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134: Who Did It Firster?

 

00:00:00   Let's just dive right in. Let's start with something hugely important. Let's talk about

00:00:05   my sonology. A lot of people have written in and asked me with regard to my computer

00:00:17   woes, and I'm putting "woes" in humongous air quotes there, why is it I'm so preoccupied

00:00:24   with having a computer that will be good at running Plex when I have a Synology, specifically

00:00:32   a DS1813+, sitting right next to me as we speak, that can host Plex.

00:00:39   Why am I complaining and moaning about having a computer to do that?

00:00:42   Well, the reason is that, at least as of six months or maybe a year ago now, when I was

00:00:46   running Synology—er, running Synology—running Plex on my Synology, what ended up happening

00:00:52   was anytime I tried to do a live transcode of just about anything, it just ground to

00:00:58   a screeching halt and it couldn't keep up with the transcode. Now, it could be that

00:01:04   things have gotten better over time. It could be that I didn't have my settings squared

00:01:10   away because to Marco's point, you know, generally speaking Plex is pretty maintenance-free,

00:01:16   but it can get a little fiddly on occasion. So it very well could be user error, but one

00:01:21   One way or another, my experience with the 1813+ running Plex is that it just cannot

00:01:25   transcode quick enough, and thus I need a full bore computer to do it.

00:01:29   Now there are other Synology models that absolutely can transcode really well on the fly.

00:01:37   The one that I have, in my experience anyway, was not it.

00:01:40   Now the other question is, "Okay, well why do you have to transcode in the first place?

00:01:44   Why don't you just have what MPEG-4 video or whatever it is all over the place?"

00:01:50   Well, let's just say that not all of my media is consistent, and I'll leave it at that.

00:01:56   I could take Don Melton's scripts and transcode everything, but that takes a long time because

00:02:02   I don't have a trashcan Mac Pro, and I'm too darn lazy.

00:02:06   So that is why I'm not using Plex on my Synology.

00:02:09   I have the same Synology, and it's not—I mean, it's a fairly wimpy CPU in there.

00:02:14   It's not great at transcoding, but I haven't really run Plex on it.

00:02:17   I use Synology's native video serving thing.

00:02:20   - Is that any good?

00:02:21   - It transcodes fine.

00:02:22   Like either it can't transcode it at all,

00:02:25   which very rarely happens, but does occasionally happen

00:02:27   where it just can't make heads or tails of it.

00:02:29   And it says like, you know, file unreadable or whatever.

00:02:32   Some error message is basically like,

00:02:33   I can't make heads or tails of this.

00:02:34   But most of the stuff that I find,

00:02:36   some pretty weird stuff, you know,

00:02:38   weird MKVs of unknown origins, right?

00:02:41   It transcodes them, 1080p, you know,

00:02:44   You can't do anything fancy like scrub around in the video

00:02:48   Like don't like you all you can do is play from the beginning essentially, but it can keep up. It doesn't drop frames

00:02:53   So it could just be Plex is not taking advantage of the hardware in the same way that the thing that comes with Synology

00:02:58   Is and in general when I've looked at like Plex and all the other sorts of things

00:03:02   Synology is like I think they call it DS video. They have an iOS app. They have they have a little server thing

00:03:08   My TV with no software installed just the the quote-unquote smart

00:03:13   features of my TV

00:03:15   It sees it just as a DLNA server. It's not fancy. It's not pretty

00:03:19   It doesn't show you the cover art for your things and have a bunch of metadata and do all the stuff that Plex does

00:03:24   But it has a fairly high rate of being able to play the video

00:03:28   In a straight line from beginning to end as long as you don't touch anything

00:03:31   No, well, maybe I'll have to try that out. I mean I freaking love Plex with all my being

00:03:37   I do like all the metadata it gives you.

00:03:41   I do think, despite what Marco's experience has been, that it's very, very easy 99% of

00:03:47   the time.

00:03:48   The only problem with Plex is that you really have to name things the way they expect you

00:03:52   to name things.

00:03:54   But if you do, and you're okay with that, then you don't ever have to look at the names

00:03:58   of anything because it's all, you know, with the cover art and with the full metadata,

00:04:04   just like you were saying, Jon.

00:04:05   I really love it, but it may be worth giving this thing a try just to see.

00:04:09   And I think it's the Play series, the DS-214 Play is the one I can think of off the top

00:04:14   of my head that the Synology makes that I believe has some onboard hardware to do some

00:04:19   of this transcoding, but our Synologies do not.

00:04:23   So just something to consider.

00:04:25   I have one of those Play ones too, and it does claim to have hardware stuff and you

00:04:29   can turn it on, but I think when you turn it on, the hardware decoding, it reduces the

00:04:33   the amount of things that it's able to transcode on the file.

00:04:36   Like the hardware decoding is like, you know,

00:04:39   understands some particular formats

00:04:41   and some particular bit rates or whatever.

00:04:43   That's, I don't know if that's true,

00:04:44   but that's been my impression

00:04:45   because when I check that checkbox,

00:04:46   all of a sudden a bunch of other stuff doesn't play.

00:04:49   And when I uncheck it, everything still plays fine.

00:04:53   And so I don't see what the advantage is.

00:04:55   It's not as if checking it makes something

00:04:57   that I couldn't previously play play better.

00:04:59   Everything plays fine in software mode.

00:05:00   so I just leave the hardware thing unchecked.

00:05:03   - If only the new Apple TV played MKV files natively.

00:05:06   - We'll get to that.

00:05:08   (laughing)

00:05:10   - I tell you what though,

00:05:11   if there's a Plex app for the Apple TV,

00:05:13   which I got to assume there will be,

00:05:15   I'm gonna have to,

00:05:17   that genuinely that will probably make me buy one.

00:05:20   Although I will say that I do love my Fire TV stick.

00:05:22   It does work really well.

00:05:24   - Yeah, well put out the notes so you don't forget

00:05:26   to crush your Plex dreams for Apple TV later.

00:05:30   (laughing)

00:05:32   Follow up since you went to the last follow up item first,

00:05:34   now we're a little out of order here.

00:05:35   So we'll go to the first follow up item second

00:05:38   from Michael Hammond.

00:05:39   He was the first person to point out that last show

00:05:41   when I was trying to talk about the things

00:05:43   that Apple is not going to do

00:05:45   when they do the S revision of their phones,

00:05:47   like it's not a total hardware redesign.

00:05:48   It's just like the previous phone, but S-ier.

00:05:51   The example I gave was,

00:05:54   they're not gonna do something like Touch ID,

00:05:55   but of course Touch ID did debut on an S phone.

00:05:57   Brain fart, sorry.

00:05:58   So nevermind that example.

00:06:01   Neither one of you caught it either.

00:06:03   - Nope.

00:06:04   - Yeah, we forget.

00:06:04   - Well, I just, I wanted to see if you knew.

00:06:07   - Oh, I mean, I knew as soon as it was pointed out to me,

00:06:09   like, duh, yeah, that was a stupid example.

00:06:10   And then I, of course, I did.

00:06:11   Did I actually say that?

00:06:12   And then you listen back and say, yeah, I did, stupid.

00:06:15   Anyway, Michael Hammond won the race.

00:06:17   He was the first one.

00:06:18   (laughing)

00:06:19   And then a million other people told me, which is fine.

00:06:21   - Oh, this next piece of follow-up is me.

00:06:23   We've talked on and off about the crescent moon

00:06:25   on the front of the iPhone 6,

00:06:28   maybe even 6 Plus. I wanted to remind everyone, I tweeted about this a little

00:06:32   while ago, that your warranty if you did not buy AppleCare probably runs out the

00:06:37   next 10 or so days if you got a launch day iPhone 6. I have scheduled a Genius

00:06:43   Bar appointment for this coming Sunday, I believe about midday, and so I'm going to

00:06:48   go into the Genius Bar to see about them replacing either the screen or the

00:06:52   entire phone. I have heard from numerous people through the internet, I've heard that they

00:07:00   will completely give you a new phone, which I think is actually refurbished strictly speaking,

00:07:04   but they'll give you a phone that's new to you. I've heard that they'll repair the screen,

00:07:09   like give you a whole new screen assembly. And I've heard they'll tell you, "Well, it

00:07:12   doesn't affect the pictures, so screw off." And I don't know, I guess every person's experience

00:07:18   is a little bit different. I will report back on what my experience is, but I will find

00:07:22   out Sunday. Additionally, I'm told as per Lane W that to get this fixed out of warranty is $109.

00:07:29   I don't know if that is inclusive of AppleCare or not, but it's something to think about. So,

00:07:36   if you have one of these Crescent Moon iPhone issues, I would strongly suggest

00:07:42   you go and get that checked out in the next week or so.

00:07:44   Ashish Gandhi gave some clarification on the whole thing about the SVG icon for the pin

00:07:53   tab in Safari 9.

00:07:56   Why were there two different instructions?

00:07:57   I think we put them both in last week's show notes.

00:08:01   Turns out that there's only one.

00:08:04   One of them is old, one of them is new.

00:08:05   It's difficult to tell which was which.

00:08:07   We'll put links in the show notes to clear it up.

00:08:09   The real one that Apple wants you to use now is the one that says link rel=mask-icon.

00:08:14   is the real one, that is the good one, that's the one you have to put in. I have to go to

00:08:17   my site and delete the other one now that I know which one is fake. And there's also

00:08:21   a link to a thread in Apple's developer forums and a mailing list archive on one of the WG

00:08:28   mailing lists from the W3 explaining the evolution of this thing. But anyway, it's link rel=mask-icon

00:08:34   in case you were wondering.

00:08:36   Alright.

00:08:37   Our first sponsor this week is Cards Against Humanity. And rather than reading a normal

00:08:41   sponsor read, they asked Jon to review a toaster.

00:08:44   [MUSIC]

00:08:55   Jon, what is this week's toaster?

00:08:57   I had a weird one this week, because I've never heard of this brand before, and I think

00:09:02   this is the first one we've ever had of this brand. You guys can tell me. This is

00:09:05   Rosewill all one word no capital W. This is the RHT0 and oh I guess it's got to

00:09:12   be an O. RHTO yes it is an O hyphen one three zero zero one another name with O's

00:09:20   and zeros in it but at least they're separated by hyphen. This is I think the

00:09:25   biggest toaster I've ever tested it is really really really big it is bigger in

00:09:31   all dimensions than what I thought was my pretty big Breville 650 XL toaster.

00:09:36   They sell it on Newegg.

00:09:37   I don't know where it came from.

00:09:39   They just arrive at my house.

00:09:40   And in particular, it is really, really tall.

00:09:44   And I don't understand why it's so tall.

00:09:46   It is the tallest toaster I've ever seen in my life.

00:09:48   It is taller than any toaster I've ever seen in a store.

00:09:50   It's taller than the really big Breville's.

00:09:54   I don't understand why it's so tall.

00:09:55   The manual it comes with is very thin.

00:09:58   It doesn't give any reason for it to be so darn tall in it.

00:10:02   You would think like, "Oh, so you can fit an entire chicken in there."

00:10:05   Like vertically maybe?

00:10:06   Like why is it so tall?

00:10:08   Like I think the proportions of all the other toasters, like if you have a chicken that

00:10:12   is too tall to fit in one of the other toasters I've tested, it's not going to fit lengthwise.

00:10:17   You know, like the proportions, anyway, it is inexplicably tall and it just dominates

00:10:21   the counter that it's on.

00:10:22   All right, so that's the first weird thing about it.

00:10:25   Some standard things about it.

00:10:26   It's another three knob toaster, three knobs that all have to be in the right position

00:10:30   for anything to happen.

00:10:32   You've got a temperature knob on top that goes from 0 to 450, although the manual says

00:10:36   that has a max setting, it doesn't, it just stops at 450.

00:10:39   Anyway, turn it all the way to the right.

00:10:40   Then you've got a function knob with toast on one end and like a warming function on

00:10:43   the other, and then you've got a timer knob that turned to the right for a little ticking

00:10:46   timer and turned to the left for the stay on mode.

00:10:50   I don't know who decided this three knob arrangement is a good idea, but it appears to be the most

00:10:54   common and it's terrible because it's like you know all three knobs have to be

00:10:57   in the right position for you to do anything right and it will gladly like

00:11:01   you'll turn the little toast knob to you know whatever to try to toast if you

00:11:06   don't have the other knobs in the right position it will gladly just sit there

00:11:08   and take away the lights on does nothing tells you that it's not actually

00:11:10   toasting your bread until you come back two minutes later and go why isn't this

00:11:13   bread getting brown or actually in this case for four and a half minutes it's

00:11:17   about four and a half minutes to toast we're just pretty good considering the

00:11:21   Cavern that you have to put the bread

00:11:23   Like it's so lonely there

00:11:25   This has three positions for the rack and it has a u-shaped rack that you can flip over

00:11:29   But the u-shaped like is only like a centimeter difference between up and down maybe two centimeters anyway again

00:11:36   What difference is this two centimeters up or down make in this giant toaster is like a foot tall?

00:11:40   I don't understand. It's got two unguarded elements in the bottom two unguarded elements on the top

00:11:47   Crumb tray slides out reasonably well the door the massive massive door has a weird curve to it

00:11:54   It opens all the way. It doesn't feel like it's bending or breaking the whole thing. Here's that

00:11:58   Here's the thing that I'm still puzzling over by this toaster

00:12:02   The whole toaster feels like it's not high-end

00:12:06   So it's not like trying to be shiny or glossy or like have the controls feel good

00:12:10   But it's not chintzy either like nothing wiggles when it shouldn't

00:12:15   You know, it's like exactly middle of the road very sort of straightforward Fisher price competent every part of it is

00:12:22   Not loose, but like it just it has an air of like competence to it then

00:12:28   I don't know. I'm associating with this Rose will brand that I've never heard of by the way

00:12:32   It's apparently new eggs generic brand. Just please don't email us

00:12:35   Yeah, that makes some sense. Like a new egg style thing where if you buy something from new egg

00:12:41   It's like an off brand like mono price, you know where it's like

00:12:44   Like, it's not really name brand, but it's also not terrible.

00:12:49   I don't know, it's very strange.

00:12:50   So the knobs, they feel kind of gritty and a little bit stiff, but they don't feel like

00:12:54   they're going to fall off in your hands.

00:12:55   They do their knob job well, they have a little marking.

00:12:59   They have little markings on them so you can see where they're pointing.

00:13:01   They're just standard knobs, they don't do any of the terrible mistakes the other ones

00:13:05   try to do.

00:13:06   The door feels a little bit too big and too loose, but it doesn't wiggle, it doesn't twist

00:13:10   in its thing, it just opens and closes fine.

00:13:13   I still think the toaster is just way too big and four and a half minutes is like the

00:13:16   sort of the average a little bit too slow toaster.

00:13:19   I think that's just too long to wait.

00:13:21   But if you like to toast really big things, I guess really tall stuff, it does an okay

00:13:27   job like for a giant toaster.

00:13:30   It just feels like a waste of space to me, but I can't find anything terribly wrong with

00:13:34   it in terms of the big toasters to take a long time to toast bread.

00:13:38   It seems okay.

00:13:39   I didn't look at the prices.

00:13:40   I always forget to look at the price because they just arrive and I don't know like it's a hundred bucks

00:13:44   Whoa, all right now I've changed my thing

00:13:46   Not a hundred dollar toaster do not buy this toaster for $100. I'm gonna be like it was like 50 or 60 fine hundred dollars

00:13:54   Mmm, I would get the smaller

00:13:56   Black and Decker three knob thing or something

00:14:00   Well, the hundred dollar price does match up with what you just said about how it's kind of in the middle between low end and

00:14:04   high end

00:14:05   Where you know the high-end toasters like your Breville are like 180 and then we've had a lot of good ones that are like 40

00:14:11   Or 50 yeah

00:14:12   But I feel like the best $50 one we had is better than this because it's just so big and so slow like I just

00:14:19   Felt like the quality of it was it was like it felt like using a mono price toaster

00:14:22   It's not name-brand it's not quite right it's a little bit off

00:14:27   The plastic is a little bit of the wrong material. I'm like so the really long toast time

00:14:31   If you're gonna use it mostly for toasting things. This is not the toaster for you

00:14:34   It's all black which I think is reasonably tasteful after some of the weirder toasters that we had

00:14:38   Yeah, I don't know maybe you see it on sale see it at woot.com for 80 bucks pick it up

00:14:45   But but really take the measurements first

00:14:47   You know go into your kitchen and measure it out and see if it'll even fit underneath your countertop

00:14:52   Underneath your cabinets because it is huge

00:14:55   Do you think maybe this is for somebody who wants to toast an entire dozen of bagels at once vertically?

00:15:03   Let's just stack me like you know it's not like it has so much space, but it doesn't give you any like

00:15:07   Holders or anything to use that space it also comes with a circular thing like for pizza or whatever which is weird because it doesn't

00:15:13   Even have much of a bump on

00:15:15   The back of it and the trays that come with they're also sort of similarly middle of the road it comes with a lot of

00:15:19   Accessories got the big tray that's got the thing that goes inside the tray, then it's got the circle thing

00:15:23   Don't know this this is inscrutable

00:15:27   I mean

00:15:28   I think we'll have to get more of these Roseville ones to see to get the number of this manufacturer

00:15:32   But $100 seems steep to me and honestly, I don't understand a person maybe a giant person

00:15:37   Maybe like someone who is like an NBA player or an NFL player who's just much bigger than regular people that this is a proportional

00:15:43   Toaster for them and they just buy very tall bread. I don't know

00:15:58   Thanks a lot to Cards Against Humanity for sponsoring our show this week once again

00:16:02   Okay, so some things have happened today. We are out of August and news is happening once again

00:16:10   We have made it through the dark days and now we are back in the light

00:16:14   So there was an Apple keynote today, and it was a busy one. There was a lot going on

00:16:19   How long was it all told like two and a half hours something like that? I?

00:16:22   mean it's a long and busy keynote and

00:16:25   so I

00:16:27   I guess the understanding is that this is the last keynote we're going to see from

00:16:32   Apple this calendar year.

00:16:33   Yeah, I think it's interesting.

00:16:35   I mean, you know, like John Gruber was predicting beforehand that, you know, this doesn't

00:16:38   make sense, it's too much stuff, they always have two, or they have for a long time, and

00:16:43   that was correct.

00:16:44   I think one thing that is very clear from this is that they didn't want to relegate

00:16:50   anything to a secondary keynote.

00:16:53   And one thing that didn't make any appearance at all is El Capitan and anything about the

00:16:58   Mac.

00:16:59   Like the Mac, like I think there was like some, some like Easter egg somewhere like

00:17:04   on a screenshot on one of the demos it said that it's coming out on September 30th.

00:17:09   But that was it.

00:17:10   Yeah, that was an email, an email in Federici's iPhone and he was doing the, I already forgot

00:17:16   the term, but he was doing like the quick look for the message and it said, oh, it's

00:17:20   coming out on the 30th, PS, top secret.

00:17:22   Right, exactly. But other than that, there was really no mention of the Mac in today's

00:17:27   keynote because honestly there wasn't room for it. And I think maybe we keep waiting

00:17:32   for Skylake, right? And we keep hearing Skylake is coming soon-ish, you know, any time between

00:17:38   now and six months from now, everyone keeps saying. I think this is kind of confirmation

00:17:44   that either we're not going to see any Skylake stuff from Apple for the rest of the year

00:17:48   or it'll be so minor that it'll just be like a website update.

00:17:53   So I wouldn't expect much on the Mac front for the rest of the year besides the release

00:17:56   of El Capitan.

00:17:58   Maybe this 4K iMac comes out, but honestly, in this event, there was no room for that.

00:18:04   The 4K iMac is not a big deal.

00:18:06   It's a mid-range product.

00:18:07   It isn't a high-end product.

00:18:09   It's not even really a redesign, as far as we know.

00:18:12   The Mac is conspicuously missing here, but I think Apple really wanted to give a boost

00:18:20   to their other things that aren't the iPhone.

00:18:23   They talked a little bit about the watch, we'll get to that.

00:18:26   They wanted to launch the new iPad Pro and the new Apple TV.

00:18:30   These are major new product launches that, as far as I know, I mean, I will have to ask

00:18:36   people who have worked for big sites, as far as I know, the iPhone event every year is

00:18:40   always the biggest event audience-wise.

00:18:42   It seems like way more people watch the iPhone event every year than the other Apple livestreams.

00:18:47   And so if Apple wants to give things the best chance, this is like going between friends

00:18:52   and Seinfeld.

00:18:54   This is the slot that you can put anything in front of the iPhones at this event and

00:18:59   it'll get a lot of exposure, even more so than Apple's usual stuff, which is already

00:19:05   a lot of exposure.

00:19:06   So they wanted to give the iPad Pro, the Apple TV, and the watch the biggest boost they can

00:19:10   leading into the holiday season.

00:19:12   So it makes sense that they did it this way.

00:19:15   However, I mean, I don't know about you guys.

00:19:17   I am totally overwhelmed by this.

00:19:18   I don't even know, I mean, I guess we can just go chronologically, but I don't, we're

00:19:22   not going to be able to cover all this even in one show.

00:19:24   I mean, our podcast is shorter than the keynote.

00:19:26   >> Occasionally.

00:19:27   >> Yeah, well, I think we'll hit all the highlights.

00:19:31   I think we'll come revisit a lot of these things because, again, recording this the

00:19:34   day the keynote happened, I don't know about you guys, but I didn't have much time to research

00:19:38   all these things because the keynote ended and you know picking kids up and

00:19:41   making dinner like I didn't you know so this is the same thing we do after

00:19:44   WWDC get overwhelmed with a bunch of information see a big thing and then

00:19:47   talk about it so I'm sure well I think we that's why I put them all in my notes

00:19:50   I think we'll be able to hit all of them and then towards the end it once we've

00:19:54   gone through all them we can get bogged down details and follow up on that next

00:19:57   week as for the Mac stuff that you were mentioning I think it's it's

00:20:01   understandable because the only Mac thing that I could possibly have to

00:20:04   announced was LCAP which we've seen a million times before. I don't think

00:20:09   there are any surprises there and even if they had any new hardware it would be

00:20:13   exactly the kind of thing to get cut for space and they had tons of other stuff

00:20:16   and they're only doing one show and so that stuff gets cut. It's not much of a

00:20:20   slight because all they would have been doing is demoing things we've already

00:20:23   seen and showing us hardware that does not surprise us in any way which would

00:20:28   be nice you know it's a nice announcement oh look the new Macs are

00:20:30   out and here are their features and I wonder which chips they put in them I

00:20:33   I wonder what the prices are, but other than that, there's nothing like, you know, one

00:20:37   of the Macs comes with a pencil or something, you know, so if you just rank things in priority

00:20:42   order and cut off it to the two hour mark, all the Mac related stuff happens to fall

00:20:45   off the bottom, which I think is fine, you know, like I think the Mac got a lot of screen

00:20:50   time at WWDC, you know, disproportionate to the amount of money that it makes Apple and

00:20:56   the amount of Macs that they sell and, you know, all out of proportion with everything

00:21:00   else.

00:21:01   This was not the show for the Macs, this was the show for the other stuff.

00:21:05   So I thought it was fine, I didn't think the Mac got slighted in any way.

00:21:08   All right, so let's start with the watch.

00:21:11   New Apple Watch stuff.

00:21:13   Yeah, there's some new colors for the Apple Watch.

00:21:17   I was actually hugely disappointed that the rose, well not rose gold, what are they called?

00:21:23   Yeah, rose gold, the pink one.

00:21:25   That that wasn't a thing when the watch came out because I think Aaron would have loved

00:21:29   that.

00:21:30   when I tried to quickly rewatch the keynote this afternoon, Erin seemed very unimpressed by it,

00:21:37   so I'm not sure if she really would have loved it, but typically she likes that kind of pink,

00:21:42   that very like soft pink. She loved her pink razor, which I think we've talked about in parts

00:21:47   in the past. Not to say the pink is only for girls, but the girl that I know best happens to

00:21:52   really like pink, and so that's why I bring it up. There's the new band by Hermes, is that right?

00:21:59   I believe it's Hermes.

00:22:01   Yeah, you're right. You're right.

00:22:02   Sorry, I was trying really hard to remember, but that's okay.

00:22:04   I didn't know that before today.

00:22:05   Neither did I.

00:22:06   I would have said Hermes until today.

00:22:08   Yeah, so there's new bands.

00:22:09   Clearly not targeted to me because I think the one that wraps double around your wrist looks absolutely ridiculous

00:22:14   and it seems like it would be a pain in the butt to put on.

00:22:17   So, obviously not for me.

00:22:19   Pain in the butt to put on has no bearing on fashion.

00:22:22   That's true.

00:22:22   Second of all, yeah, I've been told by my expert wife that that is very much in fashion right now.

00:22:28   Yeah, well, I mean, whatever.

00:22:30   Did you see the giant cuff for men? Did you see that?

00:22:33   Yeah, I don't understand that. It's like you're being shackled to your watch.

00:22:37   Like, "This watch, this strap is not enough to hold it to my wrist. I need something bigger."

00:22:40   Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, this is way beyond our understanding, because this is high fashion, and we are not high fashion.

00:22:49   Maybe it blocks bullets.

00:22:51   Wonder Woman!

00:22:53   Is that a Wonder Woman reference? Is that right?

00:22:55   That is.

00:22:56   You guys were too young for that show.

00:22:59   Yeah, well, there's that.

00:23:00   Okay, so new colors, new bands, brief mention of watchOS 2.

00:23:04   I gotta tell you as quick as I am, I'm really freaking stoked for custom complications,

00:23:10   or third-party complications.

00:23:11   I actually am intending to write a blog post about this if and when I ever have a chance

00:23:14   to breathe, but I can think of a handful of apps that I would love to have custom complications

00:23:20   for.

00:23:21   And what is the face that has no analog portion to it?

00:23:24   The modular?

00:23:25   Yeah, I believe so.

00:23:26   believe so. So the modular face, I think it's aesthetically hideous, but if the right set

00:23:31   of complications came out, I would probably switch to that. I'm really, really stoked

00:23:38   for watchOS 2. Have you done much with overcast for watchOS 2? I don't know if I should say

00:23:44   this or not. I literally haven't started. Well, you're going to have a busy fall, I'd

00:23:50   say. Yeah, I mean, because it's mostly because the more I use the watch, and I don't want

00:23:55   I don't want to go too far into this now,

00:23:56   because we have a lot of other stuff to talk about.

00:23:58   But basically, the more I use the watch,

00:24:01   the less interested I am in running apps on it.

00:24:03   And I really like the watch, and I use it every day,

00:24:07   I'm always wearing it, I love the activity tracking,

00:24:10   I love notifications, I love so much about the watch

00:24:13   in reality, but I don't love the apps on it,

00:24:16   and I don't think I'm alone in that.

00:24:18   I think this is a very common opinion of it,

00:24:20   where people keep going on and on about

00:24:24   the watch is going to replace, well before the watch came out people went on and on about

00:24:27   how it's going to replace phones and I was a little skeptical about that and I think

00:24:30   my skepticism has proven to be correct that I don't think watches can replace phones.

00:24:37   I think anyone who has one of these smart watches will probably agree with that. That

00:24:42   it isn't an issue of like oh just wait a couple years and the hardware will be so much better.

00:24:47   It's literally just like the ergonomics and the physical sides of things just don't work

00:24:52   out that well. The watch is really cool for a lot of things, but being a general-purpose

00:24:59   app platform isn't one of those things, as far as I'm concerned.

00:25:02   Now, there are a lot of things that could be done better that would improve the situation.

00:25:08   With watchOS 2 custom complications, I think they're making a lot of headway into that.

00:25:13   But I also think that when Apple designed the watch, I think they made a bunch of mistakes

00:25:19   the UI and the software structure.

00:25:21   And I would have made it a lot simpler, honestly.

00:25:26   And we talked--

00:25:26   I don't want to get too far into this.

00:25:27   We'll talk about it on another show.

00:25:29   But I would have basically done only the watch face,

00:25:33   complications, and notifications, and glances, and

00:25:36   not have the home screen, not have apps that are like these

00:25:40   navigation hierarchy trees or that are really meant to do

00:25:44   anything beyond a few seconds long.

00:25:47   So anyway, I haven't started working on Overcast for the watch in part because it isn't a high

00:25:53   priority for me as a user of Overcast.

00:25:56   That the watch app I have now works okay.

00:25:59   When I get a chance I'm going to do the watchOS 2 app.

00:26:03   I'm not going to tackle trying to play things directly from the watch with no phone nearby

00:26:08   anytime soon because I looked into it at WVDC and it's basically extremely limited in what

00:26:14   what you can do, extremely challenging,

00:26:16   and I think honestly it would kind of suck

00:26:18   the reality of moving these files back and forth.

00:26:22   How many people do you know now with the watch

00:26:24   who sync music over to it and listen on Bluetooth headphones

00:26:27   while they jog?

00:26:28   I don't know anybody, I mean, I know you can do that,

00:26:30   and I know people want that,

00:26:32   but I don't know anybody who's actually tried it

00:26:34   and has wanted to do it more than once,

00:26:36   just because it's so cumbersome

00:26:39   to transfer data back and forth.

00:26:40   And I mean, I barely even know enough people

00:26:43   of Bluetooth headphones who could even do it at all.

00:26:44   But anyway, so I've been focused with Overcast

00:26:48   on streaming, streaming, streaming,

00:26:51   and getting 2.0 out the door.

00:26:52   And so I'm working on that.

00:26:54   The reality is almost all of Overcast's customers

00:26:58   are using it on an iPhone.

00:27:00   Very few of them even have an Apple Watch.

00:27:02   Very few of them use it on the iPad.

00:27:05   And none of them have an Apple TV yet, that matters.

00:27:08   So that's where I'm focusing my efforts.

00:27:10   On the iPhone app right now,

00:27:11   and then once I finish 2.0, which should be very soon,

00:27:14   then I can branch out to these other platforms

00:27:17   and start figuring out what might make sense there.

00:27:19   But for now, I haven't even touched it.

00:27:21   - All right, well, that's surprising,

00:27:24   but I am curious to see how that goes

00:27:26   once you start really digging into the OS/2 version,

00:27:30   and I'm gonna call it OS/2 forevermore,

00:27:32   because I want to.

00:27:33   - I mean, honestly, I hardly ever launched

00:27:36   the Overcast app on my watch.

00:27:37   I almost never use it.

00:27:40   And I think that's kind of a problem for me as a developer,

00:27:44   but I hear from people, when I ask people who use the app,

00:27:49   I hear from them similar things that it just isn't

00:27:54   as useful as we thought it would be for that kind of role.

00:27:57   Now for all the other things, like for the things

00:27:59   I mentioned, notifications, time stuff,

00:28:02   watch face complications, glances,

00:28:04   it's very good at those things, except glances.

00:28:08   It's very good at the other parts of those things.

00:28:10   If that's all it ever does,

00:28:12   that's still a really nice device for a lot of people,

00:28:15   myself included.

00:28:15   I'm still very happy I bought it for all those reasons.

00:28:18   If it never runs an app in the typical,

00:28:21   go back to the Honeycomb screen, find the icon,

00:28:23   launch the icon, do some things in the app.

00:28:25   If I never do that again with the watch,

00:28:27   I'll be fine with this product.

00:28:29   - That's interesting.

00:28:30   There's not a lot of watch apps that I use,

00:28:32   but the ones I use I do quite like.

00:28:33   I really like Fantastic Owl.

00:28:35   I really like this Baby Connect app

00:28:37   that we're probably not gonna be using much longer

00:28:38   'cause Declan's getting quite a bit older now.

00:28:41   Dark Sky is good.

00:28:43   Yeah, that's about it.

00:28:44   When I'm traveling, there's some others that I use,

00:28:46   but that doesn't happen terribly often.

00:28:47   John, are you using any third-party apps

00:28:50   for your watch really?

00:28:50   - I don't use them apps much either,

00:28:52   but I find myself still forgetting and being frustrated

00:28:55   by the fact that the watch is so much less useful

00:28:58   without the phone.

00:28:59   Like if I don't have my phone in my pocket

00:29:01   and I'm just wearing my watch, oh, that's right,

00:29:03   I'm not going to get text messages.

00:29:05   I'm not going to see when a new calendar,

00:29:10   well, I guess I'll see the calendar right

00:29:11   so they synced, but the communication,

00:29:14   that it does all its communication through the phone

00:29:16   and that once you are, if you leave your phone at your desk

00:29:19   and you go to a meeting, I will not see it.

00:29:21   My wife texts me something

00:29:22   and I forget that that's the case.

00:29:24   I forget that the, because you start using it

00:29:26   for those roles where it's like you're sort of

00:29:29   on the wrist tapping you, notifications of things going on,

00:29:33   you start to believe that the watch is its own thing.

00:29:35   You're like, I just need my watch.

00:29:36   I don't need to take my phone out of my pocket.

00:29:38   But then you're like, I don't even need my phone.

00:29:39   And you do.

00:29:40   So I'm looking forward to seven years from now

00:29:43   when it can do all those same things that Marco described,

00:29:47   but not rely on the phone for all of them.

00:29:49   And maybe it'll be more than seven years.

00:29:51   Because for that functionality,

00:29:53   a lot of the times that's all I need out of it.

00:29:56   I don't need to be launching apps on my phone

00:29:58   or surfing the web.

00:29:59   I just need to make and receive phone calls and texts

00:30:02   and have an up-to-date synchronized calendar

00:30:04   and maybe do some basic lookups of contact information.

00:30:09   That can all fit on the watch

00:30:13   'cause then I'm not like I'm typing on the watch,

00:30:14   I'm speaking into it.

00:30:15   I'm either using the speech to text

00:30:18   or I'm sending audio things to people

00:30:20   or I'm doing phone calls over the tinny little thing.

00:30:22   Like it's just for two second little spurts of things.

00:30:26   So that's the place where I feel the watch has room to grow.

00:30:30   That and also the thing that they've done here,

00:30:32   getting back to the announcement,

00:30:33   is I'm glad to see that they are branching out aesthetically

00:30:37   like that they're not going to,

00:30:39   you know, here's a bunch of watches you can get

00:30:40   and then, you know, a year from now,

00:30:43   or two years from now,

00:30:45   when we make the next version,

00:30:46   the watch will be a different fashion.

00:30:47   Like they're willing to play with it,

00:30:49   that they have, you know, more colors, more styles,

00:30:52   more watch faces,

00:30:53   and I think they should do even more of that.

00:30:54   In particular, the watch faces,

00:30:55   where they're kind of like,

00:30:56   oh, if you get this special band,

00:30:58   who get the special watch face.

00:31:00   I guess they have to do that for branding purposes,

00:31:02   but they probably own the designs of these,

00:31:04   I don't know, I don't know.

00:31:05   Anyway, I think that's the next area

00:31:07   that needs to open up is watch face,

00:31:09   third-party watch faces,

00:31:11   because all this type of customization

00:31:13   makes people feel more of a connection with this thing.

00:31:17   Like there are so many varieties you can get now

00:31:19   and so many colors and so many bands,

00:31:21   and I think they should let people

00:31:23   have third-party watch faces as well,

00:31:24   because that is an area,

00:31:25   like Marco's like he's not really enthused

00:31:27   about making a watchOS app,

00:31:30   because he doesn't find himself using apps,

00:31:31   but everybody uses the watch face.

00:31:33   And if you are a designer,

00:31:34   I bet you'd be really jazzed about a chance

00:31:36   to make your own watch face.

00:31:38   Or even, you know, so much so that even Marco might make one

00:31:41   with like watch hands that move out of the way

00:31:44   so you can see the little date complication,

00:31:46   you know, or whatever.

00:31:47   Like, it just seems like a fun thing to do

00:31:50   and play to the strengths of the watch.

00:31:52   Right now, apps are not the strength of the watch,

00:31:54   but who knows?

00:31:55   With the watchOS 2, maybe more people will find more apps.

00:32:00   Like Casey's found a few, I've found basically zero,

00:32:02   Marco's found zero.

00:32:03   If watchOS 2, after six months of development,

00:32:08   can get me and Marco to have one app

00:32:10   that we use all the time,

00:32:11   that will be a victory for the platform.

00:32:13   - Yeah, I think that's fair.

00:32:15   All right, anything else about the watch?

00:32:16   - Well, do you guys think, so obviously,

00:32:19   the big news with the watch today

00:32:20   is that they added a ton of bands and new body colors.

00:32:25   So they added, you mentioned they added the rose gold sport,

00:32:29   also the gold sport, right?

00:32:31   Was there, that's two?

00:32:32   - Oh yeah, you're right.

00:32:33   I believe that's right.

00:32:33   - I think, yeah, so there's,

00:32:34   they just doubled the number of colors in the sport line

00:32:37   for the watch body, plus they added the Hermes line,

00:32:40   plus they have like, they have like 10 new sport band colors.

00:32:44   It's this massive number of new colors there.

00:32:47   It's like more than triple,

00:32:48   it's like triple the number of support band colors

00:32:49   that we have.

00:32:50   Plus there's now a, they totally remade the classic buckle.

00:32:55   Now it looks like it's a little bit thicker,

00:32:56   it's two-tone leather on the black

00:32:58   and they also added a brown version, which is very nice,

00:33:02   at least in the picture so far.

00:33:03   They basically just added tons of new watch options

00:33:08   only a few months after the watch was released,

00:33:11   obviously leading to the holiday season.

00:33:13   Do you guys think this is a sign

00:33:16   that they're kind of a little bit desperate

00:33:18   to boost the sales of the watch?

00:33:20   - No, I think they're just hitting their production ramp.

00:33:22   Like it was supply constrained in the beginning

00:33:25   and now they have the capacity

00:33:27   and have worked out the manufacturing

00:33:28   and they can just start branching out.

00:33:29   And then with any fashion accessory,

00:33:30   you wanna have more varieties.

00:33:32   Like in the beginning for the launch,

00:33:33   it's just you have to necessarily keep things somewhat narrow

00:33:37   and now they can branch out and offer people more variety.

00:33:40   And I think it's really just about people who are like,

00:33:43   when the big rush to get the watches,

00:33:45   like oh I don't know if that's any good I'm not gonna bother I don't want to

00:33:47   fight the crowds now you'll be able to get one of the holiday season is coming

00:33:50   up if you are interested in a watch you know maybe you looked at the previous

00:33:55   models and you didn't want to deal with the rush and none of them really appeal

00:33:59   to you and now you're casually wander into a store and you should be struck by

00:34:03   the fact that oh I didn't like any of those ones that I saw pictures of before

00:34:06   but I would like this color with this thing like it's a it's a good timing for

00:34:09   them for the holidays to just have more variety I don't think it's a desperation

00:34:13   thing because like the product hasn't changed it's the same watch it always was all they're doing is

00:34:17   giving people more variety and

00:34:20   It coincides nicely with watch OS 2 which you know

00:34:24   regular people don't know the difference between watch OS 1 and 2 or whatever like

00:34:28   This this watch for this holiday season in this variety as far as the casual public who has been who had been dismissing the Apple

00:34:34   Watch is concerned

00:34:36   This is how the Apple watch always has been and they'll take an interest in it and they'll think this is how

00:34:41   the watch was from day one, but it's not so I think they're just

00:34:43   Getting a product line that's more appropriate for the holidays

00:34:46   Yeah, I think it could be indicative of trouble in paradise

00:34:50   But I do agree with John that I think it's just that they're hitting their production production ramp and just getting their feet under them

00:34:56   So to speak so I'm not too worried yet

00:34:58   Yeah

00:34:59   And also like the watch is still a phone you can't get one of these unless you have an iPhone

00:35:03   Right, and so it's never it's not going to be like oh we get to worry about watch

00:35:07   It's always going to be a subset of iPhone sales and in the beginning

00:35:10   it's gonna be a really small subset.

00:35:11   So it's not as if Apple was expecting the watch

00:35:13   to be a breakout product.

00:35:14   That's why they said before they even released the watch,

00:35:16   we're not gonna break out the numbers for you and everything

00:35:18   'cause they know it's not gonna be big in the beginning.

00:35:21   It's always going to be until they break it free

00:35:23   of the iPhone if they ever do.

00:35:25   Like I said, seven years now or something.

00:35:27   But it's something they wanna do.

00:35:30   No one has really said this,

00:35:33   but in the wake of the Apple TV thing,

00:35:34   you could kinda consider Apple Watch their new hobby.

00:35:37   - That's interesting.

00:35:38   We don't know the numbers, so you can't say number wise it is or whatever, but it looks

00:35:44   a lot like a hobby, doesn't it?

00:35:45   It's a cool accessory that you can get for the phone, which is their meat and potatoes,

00:35:49   and you do lots of fun, interesting stuff with it, and you don't break up the numbers

00:35:54   for people, and it's not as if there's any sort of platform that lives or dies based

00:35:58   on the sales of the watch or anything like...

00:36:00   It seems hobbyish to me.

00:36:02   I don't know, maybe I'm totally wrong, and some people who know the real numbers or who

00:36:05   can like back solve for them like Horace they do or whatever can tell me that they

00:36:09   sold more watches in the first 24 hours than all Apple TVs ever sold which is probably

00:36:12   true and the watches margins got to be much better than the Apple TV so it could be you

00:36:17   know I could be way off on this but it strikes me as because it is a subordinate product

00:36:22   because it is basically the world's fanciest iPhone accessory and it's still in that infancy

00:36:27   remember when only weird people had iPhones or had smartphones at all that's the stage

00:36:31   Apple watches at it now. Like when, when, uh...

00:36:33   Well, the iPhone was never at that stage.

00:36:35   It was. When, when the first iPhone came out, and it was like $600 or whatever, like only

00:36:40   weird people had iPhones. There was a lot, like if you look at the, the little ramp of

00:36:44   like how many cumulative number of iPhones sold, it started out pretty slow. It was just

00:36:49   like the people who really believed and people wanted it, but it seemed expensive because

00:36:52   there was no, every other phone didn't look like the iPhone at that point. Uh, and smart

00:36:57   watches, I still think are in that early phase. So I'm willing to give the watch a pretty

00:37:01   long time to go through its 3G, 3GS, 4 phase before the rest of the world starts to wake

00:37:08   up and look at it. And maybe then it will get out of the realm of potentially a hobby

00:37:14   product for Apple.

00:37:15   Yeah, I don't know. I honestly have a little bit of worry here for the Apple Watch only

00:37:21   because it does seem like, I can't imagine they were planning all along to launch all

00:37:27   these things this fall. Like all these new hardware varieties so soon after the launch

00:37:33   of the first watch.

00:37:34   >> But it's just color changes. Like they made a bunch of plastic bands and now they

00:37:38   can make the plastic in different colors. And like the anodized stuff, like they're

00:37:41   already doing it for the phone, they already have the processes probably the same. Like

00:37:44   it's very straightforward stuff. And it just seems to me that why would you not do this

00:37:50   then? There's a reason not to do it on launch, which is you really have to concentrate on

00:37:55   a few models and get the kinks worked out or whatever.

00:37:57   But once you've got all the kinks worked out, you're not designing a new watch.

00:38:00   It's the same old watch, just color stuff differently.

00:38:02   And it's so easy to do and it makes people happy.

00:38:05   And if you have enough manufacturing inventory to make sure you always have the one in the

00:38:08   color and the size that people want, why would you not do it?

00:38:13   The most obvious answer to me is why not wait until version two to do some of these things?

00:38:17   Like, you know, they don't do this with the iPhone.

00:38:18   The iPhone sells in way bigger volumes, very important to the company, makes them way more

00:38:22   money.

00:38:23   as much as a fashion accessory.

00:38:25   I think when the watch two comes out,

00:38:27   it will be re-constrained to a smaller set

00:38:29   of styles and colors again.

00:38:30   And then it will do the exact same thing

00:38:32   where the watch two, like,

00:38:34   assuming they don't do like a 2S or whatever,

00:38:35   the next watch that is different,

00:38:37   a different shape and size, right,

00:38:40   will have a limited set of colors,

00:38:43   similarly limited to the first one,

00:38:44   and then will branch out again.

00:38:46   Because I just don't think you can launch a brand new product

00:38:48   in this variety of colors and sizes and shapes and finishes

00:38:53   and all the other stuff.

00:38:55   - I don't know, I mean there is the possibility.

00:38:58   So when Tim Cook on the last News call said

00:39:03   that the Apple Watch is selling well,

00:39:05   and there was this report a couple days before that

00:39:07   from some survey company that said

00:39:09   there was a huge spike of pre-orders

00:39:10   and then it dropped and then it was not selling well anymore.

00:39:13   What he said did not actually contradict that report

00:39:16   because what he said was counting them

00:39:19   when they ship to customers,

00:39:20   not when they are ordered by customers.

00:39:23   And so if what he said could have been true

00:39:27   while that report was also true.

00:39:29   So this could all still be the case where what he said,

00:39:34   back then it was selling well,

00:39:37   it was selling by stock inventory standards

00:39:40   of when it ships, that's when it's charged,

00:39:41   that's when it's sold, that's when we bought the revenue.

00:39:43   Okay, so now leading into the holiday quarter,

00:39:48   another quarter's coming up,

00:39:50   if it isn't selling well,

00:39:52   They're gonna have to explain why.

00:39:54   Because someone's gonna, you know,

00:39:55   people are gonna look at these numbers,

00:39:56   they're gonna be able to figure out

00:39:57   in this other category, oh crap, this is kind of bad.

00:40:01   And hopefully the Apple TV is in there

00:40:02   to help boost it up there.

00:40:04   What if this, and again, this might not be the case,

00:40:07   this is the cynical take on this, right?

00:40:09   Or the skeptical take on this.

00:40:10   What if all these new bands and everything

00:40:13   are not only an attempt to juice new watch sales

00:40:16   earlier than they planned, but also an attempt

00:40:19   to get more money sooner out of existing watch owners

00:40:22   who are buying additional bands,

00:40:23   just trying to juice the watch quarter numbers

00:40:26   for, you know, in the short term,

00:40:28   just to get them until a future point

00:40:29   where they think that the sales will make up for it.

00:40:32   - I don't know how many extra bands

00:40:33   they're gonna sell to existing watch owners.

00:40:35   I feel like it's the same with the original iPhone.

00:40:38   iPhone came out, everyone who wanted one got one,

00:40:40   then a bunch of other people just stood back

00:40:42   and watched for a while.

00:40:43   And this has the advantage of the holidays

00:40:44   where it's like the watch came out,

00:40:46   everyone who wanted a watch got one,

00:40:47   everyone else just sat back and watched curiously

00:40:50   this whole watch thing and the holidays come along it's like well I mean that's

00:40:54   the you know the type of thing well it's by somebody something they wouldn't buy

00:40:57   for themselves someone might have been curious about the watch but they're not

00:41:00   gonna spend that money they don't know if it's a big deal they don't even know

00:41:02   if they're gonna like one someone will get it for him as a gift that's what the

00:41:05   holidays do that's why a holiday is a big shopping season so and the people

00:41:10   who are considering watches or wanted to get for themselves or whatever like I

00:41:15   think it will still be a small thing because I think of how many people how

00:41:19   How many people in the entire world ever own the iPhone 1?

00:41:22   Super small number.

00:41:23   This is the iPhone 1.

00:41:24   This is the first watch, just with different bands and different colors.

00:41:28   So I don't expect there to be a huge number of people who have this watch.

00:41:31   If the product is going to be successful, we have to look forward to the fourth iteration

00:41:35   of this and then see.

00:41:37   And again, it's always going to be capped by the number of iPhones.

00:41:39   So all you're looking at is what makes a successful watch?

00:41:42   What percentage of iPhone owners have to buy an Apple Watch for it to be a successful product?

00:41:46   1%?

00:41:47   2%?

00:41:48   I think now it is much less than 1% and I think that's just to be expected.

00:41:54   So I'm not worried about the Apple Watch. I don't think Tim Cook is worried about the Apple Watch, especially since

00:41:58   tech-wise and manufacturing-wise,

00:42:01   like, their investment and what they've done so far, they can cruise for a few years making progressively slightly better iterations of this watch without

00:42:09   breaking the bank. I'm sure they've already made back their money that they invested in developing this product.

00:42:14   I don't think they're worried about that.

00:42:16   I think they're willing to just continue to chase this category wherever it leads and it will be fine

00:42:20   Yeah, that's fair. Also one more thing. I think one of the reasons they might have been doing this also is

00:42:25   That you know when compared to other smartwatch vendors out there

00:42:30   Apple already had I think way more options for bands colors and sizes and materials than anyone else and

00:42:37   Now they've really taken a massive lead on that like, you know, they already had the lead now. It's in way wider lead

00:42:43   where

00:42:45   competitively, if you look at the Samsung Galaxy S whatever versus the LG whatever versus

00:42:51   the Motorola 270 whatever, then Apple, like anyone who's actually comparing these side

00:42:56   by side, which I don't think honestly is a big number, but anyone actually comparing

00:42:59   them side by side would be blown away by just how many choices they have from Apple's side,

00:43:05   and it's more likely that they can find something they like on Apple's side.

00:43:08   Yeah, and they're staking out the high ground. Like Apple always wants the most profitable

00:43:11   section of any business, and so the way you do that and anything that's remotely related

00:43:15   to fashion is make sure you're the one that's seen as the like, oh, we are partnering with

00:43:19   this fashion company whose name regular people can't pronounce and have never heard. Samsung

00:43:26   isn't, right? Or like, Apple is trying to make sure that when all the dust settles,

00:43:33   when someone thinks of what is that fancy smartwatch that all the fashion people are

00:43:38   into that the answer to that is Apple. And so they're like, that's why they're doing,

00:43:42   You know, that's why they have the really super expensive gold one.

00:43:45   That's why they're doing these partnerships with these fashion companies.

00:43:47   Regular people don't care about that.

00:43:48   No one's going to buy those super expensive, like, but it's all for positioning.

00:43:52   So they end up with the most profitable customers.

00:43:56   They end up with the one with the most cache, with the one that is seen as a status symbol,

00:44:02   even after everybody had like the iPhone.

00:44:04   Remember when the iPhone was a status symbol, like celebrities would have an iPhone?

00:44:07   Now nobody cares.

00:44:08   Everybody has an iPhone or a solid smartphone.

00:44:09   It's not a big deal.

00:44:11   I think what they're doing with the fashion partnerships and stuff is trying to make sure

00:44:14   that even after everybody has a smartwatch five years from now, no one cares, it's not

00:44:17   a big deal, and they come in cereal boxes, that through these silly partnerships where

00:44:22   someone sells you a strap of leather for $1,000 because it's got a particular name on it,

00:44:27   that is still seen in the same way that regular fashion is.

00:44:29   Who cares about these shoes or this dress or whatever?

00:44:33   Fashion is always going to be a status symbol and it's not tied to technology, it's tied

00:44:37   to exclusivity and who's got buzz and what's in style and Apple is just trying to stay

00:44:46   on top of that. They seem so much more dedicated to it than everyone else who's making smart

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00:47:18   Federico Vittucci's time has come.

00:47:22   The iPad Pro.

00:47:23   I believe I heard screaming from the mountaintops of Italy when this was finally announced.

00:47:29   I am really intrigued by it.

00:47:32   There is no damn way I'm going to carry around a 13-inch iPad.

00:47:36   As someone who actually prefers an iPad Mini, I just don't see myself wanting a 13-inch

00:47:42   iPad.

00:47:43   That being said, it is intriguing if for no other reason than it's a remix of all the

00:47:47   things that came before it.

00:47:49   It's a remix of the paper app, it's a remix of the paper pencil, and it's a remix of the

00:47:56   Surface.

00:47:57   But we have in the show notes the A9X, so I assume, Jon, you'd like to start by talking

00:48:02   about that.

00:48:03   Really?

00:48:04   That's what we're talking about first?

00:48:05   - I just threw it in there,

00:48:06   like, you know, it's our way into talking about the A9

00:48:09   and it's just that Apple continues to rev its CPU lines

00:48:13   in ways that we were accustomed to

00:48:16   on the desktop and laptop years ago

00:48:19   and now these low power tablet and phone chips

00:48:22   are following the same trajectory.

00:48:24   I think a lot of regular people are wondering like,

00:48:26   why is the iPhone and iPad CPU

00:48:30   like getting twice as fast every year,

00:48:32   but my MacBook CPU does not get twice as fast every year.

00:48:35   And the answer is that the iPhone and the iPad CPUs

00:48:39   are playing catch up.

00:48:40   They started out way, way, way slower than your MacBook

00:48:42   and they're catching up to it.

00:48:43   Once they do catch up with it,

00:48:44   they will not be doubling anymore.

00:48:46   Like there's no magic here.

00:48:48   There's a little, potentially a little bit of advantage

00:48:50   of Apple controlling all this stuff.

00:48:52   And that's something we'll get to in another show

00:48:53   related to that that we'll talk about,

00:48:55   but that's why they're doubling.

00:48:58   But anyway, Apple continues to put out those graphs

00:49:00   like look how much faster our CPUs and GPUs have gotten

00:49:04   in our iPad and it is impressive.

00:49:05   Like the GPUs are better and you know,

00:49:08   it was like 22X CPU increase in a 360X GPU speed.

00:49:13   They started out so darn slow.

00:49:14   Like that's the magic of that graph.

00:49:16   Like, 'cause if you just look what the axes are labeled

00:49:18   and look how slow it was.

00:49:19   Yeah, so anyway, they're still getting faster.

00:49:21   The interesting thing that Apple didn't compare

00:49:24   the iPad Pro 2 and didn't compare the A9X to at all

00:49:27   was any of its own laptops.

00:49:29   Because at this point, I feel like this thing

00:49:30   has to be faster than at least some laptops that Apple sells.

00:49:33   Don't you think?

00:49:34   Like in both CPU and GPU or some kind of synthetic benchmark

00:49:37   that you come up with that this thing is going to be faster

00:49:39   than like an 11 inch Air or something?

00:49:41   - Well, and also, I mean, compare it to its most obvious

00:49:44   alternative, the MacBook One.

00:49:46   I mean, I would guess it has to be faster

00:49:48   than the MacBook One at certain things.

00:49:50   - That might be a horse race depending on

00:49:53   what you're testing, maybe in GPU speed, I don't know.

00:49:55   But anyway, that aspect of it certainly fulfills the Pro.

00:49:59   But the 898 was pretty darn fast anyway, and the A9X, this is a worthy processor, I think,

00:50:07   for the iPad Pro.

00:50:08   Is it the first one that would have been powerful enough?

00:50:10   Because here's the two things about this.

00:50:12   They're pushing so many more pixels.

00:50:14   Remember what happened when we first went Retina on the iPad, it was a problem.

00:50:18   On this thing, it's already Retina, it's just a bigger screen.

00:50:21   They're pushing more pixels, and they keep talking about, "Oh, we can have this many

00:50:24   4K video streams and stuff like that."

00:50:27   You have to have a pretty beefy GPU in there just to do basic things with this many pixels.

00:50:32   Look at what happened with the iPhone 6 Plus where it seems like it was just a little bit

00:50:35   underpowered and they had like the weird double-sized screen that they shrink down to fit in the

00:50:40   number of pixels and stuff.

00:50:41   I'm hoping they avoided all those compromises with this thing just because they have so

00:50:44   much more room to do everything in here.

00:50:46   So the CPU/GPU part definitely seems pro to me.

00:50:50   Yeah, I mean, there's a lot about it.

00:50:52   To me, this is a very confusing product, honestly.

00:50:57   And it's probably just because it's not for me.

00:50:59   I really don't think this is for me.

00:51:01   And I honestly am not sure I know anybody who it is for, but I'm sure a lot of people

00:51:05   will be very happy about it.

00:51:07   It's just not me and the people I know.

00:51:09   But this is a really...

00:51:14   First of all, it's huge.

00:51:16   I mean, I guess, you know, if you can permit me to talk about the physical parts for a

00:51:21   minute.

00:51:22   It's massive, and it's heavy.

00:51:25   It weighs more than the iPad 1, and it's larger.

00:51:29   The MacBook 1, you mean?

00:51:30   Sorry.

00:51:31   No, no, no, I mean the iPad 1.

00:51:32   It weighs less than the MacBook 1.

00:51:34   With the keyboard thing?

00:51:36   Oh, maybe.

00:51:37   I didn't look at that.

00:51:39   So it's also, it's a bigger screen than the MacBook 1.

00:51:44   This is 12.9, the MacBook 1 I think is 12.0.

00:51:45   Yeah, that's what I'm getting at like this is this is not like this is a coming in to understand

00:51:50   It is exactly what makes it an iPad Pro is not like well

00:51:53   I would bring a laptop, but I want something smaller so I bought the iPad Pro

00:51:56   It's like Tim said on the stage

00:51:58   I think someone tweeted like he reemphasized for the millionth time as I've said on past shows as well

00:52:03   that the iPad is

00:52:06   The future of computing as far as Apple's concerned. They're just

00:52:09   frustrated by their inability to make it happen, but they really believe that

00:52:14   That this this kind of platform is the future of computing not a not a continuous low steady evolution of plain old desktop computers

00:52:21   And they haven't proved that in either the market or to the customers

00:52:25   But finally they're making forward progress again after many many years of just making differently sized, but equally boring very large phones

00:52:31   So the keep the keyboard the stylus that we'll get to and it's not a stylus. It's a pencil and all the other things

00:52:38   Shows that they're finally moving in that direction again. Are they right? I don't know

00:52:43   But you have to see this thing through.

00:52:47   Like if you really believe that this is the way

00:52:50   that most people will be doing most of the things

00:52:52   they do with computers in the future,

00:52:54   then you have to make products that prove it.

00:52:55   And so this is the first attempt.

00:52:57   - As we talked about a couple weeks ago,

00:53:00   I think this is gonna face a lot of the same challenges

00:53:03   that every iPad has faced.

00:53:04   And just from the physical side,

00:53:08   it is gonna be tough because where iPads

00:53:11   have been strong before, things like casual reading in bed

00:53:16   or couch use and stuff like that.

00:53:18   For a lot of those things, this is actually gonna be

00:53:20   uncomfortably large and heavy now for a lot of people.

00:53:24   It's actually taking a step backwards in some of those areas

00:53:27   in order to achieve the big screen and everything else.

00:53:29   And I don't think they could have done a lot better

00:53:32   with that, I think this is just the physical realities

00:53:35   of a device that has a screen this large.

00:53:37   So there's gonna be some challenges there.

00:53:40   But also, ergonomically, obviously this is made to be used

00:53:45   with the keyboard probably frequently, I would say.

00:53:48   - I don't know about that because it has,

00:53:50   didn't they emphasize the full size

00:53:52   on-screen keyboard as well?

00:53:54   - Well, yeah, they gave it a couple seconds, but--

00:53:55   - I know, well, so that's a piece of follow-up

00:53:57   that we skipped this week with someone saying that,

00:53:59   I think it was a teacher saying that the students

00:54:00   prefer the on-screen keyboard because physical keyboards

00:54:03   don't have the same sort of, I think they're saying

00:54:05   they don't have the same sort of auto-complete type stuff

00:54:07   whatever, I think a generation of people who grew up tapping on glass to type, it may not

00:54:13   be that crazy that they would prefer the on-screen keyboard.

00:54:16   Getting to the physical things that you're talking about, we'll talk about this in the

00:54:20   end, but whether I'm going to buy one or whatever, even though I've been so gung-ho for the iPad

00:54:24   Pro and I think this is a great product and it's going to be artists and other people

00:54:28   who really need a big screen and want the pencil and everything, and people who write

00:54:32   applications for those people, it gives them their first real shot to sell Pro apps to

00:54:35   to pro people using pro hardware,

00:54:37   it's still kind of two things in one here.

00:54:39   The two things are, first, make a bigger iPad

00:54:43   so people don't feel so constrained.

00:54:44   Give it, you know, for the people who want a big screen

00:54:46   to do things, you need more pixels, you need more detail,

00:54:48   and with a precision pointing device.

00:54:51   And second, let the iPad do more complicated things

00:54:55   with the keyboard, with the split screen or whatever.

00:54:57   And in this product, they are tied together.

00:54:59   It's gargantuan, it's way too big for most people,

00:55:02   it's not gonna sell well 'cause it's just too darn big,

00:55:04   like Margot said.

00:55:05   But all the features that are in this,

00:55:07   if you put them on the iPad Air 2 size device,

00:55:09   equally valuable to people who like that size device.

00:55:12   And I think you can shrink even all of them

00:55:14   down maybe to the mini if you make it a little bit bigger,

00:55:16   except for maybe the keyboard.

00:55:17   Like I feel like everything that is staked out

00:55:19   by this product, all the functionality,

00:55:21   even the little side port thing and all the OS features

00:55:24   and all the software that's gonna be written to it,

00:55:26   that is all valuable at sizes less than Gargantuan.

00:55:29   Unfortunately, this first product,

00:55:31   or fortunately for the people who are interested,

00:55:32   This is gargantuan plus all the fancy features.

00:55:35   And I think every single one of these fancy features

00:55:37   can and should trickle down to the extent possible

00:55:39   allowed by the sizes.

00:55:40   And I think that will eventually solve most of the problems

00:55:43   that you're talking about Marco,

00:55:44   because I agree with you.

00:55:45   This thing is really big.

00:55:46   I want an iPad Pro, I want this product.

00:55:49   I don't know if it's too big for me, I don't know.

00:55:52   I'm like, if I got this, I'd be like,

00:55:53   then I need a smaller iPad for like my other iPad.

00:55:56   You know what I mean?

00:55:57   I'll have to end the wait.

00:55:58   I mean, I'm using an iPad 3 now, which is massive anyway,

00:56:00   but I'm gonna have to try it out.

00:56:01   but this is the right move, I think,

00:56:03   'cause this is staking out the high end.

00:56:05   It's like, if anybody's gonna want this Pro,

00:56:06   it's gotta go Pro, Pro, Pro, big, big, big,

00:56:09   pencil thing, fine arts, keyboard, people on the go,

00:56:13   doing typing, go to the Microsoft service thing.

00:56:15   This is huge, this is clearly pushing

00:56:19   in the high end type of product,

00:56:21   but I really, really hope they don't year after year

00:56:23   rev the iPad Pro and keep all these features to the big one,

00:56:26   'cause I want all these on all the iPads

00:56:28   to the extent possible.

00:56:31   Yeah, I agree. You know, I was thinking that I would really kind of like to have a keyboard

00:56:37   cover for my iPad mini, which kind of disgusted me because—

00:56:41   Trust me, you don't.

00:56:42   Yeah, it kind of disgusted me because I realized that's a terrible idea. But that was my gut

00:56:46   reaction was, "Man, that would be kind of convenient for like when I'm traveling."

00:56:49   Because occasionally, I'll travel and not want to bring a 15-inch MacBook Pro, but want

00:56:54   something that I can type on to like write emails or something like that. And so occasionally

00:56:59   when I travel, I'll bring my Mini and my Apple wireless keyboard, which if I really think

00:57:06   that through is kind of ridiculous, but that's occasionally what happens.

00:57:10   And so I agree with you, Jon, that having a lot of these features for even the smaller

00:57:16   devices, I think that's fairly compelling.

00:57:18   Yeah, or even like the split-screen stuff, which they're confining possibly for CPU reasons,

00:57:24   possibly for RAM reasons, like just everything about this.

00:57:27   It's still two gigs of RAM, I think.

00:57:30   I don't know if that's been determined, but anyway.

00:57:32   The fact that it used to just be the Air 2

00:57:33   that had two gigs of RAM,

00:57:34   and that that extra RAM really makes the existing,

00:57:37   boring, pre-iOS 9 iOS experience so much better

00:57:40   just because your crap isn't all gone

00:57:41   when you switch applications.

00:57:44   Those type of hardware-based compromises

00:57:47   are going to leave on the high end first.

00:57:49   This CPU and GPU can be faster and hotter and bigger,

00:57:54   and they could put a huge battery in here,

00:57:55   and this can have the most pixels,

00:57:57   and it can handle the whatever they're doing

00:57:59   for the pencil stuff and all like,

00:58:01   all those things should trickle down

00:58:03   as eventually the iPad Air 2 class machine

00:58:06   can also handle all of that.

00:58:08   And eventually the mini class machine can handle it.

00:58:09   And maybe the mini will get a little bit bigger

00:58:11   and maybe the keyboard will be bigger than the device

00:58:12   because you can't have a keyboard that small

00:58:14   because it's insane.

00:58:15   And I think the most exciting thing about it is,

00:58:19   well, I would say the most exciting thing

00:58:21   is the addition of a rotation lock button,

00:58:23   but I don't think that's there.

00:58:24   (laughing)

00:58:24   But anyway, the fact that Apple actually

00:58:26   went in the opposite direction for once.

00:58:28   Instead of slowly removing every possible button

00:58:30   from the device, they added a new thing.

00:58:32   They added, it's not really a port kind of,

00:58:34   but they added three little buttons on the bottom.

00:58:36   That's a new connector.

00:58:37   It's like, that is a, you know, that's a pro feature.

00:58:40   You can connect other stuff to the thing with the thing.

00:58:43   There, you know, baby steps here, right?

00:58:45   They didn't add USB ports, right?

00:58:47   There's no SD card slot.

00:58:48   But if this is the future of computing,

00:58:50   they have to eventually figure out

00:58:53   in what ways are we going to allow this

00:58:55   to be expanded and hardware accessorize.

00:58:57   If you let it be expanded every way

00:58:59   that a PCB can be expanded,

00:59:00   you're just repeating the sins of the past

00:59:02   and just recreating the PC in a different form.

00:59:04   And I don't think Apple wants to do that.

00:59:05   So they're being cautious,

00:59:06   but I like seeing them move in that direction.

00:59:09   I like this not just being a Bluetooth accessory, right?

00:59:12   Why is it not Bluetooth?

00:59:14   Because the Bluetooth accessory is crappier.

00:59:15   The Bluetooth thing has to have batteries

00:59:17   and you got Bluetooth flakiness and it's like this.

00:59:19   We don't have to worry about that.

00:59:20   It's powered by the thing.

00:59:21   We have a giant battery in there.

00:59:23   You know, we can make the cover itself thinner,

00:59:26   although it still looks kind of like a hunchback

00:59:28   when you close it, 'cause it's like thick on one end

00:59:29   and kind of gross.

00:59:31   But anyway, generation one product, you know,

00:59:34   but I am excited.

00:59:35   That was the most exciting part of the reveal thing

00:59:36   was when they showed three little dots on the side.

00:59:39   I'm like, that's a new port.

00:59:40   You know, they didn't show a rotational lock,

00:59:43   which is disappointing.

00:59:43   I guess there just wasn't enough room

00:59:45   along the edge of the device.

00:59:46   They needed room for all those giant empty chambers

00:59:48   around the four speakers.

00:59:49   - One of the big things about this, I think,

00:59:52   besides the size obviously I'll keep harping on forever,

00:59:56   the price is interesting.

00:59:59   If you look at how this is positioned,

01:00:01   how other iPads were positioned before

01:00:03   and now how this is positioned against their other laptops,

01:00:05   this is really a laptop replacement.

01:00:10   Some people obviously, idiots like me will buy them

01:00:14   and use them as like toys

01:00:16   that also have every other kind of device,

01:00:18   but I really think like most people

01:00:21   are not gonna be spending $1,000 on a tablet

01:00:24   that is not going to replace a laptop.

01:00:27   For it to be this big and this expensive,

01:00:32   it has to replace laptops for most of its customers,

01:00:35   I would say.

01:00:36   And maybe that proves to be wrong, who knows,

01:00:38   but that's probably how it's gonna go.

01:00:39   I would also expect a much more laptop-like

01:00:42   replacement cycle, although I think we're seeing that

01:00:44   in most iPads, actually.

01:00:46   So the big thing to me is, software-wise,

01:00:50   are there a lot of people,

01:00:53   I know this is not gonna be all,

01:00:55   but are there a lot of people for whom

01:00:57   this can replace a laptop better than any other iPad?

01:01:01   Obviously some people can get by

01:01:02   with the other iPad just fine.

01:01:04   The people who couldn't, how many of them

01:01:06   will this be good enough for where the other iPads weren't?

01:01:09   - I'm thinking of this replacing a desktop

01:01:12   for the first customers.

01:01:15   I'm thinking again of the pencil,

01:01:16   which we haven't really talked about that much,

01:01:17   but like the type, what's the first,

01:01:19   it's a chicken egg thing,

01:01:20   so you need the hardware before you can make the software,

01:01:21   but what is the easiest market for,

01:01:24   if you're gonna sell an expensive application

01:01:26   that costs a lot of money to develop,

01:01:28   and you're not gonna sell a lot of copies,

01:01:29   but you're gonna sell them for a lot of money,

01:01:31   like, and these days, you know, $99.

01:01:33   It's an application, it's a design or art application.

01:01:37   They'll let somebody use this thing and the pencil,

01:01:40   assuming it works as advertised,

01:01:42   and it's all impressive and great and everything.

01:01:44   to do their main function, like their actual work,

01:01:47   not on the go, but at their desk at their job.

01:01:50   Like this is a little miniature Cintiq.

01:01:53   And I know most people would say, like for example,

01:01:56   someone who's using the Surface to do that today,

01:01:58   that's great and all, but if it doesn't run in Photoshop,

01:02:01   it's pointless to me because what am I gonna use

01:02:03   that stylus for?

01:02:03   I'm gonna use my Surface, I'm gonna run Photoshop

01:02:05   and I'm gonna get my work done

01:02:06   'cause that's what I need to get my work done.

01:02:07   So Apple does have a huge software gap here,

01:02:10   but the history of the iPad leading up to this has been,

01:02:13   If Apple doesn't make pro hardware,

01:02:15   no one's gonna make pro software

01:02:16   and everyone's waiting for someone to go first.

01:02:18   So Apple went first.

01:02:19   And I think Apple is desperately hoping

01:02:20   that somebody, probably not Adobe,

01:02:22   is going to try to be the Photoshop of the iPad Pro

01:02:27   and get people to use this thing

01:02:29   as their actual computer, at their desk, at their work,

01:02:32   as like a desktop replacement.

01:02:34   And you can also read your email and check Twitter

01:02:36   and have a little YouTube video playing in the corner

01:02:38   and listen to your music and also be scribbling away

01:02:41   with your $100 Johnny Ive blessed pure white Apple pencil.

01:02:46   That I think is the vision for this product.

01:02:49   It's not a reality because if you buy this thing,

01:02:51   there's no application you can buy to do that stuff.

01:02:53   But you know, Apple wants there to be

01:02:55   and they showed AutoCAD and all these other things.

01:02:56   So I'm hopeful and I see where this product can go.

01:03:01   But I expect like, I expect not a lot of people to buy this.

01:03:09   I expect people to buy it and be bewildered by it.

01:03:12   And I just hope that everything that this product embodies,

01:03:17   more power, more RAM, more ports,

01:03:19   slowly spreads to the rest of the iPad line

01:03:22   because that will finally differentiate.

01:03:24   What is the difference between an iPad and an iPhone?

01:03:26   Is an iPad just a big iPhone?

01:03:27   This is not a big iPhone.

01:03:29   This is like the farthest thing from a big iPhone ever.

01:03:31   So kudos to Apple for doing this.

01:03:34   And I hope the next few years is as encouraging as possible.

01:03:39   as this announcement is to me and Vittigy and maybe five other people.

01:03:43   Oh goodness, so what do we think about this pencil? I do feel bad for the folks at, what

01:03:52   is it, 53? There's been a lot of Sherlocking going on in that direction, but…

01:03:57   Well look, when you choose a really generic name for your product, like you know, you

01:04:01   run the risks like this. Oh absolutely. But I was expecting to be

01:04:08   very blasé about the pencil. And again, it doesn't really speak to me because I don't

01:04:14   do the sorts of things that would require a stylus. I'm a terrible artist. I can't imagine

01:04:18   what else I would need it for. However, I thought it was a very clever piece of hardware.

01:04:23   I like that you can tilt it to get like a kind of side of a pencil stroke, which I guess

01:04:29   it just occurred to me that's why they call it a pencil and not a pen or anything like

01:04:32   that.

01:04:33   Wait, pens can do that too. Please don't email us.

01:04:36   Sort of but um, but I like you can do that obviously the pressure sensitivity. I think we all saw that coming

01:04:41   It's a very clever piece of kit, but I don't know it's I

01:04:45   Wish there was something that spoke to me, but there's nothing that speaks to me yet. I

01:04:50   Think it'll be fun for well

01:04:52   Here's here's where it helps if you're not

01:04:54   Someone who is a designer or a fine artist or someone who just noodles around and sketches and by the way

01:04:59   She's get one of these for TIFF because she'll love it to do her little art snacks things with well so far

01:05:03   When Tiff Tiff before this event I was asking her you know she was she was interested in a larger iPad

01:05:11   for video and game use and

01:05:14   Once she saw the event what she watched the event together. She now says she's no longer interested. It's too big yeah

01:05:21   Well, that's what I said the style a stylus is a perfect example of something that could fit perfectly

01:05:26   Well on an iPad air or a mini even like no problem on a mini because the thing doesn't fit inside the iPad

01:05:31   It's just an accessory. It's just that all those things don't have the screen for it

01:05:34   So give it a year or two that stuff should trickle down

01:05:36   yeah, I mean it's

01:05:39   this is one of those things like I

01:05:41   Have no opinion on the stylus because I have never been a paper and pencil or paper and pen person for anything

01:05:48   I'm not a graphic artist at all in any sense. I'm not a note-taker

01:05:52   That's I was getting it for the old fogies thing like a setting aside all the people

01:05:56   This is actually aimed at the other kind of person this can appeal to and we all know people like this who are like

01:06:00   usually older people who are actually more comfortable taking notes in their own handwriting.

01:06:06   Which seems totally ridiculous to those of us who grew up being excited by the fact that

01:06:12   we can press the A key on a keyboard and a perfect letter A appears and we don't have

01:06:15   to be subject to our own handwriting, right?

01:06:17   I was like, "That is the dream of these people."

01:06:19   Like, "You know what?

01:06:20   I would rather do my shopping list in my own little scroll."

01:06:23   And they just want a notes application that lets them write things and they want to do

01:06:27   it with their little pen.

01:06:28   I mean, we've all seen people using like the Galaxy Note and stuff like that.

01:06:31   People using very large phones with the stylus.

01:06:33   Some people just like it.

01:06:34   My own mother has used, I've seen her do it, an iPod Touch, a small one with a stylus.

01:06:40   Oh yeah, I've seen some family members use Styli with their phones because they just

01:06:45   prefer it.

01:06:46   I think it's insane, but that's what they prefer.

01:06:49   And so they're not going to buy a thousand dollar iPad or whatever.

01:06:51   Again, it's a trickle down thing.

01:06:53   eventually when this stuff gets,

01:06:56   spreads down the product line,

01:06:58   will they ever sell an Apple Pencil for the iPhone?

01:07:01   Probably not, but if they did, my mother would use it today.

01:07:04   - Yeah, I mean, no question,

01:07:06   I think there's a lot of people who wanna use this.

01:07:08   As I said, I'm not one of them, however,

01:07:11   I disagree, Jon, that note-taking is mostly

01:07:14   or only for old people.

01:07:16   I think there's a lot of kinds of note-taking for which--

01:07:19   - And hipsters.

01:07:20   - Yeah, well, no, no.

01:07:21   I think there's a lot of kinds of note-taking

01:07:23   for which I would prefer a pen to a keyboard and mouse.

01:07:28   If you're trying to dictate what somebody is saying,

01:07:31   then yeah, a keyboard is the way to go,

01:07:33   but for so many other kinds of note-taking,

01:07:35   brainstorming, design, there's so many things--

01:07:38   - Oh yeah, that's like wire-framing UIs,

01:07:40   obviously it's better, right?

01:07:41   But you would actually write down text with it?

01:07:44   - Well, it depends.

01:07:45   In my limited time trying to take notes

01:07:49   as the terrible student that I was in college,

01:07:51   I never even tried it in high school.

01:07:53   In college, the terrible time I tried,

01:07:56   like math, I would definitely take math notes

01:07:58   using a pen, not a keyboard.

01:08:00   - 'Cause that's not typing you gotta do,

01:08:03   it's like practically drawing.

01:08:04   - Right, and there's like even computer science,

01:08:06   I think I would probably, like there's so many,

01:08:09   note taking to me is different from just transcribing

01:08:12   what somebody is saying, you know, that's--

01:08:14   - Yeah, so you're doing that note taking is not typing,

01:08:17   but like you see people when they have conference talks,

01:08:19   they'll try to summarize the conference talk

01:08:21   as it's going on, they'll draw little pictures

01:08:23   and put words and you know, it's a multimedia thing.

01:08:26   Like, yeah, I see what you're getting at,

01:08:28   although I think you probably have better handwriting

01:08:29   than I do because I feel like when text is involved at all,

01:08:33   like I need the Eat Up Martha feature.

01:08:35   I needed to turn my scroll into actual readable text

01:08:38   so I never have to see my handwriting again.

01:08:41   - Yeah, and I don't think we, did they mention

01:08:44   any handwriting recognition at all?

01:08:47   I don't think they did.

01:08:47   It's in OS X right now.

01:08:49   If you hook up a tablet, you can go use it.

01:08:52   And it is still basically eat up Martha caliber.

01:08:56   So, you know, baby steps.

01:08:57   Like this is not what this is aimed at.

01:08:59   It wasn't even mentioned.

01:09:00   I was probably not even in there,

01:09:01   but many years from now,

01:09:02   kind of like speech to text and text to speech,

01:09:05   eventually it just gets good enough that it's like,

01:09:08   why not add it ever?

01:09:09   Handwriting recognition is not at that stage yet,

01:09:11   but it will be eventually.

01:09:13   And I think like they showed it in the Microsoft thing.

01:09:15   Like people who are familiar with the Newton

01:09:17   like oh so I draw a rough shape and it makes a nice shape for me where have I seen that

01:09:21   before like that is this is not new technology but it still feels like magic to me when he

01:09:27   draws that little scroll of an arrow in the office application it becomes the little thing

01:09:30   it draws the circles and they become circles it's kind of the bad kind of magic and you

01:09:34   can never tell really what it's gonna do and half the time it doesn't work but that's like

01:09:39   a that's a glimpse of the magic future that someday if that worked as reliable as speech

01:09:44   of text does now. I mean, when I was a kid, I could never imagine that speech of text

01:09:48   would be so boring that we just, like, did anyone see, we'll get to Apple TV in a little

01:09:52   bit, but like the Apple TV Siri demo, and like, there's no way it's going to understand

01:09:56   my voice like that. We've all used Siri. Like, it's not great, but it is complete magic by

01:10:01   the standards of like, you know, a kid of the 80s. Like, when we were like, imagine

01:10:05   if just like every device with any amount of computing power, like, you can talk to

01:10:11   Your watch for crying out loud. You can talk to it and it will do a passable job of figuring out what you said and putting

01:10:15   It in text that is amazing. And that is the magic of like the cost of that feature going down to zero

01:10:21   Handwriting recognition should also get to that stage

01:10:24   eventually people who use the Microsoft products may say it's already there because they have this thing where it will

01:10:28   Let you write in your own little chicken scratch handwriting, but under the cover is translated into text

01:10:33   But leave your chicken scratch there so that it knows what you wrote

01:10:36   So you can full text search for it like that's already happening on the Microsoft side. I

01:10:40   Feel like that is flakier than

01:10:42   Speech to text is on most platforms these days, but it's close. I think we're at the cusp so again

01:10:48   Maybe three revisions from now

01:10:50   the new version of the notes application and

01:10:52   They still gonna call it iOS I got to think of what the new name is gonna be yeah, I guess so

01:10:57   in iOS version

01:11:00   13 or 14 is like and the new version the notes application lets you write with the the Apple mini pencil

01:11:07   And it will also do full-text search and they'll do a demo of it and it will be like Microsoft did that five years ago

01:11:12   What are you doing Apple, but everyone will love it because it will be all white

01:11:15   So that's another another thing to quickly point out here

01:11:18   You know normally the the people who are not Apple fans people who are really fans of other platforms whether it's Windows or Android or both

01:11:26   Let's face it. Nobody uses Linux anymore

01:11:29   Usually every Apple event there's like a couple of things where those people get really mad about because

01:11:36   Apple you did something that you know they copied someone else or they did something that other people have done before

01:11:40   This maybe this just because there's so many things announced here

01:11:44   But this event seems like there was a higher than normal percentage of those of those things is that but but all of them the Newton

01:11:51   Did first it's like yeah, oh sure Microsoft service did it first right, but who did it first er?

01:11:56   You know and even the Newton it's like well

01:11:58   Then what about the the grid pad like you just keep going back in time everyone's done these things before

01:12:02   We don't care who did it we care who did it best or did it in a way?

01:12:06   that was convincing to people.

01:12:07   We don't know if this is gonna be convincing.

01:12:09   People who use a Surface, as we've heard from them,

01:12:11   love their Surface, but they're not selling a lot of them.

01:12:14   I don't think they're gonna sell

01:12:14   a lot of these Pros either, but I think

01:12:17   because Apple does sell a ton of iOS devices,

01:12:20   and people do wanna use a pencil-like thing

01:12:22   with iOS devices, that Apple has the potential

01:12:25   to sell more of these silly $100,

01:12:28   hopefully that price goes down, pencil things

01:12:30   in the next five years than Microsoft does.

01:12:33   - You know, I agree with you, Marco,

01:12:34   a lot of this felt like everything is a remix. And to build on what John just said, we should

01:12:40   probably talk about pricing and then move on to some of the other stuff in the keynote.

01:12:44   Starting at $800 for 32 gigs, yay, 32 gigs. $950 for 128. And interestingly, the only

01:12:53   option for Wi-Fi plus cellular is the $1,080 128 gig iPad. I thought that somewhat surprising

01:13:03   because for all the other iPads you can get cellular on any size you want but for this if you want cellular you're going whole hog and that's the end of the meeting.

01:13:11   I think I think my iPad 3 was close to $1,000 like all in so like I'm looking at these prices

01:13:17   Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm looking at these prices and thinking you know what for a 13 inch thing with 4

01:13:22   13 inch iOS device with 4 gigs of RAM

01:13:25   That's not that doesn't seem crazy to me like I feel like I'm getting my money's worth

01:13:29   worth. I'm getting a lot of pixels, I'm getting a lot of power, I'm getting new features that

01:13:33   the other devices don't have and it's quote unquote only a thousand dollars. That starts,

01:13:38   I would rather have this than an iPad, MacBook Air 11 inch. I don't know about you guys.

01:13:45   Yeah I mean it depends. I mean it's, you know like price wise it is expensive. Compa, I

01:13:49   mean you're right like if you decked out an iPad before, if you got the max config before

01:13:54   of the full-sized iPad, it was always $9.29.

01:13:57   But the fact is over time,

01:14:00   I think the average selling price of iPads,

01:14:02   I think has gone down.

01:14:04   I think we even have numbers for that.

01:14:05   - Oh yeah, they've been dropping the price,

01:14:07   but I understand if people offered you,

01:14:10   someone came to your house and said,

01:14:11   "I will either give you a new decked out 11 inch Air

01:14:15   "or a new decked out iPad Pro.

01:14:17   "I know you don't want either one of these devices,

01:14:18   "but which one do you, you're gonna get it for free,

01:14:21   "pick one of them."

01:14:22   Wouldn't you all pick the iPad Pro

01:14:23   just because it's more interesting?

01:14:26   - Yeah.

01:14:27   - Probably, but we're not normal.

01:14:29   I don't know, I mean, it's certainly cooler,

01:14:31   it's certainly, and it's certainly more specialized,

01:14:34   and that's the problem.

01:14:35   Like I mentioned last episode of the one before

01:14:37   how I was kind of disappointed that a lot of Apple's products

01:14:41   keep getting more specialized,

01:14:42   and that it used to, the answer to the question

01:14:45   of who is this for, for most of their products,

01:14:47   like five years ago, the answers to that were very broad,

01:14:51   whereas you could use, almost everybody

01:14:53   could use almost any of their computers

01:14:55   for almost any purpose and it would work pretty well.

01:14:58   You know, the definitions were more broad,

01:15:00   whereas now I think we're seeing a lot more specialization

01:15:04   from Apple products and by nature that is exclusionary.

01:15:07   It's not like this is--

01:15:09   - It's not exclusionary though.

01:15:10   It is making more different products

01:15:12   for more different people.

01:15:13   Instead of saying we make three computers

01:15:16   and the entire world is gonna pick

01:15:17   one of our three computers, they're like,

01:15:18   some people don't even want a computer.

01:15:19   Some people want a phone, some people want a small phone,

01:15:21   some people want a big phone,

01:15:22   Some people want a tablet, some people want a small tablet,

01:15:24   some people want a big tablet,

01:15:25   some people want a tablet with a stylus.

01:15:26   So each individual product is more narrowly focused,

01:15:29   you're right, but I think they're covering

01:15:31   more of the spectrum.

01:15:32   This is just, you know, it's the whole,

01:15:34   as the cost of compute drops to zero,

01:15:36   like that becomes less of a factor,

01:15:37   and it's just like, what are the needs of the customers,

01:15:40   and how can we meet them with lots of different products?

01:15:43   Nobody needs all of these products.

01:15:44   It's the same thing with the big phones.

01:15:46   Some people just wanted a big phone.

01:15:47   Some people have a big phone, and they're like,

01:15:49   you know what, I don't need a PC or a laptop.

01:15:51   everything I do is fine on my big phone.

01:15:53   I do all my web browsing on it, I do all my buying,

01:15:55   I do all my things, I watch my Netflix on it,

01:15:57   I don't need a computer anymore.

01:15:59   Does that mean that that phone is for fewer people

01:16:02   than the laptop was?

01:16:03   Yeah, kind of, because if you just sold everyone a PC

01:16:06   and it was this general purpose thing,

01:16:07   you can do everything on a PC,

01:16:09   that will suit everyone's needs,

01:16:11   but some people would rather

01:16:12   just have a really big honking phone.

01:16:14   And so I think this diversification is natural.

01:16:18   Like, are you uncomfortable because you feel like

01:16:21   any individual product now has a narrow range of people

01:16:24   that it appeals to and you still would rather

01:16:26   than make a smaller line of products

01:16:28   that appeal to a wider range of people?

01:16:30   - Well, okay, so stepping back, I think I agree with you.

01:16:34   You're right, this is not exclusionary.

01:16:36   So you're right, having more products

01:16:38   that covers more of the market,

01:16:40   that's a good thing for inclusion.

01:16:42   However, I have two worries here.

01:16:45   Number one, I do worry that Apple is very much a fan

01:16:51   pushing things forward and killing old things or ending support for old things.

01:16:56   And so if I see them launching major products in a direction that is really

01:17:00   at odds with with my own needs, I get worried from from that point of view

01:17:04   that the things that serve my needs are going to be ended at some point in the

01:17:07   future. So anyway besides that though I do think there is a I think they have a

01:17:14   severe problem right now of that their product lines are just really big. There

01:17:19   There are so many different models of everything.

01:17:22   There's so many little and big variations

01:17:25   that you can order with any product line.

01:17:27   There are so many product lines now.

01:17:29   So this has a number of challenges.

01:17:31   One of them obviously is that they are stretching

01:17:33   their resources really thin in a lot of areas,

01:17:35   especially things like engineering and quality.

01:17:38   They stretch these things very, very thin.

01:17:41   They don't have as big of a staff as everyone

01:17:44   would assume a company of that financial resource

01:17:47   would have and they really, I mean,

01:17:50   it seems like they're like waging a war on all fronts

01:17:54   with relatively small resources.

01:17:56   So I'm a little worried about that.

01:17:58   - I think they're being kind of smart with the sharing

01:18:00   because it's kind of like the restaurant

01:18:03   where you realize everything they serve

01:18:04   is a combination of five different ingredients, right?

01:18:07   Even though they have 27 dishes, you're like,

01:18:09   wait a second, this is just ingredient A plus ingredient B

01:18:12   plus ingredient C and different combinations.

01:18:16   I think they're doing a pretty good job of sharing because, I mean, for a long time they

01:18:19   did too much sharing where the iPad really was just iOS and it's a device and it's a

01:18:22   bigger screen.

01:18:23   But like the Core OS, Darwin, the kernel being shared across all their stuff and then up

01:18:28   the stack, Objective-C, Swift.

01:18:31   The fact that they're, you know, the Mac is a little bit of the odd man out at these times

01:18:35   because everything else is kind of like an iOS variant.

01:18:37   And although they're trying to put a brave face on like, you know, tvOS, watchOS and

01:18:42   the inevitable lowercase Mac OS, which will make me sad.

01:18:47   That they're giving it different names, but that's basically the same OS.

01:18:51   They've done a pretty good job of having a core technology stack and a core manufacturing

01:18:57   stack.

01:18:58   We make solid aluminum-backed machined things with lithium ion batteries and screens on

01:19:02   the front and cameras.

01:19:04   It's like, "Wait a second.

01:19:06   All these devices are just different combinations of the same things in different sizes."

01:19:09   even the Macs are kind of, you know,

01:19:11   the Macs were the first ones to be big CNC milled out

01:19:13   blocks of aluminum with lithium ion batteries

01:19:16   and the keyboards and the dome switches are in these like,

01:19:18   in the same keyboard covers and the same keyboard was

01:19:21   on all the laptops and that same keyboard is

01:19:22   on their desktop Macs and like, I think they're being,

01:19:25   like, I think it's how they can get away with this.

01:19:27   A, being the biggest company in the world

01:19:28   and having a million bazillion dollars, right?

01:19:30   And B, being smart about like sort of working on this,

01:19:35   unlike all their services where they don't seem

01:19:37   to work in infrastructure,

01:19:38   They work on infrastructure of like,

01:19:40   can we get really good at machining aluminum

01:19:42   and polishing and finishing it?

01:19:43   If we can do that everywhere, do it on the watch,

01:19:45   do it on the desktops, do it on the tablets,

01:19:47   do it on the phones, do it on the big phones,

01:19:49   like just everywhere, right?

01:19:52   And little cameras and LCD screen technology.

01:19:55   Every time they try to get good at something like that,

01:19:57   it pays dividends across the entire product line.

01:20:00   So I think hardware wise, they're doing well there.

01:20:02   Software wise, you have a point with like the sort of

01:20:05   rushing out to get to a platform,

01:20:08   all the engineers run over here and concentrate on that

01:20:10   and everything else languishes

01:20:11   and gets a little fidgety or whatever.

01:20:13   So I'm hoping El Cap is a return to form

01:20:16   and I hope they learn their lesson

01:20:17   to try to rein things back in.

01:20:19   TV has had a long time to get super crappy

01:20:21   without people paying attention to it.

01:20:22   I'm hoping this is the time when it's like

01:20:25   the stored up, you know, sort of potential energy

01:20:28   from all those years when Apple TV got crappier and crappier

01:20:30   now is going to come.

01:20:31   But it could also be that you're right,

01:20:33   that they overextended themselves in the new Apple TV.

01:20:35   It's super flaky and buggy.

01:20:38   And it's like, we waited all this time for this.

01:20:40   So none of us have a device yet, we can't tell.

01:20:42   But I think some of your fears are founded.

01:20:44   But when I look at their hardware, their product design,

01:20:48   I'm amazed at how much bang they get for their buck

01:20:52   in figuring out these few core things

01:20:55   and combining this small set of ingredients

01:20:57   to make a fairly large variety of products

01:21:01   that I think has the potential to appeal to more people.

01:21:04   - Yeah, I mean, I guess you can look at it

01:21:07   similarly to like Google is so good at large engineering projects especially

01:21:12   things involving big data and artificial intelligence type things that like you

01:21:17   know Google seems to have incredibly wide bandwidth and throughput of

01:21:21   engineering resources and so they they can solve problems better than almost

01:21:25   anybody else but that are solvable by tons of engineering work whereas Apple

01:21:31   it seems like you know Apple's core competency is in making this these you

01:21:37   the hardware, all these aluminum and glass things.

01:21:39   So Apple can solve challenges in the market

01:21:43   and can be more competitive by throwing massive amounts

01:21:47   of this kind of hardware at it.

01:21:49   So Apple actually can.

01:21:50   - And also the OS, don't you think?

01:21:53   Like the frameworks, they're pretty good at that,

01:21:55   like making sure their software is responsive,

01:21:57   making sure their frameworks are performant,

01:21:59   trying to share frameworks across like AV Foundation,

01:22:03   things across iOS and the Mac,

01:22:05   and those same things are on the phone and on the watch.

01:22:07   Like that is also a good and clever use of resources.

01:22:11   Once you get into the software, you could say,

01:22:12   oh yeah, but their actual applications are crappy,

01:22:14   or yeah, but the people writing code

01:22:17   against those frameworks are doing a bad job.

01:22:18   But I think in general, like compared to Google,

01:22:22   Google took a long time to get Android sort of up to snuff

01:22:25   where Apple started out in terms of prioritizing

01:22:27   responsiveness of the UI and making it look nice

01:22:31   and having a consistent and understandable

01:22:36   interface paradigm and all that other stuff.

01:22:38   So Apple has strengths in that area too.

01:22:40   It's just sort of towards the edges when you get into,

01:22:43   okay, you've got good hardware,

01:22:44   you've got a pretty good platform,

01:22:46   your language and IDE and everything seems pretty solid.

01:22:49   Your frameworks look okay,

01:22:50   except for the first year one of them comes out,

01:22:52   then all the frameworks are crappy.

01:22:53   But the second year, they're all good.

01:22:55   But then what are you writing with?

01:22:56   What applications do you write on top of it?

01:22:58   And then you're like,

01:22:59   well, Apple's apps are kind of crappy

01:23:00   and don't get any better.

01:23:02   And third-party apps aren't allowed

01:23:03   to do interesting things.

01:23:04   And you get into complaints in that realm.

01:23:06   But I think Apple's strengths are pretty broad,

01:23:10   definitely in hardware, I think definitely in OS

01:23:13   and kind of in frameworks, and in applications

01:23:16   is like the edges where things are fraying at this point.

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01:24:08   like I know Gruber was talking on his podcast this week,

01:24:10   I have the same stresses of like,

01:24:12   I don't like hanging large, heavy framed pictures on my wall

01:24:17   'cause I'm always afraid they're gonna fall off

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01:24:22   Fractures are very thin and light

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01:24:44   And Jon, you got some fractures, right?

01:24:46   Yeah, my wife had this idea and it was a good one.

01:24:48   I don't have any applications like Marco because Marco's got his app icons on fractures up

01:24:52   on his walls.

01:24:54   But I'm on a bunch of podcasts and so she said, "Podcast artist Square, why don't you

01:24:58   get little fractures of all the podcasts you're on?"

01:25:01   And so I did.

01:25:02   And they're cute.

01:25:03   And I have them up on my wall.

01:25:04   And I have six of them.

01:25:05   Seven of them, actually, because one that Marco and Tiff sent me is a GIF.

01:25:09   It's a picture of us live recording ATP.

01:25:12   So this is, I mean, I guess I'm just buying GIFs for myself.

01:25:16   And I've got pictures of my family on my desk and everything, but the thing you don't think

01:25:19   to do is, you know, like Marco's done, if you have like a work room, put pictures of

01:25:24   your accomplishments up on the wall.

01:25:26   And it's like, I would never do it if I had to like make prints of all these, then go

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01:25:33   upload a bunch of pictures, click, click, click,

01:25:36   and know that something would come that I don't need

01:25:37   to frame that's ready to hang on the wall,

01:25:39   that's what made me actually do this,

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01:26:44   - All right, so the Apple TV is new,

01:26:48   and it's called Apple TV.

01:26:50   - It's called the new Apple TV.

01:26:52   It's like an iPad 3 move, this is just the new one.

01:26:55   And then next year, they will retcon this one,

01:26:58   the Apple TV for and they'll make a new, new Apple TV.

01:27:02   - They were always just called Apple TV, right?

01:27:04   Like the numbers, we knew the numbers internally

01:27:07   but there was never in the branding, I think.

01:27:09   - Well, it never mattered before.

01:27:10   Now that it's an app platform, it will start to matter.

01:27:13   I think now the specs will matter more,

01:27:16   people will know the specs more,

01:27:18   they will advertise the specs more

01:27:20   and when new generations come out,

01:27:22   they will push what is new about them

01:27:23   and they will give them, I think,

01:27:25   numbered names of some kind.

01:27:27   - Yeah, we'll see.

01:27:28   So this thing has an A8, it has, as far as we know,

01:27:31   two gigs of RAM, 32 or 64 gig storage,

01:27:35   and it has this new fancy remote

01:27:37   that has like a little mini touch pad on it

01:27:39   and is also a Wiimote all in one.

01:27:41   - Can we just complain for a second

01:27:42   about no gigabit ethernet?

01:27:44   - Yeah. - Seriously?

01:27:45   - Yeah, what year is this?

01:27:46   - Like it's so tall, there's so much room in there.

01:27:49   10, 100, 'cause then you're like,

01:27:51   oh, I gotta make sure I don't hook it up to a hub or a switch

01:27:55   that downgrades everything.

01:27:56   I know video is never gonna be 100 megabits anyway.

01:27:58   It's the principle of things.

01:27:59   Like they did the whole alphabet soup of wifi

01:28:03   and they gave it reasonable storage.

01:28:05   There's no 16 gig model.

01:28:06   It starts at 32, unlike some other products

01:28:08   we might mention later.

01:28:09   You know, two gigs of RAM, A8, looks great.

01:28:13   10, 100, is there anything?

01:28:16   Like I hope like people stop supporting 10, 100.

01:28:18   So Apple will be forced.

01:28:19   Anyway, fine, right?

01:28:22   It's better, it's taller.

01:28:24   That's good.

01:28:26   Yeah, anyway, so yeah, the remote,

01:28:29   I think we can talk a lot about this remote.

01:28:31   First of all, upsides, I am very happy to see

01:28:35   both RF instead of IR, so you don't need line of sight,

01:28:39   you don't need to keep the box out

01:28:40   and make sure the IR gets there.

01:28:42   - Finally, as they say.

01:28:43   - Exactly, and I'm very glad to see

01:28:46   some kind of universal remote capability.

01:28:48   I'm not sure, does that work through HDMI signaling

01:28:50   or something, or is there--

01:28:50   - Oh, yeah.

01:28:51   - The existing Apple TV has this.

01:28:52   I'm assuming it's just the same feature.

01:28:55   This thing Apple TV does in the other direction,

01:28:56   where you can use any remote you want with your Apple TV,

01:29:01   like the previous generation.

01:29:02   - Oh yeah, I do.

01:29:03   - This is, you can use this remote,

01:29:05   it's exactly the same functionality,

01:29:07   but the reverse, where you can have this thing

01:29:10   control your other devices by training it to say,

01:29:13   it's got, basically it's got an IR thing,

01:29:14   it's gotta have an IR thing in it,

01:29:15   that basically like--

01:29:16   - No, no, no, yeah, I think you guys are all wrong on this.

01:29:18   So my understanding of the way this works is,

01:29:20   it's a Bluetooth, it's a Bluetooth remote,

01:29:24   And then using some protocol,

01:29:27   shoot, I took a note on this, let me stall the time.

01:29:29   - CDC thing, is that how it controls your volume?

01:29:31   Oh, please don't let that be true.

01:29:32   - Yes, no, they mentioned it.

01:29:35   No, no, no, no, Schiller said CDC to control--

01:29:38   - I know it has a CDC to control the other stuff,

01:29:40   to turn, change your input or whatever

01:29:42   and all that other stuff.

01:29:43   So--

01:29:44   - Tifter says it has IR for the volume up down.

01:29:47   - Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

01:29:47   It's gotta be for the volume, all right?

01:29:49   So that's just gotta be.

01:29:50   But all right, so that's a separate thing.

01:29:52   It's a learning remote, you can teach it

01:29:54   what does your TV expect you to spray out at an IR

01:29:56   to make the volume go up and down.

01:29:58   For everything else that they mentioned,

01:30:00   like oh, it can change your input on your thing to this,

01:30:02   and it can control your other devices

01:30:04   and make sure your TV is turned on,

01:30:05   it's using CEC, which is some HDMI standard,

01:30:08   which is a piece of crap.

01:30:09   I don't know if the standard is a piece of crap,

01:30:11   or every single product in the entire universe

01:30:13   that implements the standard is a piece of crap,

01:30:15   it doesn't matter.

01:30:16   - Well, you said HDMI, that implies all of that.

01:30:19   - Yeah, exactly, right?

01:30:20   And so, oh, it is so bad, all right?

01:30:22   So this comes under a million different names.

01:30:24   If you buy Panasonic stuff, it's called like VeraCast.

01:30:27   You buy Samsung, it's a different name.

01:30:29   This is all the same standard.

01:30:31   And I don't know, again, I don't know who to blame for it,

01:30:34   but I tweeted about it and a million people were like,

01:30:37   "I have this on my Sony television hooked up

01:30:39   "on a Sony receiver with my Sony remote

01:30:41   "and it's still nothing works.

01:30:42   "I've got a mix stack here with Panasonic

01:30:45   "and I figured my Yamaha receiver or whatever."

01:30:49   Here's the thing about CEC.

01:30:51   It almost works.

01:30:52   You hook it all up and you're like,

01:30:54   hey, this is great, all these different manufacturers

01:30:56   who, you know, they're cooperating on this standard

01:30:58   and I can hit this thing and it will do all this stuff

01:31:00   or whatever, but then it stops working.

01:31:02   And then you don't know why, and then everything freezes.

01:31:04   Like one person said, I had a brownout once

01:31:06   and CEC has never worked again.

01:31:07   (laughing)

01:31:10   It's inexplicable, it's like SCSI termination.

01:31:12   For the really old people,

01:31:13   terminating SCSI chains, that black magic,

01:31:16   that's what CEC is like, but worse,

01:31:17   because it's with your TV that you just expect to work.

01:31:19   So, I played with this stuff extensively

01:31:22   when I redid my computer, my television setup twice.

01:31:25   I tried it, I tried it once, and I said,

01:31:27   maybe it's not ready, I tried it several years later.

01:31:29   I got it all working, but there were just enough flakiness

01:31:32   and just enough failure weight, the solution.

01:31:34   If you're dealing with anything with CEC,

01:31:36   if you have a television receiver or anything,

01:31:38   you will make your life better.

01:31:40   Turn that off on every single one of your devices.

01:31:42   Don't leave a single one with CEC enabled,

01:31:44   'cause it will screw up everything.

01:31:45   Just turn it off everywhere.

01:31:46   Turn it off on your receiver, turn it off on your TV,

01:31:48   turn off in your remote, turn off in your Blu-ray player,

01:31:50   turn off everywhere, turn off on your game console,

01:31:53   then you will have a slightly more annoying system,

01:31:55   but you got to turn different things on,

01:31:56   but everything will actually work.

01:31:58   So what does CDC stand for?

01:32:00   - CEC, it's like--

01:32:01   - Oh, CEC.

01:32:03   - CEC, yeah. - Oh, oh, oh, oh.

01:32:04   - It never goes by that name,

01:32:05   'cause every manufacturer has a different name for it.

01:32:07   It's supposed to let your other devices talk to each other,

01:32:09   that when I had pressed this one button,

01:32:11   that it knows to turn the receiver on and change to input two

01:32:13   and turn the television on and turn the volume to this

01:32:15   and do it like, it's supposed to be

01:32:17   so they can all communicate with each other.

01:32:18   And it almost works, it almost does,

01:32:21   but it is just so incredibly frustrating

01:32:24   that it just, seriously.

01:32:25   So I guess it's nice that Apple includes this.

01:32:28   There's a chance it could work fine for you.

01:32:30   That chance seems slim.

01:32:32   It seems really slim.

01:32:33   Like I would encourage people who,

01:32:35   I know I'm asking for feedback,

01:32:36   like if you have a television setup

01:32:39   with a bunch of CEC enabled devices,

01:32:41   and it just works all the time and there are any problems,

01:32:43   I've heard from zero of those people.

01:32:44   So I'm asking, if that happened to you,

01:32:48   send us an email or a tweet and say,

01:32:50   I use CEC, I've been using it for years,

01:32:53   and I never have a problem with it.

01:32:54   I don't think we'll get any emails, but who knows?

01:32:57   I didn't think there were many

01:32:57   tap-to-click wizards out there.

01:32:59   All I know is when I mentioned it on Twitter,

01:33:03   all I got were replies from people,

01:33:04   I said, "CEC is the devil," and everyone's like,

01:33:06   "Yes, it is the devil."

01:33:08   And they just had horror stories about it.

01:33:09   So that's not to say that Apple shouldn't have included it.

01:33:12   It's fine, go ahead and include it.

01:33:14   But if you have grand plans that you think

01:33:16   this is gonna save you, this is not an Apple technology.

01:33:18   This is a quote unquote industry standard technology

01:33:20   and it's a piece of crap.

01:33:22   - Real time follow up, I apologize to the both of you.

01:33:25   There is an IR transmitter on the remote

01:33:28   as per the spec page on Apple's website.

01:33:32   I'm still not clear if it's a learning transmitter or not.

01:33:34   - It is, the volume will work.

01:33:36   That part will totally work for you.

01:33:38   If you're buying this and you expect to use

01:33:40   the volume control, that will work on your TV.

01:33:42   - That's honestly all I want

01:33:43   'cause that's the only reason I had any of the remotes out

01:33:45   was, although turning the TV on and off

01:33:47   would be another thing, but is that what CEC

01:33:50   is supposed to do?

01:33:51   - Yeah, and even for that, just don't use it.

01:33:53   - Okay, I won't, don't worry.

01:33:54   - Use a separate thing to turn it, it's fine.

01:33:56   You will survive.

01:33:57   - I guarantee you, my TV is too old to support it.

01:34:00   - Yeah, probably.

01:34:01   All right, so I'm done being angry about CEC

01:34:03   and now I can be angry about this remote.

01:34:05   Because the other thing about this is,

01:34:10   the thing I kept thinking of looking at this remote,

01:34:11   which obviously this is better than the previous

01:34:13   Apple TV remote, which everyone hates

01:34:14   and gets lost in your cell phone cushions, right?

01:34:17   Is it?

01:34:18   Yeah, okay, go ahead.

01:34:21   Anyway, it's better because it has more buttons,

01:34:24   more actual buttons on it

01:34:25   and it's got the little touch pad thing.

01:34:26   It's gotta be better.

01:34:27   Anyway, the TiVo remote is the one I always think of.

01:34:30   TiVo was the first sort of big mass market company, I think,

01:34:34   because television remotes, every year you buy,

01:34:38   the TVs come with a differently shaped remote

01:34:40   and there are trends in remote shapes

01:34:41   and trends and what the buttons look like

01:34:43   and how they're shaped and like,

01:34:45   there's no sort of one theme,

01:34:46   but because TiVo was a singular thing

01:34:48   and kept its remote design for a long time,

01:34:50   people know what a TiVo remote looks like.

01:34:52   If you say, what does a Sony remote look like?

01:34:54   Well, what year, what decade did you buy your TV?

01:34:56   So that's why I'm singling out TiVo here.

01:34:57   And I think TiVo is one of the first companies

01:34:59   in this sort of singular identifiable way

01:35:02   that designed a remote around two things,

01:35:05   around actual human hands that hold things,

01:35:08   and also around like an interface design

01:35:11   that recognize the most common things people wanna do.

01:35:13   Now TiVo remotes have a million buttons on them.

01:35:16   I totally acknowledge that, it's not appropriate for Apple,

01:35:18   I'm not saying Apple should have made a TiVo remote.

01:35:20   But the things that the TiVo remote got right,

01:35:22   it was like I said, they made a shape

01:35:24   that is not shaped like a rectangular solid

01:35:27   or like a piece of art or like something,

01:35:29   it is shaped like something

01:35:30   that is meant to be held in your hand.

01:35:32   It's meant to be easily scooped up off a hard surface

01:35:34   or a couch and meant to be held comfortably in your hand.

01:35:37   It's shaped kinda like,

01:35:38   if you don't know what TiVo remote looks like,

01:35:39   looks kinda like a bone.

01:35:40   It's like two bulbous ends with a thin thing in the middle.

01:35:44   It feels good to hold in a way that a rounded rectangle

01:35:48   or a sharp corner rectangle or any kind of rectangle

01:35:50   or even like a Wii remote,

01:35:52   the TiVo remote is a much better fit

01:35:55   for gripping human hands.

01:35:56   And the second thing, if I pick up any TiVo remote,

01:35:59   dead center in the middle on the sort of neck of the thing

01:36:01   is a gigantic, big, brightly colored,

01:36:04   largest button on the remote,

01:36:05   which is the pause button, the play button.

01:36:07   That's the big feature of the TiVo.

01:36:08   It's like, oh, you can pause live TV or whatever.

01:36:10   just above it is the play button and again there are a million buttons around

01:36:13   it I'm not saying that's that's what Apple should have done but it's a

01:36:16   testament to the TiVo's design that the million buttons on the TiVo remote are

01:36:19   all shaped in distinct ways are put in clusters of related functionality that

01:36:25   anyone's had a TiVo for years you can grab that thing and find the buttons you

01:36:29   want without looking at it in a sea of a huge number of buttons you can find the

01:36:32   directional pads you can find like I don't need to look at my TiVo remote I

01:36:36   can hit all sorts of buttons all over the thing with hand shimmies and all

01:36:39   all this other stuff without ever looking at it

01:36:41   because every button is distinct, you can feel it.

01:36:44   It's not just a bunch of little tiny rectangles,

01:36:46   it's not a bunch of uniform circles in a grid.

01:36:48   And the buttons are different sizes

01:36:50   and the larger ones are more common,

01:36:51   the smaller ones are more obscure.

01:36:53   And again, related functionality is localized.

01:36:56   It is a brilliant remote design,

01:36:58   they've tweaked it a little bit over the years.

01:37:00   Again, not appropriate for Apple.

01:37:01   What I wanna see is that philosophy,

01:37:03   that philosophy of acknowledging those things,

01:37:05   that human hands are gonna hold this,

01:37:07   it's not going to be placed as a piece of art

01:37:08   in the Museum of Modern Art,

01:37:11   and Johnny Ive's gonna look at it in Skaal, right?

01:37:13   It's gonna be held by human hands,

01:37:15   it's gonna be on couches,

01:37:16   it's gonna be on surfaces where people have to pick it up,

01:37:18   and some functions are more common than others.

01:37:21   So every single button shouldn't be the same size,

01:37:23   related functions should be grouped together,

01:37:25   and it should basically work more like people expect it to

01:37:30   and less like a designer wants it to look.

01:37:34   This looks like still too much form over function,

01:37:37   not enough function dictating form.

01:37:40   Still better than the little tiny silver thing

01:37:42   with the stupid little directional circle

01:37:43   that you can never tell which direction you're putting.

01:37:45   And I like the touch thing and voice is the ultimate thing.

01:37:48   We don't have to hit buttons at all

01:37:49   and I agree with all of that,

01:37:50   but this is in the grand scheme of remote design,

01:37:54   this is not a great remote design.

01:37:56   - I kind of like the old one, honestly,

01:37:57   but this looks fine.

01:37:59   I'm looking forward to trying it.

01:38:01   I kind of miss with the old one

01:38:05   that they were like the big center button,

01:38:07   Like you could just pick it up without looking at it

01:38:10   and you could operate everything without ever looking.

01:38:12   This I think is gonna take some getting used to

01:38:13   because like the play/pause is like this,

01:38:16   it shapes just like all the other buttons

01:38:17   and I don't know, but--

01:38:18   - I think it'll use it.

01:38:19   I think the idea is that you can get away

01:38:21   with using the swipey stuff.

01:38:22   And by the way, did you,

01:38:23   I put some of the notes in the thing,

01:38:25   but if you looked at the little guide

01:38:26   of like the Apple Television Human Interface guidelines,

01:38:29   they show an animation, not with fingers,

01:38:31   but with dots showing the things you can do

01:38:33   and they say, "Swipe."

01:38:35   Fine, I know what a swipe is.

01:38:36   you swipe across the little touch pad, right?

01:38:37   Then they show both a click and a tap,

01:38:40   which are supposedly distinct things.

01:38:42   And how the hell are they distinct?

01:38:43   How is a click different?

01:38:44   There's no button, right?

01:38:46   I don't understand this.

01:38:47   - Who knows?

01:38:47   - Like the click is more intentional.

01:38:49   It's like, do you press harder?

01:38:51   Do you have to bend the remote in half?

01:38:52   Is it the force you strike it with?

01:38:54   Are there four sensors in it?

01:38:55   I have no idea, but.

01:38:56   - I mean, is this not tap to click all over again?

01:38:58   You know, there's a click and then there's a tap

01:38:59   and they're two different things.

01:39:00   - I don't understand.

01:39:01   I mean, we haven't touched the device, so we can't tell.

01:39:03   So I can't tell whether this is good or bad.

01:39:05   But anyway, I like the idea that I can pretend

01:39:07   that the buttons don't exist.

01:39:08   But even if you just pretend the buttons don't exist,

01:39:10   I think this thing is too low profile, too thin,

01:39:13   and too small to be comfortable to hold.

01:39:15   That's why they sell those wooden holsters

01:39:17   for the old Apple TV remote for people

01:39:19   to turn into something that's large enough

01:39:20   that A, doesn't get lost, and B, feels good in your hand.

01:39:23   - Yeah, I don't know, we'll see.

01:39:24   Now, I was just looking at the Apple website,

01:39:28   the specs site, and it says in the box

01:39:31   for the new Apple TV, Apple TV, Siri remote, power cord,

01:39:34   lightning to USB cable.

01:39:36   Is that gonna be the same one we always have?

01:39:38   And if so, that's ever so slightly presumptuous

01:39:40   because the only USB on this is USB-C.

01:39:43   So is that a lightning to USB-C cable?

01:39:46   Or is that just a regular lightning to USB cable?

01:39:48   - Yeah, 'cause it's presumably

01:39:49   it's to charge the battery, right?

01:39:50   - It's to charge the remote, I would imagine.

01:39:52   And so it seems a little, yeah,

01:39:53   it seems a little weird to me

01:39:54   that they would include a cable

01:39:55   that you can't plug into the device

01:39:57   in order to charge the remote you need for the device.

01:40:00   - It's also, I think it's kind of funny, honestly,

01:40:02   that this is the second Apple device to have a USB-C port.

01:40:07   - That's a good point actually, I didn't think about that.

01:40:09   - It seems appropriate 'cause it's kinda like the second,

01:40:12   the first device to be totally redesigned

01:40:15   in the USB-C era, discounting iOS devices,

01:40:17   which I guess are sticking with Lightning.

01:40:19   - I guess, but yeah, that's a good point Casey,

01:40:21   I don't know.

01:40:23   I don't know, I think the whole thing,

01:40:24   charging through Lightning, that should be fine.

01:40:27   It does seem to have, based on, what did they say,

01:40:31   oh yeah, it said like, "providing months of battery life."

01:40:33   Now, the old Apple TV remote seemed to provide

01:40:36   years of battery life, to the point where

01:40:39   I think I buy a new Apple TV,

01:40:41   I think I've only had to replace the battery

01:40:43   in an Apple TV remote, I think twice,

01:40:45   and I've been using Apple TV since the first one.

01:40:47   - I've never had to replace mine 'cause I don't use it.

01:40:49   - There you go.

01:40:50   So, you know, this is gonna have an interesting problem

01:40:53   where it's gonna be, hopefully it'll warn you

01:40:56   ahead of time when it's running low,

01:40:57   it's a good battery life of quote months

01:41:01   that you will generally never have to charge it

01:41:05   except one night when it dies.

01:41:07   - Yeah, but it's such a small battery it'll charge so fast.

01:41:09   It's kind of like the pencil where they're like,

01:41:11   "15 seconds of charging gives 30 minutes of use."

01:41:13   Like that's the advantage of small batteries is,

01:41:16   yeah, and because it's Bluetooth,

01:41:17   it will be able to tell the thing,

01:41:19   "Hey, your remote is low," and you'll plug it in

01:41:21   and you'll plug it in for a half an hour

01:41:22   and you'll be good to go for like another month or something.

01:41:24   So I think it'll be fine.

01:41:25   - And by that rationale, the new iPhones

01:41:27   charge really fast.

01:41:28   Oh goodness, we're not getting there yet.

01:41:30   Not getting there yet.

01:41:31   All right, let's talk about Siri on the TV, because apparently, Jon, you wanted to talk

01:41:36   about that.

01:41:37   Yeah, everything like that demos well, especially when you don't actually do a demo, but you

01:41:41   just show canned movies like, "Oh, show me all the James Bond movies, only the ones with

01:41:45   Sean Connery," blah, blah, blah.

01:41:47   Although if you say only, it might not work.

01:41:49   You might have to say just, and it becomes like a text adventure.

01:41:51   Anyway, anything is better than trying to enter text

01:41:56   with a remote control.

01:41:57   We all agree on that.

01:41:58   So I think there's a lot of leeway

01:42:01   for people to struggle with Siri

01:42:03   before it becomes as painful

01:42:05   as trying to type things into a search box.

01:42:07   So this is what we all wanted.

01:42:09   If it works as designed,

01:42:10   like you've all tried the Amazon Fire,

01:42:12   I think, well, Marco has one

01:42:13   and I don't know if Casey's tried it,

01:42:14   but like put a microphone in the remote,

01:42:16   let me speak some stuff.

01:42:18   When it works, it's useful.

01:42:19   When it doesn't, it's kind of annoying.

01:42:21   But again, there is a long gap before is like is this more annoying than trying to type things on a keyboard?

01:42:26   Especially that keyboard is not QWERTY but is an alphabetical order on the screen or something crazy like that

01:42:31   I hope or really hope it works like they show it working

01:42:35   But you know someone tweeted a joke which it was a joke

01:42:39   But it shows like the immediate limits you run into

01:42:42   Show me it with the shop and then show me all the headphones that Marco likes but only the ones that are you know under?

01:42:48   $800

01:42:50   They don't know who Marco is they should he's in your contacts

01:42:53   Can you figure like it's a human would be able to do it, but Siri can't and so

01:42:56   You know that's unfair obviously you know Siri's not artificial intelligence

01:43:01   But once you can talk to something and start being conversational with it as soon as you hit those limits

01:43:05   And we all know the limits are there as soon as you hit them

01:43:07   It breaks the illusion and it becomes a little bit frustrating

01:43:11   But hopefully the the benefits of never having to do is an on-screen keyboard to do stuff far outweigh

01:43:18   you know, the downsides of bumping into the invisible walls that constitute the current limits of AI.

01:43:24   Yeah, and what impressed me a lot about Siri was that,

01:43:27   especially in the Apple TV demos they did, it seemed to do better with

01:43:32   context than it's ever done before. And I know one of the features of Siri pretty much since launch was, "Oh, we understand context, and it's

01:43:39   conversational." But like you were saying, you know, "Oh, show me an action movie. Oh, show me the James Bond movies."

01:43:45   "No, show me the James Bond movies with Sean Connery."

01:43:48   And I'm actually misstating this.

01:43:49   It's not, "Show me the James Bond movies each time."

01:43:51   It's, "Okay, show me James Bond movies."

01:43:53   "No, show me the ones with Sean Connery."

01:43:55   And so that context is capped, and it looked impressive.

01:43:58   Now we'll see how it actually works.

01:44:00   But in principle, it certainly demoed really well.

01:44:03   And I mean, I'm looking forward to trying it if I end up getting one of

01:44:06   these, which knowing me, I probably will.

01:44:07   I worry that it will work well for programmers who think procedurally,

01:44:11   who think of it as like a series of filter operations.

01:44:13   But if you give it to a regular person like it's you see little kids do it with Siri all the time like on your

01:44:18   Phone they just start talking to it like a person

01:44:20   If you're a programmer and you're thinking of it as like I understand this that this is a series of filter steps

01:44:26   And there is probably some leeway in the in the syntax

01:44:29   But there's like what you're doing is you're holding in your head as a programmer what you know to be the context state so that

01:44:35   When you say just the ones with Sean Connery you you understand that there is a context of your previous search

01:44:40   And that is a pla like that mental model does not exist as the user model of most people's brains

01:44:45   They can be trained to figure it out to figure out

01:44:47   How do I have to talk to my Apple TV to get it to do stuff with just fine?

01:44:50   like again better than an on-screen keyboard, but I

01:44:52   What happens initially is people are amazed by the first demo and they just start talking to it and it's like no like

01:44:59   Show me the James Bond movies. Actually. I want something with Julia Roberts and then it shows zero movies because there are no

01:45:06   Julia Roberts because it didn't understand that you said actually and you were just resetting the whole thing and you know what I mean?

01:45:11   But a human would like boy, it's tough. It's a tough problem

01:45:14   I just want efficient speech-to-text without having to get up and a little microphone the remote does that so kudos

01:45:20   Alright tv OS

01:45:23   Actually before we get to that and in the realm of remotes

01:45:25   I don't know if you guys saw this but in the same documentation that I pasted in the link to

01:45:29   They have game controllers shown

01:45:32   We talked about gaming or Apple talked about gaming a little bit and they tried to show games

01:45:36   being used with the little accelerometers and your little tiny thing and trying to use like a d-pad on the touchscreen all this terrible stuff and

01:45:43   so

01:45:44   Apple does have support for game controllers. They have a picture of an actual game control in their documentation

01:45:49   It has it's a steel series on top of it. I don't know if there's an existing

01:45:52   Game controller for like iOS devices or it's just a prototype or it's not coming up for Apple TV

01:45:59   But Apple defines the buttons and controls that should be on a game control again

01:46:04   This may not be new because I haven't been kept up with like they might have already defined this for iOS

01:46:08   But anyway, this is the definition for for Apple TV possibly also the old definition of iOS

01:46:13   But this is the first time I've seen documentation it defines

01:46:16   two shoulder pads two triggers a d-pad two thumb sticks

01:46:21   And then you button and four face buttons a B and XY which are in the mirror image

01:46:27   Arrangement of the SNES which I think is a weird one. I just go with the exact arrangement of the SNES anyway

01:46:33   And then they give you the expected behaviors. They want them to do where they're like, you know

01:46:38   B goes back in the menu system a activates an item

01:46:42   the shoulder buttons like if you're using them in an app like left shoulder navigates left and that gets right and then

01:46:48   Expected behavior in a game varies for all these things. But anyway

01:46:53   This shows a little bit of gaming ambitions

01:46:55   It's like we're going to define a controller interface and a set of buttons and it's kind of up to the controller people how they want

01:47:00   To arrange the buttons they can put those four months that neither where they wanted

01:47:03   They can put the thumbsticks anywhere they want or whatever, but at least they're in game console style saying

01:47:08   Trying to say anyway, you should have four face buttons. They should be a B and X and Y and here's the expected behavior

01:47:14   so if someone gets one game and

01:47:16   The you know when they're going through the menu system to go into the next menu in your game

01:47:20   They hit a and to go back they hit B, but then if another game person does it reverse it drives you crazy

01:47:24   So I'm happy to see them trying to pin down

01:47:28   the user every console does this like a

01:47:31   PlayStation whatever X is the button to go in and like a Nintendo B is the button to go back in the menus it like

01:47:36   Every cons game console has to do this

01:47:39   otherwise you will

01:47:41   Just get very frustrated trying to use a game because your muscle memory

01:47:45   Even just navigating the menus or whatever or finally what's gonna be what's probably the jump button and what's probably the fire button

01:47:50   button right for for genres of games or if I think of the menus because every

01:47:55   game has menus and it's the most frustrating if some game reverses the

01:47:58   this button goes deeper into the menu this button goes back in the menus so

01:48:04   that doesn't you know there was some rumors about like Apple TV taking on a

01:48:08   game consoles or whatever people got their fun we're trying to write those

01:48:12   stories beforehand that was not how Apple TV was presented that is not what

01:48:16   Apple TV is. Never was going to be that. That's fine. What it is going to be is a

01:48:21   way to play iOS style games from your couch if the game developers can figure

01:48:26   out some way to make the game work without touch controls. And that I think

01:48:30   is the biggest challenge. That gets back to the remote and that gets back to the

01:48:32   controllers and that gets back to universal applications where you can write

01:48:36   a single game and have it work on the iPhone, the iPad, and on the Apple TV.

01:48:41   Again, if you can figure out some way to control the thing without letting people

01:48:46   touch your screen because on the television they can't touch the screen or if they do

01:48:49   nothing will actually happen except I'll get angry.

01:48:54   So I don't want to delay the TV OS discussion but I think gaming is the part of this that

01:49:02   I'm more interested in.

01:49:03   What do you think about playing games on this?

01:49:05   They did the multiplayer Crossy Road demo and people seemed excited about that but what

01:49:08   do you think the prospects of this as a platform for buying and playing games?

01:49:14   I'm disappointed that Apple doesn't just have a controller, like a game controller.

01:49:23   In reality I'm not surprised by any of this, but I am disappointed that this is basically

01:49:30   relegating games that will actually use controllers to this obscure side business. It's like

01:49:38   making, there were like 11 or something games that could take advantage of both A32X and

01:49:44   a Sega CD at the same time because nobody had both a 32x and a Sega CD. I think this

01:49:52   is going to be like that where like the number of people who buy the new Apple TV is going

01:49:56   to be low for a while because it's just it's new and it's and it's more expensive so it's

01:50:00   going to be low for a while. Combine that with the number of people who are going to

01:50:05   have the new Apple TV who are also going to buy a game controller for it that is not from

01:50:10   from Apple. Right now there's the SteelSeries Nimbus thing, we'll put the link in the

01:50:14   show notes, this is a real controller. So, you know, they have this thing, there's

01:50:18   no price listed, you can like pre-order it or something or, you know, let me know when

01:50:22   it's ready, that kind of thing. It's probably going to be like 30 or 40 bucks, I would assume,

01:50:27   maybe more, who knows. How many people are actually going to have these controllers to

01:50:32   make it worth game developers putting any effort into actually taking advantage of them?

01:50:36   And if you're a game developer, how can you justify writing a game for the Apple TV that

01:50:44   requires one of these things?

01:50:47   If a game controller, or if a suitable enough game controller, came with every Apple TV,

01:50:54   then you could assume it's there and you can write for it.

01:50:57   Now as an optional hardware add-on, I think it's going to get very little support.

01:51:03   Control is the biggest challenge with this thing.

01:51:04   If you have an iOS game, tons of iOS games are out there, lots of fun that take advantage

01:51:08   of touch controls.

01:51:09   Games that would be harder to play with a traditional controller or easier to play with

01:51:13   touch like flight control.

01:51:15   Who would want to play flight control with a console controller?

01:51:17   It would be extremely frustrating, it's super natural and fun to use your finger.

01:51:22   That is an ideal touch game.

01:51:23   How do you bring flight control to the Apple TV?

01:51:25   You absolutely don't.

01:51:26   You just can't.

01:51:27   Like, you could make people swipe around on a little tiny pad, it would be terrible, right?

01:51:31   So there's a different class of games you have to make for the Apple TV.

01:51:37   Can you make a game that works on Apple TV and with touch devices?

01:51:41   Maybe if it's a type of game like Flappy Bird where you just have a single input which is

01:51:44   a big red shiny button that you press periodically, right?

01:51:47   That probably works fine on all of them because it's like tap anywhere on the screen, tap

01:51:51   anywhere on the remote, everything's fine.

01:51:53   But once you start getting even a little bit complicated, like even like Alto, it has enough

01:51:58   complicated stuff in it that I don't know if you can play Alto with that. I suppose you can if you

01:52:02   start using accelerometers, but coming up with one good control stream is hard enough. Coming up with

01:52:07   two good control schemes for a single game that someone buys once on multiple platforms seems like

01:52:13   a tall order. So I have to think that either if you're lucky enough to have a game that has a

01:52:17   dead simple interface, like Crossy Road it just makes the cut, where it's like tap and a couple

01:52:21   of swipes, fine you're good. Then you can get away with it. If you have a more complicated control

01:52:27   screen you can go Apple TV only but then you have to make sure it's playable with

01:52:31   the remote which is probably not a great experience and like Marco said is anyone

01:52:35   gonna make a game that is just terrible to play with the remote but it's really

01:52:40   meant to be played with a controller that no one's gonna own maybe if it's

01:52:43   shovelware I guess maybe it's like a shovelware port like everyone's like you

01:52:45   know what when is the inevitable port of Thomas was alone but I think Thomas was

01:52:49   alone would actually be kind of okay with with the little controller because

01:52:53   it's just kind of like four directions and a jump anyway the remote in addition

01:52:56   being what I think is a not very good remote, is a terrible video game controller. It'll

01:53:01   be fine for taps and swipes, but for everything else, I don't know.

01:53:06   Well, this is why, like, I, and, you know, again, none of this is really that big of

01:53:11   a surprise, but I think going into this, a lot of people were saying, "Oh, yeah, well,

01:53:18   Apple's gonna make a big deal with games here, and this is gonna be a big game story," and,

01:53:24   You know, again, unless it shipped with

01:53:26   a decent gaming controller,

01:53:28   that was never gonna be the case.

01:53:30   And I think we all knew Apple was not gonna do that.

01:53:33   And ultimately then,

01:53:36   I don't see this being a major game story.

01:53:38   I think most games are gonna be better

01:53:43   on the iPhone and iPad than they're gonna be on this TV

01:53:46   because there is no standard.

01:53:47   - Well, most iOS games will.

01:53:50   Well, you're thinking it was iOS games, right?

01:53:51   Games that work well with touch interfaces.

01:53:53   obviously it'll be better with touch interfaces.

01:53:55   - Yeah, oh yeah, no, but I'm saying like most games

01:53:57   that will actually be made for this, you know,

01:54:00   because I don't see a lot of games being made for it

01:54:02   that will actually, like you know, games that will do well

01:54:05   with a D-pad or with button,

01:54:06   like I don't see that being made for this.

01:54:09   - So who is going to do that?

01:54:11   And I keep saying shovelware, which is the,

01:54:13   I guess the Wii era, popularized that word,

01:54:16   of like, say you're a game maker and you have a game,

01:54:19   and you've already got the game and it's available

01:54:22   on like 17 different platforms,

01:54:23   and it's not too much effort to hire some contractor

01:54:26   to point it to the Apple TV?

01:54:28   Nah, why not?

01:54:29   Like, you have to just do the math.

01:54:30   You're like, the game already exists.

01:54:31   It's already done, it's already QA'd.

01:54:33   We just want you to do a port of it,

01:54:35   and then just retest it and then send it out.

01:54:38   And it's a popular game, and it's like a popular franchise,

01:54:41   and it's a well-known name or whatever.

01:54:43   Can we make a Apple TV port of it,

01:54:46   even if it's not the best port in the world?

01:54:48   You know, they do the math and they say,

01:54:49   "You know what, yes we can.

01:54:50   "That's shovelware."

01:54:51   There's a slim chance of that.

01:54:52   That doesn't make anything into a great console.

01:54:55   Is there a chance like iOS,

01:54:58   that someone can make a game

01:55:00   that plays to the unique strengths of the Apple TV?

01:55:03   Like, 'cause iOS is like, you know,

01:55:05   who's gonna write games for a phone?

01:55:06   That's stupid, but you know,

01:55:07   if they can flight control into those early breakout games,

01:55:09   like, oh, you know what?

01:55:10   There's a whole class of games

01:55:11   that people haven't really investigated before

01:55:12   that are great with touch controls.

01:55:14   And those games would be terrible on a console

01:55:16   and they'd be terrible on a PC,

01:55:17   but they're great on your phone

01:55:18   and they're great on your iPad

01:55:19   and there have been a lot of big success stories

01:55:22   related to that.

01:55:23   Is there an equivalent for the Apple TV?

01:55:26   I don't think so, because anything that would be super great

01:55:28   on the Apple TV would also be super great

01:55:30   on any game console and would probably also be super great

01:55:33   on iOS, like I don't know if there's a place for games

01:55:38   that are uniquely good on the Apple TV,

01:55:41   that in ways that there wouldn't be good

01:55:45   on either iOS devices or consoles or PCs.

01:55:48   So I think it's gonna be a tough road

01:55:52   for that type of game for Apple TV.

01:55:54   The open question I think I have is,

01:55:57   will iOS games, which you know are super popular

01:56:00   and iOS, the breakout iOS games make a lot of money

01:56:03   and one of the biggest selling categories of software

01:56:06   for in the app store are games,

01:56:10   will that translate to Apple TV?

01:56:12   Will enough of those games be portable enough

01:56:15   to the Apple TV and be ported to the Apple TV

01:56:18   to make Apple TV as successful a game platform

01:56:22   as phones and iPads are.

01:56:23   And I think there's a chance of that,

01:56:26   maybe not as successful, but like, you know,

01:56:28   proportion wise, obviously they'll sell far fewer Apple TVs

01:56:30   than they'll ever sell iPhones, right?

01:56:32   But proportion wise, will most people who get an Apple TV

01:56:37   buy and download a couple of one or two dollar games?

01:56:40   I kind of think they will.

01:56:41   And like Crossy Road was the perfect game to demo

01:56:44   because that'll be fine on the TV

01:56:46   and multiplayer player will be fun.

01:56:48   I still think there's a barrier based on my kids and other people I've seen, there's a

01:56:52   barrier to actually turning on the TV to do this.

01:56:55   It seems like more of a ceremony than just taking out your iPad or your iPod touch or

01:56:58   your phone and tapping out a few games across the road to actually go to the room with the

01:57:02   TV and turn it on and sit down and turn on the Apple TV and do a lot of the stuff.

01:57:07   Maybe too much of a barrier to make that a thing that happens, but I guess we'll see.

01:57:12   We haven't had another game platform like this to be as successful as this is probably

01:57:18   going to be except for maybe the Amazon Fire TV.

01:57:21   I don't know.

01:57:22   Are there games for the Fire TV?

01:57:23   Oh yeah, I have them.

01:57:25   They even sell a game controller for I think 30 bucks.

01:57:28   That doesn't come with it.

01:57:29   One of the games is Crossy Road.

01:57:30   I'm assuming Apple's going to sell more of these than Fire TVs, but I don't know.

01:57:33   Do we not know how many Fire TVs sell because there's another Amazon thing where they don't

01:57:37   tell you?

01:57:38   Yeah, but I mean, first of all, what you just said I think is a very, very important factor

01:57:43   of this is, you know, as I always say, don't bet against the smartphone. This is going

01:57:50   against the smartphone in that most of the games that will be decent and compelling on

01:57:55   the Apple TV will be iPhone and iPad games. And so you're asking people to play them

01:58:01   on a TV instead of playing them on an iOS device, which they probably also have. That

01:58:06   I think is, I don't, I think it's gonna be very few games

01:58:11   played on very few occasions where that's gonna really

01:58:14   be worth doing for most people.

01:58:17   Secondly, so, you know, so the games, I mean, you know,

01:58:21   usually I think it's actually gonna be worse

01:58:24   on the Apple TV because you don't have the touchscreen

01:58:27   and most people aren't gonna have a game controller.

01:58:29   So you have, it's actually worse control on a larger

01:58:35   but crappier display that you can't touch

01:58:37   that is gonna, you know, it's gonna be--

01:58:39   - It could be more communal.

01:58:40   That's why I think multiplayer across the road,

01:58:42   'cause doing multiplayer across the road

01:58:44   when people are gathering around a single iPad

01:58:45   and both fingers are stabbed into the screen,

01:58:47   like that's, and I even think that little,

01:58:50   I don't know, any game that has a spectator aspect of it

01:58:53   or a communal aspect of it,

01:58:54   like maybe people who make game shows

01:58:56   and party games for it,

01:58:58   then I guess you get into the thing of like,

01:58:59   can I buy more of these remotes

01:59:01   or do I have to use my phone or my iPod Touch

01:59:03   and all those other factors?

01:59:05   I don't know, like there is a market for a couple of breakout hits for this, but I don't

01:59:10   think any of them are going to break out in the same way that iOS games did.

01:59:13   - Right, and so then to close this out for now I guess, do you think this will sell well?

01:59:20   So if you think about it, this is priced at 149 and 199 for 32 and 64 gigs, and it is,

01:59:27   as Casey mentioned earlier, pretty comical that this, for 150 bucks, has more memory

01:59:33   unit than the new iPhones for way more money. But we'll fight that fight another day I think,

01:59:40   and today also. This, you know, you look at the Amazon Fire TV, that's what, $100 for

01:59:47   the good one? Do we even know? So it's about $100 or maybe $150 for the good Fire TV. Again,

01:59:54   no game controller included, you gotta pay $30 more for whatever. I don't think that

01:59:58   the market for these set-top boxes is in a upwards price climb here. I think what we've

02:00:04   seen over the last couple of years is these little cheap $40 stick versions of the boxes

02:00:10   are selling very well.

02:00:11   Steve - The size of the remote.

02:00:12   Tim "Stick"

02:00:13   Right. Yeah, or smaller. Things just plug into an HDMI port and they never show you

02:00:17   the little USB cable it needs for power. Those are selling very well, it seems. Whenever

02:00:22   I talk to people who are buying TV boxes, they always talk about those things. It seems

02:00:26   like people really love those things. They're very cheap, they're basic, but they're fine

02:00:30   for stuff like Netflix, because you know, the kind of stuff that most people are actually

02:00:33   using these boxes for so far. Okay.

02:00:36   And Plex.

02:00:37   Yeah, and Plex, sure. You and your Plex.

02:00:40   I love me some Plex.

02:00:41   You'll fight the Plex fight. All right. So you have that whole part of the market where

02:00:46   I don't see them wanting to suddenly spend $150 on something to solve that kind of need.

02:00:52   So I think the low end and the common case of watching Netflix and stuff, mPlex, is going

02:00:57   to be solved perfectly well by everything else that's not this box.

02:01:01   I think looking at Amazon is a worthy example here.

02:01:04   Do you think Amazon actually sells a good number of the expensive Fire TV box, the good

02:01:10   one that has a fast CPU and can run apps and games?

02:01:13   The one that I bought, which is, you know, it's fine.

02:01:16   It's not amazing, but it's fine.

02:01:18   It is very fast.

02:01:19   have some games that I played once and never again because they're terrible. I think this

02:01:24   is going to be a slow climb up the sales ranks for the Apple TV because it is coming into

02:01:32   a very cheap market with a relatively expensive offering compared to the other things. And

02:01:39   again, they've done this before, Apple has done this before. However, in this case, what

02:01:43   What makes it so much better, I think, is gonna be this whole app story that they're

02:01:49   betting big on, but I'm not sure that's gonna actually play out.

02:01:54   It doesn't seem like...

02:01:55   I mean, I'm sure, you know, people like us, most of us are probably gonna buy something

02:01:59   like this.

02:02:00   We'll talk about it on our podcasts and everything, but do you see regular people wanting this?

02:02:07   Not just a TV-connected smart box that can play Netflix, but wanting this one and being

02:02:12   willing to spend this amount of money for it.

02:02:14   Tim said it on the thing, the future of TV is apps.

02:02:16   The other shoe hasn't dropped for this yet, and there's lots of stories leading up to

02:02:20   this announcement that talked about this.

02:02:21   This is the box, this is the hardware, and they showed the software and the cross-service

02:02:25   search and all sorts of things that other boxes have as well.

02:02:28   The other shoe is, "Hey Apple, is there something I can pay for a monthly subscription to get

02:02:33   basically TV without going through a cable company?"

02:02:35   And the answer right now is no.

02:02:37   But the rumors have been for years and years that that's what Apple's trying to provide

02:02:40   to you.

02:02:41   find a way where you can pay some monthly amount of money that is less than your current

02:02:46   cable bill and you can get quote unquote TV in addition to Netflix and Hulu and whatever

02:02:50   else you subscribe to and all these other services and Apple things and blah blah blah

02:02:53   but also TV. You'll be able to watch your baseball games on the MLB app and your NFL

02:02:58   games on the NFL app and you'll be able to see local news and you'll be able to see all

02:03:02   the channels that you want to see and HBO and Showtime and ESPN and Apple doesn't have

02:03:07   that yet. Like we keep hearing that they're trying to work on it. That is the other shoe

02:03:12   for this. This is the hardware that's ready for it. That will make this a way more compelling

02:03:15   thing. Because like Marco was saying, if you just want something to stream Netflix, every

02:03:18   TV does that now. If you have an old TV, you can buy one of these boxes or one of these

02:03:22   sticks or you can search across Amazon and how many people actually subscribe to Amazon,

02:03:26   Hulu and Netflix who can search across it. Most people don't. They just subscribe to

02:03:29   one of them. Hopefully this is a better box than those little sticks or whatever, but

02:03:35   But just, you know, it's just high-end customers.

02:03:36   Like, "Oh, I just want something better."

02:03:38   And they're like, "Oh, well, the Chromecast is fine.

02:03:40   It lets me watch my stuff."

02:03:41   But this is not a fully-fledged customer solution yet, so we're still just waiting for Apple

02:03:46   to get its deals worked out.

02:03:47   Yeah, I agree.

02:03:48   And a lot of the regular people that I know that have one of these sort of Apple TV boxes

02:03:54   or equivalent, a lot of them are swearing by Chromecast.

02:03:59   That works for them.

02:04:00   It's all they need.

02:04:01   To go back just very quickly, I think that I don't really find anything that compelling

02:04:07   about this, other than that it's a new Apple toy.

02:04:11   I think for it to really get popular, either it needs to replace cable, like you were just

02:04:18   saying, Jon, or, depending on maybe one of a couple of different things, if say, for

02:04:25   example that MLB app existed but for the NFL that would be a big darn deal so if

02:04:32   there was some sort of exclusive Sunday ticket style which is exclusive to

02:04:36   DirecTV if there was a way that I could buy an Apple TV and then pay a little

02:04:41   extra to get basically Sunday ticket in an app that didn't stink you know in an

02:04:46   app written by the MLB's media arm or whatever it is I would go berserk for

02:04:51   that I would love it and if it's not the NFL if you're rolling your eyes about

02:04:54   another American talking about stupid American football, then fine, soccer. Or fine, F1.

02:04:59   And there might be F1, some fancy F1 app on this thing, who knows? But having something

02:05:06   hugely popular, and I'm concentrating on sports, but isn't exclusively sports, but having something

02:05:10   like that, I think would really drive a lot of adoption. But without either the TV service

02:05:17   being replaced by the Apple TV or something that I care or you know, you care really,

02:05:24   really strongly about being on the Apple TV

02:05:26   and a really, really great experience,

02:05:28   like that MOB app looked like,

02:05:30   I just, I don't see huge adoption, not yet anyway.

02:05:33   - Yeah, if you're just augmenting your existing TV

02:05:36   or you're like a weirdo cord cutter

02:05:38   who thinks they can get along without quote unquote

02:05:39   real TV, then you're still in like the small category.

02:05:44   You're never gonna get the mass market

02:05:47   until you can fully replace TV for those people.

02:05:50   And once you can get, like you said,

02:05:53   who are really into a particular sport, of course they want the thing, but they're probably gonna

02:05:56   get that in addition to their other thing, right? And all the exclusive deals are a problem there.

02:06:00   That is still kind of like an enthusiast market. To get to the mass market, you have to say,

02:06:04   "This can be how you watch TV." And you have to say, "It covers your television watching needs

02:06:12   like the old boring way." Right? And then once you've got them on board, you can say, "Oh,

02:06:17   and by the way, the future of TV is apps." And if you're really interested in one particular thing,

02:06:20   if you're really interested in knitting or you're really interested in f1 or whatever the thing is really interesting by the way

02:06:25   There's an app for that kind of television or movies or videos or whatever and the app does more than just let you

02:06:31   Hit play and watch a movie which again is that's the bar that current Apple TV is not crossing, right?

02:06:36   But we're imagining here that these apps are all great and this product is good

02:06:39   The apps can really add to areas of interest and I think everybody who subscribes to television in some way

02:06:45   Has some area of interest that potentially someone could make an app for that would make them interested in that experience

02:06:51   It's another chicken egg thing where no one's going to make those apps if no one buys the box

02:06:55   No one's gonna buy the box if we can't replace their TV

02:06:57   And this can't replace their TV because Apple hasn't done the deals and blah blah blah

02:07:01   So really it's still just an augmenters box and what we're all hoping is that this is a better

02:07:06   Augmenters box than the existing crappy Apple TV or than any of the other things but for regular people like you said it

02:07:11   They're just like, well, Chromecast can watch YouTube

02:07:13   and it can watch Netflix and it's fine.

02:07:15   And like I said, every single modern TV

02:07:16   can all do Netflix already and probably Amazon video.

02:07:20   Like why do I need a box?

02:07:21   My television does that natively

02:07:22   and it probably does it fine even though it's really slow

02:07:24   and hinky and takes a long time to launch.

02:07:26   You're never gonna convince them that this is better

02:07:29   because it launches faster and smoother.

02:07:31   Really, for this to work, like Tim said,

02:07:34   the future of TV really needs to be apps.

02:07:36   And you can start with the early adopters

02:07:38   and the enthusiasts.

02:07:39   You can start with the people who like,

02:07:40   I found this kind of hilarious, but also I totally understood it like the people who

02:07:44   really do want to watch two baseball games at once.

02:07:46   I understand those people.

02:07:47   I know they're out there.

02:07:48   They're like, "How can you watch two baseball?"

02:07:50   It's a thing that happens.

02:07:51   I've seen it happen.

02:07:52   I mean, talking about kids, I think I got a picture of this most recently.

02:07:57   My son was sitting on the couch, "watching" television, playing his Nintendo DS with a

02:08:07   YouTube movie playing on his iPad with the headphone from his iPad going into his ear

02:08:11   And I was like, can I turn the TV I was like no I'm watching that I'm like

02:08:16   Watching it you're playing Pokemon in your DS and you're also watching YouTube video, but you're really just listening to no

02:08:23   No, it wasn't even YouTube video. He was playing music and there was a video playing just I

02:08:27   Don't anyway, he would love to watch

02:08:31   Two baseball games at once. That's nothing. Oh, hey, well every every football every college football season at one point or another

02:08:38   There'll be enough games on simultaneously that I will typically have two

02:08:42   Televisions and one or two computers all in my family room so I can bounce my eyes between all the different games all at once

02:08:49   Also, I can hear Marco rolling his eyes

02:08:52   Baseball nothing happens for such a long time that is really not you can just like I'll pay attention to this game

02:08:58   Then I'll pay attention to that game and you didn't miss anything

02:09:00   You just mix like a couple of butt scratches over there. So you have time to time slice it

02:09:04   But in a fast pace like can you watch two basketball games the same time?

02:09:08   I don't think you can but I'm sure people I'm sure people can

02:09:11   All right, let's talk about tvos because we still have some iPhone to talk about it the rate we're going

02:09:15   We're gonna be longer than the damn goodfellas podcast. There's a TV JS framework

02:09:20   I have not looked into any of this so seeing this and then show notes is the first news I had

02:09:23   Yeah

02:09:24   There's a way for you to do

02:09:25   If you don't want to write like a full-fledged app like say you're someone who's got a bunch of video like you are the knitting

02:09:30   channel right and you know I got a bunch of knitting videos and I've got them organized

02:09:34   into categories and I've got like shows and and I've you know got tutorials and stuff

02:09:38   and I want to I want to be on Apple TV I want people to be able to launch it but I don't

02:09:41   know how to write an app and I don't know how to run a higher iOS to Apple and really

02:09:44   all it is is just a bunch of categorized bins of video that you can start playing right

02:09:48   how can I get that up and running as fast as possible I don't know much about this because

02:09:52   I've just looked at the pages briefly but it seems like they have a way to do that with

02:09:55   web technologies with HTML5 video and JavaScript to slap something together with web style

02:10:01   technologies to give you an application that has a bunch of thumbnails of video with player

02:10:05   controls.

02:10:06   I mean, we've all seen this.

02:10:07   We've all seen HTML5 video players.

02:10:09   YouTube is HTML5 video player at this point where you can have a kind of a customized

02:10:13   UI and it plays video just fine.

02:10:15   You can sort through them and you just make essentially web pages and iframes and all

02:10:19   sorts of other things you're expected to do with this simple JavaScript API.

02:10:23   And I think it's a good way to make the barrier to entry for people who have a bunch of video

02:10:28   and want to make it available in an app on the Apple TV quickly and easily.

02:10:34   Seems like a reasonably good idea.

02:10:35   I hope it's not terrible because we've all seen terrible HTML5 video players and longed

02:10:39   for actual native controls for video.

02:10:43   But I'm guessing that because the problem domain is small, a bunch of thumbnails of

02:10:47   videos that you play, I think it should probably be fine.

02:10:52   But anyway, this is after reading like three sentences on the web pages.

02:10:55   If I'm entirely wrong about what TVJS and TVML kit are, I'm sure we'll find out in a

02:11:02   follow-up.

02:11:03   All right, and tell us about local storage.

02:11:04   Oh, yeah, these are the other snippets.

02:11:05   I just pulled out of that thing.

02:11:07   There is no persistent local storage for apps on Apple TV.

02:11:10   This means that every app developed for the new Apple TV must be able to store data in

02:11:13   iCloud.

02:11:14   That is a direct quote from Apple's documentation.

02:11:16   No persistent local storage.

02:11:17   So it's great that they have 32 and 64 gig models.

02:11:21   If you write an app, you can't use any of that.

02:11:23   You can, incidentally, in the course of running, but there is no persistent local storage.

02:11:28   Say you've got a bunch of files and you want to download them and store them on the Apple

02:11:32   TV, you can't.

02:11:33   You can put them in iCloud.

02:11:34   Well, no, no, wait.

02:11:35   You can download them, but it's all considered temporary purgeable files.

02:11:40   So that you can download them, but next time you launch, they might be gone.

02:11:45   Right.

02:11:46   It's non-persistent.

02:11:47   It's like, yeah.

02:11:48   It's like, you know.

02:11:49   It's going to download stuff.

02:11:50   on the storage, but that's not, you know,

02:11:53   you can't have any guarantee

02:11:54   that it's gonna be there next time you run.

02:11:55   Like you can't store stuff there.

02:11:58   So it is just there temporarily.

02:12:00   And presumably if something more important

02:12:02   having to do with actual video watching comes along,

02:12:04   it will wipe all your crap

02:12:05   and it will be gone the next time you're launched.

02:12:07   So like you can't save documents there, for example.

02:12:09   So if you're thinking of making an Apple TV app,

02:12:11   that I don't know, it's like a drawing program

02:12:13   that lets you draw like with a magic wand with the remote,

02:12:16   you can't save the user's drawings on the Apple TV

02:12:18   'cause next time you launch, they could all be gone.

02:12:20   you must use iCloud, which shows that I guess they need all,

02:12:24   I mean, I guess they need a lot of storage

02:12:25   for those high definition screen savers, right?

02:12:27   Like they can put stuff on there permanently,

02:12:29   but your apps can't.

02:12:31   And the second thing, speaking of storage constraints,

02:12:33   the maximum size of an Apple TV app,

02:12:35   as in the size of the app bundle itself,

02:12:37   like that you've downloaded from the store,

02:12:38   is 200 megabytes.

02:12:40   Anything beyond the size needs to be packaged and loaded

02:12:42   using on-demand resources.

02:12:43   We talked about it at WWDC shows about app thinning,

02:12:47   which will help make your app smaller,

02:12:48   and on-demand resources where you don't ship the resources

02:12:51   with the app, it downloads them on demand.

02:12:53   I'm not sure how the on-demand resources,

02:12:55   I didn't even read into this,

02:12:57   the on-demand resources in iOS, it's like,

02:12:59   you get your app from the app store and it's small,

02:13:01   and when it needs stuff, it downloads it,

02:13:03   but then it keeps it, right?

02:13:04   Do you know if on-demand resources are purgeable, Marco?

02:13:07   - I don't know, I haven't looked.

02:13:08   I would guess they probably are,

02:13:10   but either way, it sounds like they probably are

02:13:12   for the Apple TV.

02:13:14   - To my recollection, they were on any platform.

02:13:16   - Like, yeah, you download it on demand,

02:13:18   But again, the same deal, like maybe something will come through and clean them up so the

02:13:21   next time you launch you'll need to download them on demand again.

02:13:24   But anyway, this is pretty constraining, which means no one, like you're not going to have

02:13:27   the equivalent of single app, remember the single app ebooks on the early days of iOS

02:13:31   where it's like a single book would be an app for 99 cents.

02:13:34   No one is going to be able to sell Apple TV apps that are like three hours of video.

02:13:39   You just download it and it's like, you know, like no, that's not going to happen because

02:13:43   it's got to be 200 megs and they'll probably reject you if you try to do that in any way

02:13:46   for other reasons. Yeah, so for games that basically means all that on-demand stuff that

02:13:53   they showed you, that's like mandatory for games unless you have something like Crossy

02:13:57   Road. I don't even think Crossy Road's probably fixed under 200 megs. I don't know, maybe

02:14:00   it does. It's no textures in it. It's just flat shaded, I think. But yeah, if you're

02:14:05   thinking of making a game, again, if you had any illusions, like all of those articles

02:14:10   that are like, "Apple TV is going up against PlayStation and Xbox," yeah, with no local

02:14:14   storage and 200 megalimets on the thing and I forget it.

02:14:18   Anyway, those are pretty tight and it makes me wonder what they think they need all that

02:14:24   storage for.

02:14:25   I mean the easy answer is to spool up HD video I guess but I'm not complaining like I love

02:14:30   the fact that the storage is generous but to go from what is the Apple TV 3 is like

02:14:34   8 gig or something crazy like that and this is not 4k video this is the same resolution

02:14:40   room for way more video to stay on the device, which I applaud, but if you're an app developer,

02:14:45   boy, this seems pretty harsh. They do not want you using any of that flash storage on

02:14:49   this device permanently.

02:14:50   Yeah, and even just as a customer trying to buy this device, they offer it in two capacities,

02:14:57   32 for 150 and 64 for 200. And how do you, as a customer, I mean, obviously they're going

02:15:03   to figure out some BS way for the employees to explain it in the stores, and half the

02:15:07   the employees are gonna mess up the explanation

02:15:09   and do it their other way.

02:15:10   It's, ugh.

02:15:11   Anyway, it's like the way they try to explain RAM

02:15:15   on the computers in the stores.

02:15:17   Oh boy.

02:15:18   Anyway, how as a customer are you supposed to know

02:15:21   which one to buy?

02:15:22   Because it's, you know, the actual benefit

02:15:26   is most likely to just be that,

02:15:28   well, when you hit a purge request, it kind of sucks.

02:15:31   It's like when you're in Safari

02:15:32   and your pigs get a memory on iOS

02:15:34   and you gotta reload the pigs next time you go back,

02:15:36   where if you have a whole bunch of really big apps and games

02:15:40   on your new Apple TV, and you go to one you haven't used

02:15:43   for a while, and its data has been purged

02:15:45   since you last used it, then that's gonna have

02:15:48   to redownload stuff, and you're gonna have to wait a second

02:15:50   while it redownloads stuff.

02:15:52   So getting the bigger one would make that happen less often,

02:15:56   or possibly never 40, depending on how many things

02:15:58   you have on there.

02:15:59   So that is the reason to buy the bigger one.

02:16:01   How many people are gonna know that, though?

02:16:04   - They might also say, speaking of things

02:16:05   that Apple Store employees would say,

02:16:07   "Oh, you can download more apps."

02:16:08   Which is strictly true, but you know how many 200 meg apps

02:16:11   you would have to download to make a dent

02:16:12   in the extra 32 gigs of memory you get?

02:16:15   Like, do that math.

02:16:16   It's a lot.

02:16:17   - And so what they're probably gonna say is,

02:16:19   if you're gonna be playing games on it,

02:16:21   you should get the big one.

02:16:22   That's probably how they're gonna message it.

02:16:24   - Yeah, 'cause you can download one gig levels, I guess,

02:16:27   if you're something with lots of textures,

02:16:30   you could get a 200 meg game that slowly on-demand loads

02:16:33   a huge number of levels, and if you play that game a lot,

02:16:35   it'll be nice that it doesn't have to re-download it.

02:16:37   But again, how many,

02:16:39   I guess you could fill it with games.

02:16:41   I guess, I'm trying to think, what is it?

02:16:43   Is it video or on-demand resources?

02:16:46   Again, they're purgeable, blah, blah, blah, or whatever.

02:16:48   But are there enough big games

02:16:50   that you're gonna be annoyed that,

02:16:53   if I play this game, and then I play that game,

02:16:55   and I go back to the previous game,

02:16:57   one of the levels gets purged?

02:16:58   Maybe, I don't know.

02:17:00   I think this thing, based on what we know now

02:17:03   about what the storage is gonna be used for,

02:17:05   I think the 32 is probably big enough for most people

02:17:07   and it's great that I can say that

02:17:09   about the smallest capacity Apple device

02:17:11   in any product category.

02:17:12   - Yeah, exactly.

02:17:13   And it all depends really on how much games

02:17:16   actually take off on this thing.

02:17:18   And like that, 'cause as we said earlier,

02:17:20   there's so many hurdles for game developers

02:17:22   to jump through to get on here.

02:17:24   Now one of the additional hurdles

02:17:26   is you're gonna have to adopt this app thinning model

02:17:28   and this download on demand resources stuff.

02:17:30   So again, it's adding more work to what this is.

02:17:34   I think it's gonna be a tough sell

02:17:35   for a lot of game developers,

02:17:36   especially when the install base is starting at zero.

02:17:40   But if this all comes together,

02:17:43   but that's a big if,

02:17:44   but if this all comes together

02:17:46   to the point where they sell enough of these things

02:17:49   and that apps are compelling enough

02:17:50   and good enough and useful enough on them

02:17:53   that there can be a vibrant app market.

02:17:56   And that's a huge if,

02:17:58   but if that happens

02:18:00   and there is a vibrant app market

02:18:02   that forms in those conditions, then this will be really cool. Because I do like the

02:18:07   idea of TV becoming appified. I think the way Tim presented it on this is why we are

02:18:15   going this way, I think you can look at it partly and say, "Well, that's BS because

02:18:20   they couldn't make content deals in time," but I think they honestly do believe that.

02:18:24   I think that really is where they think this should go, where they think it is going, and

02:18:29   that's right.

02:18:30   - The content deals would be the same thing though,

02:18:32   wouldn't they?

02:18:33   Content deals would just be more apps, right?

02:18:36   - Presumably, yeah.

02:18:37   'Cause it seems like, who knows what they're planning

02:18:40   with some kind of TV plan or whether it's just

02:18:42   getting a bunch of apps on here.

02:18:43   Regardless, they now have the groundwork laid

02:18:47   for it to go either way.

02:18:48   So they have the most options open.

02:18:51   And I think if you look at how people watch TV

02:18:54   on iPhones and iPads, it is the app model.

02:18:57   Apple does not sell a TV package for your iPad,

02:19:00   even though lots of people watch TV shows on iPads.

02:19:03   Instead, it's just, if you wanna watch TV shows on your iPad

02:19:07   you go download the apps for those shows,

02:19:09   or download Netflix or whatever.

02:19:11   So that's gonna be good.

02:19:12   This also gives them, hopefully if Amazon makes an app

02:19:16   for Amazon Video, then this gives them a way

02:19:18   to get Amazon Video on the Apple TV

02:19:19   without whatever competitive sucking up of their pride

02:19:24   they couldn't do on the previous Apple TV,

02:19:26   whatever that was.

02:19:27   So I think this is a great model if it works.

02:19:31   But there are these big challenges to getting it to work

02:19:33   that I do have doubts.

02:19:35   I think if it does work, it might be a very slow launch

02:19:38   just because, again, starting from zero customer base.

02:19:41   And I think the story to customers of why they should spend

02:19:46   $150 on this new box for their TV is,

02:19:52   it's not terrible, but it's not like this gotta-have thing

02:19:55   that I have to go buy this immediately.

02:19:57   I don't think a lot of people are gonna feel

02:19:59   that want, that desire, that lust to go get this right now.

02:20:04   - Well, don't worry, because by next summer,

02:20:05   Apple TV will be built into 50% of the television sold

02:20:08   in the United States.

02:20:09   (laughing)

02:20:10   Remember that one, was it 50% or was it 100?

02:20:12   I don't remember what that was.

02:20:13   - Eric Schmidt.

02:20:14   - Yeah, speaking of apps, like television as apps,

02:20:17   the current version of that actually has a lot

02:20:20   of crappy sides to it, like the crappy side of apps.

02:20:24   When I was on vacation, I watched Mr. Robot and Humans.

02:20:27   And I think, was it Mr. Robot is on USA and Humans is on AMC.

02:20:32   There's an AMC app for iOS and there's a USA app.

02:20:34   And of course, there's also the website.

02:20:36   So I think maybe that was the first thing I tried.

02:20:38   I went to the website on my iPad.

02:20:41   And it's got HTML5 video and it kind of plays.

02:20:43   But it would start playing.

02:20:45   But then sometimes, it would go to the commercial break

02:20:47   and not resume the show.

02:20:49   And I'm like, oh, I should get the app.

02:20:50   That'll be better.

02:20:51   And it wasn't.

02:20:53   the apps were, looked like they were kind of cruddy web

02:20:55   views inside there.

02:20:56   And like when I was trying to watch humans very often,

02:20:59   first of all, it was like my, you know,

02:21:01   all the things I described before where you can't scrub

02:21:03   from one place to the other.

02:21:04   So I would start watching the show and if I close the iPad

02:21:07   or had to come back to it later,

02:21:09   it wouldn't pick up where I left off.

02:21:10   In the app, it would not pick up where I left off.

02:21:12   And it would start at the beginning again.

02:21:14   And so I'd have to try to move the scrubber

02:21:15   to the part where I went.

02:21:16   But if I scrub past one of the little dots

02:21:18   that indicated a mandatory commercial break,

02:21:20   it would move the scrubber back and replay that same ad.

02:21:23   And then sometimes when I got done with the ad,

02:21:24   it would automatically jump back to the beginning.

02:21:26   One point I believe I spent over the course of a day,

02:21:29   four hours on and off, trying to get back to the point

02:21:32   where I was watching the program.

02:21:34   Like I'd try every once in a while, I would let it spin,

02:21:36   I would let it go through a thing.

02:21:37   Sometimes I'd just let it play

02:21:38   to try to get up to the point.

02:21:40   Four hours I think I spent on and off

02:21:42   trying to get to the scene where I left off

02:21:44   in like a 45 minute television show.

02:21:46   So I think the app model, like,

02:21:48   hey, we'll make, we'll make the,

02:21:50   I forget if this was the AMC or the USA app,

02:21:52   I'm sorry for whichever network I am throwing under the bus

02:21:56   that actually didn't have a problem.

02:21:57   They were both pretty crappy, honestly,

02:21:59   but the one I spent a really long time with was like,

02:22:01   the mandatory commercials and not letting me pick up

02:22:03   where I left off, that's just unforgivable.

02:22:06   And that was an app, that was not a web thing,

02:22:08   that was an app.

02:22:08   So if the future TV is apps,

02:22:10   God, I hope they're better apps than these,

02:22:11   because these are apps made by big television networks

02:22:15   with a lot of money, with successful shows,

02:22:17   and the shows are good, but the apps were terrible.

02:22:20   And that is not acceptable.

02:22:22   No one is going to let you replace their TV

02:22:23   with something like this, right?

02:22:25   Like just no one, no one will accept that.

02:22:27   Like TV has to be TV.

02:22:28   I have to turn it on and it has to play and it has to be it.

02:22:30   And then better TV is like TiVo.

02:22:32   And that's for like a small category of weirdos

02:22:34   who want to spend a lot of money in this box.

02:22:36   But bottom line is it's got to play.

02:22:38   And if you try to play and it doesn't play,

02:22:40   if that's not TV, throw this thing away.

02:22:42   So I really hope that whatever Apple's eventual content,

02:22:46   that's what we're talking about.

02:22:47   Like is the content deal just more apps

02:22:49   or is it some different thing that Apple works on

02:22:51   that does Apple provide some kind of quality guarantee?

02:22:53   Would they not let the AMC or USA apps ship

02:22:57   as part of their Apple television subscription deal

02:23:00   because they're just not good enough quality?

02:23:02   They shouldn't because they're not.

02:23:03   Yeah, we'll wait until next year

02:23:07   to see if Eddie can sling those deals.

02:23:10   - Just one more shirt button off.

02:23:11   He'll pull it off.

02:23:13   - Please no, please no.

02:23:14   - See his belly buttons.

02:23:16   You know, you're right, as we move towards this era

02:23:18   of everything has its own app

02:23:20   and every network has its own app,

02:23:21   I mean, we see the same thing happening in podcasts,

02:23:23   which kind of scares me, just for the,

02:23:24   not only from the future of my app kind of perspective,

02:23:28   but also because of listener,

02:23:29   because it does suck to have to go

02:23:31   to different publishers' apps to watch different shows,

02:23:34   and then the apps are of very different quality.

02:23:37   And so, you know, not only can you not use one good app

02:23:41   to watch everything, but you have to go

02:23:44   all these different crappy apps to watch everything. And that does suck in a lot of ways. However,

02:23:49   I think looking at where we are with, you know, looking at how iOS has developed in

02:23:55   this way with TV content and movie content, how iOS has developed in this way, the situation

02:24:00   the Apple TV has been in, obviously Apple has tried very hard to get some kind of like,

02:24:05   you know, normalized deal thing going. And we don't know if they've succeeded. So

02:24:09   So far it seems like they haven't.

02:24:11   But either way, we really,

02:24:14   I think this is kind of just like the best solution

02:24:19   that we have given the modern reality

02:24:21   of the content producers and the content landscape.

02:24:24   Like I don't think, who knows, Apple could prove this wrong

02:24:28   in six months and release such a plan

02:24:30   where everything's standardized and you just pay them.

02:24:32   But it seems like this is probably the best they could do

02:24:34   given the reality of the market.

02:24:39   All right, so we have iPhones to cover, but this is a natural stopping point. And we do

02:24:46   not have a fourth sponsor in the strictest sense for this episode, but I thought, or

02:24:50   we thought it would be a good idea to take a quick moment and just call attention to

02:24:54   a friend of the show, Steven Hackett, is trying to raise some money for St. Jude's Children's

02:24:59   Hospital. And he has a long and well fortunate but unfortunate history with St. Jude's. His

02:25:06   His eldest son Josiah has been diagnosed with cancer, and he has had a long struggle with

02:25:14   it.

02:25:15   Steven has probably received—Steven and his family—has probably received millions

02:25:19   of dollars worth of medical care for free because of donations to St. Jude.

02:25:26   Steven didn't ask us to do this.

02:25:28   We just thought it was the right thing to do.

02:25:29   So if you've made it this far and have a couple of bucks to spare, we'll put a link

02:25:34   in the show notes in the sponsor section for where you can go to donate a little bit of

02:25:38   money. And I think it would mean a lot to us, and it would mean a lot to Steven, and

02:25:42   it would mean a lot to children really all over the world, because St. Jude's does accept

02:25:46   patients from all over. It would mean a lot to all of those people if you could scrape

02:25:51   together a couple bucks and send it their way. So if you're feeling kind this September

02:25:57   and have any money left over from any purchases you might be making these days, please think

02:26:03   have thrown a few bucks their way.

02:26:04   Yeah, it's really, it's a fantastic organization. I mean, St. Jude, like, what they do, I'm

02:26:10   fortunate that my family has not needed this, but I'm so, so glad this exists in case

02:26:15   we ever do, and for all the people who do. This is the kind of thing, like, you want

02:26:19   a place like this to exist. It really does help society in such a big way, and they just,

02:26:24   you know, they just do such great work there. And the fact that, you know, it's hard

02:26:29   enough if you need to go to a child cancer hospital. That's never a good thing. But

02:26:36   the fact that, you know, imagine if people had to pay for this and if they had to then

02:26:42   deny care because somebody couldn't afford it or whatever, I mean, that's just horrifying.

02:26:45   So the work they do is amazing. Go support St. Jude. You know, donate to St. Jude. It's

02:26:50   fantastic.

02:26:51   EH: That's just like an example of like the most important blanket rule. Like you

02:26:54   You think, well, you know, they're all kind of the same, different doctors, baby sugar

02:26:58   here.

02:26:59   Like the most important thing is like the blanket rule, like, doesn't matter if you

02:27:03   have enough money.

02:27:04   Like, just take that off the table.

02:27:06   Because that is the ultimate, you know, like you just can't think about it.

02:27:10   Like, don't worry.

02:27:11   Like, that was the most, I think it's the most important rule they defined for this.

02:27:14   Does not matter how much money you have.

02:27:16   Period.

02:27:17   Everything else, you're going to have plenty to worry about.

02:27:18   That's one of the things you don't have to worry about.

02:27:20   And that one rule I think defines this entire place as like a place of safety and a good

02:27:26   place.

02:27:27   And strangely enough, that type of thing makes me want to give money, right?

02:27:33   Knowing that if I give money, it's going to go to help pay for kids to get better, right?

02:27:39   That kids are going to be accepted here, period.

02:27:43   How can they do that?

02:27:44   Because people give them money.

02:27:45   So you have to give them money so they can do this.

02:27:46   - Exactly, and September is National Childhood Cancer

02:27:48   Awareness Month, which is why Steven's doing

02:27:51   all this fundraising, he does it every September,

02:27:52   and this is a really great cause, so check it out.

02:27:55   We'll put the link in the show notes.

02:27:56   Or just go to 512pixels.net,

02:27:58   and you can find the link there.

02:28:00   - All right, so iPhone 6S, and if you're one

02:28:05   of those crazy kids in the Plus Club, iPhone 6S Plus.

02:28:09   A9, Taptic Engine, 3D Touch, better camera,

02:28:13   which for a fleeting moment I was very scared

02:28:16   that the better camera had more megapixels than my fancy pants Micro Four Thirds camera.

02:28:21   It does not.

02:28:22   I still have probably one more year before that's the case.

02:28:26   Obviously there's a lot more to a camera than just how many megapixels it is, but I did

02:28:30   get very scared just for a moment there.

02:28:33   Anyway, this looks pretty good to me.

02:28:35   It looks more feature-packed than I think most S years have been.

02:28:42   It also has a new version of Touch ID, which supposedly is a lot faster.

02:28:48   I'm really interested to play with the 3D Touch.

02:28:51   I think that it's interesting.

02:28:53   I have mixed feelings about it.

02:28:55   I think I'm going to love it, and it certainly is very clever and different.

02:29:01   But it also adds another layer to an operating system and a piece of hardware that I think

02:29:08   has been getting considerably more complex over the years.

02:29:12   If you think about, I joined the iPhone, or I got my first iPhone when it was a 3GS, and

02:29:20   that by comparison was unbelievably simple.

02:29:25   I think we were on like iOS 3 at that point, if memory serves.

02:29:28   I'm probably wrong about that.

02:29:29   But it was so simple by comparison to what we have today.

02:29:34   And it's interesting to me that we're getting closer and closer with all these options and

02:29:41   gestures, gestures from the bottom, gestures from the left, gestures from the right, gestures

02:29:45   from the top. And now we have, well, did you touch or did you really touch or did you really

02:29:51   touch and hold? All of these different interaction mechanisms and paradigms, I'm not saying they're

02:29:58   a bad thing. I'm not saying that this isn't the march of progress. I'm not saying this

02:30:01   isn't good in the grand scheme of things. But I don't know, I've just had this weird

02:30:04   feeling all day long after seeing the keynote that things are getting more and more complex.

02:30:09   this device that was kind of like this haven of cleanliness and simplicity just doesn't

02:30:18   seem so simple anymore. Do you guys feel the same way? Like Marco, do you feel like this

02:30:23   is getting more and more complex or am I being crazy here?

02:30:26   No, I've actually thought that way for a while about many of Apple's products. I mean,

02:30:31   so just the other day, so I've had an Apple Watch since day one. I discovered about three

02:30:37   three days ago that you can swipe down

02:30:40   to dismiss a notification, rather than just scrolling

02:30:43   to the dismiss button and trying to tap it

02:30:45   in a way that isn't interpreted as a scroll.

02:30:47   Like, the fact that I've had a watch all this time

02:30:51   and I follow this stuff so closely,

02:30:53   and I didn't know that until recently,

02:30:55   like just shows you, just like there's so much

02:30:57   hidden stuff, hidden shortcuts, hidden features.

02:31:00   - I think that shows they're doing a good job, don't you?

02:31:03   because the trick is to add the deep functionality

02:31:08   without making it more complicated

02:31:11   for people who don't know or care about it.

02:31:13   So the fact that you could have a watch for a real long time

02:31:15   and not know that shows that A,

02:31:16   you didn't need to know that to dismiss notifications,

02:31:20   and B, not knowing that it was there did not interfere

02:31:24   with, it didn't weigh on your mind,

02:31:27   you didn't have a button that was in your face,

02:31:29   you weren't, I mean, maybe you accidentally triggered it,

02:31:32   That's the whole trick with all these things.

02:31:33   Am I accidentally triggering it?

02:31:34   I think some of the stuff on iOS lurches into that area,

02:31:37   like the notification center,

02:31:38   I've seen people accidentally bring that down

02:31:40   and go, "What the heck is that?"

02:31:41   Or double-tapping the home button

02:31:42   and they don't know what that is,

02:31:43   they've never seen it before

02:31:44   and they just did it by accident.

02:31:45   That's what you don't want to happen.

02:31:47   But for the most part,

02:31:48   Apple has been doing a pretty good job

02:31:50   of having all that advanced stuff there,

02:31:53   but if you don't know about it

02:31:55   and don't wanna deal with it, it's not in your face.

02:31:57   And I think a lot of the iOS 7 simplification

02:31:59   of getting controls out

02:32:00   and trying to make things look simpler,

02:32:02   while at the same time hiding much more functionality

02:32:04   than any fiddle buttons, it's walking kind of a fine line.

02:32:07   And I'll have to try this 3D touch thing

02:32:09   to see what side of the line it goes on.

02:32:11   But it seems like the same type of thing.

02:32:13   If you don't know that it's there,

02:32:15   maybe it won't bother you.

02:32:17   But when they showed those demos,

02:32:18   I just had to think that like,

02:32:20   there's at least two or three things that I think

02:32:22   once people figure out that it's there

02:32:25   and it becomes part of their vocabulary,

02:32:26   and I think it's perfectly within the realm of everybody

02:32:29   to have this become part of the vocabulary,

02:32:31   whatever it's called, long pressing,

02:32:33   force touching or whatever,

02:32:35   on an icon on your home screen

02:32:37   and picking one of the three common things.

02:32:40   Like even just to take a selfie,

02:32:41   which I showed like 17 times,

02:32:43   that's a good feature that people will use.

02:32:45   It's better than launching the app.

02:32:47   It is not so complicated that I think people can't do it.

02:32:49   And once somebody does it once,

02:32:51   the phone's gonna feel broken if you can't do that on.

02:32:54   If you take someone, take a teenager with a phone,

02:32:57   with iOS 9 who's used to like two of those features

02:33:00   on two apps, that's it.

02:33:01   Just two apps in their home screen

02:33:02   that they use that thing all the time

02:33:04   and put them back to iOS 9,

02:33:05   they'd be like, "My phone is broken,

02:33:06   "throw this junk away."

02:33:08   Right?

02:33:09   And that alone, like the doomsday scenario

02:33:12   that Margot was using,

02:33:12   we're like, "What about every app you got a long pressing,

02:33:15   "hard pressing, a million things are sprouting out

02:33:16   "and you didn't mean it like,

02:33:17   "you don't want that to happen."

02:33:19   But I think the additional functionality provided by this,

02:33:22   and I'm hoping it is better than long pressing would be

02:33:24   'cause I hate long pressing.

02:33:27   I think it's worth it.

02:33:28   I think we're ready for the next step in the interface

02:33:31   and this functionality, I think you can put in applications

02:33:35   in the right way to provide shortcuts

02:33:38   and extra functionality for people who want them

02:33:40   without getting in the way of people who don't.

02:33:43   A lot of the stuff they demoed

02:33:44   is already kind of pushing against the line,

02:33:46   like the whole thing of pressing hard

02:33:47   on the little Harry Potter photos where they start moving.

02:33:50   Is that really a great use of force press?

02:33:52   Or would I really just have a button for that?

02:33:55   I don't know.

02:33:56   Harry Potter should smile more.

02:33:59   That was an Adobe demo, not Apple, but then again Apple vets everything that's in these

02:34:03   things so we'll hit them with the blame for it as well.

02:34:07   Yeah, anyway, the 3D touch thing, I'm mostly optimistic about it and I found a lot of their

02:34:15   demos very convincing and a lot of their demos very, very silly.

02:34:18   So I guess we'll all just have to try it ourselves and see, like, here are the tests for it.

02:34:23   If you pretend that this feature doesn't exist, does it ever bother you?

02:34:26   And I'm hoping the answer is no.

02:34:27   Like, you know, we could get all, all get these phones, start using iOS 9.

02:34:30   I'm not getting this phone probably.

02:34:31   But anyway, Marco will get it.

02:34:33   Probably Casey.

02:34:34   Poor Casey.

02:34:35   Poor Casey and that yearly plan I felt for Casey when they put that thing out.

02:34:37   I'm like, "No!"

02:34:38   Aaron was like, "No!"

02:34:41   Anyway.

02:34:43   If you pretend 3D Touch does not exist, does it, does it impact your life at all?

02:34:48   And I'm hoping the answer is no.

02:34:49   And the second thing is, now pretend it does exist.

02:34:52   you find anything useful for it?" and I think the answer is definitely going to

02:34:55   be yes for like even if it's just for two or three things. And then the final

02:34:59   answer is, "Is every single place that some Apple developer buried 3D Touch

02:35:04   useful?" and that's definitely no. Like even Apple, even the stuff they demoed

02:35:07   I'm like that's a little bit too much pressing really hard into my phone

02:35:11   screen Apple. But you know it's like the you know 80/20 rule or whatever. People

02:35:15   are only gonna use 20% of the functionality but that's not even the

02:35:18   Anyway, everyone will use a different 20%.

02:35:21   So I am optimistic about 3D Touch.

02:35:24   I like the new little vibratey thing.

02:35:26   The little Taptic Engine.

02:35:28   I'm a little bit scared of how much battery space that's taking up, but I guess you get

02:35:31   some space savings.

02:35:32   Didn't they say they did a shrink on the A9 in Apple parlance?

02:35:35   In not so many words, but yes.

02:35:37   Well they shrunk the battery a little bit too.

02:35:39   That's what I'm saying, yeah.

02:35:40   They shrunk, and they had to.

02:35:41   Like the Taptic Engine is gigantic.

02:35:43   Yeah, and the screen is thicker.

02:35:44   I'm excited by the Taptic engine.

02:35:48   I'm assuming the battery life will be similar because it's an S generation, you get the

02:35:53   benefits of everything else using less power and having better parts and blah blah blah

02:35:56   so it's probably a break even.

02:35:57   We didn't even mention that by the way, the iPad Pro, that they have this massive device

02:36:00   with four speakers and they have all this room for battery but they said, "You know

02:36:04   what?

02:36:05   10 hours?

02:36:06   It's the iPad rule of the law.

02:36:08   The hard and fast iPad rule.

02:36:10   But it's gigantic!

02:36:11   It's 30, 10, I said 10 hours.

02:36:12   What should we do with the rest of the space?

02:36:13   I don't know, add more speakers.

02:36:15   - Well, because, I mean, weight is the biggest problem there.

02:36:18   - I mean, is it a problem?

02:36:20   I guess it's just make it as heavy as you want.

02:36:22   - Well, it's already, yeah, it's already heavier

02:36:24   than the first iPad and it's bigger,

02:36:26   so I mean, I already think, yeah,

02:36:28   I already think it's gonna be, well, keep in mind,

02:36:31   a lot of people still want their iPad

02:36:34   to be this thing they hold up in bed

02:36:36   and hits them in the face when they fall asleep.

02:36:38   - Oh, this is gonna do some damage,

02:36:39   13 inches coming down on you.

02:36:41   - Yeah, exactly, like that's why,

02:36:43   I really don't think they could have added more weight.

02:36:45   Believe me, I am all for adding battery life.

02:36:48   But I also know that batteries are very heavy.

02:36:49   And in the case of the iPhone 6,

02:36:53   I think it should have a bigger battery.

02:36:55   In the case of the iPad Pro though,

02:36:58   if it's already that heavy with the battery it has,

02:37:02   I don't think they can afford to put more in there.

02:37:04   - Can I hear 11 hours or 12?

02:37:06   Anyway, I'm sure it's fine.

02:37:07   I don't have a problem with iPad battery life.

02:37:09   10 hours has always been an honest 10 hours,

02:37:11   not really when gaming but still,

02:37:13   like I don't ask it,

02:37:15   I don't ask my iPad to do the type of stuff.

02:37:16   I think you're right about weight becoming a factor

02:37:19   but like if anything's gonna be a gigantic thing,

02:37:22   like this is it, this is the one,

02:37:23   this is the one that's gonna be super heavy.

02:37:25   It already is super heavy, make it super heavier.

02:37:27   The fact that they use that space for like baffles

02:37:29   for the speakers to make them sound better,

02:37:31   I think it's kind of a good idea

02:37:32   'cause that's kind of a pro feature

02:37:33   and if you are like,

02:37:35   I do all my television watching on my iPad

02:37:37   and I do it all on my couch and on my bed,

02:37:40   this is the one to get

02:37:40   the sound is going to be way better and the screen is going to be gorgeous.

02:37:43   It has way too many pixels to show 1080 video but what do people care?

02:37:46   Maybe you can do picture in picture and browse Twitter while you're doing it.

02:37:49   Whatever.

02:37:50   Anyway, we got off on the iPhone 6 thing.

02:37:53   I agree with you that on the 6, battery life, they didn't say anything about it, did they?

02:37:59   I don't think so.

02:38:01   They said it was the same.

02:38:02   Yeah, I mean like that's what they're going for.

02:38:04   It will probably be same-ish.

02:38:06   A lot of friends have been asking me,

02:38:07   "Hey, is this iPhone 6 a good phone to get?"

02:38:10   And especially people upgrading from like 5s and stuff,

02:38:13   it's like, yeah, like it's, you know,

02:38:15   the S generation is usually great to get.

02:38:17   If you haven't had a phone with Touch ID,

02:38:18   Touch ID is awesome, you should totally get it.

02:38:21   The S generations usually have fewer weirdnesses

02:38:24   than the first one in terms of like,

02:38:27   they've made phones this size and shape before,

02:38:30   but this one has more internal changes than usual.

02:38:34   And so I guess the battery is a question and maybe the Taptic Engine is a question based

02:38:39   on the wonkiness of the Taptic Engine in the initial watches.

02:38:43   Sometimes now when I feel my taps on my wrist I'm like, "Is that feeling lighter than it

02:38:46   used to?"

02:38:47   But I think I might just be imagining things.

02:38:48   Anyway.

02:38:49   I have the same problem.

02:38:50   Yeah.

02:38:51   We're just getting tap numbness on our wrists.

02:38:54   The camera's a little bit better.

02:38:56   Like it has the 3D touch.

02:38:58   This seems like a really great phone to me.

02:39:00   The only reservations I have are, I guess, battery life and then I guess maybe 3D touch

02:39:08   could go horribly wrong and be accidentally activated all the time and make you hate the

02:39:11   phone but that's about the only bad things I can even worry about in the slightest about

02:39:16   this phone.

02:39:17   Otherwise it just seems like a really good phone to me and actually this is my first

02:39:20   time guys, my first time feeling bad that now I don't have the good iPhone.

02:39:25   And I felt it, I totally felt it.

02:39:26   I'm like, "Oh, this is what everyone's been talking about.

02:39:28   This sucks."

02:39:29   Because I want one.

02:39:30   I wanted to do all this stuff because they never updated the iPod touch. You never had to worry about that

02:39:34   Yeah, when they did I just bought it. I always just bought it

02:39:36   but I'm I looked at this and I'm like

02:39:39   I shouldn't buy this

02:39:41   I'll just wait for the seven but you can have one now for starting at twenty seven dollars a month or whatever

02:39:46   And I think that all that deal they should by the way Casey to talk you out of doing this deal

02:39:51   I'm pretty sure that deal is a worse deal than just buying yourself a new phone every year

02:39:56   I think it's just like a sophisticated way to loan money and pay interest.

02:39:59   I just looked at it for two seconds, but I think that's what it is.

02:40:02   Yeah, I haven't done the spreadsheets or anything.

02:40:04   I think that's right.

02:40:06   I think you stand to make a little bit of money, so to speak,

02:40:10   if you were going to get AppleCare and going to upgrade annually.

02:40:14   Then you may shave a few dollars, you know, a little bit of money.

02:40:18   I don't know about that.

02:40:19   I think I saw it. I saw a bank's name associated with it.

02:40:23   So it makes me think that it's a people for people who have cash flow problems

02:40:26   It's a way to like it's just it's just a loan like we will give you you make these payments

02:40:31   There is some interest it is more expensive in the long run than paying for it all up front

02:40:36   But if you don't have the cash to pay for it all up front and break your contract or whatever

02:40:39   Do this someone seems like someone's making money over this

02:40:41   It does not seem like something that would be done out of the goodness of anyone's heart to let you get a new phone every

02:40:46   Year for less money. It's got to be the same money or more money

02:40:50   But you're not that it's a good idea people have cash flow problems and they want to have a new phone every year

02:40:54   Or even just for convenience people who have plenty of money like the groupers of the world who just go again

02:40:59   I got a photo every year and don't want to have to think about it

02:41:02   But for me what I thought about is what if I really like the 7s and the 8 comes out and I don't like it

02:41:07   Then like I'm you don't have to get the it I can keep going through the thing

02:41:11   But I just feel like I'm on a program

02:41:13   I would I would stay away from and just you know

02:41:15   reserve the right to keep a phone for like four years if I really hate a certain round of iPhones, but

02:41:20   Again, I say this just being someone who was sad that my phone now sucks because it's not a success

02:41:25   Yeah, isn't that isn't that terrible so you're not gonna get yourself a success. No. I'm not gonna

02:41:30   My Mac is eight years old for crying a lot. I'm pretty good

02:41:34   What I use is the promise of the as yet an undefined non-existent seven

02:41:41   I have no idea what the sevens gonna be like

02:41:42   but it could be amazing and that will keep me.

02:41:45   The fantasy of the seven.

02:41:46   - Yeah, I mean, you're gonna want that next year.

02:41:49   - Well, I'm gonna get the seven.

02:41:51   I'm not gonna get, my wife will get the six,

02:41:52   I won't get it, so it'll be fine.

02:41:54   - No, I'm actually, as much as I've ragged on it,

02:41:57   I actually am looking forward to the, sorry, 3D touch.

02:42:02   I was gonna say Force Touch.

02:42:03   Did Apple just realize it's a creepy name

02:42:05   and just stop using it?

02:42:06   - CFED said Force Touch in the keynote.

02:42:09   So it's probably been Force Touch

02:42:11   until the marketing people decided three weeks ago that it was going to be 3D Touch and so

02:42:14   Federighi and everyone else at Apple keeps calling it Force Touch.

02:42:17   Well, Force Touch is always a terrible, creepy name, but anyway, so whatever we're calling

02:42:22   those shortcuts, 3D Touch, whatever they are, I'm looking forward to that as a user because

02:42:27   A, that cuts down on having to reach for edges and corners, which makes larger phones more

02:42:34   usable, including both the 6 and the 6 Plus for people whose hands are normally sized.

02:42:39   So I'm looking forward to that, just as a user, just like, you know, let me try these

02:42:43   things. And of course, as a developer, I think, you know, usually every developer, myself

02:42:50   included, rationalizes hardware purchases unnecessarily by saying, "Well, I need this

02:42:55   for testing so I can make my app better." And, you know, sometimes that's true. A lot

02:43:00   of times it's not. I think in this case, that actually might be more true than usual, just

02:43:06   because if this 3D touch thing takes off,

02:43:09   which it probably will because it's a really

02:43:10   convenient shortcut on the most frequently used computer

02:43:13   most of us use, so if it takes off and it doesn't suck

02:43:16   the way John, you know, he said it could theoretically

02:43:19   flake out and be unreliable, but if it's good

02:43:22   and if it works, I think it's gonna be a pretty big deal

02:43:25   for app design and so I think developers should be

02:43:29   paying attention more than usual for an iPhone release

02:43:32   to this, but we're probably all gonna buy it anyway.

02:43:35   - Oh, that's one question.

02:43:36   I didn't see, maybe I didn't pay enough attention.

02:43:38   Does the iPad Pro have 3D Touch?

02:43:41   And if not, why not?

02:43:43   - I don't think it does.

02:43:44   - They didn't mention that at all.

02:43:46   - I mean, it's just like the stylus,

02:43:48   the pressure sensitivity is in the stylus, right?

02:43:50   It's not in the screen?

02:43:51   - Yes. - That's my understanding.

02:43:52   But on the phone,

02:43:53   the pressure sensitivity seems to be in the screen.

02:43:55   So maybe the iPad Pro just doesn't have the hardware for it.

02:43:58   - Yeah, it seems like it is not there at all.

02:44:00   But anyway, it doesn't really matter.

02:44:03   I mean, they can achieve it through the pen anyway.

02:44:06   And you know, one thing--

02:44:07   - But they can't achieve it through your finger though,

02:44:09   is what I'm getting at.

02:44:10   If you buy an iPad Pro and you press really hard

02:44:12   on an icon on your home screen on your iPad Pro,

02:44:14   nothing happens, right?

02:44:15   - Oh, that's a good question.

02:44:16   Yeah, 'cause if you get used to that,

02:44:18   it's like that one year where they had Touch ID on the phone

02:44:21   but they didn't have it on the iPad yet.

02:44:23   - Yeah, and you just kept resting your finger

02:44:25   on these little Convex or concave home buttons

02:44:28   and nothing would happen.

02:44:29   You're like, this thing is broken.

02:44:30   - Yeah, like once you get accustomed to that

02:44:31   on one iOS device, yeah, if you can't do it on the other one,

02:44:34   that's a problem.

02:44:35   Yeah, well, hey, next year, they gotta make all the people

02:44:39   buy a new iPad Pro every year, just the same way

02:44:42   they buy a new MacBook every year for the same price?

02:44:45   I don't know, we'll find out.

02:44:47   Yeah, so, I don't know, it'll be interesting

02:44:48   to see how this all shakes out.

02:44:50   I am a little disappointed also,

02:44:52   I tweeted about this earlier, I'm a little disappointed,

02:44:54   we didn't even get really a chance to talk

02:44:56   about the keyboard case much, but I am disappointed

02:44:59   that it seems like there's nowhere to put the Apple Pencil.

02:45:04   Anywhere in the iPad or in the case.

02:45:06   - I'll show you where you can put it.

02:45:08   - Oh wow.

02:45:09   - To quote Steve, that Steve Jobs thing

02:45:12   that maybe I just imagined,

02:45:13   but I still always think about.

02:45:15   What should I do with this?

02:45:16   I'll show you what you can do with it.

02:45:18   - Oh man.

02:45:19   - You just plug it into the lighting board.

02:45:20   It's super convenient.

02:45:21   It just sticks out on this tiny little metal thing

02:45:24   that's easy to break off and stabs you in the belly button.

02:45:26   - That's gonna, yeah.

02:45:28   Thank God it has allegedly very good battery life and charges very quickly because that

02:45:32   is a recipe for just breaking those things off everywhere.

02:45:35   Yeah, or just it's another recipe for people to make artisanal handcrafted wood carved

02:45:40   like from driftwood found on a beach holster is for your pen that it has a lightning connector

02:45:45   built in and it'll be kickstarter for it in 10 minutes, don't worry.

02:45:49   Yeah, they're gonna sell a lot of those pens.

02:45:51   It's a pencil, not a pen.

02:45:52   Sorry, pencil.

02:45:53   Concentrate, we're on the phone now.

02:45:56   What are we talking about?

02:45:57   Oh yeah.

02:45:58   It's been a long show. They just added an S in a box.

02:46:01   Anyway, it seems like something you want to talk about about the phone, Casey.

02:46:04   They are moving to 4K video and

02:46:08   that's kind of exciting and also scary since it's still being sold in 16 gigs.

02:46:14   Someone should do the math and say after you have the OS and all the standard apps installed,

02:46:19   how much 4K video can you record before the thing fills up?

02:46:23   It depends on the bitrate but I can tell you it's probably on the order of

02:46:27   About 10 minutes.

02:46:28   - I thought somebody did the math and said 30,

02:46:30   but that wasn't inclusive of the OS.

02:46:31   Also, since I'm talking real-time follow-up,

02:46:33   it is a Sapphire Crystal Lens cover as per the specs page.

02:46:37   - Nice. - All right.

02:46:37   So nevermind that person.

02:46:38   There you go. - I mean, and yeah,

02:46:39   a 4K video is huge.

02:46:40   I mean, the fact is, like,

02:46:42   you can look at the entire rest of their lineup,

02:46:45   where, like, the iPhone, their flagship product

02:46:49   that makes them the most money,

02:46:51   has the stingiest storage pricing,

02:46:53   and not the lowest prices to start, by the way.

02:46:56   like you know this is still like a $600 device,

02:46:59   the stingiest storage out of the whole lineup.

02:47:02   And there is no other explanation for this.

02:47:06   You know like I heard,

02:47:07   like I was talking to a friend of the show, Rene Ritchie,

02:47:09   he just wrote an article about this,

02:47:12   we'll have to find it linked in the show notes,

02:47:13   of like why are they still,

02:47:15   or why might they still use 1664, 128,

02:47:18   and there's some kind of like a difference in RAM types,

02:47:22   in like the flash RAM type that's available

02:47:25   for like one of them's cheap, one of them's expensive

02:47:27   and it's not available in these capacities or whatever.

02:47:29   So that could be a reason, you know, with the iPhone

02:47:32   they have to do things in such large volume

02:47:34   compared to the other products.

02:47:36   - Oh, the easy reason is because the 6 did.

02:47:38   That's the answer.

02:47:39   Why does the 6S do it?

02:47:40   Because 6 did.

02:47:41   And then you ask why did the 6 do it

02:47:42   and then you can get into the RAM types

02:47:45   and then the sizes and all of that stuff.

02:47:46   But it's a shame either way.

02:47:48   Like in the grand scheme of things,

02:47:50   it's not our problem, it's Apple's job to figure out

02:47:52   how the hell to make products that aren't crappy.

02:47:53   - Right, and they sell lots of 32 gig flash products

02:47:56   at very cheap prices, so it is not like they can't do it.

02:48:01   And I think the real reason here is just because

02:48:05   they know that it drives up the average selling price

02:48:09   of their most profitable, most successful product.

02:48:11   That has to be the answer, you know?

02:48:13   - Do they know that though?

02:48:14   'Cause they never break that down for us.

02:48:16   We assume it does, like with the whole anchoring

02:48:17   and it's like, well, I don't want the small one,

02:48:19   I don't want the big one, I want the middle one,

02:48:20   but the middle one, you know, the whole anchoring thing

02:48:22   It's surely a thing Apple probably does know but I don't think we can know unless maybe again Horace knows because he does some crazy

02:48:29   algebra to to solve a simultaneous series of equations to figure out exactly how many 16s but like I

02:48:34   I don't know the mix is like the 16 just seems like I want an iPhone and I want to get out

02:48:39   I want the cheapest iPhone possible. It used to be you guys are Mac users in the days when

02:48:44   Or even I find the best-selling product in any Apple product line used to be the most expensive one

02:48:51   It's kind of like I remember like this the Phantom Menace trailer was downloaded Apple was like and most people

02:48:56   Downloaded the biggest version the trail like well no duh like

02:48:59   Star Wars fans given a choice of what size would you like to see the trailer her this new Star Wars movie you waiting your

02:49:06   Whole life for the biggest is the answer and so it used to be what's the best-selling Apple laptop the most expensive model not counting

02:49:14   17 this was pre 17, but that changed many years ago when Apple became more of a mass-market thing and now I don't

02:49:20   You know if that's the case maybe it still is like remember used to be like well the 5s is obviously the best-selling phone

02:49:24   But that doesn't get into capacities is the 16 are people like I really want an iPhone 6 and the cheapest way

02:49:31   I can get it a 16 like I worry that that size is sucking people in because they really want the

02:49:37   The new iPhone and that's the cheapest way they can get it and that's just that's just not a good product

02:49:42   I feel like it's app thinning aside on-demand resources aside that product gives a

02:49:48   persistently bad experience in ways that are super frustrating to regular people. 16 gigs is not appropriate.

02:49:54   I couldn't agree more and I feel this is all anecdotal, but I feel like more and more

02:49:59   regular people that I know have lamented to me

02:50:04   just in general or because I'm that Apple guy they know

02:50:08   about how Apple has written terrible software because they can't upgrade their OS and their phone is always full and

02:50:16   and everything's always broken and it's all Apple's fault.

02:50:19   And explaining to them that they bought a cheap phone

02:50:22   doesn't usually end well, so.

02:50:25   - And it is Apple, like here's the thing,

02:50:27   like every phone is gonna run out of space eventually

02:50:29   if you fill it with stuff.

02:50:30   But we know the failure mode is so bad

02:50:32   and we know regular people have no idea what to do.

02:50:35   Like, and the iCloud thing is another example of that.

02:50:37   This is the dialog box keeps coming up

02:50:38   telling me I can't back up.

02:50:39   It's like all those failure modes are really bad.

02:50:42   You just gotta try to find a sweet spot

02:50:44   where most people fit within it

02:50:46   and 16 is not, 16 is just too low.

02:50:48   I mean they keep making the 4K video,

02:50:50   the size of the pictures,

02:50:52   and now your still pictures are also videos.

02:50:54   Forget it, like 16 gigs, just, it's terrible.

02:50:58   It's terrible, I understand why.

02:51:00   They were probably kinda stuck with it with the 6.

02:51:03   And I kinda understand the RAM thing too,

02:51:06   because if they're making the battery smaller,

02:51:07   that's not the time to add more RAM.

02:51:10   They really need to fix this in the 7.

02:51:12   I really hope that I'm super excited

02:51:14   about the iPad Pro having 4 gigs.

02:51:15   Like that shows that maybe someone, you know,

02:51:18   cause they didn't have to, like,

02:51:19   I think you could maybe get away with it with two gigs,

02:51:22   you know, but like four gigs after the iPad Air 2 had two,

02:51:26   that's a positive trend.

02:51:27   I really hope they sorted out with that.

02:51:29   I know we're mixing RAM and memory kind of like,

02:51:31   who was it that did that in the keynote,

02:51:33   Phil Schiller or somebody, RAM and storage.

02:51:35   But anyway, both on both those fronts,

02:51:37   they've both been problematic for different reasons.

02:51:41   16 gigs, friends don't let friends

02:51:43   buy the 16 gig iPhone 6s.

02:51:45   They should have like a fund, just a giant pool

02:51:48   or tech nerds who will lose sleep

02:51:51   if people they know have 16 gig phones.

02:51:52   Just put money in a giant pot

02:51:54   and every time someone goes to an Apple store

02:51:55   and buys a 16 gig SIS S, the Apple person will say,

02:51:58   "Oh, and by the way, even though you've chosen

02:52:00   "the 16 gig model and were about to give me

02:52:01   "your credit card, I can pull money out of this giant jar

02:52:03   "and give you the 32 because no one should own the 16."

02:52:06   (laughing)

02:52:09   - All right, so the only other thing that I thought was,

02:52:12   well, that I thought at this hour of the night

02:52:14   was really interesting about the six S's is this live,

02:52:19   what do they call them, live photos?

02:52:22   - The Harry Potter photos.

02:52:23   - Yeah, the Harry Potter photos.

02:52:24   I can't decide if this is freaking brilliant

02:52:27   or the cheesiest animated emoji thing

02:52:32   that I've seen since animated emoji.

02:52:34   - I think it's nice.

02:52:35   I mean, especially, I found this too.

02:52:38   I find myself not regarding how many pictures

02:52:40   I've taken of my kids, but wishing I had more video.

02:52:42   Video just seems more onerous to me,

02:52:44   and this is a nice sort of compromise

02:52:46   that I would use this feature if I had it

02:52:48   because I like to have a little bit of,

02:52:51   I like to see them in motion,

02:52:52   hear what their squeaky little voices sound like.

02:52:55   I have video, I have plenty of video,

02:52:56   but I feel like I wish I had more video.

02:52:59   And I think I've got them photographically covered,

02:53:01   but I wish I had more video.

02:53:02   And if this is a way to get more people to take more video,

02:53:04   you just need a few seconds to see

02:53:06   what was your kid like when he or she was five

02:53:09   or two or seven.

02:53:12   And this gives enough of a flavor of it.

02:53:13   I feel like, especially since there's sound involved in it.

02:53:17   I don't think you'd take every picture like this,

02:53:18   especially if you have a 16 gig phone, but it's cute.

02:53:20   I don't like the fact that you have to like press hard

02:53:24   and it goes all blurry and comes back in.

02:53:26   I don't like that whole interaction for doing this.

02:53:28   - Yes, I agree.

02:53:29   - But I like the idea that it takes video.

02:53:32   It's one of the fun things you can do

02:53:34   when you have a really fast processor in your phone, right?

02:53:37   - They said a couple of times,

02:53:39   I'm pretty sure this is the case,

02:53:40   that those are 12 megapixel videos,

02:53:44   which is higher resolution than 4K.

02:53:46   So they're actually like,

02:53:49   that little video clip you're getting there

02:53:51   is better than what you can get in 4K.

02:53:53   - That's a feature that they,

02:53:54   on actual expensive dedicated cameras for a long time,

02:53:57   it was a high-end feature to be like,

02:54:00   and while you're shooting video,

02:54:01   you can shoot stills in the middle of the video.

02:54:04   Phones have crappy processors or whatever,

02:54:05   but at a certain point,

02:54:06   even the crappy processors and dedicated phones

02:54:08   were fast enough, and surely the A9,

02:54:10   it's plenty fast enough to do this,

02:54:12   for limited amounts of time, blah, blah, blah,

02:54:14   so it's perfect for this feature.

02:54:15   Like, they've got the camera, they've got the capacity,

02:54:18   they're not, it's not like it's taking like,

02:54:19   oh, then your photo is gonna be like 720p or whatever,

02:54:22   you're in 4K, full res the whole time,

02:54:25   but for short periods of time.

02:54:26   I think it's cute.

02:54:28   - Honestly, before the event,

02:54:30   based on just the rumors we had heard,

02:54:31   I was not that excited about the iPhone 6S,

02:54:34   and I was actually thinking about not getting one

02:54:36   for the first time, it would be the first iPhone

02:54:37   I've ever skipped.

02:54:38   - The original.

02:54:39   - Yeah, but--

02:54:41   - Yeah, you know, I also am not going to buy a watch.

02:54:43   - Right, exactly, and you're not gonna buy an Apple TV

02:54:45   or an iPad Pro?

02:54:46   - One of those I think will be true,

02:54:48   I'm not sure which one.

02:54:50   - In that case, he's not gonna buy an iPad Pro.

02:54:51   I'm not even sure if I'm gonna buy one.

02:54:52   - You're probably gonna buy a Mini 4.

02:54:54   - That is very, very likely.

02:54:56   - Isn't it weird, by the way, that this is the first year

02:54:59   where the 10-inch sized iPad did not get an update

02:55:04   and also didn't get a price drop?

02:55:06   - It did get a price drop, didn't it?

02:55:08   - No, the Air 2 is the same as last year.

02:55:11   - Is it?

02:55:12   - And it's still the same price.

02:55:14   - Oh, maybe they already gave, anyway,

02:55:15   the Air 2 was so over spec when it was introduced

02:55:18   that it has more headroom.

02:55:19   - It's interesting that we're now back to the point

02:55:21   where we were when the Retina Mini was first launched,

02:55:25   Casey's beloved Retina Pad Mini.

02:55:27   We're back to the point now where the only difference

02:55:29   between the Mini and the big one is size and $100.

02:55:34   - That's as it should be, I feel like.

02:55:36   And the same thing, I think it's appropriate

02:55:37   for the 6S to have two gigs of RAM.

02:55:39   And I think if that's true, this is all,

02:55:41   everything's coming up Milhouse.

02:55:43   Even the color, we're like, oh, you know,

02:55:45   it was gonna be pink and look at these pink screenshots,

02:55:47   so it's not gonna be pink.

02:55:48   Well, we're right and wrong.

02:55:50   It's not pink, it's rose gold,

02:55:52   but the rose gold looks pink.

02:55:54   - Yeah, that's right. - All right, so.

02:55:55   - What the hell to make of that?

02:55:56   - Trying to wrap it up.

02:55:58   Based on what we've seen today,

02:56:00   what are you guys planning on buying out of these products?

02:56:03   Casey?

02:56:04   I am pretty sure that I'm going to be getting a new Retina Pad Mini.

02:56:10   I might try to hold on until I can play with an iPad Pro just so I know that I'm making

02:56:15   the right decision, but I will be stunned if I decide, "No, no, no, I want a 13-inch

02:56:21   iPad."

02:56:22   I absolutely will be getting Aaron and I both a 6s.

02:56:25   We are not crazy people, so we are not part of the Plus Club, and I'm 50/50 on the Apple

02:56:32   TV.

02:56:33   I'm gonna say no, which means yes,

02:56:35   I just haven't realized it.

02:56:36   - John?

02:56:39   - I'm definitely getting the Apple TV, 100%.

02:56:42   The iPad Pro, I can see myself getting it.

02:56:45   I really have to try it and see.

02:56:48   I would have really, again,

02:56:49   I'm totally going home for the iPad Pro.

02:56:51   I want this product to exist.

02:56:52   I'm just not sure I'm gonna be the one to buy it.

02:56:54   I would love every single feature on that iPad Pro

02:56:57   in an iPad Air 2 size device

02:56:59   with a thicker border around the screen

02:57:01   for me to grab with my big fat thumbs.

02:57:03   But that product doesn't exist.

02:57:04   So I'll have to evaluate the iPad Pro.

02:57:07   I might get it.

02:57:08   'Cause my iPad,

02:57:09   iPad 3, it's getting a little long on the tooth.

02:57:13   These days I do a lot more on my phone

02:57:15   because it's just so much faster.

02:57:18   So I will definitely check it out.

02:57:21   No new watches for me, no 6S for me.

02:57:23   My wife will probably get a 6S.

02:57:26   - And I will be buying a new Apple TV.

02:57:30   Tiff and I are both gonna get the 6S.

02:57:32   And the iPad, I mean, I think I'm gonna skip it.

02:57:37   It looks really interesting for people who aren't me.

02:57:41   And it is a lot of money.

02:57:43   I think if I'm going to have a small device

02:57:48   with a medium amount of battery life

02:57:50   that has a crappy keyboard that's really portable,

02:57:53   I think I'd get another MacBook One.

02:57:55   I think that would fit me better

02:57:58   because I really am more of a Mac person

02:58:00   than an iOS person for getting quote work done.

02:58:03   The kind of stuff I do really is better on a Mac.

02:58:05   Even a small slow one with a bad keyboard.

02:58:08   I'd rather have that I think than an iPad.

02:58:10   So. - Fair enough.

02:58:11   I forgot to crush Casey's Plex dreams

02:58:13   and I realized maybe I don't need to crush them.

02:58:15   But what I was gonna crush them was like,

02:58:16   I was assuming that you would wanna store the video on there

02:58:19   and apps can't have local storage.

02:58:20   But if you just use it as a client

02:58:21   and all the video was on your Synology

02:58:23   and you just were transcoding on the Apple TV,

02:58:26   maybe I won't crush your dreams.

02:58:29   - Yeah, we'll see.

02:58:30   I mean, my assumption is that the Plex stuff

02:58:34   would work basically as it is now,

02:58:36   which is I just stream from my Synology

02:58:38   and that's all I need.

02:58:39   But we'll see what happens.

02:58:41   - All right, thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week,

02:58:43   Cards Against Humanity, Casper, and Fracture.

02:58:47   And don't forget to check out the St. Jude donation

02:58:50   that we talked about earlier

02:58:51   for September being Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

02:58:54   Thanks a lot to our three sponsors and that,

02:58:56   and we will see you next week.

02:58:58   Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin

02:59:05   'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

02:59:10   John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him

02:59:15   'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

02:59:21   And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

02:59:26   And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

02:59:35   So that's Kasey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

02:59:39   N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N S-I-R-A-C

02:59:44   U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A It's accidental

02:59:50   They didn't mean to accidental

02:59:55   ♪ Got no tech broadcast so long ♪

02:59:59   - I like who did it firster.

03:00:03   Because I think that covers a lot of the whole,

03:00:05   I mean, I didn't hear a lot of this complaining,

03:00:07   maybe because I'm not traveling these circles,

03:00:08   but like, I saw someone post like an old comic

03:00:11   when the service came out of showing like,

03:00:13   "Yeah, the new iPad with the keyboard cover."

03:00:14   Like, guys, keyboard covers existed for the iPad.

03:00:17   Like, you know, it's not,

03:00:19   can you believe Apple did a thing like this?

03:00:21   Yep, I can totally believe it.

03:00:22   Everybody can believe it.

03:00:23   It is not a surprise.

03:00:24   And it is not and like and if anyone is out there complaining like was Apple be like we are the first people to make

03:00:30   It no they didn't they didn't say that at all

03:00:32   They didn't even do their normal thing of like we think this is the best one ever and past ones and other ones people in the

03:00:36   Head are crappy. They didn't even say that they're just like oh, no they said that they did they did

03:00:39   They did not say this is the first time you've seen it, but they did say this is the best one

03:00:44   You've ever seen or something like that

03:00:46   I've promised

03:00:48   The best thing they've ever made anyway

03:00:51   whatever. It just seemed like that was not a big angle, and if people are angry about it,

03:00:55   I didn't see them in my feed. Are people really getting angry? Like, "People have made pens before. Apple's like making the, like, they invented the pen."

03:01:01   No, they weren't. I think the thing is it was just so egregious and so obvious.

03:01:04   But it's not egregious. Like, again, like, who did it first? The freaking Newton, like, for crying out loud.

03:01:09   It's another company. It's the same company. It was Apple. Apple did that. Like, it was them.

03:01:16   It's like, take Touch ID as a great

03:01:19   example, Touch ID was taking the same idea and making it better or better-er, if you will.

03:01:25   But this might not even be better. It's just a keyboard cover. Logitech's been making them

03:01:28   for years. Like, they've had the port. No, no, that's my point. Yeah, you're making my point,

03:01:31   which is Touch ID was like, remember the little swipey thing like I had on my keyboard?

03:01:35   Yeah, they're terrible.

03:01:36   Yeah, it was like that, but they made it better. Whereas what they've done looks like a straight

03:01:40   rip of the Surface keyboard. But it's not a rip. It's like, this is the time when they're going to

03:01:44   add these features to their product. It's not as if they didn't think these features were possible

03:01:47   before. They weren't not adding them because they weren't possible. Apple's had this stylus

03:01:51   patents going over like how many years ago have we seen stylus patents? Like it just it's just like

03:01:56   when is the right time to do this? It's not like we can't figure out how to do it or whatever. It's

03:01:59   them deciding what is the appropriate feature set for our products and then doing it. So I

03:02:04   you know I didn't see that complaining but a little tiny bit bubbled up like seriously is this

03:02:08   what people are on about? Because I didn't get that vibe at all from the keynote. It was more

03:02:12   it was more like iOS 8 where like some people couldn't get over the fact that android had these

03:02:15   features when everyone else is like "yeah but now iOS has them and we like iOS so we're

03:02:19   excited that we get them and we've been saying for years they should have them and they should

03:02:22   be like "well you're copying Android?" that I think is even more of a case of like Android

03:02:27   you know or Palm OS or web OS for crying out loud have a lot of these ideas with the card

03:02:31   metaphor and the multi-pass like it's just ridiculous the whole the whole idea of worrying

03:02:36   about who did something first in these basic functional things like I can't make a computer

03:02:40   with a mouse someone already did that no just put a mouse on it's fine.

03:02:43   [BEEP]