Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► This time on Cortex, I'm joined by Mark Gurman.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Mark is the managing editor of consumer technology at Bloomberg, the author of the

00:00:08 ◼   ► Power On Newsletter, and I think it's fair to say, one of the most

00:00:12 ◼   ► prominent reporters about Apple.

00:00:14 ◼   ► If you have ever read a story on what Apple is going to do

00:00:17 ◼   ► before they announce it, there's a pretty good chance that it started with Mark.

00:00:21 ◼   ► He's been doing this for a really long time.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Mark broke his first Apple stories as a teenager writing for 9 to 5

00:00:27 ◼   ► Mac while he was still in high school.

00:00:29 ◼   ► And he's spent over 15 years becoming one of the most connected people to

00:00:34 ◼   ► what the company is planning.

00:00:36 ◼   ► A company that actually prides itself on secrecy.

00:00:39 ◼   ► But that doesn't stop Mark Garman.

00:00:41 ◼   ► I'm having Mark on the show at a very important time.

00:00:44 ◼   ► In just a couple of weeks, Tim Cook hands Apple to John Turnus, a

00:00:47 ◼   ► story Mark has reported on literally for years.

00:00:50 ◼   ► We're gonna talk about that actually.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Please enjoy the show.

00:00:54 ◼   ► Mark, I want to get started by asking you a question I ask all

00:00:57 ◼   ► of my guests right now.

00:00:58 ◼   ► What is an app that you love right now?

00:01:00 ◼   ► Like it's something you're really enjoying.

00:01:02 ◼   ► You know, I feel like downloading apps, it's slowly dissipating.

00:01:09 ◼   ► I remember five years ago plus maybe I would download an app every day,

00:01:13 ◼   ► right?

00:01:13 ◼   ► It felt like there was something new and interesting.

00:01:16 ◼   ► But either it's that I become so busy or that I have everything that

00:01:20 ◼   ► I already need on my phone that I'm not really going out and seeking

00:01:24 ◼   ► new apps.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Like I can't really think of the last app that I downloaded in the

00:01:29 ◼   ► last several years that I really have gone hooked on.

00:01:33 ◼   ► I did switch from Apple reminders to things from cultured code recently.

00:01:39 ◼   ► And I think things is great.

00:01:41 ◼   ► It's on all the devices.

00:01:42 ◼   ► They've done a really good watch app.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Vision Pro app is pretty nice.

00:01:45 ◼   ► So if you're looking for a new to-do list or calendar management app, things

00:01:50 ◼   ► is really strong.

00:01:52 ◼   ► And I use a lot of the first party apps from Apple as well,

00:01:55 ◼   ► even though I know I should probably upgrade to a lot of them.

00:01:58 ◼   ► I think there's far better versions of all of them.

00:02:01 ◼   ► No, Things is great.

00:02:02 ◼   ► Like that's great.

00:02:03 ◼   ► Things is a classic.

00:02:04 ◼   ► And I don't know if there will ever be a better looking to-do app

00:02:08 ◼   ► than Things.

00:02:09 ◼   ► No, it's pretty good.

00:02:10 ◼   ► I remember two decades ago almost when the App Store first launched.

00:02:13 ◼   ► It was one of the first apps, and I used it back then.

00:02:16 ◼   ► But after Apple really got reminders working, like they launched Reminders, I believe it

00:02:20 ◼   ► was in 2012, tried it out then, took a break, went back to Things,

00:02:24 ◼   ► was going back and forth, and then went back to Reminders a couple OS

00:02:29 ◼   ► ago as it got really solid.

00:02:31 ◼   ► But for me, Things has been a winner lately.

00:02:34 ◼   ► So I'm sure that people are saying they know you as you know, Mark

00:02:38 ◼   ► German.

00:02:39 ◼   ► You are the source of breaking news about Apple, by and large, whether you

00:02:43 ◼   ► like that moniker or not, it is what people know you for.

00:02:47 ◼   ► But how did you get started?

00:02:50 ◼   ► What drew you to wanting to write about technology?

00:02:54 ◼   ► Yeah, so my history is that I was an Apple fanboy, I would say

00:02:59 ◼   ► for lack of a better term, early on.

00:03:02 ◼   ► I got a green iPod mini as a birthday gift many years ago.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Fell in love with the product, was obsessed, felt like I needed everything Apple

00:03:15 ◼   ► was lucky enough to get an iBook G4 for school back in the day.

00:03:20 ◼   ► The iPod Nano was crazy.

00:03:23 ◼   ► The first one I remember got the black one.

00:03:25 ◼   ► I thought it was the coolest product I had ever seen in my life,

00:03:29 ◼   ► was just obsessed with it.

00:03:30 ◼   ► The U2 iPods back in the day with the red click wheel and the

00:03:36 ◼   ► black case.

00:03:37 ◼   ► It's funny, I was never a fan of U2.

00:03:39 ◼   ► It wasn't the genre of music that I was into, but like a black

00:03:43 ◼   ► and red iPod was just the coolest thing I had ever seen.

00:03:47 ◼   ► Loved it.

00:03:44 ◼   ► I completely agree with you.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Like I think we're a similar age, so we kind of went down very

00:03:52 ◼   ► similar pathways.

00:03:54 ◼   ► But I also didn't care about U2, but was obsessed with the U2 iPod.

00:03:58 ◼   ► There just wasn't as much stuff going on back then.

00:04:01 ◼   ► So those kinds of things really were just of great interest.

00:04:04 ◼   ► And would they ever do more?

00:04:07 ◼   ► I mean, the answer was no, they never did other iPods, but there was

00:04:09 ◼   ► always a hope that other bands might get one.

00:04:12 ◼   ► I remember that.

00:04:12 ◼   ► I wish they did, right?

00:04:14 ◼   ► I mean, there were so many cool concepts that people were making online of

00:04:18 ◼   ► like what different types of iPods could look like.

00:04:20 ◼   ► I remember the concepts of a touch screen iPod back in the day before

00:04:24 ◼   ► the iPhone obviously turned out to be completely different.

00:04:27 ◼   ► But that was all like circa 05-06, and then the iPhone came out in

00:04:30 ◼   ► 07.

00:04:31 ◼   ► And like I was obsessed with that thing, was counting down the days until

00:04:35 ◼   ► that phone came out, and I ended up waiting in line with my family

00:04:39 ◼   ► for the phone.

00:04:40 ◼   ► It was like 11 or 12 hours.

00:04:42 ◼   ► So we wait all that time.

00:04:43 ◼   ► You know, there's hundreds of people in line, and so we get the phone,

00:04:47 ◼   ► you know, between 6 and 7 p.m.

00:04:49 ◼   ► and it was finally our turn.

00:04:50 ◼   ► And then it's so funny.

00:04:52 ◼   ► If you just walked into the Apple store at 9 p.m.

00:04:56 ◼   ► that night after the whole line was fulfilled, you could have just walked in

00:05:00 ◼   ► without having waited the whole day for the phone.

00:05:02 ◼   ► So it was like, what was the point?

00:05:03 ◼   ► But I guess it was the you know experience.

00:05:06 ◼   ► It was, yeah.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Until that phone came out, I had just never seen that concept of waiting

00:05:10 ◼   ► in line for something.

00:05:12 ◼   ► And then every year it became this annual tradition where okay, the iPhone 3G

00:05:16 ◼   ► is coming out, the 3GS, the 4, the 4S, the 5.

00:05:19 ◼   ► And it's like waiting in line for these devices, and now it's all about

00:05:23 ◼   ► the pre-order.

00:05:24 ◼   ► Whether it's a combination of the annual updates becoming less interesting, whether it's that

00:05:30 ◼   ► the phone has become mature, or it's just the fact that everyone has one

00:05:29 ◼   ► now, it's a mature category, so less people.

00:05:37 ◼   ► You mentioned fanboy a minute ago.

00:05:40 ◼   ► And back in the kind of early 2000s, that was a term of endearment,

00:05:46 ◼   ► really.

00:05:47 ◼   ► People who were a fan of Apple would call themselves fanboys, right?

00:05:50 ◼   ► Like that was like the phrase.

00:05:52 ◼   ► And I just think that the fandom has changed.

00:05:54 ◼   ► I think fandom creates people standing in lines, right?

00:05:57 ◼   ► Like hoping to buy the newest phone.

00:06:00 ◼   ► And I think that that culture has changed as the culture around big tech

00:06:04 ◼   ► companies has changed.

00:06:06 ◼   ► I think that's part of what you're seeing.

00:06:08 ◼   ► But that's just my read.

00:06:09 ◼   ► I agree.

00:06:10 ◼   ► I would say that Apple is a little unique and that it is more

00:06:14 ◼   ► insulated than the meta and Googles and OpenAIs of the world from this.

00:06:20 ◼   ► I think that Apple is still seen as some sort of mainstream company that

00:06:25 ◼   ► for the most part is not a bad actor in terms of how it

00:06:29 ◼   ► is perceived.

00:06:29 ◼   ► I think Meta and Google, fair or not, are perceived far more as dangerous

00:06:34 ◼   ► or bad actors than Apple.

00:06:36 ◼   ► But we'll see what happens over time.

00:06:38 ◼   ► Apple's done a good job of insulating themselves.

00:06:40 ◼   ► And again, some of the meta stuff and the Google stuff is absolutely fair.

00:06:43 ◼   ► Some of it may be overblown, but I would put them in two different

00:06:46 ◼   ► categories if I'm being honest.

00:06:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:48 ◼   ► So how do we go from being first in line to the iPhone to

00:06:53 ◼   ► writing at 9 to 5 Mac, which was I think where you got your

00:06:55 ◼   ► start?

00:06:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:56 ◼   ► So the phone came out in 07.

00:07:00 ◼   ► And then it was around the end of 08, 09, that I began developing

00:07:08 ◼   ► iPhone apps.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Okay.

00:07:10 ◼   ► And I at one point had 16 applications on the app store.

00:07:15 ◼   ► And I self-taught how to code using books I had bought at you know,

00:07:19 ◼   ► Barnes and Noble, watching YouTube tutorials, signing up for online classes and whatnot.

00:07:24 ◼   ► And I developed a series of applications.

00:07:27 ◼   ► These were not advanced apps by any means.

00:07:29 ◼   ► There was this thing called the mosquito tone, I believe.

00:07:32 ◼   ► It's a sound tone that depending on your age, you can hear it at

00:07:36 ◼   ► different frequencies.

00:07:37 ◼   ► So I made, you know, basic audio based apps where you could play those

00:07:41 ◼   ► tones.

00:07:42 ◼   ► I actually had some more educational apps.

00:07:45 ◼   ► I was obsessed growing up learning about US history.

00:07:49 ◼   ► And growing up, when I was young, I had a obviously a couple years

00:07:52 ◼   ► old, a food mat or you know, eat on top of, where it would

00:07:55 ◼   ► have all the presidents outlined and like the years they went into office, the

00:07:59 ◼   ► years they exited office, who all the presidents were.

00:08:02 ◼   ► And so I recreated that and I called it I think the US presidential

00:08:06 ◼   ► reference guide or what have you, and I made it as an iPad app.

00:08:11 ◼   ► And then back in the day, Mac OS 10 had dashboard, and I had

00:08:16 ◼   ► been obsessed with breaking news and what have you, like global news.

00:08:19 ◼   ► And so I made a bunch of dashboard widgets that sucked in the RSS

00:08:24 ◼   ► feeds of major news outlets and had those dashboard widgets in the Mac OS

00:08:29 ◼   ► 10 dashboard at the time.

00:08:31 ◼   ► So was really a fan of software development and creating applications and being part

00:08:36 ◼   ► of the Apple developer community, which today it's this giant community with millions of

00:08:41 ◼   ► people.

00:08:41 ◼   ► Back in you know the late 2000s with dashboard and the early innings of

00:08:46 ◼   ► the App Store, it was a far smaller community, and you would get to

00:08:49 ◼   ► know people.

00:08:50 ◼   ► So that's how I got my start.

00:08:52 ◼   ► And at the same time, I was glued to the Apple forums and the

00:08:56 ◼   ► Apple rumors and news websites, 95 Mac being one of the top tier ones

00:08:59 ◼   ► at the time.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Obviously, Mac Rumors was there as well.

00:09:05 ◼   ► And I've told this story before, but I just wanted to be part of

00:09:09 ◼   ► it.

00:09:09 ◼   ► And I was trying to look for any clues about upcoming Apple products because

00:09:13 ◼   ► I was obsessed about what's coming next.

00:09:15 ◼   ► And in late 09, before the iPad was announced, I was doing some hunting

00:09:20 ◼   ► around domain names to see if there was an indicator of Apple registering a

00:09:24 ◼   ► name that had to do with a tablet.

00:09:26 ◼   ► And I found this name called iSlate.com.

00:09:29 ◼   ► I just came up with this idea that it would be called the iSlate,

00:09:32 ◼   ► which was clearly a name they had considered.

00:09:34 ◼   ► Back then, you know, a lot of people were calling tablet slates.

00:09:38 ◼   ► And I sent that in to one of the guys at Mac Rumors, and

00:09:41 ◼   ► they used archive of domain registrations to find out that it was indeed Apple

00:09:45 ◼   ► who registered the iSlate.com domain name.

00:09:48 ◼   ► Now, although the didn't end up being the name of the tablet, the Apple

00:09:52 ◼   ► tablet, it was indicative that they were approaching this and they were about to

00:09:56 ◼   ► do this.

00:09:57 ◼   ► And after that article came out, I hit up a bunch of the Apple

00:10:01 ◼   ► news websites asking if I could intern for them, if I could write for

00:10:05 ◼   ► them.

00:10:05 ◼   ► And 95 Mac guys bit, and I would say the rest is history.

00:10:09 ◼   ► What would you say was your first kind of big break story when you

00:10:14 ◼   ► were at 9 to 5 Mac?

00:10:16 ◼   ► I would say the biggest one was 2011.

00:10:21 ◼   ► This was hands-on impressions of Siri and the iPhone 4S.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Okay.

00:10:30 ◼   ► A couple weeks before Siri and the iPhone 4S were actually announced.

00:10:35 ◼   ► And Siri remains to this day, obviously one of the biggest new features in

00:10:39 ◼   ► the iPhone's history.

00:10:40 ◼   ► They've made big strides there, but that was a big scoop for me.

00:10:44 ◼   ► All the details about the phone, what it looked like, all the new features,

00:10:44 ◼   ► and down to the detail of the integrations in Siri, what the user interface

00:10:53 ◼   ► looked like, how you summoned it, what the different applications it could tap into.

00:10:57 ◼   ► So that was a pretty exciting story for me, and probably my first, I

00:11:00 ◼   ► would say, blockbuster break.

00:11:02 ◼   ► Yeah, that is a big one, especially like, you know, the year after the

00:11:06 ◼   ► iPhone 4, right?

00:11:07 ◼   ► Which was on its own such a huge deal to be able to have

00:11:11 ◼   ► a scoop like that just one year later, I'm sure gone with a lot

00:11:14 ◼   ► of interest.

00:11:15 ◼   ► The 2010, 2011 Apple era was just a wild time.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Obviously, the iPhone 4 was a huge deal.

00:11:23 ◼   ► You had the whole antenna gate thing, but you know, for most people, I

00:11:26 ◼   ► think they remember it as just probably their favorite iPhone of all time or

00:11:30 ◼   ► favorite iPhone design of all time.

00:11:32 ◼   ► Like I remember seeing the iPhone 4 for the first time, and the design

00:11:36 ◼   ► in the display was just wild.

00:11:38 ◼   ► You had the iPad come out in 2010, and then obviously the Steve Jobs

00:11:43 ◼   ► Medical Leave, him ultimately passing, Tim Cook taking over a CEO.

00:11:48 ◼   ► Then you had the 4S and Siri launch in the middle of that.

00:11:52 ◼   ► You had iCloud launch in the middle of that.

00:11:55 ◼   ► You had the Android competition really come to new levels during that time.

00:12:00 ◼   ► And so it was just all this confluence of things very early on when

00:12:04 ◼   ► I was covering Apple between the competition, between the Steve Jobs passing and leadership

00:12:09 ◼   ► transition, between the biggest new products in years, between the iPhone 4 and the

00:12:13 ◼   ► iPad.

00:12:14 ◼   ► It was just a wild time.

00:12:15 ◼   ► And I remember I was in a summer college at the time at Stanford.

00:12:21 ◼   ► I did a summer semester at Stanford, and sort of being in that vicinity

00:12:26 ◼   ► where everything was happening, right in the middle of everything is just a period

00:12:29 ◼   ► of my life I'll never forget.

00:12:30 ◼   ► So, how long were you at 9 to 5 Mac for?

00:12:33 ◼   ► I was at 9 from very tail end of 09, like I'm talking holidays

00:12:40 ◼   ► time, 09, early 2010, so right before the iPad was introduced through mid-2016.

00:12:48 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:49 ◼   ► So six, seven years or so.

00:12:51 ◼   ► And it was super fascinating time for me because I was balancing this online

00:12:58 ◼   ► world, the pressure of breaking all this news, 9 to 5 Mac, and also

00:13:06 ◼   ► in high school and also in college.

00:13:10 ◼   ► So being able to do all that while in school, working during class, working

00:13:16 ◼   ► in between classes, before school, after school, basically the entirety of weekends.

00:13:21 ◼   ► It was a bit of a unique high school and college experience, I would

00:13:24 ◼   ► say.

00:13:24 ◼   ► So then over this time, you're building sources, right?

00:13:28 ◼   ► I guess is the best way to describe it.

00:13:30 ◼   ► Maybe you would describe it differently.

00:13:31 ◼   ► But you know, you're breaking this news because you're building these relationships.

00:13:35 ◼   ► Was this something that you were working really hard at?

00:13:39 ◼   ► Was this something that you fell into?

00:13:41 ◼   ► Like, how did this begin as a thing for you to be able to

00:13:44 ◼   ► build up to the point where you mentioned the iPhone 4S story, but one

00:13:48 ◼   ► of the ones that I really remember is essentially all of the details of

00:13:52 ◼   ► the 12-inch MacBook in like 2015 or something was like a huge story where

00:13:57 ◼   ► you're like, hey, here's everything you want to know about this computer that doesn't

00:14:00 ◼   ► exist yet.

00:14:01 ◼   ► And we did, I remember we did the renders of it, and it was

00:14:04 ◼   ► during CES, and people were shocked at the size, and they were shocked that

00:14:09 ◼   ► it was a single port machine.

00:14:11 ◼   ► I still can't believe it to this day.

00:14:12 ◼   ► They, they went with a single USB C port.

00:14:15 ◼   ► The origin of that actually is twofold.

00:14:14 ◼   ► They were working on two versions.

00:14:19 ◼   ► One they called Stealth Fighter, one they called Stealth Bomber.

00:14:23 ◼   ► And Stealth Fighter was the super thin light variant.

00:14:28 ◼   ► Stealth Bomber was a bit of a thicker, heavier variant, and they simultaneously developed

00:14:33 ◼   ► those and were able to get the fighter out the door, obviously the lighter

00:14:37 ◼   ► one.

00:14:37 ◼   ► The other interesting thing there was that the origin was it was going to

00:14:41 ◼   ► be a lightning connector.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Can you imagine?

00:14:44 ◼   ► Like the response it got as a single USB-C port was bad enough.

00:14:48 ◼   ► If that thing was lightning, man, that would have been just a disaster of

00:14:52 ◼   ► a product.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Yeah, the idea was that they wanted to go as minimalist as possible, minimalist

00:14:57 ◼   ► down to the point of not allowing high-speed data transfers and everything you want

00:15:02 ◼   ► a USB-C port for, just a purely wireless machine, other than obviously being able

00:15:08 ◼   ► to charge it.

00:15:09 ◼   ► And if you think back to that era, sort of that 2015 through 2017,

00:15:14 ◼   ► 2018, it kind of felt like Apple was like killing the Mac.

00:15:20 ◼   ► It felt like Apple was just trying to push the Mac to the back

00:15:24 ◼   ► burner and bring the iPad and the iOS products to the forefront.

00:15:30 ◼   ► And that really felt like a machine for that era.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I mean, you remember what they were doing in the MacBook Pro with the

00:15:35 ◼   ► touch bar, making it super thin, the performance wasn't great.

00:15:39 ◼   ► It was just all about the iPad, iPad updates.

00:15:42 ◼   ► They had like sped up the pace of upgrades.

00:15:45 ◼   ► They had the iPad Pros, the different screen sizes, the iPad mini, and what

00:15:48 ◼   ► have you.

00:15:49 ◼   ► But then Mac updates, right?

00:15:51 ◼   ► Were super few and far between, where like they were going multiple years.

00:15:55 ◼   ► There was this three, four-year period without a new MacBook Air, right?

00:16:00 ◼   ► If you remember that.

00:16:01 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:15:59 ◼   ► And an MacBook Pro languished.

00:16:03 ◼   ► It was a crazy time, but it feels like the Mac has just become

00:16:08 ◼   ► something that has eclipsed the iPad completely since then.

00:16:10 ◼   ► So I guess the point is it's amazing how much time could change things.

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00:18:22 ◼   ► So in 2016, you leave 9 to 5 Mac and you join Bloomberg, which

00:18:27 ◼   ► I mean I remember being very surprised about this move at the time because

00:18:31 ◼   ► it felt like you're leaving a more enthusiast publication and going into a kind

00:18:37 ◼   ► of a more business focused publication.

00:18:40 ◼   ► What was your thinking behind this move to Bloomberg?

00:18:44 ◼   ► Yeah, a few things.

00:18:45 ◼   ► First of all, I will say when I joined Bloomberg, there were obviously some

00:18:49 ◼   ► critics and some people being very skeptical, thinking it wouldn't work out.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, I remember that too.

00:18:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:55 ◼   ► I just took my 10-year anniversary at Bloomberg.

00:18:58 ◼   ► Yeah, it's less than two weeks ago.

00:19:00 ◼   ► So it's worked out.

00:19:02 ◼   ► I love it here and feel like I'm a great part of the team.

00:19:06 ◼   ► When Bloomberg and I talked, you know, 10, 11 years ago, I mean, we

00:19:12 ◼   ► had been talking a year or two before I joined.

00:19:15 ◼   ► I was still in college, obviously, so I wasn't going to do anything until

00:19:19 ◼   ► after graduation.

00:19:20 ◼   ► They really wanted to push deeper into tech.

00:19:23 ◼   ► They had launched a dedicated tech section, a dedicated tech team.

00:19:27 ◼   ► They wanted to go deeper into consumer tech.

00:19:31 ◼   ► So they had reached out to me and were interested in me for the

00:19:29 ◼   ► role.

00:19:35 ◼   ► And what the consumer tech beat originated as was not necessarily the business side

00:19:41 ◼   ► of things.

00:19:41 ◼   ► I was focused on the products themselves.

00:19:43 ◼   ► So breaking news about upcoming Apple products and breaking news about upcoming consumer tech

00:19:47 ◼   ► products from competitors, Google, Facebook, you name it.

00:19:51 ◼   ► And I did do a lot of reporting on Sonos and Roku and DJI

00:19:55 ◼   ► at the time and all the consumer tech companies.

00:19:58 ◼   ► And it was only a few years into Bloomberg, maybe two years actually, that

00:20:02 ◼   ► I pivoted to covering the business side of Apple and these companies.

00:20:07 ◼   ► So the promise when I got there was that it wasn't the business side.

00:20:10 ◼   ► But I also was interested in the business side of Apple too.

00:20:13 ◼   ► I mean, I remember even at Nine to Five Mac, we were covering Apple

00:20:16 ◼   ► earnings calls and the corporate side of the company.

00:20:18 ◼   ► I was doing a lot of reporting even back then on, you know, movers

00:20:21 ◼   ► and shakers, like new people they were hiring, acquisitions, people who were leaving, people

00:20:26 ◼   ► they were firing, etc.

00:20:28 ◼   ► So definitely was a very easy transition.

00:20:31 ◼   ► And on my first day of orientation, I had already gotten a story out

00:20:35 ◼   ► about what's going on with the Apple car.

00:20:37 ◼   ► I would say it was a seamless transition, and I really gelled with the

00:20:41 ◼   ► folks here early on.

00:20:42 ◼   ► So it's been great.

00:20:43 ◼   ► So you you mentioned other companies that you have covered.

00:20:46 ◼   ► You do cover other companies now as well.

00:20:50 ◼   ► But the majority of your reporting is and has always been about Apple.

00:20:55 ◼   ► Would it be safe to say you have not always had a good working

00:20:58 ◼   ► relationship with Apple?

00:21:00 ◼   ► You know, it's it's interesting.

00:21:01 ◼   ► In the nine to five Mac days, there was no working relationship period.

00:21:06 ◼   ► I mean, occasionally we would reach out to them for comment, but we weren't,

00:21:10 ◼   ► or at least I wasn't invited to the Apple keynotes.

00:21:13 ◼   ► But in the Bloomberg days, you know, we're much more buttoned up here.

00:21:17 ◼   ► We have protocols.

00:21:19 ◼   ► Before an article goes out about any company, we reach out to the company,

00:21:23 ◼   ► we reach out to the subject to let them know what we're gonna report.

00:21:26 ◼   ► Hey, we're gonna say XYZ, would you like to comment?

00:21:29 ◼   ► And I think Apple always appreciates the chance to comment on things.

00:21:33 ◼   ► Obviously, in nearly every story you see Apple declines to comment.

00:21:37 ◼   ► But when there are stories about corporate changes, acquisitions, privacy, security, investments, financial transactions,

00:21:49 ◼   ► what have you, there are cases where they're going to want to comment and

00:21:52 ◼   ► give a statement.

00:21:53 ◼   ► And I do think that they appreciate the fact that I never surprise them

00:21:57 ◼   ► on anything.

00:21:58 ◼   ► I don't think there's anything I'll publish that they don't know about and always

00:22:01 ◼   ► appreciate the opportunity that I and we give them to put their statement in

00:22:04 ◼   ► the story.

00:22:05 ◼   ► And so I think from that standpoint, we've got a a very professional working

00:22:09 ◼   ► relationship.

00:22:10 ◼   ► I think that there is a lot of mutual respect.

00:22:13 ◼   ► They may not always enjoy what I write, but I think they see that

00:22:16 ◼   ► in terms of Apple reporting that no one has a bigger audience, no one

00:22:21 ◼   ► reports on them more closely or as frequently.

00:22:24 ◼   ► And it's important for them to have the opportunity to comment when they want

00:22:28 ◼   ► to.

00:22:28 ◼   ► And obviously most times they don't, but when they do, they're happy to give

00:22:32 ◼   ► a statement.

00:22:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess it's like the thing that has happened since joining Bloomberg is

00:22:37 ◼   ► it has kind of created a fairness in a way.

00:22:39 ◼   ► Where like they treat you with more respect, you treat them with respect.

00:22:43 ◼   ► They're not going to necessarily want you to do what you do, but they

00:22:47 ◼   ► don't necessarily begrudge it, right?

00:22:49 ◼   ► Like it's this is the beat.

00:22:50 ◼   ► This is what it's gonna be.

00:22:52 ◼   ► And I will say, in terms of the Apple events, like when I was

00:22:55 ◼   ► at 9 to 5 Mac and I was younger and you know, more obsessed

00:22:59 ◼   ► with the event culture, I desperately wanted to go to Apple launch events.

00:23:04 ◼   ► And so when I started at Bloomberg as someone who was covering this stuff,

00:23:07 ◼   ► I was lucky enough that Apple allowed me to go to the events.

00:23:11 ◼   ► And so the first Apple event I attended officially.

00:23:15 ◼   ► I did go to some WWDCs by buying developer tickets back at the 9

00:23:18 ◼   ► to 5 Mac days for full disclosure.

00:23:20 ◼   ► So we did pay our fair ticket, and I was a developer, so that

00:23:23 ◼   ► was all kosher.

00:23:25 ◼   ► But the first event I attended as media was the September 2016 launch event

00:23:32 ◼   ► where they introduced the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, the Apple Watch Series 2,

00:23:40 ◼   ► and the original AirPods.

00:23:42 ◼   ► And that was a great event.

00:23:44 ◼   ► It was pretty fun and interesting to be there.

00:23:46 ◼   ► It must have felt pretty good, right?

00:23:47 ◼   ► Like to be considering how long you've been doing this, and maybe there had

00:23:52 ◼   ► come a point where you were like, this is just never gonna happen for

00:23:54 ◼   ► me.

00:23:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:56 ◼   ► But the last Apple event I attended in person was the 2019 March event,

00:24:03 ◼   ► the services event where they launched the Apple TV Plus, they launched Apple News

00:24:09 ◼   ► Plus, the Apple Card, Apple Arcade.

00:24:13 ◼   ► And you know, for me personally, it would be great to go to the

00:24:16 ◼   ► events, but at the same time, as long as my team is there, I'm

00:24:19 ◼   ► very happy because what really matters is the Bloomberg reader getting the most in-depth

00:24:24 ◼   ► and up-to-date information and exposure on this stuff.

00:24:27 ◼   ► So it's great to have my team there.

00:24:29 ◼   ► So I want to focus a little bit on the time in which we

00:24:32 ◼   ► are recording this episode, which is in August, right?

00:24:35 ◼   ► So we are around the corner from the new iPhone.

00:24:38 ◼   ► We're a couple of months removed from WWDC.

00:24:41 ◼   ► For me, you know, covering Apple, this is my busiest time of the year.

00:24:47 ◼   ► I would assume it's yours, but I don't know about how your reporting cycle

00:24:44 ◼   ► works.

00:24:52 ◼   ► Because before an event, you will tend to have a big post where you

00:24:57 ◼   ► outline, like, here's what's gonna happen.

00:24:59 ◼   ► You know, it's like I'm always waiting for it.

00:25:00 ◼   ► Like, where's Mark's post?

00:25:02 ◼   ► Now I know what's gonna happen, right?

00:25:04 ◼   ► Like, and we get that a couple of weeks before, usually.

00:25:06 ◼   ► But is this information that you're kind of gathering throughout time, or is it

00:25:12 ◼   ► as busy for you right now as I would expect it would be?

00:25:15 ◼   ► You know, it's a really interesting question.

00:25:17 ◼   ► I guess early on, I did look at this as cycles.

00:25:21 ◼   ► I looked at it as what's going to be really busy is February, March,

00:25:26 ◼   ► because you've got the spring launches and the weeks before the spring launches where

00:25:30 ◼   ► you're doing all this reporting.

00:25:31 ◼   ► May June, same thing, but for WWDC, August, September, because you've got the iPhone

00:25:38 ◼   ► launch, and then October because you have the Mac iPad introductions.

00:25:42 ◼   ► But I'll be honest with you, Mike.

00:25:44 ◼   ► These days I would say there's really not cycles.

00:25:47 ◼   ► It is absolutely non-stop.

00:25:49 ◼   ► It is absolutely 24-7.

00:25:52 ◼   ► It is absolutely pedal to the metal, trying to do as much reporting as

00:25:55 ◼   ► possible.

00:25:56 ◼   ► There are no breaks.

00:25:58 ◼   ► Apple is just such a gigantic company at this point that there's always something

00:26:02 ◼   ► to write about.

00:26:03 ◼   ► There's always something new in development.

00:26:05 ◼   ► There's always a new acquisition, there's always a new financial move, there's always someone

00:26:08 ◼   ► new coming in, there's always someone leaving.

00:26:10 ◼   ► You know, right now is especially interesting and busy because you've got the open

00:26:14 ◼   ► AI lawsuit, which is just crazy.

00:26:17 ◼   ► You've got the leadership transition, you have the biggest change to the iPhone ever,

00:26:22 ◼   ► right?

00:26:23 ◼   ► And then on top of all that, we're about to walk into a period

00:26:29 ◼   ► for Apple, I would say a three-year period that's their biggest new product window

00:26:34 ◼   ► ever in terms of all the stuff that they're working on.

00:26:37 ◼   ► So it's a very busy time and it's busy every day, I would say.

00:26:42 ◼   ► You mentioned the products, but there's also all this bubbling stuff, right?

00:26:45 ◼   ► Like, will chip shortages become a problem for them and how does it change

00:26:48 ◼   ► the narrative?

00:26:49 ◼   ► There's also going to be the leadership transition, and also Apple's, you know, they're

00:26:53 ◼   ► trying to make AI work for them better.

00:26:55 ◼   ► And I think that Siri AI is a great step.

00:26:58 ◼   ► But then at the same time, you mentioned that lawsuit now of open AI,

00:27:01 ◼   ► like as well as all these products on the top.

00:27:03 ◼   ► There's all this stuff happening kind of below the surface.

00:27:07 ◼   ► That is actually the most interesting part of my job because reporting on the

00:27:11 ◼   ► products and getting scoops on what's to come.

00:27:14 ◼   ► That is basically the day in, day out clockwork.

00:27:17 ◼   ► You get the scoop on what's coming, you put out the story, you keep

00:27:21 ◼   ► it moving, you go on to the next product, right?

00:27:23 ◼   ► But then we have what you just described, those are sort of like the

00:27:27 ◼   ► through line topics for Apple.

00:27:30 ◼   ► And you just hit on a few of the big ones.

00:27:34 ◼   ► For me personally, I saw this AI crisis for Apple coming way before WWDC

00:27:41 ◼   ► 2024.

00:27:42 ◼   ► I had seen it, I had known about the internal concerns, I had known

00:27:47 ◼   ► that they were scrambling to get this thing out the door.

00:27:50 ◼   ► I had known how late they were on all these things.

00:27:52 ◼   ► And so I had a very good idea that Apple intelligence was going to

00:27:56 ◼   ► be a massive failure and a major hurt the company moment.

00:28:00 ◼   ► And so I spent, you know, better part of two years focused very much

00:28:06 ◼   ► on every incremental thing I can figure out about Apple's AI crisis.

00:28:10 ◼   ► I wrote about it in my column Power On almost every weekend, if not

00:28:14 ◼   ► every other weekend.

00:28:15 ◼   ► I did multiple feature stories on what's going on inside Apple, tried to break

00:28:20 ◼   ► the news every time a major AI person got pushed out if there was

00:28:24 ◼   ► an AI acquisition and what have you, and just get every little drip of

00:28:29 ◼   ► what was happening in the AI crisis situation.

00:28:32 ◼   ► And so that was a big focus for me in the background while trying

00:28:36 ◼   ► to do the day-to-day product reporting.

00:28:38 ◼   ► Yes.

00:28:38 ◼   ► The other was succession.

00:28:41 ◼   ► So three years ago, I had heard that Tim Cook getting out of the

00:28:46 ◼   ► CEO role that was in motion.

00:28:49 ◼   ► And so I had started trying to get that idea out.

00:28:52 ◼   ► I started writing stories, you know.

00:28:54 ◼   ► Tim Cook, he's 62, he's 63, he's gonna be 65.

00:28:58 ◼   ► Tim Cook and the rest of the Apple leadership team, you know, they're getting

00:29:01 ◼   ► pretty up there in age.

00:29:02 ◼   ► They've made a lot of money.

00:29:04 ◼   ► And so I've tried to get out this idea initially coily that this is

00:29:08 ◼   ► about to happen.

00:29:09 ◼   ► And then I started ramping up, going pretty strong.

00:29:12 ◼   ► So I did a story two and a half years ago that Apple is

00:29:17 ◼   ► about to do this, and that John Turnus is very likely going to be

00:29:21 ◼   ► the next CEO.

00:29:22 ◼   ► And I had heard specifically that, you know, Tim Cook and others, the Apple

00:29:26 ◼   ► board, they had really put their lasers on Turnus being the next guy.

00:29:31 ◼   ► Number of reasons.

00:29:32 ◼   ► Age, wanting to shift Apple in terms of how it's perceived as a company

00:29:37 ◼   ► from an operations and financially and sales driven company to an engineering and product

00:29:43 ◼   ► driven company.

00:29:44 ◼   ► So succession and AI are two big themes related to Apple over the last

00:29:50 ◼   ► couple of years that I'm very proud of how we covered.

00:29:52 ◼   ► Obviously, the new theme is the AI comeback and then the memory shortage.

00:29:59 ◼   ► But most exciting for me, because for me, I've always been most interested in

00:30:03 ◼   ► the products.

00:30:04 ◼   ► Right.

00:30:04 ◼   ► The biggest story for Apple in the next couple of years is the leadership

00:30:09 ◼   ► transition combined with how much new stuff is going to be coming out.

00:30:12 ◼   ► And then I would say as a sidebar, the other one is this Apple

00:30:15 ◼   ► V open AI situation.

00:30:17 ◼   ► So I actually wanted to talk about the succession story in a little bit

00:30:22 ◼   ► more detail, because I think this was a story that you had it nailed

00:30:27 ◼   ► on going back a long time.

00:30:29 ◼   ► You know, like the first time I think I had heard the name John

00:30:33 ◼   ► Turnus was in you wrote an article of like these are the key players,

00:30:37 ◼   ► and this is going back a long time ago.

00:30:39 ◼   ► And in this article, there were lots of people, right?

00:30:41 ◼   ► That you were kind of listing out as like these are the people who

00:30:45 ◼   ► are moving and shaking at Apple essentially.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And Turnus was one of those.

00:30:49 ◼   ► You know, the first time I mentioned Turnus as possible next CEO was actually

00:30:54 ◼   ► six years ago in 2020.

00:30:56 ◼   ► I had a guy tell me that this is the guy to watch, and

00:31:00 ◼   ► he is probably going to be the next CEO.

00:31:03 ◼   ► It was hard to believe because you had Jeff Williams there at the time,

00:31:06 ◼   ► who was the COO, and it seemed they were giving him a lot more

00:31:10 ◼   ► responsibility.

00:31:11 ◼   ► Gave him the Apple Watch, gave him the design team, etc.

00:31:15 ◼   ► And everyone knew that if Tim Cook, you know, stepped off the wrong curve

00:31:19 ◼   ► one day, it would be Jeff.

00:31:21 ◼   ► But it was intriguing enough, and I believed this guy enough.

00:31:25 ◼   ► I trusted this person.

00:31:26 ◼   ► So I put in the story, and here we are.

00:31:28 ◼   ► So with this kind of information, what do you do with it?

00:31:33 ◼   ► Right?

00:31:33 ◼   ► Like do you write about it?

00:31:35 ◼   ► Like so for you, you would you get it, you write about it.

00:31:38 ◼   ► You're not gonna try and get six other people to corroborate.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Oh no, of course, of course, of course.

00:31:42 ◼   ► There's a with everything, there's a process of fact checking.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Because I would just imagine with a story like this, that must make it

00:31:49 ◼   ► much more complicated, something like this compared to what the next iPhone's gonna look

00:31:54 ◼   ► like.

00:31:54 ◼   ► I imagine it's easier to get that information than this information.

00:31:58 ◼   ► You know, I guess what leg up I have is to your point.

00:32:02 ◼   ► I'm an Apple historian.

00:32:03 ◼   ► I know the company through and through, I know the history, and that means

00:32:09 ◼   ► I'm not coming into any of this blind.

00:32:11 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

00:32:11 ◼   ► I'm coming into all of these stories with a lot of context.

00:32:15 ◼   ► So I know what fits, what doesn't fit, and then I also know the

00:32:18 ◼   ► industry context, and I know what Apple has to do in a moment like

00:32:21 ◼   ► this.

00:32:22 ◼   ► And so if you have that context, you have a really good radar for

00:32:27 ◼   ► what makes sense or doesn't make sense.

00:32:29 ◼   ► So you have to combine facts with the smell test.

00:32:34 ◼   ► So when you're building a story like this, you know, like you're starting to

00:32:37 ◼   ► report on this is the next CEO.

00:32:40 ◼   ► How much context do you feel like you need to give to the reader?

00:32:44 ◼   ► I mean, because I assume you're writing for multiple audiences, essentially.

00:32:48 ◼   ► Is this a struggle ever with you, or or do you feel like you've

00:32:51 ◼   ► kind of got this taken care of at this point?

00:32:54 ◼   ► You know, early on when I was starting at Bloomberg, it was not a

00:32:59 ◼   ► struggle by any means, but like you would write the information of what you've

00:33:03 ◼   ► got, talk about the products, and then you would throw in a couple paragraphs

00:33:08 ◼   ► to sort of appeal to a business focused audience.

00:33:11 ◼   ► You would put in your analyst quote about what this random analyst thinks it

00:33:15 ◼   ► means for the company or the industry and consumers.

00:33:18 ◼   ► Then you'd put in your paragraph about the financials of you know said category.

00:33:23 ◼   ► So if I was doing a story on a new iPad mini, would put

00:33:26 ◼   ► in a paragraph about how did the iPad perform last quarter?

00:33:29 ◼   ► What does IDC or Counterpoint or whomever think about the growth rate of the

00:33:33 ◼   ► product?

00:33:29 ◼   ► What is the market share?

00:33:35 ◼   ► And so it'd sort of be like you have this product story with a

00:33:38 ◼   ► few business graphs thrown in.

00:33:40 ◼   ► But over time, I think I've found my voice.

00:33:43 ◼   ► And I think over time, the readers of Bloomberg and Bloomberg customers and everyone

00:33:48 ◼   ► in the Apple ecosystem, they've all, I would say, learned my voice.

00:33:53 ◼   ► And I think that we've all sort of grown up together.

00:33:55 ◼   ► And I think I write pretty freely within our standards.

00:33:59 ◼   ► You know, it's written in a little bit more of a featury context.

00:34:03 ◼   ► And so there's definitely different ways of going about this.

00:34:06 ◼   ► But I think I'm in a really good flow right now, and I think

00:34:08 ◼   ► the readers are really appreciating the stories and the way they're written.

00:34:12 ◼   ► So I think it's in a really good place.

00:34:14 ◼   ► Are you a fast writer?

00:34:16 ◼   ► I would say that I'm known as one of the faster writers and typers

00:34:21 ◼   ► here.

00:34:22 ◼   ► Like we do these live blogs, and we're increasingly posting them to the web.

00:34:26 ◼   ► But I've been doing them for 10 years here for the Bloomberg terminal only.

00:34:30 ◼   ► But now we're doing some web ones for web subscribers.

00:34:33 ◼   ► They love me on the live blog because I'm able to type this stuff

00:34:35 ◼   ► out pretty quickly, whether it's an Apple earnings call or an Apple event.

00:34:39 ◼   ► And what I try to do a good job of is combining the live

00:34:43 ◼   ► material with analysis at the same time.

00:34:46 ◼   ► So I think I've gotten into a pretty good flow with the live blogs,

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00:36:49 ◼   ► Once you publish an article, do you sometimes end up with more information just

00:36:54 ◼   ► because now it's out there?

00:36:55 ◼   ► Like does it kind of kick up a bit of dust?

00:36:58 ◼   ► Yeah, we call it shaking trees here.

00:36:59 ◼   ► And so sometimes you'll put an article out and it'll shake trees.

00:37:05 ◼   ► Like sometimes I'll put out a story and it would have a few details

00:37:08 ◼   ► about you know product X, Y, Z, and then like a couple weeks later,

00:37:11 ◼   ► you'll see me do some like follow-up story with a bunch of additional details

00:37:15 ◼   ► about the product, whatnot.

00:37:17 ◼   ► It's because that prior story shook some trees.

00:37:20 ◼   ► And I think that is a pretty common thing, not only on tech reporting,

00:37:24 ◼   ► but probably reporting in general.

00:37:25 ◼   ► Yeah, because I mean I feel like I see this a lot with your

00:37:29 ◼   ► work, right?

00:37:29 ◼   ► Where it's like, here's a report about you mentioning the kind of the chip

00:37:33 ◼   ► jump that Apple seems to be doing.

00:37:35 ◼   ► It's like here's some information, and it's like a couple of days later, oh

00:37:37 ◼   ► and here's some more.

00:37:38 ◼   ► It's like in reporting this out, it kind of brings out more information, I

00:37:42 ◼   ► guess.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Well, that that is certainly what happens.

00:37:45 ◼   ► For example, I did an open AI story three weeks ago about what open

00:37:49 ◼   ► AI's first product is going to be, and I said it's this small mobile

00:37:54 ◼   ► spark speaker with human-like context and capabilities.

00:37:59 ◼   ► And then I did a follow-up story, which was that the product is going

00:38:02 ◼   ► to be the size of a hockey park and shaped like a donut and

00:38:04 ◼   ► have some mechanical moving parts.

00:38:06 ◼   ► And so that was a natural situation where you know, you do a story

00:38:12 ◼   ► and then more info comes out, and then you do a follow-up story.

00:38:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:14 ◼   ► In terms of your example on the chips, I could put out one story

00:38:19 ◼   ► that's 3,000 words and has endless amounts of detail, right?

00:38:23 ◼   ► Right.

00:38:24 ◼   ► The other component in that is that I understand the mind and the busyness

00:38:30 ◼   ► of the modern reader.

00:38:32 ◼   ► Everyone is on the go.

00:38:33 ◼   ► Everyone is reading on their phones.

00:38:35 ◼   ► A lot of people don't read past the headline.

00:38:37 ◼   ► And so taking a story, writing 3,000 words about all these chip plans and

00:38:42 ◼   ► product plans and what have you, people are just going to miss the info.

00:38:46 ◼   ► And people don't want to sit down for 15 minutes and read 3,000 words

00:38:49 ◼   ► about the new Mac, right?

00:38:51 ◼   ► They want to know about what they want to know about.

00:38:53 ◼   ► So maybe I'll do a story about what the new chips are like.

00:38:56 ◼   ► Then I'll do a story on what the new laptop looks like.

00:38:58 ◼   ► And then I'll do a new story about the touch and OLED and dynamic

00:39:01 ◼   ► island MacBook Pro capabilities.

00:39:03 ◼   ► So everyone gets the news bit that they want and it's a little bit

00:39:06 ◼   ► more spaced out and it's far more readable than putting everything together in one

00:39:10 ◼   ► story.

00:39:11 ◼   ► So chopping it up it is beneficial to the reader.

00:39:13 ◼   ► Yeah, you know I was going to ask you about this actually you've kind

00:39:16 ◼   ► of you are fuel for the overall kind of commentary.

00:39:22 ◼   ► I benefit greatly from your work right and you know me and Jason Snell

00:39:26 ◼   ► on upgrade every week we have a segment called rumor roundup.

00:39:29 ◼   ► You are the main star of rumor roundup.

00:39:32 ◼   ► You know I was very happy Bloomberg subscriber.

00:39:35 ◼   ► So thank you.

00:39:36 ◼   ► I get my information I couldn't not we appreciate you.

00:39:39 ◼   ► But how does it make you feel that like you are for a lot

00:39:42 ◼   ► of it you're like kind of like the top of the funnel and then

00:39:45 ◼   ► it kind of filters out to everyone.

00:39:47 ◼   ► I am so busy now to be honest with you in terms of the

00:39:50 ◼   ► day-to-day reporting that I talked about the thematic reporting on all the big things

00:39:55 ◼   ► happening with Apple.

00:39:56 ◼   ► And then I run our consumer tech team now too.

00:39:58 ◼   ► So I'm responsible for all the product reporting related to all the other companies

00:40:02 ◼   ► you know OpenAI, Meta, Google, all the laptop companies you name it.

00:40:08 ◼   ► So that keeps me busy too and I love leading that team.

00:40:11 ◼   ► We've got a great group here on the consumer tech group.

00:40:14 ◼   ► And so I'm paying less and less attention to it.

00:40:16 ◼   ► There are certain podcasts that I do listen to just because I'm interested in

00:40:21 ◼   ► the opinions of people I respect.

00:40:22 ◼   ► Like I listen to you and Jason, one of the few tech podcasts I

00:40:26 ◼   ► I actually do listen to.

00:40:27 ◼   ► Most of my podcast listening is actually like the ESPN and the NBA podcasts.

00:40:31 ◼   ► I don't listen to many tech podcasts because I need something else in my

00:40:35 ◼   ► brain.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:40:37 ◼   ► But you know, everyone is entitled to a viewpoint and opinion.

00:40:39 ◼   ► Some people have great insights, and I definitely learn a lot from you and

00:40:43 ◼   ► Jason and all the other pods I listen to.

00:40:45 ◼   ► And so it's interesting to listen to other perspectives because the last thing you

00:40:48 ◼   ► want to do is get high on your own supply and just only consider

00:40:53 ◼   ► your thoughts.

00:40:53 ◼   ► You need outside viewpoints and be like, oh, did I get that wrong?

00:40:56 ◼   ► Or oh, that makes sense.

00:40:58 ◼   ► Or I should think about something that way.

00:40:59 ◼   ► So I think it's important to have an understanding of everything and not just

00:41:03 ◼   ► be so laser focused on your own thoughts.

00:41:05 ◼   ► In the last few years, I feel like there has been a real rise

00:41:10 ◼   ► of the leaker.

00:41:13 ◼   ► So people mostly posting to X and other social media platforms.

00:41:17 ◼   ► You know, they have like little pieces of information, a color, they'll post like

00:41:22 ◼   ► random words that people have to read into to try and get some information.

00:41:26 ◼   ► A lot of it's, I think, coming from the supply chain.

00:41:29 ◼   ► What is your opinion on this stuff?

00:41:31 ◼   ► So during COVID, there was a crop and influx of these sort of I

00:41:36 ◼   ► call them fake leakers who just made these Twitter accounts and would just say

00:41:41 ◼   ► things.

00:41:42 ◼   ► And it was nine times out of ten, complete BS.

00:41:45 ◼   ► They would just make it up.

00:41:47 ◼   ► And I guess that some of the rumor sites were so starved for content

00:41:50 ◼   ► at the time that they would take these fake accounts, right?

00:41:55 ◼   ► And literally report on what these accounts are saying.

00:41:59 ◼   ► But to your point, there have been some legitimate accounts, I guess, on Weibo

00:42:05 ◼   ► and some of the Chinese websites and X in some fashion.

00:42:08 ◼   ► There's one I think called Digital Chat Station, and I forget the name of

00:42:12 ◼   ► the other one, where you are seeing some reliable and reputable news flowing through

00:42:14 ◼   ► there.

00:42:18 ◼   ► But obviously, to your point, it's little keywords, it's very vague, and it's hard

00:42:22 ◼   ► to really understand what they're talking about because they're just using very few words

00:42:25 ◼   ► and they're trying to be, you know, coy and whatnot.

00:42:28 ◼   ► So yeah, definitely it's something I've seen on Twitter, but you don't get the

00:42:32 ◼   ► full context, you don't get the real scoop, you don't get all the details,

00:42:36 ◼   ► but definitely that is all coming out of the supply chain.

00:42:39 ◼   ► Does any of that change how you work?

00:42:41 ◼   ► You know, like the supply chain leaks and stuff.

00:42:44 ◼   ► You know, think of someone like Min Chi Kuo, you know, quote, is posting

00:42:48 ◼   ► lots of information about supply chain stuff and has good reports.

00:42:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:52 ◼   ► Does that kind of reporting alter your reporting?

00:42:55 ◼   ► No, no, you know, I'm very proud of the reporting I do, but I

00:42:59 ◼   ► definitely never have felt that it should be me and only me.

00:43:05 ◼   ► You know, people should report if they have news to report on, right?

00:43:09 ◼   ► Hopefully, sources and people with information are coming to me.

00:43:13 ◼   ► But as someone who loves Apple and loves news about Apple and loves Apple

00:43:20 ◼   ► products as much as I do, I'm excited whether the story is coming from

00:43:24 ◼   ► me or elsewhere.

00:43:25 ◼   ► With many of the journalists I've interviewed in the series, one of the things

00:43:28 ◼   ► I've been very interested in is impact.

00:43:32 ◼   ► I had a really great conversation with this with your colleague Jason Schreier, you

00:43:36 ◼   ► know, talking about his impact in the video game industry.

00:43:38 ◼   ► And you work at an institution now that investors pay a lot of attention

00:43:44 ◼   ► to.

00:43:44 ◼   ► Your focus is on one of the biggest companies in the world, and you

00:43:48 ◼   ► are seen as absolutely one of the people who can tell you what's going

00:43:52 ◼   ► on at this company.

00:43:54 ◼   ► It can move stock.

00:43:56 ◼   ► Your reporting can have big implications.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Do you ever think about this when you're hitting publish?

00:44:02 ◼   ► Or do you try and just not think about it?

00:44:05 ◼   ► The only implications I consider are whether the story is accurate or not.

00:44:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:44:10 ◼   ► How the market moves, how the market doesn't move, it's not my concern and

00:44:16 ◼   ► it shouldn't be my concern.

00:44:17 ◼   ► Investors make the decisions that they make.

00:44:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:44:21 ◼   ► And I guess the best way that you can have the best impact is

00:44:25 ◼   ► having that focus, right?

00:44:26 ◼   ► The focus on is this accurate?

00:44:28 ◼   ► Like, how accurate can I be?

00:44:30 ◼   ► I need to be as accurate as possible.

00:44:32 ◼   ► And then whatever the chips may fall, they fall where they fall.

00:44:35 ◼   ► Well, being accurate's not the only thing that matters.

00:44:37 ◼   ► Being first is the other thing that matters.

00:44:39 ◼   ► So for me, breaking the news and being the most accurate are the two

00:44:43 ◼   ► most important things.

00:44:44 ◼   ► I don't have a vested interest in whether it moves the stock or doesn't

00:44:48 ◼   ► move a stock.

00:44:49 ◼   ► You know, you mentioned breaking the news first and being the most accurate.

00:44:53 ◼   ► I feel like they are in conflict with each other, right?

00:44:56 ◼   ► Why?

00:44:57 ◼   ► I would imagine you could make sure you were first if you just reported

00:45:02 ◼   ► it, right?

00:45:03 ◼   ► Like something comes to you and you just publish it.

00:45:05 ◼   ► No, we don't do that.

00:45:06 ◼   ► There is But that would be the the easiest way for someone, not you,

00:45:09 ◼   ► but for someone to be first, right?

00:45:11 ◼   ► Is like you try and be as quick as possible.

00:45:14 ◼   ► Well, okay.

00:45:15 ◼   ► So let's go back to your earlier conversation about dripping things out.

00:45:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:18 ◼   ► You only want to put out what you're confident in.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Right.

00:45:21 ◼   ► And so one way to work around this problem you presented of accuracy and

00:45:25 ◼   ► breaking news being in conflict is not publishing everything because you're not confident.

00:45:31 ◼   ► Yeah, that makes sense, right?

00:45:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:33 ◼   ► So there could be a case where I've got a bunch of info on

00:45:36 ◼   ► a Mac plan or whatnot.

00:45:38 ◼   ► And instead of putting it all out, right?

00:45:41 ◼   ► I want to ensure that I'm first and most accurate.

00:45:44 ◼   ► So what you'll do is you'll put a story on what you're a hundred

00:45:48 ◼   ► percent confident in as quickly as possible, and over time build out the story

00:45:53 ◼   ► as you get the corroboration and the confidence you need in the information and

00:45:57 ◼   ► do additional stories on top of each other until you get to that point.

00:46:01 ◼   ► And so that actually is the third reason why you would see things spaced

00:46:04 ◼   ► out, is because everything needs to be confirmed at a level of appropriate confidence

00:46:09 ◼   ► at our standards, and that can take time.

00:46:12 ◼   ► And to avoid getting beat, you put out what you know at a hundred

00:46:15 ◼   ► percent.

00:46:16 ◼   ► And once you reach the hundred percent threshold on the other stuff, then you

00:46:19 ◼   ► publish that later.

00:46:20 ◼   ► Yeah, and as we mentioned earlier, publishing something may shake the trees, and then

00:46:25 ◼   ► you actually get the information you need about the subsequent parts, right?

00:46:28 ◼   ► Like that m might be a way that you can end up getting the

00:46:31 ◼   ► thing that you need to publish part B and part C is publishing part

00:46:34 ◼   ► A.

00:46:35 ◼   ► You presented those two things in conflict, and on the surface they may be

00:46:38 ◼   ► in conflict, but we don't compromise our accuracy for speed, meaning that if we're

00:46:45 ◼   ► not a hundred percent sure of something, we're not gonna put it out just

00:46:47 ◼   ► to be first.

00:46:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:49 ◼   ► I can imagine that being something that is different for you than maybe some

00:46:54 ◼   ► people that are posting leaks on Twitter or making YouTube videos or whatever, right?

00:46:58 ◼   ► Where the the accuracy part is less important to them because of their background,

00:47:05 ◼   ► who they're producing for, whether it's the for themselves or for a different outlet.

00:47:09 ◼   ► Where you have these standards because I'm sure you believe in them, but also

00:47:13 ◼   ► they are an important part for the organization you work for, right?

00:47:16 ◼   ► Like that's part of the deal.

00:47:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:18 ◼   ► It's our reputation.

00:47:19 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's my reputation.

00:47:21 ◼   ► And the last thing everyone to do is put something out that's not accurate.

00:47:24 ◼   ► Like I would rather not be first to something and be right rather than

00:47:28 ◼   ► be first to something and be wrong.

00:47:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:29 ◼   ► Because ultimately the right is more important.

00:47:29 ◼   ► People have long memories.

00:47:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:34 ◼   ► I don't want to deal with not being able to sleep at night personally,

00:47:36 ◼   ► right?

00:47:37 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Sentry.

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00:49:10 ◼   ► That is S E N T R Y dot IO and the code Cortex26.

00:49:15 ◼   ► Something I see people say about you is you're a spoiler.

00:49:14 ◼   ► That you have the information, you share it.

00:49:20 ◼   ► And it's funny, you know, like thinking about where you came from, where I

00:49:24 ◼   ► came from.

00:49:24 ◼   ► There was so much less information when we started paying attention to this stuff,

00:49:29 ◼   ► and things that Apple did were much more of a surprise.

00:49:32 ◼   ► And it feels like today the surprises are much fewer and further between.

00:49:37 ◼   ► What do you think about that representation over here?

00:49:41 ◼   ► I think people have a lot of choice for the content they engage in,

00:49:45 ◼   ► for the content they listen to, for what they read.

00:49:48 ◼   ► And if they're not into it, then they're not into it.

00:49:51 ◼   ► Do you like to be surprised?

00:49:52 ◼   ► Like if Apple announces something that you didn't know about or wasn't the way

00:49:57 ◼   ► that you expected it to be, are you surprised about this or annoyed about

00:50:01 ◼   ► it because you didn't know it?

00:50:02 ◼   ► I guess we'll still have to see.

00:50:07 ◼   ► No, I mean, seriously though, like again, I'm a consumer, yeah, and I'm super

00:50:12 ◼   ► excited.

00:50:12 ◼   ► Like, I'm super pumped for this foldable iPhone.

00:50:15 ◼   ► I absolutely cannot wait to be first in line or hopefully at the front

00:50:19 ◼   ► of the line to pick up this thing when it launches.

00:50:21 ◼   ► And so as a customer, I'm like really fixated on how great this thing

00:50:25 ◼   ► is gonna be.

00:50:25 ◼   ► I know that's a little over the top, but it feels like the first

00:50:28 ◼   ► big change to the phone in 20 years.

00:50:30 ◼   ► Obviously, I've got a bunch of foldable phones that I carry, and at home,

00:50:33 ◼   ► like I got a foldable Samsung a Google foldable.

00:50:37 ◼   ► I've tried them all and spent a considerable amount of time with them all.

00:50:39 ◼   ► And so I'm I really love the category and excited to get one with

00:50:43 ◼   ► iOS running on it too.

00:50:45 ◼   ► Do you have faith that Apple will present something that feels different enough that

00:50:52 ◼   ► it's exciting?

00:50:53 ◼   ► I think the foldable iPhone is gonna be a tremendous hit for Apple.

00:50:57 ◼   ► Okay.

00:50:58 ◼   ► I think people are gonna fall in love with it.

00:50:59 ◼   ► This new Samsung Fold 8, the wide fold, I've been using it.

00:50:59 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:51:06 ◼   ► It's a great format.

00:51:07 ◼   ► It's quite a surprise, right?

00:51:08 ◼   ► Like I've been pleasantly surprised about the overall reception that reviewers have had of

00:51:15 ◼   ► this product.

00:51:15 ◼   ► When was the last time a non-Apple product launched where you've seen essentially unanimous

00:51:22 ◼   ► praise?

00:51:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Right?

00:51:23 ◼   ► Like, you know, when a new Apple product comes out, you know, Apple seeds

00:51:27 ◼   ► the review units, they work very closely with the people reviewing it.

00:51:30 ◼   ► You know, oftentimes you're gonna see unanimous praise, but like to see a Samsung

00:51:34 ◼   ► product, a new format come out and basically get end-to-end, like this thing is

00:51:39 ◼   ► frickin' awesome.

00:51:41 ◼   ► You haven't seen that in a while.

00:51:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:43 ◼   ► And then you take that same design and you put the Apple fit and

00:51:46 ◼   ► finish on it.

00:51:47 ◼   ► You put the Apple marketing on it, you put the Apple excitement from their

00:51:51 ◼   ► customer base on it, you put like this new Apple upgrade subscription program on

00:51:55 ◼   ► it.

00:51:55 ◼   ► People are gonna go wild for this thing.

00:51:57 ◼   ► And so the biggest problem Apple's gonna face with this product is not being

00:52:01 ◼   ► able to make enough of them.

00:52:02 ◼   ► I am excited about it.

00:52:04 ◼   ► You know, like it's it's been very interesting to look at the iPhone lineup

00:52:08 ◼   ► over the last few years, and it feels like there is always like a

00:52:11 ◼   ► problem child product.

00:52:12 ◼   ► They have this like fourth spot, right?

00:52:14 ◼   ► They have the entry-level phone, they have the two pro phones, and then whatever

00:52:18 ◼   ► the other phone is seems to be some level of disappointment.

00:52:22 ◼   ► You're talking about like the mini, the plus, then the air?

00:52:24 ◼   ► Mini plus the air.

00:52:26 ◼   ► Now, of course, the folding phone is not that, but it is a phone

00:52:31 ◼   ► which is outside of their kind of like three core devices.

00:52:35 ◼   ► And while I believe that it will be a great phone, I remain concerned

00:52:41 ◼   ► about if people are going to want it.

00:52:44 ◼   ► Like I just feel like I don't know.

00:52:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:46 ◼   ► Even at what could be a will obviously be a high price, but could

00:52:50 ◼   ► be an even higher price than we imagine.

00:52:52 ◼   ► I don't necessarily think this is a Vision Pro situation playing out again.

00:52:56 ◼   ► Two things I will say though, the battery life will be great, but it's

00:53:00 ◼   ► not going to be awesome.

00:53:01 ◼   ► I also think I'm going to miss the telephoto.

00:53:03 ◼   ► Yep.

00:53:03 ◼   ► Like if I ask what's the sensor I'm using the most is the telephoto.

00:53:07 ◼   ► I'm rarely using the wide angle.

00:53:09 ◼   ► And, you know, oftentimes you're wanting to zoom in on things.

00:53:12 ◼   ► And so the telephoto, I hope they can get back in there at some

00:53:16 ◼   ► point.

00:53:16 ◼   ► My biggest concern from reading your reporting is touch ID instead of face ID.

00:53:20 ◼   ► That makes me very concerned.

00:53:22 ◼   ► Because I think I'm not going to enjoy that.

00:53:25 ◼   ► And that is going to be like a daily annoyance for me.

00:53:28 ◼   ► You know, I thought a lot about why there's no face ID on this

00:53:32 ◼   ► phone.

00:53:33 ◼   ► And Apple and other companies do facial recognition differently.

00:53:39 ◼   ► Apple does facial recognition using a depth sensor.

00:53:42 ◼   ► And it's this whole very customized, intricate array in the device.

00:53:47 ◼   ► And from a physics standpoint, it requires depth.

00:53:51 ◼   ► And the casing is just too thin to get that in there in a

00:53:55 ◼   ► reliable way.

00:53:56 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just it's gonna hurt me.

00:53:59 ◼   ► You know, like this is the most expensive iPhone by a long way, and

00:54:03 ◼   ► that there are things that I have to give up if I want to

00:54:06 ◼   ► move to that is gonna be a I think that's gonna be something I

00:54:09 ◼   ► will struggle with.

00:54:10 ◼   ► But I hope to be so blown away by the experience that I don't

00:54:13 ◼   ► care.

00:54:13 ◼   ► What I do anticipate is that this face ID problem, so to speak, on

00:54:17 ◼   ► the foldable phone, will be resolved within a couple generations, whether it's the foldable

00:54:23 ◼   ► two or the foldable three.

00:54:25 ◼   ► Now, it's gonna be one of two things.

00:54:27 ◼   ► Either they're able to get the island thin enough where they're able to get

00:54:29 ◼   ► the sensor in there, or they pivot away from this hardware, and they use

00:54:44 ◼   ► AI and software algorithms to build a new version of face ID that is

00:54:51 ◼   ► really built through software rather than hardware at its core.

00:54:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:54 ◼   ► And one of those two things is going to happen by gen two or

00:54:57 ◼   ► three.

00:54:58 ◼   ► I don't know that because someone told me that.

00:55:00 ◼   ► But seems logical though, right?

00:55:01 ◼   ► Seems logical.

00:55:02 ◼   ► It's gotten smaller over time anyway, right?

00:55:04 ◼   ► Like the island has gotten smaller, it's smaller and smaller, and now you know

00:55:07 ◼   ► it sits in the screen rather than at the edge of the screen.

00:55:10 ◼   ► Right.

00:55:11 ◼   ► And you would assume this technology has to advance, right?

00:55:13 ◼   ► Like it's just the way it's going to go.

00:55:15 ◼   ► And I do feel like, you know, at this point, they must know so

00:55:19 ◼   ► much about how to do this from an algorithmic perspective than when they started.

00:55:24 ◼   ► So it does feel like eventually we could get there.

00:55:27 ◼   ► So you'll see, you know, those three options.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Either the hardware gets small enough, the algorithmic approach gets strong enough, or there's

00:55:34 ◼   ► a confluence of both of those where maybe you move 50% in both directions

00:55:38 ◼   ► and you can have slightly smaller hardware than you'd like and better algorithms but

00:55:43 ◼   ► not as good as you'd like, and you combine the two and you can

00:55:45 ◼   ► get face ID working.

00:55:46 ◼   ► But you know, touch ID, I'm used to it on my Mac.

00:55:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:49 ◼   ► I want to see how fast it is.

00:55:50 ◼   ► Because if you remember the year before they launched face ID, it's like touch

00:55:53 ◼   ► ID has got pretty damn good.

00:55:54 ◼   ► Like, why are they removing it?

00:55:56 ◼   ► And I remember that second gen touch ID sensor was pretty fast.

00:55:59 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:56:00 ◼   ► Yeah, you know what?

00:56:01 ◼   ► It's gonna be pretty damn annoying.

00:56:02 ◼   ► After 10 years, I'm used to the face ID thing.

00:56:05 ◼   ► This is gonna be a little annoying.

00:56:06 ◼   ► But you know what?

00:56:07 ◼   ► We'll adjust.

00:56:08 ◼   ► I want that bigger inside display.

00:56:10 ◼   ► Yeah, me too.

00:56:11 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Mark Gurma for joining me on this episode of

00:56:14 ◼   ► Cortex.

00:56:15 ◼   ► I actually forgot to ask Mark what he wanted to promote, so I'm gonna

00:56:18 ◼   ► do it for him.

00:56:14 ◼   ► You should subscribe to his newsletter Power On.

00:56:22 ◼   ► I read every issue every week.

00:56:24 ◼   ► There is a link in the show notes.

00:56:26 ◼   ► If you would like to get a longer ad-free version of this show, go

00:56:29 ◼   ► to getmoretext.com.

00:56:31 ◼   ► This time, Mark and I talk a little bit more about what we want

00:56:34 ◼   ► and expect from the Apple CEO transition.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Cortex.

00:56:40 ◼   ► I'll be back next month.