205: Monolithic Entertainment Console

0:00:00[Intro music]

0:00:08From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 205. Today is August 6th, 2018, and today's show is brought to you by Casper, Pingdom, and Inboard Technology. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Mr. Jason Snow.

0:00:23Hello, Mr. Myke Hurley. It's good to hear your voice.

0:00:26And yours. We are still in the Summer of Fun!

0:00:29It feels very Summer of Funny here, as we're still 31 degrees Celsius, 87 degrees Fahrenheit today in London.

0:00:37But nobody cares about that, because that's weather talk.

0:00:40So we're going to jump straight into #snelltalk, and today's question comes from Rob.

0:00:45And Rob says, "Jason, we know that you have and you enjoy to use both Apple and Amazon smart speakers, but which one do you use for your many smart home needs?"

0:00:57Smart home needs is an interesting part of this question, listener Rob.

0:01:03And I gotta say, I use... basically for my smart home devices, I'm largely using my phone or a physical remote control.

0:01:19So like my lights, my smart lights in the living room, I've got a remote that sits on the coffee table.

0:01:24And if I want to dim the lights, I do that rather than go...

0:01:28What is the remote?

0:01:29I've got these Lutron Casita Wi-Fi light switches. Right, so the light switch is smart rather than the bulbs.

0:01:37And so it can dim and turn them on and off and all of that, and it's a smart switch.

0:01:41And it comes with a remote, and you can get them too, but like it comes with a remote that...

0:01:48It's actually one that you can... it's got like a sticker on the back, you can make a fake wall outlet, you know, wall switch for it.

0:01:55But we just leave it laying on the living room coffee table.

0:01:59And so if it's getting dark and you want to turn the lights on, you press the button.

0:02:02If you're starting a movie, you press the off button or dim the lights, and that all happens from there.

0:02:08And then for a lot of the other stuff too, I really am using my phone or my iPad and mostly just flipping down in control center to quickly flip something on and off or change the dimming or whatever.

0:02:24That's generally what I do.

0:02:26So I don't... I can say, "Hey, lady, set the living room to 40%." I can do that, but I almost never do.

0:02:32It's funny because oftentimes we're in a context where it's just... it's easier and less disruptive to just press a button or flip down, you know, control center on my phone rather than shout something out to a canister.

0:02:47We mostly use the Echo because the Echo 100% ties into everything, right, where the HomePod doesn't always. But if we're watching TV or whatever, then one of us would grab our iPhones.

0:03:02Adina uses the Hue app. She likes the app. I use the Home toggle in control center.

0:03:10Oh, yeah, yeah, control center. Well, it's just right. I mean, it's the easiest thing. You're not looking for an app. You're not launching an app.

0:03:15You're just flipping down and doing a couple of taps, and that's what I like to do too.

0:03:20But I know I'm going to be using Siri more come September.

0:03:23Yeah, and I keep thinking about it. I was just doing this in a little bit, but I was just doing some retraining of my Logitech Smart Remote.

0:03:34And, you know, it'll let you do... like when you press the button to turn on the TV, it'll also run like a whole thing where it'll change the lighting in your house and stuff like that if you want.

0:03:43And I just looked at that and I was like, no, I don't want that. It's funny. I'm sure that I'll get there.

0:03:50But I think one of the challenges with some of this stuff is that the way they sell it to you is they say, well, you can set up a whole scene and it'll dim the lights and it'll do this thing and it'll do that thing.

0:03:59But I think our lives are more boring than that, where it's like I'm not going to have a special button on the remote that dims the lights and turns on the TV.

0:04:10And because, you know, we turn on the TV way more than that and sometimes we want the lights to stay where they are. Right.

0:04:16So I think some of that stuff is not as practical.

0:04:19But a simple one for me. So I have set up one Siri shortcut to set my alarms in the morning because I'm a terrible person sometimes and need it to be like six different alarms set to make sure that I wake up.

0:04:31So Siri now sets all of those at once. Right. Rather than me going and setting them all.

0:04:36See, and that's great.

0:04:38So eventually what I will do is once it's all set, once Siri shortcuts is up and running on my home pod is I will create an action that will be bedtime, which turns on bedroom lights, turns off living room lights and sets my alarms.

0:04:53So, you know, this is the stuff I will be doing a lot more of this once the home pod gets it, because then I will just be able to shower into the air, which is really what I want to be doing.

0:05:02Great question from Rob. Went to some places that I wasn't expecting. If you would like to open the show with any kind of question, just send in a tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk and it will go into a document to be considered for the future.

0:05:16And we'll move into follow up. Jason, I want to talk about that iPad stand that we were referencing last week. The Tabitha made by Colebrook, Boston Saunders.

0:05:26So it arrived, but I think it's faulty. So let me explain what's going on here. The stand itself has much more weight than the Viacom stand whilst having a smaller footprint.

0:05:39So like the base of it is much heavier. The mechanism that you hold the tablet in is much more secure. It holds it at the corners and it's very adjustable.

0:05:49So you can have this one stand and it could hold anything from a seven inch tablet to a 12 inch tablet, which is also great. The arm extends way higher, like to the height that I actually want.

0:06:01Which I was very, very surprised at. But I have a bit of a problem. So you extend it up and then you turn this little locking nut to lock it.

0:06:13But it's not working properly. So when I extend it to maximum and turn the locking nut, it just keeps spinning. So if I bring it down to about 75 percent, it will then lock.

0:06:24I have contacted their customer support. They have told me this doesn't seem like how this device should work. They said that it should go all the way to the maximum and they're sending me a new one.

0:06:35I've actually found this support to be brilliant. I've had two separate people from two teams in this company email me. One is the customer service and one is the product manager for this product.

0:06:46So I'm actually pretty impressed with them so far. I'm going to get the replacement this week. So next week I'll be able to tell you if it does work the way that it should work.

0:06:56And if it does, I'm very likely to be recommending this. Because if it does go to the maximum height that it should and locks into place securely, this stand is everything I want from my bypass stand.

0:07:10That's great. The weight is the big thing for me. The challenge with going higher is just the physics of it. You now need to have more weight down on the bottom. And what I don't want is a really wide base. And that means you need a heavy base to keep it from tipping or shaking.

0:07:28I have not been able to use my 12-inch iPad Pro at the maximum height yet. Which is going to be the ultimate test of whether it can hold that thing steady, especially if you tap on it.

0:07:40Because part of what you have to do with an iPad is push it with your finger.

0:07:44Exactly. My simple test was I put both stands next to each other and pushed them. And the Vias on nearly fell over with the push and the Tabitha did it. So we'll see. Hopefully I'll be able to report back next week and say that I have found the perfect solution.

0:07:58I feel like being an iPad user right now, the state of the art of the iPad right now, apparently is that you have to order a product a couple of times before you get anything you like.

0:08:06Everything's defective.

0:08:08Alright, let's do some upstream. We mentioned last week, Jason, that you were getting a new TV. Could you please tell us the most likely inscrutable model number of television you bought?

0:08:18Well, the way that most people would probably refer to it is this is the 2018 TCL, I think they say R-series, 65-inch. So it's the 65R617, whatever that means.

0:08:33What is wrong with television manufacturing? Why can't they give them names?

0:08:37Like actual names?

0:08:39Yeah, I mean, you got to have a code because they've got the different kinds, they've got different levels and all of that. But you're right, I do have those moments where I think, can't you give it a fun name and say this is the 65-inch TCL, you know, trailblazer 2018 model?

0:08:56PC monitors managed to do it, right? And computers managed to do it. And it's the same idea, right? You're just saying this is the product name, this is the size. Like, I don't know why it's so hard for TV manufacturers, but never the less.

0:09:09Well, I think the right, and that's why I sort of said, the way I generally see people referring to it, especially in the media, is it's the 65-inch model of the TCL R-series 2018 edition. So it's, you know, the model year is 2018, the manufacturer is TCL, the size is 65 inches.

0:09:26And then they have some different series in terms of picture quality. And this is the R-series, which is the, this is the wire cutters best TV pick.

0:09:40My word, that is an incredible price for a 65-inch TV.

0:09:42Right? So it's the, it's in the sub 1000 category, which makes me laugh because it's $999.97.

0:09:50Hey, it looks, it looks.

0:09:53I was thinking of buying the TV and then I saw that it was three cents under 1000. I went, oh, well, if I'm saving those three cents, then it's a perfectly reasonable purchase.

0:10:02That's a lot of money. A thousand dollars is a lot of money, but a 65-inch 4K television for $1000, that seems really good to me.

0:10:09Yeah, it's a pretty good, pretty good deal. We previously had a 50-inch TV and I had that moment where I thought, and it wasn't an HDR and I, and it had some weird backlighting problems.

0:10:18It was, it was an emergency TV bought because our previous TV, I was kind of playing a wait and see game with, with a 4K and HDR and our old TV, which was an LG.

0:10:29It just died one day, like literally it just ceased to function. And so we went to Costco and bought a TV and that TV was fine, but it had issues, including like a weird, weird kind of bright spot grid in the upper left-hand corner.

0:10:44It was not great. It was not great. And so this is the, this is the replacement for that. And I'm very happy with it so far.

0:10:51It's a pretty good deal. It is, like I said, the wire cutter pick, and I decided that I wanted the bigger TV, that if I was going to get into 4K video stuff in the, in my living room, like a bigger TV really was necessary.

0:11:06So I thought about the 55 and then, and my, so my, my mom has a really big plasma TV that they bought like 10 years ago.

0:11:15And I always think of it as the enormous TV that's in the living room in Arizona. And it's a beautiful, I mean, it's, it's plasma, which means that it's, it throws off heat and it's got fans blowing out hot air and it's crazy, but it is a beautiful picture.

0:11:31And I always think of it as the giant TV. And I think it's a 60 inch TV. I would expect that its physical footprint is larger, right?

0:11:39It's much larger because it has huge bezels because it's 10 years old. It's got huge bezels and it's very thick. And this is not like that.

0:11:47So the screen size of this though is bigger than what I always thought of as the gigantic screen.

0:11:51Yeah, we have a 40 inch Panasonic TX-40DX700B as everybody is very familiar with that model. And I really wish we'd gone bigger.

0:12:03Like look, you know, we were, we were apprehensive. We were like, oh, it's going to be too big.

0:12:09Even though I can't have the space, it's going to dwarf the room. And it's like, it's fine, but we have a lot of space for a bigger TV.

0:12:15So next time we'll probably, I'll probably go to like 55 or something.

0:12:19Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's, it's a big change, but, but I like it. And it was, it was a, I think pretty good deal at a time when I was ready.

0:12:32Also, I wanted to really be able to talk about and write about HDR stuff ever since the Apple TV 4K came out, especially.

0:12:38And my old TV, I really couldn't do that. Like it was, it was weird picture quality and didn't do HDR.

0:12:46And so on that level, I think like I could justify it a little bit more. Plus I just, I really wanted a nice big TV. So now I have one.

0:12:54What is your impression of it? Is it full of junky software?

0:12:58Full? No, but there's junky software on it. So it's a Roku TV, which means that it basically has the equivalent of the Roku streaming box embedded in it,

0:13:09which is this thing that, that there's been some speculation about, like, would Apple make deals with TV manufacturers to embed Apple TV in TVs someday?

0:13:19It's an interesting question. The Roku stuff, you know, it's got a, it's got a setup assistant thing that works pretty well.

0:13:30There are things about it that I like. You can, you know, it's, it's pretty customizable. You can set, set all sorts of things like the one that really bothered me or worried me was the idea that you were going to be, every time you turn the TV on, you have to navigate through Roku menus.

0:13:48And that's actually not true. You can set on power on, you can set what it, what it does. So you can point it in input and say, when I turn the power on, go to HDMI one and just turn that on like a regular TV.

0:14:02And it will, it will do that. It's got a bunch of different picture settings. It ships, this TV ships with, um, has anybody who's listened to John Syracuse to talk about this on his various podcasts over the years?

0:14:12It ships with terrible picture settings is the default. It's, it's slightly zoomed. It's got motion smoothing on.

0:14:19Why would you zoom?

0:14:20Well, the way they describe it is to avoid kind of annoying things on the edges. I think they're thinking of sort of like in standard def TV, how there's like the vertical blanking interval at the bottom.

0:14:31And so you want a little bit of overscan. It's actually like meant for there to be overscan, but it's a bad idea. Like you just show me every pixel that is available, please.

0:14:41And, and motion smoothing and turning that off and turning the film mode on so that if it detects 24 frames per second content, it, it properly displays that.

0:14:50And all of those things, I, you know, what's funny is that the settings are per input and they're also per kind of mode. There's a HDR least mode and a non HDR mode, which means that the first couple of days that I had the TV, I kept setting the settings right.

0:15:05And then moving to a different input device or a different mode and suddenly all the settings were wrong again. And then I'd set those settings to be right.

0:15:12And then it seems to have settled down now where in all the scenarios that I've been using the TV, I have now properly set the picture settings so that it all works. Okay.

0:15:22But that was a kind of a funny moment. It only has three HDMI inputs on it, which my old TV had like five.

0:15:29So that's a little bit of a downer, but I, my home theater receiver has, is an HDMI switcher with like four inputs.

0:15:37So I can manage to get like all the video game consoles attached and the Apple TV and my DVR.

0:15:46And it all there's, there's just enough space for all of it, but there is enough space for all of it. So that's good.

0:15:52And the first thing I did was turn off all the quote unquote helpful features, the stuff that you may have read about where they are using by default, it uses like pattern recognition technology to figure out what you're watching and use that to build a profile of you, which presumably they sell presumably Roku sells that.

0:16:11But they also use it to put ads in the app screen.

0:16:16So I turned all of that stuff off immediately. Good. Because I'm not interested in any, in being a participant in their scheme at all.

0:16:26When you do navigate Roku channels, like there's like an ad that shows up that's basically for other Roku channels or for content that's found on other Roku channels that you can add, which I don't like.

0:16:40But my TiVo sort of does that too. And I guess it's just like, I'm not a fan of that, but it's a thing that happens.

0:16:46Panasonic do it on our TV. All smart TVs seem to sell ads for like, so we have, and I've seen it in the past, we actually don't use any of the smart TV apps anymore because the Apple TV now has all of the ones like the YouTube app used to be better and the Prime app used to be better.

0:17:01We use Apple TV for all of it now. And they used to have like Amazon Prime ads in the main screen.

0:17:10Right, right. Yeah. Basically they're like, how do we get these people to use our service and not just watch Netflix? And it was like, hey, we've got ads in Roku that say don't use Netflix now, use Amazon Prime instead.

0:17:21But, and they add, you know, Roku by default has a bunch of junky channels that they add that I removed and I slimmed it down to a very limited number because the fact is that for the most part we will be using the TiVo or we'll be using the Apple TV, which gets us just about everything.

0:17:37There are a couple exceptions to that, but pretty much that's all we really need. And so I removed just about everything else from it. So, but I like, I mean, the idea of having one of these TVs, and this is not my first experience with a Roku TV.

0:17:54First off with Roku, I've been using Roku stuff. I had the first Netflix box before it was even branded as Roku. It was just the Netflix box, if you can imagine that. That was the first hardware player that did Netflix.

0:18:10And my mother-in-law got a new TV last summer and we, or last fall, and we went and bought it and it was the last year's TCL 55 inch. And so it's also a Roku TV.

0:18:25And, and so I've been through it before. It's pretty good. I mean, enough, enough to make me think, I wonder if it is worth Apple making deals with some partners to get Apple TV on board.

0:18:42I don't know. I mean, I feel like the complexity of what Apple's trying to do with Apple TV, what the costs are in getting involved with TV manufacturing and all those things, it may not, it may just not be worth doing.

0:18:56And that's why we don't see it. But Roku has really, you know, they are a little company that has grabbed an opportunity to get on board on a lot of TVs and good for them because I think their stuff's pretty good.

0:19:08I think it all depends on what happens once the TV service launches for Apple. Right. Because if they put all this money in, but they're not selling Apple TVs, then maybe they have to do it. Right.

0:19:20But I think ideally they would want to just sell more Apple TVs as a way to get this stuff on people's television sets. So I think that is like a right.

0:19:29They have to wait and see. Right. Like, I'm sure that there is a project somewhere in the background. Right. Like, OK, how do we partner with Samsung and LG and Panasonic to do this?

0:19:39Or do we just hope we can sell, we can like make our boxes cheaper, you know, sell it for forty nine dollars, sell it for free, give it away. Right. Like, who knows what they're going to end up doing.

0:19:50That's just as a way to get me if you sign up, if you sign up for a year. Right. With Apple TV, why not just give people a box? But we can get to all of that stuff later on.

0:19:59But before we wrap up on the TV, was it worth it? Is the picture quality what you want it to be?

0:20:04Yeah. You know, the 4K HDR stuff, it looks great, especially at night with the lights out where you can really see it's movie like.

0:20:13You can take advantage of the dynamic high dynamic range. Right. So the blacks are so much better than on that old TV where they were that L the it's the LED backlight shining through the LCD, turning all of the stuff that's black.

0:20:29Black as night into a kind of space gray. Right. Where it's like it's just not so. So, yeah, the colors are vibrant. The picture is more detailed.

0:20:39My old TV was technically it was a 4K TV, but it was too small really for the quality difference to be particularly visible. This one, it is clearly a better picture.

0:20:49The HDR stuff makes it even better. And I have reached the point now, which is unfortunate, but I have reached the point now where some channels.

0:20:56So most broadcast channels or at least broadcasting cable channels, traditional non streaming are there either 720 P or their 1080 I.

0:21:04And, you know, I'm at the point now where I can tell, especially with the 720 P like sports content. I can really see that it isn't that great.

0:21:14Like I have gotten to that point now where we've been in HD world so long, but now I'm not impressed by HD picture quality anymore.

0:21:21And I keep thinking, come on ESPN up your game. 720 P isn't good enough, which is kind of funny.

0:21:27Still broadcasting 720 in 2018.

0:21:30720 P.

0:21:31Yeah. I wonder. I mean, that's a totally like side. Well, plus I think the cable companies in order to maintain bandwidth, they're re encoding stuff and making it even crappier.

0:21:40Yeah, it's not great. So yeah, but streaming, you know, you're, you're, it's funny.

0:21:47You're, you're bottleneck for streaming is much greater than it is for the coming over a cable or satellite pipeline, but it's dedicated, right?

0:21:56Like you're saying, give me the stream and then you're watching the stream, whereas they've got to get all their channels in across the wire.

0:22:02And so you do have situations where the streaming version looks better than the, than the cable TV version.

0:22:11So I don't know the current state of affairs of what they're doing in the past.

0:22:14A cable and satellite providers have done things like take HD content and down res them so that they're not quite HD anymore in order to, and they extra compress them just to get them across the line.

0:22:24And, you know, it's, it's more, it's more visible. So, but the streaming stuff looks beautiful. I have to say.

0:22:30But speaking of that streaming 4k, it is a mess. Netflix has got it and looks good. 4k HDR, Amazon prime videos got it.

0:22:41Apple TV, right? So if you go to the TV app and look at your library, one of the items is 4k and HDR.

0:22:51And it lets you see everything that you have in your library. That's a 4k and HDR. And that's great.

0:22:55The problem is that Disney is an outlier. Like Disney doesn't want to be a part of this.

0:23:02Everybody just gets 4k movies that they bought on iTunes kind of thing.

0:23:06And so I have this issue of like, so if I want to watch Black Panther or the last Jedi, let's say as recent examples in 4k and UHD, how do I do that?

0:23:16You wait. And the answer is, yeah, the answer seems to be, you can't get it on iTunes right now.

0:23:22But what I could do, and this is actually, I did this last week is I bought the, the UHD Blu-rays, the 4k Blu-rays that don't work on a regular Blu-ray player for last Jedi and Black Panther.

0:23:35And what that got me was a disc I can't play, a disc I can play, which is the standard Blu-ray, and then a code that I could put in movies anywhere.

0:23:46And that code shows up in iTunes as a 1080 non UHD movie, but it shows up in Voodoo as a, which is another streaming service that's tied into movies anywhere as a UHD movie.

0:24:02And there's a Voodoo app on the Roku TV. So I was able to watch Black Panther in 4k HDR, but only using the Voodoo app.

0:24:11So it's, it's better than nothing. Moises Chuyon credit to Moises who is like, here's how you do it. Here's the secret.

0:24:17It's dumb because I mean, basically Disney thinks that you should pay more for UHD than for standard HD.

0:24:22And Apple's whole approach is we're just going to upgrade everything.

0:24:26And Apple knows that it's like, this is how we get uptake on this stuff is we put, we, if you already bought it, we're not going to make you buy it again.

0:24:32We're not going to make you upgrade it. We're just going to do it. And all the other studios seem to have gone along and been like, sure, okay, let's do that.

0:24:37Let's, let's try that. And Disney's like, no, we're not going to do it. We want to, we want to pay charge extra.

0:24:43And I, my thought there is that fine charge extra, like just raise your prices.

0:24:48I think this is what they're saying about it. I think this is what it is. I think they just want to make their charging extra is sign up for Disney streaming. Right? Like that's where they're going to be.

0:24:58It could be, it could be. It's just, it's kind of funny that they're there for their, you want to buy a movie and you can buy it, but you can't buy it in UHD.

0:25:06And if you buy it on iTunes, like, so I bought Infinity War on iTunes and that shows up in movies anywhere.

0:25:12But that's not, I don't get credit for the UHD version. I only get the HD version. I get the 1080 version because I bought it.

0:25:20I had the, I dared to buy it on iTunes instead of what I should have done if I'd wanted to do this, which is again, buy a disc I can't play.

0:25:27Or I think just buy it on Vudu, in which case I get the digital version and that will sync on movies anywhere. That would be the other way to do it.

0:25:35That's probably the way to do it.

0:25:36But speaking of a disc I can't play, the last thing I want to do is buy another standalone box. So I don't want to buy an Ultra HD Blu-ray player.

0:25:44Like I don't even have a Blu-ray player anymore. If we have a Blu-ray, mostly I just rip Blu-ray discs onto Plex, but if we want to watch a disc, it goes in the Xbox.

0:25:53That's basically how that works. The Xbox One will play it.

0:25:56And so I just, I don't want to buy a UHD Blu-ray player, even though if we're talking, if my inner John Syracuse comes out and talks about the highest possible image quality,

0:26:10the bit rate on one of those discs is way more bit rate than you will get on streaming or cable.

0:26:17So it will be by far the highest quality picture, but I don't want to buy a box.

0:26:23So I was actually thinking this morning, what I might do is buy a new Xbox and sell our old Xbox.

0:26:31Because the Xbox One S and X both do UHD Blu-ray.

0:26:38The original Xbox One doesn't, but the new ones do.

0:26:42And that would be, I would be trading one box for another instead of adding a box under my TV.

0:26:47And so I might do that. It's possible.

0:26:50I would wait a little bit before buying a new Xbox.

0:26:53Yeah, yeah. I mean, things are always moving. The frustrating thing is I don't have a PS4.

0:26:58And if Sony put a UHD player in the PS4, I would just buy a PS4. It'd be like a perfect, like the Spider-Man games coming out.

0:27:04I would do that. But they didn't do it.

0:27:07I don't think they're going to do it either.

0:27:09No, it's frustrating.

0:27:10That's the whole thing. They don't focus on entertainment anymore.

0:27:13It's fine. It's fine, but like I just don't want to add boxes just to play discs, right? That's not enough.

0:27:20It's too much of a unitasker.

0:27:22So yeah, I may just buy a new Xbox at some point here. We'll see.

0:27:27So I should wait? I shouldn't buy, are there new Xboxes coming?

0:27:31Next year probably.

0:27:33Well, we'll see.

0:27:35Unless you're desperate. I wouldn't get one yet.

0:27:38All right. Oh, so my last point is to wrap this up, when we started you said, "Well, that's a pretty good price for a 65-inch 4K HDR TV for sub-1000."

0:27:49Three cents under a thousand, right?

0:27:51However, when we bought our first HDTV in like 2004, it was a tube TV. It was a Trinitron.

0:28:01Sony Trinitron 1080 HDTV. It's a beautiful picture. Weighed 200 pounds.

0:28:07There was no content for it. There were like two channels that did HD.

0:28:12But we bought a nice, we bought basically a stand to put it on that was like a hutch. It's got room for your DVDs and your video games and stuff underneath.

0:28:21And it actually had like a thing that went over it with shelves and stuff. So like an entertainment center kind of.

0:28:27Not the old style where it was like just like TV-shaped. And this was a widescreen TV, so it was already kind of, you know, it was wide and it had room in the front

0:28:36where the shelves were not. So that as my TVs got bigger and flatter, they could just sit at the front of that and they could continue to expand.

0:28:46But with this TV, we blew it out. Like it could not fit this TV.

0:28:52So the net result is after 15 years of that furniture or whatever, it's out. We put it on the street with a big sign on it that said "Free."

0:29:04It's gone now. Somebody took it. Great. It's free. It's free. Take it. Take it away.

0:29:10But that means we need to buy something new because the TV is currently sitting on our coffee table, which is literally the only piece of furniture in our house that is not a bed.

0:29:19That is wide enough to take this enormous TV. So yesterday we bought a new piece of furniture.

0:29:27It's a very nice table with shelves underneath it that's designed to be, you know, for entertainment room purposes.

0:29:38It's got, you know, little vents in it and stuff so that the electronics don't heat up and all that.

0:29:45But it cost like twice as much as the TV did. So what a bargain, sub-thousand dollar TV. What a deal.

0:29:53But you know, you kept that monolithic entertainment console for gosh knows how many years.

0:30:00A very long time and this is a nice piece of furniture and it's going to last us. It's like a sideboard kind of. It's just a table.

0:30:08So it could be repurposed down the road. And I will say it is awfully nice having moved that giant piece of furniture out of our living room.

0:30:16There's like a lot of, we can see the wall. It's a lot less imposing. Even with the giant TV, it's actually less imposing in the living room than it was because the, you know, it used to be almost floor to ceiling furniture.

0:30:31And now there's a large portion of it that's the wall. So we're going to put the TV on that piece of furniture for now.

0:30:36And if we decide later that we want to put it on the wall, we'll do that. But we're going to try it just on the piece of furniture when it comes.

0:30:42So that's so yes, in the end for want of a 65 inch TV, our entire living room got changed. Isn't that always the way?

0:30:51Today's show is brought to you by Casper, the company focused on sleep dedicated to making you exceptionally comfortable one night at a time.

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0:31:45You can be confident in the purchase that you're going to make because Casper will deliver your mattress right to your door.

0:31:51And if for any reason you don't love it, they have a hassle free return policy. Jason Snell, you love your mattress, right?

0:31:59I do. I've had it for a couple of years now, at least. It might even be longer and it's very nice.

0:32:04I will say that the same thing happened with my Casper mattress as with my TV, which was I got this great new mattress and I was like, we got to buy a new bed.

0:32:13So we bought a beautiful new bed. It's very nice. And then the Casper mattress is on it and it's all lovely.

0:32:19But this apparently is a thing with me where it's like, hey, we got a new thing. Let's get more new things to surround it.

0:32:25But yeah, I wouldn't go back. I was just visiting family and my back was killing me after a couple of days in the guest bedroom of this house that we were staying at.

0:32:37And I really miss my Casper and I was very happy to return to it.

0:32:40Well, good news for your family members, Jason Snell. You can get them $50 towards a select mattress purchase.

0:32:46Just tell them to go to casper.com/upgrade and use the code upgrade at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

0:32:51And that's for everyone. Casper.com/upgrade, offer code upgrade to get $50 towards select mattress purchases.

0:32:58We thank Casper for their support of this show and Relay FM.

0:33:01So let's do some upstream news. CBS All Access announces a new Star Trek show featuring Patrick Stewart.

0:33:09You know, when I was watching Logan, did you see Logan?

0:33:13I have bought Logan. I have not yet watched Logan.

0:33:16Oh, well, it's really good.

0:33:18That's why I bought it.

0:33:19And Patrick Stewart's in it. And he's really good.

0:33:22And I had that moment where I thought, you know, the X-Men movies keep bringing Patrick Stewart back.

0:33:27And he's so great. And he shows so many different aspects of that character.

0:33:31And I felt really sad watching Logan, though, that I thought, why is it that Star Trek never got, you know, the people involved in Star Trek?

0:33:40And the reason is because they had a weird period where they're owned by two different companies now and there's all sorts of complications.

0:33:46But, like, why couldn't they get Patrick Stewart to revisit Captain Picard from Star Trek The Next Generation?

0:33:52Because if the X-Men movies can do it, surely Star Trek could, you know, it's a huge missed opportunity is basically what I was thinking.

0:33:59But they've got their act together.

0:34:01And the reason this is an upstream is it's CBS All Access, so it's going to be a streaming show.

0:34:05But and I'm excited about it. Who knows what the show will be? It'll be out next year.

0:34:09It's going to be centered on Patrick Stewart. It's, you know, what the premise is beyond that.

0:34:13Is it called Star Trek Las Vegas, right? Star Trek Las Vegas is the convention where it was announced.

0:34:19Oh, I thought that was the name of the TV show. I was like, interesting.

0:34:23No, it's definitely not. Captain Picard runs a casino. No, it's a.

0:34:27Well, my premise is that Captain Picard has taken over the vineyard, the Chateau Picard vineyard that his family has owned for hundreds of years.

0:34:34And he goes from place to place getting restaurants to sign up for the wine from Chateau Picard.

0:34:42Interesting. Yeah. From planet to planet and has adventures involving the wine business, the interplanetary wine business.

0:34:48Anyway, that's my pitch. Call me CBS.

0:34:50The reason that I put this in here is that when they did I think Star Trek Discovery last year was kind of a test for them, which was let's get a group together and figure out how much it costs to make a science fiction TV show today.

0:35:00And so they were taking it slow and full credit to them.

0:35:03Now there are reports that in addition to this show, they're working on at least one other kind of like a mini series that's a Star Trek mini series for CBS All Access and an animated Star Trek for CBS All Access.

0:35:13And I think it's really smart because they're doing so they own Star Trek. CBS owns Star Trek and they have a streaming service.

0:35:22What do you do? You do what what what Disney is doing right now and you do what Netflix, if you think about it, Netflix did with Marvel.

0:35:30Before Disney started its own streaming service plans, it was in business with Netflix.

0:35:35And Netflix was like, we're going to do we're not going to do a Marvel show.

0:35:40We're going to do four Marvel shows.

0:35:42Right. Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Daredevil and Iron Fist.

0:35:45And then also the Defenders mini series that they did.

0:35:48And they're just going to keep doing those two, presumably as long as their deal with Disney lasts.

0:35:53But it's super smart.

0:35:54Like we're not going to do you know, we got this Marvel license for these characters.

0:35:57We're not going to do like a show that's on for 10 weeks and then goes away.

0:36:01We're going to do a bunch of stuff.

0:36:02And I always thought CBS All Access since they own Star Trek, it's a franchise that they control and there's an appetite for this sort of thing.

0:36:10They should really start programming so that like there's always some Star Trek show on at any given week on CBS All Access.

0:36:19And it looks like that's what they're doing.

0:36:20So good for them. I think that's a smart play.

0:36:22We'll see how it turns out.

0:36:23I'm very excited that they apparently backed up the giant truck of money to Patrick Stewart's house.

0:36:27And he's on board.

0:36:30And as a fan who loved that show, I want to see more.

0:36:35Captain Picard, I'm looking forward to it.

0:36:37Talking about expansive sci-fi themed universes with Star in a name.

0:36:42Turns out Disney can't get the rights to Star Wars.

0:36:46Not the TV and streaming rights basically.

0:36:51Let's back up a little bit.

0:36:52I think that that kind of line is very funny, but it's also kind of true.

0:36:56So Disney owns Star Wars, right?

0:36:58But Turner Broadcasting, which is owned by AT&T, currently owns the TV rights to Star Wars.

0:37:05So Star Wars movies get shown on Turner channels.

0:37:10That's how that works.

0:37:11So if they're going to be on TV, that's where they are.

0:37:13So Disney want them back.

0:37:17Now this is being reported by Bloomberg as "so they can put them on their new streaming service."

0:37:22Now this isn't completely accurate, so we'll come back to that in a moment.

0:37:26Turner want a lot of money, as you can assume, because they know they can ask for it.

0:37:31And comparable replacement content.

0:37:33Now this is where it's all stopped, because I'm expecting Disney would give them the money,

0:37:38would not give them the replacement content.

0:37:40Because comparable replacement content means, probably, Marvel movies.

0:37:44And Disney doesn't want to give those away either.

0:37:46The only thing I can think is that, would they make a deal to do something,

0:37:50and I think Disney doesn't want to do this, right,

0:37:52but would be to say, "We'll let you have a Marvel TV show."

0:37:58Or something like that.

0:37:59But they don't want that.

0:38:00They don't want to do that.

0:38:01They want all of that stuff on their own company services.

0:38:04And that is leading into this, right?

0:38:07So Netflix currently have a deal for the new Star Wars movies.

0:38:10Like, right now, Netflix in the UK has "Last Jedi."

0:38:14But—US too.

0:38:16And it's got Marvel movies.

0:38:18It's got, like, what's on Netflix?

0:38:21There's a relatively recent Marvel movie that's on there.

0:38:24Maybe "Black Panther."

0:38:25Or "Guardians of the Galaxy" Vol. 2, I think, is on there.

0:38:29And that deal extends through "Ant-Man and the Wasp."

0:38:31And that'll be the last one.

0:38:33And then Disney has clawed those rights back.

0:38:34But yeah, they've made—this is just like all those Marvel TV shows that are on Netflix.

0:38:39Disney made deals back when they weren't planning this streaming service strategy.

0:38:43And those deals are out there.

0:38:45And they can't unwind them immediately.

0:38:48But that Netflix deal is going to come to an end.

0:38:50When that Netflix deal comes to an end, Disney will be able to put these on their own service.

0:38:56Now, if—so you think to yourself, why do they—

0:39:00if the streaming rights and TV rights are completely separate, then why do they care about Turner?

0:39:05Well, I assume the reason is they want the only place to get "Star Wars" on Marvel to be their service.

0:39:12Which is probably why they're not willing to give up a bunch more to Turner to get these rights back.

0:39:18I guess they'll just wait until all of these contracts come up—like, they end.

0:39:23Because when does the Netflix one—so the Netflix one, it runs out, I guess, within the next year, right?

0:39:29If "Ant-Man and the Wasp" is the last one.

0:39:31Because that's just come out. So give it a year and it's—

0:39:33Right. Yeah. Presumably there's a window that they bought where it's like it goes on sale on home video

0:39:37and rental for home video.

0:39:39And then there's a, you know, six-month gap and then it goes on Netflix for six months and then it comes off.

0:39:44There's some pattern that I haven't followed, but there clearly is one.

0:39:48And the last one of those will be "Ant-Man and the Wasp."

0:39:51And when that goes off of Netflix, that's the end of the deal.

0:39:54Yeah. So then they're gone, right? And then Disney has them all.

0:39:57Yeah.

0:39:58And it might be some kind of rolling thing, right? So they might start getting some of them. Who knows?

0:40:02I mean, we don't know what the deals mean.

0:40:03But all of this is just—it is funny to me. You look at these contracts and what Disney have bought their way into.

0:40:10To try and get what they want, they are having to deal with tens of years of contracts by companies they didn't own, right?

0:40:21They're dealing with Marvel's nuisance. They're dealing with, like, Lucasfilm.

0:40:27Then they're going to be dealing with Fox. And they've just got to go through, like, the next five years, and then they'll get to where they want to be.

0:40:35Because right now they are having to unwind, walk back all of these contracts that they found themselves into.

0:40:42Yeah. Disney is turning itself into a very different company than it is today and than it was five years ago.

0:40:48But it's going to take time. And now buying Fox is yet another piece of that.

0:40:52And what it does with Hulu, as we've talked about, is going to be another piece of it.

0:40:55But I think you're right. The end goal is that everything that's available on streaming, that's Marvel or Star Wars or Pixar or Disney—

0:41:05Simpsons and everything else.

0:41:07Yeah. Is only on a Disney-owned streaming service. That is the end goal here.

0:41:15You may even stop seeing iTunes. Like, you never—they may stop doing it.

0:41:20I don't think so, only because I feel like that's a different market. If you want to buy it or rent it, and then there's streaming.

0:41:28And it might be different, but I feel like there's ancillary revenue. Like, Star Trek Discovery is going to come out on Blu-ray this fall.

0:41:36And that's going to be the first chance for anybody who didn't stream it, who didn't pay for a streaming service to watch it.

0:41:41But there's money to be made on that, and so CBS is going to do that.

0:41:46I feel like there's money to be made making Blu-rays, and there's money to be made selling things on iTunes and renting things on iTunes.

0:41:52And then there's this other market that's the streaming market, which happens a little bit later.

0:41:56Now, they may upset that, but I think the most likely scenario and the way it looks right now is that they'll kind of keep to that.

0:42:01But they want—when our content goes to streaming, it's only on our streaming services.

0:42:07Now, you know, I don't know the nature of their deal with Netflix for those shows.

0:42:13I assume that those shows are on Netflix as long as Netflix wants to keep renewing them, which I think we mentioned last week.

0:42:21Like, I anticipate that you will be seeing new seasons of Iron Fist for a long time, if only because Netflix wants to be in the Marvel business,

0:42:28and that's the only piece that they can control, and that Disney would love for Netflix to stop showing those shows so that they could take them over.

0:42:36In fact, there's a great example of this, which is that Clone Wars series that is coming to—that they renewed it for a last season after it's been off the air for years.

0:42:48Like, why did that all happen? The reason is that was not on a Disney-owned channel.

0:42:53And Disney bought Lucasfilm, so they got Star Wars, and they basically said, "We're not going to make that show anymore."

0:43:01And then they made a new show, Star Wars Rebels, that was on Disney's channel instead.

0:43:06And it seems like that deal has now lapsed to the point where they can go back and make new episodes and put it on their own streaming service deal.

0:43:13So in the end, the goal here is, why should we make something for our competitor when we can make it for ourselves?

0:43:19And in some cases, they're going to have to wait out—just as Marvel has had to wait out things like Fox and Universal

0:43:27and other companies having rights to the Marvel characters that they want to have the rights to, or they bought them out, one of the two.

0:43:35Disney's going to have to wait out some of these TV deals they made, including Turner with the Star Wars movies, unless they want to pay them off.

0:43:42Because you can see the appeal, right, of launching that service and saying, "Every Star Wars movie."

0:43:47And this is the only place you can get it, and all the Star Wars TV shows and new Star Wars TV shows, but they can't do it yet.

0:43:54So talking about Disney's streaming service, there was an interesting article in the New York Times today, which reads like a profile to me.

0:44:02More than—

0:44:03Yeah.

0:44:04Right? It reads like Disney sat down, gave them a bunch of information, clearly fed them some stuff as well, which came from anonymous sources,

0:44:14but like way too much information that you wouldn't have sat on, right?

0:44:18Totally.

0:44:19There was really, really a lot of stuff in here. Try and break down some of it. It's all focused around a guy called Ricky Strauss, who's been given creative oversight for Disney's new streaming service.

0:44:32Strauss was the president of marketing at Walt Disney Studios. He has credits like Black Panther, Force Awakens, and Inside Out to his name, whilst kind of running marketing there.

0:44:41He's been described by people like Kevin Feig, who's the head of Marvel Studios, as "hugely supportive to storytellers" and that he exhibits "strong creative instincts and expertise."

0:44:52Strauss is going to be responsible for greenlighting and shaping the new programming that Disney will create.

0:44:57And you can expect to see here now, coming to Disney, what we've seen with Apple.

0:45:05So you're going to start to see now big names, big projects, and big budgets.

0:45:09So you're going to start to see people being attached to properties coming to Disney or coming from Disney like we've been reporting on for ages, right?

0:45:18So like Apple signs this person, Amazon signs this person. I think you're about to start to see Disney's name in that hat a little bit more as opposed to just stuff coming from them.

0:45:27We may start to see some things that they're signing.

0:45:31The rumors say there are at least nine movies in production, some original stuff, but they're going to be doing remakes, reboots of Lady and the Tramp and Sword in the Stone.

0:45:42Lady and the Tramp and Sword in the Stone, among some others, and some TV series adapted from Disney properties.

0:45:49There's going to be a new High School Musical show and a new Monsters, Inc. show.

0:45:53This has all come out of this Disney article/profile in the New York Times today. There's a lot of information in there.

0:46:00Yeah, the movie stuff kind of fascinates me. I wonder about that.

0:46:05The idea of, I mean, that's competing with Netflix, I suppose.

0:46:10The idea that in addition to having TV series, they want to have movie premieres and then they live on in the library.

0:46:16Disney has always been, if anybody who knows their home video strategy where it goes back in the vault, they sell them for a little while and then they go away and then they come back.

0:46:25This is a little bit like the new Disney vault is their streaming service where they put these movies there and they say, "If you want to watch them, you need to pay us to subscribe."

0:46:34And that's part of their strategy is instead of direct to video, it's like direct to streaming.

0:46:39And it'll be interesting to see how this turns out. Presumably Netflix keeps doing this because it actually works for them.

0:46:46I always think that the Netflix movies are—I am a skeptic of movies being released on Netflix, I'm not sure, but apparently people watch them.

0:46:55I very rarely watch a Netflix original movie.

0:46:58I want TV shows.

0:46:59Yeah, I want TV shows too. But obviously there's an audience for it or they wouldn't do it. Netflix knows their audience and they're paying for these movies.

0:47:06So there must be some segment of their audience that's totally into the original movies.

0:47:11And Disney seems to be leaning that way and I'm sure they're going to learn a lot about who their audience is too.

0:47:18I'm fascinated by this because I see Marvel and Star Wars as being—you know, Marvel runs the gamut, right?

0:47:26The Netflix TV shows are rated R level. The other Marvel shows are more like PG-13.

0:47:34Star Wars is APG kind of environment and that's interesting, but those aren't kids' shows, right?

0:47:43They're older than that.

0:47:45So I wonder about the challenge of this Disney streaming service and how they sell it.

0:47:52Because if they're trying to sell it to parents of young kids and then also parents of older kids and also people who love Marvel and Disney—

0:48:03I mean, I think Marvel and Star Wars, which is a broader audience than that, I don't know.

0:48:07It's a weird combination of things, but I think they don't want to offer five different streaming services, right?

0:48:16So this is where they've chosen to put it. I don't know. It's going to be fascinating to see.

0:48:21And that's the thing I got most out of that New York Times article was I felt like this was also Disney trying to introduce this concept to a broader audience

0:48:30through the access that they presumably granted for this article, which is, "Get ready. Disney is also in this game along with Netflix and Amazon and Apple."

0:48:39And that first shot saying, "Pay attention to us, too. We are also all the way in on this strategy."

0:48:48So yeah, I recommend if you're interested in this stuff, which you probably are, if you listen to this, go read the article.

0:48:53Because there's more stuff in there. There's more titles that they're talking about. We just picked out a few of them.

0:48:57So there's some interesting stuff in there for sure. All right.

0:49:00Today's episode is also brought to you by a new sponsor I'm very excited about, and that is Inboard Technology.

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0:52:10Future. Oh boy. All right. So Apple results time.

0:52:14Let's do very quick headline revenue profit services.

0:52:17iPad sales and iPhone sales were all up year on year. Max sales were down year on year.

0:52:23There's your headline. Let's dig into a couple of different things.

0:52:25Record revenue for the third quarter.

0:52:29They made more, you know, again, it's more records.

0:52:34The way I phrased it in my article was sort of like I hear people who are just bored now.

0:52:39It's the best kind of board, I suppose, to the Apple just kind of rely reliably has huge profits and huge revenue.

0:52:48And that's just where we are at the moment.

0:52:51And, you know, have been for a long time. Probably will continue to pay for a long time.

0:52:55So Apple has actually with this quarter hit their new iPhone sales peak.

0:53:01So do you remember probably about a year ago, we were spending a lot of time talking about the huge six and six plus release.

0:53:09Maybe it was a year, year or two ago, because if you remember, Apple had their first down quarters.

0:53:14Right. Because the six and six plus pent up demand, all that stuff went through the roof.

0:53:19And it was like those were the heady heights of the iPhone, probably never to be seen again.

0:53:23Well, it did it. It's revenue, not unit sales that's been beaten.

0:53:27So unit sales have not eclipsed the six and six plus yet, although I'm just going to go on record and say that, like, you know, they will do it next year with the with the ones that we're going to see in September.

0:53:39Right. I think that's going to be those phones are going to be pretty huge.

0:53:44But they have more revenue than ever before. Year on year with a higher average selling price to ASP.

0:53:51And I guess, Jason, this is all thanks to the iPhone 10, right?

0:53:54Yeah, this is the success of the iPhone 10 that revenue for iPhone has been up year on year for seven straight quarters.

0:54:03But the number that struck me was the four quarter average.

0:54:06So you take a look at like it smooths out all the seasonality.

0:54:11You basically look at how much revenue has the iPhone generated in the last year.

0:54:16That's that's a different chart. I know it's not your favorite chart.

0:54:21It's synthetic, but the most important point of it is to say in any given four quarter period, any given year, not even like calendar year, but like four quarter period over the life of the iPhone.

0:54:34The iPhone has made more money in the last four quarters than any other four quarter period, including the insurmountable iPhone six and six plus period.

0:54:45And that's that's the thing that makes me laugh because remember we had that year where it was where it was great.

0:54:49And then we had the year where they couldn't live up to it. And everybody's like, Oh, God, why?

0:54:53Everything's awful year over year. It's terrible. Even though that was sort of an aberration because the general trend was up.

0:54:59But like there was so much pent up demand for larger screen iPhones that that was a huge year.

0:55:04But you give it three years and here we are.

0:55:07The new kind of like that gradual increase has now reached the heights of the impossibly, you know, impossibly high sales of the iPhone six in revenue.

0:55:18And the ASP, every selling price is about the iPhone ten, right? Like the average selling price of the iPhone has been increasing.

0:55:28You know, it has been increasing since the iPhone ten came out.

0:55:32And at this point, the four quarter rolling average is the highest it's ever been. The average iPhone selling price over the last four quarters, which includes the introduction of the iPhone ten is $717.

0:55:43It's huge. And there's no other I mean, the iPhone eight, the iPhone eight and eight plus are more expensive than their predecessors.

0:55:54So that's part of it. But it's really about that fact. The iPhone ten is such a key part of the iPhone line and it is the best selling iPhone.

0:56:02And that's the one that starts at $1000. So there, you know, for all of those dumb stories about how the iPhone ten was no good and was failing and wasn't selling well.

0:56:12That's they were just wrong. And the iPhone ten has pushed Apple to its highest heights yet.

0:56:18And I'm wondering what is going to happen with, you know, the coming next year, right? With September onwards when there's probably going to be three new phones with two of them hovering around $1000 to start.

0:56:32These numbers this time, like next year or whatever, are going to be mammoth.

0:56:38Yeah, well, the iPhone nine will presumably hit a lot of people who held out on the iPhone ten because they thought it was too expensive. But if that iPhone nine or whatever it's called, that is, you know, the LCD version of the iPhone ten, basically, it's got face ID and all of that and presumably will cost less than the iPhone ten.

0:56:58That will get some people, some other people will be like, okay, well, now I'll get the iPhone ten because I think we're assuming there'll be a new iPhone ten as well, a new iPhone ten model that they'll probably just call the iPhone ten, the new iPhone ten second generation.

0:57:11And there's the rumor about the iPhone ten plus, which will presumably start at more like $1100.

0:57:18So, yeah, I would imagine that this is, I mean, this is the reality of where Apple is now is that they pushed some models down by keeping older models around and by occasionally refreshing the iPhone SE.

0:57:30And they've also pushed models up because they know that there's some people who are happy to pay $1200 for an iPhone.

0:57:38And as a result, you know, the average iPhone sale price is more than $100. Apple is making more than $100 per iPhone more than they did three and a half years ago.

0:57:55I'm also going to, I'm going to, if I was going to put my money on the table, I would expect that we will have like the iPhone nine, right, which would be like a $600, $700 iPhone ten looking LCD phone.

0:58:08I reckon the iPhone ten that we have now, they'll cut the price and that will be available and then we'll have a 10 S and a 10 plus.

0:58:15So that's how I think it's going to go, just so they have, they have like on the $100, right, from like $700 to $1100, something like that.

0:58:26We'll see. I mean, I do totally understand the idea of getting rid of the current 10 and I know there's been a lot of rumors that suggest that, but it really feels to me like all of the iPhone ten revenue and sales reporting that has occurred over the last year has all been wrong.

0:58:42So, you know, like the idea of them killing the iPhone, it didn't work.

0:58:47I mean, I totally understand the reason if they just want to get rid of it. But I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if we see the current iPhone ten kept around on the line just to have another model available, another price point.

0:58:57We'll see. The iPad is definitely stable at this point.

0:59:02I think it's quite clear. I was talking about this on connected.

0:59:05I believe Apple has a strategy in place for the iPad right now with how they're releasing it. You know, they didn't have pros available for June.

0:59:14So they released and they did release, you know, they had a cheaper iPad, right?

0:59:18They brought out a more regular iPad.

0:59:20And that's definitely what has kept them kind of on a steady to small growth.

0:59:26Right. I think September is going to be very exciting for the iPad.

0:59:32You know, we think we're excited for the iPhone.

0:59:35My hopes are very high right now for the iPad might bring in September as well with what we're going to see in the iPad Pro.

0:59:40So I think that Apple definitely have a strategy, a long term strategy in place for the iPad right now.

0:59:48And we're seeing unfold and the numbers are showing that story where I think we're not seeing it for the Macintosh.

0:59:56Yeah, it's working for the iPad.

0:59:57I mean, the they have been executing when they, you know, split the line and lower the price of the iPad and maybe iPad Pro.

1:00:05They've been executing that.

1:00:07They had new iPad pros the next year, basically, and they if we see newer iPad pros this fall,

1:00:15then they will have, you know, really been executing pretty quickly on turning that product line around.

1:00:20And there was a little Twitter back and forth about Federico and I had one point about how exciting this fall could be.

1:00:28You know, I think I'm more excited about an iPad Pro announcement that I am about the iPhone at this point.

1:00:33Me too.

1:00:34Last year was really exciting.

1:00:35iPhone 10 was really exciting.

1:00:37Yeah.

1:00:38But if what we get is sort of an iPhone 10 Lite and an iPhone 10 big, that's fine.

1:00:42That's you know, it's a huge product and they'll sell a lot of them.

1:00:45But I am really interested in what the iPhone 10 style iPad Pro looks like.

1:00:51That's really, really interesting.

1:00:53Because they managed to do that.

1:00:54I don't know what it's going to cost.

1:00:56Oh, a lot of money.

1:00:57But I love my iPhone 10 so much still.

1:01:00I think of all of my iPhones, this is the one that I have remained in love with for the longest period of time.

1:01:05Like a couple of days ago, I was like, wow, we're like six weeks away from the new one.

1:01:10Right. Or something like that.

1:01:11Which is super close.

1:01:12Right. Forget the math.

1:01:13Right.

1:01:14So we're maybe six weeks away from seeing the new iPhone.

1:01:17And I feel like I've only just had my iPhone.

1:01:20Right. Like, and I know we got it a little bit later.

1:01:22Right. I know it came in like November or whatever, but I still really, really love my iPhone 10.

1:01:29So that's why I like you guys are so excited for what the iPads going to be like.

1:01:35Right. With this thinking and this new kind of design in mind.

1:01:38Very, very excited for that.

1:01:39And we're going to talk about that, I guess, over the next few weeks as we ramp up to those products being released.

1:01:45But let's talk about the Macintosh.

1:01:4713 percent year on year declining units, five percent down in revenue.

1:01:51This is the fewest Mac sold in a single quarter since Q3 2010.

1:01:55And this makes it the third straight down quarter.

1:01:59I don't know what to say about it.

1:02:04My feeling is not good.

1:02:06Apple's I said this again, repeating myself from connected, but I think that they're showing they have a really good strategy in the iPad.

1:02:13And it feels like it's kind of reversed.

1:02:15And the strategy maybe isn't so good in the Mac right now.

1:02:17They're not releasing things quick enough.

1:02:19What they're releasing isn't making people happy.

1:02:21There's potentially stuff on the horizon, but nobody knows anything about it.

1:02:24And that feels like what the iPad felt like to me a while ago.

1:02:28Yeah, I think I think they do have a strategy.

1:02:31But the problem is that they haven't executed.

1:02:34Sorry, yeah, I should say a strategy that we're seeing right because there's always the other side.

1:02:38The iPad didn't just didn't just have that idea six months ago, right?

1:02:42Like there is a plan, but the plan has fallen down right like where we are at the moment in their plan is the bad point.

1:02:50I would hope.

1:02:52Yeah, as Stephen and I talked about a couple weeks ago.

1:02:55The idea that the this this thing is just hanging out there with the consumer part of the laptop line.

1:03:04It's just like what is going on there?

1:03:06And the answer is yeah, it's a disaster.

1:03:08I am pretty sure that Apple knows exactly what they're going to do with the bottom half of the of the laptop line, but I haven't gotten there yet.

1:03:16And some of that is maybe misjudging as we've talked about misjudging sort of like how they could make a MacBook and the popularity of the MacBook Air and the pricing where they can put.

1:03:24Nine ninety nine laptop and what they want to make for that but I think it's going to get resolved.

1:03:28I have high hopes actually that will get resolved this fall and that will see that and in fact this quarter doesn't include the MacBook Pro.

1:03:35Whereas last quarter or last year the year-on-year comparison quarter did include the MacBook Pro because it was released at WWDC last year.

1:03:42So that's what they call in the business a tough compare which is they released a product last year.

1:03:46They didn't this year.

1:03:47So of course sales are down it's possible that it's all going to be up from here for the Mac because they'll start with a quarter with a lot of MacBook Pro sales hopefully for them.

1:03:58And then if they roll out new Mac laptops and then new iMacs and all that they could get this going in the right direction.

1:04:04But it is it is hard not to look at the numbers now and say that the Mac has had is in the roughest state it's been in in eight years seven or eight years.

1:04:18Like right now it's in this tenuous position where they have not released a lot of new stuff.

1:04:23They've got people kind of grumpy about the laptops and the laptops are two-thirds of the business.

1:04:29They've promised a Mac Pro but they haven't delivered it yet not until next year.

1:04:33They had the iMac Pro out there which is nice.

1:04:35Although the existence of the Mac Pro probably suppressed sales of it and it's not a mainstream huge product.

1:04:40Anyway, the huge products are the laptops and the consumer laptops.

1:04:44I think are especially huge and that's the part that they have done, you know, not a lot with and it's kind of confusing and a mess down there.

1:04:52So my optimistic side says what you said which is this is a low point and that the Mac will turn it around from here.

1:05:01I hope that's true because if Apple thinks that everything's fine in the Mac they are diluted because you can look at the numbers.

1:05:08It's very clear now that all of the kind of unrest that we've heard among Mac users for the last year or two.

1:05:14Like I really believe this you can see it in the numbers like we may we may be a tempest in the teapot.

1:05:21We may be this, you know echo chamber.

1:05:23We may be the non representative of the Mac market as a whole.

1:05:27But we're also keen observers of the Mac market who care about it.

1:05:31I mean, and I'm not saying you and me I'm saying like all the people who listen to podcasts and talk about this on the internet and write about it and listen to and send us feedback and all of that, right?

1:05:39I think you could also say maybe we were a canary in a coal mine for some of their kind of baffling decisions.

1:05:46And I think that that is actually borne out.

1:05:51But if I had to put my my finger on the one thing where the Mac is kind of lost its way in terms of the sales, I would say it's the consumer laptops.

1:06:01The fact that there's the MacBook Air and the MacBook and that MacBook Pro non touch bar and they're all kind of like weirdly priced and have weird sets of features and they're kind of like number one laptop is basically five-year-old technology.

1:06:13It's um, it's not a good place to be.

1:06:15So I believe that they're working on it that they knew this a year or two ago that that roundtable when they invited people out to talk about the Mac Pro and how much they love the Mac the fact that at WWDC they reiterated how much they care about the Mac and that the bringing iOS stuff to the Mac is part of a goal to reinvigorate the Mac and make it more relevant.

1:06:36I believe that Apple at some point made a decision that they weren't going to just let the Mac linger that they were going to actually make an effort on the Mac even though it's only 10% of their business.

1:06:46The problem is as we've seen with something like the Mac Pro like doing new or the keyboards quite frankly doing new hardware takes a long time.

1:06:54It takes a long time.

1:06:55These are these are very very big ships to turn and they turn very very slowly.

1:06:59And they're paying now for mistakes that they made in like 2015-2016.

1:07:06The problem with all of these things is you come out and say your intention, but your their products can't meet the intention because they're in a pipeline right which you know, and that's why they spoke about the Mac Pro.

1:07:20It's why they had the iMac Pro right and why they showed those things early because they needed to show something because maybe they knew their intention with for the next couple of years wasn't going to meet what they want.

1:07:30They knew the pipeline.

1:07:31Yeah, that pipeline is great when it's popping out amazing new iPhones all the time right the pipeline is not great when you realize you've made a horrible mistake and you realize you have two years of stuff in the pipeline that is going on the assumptions you made that turned out to be wrong or that you've you change your strategy and the strategy that you thought was the right to strategy in 2014 or 2015.

1:07:49Turns out to be wrong and you're going to be you know, you're going to be living it down until 2018 or 2019.

1:07:55It's tough position to be in and that is why you call in people and say we don't have anything to show you but we want to tell you that we get it and that's where they are.

1:08:04So I'm choosing not to say that Apple is going to make decisions on the Mac that we that we like or agree with will see like but I do feel like they're probably they're probably having some of the same thoughts about this.

1:08:19They probably had several years ago the same thoughts.

1:08:21We had several years ago. The difference is they can't talk about it because they can't say yeah our current laptops are crappy don't buy them because they got to sell them right like but they know that they've got something better coming along and imagine the torture of being somebody at Apple right who like Phil Schiller like every time he goes out there and says boy this product is amazing.

1:08:41He knows that there are two products more than amazing in every cat in every category to more amazing products than this one that are being worked on.

1:08:52He knows it like he knows at least right and that's the tough thing about being kind of a marketer is that you need to sell this year's product even though you know that like next year's product of course will leave this one in the dust because it's about now and if you're turning and you're changing your strategy it's even harder and I think that's what's happening.

1:09:05So we'll see because they can't go on like this though the way they've been doing it it's it's not good and the numbers are there that it's been like three point seven million max and a quarter.

1:09:14That's a terrible number. It's just it's awful.

1:09:18Services is still going strong. Not only is it growing year on year. There are more revenue streams on the way the Apple video service being the main one one of the most interesting parts of the call for me was where Tim was talking semi openly about the fact that the TV stuff exists because you know as well as the

1:09:34we've spoken about there's nothing they can do to hide a lot of it because they have to work within the Hollywood system.

1:09:41This you know analysts we spoke about this we speak about this every quarter analysts focus on services heavily because it is Apple's main year on year percentage growth right like that's where the growth is going to be.

1:09:52Plus you know when iPhones do stop growing because it's got to happen at some point. It hasn't yet but it will. I mean it's going to you know at least at least unit sales have slowed down right but revenues going up but unit sales are slowing down.

1:10:07How does it how does Apple keep making more and more money which everyone wants them to make when they're not selling as many iPhones.

1:10:14Well the way they do that is charging their existing customers for new services and make more money from them this way. But I know Jason that this rhetoric has started to gray on you a little bit.

1:10:25Yeah I mean it's I don't want to make too big a deal of it. I just I had a moment when I was writing up the services revenue and when I was listening on the phone where I thought like I get why in the context of Wall Street and results which is what these quarterly earnings are you talk up your services growth and you set a target is we're going to double it in four years or whatever they did and they're excited about it.

1:10:43Because they want to see growth because Wall Street's all about the growth. That's that's what they want to see is growth and that's fine. I did have that moment where I thought let's not forget. I'm not saying that Apple has actually forgotten this but I just had a moment where I thought let's not forget that Apple's expertise is making products not services and they're getting better at services.

1:11:08They're getting way better at services which is good because it's an important part of their business and the fact is that's how the game is played today. You can't do this business like imagine if Apple had no no video strategy no music strategy no cloud services strategy all they ever did was say you can connect to Dropbox you can connect to box.net.

1:11:28Yeah, they would be believe it again. They would be less successful than they are and they would be creating success for others but the product would also not be as good because they can they can connect that stuff better.

1:11:42This is how this game is played amazon.com has a video streaming service like Google has what all the stuff that it's doing like you got to be in this game now that all said it all comes back for me to the quality of the products the hardware and software working together with the services.

1:12:01And I think I don't the focus on services makes me uneasy just in the sense that Apple is not a services company Apple unless you want to define as I've seen a few people to find it to find the iPhone as a service which is like I guess like technically if you especially if you're on that iPhone program where you just get a new iPhone every year and you pay them a monthly fee like that is that is iPhone as a service so that okay you got me there.

1:12:30But in the end the heart the service that's most important is still a piece of hardware and software that works with different cloud services to give you a product and again it's a little thing.

1:12:40I'm not accusing I don't overstate this. I'm not accusing Apple of losing the plot here because I do think that they're speaking the language that Wall Street wants to that they understand that they want to hear but it does give me a little bit of pause because.

1:12:56Services revenue and the way it's framed in the calls is about increasing they don't generally use this term at Apple although the analysts on the call will of our poo which is average revenue per user.

1:13:10That's that's a that's in the same same dictionary is monetizing somebody where is the magic wand that turns a person into a pile of money this is our poo is what you do with the money after you've monetize someone how much money is in the pile you count the pile and I just it makes me uneasy that Apple will Apple will maybe be a successful company financially but I think it loses its way.

1:13:39If it starts to think more about the value of extracting revenue from its existing customer base then it does on making great products and I'm not saying that's happening now but I am saying that I can tell that like Wall Street would like that at least the first part and the danger is do you lose focus on what matters because Apple does make mistakes.

1:14:03I think the Mac has shown that the last couple of years that they made they made mistakes and I don't know it's just it's again I'm not like angry or on a rant here as much as like it just give me a little tickle on the back of my back of my neck I was like let's not get too carried away with services like services are good and they're part of the whole they're part of this nutritious breakfast right but they are additive.

1:14:26And I don't I'm not as enthusiastic about any company who says that one of its major goals is just to extract more money from the people who are already giving it a lot of money because it feels kind of empty like your goal should be to expand your market and to make the great products that make people want to enter your ecosystem and then once they're there yes they're going to give you money and that's great and you could argue that Apple's been bad at this historically and they finally gotten good at extracting more revenue from people.

1:14:55I see the bills that I get from Apple on an ongoing basis for iCloud for Apple music like I you know that's that's all good just at the end of the day.

1:15:04You got you still got to make good iPhones you still got to make good iPads and I think they are but I do see how this gets distorted when people talk about the services revenue it gets I worry that some people kind of lose the lose the bigger picture of what Apple is at its core.

1:15:20So all of this led to the stock market being very excited and on August the second 1148 Eastern Time Apple became the first ever American company to hit a market cap of 1 trillion US dollars is the second company to do this in history.

1:15:39So a lot of people thought they were the first but in 2007 Petro China which I believe is like an oil company they hit one billion one trillion. They did that in 2007 very briefly but so they're not the first company ever to do this.

1:15:54But Apple have done it and the thing I think that will be different for Apple is they will do it a bunch so they just drop lower but my expectation would be come Q4 they will be very comfortably in the 1 trillion mark for a lot of time you know once we get a new iPhone etc etc.

1:16:12So this has happened you know which is it's a big deal it's a big deal for Apple it's a big deal in general that this has happened but this is going to become more normal Apple Amazon is getting very close now they're in like the 900 million range so I think over the next few years.

1:16:29Yeah alphabet is going to get there for a reason that we'll get to in a moment I was looking up a bunch of this stuff today and a lot of companies are trending towards this trillion dollar market cap.

1:16:42I did see a funny thing where somebody looked at the the price per earnings ratio for these companies because Apple traditionally has very low price per earnings which means that to a lot of people that means that it's undervalued and the the stat that I really liked is if Apple traded it at Google's price per earnings ratio it would be worth 3 trillion.

1:17:02There are a lot of people out there who say Apple is really it's funny you know that at the being a trillion in value there are a lot of people who think Apple is severely undervalued by by an investment community that doesn't really understand Apple's business very well but Apple's always been like that Apple's always been a controversial company and now is no different.

1:17:21Yep so there you go trillion dollars and interesting earnings all of this though Jason led me to our summer of fun topic today.

1:17:32And so after this break me and you are going to play with 243 billion dollars how does that sound.

1:17:38Money money money money let's do it.

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1:19:10So here we go Jason let's play a summer fun game today. Okay, you will put in charge of acquisitions at Apple and you are told you can spend as much as you want of the 243 billion dollars that Apple has as cash on hand.

1:19:30What companies do you buy and why?

1:19:34Okay, how are we doing this? Are we buying these things together? Are we doing this as a draft? Are we just compiling separate lists? What's the plan?

1:19:44I know you love drafts so I thought we could make it very simple. We could just go through pick a few companies and we could just do it in draft. Kind of in draft style you pick one I pick one.

1:19:53I think you mean taking turns.

1:19:56Sure, but I'll call it a draft because I know you like it.

1:19:59I do. Why don't you go first?

1:20:01Alright, okay. I'm going to go with Valve.

1:20:05Oh interesting.

1:20:08Valve have an approximate market value, kind of a valuation. So what I did today was I went through and looked at a bunch of companies so I threw some options in our document that we could pick from but we can pick from anyone and I'll check if it's possible.

1:20:21And I looked at market caps and I looked at approximate valuations where a company isn't publicly traded and just made sure it was kind of within the realm of this 243. It was purchasable basically.

1:20:32So you say Valve right? Valve make video games. They make some of the most popular video games in the world. They also own Steam, the most popular gaming marketplace in the world.

1:20:44The reason I think that Valve would be an interesting fit for Apple is one, the games. Apple have lots of platforms with games and it would be great for them to have some interesting parties available to them.

1:20:58They also make one of, if not the best VR headset available today in the Vive, which you know that is technology is becoming more and more important, especially if you think about AR as well. Companies that know VR know how to do AR. They know how to make hardware that goes on your face. Valve know how to do that.

1:21:18They know how to use sensors. They know all that stuff. They know how to do a good marketplace. All of that talent could be used to help make the app store even better.

1:21:28Valve know and have their hands in a bunch of pies that Apple could also use some help in. So I think that they would be an interesting buy for maybe not that much money.

1:21:39If that valuation is even close to 10 billion, that is really worth it for them if Apple wanted to do it. I think the talent that they could get from Valve would be super, super useful to them. So that's who I would go with first.

1:21:56I think that's a good pick. One of the items on my list that I won't pick now, because I think you kind of covered it when you said that they've got the VR headset, is I have a bunch of things that what I want to pick is like a collection of little companies in an area.

1:22:12And so I had on my list a bunch of little AR/VR companies. Now, Valve is not little, but that would have been a pick is find me five companies that are working on AR and VR stuff, because I know that they're -- that's what Apple is buying.

1:22:27That's the kind of stuff Apple buys, is they spend 100 million here and they spend 50 million here and they spend 200 million here. For these smaller companies that nobody's ever heard of that are building a certain kind of tech that isn't a place they want to go.

1:22:39If you remember back to when they bought PA Semi, which basically started them on their chip making business that they are so -- it's such an important part of their strategy now.

1:22:48That was one of those things. And that's why I'm going to go next with whatever chip companies they can find. I don't know what the price is. It's probably, you know, the bottom of the bag of chips where it's like little crumbs.

1:23:03That's what I'm talking about. Little -- just the -- I did have in there, Jason, if you wanted to spend basically all of your money, Intel are currently valued at 227 billion.

1:23:12So Apple, if they wanted to, could roll in and just buy Intel. I looked to ARM, but SoftBank bought ARM. And Apple can't buy SoftBank.

1:23:20So, you know. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. I don't think they need to buy ARM because ARM holdings, like they have the license and I think that's all they really need. So I'm just going to say chip companies, which I know is boring, but like they keep doing this.

1:23:36They keep buying. Like, is there a company that has a new, you know, thing that they're doing that they're full of talent and they have a new, you know, cellular radio that they're working on?

1:23:46It's like, I mean, I guess they could just -- what does Qualcomm cost? I guess I could just buy Qualcomm, but I don't think they want to do that.

1:23:52I think what they want to do is find -- or Intel. They want to buy small companies and I'll say, I'm going to create a fund and I'm going to do my research, which will require more research than we can do for this show, to find some of the brightest lights in chips and buy them.

1:24:09Because Apple wants to be -- I think Apple wants to be the best chip maker in the world and have it all be limited to their products. And they've done a pretty good job so far and they will continue to do that.

1:24:20So even though that's kind of a boring generic answer, I think that that's actually what's happening and that there are people at Apple who that's their entire job is to analyze who's out there for them to acquire in the microprocessor area. And I endorse this plan.

1:24:34You could buy Taiwan Semiconductor for $205 billion if you wanted to.

1:24:41Well, maybe. Maybe. I'll do some due diligence there.

1:24:44That's all of your money. Don't spend all of your money yet.

1:24:47All right. Next one. Now, I'm going to go entertainment here, right? And so there's a couple of players and, you know, I guess -- I guess -- so Apple could buy Disney, right?

1:25:02But right now, Disney feels like a veritable minefield as a company to buy. I would maybe go with the super obvious one and say Netflix.

1:25:15They could pick up Netflix for probably about $150 billion.

1:25:21You know, people have said Apple should buy Netflix for a long time because there is a lot of really valid reasons for Apple to buy Netflix.

1:25:28Right? Like Netflix, no technology, and they have some really excellent shows.

1:25:34There is a good -- there is a good fit there for Apple's potential future in entertainment.

1:25:41Netflix is probably the company that makes the most sense.

1:25:45They could also pick up Hulu from Disney to untie that mess, but they're probably not going to be left with much content from Hulu.

1:25:55Right. What content will they have there?

1:25:56Exactly. Right. So I would say, you know, if they want to pick up a streaming service, Netflix is the only one that makes -- well, if Apple wants to buy an entertainment, an established entertainment company today, Netflix is probably the best bet for them.

1:26:13All right. I -- my next pick is going to be every small streaming service.

1:26:18Okay.

1:26:19So Crackle, 2B, Shout Factory, Warner Archives -- no, they're owned by AT&T. We're not going to get them.

1:26:28The horror streaming service, the acorn TV, maybe take a run at BritBox as well, all small streaming services.

1:26:40What about a company, something like the UFC or the WWE or something like that?

1:26:45Would that -- do you think that would be interesting in any way? It's a lot of footage. It's a lot of content.

1:26:51I got to say, it feels -- that feels more like a Disney buy. If I were Disney, I'd be interested in that because there's -- it's in the more broad entertainment, right, including the live entertainment and all of that, whereas I think Apple is going to be less interested in that.

1:27:03But one of the thoughts that I've had about Apple building its streaming services, why don't they buy all of the little specialty streaming services that are not already inside, like, Warner Archive?

1:27:12Like Crunchyroll.

1:27:13Crunchyroll, right, and I don't know who owns all of these things and whether they'd be willing to sell, although, you know, I think our premise here is that Apple's going to make them an offer that they can't refuse.

1:27:23But that's what I would say is my next purchase is I'm going to roll all of that content and all of those deals into the launch of Apple TV and give myself, you know, that much more catalog content. My catalog is now the deals made by all of these other things.

1:27:43So, like, all the British shows will now be on Apple TV and you get them there.

1:27:48So let's say that that's a billion, let's just say, just whatever, and we need to give you a chip company's number. Let's say 20 billion for chip companies.

1:27:56We just need to make sure you're not going over your -- over your budget.

1:28:00Sure, I'm bargain shopping so far.

1:28:01You are. I'm at 160 billion, so I'm going to make this my last pick, which means, you know, I've got less than 100 billion to spend at this point.

1:28:10Or we could keep going. We could see. Maybe we'll see.

1:28:12Yeah, I'm going to keep spending money.

1:28:14All right, then I've got to be --

1:28:15I've got more money to spend.

1:28:16I've got to be careful here then because I could -- if I was going to go for 100 --

1:28:19You can just stop.

1:28:20No, no, no, I'm not going to stop. I'm going to get some more here.

1:28:25Let's go with Dropbox.

1:28:31Dropbox are valued -- well, their market cap is $11.5 billion right now.

1:28:36Yep.

1:28:37Dropbox know what they're doing.

1:28:39All right, like they have file stuff just locked down.

1:28:46It is consistently reliable.

1:28:48They know what they're doing.

1:28:50It is a company full of incredibly smart people in services, you know.

1:28:57They know how to make services that stay in sync probably better than anybody else.

1:29:05And again, so like Rick Allen in the chat room said, "Didn't they try to buy Dropbox once?"

1:29:10Yeah, they did.

1:29:11Yeah, Steve Jobs tried.

1:29:12Right, but that was an acquisition.

1:29:14Dropbox is a publicly traded company now, so they could just buy it all.

1:29:19Right, like what is that called?

1:29:22What is -- there is a term for it, right?

1:29:24What is the term when you forcefully buy a company like against --

1:29:28A hostile takeover?

1:29:29Hostile takeover, right?

1:29:30So any of these companies, when we're talking about market cap,

1:29:33Apple could perform a hostile takeover on them.

1:29:36And 11.5 billion, which is their current valuation,

1:29:41Apple could come in and just double it.

1:29:43And they'd say, "All right, we'll pay you twice the amount if we wanted it that badly."

1:29:48But I think that there's a -- in the same way for Valve, right,

1:29:51like you could potentially be buying a lot of really talented engineering talent

1:29:56and patents and underlying technology that could be rolled into the stuff that you currently do

1:30:02for what is a sliver of your cash on hand.

1:30:05So I'm going to go with Dropbox now.

1:30:08So the two guys who run Apple's TV organization, Zach van Amburg and Jamie Erlich,

1:30:14were hired away from Sony Entertainment.

1:30:17And although we think of Sony as an electronics company, and it is,

1:30:20although it is not what it was, I'm going to throw out there for 70 billion,

1:30:26we're going to pick up Sony.

1:30:28Maybe we'll sell off some of the electronics stuff.

1:30:30But I'm going to pick up Sony because we get all of their movie studios.

1:30:34It's good. Sony's good.

1:30:36And all their content.

1:30:37And those guys already essentially, you know, they know the lay of the land over there.

1:30:41And that makes Apple a more powerful movie studio.

1:30:45It gives them their own studio arm.

1:30:47And, you know, and the people there are no strangers to being an entertainment set of people

1:30:53inside what is essentially a technology company.

1:30:56They'll go with the flow and they'll probably be more enthusiastic about being at Apple than at Sony.

1:31:01So I'm going to put that down. Put down Sony right there.

1:31:05I'm going to go very obvious again.

1:31:08Do it?

1:31:09At $59 billion, Tesla.

1:31:13Yeah, I thought about that one. That was on my list.

1:31:17I mean, that's not a -- I mean, you want to -- so you want to change the world in terms of car technology.

1:31:22There's somebody who's already out there trying it.

1:31:24Battery technology, right?

1:31:26You know, they're clearly doing some cool stuff with batteries.

1:31:29And I bet they have some really smart people that know batteries.

1:31:32And wouldn't it be great for Apple to have even more smart people that know batteries?

1:31:36All the sensor stuff, all the self-driving stuff, production line stuff.

1:31:41You know, I think Tesla would -- again, same with Netflix.

1:31:45Countless articles have been written about why Apple should buy Tesla.

1:31:49And for $60 billion, you know, I'm going to go with it.

1:31:53I'm going to say let's go for Tesla.

1:31:56All right. That's -- I accept that.

1:31:58I think that would be an interesting match.

1:32:01And, you know, does Apple want to own a car factory?

1:32:05But at the same time, I said not too long ago, does Apple want to, you know, be in the business of commissioning TV shows?

1:32:12And the answer is yes.

1:32:14So I think Apple wants to be in any business that they think there's potential in.

1:32:18And they do think that the car business has potential.

1:32:22Sometimes I wonder, with Tesla's valuation -- and this is a separate show, but like --

1:32:27sometimes I wonder if people are hanging around Tesla waiting for it to implode so that they can scoop it up for cheap.

1:32:34The car companies are, for sure.

1:32:36Yeah.

1:32:37They hope them.

1:32:38But at that -- I mean, but Apple could do it if they thought -- I think the challenge there is Elon Musk, right?

1:32:43Like, how much of this is Elon Musk?

1:32:45And if you take him out of the equation, then is it worth what is worth with him there?

1:32:51Yeah, but --

1:32:52And maybe.

1:32:53This is a conversation for somewhere else, but Tesla with Elon Musk is also potentially a problem today.

1:32:59Right, like, you know, because he is --

1:33:00It's true.

1:33:01He is an interesting, difficult --

1:33:03He's a problematic guy.

1:33:04-- individual.

1:33:05The chat room really wants me to pick SpaceX so that Apple can start shooting rockets off.

1:33:09I'm not going to do that.

1:33:10That doesn't make any sense.

1:33:11I am going --

1:33:13I don't get that one at the --

1:33:15I actually am -- I'm going to spend about $3 billion on Yelp.

1:33:19Mmm, good one.

1:33:20Sort of like how -- you know, I feel like, again, is that really directly attached to Apple's business?

1:33:26I mean, it's the data source inside Apple Maps.

1:33:29So I say yes, but I also think it's just one of those things where there are two kinds of acquisitions.

1:33:34There are the kinds of acquisitions you do because you want it, and there are the kinds of acquisitions you do because you don't want your competitors to own it.

1:33:40And I think Yelp is public, and I think they are worth about $3 billion.

1:33:44So I'm just going to -- I'm going to plunk that down and say, "Hooray, we have Yelp."

1:33:48Yelp will keep running, but it will be deeply interconnected, even more so with Apple's data sources and part of the Apple Maps group.

1:33:56Tim Cook's Apple loves enterprise and has seen -- has done a lot in the enterprise, right, to -- they have, right?

1:34:07Is this part of Star Trek Las Vegas? Is this going to be part of that?

1:34:10Yeah, yeah, yeah. Star Trek Las Vegas.

1:34:12Oh, that's going to -- I'm never going to live that one down.

1:34:14No, it's just going to be terrible.

1:34:15Nope.

1:34:16I'm dreading it. I'm dreading it.

1:34:17Look, all I saw -- I don't understand Star Trek, right?

1:34:19And I just saw a bunch of images, and it said Star Trek Las Vegas behind a picture of Captain Picard.

1:34:27So I don't know what to do, right? Like, what am I supposed to know?

1:34:30So Apple loves the enterprise, is what you're saying. Apple loves the enterprise.

1:34:34So they'll buy the enterprise's darling at $5.1 billion, which is roughly their current valuation, which is Slack.

1:34:42You just -- you buy Slack, and you get -- you open yourself a lot more doors, and again, it's a company that does some really interesting stuff.

1:34:50So why not pick them up and see what else you can do? That's what I'm going to go with Slack.

1:34:56And I'm running out of money fast. I don't have a lot of money left.

1:34:59I got a lot of money left over.

1:35:01You got a lot of money left.

1:35:03Okay, so here's my next pick.

1:35:05For approximately -- let's say $3 billion, you've just seen what I've typed in our document.

1:35:12I'm going to buy Digital First Media, which publishes about 40 newspapers in the United States.

1:35:18I'm going to buy The New York Times.

1:35:20I'm going to buy Sports Illustrated, Time, Fortune, and Money from Meredith Publishing, which has put them on the market for a few hundred million.

1:35:26I'm going to buy McClatchy newspaper chain for about $78 million.

1:35:29And follow me here.

1:35:31Apple made that deal with, what, Next Issue Media about -- like to buttress Apple News.

1:35:38Let's just go all the way.

1:35:39Apple is buying a whole bunch of newspapers and magazines, and they are going to do that so that they can increase reading in the Apple News platform

1:35:47and support journalism around at least the United States and maybe other places.

1:35:53So, you know, Jeff Bezos already owns The Washington Post.

1:35:57There are other kind of rich benefactors who have bought other things.

1:36:00I'm going to say, strategically, Apple seems to be heading down a path where they can just buy a whole bunch of available newspapers and magazines

1:36:07and operate them and make their content flow best into Apple News.

1:36:13So they're going to make Apple News like Apple TV is all the TV.

1:36:16Apple News is going to be all the news.

1:36:18I would be pretty uncomfortable with that prospect, but yes, sure.

1:36:23I don't like the idea of one company owning so much, but...

1:36:28Well, I mean, here's the thing, Myke.

1:36:30Companies already own this much.

1:36:32That's true.

1:36:33It's just not companies you've heard of.

1:36:35Yeah, that's very true.

1:36:37I'm just going to throw that out there.

1:36:39I mean, am I serious?

1:36:40Probably not, but they could do it.

1:36:42It would be nothing, and they would probably be a better owner for all of those news organizations,

1:36:48and you could end up with a thing that can cover local and national and world news between the local papers

1:36:56and something like the New York Times and have that roll out great on Apple devices and other devices too.

1:37:03All right, I'm going to use the last of my money to pick up Sonos.

1:37:08That's a good one.

1:37:10Yeah, two reasons.

1:37:11One, I feel a little bit sorry for Sonos.

1:37:12I think they're a company with really interesting technology that will eventually get pushed out of this market,

1:37:17like almost a market that they created, you know, like the idea of these devices that play media and can be connected

1:37:24and all of that multi-room stuff, which is all stuff that I honestly don't know who or why it isn't patented.

1:37:33That is a confusing thing to me.

1:37:37It really felt like Sonos was the first company to have these boxes that could talk to each other and play music,

1:37:42but now it just seems like a feature of other things.

1:37:46It reminds me of all those picture services, which is now just a feature of operating systems.

1:37:52So Sonos, they're about $970 million in their market cap right now.

1:37:57I think it would be, you know, I would pick them up for the technology, for the talent again,

1:38:02and also to have a brand like Beats, you know, like another brand.

1:38:06It's Airplay 2 only now, really high-end stuff, multi-room, but also on the lower end too.

1:38:13You can go pick up Sonos for $100 or whatever, right?

1:38:16So your HomePod brand can be separate and you can also have another brand like Apple owns Beats.

1:38:21That's my last purchase.

1:38:23I think that's a pretty reasonable thing.

1:38:24For my last purchase, I've got a lot of money left over.

1:38:26That's fine. I'll keep the cash around for a rainy day.

1:38:28But I will buy, well, you took some of my big ticket items there and I'm not going to take them now.

1:38:34So I'm going to spend $4 billion to attempt to take over Roku,

1:38:40because I do think that that would be an interesting purchase

1:38:43and that Apple getting involved in their deals with TV manufacturers and doing that,

1:38:47I don't think that would actually be approved because that would be a major competitor that Apple would be eliminating.

1:38:52Okay, we have to just assume that none of this conversation has even touched...

1:38:59On whether regulators would allow it?

1:39:02Yeah, because basically a large portion of all of these would not.

1:39:07But let's just assume that Apple was not bothered to go to the lawyers yet.

1:39:13We're just spitballing here. The lawyers are going to stop most of our transactions from happening, certainly.

1:39:18Which is very normal for my daily life.

1:39:21Yeah, sure. You have everything checked by a lawyer.

1:39:25Anyway, so Roku, because of what I said before, I think it's interesting that they have built this platform that's in TVs.

1:39:31And I think it would be an interesting sort of feeding into what they're doing with Apple TV and maybe making better deals.

1:39:37And I've got like $120 billion burning a hole in my pocket, so why not spend $4 billion on Roku?

1:39:44But generally I'm going to just keep the rest around for scooping up more AR and VR companies and more chimp companies as we go.

1:39:51All right, Jason Snell, before we wrap up today, let's knock off a couple of #AskUpgrade questions.

1:39:58Good idea. I don't want to skip another week. We can't have two weeks without #AskUpgrade.

1:40:02That would not be fun in the summer fun.

1:40:04Or fair. So the first one comes from Bob. Bob says, "With the announcement of a full version of Photoshop for iPad,

1:40:11probably coming, well definitely coming in the future, could potentially mean a full version of Audition for the iPad is eventually written.

1:40:19If this was to occur, would you consider moving to Audition for podcasting because it could mean that you would be able to do more on your iPad?"

1:40:26Jason?

1:40:27No, because I already have an app that is fantastic for editing podcasts on my iPad, which is Ferrite from Wuji Juice.

1:40:38And it's like $20. So no, also because part of the benefit would be if I used Audition on the desktop, I might consider that, but I don't.

1:40:51And I'm not really interested in learning Audition and replacing Logic with Audition. I've really optimized Audition for my work--or Logic for my workflow.

1:41:01I'm not sure that Audition would really gain me enough to spend all of the time learning a new workflow and then paying, you know, an annual fee to Adobe for that versus the, you know, buy a copy occasionally of a new version of Logic on the Mac.

1:41:13I'm more excited about the idea that next year there might be a Mac version of Ferrite that could exist if Apple continues on with its plans to bring iOS apps to the Mac.

1:41:25I would consider it because I want to only learn and use one app if I'm going to do iPad editing, right?

1:41:35But this is the same thing, right? Like if Wuji Juice bring Ferrite to the Mac, then maybe I'll switch to that. One of the reasons that I haven't really delved into Ferrite very much other than just kind of like some tinkering around is I'm not really keen on learning something that can only be used in one place for audio production.

1:41:53Like I'm going to go back to the drawing board in some senses and learn something again. If I'm going to do that, I want it to give me additional benefit and that additional benefit for me would be to be able to use the same piece of software everywhere.

1:42:07So if a company, any company can do that effectively and I'm not going to be losing too much, then I would do it.

1:42:14And if it's Adobe, great because I do already use Audition for some tasks because we spoke about in our podcasting special episode 200 and I know from some testing that Steven did that you can replace Audition, like logic of Audition and get basically everything, right?

1:42:32So yeah, I would consider it. But if Bob was also asking would I consider it if Ferrite made its way to the Mac, the answer would also be yes.

1:42:40So yes, I'm not going to bother learning anything new until something is truly cross platform is in essence where I feel about this right now because I'm not that keen on taking all of that time out of my working life to learn something that can only be used in one place today.

1:42:58Lee has written in regards to episode 200, so the iPad episode is inspiring me to use my iPad more as someone who works at a traditional Microsoft centric company, I was surprised with your minimal mention of the Microsoft iPad apps and Office 365.

1:43:14For you is it cost bad history on Microsoft or that other apps are better for you? I think we did actually gloss over it very quickly, right? But we both use Office iPad apps, right?

1:43:26Yeah, I'm an Office 365 subscriber. I think maybe that was on my episode of Canvas, but like the Google like spreadsheets app, the Sheets app is so much worse than Excel. Excel is so good.

1:43:38The Microsoft apps on iPad are very, very good. I don't use them regularly because I'm not in an Office environment and when you're a solo person, you're working with various people in various places, you can't count on everybody having access to Office 365.

1:43:56And you can count on everybody having access to Google stuff because it's free. And so that's the fact of it is.

1:44:02Yeah, because if they don't have it, they can get it.

1:44:04Yeah.

1:44:05And it's not going to be a problem.

1:44:06So if, you know, everybody at Relay had an Office 365 account, we might use the Office 365 tools more, but the problem there is like, okay, well, I could do that for Relay.

1:44:16But like if Federico doesn't have that with his collaborators for Mac stories and I don't have it for the incomparable, then now I'm using two different tools depending on the context.

1:44:24And if I've got people who are in both places, we have to be like, well, wait, are we going to use this or are we going to use that? And it becomes a mess.

1:44:30And that is the truth of why lowest common denominator things like Google Sheets end up being used even though they are not as good.

1:44:38This is why people love the enterprise, including Apple and Captain Picard, is, you know, you have a homogenous work environment.

1:44:47Everybody has Office and it's good stuff. You just have to count on everybody having it.

1:44:52And it's overkill for a lot of what I do in terms of writing like Word is not necessary because I'm just doing plain text and Word is overkill for that.

1:45:00But Excel on iPad especially is spectacular and I will use Excel and Numbers on iPad way before I will use Google Sheets. I only use that for collaboration.

1:45:09Right. So for me, Google, sorry, Excel and Word, I use both as utility apps.

1:45:16There's a couple of spreadsheets that I use that only really work in Excel for my accountant and I use Word for when someone sends me a Word document and they need to send them a Word document back.

1:45:27Sometimes pages can ruin things, but Word never does.

1:45:30The thing for me is Excel's real time collaboration is nowhere near as good as Sheets.

1:45:38So even for collaboration purposes, right now, 365 does not have the real time in the way that I want it.

1:45:46So I use these apps, but I use them for specifics. So like Office 365, one great thing for me is it is a great way.

1:45:54So with I have a Twitch stream for like a Twitch channel for a show that I do called Playing for Fun.

1:46:02We stream video games. Right. You can go and watch it.

1:46:04Twitch.tv/playingforfunfm. Me and Tiff Ahmet do it. We have a show on Relay FM called Playing for Fun and we stream video games on it, on this Twitch stream.

1:46:12Now, I need to do thumbnails for our YouTube channel. Right.

1:46:17And something that's awesome for me is I have Office 365 on my PC.

1:46:21I can just hit the print screen button.

1:46:23Then I can pick up the screenshot on my iPad from files to put into Pixelmator to make the thing when I upload it to YouTube.

1:46:31So that's a great use of 365 for me is because I can get my 365 OneDrive right in the files app.

1:46:40So that's a cool little utility that I have. But this is what I use my Office 365 subscription for is little utilities.

1:46:46I don't use the apps in any significant detail.

1:46:51Question from Gareth. I don't know if the situation is different elsewhere, but most cell carriers in the UK allow data tethering from your phone,

1:46:59which you can turn on and connect to your iPad without having to look at your phone. So why spend the extra money on an LTE iPad?

1:47:05So I'll answer for me as someone who has an LTE iPad, which is one that I take traveling with me.

1:47:09Two reasons. One, tethering from the iPhone never really works as well as I would want.

1:47:15It works, but sometimes I'm jumping through a bunch of hoops, turning things on and off and on and off to get it to work.

1:47:20But it does work most of the time. Two, I don't want to drain my iPhone battery significantly whilst I'm traveling.

1:47:28It's one of the reasons I have the iPad, so I'm not killing the battery on the phone.

1:47:32The other is I am able to get really good deals on T-Mobile in the US.

1:47:38I can spend something like $5 for 5GB that lasts for 5 months. Well, I do that twice a year.

1:47:46So I pay $10 a year, basically, for my service on T-Mobile. So they're the reasons that I do it.

1:47:53Similarly, you've got to make sure it's turned on. It doesn't always connect reliably.

1:47:59It always is more fiddly than I would like. And I did that. I tethered for a long time.

1:48:04But most of the time I would just not bother because I would be just unhappy with having to do that.

1:48:11I just used my phone at that point. And then what you said about battery life is absolutely that's part of it, right?

1:48:17It's great. Now I'm out and about and draining both batteries simultaneously.

1:48:21That's not as good. So when I bought my iPad Pro, I bought the cellular model and I added it.

1:48:28Eventually I added it to my AT&T account, so I pay them $10 a month.

1:48:32And it's just part of my data pool. And it's great. And I have used the cellular features a lot.

1:48:37And it's just very nice when I'm somewhere where there's no Wi-Fi or there's bad Wi-Fi, which happens a lot.

1:48:42I can just flip over to cellular and it works great. So that's the reason.

1:48:46Can you get by with tethering? You absolutely can. But having a cellular iPad is way nicer if you want to spend the money on that.

1:48:53It's a simple equation, right? Traveling is frequent with an iPad. Get tethering.

1:48:58If it is infrequent, get an LTE one. If your travel is frequent, get an LTE. If it's infrequent, just tether.

1:49:06Last question today. Corey asks, "Do you think we will ever get Siri shortcuts on the Mac?"

1:49:11I'm not that good of an AppleScript and Automator and Siri shortcuts is much more user friendly.

1:49:16I say don't hold out. Maybe one day, right? Especially when Project Sneak Peek is in full effect.

1:49:25There is more possibility of it, but I wouldn't hold out for it.

1:49:30That's my feeling too. Eventually, if this Sneak Peek stuff bringing iOS apps to Mac happens and takes off,

1:49:42I think you will see it because it will be able to access the same sort of things that Siri shortcuts can access on iOS.

1:49:52But it's going to be a while because Automator and AppleScript are just a different set of technologies from what's going on there.

1:49:59I'd love to see an updated version of Automator that gets renamed Shortcuts that has a simple interface and that can do both the Mac stuff and use those apps.

1:50:09If we're lucky, that's what we'll get next year or the year after is a new version of Automator that feels more like a shortcuts app and maybe gets its name,

1:50:18but still has some of the power of Automator in it as well as everything that's going on with shortcuts to control those apps.

1:50:24Because if you think about it, there are a lot of ways that you can control traditional Mac apps today in Automator.

1:50:30They could add in for apps that are coming from iOS the commands that Shortcuts uses and put them together and it should work.

1:50:39It shouldn't even necessarily look different, even if it's two different methods behind the scenes.

1:50:47So they could do it. I would not bet for that being a 2019 thing, but they could do it.

1:50:55And I hope that that's actually the ultimate goal of user automation on the Mac is Shortcuts app and Siri shortcuts.

1:51:03But I think it's going to take a while and that transition bringing all those other apps from iOS over is going to have to happen first.

1:51:11All right, that's it for this week's episode of Upgrade. You can always send in questions to us for the end of the show with the hashtag #AskUpgrade.

1:51:21This is, of course, a bumper episode in the summer of fun.

1:51:25Summer of fun.

1:51:26If you want to find more about this episode, go to relay.fm/upgrade/205.

1:51:33I will say just very quickly, if you're looking for something kind of fun and interesting to read, I'm going to put a link in the show notes to a Twitter thread that I've been engaged in over the last few days.

1:51:43A guy called Rob is taking me on a text adventure.

1:51:47It is wild and is I don't know how long it's going to last, but I am on a Twitter text adventure right now, which came from an AMA I was doing whilst getting an X-ray in the hospital.

1:51:58So everything's fine.

1:52:00It's just about spring, as I mentioned earlier.

1:52:02So just go and read it. I have no idea what.

1:52:05But it's fun. It's a lot of fun.

1:52:07It will also whet your appetite for the forthcoming member special for Upgrade/Cortex.

1:52:14Yeah, more in the next couple of weeks on that.

1:52:16But yes, if you have been a relay.fm member, we have done another text adventure.

1:52:21Might be my favorite ever.

1:52:23So check that out soon.

1:52:25You can follow Jason online. He is @JSNEL. J-S-N-E-L-L on Twitter.

1:52:30I am @IMYKE. Go to SixColors.com for Jason's work.

1:52:35And we both produce many shows over at relay.fm and the incomparable.com as well.

1:52:41Thanks again to our sponsors, Casper, Inboard Technology and Pingdom.

1:52:45And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

1:52:48Goodbye, everybody.

1:52:50[Music]