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The Talk Show

288: ‘It Shouldn’t Be Hard to Get a Smoothie’ With Dan Frommer

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► Dan Fromer, good to have you back on the show.

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Thank you, long time.

00:00:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, feels like it.

00:00:06 ◼   ► And Skype is telling me 10 months.

00:00:09 ◼   ► I don't know if that's accurate.

00:00:10 ◼   ► - I think that's right.

00:00:12 ◼   ► - I know, I do know I didn't see you last week.

00:00:15 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh, yeah.

00:00:16 ◼   ► What a strange thing.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Let me jump right into it

00:00:23 ◼   ► and talk about the keynote a little.

00:00:24 ◼   ► I'm still not done talking about it,

00:00:26 ◼   ► But here's a quote from your newsletter, The New Consumer,

00:00:29 ◼   ► talking about the actual keynote itself,

00:00:32 ◼   ► the presentation, sort of the cinema.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Here's a quote, "Remember how 'Oceans 11'

00:00:36 ◼   ► "felt faster and more modern than any heist movie before it?

00:00:40 ◼   ► "That's what this was like."

00:00:42 ◼   ► I love that synopsis of the keynote.

00:00:45 ◼   ► I think that that, and again, you could say,

00:00:47 ◼   ► well, it's, you know, they're trying to say

00:00:49 ◼   ► electronic gadgets and operating systems,

00:00:51 ◼   ► it's not as cool as 'Oceans 11'.

00:00:54 ◼   ► It's the keynote equivalent though, and it is.

00:00:56 ◼   ► It's just faster.

00:00:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I guess they couldn't do it that way

00:01:04 ◼   ► if they were still pretending to be talking

00:01:08 ◼   ► to a theater of, what is it, 6,000 people

00:01:11 ◼   ► or something like that?

00:01:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:01:14 ◼   ► - But because they weren't, and they knew they weren't,

00:01:17 ◼   ► they really kind of chopped out all the crowd reaction parts

00:01:22 ◼   ► and they were speaking straight into the camera

00:01:25 ◼   ► instead of pretending to be speaking to a room.

00:01:29 ◼   ► It really worked.

00:01:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I thought it was really interesting.

00:01:34 ◼   ► It was, and I felt such a relief

00:01:38 ◼   ► as I read other people's takes on it.

00:01:43 ◼   ► I listened to ATP's post keynote episode,

00:01:48 ◼   ► and having everybody say, hey, that was a lot to digest

00:01:51 ◼   ► that went by so fast made me feel better

00:01:55 ◼   ► about the fact that I felt overwhelmed

00:01:57 ◼   ► when it was over.

00:01:59 ◼   ► And I don't think, I still don't think it was too much.

00:02:02 ◼   ► I don't think that, you know, if I had to give notes,

00:02:06 ◼   ► I would say maybe slow down a little.

00:02:09 ◼   ► But the other problem that they have with these keynotes,

00:02:14 ◼   ► whether they're live in, you know, like regular,

00:02:17 ◼   ► traditional ones or this one that's virtual,

00:02:19 ◼   ► is in terms of deciding what makes the cut

00:02:24 ◼   ► for the keynote or not,

00:02:25 ◼   ► it's not like writing a movie,

00:02:30 ◼   ► or maybe it's sort of like adapting a book

00:02:32 ◼   ► or something like that, where the book is 700 pages

00:02:35 ◼   ► and there's a lot of plot points

00:02:36 ◼   ► and somehow you gotta make it two hours.

00:02:39 ◼   ► Here's the list of everything they're doing

00:02:43 ◼   ► for the next year across all of these platforms.

00:02:47 ◼   ► they're doing it whether it makes the keynote or not.

00:02:50 ◼   ► So it's like you could say, all right,

00:02:51 ◼   ► we're gonna cut this feature from the keynote.

00:02:55 ◼   ► We're not even gonna mention it too much.

00:02:57 ◼   ► That doesn't mean the feature isn't there,

00:02:58 ◼   ► and those of us who wanna cover it

00:03:00 ◼   ► still have to figure it out eventually anyway.

00:03:04 ◼   ► So it's a hard thing to give notes on.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Did they pack too much into the keynote?

00:03:11 ◼   ► - Well, it's just interesting how different it is

00:03:13 ◼   ► than three or four or five years ago

00:03:16 ◼   ► when, I don't know if you remember,

00:03:18 ◼   ► but they would start the iOS segment

00:03:20 ◼   ► and they'd be like, all right,

00:03:21 ◼   ► we've got 12 new tent poles or whatever it is,

00:03:24 ◼   ► and they would have all those icons on the screen.

00:03:26 ◼   ► I think this year it was two or three

00:03:28 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:03:29 ◼   ► And instead they're kind of opening up new worlds,

00:03:32 ◼   ► like this whole concept of widgets,

00:03:35 ◼   ► which you could theoretically spend two hours

00:03:38 ◼   ► just on widgets, and I'm sure,

00:03:40 ◼   ► I haven't had a chance to watch the technical videos

00:03:42 ◼   ► from those sessions, but I'm sure there's some pretty

00:03:45 ◼   ► interesting stuff there, but it's not like the old days

00:03:47 ◼   ► where it's like, and now we have FaceTime,

00:03:50 ◼   ► or all these changes coming to the mail app

00:03:53 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:03:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, it seemed, I don't know if 10 was the magic number,

00:04:00 ◼   ► but it always felt to me like a lot of times

00:04:02 ◼   ► they'd have 10 features, like maybe it was

00:04:04 ◼   ► a Steve Jobs axiom, you know, let's pick 10/10 polls,

00:04:09 ◼   ► and you can imagine the prep sessions in the weeks

00:04:13 ◼   ► leading up to the big announcement where there's 20,

00:04:17 ◼   ► and all right, here's the 20, all right,

00:04:19 ◼   ► we'll cut these two, now we're down to 18,

00:04:21 ◼   ► next meeting, get it down to 15,

00:04:24 ◼   ► and eventually you get it down to the 10.

00:04:26 ◼   ► This felt a little bit more aggressive than that.

00:04:30 ◼   ► I think you're right, I don't think,

00:04:31 ◼   ► I wouldn't say there were 10 10-poles

00:04:33 ◼   ► for any of these things.

00:04:34 ◼   ► - I guess maybe the watch had a few things.

00:04:37 ◼   ► It's a platform that's still kind of less developed,

00:04:41 ◼   ► Whereas iOS, like, you know, what a, (laughs)

00:04:46 ◼   ► at this point we're like, all right,

00:04:47 ◼   ► we can change default apps, there you go. (laughs)

00:04:50 ◼   ► It's not like there's a ton of,

00:04:52 ◼   ► I mean, I guess if you wanted to be creative,

00:04:54 ◼   ► you could come up with a whole next set

00:04:57 ◼   ► of 10, 20 features to add, but it's certainly,

00:05:00 ◼   ► you know, and I think people's literacy

00:05:02 ◼   ► of learning new features has changed over the years, too.

00:05:06 ◼   ► People are much more, you know,

00:05:08 ◼   ► this is a device you've now used for a decade

00:05:11 ◼   ► all the time, so I think people learn new things faster

00:05:15 ◼   ► and don't need to be walked through them quite as literally

00:05:18 ◼   ► as they may have needed to five or six years ago.

00:05:21 ◼   ► - Maybe.

00:05:23 ◼   ► I do think that,

00:05:29 ◼   ► I also think that the attention,

00:05:30 ◼   ► and I, you know, you can never please everybody, right?

00:05:33 ◼   ► I mean, there's 50 different ways of saying that.

00:05:38 ◼   ► I feel like iOS, the iPhone version of iOS in particular,

00:05:43 ◼   ► changed the least and it's sort of the most additive.

00:05:46 ◼   ► Although what they did change is at the very,

00:05:49 ◼   ► they even emphasized it.

00:05:50 ◼   ► This is your main interface to the phone, the home screen.

00:05:53 ◼   ► Okay, finally we're gonna put widgets

00:05:55 ◼   ► wherever you want them and we're gonna deal with this issue

00:05:59 ◼   ► of your fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh page apps

00:06:04 ◼   ► just being a complete mess.

00:06:07 ◼   ► But I feel like they did it in a good way where it is not,

00:06:11 ◼   ► it really should not confuse anybody moving,

00:06:16 ◼   ► who's already learned how to use an iPhone.

00:06:18 ◼   ► It's not like all of a sudden they're gonna upgrade

00:06:21 ◼   ► their iPhone or buy a new one and then they're gonna be lost

00:06:23 ◼   ► on the homepage, it's pretty similar.

00:06:26 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:06:28 ◼   ► - It's sort of a power user feature,

00:06:30 ◼   ► which I know is often an overused term,

00:06:32 ◼   ► but to me one of the best ways of describing

00:06:34 ◼   ► a good power user feature is the sort of thing

00:06:38 ◼   ► that's out of the way of normal people.

00:06:42 ◼   ► They don't even know it's there,

00:06:44 ◼   ► but it is there in a very discoverable way

00:06:47 ◼   ► for somebody who's enthusiastic enough to dig into it.

00:06:51 ◼   ► So you could find it on your own

00:06:53 ◼   ► by sort of learning to understand the insert platform here,

00:06:58 ◼   ► the Mac way of thinking or the iPhone way of thinking.

00:07:02 ◼   ► Well, I would think maybe it would be here.

00:07:04 ◼   ► I'll go to the share button and open this sheet

00:07:06 ◼   ► and scroll down and oh yeah, here's where you can

00:07:08 ◼   ► you know, do X, Y, or Z.

00:07:12 ◼   ► You learn to find features like that.

00:07:14 ◼   ► And I feel like those home screen features

00:07:17 ◼   ► fall into that category where you, you know,

00:07:20 ◼   ► I guess it all starts with jiggle mode.

00:07:22 ◼   ► - Right. (laughs)

00:07:24 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:07:26 ◼   ► I was so excited that he called it jiggle mode

00:07:29 ◼   ► in the keynote and then a bunch of people at Twitter like,

00:07:32 ◼   ► they've always called it jiggle mode.

00:07:33 ◼   ► It's like I don't recall anybody in an Apple keynote

00:07:35 ◼   ► calling it jiggle mode.

00:07:37 ◼   ► - It's the kind of joy that we need these days, Jon.

00:07:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:07:41 ◼   ► I thought that was the other thing about the keynote

00:07:45 ◼   ► that I thought they did a very good job of,

00:07:48 ◼   ► is they kept it lighthearted and it was sunny.

00:07:52 ◼   ► Literally sunny in a lot of places

00:07:55 ◼   ► where they clearly filmed in the atrium

00:07:59 ◼   ► of the Steve Jobs Theater with lots of

00:08:01 ◼   ► California sunshine outside.

00:08:03 ◼   ► You know, it's difficult times to do a keynote

00:08:10 ◼   ► for multiple reasons. - Yeah.

00:08:12 ◼   ► - And I feel like they hit the right tone.

00:08:13 ◼   ► Couple of jokes, not too many, fewer than usual.

00:08:16 ◼   ► But I feel like tonally really hit it.

00:08:21 ◼   ► You know, like you just, you can't,

00:08:22 ◼   ► you certainly can't accuse them of being,

00:08:24 ◼   ► pretending that the current situation isn't going on,

00:08:29 ◼   ► whether the current situation is the protests

00:08:33 ◼   ► and the Black Lives Matter protests

00:08:38 ◼   ► and police stuff around the country

00:08:39 ◼   ► or the COVID-19 situation,

00:08:43 ◼   ► I think that they acknowledge all of it pretty well.

00:08:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I'm curious how far out

00:08:50 ◼   ► they kind of rewrote that intro.

00:08:52 ◼   ► I guess they had several weeks to prepare for it.

00:08:56 ◼   ► I thought it was actually really well done

00:08:58 ◼   ► the way that the first shot was basically a reverse shot

00:09:02 ◼   ► of the Steve Jobs stage that you normally would never see

00:09:05 ◼   ► except for like a crowd reaction shot

00:09:07 ◼   ► showing an empty theater.

00:09:09 ◼   ► And there's Tim kind of washed in backlighting,

00:09:13 ◼   ► doing his Tim thing where he kind of rises above

00:09:17 ◼   ► just running Apple and acts as sort of a world leader

00:09:21 ◼   ► in a way that, I mean honestly,

00:09:24 ◼   ► that's probably more substantive than anything

00:09:26 ◼   ► our actual leaders have said about either of those things.

00:09:29 ◼   ► So I think it was well done.

00:09:31 ◼   ► And not too over the top, and not too cheesy,

00:09:34 ◼   ► and not too prolonged, but well done.

00:09:38 ◼   ► - I guess I will take a break.

00:09:43 ◼   ► I wanna keep moving, but I definitely wanna,

00:09:46 ◼   ► when we come back, and I knew you were gonna write about it.

00:09:49 ◼   ► I couldn't wait to read it.

00:09:51 ◼   ► You wrote about app clips, and I knew,

00:09:53 ◼   ► 'cause it's, you know, what was the announcement

00:09:56 ◼   ► that was more up the alley of new consumer.

00:09:59 ◼   ► - Totally. - But let's take a break

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00:12:30 ◼   ► App Clips.

00:12:32 ◼   ► This to me is either...

00:12:34 ◼   ► Here's what I think, and then I want to hear more of your thoughts because I thought you

00:12:37 ◼   ► had a pretty good take on it.

00:12:39 ◼   ► I think this is either going to be a really big deal or a complete bust, and there's not

00:12:44 ◼   ► much room in the middle. The sign of any good new technology, right? I think so. That's

00:12:51 ◼   ► not a bad rule of thumb that it's either going to go big or go home. I mean, it's interesting.

00:12:57 ◼   ► So I assume everyone here kind of knows what app clips are, but if not, it's, it's a piece

00:13:02 ◼   ► of your iPhone app. So it's not new. I mean, it could be new code, but it's part of your

00:13:09 ◼   ► apps binary that is loaded in a completely different way

00:13:14 ◼   ► by someone who does not have your app.

00:13:17 ◼   ► And they load it by, and it's a bunch of different things.

00:13:21 ◼   ► And the examples are basically like,

00:13:23 ◼   ► if you're Panera Bread and you have this whole app

00:13:27 ◼   ► where you have all your nutrition info

00:13:28 ◼   ► and a map that has all your locations

00:13:31 ◼   ► and all this kind of stuff,

00:13:32 ◼   ► if someone shows up in the store

00:13:34 ◼   ► and they see a sign that says,

00:13:38 ◼   ► We'll get into the QR code in a second,

00:13:40 ◼   ► but basically they can load this app clip

00:13:45 ◼   ► that's just the ordering sheet.

00:13:47 ◼   ► So, and the whole idea is it has to be under 10 meg,

00:13:50 ◼   ► which is actually very small.

00:13:52 ◼   ► I mean, I looked at a bunch of the apps like Starbucks.

00:13:56 ◼   ► I think Starbucks is almost 200 megs.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Well, you know, these, it's funny,

00:14:03 ◼   ► but like these apps do a lot these days.

00:14:05 ◼   ► You know, you have your whole--

00:14:06 ◼   ► - Do you know what though?

00:14:07 ◼   ► You know what though?

00:14:08 ◼   ► I think a lot of that though is unnecessary bloat.

00:14:10 ◼   ► I've seen people analyze it.

00:14:12 ◼   ► I think part of it is that they do a lot,

00:14:14 ◼   ► but part of it is that modern app development

00:14:18 ◼   ► is a lot of, well, we'll just throw a framework in there.

00:14:21 ◼   ► And this framework's eight megabytes,

00:14:23 ◼   ► and this framework's 13 megabytes.

00:14:25 ◼   ► And all they're doing is putting a framework in

00:14:27 ◼   ► that does one little thing.

00:14:28 ◼   ► Next thing you know, it's a 200 megabyte app download.

00:14:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, here's the one that tracks you

00:14:32 ◼   ► while you're walking around.

00:14:33 ◼   ► Here's the one that, yeah.

00:14:34 ◼   ► - Right.

00:14:36 ◼   ► So essentially, the whole idea is for an essential part

00:14:41 ◼   ► of your app to be able to be almost streamed,

00:14:44 ◼   ► 'cause it's 10 megs, in real time,

00:14:48 ◼   ► that people can use very quickly to get something done.

00:14:52 ◼   ► Whether it's, I'm standing in the lobby of Panera,

00:14:56 ◼   ► especially, and this is super helpful during COVID,

00:14:58 ◼   ► like you're standing outside of Starbucks,

00:15:00 ◼   ► you wanna order a coffee for contactless pickup,

00:15:04 ◼   ► You don't wanna have to download this app,

00:15:07 ◼   ► figure out the navigation,

00:15:09 ◼   ► sign up for a loyalty account, log in.

00:15:13 ◼   ► Every time I open the Grubhub app or whatever,

00:15:16 ◼   ► it's like, forget my address.

00:15:18 ◼   ► I just wanna see the menu of a restaurant.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Don't ask me my address, don't ask,

00:15:23 ◼   ► let's skip all the throat clearing

00:15:25 ◼   ► and just get into this point

00:15:26 ◼   ► where I can just get one thing done very quickly.

00:15:29 ◼   ► The sample app that Apple uses in the WWDC sessions

00:15:33 ◼   ► is a smoothie ordering app.

00:15:35 ◼   ► And you can kind of see where you're standing

00:15:38 ◼   ► in front of the smoothie kiosk,

00:15:40 ◼   ► all you wanna do is just order a smoothie very quickly,

00:15:43 ◼   ► and boom, the app clip gets you the ordering screen.

00:15:46 ◼   ► That's it.

00:15:47 ◼   ► And then of course, this is Apple,

00:15:49 ◼   ► so you're encouraged to use Apple Pay,

00:15:52 ◼   ► and then you're encouraged to offer your customers

00:15:55 ◼   ► the opportunity to let people sign up for a loyalty account

00:15:59 ◼   ► with Sign In with Apple and all these things.

00:16:03 ◼   ► But why I wrote about this for the new consumer

00:16:05 ◼   ► and the part of it that I think is gonna be

00:16:08 ◼   ► either the thing that takes it to that level

00:16:11 ◼   ► where it's just part of how we use our phones in the future

00:16:14 ◼   ► or not is this thing that's called the AppClip code.

00:16:18 ◼   ► And it's a round QR code.

00:16:21 ◼   ► There's still a lot of details about how it's gonna work

00:16:23 ◼   ► that we don't know yet, but the thinking is

00:16:27 ◼   ► that there's gonna be this sticker

00:16:29 ◼   ► that with this QR code on it that's round,

00:16:33 ◼   ► that also has an embedded NFC chip.

00:16:35 ◼   ► And both of those things,

00:16:37 ◼   ► whether you move your phone close to it

00:16:39 ◼   ► or take a photo of the QR code,

00:16:42 ◼   ► will trigger a URL that is a deep link into your app

00:16:45 ◼   ► that not only is to a specific page,

00:16:47 ◼   ► but could also be associated

00:16:49 ◼   ► with a specific geographic location.

00:16:52 ◼   ► And in fact, your app can actually ping the server

00:16:54 ◼   ► and confirm that you're actually in the location

00:16:56 ◼   ► that the sticker is supposed to be in.

00:16:58 ◼   ► So that helps if you're, again,

00:17:00 ◼   ► to go back to our Starbucks analogy,

00:17:03 ◼   ► it not only knows that you wanna go

00:17:04 ◼   ► straight to the order screen,

00:17:06 ◼   ► but it knows what exact location you should be ordering from.

00:17:09 ◼   ► So you don't have to go through the process

00:17:10 ◼   ► of looking at the map, trying to figure out

00:17:13 ◼   ► which of the four Starbucks in your immediate vicinity

00:17:17 ◼   ► is the one you're standing in front of.

00:17:19 ◼   ► And this extends to,

00:17:22 ◼   ► another example they gave is a scooter rental service.

00:17:26 ◼   ► If you have 10,000 scooters in your fleet,

00:17:29 ◼   ► each code will be different and each code will actually be

00:17:32 ◼   ► delineated to that specific scooter,

00:17:35 ◼   ► so boom, it'll check, okay, is this scooter in our network

00:17:39 ◼   ► where we think it's supposed to be?

00:17:41 ◼   ► Start riding, pay for it,

00:17:44 ◼   ► deal with all the other nonsense later.

00:17:46 ◼   ► So it's an interesting idea.

00:17:50 ◼   ► We're in this era where a lot of companies have iPhone apps

00:17:53 ◼   ► that do a lot of different things.

00:17:55 ◼   ► They keep taking advantage of all these new technologies

00:17:57 ◼   ► in the phone, but if you just wanna get

00:17:59 ◼   ► one simple thing done, pay for parking,

00:18:02 ◼   ► order something, make a purchase,

00:18:06 ◼   ► I think it could be a really interesting

00:18:08 ◼   ► and compelling use for gaming and art, maybe.

00:18:11 ◼   ► I don't know if that's gonna be allowed,

00:18:13 ◼   ► but it seems very much purposely designed

00:18:16 ◼   ► to just get one thing done very quickly,

00:18:20 ◼   ► which, well, there's a whole other set of things

00:18:25 ◼   ► we can talk about, but yeah, that's the overview.

00:18:27 ◼   ► - I think that a couple of the interesting parts,

00:18:31 ◼   ► another way to think of it is just sort of

00:18:33 ◼   ► a mini version of the app, right?

00:18:36 ◼   ► Like there's not, and it's a little hard to,

00:18:40 ◼   ► I always feel like the best way to learn anything

00:18:42 ◼   ► is to just start using it, and you can't quite do it yet

00:18:45 ◼   ► because nobody has app clips out yet,

00:18:48 ◼   ► and you can't just say, you know, like,

00:18:49 ◼   ► oh, they've already worked with Starbucks,

00:18:52 ◼   ► and if you run the iOS 14 beta,

00:18:56 ◼   ► you can already get the Starbucks app clip.

00:18:59 ◼   ► Doesn't work like that,

00:18:59 ◼   ► so you kinda have to go by the sessions.

00:19:01 ◼   ► But it's really just a mini version of the app,

00:19:04 ◼   ► and part of it shows my age as somebody who came of age

00:19:09 ◼   ► in the '90s building websites when we tried to,

00:19:13 ◼   ► we measured websites by the kilobyte.

00:19:15 ◼   ► And it mattered, right?

00:19:18 ◼   ► It was like, that was like,

00:19:19 ◼   ► it wasn't just a sign of professional pride

00:19:21 ◼   ► and perfectionism, it was like,

00:19:24 ◼   ► when I was doing freelance web development

00:19:25 ◼   ► in the mid to late 90s and early 2000s,

00:19:29 ◼   ► it's like being able to tell people

00:19:31 ◼   ► you'd have a faster website

00:19:33 ◼   ► and it would actually load pretty,

00:19:35 ◼   ► as quick as you can imagine on a modem connection,

00:19:38 ◼   ► it mattered.

00:19:39 ◼   ► And so talking about 10 megabytes as a small payload

00:19:42 ◼   ► still sounds to me like a lot.

00:19:44 ◼   ► - I think my whole FTV account was two megs, so.

00:19:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:19:49 ◼   ► But on the other hand, like you pointed out,

00:19:52 ◼   ► a lot of very popular apps that are also

00:19:57 ◼   ► the very much, the type of apps that ought to be

00:20:00 ◼   ► using the App Clips feature have 180 megabytes,

00:20:04 ◼   ► 200 megabytes just to get the app.

00:20:07 ◼   ► And then the bigger difference too,

00:20:08 ◼   ► in addition to a lot less to download,

00:20:11 ◼   ► so it's there installed and running,

00:20:14 ◼   ► one tenth the size easily, maybe more,

00:20:18 ◼   ► is the first run experience, right?

00:20:20 ◼   ► The idea is that if you get the app for ordering

00:20:24 ◼   ► from the Slurpee place or, what'd you say the example was?

00:20:29 ◼   ► Not Slurpees, what's the-- - Smoothies, yeah.

00:20:31 ◼   ► - Smoothies, that's what we call Slurpees nowadays.

00:20:33 ◼   ► But if the idea is you get the app clip

00:20:38 ◼   ► and then you can pre-order your thing,

00:20:40 ◼   ► it's not gonna sit there and ask you for email

00:20:43 ◼   ► and a password and all this nonsense,

00:20:46 ◼   ► and go check your email for the confirmation code

00:20:49 ◼   ► and tap the thing and oh, go fish it out of your spam

00:20:52 ◼   ► because it actually went to spam

00:20:53 ◼   ► and then click the link in there and now you're registered.

00:20:56 ◼   ► By that time, you've already missed your turn

00:20:59 ◼   ► to get your smoothie.

00:21:01 ◼   ► So have it just launch, show me the things

00:21:05 ◼   ► and then you tap it and it already knows you're there

00:21:08 ◼   ► 'cause you got it, like you said,

00:21:09 ◼   ► and hopefully it removes a lot of it.

00:21:11 ◼   ► And I feel like what they're competing with in some ways

00:21:15 ◼   ► is, the obvious thing they're competing with

00:21:19 ◼   ► is just downloading the whole app

00:21:22 ◼   ► and going through the normal first run experience

00:21:25 ◼   ► and the permissions and et cetera, et cetera.

00:21:28 ◼   ► But the other thing they're competing against

00:21:30 ◼   ► is just the good old fashioned real world, right?

00:21:34 ◼   ► Like, how many places have you been in your life

00:21:38 ◼   ► for decades where if you're a regular,

00:21:40 ◼   ► you get a little business card

00:21:42 ◼   ► that's like every 10 times you come in,

00:21:44 ◼   ► they stamp it and then you get like a free sandwich

00:21:46 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:21:48 ◼   ► And that's all the card does.

00:21:50 ◼   ► Everybody understands what it does.

00:21:52 ◼   ► They give you the card, they're like,

00:21:53 ◼   ► "Hey, would you like this?"

00:21:54 ◼   ► And, "Here, I'll stamp it."

00:21:56 ◼   ► And then buy nine more sandwiches and you get a free one.

00:22:00 ◼   ► Everybody understands what that card is, how it works,

00:22:04 ◼   ► and you can make the personal choice

00:22:06 ◼   ► as to whether it's actually something

00:22:08 ◼   ► you wanna stick in your wallet and you'll use,

00:22:11 ◼   ► which a lot of people do,

00:22:12 ◼   ► or if you'll just politely wait 'til you're out of sight

00:22:15 ◼   ► and throw it away.

00:22:16 ◼   ► But it's easy, you understand it.

00:22:19 ◼   ► Nobody's confused by that card, right?

00:22:22 ◼   ► And so the idea with an app clip is,

00:22:25 ◼   ► if you just point your phone,

00:22:26 ◼   ► no matter how easy they make these app clip codes,

00:22:31 ◼   ► and I do think they look pretty easy,

00:22:33 ◼   ► and I think the NFC stuff certainly helps make it easier

00:22:36 ◼   ► where you just kind of get your phone close to it

00:22:38 ◼   ► and it should pop up with,

00:22:39 ◼   ► Do you wanna load the app clip for Dan's Smoothie Shop?

00:22:42 ◼   ► And then, yeah, that's exactly why I'm waving my phone

00:22:45 ◼   ► at this tap a button and then you've got it.

00:22:47 ◼   ► And a seven to eight, nine megabyte download

00:22:53 ◼   ► over a typical LTE network

00:22:55 ◼   ► is actually going to happen pretty fast.

00:22:57 ◼   ► There you are.

00:22:58 ◼   ► It's pretty close to the seamlessness

00:23:01 ◼   ► of just picking up a flyer, right?

00:23:03 ◼   ► Or a lot of busy takeout places will have,

00:23:06 ◼   ► Obviously a lot of places have a menu on the wall

00:23:09 ◼   ► that you can look at, but they'll give you back

00:23:12 ◼   ► in pre-COVID days like a laminated menu

00:23:14 ◼   ► to look at while you're in line or something like that.

00:23:17 ◼   ► - Totally, and let's not forget,

00:23:20 ◼   ► it's actually very easy to just stand there

00:23:21 ◼   ► and order a smoothie off the menu.

00:23:24 ◼   ► That's not a hardship, but that is assuming

00:23:28 ◼   ► that there is a person there to take the order,

00:23:31 ◼   ► and that's assuming that you're actually standing there.

00:23:34 ◼   ► And one of the interesting things about app clips

00:23:36 ◼   ► is that not only are they discoverable in that setting,

00:23:41 ◼   ► the physical setting, but they're also gonna be deep linked

00:23:44 ◼   ► from the Apple Maps listing for a location.

00:23:47 ◼   ► They're shareable, you can text message someone

00:23:50 ◼   ► a link to it.

00:23:51 ◼   ► So it's a little more elaborate than just

00:23:54 ◼   ► scan this QR code and load this thing.

00:23:57 ◼   ► I think a good analogy is it's kind of like a webpage

00:24:00 ◼   ► versus a website, and I think we talked about

00:24:03 ◼   ► this mini app thing.

00:24:06 ◼   ► To me, and we'll see how it works in practice,

00:24:10 ◼   ► my guess is that there's gonna be a lot of things

00:24:12 ◼   ► that the kind of ideal demo suggests

00:24:16 ◼   ► that it would be useful for,

00:24:17 ◼   ► where it turns out that it's just not that useful.

00:24:19 ◼   ► And then there's gonna be a bunch of new stuff,

00:24:21 ◼   ► whether it's vending machines or new types of retail designs,

00:24:26 ◼   ► this whole COVID period where you really are trying

00:24:29 ◼   ► to minimize contact with staff,

00:24:31 ◼   ► and a lot of places are not passing out menus at all,

00:24:36 ◼   ► where it could actually be very useful and reduce friction.

00:24:39 ◼   ► And a lot of times people are not only reluctant

00:24:43 ◼   ► to download an app, but they'll download it

00:24:45 ◼   ► and then never use it.

00:24:46 ◼   ► I mean, I probably have three pages of apps on my phone

00:24:48 ◼   ► that I've never even used.

00:24:49 ◼   ► So if you can get someone to not only stop

00:24:54 ◼   ► and see that something is available for purchase,

00:24:57 ◼   ► but get the page to order it and order it

00:25:00 ◼   ► and place the order within seconds

00:25:03 ◼   ► instead of minutes or whatever it is,

00:25:06 ◼   ► It could be very useful, but again, we'll see.

00:25:10 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:25:11 ◼   ► Maybe not.

00:25:12 ◼   ► - The other one that everybody keeps mentioning,

00:25:15 ◼   ► and I think it's maybe a better example

00:25:17 ◼   ► of something app clips can do that the real world can't,

00:25:21 ◼   ► are the parking apps.

00:25:23 ◼   ► And so I think part of the idea is,

00:25:26 ◼   ► you know, a municipality can have a certain app,

00:25:29 ◼   ► and you get the app clip,

00:25:31 ◼   ► and instead of pumping quarters into a meter,

00:25:34 ◼   ► you just use the app.

00:25:35 ◼   ► and

00:25:37 ◼   ► Part of the say well quarters everybody understood quarters and the inconvenience was if you did if you had the quarters you were set

00:25:44 ◼   ► and if you didn't you're screwed and

00:25:47 ◼   ► That did suck if you were out of quarters, and I think we've all been in that situation

00:25:52 ◼   ► And you know and then you learn to just hide a roll of quarters somewhere in your car, and they're always there

00:26:02 ◼   ► But the thing that an app can do is an app can do things like hey you you know

00:26:07 ◼   ► I know you put in exactly 90 minutes of time and at 80 minutes

00:26:12 ◼   ► I can send you an alert and you're still at your kids

00:26:15 ◼   ► School play or something like that and you get an alert that says hey, you know your your meters up in 10 minutes

00:26:21 ◼   ► Do you want to put more time in and then maybe you can just put the more time in right there?

00:26:25 ◼   ► You know punch it into the phone

00:26:27 ◼   ► instead of being the jerk who has to get up

00:26:30 ◼   ► from the kindergarten sing-along and run out

00:26:33 ◼   ► and pump quarters into a meter.

00:26:35 ◼   ► That's pretty cool, right?

00:26:36 ◼   ► Then you feel like you're living in the future

00:26:38 ◼   ► and it's like, hey, that was pretty cool.

00:26:41 ◼   ► And you also feel like, hey, I don't have to,

00:26:44 ◼   ► I don't know how long this dentist appointment's gonna take.

00:26:47 ◼   ► I better just put $4 a quarters in here.

00:26:50 ◼   ► You know, you don't know.

00:26:51 ◼   ► So I could see it.

00:26:54 ◼   ► - So a few other things that I think are really interesting

00:26:56 ◼   ► about the implementation is that to that point,

00:26:59 ◼   ► that notification, the whole idea, again,

00:27:03 ◼   ► is to lower friction, so it's actually not gonna prompt you

00:27:06 ◼   ► to see if you want that notification or not.

00:27:08 ◼   ► It's not gonna ask you for permission

00:27:09 ◼   ► to send you notifications for, I think, eight hours,

00:27:12 ◼   ► or also location information for that first query,

00:27:17 ◼   ► that first confirmation that you're in the place

00:27:20 ◼   ► that it thinks you are.

00:27:21 ◼   ► So it's a much less, the onboarding process

00:27:24 ◼   ► a lot less kind of hairy.

00:27:28 ◼   ► Another interesting thing is that because it's part of,

00:27:32 ◼   ► because the app clip is part of the main binary of your app,

00:27:36 ◼   ► there's this thing like this shared data pool,

00:27:40 ◼   ► I guess you could call it,

00:27:43 ◼   ► where if you download the full app

00:27:46 ◼   ► after you use the app clip,

00:27:48 ◼   ► it will move your information over into the main app.

00:27:51 ◼   ► So you don't have to sign up for an account a second time

00:27:54 ◼   ► or anything like that, which I think is pretty slick.

00:27:57 ◼   ► Then there's this idea that these app clips are

00:28:01 ◼   ► almost ephemeral in a way, like if you don't use them,

00:28:04 ◼   ► if you only use them once, if you're visiting a new city

00:28:07 ◼   ► and you get five app clips 'cause you're at restaurants

00:28:10 ◼   ► that you don't go to in your main city,

00:28:13 ◼   ► and you never use them again, Apple will actually

00:28:16 ◼   ► just clear 'em off your phone for you,

00:28:19 ◼   ► which is kind of interesting.

00:28:20 ◼   ► If you do use them over and over, it will keep them.

00:28:24 ◼   ► And then lastly, this idea that an app can have

00:28:30 ◼   ► multiple app clips that are active on your phone

00:28:32 ◼   ► at the same time.

00:28:33 ◼   ► So imagine Yelp could make an app clip for,

00:28:37 ◼   ► if it wanted to, every business in its directory

00:28:39 ◼   ► that's this kind of discreet branded app clip,

00:28:43 ◼   ► and you could have seven different app clips

00:28:44 ◼   ► from the Yelp app on your phone,

00:28:46 ◼   ► each of those for different locations.

00:28:49 ◼   ► I imagine at that point you're just gonna get the Yelp app,

00:28:51 ◼   ► but you start to see how,

00:28:53 ◼   ► and I was just on, not to plug another podcast,

00:28:57 ◼   ► but I was talking about this with one of the partners

00:29:01 ◼   ► from Andreesen Horowitz on one of their podcasts this week

00:29:05 ◼   ► who studies the China market a lot.

00:29:06 ◼   ► And this kind of pushes us towards this era

00:29:10 ◼   ► that has not really happened in the US of these super apps

00:29:12 ◼   ► where a lot of the activity is not every restaurant

00:29:17 ◼   ► making their own app or every chain making their own app,

00:29:19 ◼   ► but having a place within a WeChat or a bigger ecosystem.

00:29:23 ◼   ► So a lot to kind of sketch out where maybe this is

00:29:27 ◼   ► gonna happen over the next 10 years, maybe not,

00:29:30 ◼   ► but it is kind of a really interesting new point where,

00:29:34 ◼   ► and I guess this exists in other app platforms like

00:29:38 ◼   ► Snapchat has its own version of this,

00:29:40 ◼   ► I think Android does too, but it's an interesting thing

00:29:43 ◼   ► from an iOS perspective as well.

00:29:46 ◼   ► - It feels to me like the Android version.

00:29:49 ◼   ► I forget what they call it.

00:29:50 ◼   ► But it doesn't seem like that ever really took off.

00:29:54 ◼   ► I mean, and that's sort of the,

00:29:56 ◼   ► it's a bust possible future for app clips that I see.

00:30:00 ◼   ► Like, I never hear anybody talking about,

00:30:03 ◼   ► oh, I was somewhere and I got the Android card

00:30:07 ◼   ► or whatever they call the little clips.

00:30:10 ◼   ► I've never heard anybody talk about using such a thing.

00:30:13 ◼   ► - Certainly don't hear about it, yeah.

00:30:15 ◼   ► But Apple has a very successful track record

00:30:19 ◼   ► at getting people to do stuff

00:30:20 ◼   ► that no one else can get them to do.

00:30:22 ◼   ► So I don't know, we'll see.

00:30:24 ◼   ► I think it's neat, I don't know if I'm gonna use them.

00:30:27 ◼   ► I mean, I guess I will to test them out

00:30:29 ◼   ► if I see them out and around.

00:30:30 ◼   ► I'm very interested in how these stickers are gonna happen.

00:30:33 ◼   ► I asked Apple, and they're not talking about it yet,

00:30:37 ◼   ► but and they kind of say in some of the session videos,

00:30:41 ◼   ► like we're gonna make tools that help you

00:30:45 ◼   ► make these stickers, I don't know if they're gonna

00:30:47 ◼   ► approve stickers, are they gonna make you guarantee

00:30:50 ◼   ► that you're not gonna vandalize public places

00:30:53 ◼   ► with these stickers?

00:30:54 ◼   ► I think there's a lot of unknowns to those stickers

00:30:57 ◼   ► that we'll have to find out, but.

00:30:59 ◼   ► - Well, I didn't even think about that angle,

00:31:01 ◼   ► but that is an angle because it is sort of clearly the,

00:31:05 ◼   ► I don't think there's an Apple logo on it,

00:31:07 ◼   ► but it's very clearly an iPhone in the center of the thing.

00:31:12 ◼   ► They sort of look like a fingerprint,

00:31:14 ◼   ► like the Touch ID fingerprint.

00:31:15 ◼   ► They're like a, combined with,

00:31:18 ◼   ► people are saying the Maze from Westworld

00:31:23 ◼   ► and also the Hatch logos from Lost.

00:31:30 ◼   ► But it's sort of like a circular fingerprint type thing

00:31:37 ◼   ► with, and I don't know how to read it or decipher it,

00:31:40 ◼   ► but you can see that there's sort of a Morse code-y pattern

00:31:45 ◼   ► to the concentric rings, you know,

00:31:47 ◼   ► short, long dashes as the rings go around.

00:31:51 ◼   ► So you don't have to be a cryptographer

00:31:55 ◼   ► to try to figure out how to actually read it

00:31:57 ◼   ► and figure out what it is,

00:31:58 ◼   ► but you can see that it's an embedded code,

00:32:00 ◼   ► same way that you can look at a QR code

00:32:02 ◼   ► and see that there's this black and white pattern.

00:32:05 ◼   ► But I guess it sort of raises the pattern,

00:32:08 ◼   ► Why don't they just use QR codes?

00:32:11 ◼   ► And I think I know the answer to that.

00:32:14 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:32:15 ◼   ► Which is, well, there's two answers.

00:32:18 ◼   ► One, my first, the one that made me laugh,

00:32:21 ◼   ► is that QR codes are so freaking ugly.

00:32:23 ◼   ► They're just ugly.

00:32:24 ◼   ► They're horrible, they're so super ugly.

00:32:27 ◼   ► And I think Apple resisted using them for so long.

00:32:30 ◼   ► And then I forget when, but like a year or two ago,

00:32:33 ◼   ► maybe three years ago, they did build in a feature

00:32:36 ◼   ► to the iOS camera where if you just open up your camera app

00:32:39 ◼   ► and point it at a QR code, it will recognize it

00:32:42 ◼   ► and then say like, oh, okay, do you wanna open

00:32:45 ◼   ► the Starbucks app or whatever the QR code is for?

00:32:48 ◼   ► Write in the camera app because prior to that,

00:32:51 ◼   ► you had to go to the app store and get like a QR code reader

00:32:55 ◼   ► and it was like a whole cottage industry of,

00:32:58 ◼   ► I mean, literally, I'm not even exaggerating.

00:33:00 ◼   ► - Hundreds.

00:33:01 ◼   ► - Maybe hundreds, hundreds of apps

00:33:04 ◼   ► because Apple chose not to build it into the system,

00:33:09 ◼   ► it was an obvious need.

00:33:10 ◼   ► Their QR codes are all over the world.

00:33:13 ◼   ► And so, in one sense, it's like,

00:33:17 ◼   ► well, the App Store works.

00:33:18 ◼   ► You know, you could just go to the App Store and get it,

00:33:20 ◼   ► but which one do you get?

00:33:22 ◼   ► And they're all just, you know,

00:33:23 ◼   ► every single one just was some variation

00:33:25 ◼   ► of any obvious name you could think of.

00:33:28 ◼   ► You know, QR code scanner, QR code reader,

00:33:32 ◼   ► reader for QR codes, you just name it, there was an app for it. They all look the same,

00:33:38 ◼   ► they all had cheese ball icons, they all were from developers you've never heard of,

00:33:42 ◼   ► and what do you do? I don't know. So I'm glad they built it into the camera app so you don't

00:33:48 ◼   ► have to worry about it, but I can see why Apple's not using it. QR codes, they are so ugly. And then

00:33:53 ◼   ► the second idea is, QR codes are cross-platform and work for everybody, and I think they always

00:33:59 ◼   ► just transform into a URL and I think that by doing their own scheme they have a lot

00:34:05 ◼   ► more control over it. They can build something proprietary that's just for iPhones and it

00:34:11 ◼   ► can, I don't know what the actual decoded app clip code resolves to. Maybe it is just

00:34:20 ◼   ► it, but I don't know if there's anything else in addition to the URL. Right. Like presumably

00:34:24 ◼   ► it's something that points to apps.apple.com

00:34:29 ◼   ► or whatever the new URL,

00:34:31 ◼   ► the top level domain is for the app store.

00:34:33 ◼   ► So presumably there's a URL in there,

00:34:36 ◼   ► but I don't know if there's anything else.

00:34:38 ◼   ► - Some of this is in the videos, but I don't remember.

00:34:41 ◼   ► But I don't know what the code goes to.

00:34:44 ◼   ► And if it's, could Google hijack that then

00:34:47 ◼   ► in a future version of Android

00:34:49 ◼   ► and translate that to a deep link into Android apps?

00:34:53 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:34:53 ◼   ► - Right, I don't know.

00:34:55 ◼   ► And it raises the question to however popular

00:34:59 ◼   ► the iPhone is in the United States,

00:35:01 ◼   ► it certainly varies by countries around the world.

00:35:04 ◼   ► And does a business want to have two different things?

00:35:09 ◼   ► One of the nice advantages of most payment systems

00:35:14 ◼   ► that take Apple Pay is that they also are,

00:35:17 ◼   ► they're not tied specifically,

00:35:19 ◼   ► it's not like an Apple branded reader

00:35:22 ◼   ► that only takes iPhones for Apple Pay or Apple Watch,

00:35:26 ◼   ► it is an NFC payment thing

00:35:29 ◼   ► that also can take Android phone payment.

00:35:32 ◼   ► So that's good for the business.

00:35:35 ◼   ► I think it's good not to have that locked into one platform.

00:35:39 ◼   ► - Well, and then imagine this world

00:35:40 ◼   ► where you walk into a restaurant

00:35:42 ◼   ► and they have the Grubhub app code,

00:35:46 ◼   ► they have the TripAdvisor app code,

00:35:48 ◼   ► they have the Resi and the OpenTable.

00:35:52 ◼   ► Which of these do I wanna use?

00:35:53 ◼   ► I don't even know.

00:35:54 ◼   ► - Right, and then it's just another variation

00:35:57 ◼   ► of the 300 different QR code reader apps in the App Store.

00:36:00 ◼   ► It's like, what do I do?

00:36:00 ◼   ► I don't know what to do. - Totally.

00:36:02 ◼   ► - Right, you kind of want that clarity.

00:36:04 ◼   ► I mean, it should not be hard to get a smoothie.

00:36:08 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

00:36:08 ◼   ► - I keep wanting to say Slurpee.

00:36:10 ◼   ► - I mean.

00:36:11 ◼   ► - It shouldn't be hard to get a Slurpee either.

00:36:14 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:36:16 ◼   ► But whatever cold, refreshing treat you want to order,

00:36:20 ◼   ► it shouldn't be complicated,

00:36:21 ◼   ► and you shouldn't have to learn what to get.

00:36:24 ◼   ► And then you mentioned it in New Consumer too,

00:36:26 ◼   ► is on the other end, in addition to the proliferation

00:36:30 ◼   ► of choices and trying to reduce that from the business

00:36:33 ◼   ► and the consumer side, how do you avoid the scams?

00:36:36 ◼   ► How do you keep a company from making an app clip

00:36:39 ◼   ► for Dan's smoothie shop that you don't even know about,

00:36:44 ◼   ► which we've learned is actually a problem

00:36:46 ◼   ► with a lot of the food delivery places.

00:36:48 ◼   ► Like a huge problem.

00:36:51 ◼   ► There's a place here, I was telling a friend,

00:36:53 ◼   ► there's a place here in Philly.

00:36:55 ◼   ► It's been here, I don't know, 30 years,

00:36:58 ◼   ► Pete's Famous Pizza, and they do their own delivery.

00:37:02 ◼   ► And it's one of these places, it's a pizza place.

00:37:06 ◼   ► They have two locations vaguely in center city Philly.

00:37:09 ◼   ► You know, they're strategically located

00:37:11 ◼   ► to cover the maximum area.

00:37:14 ◼   ► They have their own trucks and cars.

00:37:16 ◼   ► You see them riding around.

00:37:18 ◼   ► It's not even just like a magnet that somebody puts on.

00:37:20 ◼   ► They own their cars. You see Pete's Famous Pizza driving around. And one of the—I forget who it was,

00:37:27 ◼   ► Grubhub. If it was not Grubhub, I apologize to those of you who work at Grubhub. But one of

00:37:32 ◼   ► those type of places had a scam website instead of like—and Pete's has their own website. But it was

00:37:39 ◼   ► like if you Google Pete's Famous Pizza Philly, you'd get like—there's an alternate URL and it

00:37:45 ◼   ► and it looks legit, it's like Pete's Famous Pizza in Philly,

00:37:48 ◼   ► and if you order from there,

00:37:50 ◼   ► you're getting a Pete's Famous Pizza,

00:37:52 ◼   ► but they're the ones going to get it,

00:37:54 ◼   ► even though Pete's has delivery.

00:37:56 ◼   ► It's crazy.

00:37:57 ◼   ► It's like a total scam.

00:37:58 ◼   ► And so how do you keep that sort of mindset

00:38:02 ◼   ► from creeping into this app clip thing?

00:38:05 ◼   ► Presumably Apple's thinking about that

00:38:07 ◼   ► because that seems right up the alley

00:38:09 ◼   ► of all the privacy-focused stuff

00:38:11 ◼   ► they've been working on across the board.

00:38:13 ◼   ► - Right, and that's where I don't know,

00:38:15 ◼   ► will it just be a best practice

00:38:18 ◼   ► where they advise you not to create app clips

00:38:21 ◼   ► for businesses that don't want them,

00:38:23 ◼   ► or will they actually enforce it somehow?

00:38:26 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:38:27 ◼   ► It's gonna be interesting though.

00:38:28 ◼   ► Are we gonna start seeing app clips in ads,

00:38:30 ◼   ► or on posters, or?

00:38:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and what's the right to print them?

00:38:35 ◼   ► 'Cause part of making them look better,

00:38:37 ◼   ► like part of what makes QR codes so ugly

00:38:40 ◼   ► is that they just look like black and white status.

00:38:42 ◼   ► dorky. Yeah, but much like the universal product codes that have been around, I guess, since

00:38:52 ◼   ► the '70s, maybe the '80s. I know that I was a very young kid when they first started appearing

00:38:57 ◼   ► on every product. UPC codes, they are ugly. I guess Apple does put them on their products.

00:39:09 ◼   ► I think there's some kind of you know, like laws that you have to but you know

00:39:13 ◼   ► It kind of bugs them to do it because they are ugly

00:39:15 ◼   ► But they're not as ugly as QR codes because QR codes go in two dimensions. Whereas the UPC code is just one dimensional

00:39:22 ◼   ► array of thin and thick lines

00:39:25 ◼   ► The QR code being a two-dimensional square of static is really ugly, but they're very easy to print

00:39:33 ◼   ► You know, I've seen them, you know, you could just print them on whatever laser printer or inkjet printer

00:39:37 ◼   ► you have and just spit them out and tape them to your wall.

00:39:41 ◼   ► Like if Apple's goal with these is to make these stickers

00:39:44 ◼   ► look good, and they certainly do look attractive

00:39:48 ◼   ► in their demos so far, but how do you get them?

00:39:51 ◼   ► Like if you can't just print them yourself.

00:39:54 ◼   ► - And that's the thing, I don't know.

00:39:55 ◼   ► Perhaps you'll be able to export a digital file,

00:39:59 ◼   ► but if you want one with embedded NFC,

00:40:02 ◼   ► you have to order them through a partner that,

00:40:04 ◼   ► and I don't know, is this like,

00:40:05 ◼   ► "Is moo.com gonna sell these,

00:40:07 ◼   ► "or is Apple gonna sell them themselves

00:40:09 ◼   ► "for a buck apiece?"

00:40:10 ◼   ► I have, I don't know.

00:40:12 ◼   ► It'll be interesting to see that.

00:40:13 ◼   ► I asked and they didn't say, so we'll see.

00:40:16 ◼   ► - Right.

00:40:18 ◼   ► All right, let me take a break here.

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00:41:54 ◼   ► I guess the one last thing about app clips

00:41:59 ◼   ► that I would like to talk about

00:42:01 ◼   ► that it is sort of it I've been waiting for this for decades I mean this is no exaggeration of

00:42:08 ◼   ► something with the sort of ease of use of just loading a web page in terms of like you know

00:42:15 ◼   ► you're not really like weighing your computer down or installing a thing but it not a web page not

00:42:23 ◼   ► something that is just a url that goes into a web browser and renders in the browser and has all the

00:42:30 ◼   ► limits of a web page in a web browser. And I know that the web browsers have added, you know,

00:42:37 ◼   ► and continue to add APIs and become more app-like over time, but there's still...

00:42:42 ◼   ► It just seems like people have thought about things like this for a long time, like just,

00:42:48 ◼   ► here, just go here, and instead of typing a crufty URL that's prone to typos, especially on your

00:42:55 ◼   ► phone while you're out in public, just point your phone at this thing or just

00:43:01 ◼   ► hold it near this thing and then a thing pops up and you just hit a button and

00:43:04 ◼   ► now you've got the thing. But instead of being a web page, it is an app and it can

00:43:10 ◼   ► maybe look better, load faster, store data. You know, like you said, you can expand

00:43:17 ◼   ► to the full app at some point, install the whole app, and then all the stuff

00:43:21 ◼   ► if you've already done any app clip just moves over.

00:43:24 ◼   ► But also presumably can guard your privacy in a way,

00:43:29 ◼   ► you know, it's almost 100% certain

00:43:31 ◼   ► that Apple has designed app clips with privacy in mind

00:43:35 ◼   ► in a way that as we're learning week by week,

00:43:39 ◼   ► the web was not.

00:43:40 ◼   ► - Yes, and use all the sensors that are in your phone

00:43:44 ◼   ► and the camera and all sorts of other things.

00:43:47 ◼   ► And let's not forget, yes, this sounds pretty useful

00:43:52 ◼   ► for the iPhones that we all have,

00:43:54 ◼   ► but a lot of this seems to be setting things up

00:43:57 ◼   ► for AR glasses, where those 10 megs

00:44:01 ◼   ► have to go through to another device.

00:44:03 ◼   ► Speed really is of the essence,

00:44:08 ◼   ► but this idea of the physical world

00:44:10 ◼   ► having these digital kind of portals or on-ramps

00:44:14 ◼   ► is really interesting in the context of

00:44:18 ◼   ► actually being able to see them with glasses

00:44:20 ◼   ► and then use them on that screen

00:44:23 ◼   ► that's right in front of you.

00:44:24 ◼   ► So I have no idea what those types of experiences will be.

00:44:28 ◼   ► I'm sure I could take an edible

00:44:31 ◼   ► and come up with some ideas,

00:44:32 ◼   ► but I think that's obviously where a lot of this

00:44:37 ◼   ► is kind of being set up for.

00:44:39 ◼   ► And as I say, I think in the piece,

00:44:42 ◼   ► Apple is very good at setting future Apple up for success,

00:44:45 ◼   ► and I think this is an example of that.

00:44:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think, you know,

00:44:50 ◼   ► and I keep thinking back to Apple Pay,

00:44:53 ◼   ► and I forget how many years ago Apple Pay first came out,

00:44:56 ◼   ► but you know, they're a very patient company,

00:45:01 ◼   ► even though it doesn't seem like they're patient

00:45:03 ◼   ► because they keep moving things forward every year,

00:45:06 ◼   ► but there are things they do that they know

00:45:09 ◼   ► are not gonna pay off for five years.

00:45:12 ◼   ► You know, and Apple Pay is certainly one of them.

00:45:15 ◼   ► And I think like when Apple Pay first came out,

00:45:18 ◼   ► and six months later, there were initial numbers

00:45:21 ◼   ► of what percentage of U.S. retail transactions

00:45:24 ◼   ► were going through Apple Pay,

00:45:26 ◼   ► and people were rolling their eyes like,

00:45:28 ◼   ► oh my God, almost nobody's using it.

00:45:29 ◼   ► Well, it's like, even in,

00:45:31 ◼   ► I don't know what the best case scenario was,

00:45:33 ◼   ► but that's the sort of shift in consumer habits

00:45:36 ◼   ► that is obviously a long-term play.

00:45:39 ◼   ► I remember at the time reading about

00:45:43 ◼   ► like the history of credit cards,

00:45:44 ◼   ► and I know you're a credit card,

00:45:45 ◼   ► you're a much bigger credit card nerd than me,

00:45:49 ◼   ► but like when credit cards first became a thing,

00:45:52 ◼   ► like I think it was the '60s, right,

00:45:54 ◼   ► like with diners card and stuff,

00:45:56 ◼   ► very few people used them, and the idea was bizarre,

00:46:00 ◼   ► you know, that you just give, you go to a restaurant

00:46:03 ◼   ► and give somebody a piece of plastic

00:46:06 ◼   ► with numbers on it and they walk away with it

00:46:09 ◼   ► and come back and you just, that counts as paying your bill?

00:46:13 ◼   ► It was very strange and you know,

00:46:15 ◼   ► it is kind of wild when you think about the fact

00:46:17 ◼   ► that credit cards were truly like an honor system

00:46:22 ◼   ► until, I don't know, some point in the 80s

00:46:25 ◼   ► when there was some kind of networking and communication.

00:46:29 ◼   ► But I remember going to Kmart in particular with my mom.

00:46:33 ◼   ► my mom had a credit card.

00:46:34 ◼   ► And they had like a phone book full of like,

00:46:38 ◼   ► I don't know if they were the good numbers

00:46:39 ◼   ► or the bad numbers.

00:46:40 ◼   ► Like a phone book full of like MasterCard numbers

00:46:45 ◼   ► and Visa numbers.

00:46:46 ◼   ► And my mom would give the credit card over

00:46:48 ◼   ► and then the clerk would go through the phone book

00:46:50 ◼   ► and look for the number.

00:46:52 ◼   ► I never could figure out if they were looking for like,

00:46:54 ◼   ► okay, it's in here or it's, you know,

00:46:57 ◼   ► like is it a list of good numbers

00:47:02 ◼   ► or a list of, these are the ones that people have ripped off

00:47:06 ◼   ► but they'd look it up in a book

00:47:07 ◼   ► and I guess they got like a new book every month

00:47:09 ◼   ► or every couple months.

00:47:10 ◼   ► It's crazy that that's how credit cards worked.

00:47:13 ◼   ► Took a long time to take off

00:47:15 ◼   ► and I think that contactless payment with phones

00:47:18 ◼   ► is taking off faster than that

00:47:19 ◼   ► but it certainly seems like AppClip

00:47:22 ◼   ► is the same sort of thing where the real payoff,

00:47:24 ◼   ► if it takes off, it might be five to 10 years in the future.

00:47:28 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:47:31 ◼   ► I think that the idea that they're thinking about AR already has got to be true, right?

00:47:35 ◼   ► It has to be, because it's so clearly—you don't even have to know the exact nature

00:47:43 ◼   ► of what they're thinking the AR glasses product will be to imagine that having some

00:47:49 ◼   ► kind of card come up when you're in Starbucks that you can see, but it's really just sort

00:47:55 ◼   ► of a card and it doesn't have anywhere near the depth

00:47:58 ◼   ► of screens and hierarchy that a full iPhone app would have.

00:48:02 ◼   ► 'Cause that just seems, no matter how good the experience

00:48:05 ◼   ► with AR is, it doesn't seem appropriate, right?

00:48:07 ◼   ► It just seems like a sort of shallow card-like interface

00:48:11 ◼   ► is just what the doctor ordered.

00:48:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, something very simple and one-dimensional.

00:48:17 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:48:19 ◼   ► - We'll see.

00:48:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:48:22 ◼   ► What else?

00:48:24 ◼   ► Anything else from WWDC that really jumped out to you?

00:48:26 ◼   ► - I'm curious, since it's been something

00:48:29 ◼   ► we've been thinking and talking about for decades,

00:48:33 ◼   ► how the Apple Silicon announcement

00:48:38 ◼   ► kind of fit your expectations as expected

00:48:42 ◼   ► or different than what you thought it might be?

00:48:45 ◼   ► - It was very much in line with what I expected.

00:48:49 ◼   ► And I think, if I was wrong,

00:48:52 ◼   ► And a couple people have found the places.

00:48:54 ◼   ► The only area where I think I've been wrong for years on it

00:48:57 ◼   ► was that I thought it would happen a couple of years sooner.

00:49:01 ◼   ► I think that there was a post in Daring Fireball in 2017

00:49:06 ◼   ► where people thought I was being coy

00:49:09 ◼   ► in dropping one of those hints

00:49:10 ◼   ► where I actually know something

00:49:12 ◼   ► but just sort of act like I'm predicting it

00:49:14 ◼   ► and said something like next year

00:49:16 ◼   ► when there's arm-based max or something like that.

00:49:19 ◼   ► And I was just being a wiseacre

00:49:21 ◼   ► I obviously didn't know that, but other than maybe me being a little bit more aggressive

00:49:28 ◼   ► on what I thought they could do, it pretty much played out as I expected.

00:49:34 ◼   ► I think the one thing people are really getting wrong, and on my show last week, Federighi

00:49:40 ◼   ► even said it, was that you can't judge the performance of Mac on Apple Silicon by these

00:49:47 ◼   ► developer kits that are actually starting to get in developer hands today. I actually

00:49:51 ◼   ► know a couple of friends who got them today. But that this, paraphrasing Federighi on my

00:49:57 ◼   ► show that they run fine, they're good, but that it really only shows what their chip

00:50:04 ◼   ► team is capable of when they're not even trying, because this isn't designed for the Mac at

00:50:09 ◼   ► all. It's literally just the A12Z from the iPad. And I think that's what people are getting

00:50:15 ◼   ► the wrong impression on it.

00:50:16 ◼   ► 'Cause Apple's in a tight spot where they really want

00:50:21 ◼   ► to hold their powder to brag about how awesome

00:50:25 ◼   ► their chips are gonna be for when they're ready

00:50:27 ◼   ► to sell them, because that's just how they are,

00:50:29 ◼   ► and it's actually smarter marketing.

00:50:30 ◼   ► You don't want to get people too excited about 'em

00:50:32 ◼   ► before they can buy 'em.

00:50:34 ◼   ► But on the other hand, they kinda wanted to leave the hints

00:50:36 ◼   ► that, hey, these are gonna be really fast.

00:50:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wonder if, is Geekbench allowed

00:50:43 ◼   ► as per the borrowing terms,

00:50:45 ◼   ► or are you not allowed to do that?

00:50:48 ◼   ► - So, we're recording at the wrong time for this.

00:50:53 ◼   ► So, you can run Geekbench,

00:50:57 ◼   ► but Geekbench hasn't been recompiled for ARM.

00:51:02 ◼   ► So you're really only running,

00:51:03 ◼   ► you're not testing the hardware,

00:51:06 ◼   ► you're testing the Rosetta 2 emulation

00:51:09 ◼   ► of x86 on the hardware.

00:51:13 ◼   ► And I believe, now I don't have

00:51:15 ◼   ► the developer transition kit.

00:51:17 ◼   ► I didn't order one because I don't,

00:51:21 ◼   ► I have enough stuff to do this summer

00:51:23 ◼   ► and I feel like the last thing I need is another computer.

00:51:27 ◼   ► And I know that it's not indicative

00:51:30 ◼   ► of what they're going to actually ship.

00:51:32 ◼   ► And so, not that I'm not interested,

00:51:36 ◼   ► but I feel like here's something

00:51:37 ◼   ► I can just let other people do

00:51:39 ◼   ► and I'll read what they say

00:51:41 ◼   ► and the great privilege of the format of Daring Fireballs

00:51:44 ◼   ► is if somebody else writes something really awesome,

00:51:46 ◼   ► I just link to it and then it's like,

00:51:48 ◼   ► check it off my list, there you go.

00:51:50 ◼   ► Somebody wrote an awesome piece

00:51:52 ◼   ► about the Developer Transition Kit hardware,

00:51:55 ◼   ► I'll just link to it.

00:51:56 ◼   ► Here, go read, this person's great write-up.

00:51:58 ◼   ► So I didn't agree to any terms because I don't have one.

00:52:03 ◼   ► So I could say that somebody on Twitter,

00:52:07 ◼   ► I saw somebody on Twitter was posting

00:52:08 ◼   ► And I think that the Geekbench numbers look sort of like those of, roughly speaking, like

00:52:14 ◼   ► a 2015 iMac, which doesn't seem great because that's five years old as a Mac.

00:52:22 ◼   ► But you have to remember, it's running an emulation and it is a benchmark.

00:52:30 ◼   ► So it's supposed to be taxing.

00:52:32 ◼   ► So off the top of my head, I would say for a developer transition kit running a chip

00:52:38 ◼   ► that's not even from designed to run a mac it's from an ipad running an x86 to arm emulation

00:52:47 ◼   ► getting that speed from a you know 15 1600 mac from five years ago sounds good to me good i mean

00:52:56 ◼   ► do you remember yeah soft windows 95 what that ran like you could barely play minesweeper

00:53:00 ◼   ► i remember all of those because like i just did another callback to to being a web developer in

00:53:07 ◼   ► in the 90s, you know, I didn't, you either,

00:53:11 ◼   ► the best way to do it was to actually just have a PC

00:53:14 ◼   ► next to you, you know, and you'd either

00:53:17 ◼   ► do all your development in home site on a PC

00:53:20 ◼   ► and then turn around and test it on a Mac,

00:53:22 ◼   ► or you do all your development in BB Edit on a Mac

00:53:25 ◼   ► and then turn around and test it on a PC

00:53:27 ◼   ► so you could test it in all the popular browsers.

00:53:30 ◼   ► I didn't have a PC, I didn't, A, didn't wanna buy one,

00:53:33 ◼   ► didn't have room for one, and so I just ran, like,

00:53:36 ◼   ► what was it called, virtual PC was the one I had.

00:53:40 ◼   ► - That was one of them.

00:53:41 ◼   ► I had that, I had soft Windows 95, I remember,

00:53:44 ◼   ► which was like a full-on software emulator.

00:53:45 ◼   ► - I think I had that one too.

00:53:46 ◼   ► - Which was not good.

00:53:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:53:48 ◼   ► They were all not good.

00:53:51 ◼   ► They were good enough in that they were running

00:53:53 ◼   ► the actual code, and so for testing the visual fidelity

00:53:57 ◼   ► of a website, they were great, because if it looked good,

00:54:00 ◼   ► then you knew it would be good.

00:54:02 ◼   ► They just weren't, they were so slow that it was no way

00:54:05 ◼   ► to judge the actual load time.

00:54:07 ◼   ► But I remember them well.

00:54:10 ◼   ► - Do you remember, so while we're talking about emulators,

00:54:13 ◼   ► do you remember, it was like around 2000,

00:54:15 ◼   ► you could buy a PlayStation emulator for the Mac

00:54:19 ◼   ► and actually play PlayStation discs natively?

00:54:23 ◼   ► - No, I don't remember this at all.

00:54:25 ◼   ► - I forgot the name of it, it was super weird though.

00:54:27 ◼   ► It was so random and there were no good controllers,

00:54:30 ◼   ► so you were playing PlayStation games on a Mac

00:54:34 ◼   ► without a PlayStation controller.

00:54:36 ◼   ► - And of course, like the 640 by 480 VGA screen

00:54:39 ◼   ► looked so crappy on a, I think I was using a Power Mac,

00:54:44 ◼   ► or the laptops, PowerBook G3 at that point, but.

00:54:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, PowerBook.

00:54:49 ◼   ► - Do you think, now also going back probably too early,

00:54:54 ◼   ► they used to sell a desktop Mac that had a Intel chip

00:54:59 ◼   ► and a PowerPC chip in it.

00:55:02 ◼   ► Do you think they will--

00:55:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:55:04 ◼   ► - Those were probably super unpopular.

00:55:06 ◼   ► I think that was even--

00:55:08 ◼   ► - I forget what that was called.

00:55:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that was before Steve came back,

00:55:11 ◼   ► but do you think there would be like a Mac Pro board

00:55:16 ◼   ► that you could run Intel and also run Apple Silicon

00:55:20 ◼   ► in the same tower?

00:55:21 ◼   ► - The Mac Pro is a big question mark,

00:55:27 ◼   ► because the Mac Pro, the new modern Mac Pro

00:55:30 ◼   ► that's now six months old is such a beast

00:55:34 ◼   ► of a architecture and has those boards

00:55:38 ◼   ► that you can swap in and as obvious.

00:55:41 ◼   ► So I'm not gonna say no with the Mac Pro

00:55:44 ◼   ► that there would be some sort of way

00:55:45 ◼   ► that you could just buy like a PC on a board

00:55:49 ◼   ► that you just stick into a new Mac Pro

00:55:52 ◼   ► and now you've got an Intel-based computer

00:55:54 ◼   ► inside your Apple Silicon Mac Pro computer.

00:55:59 ◼   ► But for all other Macs, including even the iMacs,

00:56:04 ◼   ► Pro. I don't think that's feasible. I just don't think it's a good idea. But I don't

00:56:11 ◼   ► think so. Because it's always weird. Because even with the old Mac that had the two cards,

00:56:16 ◼   ► it was like you ran Windows, and in the Mac it looked like an app, but it really was running

00:56:23 ◼   ► the operating system on an entirely different CPU in the box. Yeah, it was weird. And so

00:56:31 ◼   ► So it was sort of like having two computers running at once, but the secondary computer

00:56:36 ◼   ► was projecting its video out into a window on your Mac.

00:56:43 ◼   ► Instead of going to a real video outsource, it was going into a window in the other computer.

00:56:50 ◼   ► It was all very weird.

00:56:52 ◼   ► I'm not sure what you buy from that.

00:56:54 ◼   ► I'm not sure what you get.

00:56:55 ◼   ► I think that it sounds like an interesting idea

00:57:00 ◼   ► and it certainly sounds like at some technical level

00:57:02 ◼   ► the Mac Pro could support a PC on a card

00:57:06 ◼   ► that you just stick into one of those slots,

00:57:07 ◼   ► but what would you actually do?

00:57:09 ◼   ► How would it actually work?

00:57:10 ◼   ► Why not just buy a PC?

00:57:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, especially these days,

00:57:13 ◼   ► the network is so fast you can run it wherever.

00:57:16 ◼   ► Do you think that the first wave

00:57:20 ◼   ► of Apple Silicon powered Macs will be

00:57:25 ◼   ► like super dramatic industrial design different

00:57:29 ◼   ► or will they be like the first wave of Intel Macs

00:57:32 ◼   ► that were pretty similar?

00:57:34 ◼   ► - Well, I think they'll be dramatic.

00:57:39 ◼   ► And some of the Intel ones were dramatic, like the--

00:57:44 ◼   ► - The MacBook, the plastic MacBook, yeah.

00:57:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, so they got rid of the,

00:57:48 ◼   ► what they called the iBook,

00:57:50 ◼   ► which was the consumer version of the PowerBook

00:57:52 ◼   ► in the PowerPC era and called the MacBooks,

00:57:55 ◼   ► which is so funny 'cause it's a name,

00:57:58 ◼   ► it's a name they keep coming up with

00:58:01 ◼   ► and they're always very striking and then they go away

00:58:04 ◼   ► and then there is no more computer just called MacBook,

00:58:07 ◼   ► but the MacBooks were those black and white plastic-y ones

00:58:11 ◼   ► and everybody remembers the black one looked cooler

00:58:13 ◼   ► and also cost more.

00:58:16 ◼   ► It's still one of my favorite little footnotes

00:58:20 ◼   ► of Apple history that they literally charged more

00:58:24 ◼   ► for a black version of the same computer.

00:58:28 ◼   ► And I've still, even off the record,

00:58:31 ◼   ► have never heard what the deal is with that

00:58:33 ◼   ► if they really were just charging

00:58:35 ◼   ► 'cause they knew it looked so much better

00:58:37 ◼   ► or if it actually did cost more.

00:58:39 ◼   ► - I think the minimum configuration was higher.

00:58:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. - I made Henry Bodger

00:58:44 ◼   ► buy me one, that was my first computer

00:58:46 ◼   ► at Alley Insider in 2007.

00:58:49 ◼   ► It was awesome.

00:58:50 ◼   ► It was a great machine.

00:58:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do think that that was part of it too,

00:58:55 ◼   ► that yeah, the minimum configuration was higher

00:58:57 ◼   ► and maybe spec for spec, they were the same price.

00:59:00 ◼   ► But basically, if you just walked in the Apple store,

00:59:03 ◼   ► looked at the two, thought the black one was cooler,

00:59:06 ◼   ► you were looking at at least $100 extra outlay,

00:59:08 ◼   ► which, but they were totally cooler looking computers

00:59:12 ◼   ► than the iBooks that came before them.

00:59:14 ◼   ► I think that, to answer your question,

00:59:18 ◼   ► I think that the first, I don't think there's gonna be

00:59:21 ◼   ► any confusion over which Macs are the new Apple Silicon ones

00:59:26 ◼   ► and which ones are the older Intel ones.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Maybe with the iMac, they'll do something.

00:59:33 ◼   ► I mean, the iMac, as we know it, is sort of long

00:59:36 ◼   ► in the tooth and it hasn't been updated for a while.

00:59:38 ◼   ► The iMac Pro has never been updated.

00:59:41 ◼   ► They came out with it.

00:59:42 ◼   ► It got universally great reviews.

00:59:47 ◼   ► everybody acknowledges that it has a truly genius

00:59:52 ◼   ► heating architecture to keep it from running hot,

00:59:58 ◼   ► yet very, very quiet, and they've never updated it.

01:00:02 ◼   ► So are they going to do another round of updates

01:00:04 ◼   ► to the iMac while they're still on Intel?

01:00:06 ◼   ► And if they do, are they gonna make them look new?

01:00:08 ◼   ► I mean, there's room, you know, there's the chin,

01:00:11 ◼   ► as we call it at the bottom of the iMac,

01:00:13 ◼   ► sorta looks outdated at this point.

01:00:14 ◼   ► It seems like the iMac should just be all screen,

01:00:17 ◼   ► and it's not, and are they gonna wait?

01:00:20 ◼   ► Are they really gonna make people keep buying

01:00:22 ◼   ► the ones we have now that are kind of a couple years

01:00:24 ◼   ► out of date for six more months,

01:00:26 ◼   ► or are they going to give us a new one?

01:00:29 ◼   ► I don't know, so the iMac, maybe.

01:00:30 ◼   ► I think with MacBooks, though,

01:00:33 ◼   ► the ARM ones are gonna look all new.

01:00:34 ◼   ► I don't know how, I mean, 'cause I'm not a designer,

01:00:38 ◼   ► but I would just guess thinner.

01:00:40 ◼   ► I would guess just new design language screens

01:00:44 ◼   ► that go closer to edge to edge.

01:00:46 ◼   ► I think it's pretty telling

01:00:47 ◼   ► that while they made the 16-inch MacBook Pro,

01:00:50 ◼   ► even bumping it up from 15-inch

01:00:53 ◼   ► in terms of how big the screen size is,

01:00:56 ◼   ► they made it go closer to the side to side,

01:00:58 ◼   ► but they didn't even do that with the 13-inch.

01:01:01 ◼   ► There certainly is a lot of room with the 13-inch

01:01:03 ◼   ► to make it look a lot more modern.

01:01:05 ◼   ► - I mean, I just even think back to that 12-inch MacBook

01:01:08 ◼   ► that I loved for so long,

01:01:09 ◼   ► but just had such terrible battery life

01:01:11 ◼   ► that that's the kind of thing where,

01:01:13 ◼   ► and then you take the current iPad Pro,

01:01:15 ◼   ► which is so thin and so fast,

01:01:18 ◼   ► and yes, they don't have a keyboard they have to deal with.

01:01:21 ◼   ► But yeah, to me, that's gonna be the sweet spot,

01:01:25 ◼   ► is that kind of good consumer-level laptop

01:01:29 ◼   ► where you could probably at least bump up

01:01:32 ◼   ► to 10 real hours of battery life

01:01:35 ◼   ► and probably make it a lot easier to have built-in cellular.

01:01:39 ◼   ► I know that was always an issue with the Intel Macbooks

01:01:43 ◼   ► and a lot of stuff like that.

01:01:45 ◼   ► And I've been waiting for it for years,

01:01:47 ◼   ► so I'm actually really excited for that.

01:01:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think something returning to the idea

01:01:53 ◼   ► of the just plain MacBook from the last couple years,

01:01:57 ◼   ► not the 2006 one that was plastic,

01:02:02 ◼   ► but the super thin and light one,

01:02:04 ◼   ► they must return to that because the MacBook Air,

01:02:08 ◼   ► the new MacBook Airs that are now like the flagship

01:02:11 ◼   ► MacBooks in Apple's lineup, and they're great machines,

01:02:15 ◼   ► and they're pretty much exactly what I think

01:02:17 ◼   ► the $1,100 to $1,300 Apple MacBook

01:02:23 ◼   ► for most people should be.

01:02:25 ◼   ► I think they're really great.

01:02:26 ◼   ► I think they're nice and thin.

01:02:29 ◼   ► You could make something a lot thinner, right?

01:02:31 ◼   ► It's the MacBook that they got rid of

01:02:34 ◼   ► shows that they could make something a lot thinner.

01:02:36 ◼   ► It's just that they were kind of slow

01:02:37 ◼   ► didn't get great battery life, you know. So if they could do something that's super impressively

01:02:43 ◼   ► small like that, boy, I think that would sell. Cellular, I think is, you know, most people

01:02:51 ◼   ► seem to be talking about touch screens, and I guess we should talk about that. I'd love

01:02:55 ◼   ► to hear if you think they're going to do touch screen max. If they do, I think that's clearly

01:02:59 ◼   ► the time. I don't even, and again, it's not because they can't do touch screens on Intel,

01:03:05 ◼   ► but if they're gonna have this line in the sand

01:03:08 ◼   ► that we're doing this big transition,

01:03:10 ◼   ► why not put as many of the transition type things,

01:03:13 ◼   ► like there are no Macs with a touchscreen,

01:03:16 ◼   ► and then there's a transition to there are some Macs

01:03:20 ◼   ► with touchscreens, why not have it all be the same line?

01:03:23 ◼   ► And it certainly is a compelling argument

01:03:27 ◼   ► in terms of selling it, and it would drive

01:03:30 ◼   ► all the people nuts because Apple has spent years,

01:03:33 ◼   ► It's very happily to spend all of the years

01:03:36 ◼   ► where they have no touchscreen Mac saying,

01:03:37 ◼   ► we think touchscreens on the laptop form factor

01:03:40 ◼   ► are a bad idea, and then until they do it,

01:03:44 ◼   ► and then it's the best idea they've ever had.

01:03:46 ◼   ► And they, of course, there's some aspect

01:03:49 ◼   ► to the introduction that makes it seem

01:03:51 ◼   ► as though they invented it.

01:03:53 ◼   ► - Totally.

01:03:54 ◼   ► - And it just, it's just, I live for those moments

01:03:58 ◼   ► to see the reactions from people.

01:03:59 ◼   ► - I mean, that was definitely the kind of takeaway

01:04:02 ◼   ► from the new UI for OS 11, I guess we're at now.

01:04:07 ◼   ► I definitely saw a lot of tweets saying,

01:04:10 ◼   ► oh, these touch targets are for fingers,

01:04:13 ◼   ► not for mouse cursors or mouse buttons.

01:04:16 ◼   ► It's so funny 'cause ever since I got

01:04:20 ◼   ► the iPad Pro keyboard case with the trackpad,

01:04:23 ◼   ► I almost never touched the screen anymore,

01:04:26 ◼   ► except with the pencil.

01:04:28 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:04:32 ◼   ► There are some places where it's super useful,

01:04:35 ◼   ► but if anything, I'm less interested in a touchscreen.

01:04:40 ◼   ► It might be nice, though, to have pencil support,

01:04:43 ◼   ► and it really depends on the balance of weight,

01:04:46 ◼   ► if you're poking at the screen

01:04:48 ◼   ► and it's flopping the computer around.

01:04:50 ◼   ► But I would say that on the balance, I'm probably more,

01:04:56 ◼   ► I'd be far less surprised if they did integrate touch

01:05:00 ◼   ► to the Mac than before just by seeing the,

01:05:04 ◼   ► kind of the new paradigm of the Mac UI.

01:05:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

01:05:11 ◼   ► Some people seem to look at the new 10,

01:05:14 ◼   ► or not 10, it's actually Mac OS 11 now,

01:05:16 ◼   ► but people look at Big Sur, and some people look at it

01:05:20 ◼   ► and seem to think this is definitely for a touchscreen

01:05:25 ◼   ► because some things have a little bit more space

01:05:27 ◼   ► and some of the icons look more like iPad icons.

01:05:31 ◼   ► I see some of what they're saying,

01:05:33 ◼   ► but there's a lot to me that doesn't look

01:05:36 ◼   ► any more touch-friendly than it ever was,

01:05:39 ◼   ► and that doesn't mean that I think it's not gonna happen.

01:05:41 ◼   ► I just, I think people are seeing what they wanna see.

01:05:43 ◼   ► I think the people who seem to think it

01:05:46 ◼   ► is a clear predictor of touchscreen support

01:05:51 ◼   ► in the ARM-based Macs coming next year

01:05:53 ◼   ► seem to be a one-to-one correlation

01:05:56 ◼   ► with the people who most want it to happen,

01:05:58 ◼   ► and as opposed to sort of objectively looking at it.

01:06:02 ◼   ► And on that particular point,

01:06:04 ◼   ► I feel pretty objective about it.

01:06:06 ◼   ► I'm not opposed to it, I'm just not dying for it either.

01:06:09 ◼   ► I really don't feel strongly about it.

01:06:11 ◼   ► The only part I feel very strongly about

01:06:13 ◼   ► is I really, really, and I don't think it's gonna happen,

01:06:17 ◼   ► I would hate to see the Mac go to an interface

01:06:21 ◼   ► where everything is expected and has to be sized for touch,

01:06:25 ◼   ► because there's so much good Mac software

01:06:28 ◼   ► where the information density,

01:06:30 ◼   ► you know, they just look at the palettes in Photoshop

01:06:32 ◼   ► or any other app that's like Photoshop.

01:06:34 ◼   ► I don't wanna have a palette in Photoshop

01:06:36 ◼   ► where all the buttons are double the size and spaced apart

01:06:40 ◼   ► so that you can make them fingerprint friendly.

01:06:44 ◼   ► I like having them packed together.

01:06:46 ◼   ► That's my only concern,

01:06:47 ◼   ► and I think that's possible where you, you know,

01:06:50 ◼   ► and I think it's the way they would go.

01:06:53 ◼   ► I think it's sort of like the inverse of the iPad,

01:06:55 ◼   ► where the iPad is still touch first,

01:06:57 ◼   ► but now it has a trackpad that you can use,

01:07:00 ◼   ► but somebody who doesn't have one would never know it.

01:07:03 ◼   ► My wife doesn't have the keyboard with the trackpad.

01:07:06 ◼   ► She uses her iPad as much as anybody I know.

01:07:09 ◼   ► She uses her iPad more than her Mac

01:07:12 ◼   ► and iPhone combined by far.

01:07:15 ◼   ► I don't know that she even knows

01:07:16 ◼   ► that her iPad OS has trackpad support,

01:07:18 ◼   ► 'cause I don't know that she reads my website.

01:07:20 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:07:22 ◼   ► But that's the way it should be it still is right and I feel like the right way for the Mac to gain touchscreen

01:07:27 ◼   ► Support would be okay. So if you bought one that has a touchscreen now you can scroll by putting your finger on your screen

01:07:33 ◼   ► But if you're still using your Mac connected to you know, like if you just spent six thousand dollars on an Apple

01:07:40 ◼   ► Whatever the thing display is called which obviously doesn't have touch. It doesn't feel like you're left out right total

01:07:47 ◼   ► You know, so I feel like add, you know, the Mac is mouse first

01:07:51 ◼   ► and touch second in the way that the iPad remains

01:07:54 ◼   ► touch first and trackpad second.

01:07:57 ◼   ► - Yeah. - I think that's possible.

01:07:58 ◼   ► - So another way of interpreting that is just like,

01:08:00 ◼   ► you know, the iPad is gonna look more like,

01:08:03 ◼   ► perhaps even more like Big Sur at some point,

01:08:06 ◼   ► or you know, if those visual paths

01:08:09 ◼   ► are converging more and more,

01:08:11 ◼   ► perhaps one of them will never get touch support,

01:08:14 ◼   ► but if the idea is to make it

01:08:15 ◼   ► so that they look more like each other,

01:08:17 ◼   ► perhaps, I don't know.

01:08:18 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:08:21 ◼   ► - We'll be, we'll be interesting.

01:08:23 ◼   ► - Have you installed, have you installed

01:08:24 ◼   ► any of the betas yet?

01:08:25 ◼   ► - I have not.

01:08:26 ◼   ► I usually wait for the public betas

01:08:28 ◼   ► because I don't really have spare machines.

01:08:31 ◼   ► So, yeah.

01:08:34 ◼   ► - I keep thinking about it.

01:08:35 ◼   ► I mentioned it with Fansarino,

01:08:36 ◼   ► he was on my show last week,

01:08:38 ◼   ► but ordinarily because I travel in the summer more,

01:08:42 ◼   ► I depend on my phone, so I haven't installed betas

01:08:44 ◼   ► on my regular iPhone for years

01:08:47 ◼   ► because I just can't take the chance,

01:08:48 ◼   ► but I'm not going anywhere this summer,

01:08:50 ◼   ► So I'm sort of like, why not?

01:08:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, the extra hits of the battery life

01:08:54 ◼   ► does not matter at all.

01:08:55 ◼   ► - You know, it's like I know a lot of people out there

01:08:58 ◼   ► cutting their own hair, and it's like, well, why not?

01:09:00 ◼   ► I'm not going anywhere.

01:09:01 ◼   ► Nobody's seen me in months, so what's the difference?

01:09:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:09:06 ◼   ► - So it's like, why not have a phone that's half brick?

01:09:08 ◼   ► But everybody I know who's installed it has said

01:09:11 ◼   ► that they're seemingly on a ying-yang schedule,

01:09:14 ◼   ► where iOS 12 two years ago, everybody was like,

01:09:17 ◼   ► this is the most stable beta I've ever seen from Apple.

01:09:19 ◼   ► This is actually more stable than iOS 11 was in production.

01:09:23 ◼   ► This is fantastic.

01:09:24 ◼   ► And then last year,

01:09:25 ◼   ► iOS 13 was sort of one of the least stable releases

01:09:30 ◼   ► they've ever had.

01:09:31 ◼   ► Remember the weird release like in August

01:09:33 ◼   ► where they suddenly pulled the developer betas

01:09:36 ◼   ► 'cause they kind of had to do a release to manufacturing

01:09:39 ◼   ► and it wasn't really ready.

01:09:41 ◼   ► And then it was really weird where like

01:09:44 ◼   ► the initial wave of brand new iPhone 11s

01:09:47 ◼   ► that came out in September had iPhone, iOS 11 or 13.0,

01:09:52 ◼   ► but 13.1 came out like four days later.

01:09:56 ◼   ► I mean, it was weird.

01:09:59 ◼   ► Apple didn't wanna talk about it 'cause they're Apple,

01:10:03 ◼   ► but basically, they were behind.

01:10:06 ◼   ► The software was behind.

01:10:07 ◼   ► They had to ship because the hardware's coming

01:10:09 ◼   ► and they did the best they could.

01:10:11 ◼   ► And they kind of made it all work by October,

01:10:15 ◼   ► which, you know, all credit to them.

01:10:18 ◼   ► - Well, and I think that-- - But it seems like--

01:10:20 ◼   ► - Balances up against the fewer, maybe,

01:10:22 ◼   ► new features this year, is that the focus was on quality.

01:10:26 ◼   ► And of course, any constraints from having people

01:10:29 ◼   ► working at home too, I'm sure that

01:10:31 ◼   ► slowed things down as well.

01:10:32 ◼   ► - I'm curious about that, and I sort of,

01:10:37 ◼   ► if, you know, I always, after my live show

01:10:39 ◼   ► or interview show, whatever you want to call it,

01:10:41 ◼   ► remote show this year, I always have the feeling,

01:10:44 ◼   ► the questions in the back of my head that I sort of wish I'd asked that I didn't ask.

01:10:49 ◼   ► And on my list, it wasn't that I forgot to ask, but it was just sort of was in one of my question

01:10:55 ◼   ► cards that it just felt like we ran out of time, was to talk about, you know, like, and I don't

01:11:01 ◼   ► know what, I don't know if they would have answered it. I, you know, was, I don't, I just don't know.

01:11:06 ◼   ► But basically, has the work from home shift since March affected what they're working on? Like,

01:11:14 ◼   ► Like are they doing more bug fixes

01:11:16 ◼   ► because it's more amenable to engineers working at home

01:11:20 ◼   ► or is it sort of like, no, this is,

01:11:23 ◼   ► even if this hadn't happened,

01:11:25 ◼   ► the iOS 14 you see today

01:11:26 ◼   ► probably would have been pretty much the same?

01:11:29 ◼   ► I don't think they would have answered

01:11:30 ◼   ► but I still think it's an interesting question.

01:11:33 ◼   ► Here, let me take a break.

01:11:34 ◼   ► I'll thank our third and final sponsor of the show,

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01:13:31 ◼   ► The only other thing I wanted to talk to you about,

01:13:35 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like I have to,

01:13:37 ◼   ► is a little bit of media kibitzing.

01:13:40 ◼   ► - Oh yeah. - You see,

01:13:42 ◼   ► and there's a lot of it going on.

01:13:45 ◼   ► I'm sort of nibbling around the edges of it.

01:13:49 ◼   ► And it's sort of coming together in a couple of ways.

01:13:54 ◼   ► Like the whole thing with social media networks

01:14:00 ◼   ► sort of getting there,

01:14:04 ◼   ► stopping trying to having it both ways.

01:14:07 ◼   ► And just today, before we recorded, Reddit closed the Donald subreddit, which is where

01:14:14 ◼   ► all the Trump fans got their hate on for years.

01:14:19 ◼   ► Twitter has, in recent weeks, started putting labels on the more egregious of Trump's tweets,

01:14:26 ◼   ► and Facebook has not, and has really started to take flack for it, and has seen a lot of

01:14:33 ◼   ► name advertisers not boycott them. It's an interesting dance, like Coca-Cola to name

01:14:42 ◼   ► one, and Unilever, which is a big—if you've never heard of Unilever, half of your supermarket

01:14:48 ◼   ► is fully Unilever products. They've said that they're going to just stop advertising

01:14:56 ◼   ► on social media for six months and see what happens. Well, it happens to coincide with

01:15:01 ◼   ► a massive recession. So it's not necessarily tied to controversy. But it just seems to

01:15:08 ◼   ► me my take on this, and again, maybe I'm the one seeing what I want to see here. Maybe

01:15:12 ◼   ► I'm the one who's blinded by bias. But what I think is happening is that these social

01:15:17 ◼   ► media groups have networks have tried for years to sort of have it both ways where they're

01:15:24 ◼   ► trying to say, "Everybody's welcome. We want the whole country. We want the whole world,

01:15:29 ◼   ► whether you're on this side or that side

01:15:32 ◼   ► of the political divide, no matter how extreme

01:15:34 ◼   ► one of those sides might get,

01:15:36 ◼   ► we're after the biggest audience,

01:15:39 ◼   ► so we're gonna be the home to all of it,

01:15:41 ◼   ► and that's the spirit of free speech.

01:15:43 ◼   ► And you know, sounds good until it starts going awry.

01:15:49 ◼   ► And I feel like what's happened is that people are like,

01:15:51 ◼   ► I don't want anything to do with this network

01:15:53 ◼   ► if they're gonna allow X, Y, and Z.

01:15:55 ◼   ► And so now you've got, you have to make a choice,

01:15:58 ◼   ► which is we're going to allow this one side

01:16:02 ◼   ► to post things that the other side finds unacceptable,

01:16:06 ◼   ► or we're gonna lose one or the other.

01:16:08 ◼   ► If we say you're not allowed to do it,

01:16:10 ◼   ► they're going to say you're biased against us

01:16:11 ◼   ► because we're quote, unquote, conservative.

01:16:14 ◼   ► Or if they allow these people to post whatever they want,

01:16:19 ◼   ► they're gonna lose people who say,

01:16:21 ◼   ► I find this to be hateful.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Curious what you think is going on

01:16:25 ◼   ► and where you think it's heading.

01:16:26 ◼   ► I mean, you look at Facebook, which is now 16 years old,

01:16:31 ◼   ► something like that.

01:16:32 ◼   ► Is it a utility?

01:16:35 ◼   ► Is it like AT&T where it just pushes whatever people

01:16:40 ◼   ► on one end send to people on the other end?

01:16:42 ◼   ► Is it a service?

01:16:43 ◼   ► Is it a publisher?

01:16:45 ◼   ► And I think for a long time, Mark Zuckerberg described it

01:16:49 ◼   ► as utility, in fact, he used to call it, I believe,

01:16:52 ◼   ► a social utility.

01:16:54 ◼   ► But social utility is not funded by advertising

01:16:58 ◼   ► from the biggest companies in the world.

01:17:00 ◼   ► And it runs an application layer

01:17:04 ◼   ► and an application platform, in fact.

01:17:06 ◼   ► And so in the last four or five years, six years,

01:17:11 ◼   ► probably the biggest conversation in the tech industry

01:17:14 ◼   ► is that these huge social networks,

01:17:19 ◼   ► primarily Facebook but also Twitter,

01:17:21 ◼   ► to some degree, YouTube as well, Reddit,

01:17:23 ◼   ► they need to take more responsibility for what they are.

01:17:27 ◼   ► And you see that through varying degrees.

01:17:32 ◼   ► Even Twitter, which gets a lot of applause

01:17:35 ◼   ► for the kind of little asterisks

01:17:39 ◼   ► as they put on Trump tweets now.

01:17:42 ◼   ► (Dave laughs)

01:17:44 ◼   ► - Which is really what it amounts to.

01:17:46 ◼   ► - It's such a weenie thing, and it's so Twitter.

01:17:48 ◼   ► But it's not an easy, by the way,

01:17:53 ◼   ► not an easy problem to solve,

01:17:54 ◼   ► and also not just a problem here in the US.

01:17:57 ◼   ► This was a much bigger problem in other countries

01:18:01 ◼   ► before it was here, where people were actually being,

01:18:05 ◼   ► a lot of people were killed.

01:18:06 ◼   ► But you could see also the severity of this and how,

01:18:10 ◼   ► I think people make it seem like it's so easy

01:18:15 ◼   ► for Mark Zuckerberg to just make one decision

01:18:18 ◼   ► then that will solve everything.

01:18:19 ◼   ► That's just not the case.

01:18:21 ◼   ► These are complicated problems

01:18:23 ◼   ► that are different everywhere.

01:18:25 ◼   ► There are places where there are laws.

01:18:27 ◼   ► There are places where there aren't laws.

01:18:29 ◼   ► You know, there's probably a lot of Americans

01:18:33 ◼   ► who wish that Twitter would just delete Trump's account.

01:18:36 ◼   ► And you could make a very good case

01:18:39 ◼   ► for why that should not be allowed either.

01:18:41 ◼   ► If Twitter decides we are a journalistic entity,

01:18:48 ◼   ► you know, we're a publisher, of course, then it can have whatever, you know, then it can

01:18:52 ◼   ► publish whatever it wants and, and not publish whatever it wants.

01:18:57 ◼   ► But I don't think anyone wants that from Twitter or Facebook either.

01:19:00 ◼   ► I don't think they want the effective, you know, the equivalent of the app review process

01:19:05 ◼   ► for every single post that goes through these services.

01:19:08 ◼   ► That's kind of not even possible.

01:19:10 ◼   ► There's just so much content that flows through them and so many people using them.

01:19:14 ◼   ► You know, imagine the app queue for approval if there were two billion developers trying

01:19:19 ◼   ► to ship updates every day.

01:19:21 ◼   ► That just wouldn't really work.

01:19:23 ◼   ► So it's not an easy problem to solve.

01:19:27 ◼   ► You also can't really say with a straight face that any of these companies are doing

01:19:30 ◼   ► a great job at it, especially not Facebook, especially not YouTube and Twitter.

01:19:37 ◼   ► There's just so much bad stuff that happens as well.

01:19:41 ◼   ► And this is just gonna be part of the reality

01:19:45 ◼   ► for quite a long time.

01:19:46 ◼   ► I mean, we're not close to having near perfect AI analysis

01:19:51 ◼   ► of speech that would like rule out all but .01% of edge cases

01:19:56 ◼   ► that's just not really happening either.

01:20:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:20:03 ◼   ► I think it's really hard to put your finger on

01:20:06 ◼   ► because I feel like what they've built

01:20:09 ◼   ► are so nebulous in certain ways, these social networks,

01:20:13 ◼   ► that analogies to anything else break down.

01:20:17 ◼   ► But the phone network, the old-fashioned landline phone

01:20:20 ◼   ► network was a true utility.

01:20:23 ◼   ► You could put it in terms of--

01:20:26 ◼   ► especially the pre-internet era, it

01:20:28 ◼   ► was the definition of a utility.

01:20:30 ◼   ► And when you picked up your phone, all you got

01:20:32 ◼   ► was a dial tone.

01:20:33 ◼   ► And it just meant your phone is working.

01:20:35 ◼   ► and then you punched numbers in and got connected.

01:20:39 ◼   ► You know, everything changes.

01:20:41 ◼   ► You can't really call it a utility

01:20:44 ◼   ► when Facebook has an algorithm

01:20:46 ◼   ► that suggests things to you, right?

01:20:49 ◼   ► You know, and there were apps.

01:20:51 ◼   ► We didn't call them apps, but it's like,

01:20:53 ◼   ► and it shows how old I am that I remember it.

01:20:56 ◼   ► But then there was even an entire Seinfeld episode

01:20:59 ◼   ► about the movie phone.

01:21:00 ◼   ► - Oh yeah. - You know, like,

01:21:01 ◼   ► that was how you found out what movies were playing.

01:21:03 ◼   ► You'd call it, I swear to God,

01:21:05 ◼   ► This is what you did and it was awesome because before movie phone you had to like find a newspaper

01:21:10 ◼   ► And find the movie listing page and figure it out like if you just wanted to figure out

01:21:14 ◼   ► What movies were playing and where you'd call a phone number and there was a guy and he'd tell you you know

01:21:21 ◼   ► It was a recorded voice and you punch in your zip code and and then he would say, you know

01:21:25 ◼   ► You could go to this movie theater and they've got this movie and you'd hit seven to hear the times and it was playing at

01:21:31 ◼   ► 7 and 9 30 p.m. At this movie theater and then you tell your friends that's where it is and you'd go it's like

01:21:37 ◼   ► Facebook is more like you pick up your phone and your phone just says you would you like to talk to movie phone?

01:21:43 ◼   ► You know what? I mean? Like that's it that changes it from being a utility. It's different, you know

01:21:48 ◼   ► And I think the other thing too is that they've sort of backed themselves into a corner

01:21:53 ◼   ► Here where and again this analogy has all sorts of holes in it, but maybe in the 1950s everybody went shopping downtown

01:22:01 ◼   ► and you'd go downtown and that's where all the stores are and because it was a public square

01:22:06 ◼   ► if somebody with a political message could stand on the corner and shout it because it was public and then in the 70s everybody went

01:22:13 ◼   ► To indoor shopping malls and they were all privately owned and everybody went to the malls

01:22:17 ◼   ► But they wouldn't let

01:22:19 ◼   ► kooks stand in this middle of the hallway and shout their stuff because it was privately owned and then you could say

01:22:26 ◼   ► You're shutting down free speech because this is where everybody is

01:22:30 ◼   ► But it's not a town square. It's a private property and if they allow you to do it then it's on them, right?

01:22:37 ◼   ► And it's I don't know what the solution is because you can't make everybody go back to going downtown where it is

01:22:43 ◼   ► free and open and nobody controls it but it is you if you own them all and you let a

01:22:49 ◼   ► Kook whether they're left-wing kooks right-wing kooks religious kooks

01:22:54 ◼   ► Whatever it is, if you just let them sit there with a megaphone and shout at people that's on you

01:22:59 ◼   ► It is a complicated scenario.

01:23:03 ◼   ► Anyway, we could do all that.

01:23:05 ◼   ► - We could, yeah.

01:23:06 ◼   ► It's complicated.

01:23:07 ◼   ► It's never gonna be perfect,

01:23:08 ◼   ► but it certainly could be better,

01:23:10 ◼   ► and yeah, we'll see what happens.

01:23:14 ◼   ► - All right, always good to talk to you.

01:23:15 ◼   ► - Thank you so much.

01:23:16 ◼   ► - I love talking to you after WWDC.

01:23:18 ◼   ► Everybody can, what's the domain for new consumer?

01:23:21 ◼   ► - Newconsumer.com, yeah.

01:23:23 ◼   ► Check it out.

01:23:24 ◼   ► - And that's your newsletter.

01:23:25 ◼   ► I enjoy reading it.

01:23:26 ◼   ► It feels like you're doing a great job.

01:23:28 ◼   ► - I think.

01:23:30 ◼   ► - I'm having fun. - Really, really great.

01:23:32 ◼   ► - That's part of it.

01:23:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, you know what, I feel it.

01:23:35 ◼   ► I can feel it in your writing.

01:23:37 ◼   ► It feels like you're, I don't know,

01:23:39 ◼   ► you could probably tell me, you know me well enough.

01:23:43 ◼   ► You could tell when I'm in a good mood on "Daring Fireball."

01:23:46 ◼   ► - Absolutely, yeah.

01:23:47 ◼   ► - Newconsumer.com, and then on Twitter,

01:23:51 ◼   ► of course you are from Dome, F-R-O-M-E, D-O-M-E.

01:23:57 ◼   ► I don't know why I'd say that,

01:23:59 ◼   ► because I'm sure everybody's already following you.

01:24:01 ◼   ► Thanks, Dan.

01:24:02 ◼   ► - Would hope so, thank you.