Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [

00:00:09 ◼   ► relay FM]

00:00:10 ◼   ► From relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 393. Today's show is brought to you by Bombas,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Squarespace, Fitbod and Membrful. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Jason Snell.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hi Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hi Myke Hurley.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Jason has a sore throat today.

00:00:24 ◼   ► I do.

00:00:25 ◼   ► So we're just going to get that out of the way up front. Jason is not going to sound

00:00:29 ◼   ► his usual wonderful self.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Yeah. Is it allergies? Is it something else? The one thing I could take a test for came

00:00:36 ◼   ► back negative. So whatever it is, this is what you're getting. I have lots of tea.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Perfect.

00:00:42 ◼   ► My apologies for my voice.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Jason loves getting a sore throat because it means he can have even more tea than usual

00:00:47 ◼   ► and nobody can tell him otherwise.

00:00:48 ◼   ► I'm having like a whole pot of tea here with me right now. I have a cup, I have a mug,

00:00:53 ◼   ► and then I have a thermos full of the rest of the pot.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Well, I have a Snail Talk question that's going to make you feel better because you

00:00:58 ◼   ► Sorry, Myke, I gotta go to the bathroom now.

00:01:00 ◼   ► E-readers.

00:01:02 ◼   ► And Ryan wants to know,

00:01:04 ◼   ► "I know you prefer E-readers

00:01:06 ◼   ► that have physical buttons for page turning.

00:01:08 ◼   ► Which side of the E-reader do you prefer the buttons

00:01:11 ◼   ► to be on and which button out of the top or bottom buttons

00:01:14 ◼   ► is set for next page and previous page?"

00:01:17 ◼   ► Okay, Ryan, let me blow your mind.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Uh-oh.

00:01:20 ◼   ► E-readers, modern E-readers,

00:01:23 ◼   ► if you turn it upside down, the whole thing flips over.

00:01:27 ◼   ► So it's on whichever side you want them to be.

00:01:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, but which side do you want?

00:01:32 ◼   ► Like, so when you, you know, you don't just, I'm sure,

00:01:34 ◼   ► you're a man of opinions,

00:01:35 ◼   ► you don't just have it randomly all over the place, surely.

00:01:38 ◼   ► - Well, I, but the truth is, if I'm reading somewhere,

00:01:42 ◼   ► so I think the right side is I'm more comfortable,

00:01:47 ◼   ► but after a while, you know, you kinda wanna mix it up

00:01:49 ◼   ► and then you go to the left side and I just flip it over.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Like if I get a little tired, a little uncomfortable

00:01:54 ◼   ► over here with my right arm,

00:01:56 ◼   ► I'll just go over to the left.

00:01:57 ◼   ► - If you hold it with the left hand,

00:01:59 ◼   ► does it feel like somebody else is reading to you?

00:02:02 ◼   ► - It does not.

00:02:03 ◼   ► It's just the same.

00:02:04 ◼   ► It's just like a paperback book.

00:02:06 ◼   ► You might adjust your grip.

00:02:07 ◼   ► And in this case, you flip it over

00:02:09 ◼   ► so that the buttons go on your thumb.

00:02:11 ◼   ► And I have the bottom button set for next page

00:02:16 ◼   ► because the way I hold it, the grip that I use,

00:02:20 ◼   ► I'm gripping the bottom of the e-reader

00:02:21 ◼   ► with my thumb on the bottom button.

00:02:24 ◼   ► And since the bottom button is what I'm primarily using,

00:02:27 ◼   ► because I seldom read books backward,

00:02:31 ◼   ► sometimes you need to turn the page back,

00:02:33 ◼   ► but I seldom do that.

00:02:34 ◼   ► So what I want is hold it in my right hand,

00:02:37 ◼   ► primarily thumb on button,

00:02:39 ◼   ► and then I click the button without moving my thumb.

00:02:41 ◼   ► I just squeeze a little and click the button.

00:02:44 ◼   ► And I will point out that all these modern e-readers,

00:02:47 ◼   ► Kobo and Kindle, let you set which button does which,

00:02:52 ◼   ► let you lock orientation if you want to.

00:02:54 ◼   ► All of those things are options,

00:02:56 ◼   ► but that's how I prefer it is more right than left

00:03:00 ◼   ► and bottom button is forward.

00:03:02 ◼   ► - If you'd like to help us open an episode of Upgrade,

00:03:05 ◼   ► just send in a tweet with the hashtag snow talk

00:03:07 ◼   ► or use question mark snow talk

00:03:08 ◼   ► in the relay FM members discord.

00:03:10 ◼   ► What do you want to know?

00:03:11 ◼   ► Let us know.

00:03:12 ◼   ► Do you like that?

00:03:14 ◼   ► Was the new little--

00:03:15 ◼   ► - That's intriguing.

00:03:16 ◼   ► - Just threw that in there.

00:03:16 ◼   ► I don't really know where it came from.

00:03:18 ◼   ► I have a couple of Mark Gurman rumor round-up things for you.

00:03:23 ◼   ► Oh, good.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Mark, some stuff published to Bloomberg, some stuff in his newsletter.

00:03:28 ◼   ► It's all about kind of future product releases.

00:03:31 ◼   ► Mark is reporting that Apple is currently targeting March the 8th for their next event.

00:03:37 ◼   ► This event obviously will be a virtual event and they're going to be bringing people back

00:03:41 ◼   ► together for this one.

00:03:43 ◼   ► current plans indicate that the event will focus on an iPhone SE3 and an updated iPad Air. This is

00:03:50 ◼   ► what Mark knows about. If this is all it was, this is not worth it, and press releases would 100% do

00:03:57 ◼   ► the job, right? I kind of agree, but I wonder if our standards are too high in this era where Apple

00:04:04 ◼   ► does video events, you know? I feel like they've always, even like, so the one I can think of with

00:04:10 ◼   ► this is when they had like I think it was they did the purple iPhone and an

00:04:17 ◼   ► iPad maybe an Apple watch but like that was enough I feel like an iPhone se3 and

00:04:22 ◼   ► a new base sorry and a new iPad air I feel like it needs like one extra thing

00:04:27 ◼   ► I wasn't gonna say one more extra thing and this is why additionally mark has

00:04:32 ◼   ► suggested that a new Mac could be announced at this event as well but

00:04:37 ◼   ► there seems to be some chopping and changing about the timing of that from Apple's side.

00:04:42 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:04:43 ◼   ► I think the possibility is there for the Mac.

00:04:45 ◼   ► Our hope is that it's the iMac Pro.

00:04:48 ◼   ► Yes.

00:04:49 ◼   ► My guess is that if it's not that, it's what we talked about, which is upgrade the Mac

00:04:54 ◼   ► Mini with the M1 Pro and Mac's chips, potentially even do that for the iMac, the smaller iMac,

00:05:02 ◼   ► but they could do that.

00:05:03 ◼   ► chip bump because they've got those faster M1s now, the Pro and the Max, but that we

00:05:09 ◼   ► would really, really, really, really like it.

00:05:12 ◼   ► Please, if you could, Apple, do a new iMac now.

00:05:16 ◼   ► I think there has to be one, like it can't just be the, for me, I just feel like those

00:05:20 ◼   ► two things, it's like not enough.

00:05:23 ◼   ► A new iPhone, a new iPad Air, or a new iPhone, a new iPad, and a new Mac.

00:05:26 ◼   ► Are you getting it yet?

00:05:27 ◼   ► It's three products.

00:05:28 ◼   ► I think that would work, even if those three products didn't change really that much, but

00:05:33 ◼   ► they've all just got some important changes to them.

00:05:36 ◼   ► Plus they could talk about, I don't know,

00:05:37 ◼   ► some software stuff or whatever, you know,

00:05:40 ◼   ► like that would do it.

00:05:41 ◼   ► - I mean, it's still not a lot,

00:05:42 ◼   ► but I think that was my point was you,

00:05:45 ◼   ► the bar is lower if you're not inviting people.

00:05:48 ◼   ► - Definitely.

00:05:48 ◼   ► - You could do an hour video.

00:05:50 ◼   ► It's not a major, major announcement,

00:05:52 ◼   ► but it's better than a press release, I think.

00:05:54 ◼   ► It would be the judgment of Apple.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Like it's enough to get people's attention for an hour

00:05:58 ◼   ► to roll out these products.

00:05:59 ◼   ► They do risk making their products,

00:06:02 ◼   ► their product events less essential

00:06:05 ◼   ► if they do one that's minor.

00:06:07 ◼   ► That's I think one of the untold lessons of Steve Jobs

00:06:12 ◼   ► when he came back is I think Steve Jobs,

00:06:14 ◼   ► first thing he did was basically say,

00:06:18 ◼   ► we're not gonna call people down for an event

00:06:20 ◼   ► if it isn't worth it.

00:06:22 ◼   ► 'Cause the old Apple before jobs,

00:06:23 ◼   ► right before jobs got there famously for me,

00:06:26 ◼   ► at least as somebody who was covering Apple,

00:06:27 ◼   ► they invited us down all the time

00:06:29 ◼   ► for things that were secret, super secret.

00:06:31 ◼   ► And you get there and it's nothing.

00:06:33 ◼   ► It's just nothing interesting.

00:06:34 ◼   ► And I think that they need to walk that line, right?

00:06:38 ◼   ► The bar is lower than it used to be, but don't take it down too low where it's kind of a nothing

00:06:43 ◼   ► and everybody shrugs at it.

00:06:45 ◼   ► Because the last thing you want to do is get people shrugging at Apple announcing that

00:06:48 ◼   ► they're doing a live event, right?

00:06:49 ◼   ► Because that's it, isn't it?

00:06:51 ◼   ► It's not about bringing people in.

00:06:53 ◼   ► It's that they want people to come and watch.

00:06:56 ◼   ► And if you risk their attention, you've got their attention now.

00:06:59 ◼   ► And if you start making these events not interesting,

00:07:02 ◼   ► you risk losing some of that attention.

00:07:04 ◼   ► And it's a real asset of Apple

00:07:06 ◼   ► that you don't wanna give away.

00:07:07 ◼   ► - 'Cause they'll be doing another one

00:07:08 ◼   ► three months later, right, WWDC.

00:07:11 ◼   ► And so you don't want people to say like,

00:07:13 ◼   ► "Ah, watch that last one."

00:07:15 ◼   ► - Which is why I look at this and I think,

00:07:17 ◼   ► maybe if it's just an iPad Air,

00:07:19 ◼   ► 'cause the iPad Air already has the iPad Pro styling,

00:07:21 ◼   ► so it really is gonna be like an M1 iPad Air.

00:07:24 ◼   ► And the iPhone SE, I mean, yeah, they can be like,

00:07:26 ◼   ► "Oh, 5G, and here's a guy from T-Mobile,

00:07:29 ◼   ► and yay, right?

00:07:30 ◼   ► They can do that.

00:07:31 ◼   ► That's fine, but again, not super exciting.

00:07:34 ◼   ► What's the third thing?

00:07:37 ◼   ► What's the thing that wraps up the event?

00:07:38 ◼   ► And iMac Pro would do it, but I don't know.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Mark Gurman seems to not know.

00:07:45 ◼   ► What's fascinating about Mark Gurman's reporting on this,

00:07:47 ◼   ► since we pour over his Sunday morning emails like we do,

00:07:51 ◼   ► is he doesn't seem to have a lot of vision

00:07:55 ◼   ► into what's going on with the iMac.

00:07:56 ◼   ► And I think that's fascinating.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Mark did report that Apple is planning on releasing

00:08:01 ◼   ► four M2 Macs later on this year.

00:08:05 ◼   ► The expectation is a MacBook Air,

00:08:07 ◼   ► an updated MacBook Air with a new design.

00:08:10 ◼   ► So like the first kind of Apple Silicon MacBook Air

00:08:12 ◼   ► as it were, as in like, you know, imagined four.

00:08:17 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause the M1 MacBook Air looks like

00:08:20 ◼   ► the classic MacBook Air going back to 2010.

00:08:23 ◼   ► This will rumored is gonna be the, you know,

00:08:26 ◼   ► designed externally and internally for Apple Silicon.

00:08:30 ◼   ► - A new base level Mac mini to replace the one

00:08:33 ◼   ► that currently has an M1 chip.

00:08:34 ◼   ► iMac to put new chips in the current iMac.

00:08:38 ◼   ► - Right, so M2 24-inch iMac, which is logical,

00:08:41 ◼   ► but I don't think I'd seen that one actually reported before

00:08:45 ◼   ► but it makes sense.

00:08:46 ◼   ► - And a new 13-inch MacBook Pro.

00:08:50 ◼   ► So new kind of entry-level MacBook Pro.

00:08:52 ◼   ► Mark expects that Apple will remove the touch bar

00:08:55 ◼   ► from the MacBook Pro, but it will not feature a ProMotion or HDR display.

00:08:59 ◼   ► I wonder if, I wonder about the design of that product, honestly.

00:09:04 ◼   ► Like, what that's going to be.

00:09:06 ◼   ► I'm a little bit intrigued about that one.

00:09:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I wonder if it really is just do the minimum to keep the price down, to have the

00:09:13 ◼   ► base model.

00:09:14 ◼   ► I think you're right.

00:09:15 ◼   ► And just keep it, right?

00:09:16 ◼   ► Just so it's cheaper and it will look like the one, basically my thinking is it will

00:09:21 ◼   ► look just like the current one, right?

00:09:24 ◼   ► the one that had the M1 chip in it,

00:09:25 ◼   ► or has the M1 chip in it, but they removed the touch bar,

00:09:28 ◼   ► so they're kind of bringing back the escape version.

00:09:32 ◼   ► - And keep in mind that the MacBook Air being redesigned

00:09:36 ◼   ► will probably push the MacBook Air away

00:09:38 ◼   ► from the MacBook Pro a little bit more,

00:09:40 ◼   ► 'cause one of the problems with that 13-inch MacBook Pro

00:09:42 ◼   ► is differentiation with the MacBook Air,

00:09:44 ◼   ► and they're not very differentiated now,

00:09:46 ◼   ► but they may become more differentiated in design

00:09:51 ◼   ► because the air is not inheriting the design.

00:09:55 ◼   ► - When they redesign the MacBook Air,

00:09:57 ◼   ► they're gonna keep the old one, aren't they?

00:09:59 ◼   ► - I would not be surprised if they kept the old one.

00:10:01 ◼   ► - I think they will.

00:10:02 ◼   ► They'll keep the old one even for a little bit

00:10:04 ◼   ► 'cause you know it's gonna be, well not no,

00:10:06 ◼   ► but I would expect the new one might be

00:10:08 ◼   ► a little bit more expensive.

00:10:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, make that Air an 899 M1

00:10:12 ◼   ► and then have the new one be a 1049 or 1099 M2.

00:10:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm surprised, honestly.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Am I? About the iMac. I'm trying to think, like what do I think about that?

00:10:24 ◼   ► So that would be what, maybe 18 months? Yeah. Yeah, a year and a half-ish.

00:10:31 ◼   ► I'm not sure how I feel about Mac processes being updated so frequently again.

00:10:39 ◼   ► I kind of have good and bad feelings about it. Well what's weird is the M2 is based on the A15,

00:10:45 ◼   ► so we're going to get in a position here where M2 Macs are going to be shipping and the A16 is

00:10:50 ◼   ► is gonna be shipping.

00:10:50 ◼   ► And maybe that's just how it's gonna go from now on.

00:10:53 ◼   ► But there's a question of like the cadence

00:10:55 ◼   ► and do the Mac chips pick up the new cores

00:10:57 ◼   ► from the iPhone chips every year or not?

00:10:59 ◼   ► But because Apple makes these chips

00:11:01 ◼   ► or designs these chips and has Taiwan Semiconductor

00:11:03 ◼   ► make them, it does allow Apple to do.

00:11:06 ◼   ► This may be what happens is Apple updates Macs all the time

00:11:11 ◼   ► with whatever their new chip is.

00:11:14 ◼   ► And then does the bigger spec changes from time to time.

00:11:17 ◼   ► But right, like if you made the M1

00:11:20 ◼   ► and now you have the M2 in volume,

00:11:22 ◼   ► why would you not cut the iMac over to,

00:11:24 ◼   ► or all of those computers over to the M2 as soon as you can,

00:11:29 ◼   ► because it's better. (laughs)

00:11:33 ◼   ► And it's probably not a huge change to the internals of that

00:11:38 ◼   ► because remember you're designing the whole thing now,

00:11:40 ◼   ► including the chip.

00:11:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just, my concern,

00:11:45 ◼   ► And it's not really something for me to worry about specifically.

00:11:49 ◼   ► It's like, if this is just going to happen, this is just going to be the churn, right?

00:11:53 ◼   ► That there will be, they'll just keep doing it over and over and over again.

00:11:56 ◼   ► Maybe that's not a problem.

00:11:57 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:11:58 ◼   ► But it's just, there's something about it where it's like, is it going to realistically be every calendar year at some point it will get the new one?

00:12:06 ◼   ► Because if they put the M1 in it, then the M2 in it, they're going to put the M3 and then the M4.

00:12:13 ◼   ► 'cause if you skip it, then what, you know what I mean?

00:12:15 ◼   ► And it's like, is that gonna be the plan now?

00:12:18 ◼   ► Like that there will be a new processor,

00:12:20 ◼   ► which is incrementally better than the previous one,

00:12:23 ◼   ► every calendar year for every Mac?

00:12:25 ◼   ► - Or every 18 months?

00:12:27 ◼   ► I think maybe, I think maybe now that Apple controls

00:12:29 ◼   ► the processor thing.

00:12:30 ◼   ► And I think the challenge is gonna be how we look at this,

00:12:34 ◼   ► because when Apple was updating things less often,

00:12:38 ◼   ► it took on more weight.

00:12:40 ◼   ► And it may be now that, I mean, think about the iPad, right?

00:12:43 ◼   ► Like, iPad Pro has gotten three updates

00:12:48 ◼   ► in its current look and feel.

00:12:51 ◼   ► And some of them, the processor updates,

00:12:55 ◼   ► it was like from the X to the Z and then to the M1.

00:12:59 ◼   ► And like there have been some other things

00:13:01 ◼   ► that the port changed, the screen on the big model changed,

00:13:04 ◼   ► but you could look at that and say, not a lot changed,

00:13:08 ◼   ► except they updated the chip on the inside.

00:13:12 ◼   ► So, you know, I think that could happen.

00:13:14 ◼   ► I think that we could get in a situation where every year

00:13:17 ◼   ► or year and a half, there are new Mac models

00:13:21 ◼   ► with new chips in them, separate from every

00:13:25 ◼   ► and maybe minor updates,

00:13:27 ◼   ► kind of like an iPhone or iPad schedule, right?

00:13:29 ◼   ► Where it's like, they're not that different.

00:13:31 ◼   ► This year's iMac is different from last year's iMac,

00:13:33 ◼   ► but only a little bit, because basically it's the same.

00:13:37 ◼   ► And then every so often there's a big change.

00:13:40 ◼   ► I think that's probably what Apple's goal is,

00:13:43 ◼   ► is to be able to swap in the new tech fairly easily

00:13:47 ◼   ► like they do with the iPhone and iPad,

00:13:50 ◼   ► and then just every few years do a more dramatic revision

00:13:55 ◼   ► in terms of specs.

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00:16:15 ◼   ► I did not want to have to talk about this again.

00:16:20 ◼   ► I don't want to talk about it either but I think we have to at least a little.

00:16:22 ◼   ► Oh we have to.

00:16:23 ◼   ► But this is, we're going back, me and you Jason, we're going back to the Netherlands.

00:16:28 ◼   ► - To connect the Netherlands.

00:16:29 ◼   ► And I wanna just send a message out there

00:16:31 ◼   ► to explain what goes on when a citizen of the Netherlands

00:16:35 ◼   ► is interested in a different citizen of the Netherlands.

00:16:38 ◼   ► They might use some sort of an app to connect

00:16:42 ◼   ► and like, do we share interests?

00:16:44 ◼   ► Are you somebody that I might wanna meet?

00:16:48 ◼   ► - Is this like the birds and the bees or something?

00:16:51 ◼   ► - By the Prinzengracht in Amsterdam one evening

00:16:55 ◼   ► and we could go for a bike ride

00:16:56 ◼   ► because there are lots of bikes in Amsterdam.

00:16:59 ◼   ► And anyway, so when two Dutch people love each other

00:17:02 ◼   ► very much, they probably used a Dutch dating app.

00:17:06 ◼   ► - All right, so. - That's all I got, I'm out.

00:17:10 ◼   ► - Apple has published, all the fun stuff's over.

00:17:12 ◼   ► Now we get into the--

00:17:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, sorry, that was your entertainment part.

00:17:16 ◼   ► - Jason did a good job for you all, now I'm here to,

00:17:18 ◼   ► I'm like the Krampus.

00:17:20 ◼   ► - The Krampus of Dutch dating, that's you.

00:17:24 ◼   ► - That's me. - That's you.

00:17:25 ◼   ► the Grinch of romance in the Netherlands.

00:17:27 ◼   ► That's you, Myke Hurley, you.

00:17:29 ◼   ► - I think Apple's that.

00:17:30 ◼   ► I'm just telling the story, you know?

00:17:32 ◼   ► I'm like the representative here.

00:17:34 ◼   ► So Apple has published more details

00:17:36 ◼   ► for the dating apps in the Netherlands stuff.

00:17:38 ◼   ► So they've actually now kind of gone through

00:17:41 ◼   ► the financial part of it,

00:17:43 ◼   ► which is the kind of the last piece

00:17:44 ◼   ► that we're waiting to find out.

00:17:46 ◼   ► So I'm gonna give you a couple of key parts.

00:17:49 ◼   ► We're gonna do them in an order of amount of stuff.

00:17:52 ◼   ► We're gonna have to talk about them, I think.

00:17:54 ◼   ► So they're only going to allow one link for external payment

00:17:57 ◼   ► options.

00:17:58 ◼   ► So remember, you could do two things.

00:17:59 ◼   ► You can either link people out to the web to pay,

00:18:02 ◼   ► or you can throw up an in-app purchase thing,

00:18:06 ◼   ► in-app purchasing screen.

00:18:08 ◼   ► It's not in-app purchase.

00:18:09 ◼   ► Please excuse me.

00:18:11 ◼   ► So say, here are the other payment methods

00:18:12 ◼   ► that you can make.

00:18:14 ◼   ► And you have to apply for an entitlement for each.

00:18:17 ◼   ► Apple's only allowing you to have one link that goes out,

00:18:19 ◼   ► and that link is specified in the application itself.

00:18:24 ◼   ► So you can't change it.

00:18:25 ◼   ► It's like a whole thing.

00:18:26 ◼   ► It's coded into the app.

00:18:28 ◼   ► So that's one part.

00:18:29 ◼   ► Ridiculous, but that's whatever, kind of what we expected.

00:18:33 ◼   ► For both this, though, and the I want to pay in-app using

00:18:37 ◼   ► a third-party provider, you have to show to users

00:18:41 ◼   ► an in-app modal sheet.

00:18:43 ◼   ► This means something you can only

00:18:45 ◼   ► get rid of by pressing one of either the yes or no buttons,

00:18:48 ◼   ► basically.

00:18:49 ◼   ► This has to be shown before sending people for payment

00:18:52 ◼   ► or giving them their options.

00:18:53 ◼   ► There's a bunch of wording on there.

00:18:55 ◼   ► I want to read a couple of parts of it.

00:18:56 ◼   ► So I'm going to truncate this a little bit,

00:18:58 ◼   ► but some of the wording that you have to include,

00:19:01 ◼   ► this is just a thing that comes up,

00:19:02 ◼   ► says, "This app does not support the App Store's

00:19:05 ◼   ► private and secure payment system."

00:19:08 ◼   ► Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:19:09 ◼   ► "Only purchases through the App Store are secured by Apple."

00:19:12 ◼   ► Now, a lot of people, I think,

00:19:14 ◼   ► are very rightly reading into this,

00:19:17 ◼   ► that basically Apple is trying to paint the picture,

00:19:20 ◼   ► that you can only trust them.

00:19:22 ◼   ► they're the only secure ones, right?

00:19:24 ◼   ► It's like the implication of what they're saying

00:19:27 ◼   ► is that the App Store has a private and secure payment

00:19:30 ◼   ► system.

00:19:30 ◼   ► So if you don't use this one, maybe it's

00:19:33 ◼   ► not private and secure, which is a terrible thing to say,

00:19:37 ◼   ► really.

00:19:38 ◼   ► And it does-- I've seen a bunch of people--

00:19:40 ◼   ► I think I saw Matt Burch just said this on Twitter.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Well, what about the third-party payment systems

00:19:47 ◼   ► that already exist in apps like Uber and Amazon?

00:19:50 ◼   ► They don't have to show users this stuff.

00:19:54 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:19:55 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:19:56 ◼   ► It's like, just if you want proof that Apple wants to make this a bad experience out of

00:20:01 ◼   ► spite, I think, this is part of that proof.

00:20:05 ◼   ► What is your take on this whole like showing the modal thing?

00:20:09 ◼   ► I said a while ago when we first saw Apple's results in Korea and Japan that it feels like

00:20:20 ◼   ► like Apple's strategy is to make everything as unpleasant as possible.

00:20:29 ◼   ► It's follow the letter of the law, but show your resistance in every possible way.

00:20:36 ◼   ► And this dialogue box is part of that.

00:20:38 ◼   ► Actually it reminds me, I mean, Apple does this reflexively.

00:20:42 ◼   ► I think this is part of a strategy, but Apple does this a lot where you see Apple's kind

00:20:47 ◼   ► of, I think they view it as being concerned for the user, but it's weaponized a lot.

00:20:55 ◼   ► And sometimes pointlessly, like I'm reminded of how on M1 Macs, when you install Audio

00:21:02 ◼   ► Hijack, the excellent sound utility from Rogue Amoeba, they have to use an Apple-approved

00:21:10 ◼   ► method of capturing system audio.

00:21:14 ◼   ► And Apple makes you reboot twice and go to a system setting and say, "Lower security

00:21:21 ◼   ► settings," and it has text there that basically says, "You are endangering yourself by doing

00:21:26 ◼   ► this," and then you have to agree and reboot, and now you can use AudioHijack.

00:21:31 ◼   ► And it struck me as funny because AudioHijack's using Apple-approved methods.

00:21:38 ◼   ► It's not a kernel extension.

00:21:40 ◼   ► It's just a system extension that Apple has approved the methodology of it, and yet they

00:21:45 ◼   ► put up the scare text. And I think that it's just part of the good side of it. It is their

00:21:52 ◼   ► culture of concern for the user and wanting to disclose to the user. But when I say it

00:21:57 ◼   ► can be weaponized, anything they don't like, they can turn on that language and try to

00:22:06 ◼   ► scare the user. And so, you know, all of this stuff is like that. All of this stuff is,

00:22:12 ◼   ► Apple's argument all along is that, boo, spooky, other people processing your credit cards

00:22:18 ◼   ► are bad and they may be fraudsters and only Apple is trustworthy. And so why would they

00:22:23 ◼   ► not create a scary dialogue box? Because they're trying to create so many barriers that nobody

00:22:28 ◼   ► uses this. And more to the point that developers don't even bother because they're like, "I'm

00:22:33 ◼   ► I'm not gonna put, like, I'm not gonna get,

00:22:35 ◼   ► why would I do this work?

00:22:36 ◼   ► If nobody's ever going to agree to the thing where you tap

00:22:40 ◼   ► and a ghost appears and says, no, this is haunted.

00:22:45 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:22:47 ◼   ► I mean, it's, are we surprised?

00:22:49 ◼   ► But I think the counter argument would be,

00:22:51 ◼   ► and this is the, I dare you portion of Apple strategy,

00:22:54 ◼   ► which is the counter argument is,

00:22:57 ◼   ► are you going to tell us how to write our dialogue boxes?

00:23:00 ◼   ► are you going to tell us when and if we can warn our users

00:23:05 ◼   ► about legitimate security threats?

00:23:07 ◼   ► And I think they believe that they probably won't be,

00:23:11 ◼   ► that the regulators and the lawmakers are not gonna say,

00:23:15 ◼   ► it must be a nice dialogue box that is fair

00:23:18 ◼   ► and has texts that is approved by a regulator.

00:23:21 ◼   ► That's their gamble that they're taking here

00:23:24 ◼   ► is that they're gonna be able to get away with this,

00:23:26 ◼   ► but it is weaponizing their stated concern

00:23:30 ◼   ► for the user and turning it into a concern.

00:23:33 ◼   ► We're very concerned that you might

00:23:35 ◼   ► use someone else's systems and it could be dangerous.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Are you sure you want to do that?

00:23:40 ◼   ► You know, it's mom saying, "You can drive the car,

00:23:43 ◼   ► but are you sure you want to go to that party?"

00:23:46 ◼   ► - And the worst part of it is the part

00:23:49 ◼   ► that we all expected would happen,

00:23:50 ◼   ► but honestly, when you see it written down,

00:23:52 ◼   ► it's just so much worse than when you imagined it, I think,

00:23:55 ◼   ► is that Apple will be charging developers

00:23:58 ◼   ► that use third-party payment systems

00:24:00 ◼   ► 27%, a 27% fee on every transaction.

00:24:04 ◼   ► - Isn't that funny too, that choice?

00:24:06 ◼   ► I mean, it's generally thought that 3%

00:24:08 ◼   ► is the credit card transaction.

00:24:09 ◼   ► And so they're literally like, okay,

00:24:11 ◼   ► so we'll subtract that from the 30 we take

00:24:14 ◼   ► and we want the rest.

00:24:15 ◼   ► And they didn't try to like say, oh, well, 25.

00:24:20 ◼   ► It's just a natural number, 25.

00:24:22 ◼   ► I don't know what you're talking about.

00:24:23 ◼   ► Or 20, yeah, no, whatever.

00:24:25 ◼   ► They're like, no, it's exactly,

00:24:26 ◼   ► we have imagined how much you're gonna be spending

00:24:29 ◼   ► on the external and that's what we spend too.

00:24:32 ◼   ► So we'll let you have that part.

00:24:34 ◼   ► And then we want the rest because we want our money

00:24:37 ◼   ► and we want our money no matter what transactions you use.

00:24:40 ◼   ► It's just, yeah, it's clear.

00:24:43 ◼   ► And they're so lucky that Google went to this before them

00:24:47 ◼   ► in terms of the strategy of we want our money

00:24:51 ◼   ► whether or not we are skimming it

00:24:53 ◼   ► off of our transaction or not.

00:24:56 ◼   ► But still, it's very much,

00:24:59 ◼   ► and maybe this is a negotiation,

00:25:00 ◼   ► maybe they're gonna start, come on hard,

00:25:03 ◼   ► and then eventually they'll back down a little bit.

00:25:05 ◼   ► But it's them saying, "We want all our money,"

00:25:08 ◼   ► and it doesn't matter what transaction processing system

00:25:10 ◼   ► you use, you can use that if you want to,

00:25:12 ◼   ► but it's not gonna save you any money.

00:25:14 ◼   ► So why bother?

00:25:15 ◼   ► - Just for reference, for Google,

00:25:18 ◼   ► I think it's by a large, most transactions

00:25:20 ◼   ► are somewhere between 11 and 15%.

00:25:23 ◼   ► So like, I agree with you,

00:25:25 ◼   ► and they were, I guess, waiting to see what Google did.

00:25:28 ◼   ► But I think Google has picked a number

00:25:31 ◼   ► for whatever reason they've picked their number.

00:25:33 ◼   ► Apple's picked its number by being like,

00:25:35 ◼   ► "No, we deserve every penny."

00:25:37 ◼   ► - And also they don't wanna,

00:25:39 ◼   ► and fundamentally Apple doesn't want to create an incentive

00:25:42 ◼   ► for developers to build this app.

00:25:44 ◼   ► So they've got the scary dialog box

00:25:45 ◼   ► that has to be a separate binary in the app store,

00:25:48 ◼   ► separate from their existing app.

00:25:50 ◼   ► And so you do all of this

00:25:53 ◼   ► and then you're not gonna even make any money.

00:25:54 ◼   ► - You know, you just know that your app review time

00:25:58 ◼   ► is gonna be worse for this.

00:25:59 ◼   ► - Probably, 'cause they're gonna have to check this

00:26:01 ◼   ► against all the things,

00:26:02 ◼   ► and you're gonna have to get special approval.

00:26:04 ◼   ► And that's all to make it so unpleasant

00:26:06 ◼   ► that nobody wants to do it,

00:26:07 ◼   ► and then you know what happens.

00:26:08 ◼   ► The next step is people agitate for laws to be changed

00:26:12 ◼   ► or for Apple to be held to account.

00:26:14 ◼   ► And Apple says, "Hey, we did it,

00:26:16 ◼   ► "and nobody's taking us up on it."

00:26:18 ◼   ► Like, nobody wants this.

00:26:20 ◼   ► Why are you regulating us

00:26:21 ◼   ► to provide alternate payment methods

00:26:23 ◼   ► when the truth is in the real world in Dutch dating apps,

00:26:27 ◼   ► nobody uses the feature.

00:26:29 ◼   ► We're innocent here.

00:26:31 ◼   ► You're making us build things. - We get all this work.

00:26:34 ◼   ► - And nobody is using it 'cause they just don't want it.

00:26:37 ◼   ► And the truth is that that's part of the game

00:26:41 ◼   ► they're playing is they wanna make it

00:26:43 ◼   ► as unpalatable as possible so that they can have proof

00:26:46 ◼   ► to say nobody is using it.

00:26:48 ◼   ► So that's all what's happening here.

00:26:52 ◼   ► - Talk about unpalatable.

00:26:53 ◼   ► Alright, bear with me a minute, there's stuff to read. I want to read from Apple's pages.

00:26:57 ◼   ► So in regards to the 27%, this is a reduced rate that excludes the value related to payment

00:27:04 ◼   ► processing and related activities. Developers using these entitlements will be required to

00:27:09 ◼   ► provide a report to Apple recording each sale of digital goods and content that has been

00:27:14 ◼   ► facilitated through the App Store. The report will then need to be provided monthly within

00:27:19 ◼   ► 15 calendar days following the end of Apple's fiscal month.

00:27:24 ◼   ► Qualifying developers will receive an invoice based on their reporting and will be required

00:27:28 ◼   ► to remit payment to Apple for the amount invoiced within 45 days following the end of Apple's

00:27:34 ◼   ► fiscal month.

00:27:36 ◼   ► In the future, if Apple develops technical solutions to facilitate reporting, developers

00:27:40 ◼   ► will be required to adopt such technologies.

00:27:44 ◼   ► Please note that Apple has audit rights pursuant to the entitlement's terms and conditions.

00:27:50 ◼   ► This will allow Apple to review the accuracy of a developer's record of digital transactions

00:27:55 ◼   ► as a result of the entitlement, ensuring the appropriate commission has been paid to Apple.

00:28:01 ◼   ► Failure to pay Apple's commission could result in the offset of proceeds owed to you in other

00:28:06 ◼   ► markets, removal of your app from the App Store, or removal from the Apple Developer

00:28:11 ◼   ► Program.

00:28:12 ◼   ► This is disgusting to me.

00:28:15 ◼   ► So there's a few things here that I find so terrible about this.

00:28:19 ◼   ► And it's not even the money.

00:28:20 ◼   ► The first thing I was annoyed about was the 27%.

00:28:23 ◼   ► But then when I read this, I was so much more annoyed.

00:28:26 ◼   ► Because the implication that they are making here is that they cannot trust developers

00:28:31 ◼   ► to accurately tell them what the charges will be.

00:28:33 ◼   ► Not only do they want a detailed report, they threaten you with audits and punishments if

00:28:39 ◼   ► if you don't give them the correct number

00:28:41 ◼   ► because they need every single cent

00:28:45 ◼   ► and they are so upset if they don't get it.

00:28:47 ◼   ► Like, ah man, like they have engineered this in such a way

00:28:51 ◼   ► that it's probably also going to cost developers more money

00:28:55 ◼   ► to go with this route than to stick with Apple.

00:28:58 ◼   ► Like, where is the partnership?

00:29:00 ◼   ► There's just, they do not care about partnerships, right?

00:29:02 ◼   ► It's like, you are lucky to be here with us.

00:29:06 ◼   ► We have ordained to give you real estate

00:29:09 ◼   ► on our incredible product and in our app store.

00:29:12 ◼   ► And we deserve every single cent of it because just we do.

00:29:16 ◼   ► It makes me sick, man.

00:29:18 ◼   ► I'm so annoyed about this.

00:29:19 ◼   ► - So a couple of things, right?

00:29:21 ◼   ► Like it's hard to ask somebody to forego money.

00:29:24 ◼   ► I get it.

00:29:25 ◼   ► And Apple's culture comes from that time,

00:29:28 ◼   ► that near death experience where, you know,

00:29:30 ◼   ► I think Steve Jobs really set them on the path of everybody,

00:29:34 ◼   ► get your take every time from everywhere.

00:29:37 ◼   ► In fact, it reminds me of our joke about IDG back in the day,

00:29:41 ◼   ► the way IDG business units were budgeted.

00:29:45 ◼   ► I was told it's like the mob.

00:29:46 ◼   ► Like they don't really care what you do

00:29:49 ◼   ► as long as you give them their money

00:29:50 ◼   ► at the end of the year.

00:29:51 ◼   ► And it's a little like that.

00:29:53 ◼   ► It's like, we just want the money.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Like we just want the money.

00:29:55 ◼   ► That's our culture is you give us the money

00:29:57 ◼   ► for everything you do on our platforms,

00:29:59 ◼   ► you give us the money.

00:30:01 ◼   ► And although there are arguments that are strong here,

00:30:05 ◼   ► like look, Apple does spend money

00:30:07 ◼   ► on building App Store systems and building Xcode

00:30:11 ◼   ► and building external APIs for third-party developers.

00:30:14 ◼   ► Like there is actual money that Apple spends.

00:30:17 ◼   ► The funny thing is I don't know of any developer,

00:30:21 ◼   ► no developer I know, let's put it that way,

00:30:23 ◼   ► I have ever seen say that they don't believe

00:30:25 ◼   ► that Apple doesn't deserve a portion, right?

00:30:28 ◼   ► - Oh, I 100% believe that they deserve a portion.

00:30:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, so there's an extreme argument

00:30:33 ◼   ► that people can make which are like,

00:30:34 ◼   ► oh, I just wanna set up my own thing and box Apple out.

00:30:37 ◼   ► And that's sort of the Epic Games argument and all that.

00:30:39 ◼   ► It's like, I don't, but what is interesting here

00:30:42 ◼   ► is that you're putting everyone in a position where,

00:30:47 ◼   ► you know, Apple wants it the way they want it

00:30:49 ◼   ► and they wanna tell everybody what to do.

00:30:51 ◼   ► And the extreme side is we wanna bypass Apple.

00:30:56 ◼   ► And I don't, I mean, the challenge there is,

00:30:58 ◼   ► could you bypass Apple?

00:30:59 ◼   ► I, even if you were to pass laws or set up regulations where Apple couldn't take a higher

00:31:05 ◼   ► than a certain percentage from transactions, or you set up alternate app stores or whatever

00:31:09 ◼   ► else it would be, there's other layers to this, right? I saw a developer on Twitter,

00:31:13 ◼   ► and I can't remember who it was, whether it was Steve Trout and Smith or somebody else.

00:31:17 ◼   ► Somebody speculated that, you know, where this is going to end up going is an Xcode

00:31:21 ◼   ► enterprise access fee based on your total sales on Apple platforms, and you pay a percentage

00:31:27 ◼   ► of it to Apple and it needs to be audited and it becomes like basically, "Okay, we'll

00:31:31 ◼   ► back out of the whole thing, but you're still going to pay us our money." That is their

00:31:35 ◼   ► strategy here. The tragedy to me, and again, maybe some of this is because it's negotiation

00:31:39 ◼   ► ploy and this is how they've decided to do it and they've decided to be really hard about

00:31:43 ◼   ► it. The tragedy to me is I feel like there's a strategy, there's an approach that they

00:31:48 ◼   ► could take that would make most of this stuff go away and it would make the remaining arguments

00:31:55 ◼   ► so blunted that they would never gain any headway.

00:31:58 ◼   ► But Apple hasn't done that.

00:31:59 ◼   ► Apple hasn't said, "Okay, we're gonna change

00:32:03 ◼   ► and we're gonna make this."

00:32:03 ◼   ► Instead they're like, "We will do the minimum possible."

00:32:05 ◼   ► That is their strategy.

00:32:07 ◼   ► So this is where we are

00:32:09 ◼   ► and this is why it has eroded the relationship

00:32:13 ◼   ► between developers and Apple.

00:32:15 ◼   ► Oh, the other thing that I know I've mentioned before

00:32:17 ◼   ► but I failed to mention just then is,

00:32:19 ◼   ► it also, there's this implication that

00:32:23 ◼   ► Since Apple built the platform and built the,

00:32:26 ◼   ► built Xcode and built all the APIs and all of that,

00:32:29 ◼   ► that Apple deserves a portion of the revenue

00:32:33 ◼   ► of the apps that are generated

00:32:34 ◼   ► because Apple laid the foundations.

00:32:36 ◼   ► Apple benefits, developers benefit, Apple benefits.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Of course, the truth is that Apple benefits so much

00:32:44 ◼   ► from the sale of devices that run all those apps.

00:32:49 ◼   ► And that if the apps didn't exist,

00:32:52 ◼   ► Apple's products would not be as popular.

00:32:56 ◼   ► And you only need to go back to the Mac versus Windows to see that if you have one platform

00:33:00 ◼   ► that's got all the software and the other one doesn't, guess what happens?

00:33:03 ◼   ► The one platform kind of struggles.

00:33:06 ◼   ► And so it's disingenuous to say that Apple needs to share with – or developers need

00:33:11 ◼   ► to share with Apple because Apple laid the groundwork of the platform.

00:33:16 ◼   ► Because I would argue that at that point you should say, "What percentage of iPhone sales

00:33:20 ◼   ► are you going to give to developers?

00:33:21 ◼   ► And they're not going to do that, right?

00:33:24 ◼   ► 0% is the answer there.

00:33:25 ◼   ► That's the answer.

00:33:26 ◼   ► So it's 27% over here and 0% over there.

00:33:29 ◼   ► - We made this, how dare you, right?

00:33:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, no, we're 100.

00:33:32 ◼   ► And that's why, and again, forgive me,

00:33:35 ◼   ► but having worked with people who dealt with Steve Jobs

00:33:39 ◼   ► for business regarding the Mac world brand,

00:33:42 ◼   ► there is, and it comes straight from Steve,

00:33:47 ◼   ► there is still inside Apple this idea that everything positive is due to Apple. And so

00:33:54 ◼   ► the iPhone is 100% successful due to Apple's greatness. All of those sales are 100% due

00:34:00 ◼   ► to Apple. The App Store is probably 100% due to Apple's greatness, but we can't take 100%

00:34:07 ◼   ► from you. So we'll take 30% from you. And that's just their attitude. And I think that

00:34:13 ◼   ► That is still underpinning a lot of this strategy.

00:34:16 ◼   ► And I don't know what the answer is.

00:34:18 ◼   ► It does sort of feel like, unless this is a rope-a-dope kind of thing where Apple's

00:34:22 ◼   ► like, "Oh no, we're gonna be mean."

00:34:24 ◼   ► And then they're like, "Okay, oh right, we changed."

00:34:26 ◼   ► They're really just saying, "Regulate us, make us."

00:34:29 ◼   ► See, this is the thing.

00:34:31 ◼   ► No one outside of the Netherlands should be paying attention to this story, in theory,

00:34:38 ◼   ► right?

00:34:39 ◼   ► But you're making us all see it.

00:34:41 ◼   ► So if this is your plan, what you've pointed out, of like, "Oh, we're going to go hard

00:34:47 ◼   ► and then pull back," in doing that, it makes everyone feel bad.

00:34:53 ◼   ► Everyone feels bad.

00:34:54 ◼   ► And is that good?

00:34:55 ◼   ► I don't think that's a good tactic.

00:34:56 ◼   ► And I don't think that's a tactic.

00:34:58 ◼   ► I just think that they are asking for what they think they deserve.

00:35:02 ◼   ► If you have a person you have a relationship with, let's not say it's a friend, but

00:35:06 ◼   ► it's a colleague or it's a business that you do business with.

00:35:11 ◼   ► And they do good work, and it helps your business that you work with them.

00:35:15 ◼   ► And they provide you with some of your revenue for your business, and it's all fine.

00:35:22 ◼   ► But over time, what happens is everything that they do, they keep.

00:35:28 ◼   ► And they keep maximizing how much of what you do they want to charge you for.

00:35:33 ◼   ► Like it's this business, it becomes this thing where you feel like you're being taken advantage

00:35:37 ◼   ► of.

00:35:38 ◼   ► while you're still making money and building your business, you feel like the other group

00:35:44 ◼   ► is not your friend, and they're not really even your colleague. They're kind of lording

00:35:49 ◼   ► it over you and are giving you enough to survive, but they even view it almost as if they're

00:35:56 ◼   ► giving it to you and as if it's largess. Now, this is—you don't have to be a Sherlock

00:36:02 ◼   ► to realize what I'm describing as the Apple developer relationship, but if you abstract

00:36:07 ◼   ► it just a little bit, that's what's going on here. And it doesn't mean that the developers

00:36:13 ◼   ► are not going to keep developing software for Apple's platforms. But what has happened

00:36:17 ◼   ► is, if you think about that abstracted argument, you no longer give the benefit of the doubt

00:36:23 ◼   ► to your business partner. You begin to protect yourself from that business partner. You begin

00:36:28 ◼   ► to view that business partner as untrustworthy, as an adversary. And here's the kicker. When

00:36:36 ◼   ► When the bad times come and something that that that business partner adversary needs

00:36:42 ◼   ► something of you or needs to call in a favor, you won't because they never showed that to

00:36:49 ◼   ► you.

00:36:50 ◼   ► Apple is behaving like a company that will never have the bad times come and never needs

00:36:54 ◼   ► a favor and that every bad thing that happens on Apple's platforms can be papered over with

00:36:58 ◼   ► money.

00:36:59 ◼   ► That's their that's their approach.

00:37:01 ◼   ► And you know what?

00:37:02 ◼   ► So far since the launch of the App Store in 2008, that's been true.

00:37:09 ◼   ► It has been true.

00:37:10 ◼   ► And it will probably be true for a while that no matter what the relationship is with app

00:37:15 ◼   ► developers and Apple, that there's too much money to be made for it to make enough of

00:37:19 ◼   ► a difference for the people who are developing apps to abandon Apple and abandon that money.

00:37:25 ◼   ► but they are they are corroding the relationship and it's a dangerous game because you are

00:37:35 ◼   ► basically betting on the fact that even when your relationship is bad you're going to give

00:37:40 ◼   ► them enough money that it's not going to matter and that's great as long as you've got the

00:37:44 ◼   ► money to give them.

00:37:45 ◼   ► Tell you one place where I can see this as like a potential thing because I really love

00:37:49 ◼   ► what that energy you've just made right and what it seems like is on the horizon like

00:37:53 ◼   ► There's nothing, right?

00:37:55 ◼   ► When is Apple ever going to need to ask these people for anything?

00:37:58 ◼   ► One thing I can think of is like new platforms, stuff like the mixed reality headset.

00:38:03 ◼   ► Apple needs apps for it, but I can imagine a lot of people either A, don't want to get

00:38:08 ◼   ► into the business at all because it seems too stressful, or B, they're in it but they

00:38:12 ◼   ► don't want to do any more because it's just more aggravation.

00:38:16 ◼   ► And Apple needs these apps.

00:38:17 ◼   ► Well, they're asking people to take a leap, right?

00:38:19 ◼   ► Yep.

00:38:20 ◼   ► with us and invest a lot of money in this new platform that is not going to be successful

00:38:26 ◼   ► for a little while. And what Apple is saying is, "This is a straight-up investment. You

00:38:31 ◼   ► invest in our platform now, we'll make you money later. That's all you need to care about."

00:38:35 ◼   ► And that's one way to go, but I would argue that if somebody is more predisposed toward

00:38:40 ◼   ► Apple and be like, "Oh, I love Apple stuff and this is really fun and we're going to

00:38:44 ◼   ► take an adventure and we're going to break new ground and maybe we'll make money at the

00:38:47 ◼   ► end of it too. Great. You're going to get more and more enthusiastic investment in your

00:38:52 ◼   ► new platform than if it's just, also who's investing, right? They're the people out there,

00:38:58 ◼   ► and we know a lot of them who are developers, who although they make a living from being

00:39:01 ◼   ► a developer, they also take great pride in what they do. They are often very small companies

00:39:07 ◼   ► or individuals. They've got limited amounts of time to spend. And then Apple comes in

00:39:12 ◼   ► and says, "Well, we've got this thing. It's going to be a big investment. You're going

00:39:15 ◼   ► to buy hardware, you're going to have to do all this stuff, learn totally new ways, but

00:39:18 ◼   ► in the end it's going to be this." Well, what's going to happen is a lot of those people are

00:39:21 ◼   ► going to be like, "I can't. I can't. I've got to maintain the stuff that's making my

00:39:25 ◼   ► living now. This is expensive. There's no return on investment." The people who will

00:39:30 ◼   ► come in are everybody else who's willing to put in money with the hope of getting rich

00:39:34 ◼   ► down the road. So I would argue that the composition of the developers that you're bringing in

00:39:40 ◼   ► for your new thing. If you don't have good vibes with developers, the people you bring

00:39:47 ◼   ► in will be kind of bad and jerky and they're all in it to get rich quick. And I know it's

00:39:53 ◼   ► capitalism, like everybody wants to make money, but what I'm saying is sometimes what happens

00:39:58 ◼   ► on Apple's platforms is there's the stuff Apple's proud of and the stuff Apple's not

00:40:02 ◼   ► proud of. And I would argue that most of the stuff Apple's proud of is coming from kind

00:40:08 ◼   ► of good developers who care. And yes, they want to make money too, but they care. And

00:40:14 ◼   ► the stuff Apple's not proud of is the people who are super mercenary and the businesses

00:40:18 ◼   ► that are mercenary, and they just are in it for the money. Apple's big, we're gonna spend

00:40:23 ◼   ► a few million bucks on this AR thing, hopefully it'll pay off later. And again, you could

00:40:28 ◼   ► do that. Like, it's a perfectly reasonable solution to do that, but if you're Apple,

00:40:33 ◼   ► what you're risking is that you're scaring away all the people who do the work you're

00:40:37 ◼   ► actually proud of on your platform and you're going to be left with the kind of

00:40:40 ◼   ► crappy stuff that's in the App Store that you make money from but don't

00:40:45 ◼   ► really talk about or don't really promote heavily because it's kind of

00:40:49 ◼   ► soulless and bad. And so what I'm not arguing here is that the

00:40:54 ◼   ► sainted indie developers are where Apple makes its money.

00:40:56 ◼   ► It's not, but I think there is an intangible aspect to it which is that

00:41:01 ◼   ► that's the kind of stuff that when there's love and commerce going on you

00:41:05 ◼   ► You get a better product and it's a product that Apple's prouder of and they do App Store

00:41:08 ◼   ► features about and all of that.

00:41:10 ◼   ► And I think that that does matter to Apple.

00:41:13 ◼   ► And I think it's a very proud company that is proud of stuff that it enables on the App

00:41:18 ◼   ► Store.

00:41:19 ◼   ► And I'm just saying there's lots of fallout from making your core developer community

00:41:27 ◼   ► hardened and mercenary.

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00:43:08 ◼   ► Alright Jason it is time for the six colors report card for apples 2021 can you explain

00:43:15 ◼   ► to listeners maybe new listeners what the six colors report card is?

00:43:19 ◼   ► uh sure every year um for since 2015 when i started six colors i have tried to get a

00:43:28 ◼   ► a panel of people, a few dozen people, people who I know, or I read their stuff on Twitter,

00:43:35 ◼   ► people who seem to focus on Apple with a lot of their attention.

00:43:39 ◼   ► I ask them to fill out a survey about 12 different Apple-related categories, and I ask them to

00:43:50 ◼   ► score Apple one to five, five being best, one being worst, for each of the categories,

00:43:55 ◼   ► And then they also can fill out a little text field and tell me more about how they're feeling.

00:44:01 ◼   ► And I compile those results.

00:44:02 ◼   ► So for people who like numbers, there are numbers.

00:44:05 ◼   ► And for people who like words, there are lots of words because I, although I trim it down,

00:44:10 ◼   ► there are a lot of words from people whose names you know and some that you don't.

00:44:15 ◼   ► And so because I've been doing it since 2015, it also means that I can track the sentiment

00:44:21 ◼   ► over time and see how people's opinions have changed.

00:44:24 ◼   ► The panel changes every year,

00:44:25 ◼   ► but it's got a lot of continuity.

00:44:27 ◼   ► I try to add people and I also invite people

00:44:30 ◼   ► and then not all of them opt to take the survey.

00:44:33 ◼   ► So that varies from year to year.

00:44:36 ◼   ► I need to be better at inviting more people in the future.

00:44:40 ◼   ► I'm actually gonna try to build a better system

00:44:42 ◼   ► to keep track of my, it's a little scattershot,

00:44:44 ◼   ► but I'm gonna try to be better for next time.

00:44:46 ◼   ► But yeah, so it's a measure of sentiment about Apple

00:44:51 ◼   ► in a bunch of different categories.

00:44:52 ◼   ► And really, my goal is not to prove anything scientifically.

00:44:56 ◼   ► That's not the point here.

00:44:58 ◼   ► My goal is really to get a sense of the temperature,

00:45:03 ◼   ► get the sense of the vibe among people

00:45:06 ◼   ► who pay attention to Apple.

00:45:07 ◼   ► How do they think it's going?

00:45:09 ◼   ► And I think in aggregate, you end up

00:45:12 ◼   ► with some interesting insights into how people feel

00:45:15 ◼   ► Apple is doing from year to year, how the trends are.

00:45:18 ◼   ► It's a point to begin conversation, I think,

00:45:23 ◼   ► more than anything else, but I think it's a fun idea

00:45:26 ◼   ► and it's been fun to do, so I'm doing it.

00:45:29 ◼   ► - So we're gonna run through the grades.

00:45:33 ◼   ► We'll maybe pick out some of the points that were made

00:45:35 ◼   ► and we can look at why things have maybe gone up or down.

00:45:39 ◼   ► I am gonna give my grades

00:45:40 ◼   ► and I'm gonna ask you to give yours

00:45:42 ◼   ► because you do not vote in the report card,

00:45:44 ◼   ► so I would like to have that so we could--

00:45:46 ◼   ► - And in fact, I have not prepared any grades.

00:45:49 ◼   ► So we will figure it out together.

00:45:51 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, really this is kind of just how I fill out

00:45:53 ◼   ► the report card.

00:45:55 ◼   ► I just, as I'm going through, I just fill it out

00:45:57 ◼   ► like how I'm feeling when I get to the question.

00:45:59 ◼   ► So we're gonna do the same with you today.

00:46:00 ◼   ► - You don't do like a sentiment analysis

00:46:02 ◼   ► of all the words that you've said during the year

00:46:04 ◼   ► and try to gauge the, no, of course not.

00:46:06 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, of course this is incredibly important to me

00:46:09 ◼   ► so yes, I am doing that.

00:46:10 ◼   ► Of course, of course, of course.

00:46:11 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:46:12 ◼   ► - We'll start with the Mac, which is an A+

00:46:15 ◼   ► with a 4.6 score, which is down a little from 4.7.

00:46:20 ◼   ► This was something I was very surprised about,

00:46:22 ◼   ► but you tried to tell me why that was okay, right?

00:46:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, a lot of people were like,

00:46:27 ◼   ► "How did the max score go down?"

00:46:29 ◼   ► And the answer is, 'cause it went up by 1.1 on average,

00:46:33 ◼   ► a huge leap last year as Apple Silicon came in.

00:46:36 ◼   ► And that is hard.

00:46:37 ◼   ► When five is the most you can give anything,

00:46:40 ◼   ► and you've got a group of 53 people,

00:46:43 ◼   ► and the score is 4.7, it actually doesn't

00:46:47 ◼   ► have a lot of room to go up.

00:46:50 ◼   ► It's almost up at the top.

00:46:51 ◼   ► So it slid a little to 4.6.

00:46:53 ◼   ► Looking at the sentiment of the comments,

00:46:55 ◼   ► I think there are a couple of reasons for that.

00:46:57 ◼   ► One is that there are still some Apple Silicon Macs that

00:47:00 ◼   ► have not made their debut.

00:47:01 ◼   ► And also, I'd say a general kind of uneasiness

00:47:06 ◼   ► about the state of the software side of the Mac.

00:47:09 ◼   ► And this is not a Mac hardware question.

00:47:11 ◼   ► It is a Mac question.

00:47:12 ◼   ► and people can interpret that as they like.

00:47:15 ◼   ► And so I think that there are a few people

00:47:17 ◼   ► who ratcheted down the score a little bit.

00:47:19 ◼   ► - Stephen Hackett, I think may have been one of them.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Stephen says, "I can't shake the feeling

00:47:23 ◼   ► "that once again Apple software is letting its hardware down.

00:47:25 ◼   ► "Mac OS Monterey has been the smoothest running version

00:47:27 ◼   ► "of operating system in several years.

00:47:29 ◼   ► "Parts of Mac OS continue to feel outdated,

00:47:31 ◼   ► "if not outright forgotten by teams

00:47:34 ◼   ► "who have moved on to other projects."

00:47:36 ◼   ► So you can assess some of that part there.

00:47:40 ◼   ► I graded it a five and my quote was one of the quotes

00:47:45 ◼   ► that you did publish in the report card,

00:47:47 ◼   ► which I always enjoy when I see those,

00:47:48 ◼   ► is that in the 10 years that I've been covering Apple,

00:47:50 ◼   ► this is the most excited I've ever been for the Mac.

00:47:53 ◼   ► And it's true.

00:47:54 ◼   ► I think, I mean, to me, like just for,

00:47:56 ◼   ► obviously I'm biased, but I just can't believe

00:47:58 ◼   ► that anyone wouldn't rate this year a five.

00:48:00 ◼   ► Like to me, that's wild because the Macs

00:48:03 ◼   ► that we have seen this year are absolutely unbelievable.

00:48:06 ◼   ► And I mean, maybe people are kind of like,

00:48:08 ◼   ► I'll put it at four now because I'm waiting for more later, but I'm just kind of like just just live your life

00:48:13 ◼   ► Just you know, we'll give her all fives. We'll just do five five five

00:48:16 ◼   ► You don't have to like grade down because of what the future might bring just be happy

00:48:21 ◼   ► You know five five five all over the place. So what's your score?

00:48:24 ◼   ► Four. Ah, you're one of these people

00:48:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I I think Stevens exactly right which is I want to and I had several people I tend to take out the things where

00:48:34 ◼   ► People explain their rating system to me because that's the thing

00:48:37 ◼   ► I hate it the most about like Goodreads or something like that.

00:48:39 ◼   ► So I'm like, I would have given this three and a half,

00:48:41 ◼   ► but since you don't allow half ratings,

00:48:42 ◼   ► I guess I'll give it a three.

00:48:44 ◼   ► But there were several people who said,

00:48:46 ◼   ► if this was just the hardware, it would be a five.

00:48:48 ◼   ► And I agree, if this was hardware,

00:48:50 ◼   ► I would give it a five out of five.

00:48:51 ◼   ► But the fact is, macOS Monterey,

00:48:54 ◼   ► like it's great that Shortcuts is there now.

00:48:56 ◼   ► I'm so happy about that.

00:48:58 ◼   ► It was a mess when it shipped and it's still kind of weird,

00:49:01 ◼   ► but it's getting better.

00:49:03 ◼   ► And I agree with Steven exactly.

00:49:05 ◼   ► There are so many, and this is true,

00:49:07 ◼   ► across the board, but it's especially true on the Mac.

00:49:10 ◼   ► There is so much Apple software that feels abandoned.

00:49:13 ◼   ► And it's embarrassing.

00:49:17 ◼   ► Like there's stuff on Apple's platform

00:49:20 ◼   ► that is core to Apple's platform

00:49:22 ◼   ► that doesn't feel like it's changed much in a decade.

00:49:25 ◼   ► And things have changed in a decade, right?

00:49:27 ◼   ► And yet there are apps that are way behind

00:49:29 ◼   ► and apps that don't support shortcuts.

00:49:32 ◼   ► And we give them a lot of praise

00:49:35 ◼   ► when they do a makeover of one of their apps,

00:49:37 ◼   ► which is great, but I think it's interesting

00:49:39 ◼   ► that they can only really ever manage it

00:49:40 ◼   ► for one or two apps a year.

00:49:42 ◼   ► And, you know, a third party app can't afford

00:49:47 ◼   ► to go five years between major changes, right?

00:49:50 ◼   ► Like they can't do it, but Apple thinks that they can.

00:49:53 ◼   ► Maybe they can get away with it,

00:49:55 ◼   ► talking about our previous conversation,

00:49:57 ◼   ► but I think it's bad and I think it hurts the platform.

00:49:59 ◼   ► So I am withholding that point for the fact

00:50:03 ◼   ► that the software between macOS

00:50:05 ◼   ► and their apps on Mac OS.

00:50:08 ◼   ► And also like the indistinct sort of like weird situation

00:50:11 ◼   ► they're in where it's unclear about like,

00:50:13 ◼   ► what is catalyst and what is UI kit

00:50:15 ◼   ► and where is this all going?

00:50:17 ◼   ► Like, and the feeling among developers

00:50:19 ◼   ► that it's not moving along as fast as they really want it to.

00:50:22 ◼   ► Like there's just a lot there.

00:50:23 ◼   ► So I can't, again, I was trained back in the day

00:50:26 ◼   ► to not give five mice unless something was perfect.

00:50:29 ◼   ► And the Mac is close, it's real close.

00:50:32 ◼   ► It would be four and a half mice,

00:50:34 ◼   ► But I'm gonna withhold that last point

00:50:36 ◼   ► because the software side does,

00:50:39 ◼   ► this is the truth,

00:50:41 ◼   ► is Apple could not be doing a better job on Mac hardware.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Could not be.

00:50:45 ◼   ► It is amazing.

00:50:46 ◼   ► And maybe the fact that people have caveats about the Mac

00:50:52 ◼   ► should suggest to Apple

00:50:55 ◼   ► where they need to put their attention.

00:50:57 ◼   ► Like Apple is rapidly becoming a company

00:51:00 ◼   ► that is not the synthesis of hardware and software,

00:51:03 ◼   ► but great hardware let down by software.

00:51:06 ◼   ► And that's not a really great brand to be.

00:51:08 ◼   ► - So what you're saying is nothing is so perfect

00:51:10 ◼   ► that it can't be complained about.

00:51:12 ◼   ► - Nothing is so perfect that it gets five out of five,

00:51:15 ◼   ► is what I would say.

00:51:16 ◼   ► - Speaking of John Syracuse, it says every new Mac

00:51:18 ◼   ► Apple introduced in 2021 was a hit.

00:51:20 ◼   ► Alex Cox says, for the first time in years,

00:51:24 ◼   ► I found myself reaching for my MacBook Pro

00:51:26 ◼   ► instead of my iPad or my iPhone even to do small tasks.

00:51:30 ◼   ► And Federica Vittucci says, the greatest compliment

00:51:33 ◼   ► I can pay to Apple's renewed approach to the Mac is that for the first time in a decade,

00:51:38 ◼   ► they've got an iPad user like myself interested in the Mac again.

00:51:41 ◼   ► So let's do the iPhone.

00:51:44 ◼   ► Got an A-minus 4.0 down from 4.3.

00:51:49 ◼   ► I gave it a 4.

00:51:53 ◼   ► I think I probably gave it a 5 last year.

00:51:56 ◼   ► I would expect that I did.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And that was why I graded it a 4.

00:52:00 ◼   ► I really love ProMotion.

00:52:03 ◼   ► I'm fine with the design being unchanged, but the other part for me as I mentioned,

00:52:10 ◼   ► I think I mentioned on the show, I definitely mentioned Upgrade Plus, I have some issues

00:52:14 ◼   ► with the scratchability of the screen because my screen is all scratched up and Lex Friedman

00:52:20 ◼   ► says I think Apple's glass is getting a little less awesome over time.

00:52:24 ◼   ► My 13 Pro shows more scratches and nicks than the other recent iPhones did, though no worse

00:52:29 ◼   ► treatment through no worse treatment.

00:52:31 ◼   ► I think this is that ceramic shield. Ceramic shield seems to, as I've been told this by

00:52:36 ◼   ► somebody at Apple, protects against breakages, but actually opens it up to get scratched

00:52:40 ◼   ► more. I'm not sure what is the right tradeoff for that. So I went for four. What would you

00:52:45 ◼   ► rate the iPhone at this year?

00:52:47 ◼   ► And I just point out that the iPhone scores track, they go up when it's like sales, right?

00:52:52 ◼   ► They go up when there's a new model with new design.

00:52:54 ◼   ► I think that makes sense, right? Because they're the big ones. That's when the biggest features,

00:52:58 ◼   ► when it should be the most exciting.

00:53:00 ◼   ► You know, I would have rated it higher last year

00:53:02 ◼   ► 'cause I love the design.

00:53:03 ◼   ► And so like, I'm happy to keep it at a four

00:53:05 ◼   ► because I love the design.

00:53:06 ◼   ► I'm fine with it being unchanged.

00:53:09 ◼   ► But aside from ProMotion,

00:53:11 ◼   ► the iPhone 13 is kind of just like, you know.

00:53:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not gonna score Apple down

00:53:19 ◼   ► because it can't do a new design of the iPhone every year.

00:53:24 ◼   ► I guess I get that there's an enthusiasm gap there.

00:53:26 ◼   ► I'm gonna give it a four

00:53:28 ◼   ► because I think nothing is so perfect, but also,

00:53:32 ◼   ► there's issues, shortcuts again didn't work, right?

00:53:37 ◼   ► Like there's some OS issues.

00:53:39 ◼   ► I do think iPhone software is in a better place

00:53:40 ◼   ► than Mac software is.

00:53:42 ◼   ► I could see giving this a five.

00:53:44 ◼   ► I'm also a little concerned about the future

00:53:47 ◼   ► of the iPhone mini. - How can you ever give a five,

00:53:49 ◼   ► Jason, with this,

00:53:50 ◼   ► with this what you set out? - It could happen.

00:53:52 ◼   ► - If nothing can be perfect, how can you ever score a five?

00:53:56 ◼   ► it's just gotta be a magical moment.

00:53:58 ◼   ► You really have to feel it, Myke.

00:54:00 ◼   ► When one Dutch person loves another Dutch person very much.

00:54:05 ◼   ► - That's a five, five out of five.

00:54:07 ◼   ► - Five out of five.

00:54:08 ◼   ► - Chrisuna Warren says,

00:54:10 ◼   ► "Software quality does continue to get worse,

00:54:12 ◼   ► particularly with things like autocorrect

00:54:14 ◼   ► and the continued embarrassment that is Siri.

00:54:16 ◼   ► iOS 14 was one of the worst iOS rollouts in history

00:54:19 ◼   ► and iOS 15 is definitely better than that.

00:54:21 ◼   ► From a hardware perspective, as good as the iPhone 13 is,

00:54:25 ◼   ► It also feels like the weakest upgrade

00:54:26 ◼   ► from the previous version that I can maybe ever remember.

00:54:30 ◼   ► John Gruber says the iPhone 13

00:54:31 ◼   ► are very nice year over year upgrades.

00:54:33 ◼   ► The cameras are better than ever.

00:54:35 ◼   ► Performance improved by typical margins

00:54:37 ◼   ► while at the same time battery life improved too.

00:54:39 ◼   ► Battery life is one of those things that I think,

00:54:42 ◼   ► you know, I had to keep in mind as like,

00:54:45 ◼   ► okay, this is another reason to keep the score good

00:54:48 ◼   ► because that battery life improvement

00:54:50 ◼   ► was significant across all the devices.

00:54:53 ◼   ► and I was really happy about that at the time,

00:54:55 ◼   ► but it's easy to forget about over time

00:54:57 ◼   ► because you just get used to your phone being better.

00:54:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I'm not a big fan

00:55:00 ◼   ► if I look at the big picture here of the fact

00:55:02 ◼   ► that I had to choose between my small size phone

00:55:04 ◼   ► and the third camera and the promotion display.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And I did choose.

00:55:09 ◼   ► And I understand why those differentiators are there,

00:55:12 ◼   ► but I don't have to like it.

00:55:13 ◼   ► And I will like it even less next year

00:55:15 ◼   ► when I can't buy a phone.

00:55:16 ◼   ► - Next year they'll make you choose

00:55:17 ◼   ► 'cause it just won't exist.

00:55:19 ◼   ► - Wait for my score next year.

00:55:20 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:55:21 ◼   ► - It's gonna be a mini score.

00:55:23 ◼   ► for a mini phone.

00:55:25 ◼   ► iPad B grade, 3.7 out of five, both years in a row.

00:55:30 ◼   ► I was generous and gave it a four purely because

00:55:36 ◼   ► of how much I adore the iPad mini.

00:55:39 ◼   ► I would have probably, without the iPad mini,

00:55:41 ◼   ► I'd probably be at a two out of five this year,

00:55:45 ◼   ► but the iPad mini is so perfect for me.

00:55:48 ◼   ► I went with a four and there's actually,

00:55:50 ◼   ► I'll get to your score in a moment

00:55:52 ◼   ► 'cause there's a couple of people who agree with me,

00:55:54 ◼   ► Steven Aquino being one of them.

00:55:56 ◼   ► I'm very excited by the new iPad mini.

00:55:58 ◼   ► After years experiment of using an iPad

00:56:00 ◼   ► as a laptop replacement, the redesigned mini

00:56:02 ◼   ► feels like just what I'm looking for

00:56:04 ◼   ► out of a tablet these days.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Federico said that I'm glad they revived this product

00:56:10 ◼   ► in 2021, but I just hope we won't have to wait three years

00:56:13 ◼   ► for another update, which is the problem.

00:56:16 ◼   ► What is your score for the iPad 2021?

00:56:19 ◼   ► I'm similarly conflicted because I think the hardware updates were good, although I...

00:56:27 ◼   ► Which hardware update do you highlight?

00:56:28 ◼   ► Do you highlight the existence of the iPad mini, which really is a remarkable piece of

00:56:31 ◼   ► hardware?

00:56:32 ◼   ► It's so good.

00:56:35 ◼   ► Or do you highlight the M1 iPad Pro that sort of is just like the old one, even though it's

00:56:40 ◼   ► got an M1 in it now, it's really just...

00:56:42 ◼   ► - Well, if you don't mind me interrupting...

00:56:44 ◼   ► - The display is great.

00:56:46 ◼   ► depending on which hardware you highlight,

00:56:48 ◼   ► tells a very different story,

00:56:49 ◼   ► because the iPad Mini is this great hardware

00:56:52 ◼   ► that runs iPad OS.

00:56:53 ◼   ► How amazing is that?

00:56:54 ◼   ► Like this tiny hardware,

00:56:56 ◼   ► and it can run with the full power of iPad OS.

00:56:58 ◼   ► Or you say, "Look at the iPad Pro,

00:57:00 ◼   ► "it has an M1 chip in it,

00:57:01 ◼   ► "and it only runs what we have in iPad OS."

00:57:05 ◼   ► It's like two very different outcomes

00:57:08 ◼   ► for running through the same track.

00:57:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm gonna give it a three.

00:57:12 ◼   ► - I think that's perfectly fair.

00:57:14 ◼   ► I love the iPad mini, I think it is great.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I bought an M1 iPad Pro 12.9 and I love it

00:57:21 ◼   ► and the screen is great.

00:57:23 ◼   ► Apple loses a lot of my enthusiasm for the iPad

00:57:27 ◼   ► with the fact that iPadOS is coming along so slowly.

00:57:30 ◼   ► They haven't shipped Pro apps for it.

00:57:32 ◼   ► They haven't come up with an external display solution.

00:57:35 ◼   ► They, you know, it's just, what is the iPad gonna be?

00:57:39 ◼   ► You've had an iPad Pro now for a very long time

00:57:42 ◼   ► And yet is the iPad, one of my commenters said,

00:57:45 ◼   ► it seems to be settling in, was it David Sparks, I think,

00:57:48 ◼   ► who said, I've come to a new understanding with the iPad.

00:57:53 ◼   ► And essentially what he means there is it's an in-between

00:57:56 ◼   ► product between the Mac and the iPhone

00:57:58 ◼   ► and not like another product that can do everything

00:58:02 ◼   ► that the Mac can do.

00:58:02 ◼   ► And I think that I am disappointed by that

00:58:05 ◼   ► because I think the iPad should do more than it does

00:58:08 ◼   ► and be an alternative as Federico would say

00:58:10 ◼   ► better than anyone.

00:58:11 ◼   ► It's another kind of computing device

00:58:14 ◼   ► that has a lot of benefits,

00:58:15 ◼   ► including touch and including portability.

00:58:17 ◼   ► And the app story on them is quite good.

00:58:21 ◼   ► It has a lot going for it.

00:58:23 ◼   ► And it's frustrating if its creator sees all

00:58:27 ◼   ► that it has going for it and says,

00:58:28 ◼   ► "Yes, but it's still sort of lesser."

00:58:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm definitely on that David Sparks train.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Like it's like almost Zen way of thinking.

00:58:37 ◼   ► But David said, "I no longer judge it

00:58:39 ◼   ► by what I want it to be,

00:58:40 ◼   ► but instead what it actually is.

00:58:42 ◼   ► And that's kind of how I feel about the iPad in general now.

00:58:45 ◼   ► - This is what hit me in the feels was,

00:58:47 ◼   ► I realized Apple looks at the iPad

00:58:49 ◼   ► as something between the iPhone and the Mac and no more.

00:58:52 ◼   ► So now I'm only using the iPad for things

00:58:53 ◼   ► the iPad is good at

00:58:54 ◼   ► and no longer trying to move mountains with a shovel.

00:58:56 ◼   ► And on one level, it's like, yes,

00:58:58 ◼   ► that's probably the right thing to do.

00:59:01 ◼   ► On the other level, it's like, why is it that way?

00:59:04 ◼   ► Why has Apple decided either through its action or inaction

00:59:09 ◼   ► that that's what it needs to do with the iPad,

00:59:11 ◼   ► is sort of just sort of let it be in the middle.

00:59:14 ◼   ► - It shouldn't be that way,

00:59:15 ◼   ► but I have definitely decided to stop fighting it,

00:59:20 ◼   ► and I'm happier this way,

00:59:22 ◼   ► but I understand why people want, I mean, especially--

00:59:25 ◼   ► - That's the secret.

00:59:26 ◼   ► - People like Federico, right? - Give up.

00:59:28 ◼   ► - Just give up and they'll be happier that way.

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01:01:52 ◼   ► So we move now into wearables.

01:01:54 ◼   ► So this is, there's kind of two categories in one, right?

01:01:57 ◼   ► Wearables and Apple Watch.

01:01:59 ◼   ► I think initially they were together

01:02:01 ◼   ► and you split them out, is that correct?

01:02:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I launched the survey when the Apple Watch existed.

01:02:06 ◼   ► And then what Apple did is they broke out wearables

01:02:09 ◼   ► as its own category and included things like AirPods.

01:02:11 ◼   ► And I realized I probably wanted a wearables category

01:02:15 ◼   ► and not an Apple Watch category,

01:02:16 ◼   ► but I also didn't wanna give up the historical value

01:02:21 ◼   ► of the Apple Watch question.

01:02:23 ◼   ► So now I asked two questions.

01:02:26 ◼   ► How do you feel about wearables, including Apple Watch?

01:02:28 ◼   ► And how do you feel about Apple Watch?

01:02:30 ◼   ► And I chart them both.

01:02:31 ◼   ► And so, you know, you get a sense of this time.

01:02:35 ◼   ► I mean, the wearable score has always been higher

01:02:36 ◼   ► than the Apple Watch score.

01:02:37 ◼   ► And I think that's because Apple Watch has figured

01:02:39 ◼   ► into the wearable score,

01:02:40 ◼   ► but then they also throw them in like AirPods

01:02:42 ◼   ► and people like AirPods.

01:02:44 ◼   ► So.

01:02:45 ◼   ► - I mean, for me, I judge it as AirPods in wearables

01:02:49 ◼   ► and then Apple Watch on its own.

01:02:50 ◼   ► That's how I always think of this category.

01:02:52 ◼   ► - Well, you're not reading the instructions

01:02:54 ◼   ► which say wearables includes Apple Watch, but that's fine.

01:02:56 ◼   ► At some point I will probably--

01:02:56 ◼   ► - Jason, it doesn't make any sense to me.

01:02:58 ◼   ► Like for me personally,

01:02:59 ◼   ► why would I score the Apple Watch inside of a category

01:03:02 ◼   ► and then also scale it on its own?

01:03:03 ◼   ► Like to me that doesn't make any sense.

01:03:04 ◼   ► - At some point, because of people like you,

01:03:06 ◼   ► I will just drop asking the Apple Watch question

01:03:08 ◼   ► and only ask wearables.

01:03:08 ◼   ► - Maybe the problem is people like you

01:03:10 ◼   ► asking a weird question.

01:03:11 ◼   ► Anyway, A minus.

01:03:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's always the questioners who are at fault,

01:03:14 ◼   ► not the answerers.

01:03:15 ◼   ► - category 4.0 again, year over year, no change.

01:03:20 ◼   ► I went with a three for me, this is status quo, honestly.

01:03:23 ◼   ► It's just kind of like, yep, okay, fine.

01:03:25 ◼   ► Everything's the same.

01:03:26 ◼   ► What did you give, what would you give for wearables?

01:03:30 ◼   ► Obviously including the Apple Watch,

01:03:31 ◼   ► 'cause that's the way it makes sense.

01:03:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think your three for status quo

01:03:35 ◼   ► is probably about right.

01:03:36 ◼   ► I think Apple, I bought a new Apple Watch this year

01:03:38 ◼   ► and I like it.

01:03:39 ◼   ► I like the bigger screen and the brighter always on

01:03:42 ◼   ► and all of that.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Like I actually think that I'm enthusiastic

01:03:45 ◼   ► about the latest series seven.

01:03:49 ◼   ► Are we up to now?

01:03:50 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:03:50 ◼   ► - We're on seven now, yeah.

01:03:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I like it.

01:03:53 ◼   ► I think it's good.

01:03:56 ◼   ► And just because Apple's being incremental,

01:03:58 ◼   ► I think it was actually a pretty nice update.

01:04:00 ◼   ► And AirPods, you know, they did the new AirPods

01:04:03 ◼   ► that are depending on how they fit your ears,

01:04:06 ◼   ► you're either enthusiastic about or not enthusiastic about.

01:04:08 ◼   ► Yeah, not a lot of change in this category.

01:04:11 ◼   ► And so I could go back and forth on it.

01:04:15 ◼   ► 'Cause I think how's Apple doing in wearables?

01:04:17 ◼   ► I think it's doing really well.

01:04:18 ◼   ► How was the year and was there new stuff this year

01:04:21 ◼   ► and all that?

01:04:22 ◼   ► Well, there wasn't.

01:04:23 ◼   ► So what do I grade it on?

01:04:24 ◼   ► If I'm grading it on, was there new stuff?

01:04:26 ◼   ► Yeah, it's kind of a middle of the road.

01:04:29 ◼   ► If I'm grading on how well I think they're doing

01:04:31 ◼   ► with the wearables business,

01:04:32 ◼   ► I would probably give it a four.

01:04:34 ◼   ► - The Apple Watch is a B at 3.6 down from 3.8.

01:04:38 ◼   ► I went with a three.

01:04:39 ◼   ► I like the Apple Watch Series 7 a lot.

01:04:42 ◼   ► I actually liked the bigger screen.

01:04:44 ◼   ► I think it looks really nice.

01:04:45 ◼   ► I like the keyboard that they added.

01:04:47 ◼   ► I think that's really smart.

01:04:48 ◼   ► But I wanted more from the design,

01:04:50 ◼   ► you know, it says at the time,

01:04:52 ◼   ► I'm over the rounded edge design.

01:04:55 ◼   ► And I was really hoping this was the year

01:04:57 ◼   ► that they were gonna change that, but they didn't.

01:04:59 ◼   ► So for me, it's kind of balanced out as a three out of five.

01:05:03 ◼   ► - I'm gonna say four here,

01:05:04 ◼   ► just because I do like the Series 7 a lot.

01:05:07 ◼   ► I don't mind that it's the same recognizable shape.

01:05:11 ◼   ► The fact that I can use Apple Watch as a platform, right?

01:05:14 ◼   ► Like I've got a cellular model,

01:05:15 ◼   ► I can see it really clearly in the daylight.

01:05:17 ◼   ► I love the always on display.

01:05:19 ◼   ► And I go for runs with this.

01:05:20 ◼   ► Like I go for runs where I'm running an app

01:05:22 ◼   ► that's doing running intervals

01:05:24 ◼   ► and broadcast actually is streaming audio to my AirPods

01:05:29 ◼   ► as I run while intervals is telling me when to run

01:05:33 ◼   ► and when to walk and when to run.

01:05:34 ◼   ► And like, that's amazing.

01:05:36 ◼   ► And honestly, when we talk about software quality

01:05:39 ◼   ► and we're gonna talk more about it in a bit,

01:05:41 ◼   ► that's all been solid for me the last year.

01:05:44 ◼   ► I've actually not had frustrations like I used to have

01:05:47 ◼   ► where, I mean, other than the fact that when my watch

01:05:50 ◼   ► sees my wifi network, it seems to say,

01:05:52 ◼   ► "Oh, I'll stop playing your audio now when I get home,"

01:05:55 ◼   ► which I find very weird.

01:05:56 ◼   ► Like I'm playing the audio.

01:05:58 ◼   ► You can keep playing it even though we're home.

01:06:00 ◼   ► I'm not, I haven't taken my headphones out yet.

01:06:03 ◼   ► But in general, it's just, I'm kind of amazed

01:06:05 ◼   ► that I have the ability to do that.

01:06:06 ◼   ► And people send me messages.

01:06:08 ◼   ► And I was listening to Connected Live while running

01:06:11 ◼   ► and just out in the middle of Mill Valley.

01:06:12 ◼   ► and I sent a text message to Steven

01:06:14 ◼   ► to correct something you said.

01:06:17 ◼   ► - Still doesn't make any sense to me.

01:06:19 ◼   ► - Well, it's 'cause I wanted it during the show

01:06:21 ◼   ► and not after the show when your Do Not Disturb turns off.

01:06:24 ◼   ► It's pretty easy.

01:06:25 ◼   ► I wanna, you see, this is my method, Myke,

01:06:27 ◼   ► is I wanna affect the show.

01:06:29 ◼   ► I wanna be in the show.

01:06:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, a lot of people like to try and affect Connected.

01:06:34 ◼   ► This is a trend of the show.

01:06:36 ◼   ► - It's a triple J plot is basically what it is.

01:06:39 ◼   ► Anyway, so I'll give it a four because I did buy a new one

01:06:41 ◼   ► and I really like it and I'm very impressed.

01:06:43 ◼   ► And I actually think the state of the Apple Watch platform

01:06:45 ◼   ► is okay, I'm getting what I want out of the apps.

01:06:47 ◼   ► I wish there were custom watch faces and stuff.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Look, it's not a five, nothing is perfect,

01:06:51 ◼   ► but I'll give it a four.

01:06:52 ◼   ► - John Maltz really likes the third generation AirPods

01:06:54 ◼   ► and a strong improvement over the previous model.

01:06:57 ◼   ► Alison Sheridan says the Apple Watch Series 7 was panned

01:07:00 ◼   ► as not having breakthrough features,

01:07:01 ◼   ► but the increase in screen size

01:07:03 ◼   ► was a huge increase in usability.

01:07:05 ◼   ► - Agreed.

01:07:06 ◼   ► - And I like what Christina Warren said

01:07:08 ◼   ► about the Apple Watches,

01:07:08 ◼   ► the Apple Watch update this year was boring,

01:07:10 ◼   ► but the Apple watch is still wearable to beat.

01:07:13 ◼   ► And that's just a fact.

01:07:14 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:07:15 ◼   ► - Apple TV.

01:07:17 ◼   ► - Oh baby.

01:07:18 ◼   ► - C grade, 3.1 up from 2.1.

01:07:22 ◼   ► You're over here, the biggest jump

01:07:24 ◼   ► in the scorecard this year.

01:07:26 ◼   ► - I've seen some people say,

01:07:27 ◼   ► "Oh my God, why did people like the Apple TV so much?"

01:07:30 ◼   ► And I'll just point out the Apple TV

01:07:32 ◼   ► was a very, very low grade

01:07:34 ◼   ► and it's come up to a C grade.

01:07:36 ◼   ► So not, it went up a whole point, huge,

01:07:39 ◼   ► the biggest mover in the whole survey,

01:07:41 ◼   ► but it's not like it went from good to great.

01:07:45 ◼   ► It went from bad to okay.

01:07:48 ◼   ► And I gotta say,

01:07:50 ◼   ► what is the value of a new remote control?

01:07:52 ◼   ► Friends, the value is one point

01:07:56 ◼   ► in the Apple report cards.

01:07:58 ◼   ► - It's so good that remote,

01:07:59 ◼   ► like I've internalized it now,

01:08:00 ◼   ► which is the remote and it's excellent.

01:08:02 ◼   ► I love it.

01:08:03 ◼   ► I gave it a three, four because of the remote.

01:08:06 ◼   ► Otherwise it would have been maybe a one

01:08:09 ◼   ► because just like they're not really doing anything.

01:08:11 ◼   ► Like Federico said this, it's so true.

01:08:13 ◼   ► If you were to ask me to recall what's new in TVOS 15

01:08:16 ◼   ► at the top of my head,

01:08:17 ◼   ► I don't think I'd be able to answer that.

01:08:19 ◼   ► He's not doing anything anymore, really.

01:08:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, again, we come back to whether it's about the year

01:08:27 ◼   ► or how they're doing and how you, everybody's gonna,

01:08:30 ◼   ► like I could have voted this a two, a three or a four,

01:08:34 ◼   ► quite honestly, because this was the year

01:08:37 ◼   ► I went all in on Apple TV. That remote prompted me to cut the cord, get a new receiver for my

01:08:46 ◼   ► speakers, and everything we watch in the house is now on the Apple TV. Everything. We are all

01:08:54 ◼   ► Apple TV with one remote. It's the new Apple TV remote. So on that level, I actually am pretty

01:09:01 ◼   ► happy with Apple TV. I think it does what I—for what I do, I think it does a good job.

01:09:06 ◼   ► However, we just posted—and it's a member post, but I actually unlocked it for everybody—Joe

01:09:12 ◼   ► Steele wrote a piece for Six Colors last week about universal search on Apple TV, which is

01:09:16 ◼   ► amazing and true, which is there are pieces of it where it's just like, it's bad. And the question

01:09:22 ◼   ► is, like, does Apple care that it's bad? It feels like Apple TV doesn't have the resources to fix a

01:09:28 ◼   ► fix a lot of its software problems. If you stay in some very tight constraints, which

01:09:32 ◼   ► I try to do because I've been taught basically not to go outside them, I think it does a

01:09:38 ◼   ► pretty good job. But the reason I'm going to give it three and be generous in giving

01:09:44 ◼   ► it three is there are lots of software issues and app interactions. I love these apps that

01:09:50 ◼   ► have built their own multi-view. It's really great. Watch two things at once, four things

01:09:54 ◼   ► it once great for sports, especially ESPN has it, Fubo has it. TVOS 15, I believe, introduced

01:10:01 ◼   ► a new picture-in-picture system, or maybe it was 14, but apps don't support it, and

01:10:08 ◼   ► the multiview apps don't support it, and it just, it frustrates me that if I've got the

01:10:12 ◼   ► Olympics on Peacock and a soccer match on Paramount Plus, I really want to do a, like,

01:10:21 ◼   ► by two of the video from them, and I don't think either of those apps support picture

01:10:27 ◼   ► in picture. So like I've got some frustration with new features in the OS being supported.

01:10:33 ◼   ► Obviously the player, they introduced a new player UI that everybody's building like their

01:10:38 ◼   ► own player UIs. Some of them are good, some of them are terrible. There's a lot of work

01:10:42 ◼   ► to be done here, and yes, in terms of the competition, like my understanding, I haven't

01:10:48 ◼   ► seen it in a while, but the Google TV stuff is actually getting pretty good. I have a

01:10:52 ◼   ► Roku and a Fire TV stick, and I gotta say, I think the Roku stuff is okay. I think the

01:11:01 ◼   ► Amazon stuff is real bad. Like, you can do everything, but the interface to it is like

01:11:08 ◼   ► you're on Amazon.com. I hate it so much. I think Apple, interface-wise, is really pleasant,

01:11:16 ◼   ► I think that their solution to a lot of the app development issues and things like that,

01:11:21 ◼   ► I think it's pretty good. But it's too expensive and so even though I like it and I'm actually

01:11:27 ◼   ► very happy with my Apple TV, I think that Apple is not paying enough attention and it's

01:11:31 ◼   ► not being aggressive enough in getting people into the box, especially now that you can

01:11:35 ◼   ► watch Apple stuff on other platforms.

01:11:37 ◼   ► David Pembroke - Yep. Guillermo Rambo says the new Apple TV 4K, especially the new remote

01:11:41 ◼   ► is a huge improvement over the previous model. However, I'd like a more powerful chip in

01:11:46 ◼   ► Apple TV since the software seems to struggle quite a bit. Which is just this

01:11:50 ◼   ► is an interesting take for me because I mean I'm just not you I'm clearly just

01:11:54 ◼   ► not using the software that Kim is using. Like I'm assuming this is like more

01:11:59 ◼   ► powerful stuff maybe games or something like that but I could imagine it's

01:12:03 ◼   ► starting to get a little bit long in the tooth if that's the stuff you're doing.

01:12:06 ◼   ► Yeah yeah it's it's a it's a funny one like again as my monologue just said I

01:12:14 ◼   ► I actually think that there are aspects of Apple TV

01:12:16 ◼   ► that are really good.

01:12:17 ◼   ► My problem with it is mostly, I think, momentum.

01:12:20 ◼   ► Like I think they built a pretty good product

01:12:25 ◼   ► and that Apple, and by fixing the remote,

01:12:27 ◼   ► Apple has gotten to a pretty good place,

01:12:30 ◼   ► especially with software support from developers.

01:12:32 ◼   ► But it really feels like not enough attention

01:12:37 ◼   ► is being given to it and that it could be a lot better.

01:12:42 ◼   ► And some of that I think is a victim of Apple's inattention

01:12:45 ◼   ► and some of it I think is a victim of Apple

01:12:47 ◼   ► having some grand designs.

01:12:51 ◼   ► I think Netflix not being part of the data sharing system

01:12:55 ◼   ► really kneecaps Apple.

01:12:57 ◼   ► And Netflix is sharing data on some other platforms,

01:13:01 ◼   ► but not on Apple TV.

01:13:03 ◼   ► - This is Apple and its partnerships, right?

01:13:06 ◼   ► They should be going to Netflix and saying,

01:13:07 ◼   ► "Netflix, what will it take?"

01:13:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, what do we need to do?

01:13:11 ◼   ► because I'll tell you the TV app,

01:13:12 ◼   ► we joke about the TV app and it was bad for a long time.

01:13:14 ◼   ► - I love the TV app.

01:13:15 ◼   ► - I use the TV app all the time.

01:13:16 ◼   ► I use the up next in the TV app to see my next episodes.

01:13:19 ◼   ► - All the time I do this.

01:13:20 ◼   ► - It shows me when live sports is on.

01:13:21 ◼   ► Like there's a lot of good stuff in that TV app,

01:13:24 ◼   ► except you know what?

01:13:25 ◼   ► No Netflix.

01:13:26 ◼   ► - It's not even just Netflix.

01:13:28 ◼   ► There's like a bunch of stuff that isn't there.

01:13:29 ◼   ► But for us, most of the services that we watch

01:13:32 ◼   ► do integrate with it, Netflix doesn't.

01:13:35 ◼   ► And it's like, what is it going to take?

01:13:36 ◼   ► Like do what it's going to take, like just do it, right?

01:13:40 ◼   ► Like I'm already using Netflix.

01:13:42 ◼   ► Like don't protect me, you don't need to protect me.

01:13:45 ◼   ► - Your big business machinations

01:13:47 ◼   ► are directly impacting this product.

01:13:51 ◼   ► And as a user of the product, I don't care.

01:13:55 ◼   ► You are adults, you two giant corporations, figure it out.

01:14:02 ◼   ► Find a way to compromise so that the users of this platform

01:14:06 ◼   ► actually can have the Netflix content in that app

01:14:08 ◼   ► because it's gonna make Apple's platform better.

01:14:11 ◼   ► And I know like Netflix doesn't wanna share information

01:14:13 ◼   ► with Apple and all that.

01:14:13 ◼   ► It's like, work it out, work it out.

01:14:16 ◼   ► Find a way to work where Apple doesn't get everything

01:14:18 ◼   ► at once, Netflix doesn't get everything at once,

01:14:20 ◼   ► but the Netflix experience is better on Apple TV.

01:14:23 ◼   ► And they should both be motivated because I'll tell you,

01:14:26 ◼   ► as somebody who uses Apple TV as my primary,

01:14:29 ◼   ► I have stopped using Netflix.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Well, not stopped entirely,

01:14:33 ◼   ► but like my Netflix use is dramatically decreased

01:14:37 ◼   ► because when I'm shopping for shows in the TV app,

01:14:39 ◼   ► guess what's not there?

01:14:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree with you actually.

01:14:41 ◼   ► - And so I don't think about it.

01:14:42 ◼   ► - I have to think to go and open Netflix.

01:14:45 ◼   ► - Let's open Netflix and see what is there.

01:14:47 ◼   ► And if Netflix's grand strategy is,

01:14:48 ◼   ► well, we just wanna be number one.

01:14:50 ◼   ► It's like, well, guess what guys?

01:14:51 ◼   ► You're not number one.

01:14:52 ◼   ► You're part of a larger world.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And on Apple TV,

01:14:54 ◼   ► the rest of the world is in the TV app and you're not.

01:14:57 ◼   ► And from Apple's perspective,

01:14:58 ◼   ► your product is worse 'cause Netflix is bad on it.

01:15:01 ◼   ► Like, working out people.

01:15:03 ◼   ► So I hope they do.

01:15:05 ◼   ► Services, B grade, 3.6 down from four.

01:15:10 ◼   ► I don't really understand why for this one,

01:15:12 ◼   ► maybe you can help me.

01:15:13 ◼   ► Like I don't really know why services could go down.

01:15:16 ◼   ► So I gave it a four because I was really surprised this year

01:15:21 ◼   ► that when we did the upgrade-ies,

01:15:22 ◼   ► most of my favorite TV shows were on Apple TV Plus

01:15:25 ◼   ► and I would not have expected that from them this soon.

01:15:29 ◼   ► So yeah.

01:15:30 ◼   ► - Services is what you make of it, is what I would say.

01:15:33 ◼   ► So if you view it as, hey, how's Apple doing with services?

01:15:38 ◼   ► And you use some of Apple services

01:15:40 ◼   ► and you're like, I like them, they're good.

01:15:42 ◼   ► And I think that's like, I use Apple Music,

01:15:44 ◼   ► I use Apple TV Plus, but if you want,

01:15:48 ◼   ► I even use iCloud more than I used to.

01:15:50 ◼   ► But if you wanna be a negative Nelly,

01:15:54 ◼   ► you could do that too, right?

01:15:55 ◼   ► 'Cause you're like, News Plus is kind of a nothing.

01:15:57 ◼   ► iCloud storage tiers, they're too small for the price

01:16:02 ◼   ► and the free tier is still embarrassing.

01:16:04 ◼   ► But then I go, for me, I'm on the positive side of this.

01:16:09 ◼   ► 'Cause not only do I think Apple services

01:16:11 ◼   ► are more good than bad,

01:16:13 ◼   ► that it used to be that Apple doing services was a joke

01:16:17 ◼   ► and now it's very, very serious

01:16:19 ◼   ► and they do a good job with most of them, not all of them.

01:16:21 ◼   ► Like Fitness Plus is good.

01:16:23 ◼   ► Apple Arcade really figured it out this year.

01:16:26 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:16:27 ◼   ► - With the classics and the App Store greats

01:16:30 ◼   ► and bringing that stuff back

01:16:31 ◼   ► while also still commissioning some other stuff.

01:16:33 ◼   ► Like is Apple Arcade the greatest service ever?

01:16:35 ◼   ► No, but I use, I'm playing Apple Arcade games

01:16:38 ◼   ► all the time now. - I think they found

01:16:39 ◼   ► a better mix now of like these big, broad commission stuff

01:16:43 ◼   ► plus a bunch of just like good iPhone games.

01:16:47 ◼   ► - Apple TV Plus is better than I expected it would be.

01:16:51 ◼   ► Honestly, it's a lot better.

01:16:53 ◼   ► So I think there's a lot going for it.

01:16:55 ◼   ► I also understand people who might vote this lower

01:16:57 ◼   ► because there's some uneasiness about Apple

01:16:59 ◼   ► focusing on services.

01:17:02 ◼   ► And I get all of that, but I would say, I think that they,

01:17:06 ◼   ► I mean, I also use the Apple card and I use Apple Pay

01:17:08 ◼   ► and I use Apple Pay Cash and like I'm in the US.

01:17:10 ◼   ► So I'm at the core for all of that.

01:17:13 ◼   ► But like, I feel like they're doing a pretty good job,

01:17:16 ◼   ► not perfect, but better than I expected.

01:17:19 ◼   ► And we remember when iCloud

01:17:21 ◼   ► and Apple Cloud strategy was a joke

01:17:24 ◼   ► and they're actually pretty good.

01:17:25 ◼   ► Oh, Apple lost listen Apple music,

01:17:28 ◼   ► multi-channel audio in Apple music this year.

01:17:32 ◼   ► Like there is so much stuff, custom domains

01:17:35 ◼   ► for iCloud email, which I'm not gonna use,

01:17:37 ◼   ► but you know, they're doing stuff.

01:17:39 ◼   ► Like in fact, I think you could argue

01:17:42 ◼   ► that Apple is paying way more attention to services

01:17:44 ◼   ► than they are to software right now,

01:17:45 ◼   ► which is not great for software,

01:17:47 ◼   ► but I think they've done a pretty good job.

01:17:49 ◼   ► So yeah, even though it's not perfect,

01:17:51 ◼   ► I think it's pretty good.

01:17:52 ◼   ► - Well, I think what you just said

01:17:54 ◼   ► about they're paying more attention to services

01:17:56 ◼   ► than software might be one of the reasons

01:17:58 ◼   ► that some people grade it down a little bit.

01:17:59 ◼   ► - Sure, absolutely.

01:18:00 ◼   ► And again, people can do it again,

01:18:03 ◼   ► that they're right to do that if they want to.

01:18:05 ◼   ► It really is how do you feel?

01:18:07 ◼   ► It is a measure of sentiment.

01:18:08 ◼   ► So if you don't like services

01:18:09 ◼   ► because you feel like Apple is sort of

01:18:11 ◼   ► misguidedly focusing on them, grade them down.

01:18:14 ◼   ► It gets in there, it gets in the scores.

01:18:16 ◼   ► - Casey Liss says, "For the most part,

01:18:17 ◼   ► "I'm pleased with Apple's services.

01:18:19 ◼   ► "I don't love that they're becoming

01:18:20 ◼   ► "an ever larger priority for Apple.

01:18:23 ◼   ► and I feel like I'm continually being nickeled and dimed about everything.

01:18:26 ◼   ► That's true, right? Like, they won't stop telling me about all the things that they want me to get

01:18:32 ◼   ► the money for. And then on a different side, James Thompson says iCloud has been very unreliable from

01:18:38 ◼   ► a developer perspective since the autumn OS updates. This is something I wasn't really aware

01:18:42 ◼   ► of, and James was telling me about it the other day, that there's been serious sinking problems

01:18:46 ◼   ► of iCloud. Yeah, I actually, so I first heard about this through Becky Hansmeyer, I want to say,

01:18:55 ◼   ► who's a developer and a great Twitter follower, by the way, because it's Cute Animals and Yarn and

01:19:03 ◼   ► an App Development Commentary. It's a great, it's like, it's awesome. Becky's an accountant.

01:19:09 ◼   ► But she was complaining about how, like, she's got apps that rely on iCloud. It's like,

01:19:15 ◼   ► it doesn't work. It doesn't work." And then that started a bunch of Twitter developer type people

01:19:23 ◼   ► started tweeting about it. And it sounds like maybe they actually bumped the jukebox and got

01:19:30 ◼   ► Apple to be like, "Huh? What? Huh? Oh." So that may be since this survey was taken, I think maybe

01:19:35 ◼   ► Apple is aware of the issue and has made a statement about it. Anyway, maybe this is in

01:19:41 ◼   ► in process. But yeah, it was apparently iCloud was unreliable and any app that was sinking

01:19:46 ◼   ► its data store with iCloud was getting errors and it was very frustrating for developers.

01:19:51 ◼   ► And I think that's, it's funny because it used to be, you just be, of course, but I,

01:19:55 ◼   ► I think this actually illustrates that, that iCloud is much more of a solid product than

01:19:58 ◼   ► it used to be. And it's actually, people are relying on it now. So when something goes

01:20:02 ◼   ► wrong, they get really upset. It used to be when something went wrong with iCloud, you're

01:20:06 ◼   ► like, look, it's iCloud. What do you expect? But I think they expect more now. And, and

01:20:10 ◼   ► That's good, but not great if it fails.

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01:22:18 ◼   ► So we move into the doldrums of the homekit category.

01:22:22 ◼   ► Oh boo boo boo.

01:22:25 ◼   ► D+ 2.7.

01:22:26 ◼   ► Lowest score, yes.

01:22:28 ◼   ► Down from 3.1.

01:22:29 ◼   ► I gave it a 1.

01:22:31 ◼   ► this is my lowest score.

01:22:32 ◼   ► I don't understand what they're doing over there.

01:22:35 ◼   ► I mean, honestly, it feels like they're doing nothing

01:22:38 ◼   ► is what they're doing.

01:22:39 ◼   ► And I genuinely hope that the reason

01:22:42 ◼   ► is that they're working on something.

01:22:44 ◼   ► Like that can be my only real hope with this.

01:22:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm gonna give it a two, but I agree with you.

01:22:51 ◼   ► I use HomeKit stuff and it works,

01:22:54 ◼   ► but I also use HomeBridge to bridge it.

01:22:56 ◼   ► I've had some HomeKit, weird HomeKit errors

01:22:59 ◼   ► that I can't decide whether it's my network or HomeKit,

01:23:03 ◼   ► but that's part of the problem

01:23:04 ◼   ► is that it doesn't really tell you.

01:23:06 ◼   ► I do rely on HomeKit for some stuff

01:23:09 ◼   ► and it does work for that stuff.

01:23:12 ◼   ► I also like the fact that Apple is moving

01:23:14 ◼   ► toward this system where they're gonna have thread radios

01:23:16 ◼   ► and everything and then the matter spec is coming out,

01:23:19 ◼   ► but it's not out yet and it wasn't out in 2021.

01:23:22 ◼   ► So I think they're poised to maybe do more here

01:23:27 ◼   ► and that's good 'cause there's not a lot here.

01:23:29 ◼   ► Like they built that set, but to what end?

01:23:32 ◼   ► And then several people pointed out,

01:23:35 ◼   ► I think it's Federico said they have this HomePod mini,

01:23:38 ◼   ► but it's not a mini of anything

01:23:41 ◼   ► 'cause the old HomePod is gone

01:23:42 ◼   ► and the old HomePods are dying

01:23:44 ◼   ► and there's nothing to replace them.

01:23:45 ◼   ► So people who invested in the HomePod architecture

01:23:49 ◼   ► and system are like, well, what do I do now?

01:23:52 ◼   ► Again, for a couple of years,

01:23:56 ◼   ► it's felt like Apple was about to turn the corner

01:23:58 ◼   ► on the home stuff.

01:23:59 ◼   ► and it hasn't happened yet.

01:24:00 ◼   ► Also a lot of hate for the home app in there,

01:24:01 ◼   ► and I feel that the home app is also not that great.

01:24:04 ◼   ► So, you know, I think this is really an interesting area

01:24:08 ◼   ► where Apple needs to decide, are they really in this

01:24:10 ◼   ► or are they just gonna abandon it

01:24:13 ◼   ► and let third parties integrate with matter

01:24:17 ◼   ► and deal with that.

01:24:19 ◼   ► But it's ugly, it's an ugly category.

01:24:22 ◼   ► And I should also say,

01:24:25 ◼   ► there was optimism in this category for a long time.

01:24:27 ◼   ► It went up most years between 2015 and 2020

01:24:30 ◼   ► to a high of 3.1.

01:24:32 ◼   ► Everybody's kind of come off their optimism in 2021

01:24:36 ◼   ► and it's back down.

01:24:37 ◼   ► - Alison Sheridan says,

01:24:39 ◼   ► "The Home app really and truly needs to be redesigned

01:24:41 ◼   ► from the ground up."

01:24:42 ◼   ► - Speaking of Apple apps that aren't very good

01:24:44 ◼   ► and that need attention.

01:24:45 ◼   ► - Alex Cox says,

01:24:47 ◼   ► "HomeKit could position itself as the home OS

01:24:50 ◼   ► for people who care about their privacy,

01:24:52 ◼   ► but Apple needs a smart hub that's more robust

01:24:54 ◼   ► and reliable than the HomePod mini."

01:24:57 ◼   ► They need one with a screen.

01:24:58 ◼   ► That's what they need.

01:24:59 ◼   ► - Well, they need,

01:25:01 ◼   ► I think Apple needs to make some products in this category

01:25:03 ◼   ► and they also need to make their home interface better.

01:25:05 ◼   ► And who knows,

01:25:06 ◼   ► maybe there's a screen bearing HomePod out there

01:25:09 ◼   ► and that part of that product is a redesign of the home app

01:25:12 ◼   ► and it's all gonna come together.

01:25:13 ◼   ► The problem is I think looking at the survey

01:25:15 ◼   ► like the panelists, I'm kind of over waiting for it.

01:25:20 ◼   ► I hope they do it,

01:25:21 ◼   ► but we've been waiting for some movement in that category

01:25:24 ◼   ► for a long time.

01:25:26 ◼   ► Hardware reliability got an A, 4.5 out of five again.

01:25:31 ◼   ► I gave it a four 'cause I have my particular bug there

01:25:35 ◼   ► about scratches on my iPhone screen.

01:25:38 ◼   ► But overall, I feel like all of the hardware that I'm using,

01:25:43 ◼   ► I have no big problems with it.

01:25:47 ◼   ► What would you grade this category as?

01:25:49 ◼   ► - This is tough 'cause some people are doing

01:25:50 ◼   ► like their personal experience with it.

01:25:52 ◼   ► Some of it it's like their observations of all of that.

01:25:55 ◼   ► I do think that this year it really can only be

01:25:58 ◼   ► to knock it down to be personal experiences

01:26:01 ◼   ► 'cause there hasn't been like a thing this year, you know?

01:26:05 ◼   ► Like no gates.

01:26:07 ◼   ► - No gates, David Sparks pointed that out.

01:26:09 ◼   ► No gates in 2021.

01:26:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll give it a four 'cause nothing is so perfect.

01:26:14 ◼   ► I actually, I can't decide whether this gives it,

01:26:17 ◼   ► well, I thought about a five.

01:26:20 ◼   ► So the question, a lot of people mentioned

01:26:21 ◼   ► AirPod Pro replacement program that's scratchy.

01:26:25 ◼   ► - That's not a 2021 thing.

01:26:27 ◼   ► That's like a 2020 thing.

01:26:28 ◼   ► - No, but it's ongoing.

01:26:28 ◼   ► Mine were replaced in 2021.

01:26:31 ◼   ► But I think what I would say is when you've got a problem

01:26:33 ◼   ► with a product and you go into the Apple store

01:26:35 ◼   ► and they just give you the new product, it's pretty good.

01:26:38 ◼   ► Like, I know it's not just,

01:26:40 ◼   ► you're rolling in some customer service in there.

01:26:42 ◼   ► In fact, one of the quotes that I thought

01:26:43 ◼   ► was most interesting is Gabe Weatherhead said,

01:26:47 ◼   ► "AppleCare is part of the hardware reliability.

01:26:49 ◼   ► The hardware rarely fails, but when it does,

01:26:51 ◼   ► I can be pretty confident that it's not the end of life

01:26:54 ◼   ► because I have AppleCare and the new keyboards are nice.

01:26:56 ◼   ► Everybody's still basking in the glow

01:26:58 ◼   ► of killing all the butterfly keyboards and that's all fine.

01:27:00 ◼   ► But I do think there's something to be said.

01:27:02 ◼   ► AppleCare is not always great, but it helps.

01:27:06 ◼   ► And I repaired two old butterfly keyboard era laptops

01:27:10 ◼   ► this year too through Apple

01:27:12 ◼   ► and was fairly happy with that process.

01:27:15 ◼   ► - I think that the AirPods replacement program

01:27:19 ◼   ► really is like, we should raise the score, not lower it.

01:27:23 ◼   ► Because when you do that,

01:27:25 ◼   ► you get a little bit of actual life out of your AirPod too,

01:27:27 ◼   ► because bit more battery, you know?

01:27:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think you could judge it either way.

01:27:32 ◼   ► You could say it is a failure,

01:27:34 ◼   ► or you could say it's a success

01:27:36 ◼   ► because they fixed their failure and you get new ones.

01:27:39 ◼   ► And that's-

01:27:40 ◼   ► - I had someone tell me once recently,

01:27:42 ◼   ► I don't remember what it was in relation to,

01:27:46 ◼   ► that apparently there was a revision to the AirPods

01:27:49 ◼   ► Pro to stop this from happening at some point like the issue.

01:27:53 ◼   ► Yeah somebody we were talking about we were speculating about that and somebody said that

01:27:57 ◼   ► they seem to have made some sort of a change midstream to try and prevent this from continuing.

01:28:05 ◼   ► Yeah because I think it was when we were talking about AirPods Pro 2 and I think that was one

01:28:10 ◼   ► of the things I mentioned that maybe they would do something to stop the inevitable

01:28:15 ◼   ► It is an actual inevitable failure, basically,

01:28:18 ◼   ► of every Apple Pro that it will, at a certain point,

01:28:21 ◼   ► that one of the ears, usually the right one,

01:28:23 ◼   ► but not always, will start to rattle,

01:28:25 ◼   ► make like a rattling noise.

01:28:27 ◼   ► Software quality, B minus 3.4 down from 3.5.

01:28:33 ◼   ► I gave this a four because I think that really,

01:28:37 ◼   ► and Christina Warren put it so greatly earlier,

01:28:40 ◼   ► compared to last year, this has been fine.

01:28:44 ◼   ► What's funny is that the software quality score last year wasn't bad, and it came down

01:28:50 ◼   ► slightly from that after a big sort of like seesaw back and forth.

01:28:56 ◼   ► But you're right, it was, you know, it was not, other than the Safari, you know, summer

01:29:04 ◼   ► of Safari that happened.

01:29:06 ◼   ► But I don't have a problem with that, because like it didn't come out.

01:29:09 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:29:10 ◼   ► You know?

01:29:11 ◼   ► There's a mark in its favor, I feel like, because Apple were listening to the feedback

01:29:17 ◼   ► and they adjusted course quite a lot.

01:29:20 ◼   ► Shortcuts, quality issues were not great.

01:29:23 ◼   ► Yeah, Rosemary pointed that out.

01:29:25 ◼   ► A couple of people did, but Rosemary said that shortcuts clearly needs extra support,

01:29:29 ◼   ► which I agree with.

01:29:30 ◼   ► A bunch of people pointed out Rosetta 2, which basically just doing it and not...

01:29:38 ◼   ► To go through a chip transition and essentially not worry about it, that's an invisible but

01:29:44 ◼   ► very impressive bit of software engineering.

01:29:48 ◼   ► We remember the Intel transition, and when you were downloading software, you would be

01:29:51 ◼   ► very careful to check, like, is this a universal binary?

01:29:56 ◼   ► I do not ever think about this with the Apple Silicon transition.

01:29:59 ◼   ► I don't care.

01:30:01 ◼   ► I'm assuming that at some point I'm going to get the Apple Silicon version, but if I

01:30:05 ◼   ► have an Intel version, it does not matter.

01:30:07 ◼   ► I can't tell, you know, so it's great.

01:30:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm gonna give it a three.

01:30:12 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:30:13 ◼   ► - And I'm being generous.

01:30:15 ◼   ► - Oh, wow.

01:30:15 ◼   ► - The stuff that I said before goes,

01:30:17 ◼   ► there is too much Apple software that is covered in dust

01:30:21 ◼   ► and some of it is infested with bugs.

01:30:24 ◼   ► And there are bugs, there are little bugs everywhere.

01:30:25 ◼   ► I run into bugs all the time on my iPad,

01:30:27 ◼   ► I run into them all the time on my iPhone,

01:30:29 ◼   ► I run them all the time on my back.

01:30:31 ◼   ► I can do my job.

01:30:32 ◼   ► I'm not, you know, my systems aren't crashing

01:30:35 ◼   ► and stuff usually,

01:30:36 ◼   ► but there's a lot of weird stuff going on.

01:30:38 ◼   ► Plus, yeah, introducing shortcuts.

01:30:40 ◼   ► That was a mistake to not label it a beta,

01:30:44 ◼   ► and I appreciate that they fixed a lot of those issues,

01:30:47 ◼   ► but there was a lot going on there.

01:30:49 ◼   ► Like, I wanna pat them on the back

01:30:51 ◼   ► for their OS update being not cataclysmic,

01:30:55 ◼   ► but geez, that is not a high bar.

01:30:58 ◼   ► Like, good job, you shipped an OS

01:31:00 ◼   ► that people aren't avoiding,

01:31:02 ◼   ► which, you know, if you talk to a lot of administrators,

01:31:04 ◼   ► Big Sur, they kind of avoided it. A lot of people avoided it. And then they're embracing Monterey.

01:31:10 ◼   ► Well, you know why it wasn't so bad last year? Because '13 was even worse. iOS '13 was even

01:31:15 ◼   ► worse than iOS '14. Yeah. So I can't give them a higher score than this because of all the stuff

01:31:22 ◼   ► around the edges. If this was OS quality, I might give it a little bit higher. But even then, the

01:31:26 ◼   ► OS or OS update experience or something like that, but Apple has a software problem. I think Apple

01:31:33 ◼   ► has a software problem at its core. It is not able to maintain the software that it thinks it

01:31:39 ◼   ► needs to have on its platforms at an acceptable level. And it's really only got two decisions

01:31:44 ◼   ► to make there. It either needs, well, I guess, and then the non-decision, it either needs to

01:31:49 ◼   ► abandon things and say, "We're not going to do this anymore," or it needs to pay people to do

01:31:56 ◼   ► the work. Imagine, like, I know that Apple software is not indie software, like, not

01:32:02 ◼   ► even close, but like, I can't imagine that Apple couldn't afford to hire and build some

01:32:07 ◼   ► small teams that stay on a product, show it, and I know they do this for some products,

01:32:11 ◼   ► right? Stay on a product, show it love, or always thinking about the next thing and have

01:32:15 ◼   ► a trajectory to it like shortcuts actually does. And like, sometimes I see that from

01:32:18 ◼   ► notes and reminders in some areas, not in others, but like every Apple product, if you're

01:32:23 ◼   ► going to have it, somebody should care about it and be pushing it forward all the time.

01:32:28 ◼   ► And I get the sense that if there is somebody assigned to some of these products, they're

01:32:31 ◼   ► not allowed to put time into it. They have to do some other stuff instead, or they're

01:32:37 ◼   ► understaffed. They don't have the people required to do it. So the other option is the inaction

01:32:43 ◼   ► option, which is where they are, which is stuff just lays there. And the problem is

01:32:48 ◼   ► that when Apple has products in their operating system especially, it dissuades anyone else

01:32:54 ◼   ► from building a product like it because Apple already built it. Even if it's no good or

01:32:59 ◼   ► old or updated, there's always the threat that Apple's going to come in strong and blow

01:33:04 ◼   ► you out of the water. So I think it's been like this for a decade now and it's not gotten

01:33:10 ◼   ► any better. And I think it's one of the areas that Apple really needs to improve on is,

01:33:16 ◼   ► Are you in or are you out?

01:33:17 ◼   ► And if you're in, fund it.

01:33:20 ◼   ► Fund people to do it.

01:33:22 ◼   ► And I don't care where they are.

01:33:23 ◼   ► They don't need to be in Cupertino for some small app that's on a couple of platforms.

01:33:27 ◼   ► Put them in Pittsburgh, put them in Cleveland.

01:33:28 ◼   ► I don't care.

01:33:29 ◼   ► Put them in Ottawa, put them in Mexico City, put them in Tokyo, put them in Copenhagen.

01:33:35 ◼   ► Like I literally don't care.

01:33:37 ◼   ► Just put them somewhere and say, "You know what?

01:33:39 ◼   ► The only app you care about is this app."

01:33:43 ◼   ► And make it better every year.

01:33:45 ◼   ► And I just don't feel if that is their current strategy,

01:33:48 ◼   ► something is wrong with it.

01:33:49 ◼   ► 'Cause it's not showing.

01:33:51 ◼   ► - Developer relations, C minus 2.8 down from 3.1.

01:33:55 ◼   ► - I'd like to refer you to our previous conversation.

01:33:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:33:58 ◼   ► - I wish. - I wish.

01:34:00 ◼   ► - I gave it a two.

01:34:01 ◼   ► I would have given it a one, right?

01:34:03 ◼   ► Like if this news would have come out before

01:34:05 ◼   ► that we were talking about earlier,

01:34:06 ◼   ► but my comments is the same basically like,

01:34:09 ◼   ► I just feel like at this point,

01:34:12 ◼   ► Apple would prefer to fight in court every single developer rather than give up their

01:34:17 ◼   ► 30% and I don't understand why they want to go to this trouble realistically. I feel like

01:34:24 ◼   ► as you, you know, you so rightly put and you put it today, I think I can understand why

01:34:29 ◼   ► Apple specifically are this way, but at the same time can't understand why anyone in their

01:34:35 ◼   ► position would do this. Like I understand you would do this if you were a company that

01:34:40 ◼   ► really needed the money, but they just don't. And I don't understand what the point is anymore.

01:34:46 ◼   ► Well, and it's not just a matter of like, do they need the money? Well, of course, they're

01:34:49 ◼   ► a corporation. The issue is that they're taking huge risks and alienating people for money

01:34:54 ◼   ► that probably isn't worth it, at least from the outside looking at it. It's like, why

01:34:57 ◼   ► is this the thing that you're doing to make everybody angry at you?

01:35:01 ◼   ► They do not need the money because there's a bunch of stuff that goes into the iPhone

01:35:05 ◼   ► costs them money that they don't charge people for, right?

01:35:09 ◼   ► But this is one thing where they feel like they have to,

01:35:12 ◼   ► and I don't understand why.

01:35:14 ◼   ► - I'm gonna give this a two.

01:35:16 ◼   ► And I was actually vacillating between a three and a two,

01:35:21 ◼   ► and here's why.

01:35:22 ◼   ► Everything we've said before is about Apple saying,

01:35:25 ◼   ► essentially, we wanna suck as much money

01:35:29 ◼   ► out of developers as possible.

01:35:31 ◼   ► They owe us for building this wonderful platform.

01:35:34 ◼   ► And as I've said before, Apple owes them

01:35:37 ◼   ► for building the iPhone and iPad to being what they are,

01:35:39 ◼   ► and yet it doesn't give a percentage

01:35:41 ◼   ► of its revenue back to them.

01:35:43 ◼   ► So maybe lighten up a little bit.

01:35:48 ◼   ► And arguing in court things that make developers look

01:35:52 ◼   ► and feel bad is also unpleasant.

01:35:56 ◼   ► The reason I'm giving it two is,

01:36:00 ◼   ► and this is something that James Thompson mentioned,

01:36:04 ◼   ► Actually, the group inside Apple that's not involved

01:36:07 ◼   ► in legal issues and is working on virtual WWDCs,

01:36:12 ◼   ► the new Tech Talk system, ways of integrating

01:36:17 ◼   ► without having people in person,

01:36:20 ◼   ► ways of communicating between people at Apple

01:36:24 ◼   ► and the developers, they've done a lot

01:36:26 ◼   ► of really good work there.

01:36:28 ◼   ► Like so good that it actually helps me think

01:36:32 ◼   ► that WWDC will never be what it was before.

01:36:35 ◼   ► And if they do anything ever again,

01:36:37 ◼   ► it'll be like a media event.

01:36:38 ◼   ► And we talked about that before.

01:36:39 ◼   ► It'll be like the keynote will become a media event

01:36:42 ◼   ► in Cupertino, but they're never gonna get

01:36:45 ◼   ► the developers together again,

01:36:46 ◼   ► because they've been building some stuff

01:36:47 ◼   ► that everything I hear is good about it.

01:36:50 ◼   ► And that said, there are also all of the,

01:36:52 ◼   ► as I think Casey Listz mentioned at one point,

01:36:54 ◼   ► there are all of the documentation problems.

01:36:57 ◼   ► There are lots of other issues going on here

01:37:00 ◼   ► that draw it down, the fact that the store is,

01:37:05 ◼   ► we need the money because we need to patrol the store

01:37:07 ◼   ► and yet there's lots of scammy apps in stores

01:37:09 ◼   ► while developers get in trouble and get their apps rejected.

01:37:12 ◼   ► And then these scammy subscription apps just slide on in

01:37:15 ◼   ► and knock off apps like Apple not doing its job

01:37:19 ◼   ► that it's supposedly getting the money for.

01:37:21 ◼   ► All of that is bad.

01:37:23 ◼   ► The reason I'm giving it a two instead of a one

01:37:25 ◼   ► is mostly that little glimmer,

01:37:27 ◼   ► which is there's part of Apple that's actually,

01:37:28 ◼   ► I think doing right by developers

01:37:30 ◼   ► and is building something that will be good

01:37:33 ◼   ► on an ongoing basis and shows that there's some hope

01:37:36 ◼   ► on that part, on all the other parts, it's bad.

01:37:41 ◼   ► - That's why I think it's a 2.8.

01:37:43 ◼   ► 'Cause like that 0.8 is people like James,

01:37:48 ◼   ► people like Rich Segal who said a similar thing.

01:37:51 ◼   ► - It's like, yeah, the people I work with at Apple

01:37:52 ◼   ► about this stuff are doing a good job.

01:37:54 ◼   ► - And so it helps raise the score

01:37:57 ◼   ► because for me as somebody who does not deal with anyone

01:38:00 ◼   ► at Apple in this part of the organization at all,

01:38:03 ◼   ► I only see what they choose to put out in the world

01:38:05 ◼   ► and the face that they paint to the world

01:38:07 ◼   ► is their ugliest face when it comes to this stuff I think.

01:38:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, as Paul Kufasa said,

01:38:13 ◼   ► "Apple can afford to be magnanimous

01:38:15 ◼   ► yet they're being tight fisted, yuck."

01:38:18 ◼   ► - Yep, yep.

01:38:18 ◼   ► Social and societal impact is the final category

01:38:24 ◼   ► in the scorecard.

01:38:25 ◼   ► I know this seems like a weird category,

01:38:27 ◼   ► but over the years,

01:38:29 ◼   ► Apple always talks about holding itself to a higher standard

01:38:31 ◼   ► and believing in lots of things