ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Egg salad is not delicious.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Salt and mayonnaise are delicious.

00:00:04 ◼   ► That's what you're tasting.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Egg salad is not delicious.

00:00:06 ◼   ► - Egg salad is awesome, what are you talking about?

00:00:07 ◼   ► - Egg salad's good.

00:00:08 ◼   ► - Egg salad's fine, but it's not delicious.

00:00:10 ◼   ► I wouldn't, I'm not gonna rave about it.

00:00:12 ◼   ► That's ridiculous.

00:00:13 ◼   ► - I wouldn't say it's delicious, but it's quite good.

00:00:14 ◼   ► - Right, exactly, yeah, it's not delicious, see?

00:00:16 ◼   ► - I went through several containers

00:00:18 ◼   ► of your actual chicken salad, which is good.

00:00:20 ◼   ► It's good chicken salad, but I also had egg salad

00:00:23 ◼   ► to compare it with, and when it came time,

00:00:24 ◼   ► like, you can tell, you know, like,

00:00:26 ◼   ► if you feel like you don't have a preference,

00:00:27 ◼   ► you can go either way, depends on what I'm in the mood for.

00:00:29 ◼   ► when it came time to pick, I was kind of leaning towards the egg salad a lot.

00:00:31 ◼   ► It's the yolks, man. That's what does it. It's the yolks.

00:00:34 ◼   ► We should talk about t-shirts.

00:00:38 ◼   ► All right.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Yeah. So, uh, it was late breaking news, uh, after we had recorded that we were

00:00:44 ◼   ► able to get everything squared away, um, between ourselves with cotton Bureau,

00:00:49 ◼   ► who, um, who have been excellent so far. So many things to Jay and team at cotton

00:00:52 ◼   ► Bureau. Um, we have two shirts up for sale in case you haven't heard or haven't

00:00:57 ◼   ► looked. One of them, which we kind of call "Watches," is inspired by Ricardo Melo's tweet,

00:01:06 ◼   ► and then Jay designed it as pixel art. As everyone expected, John has thoughts about this pixel art,

00:01:13 ◼   ► but it's the three of us with our respective choices of wristwear. And then the other one

00:01:19 ◼   ► is just kind of our logo shirt, which is a kind of combination of our automotive heritage and

00:01:25 ◼   ► our current, our automotive and current and Macintosh heritage for those of us who are

00:01:32 ◼   ► around in the Six Colors days, which is basically just John. So they'll be up for sale until what,

00:01:37 ◼   ► 3rd of June, I believe? So as this episode is released, probably about another week.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Don't delay, don't forget. I cannot tell you how many people have said after the last round of

00:01:48 ◼   ► shirts went up, "Oh yeah, I just never pulled the trigger on ordering it. I just forgot."

00:01:54 ◼   ► And so can you make them again? No, we can't. So pull the trigger as you're thinking of it,

00:02:00 ◼   ► get yourselves a shirt if you want. I am really happy with this year's shirts, especially since

00:02:05 ◼   ► up until like a week and a half before they went up for sale, we had no freaking clue what to do

00:02:10 ◼   ► for shirts. So I'm really happy with them and you should buy one to support the show. So thanks,

00:02:15 ◼   ► everyone who has bought one and everyone who will buy one. Yep, thank you. So far we haven't repeated

00:02:20 ◼   ► any shirts. So again, the same thing. Like, I don't know, maybe from this year on we'll

00:02:26 ◼   ► just repeat the same shirts over and over again. But so far we haven't repeated any.

00:02:29 ◼   ► So if you like one of these shirts, don't assume I'll just buy it next year because

00:02:32 ◼   ► it might not be the next year. Or it might. But anyway, same thing with hypercritical

00:02:36 ◼   ► shirts that I sold just once and I still get people tweeting me to this day, years later,

00:02:40 ◼   ► like "Oh, I missed out buying those shirts." And make no mistake, these are expensive t-shirts.

00:02:46 ◼   ► Especially if you're shipping them far away.

00:02:49 ◼   ► All podcast t-shirts are expensive.

00:02:50 ◼   ► I know.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I have literally boxes in the attic filled with podcast and website t-shirts.

00:02:58 ◼   ► But they're cool to have.

00:03:00 ◼   ► And in the grand scheme of things, they're actually pretty rare because who listens to

00:03:03 ◼   ► weird tech nerd podcasts and then who buys a t-shirt for a tech nerd podcast?

00:03:07 ◼   ► Not a lot of people.

00:03:08 ◼   ► So it's kind of a shame we didn't make it for WODC, but I think they're fun shirts.

00:03:12 ◼   ► And I had a question for you guys, but I haven't talked about this on Twitter.

00:03:17 ◼   ► No one, I believe, has spelled out the visual metaphor of the ATP logo shirt.

00:03:23 ◼   ► And I've been hesitant to do so because I feel like explaining it kind of makes it

00:03:28 ◼   ► worse.

00:03:29 ◼   ► But maybe I'm wrong.

00:03:30 ◼   ► Maybe people would be more excited about the shirt if they understood what we were going

00:03:33 ◼   ► for.

00:03:34 ◼   ► So would you like to explain?

00:03:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:36 ◼   ► It's a pretty obvious connection if you're in the right mindset.

00:03:38 ◼   ► But if you're not thinking that way, it might not occur to you.

00:03:40 ◼   ► And of course, if you don't know anything about cars and you don't care, then explaining

00:03:43 ◼   ► to someone who doesn't know anything about cars, it's pointless because they don't

00:03:46 ◼   ► there, right? So I guess we're not explaining it then?

00:03:49 ◼   ► No, feel free. Okay, well since I am the only current…

00:03:52 ◼   ► Chief Summarizer in chief. Yeah, exactly. So since I am the only current

00:03:55 ◼   ► BMW owner, this is a play on the BMW M symbol, which we'll put a link to that in the show

00:04:03 ◼   ► notes. Basically, BMW M is their motorsports group, and so Marco's M5, which we've

00:04:09 ◼   ► talked about ad nauseam on the show, and certainly was kind of the driving arc behind neutral.

00:04:15 ◼   ► The way that logo looks is it's three colors and there's a story behind them.

00:04:20 ◼   ► I think one was Bavaria, one was Texaco, which had a deal with BMW at the time that M was

00:04:26 ◼   ► created, and one was just like a purple to kind of blend the two.

00:04:30 ◼   ► So Jay at Cotton Bureau, completely on his own accord, like with zero input from us,

00:04:35 ◼   ► thought, "Oh, well I can take the six colors from the original Mac and then do a kind of

00:04:42 ◼   ► of stylized ATP and kind of blend our automotive history coming out of neutral and get that

00:04:49 ◼   ► like old school Mac flair going and get kind of a mashup of the both.

00:04:54 ◼   ► You keep saying Mac like those PC users who say, "Do you like Mac computers? Is Mac making

00:05:00 ◼   ► an iPod now?"

00:05:01 ◼   ► In all capitals.

00:05:02 ◼   ► "Have you been to the Mac store?"

00:05:03 ◼   ► In all capitals.

00:05:04 ◼   ► I heard Mac makes phones now.

00:05:05 ◼   ► I am sorry to offend you old man. What was the appropriate poem?

00:05:08 ◼   ► the apple logo it's a rainbow striped apple logo it's a logo they had for like the first

00:05:13 ◼   ► you know 15 or whatever years of the company's existence fair enough i i regret the error thank

00:05:18 ◼   ► you and god i'm gonna get so many emails no i saved you from the emails now they feel like it's

00:05:22 ◼   ► been addressed um my apologies for that but anyway the point being that it's a combination

00:05:27 ◼   ► of the original apple logo and the bmwm logo or inspired it's not the original apple logo i'm

00:05:33 ◼   ► I'm saving you again.

00:05:34 ◼   ► The original Apple logo was that pen and ink drawing of the guy under the tree.

00:05:41 ◼   ► It's like a coat of arms.

00:05:43 ◼   ► Some emails.

00:05:44 ◼   ► No, it's not a coat of arms.

00:05:46 ◼   ► Anyway, Apple was selling t-shirts with the original Apple logo on them, along with the

00:05:51 ◼   ► rainbow striped Apple logo and a bunch of icons and other stuff on their 40th anniversary.

00:05:56 ◼   ► I tried to get some.

00:05:57 ◼   ► I tried to have my minions in Cupertino buy them from the Apple store at Infinite Loop,

00:06:02 ◼   ► but they were too late.

00:06:03 ◼   ► out.

00:06:04 ◼   ► Jared Ranerelle Actually, if we have minions there, I need

00:06:06 ◼   ► somebody to get me some pens for TIFF, but yeah, let me know.

00:06:08 ◼   ► John

00:06:33 ◼   ► shirts this year.

00:06:34 ◼   ► There are other t-shirt vendors that people use and

00:06:37 ◼   ► that we have used that have overseas presses or printing or

00:06:41 ◼   ► whatever you call it.

00:06:43 ◼   ► We wanted to go a different route this year and try

00:06:46 ◼   ► something different.

00:06:47 ◼   ► And I really, really, really appreciate anyone from Europe

00:06:52 ◼   ► or Asia or really anywhere other than North America that

00:06:55 ◼   ► has bought one of these shirts, because I know shipping

00:06:57 ◼   ► is just out of control.

00:06:59 ◼   ► And I am sorry for that.

00:07:00 ◼   ► But look at it this way.

00:07:01 ◼   ► These shirts, I am super proud of them, and if it wasn't for Jay at Cotton Bureau, they

00:07:06 ◼   ► would not look anywhere near as good.

00:07:09 ◼   ► You should see the illustration Marco sent as a, like...

00:07:13 ◼   ► You should save that as a great example of patent hands.

00:07:17 ◼   ► Yeah, really.

00:07:19 ◼   ► Just as an example of what we gave Jay with regard to the three hands or three wrists

00:07:25 ◼   ► shirt.

00:07:26 ◼   ► It's really bad.

00:07:27 ◼   ► I mean, I wouldn't, I would have done worse.

00:07:28 ◼   ► I'm not trying to, like, throw stones.

00:07:30 ◼   ► I would have done a much worse job, but that illustration with respect Marco was pretty freakin bad and Jay made it

00:07:35 ◼   ► Yeah, because because the best the best part about it is that he meticulously drew I'm assuming on the iPad

00:07:40 ◼   ► Yeah, bro with like the pencil. He meticulously drew his watch cuz like that's what he cares about

00:07:45 ◼   ► Hands misshapen mutant paddles. It's like hands hands. Whatever. I can't draw well you spent so long in that watch

00:07:54 ◼   ► I get to see you like zooming in and carefully drawing the hands trying to draw your beautiful little Swiss

00:07:58 ◼   ► whatever the hell watch it is, and then the hands are just a mess.

00:08:01 ◼   ► First of all, that is not an exact representation of any of my watches, and I didn't take that

00:08:06 ◼   ► long to draw.

00:08:07 ◼   ► Well, it took longer than you took to draw the "hands."

00:08:11 ◼   ► Well, yeah.

00:08:14 ◼   ► So suffice it to say, look in the show notes, you can see Marco's original illustration

00:08:18 ◼   ► to Jay, and we never told him pixel art or anything, he just took that upon himself and

00:08:23 ◼   ► did a just killer job with it.

00:08:26 ◼   ► So again, just to bring this back around and try to redeem myself as summarizer and chief,

00:08:31 ◼   ► we are very sorry about the shipping costs.

00:08:33 ◼   ► We really, truly are.

00:08:34 ◼   ► And we are super appreciative of anyone to buy shirts, but particularly those overseas,

00:08:38 ◼   ► because I know it is a big ask.

00:08:40 ◼   ► And we really thank you.

00:08:43 ◼   ► And hopefully if we do shirts again next year, we'll have some different mechanism for doing

00:08:47 ◼   ► this, but no guarantees.

00:08:49 ◼   ► We'll see how it goes.

00:08:51 ◼   ► Moving right along, we should probably do some follow-up.

00:08:53 ◼   ► up. Clace Jacobson, I'm so sorry, had written in, I don't know if this was via Twitter or

00:09:00 ◼   ► an email, but they said, "After submitting a burst of 20 installs" — this is submitting

00:09:06 ◼   ► an iOS app — "a burst of 20 installs from California occurs. This has happened recently,

00:09:11 ◼   ► but did not happen between October and February." So perhaps there's some sort of automated

00:09:16 ◼   ► testing going on when you submit to the App Store, more than just like the checking for

00:09:20 ◼   ► private APIs and things like that.

00:09:22 ◼   ► more recent or more rigorous or perhaps more timely automated testing.

00:09:28 ◼   ► That's another theory that's not in the follow-up here that I heard a lot is that a lot of people

00:09:32 ◼   ► under the impression, I'm not sure if it's founded or not, that the delays in review,

00:09:37 ◼   ► like in the olden days, several months ago, you'd submit an application and it would take

00:09:41 ◼   ► like a week or whatever to get through the review process.

00:09:44 ◼   ► And a lot of people think that's because Apple intentionally doesn't look at your application

00:09:49 ◼   ► for a long time as a form of training to make you think twice before you submit.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Don't waste our time submitting your application

00:09:57 ◼   ► if you're not super duper sure that it's ready to go up.

00:10:00 ◼   ► And to teach you that lesson, no matter when you submit,

00:10:03 ◼   ► we're just going to sit on it and do nothing.

00:10:04 ◼   ► Even if we don't have anything else to do, even if we have the capacity,

00:10:06 ◼   ► we're just going to intentionally ignore your app for a week

00:10:09 ◼   ► just to teach you a lesson to say,

00:10:11 ◼   ► "See, it's always going to take at least a week, so don't submit in haste.

00:10:14 ◼   ► Always, you know, make sure your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed."

00:10:18 ◼   ► That doesn't sound like something that makes sense to me

00:10:21 ◼   ► for Apple as a business to do.

00:10:23 ◼   ► Maybe, again, I don't know if these reports

00:10:27 ◼   ► were based on inside information or testing or theories

00:10:30 ◼   ► or whatever, or it was just a feeling they get,

00:10:32 ◼   ► but that doesn't strike me as something that reasonable.

00:10:36 ◼   ► Maybe if there was something like that,

00:10:37 ◼   ► it would be like, we don't bother looking at your application

00:10:40 ◼   ► for the first four hours to give you a chance

00:10:42 ◼   ► to think better of it if you accidentally submit it,

00:10:44 ◼   ► but I can't imagine them sitting on it

00:10:46 ◼   ► not doing anything for a week.

00:10:47 ◼   ► So I'm still thinking that the decreased review times have to be the result of something

00:10:55 ◼   ► that Apple is intentionally doing because they want the review times to be shorter,

00:10:58 ◼   ► not longer.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Well, I mean, there was—so this past week on the talk show, Rene Ritchie was the guest

00:11:04 ◼   ► with John Gruber.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And Rene, they were talking about this, and you could kind of tell that Rene has information

00:11:11 ◼   ► about this that he has heard.

00:11:13 ◼   ► in the best Renee way, he basically suggests

00:11:17 ◼   ► what the information is generally,

00:11:19 ◼   ► what category it is, but doesn't actually tell you

00:11:23 ◼   ► anything that would get him or anybody else in trouble,

00:11:24 ◼   ► but it basically sounds like there was a significant

00:11:28 ◼   ► management change in App Review,

00:11:31 ◼   ► in some kind of, and this wasn't Phil

00:11:34 ◼   ► taking over the App Store, I mean,

00:11:35 ◼   ► it might have been related to that in some way,

00:11:37 ◼   ► but it wasn't that change, but it was some other change

00:11:41 ◼   ► happened further down the line in App Review that basically got some people out of the

00:11:47 ◼   ► way who would cause holdups. And that is apparently, and seeing some policies, and that is apparently

00:11:54 ◼   ► what the result of this was if you read between the very, very obvious lines that Rene drew

00:11:58 ◼   ► on the talk show last week. So that I think is very interesting. Also, I agree with what

00:12:03 ◼   ► you said, John. I don't think they were ever like artificially delaying things necessarily

00:12:08 ◼   ► to a week because if they were, you would have never seen a review time less than a

00:12:12 ◼   ► week and that wasn't true. If you would look at the history on that Shiny development site

00:12:18 ◼   ► that was collecting all the stats from everybody, it fluctuated and sometimes it would go down

00:12:27 ◼   ► to like six days, five days and then go back up. I think what instead was the case was

00:12:34 ◼   ► We know that Apple is very performance metric driven

00:12:37 ◼   ► these days, especially in the middle management levels.

00:12:40 ◼   ► So I think they had just defined the performance metric

00:12:43 ◼   ► to be 90% or more, or 95, whatever the percentage is,

00:12:47 ◼   ► we want X percent of apps to be reviewed within a week.

00:12:50 ◼   ► And we consider that success, so that whenever

00:12:52 ◼   ► they would start getting way above that,

00:12:54 ◼   ► and that number would start suffering,

00:12:56 ◼   ► maybe they would add more staff,

00:12:58 ◼   ► or maybe they would make changes

00:12:59 ◼   ► to get that number back down.

00:13:01 ◼   ► But it seemed like they considered that good enough

00:13:03 ◼   ► for all this time.

00:13:04 ◼   ► And so a combination of maybe changing that opinion,

00:13:07 ◼   ► maybe changing that metric to something lower,

00:13:09 ◼   ► as well as whatever this management change was

00:13:12 ◼   ► that happened, that I think is very plausibly

00:13:16 ◼   ► what went on here to cause app review times

00:13:18 ◼   ► to drop from a week to less than a day.

00:13:21 ◼   ► - It doesn't have to be like a week specifically,

00:13:23 ◼   ► just the idea that there's excess capacity,

00:13:26 ◼   ► that Apple could review your application,

00:13:28 ◼   ► but instead, let's either decrease staffing

00:13:30 ◼   ► or send people home early, or like,

00:13:33 ◼   ► they're intentionally, like the delay is actually

00:13:35 ◼   ► part of their policy with an intent.

00:13:37 ◼   ► That's the theory, that Apple always could do this,

00:13:40 ◼   ► but they were intentionally not doing it.

00:13:42 ◼   ► That's slightly different than they had a metric

00:13:44 ◼   ► that meant people got to go home without staying

00:13:46 ◼   ► for overtime as long as they hit X percent,

00:13:48 ◼   ► because I can imagine Apple being what it is,

00:13:50 ◼   ► they probably staff so that the people had to work

00:13:52 ◼   ► really, really hard to hit whatever the numbers were.

00:13:55 ◼   ► They're not like overstaffing and then giving them

00:13:56 ◼   ► a low goal and letting the people go home at three every day

00:13:58 ◼   ► like that's not the way it's working.

00:14:00 ◼   ► - Right, also the idea of automated app review

00:14:03 ◼   ► or adding another automated step of app review

00:14:08 ◼   ► before it gets to the humans.

00:14:09 ◼   ► That I think has a lot of merit.

00:14:11 ◼   ► It's not an easy problem to solve,

00:14:12 ◼   ► but if you can have some kind of automation

00:14:15 ◼   ► that basically just tries to push a bunch of buttons

00:14:18 ◼   ► in an app, Apple has said on a number of occasions

00:14:21 ◼   ► that the most common cause of app rejections

00:14:25 ◼   ► is that the app crashes during review.

00:14:27 ◼   ► So if they can automate a process

00:14:29 ◼   ► where they just bring up an end of the app

00:14:32 ◼   ► and just push some buttons and attempt to,

00:14:34 ◼   ► in an automated way, basically guess how to use the app

00:14:37 ◼   ► and just navigate to different screens.

00:14:39 ◼   ► If they can cause a crash to happen during that,

00:14:42 ◼   ► it never even has to get to a human.

00:14:44 ◼   ► It can be rejected right then,

00:14:45 ◼   ► go right back to the developer and say,

00:14:46 ◼   ► all right, this failed, here, try again.

00:14:49 ◼   ► And that could also result in a major time savings

00:14:52 ◼   ► for the humans and therefore better throughput

00:14:54 ◼   ► for the apps that get through that test.

00:14:57 ◼   ► - Cool.

00:14:58 ◼   ► So Drew Hanae wrote in, they said, among other things,

00:15:02 ◼   ► it's always been pretty complicated to understand

00:15:04 ◼   ► what exactly swiping an app out of recents

00:15:07 ◼   ► actually does under the hood.

00:15:09 ◼   ► Was this with regard to Android, actually?

00:15:11 ◼   ► - It was on Android, 'cause we were asked last week

00:15:12 ◼   ► about the Clear All button, like wouldn't it be fun

00:15:14 ◼   ► to clear all, just got rid of the pictures on your screen,

00:15:16 ◼   ► but did nothing to the processes.

00:15:17 ◼   ► - We are now the premier Android podcast, by the way.

00:15:20 ◼   ► - Sorry, Material.

00:15:22 ◼   ► So anyway, so they said it's always been pretty complicated

00:15:24 ◼   ► to understand what exactly swiping an app

00:15:25 ◼   ► out of the recents actually does under the hood.

00:15:28 ◼   ► One important distinction on Android is that the thing that

00:15:30 ◼   ► shows up in your recent screen isn't actually an app, it's a task.

00:15:34 ◼   ► And remember on Android, an app can have multiple tasks and recents at the same time, like having

00:15:39 ◼   ► multiple Google Docs open at once.

00:15:41 ◼   ► When you swipe away an app, it finishes the task, which tells the app that the user is

00:15:45 ◼   ► done with that workflow and it doesn't need to worry about restoring that UI state.

00:15:49 ◼   ► If the app is doing background work or has other open tasks, its process would not be

00:15:53 ◼   ► killed.

00:15:54 ◼   ► If there's no more open tasks or background jobs, swiping away an app will let the system

00:15:58 ◼   ► know it is the option of killing the process, but it doesn't guarantee that it will.

00:16:01 ◼   ► So the clear all button shouldn't have a dramatic effect on system performance on Android since it usually won't mean that all that processes

00:16:08 ◼   ► are killed, but it does have the downside of losing any user state from their open tasks.

00:16:12 ◼   ► That's very interesting to me that the way Android works because I didn't know most of that. And it was also interesting to me

00:16:19 ◼   ► how many

00:16:20 ◼   ► people who seem to claim or seem to view themselves as you know nerds nerds

00:16:26 ◼   ► tweeted about how, oh yeah, I do that too, and I'm sorry, Jon, which I thought was quite funny.

00:16:33 ◼   ► The only feedback that I saw that I thought was very interesting was people who said they wanted

00:16:37 ◼   ► to clear it out, not for like battery, not for memory or anything like that, but just because

00:16:42 ◼   ► they didn't want that view, that drawer, if you will, to have a bunch of things in it. They just

00:16:47 ◼   ► wanted it to be clean, so they didn't have clutter there, which still to me seems a little bit

00:16:53 ◼   ► peculiar but makes a lot more sense than thinking oh this is gonna save my

00:16:57 ◼   ► battery or prevent something weird from happening. Well if they changed the iOS

00:17:01 ◼   ► policy it'd be more like Android. Like an Android when you're when you're clearing

00:17:04 ◼   ► these things it's explicitly not killing your application. Like if your

00:17:07 ◼   ► application is running background jobs it lets them keep running right and it

00:17:10 ◼   ► just gives it the all it's basically saying is when I relaunch that don't

00:17:14 ◼   ► bring you back to exactly where I was. Which is still kind of punitive because

00:17:17 ◼   ► it like you're punishing people for like I don't like the visual clutter so I

00:17:21 ◼   ► I want to get the rectangles away, right?

00:17:23 ◼   ► And there is a punishment for that,

00:17:25 ◼   ► which is next time you launch that application,

00:17:26 ◼   ► they won't remember where you left off.

00:17:28 ◼   ► It will, you know,

00:17:28 ◼   ► just bring it back to a fresh state or whatever.

00:17:32 ◼   ► It would be nice if all these operating systems,

00:17:34 ◼   ► I guess maybe either took this feature away entirely,

00:17:37 ◼   ► in which case, like you just deal with the clutter,

00:17:39 ◼   ► or gave people a way to like, like the new Android N,

00:17:43 ◼   ► like, I don't know if it's hard coded to seven

00:17:45 ◼   ► or if you can adjust it, but only show a certain number,

00:17:47 ◼   ► so it never gets more cluttered than some small amount,

00:17:50 ◼   ► you know, or just make it get rid of the pictures and do nothing else.

00:17:55 ◼   ► And as Drew said, there is still of course an Android way to actually force quit to kill

00:17:59 ◼   ► things.

00:18:00 ◼   ► It's more deeply buried, but it's there.

00:18:02 ◼   ► And as many people pointed out to us on iOS, there is another way to force quit applications

00:18:06 ◼   ► besides flicking them up.

00:18:07 ◼   ► You can also do the hold down the power button thing, but instead of swiping to turn off

00:18:10 ◼   ► the phone, you hold down the home button.

00:18:12 ◼   ► Or anyway, there are lots of ways to force quit things.

00:18:16 ◼   ► the flicking up of the squares half of it is the force quitting habit and the the voodoo and

00:18:21 ◼   ► Superstition about that and the other half is just people like things to be neat and tidy and both of those things have I feel

00:18:27 ◼   ► like detrimental effects on the

00:18:29 ◼   ► Experience of using the phone probably I would say more detrimental than the mental distress caused by having lots of rectangles

00:18:35 ◼   ► But I guess that's up to each person to decide on their own

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00:20:27 ◼   ► - So there's been rumors about new MacBook Pros.

00:20:32 ◼   ► They're coming eventually.

00:20:34 ◼   ► - First of all, if you go back to the original article,

00:20:38 ◼   ► I believe it clarifies that it's Q4

00:20:41 ◼   ► of Apple's financial calendar that they are coming,

00:20:43 ◼   ► which is July.

00:20:45 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:20:45 ◼   ► - So the rumor is that in quote Q4 of this year,

00:20:50 ◼   ► which everyone interprets to mean October through December,

00:20:55 ◼   ► Apple will be releasing new MacBook Pros

00:20:57 ◼   ► that are substantially redesigned

00:21:00 ◼   ► so that they're gonna be thinner, they're gonna be lighter,

00:21:01 ◼   ► they're gonna have the new Skylake CPUs,

00:21:04 ◼   ► and they're gonna have a few other interesting changes

00:21:07 ◼   ► we will talk about in a second. So before you before you move on, how confident are

00:21:12 ◼   ► you about this whole Q4 confusion? Because when I read this article, my my overwhelming

00:21:16 ◼   ► sense of sadness was like, Q4? Seriously? How long have we been waiting for the MacBook

00:21:21 ◼   ► Pro to get updated? And now I have to wait until like the end of the year, like the fall

00:21:26 ◼   ► and winter time. And then you telling me, oh, no, Q4 is not that it's a financial Q4,

00:21:30 ◼   ► which is different. It makes me feel better. But how sure are you about that? Because I

00:21:33 ◼   ► have to know how to feel before you move on to what these computers are going to be like.

00:21:38 ◼   ► I'm just repeating what other people said, so maybe I'm not so sure.

00:21:41 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:21:42 ◼   ► Now I'm doubting everything.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Anyway, all I can say is that if people can't get one of these things in their hands until

00:21:49 ◼   ► the end of the year, that seems bad.

00:21:53 ◼   ► You can blame Intel for a certain amount of the delay, but really?

00:21:57 ◼   ► We can't get new MacBook Pros until the end of 2016?

00:22:00 ◼   ► if I had told you at the end of 2014

00:22:03 ◼   ► that there's not gonna be new MacBook Pros

00:22:05 ◼   ► until the end of 2016, yeah, I don't like it.

00:22:08 ◼   ► - Well, especially, I think it's made worse

00:22:10 ◼   ► because of the fact that there was such this long delay

00:22:13 ◼   ► with Intel's CPUs here that they're currently shipping

00:22:18 ◼   ► basically three-year-old CPUs.

00:22:20 ◼   ► Like the guts of the MacBook Pro that you buy today,

00:22:23 ◼   ► there was like the one minor update in mid-2015,

00:22:26 ◼   ► but it was a very minor update.

00:22:28 ◼   ► It changed almost nothing about them.

00:22:30 ◼   ► And so basically you're buying

00:22:32 ◼   ► like two to three year old hardware today.

00:22:35 ◼   ► - That's the curse of the Pro label, right?

00:22:37 ◼   ► As soon as you put Pro on it,

00:22:38 ◼   ► the CPU ages to be three years old in the market.

00:22:41 ◼   ► I think that's the new rule.

00:22:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, which is, I mean like,

00:22:44 ◼   ► cosmetics aside, I mean, you know,

00:22:45 ◼   ► we can talk about cosmetics in a minute,

00:22:46 ◼   ► but like, just the fact that Apple continues to sell

00:22:50 ◼   ► really pretty ancient hardware by computing standards

00:22:53 ◼   ► for so long now, you know, we talked about it before,

00:22:55 ◼   ► like I know why some of these things are this way.

00:22:58 ◼   ► I know that they generally wait until there's like

00:23:01 ◼   ► a substantial CPU update from Intel

00:23:05 ◼   ► and that those have been delayed in recent years,

00:23:07 ◼   ► but that has to change because I know they do care,

00:23:12 ◼   ► but when they let the hardware age for this long

00:23:15 ◼   ► still at the top of the line,

00:23:16 ◼   ► it looks like they don't care anymore about it.

00:23:18 ◼   ► And again, I know they do care,

00:23:20 ◼   ► but this is how it looks to buyers.

00:23:22 ◼   ► This is how it looks in the market.

00:23:23 ◼   ► It looks like Apple is just ignoring the Mac

00:23:25 ◼   ► and letting these things languish.

00:23:27 ◼   ► - Eh, I don't know if that's true.

00:23:29 ◼   ► - It looks that way to nerds, to tech nerds.

00:23:31 ◼   ► Other people don't even know what the heck is in them.

00:23:33 ◼   ► But, I mean, we're a tech nerd podcast.

00:23:35 ◼   ► - No, people do, people do research, you know?

00:23:37 ◼   ► You gotta give people credit.

00:23:39 ◼   ► They do their research, and when people are looking

00:23:41 ◼   ► to buy an Apple computer, they go online and they look,

00:23:44 ◼   ► and they find things like the MacRumors Buying Guide

00:23:46 ◼   ► that says, like, all this stuff is three years old.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Like, people do their research, they find stuff out.

00:23:50 ◼   ► They know.

00:23:52 ◼   ► - Anybody who finds the MacRumors Buying Guide

00:23:54 ◼   ► is pretty far over into the computer nerd thing.

00:23:56 ◼   ► It's a factor. I'm just saying like there is there is a whole other section of the population that never looks at that stuff

00:24:01 ◼   ► But in the grand scheme of things even if they don't know they're still even if you don't know or care about the age of

00:24:06 ◼   ► The CPU you are still affected by it because it essentially affects the useful lifetime of your computer because it is a three-year-old CPU

00:24:12 ◼   ► Whether you know it or not and so three years later

00:24:15 ◼   ► You're using a six-year-old CPU whereas if Apple kept up to date you would have more life left in your laptop

00:24:19 ◼   ► and

00:24:21 ◼   ► It's not as bad as spinning disk versus SSD where you're you know you sort of prematurely aged when you realize that everyone else

00:24:27 ◼   ► Has SSDs, but you know maybe you can upgrade yours or whatever

00:24:30 ◼   ► CPUs don't age your laptop as bad as other things

00:24:33 ◼   ► But it's all cumulative and basically what we're what we're doing is here as people knowledgeable about

00:24:38 ◼   ► you know the platform and the products is we're judging the products how good a product is this and

00:24:43 ◼   ► You can't judge it to be a particularly stellar product if the innards are really old and out of date

00:24:50 ◼   ► And as time marches on and competitor products get better innards for usually less or the

00:24:56 ◼   ► same money, you have to judge Apple's products more harshly.

00:25:00 ◼   ► And as other people might ask about computers, who might say, "Now is not a good time to

00:25:05 ◼   ► buy the MacBook Pros because we think they're going to be updated soon."

00:25:08 ◼   ► But if we've been saying that for two years, at a certain point we're like, "I don't know

00:25:12 ◼   ► if it's bad advice or good advice."

00:25:13 ◼   ► We're trying to kind of predict the future of like, you know, should you buy this or

00:25:16 ◼   ► should you not?

00:25:17 ◼   ► once it's a three-year-old CPU, even if new Mac approach didn't come out for

00:25:21 ◼   ► another year, you can't really in good conscience tell people you should buy

00:25:27 ◼   ► this computer because it's a great product. You could say you should buy this

00:25:29 ◼   ► computer because it basically it's your only choice if you want a Mac laptop.

00:25:31 ◼   ► Like you know, these are the laptops they sell and a whole bunch of them are

00:25:34 ◼   ► better and compromised in a bunch of reasons, but if you need a laptop now

00:25:37 ◼   ► you got to get one. But I can honestly say that this is not actually a stellar

00:25:40 ◼   ► product, unlike say the 5k iMac which came out of the gate and was you know

00:25:44 ◼   ► good in all the ways we expected it to be good, right?

00:25:48 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I mean like the 5K iMac has been fantastic.

00:25:51 ◼   ► And that has, like that is, you know,

00:25:53 ◼   ► it originally came out a year and a half ago,

00:25:55 ◼   ► and then six months ago they made the updated version,

00:25:57 ◼   ► and it's a fantastic computer.

00:25:59 ◼   ► It has new up-to-date components.

00:26:02 ◼   ► It was updated one year after it came out

00:26:04 ◼   ► with even newer, even more up-to-date components.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Like that is a healthy release cycle.

00:26:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, with regard to the date,

00:26:10 ◼   ► something to consider is,

00:26:12 ◼   ► And we're gonna get to some interesting new hardware tidbits

00:26:16 ◼   ► in a second, but what if one of those hardware tidbits

00:26:19 ◼   ► requires a major release of OS X,

00:26:21 ◼   ► and that doesn't typically ship until the fall?

00:26:25 ◼   ► So maybe it is the fall, because they need the software,

00:26:29 ◼   ► and I know they'll do like a point release ahead

00:26:32 ◼   ► for a lot of things, but I can't--

00:26:33 ◼   ► - I don't think today's Apple is delaying hardware

00:26:35 ◼   ► for software, except-- - Oh, absolutely they are.

00:26:38 ◼   ► - Except for new devices like the watch,

00:26:40 ◼   ► I know you're gonna say the watch,

00:26:41 ◼   ► for laptops, I'm saying, even if they have a weird screen

00:26:45 ◼   ► above the keyboard that we'll get to in a minute,

00:26:47 ◼   ► they'll just work that into the old OS

00:26:50 ◼   ► if they needed to ship them.

00:26:51 ◼   ► They've done that so many times where some boring old Mac

00:26:55 ◼   ► is ready to ship, but they would ship it with the new OS,

00:26:58 ◼   ► but it's not available with it, so they'll end up shipping it.

00:27:01 ◼   ► They usually do it with OS versions.

00:27:02 ◼   ► They'd end up shipping it with Tiger,

00:27:07 ◼   ► even though the leper was about to come out.

00:27:09 ◼   ► And then people would get it.

00:27:10 ◼   ► by the time they'd get it in the store,

00:27:12 ◼   ► it would still have the old OS with it,

00:27:13 ◼   ► and then you'd get it, and they would upgrade you

00:27:15 ◼   ► for free or whatever.

00:27:16 ◼   ► I don't think, especially with OS X,

00:27:18 ◼   ► I don't think that's why they would be holding back

00:27:20 ◼   ► this hardware to wait for the software.

00:27:22 ◼   ► Unless there's some amazing new feature.

00:27:23 ◼   ► - No, but here's this scenario here.

00:27:25 ◼   ► All right, so the new laptop, suppose it has touch ID,

00:27:29 ◼   ► like this report says, and everyone says

00:27:32 ◼   ► there's gonna be Siri in new OS X.

00:27:34 ◼   ► So suppose it has a touch ID button or surface

00:27:37 ◼   ► or circle or something, maybe the power button, who knows?

00:27:39 ◼   ► Somewhere there's a Touch ID thing there, right?

00:27:42 ◼   ► And then also somewhere on the keyboard in the F in row,

00:27:45 ◼   ► which we'll get to in a minute,

00:27:46 ◼   ► in the F in row, maybe there's a Siri button,

00:27:48 ◼   ► there is no OS X version until the fall

00:27:52 ◼   ► that will support those things in all likelihood.

00:27:55 ◼   ► The OS X version that comes out in the fall,

00:27:58 ◼   ► they can't bring those things forward,

00:27:59 ◼   ► or they won't bring those things forward,

00:28:01 ◼   ► they don't feel like bringing those things forward

00:28:02 ◼   ► to be released earlier,

00:28:03 ◼   ► because the OS X version in the fall

00:28:05 ◼   ► also has stuff that integrates with the iOS version

00:28:08 ◼   ► that's coming in the fall,

00:28:09 ◼   ► and the iOS version coming in the fall is tied to the iPhone hardware schedule, and

00:28:12 ◼   ► the entire company is dictated by the iPhone hardware schedule.

00:28:15 ◼   ► Yeah, that seems plausible. I forgot about the Touch ID thing, but the Secure Enclave

00:28:19 ◼   ► is the other thing, like assuming there's a Touch ID thing that's probably a Secure

00:28:23 ◼   ► Enclave thing, and that's, yeah. The screen, I say no, because the screen you can write

00:28:27 ◼   ► a driver for in any OS, but the Touch ID and the security stuff, yeah. All right, well,

00:28:33 ◼   ► that's crappy, but that's life. So that's it.

00:28:36 ◼   ► So we've bounced off the outer atmosphere of the changes here, but we should probably

00:28:41 ◼   ► talk about it.

00:28:42 ◼   ► So it's going to be really Q4 probably.

00:28:44 ◼   ► It's probably going to be like September, October.

00:28:46 ◼   ► Okay.

00:28:47 ◼   ► Fair enough.

00:28:48 ◼   ► So there's apparently going to be a replaced f in row where all the f1, f2, f3, etc. keys

00:28:56 ◼   ► are now little mini OLED displays.

00:28:58 ◼   ► I'm not sure what to make of that.

00:29:00 ◼   ► I feel like there was a keyboard that, like in the pre-Kickstarter days, but it was a

00:29:05 ◼   ► Kickstarter kind of project where there was a keyboard that they wanted like the

00:29:09 ◼   ► entire keyboard to have little mini displays on each key and the theory was

00:29:13 ◼   ► which made a lot of sense to me it was the optimus keyboard was it okay by the

00:29:18 ◼   ► art libid of studio yes yes that's right you're absolutely right did that ever

00:29:23 ◼   ► ship yeah it was delayed for like years I think and it ended up being very

00:29:27 ◼   ► expensive but I think it did in fact ship and now now there's like now like a

00:29:31 ◼   ► a bunch of keyboards now do the exact same thing

00:29:33 ◼   ► since then.

00:29:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, so the idea being that all of these

00:29:37 ◼   ► different displays can be reprogrammed.

00:29:38 ◼   ► So think of sort of kind of having all the benefits

00:29:43 ◼   ► of a keyboard on screen, like on a phone or tablet,

00:29:47 ◼   ► but it's still a physical keyboard,

00:29:49 ◼   ► but you can reprogram what the keys show

00:29:51 ◼   ► and potentially what they do.

00:29:53 ◼   ► And so I can see maybe you have,

00:29:56 ◼   ► like on the current keyboards, the F, what is this,

00:30:00 ◼   ► F8 key is play/pause. Well, maybe it's play/pause in Finder or by default, but maybe in other apps

00:30:07 ◼   ► it does other things and it shows you right on the key like a little logo or

00:30:12 ◼   ► maybe even a logo in the words as to what it does. So I can see this being neat,

00:30:17 ◼   ► but I also am not sure that this is something I really need, but I'm anxious to see what they're going to do with it.

00:30:25 ◼   ► What do you guys think? Marco, you have tweeted about this and don't sound too enthusiastic. Is that fair to say?

00:30:30 ◼   ► say? Well, so the initial reporting of this rumor had it as the F and key row would disappear.

00:30:38 ◼   ► Like the keys would no longer be there. It would just be one screen, not keys with screens

00:30:42 ◼   ► on them, right? Exactly. That's the initial rumor was that it would be one long strip

00:30:47 ◼   ► of OLED screen and it would be touch sensitive and so you would just like push it like it's

00:30:53 ◼   ► a skinny iPad screen basically. If this thing is real and if that ends up being the way

00:30:59 ◼   ► it's done, I don't like that very much, at least on principle. We'll see, you know, if

00:31:04 ◼   ► they actually do something like that, we'll see how it turns out. I could change my mind,

00:31:08 ◼   ► but I, and there was a good discussion about that particular rumor on Clockwise this week,

00:31:13 ◼   ► today actually. So that I think, like, not having physical buttons to push there on this

00:31:20 ◼   ► keyboard that you're probably not looking at, like, yeah, the keys in the F in a row

00:31:26 ◼   ► are not that frequently pushed by most people.

00:31:28 ◼   ► But for the people who do frequently push them,

00:31:31 ◼   ► and the F&R includes some pretty important keys

00:31:33 ◼   ► like escape, which is like your shortcut

00:31:35 ◼   ► to cancel dialog boxes, which is kind of frequently hit,

00:31:38 ◼   ► also frequently hit if you're a Vim user,

00:31:41 ◼   ► among other things, a lot of programmers

00:31:43 ◼   ► use it for code completion, so like,

00:31:45 ◼   ► there are, and as you said, like the media keys,

00:31:48 ◼   ► the volume up and down, the play/pause, the mute,

00:31:52 ◼   ► anybody who uses the various things

00:31:55 ◼   ► that used to be called Exposé that are now lumped into all these other things, and I

00:31:59 ◼   ► always use F11 for show desktop, like, those things, those are very frequently hit by a

00:32:06 ◼   ► good number of users, I think. And so if you remove those as keys at all, and it's just

00:32:11 ◼   ► this touch surface that you need to, you pretty much would need to look at it to see what

00:32:16 ◼   ► you're hitting, and you wouldn't get that physical feedback of a key press to know that

00:32:19 ◼   ► that you did hit it correctly, that is,

00:32:24 ◼   ► I really hope we never get to that point

00:32:26 ◼   ► because there's a reason why in all these,

00:32:30 ◼   ► all the effort that we've put into making things thinner

00:32:34 ◼   ► and lighter and mechanically simpler and removing buttons,

00:32:37 ◼   ► there's a reason we still have keyboard buttons

00:32:40 ◼   ► on computers, even when you look at the MacBook One

00:32:44 ◼   ► and you see we barely have keyboard buttons,

00:32:46 ◼   ► but we still have keyboard buttons for a reason.

00:32:49 ◼   ► And that is that when you are not looking,

00:32:51 ◼   ► when you're typing blind, it is way easier

00:32:54 ◼   ► and more accurate and faster and ergonomically better

00:32:56 ◼   ► to have key switches that move up and down

00:32:58 ◼   ► that you can feel when you push.

00:33:00 ◼   ► So the idea of replacing this strip with something,

00:33:04 ◼   ► with an OLED strip to accomplish various goals.

00:33:09 ◼   ► The benefits here would be you could put stuff

00:33:13 ◼   ► under that part and make, 'cause it would be thinner,

00:33:15 ◼   ► I wouldn't need any kind of travel under it,

00:33:17 ◼   ► and presumably the screen component could be very thin,

00:33:19 ◼   ► thinner than a keyboard row could be,

00:33:21 ◼   ► so you could shove more of the computer's guts or battery

00:33:24 ◼   ► under that area, so you save something there.

00:33:27 ◼   ► It would look cool, maybe, if it wouldn't look tacky,

00:33:31 ◼   ► so you'd save, you know, you'd gain something there.

00:33:33 ◼   ► - You could put banner ads on it.

00:33:35 ◼   ► Oh, it's not a Chromebook, nevermind.

00:33:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, there you go.

00:33:38 ◼   ► Yeah, so like, you could see the reasons to do this,

00:33:40 ◼   ► and I should point out also, like,

00:33:41 ◼   ► and you know, you could use it for like status things,

00:33:43 ◼   ► And PC laptops have had displays above the keyboard

00:33:47 ◼   ► that show statuses of things for a long time.

00:33:50 ◼   ► - Also on the covers and on the back and on the sides,

00:33:53 ◼   ► there's been displays on every possible surface

00:33:54 ◼   ► of PC laptops.

00:33:55 ◼   ► There was a Windows feature they were touting

00:33:57 ◼   ► like one or two or three years ago.

00:33:59 ◼   ► They were like, the new Windows feature

00:34:00 ◼   ► is like secondary screens on laptops

00:34:02 ◼   ► and it's OS supported and basically PC manufacturers,

00:34:05 ◼   ► go ahead, figure out where it's a good idea to put a screen

00:34:08 ◼   ► and you just try to sell things like this

00:34:09 ◼   ► and the iOS will support them

00:34:11 ◼   ► and it doesn't seem like it really caught on that much.

00:34:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, so anyway, Apple could do this that way

00:34:16 ◼   ► with replacing the F&K row entirely with a screen.

00:34:20 ◼   ► I hope they don't do it that way.

00:34:22 ◼   ► Unfortunately, we've heard from a certain tipster

00:34:24 ◼   ► that that's not how they're going to do it.

00:34:26 ◼   ► That the tipster suggested that what he saw around

00:34:31 ◼   ► was not that version of it, but was instead,

00:34:38 ◼   ► you still had the physical buttons

00:34:41 ◼   ► and the screen augmented the buttons in some way.

00:34:45 ◼   ► So that, I'm hoping that is correct,

00:34:49 ◼   ► and that I wouldn't mind.

00:34:50 ◼   ► If Apple does this right, I think it's gonna be fine.

00:34:55 ◼   ► I really hope they don't get rid

00:34:56 ◼   ► of the entire F in key row itself,

00:34:58 ◼   ► 'cause I really want those keys to be there,

00:35:00 ◼   ► but I don't really care how they're labeled.

00:35:02 ◼   ► - I've got an idea.

00:35:03 ◼   ► You could sell an external keyboard like this

00:35:05 ◼   ► and call it the Apple Extended Keyboard,

00:35:07 ◼   ► and then finally Apple would sell a keyboard

00:35:09 ◼   ► that is not a tiny little piece of crap with no inverted T arrow keys on it.

00:35:13 ◼   ► Oh, don't even get me started. Don't even get me started. You are wrong, sir.

00:35:17 ◼   ► Some chat room credit. Windows Sideshow was a great name.

00:35:21 ◼   ► That's fantastic.

00:35:22 ◼   ► The name for the external, like the support for weird secondary displays on laptops. And

00:35:28 ◼   ► Nathan A. in the chat room pointed out that what I was trying to think of was a OS X Lion

00:35:32 ◼   ► came out with Retina support 10.7.5 because basically the fully Retina supporting OS X8

00:35:38 ◼   ► wasn't out yet.

00:35:39 ◼   ► And the old the App Store came to 10.6.

00:35:41 ◼   ► - 10.6.8, yeah, I think.

00:35:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, anyway, so that's the F and key row.

00:35:46 ◼   ► I think we have that well covered.

00:35:47 ◼   ► Let's see if you guys have other comments on that.

00:35:50 ◼   ► - I think the idea of having a big,

00:35:52 ◼   ► that Artipius says they're not doing,

00:35:55 ◼   ► but just having a big flat screen,

00:35:57 ◼   ► there's the obvious reasons that's bad

00:36:00 ◼   ► and you went over them.

00:36:01 ◼   ► Like, did you feel if your keys,

00:36:02 ◼   ► you wanna feel what the edges are,

00:36:03 ◼   ► it's a pain in the butt if it's just one big flat screen.

00:36:05 ◼   ► But I have to think, and we've joked about this

00:36:08 ◼   ► so many times and talking about the MacBook keyboard and everything like, "Well, why even

00:36:11 ◼   ► have keys at all if there's going to be so little travel?" And part of the whole big

00:36:15 ◼   ► sales pitch of the original iPhone presentation was like, "Oh, look at all these phones. They

00:36:18 ◼   ► have all these buttons on them, but you kind of have to pick the buttons when you make

00:36:21 ◼   ► the phone and you can't change them after the fact. Well, what if we made the whole

00:36:24 ◼   ► surface of the phone a screen? Then you don't have to worry about what the buttons are because

00:36:27 ◼   ► it's all software and we can change them all the time." And everybody said, "Yeah, all

00:36:30 ◼   ► software, but then how the hell can you feel the keys when you're trying to type on the

00:36:32 ◼   ► thing because it's just a big flat screen. We work that out as a society. We now know how to

00:36:39 ◼   ► type on a on flat screen phones. It's a little bit different because the focal distance between

00:36:45 ◼   ► looking at the keyboard and looking at the screen is a little bit better on a phone than it is on a

00:36:51 ◼   ► laptop combination. Like you're kind of looking in the same place at the same distance as opposed to

00:36:55 ◼   ► you know looking at the keyboard. Obviously touch typists are going to say "oh I don't like this

00:36:59 ◼   ► this is like I'm a touch typist,

00:37:01 ◼   ► I don't have to look at the keyboard.

00:37:02 ◼   ► I wonder what percentage of the world population

00:37:05 ◼   ► looks at the keyboard when they type,

00:37:07 ◼   ► not on a phone, on like a regular laptop or desktop keyboard

00:37:11 ◼   ► maybe it's pretty high, maybe it's not, I don't know,

00:37:13 ◼   ► but you still have the same focal distance question.

00:37:15 ◼   ► Anyway, there was the final thing

00:37:17 ◼   ► that I can't remember the source of this,

00:37:18 ◼   ► maybe one of you will, was it on iMore?

00:37:20 ◼   ► Somebody did a survey of how fast can you touch type

00:37:25 ◼   ► on an iPad keyboard, like on a totally glass keyboard

00:37:29 ◼   ► by age, and they split it up by age.

00:37:31 ◼   ► And the old people, of course, were horrendously bad

00:37:33 ◼   ► at touch typing on it.

00:37:34 ◼   ► And the younger you got, the bigger the bars get,

00:37:37 ◼   ► up to the point where people were typing faster

00:37:38 ◼   ► on the iPad keyboard than I can type on a real keyboard.

00:37:42 ◼   ► I'm a terrible typist, so that's not a big judge.

00:37:44 ◼   ► But they were into like, you know, over 60 words a minute.

00:37:47 ◼   ► - This was Cortex, by the way.

00:37:48 ◼   ► - Oh, was it Cortex?

00:37:49 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:37:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, anyway, it makes me wonder about the future.

00:37:53 ◼   ► Like, for now, we're all glad if they do

00:37:56 ◼   ► the separate buttons with little LED things in them,

00:37:58 ◼   ► it looks cool, we can feel the button edges, and I know I don't look at the keyboard when

00:38:01 ◼   ► I hit the escape key and many other things, like I'm not really a touch typist, I don't

00:38:05 ◼   ► type the right way, but in practice I can program without looking at the keyboard, even

00:38:09 ◼   ► though my fingers are doing completely the incorrect thing down there.

00:38:16 ◼   ► But we're gonna get old and retire and die, and eventually I don't think it's too unrealistic

00:38:21 ◼   ► to imagine that it's possible, not guaranteed, but possible that future future future Apple

00:38:26 ◼   ► laptops could either A) not exist or B) just have an entire screen for the keyboard area

00:38:35 ◼   ► because it would be thinner and it would be infinitely reconfigurable and people do get

00:38:39 ◼   ► used to them and people can actually get fast with them and it makes me wonder about the

00:38:43 ◼   ► future.

00:38:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean like I think my ideal setup here, because I do recognize like the advantages

00:38:50 ◼   ► of having like dynamic soft keys where maybe some of them the system defines as always

00:38:56 ◼   ► having pretty much the same functions, things like volume controls, and then some of them

00:39:01 ◼   ► are application defined. And applications can say, "All right, well, when you have

00:39:05 ◼   ► like Photoshop or Logic or whatever active, then you can map these buttons to these commands

00:39:09 ◼   ► and actually show them on there." And that makes it easier to learn the keyboard shortcuts

00:39:13 ◼   ► and these functions become more accessible and everything.

00:39:16 ◼   ► So like there is...

00:39:17 ◼   ► >> You can also do the fuzzy targets too, just like a phone keyboard does. That was

00:39:20 ◼   ► another big selling point of the phone keyboard. It's like, "Oh, we know that most likely

00:39:23 ◼   ► in the English language, the next letter has a much higher percentage chance to be, you

00:39:27 ◼   ► know, an R than an X. So even though you're a little bit off of the key that you were

00:39:32 ◼   ► trying to hit, will, you know, like the sort of fuzzy matching for where your fingers tap,

00:39:38 ◼   ► and you may think, "Oh, I don't need that when the keys are full size." But maybe you

00:39:42 ◼   ► do, maybe it would help. Like, there are things you can do with a completely software-controlled,

00:39:47 ◼   ► completely flat glass keyboard that you can't do with a physical one.

00:39:50 ◼   ► Well, right.

00:39:51 ◼   ► That might be good.

00:39:52 ◼   ► - To me, I think the happy medium here would be

00:39:56 ◼   ► that you still have the physical buttons there.

00:39:59 ◼   ► If you're doing the entire keyboard,

00:40:04 ◼   ► not just the F in row, if you're doing the entire keyboard,

00:40:07 ◼   ► I think your argument makes more sense,

00:40:10 ◼   ► even though I think I would hate that,

00:40:11 ◼   ► but it would be so much more powerful

00:40:13 ◼   ► 'cause you could do things like,

00:40:15 ◼   ► well, the entire left half of this

00:40:16 ◼   ► is going to be a jog wheel instead of keys.

00:40:19 ◼   ► You could do dynamic stuff.

00:40:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

00:40:23 ◼   ► The entire thing would be just,

00:40:25 ◼   ► it would just be like, be, you know,

00:40:26 ◼   ► just like typing on an iPad.

00:40:27 ◼   ► It's just one big flat piece of glass for the whole thing.

00:40:29 ◼   ► Not a bunch of individual keys.

00:40:31 ◼   ► Because it almost feels like a weird in-between state

00:40:33 ◼   ► to have the Optimus keyboard where it's like,

00:40:35 ◼   ► we want the keys to be infinitely reconfigurable,

00:40:38 ◼   ► but they'll always have to be the same size and position.

00:40:40 ◼   ► - Right, but I think in the context of a Mac,

00:40:43 ◼   ► and especially a Mac laptop where whatever keyboard

00:40:47 ◼   ► they ship in a Mac laptop, you're stuck with.

00:40:50 ◼   ► I mean, you could put other keyboards on desks

00:40:53 ◼   ► when you go park it on a desk,

00:40:54 ◼   ► but when you are out in the world

00:40:57 ◼   ► or when you're using your laptop on the couch

00:40:59 ◼   ► or by itself with no additional hardware on a desk,

00:41:02 ◼   ► whatever keyboard that has in it, you don't have a choice.

00:41:05 ◼   ► So I think in the current context

00:41:08 ◼   ► of how people use Macs and PCs,

00:41:12 ◼   ► I think it's important to have a physical keyboard.

00:41:14 ◼   ► And I think looking at things like the MacBook One

00:41:16 ◼   ► where Apple goes to incredible lengths

00:41:19 ◼   ► make a really crappy physical keyboard, but it's still better than typing on glass, I

00:41:25 ◼   ► think Apple probably agrees, I think that's the sign Apple agrees, that in the Mac landscape

00:41:30 ◼   ► you need physical keys. So if you're going to have physical keys and you want this key

00:41:34 ◼   ► strip to be dynamic, it makes sense to also keep those as physical keys because the way

00:41:40 ◼   ► people are going to be using that keyboard is still going to be based on feel for the

00:41:44 ◼   ► for the most part, and you're not really gonna gain much,

00:41:48 ◼   ► you know, if you only have a thin strip

00:41:50 ◼   ► on top of the keyboard to customize in software,

00:41:54 ◼   ► you're not really gonna gain much

00:41:56 ◼   ► by having that be a flat touch surface

00:41:59 ◼   ► that you wouldn't also have by having them be physical keys.

00:42:01 ◼   ► And you also won't, there will be no cost to it then,

00:42:04 ◼   ► to the user, like there will be no downside

00:42:06 ◼   ► if there's still physical keys

00:42:07 ◼   ► and you're just changing the labels on them.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Then there's no complaint, there's no downside

00:42:12 ◼   ► except cost and complexity,

00:42:13 ◼   ► but seems like Apple's okay with that.

00:42:15 ◼   ► I think that sounds fine.

00:42:18 ◼   ► I think that would be my happy medium is,

00:42:20 ◼   ► sure, if you're gonna do this at all,

00:42:22 ◼   ► make it like the Optimus keyboard.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Put some kind of screens on each key

00:42:26 ◼   ► or put a big screen below all the keys

00:42:27 ◼   ► and make them clear or something, I don't know.

00:42:29 ◼   ► But that's, yeah.

00:42:31 ◼   ► - It'll be a screen on each key.

00:42:33 ◼   ► But for the big, flat glass thing,

00:42:35 ◼   ► you can also get rid of the trackpad at that point, too.

00:42:38 ◼   ► It's a simplification that may prove

00:42:39 ◼   ► irresistible eventually. If the customer base eventually gets to the point where they feel

00:42:44 ◼   ► like we can sell this product and not too many people will complain except for the really

00:42:48 ◼   ► old people. I just want an extended keyboard. Is that too much to ask? Is that just not

00:42:51 ◼   ► a thing anymore that Apple doesn't really, it's like they want their keyboards to be

00:42:54 ◼   ► super small because they're all used on submarines or whatever. I don't know what the use case

00:42:58 ◼   ► is for constantly making the keyboard not just thinner, fine, whatever, I don't really

00:43:02 ◼   ► care that much about that, but narrower. Am I using it in coach class on United? I don't

00:43:06 ◼   ► I don't know what, why does it have to be so,

00:43:08 ◼   ► I've got this big desk here.

00:43:10 ◼   ► Like, take off the numeric keypad, fine,

00:43:13 ◼   ► but give me an inverted T, I use those keys

00:43:16 ◼   ► when I type and program.

00:43:17 ◼   ► - Also, a quick comment on the thinness of keyboards here,

00:43:20 ◼   ► just for a second.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Articles are saying that this new MacBook Pro

00:43:25 ◼   ► has a thinner keyboard that is like the MacBook One keyboard.

00:43:30 ◼   ► This would normally freak me out,

00:43:32 ◼   ► except the tipster has said many times in the chat

00:43:35 ◼   ► that yes it is that general type of keyboard,

00:43:38 ◼   ► however it is much closer to the new

00:43:41 ◼   ► standalone Magic keyboard than the MacBook One's

00:43:45 ◼   ► total crap keyboard.

00:43:46 ◼   ► I've tried the Magic keyboard in the store,

00:43:48 ◼   ► I know Casey you love yours right?

00:43:50 ◼   ► - I cannot say enough good things about it,

00:43:52 ◼   ► with the exception I agree I would prefer the inverted T

00:43:55 ◼   ► but I've learned to move on from it.

00:43:59 ◼   ► - Page up, page down, home and end,

00:44:00 ◼   ► don't you miss those guys and being in a normal place

00:44:02 ◼   ► where you can find them really easily?

00:44:03 ◼   ► - No. - Nope.

00:44:04 ◼   ► - Really honestly don't. - Yes.

00:44:05 ◼   ► - What year is this? - Seriously.

00:44:06 ◼   ► - You don't use page up and page down?

00:44:08 ◼   ► - No.

00:44:09 ◼   ► I even have them on my keyboard, I never use them.

00:44:11 ◼   ► - You swipe on your silly little mice?

00:44:13 ◼   ► - When I used Windows, I used home and end all the time,

00:44:16 ◼   ► but now I use command left, command right,

00:44:17 ◼   ► and that's, you know. - Right.

00:44:18 ◼   ► - No, home and end doing what they're supposed to do,

00:44:20 ◼   ► not what they do on Windows.

00:44:21 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense

00:44:22 ◼   ► what they do on Windows. - Okay.

00:44:23 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:44:24 ◼   ► - Go to the beginning of the line, that's not home.

00:44:26 ◼   ► What world is that home?

00:44:27 ◼   ► Home is the top, end is the bottom.

00:44:28 ◼   ► - That's command up and command down, easy peasy.

00:44:31 ◼   ► So the point is, I love the Magic Keyboard. It is my favorite keyboard that I've ever used.

00:44:36 ◼   ► And I have tried just about any of the popular keyboards, or close variants thereof.

00:44:42 ◼   ► And I grew up on the IBM, what was it, the IBM M or something like that? The ridiculous--

00:44:46 ◼   ► Buckling springs! You love 'em.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Yeah, and so, I mean, I'm not a keyboard snob,

00:44:52 ◼   ► and I don't really typically care for really loud, clicky keyboards.

00:44:56 ◼   ► However, I love the Magic Keyboard more than anything.

00:45:00 ◼   ► and the only flaw I see in it is I do agree with you that I wish I had the inverted T.

00:45:04 ◼   ► So I love this thing.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm totally with you on that.

00:45:07 ◼   ► But overall, like, the Magic Keyboard, I think, is fine.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Like I have no problem with that.

00:45:12 ◼   ► So if the tipster is right that the new MacBook Pro keyboard is much closer to that than to

00:45:18 ◼   ► the MacBook One keyboard, that's fine.

00:45:21 ◼   ► However, I would just generally like to say, like, there were a few people on Twitter who

00:45:24 ◼   ► were kind of saying worrying things to me earlier about how keyboards should keep getting

00:45:28 ◼   ► thinner, it is great to have laptops that are thin and light, but in general what matters

00:45:35 ◼   ► more is the light, not the thin. And keyboards weigh almost nothing, no matter how thick

00:45:41 ◼   ► they are. Like the keyboard component of a laptop is mostly empty space, and the key

00:45:46 ◼   ► travel is all empty space, of course, because the keys have to move up and down.

00:45:50 ◼   ► All matter is mostly empty space.

00:45:52 ◼   ► Thanks Sean.

00:45:53 ◼   ► Thanks.

00:45:54 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:45:55 ◼   ► I'm so happy you added that.

00:45:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:45:59 ◼   ► - I was on the kick of trying to stop email from people.

00:46:02 ◼   ► You have to have the new level of,

00:46:05 ◼   ► well actually, well actually all matter.

00:46:07 ◼   ► It's mostly empty space.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Anyway, go on.

00:46:09 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:46:11 ◼   ► How am I supposed to get to, anyway.

00:46:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:46:14 ◼   ► All right, so anyway.

00:46:15 ◼   ► So yeah, keyboards are extremely lightweight.

00:46:19 ◼   ► If you're talking about making laptops thinner and lighter,

00:46:22 ◼   ► Again, lighter matters more than thinner.

00:46:25 ◼   ► And if it gets to the point where you start sacrificing

00:46:29 ◼   ► the usability of the keyboard,

00:46:31 ◼   ► if you have to ship a crappy keyboard

00:46:34 ◼   ► in order to make the laptop appealing visually

00:46:38 ◼   ► to make it thinner from the side,

00:46:39 ◼   ► which is an angle which nobody ever looks at it,

00:46:42 ◼   ► I think that's a bad choice.

00:46:43 ◼   ► I think Apple went too far with that, but--

00:46:45 ◼   ► - It's also harder to pick up, by the way,

00:46:47 ◼   ► as they get thinner.

00:46:48 ◼   ► It gets harder to, eventually it's like,

00:46:49 ◼   ► I know they cup the edges and they make it,

00:46:51 ◼   ► but like at a certain point,

00:46:52 ◼   ► if you keep being thinner and thinner,

00:46:54 ◼   ► you don't have enough edge left to even cup.

00:46:56 ◼   ► And if you put it down,

00:46:57 ◼   ► it's like trying to pick a coin off a very smooth table.

00:47:00 ◼   ► It's hard to do.

00:47:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, it also makes it harder to open the lid.

00:47:02 ◼   ► But anyway, and that's, well, weight too.

00:47:04 ◼   ► Anyway, so my point is,

00:47:06 ◼   ► I think if you are optimizing your laptop for thinness,

00:47:10 ◼   ► I think you're optimizing it for the wrong thing.

00:47:12 ◼   ► You should let thinness follow from battery removals,

00:47:16 ◼   ► which will result in more efficient CPUs,

00:47:18 ◼   ► more efficient components, things like that,

00:47:20 ◼   ► and things like getting rid of the optical drive

00:47:22 ◼   ► and making other components thinner.

00:47:24 ◼   ► But I don't think you should ever be at a point

00:47:26 ◼   ► where you are making the keyboard hard to use

00:47:29 ◼   ► or less ergonomically friendly or otherwise horrible

00:47:33 ◼   ► for the sake of shaving another millimeter

00:47:35 ◼   ► off the case thickness.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Because if the laptop is still very light

00:47:40 ◼   ► and is just like a millimeter thicker

00:47:41 ◼   ► to accommodate better key switches, that's fine.

00:47:45 ◼   ► That's an acceptable trade-off for a laptop

00:47:47 ◼   ► because you want laptops to be light,

00:47:50 ◼   ► but you don't need them to be paper thin.

00:47:53 ◼   ► And if you just, like,

00:47:54 ◼   ► we're not talking about a big difference here.

00:47:56 ◼   ► We're not talking about, like,

00:47:57 ◼   ► going back to the old PowerBook G4 thickness

00:47:59 ◼   ► to have a decent keyboard.

00:48:00 ◼   ► You don't need that.

00:48:01 ◼   ► You can look today, you can look at the MacBook Air,

00:48:04 ◼   ► and you can look at the MacBook Pro today,

00:48:06 ◼   ► and, you know, presumably what it's about to be

00:48:08 ◼   ► in a few months.

00:48:09 ◼   ► You can make a great laptop with a great keyboard

00:48:13 ◼   ► that's very, very thin,

00:48:15 ◼   ► but I think the MacBook One took it too far.

00:48:17 ◼   ► And it sounds like with these newer MacBook Pros,

00:48:20 ◼   ► if all the rumors are right, if Tipster's right,

00:48:23 ◼   ► I think we'll be okay again.

00:48:24 ◼   ► I think we will have re-achieved a good balance here.

00:48:27 ◼   ► So I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

00:48:29 ◼   ► I hope Apple does it right.

00:48:30 ◼   ► And in general, I've been very critical to MacBook One,

00:48:35 ◼   ► even though people love it, that's fine.

00:48:36 ◼   ► If you love it, good for you, I'm happy for you.

00:48:38 ◼   ► In general, I expect the new MacBook Pro to be awesome,

00:48:44 ◼   ► both 13 and 15.

00:48:46 ◼   ► based on both what we've heard, what's been reported,

00:48:49 ◼   ► and just based on, you know, Apple,

00:48:52 ◼   ► the things that really matter, things like the iPhone,

00:48:56 ◼   ► Apple is really, they have a fantastic track record.

00:48:59 ◼   ► You know, Apple has never made a bad iPhone.

00:49:03 ◼   ► And similarly, I don't think Apple

00:49:05 ◼   ► has ever made a bad MacBook Pro.

00:49:08 ◼   ► There have been a few that have been slightly imperfect,

00:49:10 ◼   ► but for the most part, the MacBook Pro,

00:49:13 ◼   ► They just nail it.

00:49:14 ◼   ► It has such a good history, such a good track record.

00:49:19 ◼   ► And it has to because the MacBook Pro is like

00:49:23 ◼   ► the workhorse of the entire industry.

00:49:26 ◼   ► Pretty much every web developer,

00:49:29 ◼   ► almost every Apple developer, tons of people inside Apple,

00:49:33 ◼   ► tons of journalists, tons of people, tons of students.

00:49:36 ◼   ► The MacBook Pro is such the workhorse of so many people,

00:49:40 ◼   ► they can't screw, like, they like,

00:49:42 ◼   ► legally, they just can't screw it up.

00:49:45 ◼   ► And they know that.

00:49:46 ◼   ► Apple, I think, would not take lightly

00:49:49 ◼   ► major changes to the MacBook Pro.

00:49:51 ◼   ► And their track record on it is so good

00:49:53 ◼   ► that I am confident that this is going to be awesome.

00:49:55 ◼   ► Even though I am skeptical of many of the things

00:49:59 ◼   ► that Apple does these days,

00:50:01 ◼   ► I definitely give them the benefit of the doubt

00:50:04 ◼   ► that whatever we hear about this new MacBook Pro

00:50:07 ◼   ► that might sound a little bit weird,

00:50:09 ◼   ► it's probably gonna be awesome.

00:50:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree, I'm really looking forward to this.

00:50:15 ◼   ► To me, I feel like I would just be thrilled

00:50:19 ◼   ► if the next MacBook Pro had a keyboard

00:50:22 ◼   ► as close to the magic keyboard as possible,

00:50:24 ◼   ► and also an SD card slot that didn't trip

00:50:26 ◼   ► my damn SD card read switch.

00:50:28 ◼   ► - SD card slot, no, no, you get USB three ports,

00:50:33 ◼   ► USB-C, Type-C connectors, and that's all,

00:50:36 ◼   ► and you'll like it, mister.

00:50:37 ◼   ► - Probably right, and I was being silly

00:50:38 ◼   ► about the SD card thing, but anyway,

00:50:40 ◼   ► I think an improved keyboard would be great, and I don't think the current keyboards are

00:50:43 ◼   ► bad.

00:50:44 ◼   ► I just freaking love the Magic Keyboard.

00:50:46 ◼   ► But I agree with you, Marco.

00:50:47 ◼   ► I think that they have a great track record, and I can't see them releasing a dud.

00:50:54 ◼   ► And even though some of these rumors are making me scratch my head a little bit, I'm really,

00:50:58 ◼   ► really amped to see these.

00:51:00 ◼   ► And also miserable, because I'm not getting a new Mac from work for another two years,

00:51:06 ◼   ► I think, and I'm certainly not buying one for home.

00:51:08 ◼   ► So I'll be sad.

00:51:10 ◼   ► I'm still looking for a retina air.

00:51:14 ◼   ► I know the 13 will be so thin it'll almost be air-like, but now that the air has been

00:51:17 ◼   ► freed up, you know, we have the 5K iMac, we used to have the air connected to a Thunderbolt

00:51:22 ◼   ► display and now just the air is like rattling around the house and my daughter is smearing

00:51:25 ◼   ► her yogurt-covered fingers on it and I'm routinely cleaning it.

00:51:28 ◼   ► Anyway, 13-inch air is such a great form factor for a laptop.

00:51:32 ◼   ► It's such a good machine.

00:51:33 ◼   ► The screen is crap, but everything else about it, this is like a 2011 model, right?

00:51:38 ◼   ► That screen is not good.

00:51:39 ◼   ► everything else about it is just so nice and because it's a 2011 model, it's like a five-year-old's

00:51:43 ◼   ► computer, it looks great. And so now hopefully maybe these 13s will get down to the point

00:51:49 ◼   ► where it's getting close to that because the Airs haven't been updated. And you said that

00:51:52 ◼   ► the Pro is the workhorse, it's the workhorse of like, you know, professional people or

00:51:55 ◼   ► people who need some sort of computing power to do their job. But the Airs were the sort

00:52:00 ◼   ► of computing for the Apple laptop for the rest of us, where you're not going to be compiling

00:52:08 ◼   ► you just want to like browse the web and write papers for school or whatever.

00:52:12 ◼   ► It was such a great student computer, it was such a great computer for people who don't

00:52:15 ◼   ► have particularly demanding needs.

00:52:16 ◼   ► It's a real high point, I think, when we look back on the grade max, the 13-inch Air, that

00:52:23 ◼   ► design, if not the particular innards, but like when they redesigned the case and everything,

00:52:27 ◼   ► that was a great computer.

00:52:29 ◼   ► And so like the pros, the first Retina ones were pretty impressive, and now they're going

00:52:34 ◼   ► to go super thin and just have the USB-C ports on the side and just shave off all those things

00:52:38 ◼   ► these have the potential to be really great long-lasting computers to remember.

00:52:43 ◼   ► The touch ID and the weird, you know, screen keys and stuff also has the

00:52:50 ◼   ► potential to have them go wrong until they sort that out, but like you said,

00:52:54 ◼   ► like they're surely they've had enough time to work out these kinks and this is

00:52:57 ◼   ► the type of thing they could have been working on for a long time so I have

00:53:00 ◼   ► some confidence that they're gonna be good as well. Although I have to admit

00:53:04 ◼   ► when I saw you Marco tweeting about the thin keyboard thing,

00:53:08 ◼   ► I thought you were talking about

00:53:10 ◼   ► their external desktop keyboards

00:53:12 ◼   ► that also keep getting thinner for even, as I said,

00:53:15 ◼   ► even more mysterious reasons.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Not just like, you know, I talked about the width before

00:53:18 ◼   ► with the United Airlines,

00:53:19 ◼   ► but they're also getting like thinner

00:53:20 ◼   ► as in lower to the desk.

00:53:22 ◼   ► They're just wasting away.

00:53:24 ◼   ► Soon they're just gonna give you a bunch of key caps

00:53:25 ◼   ► and you'll throw them on your desk.

00:53:26 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:53:28 ◼   ► - No, I mean like in Apple's defense,

00:53:30 ◼   ► I mean one of the reasons I don't use their desktop keyboards

00:53:32 ◼   ► is that the ergonomics are horrible on them,

00:53:34 ◼   ► and I need something with better ergonomics

00:53:37 ◼   ► to prevent RSI problems.

00:53:39 ◼   ► In their defense though, the worst thing about ergonomics

00:53:42 ◼   ► of most desktop keyboards is when the back

00:53:45 ◼   ► is higher than the front, the forward tilt.

00:53:48 ◼   ► That's terrible for ergonomics.

00:53:50 ◼   ► And by the way, anybody listening,

00:53:51 ◼   ► if you have the feet flipped up on the back

00:53:54 ◼   ► so that your keyboard is tilted even more,

00:53:55 ◼   ► for God's sake, flip those feet down.

00:53:57 ◼   ► - Put something under the front to make it level.

00:53:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's a reason why,

00:54:00 ◼   ► if you look at natural keyboards now,

00:54:02 ◼   ► like the Microsoft Sculpt and everything,

00:54:04 ◼   ► there's a reason why they come with this big riser

00:54:06 ◼   ► on the front that lifts the front up

00:54:08 ◼   ► so it's actually tilting away from you.

00:54:10 ◼   ► And everyone thinks it looks weird,

00:54:11 ◼   ► and it does the first time you see it,

00:54:13 ◼   ► but way better for ergonomics, there's a reason for that.

00:54:16 ◼   ► Anyway, if Apple makes their keyboards thinner,

00:54:20 ◼   ► it actually reduces the tilt inherently.

00:54:23 ◼   ► And so it slightly improves the ergonomics.

00:54:27 ◼   ► - They can still be totally level.

00:54:28 ◼   ► Like I have a really old translucent plastic

00:54:30 ◼   ► Apple USB keyboard I saw in the attic when I was cleaning stuff up. Those were pretty

00:54:34 ◼   ► much perfectly flat as well, although they did have stupid feet in the back. But anyway,

00:54:37 ◼   ► you can make a keyboard that is level, it just doesn't have to be level and also the

00:54:41 ◼   ► thickness of three credit cards. Because again, I fear that they're going to get to the point

00:54:45 ◼   ► where they're starting to sacrifice travel on the desktop model. So it's like, what space

00:54:48 ◼   ► are you saving? The airspace above my desk? You want to save two millimeters of airspace?

00:54:52 ◼   ► Please, width-wise and height-wise, don't go nuts with the thing. And I understand the

00:54:56 ◼   ► part sharing with the laptops. Like that's why I think it could literally be the same

00:55:00 ◼   ► exact part. I haven't seen the Magic Keyboard, I can't tell if it's actually a laptop-worthy

00:55:04 ◼   ► part, but anyway. I understand the economies of scale going on here, I just think that

00:55:09 ◼   ► the desktop keyboards, and also the little edges around it, people are like "sometimes

00:55:12 ◼   ► it's hard to pick up my keyboard if I want to move it, because how the hell do you pick

00:55:14 ◼   ► it up, because the keycaps go right to the edge." It's a little bit extreme, it's a little

00:55:18 ◼   ► bit, we're getting into the realm of form over function, where like "what do I have

00:55:22 ◼   ► to do with the keyboard? I want to type on it, sometimes you have to move it around."

00:55:26 ◼   ► I don't really care if it looks like,

00:55:29 ◼   ► I mean I do care if it looks like a beautiful piece of art,

00:55:32 ◼   ► but when that look starts to compromise

00:55:35 ◼   ► the basic things I do with my keyboard,

00:55:37 ◼   ► including occasionally picking them up

00:55:38 ◼   ► or moving them around, it's silly.

00:55:40 ◼   ► - But that is today's Apple.

00:55:43 ◼   ► Like the desktop keyboards, I mean,

00:55:45 ◼   ► if there's ever a thing that they make

00:55:47 ◼   ► that that form of a function wins,

00:55:50 ◼   ► it's like the desktop input peripherals

00:55:53 ◼   ► because the function part doesn't really matter.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Anybody who cares about the ergonomics or the size

00:56:01 ◼   ► or the layout or the key switches or the thickness

00:56:03 ◼   ► of their desktop keyboard,

00:56:04 ◼   ► they're just gonna use a different keyboard.

00:56:05 ◼   ► And this is exactly the kind of area

00:56:08 ◼   ► where Johnny Ive's gonna come in and be like,

00:56:10 ◼   ► "All right, well, this needs to look even thinner

00:56:12 ◼   ► "and even sleeker so that it looks great

00:56:13 ◼   ► "in all of our press shots and so the iMac looks great

00:56:16 ◼   ► "and they look great in the stores

00:56:17 ◼   ► "and the boxes can be smaller and all this stuff."

00:56:20 ◼   ► This is exactly the kind of area

00:56:22 ◼   ► where Apple would absolutely go nuts

00:56:24 ◼   ► and sacrifice functionality for form,

00:56:27 ◼   ► and the cost of that isn't so big.

00:56:31 ◼   ► It's way worse than laptops, whereas I said,

00:56:33 ◼   ► you're kind of stuck with the keyboard

00:56:35 ◼   ► that's in a laptop.

00:56:36 ◼   ► So that, I think, is the bigger area

00:56:38 ◼   ► we have to watch out for.

00:56:39 ◼   ► And I do feel like, even though I just got done

00:56:41 ◼   ► praising Apple for how awesome they're probably

00:56:42 ◼   ► gonna be with this, I do feel like

00:56:46 ◼   ► that I'm kind of always on edge trying to defend

00:56:49 ◼   ► and hold onto things on Apple products that work well

00:56:54 ◼   ► or are ergonomically friendly.

00:56:56 ◼   ► Because I feel like I'm always battling Johnny Ive

00:56:59 ◼   ► on like, no, please stop making things worse

00:57:03 ◼   ► or harder to use or more slippery or, you know,

00:57:07 ◼   ► with the Apple TV remote where you can't even tell

00:57:10 ◼   ► which way is up and you're pressing things wrong.

00:57:12 ◼   ► Like, please, please, Johnny, stop, stay away from my things

00:57:16 ◼   ► you're standing off all the things that make them usable.

00:57:19 ◼   ► And I am a little bit worried about that angle of Apple

00:57:23 ◼   ► kind of taking over more than it should.

00:57:25 ◼   ► And that, I think, long term,

00:57:28 ◼   ► both present and into the near future,

00:57:30 ◼   ► I think that is a major concern

00:57:31 ◼   ► that many of us should have about Apple,

00:57:33 ◼   ► that real world usability and ergonomics

00:57:37 ◼   ► seem to be a very low priority and an ever shrinking one

00:57:40 ◼   ► that they're happy to borrow from

00:57:43 ◼   ► to make gains in thinness and appearance.

00:57:45 ◼   ► - Or they've just forgotten how to do it,

00:57:47 ◼   ► like the keyboard I have, the Apple Extended Aluminum Keyboard, I've bought many of these.

00:57:51 ◼   ► I've gone through a couple of them actually breaking the keys, which maybe doesn't speak

00:57:55 ◼   ► to the reliability of the keyboard considering I used the Apple Extended 2 for years and the only

00:57:59 ◼   ► way I broke it is because I dropped my pocket knife off of a shelf onto it and snapped off one

00:58:03 ◼   ► of the function keys. But I like the Apple Extended Aluminum Keyboard in every aspect except for the

00:58:09 ◼   ► fact that the stupid top row of function keys is too close to the number keys and is not full size.

00:58:15 ◼   ► but every other aspect of it, I like that it's thin and small and doesn't have any excess room,

00:58:20 ◼   ► it doesn't have any excess sort of trimming and stuff around it, it could be a little bit flatter

00:58:24 ◼   ► because it does tilt up a little bit, but it is, I think, a reasonable interpretation of the

00:58:29 ◼   ► minimalist flat thing. I like the fact that the keys have low effort because that helps my RSI

00:58:33 ◼   ► and I can't type on a keyboard. So like if given the choice, if you can have any keyboard in the

00:58:39 ◼   ► world with your new Mac, this is still the one that I would pick because it's still basically

00:58:43 ◼   ► my favorite keyboard out of all the ones that I've tried, and I can't use my Apple Extended 2 anymore.

00:58:48 ◼   ► But they went a little bit farther. The next keyboard was like, "Well, the other one had a

00:58:53 ◼   ► little bit of a rim around the edge so you could pick it up. Can we shave that off?" And the answer

00:58:57 ◼   ► is, "Yes, we can." And can we put it directly down to the ground instead of having a lip where you can

00:59:01 ◼   ► get your fingers underneath it? "Well, we can do that too." And can you take off all those useful

00:59:04 ◼   ► keys that people use sometimes? "Yep, they can do that too." And now I'm sad. But you still buy this

00:59:09 ◼   ► one by the way like you can still buy the extended keyboard with your new

00:59:12 ◼   ► computer it's just it's like you feel like you're getting the last generation

00:59:15 ◼   ► thing you can buy this shiny new keyboard that if Casey has and he loves

00:59:18 ◼   ► so much with these cool key switches that I like to I tried them the Apple

00:59:21 ◼   ► store I think they're great too or you can get this old keyboard that silly

00:59:25 ◼   ► people use with the extra keys on them yeah I one of the things I love about

00:59:29 ◼   ► this keyboard is that it is so darn flat now I wouldn't say I'm I ever was

00:59:35 ◼   ► seeking out a keyboard that's flat, but now that it's in front of me, I like that it's

00:59:40 ◼   ► so flat because I feel like it works better for me ergonomically. Now, maybe that's wrong,

00:59:45 ◼   ► maybe I'm crazy, but it feels good to me, and I like that if I decide to take my iPad

00:59:53 ◼   ► on a trip, for example, and I don't want to take my full-on 15-inch work computer, I can

00:59:58 ◼   ► just throw this keyboard in my bag and it's like it's not even there. It's thin, it's

01:00:03 ◼   ► and it's my favorite keyboard I have ever used.

01:00:07 ◼   ► So I know I talk about it constantly,

01:00:09 ◼   ► but I cannot say enough good things about this keyboard.

01:00:12 ◼   ► - It's a great portable keyboard,

01:00:13 ◼   ► but I'm not buying it for portable,

01:00:15 ◼   ► I'm buying it as like, this is the one

01:00:16 ◼   ► that's gonna be attached to my,

01:00:17 ◼   ► and by the way, I like when they're attached with the wire,

01:00:19 ◼   ► because again, I have a place for the wire to go,

01:00:21 ◼   ► and I don't need to deal with Bluetooth,

01:00:23 ◼   ► and I don't need to deal with batteries,

01:00:24 ◼   ► 'cause it's never gonna go anywhere.

01:00:25 ◼   ► It's always gonna be plugged into my computer.

01:00:26 ◼   ► It'll be fine.

01:00:27 ◼   ► So yeah, and the flatness again is not an innovation

01:00:32 ◼   ► of this particular keyboard,

01:00:32 ◼   ► because like I said, there's been flat keyboards

01:00:34 ◼   ► from Apple and others forever and ever and ever

01:00:36 ◼   ► without any feet, without anything that are just nice

01:00:38 ◼   ► and level, it's the tucking in of the edges

01:00:42 ◼   ► and the bringing of the edges straight down to the table

01:00:44 ◼   ► and the trimming off of the keys

01:00:46 ◼   ► and the not having a space between the numbers

01:00:49 ◼   ► and the function keys

01:00:49 ◼   ► because that would make the keyboard ever so slightly bigger

01:00:52 ◼   ► it's like, yeah, all right

01:00:53 ◼   ► if you're making a portable keyboard, I see that trade off

01:00:55 ◼   ► you want it to fit in your backpack,

01:00:56 ◼   ► every millimeter counts, it's gonna be on my desk

01:00:59 ◼   ► every millimeter does not count in the same way

01:01:01 ◼   ► and it just strikes me as a bad trade off.

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01:03:09 ◼   ► Thanks a lot.

01:03:10 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:03:13 ◼   ► - So you had written a post, Marco,

01:03:16 ◼   ► about whether or not Apple's kinda allowing themselves

01:03:19 ◼   ► to get left behind on this whole intelligent assistant thing.

01:03:23 ◼   ► - Can't we just talk about the MacBook Pro some more instead?

01:03:25 ◼   ► - No, I think we've beaten that to death at this point.

01:03:28 ◼   ► So I don't necessarily need to get into the article too much

01:03:32 ◼   ► but I thought it was reasonable.

01:03:35 ◼   ► And then curiously, a day or two later,

01:03:38 ◼   ► there's a article on the information

01:03:42 ◼   ► about Apple's opening up Siri

01:03:44 ◼   ► and it's developing an echo rival.

01:03:47 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:03:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, this could be a coincidence.

01:03:52 ◼   ► It could be a controlled leaking response.

01:03:54 ◼   ► I have no idea.

01:03:55 ◼   ► It's probably a coincidence, being realistic here.

01:03:58 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, so I don't wanna go too far into it.

01:04:02 ◼   ► The gist of my article was, this was another one

01:04:04 ◼   ► of these situations where I write something critical

01:04:07 ◼   ► about Apple in my blog and it just goes everywhere.

01:04:10 ◼   ► This time, I don't feel bad about it.

01:04:13 ◼   ► This time, with the whole functional high ground thing,

01:04:16 ◼   ► I mainly felt bad about it because A,

01:04:19 ◼   ► I did not expect that at all.

01:04:22 ◼   ► I had never seen that kind of response before,

01:04:24 ◼   ► it was more of a shock. B, the bigger reason is that I just didn't write it very well,

01:04:29 ◼   ► I didn't do a very good job of writing it, and so I was kind of embarrassed that a lot

01:04:34 ◼   ► of people, including people at Apple, saw this, and it wasn't very good work. So that's

01:04:39 ◼   ► why I kind of had a hard time back then with the high ground thing. But this time, I wrote

01:04:46 ◼   ► this piece knowing that there was a chance that it might spread, although I didn't expect

01:04:51 ◼   ► the spread of God at all. But knowing there was a chance it might spread, and I wrote

01:04:56 ◼   ► it very carefully, much more carefully than the high ground thing, and I think what came

01:05:01 ◼   ► out, I stand by it. The only thing that I regretted was the, I had originally titled

01:05:06 ◼   ► it "Avoiding BlackBerry's Fate." That kind of implied that if Apple doesn't make this

01:05:12 ◼   ► big shift, they will definitely fail the way BlackBerry did exactly, and that was not my

01:05:18 ◼   ► point that I was trying to make, so I retitled it about a day in to something more closer

01:05:25 ◼   ► to what I actually meant. The rest of it I totally stand by and I don't regret it at

01:05:30 ◼   ► all and so I feel pretty good about it. And it did spread way further than I thought and

01:05:34 ◼   ► many of the crappy rewrites of it have been crappy. Business Insider did what they always

01:05:41 ◼   ► and that's fine. I sent their visitors to the fish meat stick video. And you know, all

01:05:48 ◼   ► the sensational news sites and all the crappy TV people and all the other crappy sites,

01:05:55 ◼   ► they're going to do what they're going to do. And all I need is to be comfortable myself

01:06:02 ◼   ► in standing by what I wrote, in knowing myself that I did good work, that I wrote it, that

01:06:08 ◼   ► that I express myself properly

01:06:10 ◼   ► in the way I wanted to explain myself,

01:06:11 ◼   ► you will not get that reference at all.

01:06:13 ◼   ► - Hi.

01:06:14 ◼   ► - And I'm happy with what I wrote.

01:06:16 ◼   ► And so what I wrote basically,

01:06:18 ◼   ► which I realized now I forgot to say

01:06:20 ◼   ► at the beginning of this giant rant, sorry.

01:06:23 ◼   ► See, I don't stand by this giant rant now.

01:06:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:06:25 ◼   ► But so what it, you know,

01:06:27 ◼   ► what I wrote was basically,

01:06:29 ◼   ► I think, you know, Google and Amazon and Facebook

01:06:34 ◼   ► and as many people pointed out, which I didn't, Microsoft,

01:06:37 ◼   ► they're all making these huge developments in AI-like big data services. So things like,

01:06:44 ◼   ► you know, obviously in the old days things like search and maps and directory stuff and

01:06:48 ◼   ► then now in recent times these like, kind of like, these virtual assistants, chatbots,

01:06:54 ◼   ► things like Siri and Cortana and Google Now and stuff like that, and the Amazon Echo and

01:06:59 ◼   ► the Google Home, Webull thing and whatever Amazon and Apple and Facebook and everybody

01:07:04 ◼   ► else we're gonna come up with next.

01:07:06 ◼   ► If the industry shifts to prioritize the functionality

01:07:10 ◼   ► of these virtual assistants,

01:07:12 ◼   ► of this kind of big data AI problem,

01:07:15 ◼   ► as the primary thing people care about

01:07:18 ◼   ► or the primary functionality people want,

01:07:20 ◼   ► Apple is not in a good place for that.

01:07:22 ◼   ► I made the BlackBerry analogy,

01:07:25 ◼   ► 'cause I was like, when the iPhone came out,

01:07:28 ◼   ► BlackBerry was on top of the world,

01:07:30 ◼   ► and they were doing really well.

01:07:33 ◼   ► The reason BlackBerry was so screwed is because when Apple came out, they changed the game

01:07:39 ◼   ► completely to raise everyone's expectations of what phones could and should do in areas

01:07:46 ◼   ► that rim, you know, they could not catch up at that point if they wanted to because, like,

01:07:53 ◼   ► Apple had moved the goalposts into this area where, okay, now to be competitive you need

01:07:57 ◼   ► to have a desktop class operating system,

01:08:00 ◼   ► this incredibly complex manufacturing pipeline

01:08:04 ◼   ► to make these incredibly precise, high quality devices,

01:08:07 ◼   ► this massive store ecosystem with all these credit cards

01:08:10 ◼   ► on file and all these developer tools

01:08:12 ◼   ► and the ecosystem of computers surrounding them

01:08:14 ◼   ► and like all this crazy stuff that like,

01:08:18 ◼   ► you know, that the iPhone was,

01:08:20 ◼   ► all the stuff that enabled the iPhone

01:08:22 ◼   ► with assets that Apple had been building up

01:08:24 ◼   ► for like a decade before that.

01:08:26 ◼   ► No matter what Blackberry did at that point,

01:08:29 ◼   ► because they weren't building that kind of assets

01:08:31 ◼   ► for a decade, they were not gonna catch up.

01:08:33 ◼   ► The writing was on the wall as soon as Steve showed

01:08:37 ◼   ► the iPhone in early '07, before it even blew up

01:08:40 ◼   ► with the App Store a year later.

01:08:42 ◼   ► The writing was on the wall for Blackberry

01:08:44 ◼   ► 'cause the gap was too wide, they would not be able

01:08:46 ◼   ► to catch up to what the iPhone had now redefined

01:08:49 ◼   ► smartphones to be.

01:08:51 ◼   ► You look now and you see these services,

01:08:54 ◼   ► Apple started out this whole thing with Siri,

01:08:57 ◼   ► and yes, I know Google was doing voice stuff before that,

01:09:00 ◼   ► yes, thank you.

01:09:01 ◼   ► But, you know, Apple kind of started

01:09:02 ◼   ► like the virtual assistant revolution with Siri in 2011.

01:09:07 ◼   ► Yeah, 2011.

01:09:08 ◼   ► It has progressed, it has gotten better,

01:09:10 ◼   ► it has gotten more advanced,

01:09:11 ◼   ► it has added more languages around the world,

01:09:13 ◼   ► which is not an easy thing to do.

01:09:15 ◼   ► But, ultimately, Siri still feels like

01:09:18 ◼   ► a first generation version of this product,

01:09:22 ◼   ► while the competitors are all moving past that

01:09:25 ◼   ► in certain attributes.

01:09:27 ◼   ► So you look at the Amazon Echo,

01:09:28 ◼   ► and the Echo only supports basically US English,

01:09:33 ◼   ► and only is useful to people in the US

01:09:35 ◼   ► for most of its functionality.

01:09:37 ◼   ► But the functionality it does

01:09:40 ◼   ► for those US English speakers,

01:09:42 ◼   ► it does that stuff better and more reliably

01:09:44 ◼   ► and faster than Siri does most of the time.

01:09:47 ◼   ► You look at Google,

01:09:50 ◼   ► is gonna be way better at international support,

01:09:53 ◼   ► way better at different languages,

01:09:55 ◼   ► and Google's also doing a lot of this stuff better,

01:09:58 ◼   ► faster, more reliably now with their Google Now stuff

01:10:02 ◼   ► and all the other Android things that I don't understand.

01:10:05 ◼   ► You know, it's hard to look at this and to see,

01:10:09 ◼   ► yeah, if we all start using these virtual assistants

01:10:12 ◼   ► as our primary interfaces like in two years or whatever,

01:10:15 ◼   ► like, is Apple really gonna catch up

01:10:18 ◼   ► to what Google is doing and what they will have

01:10:20 ◼   ► two years? I don't think so. Because Apple, Apple is not good at big data problems. You

01:10:29 ◼   ► know, number one example of this is the App Store search. You could argue, okay, well

01:10:34 ◼   ► maybe that's like one department that has these technical burdens or whatever else.

01:10:38 ◼   ► Fine, maybe that's true. Okay, what about Siri, where it really matters a lot? Siri

01:10:42 ◼   ► again, it's kind of a Gen 1 product in a Gen 2 world now. And so it is possible, we've

01:10:49 ◼   ► heard lots of rumblings that Apple has made some key acquisitions and investments over

01:10:56 ◼   ► the last year or two and that this WDC, they're going to come out with something major and

01:11:01 ◼   ► it's going to be amazing and that might be true. But just as I said earlier, that Apple

01:11:05 ◼   ► has an amazing track record of MacBook Pro updates. Apple has a really terrible track

01:11:11 ◼   ► record of big data AI problem updates. You hear, "Oh, we've improved Siri, we've

01:11:17 ◼   ► "Now I added these capabilities," or "Now it's better,"

01:11:19 ◼   ► or "Now you can do this," and yet,

01:11:21 ◼   ► somehow it's still unreliable and inconsistent

01:11:24 ◼   ► and sometimes not that smart.

01:11:26 ◼   ► Apple has the opposite problem here of any hype

01:11:29 ◼   ► that's about what Apple might do at WBC

01:11:32 ◼   ► to all of a sudden show us that they're like an amazing AI

01:11:37 ◼   ► and big data company.

01:11:38 ◼   ► I don't believe that for a second.

01:11:40 ◼   ► I would love to be proven wrong.

01:11:42 ◼   ► I really hope I'm proven wrong

01:11:44 ◼   ► because I would so much rather have Apple do well

01:11:47 ◼   ► stuff than have to switch all my garbage to Android. But I don't have a lot of confidence

01:11:54 ◼   ► in Apple doing this stuff because their track record just is not very strong.

01:11:58 ◼   ► So there was an interesting article that I saw today, and I'm assuming it was posted

01:12:02 ◼   ► today, no it was yesterday, on Pixel Envy, and it was titled "Meet Vocal IQ". Vocal

01:12:08 ◼   ► IQ is a small Cambridge-based startup launched in 2011 that specializes in natural speech

01:12:11 ◼   ► recognition and conversational interactions. From a Times article, this is Times UK, published

01:12:19 ◼   ► in June, blah blah blah blah blah, this is a quote from one of their employees, "One

01:12:25 ◼   ► of our key projects is to develop a car that can talk to you like in Knight Rider." Awesome.

01:12:32 ◼   ► So these people got acquired by Apple in October.

01:12:38 ◼   ► And so there was a quote by someone who's been following this, "If Apple utilizes just

01:12:45 ◼   ► a small subset of the technology developed by VocaliQ, we will see a far more advanced

01:12:49 ◼   ► Siri.

01:12:50 ◼   ► However, I'm quite certain that the amazing work of Tom Gruber will also be utilized.

01:12:53 ◼   ► Additionally, the amazing technology from Emolient, Perception, and a number of other

01:12:57 ◼   ► unannounced and future Apple acquisitions will also become a big part of Apple's AI future.

01:13:02 ◼   ► So, Perception apparently was actually a Perceptio, which was a photo classification startup,

01:13:11 ◼   ► which reminds me a lot of Google Photos, which I've also been talking about constantly lately,

01:13:16 ◼   ► because it is amazing. So you put all this together and this article, which is very short,

01:13:21 ◼   ► ends with, "So, who's excited for WWDC?"

01:13:25 ◼   ► And I just think it's interesting.

01:13:27 ◼   ► They've been making a lot of acquisitions

01:13:29 ◼   ► that are right in this wheelhouse,

01:13:31 ◼   ► and we don't know what they've been up to,

01:13:33 ◼   ► but hopefully there's something there.

01:13:36 ◼   ► - I hope that's right.

01:13:37 ◼   ► I mean, again, I really hope I'm wrong on this.

01:13:40 ◼   ► I really hope Apple just suddenly comes out

01:13:42 ◼   ► and is really good at this stuff.

01:13:45 ◼   ► Unfortunately, I don't think it works that way.

01:13:47 ◼   ► I don't think this is the kind of thing you can do quickly.

01:13:50 ◼   ► one thing that's worth investigating is,

01:13:52 ◼   ► yeah, they've made acquisitions like this

01:13:54 ◼   ► and like the Siri people.

01:13:56 ◼   ► Why do these people not stick around?

01:13:59 ◼   ► You know, like is there something about Apple's culture

01:14:01 ◼   ► that, or their organizational structure,

01:14:04 ◼   ► or the departments that these people are hired to work in?

01:14:08 ◼   ► Like why don't they stick around?

01:14:10 ◼   ► Why does Apple need to go buying people

01:14:14 ◼   ► in order to get this kind of talent in the company?

01:14:16 ◼   ► Like is this a problem?

01:14:17 ◼   ► And are there other ways to fix this?

01:14:19 ◼   ► or are there other problems that need to be solved first?

01:14:20 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:14:21 ◼   ► I don't know enough about how they work internally

01:14:23 ◼   ► to really, to have good insight into this,

01:14:26 ◼   ► but what I can see is from the outside.

01:14:28 ◼   ► And again, like, I mean, every time anybody criticizes any,

01:14:32 ◼   ► or has some kind of fear about Apple,

01:14:34 ◼   ► or tries to, you know, or is pessimistic about Apple

01:14:38 ◼   ► in the springtime, everyone always says,

01:14:41 ◼   ► "Oh, just wait, oh, just wait, you're gonna see.

01:14:43 ◼   ► "This is so stupid for you to be thinking about this now,

01:14:46 ◼   ► "'cause just wait 'til everybody see."

01:14:47 ◼   ► "You know what, WWDC is not like Santa Claus.

01:14:50 ◼   ► "It's not magic.

01:14:52 ◼   ► "They're not gonna solve every problem

01:14:53 ◼   ► "that everybody wants them to solve in one keynote,

01:14:56 ◼   ► "and that's not realistic."

01:14:58 ◼   ► People say that I am naive for thinking

01:15:03 ◼   ► Apple's not working on this stuff.

01:15:05 ◼   ► I think thinking Apple's gonna magically solve everything

01:15:07 ◼   ► in two weeks is naive.

01:15:09 ◼   ► I think we can look at what Apple services are today

01:15:13 ◼   ► and what they have been, things like Siri,

01:15:16 ◼   ► things like search and relevancy and predictive inputs

01:15:20 ◼   ► or things like proactive on the phones and everything.

01:15:23 ◼   ► We see what, and Apple News, Apple Music even,

01:15:27 ◼   ► like the recommendations, so we see Apple's

01:15:30 ◼   ► current capabilities, and we know their past capabilities,

01:15:34 ◼   ► in big data, AI-based web services.

01:15:39 ◼   ► And we see that they can do it, they can manage

01:15:43 ◼   ► to have a service out there, and it can work

01:15:47 ◼   ► most of the time and be up most of the time

01:15:49 ◼   ► and be fast most of the time.

01:15:52 ◼   ► But that's like what was good enough five years ago,

01:15:56 ◼   ► 10 years ago.

01:15:57 ◼   ► And now the companies who were really good at this stuff,

01:16:01 ◼   ► like Google, they have moved to a different level

01:16:05 ◼   ► of sophistication and performance and consistency.

01:16:09 ◼   ► And we haven't seen Apple match that level.

01:16:12 ◼   ► And it took them a pretty long time

01:16:13 ◼   ► to get to the last level.

01:16:14 ◼   ► So again, look at their track record.

01:16:18 ◼   ► And I don't think it's unreasonable

01:16:20 ◼   ► to be concerned about this.

01:16:21 ◼   ► - David Schaub made a good point in the chat.

01:16:25 ◼   ► Startup people from all these acquisitions

01:16:28 ◼   ► often aren't compatible with big companies

01:16:31 ◼   ► or perhaps moving to the Cupertino area.

01:16:34 ◼   ► So maybe you're happy in Boston

01:16:36 ◼   ► like this VocalIQ company was.

01:16:38 ◼   ► You get bought up by Apple, you're expected to move.

01:16:41 ◼   ► And sometimes people just like the chase of a startup.

01:16:45 ◼   ► Sometimes they just don't like being always on vacation in California.

01:16:48 ◼   ► And it could be that it has nothing to do with Apple at all.

01:16:51 ◼   ► And it's just the kind of mindset or, or, or geographical situation from the,

01:16:56 ◼   ► from these companies that are being bought.

01:16:58 ◼   ► Or it could be that there's the, their new corporate overlords are killing them

01:17:02 ◼   ► and they just can't handle it anymore.

01:17:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:17:05 ◼   ► What do you think, John?

01:17:07 ◼   ► On an upcoming episode of another podcast on another network, I had a long discussion

01:17:13 ◼   ► about Apple not talking about, you know, agents or services or things like the Google Home

01:17:22 ◼   ► thing or the Amazon Echo or Siri or Cortana or any of that stuff, but about the more mundane

01:17:30 ◼   ► aspects of cloud computing that it seems that Apple still has yet to master, and in particular

01:17:35 ◼   ► the simple idea of that you have an Apple ID, that you were signed into the Apple ID

01:17:41 ◼   ► in various applications on your phone and that it lets you do things like see your past

01:17:45 ◼   ► purchases, make new purchases, download your music for you know Apple Music or iTunes Match,

01:17:53 ◼   ► see your photos, all those things.

01:17:55 ◼   ► And the utter mess that the whole identity and login system is, both on the web, on your

01:18:04 ◼   ► Mac, but especially on your phone with the series of dialogues popping up and you entering your

01:18:09 ◼   ► password and having no idea why you're being prompted and why you're being prompted again.

01:18:12 ◼   ► That is not just like level 1 or 1.0 or whatever. That's like level 0 many, many years ago

01:18:21 ◼   ► that Apple still hasn't gotten right. So I continue to think I've, you know,

01:18:27 ◼   ► I've been being the shrimp for ages about Apple and services,

01:18:32 ◼   ► that just sort of having something that looks on the outside, just like everyone else's service,

01:18:36 ◼   ► like "Yay! We've done it! We have a service! We're a services company!"

01:18:39 ◼   ► You have to keep evolving the basic parts of your system, sort of in the same way that, you know,

01:18:45 ◼   ► in the beginning Google was the search box that you type terms into. Eventually there was something

01:18:50 ◼   ► to sign into. I forget what the first Google thing to sign into was. Maybe it was Gmail,

01:18:53 ◼   ► maybe it was something else. Eventually there was the concept of a Google account that was unifying

01:18:58 ◼   ► all the various Google things together.

01:19:01 ◼   ► And the way Google authentication works

01:19:03 ◼   ► and the way it's consistent, referencing some tweets

01:19:05 ◼   ► that Craig Hockenberry had been doing recently

01:19:07 ◼   ► about how many different ways can you log in

01:19:10 ◼   ► with your Apple ID just on websites alone

01:19:12 ◼   ► and his speculation that each of those talks

01:19:14 ◼   ► to a different backend and that they're all sort of diverse.

01:19:16 ◼   ► And it's just such a big mess compared to how Google's

01:19:21 ◼   ► authentication and login system has evolved over the years

01:19:25 ◼   ► to get sort of more sturdy, more centralized, more comforting, more reassuring, more reliable,

01:19:32 ◼   ► more predictable, whereas Apple's has gone in the opposite direction. It started off

01:19:36 ◼   ► as small and humble and has become fragmented, confusing, and broken a lot of the time and

01:19:41 ◼   ► inexplicable. And like, we're just talking about logging in. We're not talking about

01:19:47 ◼   ► understand my natural language query that I'm speaking into my phone, which seems like

01:19:50 ◼   ► it's a harder problem, but if you neglect the fundamentals, if you don't, but Margaret

01:19:55 ◼   ► was talking about like the, why are these people not staying in the company as top of

01:19:58 ◼   ► this comp on past shows as well. Like, you know, it could be that a serial entrepreneur

01:20:02 ◼   ► doesn't want to move on to other things, but Apple as an organization has never seemed

01:20:05 ◼   ► to value the type of infrastructure work that is necessary to be a world-class services

01:20:10 ◼   ► organization that you, you can't have every project to do everything on its own. You have

01:20:14 ◼   ► to sort of build up a common core infrastructure like it has, like, again, this is a repeat

01:20:18 ◼   ► of shows from many years ago, but like it has on the OS side.

01:20:21 ◼   ► They had a Core OS.

01:20:23 ◼   ► They developed it.

01:20:24 ◼   ► They used it as the underpinning for their new Mac operating system.

01:20:26 ◼   ► It eventually ended up being the underpinning for their phone operating system, also for

01:20:29 ◼   ► their watch operating system, also for their H.264 HDMI adapter cable for, you know, whatever.

01:20:35 ◼   ► Does that one have iOS in it?

01:20:36 ◼   ► I forget.

01:20:37 ◼   ► I think it does, yeah.

01:20:38 ◼   ► Like, Core technologies, Cocoa, Objective-C, their compiler infrastructure, their development

01:20:42 ◼   ► tools, like, on the client side, in the non-service world, they understand that it's stupid for

01:20:47 ◼   ► every product to have its own little thing.

01:20:49 ◼   ► Unify, share where possible.

01:20:53 ◼   ► It just makes more sense.

01:20:54 ◼   ► And on the services side, they haven't quite gotten that.

01:20:56 ◼   ► Down to the most basic thing you could possibly do with a service, which is log in and have

01:21:00 ◼   ► an application that knows that you're logged in, that doesn't ask you to log in repeatedly

01:21:03 ◼   ► for no reason, doesn't lose your login credentials, doesn't get confused, that you don't have

01:21:06 ◼   ► bad weather iCloud days where things just don't seem to be working.

01:21:12 ◼   ► I don't know how many more people get sick of hearing it about this and me listing off

01:21:15 ◼   ► all the technologies that Google has had and developed over the years that are not for

01:21:19 ◼   ► a specific project, that are so that anybody at Google can make a scalable, worldwide,

01:21:24 ◼   ► reliable, redundant, performant network service on top of these things that they build and

01:21:29 ◼   ► this whole section of the company at Google, all they do is make that infrastructure better

01:21:33 ◼   ► and better and revised and replace this one with a better version than that. And just

01:21:37 ◼   ► it's a rising tide lifts all boats and apples just like you're chucked out into sea with

01:21:41 ◼   ► life preserver and sent to fend for yourself. Even the whole, the Siri people touting like

01:21:45 ◼   ► they're moving to the Apache, was it Mesos or something or whatever? Like, I get the

01:21:49 ◼   ► impression that that team is like solving a problem for themselves. Like why is there

01:21:52 ◼   ► not an Apple-wide solution to anybody who wants to write a service like this that is

01:21:56 ◼   ► infrastructure for the whole company? Why is a product team doing it? I don't know.

01:22:01 ◼   ► It seems to me they just don't get it. And that to me explains partly why people who

01:22:04 ◼   ► aren't serial entrepreneurs but just merely want to work in a company that values that

01:22:07 ◼   ► type of work would definitely go to work for Google or even Amazon or Facebook before they

01:22:11 ◼   ► they would go for Apple because those companies

01:22:13 ◼   ► are so much more focused on valuing those server side

01:22:16 ◼   ► and operations and data center things.

01:22:18 ◼   ► Whereas Apple's like, we kind of try to do it in house

01:22:20 ◼   ► and we kind of farm stuff out to Azure and Amazon,

01:22:23 ◼   ► but we're not really good at that stuff.

01:22:24 ◼   ► We mostly make cool devices

01:22:25 ◼   ► and that's just not gonna cut it long-term.

01:22:28 ◼   ► Regardless of whether AI is awesome or anything,

01:22:30 ◼   ► I think it's not cutting it today

01:22:31 ◼   ► and it's just not gonna cut it

01:22:32 ◼   ► even for basic stuff like photos,

01:22:34 ◼   ► which even if you set aside all the cool stuff

01:22:36 ◼   ► that Casey loves about Google Photos,

01:22:38 ◼   ► just the basics of doing photos right

01:22:40 ◼   ► and having them in the cloud and everything,

01:22:41 ◼   ► took them so long to even get like sort of a passable level

01:22:45 ◼   ► of having things working and so many different tries.

01:22:48 ◼   ► And I guess, you know, cloud kit is an attempt

01:22:51 ◼   ► to do that type of infrastructure,

01:22:53 ◼   ► but it's like they're just taking too long

01:22:55 ◼   ► and they're moving too slowly

01:22:56 ◼   ► and everyone else is too far ahead of them.

01:22:57 ◼   ► Again, repeats of stuff I said last week,

01:22:59 ◼   ► but it's on my mind a lot

01:23:02 ◼   ► 'cause I use a lot of Apple products.

01:23:03 ◼   ► And every time I think about,

01:23:05 ◼   ► I'm starting to think about are there aspects of my life

01:23:08 ◼   ► that I use Apple with that I would be better off

01:23:10 ◼   ► using someone else with.

01:23:12 ◼   ► Down to things like Google Photos

01:23:13 ◼   ► with Casey talking about that.

01:23:15 ◼   ► But all the way up to should I stop trying to use Siri

01:23:18 ◼   ► and should I use Google Now?

01:23:20 ◼   ► I'm not gonna go out and get an Android phone at this point,

01:23:22 ◼   ► but I already used Gmail for my mail.

01:23:24 ◼   ► I would never use Apple's mail system for my mail

01:23:26 ◼   ► for a variety of reasons.

01:23:28 ◼   ► Apple's losing on a lot of these fronts.

01:23:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, Google Photos, and I think I may have briefly

01:23:35 ◼   ► mentioned this last episode.

01:23:36 ◼   ► It's really rocked my world in a comfortable way because it really makes me wonder like,

01:23:43 ◼   ► am I missing out on just giving Google everything about everything and having that kind of intelligent

01:23:50 ◼   ► assistant thing for me?

01:23:54 ◼   ► Should I be looking at Android?

01:23:56 ◼   ► You should use the Gmail web interface because it knows when your flights are coming and

01:24:01 ◼   ► it puts a little thing there and you can unsubscribe to lists from like little buttons on your

01:24:05 ◼   ► like it does smart things with your email and gives you little buttons without having to go into them to

01:24:09 ◼   ► and it can put things on your calendar based on what's in there and that may sound annoying and everything but

01:24:14 ◼   ► It's it's actually really convenient

01:24:16 ◼   ► Yeah, Google Photos has shown me like if you're willing to give Google in this case all of your pictures

01:24:22 ◼   ► It's stunning how much intelligence they can provide you based on that, you know, if I want to search for

01:24:29 ◼   ► Picture taken on a patio

01:24:33 ◼   ► in 2012 I probably could search for that and it would probably find it pretty quickly. It's

01:24:39 ◼   ► unbelievable the things that can put together just from the metadata in my pictures.

01:24:44 ◼   ► And so it's not hard to extrapolate well if it's able to get all this from my pictures

01:24:49 ◼   ► what could it do with my email and

01:24:51 ◼   ► maybe with searches and things. And so on the one side every ounce of me is like no that's a terrible idea.

01:24:57 ◼   ► You don't want Google looking at all those things. And then the opposite side of me thinks

01:25:02 ◼   ► It is pretty damn convenient.

01:25:05 ◼   ► Is it really that big a deal?

01:25:06 ◼   ► I mean, they already have my email.

01:25:07 ◼   ► Why not take the rest?

01:25:09 ◼   ► So it's very weird what Google Photos has done

01:25:12 ◼   ► because it's really made me start thinking about

01:25:14 ◼   ► is it worth trading some of that privacy

01:25:16 ◼   ► and some of that data to get something

01:25:18 ◼   ► that is actually useful out of it.

01:25:21 ◼   ► - We are also sponsored this week by Hover

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01:26:05 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:26:08 ◼   ► - I was gonna say one other thing that came up last week.

01:26:11 ◼   ► Again, I feel like I mentioned this to Marco and Slack.

01:26:14 ◼   ► I just feel the crushing invisibility of podcasts

01:26:17 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like we had this discussion

01:26:19 ◼   ► on last week's ADB and nobody knew or cared.

01:26:22 ◼   ► Like it has to be written down somewhere

01:26:23 ◼   ► that people can link to before anyone cares about it.

01:26:26 ◼   ► But anyway, something else that was discussed last week

01:26:28 ◼   ► that I also saw written down in places

01:26:31 ◼   ► was I was reminiscing about the old days when

01:26:34 ◼   ► Apple and Google were friends.

01:26:35 ◼   ► And when Apple introduced the iPhone,

01:26:37 ◼   ► it was like we made this amazing hardware and this amazing OS

01:26:40 ◼   ► on this device that's like nothing you've ever seen before.

01:26:42 ◼   ► And it's powered by these Google services.

01:26:45 ◼   ► And what a great partnership isn't that?

01:26:47 ◼   ► Isn't that great?

01:26:47 ◼   ► We make the OS and the hardware, Google does the services.

01:26:50 ◼   ► And together, you have the best of all possible worlds.

01:26:53 ◼   ► Because we are the best at making hardware.

01:26:54 ◼   ► We are the best at making native client-side applications.

01:26:57 ◼   ► Google is the best at maps.

01:26:58 ◼   ► They're the best at online services.

01:27:00 ◼   ► They're the best at search.

01:27:01 ◼   ► And we're so integrated that we have--

01:27:03 ◼   ► our Maps application is essentially

01:27:05 ◼   ► Google's map application.

01:27:06 ◼   ► Google provides the data.

01:27:07 ◼   ► We wrote the application.

01:27:08 ◼   ► It's a marriage made in heaven.

01:27:10 ◼   ► And they got divorced, and we were all sad.

01:27:13 ◼   ► And I don't know if that's what we're moving towards,

01:27:15 ◼   ► if Apple can never figure this stuff out,

01:27:18 ◼   ► and if Google continues to not be

01:27:21 ◼   ► able to make the money in inroads

01:27:23 ◼   ► that it wants to from Android, and instead

01:27:25 ◼   ► the money from Android ends up going to other people.

01:27:27 ◼   ► Could we end up years and years down the road

01:27:29 ◼   ► where they come back to the table and say,

01:27:31 ◼   ► you know what, we should have never broken up.

01:27:34 ◼   ► I've learned that it's really hard to make money

01:27:35 ◼   ► selling hardware, especially when you give away the OS

01:27:37 ◼   ► for kind of free and in China, they make Android phones

01:27:41 ◼   ► without using any of the Google services.

01:27:43 ◼   ► And we kind of let this whole thing get away from us.

01:27:44 ◼   ► And Apple's like, we tried to make services,

01:27:46 ◼   ► but it's really hard and we're not good at it.

01:27:47 ◼   ► So why don't we just do what we're each good at

01:27:50 ◼   ► and together we can make a great phone platform

01:27:53 ◼   ► where Siri will be powered by Google Now

01:27:56 ◼   ► and iMessage will be replaced with a decent service

01:27:58 ◼   ► it doesn't send messages out of order and has actual new features in it.

01:28:01 ◼   ► But it'll be end-to-end encrypted and, you know, all this, like, I want the best of both

01:28:07 ◼   ► worlds.

01:28:08 ◼   ► And for a brief time, it seemed like that's what we were going to get until both Android

01:28:11 ◼   ► and Apple decided they were both going to do everything that the other person does,

01:28:14 ◼   ► only better.

01:28:15 ◼   ► And thus far, their strengths remain the same.

01:28:20 ◼   ► Google is getting better at hardware, Apple is getting better at services, but if you

01:28:23 ◼   ► were to lay them down again, you would say, "Who's the best at making hardware and operating

01:28:26 ◼   ► systems and all that stuff?"

01:28:27 ◼   ► Apple, who's the best at making services, still Google, so I don't know what the long-term

01:28:31 ◼   ► solution is. But as a customer and not someone who really cares about either one of those

01:28:36 ◼   ► two companies ruling the entire world, it would be nice if we could turn back the clock

01:28:40 ◼   ► on that relationship.

01:28:41 ◼   ► Well, the good thing is, like, I feel like, you know, if you look at the situation on

01:28:45 ◼   ► the Mac, you know, ignoring iOS for a second, look at the Mac. And on the Mac, you have

01:28:51 ◼   ► pretty much what you want.

01:28:53 ◼   ► You have tons of people who use Macs running Mac OS X

01:28:58 ◼   ► with all Apple stuff under it,

01:28:59 ◼   ► maybe even use iCloud for certain things,

01:29:02 ◼   ► but who use Chrome as their browser,

01:29:03 ◼   ► who use Gmail for their mail,

01:29:05 ◼   ► maybe have Google Photos, whatever,

01:29:06 ◼   ► uploader, however that works installed.

01:29:09 ◼   ► On the Mac, you have that world of choice

01:29:12 ◼   ► where you can totally be bought into the Google ecosystem

01:29:16 ◼   ► and still be using a Mac with Mac OS as your computer

01:29:19 ◼   ► and have all the Google stuff running there if you want it.

01:29:22 ◼   ► - They had Siri OS X though,

01:29:23 ◼   ► we're not gonna be able to replace it with Google now.

01:29:24 ◼   ► Like that's the strategy text type of thing,

01:29:26 ◼   ► where like, oh, well if you want a voice assistant

01:29:28 ◼   ► that helps you on your Mac,

01:29:30 ◼   ► you only get to choose the Apple one.

01:29:31 ◼   ► The only, it's almost like it's an accident of history.

01:29:33 ◼   ► - Well that's not true though.

01:29:34 ◼   ► Because on the Mac, you have like the system ability

01:29:38 ◼   ► for like, there's nothing stopping Google

01:29:40 ◼   ► from running their own daemon in the background

01:29:42 ◼   ► that's listening on the microphone for its own commands.

01:29:45 ◼   ► Like, on iOS that is not possible,

01:29:48 ◼   ► in the software environment.

01:29:50 ◼   ► - There's gonna be OS level integration though

01:29:52 ◼   ► that Siri's going to be favored with.

01:29:53 ◼   ► And I guess you could say like, yeah, on the Mac,

01:29:55 ◼   ► all is fair if you get admin access

01:29:57 ◼   ► and you could bypass the system integrity protection

01:30:00 ◼   ► and hack the finder and get your things into the Docker.

01:30:02 ◼   ► Like whatever, Apple always still has an advantage.

01:30:05 ◼   ► Even for things like Spotlight and stuff like that,

01:30:07 ◼   ► like Google tried, didn't Google have

01:30:09 ◼   ► like a Spotlight competitor that was trying

01:30:10 ◼   ► to use the public APIs to do stuff like that?

01:30:13 ◼   ► It's really hard.

01:30:15 ◼   ► And that's what I'm saying,

01:30:16 ◼   ► like it's almost an accident of history

01:30:17 ◼   ► that the web browsers can,

01:30:18 ◼   ► 'cause a web browser is just a plain old application.

01:30:20 ◼   ► And so there's no real barrier to entry there,

01:30:22 ◼   ► especially since Apple still has the way for you

01:30:24 ◼   ► to pick what your default browser is on the Mac,

01:30:26 ◼   ► unlike iOS.

01:30:27 ◼   ► But as you get more and more integrated

01:30:28 ◼   ► into sort of system components,

01:30:29 ◼   ► it becomes harder for any third party,

01:30:32 ◼   ► no matter how good they are,

01:30:33 ◼   ► to compete with the built-in one.

01:30:34 ◼   ► Not only because it's built-in,

01:30:36 ◼   ► but also because there are deep hooks

01:30:38 ◼   ► that you can't get at,

01:30:39 ◼   ► or you can only get at doing nasty hacks

01:30:41 ◼   ► that you have to maintain.

01:30:42 ◼   ► And so in practice, it's really hard,

01:30:45 ◼   ► no matter how bad Spotlight is,

01:30:46 ◼   ► and no matter how good Google's thing could have been,

01:30:48 ◼   ► it's been really hard for them to make a better spotlight.

01:30:51 ◼   ► And I imagine Siri will be similar,

01:30:53 ◼   ► it will be harder for them to integrate their voice up.

01:30:56 ◼   ► And then on iOS, forget it,

01:30:57 ◼   ► you don't have a choice of so many things,

01:30:58 ◼   ► you can't change the default to anything,

01:31:00 ◼   ► and it's just frustrating.

01:31:03 ◼   ► - But I think on the Mac, I think the gap there

01:31:06 ◼   ► between what we have possible now

01:31:10 ◼   ► and the world you imagine as the ideal world here,

01:31:13 ◼   ► that gap is pretty small.

01:31:15 ◼   ► I think we're almost there, we're pretty much there now.

01:31:18 ◼   ► Where if Google wants to make all their stuff for Mac OS X

01:31:22 ◼   ► and integrate their own alternatives

01:31:23 ◼   ► in as many ways as they possibly can,

01:31:26 ◼   ► there are lots of ways to do that right now.

01:31:27 ◼   ► And that's pretty much possible now,

01:31:29 ◼   ► and in many ways it's already done.

01:31:31 ◼   ► Things like Chrome and Gmail and stuff like that.

01:31:33 ◼   ► That's pretty much done.

01:31:34 ◼   ► - But I'm worried about it actually getting worse.

01:31:37 ◼   ► It's the next topic that we probably won't have time

01:31:38 ◼   ► to get to in this show, but the next topic

01:31:40 ◼   ► maybe we'll get to next week is about

01:31:41 ◼   ► Chromebooks outselling Macs in school.

01:31:43 ◼   ► The problem is that Google, because Apple and Google both want to do everything that

01:31:46 ◼   ► everybody does, Google's like, "We should sell laptops, and we should have..."

01:31:50 ◼   ► And it's like, "Well, we don't have a desktop OS.

01:31:52 ◼   ► What should we do?"

01:31:53 ◼   ► Well, can we make a Chrome OS, or can we put Android on Chromebooks?

01:31:57 ◼   ► We have an OS.

01:31:58 ◼   ► It's not really a desktop OS, but maybe that everyone wants to be in everything.

01:32:01 ◼   ► It's almost kind of like only by the good graces of Google, that Google is so nice to...

01:32:06 ◼   ► Not that they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart.

01:32:08 ◼   ► They want our information and our eyeballs, everything else, whatever.

01:32:11 ◼   ► they make their applications for iOS and for the Mac.

01:32:16 ◼   ► Apple is not making FaceTime for Android.

01:32:19 ◼   ► You know, like it's not an open standard that ever,

01:32:21 ◼   ► you know, can't go back to that.

01:32:23 ◼   ► Well, but like Apple keeps itself to its,

01:32:24 ◼   ► it's stuff to its own platform when it's feasible,

01:32:26 ◼   ► whereas Google, it's more important

01:32:28 ◼   ► to get its thing everywhere.

01:32:29 ◼   ► So we are blessed with these gifts from Google,

01:32:33 ◼   ► but like, oh, I can use, you know,

01:32:35 ◼   ► there's a native quote unquote,

01:32:36 ◼   ► native Gmail application for iOS,

01:32:38 ◼   ► and there's Google Now and there's Google Maps for iOS,

01:32:41 ◼   ► even though Apple took the mapping thing back

01:32:43 ◼   ► and did their own native thing.

01:32:44 ◼   ► And I worry that someday, like the Cold War

01:32:46 ◼   ► will get even colder and Google will start behaving

01:32:49 ◼   ► even more like Apple and will be even more siloed

01:32:51 ◼   ► and then the Mac will be, like even the things we enjoy now

01:32:55 ◼   ► will be pulled away from me.

01:32:56 ◼   ► And I feel like with system integrity protection

01:32:58 ◼   ► and other things, it's getting farther and farther away

01:33:01 ◼   ► from the world where anybody could compete

01:33:02 ◼   ► with built-in Apple stuff.

01:33:04 ◼   ► All you can really compete with is Apple applications.

01:33:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I feel like Google and Apple

01:33:10 ◼   ► are both under different leadership

01:33:12 ◼   ► than where they were when this feud

01:33:14 ◼   ► really was at its hottest.

01:33:16 ◼   ► And I think you can look at both companies now

01:33:20 ◼   ► and see that they're very pragmatic

01:33:22 ◼   ► in a lot of their decisions.

01:33:25 ◼   ► And I don't think you're ever gonna see

01:33:27 ◼   ► some kind of grand reunification

01:33:30 ◼   ► where Tim Cook comes out and is like,

01:33:32 ◼   ► "Oh, now we've partnered with Google to replace."

01:33:35 ◼   ► You're never gonna see that,

01:33:36 ◼   ► but I think what you will see is Apple

01:33:39 ◼   ► kind of like yielding certain ground

01:33:41 ◼   ► to enable people to do that kind of thing if they want to.

01:33:44 ◼   ► So, you know, I'm not saying they're gonna suddenly

01:33:47 ◼   ► have everything this fall where like,

01:33:49 ◼   ► oh, you can set your default mail to be Gmail,

01:33:51 ◼   ► you can set your default browser to be a Chromic.

01:33:53 ◼   ► I expect we probably will get to that type of thing

01:33:58 ◼   ► slowly over time as the market kind of

01:34:01 ◼   ► directs Apple to do that.

01:34:02 ◼   ► Like, you know, there's enough demand now.

01:34:05 ◼   ► Like Apple now offers their own versions

01:34:08 ◼   ► of all these different services.

01:34:09 ◼   ► Google's offering their versions of all these

01:34:11 ◼   ► different OS's and hardware and stuff.

01:34:13 ◼   ► So you're right, there's a lot of duplication here.

01:34:15 ◼   ► And that's great because the people who really love Google

01:34:17 ◼   ► can go buy a Chromebook or whatever,

01:34:19 ◼   ► an Android phone and get all their Google stuff.

01:34:21 ◼   ► The people who really love Apple can go buy Apple hardware,

01:34:24 ◼   ► run Apple software, run all Apple services.

01:34:26 ◼   ► Most people are somewhere in the middle.

01:34:28 ◼   ► Most people love some stuff from multiple companies

01:34:31 ◼   ► and aren't purists of either company or any company.

01:34:34 ◼   ► So the more that both companies do to address that giant

01:34:38 ◼   ► middle where most of the customers are, the more they both

01:34:44 ◼   ► really benefit.

01:34:45 ◼   ► And both companies' leadership are smart enough to know that

01:34:47 ◼   ► and they're also, I think, realizing, in the same way

01:34:51 ◼   ► when Steve came back and gave that big speech with

01:34:53 ◼   ► Bill Gates on the big screen and said, for Apple to win,

01:34:57 ◼   ► Microsoft doesn't have to lose or vice versa,

01:35:00 ◼   ► whatever that quote was, I think Tim Cook knows

01:35:03 ◼   ► that even though it's pretty clear that like,

01:35:06 ◼   ► he obviously thinks a lot of what Google does

01:35:09 ◼   ► is distasteful and he's right,

01:35:10 ◼   ► and Google obviously thinks a lot of what Apple does

01:35:12 ◼   ► is arrogant and technically inferior, and they're right,

01:35:17 ◼   ► but the reality is I think both companies,

01:35:19 ◼   ► Google knows that as a services company,

01:35:21 ◼   ► it has to be everywhere, it has to be where the people are,

01:35:24 ◼   ► and a lot of the people are on Apple stuff.

01:35:26 ◼   ► And Apple knows that a lot of its customers

01:35:29 ◼   ► who buy its devices really want to use

01:35:31 ◼   ► some of Google's stuff on them.

01:35:33 ◼   ► So they're both gonna address that.

01:35:35 ◼   ► They're not gonna let that demand go totally unanswered

01:35:38 ◼   ► in the name of like spite over a 10 year old battle

01:35:43 ◼   ► that neither company's CEO was really part of.

01:35:47 ◼   ► - Well, but the thing that's motivating,

01:35:49 ◼   ► seems to be motivating Apple now to bestow its gifts

01:35:54 ◼   ► onto other platforms is the things that are services

01:35:56 ◼   ► like Apple Music.

01:35:57 ◼   ► This is Apple Music for Android, right?

01:35:59 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Am I not imagining that?

01:36:00 ◼   ► - Yes, there is.

01:36:01 ◼   ► because apple music is a service once

01:36:04 ◼   ► for products that are like services

01:36:07 ◼   ► you end up using the google rationale well it's a service and the most

01:36:10 ◼   ► important thing is that we have a lot of customers so it has to be everywhere

01:36:14 ◼   ► right same thing that motivated itunes for windows

01:36:17 ◼   ► like it

01:36:18 ◼   ► when you're in the service mindset for your service products the calculus is

01:36:22 ◼   ► different and you end up putting it everywhere

01:36:24 ◼   ► uh... but the other calculus when it is like this is the reason someone would

01:36:29 ◼   ► buy a mac we know

01:36:30 ◼   ► or this is the reason someone will buy a phone,

01:36:32 ◼   ► we use FaceTime or whatever,