The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► - [Dave] Neil, we always talk once a year on my show.

00:00:04 ◼   ► - [Niel] This is one of my favorite traditions,

00:00:05 ◼   ► is a post iPhone review kuber hang.

00:00:08 ◼   ► - [Dave] It's a little late, but you know,

00:00:11 ◼   ► Apple's schedule on the phone skips around,

00:00:13 ◼   ► September, October, whatever, you know.

00:00:16 ◼   ► - [Niel] There's also just a lot to talk about

00:00:19 ◼   ► besides the phones.

00:00:20 ◼   ► There's an endless amount of Apple stuff going on.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - [Dave] Yeah, there really is.

00:00:23 ◼   ► I'm curious though, and it's kind of interesting,

00:00:26 ◼   ► I always like the,

00:00:28 ◼   ► I shouldn't say that I like the cool off period,

00:00:30 ◼   ► it's that I hate the, okay, you have six days

00:00:34 ◼   ► to review this phone, and try not to miss anything,

00:00:38 ◼   ► and try to let it settle in.

00:00:40 ◼   ► It's interesting to me to keep talking about it.

00:00:43 ◼   ► This to me is why podcasts are awesome.

00:00:45 ◼   ► After the iPhone 13s are, not necessarily old news,

00:00:51 ◼   ► but you know, they're not the hot, hot freshest.

00:00:54 ◼   ► I'm curious what you think overall.

00:00:57 ◼   ► - [Niel] I think they're great phones.

00:00:59 ◼   ► And you know, there's that debate about the names,

00:01:02 ◼   ► and whether they should have called them the 12s.

00:01:04 ◼   ► - Right.

00:01:05 ◼   ► - And my big takeaway is that in many ways,

00:01:10 ◼   ► for one particular reason, which I'll say,

00:01:12 ◼   ► this is the phone the 12 should have been.

00:01:14 ◼   ► And like, I think calling it the 12s

00:01:16 ◼   ► would have made that making more clear,

00:01:18 ◼   ► but it's a great phone, and the 12 was a great phone,

00:01:21 ◼   ► I really liked that phone.

00:01:22 ◼   ► The specific thing I'm getting at is the 5G performance

00:01:25 ◼   ► of this phone appears to be better than the 12 where I live,

00:01:28 ◼   ► which is a really hard thing to talk about.

00:01:30 ◼   ► - Right.

00:01:31 ◼   ► - Because other people had great 5G experiences

00:01:33 ◼   ► with their 12 wherever they lived.

00:01:35 ◼   ► But for me, where I live in the middle of nowhere,

00:01:38 ◼   ► the 5G performance on the 13 Pro Max

00:01:41 ◼   ► is significantly better than the 12.

00:01:45 ◼   ► And I'm assuming AT&T didn't put up a tower yesterday

00:01:48 ◼   ► to make that the case, especially where I live.

00:01:50 ◼   ► So there's just all this stuff

00:01:52 ◼   ► that you start to notice over time.

00:01:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:01:55 ◼   ► - That you would never catch,

00:01:56 ◼   ► and I think the 12 came out with that wave of 5G hype.

00:01:59 ◼   ► They had Verizon on stage,

00:02:01 ◼   ► and it kind of fell flat for a lot of people.

00:02:04 ◼   ► And this phone actually delivers on that set of hype.

00:02:06 ◼   ► So that's, when I say it's the phone

00:02:07 ◼   ► that the 12 should have been,

00:02:09 ◼   ► it's the phone that to me, for the first time,

00:02:11 ◼   ► delivers any true value out of 5G.

00:02:13 ◼   ► Where on LTE or on the 12 with 5G,

00:02:17 ◼   ► I was getting like 25 down here,

00:02:19 ◼   ► my 13 will get 100 down, which is a massive increase.

00:02:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's super significant.

00:02:24 ◼   ► 'Cause I would say 100 is sort of where,

00:02:27 ◼   ► it's not necessarily super fast,

00:02:29 ◼   ► but that's sort of, in today's world,

00:02:31 ◼   ► that's pretty decent.

00:02:33 ◼   ► Whether you're on WiFi or cellular,

00:02:34 ◼   ► 100 megabits per second down, it's pretty good.

00:02:37 ◼   ► You can stream whatever you want.

00:02:40 ◼   ► If you're downloading something truly humongous,

00:02:42 ◼   ► like if you're tethering and using it

00:02:45 ◼   ► to download the new Xcode to your Mac

00:02:48 ◼   ► and it's multiple gigabytes,

00:02:50 ◼   ► sure, maybe it's not that fast, but it's pretty good.

00:02:52 ◼   ► 25, on the other hand,

00:02:53 ◼   ► you're probably gonna struggle to pull down 4K video

00:02:56 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:02:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, and all the people in Europe and South Korea

00:03:00 ◼   ► are laughing, the two Americans.

00:03:02 ◼   ► 100 is great, they've been getting 100 on LTE for 10 years.

00:03:05 ◼   ► - I can't complain, here in Philadelphia,

00:03:07 ◼   ► Verizon, in Center City, Philadelphia,

00:03:09 ◼   ► Verizon has been really good.

00:03:11 ◼   ► I mean, I think I tend to get 200 on LTE most of the time.

00:03:16 ◼   ► And I did get the super fast 5G UW

00:03:21 ◼   ► just a few blocks from my house,

00:03:23 ◼   ► and Verizon's map was super accurate.

00:03:27 ◼   ► It was like, okay, if I go to this weird corner,

00:03:30 ◼   ► which is not even a busy street,

00:03:31 ◼   ► they're saying I'm gonna get 5G UW ultra wide,

00:03:35 ◼   ► and it's like, boom, there I do,

00:03:37 ◼   ► almost 2,000 megabits per second.

00:03:40 ◼   ► - Well, in Philly, Comcast is in Philly, right?

00:03:42 ◼   ► And Comcast has partnered with Verizon

00:03:43 ◼   ► on their weird Xfinity.

00:03:46 ◼   ► And so you have to imagine the Comcast executives

00:03:47 ◼   ► are walking around being like, yo,

00:03:49 ◼   ► can you get to work here?

00:03:50 ◼   ► We run a network, we can help you.

00:03:52 ◼   ► Not so much in the woods, right?

00:03:55 ◼   ► - But I will say that over a year of iPhone 12 use,

00:03:59 ◼   ► I went back and forth all year long

00:04:02 ◼   ► whether I should just turn off 5G and just use LTE.

00:04:05 ◼   ► 'Cause I vaguely suspected that I was squandering battery

00:04:09 ◼   ► all year for no real use,

00:04:11 ◼   ► because if I was gonna get 200 megabits down

00:04:15 ◼   ► or close to it on LTE, what's the point?

00:04:17 ◼   ► If the regular 5G is around the same,

00:04:21 ◼   ► anyway, it can only save battery.

00:04:23 ◼   ► But the other thing was that for the whole year

00:04:25 ◼   ► I was using the iPhone 12, for the most part,

00:04:27 ◼   ► I never really went anywhere.

00:04:29 ◼   ► So it was like, in a normal year

00:04:32 ◼   ► where I was traveling several times a year,

00:04:35 ◼   ► would have been traveling probably this coming weekend

00:04:38 ◼   ► for the Mac event next week, et cetera,

00:04:43 ◼   ► I always am interested in things like,

00:04:46 ◼   ► hey, this new technology,

00:04:48 ◼   ► like when the phones first went to LTE,

00:04:50 ◼   ► it was like, nah, keep it on 3G when you travel,

00:04:52 ◼   ► 'cause you're not gonna get the speed.

00:04:53 ◼   ► The first few years of these network rollouts

00:04:56 ◼   ► never really pay off anyway.

00:04:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that's what I mean.

00:05:00 ◼   ► The 5G hype cycle was out of control

00:05:03 ◼   ► and the 12 was like, I mean, right there,

00:05:07 ◼   ► like 5G got real.

00:05:08 ◼   ► It's really here now because of this phone.

00:05:10 ◼   ► And that to me just never connected, it never landed.

00:05:13 ◼   ► And then with this phone, I'm like, okay,

00:05:15 ◼   ► I'm starting to see it.

00:05:16 ◼   ► I think there is, the radios are slightly different,

00:05:19 ◼   ► they access more bands.

00:05:22 ◼   ► AT&T and Verizon, they've been aggressively lying

00:05:25 ◼   ► about what 5G means for some time.

00:05:28 ◼   ► - AT&T in particular, AT&T takes it to a new level.

00:05:32 ◼   ► And they did the same thing with 4G too, right?

00:05:35 ◼   ► Where they had, and they convinced Apple

00:05:38 ◼   ► to put like a weird icon up in the status bar

00:05:40 ◼   ► with like 5G with an asterisk or something like that.

00:05:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it was 5G for AT&T.

00:05:46 ◼   ► But the other thing they're doing,

00:05:48 ◼   ► which it's like, it makes sense they would try to do this,

00:05:52 ◼   ► but they're reusing and sharing LTE spectrum

00:05:56 ◼   ► with 5G spectrum, it's called DSS.

00:05:58 ◼   ► And it's this weird technology.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And I would, when the 12 came out, I said,

00:06:01 ◼   ► how often is this phone using DSS

00:06:03 ◼   ► versus dedicated 5G spectrum?

00:06:05 ◼   ► And there was a lot of hemming and hawing.

00:06:07 ◼   ► And they're like, that's up to the carriers,

00:06:08 ◼   ► you're gonna ask them.

00:06:09 ◼   ► And now that it supports more bands

00:06:11 ◼   ► and they're rolling out more of that mid-band 5G,

00:06:13 ◼   ► which is the reason T-Mobile has had a faster network

00:06:16 ◼   ► this whole time is they've always had the mid-band 5G

00:06:19 ◼   ► as opposed to the millimeter wave.

00:06:21 ◼   ► You can see it.

00:06:22 ◼   ► And right, is it the phone?

00:06:24 ◼   ► Is it the carrier?

00:06:25 ◼   ► Is it the phone supports more bands?

00:06:26 ◼   ► Like it's, this is why it's,

00:06:28 ◼   ► I would have never been able to put this all in a review.

00:06:31 ◼   ► I would have written an 8,000 word review,

00:06:33 ◼   ► actually this year Dieter did the reviews.

00:06:35 ◼   ► I would have made Dieter write an 8,000 word review

00:06:37 ◼   ► on just frequency allocations in the phone.

00:06:41 ◼   ► But I wouldn't, I don't think that we would have even known

00:06:43 ◼   ► without this much more time passing

00:06:45 ◼   ► and being able to say, okay, I'm starting to see

00:06:47 ◼   ► that the phone is caught up to the network,

00:06:49 ◼   ► has caught up to the phone,

00:06:50 ◼   ► and that cycle is beginning to build to something useful.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Now, do I think that I would accept a robotic surgery

00:06:57 ◼   ► on this network or let a car drive itself on it?

00:07:00 ◼   ► No, I would not.

00:07:01 ◼   ► And that, like that part of the 5G hype cycle

00:07:03 ◼   ► is out of control.

00:07:04 ◼   ► But is it a little faster?

00:07:05 ◼   ► It sure is.

00:07:06 ◼   ► - It is one of the most interesting

00:07:09 ◼   ► and unique aspects of reviewing any phone,

00:07:13 ◼   ► but iPhone in particular,

00:07:14 ◼   ► because it's the one thing that is outside Apple's control

00:07:19 ◼   ► and is obviously a very touchy subject with the carriers.

00:07:26 ◼   ► So Apple is in this untenable position, really,

00:07:30 ◼   ► where they, what are they gonna do?

00:07:32 ◼   ► Tell you that, hey, well,

00:07:33 ◼   ► Verizon has a better 5G network than AT&T,

00:07:36 ◼   ► or vice versa, whatever.

00:07:38 ◼   ► They're not gonna do that, they can't, right?

00:07:40 ◼   ► They can't throw any of their carrier partners

00:07:42 ◼   ► under the bus and talk about problems or say that,

00:07:47 ◼   ► well, it's not gonna be as good on Carrier X

00:07:50 ◼   ► because they don't support the band that's better,

00:07:53 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah.

00:07:54 ◼   ► They can't talk about it.

00:07:55 ◼   ► But yet, it's this thing that they want to hype

00:07:57 ◼   ► because the carriers want to hype it.

00:08:00 ◼   ► - I think especially this year,

00:08:01 ◼   ► if you look at the pricing of these phones,

00:08:06 ◼   ► it's almost useless to talk about the MSRP of the phone

00:08:10 ◼   ► because the carriers are just gonna give you money,

00:08:13 ◼   ► and that money is baked back into a more expensive 5G plan.

00:08:17 ◼   ► The carriers are not, they're good at this math.

00:08:19 ◼   ► It's a shell game, they're good at it.

00:08:22 ◼   ► The vibe we got when the phone was announced was,

00:08:24 ◼   ► man, we are right back to the days of phone subsidies.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Right, we're giving the phones away for free or super cheap,

00:08:32 ◼   ► and then we're baking that cost back into the plan,

00:08:34 ◼   ► and we kinda know it,

00:08:35 ◼   ► but we need the carriers to sell iPhones.

00:08:38 ◼   ► People are at home.

00:08:39 ◼   ► They're not necessarily incentivized,

00:08:41 ◼   ► but offering people a ton of free phones

00:08:43 ◼   ► is getting them to upgrade.

00:08:44 ◼   ► We're managing our demand that way,

00:08:46 ◼   ► and I think a lot of people are happy to see a free phone.

00:08:49 ◼   ► But it's true that Apple needs the carriers to participate

00:08:52 ◼   ► in this pretty intense subsidy program.

00:08:56 ◼   ► The carriers want 5G phones.

00:08:58 ◼   ► They wanna switch over that network

00:08:59 ◼   ► and get away from DSS as fast as they can.

00:09:01 ◼   ► Apple wants to sell a lot of phones.

00:09:03 ◼   ► I don't know if it's untenable.

00:09:04 ◼   ► Apple's selling a lot of phones,

00:09:06 ◼   ► but there's a part of the business relationship

00:09:09 ◼   ► that absolutely prevents them

00:09:11 ◼   ► from evaluating the carriers to the customer.

00:09:13 ◼   ► They're just not gonna do it.

00:09:14 ◼   ► - I guess it is tenable in that way,

00:09:17 ◼   ► but it's untenable in Apple's usual way

00:09:20 ◼   ► of being as forthcoming as they can

00:09:23 ◼   ► about the product's performance.

00:09:26 ◼   ► And you have to learn to speak Appleese.

00:09:29 ◼   ► They never throw anything under the bus.

00:09:30 ◼   ► So here's one simple example.

00:09:33 ◼   ► All of the iPhone 13s have an ultra-wide camera,

00:09:38 ◼   ► but this year the 13 Pros

00:09:41 ◼   ► have a significantly improved ultra-wide.

00:09:44 ◼   ► It's the one that it has auto-focus,

00:09:46 ◼   ► and that's what enables macro mode,

00:09:48 ◼   ► and it also has a better sensor.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Well, I guess that's partly why it has auto-focus,

00:09:53 ◼   ► better sensor, but it's also better in low light.

00:09:57 ◼   ► But when you ask them questions

00:09:59 ◼   ► about the regular iPhone 13 ultra-wide in comparison,

00:10:02 ◼   ► they don't say bad things about that lens.

00:10:06 ◼   ► They'll only say good things about the 13 Pro lens,

00:10:09 ◼   ► and you just have to learn to translate that,

00:10:12 ◼   ► okay, no, the light sensitivity hasn't changed at all

00:10:14 ◼   ► from the iPhone 12.

00:10:15 ◼   ► That's what they're trying to say.

00:10:17 ◼   ► But they can't talk even in their usual elliptical way

00:10:21 ◼   ► about 5G performance.

00:10:23 ◼   ► It is like a black box that they really can't

00:10:26 ◼   ► because it's so tied to the promotion.

00:10:28 ◼   ► But it is true too.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Right after the event, I have a friend who's,

00:10:34 ◼   ► I guess you would best describe as an analyst,

00:10:36 ◼   ► somebody you know through Daring Fireball,

00:10:38 ◼   ► and he was just like, weee!

00:10:40 ◼   ► It's like back to 2008 with 2009

00:10:42 ◼   ► with the subsidy model for pricing.

00:10:45 ◼   ► Except now it's sort of, it's like inverted,

00:10:49 ◼   ► where back then the subsidized prices

00:10:53 ◼   ► were the prices that Apple would put up

00:10:54 ◼   ► on the keynote slides, and they were the ones

00:10:57 ◼   ► they wanted you to think of the real price,

00:10:58 ◼   ► whereas now they tell you just the flat retail price

00:11:02 ◼   ► and the subsidized prices that most people

00:11:06 ◼   ► are actually paying when they go in

00:11:08 ◼   ► and upgrade at their carrier at significant discounts,

00:11:10 ◼   ► but who knows what they are.

00:11:12 ◼   ► It's all sort of, and I think the carriers

00:11:14 ◼   ► sort of like it that way where it's sort of,

00:11:16 ◼   ► they don't really want you pricing,

00:11:18 ◼   ► you know, shopping it around.

00:11:19 ◼   ► - It is so hard.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Apple did put up two slides.

00:11:23 ◼   ► They showed you the MSRP this year,

00:11:25 ◼   ► and then I think there was a second slide

00:11:26 ◼   ► where they're like, we're so excited

00:11:27 ◼   ► our carrier partners are gonna offer these discounts.

00:11:30 ◼   ► So it was a little change, but then you,

00:11:32 ◼   ► we just tried to do a story where we're like,

00:11:34 ◼   ► here's how much the iPhone costs this year,

00:11:37 ◼   ► and we just tried to break down all the carriers,

00:11:39 ◼   ► and it quickly got out of hand.

00:11:40 ◼   ► Like we realized what we needed to build

00:11:43 ◼   ► was effectively a search engine,

00:11:45 ◼   ► like a Google-caliber search engine

00:11:48 ◼   ► where you typed in the plan you had,

00:11:51 ◼   ► and every carrier now has like decades worth

00:11:53 ◼   ► of weird grandfathered plans.

00:11:56 ◼   ► The phone you had that you're trading,

00:11:58 ◼   ► and we're like, the literal logic of this

00:12:01 ◼   ► is a search engine.

00:12:02 ◼   ► Like that's kind of what we're doing here.

00:12:04 ◼   ► Like we don't know if we can do this.

00:12:05 ◼   ► The one I saw, there's a bunch of YouTube videos

00:12:08 ◼   ► where like YouTubers are doing Excel on YouTube,

00:12:11 ◼   ► and I wanna, when you get the YouTubers

00:12:14 ◼   ► to start like doing Excel on camera,

00:12:15 ◼   ► you know, like maybe this is a little too complicated.

00:12:18 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:12:20 ◼   ► - It is not the most cinematic way of presenting information,

00:12:25 ◼   ► but there are some things that demand a tabular grid.

00:12:29 ◼   ► It's interesting.

00:12:31 ◼   ► I think the other thing that's interesting

00:12:33 ◼   ► with the iPhone 13 models,

00:12:35 ◼   ► and it ties into the Apple Watch Series 7,

00:12:38 ◼   ► which we can pick up after a break,

00:12:40 ◼   ► but is the lack of neutral color options

00:12:45 ◼   ► at the consumer side.

00:12:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:12:48 ◼   ► - There's the starlight,

00:12:51 ◼   ► and which is the closest they come

00:12:53 ◼   ► to what was always just called silver,

00:12:56 ◼   ► and midnight, which is the closest they come

00:12:58 ◼   ► to like a black or space gray or space black,

00:13:02 ◼   ► those names that they've used over the years

00:13:03 ◼   ► that have always been neutral,

00:13:04 ◼   ► but midnight has a touch of blue.

00:13:06 ◼   ► And it's, I've been, again, it's a privilege.

00:13:12 ◼   ► I love my job.

00:13:14 ◼   ► I know it will come back to normal eventually,

00:13:17 ◼   ► but I really, really miss the hands-on areas after events.

00:13:23 ◼   ► And I always thought it was interesting

00:13:25 ◼   ► for evaluating color and finishes.

00:13:27 ◼   ► I always bring up the iPhone 7,

00:13:32 ◼   ► which is when they had oddly two black models.

00:13:34 ◼   ► They had like a matte black, and they called one jet black.

00:13:38 ◼   ► And the jet black was the sort of thing

00:13:41 ◼   ► that it's like impossible to photograph.

00:13:43 ◼   ► You can't really capture gloss

00:13:46 ◼   ► when you're displaying it on a photograph.

00:13:50 ◼   ► You really needed to see it.

00:13:51 ◼   ► You needed to touch it to see how it felt

00:13:53 ◼   ► that it had like a sort of tackiness,

00:13:55 ◼   ► like I always say, like a basketball sneaker

00:13:58 ◼   ► on a clean basketball court.

00:14:00 ◼   ► With these colors this year,

00:14:02 ◼   ► some of the feedback I've gotten from readers is,

00:14:05 ◼   ► "Well, you're not talking about the colors."

00:14:07 ◼   ► And it's like, "Well, I can't talk about colors

00:14:08 ◼   ► "I haven't seen," right?

00:14:09 ◼   ► It's like, we all see Apple's photos.

00:14:12 ◼   ► You can see them as well as I do.

00:14:14 ◼   ► I haven't seen them in person.

00:14:15 ◼   ► I only have the things that they've sent me

00:14:17 ◼   ► 'cause they're not in.

00:14:18 ◼   ► Now I have been to the Apple Store to see the phones,

00:14:21 ◼   ► and so I've seen Starlight in person.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I find that the Starlight is very champagne-y.

00:14:28 ◼   ► It is clearly more like a silvery gold

00:14:33 ◼   ► than a gold silver to me,

00:14:35 ◼   ► whereas Midnight plays as black or neutral,

00:14:40 ◼   ► and you really kinda,

00:14:41 ◼   ► you have to catch it the right way to get the blue.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Now, is that me?

00:14:45 ◼   ► Is that the way my rods and cones in my eyes perceive color?

00:14:50 ◼   ► But I know that there's a lot of,

00:14:52 ◼   ► it's like the number one complaint about the watches

00:14:53 ◼   ► seems to be the lack of neutral colors,

00:14:58 ◼   ► and the same thing with the phones.

00:15:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's interesting.

00:15:01 ◼   ► There's a split there between the watch and the phones

00:15:03 ◼   ► that is kinda interesting.

00:15:06 ◼   ► I think Apple assumes, and the carriers assume, rightfully,

00:15:10 ◼   ► that most people are putting these in cases.

00:15:12 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:15:13 ◼   ► - So the colors are almost secondary.

00:15:16 ◼   ► Really, you're picking the color of your camera bump,

00:15:18 ◼   ► 'cause that's the only thing you're gonna see

00:15:19 ◼   ► in most of these cases.

00:15:20 ◼   ► I had the Sierra Blue review unit,

00:15:25 ◼   ► and I bought my own Graphite Pro.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Sierra Blue's beautiful,

00:15:30 ◼   ► but I instantly put it into a case.

00:15:33 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's interesting,

00:15:35 ◼   ► 'cause with the phones, you expect,

00:15:37 ◼   ► I think they expect it,

00:15:38 ◼   ► they can be a little more dramatic with the colors.

00:15:41 ◼   ► Not so with the watch, right?

00:15:43 ◼   ► Not very many people put the watch in cases,

00:15:45 ◼   ► and I'd be curious to understand

00:15:48 ◼   ► why they went that way with the watch,

00:15:50 ◼   ► instead of the offering the neutral so you could,

00:15:54 ◼   ► I mean, right now, I have a black watch.

00:15:56 ◼   ► It's like, I'm not gonna not buy a black watch.

00:15:59 ◼   ► - Right.

00:16:00 ◼   ► Well, let me take a break,

00:16:01 ◼   ► and then we can talk about Apple Watch Series 7.

00:16:04 ◼   ► It's a great segue.

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00:18:20 ◼   ► I'm with you.

00:18:22 ◼   ► I think that the case situation is so different

00:18:26 ◼   ► between phones and watches,

00:18:28 ◼   ► where almost everybody puts their phones in a case

00:18:31 ◼   ► and almost nobody puts an Apple Watch in a case

00:18:34 ◼   ► or a protective wraparound strap.

00:18:37 ◼   ► I'm not even sure why you would.

00:18:39 ◼   ► I mean, I guess there's this sort of G-Shock mentality,

00:18:43 ◼   ► and there's rumors,

00:18:44 ◼   ► German has rumored that Apple's even considering a watch

00:18:47 ◼   ► that's in that space.

00:18:49 ◼   ► But when I see people with the thing,

00:18:50 ◼   ► it doesn't look like they're using it to go rock climbing.

00:18:53 ◼   ► There just seem like people

00:18:55 ◼   ► who are afraid of scratching their watch.

00:18:57 ◼   ► But it's very rare that I see somebody like that.

00:19:01 ◼   ► - There's a specific kind of personality

00:19:02 ◼   ► that puts everything in a case.

00:19:04 ◼   ► - Right.

00:19:05 ◼   ► - And I want to,

00:19:06 ◼   ► maybe we should just find four of those people on profile

00:19:08 ◼   ► and be like, why is your first instinct

00:19:10 ◼   ► to wrap everything in a case?

00:19:11 ◼   ► Like, I get it with a phone.

00:19:12 ◼   ► I drop my phone a lot.

00:19:13 ◼   ► Your watch, if you're dropping your watch,

00:19:16 ◼   ► you're kind of necessarily dropping yourself, right?

00:19:19 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:19:21 ◼   ► - You're kind of doing it wrong, right?

00:19:22 ◼   ► It's like, and I know,

00:19:25 ◼   ► I've worn a watch my whole, ever since I was a teenager,

00:19:28 ◼   ► and it's like, every once in a while,

00:19:29 ◼   ► you'll like bang it against a doorway or something,

00:19:32 ◼   ► you know, and you take a look.

00:19:34 ◼   ► And usually my watches over the years, I've never,

00:19:37 ◼   ► every once in a while,

00:19:38 ◼   ► I'd get like a scratch or something here or there,

00:19:40 ◼   ► but for the most part,

00:19:40 ◼   ► they don't really seem like they need a case.

00:19:44 ◼   ► But this lack of a neutral color option,

00:19:48 ◼   ► that there's starlight instead of silver

00:19:50 ◼   ► at the aluminum level, and midnight, which is blue.

00:19:54 ◼   ► The other thing that that,

00:19:56 ◼   ► my personal tastes, shockingly, lean towards neutral colors.

00:20:01 ◼   ► But the other thing about neutral colors is

00:20:05 ◼   ► they then go with any straps or bands you want to use,

00:20:09 ◼   ► and that's sort of a big, or not even sort of,

00:20:13 ◼   ► it's a big part of the Apple Watch ecosystem,

00:20:18 ◼   ► is that a lot of people, for everybody out there,

00:20:21 ◼   ► I'm sure most people pick a strap, never change it,

00:20:24 ◼   ► you know, don't even know how to change the straps.

00:20:26 ◼   ► But there are a lot of people who love the easy,

00:20:29 ◼   ► I can change these straps, you know,

00:20:31 ◼   ► with just push a button, slide it out, put another one in.

00:20:34 ◼   ► The compatibility, the fact that every Apple Watch strap

00:20:38 ◼   ► made since 2015 is still compatible, you know,

00:20:41 ◼   ► either at the smaller or large size,

00:20:43 ◼   ► means that people who are on like their second or third,

00:20:46 ◼   ► or if you're like an enthusiast,

00:20:48 ◼   ► like your fourth Apple Watch,

00:20:50 ◼   ► the straps you've already bought are compatible.

00:20:54 ◼   ► But you know, it's like, I don't know,

00:20:55 ◼   ► if you have like champagne as your watch color,

00:20:59 ◼   ► to me that rules out certain colors to go with it,

00:21:01 ◼   ► and the same thing with like a blue-hinted midnight,

00:21:06 ◼   ► maybe it doesn't go with certain straps

00:21:08 ◼   ► that plain space gray would.

00:21:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, maybe the data is saying

00:21:13 ◼   ► that people aren't doing that as much as we think.

00:21:17 ◼   ► I do think that's a fun part of the Apple Watch experience,

00:21:20 ◼   ► that you can change these as much as you want,

00:21:21 ◼   ► and there's like, there's a thriving aftermarket

00:21:25 ◼   ► for straps, and Apple seems to love that too,

00:21:27 ◼   ► which is sort of, here's a question for you.

00:21:30 ◼   ► Is there more pressure on Apple to retain

00:21:33 ◼   ► the Apple Watch connector, the strap connector,

00:21:36 ◼   ► than there is to retain lightning?

00:21:38 ◼   ► That thing is, it defines the shape of the watch

00:21:42 ◼   ► at this point.

00:21:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's different,

00:21:46 ◼   ► a different sort of pressure.

00:21:48 ◼   ► Would people be angry if they changed the strap connector?

00:21:52 ◼   ► Probably, yeah, people get angry at everything.

00:21:55 ◼   ► And there is, you know, and of course you're always

00:21:58 ◼   ► gonna run into the people who say,

00:21:59 ◼   ► well, I just bought three straps last month.

00:22:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:04 ◼   ► Right, and it's like, and now they're introducing

00:22:07 ◼   ► a different strap size or different connector.

00:22:10 ◼   ► I don't know, I do wonder whether they feel hamstrung.

00:22:14 ◼   ► Is it a bit of an albatross around their neck

00:22:16 ◼   ► as they designed the Series 7, and they're like,

00:22:19 ◼   ► let's go a little bigger, 'cause we're gonna put

00:22:22 ◼   ► this bigger edge, closer to true edge-to-edge display,

00:22:26 ◼   ► and we're gonna increase the size of the case

00:22:29 ◼   ► by a millimeter, but if, is that strap compatibility,

00:22:34 ◼   ► like, if only we could just tweak the strap connector

00:22:38 ◼   ► a little bit, whoa, this would be a little bit blank,

00:22:42 ◼   ► I don't know if it'd be narrower or something.

00:22:45 ◼   ► I don't know, probably, it's probably,

00:22:47 ◼   ► at least to some degree, a constraint they wish

00:22:50 ◼   ► they didn't have to deal with, but.

00:22:52 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, they made that decision,

00:22:53 ◼   ► well, you know, they made the decision

00:22:54 ◼   ► before they announced it, they announced the thing in 2015.

00:22:57 ◼   ► So they made this decision about the strap connector

00:23:00 ◼   ► in what, 2013, 2014?

00:23:02 ◼   ► They couldn't have known where the watch was going.

00:23:05 ◼   ► - Right.

00:23:06 ◼   ► - And most of those, you know, Johnny F's gone.

00:23:09 ◼   ► So like, it's another person's ultimate decision.

00:23:13 ◼   ► - And I've always thought about it, like, we spend

00:23:15 ◼   ► so much time thinking about it, Lightning versus USB-C

00:23:17 ◼   ► versus Apple's proprietary Bluetooth, and it's like,

00:23:22 ◼   ► oh, they've got this, like, other hardware connector

00:23:24 ◼   ► that has a, probably its most thriving ecosystem of straps,

00:23:29 ◼   ► but it defines the shape of the product

00:23:32 ◼   ► in a way that Lightning does not, right?

00:23:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:23:35 ◼   ► - And I've always wanted to, do they,

00:23:37 ◼   ► is there's gotta be some design in Apple

00:23:38 ◼   ► that's just like, man, let me make it different.

00:23:40 ◼   ► Like, the whole watch would look different,

00:23:42 ◼   ► it would be so much cooler, but they're brought into it now

00:23:45 ◼   ► after all this time.

00:23:46 ◼   ► - Well, that's why I'm so intrigued by Germin's rumor

00:23:48 ◼   ► about a G-Shock style sport watch, you know,

00:23:52 ◼   ► like a rugged watch, for lack of a better term.

00:23:54 ◼   ► Because, well, it could still fit the same straps.

00:24:00 ◼   ► I mean, you know, just put that slot on the top and bottom.

00:24:04 ◼   ► But that would, to me, would be an opportunity

00:24:06 ◼   ► where they might introduce a different slot,

00:24:10 ◼   ► you know, a different watch connector, I don't know.

00:24:14 ◼   ► You know, 'cause presumably that watch would look,

00:24:16 ◼   ► that would be the first Apple watch that they make

00:24:19 ◼   ► that is instantly recognizable as a different watch.

00:24:22 ◼   ► I mean, that was a big part of my review this week

00:24:24 ◼   ► for the Series 7.

00:24:25 ◼   ► They don't see this as a product that needs to be,

00:24:28 ◼   ► like, reimagined in the way that, like, the iPhone 4

00:24:32 ◼   ► was like, whoa, whoa, this looks nothing

00:24:35 ◼   ► like the previous iPhones.

00:24:39 ◼   ► The way that iPads have had a couple of moments like that,

00:24:43 ◼   ► even though the tablet shape is sort of,

00:24:46 ◼   ► look, it's just a tablet, you know,

00:24:47 ◼   ► there's not that much you can do with it.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Apple Watch, you know, it really does seem like they,

00:24:53 ◼   ► they're not just content with it,

00:24:56 ◼   ► but that they really feel like they nailed it

00:24:58 ◼   ► from the first go, so I don't know.

00:25:00 ◼   ► I feel like Lightning is more of a,

00:25:02 ◼   ► probably more politically sticky.

00:25:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, there's a million reasons.

00:25:08 ◼   ► That's why I add, it's just a, like, a thought experiment.

00:25:10 ◼   ► Like, it is.

00:25:11 ◼   ► Which do they feel more constrained by?

00:25:13 ◼   ► It's not Lightning, right?

00:25:14 ◼   ► They're just, like, happy to keep putting that connector

00:25:17 ◼   ► on there until we all assume one day

00:25:18 ◼   ► they're gonna take it away, and while you're used to it.

00:25:21 ◼   ► Whereas this one, it's like,

00:25:22 ◼   ► there literally defines the shape of the product.

00:25:25 ◼   ► You know, the iPad's, like, an interesting one,

00:25:28 ◼   ► that, you know, that low-end iPad,

00:25:30 ◼   ► the roots of that go straight to the iPad 2, right?

00:25:35 ◼   ► And that, they've been very comfortable with that.

00:25:37 ◼   ► And the other ones have had to make, look different

00:25:40 ◼   ► to differentiate them from, you know,

00:25:44 ◼   ► the base model, so they're pro.

00:25:45 ◼   ► And Apple making things look different

00:25:48 ◼   ► and not look different to drive sales,

00:25:50 ◼   ► to drive market differentiation is, like,

00:25:53 ◼   ► one of the most interesting dynamics of this company.

00:25:57 ◼   ► Other companies make things look different all the time.

00:25:59 ◼   ► It's the easiest way to get attention.

00:26:00 ◼   ► It looks different.

00:26:02 ◼   ► Apple is very deliberate about it,

00:26:04 ◼   ► and I think with the watch,

00:26:06 ◼   ► once they wanna drive that bigger upgrade cycle,

00:26:08 ◼   ► and they're kinda at the far limit of,

00:26:11 ◼   ► we made the screen bigger, right?

00:26:13 ◼   ► 'Cause bigger screens are the most,

00:26:15 ◼   ► like, that was why I upgraded the last time.

00:26:17 ◼   ► I was like, oh, the 4 has a bigger screen.

00:26:19 ◼   ► I want that right away.

00:26:20 ◼   ► It's why I'm like, even though I don't need this watch,

00:26:23 ◼   ► I'm not leaving my house alone.

00:26:24 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:26:25 ◼   ► I don't really need this thing.

00:26:26 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, that has a bigger screen I wanted.

00:26:28 ◼   ► Whereas the next, they're kinda out of that move,

00:26:31 ◼   ► so the next time they do this,

00:26:32 ◼   ► it might have to change the way it looks.

00:26:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:26:34 ◼   ► I've, the big one for me was the always-on display.

00:26:38 ◼   ► So I skipped the Apple Watch Series 4,

00:26:42 ◼   ► even though it did, it was the first one

00:26:43 ◼   ► that introduced the bigger screen,

00:26:44 ◼   ► and even though it intrigued me,

00:26:46 ◼   ► 'cause I'd just bought a Series 3 the year before,

00:26:48 ◼   ► and I was like, well, I can live with it.

00:26:50 ◼   ► And then when the Series 5 came out

00:26:52 ◼   ► with the always-on display,

00:26:53 ◼   ► I was like, I have to have that immediately.

00:26:55 ◼   ► 'Cause it was my single biggest complaint

00:26:57 ◼   ► with Apple Watch original,

00:26:59 ◼   ► then 2, 3, 4, was the lack of an always-on display.

00:27:03 ◼   ► And I kind of realized that it's one of those,

00:27:06 ◼   ► I persevered on that point more than a lot of people.

00:27:10 ◼   ► Like, all of my reviews before the Series 5,

00:27:13 ◼   ► people would be like, wow,

00:27:14 ◼   ► you really spent a lot of words talking about the fact

00:27:16 ◼   ► that the time isn't always on.

00:27:19 ◼   ► And it's, I think I'm self-aware that I,

00:27:23 ◼   ► it's partly because I'm used to mechanical watches

00:27:26 ◼   ► where you never have to worry, you know,

00:27:28 ◼   ► you can always, as long as there's enough light

00:27:30 ◼   ► to see the dial, you can read the time.

00:27:33 ◼   ► But it's also like a sort of,

00:27:36 ◼   ► I've always been a little self-conscious

00:27:41 ◼   ► about looking like I'm checking the time, you know,

00:27:43 ◼   ► that it's like a signal that you're bored.

00:27:45 ◼   ► And I know, I realize that like probably 98% of people

00:27:48 ◼   ► don't even notice, they never think twice about it.

00:27:51 ◼   ► But for some reason, like in 19, I think it was 1988,

00:27:55 ◼   ► when George Bush was running against Michael Dukakis,

00:27:58 ◼   ► they had a debate and George Bush,

00:28:01 ◼   ► the old George Bush was seen checking his watch

00:28:04 ◼   ► like halfway through the debate,

00:28:06 ◼   ► which to me is a reasonable thing for somebody

00:28:08 ◼   ► who knows they're in a 90 minute debate.

00:28:11 ◼   ► Like whenever I'm on stage in front of people,

00:28:14 ◼   ► and I think even if you're like running for president

00:28:18 ◼   ► and you're used to it, it's high pressure.

00:28:20 ◼   ► And you know that the debate is particularly high pressure

00:28:22 ◼   ► and time flows in a funny way, right?

00:28:25 ◼   ► Like where you feel like when I'm interviewing people

00:28:29 ◼   ► doing my WWDC show and you know,

00:28:32 ◼   ► a thousand people in the audience

00:28:34 ◼   ► and one shot to take this video

00:28:38 ◼   ► that's gonna be seen by, you know, 100,000 people

00:28:40 ◼   ► after I publish it to "Daring Fireball."

00:28:42 ◼   ► And I'll glance at my watch 'cause I think,

00:28:45 ◼   ► oh my God, we must be halfway through, right?

00:28:48 ◼   ► And I look and it's like, we're five minutes in.

00:28:50 ◼   ► And I'm like, oh my.

00:28:51 ◼   ► - Do you find that that first 10 minutes takes forever?

00:28:52 ◼   ► - Yes, I do.

00:28:53 ◼   ► - And then after that, the rest flies by.

00:28:55 ◼   ► - Exactly, that's every single time.

00:28:58 ◼   ► - This is me on "Decoder" every week.

00:29:00 ◼   ► - Every time.

00:29:01 ◼   ► - I'm like, oh man, I gotta make this interesting

00:29:02 ◼   ► for an hour and that first 10 minutes are kinda cold, right?

00:29:05 ◼   ► The guest is kinda cold and you're both open, whatever,

00:29:08 ◼   ► like things work.

00:29:09 ◼   ► And you're like, if I just make it through this first 10.

00:29:12 ◼   ► - It takes forever and I realize

00:29:16 ◼   ► that I'm only on like my first index card.

00:29:20 ◼   ► And I'm like, I've blown this, we're halfway through.

00:29:22 ◼   ► I'm only on the first index card.

00:29:24 ◼   ► And then I think like, don't start sweating.

00:29:28 ◼   ► Don't start sweating, even though you've clearly blown it.

00:29:31 ◼   ► But then I sneak a look at my watch and I'm like,

00:29:33 ◼   ► oh, we're only five minutes in, what?

00:29:35 ◼   ► And then next time I check my watch, it's like,

00:29:37 ◼   ► oh, I've gone over the time I promised them we'd be done.

00:29:40 ◼   ► What happened?

00:29:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, literally I have this experience

00:29:45 ◼   ► every week on "Decoder."

00:29:46 ◼   ► - But I like to glance at my watch in a way that is,

00:29:50 ◼   ► without like the big wrist raise,

00:29:53 ◼   ► and with the Apple Watch before the always on,

00:29:55 ◼   ► the wrist raise was sort of an ostentatious movement

00:29:58 ◼   ► 'cause you wanna make sure your watch triggers it.

00:30:01 ◼   ► So that was a good one. - I got really good

00:30:03 ◼   ► at a subtle tap.

00:30:04 ◼   ► Like I would just sort of put my hand over there

00:30:08 ◼   ► and just like give me a little tap.

00:30:10 ◼   ► What's funny to me about this is none of this matters to me

00:30:15 ◼   ► because I don't leave my house anymore.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Like all of this was really important

00:30:18 ◼   ► when I was in meetings, I was going places,

00:30:20 ◼   ► I was talking to people, I was waiting for trains, whatever.

00:30:24 ◼   ► The always on display, its value has plummeted

00:30:27 ◼   ► inside of my home, which is interesting.

00:30:30 ◼   ► Like, you know, we're gonna go back out

00:30:32 ◼   ► in the world eventually, but to me that,

00:30:35 ◼   ► right, you make the screen bigger,

00:30:37 ◼   ► always on is another screen upgrade.

00:30:40 ◼   ► Right, the thing that has driven the cycle

00:30:42 ◼   ► for the Apple Watch for me and for you in a different way

00:30:46 ◼   ► is screen upgrades, right?

00:30:49 ◼   ► Battery life upgrades to some extent,

00:30:50 ◼   ► but mostly screen upgrades.

00:30:52 ◼   ► They've added all the sensors, those are cool,

00:30:53 ◼   ► but they come from the ride with the screen for me.

00:30:56 ◼   ► They're just, they're kinda with this one,

00:30:59 ◼   ► it's hard to see the next move they can make

00:31:02 ◼   ► unless they make it yet bigger, which would be interesting,

00:31:04 ◼   ► or they do something else.

00:31:06 ◼   ► It's, you know, and like, the two newest sensors

00:31:11 ◼   ► are the blood oxygen and the ECG.

00:31:15 ◼   ► And you know, I'm glad I have an ECG sensor

00:31:19 ◼   ► and so far, knock on wood, it has never once alerted me

00:31:24 ◼   ► to anything, but I enjoy every time somebody sends me

00:31:28 ◼   ► a random story from somewhere where somebody,

00:31:31 ◼   ► some regular Apple Watch user who had no idea

00:31:35 ◼   ► that they might have a heart problem,

00:31:36 ◼   ► their watch said, "Hey, maybe you should call your doctor.

00:31:39 ◼   ► There's an irregularity."

00:31:40 ◼   ► And they go to their doctor and their doctor is like,

00:31:43 ◼   ► "Yeah, you've got a problem, but we can,

00:31:45 ◼   ► it's a good thing you came in, but we can fix this right up

00:31:47 ◼   ► and you'll be fine."

00:31:48 ◼   ► So I'm glad it's there, but it's never once gone off for me.

00:31:51 ◼   ► I don't, I have never once checked my blood oxygen level.

00:31:54 ◼   ► So like, if I found out that my Series 7 review unit

00:31:59 ◼   ► actually didn't have either of those, I wouldn't know.

00:32:03 ◼   ► - Well, it's hard to demonstrate the value of a thing

00:32:05 ◼   ► that is only valuable when something is wrong, you know?

00:32:08 ◼   ► - Right.

00:32:09 ◼   ► - Well, and this is like the smoke detector problem.

00:32:11 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:32:13 ◼   ► - You buy more expensive smoke detectors,

00:32:14 ◼   ► but it's like, doesn't really matter.

00:32:17 ◼   ► For the most part, our smoke detectors have only ever gone

00:32:19 ◼   ► off when there's been like a smokey kitchen

00:32:22 ◼   ► and it's an annoyance, but it always reassures me.

00:32:26 ◼   ► It's like, "Hey, this actually isn't that smokey."

00:32:28 ◼   ► So I'm glad, you know, that's what I always tell myself

00:32:31 ◼   ► as I climb up a step stool because our ceilings

00:32:33 ◼   ► are just tall enough that I can't quite reach it

00:32:35 ◼   ► without using a step stool.

00:32:37 ◼   ► And I think to myself every time, well, it's actually,

00:32:40 ◼   ► you know, I'm actually glad that this went off.

00:32:42 ◼   ► - And I'm glad that my,

00:32:43 ◼   ► your searing a steak detector went off too.

00:32:47 ◼   ► - 'Cause that's what happens for me every time.

00:32:48 ◼   ► But do you read that Business Insider story

00:32:50 ◼   ► about Apple's health division and kind of lack of focus?

00:32:54 ◼   ► This to me is like the, right, they're really promoting.

00:32:56 ◼   ► The ads for the Series 7 are all about health.

00:33:00 ◼   ► They're all about, you know, these features,

00:33:02 ◼   ► checking your blood oxygen on the side of a mountain.

00:33:04 ◼   ► And it, you know, there's this Business Insider story

00:33:07 ◼   ► that's like, this division has suffered from lack of focus.

00:33:10 ◼   ► It's had a lot of executive turnover.

00:33:13 ◼   ► There is a piece of this puzzle

00:33:15 ◼   ► where they're adding the capabilities

00:33:17 ◼   ► and they haven't really articulated why.

00:33:20 ◼   ► And I, you know, I read that piece and I was like,

00:33:23 ◼   ► oh, this kind of makes sense.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Like, they are still figuring it out.

00:33:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it does seem like, I have not seen the story,

00:33:31 ◼   ► but it kind of rings true to me where,

00:33:36 ◼   ► in a very, unlike most things at Apple,

00:33:40 ◼   ► a sort of spaghetti against the wall approach

00:33:43 ◼   ► kind of works, right?

00:33:45 ◼   ► Like if, you know, there's been a team,

00:33:48 ◼   ► presumably there was a team dedicated

00:33:51 ◼   ► to getting blood oxygen sensing to fit in the watch

00:33:56 ◼   ► in a way that would, you know, not make the watch enormous

00:34:00 ◼   ► or make it more expensive, you know,

00:34:02 ◼   ► a cost-effective way to add that sensor.

00:34:06 ◼   ► And at one point they were like,

00:34:07 ◼   ► we think we can do this this year, you know,

00:34:10 ◼   ► get together with the rest of the hardware team, integrate it.

00:34:12 ◼   ► But, you know, before that they were just working on

00:34:15 ◼   ► this one thing, blood oxygen sensing.

00:34:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, they have to build the sensors, but.

00:34:22 ◼   ► - Right.

00:34:23 ◼   ► - And that seems very difficult.

00:34:25 ◼   ► And the sensors are doing well.

00:34:26 ◼   ► You know, there's a handful of peer-reviewed studies

00:34:28 ◼   ► saying they are as accurate as some of the medical devices,

00:34:32 ◼   ► but they're still not medical devices, right?

00:34:33 ◼   ► They're not FDA approved for this use.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Like, there's a long way to go with just,

00:34:39 ◼   ► is the sensor a medical device?

00:34:41 ◼   ► Okay, that's a challenging problem.

00:34:43 ◼   ► But, you know, Apple had these grand plans.

00:34:46 ◼   ► You know, they bought a healthcare company,

00:34:47 ◼   ► they're gonna run clinics for their own employees,

00:34:48 ◼   ► they're gonna do all this stuff.

00:34:50 ◼   ► That stuff turns out to be very complicated.

00:34:52 ◼   ► It's a different kind of problem

00:34:54 ◼   ► than just building the hardware and software capability.

00:34:57 ◼   ► And that to me is where, you know, Tim Cook has said,

00:35:00 ◼   ► for years Apple's greatest contribution will be in health.

00:35:03 ◼   ► They're advertising the watch as a health device

00:35:05 ◼   ► more and more.

00:35:06 ◼   ► And underneath it, I mean, I haven't sent,

00:35:09 ◼   ► other than, you know, Apple Fitness

00:35:11 ◼   ► and track your heart rate, close your rings,

00:35:14 ◼   ► which appears to be fairly focused

00:35:16 ◼   ► because it's a simpler kind of thing.

00:35:18 ◼   ► The actual, we're gonna integrate the watch

00:35:21 ◼   ► with your healthcare, like your proper full-on healthcare,

00:35:26 ◼   ► has never been fully connected.

00:35:28 ◼   ► And I was wondering if you had any insight,

00:35:29 ◼   ► 'cause I read that story and I was like,

00:35:30 ◼   ► man, this sounds like, you know,

00:35:32 ◼   ► I would draw the parallel to like the car,

00:35:34 ◼   ► where like they've taken 50 shots at the car

00:35:37 ◼   ► and they haven't figured out how they wanna do it.

00:35:40 ◼   ► But at least the car is secret.

00:35:42 ◼   ► The watch is like, I'm still buying them.

00:35:43 ◼   ► People are buying them.

00:35:44 ◼   ► They're super popular.

00:35:46 ◼   ► They have the scale to accomplish

00:35:47 ◼   ► some of the things they wanna accomplish.

00:35:49 ◼   ► - I think it's an interesting domain

00:35:51 ◼   ► because I kind of feel that the unfocused,

00:35:54 ◼   ► look, we can just keep adding sensors as we can

00:35:58 ◼   ► and some will be more important than others, you know,

00:36:01 ◼   ► or like the ECG thing is very important.

00:36:03 ◼   ► 'Cause if it actually,

00:36:05 ◼   ► if you do have that sort of irregularity,

00:36:07 ◼   ► it's genuinely life-threatening.

00:36:10 ◼   ► But it's also very rare, right?

00:36:12 ◼   ► So most people, it's never going to be an issue.

00:36:15 ◼   ► You can kind of add them piecemeal over the years

00:36:22 ◼   ► as they're ready and it doesn't matter

00:36:25 ◼   ► because that's not the prime reason

00:36:27 ◼   ► people are buying the watch, right?

00:36:29 ◼   ► They're buying the watch because it's just a general,

00:36:33 ◼   ► A, it's a watch, it tells you what time it is.

00:36:36 ◼   ► It tells you your notifications,

00:36:37 ◼   ► which is the big non-health-related breakthrough, right?

00:36:42 ◼   ► All the other stuff, nonsense in hindsight,

00:36:45 ◼   ► that they talked about in the original Apple Watch,

00:36:48 ◼   ► notifications that you can get your notifications

00:36:50 ◼   ► right there on your wrist,

00:36:52 ◼   ► is the big non-health-related,

00:36:55 ◼   ► this is why you want an Apple Watch

00:36:56 ◼   ► or any other smartwatch like for Android

00:36:59 ◼   ► instead of a dumb watch.

00:37:01 ◼   ► And then there's the general health and fitness

00:37:03 ◼   ► where you count your steps and your stands

00:37:06 ◼   ► and your exercise hours.

00:37:09 ◼   ► - You know how to add to that that is super useful

00:37:12 ◼   ► and I recommend this to everyone?

00:37:14 ◼   ► Put your Two-Factor app on your watch

00:37:15 ◼   ► so you can get your codes right away.

00:37:18 ◼   ► I don't know why Apple should just build a two-factor system

00:37:21 ◼   ► and advertise it heavily because as a capability

00:37:24 ◼   ► of the watch, remarkably convenient in our current climate.

00:37:29 ◼   ► I use Authy for my two-factor, which I really like a lot.

00:37:33 ◼   ► I moved away from Google Authenticator years ago

00:37:37 ◼   ► because Google Authenticator,

00:37:38 ◼   ► and apparently this is better now, I wrote about this,

00:37:40 ◼   ► but with Google Authenticator,

00:37:42 ◼   ► it was always a huge pain in the ass

00:37:44 ◼   ► when you upgraded your phone

00:37:46 ◼   ► because it was like a one-phone-at-a-time thing.

00:37:48 ◼   ► And I had like a,

00:37:49 ◼   ► I think I mentioned this on my show a couple weeks ago,

00:37:52 ◼   ► like a real panic attack moment,

00:37:53 ◼   ► like a couple of years back

00:37:57 ◼   ► when I got a review unit phone, I'd set it up.

00:38:00 ◼   ► I think I started setting it up in Panzarino's car,

00:38:03 ◼   ► driving from Cupertino back to San Francisco.

00:38:06 ◼   ► And it was out and needed a two-factor code.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And I was on this new phone and went to Google Authenticator

00:38:14 ◼   ► and they're like, "New number, who dat?"

00:38:16 ◼   ► And it's like, "Oh my God,

00:38:17 ◼   ► I don't have any of my two-factor codes."

00:38:20 ◼   ► And you know, oh, I could just go back to my hotel room

00:38:24 ◼   ► and get my old phone, which was still there

00:38:26 ◼   ► and still had the codes.

00:38:28 ◼   ► But it's a moment you don't want, right?

00:38:30 ◼   ► Like when you go to get your two-factor codes

00:38:32 ◼   ► and none of them are there,

00:38:34 ◼   ► and it's like, we don't know who you are,

00:38:35 ◼   ► it breaks you out in a cold sweat, you know?

00:38:39 ◼   ► So I switched to Authy years ago.

00:38:40 ◼   ► Authy has been great,

00:38:41 ◼   ► but having it on my phone is awesome

00:38:43 ◼   ► because if you're in some random place

00:38:45 ◼   ► logging into a website or something like that,

00:38:48 ◼   ► just having it on your wrist is awesome.

00:38:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's just like funny to me

00:38:52 ◼   ► that I'm assuming a lot of Apple employees

00:38:55 ◼   ► have two-factor issues all the time.

00:38:57 ◼   ► And like, here's this one function of watch

00:39:00 ◼   ► that is just like completely underappreciated that I love.

00:39:03 ◼   ► And it's like, oh man, this is,

00:39:06 ◼   ► if you try to get me to switch smartwatches,

00:39:07 ◼   ► I would ask, do you have a two-factor app that I can use

00:39:11 ◼   ► that works as well as this one?

00:39:12 ◼   ► And if you don't, I wouldn't switch.

00:39:14 ◼   ► I use it all day every day.

00:39:17 ◼   ► - To me, that's been the,

00:39:21 ◼   ► the watch itself as the second factor has been a huge

00:39:26 ◼   ► motivation for me to wear my Apple Watch

00:39:29 ◼   ► way more than I had been before the pandemic.

00:39:32 ◼   ► The thing with the masks has been game-changing for me.

00:39:35 ◼   ► - Hey, did you notice in iOS 15,

00:39:40 ◼   ► they are doing the watch unlock

00:39:44 ◼   ► if you're wearing sunglasses that don't work with Face ID?

00:39:46 ◼   ► - Yes, I have not. - It is incredible.

00:39:48 ◼   ► I have not written about this on "Daring Fireball" yet,

00:39:51 ◼   ► but as a longtime wearer of Ray-Ban sunglasses,

00:39:56 ◼   ► and Ray-Ban notoriously has had their regular,

00:40:02 ◼   ► non-polarized, just regular sunglasses,

00:40:06 ◼   ► have never worked with Face ID.

00:40:08 ◼   ► And they work now if you're wearing your Apple Watch

00:40:11 ◼   ► same way as the mask.

00:40:12 ◼   ► And it's, I've been waiting to write about it

00:40:15 ◼   ► on "Daring Fireball" because I'm a terrible,

00:40:19 ◼   ► terrible at getting things out of my mind

00:40:22 ◼   ► and onto the site as fast as I should, but it's awesome.

00:40:26 ◼   ► And it's not as big a deal for me at the moment

00:40:28 ◼   ► because I no longer wear contact lenses.

00:40:31 ◼   ► I wear prescription glasses all the time,

00:40:33 ◼   ► and my new prescription sunglasses aren't Ray-Ban lenses,

00:40:37 ◼   ► so they actually work with Face ID.

00:40:38 ◼   ► But my son took my Ray-Ban Wayfarers

00:40:42 ◼   ► and has been annoyed as hell.

00:40:45 ◼   ► And I was like, "Wait until you upgrade to iOS 15,

00:40:48 ◼   ► it'll work."

00:40:49 ◼   ► And he was like, "What?"

00:40:50 ◼   ► And then it happened, and he was like, "This is amazing."

00:40:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, it actually, I had stopped wearing my sunglasses

00:40:56 ◼   ► as much, I realized, like, I'm just not,

00:40:58 ◼   ► I was like, "Am I just getting older?"

00:41:00 ◼   ► No, it's actually, I just wanna unlock my phone more often.

00:41:02 ◼   ► - No, it was driving me nuts,

00:41:04 ◼   ► and the mask thing was driving me nuts.

00:41:05 ◼   ► It's great that they made it work both ways.

00:41:08 ◼   ► I wish that they did the unlock with the iPads,

00:41:12 ◼   ► the ones that, like the new iPad Mini,

00:41:15 ◼   ► and the iPad Air that have the Touch ID button,

00:41:18 ◼   ► which is a huge pain in the ass, in my opinion.

00:41:21 ◼   ► Like, once you're used to having a Face ID iPad

00:41:25 ◼   ► that you just wake it up and you're in,

00:41:28 ◼   ► I wish that, why can't, if I can unlock my phone

00:41:31 ◼   ► while I'm wearing my watch, and I can unlock my Mac

00:41:34 ◼   ► while I'm wearing my watch, why can't I unlock this iPad?

00:41:37 ◼   ► This would make the iPad Mini way more desirable,

00:41:41 ◼   ► in my opinion.

00:41:42 ◼   ► So hopefully that's on their list.

00:41:43 ◼   ► - The issue there is that sometimes the iPad

00:41:45 ◼   ► is more often than not far away from you.

00:41:48 ◼   ► - I guess, but if it is, but oftentimes

00:41:51 ◼   ► it's actually being held by the hand

00:41:53 ◼   ► that's wearing the watch, right?

00:41:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:41:56 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, just the, right,

00:41:59 ◼   ► think about like the, I don't know,

00:42:01 ◼   ► you're in the pilot's, every time I think about the iPad Mini

00:42:03 ◼   ► I think about pilots, 'cause Apple loves the pilots using them.

00:42:05 ◼   ► They do love the pilots. - They do love the pilots'

00:42:06 ◼   ► lounge, and it's sitting on a couch,

00:42:07 ◼   ► and you're getting coffee, someone can unlock your iPad,

00:42:09 ◼   ► 'cause you're around, right?

00:42:10 ◼   ► Like, that's the problem to solve.

00:42:13 ◼   ► - They do love the pilots.

00:42:14 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:15 ◼   ► - I mean, I honestly think they make the iPad Mini

00:42:17 ◼   ► just 'cause they think it's so cool the pilots use them.

00:42:19 ◼   ► - I do too.

00:42:21 ◼   ► I like the product, I think it's really neat,

00:42:23 ◼   ► but it's like, it could never be my only iPad.

00:42:25 ◼   ► When they first came out with it,

00:42:26 ◼   ► it was like, I've crossed the border on my eyesight

00:42:30 ◼   ► and my age, where when like the first iPad Mini came out,

00:42:34 ◼   ► my eyes were still really great at seeing really tiny type,

00:42:37 ◼   ► and I was like, this is the most amazing iPad ever.

00:42:40 ◼   ► And the phones were super small at the time, too.

00:42:42 ◼   ► They were still like 3.5 inch screens.

00:42:45 ◼   ► So it seemed like a novel size class,

00:42:49 ◼   ► for like reading in bed.

00:42:51 ◼   ► I like the iPad Mini, but it's,

00:42:54 ◼   ► it probably couldn't be my only iPad.

00:42:57 ◼   ► - Did you, they sent you, when I was looking at Dieter's,

00:42:59 ◼   ► when we were at the code conference, the scroll delay,

00:43:04 ◼   ► especially 'cause I was looking, you know,

00:43:05 ◼   ► I got the 13 Pro Max, which is now at 120 hertz,

00:43:07 ◼   ► like ultra smooth, I'm used to my iPad Pro.

00:43:11 ◼   ► I agree with Dieter, like you can see it,

00:43:14 ◼   ► and it's not a deal breaker of a problem,

00:43:17 ◼   ► but it's there, man, it's really weird.

00:43:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, so the jelly scroll issue is,

00:43:24 ◼   ► and Dieter has, to his credit,

00:43:27 ◼   ► illustrated it with precision, with like a slow,

00:43:30 ◼   ► I tried to duplicate his slow motion video

00:43:33 ◼   ► and I couldn't get it, I was like,

00:43:35 ◼   ► I don't know how he did that,

00:43:35 ◼   ► but you can definitely see it.

00:43:37 ◼   ► So it's when you're only when you're holding it

00:43:40 ◼   ► in portrait, you would be fine if it was in landscape,

00:43:44 ◼   ► 'cause you're never really holding iPad mini in landscape,

00:43:47 ◼   ► right, but in portrait, you can see it.

00:43:50 ◼   ► - And it is, it's a funny thing where

00:43:53 ◼   ► the way that Apple arranges,

00:43:58 ◼   ► the camera placement in particular suggests

00:44:02 ◼   ► that even now in 2021, the one true orientation

00:44:07 ◼   ► for an iPad is portrait,

00:44:09 ◼   ► because that's where the FaceTime camera is.

00:44:12 ◼   ► And it's a bit weird because they sell these

00:44:16 ◼   ► seemingly very popular turn your iPad into a laptop,

00:44:21 ◼   ► keyboard covers of, you know, ones with trackpads,

00:44:24 ◼   ► simpler ones that are just a keyboard without a trackpad,

00:44:27 ◼   ► which also is how a lot of people do their Zoom calls

00:44:33 ◼   ► and Skype calls and FaceTime calls

00:44:37 ◼   ► and whatever else they're using for work,

00:44:39 ◼   ► which is a big deal, I don't know if you've heard,

00:44:41 ◼   ► it's become a big deal over the last year and a half,

00:44:46 ◼   ► they do it in laptop orientation,

00:44:48 ◼   ► and it's really weird having your camera over there

00:44:52 ◼   ► if you're in landscape.

00:44:55 ◼   ► And, but I also think that there's a sort of,

00:44:59 ◼   ► I think this day, I could be talking out of turn

00:45:01 ◼   ► or misremembering, but I think it dates back

00:45:03 ◼   ► to the original iPad all the way back in 2010,

00:45:08 ◼   ► where there were rumors, and I've spoken to people at Apple,

00:45:13 ◼   ► it's true that they actually considered shipping it

00:45:17 ◼   ► with two 30-port, 30-pin,

00:45:21 ◼   ► the old pre-lightning, goofy port.

00:45:24 ◼   ► - There's prototypes for that.

00:45:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've seen the prototypes,

00:45:26 ◼   ► and I've spoken to people at Apple who said,

00:45:28 ◼   ► we came really close to shipping it,

00:45:30 ◼   ► and at the very end, Steve Jobs was just like,

00:45:34 ◼   ► this is too, it's, having two ports is too ugly,

00:45:39 ◼   ► pick one, and walked out of the room,

00:45:41 ◼   ► and they're like, ah, we gotta pick one.

00:45:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:45:44 ◼   ► But really, it was like, it may be if Steve Jobs

00:45:46 ◼   ► had been in a different mood on one particular day,

00:45:50 ◼   ► that the iPad might have had ports on both sides

00:45:53 ◼   ► and supported it, but from a developer's perspective,

00:45:57 ◼   ► the orientation was, the true orientation

00:46:00 ◼   ► at the developer level was landscape,

00:46:03 ◼   ► and the fact that they made it seem like Portrait

00:46:08 ◼   ► was the true thing was always sort of moving it,

00:46:11 ◼   ► turning it 90 degrees, and I think that maybe

00:46:14 ◼   ► that's what we're seeing with the iPad,

00:46:15 ◼   ► this new iPad Mini, right, where it's in landscape

00:46:18 ◼   ► and it never has any issue, nobody can complain

00:46:21 ◼   ► about the scrolling, because that's the one true orientation

00:46:25 ◼   ► for the display, and Portrait is sort of a secondary mode,

00:46:30 ◼   ► and of course, the OS supports it.

00:46:32 ◼   ► I think you can even, now they even do a better job

00:46:34 ◼   ► of letting you turn it completely upside down

00:46:37 ◼   ► and put the lightning port sticking up and it still works,

00:46:40 ◼   ► but I don't see the scrolling issue,

00:46:43 ◼   ► and my son, who's 17, has really good eyesight,

00:46:48 ◼   ► is very, very picky about things like frame rate,

00:46:51 ◼   ► like actually prefers using an iPad to his MacBook Air

00:46:56 ◼   ► because of the 120 hertz frame rate.

00:47:02 ◼   ► He sees it, he perceives it, he really likes it.

00:47:05 ◼   ► Even he thought when I showed him the Mini,

00:47:09 ◼   ► he was like, "Ah, I guess I see it, I don't really care."

00:47:12 ◼   ► You know, what he really cares about is the fact

00:47:15 ◼   ► that it's only 60 hertz, right?

00:47:17 ◼   ► He's like, "That's the issue, is that it's,

00:47:19 ◼   ► "I can see that it's only 60 hertz.

00:47:21 ◼   ► "The jelly part is, I don't know,

00:47:25 ◼   ► "I don't know what the negative version

00:47:27 ◼   ► "of icing on the cake is."

00:47:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:47:30 ◼   ► - You know, it's interesting, Dieter and I obviously

00:47:32 ◼   ► review a lot of products together,

00:47:32 ◼   ► we're always talking to each other,

00:47:35 ◼   ► we're working on something else right now,

00:47:37 ◼   ► and it is just really obvious to me

00:47:39 ◼   ► that he is really sensitive to motion,

00:47:42 ◼   ► like he really cares about 120 hertz,

00:47:44 ◼   ► he cares about that scroll stuff,

00:47:46 ◼   ► and I am wildly sensitive to color, saturation,

00:47:50 ◼   ► to off-axis shifts of brightness, right?

00:47:54 ◼   ► There's a lot of bad panels out there

00:47:56 ◼   ► where when you go off-axis, they drop in brightness,

00:47:59 ◼   ► and for things you hold in your hand,

00:48:00 ◼   ► you're kind of always off-axis.

00:48:02 ◼   ► So I see that as a shimmer, right?

00:48:05 ◼   ► Like I just see the display flickering at me,

00:48:07 ◼   ► because my hand is moving a little bit,

00:48:09 ◼   ► and I'm like, "Look at this!"

00:48:10 ◼   ► And he's like, "What are you talking about?"

00:48:11 ◼   ► And then he's like, "Man, 120 hertz, I can get back."

00:48:14 ◼   ► I'm like, "I don't know, man, I can sorta see it."

00:48:17 ◼   ► And that, I think that's the whole problem.

00:48:20 ◼   ► It is impossible to communicate this stuff,

00:48:22 ◼   ► it is very hard to take videos or photos of screens

00:48:26 ◼   ► that you perceive with your eyes.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Now you're leaping through some camera sensor

00:48:31 ◼   ► that's gonna do something weird,

00:48:33 ◼   ► through some JPEG compression

00:48:35 ◼   ► that's gonna do something weird,

00:48:37 ◼   ► through Twitter just destroying a photo with its compression.

00:48:41 ◼   ► You're making all these steps,

00:48:43 ◼   ► and then you're like, "Look at this thing

00:48:44 ◼   ► that I perceive with my eyes,"

00:48:45 ◼   ► and there's almost no way to communicate it.

00:48:47 ◼   ► And then on top of that,

00:48:48 ◼   ► different people care about wildly different aspects

00:48:51 ◼   ► of display quality.

00:48:53 ◼   ► And so to me, it's like, yeah, the motion is a thing,

00:48:56 ◼   ► but if you're a Samsung phone out of the box

00:48:59 ◼   ► and it's wildly oversaturated,

00:49:01 ◼   ► I'm just like, "I can't even look at this."

00:49:05 ◼   ► - I think my eyes are a lot like yours.

00:49:09 ◼   ► The motion stuff never has bothered me as much.

00:49:12 ◼   ► I like the fact that the phone has the true,

00:49:16 ◼   ► what do I call it, true motion?

00:49:17 ◼   ► No.

00:49:18 ◼   ► - Promotion. - Promotion, right.

00:49:21 ◼   ► 'Cause I knew it was, without the camel case,

00:49:25 ◼   ► it's indistinguishable from the word promotion.

00:49:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:49:31 ◼   ► I can kind of see it.

00:49:33 ◼   ► To me, the big benefit is that it clearly seems

00:49:37 ◼   ► to extend battery life when you're watching

00:49:39 ◼   ► 30 frames per second or 24 frames per second video

00:49:41 ◼   ► because it drops the refresh rate of the display to match,

00:49:45 ◼   ► and it really seems to extend battery life.

00:49:46 ◼   ► The fact that it goes above 60, I can kind of see it,

00:49:49 ◼   ► but I don't care 'cause I'm still,

00:49:51 ◼   ► like you could read a scrolling article

00:49:55 ◼   ► as you're scrolling it now,

00:49:56 ◼   ► but I don't read that way anyway.

00:49:57 ◼   ► I scroll first and then I go back to reading.

00:50:00 ◼   ► So I don't care.

00:50:00 ◼   ► I'm like you, I see the color,

00:50:02 ◼   ► and in the early days of Android phones going OLED

00:50:06 ◼   ► when they were super oversaturated,

00:50:08 ◼   ► I'd be like, you don't see this?

00:50:10 ◼   ► And some people would be like,

00:50:11 ◼   ► I don't know what you're talking about.

00:50:12 ◼   ► I'm like, look at this. - And some people would be

00:50:14 ◼   ► like, I do see it and I love it.

00:50:15 ◼   ► - Right, or right, right, vice versa, right?

00:50:18 ◼   ► Where you'd be like, look at this guy's red shirt.

00:50:20 ◼   ► It's like burning your eyeballs.

00:50:22 ◼   ► And they'd be like, yeah, that's awesome.

00:50:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:26 ◼   ► - Burn me.

00:50:27 ◼   ► I mean, that's like every TV ships with insane settings

00:50:31 ◼   ► because they know that's what people,

00:50:33 ◼   ► people will always pick brighter

00:50:34 ◼   ► and they will always pick louder.

00:50:36 ◼   ► - Or people don't care at all.

00:50:38 ◼   ► Or people don't care at all.

00:50:39 ◼   ► So why not turn up the brightness

00:50:40 ◼   ► because the people who don't care will buy it anyway

00:50:43 ◼   ► and the people who are attracted to it,

00:50:44 ◼   ► like moths to a light bulb,

00:50:46 ◼   ► are gonna be like, give me that TV.

00:50:49 ◼   ► I want the one where everybody looks like they're radioactive.

00:50:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I just,

00:50:54 ◼   ► there's like an element to, you know,

00:50:58 ◼   ► I'm thinking about what you're saying

00:50:59 ◼   ► about the one true orientation in the iPad.

00:51:00 ◼   ► Like they're way past that, right?

00:51:02 ◼   ► They know the iPad mini.

00:51:04 ◼   ► Like they're making their own marketing materials

00:51:06 ◼   ► showing the mini in portrait all the time.

00:51:09 ◼   ► And like using a mini in landscape

00:51:12 ◼   ► is like a challenging project

00:51:14 ◼   ► unless you're playing a game.

00:51:16 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like that screen is small.

00:51:17 ◼   ► iPad OS to its credit supports it well,

00:51:21 ◼   ► but it's still like,

00:51:23 ◼   ► there's like weirdness still

00:51:24 ◼   ► 'cause it's a much smaller display

00:51:26 ◼   ► as the rest of the iPads have gotten bigger

00:51:27 ◼   ► and bigger and bigger.

00:51:28 ◼   ► They know it's in portrait.

00:51:31 ◼   ► I don't, I think that this is like a packaging question

00:51:35 ◼   ► that they kind of just didn't think people would notice

00:51:37 ◼   ► and we definitely noticed.

00:51:38 ◼   ► But yeah, I agree with Dieter.

00:51:40 ◼   ► It's not the end of the world, but I am not,

00:51:42 ◼   ► as I've been saying, I'm not as sensitive to motion.

00:51:45 ◼   ► - I wonder too, and it's so hard to say,

00:51:49 ◼   ► but I wonder is it a coincidence or not

00:51:53 ◼   ► that this iPad mini was almost certainly developed

00:51:57 ◼   ► largely in the COVID era?

00:52:00 ◼   ► And did it mean that fewer people saw,

00:52:03 ◼   ► it was exposed to fewer people?

00:52:05 ◼   ► And if whatever the percentage of people who care,

00:52:08 ◼   ► and let's just say that everybody who works at Apple

00:52:11 ◼   ► and would see prototype iPads in development

00:52:15 ◼   ► care about details,

00:52:17 ◼   ► that not enough people saw it for them

00:52:19 ◼   ► to hit the minority of people who see this jelly scrolling

00:52:24 ◼   ► and are like sickened by it.

00:52:27 ◼   ► I wonder.

00:52:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:52:30 ◼   ► I mean, maybe this is why Apple wants everybody

00:52:32 ◼   ► back in the office.

00:52:32 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:52:33 ◼   ► - Right?

00:52:34 ◼   ► But you have to know, I mean like,

00:52:37 ◼   ► we put the display controller over here

00:52:39 ◼   ► so that side of the display will update later.

00:52:42 ◼   ► I mean, that's just like well-known.

00:52:45 ◼   ► - Right.

00:52:46 ◼   ► - Right, that's a design trade-off

00:52:47 ◼   ► that you know you're walking into, like from the jump.

00:52:51 ◼   ► - But if you do it and then you show it to 20 people

00:52:54 ◼   ► and all 20 people that are like,

00:52:56 ◼   ► yeah, that looks fine to me,

00:52:58 ◼   ► which is what I think when I look at the iPad mini

00:53:01 ◼   ► review unit that I still have up in my kitchen,

00:53:03 ◼   ► I still, every couple of days think like,

00:53:05 ◼   ► huh, let me try it on this page and scroll

00:53:07 ◼   ► and I don't see it.

00:53:09 ◼   ► But I don't, it's just like you were saying

00:53:13 ◼   ► a couple of minutes ago.

00:53:14 ◼   ► I don't doubt the people who see it and find it disgusting

00:53:17 ◼   ► or revolting or that it makes the,

00:53:20 ◼   ► actually gives them like a bit of motion sickness

00:53:22 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:53:23 ◼   ► I don't dispute that just because I don't see it.

00:53:25 ◼   ► 'Cause I know that I see things sometimes

00:53:27 ◼   ► that other people don't see.

00:53:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, or maybe it's as simple as,

00:53:32 ◼   ► look, most of the popular apps or pilots

00:53:35 ◼   ► are single screens and you can scroll a lot

00:53:36 ◼   ► and they know that's the market.

00:53:39 ◼   ► There's a million ways you make this decision.

00:53:41 ◼   ► I just, I've come to the conclusion,

00:53:44 ◼   ► especially with the big tech companies

00:53:46 ◼   ► and the products that make a lot of money

00:53:48 ◼   ► for those big tech companies,

00:53:49 ◼   ► there are no accidents, right?

00:53:51 ◼   ► Like, yeah, this is, you know,

00:53:53 ◼   ► not to plug my own show, but like I spend all

00:53:56 ◼   ► of Decoder as me asking people how to make decisions.

00:53:58 ◼   ► Like, how do you make these trade-offs?

00:54:01 ◼   ► And no one ever says we were surprised

00:54:05 ◼   ► by a trade-off we saw coming.

00:54:07 ◼   ► They all say this is, we saw it coming

00:54:09 ◼   ► and there were two right answers

00:54:10 ◼   ► and we picked the one that we thought

00:54:11 ◼   ► was slightly more right.

00:54:12 ◼   ► And I mean, in a case like this,

00:54:14 ◼   ► Apple's really good at displays.

00:54:16 ◼   ► Like, I still think they're the best company

00:54:18 ◼   ► when it comes to just overall display quality.

00:54:21 ◼   ► And I think a decision like this, they know.

00:54:23 ◼   ► They knew from the beginning

00:54:25 ◼   ► and I think they thought the trade-off was worth it

00:54:27 ◼   ► and I think people probably have to,

00:54:28 ◼   ► like you're saying with the colors,

00:54:29 ◼   ► you gotta go see it for yourself,

00:54:31 ◼   ► but on balance, it's not like a deal breaker.

00:54:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and like the Mini and the iPad Air exist

00:54:39 ◼   ► in a weird mid-range zone

00:54:42 ◼   ► that Apple doesn't typically have, right?

00:54:45 ◼   ► They're not the $329 entry model iPad,

00:54:50 ◼   ► which to me was so interesting

00:54:53 ◼   ► how they emphasized over and over and over and over,

00:54:56 ◼   ► like ad nauseum last month,

00:54:59 ◼   ► that it's their best-selling model, best-selling model.

00:55:02 ◼   ► And it seemed curious to me that they kept saying

00:55:04 ◼   ► that it was their best-selling iPad

00:55:05 ◼   ► because it is the cheapest, you know?

00:55:07 ◼   ► Like for some reason though,

00:55:09 ◼   ► they want everybody to know

00:55:10 ◼   ► that that's their best-selling model.

00:55:12 ◼   ► - You know, that's because of Chromebooks.

00:55:16 ◼   ► - I guess, right?

00:55:17 ◼   ► - Right, there's the iPad Pro at the top

00:55:21 ◼   ► competes with Windows laptops, right?

00:55:24 ◼   ► - Right.

00:55:25 ◼   ► - At the bottom, it's Chromebooks

00:55:27 ◼   ► and they need people to know

00:55:28 ◼   ► that they are putting up not only a fight,

00:55:31 ◼   ► but sometimes winning the fight against Chromebooks

00:55:34 ◼   ► because man, we have done so much coverage of education

00:55:39 ◼   ► in the pandemic and like Chromebooks are dominant

00:55:42 ◼   ► to a point where they are changing

00:55:45 ◼   ► how kids think about computers as a whole, right?

00:55:48 ◼   ► Did you see our story about files and folders?

00:55:50 ◼   ► - Yep, I did, I love that.

00:55:51 ◼   ► - Like that is a story about Google,

00:55:53 ◼   ► that is a story about Google Docs.

00:55:56 ◼   ► You know, there's a story about Apple,

00:55:58 ◼   ► Apple also abstracts the file system,

00:55:59 ◼   ► but you kind of like dig into it.

00:56:01 ◼   ► You're like, oh, these kids have,

00:56:02 ◼   ► they all get Chromebooks when they show up in school.

00:56:04 ◼   ► Like it is a pretty universal experience now.

00:56:08 ◼   ► They all get Google accounts and Apple needs to like win

00:56:11 ◼   ► because otherwise you're living a life with Google

00:56:14 ◼   ► for the rest of your life.

00:56:16 ◼   ► - I thought that the story, I will,

00:56:19 ◼   ► I'm making a note right now,

00:56:21 ◼   ► I will get it into the show notes

00:56:22 ◼   ► because it was a great story.

00:56:23 ◼   ► But the gist of it is that there's an entire generation now

00:56:27 ◼   ► that largely doesn't understand

00:56:29 ◼   ► how to use a hierarchical file system.

00:56:33 ◼   ► And they don't really think about their,

00:56:36 ◼   ► they don't really think about files as files

00:56:39 ◼   ► the way that people who grew up in an earlier time had to,

00:56:44 ◼   ► whether they were computer enthusiasts or not, you know,

00:56:46 ◼   ► like just go back to the floppy era, right?

00:56:50 ◼   ► With floppy net, like when, you know,

00:56:51 ◼   ► if you remember using computers in the '90s

00:56:55 ◼   ► when most computers weren't connected to each other

00:56:57 ◼   ► by any kind of network to get a file

00:56:59 ◼   ► from computer A to computer B, put it on a floppy disk,

00:57:04 ◼   ► take the floppy disk over, put it in the other computer

00:57:06 ◼   ► and then move the file from the floppy disk

00:57:08 ◼   ► to the computer's hard drive.

00:57:10 ◼   ► You had to, you know,

00:57:12 ◼   ► even that level of understanding of it,

00:57:14 ◼   ► it doesn't even make sense to kids today,

00:57:16 ◼   ► which is really interesting.

00:57:17 ◼   ► - Well, I think about, you know, Apple,

00:57:20 ◼   ► like Macs didn't have search,

00:57:22 ◼   ► Windows PCs didn't have search.

00:57:24 ◼   ► The primary method that we all use computers with now

00:57:28 ◼   ► is search, like I launch every app on my Mac with Spotlight.

00:57:32 ◼   ► It's just what I do.

00:57:33 ◼   ► It's the Docker Spotlight all day long.

00:57:36 ◼   ► I launch almost every app on my phone with Spotlight now,

00:57:39 ◼   ► which is a really weird thing to think about.

00:57:41 ◼   ► The idea that I need to know

00:57:42 ◼   ► where any of this thing is in storage is gone.

00:57:45 ◼   ► Now, I grew up in the same area as you.

00:57:47 ◼   ► I had, I actually had zip disks.

00:57:49 ◼   ► I had one zip disk for work, for school stuff.

00:57:52 ◼   ► I had one zip disk for like random creative stuff.

00:57:56 ◼   ► Like, yeah, I needed to know where stuff was.

00:57:59 ◼   ► But like if you're a kid now,

00:58:01 ◼   ► there's almost no reason for you to know

00:58:04 ◼   ► how your file's organized.

00:58:05 ◼   ► So our story was once you enter

00:58:08 ◼   ► higher level STEM classes in college,

00:58:11 ◼   ► you're generating an awful lot of data,

00:58:13 ◼   ► that data is in files,

00:58:14 ◼   ► and all these college professors are realizing

00:58:17 ◼   ► they have to do like,

00:58:19 ◼   ► here's how a directory structure works

00:58:21 ◼   ► so the kids can do their homework in college,

00:58:25 ◼   ► which is just wild to think about.

00:58:27 ◼   ► And it's been going on for years,

00:58:29 ◼   ► and they can kind of trace it to,

00:58:31 ◼   ► in our story, you can trace it to the advent

00:58:34 ◼   ► of the iPad and the Chromebook,

00:58:36 ◼   ► because that's the moment when file systems

00:58:38 ◼   ► are just like fully abstracted away.

00:58:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, and not just the iPad, the iPhone, right?

00:58:43 ◼   ► I mean, because the iPhone,

00:58:45 ◼   ► I think even got the Files app later than iPad,

00:58:48 ◼   ► or if it did, it was less of a big deal, right?

00:58:51 ◼   ► And even the Files app,

00:58:54 ◼   ► which lets you file stuff away hierarchically,

00:58:57 ◼   ► still sort of defaults to a recent files view,

00:59:01 ◼   ► where it just shows you any of the recent files

00:59:03 ◼   ► that you've accessed from anywhere.

00:59:05 ◼   ► And it sort of gets to outlining

00:59:10 ◼   ► and using a real outliner,

00:59:12 ◼   ► not just like the outline mode in Microsoft Word

00:59:15 ◼   ► or Apple Notes, where if you start making bullet points,

00:59:18 ◼   ► you get like automatic indentation,

00:59:20 ◼   ► but a true outliner with flippy widgets

00:59:22 ◼   ► where you can collapse parts of the outline

00:59:25 ◼   ► and think in terms of major topics, minor topics,

00:59:30 ◼   ► here's the actual content within the minor topic

00:59:34 ◼   ► three levels in, and that's, you know,

00:59:36 ◼   ► if your files are actually well-organized,

00:59:38 ◼   ► or even somewhat well-organized,

00:59:40 ◼   ► that's how you have your files structured.

00:59:42 ◼   ► And that kids just, they just don't even think like that now.

00:59:46 ◼   ► It just doesn't even occur.

00:59:47 ◼   ► It's not that they're, they're not dumb.

00:59:50 ◼   ► They just have never thought to do it.

00:59:52 ◼   ► Their stuff is all just there,

00:59:53 ◼   ► and you just search the name of it, and it comes up.

00:59:57 ◼   ► - So Monica Chin wrote this story for us.

00:59:58 ◼   ► She did a great job.

00:59:59 ◼   ► When I pitched her the story, I was like,

01:00:02 ◼   ► I'm looking up, you know, there's like a half-viral thread

01:00:05 ◼   ► from a professor on Twitter.

01:00:07 ◼   ► I was like, you should chase it.

01:00:07 ◼   ► This is really interesting.

01:00:08 ◼   ► And she's like, I don't use directory structure.

01:00:11 ◼   ► She's much younger than me.

01:00:12 ◼   ► So she was perfect to write it.

01:00:14 ◼   ► But in the story, which I hope people read,

01:00:16 ◼   ► she says all these professors can point specifically

01:00:19 ◼   ► to 2017, and it started happening.

01:00:22 ◼   ► And she's like, most of 2017 scholars, freshmen,

01:00:25 ◼   ► were born in the late '90s.

01:00:26 ◼   ► They were in elementary school, and they often came out.

01:00:28 ◼   ► They are around the same age as Google.

01:00:29 ◼   ► So they have never experienced a world of computers

01:00:33 ◼   ► that doesn't have search

01:00:35 ◼   ► and hasn't abstracted the file system away.

01:00:37 ◼   ► So their mental models for how computers work

01:00:40 ◼   ► are entirely search-based.

01:00:41 ◼   ► There was actually someone,

01:00:44 ◼   ► I apologize for not remembering who it was,

01:00:47 ◼   ► but somebody who worked on Bertrand Cerlet's team at Apple

01:00:51 ◼   ► in the very beginning said, like,

01:00:53 ◼   ► Bertrand Cerlet was hot, like, hot

01:00:56 ◼   ► that this was the future, that search was the future.

01:00:58 ◼   ► And there's a great video of Steve Jobs actually demoing

01:01:01 ◼   ► Spotlight to Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher

01:01:04 ◼   ► at an early D conference.

01:01:05 ◼   ► And he's like, why is the face of our computer the finder?

01:01:08 ◼   ► The second we start trying to explain the finder to people,

01:01:11 ◼   ► the learning curve goes up.

01:01:12 ◼   ► So we're just gonna make it all search.

01:01:14 ◼   ► And there's like a direct line from that to now.

01:01:18 ◼   ► - It is, and the irony, of course, as a long-time user,

01:01:21 ◼   ► it goes without saying,

01:01:22 ◼   ► is that the name of the Mac file manager

01:01:24 ◼   ► has always been finder,

01:01:26 ◼   ► and literally lacked a find files command

01:01:30 ◼   ► until like some point in system eight,

01:01:32 ◼   ► you know, like 13, 14 years into the platform's life

01:01:36 ◼   ► did it have like built-in file search

01:01:38 ◼   ► that was actually useful, which is ridiculous.

01:01:42 ◼   ► Like you did.

01:01:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:01:45 ◼   ► The assumption was that you were so familiar

01:01:47 ◼   ► with how your files were organized

01:01:48 ◼   ► that you wouldn't need to actually search for them.

01:01:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, it boggled my mind.

01:01:53 ◼   ► - Yet the name was called finder.

01:01:55 ◼   ► - I think it's really interesting, right?

01:01:58 ◼   ► They're much better at, like, you know,

01:02:00 ◼   ► college students are much better at doing things

01:02:02 ◼   ► with computers in some ways than I will ever be,

01:02:05 ◼   ► or people of my generation will ever be.

01:02:07 ◼   ► Like the idea that, you know,

01:02:09 ◼   ► like TikTok is like a video native communication system.

01:02:12 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:02:13 ◼   ► - And like, that is, I have to make my brain

01:02:17 ◼   ► not think about Adobe Premiere when I look at TikTok

01:02:20 ◼   ► and how it is made.

01:02:22 ◼   ► Like that is how my understanding

01:02:25 ◼   ► of how video is created is like,

01:02:28 ◼   ► there's a timeline and you layer things in the timeline

01:02:30 ◼   ► and that is Premiere, and to some extent that is iMovie,

01:02:33 ◼   ► and that's Final Cut, and then TikTok is like,

01:02:35 ◼   ► no, it's just a bunch of weird, crazy AI stuff.

01:02:38 ◼   ► And like, you think about these models

01:02:41 ◼   ► and these metaphors we use,

01:02:42 ◼   ► and it's fascinating to think about what I have prioritized

01:02:46 ◼   ► and what, if you have none of this baggage,

01:02:48 ◼   ► what you will prioritize.

01:02:49 ◼   ► - And yet, I'm with you, where I can't really think

01:02:53 ◼   ► in terms of the TikTok editing interface,

01:02:55 ◼   ► it doesn't really make sense to me,

01:02:57 ◼   ► but I totally see and am fascinated by the fact

01:03:01 ◼   ► that this entire generation intuitively,

01:03:05 ◼   ► without any formal training at all,

01:03:07 ◼   ► just speaks the language of cinema.

01:03:10 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:03:11 ◼   ► - And edits.

01:03:13 ◼   ► And I grew up in an era when everybody,

01:03:17 ◼   ► when I was a kid, wanted to watch as much TV

01:03:20 ◼   ► as their parents would possibly allow.

01:03:21 ◼   ► And we love going to movies,

01:03:23 ◼   ► and video is just a super compelling format,

01:03:26 ◼   ► it always has been, even when your best option

01:03:31 ◼   ► at four o'clock in the afternoon is Brady Bunch reruns

01:03:34 ◼   ► that you've already seen,

01:03:36 ◼   ► and it's a show that kinda sucked anyway

01:03:38 ◼   ► and is chock full of nine minutes of commercials

01:03:42 ◼   ► for every half hour that you can't skip or fast forward,

01:03:46 ◼   ► you'd still just sit there and watch it.

01:03:47 ◼   ► But it's like, my generation didn't intuitively learn

01:03:51 ◼   ► to think about cuts and editing and closeups and long shots

01:03:56 ◼   ► and the way that you can bring about a humorous moment

01:04:00 ◼   ► or a punchline through editing,

01:04:02 ◼   ► whereas that's all TikTok is.

01:04:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I--

01:04:05 ◼   ► - Right, what is that?

01:04:06 ◼   ► - It is, it's easy to not think hard

01:04:10 ◼   ► about what you're consuming.

01:04:11 ◼   ► It is even easier to think really hard

01:04:14 ◼   ► about what you're making.

01:04:15 ◼   ► And so that, to me, is like, yep, that's the promise.

01:04:18 ◼   ► There was some great quote when iMovie first came out.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Like Steve Jobs enlisted Scorsese or,

01:04:27 ◼   ► with some famous director, Spielberg,

01:04:29 ◼   ► it was somewhere in that zone,

01:04:31 ◼   ► and they were like, this is the tool

01:04:33 ◼   ► that's gonna make the kids destroy me.

01:04:35 ◼   ► I don't know if that's happened, right?

01:04:37 ◼   ► It is definitely true in many ways, right?

01:04:39 ◼   ► But you just draw a line from there,

01:04:42 ◼   ► iMovie coming out with FireWire

01:04:44 ◼   ► and eight millimeter cameras and all that.

01:04:47 ◼   ► I spent a lot of time downloading video

01:04:51 ◼   ► off an eight millimeter,

01:04:52 ◼   ► remember those tiny eight millimeter tapes,

01:04:54 ◼   ► over FireWire to my Mac?

01:04:55 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, there was Super 8 and then High 8.

01:05:00 ◼   ► - It was High 8, that's what it was.

01:05:03 ◼   ► - High 8.

01:05:04 ◼   ► - Now we're just like dating ourselves.

01:05:06 ◼   ► But anyway, but you draw a line from that to

01:05:09 ◼   ► every kid speaks the language of video

01:05:11 ◼   ► in editing in that way,

01:05:12 ◼   ► and that's exactly what they were talking about back then.

01:05:13 ◼   ► Like just democratizing creation.

01:05:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I took a course in college,

01:05:17 ◼   ► this would be like 1995, '96,

01:05:20 ◼   ► and what was the name of the editing program?

01:05:24 ◼   ► I think they effectively disappeared.

01:05:26 ◼   ► It was, they were Avid's arch rival at the time.

01:05:29 ◼   ► - Oh, I have no idea.

01:05:31 ◼   ► - Well, whatever it was.

01:05:32 ◼   ► It worked, it was cool.

01:05:34 ◼   ► It had a really cool Mac user interface,

01:05:36 ◼   ► you know, like the way that audio software

01:05:38 ◼   ► and video editing software has always sort of been

01:05:41 ◼   ► at the forward edge of like just cool sci-fi

01:05:45 ◼   ► futuristic looking user interface design.

01:05:47 ◼   ► But it would crash every 90 seconds,

01:05:50 ◼   ► and it was fine because you would, you know,

01:05:52 ◼   ► and they knew it was gonna crash,

01:05:54 ◼   ► but you never lost data, right?

01:05:56 ◼   ► It was like they were always, you know,

01:05:57 ◼   ► like you'd be moving tracks along your timeline

01:06:00 ◼   ► and then the app would crash

01:06:01 ◼   ► and you'd wait for it to relaunch,

01:06:04 ◼   ► and it would take a while

01:06:04 ◼   ► 'cause it was the 90s and computers were slow.

01:06:06 ◼   ► But then you'd be right back where you were

01:06:08 ◼   ► and you just accepted it because it was amazing

01:06:10 ◼   ► because you were doing nonlinear video editing, you know?

01:06:14 ◼   ► You didn't have to cut pieces of film

01:06:16 ◼   ► and splice them together with tape.

01:06:18 ◼   ► You were actually able to like make an edit, watch it,

01:06:22 ◼   ► and say, "No, actually, you know,

01:06:23 ◼   ► "maybe we should go like half a second later," you know?

01:06:26 ◼   ► And then it was totally non-destructive

01:06:28 ◼   ► and it was mind-blowing, and then it would crash

01:06:30 ◼   ► and you'd relaunch it and go on to the next one.

01:06:35 ◼   ► - It's funny, speaking of TikTok,

01:06:36 ◼   ► I saw a great TikTok the other day.

01:06:37 ◼   ► I have an old school audio engineer

01:06:40 ◼   ► and he was demonstrating how to do it,

01:06:43 ◼   ► an old school tape splice, where he's like,

01:06:46 ◼   ► "We wanna make this drum intro shorter,

01:06:49 ◼   ► "so I'm gonna wind the tape past the playhead,

01:06:52 ◼   ► "I'm gonna cut it, and I'm gonna tape

01:06:55 ◼   ► "in another piece of tape."

01:06:56 ◼   ► And did you even hear the splice?

01:06:58 ◼   ► And all the comments are obviously TikTok people being like,

01:07:02 ◼   ► "Are you kidding?

01:07:03 ◼   ► "Why didn't you just use a computer?"

01:07:06 ◼   ► And he's like, "No, we couldn't.

01:07:07 ◼   ► "This was a very manual process."

01:07:09 ◼   ► - I actually did that 'cause in college, I took a course.

01:07:13 ◼   ► That's where I confused Hi8.

01:07:15 ◼   ► It was, Super 8 was the actual film.

01:07:18 ◼   ► Super 8, you would shoot on film

01:07:20 ◼   ► and it didn't even have sound, but it was amazing.

01:07:23 ◼   ► But I've got like home movies of me from the '70s

01:07:26 ◼   ► when I was a toddler that my uncle shot

01:07:29 ◼   ► 'cause he was the one I got the nerd gene from.

01:07:33 ◼   ► But he had a Super 8 camera.

01:07:34 ◼   ► But in college, it was like at the cusp,

01:07:37 ◼   ► or a second course, we did video and non-linear editing.

01:07:41 ◼   ► But I took a course where we shot short films

01:07:43 ◼   ► using actual Super 8 video

01:07:46 ◼   ► and had to splice 'em together that way.

01:07:48 ◼   ► You'd make actual cuts and then use

01:07:50 ◼   ► a high-grade scotch tape that would splice 'em together.

01:07:55 ◼   ► - So I gotta ask you in the midst of this conversation,

01:07:59 ◼   ► how are you feeling about cinematic mode on the 13s?

01:08:02 ◼   ► - I can't get impressive results out of it,

01:08:06 ◼   ► but I've seen enough footage from people who are talented.

01:08:10 ◼   ► That movie, what was it called that I linked to?

01:08:13 ◼   ► It was awesome.

01:08:15 ◼   ► It was an incredible short movie that was shot with it.

01:08:17 ◼   ► And I've seen a couple of other YouTubers,

01:08:20 ◼   ► and I really value the YouTuber's perspective

01:08:22 ◼   ► 'cause they know way more about video.

01:08:24 ◼   ► They forget more about video than I'll ever know.

01:08:27 ◼   ► And they're pretty positive about it.

01:08:29 ◼   ► And I also think that the ones who I think get it

01:08:31 ◼   ► and see where Apple's going also emphasize,

01:08:34 ◼   ► I've seen several YouTubers emphasize,

01:08:36 ◼   ► if you're watching it on a phone,

01:08:38 ◼   ► you don't see the problems with it.

01:08:41 ◼   ► It just looks cool.

01:08:42 ◼   ► And that's where most people watch this stuff.

01:08:45 ◼   ► So I'm bullish on,

01:08:48 ◼   ► I'm more bullish on cinematic mode

01:08:52 ◼   ► at its debut right now than I was about portrait mode

01:08:56 ◼   ► for still photography five or six years ago

01:08:59 ◼   ► when they first introduced it.

01:09:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would say last year with the 12

01:09:04 ◼   ► is when they got me with portrait mode on the phone

01:09:06 ◼   ► for the stills.

01:09:08 ◼   ► And I was like, I'm just gonna start using this.

01:09:10 ◼   ► And what I actually noticed was my wife started using a lot,

01:09:13 ◼   ► which is fascinating, right?

01:09:15 ◼   ► They got real close.

01:09:16 ◼   ► It can be weird in some places,

01:09:19 ◼   ► but on balance, it looks really good.

01:09:20 ◼   ► I like using it.

01:09:22 ◼   ► - You know, every video I've seen of cinematic mode

01:09:24 ◼   ► looking good, it's from people who own lights.

01:09:28 ◼   ► And I think this is like the gap for me.

01:09:34 ◼   ► If you give me a light kit, I can make any camera look good.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Right, like that.

01:09:39 ◼   ► And this to me is like,

01:09:41 ◼   ► I pulled this phone out of the box

01:09:44 ◼   ► and I went and used cinematic mode.

01:09:46 ◼   ► And the first thing it said to me

01:09:47 ◼   ► was there's not enough light in this room.

01:09:49 ◼   ► And I was like, it's the middle of the day, right?

01:09:51 ◼   ► Yep, I was like downstairs.

01:09:53 ◼   ► I was like near a window, but not like next to the window.

01:09:55 ◼   ► But it was just not a situation where I expected a camera

01:09:59 ◼   ► to tell me there wasn't enough light, you know?

01:10:00 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:10:02 ◼   ► - And that to me is, yep, I can make anything look good

01:10:05 ◼   ► with enough light.

01:10:07 ◼   ► I think they introduced HDR last year.

01:10:12 ◼   ► Those workflows are still pretty complicated.

01:10:14 ◼   ► You know, like a lot of people want to turn them off.

01:10:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:10:19 ◼   ► For a variety of reasons, even though I like a short video.

01:10:22 ◼   ► Like you said, most people watch this stuff on the phone,

01:10:24 ◼   ► looks on the phone.

01:10:25 ◼   ► Cinematic mode is like another set of file format

01:10:28 ◼   ► complications, right?

01:10:30 ◼   ► You can only edit it in Apple's apps.

01:10:31 ◼   ► You can only do this.

01:10:32 ◼   ► And on top of it, I just, I think it doesn't work well

01:10:34 ◼   ► unless you light it really well.

01:10:36 ◼   ► To the point where, you know,

01:10:37 ◼   ► DDR talk like Apple's ads are pretty moody.

01:10:41 ◼   ► And if you just thought you could do that

01:10:43 ◼   ► and you know, lit by it,

01:10:45 ◼   ► their, you know, their knives app parody is like,

01:10:47 ◼   ► all fire light and candles.

01:10:49 ◼   ► There's no way this thing works

01:10:50 ◼   ► if you're just lighting your fire light and candles.

01:10:52 ◼   ► - And the other one I see all the time on football games

01:10:56 ◼   ► is like an old West scene with gunslingers

01:10:59 ◼   ► in a very moodily lit, dark saloon type, you know,

01:11:04 ◼   ► typical Wild West trope.

01:11:08 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:11:09 ◼   ► And then of course at the bottom it says,

01:11:10 ◼   ► additional equipment was used.

01:11:11 ◼   ► I was like, oh, lights.

01:11:12 ◼   ► What you mean is lights.

01:11:14 ◼   ► Which is interesting.

01:11:16 ◼   ► I don't think it's unfair.

01:11:17 ◼   ► I mean, I do think, I think it's a fair thing

01:11:19 ◼   ► that they're saying we actually shot this

01:11:21 ◼   ► with an iPhone 13, you know, using our cinematic mode.

01:11:24 ◼   ► This is actual footage.

01:11:25 ◼   ► But it is different.

01:11:28 ◼   ► And I remember talking to Phil Schiller about it

01:11:30 ◼   ► multiple times where with their still photography examples

01:11:35 ◼   ► over the years, they never, it was a religious rule.

01:11:39 ◼   ► No artificial lights, you know,

01:11:42 ◼   ► that we wanna be able to say when we show this photo,

01:11:46 ◼   ► this was not post-processed, this is straight off the phone

01:11:49 ◼   ► and we didn't use artificial lights, you know.

01:11:52 ◼   ► And there would be some really, really just, you know,

01:11:57 ◼   ► every, you know, as cell phone cameras have gotten better

01:12:00 ◼   ► and the state of the art has gotten better,

01:12:01 ◼   ► there's always examples that Apple and Google

01:12:06 ◼   ► and Samsung can show shot by very talented photographers

01:12:11 ◼   ► where you're just like, it's hard to believe

01:12:13 ◼   ► that this was taken with a phone,

01:12:15 ◼   ► but Apple would not use artificial lights and rigs

01:12:18 ◼   ► and stuff like that to get them.

01:12:20 ◼   ► But, you know, they have to with cinematic mode

01:12:22 ◼   ► to get the results that they're showing.

01:12:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I can't see how you do otherwise.

01:12:26 ◼   ► You know, I'm curious about it.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I like playing with it.

01:12:28 ◼   ► I do think that if you just look at the data

01:12:33 ◼   ► that camera generates now, like the way it generates it,

01:12:37 ◼   ► with photos, you have multiple file formats

01:12:42 ◼   ► all bundled into a thing, right?

01:12:43 ◼   ► You've got live photos, which tiny video file,

01:12:47 ◼   ► you can shoot in photographic styles

01:12:49 ◼   ► and that only outputs as JPEGs,

01:12:51 ◼   ► you can't get RAWs off of that.

01:12:52 ◼   ► You've got RAW, SmartRAW from Apple.

01:12:57 ◼   ► Like there's a lot of ways to engage the camera now

01:13:00 ◼   ► just for stills.

01:13:02 ◼   ► And then now there's an increasing number of ways

01:13:04 ◼   ► to engage the video.

01:13:05 ◼   ► So you can obviously shoot regular video.

01:13:08 ◼   ► You can shoot HDR, which I think looks good on the phone,

01:13:12 ◼   ► but a lot of editors that I've talked to,

01:13:15 ◼   ► this adds complexity in ways that, you know,

01:13:18 ◼   ► it's only been a year, so industry's still dealing with it.

01:13:20 ◼   ► And now you've got cinematic mode,

01:13:23 ◼   ► which has a depth map sidecar file

01:13:27 ◼   ► that can come for the ride that only Apple's apps can read.

01:13:30 ◼   ► And one assumes people figure,

01:13:32 ◼   ► it's not even an encrypted file,

01:13:33 ◼   ► people figure it out over time.

01:13:35 ◼   ► But like, it's funny, they'll publish it

01:13:38 ◼   ► when they feel like we've stabilized the format enough

01:13:41 ◼   ► and we can publish some APIs.

01:13:43 ◼   ► 'Cause Apple's been pretty, is pretty open

01:13:46 ◼   ► about allowing, you know, wanting third-party apps

01:13:49 ◼   ► to be able to take advantage of powerful stuff.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Like the way the pro camera apps like Halide

01:13:55 ◼   ► can do things that Apple's built-in camera app can't.

01:13:58 ◼   ► I don't think that they want to be the only editing software

01:14:02 ◼   ► for cinematic mode.

01:14:03 ◼   ► I just feel like maybe it's not something

01:14:06 ◼   ► they feel is stable enough to publish or encourage.

01:14:09 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I wouldn't assign intent to that.

01:14:12 ◼   ► Like whatever, like it's new.

01:14:13 ◼   ► We asked them, they're like, we don't, it's new, right?

01:14:16 ◼   ► Like that was basically their vibe.

01:14:18 ◼   ► It wasn't, we're locking this down to make you buy,

01:14:20 ◼   ► like whatever, but I can issue those criticisms

01:14:23 ◼   ► about other thing Apple does, I would not issue it here.

01:14:25 ◼   ► But what I'm saying is,

01:14:27 ◼   ► if you're not just shooting and watching on the phone

01:14:32 ◼   ► and you're trying to get it to go somewhere else,

01:14:35 ◼   ► there's actually a surprising amount of complexity

01:14:37 ◼   ► with the phone camera now, right?

01:14:39 ◼   ► So if you shoot in HDR and you want to upload to Instagram,

01:14:43 ◼   ► you kind of don't know what's going to happen, right?

01:14:46 ◼   ► Right, like, or if you shoot cinematic mode

01:14:48 ◼   ► and you want to edit it and then send it to TikTok,

01:14:50 ◼   ► like I think a lot of people are like,

01:14:52 ◼   ► oh, TikTokers are going to love cinematic mode.

01:14:55 ◼   ► But you realize like TikTok is a video editor,

01:14:59 ◼   ► so it doesn't support cinematic mode.

01:15:01 ◼   ► So now you got to edit somewhere else and send it,

01:15:02 ◼   ► and like all of that complexity is like,

01:15:05 ◼   ► once you like think about it, it is surprising.

01:15:07 ◼   ► - What did I do?

01:15:10 ◼   ► I shot a simple little dumb video,

01:15:13 ◼   ► it wasn't supposed to be particularly polished,

01:15:15 ◼   ► but like a single take showing the line of people

01:15:18 ◼   ► outside the Apple store on iPhone day last month.

01:15:21 ◼   ► And I shot it in cinematic mode,

01:15:24 ◼   ► 'cause why not, I could kill two birds with one stone

01:15:27 ◼   ► and illustrate this big long line

01:15:29 ◼   ► and show how people waiting in line for an iPhone

01:15:32 ◼   ► is still a thing, but also give cinematic mode a test.

01:15:35 ◼   ► And when I went to upload it to Vimeo,

01:15:37 ◼   ► the cinematic mode was gone.

01:15:42 ◼   ► And I was like, what, this is crazy, I thought it was there.

01:15:44 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, I get it,

01:15:45 ◼   ► they don't speak cinematic mode.

01:15:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, you got to bake it and export it from the phone.

01:15:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I just thought, oh, that occurred to me,

01:15:56 ◼   ► that's not going to occur to normal people.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Like when your brain is like, oh,

01:16:01 ◼   ► there must be a sidecar file,

01:16:02 ◼   ► normal people are like, what's a file, right?

01:16:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, as we just said, right.

01:16:06 ◼   ► - But it's like, it's kind of stunning,

01:16:09 ◼   ► like here's this very powerful tool

01:16:11 ◼   ► that's getting more powerful and interesting in novel ways,

01:16:14 ◼   ► but like it all comes back to files and folders

01:16:18 ◼   ► and wanting to abstract that stuff

01:16:20 ◼   ► to get the true power out of it.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Whereas, you know, there's other pieces of it that are great,

01:16:24 ◼   ► like it can shoot ProRes now,

01:16:26 ◼   ► I think that's in one of the beta updates.

01:16:29 ◼   ► And you can fill a one terabyte,

01:16:31 ◼   ► I found in like five minutes shooting ProRes video on it.

01:16:34 ◼   ► - All right, hold that thought.

01:16:35 ◼   ► - That's awesome, I don't know who's going to use it,

01:16:36 ◼   ► but that's awesome.

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01:18:17 ◼   ► All right, I wanted to return to something

01:18:19 ◼   ► that you brought up a bit ago,

01:18:21 ◼   ► and that's the Lightning port.

01:18:23 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Future.

01:18:24 ◼   ► It's like Groundhog Day for writing about iPhones, right?

01:18:28 ◼   ► Because it kind of feels like we've been arguing about this.

01:18:32 ◼   ► We collectively, people who write about it,

01:18:34 ◼   ► people who have an audience,

01:18:35 ◼   ► people who have strong feelings one way or the other,

01:18:38 ◼   ► every year for a large number of years,

01:18:41 ◼   ► and it doesn't,

01:18:43 ◼   ► eventually it will come to an end.

01:18:46 ◼   ► There will eventually be an iPhone without a Lightning port.

01:18:50 ◼   ► I don't know what it will have instead.

01:18:53 ◼   ► I don't know if it's coming next year.

01:18:54 ◼   ► I don't know if it's coming five years,

01:18:56 ◼   ► but 10 years from now,

01:18:58 ◼   ► they are not gonna be selling iPhones

01:18:59 ◼   ► with this Lightning port.

01:19:02 ◼   ► I'm confident.

01:19:03 ◼   ► I'm confident 10 years. - Yeah, I feel good about that.

01:19:05 ◼   ► - But the number one most compelling argument

01:19:10 ◼   ► against the Lightning port to me is the,

01:19:15 ◼   ► the two big ones are convenience.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Like, hey, if they just added USB-C specifically,

01:19:21 ◼   ► then I could just charge my iPhone with the same thing

01:19:24 ◼   ► I charged these other things with,

01:19:27 ◼   ► which is less compelling to me.

01:19:29 ◼   ► I get it, and it is true,

01:19:31 ◼   ► and that is sort of the European Commission's argument

01:19:35 ◼   ► trying to mandate this.

01:19:37 ◼   ► But to me, the more compelling one is the,

01:19:40 ◼   ► hey, why are you letting me shoot ProRes video

01:19:43 ◼   ► and RAW photos and these things

01:19:45 ◼   ► that take up massive amounts of space,

01:19:47 ◼   ► and you're leaving me with no high-speed option

01:19:51 ◼   ► to get them off the device?

01:19:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's funny, 'cause the USB-C to Lightning exists,

01:19:57 ◼   ► but it's still pretty slow.

01:19:59 ◼   ► I think it's still like USB two or three speeds.

01:20:02 ◼   ► It's utterly confusing to me.

01:20:06 ◼   ► I would add a third one to the mix,

01:20:08 ◼   ► and I know Lightning's been around for a long time,

01:20:10 ◼   ► and people are used to it.

01:20:13 ◼   ► But Apple's own Lightning cables are notoriously shitty,

01:20:18 ◼   ► and don't last a long time. - They're terrible.

01:20:20 ◼   ► They're one of the worst products, in my opinion,

01:20:22 ◼   ► that the company has ever made.

01:20:24 ◼   ► - It is utterly bizarre to me,

01:20:26 ◼   ► but there's this thriving market.

01:20:28 ◼   ► But that's the real one to me,

01:20:30 ◼   ► is it's been a long time with Lightning,

01:20:33 ◼   ► and it appears that making a Lightning cable

01:20:34 ◼   ► is very difficult,

01:20:36 ◼   ► like adorable, long-lasting Lightning cables, right?

01:20:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I think my gut feeling,

01:20:41 ◼   ► I don't wanna spend a long time on this,

01:20:43 ◼   ► 'cause I guess we'll all find out eventually.

01:20:44 ◼   ► I just don't think, to me, the answer is not USB-C.

01:20:49 ◼   ► To me, the answer is something

01:20:53 ◼   ► that's so much better than Lightning's,

01:20:55 ◼   ► that it is much better than Lightning

01:20:58 ◼   ► than Lightning was over the 30-pin adapter from the iPods.

01:21:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, the thing I'll say about USB-C

01:21:04 ◼   ► is USB-C is Apple's baby.

01:21:08 ◼   ► They are the ones who wanted this standard to exist.

01:21:11 ◼   ► They are the ones who pushed it at the USB-C forum.

01:21:13 ◼   ► They are the ones who more or less created it

01:21:18 ◼   ► for that MacBook, that 12-inch MacBook.

01:21:20 ◼   ► This is what they wanted, so we have it.

01:21:24 ◼   ► It is a disaster.

01:21:25 ◼   ► I think it would be better if we had less e-waste

01:21:29 ◼   ► and we standardized on connectors,

01:21:31 ◼   ► and everyone knows how I feel about standards,

01:21:32 ◼   ► and I'm looking at this standard,

01:21:33 ◼   ► I'm like, "F, I don't want this one."

01:21:36 ◼   ► It's a mess.

01:21:38 ◼   ► I've got a 16-inch Intel MacBook Pro in the next room.

01:21:42 ◼   ► I am desperate for the M1X or the M2

01:21:45 ◼   ► that's coming out next week.

01:21:46 ◼   ► If I don't use Apple's 100-watt USB-C brick,

01:21:52 ◼   ► and I try to use a different 100-watt USB-C brick,

01:21:54 ◼   ► which is theoretically its standards,

01:21:56 ◼   ► like these are name brand products I'm buying,

01:21:59 ◼   ► like the SMC on my MacBook will kill itself,

01:22:03 ◼   ► and I have to reset it.

01:22:04 ◼   ► It'll just stop charging after a while.

01:22:05 ◼   ► This is your standard.

01:22:08 ◼   ► You made this.

01:22:09 ◼   ► Like the whole industry is pushing on this standard.

01:22:12 ◼   ► It's utterly fragmented.

01:22:14 ◼   ► It is impossible for any normal human being to understand.

01:22:17 ◼   ► Haim Gartenberger works at The Verge,

01:22:19 ◼   ► is a genius when it comes to USB standards,

01:22:22 ◼   ► and he's like, "This is hard to understand."

01:22:24 ◼   ► I employ someone.

01:22:27 ◼   ► I pay them money to understand USB-C,

01:22:29 ◼   ► and they're like, "I don't, this sucks."

01:22:31 ◼   ► It's a mess, and that to me is,

01:22:35 ◼   ► when you say there's something better than lightning,

01:22:36 ◼   ► yep, there's something better than lightning,

01:22:37 ◼   ► but at some point, trying to make everything in the world

01:22:41 ◼   ► happen through a single connector was just a bad idea.

01:22:46 ◼   ► - That's visually indistinguishable,

01:22:47 ◼   ► and will actually, it's not just that it looks the same.

01:22:50 ◼   ► It actually, it will let you plug in the wrong cable,

01:22:54 ◼   ► and it'll be just as securely seated

01:22:57 ◼   ► as if it were the right cable,

01:22:59 ◼   ► and you just won't get anything.

01:23:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, USB-C and Thunderbolt, the same cable.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Wildly different capabilities.

01:23:07 ◼   ► There was a thing months, it was like a year ago,

01:23:09 ◼   ► but with my dithering podcast with Ben Thompson,

01:23:13 ◼   ► he was traveling, because it was at a part

01:23:17 ◼   ► where Taiwan was open, and they were able to travel,

01:23:20 ◼   ► and I was locked in, and he bought a portable USB microphone,

01:23:23 ◼   ► and it was a USB-C microphone, and he couldn't get,

01:23:26 ◼   ► just audio from a microphone,

01:23:28 ◼   ► couldn't get audio without the right cable,

01:23:30 ◼   ► and he just, it didn't even occur to him

01:23:33 ◼   ► that he should definitely keep the cable

01:23:35 ◼   ► that came in the box with the microphone,

01:23:37 ◼   ► 'cause that one would be guaranteed to work,

01:23:39 ◼   ► and he had to run out to a corner store

01:23:41 ◼   ► and buy two or three different USB-C cables,

01:23:45 ◼   ► and only one of the ones he bought worked,

01:23:46 ◼   ► so the fact that he bought three

01:23:48 ◼   ► was actually a good idea.

01:23:50 ◼   ► It's kinda crazy.

01:23:52 ◼   ► It is a bad idea to have many different things.

01:23:59 ◼   ► I mean, the Wikipedia page for how many different things

01:24:03 ◼   ► use the same USB-C port is, it's bananas.