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375: ‘No False Humidity’, With Jason Snell

 

00:00:00   We're at the most exciting time of the year on the Apple calendar. Don't you think? I'm reminded of it every year.

00:00:06   Yeah, it's like new year's Eve. I mean, I always think of this as the new year's day of the Apple calendar is day one of WWDC because it influences everything that happens the rest of the year.

00:00:17   Yeah, it's so much more normalized compared to the old days when there were Macworld Expos and who knew what was going to happen at WWDC.

00:00:30   And every one of the OSes didn't necessarily get a major update every single 12 months. Whereas now it is there's one non hardware event.

00:00:42   It's WWDC. Every OS gets a dot o upgrade every 12 months come hell or high water. And so May is always Yeah, it's like Christmas and the Fourth of July all in one.

00:00:55   Yeah, you can basically bank on the what second full week of June that that's going to be WWDC and then basically right after Labor Day for the iPhone event. And those are your guaranteed events for the year.

00:01:10   I've got an announcement to make. If you can believe it, okay, the live episode of the talk show is coming back. Well, I guess it came back last year, but in sort of half step form with sort of a half step out of COVID.

00:01:28   But we hopefully I'm taking a flyer here by telling you on the show, but by the time this episode is out, it'll be on Daring Fireball that it is back in the California theater in San Jose on Wednesday, June 7.

00:01:43   I think at 5pm, but we don't have a time nailed down yet. So that's exciting.

00:01:51   Yeah, that's great. I love it. It's I mean, you were in the developer center last year, right?

00:01:56   That is correct.

00:01:58   I mean, that's nice. It's it's nice when Apple furnishes stuff, but I like the idea of you going back to the independent venue.

00:02:08   Yeah, we have Apple folks and I went back and forth on that last year with no I say it back and forth makes it sound like there was any sort of disagreement and there was none. It was more, how do we work this out? Because there were still, like I said, I think in broad strokes, it was a half step out of COVID last year, and it just wasn't going to be

00:02:37   I would have me personally, I would have done it in the California theater last year, but it I don't even know if that was allowed in California at the time, but it wasn't it wasn't going to go with Apple. I don't even it wasn't really even on the table. So it was either a totally pre recorded show, like in the COVID years or do it in the developer center and and

00:03:03   even the Apple everybody was sort of an agreement that it was kind of weird. It's my show. It's not an Apple show. It's not officially part of WWDC. So it's weird that it was on Apple's campus. But it was kind of cool that it was the first public event in that facility, which is really nice. And it was the only way to do it. And so I was happy I actually didn't really I didn't lose any sleep over it. But I'm glad to be back in an independent venue. And I'm excited.

00:03:29   And now of course, starting to get sick to my stomach nervous as hell that it's in a facility that can seat more people because I know people like to come.

00:03:39   Yeah, it's the one of the great things about about how WWDC works now versus what it worked before is last year, especially we didn't know it was like, well, some developers will be there and some press will be there. But it's not ever going to be I think, back to the thousands of people that were there right around the corner from the California theater at the McHenry Convention Center, right. So the question I have is, you know, I'm pretty sure you're going to be able to fill that theater, but it's going to be a different crowd because it's going to be people

00:04:09   from Apple, it's going to be maybe the developers who are attending, but that's a small number, it's going to be maybe many of your pals in the press who are still there, although a lot of people just jet in for Monday and then get out. And then my guess is you're going to get some regional people, right? Where there's just people in the Bay Area who want to come and see the show. But it's a different thing than when you had several thousand attendees who would say, Yes, I want to be there. What I have found is that last year, everybody was really tentative about it.

00:04:37   But I know so many people who just are assuming they're just coming right like they haven't heard. They didn't get a developer in fight. They haven't been invited by Apple PR, but they made their hotel reservations. They made their plane reservations and they're coming. So it feels a little more like classic WWDC in that way versus last year where everything was so tentative.

00:04:57   Yeah, I don't know how that's going to go either. I'm not worried about selling it out. I mean, knock on wood, but I always got the impression that my previous shows, while it certainly was beneficial that there were 5000 attendees and some significant portion of them being the sort of people who would want to come to my show. And I say that with no false humility, because as the years went on, in the

00:05:27   actual live version of WWDC were 5000 developers attended, there were way more and more every year developers from around the world who spoke other languages. And I'm sure quite frankly, honestly, have never even heard of me. So I don't think it's false humility to say it wasn't just the 5000 people who flew in for the conference who were filling the thing. I think it was largely locals anyway, even in recent years, but I don't know that.

00:05:57   It's sort of a pulse of the audience perception from the stage. I don't know. There's just something about that.

00:06:05   It's a big region with a lot of people who are involved in technology. So I am sure I mean, that's how I always felt relay has done some events too. And like, you're not just pulling from the people who are there, you're pulling from a region of 7 million people who are probably more disposed than any other region to be into technology. And so yeah, you got a lot of listeners and a lot of fans.

00:06:26   Yeah.

00:06:26   And a lot of people interested in in listening to Apple. And when you get a chance that very rare to have a public event where you get a chance to listen to somebody interview, presumably Apple executives, presumably it's not going to be me and moltz. But you never know.

00:06:37   Yeah, I never know. I do not know. As we speak. I, I do not

00:06:42   John moltz ready as he is he does he have a ticket? Is he ready to go just in case to pull that standby on Southwest Airlines to come on down? Not yet, but maybe I should book a provisional ticket. The other thing too, and I realized this that doing it on Wednesday, usually the traditional day is Tuesday of WWDC weekend, it's going to be Wednesday this week. And that probably will, I mean, almost certainly will knock out some percentage of the people you talked about who are just flying in.

00:07:12   But I bet a lot of those people are sort of flying in on Sunday to hang out all day Monday and see what they can see and are flying out Tuesday or even Wednesday morning or Wednesday afternoon. And so they won't still be around. But hence, I'll announce this and maybe they can try to change their travel dates or whatever. But anyway, I'm excited about that. I'm excited to get that back to normal.

00:07:36   But I also think I wrote today and I guess it's as good a place as any to start is with headset mania. I've been writing a lot of I mean, everybody is I mean, how can you not? How can you not but I thought it was an inner it. I don't know about you. I this always happens to me is is some of my best article ideas start with something that either I think is going to be a very short link list item on my site or even just a tweet. And Ben Bajarian had a tweet this morning.

00:08:04   Just saying, Hey, I just speculating maybe the headset would be better in a standalone event later in the year. Because how are they even going to fit it in a WWDC code keynote and I almost tweeted back at him. And I was like got to the end of the length of one tweet. And I was like, Hmm, I have more to say about this. Maybe I should just write about it. And then it turned it into like 750 words on Darren fireball. But I do think that's interesting. I and my conclusion long story short, I mean, I already wrote the article. So probably people listening

00:08:34   have read it. But basically, I think the new format of WWDC, which we were just talking about where it's not an on stage keynote, and it's not a 5000 developers in the room watching it happen live. I think that facilitates cramming way more into a sub two under two hour keynote, then even vaguely could have been possible with the on stage presentation.

00:09:01   Well, remember, too, it's it's a keynote with footnotes. And the footnotes are the rest of the week, they're the platform State of the Union thing that happens in the afternoon, and then all of the other sessions the rest of the week week, it's really highlights. Right. And I think, look, I do think there's a lot is going to be like the Apple Watch where there's going to be an initial event. And then there's going to be another event, maybe even the iPhone event where they say, Well, okay, now we'll tell you the details of when the shipping and what it costs. But but they will have already taken the lid off of it. And there are so many advantages for them to take the lid off of it.

00:09:32   It at WWDC because then there's they can say, we have this other platform, we're going to tell you all about it, you know, now that we're doing the hardware, we can admit it, we can, you've seen it, we can we can give you some details about the hardware. And the game totally changes them. Like once the hardware is known, you could invite people to Cupertino to work on their apps, you could even this is I know it's a wacky idea, but like, you could start trickling out developer units to to developers, because one thought I

00:10:01   had is, even before you ship it, you could probably ship a version of the hardware that just is, yeah, you got to run a beta and tether it to a Mac. And it's just for developers. And it's useless on its own. But it works for app testing. You can never do that before it's announced. But once it's announced, you could you could do stuff like that. And then still say, Well, yeah, but it's end of the year by the time you get it. So I think it's important for them to pull the cover off of it and say, Yes, it is real. We are doing it. And let's start the conversation about what it is.

00:10:31   But they're going to get another chance, right? Like, undoubtedly, if any of these reports are true, it's not going to ship till toward the end of the year, they're going to get another chance to introduce people to this, which for people who don't remember, Apple Watch was announced at an iPhone event in September, and they shipped it in April. So they they and they reintroduced it before they did. So you got a second chance to do that. And that two stage thing only really happens with brand new products, feels like maybe they're going to be able to do that this time. And I think there are a lot of benefits to it, because then we can spend

00:11:01   months having the developer conversation and developers can look at it and build it and it gets to be out in the open to a degree that it can't be while it's a secret.

00:11:10   Yeah, I totally agree. And I do think people forget that about the Apple Watch. And it wasn't even close, right? So it was September of 2014, where they announced it at the iPhone event. And that was the one off Apple event that was on the I forget the name of that college in Cupertino. It's to answer something.

00:11:34   Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the Flint Center. Yeah, the Flint Center. Right, which which was a historical historically interesting building for Apple, because I think that's where Steve Jobs pulled the original Macintosh out of the bag. Thank you. And and then they did the iMac launch there, too.

00:11:50   Oh, that's right. That's right. I which I of course, was not at were you at that?

00:11:55   No, that was a string of Apple doing a lot of invitations to the press for events that didn't announce anything and were super boring. And so literally, they they were the boy who cried wolf. So like one person from Macworld went to that event, and it was the iMac. And then he gets on the

00:12:09   because he had under chief and he calls the staff and he's like, everybody get in. We got it. Like it was all hands on deck. But yeah, we were we were like, so jaded at that point. So I didn't. That was my first time Apple Watch event was my first time in the Flint Center.

00:12:21   Yeah, and that's when you decided you needed to become the editor in chief.

00:12:24   Yeah, exactly. You just got to go to every event. That's just how you do that. Maybe the last Apple event I missed, actually, was that one. Oh, that's pretty interesting. Do you think you've made everyone sense?

00:12:40   Well, no, that's not true. Because they did that education event in New York City, where they I don't even remember what they announced. It was like it was like iBooks or something. And I didn't go to that one. That was the one that I didn't go to. Did you go to the one in Chicago? Yeah. Yeah, that was education, right? That was Brooklyn. But there was the there was a previous event that was just no, no, there was one in Chicago. There was one in Chicago that was at a school. It was a high school. Yeah. Yeah. And so you didn't go to the Brooklyn one?

00:13:10   I did go to the Brooklyn one. No, there was one a couple years before the Chicago one. And I think it was just like iBooks author and textbooks and some. Yeah. Yeah. And that one I didn't go to. So okay. Oh, no, no, that was at the Guggenheim. Okay, yeah, I didn't go to that one. Yeah, yeah, but it wasn't worth it. Yeah, that was a really bad event. But well, you know what, in hindsight, it might have been worth it if they had stuck with iBooks author, which was an incredibly ambitious app. We I don't want to get derailed. We've got lots of talk about

00:13:40   it. But it's it's one of those like, Oh, what if I was just thinking about it with the make something wonderful book from the Steve Jobs archive. And I think that the website that they have for the public to read for free is really amazing. I think it's it's just a terrific experience. There's printed books that are limited edition and mostly given out to employees at Apple and Disney and who have one of those. You know that I do. Did you manage to

00:14:10   score one? I got one. I am fortunate to have a listener who works at ABC. Ah, Disney employee.

00:14:17   Yeah, I drew I drew a blank at first and then and took about a half of a thought to file ABC under the Disney conglomerate. So that's good. It's very nice, right? Beautiful. Yeah, it really is. But the the ebook version is your point here, right?

00:14:33   Well, it's the text is fine. And I think that they did a really interesting job collecting interesting words from Steve Jobs that make for a good thoughtful book. And so in the same way that that the the Gutenberg project right with the plain text versions of just plain text, just ASCII plain text of of out of copyright books. It's all good.

00:15:03   Right. I mean, reading is reading and just plain text. Courier 12 version of the Great Gatsby is still the Great Gatsby. But it's nicer to read a nicely typeset version of something. The ebook to me is just like it's just the text. I mean, it's just a pub and whatever. I don't know. I guess that's what format it is. It just lacks all of the panache of the the web version. And I books author was something that would have let you know,

00:15:33   if they had stuck with it, enabled the sort of nice things, transitions and scaling and pinching and multi touch and blah, blah, blah, you know, might have made for a nice experience. It's just just kind of an odd thing to me that I mean, I know that's a whole side discussion. That's sorry state of interactive ebooks. But to me, that's it's it's exhibit a because clearly with the effort that they put into the web version,

00:16:02   if they could have done it with the book, they would have. Anyway, yeah. Back to WWDC this year,

00:16:11   and the headset. No, I do. I and again, I don't know anything. I literally know.

00:16:18   Not no more than 1% more than the whatever, like the MAC rumors,

00:16:27   summary of what do we know so far about the headset outline that's publicly available.

00:16:33   So I don't know that it's coming. But boy, I will be shocked if it doesn't. I mean, it would I would

00:16:40   consider it one of the if if WWDC comes and goes without mention of it, I would consider it the

00:16:45   most shocking. We expected blank and it didn't happen in the in my entire career that that at this point,

00:16:53   I even I mean, I heard from a friend of a friend months ago, they said the hardware is done.

00:16:59   Yeah, like the hardware is done. So it would be I think this is happening. It's funny, though,

00:17:05   I am seeing some denial out there from people who are like, I think it's look, I think we've been

00:17:10   with a proverbial frog in the water that's heating up. We've been getting this out in

00:17:16   dribs and drabs for like years now. And especially in the last six months, and Mark Gurman has done

00:17:21   an amazing job at pulling out all these details, including some that are bizarre that we can talk

00:17:25   about. But But in general, you start to get a feel of it. And and Quinn Nelson did that amazing

00:17:31   YouTube video where he walked through like the technology that's involved in the state of the art

00:17:36   and all of that that's going on. And you really start to think, okay, this is a real product. I

00:17:41   understand why they're doing it. But there are other people for whom that Wall Street Journal

00:17:46   story or that Bloomberg Business Week story were the first they heard about it. And I am definitely

00:17:52   seeing people who are like, What? I can't believe they're doing that. And it's like,

00:17:56   I think we all went through that. And but we've all moved on now to like, okay, let's accept that

00:18:02   it exists. What is it? But it is it has been funny to see people react that way this weekend. And,

00:18:07   and over the next couple of weeks until it actually gets unveiled, and then everybody

00:18:12   will freak out again. I mentioned I am reminded of the run up to the iPhone announcement in 2007.

00:18:19   Where there'd been as I recall, there were Hey, wouldn't it be great if Apple made a cell phone

00:18:30   rumors at least as far back as like the beginning of that decade? Like, I would say as soon as the

00:18:37   iPod came out, right? Because I think the iPod was sort of the existence proof that hey, Apple can

00:18:44   make like a standalone really cool thing that fits in your pocket. And you're sitting there,

00:18:48   you've got like your iPod in one pocket, and you love it. And it was super cool. And it was just

00:18:54   amazing. And you're like, I just can't believe how cool this thing is. And then you had your

00:18:59   pre iPhone 2001 cell phone in your other pocket, and you hated it. And you knew

00:19:06   the thing that we all knew is that Steve Jobs had some cell phone too. And we knew that he hated it.

00:19:12   Right. So it was I remember talking to people who worked at Apple in that those years,

00:19:18   like between 2001 and 2007. And it was like a thing for Apple employees to know what phone

00:19:28   did Steve carry? Right. And I think for a lot of those years, he had a razor, which at the time was

00:19:33   like the definition of cool because it was thin. That's the phone that Tom Cruise had in Eyes Wide

00:19:39   Shut the Motorola razor was the cool phone circa 1999 2000 2001. And but like if he got like a new

00:19:49   phone, word would spread like, hey, Steve bought a blank and who knows what piece of crap it was.

00:19:54   And then other people at Apple would go buy it not because it was like, it's not like people

00:20:00   walked around Apple's campus wearing black turtlenecks and wearing gray New Balance

00:20:05   991 or whatever the number was. But it was the idea that if Steve bought it, it must be the best

00:20:12   thing that's out there. So why bother doing my own research? I'll just get the one that Steve Jobs

00:20:16   bought. And you'd but you knew he hated it. So you knew it must be coming. And then though, when we

00:20:22   got closer, word started leaking out that I don't know people, there's word out there that Apple's

00:20:28   working on an iPhone and or not an iPhone, but a Apple phone or an iPhone. I think I've Yeah,

00:20:34   they were iPod phones. But I think iPhone got right. I'm actually surprised. I was surprised

00:20:39   that it actually was iPhone in the end, because it had been the rumor name for so long that everybody

00:20:45   just assumed it wouldn't be actually an iPhone. And yeah, that you're right. Very early on.

00:20:50   The idea was, yeah, there will be an iPod phone. Why not do that? They were looking at the iPod

00:20:55   and saying, that's a software platform Apple could use to build a smartphone that would also be an

00:21:00   iPod. And of course, they, they were thinking bigger than that. But that was the initial

00:21:04   thought in the early 2000s. Yeah, I think he even and remember, there was the whole thing. I know,

00:21:10   we're getting we always get you and I always get derailed down memory lane. We haven't talked about

00:21:13   sports or keyboards at least. But there was the trademark that Cisco held on iPhone, which is

00:21:20   bizarre. Remember, I think it was Cisco. I don't know. It was a big go. But But when he announced

00:21:26   the name, he was like, and yes, we're calling it iPhone. And I don't know the crowd almost like

00:21:32   storm this storm the stage at that point. Yeah. But what I remember was I flew out. I'm so lucky

00:21:41   timing wise that that's when my Hey, okay, I do get press credentials and can sit in the keynote

00:21:48   audience. It was like one of the first events I went to wasn't the first but was close to it

00:21:52   where the budget from whatever I was making a daring fireballs justified or at least loosely,

00:22:00   vaguely justified flying out to California. I remember getting there like the day before.

00:22:06   And the rumors were getting pretty rampant. And I ran into James Duncan Davidson and I think it was

00:22:13   it was Daniel Steinberg. They were sitting in a coffee shop on Market Street, around the corner

00:22:19   block or two away from Moscone the day before. And I knew them both. And I was like, Hey, there's

00:22:24   somebody I know. And we stopped and I got a cup of coffee. And we started talking and quickly turned

00:22:29   to are they going to do a phone tomorrow? Is it a phone is a phone. And the three of us concluded,

00:22:34   they were definitely doing a phone. Because there was no there were no counter rumors. There was no

00:22:41   no no article in the Wall Street Journal's of saying those speculation is running high.

00:22:46   Some sources close to the company say there's no phone coming. Nobody was saying that.

00:22:52   But the other thing that's funny about that is that we had to go by memory because sitting at

00:22:56   a coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon, there was no way for us to check whether any

00:23:01   kind of news had broken because we didn't have iPhones yet. But we really did come to the

00:23:07   conclusion that they must be announcing a phone tomorrow because if they weren't,

00:23:11   they would have done something through the grapevine to at least somewhat dampen

00:23:16   the expectations so that whatever it was they were announcing wouldn't be a total letdown.

00:23:21   The silence spoke and I think we're at the same situation with the headset where if it weren't

00:23:28   coming, there would be somebody out there could be me. I mean, it could be me who's saying I don't

00:23:35   know what the little birdies are saying. Exactly right. Apple would look managing expectations

00:23:40   is part of the job, I would say. And if you're at Apple, if you're an Apple PR, Apple marketing,

00:23:46   managing expectations is part of the job. You don't want to be a disappointment if you can

00:23:53   help it. So a rumor like the iPad's going to cost $1,000, you don't bat that down. That's great.

00:23:58   That works for you. But if it's a rumor that the iPad's going to cost $100, you got to basically

00:24:04   leak something that's not accurate. It's going to be $500. And the fact that there hasn't been

00:24:09   a story that says, "Oh, well, it's not really happening," suggests... And in fact, and I honestly

00:24:14   don't know this and it may not be the case, but it sure feels like when I read some things like that

00:24:20   Wall Street Journal story that talks about the price and talks... It's a high price, but there

00:24:25   are going to be other models and it's going to be mostly developers and they don't expect to sell

00:24:31   too many. I read that and I'm like, "Well, either this is a fortunate bit of reporting for Apple

00:24:38   because it's setting the bar or it's Apple setting them up." And I just got that vibe this week.

00:24:46   In the past week, week and a half, it starts to feel like, I don't know if it's Apple's hand,

00:24:52   but it's doing what Apple's hand would be doing, which is saying, "Let's set expectations for this

00:24:58   thing." Because what they don't want everybody to think is it's going to cost $1,000, everybody's

00:25:04   going to buy one and it's going to be revolutionary and they're going to sell millions of them. They

00:25:07   want people to think it's going to be expensive, they're going to be in a low volume for that first

00:25:14   year, and the idea here is the long game. And so please do not judge us based on step one of a

00:25:23   multi-step process. So I don't know if Apple's actually the one managing that expectation,

00:25:28   but it certainly gives me that vibe. It serves them to do that. And it is important because,

00:25:34   as you said, if they weren't going to introduce an iPhone, somebody would have put something

00:25:39   somewhere that was like, "I don't know. I don't think so." And there's none of that right now.

00:25:44   But I do think that there's some bar setting that is either fortuitous for Apple or actually Apple.

00:25:51   Right. It's like people forget that in the run-up to an announcement, everything from Apple's

00:25:58   perspective should be as, "Well, that sounds terrible as possible. It should sound too

00:26:03   expensive, too heavy, too impractical, too useless, should run too hot, the battery shouldn't last

00:26:10   long." I mean, you name it, and then they can come in and better it. It's a lower price than

00:26:16   you thought. It lasts longer than you thought. It's way more useful than you thought. It's cooler

00:26:22   than you thought. It's smaller than you thought. It's lighter than you thought. All of that.

00:26:26   The last thing you want is for people to think it's going to be $500 and it's a pair of glasses

00:26:32   you can wear all day, every day, because that's not going to happen.

00:26:36   No, not yet. Right. Which is why I think I keep toying with the idea, like how much is Apple

00:26:41   going to say about the future? Because I feel like there's an opportunity for them to say,

00:26:44   "This is the beginning of a long journey. We're going to keep working on future products." They

00:26:49   don't talk about future products, but to say, "This is a platform. We're going to build other

00:26:53   products down the right. This is just the start of it." I think there's an opportunity for them

00:26:56   to do that here and it serves them well to do that because I don't think this product makes sense on

00:27:02   its own. It makes sense as product one of a long journey. I really firmly believe that everybody

00:27:09   at Apple really is thinking, "The reason we're on this journey is we want to get to the point

00:27:13   in 10 or 20 years where the technology has advanced so much that it is like wearing a

00:27:17   pair of glasses, but you got to start somewhere and this is where we'll start."

00:27:21   Right. I mean, think about the... literally go back to the original Macintosh, which had,

00:27:27   what, 128 kilobytes of RAM. I mean, it was pretty limited. 400 kilobyte floppy disk,

00:27:35   one 400 kilobyte floppy disk. Pretty limited. You got to start somewhere.

00:27:42   And real artists ship. I think that's the other part of it is all those arguments is like, "Well,

00:27:46   maybe they should just not release it and just keep developing it for the next decade." It's like,

00:27:50   no, not only is that kind of hard to imagine and I don't know anybody would want to work on an

00:27:55   invisible product for that long, but also they don't know. It's like the Apple Watch. When they

00:28:00   unveiled the Apple Watch, they're like, "What doesn't it do? It does everything. Good luck."

00:28:05   And then they learned and they learned what worked and what didn't work in the Apple Watch because

00:28:08   people told them. Customers are like, "I never use digital touch or glances. Get rid of them."

00:28:15   And they're like, "Okay, okay, okay. We got it." And you don't learn that unless you ship the

00:28:19   product. That's the truth of it is not only do real artists ship because at some point you need

00:28:24   to ship, but shipping leads to learning, which leads to iterating. And as you pointed out in

00:28:30   that Macworld column you wrote way back when, which I noticed you have now republished on

00:28:34   Daring Fireball, very well done, well done, well done. It's in your contract. You're allowed to do

00:28:38   that. Apple rolls, Apple iterates. That's what they do. So you got to start before you can

00:28:42   iterate. So here we go. The other missing feature that the original Apple Watch had was lasting all

00:28:49   day. I mean, I forget what language they used, but it was like, I don't know. This is not a quote,

00:28:57   but it paraphrasing. It was like most of the day battery life or something.

00:29:01   Tell us the time. Very accurately. It's the most accurate timepiece in the world, Jason.

00:29:07   I mean, when people ask me when I had a Pebble before the Apple Watch came out, they asked me,

00:29:11   like, "How is it?" I said, "Tell us the time." I mean, like baseline for a watch is does it

00:29:15   tell the time? You and I are obvious. This is why we made the career choices that we did. I

00:29:21   can't wait to get the 1.0. We're obviously the opposite of typical consumers. But the sort of

00:29:30   people out there, and I'm sure there's tons of them who read our sites and listen to our podcasts,

00:29:35   and they are enthusiasts, but they sort of have like a standing rule that they never buy a 1.0

00:29:40   hardware product. They're very wise people, even from Apple. You won't go wrong. If you have the

00:29:47   patience to wait a year, you almost certainly won't go wrong. Was Apple Watch released one year

00:29:53   too early? Maybe. I would say Apple Watch is the one that I would think in hindsight maybe could

00:30:01   have waited one more year. Yeah, the pressure on them was so enormous though. It was so enormous.

00:30:09   I guess my question would be if they'd waited a year, would they have been able to come up with

00:30:14   what they came up with next? Or was part of it that they had to be out there and make that tough

00:30:19   lesson that their software was not emphasizing the right things? I don't know. Right. I think

00:30:22   both the software and the hardware wasn't quite there yet, which is a double whammy,

00:30:28   where the hardware didn't get through the day, the software wasn't fully baked. Certainly the

00:30:34   third-party SDK was garbage. I mean, I'm not being facetious here. I mean, I've never heard

00:30:43   developers speak more poorly about an SDK. No, I mean, you were running apps on the iPhone and

00:30:50   then just pushing screens to the Apple Watch. It was not even charitably an SDK. Yeah, and

00:30:56   inconsistently. You couldn't even count on the screens getting there. And yet they pushed that

00:31:03   thing out and maybe it was a little too early, but it didn't kill the platform. And they learned and

00:31:08   they progressed. Right. And it could just be the fact that I know, well, we all know that they were

00:31:15   under enormous pressure to prove they could ship something new post-Steve Jobs. And how can you not

00:31:22   sympathize? And honestly, it's not even on a personal basis of sympathizing with their perhaps

00:31:30   pulling the trigger one year too early. I think it was important fiscally. Tim Cook, certainly his

00:31:37   perspective on the company, he has a responsibility to do well by shareholders. So I would say in

00:31:44   hindsight, if I could go back in time and give them advice, I'd say they were probably right

00:31:48   to ship it, but that would be the one product where engineering wise, I would say it was one

00:31:54   year too early, but in the context of everything else that was going on, it was probably the right

00:31:59   time to do it. But yeah, and there are, you know, the rumors about this headset, there are

00:32:04   compromises there that I'm sure that Apple didn't want to make, but felt they had to make in order

00:32:09   to ship it at the same time though, being those 1.0 people that we are. It feels to me like Apple

00:32:15   decided to err on the side of making this the most impressive piece of hardware they could,

00:32:21   instead of it being kind of like, I feel like Apple is trying to prove that this category

00:32:25   makes sense. I feel like that's what's going based on the rumors that it's expensive and they really

00:32:30   sort of spared no expense on a lot of the hardware stuff. And we're willing to do things like do an

00:32:35   outboard battery because they needed to get the balance of the headset right, even though it's

00:32:40   inelegant. It feels to me like they're kind of trying to say, we're going to show people why we

00:32:46   think this matters. And then we'll figure out how to bring it to the masses. And I was talking to

00:32:54   Dan Morin about this earlier today, who I work with on Six Colors. I said, we talk so much about

00:32:59   the Apple strategy conversation about the headset and not so much about the product side of it,

00:33:04   which is like, I'm very excited about this product because I think if these reports are right, it will

00:33:11   be by far the best virtual reality anything ever made. And that'll be really interesting to see.

00:33:19   And will it be a flop? Will people buy it? Those are all business conversations,

00:33:23   but as a pure product, unlike that original Apple watch, it feels like this is a product that is not

00:33:29   priced to sell, but dressed to impress. And so I can't wait to put it on my eyeballs and see what

00:33:36   happens. All right, let's take a break here and I'll thank our first sponsor. And it's one of my

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00:36:50   who forgot to back up their important files. They'll get you. And guess what? If you're that

00:36:55   person who doesn't have it, you're going to feel even worse if you need it because you're going to

00:37:00   think, I just heard Gruber tell me on the talk show I should have signed up for backblaze.com.

00:37:04   Seven bucks a month. Backblaze.com/thetalkshow. I guess, you know, I also think the other thing

00:37:12   that the watch is the one I'll go back to with that six month sort of gap between, hey, here it

00:37:19   is. Here's the thing. Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here it is. And then six months later,

00:37:23   here's the event. Here's where it actually is. We're going to reintroduce it. And now you can

00:37:27   actually buy it. A couple of reasons for that. I think one, I think there actually are going to

00:37:33   want developers to start writing software for this thing, even if they don't have it. Like you talked

00:37:38   about, maybe they'll have some kind of developer kits. Maybe it'll just be a simulator. Maybe it'll

00:37:44   just be something stupid that that's stupid, but you know, very much unlike wearing actual VR

00:37:49   headset, but something that you run on your phone and sort of hold it up and hold your phone in

00:37:55   front of your face. Right. Yeah. But to at least give developers a couple, the summer to start

00:38:02   writing some stuff, or even if it's not developers, right? Cause I, then this is sort of getting

00:38:09   outside my expertise cause I'm not an expert in the existing headsets overall, but there's more

00:38:17   than software. There's content you can create for VR, right? Like 3d models and sure. There's other

00:38:24   sorts of things that, that are developer ish, even if you're not writing Swift code, but making

00:38:31   things to be enjoyed in VR or AR, whatever, whichever aspect of the XR you're, you're focused

00:38:38   on, but to spend the summer getting ready for it, according to this volumes of developer information

00:38:46   that presumably they'll publish in the afternoon after the keynote. Yeah. And then in September,

00:38:52   whether it's at the iPhone event, which I think is probably likely because that's the key hardware

00:38:59   event. I think that they probably would reintroduce it in September alongside the iPhone and presumably

00:39:05   this year's new Apple watch models. And I could see them again, not to get, not to get us ourselves

00:39:10   one event, our head of ourselves, but I could see them easily be able, being able to devote a big

00:39:15   chunk of that event to the headset again, because I would guess that this year's watches won't need

00:39:21   much more time because last year was the big year where they introduced the new ultra model. So I

00:39:28   would guess this year we'll just see ultra two and the new refinement on the regular sized watches.

00:39:34   So I think there'd be plenty of time for a half an hour to recap the headset and blah, blah, blah.

00:39:40   The one thing that I'm pretty I'll, I'll make a prediction that I do think they'll announce the

00:39:46   headset next month. I do think they'll show it. I think they will not tell us how much it costs

00:39:53   because that's what they did that with the watch too. People forget that, but we spent six months

00:40:00   speculating and it's awesome for us because then we get all sorts of grist for our columns where we

00:40:08   can, right. That's right. It's the ultimate now how much would you pay move? Right. We're just like,

00:40:12   here it is. And then they walk away right later available later this year.

00:40:16   And then they walk away and you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait. When and how much?

00:40:21   No answer. No answer. Well, that would get away with it. I remember when I wrote like, Hey,

00:40:27   I'm telling you this solid gold Apple watch, it's going to be like 15 to $20,000. And there were

00:40:33   people who were like you out of your frigging mind. It's going to be out of date in a year.

00:40:37   You know, how in the world could it cost that much? It'll be no more than $1,000. And I'm like,

00:40:41   it's gold. It's Apple. Look at the way they're presenting it. I'm telling you

00:40:45   15 to $20,000. And yes, it'll be out of date in a year.

00:40:48   I have to take my being right point for that one. Yeah, for sure. So anyway, I think that'll happen.

00:40:57   And I think it'll blow people's minds and it's going to waste all sorts of time in post keynote

00:41:03   briefings where people in the media are going to be like, how much is this going to cost? And

00:41:09   they'll say, we're not talking about that yet. And then they'll start talking about something

00:41:12   and somebody will say, how much is it going to cost? And they'll say, we're not talking

00:41:16   about that yet. And it'll go on and on and on and on. It's just in case if I keep asking,

00:41:21   maybe they'll slip up and tell me exactly how much it'll cost. Right. Yeah. I should spend

00:41:27   the whole 90 minutes of my show just asking over and over again, how much is the headset

00:41:31   going to cost? How much is the headset going to cost? How much is the head? Do each question like

00:41:36   you're an analyst on the quarterly phone call, say like Tim or whoever executive, I got a question

00:41:42   and also a follow up. And then you ask your question and you say, and also how much is it

00:41:45   going to cost? Every time, every time it happens. I could never, I used to think like years ago,

00:41:53   I don't even listen to them anymore. And God bless you for transcribing them. Oh,

00:41:57   because I do read them, but my eyes glaze over even reading them. But when I used to,

00:42:03   when I used to listen to them, I used to think, wouldn't it be cool if they like expanded this

00:42:09   and sort of went from analysts only to like sort of analysts and media. And so like me and you and

00:42:15   Joanna Stern and Neelai could get in on these things. I realize now that's not going to happen.

00:42:20   This really is just for wall street, but it's like, there is, it's such a different universe.

00:42:26   I don't know how to speak like that. I also, honestly, sometimes I don't even understand

00:42:30   what they're asking. And I think, how the hell are they going to answer that? But like

00:42:35   Tim Cook and Luca, they, they speak the language and they seem to understand it is to be.

00:42:41   Luca, if we could, if we could burrow in a little bit more on the OpEx, when we're looking at the

00:42:46   second quarter, pull forward, are you, can you give me a little more color on where the, the

00:42:51   OI and E may land given the headwinds and like, okay, all right, good luck with that one.

00:42:59   Well, we might circle back. I've learned a lot. I actually have learned a lot about business speak

00:43:04   by writing about and transcribing those things. Cause as a kid, I would always read

00:43:08   when, whenever we would get the, the San Francisco Chronicle, I'd like tear into the sports section.

00:43:13   I get to the business section and I'd just be like, who wants this? Take it away from me.

00:43:17   And now I'm sitting there writing down, Oh, well, the, the poll, poll forward sales from the

00:43:24   previous fiscal quarter. How does that affect the OI and E? It's not as good as it once was.

00:43:32   They're much more locked down with that, by the way. I mean, there's less to glean. There's still

00:43:35   bits to glean from it every so often, but like it's an hour long call and I'd say a half hour

00:43:41   of it now is just prepared statement. And it used to be. The statements were much shorter and there

00:43:46   were way more questions and answers. And now the questions that not only are the answers to the

00:43:51   questions really locked down in, I mean, literally scripted sometimes I will hear a question and you

00:43:55   can hear a piece of paper. Tim Cook is literally picking up a piece of paper to read the answer

00:44:00   that they said they would give if this was a question that was asked. And so it's, it's yeah,

00:44:05   there's a lot less there than was there like five or 10 years ago. They're much more controlled

00:44:09   about it. Yeah. The prepared statements have definitely crept up. They're a snooze. I, at one

00:44:14   point I asked somebody investor relations, like, can you just give us those? Cause they're just

00:44:19   reading it off a piece of paper. Why am I transcribing a prepared statement? Just,

00:44:24   just put it out. Like why give it to the press who asked for it. And they're like, no, we're not

00:44:29   going to do that. But it's yeah, they're there. There's stuff to be gleaned from it, but if you

00:44:33   want to understand Apple's business, but it's a snooze, you're not missing that much.

00:44:37   I am reminded of that though, because that they used to be periodically more

00:44:43   exciting. Cause I wrote this week there was a wall street journal story about the headset.

00:44:49   That what set me off was there sort of insinuation that it might be a flop because the,

00:44:56   all the headsets extant to date have been flops or, or if not flops haven't set the world on fire.

00:45:03   And Apple's standard is obviously setting the world on fire to some extent. Right? So like,

00:45:09   however successful Facebook's headsets have been today and they're not flops, right? They're out

00:45:15   there. I mean, and there's content and some, some number of people have them, but if Apple's only

00:45:20   sells in the quantities Facebook's have and, and have people talking about them to the degree,

00:45:27   I mean, that that's going to, it's going to go down as a flop, but they, but the thing that

00:45:32   set me off was there an insinuation that, that the iPhone and Apple watch were immediate hits.

00:45:40   Oh yeah.

00:45:41   Because they weren't there and nothing ever is it.

00:45:45   The iPod wasn't even remember.

00:45:46   No, none of them were, none of them were the iPod was a Mac only firewire only peripheral

00:45:52   that might've been a hit to some extent within the Mac market. But the Mac market was at that time

00:45:58   at its lowest point market share wise. I I'm trying to iPad even. I mean, maybe iPad is the

00:46:06   first one that was kind of an instant semi hit.

00:46:10   I, I pad took off and then, and then crashed right a few years later, but that was partially

00:46:15   cause it was just primed by the iPhone, but the iPhone itself took a while. The Apple watch

00:46:20   certainly took a while and, and, and, and yeah, we that's, there's a lot of that, right? Where

00:46:25   it's like, oh, well obviously it's going to be like it was in the past. And you're like,

00:46:28   that was not what it was like.

00:46:30   Yeah. And I, and I really, and I don't mean this to be dismissive and we'll come back to iPad.

00:46:34   That's a sure thing on the future agenda of this episode of the show, but I don't mean to be

00:46:39   dismissive to the iPad, but that's an, the iPad, if it qualifies as an instant hit was because it

00:46:46   was just a big iPhone. Right. And we've all talked about this many times where the number one

00:46:52   criticism of the iPod when it was announced was, ah, it's just a big iPhone. And the number one

00:46:58   reason people loved it and wanted to buy it right away was people who said, oh my God, it's a big

00:47:02   iPhone. Yes. Give me that.

00:47:04   They got it. Yeah. Yeah. The, the iPad was understandable because it had been primed because

00:47:09   of the iPhone in a way that, that the iPhone didn't happen and the Apple watch didn't happen

00:47:14   that way. And the iPod didn't happen that way. Right. And the, there there's a guy named, he,

00:47:19   he doesn't really seem to blog anymore. A young, young guy. I actually know him. He used to live in

00:47:23   Philadelphia, a nice guy named Matt Richmond, but he used to track iPhone sales and, and was to me,

00:47:29   the first person to observe that the, the iPhone three G, which was the second iPhone

00:47:36   sold more than the first iPhone, the three GS sold more than the first two combined the iPhone

00:47:43   four sold more than the first three combined. Like their growth for the first few years was such that

00:47:49   each successive model sold more than all of the previous ones combined like it. And then all of

00:47:56   a sudden you get to the point where everybody, you know, has an iPhone and in every, the back

00:48:02   of everybody's minds, it was an instant hit, but it really wasn't. And I think that's always the

00:48:08   case with the new platforms. And in, in that context, the iPad really wasn't a new platform.

00:48:14   It was coming in at the point where the iPhone three GS, I think was already out.

00:48:18   And yeah, seven, 2007, 2008, two days. So it was the early, the beginning of the year when

00:48:24   the iPhone four would eventually come out. So the iPhone had taken off and there was a huge market

00:48:31   primed for something bigger than a 3.5 inch screen running this sort of software. Whereas the headset

00:48:38   is like nothing else, Apple sells the watch was like nothing else. Apple sells you. Nobody looked

00:48:43   at their Apple watch and said, Oh, it's like a tiny iPhone on my wrist. No, that's not what the

00:48:48   Apple watch is like at all. It's one of those cases where with this VR stuff, cause I have a

00:48:52   meta quest to, which is probably the best selling VR headset ever. I don't know. It's more than 10

00:48:58   million units, more than half of the headsets that meta has sold are the quest to. And it's fun.

00:49:04   There's fun stuff on it, but like it, the challenge with any of this stuff is that you've

00:49:09   got to basically, you got to wear it. You got to have it on your face and see it for yourself

00:49:14   before you even can understand it. And I don't know how Apple's going to handle this in terms

00:49:20   of retail, but at least they have retail where they could theoretically do like a demo model

00:49:26   or something that can fairly easily go on somebody's head and give them a very basic demo

00:49:30   experience of it. Cause like, I think that's the biggest challenge with VR is you could understand

00:49:37   it in the abstract, but it's not the same as experiencing it. And if they truly have a world

00:49:41   class experience with this thing, their challenge is going to be, how do I let people experience

00:49:48   that? And are there going to be a little try on areas or try on booths or something at Apple

00:49:54   retail? Cause that's kind of what they need to do. Yeah, I guess metas is probably the best selling

00:49:59   one. The only one I can think of that might be more better selling would be Sony's for the

00:50:03   PlayStation, which is tethered. Yeah. Although that's not really a standalone, but yeah,

00:50:06   you're right. It, PSVR might be a bigger thing, but it's a console with a headset attached to it.

00:50:12   It's not quite, I have the PSVR. That was my first headset was the PSVR and the PSVR too. I don't

00:50:20   have, but I, it sounds like it's a lot better. PSVR it's tethered and it was fun, but also

00:50:26   terrible. And the advantage of something like the quest two is that it is all in one it's on your

00:50:31   head. You don't, you don't have like cables running across the room into your PlayStation

00:50:37   where people can trip on them. And that totally happened with my PSVR. So,

00:50:42   all right. So I just checked in with the official VR slash gaming correspondent for daring fireball

00:50:49   and the talk show. My son, Jonas, he took his PlayStation to college this year. He's back now.

00:50:57   So we've got him back in the house. I don't know. Do you have, do you have yours back in the house

00:51:00   yet or no quarter system we've got a month before we get him back in the house. I know, I know it

00:51:05   well. I went to Drexel quarters. Yeah. Well, Jonas is back, but I just double check. So he took his

00:51:11   PlayStation, did not take his gaming PC for space considerations, his dorm room, which he shared

00:51:16   with a roommate was about the size of like a Yugo. I mean the interior cabin of a Yugo, not, not the

00:51:24   whole car. He took his PlayStation. I just asked, did you take your VR headset? And he says, nah,

00:51:29   no way I left that at home. So glad I bought it for him first, first of all, money well spent on

00:51:37   that headset, but if he didn't take it how, how important it is to the PlayStation lifestyle.

00:51:43   Yeah. I guess the other thing before we drop the headset and move on to other stuff is I guess the

00:51:47   thing I'm most excited about, and I'm sure you share my enthusiasm and tremendous curiosity

00:51:53   is not this specific headsets hardware, which is going to be the worst one Apple ever makes. Right?

00:52:01   Well, I mean, it may not be right. Like there may be a cheap version that is, that is worth.

00:52:05   Oh yeah, maybe. Well, but there'll probably be a pro version too. Right.

00:52:10   I don't know though. I think it'd be more like the watch though, where even with the watch,

00:52:14   they came out with the series. What do they call it? The series one, right? The series two was the

00:52:20   second generation, but they actually stopped selling the original and sold the series one

00:52:24   because they actually were able to make the battery better. And I was about to say the

00:52:28   worst iPhone ever was the original, but there was something charming about the aluminum back. Right.

00:52:33   It was like, like we upgraded from terrible add cellular to the much, much literally

00:52:40   a hundred times better 3g networking, but we downgraded on the hand feel. Right. It was like,

00:52:47   it was a very nice aluminum product, the original, and the second one was sort of a, not, not cheap,

00:52:54   but yeah, it's a big bulbous plastic back. It was not nearly as classy. They,

00:52:59   it was probably cheaper to make. Well, they felt a little bit cheaper. The, the designed by Apple

00:53:05   in California coffee table book celebrating the Johnny Ive era had several photographs of the

00:53:12   original iPhone. I don't believe it had any iPhone three G's. Yeah. So, but what are you excited

00:53:21   about? I'm excited at the, basically the sounds out there or, or touchy feely, but the paradigm

00:53:31   for the software interface. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Right. Because that to me is what these

00:53:40   breakthroughs that Apple has come up with. And there, again, I would heart back to Steve jobs

00:53:46   with the iPhone that there are very few times that, that something like this happens, but that's,

00:53:52   that's what the Macintosh in 1984, the original Macintosh hardware was the worst Mac ever made

00:54:00   without question. Like I said, 128 kilobytes of Ram. I mean, that is, that was really,

00:54:06   really rough. I mean, but what they had was the paradigm for how personal computing should look

00:54:14   going forward. We're literally still using it to this day. Like the, somebody familiar with today's

00:54:19   Mac, they might be surprised by many of the limitations on that Mac, but they'd know how to

00:54:24   use it. The iPhone really changed the way we use cell phones. I mean, they used to just be, just

00:54:30   keep adding buttons, add a whole keyboard, put a red button for phone calls and a green or green one

00:54:36   for phone calls and a red one to hang up. And I mean, two buttons just for phone calls, two whole

00:54:41   buttons, hardware buttons, the whole paradigm changed. And I, with VR, I mean, do you, do you

00:54:48   have sticks in your hand that you put one in one hand and one in the other, and that's how you use

00:54:53   your hand? Well, of course not with Apple's thing, right? They're not going to give you,

00:54:56   I be flabbergasted and none of the rumors suggested that you're supposed to use it while

00:55:01   holding whatever you call those sticks that you have with other VR headsets. Yeah. Controllers,

00:55:07   basically. But what is the interface? What are the rules of what you see? Are there going to

00:55:12   be windows that float in the air? Do you poke at them with your finger in the air in front of your

00:55:18   face? Do you see your hands when you're doing it? What do you do? One of the rumors is that there's

00:55:22   going to be like a little dial, sort of like a digital crown on the headset that you turn to sort

00:55:29   of dial between AR and VR, meaning you turn it all the way to one end and you no longer see any of

00:55:37   the world around you. You're completely engrossed in the VR. Turn it the other way and you're in AR

00:55:44   mode where your camera's looking forward, show you what the world around you looks like. And there's

00:55:50   some kind of things in front of you, but are they windows? Are they more like widgets? Is it, can

00:55:57   you actually type? Can you? What are there? Are there gestures? Are you doing like meta? They have

00:56:04   like various, like you tap your fingers together or you make a hand gesture and like, so you can

00:56:09   have this combination, assuming that it's all hand tracking, which it sounds like it's going to be

00:56:13   based on the reports. Yeah. And what is that gestural language and how does it work and how

00:56:17   quickly can you learn it and how natural does it feel? And, and yeah, how, how is everything

00:56:22   represented? There's a lot of talk that like it'll run iPad apps and iPhone apps. You'll just be able

00:56:26   to run those and, and okay. And do screen sharing with a Mac. So not run Mac apps, but connect to a

00:56:33   Mac. Okay. Well, what does that look like? What is, what is working with a touchscreen app look

00:56:38   like? And what is working with an app that needs a mouse and a keyboard look like, and how does that

00:56:44   translate if, if that's a thing you actually want people to do fascinating, right? Because like,

00:56:49   that's where the hard work, that's where the hardest work goes in. I'm on the hardware side.

00:56:54   Look, it's going to be an impressive piece of hardware, but like on the software side,

00:56:57   it's not just the work of building it. It's the work of conceiving it and testing it and saying,

00:57:03   like, we think this metaphor is something that people will understand, learn and integrate so

00:57:10   that it's like second nature, because it is body language. You're essentially going to have to learn

00:57:14   and there's no, I mean, there, there are, there are metaphors, right? Just like the desktop

00:57:19   metaphor, but in the end, you gotta make a decision and there's no like one clear, right

00:57:25   decision. I would argue. It's like, you just got to try them all out and have the arguments with

00:57:29   everybody you're working with and say, do I want to have my fingers pop open or pop closed or tap

00:57:34   two together or hold it or make a fist or like tap two hands together? Who knows what those are.

00:57:40   And that's years. And that I am sure that people inside Apple have been working on that stuff.

00:57:46   And I can't wait to see what all those people have spent all this time to come to a conclusion.

00:57:52   What is that conclusion? Right? How do you know when, like, all right, so you are, let's just say

00:57:57   it runs iPhone apps and you you've got the headset on and you see an iPhone app right in front of

00:58:03   your face. It's right there. You see it and you put your finger in front of it. How do you know when

00:58:07   you've tapped on the thing? Right? Like it sounds silly, but when you start thinking about these

00:58:13   details, you realize how many thousand little things when you have an actual iPhone in front

00:58:18   of your face, you know, when your finger has touched the thing on screen because your finger

00:58:22   feels glass. Right? I mean, there's actual tactile feedback, haptics aside, haptic feedback aside,

00:58:30   there's the just finger on glass and finger isn't quite, you know, when your finger is only

00:58:37   a sixteenth of an inch away because you don't feel the glass yet. How do you do that when it's

00:58:42   a virtual thing in front of you? I don't know. I'm fascinated. This is why I like writing about this

00:58:48   stuff and not I'm not working at Apple creating it because I have zero idea how to solve problems like

00:58:54   that. None. And I can't wait to see what somebody else thinks is the answer. It is really. Yeah.

00:59:01   Right. Because it's I think some very smart people have had to wrestle with this for a long time

00:59:06   and they've come to some conclusions and it will be amazing to see that. And then for us all to

00:59:12   kind of go through that experience and then give our feelings about like, did they nail it or is

00:59:16   it a little weird or whatever? Because nothing is perfect, but I'm interested to see what their take

00:59:20   is. That was a great example. The one that I've been thinking of that I thought you might be

00:59:25   interested in too, is I know you're a big fan of sports and of movies. And today a newsletter that

00:59:34   I get, there's a guy I know who's been a baseball writer for years. He writes about injuries. His

00:59:39   will Carol, he has a sub stack under the knife and he worked at baseball prospectus way back when,

00:59:44   and his piece today was basically. Apple and Apple and baseball and VR and how it could be a

00:59:51   match made in heaven. And he talks about the MLS deal. He talks about meta has a deal with the NBA

00:59:56   and, and he talks about VR sports, like to watch and be immersive in like your court side or to

01:00:04   play the baseball actually with hand tracking and stuff is actually perfect for even training pitchers

01:00:11   and hitters VR. They do it now there's VR baseball hitting training now available for like kids,

01:00:17   not even just major league players. And then I'll throw movies into that too. I have watched movies

01:00:23   on the Oculus quest. And although the quality of the picture is bad, I will say a 3d movie is

01:00:30   actually decent on a headset because it's not unlike in a movie theater where everything is

01:00:36   about half brightness. It is like a perfectly kind of native quote unquote into your eyes with the

01:00:42   left field and the right field. And I think about. Share play and watching a movie. That's like a

01:00:47   proper 3d movie on a very high resolution screen. Or I think about something that's got immersive

01:00:52   audio and video that is at a sporting event and Apple's connections and strengthen the market

01:01:00   means they can make those deals for that kind of content. And I would expect to see 3d movies and

01:01:05   immersive video and immersive sports stuff happen for this platform. If not this year,

01:01:11   then in the next year. And I'm excited about that just because I think. And I,

01:01:16   I think that there might be an audience for people watching a really good movie

01:01:20   with their friends. They're using something like share play. I maybe, maybe not, right.

01:01:27   This is one of those things where you got to try it and see if anybody actually likes it or not,

01:01:30   but there might be something there. So it's another thing worth watching is like,

01:01:35   what is the entertainment, the immersive entertainment aspect of this?

01:01:38   Trenton Larkin I don't think it's entirely

01:01:41   outlandish that the entertainment aspect aspect, if done well and taken to the next level could be

01:01:48   perhaps the number one reason to buy the thing, even if it is $3,000,

01:01:52   people buy $3,000 entertainment devices or, or more, right? I mean, it's, yes, it's out of many

01:01:59   budgets, but it may not be. And I'm with you on that. And there is something to, and even if it's

01:02:07   not a 3D movie, even if it's just like simulating like a giant IMAX sort of screen, right? Like

01:02:16   there's, there's a certain. Yeah. That's what the apps are like on the, on the meta quest is

01:02:21   it's not like there's just the movies floating in space. You're in a movie theater.

01:02:24   Trenton Larkin Right. And, and there is something about that.

01:02:28   I'm a huge fan of both feature films. And I do like going to movie theaters. And even though I

01:02:34   like going to movie theaters, I every single year I go to them less and less frequently.

01:02:39   COVID aside, right? Not even factoring that in. It's really just more and more just for tent, tent

01:02:46   pole style movies, James Bond, or Avengers, Star Wars, really, really big movies that I definitely

01:02:54   want to see in a theater. But every time I do, I always think I should come to the movies more

01:03:01   often because it is more immersive and there's a certain. You have to get outside your cerebral

01:03:10   head and just accept the fact that we're not entirely intellectual beings and that there is

01:03:18   something on spiring about seeing a person's face in a close up and knowing that it's 40 feet tall.

01:03:25   Right. Like it, no matter how nice your TV is at home and I splurged and got a forget how big my

01:03:32   LG OLED is, whatever their biggest OLED was three or four years ago. I don't know. It's

01:03:37   very large and I'm very happy with it. But the biggest anything can get is, I don't know,

01:03:43   80 inches. I think it is. That's the biggest anything can possibly get on it is 80 inches,

01:03:47   which isn't that big. Whereas you go to a real movie theater and things look huge because they

01:03:53   are huge. Right. It's actually, if you took a tape measure out, it's measured in yards. It's

01:04:00   dozens of feet big. It's humongous. It's all inspiring. I'll never forget my childhood

01:04:07   canonical moment going to the Star Wars with my dad. And he had no idea what it was. I knew I

01:04:15   wanted to see it. I think he thought it was like flash Gordon from the fifties. And sure. I'll take

01:04:19   my kindergarten kid to the, see the space laser thing. And the movie opens up with the star

01:04:25   destroyer coming over the screen. I remember my dad. I'll never forget it. I vividly remember

01:04:30   that he was to my left. I was to his right and he put his hand on my knee and he just said, wow.

01:04:36   And I was like, my dad's amazed. Right. And I was like, Holy cow, my dad's never amazed by

01:04:42   stuff like this. Cause it was huge. Right. It's just big. And you can see me. I think that you

01:04:49   will be able to simulate that in a headset in a way that it will be. And just think about it.

01:04:54   All of a sudden watching a movie on a plane could actually be one of the best ways to enjoy a movie.

01:05:00   Right. Cause you're going to have an entirely immersive visual experience where it looks

01:05:04   humongous with AirPods or, or I guess I'm presuming that the headset has built in

01:05:10   headphones. It seems to me, if it's $3,000, you shouldn't need to bring your own headphones,

01:05:16   but presumably there'll be AirPods quality in terms of noise cancellation and stuff like that.

01:05:21   You could have like a truly immersive movie watching experience on an airplane,

01:05:26   as opposed to watching it on an iPad or even a phone propped up on the tray in front of your

01:05:33   lap. Right. I mean, which I do. I mean, you got to do something on a plane and the sports thing.

01:05:38   I'm, I'm interested in that too. And, and I don't think it's a coincidence that Apple is obviously

01:05:45   more interested in sports rights than ever before, or it's showing they were fishing around for the

01:05:52   NFL rights, which are the crown jewels here in, in the United States. They've got a second year

01:05:58   of baseball. They've taken the entirety of the MLB or not MLB, the soccer. What's the

01:06:05   song? Yeah. And they're rumored to be discussing the one outstanding college football contract

01:06:11   that's out there. It's a rumor that Apple and Amazon are basically bidding on those now too.

01:06:16   So Apple might be in college football and college sports as well. I think they're experimenting,

01:06:22   but I look at this headset thing and I think, Oh, sports rights make total sense for this.

01:06:26   Cause I think there are, and it's not necessarily just NBA court side kind of stuff,

01:06:32   but it's also just immersive, like best seen in the house where you feel that the speed of that

01:06:37   fastball, or if there's technology that lets you extrapolate like you're out on the field or

01:06:42   whatever. I don't know what else is out there. Apple bought a company that specializes in 360,

01:06:48   I think sports stuff and took them inside several years ago and not never to be seen again, but like,

01:06:54   I think that's clearly part of the strategy. And I don't know, again, some of that's just going to

01:06:58   be super gimmicky, but isn't that to go back to the idea of you got to get it out there,

01:07:02   you got to ship it and see, I think you have five big sports ideas involving the headset.

01:07:07   And if you can find two that work great, drop the other three. But like,

01:07:11   I there's gotta be, I think something out there for that full immersive experience.

01:07:15   I think that would be pretty cool. I was at a briefing last month in New York for

01:07:21   the Friday night baseball. And I guess it's off the record. So I can't, I'm not supposed to say

01:07:27   no Apple says no retribution, but there were men. It was very, it was different. There was one last

01:07:33   year too, but this year was different. I guess because I forget, I don't even know why, but

01:07:38   there were actual members of the broadcast team who were there. Wayne Randazzo, the play by play

01:07:43   guy was there. A couple of people were there and one of the, the new producer who was brought in

01:07:49   after last year, or maybe he was there last year, but I think last year's was not as good as they

01:07:54   wanted it to be because of the lockout before the season started and that they couldn't get started.

01:08:00   But the one thing that knowing that this headset was coming up was when they were talking about

01:08:05   the drone camera that they have that comes out at like between innings and the camera actually gets

01:08:11   like around the pitcher's mound while the pitcher's throwing his last warmup pitches.

01:08:16   And it really is an innovative perspective. I mean, you and I, here we are talking baseball,

01:08:20   but we've been watching baseball on TV for a long time. And while the resolution's gotten better and

01:08:24   the cameras have gotten better, the angles haven't changed, right? It's just higher resolution.

01:08:30   - Center field camera. - Yes, center field camera.

01:08:33   - Maybe there are more cameras now and the slow motion is better and they put on the pitch

01:08:37   tracking and all of that. But yeah, there's that moment where you see that drone shot and you're

01:08:40   like, "Whoa, I've never seen that ballpark from that angle or been right behind the pitcher when

01:08:46   he's warming up." And like, yeah, that's really cool stuff. - Yeah, and it just made me think VR,

01:08:52   right? Like, "Oh, that would be really cool. Like, hey, what do you see before the inning starts?"

01:08:56   And it's like, "Oh, it'd be why?" Like maybe you get to pick. I mean, again, I'm spitballing here.

01:09:03   I have no idea what's technically possible in the near-term future, but you could pick like,

01:09:07   do you wanna be sitting behind home plate? Do you wanna be sitting at third base? I think

01:09:10   baseball in particular could really do well with it because baseball is cinematically a very weird

01:09:18   sport to broadcast because like, all right, let's compare and contrast with the hockey, soccer,

01:09:26   even soccer, but hockey and basketball, like the arena games where you could just have a camera at

01:09:36   halfway on the court or the rink, as it were, in hockey, and it just pans back and forth, right?

01:09:41   And the ball goes over there and then it starts going the other way and the camera pans, and it's

01:09:46   just sort of simulating a seat at halfway and halfway up. Whereas baseball has to cut all the

01:09:55   time, right? The center field camera is showing that from over the, way out in center field,

01:10:01   over the pitcher's shoulder is showing the pitch come in, and then if the batter hits the ball,

01:10:07   they cut to a camera from sort of behind home plate showing the fielders. And if the ball goes

01:10:15   to the outfield and it's a fly ball, then all you see is say the center fielder trying to catch the

01:10:23   ball, but you have no idea what's going on on the bases, right? You can't see any of that. The field

01:10:30   is too big and the ball instantly, unlike any other sport, the ball goes from home plate to 400 feet

01:10:38   away in a second. No other sport is like that. I mean, or team sport that I can think of, even

01:10:45   football just sort of pans back and forth. Those cinematic cuts take you out of it. I find sitting

01:10:52   in a ballpark watching a game so much more immersive. Even though you can't see details

01:10:59   like you can on TV, right? From wherever your seat is in the ballpark, maybe you're out in the

01:11:06   outfield ready to catch a home run ball. Well, you obviously can't see close up details of the batter

01:11:12   at home plate, but you see everything going on. And so like if the batter hits a fly ball to the

01:11:18   outfield, you don't have to wait for him to catch it. You can instantly go and look at the guy at

01:11:24   third base to see if he's going to tag up and run, right? You get to choose. I think that baseball

01:11:31   in particular could do very, very well with VR. I think it could be incredibly immersive and it

01:11:37   really would be suited to it. Is that related to the fact that baseball is one of the first

01:11:43   sports that Apple bid on to get the rights to? I don't know, but I don't think it hurts.

01:11:48   Steve Lipton (01;00;00): I hear what you're saying. I mean,

01:11:50   I like to sit. Most of the tickets I buy tend to be in the upper deck at Oracle Park behind home

01:11:55   plate. And it's a great seat because the view is beautiful. You can see the Bay, you can see all

01:12:01   the way over to Oakland and all of that. But also what you just said, which is when things are in

01:12:06   play, you get to pick out like, "Oh, that's going to be caught because I could see where the

01:12:10   outfielders are running. Now let's look at the infield. Let's look at this guy. Is he going to

01:12:13   tag?" And you are your own director in that scenario. And that's kind of fun. So, although

01:12:19   I, you know, being a courtside at an NBA game too would probably impress upon you the physicality

01:12:24   of the game in a way that the cameras that are up in the rafters or up on the second level don't do.

01:12:31   So there may be some of that too. Like, yeah, I mean sports, it's just a very, anybody who's

01:12:37   attended a sporting event and watched a sporting event on television knows those are both really

01:12:42   different experiences. And probably if VR could give you more of the attendance feeling and that

01:12:51   would be different from just watching it on TV, maybe. I did. I can vouch for this because I

01:12:58   haven't been to an NBA game in quite a few years, but I went to game six of the Sixers Celtics,

01:13:04   in my opinion, ill-fated series with my wife and son. Is that the one where TNT flew the drone

01:13:09   around inside? No, I didn't see it. No, no, no. Game two. They had a drone inside and like it was

01:13:18   flying in front of the cameras. It's like, what are you doing? No, I actually, I know it was on ESPN

01:13:24   because, and I splurged for, I splurged for very good seats, not quite courtside, but very good

01:13:30   near courtside seats. And there was a moment before the game where I honestly thought to

01:13:36   myself, "Hey, that woman looks like Doris Burke. Oh, that's Doris Burke. This game is on ESPN."

01:13:43   Honest to God, almost said to my wife, "That woman looks like Doris Burke."

01:13:48   So how does it feel to be that close instead of watching it on TV, right? Is it a different vibe?

01:13:53   Oh, I've never had such good seats for an NBA game, but I've had them. Well, no, I lie. I did

01:14:01   have similarly good seats years ago. It's immersive. It really is. And the physicality is tremendous.

01:14:08   I've always said, and basketball is the only sport I ever had any real aptitude at as a rec league

01:14:13   type player. And the thing that, the number one thing that I think casual fans don't understand

01:14:23   about top tier basketball, A, probably just how big NBA players are is, I guess, number one.

01:14:33   But number two is how unbelievably good their hands are in terms of catching the ball. Because

01:14:41   I remember when I was in college at Drexel, Drexel's a Division I team, and they were

01:14:46   really good as a second tier Division I team when I was there. They had a player named Malik Rose,

01:14:50   who went on to have an excellent NBA career with the San Antonio Spurs and a couple other teams.

01:14:55   But I think he won some titles with them as sort of a sixth or seventh man. And me and my pals

01:15:02   intermural team, again, I couldn't play Division I basketball, but our intermural team was always

01:15:06   one of the best intermural teams. And in our last two years that I was there, we picked up

01:15:13   players who had used up their eligibility but still hadn't graduated. So we had two years in

01:15:18   a row, we had a Division I player on our team. I could hardly catch the ball when they'd throw it

01:15:25   to me. And then I could see it in their eyes. They just were playing for fun. But they couldn't even

01:15:31   pass the ball to us the way they wanted to because we couldn't catch it. It would break our fingers.

01:15:36   Every single pass in the NBA would break the fingers of most people trying to catch the ball.

01:15:41   It is so hard. And the rebounds, you see it on TV and you just take it for granted. They just

01:15:46   put one hand on it and they own the ball. And when you're close, it's palpable. It is like

01:15:52   the ball. It's like having seats behind home plate and realizing that fastballs from Major League

01:15:57   pitchers actually do whistle as they go through the air. Yeah. So now I'll just point out,

01:16:04   Eddie Q, who's in charge of Apple services, is a veteran courtside NBA watcher as a warrior.

01:16:14   Yes, yes, yes, yes. So he knows it well, right? So I think that there is definitely an informed

01:16:19   perspective about sports inside Apple. And it's not just Eddie, but Eddie's a great example of it.

01:16:24   And he knows what it's like to be their courtside versus watching it on TV. And I think, yeah,

01:16:31   I don't know exactly how they're going to do it, but the potential of my friends who are sports

01:16:35   writers are talking to me because we're like, what is this going to be? And it's something,

01:16:41   it's something probably. All right, let's take a break here and thank our next sponsor. It's

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01:18:08   Before we start running out of time, the other thing I definitely wanted to talk to you about

01:18:18   is the long-awaited announcement that an imminent arrival of actual Pro apps from Apple for iPad.

01:18:26   Final Cut Pro and Logic. Or is it Logic Pro official?

01:18:32   I think it's Logic Pro 2, right? Logic Pro for iPad, Final Cut Pro for iPad.

01:18:36   Right. But we can call them for shorthand Logic and Final Cut.

01:18:39   Now I wanted to have you on, and I equivocated as to whether I should have you on before they

01:18:48   come out or wait until after and get your remarks. But I figured before is better.

01:18:54   And you've got plenty of other podcasts where after they come out, you can give your feelings.

01:19:00   But I love your take on it. And I particularly, because you edit, you don't edit with

01:19:06   Logic on iPad yet because it's not out, but you do use Ferrite, Ferrite Studio.

01:19:12   What's the full recording studio?

01:19:14   Ferrite Recording Studio to edit podcasts on iPad. And the part, I mentioned it when I linked to your

01:19:22   article about it, but the part that really resonated with me was when you were talking

01:19:27   about your efficiency or I'm not prolific.

01:19:32   That's it. Efficiency. The idea that how do you get all those roadblocks out of the way? So you

01:19:37   get kind of pick up speed and you're like, okay, yeah, I'm really moving now. And there are roadblocks

01:19:42   in any user interface. And one of the things about sophisticated and mature software is that they've

01:19:48   been watching their users and they're trying to eliminate those roadblocks because really you

01:19:52   want to end up in this almost like a flow state, right? Where it's like, you just are thinking

01:19:57   about the things you need to do when you're doing the work and the affordances inside the tool

01:20:01   almost like vanish because they're not blocking you. You're just kind of moving through. And

01:20:07   that's the ideal state and good apps have it and bad apps don't. And there's a spectrum there.

01:20:12   And I feel like there were some very specific things I learned about Ferrite. As Ferrite got

01:20:17   developed and as some of them got introduced, that completely changed how I use that product

01:20:24   and got me into that state. And I didn't see any of those in the demos of Final Cut and Logic.

01:20:32   And that's what concerns me is that even if Apple has brought them there and that they're pretty

01:20:36   fully featured, has Apple leaped ahead in terms of all those other kind of like subtle multi-touch

01:20:45   gestures and other kind of gestures that are like the touch equivalent of keyboard shortcuts.

01:20:50   Like there was one demo video where the person keeps reaching up to the play button

01:20:57   and a pause button and then the play button again. Every time they have to go up to the corner and

01:21:02   press play or press pause. And like I used to have to do that in Ferrite and they put in a shortcut

01:21:09   where if you take two fingers and you tap it's play/pause. It's just a tap gesture. And it was

01:21:15   revolutionary, right? So that's the stuff I'm watching for when I'm looking at those apps.

01:21:19   I want to see when I get my hands on them, I really want to see stuff like that. You know,

01:21:23   are there pencil gestures, are there finger gestures, are there multi-touch taps and swipes

01:21:27   and stuff? Or are there still some tasks where you have to go tap and then tap and then tap and then

01:21:33   tap and then tap when what you really want to do is go like triple tap and you're done or two fingers

01:21:39   down and you're done. And I don't know. Yeah, like so did they show the user going up to the corner

01:21:45   to hit play/pause over and over again because that made it obvious what was going on for the demo

01:21:51   video or is it because that's the only way to do it? Because right and right because you don't know

01:21:55   right because I understand that you might as somebody who's trying to make videos showing how

01:21:59   I edit in Ferrite it's I had to mount a camera above my desk so that I could like show my fingers

01:22:05   so you could see what I was doing because it's really hard. And so I don't know whether Apple

01:22:10   was being obvious because they want you to understand how you drive this thing via touch.

01:22:16   Also, you know, one of the great things about the iPad is that there are all those different modes.

01:22:20   There's touch mode and there's pencil mode and there's keyboard mode and there's keyboard and

01:22:24   trackpad mode and they're all different. And Apple's statements about this are very focused on

01:22:30   touch and keyboard. And then there's a little bit of pencil but it's mostly touch and keyboard.

01:22:38   And again, I don't know for sure but I read that as being they had to pick some places to focus

01:22:45   their attention and it may not be as pencil-oriented as one might like. It may not be as

01:22:51   trackpad-oriented as one might like but you got to start somewhere. And I'm actually emotionally

01:22:57   preparing myself for the idea that these are going to be good apps that have some learning to do

01:23:03   about being iPad apps. And again, you have to ship, right? It goes back to the headset talk we had.

01:23:08   Good artists, great artists ship. You have to ship. And so maybe it ships with a minimum viable

01:23:14   product which for Apple is very, very... Apple's minimum viable product is very polished but might

01:23:21   be like you could be very little pencil support or just pencil as finger. And it has to touch support

01:23:28   is something that has to be there on day one. So you couldn't ship them where you have to use the

01:23:32   pencil for precision and you can't edit with your big fat fingertip. So that's the hard part, right?

01:23:39   That's job one.

01:23:40   Right. And that's the part that is fundamentally different from the Mac where there is no big fat

01:23:45   finger on the Mac as everybody knows there's no touchscreens on Macs yet. And that's an all

01:23:51   together new editing interface for both apps. I know exactly what you're talking about though.

01:23:56   And it's the difference between Pro Tools and Consumer Tools or one of them. And some great

01:24:02   consumer tools add stuff like, you know, I think Apple has done a tremendous job as you know,

01:24:09   as the author of a book on it with the Photos app, which is meant for everybody. And I think has

01:24:16   gained a lot of productivity features for going through lots of photos or applying

01:24:21   one of the big features last year was applying the same edits to multiple photos.

01:24:25   Right. A huge time saver. You know, if you want to apply the same thing to 100 photos,

01:24:31   you know, you've just saved from before the feature existed, you've just saved yourself

01:24:35   doing the same thing a hundred times in a row. But Pro apps have so many of those little things.

01:24:42   Right. And it's like when you watch, so I used to be pretty good at Photoshop, but never like a real

01:24:48   Photoshop jockey because I'm not an artist. But like when I've watched really talented,

01:24:56   like pixel art style designers who are just immersed in every single keyboard shortcut

01:25:03   on Photoshop doing their work, it's mesmerizing. But I have no idea what they're doing because I

01:25:10   don't know how it's possible that they're erasing and then they're drawing and they're racing and

01:25:13   drawing. And there never doesn't seem to me like they're switching tools because they're sort of

01:25:18   courting with two hands, one on the mouse and one on the keyboard. And they're going, somebody who

01:25:24   watched me edit text, just watched my screen editing text in BB edit where I am a sort of

01:25:31   pro level user. They would be like, I have no idea how that just happened. Well, how did the,

01:25:36   how did those two words change place? How did the line move up? I don't, I don't understand what

01:25:40   just happened. I'd have to explain it or, or something else. Pro tools are always full of

01:25:47   those things. Cause that's what it means to be a pro is you want to be efficient and you, you want

01:25:52   to get in the zone. And again, it harks back to sports, right? You just, you get in the zone with

01:25:59   this tool that you've mastered or the area of the tool that you've mastered. Right. Cause a lot of

01:26:05   these pro tools are so rich, like for you, for example, you probably, I would guess you're probably

01:26:12   familiar with logic, even though you use ferrite, right? Oh yeah. I mean, I, I think it would be

01:26:17   fair to say that I use logic more than I use ferrite, but, but I, I use it for generally for

01:26:23   slapping things. Cause I'm Mac, I'm Mac primary user. Like I sit at my desk using a Mac and a

01:26:29   lot of the podcast production that I do is production. It's like people send me files

01:26:35   and I trim them and put the music on them and I put them out. Right. Like I'm not doing a detail

01:26:39   edit. The ferrite I'm using for kind of like things where I'm doing a detail edit and I I'm

01:26:45   taking my time and I might be doing it on an airplane or something like that. So it's

01:26:48   different, but I use, I absolutely do use logic and misuse it. I think anybody there, there all

01:26:54   these podcasts that are out there, wherever you've got podcasts, just talking about logic. I guarantee

01:26:58   you all of us are misusing logic because logic is a music tool. It is yes. It's an audio tool,

01:27:03   but logic is a music tool. And from what I've seen of Apple's demo of logic on the iPad,

01:27:11   logic on the iPad is even more so a music tool. So I'm not convinced that any podcaster or radio

01:27:19   journalist is ever going to want to use logic on the iPad. And I can tell you. Ferrite is,

01:27:24   is great. Just use ferrite. It's made for that logic. I don't, I think is going to be for

01:27:29   musicians. So it is what it is. But that's where I'm going with it, where there's you're not

01:27:34   creating orchestral scores. Like when they, Apple has it like when the Mac pro 2019 Mac pro came out

01:27:40   at WWDC and they had the demo across the street and they should thousand. Yeah.

01:27:45   In logic thousand track orchestral score from, from I forget which movie, but you know, some kind of.

01:27:52   Yeah. Michael Giacchino or something. Yeah. It was like a thousand tracks. Yeah. And they said,

01:27:58   and literally it wasn't even possible before they had to Jerry rig it together with like three

01:28:03   separate projects that it sounded like, I can't believe that they made it work. And they had

01:28:08   people real people. They're saying this, yeah, this is a godsend because you can't believe

01:28:12   how we did this before. And you're not using those sorts of features, but I don't think that's

01:28:19   misusing. I think all great tools get used for things they weren't intended for. Exhibit A BB.

01:28:26   And I'll go back to. Rich Segal, the creator of VBA has told this story many times where,

01:28:31   you know, it was created as a programmer's editor for programming languages and just general text

01:28:37   file editing. And they had a plugin interface and the, I forget the guy's name. I think it was Craig

01:28:45   somebody, but he made an HTML plugin for BB edit and it took off and it instantly became the most

01:28:53   popular plugin for BB edit and rich and Patrick at bare bones are like, what's HTML. And all of a

01:28:59   sudden ed and then fast forward 18 months, they, I think they, I think they actually acquired the

01:29:04   plugin and used it, built it in, but all of a sudden people thought BB edit was an HTML editor.

01:29:09   I mean, that's how it was built for, for years and years. That's great tools are like that. I

01:29:14   would say Photoshop. Photoshop it's right there in the name. It was meant for photographic editing,

01:29:20   take this photograph and make it black and white or color tone it or change the saturation. But

01:29:25   then it, it, it became a must use tool by user interface designers creating software. And I know

01:29:33   that Figma and other modern things have sort of taken the crown away from that for pixel perfect

01:29:39   UI design, but probably because it's not the thing that was intended for. Right. But there are

01:29:44   thousands and tens of thousands, I don't know, of user interface designers use Photoshop to make

01:29:50   software user interfaces. It's not meant for that, but it's, it's good for it.

01:29:54   I agree with both sides of that, by the way, that the pro tool, like, again, it's not what's on the

01:29:59   label. It's like medication where they're like the off label uses the medications like that. Like you

01:30:03   build the tool and like use it. However, I built this, I made the screwdriver use it as a doorstop

01:30:08   if you want. Right. Like it's like, whatever you, you can do that. The other side of it is also

01:30:12   being true to yourself. Like photo Photoshop would have not been true to Photoshop. If they had

01:30:18   decided to chase being an app interface designer, right? Like there's only so far you can take it

01:30:23   before you're like, you know what? That's not what this app is for. And you've got to be true

01:30:26   to yourself. And I do, I get the feeling that that's sort of what Apple's message with logic

01:30:31   on the iPad is, is logic on the iPad. You could edit a podcast in it maybe, but like, that's not

01:30:37   what it's for. And to be true to itself, they are going to make more things that involve music

01:30:43   creation and production because that's what it is at its core. Yeah. So why do you think it took so

01:30:50   long? I think this is something that deserves a non-ironic finally. Yeah, hell if I know. I mean,

01:30:56   I think what I wrote in my thing is I'd love to know why now, why now, why now? Because if we do

01:31:02   the math, it's been like eight years ish since the iPad pro came out. Right. And six ish years

01:31:10   since Apple did that event in Brooklyn, where they said the iPad pro, this new iPad pro is faster

01:31:17   than 90% of the PC laptops. They made the direct comparison. And that's when all conversations

01:31:22   about the hardware of the iPad being great and why is the software not there? That's sort of where it

01:31:28   started and amplified by them. Then doing an M one iPad pro and an M two iPad pro. Right now there's

01:31:34   M one is in the mini and it's in the air. And when you've got an M two, you're like, okay,

01:31:39   well, this is obviously the same. I've got, I've got an M two iPad pro and an M two macro gear on

01:31:44   my desk right now. Right? Like they're almost exactly the same computer. I mean, really other

01:31:49   than the software that they're running. And so Apple kept calling it into question, like,

01:31:54   what's this for? And, and when the M two, I was thinking back to it. I actually wrote about this

01:31:59   when I reviewed the M two iPad pro it's like Apple boasted so much about its computing prowess and it

01:32:04   did it by using DaVinci Resolve. And I thought, what does that say that Apple itself has a video

01:32:13   editing product that it's proud of on the Mac and it's never come to the iPad pro. And now they're

01:32:19   very happy that DaVinci Resolve is there, which is great. I mean, it's great that it's there,

01:32:22   but so, so what changed? And I don't have an answer. I mean, I don't, I don't even,

01:32:29   my guess is that it was harder than they expected. And my guess is that they started later than they

01:32:34   thought they were going to, because I don't know. I don't know. That's, that's my best guess is that

01:32:39   they've got teams that work on these things and they were going to look, I don't think

01:32:43   these are ports, right? I think these are maybe using some code, but these feel like they are

01:32:48   reconceived. And maybe the final cut one is based a little bit or the logic one is based a little

01:32:55   bit on GarageBand or something. Cause I think they're related to each other just like GarageBand

01:32:58   on the Mac is like a light version of logic, but like, I think it took more work and that they've

01:33:03   started late and maybe did not have organizational buy-in to devote so much development time to these

01:33:10   iPad versions versus the Mac versions. And then maybe it took longer than they expected because

01:33:16   I can't think of anything that's happened in the last couple of years that would have made them be

01:33:21   like, Oh, now, now we need to do it. It feels more like it. They, they were, and one of them being

01:33:27   ready for M1 and M2 would have been perfect. Right. And they weren't there. So I think maybe

01:33:31   it just took longer than they thought. And it was, and they couldn't get enough organizational sign

01:33:36   off early enough to make it happen sooner. Yeah. I wonder, and I wonder how much of it

01:33:40   is sort of a necessity is the mother of invention and the iPad has always suffered

01:33:49   by not really being necessary. Right. My analogy. And, and as I get older, I realize it's like,

01:33:57   Hey, I'm letting years fly by here. Like the iPad. I mean, it might be fair enough to only

01:34:03   go back to iPad pro, but that's still eight whole years, but the iPad itself is, is 13 years old.

01:34:10   And I just go back to the original Mac, which came out in 1984. And when I got to college in 1991,

01:34:20   the entire publishing industry was entirely on the Macintosh by that time. Like, and so like,

01:34:29   and I remember at the student newspaper at Drexel, the triangle, by the time I started

01:34:35   using and learning Quark express and Photoshop wide, I'd kind of had Photoshop at court.

01:34:40   Quark was what I learned there to do desktop layout by 1992. And I think by that, it was so

01:34:49   established that I remember talking about it with other people at the paper at the time, nobody at

01:34:54   that time had any memory at all, or knowledge of how in the world they put the paper together

01:35:00   before nobody, it, it, nobody knew, like, I don't know, somebody, there was somebody there who had

01:35:07   some vague idea of how they somehow set columns of type and pasted it all together with paper and

01:35:14   glue and stuff. I don't know. Nobody knew it eight years. I mean, fewer than eight years,

01:35:20   because by the time I got there, it was already institutionalized. I don't remember. And I

01:35:26   remember going to print bureaus with zip drives or whatever, or CD drives or whatever else we

01:35:32   had stuff on to get printed. Everything came to the printers on disk in desktop publishing formats,

01:35:39   like within, I would say by the end of the 80s, by 1988 or 89, the entire publishing industry

01:35:47   in four or five years had entirely been turned from an analog physical art to something that

01:35:55   was entirely done on software. And yet here's the iPad at 13, and it's only getting these Pro Tools

01:36:02   now. It's, and I think it's because in the 80s, when the Macintosh was new, and as soon as everyone

01:36:12   realized the potential that, hey, we could write software like PageMaker and Illustrator and

01:36:20   QuarkXPress and Freehand, oh, don't let me forget to mention Freehand, which I always like better

01:36:25   than Illustrator because it actually made sense to me. As soon as people realized they could make

01:36:31   this software and how much more efficient it would make them and how it would enable them to do things

01:36:37   that theretofore couldn't even be done, then that necessity is the mother of invention made it

01:36:46   happen as quickly as possible. The race was on. Whereas with the iPad, that pressure's never been

01:36:51   there because you could just use a Mac. Yeah. I mean, the times that I got most creative with

01:36:57   the iPad were when I decided to travel with just an iPad, not a Mac. And since Apple Silicon,

01:37:01   I've just traveled with an Apple Silicon MacBook Air and it hasn't been a problem. But yeah, I,

01:37:06   look, there's, there's, it's, it feels to me like when you and all those people were called out to

01:37:13   Cupertino to hear that the Mac is going to be fine and that they're going to make a new Mac Pro.

01:37:17   Like something weird went on in the mid 2010s. And I think, and I have some hint that this is true,

01:37:24   but I don't know for sure that there was a moment where everybody at Apple basically said,

01:37:29   the Mac is a legacy platform. It we're going to deprecate it. The iPad is the future. We're going

01:37:34   to replicate all the functionality of the iPad inside the, or of the Mac inside the iPad. And

01:37:41   at some point down the road, there'll be a pro iPad and the iPad will have a mode where it'll be

01:37:45   much more Mac-like. And then, and by the time the Mac is at the end of its life, we are going to,

01:37:50   the iPad will be ready to take its place. And then something happened. And I think it was probably

01:37:56   involving Apple Silicon. They decided to look at using Apple Silicon on the Mac and that what that

01:38:02   gave to the Mac and, and something in there changed. And I feel like when they had that

01:38:06   meeting with you and Pansarino and all those other people, I, that seems from the outside,

01:38:13   I look at that and I think that is the moment where they're saying the Mac is not a legacy

01:38:18   platform anymore. We're not planning on it just staying on Intel and putting a very little into

01:38:23   it and letting it fade away. And they came up with another plan, but in doing so, which I think was

01:38:29   great as a Mac user, I think that's great, but I think in doing so they also made the iPad's path

01:38:37   a big question mark because I think the iPad went from being the future of computing. Cause I do

01:38:43   really believe there was a period where everybody at Apple believed, or at least lots of people at

01:38:47   Apple in charge believe the iPad was the future of computing. And then it wasn't anymore. It was

01:38:52   a product in their lineup for some things, but what exactly? And that leads us to today, right?

01:38:59   Where there's, there's an iPad pro and it's very impressive, but what's it do? And what's it for

01:39:05   in the long run? I think I would not be surprised if we go down the line and there are touchscreen

01:39:13   max and there, and Apple sort of pours everything they learned about touchscreen interfaces from the

01:39:19   iPad into the touchscreen mode on a Mac and that the iPad and Mac actually do kind of come together

01:39:26   a little bit more, not necessarily for like regular iPad users, but like the idea of the

01:39:31   pro use of the iPad becomes something totally different. And they use what they learned in the

01:39:35   iPad, iPad pro, and they put it in the Mac. And now you've got convertible max that are great iPad

01:39:40   pros and they're great max, and they can be either one. And like, that would be an awesome product.

01:39:43   And I think they could probably get there, but it does feel like, and, and these new apps might be

01:39:50   the future of the platform, right? Because Apple is a big company, but like no company is supporting

01:39:57   as many computing platforms as Apple is. And the only way that Apple can do it is by reusing its

01:40:02   tech everywhere. And so I look at the iPad stuff and I'm like, well, they'll probably reuse that on

01:40:07   the Mac, right? At some point, maybe not today, but in five years, maybe they have a unified code

01:40:12   base and it's got a touch version and it also runs on the Mac. And that that is where they are going

01:40:18   with that product. Also, if the headset can run iPad apps means you could edit video and, and maybe

01:40:24   other stuff and audio on the headset too, who knows? Like there's, cause again, it's all about

01:40:30   reusing stuff. So yeah, I don't know. I just, as somebody who really likes the iPad and I use it

01:40:35   for a lot of stuff, but I also love my Mac. It just, it's a, it's always been a little weird

01:40:41   wondering like what Apple actually thinks the iPad is for and where it fits. And, and they're,

01:40:47   they're finding their way again now, but it, something changed and called the whole original

01:40:53   premise into question. I don't think anybody would claim that Apple believes that in 10 years,

01:40:58   the Mac's not going to be around and it's just going to be iPads. Like nobody believes that now.

01:41:02   And I think 10 years ago, 12 years ago, eight years ago, somewhere in there, a lot of people

01:41:07   at Apple thought that was true. That was very well said. I I'll just call back to the last few years

01:41:15   of my on-stage interviews with Craig Federighi after WWDC talking about like catalyst when it

01:41:20   was new talking about catalyst when it was okay. It's a year old talking about. To me, the premiere,

01:41:28   I don't see how it could even be argued that the, the best catalyst app in the world is messages

01:41:36   for Mac, which brought everything over, including Apple script support. I mean, it's, it is,

01:41:42   it's, it's a better Mac app than the previous Mac app was. That's how good it is using catalyst.

01:41:50   But, and again, they're Apple executives never talk too much about process and never talk too

01:41:55   much about or at all about what's going on behind the scenes, but you could read between the lines

01:42:00   and everybody out there knows Federighi as this very personable persona. Who's quite possibly

01:42:09   the most popular, or certainly at WWDC where it's his time to show software, but he he's one of the

01:42:17   faces of the company and a spokesperson for the company. And he's very, very good at it.

01:42:21   And that's, that's not his job. It's just, you know, it's icing on the cake that there's

01:42:26   senior vice president for software engineering is also a handsome and charismatic and beloved

01:42:32   presenter on these things. He, he loves good software. He, he really is. It's not just,

01:42:39   he's interested in code. He's actually very, very highly opinionated about the software itself and

01:42:45   enthusiastic about it. And also though, as I alluded to earlier with the annual schedule that

01:42:52   all of their platforms are on, he's under his leadership. They've gotten very, very organized

01:42:59   and efficient at getting software out the door. And I part of that is things like, okay, they're

01:43:05   not going to have two separate code bases for Apple news, right? It's, it's going to be one

01:43:11   app. It's not worth it. And I honestly, the Mac version of Apple news and stocks and what are the

01:43:20   other podcasts they're, they're not as good as they would be if they were pure app kit apps. That's,

01:43:25   that's undeniable messages is an example that, you know, that, that counters that, but something's

01:43:33   got to give, right? It's not like they've got this excess engineering resources where they could have

01:43:39   all these other teams, right? They're, they're they're peddled to the metal to get what they're

01:43:43   getting out. Not even Microsoft and Google support. Like, I mean, Microsoft has windows,

01:43:49   right? And Google has Android. Apple's got iOS, iPad, iOS, Mac, iOS, TV, the list goes on. The

01:43:56   only way that they can do that is by recycling software. They can't have, and as Mac users,

01:44:01   we all know that message is app was terrible. And it was always years behind iOS and now it's not.

01:44:07   And although it's not the same and like final cut, like, I'm sure there are people out there

01:44:12   who've got to chill who are like, wait a second. I know the new logic does and the new final cut

01:44:18   product pro do more or less everything that the ones on the desktop, not quite, but close,

01:44:22   but like, you're not going to make us use those on the Mac. Are you? And I think the answer

01:44:27   inevitably eventually is probably yes, but not yet.

01:44:33   Trenton Larkin I wonder I, I, I could see that coming

01:44:37   and it would be, so I guess the best example of that where the Mac kind of took a hit was,

01:44:45   and it wasn't to share a code base because it was years and years before catalyst.

01:44:48   But when Apple made the shift from iPhoto to photos, photos for Mac lost a lot of features

01:44:57   that iPhotos, iPhoto had. But what it did was it let you have one shit, one cloud library that was

01:45:06   shared between your devices and everything was there and it was worth it. And then they,

01:45:10   then they caught back up, I guess they're back. The final cut pro 10 was like that too. The

01:45:15   previous final cut pro and famously everybody was furious about it. And they like, they, they got

01:45:20   caught up eventually, but like in the moment they weren't all a hundred percent there, but Apple

01:45:25   felt there was a benefit to, to making that break and to, and to doing something new. And you're

01:45:29   absolutely right. And like, that's why I think the beauty of it is if this is the future of

01:45:34   final cut pro and logic everywhere, the beauty of it is it doesn't have to be on the Mac right now.

01:45:39   Like it's, it is separated by an entire platform so they can iterate and make it better,

01:45:45   but they don't have to like inflict it on Mac users yet. Yeah. I work as another example,

01:45:50   right? There was a big, there was a, Oh yeah. There was a major, major reset for iWork where

01:45:57   they went to, okay, now we've got iOS versions. Right. But, and, and I think more than just shared

01:46:04   code base, it was to be able to round trip the documents. And so all sorts of features that the

01:46:10   document, older document files would support that required underlying macOS technologies that

01:46:17   weren't in iOS were gone. And so from the Mac users perspective and, and the one that really

01:46:23   sucked for me were the, some of the advanced typographic features that pages for Mac had

01:46:29   previously supported because they were all based on the, I don't even know if it's an NS text,

01:46:35   but whatever they're in app kit and they're available for any Mac app kit app to do these

01:46:42   absolutely wonderful top-notch typographic, being able to use open type fonts and access

01:46:48   alternate glyphs, get proper small caps, kerning and stuff like that. All that went away.

01:46:54   And that really was like my pages documents look like garbage now. I mean, because they don't,

01:47:00   I was using all these features, features they caught back up eventually. I think with a pro

01:47:06   app there, or at least this time, as opposed to with the final cut pro to final cut pro X or

01:47:12   whatever the, whatever that transition was where they, they lost features. I guess it seems like

01:47:18   what they're doing, you know, and, and final cut is the better example because you can't round trip

01:47:23   projects with the iPad version. There's obviously some stuff that's going that that's whether it's

01:47:29   in the app itself or whether it's the app using features in Mac OS that aren't in iPad OS yet,

01:47:35   or both. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's both that for now it's two different apps and you can

01:47:41   go from iPad to Mac, but you can't go from Mac to iPad, but you have to start somewhere. And an iPad

01:47:48   version of final cut that you can use is certainly better than not having one at all.

01:47:53   Exactly. All right, let me take a break here and thank our third and final sponsor. And that

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01:50:09   Uh, uh, what else did I, Oh, we got it just a little bit. We got it. We got a

01:50:14   bitch about GM, right? Let's do it. Yeah. Oh, we have to, we have, I it's made me like,

01:50:20   I was just going to write, it's like you, you were telling me earlier. I was just going to write

01:50:27   a link post. I was just going to write a link to the nine to five Mac article and be like, look,

01:50:32   GM did this thing. And then like, then I'm a thousand words deep and I'm like, this is,

01:50:39   this is a whole thing. Like I, it was, don't get me started. Oh, I got started. So I might as well

01:50:45   go. And in the intervening time, it's only become more absurd. This idea that GM is going to

01:50:49   drop CarPlay and Android auto from all of its EVs and make a step two question marks in a picture

01:50:56   of a cloud step three profit, right? Like they're gonna, they're gonna do it somehow. They're gonna

01:51:00   make a lot of money, who knows how, but somehow, and then the, the, the moment that really made me

01:51:07   laugh is when the guy from Ford came out and said, our customers like CarPlay and we dropped the ball

01:51:17   and they're never coming back because everybody loves their smartphones. So we're going to keep

01:51:21   doing it because I can't imagine looking our customers in the eye and saying, good luck,

01:51:28   which was, and he meant F you. And like that, that moment, cause I had that moment of like, am I,

01:51:36   am I crazy here? It's like, it seems like this is a bad move unless literally everybody in the auto

01:51:42   industry does it. And surely somebody is going to say, say, maybe we could differentiate by not

01:51:48   doing what GM is doing. And then you start picking through the numbers as you have done. You've been

01:51:52   doing a lot of math this last week, which is like, can they possibly do what they are claiming they're

01:51:59   going to be able to do in terms of all the money that they're going to make by withholding features

01:52:04   from their customers and then charging them for second tier, second rate versions of those features

01:52:09   on their platform. And the answer is even in the wildest imagination, it doesn't seem like they

01:52:14   could even succeed at it. Yeah. The Ford CEO is a Jim Farley and the interview is with friend of the

01:52:20   show, Joanna Stern, who's just a terrific on-stage interviewer, but I love that interview. And I

01:52:26   wrote, and when I linked to it, I was like, you've got to watch this because it's his laugh that says

01:52:31   more than his words and his words were damning enough. But he, she asks about GM's plan to drop

01:52:38   carplay and he bursts out laughing and goes, yeah, how about that? It's like, can you even

01:52:44   really his laughter says, can you even believe our good luck? Yeah, because for a lot of Ford vehicle

01:52:52   or GM vehicles, like the, the big, the big SUVs and the big pickup trucks, if somebody is going to,

01:52:59   if however many people are going to assuming that this carplay no more car play thing goes through.

01:53:05   And right now they've said it's only for future EVs, but since they've announced the discontinuation

01:53:11   of the bolt, it more or less means all of their EVs, right? All, all cars are going to be EVs. I

01:53:17   mean, I don't know how long that timeline is, but it's new cars. It's probably like in 15 years.

01:53:23   Yeah. And that, that, that, that was sort of transitions often reach a tipping point, right?

01:53:30   And so right now I would say 15 years sounds good, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's more like 10

01:53:36   years because at a certain point it tips and all of a sudden everybody's in a race to get rid of

01:53:40   their gas cars. And they're like, if you want a gas car, seriously, do go, go to this other,

01:53:44   go to some other company. We don't want the inefficiency of having two entirely different

01:53:50   drive trains. If you're going to buy a big Chevy pickup truck and, but you want carplay and net,

01:53:56   you're either going to go to Ford or to, to Dodge. That's it. There aren't any other companies.

01:54:02   Or you'll buy that Chevy truck and you'll be mad and you'll have to buy one of those things

01:54:07   that sits in your cup holder or a suction cup or something to get the carplay that you want. Because

01:54:12   that's the bottom line, right? It's like, this is not, Oh, iPhone users are really mad because

01:54:16   the car, that's not what it is. What it is is that all the smartphone is number one. Like, I mean,

01:54:21   let's just any, any business who thinks that their cockamamie tech product is supreme over the

01:54:28   smartphone is a business that you should run away from. Right. Because people love their smartphones.

01:54:33   Smartphone is the greatest product thus far invented, right? Like in the 21st century,

01:54:38   everybody loves it. Our lives are on it to say, I know your lives. I know all your music and

01:54:46   podcasts is on your phone, but when you get in your car, don't use your phone or use it

01:54:51   using Bluetooth, which is like a real, let them eat cake kind of moment. The level of delusion

01:54:56   that you have to have to believe that you're going to force people to take their beloved thing and

01:55:03   subsume it in your, even if it's good to start, right. It's going to car companies don't update

01:55:08   their software. It's going to be kind of second rate and it's not going to be compatible with

01:55:12   all your stuff. And you it's, I've got my phone right here. I bought a new one. It's got the

01:55:16   latest software after a couple of years, it's going to be even more difficult to make that

01:55:21   that comparison. So I get the ego of like, no, no, we want to own that customer and we want to

01:55:26   sell them on stuff. Like Farley said from Ford, the truth is there is, he was, he did not sound

01:55:32   delusional. He's like, look, when we're doing partial autonomy, when we're doing navigation,

01:55:37   there are lots of things where, cause the EV, it knows your battery state. It knows where all the

01:55:41   chargers are. It's probably tied into the charger network in ways that maybe your phone isn't.

01:55:46   Certainly it's charged. It knows it's battery state and your phone doesn't. Right. So there's

01:55:50   like lots of value in an EV doing things like that or, or lane keeping or changing lanes or

01:55:57   limited self-driving functionality. Of course your car is going to do that part, but like the

01:56:01   entertainment part Farley was like, do we really like, do we really need to be that? And I think

01:56:06   the answer is clearly no. And so I like that he's that, that sane about it. I did hear. So there's a

01:56:12   guy who listens to all our podcasts, who's a car expert. His name is Sam Abu El-Samed. I had him on

01:56:18   upgrade last summer and he wrote to me when this was going on and something, he said that I think

01:56:23   not enough people know. So Farley re-org'd Ford into two parts, their internal combustion vehicle

01:56:29   part and their EV part. And the leader of the EV part of Ford is Doug field, who used to work at

01:56:36   Apple and previously used to work at Tesla. And as Sam wrote to me, Doug is very unlikely to ditch

01:56:44   car play. It's like, I, and, and he goes on to say, and I agree, like, I like that automakers

01:56:52   are going to get subscription revenue for stuff. It's going to happen. It's inevitable, but like

01:56:56   where you draw the line is sort of like in the car versus the stuff you bring with you that you

01:57:01   carry with you all the time. And GM wants to erect a barrier and say, when you get in the car, forget

01:57:05   you even have a smartphone. And that seems delusional to me. So good luck to them. I, I

01:57:12   wonder what, what are the odds that they're going to rethink it? I think they're going to rethink

01:57:16   it. And I think the major reason they're going to rethink it is that they don't really have a direct

01:57:21   relationship with their customers. They, they deal with dealers and the dealers deal with customers.

01:57:26   And I honestly think the U S I think, I guess our Congress has higher priorities and there's a lot

01:57:33   of issues in the world, but it's, it's a, to me, the laws that keep the big three automakers from

01:57:39   owning their own dealerships are antiquated, you know, and it's a whole regulatory thing from the

01:57:44   20th century. But do the dealers feel like when they're like, GM's like, Oh, we're going to make

01:57:49   so much money on subscriptions. And the dealers like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, I have hands off our

01:57:53   customer. I haven't bought a new car in a long time, very long time, but I I've heard, cause

01:57:58   I've been harping on it on daring fireball. I keep hearing, I've heard from readers over and over and

01:58:03   over and over and over again, that when they've bought cars recently, they take out their phone.

01:58:09   And as soon as they take it out, the, the, the sales person says, Oh, let me show you how to

01:58:13   hook up carplay. They know that it's important. They know it is Apple. Apple said last year at

01:58:19   the BWD see that 79% of car buyers, new car buyers in the U S want carplay 70, not 79% of iPhone

01:58:27   owners buying new cars. 79% of all people buying cars want carplay because new car buyers are

01:58:34   disproportionately iPhone owners and they want carplay and people who own Android, whether it's

01:58:40   because they don't care about nice things or they're frugal or they just have a lower budget

01:58:45   are more likely to be in the used car market. But I'll bet most, I'll bet Android owners,

01:58:51   people who do own Android phones want Android auto support. Absolutely. So,

01:58:56   and you're right. The people, the salespeople in the dealerships know that they know it. Maybe

01:59:02   Mary, Mary Barra doesn't know that, but the dealers and their salespeople know exactly what closes the

01:59:07   deal on a car and carplay is part of it. And they're cockamamie. Oh, it's like carplay,

01:59:12   but it doesn't, does it have my, Oh, it doesn't have overcast, but you or, or pocket cast,

01:59:16   but you could just use the Ford or the Google podcast, whatever. And you're like, what are

01:59:22   you talking about? Like, goodbye. Get, get, get out of here. Forget it. There's, I haven't listened

01:59:27   to it yet, but I am just making a note right here. You, Jason, you can watch on video. You can see me

01:59:32   writing it down. There's apparently a, this American life episode from a couple of years ago

01:59:36   where it was sort of like a documentary, look at a car dealership somewhere in like long Island or

01:59:40   something. And apparently it's, it's so profane that they're like the version you can download

01:59:44   has all the swear words, but the one they, the one they broadcast hasn't bleeped out. And Ira Glass

01:59:49   says, you should really, if you, if you don't mind, you should really listen to the swear word

01:59:53   one. But it just, but the thing everybody kind of knows is as a, as a, as a consumer, you know,

01:59:58   that car salesmen have a rip. It's almost a notorious occupation where you come in and they

02:00:03   give you the hard sell. Right. And they're trying to upgrade you to things you don't want and they

02:00:07   don't want you to leave the lot without making a purchase. But it's a high pressure job because

02:00:12   it's all commission. Right. It's not like, again, no, no, no slight to people who work behind the

02:00:20   counter at a coffee shop, but it's like at a coffee shop, if you come in, you know, and you say,

02:00:26   I would like a cold brew and they're like, ah, we're out of cold brew today. What else can I get

02:00:31   you? And you're like, ah, you know what? I'm just going to get nothing. They don't really care.

02:00:34   That's fine. If you walk out and go down the street to the next coffee shop, cause you really

02:00:38   want a cold brew. Whereas a car sales person really wants you to buy a goddamn car because

02:00:43   that's their income depends on it. And if there's a top feature that GM no longer has that every,

02:00:53   every other car maker has GM's going to hear it. So I think it may be that we're wasting time

02:00:58   talking about this cause they're going to, they're going to rescind it. But on the other hand,

02:01:02   maybe it's too late. They've already made this higher. They've hired Mike Abbott

02:01:07   away from Apple. He was, he was in any, any queues, a lot of services division.

02:01:13   Yeah. There's a lot of cars out there that use Android automotive now and they support

02:01:16   CarPlay and Android. Oh, so it's, it's, it's not a fait accompli, right? They, they, they can not

02:01:22   lock out Android auto and CarPlay and be fine. Right. Other than the fact that like, one of the

02:01:28   notes that I made when I was writing about this is that GM has been an innovator in getting ongoing

02:01:34   revenue out of their customers. They invented OnStar, which is a service where you pay.

02:01:39   I recently visited my mom and we were going through her credit card bills and she was paying

02:01:45   like $40, I don't know, a month, a quarter, whatever for OnStar, which is literally like

02:01:50   a cell modem in your car that you people can call the car and you can, it's like a GPS log of where

02:01:59   the car is. And like, it's basically a technology that I think has been completely subsumed by

02:02:06   having a cell phone, but, or a watch or a watch at this point. Yeah. I mean, really.

02:02:12   And so we canceled it. And, but, but like how much that car, my mom and dad bought that car,

02:02:20   like it's like 12 years old. Like they have been paying after the trial for OnStar and Sirius XM.

02:02:27   And I'm sure that GM gets a portion of that too for years after they bought the car. And like,

02:02:33   that is sweet, sweet post purchase revenue. And I get it like, so they are experts in that.

02:02:40   I just think they overstepped here. Right. I still think honestly, look, you look at these smart EVs

02:02:46   that are out there now having a connectivity package and charging people for it kind of does

02:02:51   make sense because it does allow you to do things like use their app to start the air conditioner,

02:02:56   like EVs, you don't have to turn over the internal combustion engine to pre-cool the car or to leave

02:03:02   it cool with your dog inside. Like Tesla's got a dog mode. And so you can have this fancy app.

02:03:07   It talks to your car because you're paying for the connectivity feature. That's the modem in the car

02:03:12   that is on the cellular network. Like there are ways they charging for like Tesla charges for

02:03:18   it's self-driving computer. It's in every Tesla, but they charge to turn it on and it's like

02:03:23   12,000 bucks. Like there are lots of ways that we might look at and say they're kind of shady,

02:03:30   but like arguably are part of the post purchase feature set of a car, but erecting the wall on

02:03:37   CarPlay and being like, no, no, no, no, no, you can't play your podcasts other than through Bluetooth.

02:03:42   That's the part where I think they just overstepped. I think they may wave at and

02:03:46   realize that they can still make a lot of money in their car without turning off all the people

02:03:50   who have iPhones. Yeah. From my notes here, I wrote spreadsheet should model the strategy,

02:03:55   not vice versa. And by that, right. And that's what this reeks of to me. And I called him Kendall

02:04:01   Kendall Roy numbers. I'm a fan. I don't know if you watch succession, but it's a Kendall

02:04:05   Roy is a character on this show succession who's who just comes up with ideas like, well,

02:04:11   maybe we could double double the revenue from our cruise ship business. And somebody's like,

02:04:16   where did that come from? Yeah. And he's like, well, well, if we did, and then he plugs it into

02:04:19   a spreadsheet and it's like, well, now the numbers look good and it's like, yeah, but to me, this is

02:04:24   somebody who plugged some numbers into an Excel spreadsheet and said, well, if we did this and

02:04:30   this many people sign up for it, we'll make $20 billion a year in revenue. And Mary Barra,

02:04:35   the GM CEO is like, that sounds great. I would love to have that. And it's like, yeah, but that's

02:04:39   not going to happen. The thing that I feel like is that it is very good to have a hardware business

02:04:47   and a sustainable one. And the car makers have been here for a century and I think are going to

02:04:53   be here for a while to come. They're selling 30, 40, 50, 60, $70,000 hardware devices, right? Don't

02:05:03   think of it as cars. They're the most expensive things people buy other than their house. They're

02:05:08   more expensive than anything Apple sells. And Apple's known for selling very expensive stuff.

02:05:12   I guess you can configure a Mac Pro that's in the car range, but for the most part, they sell the

02:05:17   most expensive things people buy other than their houses. There is plenty of money to be made, right?

02:05:24   You don't have to. And so if you want to sell services, have them tied to your hardware features.

02:05:30   GM does sell access to their, they call it cruise, which is their semi-autonomous thing.

02:05:35   That's something Apple, your phone can't do. Your phone can't drive your car for you.

02:05:39   BMW infamously has started charging subscription money to get the seat warmers to work.

02:05:47   That's BMW's right, but that's their seats. They can design the seats that work that way.

02:05:52   If it's...

02:05:53   Yeah, I think they just recently, they did the thing where they're like, well,

02:05:56   we're going to give you our navigation system for eight years, but after that,

02:05:58   it requires so much updating and we're not going to, if you're not paying us,

02:06:01   we're not going to do it. And like, after like, okay. Like, yeah, I, I think there are gradations

02:06:08   of like, it's outrageous that it's just a seat warmer and you're going to make me pay a

02:06:12   subscription to use it. But at the same time, like everybody makes their buying decisions. I do think

02:06:16   that there are places where it's reasonable, right? Like there are places to make money, but,

02:06:21   but there are also places where it's not part of the integral car experience. And I think that's

02:06:25   where they overstepped, right? I think they stepped in it when they were, when they're like,

02:06:28   no, no, no, look in the end, this is all about their hubris because they are jealous of how

02:06:34   attached people are to their smartphones and in their cars. And they don't like that their second

02:06:40   fiddle to the smartphone in the car. I get why they don't like it, but that's what their customers

02:06:46   want. And there's no way. There's no way a car can ever be in first place, unless you're like

02:06:53   a driver, unless you're like a Lyft driver or a trucker or something like we all leave our cars

02:07:00   and our phone is with us when we're outside of our cars too, the car will never be in first position.

02:07:06   And I know that burns car makers, but like, it's the truth. So you just got to get over it and say,

02:07:11   okay, Apple and Google have that part, but we've got all the rest. And there's plenty of

02:07:16   opportunity there. Yeah. And I, and there's a hundred little things, you know what I mean?

02:07:20   Like the way, and again, it could make a multi-user system. My wife and I have two

02:07:24   different seat positions in our car and it remembers it, but it's like, it, I would guess

02:07:31   a majority of cars or close to it are shared by multiple people in a, in a household. And

02:07:38   just having one spouse's stuff on the dashboard when they're driving and the others, when they're

02:07:44   driving, you don't even have to worry about it. If you just defer it to the phone and I, again, I'll

02:07:50   stop and cut it off, but I thought that Farley's comment that we lost this a decade ago, it was so

02:07:56   refreshingly Frank. I honestly, I don't invest in individual companies, but his comments were so

02:08:02   Frank fresh and direct and his laugh. I was like, man, if I was going to invest in a car company,

02:08:07   I'd put some money in Ford because this guy seems to know what the hell he's doing.

02:08:11   He's his focus is on what Ford can do well. And he's like, yeah, that would be nice,

02:08:16   but we lost that a decade ago. So why worry about it? The act of splitting the company in two,

02:08:21   I think is arguably a, a brilliant move because everybody's got their own motivations, right?

02:08:26   Everybody's got their own, like their numbers to hit and they're all of that. And I think he

02:08:31   identified that the job of the people making EVs, they are prioritizing totally different things

02:08:38   than the people who are doing internal combustion vehicles. And that if you merge them together

02:08:43   right now, the internal combustion is always going to win because that's the bulk of the business

02:08:49   today. And you're never going to get to the future. And if you believe that the future is EVs,

02:08:55   you gotta let your EV business chart its own course in a way that's smart. And so for him

02:09:01   to sort of say, look, these two businesses are kind of opposed and we need to let them kind of

02:09:06   make the right decisions for them. That also seems really smart. He seems like a really,

02:09:11   really smart guy. So I hope it goes well. I also talk about the opportunity here. You said,

02:09:18   I said 15 years and you're like, maybe sooner. I do think that that's some of this is sort of like

02:09:22   with a tenor of panic about it, not panic that they're going to go out of business, but panic

02:09:28   that they got to make decisions now that they're going to have to live with

02:09:30   during the inevitable EV sales boom that is to come. Right? Like we only get one chance

02:09:38   for that moment where everybody starts buying EVs and stops buying gas cars. And you better have the

02:09:43   right business model when you get there, because you're going to be living that down for the next

02:09:47   20 years. Yep. All right, Jason, thank you. I love this too, because I get to say I'll see you soon.

02:09:53   And it's not just looking at you over a little, a little web window here. I'll actually get to

02:09:59   see you in person. I look forward to it. Everybody of course can read your excellent work at

02:10:04   six colors.com. And as I always like to say, you can spell colors, however you feel suited to,

02:10:11   but you can put a U in there and it'll redirect. That was a lot cheaper. That domain was a lot

02:10:15   cheaper to buy than the one that spells it the American way. Let me tell you numerous podcasts,

02:10:20   including upgrade where I was recently. Yeah. Which was a lot of fun. Yeah. It was great having

02:10:27   you on there. Yeah. That's the, for listeners of the talk show. That's probably the most appropriate

02:10:32   similar podcast. If you like this show and you're not listening to upgrade, you're missing out.

02:10:37   That's I'll just say that. And of course, everything at the incomparable network,

02:10:41   et cetera, et cetera. I will thank our sponsors, our good friends at Squarespace, where you can

02:10:46   build your own website and collide, which is a cross platform ed point security solution for

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02:10:58   your computer's data astonishingly easy and reliable. Thank you, Jason. See you soon.