ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► I hate looking at text manipulation in JavaScript.

00:00:02 ◼   ► It just makes me sad.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Of course.

00:00:04 ◼   ► We've got a for loop with an iterator.

00:00:06 ◼   ► That's great.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Good.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Nice language.

00:00:09 ◼   ► For var i equals zero, i less than words dot length, i plus plus.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Seriously?

00:00:13 ◼   ► That's every C-based language, John.

00:00:15 ◼   ► Come on.

00:00:16 ◼   ► No, wait.

00:00:17 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:00:18 ◼   ► Not necessarily.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Iterating.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Even Objective-C has been iterating over collections without an explicit iterator for many, many

00:00:24 ◼   ► years now.

00:00:25 ◼   ► In fact, there's been like seven different versions of iterating over collections.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Even PHP has that.

00:00:29 ◼   ► - It's just depressing.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Every single JavaScript library

00:00:31 ◼   ► implements their own each thing, you know,

00:00:33 ◼   ► and all the ES6 and all the other, you know,

00:00:37 ◼   ► maybe even the later versions of ES5 have stuff like this,

00:00:41 ◼   ► but then you gotta go back down to just the very bottom.

00:00:44 ◼   ► - JavaScript is the new PHP.

00:00:46 ◼   ► - I'm saying it.

00:00:47 ◼   ► - Don't forget to use triple equals.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Avoid those cautions.

00:00:50 ◼   ► - We should probably do some follow up.

00:00:53 ◼   ► So Chris Adamson wrote in to tell us about audio bus.

00:00:57 ◼   ► Do you wanna talk to us about that, John?

00:00:59 ◼   ► Sure, I think it was Marco who misled us in the last program.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Yep, that was me.

00:01:03 ◼   ► About Audiobus being a network thing.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Chris says, "Audiobus never relied on network loopback

00:01:09 ◼   ► for inter-process communication."

00:01:11 ◼   ► There was a blog post by Michael Tyson,

00:01:12 ◼   ► who I think is one of the creators.

00:01:14 ◼   ► We'll put a link in the show notes.

00:01:15 ◼   ► And it explains that the earliest versions of Autobus

00:01:18 ◼   ► used MIDI SYSX messages, which allow

00:01:20 ◼   ► for arbitrary buffers of data to be sent across the MIDI bus.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Later, he migrated to MachPorts--

00:01:23 ◼   ► I know what those are--

00:01:25 ◼   ► which Apple's MIDI messaging is built on top of.

00:01:27 ◼   ► So there's Audiobus.

00:01:28 ◼   ► audio boss who is getting a bad rap on the last episode.

00:01:32 ◼   ► It is not as crazy as we made it sound.

00:01:35 ◼   ► And how about the interapp audio framework?

00:01:37 ◼   ► Yeah, and so last episode we were also talking about supported, better supported APIs rather

00:01:42 ◼   ► than, not that the random third-party thing is bad necessarily, especially since it's

00:01:46 ◼   ► building on top of existing facilities like the MIDI thing and mock ports which are part

00:01:50 ◼   ► of the kernel that's underneath the iOS and OS X and Apple TV OS and the watch OS and

00:01:57 ◼   ► and so on and so forth.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Well, there is, added in iOS 7 to the audio unit framework,

00:02:04 ◼   ► something called InterAppAudio, IAA,

00:02:07 ◼   ► that enables the ability to send MIDI commands

00:02:10 ◼   ► and stream audio between apps on the same device.

00:02:12 ◼   ► And so if there are a bunch of applications

00:02:15 ◼   ► that support this mechanism,

00:02:17 ◼   ► as I imagine there are after iOS 7,

00:02:19 ◼   ► things like virtual effects pedals for audio applications

00:02:24 ◼   ► that you can send audio from one app to the other,

00:02:26 ◼   ► But of course, as Marker pointed out last time,

00:02:29 ◼   ► Skype doesn't support these type of things,

00:02:30 ◼   ► probably is never going to support these type of things.

00:02:32 ◼   ► So there's still a place for,

00:02:34 ◼   ► and officially supported by the OS way

00:02:36 ◼   ► to route audio arbitrarily,

00:02:38 ◼   ► because all the audio is going through,

00:02:40 ◼   ► or the OS is aware that it's happening.

00:02:43 ◼   ► And the routing capabilities are probably in there,

00:02:46 ◼   ► which is how tools like Loopback and AudioHijack

00:02:48 ◼   ► work their magic.

00:02:50 ◼   ► But the fact that they're using private APIs

00:02:53 ◼   ► makes them a little bit dangerous

00:02:56 ◼   ► to support over the longterm.

00:03:00 ◼   ► So it would be better if Apple,

00:03:02 ◼   ► instead of forcing every single application developer

00:03:05 ◼   ► on an entire system to write to a new API,

00:03:09 ◼   ► especially if those applications

00:03:10 ◼   ► don't consider themselves audio apps,

00:03:12 ◼   ► like most of these APIs are for people

00:03:14 ◼   ► who are making music applications to work together,

00:03:17 ◼   ► I think it would still be nice for the OS

00:03:19 ◼   ► to expose the mechanisms that are so clearly there

00:03:22 ◼   ► to control the audio routing at the OS level

00:03:26 ◼   ► rather than just the individual app level

00:03:28 ◼   ► cooperating with each other through the OS.

00:03:31 ◼   ► - So Marco, tell us about lightning only headphones

00:03:33 ◼   ► as John Casey asked about.

00:03:35 ◼   ► - Yes, this is not confusing at all.

00:03:36 ◼   ► So John Casey asked about something, John and Casey,

00:03:39 ◼   ► and I will be talking about it.

00:03:40 ◼   ► So basically, he threw out an interesting idea

00:03:44 ◼   ► regarding the future of the iPhone 7

00:03:47 ◼   ► not having a headphone jack probably

00:03:49 ◼   ► and a future in which headphones are lightning only,

00:03:54 ◼   ► he said, "Many headphones come with detachable

00:03:56 ◼   ► "and replaceable cables.

00:03:58 ◼   ► "Any chance Apple might make a replacement cable,

00:04:00 ◼   ► "not just an adapter dongle?"

00:04:02 ◼   ► So the idea there would be that Apple sells you

00:04:05 ◼   ► just a straight replacement cable for your legacy headphones.

00:04:09 ◼   ► So one end has lightning, the other end has

00:04:12 ◼   ► a little skinny thing that plugs into headphones

00:04:13 ◼   ► at the top end instead of just being

00:04:15 ◼   ► this clunky adapter on the bottom.

00:04:16 ◼   ► This, and of course in the middle,

00:04:18 ◼   ► they could put a really good clicker,

00:04:19 ◼   ► which would be great.

00:04:20 ◼   ► So this is a great idea in theory.

00:04:23 ◼   ► In practice, it would probably not work very well

00:04:26 ◼   ► because the problem is the end of the cable

00:04:29 ◼   ► at the headphone, at the ear cup end of it,

00:04:32 ◼   ► that end is not standard.

00:04:34 ◼   ► Now usually it is either another three and a half inch jack

00:04:38 ◼   ► just like the end by the phone.

00:04:40 ◼   ► Or it could be a smaller one, the two and a half inch

00:04:42 ◼   ► version or the two and a half millimeter.

00:04:45 ◼   ► And then around it, you have a similar problem

00:04:48 ◼   ► to the very, very first iPhone where it had that big plastic surround and you couldn't

00:04:53 ◼   ► fit every kind of headphone plug into it. Sometimes the plug would be too wide, like

00:04:58 ◼   ► the plastic around the plug would be too wide and it just wouldn't fit around the housing

00:05:03 ◼   ► around the port. That problem exists big time on headphones with replaceable cables where

00:05:10 ◼   ► so often, I'd say most of the time, a headphone can't actually, even a headphone that has

00:05:15 ◼   ► that has a detachable cable usually can't use

00:05:18 ◼   ► another cable made for a different headphone.

00:05:20 ◼   ► Usually something about it doesn't fit

00:05:22 ◼   ► or it doesn't click in right if there's some kind

00:05:24 ◼   ► of locking mechanism or something like that.

00:05:26 ◼   ► So in practice, the end of the headphone cable

00:05:29 ◼   ► on the headphone, on the ear cup,

00:05:32 ◼   ► is not standardized enough even among the ones

00:05:35 ◼   ► with removable cables to make it possible

00:05:37 ◼   ► for somebody to make like a general purpose

00:05:39 ◼   ► aftermarket replacement that fits a lot of them.

00:05:42 ◼   ► That being said, Apple could of course make,

00:05:45 ◼   ► like one that works for all Beats,

00:05:47 ◼   ► or at least the most, I mean,

00:05:48 ◼   ► Beats doesn't have that many popular models.

00:05:50 ◼   ► They could cover those and cover a large portion

00:05:53 ◼   ► of the Apple headphone using population.

00:05:56 ◼   ► That is not saying it's likely they would do this.

00:05:59 ◼   ► I think the most likely answer is

00:06:00 ◼   ► they wouldn't address it at all,

00:06:02 ◼   ► and the answer would just be, well, buy new headphones,

00:06:04 ◼   ► or use our adapter.

00:06:05 ◼   ► - Do all Beats have detachable cables?

00:06:08 ◼   ► - I don't know enough about them to say if all do.

00:06:11 ◼   ► I know many of them do.

00:06:13 ◼   ► And generally speaking, detachable cables are something

00:06:16 ◼   ► I always hope that headphones have,

00:06:18 ◼   ► and I always ding them if they don't in the review,

00:06:21 ◼   ► because especially for desk headphones,

00:06:24 ◼   ► it's not as necessary,

00:06:25 ◼   ► because you tend not to wear those out.

00:06:27 ◼   ► Portable headphones, they're constantly being wrapped up

00:06:30 ◼   ► and unwrapped and put in bags and taken out and everything,

00:06:33 ◼   ► and so there's a lot of stress on the cables,

00:06:34 ◼   ► and usually what makes headphones die,

00:06:38 ◼   ► what makes headphones go bad or stop being usable,

00:06:40 ◼   ► is usually one of two things.

00:06:42 ◼   ► usually either the wire frays near one of the ends,

00:06:45 ◼   ► usually the phone end, but if it's a permanent cable

00:06:48 ◼   ► it can also fray at the place where it meets the ear cup.

00:06:50 ◼   ► Or if they're beats, they literally break in half.

00:06:54 ◼   ► Because the head, literally, because if you're on,

00:06:57 ◼   ► if you have a plastic headband,

00:07:00 ◼   ► when you put headphones on,

00:07:02 ◼   ► the headband has to stretch out a little bit,

00:07:03 ◼   ► and so it's constantly being stretched and un-stretched,

00:07:06 ◼   ► and stretched and un-stretched.

00:07:07 ◼   ► So the stress of that, if you have an all plastic headband,

00:07:10 ◼   ► very often results in the headband cracking

00:07:13 ◼   ► right in the middle.

00:07:14 ◼   ► That is usually how bad headphones break.

00:07:16 ◼   ► Good headphones usually eventually break

00:07:17 ◼   ► 'cause the cables go bad somewhere along the way.

00:07:20 ◼   ► - All right. - Anyway.

00:07:21 ◼   ► - We have some super important follow-up.

00:07:25 ◼   ► The internet, possibly the country

00:07:28 ◼   ► or maybe even the world would like to know, John,

00:07:32 ◼   ► what's going on with your Destiny HUD?

00:07:35 ◼   ► - We talked about when I had to move my PlayStation 4

00:07:39 ◼   ► off of my plasma television onto a separate gaming monitor because I was playing Destiny

00:07:43 ◼   ► a lot and I noticed that the HUD that is up on the screen while playing Destiny was burning

00:07:47 ◼   ► into my plasma screen.

00:07:49 ◼   ► So I had to evict the entire console from the television, which was kind of a shame

00:07:52 ◼   ► because it looked way better on my TV than it does on this terrible little monitor that

00:07:55 ◼   ► I'm using right now.

00:07:57 ◼   ► But when I moved it away, I also set a calendar reminder for a year in the future to say,

00:08:05 ◼   ► me to check whether the destiny hud had finally uh worn off of my television because what i had

00:08:11 ◼   ► heard from people who had uh people who had the same model as me is that yes image retention is a

00:08:15 ◼   ► problem but in most cases it's not actually permanent it just takes forever to go away so

00:08:21 ◼   ► i said fine i'll put a thing for a year some people say it took many months some people say

00:08:24 ◼   ► it took multiple years so i figure i'll put a reminder for a year and it's not like i've

00:08:27 ◼   ► forgotten about it i've been watching tv and i've been looking at it in fact i'm always looking at

00:08:31 ◼   ► my television i was noticing that the you know the cartoon network logo that i've complained about

00:08:35 ◼   ► and past shows was burning in. But anyway, this is the year anniversary. To the day, I think?

00:08:40 ◼   ► Probably to the day. So I took a look on my television in the various ways that you can do,

00:08:45 ◼   ► the way you're putting solid colors behind it and a pure white screen and stuff like that.

00:08:49 ◼   ► And I can say that from a normal sitting distance, if I didn't know where the HUD was supposed to be,

00:08:57 ◼   ► I wouldn't be able to see it. I think a normal person would not be able to see it.

00:09:01 ◼   ► Can barely see only the super bar the big bar that fills with with color as your super gets charged up and

00:09:09 ◼   ► Turns the other one. It's fully charged

00:09:11 ◼   ► I can barely

00:09:13 ◼   ► Kind of make out where that used to be no other part of the hud is visible and that even like I got up really close

00:09:18 ◼   ► To television like am I just imagining that it's there because I remember where it was

00:09:22 ◼   ► I'll love to see this so I it's it is almost entirely gone

00:09:27 ◼   ► You can totally see the big C and a little bit of the end in Cartoon Network

00:09:31 ◼   ► Network so that's a good you know thing to compare it to like I can see the CN

00:09:34 ◼   ► And Cartoon Network has been banned from this television as well now

00:09:37 ◼   ► But so I say that the the destiny had experiment destiny's not coming back to my TV

00:09:42 ◼   ► My ps4 is not coming back to TV of I I might move it back for an individual game or two

00:09:47 ◼   ► But I wouldn't play destiny over there

00:09:50 ◼   ► But anyway, it has faded substantially so what looked like a permanent image retention was not actually permanent

00:09:56 ◼   ► It just took a really really long time to go away

00:09:57 ◼   ► So I suppose I'll put another calendar in for a year from now

00:10:01 ◼   ► I'm gonna revisit for a second year to see if it's really really gone

00:10:04 ◼   ► But at some point I just want to replace this TV with a fancy old lead one

00:10:06 ◼   ► So people who need to start making better televisions

00:10:08 ◼   ► The theme of every episode people need to start making better televisions they do John Syracuse

00:10:15 ◼   ► This is a bad time for TVs. I'm trying to wait it out. I I bought I felt like I bought at the right time

00:10:21 ◼   ► I bought the peak of the previous generation of televisions and now just

00:10:26 ◼   ► to endure this until we come out the other side.

00:10:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, it does seem like you bought probably

00:10:30 ◼   ► the best 1080p plasma that will ever exist

00:10:33 ◼   ► and probably the best plasma that will ever exist.

00:10:36 ◼   ► And now you just kind of have to wait for like

00:10:38 ◼   ► when 4K gets non-stupid.

00:10:41 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, they got to work out all the HDR stuff

00:10:44 ◼   ► and work out their standards there

00:10:45 ◼   ► and get the OLED kinks worked out.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Like there was a fancier model than the one I got

00:10:49 ◼   ► but it had slightly lower brightness and so I sacrificed

00:10:52 ◼   ► and it was also more money and I was like,

00:10:54 ◼   ► It's very similar, it's really too close to call,

00:10:57 ◼   ► and I think the extra brightness will be what I wanted.

00:10:59 ◼   ► But yeah, I bought pretty much at the right time,

00:11:02 ◼   ► and I lucked out with the fan noise and everything,

00:11:04 ◼   ► which I was afraid of.

00:11:06 ◼   ► That turned out not to be an issue,

00:11:07 ◼   ► especially compared to my previous television.

00:11:08 ◼   ► But right now, I finally did read up on all the TVs

00:11:12 ◼   ► at CES and everything, and now it's like,

00:11:14 ◼   ► just a battle over the high dynamic range standards,

00:11:18 ◼   ► and all those different standards,

00:11:20 ◼   ► and which channels are gonna support what

00:11:23 ◼   ► broadcast and will Netflix support it and what things the ultra HD blu-rays are supporting and

00:11:29 ◼   ► what television manufacturers are and it's just it's a big mess I really want that to just be

00:11:34 ◼   ► settled and then and then of course OLEDs you have to make you have to make a few generations

00:11:39 ◼   ► of OLEDs before they get that all worked out so there's a long way to go here I mean a lot of the

00:11:43 ◼   ► HDR standards are being supported by televisions that can't actually display the entire range of

00:11:47 ◼   ► of the HDR stuff yet.

00:11:49 ◼   ► So yeah, two or three years probably.

00:11:52 ◼   ► - Now, just to prevent us from getting a crud load of email,

00:11:55 ◼   ► would you mind reminding the listeners

00:11:56 ◼   ► what TV you ended up buying?

00:11:58 ◼   ► - Oh, I don't remember the name for it.

00:12:00 ◼   ► It's Panasonic VT60.

00:12:03 ◼   ► - Excellent.

00:12:04 ◼   ► - The ZT60 was the fancy, the slightly fancier one.

00:12:07 ◼   ► - All right, thank you very much.

00:12:09 ◼   ► Now, do you wanna tell us about pirate eye patches?

00:12:11 ◼   ► Because we got a surprising amount of feedback

00:12:15 ◼   ► about pirate eye patches.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Never in my life did I think we would be getting this serious about pirate eye patches on the

00:12:20 ◼   ► Accidental Tech podcast, but here we are.

00:12:23 ◼   ► I opened the door on the pirate eye patch, so I might as well finish closing in here.

00:12:26 ◼   ► So the first thing to point out, which is not something we discussed last time, is not

00:12:30 ◼   ► whether or not the things we said about pirate eye patches helping you see in the dark were

00:12:35 ◼   ► actual, you know, it was actually true, does it actually help you see in the dark?

00:12:38 ◼   ► Because we did link to the Mythbusters episode about that.

00:12:41 ◼   ► But the larger issue of did lots of pirates have eye patches?

00:12:46 ◼   ► And the consensus on that seems to be probably not, like there's no evidence of that.

00:12:51 ◼   ► The only reason we think that is because, you know, Hollywood and various movies and

00:12:55 ◼   ► stories and famous pirates and Blackbeard and all that other business or whatever, but

00:12:58 ◼   ► historical records of pirates, like were there a lot of one-eyed pirates?

00:13:01 ◼   ► Were all the pirates wearing eye patches so they could see better under decks?

00:13:05 ◼   ► There's no evidence for that.

00:13:06 ◼   ► So that is basically probably completely apocryphal, you know, and not really basinating.

00:13:11 ◼   ► But the other part that we were talking about is, does that actually help you see under

00:13:15 ◼   ► decks?

00:13:16 ◼   ► And this, I think, is a great example of what I would call testing versus explaining.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Somebody sent us a link to this other podcast that had, I forget what it's called, but it's

00:13:27 ◼   ► a Q&A type podcast where they ask questions they had an expert on to answer, and the question

00:13:31 ◼   ► was like, "Hey, if you put an eye patch over your eye, would that help you see better?

00:13:35 ◼   ► one eye will be adjusted to the dark or whatever and the person on this show said their answer

00:13:40 ◼   ► contained all correct information but didn't really lead to the correct conclusion and

00:13:44 ◼   ► the idea was that you keep one eye under an eye patch and the other eye out of it, it's

00:13:49 ◼   ► not as if the eye under the eye patch, the pupil is going to dilate massively and the

00:13:53 ◼   ► eye that's out of the eye patch the pupil is not going to because in general if one

00:13:57 ◼   ► of your pupils is way bigger than the other you probably just got hit in the head really

00:14:00 ◼   ► hard and you should see a doctor like they they tend to be the same size, what is called

00:14:03 ◼   ► like consensual response or whatever,

00:14:05 ◼   ► like that your pupils are basically,

00:14:07 ◼   ► you've heard it on all the television shows,

00:14:08 ◼   ► you know, equal and reactive

00:14:10 ◼   ► when they do the little light thing in your eyes

00:14:12 ◼   ► to make sure that A, your eyes respond to light

00:14:14 ◼   ► by, you know, your pupils getting smaller,

00:14:17 ◼   ► and B, that they're equal.

00:14:18 ◼   ► If one of them stays open,

00:14:20 ◼   ► they want you to go to the doctor really quickly, right?

00:14:23 ◼   ► And so they said, therefore,

00:14:25 ◼   ► the whole idea of a pirate eye patch is silly

00:14:28 ◼   ► because it's not as if the one under the eye patch

00:14:30 ◼   ► is gonna have a really dilated pupil

00:14:32 ◼   ► just waiting for you to go under decks and flip up the eyepatch, right?

00:14:35 ◼   ► Now what the Mythbusters did instead was rather than trying to think of a theory of why it

00:14:38 ◼   ► wouldn't work, they said, "Well, this is easy enough to test.

00:14:40 ◼   ► Why don't we just make a dark place and put an eyepatch in someone's eye and give them

00:14:43 ◼   ► some silly task, like see how fast" -- I forget they were doing it on the episode, but -- "see

00:14:47 ◼   ► how fast they can accomplish a bunch of tasks in this really dark room."

00:14:49 ◼   ► And they tried it without the eyepatch, and the eyepatch just crushed the non-eyepatch

00:14:53 ◼   ► one.

00:14:54 ◼   ► It was an extremely efficient way to see better in the dark.

00:14:58 ◼   ► And so how do you square this circle?

00:15:01 ◼   ► the explaining thing went wrong is the idea that the size of your pupil is the only thing

00:15:06 ◼   ► that determines how well you see in the dark. That is one aspect of it, your pupil opens

00:15:10 ◼   ► up to let more light in, but the other aspect of it is how sensitive the little things in

00:15:15 ◼   ► the back of your eye are. And someone sent us a link to a thing about astronomy, red

00:15:19 ◼   ► lights in astronomy, and why you want to use red lights when you're looking over the stars.

00:15:24 ◼   ► And that contains another theory of what helps you see in the dark, and it's the sensitivity

00:15:29 ◼   ► of the rods at the back of your eye that help you see in the dark from this article.

00:15:35 ◼   ► During daylight hours, your rods are overexposed and so they're less efficient.

00:15:37 ◼   ► As light gets dimmer, a chemical change allows them to become even more sensitive and your

00:15:41 ◼   ► eyes become dark adapted.

00:15:43 ◼   ► It only takes brief exposure to bright light for the rods to overexpose.

00:15:47 ◼   ► Once that happens, you have a half an hour or more to regain dark sensitivity.

00:15:51 ◼   ► So you really want it to be under the eye patch not to change the size of your pupil,

00:15:54 ◼   ► but to get the rods in that eye, which are not consensual with the rods in the other

00:15:57 ◼   ► right on like your iris dilation, to get them to be more sensitive to light.

00:16:02 ◼   ► And it's important because if you expose them just for a short period of time, it's going

00:16:05 ◼   ► to take like half an hour for them to get back to that super dark sensitive way because

00:16:08 ◼   ► it's a chemical change in the eye and not just a physical change in, you know, essentially

00:16:12 ◼   ► adjusting the aperture of your eyeball.

00:16:15 ◼   ► It's ISO versus aperture basically.

00:16:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:16:17 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:16:19 ◼   ► Everything you ever wanted to know about pirate eye?

00:16:21 ◼   ► Probably not because people are still going to want to know why the hell do we think pirates

00:16:24 ◼   ► have eye patches.

00:16:25 ◼   ► particular pop culture thing caused us to think that. But regardless of whether or not

00:16:30 ◼   ► they had eye patches, if they did, they could use them just like they did in Mythbusters

00:16:33 ◼   ► and it would help them see in the dark better.

00:16:36 ◼   ► Fair enough. And do you want to talk about how this relates to programming?

00:16:42 ◼   ► Well, I don't know how. Like, the testing versus explaining, I guess, like, one of my

00:16:46 ◼   ► pet peeves as an old cranky programmer is if you hear... Whether it's going on between

00:16:52 ◼   ► you and another programmer or you hear two other programmers sitting near you talking

00:16:56 ◼   ► to each other about -- it's usually some silly corner of the language thing because people

00:17:01 ◼   ► love talking about language. But even it could be an API or whatever. Well, if you do this,

00:17:05 ◼   ► it does that. And well, you know, if you call it in this way, that will happen. And this

00:17:10 ◼   ► thing doesn't have blah, blah, blah. And they'll just go back and forth for what seems like

00:17:13 ◼   ► a really long time, especially if they're sitting near you and talking and you're trying

00:17:15 ◼   ► to get work done. And trying to come up with --

00:17:19 ◼   ► Yeah, trying to come up with like, you know, explaining to each other.

00:17:23 ◼   ► No, actually, language works this way.

00:17:24 ◼   ► Oh, you're not accounting for this, blah, blah, blah, where there's no reason to have

00:17:28 ◼   ► this discussion because in 20 seconds of typing, you can find the answer definitively.

00:17:32 ◼   ► Like you don't have to speculate about what this language feature is like.

00:17:35 ◼   ► So is that a syntax error or how would you do the expression?

00:17:38 ◼   ► Is this the correct way to do references or whatever?

00:17:40 ◼   ► Don't speculate.

00:17:41 ◼   ► Don't debate it for 10 minutes.

00:17:42 ◼   ► Just type it in.

00:17:43 ◼   ► There's your answer.

00:17:46 ◼   ► And then you can talk about why that's the answer or whatever, but you don't have to

00:17:49 ◼   ► Google search, you don't do anything, like especially if you're in a language with a

00:17:51 ◼   ► REPL, just find out. So it's testing versus explaining. Explaining and theorizing and

00:17:56 ◼   ► thought experience are a good idea, but when it's really really easy or you know simple or

00:18:01 ◼   ► very readily available to test it, just testing is faster and better and will lead you wrong

00:18:07 ◼   ► in its own type of ways if you do your testing badly, but sometimes things are just very simple.

00:18:11 ◼   ► So the eyepatch thing is like we have a theory, we think eyepatches help you see better in the dark,

00:18:15 ◼   ► Is that true? So easy to test. You could spend all day talking to doctors and neurologists

00:18:22 ◼   ► and theorizing about it, and they'll probably get the right answer. But if you get off on the wrong

00:18:26 ◼   ► track and think about, "Oh, dilation, that's not going to help you there," it's just so much easier

00:18:31 ◼   ► to test it. So I don't think most of us here knows or cares why it works. They just tested it,

00:18:35 ◼   ► and assuming their test is reasonably sound, they come to a useful conclusion in much less time.

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00:20:30 ◼   ► Now, the incredibly interesting follow-up

00:20:32 ◼   ► that we've been holding off on this whole time.

00:20:35 ◼   ► - Yes, this is riveting and really important.

00:20:38 ◼   ► Actually, I joke because it is kind of silly,

00:20:40 ◼   ► but I was really interested to know

00:20:42 ◼   ► where the crap is the serial code,

00:20:45 ◼   ► or the serial number on a Visa mount iMac.

00:20:50 ◼   ► - As soon as we discovered last week

00:20:52 ◼   ► that the serial number for a regular iMac with the big foot

00:20:55 ◼   ► is on the bottom of the foot.

00:20:57 ◼   ► - Right.

00:20:58 ◼   ► - And so the question was,

00:20:59 ◼   ► if you get one with the Visa mount,

00:21:01 ◼   ► that is, you know, like that custom monitor mount

00:21:03 ◼   ► in the back that doesn't have the foot,

00:21:05 ◼   ► doesn't come with the foot,

00:21:06 ◼   ► where would they put the serial number?

00:21:08 ◼   ► - Right, and so we figured, you know,

00:21:10 ◼   ► probably would be somewhere on the mount or what have you,

00:21:13 ◼   ► because where else would it be?

00:21:15 ◼   ► And sure enough, James McCain has written in

00:21:17 ◼   ► and included a picture,

00:21:19 ◼   ► this is professional level follow-up right here,

00:21:21 ◼   ► included a picture of exactly where the serial number is

00:21:25 ◼   ► on his Visa mount iMac.

00:21:28 ◼   ► And so it turns out it is, if you flip the entire machine upside down, it's kind of printed in there right by the fan.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Is that the exhaust or intake in the back?

00:21:37 ◼   ► That is exhaust. The intake is the big ridge in the bottom.

00:21:40 ◼   ► Fair enough. So anyway, so that's where it is as it turns out.

00:21:43 ◼   ► I was waiting for Jason Snell to let us know, but apparently he's not caught up on the show.

00:21:47 ◼   ► I'm very upset at him. But James McCain has saved the day. So thank you, James.

00:21:51 ◼   ► I remember back in the day, speaking of serial numbers, that if you got certain repairs done to, say, your laptop Mac,

00:21:56 ◼   ► the serial number would change because they give you a full motherboard swap or whatever.

00:22:01 ◼   ► And if that's still the case, especially that's why I was asking if this was a sticker or

00:22:04 ◼   ► etched onto the thing, you could end up with, if they replace the guts of your iMac, with

00:22:10 ◼   ► a machine that has a different serial number than the one that is actually etched into

00:22:13 ◼   ► the metal on the device, which could be very confusing to all involved if you're not aware

00:22:16 ◼   ► of that.

00:22:17 ◼   ► I think I remember we actually had a repair done like that maybe to a white iBook, maybe

00:22:20 ◼   ► like my mom's white iBook or something, we had some repair and they said just so you

00:22:24 ◼   ► know your serial number will be changing but even though you have the same external case.

00:22:28 ◼   ► Anyway, I don't know if that's still an issue but it always struck me as weird that they would

00:22:32 ◼   ► attach the serial number to the physical device but it's really connected to the innards of the

00:22:40 ◼   ► device so you could end up in these scenarios where things are wrong. I think they can also,

00:22:43 ◼   ► like, I don't know, there's another thing for genius as a consensus, I think they used to be

00:22:47 ◼   ► able to change the serial number of your motherboard by like flashing it back to the old

00:22:51 ◼   ► value but I don't know if that's a thing that they did.

00:22:53 ◼   ► Yeah, so a friend of the show, Steven Hackett in the chat, is saying, crap I lost it, oh

00:22:59 ◼   ► they have to re-serialize the boards and usually that comes with a sticker you put over the

00:23:03 ◼   ► etch serial number.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Also the tipster in the chat is saying when the serial is changed for laptops they will

00:23:08 ◼   ► often swap the bottom cover with one that has no serial.

00:23:12 ◼   ► They have to give you a sticker?

00:23:14 ◼   ► Oh, the indignities.

00:23:16 ◼   ► We fixed your Mac, but by the way,

00:23:18 ◼   ► here's a sticker to put over the beautiful

00:23:21 ◼   ► laser etched in serial number that's there.

00:23:23 ◼   ► No thanks.

00:23:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would, I mean, the good thing is that there,

00:23:26 ◼   ► I mean, on laptops it's a problem.

00:23:28 ◼   ► On the desktops, at least they're like hidden away

00:23:29 ◼   ► in places that you'd never see it.

00:23:31 ◼   ► But if it's on your laptop, like now with the modern ones,

00:23:34 ◼   ► that's on the outside, on the bottom.

00:23:36 ◼   ► Like you would totally see that.

00:23:37 ◼   ► - Well that's why I was saying giving a bottom thing

00:23:39 ◼   ► that has no serial numbers, then you can be like

00:23:40 ◼   ► Steve Jobs with no license plates on his car.

00:23:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, totally off the grid.

00:23:44 ◼   ► untracked by Apple's serial number readers.

00:23:46 ◼   ► - Untraceable except every other aspect of my computer.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - Traceable except by all the software on the computer.

00:23:53 ◼   ► - I just love how deeply offended you guys are

00:23:56 ◼   ► about the thought of having a sticker on your computer.

00:23:58 ◼   ► - Well look, either you're a sticker person or you're not.

00:24:00 ◼   ► If you're not, the idea of any sticker on there

00:24:03 ◼   ► is horrible, the whole reason we buy Macs

00:24:05 ◼   ► is we wouldn't have Intel inside, Nvidia powered,

00:24:08 ◼   ► all these, powered by invention, by Asus,

00:24:11 ◼   ► like all this stupid stuff they put on their computers,

00:24:14 ◼   ► and on the PC world, and here we don't have that.

00:24:17 ◼   ► If you are a sticker person,

00:24:19 ◼   ► you probably want better stickers

00:24:21 ◼   ► than stupid Apple serial number one.

00:24:24 ◼   ► - All right, so moving out of follow-up,

00:24:27 ◼   ► Apple earnings were as we record last night.

00:24:30 ◼   ► It turns out they made a lot of money, go figure.

00:24:33 ◼   ► But there's a couple things that I think are interesting.

00:24:36 ◼   ► First of all, their guidance for iPhone sales

00:24:41 ◼   ► is down a bit, so they haven't said,

00:24:43 ◼   ► if I understood things correctly,

00:24:45 ◼   ► they haven't said that they've sold less iPhones already,

00:24:48 ◼   ► but they are expecting to sell less iPhones

00:24:50 ◼   ► in the next quarter, is that accurate?

00:24:52 ◼   ► - That's compared to the year ago quarter, right?

00:24:55 ◼   ► - 'Cause last year there were a number of reasons,

00:24:57 ◼   ► and last year there were some overflow

00:24:59 ◼   ► from the holiday quarter that was very strong,

00:25:00 ◼   ► so some of those happened in the next quarter,

00:25:04 ◼   ► and so we're not gonna have that this year,

00:25:06 ◼   ► and then also last year there was tons of pent-up demand

00:25:08 ◼   ► for the bigger screen phones,

00:25:10 ◼   ► and this year that has been alleviated,

00:25:12 ◼   ► and then there's currency fluctuations

00:25:14 ◼   ► and economy fluctuations and everything else.

00:25:17 ◼   ► I don't know, do we care?

00:25:18 ◼   ► Does it matter?

00:25:20 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, I don't think we care about the details

00:25:22 ◼   ► in the way that the people on the financial call do.

00:25:24 ◼   ► Like, tell us exactly why this quarter

00:25:26 ◼   ► will be weaker than they were, but like,

00:25:29 ◼   ► I'm looking at Jason Stell's six college post

00:25:31 ◼   ► with all the pretty graphs and everything.

00:25:32 ◼   ► If you just look at the four quarter moving average graphs

00:25:36 ◼   ► and try to get a shape of the lines

00:25:38 ◼   ► the various products and how they're doing.

00:25:42 ◼   ► It's still kind of hard to help because a lot of it is revenue instead of units in these

00:25:44 ◼   ► graphs but you can get a kind of idea of where the company is at with its various product

00:25:50 ◼   ► lines.

00:25:51 ◼   ► Are you guys looking at this page?

00:25:52 ◼   ► Like look at Apple revenue, four quarter moving average showing the total and the iPhone,

00:25:57 ◼   ► iPad, and the Mac.

00:25:59 ◼   ► Right, so you get a picture of the company here.

00:26:02 ◼   ► The total line shows you that the company is still going, you know, from the lower left

00:26:06 ◼   ► to the upper right, more or less,

00:26:08 ◼   ► if you're gonna draw a trend line.

00:26:09 ◼   ► Growth, right, good.

00:26:11 ◼   ► And then where does that growth come from?

00:26:12 ◼   ► You see this iPhone line that is going up,

00:26:15 ◼   ► but it's starting to get a little hump at the top of it.

00:26:17 ◼   ► Not, you know, it's not going hockey stick upwards.

00:26:20 ◼   ► Now it's starting to go more like, you know, ski mogul.

00:26:25 ◼   ► Mump, I don't know, whatever you wanna call it.

00:26:28 ◼   ► It's a mound, right?

00:26:29 ◼   ► The slope is decreasing, right?

00:26:31 ◼   ► Along the bottom you have the Mac,

00:26:33 ◼   ► which always on these graphs looks like just a flat line,

00:26:35 ◼   ► because the fluctuations, the Mac is so low below the iPhone that the fluctuations are

00:26:39 ◼   ► barely visible.

00:26:40 ◼   ► And then you've got the iPad, which like starts off around the same as the Mac, makes a tentative

00:26:45 ◼   ► bid to go to the higher parts of the chart, and then says, "Nah, never mind," and actually

00:26:49 ◼   ► dips below the Mac in the most recent year.

00:26:52 ◼   ► Yeah, this was not a good report for the iPad.

00:26:55 ◼   ► No.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Yeah, so look at the iPad one.

00:26:58 ◼   ► Look at iPad units, four-quarter moving average.

00:27:00 ◼   ► Now it looks like it's like, you know, it's a hump.

00:27:03 ◼   ► It's an upside-down U.

00:27:04 ◼   ► It starts at the bottom, goes up to the top,

00:27:05 ◼   ► and starts going down again.

00:27:07 ◼   ► And now we're getting an actual proper hump.

00:27:09 ◼   ► I think there's a better one later on

00:27:10 ◼   ► if you ever see the iPod graph.

00:27:13 ◼   ► Have you ever seen a graph with the iPod on it too?

00:27:15 ◼   ► The iPod just looks like it comes out of nowhere,

00:27:17 ◼   ► makes this big lump, and goes back down to basically zero.

00:27:20 ◼   ► It makes a nice mound in the graph.

00:27:21 ◼   ► Like, here I am in the iPod, oh, nevermind.

00:27:23 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:27:25 ◼   ► - It had a good run.

00:27:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's over the course of many, many years,

00:27:28 ◼   ► but I wish I could find that graph.

00:27:30 ◼   ► The thing that's striking about looking at the iPod

00:27:32 ◼   ► is like that the iPod is like,

00:27:34 ◼   ► its hump is even smaller than the iPad's hump

00:27:37 ◼   ► or similar size to the iPad's hump.

00:27:38 ◼   ► We thought the iPod was this whole big world changing

00:27:40 ◼   ► Apple's the iPod company kind of thing.

00:27:42 ◼   ► It is nothing compared to the iPhone.

00:27:44 ◼   ► The problem with all these graphs is

00:27:45 ◼   ► as soon as you put the iPhone on the graph,

00:27:46 ◼   ► it totally blows the y-axis

00:27:48 ◼   ► and you can't read anything anymore

00:27:49 ◼   ► because the iPhone is so ridiculously huge,

00:27:52 ◼   ► makes so much money, sells so many units

00:27:55 ◼   ► that everything else starts to kind of even out.

00:27:57 ◼   ► But anyway, the one thing I put in the show notes about this

00:28:00 ◼   ► I think the iPad is the real story that I'm interested in at least in these earnings results.

00:28:05 ◼   ► Yeah, well and also one thing before we move on to the iPad is obviously the iPhone is

00:28:12 ◼   ► the company. The iPhone is the most important thing in the company by numbers and by many

00:28:18 ◼   ► other metrics by a long shot. It's not even close. Like it says down here on this chart

00:28:23 ◼   ► it's the iPhone made 68% of the revenue

00:28:28 ◼   ► in the entire company.

00:28:30 ◼   ► The average selling price of the iPhone

00:28:32 ◼   ► is incredibly important to the company's financial outlook.

00:28:37 ◼   ► And this is why, when I make predictions

00:28:40 ◼   ► or when I try to explain things

00:28:42 ◼   ► that use the iPhone average selling price

00:28:45 ◼   ► as a justification for why Apple did or might do something,

00:28:50 ◼   ► this kind of shows you why that might override decisions from Apple about things like what's

00:28:56 ◼   ► actually best for the customer or what actually might be the best product. Because everything's

00:29:02 ◼   ► in balance with Apple, with any company, everything's in balance. No company is like pure good or

00:29:07 ◼   ► pure evil. Everything's always these contending factors that are trying to reach equilibrium

00:29:13 ◼   ► but there's always this contention between them. I don't know if contending is a word

00:29:17 ◼   ► but it is now anyway.

00:29:19 ◼   ► So with Apple, they're always kind of fighting

00:29:21 ◼   ► between what they can make, what's possible to make,

00:29:23 ◼   ► what they can ship on time, what's profitable,

00:29:26 ◼   ► and what's best for the customer.

00:29:27 ◼   ► In the case of the iPhone average selling price,

00:29:30 ◼   ► I think they are definitely willing to do moves

00:29:33 ◼   ► that will raise the average selling price

00:29:35 ◼   ► by a substantial amount, even if it's kind of crappy

00:29:38 ◼   ► for the customer.

00:29:39 ◼   ► And I think you can look at the 16 gig base size

00:29:42 ◼   ► of the phones as one of the biggest examples of this.

00:29:46 ◼   ► that there is almost no other justification for that.

00:29:49 ◼   ► You can look at almost every other reason

00:29:51 ◼   ► people gave for that back when we all,

00:29:53 ◼   ► you know, discussed it two years ago or whatever.

00:29:56 ◼   ► And you can rule almost all of them out

00:29:58 ◼   ► by other supporting reasons.

00:30:00 ◼   ► Like people say, "Well, oh, well,

00:30:01 ◼   ► "we buy all these phones in our company

00:30:03 ◼   ► "and no one ever uses more than 16 gigs."

00:30:05 ◼   ► Well, you could also say a lot of phones

00:30:06 ◼   ► don't use the ear pods that are in the box,

00:30:08 ◼   ► but they still include them.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Like, or, you know, your company doesn't use,

00:30:11 ◼   ► necessarily, like 3D Touch,

00:30:13 ◼   ► but that thing's in every phone, too.

00:30:15 ◼   ► So you can look at any part of it and you can say,

00:30:17 ◼   ► a lot of people don't use this,

00:30:19 ◼   ► that's not necessarily a reason why the 16 gig thing

00:30:22 ◼   ► has to be there and be sucking and be problematic

00:30:23 ◼   ► for so many people.

00:30:24 ◼   ► Anyway, so Apple is willing and possibly,

00:30:28 ◼   ► I wouldn't say forced to, but there's strong pressure

00:30:32 ◼   ► for Apple to keep that iPhone ASP up and growing.

00:30:36 ◼   ► And so for them to do things that will increase

00:30:39 ◼   ► the average selling price by even a little bit,

00:30:42 ◼   ► it matters enough and there's huge motivation

00:30:44 ◼   ► to do it. And so you look at something like the headphone jack thing. And we are all saying

00:30:48 ◼   ► Apple always includes headphones in the box. Well what if this fall the iPhone 7 comes

00:30:52 ◼   ► out with no headphone jack and they don't include headphones in the box. Then a huge

00:30:57 ◼   ► portion of iPhone buyers are going to go spend 30 more dollars when they buy that phone.

00:31:02 ◼   ► That's going to be an attachment sale that counts towards the average selling price I

00:31:04 ◼   ► think of the phone itself. Anyway however they count for that they're going to make

00:31:08 ◼   ► a lot more money if they do that. You know you can look at this cynically and you can

00:31:12 ◼   ► You can say Apple will do this for sure

00:31:14 ◼   ► 'cause it'll make them more money and it sucks for us.

00:31:16 ◼   ► Or you can look at it the opposite way

00:31:18 ◼   ► and you can say Apple always wants to do

00:31:19 ◼   ► what's best for customers, they would never do that

00:31:21 ◼   ► for that reason.

00:31:22 ◼   ► I think the truth is somewhere in the middle there.

00:31:24 ◼   ► So we have to consider that when we look at

00:31:27 ◼   ► what Apple does with the product line,

00:31:29 ◼   ► especially in regards to the iPhone

00:31:31 ◼   ► and how that impacts their profitability

00:31:33 ◼   ► even if it kinda sucks for us.

00:31:34 ◼   ► And all this financial stuff that comes out every quarter

00:31:38 ◼   ► is a perfect reason why they have very strong reasons

00:31:41 ◼   ► to have some contention there.

00:31:43 ◼   ► - I don't feel like they're so wed

00:31:44 ◼   ► to average selling price,

00:31:46 ◼   ► because in the past they've done things

00:31:47 ◼   ► that have hurt their average selling price

00:31:49 ◼   ► on their products to, you know,

00:31:50 ◼   ► like the iPad mini is a great example.

00:31:52 ◼   ► But margins, I feel like a lot of those decisions

00:31:55 ◼   ► are just as easily explained,

00:31:57 ◼   ► if not better explained by margins.

00:31:59 ◼   ► Because like the 16 gig thing,

00:32:00 ◼   ► the average selling price argument

00:32:02 ◼   ► is this is gonna push people up to the bigger model

00:32:04 ◼   ► 'cause they don't feel like they can fit in 16.

00:32:06 ◼   ► But it could also just result in more people buying 16s,

00:32:08 ◼   ► you don't quite know,

00:32:09 ◼   ► 'cause Apple doesn't break it down like that for us, right?

00:32:11 ◼   ► But surely one thing it does is increase margins, because it's like, 64 already had good margins,

00:32:16 ◼   ► and by keeping the lower one in 16, and keeping the prices basically the same, that 16 gigs

00:32:22 ◼   ► that they've been including on their phone for years and years, it's just got to be getting

00:32:25 ◼   ► cheaper for them, and yet the phone price hasn't been dropping year over year over year,

00:32:29 ◼   ► so their margins go up.

00:32:30 ◼   ► And I think they are really sensitive to their margins, and their margins are, I think it's

00:32:34 ◼   ► like 40% or something across the board on all of their stuff.

00:32:38 ◼   ► So even if they have to drop the average selling price by selling the iPad mini, I bet they're

00:32:42 ◼   ► very sensitive about what are the margins on the iPad mini.

00:32:45 ◼   ► How can we bring that down by putting crappier stuff in it?

00:32:47 ◼   ► You know, that's kind of always what they're looking for.

00:32:51 ◼   ► Can we sell you something with last year's technology in it in some aspect because it

00:32:55 ◼   ► saves us money?

00:32:56 ◼   ► Whether it's like putting the credit of your camera in the iPod Touch that's not subsidized

00:33:00 ◼   ► and they have to maintain their margins or, you know, whatever they put in their low-end

00:33:04 ◼   ► phones or even on their highest-end phones will keep the prices more or less the same,

00:33:08 ◼   ► but we'll give you 16 gigs for years and years

00:33:10 ◼   ► because every year that gives us a little bit more

00:33:12 ◼   ► on the margins.

00:33:13 ◼   ► And like you said, Marco,

00:33:14 ◼   ► anything to do, whether it's average selling price

00:33:16 ◼   ► or margins multiplied by the number of phones they sell

00:33:18 ◼   ► is a tremendous amount of money.

00:33:20 ◼   ► And that's a lot of what this call was about

00:33:22 ◼   ► was like foreign exchange rates

00:33:25 ◼   ► and various other quote unquote headwinds,

00:33:29 ◼   ► these fluctuations in how the dollar is valued

00:33:31 ◼   ► against the other currencies in the world has,

00:33:34 ◼   ► it seems like it's not that big a deal.

00:33:36 ◼   ► It's not like we're in some financial meltdown

00:33:38 ◼   ► the dollar is like worthless or worth 10 times more than all the currencies in the world,

00:33:42 ◼   ► right?

00:33:43 ◼   ► But even minute movement in the foreign exchange rates multiplied by Apple's revenue equals

00:33:49 ◼   ► these tremendous numbers.

00:33:50 ◼   ► So a lot of the things I saw getting thrown around on Twitter are like, "The amount of

00:33:53 ◼   ► money Apple lost due to currency fluctuations is larger than the amount of money Facebook

00:33:58 ◼   ► made in the entire year," or something like that.

00:34:00 ◼   ► The numbers are so mind-bogglingly huge that any – like, the fluctuations in the chart

00:34:04 ◼   ► look like nothing.

00:34:05 ◼   ► You know it's a few pixels lower or whatever, but like those pixels are billions and billions and billions of dollars

00:34:10 ◼   ► So it's it's it's mind-boggling to even consider this and that's why I'm so glad I'm not a financial world because

00:34:16 ◼   ► Trying to judge Apple as a from a financial perspective

00:34:21 ◼   ► It's just so so weird because of the way

00:34:23 ◼   ► The things they value seem so out of whack with the things that like a regular person would value about a company

00:34:29 ◼   ► Oh, they're making a lot of money. They're profitable they have a lot of money in the bank boy

00:34:32 ◼   ► That must be a good stock like no. Where's the growth?

00:34:34 ◼   ► - Growth.

00:34:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:34:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is like, when something like this happens,

00:34:38 ◼   ► I am so happy that I no longer buy or sell individual stocks

00:34:43 ◼   ► like, you know, I have mutual funds

00:34:46 ◼   ► that include some of these things, I'm sure,

00:34:47 ◼   ► but I don't manage that myself

00:34:50 ◼   ► and I don't buy and sell stock anymore.

00:34:52 ◼   ► I'm so glad because I would think of things

00:34:55 ◼   ► like, you know, the way you would,

00:34:56 ◼   ► like I would think of things like, you know,

00:34:57 ◼   ► Apple's doing great, they have great prospects,

00:34:59 ◼   ► they're making a lot of money,

00:35:00 ◼   ► why did their stock just take a dive?

00:35:02 ◼   ► And it would frustrate me like crazy

00:35:04 ◼   ► And of course, that isn't how the market works at all.

00:35:06 ◼   ► Like the market, everyone says the market is stupid

00:35:09 ◼   ► and doesn't understand Apple.

00:35:10 ◼   ► No, the market is doing its own thing.

00:35:11 ◼   ► It's not stupid.

00:35:12 ◼   ► There's a lot to be said about it that's bad,

00:35:15 ◼   ► but it's not stupid.

00:35:16 ◼   ► - There's some stupid.

00:35:17 ◼   ► - Well.

00:35:18 ◼   ► - Usually the stupid manifests in the other way

00:35:19 ◼   ► where companies are overvalued for,

00:35:23 ◼   ► like because anyway, it's just another form of gambling.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Buy low, sell high.

00:35:26 ◼   ► How do I know what's low?

00:35:27 ◼   ► Well, low is something that's gonna be high later.

00:35:30 ◼   ► And so people, a bunch of people will get together

00:35:32 ◼   ► and say, look at that company.

00:35:33 ◼   ► That's gonna be super high later.

00:35:35 ◼   ► And you know, bid it up and have astronomical valuation

00:35:39 ◼   ► because it's based on the potential.

00:35:40 ◼   ► This could be really high later.

00:35:41 ◼   ► Boy, if everybody decides to buy this person's thing,

00:35:45 ◼   ► this'll be great.

00:35:46 ◼   ► But you know, it's just basically speculation.

00:35:48 ◼   ► What do you think is gonna be high next year?

00:35:51 ◼   ► Is it gonna be Apple?

00:35:51 ◼   ► Is Apple gonna go up by 50% by next year?

00:35:54 ◼   ► Or is this a little company you never heard of?

00:35:55 ◼   ► You can buy the stock for pennies, you know?

00:35:57 ◼   ► So that's, yeah, it's not, it's kind of a sucker's bet.

00:36:00 ◼   ► Not really because you can, in theory,

00:36:03 ◼   ► have some knowledge that will help you do better.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Witness people like Warren Buffett and everything

00:36:07 ◼   ► are pretty sure not cheating.

00:36:09 ◼   ► They're just a little bit better at playing

00:36:11 ◼   ► this particular game of poker than other people.

00:36:14 ◼   ► So there is a, it's not all luck,

00:36:15 ◼   ► there is a skill-based aspect, but for the most part,

00:36:18 ◼   ► like I don't get too mad about the way Apple is treated

00:36:22 ◼   ► by the market because I have to think,

00:36:23 ◼   ► like I mean this is what everyone's been thinking

00:36:24 ◼   ► for years and years, you're like,

00:36:25 ◼   ► well, there's nowhere for them to go but down,

00:36:27 ◼   ► they're at the top.

00:36:28 ◼   ► If you had thought that five years ago

00:36:30 ◼   ► and five years before that and five years,

00:36:31 ◼   ► you just put them in wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,

00:36:32 ◼   ► That's what all the analysts always point out.

00:36:34 ◼   ► It's like every time someone says that Apple's at the top

00:36:36 ◼   ► and they can only go down, you just wait five years

00:36:38 ◼   ► and you make fun of those people, right?

00:36:39 ◼   ► But at some point they'll be right,

00:36:41 ◼   ► because if not, Apple will have all the money in the world

00:36:43 ◼   ► and we will literally have no money

00:36:44 ◼   ► because Apple will have it all.

00:36:45 ◼   ► And it's just like Moore's Law.

00:36:46 ◼   ► You can't keep doubling forever

00:36:48 ◼   ► because eventually you will have all the monies.

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00:38:47 ◼   ► - What I found interesting about this

00:38:50 ◼   ► is that the iPads are down and down fairly big,

00:38:56 ◼   ► Which, in and of itself, I know we have already covered that, but having just gotten a new

00:39:00 ◼   ► iPad, and now being able to unlock, if you will, all the multitasking features in iOS

00:39:07 ◼   ► 9, I have fallen in love with my iPad again.

00:39:12 ◼   ► And I know that a lot of our friends, even ones like Mike Hurley, who were kind of aggressively

00:39:20 ◼   ► anti-iPad very recently, are now falling in love with their iPad Pros.

00:39:26 ◼   ► So what gives?

00:39:27 ◼   ► Am I weird in that I really love my iPad Mini?

00:39:31 ◼   ► And is Mike weird in that he really loves his iPad Pro?

00:39:35 ◼   ► What is going on that apparently a lot of people have fallen out of love with the iPad?

00:39:39 ◼   ► I'm going to answer the easy questions first.

00:39:41 ◼   ► Yes, you're both weird.

00:39:42 ◼   ► But that's not here, neither here nor there.

00:39:44 ◼   ► That is a separate thing entirely.

00:39:45 ◼   ► Thanks, Bobby.

00:39:46 ◼   ► I was thinking about this, and I think like now that we have a nice shape to this graph,

00:39:49 ◼   ► and now that we can clearly see that it's like this, enough time has passed where we

00:39:53 ◼   ► We could be like, it's not replacement cycle.

00:39:56 ◼   ► It's not some other thing that we like.

00:39:57 ◼   ► It's just basically like this is starting to take the shape

00:40:00 ◼   ► of the other type of devices.

00:40:01 ◼   ► And I, although I still am totally signed up

00:40:04 ◼   ► with the idea of the interface that we all know

00:40:07 ◼   ► and love in our phones being eventually being the thing

00:40:10 ◼   ► that supplants what we currently know as the PC,

00:40:12 ◼   ► whether or not the iPad does it, I'm not sure.

00:40:14 ◼   ► But the way I'm conceptualizing the iPad now,

00:40:18 ◼   ► which I think kind of explains like your, Casey,

00:40:20 ◼   ► your attitude towards it and Mike's and everything,

00:40:22 ◼   ► is that currently, for now, the iPad is a specific product,

00:40:26 ◼   ► not like the tablet in general,

00:40:28 ◼   ► but the iPad is a specific product

00:40:29 ◼   ► I'd see as filling two main roles.

00:40:33 ◼   ► First, it is a rich toddler's toy.

00:40:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:40:40 ◼   ► Because, I mean, and I'm lumping myself in that,

00:40:42 ◼   ► my kids have iPads, they're the kids of rich people, right?

00:40:45 ◼   ► In general, like most of the people I know

00:40:48 ◼   ► who live in a similar place that I do,

00:40:50 ◼   ► have suburban lives, professional jobs, they have iPads they give to their kids.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Sometimes they're hand-me-down iPads or whatever, but just like I see a lot of

00:40:59 ◼   ► iPads that are used by kids, right? So it is and I say toddlers because once the

00:41:03 ◼   ► kids get older they want a phone, right? Yep. And that's obviously, you know,

00:41:07 ◼   ► that's everything. And the other thing the iPad is, is to use Steve Jobs

00:41:12 ◼   ► parlance, it's a truck. The iPad is the truck of the world of, you know, iOS and

00:41:18 ◼   ► touch devices or whatever. Most people don't need a truck. Most people get away

00:41:22 ◼   ► with the car, which is called their phone. It does everything they could possibly

00:41:25 ◼   ► need, but some people, the weird people, need a truck. Not just the iPad Pros the

00:41:30 ◼   ► truck, but the entire iPad line is now revealing itself as a truck, because

00:41:33 ◼   ► everyone else is saying, "You know what? The phone is fine. The phone is all I

00:41:36 ◼   ► need. Phone does everything I want." And then in the other realm that you could

00:41:40 ◼   ► say, "If it's not a Rich Toddlers toy, what about the non-Rich Toddlers?" I think

00:41:45 ◼   ► tablets still have a role for everybody,

00:41:49 ◼   ► for little kids in particular,

00:41:50 ◼   ► because it's a great little child's toy,

00:41:52 ◼   ► but they just buy cheap Android tablets

00:41:54 ◼   ► so they can watch YouTube.

00:41:54 ◼   ► I think if I replace my kids' iPads

00:41:57 ◼   ► with $99 Android tablets just played YouTube,

00:42:00 ◼   ► they would be mostly satisfied.

00:42:02 ◼   ► That's mostly what they do with it,

00:42:03 ◼   ► is they use it to watch YouTube.

00:42:04 ◼   ► It doesn't take too much to run YouTube.

00:42:06 ◼   ► So in the current life of the iPad product line,

00:42:10 ◼   ► they seem like a product that has a much,

00:42:15 ◼   ► much narrower appeal than the phone.

00:42:17 ◼   ► And that's what they're really competing with,

00:42:19 ◼   ► is the phone, not the laptop at this point or whatever.

00:42:21 ◼   ► So in that light, I think it's a good move

00:42:24 ◼   ► for Apple to have finally gotten off its butt

00:42:25 ◼   ► and done the iPad Pro, which by the way,

00:42:27 ◼   ► doesn't factor at all into these results.

00:42:29 ◼   ► And I wouldn't expect them to move.

00:42:31 ◼   ► I mean, they're factored some,

00:42:32 ◼   ► but like the iPad Pro came at the tail end

00:42:34 ◼   ► of the results that we're looking at right here.

00:42:36 ◼   ► But that's not a mainstream product, right?

00:42:39 ◼   ► So anyway, if the iPad's going to be a truck,

00:42:41 ◼   ► make a better truck for crying out loud, right?

00:42:44 ◼   ► - I mean, in the original analogy,

00:42:47 ◼   ► the PC or the computer was the truck,

00:42:51 ◼   ► and the iOS devices were the cars.

00:42:54 ◼   ► And I think the PC still is the truck,

00:42:58 ◼   ► and the iPad is like maybe the El Camino,

00:43:02 ◼   ► or like the, what's that Subaru half-truck thing?

00:43:06 ◼   ► - Oh god, I know exactly what you're thinking about,

00:43:07 ◼   ► but I can't place it.

00:43:08 ◼   ► - The Baja, that's it.

00:43:09 ◼   ► The Subaru Baja.

00:43:11 ◼   ► It's like, it's not even, it's neither a great car

00:43:14 ◼   ► nor a great truck.

00:43:16 ◼   ► It's kind of in the middle there.

00:43:17 ◼   ► Maybe there's a reason why the El Camino is not made anymore

00:43:21 ◼   ► and the Subaru Baja is not the most popular car.

00:43:25 ◼   ► Nobody looked at the Subaru Baja and said,

00:43:28 ◼   ► "This is the future of cars."

00:43:30 ◼   ► You know, the same way, like, everyone looks at the iPad

00:43:32 ◼   ► and says, "This is the future of computing."

00:43:34 ◼   ► - But it is, but it is, like it totally is.

00:43:36 ◼   ► - Is it? - Yeah, no, it totally is.

00:43:38 ◼   ► I mean, we have it born out, when they say that,

00:43:40 ◼   ► They mean like a thing that is not a PC,

00:43:43 ◼   ► 'cause it's totally not a PC, right?

00:43:45 ◼   ► That you interact with mostly by touching.

00:43:47 ◼   ► And it is the future of computing

00:43:48 ◼   ► because that's what everybody does,

00:43:49 ◼   ► but it's also, but they do it on their phone.

00:43:51 ◼   ► It's like, oh, well, is the tablet

00:43:52 ◼   ► a separate thing for the phone

00:43:53 ◼   ► or is it just the same exact thing

00:43:54 ◼   ► as the phone at a bigger size?

00:43:56 ◼   ► And it is, but it's like,

00:43:57 ◼   ► why would you need that bigger size?

00:43:58 ◼   ► Well, most people don't.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Most people, especially with their big honking phones,

00:44:01 ◼   ► most people, that's all they're ever gonna need.

00:44:03 ◼   ► Like the PC is still this separate, separate thing.

00:44:05 ◼   ► But if you just set aside the PC entirely

00:44:07 ◼   ► and just look at the computers that most people use

00:44:10 ◼   ► where their personal computers are their smartphones

00:44:13 ◼   ► at this point.

00:44:14 ◼   ► And why would you ever need one that's bigger

00:44:16 ◼   ► than your big phone?

00:44:17 ◼   ► Well, that's kind of like the truck of the phone

00:44:19 ◼   ► where like if you pretend PCs don't exist,

00:44:21 ◼   ► which basically as far as my kids are concerned,

00:44:22 ◼   ► they might as well not exist.

00:44:23 ◼   ► Like so many kids, like your parents have a computer,

00:44:27 ◼   ► but why would you like, I'm waiting to see

00:44:29 ◼   ► if my kids will ever ask to have their own computer.

00:44:31 ◼   ► They asked to have their own iOS devices and phones

00:44:34 ◼   ► without any prompting very, very early.

00:44:36 ◼   ► None of them even said,

00:44:37 ◼   ► "Hey, I'd like to have my own computer."

00:44:39 ◼   ► the computer is something that your parents use. So it's categorically different. That's why I'm

00:44:42 ◼   ► refocusing and saying, "Now, forget about that crap that your parents use that you don't understand

00:44:46 ◼   ► that's in some other room that has this thing attached to it with or without a wire."

00:44:50 ◼   ► And think about your world of computing, which is a bunch of these screens. Most of them are like,

00:44:57 ◼   ► "I just want a phone. I can talk to my friends. I can watch YouTube videos. I can listen to music.

00:45:01 ◼   ► I'm good to go." Right? And maybe I'll go into my parents' room to type the papers or whatever,

00:45:06 ◼   ► But sometimes they might want something bigger to do more truck-like things, and I'm not entirely sure that this upcoming generation

00:45:12 ◼   ► It's going to occur to them immediately to say well now I need a PC rather they might say

00:45:17 ◼   ► I have weird needs so I want one of those big fancy iPads now the the Subaru is the Baja

00:45:23 ◼   ► I thought it was the Brat, but anyway, but they're they're both true

00:45:26 ◼   ► The Brat is the very old one which is actually what I was thinking of and the Baja is the newer one

00:45:30 ◼   ► It was actually called the Brat. Yes. They had it written on the side of it. It was great

00:45:36 ◼   ► Wow, the little like a c-pillar equivalent on the pickup truck hybrid thing can't imagine why they changed it. Yeah

00:45:42 ◼   ► But like the reason that I think is apt is because we all recognize that the iPad is not a great truck

00:45:48 ◼   ► And yeah, the iPad Pro is a step in the right direction to say give us an even bigger screen

00:45:53 ◼   ► Give us a stylus make more room for the multitasking stuff that you've added

00:45:57 ◼   ► Right as a baby step in the right direction to really being like if you're gonna go truck go all the way

00:46:02 ◼   ► But even if they succeed in that endeavor even if they say oh now the iPad is the truck of the new family of computing

00:46:08 ◼   ► Devices because this entire family collectively is the future of computing and some people need to do fancy stuff like say run Xcode on

00:46:13 ◼   ► Their iPad or wherever the hell they're gonna be doing 10 years from now, right?

00:46:15 ◼   ► Does that suddenly mean that this iPad sales curve that we see making a big hump and going to Allen Hill is gonna reverse?

00:46:22 ◼   ► No, because most people don't need trucks like nothing. Nothing can save the truck from being the truck

00:46:27 ◼   ► Nothing can save the computer that most people don't need

00:46:30 ◼   ► Nothing is ever gonna make the Mac Pro like sell like the iPhone

00:46:34 ◼   ► Nothing is ever gonna hockey stick any of these things up and so for now for the iPad product specifically just use hockey stick as a verb

00:46:40 ◼   ► It's a well-established verb on the show my god

00:46:44 ◼   ► Yeah, nothing is going to change the the inherent nature of of that and even even the PC

00:46:51 ◼   ► It's like well, what if iPads replace all the PCs go look at the PC trend lines. Those aren't great either

00:46:55 ◼   ► The only thing that is going that has been going upward

00:46:57 ◼   ► Like a hockey stick has been the phone and even the phone is loving off a little bit

00:47:01 ◼   ► At a certain point and the reason the phone is leveling off. I feel like not with Apple specifically, but eventually with everybody

00:47:07 ◼   ► Eventually, there's only a certain number of phones you can sell in the world once every single human every single human alive babies adults

00:47:14 ◼   ► Everybody has a smartphone then you're just fighting over how many you know

00:47:18 ◼   ► Then you're just fighting of who gets to sell them, right?

00:47:20 ◼   ► So you can have 100% market share I sell a phone to every single human alive in the planet

00:47:24 ◼   ► But you're never gonna get more than that, right?

00:47:26 ◼   ► So eventually all these curves have to level off and smartphone really is the type of product that can have that kind of penetration

00:47:31 ◼   ► so I

00:47:32 ◼   ► When I look at the iPad

00:47:34 ◼   ► Curve and I see it going down and I see the phone leveling off

00:47:38 ◼   ► The phone is like well Apple you got to compete with the other phones that are out there to make sure you

00:47:42 ◼   ► maintain your market share and the iPad I just feel like it has

00:47:45 ◼   ► Slowly growing into its destiny as the truck of the new world of computing

00:47:51 ◼   ► but I just I just think it should be a better truck I

00:47:54 ◼   ► I agree with some of what you've just said, but I see a better future for the PC than

00:47:59 ◼   ► I think you do, and that a lot of people do. And again, I think you're right, it's not

00:48:05 ◼   ► going to really go up from where it has been. I think it's going to go down a little bit

00:48:10 ◼   ► and then just kind of level off at some point where the PC really is the general utility

00:48:16 ◼   ► computing device, and that is incredibly powerful. And there are so many things that, you know,

00:48:23 ◼   ► we can all call them edge cases.

00:48:24 ◼   ► We can say, you know, you look at so much

00:48:28 ◼   ► of what iOS devices can't do, and so many of them

00:48:32 ◼   ► seem like, well, almost no one needs that, and that's true.

00:48:35 ◼   ► But almost everyone needs one of those things.

00:48:39 ◼   ► And it's kind of like, the world of people

00:48:43 ◼   ► who need computing tasks or abilities

00:48:47 ◼   ► that the iOS devices and that world view of computing

00:48:51 ◼   ► can't address is a pretty big group of people.

00:48:55 ◼   ► So I think the computer will always be relevant

00:48:57 ◼   ► in the same way like Microsoft has always been relevant.

00:49:00 ◼   ► They used to be dominant and the only game in town

00:49:03 ◼   ► and now Microsoft is this kind of like mostly ignored

00:49:08 ◼   ► boring company that no one talks about

00:49:11 ◼   ► but that still has a great business

00:49:12 ◼   ► and is still very useful to a lot of people.

00:49:15 ◼   ► No one really talks about Microsoft

00:49:17 ◼   ► but their stuff is still very, very popular,

00:49:21 ◼   ► it's financially seemingly okay,

00:49:23 ◼   ► and a lot of people rely on their stuff

00:49:26 ◼   ► to get their work done.

00:49:27 ◼   ► And I think that the PC in general,

00:49:29 ◼   ► whether it's Windows or Mac,

00:49:30 ◼   ► I don't make that distinction right now,

00:49:33 ◼   ► the PC in general is so general purpose,

00:49:37 ◼   ► it is so capable, it is so unbounded

00:49:40 ◼   ► by so many of the restrictions

00:49:42 ◼   ► that modern mobile devices have,

00:49:44 ◼   ► both physical and software restrictions.

00:49:46 ◼   ► There is always going to be a market

00:49:48 ◼   ► for a more customizable, more open architecture,

00:49:52 ◼   ► more hardware diversity kind of platform

00:49:55 ◼   ► because there's always gonna be edge cases.

00:49:58 ◼   ► And as these mobile devices get smaller, simpler,

00:50:01 ◼   ► more locked down, fewer ports, everybody come on,

00:50:05 ◼   ► you know, all the stuff that we celebrate as consumers

00:50:09 ◼   ► as like, oh wow, this is great,

00:50:10 ◼   ► it's getting thinner and lighter

00:50:12 ◼   ► and everything's even more locked down

00:50:13 ◼   ► than it was before, thanks a lot.

00:50:15 ◼   ► All of that is very powerful in certain ways

00:50:18 ◼   ► And if you're making something that's gonna sell

00:50:20 ◼   ► as many units as possible to as many people

00:50:22 ◼   ► in the world as possible, that is a good way to do it.

00:50:24 ◼   ► And that's going to keep working.

00:50:26 ◼   ► I always say it, never bet against the smartphone,

00:50:27 ◼   ► it's very powerful.

00:50:29 ◼   ► But I don't think that has to come at the expense

00:50:33 ◼   ► of the entire PC business.

00:50:34 ◼   ► It will come at the expense of some of the PC business.

00:50:37 ◼   ► But again, I don't think, like not a lot of people

00:50:40 ◼   ► are saying, you know what, I don't even need

00:50:43 ◼   ► a computer anymore, I'm just gonna use my phone

00:50:45 ◼   ► for everything.

00:50:46 ◼   ► Some people say that with the iPad.

00:50:48 ◼   ► And so the iPad is certainly more of a threat

00:50:50 ◼   ► than the phone is, but I think it's much more likely

00:50:53 ◼   ► that the people who are still using PCs today,

00:50:58 ◼   ► even when good tablets are available,

00:51:01 ◼   ► I don't see a whole ton of them making that jump

00:51:04 ◼   ► if they haven't already.

00:51:06 ◼   ► - No, but those people all die.

00:51:07 ◼   ► I guess that's the way it works.

00:51:08 ◼   ► Those people all die, and the people who are formerly

00:51:10 ◼   ► using PCs, what we're waiting for,

00:51:12 ◼   ► maybe not the iPad specifically, but tablets in general,

00:51:15 ◼   ► The idea that something without the paradigms and the complexities that we currently associate

00:51:21 ◼   ► with personal computers, that tablets can eventually replace them, and that maybe eventually

00:51:28 ◼   ► the things that we think of as tablets now will eventually be called PCs to distinguish

00:51:32 ◼   ► them from the phones.

00:51:33 ◼   ► But they won't, because they won't be running Windows, they won't be running OS X, they

00:51:36 ◼   ► won't have disks that you mount and volumes and exposed file systems and all the things

00:51:43 ◼   ► that we associate with personal computing now,

00:51:46 ◼   ► that's why I'm talking, it's important to differentiate

00:51:48 ◼   ► between the iPad as a product,

00:51:49 ◼   ► which Apple may never get their act together on, right?

00:51:52 ◼   ► And the tablet as a whole,

00:51:54 ◼   ► the idea that a future computing device

00:51:57 ◼   ► should be more appliance-like and probably also mobile,

00:52:00 ◼   ► because again, with the Moore's Law stuff,

00:52:01 ◼   ► like having lots of headroom to put powerful,

00:52:03 ◼   ► heat-hungry things in there is fine,

00:52:04 ◼   ► but at a certain point, you can't,

00:52:07 ◼   ► like at a certain point,

00:52:08 ◼   ► we need another technological breakthrough

00:52:10 ◼   ► to increase compute.

00:52:12 ◼   ► If we can't do that then you just basically say well

00:52:14 ◼   ► the fastest CPU in the entire world fits in a battery-powered device and we haven't figured out how to make faster because we haven't figured out

00:52:20 ◼   ► How to do quantum computers or optical computing or anything yet? So in the meantime

00:52:24 ◼   ► Enjoy your quote-unquote PC

00:52:26 ◼   ► Which is basically a big honking tablet because that's what two generations of children know how to use and they have no idea what the hell

00:52:33 ◼   ► You're doing with that freaking mouse. They just want to touch the screen, right?

00:52:35 ◼   ► So whether Apple is the one that does that or somebody else long term after we're all dead

00:52:40 ◼   ► I think the the total market for people who need to do computing besides using the appliances in their home and their phone

00:52:45 ◼   ► Will probably be about the similar size of the quote-unquote PC market today

00:52:50 ◼   ► But I would expect tablets to slowly cannibalize that well

00:52:55 ◼   ► Maybe the whole line on the graph stays about the same while above it floats all the other mass-market devices

00:52:59 ◼   ► But that's that's where the tablets are battling down there with the PCs who is going to who is going to to

00:53:06 ◼   ► Get these people who need more than a phone to do their job who who's going to serve them and right now

00:53:12 ◼   ► It's the Mac versus Windows computers versus a whole panoply of tablets versus surface versus Chromebooks versus you know

00:53:19 ◼   ► All these things that are like PCs and post PCs battling and I just have to give the edge to the ones

00:53:24 ◼   ► With less legacy crap that are more understandable for people to use even if right now

00:53:30 ◼   ► They're just not powerful enough as we talked about the last show to actually replace those

00:53:33 ◼   ► I think we'll all be gone by the time it happens, but I just look at my kids and my kids' kids.

00:53:37 ◼   ► Having a television is going to be, I can't even think of a good analogy,

00:53:41 ◼   ► but it's just, it's going to seem like having like a plow in your backyard to till the fields. I don't know.

00:53:46 ◼   ► It's going to seem weird.

00:53:48 ◼   ► Well, you know, I agree with you,

00:53:50 ◼   ► Jon, more than I do Marco, that I think that the PC as we know it, again, like Marco said, Mac or PC,

00:53:55 ◼   ► the personal computers we know it is not terribly long for this world, for almost everyone.

00:54:01 ◼   ► And I agree John that the future is going to be touch the futures or you know something after touch or VR or VR

00:54:07 ◼   ► Oh, I think the future is not the this beautiful new iMac that I just bought myself

00:54:13 ◼   ► But what I'm where I'm having trouble is why then is the iPad so sharply down like I understand what you're saying

00:54:22 ◼   ► It's not powerful enough. It's not doing enough right now, but

00:54:24 ◼   ► Jeez, if the iPad really is the future's truck, don't you think it would at least maintain or not have such a stark

00:54:32 ◼   ► downward slope?

00:54:33 ◼   ► Yeah, because I think they misfired on the iPad.

00:54:36 ◼   ► I think they thought things were further along than they were, and so there was the initial burst of like,

00:54:41 ◼   ► "Hey, this is the future, everyone's gonna love it!"

00:54:43 ◼   ► And then everyone realized, "You know what? I can do all the same stuff on my phone."

00:54:46 ◼   ► Especially when the phones got bigger and more powerful, then it was like, "Oh, well, never mind.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Just give those ones to the kids."

00:54:51 ◼   ► It's like a burst of enthusiasm

00:54:54 ◼   ► followed by the realization that

00:54:56 ◼   ► it does not provide enough additional value

00:54:58 ◼   ► and so that's why I feel like it's tapering off.

00:55:00 ◼   ► - Well, I think there's a number of factors here.

00:55:02 ◼   ► First of all, I think that the value of a tablet in general,

00:55:07 ◼   ► if you use it for productivity tasks,

00:55:11 ◼   ► then the iPad is very competitive.

00:55:14 ◼   ► But I think what most people use tablets for

00:55:16 ◼   ► is entertainment and I think, I'm not saying,

00:55:20 ◼   ► you know, you can't do work on an iPad,

00:55:21 ◼   ► but I think a lot of people,

00:55:22 ◼   ► I think the market bears that out,

00:55:24 ◼   ► that a lot of people use their tablets primarily

00:55:25 ◼   ► for entertainment purposes.

00:55:27 ◼   ► And if you're doing that, there's a lot less reason

00:55:31 ◼   ► to get specifically an iPad over any other tablet out there.

00:55:35 ◼   ► And there's tablets, you know, that cost nothing.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Tablets are cheaper than like gas.

00:55:41 ◼   ► - If you can play Flappy Bird

00:55:44 ◼   ► and you can watch YouTube videos,

00:55:46 ◼   ► like that cover, you know,

00:55:47 ◼   ► you can play a couple of really simple games

00:55:49 ◼   ► and watch YouTube, as far as my kids are concerned,

00:55:52 ◼   ► it would be like indistinguishable from an iPad,

00:55:54 ◼   ► 'cause they are not using any of the iPad-y-ness

00:55:56 ◼   ► of the iPad, they are just literally watching YouTube

00:55:58 ◼   ► forever and then playing a couple games.

00:56:00 ◼   ► - Exactly, so that's problem number one the iPad has,

00:56:03 ◼   ► is that like in phones, I think what people tend

00:56:05 ◼   ► to use phones for, kids are a different story,

00:56:08 ◼   ► and I do wanna separately address that.

00:56:11 ◼   ► John, you and many other people make predictions

00:56:15 ◼   ► about the future of PCs being dead,

00:56:18 ◼   ► because their kids don't ever want to use a PC.

00:56:20 ◼   ► But a lot of people are making that assumption

00:56:23 ◼   ► based on kids who are, I think, too young

00:56:28 ◼   ► to make that determination.

00:56:29 ◼   ► Because if you think about the kind of things

00:56:31 ◼   ► that an iPad's really good at,

00:56:32 ◼   ► and the kind of things that computers are really good at

00:56:33 ◼   ► that an iPad isn't very good at,

00:56:35 ◼   ► the overlap between what most kids used to use computers for,

00:56:39 ◼   ► which is a lot of entertainment stuff,

00:56:41 ◼   ► and some very light browsing and light work,

00:56:44 ◼   ► that kind of stuff you can do on an iPad much better.

00:56:46 ◼   ► But that's not to say, like, what if your kid

00:56:49 ◼   ► starts wanting to be productive in multitasking

00:56:53 ◼   ► kind of ways, things that you can do on the iPad,

00:56:57 ◼   ► but it's easier or better on a computer.

00:56:59 ◼   ► Or if they develop a hobby of like,

00:57:01 ◼   ► you know what, I wanna try programming.

00:57:03 ◼   ► That's hard to do on an iPad.

00:57:04 ◼   ► Again, not impossible, but hard.

00:57:06 ◼   ► And some kinds aren't possible so far, but you know.

00:57:09 ◼   ► There are things that like, as kids get older,

00:57:12 ◼   ► if they wanna type a paper for school or whatever,

00:57:15 ◼   ► Like, yes, you can do it on an iPad,

00:57:18 ◼   ► but in many ways it's easier on a computer.

00:57:20 ◼   ► - You haven't met any kids who prefer

00:57:22 ◼   ► using the keyboard on a screen than a physical one?

00:57:24 ◼   ► Have you met those kids yet?

00:57:25 ◼   ► 'Cause they exist.

00:57:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, I know they exist, but--

00:57:28 ◼   ► - They're terrifying.

00:57:29 ◼   ► - What I'm saying is, I don't think we can make the call

00:57:32 ◼   ► to say kids these days aren't gonna ever use computers,

00:57:35 ◼   ► because I think kids these days are too young

00:57:36 ◼   ► to know that they're never gonna use computers,

00:57:38 ◼   ► and for us to know that.

00:57:39 ◼   ► - Well, it takes multiple generations.

00:57:41 ◼   ► Let's see what you're saying.

00:57:42 ◼   ► It takes multiple generations for it to turn over.

00:57:44 ◼   ► Like I said, we're all gonna be dead.

00:57:45 ◼   ► Maybe our kids will be dead because it's the same way that like you still do things that your parents do just because your parents

00:57:49 ◼   ► did them like it takes a while to turn over but

00:57:51 ◼   ► The options available like you said the options available to them

00:57:56 ◼   ► Let like my kids are all in a house with plenty of Macs and plenty of iOS devices and the only reason they ever

00:58:02 ◼   ► Touch the Macs is to play Minecraft on a bigger screen and maybe that's a valid use case

00:58:08 ◼   ► It's like well see they're like they like the big screen

00:58:10 ◼   ► But if I had my PlayStation attached to the television, they'd probably play it there with the controller

00:58:14 ◼   ► I don't know. Anyway, as we can see from the iPad curve, I think the current crop of tablets,

00:58:20 ◼   ► iPad and all others included, are not yet up to the task of doing things to the kids. So when the

00:58:25 ◼   ► kids have to type papers, they do end up using it or like using Chromebooks in school or something

00:58:29 ◼   ► like that. And the Microsoft service is another take on this. Like, "Hey, we're both things at

00:58:32 ◼   ► one. We're the old computer and the new computer at the same time." That definitely seems like a

00:58:36 ◼   ► transitional fossil to me. But what I'm looking at long term is like, we're not there yet, but that

00:58:42 ◼   ► seems the direction things are going. And it only takes a couple of generations of people dying

00:58:47 ◼   ► before all these concerns that we have. When someone listens to this podcast, like,

00:58:51 ◼   ► a hundred years from now, it will seem ridiculous that we're even debating this. In the same way,

00:58:55 ◼   ► they would seem ridiculous if you were listening to people debate about whether, you know, people

00:59:00 ◼   ► will actually be able to use a computer with a mouse to do real work. I mean, I was alive for

00:59:03 ◼   ► that debate, and it was fierce, and people were like, you could have done the same thing. It's

00:59:09 ◼   ► It's like, "Well, my kid's been born into a world with mice, and they're gonna only use mice."

00:59:13 ◼   ► Like, "Well, when they get a job, they'll have to use a computer without a mouse to do actual work,

00:59:17 ◼   ► because the only computers that have mice are toy computers."

00:59:19 ◼   ► That's just the way things go.

00:59:21 ◼   ► Like, so maybe it's a pointless thing to even talk about, because if we're all dead, do we really care that much?

00:59:26 ◼   ► But I think it's interesting in light of this iPad graph, because it's like,

00:59:30 ◼   ► it's the future that we think is coming, but the graph shows that it's not here yet.

00:59:36 ◼   ► and what the graph may also show is that Apple may not be the company to nail it, because

00:59:42 ◼   ► this was their shot and either they were too early or they just fumbled the ball and didn't

00:59:47 ◼   ► hit the mark with their first attempt at this type of product and, as we keep saying,

00:59:53 ◼   ► were basically totally outplayed by their Starark product, the iPhone, which everyone has basically

01:00:00 ◼   ► voted with their wallets and their feet to say, "This is what we want right now. iPads,

01:00:05 ◼   ► you know, convince us later maybe."

01:00:07 ◼   ► - Right, well because like at the same time that the iPad has been, you know, going along

01:00:12 ◼   ► and getting, you know, improving every generation, the iPhone has gotten better and bigger, and

01:00:19 ◼   ► the Mac has gotten smaller and lighter. And so it really is being squeezed on both ends.

01:00:26 ◼   ► If you're willing to carry something now,

01:00:29 ◼   ► especially with the MacBook One,

01:00:30 ◼   ► only a little bit bigger than an iPad,

01:00:33 ◼   ► then if you need keyboard and touch input

01:00:37 ◼   ► and a PC style OS, the MacBook One is going to be better

01:00:40 ◼   ► for you than an iPad, even an iPad Pro,

01:00:43 ◼   ► at that kind of task.

01:00:45 ◼   ► On the small end, if you need a portable entertainment

01:00:49 ◼   ► and consumption and communication kind of device,

01:00:54 ◼   ► And iPhone is now able to take a lot of that,

01:00:58 ◼   ► and especially with the six plus line,

01:01:01 ◼   ► it's taking even more of it potentially,

01:01:02 ◼   ► 'cause that has the benefit of it's always in your pocket,

01:01:05 ◼   ► it's always with you, and you probably paid less

01:01:06 ◼   ► for it up front than you would have for an iPad,

01:01:08 ◼   ► and all these different benefits.

01:01:10 ◼   ► So it's being squeezed on both sides.

01:01:12 ◼   ► Then it's being squeezed from the low end,

01:01:14 ◼   ► because all these cheaper tablets that also can play YouTube

01:01:18 ◼   ► and play some games and browse the web,

01:01:21 ◼   ► all those cheaper tablets are coming

01:01:23 ◼   ► eating the whole bottom end of it. So it's being attacked on so many fronts. And the

01:01:29 ◼   ► good thing is two of those fronts are owned by Apple. And so it's being cannibalized

01:01:33 ◼   ► by other parts of Apple, so it's not necessarily a horrible thing for Apple. But I think, I

01:01:38 ◼   ► don't see a way out of this for the iPad anytime soon. Maybe long term, maybe you're

01:01:44 ◼   ► right, you might be right long term, I'll give you that. But in the near term, the things

01:01:48 ◼   ► that tend to improve quickly, relatively in computing, is the basic hardware specs, the

01:01:54 ◼   ► speed, the quality of the screen and stuff like that. That stuff improves in the short

01:02:01 ◼   ► term. The biggest challenges to the iPad, I think, are pretty deeply rooted software

01:02:08 ◼   ► architecture and software limitations and input, both of which are not solved so quickly

01:02:14 ◼   ► and easily. So I don't think, you know, you talk about how iOS could get better for productivity

01:02:21 ◼   ► use and it's things like rethink multitasking and files. Those are big things. Those take

01:02:29 ◼   ► years to possibly develop or to realize that you need to rethink if you do. That's a very

01:02:37 ◼   ► slow moving thing. And then input is often times not solvable. Like there just isn't

01:02:44 ◼   ► a way to make like a nine inch laptop with a keyboard that humans can use comfortably.

01:02:49 ◼   ► You know like there's like there's like there's limitations like that where you're just fighting

01:02:54 ◼   ► physics and you know the physical world and you just can't win those fights a lot of times.

01:02:59 ◼   ► And tablets certainly are challenging in regards to how to how to fix input, how to make input

01:03:05 ◼   ► that is good for both casual lean-back-on-the-couch use

01:03:08 ◼   ► and also productivity use, and that is a very hard problem.

01:03:12 ◼   ► It might not be possible to solve,

01:03:14 ◼   ► and it's the kind of thing where progress

01:03:15 ◼   ► is made very slowly, if at all.

01:03:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're talking about cannibalization,

01:03:19 ◼   ► and that's the other takeaway of this thing,

01:03:21 ◼   ► is when you look at these little lines,

01:03:23 ◼   ► you look at that iPod hump that's like,

01:03:25 ◼   ► here comes the iPod, and then it arcs over,

01:03:27 ◼   ► and then you look at the Mac.

01:03:29 ◼   ► I tried to find this graph,

01:03:30 ◼   ► 'cause I think someone tweeted it, and I can't find it,

01:03:32 ◼   ► but it was a graph over many, many years,

01:03:34 ◼   ► just like the last five or ten years but like from the 90s all the way up to the current time

01:03:38 ◼   ► and you look at the products and it's like little fireworks like the ipod launches up into the sky

01:03:43 ◼   ► not too high then it's the ground again right and the ipad launches up into the sky and is arcing

01:03:48 ◼   ► over to starting to be on its way down again you look at the phone and the iphone goes like into

01:03:52 ◼   ► the stratosphere but then eventually starts leveling off right and so you can't see the

01:03:56 ◼   ► other side of that things aren't the only line on the entire graph that is basically has any kind of

01:04:02 ◼   ► you know, uphill slope for the entire length of it is the Mac and it's like way down at the bottom kind of blending with

01:04:08 ◼   ► With the x-axis you can barely see it, but you can see it is a little bit higher

01:04:12 ◼   ► it does go up over your viewer a tiny little bit and it's insignificant or whatever, but

01:04:17 ◼   ► It's interesting that that trend line because it because it started off as like the loser in the PC market

01:04:23 ◼   ► So it never had a lot of markets never had a high height to come down from and it has been steadily gaining

01:04:27 ◼   ► You know, it has been gaining market share while Windows loses it or whatever

01:04:30 ◼   ► So it does have a good graph, you know an uphill climb even though it's insignificant

01:04:34 ◼   ► But when you look at all those other things what what Apple is hoping for when you mentioned is

01:04:38 ◼   ► Alright, so Apple makes products that make these little arcs right every product has a lifetime

01:04:42 ◼   ► The iPhone arc doesn't seem like it's even half over or maybe it's exactly half over right?

01:04:46 ◼   ► If you would extend that graph out, however optimistic and pessimistic you want to be about the iPhone arc

01:04:51 ◼   ► You draw that what you need is another lump. You need another big arch in that thing

01:04:57 ◼   ► So what is the new product that is going to come like the watch isn't even visible because it's too new

01:05:01 ◼   ► so who knows what that's gonna be like but

01:05:03 ◼   ► Apple's whole thing is

01:05:06 ◼   ► What is the next big thing? What is the next line that's gonna be on our graph?

01:05:09 ◼   ► Maybe the line will never go up as high as the phone or whatever. Maybe it will maybe there's some VR thing out there

01:05:14 ◼   ► Maybe it's the car if you want to do revenue because a lot of people have cars and they cost a lot more than a Mac

01:05:19 ◼   ► Or a phone so the ASPs are really good on cars

01:05:23 ◼   ► But the margins are much lower, you know, so I don't know what it is

01:05:26 ◼   ► But like that's that's one of the reasons that investors are

01:05:29 ◼   ► Cranky about Apple because they look at all these lines and they see all these little arcs and they're like, all right

01:05:33 ◼   ► Well, I think we've played this out and we feel pessimistically that the iPhone is at its peak and now it's gonna go down

01:05:38 ◼   ► So where is the next arc Apple and right now there is no

01:05:43 ◼   ► convincing answer and it's Apple's job to come up with that like and I agree with you that the iPad Pro is not going to turn

01:05:47 ◼   ► The iPad thing around because even if professionals love the iPad Pro. There's not a lot of them, right?

01:05:52 ◼   ► So you have to either let the iPad arc follow its course down to the baseline and then start again with another tablet-ish product,

01:05:59 ◼   ► or you need to somehow transform the Mac into a tablet-ish product.

01:06:04 ◼   ► I don't know how you do that, like, just, you know, semantically how you could ever get there.

01:06:09 ◼   ► That's why I still feel like the iPad must rise again in a new form at some point in the future.

01:06:14 ◼   ► Or if not, then maybe Apple loses that and someone else does it, right?

01:06:17 ◼   ► Maybe, you know, who knows what ends up winning in this, but I just feel confident that the

01:06:22 ◼   ► PC is the past and we are the last great PC generation is already alive.

01:06:29 ◼   ► Of people, I mean.

01:06:30 ◼   ► Well, it also, you know, a lot of people, like in our walk of life here, and by that

01:06:36 ◼   ► I mean geeks like us, a lot of geeks just deny the role of fashion and trends in things.

01:06:46 ◼   ► and we try to make everything more logical,

01:06:48 ◼   ► we try to justify things, and we don't understand fashions.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Or fads, really.

01:06:55 ◼   ► What if tablets have been a fad?

01:06:59 ◼   ► I know this is crazy, I know this sounds like

01:07:02 ◼   ► the champion of the computer trying to

01:07:04 ◼   ► optimistically say that, oh, tablets are just a fad

01:07:08 ◼   ► and computers are gonna come back.

01:07:09 ◼   ► So I know this sounds crazy,

01:07:11 ◼   ► and I'm not even saying I believe this.

01:07:14 ◼   ► But I think it's worth thinking about.

01:07:15 ◼   ► You're not saying computers are gonna come back though,

01:07:17 ◼   ► you're just saying tablets are a fad,

01:07:18 ◼   ► it's two separate things, right?

01:07:19 ◼   ► - Right, so I think it's worth considering though,

01:07:22 ◼   ► what if the entire idea of tablets had their peak already?

01:07:27 ◼   ► And that in the future, the kind of casual,

01:07:32 ◼   ► the future of computing was already here earlier than that,

01:07:36 ◼   ► it's the mobile phone, it's the smartphone,

01:07:38 ◼   ► and that what if that is really the future?

01:07:43 ◼   ► And that tablets were just kind of this thing

01:07:44 ◼   ► that for a brief time the whole world was kind of

01:07:47 ◼   ► like in love with, kind of infatuated with,

01:07:49 ◼   ► but it was actually just a fad,

01:07:51 ◼   ► and now we're kind of realizing, eh, you know what,

01:07:54 ◼   ► I think I'd rather just have a good phone

01:07:55 ◼   ► and then maybe a good laptop also.

01:07:57 ◼   ► - All right, I've considered it and I reject it.

01:07:59 ◼   ► - That's fair, but I think a lot of people

01:08:01 ◼   ► are not considering that as a possibility,

01:08:03 ◼   ► but I think the data actually,

01:08:05 ◼   ► like if you look at this iPad sales graph,

01:08:07 ◼   ► that looks exactly like what's going on.

01:08:09 ◼   ► - But that's just the iPad though,

01:08:11 ◼   ► that's why I keep differentiating,

01:08:12 ◼   ► like there's the iPad, which may be Apple Bluadon,

01:08:15 ◼   ► and then there's the concept of a screen

01:08:17 ◼   ► about the size of a piece of paper

01:08:19 ◼   ► or bigger that you hold in your hands.

01:08:20 ◼   ► And I would even include in tablets

01:08:21 ◼   ► a screen that's much bigger than a piece of paper,

01:08:23 ◼   ► like the iPad Pro that you hold in your hand, right?

01:08:26 ◼   ► Or even a bigger thing that sits on your desk.

01:08:28 ◼   ► I would say it's basically a big piece of glass

01:08:29 ◼   ► that you touch that extends down to the portable range,

01:08:33 ◼   ► but as I've always said,

01:08:34 ◼   ► I can imagine a desktop replacement

01:08:36 ◼   ► that is more like a drafting table.

01:08:38 ◼   ► And just the utility of essentially having

01:08:40 ◼   ► magic piece of paper that can show anything that is a piece of paper size.

01:08:44 ◼   ► Like once that becomes like 99 cents, like the computing part of that is so, you know,

01:08:49 ◼   ► again, as the price of compute drops to zero, of course people are going to want to have

01:08:52 ◼   ► that because people want to hold things in their hand and read them and look at them

01:08:55 ◼   ► and watch a video.

01:08:56 ◼   ► And maybe that won't be an iPad anymore.

01:08:59 ◼   ► Maybe it'll be something that comes in your cereal box that you unroll and it's like,

01:09:03 ◼   ► there's no, and you can say, oh, that's not a tablet.

01:09:04 ◼   ► It is though.

01:09:05 ◼   ► It's like basically a screen that you hold in your hand that is way bigger than a phone.

01:09:08 ◼   ► And that is absolutely not going to die.

01:09:10 ◼   ► whether Apple has any role at all in that product line remains to be seen, which is

01:09:14 ◼   ► why I say the iPad is an open question.

01:09:16 ◼   ► But there's a reason everyone was all gaga.

01:09:18 ◼   ► Like the fad part that I think you're sensing about tablets was like, "Oh, this is like

01:09:22 ◼   ► those science fiction books I read.

01:09:23 ◼   ► This is like those movies I saw.

01:09:24 ◼   ► It's like the future.

01:09:25 ◼   ► Like how many movies had, oh, you just hold this magic."

01:09:27 ◼   ► Even before flat screens existed when everything was all CRTs.

01:09:31 ◼   ► Every science fiction story, you know, back hundreds of years, like, "Oh, I just hold

01:09:34 ◼   ► something that looks like a piece of paper, but it can show any image anywhere, and I

01:09:37 ◼   ► can see anywhere in the world, and I can watch moving pictures on it."

01:09:40 ◼   ► That idea is never going away because it has an amazing utility for people like us who

01:09:43 ◼   ► have eyeballs in the front of our head and hands that we can hold things up with.

01:09:48 ◼   ► Unless VR retinal imaging or any sort of interior mind type thing happens or strapped to your

01:09:54 ◼   ► eyes thing, until that comes and wipes all of this away, having something big that you

01:10:00 ◼   ► hold in your hand that is a screen, that idea will never die because it has an amazing utility.

01:10:06 ◼   ► It just could be that Apple is not the company that either brings that to us, benefits from

01:10:10 ◼   ► it or like it gets it right because if you just play out current trends eventually what

01:10:16 ◼   ► will it take to have something to give your toddler to watch whatever the equivalent of

01:10:21 ◼   ► YouTube is right maybe that'll be a dollar ninety nine in a drugstore that's a rolled

01:10:25 ◼   ► up piece of plastic that the kid can just do anything they want to and when it gets

01:10:30 ◼   ► destroyed you just throw it away right because seriously the the electronics the cost of

01:10:35 ◼   ► of the electronics and everything to sort of get internet access and play video and

01:10:39 ◼   ► stuff, that's going to, in our lifetimes, be so incredibly trivial that it'll be nothing.

01:10:45 ◼   ► You know, I was going to ask you, Jon, what would make the iPad, you know, cross that

01:10:50 ◼   ► hump and be the thing, or any tablet, but, and I think you just covered it in a lot of

01:10:56 ◼   ► ways, but I was thinking, you know, when I got my first iPad mini, so this is two years

01:11:01 ◼   ► ago now, the iPad mini with Retina display, I had given Erin my iPad 3, so the first full-size

01:11:09 ◼   ► iPad with a Retina display.

01:11:11 ◼   ► And I'd given it to her and I'd set it up with her iCloud account and iMessage account

01:11:15 ◼   ► and some of the apps I thought she would use a lot.

01:11:18 ◼   ► And I gave it to her and I think in those two years she has used that iPad 5 or 10 times

01:11:26 ◼   ► Because it always ends up that she's either, well, she starts with her phone almost always.

01:11:33 ◼   ► Everything she does is on her phone. And then if for some reason something she's working on

01:11:37 ◼   ► is easier or just better suited for the truck, for her Mac, then she'll go to her MacBook Air

01:11:45 ◼   ► and do that thing there. But generally speaking, for Erin, it's her phone and the iPad isn't even

01:11:52 ◼   ► a thought. In fact, most of the last two years, the battery has been dead because neither of us

01:11:55 ◼   ► ever touches it. And granted this is only one data point, that doesn't exactly make

01:12:00 ◼   ► a line by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly bears what Apple's results

01:12:07 ◼   ► are seeing, which is that the iPhone is going crazy, the Mac isn't doing bad, and the iPad

01:12:13 ◼   ► is just not even there.

01:12:14 ◼   ► Well, I mean, like, but you know, by, to be fair, by like, unit sales, the iPad and the

01:12:20 ◼   ► Mac are kind of neck and neck right now, but the trend line is very clear that the iPad

01:12:24 ◼   ► is on its way down while the Mac is still on its way up.

01:12:27 ◼   ► >> BRIAN KARDELL Yeah, barely on its way up.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Kieran Healy in the chat tried to give a bunch of charts, but it's not the one I was thinking.

01:12:34 ◼   ► One is showing all the lines together, all different colors, and you just saw the only

01:12:37 ◼   ► one that was steadily climbing uphill like a snail over the course of decades was the

01:12:41 ◼   ► Mac and it was just hugging the bottom of the graph.

01:12:44 ◼   ► Totally insignificant volumes compared to the other Firecracker products, but it's like,

01:12:48 ◼   ► we're still here.

01:12:49 ◼   ► We're still clawing our way up.

01:12:53 ◼   ► It's both sad and heartening at the same time.

01:12:56 ◼   ► But yeah, when I think about the car, and there were some rumors about the car this

01:13:00 ◼   ► weekend, I think like, is that the next thing that's going to?

01:13:04 ◼   ► I try to imagine what a car line would look like on this draft.

01:13:06 ◼   ► Like imagine they do as well as Tesla, and they sell some piddling amount of really expensive

01:13:11 ◼   ► cars to people with a lot of money, and the self-driving stuff doesn't work yet because

01:13:16 ◼   ► it's not ready.

01:13:18 ◼   ► But cars are really expensive, and so the revenues will be high, but the margins will

01:13:21 ◼   ► necessarily be lower and it's like what does that line look like? does does the car line look like

01:13:26 ◼   ► the ipod line? does it look certainly doesn't look like the iphone line does it look like the mac

01:13:30 ◼   ► line where it closets way up or do they just can the car and it's a bad idea and they should really

01:13:34 ◼   ► concentrate on something else like and then the lines we can't even think of though vr is the

01:13:39 ◼   ► current question mark in the world of like is this a thing people are going to want to do because at

01:13:43 ◼   ► this point the number of people who've done vr stuff is just a bunch of gaming enthusiasts and

01:13:47 ◼   ► and that will be the case for a long time.

01:13:50 ◼   ► I don't know what the next big thing,

01:13:53 ◼   ► I remember several years ago when we were talking

01:13:54 ◼   ► on the show, maybe the watch is the next big thing.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Maybe it is, but if it is, it's definitely got

01:13:59 ◼   ► a slower ramp up as far as we can tell.

01:14:01 ◼   ► Well, you know, at this point it's still early, right?

01:14:05 ◼   ► - The watch is the next iPod, in the sense that,

01:14:08 ◼   ► not in the sense that the iPod, it was gone now,

01:14:10 ◼   ► but in the sense that it's an accessory.

01:14:12 ◼   ► It's something that serves a narrow range of roles

01:14:16 ◼   ► very well, but that not everybody needs a device

01:14:19 ◼   ► to serve that narrow range of rules,

01:14:20 ◼   ► and also that is not going to replace your phone.

01:14:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, or maybe just wearables in general.

01:14:26 ◼   ► Like, it's just, it's very difficult to think of something

01:14:29 ◼   ► that is ever going to be like the next iPhone,

01:14:32 ◼   ► because the great thing about a phone

01:14:33 ◼   ► is that literally every adult in the world

01:14:37 ◼   ► probably could conceivably use one, right?

01:14:39 ◼   ► And that's a big market.

01:14:40 ◼   ► How many products can you say that about?

01:14:42 ◼   ► Maybe cars, not really, because most people

01:14:45 ◼   ► have cars in the world, they have bicycles and motorcycles if they're lucky, you know, whatever.

01:14:49 ◼   ► Like you're just trying to think of something that everybody could find some utility for,

01:14:55 ◼   ► for some values of everybody, and it's very difficult to think of that. A watch is one,

01:14:58 ◼   ► like, well, sure, something you hold on your wrist that tells you the time, that seems like a

01:15:02 ◼   ► broadly useful thing you could sell a lot of, but you can't sell them for that much money, and

01:15:06 ◼   ► I don't know if you're ever going to be able to sell everybody in the world a $691, which I think

01:15:12 ◼   ► I think was their ASP on iPhone $691 watch

01:15:15 ◼   ► to everyone in the world.

01:15:16 ◼   ► No, like somebody just get the high end of the watch market

01:15:19 ◼   ► just like they have the high end of the phone market.

01:15:20 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:15:21 ◼   ► I don't know what the next thing for Apple is.

01:15:25 ◼   ► But when I look at these graphs,

01:15:27 ◼   ► if I was to continue the x-axis and go from 2016

01:15:30 ◼   ► and extend that out for another 50 years,

01:15:33 ◼   ► and let me just continue drawing the lines

01:15:35 ◼   ► of all their current product lines,

01:15:38 ◼   ► I see like, how optimistic can you be with the iPhone line?

01:15:42 ◼   ► Like if you continue to draw the iPhone line,

01:15:43 ◼   ► you know what it looks like.

01:15:44 ◼   ► It's a big thing, goes up, up, up,

01:15:45 ◼   ► and the slopes are a level off.

01:15:46 ◼   ► How do you draw that line?

01:15:47 ◼   ► Do you just draw a straight line out into the future

01:15:49 ◼   ► and say, well, smartphones will continue

01:15:50 ◼   ► for the next 50 years pretty much as is?

01:15:53 ◼   ► Or do you make it go up more?

01:15:54 ◼   ► Or do you make it slowly go down

01:15:56 ◼   ► like the rest of the things?

01:15:56 ◼   ► I don't know.

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01:17:30 ◼   ► - All right, Marco.

01:17:31 ◼   ► Is the iPhone 7 going to be waterproof?

01:17:33 ◼   ► We're running a bit long,

01:17:34 ◼   ► so let's keep it to just that question.

01:17:36 ◼   ► Is it gonna be waterproof?

01:17:38 ◼   ► - Why?

01:17:38 ◼   ► I mean, why are we talking about this now?

01:17:40 ◼   ► I mean, I think the answer is probably,

01:17:44 ◼   ► it'll probably be very close.

01:17:47 ◼   ► Just like the iPhone 6S is very water resistant.

01:17:53 ◼   ► It is not waterproof, but if it happens to get wet,

01:17:56 ◼   ► by most people's estimations

01:17:58 ◼   ► and some little tests here and there,

01:17:59 ◼   ► it seems to fare better than the other ones.

01:18:02 ◼   ► - It gives water a stern talking to.

01:18:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:18:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:18:06 ◼   ► It has extra seals, it has these extra little seals

01:18:09 ◼   ► like all over all the things on the board and everything.

01:18:11 ◼   ► And so it is certainly water resistant to some degree.

01:18:15 ◼   ► It's unadvertised this way,

01:18:16 ◼   ► but that is how they seem to do it.

01:18:18 ◼   ► If they drop the headphone jack,

01:18:20 ◼   ► that might be a reason to make waterproofness

01:18:24 ◼   ► a headlining feature, because that might help tame

01:18:28 ◼   ► some of the anger that will result

01:18:30 ◼   ► from losing the headphone jack from customers.

01:18:32 ◼   ► So I think it's possible.

01:18:34 ◼   ► I think the 6S and the watch both show that Apple,

01:18:38 ◼   ► and the watch I think is a more interesting example of this

01:18:43 ◼   ► because the watch has openings.

01:18:45 ◼   ► It has a speaker, it has a microphone.

01:18:49 ◼   ► - It has the crown too.

01:18:51 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, right, yeah.

01:18:52 ◼   ► And actually in traditional watches,

01:18:54 ◼   ► the crown is usually the hardest part to waterproof.

01:18:56 ◼   ► It's opening with a moving part in it and everything.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Anyway, so you know, you have,

01:19:00 ◼   ► they clearly have the ability to make things

01:19:02 ◼   ► that are very water-resistant, possibly waterproof.

01:19:04 ◼   ► The only question I think is how waterproof will it be

01:19:08 ◼   ► and whether they will advertise this as a feature

01:19:11 ◼   ► or whether it will just be quietly water resistant

01:19:13 ◼   ► the way the 6S is.

01:19:14 ◼   ► - Yes, that was the question.

01:19:15 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:19:17 ◼   ► So what's your answer?

01:19:18 ◼   ► - I would say probably.

01:19:22 ◼   ► - To which one of those, like the advertising

01:19:23 ◼   ► or the fact that it will actually be?

01:19:26 ◼   ► - I would say it is very likely that it will be

01:19:29 ◼   ► more water resistant than the 6S,

01:19:30 ◼   ► which is already pretty good.

01:19:31 ◼   ► So I say the chances of it getting more water resistant

01:19:36 ◼   ► are very good.

01:19:36 ◼   ► The chances of them advertising that,

01:19:38 ◼   ► I would give it maybe like a 60% chance.

01:19:41 ◼   ► They probably will advertise it, but not necessarily.

01:19:44 ◼   ► But I do think if they do actually delete the headphone jack

01:19:48 ◼   ► then that would make it more likely

01:19:50 ◼   ► that they would advertise that as a feature

01:19:52 ◼   ► because that would help justify that decision.

01:19:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think I mostly agree.

01:19:56 ◼   ► Like the reason I put this in there is because

01:19:58 ◼   ► electronic devices don't become more water resistant

01:20:01 ◼   ► by accident.

01:20:02 ◼   ► So the past phones that have been,

01:20:05 ◼   ► that Apple seems to have been making more of an effort

01:20:08 ◼   ► to seal them up.

01:20:09 ◼   ► Again, totally not advertised as,

01:20:11 ◼   ► you probably shouldn't put your phone in water.

01:20:13 ◼   ► Many people kill their phones by putting them in water.

01:20:16 ◼   ► But some part of the engineering process for these phones

01:20:19 ◼   ► is, even if it's not about water,

01:20:21 ◼   ► maybe it's just about dust or whatever,

01:20:23 ◼   ► like they're making an effort to seal these phones up tighter.

01:20:26 ◼   ► I don't see any reason that effort trend would diminish,

01:20:31 ◼   ► especially since many of their competitors

01:20:34 ◼   ► do try to advertise their phones as waterproof

01:20:37 ◼   ► and Apple knows better than anybody

01:20:38 ◼   ► how many people drop their phones in the toilet

01:20:40 ◼   ► and come into the store and are sad about it

01:20:41 ◼   ► and all the whole water resistance for their warranties.

01:20:44 ◼   ► They have this info, they are trying to make their phones

01:20:46 ◼   ► more order-resistant.

01:20:47 ◼   ► So I think the only question is,

01:20:50 ◼   ► do they start advertising,

01:20:52 ◼   ► have they crossed the threshold

01:20:53 ◼   ► at which they can start advertising?

01:20:54 ◼   ► 'Cause obviously they know,

01:20:56 ◼   ► they're not gonna advertise until they can be very sure

01:20:58 ◼   ► like they are with the watch,

01:20:59 ◼   ► to spec it out and say,

01:21:00 ◼   ► here's how we think it will perform and blah, blah, blah.

01:21:02 ◼   ► - By the way, even the watch,

01:21:04 ◼   ► they barely advertise that it's water resistant.

01:21:07 ◼   ► - But there's expectations with the watch.

01:21:08 ◼   ► Like they under promise and over deliver the watch

01:21:10 ◼   ► 'cause it's like,

01:21:11 ◼   ► you totally shouldn't put this in the water,

01:21:12 ◼   ► but realistically speaking, it's like,

01:21:14 ◼   ► I mean, Craig Hockenberry swimming in the ocean with his,

01:21:16 ◼   ► like every single week for God knows how long.

01:21:19 ◼   ► Like if, when he tells us that his watch

01:21:21 ◼   ► has been killed by the water,

01:21:22 ◼   ► then we'll maybe know that the limits are,

01:21:25 ◼   ► but seriously, like it's basically, you know,

01:21:29 ◼   ► waterproof enough, but they don't say like you're right, they don't say much about it because like they have the specs and it's like it's

01:21:33 ◼   ► Like watch specs you can go in and you can see what the little numbers are and they have all these standards or whatever

01:21:37 ◼   ► But the phone they don't say anything about they're like do not bring your phone near water in any way

01:21:42 ◼   ► Alright, and so at some point they'll be able to say something about the phone with respect to water

01:21:47 ◼   ► So I think that is coming

01:21:49 ◼   ► I just don't know if it's the iPhone 7 or 8 or 9 or whatever and if I had to put a percentage on it

01:21:55 ◼   ► for the 7 I

01:21:56 ◼   ► would say

01:21:58 ◼   ► I so, the reason I put it in is I so want this to be an advertised feature of the iPhone

01:22:05 ◼   ► 7, but I just feel like that even if they ditch the headphone port, they need one more

01:22:09 ◼   ► generation to really go full waterproof, but I hope I'm wrong.

01:22:12 ◼   ► So I'm going to put it at slightly under 50%, but I hope I'm wrong.

01:22:14 ◼   ► So even if they ditch the headphone port, there's still a lightning port, right?

01:22:19 ◼   ► Unless we go full inductive.

01:22:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, like this, there's always going to be openings.

01:22:23 ◼   ► I don't think the headphone, it's what Marco said, like it's not so much that getting the

01:22:27 ◼   ► headphone something makes it possible to be waterproof, it's a nice thing to be able to

01:22:31 ◼   ► say when telling people that you took away their headphone port.

01:22:34 ◼   ► Yeah, because there are ways to waterproof certain ports and the design of the port can

01:22:40 ◼   ► make it easier or harder. I'm sure Lightning was probably designed with that in mind, to

01:22:47 ◼   ► have future devices be more water resistant in order to make it easier to do it. All that

01:22:52 ◼   ► being said, one thing that I find promising about this is that one of my common criticisms

01:22:57 ◼   ► of Apple design, especially recently, that I think seems to be getting worse, honestly,

01:23:03 ◼   ► it seems like the newer products that come out oftentimes seem to ignore what customers

01:23:08 ◼   ► actually need, like the problems that we face in the real world and what we actually want

01:23:12 ◼   ► on our devices, and instead give us things that we weren't really asking for, even though

01:23:18 ◼   ► they might be nice, but just things we weren't really asking for, like increased thinness

01:23:21 ◼   ► and lightness is one of the most common things.

01:23:23 ◼   ► So you know, you get things like the MacBook One

01:23:27 ◼   ► with its really controversial keyboard,

01:23:30 ◼   ► I'll be nice to it tonight,

01:23:31 ◼   ► well a really controversial keyboard

01:23:32 ◼   ► that was made in the name of thinness.

01:23:35 ◼   ► It's like, well we didn't need it

01:23:36 ◼   ► to be that thin necessarily.

01:23:37 ◼   ► Things like the iPhone, the best example

01:23:40 ◼   ► that I can give on the phone is battery life,

01:23:42 ◼   ► where so many people would love for their phone

01:23:44 ◼   ► to get better battery life.

01:23:46 ◼   ► And most people don't say, I wish my phone was thinner.

01:23:49 ◼   ► In general, I see this happening at Apple,

01:23:52 ◼   ► and I'm a little saddened by some of this.

01:23:54 ◼   ► However, if you look at what else people really want

01:23:58 ◼   ► out of their iPhones, very high on the list

01:24:01 ◼   ► is resistance to damage.

01:24:03 ◼   ► And the two kinds of damage that happen most to phones

01:24:05 ◼   ► is water damage and dropping damage.

01:24:08 ◼   ► And so if they can make it more durable

01:24:11 ◼   ► and more resistant to shattering or scratching

01:24:16 ◼   ► or cracking of the glass surfaces,

01:24:18 ◼   ► and if they can make it more water resistant.

01:24:21 ◼   ► That will seriously benefit a large number of customers.

01:24:25 ◼   ► That is very promising in that Apple is clearly trying

01:24:29 ◼   ► not only to make things super thin,

01:24:30 ◼   ► so John and I can be proud of them,

01:24:32 ◼   ► because it seems like they don't really know

01:24:34 ◼   ► what else to do with the physical designs,

01:24:35 ◼   ► but they can also at least solve real customer problems,

01:24:39 ◼   ► things that are really big,

01:24:41 ◼   ► that really affect a lot of people.

01:24:41 ◼   ► So that I think is great.

01:24:43 ◼   ► And if they're doing stuff like this,

01:24:46 ◼   ► If they're improving waterproofness and shockproofness at all, those will pay off big time and actual

01:24:52 ◼   ► customer benefit.

01:24:53 ◼   ► So Casey, what's your answer?

01:24:55 ◼   ► I think that if the headphone port goes, absolutely.

01:24:59 ◼   ► I think it might even be so far as, "Hey, we made it waterproof, but oops, we had to

01:25:04 ◼   ► make the headphone port go away.

01:25:05 ◼   ► It's just the way it had to be."

01:25:07 ◼   ► I think it's probably going to be, I don't know if it'll be advertised as full-on waterproof,

01:25:11 ◼   ► But I do think we will hear something advertised about significantly increased water protection,

01:25:19 ◼   ► for lack of a better way of phrasing it, or water resistance, I guess.

01:25:22 ◼   ► I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how this would work while still having a lightning

01:25:27 ◼   ► port.

01:25:28 ◼   ► And I can't help but wonder, could we do not only inductive charging, but inductive data?

01:25:34 ◼   ► I believe that's called Wi-Fi.

01:25:35 ◼   ► Well, touche.

01:25:36 ◼   ► Fair point.

01:25:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:38 ◼   ► But I don't think you'd...

01:25:39 ◼   ► I think they're gonna still have a lightning port.

01:25:41 ◼   ► And I think lighting port, probably, because it's their own port and they can do whatever

01:25:45 ◼   ► the hell they want with it and it has always been kind of like a non-traditional sort of

01:25:49 ◼   ► software controlled port where it's not as if you're making a spec for the whole world

01:25:52 ◼   ► to build and you tell them what the pin outs are and you have no control of what's at the

01:25:55 ◼   ► other end of those pins because they're all like hardwired pins for different voltage

01:25:59 ◼   ► levels or whatever, like it is entirely up to Apple so I feel like the lighting port

01:26:02 ◼   ► is the least of their concerns.

01:26:03 ◼   ► Probably the trickiest parts are like the baffles around the speakers and microphones

01:26:08 ◼   ► and stuff because I mean they've done it on the watch already.

01:26:10 ◼   ► But to do that and still have a reasonably high quality speaker and microphone assembly,

01:26:15 ◼   ► which they seem to be concentrating on in recent iOS devices, it all seems within their

01:26:19 ◼   ► own possibility.

01:26:20 ◼   ► And that's why I think in the past few years of devices, they've been slowly but surely

01:26:24 ◼   ► gaining expertise in how to do this, all the while not telling anyone any about it at all.

01:26:29 ◼   ► And the only reason we're finding out about it is because people on YouTube are dropping

01:26:32 ◼   ► their phones into water and then filming it and seeing what happens.

01:26:34 ◼   ► At least they finally stopped blending them, I think.

01:26:36 ◼   ► I think that phase is probably over.

01:26:38 ◼   ► Did you hear all the things like the best the best waterproof electronics things they just use distilled water or something without any like free

01:26:44 ◼   ► Ions or whatever so they can't conduct electricity you can put basically any electronics in that or so the theory goes

01:26:49 ◼   ► Whereas if you use tap water or something with minerals or impurities or whatever that it'll short out your phone

01:26:54 ◼   ► Uh-huh. Yeah, do not put your phone in water

01:26:58 ◼   ► It's the lesson like even when if they make this water-resistant one don't make it

01:27:02 ◼   ► I think Margot was never trying to keep this just a waterproof but like

01:27:05 ◼   ► smart to bring up the dropping thing because

01:27:08 ◼   ► Apple is kind of stuck on that one until some kind of materials

01:27:13 ◼   ► Change because they pick glass for a reason and they try to keep making tougher glass the glass that is

01:27:19 ◼   ► That's more resistant to breaking and bending like that super gorilla whatever glass and trying sap like

01:27:24 ◼   ► But the bottom line is if they just put plastic on it would be super durable, but it would be terrible

01:27:30 ◼   ► You think Johnny I've can't handle things now with the camera protruding although I don't entirely agree with that

01:27:35 ◼   ► But uh forget it then they want glass because it is it feels nice it feels expensive

01:27:41 ◼   ► It doesn't get all scratched up and gross like all of the great qualities of glass that we love the reason why glass is the right

01:27:47 ◼   ► Choice of the phone the one thing it has against it is does tend to shatter if you drop it on to asphalt just the right

01:27:52 ◼   ► way

01:27:53 ◼   ► So I don't know how they get out of that bind because if the whole if the goal was

01:27:57 ◼   ► Make it so I can take this phone and throw it on the ground like I'm spiking a football and it survives make the whole

01:28:03 ◼   ► thing out of Fisher Price plastic. Like it's not as if there's a hard drive disk head to

01:28:07 ◼   ► crash inside there. It's extremely durable, all except for the fact that it would feel

01:28:11 ◼   ► terrible if we made it out of Fisher Price plastic and it would get scratched up and

01:28:13 ◼   ► it would look gross and it would be a worse product. So at least Waterproof is something

01:28:17 ◼   ► they can do. With dropping, not quite sure what they can do there.

01:28:22 ◼   ► And instead we all just cover our phones in cases that look like big Fisher Price plastic.

01:28:27 ◼   ► Well some people do. I mean my case is not saving my phone. Did I tell you that my wife

01:28:31 ◼   ► dropped her her big plus no success that was a while ago it was like a week after

01:28:37 ◼   ► she got it and it just like slipped out of her pocket or whatever from basically

01:28:40 ◼   ► waist-height on to the cement sidewalk completely shattered oh that's why you

01:28:45 ◼   ► get Apple care plus yeah well in her defense the plus was really easy to drop

01:28:50 ◼   ► yeah well it was her first like she's getting used it was in the silicone case

01:28:53 ◼   ► but that didn't save it but yeah no and shattered we all see shattered runs all

01:28:57 ◼   ► the time I just I felt there's no way out of that other than to keep leaning

01:29:01 ◼   ► on your glass manufacturers to make it stronger and better but the you know

01:29:05 ◼   ► until we get transparent aluminum I guess from the Star Trek movie would

01:29:10 ◼   ► that be worth something to you and we're done all right thanks let's about three

01:29:14 ◼   ► sponsors this week Harry's Squarespace and fracture and we will see you next

01:29:19 ◼   ► week

01:29:21 ◼   ► now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental

01:29:29 ◼   ► Oh it was accidental.

01:29:31 ◼   ► John didn't do any research.

01:29:34 ◼   ► Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.

01:29:37 ◼   ► Cause it was accidental.

01:29:39 ◼   ► It was accidental.

01:29:42 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.

01:29:47 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at

01:29:53 ◼   ► at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S. So that's Casey List M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M. Anti-Marco Arment. S-I-R-A-C.

01:30:07 ◼   ► U-S-A-C-R-A-Q-S-A. It's accidental. They didn't mean too accidental. Tech podcast so long.

01:30:22 ◼   ► Why do we still have a lightning port?

01:30:23 ◼   ► Why not go inductive charging and just say the hell with it

01:30:26 ◼   ► to having a port at all?

01:30:27 ◼   ► - My friend has one of those things.

01:30:28 ◼   ► I forget what it's called, like the key charger

01:30:30 ◼   ► or something, QI or whatever.

01:30:32 ◼   ► He uses it with his iOS devices.

01:30:34 ◼   ► It's a case that you basically put on your phone

01:30:36 ◼   ► and it plugs into your lightning port.

01:30:37 ◼   ► And then it's a very thin case

01:30:38 ◼   ► 'cause all it really has to do is have a big like

01:30:40 ◼   ► sort of inductive contact thing.

01:30:42 ◼   ► And you just put it on, he likes it.

01:30:43 ◼   ► You just put it on these little stands and it charges it,

01:30:46 ◼   ► I would assume slightly slower than the other things.

01:30:49 ◼   ► But yeah, why did they not have that?

01:30:52 ◼   ► - I don't know, I'm not entirely sure it is a clean win.

01:30:56 ◼   ► You're like, isn't that better in all ways than a wire?

01:30:59 ◼   ► Setting aside performance entirely, is it better?

01:31:02 ◼   ► I don't think it's better in all ways than a wire

01:31:05 ◼   ► because the charging then takes up more room.

01:31:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause imagine if you're traveling with your phone,

01:31:10 ◼   ► you go to plug it in like in a hotel or something,

01:31:12 ◼   ► look at what it is with the watch today

01:31:14 ◼   ► and imagine the watch but bigger basically.

01:31:17 ◼   ► Bringing the watch with you is kind of a pain in the butt

01:31:19 ◼   ► 'cause of that big cable and it doesn't really stick

01:31:22 ◼   ► very well to it and when you're traveling somewhere

01:31:25 ◼   ► that kinda sucks, whereas the phone,

01:31:27 ◼   ► you plug in this thing and it holds,

01:31:28 ◼   ► you can swing the phone around like a rope from the cord

01:31:33 ◼   ► and it holds it, I mean you shouldn't,

01:31:36 ◼   ► but you probably can and it will probably hold.

01:31:38 ◼   ► The cords are just really, really practical

01:31:42 ◼   ► in the real world, even though they are totally unsexy

01:31:46 ◼   ► and they offend the sensibilities of geeks like us

01:31:49 ◼   ► like why can't everything be wireless?

01:31:51 ◼   ► But the reality is like in practice they are

01:31:54 ◼   ► just really good, really simple, really cheap

01:31:58 ◼   ► and they suffer from very few of the downsides

01:32:02 ◼   ► of inductive charging for like,

01:32:03 ◼   ► like I know speed is actually a big issue.

01:32:06 ◼   ► How much current you can get through an inductive charger

01:32:09 ◼   ► at once safely in that kind of situation.

01:32:13 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that the cord still wins

01:32:17 ◼   ► at a pretty big margin.

01:32:18 ◼   ► And looking forward to the future,

01:32:20 ◼   ► it would be ideal if our phones charged even faster,

01:32:23 ◼   ► especially if the batteries keep getting smaller.

01:32:26 ◼   ► It would be ideal if they could charge faster,

01:32:28 ◼   ► which means more current,

01:32:30 ◼   ► which means the cable will still win.

01:32:31 ◼   ► - Super capacitors, that's all you need.

01:32:33 ◼   ► We haven't talked about that, super capacitors.

01:32:34 ◼   ► That's the current five to 10 year technology

01:32:36 ◼   ► that's gonna make our phones charge in 15 seconds.

01:32:39 ◼   ► - Well, you still need to get all that current across,

01:32:40 ◼   ► though.

01:32:41 ◼   ► - But you were mostly addressing inductive,

01:32:42 ◼   ► but I think the other thing out there is the whole

01:32:46 ◼   ► try not to cook the people in the room

01:32:47 ◼   ► by carefully directing microwaves

01:32:49 ◼   ► to exactly where your phone is sitting.

01:32:51 ◼   ► And in that case, you would go to the hotel,

01:32:52 ◼   ► you would have all your devices with you,

01:32:54 ◼   ► and all you do is plug one wall or into the wall

01:32:56 ◼   ► and it would charge every device in the room at the same time

01:32:58 ◼   ► hopefully not cooking your insides when it doesn't.

01:33:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you'd be sleeping five inches away

01:33:03 ◼   ► from one of them, yeah.

01:33:04 ◼   ► - Well, you know, like technically you can do that.

01:33:07 ◼   ► It's kind of, sort of, I don't know if that would be legal,

01:33:09 ◼   ► but like, I'm trying to think of things that would be

01:33:13 ◼   ► with, that would be a clean win.

01:33:14 ◼   ► 'Cause I think we would all agree that if that

01:33:16 ◼   ► work and not cook people, you know, using whatever technology you want to make up about

01:33:21 ◼   ► some future technology, that would be a win, because it's better than plugging things in,

01:33:25 ◼   ► you don't have to have a bunch of pads with you, it does all of them at once, and it's

01:33:28 ◼   ► just, it's fire and forget.

01:33:29 ◼   ► Like, the same way that Wi-Fi is like, oh, now, you know, for most people, I don't have

01:33:33 ◼   ► to wire my whole house up, I just put this one thing in the corner of my house, and then

01:33:36 ◼   ► internet is everywhere.

01:33:37 ◼   ► If you put this one thing in the corner of my house, and charging is everywhere, that

01:33:41 ◼   ► would be cool, I would buy that.

01:33:42 ◼   ► If it didn't cook me.