ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► The on gold that's really the name of this thing. It's the on pro gold. Yeah extreme

00:00:05 ◼   ► Special edition. I mean if they're released in sky lake AP, I don't care what they call it, but that's really a stupid name 18 cores

00:00:12 ◼   ► Zeon gold are they gonna make a gold Mac Pro? That would be amazing

00:00:18 ◼   ► There could even be an addition. That's solid gold

00:00:23 ◼   ► John it if the next Mac Pro is only available in rose gold and like actual rose gold not like pink aluminum

00:00:30 ◼   ► But actual rose gold that would probably raise the price by $15,000. Would you buy that Mac Pro? No, can't swing it

00:00:37 ◼   ► What if it had a gaming video card in it?

00:00:39 ◼   ► Still no, that's cold Marco. No

00:00:44 ◼   ► $15,000 computers. Sorry

00:00:46 ◼   ► Well, I mean at the rate that you replace them that actually isn't that ridiculous

00:00:50 ◼   ► Like how many cars have you had during the time you've had this Mac Pro?

00:00:55 ◼   ► Well, I got a lot more value out of the cars

00:00:57 ◼   ► All right, so we should start with follow-up as we always do

00:01:02 ◼   ► Tyler lock loc loc has some APFS boot experiments that he has performed. Would you like to tell us about that?

00:01:10 ◼   ► Mr. File systems. He was the person who last week

00:01:16 ◼   ► tweeted about booting a Mac off of APFS and we talked about it in follow-up and

00:01:22 ◼   ► one of the points that I made during that segment was that he had posted a screenshot of the get info window in the finder

00:01:29 ◼   ► of the volume that he booted from and it said APFS case insensitive and

00:01:32 ◼   ► what I thought that meant was that

00:01:35 ◼   ► the APFS on his volume that he booted off was case insensitive and therefore all the weird problems that we discussed about

00:01:42 ◼   ► trying to run Mac OS and its applications on case-sensitive file systems wouldn't apply.

00:01:47 ◼   ► I should have looked a little bit farther down his tweet timeline because apparently he subsequently tweeted that

00:01:52 ◼   ► Finder and other utilities are confused about whether the volume is case insensitive or not. Rest assured, it is case sensitive.

00:01:59 ◼   ► So it's kind of weird that the get info window says case insensitive, but he's telling me, "No, no, this APS

00:02:06 ◼   ► volume is case sensitive." So again, he's doing weird stuff on an unreleased,

00:02:11 ◼   ► you know, beta, everything.

00:02:13 ◼   ► So it still doesn't tell us what the final incarnation of this is going to be, whether

00:02:17 ◼   ► it's in a point release of Sierra or whether it's in the next major version of MagOS, but

00:02:21 ◼   ► that's super weird that the Finder thinks it's case insensitive but knows that it's

00:02:25 ◼   ► APFS, but that the actual volume is case sensitive.

00:02:29 ◼   ► So oh well.

00:02:30 ◼   ► >> Whoo, riveting.

00:02:31 ◼   ► >> It is.

00:02:32 ◼   ► It's because this will be an important—even though this seems esoteric as the follow-up

00:02:39 ◼   ► We had a couple last week or whatever, but your programs won't work if it's case sensitive

00:02:42 ◼   ► Like or they won't work for some period of time till the developers update them. It will make you sad so

00:02:47 ◼   ► Better hope they sort this out

00:02:50 ◼   ► Fair enough, and then we have a little bit of talk about the various cesspools in Silicon Valley. Is that redundant anyway?

00:02:57 ◼   ► Tesla apparently is having some problems with harassment surprise surprise

00:03:02 ◼   ► There's an article in the Guardian, which I haven't had the chance to read but I intend to read tomorrow

00:03:07 ◼   ► A female engineer sues Tesla, describing a culture of "pervasive harassment."

00:03:13 ◼   ► You don't say.

00:03:14 ◼   ► A technology and car company.

00:03:15 ◼   ► That's surprising.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I put that in there just because, not so much about the specific story, which this

00:03:21 ◼   ► is actually interesting in that it's a current employee suing the company, so that's another

00:03:26 ◼   ► twist in this.

00:03:27 ◼   ► But just to reinforce the idea that we touched on last week about Uber, that although Uber

00:03:32 ◼   ► is surely an extremely egregious example that this problem is not isolated to a single company,

00:03:38 ◼   ► to a single person, to a single bad apple. I think it's not even isolated to a single

00:03:42 ◼   ► industry, although, you know, in the circles we travel and we tend to see tech things.

00:03:46 ◼   ► It is everywhere, and when one of these stories comes up, what it does is it makes the other

00:03:51 ◼   ► stories come to the surface, you know, because it's, you know, a media trend or people feel

00:03:56 ◼   ► more emboldened to come forward or people want to report on it more, and they come in

00:04:01 ◼   ► But anyway, it's everywhere and if you want to see another example, there you go.

00:04:05 ◼   ► Yep, and then we have an entry in the show notes to Uber or not to Uber and I presume that this is because a

00:04:13 ◼   ► handful of listeners, very very astute listeners,

00:04:16 ◼   ► called out the fact that one of us, and very well may have been me, had talked about

00:04:20 ◼   ► with regard to WWDC

00:04:23 ◼   ► flying into like San Francisco rather than San Jose and

00:04:28 ◼   ► You know, maybe we could just catch an uber to get down to San Jose after flying into San Francisco

00:04:32 ◼   ► And you know a few people had said hey that seems kind of disingenuous after you spent you know a fair bit of time

00:04:39 ◼   ► Complaining and you know railing against uber to then immediately say oh, yeah

00:04:44 ◼   ► I'll totally take an uber after that so it's actually me. I'm pretty sure was me that said that yeah

00:04:49 ◼   ► It was Marco and he used it as a verb. He said like uber up to uber down to San Jose

00:04:53 ◼   ► Yeah

00:04:54 ◼   ► And the reason why is because when we recorded last week,

00:04:58 ◼   ► we didn't have time for the Uber topic during the main show,

00:05:01 ◼   ► so we did it in the after show.

00:05:03 ◼   ► During the edit, I decided it was too important

00:05:05 ◼   ► to have as an after show topic,

00:05:07 ◼   ► so I moved it forward in the show

00:05:09 ◼   ► and kind of promoted it in the edit

00:05:11 ◼   ► to a regular main core show topic,

00:05:14 ◼   ► so I thought it was important enough.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Then, I probably wouldn't have said that

00:05:17 ◼   ► after having that discussion,

00:05:18 ◼   ► and I just kind of said it without even thinking about it,

00:05:20 ◼   ► like at the time.

00:05:22 ◼   ► As soon as I said it, I regretted saying it,

00:05:25 ◼   ► because that is exactly the kind of thing

00:05:28 ◼   ► that I'm usually conscious of,

00:05:29 ◼   ► and it's the kind of thing where like,

00:05:31 ◼   ► yeah, I kinda don't wanna take Uber anymore

00:05:33 ◼   ► after all how horrible they are.

00:05:35 ◼   ► So anyway, I personally have since deleted Uber off my phone.

00:05:39 ◼   ► There were plenty of previous reasons to do it,

00:05:41 ◼   ► but this is the big one to do it, to do it like now.

00:05:44 ◼   ► And I figure, you know, I don't actually use it that often

00:05:47 ◼   ► because in my home city, I don't need it.

00:05:51 ◼   ► but when I'm traveling I would use it often,

00:05:53 ◼   ► but I think I'm gonna install Lyft now

00:05:55 ◼   ► and try that instead because yeah,

00:05:58 ◼   ► it's not worth supporting that if we don't have to.

00:06:01 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:06:01 ◼   ► - It's kind of like, as some people who tweeted at us

00:06:04 ◼   ► about this point, like the Kleenex situation

00:06:05 ◼   ► where because Uber was first and is so famous

00:06:09 ◼   ► and so prominent, that to Uber it is like,

00:06:13 ◼   ► even though you are saying the word Uber,

00:06:15 ◼   ► which is the name of a company,

00:06:16 ◼   ► it's just a generic term for a thing

00:06:19 ◼   ► that makes a car come and get you

00:06:20 ◼   ► because you tap stuff on your phone.

00:06:23 ◼   ► And so you could Uber from one place to the other with Lyft

00:06:25 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:06:26 ◼   ► But anyway, either way, the larger question

00:06:28 ◼   ► is, given all of this stuff, are we

00:06:32 ◼   ► going to continue to use Uber?

00:06:34 ◼   ► And I think all of us in the places where we actually live

00:06:38 ◼   ► never have a need for a service like Uber at all.

00:06:41 ◼   ► So it's not really relevant.

00:06:42 ◼   ► It's only really relevant when we're traveling.

00:06:44 ◼   ► And there have been a lot of people

00:06:46 ◼   ► deleting Uber off the phone or otherwise

00:06:49 ◼   ► vowing to never use it. One of the interesting things I read about the people who drive for

00:06:56 ◼   ► Uber is that very often the drivers are working for multiple ones of these companies at the same

00:07:01 ◼   ► time. So if you call for a Lyft or you call for an Uber, it could be the same person answering,

00:07:06 ◼   ► they just change what app is up on their phone, which is interesting. So it's not as if the car,

00:07:12 ◼   ► the person you get is actually dependent on the company and Lyft, like every other company,

00:07:20 ◼   ► I'm sure has its own fair share of problems and you know, or as people putting out in the chat room,

00:07:26 ◼   ► problems dealing with down to the application itself, you know, always putting location

00:07:30 ◼   ► on. Oh no, this is the opposite, they're complaining that Uber always has location on.

00:07:34 ◼   ► Anyway, I recall reading lots of scary things about Lyft as well and that very often they were

00:07:40 ◼   ► presented as the better alternative to Uber merely because Uber is so incredibly terrible

00:07:44 ◼   ► that the bar is low. In some respects it's a little bit like airlines that we've talked

00:07:51 ◼   ► about before where we all know angry travelers. Maybe we have been this angry traveler who has

00:07:58 ◼   ► a bad experience with an airline and vows to never fly in them again. And if you travel at all

00:08:05 ◼   ► Frequently you will eventually have that same experience with every airline and then you will literally be unable to fly

00:08:12 ◼   ► Because that because all airlines do something that is enough to anger people is that that's it

00:08:17 ◼   ► I'm never flying Delta again and they stick to it and they never fly Delta again

00:08:21 ◼   ► If you if you do that for five years of constant traveling you will be out of airlines

00:08:26 ◼   ► And I wonder if ride-sharing services especially ones subsidized by VC money that are basically trying to put taxi companies out of business

00:08:34 ◼   ► so they can dance on their grave and then raise their prices.

00:08:39 ◼   ► I wonder if there are any good ride sharing companies.

00:08:42 ◼   ► And it's not as if taxi services are all that great either.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Every one of these things seems to have some kind of problem.

00:08:47 ◼   ► So, you know, I've certainly-- what

00:08:50 ◼   ► I heard somebody say recently was that I'll still use Uber,

00:08:54 ◼   ► but I'll hate myself every time I do it.

00:08:56 ◼   ► I don't know if that's the solution.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Is the solution deleting Uber?

00:08:58 ◼   ► What if you use Lyft and you find all sorts of horrible

00:09:00 ◼   ► things about Lyft?

00:09:00 ◼   ► you can not use any rideshare services. It's hard to know what to do in these type of situations.

00:09:07 ◼   ► I think it is very similar to an airline type situation. But when there are alternatives,

00:09:12 ◼   ► obviously, if you have any kind of choice at all, and you really do think Uber is the worst of the

00:09:18 ◼   ► worst, don't pick them. Pick another company, right? And I guess you just keep doing that

00:09:24 ◼   ► until you're out of ride-sharing companies, or you know, ride-hiring companies. What are they called?

00:09:28 ◼   ► it's not ride sharing, what do you call a thing like Uber?

00:09:31 ◼   ► - I don't know, private taxis?

00:09:33 ◼   ► But it's not a car service, I don't know.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Whatever it is.

00:09:36 ◼   ► But like, you know, usually this argument of like,

00:09:39 ◼   ► well, they're all probably terrible,

00:09:41 ◼   ► when we might, we just might not know

00:09:42 ◼   ► how terrible the other ones are,

00:09:43 ◼   ► 'cause they're like less in the public eye.

00:09:45 ◼   ► - Or we do know, but it was like two news cycles ago.

00:09:48 ◼   ► - Right, and so like, and like I've talked about this

00:09:50 ◼   ► previously with like, you know,

00:09:51 ◼   ► how I buy things from Amazon,

00:09:53 ◼   ► even though I know that in many ways,

00:09:54 ◼   ► Amazon as a retail company is kind of horrible.

00:09:57 ◼   ► but I've worked in other retail companies before

00:10:00 ◼   ► just enough to know that they're all pretty horrible

00:10:03 ◼   ► and retail is just a horrible business.

00:10:05 ◼   ► And so, you know, like the smaller ones,

00:10:08 ◼   ► like what am I gonna do?

00:10:09 ◼   ► Like, oh, I'm not gonna buy this thing at Amazon,

00:10:10 ◼   ► I'm gonna buy it at Walmart.

00:10:12 ◼   ► No.

00:10:13 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:10:14 ◼   ► And like, you know, where else am I gonna,

00:10:15 ◼   ► like maybe I'll go to Target.

00:10:17 ◼   ► Well, they're probably horrible in some other way too.

00:10:19 ◼   ► Because retail is a horrible business

00:10:21 ◼   ► and all the incentives kind of force everyone in it

00:10:22 ◼   ► to be pretty horrible or to go out of business.

00:10:25 ◼   ► And so I decided it's worth it to me to shop at Amazon

00:10:29 ◼   ► 'cause it's just so much better than everything else

00:10:31 ◼   ► and their offenses aren't bad enough to offend me enough

00:10:36 ◼   ► to overcome the difference between them and anybody else

00:10:40 ◼   ► in morality versus the incredible convenience

00:10:43 ◼   ► that they offer.

00:10:44 ◼   ► With Uber though, I think it's a little bit

00:10:46 ◼   ► of a different situation because first of all,

00:10:49 ◼   ► Uber in the grand scheme of things is pretty young

00:10:52 ◼   ► And so it's hard for anybody to look at what Uber gives them

00:10:56 ◼   ► in their life and say, "I can't be without that."

00:10:59 ◼   ► Because like, well you were without that,

00:11:01 ◼   ► like what, five years ago?

00:11:02 ◼   ► Like it wasn't that long ago.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Chances are five years ago you weren't using

00:11:06 ◼   ► anything like that, and you still lived.

00:11:08 ◼   ► You still got around.

00:11:09 ◼   ► You still found a way to make that work.

00:11:10 ◼   ► How did you do that, right?

00:11:11 ◼   ► Like could you just go back to that?

00:11:13 ◼   ► How bad would it really be?

00:11:15 ◼   ► Even if there's no other ride-hailing companies

00:11:18 ◼   ► like Lyft or like, even if you can't get any

00:11:20 ◼   ► of the other ones in your area, if Uber's the only one

00:11:21 ◼   ► serves your area, how bad would it be not to use them?

00:11:24 ◼   ► And in some cases, it actually is really bad.

00:11:27 ◼   ► Like in some cases, if your alternative is like,

00:11:29 ◼   ► well, I can get an Uber in 10 minutes,

00:11:32 ◼   ► or because of where I am, like if you're like,

00:11:33 ◼   ► you know, in like nowhere Brooklyn,

00:11:36 ◼   ► and no cab will pick you up out there,

00:11:38 ◼   ► believe me, I've been there, this was before I used Uber,

00:11:40 ◼   ► and you have to wait like, literally,

00:11:42 ◼   ► you have to wait an hour and a half

00:11:44 ◼   ► from midnight to 1.30 a.m. on a pier in Brooklyn,

00:11:49 ◼   ► because there's no cabs around,

00:11:51 ◼   ► and you had to call a car service,

00:11:52 ◼   ► and that's the soonest they can come get you.

00:11:55 ◼   ► In that kind of case, okay, if Uber's really the only thing

00:11:59 ◼   ► that will serve you, I can't really fault you for using it.

00:12:02 ◼   ► However, most of the time, for most people,

00:12:05 ◼   ► if Uber serves you at all, other options probably do too,

00:12:09 ◼   ► whether it's your regular taxi service

00:12:12 ◼   ► or other car hailing services or mass transit

00:12:16 ◼   ► or other private car service and stuff like that.

00:12:19 ◼   ► Chances are, if you use Uber at all,

00:12:22 ◼   ► you probably have other options.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And they might be a little bit less convenient.

00:12:26 ◼   ► You might have to wait one or two extra minutes for a ride,

00:12:29 ◼   ► or you might have to pay a dollar more.

00:12:31 ◼   ► But you have to decide for yourself

00:12:33 ◼   ► if that's worth the moral savings or not.

00:12:37 ◼   ► And for me, I think it's worth it.

00:12:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, there was that other one I heard about

00:12:40 ◼   ► called Fasten, like fasten your seat belts.

00:12:43 ◼   ► I think that's another one that's,

00:12:45 ◼   ► at the very least in the Pacific Northwest,

00:12:47 ◼   ► I heard a bunch of people talking about.

00:12:48 ◼   ► So it's not just Uber and Lyft.

00:12:50 ◼   ► There are probably other options.

00:12:52 ◼   ► Maybe not all of them are nationwide, so I guess check the app store and ask around to

00:12:56 ◼   ► see what the other options are in your area.

00:12:58 ◼   ► You too can live an Uber-free lifestyle.

00:13:00 ◼   ► And hopefully, though.

00:13:02 ◼   ► And I mean, it's easy for the three of us to say because we're white dudes.

00:13:04 ◼   ► But you know, I've understood that in some ways it can be better if you're, you know,

00:13:08 ◼   ► like a minority or if you're a woman that maybe it's better for some reason to call

00:13:13 ◼   ► an Uber or perhaps a Lyft.

00:13:15 ◼   ► Well, maybe not an Uber.

00:13:16 ◼   ► There's been a lot of horror stories about women getting picked up by Uber.

00:13:18 ◼   ► Okay, maybe women was a poor example, but you know, maybe if you're a person of color

00:13:22 ◼   ► or something like that, you know, maybe a taxi cab would not take your fare where an

00:13:27 ◼   ► Uber or perhaps a Lyft would.

00:13:30 ◼   ► You know, I guess what I'm driving at is it's all nuanced, right?

00:13:35 ◼   ► It's just a balancing act and you do what works best for you.

00:13:39 ◼   ► But I plan to, before I go to San Jose, which I think I'm going to be doing, I plan to look

00:13:45 ◼   ► into Lyft and understand if there's any differences in procedure or like, you know, tipping paradigms

00:13:50 ◼   ► or anything like that. I plan to try to understand what that is before I go. So this way I can

00:13:56 ◼   ► use Lyft rather than Uber. And I should mention that a friend of the show, Jean McDonald,

00:14:01 ◼   ► who in the past has run or been deeply involved with, I guess she is still deeply involved

00:14:07 ◼   ► with AppCamp for Girls, which is an organization that's near and dear to all of our hearts.

00:14:11 ◼   ► Anyway, she, just for fun, decided to drive, I thought, and I'm pretty sure I have this

00:14:15 ◼   ► right, for both Uber and Lyft, and then ended up not doing it for Uber anymore because she

00:14:20 ◼   ► had some really bad experiences.

00:14:22 ◼   ► I don't have her tweets handy where she talked about this, unfortunately, but you can look

00:14:28 ◼   ► at her timeline or just ask her about it, and she'll tell you that she drives for Lyft

00:14:34 ◼   ► from time to time because she's just felt better about it.

00:14:37 ◼   ► I wish I could remember what was better,

00:14:39 ◼   ► but she seemed to think that Lyft

00:14:41 ◼   ► was a better experience for drivers

00:14:42 ◼   ► and probably for riders too.

00:14:44 ◼   ► - The pink mustaches, right?

00:14:45 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:14:46 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, here's the thing too.

00:14:48 ◼   ► It's kinda hard to be worse than Uber.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Literally everything they do is horrible

00:14:53 ◼   ► with the exception that they are kind of everywhere now.

00:14:56 ◼   ► But the company is horrible.

00:14:58 ◼   ► The people at the top leading the company are horrible.

00:15:01 ◼   ► The app is horrible.

00:15:03 ◼   ► The app itself is its own incredible case study of horrendous, abusive, fraudulent app

00:15:10 ◼   ► design.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Like, it does so many creepy, immoral things that honestly should be or might even are

00:15:19 ◼   ► prohibited on iOS.

00:15:21 ◼   ► It's just a terrible app in front of a terrible service run by some really horrible people.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Again, like in most cases, most of the time if you're deciding between big, crappy companies

00:15:33 ◼   ► like airlines or retail stores, I think the differences are usually smaller between them,

00:15:38 ◼   ► but in this case, my god is Uber horrible.

00:15:41 ◼   ► It would be really impressive for any other company in this business to be as horrible

00:15:45 ◼   ► as they are.

00:15:46 ◼   ► Well, that's what the competition is for.

00:15:48 ◼   ► So here's one article from Dlofnik saying Uber is quietly terrible for women and black

00:15:53 ◼   ► people, study says.

00:15:54 ◼   ► So there's an article on that, so much for Uber being better for minorities or women.

00:16:00 ◼   ► And then another article saying, "New business model, same racist cab drivers."

00:16:05 ◼   ► That just talks about both Uber and Lyft making it harder for people with black-sounding names

00:16:09 ◼   ► to get rides.

00:16:10 ◼   ► So like, as with so many of these things, I was trying to emphasize, it's not a problem

00:16:15 ◼   ► with a particular company or particular domain.

00:16:16 ◼   ► It's a cultural societal problem, because all these companies are made up of people

00:16:22 ◼   ► who come from this culture and this society.

00:16:25 ◼   ► Granted, very often they are the worst people, but you know, like the CEO of Uber who was

00:16:29 ◼   ► called in video arguing with one of his drivers which just just boggles my mind that maybe

00:16:34 ◼   ► he was drunk you don't have the self awareness to understand that i don't even i don't even

00:16:40 ◼   ► know if you can't if you can't be if you are the ceo of a company and you can't manage

00:16:43 ◼   ► to be respectful and magnanimous for five minutes to one of your employees who's angry i i do

00:16:49 ◼   ► boggle my mind that you could be this bad at everything having to do with it anyway

00:16:54 ◼   ► yeah so if you you know if you want peace fight for justice as they say. if you want to solve the

00:17:03 ◼   ► problem you really have to solve it at the root. you're not going to solve it by scolding spoiled

00:17:09 ◼   ► tech CEOs but if you can at all if you could at all avoid giving money to what really seems to be

00:17:18 ◼   ► the worst of the very worst of a business that is already in a slightly precarious situation in

00:17:24 ◼   ► in terms of all the articles going around about the fact

00:17:27 ◼   ► that Uber is not profitable and is basically

00:17:29 ◼   ► being funded by venture capital to put tax companies out

00:17:32 ◼   ► of business.

00:17:32 ◼   ► And if they ever succeeded in that,

00:17:33 ◼   ► they would just raise their prices.

00:17:35 ◼   ► And by the way, they exploit their workers.

00:17:36 ◼   ► And that's half of what the argument with the CEO

00:17:39 ◼   ► was about, saying I used to get paid x amount,

00:17:41 ◼   ► and now I get paid so much less.

00:17:43 ◼   ► And the Uber CEO is saying, he's just

00:17:45 ◼   ► waiting to replace all these drivers with self-driving cars

00:17:47 ◼   ► anyway.

00:17:48 ◼   ► And they're self-driving cars running through red lights,

00:17:49 ◼   ► and then Uber lying about it.

00:17:51 ◼   ► Oh, it's a mess.

00:17:52 ◼   ► So bottom line is stay in your house and never go anywhere.

00:17:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:17:56 ◼   ► - Wow, that is definitely the John Siracusa answer

00:17:59 ◼   ► to this problem.

00:17:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, you wish that was the answer.

00:18:01 ◼   ► - Solves a lot of problems, doesn't it?

00:18:03 ◼   ► - It solves your problems.

00:18:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think I've ever actually taken an Uber

00:18:07 ◼   ► on my account.

00:18:08 ◼   ► My wife has an account that we used it

00:18:10 ◼   ► when I was in San Francisco,

00:18:11 ◼   ► and I gotta tell you, it was convenient.

00:18:13 ◼   ► - I mean, my experience, my personal experience with Uber

00:18:16 ◼   ► has really been very good, truth be told.

00:18:19 ◼   ► I've never had a bad experience,

00:18:21 ◼   ► and it's always gone pretty well for me.

00:18:23 ◼   ► But like I said earlier,

00:18:24 ◼   ► I'm not comfortable with the way the company as a whole,

00:18:30 ◼   ► and certainly the CEO, seems to do business.

00:18:32 ◼   ► And that doesn't mean that there's nothing

00:18:34 ◼   ► but mean, terrible people at Uber,

00:18:36 ◼   ► but certainly the people that are running the show

00:18:38 ◼   ► seem to be pretty consistently mean and terrible.

00:18:41 ◼   ► So because of that, I intend to, like I said,

00:18:43 ◼   ► try out Lyft next time I'm out there.

00:18:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's the weird,

00:18:46 ◼   ► like every time I've ever been in an Uber

00:18:50 ◼   ► or even a taxi for that matter.

00:18:52 ◼   ► The people who are actually driving,

00:18:53 ◼   ► like the leaf nodes of the org chart,

00:18:56 ◼   ► I've had good experiences.

00:18:57 ◼   ► Now obviously that's not universal,

00:18:58 ◼   ► and again, all the articles we just listed

00:19:00 ◼   ► about them refusing to pick up people with black-sounding names

00:19:02 ◼   ► and picking up women and driving them around longer

00:19:04 ◼   ► than they should be driving them and hitting on them

00:19:06 ◼   ► and doing all sorts of terrible things,

00:19:07 ◼   ► like obviously that happens.

00:19:08 ◼   ► But it's kind of like when you get met at Delta

00:19:12 ◼   ► and vow that you'll never fly with them again.

00:19:13 ◼   ► Does that mean every employee of Delta is an evil person?

00:19:15 ◼   ► Certainly not.

00:19:16 ◼   ► And so it's a complicated thing where you're like,

00:19:19 ◼   ► You're trying to punish the company by withholding your business, but what about the people who

00:19:26 ◼   ► work for the company?

00:19:27 ◼   ► Oh, they can just quit and work for a better airline.

00:19:28 ◼   ► Can they?

00:19:29 ◼   ► What if they work in Atlanta and it's Delta's hub?

00:19:31 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:19:33 ◼   ► The whole effectiveness and the sort of ethics of boycotts have always been complicated when

00:19:44 ◼   ► it's not like a black and white kind of pervasive issue like segregation or the bus boycott

00:19:54 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:19:55 ◼   ► This is slightly more nuanced, but I think if there's something you can do that's straightforward,

00:20:02 ◼   ► like Mark would have said, just call a cab, use a different company, it's so easy to

00:20:05 ◼   ► do, you should just do it.

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00:21:40 ◼   ► And if the site's for you, you can move on

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00:22:14 ◼   ► - So Marco, you had a big day today.

00:22:19 ◼   ► As we record on Wednesday as per usual,

00:22:22 ◼   ► Overcast ads are available for purchase

00:22:24 ◼   ► from anyone that has an Overcast account,

00:22:27 ◼   ► and that's exciting.

00:22:28 ◼   ► And what surprised me, but really shouldn't have surprised me, you have a really neat

00:22:34 ◼   ► little table here that's presumably all integrated with your ad backend that shows availability

00:22:39 ◼   ► and prices and some analytics, sort of, kind of, some estimated analytics.

00:22:44 ◼   ► And it's all much more mature than I would have expected.

00:22:47 ◼   ► The way you painted it when we've talked, both on the show and privately, I don't know,

00:22:52 ◼   ► I just got this impression that this was a little bit, I don't know, grab ass.

00:22:55 ◼   ► But as it turns out, this is legit.

00:22:58 ◼   ► This is the real deal.

00:22:59 ◼   ► And you've clearly put a whole lot of work in it.

00:23:01 ◼   ► - This is grab ass plus CSS.

00:23:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:23:05 ◼   ► - Touche, sir.

00:23:06 ◼   ► But anyway, this is super exciting.

00:23:08 ◼   ► And you've already had a few categories sell out.

00:23:10 ◼   ► So how's things going?

00:23:12 ◼   ► I mean, it certainly looks from the outside

00:23:13 ◼   ► like it's going really well.

00:23:15 ◼   ► - I mean, so far it's going great.

00:23:17 ◼   ► And you know, this is not an indication

00:23:19 ◼   ► of how it's going to be going long term.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Because no one, including me,

00:23:24 ◼   ► and the people buying the ads,

00:23:26 ◼   ► has any idea what is a podcast ad worth?

00:23:29 ◼   ► 'Cause some of these ads are for websites or apps,

00:23:33 ◼   ► but most of them, by far, most of them are for podcasts.

00:23:37 ◼   ► By the way, I love that ratio.

00:23:42 ◼   ► I do want the ability to advertise for both types of things,

00:23:46 ◼   ► but I also would prefer if most of the ads

00:23:48 ◼   ► were podcast ads.

00:23:49 ◼   ► And I actually considered having it actually be

00:23:52 ◼   ► to separate inventory types.

00:23:55 ◼   ► So it would actually sell separate slots,

00:23:57 ◼   ► possibly at different prices.

00:23:58 ◼   ► Like maybe podcast ads would be cheaper than website ads.

00:24:01 ◼   ► And that was too much complexity,

00:24:03 ◼   ► so I just didn't build that out.

00:24:04 ◼   ► And I might do it later, but probably not.

00:24:07 ◼   ► Basically, it's kinda cool that in a podcast app,

00:24:11 ◼   ► I can now have ads for other podcasts,

00:24:14 ◼   ► because it makes it kinda not feel like an ad anymore.

00:24:17 ◼   ► And this is one of the reasons why I added the option

00:24:21 ◼   ► for paying subscribers who normally just automatically

00:24:24 ◼   ► wouldn't see any ads, I added a setting in settings

00:24:28 ◼   ► for them, a checkbox, for them to turn the ads on.

00:24:31 ◼   ► You know, for everyone else it just is on

00:24:33 ◼   ► and they can't turn it off, but for paying people,

00:24:35 ◼   ► one of the benefits normally that you're paying for

00:24:37 ◼   ► is not to see ads, but these ads are kinda nice.

00:24:40 ◼   ► Like it turned out really well and so far

00:24:43 ◼   ► there are like podcasts and a good number of them

00:24:46 ◼   ► and good quality ones buying the ads.

00:24:49 ◼   ► I mean, I'm literally only about four hours or so

00:24:53 ◼   ► into the ad sales, so it's very hard for me

00:24:57 ◼   ► to really know what this is gonna be like long term,

00:24:59 ◼   ► but in the short term, it's really easy.

00:25:02 ◼   ► It's really nice, it's really nice.

00:25:05 ◼   ► So I built the system, it's a pretty straightforward

00:25:08 ◼   ► like basic database thing with basic tracking in the app

00:25:13 ◼   ► of views, taps, and subscriptions.

00:25:15 ◼   ► The payment is all through Stripe,

00:25:17 ◼   ► 'cause Stripe is amazing.

00:25:19 ◼   ► I love Stripe so much.

00:25:21 ◼   ► What did we do before Stripe?

00:25:23 ◼   ► Actually, I'll tell you what we did before Stripe.

00:25:25 ◼   ► PayPal, and it was a dark time.

00:25:27 ◼   ► Oh my, was it a dark time.

00:25:29 ◼   ► - I'm gonna tell you about dark times.

00:25:31 ◼   ► Before PayPal, we had banks of modems

00:25:33 ◼   ► that would dial the credit card companies

00:25:36 ◼   ► and transfer information using archaic protocols

00:25:38 ◼   ► from our Linux servers.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Phone lines, actual phone lines.

00:25:41 ◼   ► That's how we did credit card processing.

00:25:43 ◼   ► - Was that actually worse than PayPal?

00:25:45 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:25:46 ◼   ► - Yes, it was worse.

00:25:47 ◼   ► Have you ever tried to do subscriptions in PayPal?

00:25:49 ◼   ► - Phone lines and modems are among the least friendly things

00:25:53 ◼   ► you ever want to be wrangling at a data center

00:25:54 ◼   ► that is not in the same building as you.

00:25:56 ◼   ► - Have you ever used PayPal?

00:25:58 ◼   ► - I have.

00:25:59 ◼   ► I mean, PayPal will eventually freeze your account

00:26:01 ◼   ► and take all your money,

00:26:02 ◼   ► but the phone line situation made it so hard

00:26:04 ◼   ► to even get money in the first place.

00:26:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, well anyway, so this is all built using some,

00:26:09 ◼   ► you know, nice easy stuff with Stripe as the payment gateway.

00:26:12 ◼   ► I even accept Apple Pay, which is kind of cool

00:26:15 ◼   ► 'cause they make it really easy.

00:26:17 ◼   ► So I literally, you put in a few HTML divs

00:26:19 ◼   ► and you enable this thing on your site

00:26:21 ◼   ► and then you have Apple Pay.

00:26:22 ◼   ► So you can go to my site and buy an ad

00:26:24 ◼   ► with your fingerprint in like three seconds.

00:26:27 ◼   ► It's kind of awesome.

00:26:28 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:26:29 ◼   ► It's incredibly satisfying.

00:26:31 ◼   ► And so yeah, that's what I've been working on

00:26:33 ◼   ► the last week or so is just building this system out.

00:26:37 ◼   ► And there's still a lot I have to do.

00:26:39 ◼   ► Like basically tomorrow I have to build a system

00:26:41 ◼   ► to notify people when categories become available

00:26:44 ◼   ► that are sold out.

00:26:45 ◼   ► That's something I kind of added last minute tonight

00:26:46 ◼   ► because a bunch of things sold out

00:26:48 ◼   ► and I immediately got a bunch of emails from people saying,

00:26:49 ◼   ► hey, I got here too late, my category sold out,

00:26:53 ◼   ► can you put me up for the next one?

00:26:55 ◼   ► And I don't really wanna get in the business

00:26:56 ◼   ► of having to maintain a thousand different relationships

00:26:59 ◼   ► with people and emailing them

00:27:00 ◼   ► and then what if it sells beforehand,

00:27:01 ◼   ► then they're out of luck and I email them.

00:27:03 ◼   ► So I'm just gonna be able to very simple notify me thing.

00:27:06 ◼   ► I already built the system to record your intention

00:27:09 ◼   ► to be notified, I just haven't actually

00:27:10 ◼   ► made the notifications yet

00:27:12 ◼   ► because now I have 30 days to do that

00:27:14 ◼   ► because all these ads have 30 day emails.

00:27:16 ◼   ► - That is the most Marco thing.

00:27:18 ◼   ► The most Marco comment I've ever heard.

00:27:20 ◼   ► Oh, I don't have to worry about that for a month.

00:27:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, and similarly, like, I want the ad to email

00:27:26 ◼   ► the person who bought it when it expires to tell them,

00:27:29 ◼   ► "Your ad has expired, click here if you want

00:27:31 ◼   ► "to buy another one."

00:27:32 ◼   ► And I haven't built that yet either,

00:27:34 ◼   ► because I have 30 days to build that too.

00:27:35 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:27:37 ◼   ► But yeah, so for the most part though,

00:27:38 ◼   ► the system is pretty much, like, it's, you know,

00:27:41 ◼   ► three quarters of the way done.

00:27:42 ◼   ► Like, all the core stuff is there,

00:27:43 ◼   ► accepting the payments, my admin interface to approve

00:27:48 ◼   ► or reject and refund them, all sorts of payment handling

00:27:53 ◼   ► things that were actually surprisingly easy

00:27:55 ◼   ► 'cause Stripe is so good.

00:27:56 ◼   ► I mean, geez, Stripe kind of embarrasses

00:28:01 ◼   ► everything else I do.

00:28:03 ◼   ► Like, in like, every other part of this

00:28:06 ◼   ► was more complicated and took more work and more fiddling

00:28:09 ◼   ► than the entire payment processing.

00:28:11 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:28:12 ◼   ► which is kind of amazing.

00:28:13 ◼   ► - You would think that would have been the worst

00:28:15 ◼   ► because that's arguably the most important

00:28:17 ◼   ► since it involves money, but no, apparently not.

00:28:20 ◼   ► So I have some questions.

00:28:21 ◼   ► So you had made mention that you had,

00:28:23 ◼   ► this took you like a week?

00:28:24 ◼   ► So last I had heard, you had demo ads in the app.

00:28:28 ◼   ► You know, obviously I'm on the beta,

00:28:31 ◼   ► so I'm seeing these canned ads that,

00:28:33 ◼   ► well I guess they weren't entirely demoed.

00:28:34 ◼   ► They were kind of like first run ads.

00:28:36 ◼   ► - They were real ads.

00:28:37 ◼   ► I had just inputted them manually into the database.

00:28:40 ◼   ► - Right.

00:28:40 ◼   ► for people to buy them.

00:28:43 ◼   ► - And so that was running for a little bit,

00:28:44 ◼   ► and then how long did it take you to do this whole back end?

00:28:47 ◼   ► You said about a week?

00:28:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, about a week.

00:28:49 ◼   ► Well, 'cause I already had the system

00:28:51 ◼   ► between the app and the sync service,

00:28:54 ◼   ► I already had the system to serve the ads to the app,

00:28:57 ◼   ► have the app show them, record their stats,

00:29:00 ◼   ► and then transmit the stats back on the next sync.

00:29:04 ◼   ► And so I had basically the whole back end

00:29:07 ◼   ► like serving and tracking the ads.

00:29:10 ◼   ► So all I had to do was the creation, editing,

00:29:14 ◼   ► and buying of the ads.

00:29:16 ◼   ► And that's not a small amount of work,

00:29:18 ◼   ► but in the grand scheme of things,

00:29:19 ◼   ► it's only about half of it.

00:29:21 ◼   ► - So when one goes to buy an ad,

00:29:23 ◼   ► you select a price, and the first thing you're presented

00:29:27 ◼   ► with is choose an ad type, and you can either search

00:29:28 ◼   ► for a podcast or you can provide a URL.

00:29:31 ◼   ► What happens after that?

00:29:33 ◼   ► Would I be providing art or Blurb?

00:29:36 ◼   ► what is customizable here?

00:29:38 ◼   ► - Try it.

00:29:40 ◼   ► You don't have to pay until the very end.

00:29:41 ◼   ► - So I'm not gonna--

00:29:42 ◼   ► - I'm not gonna like send you an invoice.

00:29:43 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:29:45 ◼   ► - You will know when you're paying.

00:29:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:29:48 ◼   ► - Works for me, I got a little scared,

00:29:50 ◼   ► I don't wanna mess with it.

00:29:51 ◼   ► All right, so I have a title, description--

00:29:52 ◼   ► - You gotta support arrow keys in returning

00:29:54 ◼   ► your auto completes, come on.

00:29:56 ◼   ► - Oh, my big search, the podcast search box?

00:29:58 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a big custom thing.

00:29:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, if I hit down arrow to select and hit return,

00:30:02 ◼   ► it's like nope.

00:30:04 ◼   ► - Oh, I haven't looked at that code since 2014.

00:30:05 ◼   ► It might support it easily, I'm not sure.

00:30:07 ◼   ► I'm using this pure framework,

00:30:09 ◼   ► which probably doesn't even exist anymore, I don't know.

00:30:12 ◼   ► It was the smallest CSS type framework I could find in 2014,

00:30:17 ◼   ► so I put it in, but anyway, it doesn't really matter.

00:30:20 ◼   ► - It does not.

00:30:21 ◼   ► - Oh, this is very slick.

00:30:22 ◼   ► Okay, so I've put in,

00:30:24 ◼   ► this is the difference between Jon and I.

00:30:25 ◼   ► Jon is advertising for a podcast,

00:30:27 ◼   ► presumably one that has other people on it.

00:30:29 ◼   ► Me, I put in my own URL.

00:30:31 ◼   ► But anyway. - Oh yeah.

00:30:32 ◼   ► Marmot.org was this frequent test URL, don't worry.

00:30:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:30:36 ◼   ► So I have a title, description, a URL, an optional image,

00:30:40 ◼   ► and then what I really like is you have a little preview

00:30:43 ◼   ► right then and there that shows you approximately

00:30:45 ◼   ► what it'll look like, and then like you said,

00:30:47 ◼   ► when you're ready, either Apple Pay or Pay with Card.

00:30:49 ◼   ► Super cool, I really like this.

00:30:50 ◼   ► And so basically the idea is you are either advertising

00:30:55 ◼   ► for a podcast or anything that can relate to the web,

00:30:59 ◼   ► anything that has a URL.

00:31:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, so you know, apps, websites,

00:31:03 ◼   ► You know, any website.

00:31:06 ◼   ► - That's pretty cool.

00:31:07 ◼   ► And so the initial take rate seems pretty good

00:31:11 ◼   ► from what I can tell.

00:31:12 ◼   ► I mean, you're sold out in a few different things.

00:31:14 ◼   ► There's nothing that has no purchases.

00:31:19 ◼   ► - Nope, that slot's available.

00:31:21 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm sorry, I misread.

00:31:22 ◼   ► - So health has no purchases.

00:31:24 ◼   ► But there are other categories that have,

00:31:26 ◼   ► all the other categories have at least one.

00:31:28 ◼   ► - Ah, fair enough.

00:31:29 ◼   ► - Well, so you obviously massively underpriced this stuff.

00:31:31 ◼   ► I actually raised the prices about an hour ago

00:31:34 ◼   ► because they sold too fast.

00:31:36 ◼   ► - I noticed that.

00:31:37 ◼   ► - I know, but it's too late.

00:31:39 ◼   ► But anyway, live and learn.

00:31:40 ◼   ► There'll be another 30 days.

00:31:42 ◼   ► - I did kind of want this to be a quick sale

00:31:45 ◼   ► because one of the big challenges that I went into this with

00:31:48 ◼   ► is all those categories that say not enough data yet

00:31:52 ◼   ► because I just haven't had test ads in those categories.

00:31:56 ◼   ► And so I really need to know

00:31:59 ◼   ► what categories even get good traffic?

00:32:02 ◼   ► And then the pricing is kind of a guess.

00:32:04 ◼   ► Like, you know, business sold out really quickly,

00:32:07 ◼   ► and I had it in the low price category

00:32:09 ◼   ► 'cause I didn't think it was as high traffic

00:32:11 ◼   ► as the other ones in Overcast.

00:32:13 ◼   ► But now I'll find out if that's true or not.

00:32:16 ◼   ► And if it is true, I'm gonna move it up

00:32:17 ◼   ► to the dark gray section between all and the others.

00:32:20 ◼   ► That's like the mid-price tier.

00:32:22 ◼   ► - That's why you should have done an auction system

00:32:24 ◼   ► because the market will decide what's valuable

00:32:26 ◼   ► 'cause it's not just the traffic,

00:32:27 ◼   ► it's like how valuable are the people

00:32:28 ◼   ► who listen to business podcasts.

00:32:29 ◼   ► and maybe they all have lots of money

00:32:30 ◼   ► and buy expensive stuff all the time

00:32:31 ◼   ► so they're more valuable to advertise to.

00:32:33 ◼   ► - Maybe, I mean, you know, I can adjust the prices

00:32:35 ◼   ► obviously individually if I need to,

00:32:37 ◼   ► but ultimately I would rather have the inventory

00:32:41 ◼   ► sell out more often than to extract

00:32:44 ◼   ► every possible last dollar out of the highest bidder

00:32:47 ◼   ► because I want there to be a lot of ads in the system

00:32:49 ◼   ► because that way people see a nice variety in their apps

00:32:51 ◼   ► and it kinda gives more people a chance

00:32:54 ◼   ► to advertise in the app.

00:32:56 ◼   ► So that, I would prefer sold out inventory

00:32:59 ◼   ► to necessarily the absolute highest price.

00:33:02 ◼   ► Again, I have no idea how hard it's going to be

00:33:05 ◼   ► to sell these ads in six months, a year.

00:33:09 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:33:10 ◼   ► It could be really easy.

00:33:11 ◼   ► This could require very little effort on my part,

00:33:13 ◼   ► or I might have to actually start keeping this email list

00:33:16 ◼   ► and quote, "Reaching out to people,"

00:33:19 ◼   ► and reaching all over them to get them to buy an ad.

00:33:21 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:33:22 ◼   ► - If I then you'll be onto the next business model anyway,

00:33:24 ◼   ► so it'll be fine.

00:33:26 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:33:27 ◼   ► - It's gonna be hard to beat this.

00:33:28 ◼   ► If this keeps going, anywhere near what it is now,

00:33:32 ◼   ► first of all, I've made today enough for something

00:33:37 ◼   ► like eight months of the Google Ads.

00:33:39 ◼   ► - Wow, that's awesome.

00:33:40 ◼   ► - And I don't know if I'm gonna make this every month,

00:33:42 ◼   ► but it certainly shows this was probably the right move.

00:33:47 ◼   ► And if I even get a quarter of this, I'm happy with that.

00:33:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I feel like it's gonna go up.

00:33:54 ◼   ► I feel like next month it's gonna be higher,

00:33:56 ◼   ► because you have to raise the prices.

00:33:58 ◼   ► you just have to. And then even if it slowly tapers off over the course of a few years,

00:34:01 ◼   ► the only thing that will make you stop it, which is a thing that may happen, but the

00:34:05 ◼   ► only thing that will make you stop it is if you find it too annoying. That is the thing

00:34:09 ◼   ► that's going to gate this, I feel like.

00:34:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean that's certainly the main limiting factor is how much of my time will

00:34:15 ◼   ► it take. But the good thing is, this is a really easy thing to have someone else help

00:34:19 ◼   ► with.

00:34:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's very true.

00:34:21 ◼   ► - But right now, I'm doing it myself right now because I don't want to immediately

00:34:25 ◼   ► outsource something like this because I wanna know,

00:34:26 ◼   ► first of all, how it's doing.

00:34:28 ◼   ► And the only way to do that is to really

00:34:29 ◼   ► kind of run it myself.

00:34:30 ◼   ► So I wanna know how it works for everybody

00:34:32 ◼   ► all right up front.

00:34:33 ◼   ► I wanna know what all the needs are,

00:34:35 ◼   ► what the pain points are so I can fix them.

00:34:38 ◼   ► And then I need to know, is this even the kind of thing

00:34:41 ◼   ► I need to outsource to someone else?

00:34:43 ◼   ► Or is it so little work that I can just do it myself?

00:34:46 ◼   ► If it's sending 50 emails on one day a month,

00:34:50 ◼   ► that's a decent amount of work,

00:34:51 ◼   ► but I could probably just do that myself.

00:34:53 ◼   ► So, you know, we'll see what it actually ends up being.

00:34:57 ◼   ► Again, it's way too early to tell,

00:34:59 ◼   ► but the very early indication suggests

00:35:02 ◼   ► that it's pretty good.

00:35:04 ◼   ► - This is super awesome.

00:35:04 ◼   ► Now, so you're doing all the approving by hand

00:35:08 ◼   ► using your little admin interface?

00:35:09 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:35:10 ◼   ► - Have you had to deny anyone as yet

00:35:13 ◼   ► that wasn't clearly just spamming you

00:35:15 ◼   ► for the sake of being a jerk?

00:35:16 ◼   ► - No, I mean, one of the things is

00:35:18 ◼   ► you have to pay to even submit it.

00:35:19 ◼   ► Like-- - Oh, right, yeah, sure.

00:35:21 ◼   ► - In like the CRUD web app terms,

00:35:23 ◼   ► it literally doesn't even save the database record

00:35:26 ◼   ► until it has a payment.

00:35:27 ◼   ► The payment's all in the temporary session post variables

00:35:32 ◼   ► until it's paid.

00:35:34 ◼   ► So that basically makes it un-spamable

00:35:36 ◼   ► from a pure spam perspective.

00:35:38 ◼   ► It puts up a pretty big barrier.

00:35:41 ◼   ► And I am human reviewing them all

00:35:44 ◼   ► to just make sure they're not obscene

00:35:46 ◼   ► or hate content or anything else.

00:35:48 ◼   ► And there was one, one person submitted one

00:35:51 ◼   ► that had a word that some people might consider a bad word.

00:35:55 ◼   ► It's not like one of the big ones,

00:35:56 ◼   ► but it's like a kind of ancillary one.

00:35:58 ◼   ► So I went back to that person.

00:36:00 ◼   ► I'm like, hey, do you mind if I edit this?

00:36:02 ◼   ► And we worked out a different copy,

00:36:03 ◼   ► and then that was it, and I approved it.

00:36:04 ◼   ► So that was the only one that even

00:36:06 ◼   ► required any review at all.

00:36:08 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:36:09 ◼   ► - And you know what's amazing about this?

00:36:11 ◼   ► When Google sells ads on my behalf,

00:36:14 ◼   ► I get something like, I think, 60% of it.

00:36:18 ◼   ► When Apple sells anything on my behalf,

00:36:22 ◼   ► I get 70% of it, or maybe a year later for subscriptions,

00:36:27 ◼   ► if I'm lucky, 85% of it.

00:36:29 ◼   ► When Google pays me money, it's money that I earned

00:36:33 ◼   ► like six weeks ago that I finally get paid for.

00:36:35 ◼   ► When Apple pays me my money, it's, again, similarly,

00:36:38 ◼   ► about money I earned about six weeks ago.

00:36:40 ◼   ► With these Stripe ads, I'm earning, I think,

00:36:43 ◼   ► about 97% of what they sell for,

00:36:46 ◼   ► and it gets deposited in my bank account in two days.

00:36:49 ◼   ► - That's amazing.

00:36:50 ◼   ► - It's really kind of amazing to be out of the

00:36:53 ◼   ► walled garden ecosystem for once.

00:36:56 ◼   ► - That's super cool.

00:36:57 ◼   ► So, initial reaction, things are going great.

00:37:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:02 ◼   ► - How do you think you're going to play

00:37:03 ◼   ► with the pricing for now?

00:37:05 ◼   ► Like, are you going to, I guess,

00:37:08 ◼   ► suppose you sell out in the next 48 hours.

00:37:10 ◼   ► There's really no impetus to mess with pricing

00:37:12 ◼   ► until the end of the month, unless you wanna cut down

00:37:15 ◼   ► of the people that ask to be notified, right?

00:37:18 ◼   ► - Well, I guess, I mean,

00:37:21 ◼   ► that's probably not a good business plan

00:37:22 ◼   ► to cut down on the number of interested parties.

00:37:24 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:37:25 ◼   ► But--

00:37:26 ◼   ► - I guess what I'm saying is there's no reason

00:37:28 ◼   ► for you to raise your prices now once you sell out

00:37:31 ◼   ► unless you wanna prevent people from saying notify me.

00:37:34 ◼   ► Let's say the all goes from, as we record,

00:37:37 ◼   ► it's less than $1,000 and let's say

00:37:39 ◼   ► it becomes 3,000 tomorrow.

00:37:41 ◼   ► All you're really accomplishing since it's sold out

00:37:43 ◼   ► is you're preventing me from being interested

00:37:46 ◼   ► because maybe I would have spent less than 1,000

00:37:48 ◼   ► but I'm not gonna spend 3,000, you know what I mean?

00:37:50 ◼   ► So you don't really need to mess around with pricing

00:37:53 ◼   ► for like 30 days, right?

00:37:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean for the most part,

00:37:57 ◼   ► unless things are not selling,

00:37:58 ◼   ► and then I might lower the price

00:37:59 ◼   ► on things that are not selling, like that health category.

00:38:02 ◼   ► But for the most part, I think I'm gonna treat this

00:38:05 ◼   ► the same way I've treated any other kind of thing

00:38:07 ◼   ► where I set the price for an ad.

00:38:09 ◼   ► So our podcast ads, my website ads,

00:38:13 ◼   ► when I sold RSS sponsorships, things like that.

00:38:16 ◼   ► And the way I've done this basically is

00:38:18 ◼   ► if they sell out way too fast when I go to sell them,

00:38:21 ◼   ► I raise the price a little bit.

00:38:22 ◼   ► Until things start selling still at a reasonable pace,

00:38:25 ◼   ► like I don't want it to be like pulling teeth

00:38:26 ◼   ► to get things sold, but slowly enough

00:38:29 ◼   ► that it's not like a stampede

00:38:31 ◼   ► and then I get 50 angry emails from people saying,

00:38:33 ◼   ► oh I missed my chance to buy.

00:38:35 ◼   ► Like you know, that's no good either.

00:38:36 ◼   ► That also is not great for business necessarily.

00:38:39 ◼   ► So I think I'm just gonna control the prices slowly

00:38:44 ◼   ► and maybe when next month rolls around,

00:38:46 ◼   ► I will see how it sells at the new higher price

00:38:50 ◼   ► from an hour ago instead of the initial prices,

00:38:52 ◼   ► which are about, I think about 30% lower.

00:38:54 ◼   ► I'll see how it sells at these new kinda higher prices.

00:38:59 ◼   ► And if it sells out just as fast,

00:39:01 ◼   ► then maybe for the month after that,

00:39:03 ◼   ► then maybe I'll raise it a little bit more.

00:39:04 ◼   ► But if it's selling out at a reasonably healthy rate,

00:39:09 ◼   ► then I'll just leave it the way it is, really.

00:39:12 ◼   ► - You really nailed it, this looks great.

00:39:13 ◼   ► - Thanks.

00:39:14 ◼   ► - So let's assume this is super successful for a year,

00:39:18 ◼   ► just for the sake of discussion.

00:39:20 ◼   ► Are you at all interested in expanding,

00:39:22 ◼   ► I think we talked about this a little bit,

00:39:23 ◼   ► but are you at all interested in expanding

00:39:25 ◼   ► into being like iAd for other people, so to speak?

00:39:29 ◼   ► And either white labeling your ad platform

00:39:33 ◼   ► or just extending your ad platform to anyone else's apps?

00:39:38 ◼   ► - Probably not.

00:39:40 ◼   ► Because once you become an ad network for other people,

00:39:43 ◼   ► that's a very different business.

00:39:45 ◼   ► And it's a much higher needs business

00:39:47 ◼   ► for just dealing with people,

00:39:49 ◼   ► dealing with everyone else's money,

00:39:50 ◼   ► dealing with staffing, and dealing with people's issues.

00:39:53 ◼   ► And it's a much bigger business.

00:39:55 ◼   ► It's a much higher touch business.

00:39:57 ◼   ► And this system I built kind of in response

00:40:01 ◼   ► to other types of advertising I've done

00:40:04 ◼   ► where it's like blog ads and podcast ads

00:40:06 ◼   ► where a lot of times you have to reach out to sponsors,

00:40:10 ◼   ► you have to coordinate with them

00:40:12 ◼   ► via four or five different emails,

00:40:14 ◼   ► you eventually put the ad in your,

00:40:15 ◼   ► you book the ad in your system, you do the ad,

00:40:17 ◼   ► and then you have to invoice them.

00:40:19 ◼   ► And then they might take six months to pay the invoice.

00:40:21 ◼   ► Like we've seen the whole spectrum.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Some people pay the next day,

00:40:26 ◼   ► some people pay a year later or not at all.

00:40:28 ◼   ► And it's a very just intensive process.

00:40:32 ◼   ► And there are tools like FreshBooks that make it easier,

00:40:35 ◼   ► but it's still a lot of just human work

00:40:39 ◼   ► and just dealing with administration

00:40:41 ◼   ► to just do the basics of selling and getting paid.

00:40:44 ◼   ► And so with this, I really created this

00:40:46 ◼   ► to be as simple as possible.

00:40:48 ◼   ► And this is actually one of the things

00:40:49 ◼   ► that's gonna keep the prices kinda low

00:40:51 ◼   ► because most big companies who would sponsor things

00:40:55 ◼   ► like this, who would buy these ads,

00:40:56 ◼   ► if it's below a certain price,

00:40:58 ◼   ► oftentimes that's $1,000, it requires less of a process

00:41:02 ◼   ► for them to approve the payment.

00:41:04 ◼   ► So a lot of the big companies, if it's more than that,

00:41:06 ◼   ► you'll have to go through an official requisition process

00:41:10 ◼   ► or some other garbage full of paperwork and overhead.

00:41:13 ◼   ► But if it's lower, if it's a sub $1,000 price for something,

00:41:19 ◼   ► a lot of times you can just put that on a credit card

00:41:23 ◼   ► and be done with it and not have to worry too much about it.

00:41:26 ◼   ► So I wanna keep these prices in that range

00:41:29 ◼   ► so that way I can have the system I have now,

00:41:31 ◼   ► which is, look, if you want one of these,

00:41:33 ◼   ► It's self-serve.

00:41:34 ◼   ► You go to my site, you set it up, you pay right there.

00:41:39 ◼   ► I don't even see it until you pay,

00:41:41 ◼   ► because I don't wanna have to be chasing you down

00:41:43 ◼   ► in a year 'cause you didn't pay your invoice.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I hate that so much.

00:41:47 ◼   ► And so this system is very much keeping it

00:41:49 ◼   ► as simple as I possibly can keep it.

00:41:51 ◼   ► And part of that, it requires that the prices be kinda low.

00:41:54 ◼   ► That definitely requires that everything remains self-serve,

00:41:57 ◼   ► and it requires that not a lot that I'm doing

00:41:59 ◼   ► involves human interaction from me,

00:42:01 ◼   ► because if that's what it ends up needing to be,

00:42:04 ◼   ► I'll have to hire someone else to help me

00:42:05 ◼   ► 'cause I don't have the time to be dealing

00:42:07 ◼   ► with a lot of effort into the system.

00:42:10 ◼   ► But in order to keep it that size and that scale,

00:42:14 ◼   ► I basically have to keep it my app only.

00:42:16 ◼   ► I can't become an ad network for any other apps

00:42:19 ◼   ► because that will by nature make it a bigger,

00:42:23 ◼   ► more complicated thing, the prices would probably go up,

00:42:26 ◼   ► I'd have to start dealing with people's

00:42:27 ◼   ► stupid invoice systems, and I just don't wanna deal with that

00:42:30 ◼   ► It's not the business I want to be in.

00:42:32 ◼   ► - Oh, this makes a lot of sense.

00:42:33 ◼   ► The thing that impresses me about you is that,

00:42:37 ◼   ► maybe I'm just a big wimp,

00:42:39 ◼   ► but the audacity of doing something like this,

00:42:41 ◼   ► like, oh, screw it, I'll sell my own ads, why not?

00:42:44 ◼   ► There's no way in a million years,

00:42:46 ◼   ► maybe I would have had the thought if I were in your shoes,

00:42:49 ◼   ► but I'd look at this and be like,

00:42:50 ◼   ► yeah, I'm not gonna do that.

00:42:51 ◼   ► There's no way that'll work.

00:42:52 ◼   ► And good on you for not only having the,

00:42:57 ◼   ► I don't know, fortitude to do it,

00:42:59 ◼   ► but to make it happen so far seems successful.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Like Jon has said, I think the ticking time bomb

00:43:05 ◼   ► is about a year away until you do

00:43:07 ◼   ► another business model change,

00:43:08 ◼   ► so I'm expecting this will fail miserably.

00:43:09 ◼   ► - I mean, I was just mostly doing that as a joke,

00:43:12 ◼   ► 'cause like Marlowe said, if it continues like this

00:43:14 ◼   ► or better, there's no reason to do it.

00:43:16 ◼   ► - Totally. - Like I said,

00:43:17 ◼   ► unless somehow it becomes too much of a burden

00:43:19 ◼   ► for Marco to deal with it, I don't see how it would,

00:43:21 ◼   ► because everything he just outlined

00:43:22 ◼   ► about how he doesn't have to do anything

00:43:24 ◼   ► and doesn't have to chase people for money

00:43:26 ◼   ► and doesn't have to get money on behalf of other people,

00:43:28 ◼   ► Like, you know, again, maybe he's leaving money

00:43:31 ◼   ► on the table by saying, oh, I'm gonna try to keep it

00:43:33 ◼   ► in the petty cash range, but if that's enough money,

00:43:36 ◼   ► then it's fine and it should be sustainable.

00:43:39 ◼   ► Same, could've probably been set up at all the past plans,

00:43:41 ◼   ► so again, we have to wait to see how it's gonna be,

00:43:43 ◼   ► but if it actually continues like this sustainably,

00:43:46 ◼   ► I don't really see any reason for him to change models.

00:43:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean-- - I completely agree.

00:43:50 ◼   ► - And 'cause like, the sales would have to go down a lot

00:43:54 ◼   ► for it to make sense for me to look at another model again,

00:43:57 ◼   ► because right now I have pretty much everything I want.

00:44:00 ◼   ► I have a way to get sustainable income.

00:44:03 ◼   ► I have my paying subscriber still,

00:44:06 ◼   ► which is its own nice sustainable income

00:44:09 ◼   ► that can almost support the whole business by itself.

00:44:12 ◼   ► So this is kind of just bonus money

00:44:13 ◼   ► and this is monetizing all the free users finally

00:44:16 ◼   ► in a way that actually works

00:44:17 ◼   ► because the ads really didn't do that well enough,

00:44:19 ◼   ► the previous ads.

00:44:21 ◼   ► So this is kind of a great system.

00:44:23 ◼   ► As long as it continues to sell the inventory

00:44:26 ◼   ► at any reasonable rate.

00:44:28 ◼   ► And day one, again, it's impossible to say.

00:44:31 ◼   ► I mean, once you have the kind of audience that my app has,

00:44:36 ◼   ► I could sell out day one pretty easily.

00:44:40 ◼   ► But the question is, what happens on day 365

00:44:44 ◼   ► when people have had a year worth of buying these ads

00:44:47 ◼   ► to see what they're actually worth,

00:44:48 ◼   ► and what if they're worth a lot less

00:44:50 ◼   ► than what I'm charging?

00:44:51 ◼   ► Obviously I have to lower my prices,

00:44:52 ◼   ► but what are they worth?

00:44:53 ◼   ► We don't know.

00:44:55 ◼   ► I don't think there's ever been a system

00:44:57 ◼   ► where you could advertise for a podcast

00:44:59 ◼   ► in a podcast player.

00:45:01 ◼   ► So this is really a complete unknown

00:45:03 ◼   ► for both me and the advertisers.

00:45:06 ◼   ► We have no idea what a subscriber is worth,

00:45:09 ◼   ► or how much these subscribers stick around.

00:45:13 ◼   ► If you get a subscriber through an ad,

00:45:15 ◼   ► how many of them are still subscribed in a year?

00:45:16 ◼   ► We don't know.

00:45:18 ◼   ► And so it's the great unknown right now,

00:45:20 ◼   ► but day one suggests that there's basically

00:45:25 ◼   ► a very wide buffer here for things to need

00:45:31 ◼   ► to be scaled down if necessary,

00:45:32 ◼   ► if it ends up the economics don't work very well.

00:45:35 ◼   ► I can scale this way down and it's still worth doing.

00:45:38 ◼   ► So that to me shows that this is probably a good idea.

00:45:42 ◼   ► By the way, there's also other controls I have,

00:45:44 ◼   ► like I can increase the number of slots that sell.

00:45:48 ◼   ► You know, like in certain categories,

00:45:49 ◼   ► If they demand that the price be below a certain level

00:45:54 ◼   ► to sell them very often, I can just put more slots there.

00:45:57 ◼   ► This is a known thing to do.

00:46:00 ◼   ► People have been dealing with ad-based business

00:46:02 ◼   ► for quite a long time now.

00:46:03 ◼   ► We know how to do it.

00:46:04 ◼   ► And as long as the ads are valuable at all,

00:46:08 ◼   ► you can usually make it work.

00:46:10 ◼   ► And I think what we're seeing so far

00:46:12 ◼   ► is that I think these are valuable.

00:46:13 ◼   ► The only question is just how valuable.

00:46:15 ◼   ► But that's really just minor tweaks over time.

00:46:17 ◼   ► that's not like having to rethink the whole system.

00:46:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's super cool.

00:46:21 ◼   ► I'm really impressed, really proud of you.

00:46:23 ◼   ► That's good work.

00:46:23 ◼   ► - Thanks.

00:46:25 ◼   ► - Couple other very quick questions.

00:46:27 ◼   ► Would you consider open sourcing this ad backend

00:46:30 ◼   ► so that other people can copy all your hard work for free?

00:46:33 ◼   ► - Probably not, but it's not out of like a

00:46:36 ◼   ► guarding my hard work kind of attitude.

00:46:38 ◼   ► It's more just like a lot of it is pretty intertwined

00:46:41 ◼   ► with Overcast, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense

00:46:44 ◼   ► for this to be used for anybody else.

00:46:47 ◼   ► You know, like, this is really an ad network

00:46:49 ◼   ► for podcasts on Overcast that happens

00:46:51 ◼   ► to also work for websites.

00:46:53 ◼   ► So, like, you know, it's not,

00:46:54 ◼   ► it's pretty custom to Overcast.

00:46:58 ◼   ► And most of the hard stuff is payment processing,

00:47:02 ◼   ► which I don't even, you know,

00:47:04 ◼   ► anybody can integrate Stripe and do that.

00:47:06 ◼   ► So it's, yeah, there's not a lot of value to that.

00:47:09 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:47:10 ◼   ► And finally, where's my swipe to delete?

00:47:14 ◼   ► - I was doing this.

00:47:15 ◼   ► So I haven't done that yet.

00:47:16 ◼   ► I'm gonna tackle that probably next week.

00:47:18 ◼   ► - It's got 30 days to do swipe to delete,

00:47:20 ◼   ► is that how this works?

00:47:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:47:22 ◼   ► Well, I have 29 days to do it,

00:47:23 ◼   ► and then one day to make all these notifications.

00:47:25 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:47:26 ◼   ► I take back all the nice things you said,

00:47:28 ◼   ► unless you give me my swipe to delete.

00:47:31 ◼   ► - One star.

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00:49:10 ◼   ► [Music]

00:49:14 ◼   ► So today, I think it was today, there was a rumor that broke that came out of the Wall Street Journal,

00:49:21 ◼   ► which is usually pretty well sourced. In fact, usually well sourced enough that we all kind of

00:49:26 ◼   ► believe that Apple goes to the Wall Street Journal and says, "Hey, would you talk about this, please?"

00:49:30 ◼   ► And the Wall Street Journal has said that the iPhone 8, or whatever it may be called,

00:49:36 ◼   ► will have USB-C. And at first I thought, oh, this means that it'll have lightning on the

00:49:43 ◼   ► phone and USB-C on the other end of the cable instead of USB, what is it, B? A? I always

00:49:49 ◼   ► get it confused.

00:49:50 ◼   ► >> A.

00:49:51 ◼   ► >> Whatever the, A, thank you, whatever today is.

00:49:53 ◼   ► >> B is the Pentagon on printers.

00:49:54 ◼   ► >> Ah, right, okay. So anyway, so I assumed, oh, that just means that the cable will go

00:49:59 ◼   ► from lightning to USB-C, that makes sense, most, pretty much all the laptops are USB-C,

00:50:04 ◼   ► fine. But upon further inspection it sounds like no no no the phone itself

00:50:09 ◼   ► will actually be USB-C. And I have really conflicting opinions about this because

00:50:16 ◼   ► my gut reaction is no no I do not want this. I have a crud load of lightning

00:50:23 ◼   ► cables, lightning is really small, and I don't want to mess with that. What good

00:50:29 ◼   ► does this do me?" And I think that that's in large part because off the top of my head,

00:50:35 ◼   ► I don't think I own a single device that supports USB-C. So I guess you could make the argument

00:50:42 ◼   ► I'm living in the past, and if you make the argument I'm living in the past, then I guess

00:50:45 ◼   ► really this is the future? And maybe I should be using USB-C and I should embrace my future

00:50:52 ◼   ► USB-C overlords. So John, Marco and I were talking a lot earlier. What do you think about

00:50:58 ◼   ► all this. This is a weird rumor because like you said it is in the Wall Street Journal which is

00:51:06 ◼   ► usually like the end stage of life for rumors if they graduate all the way up to potential leak and

00:51:12 ◼   ► end up in the Wall Street Journal. But as so many people have pointed out it is so poorly written

00:51:18 ◼   ► that we can't even tell. It's like it was written by someone who doesn't understand any of the

00:51:22 ◼   ► things involved. They don't understand how phones work. They don't understand what these different

00:51:26 ◼   ► standards for connectors are. They don't understand what a port is because they wrote it in such a way

00:51:30 ◼   ► they were all reading it going, "What are you even trying to say?" Just like Casey said, "Are you just

00:51:35 ◼   ► saying that the other end of the connector will be C? Are you saying the phone will have a USB-C port?

00:51:41 ◼   ► Are you saying iPads will have USB-C ports in addition to the lightning bolt? What are you even

00:51:44 ◼   ► saying? This is the worst leak ever. You have to leak in a coherent way so we can at least understand

00:51:50 ◼   ► the thing that you're telling us is supposed to be coming. But so I've kind of discounted,

00:51:54 ◼   ► or not discounted, but I've set aside how this rumor is being communicated. I've chosen to believe

00:52:01 ◼   ► that what these things are trying to tell us is exactly what Casey said, and that if you pick up

00:52:06 ◼   ► an iPhone in the future and look at the bottom of it, instead of a lightning port, you'll see a USB-C

00:52:11 ◼   ► port like every other, you know, Android phone and all the other things that are out there, right?

00:52:15 ◼   ► That's what I'm choosing to think this is trying to tell me, and then I'm thinking about that.

00:52:19 ◼   ► If it's trying to tell me something different, like, "Oh, the other end of the lightning

00:52:23 ◼   ► cable is going to be USB-C," that is a super boring rumor, and I guess we could kind of

00:52:28 ◼   ► get upset about that because, as has been pointed out in many places before, that's

00:52:31 ◼   ► cool for Apple's ecosystem, and it kind of makes sense, and it kind of gets back to the

00:52:35 ◼   ► whole iPhone 7 thing where, like, "Oh, you buy an iPhone 7 and a new MacBook Pro, and

00:52:38 ◼   ► you can't even plug them in because there's no place to put the USB-A connector."

00:52:42 ◼   ► That's true and all, but USB-A is everywhere as a charging port.

00:52:45 ◼   ► It's on my luggage, for crying out loud.

00:52:49 ◼   ► It is everywhere.

00:52:51 ◼   ► So there's an argument to be had there that Apple doing that would be maybe an Apple-y

00:52:55 ◼   ► thing to do.

00:52:56 ◼   ► It would be like, "Oh, you should just, you know, you should be in an Apple ecosystem.

00:52:59 ◼   ► Our Power Brooks have USB-C connectors.

00:53:01 ◼   ► That's the future of LBLOB."

00:53:03 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm ignoring that and I'm just pretending they're telling me that there's going to be

00:53:06 ◼   ► USB-C port on iPhones.

00:53:09 ◼   ► And I'm of two minds on this.

00:53:13 ◼   ► Like I feel like there are strong arguments on both sides, both strong arguments for why

00:53:18 ◼   ► this would be good and bad and also surprisingly strong arguments for why Apple wouldn't wouldn't

00:53:24 ◼   ► do this. Like usually it's the opposite. It's like, okay, well there's arguments for and against not

00:53:29 ◼   ► a tech wise, but then when you bring Apple into the picture and you say, would Apple do this? Like

00:53:33 ◼   ► there's only one strong argument for like that tech stuff aside, we know Apple would definitely

00:53:39 ◼   ► do a thing like this or would never do a thing like this. And with Apple in the state it is,

00:53:44 ◼   ► I think you can look to Apple and say very strongly they both would do something like this

00:53:51 ◼   ► and wouldn't do something like this and for the tech you can say this is an awesome tech idea

00:53:54 ◼   ► and this is a bad tech idea. So on the tech side I would say why is this a bad idea?

00:53:59 ◼   ► Because lightning is smaller and you know that every connector every millimeter on a connector

00:54:06 ◼   ► is some number of months or years off its life as Apple makes things ever thinner and thinner

00:54:11 ◼   ► you're going to hit the limit of USB-C before you hit the limit of lightning. Not much before,

00:54:16 ◼   ► it's like probably like fractions of a millimeter or something, but a little bit before. Lightning

00:54:20 ◼   ► is smaller than USB-C, so there's that. On the other side of the tech thing, and this is a little

00:54:25 ◼   ► bit of an unknown here, lightning, we don't know how unreliable lightning is. Like we have anecdotal

00:54:31 ◼   ► evidence of weird connector scorching and stuff. Apple knows for sure what their warranty repair

00:54:36 ◼   ► thing is, you know, and also there's the Apple cables themselves, which really has nothing to do

00:54:40 ◼   ► to do with connector and everything to do with Apple's uncomfortable relationship with

00:54:44 ◼   ► strain relief on cables, where they apparently make things that don't hold up that well under

00:54:52 ◼   ► rough usage.

00:54:54 ◼   ► But there is a tech argument to be made for the fact that lightning is smaller, but also

00:55:01 ◼   ► the fact that USB-C, and someone will correct me if I'm wrong, inverts the relationship

00:55:07 ◼   ► of springy pieces of metal and stationary pieces of metal,

00:55:11 ◼   ► where the connector is stationary and solid

00:55:13 ◼   ► and has these contacts on it, which is great

00:55:14 ◼   ► and makes that connector sturdy.

00:55:16 ◼   ► But the inside of the device has the little

00:55:18 ◼   ► springy metal fingers that touch the contact points.

00:55:20 ◼   ► So if those little springy metal fingers

00:55:22 ◼   ► get fatigued or bent up or fail to make good contact,

00:55:27 ◼   ► that's inside your phone and you've got a problem.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Whereas a USB-C connector is,

00:55:32 ◼   ► I believe the springy bits are in the cable

00:55:35 ◼   ► and inside the connector is the stiff stationary thing.

00:55:37 ◼   ► I'm using the tactical terms for all this, I'm sure.

00:55:40 ◼   ► And so if the little springy bits that make contact with the stationary thing fatigue,

00:55:46 ◼   ► throw out the cable and get a new cable.

00:55:48 ◼   ► So that is a tech argument on the side of USB-C. And then again, I guess on the connectors

00:55:55 ◼   ► themselves you've got the business side of like, well, Apple gets money for Lightning

00:55:59 ◼   ► connectors, people can't make peripherals without it, and that's a good and a bad thing

00:56:01 ◼   ► because good Apple makes money and can control it.

00:56:03 ◼   ► bad that apple has to approve every peripheral. um yeah so that's like you can is there arguments

00:56:11 ◼   ► about side for the tech thing and then let's move over to apple is this a thing apple would do or

00:56:16 ◼   ► is this an apple thing apple wouldn't do and i think probably as soon as like a couple years

00:56:22 ◼   ► in the past we all would have said regardless of all that tech stuff we just talked about

00:56:27 ◼   ► apple will never do this because apple loves things super thin and apple love things proprietary

00:56:32 ◼   ► and Apple is not so much in love with conforming to industry standards just for the hell of it,

00:56:36 ◼   ► right? That would be the only side of this argument. You'd all be like, "Yep, totally,

00:56:40 ◼   ► like that's the Apple." But today's Apple? Today's Apple is doing things the old Apple

00:56:46 ◼   ► didn't do, both good and bad, and has sowed enough doubt in my mind that I'm now envisioning

00:56:52 ◼   ► these boardroom conversations where somebody high up says, "Tell me again what the advantages are

00:57:01 ◼   ► of the our proprietary lightning connector versus USB-C and maybe this comes up because of

00:57:06 ◼   ► large numbers of warranty repairs or you know who knows what the inciting incident is but someone

00:57:13 ◼   ► says remind me again why we've been doing this lightning thing for five years like what advantage

00:57:17 ◼   ► do we continue to have over USB-C especially now that we spread USB-C to all of our max and our

00:57:27 ◼   ► power brick connectors and you know all that stuff and presumably if they ever release new

00:57:33 ◼   ► max they will expand it to even more of them. why are we still using lightning n? i'm not saying

00:57:38 ◼   ► there's not a reason but just you know just go over it again for me like tell me again what the

00:57:42 ◼   ► advantages are for someone like here's our revenue from our made for iphone program and here's what

00:57:47 ◼   ► we've been able to do with the connector but changing the pins through software and we're

00:57:51 ◼   ► We're not beholden to the USB consortium and here this blah blah blah and

00:57:54 ◼   ► Maybe

00:57:57 ◼   ► There's an argument within the company. It says that's those are compelling arguments now

00:58:01 ◼   ► Here's what we would get with USB C everywhere would be the same one connector for power data

00:58:06 ◼   ► peripherals

00:58:08 ◼   ► video out

00:58:10 ◼   ► adapters for networking like across

00:58:13 ◼   ► Max and all IOS devices including the future much bigger iPads that we're surely making with multiple USB connectors on them

00:58:19 ◼   ► Right, right Apple? Making those? Anyway.

00:58:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm sure there's a reason to make that.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Once you standardize on just literally one omnidirectional connector that's really small

00:58:30 ◼   ► across all your products, that's an advantage. And you get to take advantage of the ecosystem

00:58:37 ◼   ► of existing USB-C peripherals, which presumably will only grow as other things adopted. So,

00:58:42 ◼   ► in Apple five years ago, I can't imagine this discussion even taking place in serious ways.

00:58:48 ◼   ► Apple today, I can imagine this discussion being had prompted by whatever, and I can imagine the

00:58:53 ◼   ► USB-C contingent inside Apple winning the argument and saying, "We're going to go with the industry

00:58:58 ◼   ► standard, even though it is worse in a few ways tech-wise, because it's also better in a few ways

00:59:03 ◼   ► tech-wise." And there's an ecosystem advantage, not just for Apple and non-Apple companies,

00:59:09 ◼   ► but for Apple's own products internally to standardize them. Because there's never been

00:59:13 ◼   ► been a chance to do that before. At no time in the past has there been any viable choice

00:59:18 ◼   ► for a standard connector for like iPods and all Macs, except for I guess when it was Firewire,

00:59:23 ◼   ► but that was hardly viable and Firewire was definitely not the standard across all Macs.

00:59:27 ◼   ► They had Macs that didn't even have it on it. So here we are and I find myself incredibly

00:59:34 ◼   ► believing a rumor that a future iPhone would have a USB-C connector on it because, you

00:59:38 ◼   ► know, it's not a slam dunk and I'm not even saying it's higher than 50/50, but I would

00:59:42 ◼   ► say it is 50/50 in my mind, that tech-wise, coin flip.

00:59:48 ◼   ► Would Apple do it?

00:59:49 ◼   ► Coin flip.

00:59:50 ◼   ► That's where I come down on this.

00:59:52 ◼   ► Do you want them to?

00:59:53 ◼   ► I kind of do, because if they're going to standardize on USB-C everywhere, I'm sold

01:00:01 ◼   ► on the uniformity win.

01:00:03 ◼   ► And I'm also kind of sort of sold on the durability win, with the little bendy finger thingies.

01:00:10 ◼   ► I have no data on the reliability thing.

01:00:12 ◼   ► And of course all my connectors still work, and I don't have these problems that people

01:00:16 ◼   ► had.

01:00:17 ◼   ► Of course they do.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Of course, you know.

01:00:19 ◼   ► Although my wife said she had one of hers that had the little scorch mark.

01:00:21 ◼   ► I looked at it, it wasn't like Markoz was.

01:00:23 ◼   ► But just mechanically speaking, I love the Lightning connector to the fact that it was

01:00:28 ◼   ► solid and didn't have any little fragile pins in it and everything, but the fact that

01:00:32 ◼   ► those little fragile fingers are inside the phones, I can see that being a problem.

01:00:36 ◼   ► But anyway, I don't have data on this.

01:00:39 ◼   ► But I'm willing to believe.

01:00:41 ◼   ► And so if they did it, I won't be angry.

01:00:43 ◼   ► I'll be kind of proud of them for being surprisingly pragmatic and courageous.

01:00:48 ◼   ► And for—yeah, kind of.

01:00:50 ◼   ► Kind of.

01:00:51 ◼   ► Not so much courageous in terms of like, we're willing to take the heat.

01:00:55 ◼   ► Because I think they wouldn't actually—that's the other aspect of this.

01:00:58 ◼   ► Some people are getting angry like, "You just changed the connector.

01:01:02 ◼   ► You're changing it again."

01:01:03 ◼   ► Well, first of all, "just" is a relative term.

01:01:05 ◼   ► The 30-pin connector was around for almost 10 years.

01:01:08 ◼   ► And so, you know, I think that's a good run.

01:01:12 ◼   ► This is slightly more than half of that.

01:01:14 ◼   ► If they ended up swapping this out and slowly transitioning, it would be like five, six

01:01:17 ◼   ► years by the time they were done transitioning everything, right?

01:01:20 ◼   ► All the products they sold.

01:01:22 ◼   ► That's a little bit, that's, you know, it's shorter than a 30 pin, but unlike the 30 pin

01:01:28 ◼   ► to Lightning, they wouldn't be changing one proprietary connector for another.

01:01:32 ◼   ► They would actually be moving to where everybody else already is.

01:01:35 ◼   ► So I think actually people wouldn't be all that mad about it.

01:01:38 ◼   ► you'll be mad, I'll have these lightning cables. What the hell do I do with them?"

01:01:41 ◼   ► There is a PR and real win there to say, "But we moved to the standard. We moved to the industry

01:01:48 ◼   ► standard." So now, if you're in a mixed household with Android and iOS devices, you don't have to

01:01:52 ◼   ► have two separate charging cables. And the thing that you use to charge your Mac can also charge

01:01:57 ◼   ► your phone. And there's a story to be had there to sell this so that it is less impact. So that it's

01:02:04 ◼   ► It's basically, even though it hasn't been around

01:02:06 ◼   ► for 10 years, we're not moving to another proprietary one.

01:02:09 ◼   ► We're not screwing you over, moving to the

01:02:11 ◼   ► industry standard, so people will be less angry

01:02:13 ◼   ► for a shorter period of time, I think.

01:02:15 ◼   ► - Marco?

01:02:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I pretty much agree with Jon.

01:02:18 ◼   ► If you would've asked me a year ago, I would've said,

01:02:21 ◼   ► "Oh, why would they kill Lightning?

01:02:23 ◼   ► "That's dumb, this might even come up a year ago."

01:02:25 ◼   ► I might've said exactly that, who knows?

01:02:26 ◼   ► But the way I feel about it now, now that I've had

01:02:30 ◼   ► my USB-C MacBook Pro for a few months,

01:02:33 ◼   ► and I have a few USB-C cables,

01:02:36 ◼   ► and now I have the stupid thing

01:02:37 ◼   ► where I have half of my cables are that kind

01:02:39 ◼   ► and half are another kind, and it's really annoying.

01:02:42 ◼   ► And on the phone, it's a little bit different

01:02:45 ◼   ► than a laptop 'cause it's the other end of the cable,

01:02:47 ◼   ► but it is kind of annoying when I'm packing for a trip

01:02:51 ◼   ► and I'm packing my charging cables

01:02:53 ◼   ► that most of what I use charges via Lightning,

01:02:57 ◼   ► but not all of what I use.

01:02:59 ◼   ► I still have to have some mini USB cables,

01:03:02 ◼   ► and now I have a USB-C cable for this new laptop

01:03:05 ◼   ► and probably anything I get in the future

01:03:07 ◼   ► will be USB-C cables.

01:03:08 ◼   ► There is a lot, you know, like the EU has mandated

01:03:11 ◼   ► certain charge cable standards for a while

01:03:13 ◼   ► and the reason why is because this actually generates

01:03:17 ◼   ► tons of waste, like all the different waste cables

01:03:20 ◼   ► that people have to buy separately

01:03:22 ◼   ► and then wear out separately, throw away separately

01:03:25 ◼   ► and have all these different connectors and everything.

01:03:28 ◼   ► It actually does hurt progress in a number of big ways

01:03:30 ◼   ► to have all these proprietary things.

01:03:33 ◼   ► I think all you have to do to decide

01:03:36 ◼   ► whether this is a good idea or not,

01:03:37 ◼   ► kind of in theory, is to think if they were designing

01:03:42 ◼   ► the iPhone 5, the first cable,

01:03:45 ◼   ► the first phone not to use the dock connector,

01:03:47 ◼   ► if they were designing that today,

01:03:49 ◼   ► would they still make lightning today

01:03:51 ◼   ► in a world where USB-C exists,

01:03:53 ◼   ► or would they just use USB-C?

01:03:55 ◼   ► And it's kind of, if you do the mental exercise,

01:03:57 ◼   ► what would be the right thing to do

01:04:00 ◼   ► if they had a clean start today,

01:04:02 ◼   ► if there was no legacy to worry about,

01:04:04 ◼   ► no established devices out there in the world,

01:04:07 ◼   ► what would be the right choice?

01:04:09 ◼   ► And I think it's very clear USB-C would be the right choice.

01:04:13 ◼   ► Assuming it is probably more resilient

01:04:15 ◼   ► because of having the pins on the cable instead of the plug,

01:04:18 ◼   ► things like that, but also just because it is clearly

01:04:22 ◼   ► a really good, very soon to be very widespread

01:04:26 ◼   ► industry standard, and there's a lot of benefits to that.

01:04:30 ◼   ► Like, Apple does love a good proprietary port

01:04:33 ◼   ► when they can make one.

01:04:34 ◼   ► They do love that.

01:04:35 ◼   ► They'll take advantage when they can.

01:04:37 ◼   ► But not always.

01:04:38 ◼   ► Sometimes they just use standard things,

01:04:40 ◼   ► like USB, like on the Macs.

01:04:42 ◼   ► For a long time, they used a standard headphone jack

01:04:46 ◼   ► because it wasn't worth making

01:04:48 ◼   ► their own custom headphone jack.

01:04:50 ◼   ► Like, the world had a standard for this thing

01:04:52 ◼   ► and they used it.

01:04:53 ◼   ► And most of the time, they do that.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Most of the time, that's the choice they make.

01:04:58 ◼   ► And right now I think it's very, very clear that,

01:05:01 ◼   ► you know, like when they made the dock connector,

01:05:02 ◼   ► that was a special purpose thing they made for iPods,

01:05:05 ◼   ► then they later adapted it.

01:05:06 ◼   ► When they made Lightning,

01:05:07 ◼   ► there was nothing better for them to move to.

01:05:09 ◼   ► Like the industry, you know, the USB consortium

01:05:12 ◼   ► and their people were designing God knows what

01:05:14 ◼   ► with all those crazy, like the USB 3B connector.

01:05:17 ◼   ► - Mini micro USB, the seven connectors they have

01:05:20 ◼   ► to my digital cameras in the house.

01:05:22 ◼   ► - Yeah. - They all look

01:05:23 ◼   ► almost the same.

01:05:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that like, pretty much everything

01:05:26 ◼   ► the USB people have ever designed from a cable perspective,

01:05:29 ◼   ► or from a connection perspective rather,

01:05:31 ◼   ► has been horrendous before USB-C.

01:05:32 ◼   ► It's no coincidence that Apple allegedly

01:05:35 ◼   ► had a very big role in USB-C,

01:05:36 ◼   ► possibly even designing the whole thing themselves

01:05:38 ◼   ► and just like handing it to the USB people and saying here.

01:05:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's another reason by the way

01:05:41 ◼   ► that this argument could be won inside Apple,

01:05:43 ◼   ► because whatever sort of not invented here,

01:05:46 ◼   ► Apple pride things may be preventing it,

01:05:48 ◼   ► like with Lightning we made,

01:05:49 ◼   ► they'd be like, we kinda made USB-C too,

01:05:51 ◼   ► so we're all good in the pride area.

01:05:54 ◼   ► Even if the world doesn't know it,

01:05:55 ◼   ► here at Apple know that we kind of made this too.

01:05:58 ◼   ► So that's why I can imagine this argument

01:06:01 ◼   ► being one inside Apple.

01:06:03 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:06:03 ◼   ► And so today, no question, the right move,

01:06:08 ◼   ► if you were starting fresh, would be USB-C.

01:06:11 ◼   ► And so the only question is, is it worth it for Apple

01:06:14 ◼   ► to endure the transition costs to get to that point?

01:06:19 ◼   ► And I think, you know, Apple, I made a joke about

01:06:23 ◼   ► courage earlier referring to their wonderful justification

01:06:26 ◼   ► for moving the headphone jack,

01:06:27 ◼   ► but I think ditching Lightning this year

01:06:30 ◼   ► and going to USB-C in this new fancy phone,

01:06:33 ◼   ► that would be real courage,

01:06:35 ◼   ► because they are gonna hear better from the users

01:06:37 ◼   ► if they do this.

01:06:38 ◼   ► They are definitely gonna hear from people.

01:06:40 ◼   ► I mean, people are still mad today about Lightning.

01:06:43 ◼   ► Like, they're still mad almost five years later

01:06:47 ◼   ► that they can't use their dock connector

01:06:49 ◼   ► that they bought 10 years ago to charge their iPhone.

01:06:51 ◼   ► I do hope though, like maybe Apple has numbers in this, because Android phones are so

01:06:55 ◼   ► perverse, I think I saw like what their market share is among smartphones, I think it's like

01:06:58 ◼   ► 80% or something, it's some really really high number. I'm hoping that every house that

01:07:03 ◼   ► has a, or some high percentage of the houses that have angry people who are angry about

01:07:07 ◼   ► like dropping lightning, there'll be USB-C charging cables hanging around within a couple

01:07:12 ◼   ► years to charge the Android phones in the house.

01:07:15 ◼   ► Exactly, and so if you think about like, what does an all USB-C world look like? Well, we're

01:07:20 ◼   ► already gonna be halfway there because all Android phones

01:07:23 ◼   ► are gonna have it, if they don't already,

01:07:25 ◼   ► they're gonna have it probably within the next year, right?

01:07:27 ◼   ► And so you're gonna start seeing now in places

01:07:31 ◼   ► like hotel nightstands and charging cables

01:07:36 ◼   ► in airports and terminals and stuff like that,

01:07:39 ◼   ► you're gonna start seeing, where you used to see

01:07:42 ◼   ► maybe you'd have a lightning port or a lightning cable

01:07:45 ◼   ► and maybe you'd have one of those dual lightning

01:07:46 ◼   ► and micro USB things, you're gonna start seeing

01:07:49 ◼   ► USB-C all over all those things now

01:07:50 ◼   ► for all the Android phones.

01:07:52 ◼   ► And wouldn't it be great if they could just do USB-C

01:07:56 ◼   ► and have that cover all phones?

01:07:58 ◼   ► That would just be the new standard

01:08:00 ◼   ► for charging your phone.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Like that would be amazing.

01:08:03 ◼   ► I think Apple had big plans for Lightning

01:08:06 ◼   ► for it being this like amazing universal port

01:08:09 ◼   ► that could do all these different data things

01:08:10 ◼   ► and everything and I think part of the justification

01:08:13 ◼   ► for removing the headphone jack last year was,

01:08:16 ◼   ► you know, it turns out we live in a wireless world.

01:08:18 ◼   ► like most of what we do is wireless.

01:08:20 ◼   ► Still, I'll go look at audio stuff,

01:08:23 ◼   ► like try to buy a decent microphone

01:08:25 ◼   ► or sound interface for iOS devices.

01:08:27 ◼   ► And a lot of them didn't even make the jump

01:08:30 ◼   ► from 30 pin to Lightning.

01:08:31 ◼   ► I think Lightning largely hasn't panned out

01:08:34 ◼   ► in being the universal accessory port Apple wanted it to be.

01:08:38 ◼   ► And for a number of reasons,

01:08:39 ◼   ► one is wireless things are so good.

01:08:42 ◼   ► Another is that Android is more of a presence

01:08:44 ◼   ► than I think Apple thought it would be

01:08:46 ◼   ► wanted it to be in that market.

01:08:49 ◼   ► It's similar to like, one of the reasons everyone said why they wouldn't maybe do this is well

01:08:54 ◼   ► they just had to make lightning headphones this past year.

01:08:57 ◼   ► Well no, lightning headphones have actually been around for a couple years but there's

01:09:01 ◼   ► been like three pairs of them.

01:09:03 ◼   ► Like there's been almost none and almost nobody uses them.

01:09:06 ◼   ► The only ones that have any reasonable use are the ones that Apple includes in the box

01:09:10 ◼   ► for free with the iPhone 7 but if they changed to USB-C they would probably just include

01:09:15 ◼   ► USB-C version, and just like it was basically no big deal

01:09:19 ◼   ► for all the people who got the ones in the box for free

01:09:21 ◼   ► with the iPhone 7, it would be similarly no big deal

01:09:24 ◼   ► for all the people who would get the new USB-C ones

01:09:26 ◼   ► in the box with the iPhone 8 or whatever it's called.

01:09:28 ◼   ► So like that, you can rule that argument right out,

01:09:30 ◼   ► that doesn't matter, that doesn't matter enough, right?

01:09:33 ◼   ► If you also look at the iPad in particular,

01:09:36 ◼   ► the iPad really needs help, you know,

01:09:39 ◼   ► it needs to become more of a work device

01:09:44 ◼   ► to boost its sales, 'cause it seems like they nailed

01:09:47 ◼   ► the passive consumption market pretty well.

01:09:49 ◼   ► If you want a--

01:09:51 ◼   ► - The passive consumption by rich people market.

01:09:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, the high end of the passive consumption market,

01:09:57 ◼   ► they have that covered now.

01:09:59 ◼   ► Where I think they need to make a lot more headway

01:10:02 ◼   ► is in the productivity market,

01:10:04 ◼   ► and they are starting to see things like the surface

01:10:08 ◼   ► hurting them, not in a massive way yet,

01:10:11 ◼   ► but in a way that they should really be noticing,

01:10:14 ◼   ► and that they probably are.

01:10:16 ◼   ► And for the iPad to grow, they are making it more PC-like.

01:10:20 ◼   ► They added the smart keyboards,

01:10:21 ◼   ► they added the smart connector, they added the pencil.

01:10:24 ◼   ► They're gonna hopefully keep pushing in this direction.

01:10:27 ◼   ► Who knows what the software has coming next month

01:10:29 ◼   ► or this month, whatever it is, we'll see, I guess.

01:10:31 ◼   ► But I think there is large potential

01:10:35 ◼   ► if you would put a USB-C port on an iPad.

01:10:38 ◼   ► Because right now, I mentioned earlier

01:10:41 ◼   ► about sound devices and things,

01:10:42 ◼   ► Very few of them are available for lightning.

01:10:44 ◼   ► Everything is available for computers.

01:10:47 ◼   ► Every kind of peripheral you can think of

01:10:50 ◼   ► is available with a USB interface on the end of it.

01:10:53 ◼   ► And maybe not a USB-C port necessarily,

01:10:55 ◼   ► but it could plug into a USB-C port

01:10:57 ◼   ► through a very easy, cheap cable,

01:10:59 ◼   ► or a very easy adapter that you probably

01:11:01 ◼   ► would already have three of in the bag.

01:11:03 ◼   ► If Apple wants the iPad to become

01:11:06 ◼   ► more of a computer replacement,

01:11:09 ◼   ► adding a USB-C port or two or three is not ridiculous.

01:11:13 ◼   ► You know, it's the kind of thing like--

01:11:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I remember when I suggested that.

01:11:16 ◼   ► Was that on this show?

01:11:17 ◼   ► I suggested maybe a couple years ago

01:11:19 ◼   ► adding a bunch of USB ports to the iPad,

01:11:21 ◼   ► and I'm pretty sure both of you laughed at me very heartily.

01:11:24 ◼   ► - Because every Apple commentator

01:11:26 ◼   ► would have laughed at the suggestion a year ago or more.

01:11:29 ◼   ► We all did.

01:11:30 ◼   ► Since the iPad won--

01:11:32 ◼   ► - Well, I didn't laugh at it.

01:11:33 ◼   ► Like I said, you have so much room on the side of the iPad,

01:11:35 ◼   ► and they want it to be more capable, it's the place to put.

01:11:38 ◼   ► I was thinking of USB-A ports. That's how long ago it was. Like I was envisioning USB-A

01:11:42 ◼   ► ports on the side of like the iPad One because there was actually room for them back then.

01:11:46 ◼   ► But you know, the Apple, I want more than one port on the 12-inch iPad Pro. I don't

01:11:52 ◼   ► want just one centered in the bottom replacing the Lightning port. You have the opportunity

01:11:57 ◼   ► to put more than one. There's plenty of room. And if you want it to be the Pro iPad, like

01:12:02 ◼   ► Surface hardware, it doesn't have just one port for power and all USB like the MacBook

01:12:07 ◼   ► one does, so you gotta compete.

01:12:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I think the iPad, there's lots of new uses

01:12:15 ◼   ► or uses that would be better if the iPad had USB-C ports,

01:12:19 ◼   ► at least one.

01:12:20 ◼   ► And if they're gonna do that,

01:12:22 ◼   ► why would they keep the Lightning port also?

01:12:24 ◼   ► It would make very little sense to keep the Lightning port--

01:12:27 ◼   ► - That's for your headphones, right?

01:12:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:12:30 ◼   ► Speaking of that, I just realized the other day

01:12:31 ◼   ► when reading these stories about

01:12:32 ◼   ► Lightning headphones and stuff,

01:12:34 ◼   ► I realized I actually don't know

01:12:35 ◼   ► where my lightning headphones that came with my iPhone 7

01:12:38 ◼   ► are right now in the house.

01:12:39 ◼   ► I don't think I lost them, but I don't

01:12:41 ◼   ► know where they are in the house,

01:12:42 ◼   ► because I've been using AirPods.

01:12:43 ◼   ► And if they get out ahead of this,

01:12:46 ◼   ► if they do the transition now with the anticipation--

01:12:49 ◼   ► anticipating two things.

01:12:50 ◼   ► One thing Margaret said that USB-C, it's not pervasive now,

01:12:54 ◼   ► but presumably in a few years it will be pervasive

01:12:56 ◼   ► thanks to Android phones and everything, right?

01:12:58 ◼   ► So they'll be out ahead of that.

01:13:00 ◼   ► So they will be saving their customers

01:13:02 ◼   ► from the experience of being like, oh, I'm on vacation.

01:13:05 ◼   ► And, oh, I can't use my iPhone with this thingy or this charge cable because it's not USB.

01:13:10 ◼   ► So it's saving them from that.

01:13:12 ◼   ► And then two, the thing that Apple kind of knows and controls is, what is the time horizon

01:13:15 ◼   ► for wireless charging, right?

01:13:17 ◼   ► Is that just around the corner?

01:13:18 ◼   ► Is it one or two years?

01:13:19 ◼   ► I feel like Apple, if they switch now, will be saying, "We believe that by the time we

01:13:23 ◼   ► get our devices so thin that we can't use USB-C anymore, we'll have the wireless charging

01:13:27 ◼   ► thing covered."

01:13:28 ◼   ► So again, they're in a position to know, and those all seem like reasonable things that

01:13:32 ◼   ► could happen.

01:13:33 ◼   ► is like, I mean, this doesn't sound a lot more likely

01:13:36 ◼   ► than Apple adding USB to an iPad,

01:13:38 ◼   ► but what if the phone is getting thicker

01:13:41 ◼   ► because they're getting rid of the bezels

01:13:42 ◼   ► and they need somewhere to put things like the camera?

01:13:45 ◼   ► The reason why those bezels are there

01:13:47 ◼   ► is partly out of looks and grip and everything,

01:13:50 ◼   ► but mostly because that's where you have to put

01:13:51 ◼   ► a bunch of components that are too deep

01:13:53 ◼   ► to fit behind the screen.

01:13:55 ◼   ► And if they're moving to these larger screen,

01:13:57 ◼   ► like more edge-to-edge phone designs

01:13:59 ◼   ► that can be smaller in the hand,

01:14:01 ◼   ► like have a smaller width and height in the hand,

01:14:05 ◼   ► they might have to get thicker in order to just have space

01:14:08 ◼   ► for things like a decent camera.

01:14:09 ◼   ► - Get ready for some bigger camera bumps.

01:14:12 ◼   ► - Well, probably.

01:14:13 ◼   ► - I mean, that seems like a more aptly,

01:14:15 ◼   ► as judged by the iPhone 7, they'll just make a bigger bulge

01:14:18 ◼   ► rather than make the whole thing wider, thicker,

01:14:20 ◼   ► but we'll see.

01:14:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe.

01:14:22 ◼   ► Anyway, so my point is basically that in a perfect world,

01:14:25 ◼   ► if they started from scratch today, had no legacy,

01:14:27 ◼   ► they'd probably go USB-C,

01:14:28 ◼   ► that would probably be the best option.

01:14:30 ◼   ► If you look at the iPad, the iPad could really use USB-C,

01:14:33 ◼   ► and it wouldn't make a lot of sense,

01:14:35 ◼   ► it wouldn't be very Apple style

01:14:36 ◼   ► to still keep Lightning on there,

01:14:38 ◼   ► they could just replace that.

01:14:39 ◼   ► We are already not using Lightning

01:14:42 ◼   ► for much else besides charging.

01:14:45 ◼   ► Like it's not being used for a whole lot more

01:14:47 ◼   ► by most people than just charging your phone.

01:14:50 ◼   ► And they're already pushing things like Bluetooth

01:14:54 ◼   ► for a lot of peripherals, for audio output,

01:14:56 ◼   ► and things like that.

01:14:57 ◼   ► And of course, then also you look at the Mac,

01:14:59 ◼   ► and the Mac, if you have USB-C on both things,

01:15:04 ◼   ► everything shares the same peripherals,

01:15:06 ◼   ► everything shares the same cables.

01:15:08 ◼   ► You can charge them everywhere,

01:15:09 ◼   ► even with the Android device cables.

01:15:11 ◼   ► You can use all of the devices for Android right now

01:15:16 ◼   ► that are made by companies like Sony,

01:15:17 ◼   ► that if Sony has to pick between making something

01:15:19 ◼   ► for Lightning or making something for USB-C

01:15:23 ◼   ► for Android phones, they pick Android,

01:15:24 ◼   ► 'cause they're more of an Android-focused company.

01:15:27 ◼   ► There's lots of companies like that where

01:15:28 ◼   ► You kinda have to like, when you pick teams,

01:15:31 ◼   ► like you see some of the headphones,

01:15:32 ◼   ► like there are some USB-C headphones now for Android phones,

01:15:36 ◼   ► and there are some Lightning headphones for iPhones,

01:15:38 ◼   ► and usually the same headphone isn't available in both.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Like you kinda have to pick, and it sucks

01:15:42 ◼   ► having this format war really going on

01:15:45 ◼   ► between these companies and these different ecosystems

01:15:47 ◼   ► where you can't use the same headphones

01:15:49 ◼   ► between two different devices.

01:15:50 ◼   ► Wouldn't it be great if you could just have one standard?

01:15:54 ◼   ► And USB-C is good enough,

01:15:56 ◼   ► and it's gonna be good enough for quite some time.

01:15:59 ◼   ► We're not gonna have to change cables again

01:16:00 ◼   ► in like three years from now, it's gonna be a while.

01:16:03 ◼   ► And it would be amazing to have that.

01:16:05 ◼   ► Now, there is one other part of this

01:16:07 ◼   ► that is worth pointing out,

01:16:08 ◼   ► and that is the other end of the cable,

01:16:10 ◼   ► the end that plugs into the power brick,

01:16:12 ◼   ► or the computer, if the case may be.

01:16:15 ◼   ► I think, personally, I think it's more likely

01:16:19 ◼   ► that this rumor has been misunderstood,

01:16:21 ◼   ► and that the more likely outcome here

01:16:24 ◼   ► is that Apple's not changing the phone to USB-C,

01:16:26 ◼   ► but they're just gonna ship it in the box

01:16:28 ◼   ► with a USB-C cable that plugs into a USB-C brick,

01:16:31 ◼   ► but it's still gonna have lightning on the phone end.

01:16:33 ◼   ► That is way more likely.

01:16:35 ◼   ► - That's totally what I thought,

01:16:38 ◼   ► and I think that's so much more boring of a rumor,

01:16:40 ◼   ► so that's why I was like, I don't wanna talk about that,

01:16:42 ◼   ► 'cause it's like, all right, fine.

01:16:44 ◼   ► If I do that, all you can do for that one

01:16:46 ◼   ► is get angry about the fact that now you have no place

01:16:48 ◼   ► to plug in your charging cable,

01:16:49 ◼   ► but that would make such perfect sense

01:16:51 ◼   ► along with everything we have.

01:16:52 ◼   ► But why is that a story?

01:16:53 ◼   ► That's not a Wall Street Journal-caliber story,

01:16:56 ◼   ► 'cause who cares, whatever.

01:16:59 ◼   ► I really hope that's not it.

01:17:00 ◼   ► - And the thing is, in many ways,

01:17:03 ◼   ► having USB-C on the charger end is actually worse

01:17:05 ◼   ► than having USB-A on the charger end,

01:17:07 ◼   ► because as I ransomed on Twitter earlier,

01:17:09 ◼   ► basically the entire world right now

01:17:11 ◼   ► has tons of infrastructure in place

01:17:13 ◼   ► that has USB-A ports everywhere

01:17:17 ◼   ► for people to plug their phones into to charge them with.

01:17:21 ◼   ► And this isn't just the phone owner

01:17:25 ◼   ► having to buy a new power brick,

01:17:26 ◼   ► or having to use a different one that comes in the box

01:17:28 ◼   ► and throw away all their old ones.

01:17:30 ◼   ► This is like, again, it's like airplanes, cars, hotels,

01:17:35 ◼   ► like all these different-- - Luggage.

01:17:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, luggage, all these different places

01:17:38 ◼   ► where you have USB-A ports.

01:17:39 ◼   ► - Those travel things that we all have

01:17:41 ◼   ► with like 12 USB-A ports on them,

01:17:43 ◼   ► you take the hotel so you can charge

01:17:44 ◼   ► the whole family's devices with you.

01:17:45 ◼   ► Now, there's nothing to say that all those devices

01:17:47 ◼   ► won't also convert to USB-C at some point,

01:17:49 ◼   ► it's just the question of,

01:17:50 ◼   ► if you're changing the non-phone end of the cable,

01:17:52 ◼   ► which is what we're talking about now,

01:17:54 ◼   ► even though it's boring,

01:17:54 ◼   ► if you're changing the non-phone end of the cable,

01:17:57 ◼   ► is now the right time to change away from A?

01:17:59 ◼   ► 'Cause you're not gaining much, except for,

01:18:02 ◼   ► the only thing you're gaining is uniform sanity

01:18:04 ◼   ► within Apple's lines, where you no longer have

01:18:06 ◼   ► the embarrassing situation where you buy a MacBook Pro

01:18:08 ◼   ► and an iPhone and you can't charge them and each other.

01:18:09 ◼   ► But that's it, that's all you get out of it.

01:18:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so like, you know, it would be fine

01:18:15 ◼   ► to have USB C to C as the main thing,

01:18:18 ◼   ► or see the lightning as the main thing, that would be fine.

01:18:21 ◼   ► But I think see the lightning as the cable

01:18:23 ◼   ► that comes with the phone and as a thing

01:18:24 ◼   ► that most people have is actually less convenient now

01:18:28 ◼   ► and for the foreseeable future than adal lightning would be

01:18:31 ◼   ► because there are so many A ports everywhere in the world

01:18:36 ◼   ► that people already have installed or bought

01:18:38 ◼   ► or everything else and it goes way beyond

01:18:40 ◼   ► just buying a new power brick and it goes into things

01:18:42 ◼   ► like buying a new car or retrofitting airplanes

01:18:45 ◼   ► and those are things that just don't happen very often.

01:18:47 ◼   ► So we're gonna have USB-A ports as the new power outlet

01:18:51 ◼   ► for phones for a long time to come.

01:18:54 ◼   ► And you can't adapt a USB-A port

01:18:59 ◼   ► to have a USB-C cable plugged into it.

01:19:02 ◼   ► You can go the other direction

01:19:03 ◼   ► with all these little wonderful $9 adapters

01:19:04 ◼   ► that Apple sells, but you can't go the other way.

01:19:07 ◼   ► You can't plug a USB-C device into a USB-A port.

01:19:11 ◼   ► It violates the USB spec because there's lots

01:19:13 ◼   ► of weird things that can go wrong if you do it wrong

01:19:16 ◼   ► and lots of weird combinations they didn't want to allow

01:19:18 ◼   ► with what do you do with the massive amount of power

01:19:20 ◼   ► on these pins and things like that.

01:19:21 ◼   ► And so that direction can't be like legally adapted

01:19:24 ◼   ► by the USB spec, and for very good reasons

01:19:28 ◼   ► that are probably unlikely to change.

01:19:30 ◼   ► So if you're gonna have a cable

01:19:32 ◼   ► that you're gonna wanna plug into whatever you find

01:19:34 ◼   ► as you travel or go throughout the world

01:19:36 ◼   ► or in and out of your car or wherever else,

01:19:38 ◼   ► you're probably gonna want a, whatever the phone has,

01:19:42 ◼   ► Lightning or USB-C, to USB-A,

01:19:44 ◼   ► and then maybe have a dongle with your laptop

01:19:46 ◼   ► so you can plug it in there sometimes.

01:19:47 ◼   ► - You wanna save yourself some email?

01:19:49 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:19:50 ◼   ► - You have to tell them that you know

01:19:51 ◼   ► that there's connectors that go from A to C.

01:19:52 ◼   ► You have to say that.

01:19:53 ◼   ► - Yes, I know there are,

01:19:55 ◼   ► I know you can go on lots of places

01:19:57 ◼   ► and buy one from some kind of no-name brand,

01:19:59 ◼   ► but there's a reason why there aren't that many of them,

01:20:01 ◼   ► and why you don't see people like Apple selling them,

01:20:03 ◼   ► because they're bad.

01:20:06 ◼   ► Bad things can happen, please don't use them.

01:20:08 ◼   ► - So, speaking of saving email,

01:20:10 ◼   ► I forgot to mention that I do have a modern Apple TV

01:20:13 ◼   ► in the house, and that is USB-C.

01:20:16 ◼   ► Would either of you care to wager a guess

01:20:17 ◼   ► how many times I've plugged a USB-C cable

01:20:20 ◼   ► into that Apple TV.

01:20:21 ◼   ► - Isn't that just a diagnostic port?

01:20:23 ◼   ► I don't think it's supposed to be a user.

01:20:25 ◼   ► - No, it's for diagnostics and it's for developers.

01:20:27 ◼   ► When I installed Providence, the emulator that I use,

01:20:29 ◼   ► it's similar to how you plug in a phone to run devices,

01:20:33 ◼   ► or to run apps that you write from Xcode

01:20:35 ◼   ► onto the phone through USB.

01:20:36 ◼   ► Same thing with the Apple TV.

01:20:37 ◼   ► You plug it into the USB port

01:20:39 ◼   ► and it becomes an output device for Xcode

01:20:40 ◼   ► that you can run stuff on.

01:20:41 ◼   ► - Speaking of USB-C, the Nintendo Switch has USB-C,

01:20:44 ◼   ► which is out soon.

01:20:45 ◼   ► And someone tweeted earlier today that if you plug a Nintendo Switch into a MacBook

01:20:49 ◼   ► Pro, the Switch charges the laptop, not the other way around.

01:20:53 ◼   ► That's pretty great.

01:20:54 ◼   ► In the world of ubiquitous connectors, it is kind of a weird situation because we have

01:20:57 ◼   ► the—it's kind of based on size.

01:20:59 ◼   ► That's like you expect if you're using your laptop and you're like, "Oh, my phone's

01:21:02 ◼   ► low.

01:21:03 ◼   ► I'm going to plug it into my laptop."

01:21:04 ◼   ► That's a thing we've all done, right?

01:21:05 ◼   ► You fully expect that when you plug your phone into your laptop, the laptop will charge your

01:21:09 ◼   ► phone.

01:21:10 ◼   ► The phone won't charge your laptop.

01:21:11 ◼   ► And why do you think that?

01:21:12 ◼   ► Well, because the batteries in the laptop is bigger, I guess.

01:21:16 ◼   ► But when you do it with the Switch, I guess they don't know how big they are.

01:21:18 ◼   ► It's like the little dog that thinks he's the big dog.

01:21:20 ◼   ► It's like, "I got you, MacBook.

01:21:22 ◼   ► Here's some juice.

01:21:23 ◼   ► Take this."

01:21:24 ◼   ► I don't even know.

01:21:25 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:21:26 ◼   ► It could be that just the Mac thinks it's being charged, and it actually isn't, because

01:21:27 ◼   ► I don't understand why the Switch would output charge for anything.

01:21:30 ◼   ► But in this world of ubiquitous USB-C, our future world where everything has USB-C ports,

01:21:36 ◼   ► it can be confusing as to what the actual relationship between devices with batteries

01:21:41 ◼   ► and then will be when you plug them into each other.

01:21:43 ◼   ► - And I'm sure part of the standard is for that,

01:21:46 ◼   ► but they probably just didn't quite do it right

01:21:48 ◼   ► or something.

01:21:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, or again, why the hell

01:21:50 ◼   ► is the Switch charging anything?

01:21:51 ◼   ► I don't think there are any peripherals

01:21:52 ◼   ► that plug into the Switch and derive power from it,

01:21:55 ◼   ► so who knows?

01:21:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, what do its various external control,

01:21:58 ◼   ► like the Pro Controller, what are those,

01:22:00 ◼   ► are those all just wireless with their own chargers or what?

01:22:03 ◼   ► - I would guess so.

01:22:04 ◼   ► I mean, all existing console controllers I have

01:22:07 ◼   ► use one of the terrible micro USB things.

01:22:09 ◼   ► Maybe the Switch Pro Controller has USB-C.

01:22:13 ◼   ► I wouldn't know, 'cause I don't have a pre-order for it.

01:22:16 ◼   ► But I'm working on that.

01:22:18 ◼   ► By the way, so everybody knows, I do have orders.

01:22:20 ◼   ► I do now have pre-orders for the Switch

01:22:23 ◼   ► and for the Zelda game that I want,

01:22:25 ◼   ► thanks to some very helpful fans of the show.

01:22:28 ◼   ► So far, still no Pro Controller.

01:22:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're gonna have to tell me at some point

01:22:32 ◼   ► how I'm supposed to get a Pro Controller

01:22:34 ◼   ► when I get my Switch.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Also, can I buy the games?

01:22:37 ◼   ► I heard that Pete, when I mentioned that I had these games

01:22:40 ◼   ► in my Amazon cart, ready to pre-order,

01:22:42 ◼   ► I got a number of helpful people saying,

01:22:43 ◼   ► "Why don't I just buy a giant SD card and download them?"

01:22:46 ◼   ► Is that a thing I can do?

01:22:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, but like the only reason I'm on the Zelda

01:22:49 ◼   ► is 'cause it's like the special edition

01:22:50 ◼   ► that comes with a bunch of little tchotchkes and stuff,

01:22:52 ◼   ► and it comes with a soundtrack CD.

01:22:54 ◼   ► - I would throw all that away, or I'd mail it to you.

01:22:56 ◼   ► - Exactly, so if you don't care about that,

01:22:59 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure every single game is downloadable,

01:23:02 ◼   ► and the storage on the Switch itself is not that big,

01:23:03 ◼   ► so everyone's telling you to buy an SD card,

01:23:05 ◼   ► but I think if you just get the Switch

01:23:06 ◼   ► and just want to play Zelda, you can just get it and then download Zelda and play it.

01:23:10 ◼   ► And did you see the other story, speaking of Switch, about the Zelda cards? Have you

01:23:14 ◼   ► seen pictures of how big the little, the Switch cartridges are?

01:23:18 ◼   ► No. Like, they're really small. Like, they're

01:23:20 ◼   ► not as small as the micro and micro SD cards, but they're smaller than you think they are.

01:23:25 ◼   ► And that poses a problem, because, like, what if kids find these little games and stick

01:23:29 ◼   ► them in their mouth and swallow them or do something else bad with them, right? So Nintendo's

01:23:33 ◼   ► solution to this was to coat the cartridges they sell with a very, very bad-tasting substance.

01:23:39 ◼   ► So people are now licking Nintendo Switch cartridges.

01:23:41 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:23:42 ◼   ► That's the backstory?

01:23:43 ◼   ► I had seen people say, "Oh, yes, they really do taste like garbage."

01:23:46 ◼   ► I didn't know what the backstory was, though.

01:23:49 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I've heard.

01:23:50 ◼   ► It's a plausible theory, because it is like kind of a swallowing choking hazard.

01:23:54 ◼   ► They're small enough, and they're going to be around kids, because it's not like

01:23:58 ◼   ► they're – you're not worried about a kid swallowing the SIM card from your phone,

01:24:01 ◼   ► kids aren't playing with the SIM card on your phone,

01:24:03 ◼   ► but kids will be around these loose cartridges

01:24:05 ◼   ► for the Switch, or they bring a bunch of them

01:24:07 ◼   ► in the back of the car with them

01:24:08 ◼   ► and play them on a car trip and stuff,

01:24:09 ◼   ► and their younger sibling gets ahold of them,

01:24:11 ◼   ► and so apparently they taste terrible.

01:24:14 ◼   ► - Wait, and so I have a question.

01:24:15 ◼   ► All right, so I used to bite my nails,

01:24:18 ◼   ► and one of the ways I stopped was I got one of those

01:24:20 ◼   ► horrible-tasting nail polish things.

01:24:22 ◼   ► - Same theory. - And yeah.

01:24:24 ◼   ► However, one of the shortcomings of that

01:24:26 ◼   ► is that it would rub off on food I was preparing,

01:24:30 ◼   ► or anything that I touched would taste horrible.

01:24:33 ◼   ► So if you handle a Switch cartridge

01:24:37 ◼   ► and you go make a sandwich,

01:24:39 ◼   ► is it gonna rub off at all?

01:24:40 ◼   ► Are you gonna taste that?

01:24:41 ◼   ► - So I have to say that this is the internet

01:24:44 ◼   ► and I've just read some tweets.

01:24:45 ◼   ► So for all I know, this is totally false

01:24:48 ◼   ► and people just got some weird foul-tasting stuff

01:24:51 ◼   ► on their Switch cartridges.

01:24:52 ◼   ► But I will say that now, assuming this story is true,

01:24:55 ◼   ► I would think that the coding they put in these cartridges

01:24:59 ◼   ► would have some of the same problems as the nail-biting stuff. One, that it would eventually

01:25:03 ◼   ► be able to wear off or be sucked off, as very determined nail-biters know well, that if

01:25:08 ◼   ► you really want to go to town, you can A) build up a tolerance to, and B) eventually

01:25:13 ◼   ► remove that substance.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Not this stuff. I quit with one application. That's how bad it was.

01:25:20 ◼   ► You're not as determined as some little children. Yeah. I can tell you from personal experience

01:25:28 ◼   ► with people in my family who I will not name, who are not me, that it is possible, if you

01:25:34 ◼   ► are stubborn enough, to get rid of that stuff. And two, like you said, that like, will it

01:25:39 ◼   ► come off on your hands? I think it has to necessarily come off your hands if your hands

01:25:44 ◼   ► are wet, because if it doesn't come off on your hands when they're wet, it also won't

01:25:47 ◼   ► come off on your tongue when you're wet. And so I think those are real things. But what

01:25:50 ◼   ► I'm hoping is that cartridges don't get handled much under normal circumstances, and that

01:25:55 ◼   ► hands are not wet enough to pull off the stuff. Again, assuming this entire story is true.

01:25:59 ◼   ► But all we know is that when any of us gets or encounters a Nintendo Switch cartridge,

01:26:03 ◼   ► it is incumbent upon us, as part of the homework for the show, to lick it.

01:26:07 ◼   ► You've just given me a really good reason to just download all my games and not ever

01:26:11 ◼   ► buy one.

01:26:12 ◼   ► Now you have to get one to lick. You have to. Tiff's going to want to lick it.

01:26:15 ◼   ► I just have to lick my SD card and see if that has the same coding on it.

01:26:19 ◼   ► That's right. You need to ABX test this.

01:26:20 ◼   ► Oh my god.

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01:27:17 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:27:19 ◼   ► Anyway, I think the thing that bothers me

01:27:24 ◼   ► about the iPhone USB-C thing is if the USB-C

01:27:28 ◼   ► is on the device itself, is on the iPhone,

01:27:31 ◼   ► what technical thing does that solve?

01:27:34 ◼   ► Like, yes, I understand that there's a consistency

01:27:36 ◼   ► with the rest of like the laptop line,

01:27:38 ◼   ► but what does that actually do for an iPhone

01:27:41 ◼   ► that makes the iPhone itself better?

01:27:44 ◼   ► - Don't we get the advantage

01:27:46 ◼   ► of dedicated analog audio pins so that we don't need the DAC

01:27:49 ◼   ► and the things anymore and we could have cheap headphones

01:27:51 ◼   ► to connect to USB-C or am I misremembering this?

01:27:54 ◼   ► - Both USB-C and Lightning have ways to do that.

01:27:57 ◼   ► However, we also did find that in the little Apple dongle

01:28:00 ◼   ► is a little tiny DAC 'cause DACs cost nothing.

01:28:03 ◼   ► And it's not a very good one, but it doesn't matter

01:28:05 ◼   ► for most people for what they're using.

01:28:08 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:28:08 ◼   ► - So anyway, that's a potential advantage that you could get

01:28:11 ◼   ► if Apple decides to take advantage of it and if there,

01:28:14 ◼   ► I have no idea if there are any existing headphones that

01:28:17 ◼   ► take analog audio signals and have,

01:28:19 ◼   ► instead of a regular headphone jack command,

01:28:21 ◼   ► they have a USB-C one.

01:28:22 ◼   ► But in theory, that's one.

01:28:24 ◼   ► There's also, tech-wise, the thing with the bendy pins

01:28:27 ◼   ► that we talked about.

01:28:28 ◼   ► Who knows how big a problem that is?

01:28:30 ◼   ► But it stands to reason that it is better

01:28:35 ◼   ► to have the parts that eventually fatigue or bend

01:28:38 ◼   ► or wear out on the cable that you can throw away and not

01:28:41 ◼   ► inside the device.

01:28:42 ◼   ► So that's another tech advantage.

01:28:44 ◼   ► I guess, I just, there's nothing that you guys have said,

01:28:48 ◼   ► or that I can think of, that makes me think,

01:28:51 ◼   ► oh, this is a technical problem

01:28:52 ◼   ► that's being solved with USB-C.

01:28:54 ◼   ► It is worth, that juice is worth the squeeze

01:28:57 ◼   ► of pissing off the entire world

01:28:59 ◼   ► for another cable change, or another port change.

01:29:04 ◼   ► - Don't you think, do you guys not agree?

01:29:05 ◼   ► You both said that you thought people would be angry,

01:29:06 ◼   ► but I totally think people will be less angry

01:29:09 ◼   ► than 30-pin to lighting.

01:29:10 ◼   ► Even though 30-pin was 10 years old,

01:29:12 ◼   ► I think they'll be less angry about this

01:29:13 ◼   ► because it's a switch to the standard.

01:29:15 ◼   ► Because, yes, you're gonna be grumbly.

01:29:18 ◼   ► - You're assuming though that people have USB-C devices.

01:29:20 ◼   ► I am cheap, and I don't buy expensive things terribly often,

01:29:25 ◼   ► but I always keep up to date on iPhones and iPads

01:29:30 ◼   ► and whatnot, and I don't have a, like I said,

01:29:33 ◼   ► the only USB-C device I have is an Apple TV

01:29:35 ◼   ► that I've never plugged USB-C into.

01:29:37 ◼   ► - They'd be a little bit ahead of the curve.

01:29:39 ◼   ► Like I agree, people don't have,

01:29:40 ◼   ► but I think every story about this

01:29:42 ◼   ► would be Apple concedes or like the most negative story

01:29:46 ◼   ► you can have, Apple finally concedes

01:29:47 ◼   ► and does what everyone else does.

01:29:49 ◼   ► Apple finally gets in line.

01:29:50 ◼   ► Ever finally does the industry standard thing.

01:29:52 ◼   ► I think that would be the negative Apple spin

01:29:54 ◼   ► on these stories.

01:29:55 ◼   ► And again, with the European regulations requiring

01:29:58 ◼   ► whatever it was, mini USB and probably going to require USB-C

01:30:01 ◼   ► like I think that's the spin on the story.

01:30:03 ◼   ► And yes, it's like, oh, I don't care

01:30:05 ◼   ► what the hell the standard is.

01:30:06 ◼   ► I got a house full of fricking lightning cables

01:30:07 ◼   ► that are now worthless to me, right?