0:00:00every tweet everything and then let's get going to nobody gets boring leads I
0:00:04think we lost that battle so what we're talking about this week so what we
0:00:09talked about well this was a big week and first and foremost wbez tickets
0:00:16happened they did that was interesting
0:00:20nothing like we predict that all wrong is right I know about but I remember
0:00:29what I said what I said last time I think I said no we're gonna taken I did
0:00:32so I was right when I just lights I saw it going very differently in my head I
0:00:43mean I knew it would be quick but I think I saw someone who kind of someone
0:00:48who had the source that cannot be named that said it was 71 seconds
0:00:52yeah like somebody gets had dinner with somebody who would know and and they
0:00:57said it was something like that yeah that seems reasonable to me based on
0:01:02what I saw that that seems right and that's just that's insane so my question
0:01:07to questions really to you guys are two part question is one as but has has been
0:01:13talked about in our little circle of life
0:01:15ad nauseam is the sustainable and to give a crap anyway that's I don't like
0:01:25that whole line of reasoning doesn't make any sense to me if people are angry
0:01:30about how things went they decide that it has to be some kind of neglect or
0:01:35malicious neglect on the part of the personified entity that is this company
0:01:39that somehow they don't care they care I think it's almost everyone who has a
0:01:47blog and likes Apple stuff in the last week has written something about the BBC
0:01:52and ideas on you know how it could be fixed whether it needs to be fixed or
0:01:57you know what this means and in the universe and you know my position is
0:02:01basically that basically agreeing with Johnny and you know junior this great
0:02:05thing about the lottery how you know it basically is it has become a de facto
0:02:10lottery even though it technically isn't one
0:02:13because even if you were there in the very first minute it was pretty random
0:02:18whether or not you gotta take it because there are so many server errors and
0:02:21everybody everybody slammed the server even from the very first few seconds so
0:02:25you know it is a lottery now and this is kinda isn't isn't that the same way that
0:02:31Google i/o goes generally where there is something we're going to take it but it
0:02:36goes fast yeah I think it's I think it's similar in that like you know it's it's
0:02:39basically randomly whoever gets the first five thousand database connections
0:02:43get it or something like that there's no point in that because if there's nothing
0:02:48you can do to increase your odds than it does lottery I mean you could say like
0:02:53there's something you can do to make sure that you have non-zero odds but you
0:02:58can't do anything to increase them because it's just the luck of the draw
0:03:00what I'll hit on the database you happen to get when when you're CDN refreshes to
0:03:06have the new contest like it there is really nothing you can do is decide
0:03:11dander and entering means basically being paranoid for months and then being
0:03:16relieved when you find out it's going to be pre-announced and then sitting there
0:03:19in your computer with hopefully a synchronized clock and reloading the
0:03:22page a bazillion times that all that annoying effort is essentially you
0:03:26putting your little take it into the box and everything that happens after that
0:03:29is out of your control so it's it's a lottery it into the worlds most annoying
0:03:33lottery because it was a regular lottery that is said three months ahead of time
0:03:37put your name in this box if you interested in WC then you'd like I did
0:03:41that and then there'd be no more likely be wondering if you got it but you
0:03:44wouldn't have to be sleeping with your phone next to you on loud for months at
0:03:48a time and signing up for learning services and saying their computer
0:03:52reload like none of that would be required at all just pointless dress for
0:03:56the people involved right so I mean at that point why not just make it an
0:04:01honest-to-goodness regular lottery we're used to say hey for this week will sign
0:04:05for this day we're gonna sign you up and then two days later we'll draw out of a
0:04:08hat and I mean I don't know it just it seems like it seems like what we've got
0:04:14isn't right and maybe that's just because all of the people who didn't get
0:04:18to take it
0:04:18have launched onto the internet like Marco said and complained about it but
0:04:23it just doesn't feel right to me and in one thing I read was dan Provost who is
0:04:29co-founder studio need to make like a cosmonaut neglect and other cool things
0:04:33like that he had an interesting post which has put the chat about how you
0:04:38could do kind of a half lottery have merit system this is this I believe he'd
0:04:42he'd based on your post John where he had said how about you the details cuz I
0:04:46read it a few days ago but he said something like hey 44 some marathon
0:04:49meeting in New York Marathon you get preference based on seniority sympathy
0:04:54the elite legwork for charity and so he said hey what if we do that from WTC
0:05:00where you know and his examples where seniority if you attended the past 10 W
0:05:05deed WWDC is then you'll more than likely get a ticket or maybe maybe not
0:05:09guaranteed to get a ticket or sympathy if you lose the lottery for three
0:05:13consecutive years well womp womp will give you a ticket or delete her leg
0:05:17worth charity you know there's many ways in which you could say hey you apply if
0:05:22you're one of the hundred or thousand people that apply to these categories
0:05:26will give you a ticket but everyone else your gonna regular lottery tough
0:05:31nobody's and I don't know that that's right but I thought it was a very
0:05:34interesting kind of halfway to do it because a lot of problems with that
0:05:38person is not that it increases your odds if you fill those things like it
0:05:43was the group into guaranteed a non-guaranteed guaranteed to be able to
0:05:46got tickets a non-guaranteed role play a lottery right the problem with not the
0:05:51specifics of that but for the problem with having any type of things that
0:05:54human beings can do to guarantee a ticket is that all you're doing is
0:05:58shoving your show him the race into another realm and just you know twenty
0:06:03thousand people would do everything it takes to be guaranteed and then it would
0:06:06be like ok well to be guaranteed you have to climb Mount Everest and save a
0:06:09child from a burning building and you're just getting you know like I have no
0:06:12doubt that all those people who are sitting there hitting reload would do
0:06:16the things required to be guaranteed and it if you if you oversubscribed the
0:06:20quote-unquote guaranteed pulling you back to the same stupid problem that
0:06:23that's the problem I see is like you know the the marathon I guess
0:06:27helps a little bit because inherently difficult thing to do so some of the
0:06:30guarantee is it like to run a whole bunch of marathons and that's
0:06:35maybe that was the actual requirements began diva WBC taking over the run three
0:06:39marathons in here
0:06:40certified like it's not going to make any sense if if the things I tried to
0:06:47imagine what those things could possibly be I think the punishment as well like
0:06:51what could the criteria before be getting guaranteed ticket if they're
0:06:55physically possible people do them because there's not much to me and I
0:06:58think well I think you know it's it's worth asking you know we like a lot of
0:07:04these a lot of these systems to try to prioritize people are give certain
0:07:07people an easier time getting tickets
0:07:10a lot of them have assumed that like loyalty is one of the big factors that
0:07:13matters like if you've got the seniority X past ones and you go into ticket now
0:07:18whatever it is that kind of counter to the BBC and and what it's for in Apple's
0:07:24mind I mean like Apple loves having a very high percentage of first timers
0:07:28there is that really shows they're bringing new people into the ecosystem
0:07:31their training new people you know there is some repetition between consecutive
0:07:36years of the reduc- and so you know a lot of people even before this crazy
0:07:41sell out a lot of people who I rear who I am friends with for saying that they
0:07:46only buy ticket like every other year because the repetition just isn't this
0:07:50doesn't make it worth for them and travels perspective they want as many
0:07:54people as possible to have experienced WBC so that they become better
0:07:59developers and become more you know I guess more loyal or or more likely to do
0:08:04things Apple's preferred ways so Apple really doesn't want a bunch of repeat
0:08:10visitors and so it's been you know we've we've had all the all the years up till
0:08:15now or you know not including this year the previous use up till up to last year
0:08:19if you really cared a whole lot about getting a ticket you could get one every
0:08:22single year and that's why you have people who have been there for ten years
0:08:25or more in a row but now you know maybe that's over maybe that's over now
0:08:31like maybe maybe the idea and I would say probably definitely it's over now
0:08:35that the idea that if you just really wanna take it very badly that you pretty
0:08:39much get one that's over and it's probably never coming back
0:08:44and you know maybe that's a problem Apple doesn't want to solve those
0:08:50conditions even if there weren't enough like like I said they would be there be
0:08:53enough people willing to do whatever it takes to be guaranteed you back to the
0:08:56same problem that's not true assume that you really you really did come up with
0:08:59some kind of criteria that would not be oversubscribed then it's a question of
0:09:04what what do you pick what what conditions do you set for the people to
0:09:09be there and like you said it's not at all clear like if you ask if you ask
0:09:13each individual possible ten day they'll have like I think it should be people
0:09:16who have been loyal and have been there many years or whatever cuz they should
0:09:19be aware of his loyalty and an apple might say but we want fresh blood of his
0:09:23own people who haven't seen these things before and you know there's a whole
0:09:26bunch of different constituencies who want different things about out of the
0:09:29attendees sin' ultimately Apple would be the one to set these rules and I'm
0:09:34pretty sure the rules that they would pick would not make the people who are
0:09:37complaining about not getting tickets happy because those are mostly you know
0:09:41the people who have been there year after year and and you know Apple would
0:09:44be ruining their there you know old boys club or whatever just like we see the
0:09:48same people every single year I think it's a moot point though because I think
0:09:51there are no conditions that could possibly set that would not be
0:09:56oversubscribed the only the only way out of this I can see for the people who
0:09:58want to see all their friends at the same time every year in san Francisco is
0:10:02what kind of been happening with the alternative conference taking place
0:10:06alongside WNBC so everybody go out there obviously the the hotels can probably
0:10:11hold everyone right so ever go out there what every week WBC is announced and
0:10:17attend whatever conference you want which may be W ABC or maybe something
0:10:20else and see all your friends at night and there's nothing Apple can't stop you
0:10:24from you and a bunch of people you know all going to the same city for the same
0:10:27week and hang out at night going to bars you can still have that part of you just
0:10:32can't have the part where you're all the same conference call if there's 20,000
0:10:35of you and it only holds five thousand
0:10:37I think market you to some interesting point a minute ago which is WDC kind of
0:10:43how is to head in the sense that I mean part of it is evangelizing the platform
0:10:48and by that I mean grabbing new people in in and encouraging people who are new
0:10:53to the platform and then part of it is just the general knowledge transfer of
0:10:57skiers best practices here's what's new and and it's hard to serve both of those
0:11:03audiences well in general doubly so when you only have what is it like 5000 5500
0:11:08tickets and so I just I don't know I don't know where they can go from here
0:11:13but I think making WWDC bigger is probably not the answer and I think like
0:11:18jon said i mean maybe it's just that the alternative things take over i mean I
0:11:23know the three of us were pretty much bent on being there no matter wat and
0:11:29that's what's happening we're all gonna be there so I know it's just it's hard I
0:11:33know where to go from here
0:11:35that's a really good question I don't know either i mean i i don't you know a
0:11:41lot all the suggestions of scaling up the conference and adding capacity you
0:11:46know renting out the other moscow news and everything all the suggestions that
0:11:50they would ruin it and you know I think there's gonna be a whole lot of people
0:11:55who you know just go out there and and tried to alternative conferences
0:12:01themselves and everything but I I don't really see that no I mean I guess I
0:12:07guess we'll see this year but I don't really see that catching on I don't know
0:12:11how it could catch on I just i don't i don't think it's gonna reach critical
0:12:16mass I don't I don't think enough people out there with us and so I don't know
0:12:21but we'll see I think I mean I don't there's no solution to make WC what it
0:12:26was before but there is i think a solution to the overarching problem
0:12:30which is like how do you solve the demand for WBC aside from the obvious
0:12:34raising ticket prices a lot of which will make anybody happy birthday with
0:12:38somebody knows the ticket plenty of time to get tickets now is that Apple need to
0:12:43communicate more with the developer community throughout the year in some
0:12:48way of it at least approximates the fashion that they communicated W ABC
0:12:52because what happens W W C's you have a chance to do
0:12:55in person obviously they can only seem like that Allah Tech Talks help informal
0:13:00direct human communication on corporate communication not communicating through
0:13:04official channels in written form with DTS not burning one of your support
0:13:08tickets not talking to the App Review Board not communicating through button
0:13:13presses in iTunes Connect you all these other ways the developers have to like
0:13:16screaming to the void throw their bugs into the black hole that is radar web
0:13:22and the whole nine yards
0:13:23Apple developers crave like human contact and if Apple can give
0:13:29communicate more like with human beings during the year in a way that satisfy
0:13:34some of that bitch like so you've got some thorny technical problem let there
0:13:38be some chance in hell that you're going to be able to get the type of support
0:13:42you can get in WC lab talk to an actual human and informal way I mean I reckon
0:13:48slabs are formal too but just like that's the reason people are dying to go
0:13:50to WABC because at 11 15 mins change they have pace with the whole trip and
0:13:56if Apple was not so you have to be super duper like engage with the community and
0:14:02be something that they're not they can still be applet they've they're too far
0:14:06in the other direction of being we don't talk to you at all for WEC and that's
0:14:09your one chance to come in contact with the insides of apple and that's why
0:14:14everyone needs to be there and wants to be there we've got you know if they were
0:14:18just a little bit more open as a company and their communications but developers
0:14:23a little bit less rigid I think of that the only thing you can do to tamp down
0:14:26the incredible demand for WWDC yeah it's tough because it's a yes I do you like
0:14:34you said stay a state-appointed a secretive without a bug but while doing
0:14:39something more than to be with you see in the other tech stocks go this year I
0:14:42didn't go to any last year you guys did neither did you I couldn't have been
0:14:46detected before and they really are useful first of all have a couple things
0:14:50over WC one
0:14:51they're more likely to be close to you wherever you happen to live because they
0:14:55have them they come to you more or less I mean you know it's closer than San
0:15:00Francisco you know what we have done different continents them in different
0:15:03coasts and two is the one I went to was free for registered developers whole
0:15:07thing is that still the case it was free for like if you pay the $500 Select
0:15:11program or whatever I don't know if the end of free but I assume they're not
0:15:15$1,600 but they were really like a miniature WABC and you've got to talk to
0:15:21a smaller subset of the people but it was usually like you know they will have
0:15:28the head of graphics and imaging instead of the head of graphics imaging plus
0:15:32five engineering graphics and imaging so you don't get to talk to the bigwig
0:15:37maybe not the other people may be one of those people who is the person who
0:15:40implemented the particular AP idea dealing with no well but it's better
0:15:43than nothing I went to one two or three years ago when they had three years ago
0:15:50the Kings New York and late last night I couldn't get in because to fast but and
0:15:55now people are setting up alert systems for the tech talk of various but I went
0:16:02to the one in New York like three years ago and it was really good and it was it
0:16:07was exactly like a legal one day
0:16:10WBC light and it was free and there were a few hundred people there and it was it
0:16:16was really really good but they mean that doing those Tech Talks is a huge
0:16:22drain on their evangelism team on the engineers who have to go with them and
0:16:26if we could tell at last year's one it was just the evangelism team that did
0:16:32the majority of it was just tons and tons and tons of work and burn them out
0:16:35like crazy and so I don't really see Apple doing those much more frequently
0:16:42maybe they'll do it every year downside of just every few years but even that
0:16:47doesn't really solve the problem that they're on they're going around two
0:16:50smaller places doing this mark conference for less time serving a few
0:16:54hundred people in each place i mean it doesn't really there was a problem I
0:17:00feel like it also ties up disproportionately ties up a small group
0:17:04above important people at Applebees the crew that does the TAC talks is like the
0:17:08like the developer evangelism team plus some key people from you know who do the
0:17:13presentations for each section of like it's unfair to lean on that group and
0:17:18have them toward the world like that because frankly their job like if you
0:17:21really want to scale that up you're taking these important people and making
0:17:25them not be able to do with your other job because their spending you know
0:17:28weeks or months out of the year traveling the world and giving
0:17:32presentations like I think this was in those three see lottery argyll
0:17:38think you have to you have to scale the organization you have to decide that one
0:17:42of the important things that leads to do is communicate with developers and
0:17:46previously we accomplished that goal by really dedicated the company to this one
0:17:49week conference and I was getting the job done now it's not anymore because
0:17:52it's just too many developers so we need to adjust our organization to have more
0:17:58people dedicated to just education in evangelism and more people who part of
0:18:03their time is dedicated to that which just means basically any more people
0:18:06bottom line like and if you decide that's important to the company you can
0:18:09hire for it you can hire people who want to just be like evangelists and
0:18:15technical you know face of the company type people who are also could be
0:18:18programs we don't want to be hired people who are ok with spending a week
0:18:23or two weeks out of the year during this part of you know during WBC title type
0:18:27activities and the rest of the year as a developer and then stop the people who
0:18:31are basically developers all year except for the one WWC week like you just if
0:18:36it's important to the company had to step forward and it seems like what
0:18:38they've been doing now is take the engineering or do they should we have
0:18:41that we need to make our products and one week out of the year
0:18:45shut them off and send them to San Francisco and that that doesn't does not
0:18:49enough for the developer community they have now they need more but you know my
0:18:54position and and my blog post basically talking W my position was was more that
0:18:59you you you can do all these things you can address the demand you can you can
0:19:05try to you know add more developer relations throughout the year add more
0:19:10developer resources more videos more interaction etc but if this is the one
0:19:15big one if this is like
0:19:17the king of the Apple Developer events for the whole year and every year it
0:19:21happens and it's a huge event and tons of people go and Apple starts it by
0:19:26judging everyone by announcing a new version of iOS and showing it off you
0:19:31know it's still gonna be the big one and that's still gonna be where people are
0:19:36going to want to go at it like everyone picks if they can only go to one Apple
0:19:41conference year they'll try to go to that one so I don't really think that
0:19:45any of these efforts are going to necessarily address that problem they
0:19:50will address other part of this why do you think they want to go to that one
0:19:53thing here and like what are they getting out of it they need to be in San
0:19:58Francisco that week because if it's just the same other people than that could be
0:20:01solved by just everyone go in there and doing whatever you know but it's the new
0:20:06shiny thing I get to be there in person for new shiny thing that's that's a
0:20:10separate issue is like a lot of people saying oh I think you know that they
0:20:14wouldn't have such a demand for temporary see if they just like
0:20:18separated the keynote or whatever in my impression is that possible
0:20:22everyone who is the WC does not get to see the keynote in person I'm not sure
0:20:26how many people who don't attend the conference know this but this is not a
0:20:30room in that room like a remote 2000 presidio when they think it's more like
0:20:36three or four rapid this fight is 5500 people there at least right now so not
0:20:41everyone fits in that room right so just because you get a ticket doesn't mean
0:20:44you're guaranteed to go in there and second like presses a portion of that
0:20:47and they get press passes to go just as the keynote they don't get to go to the
0:20:50rest of the conference it seems to me that like I know that's kind of a draw
0:20:55and that's the most publicly visible thing but there's a whole week long
0:20:59conference filled with people and the press people who are you I don't know
0:21:04what percentage of the Express maybe two percent 3% I don't know what percentage
0:21:10is but those people are not there for the rest of the week they're gone
0:21:12they're offering stories they're interviewing developers doing whatever
0:21:15people want to go to the BBC because it's a weeklong conference and then go
0:21:19to the sessions or at least they go to some of them are they go to the labs
0:21:21they do something if you took away the keynote entirely just this is just a
0:21:25developer thing you would scare away the press will you be there but they're not
0:21:30the ones buying up all the week-long tickets anyway I i feel like if you
0:21:34separate that there are announced
0:21:36who's who's spending $600 and a week in San Francisco just see something we
0:21:42could see live on video and that you know like you're not getting anything
0:21:45out of being nasty jobs gone you know how many celebrities system cookie stand
0:21:49on a stage announces things you can see it from anywhere you get the news in
0:21:53real time I don't think that's why Texas well developers want to go w you see
0:21:58there there certainly is a portion of that late there are there are people who
0:22:03you know they work for smaller blogs or sites and an apple press doesn't give
0:22:07them press passes because they don't care about them or they don't like them
0:22:10or whatever and they just usually try to buy tickets to I see a lot of people
0:22:13doing that but the problem is that might be a couple hundred people at most out
0:22:17of the six thousand people who get tickets so it's not it's not that big of
0:22:21a slice and then you know there are certainly people who people who buy
0:22:25tickets who aren't press and who aren't developers necessarily or who are
0:22:31full-time developers at least two kind of like they buy it because they just
0:22:35kinda wanna be there and I try to get the company to buy it because they just
0:22:38want to be there that's kinda cool but again I don't think that's a whole lot
0:22:43of people you know relative to this massive pool developers want to be there
0:22:48so you know these these little subsets are there people who like you know
0:22:52depends on how you define it may not may not deserve a ticket in my view wasting
0:22:55a ticket but you know anybody who's been there the last couple of years you know
0:23:01that even after keynote day all the sessions are still crammed full like all
0:23:07the popular sessions like it it's not that everyone just buy the tickets to
0:23:10the keynote and then leaves some people do but all the sessions are still packed
0:23:15full and you can't even get into some of them on me know Thursday still we know
0:23:20well into the week so it isn't there are people who do that but it's not a
0:23:23meaningful quality as an Apache I think
0:23:26attendance does taper off during the week but it's mostly because every
0:23:29person doesn't want to go to every session so how many of the people who
0:23:33clamor for everyday seat tickets are desperate to go into like the cortex
0:23:36session maybe not a lot of them and maybe that room isn't that full and
0:23:40maybe of hangovers and sleep in late in the whole nine yards right that's what
0:23:44gets distributed in a natural way the keynote is a big rush because anyone who
0:23:47wants to be a WBC is interesting to note that I'm saying here in there so maybe
0:23:51you'll wake up early on but some people don't even bother waiting on the
0:23:54quinoline like out to see the overflow room I does that's why I mentioned on a
0:23:59pass so that you could oversell it by a couple hundred to squeeze in a little a
0:24:03little tiny bit extra capacity because when I definitely didn't want to expand
0:24:07the conference to be much much bigger squeeze in one or two hundred more and I
0:24:11bet people who don't have tickets would love it if they expanded to just buy
0:24:14fifty hundred more people as long as they were 100 more so like what I really
0:24:21nobody right like i think is most developers I've never met anyone at the
0:24:24conference who was it was a lucky loser is only gone for the past two years in
0:24:29the past two years have been hectic and there's no one like you know I really
0:24:33into it but my boss said he would pay for me to go so i decided no there's no
0:24:36casual ticket buyers anymore and for the past two years out there because they
0:24:41sought to fast and if you were that casual you probably won't like I've
0:24:45never met anyone who was there who did not have a legitimate reason to be there
0:24:48to press or a developer yeah anything else in WDC I keep stumbling over the
0:24:57words I hate the 2009 now it just sounds so silly and I can't do those this
0:25:05trendy abbreviations like I still say guacamole and not Glock I just like like
0:25:12i dont sides waiters and waitresses you'd be surprised you'd be surprised
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0:26:31watching the show so quick side note parent makes an unbelievable guacamole
0:26:37so she called me walk and I don't think I can't say that anymore I just feel
0:26:42dirty even saying that so market did you do anything interesting last week by any
0:26:47chance I announce something interesting I didn't you know the week before it
0:26:51really so how did you announce last week marker I announce that I saw in the
0:26:58paper
0:26:59whatcha gonna do that so i i discussed it at length for about an hour on Monday
0:27:06Benjamin's quit show on five by five so I don't want to go over too much here
0:27:12but you know the gist of it was that I was really getting tired of working on
0:27:19it and the work was going far beyond what I could do so the combination of
0:27:23those two things one was basically fatal and I just I couldn't do it anymore and
0:27:30so you know I was seeing for like a year
0:27:33that I was falling behind and no not you know it isn't really about the
0:27:41competition necessarily a lot of people have asked me that it's not really about
0:27:46the competition it's about Instapaper an amram mean by that is in the papers
0:27:53problems were self-inflicted you know might my problem with Instapaper were
0:27:58that I wasn't keeping up with my own features I wasn't maintaining my own
0:28:03features well enough and I wasn't able to move forward with my own ideas and so
0:28:10you know it doesn't it doesn't help that there were a lot of competition last
0:28:14couple years but that's not really why I wanted to get out of it and the main
0:28:20reason why I want to get out of it was because I couldn't keep up with it
0:28:23anymore myself and and you know a lot of people a lot of people might think that
0:28:29it's for podcasts or for the magazine or whatever else and it really really isn't
0:28:35that people always dramatically overestimate how much work the magazine
0:28:40is for me in reality the editor Glenn Fleishman does like 95% of the work for
0:28:44the magazine I work about half a day every two weeks on it it really isn't a
0:28:51huge time sink it isn't about that necessarily it isn't about competition
0:28:57from my time it's that even when I was motivated to spend two hundred percent
0:29:01of my time doing Instapaper that amount of effort is no longer enough to drive
0:29:07the service to to keep it even just simply maintained let alone moving
0:29:11anything forward in making any big updates and doing any kind of major
0:29:15upgrades and redesigns anything else so I think you know so what I wanted was a
0:29:23staff meeting with the staff but I've been doing this for five years and I'm a
0:29:29terrible manager so the combination of of a little bit of burnout little bit of
0:29:34one to try new things and knowing that I would be terrible managing a staff I
0:29:39realized that that was a terrible idea for me to hire people directly
0:29:42so much better idea was to sell the company to somebody who would staff it
0:29:47and who would keep it going and it took me awhile to figure out you know how I
0:29:52wanted to do that you wanted to sell too but you know as I wrote in the post like
0:29:58one night at like 1:30 a.m. I jumped out of bed I realized oh yeah I still
0:30:02debated works that would be perfect and yes so I had a bad email John Borthwick
0:30:08beta works as a high noon already and I went in there like the few days later
0:30:13and we talked about it we basically had to deal with in a week I think it was it
0:30:17was pretty quick so have you you haven't divorce yourself up in the words of the
0:30:25first divorce yourself of it
0:30:27well you're not going to entirely to begin with and you haven't how much have
0:30:30you really been able to let go so far
0:30:34well so you know financially I still own a stake in the company it's just a small
0:30:38stake now in its notice no imagery stake is no longer under percent how it is to
0:30:43be so now I saw in a small stake in the company and I'm still going to advise
0:30:48them kind of indefinitely you know whenever they have questions or if they
0:30:51want guidance on you know what I think they should do it with a certain thing
0:30:55or decision or feature I'm gonna be advising them indefinitely but my
0:31:00day-to-day role is going to be gone and that is in the process of being my grade
0:31:05right now you know yesterday when their passwords and usernames and everything
0:31:09and and we're you know we're doing doing all those transfers and changeovers this
0:31:14week basically so I expected but that at my my major stress and major
0:31:21responsibilities should be pretty much gone by next week and so that's great
0:31:28I'm very happy about that I already feel like I like much of the stress has been
0:31:34lifted because the end is in sight
0:31:36you know i've i have i've i've i've handed over the keys I have the deal is
0:31:43done everything signed no but nobody can go back on anything I can change my mind
0:31:47anymore and so it's effectively done never get executing it everything on
0:31:54paper is done
0:31:55and so that relieves a whole bunch of my stress and my guilt at you know I spent
0:32:00I spent most of last year not being able to keep up and have no idea how I would
0:32:06solve this problem and feeling very very guilty about it just like every time
0:32:10somebody would send me a Twitter message or an email saying how much of a dick I
0:32:14was being bye bye not updating the paper or how do I was being by ignoring their
0:32:19bug report or they're they're badly parsed site report they were right and
0:32:25that made me feel even more guilty so you know all that guilt and all that
0:32:30stress has now been lifted because I've solved the problem you know I like I
0:32:35have now established a path forward for Instapaper I have given it a staff in my
0:32:39crazy way and so I no longer have to bear all that guilt and all that weight
0:32:45all that stress of maintaining and upgrading the service indefinitely
0:32:51myself with no help here on some are stressed cuz I have some more for you
0:32:55sure this is a question that I don't think than a thousand to the episode
0:32:59you're on how do you feel now about your prospects for you mention on on on quit
0:33:06that like people also overestimate what a big moneymaker the magazine is not
0:33:12that is not doing well or anything but just like you know it's it's not a
0:33:15completely replace replacement for Instapaper was the impression I got
0:33:18listening to you so the question is how do you feel your chances are now you're
0:33:24now you're sort of on the line to ok when's the paper has not gone but fading
0:33:29away right you have to make the next great thing that's going to be as big as
0:33:33in the paper was and are you have any fear that like that is going to be
0:33:39harder for you to do in 2013 than it was when the paper was was launched in 2004
0:33:44or five or something
0:33:45870 I don't know when I was young back then and in any realm there was less
0:33:53competition there is now so now you are on the hook to come up with busy 71 do
0:33:57is write an iOS app you are now on the hook to come up with an iOS app that is
0:34:01going to be at least as successful as Instapaper do you feel any pressure
0:34:04about
0:34:05doing that so in summary do you have second album syndrome perhaps there is
0:34:11certainly pressure there no question but what I've also done since I'll auctions
0:34:16to paper was now I have a much better read blog before making good money from
0:34:22my blog I have a podcast with you guys and we're making good money from the
0:34:27podcast and sharing with us some of us are making good money and you see this
0:34:39crazy system I built by the way you talk about that so you know i i have other
0:34:46income now is what I'm saying and that helps a lot so rather than having one
0:34:51big thing I'm relying on to me it's way less stressful have a few smaller things
0:34:56and I'm diversify my income is diversified which for most people that
0:35:01is not the case again putting its most people have one job and I provide all
0:35:05their income and that's it and I've been there and it's very stressful for me I
0:35:09am very
0:35:10I always say you know financially I'm very risk-averse and I also don't like
0:35:14not being control of my own destiny and so whenever I have everything coming
0:35:18from one source that actually adds more stress so I have these diverse sources
0:35:23now and so I'm not constantly worried that whatever I do next
0:35:29won't live up to Instapaper because it doesn't need to have other income to pat
0:35:33it that being said you know the magazine is a special case because the magazine
0:35:40is not a regular at nobody buys the magazine because of the at a buyer for
0:35:45the content and the magazine also has you know crazy costs associated with
0:35:50running it because you're you're you're doing all this pain of authors and
0:35:54everything paying the editors and paying for picture isn't like there's there's
0:35:58constant on-going costs not like a nap we're like you know you can invest a
0:36:03couple of weeks worth of high cost and high time investment and then coast for
0:36:06a few months while it makes money you know the magazine I have to run
0:36:10constantly like there it sits on a fixed schedule of effort but its recurring
0:36:14revenue unlike the app
0:36:15that's true however you know and I thought at first when I was thinking i
0:36:19doing that I thought that would be a gold mine but turns out that the reason
0:36:25recurring revenues was there for new standard because it has to be because
0:36:29it's almost impossible to run some ideas without it because the costs are so high
0:36:33you know as i said i cant with software you can put effort in and then stop
0:36:38putting effort in or shift him putting minimal effort in 4-6 months and and no
0:36:44let-up profit build up and breaking all the cash back to your potential to view
0:36:50of the iOS App Store and that yeah you can do that if you have a really
0:36:53successful product to most people like they launched they get a little blip on
0:36:57launch day and it drops to zero and Beijing coast for six months ago I just
0:37:02put in all that time and no one wants to buy my appt you know well how well I did
0:37:08find though and with Instapaper over the years I did find that update frequency
0:37:14didn't really impact sales as much as you think I did a whole lot of apps out
0:37:20there that hardly ever dated or that that you know get the cat frequent but
0:37:26very very minor updates and so absurd that are making money doing very very
0:37:32well or at least moderately well without having tons of effort porn of them
0:37:37constantly it really depends on on the App Inventor markets and and I'm not
0:37:42saying you need to have updates every month although I recently saw people
0:37:45declaring that but is it dead application had been up there in two
0:37:49months but anyway my point is it that regardless of updates
0:37:53you're hoping that you know the only way you can coach for six months on sales if
0:37:57you have any sales after after three weeks after sales or 90 you know me like
0:38:01if you launch an app and goes out there in a couple people by who are interested
0:38:05in it and it just doesn't appeal to anyone else you know there's no more
0:38:09sales for you and doesn't matter what you do don't they may be built the wrong
0:38:12happened that's what I'm getting at with the pressure of like even if its
0:38:15financial pressures in terms of you know the idea that you're you're looking for
0:38:20something that people really gonna want to buy this not a hundred of already out
0:38:24there that's going to going to be something that you know you're gonna put
0:38:27a certain amount of effort
0:38:28hope that at the very least enough to buy to make the effort you put into it
0:38:33and we're hoping for is that you get much more than that but you're able to
0:38:36like you said you know put into maintenance mode get a bunch of sales
0:38:40maybe work on the next major version farther down the line like you know like
0:38:43I said Instapaper was a very very very successful product that a lot of people
0:38:46wanted that was unique at the time and even after you need people still want it
0:38:50because you did such a good job and everything like and now you know your I
0:38:54don't know if you maybe I'm feeling pressure for you I feel like you're on
0:38:57the hook to come up with a neck another hit a progressive the finances like
0:39:01maybe find you a free app and you never charged for now you wouldn't do that but
0:39:04like because you are associated with like you're associated with like one of
0:39:09the pillars of the iOS application world you know i mean and if the next come out
0:39:15with his nursing clock 2.0 in 10 people buy it it's gonna be disappointing yeah
0:39:19and you know I don't I don't know what to expect with whatever my next appt
0:39:25ends up being you know I have a two or three idea that I'm deciding between and
0:39:30ones leading the way is unpopular with that but I'm probably not even going to
0:39:35keep it secret for long but I don't know until I decide at least but you know I
0:39:41think I don't know what to expect in the market because Instapaper sales over the
0:39:49last few months have been pretty soft relative to past sales but I think
0:39:53that's because the app has been kind of an in disrepair I really haven't updated
0:39:56it in a long time you know my last official update I think was february
0:40:03something but the last meeting for update I think was December maybe it's
0:40:06it's been a while now but I don't know if it's been a while and you can even
0:40:12see I can get home as a during the handover I looked at my commit history
0:40:15and it's really sad but you know I think so you know my sales haven't been
0:40:23awesome last few months
0:40:25part of that though could be that apple has released a new iOS device unless few
0:40:30months you know every spring until now has had a new iPad and that always a
0:40:35boost in sales so it's hard to tell you know why sales were soft last couple
0:40:40months
0:40:40you know why they might not have been whatever it's very hard to tell with
0:40:45ayahuasca that's always been a rollercoaster but with the exception of
0:40:50last few months since paper sales were solid the entire rest of its history
0:40:54they were really solid and and so I have to wonder you know if I really something
0:41:01new will it will it do as well as Instapaper was doing in the last few
0:41:07months because the market so saturated or will it have some kind of massive
0:41:12explosion of income because all those people who are buying Instapaper over
0:41:17the years like they now have another appt taken by that like what I mean is
0:41:22like in paper never had a great revenue and so now I have all those you know all
0:41:29those people who I never got upgrade revenue from not that they would
0:41:32automatically by whenever I make some of the people but not not like not a crazy
0:41:37amount of Nursing clock but you know there's gonna be like I don't know how
0:41:44big the market really is first hand today if I start if I longshot something
0:41:48new today I don't know because you know I it's it's going to be hard to tell
0:41:55like until I actually just do it it's gonna be hard to tell how many people
0:41:59there are sitting around looking to buy new apps I've really only address them
0:42:04slowly over time as they've trickled in
0:42:08as they bought new devices and everything is a good example because
0:42:12that that is it's not entirely unrelated to Instapaper even though they're you
0:42:17know it's a news stand out and it's different business model and this is
0:42:20different but it's it's about it's addressing an audience of people are
0:42:23interested in reading things on their iOS devices and you know made by the
0:42:29same person with the similar static so that's going to know if you like
0:42:31Instapaper app I like the magazine and you know just in terms of the
0:42:35application typography know that stuff so that was kind of like a natural
0:42:38sibling application and it's time to think where you feel like you have if
0:42:41you have a built-in audience of like fans of your products and you go off and
0:42:46make you know again nursing clock like a random game or something maybe you know
0:42:49the audience that loved into the paper maybe they like games maybe they don't
0:42:53maybe they're lactating mother maybe they're not you know it's not but it's
0:42:57the magazine it's like you probably like reading stuff you know
0:43:01and here's another way for you to read even more stuff and you know that that
0:43:05works and you know that I think having a built-in audience helps but you also you
0:43:11have to like sort of know your audience a little bit I'm sure you wish list to
0:43:16get better like better information about the people who are buying your
0:43:19applications and how they found them in all the things you complain about so
0:43:22many times that you don't have about how people can see paper buyers come from
0:43:28how do they come to you and how satisfied are they and what aspects of
0:43:33Instapaper do they like and not like all these things that you wish you knew
0:43:36about your customers at all you see is just you know a number that hopefully
0:43:39makes a nice grafted goes up early stage level high level and like you know I
0:43:45don't like what the magazine is not a good indicator because as I said like
0:43:49people don't judge it based on it being a nap they judge its content because
0:43:53it's conceptually a magazine just like you know nobody really judges paper
0:43:58magazines based on the quality paper they're printed on what we don't sell
0:44:01the magazine app short because so many people myself included have rejected
0:44:04electronic versions of content of their otherwise find interesting because the
0:44:08applications are so awful and Dubai not mission office location like that's part
0:44:12of the Instapaper brand of like your whole thing was I can make that awful
0:44:15website that it's impossible to read nice and readable for you and the
0:44:18magazine is nice and readable and I think that is really a factor because I
0:44:23know their publications I read in paper that I refuse to use their I was out so
0:44:27he's a terrible and slow and buggy and wanna download seven hundred megabytes
0:44:30issues and all those disgusting things that are not an issue with the magazine
0:44:33yet but most people like you know the magazine app no matter how good I make
0:44:38it you're only going to be using it for you know maybe an hour every two weeks
0:44:43yeah it's mostly like a lack of a negative instead of like a big positive
0:44:46but I think that the lack of a negative is stand out because other people
0:44:51competing in this field such big negatives in that area right but you
0:44:56know it's it's I i'm saying is I don't think it represents the the the app
0:45:01market very well because people don't judge it as a nap
0:45:04the judge it as content and that's a very different business and I think to
0:45:10john's point it's both but but it's more about the content than it is about the
0:45:15app yes I mean if the app was a steaming turn nobody would buy it or maybe that's
0:45:19not true though cuz look at all the condé Nast apps and then I was going to
0:45:23say you know maybe your fans however you define that group B that one or 1000 r1
0:45:28million maybe some of them would buy it but but presumably nobody else the
0:45:33built-in audience of the people who are interested you know from the paper world
0:45:37of whatever magazine they're they're feeling they're bad for you know himself
0:45:41like that's that's it's not fair to judge against that because they have
0:45:45people who are in our thoughts but the property to take the boat magazine
0:45:49energy cure whatever Rolling Stone that are now with any kind of like name
0:45:53brands before Iowa's existed and despite their terrible applications people come
0:45:59to that so content really is driving those things in there fighting their way
0:46:02through the applications but for me and for more tech-savvy people if I even if
0:46:07I like the content this is the limit to what I can tolerate from these
0:46:10applications before I say you know it's actually better for me just get a paper
0:46:13version I think it's probably fair to say that you might be a little bit more
0:46:17critical than the average person well there in the seven hundred megabytes
0:46:21things like a wired or whatever
0:46:23wire to the name brand existed before iOS the people want but there's a limit
0:46:28like you know people can't wait for that much stuff to download in their iOS
0:46:32devices fill up in my wife is probably newsstand magazines a newsstand issues a
0:46:38huge and she has a 32 gigabyte iOS devices and they fill up like a lie I
0:46:43know she knows you just have to go to Newsday and you cannot delete out all
0:46:45stuff and it's because these things are gigantic these magazines that should not
0:46:49be this big yeah but you know what the reason why they are that big is because
0:46:54in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter because in the grand scheme of
0:46:58things as you said she she's had these problems with these apps and as I'm sure
0:47:04I'm sure she experienced they're not that great to use the reading experience
0:47:08is not grade but she still stripes because they're not being judges app
0:47:13serbian just magazines but it's a lot of his carrier
0:47:17of the daily with the didn't have a pre-existing name-brand had an awful
0:47:20application that people didn't like and you can see all the daily content wasn't
0:47:25as good as the daily content not as good as you know people magazine it's
0:47:28probably about the same USA today or whatever just that people in USA today
0:47:32where names that existed before iOS Braley was not that means a lot but
0:47:37Marco Arment was a name before the the magazine and so I think to some degree I
0:47:42think you did trade on your name and that's not a bad thing I definitely
0:47:45should you know so I'm curious to see what whatever comes next
0:47:51assuming it's not nursing clock to how how that ends up I did have one other
0:47:55question for you
0:47:56out of curiosity maybe maybe you don't have a good answer for this but what is
0:48:00what has surprised you since the announcement other than the absolutely
0:48:04hysterical replies many of which he retweeted I was dying laughing all of
0:48:12whatever was Thursday Friday watching all of them but what has surprised you
0:48:17mean what was your first really good night sleep was it immediately after you
0:48:21open communication works was it as soon as you released both neither I think it
0:48:25was last night it was it was the other night that I got home from their office
0:48:29the first from visiting the first time after the sale closed and doing this
0:48:33whole transfer of a bunch of stuff but I don't know so so to answer your other
0:48:39question though it wasn't what surprised you right but I think overall I was
0:48:50expecting a bit more heat and it's not to say it like you know I didn't go into
0:48:54this knowing people would hate it or expecting you know everyone to hate it
0:48:59but I thought I would get I thought I would hear more from the
0:49:04the anti acquisition fans you know people who like they've had a puncture
0:49:10apps that the use be acquired in the past and shut down and they hate that
0:49:13and so they rage against any acquisition I think the only the only actual
0:49:20negative I read from anybody who I thought was remotely credible I think on
0:49:25that was Ben Brooks who complained he said he said he briefly considered
0:49:29switching to pin board when he first read my announcement because it was
0:49:34acquired by somebody but with the exception of Ben I don't really think
0:49:38certainly nobody nobody else who I would consider like you know a legitimate
0:49:45person whose opinion I wanna listen to none of them had a major problem with it
0:49:50and I don't know I mean I i think if you're if you're real you know if your
0:49:58devoted into paper user I think you could read my blog post and see you
0:50:03could see how I was saying I was having trouble keeping up with it for the last
0:50:06year and if your devoted user I think you read that and say yeah he's right
0:50:11because you would know you know you would have seen very few updates in the
0:50:16last year and you know very few very very little maintenance going on and and
0:50:22not a lot of movement the feature set you know any devoted user can see those
0:50:28shortcomings and so I was really expecting a lot more flak from that
0:50:34crowd and get it and I am very sad that I'm very happy about that really very
0:50:38pleasantly surprised that the response was ridiculously positive I think people
0:50:45are ok with it because I could see a plausible like this story put together
0:50:49i'm i'm saying is that these people and they're going to take it and run with it
0:50:53people look at it like yeah that makes sense because it wasn't it wasn't like
0:50:56you know when sparrows too I think sparrow now the time sometimes
0:51:00accompanied by another thing you know it's doomed because you can't imagine
0:51:04any reason they will keep it around
0:51:05and it just doesn't make any sense so would you selling your soul to it's like
0:51:09oh that's what they do they're not gonna shut it down they didn't get you like
0:51:13the only reason they would do this thing is that they want to have this project
0:51:16and later when they screw up the product by putting and banners on top of
0:51:19everything will blame them because it'll be like well when he saw that you know
0:51:23it was funny when he sold it and it was a it was a story that made sense surely
0:51:29they're going to keep this product and they're not going to me to be shot down
0:51:31so that your responsibilities gone once you've given it a good home and if the
0:51:36home turns out not to be so good year later we don't go back and say damn your
0:51:39market for selling and now we blame the new owners for mistreating us to be fair
0:51:43it's never wise for me to assume that people will read what I write before
0:51:49responding
0:51:50yeah people you care about going to read it people weren't angry and you know I
0:51:57wasn't angry I think about like you feeling guilty about not having features
0:52:01I know from doing enough tech support my family and everything that applications
0:52:05that don't change as long as they do what people want them to do actually
0:52:09kind of a comfort you know I'm trying to walk my sisters who the Google Reader
0:52:13shut down now and she she would just like it if the ancient version and is
0:52:17why she's using would continue to work for ever and ever you like the same way
0:52:21as it always did and you know it's a paper not change you for years you think
0:52:25it's the end of the world but people are using it so happy for years I like what
0:52:29was wrong against the paper I use it every day it's fine I read things on you
0:52:32know like I know you get the email but the text parser screen upward ever been
0:52:36that's a small fraction of the audience most of the people just using it happily
0:52:40and as far as they're concerned there's nothing wrong with they're not they're
0:52:43not cruising in the market for Rita later services every day
0:52:47comparing them weighing just using their their phone to their iPad happily with
0:52:51these applications you know i mean and mean I still use Instapaper every day
0:52:56and it's fine but but it could be so much better if you know that and that's
0:53:01that's very clear in the text parser could be so much better and they're
0:53:05they're just there so much about it I i think what what really told me that it
0:53:10was time was there were there was about a two week period where David Smith had
0:53:18convinced me to try to keep it and try to work on it and you know before
0:53:23deciding to sell it and I did and I started like one i sat down and I was
0:53:29all motivated and i sat down and started the big 5.0 branch and started tearing
0:53:34stuff out and started changing major things around and started laying the
0:53:38foundation for what I want to do in 5 10 and I wasn't motivated to to do it for
0:53:44more than about 20 minutes and that's what really told me like you know what I
0:53:49really don't want to do this anymore because I I looked at the giant mountain
0:53:53of work ahead of me to do even even just like a modest redesign and and you know
0:54:00a modest feature set edition and I didn't wanna do it I I would like for us
0:54:05up and it was like doing it was like being told when I was in middle school
0:54:10being told I had to sit down and do my homework I just did not want to do it
0:54:13and motivational I just had no steam list and that's that's when I knew that
0:54:19was probably back in January or so that they did that and that's when I knew I
0:54:26had to start to buy this thing and I also I had a great talk with Brent
0:54:32Simmons cause brandt said it a few times in the past he said on various podcast
0:54:37her side or somewhere he said you know 'cause people people always asked why he
0:54:43decided to sell net newswire and his usual answer or his theory was something
0:54:49on the lines of I know that once I no longer want to work on something I need
0:54:54to sell it and give it to somebody and then it's the best thing for everybody
0:54:58really it's the best thing for you because you can go on to some mouse and
0:55:02investing for your product your customers because they'll they'll then
0:55:05be in the hands of someone who actually wants to work on a thing and actually
0:55:08make it better so you know and and when Brent said that I don't know probably
0:55:14years ago it stuck with me
0:55:16and so actually called him too and I was thinking of what to do here and I've
0:55:20talked to him and he was very generous with his time and and yeah he basically
0:55:26kind of encouraged me to follow my instinct and you know he's like you know
0:55:31if you want to work on anymore don't work on it simple as that there's not a
0:55:35lot to really change that so that helped a lot so a combination of David Smith
0:55:40and Brent Simmons I really owe them thanks for helping me clarify what I
0:55:44want to do the right thing we want to do one more do you want to cut it down to
0:55:50one more but we got I was curious if you guys had any input my don't think we
0:55:57talked about this on the show any input into this this new or not near this
0:56:03anyway there's a rumor that that I was 7 I'll be flat and Jony ive has gone
0:56:11through like Godzilla and Latin New York and I was seven and I was curious if you
0:56:18guys had any insight not insider information insight into what you think
0:56:22that means whether you believe it
0:56:24etc like the most boring rumor ever because like it would be more exciting
0:56:29if I guess I'll be signing with screenshots for like a Sooners forestall
0:56:34was out like that you know the in-cabin the virtual ink had dried and the on
0:56:39these stories being written about it I'm going out the people weren't saying that
0:56:42means next version of iOS be flattened like I mean and this is just like as we
0:56:46creep up on the date the noise about that ramps up and now you start getting
0:56:51unnamed sources but we don't have any screenshots yet or whatever but
0:56:54everyone's been saying right it's like it's kind of like leading up to the iPad
0:56:58announcement really like where there's smoke there's fire so make you know I
0:57:05don't always get texts extreme as people might be picturing it but it makes
0:57:08perfect sense that things have gone very far in one direction and a change in
0:57:12leadership away from the guy who was reportedly in favor of that extreme
0:57:18directions obviously can result in
0:57:21things looking different so I'm just as well as I am I'm just waiting patiently
0:57:26this is fully what I expect but it's kind of like confirming things we are
0:57:30you thought I don't know I think I think it's more likely that well I think the
0:57:37reason they had to do this is because people are so we talk about the past
0:57:42people are so kind of complacent and and just so bored with smartphones and in
0:57:50particular with you know with iOS and Apple products in general that I think
0:57:57Apple needs to do stuff to shake things up a bit
0:58:00even know normally in the past we've always kind of stuck with you know it
0:58:04isn't broken don't fix it and Apple doesn't need to redesign things for sick
0:58:07of redesigning them but I think I think in this case this year I think they do
0:58:13because I always does it look kind of old you know I always sixth gave a minor
0:58:19refresh to some of the controls and everything but it still looks mostly the
0:58:23same way it did in 2007 and apples never had this the severe pessimism before
0:58:31it's never reach this level before so I think they do need to just say things up
0:58:35just just refresh things and different isn't necessarily going to be worse you
0:58:41know it chances are there if they're rethinking things at all if they're
0:58:44going into it saying we're gonna have a major change then it's probably gonna be
0:58:48better overall and so i i think this is why I think the the rumors of a being a
0:58:54very major visual change are very plausible and if they do it I think it
0:59:01will both be good and necessary there's two things reminds me of one is talking
0:59:09about the the surface tablet and windows Metro UI and one of things I said in
0:59:15that episode was
0:59:16that if you spend a long time staring at the Metro UI business was like a video
0:59:22that shows like the philosophy behind to be spent a long time staring that as I
0:59:25was watching this hour and a half long demo of this guy explain philosophy and
0:59:29then you go back and look at any iOS device the iOS device looks old looked
0:59:34weird like wood texture doing big things like an ass like that looks like the
0:59:39past and the future and the second thing I'm thinking about is if you look at the
0:59:44evolution of Mac OS 10 and its look which change many times
0:59:48frequently for fashion basic reasons from the incredible pinstripes and shiny
0:59:53blue buttons in the things like now you go back and look at the 10.1 screen
0:59:56China like oh my god how do we ever use that right to the snow evolution to
1:00:00remove the pinstripes not as much textures the buttons are are no longer a
1:00:04giant you know till capsules now they're a little bit flatter and flatter still
1:00:09now all the windows look the same number metal is gone
1:00:12Mac OS 10 has involved in it seems like every Apple OS and hopefully every
1:00:16application if we're lucky is forced now to go through this thing where you get
1:00:20like the band here we are aqua gel buttons pinstripes textures crazy things
1:00:24and then you just have to strike out to mellow with age
1:00:28you know and it seems like I always had a particularly exuberant adolescence
1:00:32we're a little green felt and wood and stuff like that but now is kind of like
1:00:37the leopard thing we're in love with a unified look at all the windows and
1:00:40covering a brush piles on remembering I think was ten five and you know it makes
1:00:46sense for it to be maturing in that direction but I think you know we're all
1:00:49in all this is the idea fashion and that is that is a real thing in change is not
1:00:54change for change tickets fashion because fashion changes and if it's
1:00:57staring at Metro and then looking back on my iOS device makes my iOS device
1:01:00bill heavy weight in gold and I look like a walk in the eighties the sign for
1:01:05the fashion to change so I think this is a completely natural evolution and I for
1:01:10one welcome our new flat overlords
1:01:13I have a couple of thoughts firstly the chat rooms going crazy with the
1:01:18exclamation point asked to suggest topics which is comical because there
1:01:22was somebody else put one in there there's no show but
1:01:27but I'm gonna probably get this all wrong because this is an accident on
1:01:30podcast and I didn't do any research but what was the the the hallmark feature of
1:01:36iOS four was was multitasking right and then hallmark feature of iOS 5 was
1:01:44notification centers are also right so what linda he's standing cloud in a club
1:01:53that's not a good one so what was what was the hallmark of six other maps
1:01:57passed there wasn't the kind of wasn't just one it was it was a combination of
1:02:02like you know more
1:02:04iCloud and you know better more and better iCloud tons of new API's for
1:02:10interface and stuff happens ya maps was like one of the big focuses yeah I guess
1:02:19it's like the biggest
1:02:21the hallmark user facing future I think was pretty much maps and passbook
1:02:27refinement on other things exactly so I'm driving and is are we somehow
1:02:32falling into a tech talk with iOS cuz I don't know that I would say that we had
1:02:36been up until maybe now but it sorta kinda seems like starting with iOS 5
1:02:42which was really massive I was six I think there's a genuine genuine invalid
1:02:46argument that was big but maybe not massive and now we're talking the
1:02:50theoretically Iowa seven would be a pretty big massive change I guess
1:02:54visually if nothing else do you do you guys think we might be heading for a
1:02:59tick tock and iOS I don't know I mean I guess the big question is you know
1:03:05visually sure if they've received the whole thing that's going to be a lot of
1:03:09work to Mets gonna matter a lot of people and and maybe people will start
1:03:14thinking that's that's fresh again I guess the big question though is whether
1:03:17any of the other like horror defining limitations of iOS still exist like how
1:03:25how many how many things will we be able to do with iOS 7 we couldn't do before
1:03:29either as users or developers are both that is a big question and and six
1:03:35didn't really add a lot of those things for users it did a lot for developers
1:03:39before uses it was pretty minimal 7 I don't know it you know if they if they
1:03:45do something that for example that breaks down some walls between
1:03:48applications and has any kind of you know cross application contracts like
1:03:55system more intense like system you know that would be great and that would
1:04:00radically change how things can work but you know that's also a really big job
1:04:05and who knows if they've been able to pull that off in the time they've had
1:04:08you know we don't really know and who knows if they would want to do that you
1:04:13know keep might forestall has not been gone for very long and so they really do
1:04:18anything anything that forced always keeping their that we want to change
1:04:22probably hasn't had time to change for iOS 7 maybe Iowa State that might have
1:04:28time to change but for this it's
1:04:31I'm guessing seven is going to be mostly cosmetic update and then with you know
1:04:37some guys like it you can you can even look at past past versions like we just
1:04:41did you can say all right well the rate of change for major user facing features
1:04:48and major new API's does seem to be slowing down as a platform matures so
1:04:53there's not a whole lot of low-hanging fruit left like you know last year we
1:04:58got passbook because you know all the big stuff that was doable in that in
1:05:04that time so you start getting these these kind of lighter-weight features in
1:05:08Game Center and iOS 5 I think
1:05:11center for you know you start getting these kind of like
1:05:15lightweight fluffier features not like you know multitasking major
1:05:20architectural changes so I I don't know what to expect with seven but it
1:05:25wouldn't be that much of a disaster they didn't break down those walls and they
1:05:29just did a major visual refreshing a few minor tweaks I was thinking of like I
1:05:33was 7 you have to divide into two halves one-half is the features that were a
1:05:39plan to partially implemented before forestall is gone in the second half as
1:05:43anything that happened after he was gone
1:05:45and so like at least a good half of Iowa's salmon was gonna happen
1:05:49regardless of the change in leadership in the months the change in leadership
1:05:52happens there's only so much you can do in half the development time that you
1:05:56have you know I mean that's why they're booked into this pushing up against the
1:05:59line and one of the things he could presumably due in half the time is like
1:06:03a reskin type of thing but the one semi interesting thing I saw on these rumor
1:06:07articles was the idea that built-in applications that people use every day
1:06:13that come to define the iOS experience could potentially be rethought not in
1:06:17terms of looking feel but in terms of like to feature set and how they work
1:06:21kind of like the the podcasts revision that made it more normal but one of the
1:06:25one out by selling out excited about with something one of the articles
1:06:28vaguely mentioned the Mail app which is not exactly the same for the entire life
1:06:32mile west but it's certainly not flashy and stuff like that coming back on the
1:06:37table for four revisions for rethinking how that application could work because
1:06:43even though we we know that's not like you know it's just a nap right it comes
1:06:48with the USB define like when we think of OSB actually thinking the operating
1:06:51system like oh you know into application API's
1:06:54other people think of it they're like when i buy a new iPhone and it pushed a
1:06:58little thing that says mail what do I see always totally different they change
1:07:01the OS and that's that concept of an OS basically the stuff that comes on my
1:07:06phone is probably just as important if not more important than the actual stuff
1:07:12that just makes up the USA and in both rounds I think there's a tremendous
1:07:15amount that can be improved I mean you know we talked about the new application
1:07:19communication but like this the whole this the whole not sure natural
1:07:23evolution that I was going to climb as the hardware gets better like you know
1:07:28just in terms of the the adam emery killer and not being able to run
1:07:32background applications and like all these things that they're not coming
1:07:35down this year they're not coming down next year they're going to be around for
1:07:38a long time but we're slowly clawing away at them has the hardware starts
1:07:42getting you know eventually the hardware in our phones will be at the level of
1:07:46the hardware in our said 2008 Mac Pros right now it's not there now my Mac Pro
1:07:5016 gigs of ram
1:07:51my phone does not and you know but it will get there once we get there
1:07:56the adam emery killer becomes less important to note I mean and not being
1:08:00able to run in the background maybe becomes less important depending on how
1:08:04much better battery technology gets so there is a long slow painful road for
1:08:10the OS to climb as a natural evolution of it but in the meantime there's so
1:08:13many other things they can do to make the actual using of the phone better
1:08:16simply by revving bundled apps and doing server side stuff like any other you
1:08:21said oh it's not a big deal you know like maps Game Center stuff like that
1:08:25stuff that actually happening off of your phone and it's going to become
1:08:28increasingly important it will increasingly defined experience of using
1:08:31your phone's even it seemed like I was 7 has anything in it and it if there's
1:08:36some big massively important service ID feature like you can watch any TV shows
1:08:41for free for $2.99 a month paid out right
1:08:44pipe dream whatever and all they do is put like a video player on your phone
1:08:48like wow that's amazing but it all happened off of your phone is so that
1:08:51future of IRS 710 its feature of Apple's crazy content deals with you know the
1:08:56world of media and things happen on the surface but I think that's gonna
1:09:00increase with time the things that happened off of your phone and become
1:09:03just as important I think they are that they are just as important today just
1:09:06Apple has not done very well historically and being optimistic for
1:09:10two seconds its past I think something else to consider also is that we're now
1:09:18in a time you know a Steve Steve Jobs officially left the company and then
1:09:24died a few months later unfortunately but he has left the company what now two
1:09:27years ago roughly or you know one and a half somewhere that it's been it's been
1:09:34a couple years at any rate and from what we know from various reports that sounds
1:09:40like forestall really carried a lot of Steve's torches but a four star has been
1:09:44gone too far in a few months whatever they were holding onto like the the old
1:09:51Steve Jobs causes for all the good that Steve had for the company in for the
1:09:57products he also was holding certain things back
1:10:01and you know you can look at things like power user features and you know
1:10:06control issues you can steal you can see like you know a lot of what Steve
1:10:10championed and and and a lot of what he refused to compromise on was very very
1:10:15good and some of it wasn't and so we're seeing now like it's been long enough
1:10:21that the post Steve Apple is really starting to build its own personality
1:10:25separately from the Steve past and forestall being out i think is going to
1:10:32accelerate that in in a few ways because he was you know he had a lot of power
1:10:36and was very loyal to steven has ideas as far as we know so we might start
1:10:41seeing some of these walls in iOS fall more quickly than we hoped we speak
1:10:47rumors I'm sure all as read them that OS 10 point nine is it and we have to 10.9
1:10:53already the next one to do it anyway you know OS 10.9 the rumor isn't going to
1:11:00have better power user features like more power features in the Finder and
1:11:04stuff like that just said taps a power user fees that's kind of weekend but if
1:11:09they do go that direction I i think thats worth paying attention to because
1:11:15so far Apple you know in in most of the previous releases especially with Lion I
1:11:20think it took a major step backwards for many powerful features more
1:11:23possibilities thereof but you know i i think it's worth looking at apple from
1:11:29the eye from the perspective of like what are they doing now
1:11:33look for look for signs of a potentially major course change in their products
1:11:39and and not not just one big one but look for little course changes I think
1:11:44the podcast app might be a microcosm of this you know you can see like they had
1:11:51this this crazy like extremely polarizing mostly bad design and the
1:11:56first version at his butt off from iTunes and then the new update kinda
1:12:01toned all that down and a lot of people said that was like you know forestall vs
1:12:05I've kind of thing but it doesn't seem not severe but it was like
1:12:10the the 1.0 of that Apple is very clearly a Steve Jobs style at whether he
1:12:16ever saw and I don't know probably not but that was very much a Steve Jobs
1:12:19style app and in the new one is a major course change from that and and you know
1:12:25now going towards better and so I wonder if you die I it's probably too soon to
1:12:33really see a whole lot of that so far and I S 70 S 10.9 but I but we're gonna
1:12:39see some of that I've ever gonna see hints of it and the beginnings of it and
1:12:42I'm really curious to see how it turns out I think you're onto something there
1:12:45I think we can start a new mean here in the new meme is Steve Jobs as the New
1:12:49Forest all because I was blaming like with everything you don't like it was
1:12:52forestalled now that he's gone it will be fixed right but if you extend that
1:12:56backwards Steve Jobs hey you know Steve Jobs is the one he was the one who was
1:12:59making them a lot be so simple for all these damn he finally he's gone and will
1:13:04have a joke there for like about the the podcast up and everything we you're
1:13:10right we don't know who is responsible for one everything we just can't look at
1:13:13Quinn several times but one thing we do know from years and years of talking
1:13:17head videos from johnnie ID is his design philosophy as expressed in those
1:13:22videos and we know two things one I think there really was his design
1:13:25philosophy because Steve Jobs he was Steve Jobs design guy and I don't think
1:13:29he was up there spouting something he didn't believe and his philosophy has
1:13:32always been the best thing has to be true to itself and whatever is whatever
1:13:36whatever essential element in this works much better hardware than software but
1:13:40whatever essential thing that's essential about this thing you know like
1:13:44the flower iMac with a base has to be true to being a basin hug the ground but
1:13:48the screen is thin and it should float in the air or that that shouldn't have
1:13:52extremists decoration or or bulges or other things that are not a part of the
1:13:56essential nature of the hardware product that is hardware philosophy expressed
1:14:00over and over and over again and embodied in all of his products if he
1:14:04applies that same philosophy to software would have but if he does you know the
1:14:09essential nature of a podcast application is not an enemy to take that
1:14:13you know like he's he's gonna I can imagine him thinking about what does it
1:14:17mean to listen to audio on an iPod
1:14:20not what does it mean to you know what kind of things in the past can be
1:14:24connected to an hour and that's the reason people think he's against your
1:14:27markers and all that other stuff because he wants to know you know forget about
1:14:31the past on this device on this thing what this thing is doing how it how is
1:14:35the software true to itself and we don't know that yet but I think we'll start to
1:14:40get a feel for me see what I was 7 looks like and hopefully even more so it's not
1:14:44so much what it looks like but if he tackles maybe not this version the next
1:14:48version some commonly used application whether it's a far your mail or some
1:14:52other thing on the phone or on the iPad for that matter and rethinks like what
1:14:56does it mean to browse web pages on a portable device and what is the
1:15:01essential nature of that activity and is it different than a toolbar on top and
1:15:05bottom number button that you click to you know like those type of things I
1:15:08like to see him rethink this will be really interesting to see how his
1:15:12hardware philosophy be transferred onto software do you expect much of it in the
1:15:19sense that as you just pointed out this isn't his normal cup of tea so do you
1:15:24expect that that'll be successful or do you do with your wager that it will be
1:15:28kinda ugly or a little rough at first I worry about the fact that at least half
1:15:32of iOS 7 happen before the switcheroo right so I worry about him trying to jam
1:15:39too much into the second half of I 17 development you know I don't know how
1:15:44much time he got in this but I know if this is not going to be like a
1:15:47top-to-bottom April be about if some he's still on board right so I worry
1:15:53that like you know doing too little to shipping iOS 7 has not changed much in
1:15:58ago john didn't make a difference and trying to do too much as like oh we got
1:16:02a risk in everything and everyone got to be ready to redesign all the built-in
1:16:05applications and then you know you don't have time through the polish it so
1:16:08and/or its all buggy as crap that as well so i i i worry about seven for
1:16:16those reasons but assuming there's not another change in leadership H&B where
1:16:21we really get to see
1:16:22you know it's all Jony ive at that point we don't have to worry about any
1:16:26leftover also forced or Steve Jobs is and who was that guy nobody like him
1:16:32anyway yeah and I think we're good
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1:16:51please rate us on iTunes in the podcast review directory unless you don't like
1:16:57the show then you can skip that step if you'd like and I believe thats it now
1:17:05this show is over they didn't even mean to begin accidental John
1:17:23shown to be a team article
1:18:02got a bite in the chatroom was as its not see a morphism is a visual metaphor
1:18:09aspects of both I don't care to debate the definition of the people you know
1:18:17backlash like everything is right but then they think nothing is like leather
1:18:22stitching that's because you don't actually need stitches to hold the
1:18:26letter to anything because there's nothing pretty hopeful why would you
1:18:30draw stitches well because the real-life item to connect led to another piece of
1:18:33leather needed stitching to do it because you couldn't do it and you know
1:18:36that's cool morphisms element from earlier physical element that no longer
1:18:40has any purpose in here and you put it there anyway I don't know I don't agree
1:18:46with you because I don't want to hear from people about this I think I do
1:18:52agree with you but I don't I don't want to commit to that definition is looking
1:18:58up then and there are different things but they overlap alot they sell in
1:19:07wildly unrelated news I finally unloaded the Subaru's rat bastards can leave me
1:19:11alone now now you only have one white car gotta hit you so much I knew I was
1:19:16setting myself up for that