PodSearch

The Talk Show

199: ‘Under Rumored’ With Jim Dalrymple

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► I have not been more excited for an Apple event in recent memory than next week's.

00:00:07 ◼   ► I don't know about you, but I am excited because I feel like there's a lot we don't

00:00:13 ◼   ► know.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:00:15 ◼   ► And it's kind of funny because I think part of the excitement comes from where it's

00:00:22 ◼   ► going to be.

00:00:23 ◼   ► And part of the excitement comes from what's gonna be announced and what we don't know

00:00:29 ◼   ► about what's gonna be announced.

00:00:30 ◼   ► I mean, we have a lot of, well, I won't say details.

00:00:35 ◼   ► We have a lot of speculation and rumor on the new iPhone.

00:00:40 ◼   ► But there's a lot of questions to be answered.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Dr. Justin Marchegiani It is not a complete black box.

00:00:48 ◼   ► But it's, I would say, I would venture to say

00:00:50 ◼   ► it is as close to as little as we could know as possible.

00:00:54 ◼   ► Like, just given the nature of what leaks out

00:00:57 ◼   ► of the Asian supply chain and is outside Apple's control,

00:01:01 ◼   ► it would be very, I mean, there's a,

00:01:04 ◼   ► the only thing I can think, there's a few things

00:01:06 ◼   ► we gleaned from that botched release of the HomePod OS,

00:01:11 ◼   ► right, and that when they, you know, a month or so ago,

00:01:14 ◼   ► when they publicly released that version

00:01:17 ◼   ► of iOS and then, you know, the Stephen Troughton Smith

00:01:22 ◼   ► and his cohorts, you know, went through

00:01:24 ◼   ► and found a bunch of resources.

00:01:25 ◼   ► So there's a few things that were gleaned from that

00:01:27 ◼   ► that were within Apple's control,

00:01:30 ◼   ► but otherwise, we don't know much.

00:01:32 ◼   ► I really don't.

00:01:33 ◼   ► And like you said, even the venue is sort of a mystery.

00:01:35 ◼   ► I mean, what's it like?

00:01:36 ◼   ► I mean, there's blueprints.

00:01:37 ◼   ► There were blueprints published

00:01:39 ◼   ► of what the theater looked like,

00:01:41 ◼   ► but I mean, that doesn't really,

00:01:42 ◼   ► and some leaked photos during construction, but.

00:01:45 ◼   ► - Right.

00:01:46 ◼   ► I don't know, it's the first event ever held there.

00:01:48 ◼   ► It's kind of cool.

00:01:50 ◼   ► - I'm looking forward to it.

00:01:52 ◼   ► Even that part of it, to get to,

00:01:55 ◼   ► I mean, I assume we'll be walking past the ring

00:01:59 ◼   ► to get to-- - That's the funny part,

00:02:04 ◼   ► is that it's, I don't even know where we're gonna park.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Right? - I know, I know.

00:02:09 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:02:10 ◼   ► - I don't know about you, but I didn't even,

00:02:11 ◼   ► I mean, I got emailed with the invitation

00:02:14 ◼   ► and I've gotten a few emails setting up times

00:02:17 ◼   ► for post-event briefings.

00:02:20 ◼   ► But even there, it was like,

00:02:24 ◼   ► we'll give you more information on the details

00:02:27 ◼   ► of how to get there later.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And it's Friday.

00:02:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, very, yeah.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - I know, I know, I know.

00:02:35 ◼   ► And I really am, I'm looking forward

00:02:38 ◼   ► to that whole aspect of it.

00:02:40 ◼   ► - Yeah. - It's gonna be great.

00:02:41 ◼   ► - Among the things that leaked, there was a,

00:02:43 ◼   ► Who was it?

00:02:44 ◼   ► There's like the journals had,

00:02:45 ◼   ► Wall Street Journal's had a bunch of things recently,

00:02:48 ◼   ► but I think it was the Wall Street Journal

00:02:50 ◼   ► who like two weeks ago,

00:02:51 ◼   ► it was before I did the last episode with Jason Snell,

00:02:54 ◼   ► where they said that they,

00:02:56 ◼   ► it was before the invitations went out

00:02:58 ◼   ► and they had the date.

00:02:59 ◼   ► They said it's gonna be Tuesday the 12th.

00:03:01 ◼   ► And they said, and they think that,

00:03:04 ◼   ► or Apple plans to have it in the Steve Jobs Theater,

00:03:07 ◼   ► but who knows?

00:03:08 ◼   ► And it's like, two weeks before the event, they know.

00:03:12 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, they know.

00:03:13 ◼   ► - That made it so curious, but I always,

00:03:16 ◼   ► immediately my mind works at that meta level of journalism

00:03:21 ◼   ► and I'm thinking like, who is this?

00:03:23 ◼   ► And it was just attributed to sources familiar

00:03:25 ◼   ► with the situation or something, you know,

00:03:27 ◼   ► that one of those vague standard anonymous attributions.

00:03:32 ◼   ► But it's like, I don't know, it's just so interesting to me

00:03:38 ◼   ► like behind the scenes who it was that leaked the date

00:03:41 ◼   ► if they didn't know the actual venue

00:03:43 ◼   ► or did they leak the date?

00:03:45 ◼   ► It was just somebody who knew the date and the venue

00:03:46 ◼   ► but said, you know, but you can't even use the fact

00:03:51 ◼   ► that it's gonna be at the Steve Jobs Theater anonymously.

00:03:54 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:03:55 ◼   ► But it's, you know, they knew.

00:03:57 ◼   ► - Of course they knew.

00:03:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, you know, as much as we talk

00:04:02 ◼   ► and as much speculation as there is out there,

00:04:05 ◼   ► there's probably literally a handful of people at Apple

00:04:10 ◼   ► at Apple, Tim Schiller and a couple of others that know what's coming.

00:04:16 ◼   ► Yeah. But the event rollout though, there's a big team behind that. In the last few years where they

00:04:24 ◼   ► had it at the Bill... Not Bill James, Bill James is the baseball writer, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

00:04:31 ◼   ► I think it was the last two years in a row the September event was held there. They effectively

00:04:37 ◼   ► both times built their own building in the building. I mean, it was like, but it was

00:04:42 ◼   ► almost stunning that it was a temporary structure. The seating, the two years ago when they had

00:04:49 ◼   ► it all set up with the Apple TV stuff, with a bunch of, you know, like fake living rooms,

00:04:54 ◼   ► all of it was a temporary structure. Like, that's not the sort of thing that you can

00:04:59 ◼   ► do, you know, like, oh, well, the theater is not really fully constructed. Let's call

00:05:04 ◼   ► the Bill Graham three days before the event and see if we can quick put up a building.

00:05:11 ◼   ► You know what I mean? Like the amount of prep that Apple puts into these events is just

00:05:15 ◼   ► stunning. It's just one of those little things that's hard to convey. I mention it on the

00:05:22 ◼   ► podcast whenever we talk about these events and sometimes I write about it when I write

00:05:26 ◼   ► my post event thoughts and first thoughts about the event or whatever. But I don't know

00:05:33 ◼   ► know if I do justice to just how much effort Apple puts into the pomp and circumstance.

00:05:40 ◼   ► I don't know how else to describe it. You know what I mean?

00:05:44 ◼   ► Well, for anybody that hasn't been there, I think what's important to know about these

00:05:52 ◼   ► events is that Apple puts as much work into the event itself as it does with the products.

00:05:57 ◼   ► Yes.

00:05:58 ◼   ► You know, it's it really is stunning to walk into an Apple event and see

00:06:04 ◼   ► every little detail is taken care of and for

00:06:09 ◼   ► for for you and I and and others but for you and I when we're done with the done with

00:06:18 ◼   ► The the event the keynote is over then we're we're in a nice very

00:06:26 ◼   ► Nice doesn't even describe it beautiful hands-on area

00:06:29 ◼   ► where we we you know get some time with the products and then we're whisked away to a

00:06:36 ◼   ► waiting area where

00:06:38 ◼   ► they have you know coffee and muffins or whatever and then into a

00:06:43 ◼   ► briefing

00:06:45 ◼   ► with

00:06:46 ◼   ► Apple execs and

00:06:48 ◼   ► it's just

00:06:50 ◼   ► Every part of that just goes off so flawlessly and I don't know about you

00:06:54 ◼   ► but I've been to other events where whether it's a trade show or

00:06:58 ◼   ► You know an event like this for another company where it's just mind-blowing how bad it is. Yeah, I

00:07:06 ◼   ► haven't been to a lot for other companies, but I was at the for the original Microsoft surface the

00:07:14 ◼   ► first batch which was when they had the the dual strategy of

00:07:21 ◼   ► Or Windows RT, which was all the new touch-based metro

00:07:25 ◼   ► Interface running on an ARM tablet and then they had the thicker heavier tablet that ran

00:07:32 ◼   ► the full version of Windows with the

00:07:35 ◼   ► Metro interface it was weird

00:07:37 ◼   ► And that was in New York, and it was not bad

00:07:40 ◼   ► It definitely wasn't bad, but it and they definitely spent a lot of money on it, but it was

00:07:46 ◼   ► nowhere near as

00:07:50 ◼   ► polished and the flow from one segment to another like from before the event to the event to where

00:07:57 ◼   ► do you go after the event was totally haphazard. You know, it was sort of like every man for himself

00:08:03 ◼   ► in those periods. Well, you can spend a lot of money on things and still not get it right. It's

00:08:09 ◼   ► the attention to detail that always seems to get right. And it's not just about the event, but

00:08:19 ◼   ► like you said, the flow and then the products. I mean that's good and bad for Apple, especially

00:08:25 ◼   ► when it comes to product because now that's what we expect. And when something isn't right,

00:08:30 ◼   ► then we say, "Okay, well, for any other company, that's probably good enough."

00:08:38 ◼   ► I think my favorite example of Apple going over the top for the hands-on area was,

00:08:44 ◼   ► I think Katie Cotton was still there. I'm pretty sure. It might have been the last

00:08:52 ◼   ► year that she was there running the event. And they had it, it was, I think it was an iPhone event,

00:08:57 ◼   ► and they had it at the Yerba Buena Theater, which is a nice little theater, but it doesn't seat a

00:09:04 ◼   ► lot of people, I don't think. And then there's a small hands-on area behind there, which is sort of

00:09:13 ◼   ► in a room where I don't even know what the normal purpose of that room is. It might just be like the

00:09:17 ◼   ► lobby. You know, it's like the lobby where people you know, if there's like, if you go to a play or

00:09:22 ◼   ► an opera or something, and there's a intermission, like where people can go and I don't know,

00:09:26 ◼   ► get a drink or a snack or mingle or whatever, but it's pretty small, and dark. And Apple literally

00:09:34 ◼   ► had a construction crew come in and cut out the back wall to make it open air and get sunlight.

00:09:40 ◼   ► And I remember talking to Kate, I know it was Katie and Katie was still there. And she was

00:09:45 ◼   ► effectively in charge of when she was running PR, she was one of her like, you know, not listed

00:09:52 ◼   ► under her job title things, but she kind of oversaw events. And I just remember saying to

00:09:58 ◼   ► her, like, how much did that cost? And she goes, John, we're Apple. It was like, I was like, I

00:10:04 ◼   ► guess, you know, but it is just crazy. Like, they literally cut a hole in the wall. And then like,

00:10:09 ◼   ► after the event had a construction crew come in and put the wall back up.

00:10:11 ◼   ► And that's the level that they'll go to. Can you imagine if you ran your baboina and

00:10:19 ◼   ► Apple calls up and like, "Hey, we want to cut a hole in the wall." You'd be like, "Fuck you."

00:10:23 ◼   ► And then it'd be like, "How much would that cost?" And they're like, "Well,

00:10:25 ◼   ► and then you throw a number out and Apple's like, "Done."

00:10:30 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. But that's what they do. You know my favorite one? If you remember,

00:10:38 ◼   ► I think it was probably maybe three years ago at DeAnza College.

00:10:43 ◼   ► They built an entire structure outside of DeAnza and it was the most beautiful structure you've

00:10:53 ◼   ► ever seen. Now from the outside it was pure white. That was the one where Apple Watch debuted, right?

00:10:59 ◼   ► Yes, yes. But inside was absolutely stunning. I mean, I would have lived there.

00:11:07 ◼   ► Right, it was.

00:11:08 ◼   ► It was, it was, that was my favorite example of just how far Apple is willing to go. And,

00:11:18 ◼   ► you know after i've been going to apple events since 1999 and you know we we've been through

00:11:30 ◼   ► a lot from mac world events which are you know they they weren't as nice to apple's own events

00:11:37 ◼   ► and how they built them out and and now you know they're building buildings right for one day one

00:11:46 ◼   ► day so that's why I'm a little intrigued about the Steve Jobs theater because now

00:11:50 ◼   ► they have you know a permanent theater I mean yes this is obviously going to be

00:11:57 ◼   ► where probably every Apple event other than WWDC keynotes will take place for

00:12:02 ◼   ► the rest of our careers really I mean oh yeah yeah yeah so I'm a little

00:12:07 ◼   ► intrigued like if they put that much effort into the hands-on area for

00:12:10 ◼   ► temporary structures how much effort did they put into the hands-on area of the

00:12:15 ◼   ► place where they're gonna they they intend to have these events for 30 years. I know.

00:12:20 ◼   ► Like I'm really kind of looking forward to that just architecturally I'm really kind of

00:12:24 ◼   ► intrigued to just geek out on the Steve Jobs Theater. Well it's it's I would imagine that

00:12:33 ◼   ► it's going to be like the old Roman amphitheaters where Tim probably doesn't even need a microphone

00:12:41 ◼   ► You know where you you can talk and it's just gonna resonate throughout the whole theater. I don't know a thousand people

00:12:47 ◼   ► I bet this

00:12:48 ◼   ► I bet the sound

00:12:50 ◼   ► and

00:12:52 ◼   ► the uh, the

00:12:54 ◼   ► Av that's going to be in there, right? Like it's just going to be spectacular, right?

00:12:58 ◼   ► Like what kind of screen are they going to put up there if it's a permanent if you know if they can

00:13:02 ◼   ► Spend the money and make it permanent. It's going to be great

00:13:05 ◼   ► Oh, it's going to be outstanding

00:13:08 ◼   ► but

00:13:10 ◼   ► You know, it's funny. Do you think that all the pictures now?

00:13:14 ◼   ► For the two hours leading up to

00:13:18 ◼   ► The big unveil the big unveil is going to be the campus because we're all going to be walking through there

00:13:24 ◼   ► We're all going to be taking pictures and posting them twitter is just going to be a madhouse

00:13:28 ◼   ► of

00:13:30 ◼   ► Everybody posting their pictures. Yeah, so

00:13:33 ◼   ► There's going to be two big unveils or three really because we're going to be walking past the ring

00:13:38 ◼   ► I don't know about you, but I've never been there. So I've driven me driven those pictures. Yeah,

00:13:44 ◼   ► I've driven by just from like the highway, whatever highway it is that's that goes by 280. Yeah,

00:13:49 ◼   ► yeah. I tried to parachute him once but Johnny was there with a sniper rifle. So 1000 1000 seats is

00:13:58 ◼   ► I wonder there's no I don't think that there's possibly going to be 1000 members of the media.

00:14:04 ◼   ► I mean, I think that there's gonna be a lot of employees,

00:14:06 ◼   ► 'cause that was sort of what they did at the Bill Graham,

00:14:09 ◼   ► I mean, not even sort of,

00:14:10 ◼   ► it's exactly what they did at the Bill Graham Auditorium,

00:14:13 ◼   ► where the bottom section was media and invited guests.

00:14:18 ◼   ► - Right. - And then the upper level

00:14:21 ◼   ► was just Apple employees.

00:14:23 ◼   ► So there were far more Apple employees

00:14:25 ◼   ► than media and guests.

00:14:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, but look at this, look at the DeAnza College one.

00:14:33 ◼   ► I think that one had two or two thousand or more. Yeah, maybe. And there were a ton of invited

00:14:42 ◼   ► guests at that one. I remember that. A ton of them. Yeah. Yeah, you remember, yeah, we were,

00:14:46 ◼   ► I think you and I actually sat together during that one and there was just so many invited guests

00:14:53 ◼   ► at that one. So I think that's probably what they'll do here. I don't envision a time when

00:14:57 ◼   ► they'll ever not fill the theater for an event. Of course they're going to because they like

00:15:03 ◼   ► live stream and so you have to do that.

00:15:05 ◼   ► - Well, and it does, it creates a different vibe,

00:15:09 ◼   ► like, and I'll compare it directly to the ones

00:15:12 ◼   ► that were held in town hall, where town hall--

00:15:15 ◼   ► - I love town hall.

00:15:16 ◼   ► - I mean, I think I counted the one time,

00:15:18 ◼   ► I mean, there's, was it a, I don't know,

00:15:21 ◼   ► it was only like 100, 150 people tops?

00:15:24 ◼   ► That sounds about right?

00:15:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's, I think there's a couple hundred people

00:15:28 ◼   ► that fit in town hall.

00:15:29 ◼   ► Not, certainly no more than 200,

00:15:31 ◼   ► 200 would be jam-packed. And so for those events, they--

00:15:36 ◼   ► and you could tell, because it became--

00:15:41 ◼   ► we have a lot of friends in the same racket.

00:15:43 ◼   ► And sometimes, for the town hall ones,

00:15:46 ◼   ► we knew people who didn't get invited,

00:15:48 ◼   ► because space was limited.

00:15:52 ◼   ► And so I don't think they wasted any seats for Apple employees,

00:15:55 ◼   ► other than the core Apple employees who were going

00:15:59 ◼   ► to be there in the first few rows.

00:16:01 ◼   ► And you get a different vibe in that place, not just because it's smaller, but because

00:16:05 ◼   ► without the Apple employees, there's less applause.

00:16:12 ◼   ► In the events where there's, like at the De Anza College one or at the Bill Graham Civic

00:16:21 ◼   ► Auditorium, the Apple employees at the proper points go nuts and applaud.

00:16:27 ◼   ► and the media, I mean, some people in the media clap,

00:16:29 ◼   ► but they're just more reserved, I mean, if only because,

00:16:34 ◼   ► I mean, partly because it's sort of a decorum of,

00:16:37 ◼   ► hey, we're supposed to be observers here.

00:16:40 ◼   ► We're not rooting for a sports team here.

00:16:42 ◼   ► We're covering this.

00:16:43 ◼   ► And part of it is because people are typing.

00:16:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true.

00:16:48 ◼   ► I mean, you and I do our coverage pretty much the same.

00:16:55 ◼   ► Now I stopped doing live coverage of the events

00:16:59 ◼   ► because they stream it live.

00:17:02 ◼   ► So there's really not much point.

00:17:04 ◼   ► So I bring my Field Notes notebook and a pen

00:17:08 ◼   ► and I cover it like that.

00:17:09 ◼   ► And it's funny, Jason Snell said during,

00:17:13 ◼   ► I think it was one of the events that he spoke at

00:17:16 ◼   ► that the first person he ever saw do a live update

00:17:20 ◼   ► from an event was in like 2000 and it was me.

00:17:25 ◼   ► from an Apple keynote, we were doing live events then.

00:17:30 ◼   ► And now it just, it doesn't make any sense.

00:17:34 ◼   ► I would rather jot down my notes

00:17:36 ◼   ► to be able to write some thoughts a bit later.

00:17:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, the same way I am.

00:17:39 ◼   ► I'm too slow of a thinker, I couldn't,

00:17:41 ◼   ► and too slow of a typist.

00:17:43 ◼   ► I've never really attempted to blog the whole thing live.

00:17:46 ◼   ► I just can't, I really, I'm just, it's no joke.

00:17:50 ◼   ► I just can't type that fast.

00:17:51 ◼   ► And then what's the point?

00:17:52 ◼   ► I mean, I'll fire off some tweets, but that's about it.

00:17:55 ◼   ► - I used to get Peter Cohen to do it

00:17:59 ◼   ► because he was so much faster than I was.

00:18:01 ◼   ► And Peter could literally keep up with what they were saying

00:18:05 ◼   ► and I just, okay, you win.

00:18:07 ◼   ► - I remember back in the day,

00:18:08 ◼   ► I remember when just getting networking was an issue

00:18:13 ◼   ► and that some of the places, like the publications,

00:18:17 ◼   ► like in Gadget or somebody with a crew of people,

00:18:22 ◼   ► like somebody was responsible for bringing in the portable hotspot, you know, like one of the members

00:18:27 ◼   ► Yes, he used to be able to get for you'd pay like 50 bucks a month and you'd get like a 3g

00:18:31 ◼   ► wireless hotspot and it'd be hooked up to wires and power and

00:18:37 ◼   ► It was like you have it was a mess and then remember the one when?

00:18:41 ◼   ► So one of my all-time favorite keynote moments was when Steve Jobs interrupted the whole show because the Wi-Fi wasn't working

00:18:50 ◼   ► Right. Remember it was like a demo

00:18:52 ◼   ► The demo went but went south and then like five minutes later

00:18:56 ◼   ► it was like he had called somebody else up to do the next segment and he went backstage and

00:19:00 ◼   ► Obviously read somebody the riot act and said what the fuck is going on?

00:19:04 ◼   ► And they said look the problem is our why our Wi-Fi for the demo doesn't work because there's I don't know it was like

00:19:10 ◼   ► 150

00:19:12 ◼   ► Networks and jobs comes out and goes totally off script and says hey listen

00:19:16 ◼   ► I just talked to my guys backstage and they say there's 200

00:19:20 ◼   ► Wireless networks in here and it's fucking up our demo. So I'm gonna tell you right now

00:19:23 ◼   ► Shut him shut him all off. We'll wait and he goes if you see

00:19:27 ◼   ► Somebody next to with one, you know make him shut it off

00:19:30 ◼   ► And it was so it was so it just was so exciting to be there because it's like this is well

00:19:38 ◼   ► He stood there. Yeah stood there and

00:19:40 ◼   ► Just wait. Yeah. Oh my god. It was classic, right?

00:19:46 ◼   ► And he was just totally unafraid to go off the affable Steve,

00:19:51 ◼   ► the I'm so happy to be here

00:19:54 ◼   ► and so glad to share this with you, Steve, and went to,

00:19:57 ◼   ► I'm pissed off, Steve, and I'm gonna get what I want.

00:20:00 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:20:00 ◼   ► It was so fucking great.

00:20:02 ◼   ► - I will stand here and stare at you, 5,000 people.

00:20:05 ◼   ► - And I felt nervous. - Until you turn around.

00:20:07 ◼   ► - My palms got sweaty and I didn't have a network set up.

00:20:10 ◼   ► I wasn't part of the problem, right?

00:20:13 ◼   ► I'm literally there with a paper notebook and a pen.

00:20:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:18 ◼   ► And I felt bad.

00:20:19 ◼   ► - You feel like you should close up your notebook.

00:20:22 ◼   ► - Maybe I should just get up and leave.

00:20:25 ◼   ► I should leave.

00:20:26 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:28 ◼   ► This is terrible.

00:20:29 ◼   ► I feel terrible. - You scared me, Steve.

00:20:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:34 ◼   ► - Man, that was great.

00:20:36 ◼   ► All right, let me just, before we get started

00:20:38 ◼   ► on what we actually think we are going to see,

00:20:40 ◼   ► let me interrupt the show here.

00:20:42 ◼   ► with a word from one of our good friends.

00:20:45 ◼   ► It's our good friends at Warby Parker.

00:20:48 ◼   ► Look, glasses should not cost as much as an iPhone.

00:20:50 ◼   ► A lot of prescription glasses, you go out there,

00:20:54 ◼   ► and they really do, you know, five, $600,

00:20:56 ◼   ► and then there's, you know, to get like the UV coating

00:20:59 ◼   ► on the lenses or the anti-glare coating,

00:21:01 ◼   ► it's another $100.

00:21:02 ◼   ► Next thing you know, you're walking out, $700.

00:21:05 ◼   ► Warby Parker's glasses start at 95 bucks,

00:21:08 ◼   ► and that includes the prescription lenses,

00:21:10 ◼   ► and there's no upsell on the coding or anything like that.

00:21:14 ◼   ► No tricks, no gimmicks, really, just 95 bucks

00:21:16 ◼   ► and you get a good pair of prescription glasses.

00:21:19 ◼   ► And you buy 'em online, you don't have to go to a store,

00:21:22 ◼   ► you don't waste time.

00:21:23 ◼   ► Now how does that work?

00:21:24 ◼   ► How do you buy something as personal as a pair of glasses?

00:21:28 ◼   ► I mean, really, what's more personal than your glasses?

00:21:30 ◼   ► They go right on your face.

00:21:31 ◼   ► They really directly affect what you look like.

00:21:32 ◼   ► Well, here's the deal, they have a try-on program.

00:21:35 ◼   ► You go to the website, you pick up to five pairs

00:21:38 ◼   ► that you think look good.

00:21:39 ◼   ► they send them to you with dummy lenses in for free.

00:21:43 ◼   ► And then you've got all five glasses at home,

00:21:45 ◼   ► try them on, look in the mirror,

00:21:47 ◼   ► ask the people you live with which ones they like.

00:21:49 ◼   ► And if you wanna buy one or more, you buy them.

00:21:53 ◼   ► You don't wanna buy any of them, you don't buy any of them.

00:21:56 ◼   ► But then you just put those five back in a box

00:21:58 ◼   ► that they give you with the label on it already,

00:22:00 ◼   ► send it right back to them.

00:22:01 ◼   ► So you send the demos back to them

00:22:03 ◼   ► and like a week or so later,

00:22:05 ◼   ► you get the glasses that you ordered.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And the demo thing, it's completely free.

00:22:09 ◼   ► So if you get five glasses, try them on,

00:22:11 ◼   ► you don't like any of them, you send them back.

00:22:14 ◼   ► All year out is the time it takes you

00:22:16 ◼   ► to drop off the prepackaged pre-labeled thing

00:22:19 ◼   ► with your UPS guy or whatever service they use.

00:22:21 ◼   ► That's how easy it is.

00:22:22 ◼   ► And their glasses are just great.

00:22:25 ◼   ► I'm wearing a pair right now as I read this.

00:22:28 ◼   ► I've had these for years,

00:22:29 ◼   ► probably since they first started sponsoring the show.

00:22:32 ◼   ► So as long ago, if you're a long time listener

00:22:33 ◼   ► and you're like, man, Warby Parker's been sponsoring

00:22:36 ◼   ► this show for a long time.

00:22:37 ◼   ► I've got a pair that I ordered from them

00:22:39 ◼   ► when they first started, you know,

00:22:41 ◼   ► 'cause that's what we do, you know,

00:22:42 ◼   ► it's like I got a Casper mattress up there.

00:22:44 ◼   ► I mean, we try this stuff.

00:22:45 ◼   ► I got my original pair of Warby Parkers are on right now.

00:22:49 ◼   ► That's how long they last, it's really great.

00:22:51 ◼   ► They've got an app in the App Store,

00:22:54 ◼   ► you can use that to facilitate the picking the glasses

00:22:57 ◼   ► and stuff like that instead of using the website.

00:23:00 ◼   ► What else?

00:23:02 ◼   ► And oh, here's the other thing, this is great,

00:23:04 ◼   ► absolutely great is every pair of glasses that they sell,

00:23:08 ◼   ► Warby Parker distributes a pair of glasses

00:23:10 ◼   ► to someone in need somewhere around the world.

00:23:13 ◼   ► So that's fantastic.

00:23:14 ◼   ► So you're not just buying yourself a great pair of eyeglasses

00:23:17 ◼   ► Warby Parker in your name will send a pair of glasses

00:23:21 ◼   ► to somebody in need.

00:23:22 ◼   ► Imagine how bad that would be if you had vision

00:23:24 ◼   ► and needed corrected lenses and lived somewhere

00:23:26 ◼   ► and you couldn't afford to get them.

00:23:28 ◼   ► That'd be terrible.

00:23:30 ◼   ► So they're helping to address that.

00:23:31 ◼   ► So my thanks to Warby Parker.

00:23:33 ◼   ► to warbyparker.com/thetalkshow. They use the "the" in the code warbyparker.com/thetalkshow.

00:23:40 ◼   ► And that'll be great. My thanks to Warby Parker.

00:23:45 ◼   ► Pete: You know what? They have a storefront in Palo Alto. I was gonna go in there because I need

00:23:54 ◼   ► a new pair of glasses. I don't know why, but I go through glasses like crazy. My rim's always

00:24:03 ◼   ► mess up so well there you go i don't sit on them or anything we we have a uh a boutique here in uh

00:24:09 ◼   ► center city philadelphia as well just uh not that easy walking distance for me and i've actually

00:24:15 ◼   ► gone there to get a pair of glasses uh so if you you know check check their site maybe you live

00:24:20 ◼   ► near one too it's funny though when you buy them from the the retail store it's literally you just

00:24:26 ◼   ► they just have you know they have sales people they just go to the website and it's literally

00:24:30 ◼   ► the same ordering process. It still goes through the website and they ship them right to your

00:24:34 ◼   ► house. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's just a it's just an easier way. You know,

00:24:39 ◼   ► the retail, the whole retail angle on it is just so that you can try on as many glasses

00:24:43 ◼   ► as you like right there in person. How about that? Pretty neat.

00:24:47 ◼   ► All right, let's talk about next week's event. What do we expect? So what do we know?

00:24:53 ◼   ► We know well, or we think we know that there's going to be three new iPhones and updated, right?

00:24:59 ◼   ► 4.7, you know, I don't think they're going to call it the 7S, but something equivalent to what you

00:25:06 ◼   ► would think the iPhone 7S is something a 5.5 inch, which would be equivalent to the 7S plus,

00:25:12 ◼   ► using the same type of screen, same size screens as the 7 and 7 Plus today, and a new, a new iPhone

00:25:19 ◼   ► at a higher end, higher price point. And, you know, whatever code name D 22 with the OLED screen

00:25:26 ◼   ► that goes edge to edge and has a notch at the top

00:25:29 ◼   ► for the camera sensors and stuff like that.

00:25:31 ◼   ► We know that.

00:25:34 ◼   ► We don't know what they're gonna call any of these phones.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Right?

00:25:38 ◼   ► We don't know what they're gonna cost.

00:25:41 ◼   ► We don't know when they're gonna ship.

00:25:44 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:25:46 ◼   ► - Like I said, there's a lot to be worked out still.

00:25:51 ◼   ► - So, I mean, just sticking to iPhone.

00:25:53 ◼   ► And I think we can get to Apple TV and Apple Watch

00:25:56 ◼   ► and HomePod and other things that might come up in this event later.

00:25:59 ◼   ► But just sticking to iPhone, man, we don't know a lot.

00:26:04 ◼   ► And so everybody's focused on the OLED screen in the new high-end one, and that certainly

00:26:09 ◼   ► is going to be different and interesting.

00:26:13 ◼   ► But nothing else about that device has leaked, to my knowledge, really, other than this story

00:26:19 ◼   ► that it supposedly doesn't have Touch ID, either through deliberate design choice or

00:26:25 ◼   ► or because they couldn't figure out how to,

00:26:27 ◼   ► and there's a Wall Street Journal story

00:26:29 ◼   ► from like two days ago that I will put in the show notes

00:26:32 ◼   ► that suggests according to their sources that Apple tried

00:26:35 ◼   ► and at some point this summer gave up

00:26:38 ◼   ► on getting a touch ID sensor integrated into the screen

00:26:41 ◼   ► and so it doesn't have it.

00:26:42 ◼   ► But we don't know anything about the camera.

00:26:45 ◼   ► We don't know if it's gonna be,

00:26:46 ◼   ► is it gonna be like use it faster chips

00:26:48 ◼   ► than the 7S and 7S Plus, which I'll just use those names.

00:26:53 ◼   ► I really don't think they're gonna call it that,

00:26:54 ◼   ► but just as a shorthand.

00:26:55 ◼   ► - Well, the big thing, I think, coming for this one,

00:27:02 ◼   ► besides the obvious design change and edge-to-edge screen,

00:27:06 ◼   ► will be the biometrics, the face recognition.

00:27:10 ◼   ► That's gonna be the big thing for me.

00:27:12 ◼   ► And we've talked about all of this before,

00:27:15 ◼   ► about whether it will work in all circumstances,

00:27:18 ◼   ► like Touch ID does, because I've become so used

00:27:23 ◼   ► using touch id for payments for you know just looking at my my phone and you know you just

00:27:32 ◼   ► kind of put your thumb on it and it unlocks and everything is so quick and that's what we expect

00:27:37 ◼   ► from this facial recognition too but you have to think that if apple is releasing it it works

00:27:45 ◼   ► really well right but but you know we're we're gonna try it in so many different situations i

00:27:51 ◼   ► I mean, I love going to concerts and when I go to concerts, I love to take pictures.

00:27:56 ◼   ► So if I pull out my phone and there's flashing lights and everything at a concert, because

00:28:01 ◼   ► let's face it, I'm not at a jazz concert most of the time, I'm at a metal show.

00:28:06 ◼   ► So there's lights going and everything else and it has to recognize me and unlock, you

00:28:11 ◼   ► know, in split seconds the same way that my finger would.

00:28:16 ◼   ► If it tells me that I have to use my code, well, that's a huge step backward.

00:28:20 ◼   ► This is, to me, part of the excitement of the event,

00:28:25 ◼   ► is the, you know, how good is,

00:28:29 ◼   ► if it's true that it doesn't have touch ID,

00:28:31 ◼   ► or I guess, even if these reports are wrong

00:28:35 ◼   ► and they do have touch ID, but it's in the screen

00:28:38 ◼   ► and therefore a different type of sensor,

00:28:40 ◼   ► you know, how does it work as well

00:28:43 ◼   ► as the existing touch ID sensors?

00:28:45 ◼   ► But if it doesn't have touch ID,

00:28:47 ◼   ► how does this facial ID thing work?

00:28:51 ◼   ► We don't even know, I mean, honestly, we don't.

00:28:52 ◼   ► I mean, one thing that I think is almost certain,

00:28:56 ◼   ► and it seems backed up by reports about the sensors

00:28:58 ◼   ► and stuff, that it's not a camera.

00:29:00 ◼   ► Like, and this is the thing for people,

00:29:02 ◼   ► like there's a lot of people who when they see these stories

00:29:04 ◼   ► like either tweet at me or email me and they're like,

00:29:06 ◼   ► I, you know, they think Apple's jumped the shark,

00:29:08 ◼   ► this is gonna be a disaster,

00:29:10 ◼   ► they don't wanna be taking a selfie

00:29:12 ◼   ► every time they unlock the phone.

00:29:14 ◼   ► There's no way that it works like that.

00:29:15 ◼   ► and there's no way that it would require the light.

00:29:17 ◼   ► I mean, it has to work, for example,

00:29:19 ◼   ► when you wake up in the middle of the night

00:29:21 ◼   ► or in the morning when it's still dark, right?

00:29:23 ◼   ► You can't have a phone that you, you know,

00:29:25 ◼   ► that you have to use a six-digit passcode

00:29:28 ◼   ► just because you're in the dark.

00:29:30 ◼   ► That's ridiculous.

00:29:31 ◼   ► I mean, that would be absurd.

00:29:32 ◼   ► But, you know, how reliable is it?

00:29:34 ◼   ► Is it like, does it only work nine times out of 10?

00:29:37 ◼   ► 'Cause like nine times out of 10 sounds good,

00:29:39 ◼   ► and if it was like a science project or a student project,

00:29:41 ◼   ► you'd be like, wow, a facial recognition system

00:29:43 ◼   ► that works nine times out of 10, that's great.

00:29:45 ◼   ► But Touch ID works 999 times out of 1,000.

00:29:50 ◼   ► I mean, it's really rare when Touch ID doesn't work.

00:29:55 ◼   ► And it's almost, for me, it's almost,

00:29:57 ◼   ► I mean, I know that there are people who,

00:30:01 ◼   ► for whatever reason, their skin is different

00:30:03 ◼   ► or their fingerprints are, I don't know,

00:30:05 ◼   ► too thin or something.

00:30:06 ◼   ► I know that there are some people

00:30:07 ◼   ► who Touch ID doesn't work great for,

00:30:08 ◼   ► but for me, it always works.

00:30:11 ◼   ► And the only times it doesn't is if,

00:30:13 ◼   ► and I know exactly why, like my hands are soaking wet.

00:30:15 ◼   ► If my hands are, it's raining and my hands are soaking wet,

00:30:18 ◼   ► it doesn't work.

00:30:19 ◼   ► Well I know, I just dry my thumb and then it'll work,

00:30:21 ◼   ► and then it does.

00:30:23 ◼   ► Like the facial, if they replace Touch ID

00:30:25 ◼   ► with a facial ID, it has to be as reliable or better.

00:30:29 ◼   ► Every, in every way, as fast, as secure,

00:30:31 ◼   ► as trustworthy, as reliable,

00:30:34 ◼   ► and nine times out of 10 isn't good enough.

00:30:36 ◼   ► If one time out of 10 when you try to unlock your phone,

00:30:39 ◼   ► it doesn't unlock, that sucks.

00:30:41 ◼   ► It'll make you, it'll make you furious,

00:30:42 ◼   ► 'cause we're used to, we're already used to it working,

00:30:45 ◼   ► you know, as well as Touch ID.

00:30:47 ◼   ► - And this is what makes these type of events

00:30:52 ◼   ► so difficult for Apple, because they know all this,

00:30:56 ◼   ► you know, they know that if this,

00:31:00 ◼   ► the new facial recognition screws up

00:31:03 ◼   ► and they don't have Touch ID in there,

00:31:05 ◼   ► then, you know, they're gonna get hammered and they will.

00:31:09 ◼   ► I mean, there's already people that are just waiting

00:31:12 ◼   ► to write that story, that it failed.

00:31:16 ◼   ► The same way that they did when Touch ID came out.

00:31:19 ◼   ► Oh, well, you can cut off somebody's thumb

00:31:22 ◼   ► and have their fingerprint.

00:31:26 ◼   ► So you know that stuff is coming,

00:31:28 ◼   ► but I'm pretty confident that it's gonna work.

00:31:32 ◼   ► I'm hopeful and confident.

00:31:34 ◼   ► - I saw a video, I saw a video,

00:31:35 ◼   ► just like the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 just shipped,

00:31:39 ◼   ► not the Galaxy S8, which shipped six months ago,

00:31:42 ◼   ► but the Note 8 shipped and it has a facial ID for unlocking.

00:31:46 ◼   ► But it does seem to be-- - Was it on fire?

00:31:48 ◼   ► - No, but it is camera-based, and so I saw a demo,

00:31:51 ◼   ► like somebody was in the hands-on area from the event,

00:31:54 ◼   ► took a selfie on their phone and showed the selfie

00:31:58 ◼   ► to the S8 after having set up the facial ID

00:32:01 ◼   ► and it unlocked. (laughs)

00:32:04 ◼   ► So it was just pointing at the picture of himself

00:32:06 ◼   ► on the other phone, and Samsung does make it clear

00:32:09 ◼   ► from what I've been able to tell,

00:32:10 ◼   ► that when they unlock with the facial ID,

00:32:14 ◼   ► they tell you it's not as secure.

00:32:15 ◼   ► And you can't use it for things like payments.

00:32:19 ◼   ► It will unlock your phone, and then you

00:32:21 ◼   ► can go and launch apps and stuff like that.

00:32:23 ◼   ► But it won't let you do things that require the equivalent

00:32:27 ◼   ► of an administrator ID.

00:32:31 ◼   ► You know how sometimes you have to--

00:32:32 ◼   ► even the iPhone will make you put your passcode in

00:32:35 ◼   ► to install a software update or something like that.

00:32:39 ◼   ► or like when you upgrade to the switch to the betas,

00:32:43 ◼   ► when you install the, there's like a,

00:32:45 ◼   ► the way they do the iOS betas now

00:32:47 ◼   ► is you install a certificate,

00:32:51 ◼   ► and then that puts your iPhone on,

00:32:54 ◼   ► looking for the software updates from the beta server

00:32:56 ◼   ► instead of the release server.

00:32:58 ◼   ► Stuff like that, they don't let it do it.

00:33:02 ◼   ► But still, if Apple works like that,

00:33:04 ◼   ► that's embarrassing, really,

00:33:06 ◼   ► and I think they're gonna get called out on it.

00:33:08 ◼   ► And I think the reason it seems a little exciting,

00:33:10 ◼   ► there's a part of me that wants to say,

00:33:11 ◼   ► Apple wouldn't do this unless they knew

00:33:14 ◼   ► that the facial ID was gonna be good enough.

00:33:16 ◼   ► But there's a part of me that wants to argue

00:33:20 ◼   ► the counter way that I can see how they could

00:33:23 ◼   ► back themselves into a corner where maybe they had to,

00:33:27 ◼   ► or at least they felt like they had to ship that

00:33:30 ◼   ► even with a not quite as good as touch ID facial ID sensor,

00:33:34 ◼   ► meaning like they really thought they were gonna

00:33:36 ◼   ► pull it off and get touch ID under the screen.

00:33:39 ◼   ► And it got really late in the game, like early this summer,

00:33:44 ◼   ► and they concluded they couldn't, and they had to pull it,

00:33:47 ◼   ► but they also felt like we can't go another year

00:33:50 ◼   ► without an edge-to-edge OLED screen.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Our phones look dated compared to the highest end phones

00:33:58 ◼   ► from Samsung and LG because everybody else has these screens

00:34:02 ◼   ► with no forehead, no chin, or minimal forehead and chin.

00:34:05 ◼   ► and we need to forge ahead, touch ID be damned.

00:34:10 ◼   ► I could see how they maybe felt like they got backed

00:34:13 ◼   ► into a corner and I could see how like

00:34:15 ◼   ► when they made that decision,

00:34:17 ◼   ► you know, at the Monday morning executive meeting,

00:34:20 ◼   ► that there were probably people, if that's the case,

00:34:23 ◼   ► I could hypothetically see how that was

00:34:24 ◼   ► a contentious argument and there'd be people on both sides,

00:34:27 ◼   ► you know, one side arguing we need to scrap this

00:34:30 ◼   ► and wait another year or release it six months later,

00:34:33 ◼   ► do whatever it takes to get it good enough.

00:34:35 ◼   ► And other side saying,

00:34:38 ◼   ► "We can't launch in September without this phone."

00:34:40 ◼   ► - So do you think that this was the same type of pressure

00:34:43 ◼   ► they felt to build a bigger phone?

00:34:44 ◼   ► - I don't think it's quite as big a deal as that.

00:34:47 ◼   ► 'Cause I feel like the bigger phone,

00:34:50 ◼   ► the bigger phones thing turned out

00:34:52 ◼   ► to be a mass market phenomenon, right?

00:34:54 ◼   ► Like just normal people, non-phone enthusiasts.

00:34:59 ◼   ► And here's how I would describe a normal phone consumer.

00:35:03 ◼   ► I just saw a poll the other day.

00:35:07 ◼   ► I got an email from SurveyMonkey

00:35:09 ◼   ► with a poll that they had conducted recently

00:35:14 ◼   ► about people's phone expectations.

00:35:17 ◼   ► How many, what percentage of 1,000 people

00:35:19 ◼   ► are excited about the new iPhone?

00:35:21 ◼   ► What percent think they're gonna buy it or whatever?

00:35:23 ◼   ► And one of the questions they asked is,

00:35:24 ◼   ► how often do you replace your phone?

00:35:26 ◼   ► And the most popular answer with like,

00:35:29 ◼   ► and I don't know, there's some people said every year,

00:35:32 ◼   ► some people said every two years,

00:35:33 ◼   ► some people said three or more years.

00:35:34 ◼   ► But the most popular answer was,

00:35:36 ◼   ► I only replace my phone when my old one breaks.

00:35:39 ◼   ► It was like 38%.

00:35:41 ◼   ► That's what I would call a normal person.

00:35:42 ◼   ► That's how most people I know in my family,

00:35:45 ◼   ► they end up replacing it every three, four, five years anyway

00:35:51 ◼   ► 'cause that's how long it takes for phones to break.

00:35:53 ◼   ► But they just don't, if their phone works perfectly,

00:35:56 ◼   ► they're not even thinking about getting a new phone.

00:35:59 ◼   ► I mean, that's how I am with cars, for example.

00:36:01 ◼   ► But when you and I look at, and I--

00:36:05 ◼   ► - Before we get off that, I just,

00:36:07 ◼   ► I think that there were normal people

00:36:08 ◼   ► like that type of people who wanted big 5.5-inch phones.

00:36:12 ◼   ► They just, that seems great to me.

00:36:15 ◼   ► So I don't think that's true for this edge-to-edge trend.

00:36:17 ◼   ► I think it's people like us who are really enthusiasts

00:36:20 ◼   ► who really think about every single little design detail

00:36:24 ◼   ► of the phones who are into the minimization

00:36:27 ◼   ► of the chin and forehead.

00:36:28 ◼   ► - I caution people all the time,

00:36:30 ◼   ► and the people that are in the industry,

00:36:32 ◼   ► that you can't think about these types of things

00:36:39 ◼   ► only the way that we do.

00:36:41 ◼   ► You have to think about this the way that a consumer does.

00:36:43 ◼   ► And a consumer, excuse me, doesn't care as much as,

00:36:48 ◼   ► typically doesn't care as much as you and I may

00:36:52 ◼   ► about an iPhone.

00:36:53 ◼   ► The same way that if you and I were doing TV blogs,

00:37:00 ◼   ► would we care as much about iPhones?

00:37:04 ◼   ► Probably not.

00:37:05 ◼   ► I could care less about TVs.

00:37:07 ◼   ► If I need a new TV, I'm gonna go down to Best Buy

00:37:11 ◼   ► or whatever it is, and I'm gonna buy a new TV.

00:37:14 ◼   ► And I'm gonna buy whatever I can afford to get

00:37:17 ◼   ► and the best one that I can get.

00:37:20 ◼   ► And I'm gonna be happy with that.

00:37:21 ◼   ► - I'm in between.

00:37:27 ◼   ► I haven't bought a new TV in maybe like 10 years.

00:37:30 ◼   ► But I love my TV.

00:37:33 ◼   ► It's a Pioneer Plasma and I just love it to death.

00:37:35 ◼   ► It's just one of my favorite things

00:37:38 ◼   ► I've ever purchased in my life

00:37:39 ◼   ► because I just love the picture quality.

00:37:41 ◼   ► But I researched the hell out of it

00:37:42 ◼   ► when I needed to get it 10 years ago.

00:37:45 ◼   ► And I knew exactly, out of all the TVs in the market,

00:37:48 ◼   ► I had narrowed it down.

00:37:49 ◼   ► I know exactly I want this model from Pioneer at this size.

00:37:55 ◼   ► And it was like three times,

00:37:57 ◼   ► at least three times more expensive

00:37:58 ◼   ► than like just the typical whatever size.

00:38:01 ◼   ► I think it's like 55 inches.

00:38:02 ◼   ► But once I got it, and I'm,

00:38:07 ◼   ► we're not like a big put a TV in every room family.

00:38:11 ◼   ► Like I've never had a TV in my bedroom.

00:38:13 ◼   ► I just, I don't watch TV in bed.

00:38:15 ◼   ► So we just have one main TV.

00:38:17 ◼   ► Jonas has a second TV that he has hooked up for video games.

00:38:20 ◼   ► But I wanted to research the hell out of it

00:38:25 ◼   ► and get a really good TV.

00:38:26 ◼   ► And then I just tuned out of the entire--

00:38:28 ◼   ► I haven't looked.

00:38:29 ◼   ► I haven't shopped for a TV.

00:38:30 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:38:31 ◼   ► I have no idea what's out there.

00:38:35 ◼   ► I mean, things like TVs, refrigerators, all the--

00:38:41 ◼   ► I don't go to refrigerator blogs and look for what's

00:38:51 ◼   ► coming out in a month.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Should I wait a month to buy this fridge?

00:38:53 ◼   ► Or should--

00:38:54 ◼   ► You know, it just, and I think,

00:38:57 ◼   ► for the majority of consumers,

00:39:00 ◼   ► that's how they feel about an iPhone.

00:39:02 ◼   ► That's why Apple will continue to sell iPhones

00:39:05 ◼   ► up until the time the new ones come out.

00:39:08 ◼   ► Because people, their phone breaks and they go.

00:39:11 ◼   ► - Let's play what if.

00:39:12 ◼   ► What if early this summer, Apple had figured out

00:39:16 ◼   ► there's no way that we can integrate a touch ID

00:39:19 ◼   ► under the screen like we thought we could

00:39:21 ◼   ► in time to launch it September.

00:39:24 ◼   ► What if they had instead of what they've seemingly done,

00:39:28 ◼   ► what if they had said, okay, so that phone,

00:39:30 ◼   ► we're gonna have to punt and either push it back six months

00:39:33 ◼   ► and do like a off cycle thing

00:39:36 ◼   ► like when they shipped the iPhone SE

00:39:38 ◼   ► or punted a full year to next September.

00:39:42 ◼   ► And this event comes Monday or Tuesday

00:39:45 ◼   ► and everybody in the press is still thinking,

00:39:48 ◼   ► you know, I guess if they had done that,

00:39:51 ◼   ► it would have leaked that Apple isn't shipping that phone.

00:39:53 ◼   ► It's like they would have set the expectation.

00:39:56 ◼   ► They wouldn't let everybody file into the room

00:39:58 ◼   ► thinking there's gonna be an iPhone Pro

00:40:01 ◼   ► and those other two phones.

00:40:02 ◼   ► They'd somehow set that expectation before the event.

00:40:05 ◼   ► But like-- - I think they'd have to.

00:40:06 ◼   ► - Right, but when that leaked, when the leak comes out,

00:40:09 ◼   ► like a Wall Street Journal story in mid-July comes out

00:40:13 ◼   ► that says Apple, unlike the rumors that have been to date,

00:40:16 ◼   ► they're actually only going to ship two new iPhones

00:40:19 ◼   ► in September updates to the 4.7-inch

00:40:21 ◼   ► 5.5 inch LCD iPhones 7s.

00:40:28 ◼   ► When that came out, they would have taken a huge hit.

00:40:31 ◼   ► But it would have been a huge hit to me in, I think, in our crowd.

00:40:37 ◼   ► The tech enthusiast crowd would have excoriated them for this.

00:40:41 ◼   ► It might have hurt the stock price because business, you know, investor types are sort

00:40:46 ◼   ► of, they don't really geek out on the details, but they certainly geek out on the idea of

00:40:50 ◼   ► like a $1200 iPhone that they think might sell well. But I don't think it would have

00:40:56 ◼   ► really registered among normal people. And I know that there's a lot of people who disagree.

00:41:04 ◼   ► There's a lot of people who think that there's enough people out there who really are—I

00:41:12 ◼   ► mean it's the whole argument of how much does the iPhone 7 resemble the two-year older

00:41:16 ◼   ► than the iPhone 7, the 6.

00:41:19 ◼   ► Right, that the 6, the 6s, and the 7

00:41:21 ◼   ► became three generations that mostly,

00:41:23 ◼   ► and certainly when you put them in a case, look the same.

00:41:26 ◼   ► And there are differences.

00:41:30 ◼   ► Really, the iPhone 7 is not the same exact design.

00:41:34 ◼   ► You can't put it in the same case.

00:41:35 ◼   ► The cameras are very different.

00:41:37 ◼   ► There's a different cutout.

00:41:38 ◼   ► There is no cutout for the volume buttons

00:41:40 ◼   ► like there was on the 6 and 6s.

00:41:42 ◼   ► But those differences are subtle.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I know there's a lot of people who think

00:41:46 ◼   ► that that's hurt Apple sales that they think in the world.

00:41:50 ◼   ► I really just don't think it's true.

00:41:52 ◼   ► I mean, I think it's a measurable number of people

00:41:54 ◼   ► who want something that looks excitingly new.

00:41:57 ◼   ► But I just, and I think that the strength

00:41:59 ◼   ► of the iPhone 7 sales really backs that up.

00:42:02 ◼   ► The 6 sold extremely well and everybody knew it was

00:42:05 ◼   ► because there was pent up demand for a big iPhone.

00:42:08 ◼   ► The 6s, the Plus actually disappointed.

00:42:11 ◼   ► I mean, the Apples came out on conference calls

00:42:14 ◼   ► and even said that the 6S Plus sold less than they thought it would. And then last year,

00:42:18 ◼   ► the 7 Plus was backordered for weeks and they came out and said, "Yeah, it was way stronger

00:42:24 ◼   ► demand than we thought." I think personally because of the camera, because I think that

00:42:29 ◼   ► you tell even just normal people, this thing has two cameras and it helps you take amazing

00:42:34 ◼   ► portrait photos. People totally get that and everybody I know who's a normal person, their

00:42:40 ◼   ► their only camera these days is their phone.

00:42:43 ◼   ► So a better phone.

00:42:44 ◼   ► You say this is a much better camera on this phone.

00:42:47 ◼   ► To them it's like sold, get me one of those.

00:42:52 ◼   ► And that's why I think the 7 sold so surprisingly,

00:42:55 ◼   ► or at least better, more than Apple even expected last year.

00:42:59 ◼   ► And I think that the fact that the 7 sold so well

00:43:02 ◼   ► puts the lie to the fact that the design

00:43:04 ◼   ► has to change to keep people interested.

00:43:07 ◼   ► I think it has to change to keep us interested,

00:43:10 ◼   ► meaning the tech media, people who write about this

00:43:13 ◼   ► every day, but are our crowds, to me up to my mind,

00:43:18 ◼   ► a very short attention span?

00:43:21 ◼   ► - Well, you know, probably better than the most,

00:43:26 ◼   ► the worst thing that you can do is change designs

00:43:30 ◼   ► for the sake of change.

00:43:31 ◼   ► - Yes, I totally agree with that.

00:43:33 ◼   ► - You have something that works, you go with it.

00:43:36 ◼   ► I mean, you don't go overboard,

00:43:39 ◼   ► But look at car companies like Toyota.

00:43:42 ◼   ► Toyota has a great brand.

00:43:44 ◼   ► Their cars are known for working well for many, many years.

00:43:49 ◼   ► And their designs basically stay the same for years on end.

00:43:53 ◼   ► And then they'll do it as a change.

00:43:55 ◼   ► And those designs will stay the same.

00:43:57 ◼   ► So getting back to your original question,

00:44:01 ◼   ► what would you write?

00:44:05 ◼   ► Come Monday afternoon, the event is over

00:44:08 ◼   ► and Apple does not release an edge to edge phone

00:44:11 ◼   ► and they release an iPhone 7S Plus and 7S.

00:44:16 ◼   ► Will you write that, what a disappointing event?

00:44:19 ◼   ► - I would take, I would not,

00:44:21 ◼   ► and I would try to do what I usually do

00:44:26 ◼   ► and try to assess just how much better

00:44:28 ◼   ► those two new phones are and take them for what they are.

00:44:32 ◼   ► I would be curious, if that happened next week,

00:44:35 ◼   ► my curiosity wouldn't be that Apple fucked up.

00:44:38 ◼   ► It wouldn't be that this is a disaster, they're doomed or whatever.

00:44:42 ◼   ► But it would be curious to me that they didn't set the expectation in advance of the event

00:44:46 ◼   ► that it wasn't going to happen.

00:44:48 ◼   ► So to me the more plausible what-if scenario would be what if that had already leaked about

00:44:54 ◼   ► a month ago.

00:44:56 ◼   ► And in that case, I'd be a little disappointed because I'm excited to see the new phone,

00:45:01 ◼   ► but I totally understand that that's what happens when you make a new product.

00:45:05 ◼   ► And that's what happens when you have your foot

00:45:07 ◼   ► all the way down on the gas pedal in terms of,

00:45:10 ◼   ► let's get the most advanced technology

00:45:12 ◼   ► into this phone that we possibly can.

00:45:14 ◼   ► Let's be as aggressive as we can about shipping

00:45:18 ◼   ► what we think is the next generation of technology.

00:45:20 ◼   ► You know, if you're not running into production problems,

00:45:24 ◼   ► you're not pressing hard enough.

00:45:25 ◼   ► - No, I don't disagree at all.

00:45:27 ◼   ► - Steven Sinofsky even tweeted that the other day,

00:45:30 ◼   ► the guy who used formerly at Microsoft.

00:45:32 ◼   ► and now is a big iPad proponent.

00:45:35 ◼   ► But he linked to that Wall Street Journal story

00:45:40 ◼   ► about the production hitches in summer

00:45:42 ◼   ► and said that's, without knowing any details

00:45:45 ◼   ► of this in particular, that's what product development

00:45:48 ◼   ► is like if you're being aggressive.

00:45:50 ◼   ► Like if you're not hitting production problems,

00:45:52 ◼   ► you're not pressing hard enough.

00:45:54 ◼   ► - Yep, and they'll overcome those.

00:45:57 ◼   ► You know, it's not an insurmountable problem for them,

00:46:01 ◼   ► but it's a problem right now.

00:46:02 ◼   ► - Well, and that's the problem is that to overcome them,

00:46:05 ◼   ► it takes time, and that's the one thing

00:46:08 ◼   ► that people in the media don't want to grant Apple is time.

00:46:12 ◼   ► Like, all right, let me take another break here

00:46:18 ◼   ► and we'll get back and talk more iPhone,

00:46:19 ◼   ► but I want to thank our next sponsor,

00:46:23 ◼   ► and this one's our good friends at Squarespace.

00:46:26 ◼   ► You need a website, if you need a website,

00:46:28 ◼   ► go to Squarespace, go there first and try it,

00:46:32 ◼   ► and just see how easy it is to do everything

00:46:35 ◼   ► from registering the domain name,

00:46:38 ◼   ► to picking the template, to modifying the template,

00:46:40 ◼   ► to setting up different sections of the site with easy,

00:46:44 ◼   ► just drag 'em in features like a store,

00:46:47 ◼   ► like you need to sell something.

00:46:48 ◼   ► You can go to Squarespace and you don't have to

00:46:50 ◼   ► do all this e-commerce programming and stuff.

00:46:53 ◼   ► No, you just set up, say I want a store,

00:46:56 ◼   ► and then you just enter the items you want to sell

00:46:59 ◼   ► and the prices and the pictures of them

00:47:00 ◼   ► and the descriptions and there it is,

00:47:02 ◼   ► you have a beautiful looking store.

00:47:05 ◼   ► It's that easy.

00:47:06 ◼   ► I mean, and you can do that for things like blogs,

00:47:08 ◼   ► you can do it for podcasts,

00:47:10 ◼   ► anything you would need a website for,

00:47:13 ◼   ► I swear you could do it at Squarespace.

00:47:15 ◼   ► You even get a free domain name if you sign up

00:47:17 ◼   ► for a year of service in advance.

00:47:20 ◼   ► Intuitive, easy to use, drag and drop visual tools

00:47:23 ◼   ► to set it all up.

00:47:25 ◼   ► You can get a free trial today at squarespace.com

00:47:28 ◼   ► and when you do decide to sign up, use the code talk show.

00:47:32 ◼   ► Know the just plain old talk show one word

00:47:34 ◼   ► and you will get 10% off your first purchase.

00:47:37 ◼   ► So do that for a year, save 10% on the whole year

00:47:40 ◼   ► and you get a free domain.

00:47:41 ◼   ► Go to squarespace.com and remember that code talk show

00:47:44 ◼   ► when you do decide to pay.

00:47:45 ◼   ► My thanks to Squarespace for their continuing support

00:47:48 ◼   ► of the talk show.

00:47:49 ◼   ► So what do you think they're gonna call the new iPhones?

00:47:52 ◼   ► I'm gonna go, I'm betting that all three are coming, right?

00:47:56 ◼   ► I mean, that seems like about as close to certain as possible.

00:47:58 ◼   ► - So they could go with the,

00:48:02 ◼   ► continuing on with what they've done,

00:48:04 ◼   ► the 7S and 7S Plus,

00:48:08 ◼   ► and then do just the iPhone 8,

00:48:11 ◼   ► which is the big edge to edge,

00:48:13 ◼   ► you know, it's the beautiful one.

00:48:15 ◼   ► Or they could make them all iPhone 8s

00:48:18 ◼   ► and do an iPhone 8 Pro, premium edition,

00:48:22 ◼   ► you know, one of those names.

00:48:26 ◼   ► But I give it a 50/50 chance either way.

00:48:31 ◼   ► - I don't think there's any chance

00:48:33 ◼   ► they're gonna call those 7S and 7S Plus

00:48:36 ◼   ► because by all accounts, they're coming in

00:48:39 ◼   ► at the same price points as the existing 7 and 7 Plus.

00:48:43 ◼   ► It's not like an iPhone 5C where, yes, it's a new phone,

00:48:47 ◼   ► but it's a new phone that we're targeting

00:48:50 ◼   ► at like the mid-price tier.

00:48:52 ◼   ► So if it's supposed to sell at the existing prices,

00:48:56 ◼   ► I think it makes them look bad to call them sevens

00:49:00 ◼   ► and call this other one eight.

00:49:02 ◼   ► It's like, it makes it sound like they're a year behind.

00:49:06 ◼   ► Like I think, and this is to me the most intriguing part

00:49:09 ◼   ► of the whole event next week is how are they going

00:49:11 ◼   ► to product marketing-wise position these three phones

00:49:15 ◼   ► such that the first two look like the iPhones we would

00:49:20 ◼   ► expect in any typical year, like the best phones

00:49:23 ◼   ► on the market from the company with the best eye for design.

00:49:27 ◼   ► And here's this new thing at a higher tier, right?

00:49:31 ◼   ► And I think calling the first two 7S

00:49:35 ◼   ► and calling the other one 8, it says the opposite.

00:49:38 ◼   ► It says these two are year-old technology,

00:49:41 ◼   ► even though they're coming out right now.

00:49:42 ◼   ► It would make sense to me if the rumor were

00:49:44 ◼   ► that the 7S and 7S Plus were going to be introduced

00:49:48 ◼   ► at like $150 lower price than they currently sell.

00:49:51 ◼   ► That would make sense to me,

00:49:52 ◼   ► if they were sort of like the new version of the iPhone 5C.

00:49:56 ◼   ► But that by all accounts, that's not what they're doing.

00:49:58 ◼   ► They're introducing two new phones

00:50:00 ◼   ► that are what we would expect from Apple on a typical year,

00:50:03 ◼   ► which is, you know, and in my opinion,

00:50:05 ◼   ► I've said this many times,

00:50:06 ◼   ► I think that dollar for dollar,

00:50:09 ◼   ► the S models of all iPhones

00:50:11 ◼   ► have been better than the non S models.

00:50:14 ◼   ► The 3GS was way, maybe it was one of the most

00:50:19 ◼   ► biggest updates in iPhone history,

00:50:23 ◼   ► even though it looked exactly like the iPhone 3G.

00:50:25 ◼   ► It was, the speed difference was tremendous.

00:50:27 ◼   ► The iPhone 3G was barely an improvement

00:50:29 ◼   ► over the original iPhone.

00:50:30 ◼   ► The only significant, I think it added GPS, I don't know.

00:50:33 ◼   ► But the main thing was that it went

00:50:35 ◼   ► from edge networking to 3G,

00:50:36 ◼   ► which was obviously a nice improvement.

00:50:39 ◼   ► But everything else, like the camera stayed the same,

00:50:41 ◼   ► the CPU stayed the same, the graphics stayed the same,

00:50:44 ◼   ► The screen stayed the same.

00:50:46 ◼   ► The 3GS was a huge update over the 3G.

00:50:48 ◼   ► The 4S was a huge update over the iPhone 4, right?

00:50:52 ◼   ► The 5S was the one that introduced Touch ID.

00:50:55 ◼   ► I just think that the S models get underestimated

00:51:00 ◼   ► by reviewers just because they look the same.

00:51:05 ◼   ► They just look at it without even using it or testing it

00:51:08 ◼   ► or measuring the speed or trying the camera or whatever.

00:51:11 ◼   ► They're just like, well, it looks the same, meh.

00:51:14 ◼   ► - Well, you know what we should do right now

00:51:16 ◼   ► to just end all this is conference in Schiller.

00:51:20 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:51:21 ◼   ► Just, let's just conference in Schiller and we'll ask him.

00:51:24 ◼   ► Hey, Phil.

00:51:25 ◼   ► - Sure, he'd be happy to talk to us.

00:51:28 ◼   ► And I'm sure he's not busy at all on a Friday before--

00:51:31 ◼   ► - No, I'm sure, I'm sure he's not busy.

00:51:34 ◼   ► - He's probably taking a nap.

00:51:36 ◼   ► - Okay, so you're going with--

00:51:37 ◼   ► - I think it's either going to be iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus,

00:51:41 ◼   ► an iPhone 8 Pro, or they drop the numbers

00:51:45 ◼   ► and just say this is the new iPhone,

00:51:47 ◼   ► this is the new iPhone Plus,

00:51:48 ◼   ► and this is the brand new iPhone Pro.

00:51:51 ◼   ► Like, which is sort of what, which is not even sort of,

00:51:53 ◼   ► that's exactly what they've done with the iPad lineup.

00:51:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you know what, to be honest,

00:51:59 ◼   ► I would like that option the best.

00:52:00 ◼   ► - 'Cause at some point the numbers start to get silly,

00:52:05 ◼   ► right, it's like, you know, they could do,

00:52:08 ◼   ► I don't think it would be ridiculous for them,

00:52:11 ◼   ► I don't think it would be unusual or even the least bit

00:52:13 ◼   ► surprising if the iPhone 8 thing is what turns out.

00:52:16 ◼   ► iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 8 Pro.

00:52:19 ◼   ► I could totally see them doing it.

00:52:20 ◼   ► But at some point, you know, like what?

00:52:22 ◼   ► You're going to have an iPhone 13?

00:52:24 ◼   ► You know?

00:52:26 ◼   ► Yeah, and at what point does that get weird?

00:52:28 ◼   ► At some point, they have to drop the numbers, I think.

00:52:30 ◼   ► And so why not now when they're introducing this new Pro model?

00:52:35 ◼   ► And I do think they're going to call it Pro.

00:52:37 ◼   ► And I could be wrong.

00:52:41 ◼   ► I mean, this is the sort of thing

00:52:42 ◼   ► that I think that they have kept under complete lock and key.

00:52:46 ◼   ► And as you, you know, names and price,

00:52:49 ◼   ► product names and prices are like the things

00:52:52 ◼   ► that are least likely to leak from Apple.

00:52:55 ◼   ► In years past, there were sometimes like prices would leak

00:52:58 ◼   ► because it would somehow like prematurely hit

00:53:01 ◼   ► the retail channel and somebody in an Apple store

00:53:05 ◼   ► would, you know, get like an update

00:53:07 ◼   ► and just some regular person working in an Apple store is like, "Whoa, here's these new

00:53:12 ◼   ► product names and prices," and then email it to 9to5Mac or something. But that hasn't

00:53:20 ◼   ► happened in years. And they've just--I mean, even the name, even going back 10 years, the

00:53:25 ◼   ► original iPhone name did not leak. Remember, there was all this--everybody speculated,

00:53:30 ◼   ► because at the time when Apple was just putting "i" in front of every name, iPhone was the

00:53:35 ◼   ► the rumored name for Apple's secret phone project.

00:53:39 ◼   ► But remember when Steve--

00:53:39 ◼   ► - And they didn't even own it.

00:53:40 ◼   ► - No, and everybody's like, they can't use it

00:53:42 ◼   ► 'cause Cisco owns it, or I think it was Cisco.

00:53:45 ◼   ► And so it was actually a great moment in the keynote

00:53:48 ◼   ► and when Jobs says, and we're gonna call it iPhone,

00:53:52 ◼   ► and then the name iPhone, I remember it was like

00:53:54 ◼   ► the drop effect and dust came up from the ground and keynote.

00:53:58 ◼   ► And he goes, yeah, that's what we're calling it.

00:54:01 ◼   ► Like he knew, like he was addressing the whole,

00:54:03 ◼   ► hey, they can't call it iPhone

00:54:05 ◼   ► Cisco owns a trademark on the name iPhone,

00:54:07 ◼   ► and he was just like, fuck it, we're calling it iPhone.

00:54:09 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:54:11 ◼   ► So names don't leak.

00:54:12 ◼   ► So I have absolutely zero inside, no little birdies,

00:54:17 ◼   ► no friends of a birdie, no, my cousin has a friend

00:54:21 ◼   ► who's married to someone at Apple who told me

00:54:23 ◼   ► that they're gonna call it this.

00:54:24 ◼   ► I have nothing, nobody's told me a damn thing.

00:54:26 ◼   ► I just think they're gonna call it Pro

00:54:27 ◼   ► because that's what they call the higher end models.

00:54:31 ◼   ► That's what they call the MacBook Pro,

00:54:32 ◼   ► it's what they call the iPad Pro.

00:54:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

00:54:34 ◼   ► I mean, it just, it makes sense.

00:54:37 ◼   ► Makes sense.

00:54:38 ◼   ► Now the only question is, will they drop the number?

00:54:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, those are my two guesses.

00:54:43 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:54:45 ◼   ► That's what I feel 50/50 on.

00:54:47 ◼   ► But I also feel like giving, if they call them all eight,

00:54:50 ◼   ► or if they drop the number on all of them

00:54:52 ◼   ► and just go iPhone, iPhone Plus, iPhone Pro,

00:54:56 ◼   ► it elevates those to the 4.7 and the 5.5 inch phones

00:55:01 ◼   ► to be peers with this new phone,

00:55:03 ◼   ► as opposed to, you know, it's a way to position them

00:55:06 ◼   ► such that they don't look unappealing

00:55:08 ◼   ► even though they're not the highest end models.

00:55:10 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:55:11 ◼   ► Yeah, it's important, I mean,

00:55:15 ◼   ► you said it a few minutes ago perfectly,

00:55:18 ◼   ► they have to have tiers,

00:55:20 ◼   ► but they can't make one seem inferior

00:55:23 ◼   ► while having tiers. - Right.

00:55:24 ◼   ► - And you know, this is where the show comes in.

00:55:30 ◼   ► This is his expertise.

00:55:31 ◼   ► - It really is.

00:55:32 ◼   ► - He has to market this so that somebody doesn't feel like,

00:55:36 ◼   ► oh, look at that, look at the iPhone I have to get.

00:55:40 ◼   ► They have to say, okay.

00:55:42 ◼   ► - I think that this is one of the hardest things

00:55:46 ◼   ► that Schiller and his team have had to do in Apple history.

00:55:49 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:55:50 ◼   ► - It's both, it's two things, too.

00:55:52 ◼   ► It's the original message, which is what they say

00:55:55 ◼   ► on stage in the keynote, to set the,

00:55:58 ◼   ► Here's our version of the story of these products

00:56:01 ◼   ► that we want to seed into the head of the public

00:56:05 ◼   ► who's watching all the millions of people

00:56:07 ◼   ► who watch these streams live and us, the media,

00:56:10 ◼   ► who are gonna be writing about them

00:56:11 ◼   ► to try to get us to see it the same way

00:56:15 ◼   ► they want us to see it.

00:56:17 ◼   ► And secondarily, which is totally different,

00:56:20 ◼   ► is the ad campaigns for these products,

00:56:22 ◼   ► is how do they come up with ad campaigns

00:56:24 ◼   ► that accomplish the same thing,

00:56:26 ◼   ► make the new regular iPhones seem desirable and new

00:56:30 ◼   ► and much improved and desirable,

00:56:33 ◼   ► and at the same time introduce this new pro model

00:56:37 ◼   ► at a higher price that doesn't diminish demand

00:56:39 ◼   ► for the existing tiered prices, tiered models.

00:56:44 ◼   ► It's a challenge, it really is.

00:56:47 ◼   ► So interesting to see how they do it.

00:56:50 ◼   ► Like, is it going to be like a totally separate ad campaign

00:56:53 ◼   ► for the pro as opposed to the regular iPhones

00:56:55 ◼   ► or do they do one ad campaign that includes them all?

00:56:58 ◼   ► I totally, I don't know.

00:57:01 ◼   ► - I don't think that they can.

00:57:02 ◼   ► I think that, you know, this pro is gonna be marketed

00:57:07 ◼   ► completely different than what the other ones are.

00:57:13 ◼   ► - I think so too. - I really do.

00:57:17 ◼   ► - It's gonna be, I think that's where a lot of the focus

00:57:20 ◼   ► is gonna be because people are gonna know about

00:57:24 ◼   ► the updated models, but this new one,

00:57:28 ◼   ► it's gonna be brand new and shiny

00:57:30 ◼   ► and it's gonna be spectacular

00:57:32 ◼   ► and they're gonna market the hell out of that.

00:57:35 ◼   ► - There's also been a rumor

00:57:37 ◼   ► and it seems like so much of the attention

00:57:39 ◼   ► is on the Pro, the D22-1.

00:57:41 ◼   ► I mean, not even seems like the attention

00:57:43 ◼   ► really is on that model.

00:57:45 ◼   ► And the so-called 7S and 7S+

00:57:48 ◼   ► are almost like afterthoughts in all the rumors.

00:57:51 ◼   ► And I think that's so curious and so indicative

00:57:54 ◼   ► of how small-minded the media is,

00:57:57 ◼   ► how narrowly focused it can be.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Because I would guess that we're getting updates

00:58:02 ◼   ► as good as the S updates we'd expect in a normal year.

00:58:06 ◼   ► - Absolutely. - Which is typically,

00:58:08 ◼   ► like I said, usually a bigger improvement

00:58:10 ◼   ► than the other way around.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Like it might be, I would expect that these two phones

00:58:14 ◼   ► are better than the 7, they're corresponding,

00:58:17 ◼   ► the 7 and 7 Plus, than the 7 was from the 6S

00:58:20 ◼   ► and the 6S Plus.

00:58:21 ◼   ► - I think I'm willing to bet that

00:58:25 ◼   ► if there is a hands-on area at this event on Tuesday,

00:58:28 ◼   ► that when we go in there,

00:58:31 ◼   ► there will be nobody at the 7S and 7S Plus table

00:58:35 ◼   ► and everybody will be at the 8 table.

00:58:37 ◼   ► - I remember that.

00:58:38 ◼   ► I remember the one event when they first came out with the,

00:58:41 ◼   ► I think it's still the current form factor

00:58:44 ◼   ► of the iPod Touch, the one that originally shipped

00:58:47 ◼   ► with an optional wrist lanyard.

00:58:49 ◼   ► I don't think they've changed the industrial design

00:58:53 ◼   ► since then other than getting rid of the thing

00:58:55 ◼   ► for the wrist lanyard, the little pop-out thing.

00:58:58 ◼   ► But I remember that event, the hands-on area,

00:59:02 ◼   ► I came out and I was with a friend of the show,

00:59:04 ◼   ► off-frequent guest, M.G. Siegler,

00:59:07 ◼   ► back when he was, I think he was writing

00:59:08 ◼   ► for TechCrunch at the time.

00:59:10 ◼   ► And it was like three or four deep around the iPhone.

00:59:14 ◼   ► It was either the 4 or the 4S, I think.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Maybe it was, I don't know, I think it was the iPhone 5.

00:59:18 ◼   ► It was the first year of the iPhone 5.

00:59:19 ◼   ► And the iPod touch table, there was literally nobody there.

00:59:23 ◼   ► So we just went there and it was so much more enjoyable.

00:59:26 ◼   ► Because, okay, it wasn't the product

00:59:28 ◼   ► I was most interested in, but it was,

00:59:31 ◼   ► we had the room, we could completely examine it.

00:59:33 ◼   ► We could talk to the people, the Apple people

00:59:36 ◼   ► who were there to answer our questions about it.

00:59:38 ◼   ► And meanwhile, everybody at the other one,

00:59:40 ◼   ► it was like a fight over Cabbage Patch dolls in 1985.

00:59:44 ◼   ► Yeah. And that's what it's like at every event. And there's nothing Apple can do. It's us.

00:59:52 ◼   ► It's not them. And it's not, we were talking earlier about their flow or any,

00:59:58 ◼   ► it's got nothing to do with that. It's just the way that the president-

01:00:01 ◼   ► Well, and one of the ways that the, if we, to stroll back down memory lane again, and the way

01:00:07 ◼   ► that, I mean, you've been going to events, like you said, since 1999. So you've got way more

01:00:12 ◼   ► years under your belt than me. I think I started getting press passes to Macworld around 2006

01:00:21 ◼   ► or so, maybe 2005, but 2006. So when I got to press pass for the iPhone 1 in January

01:00:27 ◼   ► 2007, it was still one of the third or fourth event that I'd gotten a press pass for. But

01:00:35 ◼   ► just in the last 10 years, one of the ways that's changed absolutely, and it's just totally

01:00:39 ◼   ► changed the flow of these events is the obsession with shooting video and photographs. It just

01:00:45 ◼   ► wasn't a thing back then because, I mean, it's certainly for video. There was just no way to

01:00:50 ◼   ► get video online, you know, remotely. It was just too big. Bandwidth was too slow. Cameras were too

01:00:59 ◼   ► big. Now it's all video. It's video, video, video, video, and product shots. And I've said this

01:01:07 ◼   ► before, but it really changes the dynamic of the hands-on area is that once

01:01:11 ◼   ► somebody from these media outlets gets to, you know, now they can hold the new

01:01:16 ◼   ► iPhone, they have, it's like a team and they have a, you know, here's the person

01:01:21 ◼   ► who's gonna hold it and here's the photographer, but to get the shot they

01:01:25 ◼   ► want, they need space, you know, they don't just want to stick the camera right up

01:01:28 ◼   ► there, they want to put a longer lens on and it's, it really does get ugly, you

01:01:33 ◼   ► know, where they're, because they, if, you know, and if you're not really paying

01:01:36 ◼   ► attention if you're just trying to walk around. You might walk—there's enough space between

01:01:40 ◼   ► a photographer and a reporter that you could easily, inadvertently just walk in front of

01:01:44 ◼   ► them because it's crowded and there's hundreds of people there. And it really does change.

01:01:49 ◼   ► And then because it means that they need so much space around them that it's no longer

01:01:53 ◼   ► packed tables. It's people and they're pushing people. It's real ugly.

01:01:57 ◼   ► Ted

01:01:57 ◼   ► - Well, it is a weird situation, but you know,

01:02:01 ◼   ► I think for many of us that have been there

01:02:04 ◼   ► for a long time, like you said, we're just kinda,

01:02:07 ◼   ► you know, we're willing to hang out,

01:02:08 ◼   ► but some of these guys that get in there these days

01:02:11 ◼   ► are just, like they're going elbows up.

01:02:13 ◼   ► - Remember last year with the jet black iPhone,

01:02:16 ◼   ► that's the one everybody wanted to get pictures of,

01:02:20 ◼   ► but it's really hard to photograph.

01:02:22 ◼   ► Like it's, you know, for obvious reasons,

01:02:26 ◼   ► It's like, you know, like I had friends

01:02:29 ◼   ► who had a black pug, you know, the dog.

01:02:33 ◼   ► Just jet black hair with black eyes.

01:02:36 ◼   ► Adorable, adorable little dog.

01:02:39 ◼   ► The hardest damn thing to take a photo of,

01:02:41 ◼   ► there's just no way to get the light right.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Like your eyes can totally see this adorable pug face

01:02:47 ◼   ► and these adorable eyes looking at you,

01:02:49 ◼   ► and then your camera just sees like a black pillow.

01:02:53 ◼   ► And so people last year trying to set up shots

01:02:56 ◼   ► of the jet black iPhone, they'd take the shot

01:02:58 ◼   ► and then the photographer would chimp.

01:03:00 ◼   ► You ever hear that verb, chimping?

01:03:02 ◼   ► Chimping is when you have like a SLR, you take a picture,

01:03:06 ◼   ► and then you look at the screen to see if you got the shot.

01:03:09 ◼   ► And you're up to your eyes, take a shot, look at the screen,

01:03:12 ◼   ► just over and over and over again playing with the exposure

01:03:15 ◼   ► and trying to get it positioned in the light just so.

01:03:18 ◼   ► And it's like you're not in a photo studio here.

01:03:20 ◼   ► You're in a working press room with 250 members of the media

01:03:25 ◼   ► who all want the same phone, and meanwhile,

01:03:27 ◼   ► tilted a quarter of an inch this way,

01:03:29 ◼   ► catch the light, it was, ugh, it was maddening.

01:03:31 ◼   ► Let me think, what else?

01:03:32 ◼   ► What do you think the price is gonna start on the Pro model?

01:03:36 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, I think 1,000 to 1,200.

01:03:41 ◼   ► - I think 999 is their goal,

01:03:44 ◼   ► and it's probably as a starting price.

01:03:45 ◼   ► So that tricked out plus of iPhone 8 plus or whatever,

01:03:50 ◼   ► 7S plus, whatever they're gonna call it,

01:03:52 ◼   ► the 5.5 inch one,

01:03:54 ◼   ► I would think would have the same prices last year,

01:03:56 ◼   ► $969 for the one with the most storage.

01:04:00 ◼   ► And then if that's the existing,

01:04:03 ◼   ► and that's the existing high price, 969,

01:04:06 ◼   ► then if the new one starts at 999,

01:04:08 ◼   ► it seems like it's a continuous flow of prices

01:04:11 ◼   ► from the whatever the lowest memory storage config

01:04:16 ◼   ► of the iPhone 7 is up to.

01:04:19 ◼   ► But I would guess that they'd have at least two tiers,

01:04:21 ◼   ► maybe like 64 gigs and 256 or something like that,

01:04:26 ◼   ► with $100 bump in between them, or maybe $200, I don't know.

01:04:32 ◼   ► I could totally see it going up to $1200.

01:04:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, so could I.

01:04:36 ◼   ► But people have been talking about this,

01:04:39 ◼   ► know the price of this thing like it's it's going to collapse the market and and it's not but I think

01:04:48 ◼   ► mentally we have a ceiling you know a thousand dollar price point and then things start to to

01:04:57 ◼   ► ramp up again you know so anything under a thousand dollars I think we're okay with but

01:05:03 ◼   ► once you say a thousand dollars then you're thinking oh my god thousand dollars that's a

01:05:08 ◼   ► That's a lot of money.

01:05:09 ◼   ► But $9.99, that's perfectly fine.

01:05:11 ◼   ► - The people who are upset about it

01:05:12 ◼   ► are the people who are enthusiasts

01:05:14 ◼   ► and like the idea that they have the best iPhone

01:05:19 ◼   ► they could buy and who also don't want to,

01:05:22 ◼   ► or either can't or won't pay over $1,000 for an iPhone.

01:05:27 ◼   ► So now they're torn because they always had

01:05:29 ◼   ► the best iPhone that money could buy

01:05:31 ◼   ► and they can't buy the new best iPhone that money can buy

01:05:35 ◼   ► or won't buy the new best iPhone that money can buy

01:05:38 ◼   ► And so those people are upset.

01:05:40 ◼   ► I mean, they've been vocal ever since rumors

01:05:43 ◼   ► of this started hitting, and they certainly were vocal

01:05:46 ◼   ► when I wrote about what the prices might be

01:05:49 ◼   ► earlier this summer.

01:05:51 ◼   ► And I understand it, they're not wrong, right?

01:05:53 ◼   ► If that's how you feel or if that's your budget.

01:05:55 ◼   ► I mean, but I think that they take it too far

01:05:58 ◼   ► when they say, I've also heard the argument

01:06:00 ◼   ► that they either won't or shouldn't call it the iPhone Pro,

01:06:05 ◼   ► emphasis on pro because you know with macbooks and even ipads that pro makes sense because they're

01:06:12 ◼   ► they're tools people use for work you know and that somebody who buys a macbook pro instead of a

01:06:16 ◼   ► macbook air or a regular macbook is doing so because they have professional needs for work

01:06:22 ◼   ► that require i don't agree with that i don't i a don't agree with it on the macbook pro and the

01:06:28 ◼   ► ipad pro especially the ipad pro although some people do use it as more of a professional tool

01:06:32 ◼   ► I also think that Apple has used the word pro to mean deluxe or

01:06:37 ◼   ► you know, yes better more expensive just

01:06:41 ◼   ► and when when you asked earlier what the names would be those are you know,

01:06:46 ◼   ► iPad edition because they've used that for the top of the line. So yeah pro is just to Apple

01:06:53 ◼   ► like you said it's to me it's a

01:06:57 ◼   ► - A docs model.

01:06:58 ◼   ► - And top of the line. - And secondarily though,

01:07:00 ◼   ► here's the other, the flip side of it.

01:07:01 ◼   ► So I don't think, and the ways they have used the word pro

01:07:04 ◼   ► in product names, it doesn't always necessarily mean

01:07:07 ◼   ► for professional use.

01:07:09 ◼   ► But in the flip side, I think that an iPhone

01:07:13 ◼   ► for professional use is, that's an actual thing.

01:07:17 ◼   ► That's part of the ways that the world has changed

01:07:19 ◼   ► since 10 years ago when the first iPhone came out

01:07:22 ◼   ► is that there are an awful lot of people I know

01:07:25 ◼   ► who their most used work computer is their phone.

01:07:29 ◼   ► Awful lot of people,

01:07:30 ◼   ► and either all the time or some of the time.

01:07:34 ◼   ► And I've said this before,

01:07:36 ◼   ► like Matthew Panzorino, who is the editor of TechCrunch,

01:07:39 ◼   ► and Nilay Patel at The Verge I've talked to,

01:07:42 ◼   ► both of them have said the same thing to me,

01:07:44 ◼   ► that there are days where if they're traveling or something,

01:07:48 ◼   ► their entire communication with their editorial staff

01:07:50 ◼   ► goes through their phone.

01:07:51 ◼   ► Those are publications where there are stories coming out

01:07:55 ◼   ► every hour throughout the day.

01:07:57 ◼   ► And as the people who run the publication,

01:08:00 ◼   ► they need to be in charge,

01:08:01 ◼   ► and they need to be in communication

01:08:03 ◼   ► with their staff all day.

01:08:04 ◼   ► Their phone is the only,

01:08:06 ◼   ► that's the number one device on some days for them

01:08:08 ◼   ► as a professional tool.

01:08:10 ◼   ► And what are the things that professionals need

01:08:14 ◼   ► out of their phone?

01:08:14 ◼   ► Well, one of them is battery life.

01:08:16 ◼   ► So like if this iPhone Pro,

01:08:18 ◼   ► because it has an OLED screen

01:08:20 ◼   ► and OLED takes less energy than LCD.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And if it's because of the new shape,

01:08:25 ◼   ► if they're able to put a bigger battery in there,

01:08:28 ◼   ► and if they can advertise that it has

01:08:30 ◼   ► significantly better battery life,

01:08:32 ◼   ► or at least as much battery life as the Plus,

01:08:37 ◼   ► but in a form factor that feels in your hand

01:08:39 ◼   ► closer to a regular iPhone,

01:08:40 ◼   ► that is a legitimate professional feature.

01:08:43 ◼   ► Like your phone going dead before the day is done

01:08:47 ◼   ► is a professional problem, it really is.

01:08:49 ◼   ► So, and secondarily, the camera.

01:08:51 ◼   ► If the camera is better, that's a professional.

01:08:54 ◼   ► That is a pro feature.

01:08:55 ◼   ► There are people who use their phones

01:08:57 ◼   ► to take pictures in a professional context.

01:08:59 ◼   ► Like, part of their job is taking pictures.

01:09:01 ◼   ► - I don't even give that whole pro thing any thought at all.

01:09:06 ◼   ► I just don't.

01:09:08 ◼   ► I just don't agree with it to the point

01:09:10 ◼   ► where I don't even think about it.

01:09:17 ◼   ► I can use my phone for a computer if I want.

01:09:21 ◼   ► I choose not to, but I can.

01:09:23 ◼   ► If they have something that's better,

01:09:28 ◼   ► better chips and better networking and better screen

01:09:32 ◼   ► and all of this kind of stuff,

01:09:34 ◼   ► the one big question that I have,

01:09:36 ◼   ► and I tweeted maybe about a week ago,

01:09:39 ◼   ► the only thing that I really want out of a new iPhone

01:09:41 ◼   ► is to be able to read it in the sun.

01:09:46 ◼   ► Will I be able to do that with this new screen?

01:09:48 ◼   ► I don't know, I hope so. - It'll be a good feature.

01:09:51 ◼   ► And it's funny, the people who think

01:09:53 ◼   ► that they can't call it pro is that

01:09:55 ◼   ► the pre-iPhone smartphone world,

01:09:58 ◼   ► like when they used to call them smartphones

01:09:59 ◼   ► and Blackberry was a thing, they were all professional.

01:10:02 ◼   ► The advertising campaigns for all of those things

01:10:07 ◼   ► were people in business suits.

01:10:09 ◼   ► And it was meant for people who work at a big corporate

01:10:15 ◼   ► with a quote enterprise IT division and stuff like that.

01:10:19 ◼   ► So I just think it's silly to think they wouldn't.

01:10:23 ◼   ► I also think, this is one of those things

01:10:26 ◼   ► that I wanted to touch on,

01:10:27 ◼   ► is among the things we don't know about this new phone

01:10:30 ◼   ► is we don't really know anything about the camera.

01:10:32 ◼   ► And the camera is a huge, it's probably the,

01:10:35 ◼   ► it's the centerpiece of the last two years

01:10:37 ◼   ► of iPhone advertising,

01:10:39 ◼   ► is the Shot with iPhone advertising campaign.

01:10:41 ◼   ► It's literally the number one thing

01:10:43 ◼   ► that Apple uses to advertise phones now.

01:10:46 ◼   ► I would presume that the 7S and 7S Plus will get

01:10:51 ◼   ► the sort of upgrades to their camera

01:10:53 ◼   ► that we're used to them getting every year,

01:10:55 ◼   ► which is significant.

01:10:57 ◼   ► It's one of those things that you really can

01:10:58 ◼   ► just take a year old iPhone and see the difference.

01:11:01 ◼   ► But I would think that the iPhone Pro

01:11:04 ◼   ► is gonna get an even better camera.

01:11:06 ◼   ► And I think it may not be about the lens and sensor,

01:11:09 ◼   ► I think it's about the depth sensor

01:11:12 ◼   ► it's rumored to have. That using an entirely different sensor for 3D depth perception,

01:11:21 ◼   ► combined with having two lenses and through the magic of software, could lead to a serious

01:11:30 ◼   ► like, "Oh my god, that's amazing. I can't believe that came out of a phone photography."

01:11:36 ◼   ► That would be very exciting to me.

01:11:38 ◼   ► I agree. I agree. And anything that they can do to help with photography and video and

01:11:47 ◼   ► you know, all of that is just going to help sales because that is a huge thing. And the

01:11:52 ◼   ► camera is one thing that's going to be huge for consumers and pros.

01:11:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I think there's a reason why there's so much and for so long they've been using

01:12:05 ◼   ► this shot with iPhone advertising campaign because I really think it works with regular

01:12:12 ◼   ► people.

01:12:13 ◼   ► Other names I've seen tossed about and I don't think they will use them.

01:12:17 ◼   ► Some people have suggested they would call this the new high end, highfalutin phone the

01:12:21 ◼   ► iPhone edition.

01:12:23 ◼   ► I don't think they would do.

01:12:24 ◼   ► I mean obviously they've used that name for Apple Watch twice, but I think the way they've

01:12:29 ◼   ► used it with Apple Watch, especially the first time with the gold ones, but even with the

01:12:35 ◼   ► ceramic one from last year, which is significantly lower in price and therefore far more approachable

01:12:40 ◼   ► than the gold ones were. The name edition, it says even, it's not just the judging the

01:12:49 ◼   ► products for themselves at $20,000 digital watches, but just the name edition, it was

01:12:56 ◼   ► meant to be sort of like an asterisk almost, like a footnote in the product line. This

01:13:03 ◼   ► This is something that is not going to sell in massive quantity.

01:13:08 ◼   ► And I don't think that's going to be—that's not going to be the case with the iPhone at

01:13:11 ◼   ► all.

01:13:12 ◼   ► You know, and it's—it may not be the best-selling one.

01:13:15 ◼   ► This may actually change the dynamics of the product mix.

01:13:21 ◼   ► But it's, you know, much like the iPad Pro, I think it's, you know—and I think the

01:13:26 ◼   ► iPad Pro is certainly not the best-selling iPad.

01:13:28 ◼   ► I think that the lower-priced ones, I think, you know, right now probably the best-selling

01:13:31 ◼   ► iPad has got to be that just plain iPad, you know, the one that starts at like $379.

01:13:37 ◼   ► But they certainly sell far more iPad Pros than they sell Apple Watch editions. Like,

01:13:45 ◼   ► edition just is too, it's too rarefied. And I don't think that's what their intent with

01:13:49 ◼   ► this phone is at all. No, well, there, this is not a rarefied iPhone. This is the future of

01:13:59 ◼   ► of the company right here.

01:14:01 ◼   ► So they have to position it as such.

01:14:05 ◼   ► Yes, it's gonna be, by all reports,

01:14:08 ◼   ► hard to get ahold of for a little bit,

01:14:10 ◼   ► but this is the future, this is the way the iPhone is going.

01:14:13 ◼   ► - Oh, what about the rumor that all three iPhones

01:14:16 ◼   ► are gonna have glass backs?

01:14:18 ◼   ► I feel like that's gotten remarkably little attention.

01:14:21 ◼   ► And the idea is that they need to,

01:14:23 ◼   ► because they're all going to support contact charging,

01:14:28 ◼   ► whatever you wanna call it.

01:14:29 ◼   ► - No, I hate that wireless charging,

01:14:30 ◼   ► but you put it on a little pad

01:14:33 ◼   ► and it'll just charge on the pad,

01:14:35 ◼   ► and that you can't do that with an aluminum back.

01:14:38 ◼   ► That to me would be, if that's true,

01:14:41 ◼   ► and I feel like it's really been under rumored,

01:14:44 ◼   ► especially on the lower two ones,

01:14:46 ◼   ► then there's no way they're gonna call them the 7S

01:14:48 ◼   ► and the 7S Plus, because they only use the S

01:14:51 ◼   ► when they literally look the same.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And obviously having a glass back would not look the same.

01:14:56 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:14:59 ◼   ► - Well, and that would be one of these features

01:15:04 ◼   ► that, like you said, they would change the name for.

01:15:08 ◼   ► Because here you go, this is significantly different

01:15:10 ◼   ► because we've updated the camera and we've got a glass back

01:15:14 ◼   ► so it does the contact charging,

01:15:16 ◼   ► and we've done all of these different things.

01:15:20 ◼   ► And you know, every year, the S editions always get,

01:15:24 ◼   ► you know, updated components inside.

01:15:25 ◼   ► So they're, like you said before, they're always faster

01:15:28 ◼   ► and they're better and everything else.

01:15:29 ◼   ► So that is just another reason why calling them all

01:15:34 ◼   ► iPhone 8s would make sense.

01:15:36 ◼   ► Because here you're getting all of this technology as well,

01:15:40 ◼   ► just in, you know.

01:15:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, and if they all have this glass back,

01:15:45 ◼   ► I can envision like some kind of photograph

01:15:48 ◼   ► that shows all three from behind

01:15:50 ◼   ► and makes them look like a family.

01:15:53 ◼   ► You know, from behind they would look like

01:15:55 ◼   ► they're all like, here's three amazing new iPhones,

01:15:57 ◼   ► not just one amazing new iPhone and two other ones

01:16:00 ◼   ► that you don't even care about, right?

01:16:02 ◼   ► And whereas from the front, you won't get that

01:16:06 ◼   ► because you'll have two that have this traditional chin

01:16:09 ◼   ► and forehead at the top and bottom and one that doesn't

01:16:12 ◼   ► and has this cutout around the screen that makes it look,

01:16:15 ◼   ► gives it a different silhouette as like a,

01:16:18 ◼   ► what it looks like when the screen is on.

01:16:20 ◼   ► From the front, it's definitely gonna look like

01:16:22 ◼   ► there's one phone that's not like the others,

01:16:24 ◼   ► But from the back, if they all have a glass design,

01:16:28 ◼   ► some kind of glass, that would be interesting.

01:16:30 ◼   ► I think that's interesting too though,

01:16:32 ◼   ► because they had glass backs and then moved away from it.

01:16:36 ◼   ► And then to go back to it would be interesting,

01:16:38 ◼   ► 'cause that's not something Apple usually does.

01:16:40 ◼   ► When they change materials,

01:16:41 ◼   ► they usually just go in one order.

01:16:44 ◼   ► They had the titanium G4 power book,

01:16:47 ◼   ► and it was amazing and sort of, in my opinion,

01:16:51 ◼   ► is probably the most influential design Apple in the computer world, in the PC world, has

01:16:58 ◼   ► ever had. Because even today's MacBooks still, to me, seem like they're derived from that

01:17:03 ◼   ► G4 titanium. There's this progression. I mean, and it's obviously thicker, and the keyboard

01:17:11 ◼   ► was definitely way different. But it was just sort of like that's the look of the modern

01:17:16 ◼   ► an Apple notebook compared to all the black plastic ones

01:17:20 ◼   ► that came before it, right?

01:17:22 ◼   ► But anyway--

01:17:23 ◼   ► - Well, I think if they could've stayed with aluminum

01:17:26 ◼   ► or a different type of metal, they probably would've.

01:17:29 ◼   ► - When they switched from titanium to aluminum,

01:17:31 ◼   ► they didn't go back to titanium three years later, right?

01:17:34 ◼   ► There was a reason why they switched.

01:17:35 ◼   ► It was like, 'cause the titanium could flake off.

01:17:39 ◼   ► I think it was like painted or something.

01:17:42 ◼   ► It didn't wear that well.

01:17:43 ◼   ► And the breakthrough with aluminum

01:17:45 ◼   ► was when they got to,

01:17:47 ◼   ► they don't even talk about unibody anymore,

01:17:49 ◼   ► but the fact that they could make these,

01:17:52 ◼   ► their ability to drill out a solid block of aluminum

01:17:56 ◼   ► in one continuous shape, it was the breakthrough.

01:18:00 ◼   ► So it's interesting to me that they would go back to glass.

01:18:04 ◼   ► And I wonder if there's some part of this

01:18:06 ◼   ► because, that we're missing,

01:18:08 ◼   ► that it's not just glass like the iPhone 4 and 4S were,

01:18:11 ◼   ► that it's some other type of glass

01:18:13 ◼   ► or that there's some other aspect to the story

01:18:15 ◼   ► that we just, nobody even knows yet.

01:18:18 ◼   ► - Well, I'm sure that that will come up.

01:18:20 ◼   ► - Oh, I bet.

01:18:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:18:23 ◼   ► Let me think, anything else on the iPhone?

01:18:26 ◼   ► Got the camera, got the glass back.

01:18:28 ◼   ► Think it's gonna have a headphone jack?

01:18:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:18:35 ◼   ► Did you see the story?

01:18:36 ◼   ► I gotta put it in the show notes.

01:18:37 ◼   ► I don't know if you saw it in the shared note,

01:18:39 ◼   ► but there's this YouTube video from a guy.

01:18:43 ◼   ► It's like a half hour video of how he made,

01:18:46 ◼   ► how he added a headphone jack to his iPhone 7.

01:18:50 ◼   ► Like literally, I wouldn't,

01:18:52 ◼   ► I don't want anything to do with that.

01:18:54 ◼   ► And then when he says,

01:18:55 ◼   ► oh, the Taptic Engine is still in the way,

01:18:57 ◼   ► I was going, no, no, no.

01:19:00 ◼   ► It's a fascinating video.

01:19:03 ◼   ► I really enjoyed it.

01:19:06 ◼   ► 'Cause I just enjoy,

01:19:07 ◼   ► I enjoy seeing somebody with an obsession.

01:19:09 ◼   ► And this obviously became his obsession.

01:19:12 ◼   ► But I don't understand it at all.

01:19:13 ◼   ► I mean, this guy spent four months doing this.

01:19:17 ◼   ► I don't know if he lives in China full time,

01:19:18 ◼   ► but he's obviously an electronics enthusiast.

01:19:23 ◼   ► And so it was interesting to me to get a peek

01:19:25 ◼   ► at those markets in Shenzhen,

01:19:27 ◼   ► where you buy all this amazing stuff.

01:19:30 ◼   ► Did you see the part, it was like early on,

01:19:35 ◼   ► where he needed to buy a new USB microscope,

01:19:37 ◼   ► because his old one was a piece of junk.

01:19:40 ◼   ► And so he goes to the store and gets one.

01:19:42 ◼   ► And it's not like buying-- it's like just in a brown box

01:19:47 ◼   ► with no labeling at all.

01:19:49 ◼   ► It's just like a brown box that he's

01:19:51 ◼   ► buying a USB microscope.

01:19:53 ◼   ► But the saleswoman asked if he'd like

01:19:56 ◼   ► to her to set it up for him.

01:19:58 ◼   ► And he was like, sure.

01:19:59 ◼   ► So she opened it up, assembled the whole thing.

01:20:01 ◼   ► Like it needed assembly.

01:20:02 ◼   ► She did the assembly for him, then powered it on,

01:20:05 ◼   ► showed him how everything works, and then packaged it back up.

01:20:09 ◼   ► and he was on his way, like, it's a type of service,

01:20:11 ◼   ► you just don't get that anymore.

01:20:13 ◼   ► I mean, arguably you could get that,

01:20:15 ◼   ► you get it sort of at the Apple stores,

01:20:16 ◼   ► but like, you know, like when you go to Best Buy,

01:20:18 ◼   ► they don't like offer to put the stuff together for you

01:20:20 ◼   ► for free and test it and make sure it works.

01:20:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was an incredible video,

01:20:25 ◼   ► but it scared me more than anything else.

01:20:28 ◼   ► - Well, you know what's funny,

01:20:28 ◼   ► and I thought the same thing,

01:20:30 ◼   ► where it's a sign of my old age,

01:20:34 ◼   ► where I'm thinking, oh man, you know,

01:20:37 ◼   ► screwing around with the inside of your phone,

01:20:39 ◼   ► like that. Like basically, I didn't finish it yet, so I'm not quite sure if he actually,

01:20:43 ◼   ► if this is the technique he worked, but like 20 minutes in his strategy was to use one

01:20:50 ◼   ► of Apple's lightning to USB or lightning to headphone jack adapters, put that in the phone

01:20:56 ◼   ► itself and then wire the lightning end and solder it to the lightning connector on the

01:21:00 ◼   ► back of the phone, you know, where the actual lightning connector was. So in other words,

01:21:04 ◼   ► The basic idea of how he added a headphone jack to his phone

01:21:08 ◼   ► is he embedded the lightning to headphone jack

01:21:11 ◼   ► inside the phone and then drilled a hole

01:21:13 ◼   ► where you could plug the thing in.

01:21:15 ◼   ► But he had, like you said, he had to move things around

01:21:18 ◼   ► on the logic board. (laughs)

01:21:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was just, I was cringing.

01:21:22 ◼   ► - Well, my thought, my old man caution, caution,

01:21:25 ◼   ► is especially after last year's whole thing

01:21:27 ◼   ► with the Galaxy Notes,

01:21:29 ◼   ► it wasn't like people were hacking their Galaxy Notes.

01:21:31 ◼   ► It's like right out of the factory,

01:21:32 ◼   ► the things were catching fire.

01:21:34 ◼   ► And it's like, there's a part of me that ever since that,

01:21:38 ◼   ► I mean, we all know lithium batteries can be dangerous,

01:21:43 ◼   ► and that it's a very tricky part of all of our daily lives,

01:21:47 ◼   ► all these devices we have that have,

01:21:49 ◼   ► literally have dangerous batteries inside them.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Like screwing around with your phone like that

01:21:54 ◼   ► seems like a fire in your pants, ready to happen.

01:21:58 ◼   ► - Just waiting.

01:21:59 ◼   ► - Right, where, you know, so like,

01:22:03 ◼   ► I'm like that in all ways of life.

01:22:05 ◼   ► Like when I was younger, like as a teenager,

01:22:06 ◼   ► I used to ride a skateboard.

01:22:09 ◼   ► So I see kids on the street doing tricks

01:22:12 ◼   ► on their skateboard or something like that.

01:22:14 ◼   ► I used to think like, wow, that was a cool trick.

01:22:15 ◼   ► That's pretty cool, that looks cool.

01:22:16 ◼   ► And now I see it, I think, oh my God,

01:22:18 ◼   ► that kid's gonna kill himself.

01:22:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:22:21 ◼   ► You know, when he--

01:22:24 ◼   ► I've seen kids just go sailing right through a red light

01:22:28 ◼   ► on an intersection on a skateboard,

01:22:30 ◼   ► just I guess trusting their ears

01:22:32 ◼   ► that they don't hear any cars coming.

01:22:34 ◼   ► And when I was younger, I would think,

01:22:35 ◼   ► "Man, that's a bad ass move."

01:22:36 ◼   ► And now I think, "Oh my God, that's a death wish."

01:22:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're dead.

01:22:40 ◼   ► - I wish there was a police officer here

01:22:42 ◼   ► to pull you over and give you a stern lecture.

01:22:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:22:45 ◼   ► That's what I kept thinking about this guy with his phone.

01:22:48 ◼   ► It's like, I feel like you've just made

01:22:50 ◼   ► like a bomb ready to go off.

01:22:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, and when he started drilling into the casing,

01:22:56 ◼   ► I was going, "Oh, oh no, no, don't do that.

01:23:00 ◼   ► "Don't do that."

01:23:01 ◼   ► But he did.

01:23:02 ◼   ► - And then, you know, more power to him

01:23:06 ◼   ► if that's what he wants.

01:23:07 ◼   ► - It just seems so not worth it to me.

01:23:09 ◼   ► It really is, the no headphone jack,

01:23:13 ◼   ► I know, it's trade-offs.

01:23:14 ◼   ► I've said this ever since last year.

01:23:17 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's a complete win,

01:23:19 ◼   ► but it's like a two steps forward,

01:23:21 ◼   ► one step back type thing.

01:23:22 ◼   ► There's more steps forward than steps back,

01:23:25 ◼   ► and it's fine, it's just fine.

01:23:28 ◼   ► Even if you don't buy AirPods,

01:23:29 ◼   ► but you should buy AirPods, it's just fine.

01:23:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

01:23:32 ◼   ► Do you think we'll see any updates to AirPods?

01:23:35 ◼   ► - I do not, I think it's too soon.

01:23:37 ◼   ► I know they were announced at last year's event,

01:23:40 ◼   ► but they didn't ship until just before Christmas.

01:23:44 ◼   ► So even though they were announced a year ago,

01:23:46 ◼   ► I feel like it's not even a year-old product yet.

01:23:48 ◼   ► And the fact that they're still behind,

01:23:51 ◼   ► a couple of weeks behind on the ones that we already have,

01:23:54 ◼   ► I really don't think we'll see AirPods.

01:23:57 ◼   ► I just think, I think the best we can hope for

01:23:59 ◼   ► is that they can catch up with demand.

01:24:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

01:24:04 ◼   ► I think that they'll catch up

01:24:05 ◼   ► before they'll release anything new with that.

01:24:08 ◼   ► - The only thing I can think of is maybe

01:24:11 ◼   ► if they've identified some aspect of the production

01:24:14 ◼   ► that this is why we're unable to make them fast enough.

01:24:18 ◼   ► And if they could design,

01:24:20 ◼   ► do something internally to fix that, they would.

01:24:24 ◼   ► But I almost feel like if they did that,

01:24:26 ◼   ► it would be like a silent update.

01:24:28 ◼   ► Like it would be the, what are they gonna do?

01:24:30 ◼   ► Change the way they look?

01:24:31 ◼   ► I doubt that.

01:24:32 ◼   ► - No.

01:24:34 ◼   ► - So I don't think so.

01:24:36 ◼   ► - What about Apple Watch?

01:24:38 ◼   ► - That's a very good question.

01:24:39 ◼   ► Why don't we take a break here and thank our next sponsor

01:24:42 ◼   ► and then we'll talk about Apple Watch.

01:24:45 ◼   ► And our next sponsor is Casper.

01:24:48 ◼   ► The Casper mattress was designed by a team of 20 engineers

01:24:51 ◼   ► perfected by a community of nearly half a million sleepers.

01:24:54 ◼   ► It's just the truth.

01:24:56 ◼   ► Most people, you don't think that there's science

01:24:58 ◼   ► behind a mattress, but people at Casper really do.

01:25:02 ◼   ► They're not just a name that they buy white label mattresses

01:25:06 ◼   ► and put a Casper sticker on them and ship them to you.

01:25:10 ◼   ► They literally are a team full of mattress engineers.

01:25:15 ◼   ► I love it.

01:25:17 ◼   ► You don't think about your mattress, but they do.

01:25:21 ◼   ► They think about every single aspect of it,

01:25:25 ◼   ► and it combines what they have is one type of mattress.

01:25:28 ◼   ► You don't have to make complicated decisions about,

01:25:31 ◼   ► do you want this foam or do you want these springs

01:25:34 ◼   ► or do you want this or that?

01:25:35 ◼   ► You just pick a size and their mattress

01:25:38 ◼   ► has just the right sink, just the right bounce.

01:25:40 ◼   ► It's great, we have them here in the house, we love them.

01:25:43 ◼   ► And here's my thing.

01:25:45 ◼   ► I know people say this all the time,

01:25:49 ◼   ► you spend 1/3 of your life sleeping.

01:25:51 ◼   ► I spend about half my life sleeping.

01:25:52 ◼   ► I love to sleep.

01:25:53 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:25:55 ◼   ► Why not, of all the things that you can spend money on

01:25:58 ◼   ► to improve your life, this is something that proves,

01:26:02 ◼   ► literally, eight, eight, nine, seven, eight, nine hours,

01:26:04 ◼   ► every single day you can make your life better.

01:26:06 ◼   ► If you have, like, if you're like,

01:26:08 ◼   ► got like an old crummy mattress right now

01:26:10 ◼   ► and you're like, well, maybe I should replace it.

01:26:12 ◼   ► Why not, why wait?

01:26:13 ◼   ► I mean, you're, you know, we're all gonna die eventually.

01:26:16 ◼   ► How about you spend as much of that time

01:26:18 ◼   ► with a great mattress that feels great every single night?

01:26:21 ◼   ► Here's the thing you gotta remember.

01:26:23 ◼   ► I always say this, but they have 100 night free trial,

01:26:25 ◼   ► so you can't lose.

01:26:26 ◼   ► So like the whole aspect that you don't get to try it

01:26:29 ◼   ► in a scummy little mattress showroom before you try it,

01:26:32 ◼   ► just go there, pick the size, they ship it to you,

01:26:34 ◼   ► and you get 100 nights to sleep with it.

01:26:37 ◼   ► And if you don't like it, they literally with no hassle,

01:26:40 ◼   ► no question, will give you a full refund and come pick it up.

01:26:43 ◼   ► You can't lose with it.

01:26:46 ◼   ► If you look, they've got over 20,000 reviews

01:26:50 ◼   ► on Amazon and Google, and their average score

01:26:52 ◼   ► is 4.8 out of five.

01:26:54 ◼   ► It really is super popular, designed, developed,

01:26:57 ◼   ► and assembled right here in the USA.

01:26:59 ◼   ► So if you wanna learn more, go to casper.com/thetalkshow.

01:27:03 ◼   ► Casper.com/thetalkshow.

01:27:07 ◼   ► And with that code, thetalkshow,

01:27:09 ◼   ► you can save 50 bucks towards any mattress.

01:27:11 ◼   ► There's terms and conditions that apply,

01:27:13 ◼   ► and I don't know what those terms and conditions are,

01:27:16 ◼   ► but effectively you get 50 bucks on any regular mattress.

01:27:20 ◼   ► It's a great deal.

01:27:21 ◼   ► So my thanks to Casper.

01:27:22 ◼   ► All right, Apple Watch.

01:27:23 ◼   ► I think, this is another one.

01:27:25 ◼   ► Why aren't there more rumors about this?

01:27:28 ◼   ► I think that there's going to be a brand new Apple Watch.

01:27:30 ◼   ► And I think it's, I've heard,

01:27:33 ◼   ► I heard from one little birdie who does not work at Apple.

01:27:37 ◼   ► I won't say anything else about how this person

01:27:40 ◼   ► claims to have known this.

01:27:40 ◼   ► But so it's, you know, let's file this under sketchy.

01:27:44 ◼   ► And not somebody who I would bet on,

01:27:48 ◼   ► somebody I'd never heard of before,

01:27:49 ◼   ► but someone who just happened upon this information

01:27:51 ◼   ► says that it looks, you can tell,

01:27:52 ◼   ► anybody who knows what an Apple Watch looks like

01:27:54 ◼   ► can tell at a glance that the new one is different.

01:27:57 ◼   ► I would guess, they didn't say anything to me

01:27:59 ◼   ► about exactly what that means, what way that it's different.

01:28:02 ◼   ► My guess would be that it looks basically

01:28:05 ◼   ► like an Apple Watch, but maybe it's like thinner,

01:28:07 ◼   ► 'cause I think that's the one way

01:28:08 ◼   ► that Apple Watch could definitely improve

01:28:09 ◼   ► is by getting thinner.

01:28:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree, and what we don't know

01:28:16 ◼   ► about Apple Watch is the sensors and everything

01:28:21 ◼   ► that they're working on in there.

01:28:24 ◼   ► And so there's definitely a lot of room

01:28:28 ◼   ► for Apple to move on the watch.

01:28:32 ◼   ► - There are rumors, the rumors that have been out

01:28:34 ◼   ► are that they are going to have some models

01:28:38 ◼   ► with cellular networking, independent cellular networking.

01:28:40 ◼   ► And I can see, and that's the sort of thing

01:28:44 ◼   ► you know exactly how that leaked. It leaked from the fucking carriers, right? It's sort of like how

01:28:50 ◼   ► when Apple's TV deals leak, you know? Remember that story about Eddie Q going in to meet with HBO

01:28:58 ◼   ► and he showed up with jeans and sandals or something? And a Hawaiian shirt or something.

01:29:06 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's like, well, geez, I wonder who leaked that story. Was it Eddie Q or was it the

01:29:10 ◼   ► The people complaining about the way Eddie was dressed.

01:29:13 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Pretty obvious who leaked that.

01:29:15 ◼   ► Well, you know that this Apple Watch

01:29:16 ◼   ► with cellular networking leaked from the carriers.

01:29:19 ◼   ► My guess is that's probably what,

01:29:21 ◼   ► that they're gonna announce that.

01:29:23 ◼   ► This is what Apple does, is they make,

01:29:27 ◼   ► the first product's the hardest one to make.

01:29:29 ◼   ► So the first Apple Watch was late,

01:29:32 ◼   ► and it was, remember when it first shipped, it was,

01:29:36 ◼   ► I mean, I think that they really wanted to ship it

01:29:40 ◼   ► the holiday quarter before it actually came out.

01:29:43 ◼   ► And it was eight months later than that

01:29:45 ◼   ► when it actually started shipping.

01:29:48 ◼   ► In the first few months, it was really hard to get.

01:29:50 ◼   ► They were all sold out and back ordered.

01:29:52 ◼   ► 'Cause it's hard, the first product is hard.

01:29:54 ◼   ► But then what does Apple do after that?

01:29:56 ◼   ► Is they, every year, release a new version

01:29:59 ◼   ► with a year's worth of subtle or not so subtle improvements

01:30:03 ◼   ► or additional sensors, additional networking.

01:30:05 ◼   ► So I'd be a little surprised

01:30:09 ◼   ► if there's not a new Apple Watch next week.

01:30:11 ◼   ► I really would.

01:30:12 ◼   ► Now, you look at the navigation of the Apple Watch.

01:30:17 ◼   ► Do you use your watch much?

01:30:21 ◼   ► In between.

01:30:24 ◼   ► It's one of--

01:30:25 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:30:26 ◼   ► - I do wear it a lot when I know I'm gonna be working

01:30:29 ◼   ► all day 'cause I really love the unlocking of the Mac

01:30:32 ◼   ► with the Apple Watch.

01:30:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, me too.

01:30:34 ◼   ► - But I hardly use that, the circular type navigation

01:30:39 ◼   ► with the icons, it's cool.

01:30:41 ◼   ► - No, never.

01:30:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I never used it.

01:30:42 ◼   ► - But I, you know, I'm just never there.

01:30:45 ◼   ► - I think it's a design mistake.

01:30:47 ◼   ► I don't think, actually they kind of--

01:30:50 ◼   ► - Ah, I don't know if it was a mistake.

01:30:51 ◼   ► - I do, I think it was a mistake.

01:30:53 ◼   ► I think it's a bad UI.

01:30:55 ◼   ► And I think that they, I think that's why there's,

01:30:57 ◼   ► the watchOS 4 has a new list view for apps,

01:31:01 ◼   ► where you can change the view from that round honeycomb

01:31:04 ◼   ► to just a scrolling list.

01:31:06 ◼   ► And I think that's a much better interface.

01:31:09 ◼   ► bigger tap targets, and just a list.

01:31:12 ◼   ► I never know where the hell my apps are in that honeycomb.

01:31:14 ◼   ► It looks cool. - Well, yeah, there's that.

01:31:16 ◼   ► - It looks cool, and the animation is cool,

01:31:19 ◼   ► but to me, it's just not usable.

01:31:21 ◼   ► I mean, and not like it's unusable,

01:31:23 ◼   ► but it's, you know, the usability is poor, I would say.

01:31:27 ◼   ► - But from a design and effects standpoint,

01:31:33 ◼   ► it is a typical Apple type thing.

01:31:37 ◼   ► - I think it's atypical because it's too confusing, I think.

01:31:41 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:31:42 ◼   ► I think that switching to a list.

01:31:44 ◼   ► - Just from design, not usability.

01:31:46 ◼   ► Leave usability.

01:31:48 ◼   ► But I'm saying when you scroll around with it, it's cool.

01:31:52 ◼   ► It's got that nice magnifying effect.

01:31:55 ◼   ► And that part is good.

01:31:57 ◼   ► - I think the reason why they've gotten away

01:32:00 ◼   ► with a poor design for that screen

01:32:02 ◼   ► is that most people don't need it anyway.

01:32:04 ◼   ► You just don't need to launch apps on your phone.

01:32:07 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know.

01:32:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's true.

01:32:09 ◼   ► - And I think it's no secret.

01:32:11 ◼   ► I think Apple was upfront about it,

01:32:13 ◼   ► especially with watchOS 3 last year,

01:32:15 ◼   ► that hey, we've really narrowed down

01:32:17 ◼   ► what this device is good for.

01:32:18 ◼   ► It's good for notifications,

01:32:20 ◼   ► and it's good for fitness tracking.

01:32:22 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:32:23 ◼   ► - And they focused the OS on that,

01:32:26 ◼   ► and I think that they will continue to,

01:32:28 ◼   ► whatever is new in the hardware will be focused on that.

01:32:31 ◼   ► I mean, there was a story, who was it,

01:32:35 ◼   ► Men's Health had earlier this week where they got to go

01:32:38 ◼   ► behind the scenes in Apple's secret fitness lab

01:32:41 ◼   ► where they had these freaky looking blue masks

01:32:46 ◼   ► on the people exercising.

01:32:47 ◼   ► They said they cost like $4,000 each,

01:32:49 ◼   ► but they like can measure like the exact like input

01:32:52 ◼   ► and output of the oxygen and stuff like that.

01:32:55 ◼   ► I just don't think Apple would pitch an exclusive,

01:33:01 ◼   ► "Hey, we'll give you a behind the scenes,

01:33:03 ◼   ► at the secret lab, I don't think that they would do that at the end of August or early September

01:33:09 ◼   ► if they weren't doing it to sort of ramp up excitement of fitness tracking with Apple Watch

01:33:15 ◼   ► because there's going to be a new Apple Watch.

01:33:17 ◼   ► Pete: Now, I haven't installed the new betas of WatchOS, but I understand that there's some new

01:33:25 ◼   ► types of fitness tracking in there.

01:33:28 ◼   ► Yeah, and somebody I forget where that like one of the new iOS betas somebody like

01:33:34 ◼   ► It was you know, those spelunkers, you know that who can go through and find stuff

01:33:39 ◼   ► They found evidence

01:33:41 ◼   ► But they did they found evidence of like as yet unannounced exercises that you can do

01:33:45 ◼   ► I mean that's exactly it's you know, so part of that is the OS but I think that if they can either

01:33:50 ◼   ► Improve the sensors that already has or add additional sensors

01:33:54 ◼   ► It's exactly what I would expect from Apple

01:33:57 ◼   ► I mean, the one that would be the huge one,

01:33:59 ◼   ► I don't think we'll get it this year, but who knows?

01:34:03 ◼   ► But the big one is the blood sugar monitoring, right?

01:34:08 ◼   ► So that people with diabetes can,

01:34:10 ◼   ► it would just be, the life-changing aspect of that

01:34:16 ◼   ► is almost indescribable.

01:34:17 ◼   ► I mean, I'm lucky, I don't have diabetes

01:34:19 ◼   ► or nobody in my immediate family does,

01:34:21 ◼   ► but it's a common enough disease

01:34:23 ◼   ► that everybody knows somebody who has diabetes.

01:34:24 ◼   ► - Correct, yeah.

01:34:25 ◼   ► And I know a couple of people who have kids with diabetes,

01:34:30 ◼   ► and it's just bad for everybody. It's not a good disease. It's bad, but it's just like almost

01:34:37 ◼   ► heartbreaking when somebody's kid has it, and every day they're pricking their finger. I mean,

01:34:41 ◼   ► it's bad enough when you're an adult, but try telling a six-year-old kid that you've got to

01:34:46 ◼   ► prick your finger every day. So if you could change that and have non-invasive blood sugar

01:34:52 ◼   ► monitoring. Man, that would almost steal the show, really. I don't think we're getting that this

01:34:58 ◼   ► year, though. It just seems too far. I'm too much of a pessimist to think that we'd be lucky enough

01:35:05 ◼   ► to get that this year. Yeah, I mean, they have to be so careful with this stuff because people

01:35:10 ◼   ► rely on it and it doesn't work. You can't say that you have blood sugar monitoring and then,

01:35:17 ◼   ► Yeah, it works 50% of the time sort of, you know, yeah, I wonder too if they would

01:35:24 ◼   ► if when they introduced that

01:35:27 ◼   ► Because of all of the regulatory stuff that they would have to go through to get it approved

01:35:32 ◼   ► I wonder if they would do something sort of like how when they pre-announced the watch itself that you know

01:35:39 ◼   ► Seven months eight months before it actually shipped they could do that because they weren't hurting

01:35:44 ◼   ► there are some things that Apple can pre-announce.

01:35:47 ◼   ► Like if it's a new product that they're not hurting

01:35:49 ◼   ► the sales of their existing ones,

01:35:51 ◼   ► they can do it like with the watch.

01:35:53 ◼   ► I wonder if they could do something like say,

01:35:55 ◼   ► we've got a new sensor that can monitor blood sugar,

01:36:00 ◼   ► but right now it's not approved,

01:36:03 ◼   ► so it's not enabled in the OS,

01:36:05 ◼   ► but you could buy it and we're gonna work

01:36:08 ◼   ► with the regulatory people and enable this in the future

01:36:12 ◼   ► once it meets all the stuff.

01:36:14 ◼   ► to announce it first, then get it approved,

01:36:17 ◼   ► and then ship a software update that turns it on.

01:36:20 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:36:21 ◼   ► I don't know if they would do that or not.

01:36:24 ◼   ► I don't know if that's too much promising,

01:36:26 ◼   ► 'cause they can't guarantee

01:36:27 ◼   ► when that's going to be available.

01:36:29 ◼   ► Can you sell somebody, can you have people buy the watch now

01:36:32 ◼   ► on the assumption that it's gonna get approved

01:36:33 ◼   ► when you can't really guarantee

01:36:35 ◼   ► that it's going to get approved?

01:36:36 ◼   ► What if it doesn't?

01:36:38 ◼   ► So maybe not.

01:36:39 ◼   ► - I don't know how all that stuff would work.

01:36:42 ◼   ► Magic stuff.

01:36:44 ◼   ► they'll announce whatever they have at the show, you know, at the event. It's just all gonna be

01:36:51 ◼   ► there. But how they turn it all on and everything. Yeah. But I definitely would expect that there'll

01:36:56 ◼   ► be, you know, maybe not blood sugar mine, but new sensors, more accurate sensors, you know,

01:37:00 ◼   ► there's all sorts of stuff they can do. And I think that they are laser focused on that fitness

01:37:05 ◼   ► tracking and notifications angle. The notifications thing is certainly, that would be a big part of why

01:37:10 ◼   ► you would want to add cellular networking, right? And the mystery to me is how are they

01:37:15 ◼   ► going to sell that? With an iPad, when you get cellular networking, you pay 50 bucks

01:37:23 ◼   ► a month or whatever, 25 for less data or whatever. It's completely independent of your cell

01:37:30 ◼   ► phone, right? You can have a different carrier, which is actually what I like to do. My phone's

01:37:38 ◼   ► on Verizon, I like to have an iPad with AT&T cellular so that when I'm in a hotel or something,

01:37:43 ◼   ► if I want to use it for tethering my Mac to get networking instead of using hotel Wi-Fi,

01:37:48 ◼   ► I've got double the chances of getting a strong signal because I've got two networks. But

01:37:52 ◼   ► anyway, it's a totally separate device, totally separate billing. I mean, you can add a device

01:37:58 ◼   ► like in our Verizon family plan. We can add an iPad if we want and have it in the same

01:38:04 ◼   ► but you don't have to.

01:38:06 ◼   ► Like, how would it work with a watch?

01:38:09 ◼   ► Like, I don't, you know, like nobody's gonna,

01:38:11 ◼   ► almost nobody's gonna--

01:38:12 ◼   ► - I think it's gonna be the same thing.

01:38:13 ◼   ► - But I don't want, I don't know though.

01:38:14 ◼   ► I kind of feel like you'd kind of want it

01:38:16 ◼   ► somehow paired with your phone somehow

01:38:19 ◼   ► because like, if you got like a text message to your phone,

01:38:22 ◼   ► wouldn't you want, you wouldn't want to have

01:38:23 ◼   ► a separate phone number for your watch.

01:38:25 ◼   ► - No, no, no, I'm saying it would be

01:38:27 ◼   ► on the same type of network.

01:38:29 ◼   ► - Oh, I see, right.

01:38:30 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right.

01:38:31 ◼   ► Yeah, so that you can go out and still get, you know, receive a call, you know, is that

01:38:39 ◼   ► is that going to be a part of it? You know, you have your AirPods on and you're out for a walk

01:38:46 ◼   ► and a call comes and you don't have your phone, but you still have your watch. Right. You know,

01:38:51 ◼   ► how much data will you be able to use, you know? And it certainly, you know, the watch has never

01:38:55 ◼   ► had a lot of storage and it's always been hard to get stuff to it. I mean, like I've tried using

01:38:59 ◼   ► Like Marco Armand has gone into detail about it,

01:39:02 ◼   ► but I think he even pulled the feature from Overcast

01:39:05 ◼   ► where he spent all this time on a version

01:39:09 ◼   ► to get it to play audio independently on the watch

01:39:12 ◼   ► so you could go away from the phone

01:39:13 ◼   ► and still listen to your podcast.

01:39:15 ◼   ► And it was so problematic in so many ways

01:39:17 ◼   ► that he had to pull the feature.

01:39:18 ◼   ► I mean, it's a hassle.

01:39:20 ◼   ► But for streaming audio,

01:39:22 ◼   ► and that's obviously what Apple's interested in

01:39:24 ◼   ► with Apple Music,

01:39:25 ◼   ► cellular networking is easily good enough

01:39:27 ◼   ► so you don't have to worry about transferring

01:39:30 ◼   ► and storing stuff on the watch.

01:39:33 ◼   ► You could just go out, connect your AirPods

01:39:35 ◼   ► and stream the music.

01:39:36 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:39:37 ◼   ► - I mean, I probably, I don't think I would buy one.

01:39:41 ◼   ► I don't think I wear a watch enough

01:39:42 ◼   ► that I would want the cellular one,

01:39:43 ◼   ► but I could see why some people would.

01:39:46 ◼   ► - I wear a watch every, I wear the watch every day.

01:39:48 ◼   ► So I would get, I would get sell, I would.

01:39:53 ◼   ► - It's, you know, and again,

01:39:56 ◼   ► it certainly plays right into the notifications thing.

01:39:59 ◼   ► And if you work in some kind of context

01:40:02 ◼   ► where you can't take your phone out easily,

01:40:04 ◼   ► being able to get your notifications on your wrist

01:40:08 ◼   ► would be fantastic.

01:40:09 ◼   ► - Well, I,

01:40:11 ◼   ► my watch allowed me to use my phone differently, you know?

01:40:18 ◼   ► 'Cause I get those notifications.

01:40:20 ◼   ► So while we were just talking there, somebody texted.

01:40:25 ◼   ► I don't have to pick up my phone, I just look at my watch.

01:40:28 ◼   ► And I saw who it was and said,

01:40:30 ◼   ► "Okay, I don't need to worry about that right now."

01:40:33 ◼   ► So I'll call Tim back.

01:40:37 ◼   ► That's no problem.

01:40:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, so anyway, I do think we will get,

01:40:41 ◼   ► I think we'll see new watches.

01:40:43 ◼   ► Here's the big question I always get

01:40:44 ◼   ► when I talk about new watch hardware is,

01:40:46 ◼   ► do I think that they will be strap compatible

01:40:50 ◼   ► with the existing Apple Watch straps?

01:40:53 ◼   ► I have no idea.

01:40:53 ◼   ► I don't know, the little birdie who told me

01:40:56 ◼   ► that it's gonna be some kind of visual

01:40:59 ◼   ► form factor change to it, said nothing about it.

01:41:02 ◼   ► I would hope so.

01:41:04 ◼   ► I would definitely hope so.

01:41:07 ◼   ► - I would hope so too, but that's kinda like having

01:41:09 ◼   ► everything on a new iPhone line up with the old case.

01:41:14 ◼   ► - Well, but I think on the Watch it's a little different.

01:41:16 ◼   ► You know, if you really-- if you'd really take--

01:41:19 ◼   ► I've looked at it and thought about it.

01:41:20 ◼   ► And I think the things that might change--

01:41:23 ◼   ► you know, like, they could change the bezel around--

01:41:25 ◼   ► have the display maybe go closer to edge to edge.

01:41:28 ◼   ► You know, they could do all sorts of stuff like that.

01:41:32 ◼   ► And if you look at where those channels are for where

01:41:37 ◼   ► you slide the bands in, I could see the watch--

01:41:41 ◼   ► I could see a fair amount of flexibility in their ability

01:41:43 ◼   ► to make a new looking watch that would still have the same channels for those straps. Certainly

01:41:52 ◼   ► people who have put a lot of money into their strap collection would want that. So I would

01:41:57 ◼   ► think if it's not strap compatible it's because they've come up with something so much better

01:42:02 ◼   ► that it was worth disappointing people for it.

01:42:04 ◼   ► Tom Bilyeu (01h00m 10s): Yeah, and I think that they'll do what they

01:42:07 ◼   ► can to make sure that it is strap compatible. I mean, like you said, there's a lot that

01:42:12 ◼   ► they probably can change thickness

01:42:16 ◼   ► or whatever it's gonna be,

01:42:18 ◼   ► but it'll probably be the same size, edge to edge.

01:42:23 ◼   ► - It's sort of like with the connectors,

01:42:25 ◼   ► like where they got so much,

01:42:28 ◼   ► I mean, I don't think it would be

01:42:29 ◼   ► anywhere nearly as controversial

01:42:30 ◼   ► if they do have a new or incompatible strap connector.

01:42:35 ◼   ► It's not gonna be as contentious as it was

01:42:37 ◼   ► when Apple switched from the 30-pin to Lightning.

01:42:40 ◼   ► But I think the same sentiment is still there

01:42:42 ◼   ► Apple doesn't make changes like that lightly. It's not like every two years there's a new phone connector

01:42:48 ◼   ► You know, they realize that having your you know having that work with

01:42:53 ◼   ► Device after device, you know year after year is a feature, you know

01:42:58 ◼   ► And so I think that if they can keep it strap compatible

01:43:01 ◼   ► They would I could I think they also realize like this isn't the sort of thing where somebody who already has four straps if they?

01:43:07 ◼   ► Got the new watch is going to immediately replace all four straps and they're gonna make money on it by

01:43:12 ◼   ► Selling additional straps. Well, and that people have accused Apple of that before - well, they just want to sell adapters

01:43:18 ◼   ► No, they don't

01:43:19 ◼   ► You know, they they make those decisions for different reasons than to sell a $10 adapter or $20 adapter

01:43:27 ◼   ► Right. Well, I do think I agree with that

01:43:29 ◼   ► But that's why I think it was a mistake for Apple to price the 30-pin to lightning adapter at whatever the cost was

01:43:36 ◼   ► It was like either 19 or 29 dollars. I forget what it was, but whatever it was. It was too much

01:43:40 ◼   ► They should have sold them for like 10 bucks. Yeah

01:43:42 ◼   ► I think part of it and the reason they did wasn't to make money

01:43:47 ◼   ► But because they just don't like selling things for less than $20

01:43:50 ◼   ► And that even and I think they realized that with the headphone jack thing last year where they even said like the

01:43:59 ◼   ► that that's the the

01:44:02 ◼   ► Lightning the the replacement lightning to traditional headphone jack dinguses

01:44:10 ◼   ► They even said it's the least expensive thing they've ever sold in an Apple store

01:44:13 ◼   ► Well, because they really it really really just had no interest in making

01:44:17 ◼   ► Making money by selling and now no. All right. Let me take one last break here

01:44:22 ◼   ► I gotta thank our last sponsor of the show and it's our good friends. You know them fracture fractures the photo decor company

01:44:28 ◼   ► That's out to rescue your favorite images from the digital ether

01:44:31 ◼   ► Look all your pictures are like on Instagram or Facebook

01:44:35 ◼   ► You know, they're in your photo roll. That's where most of you know, they always are is in the photo roll on your on your phone

01:44:40 ◼   ► That's great digital photography is fantastic it's the best way to share your pictures, of course

01:44:48 ◼   ► I mean, you know, nobody's printing out photos on paper and then mailing them to relatives

01:44:52 ◼   ► You just text them the picture, right?

01:44:54 ◼   ► But what about your best pictures get them printed and hang them up in your house?

01:44:58 ◼   ► Because what better to put on the walls of your house than the pictures of your friends,

01:45:03 ◼   ► family, and loved ones, or places that you've been.

01:45:08 ◼   ► And Fracture makes it so easy.

01:45:10 ◼   ► And their pictures are beautiful.

01:45:11 ◼   ► It looks like art gallery prints.

01:45:14 ◼   ► They are so good.

01:45:15 ◼   ► It's a frameless design, and they print the photo directly on the glass.

01:45:18 ◼   ► It's not like they print it on a piece of paper and then glue it to the glass.

01:45:22 ◼   ► They've got some kind of custom crazy apparatus where they literally print directly on glass,

01:45:28 ◼   ► completely edge to edge with absolutely no bezel around the sides and they ship them

01:45:34 ◼   ► to you with everything you need to either hang them on the wall or prop them up on a

01:45:39 ◼   ► mantel or your desk or something like that. You don't need anything else. So it's not

01:45:43 ◼   ► like you get your fracture printed and then you go buy a frame to hang it or something

01:45:47 ◼   ► like that. It's all included. Every picture you get from them comes with what they call

01:45:53 ◼   ► a 60-day happiness guarantee. So you get 60 days. If you're not happy with it, you get

01:45:58 ◼   ► full refund. And every single fracture is handmade in Gainesville, Florida from U.S.

01:46:03 ◼   ► sourced materials in a carbon neutral factory. So for more information and 10% off your first

01:46:08 ◼   ► order, go to fractureme.com/podcast. Don't forget to mention the talk show in their one

01:46:16 ◼   ► question survey. The one question is where did you hear about fracture? That's where

01:46:22 ◼   ► you let them know and that's how you can help support this show. That's fractureme.com/podcast.

01:46:26 ◼   ► Go get your pictures printed.

01:46:31 ◼   ► What else do we think might be happening in this event?

01:46:34 ◼   ► - Well, there's not gonna be any Macs,

01:46:37 ◼   ► and there's not going to be any iPod or iPads.

01:46:40 ◼   ► - iPads are done for the year.

01:46:43 ◼   ► - The only thing really left,

01:46:46 ◼   ► and to me there's a bigger question than this

01:46:49 ◼   ► than the piece of hardware,

01:46:51 ◼   ► but the only thing really left is the Apple TV.

01:46:55 ◼   ► - Well, there could be some stuff with iOS,

01:46:59 ◼   ► like things that we don't know yet about iOS 11,

01:47:02 ◼   ► because it seems like they're gonna switch

01:47:03 ◼   ► the multitasking to go from the bottom.

01:47:05 ◼   ► And you know how they got, too much complaint,

01:47:08 ◼   ► starting with the first beta of iOS 11,

01:47:11 ◼   ► they got rid of the thing where you could force touch

01:47:13 ◼   ► on the left side of the screen to enter multitasking.

01:47:16 ◼   ► Which again, I think is a change

01:47:19 ◼   ► that they did not undertake lately,

01:47:20 ◼   ► because there's, I know a lot of people

01:47:22 ◼   ► who use that feature.

01:47:23 ◼   ► I never really got into that.

01:47:24 ◼   ► I was always a, I've always been a double click

01:47:26 ◼   ► on the home button to multitask.

01:47:28 ◼   ► But that seems like that could change.

01:47:32 ◼   ► So I feel like there will be a fair amount of iOS demo time on stage.

01:47:37 ◼   ► To be clear, at this event and at every September event, I always, I think iOS and macOS demos

01:47:50 ◼   ► or news is a given because they'll be released shortly.

01:47:55 ◼   ► So to me, an iPhone at this event is a given.

01:47:59 ◼   ► And OS demos, also a given.

01:48:03 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:48:04 ◼   ► So yeah, Apple TV.

01:48:07 ◼   ► I think that we, I will predict yes, Apple TV

01:48:10 ◼   ► will have new hardware with 4K support.

01:48:13 ◼   ► Hopefully, oh my God, please.

01:48:16 ◼   ► You know how I said I don't clap?

01:48:17 ◼   ► I will clap for this one if it comes with a new remote.

01:48:20 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:48:21 ◼   ► - You don't like the remote?

01:48:24 ◼   ► No, well, I don't hate it as much as some people do,

01:48:29 ◼   ► but it's my most used remote.

01:48:31 ◼   ► Almost everything I watch on TV now is on Apple TV.

01:48:34 ◼   ► I almost, and when I'm not,

01:48:36 ◼   ► if I'm not watching Apple TV, it's TiVo,

01:48:41 ◼   ► and TiVo stuff is stuff I watch with Amy,

01:48:43 ◼   ► and she doesn't let me use the remote.

01:48:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:48:48 ◼   ► Oh my God, I love Amy.

01:48:53 ◼   ► She thinks I'm way too slow on the trigger on commercials.

01:48:57 ◼   ► - Wow. - How often,

01:48:58 ◼   ► especially if the commercial comes on

01:49:00 ◼   ► and it's a good commercial, I'll just watch it.

01:49:02 ◼   ► 'Cause I don't really hate commercials,

01:49:04 ◼   ► but she hates commercials.

01:49:05 ◼   ► And so if I've got the TiVo remote

01:49:08 ◼   ► and we get five seconds into a commercial,

01:49:10 ◼   ► she's like, "Give me that."

01:49:12 ◼   ► So I don't really use it.

01:49:13 ◼   ► So I use the Apple TV remote almost all the time

01:49:16 ◼   ► when I'm watching TV, and it is not a great remote.

01:49:19 ◼   ► It is flawed in a couple of ways.

01:49:21 ◼   ► - So do you have one of these services like Hulu Live

01:49:25 ◼   ► or YouTube or DirecTV Now or whatever?

01:49:30 ◼   ► Where you watch live TV on Apple TV?

01:49:32 ◼   ► - No, no, we've got real,

01:49:33 ◼   ► no, we've just got traditional cable.

01:49:35 ◼   ► That's why we have a TiVo.

01:49:37 ◼   ► - Have you ever tried one of those?

01:49:38 ◼   ► - I almost did because when we moved earlier in the year,

01:49:43 ◼   ► I almost did because we got internet service working

01:49:48 ◼   ► but couldn't get,

01:49:49 ◼   ► It's such a pain in the ass with TiVo.

01:49:51 ◼   ► You have to get these cable card things.

01:49:53 ◼   ► They're these little, like, they look like an old,

01:49:56 ◼   ► those old cards you used to have to put in a,

01:49:59 ◼   ► remember those things you'd put in a power book

01:50:00 ◼   ► to get other additional ports?

01:50:02 ◼   ► Like, what were they called?

01:50:04 ◼   ► - Or they had one for wireless networking.

01:50:06 ◼   ► Remember it stuck over the side?

01:50:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's how you got Wi-Fis.

01:50:10 ◼   ► It was like, what were those called?

01:50:12 ◼   ► This is why we need a chat room.

01:50:13 ◼   ► Were they called Nubus cards or was that something else?

01:50:16 ◼   ► - They were huge. - Whatever they were called.

01:50:17 ◼   ► and they sleep halfway into the computer.

01:50:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, so that's what a cable card is.

01:50:24 ◼   ► And it's a way, it's a thing that you get from Comcast

01:50:27 ◼   ► or whoever your cable provider is,

01:50:30 ◼   ► so that they can verify that you are who you say you are

01:50:34 ◼   ► and that you can't, you know,

01:50:35 ◼   ► and once they're in, you can't take them out.

01:50:37 ◼   ► And it's paired with a device, you know,

01:50:39 ◼   ► so I can't take my cable card out of my TiVo

01:50:41 ◼   ► and go to your house and watch "Game of Thrones"

01:50:44 ◼   ► through the cable card, right?

01:50:45 ◼   ► It's a way that, some kind of anti-piracy type thing.

01:50:50 ◼   ► But it's a huge pain in the ass.

01:50:51 ◼   ► And the cable guy, it was like the third or fourth time

01:50:54 ◼   ► when they came to my house when they finally got one

01:50:56 ◼   ► that was working.

01:50:57 ◼   ► So I was on the cusp, but we had the internet working,

01:51:00 ◼   ► so I was on the cusp of signing up for something like that.

01:51:02 ◼   ► I was thinking about getting the Sony one,

01:51:04 ◼   ► the PlayStation one.

01:51:06 ◼   ► - Oh, PlayStation, yeah, I've heard good things

01:51:08 ◼   ► about that one.

01:51:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, and in Philadelphia, it's particularly good

01:51:11 ◼   ► because it has, it seems like this is one of those things

01:51:13 ◼   ► that varies from city to city, but in Philadelphia,

01:51:15 ◼   ► has all four major broadcast networks,

01:51:18 ◼   ► the local affiliates.

01:51:20 ◼   ► But no, we don't have that.

01:51:22 ◼   ► We got our cable cards working,

01:51:23 ◼   ► and so we use TiVo to watch TV.

01:51:26 ◼   ► I have an interesting aside on that.

01:51:29 ◼   ► I love TiVo, and TiVo recently shipped a software update.

01:51:34 ◼   ► It's probably the best software update they've ever had.

01:51:36 ◼   ► They kind of refreshed their UI.

01:51:38 ◼   ► Still isn't a great-looking UI,

01:51:40 ◼   ► but it looks a lot less dated than it did.

01:51:43 ◼   ► But the thing about TiVo is, TiVo is never lags, never.

01:51:48 ◼   ► There's never even a fraction of a second of lag on video.

01:51:52 ◼   ► Apple TV made this a lot better two years ago,

01:51:56 ◼   ► like when you fast forward around in a movie

01:51:59 ◼   ► or something like that or skip to a scene.

01:52:01 ◼   ► But it's nothing like TiVo.

01:52:02 ◼   ► TiVo is like when you open a movie on your Mac

01:52:06 ◼   ► and you just move the head around in QuickTime Player.

01:52:11 ◼   ► It's perfect, and you can go frame by frame

01:52:14 ◼   ► if you really want to see something

01:52:15 ◼   ► in frame by frame, slow motion.

01:52:17 ◼   ► The remote never has any lag at all,

01:52:22 ◼   ► at least for video playback.

01:52:23 ◼   ► Like when you're navigating the UI, it's not perfect,

01:52:25 ◼   ► but when you're doing video playback,

01:52:26 ◼   ► which is the main thing TiVo can do, it's perfect.

01:52:31 ◼   ► I know everybody, I don't know how they're still

01:52:33 ◼   ► in business, because I know most people don't want

01:52:35 ◼   ► to spend a couple hundred bucks on a DVR

01:52:38 ◼   ► when they can get one for free from their cable company,

01:52:40 ◼   ► but it's one of the most amazing products out there

01:52:44 ◼   ► that people just don't,

01:52:45 ◼   ► most people have never even tried.

01:52:48 ◼   ► But the main thing that sort of irritates me

01:52:51 ◼   ► in the back of my head is that TiVo,

01:52:53 ◼   ► I think I first got one in 2000.

01:52:55 ◼   ► I remember I saw it at Rich Siegel's house,

01:52:57 ◼   ► the founder of Barebone Software.

01:52:59 ◼   ► When I first started working there,

01:53:00 ◼   ► he invited me and Amy over for dinner,

01:53:02 ◼   ► and we saw it as TiVo.

01:53:03 ◼   ► And as soon as we saw it and saw how it worked,

01:53:05 ◼   ► we went out the next day and bought one

01:53:06 ◼   ► because it was like, oh my, like I'd heard of it.

01:53:09 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, you skip commercials

01:53:10 ◼   ► and you can record shows or whatever.

01:53:11 ◼   ► But then once you saw it, it was like, oh my God, I need that.

01:53:14 ◼   ► But the thing is, it's using a computer.

01:53:16 ◼   ► Fundamentally, a TiVo is like a PC.

01:53:19 ◼   ► It's using a computer to empower you, the TV owner,

01:53:24 ◼   ► to do what you want with video.

01:53:26 ◼   ► Like, you wanna fast-forward commercials,

01:53:27 ◼   ► you fast-forward commercials.

01:53:29 ◼   ► You wanna skip this commercial, you skip the commercial.

01:53:33 ◼   ► Like, so it was using a computer to give me,

01:53:36 ◼   ► the person who owns this and is watching this,

01:53:38 ◼   ► more power over what I'm watching.

01:53:40 ◼   ► And the way the industry has gone

01:53:42 ◼   ► in the intervening 17 years is we watch more and more video

01:53:47 ◼   ► on computers, whether they're phones or Apple TVs

01:53:50 ◼   ► or Rock You's, you know, almost everything now

01:53:53 ◼   ► is going through a computer at some point, right?

01:53:56 ◼   ► But what we as a society have allowed to happen

01:54:00 ◼   ► is we've allowed the computers

01:54:01 ◼   ► to make the commercials unskippable, right?

01:54:05 ◼   ► Like, you know, you start watching "Game of Thrones"

01:54:08 ◼   ► and you have to watch a 30-second spot

01:54:10 ◼   ► for some other show.

01:54:12 ◼   ► Or when you are on Hulu and you're watching shows on Hulu,

01:54:15 ◼   ► the commercials, you can't fast forward them.

01:54:18 ◼   ► They literally disable the fast forward button.

01:54:21 ◼   ► We did that instead of TiVoing the Saturday Night Live--

01:54:26 ◼   ► in the summer, Saturday Night Live had the little 30 minute

01:54:29 ◼   ► weekend updates a couple of times, the fake news.

01:54:34 ◼   ► And we didn't set the TiVo to record it.

01:54:37 ◼   ► It sounds antiquated because the way--

01:54:39 ◼   ► Everything's on demand now.

01:54:40 ◼   ► And the fact that you have to tell the TiVo in advance

01:54:42 ◼   ► what to record, it is old fashioned.

01:54:45 ◼   ► It's certainly, I realize that.

01:54:48 ◼   ► But then once you have it, you're in complete control.

01:54:50 ◼   ► And you can just skip the commercials.

01:54:52 ◼   ► And it's instantaneous and there's no penalty for it.

01:54:55 ◼   ► There's no pause.

01:54:56 ◼   ► Whereas when we watch the Saturday Night Live on Hulu,

01:54:59 ◼   ► every commercial break, it's full length,

01:55:01 ◼   ► just like watching on regular TV commercials,

01:55:03 ◼   ► and you can't skip 'em.

01:55:05 ◼   ► Like it's maddening to me that we've--

01:55:06 ◼   ► - That's awful.

01:55:08 ◼   ► We've taken the power away from the user

01:55:10 ◼   ► and just given it to the shitheads who were running Hulu.

01:55:14 ◼   ► And it's worse, the commercials are worse

01:55:17 ◼   ► on these digital services than on real TV.

01:55:19 ◼   ► 'Cause on real TV, at least you don't see

01:55:21 ◼   ► the same commercial twice.

01:55:22 ◼   ► Whereas everywhere where I see commercials on digital TV,

01:55:25 ◼   ► you get the same fucking two spots.

01:55:27 ◼   ► Every time there's a commercial break,

01:55:28 ◼   ► you see the same two goddamn commercials.

01:55:30 ◼   ► And it makes me crazy.

01:55:32 ◼   ► And I'm not even a totally anti-commercial person.

01:55:36 ◼   ► But I'll tell you what, when I see the same

01:55:37 ◼   ► stupid jingle for the third time in a half hour show,

01:55:40 ◼   ► I wanna throw my remote through the TV.

01:55:42 ◼   ► - Don't do it with your Apple remote.

01:55:44 ◼   ► - No.

01:55:45 ◼   ► So anyway, long aside there on praising TiVo,

01:55:49 ◼   ► I do hope they change the remote, I really do.

01:55:52 ◼   ► - Well, what would you do?

01:55:54 ◼   ► - I would make it asymmetrical

01:55:55 ◼   ► so that you can easily tell which way it's pointed.

01:55:58 ◼   ► And anything they do after that is great.

01:56:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:56:03 ◼   ► I think they should somehow figure out a way.

01:56:07 ◼   ► If they keep the touchpad, they should figure out

01:56:09 ◼   ► a way to make it smarter about ignoring inadvertent touches.

01:56:13 ◼   ► I don't know if that means putting it,

01:56:15 ◼   ► like, recessing it a little bit so it isn't really edge to edge.

01:56:20 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:56:20 ◼   ► I'm not the product designer.

01:56:22 ◼   ► I'm a product evaluator.

01:56:23 ◼   ► And the current remote is problematic.

01:56:26 ◼   ► Fundamentally, the biggest problem to me

01:56:27 ◼   ► is that it's symmetric.

01:56:29 ◼   ► And so if you pick it up, you don't know what side it is.

01:56:32 ◼   ► I've fixed that with mine by putting a little band of gaff tape around the bottom part so

01:56:40 ◼   ► that it feels different from the side.

01:56:42 ◼   ► Every home should have at least two rolls of gaffer tape.

01:56:45 ◼   ► Gaffer tape is the most amazing product in the world.

01:56:50 ◼   ► Most people don't know about gaff tape.

01:56:52 ◼   ► It's amazing.

01:56:53 ◼   ► You might think it's like duct tape, but the whole point is that you know what it is because

01:56:58 ◼   ► a musician, but it's like what gaffers use to tape microphones down or lights or something

01:57:04 ◼   ► like that. But what makes it so great, it's this black stuff. It's sort of like a fabric

01:57:11 ◼   ► and it's easily ripped by hand so you don't need scissors. And it rips straight because

01:57:15 ◼   ► the fabric is sort of, I don't know, they somehow make it so that it rips straight.

01:57:21 ◼   ► It's sticky enough to hold things in place and it's unsticky enough that when you're

01:57:25 ◼   ► done, you just take it off and it doesn't leave a residue behind. It's like the perfect

01:57:28 ◼   ► amount of stickiness.

01:57:30 ◼   ► Anyway, I took a little narrow quarter-inch band of gaff tape, wrapped it around my Apple

01:57:36 ◼   ► TV remote so then I can feel along the sides and I can tell which side's the front and

01:57:39 ◼   ► back. But I feel like I shouldn't have to do that. That's ridiculous. Remote control

01:57:44 ◼   ► should not be symmetric. Then secondarily, I think they got to make the touchpad way

01:57:50 ◼   ► less likely to be inadvertently triggered.

01:57:53 ◼   ► Hmm. The big question, I mean, 4k seems like an obvious thing. Like it's,

01:57:58 ◼   ► they're actually behind the curve on that. People, real people,

01:58:02 ◼   ► are they really, I mean,

01:58:04 ◼   ► people have four keyed not, not, not, not like this is late to the game,

01:58:08 ◼   ► but that it's, if it comes out this year,

01:58:10 ◼   ► I would say it's perfectly on time for Apple. If it comes out next year,

01:58:13 ◼   ► I would say they've, they've missed it by a year.

01:58:15 ◼   ► Like this feels like the right time for Apple, for Apple TV to support 4k.

01:58:21 ◼   ► Is there a lot of 4K content though?

01:58:22 ◼   ► There's still not a lot.

01:58:24 ◼   ► There's some. - No, but Apple

01:58:26 ◼   ► can supply their own, right?

01:58:27 ◼   ► And there's rumors that they just upgrade

01:58:30 ◼   ► all the iTunes TV shows and movies that they can to 4K.

01:58:34 ◼   ► I mean, and there's rumors,

01:58:36 ◼   ► somebody was poking around iTunes or something,

01:58:37 ◼   ► and it seems like iTunes is getting ready for 4K videos.

01:58:42 ◼   ► - See, that would be great.

01:58:43 ◼   ► If they could release, Apple never does anything,

01:58:46 ◼   ► and we went through this with NFC.

01:58:49 ◼   ► Apple's not gonna put NFC in a phone

01:58:52 ◼   ► just so that they can check a box

01:58:54 ◼   ► and say that they have it without a valid use for it.

01:58:57 ◼   ► So if they're gonna release a 4K Apple TV,

01:59:00 ◼   ► I would have to assume that they've got

01:59:02 ◼   ► some 4K content to go in there.

01:59:04 ◼   ► And for them to release Planet of the Apps in 4K,

01:59:08 ◼   ► not gonna do it.

01:59:09 ◼   ► They have to release some quality shows and movies

01:59:13 ◼   ► in 4K so that you can enjoy that.

01:59:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, switch it so that when you just,

01:59:18 ◼   ► when you rent a new blockbuster movie,

01:59:21 ◼   ► if you've got the new Apple TV, you get it in 4K.

01:59:23 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:59:25 ◼   ► So the bigger question for me about Apple TV,

01:59:30 ◼   ► if you remember when they did the,

01:59:33 ◼   ► when they announced the new Apple TV with this new remote,

01:59:39 ◼   ► they said this is the future of television.

01:59:42 ◼   ► And that was-- - Apps.

01:59:44 ◼   ► Apps are the future of television.

01:59:46 ◼   ► - Yes, that was at Bill Graham.

01:59:48 ◼   ► - Right.

01:59:49 ◼   ► - They said that apps was the big thing.

01:59:51 ◼   ► So to me, the big question with Apple TV is content.

01:59:56 ◼   ► Have we really seen a big difference?

02:00:02 ◼   ► I mean, we have single sign-on and that,

02:00:05 ◼   ► for me, that doesn't work completely yet

02:00:07 ◼   ► because I have Comcast.

02:00:09 ◼   ► But Apple seems to be on a hiring spree.

02:00:13 ◼   ► widely rumored to have a billion dollar budget

02:00:18 ◼   ► for original content.

02:00:19 ◼   ► So it's an interesting question.

02:00:21 ◼   ► I feel like as a device, this is pretty easy to predict.

02:00:24 ◼   ► It'll be a look, there's no reason to change

02:00:27 ◼   ► the way it looks.

02:00:28 ◼   ► A nice little black puck is a fine design.

02:00:30 ◼   ► Add 4K support.

02:00:32 ◼   ► Hopefully improve the remote, done, right?

02:00:36 ◼   ► The hardware, that's it.

02:00:38 ◼   ► I mean, they could do more, I guess,

02:00:39 ◼   ► but that's really all they need to do.

02:00:41 ◼   ► It's really the content is the question.

02:00:44 ◼   ► And I almost feel like it's a confused product.

02:00:46 ◼   ► I'm not even sure Apple knows exactly what to do with it

02:00:49 ◼   ► because Amazon's TV thing is meant to,

02:00:54 ◼   ► yes, you can get Netflix and there's apps for other things,

02:00:58 ◼   ► but the main thing is that Amazon itself

02:01:00 ◼   ► has their own original content and you can buy their device

02:01:04 ◼   ► and watch the Amazon shows.

02:01:09 ◼   ► And like a RockYou is a completely neutral device.

02:01:14 ◼   ► RockYou doesn't do any original content.

02:01:16 ◼   ► They just have apps for everything and developer APIs

02:01:19 ◼   ► and people seem, and they keep the price very low.

02:01:22 ◼   ► It seems like, that's sort of like a,

02:01:25 ◼   ► one of the few, I can't think of,

02:01:27 ◼   ► it's very hard to think of a company like RockYou

02:01:29 ◼   ► that's having as much success as they are

02:01:31 ◼   ► against these big companies like Apple and Amazon.

02:01:34 ◼   ► Like it's a tale of a little independent hardware company

02:01:38 ◼   ► that's doing very well.

02:01:39 ◼   ► And part of why they're doing well

02:01:41 ◼   ► is that they're sort of like Switzerland, right?

02:01:42 ◼   ► They're like completely neutral.

02:01:43 ◼   ► Like they don't favor Amazon over Netflix.

02:01:48 ◼   ► They're just completely neutral, right?

02:01:51 ◼   ► So is Apple TV supposed to be like that

02:01:54 ◼   ► where everybody is equal?

02:01:56 ◼   ► It never really has been

02:01:58 ◼   ► because even though Apple doesn't have original content,

02:02:00 ◼   ► they've always sold and rented their own movies

02:02:04 ◼   ► and TV shows, not their movies and TV shows,

02:02:07 ◼   ► but it's like you pay Apple and iTunes to rent Wonder Woman.

02:02:12 ◼   ► - But I think that they become more equal in recent years

02:02:17 ◼   ► as you search for things and it brings up,

02:02:19 ◼   ► oh, do you wanna watch that for free on Netflix

02:02:22 ◼   ► or would you like to buy it?

02:02:23 ◼   ► So I think that the equalization is starting to happen.

02:02:27 ◼   ► - Right, but at what point if Apple makes this push

02:02:30 ◼   ► into original content and that there are TV shows

02:02:34 ◼   ► and/or movies that are only available through iTunes

02:02:38 ◼   ► or Apple Music or whatever way they would have it.

02:02:42 ◼   ► Right now, you get their original content

02:02:43 ◼   ► through Apple Music.

02:02:44 ◼   ► At what point does that mean that they're competing

02:02:51 ◼   ► with Netflix as opposed to a partner with Netflix

02:02:54 ◼   ► where Netflix gets a first-class,

02:02:56 ◼   ► is a first-class experience on Apple TV?

02:02:59 ◼   ► - I don't think that would be in question, would it?

02:03:01 ◼   ► I mean--

02:03:02 ◼   ► I don't think, I don't know though, you know?

02:03:04 ◼   ► And it's different, you know what I mean?

02:03:07 ◼   ► What is the point of Apple TV?

02:03:09 ◼   ► Is it to be the best TV experience for any and all TV?

02:03:13 ◼   ► Or is it meant primarily for Apple's own content?

02:03:16 ◼   ► I don't think it's necessarily in conflict.

02:03:20 ◼   ► I think that there's a way that they can do this,

02:03:22 ◼   ► but to me it's a more confusing product right now

02:03:26 ◼   ► than it was when it first came out,

02:03:29 ◼   ► back in the old days.

02:03:30 ◼   ► So it was really just sort of like,

02:03:31 ◼   ► This is a way to rent TV shows and movies from iTunes.

02:03:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think any content that Apple gets into

02:03:40 ◼   ► is gonna affect its partnerships with Amazon

02:03:46 ◼   ► or Netflix or anything else.

02:03:49 ◼   ► I think they're all gonna be,

02:03:50 ◼   ► I mean, Apple realizes that we want access to all of it.

02:03:53 ◼   ► If we can't get access to all of it on an Apple TV,

02:03:57 ◼   ► we'll go somewhere else.

02:03:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do think they get that,

02:04:00 ◼   ► 'Cause the holy grail is to be,

02:04:03 ◼   ► I think I'm still in online from John Siracusa here,

02:04:05 ◼   ► but you wanna be HDMI one, right?

02:04:07 ◼   ► You wanna be the device that gets plugged

02:04:11 ◼   ► into the first HDMI.

02:04:14 ◼   ► The one, when you first turn your TV on,

02:04:16 ◼   ► you want it to be, you don't have to switch the inputs

02:04:19 ◼   ► to get to that device.

02:04:21 ◼   ► The holy grail is to, and to keep you there

02:04:23 ◼   ► for as much of your TV watching as possible.

02:04:26 ◼   ► 'Cause switching, once you have to switch,

02:04:28 ◼   ► It's it always is that this sucks.

02:04:30 ◼   ► I agree.

02:04:32 ◼   ► So, so Apple has $1 billion to go towards content.

02:04:37 ◼   ► Now, just for comparison, Netflix spends five to 6 billion in original content.

02:04:47 ◼   ► So, you know, when you first look and when we first heard of Apple's 1 billion

02:04:53 ◼   ► con a $1 billion content budget, you think, holy crap, that's

02:04:58 ◼   ► a lot of money. But in actual fact, it's not, not in comparison to what others are doing.

02:05:04 ◼   ► So, and the thing I read was, and it makes a lot of sense to me was that when Netflix first got into

02:05:10 ◼   ► original content, it was with like a billion dollar a year budget. And it was the same with Amazon.

02:05:16 ◼   ► When Amazon first got into it, it was about, and it's not so much how much money do you have as a

02:05:21 ◼   ► company, it's that practically speaking, you can't really spend more than a billion dollars when your

02:05:27 ◼   ► first getting into it.

02:05:29 ◼   ► Part of the reason that you can spend more

02:05:33 ◼   ► in years down the road is that part of that money

02:05:35 ◼   ► is going to the shows you've already got.

02:05:38 ◼   ► It's like season two of Stranger Things

02:05:41 ◼   ► is part of that 5.6, five to six billion

02:05:44 ◼   ► that Netflix is spending.

02:05:45 ◼   ► Whereas Apple's obviously would all be

02:05:48 ◼   ► the first year of every series.

02:05:50 ◼   ► I guess that's the point.

02:05:52 ◼   ► It's not Apple TV itself, but this push

02:05:54 ◼   ► into original content that sort of, to me,

02:05:57 ◼   ► What is Apple's goal in this is it to be the best it provide the best experience for other?

02:06:02 ◼   ► Any and all content makers or is it to present their own original content? I think it's both

02:06:09 ◼   ► I really do think it's both. I don't think that Apple is going to

02:06:12 ◼   ► punish other content makers because they have original content now I

02:06:18 ◼   ► think that they're gonna put it all out there and everybody's gonna get an app and you know,

02:06:24 ◼   ► What the the user decide but you know when it comes to content is Apple gonna what?

02:06:29 ◼   ► Are they gonna make shows

02:06:33 ◼   ► That are great shows like great great shows like you know

02:06:37 ◼   ► Ray Donovan or or the Breaking Bad or something with swearing or sex scenes or stuff like that or are they gonna do all?

02:06:44 ◼   ► PG shows

02:06:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know. I wrote about that. You know because Disney you know

02:06:51 ◼   ► Back in the 80s Disney remember they had touchstone. It was a wholly owned subsidiary. I think they got rid of it

02:06:56 ◼   ► I don't think they make movies anymore

02:06:57 ◼   ► But it was like because Disney wanted to make stuff that would they would wouldn't put under the Disney brand so they

02:07:02 ◼   ► Created touchstone, which is really just a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney and like, you know

02:07:08 ◼   ► Like I think Beverly Hills cop for example was a touchstone movie

02:07:11 ◼   ► Don't ask me how I remember that I could be wrong. Maybe it was might have been paramount might have been paramount

02:07:16 ◼   ► anyway, but there were movies like there there were movies like

02:07:20 ◼   ► Beverly Hills Cop that came out. And so here's a way Disney could have Eddie Murphy swearing

02:07:24 ◼   ► and telling off-color jokes without selling their brand. I don't know how Apple could

02:07:29 ◼   ► get away with that, but I could see that they just do it. Just have a show and just put

02:07:35 ◼   ► a rating in front of it and that's it. They certainly rent you right now. They'll rent

02:07:40 ◼   ► you any and all major motion pictures through... In other words, I think I might be overthinking

02:07:46 ◼   ► If iTunes will rent me R-rated movies,

02:07:51 ◼   ► why wouldn't Apple's original content

02:07:55 ◼   ► include R-rated TV shows?

02:08:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, explicit songs on iTunes.

02:08:05 ◼   ► - Right, they're just clear about labeling.

02:08:09 ◼   ► Right, the Apple way isn't not to sell you explicit songs,

02:08:12 ◼   ► it's to make sure you're aware that it's explicit.

02:08:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I hope that they do.

02:08:16 ◼   ► I hope that they don't just do PG-type shows.

02:08:20 ◼   ► I hope that they go in and do some blockbuster shows

02:08:25 ◼   ► with all these people from Sony that they're getting.

02:08:28 ◼   ► - Well, did you see the rumor this week

02:08:30 ◼   ► was that Apple is a serious bidder

02:08:32 ◼   ► for the rights to James Bond franchise.

02:08:35 ◼   ► - Yes, what do you think about that?

02:08:37 ◼   ► - Somebody wrote, I saw somebody on Twitter

02:08:40 ◼   ► who seemed to, just a random retweet from somebody,

02:08:43 ◼   ► but somebody who seems to know what they're talking about,

02:08:45 ◼   ► like that somebody who follows the entertainment industry

02:08:48 ◼   ► said that they think there's no chance

02:08:50 ◼   ► that they would select Apple,

02:08:53 ◼   ► simply because Apple, you know,

02:08:54 ◼   ► they need a movie distributor,

02:08:56 ◼   ► and Apple has never distributed a movie,

02:08:57 ◼   ► and so even if the money was good,

02:08:59 ◼   ► the people, you know, the Eon Productions,

02:09:01 ◼   ► who owns James Bond, aren't gonna wanna

02:09:04 ◼   ► go with an untested quantity for this,

02:09:08 ◼   ► and it's, Apple probably knows this,

02:09:10 ◼   ► and that they're bidding just to,

02:09:12 ◼   ► it's a signal to Hollywood that they're serious.

02:09:15 ◼   ► I don't know though, it seems to me like Apple

02:09:16 ◼   ► isn't one to make token gestures.

02:09:18 ◼   ► I think if they're bidding, if they're bidding,

02:09:20 ◼   ► they're serious.

02:09:21 ◼   ► And maybe they would just partner with an existing studio

02:09:25 ◼   ► to get their feet wet.

02:09:27 ◼   ► Anyway, I think it would be fantastic.

02:09:29 ◼   ► And I can totally see it, I think they're exactly right

02:09:31 ◼   ► like with the way, and I know some people roll their eyes

02:09:33 ◼   ► at this so-called extended universes thing,

02:09:36 ◼   ► like with Marvel and DC and Star Wars, of course now,

02:09:41 ◼   ► is becoming this bigger something with TV shows

02:09:45 ◼   ► and with multiple spin-offs and movies and stuff.

02:09:48 ◼   ► I could totally see that working with James Bond.

02:09:50 ◼   ► I think it would be fantastic.

02:09:52 ◼   ► - Maybe I could be the next Bond.

02:09:54 ◼   ► - I could see that, yeah.

02:09:55 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:09:58 ◼   ► You have lost weight.

02:10:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, I'm a handsome guy.

02:10:03 ◼   ► There's no denying that.

02:10:05 ◼   ► - I will say this.

02:10:06 ◼   ► I think a lot of people underestimate Apple's potential

02:10:09 ◼   ► and on a lot of podcasts I listen to,

02:10:12 ◼   ► it seems to me like the consensus is basically

02:10:14 ◼   ► Apple totally is inept and sucks at original content

02:10:18 ◼   ► because the first two examples we have,

02:10:21 ◼   ► Planet of the Apps and the Carpool Karaoke are not good.

02:10:25 ◼   ► Although I haven't watched the Carpool Karaoke yet.

02:10:28 ◼   ► I did watch Planet of the Apps and it was,

02:10:30 ◼   ► I could, had trouble getting through the first episode.

02:10:33 ◼   ► Just boring.

02:10:34 ◼   ► And, but I don't see any reason,

02:10:39 ◼   ► I think these just happen to be the first shows.

02:10:41 ◼   ► I don't think it's indicative of anything

02:10:43 ◼   ► of their big plans, right?

02:10:46 ◼   ► Like what was Netflix's first show?

02:10:48 ◼   ► Nobody even fucking remembers, right?

02:10:49 ◼   ► I don't know.

02:10:50 ◼   ► - That's why I say Apple's making a big push.

02:10:54 ◼   ► They're hiring these Sony execs

02:10:56 ◼   ► that are great at making content

02:11:00 ◼   ► and they're getting them in there

02:11:02 ◼   ► and that's exactly what they need.

02:11:04 ◼   ► They don't need original content done by Jimmy Iovine.

02:11:08 ◼   ► They need original content done by TV guys

02:11:12 ◼   ► that have been in the business for a long time

02:11:14 ◼   ► and know what the hell they're doing

02:11:15 ◼   ► and they go out and make a Breaking Bad

02:11:18 ◼   ► or something that's just gonna go way over the top.

02:11:21 ◼   ► And I have no doubt in the next couple of years,

02:11:24 ◼   ► Apple's gonna have a big hit.

02:11:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

02:11:27 ◼   ► And it's, they suck at original content

02:11:30 ◼   ► only until they don't.

02:11:31 ◼   ► And I don't think that the existing shows

02:11:34 ◼   ► are any indication of what it could

02:11:37 ◼   ► or what they intended to be.

02:11:38 ◼   ► They just happened to be first.

02:11:40 ◼   ► I think the more interesting thing is why.

02:11:41 ◼   ► Why are they doing this?

02:11:42 ◼   ► Do they feel they have to,

02:11:43 ◼   ► or is it just something they wanna do?

02:11:45 ◼   ► And I think they don't have to do it.

02:11:49 ◼   ► I don't think there's any reason that they have to do this.

02:11:51 ◼   ► I think they want to do it because

02:11:53 ◼   ► they want that services number to go up,

02:11:58 ◼   ► and it is going up,

02:11:59 ◼   ► and one way to get that services number up

02:12:01 ◼   ► is get more and more people to subscribe

02:12:03 ◼   ► to a $20 a month service.

02:12:06 ◼   ► I mean, what does Apple Music cost?

02:12:08 ◼   ► Is it $20 a month?

02:12:09 ◼   ► $10 a month? - No, and $10 a month.

02:12:11 ◼   ► - $10 a month.

02:12:12 ◼   ► And a side question on that is,

02:12:16 ◼   ► well, right now their original content

02:12:18 ◼   ► is part of Apple Music.

02:12:21 ◼   ► You pay for Apple Music, and if you do pay for Apple Music,

02:12:23 ◼   ► then you can watch their shows.

02:12:25 ◼   ► Will that stay the same?

02:12:28 ◼   ► I mean, one reason,

02:12:29 ◼   ► or are they gonna have a separate Apple TV service?

02:12:32 ◼   ► Like, you could pay for Apple Music,

02:12:33 ◼   ► and you pay $10 a month to get music.

02:12:34 ◼   ► You pay $10 for Apple TV

02:12:36 ◼   ► and you can watch Apple's TV and movies.

02:12:39 ◼   ► I don't think so.

02:12:40 ◼   ► I think it makes a lot more sense

02:12:41 ◼   ► that it would be one subscription.

02:12:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, they don't wanna have

02:12:43 ◼   ► too many subscriptions hanging around.

02:12:45 ◼   ► - I think that they realize that it's so hard

02:12:48 ◼   ► to get people to pay for one thing.

02:12:50 ◼   ► It just doesn't make sense to have them pay more.

02:12:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

02:12:55 ◼   ► - Or to try to get them to pay for a separate thing.

02:12:58 ◼   ► My question would be if they keep it under Apple Music,

02:13:00 ◼   ► do they keep the name Apple Music?

02:13:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

02:13:03 ◼   ► - It would be funny 'cause it would be exactly like iTunes.

02:13:07 ◼   ► iTunes is a name that says, oh, this is about music

02:13:10 ◼   ► 'cause it says tunes.

02:13:13 ◼   ► And over the years, this is how you restore your iPhone.

02:13:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:13:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

02:13:25 ◼   ► - Right, like from when did iTunes come out,

02:13:27 ◼   ► like 2001 or so?

02:13:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, something like that, yeah.

02:13:30 ◼   ► - Or 2000 or 2001, it was right before,

02:13:32 ◼   ► the iPod came out in 2001.

02:13:33 ◼   ► So I think iTunes came out earlier that year,

02:13:36 ◼   ► so let's say around 2001.

02:13:37 ◼   ► So between 2001 and just 2007,

02:13:41 ◼   ► it turned into what was once just a music playing app

02:13:44 ◼   ► and then became the thing you used

02:13:45 ◼   ► to activate your iPhone on AT&T.

02:13:48 ◼   ► It would be funny to see Apple Music follow the same path

02:13:51 ◼   ► where it's called music.

02:13:52 ◼   ► It seems like it's pretty obvious that that's about music

02:13:54 ◼   ► and all of a sudden you're using it

02:13:55 ◼   ► to watch movies and game shows.

02:13:57 ◼   ► - Agreed.

02:13:58 ◼   ► I agree.

02:14:00 ◼   ► - Anyway, do you think, so do you think, anyway,

02:14:03 ◼   ► - We spent all this time, we didn't say

02:14:04 ◼   ► whether we think they're gonna have anything

02:14:06 ◼   ► to announce next week on that front.

02:14:08 ◼   ► Are they going to have like?

02:14:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, they'll have something, I think.

02:14:12 ◼   ► - They did say, they even said at WWDC,

02:14:14 ◼   ► they pre-announced that they've worked out a deal

02:14:16 ◼   ► with Amazon to get Amazon to have an app on Apple TV.

02:14:20 ◼   ► - Yes.

02:14:20 ◼   ► - Which has been a big sticking point of that.

02:14:22 ◼   ► It's the biggest missing thing on Apple TV

02:14:26 ◼   ► in terms of stuff that you can watch digitally

02:14:28 ◼   ► that you can't watch on Apple TV.

02:14:30 ◼   ► Amazon was the one that really stuck out.

02:14:32 ◼   ► - Yeah.

02:14:32 ◼   ► So I see I put that in the category of OS updates.

02:14:37 ◼   ► So iOS, watchOS, TVOS, MacOS.

02:14:42 ◼   ► I think that there'll be a little something on everything, just a little update.

02:14:48 ◼   ► You know, especially if they have something coming.

02:14:51 ◼   ► Oh, TVOS now we have single sign on with Comcast and that all works now.

02:14:55 ◼   ► And you know, just quick, a quick mention.

02:14:58 ◼   ► It's not, you know, they're not going to spend 10 minutes on it, but quick mention.

02:15:02 ◼   ► then here's the update to Apple TV and boom gone everybody's going to be waiting for iPhone

02:15:07 ◼   ► news that's that's what we're there for.

02:15:12 ◼   ► So do you do you think that they will do you think they'll mention Amazon again I think

02:15:16 ◼   ► they probably will.

02:15:17 ◼   ► Oh I think they will yeah yeah yeah.

02:15:20 ◼   ► I think that's an interesting treaty.

02:15:23 ◼   ► Yeah you know that they've made peace did you see the news this week that Amazon is

02:15:26 ◼   ► is working with Microsoft to get Alexa to speak to Cortana

02:15:31 ◼   ► and Cortana to speak to Alexa.

02:15:33 ◼   ► I thought that was interesting too,

02:15:35 ◼   ► but it's like I wrote on "Daring Fireball,"

02:15:37 ◼   ► like this is not the right path, I don't know.

02:15:41 ◼   ► Like telling, saying, verbally saying,

02:15:44 ◼   ► "Alexa, please open Cortana

02:15:47 ◼   ► "and then let me speak to Cortana,"

02:15:49 ◼   ► and it's just not the way you're supposed

02:15:51 ◼   ► to talk to these things.

02:15:52 ◼   ► Like you're supposed to just talk naturally.

02:15:54 ◼   ► - Yeah.

02:15:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree, I agree with you.

02:15:57 ◼   ► It just, I don't know.

02:16:00 ◼   ► Some of this stuff is just getting weird.

02:16:02 ◼   ► - So we've got the smart, some smart lights

02:16:05 ◼   ► and smart shades, window shades.

02:16:10 ◼   ► And right now they're hooked up to the Amazon things.

02:16:15 ◼   ► And we can talk about HomePod briefly in a moment.

02:16:19 ◼   ► So we've got the, but the main,

02:16:22 ◼   ► so we've also got little remotes to make them go up and down

02:16:25 ◼   ► but it's nice 'cause we have a lot of shades

02:16:26 ◼   ► and then you can just hit a button

02:16:28 ◼   ► and by pressing one button,

02:16:30 ◼   ► all the shades go up at the same time

02:16:33 ◼   ► and or they all go down.

02:16:34 ◼   ► So you don't have to sit there.

02:16:35 ◼   ► It's a very nice, it's a first world problem

02:16:39 ◼   ► walking around the house and manually opening up

02:16:41 ◼   ► and closing shades.

02:16:43 ◼   ► It is nice to have it be automated.

02:16:45 ◼   ► But to do it through Alexa,

02:16:48 ◼   ► you have to say,

02:16:53 ◼   ► I don't know if I'm gonna trigger people's Alexas,

02:16:56 ◼   ► but I'm sorry if I do, but you have to say like,

02:16:57 ◼   ► "Alexa, turn on living room shades down."

02:17:02 ◼   ► 'Cause we have a scene defined,

02:17:06 ◼   ► you make these things called scenes,

02:17:09 ◼   ► and the scene says like, for example,

02:17:11 ◼   ► "Turn these three shades down," or something like that.

02:17:15 ◼   ► You have to give it a name.

02:17:16 ◼   ► And so the name would be living room shades down.

02:17:19 ◼   ► And then you can make another one living room shades up.

02:17:23 ◼   ► - Huh.

02:17:24 ◼   ► - Or you could name it, fuck you, and say fuck, right?

02:17:29 ◼   ► And you can define a scene called fuck you,

02:17:32 ◼   ► and fuck you means, like, you could say

02:17:34 ◼   ► it has all the shades down, because you don't want

02:17:36 ◼   ► anybody looking in your house.

02:17:38 ◼   ► And then to trigger that scene, you'd say,

02:17:40 ◼   ► Alexa, turn on fuck you.

02:17:42 ◼   ► But linguistically, it just sucks.

02:17:46 ◼   ► - Yeah.

02:17:47 ◼   ► - You can't just say, Alexa, turn my shades down,

02:17:50 ◼   ► right here, you know, which is what,

02:17:52 ◼   ► But if you had a real living assistant, you could boss around.

02:17:56 ◼   ► You would just say, hey, raise all the shades here.

02:17:59 ◼   ► And your assistant knows where you are because they're obviously within listening distance,

02:18:05 ◼   ► and so they know what you mean.

02:18:06 ◼   ► But the linguistic things, this turn on name of scene is ridiculous.

02:18:13 ◼   ► And I don't know which aspects are limited by Amazon and which are limited by Lutron,

02:18:18 ◼   ► which is the name of the company we got the shades from.

02:18:21 ◼   ► but you're not allowed to use the words on or off

02:18:23 ◼   ► in the name of a scene either.

02:18:25 ◼   ► You can use words like up and down,

02:18:26 ◼   ► but like for lights, you can't name, say like, turn on.

02:18:30 ◼   ► I just use the light switches.

02:18:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:18:36 ◼   ► - Oh my God, that's priceless, yeah.

02:18:42 ◼   ► - I just use the light switches.

02:18:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I do too.

02:18:45 ◼   ► - I don't know.

02:18:49 ◼   ► So I think that Apple's onto something

02:18:50 ◼   ► where there was an article this week

02:18:52 ◼   ► about Siri's voice quality improving.

02:18:55 ◼   ► And Jaws was talking to David Pierce of Wired

02:18:59 ◼   ► and complaining about that same thing,

02:19:03 ◼   ► that with the competing products from Amazon and from Google,

02:19:07 ◼   ► you need to issue these precise command line perfect,

02:19:11 ◼   ► exact same words in the right order.

02:19:14 ◼   ► It's not conversational at all.

02:19:17 ◼   ► So I think Apple has the right strategy with Siri

02:19:19 ◼   ► of making it truly be like, understand what you're saying.

02:19:23 ◼   ► But I thought it was a weird article

02:19:25 ◼   ► 'cause it was really just bragging about

02:19:27 ◼   ► the new and improved voice in iOS 11.

02:19:29 ◼   ► And Siri does sound better, it sounds far more natural.

02:19:32 ◼   ► Doesn't quite sound natural, natural,

02:19:34 ◼   ► but it sounds more natural,

02:19:35 ◼   ► which is obviously an improvement.

02:19:37 ◼   ► But how many people, if you could choose between,

02:19:41 ◼   ► I would like to have a better sounding Siri

02:19:43 ◼   ► that works exactly the same,

02:19:44 ◼   ► or I would like have a Siri that sounds the same,

02:19:47 ◼   ► but works better?

02:19:48 ◼   ► Like everybody I know just wants Siri to work better.

02:19:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I want.

02:19:52 ◼   ► - So I thought that was a weird article.

02:19:54 ◼   ► I really thought it was a weird thing

02:19:55 ◼   ► for Apple to be bragging about.

02:19:56 ◼   ► I mean, it is a nice thing that the voices improve,

02:19:59 ◼   ► but to me that's like the last thing on the list.

02:20:01 ◼   ► Like the old Siri voice was fine.

02:20:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, just make it work.

02:20:06 ◼   ► Make it understand what I want.

02:20:08 ◼   ► That's all I want.

02:20:10 ◼   ► It's like the iPhone, you know?

02:20:12 ◼   ► I just wanna be able to read it in the sun.

02:20:14 ◼   ► (both laughing)

02:20:15 ◼   ► That's it, that's it.

02:20:17 ◼   ► Keep everything else. - All right, Jimmy,

02:20:18 ◼   ► - Anything else you wanna talk about this week?

02:20:20 ◼   ► I think we got it.

02:20:21 ◼   ► Anything else you expect on the show?

02:20:22 ◼   ► I think that's it for the event next week, right?

02:20:24 ◼   ► It's gonna be iPhones, iOS.

02:20:26 ◼   ► Do you think that, all right, I guess the last but not least

02:20:29 ◼   ► is HomePod, do you think there's gonna be anything

02:20:30 ◼   ► about HomePod?

02:20:31 ◼   ► - They might do an update because we're expecting it

02:20:34 ◼   ► any time now.

02:20:35 ◼   ► But I think that they'll do an update if they have something

02:20:39 ◼   ► that else that they're willing to share.

02:20:41 ◼   ► 'Cause if you remember at WDC,

02:20:44 ◼   ► there's a lot that they wouldn't talk about.

02:20:46 ◼   ► like the Siri integration and all that.

02:20:48 ◼   ► If they're willing to talk about that stuff,

02:20:51 ◼   ► then they may do a segment on it during the keynote.

02:20:56 ◼   ► If they're not ready to talk about that stuff yet,

02:20:59 ◼   ► I don't think we'll see it.

02:21:00 ◼   ► - I thought, the more I think about it after WWDC,

02:21:03 ◼   ► I think it's very clear in hindsight

02:21:06 ◼   ► that the way that they preannounced HomePod,

02:21:09 ◼   ► and again, there's a perfect example

02:21:10 ◼   ► of a product Apple's willing to preannounce,

02:21:12 ◼   ► because anybody who hears the pitch for it and thinks,

02:21:16 ◼   ► hmm, I might get that, they're only making a decision

02:21:19 ◼   ► not to buy a competitor's product, right?

02:21:22 ◼   ► It's not like it's hurting the sales

02:21:24 ◼   ► of any existing Apple products, so they preannounced it.

02:21:27 ◼   ► The way they preannounced it to me seemed very strategic

02:21:30 ◼   ► that they only told us about things that can't be copied.

02:21:35 ◼   ► I guess what it looks like could be copied,

02:21:39 ◼   ► But in terms of not letting anybody touch the demo units

02:21:44 ◼   ► and not really telling us so much about how it works,

02:21:48 ◼   ► I almost feel like that's because they thought

02:21:50 ◼   ► if we tell people how it works,

02:21:51 ◼   ► we're worried our competitors are gonna copy it.

02:21:54 ◼   ► And by holding it out until it actually ships

02:21:58 ◼   ► is every month that the features that might get copied

02:22:01 ◼   ► are left behind.

02:22:02 ◼   ► So that's my guess.

02:22:03 ◼   ► - They could announce a ship date.

02:22:05 ◼   ► - I don't know.

02:22:08 ◼   ► It would be like an under promise and over deliver thing

02:22:11 ◼   ► if it's, you know, surprise, it's ready to sell

02:22:14 ◼   ► or we're gonna put it on, you know,

02:22:16 ◼   ► it's gonna go on sale the first week of October

02:22:17 ◼   ► or something like that.

02:22:19 ◼   ► 'Cause I think based on WWDC, it made it sound like

02:22:22 ◼   ► it wasn't gonna ship 'til like December or something.

02:22:24 ◼   ► - Exactly, so yeah, that would be a great thing.

02:22:27 ◼   ► But they're gonna try their best to get all of these things

02:22:30 ◼   ► out in time for the holiday shopping season.

02:22:32 ◼   ► - That would be, you know what would be an interesting angle

02:22:35 ◼   ► would be if the new Apple TV integrates with the HomePod

02:22:40 ◼   ► so that it would seamlessly let you use your HomePod

02:22:43 ◼   ► as the speakers for your TV.

02:22:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, and as you know, having seen it,

02:22:49 ◼   ► there are no optical or HDMI-type things to put in there,

02:22:54 ◼   ► so it would have to go over the network and connect to that,

02:22:57 ◼   ► which I'm sure Apple could do some way.

02:22:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, think about AirPods, right?

02:23:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

02:23:03 ◼   ► - Like two things that communicate over the air

02:23:06 ◼   ► and have to be in perfect sync

02:23:09 ◼   ► or else you would go insane, right?

02:23:10 ◼   ► Like if one AirPod was a 16th of a second

02:23:13 ◼   ► behind the other one,

02:23:14 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:23:17 ◼   ► you'd throw 'em in the gutter, right?

02:23:19 ◼   ► I mean, you'd smash 'em, it would make you insane.

02:23:23 ◼   ► So in terms of being able to wirelessly sync

02:23:27 ◼   ► at least within, let's just say,

02:23:29 ◼   ► a room distance, literally down to the smallest perceptible fraction of an inch to keep two

02:23:38 ◼   ► things, a stream of wireless audio in sync.

02:23:42 ◼   ► I would say AirPods are existence proof that Apple can do it.

02:23:46 ◼   ► I think that would be really cool.

02:23:47 ◼   ► It really would be.

02:23:49 ◼   ► And then it really makes the HomePod seem like, it makes the appeal seem way, way higher

02:23:56 ◼   ► to me, 'cause then it's the one audio device

02:23:58 ◼   ► I have to put in my living room.

02:24:00 ◼   ► I don't have to have a separate one for music.

02:24:02 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

02:24:03 ◼   ► That to me is the weird thing

02:24:04 ◼   ► about the original HomePod pitch,

02:24:05 ◼   ► is that it is just for music and maybe podcasts.

02:24:08 ◼   ► And it just seems weird to me.

02:24:11 ◼   ► I could see in your kitchen, maybe that makes sense,

02:24:14 ◼   ► because you don't really watch TV in your kitchen.

02:24:18 ◼   ► You just listen to stuff.

02:24:20 ◼   ► But as a living room device, it seems weird to me

02:24:22 ◼   ► to have a really nice speaker that only is used for music.

02:24:27 ◼   ► And then when you watch TV, you have to have something else.

02:24:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

02:24:31 ◼   ► So I would love that.

02:24:32 ◼   ► I would love it if they announced that Apple TV and HomePod work

02:24:37 ◼   ► together.

02:24:39 ◼   ► We'll see.

02:24:39 ◼   ► And you know what's interesting about that, too,

02:24:42 ◼   ► is it would mean, though, that all the other stuff you

02:24:47 ◼   ► do on your TV, like if you have a TiVo,

02:24:48 ◼   ► or if you have a PlayStation, or a DVD player,

02:24:51 ◼   ► would still need their own audio.

02:24:53 ◼   ► - Right, so I have a full Sonos system now, so.

02:24:56 ◼   ► - Right, exactly, right.

02:24:58 ◼   ► So that's, you've already, I've put off,

02:25:00 ◼   ► that's one reason I've put off getting a Sonos,

02:25:03 ◼   ► is just, I wanna hear the whole HomePod story

02:25:07 ◼   ► before plunking the money down on that.

02:25:10 ◼   ► Because if I can use the HomePod for more of it,

02:25:12 ◼   ► that would be interesting.

02:25:13 ◼   ► But it would be, like I said,

02:25:14 ◼   ► like the holy grail is to have your TV playing computer,

02:25:19 ◼   ► your Apple TV or your Roku or your Amazon Fire TV

02:25:22 ◼   ► or whatever to be HDMI one, the main thing.

02:25:25 ◼   ► If you get way better audio when you watch Apple TV

02:25:29 ◼   ► than when you watch anything else on your TV,

02:25:32 ◼   ► that's gonna make Apple TV more likely

02:25:34 ◼   ► to be like your main go-to thing.

02:25:36 ◼   ► Like for example, I guess the canonical example of that

02:25:39 ◼   ► would be which device do you use to watch Netflix?

02:25:42 ◼   ► 'Cause Netflix is the one where like everything has it.

02:25:45 ◼   ► Right, you're just most modern,

02:25:46 ◼   ► A lot of TVs literally have it built in.

02:25:49 ◼   ► The TV itself has a Netflix.

02:25:52 ◼   ► - I always use Apple TV.

02:25:53 ◼   ► - Right, we can use, I do, that's what I use.

02:25:55 ◼   ► I use Apple TV, but we have a PlayStation that has Netflix,

02:25:58 ◼   ► we have a, our TiVo can play Netflix.

02:26:02 ◼   ► Everything has Netflix.

02:26:04 ◼   ► So which one do you use for Netflix?

02:26:05 ◼   ► Well, if Apple TV makes Netflix sound better,

02:26:08 ◼   ► then it's more likely to be your first device.

02:26:11 ◼   ► So that's my big prediction.

02:26:13 ◼   ► - HDMI one. - I just made this up.

02:26:15 ◼   ► That's my, I just came up with that right here

02:26:18 ◼   ► talking to you, Jim, you inspired me.

02:26:19 ◼   ► But that's my prediction, is a HomePod Apple TV connection.

02:26:23 ◼   ► - That would be cool. - And it only works

02:26:24 ◼   ► with the new Apple TV, not the old one.

02:26:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, that would be cool, I'd love that.

02:26:28 ◼   ► - That would be a reason that, I don't have a 4K TV,

02:26:32 ◼   ► but that would be a reason why I would buy the new Apple TV

02:26:34 ◼   ► even though I don't have 4K TV.

02:26:36 ◼   ► I would buy it for the HomePod integration.

02:26:38 ◼   ► All right, that about wraps it up for me.

02:26:41 ◼   ► This is a good thing, I'll see you in a couple days.

02:26:44 ◼   ► - Yeah. - It's always nice to,

02:26:45 ◼   ► I always like that.

02:26:46 ◼   ► All right, I'll talk to you then.

02:26:48 ◼   ► Maybe we'll do a Periscope together like we did last year.

02:26:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, really, that'd be fun.

02:26:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, all right, I will see you next week.

02:26:54 ◼   ► Anything else?

02:26:55 ◼   ► - No, that's it.

02:26:56 ◼   ► - People can read your fine work at The Loop.

02:27:00 ◼   ► It's loopinsight.com, the fine website.

02:27:04 ◼   ► And then on Twitter, you're J Dalrymple, right?

02:27:07 ◼   ► - That's me.

02:27:08 ◼   ► [ Silence ]