The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► Peter Kafka, it's good to have you on my show.

00:00:03 ◼   ► I did your show, God, that was years ago now

00:00:05 ◼   ► at this point, isn't it?

00:00:06 ◼   ► - It was years ago and then we had a crossover

00:00:09 ◼   ► and so I think this is our third podcast conversation.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Thanks for having me, Jon.

00:00:13 ◼   ► - It's a pleasure.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Before we get in to all of the streaming,

00:00:20 ◼   ► Michigan-ness, we can just recap yesterday.

00:00:24 ◼   ► We're recording on Wednesday.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Yesterday Apple had their remote virtual,

00:00:29 ◼   ► however you want to describe it, Time Flies event.

00:00:32 ◼   ► I have presumed that you watched.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - I have watched because I'm not in the business

00:00:40 ◼   ► of paying a lot of attention to their watches and iPads,

00:00:43 ◼   ► but when it came time to talk about content bundles,

00:00:46 ◼   ► I perked up a little bit.

00:00:47 ◼   ► - The funny part about that is it's an hour event,

00:00:51 ◼   ► nice and tight.

00:00:52 ◼   ► They only announced really three things,

00:00:55 ◼   ► new watches, new iPads, and a streaming bundle.

00:00:59 ◼   ► The streaming bundle, I actually double checked.

00:01:02 ◼   ► My notes were under two minutes

00:01:04 ◼   ► and then I watched the video again.

00:01:06 ◼   ► It was literally under two minutes.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not, I mean, it's Apple

00:01:12 ◼   ► and dutifully people come out saying

00:01:15 ◼   ► this is a game changer, et cetera,

00:01:17 ◼   ► 'cause you have to, I think still reflexively

00:01:19 ◼   ► when Apple has an event, you have to justify

00:01:21 ◼   ► the time spent paying attention to it.

00:01:23 ◼   ► And it's much less now, right?

00:01:25 ◼   ► You don't have to fly anywhere.

00:01:26 ◼   ► It's just an hour long webinar, so it's easier to go,

00:01:28 ◼   ► yeah, they got some new stuff.

00:01:31 ◼   ► But yeah, I thought Apple was not overselling

00:01:33 ◼   ► the importance of this bundle.

00:01:35 ◼   ► - No, but well, we'll get into it then.

00:01:38 ◼   ► But what do you, are you an Apple Watch wearer?

00:01:42 ◼   ► - I am, but I am not, I'm kind of reluctant about it.

00:01:48 ◼   ► I was just taking it off my wrist to tell you

00:01:50 ◼   ► what model it was, 'cause I pay that little attention.

00:01:52 ◼   ► It's a Series 3.

00:01:54 ◼   ► And I won't say I was shocked when they came out

00:01:56 ◼   ► with a new line, including like the lower end one

00:01:58 ◼   ► that started at what, was it 300 bucks?

00:02:00 ◼   ► - 279, but it's like-- - What was the S?

00:02:02 ◼   ► The S, for the SE?

00:02:03 ◼   ► That's the cheap model?

00:02:05 ◼   ► - Well, it's the cheap new model, right?

00:02:09 ◼   ► It's brand new product, and it's sort of best thought of

00:02:12 ◼   ► as last year's Series 5, but without like the ECG.

00:02:17 ◼   ► I always wanna say EKG, but ECG sensor.

00:02:21 ◼   ► - It's bananas, it's to me.

00:02:25 ◼   ► I mean, I know they sell well.

00:02:26 ◼   ► And people will ask me about my watch periodically.

00:02:28 ◼   ► I say, hey, Apple Watch, how do you like it?

00:02:30 ◼   ► And should I get the wireless version?

00:02:31 ◼   ► And I'll say, it's an odometer, and I wear it.

00:02:35 ◼   ► And when I don't wear it, I feel bad that I didn't wear it,

00:02:38 ◼   ► but that's the entire utility.

00:02:40 ◼   ► So the idea of like selling a super premium version of it

00:02:43 ◼   ► is bananas to me, but I'm sure Apple knows.

00:02:46 ◼   ► Well, no, I don't know that Apple knows what they're doing,

00:02:48 ◼   ► but presumably there is a market for that.

00:02:50 ◼   ► - I think that people, I think your take is very typical,

00:02:53 ◼   ► and you're obviously juiced in more to this

00:02:55 ◼   ► than the average person out there.

00:02:58 ◼   ► For most people, getting a $300 digital watch

00:03:03 ◼   ► is a pretty expensive digital watch.

00:03:05 ◼   ► And that is what it is, right?

00:03:07 ◼   ► It is, I mean, we can get into nerd out,

00:03:11 ◼   ► and you're running apps, and you're doing all this stuff,

00:03:13 ◼   ► but it's a digital watch.

00:03:16 ◼   ► And 300 bucks is more than most people spend on a watch.

00:03:18 ◼   ► And if they do get one, they're gonna wear it forever,

00:03:22 ◼   ► by some definition of forever,

00:03:24 ◼   ► which is less than a watch, a super watch,

00:03:29 ◼   ► mechanical watch nerd's definition of forever,

00:03:31 ◼   ► which is like decades,

00:03:33 ◼   ► but way, way more than like a tech person would think,

00:03:36 ◼   ► hey, that's not the latest version.

00:03:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, the last time I spent a lot of time thinking about

00:03:43 ◼   ► is when they introduced wireless,

00:03:45 ◼   ► because I thought that was pretty interesting,

00:03:47 ◼   ► and we finally got the sort of Dick Tracy land,

00:03:49 ◼   ► and what if this thing would allow me

00:03:51 ◼   ► to not take my phone with me on verit, too,

00:03:55 ◼   ► when I went out, and I borrowed a watch from Apple

00:03:58 ◼   ► using that premise, and Apple, to their credit,

00:04:01 ◼   ► pretty much said, the thing you wanna do is not gonna work.

00:04:04 ◼   ► You cannot use this as a phone substitute.

00:04:09 ◼   ► And they're right, but when you tell people that,

00:04:12 ◼   ► they get ash in the face.

00:04:14 ◼   ► They're like, well, what's the point of that?

00:04:16 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't know.

00:04:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wonder, too.

00:04:19 ◼   ► And I do have it, I have the,

00:04:22 ◼   ► I bought a new one for myself last year,

00:04:24 ◼   ► 'cause I hadn't had one in a couple years,

00:04:25 ◼   ► and I did get the cellular option,

00:04:28 ◼   ► and I just justify it all as, well,

00:04:31 ◼   ► I write Daring Fireball, I should have the cellular thing.

00:04:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly. - And I can,

00:04:36 ◼   ► I pass off my whole, not singular, Verizon bill,

00:04:40 ◼   ► as a tax, it's a business expense

00:04:42 ◼   ► that I charge $10 a month to put my watch on.

00:04:46 ◼   ► I almost never, ever use the cellular thing on my phone,

00:04:50 ◼   ► or on my watch.

00:04:51 ◼   ► But I will say this, and I'm not saying it's worth it,

00:04:55 ◼   ► 'cause I think Verizon charges me 10 bucks a month for it.

00:04:58 ◼   ► It's at least-- - That sounds right, yeah.

00:05:00 ◼   ► - I will say this, there was one time,

00:05:03 ◼   ► and I don't remember, I'm not trying to obfuscate

00:05:06 ◼   ► a personal detail, I forget what it was,

00:05:08 ◼   ► but at some point, a couple months ago,

00:05:11 ◼   ► but I know it was during the quarantine,

00:05:14 ◼   ► 'cause I've sort of got quarantine time locked in my head,

00:05:17 ◼   ► there was a minor iOS update, just 13.1 points, whatever,

00:05:22 ◼   ► and I'm like, okay, I'll update my phone.

00:05:26 ◼   ► And it was like noon, and I got,

00:05:30 ◼   ► while my phone was updating, I got a call

00:05:32 ◼   ► I had been waiting for, I forget what it was,

00:05:34 ◼   ► but it was a fairly important call

00:05:36 ◼   ► from somebody who I was waiting to call me,

00:05:38 ◼   ► and so I was really, and my, it went off on my wrist,

00:05:43 ◼   ► and I was like, whoa, what's going on?

00:05:44 ◼   ► And I look, and my phone has got that Apple logo

00:05:47 ◼   ► that it takes five, you don't even know

00:05:49 ◼   ► how long it's gonna take till your phone's updated.

00:05:51 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, I can answer on my wrist,

00:05:53 ◼   ► and I took the entire important phone call on my watch

00:05:57 ◼   ► while my phone was incapacitated,

00:06:02 ◼   ► and I was like, I don't know if this is worth $120 a year,

00:06:05 ◼   ► but almost.

00:06:06 ◼   ► - It works remarkably well as a speakerphone,

00:06:09 ◼   ► I will say that, it's way better

00:06:11 ◼   ► than you would expect that to work.

00:06:12 ◼   ► What I wanted was something that allowed me

00:06:14 ◼   ► to go to my kid's soccer game,

00:06:16 ◼   ► and if I needed to see an email or see a text

00:06:19 ◼   ► or reply to one, that I could do that

00:06:20 ◼   ► and not bring my phone, and then thus,

00:06:22 ◼   ► I wouldn't be looking at my phone,

00:06:24 ◼   ► or I'd be more in tune to my kids,

00:06:26 ◼   ► and even as you say this out loud,

00:06:27 ◼   ► you're saying, wait, you're gonna spend several hundred

00:06:29 ◼   ► dollars plus $10 a month so you could

00:06:34 ◼   ► not look at your phone, why don't you just not look

00:06:36 ◼   ► at your phone, and of course, if you're listening

00:06:38 ◼   ► to this podcast, you know that's very hard,

00:06:39 ◼   ► and it sounds pathetic to say that,

00:06:41 ◼   ► but it doesn't allow you to do that.

00:06:43 ◼   ► Mail won't work, text will kind of work

00:06:45 ◼   ► if it's iMessage, but not, you know,

00:06:47 ◼   ► it doesn't, like the Apple people said,

00:06:49 ◼   ► it doesn't do what you want it to do in that case.

00:06:52 ◼   ► - No, it definitely does not.

00:06:53 ◼   ► The other thing is, and this is the interesting thing

00:07:00 ◼   ► that they announced yesterday, was this sort of

00:07:03 ◼   ► cellular watches for your young children

00:07:08 ◼   ► and for your elderly, confused parents.

00:07:12 ◼   ► And I don't know, it's like I've got one kid

00:07:18 ◼   ► and now he's in 11th grade, so I'm out of that,

00:07:23 ◼   ► and you know, he's got a phone.

00:07:26 ◼   ► If you don't wanna buy a phone for your kid,

00:07:31 ◼   ► which I get, and I totally, you know,

00:07:33 ◼   ► I'm not telling anybody how to parent their kids

00:07:34 ◼   ► and what age should a kid get their own cell phone

00:07:37 ◼   ► is a huge question, it's like the parental question,

00:07:40 ◼   ► one of the big parental questions of our generation.

00:07:43 ◼   ► But if you're on the fence about it,

00:07:47 ◼   ► whether it's expense-wise or whatever else,

00:07:50 ◼   ► are you gonna buy your kid a $350 or $400 watch?

00:07:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, that baffled me as well.

00:07:56 ◼   ► I thought the exact same thing,

00:07:57 ◼   ► which is, my kids have a tracking device,

00:07:59 ◼   ► it's the phone I bought for them.

00:08:01 ◼   ► Or the phone, and buying that phone's a big deal,

00:08:05 ◼   ► and I bought a used phone from Amazon, Amazon renewed,

00:08:08 ◼   ► now I got battery problems and all that.

00:08:09 ◼   ► But yeah, it's the tracking device is the phone.

00:08:13 ◼   ► We don't need a second tracking device.

00:08:14 ◼   ► - And it's like if you're the kid who's like 11 or 12,

00:08:18 ◼   ► and your parents are willing to get you a $400 thing

00:08:22 ◼   ► to add to the family's cell phone plan,

00:08:25 ◼   ► don't you want the iPhone SE?

00:08:27 ◼   ► Like, I want the phone, I want the thing I can play with

00:08:30 ◼   ► and take pictures with.

00:08:31 ◼   ► - I kind of assume that everyone in that market

00:08:33 ◼   ► has the phone too.

00:08:35 ◼   ► That's what I imagine in Apple.

00:08:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, but they really sold that feature as like your kid.

00:08:41 ◼   ► They didn't, and it's weird, 'cause it's like Apple can't

00:08:44 ◼   ► say if you don't wanna get your kid a phone,

00:08:46 ◼   ► because they're Apple, they want everybody to have a phone.

00:08:50 ◼   ► So you had to, it was a weird sort of, not doublespeak,

00:08:55 ◼   ► what's the opposite of doublespeak,

00:08:56 ◼   ► where you don't mention something?

00:08:58 ◼   ► Like a conspicuous--

00:08:59 ◼   ► - You walk all the way up to it.

00:09:02 ◼   ► - The version of that that I really noticed was the

00:09:05 ◼   ► blood oxygen reader, which I never would have thought

00:09:09 ◼   ► prior to March of this year, but when you talk about

00:09:12 ◼   ► blood oxygen levels, and I'm like, oh, that's a COVID

00:09:15 ◼   ► detector, but of course they can't say that,

00:09:18 ◼   ► 'cause it's not.

00:09:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, and--

00:09:19 ◼   ► - And you have all kinds of liability problems,

00:09:21 ◼   ► but I thought, I mean, I don't think there's anyone

00:09:23 ◼   ► who saw that presentation and wasn't thinking about,

00:09:26 ◼   ► will this tell me if I'm getting, if I'm sick

00:09:28 ◼   ► or getting sick?

00:09:29 ◼   ► And they conspicuously did not say that out loud.

00:09:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's, the other factor is that it's partially

00:09:35 ◼   ► coincidental, because clearly these sort of sensors

00:09:38 ◼   ► are years in the making, both in terms of just that

00:09:42 ◼   ► the components technically take years, and then with these

00:09:45 ◼   ► watch things, they take even longer, I think,

00:09:48 ◼   ► than most of Apple's technology, 'cause they have to get

00:09:50 ◼   ► FDA approval, and then the FDA equivalents around the world,

00:09:54 ◼   ► you know, it's a regulatory nightmare.

00:09:57 ◼   ► - Right, it's not like one of these drop shipping people

00:10:00 ◼   ► who came out with masks, you know, in the middle of March,

00:10:03 ◼   ► and said, this will help you, this will protect you.

00:10:07 ◼   ► They weren't, it wasn't that, but it was still very clear

00:10:09 ◼   ► that this was an application that you could use it for,

00:10:12 ◼   ► but they weren't gonna suggest that out loud.

00:10:13 ◼   ► - Right, and it, there's just, but let's,

00:10:18 ◼   ► exactly what you said, nobody's listening to this

00:10:20 ◼   ► and not thinking that, because other than medical

00:10:24 ◼   ► professionals, I don't know of anybody who hasn't heard

00:10:27 ◼   ► blood oxygen as a term and thought about it

00:10:32 ◼   ► more than in the last six months.

00:10:35 ◼   ► I mean, I don't, I mean, I guess I've heard of it

00:10:37 ◼   ► beforehand, but I mean, 99% of the times it's ever come up

00:10:40 ◼   ► in my awareness is COVID.

00:10:43 ◼   ► - Yep, yep.

00:10:45 ◼   ► - So it was in, you know, they have these off the record

00:10:49 ◼   ► briefings for the media after events, and they're,

00:10:53 ◼   ► you know, they're getting better at 'em, it was, you know,

00:10:55 ◼   ► and it's off the record, so I can't really spill

00:10:57 ◼   ► the details of it, but people did ask, you know,

00:11:01 ◼   ► and it's like they can't say it, it's, you know,

00:11:03 ◼   ► it's more than the typical Apple not wanting to say,

00:11:06 ◼   ► get knocked off message, they just legally can't talk

00:11:10 ◼   ► about it in that context.

00:11:11 ◼   ► - Yes, that's right, yeah.

00:11:13 ◼   ► As by the way, they should, they should be very reticent

00:11:18 ◼   ► to make medical claims, which is, I mean, again,

00:11:22 ◼   ► and I don't follow the watch stuff carefully,

00:11:23 ◼   ► but I do know as a watch user that, you know,

00:11:26 ◼   ► when I'm sitting on the subway and I'm traveling

00:11:29 ◼   ► under the East River and all of a sudden the watch tells me

00:11:31 ◼   ► that I passed my movement goal for the day,

00:11:34 ◼   ► or my standing goal for the day, I get a chuckle,

00:11:37 ◼   ► and I go, ah, you know, it's harmless,

00:11:38 ◼   ► it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other,

00:11:40 ◼   ► but I do think about sort of people who are relying

00:11:44 ◼   ► on these devices for actual medical information,

00:11:46 ◼   ► and because, you know, Apple half-positions this now

00:11:49 ◼   ► as a, they no longer say it's, you know, for work, right,

00:11:51 ◼   ► it's for health and fitness, and the fitness part

00:11:55 ◼   ► I sort of get, and there's people who really,

00:11:57 ◼   ► it really does matter to them how many miles they clock

00:12:00 ◼   ► and how many minutes, but for most people, I think,

00:12:02 ◼   ► are probably more in my group, right, it's casual,

00:12:05 ◼   ► but the medical stuff really unnerved,

00:12:07 ◼   ► would unnerve me if I was Apple and had people relying

00:12:11 ◼   ► on me for medical information.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I wouldn't, and I'll defer to actual experts on that,

00:12:18 ◼   ► but I do think about that a lot, 'cause it's clearly

00:12:20 ◼   ► a device that has a limit on its accuracy,

00:12:23 ◼   ► which is fine in most cases.

00:12:24 ◼   ► - And I kind of feel like, you know, he's such a

00:12:28 ◼   ► bizarro second version of Tim Cook,

00:12:32 ◼   ► but that Jeff Williams being in charge of the watch

00:12:35 ◼   ► is sort of unsurprising, like he's clearly a bit

00:12:39 ◼   ► of a cipher personality-wise, but he definitely seems

00:12:44 ◼   ► like the, you know, the old carpenter saying,

00:12:49 ◼   ► measure twice, cut once, Tim Cook and Jeff Williams

00:12:52 ◼   ► seem like measure 100 times, cut once type of people.

00:12:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're not freelancing a lot at these things.

00:12:59 ◼   ► - Right, and so on the one hand, they definitely

00:13:00 ◼   ► are clearly incentivized to sell a lot of watches,

00:13:04 ◼   ► but neither of them really feel like, well,

00:13:06 ◼   ► let's cut some corners and make some bold claims

00:13:09 ◼   ► on the medical efficacy of these sensors, you know,

00:13:12 ◼   ► they seem to be doing a pretty good job on that stuff.

00:13:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, they're not telling you

00:13:17 ◼   ► what's gonna, they're not misleading you.

00:13:20 ◼   ► But on the other hand, they are saying these things

00:13:22 ◼   ► have benefits and these can help you track your health,

00:13:24 ◼   ► and I think there's a, for me, there's an uncomfortable

00:13:27 ◼   ► middle ground there.

00:13:28 ◼   ► - The bigger one to me, and they spent less time on it,

00:13:31 ◼   ► like they showed kids, but the bigger one to me

00:13:34 ◼   ► is the question of getting it for your, quote, older parents.

00:13:39 ◼   ► That seems to me the, and I forget if it was a year ago

00:13:44 ◼   ► or two years ago when they added fall detection,

00:13:47 ◼   ► and they keep showing people on mountain bikes

00:13:50 ◼   ► and making jokes about a guy yesterday getting chased

00:13:53 ◼   ► off a cliff by a bear, and that's real.

00:13:55 ◼   ► And I know in California, the mountain biking thing is real

00:13:58 ◼   ► and the mountains are, you know, real mountains,

00:14:01 ◼   ► not our East Coast mountains.

00:14:03 ◼   ► But they--

00:14:06 ◼   ► - They also have bears.

00:14:06 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

00:14:09 ◼   ► But they also danced around that when they introduced it too

00:14:12 ◼   ► where they did show like a grandmother type in a kitchen

00:14:17 ◼   ► on a stool, and then there was a little, you know,

00:14:19 ◼   ► she was like watching her grandkid who was running in,

00:14:22 ◼   ► and then they definitely cut away,

00:14:24 ◼   ► and then all of the actual simulations of an adult

00:14:28 ◼   ► falling in the home weren't photographed,

00:14:31 ◼   ► they were pictograms, you know, like the Olympic style

00:14:35 ◼   ► stick figures of somebody.

00:14:37 ◼   ► And I remember talking to people at Apple about it,

00:14:40 ◼   ► like that was pretty, and they were like, yeah,

00:14:42 ◼   ► we were, you know, we really had to be careful

00:14:44 ◼   ► 'cause we wanted people to know that it is good for this,

00:14:46 ◼   ► and we actually designed it with like older people in mind

00:14:50 ◼   ► so that when they, you know, that their type of falls

00:14:53 ◼   ► are going to be less violent,

00:14:56 ◼   ► and we really wanna be in tune to it,

00:14:58 ◼   ► but we can't show it, you know, it's, you know,

00:15:01 ◼   ► it's grotesque, you can't just show an old person

00:15:04 ◼   ► falling off a stool in an Apple event, it's, it--

00:15:07 ◼   ► - Well, you're not in an Apple event,

00:15:09 ◼   ► but it has been done before, but here's my question,

00:15:12 ◼   ► I think we're roughly the same age,

00:15:13 ◼   ► is the clapper and iPhone and I can't get up,

00:15:16 ◼   ► is that the same thing?

00:15:18 ◼   ► Okay, yeah, that's what I thought.

00:15:20 ◼   ► - No, I think I've fallen and I can't get up

00:15:23 ◼   ► was the medic alert.

00:15:24 ◼   ► Remember that?

00:15:26 ◼   ► It was a-- - Okay, okay, yes.

00:15:28 ◼   ► You're right, but that did show the older people

00:15:31 ◼   ► on the ground yelling for help,

00:15:33 ◼   ► and it's, I would say it's burned indelibly in our minds,

00:15:36 ◼   ► but of course I just, I'm confused about which brand it was,

00:15:39 ◼   ► but yeah, if you were a certain age

00:15:40 ◼   ► and you watched a certain kind of TV,

00:15:41 ◼   ► you saw a lot of us at.

00:15:42 ◼   ► - Right, and as media junkies, you and I saw all of them.

00:15:45 ◼   ► Right, 'cause what was the other one?

00:15:47 ◼   ► There was another one where the old lady,

00:15:48 ◼   ► there was a burglar outside her window.

00:15:50 ◼   ► Do you remember?

00:15:53 ◼   ► - No, I don't remember that.

00:15:54 ◼   ► I remember the rascal that would take you up the stairs

00:15:57 ◼   ► and then the clapper, and they all seemed to be sort of

00:16:00 ◼   ► aimed at the exact same target market.

00:16:02 ◼   ► - I think it might have been the same product

00:16:04 ◼   ► as the I've fallen and I can't get up, the medic alert,

00:16:06 ◼   ► but it was, in addition to falling,

00:16:09 ◼   ► there was a burglar outside an old lady's window

00:16:13 ◼   ► conveniently on the ground floor,

00:16:15 ◼   ► and he was making faces at her through the window

00:16:19 ◼   ► to show that he was about to come in and, you know, burglars.

00:16:23 ◼   ► - You know, the most alarming passage in time

00:16:25 ◼   ► is when you go from laughing at those ads

00:16:27 ◼   ► that are aimed at old people to gradually getting closer

00:16:30 ◼   ► and closer to the target market.

00:16:31 ◼   ► It's definitely happened to me with pharma stuff.

00:16:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, totally.

00:16:34 ◼   ► - Those pharma ads that run during football or 60 minutes

00:16:37 ◼   ► I never paid any attention to,

00:16:38 ◼   ► and I'm still not really the market for it yet,

00:16:41 ◼   ► but I'm definitely getting closer.

00:16:42 ◼   ► And I keep thinking, all right, you know, one day

00:16:44 ◼   ► I'm gonna pay a lot of attention to that small type.

00:16:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think what happens with that, with the sports,

00:16:50 ◼   ► is you run out of, I'm 47, so I've run out of athletes

00:16:55 ◼   ► who are my age, you know, it was, as a Yankees fan,

00:17:00 ◼   ► one of the nice things about being a Yankees fan of my age

00:17:05 ◼   ► is that Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera had,

00:17:08 ◼   ► in addition to extremely successful careers,

00:17:11 ◼   ► played until they were like 41, 42 years old,

00:17:15 ◼   ► and they were roughly my age, and so I still had guys,

00:17:18 ◼   ► my guys, my age, you know, playing professional sports.

00:17:22 ◼   ► Now I'm 47, nobody's left, you know, Tom Brady is,

00:17:25 ◼   ► I don't know, a remarkable 43

00:17:26 ◼   ► and still playing an NFL quarterback, but--

00:17:29 ◼   ► - And perhaps washed up, yeah.

00:17:31 ◼   ► Yeah, kickers, I think, is our last chance

00:17:34 ◼   ► to find someone, Morton Anderson or someone like,

00:17:36 ◼   ► oh my God, we're so old.

00:17:38 ◼   ► - And every once in a while there'd be a baseball pitcher

00:17:41 ◼   ► who could pitch until his 40s

00:17:42 ◼   ► 'cause he was a knuckleball thrower or something like that.

00:17:45 ◼   ► - Phil Nicro, I remember being very old, yeah, yeah.

00:17:48 ◼   ► But yeah, this has been Old Timey Radio

00:17:50 ◼   ► brought to you by Jimmy Jeter.

00:17:51 ◼   ► - Well, but what happens is you go from having the last gasp

00:17:56 ◼   ► of athletes your age to suddenly watching the commercials

00:18:01 ◼   ► between there, and it's clearly a product

00:18:03 ◼   ► for an older gentleman, and you're like, wait a minute,

00:18:06 ◼   ► that actor looks younger than me.

00:18:10 ◼   ► Whatever the medical problem that's ailing him

00:18:14 ◼   ► that you tend to think of as being a generation older

00:18:17 ◼   ► than you, all of a sudden I'm looking at the casting

00:18:19 ◼   ► and I'm like, well, he's a professional actor,

00:18:22 ◼   ► but damn, he looks--

00:18:24 ◼   ► - A handsome fellow, yes.

00:18:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I got an Instagram ad inviting me

00:18:28 ◼   ► to join a COVID vaccine test, I think it was Pfizer,

00:18:32 ◼   ► and it's clearly one of those things where they are A/B

00:18:35 ◼   ► testing different images and targeting different people,

00:18:37 ◼   ► and the gentleman in my Instagram ad was,

00:18:41 ◼   ► I'm guessing at least 10 years older than me,

00:18:43 ◼   ► but it was gnarly to realize that they had pegged me

00:18:46 ◼   ► as someone in that general bracket who might be interested

00:18:50 ◼   ► in getting COVID testing through an Instagram ad,

00:18:52 ◼   ► which is a whole other story.

00:18:54 ◼   ► - Instagram, people ask me, I keep saying this,

00:18:56 ◼   ► people ask me like, hey, you're a Facebook critic,

00:18:58 ◼   ► why do you still have Instagram?

00:19:00 ◼   ► And it's like, partially because I've got friends

00:19:04 ◼   ► on Instagram and I'm hooked, I get it,

00:19:07 ◼   ► that I do like all the other craziness,

00:19:10 ◼   ► but professionally, I'm obsessed

00:19:13 ◼   ► with the accuracy of their ads.

00:19:15 ◼   ► It is--

00:19:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, I just went through this with someone who said,

00:19:19 ◼   ► I'm quitting Facebook because of this latest outrage,

00:19:22 ◼   ► and I'm going, meet me over on Instagram,

00:19:25 ◼   ► and I gently pointed out, and she knew,

00:19:27 ◼   ► she knew that they were owned by the same thing.

00:19:29 ◼   ► She said, I know, I just can't tolerate Facebook,

00:19:32 ◼   ► and this is the compromise I'm making in my head,

00:19:34 ◼   ► but I can't give up Instagram.

00:19:36 ◼   ► - The bizarre accuracy of their ads

00:19:38 ◼   ► is like passing a street performer

00:19:41 ◼   ► who's good at sleight of hand magic,

00:19:43 ◼   ► and it's like, sometimes you see the same trick,

00:19:47 ◼   ► it's like, okay, you got me, I like old watches,

00:19:50 ◼   ► so yeah, yeah, here's another vintage,

00:19:52 ◼   ► either vintage-style watch or something, you know, all right.

00:19:56 ◼   ► But then they'll show me an ad for something else,

00:19:58 ◼   ► and I'm like, wait, how did you know?

00:20:00 ◼   ► - The savviest people I know, people who are in tech,

00:20:05 ◼   ► people who write about tech will continue to tell me

00:20:07 ◼   ► that Instagram or Facebook must be listening to them,

00:20:10 ◼   ► and that's how they do the ad targeting,

00:20:11 ◼   ► and then you explain it, that can't be possible,

00:20:14 ◼   ► and they refuse to believe you 'cause it's too eerie.

00:20:18 ◼   ► And the sad reality, right, is a lot of,

00:20:20 ◼   ► we're much less interesting than we think we are,

00:20:23 ◼   ► and there's much bigger pools of people who look like

00:20:25 ◼   ► and act like us than we realize or want to observe.

00:20:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not a hobbyist sleight of hand magician,

00:20:32 ◼   ► but I am a big devotee of just observing it,

00:20:37 ◼   ► and that's exactly how sleight of hand magic works

00:20:40 ◼   ► at a very macro level.

00:20:42 ◼   ► Everybody's guess, well, they must be blank,

00:20:44 ◼   ► and that's never it, right,

00:20:46 ◼   ► that's never the explanation for the trick.

00:20:48 ◼   ► But if you ever do get the explanation for a trick,

00:20:51 ◼   ► it is always so mundane.

00:20:53 ◼   ► It is like, what, really?

00:20:54 ◼   ► - Yeah. - That's how you do that?

00:20:55 ◼   ► - Yeah. - The--

00:20:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's it. - Yeah, you just scoop

00:20:58 ◼   ► the coin into your lap, that's it, you know.

00:21:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:21:02 ◼   ► And the, oh no, they must be blank is like the equivalent

00:21:06 ◼   ► of they must be listening to us,

00:21:08 ◼   ► and it's like, nope, that's not it.

00:21:11 ◼   ► - Are you a Ricky J fan? - Oh, the biggest.

00:21:13 ◼   ► - Okay, I figured, I figured, I love it too.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Great, and a great New Yorker profile of him

00:21:19 ◼   ► from years ago, if you don't know that.

00:21:20 ◼   ► - Oh, I have, I've read all of it.

00:21:22 ◼   ► When he died, I went back and watched all of it,

00:21:27 ◼   ► and there's like YouTubes that are like,

00:21:29 ◼   ► I don't even know what's under 480p,

00:21:32 ◼   ► but some of his old VHS stuff is really, really low res,

00:21:37 ◼   ► and even there, it's like amazing.

00:21:40 ◼   ► I love Ricky J.

00:21:42 ◼   ► Also, what a great character. - Put him in, put him in.

00:21:44 ◼   ► So great, so he'll go in your show notes.

00:21:46 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And I feel like

00:21:47 ◼   ► I've contributed, good. - Yeah.

00:21:49 ◼   ► Here, let me take a break and thank our first sponsor

00:21:53 ◼   ► of the show, our, my good friends at Linode, L-I-N-O-D-E.

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00:23:58 ◼   ► So I've got the new watch that came this morning,

00:24:03 ◼   ► which was kind of an unbelievable story.

00:24:06 ◼   ► So I don't know, you didn't follow real closely.

00:24:09 ◼   ► You know, they've got these new,

00:24:11 ◼   ► they call them solo loop bands.

00:24:14 ◼   ► So they're--

00:24:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, it looked like the loop

00:24:17 ◼   ► that I have on my Series 3.

00:24:19 ◼   ► There's the bass one. - At a glance,

00:24:20 ◼   ► it looks exactly like the Apple Watch straps

00:24:23 ◼   ► that most people have, the rubber ones.

00:24:24 ◼   ► But there's no, there is no clasp.

00:24:27 ◼   ► They just stretch. - Right.

00:24:29 ◼   ► - And they are very--

00:24:30 ◼   ► - And is it one size fits all,

00:24:32 ◼   ► and then you sort of stretch into it?

00:24:33 ◼   ► - Nope, it is, this is the part

00:24:35 ◼   ► that I cannot stop thinking about,

00:24:37 ◼   ► and I don't know what to do.

00:24:38 ◼   ► 'Cause again, it seems like I'm the victim

00:24:42 ◼   ► of a sleight of hand magic trick.

00:24:44 ◼   ► They have 12 sizes.

00:24:45 ◼   ► Nine, so there's nine each.

00:24:48 ◼   ► You know how there's like the larger watch

00:24:50 ◼   ► and the smaller watch.

00:24:51 ◼   ► Roughly men's, women's, but I know a lot of men

00:24:54 ◼   ► who have the 40 millimeter one.

00:24:56 ◼   ► For each one, there's nine.

00:24:58 ◼   ► So like sizes one through nine

00:25:00 ◼   ► are for the 40 millimeter smaller watches,

00:25:02 ◼   ► and sizes four through 12 are for the 44 millimeter watches.

00:25:07 ◼   ► And again, my take on this is that it's like buying shoes.

00:25:13 ◼   ► It is meant for an in-person retail experience.

00:25:16 ◼   ► Go into the store, they have a whole bunch.

00:25:18 ◼   ► You find the one you like, fit this is great,

00:25:21 ◼   ► and then you walk out.

00:25:22 ◼   ► You can't do that in the COVID era.

00:25:24 ◼   ► So they have this thing you print out, a PDF.

00:25:26 ◼   ► You print it out, cut it out like you're in kindergarten.

00:25:28 ◼   ► - You wrap it around your wrist?

00:25:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it, but, and so I do this last night,

00:25:34 ◼   ► and I didn't publish my post

00:25:35 ◼   ► until after midnight on the East Coast.

00:25:37 ◼   ► And I know that's not where they got it,

00:25:40 ◼   ► because the package arrived at my house this morning

00:25:43 ◼   ► at 8 a.m.

00:25:46 ◼   ► I took mine out, and mine is a size seven,

00:25:50 ◼   ► according to their scale, one to 12,

00:25:53 ◼   ► and closer to an eight than to a six,

00:25:57 ◼   ► but definitely in the seven,

00:25:58 ◼   ► and they're only about a centimeter difference,

00:26:01 ◼   ► maybe even less than a centimeter.

00:26:02 ◼   ► They're pretty fine-grained.

00:26:04 ◼   ► They sent me two straps, a seven and an eight.

00:26:07 ◼   ► How did they do this?

00:26:11 ◼   ► Actually, they sent me four.

00:26:13 ◼   ► They sent me the rubber one and the braided yarn one,

00:26:15 ◼   ► but each of those they sent in the size seven and eight.

00:26:18 ◼   ► And I wrote to Apple PR.

00:26:21 ◼   ► I was like, I'm blown away by this.

00:26:23 ◼   ► How did you know?

00:26:24 ◼   ► And they were like, that's the magic

00:26:26 ◼   ► of the Apple Watch team.

00:26:28 ◼   ► And I'm like, that's not an answer.

00:26:30 ◼   ► Like, they've got, I think it's like a carnival,

00:26:33 ◼   ► you know, like guess your weight or guess your age.

00:26:36 ◼   ► They have somebody.

00:26:37 ◼   ► - How much variance can there be in wrist size?

00:26:40 ◼   ► You can be very skinny or very heavy, I guess,

00:26:43 ◼   ► and then everyone else is kinda in the middle, right?

00:26:45 ◼   ► - Well, it's, but think about like the regular strap

00:26:49 ◼   ► with the one you have with the pins, right?

00:26:52 ◼   ► It's effectively like guessing exactly

00:26:54 ◼   ► which pin size you take, you know,

00:26:57 ◼   ► which hole your pin goes through.

00:26:59 ◼   ► And so they sent me two, you know,

00:27:00 ◼   ► but it's out of all those holes in your straps,

00:27:04 ◼   ► they got me the exact right size.

00:27:07 ◼   ► It's unbelievable.

00:27:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I bet you most people have the same hole

00:27:11 ◼   ► on their strap too.

00:27:13 ◼   ► - Maybe, I mean--

00:27:14 ◼   ► - Is my guess.

00:27:15 ◼   ► - You have to--

00:27:15 ◼   ► - Is in keeping with the carnival trick.

00:27:17 ◼   ► Like there's actually much less variance than you think.

00:27:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, so what I need to do after we record

00:27:21 ◼   ► is I gotta ping a couple of my friends in the racket,

00:27:24 ◼   ► you know, like I'll ping like Joanna, Stern,

00:27:27 ◼   ► and maybe Nely, who obviously have very different wrists

00:27:31 ◼   ► and see if they got this, but they must, you know,

00:27:34 ◼   ► they, I'm sure they didn't send the same size to everybody,

00:27:37 ◼   ► but you know, did they guess that Nely needed a thicker one?

00:27:40 ◼   ► I don't know, but whoever's doing the carnival wrist size

00:27:43 ◼   ► guessing for the Apple Watch team nailed me spot on.

00:27:47 ◼   ► I love this strap.

00:27:48 ◼   ► It is very, very nice and comfortable.

00:27:50 ◼   ► - Can I ask you something about that?

00:27:53 ◼   ► Because like I said, I do wear the watch,

00:27:55 ◼   ► and I have the, at one point I went out

00:27:57 ◼   ► and got the fancier straps and would take the,

00:27:59 ◼   ► put 'em on and off if I was exercising,

00:28:01 ◼   ► and then I realized I'm just gonna keep the one on.

00:28:03 ◼   ► And that one, I don't wanna gross anybody out,

00:28:06 ◼   ► but it gets a little gamey over time,

00:28:08 ◼   ► and I have to sort of wash it down,

00:28:10 ◼   ► and if I'm exercising with it, and I,

00:28:12 ◼   ► periodically I'm like, oh yeah,

00:28:13 ◼   ► that thing needs a little wipe.

00:28:15 ◼   ► How does that factor into a thing that you,

00:28:20 ◼   ► I guess it's the same thing, right?

00:28:22 ◼   ► It's a strap is a strap, and whether it's got a pin

00:28:25 ◼   ► or a stretchy thing, it shouldn't matter.

00:28:27 ◼   ► I was thinking about that as they talked about the one band,

00:28:30 ◼   ► it's harder to move.

00:28:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it still slides in and out just as easily.

00:28:34 ◼   ► You know, it's like you don't really disconnect it,

00:28:36 ◼   ► but you know, I think anything rubbery like that,

00:28:39 ◼   ► you're gonna wanna wash with soap and water once in a while.

00:28:42 ◼   ► And that's sort of, as a, again,

00:28:44 ◼   ► not to get into a watch nerd discussion,

00:28:46 ◼   ► but it is sort of the problem with leather watch straps

00:28:49 ◼   ► of all kinds, is they don't last, if you wear one,

00:28:53 ◼   ► if you get like a watch with a leather strap,

00:28:55 ◼   ► it's not gonna last for years.

00:28:57 ◼   ► It just falls apart.

00:28:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you want it to sort of have that weathered look.

00:29:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, but eventually it's sort of,

00:29:03 ◼   ► it goes from looking like cool and weathered

00:29:06 ◼   ► to looking like disgusting or maybe having a bit of a smell.

00:29:11 ◼   ► And leather doesn't take to a soap and water

00:29:14 ◼   ► as well as other materials.

00:29:16 ◼   ► - I'm grossed out, it's my wrist I'm talking about.

00:29:20 ◼   ► - But anyway, it is a very nice strap.

00:29:21 ◼   ► I feel it'll be very popular.

00:29:23 ◼   ► And I will say their cutout system nailed my size perfectly.

00:29:27 ◼   ► The seven is, the one that I thought from the paper cutout

00:29:30 ◼   ► is exactly the most comfortable.

00:29:32 ◼   ► The eight that Apple sent me as like a second best guess

00:29:36 ◼   ► fits, but is a little loose for my taste.

00:29:40 ◼   ► Like, and it feels like maybe somebody

00:29:42 ◼   ► who likes a looser watch would prefer it,

00:29:46 ◼   ► but it's really nice.

00:29:49 ◼   ► And it's definitely lighter.

00:29:50 ◼   ► I use my kitchen scale.

00:29:52 ◼   ► The regular rubber straps, the sport bands, they call them,

00:29:56 ◼   ► are about 25 grams.

00:29:57 ◼   ► This one's only 13 grams, so it's about half the weight.

00:30:01 ◼   ► Feels like nothing on your wrist.

00:30:02 ◼   ► - Can I ask a meta question here for you?

00:30:04 ◼   ► - Of course.

00:30:05 ◼   ► - They had one hour, two, 2.5 announcements to make.

00:30:10 ◼   ► Do you prefer, and they no longer, right,

00:30:14 ◼   ► they can have their announcements

00:30:15 ◼   ► at whatever schedule they want,

00:30:16 ◼   ► and they don't need to bring press out there.

00:30:19 ◼   ► Do you prefer sort of these discrete chunks of announcements

00:30:22 ◼   ► versus sort of one mega announcement,

00:30:23 ◼   ► and here's six different things,

00:30:25 ◼   ► and we're doing it all in one day?

00:30:26 ◼   ► Does it matter to you as a professional Apple observer?

00:30:30 ◼   ► - I prefer the smaller ones, personally.

00:30:32 ◼   ► I would, and over the years, I struggle.

00:30:37 ◼   ► And part of it is my personal nature.

00:30:43 ◼   ► Part of it is what I talked to you about on your show

00:30:46 ◼   ► is the weird sort of semi-unique nature

00:30:50 ◼   ► of my media empire, which is me,

00:30:54 ◼   ► and it makes it harder for me,

00:30:56 ◼   ► but I'm also, personality-wise,

00:30:58 ◼   ► just not as good at covering a shotgun approach.

00:31:02 ◼   ► Here's 12 things, here's my thoughts.

00:31:04 ◼   ► I do much better with one thing to concentrate on,

00:31:07 ◼   ► even if it's not something that's my favorite thing.

00:31:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I figured,

00:31:12 ◼   ► and again, since there's no travel,

00:31:13 ◼   ► it's not like you have to complain

00:31:14 ◼   ► about getting on a plane in September and October.

00:31:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the other problem, too,

00:31:20 ◼   ► and I find dealing with Apple professionally in the media is,

00:31:26 ◼   ► I feel like, in some ways, they're not that atypical,

00:31:31 ◼   ► but they're always very Apple-y,

00:31:33 ◼   ► and the one thing I always say to people,

00:31:35 ◼   ► in all these years that I've been doing this,

00:31:36 ◼   ► I have never once, in my opinion, been lied to by Apple.

00:31:40 ◼   ► They've never said anything that I've thought was a lie,

00:31:43 ◼   ► and I've never really felt like they screwed me

00:31:46 ◼   ► on their response to something.

00:31:48 ◼   ► If they don't wanna answer a question,

00:31:49 ◼   ► they just don't answer it,

00:31:51 ◼   ► or more typically, they give you

00:31:53 ◼   ► a very Apple-y non-answer,

00:31:56 ◼   ► that they acknowledge is a non-answer.

00:31:58 ◼   ► And I miss, one of the things I miss about being in person

00:32:02 ◼   ► is they'll give you a look that says,

00:32:04 ◼   ► "I know it's a non-answer,"

00:32:05 ◼   ► but in the words coming out of their mouth are a non-answer,

00:32:08 ◼   ► but there's sort of a nod of the head that's like,

00:32:12 ◼   ► that's the best I'm gonna give you.

00:32:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that is more common than not.

00:32:18 ◼   ► The people who are actually gonna lie to you, to your face,

00:32:22 ◼   ► if they're professionals,

00:32:23 ◼   ► they don't tend to last that long in the industry,

00:32:26 ◼   ► and if it's a company, same problem.

00:32:28 ◼   ► You can get away with it once or twice,

00:32:31 ◼   ► but generally, it's not a good way.

00:32:35 ◼   ► And everyone sort of accepts that a non-answer

00:32:37 ◼   ► is a non-answer, and they understand why you're doing it.

00:32:39 ◼   ► - Well, there was a good story, I'm sure you saw it.

00:32:41 ◼   ► There was a good story about a month ago,

00:32:43 ◼   ► I think it was the Columbia Journalism Review

00:32:45 ◼   ► who had a story about dealing with Facebook,

00:32:47 ◼   ► and that Facebook is sort of the exception to the rule

00:32:50 ◼   ► where a lot of people in the media

00:32:52 ◼   ► feel burned by Facebook PR.

00:32:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, there was, you know,

00:32:59 ◼   ► Casey Newton has an anecdote about being deceived

00:33:02 ◼   ► about the plane, and to me,

00:33:03 ◼   ► that seems like more of an outlier.

00:33:05 ◼   ► I pretty much group Facebook in that same group

00:33:08 ◼   ► of they might waste your time

00:33:11 ◼   ► and not tell you things they wanna tell you,

00:33:12 ◼   ► and hold press events, and which is very little to say,

00:33:15 ◼   ► but I think they are less often,

00:33:18 ◼   ► they're less likely to lie to you,

00:33:19 ◼   ► and I think that story has a lot more to do

00:33:21 ◼   ► with sort of the change in the way people perceive Facebook

00:33:25 ◼   ► and the kinds of questions they ask Facebook now,

00:33:29 ◼   ► as opposed to four or six years ago,

00:33:32 ◼   ► and I think that's the difference,

00:33:34 ◼   ► is you're asking much more serious questions

00:33:36 ◼   ► about Facebook that are much more important

00:33:38 ◼   ► than whether a plane is actually in the air,

00:33:40 ◼   ► or this widget does that.

00:33:42 ◼   ► It has more consequence, and I think,

00:33:46 ◼   ► when I read that story,

00:33:47 ◼   ► that I don't think this is terribly dissimilar

00:33:49 ◼   ► from a lot of other companies,

00:33:50 ◼   ► but I think it was also shaded a bit.

00:33:52 ◼   ► - Well, the other factor is that Facebook PR,

00:33:57 ◼   ► for all of Facebook's properties,

00:33:59 ◼   ► it's just not the worst place to work,

00:34:04 ◼   ► but the busiest, because they have the most PR issues

00:34:07 ◼   ► to put out that aren't of their own doing, right?

00:34:10 ◼   ► You can't go through a week without at least two stories

00:34:15 ◼   ► about Facebook popping up that they kind of have to address

00:34:19 ◼   ► in some way as a professional PR team

00:34:22 ◼   ► that aren't based on their announcements.

00:34:25 ◼   ► They're about these constant fires that keep popping up.

00:34:28 ◼   ► - Right, that's what I'm getting at, right?

00:34:30 ◼   ► It's one thing if you're Apple,

00:34:31 ◼   ► and you're generally just getting asked

00:34:33 ◼   ► about the new whatever, right?

00:34:35 ◼   ► And when is it coming out, and what are the stats?

00:34:37 ◼   ► And occasionally, there's something unpleasant

00:34:39 ◼   ► you have to discuss involving China or something,

00:34:42 ◼   ► but usually it's not, right?

00:34:43 ◼   ► And Facebook, now they're asking you about

00:34:45 ◼   ► sort of the existence and essence of Facebook,

00:34:49 ◼   ► and are they responsible for this atrocity?

00:34:51 ◼   ► It's a very different set of questions.

00:34:53 ◼   ► - And I will say this.

00:34:56 ◼   ► The one exception to the Apple PR doesn't say things

00:34:59 ◼   ► that aren't true would be going back to

00:35:02 ◼   ► when Steve Jobs' health was in decline,

00:35:04 ◼   ► and there were some definite issues there

00:35:07 ◼   ► where what they said in hindsight clearly wasn't true.

00:35:12 ◼   ► And again, it's such a unique situation,

00:35:15 ◼   ► and I was nowhere near in the position I am now

00:35:20 ◼   ► when that happened, around 2009, 2010.

00:35:24 ◼   ► But there was an issue.

00:35:28 ◼   ► - I remember a lot of that.

00:35:30 ◼   ► I remember Henry Blodgett saying,

00:35:31 ◼   ► "Steve Jobs looks very sick on stage.

00:35:34 ◼   ► "What's going on?"

00:35:35 ◼   ► And they were indignant about it,

00:35:36 ◼   ► and there were all kinds of variants of that.

00:35:38 ◼   ► And I was gonna say the other exception to that

00:35:39 ◼   ► is just Jobs in general, right?

00:35:42 ◼   ► He was famous for saying,

00:35:42 ◼   ► "We're not gonna do the following and then do that."

00:35:45 ◼   ► And that's--

00:35:47 ◼   ► - It was less Apple than Steve Jobs personally,

00:35:50 ◼   ► deciding, "I'm not going to be forthcoming

00:35:52 ◼   ► "about what's going on."

00:35:53 ◼   ► And it was like right before he took

00:35:55 ◼   ► his first medical leave, and it was like,

00:35:58 ◼   ► I don't know, it seems, or second medical leave,

00:36:00 ◼   ► and it was like everybody knew he had had cancer before,

00:36:02 ◼   ► and it's like, "Is it back?"

00:36:03 ◼   ► And it was like, "No, yeah, I have a dietary issue,"

00:36:06 ◼   ► or something, I forget what it was, but it was like--

00:36:08 ◼   ► - Yep, yep, yep.

00:36:09 ◼   ► He had a cold, it was gaunt, and yeah, yeah.

00:36:12 ◼   ► So I will just say that was a notable exception,

00:36:15 ◼   ► but it was more like the exception that proved the rule

00:36:18 ◼   ► than indicative of dealing with Apple

00:36:21 ◼   ► and anything related to their products.

00:36:23 ◼   ► It was all very, very personal,

00:36:25 ◼   ► and I feel like there was,

00:36:26 ◼   ► who at Apple was gonna stand up and say,

00:36:28 ◼   ► "You can't do this," you know?

00:36:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, since we're having the meta conversation,

00:36:33 ◼   ► I mean, again, this probably seems obvious,

00:36:35 ◼   ► but it has taken me quite a while to figure it out,

00:36:37 ◼   ► is that everyone in the company

00:36:39 ◼   ► takes the cue from their leader,

00:36:40 ◼   ► and if you're upset about Facebook's PR or Apple's PR,

00:36:44 ◼   ► whoever it is, that is,

00:36:46 ◼   ► they're doing what they think their boss wants them to do,

00:36:50 ◼   ► and their boss usually does want them to do it,

00:36:52 ◼   ► and if there's a disconnect,

00:36:53 ◼   ► that usually gets solved one way or another,

00:36:55 ◼   ► and so if you're upset with a certain way

00:36:57 ◼   ► a company's treating you, it's as a press person,

00:37:00 ◼   ► that's what their CEO wants.

00:37:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:37:02 ◼   ► That's all I'll say now for the,

00:37:06 ◼   ► getting back to the watch.

00:37:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:37:10 ◼   ► I love it.

00:37:11 ◼   ► I do like the strap, I think it's nice,

00:37:13 ◼   ► I think people are gonna wanna try 'em on.

00:37:15 ◼   ► I do think the paper thing is an accurate gauge,

00:37:17 ◼   ► but that's really all I have to say for now.

00:37:19 ◼   ► It's not a super exciting product, so I don't feel,

00:37:22 ◼   ► to me, I'm most interested in those two minutes of the,

00:37:27 ◼   ► this is why I wanted to talk to you this week,

00:37:29 ◼   ► is to me, it's the bundle and the streaming,

00:37:32 ◼   ► and where this stuff is going.

00:37:35 ◼   ► So what are your thoughts on the Apple One bundle

00:37:37 ◼   ► that they announced?

00:37:40 ◼   ► - Uh, I am, I think it is,

00:37:44 ◼   ► my mentions were flooded with people disagreeing with me,

00:37:47 ◼   ► and that's their right,

00:37:48 ◼   ► but I think it is an unimpressive bundle.

00:37:50 ◼   ► I don't think it's meaningful for consumers or for Apple.

00:37:55 ◼   ► My thought on bundles in general is they work

00:37:58 ◼   ► when they are anchored by something that you really want.

00:38:01 ◼   ► So if it's cable TV, you're paying for a bunch of channels

00:38:04 ◼   ► because you want sports or live news or whatever it is,

00:38:07 ◼   ► and Amazon Prime gives you a bunch of stuff,

00:38:09 ◼   ► but you're not subscribing to Amazon Prime

00:38:11 ◼   ► because you want Prime Video,

00:38:13 ◼   ► you're subscribing because you want the free shipping.

00:38:16 ◼   ► And I don't see the live sports

00:38:20 ◼   ► or free shipping part of the Apple bundles.

00:38:24 ◼   ► And so we can start there, but that to me is,

00:38:27 ◼   ► it's not a meaningful thing until they connect it

00:38:30 ◼   ► to the must-have Apple product, which is the device.

00:38:33 ◼   ► And we can talk about why that maybe

00:38:36 ◼   ► isn't the case right now.

00:38:38 ◼   ► - I guess my,

00:38:41 ◼   ► I don't completely disagree,

00:38:44 ◼   ► but I think I feel more like Apple Music

00:38:47 ◼   ► is that linchpin service.

00:38:49 ◼   ► And that is how, that's what I did to guess

00:38:53 ◼   ► what their pricing would be, which was pretty accurate,

00:38:55 ◼   ► as I thought, well, why don't you take

00:38:57 ◼   ► the Apple Music pricing and add $5, and there's your bundle.

00:39:01 ◼   ► And that's pretty much exactly the pricing

00:39:03 ◼   ► for individual and family.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Take the 10 and $15 that Apple Music costs

00:39:08 ◼   ► as individual or a family, and add $5 a month

00:39:13 ◼   ► and include not everything else,

00:39:16 ◼   ► but the arcade and the TV Plus,

00:39:21 ◼   ► and some iCloud storage, which I still really feel

00:39:25 ◼   ► like they're nickel and diming people on.

00:39:27 ◼   ► Like, for the individual thing,

00:39:30 ◼   ► it's like to upgrade the people to the 50 gigabytes

00:39:33 ◼   ► when they're selling these phones

00:39:35 ◼   ► that have 512 gigabytes of storage

00:39:38 ◼   ► and shoot 4K video that easily fills up 50 gigabytes

00:39:43 ◼   ► if you're shooting it a lot.

00:39:45 ◼   ► It's like, wow, I can't believe that.

00:39:48 ◼   ► If these people are gonna give you $20 or $15 a month,

00:39:50 ◼   ► why not just give them more of that storage

00:39:53 ◼   ► for their backups?

00:39:54 ◼   ► But anyway.

00:39:55 ◼   ► - I used to feel the same way about storage in general

00:39:59 ◼   ► on the device, right?

00:40:01 ◼   ► The markup for whatever the base level iPhone,

00:40:03 ◼   ► which early on became an unusable amount of storage, right?

00:40:07 ◼   ► You had to get a higher level.

00:40:09 ◼   ► It was an enormous markup to go to the next level.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Especially when it's almost irresponsible

00:40:13 ◼   ► to sell the phone at sort of the base level,

00:40:15 ◼   ► whatever that used to be.

00:40:16 ◼   ► I remember having a tell-- - It was 16.

00:40:17 ◼   ► - I remember having a tell relative,

00:40:19 ◼   ► it was like, you don't buy that.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Like, you think you're saving money,

00:40:21 ◼   ► but you don't want to have a functioning job.

00:40:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was 16 gigabytes that they stuck with

00:40:25 ◼   ► as the base for way too long, because at 16 gigabytes,

00:40:29 ◼   ► it was like half of it was taken up by the operating system.

00:40:32 ◼   ► You know, like once they burst past 16,

00:40:36 ◼   ► even the 32, it's like you mostly get 32.

00:40:40 ◼   ► But with 16, you didn't even get close to 16

00:40:43 ◼   ► of usable storage, because the OS and everything else

00:40:46 ◼   ► had to be in there.

00:40:46 ◼   ► And they had to reserve enough space

00:40:49 ◼   ► so that you could do software updates, you know?

00:40:52 ◼   ► And even if they only reserve like two gigabytes

00:40:54 ◼   ► so that when a software update comes,

00:40:55 ◼   ► there's space to write the update before doing the update,

00:40:58 ◼   ► it's like if you're only giving people 16,

00:41:01 ◼   ► you're taking away one eighth of their storage.

00:41:04 ◼   ► - Yep, and I think you're right.

00:41:05 ◼   ► I think, I mean, music is by far,

00:41:07 ◼   ► music and the data are by far the most widely used

00:41:10 ◼   ► of those offerings, and I think there are probably

00:41:13 ◼   ► tens of millions of people who are using both music

00:41:15 ◼   ► and data, and so right there, you're getting pretty close.

00:41:18 ◼   ► - But the big difference between those two, though,

00:41:21 ◼   ► is music is fun.

00:41:22 ◼   ► People want to listen to music, and people,

00:41:25 ◼   ► why do people listen to music?

00:41:27 ◼   ► Because music makes them happy, right?

00:41:30 ◼   ► It's very, you know, it's the one form of our media

00:41:34 ◼   ► that is just the closest, it's just purely emotional, right?

00:41:39 ◼   ► It makes you happy.

00:41:40 ◼   ► That's why you pay for streaming music.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Why do you pay for iCloud storage?

00:41:45 ◼   ► It is the most cerebral aspect of this offering.

00:41:48 ◼   ► It is medicine, to be honest.

00:41:50 ◼   ► It is, you're signing up to take some vitamins,

00:41:53 ◼   ► and you should be taking them,

00:41:55 ◼   ► and you should have enough storage in your iCloud plan

00:41:58 ◼   ► so that you can back up your devices,

00:42:00 ◼   ► because having those backups in iCloud is really fantastic

00:42:04 ◼   ► and a great way to make sure you don't lose your photos

00:42:06 ◼   ► and stuff like that, but it's medicine, right?

00:42:09 ◼   ► It's no fun at all.

00:42:11 ◼   ► Upgrading from the base storage to more storage,

00:42:16 ◼   ► you don't see anything, you don't get to watch

00:42:18 ◼   ► a funny episode of Ted Lasso, you don't get to listen.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - You don't get to brag to someone

00:42:23 ◼   ► about how big your storage is?

00:42:24 ◼   ► - No, you get, it's medicine.

00:42:27 ◼   ► It's good, but that's why I feel like

00:42:30 ◼   ► they should just offer everybody who gets into

00:42:32 ◼   ► this Apple One bundle the two gigabytes, honestly,

00:42:35 ◼   ► that, or terabytes, so that, and it's like,

00:42:38 ◼   ► well, that's more than anybody needs.

00:42:40 ◼   ► Well, then fine, then they don't have to worry about it,

00:42:42 ◼   ► but isn't that a great, anyway,

00:42:44 ◼   ► that's my argument on that.

00:42:46 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, and frankly, I think that should be

00:42:48 ◼   ► factored into your $1,000 phone.

00:42:50 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:42:51 ◼   ► - You're paying this much, or you're paying this much

00:42:53 ◼   ► for Apple Care, the storage should come with that.

00:42:55 ◼   ► Like, it should just be a thing you don't have to decide

00:42:58 ◼   ► you need to buy when the thing you wanted to access

00:43:01 ◼   ► is no longer available and you thought it was, right?

00:43:04 ◼   ► That's, it's not just medicine, right, or exercise,

00:43:08 ◼   ► it's finding out you needed, you should have had the storage

00:43:11 ◼   ► but didn't, and now you have a,

00:43:13 ◼   ► there's something bad has happened.

00:43:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I--

00:43:17 ◼   ► - Oh, you wish, oh, I would have just gone ahead

00:43:18 ◼   ► and bought it in advance.

00:43:20 ◼   ► - So anyway, I think music might be that linchpin.

00:43:24 ◼   ► It, you know, if you like listening to music,

00:43:27 ◼   ► you need at least one streaming music plan in today's world.

00:43:32 ◼   ► And, you know, if it's gonna be Apple Music,

00:43:34 ◼   ► then why not spend $5 more a month and get the Apple One

00:43:37 ◼   ► and then you get the TV shows and whatever else,

00:43:40 ◼   ► the arcade games?

00:43:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just, I, to me, if they said, yeah,

00:43:47 ◼   ► Apple Music now comes with these following three services,

00:43:50 ◼   ► that makes, that's the Amazon model, right?

00:43:52 ◼   ► Here's the thing you're already buying,

00:43:54 ◼   ► now we're throwing more stuff in.

00:43:56 ◼   ► And maybe gradually over time, we up the price

00:43:59 ◼   ► and you're not complaining 'cause we've,

00:44:01 ◼   ► we're making it harder, we're making it stickier, right?

00:44:04 ◼   ► - Right.

00:44:05 ◼   ► - Less churn by adding more stuff, but trying to say,

00:44:08 ◼   ► look, you're already paying for this thing,

00:44:09 ◼   ► why don't you pay a little more and get more stuff?

00:44:12 ◼   ► If it's not stuff you want,

00:44:14 ◼   ► that's where it falls flat for me.

00:44:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, so, and I guess that is sort of, you know,

00:44:22 ◼   ► how important is this?

00:44:25 ◼   ► You know, why even bother with Apple Music?

00:44:28 ◼   ► Why let, you know, why it's,

00:44:31 ◼   ► why not walk away from the music business?

00:44:35 ◼   ► I mean, I guess I think I see why, you know,

00:44:38 ◼   ► Apple cares about it, but what the iTunes

00:44:41 ◼   ► buy a song for 99 cents revolution meant to the company

00:44:45 ◼   ► 20 years ago, it really helped rejuvenate the company,

00:44:50 ◼   ► you know, and it's what drove the iPod sales.

00:44:54 ◼   ► And I remember when Apple retail stores

00:44:56 ◼   ► first started opening in malls,

00:44:58 ◼   ► if you perked your ears open, you'd hear kids saying,

00:45:01 ◼   ► hey, let's go to the iPod store, right?

00:45:05 ◼   ► It was really what made the company relevant.

00:45:08 ◼   ► Does Apple need to be in the music business today?

00:45:12 ◼   ► I mean, it's too late, they're obviously

00:45:14 ◼   ► not gonna get out of it, but it's not essential

00:45:17 ◼   ► to what they do or, you know,

00:45:20 ◼   ► all that meaningful to them financially.

00:45:23 ◼   ► - No, it's, I mean, it's in the billions of dollars now,

00:45:27 ◼   ► right, so it starts to become meaningful

00:45:31 ◼   ► and they couldn't take it away without having a problem.

00:45:34 ◼   ► And I think we're sort of explaining

00:45:36 ◼   ► why they need to be in the music business.

00:45:38 ◼   ► If you wanna create a bundle of services,

00:45:39 ◼   ► you need to have something that people want

00:45:41 ◼   ► and that's the thing, it's not games,

00:45:44 ◼   ► it's not Apple news, and it's not Apple TV+ for the moment.

00:45:47 ◼   ► So here's the one thing that tens of millions of people

00:45:50 ◼   ► are willingly paying for.

00:45:51 ◼   ► - And, you know, and I think that's what they were thinking,

00:45:55 ◼   ► you know, that this is something

00:45:56 ◼   ► we don't wanna walk away from, and there's their linchpin.

00:45:59 ◼   ► But then, now this gets into the competitive aspects.

00:46:03 ◼   ► You had a comment yesterday,

00:46:05 ◼   ► right after the event from Spotify.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Here, here's their statement that you tweeted.

00:46:10 ◼   ► Once again, Apple is using its dominant position

00:46:12 ◼   ► and unfair practices to disadvantage competitors

00:46:14 ◼   ► and deprive consumers by favoring its own services.

00:46:17 ◼   ► We call on competition authorities to act urgently

00:46:20 ◼   ► to restrict Apple's anti-competitive behavior,

00:46:23 ◼   ► which if left unchecked will cause irreparable harm

00:46:26 ◼   ► to the developer community

00:46:27 ◼   ► and threaten our collective freedoms

00:46:29 ◼   ► to listen, learn, create, and connect.

00:46:31 ◼   ► It's a little purple.

00:46:34 ◼   ► - A little.

00:46:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:46:38 ◼   ► I take solace in a little bit like that being purple.

00:46:42 ◼   ► Like, in normal times, I'd hurt my eyes,

00:46:48 ◼   ► rolling my eyes at that.

00:46:50 ◼   ► In our times, I'm like, oh no, this is fun.

00:46:54 ◼   ► It's fun to get all indignant about something

00:46:57 ◼   ► as trivial as streaming music,

00:47:01 ◼   ► when it's possible that come November,

00:47:04 ◼   ► we're gonna have armed riots in the streets,

00:47:06 ◼   ► and a president who lost an election

00:47:09 ◼   ► and refuses to acknowledge it,

00:47:10 ◼   ► and nobody knows what to do, right?

00:47:13 ◼   ► It's sort of like, yeah, let's argue

00:47:15 ◼   ► about anti-competitive aspects

00:47:17 ◼   ► of whether it's fair or unfair for Apple

00:47:19 ◼   ► to include music in a streaming

00:47:21 ◼   ► when it's the platform provider of the operating system.

00:47:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, the whole idea that this stuff

00:47:28 ◼   ► is gonna get eventually kicked up to,

00:47:31 ◼   ► some government agency or group of politicians

00:47:34 ◼   ► will rule on this, is impossible to imagine

00:47:37 ◼   ► in the United States.

00:47:38 ◼   ► And by the way, it's not a coincidence

00:47:42 ◼   ► that the Spotify/Apple fight is happening in the EU.

00:47:46 ◼   ► It's not happening in the US.

00:47:48 ◼   ► But yeah, it's impossible to imagine.

00:47:50 ◼   ► I do, I'm not surprised that Spotify said

00:47:54 ◼   ► we're indignant about this.

00:47:56 ◼   ► I think they have, and I'm not an antitrust expert,

00:47:59 ◼   ► nor do I play one on TV,

00:48:01 ◼   ► but I do think they have much less of a ground

00:48:03 ◼   ► to stand on here than the base argument they have,

00:48:07 ◼   ► which is that Apple music tied to the device

00:48:10 ◼   ► is anti-competitive.

00:48:11 ◼   ► If you're just gonna say, all right,

00:48:12 ◼   ► a bunch of stuff tied to other Apple services

00:48:15 ◼   ► is anti-competitive, it's a harder argument to make.

00:48:17 ◼   ► - And I do wonder, I wonder how much it's even worth arguing

00:48:20 ◼   ► about how many people are like,

00:48:22 ◼   ► well, this is my first iPhone,

00:48:24 ◼   ► and I've taken it out of, I've unwrapped the box,

00:48:26 ◼   ► and I'm turning it on, and I'm going through this,

00:48:29 ◼   ► and I have no backup to restore, I'm new to this.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Oh, and there right in my dock is a music app,

00:48:35 ◼   ► and I tap the music app,

00:48:37 ◼   ► and I'm prompted to sign up for Apple Music.

00:48:41 ◼   ► That's basically the gist

00:48:43 ◼   ► of what Spotify's complaining about, right?

00:48:45 ◼   ► And it is.

00:48:48 ◼   ► - It's that plus pricing.

00:48:49 ◼   ► - Right, because they don't have to pay the 30%.

00:48:51 ◼   ► Apple doesn't have to pay itself 30%

00:48:54 ◼   ► for an in-app purchase to sign up.

00:48:57 ◼   ► And I do feel that there's arguments to be made there.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Again, I'm not a legal expert,

00:49:03 ◼   ► but just common sense tells you,

00:49:04 ◼   ► well, that is something to argue about, right?

00:49:07 ◼   ► I mean, common sense says whether that should be allowed

00:49:11 ◼   ► or not, it's at least in this sphere of a debatable,

00:49:15 ◼   ► this is something that's logical to debate.

00:49:20 ◼   ► I think that what Spotify's arguing here with the bundle

00:49:23 ◼   ► to me is sort of getting into the tiny violin,

00:49:28 ◼   ► playing the world's saddest song,

00:49:30 ◼   ► because Apple could do so much more here, really.

00:49:34 ◼   ► The bundle that would really be both lowercase a,

00:49:39 ◼   ► now I'm not saying legally anti-competitive, I don't know,

00:49:42 ◼   ► but certainly lowercase a, anti-competitive

00:49:46 ◼   ► in the common sense term would be if they said,

00:49:48 ◼   ► pay us X dollars a month,

00:49:51 ◼   ► and we'll give you a new iPhone every two years too, right?

00:49:55 ◼   ► So this is the most interesting thing,

00:49:58 ◼   ► and it's a thing that didn't happen, right?

00:50:01 ◼   ► But why did that not happen?

00:50:03 ◼   ► People like you and I have been speculating

00:50:04 ◼   ► about an Apple bundle that would,

00:50:06 ◼   ► basically you'd an all-in Apple subscription service

00:50:09 ◼   ► where you're paying for your phone and AppleCare

00:50:11 ◼   ► and a bunch of other stuff, and it's one monthly fee,

00:50:14 ◼   ► and a lot of people say, give me that, I want that.

00:50:17 ◼   ► And so why didn't they do it?

00:50:18 ◼   ► And a really obvious guess, a semi-informed guess on my part

00:50:24 ◼   ► is maybe they do wanna do it,

00:50:26 ◼   ► but they certainly can't do it in today's political climate

00:50:29 ◼   ► when they're fighting antitrust rights.

00:50:31 ◼   ► And then the question is, okay,

00:50:34 ◼   ► is this something they think they can get to

00:50:36 ◼   ► X number of years down the road?

00:50:38 ◼   ► Is this something they've held off on doing

00:50:40 ◼   ► because they were hoping to be able to do it,

00:50:41 ◼   ► and they've concluded, look,

00:50:43 ◼   ► we just can't do that anytime soon,

00:50:46 ◼   ► so this is what we got.

00:50:47 ◼   ► But to me, it's the obvious thing,

00:50:50 ◼   ► that's to answer, to respond to the thing I was positing

00:50:54 ◼   ► earlier, that's the thing, their version of sports, TV,

00:50:58 ◼   ► and free shipping is the phone,

00:51:00 ◼   ► and so you should bundle it with the phone,

00:51:02 ◼   ► and why aren't they doing that?

00:51:04 ◼   ► And they're certainly not gonna come out and say,

00:51:05 ◼   ► we'd love to do it, but we'll get killed

00:51:07 ◼   ► by the antitrust guys.

00:51:08 ◼   ► And for all I know, they're gonna announce it next fall,

00:51:12 ◼   ► next with the iPhone.

00:51:14 ◼   ► They'll say, ah, now here's the super-duper bundle,

00:51:16 ◼   ► but I don't, I think they would wait, right?

00:51:18 ◼   ► You wouldn't announce the bundle until,

00:51:20 ◼   ► if you were gonna do a super bundle, you'd do it all.

00:51:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so too,

00:51:23 ◼   ► especially since they've already called

00:51:25 ◼   ► the one-tier Premier, and not that they couldn't add

00:51:27 ◼   ► a Super Premier that includes a new iPhone.

00:51:30 ◼   ► - Super Premier Max.

00:51:31 ◼   ► - But that is the, and it is the thing

00:51:37 ◼   ► that I still think has at least,

00:51:40 ◼   ► I don't wanna project more than 10 years in the future,

00:51:42 ◼   ► but I think for the next 10 years,

00:51:45 ◼   ► the idea that people will still want a new phone

00:51:48 ◼   ► every two or three years is pretty, pretty solid bet,

00:51:53 ◼   ► just in terms of camera improvements and stuff, right?

00:51:58 ◼   ► If only camera improvements.

00:52:00 ◼   ► I really think that five years from now,

00:52:04 ◼   ► we'll look back at what our cameras do now on these phones

00:52:07 ◼   ► and be like, oh my god, can you believe that piece of junk?

00:52:09 ◼   ► Whereas now, we're amazed by it.

00:52:10 ◼   ► So I think there's legs on that,

00:52:13 ◼   ► that it would be a huge appeal if they said,

00:52:15 ◼   ► okay, here, just pay us,

00:52:16 ◼   ► I don't know what it would be a month,

00:52:18 ◼   ► and every two years, you get a new iPhone,

00:52:20 ◼   ► and you get all these services.

00:52:23 ◼   ► It's just one, one bet.

00:52:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, and whether you care about any spec at all,

00:52:27 ◼   ► you just say, look, I just don't care.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I know that whatever phone I have is the best phone.

00:52:30 ◼   ► I don't need to worry about it.

00:52:32 ◼   ► I can afford not to worry about it.

00:52:34 ◼   ► This would obviously be towards a wealthier tier

00:52:36 ◼   ► of Apple customers who are wealthy to begin with,

00:52:39 ◼   ► generally speaking.

00:52:40 ◼   ► That's a gross generalization,

00:52:43 ◼   ► but compared to an Android consumer,

00:52:47 ◼   ► that seems like the no-brainer,

00:52:49 ◼   ► and so its absence is super interesting to me.

00:52:52 ◼   ► - And it just happens to be,

00:52:54 ◼   ► in the wake of Microsoft announcing

00:52:57 ◼   ► the same sort of kind of idea

00:53:00 ◼   ► with the new Xbox console hardwares,

00:53:02 ◼   ► the Series S and the Series X,

00:53:06 ◼   ► which I really, it's almost like a speech therapy exercise

00:53:11 ◼   ► to make sure that audibly I say S and X differently,

00:53:16 ◼   ► but with their game streaming service,

00:53:18 ◼   ► and it's, Ben Thompson and I have talked about this

00:53:21 ◼   ► on Dithering, it's really a very appealing deal

00:53:24 ◼   ► because it's not like a credit card thing

00:53:27 ◼   ► where you're paying interest

00:53:30 ◼   ► and you wind up paying more over two years

00:53:32 ◼   ► than you would have if you just bought it outright.

00:53:35 ◼   ► As long as you're interested in the monthly game service,

00:53:40 ◼   ► you do this for two years for a monthly fee,

00:53:43 ◼   ► and including the game service,

00:53:45 ◼   ► you wind up owning an Xbox console at the end

00:53:48 ◼   ► for a very appealing monthly rate,

00:53:50 ◼   ► and you don't really pay a penalty for it

00:53:52 ◼   ► in terms of interest or whatever,

00:53:55 ◼   ► and all of a sudden, this multi-hundred dollar console

00:53:59 ◼   ► and a library of lots of games has this very appealing,

00:54:03 ◼   ► oh, it's 25 bucks a month, that's it.

00:54:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's super compelling,

00:54:07 ◼   ► and we're a household where we're considering

00:54:09 ◼   ► making our first sort of big console purchase

00:54:11 ◼   ► in a long time, and we're thinking through this right now,

00:54:14 ◼   ► and they've had that for a while now,

00:54:16 ◼   ► but they're certainly pushing more and more

00:54:18 ◼   ► towards gaming as a service,

00:54:21 ◼   ► where the device is secondary,

00:54:24 ◼   ► and Apple is definitely not in that mode, right?

00:54:27 ◼   ► Apple is still, the device is primary.

00:54:28 ◼   ► - And so we have to go meta for a moment here

00:54:31 ◼   ► and just acknowledge, and you and I, again,

00:54:34 ◼   ► we're of a certain age, where can you imagine

00:54:36 ◼   ► going back 25 years, 20 years, and telling our former selves

00:54:41 ◼   ► that in the year 2020, we're gonna be talking

00:54:44 ◼   ► about Microsoft and Apple and one company

00:54:49 ◼   ► feeling free and liberated antitrust-wise

00:54:54 ◼   ► to offer these content bundles,

00:54:55 ◼   ► and the other one sitting on its hands

00:54:59 ◼   ► missing an obvious opportunity,

00:55:01 ◼   ► and it's Apple that's sort of staring down the barrel

00:55:05 ◼   ► of anti-competition regulators,

00:55:08 ◼   ► and Microsoft that is like,

00:55:10 ◼   ► here, here's this super compelling deal.

00:55:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, and also Microsoft being the company

00:55:16 ◼   ► that could conceivably have spent 20 or $30 billion

00:55:19 ◼   ► to buy the hottest new social media/video service,

00:55:23 ◼   ► and all the rest of its competitors couldn't

00:55:25 ◼   ► because they were too powerful.

00:55:26 ◼   ► - Right, that does sort of go unsaid

00:55:30 ◼   ► in the whole TikTok fiasco, was that Microsoft was...

00:55:35 ◼   ► - There was no other consumer tech company

00:55:40 ◼   ► that could have plausibly tried to get that deal through.

00:55:43 ◼   ► - Right. (laughs)

00:55:45 ◼   ► I know somebody, there was a report somebody had earlier

00:55:47 ◼   ► that Apple at least took a meeting or something,

00:55:50 ◼   ► and it's like, I couldn't imagine that,

00:55:51 ◼   ► because I guess...

00:55:54 ◼   ► - Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple was excited to bat that down.

00:55:58 ◼   ► - It doesn't make any sense.

00:55:59 ◼   ► - That's one of those, like, yeah,

00:56:01 ◼   ► someone called someone from Apple or a banker

00:56:03 ◼   ► said they talked to Apple once or something like that.

00:56:05 ◼   ► Apple, they went from, we don't comment

00:56:07 ◼   ► on rumor and speculation, to hell no.

00:56:10 ◼   ► There's no way we're doing this.

00:56:11 ◼   ► - It was just sort of the old salesman trick of,

00:56:15 ◼   ► hey, you know that rich guy?

00:56:16 ◼   ► He's interested. (laughs)

00:56:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I got a lot of people coming down

00:56:20 ◼   ► to look at this car, so I can't promise it's here tomorrow.

00:56:24 ◼   ► - Very, very true.

00:56:25 ◼   ► I wanna keep going on streaming,

00:56:26 ◼   ► but I have one more sponsor I wanna thank on this episode,

00:56:28 ◼   ► and it's, oh, man, do I love this company, Mack Weldon.

00:56:32 ◼   ► Mack Weldon believes in smart design, premium fabrics,

00:56:35 ◼   ► and simple shopping.

00:56:36 ◼   ► They sell all sorts of stuff.

00:56:39 ◼   ► They got started selling underwear, socks,

00:56:42 ◼   ► all the sort of dependables that you need in your lower,

00:56:45 ◼   ► I keep 'em in my lower drawers, you know,

00:56:46 ◼   ► undershirts and underwear and socks and stuff like that.

00:56:49 ◼   ► But they've got all sorts of stuff now, hoodies and polos.

00:56:53 ◼   ► I had a polo on yesterday from Mack Weldon, love it.

00:56:57 ◼   ► One of my all-time favorites.

00:56:59 ◼   ► They have a new line of silver underwear and shirts

00:57:01 ◼   ► that are naturally antimicrobial,

00:57:04 ◼   ► which means they eliminate odor.

00:57:05 ◼   ► It's a very friendly way of saying they don't get stinky.

00:57:10 ◼   ► But they're super comfortable, very stylish.

00:57:12 ◼   ► I love all the color options.

00:57:14 ◼   ► They have great, even just great packaging.

00:57:17 ◼   ► I'm a nerd for stuff like that,

00:57:19 ◼   ► but I like it when I open a new thing

00:57:21 ◼   ► and like the packaging is nice and it smells good

00:57:23 ◼   ► just coming out of the packaging.

00:57:25 ◼   ► Mack Weldon stuff is like that.

00:57:27 ◼   ► They have even created their own new, totally free,

00:57:32 ◼   ► loyalty program that they call Weldon Blue.

00:57:35 ◼   ► Now, you just buy more stuff.

00:57:37 ◼   ► All you have to do is buy the stuff you're already buying

00:57:39 ◼   ► from Mack Weldon and they just escalate you

00:57:42 ◼   ► through the thing.

00:57:43 ◼   ► Once you get to level one, you get free shipping for life.

00:57:46 ◼   ► So you sort of get that, hey,

00:57:48 ◼   ► if you just need some underwear, you just buy it

00:57:50 ◼   ► and you know you're getting free shipping.

00:57:52 ◼   ► And then once you reach level two,

00:57:54 ◼   ► you only have to spend 200 bucks to get there.

00:57:57 ◼   ► You start getting 20% off every order for the next year.

00:58:03 ◼   ► So you spend 200 bucks, not that much.

00:58:05 ◼   ► You've already got level one, which is free shipping,

00:58:08 ◼   ► and now you save 20% on every order for the next year

00:58:11 ◼   ► as long as you stay at level two.

00:58:12 ◼   ► It's a great deal.

00:58:13 ◼   ► And there's no fee or anything like that.

00:58:16 ◼   ► You just buy good stuff.

00:58:17 ◼   ► I wear their stuff all the time.

00:58:19 ◼   ► Really do like it.

00:58:21 ◼   ► Here's the deal.

00:58:22 ◼   ► Go to Mack Weldon, M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com/talkshow.

00:58:27 ◼   ► Mack Weldon.com/talkshow.

00:58:32 ◼   ► Enter the promo code, talk show, same code,

00:58:35 ◼   ► and that'll get you 20% off your first order.

00:58:38 ◼   ► It's like you're already at level two.

00:58:40 ◼   ► There you go.

00:58:41 ◼   ► Mack Weldon, go and buy nice clothing.

00:58:44 ◼   ► - Dude, I thought I'd do good Mack Weldon ads,

00:58:47 ◼   ► but that was great.

00:58:48 ◼   ► - You know what?

00:58:49 ◼   ► I love it when it's a, and it just sounds corny

00:58:52 ◼   ► and it's like, you know, but I just love it

00:58:54 ◼   ► when it's a sponsor whose stuff I really love.

00:58:56 ◼   ► And it's like--

00:58:57 ◼   ► - My line is I spend my own money on their product,

00:59:00 ◼   ► which is true.

00:59:01 ◼   ► - Oh, I should mention too, a year ago,

00:59:04 ◼   ► Merlin Mann was on the show and I was telling him

00:59:06 ◼   ► about the Mack Weldon slippers and then they sold out

00:59:11 ◼   ► and they were not a sponsor.

00:59:12 ◼   ► We were just talking about them.

00:59:14 ◼   ► But I love their slippers 'cause they have a little back

00:59:17 ◼   ► so that they stay on.

00:59:17 ◼   ► I don't like a backless slipper.

00:59:19 ◼   ► And lo and behold, a pandemic hits.

00:59:23 ◼   ► I didn't put real shoes on.

00:59:24 ◼   ► I wore out a pair of the slippers.

00:59:27 ◼   ► But they were the, I've probably spent like 10 years

00:59:31 ◼   ► worth of time in slippers in the last six months

00:59:33 ◼   ► with the Mack Weldon slippers.

00:59:34 ◼   ► They're fantastic.

00:59:35 ◼   ► They're the best slippers I've ever owned.

00:59:38 ◼   ► - Cosine.

00:59:39 ◼   ► - So let's talk streaming in the big world, right?

00:59:45 ◼   ► Where Apple is.

00:59:47 ◼   ► I kind of feel like, here's an interesting thought I had

00:59:51 ◼   ► as I was going off to sleep last night

00:59:53 ◼   ► after absorbing all of this.

00:59:56 ◼   ► So Apple comes out with this new Fitness Plus thing,

00:59:59 ◼   ► which is not for me.

01:00:00 ◼   ► - Oh my God, that Twitter fight.

01:00:03 ◼   ► - Oh, what's this?

01:00:04 ◼   ► - I don't know, it was a Twitter fight.

01:00:04 ◼   ► No, no, you were involved in it.

01:00:05 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:00:06 ◼   ► - Watching you and Horace and Ben.

01:00:07 ◼   ► - Oh, and the Peloton, yeah, yeah.

01:00:09 ◼   ► - Oh my God, yeah.

01:00:10 ◼   ► - People that, you know what, Peloton is, I've said this,

01:00:15 ◼   ► I've been staying with Ben.

01:00:16 ◼   ► So we have a Peloton.

01:00:18 ◼   ► I don't use it, my wife does.

01:00:20 ◼   ► She won't even let me use it.

01:00:21 ◼   ► She's very serious about it.

01:00:23 ◼   ► I guess she would let me use it if I asked to.

01:00:26 ◼   ► But we are a Peloton family.

01:00:28 ◼   ► Ben has one too.

01:00:30 ◼   ► It is exactly like arguing with people

01:00:34 ◼   ► about Macintosh computers 20, 25 years ago,

01:00:36 ◼   ► where people who've never used one, never seen a Macintosh,

01:00:40 ◼   ► will just tell you blindly that they're overpriced garbage

01:00:44 ◼   ► and you're buying hype and you could buy this other thing

01:00:46 ◼   ► for less and it's better.

01:00:48 ◼   ► And people saying that you should just buy a regular bicycle

01:00:51 ◼   ► and put it on a treadmill or something

01:00:53 ◼   ► and then you get the same thing.

01:00:54 ◼   ► And it's like, you don't get it.

01:00:56 ◼   ► This is like one of the nicest pieces of kit

01:00:59 ◼   ► I've ever seen in my life.

01:01:01 ◼   ► My wife--

01:01:02 ◼   ► - They're very good.

01:01:03 ◼   ► And I was a reluctant buyer

01:01:06 ◼   ► 'cause I didn't wanna own one of them.

01:01:07 ◼   ► There was a pandemic.

01:01:08 ◼   ► I'm like, all right, 'cause I'm not going to the gym.

01:01:09 ◼   ► But, and it's very good and all of that.

01:01:11 ◼   ► And yes, there's definitely a cult around it.

01:01:14 ◼   ► I'm not in the cult.

01:01:15 ◼   ► It's a fine product.

01:01:16 ◼   ► I'm happy to buy it,

01:01:17 ◼   ► but I'm not gonna go sing its praises.

01:01:19 ◼   ► The thing that I find confusing from people

01:01:21 ◼   ► who should know better is saying

01:01:22 ◼   ► that the Apple exercise thing is competitive with Peloton,

01:01:26 ◼   ► but that makes no sense.

01:01:27 ◼   ► - It makes no sense at all.

01:01:28 ◼   ► - It's competitive with a million other free

01:01:31 ◼   ► and paid workout apps and videos, not with a device.

01:01:36 ◼   ► - Right, and the device is, it's the starting point.

01:01:40 ◼   ► It's not like you sign up for Peloton classes

01:01:42 ◼   ► and then, oh, maybe you get the bike.

01:01:44 ◼   ► It's like you decide to get the bike

01:01:46 ◼   ► and then you sign up for the classes.

01:01:47 ◼   ► It's a great product.

01:01:48 ◼   ► - Right, you could technically,

01:01:50 ◼   ► I mean, and Peloton has sold some people,

01:01:52 ◼   ► it's subscription service who don't use the bike,

01:01:55 ◼   ► but that's a very small group of people.

01:01:56 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense.

01:01:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's not central to their success.

01:02:00 ◼   ► That's not their company's story

01:02:02 ◼   ► and it's not why people who are bullish on them are bullish.

01:02:06 ◼   ► Anyway, I think that the fitness thing

01:02:09 ◼   ► is orthogonal to Peloton.

01:02:11 ◼   ► I don't wanna get sidetracked on that,

01:02:12 ◼   ► but the one thought I had going to sleep last night is,

01:02:14 ◼   ► okay, what is the fitness plus thing?

01:02:18 ◼   ► In a sense, if you, they talked about it all

01:02:21 ◼   ► in the context of actual fitness

01:02:24 ◼   ► and you wear your watch and you measure all this stuff,

01:02:27 ◼   ► fitness, fitness, fitness, that's what you sign,

01:02:29 ◼   ► it's certainly why you would sign up for it,

01:02:30 ◼   ► but really all it is is a streaming video platform, right?

01:02:35 ◼   ► It looks like they've signed up about 30 trainers.

01:02:41 ◼   ► I didn't do a headcount in the class photo,

01:02:46 ◼   ► but they have, looks like somewhere around 30 or 40 trainers.

01:02:51 ◼   ► To do these, and some of them have specialties.

01:02:54 ◼   ► Some of these might be in bicycling or somebody,

01:02:56 ◼   ► strength training is obviously very different

01:02:58 ◼   ► than cardio training.

01:03:00 ◼   ► And it seems like, and they talked about,

01:03:04 ◼   ► the diversity's obvious just when you look at it,

01:03:07 ◼   ► but apparently personality-wise and background-wise,

01:03:10 ◼   ► it's very diverse, but it's sorta like a reality show

01:03:12 ◼   ► where there's like, they've got a cast of trainers

01:03:16 ◼   ► and you can get to know them and they have personalities.

01:03:20 ◼   ► It's 10 bucks a month,

01:03:21 ◼   ► and Apple TV+ is five bucks a month.

01:03:26 ◼   ► Which one costs more to produce?

01:03:28 ◼   ► It's clearly TV+, right?

01:03:33 ◼   ► TV+ is, they're spending billions of dollars a year

01:03:36 ◼   ► on original content. - That's right.

01:03:38 ◼   ► - And it costs five dollars.

01:03:40 ◼   ► The scope, I'm not saying that me and you, Peter,

01:03:44 ◼   ► can go out and hire 30 trainers,

01:03:46 ◼   ► but I feel like I could understand the scope

01:03:50 ◼   ► of setting up a direct competitor to Fitness+, right?

01:03:53 ◼   ► Get 30, 35 trainers of a diverse background

01:03:57 ◼   ► and various skills and studio space and a couple of cameras,

01:04:01 ◼   ► and every week we'll have a bunch of these classes.

01:04:03 ◼   ► I understand the scope of that.

01:04:05 ◼   ► I don't understand the scope of making one top-tier TV+

01:04:10 ◼   ► original content series, let alone all of them

01:04:13 ◼   ► and the movies that they're--

01:04:14 ◼   ► - Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon

01:04:17 ◼   ► got what, two million bucks a piece per episode?

01:04:20 ◼   ► I may have inflated a 2X, but that's a lot, yeah.

01:04:23 ◼   ► The cost, yeah, and now you'd have to bring in someone

01:04:27 ◼   ► who's an actual fitness expert here.

01:04:28 ◼   ► I mean, again, during the pandemic,

01:04:30 ◼   ► our first thought was, oh, we gotta exercise,

01:04:32 ◼   ► let's see what we can get for free on YouTube.

01:04:34 ◼   ► And we didn't try very hard,

01:04:35 ◼   ► but obviously there's a ton of that free stuff,

01:04:37 ◼   ► and there are subscription services,

01:04:38 ◼   ► those that have existed for a long time.

01:04:41 ◼   ► I can see Apple saying, all right, yeah,

01:04:42 ◼   ► people are paying five bucks a month for online yoga,

01:04:45 ◼   ► we can charge a premium for that, fine.

01:04:47 ◼   ► Or by the way, the Peloton standalone service

01:04:50 ◼   ► is however many dollars a month,

01:04:51 ◼   ► we can charge less than that, fine.

01:04:53 ◼   ► - Right, right, yeah, it's like 30 bucks.

01:04:56 ◼   ► - I mean, I don't know.

01:04:58 ◼   ► I don't wanna argue about fitness trends.

01:05:01 ◼   ► It is hard to imagine a lot of people sticking with that

01:05:05 ◼   ► for the same reason that everyone's joke

01:05:07 ◼   ► about the Peloton, right, is that it's gonna collect,

01:05:09 ◼   ► it's gonna be a good towel rack in a year,

01:05:12 ◼   ► because that is the traditional trajectory

01:05:14 ◼   ► for any home exercise machine.

01:05:16 ◼   ► You can get the Nordic Track or whatever it is,

01:05:18 ◼   ► and then it goes unused,

01:05:19 ◼   ► and I would imagine fitness will have the same life cycle.

01:05:24 ◼   ► But I mean, as we were just talking about, right,

01:05:27 ◼   ► there is a bundle of stuff, you can throw that in there.

01:05:29 ◼   ► Is it in the bundle, did I miss that?

01:05:31 ◼   ► - No, it is if you get the Premier level,

01:05:34 ◼   ► which is above family, and it's,

01:05:37 ◼   ► so Premier gets you, the editions are News Plus

01:05:41 ◼   ► and Fitness Plus, and I asked Apple why,

01:05:46 ◼   ► I get why News Plus is in a different tier,

01:05:48 ◼   ► because there's, Apple doesn't own the content.

01:05:51 ◼   ► There's marginal cost to each subscriber

01:05:53 ◼   ► 'cause they're paying the participating publications,

01:05:56 ◼   ► and I get why News Plus is, for lack of a better term,

01:05:59 ◼   ► region locked, because the publications

01:06:02 ◼   ► are largely US-centric, and the other countries

01:06:05 ◼   ► where it's available, it's a country-by-country rollout,

01:06:09 ◼   ► and if you live in a Spanish-speaking country,

01:06:13 ◼   ► it doesn't do you any good to sign up

01:06:15 ◼   ► for a News Plus subscription

01:06:16 ◼   ► for a bunch of English-language publications.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Why is Fitness Plus in there?

01:06:22 ◼   ► 'Cause Apple owns all the IP, and the answer is,

01:06:27 ◼   ► it's not really, it's not, they were like,

01:06:29 ◼   ► don't read too much about the similarities to News,

01:06:32 ◼   ► but at a basic level right now,

01:06:35 ◼   ► their initial cast of trainers, they all speak English,

01:06:40 ◼   ► and so the countries where Fitness Plus is available

01:06:42 ◼   ► are places where English is the primary language,

01:06:45 ◼   ► and typical Apple, they have nothing to announce

01:06:48 ◼   ► about further plans for other languages.

01:06:50 ◼   ► - But that's a very easy solve.

01:06:51 ◼   ► You can find Spanish-speaking trainers.

01:06:54 ◼   ► - Right, but why, think about it.

01:06:57 ◼   ► When you buy hardware devices from Apple,

01:07:00 ◼   ► or most companies, just about any company,

01:07:03 ◼   ► if one of them is half the price of another,

01:07:06 ◼   ► even a casual observer can figure out why.

01:07:10 ◼   ► Why is the iPhone SE half the price of the iPhone 11 Pro?

01:07:15 ◼   ► Well, it's smaller, and it's older,

01:07:18 ◼   ► and it doesn't have Face ID, and it has the old design,

01:07:20 ◼   ► and the camera's not as fancy, and there you go.

01:07:24 ◼   ► It's not as good a device.

01:07:26 ◼   ► But TV Plus is way more stuff

01:07:30 ◼   ► that is way, way, way more expensive to produce,

01:07:34 ◼   ► and it's only $5 a month,

01:07:35 ◼   ► and Fitness Plus is way easier to produce,

01:07:39 ◼   ► way more limited, and it's $10 a month.

01:07:41 ◼   ► It's like an inverse correlation to spending

01:07:45 ◼   ► for how much it costs Apple to produce the Surface.

01:07:48 ◼   ► - I don't know, maybe you can do the math

01:07:51 ◼   ► where you figure out dollar spent per time used,

01:07:54 ◼   ► but I mean, look, why is music $10 a month,

01:07:57 ◼   ► but Netflix is $13 a month?

01:08:00 ◼   ► There isn't necessarily a math you could do in your head,

01:08:04 ◼   ► or the New York Times $15 a month, but the prices are,

01:08:07 ◼   ► I mean, I can tell you why Apple TV Plus is $5 a month,

01:08:10 ◼   ► or really free, right?

01:08:12 ◼   ► It's 'cause no one would pay for it right now.

01:08:15 ◼   ► And Apple will concede that.

01:08:18 ◼   ► They're like, "We're not, you give us a year minimum

01:08:21 ◼   ► "before we can sort of have a fully competitive product,"

01:08:23 ◼   ► is what they have told me in the past.

01:08:25 ◼   ► And that's fair, right?

01:08:26 ◼   ► You just can't, and presumably, Apple's saying,

01:08:28 ◼   ► "Yeah, this fitness thing, we're gonna come out

01:08:30 ◼   ► "out of the gates, and it'll be competitive

01:08:32 ◼   ► "with any other subscription training service."

01:08:36 ◼   ► - Right, so yeah, your take more or less matches mine,

01:08:40 ◼   ► which is that Fitness Plus is a real product where,

01:08:44 ◼   ► what I mean by that is they're saying $10 a month,

01:08:48 ◼   ► we can turn a profit, it's a profitable business

01:08:51 ◼   ► for us to sign up X million people to pay $10 a month,

01:08:54 ◼   ► or to get it in their upgraded Apple One bundle,

01:08:58 ◼   ► and the cost it costs us to do this.

01:09:01 ◼   ► Whereas TV Plus isn't intended at all

01:09:05 ◼   ► as we plan to make a profit selling this for $5 a month

01:09:10 ◼   ► and giving it away to as many people

01:09:12 ◼   ► as we possibly can excuse ourselves to give it away

01:09:15 ◼   ► for year-long extensions at a time.

01:09:18 ◼   ► It's the strategy reasons behind them getting

01:09:21 ◼   ► into their own original content with TV Plus

01:09:26 ◼   ► have nothing to do with making money selling it

01:09:28 ◼   ► for $5 a month, and I think that's more clear now

01:09:32 ◼   ► and the Fitness Plus thing clarifies that

01:09:34 ◼   ► than it was even when they announced it.

01:09:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I guess I just would hammer on the idea

01:09:38 ◼   ► that presumably they're saying,

01:09:40 ◼   ► "This is a finished product, this thing is competitive.

01:09:44 ◼   ► "If you were using a different subscription service,

01:09:46 ◼   ► "you can compare this to that,

01:09:47 ◼   ► "or if you were taking classes at your local gym,

01:09:50 ◼   ► "which you can no longer go to,

01:09:51 ◼   ► "you can compare this to that."

01:09:53 ◼   ► Whereas you cannot compare, or you shouldn't

01:09:55 ◼   ► if you're Apple, you don't want to compare TV Plus

01:09:58 ◼   ► to HBO or HBO Max or Netflix or Disney Plus, right?

01:10:01 ◼   ► There's just way more stuff on those other services.

01:10:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, but also each of those companies

01:10:07 ◼   ► has sort of very different levels of investment in it, right?

01:10:12 ◼   ► Like Netflix, what is Netflix?

01:10:15 ◼   ► It's nothing but the streaming service, right?

01:10:17 ◼   ► - Right, those are different questions

01:10:20 ◼   ► than those from the consumer though, right?

01:10:22 ◼   ► Like you're gonna spend $10 or $5 or no dollars,

01:10:26 ◼   ► and so you don't care why Netflix is priced one way

01:10:29 ◼   ► and Disney is priced another,

01:10:31 ◼   ► you just know what you're getting for your money.

01:10:32 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:10:35 ◼   ► I can't think of another competitive landscape

01:10:39 ◼   ► that is so disparate though like that, right?

01:10:42 ◼   ► It's like just to pick three, right?

01:10:46 ◼   ► So Netflix, everything, the entire company,

01:10:48 ◼   ► and they have a massive valuation,

01:10:51 ◼   ► and I think rightly so.

01:10:52 ◼   ► They're just a huge cultural touchstone worldwide

01:10:56 ◼   ► and incredible sell-through

01:11:01 ◼   ► in terms of how many people have a Netflix subscription,

01:11:04 ◼   ► but there is nothing else to the company

01:11:06 ◼   ► than the monthly streaming subscription.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Disney sort of in the middle, right?

01:11:11 ◼   ► Disney does lots of things and makes money lots of ways

01:11:14 ◼   ► with theme parks and cruise lines,

01:11:16 ◼   ► and God bless 'em for trying to fill cruise ships

01:11:20 ◼   ► going forward, but motion pictures--

01:11:25 ◼   ► - Right, they are trying to create their own Netflix

01:11:30 ◼   ► in a significant way, and the other would-be competitors

01:11:34 ◼   ► are still trying to, they're not trying to do that yet.

01:11:37 ◼   ► They may say they are, but they're hedging their bets,

01:11:39 ◼   ► and they're not making that same kind of commitment.

01:11:41 ◼   ► - Right, and Disney also is a longtime Disney nerd,

01:11:46 ◼   ► and I always feel, I feel like the long-term trajectory

01:11:50 ◼   ► for Apple in some ways, Disney has always been

01:11:53 ◼   ► an interesting pattern to follow, right?

01:11:56 ◼   ► There's the charismatic founder who died too young,

01:12:01 ◼   ► you know, and what does the company do

01:12:04 ◼   ► after Steve Jobs is gone, after Walt Disney is gone?

01:12:07 ◼   ► But one of the things that,

01:12:10 ◼   ► there's so many similarities between them,

01:12:12 ◼   ► but one of the things was that Disney

01:12:16 ◼   ► embraced TV at a time when movie studios were anti-TV, right?

01:12:21 ◼   ► They were like, the movie studios, you know,

01:12:24 ◼   ► movies were movies, and TV was this garbage

01:12:27 ◼   ► black and white thing that was staticky,

01:12:29 ◼   ► and Walt Disney was like, no, we can be in their homes.

01:12:33 ◼   ► Hell yeah, we're gonna have Mickey Mouse on every day,

01:12:36 ◼   ► right after school, you know, what time does school end?

01:12:38 ◼   ► Three o'clock, 3.30 every day, Mickey Mouse Club.

01:12:42 ◼   ► We'll have kids running home to catch the show every day,

01:12:46 ◼   ► unlike every other movie studio, and you know,

01:12:49 ◼   ► culturally, Disney has always sort of had that idea

01:12:52 ◼   ► of they need to stay relevant

01:12:54 ◼   ► and not just keep doing what they did,

01:12:56 ◼   ► and the way to be relevant in today's world

01:12:58 ◼   ► is to have a streaming service, right?

01:13:01 ◼   ► TV channels aren't it for kids anymore, right?

01:13:04 ◼   ► It's as great as it was.

01:13:06 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, and it's also the model

01:13:08 ◼   ► the consumer wants, right?

01:13:10 ◼   ► - Right.

01:13:11 ◼   ► - Broadly, right, I want on demand,

01:13:13 ◼   ► and there are still a lot of people,

01:13:15 ◼   ► there's 80-some million people

01:13:17 ◼   ► who are getting linear cable TV,

01:13:18 ◼   ► but that is going to continue to shrink,

01:13:20 ◼   ► and they're saying, yeah, we're gonna try to transition

01:13:23 ◼   ► out of our existing business while keeping it going

01:13:27 ◼   ► and move into streaming.

01:13:29 ◼   ► Yeah, it's working.

01:13:31 ◼   ► I mean, it's working so far.

01:13:32 ◼   ► - I'm, you know, and I remember being a kid,

01:13:35 ◼   ► and I don't know how I did it,

01:13:36 ◼   ► 'cause it's one of those things that seems like,

01:13:40 ◼   ► my parents are, you know, just put it

01:13:44 ◼   ► as belovedly as I can, a bit tight with the money,

01:13:47 ◼   ► and so I kind of can't believe that we got cable TV

01:13:52 ◼   ► as early as we did, and I can't believe we got HBO.

01:13:55 ◼   ► We had HBO like in the early '80s,

01:13:58 ◼   ► and we eventually got rid of it,

01:14:00 ◼   ► and I was very upset about it,

01:14:02 ◼   ► because it was like, they were like,

01:14:03 ◼   ► nobody watches it except you, and I'm like.

01:14:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, you were watching Porky's,

01:14:08 ◼   ► and there was a Ninja movie, I think, with the big,

01:14:11 ◼   ► the big draws.

01:14:13 ◼   ► - Nobody watches it but you, John,

01:14:14 ◼   ► was not a great way of selling the,

01:14:17 ◼   ► we're downgrading from HBO.

01:14:19 ◼   ► But I just remember the same thing,

01:14:22 ◼   ► where it was like, well, you know,

01:14:24 ◼   ► a majority of households don't have cable TV.

01:14:26 ◼   ► They still get their TV over the air,

01:14:28 ◼   ► and it's like, yeah, that's, you know,

01:14:30 ◼   ► that was, you know, it's hard to believe,

01:14:32 ◼   ► but yeah, that's how the '80s went,

01:14:33 ◼   ► where there were still lots of people who didn't have cable

01:14:36 ◼   ► and had, you know, rabbit ears, you know,

01:14:38 ◼   ► getting their TV reception.

01:14:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that turned out to be a giant expansion

01:14:42 ◼   ► of the media business, and in the same way,

01:14:45 ◼   ► like the CDs were a giant expansion of the music business.

01:14:49 ◼   ► What you are seeing now

01:14:50 ◼   ► with all these big streaming companies is,

01:14:53 ◼   ► they are inevitably going to have smaller profit margins

01:14:57 ◼   ► because they do have to throw so much more into programming

01:15:00 ◼   ► because it is so much more competitive,

01:15:02 ◼   ► because they're not gonna have that really,

01:15:04 ◼   ► really fat bundle that they can sort of

01:15:06 ◼   ► force people to take.

01:15:07 ◼   ► And so you are gonna see a lot of sort of the fun of,

01:15:11 ◼   ► and fun and compensation taken out of working

01:15:15 ◼   ► in the media business, which again,

01:15:16 ◼   ► doesn't matter if you're the consumer,

01:15:18 ◼   ► and for the consumer, it's great right now.

01:15:19 ◼   ► You have more choice than ever.

01:15:21 ◼   ► - What do you think of where Time Warner is,

01:15:26 ◼   ► and HBO in particular?

01:15:29 ◼   ► - I find HBO, I have it, you know, and we're in HBO.

01:15:32 ◼   ► We've always been an HBO family,

01:15:34 ◼   ► and I have some shows I like there,

01:15:35 ◼   ► but I think HBO Max is a mess, brand-wise.

01:15:40 ◼   ► - It is a mess, brand-wise, the actual sort of UI,

01:15:46 ◼   ► and I'm not someone who spends a lot of time

01:15:47 ◼   ► thinking about UI, except that I've been watching

01:15:50 ◼   ► a lot of video in the last six months,

01:15:52 ◼   ► or however long the pandemic's gone on for,

01:15:54 ◼   ► and I'm a fan of Netflix, the product,

01:15:58 ◼   ► but I didn't realize how much better they were

01:16:01 ◼   ► at sort of getting you the thing you want

01:16:03 ◼   ► than everybody else.

01:16:04 ◼   ► I've been trying to watch a bunch of Amazon Prime recently.

01:16:06 ◼   ► It's terrible at saying, "This is the show you were watching.

01:16:10 ◼   ► "Would you like to continue watching it?"

01:16:12 ◼   ► All of that stuff, they're terrible at.

01:16:14 ◼   ► I mean, you know, HBO Max, AT&T just brought on Jason Kyler,

01:16:19 ◼   ► who ran Hulu in its glory days.

01:16:21 ◼   ► He's a product guy.

01:16:22 ◼   ► That product will look better eventually.

01:16:25 ◼   ► It will no longer, when you're trying to watch a download

01:16:30 ◼   ► of Perry Mason in your mother-in-law's Philadelphia house,

01:16:35 ◼   ► to name an example that I can think of recently,

01:16:37 ◼   ► and you have downloaded it, it won't require six extra steps

01:16:41 ◼   ► for you to find that thing on your phone.

01:16:43 ◼   ► It will get better.

01:16:44 ◼   ► And similarly, it's a grab bag of stuff, right?

01:16:48 ◼   ► Friends and the Criterion Collection.

01:16:51 ◼   ► I think they'll sort that out over time.

01:16:53 ◼   ► And the bigger question is, does AT&T,

01:16:55 ◼   ► which is still a phone company

01:16:58 ◼   ► and has an enormous amount of debt

01:16:59 ◼   ► that it has to service and has to pay out dividends,

01:17:02 ◼   ► it has all these financial obligations,

01:17:04 ◼   ► do they want to spend competitively

01:17:06 ◼   ► to keep up with Netflix and Disney?

01:17:09 ◼   ► Right.

01:17:10 ◼   ► And we don't know the answer to that yet.

01:17:11 ◼   ► And even Apple, who I think, you know,

01:17:14 ◼   ► I mean, just like the way that Apple scooped up the,

01:17:16 ◼   ► I forget the name of it already,

01:17:17 ◼   ► the Tom Cruise, or not Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks,

01:17:20 ◼   ► World War II. Greyhound, yeah.

01:17:22 ◼   ► Yeah, Greyhound, which was totally a COVID opportunity.

01:17:26 ◼   ► It was supposed to be a big theatrical movie,

01:17:27 ◼   ► but it couldn't.

01:17:28 ◼   ► And it's just one of those things where,

01:17:32 ◼   ► well, why did Apple win the bidding?

01:17:34 ◼   ► One of the reasons is that it's a pittance for Apple, right?

01:17:38 ◼   ► You know, oh, $100 million, whatever, you know.

01:17:44 ◼   ► Sounds good.

01:17:44 ◼   ► Apple is, the most recently described to me is,

01:17:48 ◼   ► this is pre-COVID, but the new dumb money in Hollywood.

01:17:52 ◼   ► That Eddy Cue is the most important guy,

01:17:54 ◼   ► but he's the person you bring your project to first

01:17:57 ◼   ► because he may pay the most,

01:17:59 ◼   ► which isn't really a ringing endorsement.

01:18:01 ◼   ► And again, they'll probably sort that over time.

01:18:04 ◼   ► I mean, Amazon has also done money.

01:18:06 ◼   ► They're burning money on this Lord of the Rings prequel,

01:18:10 ◼   ► which doesn't exist yet.

01:18:12 ◼   ► And it's sort of astonishing that they've been at video

01:18:14 ◼   ► for so long and really have not made a ton of progress.

01:18:18 ◼   ► But again, Amazon can afford to screw around

01:18:21 ◼   ► and not get it right for a long time.

01:18:23 ◼   ► So can Apple.

01:18:25 ◼   ► Netflix is getting it right.

01:18:27 ◼   ► They're still spending $3 billion a year more

01:18:30 ◼   ► than they're bringing in to finance all this stuff.

01:18:33 ◼   ► But Wall Street's okay with it.

01:18:35 ◼   ► And then, but for these other companies

01:18:37 ◼   ► that are in the middle, where it is their core business,

01:18:41 ◼   ► but it's unclear how much they're gonna be able

01:18:43 ◼   ► to throw at that, that's the real question mark.

01:18:45 ◼   ► And it's weird to talk about the company

01:18:47 ◼   ► that used to be called Time Warner being sort of

01:18:50 ◼   ► in the middle of the tier of giant media companies,

01:18:55 ◼   ► but that's kind of where they are right now.

01:18:57 ◼   ► - That's a good way to wrap up.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Thank you, Peter Kafka.

01:19:00 ◼   ► Anything else you wanted to talk about?

01:19:04 ◼   ► - I'm delighted to be on the internet with you, John.

01:19:06 ◼   ► Thank you for having me.

01:19:07 ◼   ► - Let me thank our sponsors, Mack Weldon and Linode.

01:19:10 ◼   ► And everybody can catch Peter's own podcast, Recode Media,

01:19:14 ◼   ► just on your favorite podcast player.

01:19:16 ◼   ► - Oh, I'll plug something I already did.

01:19:19 ◼   ► We did, my colleague and I, Ronnie Mola,

01:19:20 ◼   ► did a seven-part series on Netflix called Land of the Giants,

01:19:23 ◼   ► which you can also get where you hear your favorite podcast.

01:19:26 ◼   ► So if you like hearing about Netflix and streaming,

01:19:28 ◼   ► we've got seven episodes of that for you.

01:19:30 ◼   ► - Excellent.

01:19:31 ◼   ► Thank you, Peter.