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The Talk Show

9: Command Versus Splat, with Dan Frommer

 

00:00:00   it started in kindergarten there was a

00:00:02   loud speaker this was like the second

00:00:04   day of kindergarten and they said Daniel

00:00:07   Frommer come to the whatever the office

00:00:10   your parents are here to pick you up and

00:00:12   i had had no idea who they were talking

00:00:15   to so you didn't go ahead guys

00:00:17   I waited for like half an hour and I was

00:00:19   crying and I like what's going on here

00:00:21   and finally my mom shut up in the

00:00:23   classrooms like we're waiting here this

00:00:25   whole time I've never had a reason to

00:00:27   pronounce your surname before though I

00:00:29   did not know that it was from her and

00:00:31   not from her because you get fr om em ER

00:00:35   and I kind of roll with it I'm it

00:00:37   doesn't really matter that much

00:00:39   I think that it you know i have from

00:00:41   dome has been my online identity since

00:00:43   like 1995 that makes times more sense to

00:00:46   me now though

00:00:47   yeah as of today the fact that you're

00:00:49   you're a handle like on Twitter etc is

00:00:51   from dome makes ten times more sense to

00:00:54   me never really got it before always

00:00:56   thought you were a little maybe a little

00:00:57   kooky or something huh you know what I

00:00:59   do get I do get a significant amount

00:01:01   especially like a I got a restaurant or

00:01:04   something like that I do get rubber

00:01:06   which never add see now that doesn't

00:01:08   make any sense to me because I've only

00:01:10   got one be and the rules of pronunciate

00:01:13   seems very clear to me that you should

00:01:14   default to group her that would make

00:01:17   sense but maybe I don't know fairly

00:01:20   common outs with an ax handle but it you

00:01:23   know I do sympathize that i see i see

00:01:25   that the confusion anyway I'm here with

00:01:27   dan from you you've had a busy year when

00:01:32   did you leave

00:01:33   Business Insider that was last June so

00:01:37   it's about a year as a buzz been hearing

00:01:39   about and that is where i first got to

00:01:43   know your work on the Apple beat more or

00:01:46   less that alley insider I think you

00:01:49   linked to me like the first month that

00:01:50   we started the site and I think you've

00:01:54   ridiculed something rolling out an and

00:01:56   you know right to it i forgot found the

00:01:59   link not so long ago and I was like that

00:02:00   he was actually right but it didn't

00:02:03   matter is cool and that's kind of when i

00:02:05   started reading during fireball choose

00:02:06   2007 when we started it was then silicon

00:02:10   alley insider it was supposed to be a

00:02:12   blog

00:02:13   about the new york tech scene and then

00:02:15   about three days in we realize that most

00:02:19   of our traffic was coming from outside

00:02:20   of New York and a lot of our best work

00:02:22   was about Google and Apple and Microsoft

00:02:24   and the big tech companies so we're kind

00:02:27   of stuck with the with the weird name

00:02:29   for a long time but then they grew the

00:02:31   site into kind of well now it as you

00:02:33   know it's like kind of huffing and post

00:02:36   of all business stuff but an alumna kind

00:02:40   of all over the place yeah it's a good

00:02:42   idea though because i do think and I

00:02:44   notice you know working out of

00:02:46   Philadelphia that for the most part it

00:02:47   doesn't matter where you're working and

00:02:49   in some ways it's good to be removed

00:02:52   from anything and you can't find it

00:02:55   easier to concentrate i don't have

00:02:56   face-to-face meetings with people and

00:02:58   stuff like that but in other ways it is

00:03:00   good to be physically close to sources

00:03:03   yeah I I i personally struggle a little

00:03:06   with the office environment my first job

00:03:08   was at forbes and high and I quickly got

00:03:11   distracted and was basically spending

00:03:13   like two-thirds of the day just goofing

00:03:15   around talking to people so it's nice to

00:03:17   to kind of be removed sometimes like I

00:03:21   I'd the first like three or four months

00:03:22   i was doing splatter i was getting so

00:03:24   much work done because I was by myself

00:03:26   and know what's bothering me but the

00:03:28   same time it's also cool to you know go

00:03:30   out at night time and last night I went

00:03:32   to dinner with you know of a VC and nine

00:03:34   entrepreneur startup type people it was

00:03:38   awesome it was like wow these people are

00:03:40   on the same Romans kind of cool being

00:03:41   here with them so I know how much you

00:03:43   want to talk about what I'm doing but I

00:03:45   joined readwriteweb late last year as a

00:03:48   contributor and one of the things I'm

00:03:50   doing there is looking at technology

00:03:53   beyond just the typical tech industry

00:03:56   how it applies to governments and you

00:04:01   know civilization and the future is as

00:04:03   kind of a as a whole and so the story

00:04:05   i'm actually working on right now is

00:04:07   about the the data center industry and

00:04:10   Iceland how they're basically you know

00:04:14   Iceland totally screwed its economy a

00:04:15   couple years ago and I and they have all

00:04:18   this renewable green power that's super

00:04:21   cheap and what are they going to do with

00:04:23   it well they have these aluminum

00:04:24   smelting plants which are not very nice

00:04:26   and now there

00:04:27   trying to rebuild themselves partially

00:04:30   with data center so it was cool I got to

00:04:32   go to Iceland for a week for work and

00:04:34   and go underneath the waterfall in a

00:04:36   hydroelectric power plant and tore this

00:04:39   brand new data center so that that story

00:04:42   should be coming out next week and that

00:04:45   s some of the cool stuff that I've got

00:04:46   to do lately which is very fortunate to

00:04:48   my song I said forget the name of it i

00:04:50   saw a documentary i almost started I got

00:04:53   it through itunes on the iceland iceland

00:04:56   economy and how they were kind of ground

00:04:59   zero for the whole 2008 worldwide

00:05:04   meltdown that that it was the epitome of

00:05:06   everything that would that was wrong

00:05:08   before 2008 and the fact that Iceland is

00:05:11   so small

00:05:13   exactly that it's like the population is

00:05:16   is something like the size of st. Louis

00:05:18   but it's a whole country they have like

00:05:20   you know a president and a government

00:05:22   and all this stuff and so a little you

00:05:25   know they're they're playing way outside

00:05:26   of their league there's actually a great

00:05:27   book by michael lewis the guy who did

00:05:29   Moneyball and the big short his book is

00:05:34   called boomerang and the first chapter

00:05:36   is just about how ridiculously

00:05:38   auto-control the Icelandic banking

00:05:41   business God and that's you know pretty

00:05:43   much what shattered their economy so it

00:05:45   was cool going there

00:05:46   it's kind of a weird place you know it's

00:05:49   like light 24 hours a day during the

00:05:51   summer so I'm standing there you know 2

00:05:54   a.m. on friday night a little uh you

00:05:57   know have a little fun and the eating my

00:05:59   kebab sandwich and his son is outside

00:06:01   with mind-blowing 2 a.m. and the and

00:06:04   yeah I don't know man talk about jet lag

00:06:07   now is it was weird but I I mean

00:06:09   although the funny thing is though the

00:06:10   trip from New York is actually the same

00:06:12   length as basically flying to San

00:06:14   Francisco so it's not even that this is

00:06:18   kind of a lame overnight flight was like

00:06:20   I got there my brain still thought it

00:06:21   was like two in the morning or something

00:06:23   so I isn't and is out i'm going down to

00:06:29   like this is like second grade writing a

00:06:32   report level of knowledge of Iceland but

00:06:35   is it true i seem to recall that site

00:06:38   from grade school that

00:06:39   Iceland is the beautiful one and

00:06:42   Greenland is the one that's desolate and

00:06:44   icy and that like the Vikings gave him

00:06:47   the opposite name so that anybody who

00:06:49   wanted to invade would go to the wrong

00:06:50   one and what a cool name for a country

00:06:53   iceland and but they're a little

00:06:56   defensive about it because it's it hurts

00:07:00   them in the sense that people think it's

00:07:01   inhospitable there and I see and and so

00:07:05   there are like there-there almost a

00:07:07   little defensive like no no it's not i

00:07:08   see here it's nice right did they should

00:07:10   roll with it though because it's a

00:07:11   badass name for a country it is they

00:07:13   should i would like to see that and fire

00:07:17   fire land is still available

00:07:19   no josh josh allen has that is long and

00:07:22   that is his his website but is josh

00:07:26   allen what he should do is he should he

00:07:28   should get one of the United do one of

00:07:30   those things we get like an oil rig in

00:07:31   the middle of the ocean and make that a

00:07:33   country or flirt talk to Larry Ellison

00:07:36   do a joint venture yeah yeah exactly get

00:07:38   Larry Ellis did to do that he would be I

00:07:40   think he would be up for that

00:07:41   I don't know if you watch the video of

00:07:43   him at the All Things D conference but

00:07:45   he is hilarious i had not I did not

00:07:47   expect that at all I mean I expected

00:07:49   I know he's like he's friends with Steve

00:07:51   Jobs kind of a mean guy but he was

00:07:54   hilarious he was just talkin trash on

00:07:56   everyone and in a really funny ways it

00:07:58   was pretty awesome

00:07:59   yeah and i'm with you because I mean

00:08:01   oracle is just I know exactly what they

00:08:05   do I don't know exactly what they doing

00:08:06   that in the 10,000 foot perspective I

00:08:08   know what Oracle does they make

00:08:09   databases and enterprise software but

00:08:13   add just had never had any interest in

00:08:15   it so i don't really follow them that

00:08:16   well and I know that he's got a

00:08:18   reputation for for you know being a

00:08:20   personality and that he's you know a bit

00:08:22   of womanizer eat

00:08:24   I know he's into the yachting the yacht

00:08:26   racing and stuff like that you know this

00:08:28   this is a guy who with a couple of

00:08:29   billion dollars knows what to do with a

00:08:31   couple of billion dollars you can ok I I

00:08:33   knew all that and I didn't know that

00:08:35   he's apparently you know was one of

00:08:38   Steve Jobs if not best friend one of his

00:08:40   very closest friends but we're seeing

00:08:43   that video you can see why that that's a

00:08:46   guy who could keep Steve Jobs engaged

00:08:49   another reason why I can see is that he

00:08:51   when he was talking about his products

00:08:53   he knew them front to back in the way

00:08:55   that Steve Jobs also did that most tech

00:08:57   execs just have no idea like what it was

00:09:00   that video you shared a while ago i

00:09:02   think was a gill Emilio talking about

00:09:05   some of the old apple stuff and just you

00:09:07   know clearly someone gave him some

00:09:09   talking points and maybe a deck or

00:09:11   something and he was kind of trying to

00:09:14   say stuff you know words basically where

00:09:16   is Larry was talking about these

00:09:18   products like he like like he designed

00:09:20   them you know like he was still coding

00:09:21   them or something and and he knew he

00:09:24   knows you could see the he knows how

00:09:26   oracle stuff can beat the competition

00:09:28   and how how to spin it in a way that it

00:09:31   makes it seem like you're an idiot if

00:09:33   you're going with anything but the

00:09:34   Oracle solution i I'm interested in

00:09:37   seeing how they you know obviously that

00:09:39   the enterprise is their big thing up I'm

00:09:41   interested in seeing like that's one of

00:09:42   those companies that has the resources

00:09:44   and the ambition and I thought cisco

00:09:46   might be like this to that they would

00:09:48   eventually try to do something more

00:09:50   consumer you know with either with

00:09:54   tablets or phones or something like that

00:09:56   we have you know Cisco tried with the

00:09:58   flipping and totally screw that I God

00:10:00   was not like the worst i was like

00:10:01   somebody should do a follow-up on that

00:10:04   because at the time

00:10:07   actually I thought that they may be

00:10:08   bought them a little bit too late that

00:10:10   it seemed like maybe flips moment like

00:10:13   their opportunity had passed but you do

00:10:18   you also think the ipods opportunity has

00:10:20   passed right there still price selling

00:10:21   more ipods then than any other credits

00:10:24   selling tablets right now or something

00:10:26   like that right so you know i love the

00:10:29   same thing was just going and the flip

00:10:31   for it where I thought maybe what they

00:10:33   were i thought what they would do is

00:10:34   start with the flip and turn it into a

00:10:35   phone and if or if not an actual cell

00:10:38   phone at least internet-enabled because

00:10:41   then what it that's what Cisco does

00:10:43   right so I that's what I thought I just

00:10:45   thought I mean whether it'll be an

00:10:47   actual telephone or not I don't know but

00:10:49   it's got at least have networking and

00:10:51   hopefully like 3g networking so you can

00:10:53   like upload stuff from anywhere right

00:10:55   and and like almost like maybe like you

00:10:58   know in broad terms turn these flip

00:11:01   video cameras into the video equivalent

00:11:03   of

00:11:04   instagram right out-of-the-box soon as

00:11:06   you open it up you can get videos from

00:11:08   others and watch them on the thing and

00:11:10   as soon as you take videos you can share

00:11:12   them you know something like that and

00:11:13   instead I don't know what the hell they

00:11:14   did and that's the thing we keep coming

00:11:16   back to which is that that the hardware

00:11:18   companies are really struggle with

00:11:20   software and that's where Apple I think

00:11:23   and you know some of the companies like

00:11:24   Instagram are you are really fortunate

00:11:27   is that they don't suck itself where

00:11:29   they're really awesome at it i mean if

00:11:30   you look at cisco yeah the way I used to

00:11:33   look so covering cisco is one of my

00:11:35   beats at forbes like long ago my first

00:11:37   tech writing job and you know they they

00:11:39   would do like an acquisition every two

00:11:41   weeks and it was random stuff was like

00:11:43   security cameras and all kinds of crazy

00:11:45   stuff and the justification for all this

00:11:48   was well Cisco's you know core business

00:11:51   is still selling routers and switches so

00:11:53   anytime they can create more web you no

00:11:55   more internet traffic more demand for

00:11:57   bandwidth cisco wins same way you know

00:12:00   any time Apple can use itunes to sell

00:12:02   more ipods and iphones and ipads Apple

00:12:05   wins so that's why you know with flip

00:12:07   I'm like oh this is you know exactly

00:12:09   what you just said this is creates more

00:12:11   video traffic you know you'll need a

00:12:13   better linksys router at home and your

00:12:16   isp will need to spend 40 billion

00:12:18   dollars on more cisco switches and stuff

00:12:20   like that but then the software comes

00:12:23   into it and that's where they just got

00:12:24   host that mean you know that the fact

00:12:26   that that camera camcorder is an app on

00:12:30   an iphone now completely you know beyond

00:12:34   the fact that it makes the the flip

00:12:36   camera itself useless that the cisco

00:12:39   can't build really cool software to put

00:12:41   on the flip either summit and it didn't

00:12:44   take long and i forget which iphone it

00:12:46   was but it wasn't the first one or two

00:12:48   me the first one didn't even shoot video

00:12:49   i write some having a stroke no no it

00:12:52   was a 3gs was the the one that started

00:12:53   with the video right and that's when I

00:12:55   kind of started

00:12:56   although wasn't that good and it was an

00:12:58   HD yet and right next one I guess the

00:13:01   iphone four shots HD video and that's

00:13:04   where it got close and then you could do

00:13:06   like a comparison between the iphone

00:13:08   fours video and

00:13:10   then top-of-the-line flip HD video and

00:13:13   flip one I remember had better color

00:13:15   especially outside

00:13:17   I mean most people would agree it had

00:13:18   better color looked a little bit less

00:13:21   camera phony but it was really small

00:13:25   I mean like in the grand scheme of video

00:13:27   quality you it was close it was close

00:13:30   enough that they were clearly in the

00:13:32   same ballpark and just being in the same

00:13:34   ballpark it's like why in the world

00:13:35   would you carry this thing that's an

00:13:37   inch thick with you already got your

00:13:38   phone with you the other thing i really

00:13:40   like is that it automatically rotated

00:13:43   the video for you so it's it was true

00:13:46   widescreen and not what what I call tall

00:13:49   screen video which is just kind of it

00:13:52   looks fine when you're watching it back

00:13:53   on an iphone but the minute it goes on

00:13:55   youtube or something

00:13:56   yeah no totally always absurd but it too

00:13:59   much it's a nicer way to hold the hold

00:14:01   the device totally exactly yeah yeah

00:14:03   like I do kind of secretly wish that

00:14:05   that apple will figure out a way to to

00:14:07   let you shoot widescreen video while

00:14:10   holding the phone up and down

00:14:12   I thought about that the other day I

00:14:15   don't know if they would do that seems

00:14:16   like one of those things were like no

00:14:18   turn the phone

00:14:20   I don't know yeah well I see it both

00:14:22   ways because on the other hand it really

00:14:24   makes intuitive sense that however

00:14:26   you're holding the phone is exactly how

00:14:28   you're shooting the video right now

00:14:29   they're going to switch it for still

00:14:30   pictures now because still fixtures a

00:14:32   lot of them we do one in portrait format

00:14:34   point so I want to talk to you about

00:14:37   this twitter stuff because absolutely i

00:14:39   think it's the biggest that well then

00:14:41   and this is something that you wrote at

00:14:43   you wrote this one it's flat F right

00:14:45   that's right i mean i just want to

00:14:46   mention this this is another thing that

00:14:48   so we do left you started splat f right

00:14:51   when you left alley insider Business

00:14:55   Insider whatever the hell do they call

00:14:56   it right or did you have a beforehand so

00:15:00   i kind of got into tech writing by

00:15:02   accident I i originally wanted to be a

00:15:04   radio and TV reporter and I like I had a

00:15:07   college radio show called Froemming at

00:15:09   the mouth from like 332 5am that's

00:15:11   pretty sweet and then I had a great

00:15:13   internship at NPR station in Chicago

00:15:16   where I was interviewing like mayor

00:15:18   daley and Barack Obama and rod

00:15:21   Blagojevich anneliese political people

00:15:22   in delhi

00:15:23   yeah that was like my first it was

00:15:26   through my school also is kind of an

00:15:27   internship but then I continue doing it

00:15:29   during the summer so that was that was

00:15:30   really fun and but I I needed to get out

00:15:34   of Chicago I'm i grew up there and I

00:15:36   went to college there as time to get out

00:15:37   so i moved to new york and i applied to

00:15:40   basically every job that existed i

00:15:42   applied to work at frommer's travel and

00:15:43   they thought it was a joke but i think

00:15:47   the first the first job interview I had

00:15:48   in New York was at the wall street

00:15:49   journal for a job that was basically

00:15:51   copying and pasting stuff from the print

00:15:54   CMS into the web CMS and i didn't i

00:15:58   didn't work there i ended up getting a

00:15:59   job at forbes writing about text so

00:16:01   that's that's how i got into it but I

00:16:02   always wanted to kind of start my own

00:16:05   thing and do my own thing

00:16:06   uh my you know the story I've told a

00:16:09   couple times with my dad was in the

00:16:11   advertising industry in chicago and i

00:16:13   was growing up he said he left his big

00:16:15   firm to start his own agency and I

00:16:17   thought that was really cool you know

00:16:19   working for yourself small shop a few

00:16:21   people get get to go on a three-week

00:16:24   road trip around France if you want to

00:16:26   in the summer that kind of stuff so my

00:16:28   goal was always to to do something on my

00:16:30   own and the last year or so it's a tally

00:16:33   Business Insider I started to think

00:16:36   about you know how I could kind of plot

00:16:39   my eggs that there and i wanted to start

00:16:42   a bunch of sites i wanted i started this

00:16:44   travel site in 2004 but I never really

00:16:47   did anything with it i wanted to start a

00:16:49   food site and a cooking show and all

00:16:51   this stuff but I realized that the thing

00:16:53   that I was most known for and probably

00:16:56   did the best was the tech stuff so the

00:16:58   first side i did after i left with splat

00:17:00   f & and I did that pretty full time for

00:17:06   like four months

00:17:07   you know I wrote three or four long post

00:17:10   today and it was fun and and then the

00:17:15   company that I was working with for the

00:17:17   ads this company called say media they

00:17:20   acquired readwriteweb and they wanted me

00:17:22   to work with with them on that so i

00:17:23   joined them as a contributor for that

00:17:25   too so I'm kind of all over the place

00:17:27   right now I'm actually starting off to

00:17:29   another company this summer doing

00:17:32   travel apps for the iPhone but i did it

00:17:34   i don't have anything to say about that

00:17:36   ahead just started like two days ago

00:17:38   so anyway so we're talking about split

00:17:41   off and bitter but now and one thing I

00:17:43   just before we go on to the twitter

00:17:44   stuff I I thought it was an interesting

00:17:46   name when you started it because i

00:17:48   always called it it's the references to

00:17:51   the cloverleaf on the command key

00:17:53   exactly some people call that splat and

00:17:55   they'll say like to do command that I i

00:17:58   say command though like if you want to

00:18:00   do the shortcut for find I i have always

00:18:02   said command F so and that was breaking

00:18:06   a habit i had from my childhood of

00:18:09   saying open laptop yeah open Apple F and

00:18:12   then I really really had the guy I don't

00:18:14   forget when I broke that habit but it

00:18:16   was it was like in the late nineties and

00:18:18   I finally switched the same command

00:18:20   command F command g4 find again i I've

00:18:23   never heard splat I've heard me i guess

00:18:25   i've heard people call it splat but I've

00:18:27   never really and I didn't know I wasn't

00:18:29   sure if that was something that was

00:18:31   unique to you know I I was like did my

00:18:34   dad make that up because his business

00:18:36   partner called it that too and that's

00:18:37   just what we call it around the house I

00:18:39   mean we started using our first Mac was

00:18:41   an LLC in like at home in like nineteen

00:18:44   ninety-four or something like that or

00:18:47   three I don't know and then we had like

00:18:48   a tu SI + 2 c-i and i had my first

00:18:51   perform on all the all the all that

00:18:53   stuff actually found some really great

00:18:57   old Mac stuff that i'm going to post it

00:18:59   I think maybe next week last time I was

00:19:02   home in Chicago but i don't wanna I'm

00:19:03   not going to spoil it but anyway yeah we

00:19:06   call it this black key i don't know why

00:19:07   so I I grew up before I you know I i was

00:19:09   trying to find a name for my text I

00:19:11   didn't want to just host it from dot-com

00:19:14   or it

00:19:15   dan frommer dot-com or something like

00:19:16   that I wanted to be something that I

00:19:18   could kind of a you know extend away

00:19:20   from me a little if I ever if I ever

00:19:22   want to grow it you know forever want to

00:19:24   hire staff or if someone ever sued me

00:19:26   and wanted to bankrupt me or something

00:19:27   like that so i googled splat and you

00:19:31   know it showed up is like some someone

00:19:34   had written a website about it being or

00:19:36   not maybe on our website but maybe it's

00:19:38   mentioned is like an alternative name on

00:19:40   the command key wikipedia page or

00:19:42   something like that so I am i all right

00:19:44   it's not just

00:19:45   me I can I'll go with this is a short

00:19:48   domain was available was you know eight

00:19:51   bucks from godaddy so i went with its

00:19:54   it's kind of weird but people like dude

00:19:57   what splash how splash going and that's

00:20:00   that's actually split my I like it I

00:20:03   like it as a name and it's also very

00:20:04   difficult to find a six character

00:20:06   dot-com right and and that the extra the

00:20:09   twitter account was not available and I

00:20:11   was like oh man sucks but then I found

00:20:13   out that I knew the people who had the

00:20:15   twitter account they were a start-up in

00:20:17   New York called single platform so if

00:20:20   you like

00:20:21   yeah take a bunch of letters out of ya

00:20:24   yes they were using it as like a test

00:20:27   account to Like Tweet out some automated

00:20:29   list so I emailed the CEOs you know I

00:20:32   had met a couple times and I was like

00:20:34   hey can I have this Twitter account and

00:20:36   so yeah they hooked me up with that

00:20:38   sounds pretty sweet

00:20:39   they just got bought for many millions

00:20:41   of dollars so good for them

00:20:43   hopefully a who it's because of me my

00:20:45   last question about the name is what

00:20:47   what is the F in reference to

00:20:49   is it is it specifically about the find

00:20:52   command which splat f is the universal

00:20:54   shortcut for or is the f4 Frommer it's

00:20:57   for Frommer and that's kind of my yeah I

00:21:02   i really want to keep it now you know

00:21:04   that I thought about and I've been doing

00:21:05   it for a while I want to keep it

00:21:06   basically my site and only my sight

00:21:08   forever you know kind of just do it as

00:21:11   much or as little time as it is it can

00:21:13   that will never order all right

00:21:17   exactly that's got no legs yeah one guy

00:21:20   going in sight

00:21:20   yeah but at its cool you know it's it's

00:21:24   fine door its full screen and some apps

00:21:26   are like 05 a conference I could call it

00:21:28   splatter full screen or nobody should

00:21:30   ever use that for full screen it should

00:21:31   never be anything other than find you

00:21:33   time to those have to tell me the apps

00:21:35   that do that and I'll I'm gonna have

00:21:36   them uh I think it's VLC that's horrible

00:21:40   yeah my god what of course it's BLC she

00:21:42   said yeah right yeah i remember the

00:21:44   first version of textmate had a like a

00:21:48   command like that wasn't print but it

00:21:51   was something related to print that that

00:21:53   they that they bound to option p and

00:21:57   I can't have commands that our only

00:21:59   option something because how else would

00:22:01   you that's how you type pie right like

00:22:03   if it is so crazy like it and it was in

00:22:07   Greece they must be going nuts right i

00:22:09   have no idea it's like it's just one of

00:22:12   those weird things where it's because

00:22:13   I've I'm so ingrained in the mac and

00:22:16   apple that there's like a a grammar to

00:22:21   it like when you hear somebody to speaks

00:22:23   english as a second language and you

00:22:25   just forgive all of these grammatical

00:22:27   mistakes there's a grammar to picking

00:22:31   command key shortcuts that fit with the

00:22:34   platform and somebody who's like new to

00:22:37   writing mac software will get it all

00:22:39   wrong and it to me it's it you just like

00:22:41   pull down the menu and look at the

00:22:42   commands and the the shortcuts and it's

00:22:44   like oh my god you're nuts command F for

00:22:47   something other than find totally i

00:22:49   remember switching from Cork to like I

00:22:51   don't know some you know kind of on the

00:22:53   web started coming out and I was using

00:22:55   other software to do web graphics and

00:22:57   not just print stuff and all the

00:22:59   commands that new from Cork we're like

00:23:00   totally different things in whatever the

00:23:02   other interface photoshop or sometimes

00:23:04   was totally confusing

00:23:05   yeah is everything made sense it was

00:23:07   like you know I run around all the stuff

00:23:09   so yeah yeah that's the one that always

00:23:12   got me and I was always a cork guy to

00:23:14   was that and it was also a function of

00:23:17   the relatively smaller displays of the

00:23:21   era that huge huge shortcut in all of

00:23:25   those apps was the ability to turn the

00:23:27   cursor into the hand so you could drag

00:23:29   the canvas around interesting and in

00:23:32   court you held down the option key and

00:23:34   then you that cursor would turn into a

00:23:36   hand no matter what you were doing what

00:23:37   mode you're in and you could drag the

00:23:40   page around the screen at school and in

00:23:43   all the adobe apps it was the spacebar

00:23:45   oh yeah and I could never ever get used

00:23:48   that cuz I spent ninety percent of my

00:23:50   time and cork and ten percent of my time

00:23:51   and say photoshop or illustrator and and

00:23:54   always when I went to do that would hold

00:23:56   down the option key and click and

00:23:58   instead I'm like changing a Bezier curve

00:24:00   or something like that

00:24:01   as you know it's you know adobe still

00:24:03   screws with you like that like that i

00:24:05   have like a real photo shop at home but

00:24:07   then at work I had photoshop elements

00:24:10   and the key to do so if you're selecting

00:24:13   an area and photoshop and you want to be

00:24:15   a perfect square right you hold the

00:24:17   shift key down guy that makes square but

00:24:20   in Photoshop Elements it's the control

00:24:22   key i I don't know why not

00:24:27   maybe they're pulling that from windows

00:24:28   or something I don't know but it's just

00:24:29   completely throws me off every single

00:24:31   time which was on a daily basis I was

00:24:33   trying to crop photos at work and all

00:24:36   the other thing that made the quick

00:24:38   version of that shortcut more logical

00:24:40   was even if you're in the middle of

00:24:41   typing a sentence so you're in text

00:24:43   editing mode if you hold down the option

00:24:44   key the cursor will change to a hand and

00:24:47   you could drag with adobe's where you

00:24:50   hold down the spacebar if you were

00:24:51   typing something and you hit space it's

00:24:53   going to insert a space you had to leave

00:24:56   accented in mode before you could

00:24:58   actually even use the command so it

00:25:00   always made me it made me angry

00:25:02   alright so we're going to talk about

00:25:04   Twitter but before we do that I want to

00:25:07   do the first thank our first sponsor and

00:25:10   our first sponsor is a terrific

00:25:13   wonderful ipad app called The Adventures

00:25:16   of Alex electricity and it's the first

00:25:19   installment of what's going to be a

00:25:21   series of interact interactive stories

00:25:23   for the ipad and tells the story of alex

00:25:26   smart inquisitive boy who wants to

00:25:27   discover the origins of electricity so

00:25:31   is it a game is it a book it it's sort

00:25:34   of all of the above it is really really

00:25:37   well done it is obviously it's for

00:25:39   children but i think it's almost like a

00:25:41   Pixar movie and that it's it's also

00:25:45   easily I i went through the whole thing

00:25:47   and had a blast

00:25:48   the artwork is all hand drawn already

00:25:52   quality the music is so good that it's

00:25:56   actually sold on its own in the itunes

00:25:58   store as a soundtrack and absolutely

00:26:01   deserves deserves to be pulled out like

00:26:04   that terrific music so yeah you're

00:26:08   learning about science you're learning

00:26:09   about electricity but it's just fun it

00:26:12   is like I don't even know where to draw

00:26:14   the line on this app between why they're

00:26:16   calling it a interactive book or a game

00:26:20   an educational game it

00:26:22   it is a perfect perfect example of the

00:26:24   sort of thing you can do on the ipad

00:26:26   that I just don't think you could have

00:26:28   done before it is absolutely not just

00:26:31   like a static book with a couple of

00:26:32   buttons you can click to play sounds it

00:26:34   is interactive you move stuff around but

00:26:37   it involves reading you touch something

00:26:39   everything you touch shows up the word

00:26:41   show up on screen to help kids learn to

00:26:42   read a whole bunch of fun really really

00:26:45   good

00:26:46   I 499 in the app store for the ipad and

00:26:52   it's called The Adventures of Alex

00:26:54   electricity you can learn more about it

00:26:56   at a website The Adventures of Alex

00:26:59   dot-com anybody with the grade-school

00:27:03   kids absolutely go look at this app

00:27:07   you're going to love it your kids are

00:27:08   going to love it and I think them for

00:27:10   sponsoring the show isn't that cool i I

00:27:13   don't have kids but I remember you know

00:27:15   yeah being yet not yet but being I

00:27:17   remember being a kid and you know books

00:27:20   are like 20 bucks they were of course

00:27:22   they were static we're lucky you know

00:27:24   they were color and they were cool but

00:27:26   the stuff the kids get these days

00:27:28   they're really really spoil our

00:27:30   absolutely and I'm for 499 and I don't

00:27:32   it is a remarkable the artwork is

00:27:34   astounding I mean it is easy I when I i

00:27:38   would go to a bookstore and buy the

00:27:39   equivalent book for my kid for fifteen

00:27:41   bucks with this level of artwork and the

00:27:43   size you get you an ipad sighs book

00:27:45   easily 15 bucks for a kids book on it is

00:27:49   way more way more engaging

00:27:52   I think oh and I should also add I don't

00:27:55   I honestly have no idea how big guard

00:27:57   our spanish-speaking contention is but

00:28:00   it's all the entire thing is available

00:28:01   in both the spanish english so i don't

00:28:04   know maybe it's even a good way for kids

00:28:06   to start learning spanish nice yeah

00:28:09   amazingly well done just it's just

00:28:11   incredibly the production values are

00:28:14   just absolutely top-tier could not be

00:28:16   better done

00:28:17   it's a terrific app anyway twitter well

00:28:20   yeah so let's let's talk about Twitter

00:28:23   you wrote a piece on splat f right the

00:28:26   right before the July fourth called

00:28:28   understanding twitter i don't want to

00:28:30   begin to summarize it because I thought

00:28:32   it was you just nailed it but i'll let

00:28:33   you take it from here

00:28:35   sure and you know so the context is that

00:28:38   once again there's this kind of shit

00:28:40   storm of so Twitter you know the twitter

00:28:44   posted a blog post oh no end of the

00:28:46   world coming and there and and of course

00:28:49   in typical Twitter fashions a little

00:28:51   vague you know it's kind of written in

00:28:53   the the California vernacular and and

00:28:56   you don't really we don't really know

00:28:57   what they mean but there's their kind of

00:28:59   suggesting that their kind of

00:29:02   reiterating that they don't think people

00:29:03   should be building Twitter clients

00:29:06   anymore and that there's changes coming

00:29:09   to the API and all that stuff

00:29:11   api terms and and of course no one knows

00:29:15   what that means because they did they

00:29:16   don't really spell it out they will

00:29:18   someday I'm sure and then they'll

00:29:19   probably a massage it again there but

00:29:22   you know the fundamental question is

00:29:24   what's happening to this beloved Twitter

00:29:26   of ours right now in the post is the

00:29:29   post from Twitter was ominous I thought

00:29:31   and and part of what makes i thought was

00:29:33   ominous wasn't that it flat out said

00:29:35   things like this is going where that's

00:29:37   going away but it was like you alluded

00:29:39   to this but the tone of it was this sort

00:29:41   of marketing ease doublespeak right and

00:29:47   part of that is just that's kind of the

00:29:48   way they talk out there which is which

00:29:50   is fine you know it's cool and that you

00:29:52   know I know Michael sippy the guy who

00:29:54   wrote it right all right seems that i

00:29:56   don't know how much of it he actually

00:29:57   wrote but yeah you i'm sure you've known

00:29:59   for a long time he's a great dude

00:30:01   so you know we I don't know what Twitter

00:30:04   is going to do but the the post that I

00:30:06   wrote and you know the post that I like

00:30:10   to write are you know my background is

00:30:12   it as a business was this business

00:30:14   journalist and a lot of the talk that

00:30:16   you know a lot of the writing and

00:30:17   discussion that we do about apple and

00:30:20   apps and startups and products is about

00:30:24   the product and the design and the user

00:30:26   experience and that's wonderful but

00:30:28   there's also a business involved for a

00:30:31   lot of these companies now not all of

00:30:33   them you know that the model right now

00:30:34   in Silicon Valley is get a get a million

00:30:37   bucks get 10 million users cell company

00:30:40   450 million bucks or something like that

00:30:42   if you're lucky you know if you're lucky

00:30:44   you get a billion dollars if you're if

00:30:46   you're not lucky you get 20 million and

00:30:48   a job at face

00:30:49   book or something like that and and for

00:30:52   many years that was kind of maybe what

00:30:54   Twitter was was angling for you know

00:30:56   they were raising they could raise

00:30:59   basically unlimited amounts of money at

00:31:02   increasing valuation so no one was

00:31:04   getting screwed people were getting rich

00:31:06   in fact you know early employees

00:31:08   executives founders that kind of stuff

00:31:10   and there was absolutely no pressure to

00:31:12   to build a business because you know

00:31:16   maybe someday every every minute that

00:31:19   they spent trying to build a business in

00:31:21   2009 would have been wasted you know

00:31:24   that their their mission at that point

00:31:27   was to get to whatever a hundred million

00:31:28   billion users or something like that and

00:31:30   that's still part of their mission that

00:31:32   they talk about but at some point it

00:31:35   seems that Twitter made a decision and

00:31:38   actually there's a video where to

00:31:40   Costello the CEO of Twitter is talking

00:31:42   about this where they realized you know

00:31:44   what no we actually want to keep Twitter

00:31:46   to ourselves we don't want to sell the

00:31:48   google we don't want to sell the

00:31:50   facebook we you know we want to keep

00:31:52   twitter as Twitter so you know well you

00:31:55   could raise money for ever and ever and

00:31:57   ever to do that but it now especially

00:32:00   they have to well you will then do it

00:32:01   forever and ever and ever right you

00:32:02   can't do it that's true okay i retract

00:32:05   you can't because then what happens

00:32:08   so right now is you know it's time to

00:32:12   build a business it's time to to figure

00:32:13   out whether Twitter can make money for

00:32:16   itself or not

00:32:17   and right now you know that had all

00:32:20   these different business models that

00:32:21   were a an opportunity for them that I in

00:32:24   our article and what 2009 or something

00:32:27   we're busy stone was talking about how

00:32:28   they're going to start selling premium

00:32:31   pro services at some point well that

00:32:33   never happened but there's any number of

00:32:36   different business models that Twitter

00:32:37   could choose and they've chosen

00:32:39   advertising part of that is because of

00:32:41   the audience thighs they have part of it

00:32:43   is because dick costolo has been trying

00:32:45   to do real-time social advertising

00:32:47   forever that was kind of his thing at

00:32:49   feedburner that's what i've heard he was

00:32:51   working on a Google after it was

00:32:53   acquired after feedburner was acquired

00:32:55   and now you know that's kind of the

00:32:57   thing that he could probably do the best

00:32:59   twitter so it in the comments of my post

00:33:02   some of them

00:33:03   really good you know talking about how

00:33:04   there's all kinds of different other

00:33:06   business models data you know selling

00:33:09   data mining and all that kind of stuff

00:33:11   but clearly the business model the

00:33:14   twitter has chosen is advertising and

00:33:16   you know that that means that there's

00:33:19   gonna have to be some changes to Twitter

00:33:21   hope you know i hope that as someone who

00:33:25   was sitting in front of Twitter probably

00:33:27   for 10 hours a day not actively but it's

00:33:30   sitting there open on my computer for 10

00:33:32   12 hours a day

00:33:34   I personally hope they don't change it

00:33:36   you know degraded to a point that I

00:33:38   don't find it interesting and amusing

00:33:40   and useful anymore but certainly they're

00:33:42   going to have to do some things to

00:33:44   attempt to make money because they

00:33:47   weren't before

00:33:48   so and there's something I i am like you

00:33:52   I am personally very invested in twitter

00:33:54   as as something I use all day and it

00:34:00   also makes it makes me a lot of money i

00:34:02   don't know about you but the traffic

00:34:03   that I get from Twitter you know it

00:34:06   doesn't pay my rent but it you know buys

00:34:08   dinner a couple days a week and I know

00:34:10   once a month or something like that

00:34:12   I you know that is true I i assume

00:34:15   though i'm not quite sure though whether

00:34:16   the I mean it

00:34:18   twitter urls are at the top of my

00:34:20   incoming referral list every day i mean

00:34:23   i'd only I honestly should probably

00:34:25   rejigger my analytics to not even count

00:34:28   them because they're so disproportionate

00:34:30   you know Tico links are always at the

00:34:32   top

00:34:33   I don't know though if Twitter didn't

00:34:35   exist or went away or or or changed in a

00:34:38   way such that the daring fireball

00:34:39   audience would no longer use it i'm not

00:34:43   sure that it would decrease my

00:34:44   readership it's just that I think people

00:34:46   would get to it in a different way maybe

00:34:47   I don't know but it's certainly there

00:34:49   and of course like what we can't really

00:34:51   we will never know you know is where I'm

00:34:55   more concerned about a professionally is

00:34:56   that I get a and a remarkable amount of

00:35:00   the stuff that I linked to from the

00:35:03   people i follow on twitter like I

00:35:05   absolutely when I see somebody who you

00:35:08   know has you know is that that that that

00:35:11   logic you go through when you decide

00:35:13   should I follow this person or not like

00:35:15   you get you see they're at

00:35:16   username in a comment stream or you know

00:35:19   a conversation and Twitter parlance and

00:35:22   hey this person seems interesting and

00:35:24   i'll load up their profile and look at

00:35:25   like maybe their last days worth of

00:35:27   tweets and if i see two links and

00:35:30   they're like the last just within the

00:35:31   last day to things like wow that's

00:35:33   interesting maybe i should post that the

00:35:34   daring fireball boom that's a follow

00:35:37   yeah and after years of this I have you

00:35:40   know my incoming twitter stream is a to

00:35:43   me a gold mine of material

00:35:47   I don't know what I would do without

00:35:48   that I i think i haven't touched on RSS

00:35:51   reader since 2008 maybe since you know I

00:35:54   it's all twitter for me and I

00:35:56   unsubscribe from pretty much every

00:35:58   newsletter i was getting a it's really

00:36:02   kind of my main incoming source of

00:36:05   information

00:36:05   so insult news entertainment social i

00:36:10   find a lot you know find music and

00:36:11   videos to watch on their books to read

00:36:14   all kinds of stuff so it's really an

00:36:16   amazing service and I you know it and I

00:36:18   I think you'll agree with me i really

00:36:20   hope that whatever changes happen

00:36:23   don't don't ruin Twitter you know and i

00:36:26   think they're actually sensitive to that

00:36:27   to you know they cut the kind of the

00:36:30   pushback that I got was that to my

00:36:32   article you know from a uniform from

00:36:37   concerned people was well you know

00:36:39   Twitter cares about the product more

00:36:41   than they care about the revenue now i

00:36:45   don't know if that means Twitter cares

00:36:46   about the product vision that they have

00:36:48   that maybe if widely different than

00:36:50   today

00:36:51   twitter or that you know that they are

00:36:54   that they care about what what exists

00:36:56   today and the whole developer ecosystem

00:36:58   and an excellent apps like like Tweetbot

00:37:01   and that sort of stuff because the end

00:37:04   secondarily the other reason that I'm so

00:37:05   personally invested in it is the literal

00:37:07   social aspect of it

00:37:10   we're not talking about it and as a RSS

00:37:14   feed or a way of finding information but

00:37:16   the way that I stay in touch with

00:37:17   friends who I don't see very frequently

00:37:20   and its limbs crazy and at the beginning

00:37:22   back in 2006 when I first signed up I

00:37:26   never really anticipated that it would

00:37:28   grow in that

00:37:29   way that I would feel like it's the way

00:37:31   that I stay connected to a lot of

00:37:33   friends in a way like I've often

00:37:35   described it as the the modern-day water

00:37:38   cooler for the workday the brilliance of

00:37:41   twitter is that in hindsight I mean it

00:37:44   really and I think so many of the

00:37:46   world's best ideas and ideas that have

00:37:47   gone on to change the world and make you

00:37:49   know tons of money for somebody

00:37:51   somewhere along the line in hindsight

00:37:53   art like head slapping the obvious like

00:37:56   Twitter conceptually is is one of the

00:38:00   simplest things ever conceived you sign

00:38:04   up you choose whose messages to see and

00:38:08   everybody who's involved can send these

00:38:10   140 character portal fewer messages that

00:38:14   are nothing but text and the only people

00:38:16   who see them are the people who have

00:38:17   chosen to see those from you that's it

00:38:20   and you know and obviously it's evolved

00:38:23   a bit since then and there taking it in

00:38:25   new directions now with these embedded

00:38:27   things but they're still kind of doing

00:38:30   it kind of cleverly we're like like one

00:38:32   of the new features they've rolled out

00:38:33   on the website is if you link to a

00:38:35   Kickstarter campaign and it recognizes

00:38:38   that the URL is pointing to Kickstarter

00:38:41   / you know whatever the the URL is for

00:38:44   that campaign it instead of just showing

00:38:46   you a link it shows you a little

00:38:48   embedded I don't know what you would

00:38:52   call it a little

00:38:53   what would you call it go well I haven't

00:38:57   seen the Kickstarter I haven't seen that

00:38:59   it's like an embedded is that the video

00:39:02   because if you could you do a YouTube

00:39:04   video now you can actually watch the

00:39:06   video straight in the stream even on

00:39:08   your even in the iphone client which was

00:39:09   kinda cool like a little template it's a

00:39:11   little template with information about

00:39:13   the campaign that's cool and you'd like

00:39:15   a little widget or some yeah widget is

00:39:17   probably not perfect and it's sort of

00:39:19   exactly along the same lines a lot of

00:39:20   stuff is evolving in this way where if

00:39:22   you know what it is and and it's a known

00:39:25   thing that type of thing instead of just

00:39:28   showing it as as something like a URL

00:39:32   which really in the original vision of

00:39:35   the web was never even meant to be user

00:39:36   exposed i mean that's like a developer

00:39:38   thing but we've just know they're so

00:39:39   useful that we've passed around but if

00:39:41   you know it's a Kickstarter campaign

00:39:42   and you know how you can format into a

00:39:44   widget the basic it just a Kickstarter

00:39:47   campaign that's what they show you so

00:39:49   it's sort of like what Siri does and

00:39:51   what Google now does with search results

00:39:53   for things like sports scores you know

00:39:57   what was the score of the the all-star

00:40:00   game and well I know exactly what you

00:40:02   mean by that is a baseball game and I

00:40:05   can format it exactly right for showing

00:40:07   you the results of the baseball game you

00:40:09   know and that's where they're sort of

00:40:10   taking twitter but input wise you're

00:40:12   still you don't have to like create the

00:40:15   widget you don't you're not going

00:40:16   through this complex creation to post

00:40:18   the tweet where you have to format a

00:40:19   widget you just paste in a URL to a

00:40:21   Kickstarter campaign and and what I'm

00:40:24   wondering is if that's better or I i

00:40:27   guess it's better I mean you're getting

00:40:28   more information but it is adding

00:40:30   complexity and wait to the Twitter

00:40:33   experience you know one of the things

00:40:35   that I love the most about twitter is

00:40:38   completely just how simple it is and at

00:40:41   every time they add more to it

00:40:44   so did you ever use the the activity

00:40:46   view of Twitter seldom yeah it's kind of

00:40:50   buried maybe on purpose i don't know it

00:40:54   basically tells you what other people

00:40:56   are doing on twitter so i could see you

00:40:58   know what you're favoriting for faving

00:41:00   over it again who you're following that

00:41:02   kind of stuff and I think that the

00:41:04   people at Twitter actually are really

00:41:06   gung-ho about that and I'm wondering if

00:41:08   they're going to ever try to put that

00:41:10   sort of stuff into the feed and that

00:41:14   would be like really kind of disruptive

00:41:17   to what to Twitter legacy experience has

00:41:20   been and I wonder if that might be why

00:41:21   they're starting to kind of push

00:41:24   developers down i don't know that's what

00:41:26   kind of my crazy my wacky s idea of like

00:41:28   what what they might be doing with it

00:41:30   going forward by I had no idea my

00:41:33   concern with the direction are going is

00:41:35   that to me adding all that rich stuff

00:41:37   into the stream it breaks the scan

00:41:40   ability by which i mean like remember

00:41:45   the old days of email where all you

00:41:46   would see when you go to read your email

00:41:48   as a list of subjects and you know

00:41:51   they're marked read and unread with

00:41:52   Boulder some

00:41:53   things like that are bullets and then

00:41:55   you'd see the who it is and what the

00:41:56   subject is which will give you some idea

00:41:58   of you know you knew before you click on

00:41:59   the message what it would be and then

00:42:01   you click on the message to read it and

00:42:02   there's a lot of clicking or you up and

00:42:04   downing on the arrow keys or something

00:42:06   like that and now think about the way

00:42:10   Apple has gone and other people too i

00:42:12   mean i know and i know outlook i think

00:42:14   outlook maybe even pioneered this but

00:42:16   this idea that the list of messages

00:42:17   would in addition to just who and the

00:42:20   subject would show you the first couple

00:42:22   of like maybe the first sentence or so

00:42:24   or to two or three lines of the email in

00:42:26   the list of messages with all of a

00:42:28   sudden you don't you don't even have to

00:42:30   open some of those messages you can

00:42:31   actually get the gist of it and if it's

00:42:33   a really short email you could read the

00:42:34   whole thing right in the list I I always

00:42:37   resisted that like I i love the old

00:42:40   Eudora where it was just the subject and

00:42:43   i forgot what i switch to or maybe it

00:42:46   was like you'd or pro or something like

00:42:47   that when the then you you almost or

00:42:49   maybe his mail app i remember with with

00:42:51   OS 10 male that app and and then you

00:42:53   kind of have to have the preview and

00:42:55   that

00:42:56   oh I think maybe it was Netscape

00:42:57   remember netscape communicator that was

00:43:01   like the biggest bloated that was the

00:43:04   worst well you know what that when it's

00:43:06   a funny analogy though because isn't

00:43:07   that isn't that the concern about the

00:43:09   direction twitter is going that they're

00:43:10   going to take this thing that was simple

00:43:12   and it was so light that took no

00:43:15   bandwidth the down low and now you're

00:43:17   fast on your phone and now you're

00:43:18   downloading like YouTube metadata and

00:43:21   you know and and 300 k photo I'm by

00:43:24   their price run down but you know images

00:43:26   and all this stuff and I but but maybe

00:43:29   that and this goes back to like the

00:43:31   business thing well maybe that's a

00:43:32   better environment for ads maybe if they

00:43:34   want to sell and add to whatever

00:43:36   chevrolet chevy wants not only their

00:43:39   Promoted Tweet but they also want their

00:43:41   youtube video to show up in the stream

00:43:43   or something like that and and and maybe

00:43:46   Twitter's trying to train us to click on

00:43:48   more stuff within the tweet stream be to

00:43:51   make the ad click through rate higher

00:43:52   I don't know you don't like them the

00:43:54   mismatch with email and that that

00:43:57   preview is that email can be of

00:43:59   arbitrary length and so some some

00:44:01   messages maybe that preview gives you

00:44:02   almost everything you need to know and

00:44:04   in others it it isn't even more useful

00:44:06   than

00:44:07   showing you any preview at all because

00:44:08   the email is so long

00:44:10   whereas Twitter all there is is the

00:44:13   preview right that you don't have to you

00:44:18   don't have to click the tweets to read

00:44:20   the tweets you just read the list and

00:44:22   they flow by and you have to the the

00:44:24   hundred and forty character limit as

00:44:26   frustrating as it can be sometimes when

00:44:27   you have a hundred and sixty character

00:44:29   thought it forces it's not like 140 in

00:44:34   particular was magic like if they had

00:44:35   chosen 148 instead or a hundred and

00:44:38   fifty or something like that would make

00:44:39   no difference but by having a relatively

00:44:42   terse thing something like my at reply

00:44:46   stream immediately after i post a longer

00:44:49   article the daring fireball is

00:44:51   incredibly more useful for me to go

00:44:54   through than my email you know to get

00:44:57   feedback from readers and thoughts and

00:44:59   and stuff like that it's almost a

00:45:03   perfect length because it's long enough

00:45:04   that you can have like a real idea but

00:45:07   it's not too long that you can't have

00:45:09   like too many ideas and that i almost

00:45:12   wish that

00:45:13   comments like on I you know and what you

00:45:15   have comments often during fireball i

00:45:17   turn the monitors but if just to see how

00:45:18   how it worked but I wish that comments

00:45:20   had like a 140 limit you know because

00:45:22   then people could could give me their

00:45:25   two cents and then that was it you don't

00:45:27   have to read a 6 paragraph essay so it's

00:45:31   almost a perfect limit and it's very

00:45:33   scalable it and you know I I can't say

00:45:35   this enough like mobile the fact that

00:45:37   Twitter is so mobile-friendly is so huge

00:45:40   for the service but also for the

00:45:42   business I think I mean if you look at

00:45:43   where everything is going in mobile and

00:45:45   you look at how completely behind

00:45:47   facebook is and some of the other big

00:45:49   companies are like that's such a huge

00:45:51   advantage for twitter that the product

00:45:53   and you know in theory that add product

00:45:55   as well are super friendly 22 small

00:45:59   screens and and you know slow

00:46:01   connections so it is I I definitely

00:46:03   consider Twitter to be the effective the

00:46:05   equivalent of comments for daring

00:46:07   fireball it yeah and it in its for me

00:46:09   it's been way better i think it's worked

00:46:11   out way better than if I had in every

00:46:13   way than if

00:46:14   I had actually ever added traditional

00:46:16   comments too daring fireball and I can't

00:46:19   imagine in hindsight it's so in so many

00:46:21   ways I just can't imagine how I did the

00:46:24   site for the first four or five years

00:46:25   without it and it's fine now also funny

00:46:29   something like having a Mac without the

00:46:31   internet right you're like you're

00:46:32   unplugged for a few hours like what do I

00:46:33   do with this thing while and it's funny

00:46:35   to me that Twitter is about as old as

00:46:37   the iphone because there you know and I

00:46:40   either very very much married to me and

00:46:44   I know do I sign up for twitter i think

00:46:45   it's mike november two thousand six so a

00:46:47   little bit before the iphone was

00:46:49   announced and six seven months before it

00:46:51   actually shipped but in the grand scheme

00:46:53   of things that's pretty close and one of

00:46:56   the big things i immediately started

00:46:58   doing with my iphone the day I got it

00:47:01   was using Twitter on the iphone which at

00:47:04   the time required the the mobile site

00:47:06   where you can jailbreak and use what was

00:47:09   a twinkle or something like that on

00:47:10   twitter if it was a jailbreak perfect

00:47:12   but that also as to how do you have I

00:47:14   didn't have the first iphone but the

00:47:16   reason that I wanted one so badly one of

00:47:18   the main reasons was twitter i was stuck

00:47:21   on like a sprint contract with the palm

00:47:22   treo so i have to wait for the 3g but no

00:47:27   it is the iphone and Twitter go so well

00:47:29   together and that's why I'm actually

00:47:30   happy that apple and Twitter kind of

00:47:32   work together w the original MDOT

00:47:35   twitter.com was was meant for pre iphone

00:47:39   mobile phones that could render HTML so

00:47:41   it was super super rudimentary I mean it

00:47:44   worked it was good for reading but it

00:47:46   was really I mean it was really meant

00:47:48   for like like a blackberry that could

00:47:50   render HTML not not something like

00:47:52   mobile safari did you see they are they

00:47:55   updated that this week also there was

00:47:57   something yesterday I don't know

00:47:58   yeah they belong in a long since you

00:48:00   know gone into full-on html5 pushing the

00:48:05   limits of what a mobile web thing can do

00:48:08   i don't i'm not quite sure I still don't

00:48:09   know why they do that though because

00:48:10   their app and why would you

00:48:12   I don't know why you would want to use

00:48:13   that instead of a nap and the only

00:48:15   phones that are capable of of taking

00:48:20   advantage of the everything they do on

00:48:22   their new mobile site are ones that have

00:48:23   apps available right well so the new but

00:48:26   then so that I guess that what

00:48:27   they just recently rebuilt was the old

00:48:30   mobile site which was not it's not html5

00:48:33   it's like the old technology and they're

00:48:35   testing it on feature phones and that

00:48:37   kind of stuff

00:48:37   well I didn't say that yeah just I think

00:48:40   it came out you last night or something

00:48:41   like that so that the thing that that's

00:48:43   that the message that and nick bilton

00:48:47   had a good post about this but the

00:48:49   message was you know the Twitter one

00:48:52   Twitter wants to have a consistent user

00:48:54   experience and I think kind of the the

00:48:57   put up or shut up that you know as a

00:48:59   user that i would say to them is well

00:49:01   then do it you know because you know

00:49:04   here we have the ipad app which is

00:49:06   completely not the same as the iPhone

00:49:08   app even close you know there's there's

00:49:10   big features that are missing the mac

00:49:13   app is completely probably deserted I

00:49:16   don't you no matter if you know anything

00:49:17   i don't know about it

00:49:19   I know a little bit more than ok got it

00:49:20   but it's it is a legit is kobby ously I

00:49:23   mean the most important i don't think

00:49:25   it's dead

00:49:26   I do think there will be an update but

00:49:28   it's clearly a low the lowest priority

00:49:30   of everything and anything they have and

00:49:32   the danger is even though they by others

00:49:35   I am i understanding is that they

00:49:37   definitely intend to update it but at a

00:49:39   low enough priority even if you intend

00:49:41   to get around to it you never do

00:49:43   right because there's always something

00:49:45   of one of the higher priority things

00:49:46   that that rises a top it but it mes jute

00:49:50   have you have you have you have a new

00:49:52   macbook pro retina display idea i don't

00:49:55   like its Twitter that the twitter app is

00:49:58   it's all unreadable

00:50:00   yeah because the way just a technical

00:50:02   level the way that it was engineered

00:50:03   does all the drawing to an off-screen

00:50:05   thing and then pushes it to the screen

00:50:09   but that means even text is not retina

00:50:12   whereas more almost all apps even if

00:50:15   they're not updated for retina it's the

00:50:17   stuff like the buttons and the icons

00:50:20   that are not retina but text is retina

00:50:23   automatically which is familiar to

00:50:24   anybody who upgraded like a knife

00:50:26   you know just like with the idea of the

00:50:27   12 the iphone four before the ABS retina

00:50:30   at least text was retina well with the

00:50:32   twitter app for mac even the texts and

00:50:35   read

00:50:35   and it's it's I mean it's just

00:50:38   unbelievably unreadable you just got to

00:50:40   think that Apple is leaning on them a

00:50:42   little too kind of take care of that

00:50:44   right i mean it is showing them off in

00:50:46   the where i think it was in the keynote

00:50:48   right for the Notification Center and

00:50:50   all that stuff so yeah I would think so

00:50:52   especially with the way that now you can

00:50:54   in mountain-lion you know that mountain

00:50:56   lion games the the iOS like ability to

00:50:59   add a system-level at your twitter

00:51:01   account

00:51:02   ah presumably they'll don't have the

00:51:05   same little promotion hey get the

00:51:07   twitter app in appstore I think the fact

00:51:10   that they but there is no way that Apple

00:51:12   is going to promote that Apple it looks

00:51:14   like this i mean it looks so bad on the

00:51:16   retina display that it would if you

00:51:19   thought Twitter was important that would

00:51:20   make you say well i'm not buying this

00:51:21   computer yet because it's horrendous

00:51:22   that doesn't affect that it supports the

00:51:25   notifications it all mean that they have

00:51:28   to at least update it for that I hope so

00:51:31   i think I because i don't think the

00:51:32   current app itself could support

00:51:34   notification center that is what was

00:51:36   sending notifications to right now I

00:51:38   don't think anything so I I think

00:51:42   they'll fix that I hope so

00:51:43   I don't know so bottom line what do you

00:51:46   think what do you think how you think

00:51:48   it's going to work out with twitter do

00:51:49   you think Twitter is going to shoot

00:51:52   shoot the ability for third-party

00:51:53   clients to work

00:51:55   that's the year that i have that's the

00:51:58   fair that's the fear that that the most

00:52:00   of us have is that the direction are

00:52:02   going is that they're going to say okay

00:52:04   third part where you know there they'll

00:52:06   spin it in the direction of this

00:52:07   consistent interface and they buy

00:52:09   consistent interface they mean our

00:52:11   interface our website and our apps and

00:52:14   you'll either go to twitter.com or

00:52:16   you'll use the Twitter dot app for your

00:52:19   platform and that's it

00:52:20   so here's what we're missing we're

00:52:23   missing the the data of like what number

00:52:26   what percent of tweets are sent

00:52:28   currently from outside client right and

00:52:31   I my guess is it is minuscule Ryan that

00:52:35   it's largely my guests also is that

00:52:38   those tweets are disproportionately from

00:52:40   high popular people you know people who

00:52:47   are like

00:52:49   like us like people who don't just

00:52:52   follow me because they know me

00:52:53   personally but follow me because I'm the

00:52:55   guy rides daring fireball and Michael

00:52:57   you I i would bet that it's more early

00:53:01   twitter users than late twitter users

00:53:03   like if you look at the first 10 million

00:53:05   users and then the last the most recent

00:53:08   10 million users i bet 99% of the most

00:53:12   recent ones only use official twitter

00:53:14   stuff and the first 10 million it's

00:53:16   probably you know disproportionately

00:53:18   using third-party apps because that's

00:53:20   what we grew up with right like we had a

00:53:22   terrific and twinkle and Tweety and all

00:53:26   these other things but now that people

00:53:27   now they don't know they don't know

00:53:28   about that stuff so and and Twitter as

00:53:33   time and time again made decisions that

00:53:36   are in the favor of the next 50 million

00:53:40   hundred million users at the expense of

00:53:45   the first you know batch of users so I I

00:53:51   don't know I I don't think they're I

00:53:54   don't think the old one day just turn

00:53:55   off the API to clients but they might

00:54:01   and that's kind of crazy 21 at one

00:54:04   option they would have would by the way

00:54:05   which is like okay we could just start

00:54:07   spitting the ads into Tweetbot and

00:54:11   correct that but that revenue with you

00:54:13   and then the way that Google Adsense you

00:54:16   know brings google adds to the whole web

00:54:18   they could bring Twitter adds to the

00:54:20   whole twitter ecosystem but i think that

00:54:23   probably not a I think they're not

00:54:27   really betting on that the way they

00:54:28   maybe once were right and I also if they

00:54:32   want to change the ads or something and

00:54:34   then that you know they don't have any

00:54:35   control over tweet bots display or

00:54:39   anything like that so and you know like

00:54:42   an idea that i know it everybody you

00:54:44   know you people out there listening to

00:54:46   the show i'm sure there's did

00:54:47   ninety-five percent of them are thinking

00:54:49   the same thing i'm about to say which is

00:54:51   why not just let people pay and if you

00:54:55   pay then you can use third-party client

00:54:56   up you know pick charge me twenty

00:55:00   dollars a year and then I have pro

00:55:01   Twitter

00:55:02   around and I can use third-party clients

00:55:04   and other people don't and the masses of

00:55:06   course most people won't pay and i'll

00:55:08   just use twitter.com / the truck free

00:55:10   twitter app and for those of us know who

00:55:13   really really care will do it will just

00:55:15   pay twenty bucks and that might not be

00:55:17   good for the Tweetbot people that might

00:55:19   really put a damper and you know because

00:55:23   it's one thing to pay four bucks for the

00:55:26   app or three bucks for the app and

00:55:28   that's it you pay once and then use the

00:55:30   app and it might be something different

00:55:31   if you had to pay fifteen or twenty

00:55:33   bucks a year just to have your account

00:55:34   upgraded to that but I just don't think

00:55:37   twitter has any interest in that

00:55:38   whatsoever in the same way that Google

00:55:40   doesn't let you pay twenty bucks to get

00:55:42   a search our ad free search results

00:55:45   right and then also gets back to my post

00:55:47   little witches it's not that Twitter

00:55:49   needs to start making money it's that

00:55:52   they need to figure out how to make a

00:55:53   lot of money because you know this is

00:55:56   not 19 if they started doing that in

00:55:58   2007 and you know made a couple million

00:56:01   bucks a year and that was could have

00:56:03   been pretty cool back then but you know

00:56:05   that they have publicly kind of leak

00:56:08   that they want to have a billion dollar

00:56:09   ad business by 2014

00:56:12   so right you know you're not going to

00:56:13   make a billion dollars from

00:56:15   subscriptions right you know i don't

00:56:17   think anyone you know maybe comcast us

00:56:19   right even if even if you said and I

00:56:21   think let's just throw out a ballpark

00:56:23   number that that five dollars in revenue

00:56:27   per year per user from the ads is

00:56:29   probably I mean that might be reasonable

00:56:32   you know that if they have 200 million

00:56:33   users and they make an average they make

00:56:35   a billion dollars in advertising that's

00:56:37   like five dollars per user

00:56:39   so why not let me give you fifteen

00:56:43   dollars which is three times the average

00:56:45   you get from the ads why not just let me

00:56:47   give you that money to keep using these

00:56:49   third-party clients even if they don't

00:56:51   show the ads but it it it's not that

00:56:53   they don't want the money from you the

00:56:55   one person it's that it doesn't work out

00:56:57   the aggregate right every every person

00:57:00   that that they take out of the potential

00:57:02   add value in population shrinks their

00:57:04   you know their reach to the advertisers

00:57:07   right notice that's their big sales

00:57:08   pitches hey we have you know a hundred

00:57:10   200 million users by ads here it's the

00:57:13   fact that they need that billion-dollar

00:57:14   idea

00:57:15   not exactly they don't really it doesn't

00:57:17   really work out if it's just fifteen

00:57:19   dollars from John Gruber so he totally

00:57:21   yeah it's mr. dollar idea doesn't work

00:57:24   then then they have to find another one

00:57:25   because you know that there's there's

00:57:28   never a point where they won't have to

00:57:29   find a billion-dollar idea right

00:57:31   no I mean who are the companies that

00:57:32   they're looking to join are looking to

00:57:34   join facebook all advertising google all

00:57:38   advertising apples a huge company but

00:57:40   they sell hardware so that actually

00:57:43   relevant to them now there's not making

00:57:45   hardware

00:57:45   I don't think and there's Yahoo Yahoo

00:57:47   makes you know it has a melt multiple

00:57:49   billion dollar advertising business I

00:57:51   think AOL might also but there aren't

00:57:53   that many of them you know especially

00:57:54   especially on mobile and mobile

00:57:57   advertising is actually a surprisingly

00:58:00   small industry you know it i think it's

00:58:04   in the billions but it's not i don't

00:58:06   think it's in the tens of billions so

00:58:08   it's and this is actually an opportunity

00:58:11   for them to really be a pioneer so they

00:58:14   cannot take it seriously but I I i hope

00:58:17   they don't do anything's mean

00:58:20   ok I could live with it but would I

00:58:23   would I think would be a bad move if

00:58:25   they said if they instead of cutting off

00:58:28   the API if they cut off new access to

00:58:33   the API another and i think that's also

00:58:36   something a lot of people worry that

00:58:37   they're going to do which is another

00:58:39   word say okay no more third-party

00:58:41   clients but the ones who are there are

00:58:43   grandfathered in and you're allowed to

00:58:45   keep going

00:58:46   I think I could live with that because

00:58:48   i'm pretty happy with the developers who

00:58:52   are making Twitter clients today and i

00:58:54   really trust that that you know there's

00:58:56   I feel like we have a still have a

00:58:58   plethora of amazing Twitter clients like

00:59:01   my third favorite twitter client is a

00:59:04   fantastic twitter client that I would be

00:59:05   happy to use if the first two went away

00:59:07   you know 345 deep on the iphone i think

00:59:11   I haven't thought about that is what I'm

00:59:15   ability i wonder if they would

00:59:16   yeah I think that's a very good

00:59:17   possibility that they're just going to

00:59:19   say no more I could live with that but i

00:59:22   still think it would be a mistake

00:59:23   because i don't think you should ever

00:59:25   bet against

00:59:27   the innovations that could come out of

00:59:29   the future that somebody year from now

00:59:32   is going to come up with an idea for a

00:59:34   twitter client that is truly innovative

00:59:36   and the thing that you know I really

00:59:38   hope that Twitter remembers is that so

00:59:41   much of what we take preferred granted

00:59:43   now with twitter both with apps and just

00:59:47   the way people use it was not from them

00:59:49   that it was invented by users Garrett

00:59:53   Murray had to post the other day about

00:59:55   the invention of at replies that not

00:59:58   only that wasn't afraid

00:59:58   only that wasn't afraid

01:00:00   that was awesome that wasn't a feature

01:00:01   that wasn't something people did it was

01:00:03   like all of a sudden like couple of

01:00:05   months in people just started doing it

01:00:07   and it does i do he attributed it to

01:00:09   flicker and I do think that's right

01:00:11   we're flickr for years had a sort of it

01:00:15   wasn't a feature it was just like a what

01:00:17   would you call it like a tradition among

01:00:22   the users that you know if you wanted in

01:00:24   a comment stream some of you post a

01:00:26   photo to flickr and three or four of

01:00:28   your friends would post comments and i

01:00:30   want to write back to the one you wrote

01:00:32   you wrote like the second comment was

01:00:34   you i would write at and then from dome

01:00:37   because that's your flickr name colon in

01:00:39   other words this comment is a response

01:00:41   to from domes 22 above and it wasn't

01:00:44   hooked up in anyway it wasn't you know

01:00:47   there was no a technical connection it

01:00:49   was just a convention the word I'm

01:00:51   looking for was it was just like a

01:00:52   convention mentioned yeah that's right

01:00:54   I Twitter didn't come up with that it

01:00:56   was just something the user started

01:00:58   doing at a you know at the same time

01:01:00   like it late 2006 early two thousand

01:01:03   seven or something like that

01:01:04   hashtags right which is like the one

01:01:08   year which is like their marketing thing

01:01:09   now you know right i got every every

01:01:12   time I turn the TV on there's a there's

01:01:14   a hashtag or two of them you know it's

01:01:16   unbelievable to me and I money i don't

01:01:18   even use hashtags I still think it's I

01:01:20   think it's line on it it's gross it's

01:01:22   alright i don't i only you know well I

01:01:24   use them ironically or like you know by

01:01:27   force right I would never I don't

01:01:29   willingly but i was watching the arm i

01:01:32   was watching the home run derby

01:01:34   yeah and they were both like so they're

01:01:36   teaching during the hat during the home

01:01:38   the major league baseball home run derby

01:01:40   they're showing tweets from from guys

01:01:42   like Justin Verlander I who stunk up the

01:01:45   goddamn game the next night by the way

01:01:47   ruin the American League chances of

01:01:49   getting a World Series home field

01:01:51   advantage nice job for Lander you choker

01:01:53   anyway and that you know and just the

01:01:56   fact that like when you turn on the home

01:01:58   run derby and there's you know on it on

01:02:00   the show while you're watching it

01:02:02   Justin Verlander's tweets showing up and

01:02:05   CC Sabathia and and these guys that the

01:02:08   the the magnitude of that sort of public

01:02:11   awareness of the

01:02:12   service is unbelievable it's just truly

01:02:16   unbelievable i mean i think that this

01:02:18   couple times but the person or your team

01:02:21   at Twitter whose job it is to get

01:02:22   hashtags on TV like those people made

01:02:25   her a bonus the dinner like they've it

01:02:27   sits on the MP notes on the backboard of

01:02:29   the NBA and on every commercial it's on

01:02:32   my wife watches these shows where every

01:02:35   scene has a different hashtag and for

01:02:38   you know for amusement i looked at the

01:02:40   tweets that were on that hashtag and

01:02:42   they're pretty hilarious in a lot of

01:02:44   like teenage girls and that kind of

01:02:46   stuff will know what it means how you

01:02:47   show hash hash shine pound sign and a

01:02:50   word and it's just people know

01:02:53   oh that's a thing on twitter and you can

01:02:55   go to Twitter and type that in and see

01:02:56   what everybody else is is typing it's an

01:02:58   amazing that's that's just astounding

01:03:00   and that tells me that twitter i mean

01:03:03   okay could go away because maybe you

01:03:06   price so this could say this about

01:03:07   myspace URLs a few years ago but it's

01:03:11   going to be hard to torch itself so even

01:03:15   if they did I think piss off a sizable

01:03:18   population I think that they would be

01:03:20   okay i think i think that whatever

01:03:22   losers that they use it was whatever

01:03:24   users they lose i think they'll gain

01:03:28   that back right well I mean just stop

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01:03:49   I just couldn't wait to say that boom is

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01:04:00   so you install it and then you get more

01:04:06   volume out of your speakers

01:04:07   I don't know how this works I didn't

01:04:09   believe it i installed it it does work

01:04:11   it's kind of I don't know what what

01:04:13   these guys are doing to make this work

01:04:15   but if you do stuff like watch movies

01:04:19   like from netflix or hulu or itunes or

01:04:24   you listen to music and you're using the

01:04:25   speak

01:04:26   is on your Mac if you don't if you're

01:04:28   not hooking it up to your hifi system or

01:04:30   something like that boom makes this

01:04:33   stuff sound better makes it sound bigger

01:04:35   makes it sound better

01:04:36   I'm it's not just me I'm not dumb don't

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01:06:17   boom what a great name for a nap but I

01:06:21   so i just picked up boom and I'm so

01:06:23   happy that you told me that exists

01:06:24   because you know I've been using itunes

01:06:28   of course has an equalizer and it makes

01:06:30   music sound grade but Spotify does not

01:06:33   and even if you pay extra for the high

01:06:36   quality music on Spotify it still sounds

01:06:38   pretty muddy I have

01:06:39   be nice speakers and it just it makes me

01:06:43   not want to use Spotify so because they

01:06:45   don't have an equaliser least it didn't

01:06:46   last time I look at starbucks it was

01:06:48   really excited to look for do did you

01:06:49   ever use there is a great old rogue

01:06:51   amoeba app called detour

01:06:53   yes I used to love that everything is it

01:06:55   reminds me a little of that doesn't do

01:06:57   that quite the same thing but it's

01:06:58   anything that makes your system audio

01:07:00   some betters is awesome in my book so

01:07:02   i'm on pump that I have it now

01:07:04   yeah and that's a terrific example the

01:07:06   terrific example anything that doesn't

01:07:08   anything listen to pandora is another 12

01:07:10   where you're like great free music

01:07:12   awesome

01:07:13   oh sounds like it's coming out of my

01:07:15   fridge or something like that so or

01:07:18   coming out of a speaker that you've got

01:07:20   in a drawer like close behind the drawer

01:07:23   now it's great and it is a perfect

01:07:25   example is any app that you listen to

01:07:27   audio from that itself doesn't have

01:07:29   equalizer controls and you want to deal

01:07:31   with it i just get boom it works across

01:07:34   your whole system

01:07:35   have you seen the like that i think it's

01:07:37   HP has pc laptops with Beats Audio is

01:07:41   I've never tried those but i can't

01:07:44   imagine those are that actually is

01:07:45   better i don't i don't know it just it

01:07:47   always looks to me is like wow this is

01:07:49   this kind of trashy and other phone

01:07:51   wasn't their phone that came on it

01:07:53   yeah it's like HTC bought beats yes HT

01:07:56   yeah it's like that I can't think of a

01:08:00   better example of why HTC is losing its

01:08:02   you know that all the momentum that had

01:08:05   built up then the fact that it's going

01:08:06   to go out and buy beats like that's just

01:08:08   the at such as such a lame mainstream

01:08:12   type thing

01:08:13   yeah doesn't seem like you needed to do

01:08:14   that just seems italic that make this

01:08:16   should sound better writings that make

01:08:18   it sound better hire some audio guys and

01:08:22   and that's it you don't need to assume

01:08:24   weird to me

01:08:25   yep let's talk tablets

01:08:30   yes let's have been thinking about them

01:08:32   i had a dream about having weird dreams

01:08:36   I don't know what that's about I had a

01:08:38   weird dream

01:08:38   a.s.a Steve Jobs stream where I had a

01:08:42   five inch iPad and he actually

01:08:44   everystevejobsvideo yells at me about

01:08:46   something stupid but why would you want

01:08:49   to have a 5-inch ipad that's that's

01:08:51   idiotic or something like that but

01:08:53   I was actually I was in Korea a few in a

01:08:56   couple months ago and they the that

01:09:00   galaxy note is is pretty big barely at

01:09:03   least in terms of literally i sense in

01:09:05   stores yet literally it's it's quite big

01:09:07   there but it was in all the windows and

01:09:10   all the the little cellphone shops and

01:09:12   actually sell a lot of people using it

01:09:14   you know maybe that was just the no

01:09:15   i-i've I've heard that that's true and

01:09:17   I've because I've made fun of the galaxy

01:09:19   note that the galaxy note is a 5-inch

01:09:21   phone comes with a stylus and it is

01:09:23   truly enormous even if you've seen like

01:09:25   a Galaxy Nexus or something I mean this

01:09:27   5 inches is a styling but it is

01:09:30   Samsung's reported you know like it what

01:09:32   their best selling phones are worldwide

01:09:33   and it's up there and and apparently

01:09:35   it's really really popular not that

01:09:37   popular in the US but apparently really

01:09:39   popular and Asia we're gonna say were

01:09:42   Korea as a Korea which is you know the

01:09:43   homeless of samsung um yeah and so that

01:09:47   was so surprising to me and I I think

01:09:50   your take is right on the dandelions

01:09:52   post that you link to recently which is

01:09:54   that the the kind of the tweener sizes

01:09:57   are interesting i would not want to

01:09:59   replace my iphone with one but I could

01:10:01   see myself using a tablet in more places

01:10:04   if it were not so bulky right well and

01:10:10   another way I just want i filed a note

01:10:13   from 15 minutes ago on the show and we

01:10:15   were talking about 11 vs 13 in chairs

01:10:17   and i think that the this purported I

01:10:21   still you know I've used the word

01:10:22   purported more times in the last two

01:10:24   weeks then I think the last year

01:10:25   combined but this purported ipad mini

01:10:28   that 7.5 inches diagonal to me why would

01:10:31   they do that well to me it's why do they

01:10:33   make an 11 and a 13 inch air

01:10:35   hmm you know and I everything I've heard

01:10:37   is that the 13-inch air is the best

01:10:39   seller

01:10:40   I like the 11-inch though I really do my

01:10:43   thinking is number 1i have my eyes are

01:10:46   really still good enough that I don't

01:10:48   mind how small the screen is and to my

01:10:51   thinking is if you're going to go

01:10:52   portable go portable you know and I want

01:10:55   a big big ass 30 inch display on my desk

01:10:58   and I want the smallest possible thing

01:10:59   to use on an airplane and

01:11:01   on my lap and stuff like that and that's

01:11:02   why i bought the that's the exact

01:11:04   conversation i had with the guy at the

01:11:05   apple store when i bought the 11 chair

01:11:08   he's like you know what he he's not

01:11:10   allowed to give me advice but I was like

01:11:11   fuck it man i'm going with the smallest

01:11:13   this one possible which was used to be

01:11:16   my phone buying strategy to is like

01:11:18   which sony ericsson feature phone can i

01:11:20   buy this the literally the smallest

01:11:22   phone possible and can you know cannon

01:11:24   little digital cameras too so it makes

01:11:27   sense and and I don't think that 7-inch

01:11:31   tablets have sold poorly because they're

01:11:33   7-inch tablets i think it's just because

01:11:35   they most of them have terrible software

01:11:38   and they suck like I think that this

01:11:40   that it will announce I'm with you I'm

01:11:43   calling at the 8-inch I'm glad if if it

01:11:46   had if it's comes out i think it will be

01:11:49   phenomenally successful not just because

01:11:52   of the portability which I think people

01:11:55   who think about this stuff will get that

01:11:56   but i think the price thing is really

01:11:58   going to be big for the same reason that

01:12:00   you know you link to my site this week

01:12:02   and I you know you think that there were

01:12:05   the main reason that the ipod blew up so

01:12:07   big was the the mother mini and the nano

01:12:11   like that i think that they have and

01:12:13   what made its yellow mainstream was that

01:12:15   it's it's cheap enough that you can kind

01:12:17   of buy it and yeah it's not gonna fit

01:12:19   all your music but it doesn't matter

01:12:21   because you know most people don't buy

01:12:24   albums anyway they buy single so what do

01:12:26   they care

01:12:26   I remember it well that the time that

01:12:29   that was the big thing with that when

01:12:30   the ipad ipod mini shipped and it was

01:12:32   right I was fifty dollars difference

01:12:35   from the lower end bigger white ipod

01:12:39   which I think was 15 gigabytes at the

01:12:42   time so I'm and maybe i'm wrong i think

01:12:43   it was like 249 for the mini and 299 for

01:12:47   the 15 gigabyte thing in there and

01:12:49   everybody was wine the world when you

01:12:51   spend 50 more bucks and get and I think

01:12:54   it was even five gigabytes it was four

01:12:55   gigabytes on the mini you get more than

01:12:58   three times the storage but I've heard

01:13:01   this numerous times is that that the

01:13:02   average i don't know what the numbers at

01:13:04   now but that the average ipod user only

01:13:07   had like two gigabytes of music a liar

01:13:10   yeah the whole library early

01:13:12   at that point most people you know and I

01:13:14   was cute the average was skewed heavily

01:13:16   by the people with huge libraries and

01:13:20   that the masses that like the teenager

01:13:23   media and yeah like the median yeah they

01:13:25   like a gig or something I can you know

01:13:27   in the teenagers they just listen to the

01:13:28   same 30 songs over and over again you

01:13:30   know exactly and i think that i think

01:13:33   that we like week old school Mac people

01:13:36   like we we rationalize every fifty

01:13:38   dollars we spend you know but in normal

01:13:41   people that go to the store they're like

01:13:43   I kinda want an ipad all this one's 50

01:13:45   bucks cheaper than buying it you know

01:13:47   and it's and also i think that 250 200

01:13:51   dollar price is actually meaningful like

01:13:53   that's a kind of your getting into

01:13:55   impulse purchase range there i think

01:13:57   apple hit it out of the park with the

01:13:59   original ipod in 2001 where they said a

01:14:03   thousand songs in your pocket and people

01:14:05   here that and every almost everybody

01:14:07   here's a thousand songs on a device

01:14:09   that's all I'll never I don't have a

01:14:12   thousand songs it whether they did or

01:14:14   not they have no idea but that that

01:14:15   number was big enough 200 cds that's

01:14:17   like in right and even when they when

01:14:19   they reduced it the original ipod had

01:14:22   five gigabyte drive and the at first

01:14:24   ipod mini and we had a 4 gigabyte drive

01:14:26   but they had since switched the default

01:14:28   format from mp3 to AAC and that got like

01:14:33   it the the compression increase was

01:14:35   enough that they could still say a

01:14:36   thousand songs and which is good enough

01:14:38   that they've never it in 12 years or 11

01:14:42   years they've you know thousand state

01:14:45   they already had the right number of

01:14:46   storage space and was it the mini or the

01:14:49   nano that's deep pulled out of like the

01:14:51   little tiny pocket in the genes nano

01:14:54   okay yeah admit when the nano came out

01:14:56   that just blew my mind I was like how is

01:14:59   it that smaller that's that's crazy i

01:15:01   gotta make a note to ask about that

01:15:02   because i still think that his genes had

01:15:04   to be raped because you were as 50 ones

01:15:06   and I've tried that with with a nano and

01:15:08   it doesn't quite fit

01:15:09   I think that he had like a big pair of

01:15:11   jeans like the with it wasn't cheating

01:15:13   with wise but i still think that in

01:15:15   terms of the depth i think you had to

01:15:17   have a rig pair of jeans that be a great

01:15:19   like forensic look back into the and for

01:15:23   people who don't think that I you know

01:15:25   look

01:15:25   into the critical issues surrounding

01:15:26   Apple incorporated come on the case a

01:15:30   pruner is that the yeah pronounce that

01:15:31   you do a separator of the Zapruder i

01:15:34   believe the printer

01:15:35   ok so I one thing that you said a long

01:15:40   time ago thats intrigue me is the you

01:15:42   know the potential someday for a bigger

01:15:44   ipad that's actually something that i

01:15:46   would love like I you know I'm staring

01:15:48   right now at my switched off 27-inch

01:15:51   imac across the room and I'm like man I

01:15:53   would love like a I don't know it a 18

01:15:57   inch iPad on my lap on the couch that

01:16:00   would be kind of cool you could do all

01:16:02   sorts of stuff with that it would

01:16:04   probably expensive and fragile and that

01:16:06   sort of stuff but i would pay a thousand

01:16:09   bucks for that'd be pretty cool

01:16:10   yeah I i do and i think i think

01:16:12   long-term

01:16:14   it's inevitable because i really do

01:16:15   think that the I you know I just grew up

01:16:21   with with the iphone but I really think

01:16:23   that iOS is to the computing landscape

01:16:27   today what the mac was to pcs in 1984

01:16:31   and don't get obsessed if you went back

01:16:34   historically and and wanted to argue you

01:16:36   traveled back in time to 1985 and got in

01:16:38   an argument with John dvorak about the

01:16:41   future of computing like don't get hung

01:16:45   up on the fact that the mac you have

01:16:48   today this is 1985 is only nine inches

01:16:50   in black and white and you know it

01:16:53   doesn't even ship with a hard drive is

01:16:54   only got a floppy drive just take a step

01:16:57   back and think about the way that

01:16:58   technology is inevitably advancing like

01:17:00   the screen is not going to be nine

01:17:02   inches in black-and-white forever right

01:17:04   the same thing with the iOS like that

01:17:07   don't get hung up on the fact that the

01:17:09   ipad shipped at nine point seven inches

01:17:12   it's just a starting point you know I

01:17:15   think it's going to go in both

01:17:17   directions

01:17:18   I although i think that the big

01:17:19   difference though is that I think that I

01:17:21   think they can do this i really do think

01:17:22   that they can go to eight inches

01:17:23   parentheses 7.5 inches exactly happened

01:17:28   she's without changing the software at

01:17:31   all i think that apps that are you know

01:17:33   1024 x 768 apps that run on the ipad

01:17:36   ad today we'll just run at 1024 x 768

01:17:40   two inches smaller diagonally about what

01:17:44   specifically at work I think it's eighty

01:17:46   percent area or something like that or

01:17:48   sixty-six percent of the area that it

01:17:50   will work out i think if they go bigger

01:17:53   tho or when they go bigger i do think

01:17:55   that will be one of those developers

01:17:57   schisms wear em you know existing apps

01:18:01   will run in a in a mode where they're

01:18:04   blown up but to really take advantage of

01:18:06   it you're going to have to start over

01:18:08   you know you don't have to do yet a new

01:18:10   sighs well also at that point you might

01:18:12   want more than one app on the screen at

01:18:14   a time or at least multiple windows

01:18:17   something like that yes I'm which is the

01:18:19   interesting thing from windows 8 i'm a

01:18:21   no I don't have that much to say about

01:18:23   it but that to me the idea that they're

01:18:25   already kind of thinking about that sort

01:18:27   of stuff how to have multiple apps on

01:18:30   screen at the same time usually by far

01:18:32   away i think the single most intriguing

01:18:35   idea in all of windows 8 as a tablet OS

01:18:38   is the and what they call it didn't call

01:18:40   it docking snapping i think those you

01:18:44   snap it out of snaps right yeah that and

01:18:46   then that the way that those apps can

01:18:48   talk to each other whatever that was hot

01:18:49   to the that the hand all you're going to

01:18:52   have you can have your email taking up a

01:18:54   list of one-third and a web browser

01:18:57   taking up the other two-thirds and so

01:19:00   you could sit there and as you read your

01:19:02   email and people say I mean a huge part

01:19:04   of my email is people sending links and

01:19:07   so one of the in efficiencies of going

01:19:11   through my email on the ipad is that I'm

01:19:14   constantly flipping between male and

01:19:16   safari and back

01:19:18   totally i know it's a huge inconvenience

01:19:20   but I can totally imagine a when a you

01:19:25   know how doing it with just those two

01:19:28   things on screen a narrow skinny column

01:19:30   of email messages and ask where a nice

01:19:32   wide square of web browser content would

01:19:35   make it away easier and more efficient

01:19:37   to go through to go through emails on a

01:19:40   tablet and you know I so I watch a lot

01:19:42   of video on the ipad but it would be

01:19:45   nice to have twitter open at the same

01:19:46   time to you know for commercial breaks

01:19:49   or whatever you know

01:19:50   much in the baseball game it's kind of

01:19:52   annoying to stop the MLB TV app at a

01:19:54   quick of stream open up Twitter you know

01:19:57   it's at some yet another perfect example

01:19:59   and maybe even a better example of

01:20:01   something that can really get by with a

01:20:03   skinnies sort of get one-third sliver of

01:20:05   the window

01:20:06   yep easily i think the best idea that

01:20:08   they've had and you know they can hang

01:20:10   our hat on the fact that their first

01:20:12   nobody else's as solve that and they're

01:20:16   doing it in i think in a very smart way

01:20:18   where it's not like an arbitrary you get

01:20:21   to move that divider around and make it

01:20:23   forty sixty or thirty 565 it's nope it's

01:20:27   one-third two-thirds i think but

01:20:29   whatever it is it snaps into place and

01:20:31   you don't have to decide and developers

01:20:33   can take advantage of that and they know

01:20:35   they only have to code it to take

01:20:36   advantage of this you know these two

01:20:38   proportions maybe i'll be full screen

01:20:40   maybe I'll be two-thirds maybe i'll be

01:20:42   one-third that's it so this is kind of

01:20:46   looking bigger picture at this but what

01:20:50   why do you think that mean you know we

01:20:53   why do you think the ipad is is so

01:20:56   successful and and the other ones are

01:20:58   but like you think that that it's

01:21:00   actually possible that this ipad and iOS

01:21:03   platform theory concept thing is

01:21:06   actually like the Apple can actually

01:21:08   hold on and be a winner with this for

01:21:10   for the long-term like is is apple now

01:21:13   good enough at winning that they can

01:21:14   really follow through with this i do i

01:21:17   do think so and I think that it's

01:21:19   they've gotten it to the point where

01:21:21   they have to keep innovating and I do

01:21:25   think it is institution i think it is

01:21:28   one of the core values of the company is

01:21:30   is a sort of healthy paranoia that you

01:21:34   don't take success for granted and think

01:21:36   you're done and you keep pushing and

01:21:38   that you know I really think that the

01:21:40   way you know and it was so much smaller

01:21:42   states as important as the ipod was to

01:21:45   apples resurgence as a company and the

01:21:48   way that it really made them a

01:21:50   mass-market company and gotten people

01:21:53   who never bought anything from apple

01:21:54   before to buy a couple of things from

01:21:56   apple

01:21:57   and the way that I remember going to the

01:21:59   mall in 2003 and having hearing

01:22:02   teenagers talk about going to the ipod

01:22:04   store

01:22:05   yeah it really made the retail stores

01:22:07   you know right you know it really helped

01:22:09   make the retail stores of success and

01:22:11   retail stores have become nothing but in

01:22:13   the grand scheme of things the amount of

01:22:14   money they made selling ipods pales in

01:22:16   comparison to the money they're making

01:22:17   now selling iphones and ipads it is it's

01:22:20   smaller states but the way that they

01:22:23   evolved those ipods year after year

01:22:26   after year every year either shrinking

01:22:29   them

01:22:30   introducing sibling form factors that

01:22:34   we're in addition to you know we're not

01:22:36   just getting rid of the old one will

01:22:38   keep the old one if you want us to 80

01:22:40   gigabytes of storage that's the one to

01:22:42   get but now we've got this new one that

01:22:44   is thinner and now we're adding color

01:22:46   and now we're adding video and now you

01:22:48   know what even make ridiculous they'll

01:22:50   even make mistakes they even do things

01:22:51   like make one that didn't have any

01:22:52   buttons and then a year later be like an

01:22:54   hour or the fat nano right and kept

01:22:59   aggressively pushing the price down

01:23:00   right so that you can keep your after

01:23:03   year you could keep getting one for

01:23:04   fifty dollars less until all of a sudden

01:23:06   and all of a sudden they hit these marks

01:23:08   and I you know it's one of those things

01:23:10   where Apple i think has been you know

01:23:11   often surprisingly open in public i

01:23:17   believe it was shoulder one time onstage

01:23:18   you just said like 199 is a magic price

01:23:22   point and you know now that once we hit

01:23:25   it you know in it but next slide it was

01:23:28   like a graph of like sales and you know

01:23:31   the sales just shot up because it's a

01:23:33   magic price point and consumers minds

01:23:35   and we're so happy to be able to say

01:23:36   this year we're going to 149 you know

01:23:38   and just don't go designs I'm i think it

01:23:41   really bodes well for the for their

01:23:43   future with this stuff that they're not

01:23:44   going to they're not stuck on the on

01:23:47   this idea i don't think that the i pad

01:23:50   starts at four ninety-nine are now it's

01:23:53   399 like I think they'll be aggressive

01:23:55   it at moving down in price i think so

01:23:58   too and I if they can hit you know 200

01:24:00   or 250 with the the smaller ipad if it

01:24:03   actually happens i think it's gonna be

01:24:05   huge

01:24:06   I mean I you know I love the retina

01:24:08   display i think most people pray

01:24:10   could care less for if they could save

01:24:12   200 bucks so I think it could easily

01:24:14   sell you know at least as many or maybe

01:24:17   even like twice as more real you know

01:24:20   big iPads in addition to whatever big

01:24:23   iPads this so and you know and clearly i

01:24:26   mean no doubt in my mind I think they're

01:24:27   gonna do it i think they're going to do

01:24:28   it this year I don't think it's gonna

01:24:30   have a Retina display and just going to

01:24:31   have a 1024 x 768 display but obviously

01:24:34   either a year from now or two years from

01:24:36   now they're gonna come out with what

01:24:37   assuming the thing sells well it's going

01:24:39   to come out with one with a Retina

01:24:40   display

01:24:41   yep it's a no-brainer future upgrade

01:24:43   here's the other thing that makes me

01:24:45   think that they're gonna do it and

01:24:46   they're going to be really really

01:24:47   aggressive on price is that that event

01:24:50   they had new york last winner for

01:24:53   textbooks and the ibookstore which is

01:24:55   all about education and the big catch

01:25:00   with that whole initiative is this is

01:25:02   great these this whole thing sounds

01:25:04   great

01:25:04   the prices are great too great idea I

01:25:07   think it's clearly a great idea for the

01:25:09   future of textbooks but how do you how

01:25:13   do you get this into schools if you need

01:25:15   to buy a 499 device for every kid to get

01:25:17   started right and i think that for the

01:25:20   education market alone getting it to a

01:25:24   radically lower price point to get in

01:25:26   the door is huge and combine that with

01:25:30   the fact that who would be best suited

01:25:32   for a device where the on screen tap

01:25:37   targets or a little bit smaller and text

01:25:39   is rendered smaller is it funny that was

01:25:41   just thinking of saying that to that's

01:25:42   exactly like it's kiss right yeah

01:25:45   exactly so I who's got the eyes that are

01:25:48   best suited to reading a thing that may

01:25:49   be ideally is best rendered at nine

01:25:52   point seven inches but is now rendered

01:25:53   at 7.5 inches kids right who's got the

01:25:56   fingers that are going to work better on

01:25:58   a keyboard that smaller kids

01:26:00   yep now totally kids and and also women

01:26:02   to remember the palm palm had like a

01:26:05   smaller trio and that was huge with

01:26:07   women yeah the pic after hours call but

01:26:09   kids and when I I'd i don't think i'll

01:26:14   get one but i think i think they'll be

01:26:15   awesome

01:26:16   yeah maybe maybe I'll go into that most

01:26:18   but i don't think the google things

01:26:20   going to sell that well though I haven't

01:26:22   I haven't tried it

01:26:23   the google nexus 7 or whatever I just

01:26:26   don't have any they don't really have

01:26:30   good retail distribution and I think

01:26:32   that it's gotten a lot of attention in

01:26:35   the tech press because it's google so

01:26:36   people feel obligated to write about it

01:26:39   and I'm sure it's fine but i don't think

01:26:42   that many people are going to buy it

01:26:44   I you know and I wonder if it doesn't

01:26:47   sell well that one of the things people

01:26:51   might draw from the wall of you know it

01:26:52   should so well because they finally

01:26:54   licked all the a lot of these interface

01:26:56   problems at the interface is better it

01:26:57   looks better

01:26:59   there's no doubt my i believe that the

01:27:01   thing is actually scrolls a lot better

01:27:02   because I even android 4.2 on the Galaxy

01:27:06   Nexus phone really solved or not it's

01:27:10   not certainly not up to apple caliber

01:27:12   for for animation smoothness and stuff

01:27:14   like that but it was a lot closer they

01:27:16   really got over hump and if they really

01:27:17   worked a lot on between 4.0 and 4.1 on

01:27:20   improving that should at least be good

01:27:22   enough but i think that you it gets back

01:27:26   to the old days in the nineties were mad

01:27:28   where Apple struggled with the mac

01:27:30   against windows

01:27:31   despite having a superior interface that

01:27:33   that's not enough that he'll be aight a

01:27:36   lot of people don't even notice that

01:27:38   sort of thing or don't care right and be

01:27:40   it's like maybe their ninth priority on

01:27:43   the on the list of things I mean first

01:27:45   of all well you know i did like a pole

01:27:48   at at business insider I don't know a

01:27:50   couple years ago and out and I asked

01:27:52   like if you're going to buy a tablet

01:27:54   where would you buy it you know what you

01:27:56   buy it from bestbuy would you buy from a

01:27:58   carrier store would you buy from

01:27:59   whatever and by far the biggest response

01:28:02   was I'll go to the apple store right now

01:28:05   it's like okay well you can't buy Google

01:28:08   tablet at the apple store right so yeah

01:28:12   I I think it's great i'm glad that the

01:28:15   Google is doing stuff like this

01:28:17   good for them I just I don't think

01:28:19   anyone's going to be picking that one up

01:28:21   I want to do a follow-up i have I don't

01:28:23   have a huge number of points I want to

01:28:24   do a follow-up to the ipad mini piece

01:28:26   that i wrote earlier this week with a

01:28:28   couple more points of contention from

01:28:31   readers and other people who are out

01:28:33   there and there's

01:28:35   one of them is still this idea that

01:28:38   Apple wouldn't do a new device with a

01:28:40   retina display without a retina display

01:28:42   that all the new devices come with

01:28:44   retina displays and so they're not going

01:28:46   to do it without Rena I don't think

01:28:47   that's true and way I look at it I think

01:28:50   I added this to the article after I

01:28:53   published it but that the better way to

01:28:55   think of it is they've never shipped a

01:28:58   new iOS form factor that started retina

01:29:00   they start non-retina and then as they

01:29:03   groove their ability to hit that price

01:29:05   point two years later three years later

01:29:07   they come out with the retina I don't

01:29:10   think they'll hesitate and I think it

01:29:11   will help establish it that look the

01:29:13   best one is the big one that's the one

01:29:15   that's retina this one is the cheap one

01:29:17   right and you know they're still selling

01:29:20   their very happily selling the 3s which

01:29:23   is 3gs which is you know kind of crappy

01:29:26   can write it to for us so i don't think

01:29:29   that you know i don't think they care

01:29:31   that much in and they're still selling

01:29:33   the air with a non retina display and

01:29:36   every mac except one of them and and by

01:29:38   the way this is tim cook the guy who

01:29:40   probably loves his ipod shuffle so right

01:29:43   you know not everything is about and I

01:29:45   think that is one of the differences

01:29:46   between the old apple in the new apple

01:29:48   and that you know that it's not

01:29:50   necessarily that they want to sell

01:29:52   flimsy stuff but not everything has to

01:29:54   be the absolute best thing that you

01:29:56   could buy because that's not the way to

01:29:58   the mass market so what about the the

01:30:01   came out on the same day reports last

01:30:04   week from Bloomberg in the wall street

01:30:06   journal that Apple is going to do a

01:30:08   smaller ipad did that to me reeks of a

01:30:12   leak a deliberately from apple i think

01:30:15   it has to be I mean you know that they

01:30:18   like you they don't like me so much but

01:30:20   Apple PR is is the best in the business

01:30:23   I mean they are really don't like you

01:30:26   now I don't know I just like you or they

01:30:29   don't like you

01:30:31   uh somewhere between those 2i think

01:30:34   interesting i'll put in a good word for

01:30:35   you

01:30:36   yeah thanks now i don't know how they do

01:30:40   like me but they I don't get stuff like

01:30:42   that they don't they don't get to know

01:30:43   people ask me people ask me stuff like

01:30:45   that and when I find out stuff like i do

01:30:47   i've heard stuff about the

01:30:49   penny I never heard something about the

01:30:50   ipad mini from Apple PR I've heard stuff

01:30:52   from like I call them the rank-and-file

01:30:55   I almost think that there might even be

01:30:57   like a I don't know if there's like a

01:31:01   sec type stuff but I think they're yeah

01:31:04   some of this stuff about like material

01:31:06   disclosures have to go to up

01:31:08   I don't actually know I'm making this up

01:31:10   but it seems like they have to give it

01:31:12   to like the wall street journal or

01:31:13   Bloomberg or something that has like

01:31:15   enough reach that it's going to be

01:31:17   actually widely disclosed so there's no

01:31:20   like insider trading type stuff I know I

01:31:23   i may have completely invented that in

01:31:25   my head I don't know I wouldn't i

01:31:26   wouldn't be surprised if there's

01:31:27   ramifications but to me it's it's

01:31:30   apple's version of mud right feirense

01:31:32   our hideout like it is not coincidental

01:31:35   that they did that the 2i would a guy

01:31:39   I'd Bloomberg and wall street journal is

01:31:43   clearly the bat the most-read business

01:31:45   publication Bloomberg is certainly one

01:31:47   of the one of the most read and

01:31:49   certainly they're both very highly

01:31:51   respected and in terms of relationship

01:31:53   with apple and previous leaks of stuff

01:31:56   like that they've both you know they're

01:31:58   both phases Bloomberg was the first one

01:32:02   that got this story that Steve Jobs is

01:32:04   having a liver transplant the wall

01:32:06   street journal but I don't know if

01:32:08   doesn't like I don't think so either i

01:32:10   don't think so either phone we talk to

01:32:11   ya I'd swear that was like I actually

01:32:14   don't think that was a leak i think that

01:32:15   was good reporting yeah I'm just saying

01:32:17   no reputation wise though no they

01:32:19   absolutely there those are the kinds of

01:32:21   places where you know if it's in print

01:32:24   there you can almost reasonably assume

01:32:26   that it's completely true

01:32:27   well my favorite example of that is with

01:32:29   the journal which was before WWDC 2001

01:32:33   ever when Apple was going to announce

01:32:35   the switch to Intel which I didn't

01:32:37   believe and I wrote a piece it's one of

01:32:39   probably one of the best like you know

01:32:40   had John Gruber st claim chatter I was a

01:32:45   skeptic I really was until friday before

01:32:48   the WWDC keynote and the Journal said

01:32:50   Apple is going to switch to Intel and i

01:32:51   wrote a piece on during fireballs like I

01:32:53   don't know how to interpret this because

01:32:55   if the Wall Street Journal says it's

01:32:57   going to happen i think it's going to

01:32:58   happen because they're not saying it

01:32:59   might happen they're saying it's going

01:33:00   to happen in there the journal and

01:33:02   they're never wrong or they wouldn't be

01:33:04   wrong unless they had a they wouldn't

01:33:06   publish this if they didn't know it was

01:33:07   true but on the other hand as far as i

01:33:10   know this is technically impossible

01:33:11   there's no way Apple can do this unless

01:33:13   they've figured out a way to emulate

01:33:16   power pc software at full speed and so

01:33:19   in a sense I was right because that's

01:33:20   actually what they did do with rosetta

01:33:22   where they had this emulator that ran at

01:33:24   here 24 on unbelievably efficient binary

01:33:30   translation performance way way better

01:33:35   than like the old 68k emulator on

01:33:37   powerpc etcetera like that but the fact

01:33:41   that the journal printed it made me say

01:33:43   it got me to wrap my mind around the

01:33:45   fact that it was that it was going to

01:33:46   happen so ever it is one lesson I've

01:33:50   learned from Apple's is never

01:33:52   underestimate their ability to do

01:33:54   something that seemed physically and

01:33:56   scientifically impossible the day before

01:33:58   yea which was like how I felt about the

01:34:00   iphone and the retina and the retina

01:34:02   iphone4 when that came out to I was like

01:34:04   oh my god

01:34:06   you can even do that like I don't even

01:34:07   know so but then also but didn't the

01:34:10   Wall Street Journal report this year

01:34:12   that that Apple was going to launch

01:34:14   something like developer analytics

01:34:16   software at WWDC I don't remember was

01:34:19   weird yeah there was a there was

01:34:20   something about that I don't mom anyway

01:34:23   as I was saying like Apple Apple just

01:34:24   like that you know as an almost a lot of

01:34:27   the stuff they do there's the really

01:34:29   brilliant at PR and it doing little

01:34:31   things like that at like perfectly

01:34:34   timing their launch dates to come

01:34:36   between this thing and a thing and you

01:34:38   know I I don't know who decided that

01:34:41   Michael Dell would be the guy who gets

01:34:42   screwed by giving his CES keynote at the

01:34:45   exact time of the iphone iphone keno but

01:34:49   that was just every that in hindsight

01:34:51   that was brilliant

01:34:52   a lot of the stuff like they do like

01:34:53   that is really smart so you know I would

01:34:56   absolutely not be surprised at all that

01:34:58   was deliberate and you know 11 last one

01:35:02   last thing before we wrap up the show

01:35:03   that i want to run

01:35:04   you on this and this is the idea that

01:35:05   the 199 price point and I I could

01:35:12   totally see that Apple's said that 7.5

01:35:15   inch tablet maybe it'll start at 249

01:35:17   I can't believe it would be to 99 I

01:35:19   really can't i think it has to be 249 if

01:35:21   it's not 199 but i think they could do

01:35:24   one if they if they can do 199 they will

01:35:26   do it because they don't want to leave

01:35:27   that price umbrella for these other

01:35:30   tablets like the nexus 7 or kindle fire

01:35:32   or something like that but the argument

01:35:34   i've gotten I've seen it on Twitter for

01:35:36   a couple of smart people is that they

01:35:37   and I got an email to is that they can't

01:35:40   sell 199 ipad at eight inches next to a

01:35:44   199 ipod touch that so much smaller that

01:35:48   if this thing is eight inches and 199

01:35:51   how can this thing that's so much

01:35:52   smaller cost 199 too and they can't

01:35:55   really reduce the price of the ipod

01:35:57   touch by that much

01:35:58   I don't I don't I week that they maybe

01:36:01   they can

01:36:01   well i don't think they need to though I

01:36:03   think yeah I don't think they do either

01:36:04   that they're totally different things I

01:36:06   mean one is something you give to a kid

01:36:07   to play to play games on the funnest

01:36:09   ipod / and then another one maybe not uh

01:36:13   I wouldn't worry about that that's

01:36:15   that's the kind of thing the nit nit

01:36:17   picky type thing like that when i used

01:36:19   to write articles saying of course Apple

01:36:21   is going to do a verizon iphone they

01:36:23   have to and people go no that means they

01:36:25   would have to support cdma the right

01:36:27   that's adding more complexity the apple

01:36:29   doesn't do complexity and it's like

01:36:31   they'll do complexity for 90 million

01:36:33   subscriber carrier you're damn right

01:36:35   they were right it's not just like the

01:36:37   only the one and only cdma carriers in

01:36:40   the US was you know uh you know

01:36:44   bum Phillips that metropcs ER right now

01:36:47   sorry I US cellular or whatever in

01:36:49   Chicago they have their yeah well with

01:36:51   the million subscribers

01:36:53   yeah this is so sorry I'm so worried

01:36:55   about that i think i think what actually

01:36:58   might be a bigger is what Amazon

01:37:01   announces later this year or identity

01:37:03   thief is the kindle fire going to get is

01:37:05   it a is it going to be much better or

01:37:07   only a little better and be will it be a

01:37:09   hundred bucks or something like that

01:37:12   because you know there's a great the

01:37:14   fraud manju of course always right smart

01:37:17   stuff but his thing

01:37:17   but amazon yesterday was smart and he's

01:37:21   written some good stuff on amazon

01:37:22   recently but you know as we've seen they

01:37:24   will ruthlessly do crazy stuff just to

01:37:26   do it you know and and if Apple has to

01:37:30   respond i I don't know how much they

01:37:32   would actually have to respond to a $99

01:37:34   tablet but it might force them to make

01:37:37   it 199 instead of 249 who I I wonder who

01:37:41   knows I I the other thing is that you

01:37:43   should save so much money so and and

01:37:45   there's only a finite number of these

01:37:46   they can make itself so the same like

01:37:49   the original iphone i think the first

01:37:51   time you ever link to me is when i wrote

01:37:52   some article about how Apple would have

01:37:55   to make to sell twice as many iphones to

01:37:57   make the same amount of profit on the

01:37:59   you know on the iphone one after they

01:38:01   did the price cut or something like that

01:38:02   and yeah whatever it doesn't matter

01:38:05   because they only made like 10 million

01:38:07   of them so who you even cares you know

01:38:09   this is the first ipod ipod ipad mini or

01:38:12   whatever they call it like the prime

01:38:14   make 10 15 million of them if they if

01:38:17   the margins sucks on them it's doesn't

01:38:19   matter anyway because the iphone and has

01:38:22   such a huge margin it and then they have

01:38:24   put our 70 billion dollars in the bank

01:38:26   or something like that so far more so

01:38:28   who cares i think i think they'll do

01:38:30   whatever they think they need to do to

01:38:32   do it right and not necessarily base it

01:38:35   on profitability or something like that

01:38:38   right on well and the other thing too

01:38:41   with the holes can they sell it

01:38:42   alongside the ipod touch at almost the

01:38:44   same price and I think the difference

01:38:46   with these with it is it's it's

01:38:49   different than with laptops with laptops

01:38:51   the expectation that smaller is cheaper

01:38:53   makes sense but that's because the

01:38:56   minimum size and I think the 11-inch air

01:38:57   is about as small as I would want Mac to

01:38:59   be I think that the the the little light

01:39:02   8-inch 9-inch pc laptops are way too

01:39:05   small but even if they did if Apple were

01:39:09   to do a 9 inch macbook air it would

01:39:11   probably be even cheaper than the

01:39:12   11-inch but that's because it's the

01:39:14   these expenses the display is smaller

01:39:17   and it's cheaper

01:39:18   whereas the iphone and ipod touch are so

01:39:23   small that there's an incredible amount

01:39:25   of cost into just getting the thing to

01:39:27   be that small and the miniaturization

01:39:31   yeah and I think I I'm stealing this

01:39:33   from somebody else on Twitter who

01:39:34   pointed this i think i might have been

01:39:35   my friend Evan Morgan but who pointed

01:39:37   out that love that guy you really

01:39:38   shouldn't think about when you compare

01:39:40   the fact that the ipad cost more than

01:39:42   the iphone you're you're locked into

01:39:44   this us-centric certain a contract

01:39:47   pricing and the rest of the world where

01:39:50   lots and lots of people by their phones

01:39:51   without a contract the iphone cost more

01:39:54   than the ipad and way more

01:39:57   ya-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-h like iphone cost

01:40:00   more than an ipad even though i bought

01:40:02   an unlocked iphone and it costs more

01:40:03   than well take 700 bucks spire was like

01:40:06   900 you get the big one else was like

01:40:08   yeah totally

01:40:10   yeah so i have a question what what what

01:40:13   Apple brand do you think will last

01:40:15   longer

01:40:15   iPod iMac em they've already phased out

01:40:23   ipod as this as a nap so that seems to

01:40:27   me like they didn't care about it enough

01:40:30   to make that the commute the media app

01:40:32   any longer but i was wondering because

01:40:35   it's like you know they still sell their

01:40:37   they sell more ipods than mac still for

01:40:40   you need a mac to make iOS software

01:40:42   which brand which one will be a an

01:40:45   active sku longer i hate to say it but

01:40:50   i'm going to say ipod yeah that's right

01:40:56   that's what I would have picked I think

01:40:57   now maybe Mac but i don't know i don't

01:40:59   know anyone I don't want to i know the

01:41:02   reason main reason the mac exists is is

01:41:05   that it does these things that you can't

01:41:07   do on the ipad or can't do as well on

01:41:10   the ipad including the fact that you

01:41:12   needed to write i buy pet software

01:41:14   that's not going to be forever like you

01:41:17   love you know sooner than their enough

01:41:19   sooner than all of us think you'll be

01:41:20   able to write your apps on the iPad and

01:41:23   maybe you'll require your hypothetical

01:41:26   15 inch iPad yeah how do i run flash and

01:41:32   the other thing I was going to ask you

01:41:33   the good questions and that's a really

01:41:34   good question which one which brand do

01:41:38   you think will be around the longest i

01:41:40   think the the

01:41:41   the single brand that they have that has

01:41:43   the better that it might outlive us all

01:41:45   is ipad i can't imagine i think ipad is

01:41:48   here is already at a point where it's

01:41:50   here forever especially if it continues

01:41:52   to be successful the way you know

01:41:54   successful in the way it has been this

01:41:56   is not at you know the phone who knows

01:41:58   what's gonna happen you know that if the

01:42:00   if it doesn't work in China and if

01:42:02   Huawei knocks them well the thing that

01:42:05   worried that that would have me bet

01:42:07   against the iphone brand is that I could

01:42:10   see I can foresee a future where some

01:42:12   kind of networking technology exists

01:42:14   that obliterates just completely

01:42:16   disrupts and annihilates the carriers in

01:42:18   its justthis you know it's the

01:42:21   equivalent of Wi-Fi some other kind of

01:42:23   IP over the air with sufficient range

01:42:26   that you know the problem with going

01:42:29   wifi-only now is that you can't get

01:42:31   phone calls you're not on a Wi-Fi

01:42:32   network and you know if you're in your

01:42:34   car or whatever you're never gonna you

01:42:35   can't get calls or anything

01:42:37   whereas if there was some kind of super

01:42:39   long range wireless thing that you know

01:42:41   I could just totally see that happening

01:42:43   where we don't call them phones anymore

01:42:45   and you're not dealing with AT&T or

01:42:47   Verizon or anything you're dealing with

01:42:48   this new thing and therefore the iphone

01:42:50   brand goes away and their apples don't

01:42:52   make something that size but it's called

01:42:54   something else called the itouch yeah I

01:42:56   don't know but I I wouldn't bet on the

01:42:58   iphone brand

01:43:00   ya know that makes sense or or phone

01:43:02   calls become something you know for your

01:43:04   tweets or something like that or no

01:43:06   interesting do do you get into any of

01:43:09   this like wearable computer stuff like I

01:43:11   I saw you a couple of those Kickstarter

01:43:13   watch things but like you care about the

01:43:15   Nike Fuel band or anything like that

01:43:17   I don't even know what is that I don't

01:43:19   know what that is okay well I'm I i

01:43:21   don't know i think there's a future in

01:43:22   that stuff I I don't know what it is i

01:43:25   backed the I also back the pebble watch

01:43:27   i think it's called yeah that I think

01:43:28   that's what I think you know I don't

01:43:30   even know where they did they send them

01:43:31   out yet

01:43:32   I back these i still haven't got my

01:43:34   elevation doc yet exact these guys

01:43:36   haven't either i have anything that's

01:43:37   going to be first the new iphone with

01:43:39   the new to call right

01:43:41   I back all these Kickstarter prod

01:43:43   projects and I'm glad to do it but it is

01:43:45   actually kind of a nice surprise because

01:43:47   it takes them long enough to ship the

01:43:49   product that I kind of forget about it

01:43:50   and it's like totally i'm getting a

01:43:52   present for

01:43:53   my former self yeah it's like Thank You

01:43:56   2011 John Gruber what a very thoughtful

01:43:58   gift this is an awesome doc from my

01:44:01   iphone

01:44:02   yeah exactly forgot about it

01:44:05   alright i'm going to call it a show yeah

01:44:07   let's do that

01:44:08   dan frommer thank you so much people can

01:44:11   can can and should follow you it splat f

01:44:14   dot com where you write your also

01:44:17   writing it readwriteweb we're going to

01:44:19   keep our eyes open for your your big

01:44:21   feature on iceland iceland next week i'm

01:44:26   looking forward to that from dome at

01:44:29   from dome on Twitter and I want to thank

01:44:32   our sponsors again we've got boom this

01:44:36   very cool utility for your mac that that

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01:44:45   adventures of Alex electricity a super

01:44:48   cool sort of combo interactive book game

01:44:53   for the ipad and you can find that on

01:44:56   online at the app store the adventures

01:45:00   of Alex electricity thanks