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164: ‘Enjoyably Clicky’ With Jason Snell

 

00:00:00   I got really excited when I bought a mechanical keyboard and I'm really loving it. It's this weird

00:00:04   Korean... I guess they call it a 60% keyboard, so it's got no function row, but it's super small

00:00:11   and it's very clicky and I really like it. I thought, "Aha! Now I can get rid of this other

00:00:15   keyboard!" And I realized I have to keep the other keyboard within arm's reach because I can't

00:00:20   type and talk. What brand keyboard is it? It's a Leopold. You get them on eBay.

00:00:28   Really? You can't buy them direct? Are they like used or...?

00:00:31   No, they're all new.

00:00:32   That's just how they sell?

00:00:34   Yeah, and they've got them in different mechanisms. There are a couple different

00:00:42   mechanisms of, you know, like the different key switches. Mine is like a cherry blue,

00:00:48   but I'll send you a link.

00:00:51   I got them. I got it here. Mechanicalkeyboards.com.

00:00:55   Yeah, yeah, and it's the FC660M is the one that I've got.

00:00:58   And I love it because it's so tiny,

00:01:00   and it's really enjoyably clicky.

00:01:03   I got the Matthias small keyboard too, and it's not bad,

00:01:08   but it's way bigger, like the whole thing.

00:01:11   It's got another row of keys, and it's got--

00:01:14   the only problem with this one is you've got to map some of the keys,

00:01:17   because it's missing a few keys.

00:01:18   But the arrow keys are properly oriented as arrows,

00:01:22   and it's nice and clicky.

00:01:24   And then I started buying keycaps.

00:01:26   So you got Blue Cherry.

00:01:27   What do you mean keycaps?

00:01:29   Does this company sell the official ones?

00:01:31   Uh, no.

00:01:32   So I ended up on eBay.

00:01:34   There are a few places,

00:01:35   including, um,

00:01:36   I ended up with,

00:01:38   uh,

00:01:38   Oh,

00:01:38   what is it?

00:01:39   The people that make the code keyboard.

00:01:40   Um,

00:01:42   they have,

00:01:42   uh,

00:01:43   they have a whole,

00:01:46   uh,

00:01:46   like they have,

00:01:47   like a key cap,

00:01:48   uh,

00:01:49   shop.

00:01:50   We can order custom keycaps because the one I got came with,

00:01:54   like black keycaps and they were sort of Windows keys and I ended up spending probably way

00:01:57   too much money on some like orange custom keycaps, which was kind of cool. I blame Josh

00:02:03   Topolski. He posted a couple of pictures of this model keyboard that he's built and I

00:02:11   said, "That's really interesting," and that was then I was I was kind of ruined, but it's

00:02:16   terrible for podcasting because the clicks, the clicks are very loud.

00:02:20   There's the one that this picture I'm looking at of this keyboard on the left side at the bottom left corner. There's a control key and

00:02:27   then there's

00:02:30   There's like a keyboard key. It's a picture that has a what is that? Yeah, I think that's the

00:02:34   Operating system key. So that's like your your command key or your Windows key

00:02:40   Oh, it's like the one those key and then you send those logo and then I mapped yeah, I mapped it all to

00:02:45   to Mac, so I actually flipped the keys around, so that's my option key.

00:02:49   So what does cherry blue feel like? This is the thing that confuses me, and I have a collection of Apple Extended 2s,

00:02:56   and I'm using my third one of my lifetime right now,

00:03:00   including one, I forget who sent me the one that was mint,

00:03:06   I still have one, I have one that is literally like sealed mint in the box,

00:03:11   which I'm saving, you know. And the one that I'm using now was like truly near-mint when I started using it.

00:03:16   I've tried other mechanical keyboards,

00:03:20   but I've never found one that I really like. And it doesn't have the same feel. And I get so confused

00:03:25   by the different switches, and

00:03:28   it's very confusing to me.

00:03:31   Honestly, when I was shopping for this, I went to Matthias's website, and they have audio clips of a few different key

00:03:40   mechanical key switches that you can actually sort of listen to the sound of

00:03:44   them being made, like just typing, and I listened to that for a while and I

00:03:49   thought that that the cherry blue sort of sounded like I wanted, like I kind of

00:03:53   wanted it and it's not all sound right, it's like taste.

00:03:57   When you eat something you're tasting it but you're also smelling it and those

00:04:00   two things go together. Keyboards it's like that, it's the feel and it's the

00:04:04   sound and they go together. And like I said, I ended up with the Matthias one, which is

00:04:10   supposed to be more like the Apple Extended, I think. And then I got this one, which is

00:04:16   the Cherry Blue, and I like the Cherry Blue better. I mean, the Matthias is fine. I like

00:04:21   it. It's a little more of what at least my sense memory of those old Apple keyboards

00:04:27   was, which is a little more kind of like clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk. And this is a little

00:04:30   more clicky, like high pitched clicky, clicky, click, click, click.

00:04:33   I gotcha, I gotcha. I say I think I don't like that. So yours is maybe a little bit

00:04:37   more like the IBM style? I know that IBM buckling spring is different. The buckling spring ones

00:04:43   are different.

00:04:44   Yeah, like Rich Siegel uses that style, I believe, and he's like, that's, you know,

00:04:48   it's sort of whatever mechanical keyboard you grew up with, I think is the one you end

00:04:52   up gravitating toward. I wish there was a place, I'm sure there is, I'm sure like keyboard

00:04:57   people get together and have little key parties where they type on the different mechanisms

00:05:03   and you can really get a sense of it. But I'm just sort of slowly learning about the

00:05:09   different ones. But I've been happy with it. I didn't use a mechanical keyboard for a long

00:05:14   time. I was just sort of using analogs of the MacBook keyboard because I was using a

00:05:20   MacBook as a primary system, so I kind of wanted my keyboards to all match and feel

00:05:25   as much as possible, but now that I'm sitting in an iMac for a lot of the day, I thought,

00:05:29   "Why don't I give it a try?" And I've been pretty happy with it. It is good that I'm

00:05:33   working in a closed office with nobody in it, because it would drive everybody else

00:05:36   crazy if they could hear me typing.

00:05:40   If the blue cherry switches are what I think that they're like, the more clicky than thunky,

00:05:47   then that's actually—to me, it's more—maybe it's just my ears, but it's louder, or more

00:05:52   prominent.

00:05:53   Yeah, I think it might be. It depends on what frequencies you're tuned into. But I do enjoy

00:06:00   going back to having that tactile feedback. As much as I loved the MacBook keyboard style,

00:06:08   I totally get, now that I've been back on a mechanical keyboard for a while, I totally

00:06:12   get why people criticize them for feeling mushy. I get what that means now.

00:06:15   So there's blue cherry and brown cherry.

00:06:18   Yeah, there's multiple different kind of cherry switches.

00:06:20   And red cherry.

00:06:21   Yeah, yeah, I know, and I have no idea. I am not an expert. I just kind of took a shot in the dark on one of them.

00:06:27   And it's truly where shopping on the internet is the worst. Like, this is the sort of thing where, like, in the old days...

00:06:34   Unless you want to buy 10 keyboards.

00:06:36   I know, and I hate sending stuff back. It's just like, and it's irrational. It makes no logical sense whatsoever that I would rather just have a $110 keyboard that I'd put in the closet and never use,

00:06:49   but I just hate sending stuff back.

00:06:51   I just don't like it.

00:06:53   But I guess that's the way to do it.

00:06:54   - I just sent a keyboard back and I didn't love it,

00:06:55   but I tried that mechanical keyboard for the iPad,

00:06:59   the Razer, and it just wasn't that good.

00:07:03   And so I did go through the rigmarole of sending that back

00:07:06   'cause that was a pretty pricey thing,

00:07:08   but I hate doing it too.

00:07:09   And so you end up a lot of times not buying things

00:07:12   'cause it's just like, it's too complicated.

00:07:14   I don't know what to pick.

00:07:15   And so I'll just kind of give it up.

00:07:16   But I took a shot in the dark with this one

00:07:18   and I'm pretty happy with it.

00:07:20   Is it the best keyboard for me?

00:07:23   Maybe not.

00:07:23   There may be some other one out there

00:07:25   that's totally one I would prefer to this,

00:07:28   but I haven't gone and bought five different keyboards yet.

00:07:33   Anyway.

00:07:35   - I have also, I have bought some,

00:07:38   I think at least two keyboards from Matthias over the years

00:07:41   and specifically billed by Matthias as being

00:07:44   for aficionados of the Apple Extended Keyboard 2.

00:07:47   And I have to say that I didn't even think it was close.

00:07:51   For whatever reason, the Matthias ones don't appeal to me.

00:07:54   I'm so picky about these keyboards

00:07:56   that I don't even like some Apple Extended Keyboard 2s,

00:08:00   even ones that are seemingly in good condition,

00:08:02   that there's variance between them that I detect.

00:08:06   That it's some of them-- it's like a-- like the one

00:08:11   that I had from college.

00:08:12   And I think I've told this story before.

00:08:14   I loved this keyboard.

00:08:16   I should see, somebody once said that they could fix it.

00:08:21   Somebody who knows how to solder could probably fix it.

00:08:23   It's the E key that broke,

00:08:24   which is probably because it's the one I typed the most.

00:08:27   Right, it makes sense? - Sure.

00:08:28   - My sophomore year of college,

00:08:32   I was playing John Madden football in the dorms.

00:08:37   And there was, let's see,

00:08:39   so it would have been like Madden '92.

00:08:42   And I was always the Houston Oilers with,

00:08:45   who was the great quarterback that the Houston Oilers--

00:08:47   - Warren Moon?

00:08:48   - Yes, Warren Moon.

00:08:49   Warren Moon with a cannon of an arm.

00:08:52   I mean, it was like on a,

00:08:53   like the stats were like up to 15.

00:08:55   It was like 15 distance, 15 arm strength, 15 accuracy.

00:08:59   And this other kid, I think his name was Jeff,

00:09:02   who always played with the Philadelphia Eagles,

00:09:04   the Buddy Ryan Eagles.

00:09:05   So it was me with my pass-happy long bombs

00:09:10   and him with these like bone-crushing defensive guys.

00:09:14   And we had a great rivalry.

00:09:16   And one time we bet, I think I bet, $50 cash up against his Apple extended

00:09:21   keyboard, too.

00:09:22   Because I had a Mac LC, which came with the real shit keyboard.

00:09:26   I don't even know what it was, small and mushy.

00:09:29   And he got the Mac SE30, which came with the extended keyboard, too.

00:09:34   So the deal was, it was winner takes all, one game of Madden football,

00:09:37   where if I won, I got his keyboard, and I'd give him my crappy one,

00:09:40   so he'd have a keyboard.

00:09:42   I think I put up fifty bucks cash, which I knew was a good deal because they sold for

00:09:46   like $180 to get one new. And I won the game and that's where I got my keyboard. And

00:09:52   it was the best one I've ever used. I still feel like it. I still take it out of the closet

00:09:57   sometimes and type on it and I still feel like, you know, other than that E key that's

00:10:02   busted, it still feels better. I should find somebody who can just fix that E key for me.

00:10:06   You should. And there may be a keyboard out there that is a closer match for what you're

00:10:11   looking for than the Matthias, I don't know. It's WASD keyboards is where I got my keycaps

00:10:16   and they sell, I think they make the code keyboard and they sell, they sell mechanical

00:10:20   keyboards and it's like literally choose your size and choose which switch type. But again,

00:10:26   you know, you can't reach through the screen and feel how the keys, they have audio files

00:10:31   I think, like I said Matthias does too, but it's not quite the same because that's only

00:10:34   one, the sound is part of it and the feeling is part of it.

00:10:39   The only reason I never do a real deep dive

00:10:42   and try to find a new keyboard is once I try it,

00:10:44   and I do have a couple, and I've spent probably,

00:10:46   I don't know, it's a couple hundred bucks on keyboards

00:10:49   out of curiosity, and then I think to myself,

00:10:51   why am I doing this?

00:10:52   My Apple Extended Keyboard 2 is the best keyboard

00:10:55   I've ever had, and it works perfectly on my--

00:10:57   - Boy, if it works, that's the thing.

00:10:58   So I've got an extended-- - I don't know why I do it.

00:11:00   I don't know why, I don't know why.

00:11:02   - I've got an Extended here in my office,

00:11:05   and I've got a couple of the USB ADB converters,

00:11:08   And I don't know whether it's that the keyboard is bad

00:11:11   or whether it's the converter is bad,

00:11:12   but I have a problem where I,

00:11:15   or is it that I type too fast?

00:11:16   'Cause I find that it drops key, it drops characters.

00:11:21   - Maybe, maybe with your extraordinary typing skills, maybe.

00:11:25   Every once in a while, I've noticed some weird things.

00:11:28   There was a thing, I got panicked,

00:11:30   where there was one key, like a couple months ago,

00:11:34   I think it was like T, and every, it was like,

00:11:36   And it was like an insidious typo where I would just be typing.

00:11:41   And every time-- like maybe once out of every 100 times I typed a T,

00:11:45   I'd get like three Ts.

00:11:47   Oh, yeah, I've seen that.

00:11:48   That's it.

00:11:49   I've seen that.

00:11:50   And it's something combined with my slightly worse vision.

00:11:58   And it's just like a couple of Ts together, like in the word "little."

00:12:01   It's like an extra three Ts.

00:12:03   It's like it would just slip through.

00:12:04   You know? And I got real panicked because I thought this is definitely like, it's

00:12:10   not me holding the key down too far, and it was always like the letter T, so I knew it

00:12:14   must be like electrical, but then it just went away, solved itself, fixed itself.

00:12:18   Yeah, yeah, that's my concern, and I've seen it, is that you're gonna end up with

00:12:24   a problem with the hardware or with the, I mean, presumably there are still thousands

00:12:29   of USB ADB adapters out there that are sitting,

00:12:34   you know, that you can get on eBay or something.

00:12:36   But that's my fear is that something's gonna break down

00:12:38   either the keyboards or the adapters

00:12:41   or something in the system that changes

00:12:43   and that you're gonna,

00:12:45   then you're gonna need to find a replacement.

00:12:47   It's great, I mean, honestly, how great is it

00:12:49   that you're using these keyboards that are 25 years old?

00:12:54   And they're huge too.

00:12:56   That's the other thing is I like the smaller keyboard

00:12:58   'cause I like to have my track pad

00:13:02   as close to the keys as possible.

00:13:05   So I don't like have a number pad or anything like that.

00:13:07   So I always preferred,

00:13:09   and I think it goes back to having an SE.

00:13:10   I had the SE, which had the smaller keyboard.

00:13:12   It was still clicky, but it wasn't the full extended.

00:13:14   It was like a little mini one with the power,

00:13:17   like the horizontal power button at the top.

00:13:19   And I think that sort of set me down that path.

00:13:22   But I don't know,

00:13:23   I think you may have to go on a quest one day,

00:13:26   but as long as it's working for you, that's the... it's kind of brilliant that you've got, you know, that old tech still...

00:13:31   I'm still on the first... my first ever Griffin ADB. It was called the iMate.

00:13:36   And it's... it was...

00:13:38   I got two of those here.

00:13:39   It's Bondi Blue, Bondi Blue, whatever that... whatever that...

00:13:44   Right, well, they, you know, they had plastic. Everybody was making blue plastic things in 1997.

00:13:49   But it's funny because the only thing you'd ever want to... it's like...

00:13:52   It's funny that they made the adapter in the trendy 2001

00:13:56   Apple, you know, clear plastic colors, when the only thing you could possibly

00:13:59   want to plug into it was going to be the classic beige. Everything was beige.

00:14:05   Yeah, but how do you add coolness to an ADB adapter? The answer is

00:14:10   clear plastic. Do you remember the Apple Extended Keyboard 1, the original?

00:14:14   It was very similar to the Extended Keyboard 2, but it was short-lived.

00:14:17   I'm not sure why. It didn't go up and down. It was like at a...

00:14:21   but it was a little bit bigger, I think even the extended keyboard too.

00:14:25   And it had a definite different feel to the keys. It was more,

00:14:30   I would say more clacky. It was louder and a little bit more clacky.

00:14:34   My, all my, uh,

00:14:36   early Apple keyboard experiences were in my college newspaper.

00:14:38   So that would have been like nine D 1990 era. And,

00:14:42   and so it really would have been like,

00:14:44   what keyboards did we have there? Cause we had a keyboard attached to a two CX,

00:14:48   and we had a bunch of keyboards on the SEs that we used.

00:14:52   And then later we got a 2FX.

00:14:54   And so we had some that had the extended.

00:14:57   - The 2FX would have come with the extended keyboard too,

00:15:00   but I'll bet that you're, I bet you, if you saw one,

00:15:03   you'd be like, oh yeah, I remember that.

00:15:04   It was like, just slightly different.

00:15:07   - Probably.

00:15:08   - You know what other keyboard I loved?

00:15:09   I loved the keyboard that came with the Apple II GS.

00:15:14   Do you remember that keyboard?

00:15:16   - I never had one.

00:15:17   I had a friend who had a 2GS, so I vaguely remember it, but not that well.

00:15:21   If you... Let's see if... But it was ADB. That was the... 2GS had ADB. That was the other computer

00:15:28   that wasn't a Mac that had the ADB plug on it, was the 2GS. Yeah, that's actually a lot like that

00:15:34   early, the SE keyboard that I had, where you had that big, the wide power button at the very top.

00:15:41   Yep. Yeah. Well, you had to restart those machines a lot.

00:15:44   A lot. It's true. It's true. Yeah, it's a... I don't know. It was very easy to write your

00:15:51   own program that completely wedged the machine. Oh man, it was a good keyboard. And it had like

00:15:57   the weirdest key caps I've ever seen where they were sort of like... I'll put a picture in the

00:16:03   show notes, I swear to God. But it's just the weirdest key caps where they weren't really...

00:16:07   they were like squares, but then on top of the squares were like round racks. Yeah, right. It's

00:16:13   It's like two-tier keycaps.

00:16:17   I love keyboards.

00:16:18   You know what?

00:16:18   I'll tell you what.

00:16:19   I was thinking about this too when

00:16:21   you were going to be on the show.

00:16:23   I was thinking about keyboards.

00:16:24   But I was just thinking, I know you're a baseball fan.

00:16:26   And sometimes when a baseball fan is on,

00:16:28   I will try to have a conversation that

00:16:29   will be of interest to even all of the-- stop.

00:16:32   Don't skip.

00:16:32   Don't skip.

00:16:33   Yeah.

00:16:34   Even to all of you who don't like baseball.

00:16:35   Just sort of, for me, a sort of melancholy week

00:16:39   with alex rodriguez uh... skin

00:16:42   dump from the yankees uh...

00:16:44   as we record on thursday will be playing tonight in boston and tomorrow night

00:16:47   he's playing in new york and then that then that's it he's going home except

00:16:53   and combine it just is interesting to me that

00:16:56   you know he's forty one years old he's at a very contentious really

00:16:59   up-and-down

00:17:01   career with uh... is is controversies over the performance enhancing drugs uh...

00:17:07   and the same week uh...

00:17:09   Ichiro Suzuki, who's now playing for the Florida Marlins, got his 3,000th hit in Major League

00:17:15   Baseball.

00:17:16   And Ichiro is, to me, a guy who, if you could just put some video clips together and talk

00:17:21   about it, he's a player that would be of interest even to non-sports fans.

00:17:26   Because he seriously is like an alien.

00:17:31   He's like a creature who was just born to play baseball, but he doesn't play like anybody

00:17:38   else. Well it's like the, what was it, back in the 19th century there was a player named

00:17:46   Wee Willie Keeler, and I believe he was the one who famously said "I hit 'em where they

00:17:51   ain't." The idea is that, they're like "How are you such a great hitter?" and he says

00:17:55   "Well I hit the ball where the fielders aren't," and that's it, like it's so simple. And yet

00:18:00   when you look at Ichiro, and I think Tony Gwynn was kind of like this too, in a century

00:18:06   of baseball players, you get a couple of people who's like, "Somehow, this guy can use that

00:18:11   stick to put that ball that's coming at him at 100 miles an hour wherever he wants it."

00:18:17   And it's just unbelievable.

00:18:18   I read a—I just read a story the other day. It was actually in response to somehow, like,

00:18:22   from one link to another in a Twitter conversation with somebody, you know, a discussion that

00:18:26   started with Ichiro, and it led to Tony Guinn. And just talking about, like, the best hitters

00:18:31   of the last 20 years, like best hitters of like your and my adult life. And there's the power guys,

00:18:37   like I think, but number one, I think Bond is the best hitter we've ever seen. And I can't,

00:18:42   I don't really cotton to any discussion otherwise. But take the steroids out of that. And he probably

00:18:48   still is. Yeah, well, maybe, but even with, I mean, the numbers are there and they're just

00:18:53   astounding. I mean, the one, the one year he had 200 and some intentional walks. So in this game

00:18:58   where you have 162 games, he drew over an one intentional walk a game.

00:19:04   There's never been anything like that. I watched every one of those games, too.

00:19:07   It was a daily occurrence. They walked him with the bases loaded one time.

00:19:11   It's true story. True story. Rather than let Barry Bonds hit with the bases loaded,

00:19:15   the team actually chose to walk him on purpose and give up a run.

00:19:19   And they won the game because of it. So, you know, good call.

00:19:21   So Alex Rodriguez right now, as it stands, has 696 home runs, career home runs, fourth of all time.

00:19:28   truly a great home run hitter. I mean fourth of all time in the history of the

00:19:31   100 and some history of the game. Bonds had more intentional walks in that one season than Alex

00:19:36   Rodriguez has had in a 20-year career. A 20-year career. Yep. It's, anyway, Bonds is great. Gwynn

00:19:46   was amazing and I read this story. My favorite player ever. He is absolutely my favorite

00:19:50   baseball player ever. Tony Gwynn used to call it the 5.5 hole, meaning it was between,

00:19:56   there's numbers for the players. So in between shortstop who's six and the third baseman who's

00:20:01   five on the scorecard, he'd just try to hit the ball between shortstop and third base and

00:20:06   could do it with remarkable accuracy. But the thing I read was like when he started slowing

00:20:12   down a little bit, his average dropped and for him dropping meant he got close to 300.

00:20:17   And the difference was that he wasn't beating out the ones that the shortstop would backhand

00:20:22   anymore." And he had a conversation with Ted Williams, and Ted Williams told him to

00:20:28   start. He said, "You need to pull the ball more." And just that one

00:20:33   conversation with Ted Williams. And all of a sudden, Gwyn purposely started

00:20:36   trying to pull the ball a little more, and that led to the

00:20:40   seasons where he was hitting like 350, 360. Yeah, I mean, it's so simple, right?

00:20:44   Just hit it to the other part of the field. They're like, "All right, I'll do

00:20:47   that then because like Ichiro, Gwyn could seemingly put the ball wherever he wanted it.

00:20:53   So there's two things about Ichiro. Number one, you have to watch him. If you don't,

00:20:57   if you even if you don't like baseball, just go to YouTube and Google Ichiro hitting. He starts

00:21:03   running before he hits the ball. He's a left-handed batter, and when he sees the ball, his batting

00:21:09   stance is such that he's running to first base as he makes contact with the ball, which nobody

00:21:14   has ever done, nobody would ever teach. If you saw a little kid doing it and you're coaching

00:21:18   Little League, you'd immediately say, "No, no, no. You can't do that. You're never going to hit the

00:21:22   ball." The other thing is that he treats his bats as though they're samurai swords. And this is where

00:21:28   I'm going with the keyboard, where he comes in and spends an hour a day examining his bats

00:21:36   with his eyes an inch away and rubs over every surface of them. He carries them. He has a

00:21:43   collection of them that he carries in like a custom-made like we call like a

00:21:47   humidor what do you put cigars in it's like humidor yeah it's it's a

00:21:52   moisture-proof carrying case that he carries himself by hand and doesn't hand

00:21:57   over to like the team equipment people and and when you know this and you

00:22:02   realize this about him and then you watch him on TV you realize that his

00:22:05   bats are all in like mint condition like most of the bats are all gunked up with

00:22:10   pine tar and nicked and have marks from where they hit balls in batting practice.

00:22:14   Ichiro's bats all look like they're in mint condition.

00:22:19   Yeah, they're his professional tool, and he treats them as such.

00:22:23   And when you see him use them, you can see it's like an extension of his body.

00:22:27   It's surgical precision with what he does with them.

00:22:30   The other thing I read about Ichiro is that every year, or I think it's every

00:22:33   year, but at least several times, he has visited the

00:22:36   the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in the off season

00:22:40   and orchestrates a behind the scenes tour.

00:22:44   And he takes out the bats, he gets some of the bat,

00:22:47   he has a list of hitters whose bats he wants to examine.

00:22:50   And I saw pictures of it and he's got the white gloves on

00:22:55   'cause these are historic artifacts.

00:22:57   And he studies the bats of great hitters

00:22:59   and weighs them and examines them in fine detail.

00:23:04   It's just amazing.

00:23:06   And that to me is like what justifies me

00:23:08   caring so much about my keyboard.

00:23:11   - Yeah, I think it's your professional tool, right?

00:23:13   It's how you make your living, and that's the bottom line.

00:23:16   And so writers, do writers talk about things

00:23:19   like keyboards and notebooks and pens and things like that?

00:23:24   Yeah, they do, but you have to understand

00:23:26   it is actually a professional tool.

00:23:29   It's like how our livelihood happens.

00:23:32   - Yep, it's worth it.

00:23:34   All right, let me take a break from all this great keyboard

00:23:37   and baseball discussion.

00:23:38   - I was trying to keep us off of baseball

00:23:39   by talking about keyboards.

00:23:40   No, we did it both.

00:23:43   - And tell you about our first sponsor.

00:23:45   This is a great company.

00:23:46   It's Global Delight.

00:23:47   Now we all use headphones,

00:23:48   and we're gonna talk a little bit more later

00:23:50   in the show about headphones,

00:23:51   to listen to music on our iPhones and iPads.

00:23:53   But no matter which headphones we use,

00:23:55   the audio often feels like it lacks depth.

00:23:58   Global Delight, they're the company behind the Mac app,

00:24:01   Boom, it's like an audio enhancer for Mac.

00:24:04   It's a great app actually,

00:24:05   and it was the, actually if it rings a bell,

00:24:08   they were sponsored on the show a couple weeks ago.

00:24:11   So these are the same kinds between the Mac app Boom.

00:24:15   They have an iOS app that solves this issue.

00:24:17   It's called Boom for iOS.

00:24:19   Now iOS, you can't have like a system-wide extension

00:24:22   that enhances audio across the board

00:24:23   that doesn't work like that on iOS.

00:24:24   So Boom on iOS is a music player app.

00:24:27   And no matter which headphones you use,

00:24:29   turns the music you listen to into an amazing 3D surround sound. It's an amplifier, like a sound

00:24:36   filter music player. It doesn't stop there. You can change the equalizers. You can adjust the base

00:24:43   and the intensity of the audio with fine control. You can be real picky. This is for people who

00:24:46   really care about what this stuff sounds like in your headphones. Boom plays its magic with the

00:24:52   downloaded music from your iTunes library. So it's not like you have to do any kind of magic stuff or

00:24:57   or pain in the butt stuff to import your music into it.

00:25:02   Just plays the system stuff,

00:25:03   the system stuff in your iTunes library.

00:25:05   And it's very, very simple to use.

00:25:08   Here's the best part.

00:25:09   It's free, it's a free download.

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00:25:12   you don't know what it's gonna sound like,

00:25:13   go download it, get it from the app store, try it out.

00:25:17   And then it's an in-app purchase to unlock everything

00:25:19   if you like the way it sounds.

00:25:21   So open your browser.

00:25:23   If you wanna see their website,

00:25:24   It's boom4ios.com.

00:25:28   So just spell boom, then F-O-R-I-O-S dot com.

00:25:33   And you'll be taken to the Boom app directly,

00:25:34   and then you can hit the download button.

00:25:36   All you need to do is then just buy the in-app purchase

00:25:38   if you like it, and you'll enjoy it.

00:25:41   It's a great app.

00:25:42   These guys do a great job,

00:25:43   even though their specialty is obviously audio,

00:25:45   they do a phenomenal job with the user interface stuff.

00:25:47   Their stuff looks exquisite,

00:25:49   always very, very, very impressive UI design.

00:25:53   And here's the best part, they've got a special offer

00:25:56   for talk show listeners.

00:25:57   They've got a sale running through the 21st of August.

00:26:00   I think it's normally 4.99 for the in-app purchase, yes, 4.99.

00:26:06   Right now, you'll buy it right now before August 21st,

00:26:09   you get it for a buck 99.

00:26:10   So that's two bucks and you get this great app.

00:26:13   So go download Boom for iOS and try it out

00:26:16   and buy it before August 21st

00:26:18   and you'll save a couple bucks.

00:26:19   Uh, there is a lot of news. We probably, it was probably pretty stupid to waste so much time on keyboards, but I do love them.

00:26:32   You do chapter markers in your podcast? That'll solve everything. Stick a chapter marker in there.

00:26:35   I don't, yeah. You know, I should mention this, that I, you know, I, because ATP does it, and you guys do too. Do you guys do chapters?

00:26:43   Yeah, yeah. Here and there. Not on everyone, but on some of them, yeah.

00:26:46   So for everybody who wants them on this show, we are looking into it.

00:26:51   There's a tooling issue where it's actually there is no good tool for this yet.

00:26:56   A friend of the show, Marco Arman, is actually working on such a tool.

00:27:00   So I'm aware of that. And there will be chapters on this show eventually.

00:27:06   All right.

00:27:08   So the news. What do you want to talk about first? I guess we should talk about German stuff?

00:27:13   Yeah, I mean, so Mark Gurman, right, he's back, he's at Bloomberg, we saw he had a report

00:27:20   like a month ago, but he dropped a few reports this week that are, you know, his sources

00:27:25   are so good, especially on the hardware side, that it feels like confirmation to me, and

00:27:32   I know it's not, it's just another story with anonymous sources saying this is what Apple's

00:27:38   going to do, but it feels like confirmation now that Gurman has said, you know, given

00:27:42   the nod and been like, "Yeah, this is what's going to happen with the iPhone and with the

00:27:47   new MacBook Pro."

00:27:48   Yeah, it's like having a four-run lead in the bottom of the ninth. You're probably going

00:27:51   to win.

00:27:52   Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I feel like—and it's funny because now that he's at Bloomberg,

00:27:57   I know some people who have worked or do work at Bloomberg, and Bloomberg is a very—they're

00:28:02   a little idiosyncratic in what they do in terms of their style guide and their copy

00:28:08   desk and things like that, but they're sticklers. And you can see it in in Gurman's reports

00:28:12   that some of the phrasing is kind of different than maybe he did at 9to5Mac where they probably

00:28:18   just you know made sure that you know I don't I don't want to impugn 9to5Mac but you know

00:28:23   most online stuff including stuff I do you give it a read and then you put it up you

00:28:27   don't have a copy desk with who are sticklers. And and so it's sort of been interesting to

00:28:34   see how they change some of his phrases or they make it very specific about what he knows

00:28:39   and what he doesn't know and what the details are. And so it ends up being a little bit

00:28:45   fuzzier.

00:28:46   At 9-5 Mac, I would say it was always mentioned, and he always wrote in a sort of reporter-y

00:28:51   fashion even at 9-5 Mac, as opposed to a columnist style. Joanna Stern and I were talking about

00:28:57   that on the last episode of this show. I could do it, I guess, but it would feel like, "Oh,

00:29:04   drudgery to me. I've always wanted to be a columnist and write in my own voice. So

00:29:09   German always wrote in a reporter's voice, but he would just—the biggest

00:29:13   difference I would say is that when he had a scoop, he would put the "according

00:29:17   to, you know, sources familiar with it" once in the first paragraph, and then the

00:29:22   rest of the story would be "here's what I've found out," whereas the bigger—the

00:29:26   biggest stylistic difference with Bloomberg, with him at Bloomberg, is that

00:29:29   the "according to the people" threat. There's an awful lot, it just keeps

00:29:35   coming back and back that this is according to what people have told

00:29:39   him. And I personally, you and I were engaged in a thread on Twitter about

00:29:44   this. I actually like this better. I really do. And maybe it's a little inside

00:29:49   baseball, you know, like that you and I think about these the copy desks and

00:29:53   stuff like that. But I like it that it emphasizes that this is not a known fact

00:29:59   and that Gherman isn't saying that he's seen this thing himself, which would, you know, alleviate the need to source it.

00:30:06   It's from sources who said that they know this, and I think that's worth emphasizing.

00:30:13   Yeah, and them, you know, being sticklers, that's what they want to do, is say, "We've got information, but we haven't confirmed it ourselves.

00:30:20   It's from a source that we trust." And so we're going to say it's an anonymous source,

00:30:25   And then throughout the story, every time we cite something, if we can't say it as a fact,

00:30:31   because we saw it with our own eyes, essentially, we have to say, we have to attribute that to whoever got it.

00:30:36   And so as a result, you get the things about, you know, "There won't be a headphone jack," the sources said.

00:30:42   Or "people," I think they said "the people" said.

00:30:45   Right, but that's interesting too, because it's a way of corroborating that that piece of information came from multiple sources.

00:30:53   Exactly. And that's good. That's clarity, right? And it may feel weird to read it that way because

00:30:58   it's definitely being done with great care, but as a user of that information, it's really good

00:31:04   to have clarity about what Mark Gurman is being told by his sources and what he maybe is

00:31:12   extrapolating from that. And I like having that because then we can leave it to our judgment,

00:31:19   but it also eliminates just the confusion of like, what's he really saying here?

00:31:23   Is he—does he know that or is he supposing that? And the way it's—the Bloomberg process seems to

00:31:28   have taken his stuff is it's a little bit clearer about the stuff that he has been told by his

00:31:34   sources, like sort of laying it out. Like this is what we know from sources.

00:31:38   - The other thing that you and I know, and I think it's probably true for you too,

00:31:45   I definitely think so. I think that the whole reason that you and I have eked out

00:31:48   you know, these positions we have is that we attract, we don't attract the most readers,

00:31:53   but we attract discerning readers, right? Like, there's no way that the readership of your stuff

00:31:59   and my stuff combined amounts to a hill of beans from the Huffington Post perspective, right? If

00:32:04   we're counting page views, we're, you know, little fish. But we attract discerning readers. And so,

00:32:09   a lot of times when I go off on a track like this about just how meaningful it is when

00:32:15   Bloomberg or a Wall Street Journal prints out a rumor,

00:32:19   sometimes I get a lot of pushback from readers

00:32:20   who are skeptical readers, which is good,

00:32:24   and I'm not surprised that I have readers who are like,

00:32:26   "Hey, I don't believe it just 'cause it's

00:32:28   in the Wall Street Journal."

00:32:29   And that's true, and I think everybody should read

00:32:32   everything they read, my stuff, your stuff,

00:32:33   and especially news reports with a skeptical mind,

00:32:36   like where did this information come from?

00:32:37   I think being a critical reader of journalism

00:32:40   is an essential skill.

00:32:42   It should be taught, emphasized in schools, I think,

00:32:44   in a way that it wasn't for me.

00:32:48   So I'm not saying it's true.

00:32:50   But inside baseball, it's like you

00:32:53   know that a publication like Bloomberg or the Wall Street

00:32:57   Journal or the New York Times knows

00:32:59   that when something like this gets reported,

00:33:02   what almost everybody else says is

00:33:05   Bloomberg says the big iPhone is going to have two cameras.

00:33:09   And they don't go into--

00:33:11   nobody else reports that.

00:33:12   it's Mark Gurman who says this, one reporter,

00:33:15   like if it doesn't turn out to be true,

00:33:17   it's mostly on Bloomberg.

00:33:19   - Yeah, Bloomberg is a huge company

00:33:23   with financial information.

00:33:25   I mean, reporting about one of the largest,

00:33:28   if not the largest public company in the world,

00:33:31   getting information wrong about their biggest product,

00:33:35   that would be colossal, right?

00:33:38   And so they wanna be careful with it,

00:33:40   but it also says something that, you know, when he reports this stuff,

00:33:43   they are standing behind it. And, and,

00:33:45   and as observers of what Gurman has done over the years, um, I,

00:33:50   we can see why, because his sources are, his sources are good.

00:33:53   He always has been careful. Um,

00:33:55   I think he's actually a great fit for Bloomberg because of all of those things.

00:33:58   He's not a super speculative guy.

00:34:01   He's somebody with good sources who lays out what his sources say.

00:34:04   It is funny. It's funny to me. I heard, I've,

00:34:06   I found out that he was going to Bloomberg back in March,

00:34:11   where whenever it was that Apple held an event in California--

00:34:13   what was that, March?

00:34:15   I think it was March, like mid-March.

00:34:18   And it wasn't an open secret, but there

00:34:23   were a couple of other people in the Cover Apple Press game who

00:34:27   knew that he was going to go to Bloomberg.

00:34:31   And it was funny to me that it never actually was published.

00:34:34   Like the guy who's known for spoiling Apple's secrets,

00:34:39   his own secret, everybody was just like,

00:34:42   it just seemed like uncouth 'cause it seemed like,

00:34:45   everybody seemed to not wanna publish it

00:34:46   or tweet it or anything just because it just seemed like,

00:34:49   well, let's not bother the kid.

00:34:51   - Yeah, exactly.

00:34:52   I think everybody was-- - It was like a courtesy.

00:34:54   - Kinda happy for him too 'cause he does good work.

00:34:56   He's really young, he was in college.

00:34:58   He has done some incredible things

00:35:01   and now he's got a really high-profile job

00:35:04   a major source of news and business information. So it's like, yeah, we kind of didn't want

00:35:08   to wreck it for him. He does good work.

00:35:11   I think it's a really good fit because Bloomberg in particular, in my opinion, really emphasizes

00:35:16   scoops. They really pride themselves on breaking things like this, being first, while simultaneously

00:35:28   being completely accurate, right? As opposed to, you know, they won't cross that line of

00:35:33   being first by taking a chance that it's not true, but they really want to be first.

00:35:37   Well, it's a feather in their cap. As a provider of business intelligence, because, I mean,

00:35:42   the number one way Bloomberg makes money, as far as I can tell, and what I've heard,

00:35:47   it's like the terminal. They have these terminals, they're in the offices of people in the financial

00:35:53   sector, they are giving real-time business information and news. And when you view Bloomberg

00:36:00   through that lens where they're not like a wire service or something. They are a financial

00:36:05   information provider and news is one of the things that they do. When you think of them

00:36:09   that way, it sort of makes sense.

00:36:12   Yeah, and that's where the culture of being first and having the scoop comes from is the

00:36:18   culture from the terminals.

00:36:20   Because you want to get ahead as an investor, you want that extra edge.

00:36:22   Right. I worked at a firm on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange when I was in college. I had

00:36:28   an internship doing IT stuff.

00:36:31   I wasn't doing investing stuff.

00:36:32   I was on the computer team.

00:36:33   But they had the,

00:36:36   the traders had the Bloomberg boxes, of course.

00:36:38   So I got to see them.

00:36:39   Interesting, fascinating devices for the mid 90s.

00:36:43   - Yeah, and well, the funny thing, and there's a--

00:36:46   - And they were fast.

00:36:47   That's the one thing is like--

00:36:48   - Well, that's the whole story.

00:36:50   There's a story somewhere I'm trying to find it

00:36:52   that the problem with the Bloomberg terminal is,

00:36:55   so it is, they call it the terminal.

00:36:56   It looks like a DOS interface.

00:36:59   It's got these weird keyboard shortcuts.

00:37:00   It's like something like WordStar or something.

00:37:02   It's that kind of thing, right?

00:37:03   It's a strange, strange thing.

00:37:05   But the thing is,

00:37:07   the people who know how to use the Bloomberg Terminal,

00:37:10   they can do everything fast with a couple of keystrokes.

00:37:14   It's this incredible thing.

00:37:15   So it's a huge UX problem

00:37:16   because it's impenetrable on one level,

00:37:19   but once you know it,

00:37:20   you can have complete control over it

00:37:23   and they're loathe to change it

00:37:24   because their loyal customers want to know how to use it.

00:37:29   So they end up in this weird place where it's like,

00:37:32   can we improve this product or do we need to leave it

00:37:34   looking like a DOS terminal forever?

00:37:36   - Well, and there's never a day for the traders,

00:37:40   there's never like a slow day.

00:37:43   So there's never a day where,

00:37:45   well, all right, we'll install this new version

00:37:49   that I don't know how to use and I'll be lost all day

00:37:51   trying to figure out how to, no.

00:37:53   - Yeah, they can't ever do it.

00:37:55   So it's better to just let your interns

00:37:57   and your new hires read the manual

00:37:59   and learn how to do it and get up to speed

00:38:01   and just leave it the way it is.

00:38:03   And it's, yeah, it's fascinating.

00:38:06   And that's the whole thing.

00:38:07   They're not afraid,

00:38:09   knowing people who've worked at Bloomberg,

00:38:10   they are not afraid to be different from the crowd.

00:38:14   Like they have different terminology for stuff.

00:38:16   They don't call, the laptops that their journalists get

00:38:19   aren't called laptops.

00:38:22   they're called like travel units or travelers or something.

00:38:24   Like it's just, they've got their own terminology,

00:38:26   they've got their own rules, it goes down.

00:38:28   It's just, they are different.

00:38:31   And I think that maybe comes from Mike Bloomberg

00:38:33   that he's a maverick.

00:38:35   He's not afraid to say,

00:38:37   let's do things kind of differently.

00:38:38   And it also comes from the fact that they are

00:38:40   not a traditional ad funded journalism outfit.

00:38:45   They're a financial services outfit.

00:38:49   So, Germin's two recent articles.

00:38:54   First was the one about the new iPhones.

00:38:57   - Yeah.

00:38:59   - So, it seemingly confirmed,

00:39:03   definitely said that the plus size one

00:39:07   will have the two camera system.

00:39:10   - Right.

00:39:11   - And seemed to confirm that the 4.71 won't,

00:39:15   but doesn't quite say that.

00:39:18   And this is one of those things where the sourcing

00:39:20   is kind of interesting.

00:39:21   Here's, I'm gonna read the paragraph.

00:39:23   The dual system sharpens photos taken

00:39:25   in low light environments, the person said.

00:39:28   The combination of the merged photos

00:39:29   from the two camera sensors also allows users

00:39:32   to zoom while retaining more clarity, the person added.

00:39:35   The smaller version of the new phones

00:39:37   will not include dual lenses, KGI securities analyst

00:39:41   Ming-Chi Kuo said earlier this year.

00:39:44   Now that last bit is fascinating to me

00:39:47   because seemingly, German's own sources didn't, didn't or couldn't say whether the smaller phone has the two cameras.

00:39:54   He's only referring to a report from Ming-Chi Kuo.

00:39:57   It may be or may not because later they talk about the headphone jack being removed and they reference Mako Takara as being the original report.

00:40:08   So I'm not, I couldn't read this and say whether they're, you know, whether he doesn't actually know that for sure,

00:40:17   'cause it sounds like he actually just said that it's not.

00:40:20   I think it's more that he may be doing,

00:40:21   in a Bloombergian kind of way,

00:40:23   the hat tip of who originally reported this,

00:40:27   because he didn't originally report it.

00:40:28   It was Ming-Chi Kuo.

00:40:30   - No, the Makatakara.

00:40:32   - Well, for Makatakara, it's for sure that way.

00:40:34   But I wonder if maybe the Ming-Chi Kuo attribution is that,

00:40:38   which is just, look, this person got it first.

00:40:42   We should tip our cap to them.

00:40:44   - Confirms no headphones.

00:40:46   and the other, you know, none of this is new.

00:40:49   There's not one bit of it that is new,

00:40:51   but it's confirmation of a whole bunch of these rumors

00:40:53   that are floating about.

00:40:54   The other thing is that the home button now

00:40:56   won't physically click.

00:40:58   It will be tapped.

00:41:01   - Force touch. - Yeah, force touch.

00:41:03   Home button. - Like the track pads,

00:41:04   like, you know, the modern MacBook track pads.

00:41:07   Which is interesting, and I think, I wonder,

00:41:13   you know, there's often a lot of,

00:41:14   German story doesn't mention waterproofing at all, but one of the things that has been

00:41:18   floated about is that whether Apple will bill it as waterproof or not, that one of the features

00:41:23   of these new iPhones is that they will be even further water-resistant than previous ones.

00:41:28   I can only imagine that a Force Touch home button would help in some way in terms of waterproofing,

00:41:38   simply because it seems like every button that actually moves is a place where moisture could

00:41:43   get through. Yeah, and it's also going to reduce repair incidences because, you know,

00:41:47   even if it's not that common, home buttons malfunction because, I mean, it's a moving

00:41:52   part, it has to go up and down, and so you take that out of the equation and it's not

00:41:56   actually moving anymore, you just feel like it's moving when you press on it. I can see,

00:42:01   assuming they do it right, although, you know, the 3D Touch and the Force Touch and the Trackpad

00:42:06   is, they did a good job with that, so assuming they do it right so that you really do get

00:42:09   that sense of action, because it would be the worst thing in the world if you're like,

00:42:13   "Why is my phone locked up?" and you try to press the home button and nothing happens.

00:42:16   You're like, "Yeah, what do I do now?" So they got to get it right, but there are a

00:42:20   lot of benefits to simplifying the shape of the product, basically.

00:42:24   It's one of those things that might be like keyboards, where some people might really

00:42:28   like it and others might not, because it will feel different. And I love the new trackpads.

00:42:34   I think you, I don't know, maybe you do too. I have a...

00:42:36   Yeah, I do.

00:42:37   review unit of MacBook Pro that Apple gave me to test, what's the new operator?

00:42:43   Sierra.

00:42:44   Sierra.

00:42:45   Yeah, I've got one right behind me.

00:42:46   Right.

00:42:47   And so my personal MacBook Pro is older.

00:42:48   I forget.

00:42:49   I think it might be two years old at this point, or close to two years old.

00:42:52   It doesn't have it.

00:42:53   I love it.

00:42:54   It's a 13-inch MacBook Pro.

00:42:55   It's probably now my favorite MacBook that I've ever owned.

00:42:59   The more I use it, I really appreciate how good it is.

00:43:03   The one thing I really like better about the review unit one is that trackpad.

00:43:06   I really like the Force Touch trackpad.

00:43:08   And I think the main reason why is that I tend to click a lot

00:43:11   at the top of the trackpad.

00:43:13   And the lever that is the moving trackpad,

00:43:18   the fulcrum is at the top.

00:43:20   So it's actually a lot easier to click towards the bottom

00:43:23   than it is at the top.

00:43:24   And I love that on the Force Touch one,

00:43:28   it's just as clicky everywhere on the whole thing.

00:43:30   I know other people don't like it though.

00:43:31   I think Marco Arman does not like the Force Touch trackpad.

00:43:34   So maybe the home buttons will be the same way.

00:43:36   - Yeah, it could be.

00:43:37   Yeah, Marco doesn't like it.

00:43:38   I do like it.

00:43:39   I actually use the desktop Magic Track.

00:43:42   - Yes, yeah.

00:43:43   - Too, and I really like it.

00:43:46   Amazon did this with the Kindle,

00:43:49   which one was it, Voyage, I think.

00:43:51   They put like, it's now with page turn buttons,

00:43:54   which they had taken off of an earlier model,

00:43:55   but it wasn't really a button.

00:43:56   It was this haptic thing

00:43:57   where you squeezed this thing on the side

00:43:59   and it gave a little vibration

00:44:01   and it didn't work there,

00:44:04   although that was kind of cheaply done

00:44:05   and I expect Apple to do a better job than that.

00:44:08   But they ended up with their,

00:44:09   the Oasis that they have now,

00:44:11   it's just back to being a physical button

00:44:13   because that was just a better experience.

00:44:15   So it can be done badly,

00:44:17   but I would imagine given the Force Touch track pad that,

00:44:21   and I think that's why the reference is being made to it,

00:44:25   is that whoever described this to Mark Gurman is like,

00:44:27   no, no, it's gonna be like the Force Touch track pad.

00:44:28   You're not gonna even be able to believe

00:44:30   that it doesn't move, which that sounds good to me.

00:44:32   - Yeah, it's funny to me

00:44:34   'cause I thought one of my complaints for years with iPhones

00:44:37   was that the home buttons were not good enough.

00:44:40   And maybe I just got bad phones, I don't know,

00:44:42   but like in the 3G, 3GS,

00:44:45   and maybe even like the iPhone 4 era,

00:44:46   like there was like a certain squishiness to it

00:44:50   that I didn't like year after year.

00:44:52   And I think I even wrote about it on "Daring Fireball"

00:44:55   that on a device where there's really just one main button,

00:44:57   that button should feel really good.

00:45:00   If you're gonna minimize buttons,

00:45:02   the buttons that you have left have to be really good because they're really going to

00:45:05   stand out. And it's the sort of thing that Apple should pride itself on doing well. And

00:45:09   I think that they've now, they've gotten it great. The clickiness of the Touch ID era

00:45:17   home buttons to me is terrific. To me, it feels like one of the best buttons in the

00:45:22   world.

00:45:23   Yeah, it's good. There are lots of speculations about how Apple, I mean, because it's Apple,

00:45:30   Apple wants to eventually have no buttons and no ports,

00:45:33   'cause that's sort of the platonic ideal of a device

00:45:36   and as thin as possible,

00:45:38   that they would get rid of the home button entirely

00:45:40   at some point, or at least the physical home button,

00:45:41   even if there's a way to do a gesture.

00:45:44   And this seems like a step in that direction,

00:45:46   which is, okay, now we've got it

00:45:47   so that we can read your fingerprint

00:45:49   and you can press on it in order to get where you wanna go,

00:45:52   but there's actually nothing moving.

00:45:54   And that's like step one.

00:45:55   And maybe step two is that they put, you know,

00:45:59   they put that on the bottom center of the screen or something,

00:46:03   and it's seeking that out, whatever a future iPhone design might be.

00:46:08   I don't know, but it does seem like it's a very Apple step to make,

00:46:11   to eliminate a moving part.

00:46:15   And so, what are we left with the focus on here?

00:46:18   The fact that the 4.7-inch phone apparently won't have dual cameras.

00:46:22   And the rumor chain has been pretty consistent on that regard,

00:46:27   Especially if you believe the supply chain links of the backs of these phones, there's

00:46:31   never been one, a credible one that showed two cameras, the two camera oval on the 4.7

00:46:37   inch iPhone and there's usually one on the 5.5 inch.

00:46:42   I'm a little bummed about that because I prefer the 4.7 by far in terms of hand feel.

00:46:48   And in fact, as anybody read my iPhone SE review, if anything I have mixed feelings

00:46:54   about the 4.7 inch versus the iPhone SE size,

00:46:58   four inch phone.

00:47:00   - Yeah, I've been thinking about this

00:47:01   and I think it's probably not true.

00:47:02   I think the 4.7 is probably the mainstream phone

00:47:05   and will remain so,

00:47:07   but I did have that moment where I thought

00:47:09   with the iPhone SE doing, I think way better,

00:47:12   Apple even admitted, way better than Apple expected.

00:47:15   And now we're talking about differentiating the iPhone Plus

00:47:18   at the high end with a much better camera,

00:47:21   which in some ways is taking advantage of the fact

00:47:23   but it's just got more room.

00:47:26   And it's more expensive so they can pack stuff in there.

00:47:29   I do have those moments where I think,

00:47:32   why would you get the 4.7 inch iPhone?

00:47:34   Like if you really care about photography,

00:47:35   get the big iPhone.

00:47:37   If you're somebody who uses your phone all the time

00:47:38   and wants the biggest screen possible, get the big iPhone.

00:47:41   And if you care about size and that's your priority,

00:47:44   or if you care about price, the iPhone SE is right there.

00:47:48   And it's just, again, it's probably not realistic,

00:47:50   but I feel like it's interesting that Apple is making

00:47:53   the Edge phones kind of really appealing

00:47:56   in almost like the simplicity of the one

00:47:59   and the power and complexity of the other.

00:48:02   And then what's the 4.7 inch iPhone?

00:48:04   Well, it's just your average iPhone, I guess,

00:48:06   in the middle.

00:48:07   - There are other rumors that there will be three iPhones,

00:48:13   new iPhones, then, have you seen this?

00:48:16   - Yeah, the Pro and the Plus?

00:48:18   - Yeah, so it would be like,

00:48:20   forget, I don't think they're gonna call it iPhone 7,

00:48:23   but maybe they will, but let's just say that they do.

00:48:25   Cause otherwise,

00:48:26   and let's note Mark Gurman story at no point calls it the iPhone seven, right?

00:48:31   At no point.

00:48:32   Hold that thought. Cause there's,

00:48:35   that's key to understanding this, his sources or one of the keys sources.

00:48:40   Uh, so let's just say they call it the seven that that's,

00:48:45   this other rumor would say there'd be the iPhone seven, 4.7 inches,

00:48:49   the iPhone seven plus,

00:48:51   which would be 5.5 inches and still have the same camera,

00:48:54   probably with like the image stabilization,

00:48:56   but the single camera circle on the back.

00:48:58   And then the iPhone 7 Pro,

00:49:01   which would have the dual camera system

00:49:04   and presumably like maybe like 256 gigs of storage.

00:49:09   And part of that rumor is based on like supply chain links

00:49:16   that show some of these plates that look,

00:49:18   they're the bigger size,

00:49:19   but they only have one hole for the camera.

00:49:21   And who knows if they're fake?

00:49:22   I don't know, some of those, it's like,

00:49:25   when those pictures come out, they go so super viral

00:49:28   that there's, you know, some of them have been fake

00:49:31   over the years.

00:49:31   I don't know what the motivation is

00:49:32   for people making these fake ones, but it's crazy.

00:49:35   That doesn't make any product marketing sense to me.

00:49:40   - Yeah, I agree.

00:49:41   And we've just defined, right, we got, what's an iPad Pro?

00:49:46   Right, I feel like they could do an iPhone Pro,

00:49:48   But to have a Pro and a Plus and the regular iPhone

00:49:51   and the SE and have the Pro and the Plus

00:49:53   be essentially the same, except one of them has this

00:49:56   like one esoteric difference, it seems too complicated.

00:50:00   And which is not to say that I'm not intrigued

00:50:03   by the idea of like an iPhone Pro that is the two cameras

00:50:07   and maybe support for the pencil.

00:50:09   That's interesting.

00:50:11   That's an interesting idea of branding that product that way

00:50:14   but to have that and then it feels more likely to me

00:50:17   that it's just, what we're seeing is the 6S Plus,

00:50:22   just again, maybe slightly altered,

00:50:25   but just the 6S Plus.

00:50:26   And that's a question is like, what do they keep?

00:50:29   Traditionally, Apple has kept the previous year's phones

00:50:31   in the lineup.

00:50:33   So, what happens there too?

00:50:35   I don't know.

00:50:36   It seems unlikely though,

00:50:37   that they would have two identical phones

00:50:38   except for like the cameras on the back.

00:50:40   - Yeah.

00:50:41   And it just, it makes it harder like with,

00:50:46   By calling them the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus,

00:50:49   and then the 6S and the 6S Plus, they can just say--

00:50:52   they can say, shot with iPhone 6.

00:50:55   And all of the new phones are carried with that,

00:50:58   whether you have the Plus or not.

00:51:00   The Plus just refers to the size,

00:51:02   even though the camera was technically slightly better

00:51:04   because it had the optical image stabilization.

00:51:07   They didn't need to say that.

00:51:08   They could just say-- they could run ads and billboards that

00:51:11   just say iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S, and it covers

00:51:15   both. Whereas if they do this, it doesn't. They'd have to run separate campaigns, and

00:51:20   then it would peg the ones that are going to sell in greater quantities, the lower priced

00:51:26   ones, the regular and the plus, it would peg them as being on the lower tier from day one.

00:51:34   Which is just, I don't know, something about that doesn't sit right with me. I guess it's

00:51:38   possible, like I wouldn't be shocked if that's how it turns out. But Germin's story makes

00:51:41   it seemed like there's just two, 4.7, 5.5,

00:51:44   and the 5.5 has a better camera.

00:51:46   - Yeah, it has these double, you know, dual lens system,

00:51:49   which is a cool idea.

00:51:50   I mean, I think the place where smartphones

00:51:55   could still get better, right?

00:51:56   I mean, back in the old days,

00:51:57   it's like they could get better everywhere.

00:51:58   It's like everything could be better.

00:52:00   But now the place, like number one place

00:52:02   where I think a smartphone could get better

00:52:04   in terms of priority has to be the cameras.

00:52:06   The cameras could get so much better

00:52:07   because we know what good cameras look like.

00:52:09   And although the cameras on smartphones are amazing compared to what they used to be,

00:52:14   they could still be so much better.

00:52:16   So I like the idea that Apple is going down that path and saying, "What if we put two

00:52:20   lenses on and use software and put them together and they should be doing that?"

00:52:25   That's absolutely the right thing for them to do.

00:52:27   Yeah, and I don't even think German's description of it is—his description is about, first

00:52:34   mentioned, sharpening photos taken in low-light environments.

00:52:36   I mean, that could help with that.

00:52:38   But the biggest difference of the two-lens system isn't really light sensitivity.

00:52:42   That's a problem that's really hard to solve just because of the physics of optics with

00:52:48   the size of these devices and how small the sensors are compared to a full-size or even

00:52:53   like the four-thirds system cameras or something, the ones with small sensors like APS-C.

00:52:59   In a camera camera, those small sensors are so much bigger than the sensors that you can

00:53:03   fit in a phone.

00:53:05   absolutely remarkable how good the photos you can get off these devices are with how tiny the sensors

00:53:09   are, but that's really a limiting factor for light sensitivity. The two-lens system is really about

00:53:14   having two lenses of different focal distances. So you've got the one that's wide angle like the one

00:53:20   we already we've always had on our phone, and then to have a second one that has a longer focal length

00:53:25   like, you know, I don't know what it would be the equivalent in 35 millimeter terms, but you know,

00:53:30   50 or 85 or something. So that when you zoom, it can actually do it optically instead of,

00:53:38   like if you're trying to shoot something far away and get it closer and fill up more of the frame,

00:53:43   the optics of that are way better if you actually have, if you're doing it with a real

00:53:48   longer lens instead of with just cropping the wide lens picture. And there's going to be,

00:53:56   ought to be ways, there might be ways to do 3D stuff, you know, slightly 3D stuff,

00:54:00   you know, for the live pictures and stuff like that. It could be all sorts of really cool optical

00:54:04   stuff with this, so I better get bigger pockets. Yeah, I know that's my thought too, is I've always

00:54:12   rejected that phone because it's so large, but I would be, if anything would tempt me to get a

00:54:18   larger phone, it would be something like that, like a much better camera would tempt me to

00:54:22   to just swallow my pride and expand my pockets and get the big phone.

00:54:27   Yeah. The second factor for me in a little bit, like the hand, the size in the pockets in the

00:54:32   hand I'm never going to like. But the second factor for me personally is that I'm rushing

00:54:38   towards needing reading glasses when I wear my contact lenses. Like I've mentioned this on the

00:54:42   show before, but long story short, when I wear my contacts, I need reading glasses to read in low

00:54:48   low-light environments now. I can't focus at reading length when I have my contacts

00:54:52   in. When I'm wearing my glasses, I can because—and I just talked to my eye doctor about this—because

00:54:57   when you wear glasses, they're further from the lens of my eye, whereas contacts literally,

00:55:03   they're right there. At a distance, I see exactly the same clarity with glasses on in

00:55:10   contacts. But at a close distance, when you start getting presbyopia in your 40s, it makes

00:55:15   a big difference whether you have contacts on or not.

00:55:18   But really, when I have my glasses on, what I like to do when I read is take them off.

00:55:22   Because I'm nearsighted, without any correction at all, I can read.

00:55:25   That's when I read the best.

00:55:26   I actually read tons and tons on my phone lately in the morning before I put my contacts

00:55:31   in just because it's actually the way I see clearest is with no correction at all with

00:55:37   my phone right in front of my face.

00:55:40   But I wear contacts most of the time.

00:55:42   having the bigger phone and being able to make the text bigger would actually

00:55:45   would actually be optically good for me.

00:55:48   Yeah. My,

00:55:49   my wife has a six S and uses it in the mode where it's blown up to essentially

00:55:54   it's pretending to be a five because she's, cause she's got, um,

00:55:59   for the first time cause she's always had perfect vision,

00:56:00   but she's in her forties now and she's now she needs reading glasses.

00:56:03   And so she's just, uh,

00:56:05   that's been one of her concessions to be able to use her phone without having to

00:56:08   switch to reading glasses is using that extra screen space just to make everything bigger.

00:56:14   What I've been doing, I haven't given into that zoom mode, but I do go into the text

00:56:20   size. It makes me feel good about the fact that I've been promoting accessibility features

00:56:28   long before I needed them, but now I really do. And my vision problems, I always want

00:56:33   I'm trying to say this.

00:56:34   If anything, it makes me appreciate

00:56:37   how good my vision still is.

00:56:39   Because it's like having a scare with losing

00:56:42   all the vision in my eye when I had the retina detachment.

00:56:45   It really makes me appreciate just how bad some people's

00:56:48   vision really is, people who are on some scale legally blind.

00:56:54   But some people who are legally blind can still see something.

00:56:57   But the accessibility features in iOS, it's so great.

00:57:02   And now I'm actually somebody who benefits from them.

00:57:05   - Well, that's how my wife uses her Apple Watch.

00:57:06   'Cause you can't really do the large screen mode

00:57:09   on the Apple Watch.

00:57:10   And she has used the accessibility feature

00:57:12   to increase the text size

00:57:13   and it makes her Apple Watch usable.

00:57:15   Otherwise it's like, it's great that I have this watch on,

00:57:18   but if I have to put my glasses on

00:57:19   every time I need to read anything on the screen,

00:57:21   it's pointless.

00:57:22   So she uses the type size control.

00:57:24   - I do too.

00:57:25   It is a great, great, great feature.

00:57:27   So I don't know.

00:57:31   have a big phone. I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to see how what exactly

00:57:36   the devil's in the details and this comes back to what you were saying about

00:57:38   where Mark Gurman sources are is is a lot of times with these Apple products I

00:57:43   always say this I mean it's just it's so true you got to know where the rumors

00:57:46   are coming from and what and the what we know is what is us we know the product

00:57:52   but we don't know the story and it's the marketing and in some ways it's the

00:57:56   software like we know that there are two cameras and we can speculate on what

00:57:59   those cameras do, but Apple will probably have a very particular story about how

00:58:03   those cameras work together, when one camera gets used, when the other gets used,

00:58:07   do they get merged together, how does that work, is there UI to flip between

00:58:11   them or change the focus or things like that, and that we really don't know.

00:58:15   Yeah, like what's the scenario where this is going to be better? Like a scenario I

00:58:19   can think of that, and I'm sure you know you run into the same thing too, is

00:58:23   parent in the auditorium and the kids on stage. That's where the phone, the phone

00:58:27   is a terrible camera for that situation because you really want a picture of

00:58:31   your kid but there's no way that optical zoom in a dimly lit auditor, not

00:58:37   optical zoom, digital zoom, yeah, of a wide-angle lens with a

00:58:42   tiny little sensor. You might as well not even do it. I always wonder when I

00:58:46   see these parents holding their phones up for the entire thing, I really want to

00:58:52   play that Louis CK rant of, "Hey, just be here." You know what I mean? Just be here

00:58:56   from them. Because it's not just that you'd be better off just being there and watching

00:59:01   it. The actual image you're getting from that camera, from a cell phone halfway back in

00:59:07   an auditorium is going to be useless. You're not going to make out your kid's face. But

00:59:11   a longer lens might actually save that.

00:59:14   Yeah, we were coming back from a long weekend and we were driving, we were in Southern Oregon,

00:59:20   and so we were driving back, driving south, and you go past, on Interstate 5, you go past

00:59:23   Mount Shasta, which is a huge volcano.

00:59:27   There's a-- it's like two miles above the rest

00:59:31   of the landscape around it.

00:59:33   And even middle of summer, within 90 degrees outside,

00:59:35   there's snow and glaciers and stuff on the top of it.

00:59:38   And it's spectacular.

00:59:39   You're driving down the freeway, and there's

00:59:40   this huge volcano right in front of you.

00:59:41   And I get on my iPhone to take a picture of it.

00:59:43   And I open it up, and I look.

00:59:44   And it's just like-- it's like it's not even there,

00:59:46   because it's that wide angle shot.

00:59:48   It's got both sides of the windshield.

00:59:49   It's got the road and all that.

00:59:51   And I zoomed in, and I got an OK shot

00:59:53   with the digital zoom, but those shots are no good because they are zoomed in so far

00:59:58   that any of the majesty of it is now lost in all the little pixelation that happens.

01:00:03   Yeah. It is. It does. It will make for, and I presume it'll be Schiller who does it because

01:00:09   that's Schiller's gig. This is usually the, he's the guy who does the new iPhone in September.

01:00:17   And I happen to know that, you know, Schiller is a truly, you know, real photography enthusiast.

01:00:23   He really knows his shit about cameras and he really cares.

01:00:26   But it's such a hard thing to present

01:00:29   when you're saying how awesome this camera is

01:00:30   and this other phone that we also want you

01:00:33   to be excited about doesn't have it and can't do it.

01:00:36   But that is, it's a perfect scenario though.

01:00:38   Like you wanna get the mountaintop, you know?

01:00:40   And that is exactly the sort of thing

01:00:41   where a second lens that is longer

01:00:43   will make a dramatic difference.

01:00:45   But when they show you the dramatic difference,

01:00:47   it's gonna be in comparison to what you get

01:00:49   with the other new iPhone.

01:00:51   I think they're just gonna have to say,

01:00:53   we could do this because it's a much larger phone.

01:00:56   And they're gonna have to explain it that way.

01:00:59   The only way we could do this is because the iPhone 6 Plus

01:01:02   or 7 Plus or whatever it is, is this much bigger.

01:01:05   And so we have the room to do this.

01:01:10   But I'm looking forward to that demo

01:01:12   because I imagine that's gonna be the ooh and aah demo

01:01:14   of the whole thing.

01:01:15   Because they're gonna have some,

01:01:16   first they're gonna have hired

01:01:17   spectacularly good photographers

01:01:19   to take all the sample images.

01:01:21   And then they're gonna be perfect ones to show off

01:01:24   when you flip a switch or you slide your finger

01:01:26   or something, you go from A to B and everybody goes, whoa.

01:01:29   And you can see what it's gonna be.

01:01:31   It's gonna be a winner, that demo, yeah.

01:01:34   - I totally think so.

01:01:35   Before we leave iPhone, I'd hinted a few minutes ago

01:01:39   that not knowing the product names

01:01:41   is a clue to German sources.

01:01:42   Like the product names in my experience,

01:01:46   there are, that is like need to know basis within Apple.

01:01:49   And I think that the number of people,

01:01:51   even like who work in product marketing,

01:01:53   who know the name of the new iPhone

01:01:54   is probably pretty small.

01:01:56   - Yeah, names, prices.

01:01:58   - Yep.

01:01:59   - And it also means they're also changeable, right?

01:02:01   Like the hardware, the hardware's been locked for ages now.

01:02:04   The software is basically locked,

01:02:07   although yeah, they will have little bits,

01:02:09   but it's stuff that they've had to be working on

01:02:11   for months and months and months.

01:02:12   Names, unless it's shipping that day,

01:02:14   and it's still, the name is iPhone, right?

01:02:16   They could literally ship a box

01:02:17   that just says iPhone on it and it would be okay.

01:02:19   So the names that you can leave those pretty late in the game

01:02:22   and prices you can really leave late in the game.

01:02:24   And so it's a very small group of people

01:02:28   who are doing that in terms of marketing and PR.

01:02:32   And they don't leak as much unless they want to.

01:02:36   I think they don't, unless the company wants a leak,

01:02:40   I think they don't leak as much.

01:02:42   It comes from supply chain and it comes from kind of people

01:02:45   in the broader company who know little bits about it

01:02:48   and can leak those little bits.

01:02:50   But my experience, I don't know,

01:02:52   do you remember when they did "Mountain Lion"

01:02:56   and everybody expected there would be no OS update

01:02:58   for like another year or six months?

01:03:00   And we all got briefings about "Mountain Lion."

01:03:05   And I literally didn't know what I was being briefed on.

01:03:07   I walked in and said,

01:03:08   "Yeah, there's a new version of OS X.

01:03:09   It's called 'Mountain Lion.'

01:03:10   It's gonna come out and we're gonna announce it

01:03:12   in two weeks."

01:03:13   And just nobody had been talking about it.

01:03:15   And literally it was not,

01:03:18   I mean, the embargo dropped and everybody's minds were blown.

01:03:20   That was a really instructive thing for me

01:03:24   about how buttoned up Apple in Cupertino

01:03:28   in the marketing department could be,

01:03:30   because that was something that didn't leak.

01:03:32   And why didn't it leak?

01:03:33   'Cause not very many people knew

01:03:34   and nobody in the supply chain knew.

01:03:36   Nobody outside of Infinite Loop knew, really.

01:03:39   - Yeah, and I don't know how they do the packaging,

01:03:44   like where and how they make all the boxes

01:03:47   for these phones, but that's, you know, like here, my box,

01:03:51   here, I have one right here on my desk,

01:03:52   and it says iPhone 6S.

01:03:54   So somewhere there's somebody making all these boxes,

01:03:56   and that could leak, but it's different

01:03:58   than a regular supply chain.

01:04:00   And it's notable that the phones themselves

01:04:02   don't have the numbers on the back.

01:04:04   They usually just say iPhone.

01:04:05   Last year, they put the S underneath,

01:04:08   but it just says iPhone S.

01:04:10   And the iPhone SE has an SE underneath it

01:04:13   on the back, etched into it, and that name did leak,

01:04:16   because it was etched on the things

01:04:19   that they were making in the supply chain.

01:04:21   - Yeah, and you wonder about like, yeah,

01:04:23   the security of who's printing, you know, the boxes.

01:04:27   Yeah, where do they get printed and assembled

01:04:28   and who is that?

01:04:29   And presumably that's all happening in China

01:04:30   because they're shipping them direct from China.

01:04:32   But I'm not saying too that you couldn't, you know,

01:04:36   you could hedge on the name if you wanted to,

01:04:37   but the name was probably chosen,

01:04:39   but it's a smaller group

01:04:41   and they can keep it buttoned up more easily.

01:04:43   And you see that in a lot of reports

01:04:44   where there are details from the hardware side,

01:04:48   but not from the marketing side.

01:04:50   And that allows us to keep some degree of a mystery,

01:04:55   at least for a while.

01:04:56   Often you will see those reports happen

01:04:58   like a day or two before the event

01:05:01   when they have to tell people.

01:05:02   But those people in the know

01:05:04   can be really secretive about it right now.

01:05:08   - Yeah, and once boatloads of these things are on route,

01:05:12   or I guess they fly the first couple batches,

01:05:14   I don't know, but once they're starting to put them on pallets and ship them,

01:05:18   you know, across the Pacific Ocean, then there's obviously more sources for leaks.

01:05:22   Right. Then the jig is up. Although that's one reason why,

01:05:25   why they're not usually available today, right?

01:05:27   When they announced them is that they are not quite in the,

01:05:30   in the chain yet at that point to, to keep some amount of, of a secrecy,

01:05:35   I think.

01:05:35   Right. I wonder, I wonder how, like how much they, you know,

01:05:38   that they only do like a small number of boxes beforehand so that they can give

01:05:41   us the review units and stuff.

01:05:42   but then once they announce it is when all of a sudden,

01:05:44   like there's some place in China where they're starting,

01:05:46   start printing out literally millions of boxes

01:05:50   with the product name, like go.

01:05:53   'Cause I presume that they can print these boxes

01:05:56   a hell of a lot faster than they can assemble phones.

01:05:59   - Oh yeah, sure, I'm sure, I'm sure.

01:06:01   - It's probably a cool machine to see.

01:06:04   - Yeah, I was thinking, I wonder if you could print

01:06:06   on an assembled box, so like just keep the,

01:06:08   - Yeah, I don't know.

01:06:09   - Just keep the edge that says,

01:06:11   whether it's a 6 SE or a 7 or something else and just stamp it, probably not. They probably

01:06:16   print it on the cardboard and fold it up. Let's take a break before we talk about the Mac rumors.

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01:09:06   last year or the year before I remember doing a read where they specifically the

01:09:10   read included like in bold print like you know order now yeah please tell

01:09:15   people to order by the end of November because by December 1st we might be

01:09:18   backlogged past Christmas yeah all right back to Gurman so Gurman had the second

01:09:24   thing and more recently I think it was just a couple days ago he had a report

01:09:26   on the new MacBook Pro yeah and some of it there was one bit that was new to me

01:09:34   I think, but the rest of it wasn't. The bit that was new to me was he said specifically that it is

01:09:39   not a tapered design like the regular MacBook or the MacBook Air. It is still a symmetric thickness

01:09:46   across the side, which surprised me because I sort of thought that they would go to a tapered design,

01:09:52   that they would go, it would be like, think of a MacBook Air but with the retina screen.

01:10:00   Yeah, I mean they must just, this is a way to differentiate it, this is a way to have more room

01:10:03   in there for battery and stuff. I mean, it sounds like it's still thinner, slightly thinner, he says,

01:10:09   but not tapered. That's a little surprising. I think that was the going theory, was that it would

01:10:16   be more like the MacBook Air or the MacBook, just a little bit more chunky than that.

01:10:21   Chunkier still. Part of my thinking it would be tapered is, it's three factors. One, Apple tends

01:10:28   to make things thinner. I don't know if you've ever thought about this or noticed.

01:10:32   Jobs's law. That's the jobs law right there.

01:10:34   I don't know if you've ever noticed, Jason, but over the years, Apple tends to make devices

01:10:39   thinner.

01:10:40   Interesting.

01:10:41   And going to a tapered design is a way to make it thinner in parts while still having

01:10:45   – there's certain things that maybe require the thickness and they can stick them in the

01:10:49   back.

01:10:50   Right.

01:10:51   Two is there was a report earlier this year from Ming-Chi Kuo, the supply chain analyst

01:10:57   over in Asia who has very almost no sources I think within Apple itself but

01:11:02   some very good supply chain sources in in the Asian countries where these

01:11:07   factories are and he reported he had a curious report about a 13 inch MacBook

01:11:14   meaning like the 12 inch MacBook that that we have today there's just plain

01:11:18   MacBook a 13 inch version right which makes no sense whatsoever like 12 inch

01:11:24   13-inch is not enough differentiation. And the 12-inch was just updated. Like, if they wanted to

01:11:31   change the 12-inch to 13, I could see that. That would be believable. If they wanted to go back and

01:11:36   have two versions, 111 and 113, like they used to with the Air, I could see that. But 12 and 13,

01:11:42   you know, you've got to have like small and large. You can't have like large and semi-large. It

01:11:49   doesn't make any sense. So to me, that made sense only in the context that it wasn't a MacBook, that

01:11:54   that it was a MacBook Pro.

01:11:56   And maybe he was just wrong

01:11:57   and there is no 13-inch tapered MacBook.

01:12:00   But that's just what I thought.

01:12:01   And then the third factor is wishful thinking.

01:12:04   Because I've said this before,

01:12:07   for years my portable was an 11-inch MacBook Air.

01:12:10   And it was really slow

01:12:14   because I tend to,

01:12:16   the thing that I do that really slows down a Mac

01:12:18   is I have like 30 or 40 Safari windows open.

01:12:23   I swear to God, I think I have like 40 windows over here on my iMac,

01:12:26   each of them with like eight tabs and on the Mac book era, that would really,

01:12:31   you know,

01:12:32   I'd have to call tab bankruptcy way more frequency than I want frequently than I

01:12:37   wanted to because it just was slowing it down.

01:12:40   But the thing I loved about it and got addicted to and even two years into

01:12:44   having this 13 inch MacBook pro still can't get used to is when I take it out of

01:12:47   a bag, I turn, put it,

01:12:49   set it in front of me the wrong way because the tapered design made it instantaneously

01:12:54   knowable which is the front and which is the back. And I still have, if I want to do it visually,

01:13:01   I'm so old and I'm so used to the old PowerBooks that I still remember when the Apple logo looked

01:13:06   right when you were sitting in front of it closed, not when it was open. And so that doesn't help me

01:13:11   either. Yeah, I still have my 11-inch Air here. That's my laptop that I take around if I need to.

01:13:18   And I thought, yeah, I think there's a group of people who are like,

01:13:20   well, that MacBook is not for me, but I'm sure the new MacBook Pro will be

01:13:25   smaller and lighter than the existing MacBook Pro and that'll be close enough.

01:13:30   And I think that, I think that's the question here.

01:13:32   And that's what you're getting at with sort of wishing that it's more of a wedge

01:13:35   shape is the hope that it's, yeah, it's a MacBook Pro,

01:13:39   but it's still really thin and light. And that may not be, you know,

01:13:43   That may not be possible, given that they do want it to truly be a pro and have the

01:13:49   power that the MacBook doesn't.

01:13:51   Yeah, that the pro, they're really serious about the pro part of the name.

01:13:56   And that makes sense to me, that, you know, because it is pro and they really want to

01:13:59   emphasize graphics, you know, and there's, according to Germin, some options to have

01:14:03   these really nice AMD graphics, you know, GPUs, and other, you know, battery life and

01:14:09   other things.

01:14:10   obviously it's easier to put a bigger battery

01:14:12   in a device that isn't tapered.

01:14:14   So it makes sense.

01:14:15   And maybe it still has the nicer keyboard if it's thicker,

01:14:20   'cause I kinda, you know.

01:14:22   - I assume that these are going to have a keyboard

01:14:24   that's more like the Magic Keyboard.

01:14:26   So different than the Classic Keyboard,

01:14:30   but not the MacBook Keyboard.

01:14:32   That would be my guess, is that they engineered

01:14:34   this other kind of keyboard for a reason,

01:14:36   and it's probably not just as an external Bluetooth keyboard,

01:14:39   that this would be the basis of the MacBook Pro keyboard too,

01:14:44   instead of the super thin MacBook keyboard.

01:14:47   - Yeah, that makes sense to me, I hope so.

01:14:49   And I guess the other thing, now again,

01:14:52   this was rumored before, I think maybe from Germin,

01:14:56   probably from Germin when he was at 9to5Mac,

01:14:59   and I've heard other things elsewhere,

01:15:01   but that the function keys are being replaced.

01:15:04   There will be no more function keys on the keyboard,

01:15:06   the F1, F2, F3, which most people use

01:15:09   for the other purpose, they don't usually use them

01:15:11   as function keys, but as the, whatever the little icon is,

01:15:14   you know, the volume up, volume down,

01:15:16   - Right.

01:15:17   - Keyboard brightness, et cetera.

01:15:18   That those are going away and it'll be replaced

01:15:21   with an LED touchscreen that will be software configurable.

01:15:26   So it'll be like having almost like an iOS device

01:15:31   on the keyboard where you tap on these buttons

01:15:34   that would be software configurable.

01:15:36   - Right, which presumably means that then there will be a,

01:15:39   when this is announced that all the like app developers

01:15:42   are going to be given no time to be handed a new API

01:15:46   of like, here's how you do this.

01:15:47   And then they're gonna have to kind of jump to it,

01:15:49   or we're gonna see slow adoption of it,

01:15:50   which is the downside of having a fancy new bit of hardware

01:15:54   that requires software adoption because there'll be a lag.

01:15:58   I'm a little skeptical of this.

01:16:01   It's all about the implementation,

01:16:02   but I'm skeptical only in the sense that

01:16:04   I don't look down at my keyboard a lot.

01:16:06   - Right.

01:16:07   and you use it by feel,

01:16:09   and this is gonna be an area

01:16:11   that you presumably can't use by feel

01:16:13   unless there's some other aspect of this

01:16:15   that is not clear in these reports.

01:16:17   And that concerns me.

01:16:19   Like if you have to look down in order to mute your system

01:16:22   because you don't know where the mute button is,

01:16:24   or if it's even visible, that seems less good to me.

01:16:28   - Can you hit the mute key without looking?

01:16:30   I can't, I can't use any of those function keys

01:16:32   without looking, I can touch type,

01:16:34   but I even after, I don't, I'm not even,

01:16:37   I can't even touch type numbers.

01:16:39   I have to look when I type numbers.

01:16:40   I can only do the alphabet and the--

01:16:42   - I do it some of the time.

01:16:43   I can touch type some of them some of the time,

01:16:45   and sometimes I do look.

01:16:46   If I'm not oriented, if my hands aren't on the keyboard,

01:16:49   I think it's true.

01:16:51   But that's the argument is that you just,

01:16:53   you look, you glance down and you tap.

01:16:56   I also, I'm kind of excited.

01:16:57   I used to have a Bluetooth keyboard

01:16:58   that had a volume control that was,

01:17:02   it had a little strip that you just slid your finger on.

01:17:05   And I think that's interesting

01:17:07   that some of the things we do with these devices,

01:17:09   like making the brightness more or less,

01:17:13   or making the volume louder or quieter,

01:17:16   don't really have to be,

01:17:18   they're not even, the best way to control them

01:17:20   is not two keys or three keys.

01:17:23   It's probably, because it's a spectrum,

01:17:25   and on an iPhone, you just slide a slider.

01:17:28   I could see that for something like this too,

01:17:30   where instead of having keys to control the brightness

01:17:33   of your display, there's just a brightness strip

01:17:35   and you slide your finger on it.

01:17:37   - Right, once you touch it,

01:17:38   once you turn it like the slider pops up next to it, right?

01:17:42   Like you put your finger on brightness

01:17:44   and then slide your finger to adjust.

01:17:46   - Exactly, even if you don't look,

01:17:47   if you know where to land your finger for the brightness

01:17:50   area, then at that point you're at wherever you are now

01:17:52   and you just slide left or right to make it brighter

01:17:55   or likewise with volume.

01:17:56   And then if you want it quiet,

01:17:57   you just touch the volume thing and slide to the left

01:18:00   until it's muted.

01:18:01   And that's a better interaction than tap, tap, tap, tap,

01:18:05   tap on a key. Yeah, I could see that, you know, I mean, and I, for system-wide stuff,

01:18:12   I can definitely see it. I'm, I, it's not that I'm skeptical, it's just that I can't,

01:18:17   I've yet to imagine a scenario where I would want per application stuff, and that's one

01:18:23   of the things Gherman said the point was that, you know, depending on what application you're

01:18:26   in, you could have different things. So, you know, would it be helpful, like, if you're

01:18:29   using Photoshop or an image editor to have the tool palette on the keyboard.

01:18:38   I guess the argument is like, you know, Final Cut users sometimes would have like stickers

01:18:42   that they put on keys in order to say like, "This is what I need to do to do this thing."

01:18:47   That you wouldn't need, you could just have custom labels. I mean, it's just like with

01:18:50   the iPhone, you have the custom label. So even if it's essentially the same as Command-Shift-Option-K

01:18:56   or it's command F2, that instead of that,

01:19:00   it just has a thing that says split clip,

01:19:03   and you tap it and it does what you want.

01:19:06   I guess that would be the idea.

01:19:07   - I guess, I guess there's some,

01:19:08   and it ties it back in with our earlier discussion

01:19:10   about custom key caps, where I've seen,

01:19:13   I've seen that you can buy,

01:19:15   if you use Final Cut as a professional,

01:19:16   you can get, not just stickers,

01:19:18   you could just buy a keyboard that has the keys.

01:19:21   I think there's Photoshop versions of that too.

01:19:23   - Yeah, well, you know, on ATP at one point a few months ago,

01:19:26   they talked about that I think there's an incredibly expensive keyboard

01:19:30   that has custom keys, like they're like little screens.

01:19:35   - Oh, I have seen that, yeah.

01:19:37   - And that's madness, but you know, that idea.

01:19:40   So yeah, I mean, it's true.

01:19:42   And, you know, I could see Apple pitching it as being a way

01:19:46   to unearth the most important and little used features

01:19:51   in your app in a way that you can expose them

01:19:54   by giving them their own dedicated space on the keyboard.

01:19:57   My fear is that Apple's gonna have

01:20:01   some really great examples with their apps.

01:20:03   And then all the third-party developers

01:20:05   are gonna be like, well,

01:20:06   and they're gonna not adopt it

01:20:09   or they're gonna do it badly.

01:20:11   We'll have to see, 'cause that's a real challenge for it.

01:20:15   Like Mac software developers suddenly having to do

01:20:18   this whole new approach to their UI,

01:20:21   which is this, only on MacBook Pros, by the way.

01:20:24   - Right. - I don't know, it's weird.

01:20:26   - Well, maybe, presumably, I would think if it takes off,

01:20:30   if there's any kind of traction with it whatsoever,

01:20:32   it will come to the regular MacBook next revision around,

01:20:37   and maybe will come to the Magic Keyboard?

01:20:39   - Yeah, I mean, maybe.

01:20:41   - I think it's a little weird,

01:20:43   as I think about it and imagine it,

01:20:46   I can imagine it being cool,

01:20:47   I can imagine it being a gimmick.

01:20:48   I'm not sold on it purely as an idea.

01:20:51   But I do think it's weird,

01:20:54   a weird mashup of touchscreens

01:20:57   and the abstraction of the pointer-based Mac OS, right?

01:21:02   That you've got a screen on the laptop that is abstract,

01:21:06   meaning you have to use a trackpad or a mouse

01:21:08   to move a pointer that is a representation of you

01:21:12   in the system,

01:21:13   and then to have an actual touchscreen right there, right?

01:21:16   it gets to the whole point of people thinking that they want touch screens on

01:21:20   the Mac itself, which.

01:21:21   But it remains inside Apple's philosophy of it,

01:21:24   which is that you don't go out of the, out of the plane.

01:21:27   You don't go perpendicular that people don't want to do the zombie arms thing,

01:21:31   but, but if your hands are down on the keyboard and on a laptop, you know,

01:21:34   you're looking at the screen, but you're also looking at the keyboard,

01:21:36   it's right there. You can't really look away from it. And that at the, you know,

01:21:39   and then your fingers are already, you know, right next to that touch area.

01:21:43   So you're not having to lift up and then reach out

01:21:46   and touch the screen.

01:21:47   So it does fit.

01:21:48   It's a way for them to do touchscreen technology

01:21:52   short of replacing the entire keyboard with a touchscreen

01:21:55   while not kind of breaking their philosophy

01:21:58   of not doing a touchscreen on the main screen.

01:22:00   - Right, which would also require you to redo the entire UI

01:22:03   of the Mac OS to make things of a size

01:22:06   that would be amenable to being touched,

01:22:08   which would make it, all the controls incredibly large

01:22:12   for everybody using a mouse, which would be,

01:22:14   which is one of the reasons why

01:22:16   I don't think it's ever gonna happen.

01:22:17   It doesn't say, Gurman doesn't say

01:22:19   whether the touchscreen strip for function keys,

01:22:24   as he describes it, will be a taptic.

01:22:28   I hope that it is, because to me,

01:22:30   that would make it make a lot more sense,

01:22:32   because then you could navigate by feel a little better.

01:22:35   Right?

01:22:35   - I don't know if you can though,

01:22:36   because if it's a touchscreen,

01:22:38   then if you're running your finger over it,

01:22:41   you're touching it, unless it's pressure sensitive.

01:22:44   - Right.

01:22:45   - I don't know.

01:22:46   I mean, there's a lot of questions about this one.

01:22:48   This is a real mystery where not knowing anything

01:22:52   but the existence of the hardware,

01:22:54   we're left to put our own judgments on it

01:22:57   that may have nothing to do with the real approach

01:23:00   and the real way Apple's going to explain it

01:23:02   when they roll this out.

01:23:03   - Also says it'll have USB-C,

01:23:05   but doesn't say how many USB-C ports.

01:23:08   Famously, I don't know if it's--

01:23:10   - Or if they're removing USB altogether or Thunderbolt,

01:23:15   or is there a mix?

01:23:16   It's just sort of like there will be USB,

01:23:18   it will include USB-C.

01:23:20   That's it, one of his sources said.

01:23:23   - Which ties back to my,

01:23:25   how long will I be able to get away

01:23:26   using an Apple extended keyboard too?

01:23:28   The adapter I have goes to regular USB.

01:23:31   So I, you know, what should--

01:23:33   - You just have a USB-C to USB to ADB, just a chain,

01:23:35   just keep chaining them forever.

01:23:37   - Eventually though, right.

01:23:39   So I'll be able to keep going with a USB-C only iMac,

01:23:44   let's say the next one I replace this iMac,

01:23:47   if that one only has USB-C.

01:23:49   Although I presume on an iMac,

01:23:50   they're not going to get rid of the,

01:23:52   they can afford to just have a bunch of ugly ports

01:23:54   'cause they hide them all on the back.

01:23:56   - Yeah, probably.

01:23:57   - So I probably won't, and that's where I use this keyboard.

01:24:00   I've never used it with a MacBook.

01:24:03   It doesn't make any sense to plug an external keyboard

01:24:07   into a MacBook, so I'm not too worried about it,

01:24:09   but it makes me wonder about, you know,

01:24:12   at some point eventually, I think before the death

01:24:16   of the Mac, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm using a Mac

01:24:20   that doesn't have any ports at all, other than power.

01:24:23   So, you know, 10, 15 years from now,

01:24:27   will there be USB ports on a Mac?

01:24:29   I don't know.

01:24:30   - Well, you'll be going from wireless standard

01:24:32   to USB-C to USB to ADB at that point.

01:24:35   - Yeah, exactly.

01:24:36   I'm sure there'll be a chain of adapters that you can use

01:24:39   to keep using your 30 plus year old keyboard at that point.

01:24:42   - I guess that's what I'll need.

01:24:43   I'll need a USB port that, a hub that goes to wireless.

01:24:48   - To wireless, yeah.

01:24:49   - The Bluetooth 8.

01:24:50   - Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

01:24:52   He also, the other report in here

01:24:53   that I thought was really interesting when we talk about

01:24:55   sort of how he qualifies his sources at Bloomberg is,

01:24:59   he says, "Apple has also considered bringing

01:25:01   space gray, gold, and silver."

01:25:04   I mean, silver it already is,

01:25:05   but basically adding the other two colors

01:25:08   that they have on the iPhones and on the MacBook

01:25:10   to the new line, a person said.

01:25:14   And then he says, "It's unclear if this will happen."

01:25:16   So basically he had one person say

01:25:18   that they were talking about it

01:25:19   and we don't know what the outcome is

01:25:22   and if they're actually doing it or not,

01:25:23   just that they thought about it.

01:25:24   - Yeah.

01:25:25   I think they probably will.

01:25:27   - I hope they do.

01:25:28   I mean, I feel like, I mean, I've been,

01:25:30   on other podcasts I've been complaining about this

01:25:34   for a while now is I kind of miss the old days

01:25:36   of like the colorful iPods and stuff.

01:25:39   And even the colorful Macs,

01:25:41   if you go back to the original iMac.

01:25:43   And they ended up having, you know,

01:25:45   eight different colors of those.

01:25:47   I kind of miss that.

01:25:48   Like we were all silver Apple products for so long.

01:25:53   And now we've got the gold and the space gray

01:25:55   and that's good.

01:25:56   I think it's a good step,

01:25:57   but I do feel sometimes I know

01:25:59   that there's supply chain issues

01:26:00   and store issues and all of that.

01:26:03   but I do kind of miss having more personality and color.

01:26:08   I'm like, if somebody wants to buy a blue MacBook,

01:26:11   that would be great.

01:26:12   I would love that.

01:26:13   But at least one of the things I like about the MacBook

01:26:16   is that it isn't just the silver color.

01:26:19   You can get it in the gold or the rose gold

01:26:21   or the space gray.

01:26:22   - Yeah, it's been a long time for me

01:26:25   where there's one color for a MacBook

01:26:27   and you're gonna like it.

01:26:28   - I had the black MacBook when they made that

01:26:30   and I loved that.

01:26:32   And then that was the last MacBook I had before I switched to the MacBook Air,

01:26:36   and it's been all silver laptops.

01:26:37   I saw someone in Starbucks with the black MacBook earlier this summer,

01:26:41   maybe earlier this year, and it was a great condition.

01:26:44   I mean, this guy really obviously cares for it because at a glance,

01:26:49   at least it was, it certainly wasn't grungy at all.

01:26:52   Uh, and I was, I was, I had this moment where I was just like, whoa,

01:26:56   what is that? That thing looks great.

01:26:59   And then I realized that what it was and I was,

01:27:01   and then I kind of saw how thick it was and I was like, "Ah."

01:27:04   - They were more prone to fingerprints than the white ones,

01:27:06   but I think they were more resilient overall

01:27:08   because the white ones were super shiny

01:27:10   and so they got scratched pretty easily,

01:27:11   but the black ones were this matte color

01:27:13   and they were more resilient. - At a glance,

01:27:15   I thought it was gorgeous.

01:27:16   The other one that I've had that,

01:27:17   I haven't seen one in years now,

01:27:19   but long after it was discontinued,

01:27:21   occasionally I would see the 12-inch,

01:27:24   I think it was called a PowerBook.

01:27:27   - Yeah, 12-inch PowerBook.

01:27:28   That was my-- - The one where the keyboard

01:27:30   really went edge to edge.

01:27:31   - Yeah, just like the MacBook now.

01:27:33   I mean, that was the original edge to edge.

01:27:35   This laptop cannot be any wider than the keyboard,

01:27:38   the full-size keyboard.

01:27:39   I love that.

01:27:40   That was my favorite.

01:27:40   Before the 11 inch year, that was my favorite laptop.

01:27:43   - For years afterwards, after its discontinuation,

01:27:46   when I'd see one, like at a press event

01:27:48   or in a coffee shop or something,

01:27:49   I'd have this moment of,

01:27:52   whoa, what brand computer is that?

01:27:54   That is a hot look.

01:27:56   (laughing)

01:27:57   You know, like, wow, Apple should get on that,

01:27:59   Oh, oh.

01:28:00   (laughing)

01:28:01   - Yep.

01:28:02   - 'Cause I knew it wasn't, you know, like the modern,

01:28:04   I instantly did recognize it as something different

01:28:06   than what is available now,

01:28:08   and instantly recognized it as something that was gorgeous.

01:28:11   - Yeah, but boxy because it's so thick now.

01:28:13   But in terms of the width, I mean,

01:28:15   it was incredibly small, way smaller,

01:28:17   smaller than the MacBook

01:28:18   because the screen was so much smaller.

01:28:20   - Yeah, yeah.

01:28:21   - But then super thick.

01:28:22   - Yeah, it had, there was a certain elegance

01:28:25   to the way that the keyboard looked edge to edge,

01:28:27   where it's sort of like the same appeal

01:28:29   as like those infinity pools.

01:28:31   Like it just looks, something in my brain

01:28:34   registers that as beautiful.

01:28:36   Like it's the same way.

01:28:37   Like there was somehow instead of being awkward

01:28:40   that there was no edge around it,

01:28:42   the proportions were so nice that it just looked sharp.

01:28:45   Like really, really sharp.

01:28:47   - I always felt that that computer was like a keyboard

01:28:49   that had a computer around it.

01:28:50   That it was like the computer and the keyboard

01:28:52   were just all part of the same thing in a way

01:28:55   because of that design.

01:28:57   I, yeah, that was my favorite.

01:28:59   The 11 inch took it over as my sort of favorite

01:29:01   Apple laptop ever, but for a long time,

01:29:04   it was that 12 inch.

01:29:05   The MacBook is kind of owes something to that now,

01:29:09   but it's not quite the same.

01:29:11   - Yeah.

01:29:12   There's a framing device in "Gurman's Story"

01:29:13   that I don't buy at all, which is that,

01:29:17   and if you watch the video he did with Bloomberg TV,

01:29:20   they emphasize it too, which is sort of like,

01:29:23   Apple is doing this new MacBook Pro because iPad sales have tapered off and the iPad didn't

01:29:32   really succeed at being the replacement for laptops.

01:29:36   I mean, I'll just read his words.

01:29:38   This year's MacBook Pro overhaul is aimed at increasing notebook sales at a time when

01:29:42   consumers are taking longer to buy or replace iPads.

01:29:44   Apple research suggests customers upgrade iPads roughly every three years while they

01:29:48   buy new iPhones every 18 to 12 months, according to a person familiar with Apple strategy,

01:29:52   which blah, blah, blah.

01:29:53   That has nothing to do with why this MacBook is coming out now.

01:29:57   It sounds to me like he had a tidbit, which is that Apple Research seems to have twigged

01:30:02   on what the buying pattern is for the iPad, which we've all been wondering, like, what

01:30:07   is the cycle? And it sounds like his sources suggest that Apple thinks it's three years.

01:30:14   But it doesn't seem to have, I mean, like they weren't going to update the MacBook Pro.

01:30:18   If the iPad was doing great, they were just never going to update it again. I think most

01:30:21   people would say that it's surprising it's taking them this long, because they were waiting

01:30:24   out Intel and Intel had some issues and they thought they could skip a generation and get

01:30:28   away with it, but then they got bitten and now they're like, now it's too long.

01:30:32   440 days or something like that.

01:30:34   Yeah, well it's very clear that they thought that they could get away with skipping that

01:30:38   one Intel processor generation and skating by because the next one was going to be great

01:30:42   and then the next one had issues and now here we are, but I don't think it has anything

01:30:49   to do with the iPad.

01:30:50   Yeah, why has it taken so long for this new MacBook Pro to come out?

01:30:55   And we're speaking about it as though it's out, and it's not out yet.

01:30:58   And it may not be out until October or November even.

01:31:03   And I think with this in particular, the Mac Pro is a totally different story.

01:31:09   And I don't know what is going on there because it's been nine years, or not nine years, but

01:31:14   it feels like it's been about nine years since it came out.

01:31:17   Three years without any updates at all.

01:31:19   And the story on that has to be more complicated

01:31:23   and might be more worrisome to people

01:31:25   who really depend on those machines.

01:31:29   With the MacBook Pro though,

01:31:30   I think the story is exactly what you said.

01:31:32   I think that there was an Intel generation of chips

01:31:35   that Apple thought they could skip

01:31:38   and wait for the next one in this,

01:31:41   'cause it's like, why do a new version of the MacBook Pro,

01:31:43   of the old MacBook Pro as we know it,

01:31:46   with a new chipset, when this new thing is coming, and we have all these plans for the

01:31:52   keyboard and it's going to be thinner, we'll wait and we'll wow them with that. And it's taken

01:31:58   longer than they thought it would. Because it's too many. They sell too many of these. It's easy

01:32:03   to say that their eye is off the ball on the Mac Pro because it just doesn't sell in high quantities,

01:32:06   but the MacBook Pro is a big moneymaker. It really is. I think it's their... I mean,

01:32:13   my money would be on it being their number one Mac that they sell, right?

01:32:17   Because they sell somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of the Macs

01:32:21   that they sell. They don't break it out anymore, I think. So we can't tell,

01:32:24   but it's a, it's a huge number. The majority of the Mac sold are laptops.

01:32:28   They're not desktops, they're laptops. And I would think that, I mean,

01:32:33   MacBook Air probably isn't selling very well now.

01:32:34   The MacBook is probably doing okay, but MacBook Pro, that's the workhorse.

01:32:38   That is at a normal time. That's gotta be the,

01:32:40   the most important of all the Macs.

01:32:42   And certainly by revenue and profit, because it's not quite there in quantity.

01:32:47   It is a much higher price, especially, and because it attracts pros, it,

01:32:52   I'm sure that more people buy them and max out the storage and the Ram and stuff

01:32:57   like that. And the graphics, you know, whereas the people who buy,

01:33:00   certainly the people who are buying Mac book errors are buying them for the

01:33:03   price at this point, because the specs aren't there. The screens aren't retina.

01:33:07   Whereas people buying the pros might be buying the ones that cost $2,500.

01:33:12   So by revenue, it's got to be.

01:33:14   So I think Apple is internally furious about the delay on this.

01:33:18   So the other thing Gherman reports, and you alluded at it,

01:33:22   Gherman says that they're not planning to debut them at the event next month,

01:33:28   which I expect to be on September 7th.

01:33:30   And that's mainly just going by history, which is that for the last three or four years,

01:33:35   they've had an event somewhere around, this is like March 7th, or September 7th to 11th,

01:33:42   12th, something like that. And if you look at the calendar, March or September 7th is

01:33:47   the day. It's Wednesday, and the Monday two days before is Labor Day, which is why they're

01:33:51   not having it on Tuesday.

01:33:52   Exactly right. Well, it was two years ago, it was the 9th, and I think last year was

01:33:56   the 8th, and I think that making it the 7th this year makes a lot of sense. If they're

01:34:00   sticking with that pattern, that'll be when it is.

01:34:03   I would have expected, and again, I have no inside information on this whatsoever, but

01:34:07   just based on the fact that last year they used one event to do everything that was coming

01:34:13   out in the fall, including the iPad Pro, which wasn't coming until late October, that even

01:34:20   if these MacBook Pros aren't coming until October, that they would use this one event

01:34:24   to unveil them.

01:34:25   And the one thing I do know, just from last year, was talking to people at Apple, that

01:34:30   it was definitely purposeful, a purposeful decision to go to one event in September for

01:34:36   everything they were going to do that fall instead of what they had done in the previous

01:34:40   few years, which was a big-ish event in September and then a small-ish event, usually at Town

01:34:45   Hall and Cupertino in October, that they found that too hard to do back to back.

01:34:51   You know, I think they could announce them at the event and just say, "Look, we love

01:35:00   the Mac and we have a whole bunch of new Mac stuff, and here's a really quick look at where

01:35:03   the Mac is going this fall." And they would say, "This is coming out in October, this

01:35:07   is coming out in November, of course Sierra is out now, blah, blah, blah, we're done."

01:35:11   They could do an event. Also, I mean, I know people don't like it when I say this, but

01:35:16   there are, Apple can release products without an event.

01:35:19   And for something like the Mac, which we all love,

01:35:23   but at the same time is a small part of Apple's

01:35:26   overall business now, is it the end of the world

01:35:28   if Apple does a MacBook Pro press release?

01:35:33   I mean, it would be a whimper, but they could.

01:35:36   They could also do a really small event somewhere.

01:35:39   They've done that before, where it's a Mac event

01:35:41   and it's got a very limited invite and it's town hall.

01:35:44   And they could even do that.

01:35:46   I don't think they're ever gonna go back to town hall,

01:35:47   but they got options.

01:35:49   They don't have to give it 30 minutes on stage

01:35:52   on September 7th.

01:35:54   - Yeah, my guess is that they either give it 30 minutes

01:35:56   on stage September 7th, or they'll release it

01:36:00   without an event and do product briefings.

01:36:02   - Yeah, they'll do briefings and press release

01:36:04   and big website, and you know, I mean, the fact is,

01:36:07   Apple can release a product without an event

01:36:10   and still get lots of press coverage

01:36:11   because they invite their key journalist contacts

01:36:15   to pre briefings and give them an embargo and and then you know one day

01:36:20   you wake up and suddenly all of these reviews are posting about what the new

01:36:24   macbook that just was announced yeah I think when they do the briefings there's

01:36:26   obviously fewer press than at an event but it's not it's not super exclusive

01:36:32   either like I remember when the watch came out I there was an event in March

01:36:38   that was the year that I couldn't travel because of the eye surgery but they

01:36:42   didn't give them, they didn't have watches to give out yet. And then when

01:36:45   they did, they did product briefings in New York and on campus

01:36:50   in Cupertino for U West Coasters. So I went to New York, but it was tons and tons,

01:36:55   I mean a big, big operation. I mean it was, it wasn't just like, "Oh, they invited

01:36:59   three people and they're gonna give them a watch." I mean it was an operation.

01:37:04   Yeah, although that's in part perhaps because they thought they would

01:37:08   able to give them out at the March event and they couldn't.

01:37:12   But they can do that with the MacBook, I'm sure.

01:37:14   They certainly absolutely could.

01:37:17   Yeah. I'm trying to think. Anything else about the MacBook Pros? I don't think so.

01:37:22   I don't know. I mean, I just—we mentioned the seven years it's been since the Mac Pro

01:37:28   got updated. I do think that that's an overarching question that we still need an answer to is

01:37:33   is what's going on with the rest of the Mac line,

01:37:36   other than the MacBook, that it's all kind of,

01:37:39   this would be the season, this fall would be the season

01:37:42   where they would do at least a speed bump on the iMacs,

01:37:45   and maybe the Mac Mini, and certainly a story

01:37:49   about what's going on with the Mac Pro.

01:37:51   And it sounds like, you know, they're working on that stuff.

01:37:54   I've seen reports that all of that stuff is in process,

01:37:57   and it's just a question of when does it get formally

01:37:59   announced and shipped?

01:38:00   And it sounds like we may end up with a fall

01:38:02   where the entire Mac line turns over,

01:38:04   except for the MacBook.

01:38:06   - And yeah, I hope so.

01:38:09   - Yeah, we should.

01:38:10   - I really do.

01:38:11   'Cause it is, you know, it's damn curious

01:38:15   if you want to use a Mac Pro

01:38:17   that you have to buy a three-year-old computer.

01:38:20   - I can't even believe they're still selling them.

01:38:22   I mean, it's almost unconscionable

01:38:24   that those products are still for sale

01:38:27   because they're so outdated now.

01:38:29   - It would be fascinating to know

01:38:31   how many of them they're actually selling,

01:38:33   because even more than the MacBook Pro,

01:38:37   it's almost certain that nobody goes in

01:38:40   and accidentally, just on a whim, buys a Mac Pro, right?

01:38:43   Like, it truly is the most pro of any computer they sell.

01:38:48   It's very expensive, it requires a display, you know.

01:38:54   - I wonder if they're selling them

01:38:55   to institutional sales now,

01:38:57   where they actually buy a bunch of them

01:38:58   and they give them a big discount,

01:38:59   And yeah, you can buy them on the Apple store, on apple.com,

01:39:03   but that maybe if they're selling any, it's really that.

01:39:06   And it's to people that they may need a Mac Pro

01:39:09   and they need it today.

01:39:10   They need 100 of them.

01:39:11   - I can totally see though how a lot of people coming in

01:39:13   to buy a MacBook of any sort or an iMac,

01:39:17   they have no idea when the last time it was revised

01:39:19   and they don't care.

01:39:20   - Sure.

01:39:21   - Just look at it, it looks great.

01:39:22   And it seems to be very, it's very fast right there

01:39:25   in the store, hey, I'll buy it.

01:39:26   Whereas the Mac Pro is only selling to people,

01:39:28   whatever the reason, whether they're videos editors or photographers or developers, they're

01:39:34   selling to people who know that this is a three-year-old computer and people who know

01:39:40   that it's old, know that it's no longer a good value for the dollar, and know that it's

01:39:47   going to physically pain them to buy one and then have a new one come out in short order.

01:39:52   Exactly. Also, I wouldn't feel bad buying an iMac now, even knowing the whole iMac in

01:39:56   'cause the 2015 update to the iMac,

01:39:59   I mean, those are good, modern, fast systems.

01:40:02   It's not the same situation.

01:40:04   They're all faster than the Mac Pro too, basically.

01:40:06   So yeah, Mac Pro is baffling.

01:40:09   - I got the first 5K iMac.

01:40:11   - Yeah, I've got that.

01:40:12   - And I don't even feel bad about that one,

01:40:14   even knowing that the next one came

01:40:16   with the increased color gamut, which is gorgeous,

01:40:19   but which I'm never gonna see it side by side with this one.

01:40:23   And this one still looks, dropped it.

01:40:25   this display is the best display I've ever had.

01:40:27   So I don't even feel bad about that.

01:40:29   - Yeah, I'm colorblind.

01:40:30   So I really, I mean, I can see color,

01:40:33   but I don't appreciate some of the finer details of color

01:40:36   and the color gamut thing.

01:40:37   I basically, I can see it a little bit,

01:40:39   but yeah, it doesn't make me feel sad.

01:40:41   I got the Core i7.

01:40:43   Yeah, this is the i7 iMac.

01:40:46   I did the build to order of the high end.

01:40:47   It's like, it's the most powerful Mac I've ever owned.

01:40:50   I'm just, even though it's a 2014, I'm happy with it.

01:40:54   A friend of the show, Craig Hockenberry, is doing,

01:40:57   he's a developer at Icon Factory.

01:41:00   He's doing a lot of research into color technology,

01:41:05   long story short.

01:41:06   I helped him out, but I looked at,

01:41:07   he had an image of whatever you wanna call it,

01:41:10   what's deep resolution, whatever that's called,

01:41:12   the extra color.

01:41:15   - It's like the wide color gamut.

01:41:16   - The wide color gamut.

01:41:17   He had a photograph that took advantage of it,

01:41:20   and I looked at it on the iMac,

01:41:23   and I looked at it on the iPad Pro, which is the, I think the only device I have that has that.

01:41:28   - The 9.7, yeah.

01:41:29   - Yeah, and I could see the difference, but it was not a heartbreaking difference. It was a,

01:41:35   "Wow, Apple's really killing it with these displays," but it did not break my heart

01:41:41   that my iMac doesn't have it.

01:41:42   - Yeah, exactly. I think that's exactly right. If I were a photographer working in that,

01:41:47   you know, color space and being frustrated that my display couldn't properly display it, then I would

01:41:53   jump on it. If it was Retina versus non-Retina, then I would just pick up this iMac and throw it

01:41:58   under garbage and head to the Apple Store. Uh-huh, yeah. So I feel like Mac, what is it,

01:42:05   MacRumors saying don't buy an iMac? It's like, yeah, you know, you could buy an iMac. I suppose

01:42:09   if you're reading MacRumors, you're savvy enough, but it's like you could buy, I think you could buy

01:42:13   and iMac, it would be fine. If you need it. If you have the need, you should definitely

01:42:17   do it, I would say. Yeah, because it'll get better in the fall, there's no doubt, but

01:42:20   it's already pretty great. It's going to be fine. But the Mac Pro, no idea. MacBook Pro,

01:42:25   same thing. So I hope, I guess that's what I'm saying, is I hope that there's more behind

01:42:30   this exciting MacBook Pro, which absolutely should be the number one thing on the list

01:42:34   of Mark Gurman reporting about it. But I hope behind that there are a raft of, even if it's

01:42:40   just sort of speed bump announcements of all the rest of the Mac line.

01:42:44   Intriguingly, not mentioned in Germin's report is anything about the displays, including

01:42:50   pixel sizes and including pixel count of the new iPhones, and whether they're going to

01:42:57   get the wide color gamut and the room temperature, the temperature sense shifting. What do they

01:43:05   call that feature? I don't have an iPad.

01:43:07   True Tone.

01:43:08   Which I kind of, even though Germin didn't mention it,

01:43:12   I'm just gonna guess that it does have True Tone.

01:43:16   - Yeah, I'm gonna guess that, yeah.

01:43:19   - Because, here's why I'm guessing that.

01:43:21   A, it's their flagship device,

01:43:23   and the best stuff usually comes to iPhone first,

01:43:25   and if it doesn't come first, it's like off by six months,

01:43:28   which would be exactly right with the True Tone.

01:43:30   And when it was introduced, Shiller said,

01:43:33   "Once you get used to it, you can't go back."

01:43:36   which makes me think that maybe Schiller already knew

01:43:38   that he wouldn't have to worry about missing it

01:43:41   on his iPhone.

01:43:42   - Yeah, I agree.

01:43:43   I think Apple is committed,

01:43:45   just as it was obvious a few years ago

01:43:47   that Apple was committed to bringing Retina

01:43:49   to the entire product line.

01:43:50   I think Apple is committed to bringing the wide color gamut

01:43:53   and the True Tone stuff to certainly the iOS line

01:43:57   and probably with the True Tone stuff,

01:44:00   even the Mac line at some point,

01:44:02   because I think they've decided

01:44:04   that this just improves the user experience,

01:44:05   that if you're in a place with yellowy light,

01:44:08   then you ought to match the white point on your display.

01:44:11   And you could turn it off.

01:44:12   And people freak out sometimes.

01:44:13   They're like, "Oh, you're messing with my colors."

01:44:14   Like, well, you can turn it off.

01:44:16   But a lot of people would prefer

01:44:17   to have the computer screen color

01:44:20   match the light of the room color.

01:44:23   And I think Apple thinks they've got a winner with it,

01:44:24   that it's kind of a crowd-pleasing feature.

01:44:26   And all it really takes,

01:44:28   I mean, they've got the new screen technology,

01:44:30   but they seem to have that down now.

01:44:32   And you need a light sensor

01:44:34   that is more than just a one-bit light sensor,

01:44:37   because you've got to detect the color temperature

01:44:39   of the room.

01:44:40   And that's it, you're done.

01:44:41   - That's it.

01:44:41   Yeah, and it's just another little chip

01:44:43   in the pile of here's the year-over-year improvements

01:44:47   that are in the iPhone that everybody will,

01:44:52   not everybody, but the press at large will sigh

01:44:55   and say, "That's it?"

01:44:56   But it's exactly the sort of feature that on a checklist

01:45:03   of what's new in the new iPhones this year

01:45:05   versus last year's models is easy to poo poo,

01:45:08   but is just like one iteration after another

01:45:13   of all of a sudden, two, three, four years down the road,

01:45:17   you've got a device that absolutely blows away

01:45:19   the old iPhone.

01:45:21   - And if the average buying cycle on a phone is two years,

01:45:24   and it probably still is,

01:45:25   even though some people will upgrade every year

01:45:27   and other people will wait maybe,

01:45:29   especially now that there's the different financing options,

01:45:31   they might wait two and a half, three years.

01:45:33   If two is the sweet spot,

01:45:34   then Apple really only needs to make half the case

01:45:37   for an upgrade every year

01:45:38   because you're not upgrading from the 6S,

01:45:41   you're upgrading from the 6.

01:45:42   And now you've got to add all the 6S features

01:45:44   and all of the whatever this new phone is features together

01:45:47   when you make the case to buy an upgrade.

01:45:50   - Totally agree.

01:45:51   All right, let me take a break.

01:45:51   Thank our third and final sponsor.

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01:46:39   that has walls and floors, like a lot of us do,

01:46:44   your Wi-Fi signal degrades.

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01:47:07   You only plug one into your cable,

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01:47:12   and then you use their app, and it's an iPhone app.

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01:47:19   and then all of a sudden, they do all the hard stuff.

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01:49:13   Yep, got them here too. They're great.

01:49:16   That read went on long, but it's because I'm so enthusiastic about the product.

01:49:21   I cannot, I really rolled my eyes when they sponsored it first because I thought,

01:49:26   well, I know they're going to want me to, if I'm going to talk about it, I got to set it up.

01:49:29   And I thought it was, I really, really thought I don't want to spend an hour setting up a

01:49:34   Wi-Fi thing at my house that I'm just going to have to disconnect a closet when I'm done.

01:49:39   It seemed like way more, you know, being on a podcast, it's easy to get lazy and think

01:49:43   that that's hard work. But A, it didn't take an hour. It took like 15 minutes. And B, it's

01:49:51   like better than my old Wi-Fi. I was like, "Oh."

01:49:55   Yeah, I think there's a great benefit in designing a Wi-Fi system for multiple routers instead

01:50:00   of just the single base station that most of them are designed for, and it shows with

01:50:04   that product.

01:50:05   And here in Philly, everybody lives in a townhouse,

01:50:08   so we have lots of floors.

01:50:10   Floors are probably the bigger problem in my house

01:50:13   than the walls, because we live on--

01:50:15   - Right, 'cause you're vertical.

01:50:16   - Right, and the cable is on,

01:50:19   it's not in the middle, it's down below.

01:50:22   - Yeah, that's hard.

01:50:23   - No, it really is, it's amazing.

01:50:24   I've said it before, I guess the read continues to go on,

01:50:29   but in our garage, we never got good Wi-Fi in the garage

01:50:32   before we had the Eero,

01:50:34   And it was a problem in the garage because it would often be like you'd get in the car

01:50:38   and you'd be like, "Oh, I wanted to open Overcast and finish downloading podcasts."

01:50:44   But with like a media...

01:50:45   It was like there's enough of a signal, easily enough of a signal that it wasn't going to

01:50:50   LTE.

01:50:51   It was still on Wi-Fi.

01:50:52   But it was like when you see two bars on the Wi-Fi, that means you're on like a 56K modem.

01:50:59   If you don't have all the bars on the Wi-Fi, you're screwed.

01:51:02   Yeah. Anyway, E-roll. You want to talk about Rick Tetzelli's Fast Company piece? Or I guess there

01:51:11   was a second piece too. There was an interview with Bazoma St. John. Right, that Mark Sullivan

01:51:17   did, but Rick Tetzelli wrote the main piece. Yeah, I listened to your show, your upgrade with

01:51:24   Mike Hurley, and I thought it was interesting. You guys both seemed a little non-pl-- it's like

01:51:30   the casual, the new meaning of nonplussed. Like, not that enthusiastic about it. I loved this

01:51:36   story. I really did. And I thought you and Mike were surprisingly, like, "Eh, I didn't really

01:51:41   learn anything." Well, to be fair, one of the things about that podcast is we recorded on

01:51:46   Monday morning, and so, like, literally I woke up, saw that there was this story, read it, and then

01:51:50   we did a podcast about it. So it was— I was surprised when I heard it. I was like, "Wait,

01:51:53   I just read the story." I went for a run, and I was listening to your show, and I was like,

01:51:58   how are they talking about this? And then I realized that the air date of the podcast was like,

01:52:02   I literally must have downloaded it as I left the house.

01:52:06   - Yeah, the Wi-Fi radius allowed you to download it. Yeah, part of it for me is that I see the

01:52:13   artifice behind it. And most people won't ever see that, but as somebody who has written and edited

01:52:19   magazine features before, I looked at this and I thought, okay, I can see why this thing is

01:52:25   constructed the way it is. And also part of it is some of my own personal bias where I

01:52:29   look at a story that begins with like a lengthy anecdote about the surroundings of Apple and

01:52:39   you know running into Eddy Cue and describing what he's wearing and the temperature in Cupertino

01:52:44   and all of that. And there are two ways to view that. One is this is a feature story,

01:52:48   he's setting the scene, he's letting his readers get the sense of who these people are and

01:52:51   what this place is like. And that is how it's intended. As an editor, I also look at that

01:52:57   and think, you don't have a lot of material to pack in here, so you have the room to tell

01:53:08   a story, and in fact you kind of need to weave a story here and some imagery because that's

01:53:16   part of what you've got, is the access. And maybe you don't have, you know, if you had

01:53:20   Tim Cook saying something, you know, pretty profound and deep in terms of a pronouncement,

01:53:24   you probably lead with that. But you don't, so you lead with the atmosphere. And it's

01:53:28   like I kind of get the artifice of that. And part of it is just, yeah, as somebody who's

01:53:33   been to Apple and has talked to a lot of these people, for me, I read that story thinking,

01:53:38   what are they going to say that's new? And describing Cafe Max and the smell of the chicken

01:53:43   masala doesn't do it for me. So part of it is that too. So I come with my biases.

01:53:47   I liked that though. I really did. I did that a couple years ago. I think it was the time

01:53:51   that you're talking about where Apple called us in for a briefing where they didn't tell

01:53:55   us what the product was, and I had a briefing with Schiller in New York. And they said they

01:54:00   made clear to me that the whole thing was on the record. I was like, "All of it? I can

01:54:03   just write about all of it." And so really, instead of writing about the version of macOS

01:54:08   that they showed me, I wrote what it was like to have the product briefing with Schiller.

01:54:13   Apple did not like that. I was then told that there was a "Grouper clause" added to future

01:54:20   on the record briefings, where it's what's being talked about the product is on the record,

01:54:25   not the briefing itself.

01:54:26   Yeah, not the quotes. Yeah, I've gotten read that riot act too, so thanks for that. But

01:54:32   no, it's all about what you want to get out of it and how you want—I think it's a fine

01:54:39   story. I think it's got some good stuff in it. I think it's interesting that it was done

01:54:42   a while ago because it's clearly been held for a magazine deadline because they still

01:54:47   apparently publish in print, good for them, and so it's like from when the Warriors lost

01:54:52   at the NBA Finals, which is a while ago now, so it's not like it's kind of breaking news,

01:54:57   but they did get access. It's not, you know, again, I read between the lines and think

01:55:01   they didn't get a lot of time with Tim Cook and a lot of time with Eddie Q and Craig Federighi,

01:55:05   but they got some, and I think it's a perfectly nice piece. I think the thing that impressed

01:55:10   me most about it is that it cited all of the misconceptions about Apple without buying

01:55:15   into them. And that's hard for a magazine piece or really any piece to do where usually

01:55:21   you either see pieces that are denying the conception or you see them buying into it

01:55:27   entirely and this piece didn't do that. This piece was like, "This is how it's perceived."

01:55:33   But there are lots of reasons why that may not actually be accurate. And I was impressed

01:55:37   that he walked that line because nuance is really hard to do and I think he did a good

01:55:41   job with it.

01:55:42   I think he really did a good job of painting a picture of what Apple in 2016 is, you know,

01:55:49   and it's true and it's an interesting amount of time post Steve Jobs. Am I off by a year

01:55:57   here? I'm pretty sure it's five years. I think it was 2011 where I think you're right. Right

01:56:01   Right around now in August, Steve announced that he was stepping aside as CEO to become

01:56:07   chairman of the board, and then it was October when he died.

01:56:12   Five years is sort of a round number, and it's an interesting period of time.

01:56:15   It's been a very strong five years for Apple.

01:56:18   They mentioned in the article that the company's employee count has doubled in that time.

01:56:24   Certainly their finances have improved.

01:56:26   How much hand-wringing you want to give over the year-over-year decreases in the last two

01:56:30   quarters. Overall, those quarters are still above 2014. It's just the abnormalness of

01:56:39   2015 with the abnormal success of the iPhone 6. Again, not good, but still, overall the

01:56:47   company is way bigger financially in profits and revenue and just number of users than

01:56:54   they were five years ago. It truly is Apple the industry behemoth now. They are. There's

01:57:03   no other way to avoid it. I've been thinking about this a lot, big picture Apple stuff

01:57:09   as a commentator and columnist, that I think in my heart I liked Apple the little company

01:57:15   better. It was more appealing to me personally.

01:57:19   - Oh, I mean, you're a Star Wars fan.

01:57:21   It's like you're rooting for the Rebel Alliance

01:57:23   when it's old Apple.

01:57:25   And now I had this conversation with my friend, Greg Noss,

01:57:28   who knows everybody on the internet apparently,

01:57:31   who I went to college with, and he was saying,

01:57:32   you know, it's kind of hard to root for Apple these days.

01:57:34   This was a few years ago,

01:57:35   or to even do something like read the Macalope,

01:57:37   because it was one thing when they were the underdog

01:57:40   and they were the rebel,

01:57:41   but now they're kind of like the big guy.

01:57:43   And it doesn't make me, you know, I don't know.

01:57:47   There's just, the tone is different.

01:57:48   The feeling is different.

01:57:49   And you're right, this article gets at it.

01:57:51   I mean, I think the maps anecdote

01:57:53   was the most, is the most illuminating thing in it.

01:57:55   And it's illuminating in so many different ways.

01:57:58   Like they talk about, they talk about the fact

01:58:00   that they were kind of in a bubble

01:58:01   where all the maps in California were good

01:58:04   or in Cupertino or in the Bay Area were good.

01:58:06   And so they didn't realize they had data problems

01:58:08   and that they thought, thinking like old Apple,

01:58:11   which was, we have to do this with a very small team

01:58:15   because we have to do it.

01:58:16   And nobody's really disputing

01:58:17   that they had to do their own.

01:58:19   maps data, but they like, they had this little team

01:58:21   that did it and they were kind of undersized

01:58:22   and underpowered and it was a disaster.

01:58:25   And now they said like it went from a couple dozen people

01:58:27   or dozens of people to like more than a thousand people

01:58:30   working on maps now.

01:58:32   And I thought that's that moment where you realize

01:58:35   the old playbook doesn't work for like,

01:58:37   you have to do this thing, this maps thing,

01:58:40   because it's key to your business

01:58:42   and the future products that you do

01:58:43   that you have your own source of map data, okay.

01:58:46   But you can't do it in the old way,

01:58:49   which is put a small team on it

01:58:50   and have them kind of hack something together,

01:58:52   you actually have to spend a huge amount of money

01:58:53   and hire a whole bunch of people

01:58:55   and make it really good everywhere in the world.

01:58:58   And that was, I mean, I thought that was really interesting,

01:59:01   not just because they say this is the reason

01:59:03   why there are public betas now,

01:59:04   because they need to test it more broadly

01:59:06   than their Insular community,

01:59:08   but also just because what it says about how

01:59:10   they need to embrace the fact

01:59:11   that they are playing on a much larger stage

01:59:14   and the stakes are higher and they can't,

01:59:17   there's some stuff they can't do the old way

01:59:19   just because that's not who they are anymore

01:59:21   and that's not the game they're playing anymore.

01:59:24   - A thousand employees,

01:59:26   I mean, they don't say what they're doing.

01:59:27   Like, are these people who are just driving cars?

01:59:30   - Driving cars, yeah, that was my thought is Apple--

01:59:33   - It can't be engineers because there's a,

01:59:35   you know, too many chefs spoil the soup aspect.

01:59:39   - Right, but there's all the data

01:59:41   and there's probably working with data sources

01:59:43   and there is driving the cars.

01:59:44   I do wonder sometimes when they say Apple's employees

01:59:46   doubled. How much of that is retail and people like driving around cars?

01:59:50   I don't know. And just manually going through the reports that people

01:59:55   submit of places and maps and just the grunt work of, "Oh, that's no

02:00:01   longer a laundromat. Now that was raised and now it's a townhouse."

02:00:06   Exactly. But a thousand employees with an average salary of a hundred thousand

02:00:12   dollars, that's a hundred million dollars a year.

02:00:15   I mean, and even if it's lower than that as an average, because some of them are doing

02:00:19   more menial tasks and they're not like engineers or something, even if you have that to 50,000,

02:00:25   you know, that's still 50 million dollars a year. That's a significant investment. And I think it's

02:00:30   exactly an example. Again, one of my favorite parts of the story. It is exactly the... Under

02:00:39   Tim Cook, Apple is an industry behemoth that can do something like create a thousand person mapping

02:00:44   division, whereas the Apple of, you know, when they unveiled the maps and Steve Jobs was the CEO was,

02:00:52   I don't even know if they considered a big team. Like, every team at Apple is a small team. That's

02:00:56   just, that was the Apple way of doing things. And I don't want it to come across that, like,

02:01:02   oh, Apple is spending money like a drunken sailor now, because that's not the case. In fact, I know

02:01:07   for a fact that Apple still, I think Tim Cook, this is one of the ways that Tim Cook and Steve

02:01:12   jobs really were similar in their disposition is that it hurts them to spend money and hire

02:01:20   lots of people. They don't want to do it. Apple has not managed as if they had more

02:01:26   than $100 billion in the bank, even though they do, as if they weren't generating $7,

02:01:30   $8, $9 billion in profit every single quarter. They're not managed like that. Every hire

02:01:36   is scrutinized. Every team, there's always a question like, "Does this team need to

02:01:41   be any bigger, it's true. So that's why it makes this map thing such a big step for them

02:01:45   to be like, you know, if we think this is what we need to do, or the car thing, potentially,

02:01:50   if we're going to do it, we have to do it. And that means hiring lots of people and spending

02:01:55   lots of money because we're not a small company anymore. We are a company that has huge revenues

02:02:00   and huge profits, and if we want to stay that way, we have to spend money.

02:02:04   I think that institutionally, I know, I know from the various friends I have who work there

02:02:09   and acquaintances. The people at Apple, and this came from Steve Jobs, and it's one of

02:02:14   those things that "is instilled in the company's DNA." They are deathly afraid of making bad

02:02:19   hires. Not in terms of talent, although that's part of it, but just in terms of whether people

02:02:25   get the Apple way. There's nothing that would sink the company faster than polluting it

02:02:33   with bad hires.

02:02:35   - Bozos. - Bozos, that's right.

02:02:37   And the same goes for if you speed hire,

02:02:41   if you hire a lot of people,

02:02:42   if you staff up really quickly,

02:02:43   the danger there is that some percentage of those people

02:02:45   are gonna be bozos.

02:02:46   And that's why Apple's teams

02:02:48   have traditionally been so small,

02:02:49   they are so careful about it, they are run.

02:02:51   I think it's not, you know, Apple's near death experience

02:02:55   and the discipline of the way the culture changed

02:03:00   when Steve came back and they got away

02:03:03   from that near death experience,

02:03:05   it informs the culture to this day.

02:03:06   I think they have to fight when they do things like this.

02:03:08   They have to fight against it

02:03:09   because it is a different place that they're in now.

02:03:12   But I see that, you know, my dad grew up in the Depression

02:03:15   and he lived his entire life being incredibly concerned

02:03:20   about what money was being spent on what and all of that,

02:03:23   and reusing things and fixing broken things

02:03:26   that most people would just throw out

02:03:27   because he had that experience in the Great Depression.

02:03:29   And I feel like Apple has that in their culture too.

02:03:32   Like we almost went out of business.

02:03:34   And so we're gonna be really careful

02:03:35   about every dollar we spend,

02:03:37   even though we've got 100 billion in a mattress somewhere.

02:03:40   - I think that the debut of Apple Maps

02:03:41   is one of the greatest stories

02:03:43   that's really never been told.

02:03:45   From what I know, I know more than what was in the story,

02:03:48   but it's like nobody really has it.

02:03:50   And part of the reason nobody has it

02:03:51   is that Scott Forstall has never broken his silence,

02:03:55   even off the record.

02:03:57   He's, to this date, has never said a goddamn thing

02:04:01   about anything.

02:04:03   Other than that, when he popped up when he was producing that play on Broadway, which

02:04:07   had nothing to do with Apple.

02:04:08   But he's never leaked a damn word about his time at Apple.

02:04:14   And my understanding, and again, this is not from a source that I could ever...

02:04:19   I feel like I can podcast it, but I can't write it.

02:04:22   But I spoke to someone at Apple, not high up.

02:04:24   It was just this run-of-the-mill person who worked at Apple, but was in management, and

02:04:32   that the word on the street in Apple was that he had a two-year, you know, you can't talk clause.

02:04:41   That gardening leave kind of thing where they're paying him and he doesn't say anything and that's

02:04:45   part of his severance or whatever. Right, that it was a very simple deal. It was a dump truck

02:04:49   full of cash and you keep your mouth shut for two years and that was it. But then, even if that's

02:04:56   off by a year or two that's expired. I mean, it's possible. It's possible.

02:05:01   It may be keep your mouth shut about Apple forever, but you can talk about... Yeah, I

02:05:06   don't know. That's unlikely, though. You know what I mean? It just seems like those packages

02:05:10   are usually... And I think it's by choice. I think it's unsurprising that someone who

02:05:15   is so successful under Steve Jobs for his entire career and within Apple would be of

02:05:23   the nature to keep his mouth shut even afterwards, right? It's how do you how do

02:05:27   you fill a company you know how do you how does the company keep its mouth shut

02:05:29   collectively by hiring people who keep their mouth shut? Right. So my impression

02:05:34   my impression too is that is that maps may have been the precipitating factor

02:05:38   for him to be kicked out but that that you know if this was the one mistake he

02:05:42   had made that he would still be there that was not this was the precipitation

02:05:46   not the not the crime. But anyway all of that is to say though that nobody could

02:05:50   write the definitive thing on maps unless they could get Forstall to open up, because

02:05:55   otherwise it's all one-sided. And there is this sort of throw Forstall under the bus

02:05:59   nature to it, but that is my understanding of actually what happened. The gist of it,

02:06:05   I don't even know how, part of it that doesn't get talked about is the whole negotiations

02:06:10   with Google aspect, where their agreement with Google to use Google Maps and iOS was

02:06:14   was running out and needed to be renewed.

02:06:18   And Google knew that.

02:06:20   Apple wanted vector maps.

02:06:22   Remember, at the time, they only had the bitmap maps.

02:06:24   So they wanted vector maps, and they

02:06:26   wanted turn-by-turn directions.

02:06:29   And Google was holding this over them

02:06:31   in exchange for allowing Google to get

02:06:34   more user identifiable data, like get people to sign

02:06:37   into their Google account.

02:06:38   And then using the built-in maps in iOS,

02:06:41   Google would have information about you, all of your location searches and stuff like that,

02:06:46   which Apple didn't want to give them.

02:06:49   And so Apple, because of this, sort of knew that they had to switch to Apple Maps, make

02:06:55   it as good as it can, but we need to switch now because our contract is up and we're at

02:07:00   an impasse with Google over getting an extension to use their stuff and to get the stuff that

02:07:04   we need turn by turn and stuff like that.

02:07:06   So it wasn't like Apple collectively thought Apple Maps was just fine.

02:07:10   They knew that it was going to be a step backwards.

02:07:14   But, from what I've heard this from multiple people,

02:07:17   but that effectively, what Eddy Q said is very true,

02:07:21   that at a senior executive level,

02:07:23   what they saw firsthand using the betas was pretty good.

02:07:28   It really is pretty good.

02:07:29   And I know, depending on where you are

02:07:30   as a listener of the show, you really might not believe it.

02:07:32   But really, right from the get-go,

02:07:34   in the Bay Area, it was pretty good.

02:07:36   I mean, you live there, right?

02:07:37   - I live there, and people, to this day,

02:07:40   People would be like, "I can't believe you use Apple Maps."

02:07:41   I'm like, "Well, I live an hour from Apple.

02:07:44   "The maps here are pretty good."

02:07:45   (laughs)

02:07:47   That was never a question.

02:07:48   It's everywhere else in the world that it's a question.

02:07:51   - And, you know, obviously, this is a very complex story,

02:07:54   but long story short, what they saw firsthand

02:07:56   with the betas was pretty good.

02:07:57   Forestall gave them an impression

02:08:00   of how good they were worldwide,

02:08:02   which was, you know, raise your hand up to here,

02:08:05   when in fact it was way lower.

02:08:06   Like, Forestall did that, and again,

02:08:08   This is not Forstall's side of the story.

02:08:10   This is what I've heard.

02:08:11   But that Forstall led them to believe

02:08:13   that the rest of the data was better than it is.

02:08:16   Not as good as Google, not as good as it needed to be,

02:08:18   but that it was better than it would be.

02:08:20   And that what further infuriated

02:08:24   the rest of the executive team was the amount of time

02:08:26   that Forstall had his team spend

02:08:29   on the fancy pants flyover stuff.

02:08:32   Right, remember when they first demoed Apple apps?

02:08:33   - Oh yeah.

02:08:34   - The most, and Forstall did the demo.

02:08:37   And as Apple does, whoever worked on it and led it

02:08:41   is the one who does the demo.

02:08:42   It wasn't just like you're randomly assigned to do it.

02:08:44   It was like Forstall had personally

02:08:46   spent a lot of time overseeing Apple Maps.

02:08:48   And he spent almost all of his time on stage demoing

02:08:50   the Fancy Pants flyover stuff.

02:08:53   And what I've heard is that the amount of time

02:08:56   he spent in the demo on the Fancy Pants stuff

02:08:59   was commensurate with the amount of time his engineering team

02:09:01   had spent working on that.

02:09:03   And there was anger that, hey, we wasted all this time

02:09:08   on this flyover stuff, and people can't even

02:09:11   get a direction from their home to their office.

02:09:14   People are being told to drive into a brick wall.

02:09:17   And then I have no idea.

02:09:20   The other thing that--

02:09:21   it's widely reported.

02:09:22   I can't verify it.

02:09:23   I don't have-- unless you get Tim Cook or Sportsdoll

02:09:28   to go on the record, I don't know how you'd get it

02:09:30   on the record.

02:09:31   But there's that whole story about the apology letter,

02:09:33   that Tim Cook ended up signing himself,

02:09:36   and that supposedly,

02:09:39   either Forstall was supposed to sign it,

02:09:41   or he was supposed to co-sign it with Cook and refused.

02:09:44   And if that's true, I've always thought this,

02:09:46   assuming that that's true,

02:09:48   that he was, you know,

02:09:48   Cook wanted him to either sign it himself instead of him,

02:09:51   or co-sign it with him.

02:09:52   And knowing Tim Cook,

02:09:54   I wouldn't be surprised if it was co-signed,

02:09:55   'cause it doesn't seem,

02:09:56   he seems to me like I know the buck stops here.

02:09:59   But when the CEO asks you to sign a letter apologizing for something, your only choices

02:10:08   are to sign it or to quit.

02:10:11   Like the fact that Scott Forstall seemingly, and I've also heard that he was taken by

02:10:16   surprise by his eventual ouster later that year, and I've never heard anything to the

02:10:21   contrary on that, it's shocking to me that he thought that he was like an indispensable

02:10:27   man.

02:10:28   And I think his years working under Steve Jobs maybe misled him as to his political

02:10:34   stature within the company.

02:10:36   Because I don't see how you, when the CEO says, "Sign an apology," you can't say

02:10:41   no and expect to keep your job.

02:10:43   No, that seems pretty fundamental, right?

02:10:47   At that point, you need to own up to this.

02:10:49   And even if it's just like, "Look, we need to make a message here.

02:10:52   We need to explain to the customers that we hear them."

02:10:56   And it's almost defiant of like, "No, it's fine," or denial or whatever it is.

02:11:02   But yeah, to be at that point, also you could argue that maybe that is enough stuff had

02:11:08   built up with him that maybe this was a like, "Look, you're going to do this.

02:11:12   This is your mess.

02:11:13   You're going to clean it up."

02:11:15   And if you refuse that, it's like, "Okay, I guess…"

02:11:18   There's no way forward from that.

02:11:21   That's a symptom of a bigger problem, right?

02:11:25   the only way out apparently was to have him leave.

02:11:29   Anyway, I thought so. It was about as interesting and on the record take of that as I've seen.

02:11:35   Yeah, I loved just the line from Q that it was good here and we lost perspective,

02:11:42   and that's one of the reasons we do public betas now is because we want more perspective, and that was really good.

02:11:48   That was a good thing to hear, even though we all kind of expected that.

02:11:53   It was good to hear that they have learned it and internalized it and changed what they've done because of that lesson that they got beat up for.

02:12:02   And overall, I really think Ted Zelle painted an accurate picture of Apple as it currently is, the big giant company that their success inevitably led them to be, and why it means that they can't really be "doomed."

02:12:17   I agree. I think it's a good story. My quibbles about it are a lot of just the art of it that I feel like he seems...

02:12:28   I don't know. I'm not a big fan usually of the stories that take 500 words to paint a picture of the smell of the food at the restaurant where the interview is being conducted.

02:12:38   Unless you're gay to lease, right? And Mr. Sinatra has a cold.

02:12:42   See, that's what I like, though. That's exactly what he's going for.

02:12:46   - Right? - Right.

02:12:46   - Yeah, and it is.

02:12:48   And if you like that sort of thing,

02:12:49   then I think that it'll work for you.

02:12:51   It was never my cup of tea.

02:12:52   But the fact is that the Apple executives he talked to

02:12:57   were forthcoming about things in a way

02:12:59   that is not something we see very often.

02:13:01   - Man, how about that picture of Federighi?

02:13:04   Man, what a handsome son of a bitch.

02:13:08   - He's blue stealing it there.

02:13:09   That is total, he's gonna be, yeah, future as a male model.

02:13:13   - I haven't seen any memes with it yet,

02:13:15   it's inevitable. Somebody sent me one and and I think it was in the context of

02:13:20   "please make more memes with Craig Federighi's eyes and what he's

02:13:26   you know he's staring at you he's got and he's got his hand out on the table

02:13:29   with the wedding ring so it's like sorry ladies." The other thing about this

02:13:33   story that impressed me and I liked was that I really think it serves the

02:13:37   purpose. I don't know how many people read Fast Company but for somebody who's not

02:13:39   as in tune to Apple as I try to be and certainly as you try to be as a more of

02:13:45   lay person and someone who might be prone to think like, "Hey, I keep hearing bad stuff

02:13:50   about Apple. Maybe they're in trouble." I think it was a very good way of putting their

02:13:56   recent troubles in context of where the company really is. This is a very good company that

02:14:02   continues to thrive that has suffered some recent hiccups, that it is not a company that

02:14:07   is in turmoil. If anything, they're more stable than ever.

02:14:11   I agree. I mean, I could even argue that the article gives too much voice to the other

02:14:19   side of the sort of--by discussing some of these really dumb arguments about Apple, that

02:14:28   they're giving it too much credence at some point. But I did appreciate that he takes

02:14:32   the time to bat them all down and say, "These are ridiculous arguments, and yeah, you might

02:14:37   read about it at Fortune, but that doesn't mean that it's real. And I think for a broader

02:14:41   audience that doesn't read the Macalope or anything like that, they're going to come

02:14:46   out away from this thinking, "Oh, I see now. I understand more about what Apple's trying

02:14:50   to do," and not that their sales are plummeting and it's a disaster and they're doomed.

02:14:56   And I value that story for doing it and being so nuanced about it.

02:14:59   I know you've got to go. I know that we've been going on a long time. Just briefly, have

02:15:04   you been watching any Olympics?

02:15:06   Yeah, I've been trying to. How are you watching it?

02:15:11   It's not humanly possible to watch the Olympics in all its places because there's like 6,000.

02:15:14   It would take a human being who didn't sleep like eight months to watch all the Olympics

02:15:18   stuff that's being made available on TV. I've had the prime time NBC on in the evening.

02:15:25   We haven't been watching a lot of other TV. Instead, we've been kind of having that on

02:15:29   while we're looking at stuff on the internet and sort of swimming and volleyball and whatever.

02:15:34   And then I've done some stuff with the Apple TV streams and with the, on my iPad too a

02:15:39   little bit, which is the great thing about having everything available on video on the

02:15:43   iPad or the Apple TV or on the web is you can pick a sport.

02:15:48   Like if you want to see table tennis or rugby or whatever, you know, some of those may be

02:15:54   on cable, but all of them have a feed on the internet.

02:15:58   I just can't help but think that the app is so bad.

02:16:02   so comically bad that I really can't help but think that it was designed by people who

02:16:07   really want you to watch on regular TV.

02:16:09   That's a pretty good thing. Given the fact that literally every item on the Apple TV

02:16:14   says Olympic Sports, like that's their... Level one header of every single item is Olympic

02:16:20   Sports, so you've got like 20 items that just say Olympic Sports instead of what the sport

02:16:25   is. It's like, what? I don't even know what is going on there.

02:16:28   It's not a new feature. I really can't believe that the iPad app doesn't support split screen

02:16:32   view or the picture-in-picture. Yeah, well, I watch soccer, I watch like English Premier

02:16:38   League soccer and they have all those games on there too, and it's been like this. I think

02:16:42   it's because they're doing a custom video player so that they can do their ad insertions

02:16:45   and they want to stick a banner ad on the screen next to their video and stuff like

02:16:50   that, so they're basically motivated to not do picture-in-picture and it drives me crazy

02:16:55   because what I want to do is pop it in picture-in-picture and do other stuff on my iPad. Yes, which

02:16:59   is the whole point of the feature.

02:17:01   And it was exactly, I wanted to watch the US men play Australia.

02:17:05   It was a good basketball game yesterday.

02:17:06   And I thought this is a perfect reason.

02:17:08   I'm going to be the, like the kids today.

02:17:10   I'm going to work on my iPad and this will be great.

02:17:13   Except it doesn't support any of those features.

02:17:16   Nope.

02:17:17   Oh, it makes you crazy.

02:17:18   Yeah.

02:17:19   It's I think, you know, they've come a long way from the, you know, from the

02:17:23   pay-per-view triple cast and all of that.

02:17:25   And, and I feel like Comcast actually, now that they're running the show at NBC,

02:17:29   They're more, they're more open.

02:17:31   Like they're running.

02:17:32   I don't know if you noticed this, they're actually running sports in

02:17:34   prime time on cable channels, which they used to not do like when it was on in

02:17:38   prime time on NBC, everything else went dark.

02:17:40   It's like everybody very quiet.

02:17:41   Now we're going to watch Bob Costas and, and they're playing with that now.

02:17:45   And they've got this gold zone channel, which is like the NFL red zone, where

02:17:48   you can theoretically just turn it on and it will just whip you around to all

02:17:52   of the different venues and show you different stuff that's going on live.

02:17:55   Which is a really cool idea.

02:17:57   So I feel like in the end, maybe the Olympics is going to be best when it's

02:18:01   completely nonlinear and that all the only thing that we have that's linear

02:18:06   is a best of the day recap, which is the three hours in NBC prime time.

02:18:11   It, it, I think that may be the ultimate destination of the Olympics.

02:18:14   And it, I think it was obvious that that was the ultimate destination

02:18:17   maybe like 12 years ago, but it.

02:18:19   It's taken till now for maybe for Comcast and NBC to realize

02:18:22   it's the obvious destination.

02:18:25   It's just so frustrating because it's obviously not for a lack of money. This is a multi-billion

02:18:30   dollar operation. And it just screams for it. It is like in the old days before the internet,

02:18:38   trying to cover all of these sports from all of these countries on a TV channel was impossible.

02:18:44   Whereas this is the perfect solution. You can watch your favorite sport and you can see your

02:18:49   country. It's so poorly done. It makes me frustrated.

02:18:54   I feel like I'm actually a little optimistic now because I feel like they've got the pieces in place now and that maybe they even realize

02:18:59   where they're where they need to head ultimately. There are always gonna be issues people get frustrated by it

02:19:04   It's like they spend billions of dollars for this

02:19:06   So they're gonna be ads and they're gonna have stuff that's behind a cable login because it's Comcast

02:19:11   They spent a lot of money. They're gonna get their money back one way or another they're gonna get they're gonna make their money back

02:19:16   But I feel like now

02:19:18   They are headed in the right direction where this could actually be good

02:19:22   maybe in two or four years where they like fully embrace the internet, especially if there's an Olympics

02:19:27   I don't know what the next Olympics is, but when when there's one that's completely off time zones from the United States

02:19:32   Yeah, I feel like I feel like then they're really gonna be able to embrace it because they're gonna have to because you know

02:19:38   Nobody's gonna nobody's gonna want to the primetime stuff's gonna be not live at all. Well, it's going back to China soon. So maybe then

02:19:44   Anyway, I will say one good thing about being a Comcast customer

02:19:48   and I think this is what happened.

02:19:50   When I did authenticate with the app

02:19:52   for my cable subscription,

02:19:54   I didn't have to sign in with a username or password.

02:19:56   I think that Comcast somehow figured it out,

02:19:59   that they could tell I'm on a Comcast network

02:20:01   and they're like, "Good enough." (laughs)

02:20:03   - Yeah, yeah, me too.

02:20:03   And that was good

02:20:04   because sometimes the authentication thing

02:20:06   is the most broken,

02:20:07   especially at high times where everybody's trying to log in,

02:20:11   those things tend to break.

02:20:12   So I think, yeah, it looks and says,

02:20:15   "You're on a Comcast IP, good enough."

02:20:17   Hey, I want to say congratulations. You, your upgrade podcast, the one I just mentioned

02:20:24   listening to, is episode 101. You guys hit 100 episodes on upgrade, you and Mike Hurley.

02:20:28   So that means two years you've been going indie.

02:20:33   And in binary, what is 101?

02:20:36   It's five.

02:20:37   It's five.

02:20:38   I couldn't believe it.

02:20:39   Yeah, I'm really bad. I'm really bad. I could work it out, right? Like, one and then one

02:20:43   zero is and I was like oh yeah that's five okay got it but no thank you um yeah it's coming up

02:20:48   you do a podcast every every week and it totals up to it's almost the reason I know that September

02:20:53   9th is when they did the event uh not just last year but the year before is because that was

02:20:57   basically my last day at macworld yeah was September 9th yeah uh of uh 14 so it's been almost

02:21:05   almost two years now of doing this which is it's been great like you know I I think I've said this

02:21:10   before, but you are obviously an inspiration for me to go out and try to do this on my own.

02:21:16   And I've got two kids that are going to be headed off to college in the next few years, and

02:21:21   I live in the Bay Area, which is a very expensive place to live, and my wife doesn't have a full-time

02:21:26   job, and it was very stressful, but we have managed to make it work for two years, and my

02:21:31   wife was just saying to me the other day, you know, I was very much in the "let's give it six months"

02:21:36   mode," she said, "when we started this." And now she's kind of out of that mode and

02:21:40   like, it's working, which is great. And you never know what's going to happen, and

02:21:45   you know better than anyone, you've got to watch everything and keep in mind, like,

02:21:48   what if this happens and what if that happens. But it's been great that I've been able

02:21:51   to actually live my life and do stuff that I love, which I kind of wasn't doing at

02:21:56   the end at my old job.

02:21:57   I know that feeling. Yeah, you got it. You know, when I went full-time on "Daring

02:22:02   I don't even think I was doing a podcast yet.

02:22:05   And if I was, the whole first run of the show with Dan Benjamin,

02:22:11   we never had a single sponsor.

02:22:13   We kind of put some feelers out, and people were like, podcast?

02:22:16   So we just say, well, we'll just do it for fun.

02:22:19   I mean, literally, I guess we lost money on the show,

02:22:22   because whatever we paid for web hosting and I think Amazon storage.

02:22:29   When I went full time on Daring Fireball, the idea that I'd be

02:22:32   50% of my income would be from podcasting wasn't even,

02:22:36   I didn't even think it was possible.

02:22:37   I didn't even think I was good at it.

02:22:39   I don't, not sure I am, but.

02:22:42   - It's well, nobody knows what makes a good podcast.

02:22:44   Even now they don't, but you're right.

02:22:46   I didn't, even, I mean, even two years ago,

02:22:48   I didn't, when I left, all of my calculations were,

02:22:53   can I do a site that became six colors

02:22:56   and can I do freelance writing?

02:22:59   And can I make that work?

02:23:01   Even then, and maybe a little from the incomparable.

02:23:04   But even then, I wasn't really counting on

02:23:06   what if I did some other podcasts with Relay

02:23:09   and throw those into the pot.

02:23:10   And now, yeah, it's a, I don't know if it's 50/50,

02:23:13   but it's certainly a huge part.

02:23:15   If I stopped podcasting, I would not be able to speak

02:23:19   with as much confidence about making it work as I can

02:23:22   because I'm also doing podcasting.

02:23:24   - Yeah.

02:23:25   My thanks also, so my thanks to you.

02:23:27   - Thank you. - Upgrade, people can just,

02:23:28   just Google for upgrade.

02:23:29   - Yeah, relay.fm.

02:23:31   Relay.fm and you'll find it there.

02:23:32   And there's a whole bunch of other podcasts.

02:23:34   And of course you've got like 30 podcasts

02:23:36   at the incomparable.

02:23:37   - And yeah, there's a lot of them.

02:23:38   I'm not on most of them thankfully,

02:23:40   but yes, there are a lot of them there.

02:23:41   - And you know, home base, let's face it.

02:23:43   I don't care how much time we spend podcasting,

02:23:46   we're writers and do your writing primarily.

02:23:49   And if you don't, if you do it elsewhere,

02:23:50   you always link it up at sixcolors.net.

02:23:55   - .com.

02:23:56   - .com, dot something.

02:23:58   - Yeah, .com.

02:23:59   - And you can spell colors however you want.

02:24:00   you put the you in there it redirects. My thanks also to our three sponsors

02:24:04   StateEro, great Wi-Fi, go there and get your Wi-Fi fixed in your house. Fracture,

02:24:08   get your pictures painted directly on glass. And Global Delight, who has the new

02:24:12   Boom iOS app that you can download for free, just go get it and try it for free.

02:24:18   Thank you, Jason. Thanks, John. It's always a pleasure.