Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► The show is tweeting.

00:00:01 ◼   ► Upload the GIF.

00:00:03 ◼   ► (classical music)

00:00:05 ◼   ► Welcome to Connected from Relay FM.

00:00:13 ◼   ► This is episode 187.

00:00:15 ◼   ► It's brought to you this week by Squarespace,

00:00:17 ◼   ► Pingdom, and Freshbooks.

00:00:19 ◼   ► I'm your host, Steven Hackett,

00:00:20 ◼   ► and I am joined by my cohost.

00:00:23 ◼   ► In cohost slot number one, I have Federico Vittucci.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Hello Federico.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Hi Steven, how are you?

00:00:30 ◼   ► I am good, and loaded into co-hosts.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I demand zero, I demand number zero, please.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Slot number 1A, Myke Early.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Okay, that'll do.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Did you get the reference?

00:00:42 ◼   ► No, I did, 'cause Steve Jobs wanted to be.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Steve Jobs reference?

00:00:47 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:00:48 ◼   ► I thought it was like some kind of binary joke

00:00:50 ◼   ► that were like zero and one,

00:00:52 ◼   ► and Steven is the owner of the computer

00:00:55 ◼   ► and owns the code, because he's the, you know.

00:00:59 ◼   ► - Codemaster, that's what they call them.

00:01:00 ◼   ► - Yes, it's the Codemaster, Steven.

00:01:03 ◼   ► Please save us from this and do follow up.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Steven, please.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - Before that, we have to have story time with Uncle Steven.

00:01:12 ◼   ► So the reference, I won't explain the reference

00:01:15 ◼   ► because if you're the KC of that reference,

00:01:18 ◼   ► it's just fine, I can't help you.

00:01:19 ◼   ► But that comes up again when they introduced

00:01:22 ◼   ► the 20th anniversary Mac.

00:01:24 ◼   ► They did it at the end of this keynote.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Steve Jobs had just been hired back as an advisor.

00:01:29 ◼   ► and it was like the worst keynote ever and they give,

00:01:34 ◼   ► Apple gives a 20th anniversary Mac to Steve Jobs

00:01:37 ◼   ► and to Wozniak and the guy, the presenter,

00:01:40 ◼   ► who's like some random person at Apple, makes the joke.

00:01:45 ◼   ► He's like, oh, you know, Woz, your TAM is serial number one,

00:01:49 ◼   ► but we made Steve Jobs serial number zero.

00:01:52 ◼   ► And it's like said with like contempt, it's super awkward.

00:01:55 ◼   ► I will see if I can find a link to it,

00:01:58 ◼   ► But just trust me that it happened and it's weird.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Anyways, OK, follow up.

00:02:02 ◼   ► This has actually given me an idea.

00:02:04 ◼   ► Federico, have you ever seen The Pirates of Silicon Valley?

00:02:07 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, I love the movie.

00:02:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:09 ◼   ► OK.

00:02:09 ◼   ► Because that's where it comes from.

00:02:11 ◼   ► I was thinking that, you know, maybe a member special,

00:02:15 ◼   ► we could watch that this year.

00:02:16 ◼   ► What do you think about that?

00:02:18 ◼   ► Yes.

00:02:18 ◼   ► That'd be good.

00:02:19 ◼   ► That could be fun, right?

00:02:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:20 ◼   ► OK.

00:02:20 ◼   ► That's right.

00:02:21 ◼   ► It's going in my document.

00:02:22 ◼   ► OK.

00:02:24 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:02:24 ◼   ► So look out for that in August.

00:02:26 ◼   ► See you in August.

00:02:27 ◼   ► Bye.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Thanks to our sponsors this week. No, no, no, we can't leave yet. We have follow-up

00:02:33 ◼   ► to do. Oh, woof. Okay, after the follow-up we can go, right? Yeah, okay, fine. We're

00:02:38 ◼   ► going to start with iOS 11.3. After being in beta for what felt like about eight years,

00:02:44 ◼   ► it finally shipped. Yeah. Yeah, they started working on this in 2010. That's a long time

00:02:51 ◼   ► ago. It's just funny that they were working on it for eight years and they didn't ship

00:02:57 ◼   ► to the major features, right? It's funny. It's funny that that happens.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Well, I mean, a company at this scale, Myke, you've got to understand.

00:03:04 ◼   ► I think it's the organizational structure, because they're like, what is it? They're

00:03:09 ◼   ► in like pillars? I can't remember it.

00:03:13 ◼   ► Do you know some employee-only internal names, Myke? I know that you love those internal

00:03:18 ◼   ► names.

00:03:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I do. But I can't talk about them right now, because I'll give away my source. What

00:03:23 ◼   ► is happening?

00:03:24 ◼   ► Sure.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I've lost control of follow-up.

00:03:26 ◼   ► deep memes now we're like this deep into like just apple reporting memes this is what happens

00:03:33 ◼   ► if you let us if you let us wrestle the controller follow-up with okay so federico 11.3 is out it did

00:03:40 ◼   ► not include airplay 2 it did not include iMessage and the iCloud syncing thing uh what did it include

00:03:50 ◼   ► So we have... do you remember it was before the holidays when everybody was upset about

00:03:57 ◼   ► the battery and the iPhone shutting down? Well now there's the setting that Apple promised,

00:04:03 ◼   ► you can go into the settings battery screen and see the battery health of your device.

00:04:08 ◼   ► This is the weirdest screen I have ever seen on any Apple product of all time.

00:04:13 ◼   ► Yeah, there's a button that it's not a button but it works like one.

00:04:17 ◼   ► I know, it's like a fake button. It's very strange, it's really weird. It's like, oh,

00:04:23 ◼   ► you compress peak performance capability but nothing happens. It's really weird.

00:04:29 ◼   ► Yeah. So, also, I don't think, I mean, of course the media doesn't care about this story

00:04:35 ◼   ► anymore. Apple promised the fix, the fix is here. And I guess people are still, you know,

00:04:40 ◼   ► going into, rushing into the Apple retail stores to get their phones checked out. I

00:04:44 ◼   ► think it's good news that everybody can now go into settings and confirm that

00:04:47 ◼   ► you know what the status of the battery is. We have ARKit 1.5 with some of the

00:04:54 ◼   ► most important feature requests from developers, vertical surface recognition

00:05:00 ◼   ► so ARKit can now recognize walls and other objects of different shapes.

00:05:05 ◼   ► The resolution has increased and there is camera autofocus.

00:05:10 ◼   ► Have you played with any apps that are using this new stuff?

00:05:13 ◼   ► Not yet. Which made me think about whether the developer, you know, attention around this as sort of,

00:05:23 ◼   ► you know, it's quieter now. Everybody was sending me demos and betas of ARKit stuff

00:05:29 ◼   ► back in August and early September. I don't know, I guess maybe developers need more time or...

00:05:35 ◼   ► I don't know, I saw some numbers. I think it was Sensor Tower, the analytics firm,

00:05:41 ◼   ► about the total downloads of ARKit apps so far.

00:05:45 ◼   ► Something like 13 million downloads

00:05:48 ◼   ► of ARKit enabled apps on iOS.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Which it sounds like a big number, but it really isn't.

00:05:54 ◼   ► Because first of all, it's not total apps, of course,

00:05:57 ◼   ► it's total downloads.

00:05:58 ◼   ► And when you consider how many people have access

00:06:00 ◼   ► to the apps, or how many people have

00:06:02 ◼   ► the latest generation iPhones,

00:06:04 ◼   ► or iPads that support ARKit,

00:06:07 ◼   ► 13 million in like, what is that?

00:06:11 ◼   ► six, seven months. - Six months, six months.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - It's really not a big number, so I don't know.

00:06:16 ◼   ► ARKit 1.5, and we have new Animoji.

00:06:20 ◼   ► You can be a dragon, you can be a lion,

00:06:22 ◼   ► you can be a bear, you can be a skull.

00:06:24 ◼   ► Is that all?

00:06:25 ◼   ► I think it's all that we got.

00:06:27 ◼   ► And along with 11.3 also comes

00:06:31 ◼   ► the related HomePod software update,

00:06:34 ◼   ► which according to some people,

00:06:35 ◼   ► namely MrRambo on Twitter and 9to5Mac,

00:06:39 ◼   ► It's the HomePod OS, it's called Audio OS internally,

00:06:44 ◼   ► if you look into the code strings and stuff,

00:06:46 ◼   ► but to the user, it's not shown, it's just--

00:06:49 ◼   ► - Is it Audio OS or Audio OS?

00:06:52 ◼   ► - Oh, I see what you mean.

00:06:53 ◼   ► I'm not sure, I think it's Audio OS.

00:06:56 ◼   ► - It's gotta be, right?

00:06:57 ◼   ► Like, I would be so disappointed if they called it Audio OS.

00:07:01 ◼   ► 'Cause it just like audios, which is also kind of funny.

00:07:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think it's two Os, I think it's just one--

00:07:07 ◼   ► - Adios.

00:07:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:07:11 ◼   ► - Adios.

00:07:13 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:07:14 ◼   ► - I'm very pleased to tell you that all the issues

00:07:18 ◼   ► with SiriKit that I was having before,

00:07:22 ◼   ► that the HomePod was telling me that apps were not installed

00:07:25 ◼   ► where actually they were, those have all been fixed.

00:07:27 ◼   ► And I've been talking to both to John and Ryan

00:07:31 ◼   ► at Mac Stories and also with some readers.

00:07:34 ◼   ► Everybody who was having these problems

00:07:37 ◼   ► with the HomePod and SiriKit before,

00:07:39 ◼   ► they all appear to be fixed now,

00:07:40 ◼   ► that the HomePod is finally able to see

00:07:42 ◼   ► that you actually have apps installed on your device

00:07:46 ◼   ► and those apps have been authorized for SiriKit usage.

00:07:50 ◼   ► So that at least is a good fix.

00:07:53 ◼   ► But then again, we don't have a stereo pairing,

00:07:56 ◼   ► we don't have AirPlay 2,

00:07:57 ◼   ► we don't have messages in the cloud,

00:07:59 ◼   ► and those are supposedly coming with 11.4,

00:08:03 ◼   ► which is now in beta, but it's not here

00:08:05 ◼   ► and it will be probably available in June.

00:08:09 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:08:10 ◼   ► - Well, they said it, right?

00:08:10 ◼   ► The education event.

00:08:12 ◼   ► They said that some would like the ClassKit stuff

00:08:16 ◼   ► is June with 11.4.

00:08:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I suppose it will be launching in June.

00:08:21 ◼   ► I wondered if maybe Apple could do something like 11.4

00:08:26 ◼   ► comes out in May,

00:08:28 ◼   ► but you get to download the Schoolwork app

00:08:31 ◼   ► that contains ClassKit as a separate download later in June?

00:08:36 ◼   ► Well, let me just say, let me just say, right, like, if you released new iPads, you might

00:08:41 ◼   ► need a software release.

00:08:45 ◼   ► That's also true.

00:08:46 ◼   ► That's also true.

00:08:47 ◼   ► Right?

00:08:48 ◼   ► So like, if, you know, here we go, I'm going to roll out with the conspiracy theories now.

00:08:50 ◼   ► Just saying, just saying though, I mean, if you have a new iPad.

00:08:54 ◼   ► I'm just saying, like, if you had one, right, you might need an operating system update

00:09:01 ◼   ► around the same time. So there we go. This is not in the follow-up section, but I want

00:09:05 ◼   ► to talk about that for a second. So we did have iPad Pros last year at WWDC, along with

00:09:09 ◼   ► iMacs and a bunch of notebooks, and the iMac Pro of course came like six months later.

00:09:14 ◼   ► Apple has not been in the habit of hardware releases at WWDC for a long time, and really

00:09:20 ◼   ► last year was really a different, like a break from their normal tradition of really not

00:09:27 ◼   ► having much hardware if any at WWDC do we just all think now that they're gonna

00:09:33 ◼   ► have hardware every June like I'm not convinced that we're not gonna wait to

00:09:37 ◼   ► the fall again I don't think that it is like a definite that it's gonna happen

00:09:42 ◼   ► every June but I just think that enough things are happening which would

00:09:46 ◼   ► indicate to me that the iPad pros are coming in June one of the main reasons

00:09:50 ◼   ► that I believe this now is because the Apple pencil is supported on the

00:09:56 ◼   ► cheapest iPad that for them to continue to want to sell iPad pros they need to

00:10:02 ◼   ► widen the gap between those two products again so you know like the pencil has

00:10:08 ◼   ► always been a pro feature well now it's not so they want to try and make sure

00:10:13 ◼   ► that the gap is wider again for the iPads and it makes sense to do that

00:10:17 ◼   ► sooner rather than later so that's why I think if we're gonna get it happens in

00:10:20 ◼   ► June I also think we're just not gonna get iPad yeah in September anymore

00:10:24 ◼   ► because it's not important enough and there's no point in taking time away

00:10:29 ◼   ► from the iPhone keynote like you may as well do them on a different schedule I

00:10:34 ◼   ► don't think that it is beneficial particularly to hold them until September

00:10:39 ◼   ► if they don't need to it also gets rid of the weird awkwardness of like will

00:10:43 ◼   ► they or won't they have an October event you know for a long time they had both

00:10:47 ◼   ► and they didn't and a lot of times that second fall event was like iPads and

00:10:52 ◼   ► like other stuff some Mac stuff that was kind of just like grab bag and very

00:10:57 ◼   ► rarely did the October event have like a nice thread all the way through it so

00:11:02 ◼   ► yeah I mean I don't I think it's definitely possible I'm not saying it's

00:11:04 ◼   ► not I just think that it's interesting they've done it once and now we kind of

00:11:09 ◼   ► take it for granted but anyways yeah I mean also if you're gonna have iOS 12

00:11:14 ◼   ► with no iPad specific features of the WWDC giving pro users a new iPad is a

00:11:20 ◼   ► good way to sort of calm those concerns down, to say, "Well, you have no new features, but

00:11:26 ◼   ► hey, look, you got a new iPad with Face ID and a new design and no home button." So everybody's

00:11:31 ◼   ► still kind of happy, even though the software is still basically the same.

00:11:35 ◼   ► So we talked about the education event. Was that only a week ago? It seems like that event

00:11:39 ◼   ► was a year ago.

00:11:42 ◼   ► It was actually in 2012. They did it in New York. They introduced textbooks.

00:11:48 ◼   ► There were a couple of bits of follow up.

00:11:51 ◼   ► I wanted to point people to an episode of Simple Beep,

00:11:54 ◼   ► which is a podcast I've talked about before.

00:11:56 ◼   ► They talk about Apple history stuff.

00:11:57 ◼   ► They did a really cool episode

00:11:59 ◼   ► about Apple's history in education.

00:12:01 ◼   ► So we talked a little bit about this,

00:12:03 ◼   ► how they gave a bunch of Apple IIs away

00:12:05 ◼   ► to California schools.

00:12:08 ◼   ► I learned a ton of stuff.

00:12:09 ◼   ► In the '90s, Apple had some crazy education initiatives

00:12:12 ◼   ► where they were trying to build first-party software,

00:12:15 ◼   ► and they had two releases,

00:12:16 ◼   ► and then just disbanded the team,

00:12:18 ◼   ► all sorts of different programs.

00:12:23 ◼   ► It was eye-opening.

00:12:24 ◼   ► I didn't really realize a lot of the specifics.

00:12:27 ◼   ► So there'll be a link to that in the show notes.

00:12:29 ◼   ► If you wanna get into that, it's a good place to start.

00:12:32 ◼   ► But we also have some follow-up about Logitech's name.

00:12:36 ◼   ► I don't know who put this in the show notes.

00:12:38 ◼   ► One of you wanna take this?

00:12:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, this came to us from Toto,

00:12:42 ◼   ► 'cause we were talking about Logitech last week, right?

00:12:44 ◼   ► known as Logi in Europe. Apparently in Japan, they're called LogiCool, which is really

00:12:53 ◼   ► good because they're both logical and LogiCool. It's great. That should be their name everywhere.

00:13:01 ◼   ► I think that's great. I think it's a very good name and I appreciate finding that out.

00:13:04 ◼   ► If Logitech called anything different in your country, please write in for my new regular

00:13:10 ◼   ► Yeah, in the Vatican, in the Vatican they're called the Logitruth. So that's something

00:13:17 ◼   ► that I heard from a few friends. I feel like that's going in places that I

00:13:19 ◼   ► don't understand and I really want to move away from. So, we were talking about LTE Apple

00:13:25 ◼   ► watches not expanding outside of the US and the UK and like the original countries. Turns

00:13:31 ◼   ► out... And then we cause it to happen.

00:13:33 ◼   ► There's the reverse curse. The LTE Apple Watch is coming to Thailand on April 5th.

00:13:39 ◼   ► And we also had someone write into us, I'm not sure if we're able to say who, so I haven't

00:13:45 ◼   ► included their name, but they know who they are, that they said that they'd had some conversations

00:13:49 ◼   ► with some networks in places in Europe. And apparently the reason that we're not seeing

00:13:55 ◼   ► the LTE Apple Watch expand very quickly is because there is network technology which is required to

00:14:00 ◼   ► be in place for something like the LTE Apple Watch 2 exist. I expect it's probably something

00:14:06 ◼   ► to do with that phone number thing, right? You know, where it has like the phone number

00:14:10 ◼   ► crossover or whatever. So it seems like the reason that we're not seeing this expand very quickly is

00:14:16 ◼   ► because of slow network adoption and we all know how badly that can go. So maybe it's going to be

00:14:22 ◼   ► quite a while until this expands widely. Sorry, Federico. Did we complete the follow-up?

00:14:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:14:30 ◼   ► Are we done now?

00:14:32 ◼   ► Can I go?

00:14:34 ◼   ► Yeah, you can go.

00:14:35 ◼   ► I'm going to talk about Squarespace and we'll see you next week.

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00:15:52 ◼   ► So there was a Bloomberg report earlier on this week about the possibility of Apple moving

00:15:59 ◼   ► to Arm Max in 2020. Stephen, can you tell us what's going on?

00:16:04 ◼   ► Yeah, so this is something that's kind of been low-level background for a long time.

00:16:10 ◼   ► You have to go back to the show notes to find the first time we talked about Arm Max, but

00:16:14 ◼   ► It was years ago, I'm sure.

00:16:16 ◼   ► But this story from Gherman and Ian King

00:16:21 ◼   ► over on Bloomberg,

00:16:22 ◼   ► we're kind of putting some of the pieces together

00:16:25 ◼   ► that Apple is very much in the work

00:16:30 ◼   ► of building individually shipping Macs with ARM processors

00:16:35 ◼   ► instead of Intel processors.

00:16:37 ◼   ► They talk a lot about the iMac Pro

00:16:40 ◼   ► and the Touch Bar MacBook Pros

00:16:42 ◼   ► that have ARM chips in them now.

00:16:45 ◼   ► So like my iMac Pro has what Apple calls the T2 chip,

00:16:48 ◼   ► and that's not a processor in the sense that,

00:16:51 ◼   ► you know, if I export an audio file,

00:16:53 ◼   ► the T2 is not like doing work to make that happen,

00:16:57 ◼   ► but the T2 is sort of a helper,

00:16:58 ◼   ► it's a little buddy, a little processor buddy,

00:17:00 ◼   ► who is in charge of things like the speakers

00:17:03 ◼   ► and the FaceTime camera and the SSDs,

00:17:07 ◼   ► and it's sort of a management tool

00:17:10 ◼   ► as opposed to like an outright processor.

00:17:13 ◼   ► And that seems to be what will be the case

00:17:15 ◼   ► with the upcoming Mac Pro as well,

00:17:17 ◼   ► according to this article.

00:17:18 ◼   ► But that is just a stepping stone to Apple

00:17:21 ◼   ► replacing the Intel Core, you know,

00:17:24 ◼   ► i3, i5, i7, Xeon, with something arm-based

00:17:29 ◼   ► that they are developing in-house.

00:17:31 ◼   ► And of course, Apple doesn't fab those chips,

00:17:33 ◼   ► they outsource the fabrication to other companies,

00:17:36 ◼   ► but it's an Apple design with Apple technology in it.

00:17:40 ◼   ► And, you know, I don't know if it's because

00:17:43 ◼   ► there's also talk about like the software thing,

00:17:46 ◼   ► but this kind of all feels inevitable when we get into that.

00:17:49 ◼   ► But the software story is important here too.

00:17:51 ◼   ► So this kind of, in this article,

00:17:53 ◼   ► is a little hand in hand with Project Marzipan,

00:17:56 ◼   ► which we've talked about before,

00:17:57 ◼   ► which is what Apple's expected to do this summer,

00:18:00 ◼   ► giving developers tools and a pathway

00:18:03 ◼   ► to take an iOS app or iOS code base

00:18:08 ◼   ► and compile an app for the Mac

00:18:11 ◼   ► with some sort of shared layer,

00:18:13 ◼   ► some sort of bridge between the two.

00:18:15 ◼   ► We don't really know what that looks like yet,

00:18:17 ◼   ► but that, I think in this,

00:18:19 ◼   ► I think these two stories are related

00:18:21 ◼   ► in ways that we can explore.

00:18:22 ◼   ► So that's kind of the story.

00:18:23 ◼   ► Intel dropped like 9% of its stock price after this.

00:18:27 ◼   ► - Which is really weird, right?

00:18:29 ◼   ► Like, because what are they like,

00:18:30 ◼   ► what did it say, they're like 5%

00:18:32 ◼   ► of their overall business or something?

00:18:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, so 5% of Intel's business is the Mac,

00:18:38 ◼   ► which I mean, makes sense, right?

00:18:39 ◼   ► The Mac doesn't sell very well compared to the rest

00:18:42 ◼   ► of the PC industry numbers-wise.

00:18:44 ◼   ► But I think it drops so much because Apple,

00:18:46 ◼   ► even though it's a rather small amount of Intel's business,

00:18:49 ◼   ► I think it's a really like,

00:18:50 ◼   ► from a public perception side,

00:18:54 ◼   ► it's a very important part of Intel's business.

00:18:56 ◼   ► - I guess it could also be a sign of the times, right?

00:19:00 ◼   ► - Yes, because this, there's an article on The Verge,

00:19:03 ◼   ► I think the headline was something like,

00:19:06 ◼   ► Apple's moving on from Intel

00:19:08 ◼   ► 'cause Intel's not moving anywhere.

00:19:10 ◼   ► Intel has struggled over the last five to 10 years

00:19:15 ◼   ► to really make meaningful progress in some areas.

00:19:18 ◼   ► And part of that is that we are just--

00:19:20 ◼   ► - And they really, really stumbled on smartphone chips,

00:19:23 ◼   ► didn't they?

00:19:24 ◼   ► They were really far behind. - Totally.

00:19:25 ◼   ► They totally missed the mobile, the whole scene there.

00:19:30 ◼   ► They don't really have anything

00:19:32 ◼   ► that makes sense to put inside an iPhone.

00:19:33 ◼   ► And you see some Intel-powered Android phones,

00:19:35 ◼   ► and they of course are making modems

00:19:38 ◼   ► and other pieces to the puzzle,

00:19:40 ◼   ► but Intel stuck with the desktop probably too long.

00:19:44 ◼   ► And I don't think they're doomed,

00:19:46 ◼   ► but I think that they're behind what others are doing,

00:19:48 ◼   ► because ARM is such a good solution

00:19:50 ◼   ► for these mobile devices,

00:19:52 ◼   ► and Intel just can't compete with that yet.

00:19:54 ◼   ► So I think you're right.

00:19:57 ◼   ► I think that's more about what this is about,

00:19:58 ◼   ► with their stock price, that, oh, right,

00:20:01 ◼   ► they did miss the boat.

00:20:02 ◼   ► And I would imagine, like, if we had a world

00:20:06 ◼   ► where Intel was ready for what happened in 2007,

00:20:11 ◼   ► they had a processor that Apple could have put

00:20:13 ◼   ► in the original iPhone, this would be

00:20:15 ◼   ► a very different story, but that's not the case.

00:20:17 ◼   ► And now Apple is in this position where

00:20:20 ◼   ► the majority of their computers they sell

00:20:22 ◼   ► are iPhones and iPads, and they have ARM processors in them.

00:20:27 ◼   ► And then the however many million,

00:20:30 ◼   ► handful of million a quarter Macs they sell run a totally different

00:20:35 ◼   ► processor, different platform and I think Apple wants to do something about

00:20:40 ◼   ► that and I think there's lots of benefits to it. So Steven let me ask you

00:20:43 ◼   ► a question. So obviously this isn't the first time that Apple has made a

00:20:47 ◼   ► transition with the Macintosh right? They went from a power PC to Intel back when

00:20:53 ◼   ► I bought my first Mac with the iMac. They went from the G5 to the what was it

00:20:59 ◼   ► core duo or something what was that chip was it called the core yeah the first intel chip

00:21:03 ◼   ► apple used was the core duo very quickly turned over to the core 2 duo um and fun time with

00:21:08 ◼   ► local steven fun time with local steven sounds like something else you don't want to do that

00:21:12 ◼   ► like you just you have to avoid that at all costs they did also sell one core solo a mac mini that

00:21:19 ◼   ► was i think actually slower than the g4 it replaced or like it wasn't remarkably fast like it was a

00:21:26 ◼   ► terrible. Anyways, Core Duo is what they went with for the iMac and the MacBook Pro.

00:21:29 ◼   ► So they've done this transition once before and I'm sure like as everyone's

00:21:33 ◼   ► thinking about this and as we continue to talk about it I guess at a more

00:21:37 ◼   ► frequent pace over the next couple of years right as the pieces start to fall

00:21:40 ◼   ► into place this will probably be brought up a lot because this is that we there

00:21:46 ◼   ► is some precedence for it but my thinking and I wonder what you think of

00:21:49 ◼   ► it was that that transition went really well you know they have Rosetta and

00:21:55 ◼   ► everything went over and then everyone I think was better off at the end of it.

00:21:58 ◼   ► We had fast computers and the software moved along.

00:22:01 ◼   ► But it isn't 2005 anymore.

00:22:04 ◼   ► And I would assume that if this happens and Apple transitions from Intel to ARM

00:22:13 ◼   ► and there is significant development work required, you know, to like replace

00:22:18 ◼   ► parts of your code base, that it will probably be worse than the 2005 switchover

00:22:24 ◼   ► because I would expect a lot more applications

00:22:27 ◼   ► would be left behind now than there was in the previous one.

00:22:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's something I've really been thinking

00:22:34 ◼   ► a lot about, and Jason's now actually just published

00:22:37 ◼   ► on Macworld, I think today an article about the,

00:22:40 ◼   ► actually the last two Mac processor transitions,

00:22:43 ◼   ► 'cause they transferred to the PowerPC

00:22:45 ◼   ► and then away from it later.

00:22:47 ◼   ► It's a good article, you should go read it.

00:22:49 ◼   ► I think there's a couple things to unpack here.

00:22:51 ◼   ► One was the reason Apple moved to Intel,

00:22:55 ◼   ► and you touched on it, that at the end of the day,

00:22:57 ◼   ► we had Macs that were noticeably faster and more capable.

00:23:02 ◼   ► They ran cooler, which Apple's big thing

00:23:04 ◼   ► was like performance per watt,

00:23:07 ◼   ► which like isn't really a thing.

00:23:09 ◼   ► Like they put it on like a bar graph,

00:23:10 ◼   ► like a Bezos chart, it's like what are you doing?

00:23:13 ◼   ► But the idea was I get this much performance,

00:23:15 ◼   ► but I have to burn this much heat.

00:23:16 ◼   ► and it made things like a G5 PowerBook impossible.

00:23:21 ◼   ► But Apple looked at Intel and the Intel chips

00:23:25 ◼   ► were better suited for what Apple wanted to build,

00:23:28 ◼   ► and so they moved.

00:23:28 ◼   ► And that was really IBM's fault at the PowerPC.

00:23:32 ◼   ► They couldn't get it cool, they couldn't get it small,

00:23:34 ◼   ► and in a sense it was a dead-end road map

00:23:37 ◼   ► for what Apple wanted to do.

00:23:40 ◼   ► I don't think that's the case this time.

00:23:43 ◼   ► Yes, Intel has slowed down.

00:23:45 ◼   ► Yes, there have been issues with their mobile strategy,

00:23:50 ◼   ► and yes, there have been security issues

00:23:51 ◼   ► with things like Meltdown and Spectre.

00:23:54 ◼   ► But just this week even, Intel, excuse me,

00:23:58 ◼   ► have released new chips, including an i9.

00:24:02 ◼   ► The i7 is six core, hopefully we see that in an iMac

00:24:04 ◼   ► and a MacBook Pro this summer.

00:24:06 ◼   ► But Intel is still moving forward.

00:24:08 ◼   ► I don't think Apple's at a place

00:24:09 ◼   ► where they want to build something

00:24:12 ◼   ► and Intel has nothing for them.

00:24:14 ◼   ► I think if you look at the MacBook,

00:24:15 ◼   ► Maybe that's as close as you get where like,

00:24:17 ◼   ► I bet Apple wishes it was faster,

00:24:18 ◼   ► but they wanted to be fanless,

00:24:20 ◼   ► so they put up with the Core M.

00:24:22 ◼   ► But I don't think this is a situation

00:24:24 ◼   ► where Intel doesn't have to have anything,

00:24:27 ◼   ► can't offer Apple anything.

00:24:29 ◼   ► I think what this is about instead

00:24:32 ◼   ► is that Apple wants to have a more complete control

00:24:36 ◼   ► over its ecosystem.

00:24:39 ◼   ► I don't think it's about releasing like Macs

00:24:41 ◼   ► on a more regular basis.

00:24:42 ◼   ► If they do this, I still expect we'll see

00:24:44 ◼   ► every 12 to 18 months.

00:24:46 ◼   ► I just, I don't see Apple revving these things all the time.

00:24:49 ◼   ► In fact, a lot of the times where Apple takes its time

00:24:53 ◼   ► is 'cause they skip Intel generations.

00:24:55 ◼   ► That very famously happened with the Mac Pro.

00:24:57 ◼   ► So anyways, to your actual question

00:25:00 ◼   ► is of how they handle the transition,

00:25:03 ◼   ► I think that reasoning is something to factor in,

00:25:06 ◼   ► that they felt like they had to do it last time

00:25:08 ◼   ► and they worked really hard

00:25:10 ◼   ► to make it as easy as possible.

00:25:13 ◼   ► developers did have to recompile, but there was Rosetta,

00:25:16 ◼   ► which would allow you to run a PowerPC app

00:25:18 ◼   ► on an Intel machine, and the speed difference

00:25:20 ◼   ► between the two was so great.

00:25:22 ◼   ► Rosetta apps ran more or less as fast as you were used to.

00:25:26 ◼   ► Maybe more complex apps were a touch slower,

00:25:28 ◼   ► but they were all totally usable.

00:25:30 ◼   ► We all were using Photoshop and Microsoft Word

00:25:32 ◼   ► and stuff in Rosetta, and no one cared, it was fine.

00:25:34 ◼   ► Can Apple's ARM chips be that much faster

00:25:37 ◼   ► than a current MacBook Pro so they can emulate it

00:25:40 ◼   ► and it be fast enough?

00:25:42 ◼   ► I don't know the answer to that.

00:25:43 ◼   ► I know that what we have seen in benchmarking so far

00:25:46 ◼   ► shows that the iPad Pro in particular

00:25:49 ◼   ► is as fast as a Mac,

00:25:51 ◼   ► as faster than a MacBook and about as fast, I believe,

00:25:53 ◼   ► as like a entry-level MacBook Pro.

00:25:56 ◼   ► But they can't catch up with, you know,

00:25:59 ◼   ► the high-end MacBook Pro,

00:26:00 ◼   ► let alone the iMac Pro or the Mac Pro.

00:26:02 ◼   ► So I think that's one thing that's different is that

00:26:05 ◼   ► I don't, unless Apple's got stuff in the works

00:26:09 ◼   ► that we haven't seen yet,

00:26:10 ◼   ► which is totally, I believe,

00:26:11 ◼   ► They can't match the performance of Intel yet.

00:26:14 ◼   ► So you're gonna ask developers and customers

00:26:18 ◼   ► to move something that may be just as equally as fast

00:26:22 ◼   ► or a little bit faster.

00:26:24 ◼   ► In theory, it would have much better battery life,

00:26:26 ◼   ► but that performance gain is not a carrot this time,

00:26:30 ◼   ► I don't think.

00:26:33 ◼   ► The last big difference is that, like you said,

00:26:36 ◼   ► it's not 2005 anymore.

00:26:38 ◼   ► Remember, 2005, the only things Apple sold

00:26:41 ◼   ► for the Mac and the iPod.

00:26:43 ◼   ► And so Apple transitioned their most important product,

00:26:47 ◼   ► and they did a really good job of it.

00:26:52 ◼   ► Like you said, now the Mac is not Apple's

00:26:55 ◼   ► most important product, and it's not the biggest,

00:26:58 ◼   ► it's not the one that makes the most money.

00:27:00 ◼   ► And so I think there is fear amongst certain populations

00:27:04 ◼   ► within the Mac universe that Apple would drop the ball

00:27:07 ◼   ► in this transition because they just don't care,

00:27:09 ◼   ► the Mac's not as important.

00:27:11 ◼   ► I would push back on that and say that Apple,

00:27:13 ◼   ► if Apple does one thing really well,

00:27:15 ◼   ► and they do lots of things really well,

00:27:17 ◼   ► Apple does a lot of stuff great,

00:27:20 ◼   ► one thing that they do exceedingly well

00:27:22 ◼   ► is big platform transitions.

00:27:24 ◼   ► So we went from OS9 to OS10,

00:27:28 ◼   ► Carbon made that possible in a way that,

00:27:31 ◼   ► in hindsight, is breathtaking.

00:27:33 ◼   ► They did PowerPC to Intel well.

00:27:34 ◼   ► They've done 32-bit to 64-bit seamlessly,

00:27:38 ◼   ► both on the Mac and on the iOS side.

00:27:41 ◼   ► You can buy an iPhone 5S with a 64-bit processor,

00:27:43 ◼   ► and all your stuff just worked.

00:27:45 ◼   ► They've done this a lot.

00:27:47 ◼   ► And so I, until I'm proven wrong, I don't think I will be,

00:27:52 ◼   ► this is totally within Apple's power

00:27:55 ◼   ► and within their best interest to make this go smoothly.

00:27:58 ◼   ► If they blow this, the Mac is in way worse shape

00:28:03 ◼   ► than it is now.

00:28:04 ◼   ► And I just don't think they're gonna do it.

00:28:06 ◼   ► I have concerns about this transition

00:28:08 ◼   ► what it can be product-wise,

00:28:09 ◼   ► and certain things we would lose on the Mac,

00:28:11 ◼   ► like the ability to run Windows and that sort of thing

00:28:14 ◼   ► if they can't emulate x86 processes.

00:28:16 ◼   ► - Well, they could use ARM Windows, right?

00:28:19 ◼   ► There isn't ARM Windows.

00:28:20 ◼   ► - They could.

00:28:22 ◼   ► And you know, maybe that'd be enough for some people, but--

00:28:24 ◼   ► - That might be part of, like, yeah,

00:28:26 ◼   ► that might be part of why they would be able to do this now,

00:28:29 ◼   ► because Microsoft is going down that route anyway, right?

00:28:32 ◼   ► So it's like, well, there is,

00:28:33 ◼   ► whilst it won't be as good, 'cause not, again,

00:28:35 ◼   ► like the same problems that Apple might have,

00:28:38 ◼   ► where Windows developers won't move their stuff across,

00:28:40 ◼   ► at least they could say, well, it's not on us,

00:28:42 ◼   ► that's on Microsoft to deal with, like we're still operating.

00:28:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe.

00:28:45 ◼   ► - Honestly, my concern, actually, before I get on to that,

00:28:49 ◼   ► you said, I don't think it's gonna happen.

00:28:52 ◼   ► What did you mean?

00:28:53 ◼   ► Do you mean like you don't think that ARM Macs will happen

00:28:56 ◼   ► or you don't think that Apple

00:28:57 ◼   ► will not provide a good solution?

00:29:00 ◼   ► - Oh, I think this is definitely happening.

00:29:01 ◼   ► This feels inevitable to me.

00:29:03 ◼   ► I don't think they're gonna let us down.

00:29:05 ◼   ► I truly believe that they will do everything

00:29:08 ◼   ► in their power to make this as smooth as possible

00:29:11 ◼   ► for consumers and for developers.

00:29:14 ◼   ► What's different this time is they may not have

00:29:15 ◼   ► the carrot and stick problem they had last time

00:29:17 ◼   ► because the G5 was a dead end and everyone wanted

00:29:21 ◼   ► a MacBook Pro that was three or four times faster

00:29:23 ◼   ► than their PowerBooks.

00:29:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, like they have to be able to provide

00:29:27 ◼   ► some really good reasons, right?

00:29:30 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:29:31 ◼   ► - Because all it really feels like is,

00:29:32 ◼   ► we want to control it and maybe give people better battery life. Like I don't

00:29:37 ◼   ► know how much of a, like to a developer, like you've, I guess you've got to try

00:29:43 ◼   ► and be able to say like we're gonna make your life easier in some way, right? Like

00:29:46 ◼   ► oh we're gonna make your applications better or give you more? Because this

00:29:50 ◼   ► really feels to me, right, like I'm not trying to like, like obviously I sit in

00:29:55 ◼   ► the iOS camp quite heavily and I'm not trying to like throw stones or whatever

00:29:59 ◼   ► but handled poorly, this could kill the Mac.

00:30:02 ◼   ► - It could.

00:30:03 ◼   ► I think it's way riskier than it was in 2005.

00:30:06 ◼   ► - Like, if Adobe are like, nah,

00:30:08 ◼   ► we're just not gonna do that.

00:30:10 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:30:11 ◼   ► And you know, big partners like that

00:30:13 ◼   ► get advance notice of these things, right?

00:30:15 ◼   ► I don't think Microsoft found out at WDC 2005

00:30:19 ◼   ► that they had to recompile for Intel.

00:30:21 ◼   ► But you're right, it is riskier

00:30:24 ◼   ► because that carrot and stick aren't there.

00:30:26 ◼   ► And I think part of the carrot could be

00:30:30 ◼   ► the Project Marzipan stuff that if they go

00:30:34 ◼   ► to iOS developers this summer and say,

00:30:35 ◼   ► hey look, if you do this work, you can run on Mac OS.

00:30:40 ◼   ► And my guess is that if the next year

00:30:45 ◼   ► or in two years they say, hey, the MacBook now

00:30:48 ◼   ► is an ARM processor and BT dubs,

00:30:51 ◼   ► if you Project Marzipan'd your app a year and a half ago

00:30:54 ◼   ► or two years ago, it just works.

00:30:56 ◼   ► You know, like, that's the very logical building blocks

00:31:00 ◼   ► Apple puts in their development tools, right?

00:31:02 ◼   ► Like, remember, years ago we saw,

00:31:04 ◼   ► oh, I can easily resize my app.

00:31:06 ◼   ► I wonder why we would need to do that.

00:31:08 ◼   ► And then we had big phones,

00:31:09 ◼   ► and then we had iPads with slide over.

00:31:10 ◼   ► Like, Apple builds these things brick by brick,

00:31:13 ◼   ► and I think Project Marzipan is probably

00:31:17 ◼   ► an early brick in that process to get developers

00:31:21 ◼   ► to have apps that run on everything.

00:31:23 ◼   ► Now, are developers incentivized to do that?

00:31:27 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:31:28 ◼   ► I think that's a big question that needs to be answered

00:31:30 ◼   ► because the Mac is,

00:31:32 ◼   ► the Mac is in one sense,

00:31:34 ◼   ► I believe in raw numbers bigger than it's ever been,

00:31:37 ◼   ► but relatively speaking to the iPhone and iPad,

00:31:40 ◼   ► it is small.

00:31:42 ◼   ► - Because it doesn't matter how big the Mac,

00:31:44 ◼   ► well, to some people it will matter

00:31:46 ◼   ► how big the Mac install base is

00:31:48 ◼   ► if you are a development company

00:31:49 ◼   ► and all you do is the Mac.

00:31:50 ◼   ► But if you are starting a development company now, I mean you're targeting iOS, right?

00:31:56 ◼   ► Because of how many more people there are.

00:31:59 ◼   ► I just wanted to check something.

00:32:01 ◼   ► Federico, you're playing a long calm with us right now because you said you were going

00:32:05 ◼   ► to go and you hadn't said anything.

00:32:06 ◼   ► No, I've been listening.

00:32:07 ◼   ► I've been…

00:32:08 ◼   ► Okay, I wanted to just check that you were still here.

00:32:11 ◼   ► Right, there's something that I want to say.

00:32:14 ◼   ► I know, but I think we're going to hold that for a minute because I see what's in

00:32:18 ◼   ► our document here and this is a whole separate discussion.

00:32:20 ◼   ► Because I want to talk about marzipan before we get into your discussion.

00:32:25 ◼   ► Because marzipan, which is the idea of one shared platform,

00:32:32 ◼   ► like that has to come first, right?

00:32:34 ◼   ► Because if you can create this one shared platform,

00:32:38 ◼   ► you might get people into the habit of developing one app for all platforms

00:32:43 ◼   ► and then they're making huge changes to their Mac app,

00:32:46 ◼   ► which might then be easier to switch over to Arm, right?

00:32:48 ◼   ► Like it feels like it would be a multi-step process, right?

00:32:52 ◼   ► That you have an iOS app, now make it more like the Mac.

00:32:55 ◼   ► Oh, and then when we transition to Arm,

00:32:57 ◼   ► remember we made you do all that stuff

00:32:59 ◼   ► to bring your app over to the Mac?

00:33:01 ◼   ► Well now all you need to do is this,

00:33:04 ◼   ► and then you can transition over to Arm, right?

00:33:06 ◼   ► And all of this stuff may have started with Swift

00:33:08 ◼   ► or something, right?

00:33:09 ◼   ► Like you could maybe eventually draw a line

00:33:11 ◼   ► that gets you through to Arm.

00:33:15 ◼   ► But the thing about Mazepan is they also have to really sell the benefits there.

00:33:23 ◼   ► And I guess I will ask you Federico, do you think that there is like a really strong,

00:33:29 ◼   ► like theoretical selling point to say to someone who has a Mac app and an iOS app, make your

00:33:38 ◼   ► current Mac app more like your iOS app?

00:33:41 ◼   ► I think it depends how it's sold to that developer.

00:33:46 ◼   ► This is what it's all about, right?

00:33:48 ◼   ► Like this and the arm, like how they sell it.

00:33:51 ◼   ► The idea of now you get the amazing opportunity of wasting hours into making your app more

00:33:59 ◼   ► like an iPhone app and you get no visible, you know, big profit in return.

00:34:05 ◼   ► That doesn't sound like a compelling message to me.

00:34:07 ◼   ► If they're gonna do this, and I believe there's a bunch of strong arguments as to why they

00:34:12 ◼   ► should do this, I think there has to be an underlying message of you get to target a

00:34:22 ◼   ► bigger audience, so people using different form factors, iPhones, tablets, desktop computers

00:34:30 ◼   ► of different sizes. And you can make your app more modern on the Mac without giving

00:34:38 ◼   ► up all the things that are great about Mac OS. And you get to bring some of that power

00:34:42 ◼   ► back to iOS. I've been struggling to understand what, first of all, what the rumor is all

00:34:48 ◼   ► about. Is it just about UI? Is it about, you know, deeper sort of controls? I struggle

00:34:57 ◼   ► to imagine that it's just about, well, now there you go. You can make your Mac app ditch

00:35:02 ◼   ► the title bar and ditch the standard windowing controls and you can implement buttons that

00:35:08 ◼   ► are just like underlined text. I don't think it's about that. I think it's a bigger idea

00:35:13 ◼   ► of, at least that's what I'm hoping for, of it's a shared environment. It's a shared tool

00:35:22 ◼   ► chain where you... it's not about writing your application once and writing it everywhere

00:35:30 ◼   ► because that idea of "write it once, run everywhere" as negative connotations. I don't think it's

00:35:35 ◼   ► about that. I think it's about bringing consistency to what ultimately should be the Apple platform.

00:35:41 ◼   ► Because right now we are in this weird dichotomy of writing apps for macOS and writing apps

00:35:50 ◼   ► for iOS, where even the simplest thing like how you want to specify a color in your code,

00:35:57 ◼   ► it's different on the Mac and it's different in iOS. You got what's it called? NSColor

00:36:01 ◼   ► and UIColor. And those are like two separate things. And I'm probably getting this wrong

00:36:06 ◼   ► but the basic details are the fault. The way that it works is this. You have different

00:36:11 ◼   ► APIs that are slightly inconsistent and that's just more work for developers. Why do developers,

00:36:18 ◼   ► If I have an idea for an application that works on the iPhone, works on the iPad, and

00:36:22 ◼   ► works on the Mac, why should I have to learn two slightly different vocabularies?

00:36:29 ◼   ► It's like I want to live in a country that, you know, that contains all kinds of people,

00:36:36 ◼   ► and yet if I want to live in this country I have to learn both Italian and Spanish,

00:36:41 ◼   ► which are arguably really similar but also are two different languages.

00:36:44 ◼   ► And that's like being a Mac developer today.

00:36:47 ◼   ► If you want to have an iOS app or if you're an iOS developer and want to bring your app

00:36:51 ◼   ► to the Mac, you got to learn a slightly different language that's even more confusing because

00:36:56 ◼   ► it's kind of similar but also different.

00:36:58 ◼   ► And that's just a waste of time.

00:37:00 ◼   ► So what's the compelling message to developers?

00:37:03 ◼   ► And I feel like the message should be now you get to be on all of our platforms and

00:37:10 ◼   ► you don't waste time remembering all these tiny differences

00:37:14 ◼   ► and you can make more money

00:37:15 ◼   ► because that's ultimately what developers should aim for,

00:37:18 ◼   ► making money, being profitable and making good software

00:37:22 ◼   ► all while saving time.

00:37:24 ◼   ► 'Cause the more I think about this,

00:37:26 ◼   ► the more I keep coming to the conclusion

00:37:28 ◼   ► that it should be Marzipan.

00:37:30 ◼   ► It's not just about the joke of,

00:37:32 ◼   ► oh great, now I get to run Instagram on my Mac.

00:37:36 ◼   ► I mean, Instagram cannot even do an iPad version.

00:37:39 ◼   ► So that's the joke. But the idea should be there's one Apple platform and now you get

00:37:47 ◼   ► to make apps for every device. Which of course leads us into a bigger discussion.

00:37:54 ◼   ► Yeah, because I have a question that I will ask, but we won't answer it until after the

00:37:59 ◼   ► break. The question is, why bother porting macOS to ARM? Why not just create a brand

00:38:06 ◼   ► new operating system?

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00:39:24 ◼   ► So let me break down my question a little bit more, open up a little more.

00:39:29 ◼   ► Okay. This isn't just about the fact that they're going to kill Mac OS. It's also about

00:39:36 ◼   ► you've got to make iOS better. It needs to be more powerful, especially if you're going to say to

00:39:42 ◼   ► people, "make this one app to run everywhere." Currently, that is not going to work, right?

00:39:48 ◼   ► because the sheer capabilities of these machines are vastly different. The Mac can do so much

00:39:55 ◼   ► more in some instances and the operating system is way more open, that building an application

00:40:02 ◼   ► to run on both places wouldn't necessarily always work. So if everything is eventually just going

00:40:09 ◼   ► to be on ARM, then why not just merge the product lines? Why not do that?

00:40:15 ◼   ► Okay, so I've been thinking about this a lot, and let me reply to your question with another

00:40:21 ◼   ► question, which is actually like more of an idea. And try to keep an open mind, and try

00:40:27 ◼   ► not to think about, you know, the immediate consequences, but try to think about the long

00:40:34 ◼   ► term. At least today we're not saying that the Mac should go away. At least today we're

00:40:39 ◼   ► - Exactly, so, but let me ask you this.

00:40:42 ◼   ► Long-term, big picture,

00:40:44 ◼   ► why does Apple need to make two operating systems?

00:40:48 ◼   ► And I feel like, I mean, it's such an obvious question.

00:40:53 ◼   ► Why does Apple make two OSes?

00:40:55 ◼   ► Do they ever need to maintain forever?

00:40:58 ◼   ► So for eternity, some people think

00:41:00 ◼   ► that Apple should continue making

00:41:02 ◼   ► two separate operating systems.

00:41:05 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:41:07 ◼   ► And I feel like maybe this entire discussion boils down to the fact that a lot of people

00:41:19 ◼   ► are stuck in this concept of the Mac is the Mac and iOS needs to be light.

00:41:27 ◼   ► This is something that a lot of people have said over the years and that a lot of people

00:41:30 ◼   ► continue saying that iOS needs to remain light for the Mac to be the Mac. And now, I understand

00:41:39 ◼   ► that there's a nostalgic aspect to this, and I understand that the Mac currently, at the moment,

00:41:45 ◼   ► if you want to do certain tasks, you need to use a Mac. And that I totally understand, and I totally

00:41:51 ◼   ► under... I mean, I'm using a Mac right now because it does something that I cannot do on iOS.

00:41:57 ◼   ► But then again, I'm thinking long term. 10 years from now, 15, 20. Just think of a larger number

00:42:04 ◼   ► than tomorrow. Does Apple need to make two operating systems? Are we really, as computer

00:42:13 ◼   ► users, as people who use technology, do we seriously think that 20 years from now, so in 2040

00:42:20 ◼   ► or something, are we going to use two operating systems? Or is the future moving to a place where

00:42:26 ◼   ► where we use the same OS that changes depending on where we are.

00:42:35 ◼   ► Because the more I think about it, the more I think we're going to a future where technology

00:42:42 ◼   ► is everywhere, of course.

00:42:44 ◼   ► We're seeing this today.

00:42:45 ◼   ► It's on our wrist, it's around our home, it's on our desk and in our hands.

00:42:50 ◼   ► Does it make sense to keep splitting the operating systems into multiple units?

00:42:55 ◼   ► Or does it make more sense to have one platform that is intelligent and that adapts to the

00:43:05 ◼   ► device we're using?

00:43:07 ◼   ► And so my question is, is Apple the kind of company that forever is going to say, "No,

00:43:14 ◼   ► no, iOS needs to remain light because the Mac is the Mac and the Macintosh is forever."

00:43:20 ◼   ► Or are they gonna try and say, well, the future is, you know, it's gonna be different than

00:43:26 ◼   ► what we had in mind in the 80s. People do not necessarily work at their desks anymore.

00:43:34 ◼   ► People are mobile, you know, they appear to be liking this mobile device kind of thing

00:43:39 ◼   ► that we sort of invented. And maybe, just maybe, there should be one Apple platform

00:43:46 ◼   ► that is consistent and that, for instance,

00:43:49 ◼   ► things like Siri is consistent everywhere,

00:43:53 ◼   ► and your smart home controls are also available

00:43:57 ◼   ► in a laptop form factor.

00:43:59 ◼   ► But the OS is, the platform is the same,

00:44:04 ◼   ► but what it does on the screen,

00:44:06 ◼   ► what you see on the screen changes depending

00:44:08 ◼   ► on what's comfortable, on what makes sense.

00:44:11 ◼   ► So for example, you would have Windows on a big screen,

00:44:14 ◼   ► and you would have lots of keyboard shortcuts because you're working at a desk. Of course,

00:44:19 ◼   ► you wouldn't have Windows on a phone, you wouldn't have keyboard shortcuts on a phone,

00:44:23 ◼   ► and you wouldn't even have that kind of UI on a watch because it wouldn't make sense because

00:44:28 ◼   ► the watch is super tiny. And the more I think about it, the more, you know, this entire Apple

00:44:33 ◼   ► making their own chips discussion, all the details, I don't want to say that they don't matter, but

00:44:41 ◼   ► I think we should first figure out what's the end goal.

00:44:45 ◼   ► Do we really think that in the future we're going to have, you know, old Federico and

00:44:50 ◼   ► old John Gruber saying the Mac needs to be the Mac and now iOS has to be more powerful?

00:44:55 ◼   ► Or are we going to have one Apple platform that is intelligent enough to change what

00:45:01 ◼   ► it does depending on the computer that you're using?

00:45:05 ◼   ► And I struggle to imagine a future where Apple is making multiple operating systems because,

00:45:10 ◼   ► I don't know, because the community wants them to keep making the Mac OS and iOS.

00:45:15 ◼   ► I think there should be one Apple OS, one Apple platform

00:45:21 ◼   ► that does different things depending on what you're using at the moment.

00:45:25 ◼   ► Honestly, I can't imagine a world in which these two things end up being true

00:45:33 ◼   ► and that that doesn't happen, right?

00:45:35 ◼   ► That like, Marzipan and ARM, if those two things happen,

00:45:39 ◼   ► I can't see how we don't get to that point with one operating system.

00:45:46 ◼   ► It just seems like a foregone conclusion to me.

00:45:49 ◼   ► You could get into... exactly.

00:45:53 ◼   ► Even getting into the specifics of...

00:45:58 ◼   ► I could ask you, "Okay, so now we agree that it makes more sense to have one single Apple

00:46:03 ◼   ► OS, one single Apple platform.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Does it make sense to think of the laptop and the tablet as two different things?

00:46:14 ◼   ► Because if you follow these arguments, you could say the laptop is basically a screen

00:46:19 ◼   ► with a keyboard attached and a trackpad.

00:46:23 ◼   ► I think the laptops and tablets are very close, but I think that there does need to be a distinction

00:46:29 ◼   ► between bigger devices that go on desks.

00:46:32 ◼   ► I think that they have to be more different, I think.

00:46:37 ◼   ► I think that is important.

00:46:38 ◼   ► Yes.

00:46:39 ◼   ► But how do you get there?

00:46:40 ◼   ► Well, you get there if you make something

00:46:42 ◼   ► like, assuming it is Marzipan, which

00:46:44 ◼   ► is this intelligent shared UI framework that

00:46:48 ◼   ► knows that as device size class is built in,

00:46:53 ◼   ► and that is able to say, where am I running at the moment?

00:46:57 ◼   ► what does it make sense for me as an app to do right now? I think we are limiting ourselves

00:47:07 ◼   ► if we think of the Mac is the Mac and the iPad is the iPad and the phone is the phone

00:47:12 ◼   ► and this idea of Apple is making this mobile OS for people who don't have big requirements

00:47:22 ◼   ► and also they make the Mac OS, which is for more sophisticated users.

00:47:26 ◼   ► This sort of closed mindset, I don't think it gets us anywhere, honestly.

00:47:33 ◼   ► And saying this, I don't think... Also, I should point out that saying that Apple...

00:47:39 ◼   ► I'm not saying that Apple should abandon Mac OS.

00:47:41 ◼   ► I'm saying also that they should ditch iOS altogether and make just one.

00:47:48 ◼   ► because the line, because this argument can be applied...

00:47:51 ◼   ► This is not a platform war.

00:47:53 ◼   ► No, no.

00:47:54 ◼   ► This is about like if you...

00:47:57 ◼   ► to make something that truly will work on both platforms

00:48:01 ◼   ► running into the future, it has to start again.

00:48:05 ◼   ► Yes. Yes.

00:48:07 ◼   ► Which is Apple OS, right?

00:48:08 ◼   ► Like it's the thing that I've been joking about for a while.

00:48:12 ◼   ► But like, I do think one day would happen, which is this one thing.

00:48:16 ◼   ► I have noticed now at this point,

00:48:18 ◼   ► Steven has been very quiet.

00:48:20 ◼   ► Just thinking.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Two things.

00:48:24 ◼   ► A, I buy into what you are saying, that Apple having two OSes in the long term doesn't make a lot of strategic sense.

00:48:34 ◼   ► If they can build something that truly adapts to where it runs, like you said, that's the key.

00:48:39 ◼   ► And when I think about that, I think about Microsoft, a company that has Windows on the desktop, has had it for decades.

00:48:46 ◼   ► and tried putting it on the phone and they blew it.

00:48:50 ◼   ► But they are seeing success on tablets and convertibles

00:48:56 ◼   ► and two-in-ones and that sort of stuff

00:48:58 ◼   ► because they have finally gotten Windows to a point

00:49:00 ◼   ► where it works with a touchscreen and a mobile context

00:49:04 ◼   ► and with a 27-inch desktop or ultra-widescreen desktop

00:49:08 ◼   ► with a custom PC under the desk.

00:49:12 ◼   ► They have successfully, more successfully than anybody else

00:49:16 ◼   ► built something that can span that range and I just I find that interesting that they've

00:49:21 ◼   ► done it and Apple is still on the two of us camp.

00:49:25 ◼   ► It's interesting that you said about they blew it right because I mean I mean I don't

00:49:29 ◼   ► know it's just memories but my memory tells me that like people really liked what was

00:49:35 ◼   ► it called Metro it was Windows something or other but it was that businesses were just

00:49:39 ◼   ► not willing to adopt it because it was too much change.

00:49:44 ◼   ► I mean we could get into why Windows Zone failed. It failed I think because ultimately

00:49:50 ◼   ► we can probably only have two mobile OSes.

00:49:52 ◼   ► Oh no, I don't mean mobile, I mean what they did on the desktop, right? Like when they

00:49:56 ◼   ► brought that design language to the desktop with like whatever Windows it was, maybe 8.

00:50:00 ◼   ► 8 brought there the metro style.

00:50:03 ◼   ► But it ended up getting reversed for 10 because, in a lot of places, because it just...

00:50:08 ◼   ► - It did, but if you look at the way that it works now,

00:50:12 ◼   ► Windows does work differently on a desktop

00:50:15 ◼   ► than it does on a convertible.

00:50:18 ◼   ► I mean, the Windows 8 stuff, it was too divorced,

00:50:21 ◼   ► and now they've sort of blended it with a start menu,

00:50:23 ◼   ► kind of looks like Windows 8, anyways.

00:50:25 ◼   ► I think they're getting there.

00:50:26 ◼   ► - But yeah, I agree, they are close.

00:50:28 ◼   ► Like, they are getting way closer

00:50:29 ◼   ► to having this unified platform.

00:50:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's really interesting to see,

00:50:35 ◼   ► because they did miss the boat on the mobile thing.

00:50:39 ◼   ► Where I struggle to see how this plays out,

00:50:43 ◼   ► so there's three scenarios, right?

00:50:46 ◼   ► There's one, Myke, that you talk about

00:50:48 ◼   ► of a new third OS built from the ground up for everything.

00:50:52 ◼   ► There's the scenario which isn't going to happen

00:50:56 ◼   ► where Mac OS takes over everything and iOS fades away,

00:51:00 ◼   ► which is just not gonna happen.

00:51:01 ◼   ► - That doesn't make sense, right?

00:51:03 ◼   ► It's too much legacy, right?

00:51:04 ◼   ► - It's too old and it's too set in its ways.

00:51:07 ◼   ► And then there's the other one,

00:51:09 ◼   ► which is iOS assumes the Mac.

00:51:12 ◼   ► And what Project Marzipan and RMAX are really about

00:51:15 ◼   ► is making the Mac much more iOS-like.

00:51:18 ◼   ► And I'm not talking about when they put

00:51:19 ◼   ► the stupid linen everywhere.

00:51:21 ◼   ► I'm talking about fundamentally structurally like iOS.

00:51:26 ◼   ► And I don't know which one,

00:51:29 ◼   ► well I know which one isn't happening,

00:51:31 ◼   ► but you can see a world where Apple

00:51:33 ◼   ► would basically pick the Microsoft route and say,

00:51:36 ◼   ► "Okay, we have, our dominant OS is iOS,

00:51:39 ◼   ► "it's secure, it's fast, it's flexible,

00:51:43 ◼   ► "and we're going to kind of slowly override the Mac

00:51:47 ◼   ► "with iOS and out the other end--"

00:51:50 ◼   ► - That's just a bad idea, right?

00:51:52 ◼   ► Like, that's terrible.

00:51:53 ◼   ► - I think it is, I think it is.

00:51:55 ◼   ► I think the right answer is,

00:51:57 ◼   ► for now, we're going to make it easier on developers

00:52:01 ◼   ► to run their stuff everywhere,

00:52:03 ◼   ► and we're gonna make Mac hardware that, you know,

00:52:06 ◼   ► has all the benefits of ARM processors that's super fast

00:52:09 ◼   ► and the battery life is insane

00:52:11 ◼   ► and we can get rid of fans everywhere

00:52:13 ◼   ► and I don't know what we do with the Mac Pro yet,

00:52:16 ◼   ► so I'm just gonna gloss over it.

00:52:17 ◼   ► - For years, James Thompson has had this joke

00:52:20 ◼   ► that he said about like that the next Mac Pro

00:52:22 ◼   ► would be 64 ARM processors in like a box.

00:52:26 ◼   ► We're getting closer to that, I think,

00:52:28 ◼   ► which is kind of funny. - Just massively

00:52:30 ◼   ► multi-processor machines. - Yeah.

00:52:32 ◼   ► And this is a transition, right?

00:52:33 ◼   ► The iMac Pro and Mac Pro will be the last to go.

00:52:35 ◼   ► They'll be on Intel longer than anything.

00:52:37 ◼   ► But in the meantime, you're building this third,

00:52:41 ◼   ► what Myke dubbed Apple OS.

00:52:43 ◼   ► And I think that's the right answer,

00:52:45 ◼   ► but I also think it's by far the most risky answer

00:52:49 ◼   ► because iOS is so extremely successful

00:52:54 ◼   ► that if you are going to replace it,

00:52:57 ◼   ► even over time and in chunks with something new,

00:53:01 ◼   ► that is bold.

00:53:03 ◼   ► And Apple, again, talking about transitions,

00:53:05 ◼   ► Apple does big, bold things, and generally they pay off,

00:53:09 ◼   ► but it has gotta be perfect.

00:53:12 ◼   ► It's gotta be, you know, how do I move,

00:53:15 ◼   ► how many apps are in the app store now?

00:53:17 ◼   ► Like, let's just say 40 million, 40 billion?

00:53:20 ◼   ► Let's say 40 billion apps.

00:53:21 ◼   ► You gotta move 40 billion apps.

00:53:24 ◼   ► - You really went for that, didn't you?

00:53:26 ◼   ► It's like 40 apps, no wait, hang on,

00:53:28 ◼   ► there's four trillion apps in the app store.

00:53:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, you have to move 40 trillion apps to,

00:53:35 ◼   ► not only to run on Jason and Federico's mythical

00:53:39 ◼   ► laptop iPad, which they should totally make,

00:53:42 ◼   ► but also run on a new OS with new frameworks.

00:53:44 ◼   ► That's a lot of work.

00:53:47 ◼   ► And you gotta have the carrots and the sticks in order,

00:53:50 ◼   ► and you have to make it make sense

00:53:52 ◼   ► from a consumer perspective.

00:53:53 ◼   ► You have to make it sense from people like me,

00:53:55 ◼   ► who I make my living on the most powerful Mac you can buy,

00:53:59 ◼   ► because it's the only machine that will do it for me.

00:54:01 ◼   ► It's gotta make sense to me.

00:54:02 ◼   ► Apple has to check all those boxes.

00:54:04 ◼   ► I don't know about y'all,

00:54:07 ◼   ► but for some reason this Bloomberg article

00:54:10 ◼   ► and this story about Marzipan,

00:54:13 ◼   ► I really feel like we're on the edge of this starting.

00:54:15 ◼   ► I believe that we are on the edge

00:54:18 ◼   ► of seeing this change start.

00:54:19 ◼   ► It's gonna be slow.

00:54:21 ◼   ► The Intel transition they did in a year and a half.

00:54:23 ◼   ► They announced it in June of 2005.

00:54:26 ◼   ► In January 2006, they shipped the MacBook and the iMac

00:54:30 ◼   ► with core two duo chips.

00:54:32 ◼   ► And by the next June or July, they were done.

00:54:36 ◼   ► They had shipped the Mac Pro and the Xserve with Intel

00:54:40 ◼   ► like a year later, and they were finished.

00:54:42 ◼   ► And Rosetta hung on for a couple versions of Mac OS.

00:54:45 ◼   ► And then, yes, we did lose some apps,

00:54:47 ◼   ► but they were probably already dying or already dead.

00:54:51 ◼   ► And within a couple of years, people just forgot about it.

00:54:55 ◼   ► you had a MacBook and things worked.

00:54:57 ◼   ► This, I don't think is that,

00:54:59 ◼   ► because you're talking about an OS transition,

00:55:02 ◼   ► a framework transition, a processor transition,

00:55:05 ◼   ► and hopefully a form factor transition

00:55:09 ◼   ► where they do embrace two-in-ones

00:55:10 ◼   ► and convertibles and iPad laptops.

00:55:12 ◼   ► Like, that's a lot of stuff, guys,

00:55:14 ◼   ► but I really feel like we are on the edge

00:55:17 ◼   ► of whatever step one is.

00:55:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty,

00:55:23 ◼   ► We cannot agree that history has a tendency to repeat itself.

00:55:28 ◼   ► And ten years from now, when Apple is doing a big keynote about this crazy new product

00:55:35 ◼   ► that they're launching, what's the OS that they're gonna say the new one is based upon?

00:55:42 ◼   ► They're not gonna say, "We're making Apple OS or Universal OS, whatever it's called,

00:55:47 ◼   ► and it's based on Mac OS X."

00:55:49 ◼   ► No, it's gonna be iOS.

00:55:50 ◼   ► It's gonna be based on iOS.

00:55:52 ◼   ► like the iPhone in 2007 was based on Mac OS X. I think the answer is of course it's gonna

00:55:58 ◼   ► be based on iOS. The problem is a lot of people fear that kind of change. A lot of people

00:56:04 ◼   ► fear that they're gonna lose what they love about the Mac. And I don't think Apple doesn't

00:56:14 ◼   ► know what makes the Mac great, what makes the Mac loved by so many people. I think that

00:56:23 ◼   ► they have been struggling with allocating resources and time and attention and, you

00:56:29 ◼   ► know, to Mac OS as a separate thing because it's so obvious that, you know, billions of

00:56:36 ◼   ► people maybe, let's just say hundreds of millions, are using mobile devices, are using another

00:56:43 ◼   ► And any other company would say, "No, I mean, sure, we still make the Mac, okay, but devote

00:56:49 ◼   ► more time and more money to the other guys, to iOS."

00:56:54 ◼   ► So those who are saying, "Oh, Apple should keep making Mac OS forever as a separate thing,"

00:57:01 ◼   ► they're just making themselves a disservice, really.

00:57:06 ◼   ► Because that, you know, we have tried that, Apple has tried that, and obviously, clearly,

00:57:12 ◼   ► not worked out and we need to try something else. And something else at this point is

00:57:19 ◼   ► we only have one answer and that answer is it needs to be based on iOS. And whether it's

00:57:25 ◼   ► iOS coming to the Mac or an entirely new thing, that ultimately doesn't matter in the sense

00:57:32 ◼   ► that as long as Apple knows what makes the Mac great, sure. I don't think saying that

00:57:41 ◼   ► Apple is gonna bring iOS to the Mac or saying Apple is gonna make a new platform altogether.

00:57:47 ◼   ► I don't think that necessarily means Apple will forget about Windows and the dock and

00:57:53 ◼   ► keyboard shortcuts and the menu bar. I think Apple knows what makes their desktop computer

00:57:58 ◼   ► platform great, but the current approach has not worked because the Mac, I mean, everybody

00:58:03 ◼   ► can see that it's languished essentially. And I don't want to say that it's going nowhere,

00:58:09 ◼   ► the innovation pace is considerably slower than iOS.

00:58:14 ◼   ► That's obvious, everybody can see that.

00:58:18 ◼   ► And so maybe it's time to try something else.

00:58:20 ◼   ► - I think you're right there.

00:58:21 ◼   ► You know, and part of this too is the idea

00:58:23 ◼   ► that the Mac has slowed down in development.

00:58:27 ◼   ► It's not making the leaps and bounds it once did.

00:58:29 ◼   ► Part of it is just, it's a really mature operating system.

00:58:31 ◼   ► They shipped it in 2001, but the stuff under the hood

00:58:36 ◼   ► is even more mature than that.

00:58:38 ◼   ► it was birthed as Mac OS X in 2001

00:58:42 ◼   ► as a pretty well-rounded OS.

00:58:44 ◼   ► They've added a lot of stuff to make it a lot better,

00:58:46 ◼   ► but it came into this world with its head on its shoulders.

00:58:51 ◼   ► In the intervening 17 years,

00:58:56 ◼   ► you kinda check all the boxes,

00:58:58 ◼   ► and you get into a position where

00:59:02 ◼   ► there's not that much low-hanging fruit left.

00:59:04 ◼   ► I think iOS is, at least on the iPhone,

00:59:06 ◼   ► is nearing that point too.

00:59:08 ◼   ► the iPad, there's lots of stuff they could do.

00:59:10 ◼   ► I look at that and I think, yeah, the Mac is mature,

00:59:14 ◼   ► it's stable, I like that it's not making these big leaps

00:59:18 ◼   ► and bounds anymore because it works the way I want it to.

00:59:21 ◼   ► So they gotta preserve all that stuff.

00:59:25 ◼   ► Or they have to be willing to look at Mac users and say,

00:59:29 ◼   ► you know what, you might not like this for a while.

00:59:31 ◼   ► Or it might not be for you.

00:59:34 ◼   ► If this happens, and we come out of the other side of this

00:59:37 ◼   ► five years and it doesn't work for some people, Apple's got to be okay with that.

00:59:44 ◼   ► And that'll be interesting to see how they handle that because the Mac user base is so

00:59:48 ◼   ► broad and diverse that they've, as well as the iOS user base, even broader and even more

00:59:55 ◼   ► diverse, they've got to meet, you know, a set percentage of those needs or they don't

01:00:00 ◼   ► have a company anymore.

01:00:01 ◼   ► So I guess we'll see how it goes.

01:00:03 ◼   ► All right, should we take a break?

01:00:05 ◼   ► Yep.

01:00:06 ◼   ► Do we feel good?

01:00:08 ◼   ► I feel good.

01:00:09 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:00:10 ◼   ► I think Steven feels good too.

01:00:11 ◼   ► It doesn't sound upset.

01:00:12 ◼   ► I'm not upset.

01:00:13 ◼   ► I'm, I'm, you know, it's all theoretical now.

01:00:17 ◼   ► Ask me in June.

01:00:18 ◼   ► But also this went much, much better than I was expecting, Michael.

01:00:22 ◼   ► So good.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:25 ◼   ► I'm happy about that.

01:00:26 ◼   ► Okay.

01:00:27 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by FreshBooks.

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01:02:03 ◼   ► So Apple have hired a guy with the name John,

01:02:09 ◼   ► wow, Giannandrea, Giannandrea?

01:02:12 ◼   ► Is that how we're gonna go with that?

01:02:13 ◼   ► - I went with Giannandrea on subnet

01:02:16 ◼   ► and no one has emailed me yet to tell me I got it wrong.

01:02:19 ◼   ► - Okay, Giannandrea is pretty good.

01:02:21 ◼   ► Federico, do you have a better pronunciation for us?

01:02:23 ◼   ► - This is an Italian name.

01:02:25 ◼   ► - I figured.

01:02:26 ◼   ► The Italian version would be John Andrea.

01:02:29 ◼   ► That's how you do it. - John Andrea, okay.

01:02:31 ◼   ► - Yes. - I like that.

01:02:32 ◼   ► We can go with that, okay, so.

01:02:34 ◼   ► - I'm gonna call him Johnny G.

01:02:36 ◼   ► - Johnny G? - Johnny G.

01:02:37 ◼   ► - Johnny G was Google's chief of search

01:02:40 ◼   ► and artificial intelligence.

01:02:42 ◼   ► That's AI for anyone who's not keeping score.

01:02:45 ◼   ► - Oh, that's what it stands for.

01:02:46 ◼   ► - That's what it means.

01:02:48 ◼   ► - Seriously, so it's not almost impossible?

01:02:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:02:51 ◼   ► - Man, you machine learned the heck out of that.

01:02:53 ◼   ► - It actually is almost impossible.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Apple have said that Jen Andrea will run Apple's Machine Learning and AI strategy, and he will

01:03:07 ◼   ► be one of the 16 executives that report directly to Timmy C. In an email to Apple employees,

01:03:15 ◼   ► Cook said, "Our technology must be infused with the values we all hold dear. John shares

01:03:22 ◼   ► our commitment to privacy and our thoughtful approach as we make computers even smarter

01:03:27 ◼   ► and more personal."

01:03:29 ◼   ► Gennadreia was, what he did at Google was help them push AI throughout all of their

01:03:34 ◼   ► products and he's been there for eight years. I think he departed on Monday and everyone

01:03:39 ◼   ► was like, "Whoa, there's this guy on the market now!" But it turns out that Apple

01:03:44 ◼   ► had hired him.

01:03:47 ◼   ► So at a time when Apple is being kind of really heavily criticized for the intelligence of

01:03:53 ◼   ► Siri, this is a pretty strong public statement, right? To show that they kind of maybe understand

01:03:59 ◼   ► that and they want to hire some big guns to help them fix it. Like publicity-wise it looks

01:04:05 ◼   ► good, right?

01:04:07 ◼   ► It looks great, especially because what are the chances? The chances that the New York

01:04:13 ◼   ► Times reports on this with a, with a quote from an internal email and that quote happens

01:04:19 ◼   ► to be about privacy. Imagine that the Google guy goes to Apple and the Times as a, you

01:04:26 ◼   ► know, but it looks great and it's a, it's a, honestly like a major gap for Apple. You

01:04:32 ◼   ► know, it's not like you just got some random dude from some college and that guy had written

01:04:39 ◼   ► a paper about AI and it's a brain, you know, it's not like a random person.

01:04:45 ◼   ► So some dude, he is the head of the company that does this better than anybody else.

01:04:50 ◼   ► Yes. And now he's working for Apple. I guess my, I don't want to say concern, but my question

01:04:57 ◼   ► is the cultural fit within Apple. Because if this person is used to approaching these

01:05:05 ◼   ► problems in a certain way. Like, okay, now I need to work with, you know, X millions

01:05:11 ◼   ► of data points about customer data. And it goes to Timmy C and it's like, so can you

01:05:17 ◼   ► give me access to that sweet, sweet iCloud email database? It's like, no, you cannot

01:05:23 ◼   ► get access to emails. It's like, okay, now we have a problem here. So that's the, that's

01:05:29 ◼   ► That's the more pessimistic viewpoint. The optimistic one, which is the one that I like

01:05:35 ◼   ► to believe, is that this person knows what they're getting into, and Apple knows what

01:05:41 ◼   ► this person wants to do. It's not like Apple saw this guy on the market. It's like, "Quick,

01:05:48 ◼   ► quick! We must hire this person, even though we don't know how they work and what ideas

01:05:53 ◼   ► they have."

01:05:54 ◼   ► They've had conversations to make sure that their ideas match up beforehand. It will still

01:05:59 ◼   ► be a shock to him in places, I bet, though. When, like, you're just so used to a thing,

01:06:04 ◼   ► and it's like, "Oh, huh, okay, well, we need to find a more interesting way to solve that

01:06:10 ◼   ► problem."

01:06:11 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's interesting because it's the fact that he reports directly to Tim Cook

01:06:17 ◼   ► and not to, say, Eddie Q.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Or Federighi.

01:06:22 ◼   ► for Federighi really. It's the prestige of saying, "I'm the executive in charge of AI

01:06:30 ◼   ► and privacy and all this stuff, these really complex problems, and I report directly to

01:06:35 ◼   ► the CEO, not to the guy in charge of iOS and macOS." It puts him in a position of power

01:06:43 ◼   ► that I don't think we've seen at this point so far, even with Core ML and what Apple has

01:06:48 ◼   ► been doing with machine learning. We didn't have an SVP for AI at Apple, and now we do,

01:06:56 ◼   ► and I think that's important. So here's my question. Who runs Siri?

01:07:05 ◼   ► I think this job is bigger than just Siri. The quote is about across all of our products,

01:07:11 ◼   ► and I think Siri is just one element. It's the public-facing element of it, but they're

01:07:17 ◼   ► doing machine learning in the smart keyboard and they're doing it in photo

01:07:21 ◼   ► matching and like I think Siri may fall under him at some point like maybe

01:07:27 ◼   ► there's some stuff that we're not seeing below the surface but I think this I

01:07:32 ◼   ► think this job that old Johnny G just inherited or just created really out of

01:07:36 ◼   ► thin air is it's bigger than just Siri I think there's a lot more to it than just

01:07:40 ◼   ► that I think that it is at least good that Apple considered AI and machine

01:07:46 ◼   ► learning important enough to create an executive position.

01:07:51 ◼   ► Right. Like, you know, there are so many people that were big

01:07:56 ◼   ► and other companies got acquired or whatever, and they ended up

01:08:00 ◼   ► just falling in somewhere, right, into some mid management position.

01:08:04 ◼   ► But this is like, no, no, like this is a, you know, executive of

01:08:09 ◼   ► role that we're doing here, which is that that's interesting to me,

01:08:12 ◼   ► right, because it shows that, you know, as you're saying, like

01:08:16 ◼   ► all of these things touch all parts of the OS, but it all still is under

01:08:20 ◼   ► Federighi right now, right? Like it's still part of the OS, which he runs.

01:08:24 ◼   ► But this is like another part of that, right?

01:08:27 ◼   ► Like this is like, OK, now you have this guy who oversees all of this stuff.

01:08:31 ◼   ► I wonder how it works, right?

01:08:33 ◼   ► With the way that Apple's seeming structure seems to work.

01:08:37 ◼   ► It seems like an interesting way of doing it, but

01:08:40 ◼   ► nevertheless, still important.

01:08:42 ◼   ► And it's almost like it's graduating from

01:08:45 ◼   ► a feature to an entire division. That's my feeling. It's not more like an afterthought,

01:08:52 ◼   ► like, "Yeah, by the way, we got AI in iMessage." It's like, no, AI is a core product of our

01:09:02 ◼   ► operating systems and devices, and we have a person in charge, and they have a team and

01:09:06 ◼   ► all that, and Siri is in an implementation of that. And that's at least my idea.

01:09:13 ◼   ► I'm on Apple's executive page right now and I really, really like that everybody is arranged

01:09:20 ◼   ► alphabetically except Tim. He's number one and then everybody else is alphabetically

01:09:25 ◼   ► arranged.

01:09:26 ◼   ► He's number zero.

01:09:27 ◼   ► Yeah, he's number zero. He's Tim O'Cook but they hide the O. The O is non-visual.

01:09:34 ◼   ► This is, I mean, you know, I think that this can only be a good thing. I really hope that

01:09:39 ◼   ► that it is an actual sign of desire to change,

01:09:43 ◼   ► but then the other part of it is,

01:09:45 ◼   ► have they been working on it really hard before we got there?

01:09:49 ◼   ► Because let's say that like,

01:09:52 ◼   ► it's, let's just imagine everything is continuing to be run

01:09:56 ◼   ► the same way that it's been run

01:09:57 ◼   ► for the last couple of years, right?

01:09:59 ◼   ► And that they're making that level of investment.

01:10:01 ◼   ► That means we're still multiple,

01:10:03 ◼   ► like a very long time away from significant change.

01:10:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's true.

01:10:07 ◼   ► I mean, this stuff takes time

01:10:08 ◼   ► even with an annual release cycle of the OS, you know, you've got to build a new

01:10:13 ◼   ► team and a new division like if like what Federico is saying is correct. So

01:10:17 ◼   ► this isn't gonna be like in June they radically have improved all their stuff.

01:10:21 ◼   ► I think this is a long-term move but I still I'm still encouraged by it. It is a

01:10:26 ◼   ► good sign. Like it is a very good sign. I'm keen to see what comes out of it. Do

01:10:34 ◼   ► Do you have anything else on this or anything else at all today?

01:10:38 ◼   ► I feel good.

01:10:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:40 ◼   ► Alright.

01:10:41 ◼   ► Good?

01:10:42 ◼   ► Good?

01:10:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:44 ◼   ► Wrap it up?

01:10:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:46 ◼   ► Let's wrap it up.

01:10:47 ◼   ► Alright.

01:10:48 ◼   ► Alright, let's wrap it up.

01:10:49 ◼   ► So that is our episode.

01:10:50 ◼   ► If you want to find...

01:10:51 ◼   ► Let's follow up, Dun.

01:10:52 ◼   ► Follow up's done, right?

01:10:53 ◼   ► We said we were going to finish off the follow up.

01:10:54 ◼   ► It sounds like we should begin with topic one now.

01:10:57 ◼   ► Okay.

01:10:58 ◼   ► Okay, let's do this.

01:11:00 ◼   ► So Federico Vittucci wrote an article on Mac stories, extolling the death of the Macintosh.

01:11:06 ◼   ► Federico, would you like to talk about this?

01:11:09 ◼   ► Yes, the Mac is gone. Go home. You're all using computers wrong.

01:11:14 ◼   ► Breaking. Mac's gone.

01:11:16 ◼   ► Tip, attack meme.

01:11:19 ◼   ► That's awkward for your website name.

01:11:22 ◼   ► It's just called stories.net now.

01:11:25 ◼   ► That's a great name.

01:11:26 ◼   ► Actually.

01:11:27 ◼   ► Taking the Mac out of Mac stories.

01:11:28 ◼   ► Can I buy stories.net?

01:11:32 ◼   ► Apple stories.

01:11:34 ◼   ► You've got to get some domains.

01:11:35 ◼   ► I have one of those if you want one, by the way.

01:11:39 ◼   ► IOS stories.net.

01:11:40 ◼   ► Stories.net has got a sad landing page.

01:11:43 ◼   ► Of course it does.

01:11:44 ◼   ► No one's using that.

01:11:46 ◼   ► Anyways, if you want to find links to what we talked about,

01:11:50 ◼   ► head over to the website, relay.fm/connected/187.

01:11:55 ◼   ► You can also find them in your podcast app of choice,

01:11:58 ◼   ► Of course, if you're on that webpage,

01:12:00 ◼   ► you can do a couple things.

01:12:01 ◼   ► You can send us an email.

01:12:03 ◼   ► You can find links there to where we are on Twitter.

01:12:07 ◼   ► You can find Myke, there's I-M-Y-K-E,

01:12:10 ◼   ► and Myke is the host of a whole bunch of shows

01:12:12 ◼   ► here on Relay FM.

01:12:13 ◼   ► You can check those out at relay.fm/shows.

01:12:16 ◼   ► You can follow Federico at Vitiici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I,

01:12:20 ◼   ► and as just talked about,

01:12:22 ◼   ► he is the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net.

01:12:26 ◼   ► You can find me as ismh and I write at 512 pixels net we all have other shows on the network

01:12:31 ◼   ► Let's go to go check those out

01:12:33 ◼   ► Thanks to our sponsors this week Squarespace Pingdom and Freshbooks. They made all this possible and until

01:12:39 ◼   ► until next week

01:12:41 ◼   ► Say goodbye gentlemen. Are you there cheap?

01:12:43 ◼   ► But what do I say?

01:12:46 ◼   ► You say cheerio. Okay, so I'm sorry cheerio

01:12:50 ◼   ► adios