10:48rumored size of the smaller iPod.
1:10:51So in other words, these LCD screens that Apple has been producing ever since the first
1:10:57iPhone, because that's – the 3GS has the exact same LCD display as the original iPhone
1:11:04that they're still making today and still is apparently a pretty popular phone.
1:11:08It's like the third most popular phone at AT&T.
1:11:12They don't have to make a new display for a smaller iPad.
1:11:15They just have to cut bigger size out of the displays that they're already making.
1:11:20right and a presumably that would be you know by apples standards super cheap
1:11:25because they've got you know it's old technology you know it's pre retinoids
1:11:29right right you ever tried one of these supersized phones no I've I've got the
1:11:38you've got it you've got a couple of what you've got a Windows Lumi I got the
1:11:45loop but I have the Lumi oh you have Lumi I have the Lumi 800 though not the
1:11:48900 which is not the one it's on sale but it's I love it I like it better and
1:11:52I've I've I've tried the 900 I think the 800 is better I like what I really do
1:11:58because it's more comfortable in my hand it's it is very very roughly it is
1:12:04iPhone sized more or less but like this rumored 4-inch iPhone it's got a 3.7
1:12:11inch screen it's a because it's 16 to 9 so it's taller it's got a you know more
1:12:17of the front, a little bit more of the front face is devoted to the screen than on the
1:12:21iPhone. And I find that nothing but pleasing. But it fits in my hand like the iPhone and,
1:12:28you know, so it's a little bit bigger. It's like, it's not quite four inches. It's like
1:12:33three point seven five inches diagonal. But I don't have any trouble going corner to corner
1:12:37with my thumbs. Just feels great in my hand. But the Galaxy Nexus, the top of the line
1:12:44Android phone which is I think I swear I'm not making this up I think it's like
1:12:48a 4.8 inch display it's it's just too big it's too big to use with one hand it
1:12:56really is it is it's nice to use with two hands it you know and and I'm not
1:13:01surprised and I you know I think I've said this before the way that Android is
1:13:06meant to work where they're supposed to be a variety of devices not surprised at
1:13:10all that some people would prefer a sort of as big as a phone could get without being
1:13:17laughed at phone.
1:13:18Right.
1:13:19I'm not surprised at all that there's a lot of people who do that.
1:13:21No, I'm not either.
1:13:22And that's the whole advantage of that whole model, that you can get this sort of variety
1:13:27that you're never going to get from Apple because Apple is insane about these economies
1:13:32of scale and they're not going to make two new phones that are only slightly different
1:13:38in size.
1:13:39to do it. I'm still shocked that there are 4,000 distinct Android ROMs. I mean
1:13:48that just seems like a crazy number. This is from Ars Technica.
1:13:53Casey Johnston. Android fragmentation. One developer encounters
1:13:58There's 3,997 devices.
1:14:03It's just…
1:14:07I mean, I have no idea how…
1:14:13I saw a…
1:14:14How that happened.
1:14:15Did you see their story the other day about the game developer who took a picture of their
1:14:19testing room and they have all their Android phones out on one table?
1:14:22It wasn't 4,000 phones, but they had like a table with 300 Android phones on it.
1:14:27Yeah.
1:14:31And 3,000 of them are from Samsung.
1:14:33I wonder, you know, just to play devil's advocate for a second,
1:14:39you know, is it fair to say that there's 4,000 phones you have to support?
1:14:44I mean, how is that different than if you're a Windows developer
1:14:48and the number of PCs that are out there?
1:14:49I mean, it's probably almost infinite, the number of different PCs.
1:14:56Yeah.
1:14:57But, on the other hand, I don't see Windows developers... there must be some other differences,
1:15:05though.
1:15:06It must be harder.
1:15:07It must be different with mobile, because you don't see Windows developers saying, "Our
1:15:10new game..."
1:15:11There's too many devices.
1:15:12Right.
1:15:13Or they don't have a list, "Our game runs on the HP Pavilion, blah, blah, blah, the Samsung..."
1:15:17Well, for years, I mean, sound cards have always been a big issue.
1:15:21And video cards.
1:15:22I mean, those two things, I mean, really, for game development, it is a pain in the
1:15:25ass and they have to, you know, they have to be really careful about what they do and
1:15:29try and hit the top, um, top cards.
1:15:32That's, you know, that's probably exactly it, is that Android is back in the pre-Microsoft
1:15:39sort of put the hammer down and sort of said, "Look, enough of this nonsense with sound
1:15:43cards and stuff like that. If you want, if you want to run the new version of Windows,
1:15:47you've got to have this, that, and the other," you know, all of these specs.
1:15:50And Google doesn't seem, Google doesn't have that leverage.
1:15:52I think that's the difference is that
1:15:54Microsoft cleaned up. I mean as fragmented as the PC market can be at a certain point Microsoft said look
1:16:01Here's the baseline and it covered everything
1:16:04It covered everything from the processor to the video to the sound card and you can use whatever you want
1:16:10but these are the minimum requirements and if you don't meet all these minimum requirements, you don't get Windows and
1:16:15If you don't have Windows good luck selling your PC, right?
1:16:18And it really did help and I think that's exactly where Android is is sort of back in the you've got to have the certain certain
1:16:25Sound card or you've got to be able to run OpenGL 4.1
1:16:29You know a good luck with your you know
1:16:32Typical person knowing whether their Android phone is capable of the newest version of open GL
1:16:37this map of the map of all the different device types, it looks like a
1:16:42Was it a Mandel brought? Yeah, it's just like
1:16:47Because it has the major ones over the left and then it could show that the size is a proportional size for each square
1:16:53Is that there I guess the number of devices out there and this gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller
1:16:58It's like it's like it's a fractal
1:17:00It's just crazy
1:17:04Things we don't Apple developers don't have to worry about
1:17:12No
1:17:15What else is going on there's something else I wanted to talk to you about
1:17:18About this Ashton Kutcher dress like Steve Jobs. Oh, yeah. I really don't care. I
1:17:25Really? I have no
1:17:29hopes or expectations for either of these two movies and I mean
1:17:33just I have people seem to be getting right about Ashton Kutcher and like and then excited about
1:17:42Sorkin writing the other one and I just I really do not care. All right, I think I'm with you on that that I don't
1:17:48I don't care. I would be great. I hope both movies are good. I hope they're great
1:17:53I hope I hope every movie that's ever made is great, but it's not gonna happen
1:17:57But here's the thing and I I mentioned this and my wife pointed it out and I had sort of thought about it
1:18:01but my wife really called it out is
1:18:03What the hell is he doing dressed as Steve Jobs out getting coffee? Like is he was he on his way to the set?
1:18:11Do actors typically oh I assumed I yeah, I assumed that well, I assumed that that was part of
1:18:16He was photographed like coming out of a Starbucks, right?
1:18:19He's okay
1:18:21He's got like a like a cup of coffee like iced coffee in his hand and he's dressed like he looks like he's trying to
1:18:26Walk like Steve Jobs do but he's got like young Steve Jobs hair
1:18:31Yeah, and and then a ran old Steve Jobs is outfit on
1:18:36Like jobs when he had a thick head full of hair never wore that outfit
1:18:42to my knowledge that the black turtleneck and jeans and New Balance thing was a
1:18:47like
1:18:481997 he was spotted as he made his way to the set of the
1:18:52Late Apple CEOs biopic. So yeah, and he's got like a nice. Oh my thought I see
1:18:59My thought is that maybe he's doing like some kind of method actor
1:19:03Right, you know if he wants to be Steve Jobs on screen, he's got to be him all the time. He's good
1:19:08And that maybe he's not in costume
1:19:11He's that's just what he's wearing in his daily life now to stay in that Steve Jobs mindset
1:19:18And then he shows firing a person every day right like he shows up and then to get in a costume
1:19:22He's playing Steve Jobs circa like 1982 and he's putting on like a plaid shirt and and some 80s
1:19:29short ass jeans or whatever the hell Jobs was wearing back then and that he's just doing this and
1:19:33Amy was like, I mean you really I mean, yeah, Ashton Kutcher method actor. He's like the next Bob DeNiro
1:19:40I'm like, I'm not saying it's good acting advice
1:19:42I'm saying it seems to me like the sort of crazy idea Ashton Kutcher would get in his hair about how he needs to be
1:19:47Right. I'm not saying that this is how a good actor needs to do it
1:19:51Yeah, you know, I don't I don't think uh, he read it. He read it in a book somewhere, right?
1:19:58I don't and an in-flight magazine
1:19:59I don't think Robert Downey jr. Had to you know wear the Iron Man suit out to get coffee
1:20:03Just to get into donuts you are that to get diets
1:20:07They're like just roll just roll with it roll roll camera. This is great
1:20:12Yeah, I just I have a hard time getting worked up over it
1:20:18The whole thing seems kind of dumb
1:20:26How about the
1:20:28This is a good one Glenn Britt CEO of Time Warner Cable
1:20:32Yeah, I'm not sure I know what airplay is
1:20:36So utterly unsurprising
1:20:41No, yeah, not surprising so clearly telling
1:20:45Like it would be one thing if the CEO of Time Warner Cable
1:20:49Blew off airplay if it was asked about it in public and just said, you know
1:20:54I just I don't really think it's that relevant - I don't think it's relevant or something like that
1:20:58But to be genuinely genuinely confused and say you don't know what it is
1:21:02You know and I don't think that again. I don't think
1:21:06This is the sort of thing that that you and I and guys on our rack
1:21:10you kind of have to get our heads around is covering Apple the
1:21:14industry Goliath as opposed to Apple the
1:21:17upstart
1:21:19Right, and I don't think again. I don't think it's being an Apple fanboy to say hey AirPlay is an important technology
1:21:26I think that it's hey if your business is
1:21:29showing people TV shows and video
1:21:32You've got I mean, how can you not be worried about what app that's the it seems like that's just a problem
1:21:38With that kind of that kind of executives in that industry
1:21:43I wouldn't be surprised if none of them know what it is. They're much more focused on making deals
1:21:51with
1:21:54partners than they are, you know, on technology.
1:21:56But if I'm the CEO of Time Warner Cable, I would be terrified of Apple.
1:22:01I would be so paranoid, or paranoid at least, maybe terrified is the wrong word, but I would be
1:22:07paranoid about Apple and I would look at anything Apple did that was even vaguely related to
1:22:13TV movies and video and
1:22:16I would study that with a fine-tooth comb because they're Apple. They're they're the hundred billion dollar a year
1:22:22Goliath
1:22:24Well, that would be the smart thing to do, right?
1:22:26I think we're we're already beyond that now and I do I just think it's one of those ways that Apple is
1:22:34Because they were dormant for so long that people underestimate them like I don't think that
1:22:42that if you know to go back 10 years to when Microsoft was the
1:22:47You know again to circle back to the Department of Justice era that that late 90s Microsoft
1:22:52I think that CEO of Time Warner knew exactly what Microsoft's like set-top TV plans were at the time
1:22:58May not have been worried about him, but I think he was aware of them
1:23:02Yeah, because they were dangerous
1:23:04Right, I guess I guess I don't know I mean I
1:23:10Mean, I don't yeah, and I really don't know. I mean I have no
1:23:16Recollection of reading anything about it at the time and no I haven't followed that industry that closely like that, but
1:23:23It just seems like these guys
1:23:26Don't operate that way
1:23:29It's their heads are so far up their asses. It's a ridiculous
1:23:33So like I know mg seagull has been banging the drum on this thing forever with HBO shows not being available
1:23:39Yeah
1:23:42to buy
1:23:43right and
1:23:45Just was somebody did a study last week where they figured out that Game of Thrones is like the most pirated TV show ever
1:23:52and
1:23:55It's like do you not see the connection between the fact that you can't buy the episodes?
1:23:59Until like a year and a half after they're done airing then they'll come out with them on like then they'll put them on Apple TV
1:24:06And they put out the DVD. Yeah, and the fact that it's the most pirated show
1:24:10Right on television and there and their response is basically the beatings will be
1:24:14Morale and exactly, you know, and we're good now you're gonna need to buy you to get I mean in order I forget
1:24:23What this is but you know, like you need to have a cable subscription in order to get our content
1:24:28Yes
1:24:29And this is the thing and it ties in with airplay and I find it very frustrating for me in particular with Game of Thrones
1:24:34So I didn't watch Game of Thrones last year my new policy on TV shows and it has served me very well is I?
1:24:40Don't watch any new shows and I wait until season one is over and if people are still saying good things about it
1:24:47Then maybe I'll buy the whole thing and or I'll watch the pilot and if it's good
1:24:52then I'll buy the whole series and I'll watch him like in a binge like seven nights in a row.
1:24:56And I did that with Game of Thrones and I enjoyed it very much. Unsurprisingly, as a geek, I,
1:25:02you know, thought it was terrific fun and very well done and sort of, you know, like a nice,
1:25:08let's take this sort of vaguely Dungeons and Dragons milieu and up the production values and
1:25:17sort of take it in a realistic quote unquote. And you and you famously did not like the Lord of the
1:25:23Rings. I did not like the Lord of the Rings. Yeah. And that is very famous. So that's interesting.
1:25:28I have not seen it. I have not seen it yet and I have plans to see it and I'm looking forward
1:25:33to watching it. The Game of Thrones? Yeah, Game of Thrones. Because I want to get into it and I,
1:25:40but at the same time I also know that season two is still airing now. Is that right? Yeah.
1:25:45And I think that what's going to happen is I'm going to watch season one,
1:25:49and then I'm going to want season two immediately, and I won't be able to get it for, you know,
1:25:5348 months or whatever HBO designs.
1:25:57So, in a way, I'm kind of like, I know I want to watch it, but I'm holding on for a little longer
1:26:02just to try and shorten that time frame.
1:26:07Because of this stuff. Because they won't.
1:26:10Well, here's the thing.
1:26:10Or put it up on iTunes the next day.
1:26:12The insane frustration for me is that they have this HBO Go app, which is actually pretty
1:26:17well done.
1:26:18And it's a real pain to set up at first because it's not you.
1:26:23They don't just want your money.
1:26:24You can't just say, "Here, let me pay you $20 a month and watch all of your stuff."
1:26:28You have to have, like you said, you have to have a cable subscription that has HBO.
1:26:34We do.
1:26:35you sign in, I sign in with my Comcast ID and a Comcast password and HBO verifies it.
1:26:42I guess it's one of the benefits of the fact that there's only a handful of giant
1:26:48cable companies now. But Comcast is clearly a big one. So, correction, I'm sorry, Xfinity,
1:26:56right? That's what the... Comcast is the company and Xfinity is the cable service because everybody
1:27:03started associating Comcast with crap. But anyway, but I have it. See smart, smart move
1:27:09there. I have it. Well, that's, you know, that's the bet. Again, the benefits of changing
1:27:13the name, but, uh, right, exactly. But I have it and it works. And so I can watch season
1:27:17two game of thrones on my iPad or iPhone, but I don't want to watch them on my iPad
1:27:22or iPhone. I have a big giant 168 inch TV in my living room that I want to watch it
1:27:26on and it doesn't support airplay and it doesn't support the the whatever the dingus you connect
1:27:34to the bottom you know the video out thing the thing you you connected in the 30 pin dock and
1:27:39then put an hdmi to your tv so that you can it doesn't support that like it gives you this
1:27:44because i thought i was being clever and i thought that i thought that worked with anything
1:27:49i thought you could always mirror your ipad or iphone onto the tv with that thing but you connect
1:27:54it and then you fire up the HBO Go app and the system gives you this error that's sort
1:27:59of like the jackasses who run the company behind the app you've given won't allow their
1:28:05content to go out over the HDMI cable that is connected to this iPhone.
1:28:10I know you can't believe this crap.
1:28:13And I know that they've done all this stuff and verified that you've got a cable subscription
1:28:19and are already paying them and there's really no possible argument that could be made that
1:28:24preventing this from being played on the TV makes any sense whatsoever but you've
1:28:28got to believe us cancel or okay right oh you have a TiVo right yes but so why
1:28:37don't you record on TiVo well one problem is that I started get it I did
1:28:43the whole season one Game of Thrones things after season two started so I
1:28:47missed like the first episode or something anyway and the other problem
1:28:49Oh, okay, so.
1:28:50The other problem.
1:28:51So HBO Go shows you older stuff.
1:28:54Yes, well, no, but you can also,
1:28:57no, no.
1:29:00No?
1:29:01No, HBO Go has all of the Game of Thrones.
1:29:03Like, you could see it's--
1:29:04Yeah, that's what I mean.
1:29:05It'll show you--
1:29:06Right, but my TiVo recording it from HBO
1:29:08can't go back in time to get episode one of season two.
1:29:11Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
1:29:12And the other problem that we have is that
1:29:16we have a dual cable card TiVo.
1:29:19Yeah and one of the cable cards works perfectly and the second one works for anything except
1:29:27the HBO and it just gives you a black screen and you can't tell the TiVo hey that cable
1:29:33card doesn't get it so 50% of the time we try to record something on HBO it's it's just
1:29:39black and everybody thinks well why don't you just call Comcast and have this fixed
1:29:44And the reason is that we had guys out here like four times to get these.
1:29:51They don't want to give you cable cards.
1:29:53That's the thing.
1:29:54And so when they send you, it's super passive aggressive and they send like their worst
1:29:57text and a guy never showed up with more than two cable cards.
1:30:02And usually it would be like one didn't work at all.
1:30:06And then he would say, "Well, you know, what do you want to do?"
1:30:09And I would say, "Well, that one doesn't work at all.
1:30:12I would like to have two that work, which is what I'm paying for."
1:30:16And he'd be like, "All right.
1:30:17Well, what day are you going to be here?"
1:30:18And I'll schedule another guy to come out.
1:30:20And then another guy would come out with two cable cards, and he would take the other two.
1:30:24And I would say, "Well, can you just leave that one that seems to be working in and just
1:30:27replace the other one?"
1:30:28And he said, "No, no.
1:30:29It's already been canceled because as soon as I showed up and I hit this button, your
1:30:33old cable cards were deactivated."
1:30:34They were like SIM cards, sort of.
1:30:36The old SIM card, you know, these old cable cards are deactivated, and you have to use
1:30:40these two.
1:30:41only got you know these channels and one didn't get the other and that fourth
1:30:45time the guy had showed up again and I said and I would say like for the fourth
1:30:49appointment can you tell the guy to bring more than two and they'd be like oh
1:30:52yeah and put a note in the thing bring a bunch of them and a guy shows up he's
1:30:56got two only two one worked perfectly the other one worked with everything
1:31:00except HBO and Amy and I looked each other like get out of here go go so
1:31:06that's why I don't have Game of Thrones on HBO but I have it on my
1:31:11HBO Go app and I can't airplay it to my TV even though it's right here and and
1:31:16the TV is right there and the Time Warner they when coding that app they
1:31:21can choose to make the app not airplay and yep and they can also choose to make
1:31:26it not HDMI out enabled right which you know and I presume that if Apple hadn't
1:31:35made those things available that there would not be an H they would rather not
1:31:40even have it they would never have done it in the first place because they don't
1:31:44want people right but I honestly can't see what they're what the argument is
1:31:48like whoever it is who has that like yes or no I mean you are you're already
1:31:54paying for it right on here and they verify it and they you know it is I
1:31:58don't see right it's I just feel like it would be like if I could find the guy at
1:32:05HBO who has the authority the guy who could say all right let's turn airplay
1:32:10on in the next release. I can make this happen if I sign my name on this line right here.
1:32:16I would love to have an argument with that guy and see what he – I feel though that
1:32:21if I had the argument with him, that his explanation, he would use biz dev terms that would give
1:32:29me a headache. I would come out of it and not actually understand what he said. I would
1:32:36come out like I just had the conversation in German, which I don't speak.
1:32:46It's just unbelievable. I mean, we don't have cable anymore. We got rid of it. I just said
1:32:54I was going to buy everything off of iTunes from now on. I mean, because I... There's
1:32:58so much about broadcast television that makes me angry, and particularly about the cable
1:33:03companies that makes me angry that...
1:33:04How's that?
1:33:05In Tacoma though, one of the nice things is that we actually have cable competition because
1:33:10the city has their own cable network.
1:33:14So you can get cable TV through Comcast or through the city of Tacoma, which is kind
1:33:21of nice.
1:33:23When I compare what we paid to what my parents are paying in Connecticut, it's just...
1:33:27It's funny how that works.
1:33:29It's absurd.
1:33:30It's funny how that works.
1:33:31Yeah, yeah.
1:33:32Yeah, strange, isn't it?
1:33:33the hell of living in Philadelphia is that our city offers cable to I was
1:33:37called Comcast I walked right in it because we are of course cable town yeah
1:33:46how's that working out for you though I think you mean the cup the carpet no
1:33:52they're not having they're not having cable oh not having oh not having uh
1:33:56pretty good we're obviously not watching as much baseball as we used to watch
1:34:02Um, yeah, and I you know, I could get the I could get the major league
1:34:06Yeah, but then you wouldn't isn't your team is local Seattle team, right? Yeah
1:34:11That's it. See that's right part of the problem. So and then you know, even if I could watch them I'd be watching
1:34:17watching them lose
1:34:20So that's part of why I'm not watching as much tell very much baseball anymore either
1:34:24but
1:34:27Yeah, I mean I just I worked out the math and I it just made for the amount of television that we were watching
1:34:32the amount of shows that we were watching it made more sense to buy him off of iTunes than to
1:34:36than to pay
1:34:3955 bucks a month for whatever it was and that's just to start. I mean everybody I forget what we yeah
1:34:44We weren't getting right. We weren't getting any premium. I mean any premium channels, so
1:34:48We've got HBO, but we don't have them in there's I don't know
1:34:54It's it's it's like trying to buy a car and there's seven different types of leather you can get for the seat
1:34:58I mean, it's so complicated, but we don't even have nearly the top tier of cable, but we paid we do have HBO
1:35:04But we pay I don't know five hundred dollars a month or something
1:35:07Really stinks that's a package. Yeah
1:35:12Came with a hat you can
1:35:15You can also not watch your shows by airplane, right?
1:35:19As part of the package Xfinity
1:35:23Yeah, terrible name
1:35:26No, it's not a good name, but at the same time, it probably was a good idea on their part to name it something other than "Compcast Online."
1:35:36"Cabletown." They should have gone with "Cabletown." They should just embrace it.
1:35:40Yeah, that's a name like... we were talking about "ecam" the other day.
1:35:51name that sounds... good company, nice guys. Name that sounds like it's from a different era.
1:35:57Yeah, that's when we were talking, that's how we got back on the Mac connection kick.
1:36:00Right.
1:36:01Ecamm sounds sort of like one of those...
1:36:03Mm-hmm, back of the catalog... back of the magazine.
1:36:06Back of the magazine, we sell everything and anything, electronics.
1:36:10Sort of like Radio Shack without the class.
1:36:12They never went full into that rebranding they were going to do.
1:36:18The Shack!
1:36:19The Shack.
1:36:20They did I forgot about that a little I think you like everyone smell we got a flyer and it'll say somewhere on it the
1:36:24Shack or something like that and you know that they those flyers that get stuck in the middle of the newspaper or the just dumped in
1:36:30the mail but I
1:36:32Thought they were gonna really like tear the signs down and call it the shack
1:36:36nope
1:36:39It's a darn shame
1:36:41All right, I say we call it a show all right all right
1:36:46Thanks, John. John Moltz of VeryNiceWebsite.net.
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