78: Fleece the Whales
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How do we always have this much to talk about even when we have nothing to talk about?
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We're blabbermouths, that's why.
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That's why you should get more out of your system on your new podcast, then you won't have as much to say here.
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Oh, because I'm definitely the one who's bogarting the mic of the three of us.
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John, any follow-up?
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Why is follow-up always my job?
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Because you invented follow-up.
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Is that really that big of a surprise?
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I put all this follow-up. You guys can put follow-up in too, you know.
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Yeah, but we don't believe in following up on things.
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Well, we're just always right.
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There's nothing to do with being right.
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Adding additional information.
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People ask on the earning calls, can I
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get some more color on that?
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We provide more color.
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First item is that new reversible USB connector
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that we talked about many, many, many shows ago.
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They have reportedly finalized the spec
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and released a bunch of images of what the connector is
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supposed to look like.
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If you look in the show notes, you can see it.
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We had mockups before, we already knew that it wasn't going to be like lightning, it wasn't
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going to be a solid metal thing with contacts on the top and bottom, but rather it was going
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to be more like an existing USB connector where it's some kind of shaped metal shell
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and then inside the little metal shell is, what's inside there, there's a better picture
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of the inner, is like a little hole and then in the thing you plug it into there's a little
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board with contacts on top and bottom.
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Anyway, it's difficult to explain.
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We'll put pictures in the show notes.
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You can see what it looks like.
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It's not very exciting to look at, I guess.
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I mean, it's basically like a rectangle with round end caps
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on the right and left side.
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There's I guess not much more to say about it,
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except there's one comment on the Ars Technica story, which
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we'll link, from Peter Bright, who
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is known for being wrong about everything all the time.
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That's kind of his reputation.
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Way to put it gently.
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How do you really feel?
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But in a pleasant way.
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He's well informed that he knows lots of things,
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but whenever there's a choice to make one decision or another
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based on subjective criteria, he chooses wrong.
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Is this like the John Syracuse equivalent of,
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bless his heart.
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Anyway, he wrote in the comments,
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the big question is, where are the sprung parts?
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USB traditionally did this right,
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putting them in the cable, which is cheap and easy to replace.
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Apple did it wrong putting them in the port which is expensive and don't go to replace and what he's talking about is
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When you have a connector where two contacts press up against each other
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One of them has that one or both of them have to have some give to them
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Otherwise it would have if they were both completely rigid you'd have to have it perfectly aligned
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And you have to have these little you know metal things touching each other exactly one of them
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You want to be kind of like a spring so if there's a little bit of wiggling
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You know then they move back and forth the spring will account for that motion by staying in contact with the thing
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And traditionally there's like one rigid part in one springy part of I suppose you could do two springy parts would work the same in
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Lightning connector the little thing that you plug in is stiff you can look at it's a little metal
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solid metal thing with contacts on top and bottom
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But inside the connector are these little kind of springy finger things that are
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With no connectors in it
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They are closer together than the connector than the width of the connector when you shove the connector in it presses those springy things
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Apart so that when it's in
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Inserted in there the connectors are pressing against the contact area
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so if the lightning connector wiggles a little bit the things stay in contact with each other and
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Peter is saying that in
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USB the little springy things are inside the connectors
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so if they get unspringy or they start to get loose or whatever fine you throw it out the cable you get a new one and
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In lightning the little springy things are inside the connector itself
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So the cable doesn't matter if those little springy things get loose you need to replace the thing that the cable connects into
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Which makes some sense, but the question always is what is the expected lifetime of the little springy things?
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If the expected lifetime of the little springy things exceeds the expected lifetime of the device, then you're fine.
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If it doesn't then you have problems. Presumably Apple took this into account.
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I like the idea as I talked about on the past shows that the lightning connector is, you know, it's very physically robust.
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It is a solid little ingot of metal.
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It does have very fine contacts on it,
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which I guess is just the price of being small
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and having, you know, you need like, what is it?
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You need at least four connectors there.
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I forget how many are on lighting.
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I guess I can stare at this thing and look, what is it?
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- I think it's eight on each side, right?
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- Yeah, anyway, it's a lot of connectors in a small place,
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but the connector itself,
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it's like there's nothing to snag on anything.
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You can bang it around and it will probably be okay.
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It seems more robust to me than a similarly sized connector.
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The USB 3, USB type C connector is bigger than lightning,
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but not that much.
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I think we went over the exact size of millimeters
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on the previous episode, but it's hollow.
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So it's got this really skinny shell
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and inside the little shell is a little gap
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where this thing plugs into it.
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And I'm not sure how durable that will be compared to this.
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Now he's right there.
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It's like, well, if you have to replace something,
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wouldn't you rather replace the cheap cable
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than replace the other thing?
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So if you have, if you had something fragile
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into your cable, like if your connectors were fragile
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and you accidentally stepped on them
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or they got dropped and bent or whatever,
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well so what, you buy a new cable.
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So it's not so bad for the connectors to be fragile,
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but the springy parts is a good point
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that I'm not quite sure how that's gonna work out
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in practice, I don't think lightning has been
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in the market long enough for anyone
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to have a lightning connector device
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where the little springy things become unspringy
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or get permanently bent up or lose their spring.
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- Well what's interesting is that this actually
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might be a good design on Apple's part
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because it certainly seems from the sound
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of people complaining when lightning came out
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that the cables might outlast people's use of the devices.
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- Well, they still have the little, you know,
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the little string relief sleeves on the edge?
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- Sure, yeah.
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- Like, so those things, those things always wear out.
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- But I'm saying, like, I bet the average person
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who has more than one iPhone in their life,
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they probably keep cables around,
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'cause I'm, like I know I do,
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like, it was really annoying to me
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when I bought lightning cables
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when the iPhone 5 came out because I had accumulated
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so many dock cables over the years that I wanted to like,
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at least partially match my collection
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so I could have all the convenience
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of having these things everywhere.
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I bet that had to have crossed somebody's mind
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at some point at Apple when designing this connector
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that actually most people replace their iPhone
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every one to two years,
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whereas these cables might hang around
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for five years or more.
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- Well, the thing about the cables,
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I do also have a lot of old cables hanging around,
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But I would imagine the part that fails in the cables, like I said, is not the connector
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part of it, on Lightning, or even on the dock connector, which is this crazy wide thing
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with very weird, you know, tiny contacts in there.
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I'm still amazed the dock connector ever worked.
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I'm still using it, my iPod still uses it, but instead it's the wire itself, especially
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the stream release parts for people who are not delicate with their devices and just yank
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it out eventually, the part where the wire goes into the connector starts to fray, and
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Once that goes, it doesn't matter that your connector is still fine and the whole wire
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You could be right, though, especially for phones on a two-year replacement cycle with
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contracts in the US, that the cable might outlive the thing.
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The thing about, like I said, lighting hasn't been around for a while, for long enough for
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us to know if the little springy things are a problem.
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We do know that in all connectors, dockport, lightning, anything, with any portable device
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that you carry around in pockets and stuff, lint is an issue.
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If there's a hole in a device and you're carrying it around in your pocket or in your purse,
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will get in there and I've known many people who have had either had to go to the Apple store or
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sort of done surgery on their own with like, I don't know, toothpicks and dental tools or something
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to remove big wads of lint from because like if you eventually if you pack in enough lint in your
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thing and you try to put the lightning connector and it won't go all the way in it'll basically be
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prevented from from seating and you know there's two little dents on the side of lightning
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connector that these other these other two little springy things grab onto uh and then you know it's
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properly seated that's why you get that little click if you get enough crap inside that you
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you can't even get it seated.
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I mean, there's not much I think the connector
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can do about that, except maybe not having it open at all
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and being more like MagSafe,
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but that has its own set of problems.
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But anyway, I'm glad USB is getting reversible.
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I think the connector looks okay.
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I would have preferred if it looked and worked
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like Lightning, but there is an open question
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about durability for both of them
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because neither one has existed long enough for us to know.
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- Hey, I'm just proud of them for finally making possibly,
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maybe, just maybe, a micro USB connector
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that isn't totally infuriating to insert and remove.
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- Let's not go too far.
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It's still early.
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- It will join the eight bazillion other kinds
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of USB connectors that are out there.
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In this thread on Ars Technica, in the comment thread
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about this connector, about a million people posted
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the XKCD comic about competing standards
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and how there's too many standards.
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I know I'll make one standard that everyone can use
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and now you've just created one more standard.
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That's the history of USB.
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They just kept creating connector after connector.
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There are so many of them in so many different shapes and sizes plus the weird proprietary ones that
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Occasionally people would come out with it only appear on one or two devices
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Hopefully this new reversible one will sweep away all the old ones
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At the very least. I hope it replaces everything on PC laptops and desktops. I don't really care so much about like
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cameras and stuff like that because I think they're always gonna do their own thing, but
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Welcome my new USB connector overlords
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That's the Simpsons, isn't it?
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- It is, good job.
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- All right.
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oh man, is it, okay, which one's the wrapper,
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which one's the port?
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Every time I'm gonna ask this question.
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- Onboard diagnostics.
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Oh, you plug it into your OBD2 port,
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►
who listens to the podcast is by definition special, you don't have to pay a hundred bucks
00:13:03
◼
►
for this, even though that's a great value.
00:13:05
◼
►
We have a special price, 20% off, so it's just 80 bucks.
00:13:09
◼
►
Go to automatic.com/ATP.
00:13:10
◼
►
This is spelled the normal way, not the WordPress way.
00:13:13
◼
►
to get that special deal to get this thing for just 80 bucks.
00:13:18
◼
►
Thanks a lot to Automattic for sponsoring our show.
00:13:20
◼
►
Pretty cool product.
00:13:21
◼
►
You know someone serious when they give you a 20% discount.
00:13:24
◼
►
Yeah, that's big.
00:13:25
◼
►
10% is, you know, "Hey, that's pretty cool.
00:13:27
◼
►
I appreciate that."
00:13:28
◼
►
But 20%, that's some serious stuff.
00:13:31
◼
►
What else is in follow-up, Jon?
00:13:35
◼
►
You want to do this next one?
00:13:37
◼
►
I just pasted it in there, but I have no particular tie to it more than anyone else does.
00:13:41
◼
►
Well, I don't know which parts in particular you wanted to talk about but this is from Gavin regarding arm max and
00:13:48
◼
►
Again, there's like 300 words here. I don't know which particular words you felt were important
00:13:54
◼
►
You're failing as a summary service
00:13:58
◼
►
You know thing is it's still an OS 10 where you can select a bunch of text and ask it to summarize it for you
00:14:04
◼
►
Back in the day that was that what that kid had created that did that like news article some Lee
00:14:09
◼
►
Yeah, all right anyway this this is from Gavin and he asked a question about our max his ideas. What about
00:14:17
◼
►
instead of an arm Mac what about a
00:14:20
◼
►
Traditional Mac form factor device, but with an ARM CPU running iOS and not OS 10
00:14:26
◼
►
I think that's essentially what he's asking about here
00:14:28
◼
►
What would that accomplish that like one of those silly logitech keyboard covers?
00:14:35
◼
►
doesn't other than the fact that it would be less silly.
00:14:38
◼
►
Well, I think the idea is that iOS is the newer OS.
00:14:41
◼
►
iOS has less annoying stuff in it.
00:14:43
◼
►
It's easier for people to use.
00:14:45
◼
►
Why should laptops be stuck with the more complicated OS?
00:14:50
◼
►
Why can't we make a laptop form factor but have it run iOS?
00:14:53
◼
►
I think the obvious answer to that is that, what do you do?
00:14:58
◼
►
Do you touch the screen or not?
00:15:00
◼
►
Because that's the first question you have to ask.
00:15:02
◼
►
So it's running iOS.
00:15:03
◼
►
iOS doesn't work with a mouse pointer.
00:15:05
◼
►
It's a touching thing.
00:15:07
◼
►
So am I going to be touching the screen of my laptop?
00:15:10
◼
►
- No, you'll use the same mouse and keyboard combinations
00:15:15
◼
►
that the iOS simulator uses, because those are super fun.
00:15:18
◼
►
- And there's still no shortcut to adjust dynamic text size.
00:15:22
◼
►
It drives me nuts.
00:15:23
◼
►
- See, like the exact text says,
00:15:24
◼
►
"What about a laptop WIMP version of iOS?"
00:15:27
◼
►
So he's saying it's going to have Windows,
00:15:29
◼
►
what is WIMP, Windows something?
00:15:32
◼
►
- No, I don't know.
00:15:33
◼
►
- MySQL PHP, yeah.
00:15:34
◼
►
from a mouse pointer, whatever.
00:15:36
◼
►
I think he's saying he's going to have-- he compared it
00:15:39
◼
►
to a Chromebook, basically.
00:15:40
◼
►
So the idea is instead of having iOS go downmarket,
00:15:44
◼
►
something like that.
00:15:45
◼
►
And the other part of his email was,
00:15:47
◼
►
what if you had something that was like an Intel
00:15:49
◼
►
computer in the house, which he calls the truck,
00:15:52
◼
►
but each individual person has their own iOS device
00:15:56
◼
►
that either docks with or connects with that,
00:15:59
◼
►
and you only replace the big Intel computer every few years,
00:16:02
◼
►
but you replace the iOS things more frequently.
00:16:05
◼
►
And when I read this part, I thought, it seems like,
00:16:08
◼
►
well, I don't know what the replacement cycle is,
00:16:09
◼
►
but it seems like the replacement cycle
00:16:11
◼
►
for iPads in particular is not particularly frequent.
00:16:15
◼
►
Like they are hanging around way longer.
00:16:17
◼
►
I don't know if they're hanging around longer than Macs are,
00:16:19
◼
►
but they're certainly hanging around for a long time
00:16:20
◼
►
because they're not tied to a contract.
00:16:22
◼
►
There's nothing artificial making you upgrade it.
00:16:23
◼
►
So I know so, so many people who still have iPad ones
00:16:27
◼
►
being used in the house.
00:16:28
◼
►
Granted, usually by kids,
00:16:29
◼
►
but like you cannot kill these things.
00:16:31
◼
►
Like if you don't physically break it
00:16:33
◼
►
and it still runs the same five apps
00:16:34
◼
►
and it was running before, I guess at a certain point,
00:16:36
◼
►
maybe like if you can't view YouTube on it anymore
00:16:40
◼
►
or if the browser becomes so old
00:16:41
◼
►
that you can't use most websites, that will kill it, but.
00:16:44
◼
►
- Well, we have an answer to this question, kind of.
00:16:47
◼
►
A friend of the show, underscore David Smith,
00:16:49
◼
►
just updated his version stats page
00:16:51
◼
►
to include the average device age,
00:16:56
◼
►
which for an iPad is 883 days.
00:17:00
◼
►
And by comparison, an iPhone is 804 days.
00:17:04
◼
►
So a difference of, what is that, 80 days?
00:17:06
◼
►
Something like 30, yeah, about 80 days.
00:17:07
◼
►
- Yeah, I saw those stats and I was surprised
00:17:09
◼
►
that they were so similar, because you would think
00:17:11
◼
►
the upgrade cycle on phones would make them last longer.
00:17:14
◼
►
But anyway, the problem with all of _stats is,
00:17:19
◼
►
I don't know if he has a broad enough
00:17:22
◼
►
cross-section of the user base.
00:17:24
◼
►
I think a lot of the people who use his apps
00:17:25
◼
►
or know about them might be in the nerd circle,
00:17:28
◼
►
and then that could be skewing things a bit.
00:17:29
◼
►
Well, this is all from audiobooks alone, I thought, which is a little bit more mainstream.
00:17:35
◼
►
Yeah, I suppose.
00:17:36
◼
►
And, you know, now that I think about it, like, in the same way that iPads get handed
00:17:41
◼
►
down, I do know a lot of cousins, for example, who have old versions of their parents' phones.
00:17:47
◼
►
So I don't know.
00:17:48
◼
►
And also, not everyone is on a two-year cycle.
00:17:50
◼
►
You know, that, from what I gather, is maybe not a uniquely American thing, but a particularly
00:17:55
◼
►
American thing.
00:17:57
◼
►
So I'm not sure about Gavin's theory here.
00:17:59
◼
►
I think we'd have to work out a lot of issues
00:18:00
◼
►
in terms of the input for the, you know,
00:18:05
◼
►
iOS powered Chromebook type thing.
00:18:08
◼
►
I like the idea of trying to get rid
00:18:10
◼
►
of the legacy concerns of the Mac,
00:18:12
◼
►
but we don't have, we're not anywhere close
00:18:15
◼
►
to having a replacement for all the functionality
00:18:17
◼
►
that a Mac provides.
00:18:18
◼
►
And I don't think you can just make everyone go iOS
00:18:21
◼
►
and solve all these problems.
00:18:23
◼
►
- Yeah, I don't think any sort of doc-like thing
00:18:25
◼
►
would make much sense.
00:18:27
◼
►
Understand what he's driving out with a Chromebook and I don't know the Chromebook to me on paper
00:18:33
◼
►
I don't understand why it's appealing but I know Ben Thompson of
00:18:36
◼
►
Stratechery because it used to be Stratechery now. It's Stratechery
00:18:40
◼
►
I know he swears by his and I've heard from others so I can't remember who that they love theirs
00:18:46
◼
►
But having never used one I don't get it
00:18:49
◼
►
But then again, I said the same thing about an iPad and I love my iPad. So I
00:18:53
◼
►
Don't know you said on paper. You don't get it on paper is exactly where I get it like conceptually conceptually and in theory all
00:19:00
◼
►
The things that they're doing I think are great. It's just in practice the actual devices
00:19:04
◼
►
I have not found appealing although
00:19:06
◼
►
Maybe I just need to use them a little idea is like throw it in a river who cares
00:19:10
◼
►
All your stuff is somewhere else you just sign in everything sinks. Nothing is local everything local is just a cash
00:19:16
◼
►
Everything's in the cloud all your applications are web applications or similar like that concept
00:19:21
◼
►
You know, don't worry about backups. Don't worry about local device management. Don't worry about anything. It's just like
00:19:27
◼
►
You know, it's not a dumb terminal. It's a smart terminal, you know
00:19:31
◼
►
Like it's got you have you have local disk local cache memory GPU all that good stuff that you want
00:19:36
◼
►
What you don't have is local state, but you what you've eliminated are all the stupid concerns that make us
00:19:41
◼
►
Have difficult tech support calls with relatives about how to deal with computing and it'll be just you know, take away all those concerns
00:19:48
◼
►
but in practice
00:19:49
◼
►
What are the applications? How do you use it? How is the experience? How is the hardware?
00:19:54
◼
►
What is the pricing and performance like and those things aren't quite yet worked out? So oh sure. It'll all be iCloud
00:19:59
◼
►
It'll be perfect. Well, Google does a better job than Apple with iCloud. But yeah, we're not there yet
00:20:05
◼
►
But like if anyone's gonna get there first, it's gonna be Google. So I
00:20:08
◼
►
Keep my eye on the Chromebook space to see how it's going. But so far it's not has not impressed me. Yeah
00:20:16
◼
►
All right, so we also have some follow-up. This was sent specifically to us. Is that right? From Jared Sinclair?
00:20:22
◼
►
Yes, don't you read your email?
00:20:24
◼
►
Yeah, I just wanted to make sure.
00:20:26
◼
►
That makes one of us.
00:20:28
◼
►
So he says in an email to the three of us, "In my post
00:20:33
◼
►
I was very careful not to assign blame to anyone else for Unread's failure, not even to Apple.
00:20:38
◼
►
The main purpose of my article was not to assign blame, but simply to make my failure a matter of public record.
00:20:42
◼
►
Here's why. In response to Brent Simmons' recent post about who are the indie iOS developers, numerous people on Twitter responded mentioning my name.
00:20:49
◼
►
With the high-profile reviews of Unread and
00:20:52
◼
►
several App Store features, I could see why an outside observer might assume that Unread was earning me a sustainable living.
00:20:59
◼
►
I don't want someone to take my silence as a tacit approval of that notion. More importantly,
00:21:04
◼
►
I don't want someone to consider "going indie" to make that career change without
00:21:09
◼
►
hearing about how easy it is to fall to fail excuse me in the App Store.
00:21:13
◼
►
The scale of the App Store with over a hundred million credit cards can make it seem like any given niche is big enough for
00:21:19
◼
►
solo developers to earn a small but sustainable living. The idea out there is that great design and great reviews will be enough to carry you.
00:21:26
◼
►
Reality often contradicts that wishful thinking as I learned the hard way. Maybe someone out there can learn from my mistakes and not repeat them.
00:21:33
◼
►
So I thought that was pretty interesting and well phrased and
00:21:37
◼
►
And similar in kind of relatedly,
00:21:40
◼
►
sometime in the last week or so,
00:21:42
◼
►
Jared actually took a full-time position with someone,
00:21:47
◼
►
I say as I stall, but it doesn't really matter, with someone.
00:21:51
◼
►
- Yeah, he talked about it actually on,
00:21:53
◼
►
there's a good podcast called Release Notes
00:21:54
◼
►
that you should all listen to,
00:21:55
◼
►
if you're a developer especially,
00:21:57
◼
►
if you listen to this show, that will be relevant to you.
00:22:00
◼
►
It's a very good show, and they had him on last week,
00:22:02
◼
►
and then this week he talked more about it.
00:22:04
◼
►
And yeah, it's good.
00:22:06
◼
►
I mean, hell, we could talk about this for episodes and episodes.
00:22:11
◼
►
We probably shouldn't.
00:22:13
◼
►
We probably will.
00:22:14
◼
►
And really quickly, a real-time follow-up.
00:22:18
◼
►
It's blog-lovin' that he is joining.
00:22:21
◼
►
Yeah, so I mean, I don't know.
00:22:23
◼
►
There's so many angles to this whole thing.
00:22:25
◼
►
First of all, I don't think it's worth anybody trying to figure out what "Indie"
00:22:31
◼
►
should mean.
00:22:32
◼
►
definition of the word "indie" doesn't really matter for the purposes of this argument.
00:22:36
◼
►
I don't think that's really a discussion that needs to happen. I don't think we need
00:22:41
◼
►
to care about how many people are there making their living solely on this. And again, what
00:22:47
◼
►
does that mean? I think you can just look around to see that it's hard. There's
00:22:53
◼
►
a lot of people out there doing iOS app development with the hopes of making money from it, and
00:22:58
◼
►
very few of them make a meaningful amount of money from it.
00:23:01
◼
►
That, to some degree, has always been the case.
00:23:03
◼
►
Like our friend, _DavidSmith, did an episode
00:23:06
◼
►
of Developing Perspective, which you should also
00:23:07
◼
►
be listening to, during the very first week
00:23:10
◼
►
this was being discussed, a few weeks back,
00:23:12
◼
►
where he basically said, "It's always been hard."
00:23:15
◼
►
And he's right, I mean, I've been in the App Store
00:23:17
◼
►
since day one, and I was lucky that Instapaper on,
00:23:22
◼
►
well, it was actually like day two or three, technically,
00:23:25
◼
►
'cause there was a huge backlog of submissions,
00:23:28
◼
►
And even though I submitted by the deadline,
00:23:30
◼
►
that where they said you'd be there on day one, I wasn't.
00:23:34
◼
►
No, I'm not bitter about that.
00:23:35
◼
►
I've been there since roughly day two or three.
00:23:37
◼
►
And yeah, the fact is, it's always been hard.
00:23:41
◼
►
I was lucky that my app was very popular from the start,
00:23:45
◼
►
relatively speaking.
00:23:47
◼
►
But even that was not that easy to sustain.
00:23:51
◼
►
And I've had other efforts since then
00:23:55
◼
►
that were not that successful,
00:23:57
◼
►
and I saw the other side of it too.
00:23:59
◼
►
At some point I wanna do a big blog post
00:24:01
◼
►
about app marketing and what that actually means,
00:24:04
◼
►
which is funny coming from me,
00:24:05
◼
►
and it would probably include me talking about brands
00:24:09
◼
►
because it's actually relevant.
00:24:12
◼
►
You have to think about marketing from the start.
00:24:15
◼
►
Like when I made Overcast, when I decided to start making it
00:24:19
◼
►
the very first thing I did after deciding,
00:24:22
◼
►
okay, I'm gonna take this little prototype audio engine
00:24:24
◼
►
I have and make it into an actual app,
00:24:26
◼
►
The very first thing I did was download all the other
00:24:28
◼
►
podcast apps that I could find and make a folder on my
00:24:30
◼
►
phone so I could keep tabs on them and see what they added
00:24:32
◼
►
and see what they did and see what they were good at
00:24:34
◼
►
and see what they weren't good at.
00:24:35
◼
►
And I took screenshots of all of them.
00:24:38
◼
►
I did like a little tour of each app and took a screenshot
00:24:41
◼
►
to say, you know, here's how this app looks.
00:24:43
◼
►
And I made folders saying, you know, this is Downcast,
00:24:45
◼
►
this is Instacast, this is Pocketcast, like all the apps.
00:24:48
◼
►
Here's how they look, here's their settings screen,
00:24:49
◼
►
here's their playback screen, here's their list screen,
00:24:51
◼
►
here's the options that they have and whatever.
00:24:55
◼
►
I did all this so that I could have this portfolio of info
00:25:00
◼
►
and then I made a list saying,
00:25:03
◼
►
here's what I plan to do with my app.
00:25:05
◼
►
How will it be better than or worse than these apps?
00:25:07
◼
►
In what regards will I be better than this?
00:25:10
◼
►
And then for each app, I had an entry in a big text file
00:25:14
◼
►
saying, here's the pros of Overcast versus this app
00:25:17
◼
►
and here's the cons of Overcast versus this app.
00:25:20
◼
►
And I did all this not because I'm good at doing
00:25:24
◼
►
research your homework, 'cause that's not even close
00:25:26
◼
►
to being true.
00:25:28
◼
►
I did all this because I wanted to make sure
00:25:30
◼
►
that I had a chance, and not a chance of being,
00:25:34
◼
►
you know, being like a minor success for a week or two.
00:25:37
◼
►
I wanted this app to be successful enough
00:25:40
◼
►
that I could develop it for years,
00:25:42
◼
►
'cause that's what I want to do.
00:25:43
◼
►
I wanna keep working on this.
00:25:44
◼
►
I don't like, now it's out, I've actually,
00:25:47
◼
►
there was an update, which I'll get to I guess later.
00:25:50
◼
►
I've already fixed many of the known bugs.
00:25:53
◼
►
If I wanted to just abandon this app and move on,
00:25:56
◼
►
I could probably abandon it in about another two months.
00:25:58
◼
►
But I don't wanna do that, I wanna keep working on it.
00:26:00
◼
►
So far, I will be able to.
00:26:02
◼
►
It's selling well enough that so far I can do that.
00:26:04
◼
►
But I did all this research up front and all this planning
00:26:08
◼
►
to really know what am I really going to be adding
00:26:13
◼
►
to this market.
00:26:14
◼
►
And Jared points out, there's this idea that,
00:26:19
◼
►
there's an idea that great design and great reviews
00:26:21
◼
►
will be enough to carry you.
00:26:23
◼
►
And that's not, and he points out rightly,
00:26:26
◼
►
that's wishful thinking, that doesn't fit reality.
00:26:30
◼
►
Because the fact is you can have the best launch
00:26:32
◼
►
in the world and be all over Daring Fireball
00:26:34
◼
►
and Mac Stories and IMOR and all the great sites
00:26:36
◼
►
that review this stuff.
00:26:38
◼
►
But what you have to look at is an app store buyer
00:26:43
◼
►
who is just browsing the app store,
00:26:45
◼
►
who has searched for the kind of app that you have.
00:26:49
◼
►
They typed in podcast into the app store.
00:26:52
◼
►
they get a list of the podcast apps,
00:26:54
◼
►
and they're gonna look at the first few
00:26:56
◼
►
and make a decision.
00:26:57
◼
►
You have to ask yourself,
00:26:59
◼
►
before you even start any work at all,
00:27:01
◼
►
you have to ask yourself,
00:27:03
◼
►
will people meaningfully, in meaningful numbers,
00:27:06
◼
►
will people buy my app in that situation?
00:27:08
◼
►
They're not gonna go to Mac Stories,
00:27:10
◼
►
they're not gonna go to Darren Fireball,
00:27:12
◼
►
they're gonna go to the App Store and look down the list,
00:27:14
◼
►
and they're gonna make a few comparisons.
00:27:17
◼
►
Probably first they're gonna look at price,
00:27:18
◼
►
and they're gonna look at,
00:27:20
◼
►
they're probably first gonna look to see
00:27:21
◼
►
there's a free one that fits their needs.
00:27:23
◼
►
And if there is, great, they're gonna stop there
00:27:26
◼
►
and that's it.
00:27:27
◼
►
And then they judge it based on the icon, the title,
00:27:29
◼
►
the screenshots, if you're lucky,
00:27:32
◼
►
and no one ever, ever, ever reads the description text.
00:27:35
◼
►
- I read some of it.
00:27:37
◼
►
- You're the only person who reads it.
00:27:38
◼
►
Yeah, I read it too, but you know.
00:27:39
◼
►
- Well, I also read emails, so.
00:27:41
◼
►
- There's like three words visible
00:27:43
◼
►
in the description text most of the time.
00:27:44
◼
►
It's like two or three words a period,
00:27:46
◼
►
a new line, new line, one word,
00:27:48
◼
►
new line, dot, dot, dot, tap for more.
00:27:50
◼
►
- Exactly, and no one ever, and Apple there is designing
00:27:54
◼
►
for what people actually do.
00:27:55
◼
►
Like it used to be more text visible,
00:27:58
◼
►
and over time they've shrunk it,
00:28:00
◼
►
presumably 'cause nobody reads it,
00:28:01
◼
►
and they can use that space for other things.
00:28:04
◼
►
So, you know, people have to,
00:28:06
◼
►
you have to plan from the start.
00:28:08
◼
►
This is marketing, this is part of marketing,
00:28:11
◼
►
is figuring out where you fit in the market,
00:28:14
◼
►
and making sure you're gonna fit somewhere
00:28:16
◼
►
that there actually is a market for.
00:28:18
◼
►
It's marketing from the very beginning.
00:28:20
◼
►
it's thinking about this stuff from the very beginning.
00:28:22
◼
►
You have to be able to make a good case for your app
00:28:26
◼
►
based on no reviews having been read,
00:28:29
◼
►
no research having been done,
00:28:30
◼
►
usually not even people trying trials of different apps.
00:28:33
◼
►
They're usually just gonna stick with
00:28:34
◼
►
whatever they use first.
00:28:36
◼
►
So in that list, when they do the App Store search,
00:28:39
◼
►
or they're browsing a list,
00:28:41
◼
►
is your app gonna be compelling enough?
00:28:43
◼
►
And the fact is, because there's so many apps in the store,
00:28:46
◼
►
it's hard to be compelling.
00:28:48
◼
►
And especially the model of paid up front.
00:28:52
◼
►
The reason it's so hard is because that's how people browse.
00:28:55
◼
►
The reason the race to the bottom happened
00:28:57
◼
►
is because of that.
00:28:58
◼
►
That's because most people are buying apps
00:29:00
◼
►
not from their desktop, reading reviews,
00:29:03
◼
►
and clicking the link to go to iTunes
00:29:04
◼
►
and have the app sync over.
00:29:05
◼
►
Most people are buying apps right from the phone
00:29:07
◼
►
in the App Store app, period.
00:29:09
◼
►
And they're doing that probably after doing a search.
00:29:11
◼
►
We don't know that for sure yet,
00:29:12
◼
►
but I bet once we have better analytics,
00:29:14
◼
►
we'll find that out pretty quickly.
00:29:15
◼
►
That's probably through browsing top lists first
00:29:18
◼
►
and searching for terms a distant second.
00:29:21
◼
►
And most people aren't gonna be on the top list,
00:29:23
◼
►
so your hope is searching for terms.
00:29:27
◼
►
When they browse the list and they see
00:29:28
◼
►
that one of the apps is free,
00:29:30
◼
►
or that three or four of them are free,
00:29:32
◼
►
and there's your app sitting there at four bucks,
00:29:35
◼
►
you don't stand a chance.
00:29:37
◼
►
You just don't.
00:29:38
◼
►
If people hear about your app in some other way,
00:29:41
◼
►
and if a friend tells them that they read a review
00:29:45
◼
►
and your app is four bucks, that's fine.
00:29:47
◼
►
you have a decent chance there.
00:29:49
◼
►
But the average person browsing,
00:29:50
◼
►
and this, I know there are specialty app types
00:29:54
◼
►
for which this is not true, that's fine,
00:29:56
◼
►
but for general audience apps, general purpose apps
00:29:58
◼
►
that are not being used in some kind of specialty
00:30:01
◼
►
business role or anything like that,
00:30:02
◼
►
general audience apps, this is how people browse.
00:30:05
◼
►
They look for what they want, they find one,
00:30:07
◼
►
hopefully that's free, they download it,
00:30:09
◼
►
and they stop looking, that's it.
00:30:12
◼
►
And so paid up front apps just,
00:30:15
◼
►
As I said, they don't really stand a chance in this model.
00:30:17
◼
►
This is why Overcast is not paid up front.
00:30:19
◼
►
Instapaper was paid up front the whole time.
00:30:21
◼
►
I saw the challenges, it worked for a long time,
00:30:24
◼
►
then it stopped working very well.
00:30:26
◼
►
And it's hard for developers to accept this
00:30:28
◼
►
because paid up front is easy.
00:30:30
◼
►
It's really easy to just make an app
00:30:33
◼
►
where everything's always enabled
00:30:34
◼
►
and you don't have to worry about trying to manage purchases
00:30:36
◼
►
or anything like that.
00:30:38
◼
►
You just make a great app and you put a price tag on it
00:30:41
◼
►
and you're done.
00:30:42
◼
►
And you don't have to deal with refunds
00:30:43
◼
►
or anything like that, 'cause Apple deals with it for you,
00:30:46
◼
►
and you don't have to deal with limiting things
00:30:48
◼
►
and trials and demos and working within Apple's limitations
00:30:50
◼
►
and rules for that and all that stuff.
00:30:52
◼
►
You just put it up there and you're done.
00:30:54
◼
►
It's a great story.
00:30:55
◼
►
It worked for a long time, it stopped working.
00:30:58
◼
►
It doesn't work now.
00:31:00
◼
►
Now you gotta put a little more work into it.
00:31:01
◼
►
You know, now you have to actually figure out,
00:31:04
◼
►
well, how can I wedge a free trial type thing
00:31:08
◼
►
into this system?
00:31:09
◼
►
What can I get paid for in this app, if anything?
00:31:12
◼
►
and then you have to implement that.
00:31:13
◼
►
You have to say, all right, well, you have to like,
00:31:15
◼
►
it overcast, I made these like little demo modes
00:31:17
◼
►
where you can demo the effects for five minutes
00:31:19
◼
►
and you know, before you buy them.
00:31:21
◼
►
That's all additional work.
00:31:22
◼
►
I had to have an interface for buying things.
00:31:24
◼
►
I had to have a screen explaining that
00:31:25
◼
►
what you get when you buy things.
00:31:26
◼
►
You have to have all these different states
00:31:28
◼
►
that exist in the app.
00:31:29
◼
►
You have to, with iOS 8,
00:31:30
◼
►
you have to deal with delayed purchases, all this stuff.
00:31:33
◼
►
This is just the reality of the market now.
00:31:35
◼
►
You have to think this way.
00:31:36
◼
►
You have to do more work.
00:31:38
◼
►
You probably, if you want a general audience app,
00:31:40
◼
►
you probably have to do free with an app purchase
00:31:42
◼
►
to make any money and that's just the reality of it.
00:31:45
◼
►
You know, what Jared was doing with Unread
00:31:48
◼
►
was appealing to us, appealing to people like you and me,
00:31:53
◼
►
but that's not the market.
00:31:55
◼
►
That's a very small part of the market
00:31:56
◼
►
and he got that part of the market
00:31:58
◼
►
but it just wasn't enough.
00:31:59
◼
►
- Do you think you would have had,
00:32:02
◼
►
maybe the bravery is the best way to phrase it,
00:32:04
◼
►
to release Overcast had you not already proven
00:32:08
◼
►
your success in the App Store with Instapaper?
00:32:11
◼
►
I'm not saying to other people,
00:32:12
◼
►
do you think internally you would have had
00:32:16
◼
►
the bravery, again, for lack of a better word,
00:32:18
◼
►
to jump into the app store, in today's app store,
00:32:22
◼
►
had you not already lived through 2008's app store?
00:32:25
◼
►
- I probably would have been stupid enough to do it.
00:32:29
◼
►
No, I mean, I don't wanna discourage people from doing it.
00:32:32
◼
►
Just have reasonable expectations.
00:32:34
◼
►
And the fact is, in 2008, you could put anything up there.
00:32:39
◼
►
I mean, God forbid if you actually see screenshots
00:32:42
◼
►
of Instapaper 1.0, it's a disaster.
00:32:45
◼
►
And I actually didn't have,
00:32:46
◼
►
I didn't have a paid app on day one.
00:32:48
◼
►
My first app was free, and then I made Instapaper Pro
00:32:50
◼
►
about two months in.
00:32:52
◼
►
That was the paid app.
00:32:52
◼
►
So about two months in, I started getting paid revenue,
00:32:54
◼
►
and even that version, I mean, you look at the screenshots,
00:32:58
◼
►
it's just a disaster.
00:32:59
◼
►
It's awful looking.
00:33:02
◼
►
And I charged $10 for it, and it sold well.
00:33:05
◼
►
I mean, it's crazy.
00:33:07
◼
►
And the fact is standards were just much lower back then.
00:33:10
◼
►
There was a lot less in the store.
00:33:11
◼
►
These days, every category already has 10 apps in it,
00:33:15
◼
►
at least, especially, I mean, God,
00:33:17
◼
►
some categories have thousands.
00:33:19
◼
►
You're competing against a massive, massive market now.
00:33:24
◼
►
It's not the same game anymore,
00:33:26
◼
►
and you have to adapt to the new reality of it.
00:33:29
◼
►
And you can't really depend, and Jared's right,
00:33:31
◼
►
to not really ascribe blame to Apple in this,
00:33:35
◼
►
because I wrote this post a couple weeks ago called Apparot
00:33:38
◼
►
and this post was a failure of mine as a writer.
00:33:42
◼
►
I had about three different ideas I wanted to express.
00:33:46
◼
►
They should have been three different posts.
00:33:48
◼
►
I was lazy one night and made it one post
00:33:50
◼
►
'cause I'd been sitting on these ideas for months
00:33:51
◼
►
and I just couldn't get 'em out,
00:33:53
◼
►
I didn't have the motivation.
00:33:54
◼
►
And people misinterpreted it to mean
00:33:56
◼
►
a lot of different things because I tried to conflate
00:33:58
◼
►
these different things that should have been different posts
00:34:00
◼
►
into one post.
00:34:02
◼
►
Apple is not really at fault at all here
00:34:05
◼
►
for this part of the market failure.
00:34:07
◼
►
They have other things they could do
00:34:08
◼
►
to make the market better,
00:34:10
◼
►
but this is not Apple's fault.
00:34:11
◼
►
This is not because we don't have trials
00:34:13
◼
►
or anything like that.
00:34:14
◼
►
This is, or paid upgrades, you know,
00:34:15
◼
►
this is simply the result of the market
00:34:18
◼
►
having a ton of people in it.
00:34:19
◼
►
A ton of developers do this,
00:34:22
◼
►
as we talked about last week.
00:34:23
◼
►
So, you know, there's not much Apple can do
00:34:26
◼
►
to fix this problem.
00:34:28
◼
►
There's some things they can do to fix other problems,
00:34:30
◼
►
Like I mentioned, getting rid of the top lists.
00:34:32
◼
►
That won't fix this problem.
00:34:34
◼
►
It will fix other problems or reduce them.
00:34:37
◼
►
But this problem is here to stay because the market is just
00:34:40
◼
►
It's kind of the same way it was with the--
00:34:42
◼
►
with just companies in general with the dot-com thing, right?
00:34:47
◼
►
Where it started out if you were an internet company
00:34:50
◼
►
and you had a website, you had a reasonable shot,
00:34:52
◼
►
but then all the websites got better.
00:34:53
◼
►
And very quickly, what evolved was the business model
00:34:56
◼
►
where you get as much venture capital as you can.
00:34:59
◼
►
You try to get as many users as you can by giving away everything you can for free and then figure out how to monetize it later.
00:35:04
◼
►
In the App Store, we're not really in the "figure out how to monetize it later," but we are in the part where the goal is get every single human being with an iOS device to download this application.
00:35:14
◼
►
And have within this application a way to get money from them. It's already there. People don't have to use it, whether it's buying magic coins or paying for energy to play your game or whatever the hell it is.
00:35:24
◼
►
like the monetization thing is already in there.
00:35:26
◼
►
So in that respect, it's better than the dot com
00:35:28
◼
►
where they're just like, ah, we'll figure it out later.
00:35:29
◼
►
We just wanna get as many people.
00:35:30
◼
►
But that strategy evolved quickly
00:35:33
◼
►
of like growth over everything.
00:35:35
◼
►
Get as many users as possible.
00:35:36
◼
►
That is the number one goal.
00:35:38
◼
►
I don't care how many people,
00:35:39
◼
►
I don't care if our conversion rate is .001%
00:35:42
◼
►
if we get just millions and millions and millions of users,
00:35:44
◼
►
that's still serious money.
00:35:46
◼
►
And when that happened in the dot com world,
00:35:50
◼
►
and it continues to happen, you know,
00:35:52
◼
►
arguably with like, what the hell was that,
00:35:54
◼
►
19 billion dollar acquisition,
00:35:57
◼
►
was it WhatsApp or whatever?
00:35:58
◼
►
- Oh yeah, the messaging app, yeah, yeah.
00:36:00
◼
►
- Yeah, there's still a viable strategy,
00:36:01
◼
►
like no one is buying WhatsApp if they,
00:36:03
◼
►
WhatsApp pursued the strategy of just,
00:36:05
◼
►
just get as many users as possible,
00:36:07
◼
►
become super valuable.
00:36:08
◼
►
Instagram for that matter too, Instagram's app.
00:36:10
◼
►
- To be fair, it's a really, really good business model
00:36:13
◼
►
to freak out Facebook.
00:36:15
◼
►
- Well-- - That is the best possible
00:36:16
◼
►
business model in this entire industry,
00:36:18
◼
►
in the entire tech industry,
00:36:19
◼
►
just freak out Facebook and you'll get billions.
00:36:21
◼
►
Well, see, the old strategy before there
00:36:25
◼
►
were big companies like Facebook to buy you for too much money--
00:36:28
◼
►
I mean, there were always companies
00:36:29
◼
►
to buy you for too much money, but not
00:36:31
◼
►
like it is today where there's a few vacuum of everything.
00:36:33
◼
►
But the old one was, we'll just get a bazillion users.
00:36:36
◼
►
Our growth curve will look like a hockey stick, and we'll IPO.
00:36:38
◼
►
And everyone who has a stake in the company will get
00:36:41
◼
►
rich off the IPO, and then the company will go down the tubes.
00:36:43
◼
►
In other words, no one would buy us.
00:36:45
◼
►
We never will figure out how to make money.
00:36:47
◼
►
But everyone who invests in the company
00:36:48
◼
►
made out like a bandit on the IPO, so who the hell cares?
00:36:50
◼
►
and it eventually goes down and somebody buys the scraps
00:36:52
◼
►
or something, you know.
00:36:53
◼
►
The new strategy is get as many users as possible.
00:36:56
◼
►
Yeah, you can freak out Facebook or become so big,
00:36:58
◼
►
like this is the next big thing, get someone to buy you
00:37:00
◼
►
and that's how you get your big payday,
00:37:01
◼
►
not from the IPO but from a big acquisition
00:37:04
◼
►
and then, you know, whatever, after that nobody cares, right?
00:37:07
◼
►
Also on the App Store, same strategy,
00:37:11
◼
►
get big really, really fast
00:37:12
◼
►
but just like in business today,
00:37:16
◼
►
even though that is still a viable strategy
00:37:18
◼
►
and it happens a lot,
00:37:20
◼
►
The other strategies evolve along with it.
00:37:22
◼
►
Not every company that has,
00:37:24
◼
►
not every sort of online focused company
00:37:26
◼
►
decides that its strategy is going to be
00:37:28
◼
►
get as many people as possible as fast as possible.
00:37:31
◼
►
I'm not sure what the breakdown is.
00:37:33
◼
►
Like, are there more sort of technology-based startups
00:37:37
◼
►
trying to get as many users as possible as fast as possible
00:37:40
◼
►
than there are trying to like sell a product?
00:37:42
◼
►
I mean, obviously when you get into physical goods,
00:37:44
◼
►
it gets different.
00:37:45
◼
►
Like Nest, the strategy of the Nest company
00:37:47
◼
►
was not to get as many users as possible as fast as possible.
00:37:50
◼
►
I don't know how many thermostats and smoke detectors
00:37:54
◼
►
they sold, but it was not like WhatsApp type numbers.
00:37:58
◼
►
But they made a quality product.
00:37:59
◼
►
They charged people for it.
00:38:01
◼
►
And it was enough to get them acquired
00:38:03
◼
►
by somebody who wanted the talents they had,
00:38:04
◼
►
and that worked out for them.
00:38:05
◼
►
But they didn't pursue that strategy,
00:38:07
◼
►
and it was still successful.
00:38:09
◼
►
So you mentioned before applications
00:38:11
◼
►
where, oh, if it's a specialty app
00:38:12
◼
►
or it doesn't apply to you, but if you
00:38:14
◼
►
want to get the mass market.
00:38:16
◼
►
I think there is a spectrum where--
00:38:17
◼
►
I think of an application like Capo, where it's not
00:38:21
◼
►
like a super specialty app, like something for someone
00:38:25
◼
►
in a very specific field to use.
00:38:27
◼
►
There's tons of musicians.
00:38:29
◼
►
Musicians is a big market, but it's not mass market.
00:38:32
◼
►
Not everyone is a musician.
00:38:33
◼
►
Certainly not everyone is looking
00:38:35
◼
►
for an application to help them with their music creation
00:38:38
◼
►
But it's much broader than last week's dental office software.
00:38:44
◼
►
but musicians are willing to pay for things
00:38:47
◼
►
that help them make music better.
00:38:48
◼
►
Especially if your application in these types of cases
00:38:52
◼
►
replaces lots of other much more expensive equipment.
00:38:55
◼
►
Suddenly your $10 app seems like a bargain
00:38:57
◼
►
compared to the $200 worth of equipment it's replacing.
00:39:00
◼
►
That is a very viable thing to do.
00:39:03
◼
►
Or even like a drawing application,
00:39:04
◼
►
not everyone needs an application
00:39:06
◼
►
like Acorn or something, right?
00:39:07
◼
►
But the people who do are actually willing
00:39:09
◼
►
to pay money for it.
00:39:10
◼
►
And is that mass market?
00:39:11
◼
►
as well as not as mass market as an instant messaging app
00:39:14
◼
►
or even a podcast app, I think.
00:39:16
◼
►
But it's much more mass market
00:39:19
◼
►
than some very narrowly defined app
00:39:21
◼
►
that could maybe command $100 or whatever.
00:39:23
◼
►
So what we really wanna see is like the breakdown.
00:39:26
◼
►
How many are doing that crazy,
00:39:27
◼
►
get as many people as possible,
00:39:28
◼
►
and then fleece the whales for some percentage or whatever.
00:39:32
◼
►
To us, it seems like that's big.
00:39:33
◼
►
Like it seems like, oh, that's the entire store.
00:39:35
◼
►
'Cause that's all we see, the Donny the topless.
00:39:37
◼
►
It pisses us off because we think it's not like
00:39:39
◼
►
of a constructive and honorable way to make money. And so to us it seems like that's bigger than it
00:39:45
◼
►
is. But I wonder how it compares to that middle ground of people selling applications like,
00:39:51
◼
►
you know, that charge money up front to not the mass market, but also not to like just a couple
00:40:00
◼
►
hundred people, and that it works out for them. I mean, I think our impression of the market is
00:40:08
◼
►
correct that it's mostly those people you know doing tons of stuff because you
00:40:11
◼
►
know you the numbers don't lie they are they do dominate the topless with their
00:40:16
◼
►
stupid free applications within app purchases and everything but I hope that
00:40:19
◼
►
over time just like in the dot-com things I hope over time that that crazy
00:40:24
◼
►
frenzy getting many people a possible thing well sort of not run its course
00:40:28
◼
►
but simmer down a little bit and we will get a healthier kind of middle part of
00:40:33
◼
►
the market from people making applications and selling them to people
00:40:36
◼
►
who actually want to pay money for software.
00:40:38
◼
►
Because in the end, this is a business of people
00:40:42
◼
►
paying money for software.
00:40:45
◼
►
And we all continue to think that that is a thing
00:40:48
◼
►
that people are going to do because software provides value.
00:40:50
◼
►
Speak for yourself.
00:40:53
◼
►
Even the free applications.
00:40:55
◼
►
People are paying for software.
00:40:57
◼
►
They're just paying for virtual currency within software.
00:41:00
◼
►
They're not getting anything.
00:41:02
◼
►
They're not getting any physical goods.
00:41:03
◼
►
They're putting money in, and what they're getting out
00:41:05
◼
►
is an experience.
00:41:05
◼
►
So it's like buying a ticket to a movie,
00:41:07
◼
►
buying a level for a game,
00:41:09
◼
►
or paying money to be able to tap the screen sooner
00:41:12
◼
►
than you could previously tap the screen.
00:41:14
◼
►
Like they're paying money for essentially nothing.
00:41:17
◼
►
And even the big scary gross top end of the market
00:41:20
◼
►
shows that people are willing to do that.
00:41:23
◼
►
It should be not outside the realm of possibility
00:41:27
◼
►
to get people to pay money for things that give them value
00:41:29
◼
►
in ways other than entertainment.
00:41:31
◼
►
It's just going to be a smaller market.
00:41:32
◼
►
So I don't know what the equilibrium is,
00:41:34
◼
►
But what I'm saying is I think we're not there yet.
00:41:37
◼
►
I think we are now tilted still way over
00:41:39
◼
►
into the candy crushes of the world.
00:41:41
◼
►
And there still needs to be a little bit more
00:41:43
◼
►
rocking back towards the middle.
00:41:45
◼
►
- We are also sponsored this week by our friends at Hover.
00:41:49
◼
►
Hover is the best way to buy and manage domain names.
00:41:53
◼
►
You know, I had a few people on Twitter bothering me
00:41:55
◼
►
in the last few weeks about how I pronounce hover.
00:41:58
◼
►
How are we supposed to pronounce it?
00:41:59
◼
►
- You're saying it right.
00:42:01
◼
►
I don't know what they were saying.
00:42:01
◼
►
You pronounce it like H.
00:42:02
◼
►
- Am I supposed to say hover?
00:42:04
◼
►
- No, you're not, it's hover.
00:42:06
◼
►
Maybe it's because you emphasized the U sound, I don't know.
00:42:09
◼
►
- Just keep saying hover, it's fine.
00:42:11
◼
►
- Yeah, you pronounce some things weird like query
00:42:13
◼
►
instead of query, but hover you get right.
00:42:16
◼
►
- Yeah, I don't, I'm wondering what,
00:42:19
◼
►
please, listeners who criticize my pronunciation of hover,
00:42:22
◼
►
please record an audio file of yourself saying it properly
00:42:25
◼
►
and send it to me, 'cause I honestly don't know
00:42:26
◼
►
how I'm supposed to be saying it differently than this.
00:42:29
◼
►
Hover is a domain record star that's awesome, basically.
00:42:32
◼
►
You know, I don't need to explain to you guys
00:42:33
◼
►
what domain names are.
00:42:35
◼
►
I can just tell you what Hover is really good at.
00:42:37
◼
►
So first of all, their interface is awesome.
00:42:41
◼
►
It's nice, it's clean, it's quick to do things.
00:42:44
◼
►
I've used many other registrar's control panels before
00:42:47
◼
►
and Hover's is, yeah, I can simply say
00:42:51
◼
►
it's the best one I've used.
00:42:53
◼
►
'Cause I've used it a lot and they're
00:42:54
◼
►
almost always universally awful.
00:42:56
◼
►
And Hover's is good, that alone is a reason
00:43:00
◼
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you should go with them.
00:43:01
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But there's more reasons too.
00:43:02
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But first of all, they have amazing customer support.
00:43:04
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You can call them on the phone if you want to,
00:43:06
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and a human being picks up the phone and can help you.
00:43:09
◼
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There's no hold, no wait, no transfer phone support.
00:43:12
◼
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You can also, of course, email and do online stuff
00:43:15
◼
►
if you want to, but that option is always there
00:43:16
◼
►
for you, you can just call them.
00:43:18
◼
►
They also have great prices.
00:43:19
◼
►
In fact, so there's all these new domain names,
00:43:21
◼
►
like all these crazy new things,
00:43:23
◼
►
like dot plumbing and all this crazy stuff.
00:43:25
◼
►
Most of these new domain names are on sale,
00:43:28
◼
►
big sales in the month of August.
00:43:30
◼
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So if you listen to this in time,
00:43:33
◼
►
you should be able to catch this sale.
00:43:34
◼
►
If you want any of these new domains, check out Hover.
00:43:37
◼
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They're on sale for often up to 50% off.
00:43:39
◼
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They're deeply discounted,
00:43:40
◼
►
maybe even more than that on some of them.
00:43:42
◼
►
Check it out if you want, like, you know,
00:43:43
◼
►
you can get .ninja, .guru,
00:43:46
◼
►
there's all sorts of horrible ones
00:43:48
◼
►
and a few good ones that you can get.
00:43:49
◼
►
So check that out too.
00:43:51
◼
►
Hover includes things for free
00:43:53
◼
►
that other people make you pay for.
00:43:55
◼
►
For example, you get Whois privacy on every domain for free.
00:43:59
◼
►
You can, you know, there's all sorts of stuff
00:44:01
◼
►
you can do with Hover, and it's,
00:44:02
◼
►
they have email hosting, they have Google apps
00:44:05
◼
►
for your domain hosting.
00:44:06
◼
►
They also have this really cool service,
00:44:08
◼
►
which I talked a little bit about last time,
00:44:09
◼
►
called Valet Transfers, where if you wanna transfer
00:44:13
◼
►
a domain name into Hover from another registrar,
00:44:16
◼
►
you can do it the normal way if you want to,
00:44:17
◼
►
but there's a very good chance when you transfer
00:44:20
◼
►
domain names that you're gonna mess something up.
00:44:22
◼
►
Usually it's DNS settings, stuff like that.
00:44:24
◼
►
If you want to, optionally, Hover will,
00:44:26
◼
►
no additional charge, log into your old registrar. You just give them your credentials. They will
00:44:32
◼
►
log into your old registrar and do the transfer for you. And you can often do this with a very
00:44:37
◼
►
large number of domain names. Like, don't think you'll have too many because they'll still do it.
00:44:41
◼
►
It's pretty impressive. So that's, and I don't know if any of the registrars has that service.
00:44:44
◼
►
So give Hover a try. We have a new coupon code this week. The coupon code this week is
00:44:51
◼
►
- Vinyl Sounds Better.
00:44:55
◼
►
- Oh, that's fantastic.
00:44:57
◼
►
- If you go to hover.com and use coupon code
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VinylSoundsBetter, all one word, I assume you can spell,
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◼
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VinylSoundsBetter, you will get 10% off
00:45:08
◼
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your first purchase at Hover.
00:45:09
◼
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And really, again, I can't recommend them enough.
00:45:11
◼
►
They're a domain register that's awesome, basically.
00:45:13
◼
►
That's all I need to tell you guys.
00:45:14
◼
►
You guys are geeks, you know what this is about.
00:45:16
◼
►
You can get so many domains these days.
00:45:19
◼
►
You can get them for humor, you can get them for business,
00:45:21
◼
►
You can get them for your own personal site
00:45:23
◼
►
or email address.
00:45:24
◼
►
If your blog is something.wordpress.com,
00:45:27
◼
►
that doesn't look very good.
00:45:28
◼
►
Just get your own domain, manage it, manage your identity.
00:45:31
◼
►
There's tons of reasons to buy domain names these days.
00:45:33
◼
►
If you're drunk and have a funny idea
00:45:35
◼
►
for a domain name or an app, just buy the name.
00:45:37
◼
►
Great, go to Hover.
00:45:38
◼
►
Tons of reasons to buy domain names,
00:45:39
◼
►
and if you're gonna buy it ever, you should buy it at Hover.
00:45:41
◼
►
So thanks a lot to Hover for sponsoring our show.
00:45:43
◼
►
Once again, don't forget to use coupon code
00:45:46
◼
►
VINALSOUNDSBETTER for 10% off.
00:45:49
◼
►
I love that they basically forced you to admit that vinyl
00:45:53
◼
►
does indeed sound better.
00:45:54
◼
►
Also, I'd like to add before anyone jumps on me
00:45:57
◼
►
that earlier today I noticed that .BMW is a top level
00:46:01
◼
►
And I did not @ mention or anything hover in that tweet.
00:46:06
◼
►
And they replied to my tweet with the following.
00:46:10
◼
►
It says, @CaseyList, .BMW is being operated as a closed TLD,
00:46:15
◼
►
so not available to the public.
00:46:16
◼
►
"NoWhite.BMW4U." And then they had a link to the actual registrar page, which I thought
00:46:23
◼
►
was hysterical. So even when they're kind of sort of trolling, they're super nice
00:46:27
◼
►
Yeah, and they're fans of ours too, so they're good people. How bad could they be if they
00:46:31
◼
►
liked this show?
00:46:32
◼
►
Let's move on to TiVo. Apparently there's been an update.
00:46:37
◼
►
They're still in business?
00:46:38
◼
►
Yeah, who knew?
00:46:39
◼
►
I've been waiting for this update for a while since I read about it, but they do
00:46:43
◼
►
do like sort of a staged roll out I think I don't know how they determine
00:46:46
◼
►
the stages but anyway I finally got it on my Tivo so the thing with Tivo I've
00:46:50
◼
►
been complaining for many years that the user interface is not as responsive as
00:46:54
◼
►
it should be especially after they went to high definition at first they didn't
00:46:59
◼
►
have their menuing interface wasn't high definition even though the video was
00:47:02
◼
►
then they added a high definition menuing interface written in flash and
00:47:07
◼
►
it was super duper slow and terrible and it just made me sad and that was the
00:47:13
◼
►
case until my current TiVo, which is the TiVo Romeo, which has a much more responsive user
00:47:19
◼
►
interface, much more responsive than the previous ones.
00:47:22
◼
►
There's still some standard deaf menus in there, which is shameful in this late stage,
00:47:26
◼
►
but anyway, at least they made the main interface they used faster.
00:47:29
◼
►
Well, so this update supposedly was going to make the older TiVos have the same interface
00:47:37
◼
►
as the most recent models.
00:47:39
◼
►
It would look the same, and it was supposedly much, much faster.
00:47:42
◼
►
I wish I could find this for the show, but I actually spent a while looking for it a
00:47:47
◼
►
couple days ago.
00:47:48
◼
►
Maybe someone in the chat room will know.
00:47:50
◼
►
They stopped using Flash for their interface, so good on them.
00:47:54
◼
►
Whether that was why it was slow or just a side effect of something else.
00:47:57
◼
►
Bottom line is the Flash interface on the old Devo is terribly slow.
00:48:01
◼
►
This new interface uses something to replace Flash, and I can't for the life of me remember
00:48:04
◼
►
what the hell the name of the technology is.
00:48:06
◼
►
It's not something you've heard of.
00:48:07
◼
►
It's like a weird name.
00:48:09
◼
►
It's not Swift.
00:48:10
◼
►
popping into my head because of the language things. Maybe it started with an
00:48:12
◼
►
S or something? If anyone in the chat room knows what they're using instead of
00:48:16
◼
►
Flash, because there was this big presentation from the TiVo people that
00:48:19
◼
►
said, "Here is how we evaluated this new technology, and here's how we sort of
00:48:24
◼
►
ported our existing infrastructure over to it and figured out what the issues
00:48:27
◼
►
were in terms of CPU performance and memory usage and all this other
00:48:31
◼
►
stuff." It was an interesting presentation that I, of course, read and just
00:48:34
◼
►
completely lost track of, and it's nowhere in any of my browser histories
00:48:37
◼
►
and I wouldn't know what to search for anyway.
00:48:38
◼
►
Anyway, bottom line, this update came.
00:48:40
◼
►
I got it on my TiVo Premier that I moved upstairs
00:48:43
◼
►
when I got the new TiVo Romeo downstairs.
00:48:46
◼
►
It does look like the new interface
00:48:47
◼
►
and it is way, way faster.
00:48:49
◼
►
It is not as fast as it is on the Romeos, I feel like,
00:48:51
◼
►
but it is much faster.
00:48:52
◼
►
So if you have an old TiVo Premier,
00:48:55
◼
►
it is no longer embarrassingly disgustingly slow
00:48:58
◼
►
if you have the latest version of the software,
00:48:59
◼
►
which is a free update to everybody.
00:49:01
◼
►
So that's kind of good news.
00:49:03
◼
►
Like if you happened to buy one
00:49:05
◼
►
and didn't know how slow it was,
00:49:07
◼
►
or if you were holding off buying a used one
00:49:09
◼
►
because they're all slow and gross,
00:49:10
◼
►
they've actually made their hardware faster with software
00:49:13
◼
►
and I give them a big thumbs up.
00:49:16
◼
►
Really quickly before we move on to topics
00:49:19
◼
►
because we haven't gone on long enough with follow-up.
00:49:21
◼
►
- This is still follow-up?
00:49:22
◼
►
- Yeah, sort of.
00:49:23
◼
►
How's the review, John?
00:49:24
◼
►
- You can ask me this every week, it's like torture.
00:49:27
◼
►
It's like, "Blah, blah, blah."
00:49:29
◼
►
- This is me encouraging you to accomplish the review
00:49:32
◼
►
as quickly as possible.
00:49:33
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:49:34
◼
►
So this weekend, my wife was nice enough
00:49:37
◼
►
to take the kids out to do various activities
00:49:39
◼
►
and I got a lot of stuff done,
00:49:41
◼
►
which only serves to remind me how much more I have to do
00:49:43
◼
►
and like I feel all accomplished
00:49:44
◼
►
and I like wrote an entire section and a half
00:49:46
◼
►
and like, oh great, only like nine more to go.
00:49:49
◼
►
Just do that nine more times.
00:49:50
◼
►
Then you look at the calendar
00:49:51
◼
►
and you think about the possibility of that.
00:49:54
◼
►
Yeah, it's bad.
00:49:55
◼
►
- Okay, on that happy note, Marco,
00:49:59
◼
►
do you wanna quickly talk about the Overcast update
00:50:02
◼
►
that is pending, is that correct?
00:50:04
◼
►
Well first, let me tell you about our last sponsor
00:50:06
◼
►
'cause we're running long here.
00:50:07
◼
►
Our last sponsor is lynda.com, L-Y-N-D-A dot com.
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lynda.com works directly with industry experts
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often the same day new versions or releases hit the market
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so you're always up to speed with new stuff.
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So for example, if Adobe makes new Creative Suite version,
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they have videos usually on day one
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to help you learn all the new stuff.
00:50:41
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All these video courses on Lynda
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are produced at the highest quality.
00:50:44
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This is not like the homemade videos you see on YouTube.
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These courses are broken into bite-sized pieces
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so you can learn at your own pace
00:50:50
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and learn from the start to finish
00:50:52
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or just find a quick answer by skimming through
00:50:54
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and going in the middle somewhere.
00:50:56
◼
►
They have tools on these,
00:50:57
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►
including searchable transcripts, playlists,
00:50:59
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►
and they even have a thing,
00:51:01
◼
►
if you use LinkedIn, I'm sorry.
00:51:04
◼
►
but if you still use LinkedIn,
00:51:06
◼
►
they have little certificates that somehow you,
00:51:09
◼
►
a certificate of course completion,
00:51:10
◼
►
so when you watch something on,
00:51:11
◼
►
if you watch like a whole course on Lynda,
00:51:13
◼
►
you can have that published into your LinkedIn profile
00:51:16
◼
►
to advertise to other unfortunate souls
00:51:18
◼
►
who are using LinkedIn that you completed a course.
00:51:22
◼
►
And this could help your job prospects
00:51:23
◼
►
because if you're in a kind of environment
00:51:25
◼
►
where people look at LinkedIn,
00:51:27
◼
►
they probably care about stuff like what you know,
00:51:28
◼
►
your qualifications, all this stuff.
00:51:30
◼
►
So that's another fun thing they've added.
00:51:32
◼
►
Now, Lynda.com courses cover beginner to advanced,
00:51:36
◼
►
all experience levels.
00:51:38
◼
►
They also have these cool mobile apps.
00:51:40
◼
►
iPhone, iPad, and Android are all supported.
00:51:44
◼
►
Now you get one low monthly price of $25,
00:51:48
◼
►
gets you unlimited access to the entire Lynda.com library.
00:51:51
◼
►
They have over 100,000 videos
00:51:53
◼
►
and they're always adding more.
00:51:54
◼
►
25 bucks a month gets you unlimited access to that.
00:51:58
◼
►
And if you upgrade to one of their premium plans,
00:52:01
◼
►
You can also download the videos for offline storage
00:52:04
◼
►
on your iPhone, iPad, or Android device
00:52:07
◼
►
and watch them offline.
00:52:09
◼
►
Premium plan members can also download project files
00:52:11
◼
►
and practice along with the instructor if you want to.
00:52:13
◼
►
So fun stuff there.
00:52:14
◼
►
Even if you just do the $25 a month basic plan,
00:52:17
◼
►
you get tons of value out of that.
00:52:19
◼
►
They gave me a trial of it and I kept going with it.
00:52:21
◼
►
It's fantastic.
00:52:22
◼
►
They have all sorts of topics in the courses,
00:52:25
◼
►
HTML, PHP, MySQL, iOS 7,
00:52:30
◼
►
even things like iPad tips and tricks,
00:52:32
◼
►
if you want to, you know, something like that,
00:52:34
◼
►
or if you know someone in your life
00:52:35
◼
►
who needs something like that.
00:52:36
◼
►
Very useful, how to create web apps,
00:52:37
◼
►
how to use like Pearl 6, is that a thing yet, John?
00:52:41
◼
►
- Sort of a thing.
00:52:43
◼
►
- That's one of those things that does not have
00:52:45
◼
►
a short answer, so, all right, so yeah.
00:52:48
◼
►
All sorts of great things, from technical stuff,
00:52:50
◼
►
to apps like Logic and Final Cut Pro,
00:52:53
◼
►
you know, the Creative Suite apps,
00:52:55
◼
►
down to things like software, web design,
00:52:57
◼
►
web page making, all this cool stuff.
00:52:59
◼
►
OpenGL, they even have a course here that's called
00:53:03
◼
►
Microsoft Intelligence Business Stack Fundamentals.
00:53:06
◼
►
I'm guessing somebody out there knows what that means,
00:53:08
◼
►
but it's definitely not me, but they have it.
00:53:10
◼
►
And so I could watch that and I could learn it if I want to.
00:53:13
◼
►
They also have more important things
00:53:14
◼
►
like managing your mobile photos,
00:53:16
◼
►
which as we know is not a simple topic.
00:53:18
◼
►
They have videos to help you out with that.
00:53:20
◼
►
So go to lynda.com/atp and you will get
00:53:24
◼
►
a free seven day trial.
00:53:27
◼
►
It's a great offer.
00:53:28
◼
►
And then if you wanna continue after that, again,
00:53:29
◼
►
just 25 bucks a month for unlimited access
00:53:31
◼
►
to all the videos in their entire library.
00:53:33
◼
►
Go to lynda.com/atp to try it free for seven days.
00:53:37
◼
►
Once again, that's L-Y-N-D-A dot com slash ATP.
00:53:41
◼
►
- All right, so tell us about this Overcast update.
00:53:45
◼
►
- I've been preparing the 102 update for a few weeks now.
00:53:48
◼
►
It's been a little while.
00:53:49
◼
►
And it's mostly bug fixes and minor improvements.
00:53:52
◼
►
And then a few days ago, I got a notice
00:53:56
◼
►
in the App Store Rejection Center,
00:54:00
◼
►
what is it called, the Resolution Center, yes,
00:54:01
◼
►
where they post rejection messages now.
00:54:03
◼
►
So I got a notice in the Rejection Center saying,
00:54:07
◼
►
upon reevaluation, I hadn't even submitted an update
00:54:10
◼
►
at this point, they just out of the blue,
00:54:12
◼
►
said upon reevaluation, we've decided that you're
00:54:15
◼
►
in violation of this rule 17.2,
00:54:17
◼
►
which is the rule that basically says,
00:54:20
◼
►
you can't require account-based logins
00:54:24
◼
►
with personal information for things
00:54:26
◼
►
that basically shouldn't require a login.
00:54:29
◼
►
So I responded first of all saying,
00:54:30
◼
►
well, there really aren't any features in my app
00:54:33
◼
►
that don't need the account.
00:54:34
◼
►
The entire app is account-based.
00:54:37
◼
►
And they, oh, and they said,
00:54:38
◼
►
you need to submit a build that fixes this within two weeks
00:54:41
◼
►
or we'll pull you out of the store, basically.
00:54:43
◼
►
They said it nicer, but that's the gist of it.
00:54:46
◼
►
I first responded with my thing saying,
00:54:48
◼
►
well, basically trying to explain my way out of it.
00:54:51
◼
►
The reason why, I didn't explain all this,
00:54:54
◼
►
The reason why I didn't have an account-free option
00:54:58
◼
►
at the beginning, and I explained this a little bit before,
00:55:01
◼
►
I think, but the main reason why is that you think
00:55:03
◼
►
of the situation where, suppose somebody has
00:55:07
◼
►
an anonymous sync account, which is kind of what I call them
00:55:10
◼
►
on the back end, so these anonymous sync accounts,
00:55:12
◼
►
then they, at some point, they launch their iPad
00:55:17
◼
►
or whatever, they launch the app on a different device,
00:55:20
◼
►
and they see a login screen, and they assume mistakenly
00:55:24
◼
►
that they've created an account.
00:55:25
◼
►
So they type in a username and password.
00:55:28
◼
►
They ignore the text in the box that says,
00:55:31
◼
►
this account doesn't exist, do you wanna create it?
00:55:33
◼
►
And they just click yes, because that's what most people do.
00:55:36
◼
►
Then they're presented with this newly created account
00:55:38
◼
►
that is blank.
00:55:40
◼
►
And then they email me saying,
00:55:42
◼
►
I can't believe you deleted all my stuff, it's all gone.
00:55:45
◼
►
Oh my God, you suck, one star refund,
00:55:47
◼
►
everything's horrible, you've ruined my life.
00:55:50
◼
►
I saw this happen so many times with Instapaper.
00:55:52
◼
►
this is how people actually behave, trust me.
00:55:55
◼
►
It's like, this will happen.
00:55:58
◼
►
And because people don't read text on screens
00:56:01
◼
►
and they don't remember, understandably,
00:56:03
◼
►
'cause there's so many things out there,
00:56:04
◼
►
they don't remember what they've made accounts for
00:56:05
◼
►
and what they haven't.
00:56:07
◼
►
They often will do it with two different email addresses,
00:56:10
◼
►
not much I can do about that.
00:56:11
◼
►
So I wanted to avoid this support issue
00:56:14
◼
►
of what do you do with this kind of situation?
00:56:18
◼
►
It's not good.
00:56:20
◼
►
If those people write in, I can explain to them,
00:56:22
◼
►
oh, well, you have this other account here,
00:56:25
◼
►
if I can find it, or if I can figure out who it is,
00:56:27
◼
►
which I probably can't with anonymous stuff.
00:56:29
◼
►
But anyway, you could try with support,
00:56:31
◼
►
but the problem is most of the time,
00:56:32
◼
►
those people won't even email in support.
00:56:34
◼
►
They'll just assume that I'm a terrible person
00:56:35
◼
►
and an incompetent programmer,
00:56:36
◼
►
I lost everything of theirs,
00:56:38
◼
►
and they will just be angry and never buy my stuff again.
00:56:40
◼
►
They'll tell their friends how much it sucks,
00:56:42
◼
►
or they'll post a review, or they get a refund from Apple.
00:56:44
◼
►
All of which suck for me.
00:56:46
◼
►
So I really did not want to go down that route.
00:56:50
◼
►
So that's why I said, let me just require it
00:56:52
◼
►
at the beginning, it'll just be email account,
00:56:55
◼
►
no usernames, I even answered that part in the fact,
00:56:58
◼
►
because I'm like, no usernames necessary for this
00:57:00
◼
►
because I had it with its paper first,
00:57:03
◼
►
where it was, at first you could enter anything
00:57:04
◼
►
for your username, email or not,
00:57:06
◼
►
just any string of characters would work,
00:57:08
◼
►
and I had the problem again, if people would log in
00:57:10
◼
►
to a new device, type in an email address
00:57:12
◼
►
when they had used username before or vice versa,
00:57:15
◼
►
and create a new account by mistake
00:57:16
◼
►
and think everything was gone.
00:57:18
◼
►
So all that stuff sucks.
00:57:20
◼
►
I wanted to avoid it.
00:57:21
◼
►
So that's why I did it the way I did at Launch here.
00:57:24
◼
►
And I mentioned earlier, you know, when I launched,
00:57:26
◼
►
I believe on the launch show here,
00:57:29
◼
►
when we were talking about this,
00:57:30
◼
►
I believe I said, you know,
00:57:31
◼
►
something like half of all people who downloaded it
00:57:34
◼
►
were actually creating accounts.
00:57:35
◼
►
If I ever wanted to raise that rate,
00:57:37
◼
►
I would have to add an option like this.
00:57:38
◼
►
I was considering it,
00:57:39
◼
►
but I wanted to avoid the support issues.
00:57:41
◼
►
So anyway, back to modern day,
00:57:43
◼
►
Apple tells me a few days ago,
00:57:44
◼
►
you have to do this within two weeks.
00:57:46
◼
►
And I explained my way out of it, maybe.
00:57:50
◼
►
But Apple doesn't respond quickly to those things.
00:57:53
◼
►
I offered in the thing, I said, you know what,
00:57:55
◼
►
if you want, you can call me
00:57:56
◼
►
and we can talk about it on the phone.
00:57:58
◼
►
Like two days later, or two or three days later,
00:58:00
◼
►
they tell me, we will schedule a call within three days.
00:58:04
◼
►
Now I have a two week deadline
00:58:06
◼
►
and I'm sitting on this bug fix update
00:58:08
◼
►
that I really need to get out there
00:58:09
◼
►
'cause there's one or two fix some pretty important bugs.
00:58:12
◼
►
And I'm thinking, you know what,
00:58:13
◼
►
this is too long. I can fight this now. I might not win. If I don't win, I'll be down
00:58:20
◼
►
a whole week at least, probably longer, so then I don't have to really rush out of fix.
00:58:26
◼
►
Furthermore, if I do win this argument, if I'm living on the edge of a rule, I tell people
00:58:31
◼
►
this all the time, don't rely on living on the edge of a rule in the App Store guidelines.
00:58:37
◼
►
If I win this argument now and convince them it's okay for me to require accounts now,
00:58:43
◼
►
There is nothing guaranteeing that I will always be exempt from this rule.
00:58:50
◼
►
And so I could, at some point in the future, submit a really important update that fixes
00:58:54
◼
►
some really important bug and have it be held up in review because they're going to get
00:58:58
◼
►
me in this rule again.
00:59:00
◼
►
It's a terrible situation to try to always assume I'll be able to get around this rule.
00:59:06
◼
►
So I decided even before I heard back from them, and I still haven't heard back from
00:59:08
◼
►
them, I decided, you know what, I'll just do it.
00:59:11
◼
►
I was on the fence about doing this at all to begin with.
00:59:15
◼
►
It wasn't like I was always totally against doing this.
00:59:17
◼
►
I just wanted to minimize those issues.
00:59:18
◼
►
But I'm like, you know, let me just do this.
00:59:20
◼
►
I'll probably get more users and it'll be all right, fine.
00:59:23
◼
►
So I did it and I submitted, I tested it for a few,
00:59:27
◼
►
I did the whole thing over about four days,
00:59:30
◼
►
implementation to submission.
00:59:32
◼
►
I submitted it today at noon.
00:59:36
◼
►
It was approved today at 8 p.m.
00:59:40
◼
►
This is remarkable.
00:59:42
◼
►
I assume that if you have one of these open issues
00:59:46
◼
►
on your app, which you know, it's marked in iTunes
00:59:48
◼
►
and everything, I assume that any update you submit
00:59:52
◼
►
gets bumped to the front of the queue
00:59:53
◼
►
because it's to fix that.
00:59:56
◼
►
- You know, it's funny you say that
00:59:57
◼
►
because a friend of the show, Daniel Jowkett,
00:59:59
◼
►
was saying that earlier today to somebody on Twitter.
01:00:02
◼
►
I think it might have been Brianna Wu from Giant Space Cat.
01:00:05
◼
►
But yeah, that corroborates his theory as well.
01:00:09
◼
►
And the funny thing was, I was very upset
01:00:11
◼
►
when I first got this, 'cause I was like,
01:00:13
◼
►
I was literally about to submit 102 then.
01:00:16
◼
►
And I was like a day away from submitting,
01:00:18
◼
►
I was just in final beta testing.
01:00:20
◼
►
And I was so mad, I'm like, now I'm gonna be delayed,
01:00:22
◼
►
all these bug fixes are gonna be delayed,
01:00:25
◼
►
because I have to now do this and test this and everything.
01:00:28
◼
►
Turns out that was about a week ago.
01:00:30
◼
►
Review times recently have been about a week.
01:00:33
◼
►
So I think it was kind of a blessing in disguise
01:00:36
◼
►
that I had to do this, yes,
01:00:38
◼
►
and that it's a better product for it, for the most part.
01:00:42
◼
►
There are gonna be support issues.
01:00:44
◼
►
I'm gonna be annoyed to deal with them.
01:00:45
◼
►
People are gonna be upset.
01:00:46
◼
►
But it is overall, I think, probably a gain, we'll see.
01:00:52
◼
►
And it is nice that because of that jumping the queue thing,
01:00:56
◼
►
this was released today,
01:00:59
◼
►
which was probably gonna be roughly when 102
01:01:02
◼
►
would have been released if I submitted it
01:01:03
◼
►
at the normal time anyway.
01:01:05
◼
►
So it's been a busy week.
01:01:08
◼
►
It's been a little bit of a stressful evening
01:01:10
◼
►
'cause I didn't have enough time to test this
01:01:13
◼
►
compared to what I usually do.
01:01:16
◼
►
And I assumed that I'd be able to test it
01:01:19
◼
►
during the app review process a little bit more.
01:01:21
◼
►
And you can only, you have just the binary if it's broken.
01:01:25
◼
►
And you shouldn't make a habit of doing that all the time,
01:01:27
◼
►
but it's nice to have that extra week of testing
01:01:29
◼
►
just in case.
01:01:30
◼
►
I had eight hours of extra testing this time, so we'll see.
01:01:35
◼
►
But yeah, that's what's going on.
01:01:37
◼
►
Anyway, that's about it.
01:01:39
◼
►
What else is new?
01:01:41
◼
►
- Someone in the chat room did find
01:01:42
◼
►
what Technology Tevo is using instead of Flash.
01:01:45
◼
►
It is called H-A-X-E, which I'm gonna say
01:01:48
◼
►
is either hacks or hakes.
01:01:49
◼
►
- That's pronounced hover.
01:01:52
◼
►
- It is, we'll put a link to it in the show notes,
01:01:55
◼
►
but it's like a cross-platform toolkit/cross compiler.
01:01:59
◼
►
I think you can write code in their high-level language
01:02:01
◼
►
and generate code for all sorts of other platforms.
01:02:04
◼
►
It's an open source thing.
01:02:05
◼
►
Anyway, bottom line is it's way faster than Tivo's flash
01:02:10
◼
►
implementation.
01:02:11
◼
►
And there's an article also put in the show notes
01:02:13
◼
►
from SlashGear talking about how ditching flash could
01:02:17
◼
►
mean that you could put the Tivo interface on other devices,
01:02:19
◼
►
like Xbox and Fire TV.
01:02:22
◼
►
And I don't see how that wouldn't have been possible also
01:02:24
◼
►
with their gross flash interface.
01:02:26
◼
►
I would also say, by the way, that Tivo's interface,
01:02:32
◼
►
they would probably kill to have UIKit dropped upon them
01:02:35
◼
►
and say, here, why don't you just make your user interface
01:02:38
◼
►
Like a sort of mature IDE, well-established API
01:02:42
◼
►
that when done correctly makes extremely performant.
01:02:45
◼
►
Because what is TiVo?
01:02:46
◼
►
It's a bunch of text lists.
01:02:48
◼
►
The video part is the video part,
01:02:49
◼
►
but when you're going through menus,
01:02:51
◼
►
it's just like big, long scrolling lists of text
01:02:53
◼
►
with various options that you can
01:02:55
◼
►
do to each selected item in menus.
01:02:57
◼
►
It's not rocket science.
01:03:00
◼
►
And they would probably need a more powerful CPU
01:03:03
◼
►
to run UIKit in there.
01:03:04
◼
►
But anyway, I don't think Hakes or Hacks
01:03:09
◼
►
is the be all end all of interface things.
01:03:11
◼
►
I just am glad that my TiVo got faster.
01:03:13
◼
►
- All right.
01:03:16
◼
►
This has been remarkably positive
01:03:17
◼
►
from you on TiVo tonight, John.
01:03:18
◼
►
Are you okay?
01:03:19
◼
►
- I always want, I want them,
01:03:21
◼
►
I think they should sponsor the show.
01:03:22
◼
►
I don't understand why they,
01:03:23
◼
►
I mean, I know I complain about them all the time,
01:03:24
◼
►
but I continue to buy them.
01:03:26
◼
►
And when I buy them,
01:03:26
◼
►
I buy whatever the most expensive one is that they sell.
01:03:29
◼
►
I keep doing that year after year because I still think it's the best and so if that's not an endorsement
01:03:33
◼
►
I don't know what is yeah, I have complaints, but I have complaints about everything
01:03:36
◼
►
They should sponsor the show the strong, syracuse endorsement. I buy this even though I hate it
01:03:40
◼
►
Well, thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week
01:03:45
◼
►
automatic linda.com and hover and we will see you next week
01:03:50
◼
►
Now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin
01:03:57
◼
►
'Cause it was accidental.
01:04:00
◼
►
Oh, it was accidental.
01:04:02
◼
►
John didn't do any research.
01:04:05
◼
►
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
01:04:08
◼
►
'Cause it was accidental.
01:04:10
◼
►
It was accidental.
01:04:12
◼
►
And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm.
01:04:17
◼
►
And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L.
01:04:26
◼
►
I-S-S, so that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O A-R-M, N-T, Marco Armin, S-I-R-A-C, U-S-A, Syracuse
01:04:39
◼
►
It's accidental (It's accidental) They didn't mean to (It's accidental)
01:04:45
◼
►
Accidental (Accidental) Tech broadcast, so long
01:04:52
◼
►
Don't overthink the other thing like I well I actually looked it up in the dictionary just to make sure we're not all crazy
01:04:57
◼
►
We're not it's it's it's the same little upside down easy the beginning of the word other hover other
01:05:03
◼
►
Honestly, I want people to record an audio file and send it to me of how they think I should be saying it
01:05:08
◼
►
Where people you by people you mean like the three people you are crazy about this
01:05:12
◼
►
Is it all like Australians or something because they have a tendency to pronounce things just completely wrong like cache instead of cash
01:05:19
◼
►
For example, oh, yeah
01:05:22
◼
►
We're just we're confining ourselves to American English, and then we're gonna go to like
01:05:26
◼
►
Debate of what is unaccented American English is there such a thing or is there not that's a good question well
01:05:33
◼
►
There's like there's like the newscaster accent right. It's it's the kind of kind of Midwestern kind of
01:05:39
◼
►
Averaged it's you know
01:05:42
◼
►
But if that's just defined by the newscasters who were famous in those roles for a long time like so Dan Rather has an accent
01:05:50
◼
►
Because he was famous for a long time
01:05:52
◼
►
We we say oh, that's that's the news cat or Walter Cronkite or whoever like a few individual people from actual places in the country with
01:05:59
◼
►
Actual accents hiding under their newscaster enos
01:06:01
◼
►
Anyway, it's hover
01:06:05
◼
►
All right, what else going on
01:06:08
◼
►
Yeah, I can't yeah somebody in the chat just pointed out was this all follow-up. Yes, it was but like I mean
01:06:16
◼
►
It's fine to have that because like talking about overcast
01:06:19
◼
►
It's always is it always gonna be follow-up because we've talked about overcast before therefore every time you talk about overcast again
01:06:24
◼
►
It is follow-up
01:06:25
◼
►
You know we need to follow up on last week's Apple news, but this week's Apple news and the Jared Sinclair thing you didn't
01:06:31
◼
►
emphasize that I think this was sent because
01:06:33
◼
►
Not a lot of people so like one or two emails or tweets that thought we were trying to say that Jared's post was blaming
01:06:39
◼
►
Apple and I listened back to the show
01:06:41
◼
►
We didn't actually say that but I but the the word Jared and and the phrase
01:06:46
◼
►
Someone to blame we're in close enough proximity to each other that people could have made that
01:06:50
◼
►
Mistaken assumption, but it like it was and plus we all ramble don't talk in complete sentences, or maybe it's just me anyway
01:06:56
◼
►
lots of posts about this whole app store stuff and a lot of them are looking for someone or something to blame and
01:07:04
◼
►
Then there was Jared's post. We're not necessarily saying that Jared was trying to add something
01:07:08
◼
►
So that's why he wrote into clarify and I'm glad he did because this explanation and this is the this is the magic writing technique
01:07:13
◼
►
That I try to use on myself and my children you write on your children
01:07:17
◼
►
No, they try to use this trick on my children
01:07:20
◼
►
So you write something and you think you've said what you want to say
01:07:23
◼
►
but then people who read it like misinterpreted or whatever and then you
01:07:27
◼
►
You know, the next task is explained to someone who is
01:07:31
◼
►
Misunderstanding what you wrote explain what you actually meant, right?
01:07:35
◼
►
And when you do that, then you say why don't you just write that in the first place?
01:07:38
◼
►
I mean obviously that's you know a little glib but this little introductory thing of saying
01:07:44
◼
►
Here's why I'm here's why I wrote this
01:07:47
◼
►
It was you know Brent said this a lot of people looked at me and I wanted the people to know
01:07:51
◼
►
Actually, I'm not a good example of that because here's why
01:07:54
◼
►
And I mean that's in the post it's in there
01:07:57
◼
►
But like when you find yourself having to explain to somebody who read what you wrote and still didn't understand
01:08:01
◼
►
He has explained it again like more clearly
01:08:05
◼
►
You know emphasizing the parts that they're getting wrong that makes for stronger writing
01:08:09
◼
►
So in the same way is like, you know having to explain something to somebody makes you understand it better
01:08:13
◼
►
Doing this exercise and doing it all before you actually publish anything is useful
01:08:19
◼
►
like you know when
01:08:21
◼
►
Someone's having trouble writing something
01:08:23
◼
►
Whether it's my children or someone else you just say well don't write anything
01:08:27
◼
►
Just explain to me what you want to say and a lot of people can do that
01:08:29
◼
►
Like well what I want to say is blah blah blah blah blah
01:08:32
◼
►
And if you just write down everything they say
01:08:33
◼
►
during that part and put it in front of them,
01:08:35
◼
►
you say, "Here, type this."
01:08:36
◼
►
They just write it.
01:08:39
◼
►
- That's funny.
01:08:40
◼
►
So on a random note,
01:08:42
◼
►
tell me that I shouldn't sell my privacy/soul
01:08:45
◼
►
to get symmetric file service.
01:08:49
◼
►
- So what are they asking you to do exactly?
01:08:52
◼
►
- I'm not clear what you have to give up.
01:08:55
◼
►
- They know you have a child on the way, so.
01:08:57
◼
►
- That's probably true.
01:08:59
◼
►
I've been spending so much damn time on Babysrs.com.
01:09:01
◼
►
- No, no, they know you have a child in the way,
01:09:03
◼
►
so that's what they want, you're your firstborn.
01:09:05
◼
►
- Oh, that's all?
01:09:07
◼
►
- Yeah, that's it.
01:09:09
◼
►
- "Rising H.O. baby."
01:09:15
◼
►
- What is that actually from?
01:09:16
◼
►
- You're talking about, oh, you know what,
01:09:18
◼
►
you never saw that movie?
01:09:19
◼
►
I can't get the title off the top of my head.
01:09:20
◼
►
Chat room, help me with the title of that movie.
01:09:22
◼
►
See how fast you can get it.
01:09:24
◼
►
- All right, while they're doing that,
01:09:26
◼
►
I saw, I think it was Zach Burr talking about this earlier.
01:09:30
◼
►
I forget who it was, but I'm looking at,
01:09:33
◼
►
so there's a link that I put in the chat
01:09:36
◼
►
that's a public link where it doesn't really say anything
01:09:39
◼
►
about getting increased speeds,
01:09:42
◼
►
but behind my private page,
01:09:46
◼
►
like my account information,
01:09:48
◼
►
My Rewards Plus, sharing online just got faster.
01:09:50
◼
►
Great news, you're eligible for an upload speed
01:09:52
◼
►
to equal your current download speed
01:09:54
◼
►
at no additional cost to you.
01:09:56
◼
►
Simply click here and enroll in our My Rewards Plus program.
01:09:58
◼
►
It's easy and free.
01:09:59
◼
►
Just our way of thanking you
01:10:00
◼
►
for being a loyal Verizon customer.
01:10:02
◼
►
Faster upload speeds means better sharing experiences.
01:10:04
◼
►
That's powerful!
01:10:06
◼
►
And I guess they like snoop your stuff
01:10:08
◼
►
and you get 75, or I would have 75, 75
01:10:11
◼
►
instead of 75, 35.
01:10:14
◼
►
- Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what exactly this is.
01:10:17
◼
►
- That's the thing, it's unclear to me
01:10:20
◼
►
what exactly they're doing.
01:10:22
◼
►
- 'Cause they can already snoop your stuff.
01:10:24
◼
►
- Right. - But is this just like
01:10:26
◼
►
they're gonna start sending you like gift card crap promos
01:10:28
◼
►
and stuff like that, I mean.
01:10:30
◼
►
- 'Cause I mean, I already get spam from Verizon
01:10:33
◼
►
in the mail almost every day trying to upgrade me
01:10:37
◼
►
to a higher plan that includes like TV and stuff,
01:10:40
◼
►
'cause I just had the internet and phone.
01:10:43
◼
►
And I called them, like there's no way to opt out of this,
01:10:45
◼
►
there's no way to get them to stop bugging me.
01:10:47
◼
►
I would imagine they're probably already doing
01:10:49
◼
►
creepy things like selling my information
01:10:51
◼
►
to Starbucks and everything else, like.
01:10:52
◼
►
- I think that's actually exactly what they're doing
01:10:54
◼
►
because it's talking about all these particular vendors
01:10:57
◼
►
like Target and Exxon Mobile and Amazon and Dunkin' Doduts
01:10:59
◼
►
and Starbucks and Panera Bread and Visa prepaid card
01:11:03
◼
►
and blah, blah, blah.
01:11:05
◼
►
- But see, so they're saying, apparently there's a system
01:11:07
◼
►
where you gather points to do something.
01:11:10
◼
►
And the way you can gather points is to like them
01:11:14
◼
►
on Facebook, to go to their website, to refer a friend.
01:11:16
◼
►
Celebrate your birthday?
01:11:18
◼
►
Well, I celebrate my birthday every year.
01:11:20
◼
►
Are they tracking that somehow?
01:11:21
◼
►
Rent or buy an on-demand movie?
01:11:24
◼
►
I mean, so what, what is this?
01:11:27
◼
►
- You know, you can usually,
01:11:29
◼
►
I don't know the specifics of this deal,
01:11:30
◼
►
but you can usually take whatever service they want
01:11:35
◼
►
and then use it in such a way
01:11:37
◼
►
that you don't have any interaction with them.
01:11:38
◼
►
I'm really close to not having any interaction
01:11:41
◼
►
with Verizon at all
01:11:42
◼
►
because I don't have any of their boxes,
01:11:43
◼
►
I don't use their router, I don't have video on demand.
01:11:47
◼
►
Like all these services that they want to sell me
01:11:49
◼
►
and everything, I don't see.
01:11:50
◼
►
The only one they've still got me on is their stupid DNS
01:11:52
◼
►
because if you use Google DNS or something,
01:11:54
◼
►
you don't get good geo IP routing.
01:11:56
◼
►
Even though Google says you're supposed to,
01:11:58
◼
►
practice has shown me that if I use Google's IP
01:12:01
◼
►
or open, Google's DNS or open DNS or something like that,
01:12:04
◼
►
I get worse speeds from like downloading, you know,
01:12:06
◼
►
Apple software where I should be pulling it from Akamai
01:12:08
◼
►
across the river and I'm not visiting someplace else.
01:12:11
◼
►
So I can't entirely like, and Verizon,
01:12:14
◼
►
what does Verizon do with DNS?
01:12:15
◼
►
Give them an inch, like, you know,
01:12:16
◼
►
you type in the wrong URL and you get some big,
01:12:18
◼
►
stupid advertising parked page.
01:12:19
◼
►
And Verizon DNS is super slow and crappy.
01:12:22
◼
►
I don't like it, but I'm really close to getting rid of it.
01:12:25
◼
►
So it seems like if you opted into this thing
01:12:26
◼
►
and you did a similar scenario
01:12:28
◼
►
where you got rid of everything, didn't have any boxes,
01:12:30
◼
►
didn't use their router, didn't use their DNS,
01:12:32
◼
►
didn't use anything like that, didn't have video on demand,
01:12:35
◼
►
I guess, what's left?
01:12:37
◼
►
Like Marco said, believe me,
01:12:38
◼
►
they're already selling every ounce of your information
01:12:40
◼
►
to somebody.
01:12:41
◼
►
- They're a horrible company.
01:12:43
◼
►
Everything about Verizon as a company is just horrible.
01:12:46
◼
►
- Well, but everybody sells all your information.
01:12:48
◼
►
Any information you give them,
01:12:49
◼
►
of course they're selling it to everybody.
01:12:51
◼
►
There's no more giving away of your information
01:12:53
◼
►
that they could be doing.
01:12:54
◼
►
They're already doing it as hard as they can.
01:12:56
◼
►
So unless they can make you interact,
01:12:58
◼
►
like, oh, here, take the survey to tell me
01:13:00
◼
►
what you thought of these detergent brands.
01:13:01
◼
►
Unless they have some way to get you,
01:13:03
◼
►
like you'll be using your computer
01:13:05
◼
►
and all of a sudden you go to a site,
01:13:06
◼
►
instead of going to the site,
01:13:07
◼
►
you see the stupid survey that comes up
01:13:08
◼
►
that wants you to rank the movies you've seen recently
01:13:10
◼
►
or some crazy thing like that.
01:13:11
◼
►
Like that seems like the only way they can get you.
01:13:13
◼
►
But I don't know.
01:13:14
◼
►
I guess I wouldn't want to be the one
01:13:15
◼
►
to experiment with this and find it out
01:13:17
◼
►
because downgrading from it or getting rid of it
01:13:19
◼
►
is probably a super pain too.
01:13:21
◼
►
- My rewards plus points are easy to get.
01:13:23
◼
►
The only hard part will be deciding
01:13:25
◼
►
which rewards you want.
01:13:27
◼
►
This includes options such as,
01:13:29
◼
►
use the My Fios registered trademark app,
01:13:32
◼
►
connect to us through Facebook,
01:13:34
◼
►
like us on Facebook, order new equipment,
01:13:37
◼
►
try Verizon's in-home agent,
01:13:40
◼
►
rent or buy a Fios trademark on demand movie.
01:13:43
◼
►
Oh my God, these are so,
01:13:45
◼
►
I cannot decide which of these things to start with.
01:13:47
◼
►
These all sound so appealing.
01:13:49
◼
►
- Well, so you don't have to do any of those.
01:13:51
◼
►
Like that's kind of like the free antivirus software
01:13:54
◼
►
I get as part of my thing, a free online backup.
01:13:57
◼
►
Like I just never do those.
01:13:59
◼
►
I never look at those.
01:14:00
◼
►
So if you never do any of those things,
01:14:01
◼
►
you never liked them on Facebook,
01:14:02
◼
►
you never download their app,
01:14:03
◼
►
you never download their free antivirus software.
01:14:05
◼
►
Like they will email me and say,
01:14:07
◼
►
"Hey, I've noticed you've had this service for seven years
01:14:09
◼
►
that have never downloaded our free online backup software."
01:14:11
◼
►
It's like, it's good that you noticed that.
01:14:13
◼
►
It's not like, whatever.
01:14:15
◼
►
Like they're always gonna spam you.
01:14:17
◼
►
They're always gonna send you stupid cards
01:14:18
◼
►
in the mail that you put right into the recycle bin.
01:14:21
◼
►
But I don't think they can make you do anything
01:14:23
◼
►
unless they start getting intrusive.
01:14:24
◼
►
Like the DNS thing is literally intrusive.
01:14:25
◼
►
Like you mistype URL and you're looking
01:14:27
◼
►
at a bunch of Verizon crap.
01:14:28
◼
►
That is intrusive, which is why I wish I could get rid of it.
01:14:30
◼
►
But everything else you can just simply not use, I suppose.
01:14:35
◼
►
- I mean, it seems to me like they're already snooping
01:14:37
◼
►
everything anyway, I'm already getting spammed anyway.
01:14:39
◼
►
Why not just get 75, 75?
01:14:41
◼
►
But I need, you guys are supposed to convince me
01:14:43
◼
►
not to do this, you're not supposed to convince me to do that.
01:14:45
◼
►
- Well, when they announced these plans a few weeks ago,
01:14:48
◼
►
they said they would be rolled out automatically for free.
01:14:51
◼
►
That's not true now.
01:14:53
◼
►
See, if they're actually requiring this, then that was BS.
01:14:57
◼
►
And it wouldn't surprise me if that was BS
01:14:58
◼
►
because they're a giant ISP
01:15:00
◼
►
and they're a horrible company like all giant ISPs.
01:15:03
◼
►
So that wouldn't surprise me.
01:15:05
◼
►
However, if this is indeed what's required to get this,
01:15:09
◼
►
that is complete BS.
01:15:10
◼
►
- By the way, the movie was "A Cry in the Dark,"
01:15:14
◼
►
1988, starring Meryl Streep.
01:15:17
◼
►
Isn't it originally like a Dingo ate my baby or something like that?
01:15:20
◼
►
Yes, that's, yes.
01:15:21
◼
►
People know it from Seinfeld, but yes.
01:15:24
◼
►
So what I'm hearing is I should be the guinea pig and do this?
01:15:28
◼
►
I don't know.
01:15:29
◼
►
You always move.
01:15:31
◼
►
Yes, because that's totally an easy solution to this problem.
01:15:36
◼
►
Right, and then the post office sells your information to everyone else when you move.
01:15:40
◼
►
And so then everyone tracks you anyway.
01:15:44
◼
►
What else is going on?
01:15:45
◼
►
Want to do titles?
01:15:46
◼
►
The sprung parts is pretty good.
01:15:48
◼
►
That's not what the show is about.
01:15:50
◼
►
Fleece the whales.
01:15:51
◼
►
Fleece the whales was more of what the show was about than the sprung parts.
01:15:54
◼
►
Yeah, well, I'm biased, but I did like fleece the whales.
01:15:57
◼
►
That is pretty good.
01:15:58
◼
►
We've said that many times before, that it's just like a—it's not like something
01:16:01
◼
►
we're making up.
01:16:02
◼
►
I used to get—it's a funny concept to somehow combine whales and fleece.
01:16:07
◼
►
Yeah, well, like, I never liked the term "whales" anyway, but it's—I don't know where
01:16:12
◼
►
I got it started.
01:16:13
◼
►
I first heard it in, like, uh—
01:16:14
◼
►
Is it "casino"?
01:16:15
◼
►
Yeah, exactly.
01:16:16
◼
►
Yeah, I think I first heard it in "boiler room." It's definitely like, you know, it
01:16:22
◼
►
got its start in businesses that don't respect people, for sure.
01:16:26
◼
►
Speaking of Verizon.
01:16:28
◼
►
Yeah, it's definitely not a respectful term, which is why Zynga uses it and all these stupid
01:16:33
◼
►
free-to-play games that try to abuse people's psychology to pay them more money. Yeah, it's
01:16:38
◼
►
not a great term. It's like eyeballs.
01:16:41
◼
►
Well, it's not that it's disrespectful. If anything, it's disrespectful for the
01:16:44
◼
►
the people who aren't whales, because it's like, none of our customers matter except
01:16:48
◼
►
for these five people.
01:16:49
◼
►
And so, I mean, because for casinos, these five high rollers get everything, right?
01:16:53
◼
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And everyone else, you don't matter, because the bottom line is, we make most of our money
01:16:57
◼
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from these high rollers, not five people, but whatever it is.
01:17:01
◼
►
Such a small—and everyone else is just there kind of like to fill seats, right?
01:17:04
◼
►
It's all about the whales.
01:17:05
◼
►
Well, it also kind of insults whales.
01:17:07
◼
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Well, I mean, they are treated well, they are considered important.
01:17:11
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►
It does I mean you wouldn't talk to them and tell them that they're whales because then they would feel like wait a second
01:17:18
◼
►
I you know what this means is that my money is leaving my pocket and going into your pocket
01:17:23
◼
►
But I mean especially with gambling it's like with you know
01:17:26
◼
►
Maybe that's like they understand that like they know when they go to Las Vegas with
01:17:30
◼
►
Two million dollars and come back with zero dollars. They had a good time. That's worth two million dollars to them whatever
01:17:35
◼
►
I don't understand what they're thinking but
01:17:38
◼
►
Anyway, the Zinga whales probably worse because it's like I feel like
01:17:42
◼
►
Playing these games or buying in-app purchases. There is no opportunity to win like even a casino
01:17:49
◼
►
The house is going to win almost certainly but at least there's some slim possibility that you could get lucky once like isn't you're never gonna
01:17:55
◼
►
Become a millionaire playing Candy Crush. So it's like a 0% versus point. Oh one percent
01:18:00
◼
►
the point oh one feels
01:18:03
◼
►
Better you get some excitement
01:18:05
◼
►
Even if you know when you feel like during that period of time when I lost there was a chance I could have won and
01:18:09
◼
►
That was exciting and I paid for that
01:18:11
◼
►
I don't I don't get
01:18:16
◼
►
Would have guessed I I am so surprised by that statement. Yeah, although if I did gamble I would do with
01:18:21
◼
►
You guys don't aren't watching leftovers. Never mind. I can't
01:18:25
◼
►
Nope, I would do that that style of gives there was a silly
01:18:30
◼
►
Gambling sequence where someone goes through a roulette wheel and bets on red three times in a row
01:18:35
◼
►
And those type of odds I can figure out with like pencil and paper and fractions and I could say all right well
01:18:40
◼
►
I can calculate these odds
01:18:42
◼
►
Boy a minute wait hold on did he say it will land on red three times in a row
01:18:46
◼
►
Yeah, I am and make that the bed. Yeah, it was there were pigeons involved and premonitions and yeah
01:18:53
◼
►
It's a television show about a real life
01:18:57
◼
►
But the whole point is like it you know so he doubles his money
01:19:00
◼
►
And that you know the next time it comes around if you put all your money back on for another 50/50 shot
01:19:06
◼
►
You know and just do that several times you can you know the mat through the magic of doubling if you keep winning
01:19:11
◼
►
But then the odds of it being anyway, but
01:19:13
◼
►
That's what I would do so it means I would immediately lose most of the time
01:19:21
◼
►
Immediately win, and then you don't have to sit there and do anything that's
01:19:25
◼
►
Skill based or complicated or takes a long time
01:19:27
◼
►
So your goal with this activity that most people do for?
01:19:31
◼
►
Entertainment value would be to get it over with as quickly as possible and just leave well
01:19:36
◼
►
So the whole thing is like people go to Vegas like I'm going to Vegas like $500 and like I don't care if I come home
01:19:40
◼
►
Is zero five hundred dollars is my entertainment budget
01:19:42
◼
►
Which is the way the way you should do it if you're not addicted to gambling, right?
01:19:45
◼
►
You just go there you say this amount of money. I'm going to spend and I
01:19:49
◼
►
Fully recognize that I can come home with zero of it, but that's fine
01:19:52
◼
►
I'm willing to pay $500 for a fun weekend with the excitement and the possibility of winning or whatever
01:19:56
◼
►
but if you don't like actually playing the games if you don't like blackjack or poker poker or any of these games like
01:20:01
◼
►
You don't enjoy the actual playing of the game. You just get that part over really fast
01:20:06
◼
►
Just put $500 on black spin and then you win or you're lost if you won you leave if you lost you didn't
01:20:11
◼
►
You're done in like five minutes then you can just I don't know get on the plane and leave again
01:20:16
◼
►
Can you tell I've never been to Vegas?
01:20:20
◼
►
I just I love that you're optimizing for it. Let's end the fun as quickly as possible
01:20:24
◼
►
But it's not fun like I was like this if there's no fun to be at if you don't like playing black check
01:20:27
◼
►
You don't like sitting at a bar if you don't like playing poker if you don't like any of those things
01:20:31
◼
►
That's not the fun part
01:20:32
◼
►
The only fun part is that brief moment when you might win or you know when you might gain money or lose money you can
01:20:36
◼
►
Get that ever really quickly like well, I won. Yeah, I'm happy. Well, I lost no it didn't and you didn't have that brief moment
01:20:42
◼
►
Of excitement and that was it. Why don't just do it online and save yourself the flight
01:20:46
◼
►
That's true. Although online gambling is legal in the US
01:20:50
◼
►
So you'd have to do one of those offshore things and it's really pain to get money in and out of those things
01:20:53
◼
►
So, how do you know I was about to say nothing you would know I work for an online gaming company
01:20:58
◼
►
Many years ago who we didn't take US play because it's illegal
01:21:02
◼
►
Based in the US. Yeah. Well, I mean the the actual servers were an Indian reservation in Canada as they have to be blah blah blah
01:21:12
◼
►
They weren't in Sealand
01:21:16
◼
►
But yeah, no, we were crushed by competitors
01:21:19
◼
►
who took US play because they were based in the Bahamas
01:21:21
◼
►
and didn't have any US resident employees.
01:21:24
◼
►
Because people in the United States,
01:21:25
◼
►
surprise, want to gamble online.
01:21:27
◼
►
And if you don't take their business, someone else will,
01:21:28
◼
►
and that someone else will get much bigger, faster than you.
01:21:31
◼
►
- Wow, so I didn't realize you worked
01:21:33
◼
►
in the gaming market as well,
01:21:34
◼
►
'cause my first job out of college
01:21:35
◼
►
was Indian casinos in Oklahoma,
01:21:38
◼
►
or Native American casinos, whatever the correct term is.
01:21:40
◼
►
- Yeah, the slot machine things, right?
01:21:43
◼
►
Well, it was Bingo, but we had reels on the machine, so you thought you were playing a
01:21:47
◼
►
slot machine, but really you were playing Bingo.
01:21:49
◼
►
Oh yeah, right, you explained on Pragmatic, right, about how like—
01:21:54
◼
►
It was either that or debug, one or the other.
01:21:56
◼
►
Oh yeah, yeah, but I think it was debug, you're right. But yeah, like some technicality of
01:22:00
◼
►
like this type of gaming was allowed and this type of gaming wasn't allowed, so you did
01:22:03
◼
►
something that was technically allowed even though it looked like a slot machine, right?
01:22:09
◼
►
Something like that?
01:22:10
◼
►
game and so poker blackjack etc were considered skill games I don't know why
01:22:15
◼
►
straight up slot machine wasn't allowed I think because it had to be multiplayer
01:22:19
◼
►
and so the bingo was strictly speaking multiplayer so all these uh all these
01:22:24
◼
►
DOS machines had like some sort of TCP networking that we're going to I think a
01:22:28
◼
►
Windows server that would issue the bingo cards and pull the same numbers
01:22:33
◼
►
for everyone on the floor it was weird whatever so we going with fleece whales
01:22:39
◼
►
else? Yeah, we have to. It's too good. Fair enough. What else is going on? Anything?
01:22:45
◼
►
You want to try to squeeze in this Wii U thing in 30 seconds?
01:22:48
◼
►
Not really. Sure.
01:22:49
◼
►
Damn it. Why don't you read the—describe the tweet
01:22:52
◼
►
sequence, Marco. All right, so Patrick Thornton, P.W. Thornton
01:22:56
◼
►
on Twitter, said, "Also, you guys need to talk about how the Wii U quietly became the
01:23:00
◼
►
next-gen system with by far the best games." I replied, saying, "Could be a good topic.
01:23:06
◼
►
The Wii U is the only next generation system I've been tempted to try because of its games."
01:23:11
◼
►
And that's true, basically.
01:23:13
◼
►
You know, mostly with everyone raving about how good Mario Kart is, the Wii U is the only
01:23:18
◼
►
next gen system that I'm tempted to try.
01:23:21
◼
►
However, I still haven't bought one because I keep reminding myself that I will probably
01:23:27
◼
►
never actually play it in practice because I'm not a very good gamer.
01:23:30
◼
►
Yeah, Patrick's tweet is just an accurate description of the current situation and not
01:23:36
◼
►
a revelation about a reality that people don't realize.
01:23:39
◼
►
Yes, the Wii U does have some games that are reviewed well that people like, but doesn't
01:23:44
◼
►
change how many Wii U's are in the market, does not change the size of the Wii U game
01:23:48
◼
►
catalog, does not change the pipeline of upcoming Wii U games, does not change the fact that
01:23:54
◼
►
Pretty much every anticipated or currently popular Triple-A title is available for PC,
01:24:00
◼
►
Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, and not the Wii U because it can't run them and it has a small
01:24:04
◼
►
install base.
01:24:05
◼
►
Like, all these things, they all continue to be true.
01:24:07
◼
►
Nintendo's got its work cut out for it.
01:24:11
◼
►
That's why I thought this was a tweet.
01:24:13
◼
►
Like, the people are surprised to learn that the third-place game console that nobody wants
01:24:20
◼
►
has some good games.
01:24:22
◼
►
Of course it does.
01:24:23
◼
►
People think people don't buy the Wii U because it stinks no it's like
01:24:26
◼
►
When the new Zelda comes out for the Wii U I fully expect that it will be
01:24:30
◼
►
Highly satisfying to rabid Zelda fans like myself that doesn't make the system more successful that doesn't make it
01:24:36
◼
►
Oh, you should totally buy Wii U now because it's got these three good really awesome games and people point out
01:24:41
◼
►
There's nothing I really want to play on the PlayStation 4
01:24:43
◼
►
I don't have a PlayStation 4 yet either because it's nothing I really want to play on it
01:24:46
◼
►
But I know that the games pipeline the upcoming games pipeline for the PlayStation 4 is
01:24:51
◼
►
Crazily big and good and has exciting things in it including a game that I've been waiting for for seven years
01:24:56
◼
►
Which may never be released
01:24:58
◼
►
The Wii U game pipeline looks like a desert and it's sad and it makes me sad
01:25:03
◼
►
So I do have a Wii U
01:25:06
◼
►
I don't have a PlayStation 4 but over the long haul in this generation unless it's intended as something drastic to turn it around
01:25:11
◼
►
They're gonna continue to not get the popular triple-a games and every year or two
01:25:16
◼
►
They're gonna come out with one or two gems because they're really good at making games
01:25:18
◼
►
But that's not gonna be enough to make a difference doesn't seem like
01:25:21
◼
►
Yeah, I mean I kind of felt like like the reason why
01:25:25
◼
►
the Wii U seemed interesting to me is
01:25:28
◼
►
Not because it's a great game system
01:25:31
◼
►
it's because I kept hearing about these good games for it and
01:25:35
◼
►
You know if I wanted to academically buy the best game system, I'd probably buy the ps4
01:25:40
◼
►
I don't think it would be much of a decision but I
01:25:44
◼
►
I don't care much about games and and so all the games that are not they're coming out that are big
01:25:50
◼
►
Blockbusters that are not gonna be available on the Wii U are very likely to be games
01:25:53
◼
►
I'm not gonna play anyway and not care about anyway
01:25:56
◼
►
the problem is
01:25:58
◼
►
because I'm so
01:26:00
◼
►
Nonchalant and not involved with gaming. I'm probably not even involved enough to own a Wii U
01:26:05
◼
►
I'd probably play Mario Kart for a few days and play Mario Super 3d Roll
01:26:10
◼
►
Whatever for another few days and then never took never looked at them again
01:26:13
◼
►
so that's why I'm not gonna get it but
01:26:15
◼
►
You don't hear anybody talking about the great games on the ps4 or the Xbox one well you do if you read gaming sites because
01:26:23
◼
►
I mean everyone's talking about destiny, and they're that's that's a cross-platform game
01:26:28
◼
►
Every horror except for the Wii U of course
01:26:30
◼
►
But that is a really highly anticipated sure to be almost certainly going to be a popular game
01:26:36
◼
►
If you don't read about people being excited about that or it's because you're not reading gaming sites because you're not a console game
01:26:43
◼
►
But like early in any console's life, the launch games are usually crap.
01:26:47
◼
►
And then it takes a while for things to get up to speed.
01:26:49
◼
►
And then one or two gems come in.
01:26:51
◼
►
This is actually the nicest generation in that the indie game is very quickly--
01:26:54
◼
►
like you got indie ports of games that you already knew were good
01:26:57
◼
►
that are now available on the consoles because they all have online stores.
01:27:02
◼
►
And a couple of the post-launch games haven't been that bad.
01:27:07
◼
►
But like a console generation, they're in it for the long haul.
01:27:11
◼
►
for the long haul, and the catalog and the upcoming game
01:27:14
◼
►
releases all look good, all highly anticipated by people
01:27:17
◼
►
who like PlayStation 4.
01:27:19
◼
►
And Sony just announced their sales numbers
01:27:21
◼
►
of some gaming-- what the hell is it?
01:27:25
◼
►
Press conference of some gaming convention in Europe,
01:27:27
◼
►
they said their install base is 10 million now,
01:27:30
◼
►
which is pretty good.
01:27:31
◼
►
That seems pretty good, right?
01:27:32
◼
►
It's been out for nine months, 10 million,
01:27:34
◼
►
roughly a million a month.
01:27:36
◼
►
It's growing.
01:27:38
◼
►
It's selling faster than the PS3 did,
01:27:39
◼
►
Which is not that much of a feat because the PS3 was like 600 bucks and had a slow start
01:27:43
◼
►
But you know they're doing well and Nintendo is not selling a million. We use a month. Yeah, I want to try Mario Kart
01:27:51
◼
►
Wiiu whatever it's called, but um it's just Mario Kart double dash is still better. I never even played that one
01:27:57
◼
►
Yeah, I've never played double dash, and I've never seen a Wii U in the wild outside of like a Target store in your house
01:28:05
◼
►
Yeah, it is interesting technically
01:28:07
◼
►
I think if both of you got Nintendo land and played through all the things
01:28:10
◼
►
You would have gaming experiences that you had never had before but they're all what's Nintendo land
01:28:15
◼
►
It's the thing that like has a bunch of minigames that show different mechanics with the controllers
01:28:19
◼
►
It's a good demo of like here's all the things you can do with this crazy
01:28:22
◼
►
Stupid tablet gamepad thing that we gave you and you can do lots of interesting things things that you have not done in iOS or on
01:28:30
◼
►
a mag or like they are interesting and some of them have do have sustainable value like I said my
01:28:35
◼
►
Sons friends come over they still play the Metroid blast minigame, which I think does not have that much depth in it
01:28:41
◼
►
But they love it
01:28:42
◼
►
They love the you know the asymmetrical play where one person gets to be the ship and the other people are they get to be
01:28:48
◼
►
The people and they can you know that the ship sees a different perspective, and they're all honest
01:28:52
◼
►
You know it's it's not these are all slight games
01:28:55
◼
►
And you know they're all minigames, but it's a good demonstration of all the different things you can do with it
01:28:59
◼
►
But if you're not interested in an academic sense of like oh
01:29:03
◼
►
New gaming experiences like you know kind of like a VR helmet like wouldn't you want to try that once you want to try the oculus?
01:29:07
◼
►
Rift just just to see what it's like yeah, you'd get that out of the Wii U too, but that's not something like okay
01:29:12
◼
►
Well now that I've seen what's possible
01:29:14
◼
►
Do I want to keep and you guys just aren't gamers?
01:29:17
◼
►
But I just have to once Tiff goes through my sort of back catalogue of must play games that she can already play
01:29:22
◼
►
maybe I'll recommend a Wii U game and
01:29:24
◼
►
Then you'll have to buy one because she'll need to play something on it, but right now. I mean America looks great. It's
01:29:31
◼
►
extremely well done game. I have some complaints about it. I think that driving in Double Dash
01:29:35
◼
►
was still better. But, you know, if you've played Mario Kart, you've played Mario Kart.
01:29:41
◼
►
It's Mario Kart.
01:29:42
◼
►
The last one I played was 64. Has it gotten much different since then, or is it basically
01:29:46
◼
►
the same game?
01:29:47
◼
►
Wii was pretty good. I mean, it was basically the same, though.
01:29:49
◼
►
The driving has gotten—feels very different than it did in the N64 version, and the graphics
01:29:54
◼
►
are just, like, obviously phenomenally better, because that was a million years ago. If you
01:29:59
◼
►
You saw it, you'd be impressed.
01:30:00
◼
►
But in the end, you're driving around on carts,
01:30:02
◼
►
getting little presents, shooting shells at people,
01:30:04
◼
►
and doing all sorts of stuff.
01:30:06
◼
►
- So yeah, basically the same game.
01:30:08
◼
►
- I mean, it's a racing game.
01:30:09
◼
►
What at the bottom?
01:30:10
◼
►
How much can it possibly change?
01:30:12
◼
►
You go around courses,
01:30:13
◼
►
and the person who gets there first wins.
01:30:16
◼
►
- How much could Zelda possibly change?
01:30:17
◼
►
- Oh, a lot.
01:30:18
◼
►
That is much more-- - I know.
01:30:19
◼
►
I'm messing with you.
01:30:21
◼
►
But still, I mean, it's a pretty similar concept every time,
01:30:26
◼
►
So Zelda is a more broad concept because like it's racing,
01:30:31
◼
►
it's just, you know, you go around a circuit
01:30:33
◼
►
and the person who gets that first wins.
01:30:35
◼
►
In Zelda, you're playing through a narrative more or less
01:30:38
◼
►
and the narratives, like they all have a similar structure,
01:30:42
◼
►
just, you know, a bad guy, a good guy, battle against evil,
01:30:46
◼
►
but there's different characters involved,
01:30:47
◼
►
different events take place.
01:30:48
◼
►
And in each Zelda, they try to come up
01:30:49
◼
►
with some new gameplay mechanic that, you know,
01:30:52
◼
►
uses the controller,
01:30:53
◼
►
whether it's swinging the little Wii mode around
01:30:55
◼
►
use your sword or riding on a horse or traveling by boat or, you know,
01:31:00
◼
►
a different different combat systems.
01:31:03
◼
►
And so in the overall, yeah, you're playing through some story,
01:31:06
◼
►
some fight against evil in the end, you win.
01:31:10
◼
►
But in that range is much more that you can do.
01:31:12
◼
►
Yeah, it makes sense.
01:31:13
◼
►
Playing when playing Wind Waker can play compared to playing Twilight Princess,
01:31:17
◼
►
even though you could graph them all out.
01:31:19
◼
►
And so they all have the same thing.
01:31:20
◼
►
They all have dungeons.
01:31:21
◼
►
You get a weapon, use the weapon to defeat the boss at the end of the dungeon.
01:31:24
◼
►
and you get more power.
01:31:25
◼
►
Like, they all do exactly the same things,
01:31:26
◼
►
but the experience of playing those two games
01:31:28
◼
►
feels very different.
01:31:29
◼
►
They look entirely different.
01:31:30
◼
►
They feel different.
01:31:33
◼
►
Whereas Mario Kart, it's like, in every game,
01:31:35
◼
►
you're going around a course, the Mario always
01:31:36
◼
►
more or less looks the same.
01:31:38
◼
►
It's not like in one--
01:31:39
◼
►
they can add motorcycles and other type of things,
01:31:41
◼
►
but it's like wheeled vehicles.
01:31:43
◼
►
They can make it look like Wipeout.
01:31:44
◼
►
It would still be Mario Kart.
01:31:45
◼
►
It's still a racing game.
01:31:46
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So there's much more freedom.
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And then this upcoming Zelda game supposedly
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is going to finally throw away a lot of the conventions
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They've been leaning on some soccer a nf time to actually change the gameplay so that if you did a graph it
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I don't know whiteboard it would look different like that
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Not a linear progression of dungeons, and it's not a dungeon weapon you can go to anything anytime you want
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But it's more like the old version of a Zelda where you can
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If you discover it you can go do it even if you're not ready for it, then you just get killed anyway
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We're not entirely sure but they what the new Zelda is going to be like but they have said they're going to break some conventions
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Roughly when is that out? I don't know like
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2015 2016 something like that they could just make it require like a $60 add-on controller to help their financial problems a little bit
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Yeah, I mean that's talk about you know what if you just sell to a small number people who are willing to play money
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Yeah, I wonder about like how much money could intend to make if they just oh yeah, just sell the new Zelda game for
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$300 yeah, I mean I would buy it
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There are a lot of rabid Zelda fans, but I think that the
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whatever the economic term is for the
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the market for Zelda games is not...
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It's either not that elastic or not that inelastic, but I had never taken the anonymous course,
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so I don't know which one of those things is the correct term.
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