00:00:14 ◼ ► I mean, I assume that Jonas's school had drills and stuff like that as he was going through. I
00:00:43 ◼ ► Yeah. Well, maybe this is the show. I don't usually comment on current events like this
00:00:51 ◼ ► you want to call it. I don't want to sugarcoat it in Uvalde, Texas. I don't want to spend the
00:00:57 ◼ ► show. I've been linking about it. I've been writing about it, so I feel like I shouldn't
00:01:02 ◼ ► ignore it, and I want everybody to know I'm thinking about it. I mean, I think everybody
00:01:10 ◼ ► so this show is not going to dwell on it. I mean, it's not our show, you know. And we'll
00:01:14 ◼ ► have a good time, and we'll laugh, and we'll do our usual John and John goofing around thing,
00:01:18 ◼ ► but it's in no way ever at this point leaving my mind, and probably everybody listening this,
00:01:30 ◼ ► No, no. We had talked about possibly talking about Obi-Wan, but it starts out with—well,
00:01:37 ◼ ► if you haven't seen it, spoiler alert—it starts out with sort of a school shooting, right?
00:01:42 ◼ ► Which is terrible, you know, which is really unfortunate, obviously, and I don't even think—I
00:01:47 ◼ ► guess it didn't even occur to Disney that it was somehow similar. And I didn't notice it when I
00:01:53 ◼ ► watched the show, but a bunch of people were saying, "Boy, that was tough to see after,
00:02:17 ◼ ► Yeah, but it, you know, the timing is—you know, and if funny, somebody told me—I have not watched
00:02:21 ◼ ► it yet, but somebody told me that Stranger Things season four, which dropped last week,
00:02:26 ◼ ► also has some sort of thing with kids and getting hurt, and, you know, it's not an unreasonable
00:02:42 ◼ ► Right, and it's like, imagine if you put in to a work of fiction and it happened to drop last
00:02:47 ◼ ► weekend a volcano erupting, you know. The odds of that actually happening in the real world around
00:02:54 ◼ ► the same time are pretty low. It doesn't—you know, it's pretty rare, thankfully. I guess
00:02:58 ◼ ► something like, you know, a gun massacre of kids at a school is the likelihood, at least in one
00:03:04 ◼ ► country, not naming names, in one country, you have a pretty high likelihood of running into
00:03:14 ◼ ► Is this the same—is the flat Apple Watch the same thing as the one that was supposedly going to have
00:03:40 ◼ ► Let's work on this wonderful segue. Let me take a break here and get our first—have our first
00:03:45 ◼ ► break on the show and say a good word about our good friends at Squarespace. You guys know
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00:03:56 ◼ ► business online. You can stand out with a beautiful website with all sorts of great features, engage
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00:04:07 ◼ ► that through Squarespace. They even have things like member areas, where it's easy for creators
00:04:11 ◼ ► to monetize their content and expertise in a way that fits their brand with member areas.
00:04:15 ◼ ► You can unlock a new revenue stream for your business and free up time in your schedule by
00:04:19 ◼ ► selling access to gated content for your members only, like videos and online courses if you want
00:04:25 ◼ ► to teach people stuff or run tutorials type thing and sell access to them, or paid newsletters. You
00:04:31 ◼ ► can do all of that through Squarespace. It is just the place to go. And if anybody you know is looking
00:04:37 ◼ ► to start something like that online, you can send them to Squarespace and use the same code,
00:04:41 ◼ ► squarespace.com/talkshow. You get a great deal. You get 10% off your first purchase with that code,
00:04:48 ◼ ► talk show, squarespace.com/talkshow. Ten percent off your first order and you can prepay for a year,
00:04:53 ◼ ► save 10% on a whole year with that code. My thanks to Squarespace. Yeah, that's a segue. See,
00:04:59 ◼ ► you put a sponsor in there and now it feels a little bit more natural. Yeah, the rumor,
00:05:03 ◼ ► I think John Prosser of Front Page Tech on YouTube is largely responsible for the origin of this and
00:05:12 ◼ ► has had CAD renders last year. And the rumor was that was the Apple Watch for last September.
00:05:17 ◼ ► And then the really curious thing, because both of their records are so good in general, and if
00:05:23 ◼ ► they're not good, it's usually vagaries not being wrong, was that Mark Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo
00:05:29 ◼ ► in the run-up, like early September or maybe end of August, but within like 10 days of the actual
00:05:35 ◼ ► unveiling of the Apple Watch Series 7, both said stuff about flat crystal and flat sides,
00:05:43 ◼ ► and none of it matched up because if anything, the crystal on the Series 7 Watch is actually
00:05:47 ◼ ► more curved. And they even added, it's so curved and such a point of action that Apple even made
00:05:54 ◼ ► a new watch faces just for the Series 7 that show off how it curves around the side. You know what
00:06:01 ◼ ► I mean? Like I forget what the name of the watch face is, but maybe I could look it up here on my
00:06:05 ◼ ► watch. Geez. So that is, that's back. Prosser ran a thing that said it's back. It's still,
00:06:12 ◼ ► it might happen this year. It was sort of a big, you know, it was one of those funny things last
00:06:24 ◼ ► a lot of times the story is not— Why would you think that I would enjoy rumors that are wrong?
00:06:34 ◼ ► It's not like I dedicated an entire site to that. When rumors are wrong, a lot of times the people
00:06:38 ◼ ► who promoted the rumors or reported the rumors will have, you know, the unbelievable good luck
00:06:44 ◼ ► of finding out that they weren't in fact wrong, but something changed. Yeah. Yeah. At the last
00:06:52 ◼ ► minute, they changed the design of the Apple watch. They squeezed them all into a different shape.
00:06:58 ◼ ► Right. And invented an entirely new crystal shape and watch faces and it came out. But anyway,
00:07:05 ◼ ► the story is, it might be coming out this year. And my theory all along, I got to write about it,
00:07:11 ◼ ► because if I don't, I've podcasted about it, but haven't really written about it, but I have a
00:07:15 ◼ ► theory and I still believe the theory. And in fact, I actually think my theory actually does explain
00:07:22 ◼ ► the whole thing. By the way, the watch face I was thinking of is called Contour. That's the one
00:07:26 ◼ ► where there's squished numerals around the outside of the Apple watch face on watchOS 8. My theory
00:07:32 ◼ ► is that the flat watch is real. It was in development last year, but it is the new Apple
00:07:38 ◼ ► watch SE. It is not the expedition model that is supposedly that Gurman has, I think uniquely
00:07:46 ◼ ► reported on that is supposedly like a, you know, like a G-Shock type thing, or I know Garmin makes
00:07:52 ◼ ► a lot of those in the smartwatch space. I think it's the new Apple watch SE and that it might be
00:08:04 ◼ ► usually when they introduce a new look, it goes to the new models, not the one that's, you know,
00:08:10 ◼ ► the lower priced model, right? I mean, you look at the iPhone SE, obviously that is an iPhone 8.
00:08:16 ◼ ► - Right. So my theory works like this, that SE doesn't really mean take an old design and put
00:08:26 ◼ ► new guts in it and sell it at a low price, even though that's how it plays out for the iPhone.
00:08:32 ◼ ► Is there another SE? There's only iPhone SE and Apple watch SE, right? So we don't have a large,
00:08:37 ◼ ► and that works for the Apple or for iPhone. It works to have old ones. But to me, what the SE
00:08:44 ◼ ► really means is less looking old, but looking clearly less than. In other words, that it looks
00:08:53 ◼ ► like this is the least expensive, whatever it is. You know, like if they came out with an iPad.
00:09:05 ◼ ► introducing a new look, they go to great lengths to say how great this new look is, look what we've
00:09:10 ◼ ► done. Aren't we wonderful? And if they're doing that for the one that's cheaper, I don't see how
00:09:15 ◼ ► that plays. - Well, I think it's a stretch. Maybe I'm, you know, I could be all wet. I have no
00:09:25 ◼ ► nerdery hobby, you know, like traditional watches. But watches are different than phones, right?
00:09:38 ◼ ► such things as older iPhones that look like older iPhones. 'Cause they, you know, the iPhone SE right
00:09:43 ◼ ► now still has a home button and it still has square sides on the display. And it still has
00:09:49 ◼ ► totally square corners on the display with a chin and a forehead where the home button goes.
00:09:53 ◼ ► So at just an instant glance, you can instantly see this is sort of the, you know, it's the SE
00:10:00 ◼ ► iPhone. The Apple watch can't really do that. Even right now where they're selling and the Apple
00:10:06 ◼ ► watch lineup as it stands today is sort of messed up where the SE is not the lowest price model.
00:10:11 ◼ ► The iPhone or Apple watch three series three is the lower price model. And the SE is actually
00:10:16 ◼ ► more money. And now I don't know if that's what they plan. - They should not be selling that
00:10:20 ◼ ► phone, but okay. - Or that watch. - Or that watch. - Right. But, you know, that maybe they just
00:10:25 ◼ ► realized that in this transition and with the cost of goods and as they, you know, what's the baseline
00:10:31 ◼ ► for like a good, you know, 199 watch that's based on like a new guts, like a new, all new SE,
00:10:38 ◼ ► you know, that last year wasn't the year to do it. It would have, you know, or maybe, you know,
00:10:44 ◼ ► maybe it was a by-product of the supply chain stuff with COVID and it was supposed to happen
00:10:50 ◼ ► last year. And it's just, that's not going to happen. And, you know, we can get these, this,
00:10:56 ◼ ► this, and this out the door on time, but we'll punt on the, the new Apple watch SE and we'll just sell
00:11:02 ◼ ► the app, the series three again for another year. You know, that, that's, I don't know. I don't know
00:11:07 ◼ ► what the backstory is. Apple never explained such things, but my thinking of why would a new look
00:11:12 ◼ ► be for only for the SE is they don't have something even with the series three, which we,
00:11:17 ◼ ► everybody sort of acknowledges at a tech level and battery life level and the screen doesn't stay on
00:11:21 ◼ ► and blah, blah, blah is, is really not, it's kind of outdated at this point, but at a glance, it
00:11:27 ◼ ► looks just like any other Apple watch. Like if you get close, you can see like when they, with series
00:11:33 ◼ ► four, they change, subtly changed the industrial design, the case dimensions and the shape of the
00:11:53 ◼ ► just different slight dimensions, but at a glance, you can't tell. I can't. And I'm a nerd. I know
00:11:59 ◼ ► Apple watches very well. I mean, but like when somebody walks by on the sidewalk or something
00:12:03 ◼ ► like that, or I walked by somebody, if I were in an airport and I saw somebody or somebody's table
00:12:08 ◼ ► at a restaurant and I just see, Oh, they have an Apple watch. I can't tell if it's a series three
00:12:11 ◼ ► or a series four, you have to sort of stop and stare at it. I don't think that serves Apple's
00:12:17 ◼ ► does, you know, purposes for having a sort of good, better, best lineup of watches when it looks
00:12:23 ◼ ► the same. And therefore I think a flat-sided watch that's instantly recognizable as the Apple watch SE
00:12:29 ◼ ► would serve that purpose, right? They can't use an old watch like, and they certainly, you know,
00:12:35 ◼ ► if we admit that series three is too old at this point, then series four would be like the starting
00:12:39 ◼ ► point for a new SE and the series four looks almost indistinguishable. However hard it is to
00:12:44 ◼ ► tell series three and series four, five, six, seven apart, it's even harder to tell the series
00:12:49 ◼ ► four from a series seven, right? It's like how close do you have to get to see that the display
00:12:54 ◼ ► curves under the sides a little bit? I mean, you got to, you know, if it's somebody else's watch,
00:12:59 ◼ ► you're uncomfortably close to their wrist. So how, you know, the only way they can make an Apple
00:13:06 ◼ ► watch SE that clearly looks at a glance like, oh, that's the Apple watch SE is to give it an all new
00:13:11 ◼ ► design. And to me, again, I'm basing this on CAD renders. And of course, you know, maybe in reality,
00:13:18 ◼ ► Apple can make this thing that fits these CAD renders, proves that they were true. It has a
00:13:22 ◼ ► flat top, has mostly flat sides, mostly looks, you know, the design language of the current iPhones
00:13:29 ◼ ► with the flat sides and obviously flat display. Maybe it'll look great on the wrist and it will
00:13:33 ◼ ► be the premium model. And then they can make the round one the SE and go forward. But I don't think
00:13:39 ◼ ► so. I think that the roundness of Apple watch is, is, and I know some people are bored. I heard,
00:13:46 ◼ ► I was listening to Upgrade with our friends, Jason Snow and Mike Hurley. And Mike just said something
00:13:52 ◼ ► offhanded about the fact that, hey, you know, every Apple watch today does look the same. I'm
00:13:56 ◼ ► a little bored by it. That's sort of how watches work. And I know that most people are like,
00:14:02 ◼ ► a lot of people who love their Apple watch have had no interest, never even wore a watch before,
00:14:06 ◼ ► weren't wearing a watch for decades. Don't care how the real world or the other world of watches
00:14:12 ◼ ► works. But like, you know, like a Rolex Submariner from 1961, like that Sean Connery is wearing in
00:14:19 ◼ ► the first James Bond movie, it looks exactly at a glance like a brand new Rolex Submariner that
00:14:25 ◼ ► you could buy today, except long story, you can't actually buy Rolex Submariners. They're all out of
00:14:30 ◼ ► stock around the world and have been for years. But you know, if you could get your hands on a
00:14:35 ◼ ► brand new Rolex Submariner today, it's a watch nerd. I could tell you all the things that are
00:14:40 ◼ ► suddenly different, but at a glance, people would say, oh, it's the exact same watch. It hasn't
00:14:43 ◼ ► changed in 40 years, 50 years. That's sort of, I think the look of the, the capsule round shape of
00:14:52 ◼ ► Apple watch. And I, so I sort of feel like there's room to have a shape that says, this is like the
00:14:58 ◼ ► $200 Apple watch. And these other ones are the $400 Apple watches. And then you can get them
00:15:03 ◼ ► in titanium or stainless steel or within Hermes band and pay more, but that those will all be
00:15:09 ◼ ► round. That's, that's my theory. You think they like the round for the more expensive models?
00:15:16 ◼ ► I do. And I think that they, I think they like that it's an iconic shape. It is something that
00:15:21 ◼ ► they own and, you know, honestly it's, it's a lot less ripped off than the iPhone. Right. It's like,
00:15:29 ◼ ► it's, it's I, nobody really makes like an Android wear phone that, or, or watch that looks like an
00:15:35 ◼ ► Apple watch. It is so distinctive. It is. Yeah. They're very, those other watches, I mean,
00:15:45 ◼ ► and I think it's probably a smart idea, I guess when Apple makes a square watch that you want to
00:15:49 ◼ ► make a round watch, I suppose, to make yours look different, but, well, I'm not, I prefer,
00:15:57 ◼ ► I prefer the square watch. Honestly, I prefer the, the, the screen of the square watch.
00:16:01 ◼ ► I've looked at those other watches and, you know, I mean, the, the, the pixel watch came out,
00:16:08 ◼ ► you know, it was at least revealed recently. And, you know, as you look at notifications,
00:16:14 ◼ ► because the other ones, when they scroll up and down, I mean, you can't see the whole notification.
00:16:19 ◼ ► And they may even have people that say, Oh, you shouldn't be looking at your watch notifications
00:16:23 ◼ ► all the time anyway. Well, that's kind of the point of the watch, right? You're trying to get
00:16:29 ◼ ► And I just don't think it works as well. And the only reason that people like round watches is
00:16:36 ◼ ► because that's the way most watches have been in the past, but it's not the way all watches have
00:16:40 ◼ ► been in the past. Yeah, I agree. I really, because scrolling content is inherently rectangular in
00:16:46 ◼ ► nature. There's no way to do it. And so if you scroll content, whether it's like one long text
00:16:53 ◼ ► message that you want to read on your watch, or, you know, a couple of alerts that have come in,
00:16:58 ◼ ► like, Hey, I've, I felt a couple taps there. Let me see, you know, let me go catch up on these
00:17:02 ◼ ► alerts and you want to scroll through them. Scrolling content is inherently rectangular.
00:17:06 ◼ ► And the clipping that's inherent when you scroll on a circular display is annoying. I mean,
00:17:12 ◼ ► it's like you said, you can really, you really only get the full width of the phone right at the
00:17:16 ◼ ► equator and you get clipped at the bottom and the top. It's not great. And circular displays can
00:17:21 ◼ ► work. I know I've mentioned this. I forget when, but it's like we have the Nest thermostats and
00:17:27 ◼ ► those have a circular display and I love them. I think they're beautiful. I think they're,
00:17:31 ◼ ► it's a really beautiful device. I really like having it in my house. It makes me happy to see
00:17:35 ◼ ► it every time I go by, but a circular display works perfectly on a Nest thermostat because
00:17:41 ◼ ► except when it gets like an error condition, you'd never have to scroll. And even when,
00:17:45 ◼ ► even when you get an error condition, we've had a thing over the winter where the, it was losing
00:17:50 ◼ ► power to the, wherever it gets power through the wall. And I had to go down the cellar and flip a
00:18:00 ◼ ► as long as I can flip a switch once every couple of weeks in the winter and keep it going. But
00:18:05 ◼ ► when it lost power, it would give me an error message. And even then it, it kind of optimized
00:18:10 ◼ ► the here's what you should do. And here's where you can go for more info for the circular display.
00:18:15 ◼ ► You know, it's circular data looks great in a circular display. That's why most watches
00:18:20 ◼ ► around because most, most regular watches just have hands that spin around the center. They,
00:18:26 ◼ ► they're a circular, you know, same reason that speedometers on cars can look great as circles,
00:18:48 ◼ ► the butter toast always falling down is that the time of day that you want to check the date is
00:18:53 ◼ ► always about three, three 15, right? Three 15 is when I need, I need to know what is the day's date.
00:19:00 ◼ ► Oh, well, I better wait till three 17. I was, I was always a little surprised that Apple hadn't
00:19:06 ◼ ► solved that problem with its faces that have hands. You know, like it seems like, you know,
00:19:11 ◼ ► there's parallax on the phone and maybe the computing power of the watch isn't great enough
00:19:17 ◼ ► to do parallax, but it seems like if you could just tilt. Right, right. Is there something?
00:19:28 ◼ ► but it does seem like there should have been some way that they could accommodate the hands covering
00:19:39 ◼ ► I don't know. I would like to see, I would love that. That would be like an interesting design
00:19:52 ◼ ► the day and date are, would fall under the three, you know, the minute hand and hour hand at three
00:19:59 ◼ ► o'clock, but work around it when those hands would be covering it. What, what can you do?
00:20:04 ◼ ► It seems like the minute, with the minute hand, you could just have the complications on top
00:20:10 ◼ ► Yeah, but they, they sort of, there is a Z access to the hands, right? It's the hour hand is below
00:20:16 ◼ ► the minute hand, you know, is on top of the hour hand and the second hand is on top of that. So,
00:20:20 ◼ ► I don't know. There's, there's gotta be a solution, but I'll be damned if I can. But anyway,
00:20:25 ◼ ► I really do think it's possible. And I know that it sounds counterintuitive because in the iPhone
00:20:30 ◼ ► world and all the other products, new industrial design always starts at the top and filters down.
00:20:35 ◼ ► I just think that with Apple watch is different and it can work where, and again, I don't think
00:20:41 ◼ ► that the curved, I think people underestimate how proud and how much work it was to get the series
00:20:48 ◼ ► seven with the curved display to work and look around the sides from the sides exactly the way
00:20:54 ◼ ► Apple wants it to look like it would be a weird, a weird year to year zigzag for them to go from
00:21:02 ◼ ► two years ago, series six, then series seven last year, the big new design thing is this
00:21:09 ◼ ► round crystal screen on all the models, aluminum and steel and custom watch faces designed just
00:21:17 ◼ ► to show off how the display is more curved. And then to 12 months later say, here's, here's the,
00:21:25 ◼ ► here's the new Apple watch series eight perfectly flat. Like I think I, you know, and I know the
00:21:32 ◼ ► phones are perfectly flat, but phones are different devices and flat works great for them. I kind of
00:21:37 ◼ ► feel my hunch. And again, I'm only looking at CAD renders and I have a very poor visual imagination
00:21:42 ◼ ► beyond what it actually shown to me, but to me, that looks plain. It, it curved crystal looks
00:21:49 ◼ ► fancier, more deluxe. It looks, you know, for lack of a better word, it looks more expensive.
00:21:54 ◼ ► You know, I think lots of people would like the flat one. And I think lots of people like buying,
00:21:59 ◼ ► you know, less than the, less than the new series eight starting price for their Apple watch. That's
00:22:05 ◼ ► why Apple sells lower price models, you know, 350 bucks or whatever they start at, or 400 bucks for
00:22:10 ◼ ► the bigger one. It's a lot of money for a watch for most people. I mean, that's, that's a lot of
00:22:15 ◼ ► money so I could see it, but I just feel like branding wise, it would serve Apple's purposes
00:22:19 ◼ ► to have a distinction. Like the lower one, lower price one is flat and a little plainer.
00:22:24 ◼ ► The more expensive ones have the iconic round Apple shape. Not that they got more expensive
00:22:30 ◼ ► for the starting price of a new one, but to keep them. And, and then maybe this rugged thing is
00:22:36 ◼ ► real too. I still, I know I've said it on the podcast before. I think there's absolutely,
00:22:40 ◼ ► positively a market for that rugged watch because whether it's A, I think, and I think it's two
00:22:45 ◼ ► groups of people. It's A, people who really need it because they do stuff like rock climbing or,
00:22:50 ◼ ► or whatever other sports they might play that, that are, you know, truly, you know, like
00:22:55 ◼ ► skateboarders and I don't know, all sorts of stuff that I'm way too old for. Things that you might
00:22:59 ◼ ► want to wear a watch for where you really are banging the watch into hard services and you
00:23:03 ◼ ► don't want it to break. And B, people who just, you know, same sort of people who put their iPhone
00:23:09 ◼ ► in an OtterBox case, you know, that's almost like a lock box, even though they don't do anything
00:23:13 ◼ ► particularly risky with their phones. They just are very, you know, Hey, I spent a lot of money
00:23:18 ◼ ► on this. I don't want to get cracked or broken or dinged. And they would, you know, I, and I just
00:23:24 ◼ ► don't think, I know some people, I know there are third-party things that you can put your current
00:23:28 ◼ ► Apple watches in, in like an enclosure, you know, to protect them. I, they, those, that's awkward,
00:23:35 ◼ ► right? I mean, cause putting the, you know, the watch is so small. I mean, I, but I, the fact that
00:23:40 ◼ ► they exist tells you there's a market for them. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking, I'm looking at these
00:23:45 ◼ ► renders and A, of course it's, I think part of the problem is, is that it's just a render
00:23:57 ◼ ► it looks like something that you'd order off Alibaba and it would work for, you know, a few
00:24:03 ◼ ► weeks, but I don't know. I mean, I think they could make it nice. I think they could still do
00:24:17 ◼ ► that like, before they tell you about the new iPhone pro models, they, they spend a huge amount
00:24:21 ◼ ► of time on the regular non-pro new iPhones and tell you how great they are and how great the
00:24:26 ◼ ► camera is. And, you know, you know, no expense spared, you know, to promote them. Right. Remember
00:24:32 ◼ ► when Cayenne Drance, I forget if it was last year or the year before, and they had that whole
00:24:35 ◼ ► amphitheater in Southern California, just, just for Cayenne Drance to be on stage in front of an
00:24:40 ◼ ► empty audience to tell us about it. It was impressive. And that's just for the non-pro ones.
00:24:44 ◼ ► Right. I mean, it's, you know, they'll definitely promote it. I, but I also think that having the
00:24:49 ◼ ► flat side one means that they could run separate ads for it. Right. That they could, you know,
00:24:54 ◼ ► they can run separate ads for the new Apple watch SEs starting at, I don't know, maybe it'll start
00:24:59 ◼ ► at 250 or something like that. I don't know. But then they can say starting at just 250 or, or
00:25:08 ◼ ► maybe it would be, it would be awesome. I'd love it if it was started at 199, like the series three
00:25:12 ◼ ► does today, but then they could run a totally separate ad for that and have a different ad for
00:25:20 ◼ ► the new higher end models, you know? Right. Well, that's, that's my theory on that. Okay.
00:25:26 ◼ ► On that. Let me take another break here. Oh boy, this one is going to be fun. This is a sponsorship
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00:27:58 ◼ ► alexwinestein.com/thetalkshow. I don't know if I should have sung that or what, but I guess if I
00:28:15 ◼ ► sing it, you know, then he's got to write the music to my. Well, you'd have to have the music. You'd
00:28:18 ◼ ► have to be able to hear the music and sing along with the music. Also on the rumors front. I want
00:28:22 ◼ ► to hit this because this is the thing I've had these special episodes where I've been interviewing
00:28:26 ◼ ► people about their creative stuff on the show. Zach Gage and I had Trip Meikle on the last episode,
00:28:31 ◼ ► but now I'm behind on all the rumors and all the Apple stuff, which is kind of fun. But we got to
00:28:36 ◼ ► talk about this, that the rumors are ramping up that Apple's testing USB-C for the iPhone.
00:28:48 ◼ ► Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo, I think of both said this around the same time. I think Ming-Chi Kuo was
00:28:53 ◼ ► first on Twitter, but then Gurman said the same thing. And I think the way Gurman phrased it is
00:28:57 ◼ ► that Apple is testing it, which is a weird way to put it, sort of a hedge in my opinion. Like,
00:29:02 ◼ ► I kind of think at this, and again, this is for next year, not three months from now or four
00:29:07 ◼ ► months from now, but you know, 2023. I sort of think if Apple's going USB-C, they know it already.
00:29:12 ◼ ► They don't really need to test it. I mean, what are they testing if they know how to put it?
00:29:15 ◼ ► Right. What's the point? Yeah, exactly. What is the point? I mean, you know, there are,
00:29:34 ◼ ► take apart phones anymore, I have to say that is impressive. Like, because, you know, like in the
00:29:45 ◼ ► electrons were flowing and that's it. It was, you know, and it was fun to hack stuff together.
00:29:59 ◼ ► I think I replaced, the last thing I did on anything small was replace a battery on an iPod,
00:30:17 ◼ ► that was too hard for my eyes, too hard for my hands. I mean, that was too small for me.
00:30:20 ◼ ► I mean, I still, I'll still replace, you know, on the machines that I can, like I have a Mac Mini,
00:30:37 ◼ ► I don't think the self-repair, although it would be funny if the self-repair program, if they added,
00:30:43 ◼ ► this is where you know that Apple is losing their mind is if they added an option to the
00:30:48 ◼ ► self-repair program to do an ad hoc USB-C upgrade to your own iPhone. Do you want a new screen?
00:30:59 ◼ ► And I do think that this is a little weird. And I know that there's lots of people who've been,
00:31:09 ◼ ► it's one of those issues where people, some people are on one side, some people are on the other
00:31:14 ◼ ► side. Like, no, no, keep lightning. I don't want to have new cables all over the place. And you know,
00:31:20 ◼ ► I'm in the middle, which is weird because the people who really want the iPhone to have USB-C
00:31:27 ◼ ► are adamant about it. Like, and they can't fathom either my perspective being ambivalent
00:31:34 ◼ ► or the idea that there are tens, maybe hundreds of millions of people out there who would rather
00:31:42 ◼ ► just keep the chargers they already have and would be annoyed by a new charger. It's a long time.
00:31:53 ◼ ► That sounds about right. Yeah. Because I know I have a, yeah, I have a, yeah, I have a 4 and it
00:32:03 ◼ ► Right. So the dock connector to lightning was an amazing upgrade, right? Because the dock connector
00:32:09 ◼ ► was big and wide and ugly. It's an ugly port. It's so big, right? You could like fit like a
00:32:16 ◼ ► whole quarter in there. The connector itself had sharp little prongs that snapped in. It was,
00:32:29 ◼ ► Going from that to lightning was clearly an upgrade. It charged faster. It had the capability
00:32:33 ◼ ► of charging faster. I think it has faster data than the old 30 pin thing ever did. It just seemed
00:32:38 ◼ ► like a win and millions and millions of iPhone users were upset and thought it was a money grab
00:32:43 ◼ ► from Apple to sell more cables. Right? People don't like it when the chargers change. And I
00:32:51 ◼ ► don't know, I don't know how many times I have to say it, but a lot of people really don't like it.
00:32:55 ◼ ► And I know like my sister and her husband, I think a lot of couples do this. They get new iPhones
00:33:02 ◼ ► every two years, but they're on the opposite cycle of each other. So like, I don't know,
00:33:08 ◼ ► one year my wife gets a new phone and the next year her husband gets a new iPhone and then the next
00:33:12 ◼ ► year it's my wife's turn and that sort of thing. And they were annoyed because now I don't know
00:33:17 ◼ ► whose year it was for the new iPhone when the iPhone 5 came out, but now they, you know,
00:33:20 ◼ ► one charger in the kitchen couldn't work for both of them. And, you know, she wasn't angry,
00:33:25 ◼ ► you know, but, you know, she was like, why did they do that? And I'm like, well, look at it.
00:33:34 ◼ ► I have USB-C all over the place where there's a lot of people whose only device is the iPhone.
00:33:38 ◼ ► And the other weird thing is Apple's been putting lightning chargers in everything else, right?
00:33:43 ◼ ► The mice, the key, you know, everybody loves the mouse with the lightning port on the belly.
00:33:47 ◼ ► The Apple TV remote control charges by lightning. The big one I can think of is AirPods. Every
00:33:54 ◼ ► single AirPods case sold the date charges by lightning. So backing out of this and saying,
00:34:01 ◼ ► you know, going, okay, okay, let's just, let's slowly move everything to USB-C. It could do it,
00:34:07 ◼ ► right? You know, and I guess then subsequent, you know, the next versions of AirPods will come out
00:34:12 ◼ ► with a USB-C on the case instead of lightning. And those of us with lightning ones will just,
00:34:18 ◼ ► you know, have a several year transition away from whether we still need a lightning cable around or
00:34:23 ◼ ► not. But it's the thing that's weird to me is if they were going to do it, it seemed to me like
00:34:33 ◼ ► Well, I would say that was a better time to do it. I mean, I still think, I still think it's a
00:34:43 ◼ ► every time I try and, well, I shouldn't say that, but I mean, I get a lot of frustration trying to
00:34:48 ◼ ► charge via lightning and that's why I hardly ever do it because I'm mostly with my phone.
00:34:52 ◼ ► I mostly use MagSafe all the time because mostly because my, my lightning port is full of lint
00:35:06 ◼ ► and maybe this is not, maybe this is just my imagination, but I feel like the connector isn't
00:35:10 ◼ ► as long lasting as USB-C has proven to be for me. Cause every time I, every time I plug my,
00:35:15 ◼ ► my iPad in it charges without hesitation. And when I charge, when I, anytime I plug something that is
00:35:24 ◼ ► lightning in, I'm never 100% sure. And it's usually somebody's, it's almost always somebody's
00:35:29 ◼ ► phone because everything else I would charge, like even my AirPods, I charge by MagSafe as well,
00:35:34 ◼ ► or not MagSafe, you know, it's actually cheap, but whatever. So I get this impression that it's
00:35:46 ◼ ► I, you know, and again, I, there, I see pros and cons on both sides. You know, the, the,
00:35:50 ◼ ► the biggest pro for lightning clearly is that there are lightning cables all over the place,
00:35:54 ◼ ► people's cars, their kitchens, their bedsides, wherever they want to have them, they have them.
00:36:09 ◼ ► I don't even know which order to put them in. One is that everything else like computers and now
00:36:14 ◼ ► iPads, you know, growing more and more, including like the iPad mini and the new iPad Air,
00:36:25 ◼ ► just having a spare charger somewhere and you could use the same charger. You could charge your
00:36:30 ◼ ► MacBook, you could charge your iPad, you could charge your phone. If, if they come out with
00:36:34 ◼ ► new AirPods, whatever, if everything charged by USB-C, then, you know, there's an advantage where
00:36:38 ◼ ► if you have anything that kind of looks like, I don't know from a distance, is that lightning or
00:36:42 ◼ ► USB-C? If they're all USB-C and all your devices are charged by that, that adapter, that's a win.
00:36:47 ◼ ► I get it. And the other big one, and this is where I feel, I know Renee, you know, Richie actually
00:36:54 ◼ ► uses it. So he's, he's more frustrated, but these phones record 4K video, which is really, really
00:37:00 ◼ ► big. And lightning USB top speed is really slow compared to what, what USB-C can transfer. And,
00:37:09 ◼ ► you know, who knows, maybe they'll go Thunderbolt, you know, maybe it looks like a USB-C port and the
00:37:13 ◼ ► iPhone 14 pro or 15 pros, whatever it would be next year, will actually have Thunderbolt speed,
00:37:18 ◼ ► who knows, but whatever it would be even USB-C, USB-3 over a USB-C cable is faster. And I mean,
00:37:25 ◼ ► so much faster that it, you know, makes it practical to shoot 4K video on a phone and get
00:37:31 ◼ ► it off onto your Mac or whatever for editing. It, you know, that something's got to give on that
00:37:35 ◼ ► front. That's the one place where lightning is really sort of at, at wits end or, or tech,
00:37:40 ◼ ► it's the end of its technical life. I just, so I get it. I, I wonder, see, I, I feel like the
00:37:47 ◼ ► natural time to make that transition would have been when they first added the word pro to iPhones,
00:37:52 ◼ ► which was I think the iPhone 11 pro, right? There was the iPhone 11, which was sort of like a,
00:37:58 ◼ ► an XR, right? A 10R and the iPhone 11 pro. And now they have pro phones that, that might've been
00:38:06 ◼ ► the time to do it. Cause that's sort of how they ease the iPad over. Right. And, you know, the iPad
00:38:11 ◼ ► shows how, how Apple can transition a thing that was previously all lightning to USB-C. It's like
00:38:18 ◼ ► a years long thing as it trickles down, but starts at the pro end. And then it gives them a story to
00:38:26 ◼ ► tell, which is look, pros are shooting these big video files. There's rumors even that the subs,
00:38:31 ◼ ► you know, maybe this year, maybe next year, iPhones will be capable of shooting 8K video,
00:38:36 ◼ ► which is, you know, like four times the size of 4K or something. I don't know how big it is,
00:38:40 ◼ ► but it's, you know, sounds big, you know, pros need the data speed pros need higher speed charging.
00:38:46 ◼ ► So we've added pro strength, the USB-C to the iPhone, whatever number pro that that's a story
00:38:52 ◼ ► to tell. And all the headlines all over the web can put all the final ease in that they want,
00:38:59 ◼ ► but it's done and there's a story and it makes sense. And then like the next year, maybe USB-C
00:39:04 ◼ ► trickles to, to the, to the mid range iPhones, you know, the regular non-pro ones, something like
00:39:09 ◼ ► that. I just feel like that the iPhone 11 pro was the year to do it. If they knew they were going to
00:39:14 ◼ ► do it anyway, like why string this along for so much longer? Right. I mean, at this point, if,
00:39:20 ◼ ► if it's two, if it's a year and a half from now, when iPhones first come out with USB-C,
00:39:25 ◼ ► USB-C will be eight years old at that point. Like, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's just the maturing of the
00:39:32 ◼ ► industry and that, you know, maybe I'm a little too biased towards the, the older days when every
00:39:39 ◼ ► couple of years there were new adapters for everything and just, you know, and, and improvements,
00:39:44 ◼ ► right. That, that speed, you know, this is so much faster than that, and this is so much faster than
00:39:49 ◼ ► that. And you just expect something to only have a lifespan of 10 years before it's completely
00:39:54 ◼ ► technically obviated. And, you know, maybe USB-C is, is a, is a port technology that really is going
00:40:00 ◼ ► to have decades, plural, of life and moving to it eight years in is not too late. I don't know. I
00:40:09 ◼ ► just also can't help though, but wonder if Apple had some sort of other plan for a port and it just
00:40:16 ◼ ► hasn't worked out, you know, some kind of like a mag safe type thing that does high-speed charging
00:40:22 ◼ ► data as well and high-speed data, right? Yeah. Because that, and the one thing that really made
00:40:28 ◼ ► me think like, hmm, that would be really interesting for a next generation iPhone port was the 24-inch
00:40:36 ◼ ► iMac that does ethernet over the power cable, right? Like you have one cable that goes from the
00:40:43 ◼ ► wall charger to your iMac 24-inch. And if you want to connect an ethernet cable, you connect it to the
00:40:51 ◼ ► thing that goes into the wall, right? That's a really interesting design because now you've got
00:40:56 ◼ ► this power cable that is doing, I don't know if it's a hundred bit ethernet or what, but,
00:41:01 ◼ ► you know, data and charging over a connector. And I guess the 24-inch iMac doesn't have mag safe,
00:41:09 ◼ ► you know, you could see how that sort of thinking would do it. But I just wonder if they've hit like
00:41:14 ◼ ► a brick wall on that, if they had like something that they were thinking and they're like, we
00:41:18 ◼ ► better just rather than switch to USB-C for just a few years before we unveil this new thing,
00:41:25 ◼ ► this new technology, we'll just stick with lightning so that there's only one transition,
00:41:30 ◼ ► right? Because that's the thing. That's the thing I want to emphasize. If they do switch the iPhone
00:41:34 ◼ ► to USB-C next year, they have to stick with, they have to have USB-C until there's no charger at all.
00:41:39 ◼ ► Right. And that is the other rumor, right? I mean, the other rumor is that there is a portless
00:42:01 ◼ ► you know, that Apple would prefer no ports. Ports are ugly. Of course, you know, no ports
00:42:05 ◼ ► in the abstract is clearly more aesthetically pleasing and simpler than one port. But the
00:42:14 ◼ ► problem is that neither the charging speed of current inductive charging with mag safe,
00:42:20 ◼ ► or at least on phones, right? Like you can charge your, I mean, Apple can do it, right? Because
00:42:25 ◼ ► MacBooks charge really fast, you know, 87 watts on a 16 inch MacBook Pro or more, maybe, maybe
00:42:31 ◼ ► it's 90 some, I don't know, but you know, close to a hundred watts of charging over a thing that
00:42:36 ◼ ► you can just, you know, boop boop, magnet, magnet in, magnet off. So, but, but the current mag safe
00:42:43 ◼ ► that just goes on the back is so much slower than plugging in a lightning cable with a, you know,
00:42:48 ◼ ► 30 watt charger in the wall and data, right? That what's, what's the data if part of the problem
00:42:54 ◼ ► with lightning today is that data transfer is too slow when you've shot these giant gigabyte
00:42:59 ◼ ► video files, what, you know, how, how does it, how does going to wireless technology help that?
00:43:06 ◼ ► It does not. Right. Unless they have something new, right? And theory, they could have something,
00:43:11 ◼ ► you know, you know, I, USB-C should not be, and this is what I wrote back when the EU was
00:43:15 ◼ ► mandating that all phones are all devices, whatever the rules are that, you know, anything that has a
00:43:20 ◼ ► charging needs to be a standard charger. You know, once that law goes, if it were to go on the books,
00:43:25 ◼ ► it, it, it, it's hard to change laws, right? You get a law like that and it's like, oh, well,
00:43:31 ◼ ► then the whole industry will come together and invent something new. That's not really how new
00:43:35 ◼ ► things happen. New things are much more likely to happen from one company with a great idea that
00:43:39 ◼ ► doesn't need to get permission and go through a consortium and reveal their plans to everybody
00:43:44 ◼ ► and get everybody to agree to it. You know, much more likely I, you know, it's something like the
00:43:48 ◼ ► way lightning came out of thin air from Apple without any, you know, need for cooperation from
00:43:54 ◼ ► the industry. And then lo and behold, that inspired the USB consortium to make something much more
00:43:59 ◼ ► lightning like than previous USB connectors. So I don't know. I don't know what to think about it.
00:44:06 ◼ ► I also think it's a little weird too, that it's a next year thing. I mean, and I know, you know,
00:44:11 ◼ ► I famously love to reiterate that, you know, the iPhones are pretty much set about a year in
00:44:16 ◼ ► advance. It's just, there's no other way to make a hundred million iPhones a year than to sort of
00:44:21 ◼ ► lock in the design at least a year in advance. Probably most decisions are made more than a year
00:44:26 ◼ ► in advance. And, and whenever I write about it, if little birdies give me tips, they often even
00:44:31 ◼ ► suggest that even I'm too optimistic about how late in the game they can make changes, you know,
00:44:37 ◼ ► and how, you know, you know, and it, it, but it's, you know, so I'm not saying that it, it,
00:44:45 ◼ ► at this point, you know, like in April, 2022, last month that Apple could say, Hey, maybe next year
00:44:51 ◼ ► we'll switch to USB-C, you know, this is whatever the discussion is inside Apple. It is, it has been
00:44:58 ◼ ► ongoing for a very long time, but it does seem slightly, I don't know, just seems like a weird
00:45:03 ◼ ► time. I don't know. I don't know what else to say about it. Yeah, I was, I was, I started,
00:45:15 ◼ ► actually this does this make sense at all? What's the, and I guess Gurman said they're going to ship
00:45:20 ◼ ► a little dongle, you know, of course, I guess, but imagine like that's, that's. Well, they already
00:45:25 ◼ ► ship a dongle in like certain markets, right? They should go in the other way, obviously. Yeah. But
00:45:30 ◼ ► man, talk about something is it'd be easy to lose. I don't know why. Yeah. Why would, Oh man. Yeah.
00:45:34 ◼ ► It's I don't know. When was the last time they shipped a dongle that, you know, that, I mean,
00:45:41 ◼ ► they make the headphone, the headphone, they shipped the headphone dongle, right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:46 ◼ ► Maybe that's what the, the lightning to USB-C thing would be like, maybe instead of like a
00:45:53 ◼ ► little, just a little like pen cap, you know, like the the cap for an Apple pencil lightning port,
00:46:00 ◼ ► you know, the original, you know how the original pencil had a lightning port and had a little cap
00:46:06 ◼ ► you could lose, you know, maybe instead of a little thing like that, that you snap on the
00:46:10 ◼ ► end of the lightning cable, turn it to a USB-C, maybe it would be a little cable, like a little
00:46:15 ◼ ► two inch cable, which I feel like for the headphone thing, it's not that I don't feel like making it a
00:46:20 ◼ ► cable made it more useful. I think it just made it less likely to lose. You know what I mean? Yeah.
00:46:26 ◼ ► I've always thought that that might be the reason why it's not just a little snap-on thing, that
00:46:42 ◼ ► I'm not sure that stopped anybody. I lost the cap to my first Apple pencil on an Amtrak train,
00:46:48 ◼ ► and it, it fell behind like into the butt, you know, the, the crack at your butt on the seat.
00:47:01 ◼ ► Yeah, the seat's butt. I was like, "Ah, man!" And it was like at the time when it's like,
00:47:04 ◼ ► we're pulling up towards the station and everybody who's getting off—I don't know if I was getting
00:47:08 ◼ ► off, it was either, I always get off at either New York or I'm back home in Philly. Either I
00:47:12 ◼ ► was getting to New York or I was, I was getting home to Philly, and it was still daytime,
00:47:16 ◼ ► so I could see, and I like, got in there and like turned on my iPhone flashlight and was looking
00:47:21 ◼ ► back there, and I saw it, and it looked like maybe I could reach it, but there's, there's a lot of
00:47:28 ◼ ► stuff back there, you know, like— I was gonna say, I don't think you want to reach in there.
00:47:33 ◼ ► I think there's like pieces of gum that Joe Biden chewed in like 1979, you know, while riding the
00:47:38 ◼ ► same train to, to Congress. I mean, there is some, there is some old, old—I mean, the, you know,
00:47:44 ◼ ► Amtrak trains are very clean. I like riding Amtrak, but, you know, underneath the seat,
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00:49:03 ◼ ► that they say uses like an odor repellent or absorbent technology, that sounds like bullshit
00:49:10 ◼ ► to me. If you would have told me that when I was a kid, I would have thought, "Oh, come on!
00:49:14 ◼ ► I'm telling you, the stuff works!" I don't know. It does. It completely does. It really does. I'm
00:49:20 ◼ ► telling you, if I had to choose—I love Mack Weldon's stuff in the winter. Let's rule out
00:49:28 ◼ ► the slippers. They're not talking slippers, but rule out all the other stuff. I'd probably rather
00:49:32 ◼ ► have them only in the summer than in the winter, even though I do love their winter stuff, because
00:49:37 ◼ ► of this odor repellent stuff. I'm telling you, you feel fresher at the end of a hot, sweaty day
00:49:42 ◼ ► than you do wearing just plain cotton. I'm telling you, these fabric people are working wonders with
00:49:48 ◼ ► technology. Don't sell them short. Anyway, they've got shorts, polos, t-shirts, everything you need
00:50:00 ◼ ► The talk show pod, and that code, 20% off your first order. 20%. So go buy some clothes.
00:50:08 ◼ ► Next on my list, I guess we could talk self-repair kit, right? I wrote about that. I honestly thought
00:50:15 ◼ ► I was losing my mind. I know I put it in my article about Sean Hollister's "Peace at the
00:50:19 ◼ ► Verge." I honest to God, I said that I could not tell if I was being pranked or joked as a sarcasm,
00:50:25 ◼ ► because it seems to me like the Apple self-repair program is exactly what people have been asking
00:50:29 ◼ ► for for this whole 10, 15-year stretch of, "Hey, this kind of stinks that people can't—there's
00:50:37 ◼ ► no good way to repair your own Apple stuff when it's out of warranty." Or just do something like
00:50:42 ◼ ► replace a cracked screen or, "Hey, my phone is great. Everything's great about it except
00:50:47 ◼ ► the battery. I've been using this thing for two and a half years or three years, and the battery
00:50:50 ◼ ► isn't as good as it used to be. I just need a new battery. Shouldn't I be able to do it at home
00:50:54 ◼ ► if I want to?" And they've made this program where they send you all of the professional tools—like,
00:51:06 ◼ ► as well as if you follow their instructions, as well as it gets done in the Apple store.
00:51:10 ◼ ► And now here come the articles, and they say, "This stinks." I don't get it. I don't get it.
00:51:18 ◼ ► I mean, am I the only—you know, a couple people wrote to me and said, "Hey, I thought I was the
00:51:26 ◼ ► Well, see, yeah, if Apple's going to do something, it seems like they're going to do it like, "This
00:51:30 ◼ ► is the thing you need," right? "This is the one thing that you need, and it's going to cover
00:51:34 ◼ ► everything, and we're going to ship this one thing, and there you go. You got your stuff, right?"
00:51:39 ◼ ► And that's what they did. And it does happen to be a lot bigger than you'd think for just
00:51:48 ◼ ► whatever the one thing is that you're trying to do, but that's not really what it's for.
00:51:58 ◼ ► italics box of screwdrivers, spudgers, and pliers." If that was the case, that you could just do it
00:52:05 ◼ ► with a spudger, do the proper job with a spudger, a pliers, and a couple of screwdrivers, there
00:52:11 ◼ ► wouldn't even need to be a self-repair program. They would just, you know—and I know that's the
00:52:16 ◼ ► one thing people have pointed out after I wrote my article, that iFixit will sell you a kit that
00:52:27 ◼ ► you know, some people, you can repair, swap a battery out of an iPhone using things like that,
00:52:33 ◼ ► but that's not the right way to do the job. And a lot of the people who told me that they've done
00:52:38 ◼ ► it—and they're not even angry people, but then they mention things like, "Yeah, you know, like,
00:52:42 ◼ ► the seal isn't as good as, you know, like a factory seal, but it's good, you know, it's good
00:52:45 ◼ ► enough for me or good enough for this iPhone that my kid now uses because it's three and a half years
00:52:49 ◼ ► old." It's like, the point is, when you go to Apple, if you go to the Apple store and say, "I
00:52:54 ◼ ► would like to get this battery replaced," and then, you know, "I guess you need an appointment," or
00:52:57 ◼ ► whatever, and they say, "Okay," and then you come in and you say, "I have an appointment to get this
00:53:03 ◼ ► iPhone 11 battery swapped," then they, you know, you fill out some stuff on an iPad and then you
00:53:08 ◼ ► hand it over to one of the geniuses, and they say, like, "Come back in 45 minutes," or, you know,
00:53:13 ◼ ► "We can text you," or, you know, I get, you know, it's hard when they have your phone, but, you know,
00:53:18 ◼ ► if you have somebody with you, they could text the person, and then you come back, and then they show
00:53:23 ◼ ► you the phone, and the phone looks brand new, you know, or, you know, it has whatever scratches might
00:53:29 ◼ ► have been on the side, but, like, the seal of the screen, Apple's giving you back this phone that,
00:53:34 ◼ ► when they give it back to you, has the same waterproof and dustproof guarantees that it did
00:53:39 ◼ ► when you, when it was brand new, and, except now you have a brand new battery in it. That's what
00:53:43 ◼ ► they're, you know, nothing less than that would be suitable for an official self-repair program,
00:53:48 ◼ ► right? Like, you can't say, like, "Oh, yeah, you could do the official Apple self-repair program,
00:53:55 ◼ ► People, you know, it's like a damn, it really is like the definition of damned if they do,
00:54:06 ◼ ► for years, people said they should have a repair program. They should have a repair program. Now
00:54:11 ◼ ► they said, "Okay, we have a repair program," and the repair program involves you getting,
00:54:15 ◼ ► yes, 79 pounds of professional-grade tools and machinery, and in very nice cases, cases that
00:54:21 ◼ ► themselves, I priced them out, look like they could, about $500 worth of Pelican cases to keep
00:54:27 ◼ ► this stuff safe during shipping, which Apple pays for, the shipping of these 79-pound tools,
00:54:32 ◼ ► and, you know, they've got nice wheels, you know, so you can, you know, because they weigh 79
00:54:36 ◼ ► pounds, you know, you can wheel them around to get them where you need them. If Apple instead just
00:54:41 ◼ ► sent you a couple of spudgers and pliers and screwdrivers, people, you know, the articles would
00:54:45 ◼ ► say Apple's self-repair program doesn't give you the tools to do the job properly. I'd,
00:54:55 ◼ ► I can't come up with anything. This seems like it's like the perfect, I almost worry that it's
00:55:00 ◼ ► a sign of how cynical our whole industry has gotten of, you know, anything, any, it's like
00:55:06 ◼ ► anything, now that Apple, you know, there's this big tech rubric and anything, any of these big
00:55:11 ◼ ► tech companies do is immediately viewed with cynicism and that it must be, it must be cynical.
00:55:25 ◼ ► you know, I think about the Verge in particular and when the essential phone was first being
00:55:35 ◼ ► rumored and first, you know, going around before the thing actually shipped and they were,
00:55:40 ◼ ► they were gaga over the essential phone. And yet when this thing comes out, this is a big problem
00:55:46 ◼ ► we have to talk about. Wait, what was wrong with the essential phone though? Is it, that's not the
00:55:51 ◼ ► one that was like Legos. That's the one from Andy, Andy Rubin. So they, no, they were, they, they
00:55:58 ◼ ► were wide-eyed and just like, Oh my gosh, the essential, this is like, there's this new thing
00:56:03 ◼ ► it's coming. It's Andy Rubin. It's going to be, you know, and see me to my eye, very uncritical
00:56:21 ◼ ► you got to spend $5,000 on them, but they, these boxes of Pelican boxes full of equipment,
00:56:27 ◼ ► but they will sell them to you. So, you know, like, you know, and so like, I don't, I'm taking,
00:56:41 ◼ ► petitioners have had some, had some good points all along. And I always thought they did. And I
00:56:46 ◼ ► do think that their pressure on Apple has forced, you know, not forced Apple, but motivated Apple
00:56:52 ◼ ► to do this program before this program. It was either give it to Apple itself or give it to one
00:56:57 ◼ ► of Apple's certified Apple repairs. And now, you know, they're saying, look, anybody can buy this
00:57:05 ◼ ► equipment. So like, if you live in rural Montana or Idaho or something like that, you don't live
00:57:10 ◼ ► anywhere near an Apple store and there isn't an Apple certified repair center, but there is like a
00:57:16 ◼ ► place in town where there's, you know, like a repair your phone shop, you know, which are all
00:57:21 ◼ ► over the place, right? Every mall has them at a kiosk, you know, where you can pay less to get
00:57:25 ◼ ► third-party replacements of cracked screens and stuff like that for all sorts of phones.
00:57:29 ◼ ► Those people, those outfits can buy these same tools for, for doing this, right? I think that's
00:57:35 ◼ ► great. That's a great win that you can buy the actual tools that Apple uses and that Apple
00:57:40 ◼ ► certifies and follow Apple's own instructions that use those tools. This is all just a great win.
00:57:46 ◼ ► And yet the articles are such complaints about it. I didn't even get to Brian Chen at the New
00:57:49 ◼ ► York Times. Did you read that one? I did not read that one. I saw somebody else talking about it,
00:57:55 ◼ ► though. So Brian Chen, he, the personal technology columnist for the New York Times, whose
00:58:01 ◼ ► years long campaign is that people shouldn't worry about the quality of the photos that their
00:58:07 ◼ ► picture, that their phones take. That's the, the official stance repeatedly across numerous reviews
00:58:13 ◼ ► over the years is that normal, everybody out there shouldn't worry about whether a new iPhone would
00:58:18 ◼ ► take better photos because I don't know why, which is nonsense. But he, he wrote a column where he
00:58:25 ◼ ► got the toolkit and wanted to swap out the battery on an iPhone 12 and found the instructions daunting.
00:58:32 ◼ ► And again, that's what Apple has said all along, right? It's like, that's part of the complaint is
00:58:37 ◼ ► like, Hey, this is all complicated. This is a lot of work. Apple, that's why I stopped doing stuff
00:58:43 ◼ ► like that. Right? Exactly. Apple has been saying no for all along. Like, why don't they allow,
00:58:49 ◼ ► why don't they make it so you can just buy a battery and replace it yourself? And their
00:58:52 ◼ ► answer has been, it is, these are very complicated devices that are packed in very, very precisely
00:58:58 ◼ ► and require special tools, complicated steps and much precision and care while doing it to repair
00:59:05 ◼ ► properly. And people are like, ah, you know, you're just making money on a battery. You're, you're,
00:59:10 ◼ ► you're making money on batteries, which they're not. I I've, I've gotten so many emails from
00:59:14 ◼ ► people too, over the years who work at Apple stores who are like, Oh my God, there is no way we make
00:59:18 ◼ ► money on these things. Cause people come in and we'll just replace batteries. You know, it's,
00:59:22 ◼ ► you know, $69 doesn't even come close to, you know, you know, it's like an hour of somebody's
00:59:26 ◼ ► work. It's, you know, it's a great deal. It really is a good deal, but people don't believe it. They
00:59:32 ◼ ► just think there must be some catch and everything's about making money. And then you actually, they
00:59:38 ◼ ► have the program, you get the instructions and the people who've been saying, ah, for all these years
00:59:43 ◼ ► are like, Hey, this is complicated and requires precision. And it seems like you kind of need
00:59:47 ◼ ► practice and training to do it, you know, easily. And I don't know what to do. And it's like,
00:59:52 ◼ ► that's what Apple's been saying for years about why they don't do this. It's exactly it. And they
00:59:56 ◼ ► act like Apple never said it. It's you know what I mean? It's like, if you go buy a slice of pizza
01:00:02 ◼ ► and the guy is like, Hey, Hey, that's going to be super hot. You better wait. And then you take a
01:00:06 ◼ ► bite right away. And you're like, Hey, I just burnt my tongue, burnt the roof of my mouth.
01:00:11 ◼ ► The guy just told you that. So Brian Chen has an iPhone 12. I don't know if it was a mini or not,
01:00:18 ◼ ► it doesn't matter, but he wants to swap the battery. And he enlisted the help of a friend
01:00:23 ◼ ► who in San Francisco, who does repairs and he's helped Brian Chen with other devices over the
01:00:28 ◼ ► years, got his help. And the friend had a spare iPhone 12, a broken one. And they were like, well,
01:00:35 ◼ ► let's practice on this one that's actually a broken iPhone 12, but it's the same size. We can
01:00:40 ◼ ► use the same tools and we'll open it up. And they opened it up and it's like, okay, I think we got
01:00:43 ◼ ► it. Let's operate on the real one. And Chen puts the phone in, it's like step one is take the
01:00:50 ◼ ► screws out. And then step two is you put it in like the little easy bake oven to warm it up,
01:00:56 ◼ ► to get the glue soft. And then you take the screen off. Well, he puts it in the easy bake oven and
01:01:02 ◼ ► starts prying the screen off. And the guy's like, Whoa, whoa, would you take the screws out? And
01:01:05 ◼ ► he's like, Oh, I forgot. Well, it turns out he broke the screen because he didn't take the
01:01:10 ◼ ► screws out, melted it and lifted the screen and then blames Apple. Right. I swear to God. And then
01:01:17 ◼ ► they go through with the repair. They still swap out the battery, put it all back together. And now
01:01:22 ◼ ► the screen's all jacked because he pried it out while the screws were connected. And it's Apple's
01:01:29 ◼ ► fault. I mean, you can't make this up. I honestly felt like I was losing my mind and I didn't see
01:01:38 ◼ ► his story until after I was like, all right, I got to write about this Verge piece from Sean Hollister.
01:01:42 ◼ ► I spent the day writing it. And as soon as I'm done, somebody sent me a thing and they were like,
01:01:48 ◼ ► Hey, I loved your piece on the Verge self repair thing. I don't get these guys like him and Chen
01:01:53 ◼ ► with, you know, blaming the tools when it's clearly their problem. And I'm like, Oh no,
01:01:58 ◼ ► Oh no. And I go and look, he forgot to take the screws out and pried the screen off and blames
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01:04:47 ◼ ► I get it. You know, I'm glad. This is nothing but good news that more people will have these
01:04:53 ◼ ► tools and be able to perform these repairs. Just with WWDCs coming up, I don't really have much to
01:04:58 ◼ ► say about it. I guess we know a little bit more about Apple's plans that, you know, it is... I
01:05:02 ◼ ► don't think they've said how many developers have been invited for the quote "special day."
01:05:06 ◼ ► But it is more and more clear. I don't know why they haven't said, I guess, I don't know,
01:05:29 ◼ ► sent some invitations or some responses out. Yeah, I think everybody who got in who won the
01:05:34 ◼ ► raffle or the lottery, whatever you want to call it, knows and they can make plans and I guess RSVP
01:05:39 ◼ ► and Apple can see if there's people who didn't RSVP and maybe invite people from a waiting list.
01:05:45 ◼ ► I don't know. But still unclear where and how they'll be watching. Is it indoors? Is it outdoors?
01:05:53 ◼ ► I sort of suspect it has to be outdoors because I don't think they have an indoor facility for as
01:05:58 ◼ ► many people. I think there's going to be many hundreds of developers, maybe a thousand. I would
01:06:04 ◼ ► expect a big crowd. So I think that means outside like Steve Jobs theater cannot fit a thousand
01:06:08 ◼ ► people, not even close. So we'll see. I don't really have much to say about it though. I mean,
01:06:12 ◼ ► I'm intrigued by how it goes and intrigued to see how this dev center that apparently will be part
01:06:19 ◼ ► of their day and something that they can tour, what that'll be like. Don't really have anything
01:06:23 ◼ ► to add though. I don't, you know, anything you're expecting from WWDC? No, it's a weird,
01:06:28 ◼ ► it seems like a kind of a weird year as to what the, what if any hardware announcements
01:06:35 ◼ ► there might be? Yeah. I know some people are sort of hoping, you know, obviously the big one would
01:06:39 ◼ ► be the AR goggle thing. Will they announce it in advance and say, this is coming later this year,
01:06:45 ◼ ► but here's what it's like and you can start building software for it, you know, by using the
01:06:52 ◼ ► AR stuff on iPhones and iPads with LIDAR, you know, it will there be a message like that? I
01:06:58 ◼ ► sort of think no, cause I just don't think that's WWDC. Like I don't think WWDC is where they would
01:07:06 ◼ ► announce a new platform. I sort of, if I had, if I were a betting man and you know, I don't,
01:07:11 ◼ ► I don't like to gamble, John. I would gamble or lie. I would, I would, I don't, I don't, I do not
01:07:17 ◼ ► like the lie either, but I would guess that they will not unveil any new hardware platforms at WWDC,
01:07:25 ◼ ► you know, maybe the, I still think the Mac Pro is a sleeper. I really think that there's a chance
01:07:30 ◼ ► that they might announce the, the, the M1 Ultra Mac Pro. And I know like Gurman has said, that's
01:07:37 ◼ ► a next year thing. It just seems weird. Seems weird to me that there wouldn't be any part of
01:07:42 ◼ ► before they go to the M2 later in the year and start the next generation of Apple Silicon.
01:07:48 ◼ ► Just seems weird that the Mac Pro would have been a no pro. No pro. I agree. I agree. I sort of,
01:07:53 ◼ ► I mean, I'm sort of just assumed that there would be one. And then Gurman said, no, it's going to,
01:07:58 ◼ ► it's going to start with the, he seems to think it makes more sense to start at the top of the M2
01:08:02 ◼ ► and then trickle down to the, which I find weird. Yeah. That doesn't make sense to me. And it just
01:08:08 ◼ ► seems to me that, you know, an Apple's a company of patterns, but always, you know, the first thing
01:08:12 ◼ ► can always be, be the, the abnormal one that doesn't fit the eventual pattern. But to me,
01:08:19 ◼ ► it makes more sense that the pattern would be, you see the M, the, the M2 family will follow the M1.
01:08:26 ◼ ► We'll, we'll see the just plain M2 with no adjective and baseline specs. And it'll be in the
01:08:33 ◼ ► main product that Apple makes the MacBook Air or maybe MacBook Airs if they go to two sizes,
01:08:40 ◼ ► which would be great. I think, you know, I'd love to see them make consumer price laptops in a,
01:08:45 ◼ ► in a bigger size or a smaller size or, you know, go, go, go 11th, 11, 13, 15 or something like
01:08:52 ◼ ► that or 12, 14, 16. I don't know, but, or at least two sizes, that would be great. A new Mac mini
01:08:57 ◼ ► with more capabilities and then roll out from there with updated MacBook Pros, eventually a new,
01:09:05 ◼ ► I guess, a new 24-inch iMac with the M2 just plain, et cetera, et cetera. But at some point,
01:09:11 ◼ ► you got to work the Mac Pro in and I just sort of feel, you know, WWDC would be perfect. That's
01:09:17 ◼ ► when they unveiled the current Mac Pro was at WWDC along with the Pro Display XDR. And, you know,
01:09:23 ◼ ► and they said it'll be coming later this year. Maybe it won't be shipping until later in the year.
01:09:28 ◼ ► But I feel like, you know, WWDC is the perfect place to announce it because develop, you know,
01:09:32 ◼ ► they're very clear about it. One of the biggest markets for buying the top of the line Mac Pros
01:09:38 ◼ ► are developers. So that seems natural, but it doesn't seem like people are talking about it
01:09:43 ◼ ► maybe because, you know, Gurman says next year and so much of our rumor ecosystem comes down to just
01:09:50 ◼ ► Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo, right? It's like, you know, it really, we've got like two people in
01:10:02 ◼ ► It seems weird to be announcing things in opposite speed order, right? It seems like your story is a
01:10:10 ◼ ► lot easier to tell if you're announcing things. Every time you're announcing something, it's
01:10:17 ◼ ► Whereas if you announce the M2 Ultra, Max, whatever, before you announce the regular M2,
01:10:28 ◼ ► I am about to gravely gloss over the incredible hard work and expertise of Apple's entire silicon
01:10:35 ◼ ► team under Johnny Suruji. But basically, it seems like the way they do it is they come out with an
01:10:41 ◼ ► M blank, like the M1, and then they just start gluing them together, you know? And then you've
01:10:47 ◼ ► got one that's two M1s, and that's like the M1 Pro. And then you've got—just glue two more on
01:10:54 ◼ ► the bottom, and now you've got like a little square of four of them, that's an Ultra. And then,
01:10:57 ◼ ► you know, maybe they put two Ultras on other sides of a board, and that's the Mac Pro. Or maybe they
01:11:02 ◼ ► put eight of these Ultras in there and charge you $40,000. I don't know. But you just keep glue—you
01:11:07 ◼ ► know, you come out with the M1, the M2, the M3, and you can just glue these things together
01:11:16 ◼ ► Yeah, it's, you know, I don't know. It doesn't sound that hard to me, but it does seem to me
01:11:20 ◼ ► that you can't—it just seems—but like you said, it seems backwards to say they're going to
01:11:26 ◼ ► announce one with eight M2s glued together before they come out with just the plain M2 and a MacBook
01:11:49 ◼ ► I don't know. And I also think—I do think that the lower in quantity a product is produced,
01:11:58 ◼ ► the better, for obvious reasons. Like, you don't have to be a friggin' brainiac to figure this out.
01:12:02 ◼ ► That the more niche an Apple product is, the better they are at keeping it secret until
01:12:12 ◼ ► leaks—every detail of it leaks, except maybe the colors and stuff like that. Because there's just
01:12:18 ◼ ► too many of them. There's like giant cities in China that are making these things, you know,
01:12:24 ◼ ► that are making iPhones. Whereas the Mac Pro, you know, they do it—maybe they're still going to do
01:12:29 ◼ ► it in Texas. It's like one factory. It's a lot easier to keep something like that under wraps,
01:12:33 ◼ ► right? The best example I can think of is the 24-inch iMac, which was a complete surprise,
01:12:37 ◼ ► right? It's like they sort of were rumors that there'd be an iMac, but the fact that it was so
01:12:42 ◼ ► thin and it came in those colors, all of it was a nice surprise. If they could keep the iMac 24
01:12:48 ◼ ► under wraps, I think, you know, I totally believe that they could have a Mac Pro ready to announce
01:12:53 ◼ ► 10 days from now or whatever the date is. And, you know, that would be the hardware announcement
01:12:57 ◼ ► of WWDC. Goggles—that seems to me like a fall thing, whether it's going to go on sale soon or
01:13:03 ◼ ► whether they're going to pull an Apple Watch timeline and say, "We're announcing this now.
01:13:08 ◼ ► We're showing it to you now. We want developers to get started now, but this will be available
01:13:12 ◼ ► early next year," you know, which means April. I could see that. It just feels like a fall thing.
01:13:25 ◼ ► more things in a row before they ship something like that. And I was skeptical that they would
01:13:30 ◼ ► be announcing it this summer. It just doesn't seem like there's enough going on around it.
01:13:35 ◼ ► I know that they apparently showed it to the board and stuff like that, so I guess it's getting
01:13:40 ◼ ► to the point where it's a real actual thing, but it doesn't seem like it's in huge production or
01:13:46 ◼ ► anything for sure. Yeah, that was a funny leak, and I wrote about it like, "God, I would love to
01:13:50 ◼ ► know how that leaked," because the story that leaked to Germin, right? I want to get this right.
01:14:04 ◼ ► Asia, and Germin's stuff comes from California. No, but somehow somebody was aware of the fact
01:14:08 ◼ ► that Apple put together a demo of the current state of the project for the Apple board,
01:14:13 ◼ ► and, "God, I would love to know how that leaked." I mean, I know some people are joking that it's
01:14:19 ◼ ► Al Gore, which would be hilarious, really, but I just think—I'd love to know it, but I don't know
01:14:26 ◼ ► that that means that it's imminent, right? It just seems like that's the sort of thing that,
01:14:31 ◼ ► "Oh, yeah, somebody on the board could say, 'Yeah, big deal. We saw the Apple Watch 18 months
01:14:36 ◼ ► before it shipped, and it was a prototype, and it didn't work right,' or had this, that, and the
01:14:41 ◼ ► other to come." I don't know that that really means anything other than that it's real, and we sort of
01:14:45 ◼ ► knew that it's real. The other thing, though, that would be a big tell, I think, would be if the only
01:14:50 ◼ ► hardware might be the Mac Pro, there's no news of any AR-specific hardware, but if the developer
01:14:56 ◼ ► news of the year involves lots of new AR stuff for the iPhone and iPad, right? And then it would be
01:15:08 ◼ ► Yeah, "Why is Mike Rockwell up there talking about ARKit 3 when nobody—" In my opinion,
01:15:14 ◼ ► I just think—I think it's cool, and I've used it, and it's a nice toy, and the measuring thing
01:15:19 ◼ ► is a neat gimmick, but for the most part, people, as far as I can tell, aren't really doing lots of
01:15:24 ◼ ► AR stuff in the real world with their iPhones and iPads. But that doesn't mean that it's a waste
01:15:29 ◼ ► of Apple's effort that they've been building ARKit up over the last few years. It just seems like
01:16:07 ◼ ► It's an iPhone without the phone part, so in that regard, it's a—and it plays music. But
01:16:18 ◼ ► Yeah, there was a couple articles—it's always a good time to look back, but it is funny.
01:16:23 ◼ ► One thing that sticks out to me is how brief the iPod era really was, right? So it came out in 2001,
01:16:29 ◼ ► famously right after 9/11, that's how I remember. It was sort of a niche Mac-only product for two
01:16:41 ◼ ► I think it was two years. It really exploded in popularity at that point. I think a combination—you
01:16:53 ◼ ► Some things moved slower and some moved faster. It still blows my mind when I did that a couple
01:17:00 ◼ ► months ago and wrote that timeline of the original iPhone project. It still blows my mind that they
01:17:05 ◼ ► went from, "Okay, let's do it. Let's build our own friggin' phone," to "Steve Jobs holding it
01:17:10 ◼ ► up," to six months later, "me having one in my hand from an Apple store." It was like two years.
01:17:15 ◼ ► That's kind of crazy. But other stuff did go slow, right? It was funny. Somebody had a gallery of all
01:17:22 ◼ ► the iPods over the years. You know which one I always forget? I always forget the white one that
01:17:27 ◼ ► had the buttons, the four buttons above the click wheel that were in a row. I don't know. I never
01:17:36 ◼ ► liked that one because it seemed to me like— Those were touch buttons, right? Yeah, I think
01:17:43 ◼ ► I don't know. It was like just having a wheel that you could click seemed so elegant, and putting
01:17:48 ◼ ► buttons on top of it sort of seemed—I don't know. It almost seemed like a knockoff iPod.
01:17:53 ◼ ► It seemed contrary to the original Spirit. There definitely were a lot of them and a myriad of
01:18:01 ◼ ► designs, right? I mean, compared to the phone, which has always been a rectangle with a screen.
01:18:16 ◼ ► Well, or compared to the watch to bring this episode full circle, right? This is a professional
01:18:23 ◼ ► podcast. Right now, we're bringing it full circle. But the fact that you could take the original Apple
01:18:29 ◼ ► Watch Series 0 and at arm's length not really tell it apart from today's Apple Watch, they really
01:18:35 ◼ ► nailed the basic form factor with Apple Watch, whereas the iPods really were such a playground
01:18:42 ◼ ► for industrial design. It wasn't like that the original was a bad design, but the fact that just
01:18:48 ◼ ► a few years into the iPods, relatively brief life cycle of relevance, right? 2001 introduction,
01:18:55 ◼ ► two years of obscurity, a couple of years as a smash pop culture hit, and then the iPhone came
01:19:02 ◼ ► out and was like, "Why do I need an iPod?" And I know there's lots and lots of people who still
01:19:06 ◼ ► use their iPods for other reasons and don't want to just have their $1,000 phone playing their
01:19:10 ◼ ► music if they go running and blah, blah, blah. But for the most part, once the iPhone came out,
01:19:14 ◼ ► the writing was on the wall like, "Oh, right. This is the one thing in my pocket that'll play all my
01:19:19 ◼ ► music," and all this other stuff. It's just so interesting that even in that brief period,
01:19:25 ◼ ► it went through the transition of, "Isn't this amazing? We have a 1.8-inch spinning hard drive
01:19:31 ◼ ► that nobody else knows what to do, and we can put 5,000 songs on this thing that's the size of a
01:19:35 ◼ ► deck of cards." And within like four years, there was an iPod Nano with flash memory, and you could
01:19:54 ◼ ► but it was always such a pain because you had a tiny little flash media in it, and you had to
01:20:01 ◼ ► swap songs out. It would hold like 30 songs at most, and it was constantly just like, "I'm tired
01:20:07 ◼ ► of this song. I've got to connect it to the computer again, and I've got to move things
01:20:10 ◼ ► around." And then you get the iPod, and it's like, "Oh, I'm just going to throw it all on there."
01:20:16 ◼ ► Amy had one that held like 11 songs. It was really, really tight, but she loved it. She
01:20:21 ◼ ► loved it, but every day you'd be like— Oh, yeah, well, it was so much better than carrying a tape