The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Ah Craig's good to hear your voice. Yeah, likewise. It's been a while since we talked. Yeah

00:00:06 ◼   ► You want to this this let's just get it out of the way we got to talk about this Trump tech tech summit

00:00:16 ◼   ► Because here's the thing. Oh, man

00:00:19 ◼   ► You're gonna lead off with this I would have you know started my heart holiday party

00:00:27 ◼   ► Here's the thing even as I'm not really shying away from writing about politics on daring fireball

00:00:34 ◼   ► Even if I decided that if I had chosen differently and said, you know what? I'm not you know, whatever my feelings are

00:00:39 ◼   ► I'm gonna make this a

00:00:41 ◼   ► Politics free site even even in this here's it here's an intersection of of the Trump administration

00:00:48 ◼   ► Incoming Trump administration and the stuff that I do write about that, you know, it would be criminal not to mention it

00:00:54 ◼   ► So what happened I don't know and for anybody had their head in the sand Trump and his buddy Peter Thiel put together a

00:01:01 ◼   ► summit of

00:01:04 ◼   ► They invited I don't they only invited ten people. I think there were like 14 people from Trump's immediate

00:01:11 ◼   ► family and his

00:01:14 ◼   ► transition team in attendance and ten leaders of of the US tech industry

00:01:20 ◼   ► Who were in attendance? I think it was Tim Cook from Apple who had a primo seat

00:01:26 ◼   ► To away from Trump, you know the seating, you know, if you'd looked at the seating chart, it was clearly very very

00:01:31 ◼   ► Play was thought out. Yeah, I just thought out definitely

00:01:35 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, you don't you don't just say oh, hey, why don't you three kids sit over here, right?

00:01:41 ◼   ► It's like that it that into the table was like the other the kids table that you know Thanksgiving, right?

00:01:50 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean the thing that got me was that that picture of

00:01:54 ◼   ► Tim Cook, right? This is just the look on his face. I mean, I try not to read into pictures too much

00:02:02 ◼   ► I mean you we've all done, you know, you know, you're watching a video or whatever and you know

00:02:06 ◼   ► You paused and it's like the person's making that face which is like what the heck you know

00:02:10 ◼   ► Because it you know, it doesn't fit into the the story that's going on with it. Just making some funny face, right?

00:02:15 ◼   ► but I look at that picture of Tim Cook and

00:02:19 ◼   ► That is the expression I think I would have if I was at that meeting

00:02:24 ◼   ► Right, just like ashen kind of what the hell is going on here

00:02:30 ◼   ► Somebody do you are to watch the HBO show the Larry David show curb your enthusiasm

00:02:42 ◼   ► Because they the show for anybody doesn't watch the show usually ends

00:02:47 ◼   ► It's a very... the show is incredibly awkward. It's about... it's nothing about... other than about creating awkward

00:02:53 ◼   ► situations, and then a typical episode ends in a horribly awkward situation with a freeze frame,

00:02:58 ◼   ► and then this funny music comes up.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Yeah, that's all that was missing is that funny music.

00:03:04 ◼   ► There's another thing, too, where I'm always hesitant to... especially coming out of a political

00:03:14 ◼   ► election, whether it's national or local.

00:03:17 ◼   ► There's obviously-- and it's only gotten worse,

00:03:20 ◼   ► because I think because our politics have gotten

00:03:24 ◼   ► so much more partisan, and the fact

00:03:26 ◼   ► that there are so many more photographs taken,

00:03:28 ◼   ► because digital cameras.

00:03:30 ◼   ► If you ever watch at these press conferences,

00:03:33 ◼   ► it really almost sounds like--

00:03:36 ◼   ► not a war zone, but almost--

00:03:38 ◼   ► where the pro-photographers and the journalists

00:03:42 ◼   ► have these digital SLRs. And they just hold the shutter down, and they just keep shooting

00:03:49 ◼   ► six to eight frames per second, every second, nonstop because the cards...

00:03:55 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I was saying about it's really easy these days to cherry pick an image,

00:04:00 ◼   ► right? To find the one where Tim Cook is making that face because you've shot a thousand frames.

00:04:07 ◼   ► And I don't think that's the case, though.

00:04:09 ◼   ► Right.

00:04:09 ◼   ► And so in election ads, both sides do it.

00:04:15 ◼   ► Here's one where it's not really a partisan thing,

00:04:17 ◼   ► but they tend to find an unflattering photo

00:04:18 ◼   ► of the opponent to put in the ad if it's an attack ad.

00:04:22 ◼   ► And a lot of times, I think it's very obvious

00:04:24 ◼   ► that you can tell that it's just one of those-- everybody knows

00:04:28 ◼   ► it when you're going through your family photos

00:04:30 ◼   ► and you say, oh, look at that sunset.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Here, you guys stand right there.

00:04:34 ◼   ► I'll take a couple photos.

00:04:35 ◼   ► and like the middle one, you know, somebody, you know,

00:04:37 ◼   ► one of the subjects in your family just looks horrible.

00:04:40 ◼   ► Just absolutely like--

00:04:42 ◼   ► The classic mid-blink, right?

00:04:44 ◼   ► Right.

00:04:45 ◼   ► You know, it's like you look like you've been

00:04:46 ◼   ► smoking bongs all day because your eyes are, you know,

00:04:49 ◼   ► halfway shut and it's like--

00:04:50 ◼   ► Right.

00:04:51 ◼   ► Or like, you know, like the person was, you know,

00:04:54 ◼   ► they know that you're taking a couple of photos

00:04:56 ◼   ► and they were trying to hold their eyes open

00:04:57 ◼   ► for the first one and then it just feels like

00:04:59 ◼   ► there's something in there.

00:05:00 ◼   ► So they make like a weird blink to like clear their eyes,

00:05:02 ◼   ► hopefully before you shoot the next shutter,

00:05:04 ◼   ► but in fact it's mid-shutter and they just look nutso.

00:05:07 ◼   ► I don't think that's Tim Cook in this scenario.

00:05:10 ◼   ► It looks to me like that was--

00:05:12 ◼   ► - No.

00:05:12 ◼   ► Like I said, that is how I would feel in that situation.

00:05:17 ◼   ► I don't, you know, it's like, uh.

00:05:20 ◼   ► And it's, you know, Ben Thompson made a good thing

00:05:25 ◼   ► in his, a good point in his newsletter

00:05:28 ◼   ► and that really struck me was that Trump is saying,

00:05:34 ◼   ► "Oh, we want to help you all." Well, there's a flip side to that, right? What happens if he does

00:05:40 ◼   ► not want to help you, right? He's already, what is it, last week or maybe earlier this week,

00:05:50 ◼   ► where he put out that tweet about canceling a Lockheed order and they're stock tanked.

00:05:56 ◼   ► Yep. And he's got some power now. And you don't want that power to affect your shareholder value.

00:06:09 ◼   ► The week before he was complaining about an Air Force One order for, or an Air Force order for

00:06:16 ◼   ► a new Air Force One, you know, the current Air Force One. And you know, if you're like,

00:06:24 ◼   ► This is one of those things that I knew, but I find Air Force One to be a fascinating thing,

00:06:29 ◼   ► as like a history geek and just someone who's a—I was about to say, I am! I'm a proud American,

00:06:36 ◼   ► and I like certain aspects of it, and Air Force One's a cool thing. But one of the things I've

00:06:40 ◼   ► always known is that Air Force One is not an airplane, a single airplane. I think there's

00:06:46 ◼   ► two of them. But Air Force One is the official designation of the one that's carrying the

00:06:53 ◼   ► president. So, right, like if the president of the United States is like sitting in the

00:06:57 ◼   ► Oval Office, there is no Air Force One. There are two planes that could be Air Force One,

00:07:02 ◼   ► but it becomes Air Force One when the president of the United States is on the plane, and

00:07:07 ◼   ► then it gets that official designation. And that the two that they have right now were

00:07:12 ◼   ► commissioned under the Reagan administration, and I believe George H. W. Bush was the first

00:07:18 ◼   ► to fly them. So these planes have been in use for the original George Bush, Bill Clinton,

00:07:25 ◼   ► George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and they will be the ones that Trump gets. The new

00:07:33 ◼   ► ones that the Air Force is looking to commission would not be ready until either the very,

00:07:39 ◼   ► very, very tail end of an eight-year Trump administration, which, let's face it, whenever,

00:07:43 ◼   ► you know, if we get eight years of Trump, we ain't gonna be on Earth to fly.

00:07:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't want to think about that.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Or is his successor.

00:07:50 ◼   ► And anyway, Trump bitched about the cost of these planes,

00:07:53 ◼   ► and Boeing's stock tanked.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Not tanked and didn't recover, but he tweets and stocks move.

00:08:03 ◼   ► It's a fact.

00:08:04 ◼   ► I mean, in between the joking about it

00:08:06 ◼   ► and the partisanship of it, I mean,

00:08:08 ◼   ► there's just no denial that when the President of the United

00:08:10 ◼   ► States comes out and says he'd like

00:08:13 ◼   ► to cancel the $5 billion order for Air Force One,

00:08:17 ◼   ► that's going to have an effect on the company.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I read the other day that on Bloomberg now, the Bloomberg terminals that the market uses to

00:08:25 ◼   ► keep track of news has Trump's tweets on it now. They just feed Trump's tweets into the Bloomberg

00:08:31 ◼   ► terminals. Because it's important to know about them immediately.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Exactly. It moves the economy. And it's like, "What? Jesus."

00:08:42 ◼   ► So now, uh, I let me read from this cause I actually wrote to Ben, you know,

00:08:48 ◼   ► Ben's on the show all the time and he's a friend. Uh, and I told him, I thought

00:08:51 ◼   ► his take was excellent. It was, I filed it under the, uh, I wish I had, uh,

00:08:57 ◼   ► thought of it, but that exactly what you said that, that the, Hey, I'm here to help you folks

00:09:03 ◼   ► do well. That's actually an actual quote from him. I'm here to help you folks do well. And

00:09:07 ◼   ► we're going to be there for you. Um, yeah, it's

00:09:11 ◼   ► It's a massive violation of economic... I'm reading from Ben's email. "Government ought to be

00:09:17 ◼   ► setting and enforcing the rules of the game, not actively helping one of the teams." It's a recipe

00:09:23 ◼   ► for not just corporate accuracy and the inevitable corruption that comes with it,

00:09:30 ◼   ► parentheses, this is where I note that Trump's children attended the meeting,

00:09:34 ◼   ► and parentheses, but the closing off of opportunity to the unknown companies that might

00:09:41 ◼   ► challenge those large enough to be quote helped. This should be of particular concern to the

00:09:47 ◼   ► startup ecosystem. And I can't say it any better than that. I think it's exactly right.

00:09:52 ◼   ► That it's that's, you know, and again, you say, you know, there's there's positives and

00:09:57 ◼   ► negatives to every system of government, but you know, part of the gist of a democratic

00:10:05 ◼   ► nation is that the role of government, I think this is, again, I don't think this is a

00:10:13 ◼   ► partisan viewpoint, I think it's just a statement of fact that kids learn in elementary school. The

00:10:19 ◼   ► role of the government is to keep a fair level playing field. Yeah, it's all about fairness.

00:10:24 ◼   ► Exactly. It's all about fairness, and that's the discussion about diversity too. It's about

00:10:32 ◼   ► fairness. Right. You know, protecting the idea that the role of the president is to protect the

00:10:37 ◼   ► 10 biggest corporations in tech is the opposite of it because the whole point is that it's healthy

00:10:42 ◼   ► for, for example, you know, like in, uh, if this meeting had been held in 1981, AT&T would have

00:10:48 ◼   ► been one of the, would have been the, probably the company, right. Yeah. Um, you know, and the fact

00:10:54 ◼   ► that they, yeah, and it goes against the competition, right. You know, you look at Apple

00:10:58 ◼   ► Apple Maps is getting better because it's competing against Google Maps.

00:11:04 ◼   ► And Android is getting better because it's competing against the iPhone, right?

00:11:09 ◼   ► That competition and having that competition be fair is what makes it work, right?

00:11:15 ◼   ► If somebody comes along and says, you know, "Well, hey, Tim Cook, you know, he's gay.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Maybe Google's better," right?

00:11:26 ◼   ► little or whole what did you're not competing on a fair playing field at

00:11:31 ◼   ► that point

00:11:33 ◼   ► and i think everybody intact would have a problem that ever been fact

00:11:36 ◼   ► hopefully

00:11:38 ◼   ► everybody's in the u_s_ without a problem with that

00:11:41 ◼   ► yet that's the the road that we're heading down right now

00:11:45 ◼   ► most uh...

00:11:47 ◼   ► most people intact this has been noted before this meeting the most of the

00:11:51 ◼   ► industry

00:11:54 ◼   ► was

00:11:56 ◼   ► on the side of Hillary Clinton in this election, for several reasons, but certainly largely

00:12:04 ◼   ► on immigration and on social issues like gay rights and stuff like that.

00:12:16 ◼   ► One of the people, though, I believe, the CEO of Oracle—what's her name? She's

00:12:22 ◼   ► actually in the same picture with with yeah she looks very happy to be there

00:12:28 ◼   ► she's very enthusiastic in her remarks before the the meeting and and then

00:12:34 ◼   ► after the meeting it was announced that she's joining his transition team in in

00:12:38 ◼   ► some form right and she's gonna be obviously some people there and selling

00:12:42 ◼   ► databases but my question is it there's a large number of people and I think it

00:12:51 ◼   ► has to be addressed who think that people like Tim Cook, Satya

00:12:59 ◼   ► Nadella from Microsoft, Larry Page from Google,

00:13:03 ◼   ► should not have attended this meeting.

00:13:05 ◼   ► They should have declined the invitation on the basis

00:13:09 ◼   ► that it was just dog and pony show,

00:13:11 ◼   ► and it was just a photo opportunity for Trump

00:13:13 ◼   ► and his children and his transition team

00:13:17 ◼   ► to have these people parade in front of the media.

00:13:20 ◼   ► I mean, there's a reason why the media was there

00:13:21 ◼   ► and that the photographs were taken and it wasn't,

00:13:24 ◼   ► certainly could have been held privately

00:13:25 ◼   ► if they wanted it to, it was not.

00:13:26 ◼   ► It was held publicly,

00:13:28 ◼   ► certainly not for the benefit of those who were invited.

00:13:32 ◼   ► It was only for the benefit of Trump

00:13:34 ◼   ► and his transition team.

00:13:35 ◼   ► I don't see how that's disputable.

00:13:37 ◼   ► Should they have declined the invitation?

00:13:40 ◼   ► On the basis of it being a form of protest against Trump

00:13:44 ◼   ► and what he campaigned on and what he's trying to do.

00:13:49 ◼   ► I think that they're playing a longer game here. Yes, it is a PR opportunity. In fact,

00:13:53 ◼   ► you know, they used that PR opportunity to take a swipe at Twitter, right? Just the whole

00:13:59 ◼   ► Crooked Hillary thing. And yeah, I don't think you want to, it's not a matter of agreeing

00:14:09 ◼   ► with him at this point. I think it's pretty safe to say.

00:14:13 ◼   ► Pete: Oracle's CEO is named Safra Katz, by the way. I want to get that out there.

00:14:18 ◼   ► So before the meeting, Safra Katz, the one who has joined his transition team, while

00:14:23 ◼   ► remaining at Oracle CEO, I should add, her quote was, "I plan to tell the president-elect

00:14:28 ◼   ► that we are with him and will help in any way we can."

00:14:33 ◼   ► And my take on during Fireball was that that sounds a lot like I'm ready to spit shine

00:14:38 ◼   ► his shoes.

00:14:41 ◼   ► ready to help in any way we can is, and with him, are pretty unequivocal statements of

00:14:49 ◼   ► support which I don't think are supporting. And compare and contrast that, and I pointed

00:14:53 ◼   ► this out on Daring Fireball, I think Tim Cook, and unsurprisingly so, was very, very precise

00:15:01 ◼   ► in his on-the-record remarks. So what they did is they started the meeting by going around

00:15:08 ◼   ► table and introduced themselves. And Tim Cook, all he said was, "Tim Cook, very good to be here."

00:15:13 ◼   ► Not very glad, very good to be here. "And I look very forward to talking to the President-elect

00:15:21 ◼   ► about the things that we can do to help you achieve some things you want." End of statement.

00:15:28 ◼   ► He's not raising a stink. It's all polite on the surface. I'm sure in the moment,

00:15:37 ◼   ► as it went around the table, it went on. But if you think about those words precisely, in particular,

00:15:41 ◼   ► the difference between "we're with you and ready to help in any way we can" from Oracle versus

00:15:47 ◼   ► "we help you achieve some things you want."

00:15:51 ◼   ► Tim Cynova Like I said, they're playing a longer game here, right? And they've played games with

00:15:55 ◼   ► the federal government before, right? The last year with the, you know, the whole iPhone FBI

00:16:00 ◼   ► thing, right? They're, you know, they know that this is not just going to end, you know,

00:16:06 ◼   ► with a snap of the fingers.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Well, and there was also, now that there are the--

00:16:09 ◼   ► it's inevitable, now that they are the biggest--

00:16:13 ◼   ► at least for now, the biggest company by market cap.

00:16:16 ◼   ► And there's only a handful of companies

00:16:18 ◼   ► within spitting distance, Alphabet being, I think,

00:16:22 ◼   ► number two.

00:16:24 ◼   ► ExxonMobil looks like they might have a good eight years,

00:16:26 ◼   ► four years at least.

00:16:27 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:16:30 ◼   ► But now that they're big, now that they're big,

00:16:32 ◼   ► now that they're big, though, they're obviously

00:16:35 ◼   ► in the crosshairs of antitrust type stuff,

00:16:39 ◼   ► which we saw with the iBooks thing,

00:16:41 ◼   ► which I roll my eyes at because of the whole fact

00:16:44 ◼   ► that the iBook store was never the dominant seller.

00:16:48 ◼   ► They were.

00:16:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's--

00:16:50 ◼   ► - They were, at every point along the way,

00:16:52 ◼   ► way smaller than Amazon.

00:16:54 ◼   ► But I would almost point that as that was Amazon.

00:16:57 ◼   ► It was Amazon who played the Justice Department,

00:16:59 ◼   ► and it was Apple's sort of disinterest

00:17:03 ◼   ► and uninvolvement in that game

00:17:07 ◼   ► that let them be painted in that corner.

00:17:09 ◼   ► - I think that's where they started realizing

00:17:10 ◼   ► that Washington is a game, right?

00:17:13 ◼   ► - Right.

00:17:13 ◼   ► - That's--

00:17:14 ◼   ► - Right, because it's true.

00:17:15 ◼   ► It's beyond, you know,

00:17:17 ◼   ► Amazon had the Justice Department's ear.

00:17:19 ◼   ► And I'm not saying it's corrupt.

00:17:21 ◼   ► I'm saying that it was a mistake.

00:17:23 ◼   ► - We look at that situation purely from technical,

00:17:25 ◼   ► a technical point of view, right?

00:17:28 ◼   ► That, you know, we're engineers, right?

00:17:30 ◼   ► we see who's making what money

00:17:33 ◼   ► and what kind of money they're charging

00:17:36 ◼   ► and how the system works.

00:17:37 ◼   ► And that's not how Washington works at all.

00:17:42 ◼   ► It's more emotions and politics and leverage

00:17:46 ◼   ► and that kind of thing.

00:17:48 ◼   ► So yeah, in fact, that's probably what this,

00:17:52 ◼   ► they went into this meeting with,

00:17:54 ◼   ► it's like, okay, how am I gonna survive

00:17:59 ◼   ► what's going on here, right?

00:18:01 ◼   ► Let's, you know, number one,

00:18:03 ◼   ► I mean, did everybody who attended that meeting

00:18:05 ◼   ► know who else was gonna be there?

00:18:07 ◼   ► - I believe so, yes. - Yeah.

00:18:09 ◼   ► And it's interesting.

00:18:12 ◼   ► - Especially since it was such a small invitation list.

00:18:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I found it interesting, you know,

00:18:18 ◼   ► of the invites, three of them were women.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Ginny Rometty, the CEO Oracle, and Sheryl Sandberg.

00:18:27 ◼   ► - All right.

00:18:28 ◼   ► - Right, Zuckerberg did not attend.

00:18:29 ◼   ► Sandberg attended as the representative of Facebook.

00:18:33 ◼   ► Which I think is, I don't even think it was

00:18:38 ◼   ► just to seat a woman at the table.

00:18:42 ◼   ► I think that my understanding,

00:18:44 ◼   ► again, I don't follow Facebook anywhere near as closely

00:18:46 ◼   ► as I do Apple or some other companies.

00:18:48 ◼   ► But I think it's representative of her role there.

00:18:53 ◼   ► I think it's very fair to say that she is to Zuck

00:18:57 ◼   ► what Cook was to Steve Jobs.

00:18:59 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:19:00 ◼   ► - That more than, a lot more than a typical COO,

00:19:04 ◼   ► more of a partner.

00:19:05 ◼   ► I've said this many times on the show, many, many times,

00:19:09 ◼   ► but I believe it as much now as I ever did,

00:19:12 ◼   ► that during, especially, I would say,

00:19:16 ◼   ► like from the iPhone on especially,

00:19:18 ◼   ► but at some point, I believe, well, maybe even before that,

00:19:23 ◼   ► but at some point, Cook clearly had Jobs' trust,

00:19:27 ◼   ► And I really do think that if you described Tim Cook's day

00:19:30 ◼   ► to day activities at Apple to somebody who didn't know

00:19:33 ◼   ► the company and you said, what position do you think

00:19:35 ◼   ► this person has, that most people would say,

00:19:36 ◼   ► well, that sounds like he's the CEO.

00:19:38 ◼   ► That Steve Jobs was really more like a day to day

00:19:41 ◼   ► head of product and Tim Cook ran the company.

00:19:45 ◼   ► And I think Sheryl Sandberg has that same role

00:19:47 ◼   ► where Zuckerberg can focus his time entirely on product

00:19:52 ◼   ► and she handles all this other stuff that needs to be

00:19:56 ◼   ► handled when you're as big and influential as Facebook.

00:19:59 ◼   ► - And the advantage for those people who are charged

00:20:02 ◼   ► with the innovation and developing the product

00:20:04 ◼   ► is that they get to think about things

00:20:06 ◼   ► that are important to them.

00:20:07 ◼   ► And there's a lot of stuff about running a company

00:20:11 ◼   ► that people like that don't wanna do, right?

00:20:15 ◼   ► So they're essential in that regard, right?

00:20:18 ◼   ► That they're the ones that keep the machine running.

00:20:23 ◼   ► And that's probably a more appropriate person

00:20:28 ◼   ► to send to a meeting with Trump

00:20:29 ◼   ► than somebody who's innovative and passionate

00:20:34 ◼   ► and potentially gonna say something

00:20:38 ◼   ► that's damaging to the company.

00:20:40 ◼   ► - Well, here's this.

00:20:42 ◼   ► So I wrote this, and I don't like to trot out

00:20:45 ◼   ► the what if Steve Jobs were still around thing too often,

00:20:48 ◼   ► 'cause I think it can be so overused.

00:20:51 ◼   ► But I do--

00:20:52 ◼   ► Oh, god, that would have been beautiful.

00:20:55 ◼   ► Well--

00:20:55 ◼   ► Well, probably not.

00:20:58 ◼   ► I had an interesting discussion on Twitter about it.

00:21:00 ◼   ► And I think everybody-- it was me and Matt Drance and Dr.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Wave from Pixar, a couple other people.

00:21:10 ◼   ► And I think we were all in complete agreement

00:21:12 ◼   ► that if Steve Jobs-- in the alternate universe

00:21:14 ◼   ► where Steve Jobs was still healthy

00:21:16 ◼   ► and was still at Apple-- if he were at that meeting,

00:21:20 ◼   ► it would have been fascinating.

00:21:21 ◼   ► at least as soon as the press left the room.

00:21:24 ◼   ► And then there were reports--

00:21:28 ◼   ► I will add that there were reports

00:21:30 ◼   ► that two of the attendees, Cook and Musk,

00:21:33 ◼   ► got private meetings with Trump afterwards.

00:21:36 ◼   ► So maybe the fireworks would have happened in that meeting

00:21:39 ◼   ► if Steve Jobs had a private meeting with Trump.

00:21:42 ◼   ► But there is absolutely no way--

00:21:46 ◼   ► damn the torpedoes.

00:21:48 ◼   ► there is no way Steve Jobs was kowtowing to Trump.

00:21:52 ◼   ► No.

00:21:52 ◼   ► And I don't think Cook kowtowed either.

00:21:54 ◼   ► No, no, no, no.

00:21:55 ◼   ► But I think the difference--

00:21:56 ◼   ► I think the difference, though, is

00:21:57 ◼   ► that Cook could bite his tongue and Steve Jobs couldn't,

00:22:01 ◼   ► I think.

00:22:01 ◼   ► That's what I'm saying about the passion that's

00:22:04 ◼   ► involved with innovation, right?

00:22:06 ◼   ► That's a much harder thing to hold back.

00:22:09 ◼   ► Tim Cook, he's a guy who negotiates contracts and stuff.

00:22:12 ◼   ► He knows when to shut up.

00:22:14 ◼   ► But I think there's a good chance--

00:22:16 ◼   ► and Dr. Wave and Durant, I think, agreed

00:22:19 ◼   ► that even in the alternate universe

00:22:20 ◼   ► where Steve Jobs is still at Apple,

00:22:22 ◼   ► Cook was the one who would go to that meeting

00:22:24 ◼   ► in the same way that Sheryl Sandberg went to.

00:22:25 ◼   ► - Exactly, yeah, no, no doubt in my mind

00:22:27 ◼   ► that that would happen because, you know,

00:22:29 ◼   ► Steve Jobs was self-aware enough to know that,

00:22:32 ◼   ► yes, he had that streak and that streak

00:22:36 ◼   ► can be used for good, it can also be used for evil, right?

00:22:41 ◼   ► And, you know, that's--

00:22:44 ◼   ► Well, I think it's caution on the part of Apple.

00:22:47 ◼   ► And then on the other hand, I also

00:22:49 ◼   ► think it would have been a strategic way to not give Trump

00:22:53 ◼   ► what he wanted, which is that--

00:22:55 ◼   ► I mean, Tim Cook is well known.

00:22:57 ◼   ► I mean, he's the biggest--

00:23:00 ◼   ► he's very well known.

00:23:02 ◼   ► But he is nowhere near as famous as Steve Jobs.

00:23:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:04 ◼   ► No way there.

00:23:04 ◼   ► Yeah, the day before Kanye West was having a meeting with him,

00:23:07 ◼   ► right?

00:23:08 ◼   ► That's the level of person that he wants

00:23:10 ◼   ► to be associated with, right?

00:23:12 ◼   ► If you paid Gallup to go around the country and get 10,000 random people and ask them

00:23:18 ◼   ► who Tim Cook is, I don't know what the awareness is. It's certainly higher than most people

00:23:25 ◼   ► and most CEOs, but if you ask them who Steve Jobs is, it's practically up at like Walt

00:23:29 ◼   ► Disney levels.

00:23:30 ◼   ► Right. Yeah. They could describe what it looks like. Yeah. That's absolutely true.

00:23:38 ◼   ► sending Steve Jobs would have been a way to sort of lessen Apple's involvement in the

00:23:43 ◼   ► dog and pony show of it, whereas sending Tim Cook doesn't really do anything in that regard.

00:23:48 ◼   ► It's a little bit of a way to give Trump the finger too, right? Just, "No, we're

00:23:52 ◼   ► not sending our best person. We're sending our second best person."

00:23:56 ◼   ► Bezos was there. You said Ginni Rometty from IBM. Larry Page. Google had two people. Well,

00:24:06 ◼   ► Alphabet, whatever. Larry Page and what's his name? Schmidt, Eric Schmidt. And Microsoft

00:24:13 ◼   ► had two, Satya Nadella and then Brad, whatever his name is, their COO. It was weird that

00:24:21 ◼   ► Microsoft and Google got two and Apple only got one. And I wonder if that was by choice,

00:24:26 ◼   ► if Apple had—and Cook was like, "No, we don't need another one."

00:24:31 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I was saying. It was interesting to know how that list of people was chosen.

00:24:39 ◼   ► Did they sort of self-choose, or were they asked specifically?

00:24:44 ◼   ► Like, did the companies get an invitation and they got to choose who to go, or were the invitations to people?

00:24:50 ◼   ► Probably just to the companies, I think.

00:24:52 ◼   ► Well, it looked like there were a fixed number of seats around that table, and that table kind of dictated how many people were going to be there.

00:25:00 ◼   ► we're gonna be there. So, you know, maybe that's why Jack Dorsey wasn't there. There just,

00:25:05 ◼   ► you know, wasn't another seat. You know, you don't know. I suspect not, though. It's the vindictive

00:25:11 ◼   ► angle. Well, there's two things, though. There's a couple angles on that. One, the angle in favor of

00:25:18 ◼   ► Dorsey being there would be that Trump has made more use of Twitter far more than he did Facebook.

00:25:23 ◼   ► I mean, and it's—I mean, I don't even think it's close. I don't even know if he'd—you know,

00:25:28 ◼   ► his campaign has a presence on Facebook, but personally, he's all Twitter.

00:25:32 ◼   ► His Facebook feed is not on Bloomberg. His Twitter feed is on Bloomberg. That's the bottom line.

00:25:39 ◼   ► But the other thing, too, is it does seem there's a case to be made—I think Gabe Rivera made it

00:25:47 ◼   ► first. Gabe is the guy who runs the excellent tech meme news aggregator—that it seems as though the

00:25:55 ◼   ► invitation list was sorted in order of market cap. That it was just not, you know, in terms

00:26:01 ◼   ► of who got invited or not, it's the, you know, six or seven biggest by market cap tech companies.

00:26:07 ◼   ► And by that measure, Twitter isn't even close because their stock is deeply depressed. I mean,

00:26:12 ◼   ► they're not even in the ballpark if market cap. And in their remarks, in Trump's own remarks at

00:26:19 ◼   ► at the meeting. He even mentioned that his way of bragging about the meeting was that

00:26:25 ◼   ► he said he didn't want to talk about the—he wasn't going to mention the hundreds of

00:26:28 ◼   ► companies that called asking for a seat at this table, and that there were ones—and

00:26:33 ◼   ► that Peter, meaning Peter Thiel, kept saying, "No, they're too small. They're too

00:26:36 ◼   ► small." And small meaning market cap, I think. So that was how they measured. So by

00:26:45 ◼   ► that measure, Twitter had no chance.

00:26:46 ◼   ► Yeah, so they weren't measuring by influence, they were measuring by money.

00:26:50 ◼   ► But is that smart? I don't know.

00:26:52 ◼   ► Well, that kind of goes back to Ben Thompson's point, right? You know, it's like the smaller

00:26:57 ◼   ► companies are often the ones that are doing more interesting stuff and the stuff that affects the

00:27:01 ◼   ► future and that drives the economy forward over the years.

00:27:05 ◼   ► Well, and the government certainly shouldn't play a central role in determining that.

00:27:08 ◼   ► Anyway, the other story that came out was that Twitter did not get invited because of

00:27:14 ◼   ► a dispute from this summer that Twitter sells these things called branded emoji.

00:27:20 ◼   ► They call branded emoji and we can, I can go on our side rant about the use of emoji

00:27:25 ◼   ► in that context in a moment, but the gist of it is that a sponsor can buy a hashtag

00:27:31 ◼   ► and then when people tweet that hashtag they automatically get a emoji or a little sticker,

00:27:40 ◼   ► an illustration behind it. So for example, right now if you tweet the hashtag #RogueOne,

00:27:46 ◼   ► you get a little Death Star image after the thing. Now I wasn't aware of this because,

00:27:53 ◼   ► like anybody with any kind of cooth or taste, I use a third-party Twitter client

00:27:58 ◼   ► on everywhere, oh just about everywhere, and these things are only visible in Twitter's own

00:28:04 ◼   ► Twitter apps and this stupid-ass ugly Twitter website. So I wasn't aware of this, but apparently

00:28:10 ◼   ► over the summer, the Trump campaign wanted to buy one for #CrookedHillary. And who even knows what

00:28:17 ◼   ► the icon would have been? I think they said they wanted it to be a bag of money flying away or

00:28:22 ◼   ► something like that. I don't know. And Twitter declined to accept the sponsorship. Apparently,

00:28:30 ◼   ► Jack, maybe Jack Dorsey himself put the nicks on it. And that the Trump campaign hasn't forgotten it.

00:28:39 ◼   ► I don't think that's it though. I'm not sure that it, I'm sure it didn't help because I think they

00:28:43 ◼   ► are vindictive, petty people, but I don't really, I think that the market cap angle was a bigger

00:28:51 ◼   ► one. I think, yeah, now that you mentioned that, it's probably Peter Thiel had more influence on

00:28:57 ◼   ► who was at that table than Trump himself. It really sounded, it sounded like Trump's own

00:29:03 ◼   ► remarks that it was really largely just, you know, there was a list of finalists and Trump

00:29:09 ◼   ► ran them by Teal and Teal said yes, yes, no, no, no, no, yes, yes, don't.

00:29:15 ◼   ► Or vice versa, right? Maybe Teal had the list and Trump...

00:29:17 ◼   ► Yeah, it sounded more like it was Teal who was given the yeses and no. I mean, obviously,

00:29:23 ◼   ► if Trump had said, "I want Twitter," it would have happened.

00:29:25 ◼   ► Yeah. As tech people, we have a different view on all of this. You know, it's like this Russian

00:29:31 ◼   ► hacking thing, right? It's like, you know, that to me is totally, you know, the first hint of that

00:29:38 ◼   ► was like, oh yeah, because anybody who's run a server has seen, you know, IP addresses from,

00:29:45 ◼   ► you know, the Eastern block pinging our servers, you know, looking for, you know, WP login pages,

00:29:52 ◼   ► PHP, my admin, you know, it's just, it's just like, they're just, they're looking for

00:29:59 ◼   ► weighs into what you're doing and you know that that that did you see the

00:30:05 ◼   ► effect of the presidential election is just you know it's you know again back to the fairness

00:30:13 ◼   ► argument you know how in the hell is that fair did you see that uh among all of the

00:30:20 ◼   ► just like series of unfortunate events that all just happened to break the wrong way for the

00:30:27 ◼   ► or the Clinton campaign.

00:30:28 ◼   ► It was just one thing after another,

00:30:30 ◼   ► and it just all broke the wrong way.

00:30:34 ◼   ► But one of them was that when John Podesta

00:30:37 ◼   ► got the phishing email, and it was forwarded on to somebody,

00:30:41 ◼   ► like, "What's going on with this?"

00:30:42 ◼   ► And the person on the staff who evaluated it

00:30:45 ◼   ► wanted to write back, "This email is illegitimate.

00:30:48 ◼   ► "John should change his passwords immediately."

00:30:52 ◼   ► But instead wrote inadvertently,

00:30:55 ◼   ► this email is legitimate, John should change his passwords immediately. And so apparently

00:31:00 ◼   ► because it said that he used the link in the email to change his password.

00:31:04 ◼   ► All right. And that this person who wrote, made this mistake and wrote legitimate where they

00:31:11 ◼   ► wanted to write illegitimate. Right. Yeah. A couple of letters on the keyboard that we've all

00:31:19 ◼   ► made the mistake with, is you know heartbroken and is apparently crushed.

00:31:27 ◼   ► And you know the flip side of it, okay yeah they hacked the Democrats, well do you think

00:31:34 ◼   ► they hacked the Republicans too? It's widely, that's actually, you know they haven't leaked,

00:31:41 ◼   ► but it's actually, I mean this isn't speculation, but it's actually.

00:31:44 ◼   ► Yeah, that to me is leverage and blackmail and all the other nasty shit. So, you know,

00:31:50 ◼   ► this is an issue. It's clearly a non-partisan issue, right?

00:31:58 ◼   ► Well, it should be, yes.

00:32:00 ◼   ► Yes, it should be. And if you try to say that this is, oh, the Democrats are just, you know,

00:32:05 ◼   ► sour grapes, it's like, oh, that's bullshit. This affects everybody, right? This is, you know,

00:32:11 ◼   ► again, it goes back to the fairness, you know, that our government should be a level playing

00:32:16 ◼   ► field. Yes, there are two teams, right? And they compete against each other. But if the fucking

00:32:22 ◼   ► playing field isn't level, we got a problem. I don't want to be too histrionic about it, but

00:32:28 ◼   ► it does fundamentally come down to whether the parties see themselves as two opposing parties

00:32:36 ◼   ► within one nation or they view each other as their enemies. And the Democrats clearly still

00:32:44 ◼   ► see the Republicans as their opposition and the Republicans see the Democrats as their enemy.

00:32:49 ◼   ► And that's, again, I don't mean to be histrionic. It sounds, if you happen to be of conservative

00:32:55 ◼   ► bent and you think that that's just me being a liberal, you can see it in the polls,

00:32:58 ◼   ► where a poll came out today of what's your net positive or negative on the following people. And

00:33:04 ◼   ► and they asked a survey of Republicans in the United States.

00:33:08 ◼   ► It was like Barack Obama was a negative 64, net negative.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Hillary Clinton was a net negative 77,

00:33:17 ◼   ► and Vladimir Putin was negative 10.

00:33:20 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:33:21 ◼   ► - Right.

00:33:22 ◼   ► - So Vladimir Putin is 54 points more popular

00:33:27 ◼   ► among Republicans than Barack Obama.

00:33:30 ◼   ► I mean, it's no joke or kidding or exaggeration

00:33:34 ◼   ► that the Republican Party largely sees the Democrats as more of their enemy than they do the

00:33:41 ◼   ► Russians, which is nuts, especially for people of our age where the Republicans were the ones

00:33:49 ◼   ► who were the hardline realists. Oh, geez, I was just gonna say, you know, Ronald Reagan is rolling

00:33:54 ◼   ► over in his grave. Well, as a kid and a teenager, when I first, you know, became politically aware

00:34:00 ◼   ► and I was a news junkie, I viewed myself more as a Republican than a Democrat because I thought that

00:34:06 ◼   ► the Republicans were the party of, you know, to put it succinctly, the party of the cold hard truth

00:34:15 ◼   ► and that the Democrats were more of a saw what they wished for party.

00:34:20 ◼   ► You know, and that the main issue at the time wasn't something like climate change

00:34:27 ◼   ► or a few other things where it comes up,

00:34:31 ◼   ► but climate change is a perfect example today,

00:34:33 ◼   ► where one party is looking at facts

00:34:35 ◼   ► and the other party is just believing

00:34:37 ◼   ► what they want to be true.

00:34:38 ◼   ► But at the time, the preeminent issue was the Cold War,

00:34:42 ◼   ► because it was, hey, if this turns out poorly,

00:34:45 ◼   ► we're all dead.

00:34:47 ◼   ► - We're screwed, yeah.

00:34:48 ◼   ► - Right, we're all dead.

00:34:49 ◼   ► - This is a game with no winners.

00:34:52 ◼   ► - And it seemed to me like the Republicans were the,

00:34:56 ◼   ► I think history has shown it to be true, that the Republicans were the ones who looked at it with,

00:35:01 ◼   ► you know, just—

00:35:03 ◼   ► Cold hard facts, yeah.

00:35:05 ◼   ► Right. So it's ridiculous to me that they've now become the party that's like, "Ah, Russia,

00:35:11 ◼   ► good people!" Well, maybe they are good people, but Russian government leadership, "Ah, good people!"

00:35:17 ◼   ► Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, that they have to, you know, it's a win-at-all-cost

00:35:26 ◼   ► kind of situation for them, right? And the problem I have is that those costs are going up

00:35:32 ◼   ► in ways that hurt our society and hurt our government. I mean, I'm at odds with many people

00:35:40 ◼   ► in my family now because of this. I'm sure that's true for a lot of people. And it sucks, but, you

00:35:48 ◼   ► know, they had to vote for their Republican person because, you know, and the fact that

00:35:55 ◼   ► the people that are celebrating the Trump win include the Ku Klux Klan and evangelical

00:36:10 ◼   ► Christians in the same group. I mean, what is wrong there? All right. Well, you start to get

00:36:16 ◼   ► get the feeling that maybe the evangelical Christian base,

00:36:20 ◼   ► maybe Christianity isn't their,

00:36:24 ◼   ► you just start to think maybe it's not their top priority.

00:36:28 ◼   ► - Our faith that people are inherently good, we're screwed.

00:36:35 ◼   ► - Well, let me use that as a segue to talk about

00:36:40 ◼   ► Harry's Razors.

00:36:42 ◼   ► This is, now look, this show's coming out tonight,

00:36:44 ◼   ► December 16th.

00:36:45 ◼   ► This is a gift that you can get.

00:36:47 ◼   ► You've got time.

00:36:48 ◼   ► If you're listening to this show tonight on the 16th,

00:36:51 ◼   ► you can even still get ground shipping.

00:36:53 ◼   ► After tonight, you're gonna have to pay for air shipping.

00:36:56 ◼   ► But you can get this as a gift for the holidays still.

00:36:59 ◼   ► You gotta act.

00:37:00 ◼   ► I hope you're listening to this show

00:37:01 ◼   ► while it's hot off the press.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Press it onto the 45 record

00:37:04 ◼   ► or whatever you're using to listen to this show.

00:37:07 ◼   ► But if you act quick, you can do it.

00:37:10 ◼   ► You can go to harrys.com and get an order in.

00:37:15 ◼   ► Now, why would this make a good gift?

00:37:17 ◼   ► Well, one of the reasons is it's a great product.

00:37:19 ◼   ► I've said this before.

00:37:19 ◼   ► They make nice handles, really, really great.

00:37:22 ◼   ► Nice blades.

00:37:23 ◼   ► They own their own razor blade factory.

00:37:24 ◼   ► This is how they get the prices down.

00:37:26 ◼   ► This is how they keep the quality up.

00:37:28 ◼   ► They're not just like buying white label razor blades

00:37:31 ◼   ► and putting Harry's name on them.

00:37:32 ◼   ► They own a razor blade factory over in Germany.

00:37:35 ◼   ► They make their own.

00:37:36 ◼   ► There's no middlemen, no distributors,

00:37:39 ◼   ► no markup on the way to retail.

00:37:43 ◼   ► It's just they make 'em.

00:37:44 ◼   ► They package them, they sell them to you.

00:37:47 ◼   ► So it's a great product.

00:37:48 ◼   ► And they've got good shaving cream and stuff like that.

00:37:51 ◼   ► They've got, what do they have here?

00:37:52 ◼   ► A limited edition set.

00:37:53 ◼   ► If you haven't heard of them before,

00:37:55 ◼   ► you can get this set.

00:37:58 ◼   ► It comes with a razor handle of your choice,

00:38:00 ◼   ► shaving cream, replacement blades,

00:38:02 ◼   ► and a nice little travel cover.

00:38:04 ◼   ► They have something called the Winston set

00:38:06 ◼   ► that includes an engraveable chrome handle

00:38:08 ◼   ► if you want to add a personalized touch.

00:38:11 ◼   ► The other reason these things make a nice gift

00:38:14 ◼   ► is that the packaging is so nice.

00:38:16 ◼   ► So you can wrap this up and when people open it,

00:38:18 ◼   ► it's not like you're giving them one of these

00:38:20 ◼   ► blister pack razor blades that you'd get at a drug store

00:38:23 ◼   ► where it looks, you know, this looks like you've bought them

00:38:25 ◼   ► like a nice thing.

00:38:26 ◼   ► Like even if, you don't even know what's inside.

00:38:28 ◼   ► It's just like this cool box.

00:38:30 ◼   ► It's not like a blister pack where you've got to go get

00:38:32 ◼   ► a razor blade just to open the damn thing up.

00:38:34 ◼   ► It's a nice box with a nice lid.

00:38:36 ◼   ► I've said before, it's the type of packaging

00:38:39 ◼   ► that's so good that I feel bad throwing it out

00:38:41 ◼   ► and I have to defeat my sort of natural inclination

00:38:44 ◼   ► to be a pack rat and keep it.

00:38:45 ◼   ► Like why in the world would I keep an empty box

00:38:47 ◼   ► that had razor blades in it?

00:38:49 ◼   ► Stupid, but it's so nice, it always pains me

00:38:52 ◼   ► as I toss it into the bathroom trash can.

00:38:55 ◼   ► It's a great, great product.

00:38:56 ◼   ► So if you're listening tonight,

00:38:59 ◼   ► you can still get ground shipping,

00:39:01 ◼   ► otherwise you gotta pay for air shipping

00:39:04 ◼   ► if you wanna get this as a gift.

00:39:06 ◼   ► But you can go to harrys.com

00:39:08 ◼   ► and you can use the code talk show,

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00:39:11 ◼   ► and you'll get five bucks off if you use that code

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00:39:18 ◼   ► Go there, check it out.

00:39:20 ◼   ► If you've got anybody on your list

00:39:22 ◼   ► who needs a last minute gift,

00:39:23 ◼   ► you can hurry up and get that in.

00:39:25 ◼   ► My thanks to them.

00:39:26 ◼   ► Great product.

00:39:28 ◼   ► All right, I'm done talking about politics.

00:39:31 ◼   ► Let's have fun.

00:39:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, thank you.

00:39:33 ◼   ► - Trump stuff is no fun.

00:39:35 ◼   ► - Well, it's no fun, but we've gotta deal with it.

00:39:38 ◼   ► - We gotta deal with it.

00:39:38 ◼   ► You can't put your head in the sand,

00:39:39 ◼   ► And that's the reason why I think,

00:39:41 ◼   ► that's the reason I think I just put it both on this topic.

00:39:44 ◼   ► That's the reason why I think it was right

00:39:46 ◼   ► that Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos and Satya Nadella

00:39:48 ◼   ► and whoever else went to the meeting,

00:39:50 ◼   ► is you can't put your head in the sand.

00:39:52 ◼   ► You can't just put your fingers in your ears

00:39:54 ◼   ► and go, "La la la, I don't want this guy

00:39:56 ◼   ► "to be the president."

00:39:58 ◼   ► You gotta look at it.

00:39:59 ◼   ► You gotta stare it right in the eyes,

00:40:01 ◼   ► pretending that it didn't happen.

00:40:02 ◼   ► - Exactly, stay angry and don't let it get normalized.

00:40:06 ◼   ► Because this is not normal.

00:40:08 ◼   ► no matter, you know, anybody who says it's all, you know,

00:40:11 ◼   ► it'll all play out well.

00:40:12 ◼   ► And I was like, no, this is not gonna play out well.

00:40:15 ◼   ► I just hope, I hope we're around in four years

00:40:17 ◼   ► to have another election.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Because you know, you see this shit happening

00:40:22 ◼   ► with you know, China right now.

00:40:23 ◼   ► It's like, oh, Jesus, this is not where we wanna go.

00:40:28 ◼   ► It's like, for my parents' generation,

00:40:30 ◼   ► that happened in Cuba, right?

00:40:32 ◼   ► And people freaked out.

00:40:35 ◼   ► Well, hey, guess what?

00:40:36 ◼   ► It's this generation's chance

00:40:38 ◼   ► to have that little freak out moment.

00:40:40 ◼   ► But yeah, let's not talk about politics anymore.

00:40:42 ◼   ► - I've got one thing that's even less fun.

00:40:44 ◼   ► It's even less fun than Trump,

00:40:46 ◼   ► and I have to talk about it.

00:40:48 ◼   ► No fun at all.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Super Mario Run came out.

00:40:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:40:53 ◼   ► - And my God, it's got an in-app purchase.

00:40:56 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:40:57 ◼   ► - So Super Mario Run came out yesterday.

00:41:00 ◼   ► Here's how it works.

00:41:02 ◼   ► I think it was a mystery.

00:41:02 ◼   ► I don't think it was announced how exactly,

00:41:05 ◼   ► I think the only thing we knew was that it was gonna be a free download with a couple of levels to play for free

00:41:08 ◼   ► And then you'd have to buy it

00:41:10 ◼   ► So the way it works is free download you get three levels to play after that you need to buy it and it's ten bucks

00:41:16 ◼   ► But the way that they're doing the in-app purchase is such that the ten bucks is per device

00:41:21 ◼   ► I think I don't think I think if I had an iPad, I think I'd stuff

00:41:25 ◼   ► I've I've heard a complaint from one of my colleagues Sean Heber

00:41:29 ◼   ► It said that he had to buy it for himself and his three kids

00:41:34 ◼   ► He's got three boys that want to play it and you know, it's a $40 game for him now from Nintendo's perspective

00:41:40 ◼   ► That's the way it's always worked

00:41:42 ◼   ► Right, if you if you have a 3ds and your kids have a 3ds and you want to play this game

00:41:49 ◼   ► You could you know at the same time you could you'd all have to buy your own version of it now

00:41:55 ◼   ► When it was cartridges you could like share the cartridge

00:41:58 ◼   ► But then only one of you could play it at a time and there's no way to do that with an in-app purchase

00:42:03 ◼   ► You can't have an in-app purchase that says your whole family can use this app

00:42:06 ◼   ► But only one of you can use it at a time just doesn't work that way

00:42:09 ◼   ► so from Nintendo's perspective this isn't that unusual and

00:42:13 ◼   ► They don't sell $10 games for the 3ds

00:42:17 ◼   ► This would be like a 40 or $50 game for the 3ds

00:42:19 ◼   ► But on the other hand before anybody even says it and writes to me don't write to me

00:42:23 ◼   ► I understand that even with the purchase this entire game is probably less expansive than a typical 3ds game that it's smaller

00:42:31 ◼   ► Whatever. I can't get ten bucks is so little

00:42:33 ◼   ► Honestly, I do get it and that there's family sharing we use it. We've got a lot of stuff on the family sharing here

00:42:40 ◼   ► In this particular case, I can't blame it. I I want Nintendo to make money on this I do

00:42:46 ◼   ► Yeah

00:42:49 ◼   ► I'd love to see a lot of game developers make money

00:42:51 ◼   ► But yeah, no argument from me that ten dollars is a per device is a premium price for an iPhone game

00:42:57 ◼   ► But honestly, I've played this game for a day now. It's a premium game

00:43:00 ◼   ► It is a premium game. So yeah, and and and the the problem right now though is that there are a lot of people who have been

00:43:07 ◼   ► Indoctrinated into the you know, well, I can earn coins to get what I want, right?

00:43:13 ◼   ► It shouldn't cost me anything and they're the ones that are complaining about, you know, just this game, right?

00:43:19 ◼   ► It's the I mean we'd all love it as developers. We would all love it if people just paid for the thing

00:43:24 ◼   ► Right. That's what we all want. Just just spend your money

00:43:29 ◼   ► If you like it buy it and

00:43:32 ◼   ► In instead we're jumping through all these hoops, you know doing you know

00:43:36 ◼   ► things that make people look like they're not spending money because we call them coins instead of dollars and you know, that's

00:43:44 ◼   ► It's all you know the deception and and you know kudos to the endo for just saying hey

00:43:51 ◼   ► It's gonna cost you ten dollars

00:43:54 ◼   ► Deal with it

00:43:56 ◼   ► Yeah, and the three levels that they let you play before you are asked for a nickel I think are indicative of the

00:44:04 ◼   ► The gameplay and they even show you on a there's like a complete level

00:44:10 ◼   ► they show you that there's six worlds of four levels each and

00:44:14 ◼   ► So you get through the first three levels of the first world before you have to pay to continue

00:44:18 ◼   ► You both have it

00:44:19 ◼   ► You both have a very fair

00:44:21 ◼   ► Idea of what the game is like to play and you also have a very fair idea of how much is unlocked

00:44:27 ◼   ► Right when you pay the ten bucks you to me it's a very fair deal and I think

00:44:34 ◼   ► You know again, you know and if you've got you know, somebody's out there surely has three or four kids, you know

00:44:41 ◼   ► And it's like hey, it's you know

00:44:43 ◼   ► You're telling me it's $60 purchase for my kids and my wife and I to play this I understand that you know that that's

00:44:49 ◼   ► it's a lot of money for an iPhone game.

00:44:52 ◼   ► But, you know, I'd much rather have Nintendo doing this

00:44:57 ◼   ► and having it as a fair upfront price

00:45:00 ◼   ► than to see Nintendo succumb to the, you know,

00:45:03 ◼   ► keep putting $2 in to buy a bag of coins to keep going,

00:45:07 ◼   ► you know, or to get past this log jam.

00:45:10 ◼   ► You know, this level is for all intents and purposes

00:45:13 ◼   ► unbeatable unless you've got a thousand coins

00:45:16 ◼   ► and you can only really have a thousand coins

00:45:17 ◼   ► if you pay us three bucks.

00:45:20 ◼   ► Or go watch a bunch of ads

00:45:23 ◼   ► or whatever the hell these other games make you do.

00:45:26 ◼   ► It's not like that.

00:45:27 ◼   ► And to me, as somebody, I'm not a diehard gamer.

00:45:32 ◼   ► I'm probably the opposite.

00:45:33 ◼   ► I actually probably spend a lot less time

00:45:35 ◼   ► playing video games than the average person my age.

00:45:39 ◼   ► And probably for someone who's interested in technology

00:45:41 ◼   ► and computers, I'm probably way at the bottom

00:45:43 ◼   ► in terms of how much time I spend playing games.

00:45:46 ◼   ► I get the impression you're probably the same as me.

00:45:49 ◼   ► - I went through my childhood

00:45:50 ◼   ► before Nintendo became a thing, right?

00:45:52 ◼   ► I don't get Mario or any of the, you know,

00:45:56 ◼   ► that whole '80s gaming thing,

00:46:01 ◼   ► because in the '80s, I was 20 years old

00:46:03 ◼   ► and had begun an adult life, so yeah.

00:46:07 ◼   ► - Do you have an Atari, or were you too old for Atari?

00:46:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, a friend of mine had an Atari,

00:46:11 ◼   ► but it was just the Pong

00:46:12 ◼   ► and all the other kinda crappy games.

00:46:15 ◼   ► And at the same time that that was happening,

00:46:19 ◼   ► I was also discovering computers.

00:46:21 ◼   ► So it's like, I could write my own computer games.

00:46:23 ◼   ► Why the hell am I sitting in front of the TV,

00:46:27 ◼   ► fiddling with this little dial?

00:46:28 ◼   ► It's like, oh man, I got a basic interpreter.

00:46:31 ◼   ► This is way better.

00:46:32 ◼   ► - Right, I understand the feeling exactly.

00:46:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I could be making something.

00:46:38 ◼   ► - And that's, and I'm glad it happened that way.

00:46:40 ◼   ► It made me who I am.

00:46:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have an on-off.

00:46:45 ◼   ► I've never been a huge Nintendo fan. I never liked I didn't like the NES and in my college years

00:46:50 ◼   ► there was the

00:46:53 ◼   ► Not the n64 super nintendo super nintendo was the one of the early 90s early and mid 90s

00:47:01 ◼   ► I had a sega genesis which was I thought the superior system

00:47:05 ◼   ► uh, at least for the type of games I wanted to play like john madden football and the

00:47:09 ◼   ► the nhl hockey game

00:47:13 ◼   ► and uh... sages version of mario was uh... sonic the hedgehog

00:47:17 ◼   ► uh... right now is the t_t_t_ scroller

00:47:20 ◼   ► uh... i did have an end sixty four which i liked a lot

00:47:24 ◼   ► uh...

00:47:25 ◼   ► later on

00:47:26 ◼   ► to probably the last console i really played a lot of our guest had original

00:47:29 ◼   ► xbox to i played that sometimes how old were you and jonas as a kid

00:47:34 ◼   ► when what

00:47:35 ◼   ► how old were you and playing these games

00:47:37 ◼   ► uh... sega genesis was my college years so that i'll take ninety one to ninety

00:47:41 ◼   ► six right

00:47:43 ◼   ► roughly, that was a 32-bit system or was it 16?

00:47:48 ◼   ► - So you're sitting in a dorm room,

00:47:51 ◼   ► it's a thing to party with, right?

00:47:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, it was a big dorm room thing.

00:47:57 ◼   ► And it's partly because the EA Sports games,

00:48:02 ◼   ► I don't even know that they had them for Nintendo

00:48:04 ◼   ► or Super Nintendo, and if they did, they were inferior.

00:48:07 ◼   ► Like the Sega Genesis was better at the sports games.

00:48:12 ◼   ► And that was what we all played each other.

00:48:13 ◼   ► That was what we played nonstop.

00:48:16 ◼   ► N64 was good though.

00:48:17 ◼   ► There was this Goldeneye game.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Anybody who had it knows exactly what I'm talking about.

00:48:21 ◼   ► And anybody, it was a 3D shooter and you'd play,

00:48:24 ◼   ► you could play against your roommate.

00:48:27 ◼   ► And it was split screen.

00:48:29 ◼   ► So you each got like, you'd split the screen.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Because it was a four to three screen, it was,

00:48:34 ◼   ► I forget if it was horizontal

00:48:36 ◼   ► and you got like a real wide angle thing

00:48:39 ◼   ► or if it was side to side.

00:48:40 ◼   ► I think it was--

00:48:41 ◼   ► I actually forget.

00:48:44 ◼   ► True story.

00:48:45 ◼   ► True story.

00:48:45 ◼   ► I had a roommate-- my first year after college,

00:48:47 ◼   ► I had a roommate, Don, and we played--

00:48:51 ◼   ► we had an N64.

00:48:52 ◼   ► And that was when the PlayStation first came out,

00:48:55 ◼   ► the original PlayStation.

00:48:57 ◼   ► And what we used to do was rent video games.

00:49:00 ◼   ► You could go to-- you had to get a disc.

00:49:02 ◼   ► So you'd go to Blockbuster, and you

00:49:03 ◼   ► could rent a game for four days for, I don't know,

00:49:06 ◼   ► five bucks, four bucks.

00:49:08 ◼   ► way cheaper than buying $60 games, right?

00:49:11 ◼   ► We didn't have the money to buy a bunch of $60 games.

00:49:13 ◼   ► The renting thing was awesome.

00:49:15 ◼   ► So we had an N64.

00:49:17 ◼   ► - Basically, you binge on the game

00:49:19 ◼   ► and you're getting the content for

00:49:23 ◼   ► 10th of the price. - So we'd go to Blockbuster

00:49:28 ◼   ► and you'd look and like the PlayStation section

00:49:31 ◼   ► had all of these awesome games,

00:49:33 ◼   ► like at the time, realistic car racing games

00:49:37 ◼   ► and shooters and all of these awesome games.

00:49:41 ◼   ► And then the Nintendo section had like seven titles,

00:49:43 ◼   ► and most of them were like for little kids.

00:49:46 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:49:48 ◼   ► But then GoldenEye came out, and GoldenEye fixed everything.

00:49:51 ◼   ► Effectively, our N64 turned into a dedicated GoldenEye box.

00:49:56 ◼   ► It was a good one-player game.

00:49:58 ◼   ► It had a very long campaign where

00:50:00 ◼   ► you played James Bond going through the GoldenEye movie

00:50:03 ◼   ► scenario.

00:50:04 ◼   ► really good first player, you know, one player mode. And then the two player thing was just

00:50:09 ◼   ► unbelievably fun. Unbelievably fun. And eventually I got just every, it was one of the only games

00:50:14 ◼   ► I ever got pretty good at. And I got ever so slightly better than Don was like, this

00:50:19 ◼   ► is after maybe a whole year of playing. And I was always a fraction of a section a second

00:50:25 ◼   ► quicker than him. And it got to the point where he couldn't beat, you know, we used

00:50:28 ◼   ► to be like 50/50. And then it was, I somehow gained like I leveled up a little bit and

00:50:33 ◼   ► He couldn't beat me and one time he threw this controller out the window and we lived on the third floor

00:50:37 ◼   ► But it was the most satisfying victory ever right what could be more satisfying than making your friend throw his controller out the window

00:50:47 ◼   ► Yeah, but then at that point you're pretty much done with the game, right because the guy knows he can never win again

00:50:52 ◼   ► And you know, it's like okay. Why play?

00:50:55 ◼   ► Yeah, but anyway, then my other experience with Nintendo is we had the Wii the one the first, you know, not the Wii

00:51:01 ◼   ► We have the Wii U2 that we never played.

00:51:03 ◼   ► The Wii was great.

00:51:04 ◼   ► The one where you'd have the...

00:51:06 ◼   ► Basically the physical games were awesome.

00:51:09 ◼   ► Right.

00:51:10 ◼   ► It just got people moving around. I thought that was fun.

00:51:12 ◼   ► Right, and that was how Jonas learned to play video games.

00:51:14 ◼   ► We had that when he was, I don't know, three or four or something like that.

00:51:19 ◼   ► That's another one where you can throw the controller,

00:51:22 ◼   ► but not necessarily because you meant to.

00:51:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:51:26 ◼   ► We have these...

00:51:27 ◼   ► Jonas and I laugh about it because Jonas is very much into video games now

00:51:30 ◼   ► games now and he's almost 13, is that when we first started playing, there's a great,

00:51:36 ◼   ► great series of games, these LEGO games, where you play as a LEGO character from movies and

00:51:42 ◼   ► you go through and, you know, like the one that we played, the first one was the LEGO

00:51:48 ◼   ► Star Wars and it's this game and it had all six of the original Star Wars movies, meaning

00:51:54 ◼   ► the first three from the 80s, then the prequels.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And each one was broken up into six adventures.

00:52:03 ◼   ► So you had 36 adventures to go through from all of the Star Wars movies.

00:52:07 ◼   ► And you just play as two characters at the same time on screen.

00:52:09 ◼   ► And you go through and smash things up and take the bricks

00:52:13 ◼   ► and rebuild them into other things.

00:52:14 ◼   ► And it was very, very-- just very fun, very, very kid-friendly,

00:52:18 ◼   ► but very fun for me as an adult to play, too.

00:52:20 ◼   ► But the funny thing was that when we first started playing it--

00:52:22 ◼   ► I don't know if Jonas was three or four, probably around four, was that

00:52:26 ◼   ► It's sort of like an isomorphic perspective

00:52:32 ◼   ► Isometric, right? Yeah, isometric perspective the game and

00:52:36 ◼   ► Jonas just had tremendous trouble

00:52:39 ◼   ► Like if you had to walk on it, you had to get your character to walk on a cat walk diagonally, right?

00:52:45 ◼   ► Not even like a tightrope, but you know

00:52:47 ◼   ► But like a three character wide catwalk that was at a 45 degree angle

00:52:52 ◼   ► He would just keep falling off and it's one of these games read

00:52:55 ◼   ► You don't probably think he probably didn't have the spatial capabilities in his brain. Yeah, right, right

00:52:59 ◼   ► That's just right being able to say to project that

00:53:03 ◼   ► Into his mind. Yeah and and to transfer it into a movement with his thumb, right?

00:53:09 ◼   ► Oh, right

00:53:10 ◼   ► and it's one of these games or one of part of that part of what made it so much fun to play with a little

00:53:14 ◼   ► kid is that you don't run out of lives and have to start the level over. Every time you die,

00:53:20 ◼   ► you just lose some of the coins you've picked up, and it just shoots you back to, you know,

00:53:24 ◼   ► five feet away from where you died. You just keep respawning, and all you lose are these coins.

00:53:30 ◼   ► And when you finish the level with the most coins, it's an accomplishment. So, you know,

00:53:34 ◼   ► finishing without dying gives you more coins, so there's an advantage to not dying,

00:53:40 ◼   ► but you never actually have to start the level over. But there would be certain things where he

00:53:45 ◼   ► just spatially couldn't navigate. And I think I'm a pretty patient father, but eventually it's like,

00:53:50 ◼   ► "Just give me the controller." [laughter]

00:53:53 ◼   ► - "Dad's gonna help you out here." - Right. And it wasn't like getting him past a boss

00:53:59 ◼   ► villain. It was just getting him through a very narrow, hard-to-navigate little thing.

00:54:05 ◼   ► And it's just very--

00:54:07 ◼   ► it's very comical now when I try to play video games with him

00:54:10 ◼   ► because it's actually the opposite.

00:54:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I was going to say he's kicking your ass now, right?

00:54:15 ◼   ► Because he's young, he's got good eyesight, good reflexes.

00:54:19 ◼   ► Yeah, he's--

00:54:21 ◼   ► What was it?

00:54:21 ◼   ► It was a LEGO game, like LEGO Batman or something like that.

00:54:24 ◼   ► And I was like, I'll play that with you.

00:54:26 ◼   ► And I started playing, and it was clear

00:54:27 ◼   ► that I was holding him back.

00:54:29 ◼   ► Right.

00:54:31 ◼   ► And he's not going to say anything.

00:54:32 ◼   ► He loves you and everything.

00:54:34 ◼   ► He's not going to hurt your feelings.

00:54:35 ◼   ► but he's like, "Dad, just leave."

00:54:37 ◼   ► - I was like, "Remember when you'd be the one

00:54:39 ◼   ► holding me back?"

00:54:40 ◼   ► And he'd be, he'd laugh.

00:54:40 ◼   ► He had a good sense of humor about it.

00:54:42 ◼   ► But it was very clear that I was the one holding him back.

00:54:45 ◼   ► Anyway, I wish Nintendo the best.

00:54:48 ◼   ► I think they're going to do very well with it.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Complaints about the price aside.

00:54:52 ◼   ► It does seem like they're being very aggressive

00:54:53 ◼   ► on the trying to keep the,

00:54:55 ◼   ► whatever countermeasures they've taken against piracy.

00:54:59 ◼   ► It seems like they've done quite a bit.

00:55:02 ◼   ► One of them being, and here's the one

00:55:04 ◼   ► that's gonna affect honest people the most

00:55:06 ◼   ► is the game does not play

00:55:08 ◼   ► if you don't have a network connection.

00:55:10 ◼   ► I tested it, it's very true.

00:55:12 ◼   ► Like if you turn on airplane mode

00:55:13 ◼   ► and try to start the game, it says,

00:55:15 ◼   ► try to move somewhere

00:55:17 ◼   ► where you have a better network connection.

00:55:19 ◼   ► - Oh, that's not gonna play out well.

00:55:23 ◼   ► I mean, as soon as somebody,

00:55:25 ◼   ► it's like on launch day, you're not gonna notice that,

00:55:27 ◼   ► but over time, you're gonna be wanting to play it

00:55:30 ◼   ► in the subway, on an airplane.

00:55:33 ◼   ► airplane right yeah well and it's funny people have even pointed out that at the

00:55:37 ◼   ► announcement Miyamoto even said because it's totally playable one-handed that

00:55:43 ◼   ► it's great to play in a subway now maybe and you know maybe he's thinking of I

00:55:48 ◼   ► don't know I've never been to Tokyo but maybe Tokyo I wouldn't be surprised if

00:55:51 ◼   ► it is one of those cities where the subways even part you'd be good a cell

00:55:55 ◼   ► service yeah I noticed the last time up last trip to WWDC that that their cell

00:56:02 ◼   ► service in BART now, from the airport to downtown, you pretty much have a network connection

00:56:08 ◼   ► all the time.

00:56:09 ◼   ► All right.

00:56:10 ◼   ► But when this news came out that the game doesn't work without a network connection,

00:56:12 ◼   ► a bunch of readers wrote to me and just said, "Well, my kid has an iPod Touch."

00:56:18 ◼   ► Or the iPod Touch that an awful lot of kids have is a two- or three-year-old iPhone that

00:56:23 ◼   ► doesn't have a SIM card.

00:56:25 ◼   ► Just to hand me down, "Here's my—this was Dad's iPhone from two years ago.

00:56:30 ◼   ► take the self, just take the SIM card out and you've got to, you know, hand me down iPod touch.

00:56:35 ◼   ► Yeah, those devices.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Yeah, and car trips. That's another, you know, you know.

00:56:40 ◼   ► Yep, that's it. That's exactly it.

00:56:42 ◼   ► Do you want it? And then, okay, okay, well, you have to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot just so

00:56:46 ◼   ► the kids can play Nintendo.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Right. Right. It's like, no thanks.

00:56:52 ◼   ► Right. Okay, let's drain mom and dad's batteries so we can play Nintendo.

00:56:58 ◼   ► And I saw something about the fact that the game has a lot of it doesn't seem to run on a lot of jail breaks

00:57:04 ◼   ► uh, it seems which only makes me think that nintendo is specifically looking for signs of

00:57:11 ◼   ► Common jail breaks and is refusing to run

00:57:14 ◼   ► How are they gonna do that? That's a actually hard thing to do in a sandbox you've you know, yeah

00:57:20 ◼   ► Apple might have looked the other way

00:57:23 ◼   ► I wonder some of these things. I don't know

00:57:27 ◼   ► I don't want to know, you know, not knowing how it works or anything, but that would be my first reaction. It's like, hmm

00:57:33 ◼   ► Maybe there's my other question. My other question is

00:57:37 ◼   ► It's it is iOS exclusive right now. It is apparently coming to Android eventually

00:57:42 ◼   ► How long do you think until it comes out on Android?

00:57:44 ◼   ► and the

00:57:46 ◼   ► Google will probably want to use it like Apple did as a way to promote a new software release or something like that. I

00:57:54 ◼   ► Could see it happening at the next I/O

00:57:56 ◼   ► Or something, you know just like it played well at the iPhone 7 launch. It'll play well at some Google launch

00:58:03 ◼   ► So I think that that would be your answer

00:58:06 ◼   ► So maybe like six months, I don't know but is it all who's in six months? I don't know

00:58:10 ◼   ► Yeah, who knows? I mean, it's that the half-life for games these days is pretty

00:58:15 ◼   ► Pretty insane. It's it's like, you know Pokemon go right middle of summer. It was just everywhere

00:58:23 ◼   ► In fact, you know, we had a deck down at the beach where you know, I go every day

00:58:26 ◼   ► it's like there's there's one tree that everybody be standing under because that shade and

00:58:31 ◼   ► Pokemon characters

00:58:34 ◼   ► And it got to be kind of funny. It's like everybody walked by. Oh, yeah, that's the Pokemon spot, you know

00:58:38 ◼   ► And and you you know, you'd talk to people there. Oh, yeah

00:58:40 ◼   ► I'm waiting for the you know, you know the gym or whatever it is and oh my god

00:58:44 ◼   ► I saw a thing on I saw a thing on Twitter

00:58:46 ◼   ► I wish I had had it but it was the gist of it was somebody was like, oh my god

00:58:51 ◼   ► I can't believe they had to put this sign up. Somebody was in like a museum or something.

00:58:55 ◼   ► It was like a part where they were showing something really grave and serious. It was

00:58:59 ◼   ► like relics from a concentration camp or something like that. Something really, really grave

00:59:07 ◼   ► and serious. Like here's a bunch of artifacts from some kind of internment camp. I don't

00:59:12 ◼   ► think it was the Holocaust, but something like that though, where a bunch of people

00:59:15 ◼   ► were political prisoners and people died.

00:59:20 ◼   ► And it went on a long time.

00:59:21 ◼   ► And there was a sign up that said,

00:59:23 ◼   ► "Please no Pokemon Go."

00:59:25 ◼   ► - Right.

00:59:26 ◼   ► - 'Cause you can only imagine,

00:59:28 ◼   ► like a sign like that doesn't go up

00:59:29 ◼   ► unless people were doing it.

00:59:31 ◼   ► - Yeah. - You know, like somehow

00:59:32 ◼   ► they're like-- - Yeah, they're reacting

00:59:33 ◼   ► to something.

00:59:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:59:36 ◼   ► - Well, I thought that in the middle of summer,

00:59:40 ◼   ► one of the thoughts I had was like,

00:59:42 ◼   ► what happens when it gets cold, right?

00:59:43 ◼   ► all these people going out hunting for Pokemon.

00:59:45 ◼   ► What the hell are they gonna do when it's raining

00:59:48 ◼   ► or snowing or middle of a hurricane or whatever?

00:59:51 ◼   ► And it's like, hmm.

00:59:54 ◼   ► So they launched that in a really good time

00:59:57 ◼   ► and maybe they had the expectation

01:00:01 ◼   ► that it's gonna have six great months and then who knows?

01:00:06 ◼   ► I think we're in the who knows right now.

01:00:09 ◼   ► It's like maybe Mario on iOS

01:00:12 ◼   ► is going to be the same way. I suspect not. There's a lot to be said for that brand.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Same is true with Pokemon. It's a huge brand. A lot of nostalgia in that brand. I mean,

01:00:26 ◼   ► that's the fact that you were talking about all your past consoles and the games you played.

01:00:34 ◼   ► nostalgia is a powerful thing. And, you know, that's, it's interesting too that Mario is

01:00:45 ◼   ► nostalgia that's getting passed on, right? There's a generation of kids now who are gonna grow up and

01:00:51 ◼   ► their first encounter with Mario is gonna be, you know, on their iPhone or their iPad or their

01:00:59 ◼   ► iPod Touch, you know, that's their beginning.

01:01:02 ◼   ► And where's it gonna go from here?

01:01:04 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:01:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, the comparison, I think, is, you know,

01:01:08 ◼   ► and it's obvious one that a thousand people have made before

01:01:11 ◼   ► is to Mickey Mouse and the Donald Duck

01:01:15 ◼   ► and the whole gang of characters that is so old

01:01:20 ◼   ► that Disney literally has to keep petitioning

01:01:22 ◼   ► the US federal government to keep extending

01:01:25 ◼   ► the copyright expiration date

01:01:28 ◼   ► because they're so old that they would have already passed

01:01:32 ◼   ► into the public domain by now,

01:01:33 ◼   ► and yet are completely relevant and popular.

01:01:36 ◼   ► - And a good source of revenue.

01:01:39 ◼   ► - Right, well.

01:01:40 ◼   ► - I mean, they're usually popular for a reason, right?

01:01:45 ◼   ► - Well, and one reason why that they've remained popular

01:01:48 ◼   ► is that even under Walt Disney,

01:01:50 ◼   ► I think it started with Walt,

01:01:51 ◼   ► was don't be afraid to move them into new media.

01:01:55 ◼   ► Just keep going up with technology.

01:01:57 ◼   ► Don't say, well, Mickey's a movie star,

01:02:00 ◼   ► so he's never gonna be on TV.

01:02:02 ◼   ► No, we're gonna have a TV show

01:02:03 ◼   ► and get everybody to watch it.

01:02:06 ◼   ► I mean, it's one of my favorite stories,

01:02:07 ◼   ► and it's one of the best comparisons

01:02:09 ◼   ► between Walt Disney and Steve Jobs that I've ever seen,

01:02:12 ◼   ► was that he was so willing to let go of the past

01:02:14 ◼   ► and always hungry for the future,

01:02:16 ◼   ► which was the, it goes against human nature.

01:02:19 ◼   ► I mean, it even ties back to our discussion on Trump

01:02:22 ◼   ► and those tech leaders,

01:02:23 ◼   ► and Trump seeing his job as president

01:02:25 ◼   ► as protecting the current top companies,

01:02:28 ◼   ► as opposed to just keeping it fair

01:02:30 ◼   ► and letting the revolution happen.

01:02:32 ◼   ► Walt was, in the '50s when TV started to become a thing,

01:02:36 ◼   ► the movie studios were totally disdainful of television

01:02:40 ◼   ► and saw it as a lesser medium.

01:02:41 ◼   ► I mean, we saw that until,

01:02:44 ◼   ► really up until just a handful of years ago

01:02:46 ◼   ► where being an actor in the movies

01:02:50 ◼   ► was seen as way more serious than being an actor on TV.

01:02:53 ◼   ► It really took until the last handful of years and shows like The Sopranos and Mad Men and Westworld,

01:03:00 ◼   ► and Game of Thrones, where people see TV as being as good or even better than movies.

01:03:05 ◼   ► Walt Disney, unlike all the other Hollywood studios, the way that Hollywood attacked the TV

01:03:11 ◼   ► was by... and part of it is cool. I love CinemaScope and 70mm Prince. That's when movies switched from

01:03:19 ◼   ► the 4.3 aspect ratio. 16 to 9 and the bigger, the bigger CinemaScope 2.1 widescreen and they built

01:03:28 ◼   ► bigger screens that had curves and they'd start shooting in 70 millimeter. It was, "Okay, you want

01:03:33 ◼   ► to have a little dinky, rinky-dink, you know, 19-inch black and white display with a lot of static

01:03:39 ◼   ► on it. Well, we're gonna, you know, start shooting in color and we're gonna make it bigger." And that's

01:03:43 ◼   ► a fine response, but it certainly didn't stop the march of progress with TV. Walt Disney, on the

01:03:47 ◼   ► other hand was like, we'll keep making movies, but hell yeah, I want to I want to be I want

01:03:52 ◼   ► Mickey Mouse on that TV.

01:03:53 ◼   ► He I've always loved that quote of his where, you know, he made movies, so that he could

01:03:59 ◼   ► make more movies, right? I know he made money. So he could Yeah, exactly. He made money on

01:04:04 ◼   ► movies so that he could make more movies. And that's, TV was just another way for him

01:04:07 ◼   ► to make money to make more cool things. Right. Right. And that's why I don't, you know, like,

01:04:14 ◼   ► Nintendo I hope they do really well on on iOS because if they do they're gonna do more

01:04:18 ◼   ► And they'll embrace don't make we don't make movies to make money. We make money to make movies. There you go

01:04:24 ◼   ► Yes, and he met it, you know, you can roll your eyes, but he met it, right?

01:04:28 ◼   ► Time that in is the recent announcement that Nintendo has signed a big big long-term deal with Universal to get

01:04:36 ◼   ► Like Nintendo world into universals theme parks around the world. Sure

01:04:42 ◼   ► Makes sense, which I am I'm looking forward to tremendously. I don't you've probably never been there but at Universal in Florida

01:04:49 ◼   ► They have a big I don't know. I gotta be billion-dollar deal with the Harry Potter franchise, right?

01:04:54 ◼   ► I've seen pictures of it. I've never been there. But yeah, it's and it looks great. I mean, yeah, we love nostalgia

01:05:00 ◼   ► We were a madman fan a

01:05:04 ◼   ► What ever wants to show mad madman Oh madman. Yeah, watch it. Yeah

01:05:10 ◼   ► Yeah, oh, yeah, right, of course, yeah Don Draper and and that's

01:05:14 ◼   ► That's probably where I got that from

01:05:17 ◼   ► Nostalgia it's delicate but potent. Yeah, Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound

01:05:25 ◼   ► It's a twinge in your heart for more

01:05:28 ◼   ► more powerful than memory alone

01:05:31 ◼   ► That's nostalgia, yep, that's good writing

01:05:35 ◼   ► yeah, that's the the one with the

01:05:39 ◼   ► Kodak slide. It was like the first season, but it's the best episode.

01:05:46 ◼   ► And you look at that Kodak thing, that was revolutionary at the time. And as kids growing

01:05:53 ◼   ► up, we didn't have iPhotos and swiping through. We had, "Oh, let's put up the screen and

01:06:00 ◼   ► stare at Dad's slides." And another example of a company that lost its way by protecting

01:06:08 ◼   ► what it had rather than going to its future. They were making all their money from film,

01:06:12 ◼   ► and they were... it's absolutely astounding when you look at how many of the foundations of digital

01:06:21 ◼   ► photography started at Kodak, and the people that, you know, in charge at Kodak patted the engineers

01:06:27 ◼   ► who had all these digital camera technologies ready to go, you know, and patted them on their

01:06:33 ◼   ► in their head and said, "Nice work, boys,

01:06:34 ◼   ► but we can't sell film."

01:06:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, Polaroid.

01:06:37 ◼   ► - We're not selling any film for digital cameras,

01:06:39 ◼   ► so keep that in the labs.

01:06:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:06:42 ◼   ► - It didn't work out so well for them.

01:06:43 ◼   ► - Exactly, it was actually Polaroid

01:06:45 ◼   ► who came up with the first digital camera.

01:06:47 ◼   ► Like, whoa, why didn't you guys follow through with that?

01:06:50 ◼   ► - Kodak had so much of it.

01:06:51 ◼   ► - Right, Polaroid and Kodak did so much work on it

01:06:54 ◼   ► and never took it to market

01:06:55 ◼   ► because it would have disrupted their own film business.

01:06:58 ◼   ► - Well, it's- - Bottom line.

01:06:59 ◼   ► - Xerox did the same thing, right?

01:07:01 ◼   ► - So there's a line of companies that we remember fondly

01:07:06 ◼   ► because they didn't do what Apple does,

01:07:10 ◼   ► which is kill your babies.

01:07:12 ◼   ► - Right, preaching to the choir here,

01:07:13 ◼   ► but in 2006, the single most important product

01:07:16 ◼   ► that Apple Computer made was their line of iPods.

01:07:21 ◼   ► And it was very clear to anybody who looked at the iPhone

01:07:25 ◼   ► with open eyes that, well, once you have one of these,

01:07:29 ◼   ► you'll never buy an iPod again.

01:07:30 ◼   ► Yep.

01:07:31 ◼   ► Except maybe the cheap no screen one

01:07:34 ◼   ► that you don't care about wearing in the pool, right?

01:07:37 ◼   ► The one that doesn't actually make the company money.

01:07:39 ◼   ► Right? Yeah.

01:07:40 ◼   ► At the same time, I don't think we appreciated

01:07:46 ◼   ► how important that camera was gonna be.

01:07:48 ◼   ► No, definitely not.

01:07:50 ◼   ► Because I mean, the first camera was like,

01:07:52 ◼   ► eh, it's okay. It was a piece of garbage.

01:07:53 ◼   ► Yeah, it's better than that feature phone I used to have,

01:07:57 ◼   ► but yeah.

01:07:59 ◼   ► No, but barely.

01:07:59 ◼   ► - I'll still carry my DSLR around.

01:08:03 ◼   ► Yeah, barely better, right?

01:08:05 ◼   ► It was more convenient though.

01:08:06 ◼   ► That was the thing that it was like, ah, right?

01:08:10 ◼   ► And Instagram and all this other stuff took off

01:08:13 ◼   ► because shit, it's always there.

01:08:16 ◼   ► - I just think that the time nobody,

01:08:20 ◼   ► maybe even Apple just didn't foresee how quickly cameras

01:08:25 ◼   ► that could fit in the space that was available,

01:08:27 ◼   ► theoretically, just however much space you want to devote

01:08:31 ◼   ► into a iPhone-sized device to the camera,

01:08:35 ◼   ► how good the image quality could be out of that camera.

01:08:37 ◼   ► I just don't think anybody really foresaw

01:08:39 ◼   ► what the next five years were going to be.

01:08:41 ◼   ► That first one, it's ridiculous.

01:08:42 ◼   ► I've said this before on the show.

01:08:44 ◼   ► Every time it comes up, I'm like,

01:08:46 ◼   ► "I don't think it even shot video."

01:08:47 ◼   ► And then I'm like, "No, wait, that's not possible."

01:08:48 ◼   ► And then I look it up and it's like,

01:08:49 ◼   ► "Yep, didn't even shoot shitty video."

01:08:53 ◼   ► Shot no video whatsoever.

01:08:55 ◼   ► And now, you know, it doesn't even fit in the case anymore.

01:08:58 ◼   ► And that's okay, right?

01:08:59 ◼   ► You know, we've got the camera bulge

01:09:01 ◼   ► because it's like, it's more important

01:09:04 ◼   ► to have that good camera

01:09:05 ◼   ► than it is to have that clean back line.

01:09:07 ◼   ► - I'm not gonna say it's okay.

01:09:08 ◼   ► I accept it.

01:09:09 ◼   ► - It's a compromise, right?

01:09:11 ◼   ► It's definitely a compromise.

01:09:13 ◼   ► But yes, we'd all love it if that back

01:09:16 ◼   ► was completely smooth,

01:09:17 ◼   ► but we also love the fact that it's not.

01:09:22 ◼   ► - I have, that's the one thing I don't know

01:09:23 ◼   ► what to think about with the Pixel.

01:09:25 ◼   ► have a Google Pixel.

01:09:26 ◼   ► And so Google Pixels, Google's way around that

01:09:30 ◼   ► was to have, they have no bump for the camera on the back,

01:09:33 ◼   ► but the entire device is slightly wedge-shaped.

01:09:37 ◼   ► So down at the bottom, it's thin,

01:09:40 ◼   ► and that's the thinness they like to talk about,

01:09:42 ◼   ► and up by the camera, it's thick.

01:09:44 ◼   ► And there's no one point where there's a bulge.

01:09:47 ◼   ► And it's not super, at a glance, you can't even tell,

01:09:53 ◼   ► but in your hand, it's obvious,

01:09:54 ◼   ► and it is sort of top heavy.

01:09:55 ◼   ► I have mixed feelings about that.

01:09:58 ◼   ► I do think, I don't wanna go too deep on the camera bulge,

01:10:01 ◼   ► but now that the iPhone 7 has been in my hands for what,

01:10:05 ◼   ► three months, October, November, December?

01:10:07 ◼   ► Yeah, about three months.

01:10:08 ◼   ► I do two little things that I really, really like about it.

01:10:14 ◼   ► And I know people keep saying

01:10:15 ◼   ► that it's the same industrial design,

01:10:17 ◼   ► but it's only at a glance.

01:10:19 ◼   ► The two little things that I really like,

01:10:20 ◼   ► number one, I like that this camera bump

01:10:23 ◼   ► is more of an honest camera bump, right?

01:10:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

01:10:28 ◼   ► I'm 100% with you there.

01:10:30 ◼   ► It's like, it looks like a bump.

01:10:34 ◼   ► - Right.

01:10:35 ◼   ► - And it is a bump.

01:10:37 ◼   ► - And they're still running those ads

01:10:38 ◼   ► that show the hero shot of the shiny jet black iPhone 7 Plus

01:10:43 ◼   ► where the entire central focus of the hero shot

01:10:49 ◼   ► is the big capsule sized camera bump on the back.

01:10:53 ◼   ► Like, you know, and it's perfectly lit and glossy

01:10:56 ◼   ► to highlight it.

01:10:57 ◼   ► And I just keep thinking, yeah, it's the complete opposite

01:10:59 ◼   ► of the original iPhone 6 ads where the articles

01:11:03 ◼   ► where Apple's product shots are hiding the bump,

01:11:06 ◼   ► you know, where they'd show it from the side.

01:11:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, you had to hunt for it on the Apple site

01:11:10 ◼   ► in order to see it.

01:11:11 ◼   ► Yeah, it was just, they just were pretending it wasn't there.

01:11:15 ◼   ► - The other thing I really like,

01:11:16 ◼   ► and I can't explain why I like it so much,

01:11:19 ◼   ► is that the volume buttons are no longer

01:11:22 ◼   ► in a channel on the side.

01:11:25 ◼   ► They're just two buttons that stick out of the side.

01:11:28 ◼   ► There used to be a little--

01:11:29 ◼   ► You can feel them.

01:11:30 ◼   ► Yeah, well, but--

01:11:31 ◼   ► I think they're easy to locate for me, at least.

01:11:34 ◼   ► But there was like a little channel dug in,

01:11:37 ◼   ► and the gap between the two volume buttons

01:11:39 ◼   ► was therefore more--

01:11:41 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:11:42 ◼   ► It just felt cheap to me on the iPhone 6 and 6S in a way

01:11:46 ◼   ► that I really like the volume buttons on this better.

01:11:50 ◼   ► But anyway, that's neither here nor there.

01:11:52 ◼   ► - Quick question, did you get the jet black?

01:11:54 ◼   ► - Yes, I did.

01:11:56 ◼   ► - Do you love it?

01:11:57 ◼   ► - I love it.

01:11:58 ◼   ► - I mean, I love being able to carry a phone

01:12:01 ◼   ► without a case again.

01:12:03 ◼   ► It's just like it's sticky in my hand

01:12:05 ◼   ► and that's all I wanted.

01:12:06 ◼   ► I don't, you know, yeah, I got the micro abrasions.

01:12:08 ◼   ► I hold it up here to the light.

01:12:10 ◼   ► I can see them, but I don't spend my time

01:12:13 ◼   ► looking at the back of the phone.

01:12:14 ◼   ► I spend my time holding the back of the phone.

01:12:16 ◼   ► It's just so clearly better there.

01:12:18 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think--

01:12:19 ◼   ► It looks awesome.

01:12:20 ◼   ► After three months of daily use, I

01:12:23 ◼   ► can project what it'll look like after two years.

01:12:25 ◼   ► I mean, I'll only use it for one year.

01:12:27 ◼   ► But I mean, what somebody who--

01:12:29 ◼   ► a normal smart person would do and use the phone for at least

01:12:32 ◼   ► two years, it's going to look fine.

01:12:34 ◼   ► It's not going to look perfect, but it looks fine.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And at a glance, it still looks nice, black, and shiny.

01:12:39 ◼   ► But it's the feel of it.

01:12:40 ◼   ► The feel is so much greater.

01:12:41 ◼   ► The other thing I can happily-- you know,

01:12:42 ◼   ► going back to the weather, that was my question in September.

01:12:46 ◼   ► It was like in September when I first felt it,

01:12:47 ◼   ► I was like, this definitely feels better to my touch.

01:12:50 ◼   ► But September was a warm month for us.

01:12:54 ◼   ► And so my hands had that, like, it was warm hands.

01:12:57 ◼   ► Now that it's freezing cold,

01:12:58 ◼   ► I can say it still feels better.

01:12:59 ◼   ► Even with very, very cold hands, it's not slippery.

01:13:03 ◼   ► Total win.

01:13:05 ◼   ► I recommend it wholeheartedly.

01:13:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, like I said,

01:13:09 ◼   ► it's just so nice to be carrying a phone

01:13:11 ◼   ► without a case anymore.

01:13:12 ◼   ► And that was the only reason I put it

01:13:15 ◼   ► on my five and my six is--

01:13:18 ◼   ► - I know a lot of people like that.

01:13:19 ◼   ► - It felt slippery, it really felt slippery.

01:13:21 ◼   ► And I mean, I've got big hands, right?

01:13:23 ◼   ► It's like, you know, shit falls out on me real easy.

01:13:28 ◼   ► - It's like, it's for you holding a phone

01:13:30 ◼   ► is like a normal person holding like a matchbook.

01:13:33 ◼   ► It easily just slips, you know.

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01:16:27 ◼   ► - I got a question for you.

01:16:29 ◼   ► - You can ask me anything, Craig.

01:16:31 ◼   ► - Could they make Daring Fireball a responsive web design?

01:16:38 ◼   ► Well, I could make during Fireball a responsive website.

01:16:40 ◼   ► I do think all of Squarespace's default templates are responsive.

01:16:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I bring that up because that's an important thing these days.

01:16:47 ◼   ► And I know, I know, that's a cheap shot, but—

01:16:50 ◼   ► No, it's not.

01:16:51 ◼   ► It's overdue.

01:16:52 ◼   ► It's overdue by years.

01:16:53 ◼   ► And the fact that it's overdue by years only contributes to the inertia of not updating

01:16:59 ◼   ► it.

01:17:00 ◼   ► Part of it's your fault, really, as much as anybody.

01:17:02 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

01:17:03 ◼   ► back in 2007 when I found my first launch,

01:17:11 ◼   ► you gave me the meta tag that made Daring Fireball--

01:17:15 ◼   ► I've had to update that since because the way those meta

01:17:18 ◼   ► tags have worked for the viewport size.

01:17:22 ◼   ► The curse of Daring Fireball's existing design

01:17:25 ◼   ► is that it's one double tap away from being pretty good.

01:17:29 ◼   ► Yeah, that's right.

01:17:31 ◼   ► In large part, I would say at least 85%,

01:17:36 ◼   ► maybe probably around 85% of what it would look like

01:17:41 ◼   ► if it were responsive, just by double tapping the column.

01:17:44 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:17:45 ◼   ► But the thing that bugs me the most

01:17:47 ◼   ► is when I tap on the quoted part

01:17:49 ◼   ► and then the text around it falls out off the edges

01:17:54 ◼   ► and it's like, ah.

01:17:56 ◼   ► So, but yeah, you're close.

01:17:58 ◼   ► And yeah, I do remember that Nada tagged.

01:18:01 ◼   ► - It's your fault.

01:18:03 ◼   ► Right, if Daring Fireball had looked completely un--

01:18:06 ◼   ► - Do we wanna give everybody my email address

01:18:08 ◼   ► so they can pitch to me now?

01:18:09 ◼   ► - No.

01:18:11 ◼   ► Well, but that's the thing,

01:18:12 ◼   ► for a non-responsive site,

01:18:16 ◼   ► it's about as good as it could get.

01:18:18 ◼   ► So people complain, and when it becomes responsive,

01:18:22 ◼   ► and it will, I'm sure people will be,

01:18:24 ◼   ► "Thank you, this is great."

01:18:27 ◼   ► But who knows, I'll probably get just as many complaints

01:18:29 ◼   ► because the fonts will change at the same time.

01:18:31 ◼   ► But it'll happen.

01:18:34 ◼   ► But it's the fact that it's, in my opinion,

01:18:37 ◼   ► pretty darn good as is, makes it easy to say,

01:18:40 ◼   ► well, it never quite rises up to the,

01:18:43 ◼   ► here's how I should spend the next two weeks.

01:18:45 ◼   ► - I got a question for you.

01:18:47 ◼   ► Somebody who used to have a website

01:18:49 ◼   ► has a dark background with light text

01:18:51 ◼   ► and somebody who got older.

01:18:54 ◼   ► Are you having trouble reading the site these days

01:18:57 ◼   ► with the light text on the dark background.

01:19:01 ◼   ► - No, I still find that the color schema during Fireball

01:19:03 ◼   ► is, from my eyes at least,

01:19:05 ◼   ► is more readable than the opposite.

01:19:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's--

01:19:10 ◼   ► - Because it's not super high contrast,

01:19:12 ◼   ► because it's not black. - Exactly, yeah, yeah.

01:19:14 ◼   ► I think that's the thing.

01:19:15 ◼   ► I mean, the icon factor used to be like black, black

01:19:19 ◼   ► with white and orange hyperlinks.

01:19:23 ◼   ► And it was when we retired that site,

01:19:28 ◼   ► it was like, oh, thank God.

01:19:30 ◼   ► 'Cause you know, the contrast was killing me.

01:19:32 ◼   ► And it's like, I was in my forties

01:19:35 ◼   ► and it's like my eyesight started to deteriorate

01:19:37 ◼   ► and it's like, oh, what do we do here?

01:19:39 ◼   ► You know, I see, in fact, I see a lot of design

01:19:43 ◼   ► that by designers who are in their twenties or early thirties

01:19:48 ◼   ► and have great eyesight and make decisions based upon that.

01:19:53 ◼   ► and don't realize that a large portion of their audience has not got their good eyesight.

01:20:01 ◼   ► The curse of it is that I still love, my taste in graphic design runs towards very small print.

01:20:10 ◼   ► And not even really online. Online it's always been frustrating for me because I couldn't make it small enough.

01:20:15 ◼   ► That's one of the things I missed from print design is I love putting truly tiny type into designs inappropriate.

01:20:22 ◼   ► appropriate, like little in-jokes or footnotes and stuff like that. But at a very young age,

01:20:30 ◼   ► I've got the presbyopia where it's really, really hard for me to read it.

01:20:34 ◼   ► Well, you've also got the display preference, too. How many people actually scroll down

01:20:40 ◼   ► to the bottom and see display preferences there?

01:20:42 ◼   ► I don't know. Very few. So anybody who doesn't know, if you do think that the type on Daring

01:20:46 ◼   ► Fireball is too small, if you go to daringfireball.net/prefs, you don't even hunt for the list.

01:20:52 ◼   ► link, but it's at the bottom of the page that says "Display Preferences."

01:20:55 ◼   ► Actually, I think it's down to one preference.

01:20:58 ◼   ► There used to be more.

01:20:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like, "Font size, save."

01:21:03 ◼   ► Can I tell you a story?

01:21:05 ◼   ► There used to be a thing in here for—this is totally off topic, but it's interesting

01:21:11 ◼   ► to me.

01:21:13 ◼   ► I haven't wanted to write about it, but if I talk about it, maybe I can get this fixed.

01:21:17 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:21:20 ◼   ► There used to be a preference in here where you could set your Amazon country, and I had

01:21:25 ◼   ► a script so that whenever I linked to an Amazon product, it would, based on that preference

01:21:30 ◼   ► setting, put a link in with my Amazon affiliate code for that country.

01:21:36 ◼   ► I think there were only three.

01:21:38 ◼   ► I didn't bother going all the way around the world, but I took the top three countries

01:21:41 ◼   ► for Daring Fireball readers, which are the US, Canada, and the UK.

01:21:47 ◼   ► Very few people ever did it for the UK.

01:21:49 ◼   ► At one point early on, when Daring Fireball went,

01:21:52 ◼   ► when I went full time with it, the Amazon revenue was,

01:21:56 ◼   ► it was one of the, it was like a multi--

01:21:58 ◼   ► - It's good money, yeah.

01:22:01 ◼   ► - Right, it was never ever anywhere close

01:22:03 ◼   ► to something I depended on, but it was a little bit here,

01:22:07 ◼   ► a little bit there, a little bit there,

01:22:08 ◼   ► and it contributed to keeping--

01:22:11 ◼   ► - It's not paying your rent, but it'll pay

01:22:13 ◼   ► for a couple of good dinners every month, yeah.

01:22:16 ◼   ► - Right, and the importance of that revenue

01:22:18 ◼   ► as a percentage of Daring Fireballs over revenue

01:22:21 ◼   ► slipped every year.

01:22:22 ◼   ► And I also started feeling in recent years,

01:22:27 ◼   ► very recent years, that it was maybe not a great idea

01:22:32 ◼   ► for me to put Amazon links in there

01:22:34 ◼   ► because Amazon has become more of a company

01:22:37 ◼   ► that I write about editorially.

01:22:40 ◼   ► Like I don't do--

01:22:41 ◼   ► - Conflict of interest kind of thing, yeah.

01:22:44 ◼   ► - Right, just not in a big way, but in a little way.

01:22:49 ◼   ► Maybe it's just a little better if I don't.

01:22:52 ◼   ► And I also thought this way when I link,

01:22:56 ◼   ► so for years now I've just linked to Amazon

01:22:58 ◼   ► without my code, usually.

01:23:01 ◼   ► Every once in a while I think,

01:23:02 ◼   ► "Yeah, what the hell, put it in."

01:23:04 ◼   ► But whenever I put it in, I always feel like I should say,

01:23:06 ◼   ► and sometimes I have said, "That's a promotional,"

01:23:09 ◼   ► put in parentheses, "That's a promotional link

01:23:10 ◼   ► "and I'll get a few percent of whatever it is

01:23:13 ◼   ► that you buy if you click it. But I haven't. I've just gotten away from it. And my Amazon

01:23:20 ◼   ► affiliate revenue used to be maybe, you know, like $1,000 a month. And sometimes, maybe around

01:23:25 ◼   ► Christmas, like, it would be like, you know, like, I think the most it ever was is maybe like $3,000

01:23:31 ◼   ► or $4,000 in a month for December because I would put like a, "Hey, here's a couple of top selling

01:23:36 ◼   ► holiday items. And if you click any of these links, you'll, you'll, this is maybe like 10 years ago,

01:23:40 ◼   ► eight, nine, 10 years ago.

01:23:43 ◼   ► Anyway, long story short, about two months ago,

01:23:46 ◼   ► I got a note from Amazon, an email,

01:23:49 ◼   ► that said that I violated their clause

01:23:52 ◼   ► by telling people to click on a link.

01:23:54 ◼   ► And they've terminated my account.

01:24:00 ◼   ► And I searched, there were no other,

01:24:02 ◼   ► I never got a warning, I didn't ignore,

01:24:04 ◼   ► I mean, 'cause this is very common for me,

01:24:06 ◼   ► I have so many unread emails.

01:24:08 ◼   ► It was one shot and done,

01:24:10 ◼   ► I'm out of the Amazon affiliate program.

01:24:13 ◼   ► - Yep, they want to avoid click baiting, right?

01:24:16 ◼   ► It's like that's a--

01:24:17 ◼   ► - But when did, I thought,

01:24:19 ◼   ► well when the hell did I ever do that?

01:24:21 ◼   ► And I found one article that was back in like 2004,

01:24:25 ◼   ► maybe, when I first started using Amazon affiliates,

01:24:29 ◼   ► and what I did there was technically against,

01:24:32 ◼   ► and I guess against what they're saying I did,

01:24:34 ◼   ► but it was a 2004 article,

01:24:36 ◼   ► and not one that's like an evergreen, very popular article

01:24:41 ◼   ► that people keep linking on.

01:24:43 ◼   ► And I'm sure that somehow they ran some automated tool

01:24:46 ◼   ► that uncovered that article, but it was 12 years old.

01:24:49 ◼   ► - Or somebody didn't like something you said

01:24:52 ◼   ► and they went looking for something to--

01:24:55 ◼   ► - Maybe, but I don't think so.

01:24:57 ◼   ► Amazon doesn't strike me.

01:24:58 ◼   ► You never know though.

01:24:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, you never know.

01:25:00 ◼   ► But it's good that you don't rely on it, right?

01:25:04 ◼   ► - It's also, it's great that you don't,

01:25:07 ◼   ► you've got your sponsors and that pays for your writing

01:25:12 ◼   ► and that's awesome.

01:25:13 ◼   ► You're in an awesome position.

01:25:15 ◼   ► - They could have looked and seen that

01:25:16 ◼   ► and I would say for the last year or so,

01:25:18 ◼   ► I've had maybe like 100 to $200 a month in revenue

01:25:21 ◼   ► from Amazon Affiliates.

01:25:22 ◼   ► So it's cutting off a very small portion of it.

01:25:25 ◼   ► But I thought that the, no warning.

01:25:28 ◼   ► - They didn't cut off everything?

01:25:29 ◼   ► They only cut off a portion?

01:25:31 ◼   ► - No, they cut off every,

01:25:33 ◼   ► My, you know, Amazon affiliate tag no longer works.

01:25:37 ◼   ► - Okay, okay, that makes sense.

01:25:39 ◼   ► - That's it, it was completely out.

01:25:42 ◼   ► It's the equivalent of one, you know,

01:25:44 ◼   ► like having, like the Apple equivalent of, you know,

01:25:47 ◼   ► like what they did to the Dash developer.

01:25:49 ◼   ► You know, you're out, you're done.

01:25:51 ◼   ► - With no warning.

01:25:52 ◼   ► - And they even, I think the email even said,

01:25:55 ◼   ► there's no, you know, there is no,

01:25:56 ◼   ► there is no recourse, you know,

01:25:59 ◼   ► there's no, you know, there was nothing like

01:26:00 ◼   ► if you would like to dispute this.

01:26:05 ◼   ► - You're out.

01:26:08 ◼   ► - And then it ended with like, have a nice day.

01:26:09 ◼   ► I swear to God.

01:26:10 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:26:12 ◼   ► - Hope you have sponsors.

01:26:14 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:26:15 ◼   ► - Right, so if there's anybody at Amazon

01:26:17 ◼   ► who's listening to the show who thinks that's kind of fishy,

01:26:19 ◼   ► write to me at Daring Fireball

01:26:21 ◼   ► and I would love to have a communication about it.

01:26:23 ◼   ► Not so much that I even care and want to put it back on,

01:26:25 ◼   ► but I'd love to know more about what happened with this

01:26:28 ◼   ► 'cause it's, to me, very curious.

01:26:31 ◼   ► And it seems like these things get publicized a lot

01:26:34 ◼   ► when Apple does it to people,

01:26:35 ◼   ► and I've never seen anybody complain about this

01:26:37 ◼   ► with Amazon before, but there are other sites

01:26:40 ◼   ► that are completely and utterly dependent

01:26:42 ◼   ► upon their Amazon affiliate revenue.

01:26:43 ◼   ► I mean, it's pretty much the secret to the wire cutter

01:26:46 ◼   ► and their business model.

01:26:47 ◼   ► - Yep, yep.

01:26:48 ◼   ► Kotke is another case where he does the gift recommendations

01:26:53 ◼   ► and as you know, every one of those is gonna come up

01:26:55 ◼   ► with his old oscillate domains.

01:27:00 ◼   ► You see that and it's like, okay, good.

01:27:01 ◼   ► Jason, you're making some money there, awesome.

01:27:04 ◼   ► - I don't know, I thought that was kinda odd.

01:27:06 ◼   ► Do you see this thing, moving on,

01:27:08 ◼   ► do you see this story about the Uber self-driving car

01:27:10 ◼   ► that ran right back in San Francisco?

01:27:12 ◼   ► - That's pretty funny.

01:27:13 ◼   ► - I will put a link in the show notes.

01:27:15 ◼   ► One thing that I thought was, wow, that's scary.

01:27:18 ◼   ► The video was shot by a CABs dashboard cam.

01:27:22 ◼   ► And it really did show a Volvo,

01:27:25 ◼   ► an Uber self-driving Volvo with the whole big,

01:27:27 ◼   ► it's very obvious because it had the self-driving rig.

01:27:30 ◼   ► - The dingus on top, yeah.

01:27:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a real big dingus on top.

01:27:34 ◼   ► And it just sails right through a red light,

01:27:37 ◼   ► like three seconds after it went red.

01:27:38 ◼   ► - And it's pretty close to a pedestrian too, right?

01:27:41 ◼   ► You can see the person that's like,

01:27:42 ◼   ► okay, it's two or three feet away,

01:27:45 ◼   ► but hey, we've all been crossing the street in a city

01:27:50 ◼   ► and have a close call and think,

01:27:53 ◼   ► "Well, that could have been me.

01:27:54 ◼   ► "Could have ended badly."

01:27:57 ◼   ► - Right, and the other thing that struck me

01:27:59 ◼   ► in terms of "That could have been me"

01:28:00 ◼   ► is that's right at the part of San Francisco

01:28:02 ◼   ► where we always go.

01:28:04 ◼   ► It's like right by the W.

01:28:05 ◼   ► - Exactly, right in front of the museum, I think it was.

01:28:08 ◼   ► - Right, right in front of the MoMA,

01:28:10 ◼   ► which is right around the corner from Moscone

01:28:12 ◼   ► and is there for, like, for those of us who just--

01:28:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, we could have been drinking for the last six hours.

01:28:18 ◼   ► - Right.

01:28:19 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:28:20 ◼   ► - Who got nailed.

01:28:21 ◼   ► - It's part of that whole South of Market Union Square area

01:28:26 ◼   ► where people who go for Moscone related events,

01:28:30 ◼   ► you just tend to become familiar with.

01:28:31 ◼   ► It was right there.

01:28:33 ◼   ► I'm not familiar with most of San Francisco,

01:28:35 ◼   ► but it's the part of San Francisco

01:28:36 ◼   ► I'm intimately familiar with.

01:28:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, although--

01:28:38 ◼   ► - I was like, holy crap.

01:28:39 ◼   ► - Although if you're drinking at the W

01:28:40 ◼   ► or the St. Regis or one of those places,

01:28:42 ◼   ► you're probably not having that much to drink

01:28:44 ◼   ► because the drinks are so expensive, but yeah.

01:28:47 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:28:49 ◼   ► Here's the thing that struck me. I'll put a link into the show notes with this Bloomberg

01:28:54 ◼   ► story. Uber PR, Uber spokesman Matt Wing said in a statement, hats off to them for at least

01:29:01 ◼   ► putting their spokesman's name in the statement, unlike Apple who almost never puts the spokesperson's

01:29:06 ◼   ► name and just attributes to an Apple spokesperson. But anyway, this is the statement. "This

01:29:12 ◼   ► incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer

01:29:16 ◼   ► by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying

01:29:21 ◼   ► customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate." And you

01:29:26 ◼   ► think, "Oh, so it wasn't, you know, like the driver ran a red light." But I think,

01:29:32 ◼   ► no, I think this is the worst type of public relations statement possible, where I think

01:29:38 ◼   ► this was very carefully calibrated word by word, where you read it and you think, "Oh,

01:29:44 ◼   ► So it was a human error.

01:29:45 ◼   ► It was a human driver who ran the red light.

01:29:48 ◼   ► Whereas if you think about it, if it

01:29:50 ◼   ► was the self-driving car that ran the red light--

01:29:54 ◼   ► Why they know what they--

01:29:55 ◼   ► And the driver--

01:29:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:29:57 ◼   ► This is what I think happened.

01:29:58 ◼   ► I think this car was in self-driving mode.

01:30:01 ◼   ► I think they were lucky.

01:30:02 ◼   ► And there was--

01:30:03 ◼   ► I think they're not lying.

01:30:04 ◼   ► I think there was no passenger at the moment,

01:30:07 ◼   ► because otherwise that would be just a blatant lie,

01:30:09 ◼   ► because it said, quote, "was not carrying customers."

01:30:12 ◼   ► So I think it was empty.

01:30:13 ◼   ► But I think the self-driving car went right through.

01:30:17 ◼   ► And when they say it was human error,

01:30:18 ◼   ► what they mean is that the employee behind the wheel

01:30:21 ◼   ► wasn't paying attention because it was in self-driving mode

01:30:24 ◼   ► and didn't manually apply the brake when it was clear

01:30:27 ◼   ► that the car was gonna sail through the red light.

01:30:29 ◼   ► - Right.

01:30:30 ◼   ► - That's what I think happened.

01:30:31 ◼   ► I think it was a self-driving error.

01:30:33 ◼   ► The self-driving car went right through the red light.

01:30:35 ◼   ► There was a pedestrian right in front of it

01:30:37 ◼   ► luckily, you know, seemed to hear the car coming and, you know, waited. And they're saying it's

01:30:43 ◼   ► human error because the human behind the wheel didn't manually apply the brake. Which would be,

01:30:49 ◼   ► I think, would be an excruciatingly hard job. I really do. If, let's say, you had to spend six

01:30:55 ◼   ► hours in a self-driving car that was 99% accurate and be ready to hit the...

01:31:00 ◼   ► Absolutely. It's like, you know, those videos that show the Teslas in their self-drive mode.

01:31:08 ◼   ► I get so anxious with those, and I can't take my hand or my eyes off of the driver's hands.

01:31:15 ◼   ► They're clearly not touching the steering wheel. It's like, "Oh my God, what's going

01:31:19 ◼   ► to happen next?"

01:31:20 ◼   ► Right. Like, it would be—it's easy to drive a car for six hours and not run a red light

01:31:25 ◼   ► or hit anybody because you're driving. But to not be driving and have everything go fine,

01:31:31 ◼   ► maybe for like five days, maybe you've done it five days in a row and nothing wrong has

01:31:35 ◼   ► happened, but to still be at a moment's notice to hit the brakes, I think it requires a level

01:31:40 ◼   ► of concentration that I know I personally do not have. Now I also know that you could

01:31:44 ◼   ► probably be...

01:31:45 ◼   ► And you're probably also monitoring other things about the system, right? Looking at

01:31:48 ◼   ► you know, dials and switches and you know, it's like, okay...

01:31:52 ◼   ► You could put me behind the wheel of a self-driving car for an hour and I would be completely

01:31:59 ◼   ► paying attention because it would be like, "Holy shit, this car is driving itself."

01:32:03 ◼   ► I'm terrified.

01:32:04 ◼   ► I'm ready to go.

01:32:05 ◼   ► I'd have my hands, my fingers twitching, ready to take the wheel, my foot on the brake,

01:32:12 ◼   ► ready to go.

01:32:13 ◼   ► For the first hour or so, I'm going to be blown away and amazed and kind of scared.

01:32:17 ◼   ► After 20 hours, 30 hours, it becomes normal.

01:32:22 ◼   ► It is very hard to be paying that level of attention to something that 99.9% of the time

01:32:28 ◼   ► you don't need to be paying attention to.

01:32:30 ◼   ► Tim Cynova Yeah.

01:32:32 ◼   ► It's interesting to me that when you connect this piece of news with some piece of news

01:32:40 ◼   ► from what was it, last week, week before, about the actual cost of maneuver trip is

01:32:45 ◼   ► like 40% or 60% more than they actually charge you.

01:32:51 ◼   ► you connect those dots, it's like Uber,

01:32:55 ◼   ► anybody who runs a business knows that

01:32:57 ◼   ► the cost of your employees is by far your biggest cost.

01:33:01 ◼   ► Yeah, that's where all the money goes.

01:33:04 ◼   ► So, them saying this is why we believe so much

01:33:09 ◼   ► in making the road safer by building self-driving Ubers,

01:33:12 ◼   ► that's kind of bullshit, right?

01:33:14 ◼   ► They believe in building self-driving Ubers

01:33:16 ◼   ► because it's gonna make their business profitable, right?

01:33:21 ◼   ► That, oh, it costs 40 or 60% too much.

01:33:25 ◼   ► Well, you don't have to pay a driver

01:33:27 ◼   ► sitting behind the wheel.

01:33:29 ◼   ► And all of a sudden the whole economic situation changes

01:33:34 ◼   ► and you're making shitloads of money

01:33:36 ◼   ► because you have a one-time cost for that computer

01:33:41 ◼   ► that drives the car.

01:33:43 ◼   ► Your upfront costs are the computer and the car.

01:33:48 ◼   ► I think there is a, "Hey, let's save lives and switch to self-driving cars." That is

01:33:54 ◼   ► true. There are millions of people who are killed every year by automobile accidents,

01:33:58 ◼   ► and I truly and honestly believe that we will look back on that and our societies—and

01:34:03 ◼   ► my personal acceptance of it. I own a car. I drive as barbarous. Hopefully sooner rather

01:34:11 ◼   ► than later. Hopefully it'll happen really soon, maybe 10 years from now, maybe 15, maybe

01:34:17 ◼   ► 20 at the most, but I think we'll look back on it.

01:34:20 ◼   ► And I think people who continue to insist

01:34:25 ◼   ► on driving their own cars will start to be looked at

01:34:27 ◼   ► as people who smoke around babies.

01:34:29 ◼   ► I really do, because I do think that the technology,

01:34:33 ◼   ► it's clear, it's not here yet,

01:34:34 ◼   ► but it's clearly going to be here,

01:34:36 ◼   ► where a system where all the cars are automated

01:34:40 ◼   ► will reduce congestion. - And they network together.

01:34:42 ◼   ► Yeah, they network together.

01:34:44 ◼   ► - And the safety improvements will be dramatic.

01:34:46 ◼   ► Absolutely dramatic.

01:34:48 ◼   ► But I think you're exactly right that Uber's

01:34:50 ◼   ► interest in this is very much primarily about the wages

01:34:55 ◼   ► they have to pay to a driver in every car.

01:34:57 ◼   ► - And a bigger issue is our society is not

01:34:59 ◼   ► prepared for this change, right?

01:35:02 ◼   ► When you think about, okay,

01:35:04 ◼   ► all of our transportation infrastructure

01:35:06 ◼   ► is gonna become automated.

01:35:07 ◼   ► I mean, compare that to our entire

01:35:10 ◼   ► manufacturing infrastructure becoming automated.

01:35:13 ◼   ► You know, robots are, in production lines,

01:35:15 ◼   ► putting people out of work. Those people that are out of work become disenfranchised. Those

01:35:21 ◼   ► people that are disenfranchised do weird shit at the time when it's time to vote.

01:35:27 ◼   ► It ties back in with Trumpism, where Trump's story is that a bunch of good jobs all went

01:35:32 ◼   ► to China and that we could bring those bad jobs back to China. And it's true that obviously

01:35:37 ◼   ► a lot of stuff is made in China or other countries in Asia. But there's a whole bunch of stuff

01:35:42 ◼   ► if you read, I mean, and that's true,

01:35:43 ◼   ► but it's a more complicated story than that.

01:35:45 ◼   ► And I think it's arguable,

01:35:48 ◼   ► and at least some people have made the argument,

01:35:50 ◼   ► based on facts, that more manufacturing jobs in the US

01:35:53 ◼   ► have been lost to automation than to--

01:35:56 ◼   ► - Yep, yep.

01:35:57 ◼   ► - Now, the fact that it's like a double whammy--

01:36:00 ◼   ► - Right, and vocational training,

01:36:02 ◼   ► teaching people how to work in that new environment

01:36:06 ◼   ► is just not there.

01:36:07 ◼   ► Right, that's what I'm saying.

01:36:08 ◼   ► So society isn't ready for it.

01:36:11 ◼   ► All these truck drivers that haul all our shit cross-country,

01:36:16 ◼   ► what are they gonna do?

01:36:18 ◼   ► - There's an awful lot of, an awful lot of people,

01:36:20 ◼   ► let's face it, mostly men,

01:36:22 ◼   ► but certainly a lot more women than there used to be

01:36:26 ◼   ► who were truck drivers,

01:36:27 ◼   ► but truck driving is a large, very common profession.

01:36:32 ◼   ► And it is, I think, going to be one of the first

01:36:36 ◼   ► that goes away in the world of autonomous vehicles.

01:36:39 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:36:39 ◼   ► And what happens then?

01:36:41 ◼   ► - And it'll be better for all of us, right?

01:36:44 ◼   ► It's like, you know, you think of it,

01:36:46 ◼   ► when these vehicles are networked together, right?

01:36:49 ◼   ► They know a lot more about each other than we do, right?

01:36:53 ◼   ► You don't know what the intentions

01:36:55 ◼   ► of the person driving in front of you is.

01:36:57 ◼   ► If that's a computer in front of you,

01:36:59 ◼   ► you can share your GPS coordinates,

01:37:01 ◼   ► where your destination is, where you've been,

01:37:04 ◼   ► so much gas you've got, you know,

01:37:06 ◼   ► there's all sorts of data that can be exchanged

01:37:08 ◼   ► between these devices.

01:37:10 ◼   ► It's like, you know,

01:37:11 ◼   ► it's like network computers are way more interesting

01:37:15 ◼   ► than a single laptop sitting on your desktop, right?

01:37:19 ◼   ► - A huge source of car accidents.

01:37:21 ◼   ► I think often non-fatal ones, thankfully, you know,

01:37:23 ◼   ► once, but you know, for all the fate of,

01:37:25 ◼   ► obviously the fatalities are the worst thing, worst.

01:37:28 ◼   ► I mean, just, you know, I don't have to emphasize why,

01:37:31 ◼   ► but the minor ones, the fender benders on a freeway

01:37:34 ◼   ► that maybe nobody's hurt at all,

01:37:37 ◼   ► but can cause you to be an hour and a half late for work.

01:37:41 ◼   ► Simply a matter of paying attention.

01:37:44 ◼   ► - It ruins your day.

01:37:45 ◼   ► - And I think they're the ones that'll be the easiest to avoid

01:37:49 ◼   ► when every car involved is autonomous.

01:37:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, you've seen those videos

01:37:55 ◼   ► of the wave propagation, right?

01:37:57 ◼   ► One person taps on their brakes,

01:38:00 ◼   ► somebody sees the red lights, they tap on theirs,

01:38:03 ◼   ► so on and so on and so on.

01:38:04 ◼   ► And that wave propagates to the point

01:38:06 ◼   ► where the wave stops, right?

01:38:09 ◼   ► And it's all happened to all of us.

01:38:11 ◼   ► It's like, why am I stopping the freeway, right?

01:38:13 ◼   ► Oh, there's gotta be some accident ahead of us.

01:38:18 ◼   ► Five minutes later, you're looking for this accident

01:38:20 ◼   ► and it's not there, right?

01:38:22 ◼   ► So eliminate that and everybody's life gets a little easier

01:38:26 ◼   ► except for the people that get paid to drive.

01:38:30 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:38:32 ◼   ► So there's a sci-fi, everybody knows the sci-fi future.

01:38:35 ◼   ► the sci-fi future is very few people have to work,

01:38:37 ◼   ► and we have robots, it's a life of leisure for everybody,

01:38:40 ◼   ► and it's the people who live on the ship in WALL-E, right?

01:38:45 ◼   ► Just lounge about the pool deck all day long,

01:38:50 ◼   ► and robots bring you your food,

01:38:53 ◼   ► and nobody has to work.

01:38:55 ◼   ► - Kill me now.

01:38:57 ◼   ► - Right, but there is a very painful period

01:39:01 ◼   ► between here and there,

01:39:03 ◼   ► because here it's expected that to be a successful person,

01:39:07 ◼   ► you're gainfully and fully employed

01:39:08 ◼   ► at as high a wage as possible.

01:39:12 ◼   ► So I don't know, problem's coming.

01:39:15 ◼   ► Let me take one last break here,

01:39:19 ◼   ► and then afterwards we have a great thing

01:39:21 ◼   ► to talk about, your book.

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01:42:59 ◼   ► All right, Craig, here we go.

01:43:01 ◼   ► The book, "Making Sense of Color Management."

01:43:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:43:08 ◼   ► - It's an $8 book from a book apart.

01:43:10 ◼   ► How long did it take you to write?

01:43:11 ◼   ► - Like two years.

01:43:14 ◼   ► It started in November, 2014.

01:43:17 ◼   ► And you know, you blame me for the nonresponsive

01:43:21 ◼   ► during Fireball, I blame the Safari engineers

01:43:24 ◼   ► for this whole thing happening.

01:43:27 ◼   ► Mountain Lion was the release at the time.

01:43:33 ◼   ► And all of a sudden the colors in Safari

01:43:36 ◼   ► were subtly different than the ones in Chrome.

01:43:39 ◼   ► I was like, what the heck is going on here?

01:43:41 ◼   ► And we have that product Xscope,

01:43:44 ◼   ► which lets you do all sorts of screen measurements and stuff.

01:43:49 ◼   ► a lot of designers, a lot of developers use it

01:43:51 ◼   ► to help with their work. - It has a loop.

01:43:53 ◼   ► Xscope has an onscreen loop that you can,

01:43:56 ◼   ► it's a little window you can drag over another window

01:43:58 ◼   ► and then you can have it zoom in on that window

01:44:00 ◼   ► and show you what's underneath.

01:44:02 ◼   ► And it could be, like at the time,

01:44:05 ◼   ► I think what you're saying is you could drag it over Safari

01:44:08 ◼   ► and you'd see this one color in Safari

01:44:11 ◼   ► and then you'd look at it in Xscope

01:44:12 ◼   ► and it would be like a slightly color shifted color.

01:44:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you expect it to be hash,

01:44:19 ◼   ► and it's like hash C36.

01:44:23 ◼   ► I'm like, what the heck is going on here?

01:44:25 ◼   ► And it turns out that they had implemented color management

01:44:28 ◼   ► for their CSS colors.

01:44:30 ◼   ► And that was like, oh, okay, I've got to fix this bug.

01:44:35 ◼   ► And that was the start of my learning

01:44:39 ◼   ► about color management.

01:44:40 ◼   ► And as I learned about it, it was like,

01:44:43 ◼   ► I should write this down, you know,

01:44:44 ◼   ► maybe make a good blog post.

01:44:46 ◼   ► And it's one of those topics that the more you learn about it, the more you know what

01:44:52 ◼   ► you don't know.

01:44:54 ◼   ► And there got to be like 10,000 words in my blog post.

01:44:57 ◼   ► I was like, "This is not a blog post anymore."

01:45:00 ◼   ► So I got in contact with Jeffrey Zeldman and some other people at A Book Apart, and they

01:45:07 ◼   ► were like, "Yeah, we'd love to publish this."

01:45:11 ◼   ► And it's only, what is it, about 75 pages?

01:45:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, that was the hard part, right?

01:45:15 ◼   ► He's taking this really complex topic and distilling it.

01:45:19 ◼   ► And I mean, my editor at A Book Apart was Tina Lee.

01:45:24 ◼   ► It's just awesome because she would challenge me.

01:45:26 ◼   ► It's like, "This is too long, right?

01:45:28 ◼   ► I don't understand what you're saying here."

01:45:30 ◼   ► And I really had to, you know,

01:45:32 ◼   ► I've probably wrote the book in its entirety

01:45:36 ◼   ► three different times.

01:45:37 ◼   ► I, in fact, we were pretty close to being done

01:45:41 ◼   ► and Apple announced color management in iOS 10.

01:45:44 ◼   ► I was like, oh wait, we're not done.

01:45:48 ◼   ► So, you know, basically two chapters, you know,

01:45:50 ◼   ► the chapter on web browsers,

01:45:53 ◼   ► because Safari on iOS changed significantly in that release

01:45:57 ◼   ► and the chapter on mobile apps was completely rewritten

01:46:02 ◼   ► and sample code and all the stuff that goes along with it

01:46:06 ◼   ► was like, well, okay.

01:46:08 ◼   ► But I think it came out really well in the end.

01:46:12 ◼   ► - It affects anybody who makes anything for the screen.

01:46:15 ◼   ► Honestly, I mean this in a sense,

01:46:17 ◼   ► I'm not just trying to sell copies of the book,

01:46:18 ◼   ► but whether you're a designer, a graphic designer

01:46:20 ◼   ► who makes assets for, you know,

01:46:22 ◼   ► graphical assets for apps and websites,

01:46:25 ◼   ► or if you're a front-end developer on the web

01:46:27 ◼   ► who's making stuff for, you know, HTML, CSS,

01:46:31 ◼   ► you know, web development,

01:46:33 ◼   ► or if you are an app developer for native apps

01:46:38 ◼   ► for Mac or iOS, this book is for you.

01:46:43 ◼   ► And in no way, Ed, one of the things that I love

01:46:47 ◼   ► about the book is at no point to me does it,

01:46:50 ◼   ► is it all that clear who the main audience is for.

01:46:54 ◼   ► It's balanced.

01:46:55 ◼   ► It's not like, oh, it's a book for programmers,

01:46:58 ◼   ► but if you're a designer,

01:46:59 ◼   ► you can still get something out of it.

01:47:00 ◼   ► Or the other way, it's a book for designers,

01:47:02 ◼   ► but you should read it if you're a programmer

01:47:05 ◼   ► because you need to understand this stuff.

01:47:07 ◼   ► It is perfectly balanced from all those perspectives.

01:47:11 ◼   ► - I'll tell you a little story.

01:47:12 ◼   ► We struggled with the title because initially

01:47:14 ◼   ► we're gonna call it color management for developers.

01:47:16 ◼   ► And then it was like, no, 'cause it's for designers too.

01:47:19 ◼   ► And then it's like, oh, working with color

01:47:22 ◼   ► is kind of like too vague.

01:47:24 ◼   ► And Jason Santa Maria came up

01:47:27 ◼   ► with making sense of color management.

01:47:28 ◼   ► It was like, it just clicked, right?

01:47:30 ◼   ► Because it's like, that's what it's all about, right?

01:47:32 ◼   ► We're trying to take this black, dark art

01:47:36 ◼   ► that everybody's kind of fiddled with some knobs

01:47:41 ◼   ► and kind of maybe got something working

01:47:43 ◼   ► but doesn't really understand what's going on.

01:47:45 ◼   ► It's, and you know, when you read the book,

01:47:48 ◼   ► you realize that making sense also applies

01:47:52 ◼   ► to our visual sense, right?

01:47:54 ◼   ► There's a lot of, in fact, the core of color management

01:47:57 ◼   ► is really mathematical modeling of how our eye works,

01:48:02 ◼   ► which to me is fascinating.

01:48:04 ◼   ► - It's like, "Oh, wait, we've got all these devices

01:48:08 ◼   ► that have different color profiles,

01:48:10 ◼   ► different way of characterizing color,

01:48:11 ◼   ► and they all kind of, they're a little different."

01:48:15 ◼   ► But then we got this thing called an eye,

01:48:17 ◼   ► which doesn't change.

01:48:19 ◼   ► It doesn't, you know, yes, it's changed over, you know,

01:48:22 ◼   ► millions of years due to evolution, but, you know,

01:48:26 ◼   ► and at its core, I mean, that is the thing

01:48:29 ◼   ► that doesn't change.

01:48:30 ◼   ► So it's a little bit different.

01:48:32 ◼   ► I mean, that is the thing that doesn't change.