The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► You were at CES.

00:00:01 ◼   ► - I was.

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Now correct me if I'm wrong.

00:00:04 ◼   ► So this is the second year, okay.

00:00:05 ◼   ► And you came on the show last year

00:00:06 ◼   ► and talked about CES, right?

00:00:07 ◼   ► - I think this might be our third or fourth

00:00:10 ◼   ► annual CES discussion.

00:00:13 ◼   ► And I think the first two I didn't go

00:00:14 ◼   ► and were like, oh, we should go.

00:00:17 ◼   ► And then last year I went for the first time.

00:00:19 ◼   ► - It is absolutely a John Gruver, the talk show tradition

00:00:25 ◼   ► that like mid January, I have someone on,

00:00:28 ◼   ► we talk about CES and then I say, you know what,

00:00:30 ◼   ► damn it, next year I'm going.

00:00:32 ◼   ► And then next year comes and goes and I don't go.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - You almost need to start planning it now.

00:00:38 ◼   ► And it's funny because they've already changed the website

00:00:40 ◼   ► over to 2017 CES.

00:00:43 ◼   ► I wonder if they have a script that does that.

00:00:45 ◼   ► It was like the next day, boom.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Their website's already turned over.

00:00:49 ◼   ► It was great, man, I love it.

00:00:52 ◼   ► It was super fun.

00:00:54 ◼   ► It's absolute insanity.

00:00:55 ◼   ► I mean, you go to Vegas a lot.

00:00:57 ◼   ► And I had not been to Vegas in 10 years actually

00:01:01 ◼   ► before last year's CES and it is absolute chaos.

00:01:06 ◼   ► I mean there are 200,000 people there who do not belong.

00:01:09 ◼   ► They are from, it's kind of neat because basically

00:01:13 ◼   ► what happens is at the beginning of the year,

00:01:15 ◼   ► not everyone but 200,000 people who work in tech

00:01:21 ◼   ► and in adjacent industries are all living

00:01:24 ◼   ► in one city for a week.

00:01:25 ◼   ► So you run into people who, you know, you would not expect to see, I'm totally

00:01:30 ◼   ► like randomly ran into a guy in a restaurant.

00:01:34 ◼   ► We were both waiting to eat at the bar and we ended up eating lunch together.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Who's like, was partially responsible for the creation of the MP3, uh, random,

00:01:43 ◼   ► random stuff like that.

00:01:44 ◼   ► And then you're like reading Slack and your coworkers are like, Hey, you know,

00:01:48 ◼   ► that Reed Hastings is giving a talk across, you know, in another place in Vegas.

00:01:52 ◼   ► I'm like, no, I didn't know that.

00:01:54 ◼   ► You know, there's just so much going on.

00:01:56 ◼   ► It's absolute madness and chaos,

00:01:59 ◼   ► but if you can tolerate it,

00:02:03 ◼   ► and I guess enough trips to Tokyo have now made me

00:02:05 ◼   ► totally chilled out around massive crowds,

00:02:09 ◼   ► it's really cool, it's very special.

00:02:11 ◼   ► - I think the crowds, that wouldn't bother me.

00:02:14 ◼   ► I can take crowds in small doses.

00:02:17 ◼   ► I mean, I go to Disney a couple times a year

00:02:19 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:02:20 ◼   ► What I like though, if you go somewhere like that,

00:02:23 ◼   ► is if you can take the time to spend some time

00:02:27 ◼   ► somewhere away from the crowd every day.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, where it gets to you,

00:02:31 ◼   ► I don't mind the actual crowd where it gets to you

00:02:33 ◼   ► is that the infrastructure is just way beyond capacity.

00:02:37 ◼   ► I mean, people are talking about waiting an hour

00:02:40 ◼   ► just to get on the monorail.

00:02:42 ◼   ► Just to get into the station.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Or you wanna go anywhere to eat lunch, forget it.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Like you're waiting.

00:02:48 ◼   ► Or they have this shuttle bus that goes from one,

00:02:53 ◼   ► 'cause it basically takes up both the Sands

00:02:56 ◼   ► and the Las Vegas convention centers.

00:02:58 ◼   ► And they have a shuttle bus, a free shuttle bus

00:03:00 ◼   ► that goes between them.

00:03:02 ◼   ► It can't be more than a mile.

00:03:03 ◼   ► And you know what? - It's not far.

00:03:05 ◼   ► - No, and I've walked it, and it's totally walkable.

00:03:07 ◼   ► I mean, there's barely any sidewalk,

00:03:09 ◼   ► but this bus trip takes like 40 minutes

00:03:13 ◼   ► because there's so much traffic,

00:03:14 ◼   ► because everyone else is in a cab

00:03:16 ◼   ► trying to get between these places.

00:03:17 ◼   ► And it's just madness.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Last year I stayed at the fairly far south end of the strip

00:03:25 ◼   ► and this year one of my priorities was

00:03:27 ◼   ► stay somewhere further, closer to the action.

00:03:29 ◼   ► So at least you could walk from--

00:03:31 ◼   ► - South is the airport side, right?

00:03:33 ◼   ► Like down by Mandalay Bay?

00:03:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, Mandalay Bay.

00:03:36 ◼   ► - It's funny, in my head I feel like that's up,

00:03:38 ◼   ► like that's up the strip.

00:03:40 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:03:40 ◼   ► - Down the strip is down by like the wind.

00:03:42 ◼   ► - Stratosphere.

00:03:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's the other way around, right?

00:03:44 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:03:45 ◼   ► And so that was useful, although a lot of the stuff,

00:03:49 ◼   ► A lot of the official press conferences are at Mandalay Bay.

00:03:53 ◼   ► - That's crazy though.

00:03:54 ◼   ► It's so far away.

00:03:55 ◼   ► - I know.

00:03:56 ◼   ► I'm in a fortunate position where I could basically pick,

00:04:00 ◼   ► Quartz, where I work, qz.com,

00:04:03 ◼   ► we're still small enough that we can be picky

00:04:08 ◼   ► about what we cover.

00:04:09 ◼   ► So I don't have to actually go and live blog

00:04:12 ◼   ► an Nvidia press conference or something like that.

00:04:15 ◼   ► No one's telling me I need to do that.

00:04:17 ◼   ► So I actually got to skip all those official

00:04:20 ◼   ► press conference type things.

00:04:21 ◼   ► So I didn't actually have to go down

00:04:22 ◼   ► to Mandalay Bay this time.

00:04:23 ◼   ► But a lot of the action, like the good stuff's going on

00:04:27 ◼   ► at Cosmopolitan, at the Wynn, and Venetian.

00:04:32 ◼   ► So you really wanna be hanging out toward,

00:04:37 ◼   ► kind of center to north strip most of the time.

00:04:41 ◼   ► - So was anybody else from Quartz there,

00:04:43 ◼   ► or were you the only representative of Quartz there?

00:04:46 ◼   ► - No, several, I think there were four of us this year,

00:04:49 ◼   ► two from our ad side, and then my colleague, Mike Murphy,

00:04:52 ◼   ► who's a reporter who writes about,

00:04:55 ◼   ► we have a beat called Machines with Brains,

00:04:59 ◼   ► and it's drones, robots, AI, and that kind of stuff.

00:05:03 ◼   ► And he was very busy, there was a lot.

00:05:05 ◼   ► Although he came to CES with a cold, you can't do that.

00:05:10 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:12 ◼   ► 'Cause you're gonna get sick by the end,

00:05:14 ◼   ► but you can't show up with a cold.

00:05:15 ◼   ► so I felt bad about that.

00:05:17 ◼   ► So yeah, he was there with me and we were basically

00:05:21 ◼   ► just doing meetings, hitting the show floor.

00:05:24 ◼   ► The show floor is comically extensive.

00:05:27 ◼   ► Like you can walk, I had my Apple Watch with me,

00:05:31 ◼   ► so Wednesday was my busiest day.

00:05:33 ◼   ► I think I walked over 14 miles on Wednesday,

00:05:38 ◼   ► whereas on an average day I probably walked six to eight.

00:05:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a lot.

00:05:42 ◼   ► Anything over 10 is a--

00:05:43 ◼   ► I did 27,000 steps, so that was pretty crazy.

00:05:48 ◼   ► In boots too, which was dumb.

00:05:50 ◼   ► But it was cool.

00:05:53 ◼   ► - So it's a recurring theme,

00:05:56 ◼   ► and I know we say this every year,

00:05:57 ◼   ► but everybody goes to CES, quote unquote everybody goes,

00:06:01 ◼   ► and then all the writers, they all say they hate it.

00:06:05 ◼   ► Everybody just, as soon as it, it hasn't even started yet,

00:06:07 ◼   ► and Twitter is filled with people in our racket

00:06:11 ◼   ► saying how much they hate it.

00:06:13 ◼   ► which always makes me think, well then, why do you go?

00:06:16 ◼   ► You know, like, why does everybody go to this thing

00:06:19 ◼   ► that they hate?

00:06:19 ◼   ► But I'm exactly with you.

00:06:20 ◼   ► My temptation to go is, it's because I, obviously,

00:06:25 ◼   ► I could write whatever the hell I want,

00:06:27 ◼   ► so I'm not going, and I can skip whatever I want.

00:06:30 ◼   ► So, well, I understand that the hatred comes from people

00:06:32 ◼   ► who, if you get an assignment from an editor,

00:06:35 ◼   ► and they're like, here, here's your list

00:06:36 ◼   ► of press conferences to go to,

00:06:38 ◼   ► figure out what's new from, you know, LG and Samsung,

00:06:42 ◼   ► and you know, whoever, and it all just starts

00:06:44 ◼   ► to blur together because everybody is making

00:06:46 ◼   ► the exact same things.

00:06:47 ◼   ► Five inch Android phones and tablets and curved OLED TVs

00:06:52 ◼   ► and it all just blurs together.

00:06:54 ◼   ► And then you've got a schlep from one end to the other

00:06:56 ◼   ► and it's gotta be backbreaking,

00:06:58 ◼   ► if you can't pick and choose where you go.

00:07:01 ◼   ► - One of the things we struggled with was we shot a video.

00:07:04 ◼   ► Mike put on this exoskeleton suit that's designed

00:07:08 ◼   ► to age you to like a hundred years old

00:07:10 ◼   ► or something like that and do various things.

00:07:12 ◼   ► It had like VR goggles built in

00:07:14 ◼   ► and things that would make your muscles,

00:07:17 ◼   ► that basically make your body move more slowly

00:07:20 ◼   ► and it would affect your vision and all this stuff.

00:07:23 ◼   ► And we took this video of him in this suit

00:07:26 ◼   ► and then we realized that we literally didn't have

00:07:29 ◼   ► the ability to upload the video to Dropbox.

00:07:32 ◼   ► I'm not gonna tether on my cell phone and do it.

00:07:36 ◼   ► Our hotel wifi sucked, we couldn't do it.

00:07:38 ◼   ► It's like, okay, we almost have to go to a Starbucks.

00:07:41 ◼   ► And I wonder if the press room had a free

00:07:44 ◼   ► ethernet connection.

00:07:45 ◼   ► We didn't actually go in the press room

00:07:46 ◼   ► because it seemed like it was kind of a dump,

00:07:49 ◼   ► but actually that may have solved our problem.

00:07:53 ◼   ► But it's just stuff like that

00:07:54 ◼   ► where you're just completely out of your element.

00:07:57 ◼   ► But it's amazing, like you go,

00:07:59 ◼   ► one of the things we did is we scraped the list of exhibitors

00:08:02 ◼   ► and just did some very basic text analysis

00:08:04 ◼   ► to see if there's anything interesting we could find.

00:08:08 ◼   ► One thing that was cool was over 500 of the companies

00:08:11 ◼   ► had the word Shenzhen in the title of the company.

00:08:15 ◼   ► There are aisles and aisles and aisles of tiny booths

00:08:20 ◼   ► with one or two people from Shenzhen, from China,

00:08:23 ◼   ► who come to America once a year and there they are

00:08:26 ◼   ► and I got a great little tour from a little old lady

00:08:30 ◼   ► of her line of perfect GoPro knockoffs.

00:08:34 ◼   ► And she's like giving me a demo of these things.

00:08:37 ◼   ► the same case, same size, you know,

00:08:39 ◼   ► it looks exactly like a GoPro,

00:08:41 ◼   ► but it's $60 or something like that.

00:08:43 ◼   ► - Was she saying it looks like a GoPro?

00:08:47 ◼   ► Or was that, so she was mentioning the word GoPro.

00:08:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:08:51 ◼   ► Like that's the same case as a GoPro.

00:08:54 ◼   ► Actually, one of the booths, you probably saw this,

00:08:56 ◼   ► one of the booths that the,

00:08:58 ◼   ► one of the hoverboard knockoffs was so similar

00:09:01 ◼   ► to this one specific kind of balance board thing

00:09:06 ◼   ► that the US Marshals raided it.

00:09:08 ◼   ► - No, I didn't see this.

00:09:09 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:09:10 ◼   ► I think Bloomberg got tipped off

00:09:12 ◼   ► 'cause I think some other sites got tipped off too

00:09:14 ◼   ► and they videotaped it.

00:09:15 ◼   ► And basically the US Marshals raided a booth.

00:09:19 ◼   ► They confiscated all the product and shut these guys down.

00:09:23 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, it was crazy.

00:09:26 ◼   ► I mean, there are a lot of knockoff looking things.

00:09:29 ◼   ► And I believe the Bloomberg article interviewed someone

00:09:34 ◼   ► from the people who put together the show.

00:09:37 ◼   ► And they're kind of, as long as you're not,

00:09:41 ◼   ► I forgot what the kind of limitations are,

00:09:44 ◼   ► but basically like, don't be too fake,

00:09:45 ◼   ► I think is the line.

00:09:48 ◼   ► So in this case, that didn't work out.

00:09:52 ◼   ► - It's gotta be such a surprise to the vendor.

00:09:54 ◼   ► 'Cause you know what I mean?

00:09:56 ◼   ► It's like, there's the culture of how we value knockoffs.

00:10:03 ◼   ► it's so different between here and China.

00:10:06 ◼   ► And it's obviously, the whole concept

00:10:09 ◼   ► of intellectual property isn't really

00:10:10 ◼   ► like an institutional, cultural thing over there.

00:10:13 ◼   ► Like there's no way that they would have,

00:10:17 ◼   ► that had to be a complete surprise.

00:10:19 ◼   ► 'Cause if they would have thought it's even a possibility,

00:10:20 ◼   ► they would have dialed it back.

00:10:23 ◼   ► - I think so.

00:10:23 ◼   ► It seemed like they were surprised.

00:10:26 ◼   ► I wasn't there and I actually tried to look for the booth,

00:10:28 ◼   ► but I couldn't really find it.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And it wasn't really worth putting a lot of effort into.

00:10:32 ◼   ► But that's the kind of stuff that goes on.

00:10:35 ◼   ► But meanwhile, there's like 40 different drone companies

00:10:38 ◼   ► of all shapes and sizes.

00:10:41 ◼   ► A bunch of companies who paid up big bucks for big booths,

00:10:46 ◼   ► like the size of an Intel booth from China

00:10:49 ◼   ► that you really haven't heard of

00:10:51 ◼   ► unless you're in the TV industry.

00:10:53 ◼   ► So it was really fascinating.

00:10:56 ◼   ► You realize how insignificant you are in the world

00:11:00 ◼   ► when you're at CES.

00:11:01 ◼   ► There's just so much stuff you've never heard of,

00:11:04 ◼   ► and there's so many people who are doing stuff

00:11:07 ◼   ► that is similar to what you're doing,

00:11:09 ◼   ► but you've never heard of before,

00:11:11 ◼   ► and you walk around exhausted, dehydrated,

00:11:16 ◼   ► and it's cool, I love it, it's great.

00:11:19 ◼   ► - Why are you dehydrated?

00:11:22 ◼   ► Can't you get water?

00:11:24 ◼   ► - I guess, yeah.

00:11:26 ◼   ► I joke about this, but I almost set calendar reminders

00:11:30 ◼   ► saying, "Okay, drink water right now.

00:11:32 ◼   ► "Make sure you have lunch."

00:11:33 ◼   ► Because then it's three o'clock

00:11:34 ◼   ► and you haven't eaten lunch and you're falling asleep.

00:11:37 ◼   ► I was carrying around a Kind bar in my backpack

00:11:40 ◼   ► just to make sure that if I needed some protein,

00:11:43 ◼   ► I'd still be alive.

00:11:44 ◼   ► - I find that true.

00:11:46 ◼   ► I've developed the reflexive habit

00:11:49 ◼   ► of always be drinking something in Vegas.

00:11:51 ◼   ► So in the morning, you're guzzling coffee,

00:11:54 ◼   ► or afternoon, whenever you wake up.

00:11:57 ◼   ► But then in the afternoon, it's like at any free moment,

00:12:00 ◼   ► if you have an opportunity to put water in your hand, do it.

00:12:03 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, in addition to the dehydrating effects

00:12:08 ◼   ► of alcohol, the desert air really is a thing

00:12:12 ◼   ► if you're not used to it.

00:12:13 ◼   ► I mean, and it really, even if you don't drink alcohol,

00:12:16 ◼   ► I mean, you're gonna get dried out in Vegas.

00:12:19 ◼   ► - Shockingly, it was actually raining a couple of the days,

00:12:22 ◼   ► which was super weird.

00:12:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I remember, I saw people,

00:12:27 ◼   ► and that definitely makes everything worse,

00:12:29 ◼   ► any temptation to walk is decreased.

00:12:32 ◼   ► People actually drive.

00:12:33 ◼   ► I've been out there when it rained and it's like people, the natives, the locals, they

00:12:37 ◼   ► don't know how to drive in the rain.

00:12:41 ◼   ► It's not icy, obviously.

00:12:43 ◼   ► It's usually even in the winter above freezing.

00:12:47 ◼   ► But the roads get a little wet and people are slipping and sliding.

00:12:50 ◼   ► They don't even know how to drive on wet roads.

00:12:52 ◼   ► Dave Asprey Yeah, that was weird.

00:12:57 ◼   ► But it didn't get too bad.

00:12:58 ◼   ► So I brought an umbrella and I didn't have to use it.

00:13:01 ◼   ► So it was fine.

00:13:02 ◼   ► It was interesting though.

00:13:03 ◼   ► And I definitely feel like going back,

00:13:06 ◼   ► I'm definitely gonna go back next year

00:13:08 ◼   ► from in the position too.

00:13:10 ◼   ► I think that like the,

00:13:12 ◼   ► and my advice to you would be,

00:13:14 ◼   ► do you think a little bit ahead of time

00:13:17 ◼   ► and plan way ahead.

00:13:19 ◼   ► I booked my hotel in, I wanna say November

00:13:23 ◼   ► and by then like every good place was sold out.

00:13:25 ◼   ► You really have to do it in like August or September,

00:13:28 ◼   ► whenever they open up reservations, just book it

00:13:31 ◼   ► and think a little bit ahead of time

00:13:33 ◼   ► about what you want to get out of it,

00:13:36 ◼   ► but really save a lot of time to wing it

00:13:39 ◼   ► because there's just gonna be stuff that

00:13:41 ◼   ► either you don't know about until you get there or--

00:13:44 ◼   ► - I'm always confused by just the basic schedule of CES.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Tell me if I'm wrong.

00:13:49 ◼   ► I think the convention itself, the show floor,

00:13:53 ◼   ► is Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

00:13:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it changes, it was different this year though,

00:13:59 ◼   ► actually, it was--

00:14:01 ◼   ► - Maybe that's why I'm confused then.

00:14:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think this year it was Wednesday,

00:14:06 ◼   ► Thursday, Friday, Saturday, but I think previous years

00:14:09 ◼   ► it was like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

00:14:12 ◼   ► I don't know, it was definitely a day off this year

00:14:14 ◼   ► to go later, I think because of the holiday.

00:14:17 ◼   ► - But everybody who covers it, or almost everybody

00:14:19 ◼   ► who covers it, comes a couple days early

00:14:21 ◼   ► because there's pre-show announcements,

00:14:24 ◼   ► Like there's like, I don't know if they call them keynotes,

00:14:27 ◼   ► but there's like big keynote addresses that happen

00:14:31 ◼   ► like this week, like this year, like on Monday and Tuesday.

00:14:34 ◼   ► - There are press conferences and then there are keynotes

00:14:37 ◼   ► and they're separate, I guess.

00:14:39 ◼   ► I don't know, I remember like Steve Ballmer always did

00:14:42 ◼   ► what it was like the Sunday night.

00:14:44 ◼   ► - Right, the kick off. - Warm up, yeah, the kick off.

00:14:46 ◼   ► I don't know, like this year there were some things,

00:14:48 ◼   ► we were gonna go on Sunday and then I think there may have

00:14:52 ◼   ► even been some stuff Saturday or at least Sunday.

00:14:55 ◼   ► Uh, and we decided to fly in on Monday and then leave Friday.

00:14:59 ◼   ► And we did miss some stuff that had happened Monday.

00:15:02 ◼   ► But Tuesday, like the show floor is not, was not open yet.

00:15:06 ◼   ► Although we got in to do a couple of meetings.

00:15:09 ◼   ► Um, they like escorted us in and they were, it was crazy.

00:15:12 ◼   ► Like a lot of the booths were, were barely half finished like the day before.

00:15:16 ◼   ► And people were definitely there all night working to set stuff up.

00:15:20 ◼   ► And it's absolutely like there's, you could, you could get killed by a machine

00:15:25 ◼   ► any second, like there were just lots of stuff going on.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Uh, and then Wednesday is when it was totally open and just chaos.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Like I had a guided tour of the Samsung booth, but it was really not useful for

00:15:41 ◼   ► any of us because there were just so many people standing between you and the

00:15:45 ◼   ► refrigerator with a TV on it that you could barely even see it, it was just

00:15:49 ◼   ► absolute chaos. And most of that stuff was at the Las Vegas convention center or was

00:15:55 ◼   ► it split like the show floors were literally split between the convention center and the

00:15:59 ◼   ► sands split and I bet there's a some sort of theme to it like that. So the basement

00:16:06 ◼   ► of the sands has a lot of very small booths. And that's actually one of the best things

00:16:13 ◼   ► I did was I met up with a couple guys from Kickstarter and they took me on a tour of

00:16:20 ◼   ► the little, like the interesting startups that had all either done Kickstarters or were

00:16:26 ◼   ► going to be doing Kickstarters. And that was actually really cool because there's a bunch

00:16:31 ◼   ► of stuff I had never heard of and it was all pretty good. There's just a lot of garbage

00:16:36 ◼   ► everywhere so you have to try to find the good stuff.

00:16:39 ◼   ► the thing that I miss about Macworld and Macworld was you know and and it's I've

00:16:43 ◼   ► said that you know I'll say it again next year too but the whole reason I

00:16:47 ◼   ► never got into the habit of going to CES was that it overlapped with Macworld and

00:16:52 ◼   ► I went to Macworld and then even when Macworld like after like Macworld's

00:16:58 ◼   ► multi-year slow demise from being a thing to being literally nothing started

00:17:06 ◼   ► with them moving the date around, where they moved it to the end of January. And then there

00:17:10 ◼   ► was the one year where they had it like Super Bowl weekend, which was stupid. I forget where

00:17:15 ◼   ► my it went into February, I think before they finally pulled the plug. But even then, when

00:17:19 ◼   ► it wouldn't overlap, it just felt that felt like too much. Like it felt like I don't want

00:17:23 ◼   ► to go to two of these things if I don't have to. So I'll just keep going to Mac world.

00:17:27 ◼   ► But that's what one of the reasons I didn't get in the habit of it. But one of my favorite

00:17:30 ◼   ► things about going to Mac world without question, was talking to the little booths, the little

00:17:35 ◼   ► booths were always way more interesting than the big ones because usually you get to talk

00:17:39 ◼   ► to the actual principals and there would always be at least a couple of booths that were like,

00:17:45 ◼   ► "Wow, I did not even know that that was possible," type products.

00:17:50 ◼   ► Yeah, one of them I saw that was pretty cool was a very small booth of a company that makes

00:17:57 ◼   ► this clip-on camera that just kind of goes on your lapel and it's not recording video

00:18:02 ◼   ► all day. It's constantly doing image analysis and recognition and making a text list via

00:18:08 ◼   ► API of all the stuff that you've seen that day.

00:18:11 ◼   ► Wow, that's crazy.

00:18:13 ◼   ► Yeah, it was very cool. I actually have to write it up. I took some photos of it and

00:18:17 ◼   ► I'll write up a post about it. This is the kind of thing where it's like, "This is really

00:18:23 ◼   ► cool technology. This could be a cool product in a couple of years or in a year, or it could

00:18:28 ◼   ► be nothing but here these guys are you know they got kind of a you know an

00:18:33 ◼   ► okay-looking booth and this really interesting technology that you know and

00:18:39 ◼   ► it's actually kind of cool like you know and of course with any camera that's

00:18:44 ◼   ► always on privacy concerns but you could maybe train it to your LinkedIn account

00:18:49 ◼   ► so it could tell you who you're looking at at a party or something like that I

00:18:53 ◼   ► I don't know. It was interesting and it was one of those things where I was like,

00:18:58 ◼   ► "All right, this is kind of the value of coming to a show like this because I never

00:19:02 ◼   ► probably would have met these people otherwise and it's not like you're

00:19:07 ◼   ► standing in the gigantic Intel booth, wondering what you're

00:19:10 ◼   ► doing there." So that was pretty cool.

00:19:13 ◼   ► I saw there was an episode of, I mean, it's not a new idea, but the BBC show

00:19:22 ◼   ► Sherlock. I think it was Sherlock, but there was like a billionaire magnate bad guy sort of person

00:19:30 ◼   ► and he had like heads he had just had regular wire rim glasses but when they showed his first person

00:19:36 ◼   ► perspective it would instantly give him a sort of profile of anybody whose face he was looking at,

00:19:41 ◼   ► you know, their name and you know some facts about them. And I feel like we're I feel like that is

00:19:47 ◼   ► like it's still science fiction, but it's very, very near term science fiction.

00:19:52 ◼   ► Like it's going to happen, you know, within the next decade.

00:19:55 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, I kind of I'm always the guy who wants I want the

00:20:02 ◼   ► feed of random Instagram photos that I'm in the background of.

00:20:05 ◼   ► No, I do, too. I'm I'm you know, I feel like we as a society and culture

00:20:12 ◼   ► just we're already wrapping our heads around the fact that everything is on camera all the time.

00:20:17 ◼   ► Totally, you know, and it's, you know, it's like, and some of

00:20:21 ◼   ► the people who are adjusting the slowest are the ones who really

00:20:26 ◼   ► should be adjusting the quickest, you know, like the way

00:20:28 ◼   ► that when police officers have some kind of incident, and it's

00:20:31 ◼   ► all caught on tape, and you see that it's just absolutely

00:20:34 ◼   ► horrible police work. That's actually, you know, to me, it's

00:20:38 ◼   ► helping to make our society better. I mean, there's

00:20:42 ◼   ► obviously trade offs, big, big trade offs, and there's some

00:20:44 ◼   ► and definite downsides to the lack of privacy.

00:20:46 ◼   ► - I think that specifically has proven to be very powerful

00:20:51 ◼   ► over the last couple years.

00:20:53 ◼   ► What was weird though was looking up and seeing a guy

00:20:57 ◼   ► wearing Google Glass for the first time in over a year.

00:21:01 ◼   ► That was crazy.

00:21:02 ◼   ► That was very weird.

00:21:04 ◼   ► - How many people did you see at CES wearing Google Glass?

00:21:07 ◼   ► 'Cause I feel like if there's anywhere left

00:21:08 ◼   ► that people are still pretending that Google Glass

00:21:11 ◼   ► is gonna be a thing, it's CES.

00:21:13 ◼   ► I saw two in a row and that was it.

00:21:16 ◼   ► Like two in the basement of the Palms,

00:21:19 ◼   ► or Palms, the basement of the Sands Convention Center.

00:21:24 ◼   ► And that was at the whole show, two guys.

00:21:27 ◼   ► And the one guy was like tall and large

00:21:29 ◼   ► and it was just kind of weird.

00:21:32 ◼   ► But that was the last time I'd seen him.

00:21:33 ◼   ► Sometimes in New York, you see them

00:21:35 ◼   ► when you're walking around over by the Google offices.

00:21:39 ◼   ► But otherwise I haven't seen one in over,

00:21:42 ◼   ► least over a year.

00:21:43 ◼   ► All right, let's hold this thought.

00:21:45 ◼   ► I still have more CES stuff to talk about, but I might as well fit in our first break

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00:24:03 ◼   ► So here's, so you didn't get there till Monday,

00:24:07 ◼   ► you're saying?

00:24:08 ◼   ► - That's right, Monday night.

00:24:10 ◼   ► - So what did you do on Tuesday?

00:24:11 ◼   ► - Tuesday, I woke up too early and got breakfast

00:24:16 ◼   ► and then we went to this meeting

00:24:21 ◼   ► where Mike wore the exoskeleton and it was--

00:24:24 ◼   ► - How did you set that meeting up?

00:24:26 ◼   ► That's one of my worries is that I would go there

00:24:28 ◼   ► and without having set anything up

00:24:30 ◼   ► and I don't have like, I don't have anybody

00:24:32 ◼   ► set stuff up for me and then I'd get out there and I'd just, you know, end up playing blackjack

00:24:35 ◼   ► all day.

00:24:36 ◼   ► See, that would be fun. I would like to play blackjack with you all day because as we'll

00:24:40 ◼   ► discuss in a minute, I did not play any blackjack. Uh, so which is, which is not excusable. I

00:24:46 ◼   ► don't see that again. I don't see how that's possible. I know. So, so here's, here's the

00:24:51 ◼   ► worst part of CES. When you sign up for a press badge, your email gets given to all

00:24:59 ◼   ► the 3000 or whatever, 2000 companies that have, uh, signed up to exhibit and you get

00:25:06 ◼   ► emails from about half of them.

00:25:08 ◼   ► I'm not even exaggerating.

00:25:10 ◼   ► Like I, this year I was smart and I, I did the Gmail thing where you can add a plus sign.

00:25:16 ◼   ► So I made it, you know, Dan plus ces@qz.com so I could filter there now all filtering

00:25:22 ◼   ► into the toilet.

00:25:23 ◼   ► Like I'm not getting the people are still sending emails.

00:25:26 ◼   ► They're good for them, but I'm not seeing any of them.

00:25:29 ◼   ► So you get, you're overwhelmed for weeks.

00:25:32 ◼   ► - I know about that trick.

00:25:33 ◼   ► I just wanna just, I mean, hold you there.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Is that it instantly popped into my head.

00:25:38 ◼   ► I mean, it's like if I was the type of dirtbag

00:25:40 ◼   ► who ran like a PR, well, PR people aren't dirtbags,

00:25:43 ◼   ► but if I was about to start sending email to those people,

00:25:45 ◼   ► I would write like a little script

00:25:47 ◼   ► that takes any Gmail address with the plus

00:25:49 ◼   ► and take out the plus, you know what I mean?

00:25:52 ◼   ► Like it would be so easy to algorithmically filter that out.

00:25:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I'm sure some,

00:25:57 ◼   ► a couple of people remarked on it.

00:25:59 ◼   ► They were like, oh, clever with the plus sign or whatever.

00:26:02 ◼   ► I mean, I get a lot of email from PR people as it is.

00:26:05 ◼   ► And I'm actually, I would say pretty fair

00:26:09 ◼   ► about just asking people not to send me

00:26:11 ◼   ► certain types of email.

00:26:12 ◼   ► - I find it so hard like at a convention or conference

00:26:15 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:26:16 ◼   ► I'm terrible at staying on top of my email

00:26:18 ◼   ► on a normal day when I'm at my desk,

00:26:19 ◼   ► but it's really, I always fall behind.

00:26:21 ◼   ► And so to have them making it even harder

00:26:24 ◼   ► to just keep an eyeball on what's coming into my email

00:26:28 ◼   ► would be terrible.

00:26:29 ◼   ► - The problem for me is that I've now been at inbox zero

00:26:33 ◼   ► for four years, which means all day

00:26:36 ◼   ► I'm constantly deleting emails.

00:26:38 ◼   ► I don't let them pile up anymore.

00:26:41 ◼   ► So anyway, so I would get invited to everything

00:26:46 ◼   ► from like tours to meetings to press conferences

00:26:50 ◼   ► and that kind of stuff.

00:26:51 ◼   ► And I accepted, I think, five or six of the,

00:26:55 ◼   ► I don't know, roughly a thousand that I got.

00:26:58 ◼   ► And I say--

00:27:00 ◼   ► - And those came, but just to be clear,

00:27:02 ◼   ► those came long before the show even started

00:27:06 ◼   ► because it starts when you actually register with CES

00:27:09 ◼   ► like in November or whatever.

00:27:11 ◼   ► - Yes. - Okay.

00:27:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, so, you know, and some of them are like party

00:27:16 ◼   ► invites, some of the stuff doesn't come until

00:27:19 ◼   ► Um, you know, the week before or a couple of days before, but a lot of the companies

00:27:25 ◼   ► are, you know, trying to set up as many meetings as possible.

00:27:29 ◼   ► You can also kind of check what, what topics you're interested in.

00:27:32 ◼   ► And I think I was probably a little too excited about checking lots of different topics that

00:27:37 ◼   ► I should not have like audio, you know, you check off audio and then every headphone company

00:27:43 ◼   ► is emailing you asking for a meeting and that kind of stuff.

00:27:45 ◼   ► So I think next year I'll probably be more selective about that and do even fewer meetings.

00:27:54 ◼   ► If you need to get a last minute meeting, they're pretty much always available.

00:27:58 ◼   ► The stuff that's really cool is going to be kind of hard to access anyway and those are

00:28:02 ◼   ► the people who are least likely to set stuff up with you ahead of time unless you're the

00:28:09 ◼   ► the verge or something like that.

00:28:10 ◼   ► Um, who get first dibs on a lot of stuff.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Uh, so yeah, I set all that stuff up and so what else I Tuesday, you know, I had

00:28:20 ◼   ► a couple of meetings and, uh, I had lunch and then I went to, uh, a dinner probably.

00:28:28 ◼   ► And then met up with people.

00:28:30 ◼   ► Oh, Tuesday, I went to a party and probably stayed out late and yeah.

00:28:36 ◼   ► And, uh, that's when I saw Rupert Murdoch.

00:28:38 ◼   ► That was kind of interesting.

00:28:40 ◼   ► And so where was he?

00:28:42 ◼   ► He was just walking down the hall of the wind.

00:28:44 ◼   ► That's where he stayed.

00:28:46 ◼   ► So I actually wrote this article.

00:28:49 ◼   ► So, so one thing I didn't know, uh, and I thought it was going to be, I thought

00:28:53 ◼   ► it was going to be a bigger surprise to people then it turned out to be no one

00:28:56 ◼   ► really cared, but, um, so Eddie Q was at CES, Eddie Q you wrote an article on this.

00:29:03 ◼   ► Yes.

00:29:04 ◼   ► Oh, I didn't see it.

00:29:05 ◼   ► Eddie Q is at CES speaking at Rupert Murdoch's private mini conference, which

00:29:11 ◼   ► he holds in his suite every year.

00:29:13 ◼   ► It's two days and he brings in like a fantastic list of people.

00:29:17 ◼   ► Um, and it's not for the public or anything.

00:29:20 ◼   ► It's for news Corp and Fox executives.

00:29:24 ◼   ► And this year, the people who were scheduled to present range from the CEO

00:29:29 ◼   ► of Snapchat to, uh, Sundar from Google, CEO of Google, uh, Eddie

00:29:35 ◼   ► Q from Apple and a bunch, just a bunch of other, like the guy from salesforce.com,

00:29:41 ◼   ► a bunch of other really high level, uh, Benedict Evans from Andreessen,

00:29:45 ◼   ► Horowitz, some, some startup people.

00:29:47 ◼   ► And, um, so that's cool.

00:29:49 ◼   ► And I, you know, that's the kind of thing where it's like, there's

00:29:52 ◼   ► this whole huge CES thing going on.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Meanwhile, in Rupert Murdoch suite, there's like the best, you know, one of

00:29:59 ◼   ► the best conference lineups in the world.

00:30:01 ◼   ► And it's just for like a handful of top executives who work for him.

00:30:06 ◼   ► But that's the kind of thing you can do at CES because so many of those people

00:30:09 ◼   ► are there anyway.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Right.

00:30:10 ◼   ► Uh, although it was interesting because of course, Apple somewhat famously does

00:30:14 ◼   ► not have an official presence at CES.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Uh, my guess is that, you know, some people from Apple go just to kind of look

00:30:22 ◼   ► at stuff, there'll be kind of silly not to, um, I know for a fact that it, and

00:30:26 ◼   ► even when Mac world was a thing and it was coincident that there were people

00:30:31 ◼   ► from the product marketing group who went every year

00:30:34 ◼   ► just to do the due diligence of walking around.

00:30:36 ◼   ► And the question was always whether,

00:30:39 ◼   ► what they would put on their badge.

00:30:41 ◼   ► And most of the time I think they just would officially go

00:30:44 ◼   ► and they'd have Apple on the badge

00:30:45 ◼   ► and if people wanted to talk them up, they'd do it.

00:30:47 ◼   ► They just didn't,

00:30:47 ◼   ► it wasn't real cloak and dagger stuff, they just,

00:30:51 ◼   ► but they were there to just see what else

00:30:54 ◼   ► the industry's doing.

00:30:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it'd be foolish not to.

00:30:59 ◼   ► I think that someone was telling me

00:31:00 ◼   ► that they saw a couple Apple people this year

00:31:05 ◼   ► just walking around, but I wasn't there for that.

00:31:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wouldn't even be surprised

00:31:09 ◼   ► if it's actually multiple teams,

00:31:10 ◼   ► like different, not even in coordination,

00:31:13 ◼   ► the product marketing people there are just there in general

00:31:16 ◼   ► but maybe notebook engineers are there

00:31:18 ◼   ► just to look at all the crazy notebooks

00:31:21 ◼   ► that are being put together.

00:31:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would and then you get to be in Vegas.

00:31:26 ◼   ► - Right.

00:31:28 ◼   ► - And maybe run into Rupert Murdoch.

00:31:30 ◼   ► He looked good, he was wearing a nice suit

00:31:32 ◼   ► and some sneakers, walking down the hallway

00:31:36 ◼   ► outside of a party that I was leaving.

00:31:39 ◼   ► - So it was just like in the hotel, you mean?

00:31:41 ◼   ► Like a hallway?

00:31:42 ◼   ► - Yes, in the Wynn, outside of one of their

00:31:44 ◼   ► like nightclub-y type venues.

00:31:47 ◼   ► - Huh.

00:31:48 ◼   ► Crazy.

00:31:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean-- - What time of day was that?

00:31:51 ◼   ► - This was around, I think, 11 p.m. or 10 something p.m.

00:31:59 ◼   ► See, that's why you go to CES.

00:32:00 ◼   ► - Totally.

00:32:01 ◼   ► Yeah, actually, I'll never forget.

00:32:03 ◼   ► One of my, when I worked at Forbes,

00:32:05 ◼   ► now almost 10 years ago,

00:32:07 ◼   ► one of my colleagues wrote an article about,

00:32:10 ◼   ► actually it may have been CES 10 years ago

00:32:13 ◼   ► where she was randomly at a booth

00:32:16 ◼   ► when Bill Gates showed up to look at the booth,

00:32:19 ◼   ► and what an interesting and cool experience that was.

00:32:22 ◼   ► Like, can you imagine being the tiny booth operator

00:32:25 ◼   ► and then yoink, Bill Gates walks up and says,

00:32:28 ◼   ► "Hey, give me a demo."

00:32:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:32:31 ◼   ► I'll have to find that article.

00:32:32 ◼   ► I wonder if Forbes has archived that.

00:32:34 ◼   ► - Have you ever worked at trade show booth?

00:32:36 ◼   ► - I don't think so.

00:32:40 ◼   ► When I was a kid, my dad, I think,

00:32:42 ◼   ► had a booth or like a part of one at some point

00:32:45 ◼   ► for a store he was involved in,

00:32:46 ◼   ► but I never had to work a booth.

00:32:49 ◼   ► - I did when I worked at Barebones software

00:32:52 ◼   ► for BB Edit and I guess MailSmith even at the time.

00:32:54 ◼   ► But we'd have a booth at Macworld,

00:32:56 ◼   ► and it is grueling.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Sometimes though, it could be like, I don't know,

00:33:03 ◼   ► it's like three in the afternoon

00:33:04 ◼   ► and you've been on your feet since nine

00:33:06 ◼   ► and you've been making the same pitch over and over again.

00:33:09 ◼   ► And you know, repetition has never been good for me.

00:33:12 ◼   ► I mean, not that I'm not good at it,

00:33:13 ◼   ► but I get bored quickly.

00:33:15 ◼   ► But then all of a sudden, like you meet somebody

00:33:17 ◼   ► and somebody will tell you this amazing story

00:33:18 ◼   ► of how like BB Edit, you know,

00:33:20 ◼   ► saved their website or something like that.

00:33:22 ◼   ► And they just want to thank you

00:33:24 ◼   ► and you're just like, oh my God, that's amazing.

00:33:26 ◼   ► and he made my day, you know.

00:33:27 ◼   ► Let me go get Rich Segal, and you can tell it to his face.

00:33:30 ◼   ► - That's great.

00:33:31 ◼   ► - But boy, it is hard, it is really hard.

00:33:35 ◼   ► And you can just see it.

00:33:36 ◼   ► Now it's just a funny thing to have

00:33:39 ◼   ► under my belt this experience.

00:33:40 ◼   ► And now whenever I'm at a trade show and I walk around,

00:33:42 ◼   ► I have a sympathy for every single person

00:33:46 ◼   ► doing those, you know, working those booths

00:33:48 ◼   ► that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

00:33:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's grueling, and you have like

00:33:52 ◼   ► trade show approved vendors

00:33:55 ◼   ► that you have to do everything with,

00:33:56 ◼   ► and good luck, there's a 20 minute line for the bathroom.

00:34:01 ◼   ► - So what else, what else did you do at CES?

00:34:07 ◼   ► - Oh, I hung out with Walt Mossberg, that was a highlight.

00:34:12 ◼   ► - I saw that. - That's when you were

00:34:14 ◼   ► texting me. - I saw a periscope.

00:34:16 ◼   ► This is my perspective, it's,

00:34:18 ◼   ► oh, I think it might have been maybe like 1230 at night,

00:34:23 ◼   ► east coast time so would have been maybe like 930 Vegas that sound about right?

00:34:27 ◼   ► I think so yeah. And I saw somebody who I follow on Twitter from the Verge

00:34:31 ◼   ► tweeted a link to Periscope that they're Periscoping from

00:34:35 ◼   ► inside a blinged out a crazy blinged out limo that

00:34:39 ◼   ► Neelay had rented for some unknown reason. And I thought I gotta see this because I

00:34:44 ◼   ► don't know I know what a regular

00:34:46 ◼   ► limo looks like I gotta see what like a special you know

00:34:49 ◼   ► call attention to it limo looks like so I put the Periscope on and it's a

00:34:53 ◼   ► and a couple of other people I knew from The Verge.

00:34:56 ◼   ► And the inside of this limo, it really was like,

00:34:58 ◼   ► it was like all the leftover neon from old Las Vegas

00:35:02 ◼   ► was all inside this limo.

00:35:04 ◼   ► - Basically.

00:35:05 ◼   ► - And then the Periscope is painting around

00:35:07 ◼   ► and here's Verge staffers,

00:35:08 ◼   ► and I was just about ready to disconnect

00:35:10 ◼   ► 'cause it's a buoyant.

00:35:11 ◼   ► And then I see a guy and I was like,

00:35:12 ◼   ► holy shit, that one guy looks like Dan Fromer.

00:35:14 ◼   ► And I was like, who is that?

00:35:15 ◼   ► And then they're like, and we've got Dan from Quartz,

00:35:18 ◼   ► and I'm like, holy shit, it is Dan Fromer.

00:35:20 ◼   ► And I was like, wow, now it's like,

00:35:22 ◼   ► Now I have a friend in the limo, now I'm interested.

00:35:25 ◼   ► And I noticed, it seemed to me like everybody

00:35:27 ◼   ► was a little tipsy and you were like just totally normal.

00:35:30 ◼   ► And then it got crazier because then it got

00:35:35 ◼   ► to the far side of this, it was a truly massive limo.

00:35:38 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden, Walt Mossberg

00:35:39 ◼   ► and Kara Swisher were in there.

00:35:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, they were riding in the back seat.

00:35:44 ◼   ► - And I was fascinated.

00:35:47 ◼   ► What were you guys doing?

00:35:49 ◼   ► You guys were on your way from like one end of the strip

00:35:52 ◼   ► to the other?

00:35:53 ◼   ► - We were all at a dinner that they have

00:35:57 ◼   ► usually the last night or one of the last nights every year,

00:36:02 ◼   ► a kind of a press dinner.

00:36:04 ◼   ► And I guess we were all going to the Cosmopolitan

00:36:09 ◼   ► where there was a Twitter Spotify party.

00:36:12 ◼   ► And rather than taking four cabs,

00:36:15 ◼   ► Neil, I think threw his hands up and said,

00:36:17 ◼   ► "Let's get a limo."

00:36:18 ◼   ► So I just went in the limo.

00:36:21 ◼   ► Um, and uh, yeah, that was it.

00:36:24 ◼   ► I mean, it wasn't, uh, I don't think it was preplanned or anything.

00:36:28 ◼   ► It just happened.

00:36:28 ◼   ► It was funny though.

00:36:30 ◼   ► I did, but it's the sort of thing that happens when, like, what do you say on a

00:36:34 ◼   ► Periscope when they, when they put the camera in your face, I never know what to

00:36:37 ◼   ► say.

00:36:38 ◼   ► I never, I don't know what to say.

00:36:39 ◼   ► It was, it was funny though.

00:36:40 ◼   ► I am, I'm like, there were like 300 people watching.

00:36:43 ◼   ► I enjoy Periscope.

00:36:45 ◼   ► I, but I'm, it, it, it, it requires a certain personality that I, I, I am not in

00:36:50 ◼   ► in possession of to really be good at it.

00:36:53 ◼   ► - I haven't done, I don't think I've ever done one.

00:36:57 ◼   ► - The other problem I have with it,

00:36:58 ◼   ► and last time I tried using it,

00:36:59 ◼   ► I think I tried using it when the Pope was in town here

00:37:02 ◼   ► in Philly and I was doing some periscopes walking around

00:37:05 ◼   ► at the crazy ways that they'd shut down

00:37:09 ◼   ► enormous major thoroughfares in Philly,

00:37:12 ◼   ► which created this, it was awesome,

00:37:13 ◼   ► but it's like you had these like six, seven lane streets

00:37:18 ◼   ► that were entirely free of cars, not even like parked cars.

00:37:21 ◼   ► It was great.

00:37:21 ◼   ► But the problem for me is I've got so many Twitter followers

00:37:25 ◼   ► that I easily overflow the limits of Periscope,

00:37:28 ◼   ► even just for something like that.

00:37:30 ◼   ► - Did you recently join Snapchat?

00:37:36 ◼   ► - I did, that was me.

00:37:38 ◼   ► - That was you?

00:37:39 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:40 ◼   ► - Okay, I was like, oh, that's weird.

00:37:42 ◼   ► - Do you understand Snapchat?

00:37:43 ◼   ► - No, no, and someone was, and this,

00:37:46 ◼   ► I'm not that old, but I sound like it.

00:37:48 ◼   ► I mean, someone was, was showing it to me the other day and, uh, I have not,

00:37:53 ◼   ► I don't think I've ever posted anything.

00:37:55 ◼   ► Cause I just don't really know what to post or, or how, I guess the whole idea

00:38:00 ◼   ► is that it's kind of very raw, uncut, like spur of the moment life through

00:38:05 ◼   ► your eyes, whereas I'm more of a retouch edit, like frame the perfect, uh,

00:38:11 ◼   ► in, you know, I'd say I'm more of an Instagram person than a Snapchat person.

00:38:16 ◼   ► You need to I my understanding of snapchat previously was that it was

00:38:21 ◼   ► like texting service where everything was ephemeral and nothing gets saved and

00:38:26 ◼   ► Everybody had you can send dick pics

00:38:28 ◼   ► but people did use it for that but then like teenagers could use it and send like

00:38:33 ◼   ► Love notes to each other and know that there are going to be disappeared by the next day and that

00:38:38 ◼   ► That made sense to me and I felt like I understand what this product does and I'm not a teenager anymore

00:38:44 ◼   ► I have no I have no need for it. So I didn't know but then I've hurt now

00:38:47 ◼   ► It's more like a social network and I see what turned me on to it was do you know who Gary for Vaynerchuk is? Yes

00:38:53 ◼   ► Gary Vaynerchuk has been raving about it lately and he's been saying that he hasn't been this excited about something since Twitter circa

00:39:02 ◼   ► 2007 and he really was I do remember that's when I first met Gary and Gary was huge on Twitter in like 2006-2007

00:39:09 ◼   ► Said this thing is gonna blow up. It's gonna be huge

00:39:11 ◼   ► everybody's going to be on Twitter. And he was right. And so that him saying that this is how

00:39:16 ◼   ► he feels about Snapchat made me think, well, I should sign up for this and see if I can figure

00:39:21 ◼   ► it out. And so I did. And there's a part of the process where it's like, do you want us to, you

00:39:25 ◼   ► know, notify, you know, here's people, you know, if from your address book, do you want to follow

00:39:31 ◼   ► them? And I did. And you're, you're not the first person who's asked, is this really you?

00:39:35 ◼   ► Because it, I guess it seems a little surprising that I would sign up for Snapchat.

00:39:40 ◼   ► - Well, it was also under the name of the site

00:39:42 ◼   ► and not as your name.

00:39:44 ◼   ► - Oh, right, and that was because...

00:39:46 ◼   ► - You might be a little late to get the Gruber name on.

00:39:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I couldn't get it,

00:39:52 ◼   ► and all the variations on Gruber weren't there.

00:39:55 ◼   ► And I also had the notion that if it does become a thing,

00:40:00 ◼   ► maybe it would be more of a daring fireball thing

00:40:02 ◼   ► than a personal thing.

00:40:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, it actually would not be,

00:40:06 ◼   ► it's kind of like Periscope in the same way.

00:40:09 ◼   ► It's like, here's a kind of unedited view of life,

00:40:14 ◼   ► maybe from the WWDC press bullpen or something like that.

00:40:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying.

00:40:20 ◼   ► But I didn't even get the right

00:40:20 ◼   ► Daring Fireball name either, right?

00:40:22 ◼   ► - Oh, really?

00:40:23 ◼   ► - I think there's like,

00:40:24 ◼   ► I had to put like a dash in it or something.

00:40:25 ◼   ► I don't know, because some,

00:40:26 ◼   ► I don't know who the shitbag is,

00:40:27 ◼   ► but some jerk has Daring Fireball.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Like that can't possibly be legit.

00:40:33 ◼   ► Like whoever it is stole it from me.

00:40:35 ◼   ► - Well, did you see on Peach?

00:40:38 ◼   ► Have you used Peach yet?

00:40:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm on the Peach.

00:40:41 ◼   ► - I'm on the Peach.

00:40:43 ◼   ► Someone has, Casey Johnston got P. Marka,

00:40:47 ◼   ► so she's (laughs)

00:40:49 ◼   ► Peaching it up.

00:40:51 ◼   ► - Is she really?

00:40:52 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:40:52 ◼   ► - Is she masquerading as--

00:40:57 ◼   ► - I think just the username.

00:41:00 ◼   ► I actually haven't looked at it in a couple days, so.

00:41:03 ◼   ► - The Peach is really weird, I think.

00:41:06 ◼   ► So what happened, for anybody who missed this, and trust me, if you did, you're not really

00:41:11 ◼   ► missing anything.

00:41:12 ◼   ► It was like over the weekend, I think it was over the weekend, but within the last few

00:41:15 ◼   ► days, all of a sudden, everybody on Twitter is talking about a new social network called

00:41:18 ◼   ► Peach.

00:41:19 ◼   ► And in fact, the fact that I just tried to get my name on Snapchat and couldn't, I do

00:41:24 ◼   ► have this habit where if I hear of a new social network, even if I think there's a very low

00:41:27 ◼   ► chance I want to do it, I'll quick sign up to try to get a username that I want.

00:41:31 ◼   ► And so I signed up for this peach and it's as best as I can figure out it.

00:41:36 ◼   ► Number one, I don't quite get it,

00:41:38 ◼   ► but as best as I can figure out is it sort of like Twitter,

00:41:41 ◼   ► except that instead of getting a timeline,

00:41:44 ◼   ► you have to go to each single,

00:41:46 ◼   ► every single person you follow individually to see what they're up to.

00:41:49 ◼   ► And it's a poor idea for a social network implemented in a,

00:41:55 ◼   ► uh, a very poorly made and designed app. Like the buttons in the app don't,

00:42:00 ◼   ► you tap the button and there's no visual indication

00:42:03 ◼   ► that you've tapped it.

00:42:04 ◼   ► There's no highlight.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And to make it even worse, nothing happens sometimes.

00:42:09 ◼   ► And then you tap it again and it's gone

00:42:12 ◼   ► because whatever it is that you tapped to do before,

00:42:14 ◼   ► it took three seconds and then it went away.

00:42:17 ◼   ► It's a very, very shitty app.

00:42:18 ◼   ► - It's interesting.

00:42:22 ◼   ► I mean, it's actually, as Twitter starts to add more,

00:42:28 ◼   ► I don't know what you would call them, formats or something, media types to Twitter.

00:42:32 ◼   ► This is kind of like, you know, going a giant leap ahead of that because you can make drawings,

00:42:37 ◼   ► you can make animations, you can add photos.

00:42:42 ◼   ► But the timeline is weird.

00:42:43 ◼   ► It's not a timeline of posts, it's a timeline of people.

00:42:48 ◼   ► So one of the more interesting analyses I read, basically said, you know, you're incentivized

00:42:56 ◼   ► to just post as much as possible because then you'll always be at the top of the

00:42:59 ◼   ► timeline and you know, you won't be spamming people in the sense that they'll

00:43:03 ◼   ► see 20 of your posts in a row, but.

00:43:05 ◼   ► You know, you'll always be the person at the top of the timeline

00:43:09 ◼   ► and that might get annoying.

00:43:10 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:43:11 ◼   ► It's uh, I don't think it's worth talking about much more.

00:43:15 ◼   ► No, let's not, as with any new social network, most of the posts, well, not

00:43:19 ◼   ► most, but many of the posts are about peach itself, so we'll see if it gets beyond

00:43:24 ◼   ► that. What's interesting about it is that it's made by one of the people who made

00:43:29 ◼   ► it is the guy who made vine. So that's the only reason it got any kind of

00:43:34 ◼   ► traction because vine is a real thing and there's real people who are you know

00:43:38 ◼   ► using it happily and it's it you know but I don't think this is a fine or

00:43:42 ◼   ► unless it they somehow quote-unquote pivot and invent a new something new

00:43:47 ◼   ► that you can do with this that's different than what this is yeah it's

00:43:51 ◼   ► always dangerous to say like there's been too many of there's been too many

00:43:54 ◼   ► social networks because I'm sure someone said there were too many search engines, um, right

00:44:00 ◼   ► before Google came out. So, you know, who knows what's actually going to happen, but it seems like

00:44:05 ◼   ► this is one of those things where it's just not different enough to really justify putting too

00:44:11 ◼   ► much time and effort into, um, maybe it'll catch on among some like path was huge in Singapore or

00:44:19 ◼   ► or something or Indonesia or wherever.

00:44:22 ◼   ► But yeah, we'll stop talking about Peach now.

00:44:28 ◼   ► - All right, well, we'll stop talking about Peach

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00:46:52 ◼   ► One more thing I want to say about CES now, now having been twice, all the, you know,

00:46:58 ◼   ► this was a different apple that back then it was, it was smaller and, you know, still,

00:47:03 ◼   ► I would say maybe a little more mysterious, but all the so-called rumors and like calls

00:47:08 ◼   ► for Apple to headline CES and all that stuff.

00:47:13 ◼   ► That was just completely idiotic.

00:47:16 ◼   ► Even now more in hindsight than it seemed then.

00:47:19 ◼   ► There's no way that Apple is going to waste their time trying to have any sort of signal

00:47:25 ◼   ► among the noise at CES.

00:47:27 ◼   ► There's absolutely no reason for them to do that.

00:47:30 ◼   ► And just even halfway believing that that could have happened back then just seems completely

00:47:35 ◼   ► foolish now.

00:47:37 ◼   ► I miss Macworld and I really do and its heyday was great.

00:47:42 ◼   ► And it was for exactly what you said though.

00:47:44 ◼   ► It's that it was a way,

00:47:46 ◼   ► the main reason was just the fact that everybody

00:47:48 ◼   ► who covered Apple or worked in Apple related things

00:47:51 ◼   ► was all in San Francisco at the exact same time,

00:47:55 ◼   ► which was great.

00:47:56 ◼   ► And then secondarily, it was great.

00:47:58 ◼   ► It was actually great.

00:47:58 ◼   ► So every year I'd find one or two things,

00:48:01 ◼   ► new companies of making products

00:48:03 ◼   ► that I didn't know otherwise.

00:48:05 ◼   ► And even in the internet era, when that became a lot easier,

00:48:10 ◼   ► to find little companies that are from oddball locations

00:48:14 ◼   ► around the world, it still always happened.

00:48:18 ◼   ► But I totally understand why Apple pulled the plug

00:48:20 ◼   ► on their involvement in Macworld,

00:48:21 ◼   ► which was way less involved than it would have been

00:48:23 ◼   ► if they'd gone to CES, right?

00:48:25 ◼   ► 'Cause Macworld, especially the San Francisco one,

00:48:28 ◼   ► which was the last show, was local to them.

00:48:30 ◼   ► And the entire show revolved around their ecosystem.

00:48:35 ◼   ► But I totally understand why they got away from it.

00:48:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised

00:48:40 ◼   ► if like someone took a meeting with someone from CEA

00:48:44 ◼   ► or whatever and heard them out.

00:48:46 ◼   ► But there's just no, Apple can command as much attention

00:48:51 ◼   ► as it gets on its own.

00:48:53 ◼   ► Why would it participate in something

00:48:56 ◼   ► that's gonna be super noisy and not focused?

00:49:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the thing, and Apple, I think,

00:49:03 ◼   ► actually was upfront about this.

00:49:04 ◼   ► I think when they stopped, they publicly said,

00:49:07 ◼   ► this is the last time we're gonna do a Macworld keynote.

00:49:10 ◼   ► It was the year that,

00:49:13 ◼   ► it was the year when Steve Jobs fell ill again

00:49:18 ◼   ► and ended up going on a medical leave.

00:49:21 ◼   ► And he, you know, they announced like his medical leave,

00:49:24 ◼   ► I forget, it was like December, January.

00:49:26 ◼   ► But they said that, you know--

00:49:30 ◼   ► - Very messily, if you recall.

00:49:33 ◼   ► it was handled very poorly, probably because of Steve.

00:49:36 ◼   ► You know, that it was his desire for privacy

00:49:40 ◼   ► was in direct conflict with the company's need to,

00:49:44 ◼   ► they, A, they were giving a keynote at Macworld Expo

00:49:47 ◼   ► in early January, and B, you know,

00:49:50 ◼   ► they have certain public obligations

00:49:51 ◼   ► regarding the executive leadership.

00:49:53 ◼   ► It was all very messy.

00:49:54 ◼   ► It's all, you know, obviously it's a moot point now,

00:49:58 ◼   ► but I remember though that it was announced

00:50:01 ◼   ► that A, Phil Schiller will be giving the keynote

00:50:04 ◼   ► at Macworld next month, and B,

00:50:06 ◼   ► this will be the last keynote Apple ever gives

00:50:08 ◼   ► at Macworld Expo.

00:50:09 ◼   ► So they announced that before the Macworld Expo,

00:50:13 ◼   ► which was, and some people took that as sort of a dick move

00:50:17 ◼   ► 'cause it kind of did cast a funereal feel

00:50:22 ◼   ► to the whole thing, 'cause I mean, they were,

00:50:24 ◼   ► they still had at least two more Macworlds after that,

00:50:26 ◼   ► but everybody knew at this point

00:50:28 ◼   ► that it was going to be a greatly diminished Macworld

00:50:31 ◼   ► without Apple. But on the other hand, I kind of think, I don't know that it was a dick

00:50:34 ◼   ► move pre-announcing that because I think it gave everybody a chance to soak it up and

00:50:39 ◼   ► it maybe gave people who were like, "Eh, maybe I'll go, maybe I'll not go." It motivated

00:50:43 ◼   ► them to, "Yeah, I better go."

00:50:44 ◼   ► Yeah, that was the only year I went and it was really cool to be able to see it once.

00:50:54 ◼   ► Anything else from CES?

00:50:56 ◼   ► I don't think so.

00:50:57 ◼   ► I mean, you know, I could go on forever.

00:51:00 ◼   ► It was, it was really interesting.

00:51:01 ◼   ► Um, it was fun.

00:51:03 ◼   ► It was exhausting.

00:51:05 ◼   ► And, uh, next year you're coming so we can, so someone will play blackjack with me.

00:51:09 ◼   ► I can't believe you didn't play any blackjack.

00:51:11 ◼   ► How do you not find time for blackjack?

00:51:13 ◼   ► Cause it would be like 2 AM and I hadn't, you know, it was like,

00:51:16 ◼   ► Oh, I guess I should go to sleep.

00:51:18 ◼   ► Um, see, cause the people, you know, the people I was with, they either

00:51:22 ◼   ► would just want to keep drinking or.

00:51:24 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:51:26 ◼   ► I actually don't know. And there's like some, I think it started ironically,

00:51:29 ◼   ► but there's like a lot of the tech writers play pie gal poker, um,

00:51:34 ◼   ► which I also didn't get to play. We were going to,

00:51:36 ◼   ► and then I got separated from that group and I don't know if they ever did or

00:51:39 ◼   ► not, but, um, anyway, next year.

00:51:42 ◼   ► See that I,

00:51:44 ◼   ► I'm starting to get a sense of how this could happen and why it's inexplicable

00:51:48 ◼   ► to me,

00:51:48 ◼   ► how you can have like a four day trip to Vegas and not end up playing blackjack.

00:51:52 ◼   ► And it sounds to me, and I know you, I think this is probably true.

00:51:55 ◼   ► It seems to me that the difference is that you have at least a lick of common

00:51:59 ◼   ► sense. I don't know. I don't know. I was, yeah,

00:52:05 ◼   ► no, I would have liked to, uh, in like last year I was like, Oh,

00:52:10 ◼   ► I'll just do it the last night. And then the last night it was like 1 am.

00:52:13 ◼   ► And I,

00:52:13 ◼   ► I couldn't even put a hundred bucks on the Cubs to win the world series last

00:52:17 ◼   ► year. Cause I ran out of time before the sports book closed.

00:52:19 ◼   ► Oh, did you get it in this year? No. Or are they not taking,

00:52:23 ◼   ► Are they not taking those yet?

00:52:24 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:52:25 ◼   ► I'm sure they're taking them.

00:52:26 ◼   ► It's there.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I guess they probably could win this year.

00:52:30 ◼   ► I didn't think they were going to win.

00:52:32 ◼   ► I didn't think they were going to be even close last year.

00:52:34 ◼   ► So they're going to be, I think they're going to be good.

00:52:36 ◼   ► They're going to be good.

00:52:37 ◼   ► Are they going to be the national league favorites?

00:52:40 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:52:40 ◼   ► Could be because it's going to be cardinals have gotten worse.

00:52:44 ◼   ► Cardinals have gotten more in the Mets.

00:52:45 ◼   ► Come on the Mets.

00:52:46 ◼   ► That was a fluke.

00:52:47 ◼   ► The Mets have gotten worse already.

00:52:48 ◼   ► The Mets have already lost, lost talent and I don't think they're going to sign

00:52:51 ◼   ► Caspidus

00:52:52 ◼   ► They've met till have pitching and that's it and then the Dodgers are in turmoil, right?

00:52:58 ◼   ► And nobody I don't think anybody knows what's gonna happen with the Dodgers and they're probably worse because they they lost

00:53:02 ◼   ► What's his name the pitcher? Oh

00:53:04 ◼   ► What's his name

00:53:09 ◼   ► The guy who used to be on the Royals. Yeah, I forgot

00:53:12 ◼   ► So anyway, I think your cubbies are gonna be I don't think you're gonna get good odds. Just could hear one

00:53:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's the thing.

00:53:19 ◼   ► - This could be the year where you get your Cubs

00:53:21 ◼   ► win the World Series ticket

00:53:22 ◼   ► and you end up winning like $600 on a $100 bet.

00:53:25 ◼   ► - Not even, I think it's like four to one

00:53:27 ◼   ► or something right now. - Wow.

00:53:28 ◼   ► - I think last year was seven to one.

00:53:31 ◼   ► - That just doesn't seem right.

00:53:32 ◼   ► It seems like even when the Cubs have talent,

00:53:33 ◼   ► the Cubs ought to have--

00:53:34 ◼   ► - They're the Cubs.

00:53:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're the Cubs.

00:53:37 ◼   ► There ought to be like a,

00:53:38 ◼   ► they're the Cubs discount on the tickets.

00:53:41 ◼   ► And the same way with the Yankees

00:53:42 ◼   ► that even when the Yankees look like

00:53:44 ◼   ► they're not in a good spot,

00:53:45 ◼   ► they don't really have it,

00:53:46 ◼   ► The Yankees still should only be like eight to one

00:53:49 ◼   ► every year, even if they have no chance.

00:53:52 ◼   ► Because they're the Yankees.

00:53:53 ◼   ► Like you shouldn't really, you should not be able

00:53:56 ◼   ► to make a lot of money by betting on the Yankees

00:53:58 ◼   ► to win the World Series.

00:53:58 ◼   ► - No, that's practically cheating.

00:54:00 ◼   ► - Right. (laughs)

00:54:02 ◼   ► That's why I love them.

00:54:06 ◼   ► It's like betting on the house.

00:54:08 ◼   ► - Basically, yeah.

00:54:09 ◼   ► - So anyway, basic gist of it, you go to CES,

00:54:13 ◼   ► you go two days early or so,

00:54:14 ◼   ► 'cause you wanna hit these, the keynotes

00:54:16 ◼   ► and the announcements and then you book two days,

00:54:19 ◼   ► you stay there for two days to do the show floor.

00:54:22 ◼   ► Can you do the whole show floor in two days?

00:54:25 ◼   ► - You'll never get, you'll never do the whole thing.

00:54:28 ◼   ► - You have to pick and choose.

00:54:29 ◼   ► - Even we didn't get to talking about

00:54:31 ◼   ► more than one tiny portion of it.

00:54:34 ◼   ► There's the whole convention center,

00:54:35 ◼   ► which is like the north, central and south halls,

00:54:38 ◼   ► each of which have multiple zones.

00:54:41 ◼   ► And then there's the West Gate too,

00:54:43 ◼   ► which is something else I don't even know.

00:54:45 ◼   ► I didn't even go to the West Gate.

00:54:47 ◼   ► I don't know. - What the hell is that?

00:54:48 ◼   ► - That's something else.

00:54:49 ◼   ► It's like next door.

00:54:50 ◼   ► - I've seen the sign.

00:54:53 ◼   ► I don't even know what it is though.

00:54:54 ◼   ► Is it like a hotel, casino?

00:54:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's kind of a junky casino hotel

00:54:58 ◼   ► with its own convention center.

00:55:00 ◼   ► - And part of CES is in there.

00:55:02 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:55:03 ◼   ► - I think it's so crazy.

00:55:06 ◼   ► I'm going next year.

00:55:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, you should.

00:55:08 ◼   ► - I should book it. - Let's do it.

00:55:10 ◼   ► - All right.

00:55:11 ◼   ► - Stay somewhere nice though.

00:55:12 ◼   ► - Well, I'll only stay at the Wynn.

00:55:14 ◼   ► - Oh, well, all right.

00:55:15 ◼   ► That might be pricey.

00:55:17 ◼   ► - Might be. (laughs)

00:55:20 ◼   ► - When I looked, well, when I looked at it,

00:55:21 ◼   ► it had sold out, but I think before that,

00:55:23 ◼   ► all right, we'll figure out how to do this early

00:55:26 ◼   ► so that we don't get screwed, but.

00:55:28 ◼   ► - I wonder what the, I know that they sell,

00:55:31 ◼   ► I know that the Wynn and Encore sell out

00:55:33 ◼   ► because they're, A, they're the best place on the strip,

00:55:36 ◼   ► and B, it's, well, there's no ideal location,

00:55:40 ◼   ► but it's about as close to ideal as you can get

00:55:43 ◼   ► because it's right across the street from the Venetian and the Palazzo,

00:55:47 ◼   ► which is the where the, the, the,

00:55:48 ◼   ► that's the casino that's connected to the sands convention center.

00:55:52 ◼   ► Yes. And so my guess is that the, you know, the first,

00:55:56 ◼   ► like my hotels, the first night was $50 and the second,

00:56:00 ◼   ► the third and fourth nights were $350. Wow.

00:56:05 ◼   ► Yeah. It's like a huge,

00:56:06 ◼   ► like just the difference between pre CES and

00:56:11 ◼   ► Where did you stay?

00:56:13 ◼   ► Well, I stayed at the Flamingo.

00:56:15 ◼   ► Oh, that's right.

00:56:16 ◼   ► You told me that.

00:56:17 ◼   ► You did tell me that.

00:56:17 ◼   ► Right.

00:56:18 ◼   ► And the Flamingo is not that great.

00:56:20 ◼   ► It's a pretty good location.

00:56:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it was well located, and it's on the monorail.

00:56:24 ◼   ► So that was fine.

00:56:26 ◼   ► It was fine.

00:56:26 ◼   ► I mean, I stayed in the new tower, and it was fine.

00:56:30 ◼   ► But hey, maybe next year by CES we'll

00:56:33 ◼   ► have the Las Vegas City Notes so you'll

00:56:35 ◼   ► know where to actually hang out.

00:56:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:39 ◼   ► Well, I know where to hang out.

00:56:40 ◼   ► Oh, you know where to hang it.

00:56:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:42 ◼   ► I should probably write the Las Vegas city notes.

00:56:44 ◼   ► Did you see, I relaunched it.

00:56:46 ◼   ► No, you've been offline a lot.

00:56:48 ◼   ► Lily.

00:56:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:48 ◼   ► If you go to city notes.co, uh, you know, as, uh, I think I, you know, talked

00:56:54 ◼   ► about it on the show before, but the, the idea was that I was making these

00:56:58 ◼   ► apps where, um, if you go, if you're traveling to a city and you just want

00:57:02 ◼   ► a short list of like the cool stuff where your cool friend would take you.

00:57:07 ◼   ► and not the lame touristy stuff or like, you know, fancy, silly stuff.

00:57:13 ◼   ► Um, did I would just have this list for you.

00:57:16 ◼   ► And I did a New York one and I had a San Francisco one and these were iPhone

00:57:19 ◼   ► apps that I was selling in the app store.

00:57:21 ◼   ► And, um, it was, you know, long story short, it was cumbersome to make and,

00:57:28 ◼   ► uh, and update these apps as apps.

00:57:31 ◼   ► And it was also not really, you know, the paid app model has, uh, as you know,

00:57:36 ◼   ► is not a great business model for for certain types of uh... of content so

00:57:41 ◼   ► it's a website now it's city notes dot co i have a tokyo and a paris list up

00:57:46 ◼   ► there and if you're going to those cities check 'em out

00:57:49 ◼   ► and work on new york next and

00:57:52 ◼   ► then probably los angeles and uh...

00:57:54 ◼   ► you know it's working as a website it's like

00:57:57 ◼   ► free for me to update and

00:57:59 ◼   ► keep current and uh...

00:58:01 ◼   ► we'll see what happens

00:58:02 ◼   ► but interesting that's my little side project yeah i'm you know we'll see what

00:58:06 ◼   ► We'll see what happens with it, but I just relaunched it about a month ago and so far

00:58:12 ◼   ► so good.

00:58:13 ◼   ► Excellent.

00:58:14 ◼   ► What else is going on?

00:58:16 ◼   ► Do you want to talk about this El Chapo?

00:58:21 ◼   ► I haven't read the Sean Penn thing yet.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Did you?

00:58:24 ◼   ► I did, but I didn't finish it.

00:58:26 ◼   ► It's like the stupidest thing.

00:58:28 ◼   ► I couldn't remember which device I was reading it on, so I haven't gotten back to it.

00:58:32 ◼   ► But I loved it.

00:58:33 ◼   ► I thought it was fantastic.

00:58:34 ◼   ► I really, really liked it.

00:58:36 ◼   ► I'm going to read it tonight.

00:58:38 ◼   ► I think it's one of the best pieces written by a non-writer.

00:58:42 ◼   ► It's funny, it seems like maybe Rolling Stone...

00:58:46 ◼   ► I'm not sure what the backstory is, and I don't know how much of this is out there,

00:58:49 ◼   ► and I just don't know because I didn't finish the article yet.

00:58:52 ◼   ► He visited him in October, and the article's coming out now, but it seems like maybe they

00:58:56 ◼   ► felt like their hand was pressed when the authorities took El Chapo back into custody

00:59:01 ◼   ► and they wanted to publish it.

00:59:03 ◼   ► But it's clearly a very light editing pass, you know, in terms of it doesn't read like

00:59:11 ◼   ► your typical Rolling Stone feature.

00:59:15 ◼   ► A lot of Sean Penn's personality is infused in the prose, and I think he did a hell of

00:59:21 ◼   ► a job.

00:59:22 ◼   ► There's certain touches that, as a writer, like, felt like, you know, a little over the

00:59:27 ◼   ► the top like it's a little awkward in certain phrasing but for the most part

00:59:33 ◼   ► though I really enjoy the visceral nature nature of the pros I think is

00:59:38 ◼   ► just a tremendous read and it's just such a crazy idea you know it I kind of

00:59:45 ◼   ► fascinated by Sean Penn you know he just does things that other people it just

00:59:49 ◼   ► never occurs of to do right remember like with with the hurricane in New

00:59:54 ◼   ► Orleans. What was that hurricane? What was it called? Katrina? Katrina. There's like,

00:59:59 ◼   ► there's Sean Penn, like, in a rowboat saving people, you know, getting them off

01:00:05 ◼   ► their roofs, you know, like, what the hell is Sean Penn doing on a rowboat in New

01:00:09 ◼   ► Orleans? How did he get there? How do you get to a flooded city if you

01:00:13 ◼   ► don't live there? You know, it's not like he's, he just went, you know, what a crazy

01:00:18 ◼   ► idea to have is I'm gonna go meet the most notorious drug kingpin in the world

01:00:22 ◼   ► today and write a story about it.

01:00:25 ◼   ► Yeah, and a lot of the criticism has been that El Chapo...

01:00:31 ◼   ► Chapo or Chapo?

01:00:32 ◼   ► Well, I guess in Spanish you'd say Chapo.

01:00:36 ◼   ► El Chapo.

01:00:37 ◼   ► He was given editorial control, essentially,

01:00:39 ◼   ► that he was allowed to make changes or at least reject the...

01:00:46 ◼   ► It was submitted.

01:00:47 ◼   ► The agreement was, we'll submit to you a manuscript,

01:00:51 ◼   ► And if you have objections, we will take your objections.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Right.

01:00:54 ◼   ► So a lot of people are saying, and, and whatever they said that he didn't make

01:00:59 ◼   ► any changes or something like that.

01:01:00 ◼   ► But a lot of people are criticizing that as, uh, you know, essentially, uh, you

01:01:05 ◼   ► know, a press release from El Chapo, uh, written by Sean Penn submitted to rolling

01:01:11 ◼   ► stone, which is, you know, historically a journalistic organization and they just

01:01:16 ◼   ► go and run it.

01:01:17 ◼   ► Um, I don't know.

01:01:19 ◼   ► I think it's, I think it's, uh, that's kind of the time we're in where a lot of

01:01:23 ◼   ► places are just publishing directly on medium and, uh, or on their websites

01:01:27 ◼   ► or something like that, if you look at Elon Musk, he does the same thing.

01:01:31 ◼   ► So I don't, you know, I, it would be a tough call if I were the editor of

01:01:35 ◼   ► rolling stone, I think that if I were the publisher of rolling stone, I'd be very,

01:01:39 ◼   ► like, very excited about this because it's certainly gotten them a lot of attention

01:01:43 ◼   ► and probably a lot of web traffic.

01:01:44 ◼   ► And, um, but it's interesting.

01:01:47 ◼   ► Like, do you allow that? What do you...?

01:01:50 ◼   ► Here's my take. And this is really what I wanted to talk about. It was that journalistic angle.

01:01:54 ◼   ► I don't have a problem with it because right up front, that's how the article starts,

01:02:00 ◼   ► is in italics, like it's an editor's note, it explains that situation entirely, which is that

01:02:06 ◼   ► part of the deal for this entire thing before it started was an agreement that the article would be

01:02:11 ◼   ► submitted to El Chapo's people for their approval. And it was, and they didn't make any changes.

01:02:17 ◼   ► And so to me, the "what makes it okay" is the fact that they disclosed that in very clear language right up front.

01:02:25 ◼   ► And that they sec... like, so the El Chapo people said, "We want to approve the article."

01:02:29 ◼   ► And I think the Rolling Stone people said, "Okay, we'll do it, but we're going to explain what was approved."

01:02:36 ◼   ► You know, "We're going to explain that this deal was in place, and we're going to say whether or not you changed anything."

01:02:43 ◼   ► And so to me, obviously that's less than ideal. It'd be great if the El Chapo people just said you can write whatever you want,

01:02:49 ◼   ► but obviously they weren't gonna let that happen. And so,

01:02:52 ◼   ► yeah, the world is a better place that this article exists than if it didn't. Like it was, it's not like they had the option

01:02:59 ◼   ► to do it without that arrangement.

01:03:01 ◼   ► Right. The fact that it was disclosed to me makes it

01:03:05 ◼   ► acceptable. Like I think the people who are objecting to it on a, like it's failing a certain purity test are being

01:03:13 ◼   ► A lot of them are jealous that they didn't get the story, I think.

01:03:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:03:17 ◼   ► I mean, the truth about this, there are no rules.

01:03:19 ◼   ► It's not like there's a law or something that says that, you know, every, every

01:03:23 ◼   ► article published anywhere must be vetted by something or something like that.

01:03:27 ◼   ► I mean, uh, so whatever, uh, if, if you're jealous that your publication did not get

01:03:34 ◼   ► the scoop on El Chapo from Sean Penn, um, I guess that sucks, but it is interesting.

01:03:40 ◼   ► I think it's, I think it's cool.

01:03:42 ◼   ► I want to read it. I saved it. I'm going to read it.

01:03:45 ◼   ► Uh, I,

01:03:47 ◼   ► I like the idea of getting kind of raw writing from non-traditional writers.

01:03:52 ◼   ► I think that's really interesting.

01:03:54 ◼   ► That to me is exactly what it feels like. And in terms of, well,

01:03:59 ◼   ► the argument that this could just be a press release from El Chapo,

01:04:02 ◼   ► obviously that's a risk. I mean,

01:04:04 ◼   ► but you just read the article with an open mind and judge for yourself.

01:04:08 ◼   ► And I having read most of the article would say it's definitely not the case.

01:04:11 ◼   ► It doesn't whitewash over anything. It's really just sort of a first-person narrative. You are there. This is what it's like to try to get to this guy

01:04:18 ◼   ► story. To me, it was just a good read.

01:04:22 ◼   ► But I think you have to keep an open mind on something like that. And I also think that there's a certain

01:04:27 ◼   ► sanctimoniousness among the professional journalists who like object to this on

01:04:32 ◼   ► you know, this is not the way it's done by serious publications.

01:04:38 ◼   ► is that those publications that have those rules, like if and I'm sure a lot of them really do have it codified, you know, like

01:04:44 ◼   ► 60 minutes does not allow the sources of a show to

01:04:49 ◼   ► See it before it airs

01:04:52 ◼   ► That's fine. That's you know, it's fine to have rules like that and it certainly does protect you from you know

01:04:58 ◼   ► Accusations that you're you're currying favor with your subjects or something

01:05:02 ◼   ► But those publications obviously they miss out on an awful lot of stuff that they're that these you know

01:05:07 ◼   ► these rules and traditions keep them from getting. Exactly. And self-publishing, like

01:05:14 ◼   ► you said, like how much stuff is going on medium these days. The world where, you know,

01:05:21 ◼   ► in the old days, they could take a stance like that and the only people who could really

01:05:26 ◼   ► get a story out were the ones who owned a printing press and had a million or two million

01:05:32 ◼   ► in circulation, newspaper or magazine.

01:05:34 ◼   ► You don't need that anymore, right?

01:05:37 ◼   ► So anybody can handle two or three million people

01:05:40 ◼   ► reading their site if they publish it on WordPress

01:05:43 ◼   ► or Medium or something like that.

01:05:44 ◼   ► And so they don't control the means of distribution anymore

01:05:51 ◼   ► and they're sort of holding on,

01:05:53 ◼   ► oh, you know, get me to the fainting couch.

01:05:55 ◼   ► They let the subject pre-approve the story.

01:05:57 ◼   ► It's this is, you know, I've got the vapor,

01:06:00 ◼   ► somebody get the smelling salt. It's ridiculous. Yeah, it's fascinating. Dave

01:06:04 ◼   ► Weiner actually wrote a good essay about this, making many of these same points

01:06:09 ◼   ► and I totally agree. I mean, listen, I went to, you know, quote-unquote

01:06:14 ◼   ► "professional journalism school." I mean, that's what my undergrad college was and

01:06:18 ◼   ► I don't care. I think it's great that people can sell publish now. There's

01:06:23 ◼   ► certain things that I won't do because that's the job I have, but

01:06:28 ◼   ► But that's fine.

01:06:30 ◼   ► I think the best thing you can do is be very clear about what happened and what didn't

01:06:34 ◼   ► happen and it seems like that's what they did here.

01:06:37 ◼   ► Right.

01:06:38 ◼   ► I feel...

01:06:40 ◼   ► Dave Weiner has been thinking about these things since the invention of the web in the

01:06:45 ◼   ► 90s.

01:06:46 ◼   ► And I think he has a really interesting perspective on this stuff.

01:06:52 ◼   ► And I think it is, to make a long story short, I think that institutional journalism, the

01:07:01 ◼   ► capital J journalism, like you said, like going to actual journalism school and working

01:07:05 ◼   ► at a long standing, you know, traditional publication, they've made things more complicated

01:07:12 ◼   ► than it really is.

01:07:13 ◼   ► They've set up this, this like, written and or unwritten list of rules of how it's done.

01:07:18 ◼   ► Whereas the truth of it is, lowercase j journalism that anybody can conduct is, to me, fundamentally

01:07:27 ◼   ► about getting the truth out there.

01:07:31 ◼   ► Whether it's true facts or whether it's, in a lot of my writing, truly what I believe

01:07:37 ◼   ► and think, my opinion, my honest opinion about how things are going, that's what it's all

01:07:41 ◼   ► about and that's it.

01:07:42 ◼   ► And so part of the truth could be like writing a disclaimer that says the subject of this

01:07:47 ◼   ► the story had the following demands, and that's the truth.

01:07:51 ◼   ► The truth is we had this arrangement, and now you know it.

01:07:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, let's be honest, like the people with all the rules

01:07:58 ◼   ► get stuff wrong all the time too, so.

01:08:00 ◼   ► - Exactly. - It's not like

01:08:02 ◼   ► they lead to perfection. - Right, and you know,

01:08:05 ◼   ► and I love the New York Times.

01:08:06 ◼   ► New York Times is one of my favorite newspapers,

01:08:09 ◼   ► or it is my favorite newspaper, and it's its source

01:08:11 ◼   ► that I read, I read something in the New York Times

01:08:13 ◼   ► every single day.

01:08:14 ◼   ► But, you know, and they exemplify

01:08:18 ◼   ► that sort of traditional journalism,

01:08:19 ◼   ► and they've had some absolutely terrible things

01:08:22 ◼   ► in the last few decades, you know,

01:08:23 ◼   ► with the Judy Miller reporting on the lead up

01:08:27 ◼   ► to the Iraq War, and who was the guy they had,

01:08:31 ◼   ► the serial fabulous, Jason-- - Oh, Jason, hmm.

01:08:36 ◼   ► - Well, whatever his name was, Jason.

01:08:38 ◼   ► You know-- - Jason Bourne?

01:08:40 ◼   ► No, uh, it was a J A Y S O N too.

01:08:44 ◼   ► Oh, right.

01:08:44 ◼   ► Uh, Jason Blair.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Jason Blair.

01:08:47 ◼   ► So they had a reporter on the staff who it turns out had, uh, serially

01:08:51 ◼   ► fabricated news reports.

01:08:53 ◼   ► Uh, uh, you know, again, those rules are not a protection against

01:08:58 ◼   ► things like that going wrong.

01:08:59 ◼   ► And fundamentally in both of those cases, the problem is that it wasn't

01:09:02 ◼   ► the truth that was coming out.

01:09:04 ◼   ► You know, what Judy Miller was reporting from her sources in Iraq was not the

01:09:08 ◼   ► truth and that led to disastrous circumstances. And the Jason Blair stuff, it didn't really

01:09:14 ◼   ► lead to any kind of disaster like the Iraq war, but the whole problem is that it greatly

01:09:20 ◼   ► diluted the credibility of if it's printed in the New York Times, it's true.

01:09:26 ◼   ► And then all those David Pogue reviews. I miss Pogue.

01:09:32 ◼   ► Well, I don't see his stuff anymore. I was just talking to somebody about that, that

01:09:38 ◼   ► But I know he's still doing this thing at Yahoo.

01:09:41 ◼   ► I just saw him recently too.

01:09:43 ◼   ► Oh, I saw him in New York when I was getting my iPad Pro review unit.

01:09:49 ◼   ► He must have been right before me.

01:09:54 ◼   ► I was going into a hotel while he was coming out.

01:09:57 ◼   ► So he still does.

01:09:58 ◼   ► But I don't know what it is.

01:09:59 ◼   ► There's some kind of tech meme search optimization strategy that the Yahoo people aren't doing.

01:10:08 ◼   ► doing because I don't see his stuff. I don't know what, I don't know why that is.

01:10:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know. Like now that Mossberg is, you know, not at the journal and is writing for

01:10:17 ◼   ► Recode and The Verge and stuff, I still see Mossberg reviews, you know, like they percolate

01:10:22 ◼   ► into my peripheral vision and it's like, oh, open that in a tab. Whereas pogues don't. I somehow wind

01:10:29 ◼   ► up not without any David Pogue tabs. Yeah, same. Maybe he just needs to tweet more. Yeah, maybe,

01:10:36 ◼   ► I don't know. Let's take one last break here. I'll thank our third and final sponsor of the day. And

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01:12:03 ◼   ► Go check them out if you have any kind of team

01:12:05 ◼   ► that needs an internet.

01:12:06 ◼   ► What else is on the list?

01:12:10 ◼   ► - I just wanted to say, that's something I think of a lot,

01:12:12 ◼   ► is like how to get your stuff noticed.

01:12:17 ◼   ► It's really interesting, it's almost hard to predict

01:12:19 ◼   ► who's gonna read your stuff, and it's almost,

01:12:21 ◼   ► really it doesn't seem to be correlated

01:12:25 ◼   ► with how much traffic your site gets,

01:12:27 ◼   ► even or anything like that.

01:12:30 ◼   ► It's almost a different kind of science.

01:12:33 ◼   ► And I don't know, I don't know if there's a way to crack it,

01:12:36 ◼   ► but it's something that fascinates me

01:12:37 ◼   ► because sometimes I put a lot of effort into an article

01:12:41 ◼   ► and it just won't get read or the other way around.

01:12:44 ◼   ► Like, you know, something that surprisingly does really well

01:12:48 ◼   ► and sometimes it's, you know, you get lucky with a headline

01:12:50 ◼   ► or a link here or there, but it really is weird

01:12:54 ◼   ► how the web works with sharing

01:12:57 ◼   ► and just getting read and who's reading it and sharing it.

01:13:01 ◼   ► - I have found that,

01:13:04 ◼   ► and I don't know quite why it would be,

01:13:08 ◼   ► but to me, in my career,

01:13:11 ◼   ► in the time I've been writing "Daring Fireball,"

01:13:13 ◼   ► one of the apical moments was,

01:13:16 ◼   ► you know, it's like a meteor that changed the,

01:13:19 ◼   ► you know, hit and changed the world forever,

01:13:21 ◼   ► was when Google shuttered Google Reader.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Google Reader shuttering instantly cut into the traffic

01:13:30 ◼   ► that Daring Fireball gets.

01:13:32 ◼   ► So if I measure, I don't think it cut people.

01:13:34 ◼   ► I honestly don't, I truly believe that the number of people

01:13:37 ◼   ► who read my writing on a regular basis,

01:13:39 ◼   ► if anything, continued to slowly grow.

01:13:41 ◼   ► But in terms of like page views,

01:13:43 ◼   ► it was instantaneous and permanent.

01:13:47 ◼   ► And the number of pages I get per month

01:13:49 ◼   ► is way fewer than from before.

01:13:52 ◼   ► And it correlates exactly to when Google

01:13:54 ◼   ► pulled the plug on Google Reader.

01:13:56 ◼   ► And I think, my guess is that a lot of,

01:14:01 ◼   ► awful lot of people who read "Daring Fireball"

01:14:04 ◼   ► used Google Reader and they subscribed to my site.

01:14:07 ◼   ► And whenever something new came up,

01:14:09 ◼   ► they would go to, you know,

01:14:11 ◼   ► click the thing that would go to my website.

01:14:13 ◼   ► And I would register, you know,

01:14:15 ◼   ► my analytics and whatever would register as a hit.

01:14:19 ◼   ► And anyway, long story short,

01:14:20 ◼   ► I don't get the traffic I used to in terms of page views.

01:14:22 ◼   ► I've never been happier that I don't have page view tied advertising because that would

01:14:29 ◼   ► have been, it really would have hit.

01:14:31 ◼   ► It absolutely would have hurt if the advertising on Daring Fireball was correlated to page

01:14:35 ◼   ► views.

01:14:36 ◼   ► And I think it's just that people now, a lot of people check it when it comes to mind instead

01:14:40 ◼   ► of checking as soon as, you know, treating Google readers like a notification system

01:14:45 ◼   ► of, "Oh, Gruber posted something.

01:14:46 ◼   ► I'll go check it out."

01:14:49 ◼   ► The other thing, and this is where I'm getting at,

01:14:51 ◼   ► is that pre-Google Reader,

01:14:53 ◼   ► I was very, very good at guessing

01:14:55 ◼   ► which longer pieces I wrote were gonna have legs

01:14:57 ◼   ► and which ones weren't, and now I don't.

01:15:00 ◼   ► I often think, wow, I think I hit a home run with this one,

01:15:04 ◼   ► and it doesn't really, like the next day,

01:15:06 ◼   ► nothing is, there's no bump.

01:15:09 ◼   ► And then like last month, I wrote,

01:15:11 ◼   ► I spent an awful lot of time

01:15:13 ◼   ► really examining the battery case.

01:15:16 ◼   ► - Oh, I remember.

01:15:19 ◼   ► And all the lot of the feedback I got was why in the world would you spend that much

01:15:21 ◼   ► time on the battery case?

01:15:23 ◼   ► And the explanation is, it's because I could write about it.

01:15:27 ◼   ► I found it interesting.

01:15:28 ◼   ► I think there were some very interesting things about it.

01:15:31 ◼   ► And because it's such a simple little thing, you can fully consider it.

01:15:37 ◼   ► You can explore every little alley and crevice and notion about it.

01:15:40 ◼   ► But it was one of the most popular things I've written in months.

01:15:44 ◼   ► I think it was more popular than my iPhone 6s review.

01:15:48 ◼   ► If I just measure by page views and seemingly

01:15:51 ◼   ► how many new people did it.

01:15:52 ◼   ► And I wasn't even the first to write the article.

01:15:54 ◼   ► But somehow that one really took off.

01:15:56 ◼   ► And I no longer can predict which ones

01:15:59 ◼   ► are gonna be popular or not.

01:16:01 ◼   ► - Speaking of that article, I mean, I still can't believe

01:16:04 ◼   ► how controversial that battery case was.

01:16:08 ◼   ► - Well, I guess that's why the article was popular.

01:16:11 ◼   ► I think that people really have strong feelings

01:16:14 ◼   ► about this. I mean you also went very deep on it. Yeah, I think what it is too

01:16:19 ◼   ► is that there's an awful lot of people who viscerally hate this design. They

01:16:23 ◼   ► really do. I mean they are... it is like, you know, like bringing up Obama or

01:16:31 ◼   ► something, you know, with your, you know, your crazy uncle who's a Donald Trump

01:16:36 ◼   ► supporter, you know, it like, it like turns on like a red anger bulb in

01:16:40 ◼   ► people's heads and there are some people cannot even talk about it you know you

01:16:44 ◼   ► know you would you would think that an argument a little debate if you will

01:16:48 ◼   ► over the design of a phone battery pack would be the sort of thing that would

01:16:53 ◼   ► not make anybody angry but you would be wrong and so the people who dislike it

01:16:58 ◼   ► really really dislike it and it it if seemingly it seems to offend them on an

01:17:03 ◼   ► emotional level and on the other side I think what maybe made my article popular

01:17:08 ◼   ► is that the people who either are intrigued by it or actually like it, they can't articulate

01:17:13 ◼   ► what why. It's, it's, again, almost like at an emotional level, they're like, Oh, I don't

01:17:18 ◼   ► know, it doesn't look bad to me. But they're, they, I think that they've largely been quiet

01:17:24 ◼   ► in public, because if you try to take that position, anything other than this design

01:17:31 ◼   ► is an abject failure. And maybe johnny I've is, you know, we ought to investigate whether

01:17:35 ◼   ► that he's losing his mind.

01:17:37 ◼   ► If you take any position short of that,

01:17:38 ◼   ► the people who hate it will jump all over you.

01:17:40 ◼   ► And most people don't wanna be jumped all over.

01:17:43 ◼   ► Me, I don't care.

01:17:44 ◼   ► The only way--

01:17:48 ◼   ► - You know what it reminds me of?

01:17:49 ◼   ► Have you ever seen the Boeing Dreamlifter?

01:17:52 ◼   ► - Oh, I think so, yeah.

01:17:53 ◼   ► - Just like the 747 that they just added a bubble on top of

01:17:57 ◼   ► to make it big enough so they could carry the fuselage

01:18:02 ◼   ► of the Dreamliner?

01:18:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:04 ◼   ► It's literally like just putting a bump on the, uh, you know, around, around the.

01:18:08 ◼   ► The 747.

01:18:10 ◼   ► Um, yeah, I think it's funny.

01:18:12 ◼   ► Uh, it reminds me a lot of when a new logo comes out and everyone just jumps on it.

01:18:18 ◼   ► The first day, you know, this is horrible.

01:18:20 ◼   ► I can't believe it.

01:18:21 ◼   ► And then no one cares after that.

01:18:23 ◼   ► Um, I think, you know, and so much of the design of that thing is how it works.

01:18:29 ◼   ► And I haven't used it.

01:18:32 ◼   ► I haven't used it, I have a 6S Plus,

01:18:34 ◼   ► so I don't need a battery pack, but, brag.

01:18:39 ◼   ► But actually I did need a battery pack at CES.

01:18:42 ◼   ► - Oh, that's interesting, even with the Plus.

01:18:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause the cell signal is so bad there

01:18:47 ◼   ► that I'm sure you're using way more battery

01:18:49 ◼   ► than you should be.

01:18:50 ◼   ► And-- - Yeah, even when,

01:18:52 ◼   ► I've never been in CES, obviously, or repeated again,

01:18:55 ◼   ► but I've been to Vegas many times,

01:18:56 ◼   ► and Vegas has notoriously bad, in my opinion,

01:18:58 ◼   ► cellular coverage.

01:19:00 ◼   ► And in addition to the fact that the cellular coverage

01:19:02 ◼   ► isn't that great in general,

01:19:03 ◼   ► that's just talking like if you're outside or near a door,

01:19:05 ◼   ► but the buildings are these caverns

01:19:08 ◼   ► and they're the Faraday cage aspect of

01:19:11 ◼   ► what it's like when you're covered by three tons of concrete

01:19:15 ◼   ► and who even knows whether if you're underground

01:19:18 ◼   ► or above ground or where the hell you are,

01:19:20 ◼   ► it could definitely be a challenge.

01:19:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, I got one of those anchor packs

01:19:26 ◼   ► that's supposedly big enough to charge a MacBook

01:19:30 ◼   ► and an iPad and a phone and all kinds of stuff.

01:19:33 ◼   ► So I did use that.

01:19:35 ◼   ► But anyway, I don't remember where I was,

01:19:37 ◼   ► but if you need a battery pack,

01:19:40 ◼   ► it seems like it actually works pretty well,

01:19:41 ◼   ► which is the whole point.

01:19:42 ◼   ► So I don't know, whatever.

01:19:44 ◼   ► I thought you went deliciously over the top on that post,

01:19:48 ◼   ► but as you say, it's a small enough thing

01:19:51 ◼   ► where you can really examine it from every angle

01:19:55 ◼   ► And why not?

01:19:56 ◼   ► Like that's the whole point of being a self-publisher

01:19:59 ◼   ► on the web is you could do something ridiculous like that.

01:20:02 ◼   ► - The other thing I'm thinking about,

01:20:05 ◼   ► and I went and bought a bunch of them.

01:20:07 ◼   ► But I've always been, and I even said it there

01:20:09 ◼   ► on the bottom of my article,

01:20:10 ◼   ► my solution to battery challenge days

01:20:14 ◼   ► is to have a little external battery pack,

01:20:16 ◼   ► but I like the little ones.

01:20:17 ◼   ► I like ones that I can put in my other pocket

01:20:19 ◼   ► and it's almost like I don't even notice it's there.

01:20:22 ◼   ► And Mophie makes a bunch of them.

01:20:24 ◼   ► But I honestly consider it to be a shortcoming

01:20:27 ◼   ► in their company in that they make too many of them.

01:20:29 ◼   ► And that one of the things I really, really appreciate

01:20:32 ◼   ► about Apple is that if you're going to buy an Apple blank

01:20:35 ◼   ► and insert any product there,

01:20:37 ◼   ► you can go and decide which one to get.

01:20:39 ◼   ► And it's, I'm an indecisive person and I will pause it,

01:20:43 ◼   ► but I never have a problem figuring out

01:20:44 ◼   ► which MacBook to buy.

01:20:46 ◼   ► I, and even now at a moment when their lineup is in flux

01:20:50 ◼   ► and they still have the old MacBook Airs

01:20:52 ◼   ► and the new MacBook One, which is underpowered,

01:20:55 ◼   ► and the MacBook Pro.

01:20:56 ◼   ► I know which Mac I want.

01:20:57 ◼   ► I want the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

01:21:00 ◼   ► That's the best, that's the one I want.

01:21:02 ◼   ► I find it so hard to figure out,

01:21:04 ◼   ► go to mophie.com and figure out which battery pack to buy,

01:21:07 ◼   ► because they not only have different sizes

01:21:09 ◼   ► in terms of like, well, here's the small one

01:21:11 ◼   ► that'll refill one iPhone from, you know,

01:21:13 ◼   ► throughout the day.

01:21:14 ◼   ► Or here's a really big one that you could use

01:21:16 ◼   ► to charge an iPad and two phones or something like that.

01:21:20 ◼   ► but they also have multiple designs.

01:21:22 ◼   ► They have ones with built-in cables,

01:21:24 ◼   ► not with built-in cables, ones, you know,

01:21:26 ◼   ► that it's too much.

01:21:28 ◼   ► They should be the ones who, they're the battery experts.

01:21:30 ◼   ► They should design the right design

01:21:33 ◼   ► and then I don't have to worry about it.

01:21:35 ◼   ► It's almost like when you go to mofeed.com

01:21:37 ◼   ► and pick a battery pack or the, you know,

01:21:40 ◼   ► external battery pack, you almost have to design it yourself

01:21:44 ◼   ► 'cause you've got to figure out,

01:21:46 ◼   ► do you want an integrated cables?

01:21:47 ◼   ► Do you want to have separate cables?

01:21:49 ◼   ► Do you care that the battery is gonna charge by micro USB,

01:21:53 ◼   ► but the phone is gonna charge by lightning,

01:21:55 ◼   ► so you have to bring two different things at night?

01:21:58 ◼   ► Does it do pass through charging,

01:22:00 ◼   ► meaning that at the end of the day,

01:22:02 ◼   ► when you put up next to your hotel bed,

01:22:04 ◼   ► do you have one thing to plug in,

01:22:05 ◼   ► and the battery will fill your phone first

01:22:08 ◼   ► and then fill itself up,

01:22:09 ◼   ► or do you have to plug two different things in

01:22:11 ◼   ► because the battery pack won't charge the phone

01:22:14 ◼   ► while it itself is being charged?

01:22:16 ◼   ► They have all of those options are there

01:22:18 ◼   ► for you to consider.

01:22:19 ◼   ► from just one company and I kind of, I find it maddening.

01:22:23 ◼   ► So I feel like I want to write an article and figure out which,

01:22:25 ◼   ► which is the best one and effectively design it for Mophie.

01:22:29 ◼   ► This is your version of Marco's headphone test. Yes, exactly. It's exactly it.

01:22:34 ◼   ► It's my version of Marco's headphone test is battery packs,

01:22:37 ◼   ► except that I'm only going to do Mophie's and speaking of Marco,

01:22:40 ◼   ► Marco recommended one to me personally. Uh,

01:22:44 ◼   ► I can't find it here.

01:22:46 ◼   ► The other one to check out is Anker, A-N-K-E-R,

01:22:49 ◼   ► which are some ex-Google people

01:22:51 ◼   ► who make very nice battery and charging stuff.

01:22:56 ◼   ► They're the ones who I also have a four port USB charger,

01:22:59 ◼   ► which I travel with now.

01:23:01 ◼   ► So I can, don't have to bring any of the Apple

01:23:04 ◼   ► charging bricks, I just bring this and plug in my Macbook,

01:23:09 ◼   ► iPhone, Apple Watch, and can charge something else

01:23:13 ◼   ► at the same time.

01:23:14 ◼   ► - All right, I'll take a look at the Anker ones.

01:23:15 ◼   ► But anyway, Marco recommended one to me.

01:23:18 ◼   ► He bought at Amazon for 24 bucks.

01:23:21 ◼   ► And it has built-in cables.

01:23:24 ◼   ► And I'm a built-in cable fan,

01:23:25 ◼   ► so you don't, you know, it's just one thing

01:23:27 ◼   ► to put in your pocket.

01:23:28 ◼   ► And the son of a bitchin' thing broke.

01:23:31 ◼   ► I hadn't even gotten past the point

01:23:32 ◼   ► where I was just testing how, you know,

01:23:34 ◼   ► like how quickly and, you know,

01:23:38 ◼   ► just testing a whole bunch of different,

01:23:39 ◼   ► these battery packs on my phone

01:23:41 ◼   ► every time I'd let my phone go down.

01:23:42 ◼   ► I'd only used it like three times,

01:23:44 ◼   ► I'd never even taken it out of the house, so it wasn't like it was dropped or anything

01:23:48 ◼   ► like that.

01:23:49 ◼   ► The lightning port on it just stopped working.

01:23:53 ◼   ► So I think there's a sort of "you get what you pay for" aspect in there.

01:23:56 ◼   ► And I also found it curious that Marco, of all people, was the one who recommended this

01:24:01 ◼   ► cheap one to me.

01:24:03 ◼   ► Hmm.

01:24:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:05 ◼   ► Maybe an imposter.

01:24:07 ◼   ► I don't remember the name of the company.

01:24:10 ◼   ► It was weird.

01:24:11 ◼   ► Oh, here it is.

01:24:12 ◼   ► on my desk. I hate to throw the company under the bus, but it's a volt ready. V O L T R

01:24:19 ◼   ► E A D Y. And if you go to Amazon and look at the volt ready, you'll see what I mean

01:24:23 ◼   ► about these integrated cables. And they're super, super thin. The cables. I mean, it's,

01:24:29 ◼   ► it's so much thinner than the lightning port itself. And I, you know, I don't, I think

01:24:33 ◼   ► that's probably why it broke. I think you need like a good thick cable.

01:24:40 ◼   ► - Have you installed iOS 9.3 yet?

01:24:43 ◼   ► - No, I have not.

01:24:45 ◼   ► - I haven't either, I'm not in the beta cycle.

01:24:48 ◼   ► - What's different about it?

01:24:52 ◼   ► - The Sherlock Flux or whatever that thing is called,

01:24:58 ◼   ► F-Lux, so you can get the warmer colors at nighttime

01:25:03 ◼   ► so it's easier on your eyes when you're about to go to sleep.

01:25:07 ◼   ► - Interesting.

01:25:09 ◼   ► And there were all those new features for education,

01:25:12 ◼   ► like the multiple user mode and that kind of stuff,

01:25:16 ◼   ► which you assume is gonna be part of iOS 10.

01:25:19 ◼   ► - Yeah. - So everyone can--

01:25:21 ◼   ► - No, but it's still just in beta, right?

01:25:23 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, yeah.

01:25:24 ◼   ► - I thought maybe I really was out to lunch.

01:25:27 ◼   ► - No. - No, I'm kind of done.

01:25:29 ◼   ► I do the betas of the major new OS over the summer,

01:25:33 ◼   ► but that's mainly because I know my phone's a year old,

01:25:36 ◼   ► I'm getting a new phone anyway,

01:25:37 ◼   ► So if it goes belly up and it's usually there's like major major features

01:25:41 ◼   ► I want to get get a hold of them but for stuff like the minor ones. I usually don't do the pay this

01:25:45 ◼   ► Yeah, same. Have you?

01:25:48 ◼   ► Have you been using the Apple TV a lot

01:25:51 ◼   ► Every day every day. Have you used the game controller yet? Yeah, I have the game controller

01:25:58 ◼   ► I don't use it very frequently because I just I just don't play video games

01:26:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I bought one to

01:26:05 ◼   ► To hopefully play games on and I used it the first day I had it and then I haven't used it since then

01:26:11 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's really just me. It's not like that. I couldn't find some games. I liked I found a couple games

01:26:16 ◼   ► I really liked but

01:26:18 ◼   ► It just never occurs to me to play video games

01:26:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean either I thought I would though. I

01:26:23 ◼   ► thought so too, I think of all the things like if I time-traveled back and talked to my

01:26:30 ◼   ► Like 10 11 12 year old self

01:26:32 ◼   ► I think that I would have lots of good news to tell young John Gruber and I think he would be very happy about his

01:26:37 ◼   ► Future but I think the of all the things he'd be most surprised by is that I would tell him that I

01:26:42 ◼   ► You're gonna grow up and have the financial ability

01:26:45 ◼   ► And the flexibility in your daily schedule to own and play any video game

01:26:52 ◼   ► You want for as long as you want practically speaking and you're not going to

01:26:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that pretty much I think that it my like

01:27:04 ◼   ► 12-year-old self would instantly suspect that whoever this guy who does kind of look like me

01:27:10 ◼   ► And it was credibly well cast to play the person who's going to prank me and tell me that it's me when I'm 42

01:27:18 ◼   ► Is obviously full of shit because there's no chance that if I could spend four or five hours every night playing cool video games that

01:27:26 ◼   ► I wouldn't be doing it. I

01:27:29 ◼   ► I downloaded one for the Apple Watch, which, you know, that was another one of those things

01:27:33 ◼   ► where they were like, "Oh, WatchOS 2 is going to be, you know, it's going to be really helpful

01:27:38 ◼   ► for games because they'll be able to run directly on the watch and also be able to use the digital

01:27:44 ◼   ► crown as a controlling mechanism."

01:27:47 ◼   ► And no, not fun.

01:27:50 ◼   ► One of the games was like a, almost like a card game type thing and it was just too,

01:27:55 ◼   ► weird and the other one was like pong type thing and it was just so jerky that

01:27:59 ◼   ► I saw that I kept losing because I either got the same one or I downloaded

01:28:04 ◼   ► a similar one and I think maybe there might be a bunch because if all you have

01:28:08 ◼   ► is the crown pong is a very obvious concept and it was terrible it was

01:28:14 ◼   ► absolutely terrible yeah I did not enjoy that as as we head into the new Apple

01:28:20 ◼   ► Watch season and I suspect that they're going to announce it early ish this year

01:28:25 ◼   ► you know, at this event that they're supposedly having in March, I do think we'll get a new watch.

01:28:31 ◼   ► And as we, you know, what do we think of Apple Watch? I have to write this piece, I do, because

01:28:36 ◼   ► I have a lot of thoughts on it. But bottom line, I think it's very clear in hindsight that they

01:28:41 ◼   ► should not have had any apps at all for the first Apple Watch. I mean, maybe eventually it'll be an

01:28:46 ◼   ► app platform, but it's clearly not ready for it yet. And slow apps is way worse than no apps,

01:28:53 ◼   ► in my opinion. And to me, even now, even, you know, with watchOS 2 and everything,

01:28:59 ◼   ► it's also still incredibly inconsistent, where if I go to like a weather app on

01:29:05 ◼   ► the watch, sometimes it'll just spin and spin and spin until the screen goes off.

01:29:10 ◼   ► And if I go to the exact same app, like Dark Sky or something, and take my phone

01:29:15 ◼   ► out of my pocket and go to Dark Sky, it works instantly and has all, you know, all

01:29:19 ◼   ► the data I want, you know, the information about the weather that I was looking for.

01:29:22 ◼   ► And so what it doesn't take long to be psychologically conditioned to

01:29:26 ◼   ► Because you don't trust that it's even going to work at all on the watch

01:29:30 ◼   ► It doesn't take you very long at all that you just instinctively go for the app on your phone

01:29:35 ◼   ► Totally especially with

01:29:39 ◼   ► the this s 6s phones being so fast and also the 3d touch shortcuts like it's now

01:29:46 ◼   ► You know when the watch launched to me

01:29:49 ◼   ► it was really helpful to be able to quickly access something

01:29:52 ◼   ► without reaching in my pocket

01:29:54 ◼   ► and taking out this giant phone.

01:29:56 ◼   ► But now the phone is so fast that,

01:29:59 ◼   ► and the Touch ID unlock is so fast

01:30:02 ◼   ► that it actually is faster now again to take my phone out

01:30:06 ◼   ► than to try to get anything done on the watch.

01:30:08 ◼   ► - Right, it's just, and that doesn't mean that the watch

01:30:12 ◼   ► as a whole is a failure, but I feel like what

01:30:15 ◼   ► this first watch was good and interesting for

01:30:18 ◼   ► is just the ambient stuff, you know, the tracking, the health, you know,

01:30:21 ◼   ► tracking your stuff,

01:30:22 ◼   ► doing the workouts and whatever you configure to be shown at a glance on your,

01:30:27 ◼   ► you know, without even doing anything is, you know, and that's enough,

01:30:31 ◼   ► that's enough to make it a product.

01:30:32 ◼   ► I think that the idea that they had to make had to have apps and their first one

01:30:36 ◼   ► was wrong.

01:30:37 ◼   ► And I think it's kind of funny because they famously had no apps on the first

01:30:41 ◼   ► iPhone. And it turns out that the phone was absolutely, you know,

01:30:45 ◼   ► probably the best platform for quote unquote apps that mankind has ever

01:30:50 ◼   ► created.

01:30:50 ◼   ► It's like the pinnacle of apps as the central premise of how you're going to use

01:30:54 ◼   ► a device. Um, didn't even have it at first. So if the,

01:30:57 ◼   ► if the phone could get away without it at first,

01:30:59 ◼   ► I don't see why the watch couldn't have. And I think in hindsight,

01:31:01 ◼   ► the watch should have,

01:31:02 ◼   ► yeah, I wrote kind of a, whatever it was like seven month review, uh,

01:31:08 ◼   ► about a month ago now. And that was, you know, similar. I mean, my,

01:31:12 ◼   ► my high level conclusion was I still use it every day and I still really like it a lot,

01:31:17 ◼   ► but I'm not using it for any new things than I was at the beginning.

01:31:21 ◼   ► I'm still basically using it for the same things as I did when I started.

01:31:25 ◼   ► So in that way, it felt stalled in the sense that we were promised this kind of unlimited

01:31:30 ◼   ► platform and no one's really taking advantage of it.

01:31:34 ◼   ► Whereas in reality, I'm very happy with the things that it does well, the fitness tracking,

01:31:39 ◼   ► the, you know, again, I'm always surprised how useful it is

01:31:43 ◼   ► to have the time in front of me,

01:31:45 ◼   ► especially with my phone now being so unwieldy.

01:31:48 ◼   ► And, you know, and a few very other basic things, so.

01:31:54 ◼   ► - I enjoyed that.

01:31:55 ◼   ► I've enjoyed that from other people too.

01:31:56 ◼   ► I know Marco was saying on his podcast,

01:31:59 ◼   ► either the last episode or the last one I listened to,

01:32:01 ◼   ► where he's, like for Christmas, got a mechanical watch

01:32:04 ◼   ► because he's, you know,

01:32:06 ◼   ► he never wore a watch in his entire life,

01:32:08 ◼   ► but just the convenience of having the time on your wrist,

01:32:10 ◼   ► it turns out that's actually pretty cool.

01:32:13 ◼   ► All of us like me have been wearing watches in my life,

01:32:15 ◼   ► it's like, come on, why did you have to be told this?

01:32:19 ◼   ► - I know, I was the kid with the nerd watch in school

01:32:23 ◼   ► with the calculator or Casio or whatever,

01:32:25 ◼   ► but I forgot, I forgot all about that.

01:32:27 ◼   ► Honestly, like the temperature is cool to have.

01:32:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's the one thing when I wear

01:32:31 ◼   ► my traditional watch, my regular watch,

01:32:34 ◼   ► the one thing that I miss every single day

01:32:38 ◼   ► is that I expect to be able to look at my wrist

01:32:40 ◼   ► and see what the temperature is outside.

01:32:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I like it. - And every time,

01:32:45 ◼   ► it's always, I mean, it's uncanny

01:32:49 ◼   ► how I could go days without wearing my Apple Watch

01:32:51 ◼   ► and I still, as I'm heading out the door

01:32:53 ◼   ► and deciding which coat to put on, I look at my wrist

01:32:56 ◼   ► and I'm like, oh, it's not gonna help.

01:32:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, are you Apple paying with it?

01:33:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do, when I have it on, I Apple pay,

01:33:03 ◼   ► and that's another thing too is,

01:33:05 ◼   ► 'cause the supermarket where we go

01:33:07 ◼   ► is a Whole Foods and they take Apple Pay.

01:33:09 ◼   ► And I instantly, every single time,

01:33:12 ◼   ► whether I'm wearing my Apple Watch or not Apple Watch,

01:33:14 ◼   ► I put my wrist up to the kiosk.

01:33:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:33:18 ◼   ► - Nice.

01:33:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I do.

01:33:22 ◼   ► I mean, almost every day I do that, so.

01:33:24 ◼   ► - It is, I find, and I thought so.

01:33:27 ◼   ► I thought it would be true back in May when I first got it,

01:33:29 ◼   ► and it turns out it's very true.

01:33:30 ◼   ► It is terrific in the East Coast winter

01:33:33 ◼   ► to have an Apple Pay thing

01:33:35 ◼   ► that you don't have to fish out of your pocket

01:33:37 ◼   ► when you're wearing a coat

01:33:38 ◼   ► and layers of clothing and stuff.

01:33:40 ◼   ► - Gloves too. - Right.

01:33:42 ◼   ► - And actually you can go straight through the sleeve.

01:33:44 ◼   ► You don't even need to roll up your sleeve.

01:33:47 ◼   ► You just double click on that button

01:33:50 ◼   ► and the NFC will go right through your shirt.

01:33:53 ◼   ► - It is interesting.

01:33:53 ◼   ► I'll tell you one thing too is I never used the single click

01:33:58 ◼   ► on that contact thing to contact people.

01:34:01 ◼   ► - Only by accident.

01:34:02 ◼   ► - Right, and so I really feel like in hindsight,

01:34:05 ◼   ► got that wrong. Like single click should have been Apple Pay and double click should have

01:34:09 ◼   ► been jumped to context shortcuts, at least for me personally. Because when I do want

01:34:13 ◼   ► to contact somebody, like if I want to text my son, I'll do it via Siri. I'll long press

01:34:19 ◼   ► the other thing and just say, text Jonas, whatever it is I want to text him. Because

01:34:25 ◼   ► you have to dictate the text anyway. So why not just initiate the contact from the voice

01:34:32 ◼   ► too?

01:34:33 ◼   ► It seems-- - Yeah, I assume

01:34:34 ◼   ► they probably thought people would be doing the drawings

01:34:37 ◼   ► and the touch stuff more than they do.

01:34:39 ◼   ► Like I haven't done that stuff in months.

01:34:41 ◼   ► - No, only when somebody gets a new Apple Watch.

01:34:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, right. (laughs)

01:34:45 ◼   ► - In hindsight, I mean, it's just one of those things where,

01:34:47 ◼   ► and I kind of, it makes me a little worried.

01:34:50 ◼   ► It's a worrisome product in some ways about Apple

01:34:52 ◼   ► 'cause it makes me wonder what made them think

01:34:55 ◼   ► while they were using it themselves

01:34:56 ◼   ► that this would be useful.

01:34:58 ◼   ► It just seems to me that if they spent

01:35:01 ◼   ► as much time thinking about it as I have

01:35:03 ◼   ► in the first six months while I wore it.

01:35:05 ◼   ► Why didn't they come to the same conclusions I did?

01:35:08 ◼   ► I mean, that's a good, the whole idea was a great idea.

01:35:12 ◼   ► I was very intrigued by it,

01:35:13 ◼   ► the idea that you would have these favorite people

01:35:16 ◼   ► and one touch away from just sending your heartbeat

01:35:19 ◼   ► or whatever, fabulous idea.

01:35:21 ◼   ► But then I feel like once you actually have it on your wrist

01:35:24 ◼   ► and you can do it, it turns out it doesn't really stick.

01:35:27 ◼   ► - I think that it's gonna be,

01:35:30 ◼   ► Some of the most interesting things are gonna be

01:35:32 ◼   ► what they change based on what they've now learned

01:35:35 ◼   ► from millions of people using this thing.

01:35:38 ◼   ► And that's the software as well as the hardware.

01:35:41 ◼   ► I think we've already seen they realizing

01:35:43 ◼   ► that the Sport is the main watch.

01:35:48 ◼   ► There's more colors now, we'll see what else

01:35:51 ◼   ► changes with that.

01:35:52 ◼   ► - Well, I said-- - The software changes.

01:35:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I know you said it was the best one.

01:35:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's the best one.

01:35:57 ◼   ► I think all of the worrying that people did,

01:35:59 ◼   ► I think this is to me one of the most interesting things about it.

01:36:02 ◼   ► It's all the worrying people did that the common person is going to get short changed

01:36:06 ◼   ► and gets this cruddy aluminum one and it's only rich people who can afford a $1000 stainless

01:36:12 ◼   ► steel one who are going to get the nice one.

01:36:14 ◼   ► It's actually the other way around.

01:36:15 ◼   ► The people who bought the $400 sport one got the best watch.

01:36:18 ◼   ► I really do believe that.

01:36:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I love mine.

01:36:22 ◼   ► So I'm just super curious to see what they change software wise too.

01:36:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I am too. And I don't...

01:36:31 ◼   ► The software group has really gotten good at keeping

01:36:35 ◼   ► a little... not much leaks out of Apple software these days. So I think we're in

01:36:39 ◼   ► for a surprise.

01:36:40 ◼   ► I don't think that, you know, who knows? I mean, you never know what Mark Germin's

01:36:44 ◼   ► gonna

01:36:44 ◼   ► figure out. But yeah, I don't know. I think there's a good chance that we'll be

01:36:48 ◼   ► surprised. So any guesses we have are actually

01:36:51 ◼   ► real guesses. If you ask me right now,

01:36:54 ◼   ► what do I think they're gonna do? I'm gonna guess a lot of

01:36:58 ◼   ► health and sensor related improvements.

01:37:01 ◼   ► And this one might be more of a me just wishful thinking, but I really,

01:37:06 ◼   ► really,

01:37:06 ◼   ► really would like to see them do something a lot smarter with where the aggregate

01:37:11 ◼   ► health data is, you know,

01:37:15 ◼   ► making health center more of a here's everything that we know about you type

01:37:21 ◼   ► thing. Like to me,

01:37:23 ◼   ► it's way too separated with the activities is just for the watch stuff and

01:37:28 ◼   ► Not you and you know what I mean? Right. And you know, I have six months or well, I have eight months of aggregated

01:37:36 ◼   ► Fitness tracking like okay. What what higher level trends can you tell me? Yeah, you know

01:37:42 ◼   ► Okay, when you I don't know when you work out on the weekend you do something better during the week

01:37:50 ◼   ► I don't know just like give me some more other than that page of all the rings, which is kind of cool, but

01:37:58 ◼   ► Was cool, you know the first couple times I looked at it

01:38:00 ◼   ► It is nice to be able to go back and kind of brag about the day. I walked

01:38:04 ◼   ► 27,000 steps steps at CES, but it would be great to actually get some more useful information out of that page

01:38:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that if there's if they're paying attention to how people seem to be using the watch in the real world

01:38:18 ◼   ► It's gonna be a lot more about quantifying

01:38:19 ◼   ► You know and helping you make sense and organize your the data that the watch knows and like I mean the other thing too

01:38:25 ◼   ► is if I'm not wearing my watch but I have my phone with me, the minimal compared to the watch,

01:38:30 ◼   ► but the minimal tracking that the phone does should be easily combined with the watch,

01:38:34 ◼   ► you know, to create an overall picture of my activity and stuff like that and where I've been.

01:38:40 ◼   ► And then the other thing I think I hope that they're working on is I think that they should

01:38:44 ◼   ► really work to make it smarter about whether it's watch faces or the glances or locate, you know,

01:38:53 ◼   ► but something so that it's just smarter about showing you what you want to be looking at when you look at your wrist.

01:38:57 ◼   ► Yeah, there's plenty of context that knows about, you know, where I'm at, what I'm doing, that it could...

01:39:04 ◼   ► I would even trust it to shuffle the complications for me somehow.

01:39:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:39:10 ◼   ► Based on the context, you know, if I'm at the airport, show me the travel complications.

01:39:16 ◼   ► If it's nighttime, show me, you know, certain things.

01:39:19 ◼   ► And I know that it would be kind of obnoxious to have to program the logic behind that so maybe you wouldn't be able to program it

01:39:26 ◼   ► but

01:39:27 ◼   ► to me that would be there's so much more context that

01:39:31 ◼   ► That they could be integrating into a lot of the decisions about what they show you

01:39:35 ◼   ► Were there a lot of?

01:39:39 ◼   ► Android watches at the CES not in a really noticeable way

01:39:45 ◼   ► I mean, last year it was so,

01:39:48 ◼   ► the whole watch thing was very novel,

01:39:50 ◼   ► and of course there was the famous Apple Watch knockoff,

01:39:54 ◼   ► and yeah, a lot of the boots I guess had

01:39:56 ◼   ► kind of Android watches, but I think that

01:39:59 ◼   ► it didn't really, it wasn't like a huge thing.

01:40:04 ◼   ► I mean, like Samsung had one,

01:40:05 ◼   ► but I think their only major change was just the color.

01:40:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:40:08 ◼   ► - And then there was that Fitbit thing

01:40:12 ◼   ► that looks a little like an Apple Watch.

01:40:14 ◼   ► - They put it like a hexagonal.

01:40:16 ◼   ► It's like they cut off corners.

01:40:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I kinda dumped on it.

01:40:19 ◼   ► I looked at it, it's fine, I mean, whatever.

01:40:21 ◼   ► If you're trying to buy a $200 thing or whatever,

01:40:25 ◼   ► and you want a Fitbit that also does a couple other things.

01:40:29 ◼   ► - The advantage that Fitbit has is they can get away

01:40:31 ◼   ► with an ugly-ish design, and quite frankly,

01:40:33 ◼   ► I think that their thing is ugly.

01:40:35 ◼   ► It's certainly uglier than the Apple Watch.

01:40:38 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:40:38 ◼   ► - They can get away with it because their audience

01:40:40 ◼   ► is primarily looking at fitness tracking.

01:40:42 ◼   ► And so if the thing you're most interested in

01:40:44 ◼   ► is fitness tracking,

01:40:45 ◼   ► therefore less than great aesthetics,

01:40:50 ◼   ► you can get away with it.

01:40:51 ◼   ► Whereas Apple Watch, its primary thing

01:40:54 ◼   ► is it's supposed to be a good looking watch.

01:40:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think the whole point behind this

01:40:59 ◼   ► is that they wanna become a more universal device

01:41:03 ◼   ► and get away from, you know, the biggest risk to Fitbit

01:41:07 ◼   ► is that fitness tracking becomes an app

01:41:09 ◼   ► on a more universal device as opposed to a separate thing

01:41:14 ◼   ► that you carry around.

01:41:17 ◼   ► The way that calculator is now an app on a phone

01:41:20 ◼   ► or a flashlight, no one's carrying a little mag light

01:41:24 ◼   ► around anymore, it's your camera flash.

01:41:27 ◼   ► So I could see why they would wanna kind of go after

01:41:32 ◼   ► that more mainstream universal, more useful market,

01:41:36 ◼   ► but I just don't know if they're the company

01:41:38 ◼   ► that has the software and the ecosystem that they can get enough people using it.

01:41:44 ◼   ► I mean, there's still, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's selling a lot.

01:41:47 ◼   ► People are buying a lot of foot bits there.

01:41:48 ◼   ► The brand has a awareness and people like it, but I don't know.

01:41:53 ◼   ► I think they're doomed because I think that they're not going to be able to stay

01:41:57 ◼   ► far enough ahead to, to, to stay ahead of the eventual good enough fitness tracking

01:42:04 ◼   ► that's built into other devices.