Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 311. Today's show is brought to you by Mint Mobile,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Pingdom, and Bombus. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr. Jason Snell. Hello, Jason Snell.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Ahoy, Myke Hurley. How are you today? Good. Got a lot going on this week. Big episode again.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Oh boy. This summer is summer of news. It's a purely 2020 phenomenon, summer of news.

00:00:36 ◼   ► It turns out nobody has anything else better to do, so here we all are.

00:00:39 ◼   ► I have a #SnellTalk question that comes from The Harbor Master, which sounds very—

00:00:44 ◼   ► Ahoy. Yeah, I know. It sounds very official.

00:00:48 ◼   ► The Harbor Master desires to know, Jason, do you set your calendar to view day, week, month, or year?

00:00:56 ◼   ► I assume he means—he or she, the Harbor Master means my computer calendar.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:03 ◼   ► Because the paper calendar on my wall is set to month.

00:01:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Because it's—

00:01:09 ◼   ► What do you use the paper calendar for?

00:01:10 ◼   ► We have it posted in the living room and it's sort of like quick reference and you can write

00:01:15 ◼   ► things down on it and we put down like when we need to give the pets their pills and—

00:01:18 ◼   ► Right, like the family calendar.

00:01:19 ◼   ► And it's got—right, and it's got pictures of the family on it from the previous year,

00:01:24 ◼   ► which is going to be a problem. The 2021 calendar is going to need to be a greatest hits calendar,

00:01:27 ◼   ► because—although I suggested that the 2021 calendar be the four of us sitting on the couch

00:01:33 ◼   ► in the exact same pose—

00:01:34 ◼   ► Oh, that's good.

00:01:34 ◼   ► —but with different clothes for every single month. And it'd be like, yep.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Or like, you know, like there's like a collection of things building, right? Like, I don't know,

00:01:43 ◼   ► like seltzer cans or something like on a table over the year.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Exactly. Mm-hmm.

00:01:46 ◼   ► I think that's a great idea, personally.

00:01:48 ◼   ► We do have that. And on my computer, I always use a week view,

00:01:54 ◼   ► because I want to see what's coming up, not just today. I don't have enough—especially

00:01:59 ◼   ► now that I'm on my own here—I don't have enough stuff to need to like laser focus on what's

00:02:07 ◼   ► happening today. I want to know what's happening today, but I also want to know kind of like what

00:02:10 ◼   ► I've got for the week, what the traffic is out there for the week, and the stuff I have to

00:02:14 ◼   ► have to do and prepare for and be ready for. So, week view for me.

00:02:18 ◼   ► I kind of have a hybrid approach. So I use Fantastic Calendar on my devices, right? And I have

00:02:25 ◼   ► a—like on the side, on the left-hand side, is I think what they call kind of like list view

00:02:30 ◼   ► or agenda view.

00:02:31 ◼   ► Yeah, sure.

00:02:32 ◼   ► Which just lists all of my tasks over the coming days. And then if I'm using a version of the app,

00:02:38 ◼   ► whether it's on the Mac or on my iPad, with a larger canvas, I'll then have month view.

00:02:43 ◼   ► And I don't really look at that side, to be honest. Like, I focus pretty much all of my

00:02:49 ◼   ► attention on the list view, but the month is there if I need it. Like, for me, like the week view

00:02:55 ◼   ► doesn't help me too much because I use the list thing, because I get most of my week just looking

00:03:01 ◼   ► at the list view.

00:03:02 ◼   ► So what I like about the week view is that it shows the blocks of time. So it's—

00:03:06 ◼   ► Definitely good, yeah.

00:03:08 ◼   ► And again, if I'm trying to, as you know, schedule sort of my life through what the time is,

00:03:14 ◼   ► having an entry in a list, which—and the month view is like that too, it's just a list,

00:03:19 ◼   ► each day has a little list on it—doesn't serve the purpose of saying, "Here's a big block where

00:03:25 ◼   ► you're doing this."

00:03:26 ◼   ► No. If you are someone who thinks about their calendars, which,

00:03:30 ◼   ► assuming most people do, in that way of like, there is a block of time and things don't overlap,

00:03:35 ◼   ► like, I mean, for me, I kind of, I have a base idea of everything that goes on my calendar,

00:03:42 ◼   ► like, it's always expected to be an hour unless I know it to be otherwise.

00:03:46 ◼   ► But the—yeah, that makes—it makes a lot of sense to have week view for that reason, right?

00:03:52 ◼   ► Because as you say, you can see what's bumping into each other and if you actually have the

00:03:56 ◼   ► space to put something in, so.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:58 ◼   ► Thank you to the HarbourMaster. If you would like to send in—

00:04:02 ◼   ► Ding ding!

00:04:02 ◼   ► Ding ding!

00:04:03 ◼   ► A question for a future episode of the show, you can send out a tweet with the hashtag

00:04:07 ◼   ► #snowtalk or use question mark #snowtalk in the RelayFM members Discord.

00:04:12 ◼   ► I want to give a bit of follow out. Tomorrow, which is August 18th, is RelayFM's sixth birthday.

00:04:17 ◼   ► It doesn't feel like it's that time because usually around this time, I am somewhere,

00:04:22 ◼   ► whether it's in Memphis or somewhere else, you know?

00:04:24 ◼   ► And you're nowhere now.

00:04:25 ◼   ► So it doesn't really have the typical birthday feel to it, but it is now, it's happening.

00:04:32 ◼   ► The RelayFM members bonus specials are starting to roll out.

00:04:36 ◼   ► We'll have more to say about that for this show in the coming weeks.

00:04:39 ◼   ► But myself and Steven will be hosting a live stream on Twitch tomorrow, which is August

00:04:46 ◼   ► 18th at 11.30 AM Eastern Time.

00:04:49 ◼   ► We're going to be doing a RelayFM Q&A, so we've been taking questions from listeners.

00:04:56 ◼   ► If you want to submit one of those, you can send a tweet with the hashtag #relayqa.

00:05:00 ◼   ► But we've been taking questions from listeners over the last couple of weeks,

00:05:02 ◼   ► and we have some great questions there.

00:05:03 ◼   ► I'm also making a great announcement.

00:05:05 ◼   ► I'm very excited about something important that we have coming up soon.

00:05:09 ◼   ► So you can check that out at twitch.tv/relayfm.

00:05:13 ◼   ► And it's 11.30 AM Eastern Time tomorrow.

00:05:16 ◼   ► So you can go and check that out.

00:05:18 ◼   ► We appreciate it if you'll join us.

00:05:20 ◼   ► I have some upstream headlines for you, Jason.

00:05:23 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:24 ◼   ► Martin Scorsese has signed a first look deal with Apple TV for both film and television

00:05:32 ◼   ► projects.

00:05:32 ◼   ► It's quite an individual to get a first look with.

00:05:36 ◼   ► MATT ELLIS, MATT ELLIS, MATT ELLIS.

00:05:38 ◼   ► Martin Scorsese has been doing a lot of interesting development stuff lately, I think, because

00:05:43 ◼   ► he wants to make movies the way he has always made them.

00:05:46 ◼   ► And these days, getting involved with companies that have lots of money for that instead of

00:05:52 ◼   ► the traditional film route is how he is able to keep doing it.

00:05:56 ◼   ► But there's a lot of prestige that goes in working with Martin Scorsese.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And I think it's interesting that Apple now -- first look deal means that Apple gets first

00:06:04 ◼   ► chance to say yes to it.

00:06:05 ◼   ► And if they say no, he can shop it somewhere else.

00:06:07 ◼   ► But Apple gets the first pass.

00:06:08 ◼   ► And, you know, you said like one of the reasons that Martin Scorsese's last two movies have

00:06:16 ◼   ► ended up one going to Netflix and one going to Apple.

00:06:19 ◼   ► Was it Paramount that he was working with previously?

00:06:23 ◼   ► Oh, I don't remember.

00:06:24 ◼   ► I don't remember.

00:06:24 ◼   ► Whatever studio it was, I think it was Paramount who previously had a deal with Scorsese.

00:06:29 ◼   ► Basically, it was just like we can't afford -- neither do we want to spend the money you

00:06:33 ◼   ► want to spend.

00:06:34 ◼   ► And you're right, it's Paramount.

00:06:35 ◼   ► Paramount is where he was.

00:06:36 ◼   ► Great.

00:06:36 ◼   ► But the tech companies, the streaming companies have the money and want the content.

00:06:43 ◼   ► We'll spend it.

00:06:43 ◼   ► So it makes a lot of sense for him to do this.

00:06:47 ◼   ► Like when you think about it, really, like it's probably just a matter of time until

00:06:51 ◼   ► he ended up signing this deal with someone.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Apple has the deepest pockets, would be my assumption.

00:06:56 ◼   ► I think I missed this.

00:06:58 ◼   ► I saw it in the Deadline report talking about Scorsese, but Leonardo DiCaprio's production

00:07:03 ◼   ► company Appian Way has also in August signed a first look deal with Apple.

00:07:09 ◼   ► But this is just for TV and documentaries.

00:07:13 ◼   ► Ah.

00:07:13 ◼   ► So, you know, I don't -- when I saw this, I was like, oh, wow, movie -- but no, not

00:07:20 ◼   ► movies.

00:07:22 ◼   ► So, you know, it's just more and more huge names being attached to Apple, which is, I'm

00:07:26 ◼   ► sure, very important to them.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Apple is also going to be adapting the children's novel Harriet the Spy into an animated TV

00:07:34 ◼   ► show.

00:07:34 ◼   ► I was a big fan of the Nickelodeon movie as a kid, so I was kind of excited to see this.

00:07:39 ◼   ► I don't know if literally anybody else remembers the Harriet the Spy Nickelodeon movie, but

00:07:45 ◼   ► I really did.

00:07:45 ◼   ► I actually -- for whatever age I was at the time, Jason, it was my birthday party that

00:07:51 ◼   ► year, was to go see that movie in the cinema.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Wow.

00:07:54 ◼   ► And I went with my family, and everybody hated it except for me, and to this day, I'm still

00:08:01 ◼   ► teased for this because I was the only person who could stand it, probably because I was

00:08:06 ◼   ► the exact right age range.

00:08:08 ◼   ► Well, that was 1996.

00:08:10 ◼   ► So, how old was I in '96?

00:08:13 ◼   ► I don't want to know.

00:08:15 ◼   ► I was --

00:08:16 ◼   ► Steven Hackett was 10.

00:08:17 ◼   ► I was eight.

00:08:18 ◼   ► I was eight years old.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Oh, boy.

00:08:20 ◼   ► I actually have a very vivid memory of seeing that movie.

00:08:23 ◼   ► I don't know why it's such a big movie for me, like why this is such a thing for me as

00:08:29 ◼   ► a kid, but it was.

00:08:30 ◼   ► And lastly, for Upstream today, we're going to talk about Apple News.

00:08:35 ◼   ► The Wall Street Journal apparently very happy with the Apple News deal at the moment.

00:08:41 ◼   ► News court CEO Robert Thompson was quoted by the New York Post as saying, "The Apple

00:08:46 ◼   ► News partnership allows us to focus on a tier of content and bring in a significantly new

00:08:52 ◼   ► audience that we would hope to graduate to a paid Wall Street Journal subscription over

00:08:57 ◼   ► time, and it is a genuinely different audience.

00:09:00 ◼   ► It's actually of late more women than men.

00:09:03 ◼   ► For the Wall Street Journal itself, it's more men than women."

00:09:06 ◼   ► I found that kind of interesting.

00:09:07 ◼   ► This is like a similar thing that I know that I've seen and other podcasters have seen with

00:09:12 ◼   ► Spotify, that the demographics of Spotify listenership are different to typical demographics.

00:09:19 ◼   ► So add to the overall pie.

00:09:22 ◼   ► You know, like a lot of people said that like Spotify isn't particularly stealing from other

00:09:27 ◼   ► people for their podcast stuff.

00:09:28 ◼   ► They are adding to the podcast listenership.

00:09:31 ◼   ► So it's a similar thing.

00:09:32 ◼   ► So like for whatever reason, the demographics picking up this content via Apple News are

00:09:38 ◼   ► different to the typical demographic that is signing up for the Wall Street Journal independently.

00:09:44 ◼   ► I just found this funny because it's the first time I've ever seen anybody positively talk

00:09:50 ◼   ► about Apple News.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

00:09:52 ◼   ► And for those who don't remember, Wall Street Journal is doing like a subset of content

00:09:56 ◼   ► that's available.

00:09:57 ◼   ► So it's not...

00:10:00 ◼   ► The argument was going to be like, "Well, why don't I cancel my Wall Street Journal

00:10:04 ◼   ► subscription and subscribe to Apple News Plus?"

00:10:06 ◼   ► And the answer is you're not going to get the whole Wall Street Journal.

00:10:09 ◼   ► You're going to get some articles in search and some articles that float to the top, but

00:10:11 ◼   ► there are going to be things that are there.

00:10:14 ◼   ► So it's interesting.

00:10:16 ◼   ► It's like the idea of doing a subset in Apple News Plus.

00:10:20 ◼   ► I wonder, it's probably more work than it's worth for most sites to do that, but it is

00:10:26 ◼   ► interesting that this is an approach that's working for the Wall Street Journal, given

00:10:29 ◼   ► that we, like you said, haven't had a lot of companies say, "Yeah, Apple News Plus is

00:10:34 ◼   ► great."

00:10:35 ◼   ► So maybe this hybrid approach where they give some premium content into Apple News Plus,

00:10:41 ◼   ► but not the whole thing, is a more successful approach.

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00:12:53 ◼   ► Summer of news, this is a big story.

00:12:57 ◼   ► Really I think what we need to come up with some name here to try and tie these last couple

00:13:02 ◼   ► of months together, because really it's been the summer of App Store problems.

00:13:07 ◼   ► It feels like this is becoming a hotter and hotter issue all the time, and now Epic have

00:13:13 ◼   ► entered the fray in a, pun intended, quite epic way, honestly.

00:13:18 ◼   ► So I want to give an abridged history of what's happened over the last few days, in case you

00:13:23 ◼   ► are unaware, and also just to set the stage for the conversation.

00:13:27 ◼   ► So last Thursday, Epic activated a new feature in the Fortnite app that allowed for players

00:13:34 ◼   ► on iOS and Android to choose to pay in app via Epic's payment system for VBucks, which

00:13:40 ◼   ► is the game credits inside of Fortnite, and they would get a 20% discount for doing so.

00:13:45 ◼   ► So if you used Epic's system instead of Apple's or Google's, they would give you a discount.

00:13:51 ◼   ► This is obviously very clearly against the rules for the Play Store and the App Store,

00:13:56 ◼   ► and they kind of snuck it in, right?

00:13:58 ◼   ► So the app had been approved by multiple days, and then they updated it.

00:14:05 ◼   ► One of the things about games compared to other applications is you can update some

00:14:09 ◼   ► of the content in the background.

00:14:11 ◼   ► This is a thing that happens a lot with lots of games, especially large games.

00:14:15 ◼   ► Apple even supports the ability for developers to do this, especially on the Apple TV is

00:14:19 ◼   ► another great example of them doing this.

00:14:21 ◼   ► So you can effectively update stuff that's going on in the background, or maybe they

00:14:25 ◼   ► hid it.

00:14:26 ◼   ► I hope one day we do actually find out exactly what they did here, because it's interesting

00:14:30 ◼   ► to say the least.

00:14:31 ◼   ► There is also a possibility that Fortnite just doesn't get reviewed astringently because

00:14:36 ◼   ► it's such a big deal.

00:14:38 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:14:39 ◼   ► Anyway, Fortnite, well, Epic actually had a bunch of press releases about this.

00:14:44 ◼   ► They wrote news articles about it.

00:14:46 ◼   ► They weren't quiet about it.

00:14:48 ◼   ► So Apple booted them from the app store.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Epic immediately filed a lawsuit and started a marketing campaign which featured a spoof

00:14:56 ◼   ► of Apple's 1984 commercial.

00:14:58 ◼   ► They called it 1980 Fortnite, positioning Apple as Big Brother.

00:15:02 ◼   ► I watched the commercial.

00:15:04 ◼   ► I think they did a very good job of it.

00:15:07 ◼   ► It's funny and it fits their brand.

00:15:10 ◼   ► And when you hear the stuff that the Apple Big Brother is saying, I think it's kind of

00:15:15 ◼   ► hard to argue with, like, whether it's correct or not, the position that they pose is difficult

00:15:21 ◼   ► to argue with, I think.

00:15:22 ◼   ► I've seen some people say that they thought it was clever.

00:15:26 ◼   ► I don't think it was clever.

00:15:27 ◼   ► I think it was really obvious and hacky.

00:15:28 ◼   ► And if you had told me that Epic Games was going to be releasing a video later in the

00:15:33 ◼   ► day about what they had done to Apple, I would have been able to literally write the script

00:15:39 ◼   ► for the video that they released.

00:15:40 ◼   ► It was super dumb and super obvious.

00:15:44 ◼   ► Clever and obvious can't be the same thing.

00:15:48 ◼   ► It is the clever move to do.

00:15:49 ◼   ► Like, it's the move you do.

00:15:51 ◼   ► If you want to show Apple as being a tyrant, you just position it back on themselves.

00:15:58 ◼   ► Lazy.

00:15:59 ◼   ► Lazy.

00:16:00 ◼   ► We're going to disagree a lot on this over the next 45 minutes.

00:16:03 ◼   ► We are.

00:16:04 ◼   ► It's going to happen.

00:16:05 ◼   ► Epic, like, just to be clear, the way you recapped this is it comes across potentially as being

00:16:13 ◼   ► a sequence of events, but it's not.

00:16:16 ◼   ► It's one event.

00:16:17 ◼   ► Epic decided to break the rules of the Play Store and the App Store knowing they would

00:16:22 ◼   ► get kicked out or locked out or shut off or whatever you want to say about it.

00:16:27 ◼   ► And then they immediately had lawsuits ready to file and they immediately had a viral video

00:16:31 ◼   ► ready to go.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Unfortunately, they don't seem to have done the obvious Don't Be Evil video for Google

00:16:35 ◼   ► Play.

00:16:36 ◼   ► I don't know what happened there.

00:16:37 ◼   ► Did they not have that one ready in time?

00:16:38 ◼   ► So it's not as interesting.

00:16:41 ◼   ► This is their campaign.

00:16:43 ◼   ► And you know, the issue is an important one, but I rolled my eyes at the 1984 thing because

00:16:49 ◼   ► I just think that's super obvious and lazy and I don't appreciate the...

00:16:54 ◼   ► I don't think it's clever.

00:16:57 ◼   ► I think it's an easy shot and worth taking if you're epic.

00:17:00 ◼   ► I will say that.

00:17:01 ◼   ► But I don't think it's clever.

00:17:02 ◼   ► I think it's literally the most obvious thing they could have done.

00:17:07 ◼   ► Google also then booted them from the Play Store and Epic immediately followed with a

00:17:11 ◼   ► lawsuit for Google too.

00:17:13 ◼   ► I will...

00:17:14 ◼   ► I'm not...

00:17:15 ◼   ► Of course.

00:17:16 ◼   ► ...this is the state of events.

00:17:18 ◼   ► Of course they had all this ready.

00:17:19 ◼   ► They had to have it all ready.

00:17:20 ◼   ► They knew this was going to happen.

00:17:21 ◼   ► It was the point of doing it, right?

00:17:23 ◼   ► Like Epic was not surprised that this chain of events unfolded.

00:17:27 ◼   ► This was the plan.

00:17:28 ◼   ► This is exactly what they expected and it happened exactly as they planned.

00:17:32 ◼   ► I think this is a very well orchestrated and coordinated campaign to try and force the

00:17:36 ◼   ► hand of Google and especially Apple.

00:17:38 ◼   ► That's my feeling on this.

00:17:39 ◼   ► I think it's a very clever chess move.

00:17:41 ◼   ► I can roll my eyes at...

00:17:43 ◼   ► It feels to me like Epic wanted to have their cake and eat it too in the sense that they

00:17:48 ◼   ► wanted to play the aggrieved party and get some of the credibility that you've seen by

00:17:54 ◼   ► other kind of App Store outrages where companies do things kind of innocently and are swept

00:17:59 ◼   ► up in the disaster of Apple's opaque App Store process.

00:18:05 ◼   ► I got the feeling like they wanted to have some of that outrage accumulate to them and

00:18:10 ◼   ► they don't deserve any of it because this was...

00:18:14 ◼   ► This is a chess move and it's a very clever one and it puts Apple in a very difficult

00:18:18 ◼   ► position.

00:18:19 ◼   ► I think that's all smart.

00:18:20 ◼   ► But I roll my eyes at the kind of like, "Is Epic the aggrieved party here?"

00:18:25 ◼   ► No, this is a shot that they fired.

00:18:28 ◼   ► They're not like other...

00:18:30 ◼   ► Like a lot of other companies have had serious problems with Apple regarding the App Store

00:18:36 ◼   ► and they've stepped into them.

00:18:38 ◼   ► And it's an example where Apple is incredibly powerful and doesn't explain itself and its

00:18:41 ◼   ► rules are arbitrary and people's businesses are put into jeopardy because of it.

00:18:46 ◼   ► And I feel like Epic was sort of like playing that part, but that's not the point of what

00:18:51 ◼   ► they're doing at all.

00:18:52 ◼   ► I mean, I don't feel that way about them.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Like I feel about this the same way that I felt about xCloud last time.

00:19:00 ◼   ► Like the reason that if, you know, I kind of look at this and like, I think Epic should

00:19:07 ◼   ► do this is because I do not believe that Apple are in a position right now where they should

00:19:12 ◼   ► get to dictate to every company in the world the way that the rules are played.

00:19:16 ◼   ► Yep, not disputing that.

00:19:18 ◼   ► That's what I meant when I said that I thought that this was a smart move on their part strategically.

00:19:23 ◼   ► I just, I think that they also want to wrap, at least initially want to wrap themselves

00:19:29 ◼   ► in the, you know, essentially they played like they were a victim and then did the big

00:19:36 ◼   ► reveal that they're, "Ha ha, but we are not.

00:19:38 ◼   ► This was all part of our plan."

00:19:40 ◼   ► As somebody who has written and spoken too much about the people who actually get rolled

00:19:44 ◼   ► over by Apple with these policies, I didn't love that, but you know, it is what it is.

00:19:50 ◼   ► All right.

00:19:51 ◼   ► I mean, I slightly do disagree with you because I just think that like they had a lawsuit

00:19:56 ◼   ► right?

00:19:57 ◼   ► Like if they wanted to just be like, "Oh, look what they've done to us," they wouldn't

00:20:02 ◼   ► have like thrown their money behind this lawsuit.

00:20:05 ◼   ► Like it's, I think it's a different situation to the previous examples like, Hey, for example,

00:20:10 ◼   ► right?

00:20:11 ◼   ► Like I don't think like, you know, Hey, Basecamp were leaning on the fact that they were hoping

00:20:16 ◼   ► that people would get outraged on their behalf to try and make a change.

00:20:24 ◼   ► Epic are doing a thing where they are forcing it to happen via a marketing campaign and

00:20:29 ◼   ► a lawsuit.

00:20:30 ◼   ► I think it's, I see it as a different thing.

00:20:33 ◼   ► Nevertheless.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Well, publicity probably more than marketing because they're not really marketing their

00:20:37 ◼   ► product here.

00:20:38 ◼   ► They're just trying to get publicity for their policy change that they want to happen.

00:20:42 ◼   ► Sure.

00:20:43 ◼   ► So the situation is slightly different on an Android.

00:20:47 ◼   ► It's actually very different than Android.

00:20:49 ◼   ► And I'm not saying this is a case of like Epic should target Apple, but I think it's

00:20:53 ◼   ► worth bringing it up in case people are not aware of it.

00:20:57 ◼   ► So everybody knows that Android has sideloading, which means you can install apps from other

00:21:02 ◼   ► places and alternate payment methods exist on the Play Store, but not for games.

00:21:09 ◼   ► So Google make any game use the Play Store's in-app purchase method for things like credits

00:21:17 ◼   ► in a game.

00:21:19 ◼   ► And so when Fortnite launched, they actually created their own Fortnite launcher and tried

00:21:26 ◼   ► to basically make it work that way.

00:21:28 ◼   ► They did some partnerships with some companies like Samsung and tried to really kind of force

00:21:34 ◼   ► people to get Fortnite from there.

00:21:37 ◼   ► But it didn't work out the way that Epic wanted because Google tries very hard to persuade

00:21:42 ◼   ► users not to turn on sideloading features.

00:21:45 ◼   ► They put warnings and stuff.

00:21:46 ◼   ► So they ended up putting, well, they think they've any.

00:21:50 ◼   ► So for 18 months, they tried the sideloading thing and they, anybody who's used a Mac where

00:21:55 ◼   ► you try to launch an app and it says, oh, this app wasn't signed or tries to turn on, turn

00:22:01 ◼   ► off certain security settings, like to launch unauthorized apps, there are apps that aren't

00:22:05 ◼   ► from the app store or whatever.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And you get one of those scare warnings, scare dialogues.

00:22:09 ◼   ► It's like, watch out.

00:22:10 ◼   ► This is, you know, it could be, it could be dangerous.

00:22:13 ◼   ► And Catalina has actually ramped up the language there of like, you know, potentially we can't

00:22:17 ◼   ► check to make sure this isn't evil basically.

00:22:20 ◼   ► And so after 18 months, Fortnite, Epic said, you know, we have to be in the Google Play

00:22:25 ◼   ► Store because essentially we can't get enough customers on Android because we have to walk

00:22:29 ◼   ► them through this complicated process and tell them to avoid all these scare warnings.

00:22:34 ◼   ► And it isn't, it isn't effective.

00:22:37 ◼   ► And so even though they made that, they released the statement, which is just basically like,

00:22:40 ◼   ► even though we despise this, we're going to be in the Play Store because we can't make

00:22:43 ◼   ► sideloading work, which I think is actually super relevant because I think it undercuts

00:22:49 ◼   ► one of the counter arguments about like what Apple could do, which is what if Apple turned

00:22:53 ◼   ► on sideloading?

00:22:54 ◼   ► And I think that Epic's argument is it would be worse, a worse experience even than sideloading

00:23:01 ◼   ► on Android is because it's Apple.

00:23:04 ◼   ► And they tried it on Android and it didn't work.

00:23:09 ◼   ► So I think that's, I think it's an interesting perspective that the idea is that Google as

00:23:14 ◼   ► a platform owner put up a lot of barriers for good reasons, I would say, but a lot of

00:23:19 ◼   ► barriers to the sideloading thing.

00:23:21 ◼   ► And so even though we view what happens on Android and what happens on Apple's platforms

00:23:27 ◼   ► as different, it's not as different as you might think because you kind of really have

00:23:33 ◼   ► to have the Play Store and you kind of really have to be in the Play Store.

00:23:37 ◼   ► And as a result, Google doesn't have quite the level of control that Apple does, but

00:23:41 ◼   ► it has a lot of control.

00:23:43 ◼   ► And then for games, as you said, they want 30% and they're, you know, that's, and they

00:23:50 ◼   ► want you to use their payment system.

00:23:52 ◼   ► And there are some, they're very similar reasons, right?

00:23:54 ◼   ► The argument is one, that there's a lot of sleazy kind of game stuff out there that they

00:23:58 ◼   ► want to not have happen through, you know, alternate payment methods.

00:24:03 ◼   ► And two, it's a lot of money that they get.

00:24:06 ◼   ► So these are both reasons that they do it.

00:24:08 ◼   ► - I think it's money.

00:24:11 ◼   ► I think it's more money.

00:24:12 ◼   ► - I think it's both.

00:24:13 ◼   ► I think it's both because early on in the App Store, if you recall, there were lots

00:24:18 ◼   ► of issues about abuse of even in-app purchases for games.

00:24:23 ◼   ► And I think, so I do think that there's an aspect of, we're worried about shady digital

00:24:29 ◼   ► goods, you know, factories that are gonna steal, you know, a kid's money, basically.

00:24:37 ◼   ► And so I get that argument, but I think you're right, that that argument is then used to

00:24:43 ◼   ► be a moneymaker.

00:24:44 ◼   ► Because I don't really see how that has played out.

00:24:49 ◼   ► You know, all of this credit business to speed up time and all that kind of stuff, all of

00:24:55 ◼   ► that exists in apps in both the Play Store and the App Store.

00:25:00 ◼   ► It's still sleazy, it's still shady, but it's just in the stores, right?

00:25:05 ◼   ► So I agree that they positioned, both Google and Apple positioned it that way, but I don't

00:25:10 ◼   ► think they followed through on that.

00:25:14 ◼   ► Epic still offer Fortnite outside and they have their own game store on the PC and the

00:25:19 ◼   ► Mac, and it seems like they are still planning on bringing a version of the Epic Game Store

00:25:25 ◼   ► to Android, which would then be a third-party store, which again, you can do on Android.

00:25:31 ◼   ► Like it's possible to do that.

00:25:34 ◼   ► But as of yet, they haven't done that.

00:25:37 ◼   ► And Google and Epic have had an increasingly difficult relationship in the sense that it's

00:25:44 ◼   ► been, this actually came out in some of the antitrust stuff from a couple of weeks ago,

00:25:49 ◼   ► that Google has been forcing device makers to not do deals with Epic to preload this

00:25:55 ◼   ► stuff.

00:25:56 ◼   ► There was some news of them, OnePlus was going to work with Epic to put this, to preload

00:26:03 ◼   ► Fortnite, and I think a version of the Epic Game Store onto their devices and Google kind

00:26:07 ◼   ► of stepped in and was like, "You like the Play Store, right?" and put the end to that.

00:26:13 ◼   ► So I think clearly Epic is focusing more on Apple for two reasons.

00:26:18 ◼   ► I think reason one, which is minor, is there are no other workarounds.

00:26:23 ◼   ► It's Apple's way or the highway.

00:26:25 ◼   ► It's a more extreme example than Google, so it's easier to understand.

00:26:29 ◼   ► You don't have to have what I just spent two minutes describing of the barriers to side

00:26:34 ◼   ► loading.

00:26:35 ◼   ► You can just say it doesn't have it.

00:26:36 ◼   ► It's simple.

00:26:37 ◼   ► And also I think for a lot of people, a lot of customers, Google is actually removed in

00:26:41 ◼   ► their mind from the Android discussion, right?

00:26:44 ◼   ► Because there's so many device makers who run various versions of Android.

00:26:48 ◼   ► Some have the Play Store, some don't.

00:26:51 ◼   ► But I think the bigger reason is Epic are focusing their ire on Apple because it works

00:26:55 ◼   ► for publicity.

00:26:57 ◼   ► People are willing to believe it because a lot of it's true, and Apple is an easy company

00:27:03 ◼   ► to hate for a lot of people, right?

00:27:05 ◼   ► Like it's an easy thing to do.

00:27:07 ◼   ► BRIAN: They are an easier target and there's a clearer story to be told.

00:27:11 ◼   ► I'm actually surprised that they made the move on the Play Store and sued Google on

00:27:19 ◼   ► the same day because it does...

00:27:24 ◼   ► It broadens their case in a way that I think is really interesting and I think maybe will

00:27:29 ◼   ► be uncomfortable for Google, honestly.

00:27:32 ◼   ► But it does dilute their message a little bit.

00:27:35 ◼   ► MATT: It does.

00:27:36 ◼   ► I think they would have preferred for Google not to do it, but I think it was kind of like

00:27:43 ◼   ► they had to follow suit, right?

00:27:45 ◼   ► Because I think Epic want to do what they can to minimize any bad feelings towards them

00:27:51 ◼   ► and that it might have gotten a bit awry in the press, especially if Google did the same

00:27:57 ◼   ► thing and Epic didn't retaliate in any way.

00:28:00 ◼   ► I think they would have preferred to get a little distance on it because spreading it

00:28:04 ◼   ► out to Android as well as iOS kind of, as you say, like it dilutes their most important

00:28:10 ◼   ► message that they can get across, which is monolithic Apple, big brother Apple, doing

00:28:17 ◼   ► the thing you know they're going to do.

00:28:19 ◼   ► So my expectation when I saw this starting to unfold is that this is the end of a negotiation,

00:28:26 ◼   ► right there.

00:28:27 ◼   ► You've got to assume that Apple and Epic have been talking, right?

00:28:30 ◼   ► Like, you know, it's like any of these big companies, they will be having conversations,

00:28:35 ◼   ► especially because Epic's been very public about their feelings towards app stores and

00:28:40 ◼   ► taxes and all that kind of stuff.

00:28:42 ◼   ► And my expectation is Epic have come to realize that they are not going to get what they want,

00:28:47 ◼   ► so they chose to be very public with it because I think it's clear at this point that if Apple

00:28:54 ◼   ► don't want to do something, no company is going to make them do it.

00:28:57 ◼   ► They might meet you halfway.

00:28:58 ◼   ► We've seen them literally meet companies halfway, but what Epic won is clearly more than halfway,

00:29:06 ◼   ► right?

00:29:07 ◼   ► And so I think what they've done, I think this is pretty obvious, right, that they are

00:29:11 ◼   ► hoping that they can get either public or legal pressure to force Apple's hand to move

00:29:18 ◼   ► where they want them to move, right?

00:29:22 ◼   ► So the lawsuit is interesting to look through, but there's one kind of key paragraph which

00:29:29 ◼   ► I'll read for the sake of having it in here, which kind of clearly outlines what Epic are

00:29:33 ◼   ► wanting.

00:29:34 ◼   ► So it says, "But for Apple's legal restraints, Epic will provide a competing app store on

00:29:38 ◼   ► iOS devices which would allow iOS users to download apps in an innovative curated store

00:29:44 ◼   ► and would provide users the choice to use Epic's or another third party's in-app payment

00:29:48 ◼   ► processing tools."

00:29:49 ◼   ► So they are asking for alternate payment methods and alternate app stores.

00:29:54 ◼   ► I think the latter is a bit of a push and Epic knows that, but you always ask for more

00:29:59 ◼   ► than you want.

00:30:00 ◼   ► You ask for more than you want, right?

00:30:02 ◼   ► And so I think what...

00:30:03 ◼   ► So look, it's easy to read that paragraph and I see a lot of people do it and they go,

00:30:08 ◼   ► "Epic wants all my money, they want an alternate app store," and that's that, right?

00:30:11 ◼   ► Like, and I see it, right?

00:30:12 ◼   ► They would love it, but they know they're not going to get that, right?

00:30:16 ◼   ► Like realistically, they know they're not going to get that unless a government forces

00:30:21 ◼   ► that, and I don't think we're at that point yet.

00:30:25 ◼   ► But I think that we are, with this lawsuit especially, getting much closer to Apple not

00:30:31 ◼   ► being able to force people to use their payment system.

00:30:37 ◼   ► So, like, should Epic get what they want here?

00:30:42 ◼   ► What do you think?

00:30:43 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, ultimately what Epic wants is as much money as it can possibly get, because

00:30:50 ◼   ► this is all about money.

00:30:52 ◼   ► And again, there are so many issues that we talk about on a regular basis here about the

00:30:58 ◼   ► opacity of the approval process and other things that really can hurt, especially smaller

00:31:03 ◼   ► iOS developers.

00:31:06 ◼   ► Although the 30% cut does hurt them, I also know a lot of people who've made a quite sustainable

00:31:11 ◼   ► business even with Apple's 30% cut and they get the advantages of being in the app store

00:31:15 ◼   ► and all those things.

00:31:16 ◼   ► And even if it changed, they would potentially just stay with it as it is because it's so

00:31:22 ◼   ► convenient.

00:31:23 ◼   ► If you're a big money generator with a huge amount of cash flowing through the app store,

00:31:27 ◼   ► then this is the issue, which is, if your business is entirely based on in-app purchases,

00:31:33 ◼   ► then this is the issue and that's what it's about.

00:31:36 ◼   ► Should they get what they want?

00:31:39 ◼   ► For me, the big issue here is basically who owns app stores and who controls them and

00:31:48 ◼   ► what should the rules be?

00:31:50 ◼   ► And that's a big issue and there's a lot to go on, a lot to process there, right?

00:31:56 ◼   ► Because there's the fact that Apple made it and it's theirs and it runs on their hardware.

00:32:05 ◼   ► And you could argue that it is like a video game console.

00:32:08 ◼   ► It is a thing that's completely controlled.

00:32:10 ◼   ► And I am sympathetic to the idea that Apple made it, Apple owns it, Apple can do what

00:32:16 ◼   ► they want with it because it's theirs and they own it.

00:32:20 ◼   ► It's theirs.

00:32:21 ◼   ► They made the whole thing.

00:32:22 ◼   ► It's not even like Android where it's open source and then different manufacturers have

00:32:27 ◼   ► different phones that run it and all of that.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Like the iPhone and the app store, it's like of a piece.

00:32:32 ◼   ► It is what it is.

00:32:33 ◼   ► It is a single kind of thing.

00:32:36 ◼   ► It's not hardware, it's not software, it's not service, it's everything put together

00:32:39 ◼   ► and that's what Apple does.

00:32:42 ◼   ► On the other hand, when we look at the importance of smartphones, and this is where I think

00:32:48 ◼   ► bringing Google into it even though it dilutes their argument a little bit is smart, is it

00:32:56 ◼   ► calls the question of the importance of smartphones in world society and the fact that people

00:33:05 ◼   ► are, it's the most important device anybody owns, everybody has one.

00:33:11 ◼   ► And the access to everybody in the world who uses a smartphone is controlled by two American,

00:33:16 ◼   ► by the way, companies, corporations.

00:33:19 ◼   ► They have built a bridge and now they are manning the toll booth.

00:33:23 ◼   ► They have the toll booth and they're going to charge you for it.

00:33:26 ◼   ► And I know that this is the, is it a console or is it a general purpose computer argument?

00:33:31 ◼   ► But I think it really does matter like as a society because I think that there's a strategy

00:33:39 ◼   ► issue here, which is if you're Apple, we can get to this about like, what do you do if

00:33:42 ◼   ► you're Apple?

00:33:43 ◼   ► And I think the larger question is what do we think as a society about having Apple and

00:33:50 ◼   ► Google have this level of power where essentially everything that flows through a smartphone

00:33:58 ◼   ► is controlled and taxed by two for-profit corporations.

00:34:04 ◼   ► And I find that troubling.

00:34:08 ◼   ► And I know that it's a case where maybe Apple and Google are a victim of their own success.

00:34:14 ◼   ► You've built something that's yours and you own it, but it's now so important that it's

00:34:18 ◼   ► indispensable to the world.

00:34:20 ◼   ► And as a result, it's not quite yours anymore.

00:34:23 ◼   ► That's a really uncomfortable place to be, but that feels sort of like where we are right

00:34:29 ◼   ► now.

00:34:30 ◼   ► I also keep thinking, and I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit here, but I keep thinking

00:34:34 ◼   ► about how it didn't have to be this way.

00:34:36 ◼   ► And this goes back to something we said last week when we were talking about the Xbox streaming

00:34:40 ◼   ► services, which is it didn't have to be this way, but Apple has this part of its culture

00:34:45 ◼   ► and its personality that is very much the, "We almost died.

00:34:49 ◼   ► It's the Steve Jobs.

00:34:50 ◼   ► We almost died.

00:34:51 ◼   ► We're never going to do that again.

00:34:53 ◼   ► We're going to get our money.

00:34:54 ◼   ► We're going to get it so that we can stay alive."

00:34:56 ◼   ► And now that they're a giant and they control, they have so much money and they control one

00:35:01 ◼   ► of the two ways that anybody can have access to a smartphone, they are those policies that

00:35:07 ◼   ► were like, "I need the money.

00:35:08 ◼   ► We need to stay alive," as well as the, "We need to please Wall Street by growing services

00:35:13 ◼   ► revenue."

00:35:14 ◼   ► That doesn't come off as well.

00:35:17 ◼   ► It doesn't work as well because we're in a different context now, and it leads them to

00:35:21 ◼   ► make decisions that are probably not in their long-term best interests.

00:35:27 ◼   ► So that's the other thing I would say right now is, "Should Epic get what they want?"

00:35:30 ◼   ► That was your question.

00:35:31 ◼   ► It's like, well, not everything, but behind Epic's question is a fundamental thing about

00:35:41 ◼   ► how Apple has decided to police and monetize and tariff its platforms.

00:35:52 ◼   ► And I think that these are all symptoms of a larger problem.

00:35:58 ◼   ► So should Epic get what they want?

00:36:00 ◼   ► In part because Apple probably needs to do something to counteract the fact that there's

00:36:08 ◼   ► another one of these every week now.

00:36:11 ◼   ► What exactly they do, they've got some decisions to make.

00:36:15 ◼   ► But in the end, we didn't have to get here, but here we are now.

00:36:21 ◼   ► With every passing day, Apple is going to have to make an increasingly difficult decision

00:36:24 ◼   ► about changing its policies or letting it ride and risking the -- and I'm not being

00:36:28 ◼   ► overdramatic here -- the possibility that it will destroy Apple as we know it.

00:36:34 ◼   ► I don't think it's overdramatic by any stretch of the imagination.

00:36:39 ◼   ► Because you get a government involved, you get a regulator involved, you get a legislature

00:36:43 ◼   ► in the US to pass a law that they think does one very specific thing.

00:36:49 ◼   ► We've seen this time and again with technology legislation, right?

00:36:52 ◼   ► The DMCA or so many of these different laws.

00:36:55 ◼   ► And then two years pass and everybody's like, "Oh, did you know it would do this thing?"

00:37:00 ◼   ► And the answer is maybe somebody knew somewhere, but like, no, the legislators didn't know,

00:37:05 ◼   ► the president didn't know.

00:37:07 ◼   ► And whether it's that or whether it's a regulatory, you know, a mandated breakup of a large company

00:37:14 ◼   ► through antitrust, like there's so many different ways that once it gets in that world that

00:37:19 ◼   ► you could tear apart Apple's business.

00:37:22 ◼   ► Like Elizabeth Warren basically said when she was running for president that Apple shouldn't

00:37:26 ◼   ► be allowed to run the app store.

00:37:28 ◼   ► Like it should be removed from Apple.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Like when I say the end of Apple as we know it, it's like literally imagine parts of Apple's

00:37:35 ◼   ► business being removed from its purview.

00:37:38 ◼   ► Like that could happen if you get the regulators and the legislators involved, which is why

00:37:43 ◼   ► if you're Apple, I would think you have to look at that and say, "We have to do anything

00:37:48 ◼   ► we can to prevent reaching that point."

00:37:51 ◼   ► But then you look how they handled the books thing, which was a catastrophe for them because

00:37:55 ◼   ► the book business didn't matter, but like they pressed that to the limit and they lost

00:37:59 ◼   ► at every stage and they lost completely.

00:38:07 ◼   ► I think there's a lot of time being spent on like a conversation of picking sides when

00:38:13 ◼   ► it comes to this debate.

00:38:15 ◼   ► Like I feel like it's a thing that I'm seeing old people talking about.

00:38:18 ◼   ► And like, and I just think that it isn't about like Epic and Apple, which team are you on?

00:38:27 ◼   ► Like, right.

00:38:28 ◼   ► Because like I have said many times and my line stays the same.

00:38:33 ◼   ► I think we need to see some unwinding of the app store a little.

00:38:38 ◼   ► Something's got to give because the situation that we have found ourselves in right now

00:38:44 ◼   ► is not good, right, where every week we're having another conversation about the fact

00:38:53 ◼   ► that, "Oh, I don't know if I agree with what Apple's doing here."

00:38:57 ◼   ► And I think that we continue to go round and around with this point.

00:39:03 ◼   ► I kind of don't care which company is in the right or which is in the wrong.

00:39:07 ◼   ► The situation has to change because ultimately the situation as it is right now is bad for

00:39:12 ◼   ► customers.

00:39:13 ◼   ► Like, and an example of this, of like Epic has now created for themselves, which is people

00:39:19 ◼   ► that are using a smartphone to play Fortnite, they're not going to get the new content,

00:39:24 ◼   ► right?

00:39:25 ◼   ► Now, this is a situation where like, well, it's frustrating if you're, if you enjoy that

00:39:30 ◼   ► game, but this is because these two behemoths are like smashing against each other, like

00:39:35 ◼   ► action figures, right?

00:39:36 ◼   ► Being like just bashed against each other by a kid until one of them breaks.

00:39:41 ◼   ► But I think at the moment, and I said, I will say this again and again, I think Apple has

00:39:46 ◼   ► to break because I do not feel like that we are in the same situation as we were in when

00:39:52 ◼   ► Apple launched all this stuff for multiple reasons, right?

00:39:56 ◼   ► Like, yes, when Apple started the iPhone and started the app store in 2008, fine, you built

00:40:03 ◼   ► it, you got to set the rules, people came.

00:40:07 ◼   ► But where we are now is so different.

00:40:11 ◼   ► If Apple had decided to not move into services, maybe we could have a different discussion,

00:40:16 ◼   ► right?

00:40:17 ◼   ► And still say like, no, they are still the arbiter of what they believe is right and

00:40:21 ◼   ► wrong.

00:40:22 ◼   ► But at this point, they are making many services and products that directly compete with the

00:40:27 ◼   ► companies that they enforce rules on without in a lot of cases benefit, right?

00:40:34 ◼   ► So like, let's imagine that Apple are still taking 30% from Epic for every transaction

00:40:40 ◼   ► Fortnite.

00:40:41 ◼   ► How much does Epic have to owe Apple for making their business, right?

00:40:48 ◼   ► None, really.

00:40:50 ◼   ► Because Fortnite became popular outside of smartphones.

00:40:53 ◼   ► And then they created smartphone apps because it became so popular.

00:40:57 ◼   ► So people wanted to play everywhere, right?

00:41:00 ◼   ► So the original 30%, as it was kind of positioned, which is like, hey, it's like a department

00:41:06 ◼   ► store and we're going to put your software on the shelves and people are going to find

00:41:10 ◼   ► it and we're going to build your business.

00:41:12 ◼   ► Everyone knows we're not in that world anymore, but the rate never changed.

00:41:16 ◼   ► It's still 30%.

00:41:17 ◼   ► I think the question becomes for, and this is true for Basecamp and for Microsoft and

00:41:23 ◼   ► for Epic, which is what value accrues to the iPhone by your being there and what value

00:41:32 ◼   ► does your business accrue by being on the iPhone?

00:41:37 ◼   ► And that, I think that is the core of Apple's maybe disparity with most other non-Apple

00:41:47 ◼   ► observers about it.

00:41:48 ◼   ► They think that everyone's business is made better because they make the iPhone.

00:41:52 ◼   ► Yeah, they, Apple, I think Apple, and this goes back to that kind of Steve Jobs cultural

00:41:57 ◼   ► thing.

00:41:58 ◼   ► I think Apple doesn't consider the trade of all of these apps make our phone better and

00:42:08 ◼   ► therefore people buy our phone, which has huge margins and we make billions of dollars

00:42:12 ◼   ► on and that's a fair transaction.

00:42:15 ◼   ► Instead, Apple's like, oh, that's not enough money.

00:42:17 ◼   ► We don't make enough money by selling iPhone hardware, the most profitable and successful

00:42:21 ◼   ► product in the last 30 years, right?

00:42:25 ◼   ► That's not enough.

00:42:26 ◼   ► We also want all the money that's on it or 30% of all the money that's on it.

00:42:30 ◼   ► That's what we want.

00:42:31 ◼   ► And they get offended when somebody like Basecamp builds their business using a free iPhone

00:42:37 ◼   ► app and not giving Apple any money.

00:42:39 ◼   ► And it's like, okay, but you sell iPhones that make a fortune and Basecamp being on

00:42:44 ◼   ► the iPhone helps the iPhone.

00:42:45 ◼   ► There's a very strong argument to be made there, but Apple either can't see it or won't

00:42:50 ◼   ► see it or part of Apple doesn't want to see it.

00:42:53 ◼   ► And I think that that's the big challenge is even if you admit that there's this balance,

00:43:01 ◼   ► what is it?

00:43:02 ◼   ► And that should be a negotiation, right?

00:43:05 ◼   ► That should be a negotiation between Epic and Apple or Microsoft and Apple or Basecamp

00:43:10 ◼   ► and Apple, which is how do we make a relationship here where we are giving you your due for

00:43:16 ◼   ► providing a payment platform that's super easy and a software platform that gives us

00:43:22 ◼   ► access to all these users, but that allows us to run our business because we built our

00:43:28 ◼   ► business and these are our customers and not really your customers, or at least they're

00:43:32 ◼   ► both of our customers.

00:43:34 ◼   ► And I keep coming back to the fact that I think Apple looks at it and says, "No, our

00:43:41 ◼   ► policy is the policy."

00:43:43 ◼   ► And that's the thing, right?

00:43:44 ◼   ► Is that there's no alternative, we set the policy and that's it.

00:43:49 ◼   ► That's Apple's attitude.

00:43:50 ◼   ► I just really do hate this console computer argument discussion thing.

00:43:56 ◼   ► I actually think it's very important to make it because it's a discussion of what do you

00:43:59 ◼   ► want a smartphone to be?

00:44:01 ◼   ► Do you want the smartphone to be considered a completely locked down system that is completely

00:44:06 ◼   ► controlled because that's what consoles are?

00:44:08 ◼   ► Or do you want it to be a PC that's completely open?

00:44:10 ◼   ► And right now the debate is, and the app stores make it kind of like, "Eh, it's a little bit

00:44:15 ◼   ► of both."

00:44:17 ◼   ► And Epic's saying, "No, a smartphone should be like a PC."

00:44:21 ◼   ► And Apple's essentially saying, "No, it's a console."

00:44:24 ◼   ► And the reason I find it useful is not even from this specific argument, but I think from

00:44:28 ◼   ► that when we look back at what do we want, how important is the smartphone?

00:44:33 ◼   ► If we stop talking about this particular fight and say, "How do we want the world to work?

00:44:37 ◼   ► What do we want our governments to do?

00:44:39 ◼   ► Our government regulators that are supposed to be protecting us as consumers from these

00:44:43 ◼   ► big corporations and creating a market that is free to have competition?"

00:44:53 ◼   ► Do we want the smartphone to be treated like a console by all the rules?

00:44:57 ◼   ► Or do we want it to be treated like a PC by all the rules?

00:45:02 ◼   ► And that's the only way for me that I think it's valuable is not to say, "Well, is it

00:45:08 ◼   ► or isn't it," but to say, "Do we want this to change?

00:45:14 ◼   ► Do we want our governments to say, 'You know, the smartphone is so important that you can't

00:45:18 ◼   ► treat it like a game console.'"

00:45:20 ◼   ► Because the alternative—and I'm actually okay with this, I'm actually okay with this,

00:45:24 ◼   ► but we all have to be prepared—the alternative, one of them anyway, is to say, "You know

00:45:29 ◼   ► what?

00:45:30 ◼   ► Epic is right, and nobody can have a closed platform."

00:45:34 ◼   ► And there are a lot of ramifications to that, but that would be a consistent argument, right?

00:45:38 ◼   ► Which would be, Microsoft and Sony and Nintendo, you also have to open up your platforms if

00:45:44 ◼   ► Apple and Google have to do it.

00:45:46 ◼   ► And that could happen.

00:45:48 ◼   ► It probably won't, but it certainly could.

00:45:51 ◼   ► Yeah, you see, it's just—so like, the issue that I have with the complaint is like, with

00:45:58 ◼   ► this argument, is like, because Apple treats the iPhone like a console, therefore, it is

00:46:07 ◼   ► one, and all other games consoles should be treated just like the iPhone.

00:46:12 ◼   ► And I don't like that logic, because it doesn't make any sense to me.

00:46:18 ◼   ► The iPhone, the smartphone, too important, too prevalent in our lives, right?

00:46:25 ◼   ► When I start getting my Nintendo Switch out on the train, and communicating with my family,

00:46:32 ◼   ► doing my work on it, we can then maybe come back to this discussion.

00:46:36 ◼   ► But like, I'm not arguing that the Apple TV should be opened up, right?

00:46:43 ◼   ► Like, that's fine.

00:46:45 ◼   ► But devices, like iOS devices, iPadOS devices, these are general purpose computers.

00:46:52 ◼   ► They just are, right?

00:46:53 ◼   ► Like everything that people do, that the average person does on a Mac or a PC, they are doing

00:47:00 ◼   ► on these devices.

00:47:03 ◼   ► If Apple decided that they wanted to just allow you to install Mac apps from the Mac

00:47:09 ◼   ► App Store, and said that's how we want to run this now, we wouldn't accept that, because

00:47:15 ◼   ► we would say, these devices, this is where I get my work done, I should be able to choose.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Just because something has been set that way, doesn't mean that it is the way it should

00:47:28 ◼   ► be, right?

00:47:30 ◼   ► And I just have this real problem with this idea of like, oh, Apple treated this way,

00:47:35 ◼   ► so it has to be this way, and games consoles are exactly the same because they're also

00:47:41 ◼   ► closed platforms.

00:47:43 ◼   ► I agree with you, I'm just saying that I find it, so you don't like it because you don't

00:47:46 ◼   ► like the argument that the iPhone is a console.

00:47:49 ◼   ► That's not what I'm saying.

00:47:50 ◼   ► I'm saying there's consoles and there's general purpose computers, and what do we want the

00:47:55 ◼   ► smartphone to be?

00:47:56 ◼   ► I know, I know you're not saying it.

00:47:58 ◼   ► We are closer in our thinking here.

00:48:00 ◼   ► Yeah, but I get your frustration.

00:48:02 ◼   ► But you know, I want to talk, before we wrap this up, I want to talk about what Apple could

00:48:11 ◼   ► do, because I think that's the, for me, I hear a lot of people are like, oh, I'm here

00:48:17 ◼   ► for the drama, I'm getting my popcorn ready and all that, it's like, oh, I can't, I don't

00:48:22 ◼   ► feel that excited about it, because it's going to be a lot of endless, we're, this is, yeah,

00:48:27 ◼   ► we're going to have to live with this for years and it's going to be kind of boring

00:48:30 ◼   ► and also annoying, but it's super important.

00:48:32 ◼   ► But I am fascinated by the idea of what will Apple do to respond to this, because they

00:48:42 ◼   ► have some very specific paths.

00:48:46 ◼   ► And I'm really curious, and I'd like to know what you think they're going to do, because

00:48:49 ◼   ► it seems to me that Apple's options are to make a policy change, right?

00:48:59 ◼   ► They could do that.

00:49:00 ◼   ► That's the, that's like the last thing they could do.

00:49:02 ◼   ► They could let it ride and just fight this and see what happens.

00:49:08 ◼   ► But hanging over all of it is this possibility that they will become, this will become an

00:49:13 ◼   ► important cause and that an EU regulator or an American government is going to make their

00:49:22 ◼   ► business forcibly make their business change.

00:49:26 ◼   ► And that's the, that's the huge risk that at least I see in all of this.

00:49:30 ◼   ► So I think that's the question is does Apple just say, look, it is what it is, our rules

00:49:36 ◼   ► are our rules, we choose to make them and now you must follow them or get out, period.

00:49:41 ◼   ► And they fight it on that level.

00:49:44 ◼   ► Or do they find some way to make a change that they don't want to make because it'll

00:49:52 ◼   ► stave off a bigger change forced upon them from the outside?

00:49:57 ◼   ► I think like logically you would, can only come to the conclusion that they will make

00:50:06 ◼   ► some kind of policy change, right?

00:50:08 ◼   ► Because that just seems like the very clear logical thing to do, that you do something

00:50:13 ◼   ► to try and take the heat off.

00:50:16 ◼   ► That seems logical.

00:50:17 ◼   ► And if you're inside of Apple, in theory, nobody knows how hot that heat is more than

00:50:22 ◼   ► them, because they must be aware of it.

00:50:25 ◼   ► But the problem that I have with that argument or that kind of thought process is every public

00:50:31 ◼   ► statement Apple has made shows that they don't know this.

00:50:36 ◼   ► And that's what I find so weird about it because they are choosing to make these public statements.

00:50:42 ◼   ► They don't have to say what they're saying, where they keep talking about the fact that

00:50:47 ◼   ► like, oh, poor us, everyone's making money on our backs and we never asked for any of

00:50:52 ◼   ► it until they needed to charge for it.

00:50:55 ◼   ► They keep making this argument.

00:50:57 ◼   ► And I feel like you surely know, right?

00:51:01 ◼   ► You must know and you're just saying this.

00:51:04 ◼   ► I feel like I can't believe any other route here because that would be really wild for

00:51:12 ◼   ► like if you genuinely believe this and you're not aware of the risk that falls that could

00:51:18 ◼   ► fall upon you because if they don't make a policy change and by policy change, meaning

00:51:23 ◼   ► right, like they change how people can pay for stuff on the app store.

00:51:28 ◼   ► Someone's going to come in and make them do it.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:31 ◼   ► And there are ways.

00:51:32 ◼   ► Also, here's the thing, because it could be seen as that we're arguing the same thing,

00:51:37 ◼   ► right?

00:51:38 ◼   ► Like option A is option B and it's not.

00:51:40 ◼   ► And the reason it's not is because being told by an outsider, whether it's a judge or a

00:51:44 ◼   ► regulator or a legislator, legislature to change your business in a certain way is way worse

00:51:55 ◼   ► than you get to write your own mitigation.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And because it's the difference between somebody saying, okay, Apple, you have to allow all

00:52:07 ◼   ► outside payment systems now and anybody can use whatever they want and you can still offer

00:52:10 ◼   ► an outside payment system, but anybody else can do whatever they want.

00:52:15 ◼   ► And Apple saying, good news, everybody.

00:52:18 ◼   ► We're changing some of our payment policies in the app store.

00:52:21 ◼   ► And then you get to set all these things.

00:52:22 ◼   ► So you can see like you can use a different system, but it has to follow this rule or

00:52:28 ◼   ► it'll get rejected.

00:52:29 ◼   ► You can only do it if you're a company that has been in the app store a certain amount

00:52:32 ◼   ► of time or has a certain amount of revenue passing through the in-app purchase system.

00:52:37 ◼   ► If you come up with a mitigation yourself, you can have it favor you if you're Apple.

00:52:42 ◼   ► And that's why you wanna do it now and stave off the rest of this.

00:52:48 ◼   ► You wanna do something that makes Epic drop their lawsuit 'cause Epic gets more money

00:52:53 ◼   ► and that's what Epic really cares about.

00:52:56 ◼   ► And yet still gives Apple control that they might lose if they are forced to do it by

00:53:02 ◼   ► a court or by a government of some sort.

00:53:04 ◼   ► So that to me is they need to get past though.

00:53:09 ◼   ► And what you said, Myke is exactly right, which is the books thing.

00:53:12 ◼   ► I keep coming back to the books thing, but the books thing, the Samsung thing, the Qualcomm

00:53:16 ◼   ► thing, honestly, we've seen time and again that there are certain things that Apple just

00:53:21 ◼   ► does not let go of.

00:53:23 ◼   ► And it doesn't always work out for them.

00:53:25 ◼   ► Right?

00:53:26 ◼   ► So, but this one I think is so potentially catastrophic that I think at some point they're

00:53:30 ◼   ► just gonna have to let it go.

00:53:31 ◼   ► And the funny thing is that by doing it, they can create an environment that one is better

00:53:35 ◼   ► for consumers and that two doesn't preclude them from making a lot of money on the app

00:53:41 ◼   ► store.

00:53:42 ◼   ► That's the thing that really gets me is the in-app purchase system that Apple provides

00:53:45 ◼   ► is super convenient.

00:53:47 ◼   ► And I would like them to continue to compete on making it as easy and frictionless as possible

00:53:54 ◼   ► and as seamless as possible, because I do believe Apple can make that product so convenient

00:53:58 ◼   ► that most people are happy to give Apple 30% or maybe 20% or whatever, because they'll

00:54:02 ◼   ► have to compete rather than using some manual system that is less friendly, especially if

00:54:09 ◼   ► Apple mandates that that's how you do it.

00:54:11 ◼   ► Right?

00:54:12 ◼   ► Apple mandates that you have to go to a webpage and enter in a credit card number and you

00:54:15 ◼   ► can't see, like they could make all sorts of restrictions to make it less.

00:54:19 ◼   ► And they probably would if they could.

00:54:20 ◼   ► Right?

00:54:21 ◼   ► They could make it so that they have an advantage because that's the story of Apple basically

00:54:27 ◼   ► in a nutshell.

00:54:28 ◼   ► So I feel like that is the smart thing to do and that they could still make a lot of

00:54:33 ◼   ► money and it would be better for consumers.

00:54:37 ◼   ► But there are times in my darker times, I remind myself that it's kind of amazing that

00:54:42 ◼   ► Apple didn't try to take 30% of all purchases in the app store, including like my Amazon

00:54:46 ◼   ► orders for like physical goods.

00:54:49 ◼   ► At least they drew the line at physical goods.

00:54:52 ◼   ► But it would be very Apple to say, no, we want 30% of everything.

00:54:55 ◼   ► At least they chose not to do that.

00:54:56 ◼   ► But they're going to need to take, I think they're going to need to take a step back.

00:54:59 ◼   ► I think that's the thing that they're going to have to sacrifice is they're going to have

00:55:02 ◼   ► to sacrifice mandating that all purchases happen through Apple's payment system.

00:55:09 ◼   ► And there are things they could do to mitigate it.

00:55:10 ◼   ► Right?

00:55:11 ◼   ► Like I think we talked about this last week, but like sign in with Apple and Apple pay.

00:55:14 ◼   ► You can make it so that it's super easy to pay and you could even mandate if you're Apple,

00:55:20 ◼   ► you could say, okay, you can have an outside account that pays for this, but you have to

00:55:25 ◼   ► support sign in with Apple.

00:55:26 ◼   ► It's like, okay, we'll do that.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Right?

00:55:30 ◼   ► Like, and they could grease the skids in a lot of other ways.

00:55:32 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:55:34 ◼   ► Not only do I think that that's what Apple should do strategically because the risk of

00:55:38 ◼   ► having the government intervene is catastrophic and you just can't, you can't do that.

00:55:44 ◼   ► And so you do have to kind of give Epic at least some of what they want, which is money

00:55:47 ◼   ► because that's really what they want.

00:55:49 ◼   ► And, and, and that's what I think they should do.

00:55:53 ◼   ► And honestly, that's what I would like to see as a consumer.

00:55:58 ◼   ► What would I like to see?

00:55:59 ◼   ► Not what's the Apple, right?

00:56:00 ◼   ► Apple strategy is I want the customer experience to be better as a Comixology user.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Like it's terrible.

00:56:08 ◼   ► And as a Kindle user, it's terrible that you have to go outside the store or go outside

00:56:13 ◼   ► the app in order to buy things.

00:56:15 ◼   ► It's dumb.

00:56:16 ◼   ► It's awful.

00:56:17 ◼   ► It is a user hostile behavior.

00:56:18 ◼   ► And it's there because Apple has a rule that makes it happen.

00:56:21 ◼   ► And there's no way for them to offer an app purchase because they will lose their margins

00:56:26 ◼   ► are so thin already.

00:56:28 ◼   ► They will, they will make so little money that it will not be worth it for them to do

00:56:32 ◼   ► it.

00:56:33 ◼   ► So they don't do it.

00:56:34 ◼   ► That's why they don't do it.

00:56:35 ◼   ► So I want it as a consumer too.

00:56:37 ◼   ► I think it will benefit Apple because Apple will have to compete, which means Apple's

00:56:40 ◼   ► work will be better.

00:56:42 ◼   ► And that benefits me as a consumer.

00:56:44 ◼   ► And there are alternatives which benefits me as a consumer.

00:56:46 ◼   ► So from a personal perspective, I want Apple to do this, but also as somebody observing

00:56:50 ◼   ► this and observing Apple's business, I think they have to have to find a way and maybe

00:56:57 ◼   ► they have to wait a little bit and make it seem like they've, you know, so that they

00:57:00 ◼   ► don't seem like they've relented immediately, but they got to get this story out of the

00:57:05 ◼   ► news.

00:57:06 ◼   ► And I think they're going to have to make policy decisions and changes in order to get

00:57:10 ◼   ► it out.

00:57:11 ◼   ► One last thing that I would hope could come from this is like, by and large, I agree with

00:57:18 ◼   ► what you were saying about where they could do it is you kind of have to set some limits

00:57:21 ◼   ► somewhere, right?

00:57:22 ◼   ► Like you can't have 20,000 payment systems, right?

00:57:25 ◼   ► Like they shouldn't do that.

00:57:27 ◼   ► But my hope would be that you would get all the large companies doing it, however they

00:57:31 ◼   ► want to do it.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Then you have a company like Stripe come in and offer a service to third party developers.

00:57:38 ◼   ► Like that's kind of what I would hope to see, right?

00:57:41 ◼   ► That like a third party could come in and be like, all right, we have worked with Apple

00:57:47 ◼   ► and worked out this deal and we will compete with Apple.

00:57:50 ◼   ► This is the rate we'll give you.

00:57:52 ◼   ► You know, like it's 7%, right?

00:57:55 ◼   ► Or whatever, you know?

00:57:57 ◼   ► That's what I hope we would see out of this.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Like as a user, I don't want to have to sign up for a million different things, but I also

00:58:06 ◼   ► don't, I no longer want to be forced to just using one.

00:58:10 ◼   ► I would have no problem just using one if everyone accepted it, but they won't and they

00:58:14 ◼   ► shouldn't have to.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Because, you know, like in the same way that like I would also have no problem if Apple

00:58:20 ◼   ► were like, all right, we're going to set some kind of tiering system on the cut now.

00:58:22 ◼   ► You've got this many users, it costs this much.

00:58:25 ◼   ► This many users, it costs this much.

00:58:27 ◼   ► Like I would also in theory be happy with that as long as like people were paid correctly.

00:58:33 ◼   ► I just, you know, like it was ultimately at this point, Apple was a very different company

00:58:39 ◼   ► and I am very uncomfortable with them telling other big companies or companies of any size,

00:58:45 ◼   ► this is how you should run your business.

00:58:47 ◼   ► We're a big bully and that's that.

00:58:50 ◼   ► And so if you would think from this conversation that I'm siding with Epic, really for me, what

00:58:56 ◼   ► it is is I am pleased Epic's doing this because they are one of the only companies that can.

00:59:03 ◼   ► And someone had to start this ball rolling at this kind of level.

00:59:07 ◼   ► They can afford to, right?

00:59:09 ◼   ► Because they can walk away from the app store if they have to, because they have so much

00:59:11 ◼   ► of their revenue coming from other places.

00:59:14 ◼   ► And I am, like I said, I'm not a fan of theirs, but you know, are there complaints?

00:59:20 ◼   ► Do their complaints have some validity?

00:59:22 ◼   ► Yes, they do.

00:59:23 ◼   ► And does it have the possibility that it will force Apple to make some changes that will

00:59:26 ◼   ► make the iPhone less consumer hostile?

00:59:30 ◼   ► Yes, and less hospital for developers, yes.

00:59:34 ◼   ► And so I would say that they're a useful foil, even though reading their lawsuit made my

00:59:40 ◼   ► eyes roll back in my head.

00:59:42 ◼   ► Some of the stuff they asked for is so ridiculous, but I think that it's piling on Apple at a

00:59:48 ◼   ► time when Apple is showing a weakness and that people are waking up to the amount of

00:59:53 ◼   ► power that Apple and Google have in terms of the control of app stores, meaning control

00:59:57 ◼   ► of all smartphones in the world, or most of the world.

01:00:03 ◼   ► Breaking news, breaking news, Myke, this just in.

01:00:05 ◼   ► This might be the biggest breaking news in the show we've ever done related to a topic

01:00:10 ◼   ► that we've just got done talking about.

01:00:12 ◼   ► Yeah, this news broke after we recorded the show.

01:00:17 ◼   ► But we used a time machine to come back to this point in the show to tell you Apple,

01:00:20 ◼   ► according to Epic, has removed Fortnite from the app store, we knew that, and has informed

01:00:24 ◼   ► Epic that on Friday, August 28th, Apple will terminate their developer accounts and cut

01:00:29 ◼   ► Epic off from iOS and Mac development tools.

01:00:31 ◼   ► In other words, this is the nuclear option.

01:00:35 ◼   ► This is the third option that if Epic doesn't back off of what it's done in its app, it

01:00:41 ◼   ► will be presumably, I mean, the if isn't even in this statement, but presumably they will

01:00:50 ◼   ► be kicked off, their certificate will be invalidated, and I think that means that on all devices

01:00:56 ◼   ► that have Fortnite, it will stop working at that point.

01:00:59 ◼   ► I believe that's the case.

01:01:00 ◼   ► See, this is the problem with not, as of right now, having a statement from Apple.

01:01:07 ◼   ► What seems to have happened is Apple have contacted Epic, have told them, and then now

01:01:13 ◼   ► Epic has added this to their court filing, and then also published it publicly.

01:01:21 ◼   ► But the expectation is this will be like what happened when the certificates were removed.

01:01:28 ◼   ► Remember that thing with Facebook?

01:01:29 ◼   ► I don't think they ever took Facebook out of the app store, though, did they?

01:01:33 ◼   ► That's a whole different thing.

01:01:35 ◼   ► This might be a first time that something like this would have happened.

01:01:42 ◼   ► Apple will probably, after we finish recording this, will probably come up with some sort

01:01:45 ◼   ► of revision with their side of the story where they say that the issue is that this in-app

01:01:51 ◼   ► purchase system that Epic put in is still active on people's devices, and if they deactivate

01:01:56 ◼   ► it, they can stay in the store, but if they insist on keeping it active, they're an active

01:02:00 ◼   ► violation and they're charging people outside of, you know, because that can't go on forever,

01:02:05 ◼   ► right?

01:02:06 ◼   ► They can't just like, well, if everybody who's already got it just keeps on paying, it keeps

01:02:09 ◼   ► on working.

01:02:10 ◼   ► So that was part of Epic's plan where, you know, I would assume that they thought they

01:02:15 ◼   ► would probably be good, and they were just like, oh, we'll just keep making money, like

01:02:20 ◼   ► no one else can download the app, but hey, we're making 20% more because, you know, we're

01:02:26 ◼   ► not having to give them a cut.

01:02:29 ◼   ► So this is interesting, and they actually, Epic throws in that the Unreal Engine that

01:02:34 ◼   ► they offered to third-party developers, by cutting off their developer account, they

01:02:39 ◼   ► cut off access to their development tools, including the ability to create the Unreal

01:02:43 ◼   ► Engine.

01:02:44 ◼   ► So, you know, and it's a filing, they're asking for a temporary restraining order and basically

01:02:47 ◼   ► asking a judge to say, to order Apple to keep Fortnite in the App Store or at least in the

01:02:56 ◼   ► developer certificate valid so that that doesn't get removed and that their access to developer

01:03:00 ◼   ► tools doesn't get invalidated.

01:03:02 ◼   ► I wonder if they figured this would happen, though.

01:03:08 ◼   ► They had to think that it was a possibility, right?

01:03:12 ◼   ► You'd be really silly not to consider that because like everybody knows that Apple has

01:03:17 ◼   ► the ability to not only do this, but to like yank apps from a device.

01:03:24 ◼   ► Like, they have a kill switch, like they can do it.

01:03:27 ◼   ► For sure.

01:03:28 ◼   ► Again, it's like it's not completely sure as of right now if that's what will happen.

01:03:34 ◼   ► Like if people will lose the ability to play the game, we don't know that to be the case.

01:03:43 ◼   ► I mean, given, we don't know for sure, given what we said earlier on in this segment, which

01:03:49 ◼   ► is that this is a calculated move by Epic, I can't believe that this takes them by surprise

01:03:54 ◼   ► at all.

01:03:55 ◼   ► They must have known this was at the very least an option for Apple to do this.

01:04:01 ◼   ► And so I would think that they would have gamed through everything they did, including

01:04:05 ◼   ► asking for the restraining order about this.

01:04:08 ◼   ► But it is a moment of Epic being like, you know, they're retaliating against us for filing

01:04:14 ◼   ► a lawsuit against them.

01:04:15 ◼   ► But you know, the counter argument is they're in violation of all the policies.

01:04:18 ◼   ► This is no different.

01:04:19 ◼   ► This is just them being in violation of policies.

01:04:22 ◼   ► And Apple, does Apple not reserve the right to terminate the developer account of anyone

01:04:25 ◼   ► who violates Apple's policies?

01:04:27 ◼   ► Not just that they have violated them.

01:04:29 ◼   ► They knowingly did it.

01:04:31 ◼   ► Yes, indeed.

01:04:32 ◼   ► Like the plan was to break the rules so Apple would kick them off the store, right?

01:04:39 ◼   ► Because then if they got kicked off the store, the rest of the pieces got to be played.

01:04:44 ◼   ► Now maybe, I mean, I can imagine, I can imagine a company like Epic being like, yeah, but

01:04:52 ◼   ► they wouldn't do that though.

01:04:54 ◼   ► Right?

01:04:55 ◼   ► Like you play it out, but you'd be like, oh, they wouldn't be that silly to take us, like

01:04:59 ◼   ► to completely stop people from being able to.

01:05:03 ◼   ► This is very confusing.

01:05:04 ◼   ► Like I do want to know more, like I want to know what the actual ramifications of this

01:05:09 ◼   ► are, but it does seem like Epic are concerned about it, right?

01:05:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I got to think this breaks the, this revokes the certificate and breaks the app,

01:05:19 ◼   ► but it may or may not.

01:05:21 ◼   ► Also something we didn't mention, which is that Tim Sweeney of Epic in the last day has

01:05:26 ◼   ► also kind of gone off on a rant about Apple's App Store ads practice, which has never been

01:05:31 ◼   ► my favorite.

01:05:32 ◼   ► I always feel that that's Apple double dipping where they take money from developers and

01:05:35 ◼   ► then they make the developers then spend money on AdWords for their apps.

01:05:40 ◼   ► But he, you know, he went off on that too, the idea that if you search for Netflix in

01:05:44 ◼   ► the App Store, TikTok is the first hit because they are paying for an ad there.

01:05:49 ◼   ► So this is a, you know, this is a full frontal assault, but as we said earlier, I also think

01:05:54 ◼   ► that it's take all the shots you can and then hope that it shakes out a result that is desired.

01:06:00 ◼   ► So seeing people say that like, uh, with code signing and notarization on the Mac, this

01:06:07 ◼   ► would shut down Epic's games on the Mac from working.

01:06:14 ◼   ► So if that's the case, well, that's interesting.

01:06:17 ◼   ► It would probably also remove them from people's iPhones and iPads.

01:06:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, you could install a version that was not, uh, notarized and, uh, go through

01:06:27 ◼   ► the process of changing your security settings, but it would be a real inconvenience.

01:06:31 ◼   ► And that's on the Mac though, right?

01:06:32 ◼   ► Cause the Mac has that other option.

01:06:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:36 ◼   ► My assumption is here, I think we can assume here that this is going to cause significant

01:06:40 ◼   ► issues.

01:06:41 ◼   ► I do wonder if this has ramifications for those who use unreal.

01:06:50 ◼   ► I don't know about that.

01:06:51 ◼   ► It's I mean, what they say is that it's because they have, they need Apple's development tools

01:06:55 ◼   ► to make it available, but, um, whether that's technically, you know, who knows, I don't

01:07:01 ◼   ► know about how much of that is, is a kind of hysteria for making their legal argument

01:07:06 ◼   ► for a restraining order versus an actual technical problem without a workaround.

01:07:10 ◼   ► I guess the thing I say that I find funny about this is like during what we just recorded,

01:07:14 ◼   ► we're kind of like, we'll now see where it goes from here.

01:07:18 ◼   ► I don't think I expected it to go to this level so fast.

01:07:22 ◼   ► I was kind of expecting there to be a little bit of a wait before another move, but Apple

01:07:28 ◼   ► Apple's played a move now.

01:07:30 ◼   ► Um, I guess if this does cause issues with unreal, this will look bad on Apple.

01:07:37 ◼   ► I'm naturally assuming that would not be the case because I believe there are apps on Apple

01:07:41 ◼   ► arcade that are made using unreal.

01:07:44 ◼   ► So I can't imagine this is going to cause problems for third parties because otherwise

01:07:50 ◼   ► that is a big shot in Apple's own foot because now you're the collateral damage that you

01:07:56 ◼   ► are causing with this move is maybe more than they would actually want to do.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:02 ◼   ► It feels more like a long, long term thing, right?

01:08:04 ◼   ► Like, well, we can't make this available in the longterm if I don't have access to the

01:08:07 ◼   ► tools, not that it's going to break those apps immediately.

01:08:11 ◼   ► It would mean that Epic would not be able to continue creating revised versions of the

01:08:18 ◼   ► unreal engine because Epic as a company no longer has access to developer tools.

01:08:23 ◼   ► Right.

01:08:24 ◼   ► So, uh, yeah.

01:08:25 ◼   ► Wow.

01:08:26 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:27 ◼   ► Well, Apple's not playing around.

01:08:30 ◼   ► Uh, I didn't expect this to be their first move.

01:08:34 ◼   ► Um, I was expecting maybe for them to talk a little bit more publicly about it than they

01:08:40 ◼   ► have, you know, like maybe they would write a letter or something, you know, I wasn't

01:08:45 ◼   ► expecting, um, what I'm seeing other people refer to as like thermonuclear war on Epic,

01:08:52 ◼   ► but this is the big gun that Apple has to play in this fight.

01:08:57 ◼   ► It's like, fine, you're done.

01:08:59 ◼   ► And that I would say maybe a little too much, a little too soon, I think, but this is their

01:09:08 ◼   ► card to play.

01:09:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:10 ◼   ► Well, we'll see what happens next.

01:09:12 ◼   ► But uh, you know, who knows?

01:09:14 ◼   ► Seven days from now, lots can change.

01:09:16 ◼   ► So I've got another hour before I put the episode up.

01:09:19 ◼   ► So who knows?

01:09:20 ◼   ► Myke, this just in this.

01:09:23 ◼   ► Nope.

01:09:24 ◼   ► There's nothing more for now.

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01:11:06 ◼   ► We did it Myke.

01:11:07 ◼   ► We did it.

01:11:08 ◼   ► We didn't disagree as much as you feared I think.

01:11:11 ◼   ► I kind of pulled my thoughts back a little bit because you know, I think Federico will

01:11:18 ◼   ► side with me a little bit more with how I completely feel about this.

01:11:22 ◼   ► So maybe, I don't know if we're going to talk about it unconnected this week, but we'll

01:11:26 ◼   ► see.

01:11:27 ◼   ► All right, let's talk about Apple One.

01:11:30 ◼   ► Apple's finally getting ready to launch a services bundle.

01:11:34 ◼   ► We're pulling from a report here from a friend, literal actual real friend of the show, Mark

01:11:40 ◼   ► Germin.

01:11:41 ◼   ► Yes sir.

01:11:42 ◼   ► Someone I can actually say is a friend of the show because we have Mark on the show

01:11:45 ◼   ► not too long ago.

01:11:47 ◼   ► So this is planning to launch alongside the next iPhone, so probably in October.

01:11:51 ◼   ► There's not going to be any reason to do this other than they want to just show it off whenever

01:11:54 ◼   ► they show off the iPhone, right?

01:11:56 ◼   ► Get the most eyes on it.

01:11:58 ◼   ► There's going to be a series of options available under the name Apple One, which is kind of

01:12:02 ◼   ► funny if you think about it, right?

01:12:03 ◼   ► It's called Apple One, but there's five tiers.

01:12:07 ◼   ► It's like, that's not one.

01:12:09 ◼   ► Anyway, the basic package will include Apple Music and TV Plus.

01:12:14 ◼   ► There'll be a more expensive option that includes Arcade, another one that adds News Plus, and

01:12:19 ◼   ► then a final tier to include iCloud storage.

01:12:23 ◼   ► If this is correct, there's a lot of options, but the obvious idea here is it will cost

01:12:30 ◼   ► you less if you bundle them up.

01:12:32 ◼   ► There's an assumed savings of somewhere between two to five dollars a month, depending on

01:12:38 ◼   ► whatever bundle you end up going for.

01:12:42 ◼   ► I really hope that I don't have to get News Plus to get iCloud storage.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Like, I just don't want that.

01:12:49 ◼   ► I'm not sure it'll make sense.

01:12:51 ◼   ► I'm not sure it'll make sense if it works like that.

01:12:55 ◼   ► Gruber had his line, which is like, how does this make any sense?

01:13:00 ◼   ► How is this less complicated than anything else?

01:13:06 ◼   ► It strikes me as being kind of like very small discounts for various collections of features.

01:13:13 ◼   ► It's not simple.

01:13:15 ◼   ► The way it's described here, it's not simple.

01:13:17 ◼   ► It's complicated and weird, and you're right.

01:13:18 ◼   ► It's not one of anything.

01:13:24 ◼   ► The only way I can imagine this making sense is if the actual implementation of it is kind

01:13:32 ◼   ► of different, where it's like you start off with Apple Music and Apple TV Plus, and then

01:13:36 ◼   ► it's a dollar more to add any of them.

01:13:40 ◼   ► That would make...

01:13:42 ◼   ► At least I could understand that one, rather than saying there are five tiers and you pick

01:13:48 ◼   ► your tier, because that's too much.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Really, I think the thing that we've assumed, and it should always be the case here, is

01:13:56 ◼   ► they have one bundle, it costs one amount of money, and it gets you everything.

01:14:00 ◼   ► That's how I've always imagined a bundle from Apple.

01:14:05 ◼   ► That's what it is.

01:14:06 ◼   ► It's the all-in on the ecosystem bundle, which saves you a little bit of money if you get

01:14:11 ◼   ► everything, and then you don't care if you get News Plus.

01:14:14 ◼   ► Because it's part of the bundle.

01:14:16 ◼   ► And it saves you money because you already have the iCloud storage and all that.

01:14:19 ◼   ► And also the iCloud storage at the final tier is amazing.

01:14:22 ◼   ► Nobody can back up their iPhones.

01:14:24 ◼   ► Why is that the final tier?

01:14:27 ◼   ► Nobody has enough storage space to back up their iPhones with the free storage space.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Why would you not throw that in?

01:14:32 ◼   ► Put it in way earlier in this pricing structure.

01:14:36 ◼   ► Or make it part of the initial thing to get people in the door.

01:14:40 ◼   ► I'm reluctant to pick over this too much because it may not be the actual thing, but Mark's

01:14:44 ◼   ► sources generally are pretty good, and this seems to be what they're talking about now.

01:14:47 ◼   ► But yeah, I look at this and I think this is super disappointing and is going to be

01:14:51 ◼   ► a mess.

01:14:52 ◼   ► And as somebody who is paying for the Disney bundle, I just actually went through this

01:14:55 ◼   ► where I bought Disney Plus and I had a Hulu subscription.

01:15:00 ◼   ► And then because I had those two things, it actually was very, very, very cheap to add

01:15:04 ◼   ► in ESPN Plus and get the big Disney bundle.

01:15:08 ◼   ► Except the way I'm being charged doesn't make any sense.

01:15:10 ◼   ► And I think I'm being overcharged.

01:15:11 ◼   ► And I actually had to spend time in a chat window with a support person last week because

01:15:16 ◼   ► Hulu is still charging me this monthly fee that looks way too big.

01:15:19 ◼   ► And I paid for years of Disney in advance.

01:15:22 ◼   ► And then I've got this little tiny monthly thing that I'm being charged for the bundle

01:15:26 ◼   ► and it doesn't add up.

01:15:27 ◼   ► And it struck me while I was doing this that bundles are really complicated because you've

01:15:32 ◼   ► got existing customers with existing pricing, existing plans.

01:15:36 ◼   ► You've got three different products.

01:15:37 ◼   ► You've got, you know, Hulu has a couple of different tiers.

01:15:41 ◼   ► So there's that too, which at least Apple doesn't have here.

01:15:43 ◼   ► But like bundles, bundles get really complicated really fast and it becomes super unfriendly

01:15:49 ◼   ► to a lot of people.

01:15:52 ◼   ► And Mark's report about this bundle doesn't sound like it's anything but kind of complicated

01:15:59 ◼   ► and not particularly exciting.

01:16:02 ◼   ► I understand the issue and the difficulties in trying to create bundles.

01:16:09 ◼   ► Like I run a business that has membership options and bundles can be really hard and

01:16:17 ◼   ► adds many complexities.

01:16:20 ◼   ► But at the same time, all this stuff is coming from Apple.

01:16:25 ◼   ► And you know what?

01:16:26 ◼   ► You're a big enough company and you really can rest on the making up in volume thing,

01:16:32 ◼   ► was largest company, et cetera, et cetera.

01:16:36 ◼   ► A later version, this is this point, this drives me bananas.

01:16:40 ◼   ► This is exactly part of the problem I have with Apple leading back to the previous discussion

01:16:43 ◼   ► right now.

01:16:44 ◼   ► A later version of iOS 14 will include the ability for your device to suggest bundles

01:16:48 ◼   ► to you based on the services you already subscribed to.

01:16:51 ◼   ► Oh, I'm sure.

01:16:53 ◼   ► I have no doubt.

01:16:54 ◼   ► Guess what?

01:16:55 ◼   ► More upselling of Apple products and services within the iOS user interface.

01:17:02 ◼   ► Yeah, of course it will.

01:17:04 ◼   ► And you know what?

01:17:05 ◼   ► I bet it's not just in settings.

01:17:06 ◼   ► I bet like I'll open Apple music and it'll go, Oh, Hey, you should get news.

01:17:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:11 ◼   ► Maybe some push notifications, some badges on icons.

01:17:14 ◼   ► Look, I love Apple.

01:17:16 ◼   ► I love Apple products have done forever, you know, but like Apple feel like my problematic

01:17:23 ◼   ► fave at the moment because when I read that, like I'm like, yeah, I know like I have no

01:17:29 ◼   ► doubt about that at all.

01:17:31 ◼   ► No, I'm sure they're going to do it.

01:17:33 ◼   ► I have no doubt about it.

01:17:35 ◼   ► This is one of the core, I think, conflicts right now in discussing Apple is Apple is

01:17:41 ◼   ► rushing headlong into boosting its services revenue as quickly as it can, mostly because

01:17:47 ◼   ► it needs to show growth to wall street.

01:17:50 ◼   ► And that is the place that and wearables is where the growth is happening right now.

01:17:55 ◼   ► And they, Apple is willing to some degree to sacrifice user experience.

01:18:01 ◼   ► And yes, the whole previous segment of this podcast is probably about the same thing,

01:18:06 ◼   ► right?

01:18:07 ◼   ► Which is sacrificing good user experience in order to maximize services revenue.

01:18:13 ◼   ► The ARPU.

01:18:15 ◼   ► It is the ARPU.

01:18:17 ◼   ► Everybody's favorite ARPU.

01:18:18 ◼   ► Average revenue per user.

01:18:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:20 ◼   ► And the monetization, you remember how I said that the word monetize means turning it, you

01:18:23 ◼   ► take a magic wand and you tap it on a human being and they turn into a stack of coins.

01:18:28 ◼   ► ARPU is I think the unit that is used to count the coins because it's average revenue per

01:18:33 ◼   ► user.

01:18:34 ◼   ► It's like, you know, I just, I just want to know how many bags of money are, are inside

01:18:39 ◼   ► that person before I tap them with the magic monetization wand and turn them into a stack

01:18:43 ◼   ► of money.

01:18:44 ◼   ► You know, the, the, the story that really made me angry and, and you helpfully put it

01:18:49 ◼   ► in the document here is there are a lot of people who accuse Apple of Sherlocking them,

01:18:56 ◼   ► their products, right?

01:18:57 ◼   ► Like stealing their ideas and putting in the operating system.

01:19:00 ◼   ► And for a long time, I, I have, you know, there, the fact is that a lot of very basic

01:19:06 ◼   ► ideas should be part of the operating system and ultimately Apple shouldn't keep them out

01:19:11 ◼   ► of the operating system just because somebody did an app of it, like putting it and mainstreaming

01:19:17 ◼   ► it and making it kind of a simplified version of it that happens all the time.

01:19:20 ◼   ► It's okay.

01:19:21 ◼   ► And so I often will, will take those sharp criticisms of Apple and try to blunt them

01:19:26 ◼   ► a little bit and like, look, what do you expect them to do?

01:19:29 ◼   ► However, this one is amazing, which is, um, a rumor that, uh, comes out in the German

01:19:36 ◼   ► story and was rumored last year by Mac rumors as well, that Apple is planning a fitness

01:19:41 ◼   ► subscription service.

01:19:43 ◼   ► And this fits totally fits right.

01:19:45 ◼   ► Myke, you would say, of course they are, of course, of course they are.

01:19:49 ◼   ► There's a place for them to make some money.

01:19:50 ◼   ► It's fitness related.

01:19:52 ◼   ► They can make some money.

01:19:53 ◼   ► They can create a service.

01:19:54 ◼   ► I guess this is going to compete with like all these, all the bikes that you get on that

01:19:59 ◼   ► have virtual trainers and stuff.

01:20:00 ◼   ► It'll just be through Apple.

01:20:01 ◼   ► Um, is there an Apple exercise bike company?

01:20:04 ◼   ► There are lots of companies that, that do this stuff, right.

01:20:08 ◼   ► Where it's like, we create videos for you to work out home, right?

01:20:13 ◼   ► Like as well as like this story references companies like Peloton, but it's kind of different

01:20:18 ◼   ► to that because Peloton has a bike, right?

01:20:20 ◼   ► Like, I don't know, as you say, Apple, we're not going to make the, well, I don't know,

01:20:23 ◼   ► Apple bike, but like it will be like, here's a bunch of like home workout things that you

01:20:29 ◼   ► can do, uh, that kind of right.

01:20:32 ◼   ► So like you watch this person in a gym and they're going to do a bunch of crunches.

01:20:35 ◼   ► Although I will argue like for some of that, it's like, well, more fitness features make

01:20:39 ◼   ► sense once you do more fitness features.

01:20:40 ◼   ► But when they start talking about the content, first off, I get a little bit of a garage

01:20:44 ◼   ► band music lessons vibe.

01:20:46 ◼   ► Remember that?

01:20:47 ◼   ► It didn't go anywhere.

01:20:49 ◼   ► Uh, it was like, well, is this going to be another area where Apple like has an idea

01:20:53 ◼   ► and they try it and then it doesn't work out.

01:20:54 ◼   ► But Jason, you know why it didn't go anywhere?

01:20:56 ◼   ► Because they gave that away for free.

01:20:57 ◼   ► Well, no, they sold some of them.

01:20:59 ◼   ► They gave the first lessons away for free, but they had like in app, it was like in app

01:21:02 ◼   ► purchases in garage band of music lessons from Sting and John Mayer.

01:21:06 ◼   ► It's very weird.

01:21:07 ◼   ► Um, but no, what makes me angry is there was just that story about how a bunch of fitness

01:21:12 ◼   ► companies that had gyms because of COVID-19, they were, um, they were offering online,

01:21:19 ◼   ► uh, classes, online exercise classes.

01:21:23 ◼   ► And there were many stories about this and Apple came in and said, Oh, that's a digital

01:21:28 ◼   ► good.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Give us 30%.

01:21:32 ◼   ► And at the time I thought, well, that's kind of crappy.

01:21:34 ◼   ► Like this is a pandemic.

01:21:35 ◼   ► These people are just trying to have a solution that is not, uh, in person because they need

01:21:40 ◼   ► something and Apple didn't, again, Apple didn't build their business.

01:21:44 ◼   ► They're just trying to run their business this way.

01:21:48 ◼   ► And Apple saying, well, now that it's a digital good, I want my 30%.

01:21:51 ◼   ► But then you see this story and it's like, Oh, this is like, I books being built to spite

01:21:57 ◼   ► Amazon and try to steal Amazon revenue on Apple platforms.

01:22:00 ◼   ► This is because I look at this and I think, Oh, that explains why Apple is so diligent

01:22:05 ◼   ► about having online fitness courses go through Apple system and generate 30% kickback to

01:22:11 ◼   ► Apple is because Apple's building a product to do this.

01:22:15 ◼   ► And what is a more Apple strategy?

01:22:17 ◼   ► Sorry.

01:22:18 ◼   ► Sorry, everybody out there for being so cynical about Apple these days, but like, what is

01:22:21 ◼   ► a more Apple strategy?

01:22:23 ◼   ► Is this hard not to be, cause this is, they might, this might not be their thing, but

01:22:28 ◼   ► you know what?

01:22:29 ◼   ► It ties them with everything else they're doing.

01:22:30 ◼   ► So it probably is what they're doing.

01:22:32 ◼   ► It does.

01:22:33 ◼   ► It's very plausible that what Apple has decided is we're going to do a fitness subscription.

01:22:39 ◼   ► And then anyone else who wants to do online fitness courses is going to have to, you know,

01:22:43 ◼   ► it's going to have to follow our rules and we have to be sure that we're diligent about

01:22:47 ◼   ► enforcing those in advance.

01:22:49 ◼   ► But in the end, what it looks like from the outside is Apple wants to make the 30%, not

01:22:56 ◼   ► just Apple taking its cut, but Apple making it impossible for other companies to compete

01:23:01 ◼   ► with them because they have a product that's launching a service that's launching.

01:23:06 ◼   ► I hear your blood boiling, Myke.

01:23:10 ◼   ► I don't blame Tim Cook in the way that a lot of people do, right?

01:23:17 ◼   ► Like this is just the situation that they found themselves in.

01:23:22 ◼   ► I just kind of wish that they would stop.

01:23:25 ◼   ► Right?

01:23:26 ◼   ► Like I can see how we got here, but like, let's just calm down a bit, right?

01:23:35 ◼   ► Let's pull back a bit and rethink this.

01:23:38 ◼   ► Like Apple be in these businesses if these are the businesses you want to be in.

01:23:43 ◼   ► Like totally fine, right?

01:23:46 ◼   ► Like Sherlocking is a thing that's always existed, right?

01:23:50 ◼   ► Which is the idea of Apple creating a business which is just like a business of somebody

01:23:56 ◼   ► else, right?

01:23:57 ◼   ► And it is a frustrating thing, but a thing that has existed for a long time.

01:24:02 ◼   ► And it goes to the core, again, it goes to Apple's core, which is, aha, oh, Apple core,

01:24:07 ◼   ► that wasn't intentional, which is if it's something that's adding onto an operating

01:24:11 ◼   ► system and it's an obvious feature that benefits users, guess what?

01:24:14 ◼   ► The maker of the operating system probably should put that in the operating system.

01:24:17 ◼   ► And sometimes, not all the time, they do it better, right?

01:24:19 ◼   ► So it's like a net win for the user, but it's unfortunate for the company.

01:24:23 ◼   ► Or they do it for mass appeal and there's still nerdy appeal that that other product

01:24:27 ◼   ► often will continue to exist because it does things that the stock Apple thing doesn't

01:24:33 ◼   ► do.

01:24:34 ◼   ► And so it gets overhyped a lot of the time.

01:24:36 ◼   ► But you're right, honestly, Myke, we've argued for years now about how Apple's spending billions

01:24:44 ◼   ► of dollars on Apple TV Plus because Apple feels like it's going to get left behind in

01:24:51 ◼   ► this changeover from traditional Hollywood to essentially tech companies running the

01:24:57 ◼   ► entertainment industry.

01:24:58 ◼   ► And okay, there's an argument to be made there, we've talked about it.

01:25:04 ◼   ► There is part of me that looks at all of this and says, "You know what?

01:25:08 ◼   ► Why does Apple have to have a music service?

01:25:10 ◼   ► Why does Apple have to have a bookstore?

01:25:12 ◼   ► Why does Apple have to have a... is Apple the company that needs to make a virtual fitness

01:25:17 ◼   ► thing?

01:25:18 ◼   ► Or are they really just doing that?

01:25:19 ◼   ► Do they really have something new to contribute here?

01:25:22 ◼   ► Or is it really that they've got a platform advantage?

01:25:24 ◼   ► And by putting this on their platforms and advertising it by sending push notifications

01:25:28 ◼   ► to everybody who owns their devices, they're going to make some extra money on a thing

01:25:32 ◼   ► that's probably not as good as the competition, but they have their platform advantages."

01:25:37 ◼   ► And it's just so wearying to me because iBooks isn't best in class.

01:25:44 ◼   ► I don't use Spotify, but everything that I've heard, it's not...

01:25:47 ◼   ► I mean, I'm glad Apple Music exists honestly, because otherwise I think it would just be

01:25:51 ◼   ► Spotify or there would need to be some other service.

01:25:53 ◼   ► So I guess every platform owner has a music service and then there's Spotify.

01:25:57 ◼   ► I guess that's how we're doing it.

01:25:58 ◼   ► But does it need to exist?

01:26:00 ◼   ► It doesn't.

01:26:01 ◼   ► It doesn't need to exist.

01:26:02 ◼   ► Does Apple TV Plus need to exist?

01:26:04 ◼   ► It doesn't.

01:26:05 ◼   ► It doesn't really need to exist.

01:26:06 ◼   ► Apple has done so many things that are additive, that are not about Apple's core business at

01:26:11 ◼   ► all, other than that Apple can use its core business to make this other business successful

01:26:17 ◼   ► against competition that doesn't own their own platform.

01:26:22 ◼   ► And the further afield they go, the more wearying it is for me, to see them like this fitness

01:26:29 ◼   ► thing, just like, "Could it be good?

01:26:31 ◼   ► I guess, but why?"

01:26:35 ◼   ► And somebody else whose entire business is built on it is going to care more about it

01:26:39 ◼   ► and probably do a better job, and they may fail because they don't have billions of dollars

01:26:45 ◼   ► in the bank like Apple does.

01:26:48 ◼   ► And if they're going to do this stuff, if they decide they want to do it, fine, right?

01:26:53 ◼   ► If Apple decides that this is what they have to do, they really believe they can bring

01:26:58 ◼   ► something new to the virtual fitness description space, all right, but don't also take 30%

01:27:04 ◼   ► away from everybody else.

01:27:05 ◼   ► Don't do both.

01:27:07 ◼   ► I just don't believe... bottom line is that I look at this and I think, "It's not going

01:27:13 ◼   ► to be great.

01:27:17 ◼   ► It might be okay."

01:27:19 ◼   ► Like how many Apple services are we going to see that are okay and are there because

01:27:28 ◼   ► Apple wanted to try them?

01:27:32 ◼   ► And we beat up News Plus a lot in Apple News because it's the weakest of them, but there's

01:27:38 ◼   ► a lot of stuff that Apple does in services that's okay, it's fine, but does the world

01:27:45 ◼   ► need a Peloton competitor that is paid for by Apple?

01:27:52 ◼   ► Maybe they'll be devoted to quality and it'll be great and all of that, but it feels like

01:27:55 ◼   ► the motivation there is not to bring a wonderful, groundbreaking new concept for fitness to

01:28:01 ◼   ► customers, right?

01:28:02 ◼   ► It feels like it's to skim more money out of the ecosystem and increase the ARPU.

01:28:08 ◼   ► Must increase the ARPU.

01:28:11 ◼   ► Well, in like a year, in two years, how much dead wood are they going to be carrying?

01:28:18 ◼   ► All of these things, they keep starting to add into what will become Apple One, right?

01:28:23 ◼   ► I assume this will be part of Apple One.

01:28:24 ◼   ► Do you keep doing it forever?

01:28:26 ◼   ► Do you kill the ones that don't work out?

01:28:30 ◼   ► Or are they zombified and they just kind of continue on as half?

01:28:36 ◼   ► That's the thing that gets me, right?

01:28:38 ◼   ► Apple has so many things.

01:28:39 ◼   ► I know it's got a lot of money and it can do a lot of things, but it has so many things

01:28:41 ◼   ► at its core that it needs to focus on and that I don't feel like it does.

01:28:46 ◼   ► Even its own apps, it doesn't always focus on.

01:28:49 ◼   ► And yet it is happy to spend money building more of those things that are not at its core

01:28:53 ◼   ► and that are not at the most important to them.

01:28:55 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:28:59 ◼   ► It's very frustrating because it's not as if, here's the thing, it's not as if we look

01:29:07 ◼   ► at all of Apple services and say, you know what?

01:29:10 ◼   ► Apple brought to this what they bring to every product they do, which is this intense focus

01:29:13 ◼   ► on quality.

01:29:15 ◼   ► This is what they say on stage, right?

01:29:16 ◼   ► Intense focus on quality and on the user experience and all of those things.

01:29:20 ◼   ► But a lot of these things just aren't like, they are Me Too products, so they're mediocre

01:29:25 ◼   ► products.

01:29:26 ◼   ► And meanwhile, the existing products have issues that could probably get some more.

01:29:29 ◼   ► And I know that the money, you can't take a person who's working on Apple TV Plus and

01:29:33 ◼   ► have them fix bugs.

01:29:34 ◼   ► Like that's not the case.

01:29:35 ◼   ► But there is this organizational spread that is happening.

01:29:40 ◼   ► And if they had proven that every single one of their things is executed with Apple's famous,

01:29:46 ◼   ► meticulous attention to detail and consumer delight, I would be like, great, I can't wait

01:29:51 ◼   ► to see what they do in fitness.

01:29:53 ◼   ► But I've seen Apple News Plus.

01:29:55 ◼   ► So it's like, I think I would be able to more easily accept it if every single one of them

01:30:05 ◼   ► was fantastic.

01:30:06 ◼   ► I actually at this point, Jason, genuinely believe that TV Plus will be the best, but

01:30:13 ◼   ► it's going to take time.

01:30:15 ◼   ► But I think that they are teeing up enough people, enough content now that they are going

01:30:22 ◼   ► to brute force this one.

01:30:24 ◼   ► Like they will get to a point where it will be worth signing up for Apple One because

01:30:31 ◼   ► you'll get music in TV Plus.

01:30:32 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes to this Ben Smith piece in the New York Times that

01:30:39 ◼   ► is, I don't entirely agree with it.

01:30:43 ◼   ► It's called The Week Old Hollywood Finally Actually Died.

01:30:45 ◼   ► It's a great title.

01:30:46 ◼   ► And it has to do with like the AT&T layoffs at WarnerMedia and all this stuff.

01:30:52 ◼   ► I don't entirely agree with this premise.

01:30:53 ◼   ► I think it's a little bit too simplistic where he says things like, well, HBO Max only has

01:31:00 ◼   ► 2 million subscribers or whatever.

01:31:01 ◼   ► HBO Max only has this many subscribers, so that's it.

01:31:03 ◼   ► Disney One and all the rest of these are doomed to failure.

01:31:06 ◼   ► It's like, no, I think that's simplistic and it's too soon.

01:31:11 ◼   ► And this is a very complex market and there's a lot more to fight about.

01:31:16 ◼   ► But I will say that if you buy Ben Smith's premise, what he's essentially saying is Old

01:31:20 ◼   ► Hollywood is dead and now it's a whole bunch of companies with a lot of money trying to

01:31:24 ◼   ► find out what new entertainment industry is.

01:31:27 ◼   ► And if you read the article, the strong impression you get is, who do you think is going to be

01:31:33 ◼   ► better at this?

01:31:34 ◼   ► Netflix, Amazon, maybe even Apple or AT&T and Comcast.

01:31:43 ◼   ► And I think that there's a good argument there.

01:31:46 ◼   ► I think there is an argument to be made that if we are, if there is no, Disney is only

01:31:52 ◼   ► the traditional, is the only traditional entertainment company that is actually fighting this fight

01:31:58 ◼   ► is one of his points.

01:31:59 ◼   ► And I think it's a good one, which is, it's not Disney versus Warner versus Universal

01:32:03 ◼   ► NBC.

01:32:04 ◼   ► It's Disney versus AT&T versus Comcast.

01:32:09 ◼   ► And when you put it that way, it's like, well, it's really Disney's the only entertainment

01:32:11 ◼   ► company out of that group.

01:32:13 ◼   ► The others are phone companies and cable companies that have an offshoot.

01:32:17 ◼   ► And if that's the game now, other than Disney, then who wouldn't, why would you not bet on

01:32:24 ◼   ► Amazon and Netflix and even Apple in a scenario like that?

01:32:28 ◼   ► Is Apple any worse positioned than AT&T in terms of building an entertainment product?

01:32:35 ◼   ► I'm not sure it is in a long, long run.

01:32:38 ◼   ► Yes, AT&T owns Warner Media, but like, is AT&T going to be better in terms of strategy?

01:32:46 ◼   ► I mean, maybe with their, the guy, Jason Killar, who's the CEO now who used to be the Hulu

01:32:51 ◼   ► guy in the early days, maybe, but you're going to put money down on AT&T?

01:32:58 ◼   ► So that is, so when you say that you think Apple might get there, I think you're right.

01:33:02 ◼   ► Apple might get there, even though it's sort of way out of bounds for them.

01:33:05 ◼   ► Like that, that is where the entertainment industry is going is like anybody's game.

01:33:13 ◼   ► So I want there to be a bundle for the same reason I always wanted there to be a bundle.

01:33:16 ◼   ► So I'm just paying one amount of money in the family sharing plan and that's that job

01:33:20 ◼   ► done.

01:33:21 ◼   ► Yes.

01:33:22 ◼   ► Right?

01:33:23 ◼   ► Yes.

01:33:24 ◼   ► Please.

01:33:25 ◼   ► Every time, do you get the push notifications?

01:33:26 ◼   ► I get them now because I'm paying for all my Apple services with Apple pay.

01:33:28 ◼   ► And so I get push notifications whenever I have an Apple pay payment, which means that

01:33:31 ◼   ► I get emails, so I get push notifications every time I make an Apple pay payment, which

01:33:36 ◼   ► happens for all of my recurring Apple things.

01:33:38 ◼   ► And it makes me laugh every time it's like, now I've been charged for this Apple service.

01:33:42 ◼   ► Now I've charged for this.

01:33:43 ◼   ► It just keeps happening.

01:33:44 ◼   ► Stop it.

01:33:45 ◼   ► I would really like for that to be, it's like, yes, I have all your things except for Apple

01:33:50 ◼   ► news plus, cause it wasn't very good, but like I have all your things.

01:33:53 ◼   ► If you can give me a bundle that puts it on one bill and saves me a little bit of money,

01:33:57 ◼   ► but I'm committing to all your things, let's do that.

01:33:59 ◼   ► Let's for my family, let's do it.

01:34:01 ◼   ► I'll sign up.

01:34:02 ◼   ► Give me, give me that.

01:34:03 ◼   ► But I'm not sure that's what we're going to get.

01:34:07 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:34:08 ◼   ► Or at least it's not going to be wildly compelling to people that don't just want what we want,

01:34:13 ◼   ► which is just one payment.

01:34:16 ◼   ► But I think that there is definitely a class of Apple's customers that are the all in on

01:34:20 ◼   ► Apple's ecosystem.

01:34:21 ◼   ► And that that's what that plan is.

01:34:22 ◼   ► It's the all in on Apple's ecosystem plan is Apple all in.

01:34:26 ◼   ► They could use that title if they want all in plus premium.

01:34:30 ◼   ► We should mention by the way, uh, some news that just happened while we were talking,

01:34:35 ◼   ► which is that there is a, there is an Apple bundle.

01:34:38 ◼   ► It's a TV bundle with Viacom CBS.

01:34:43 ◼   ► This is so strange.

01:34:47 ◼   ► If you're in the U S you can get CBS all access and Showtime for nine 99 a month if you are

01:34:53 ◼   ► already an Apple TV plus subscriber.

01:34:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:34:56 ◼   ► So it's a subscription within a subscription to hat on a hat as Merlin would say.

01:35:00 ◼   ► So yeah.

01:35:01 ◼   ► So if you are an Apple TV plus subscriber, you can then like get CBS all access and Showtime

01:35:07 ◼   ► as a bundle inside the TV app for $10 a month.

01:35:12 ◼   ► So it's like a bundle inside a service, but uh, it is interesting that they've cut, they've

01:35:17 ◼   ► cut this deal.

01:35:18 ◼   ► Um, but it's not, so like if you don't get Apple TV plus, I guess you don't get this.

01:35:23 ◼   ► I already have CBS all access and Showtime, so I'm not going to be able to avail myself

01:35:28 ◼   ► of this particular bundle.

01:35:30 ◼   ► Um, cause I have all the things already, but uh, it, I think what it says more than anything

01:35:37 ◼   ► else is that Viacom's CBS is a, a free agent that's willing to make all sorts of different

01:35:43 ◼   ► deals because they don't, they don't at least yet even have the aspirations to be what AT&T

01:35:51 ◼   ► and Comcast are.

01:35:52 ◼   ► They're, they're kind of smaller and they're out on their own and they are happy to make

01:35:57 ◼   ► deals with Apple for stuff like this.

01:36:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:01 ◼   ► We, we've posited the potential idea of what if Apple bought them?

01:36:03 ◼   ► Well, yeah, it doesn't look like that's going to be happening anytime soon.

01:36:07 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:36:10 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Pingdom from SolarWinds.

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01:37:41 ◼   ► Okay, Mr. Jason Snow, it's time for some hashtag ask upgrade questions.

01:37:49 ◼   ► Wolf wants to know, when the first Apple Silicon iMacs are released, what is the likelihood

01:37:54 ◼   ► that they will be accompanied by a new mouse?

01:37:59 ◼   ► I haven't even been thinking about Apple adding, changing its peripherals because I think they're

01:38:06 ◼   ► pretty good.

01:38:08 ◼   ► Now that Wolf mentions it, like could be everybody mocks that mouse because it charges on its

01:38:15 ◼   ► underside, which is not so great.

01:38:18 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:38:19 ◼   ► What do you think?

01:38:20 ◼   ► I mean, I think the likelihood is greater than normal, but it's never a very big likelihood.

01:38:25 ◼   ► So 10%, 20%?

01:38:26 ◼   ► I know this is a terrible answer, but I think it just depends because it kind of really

01:38:37 ◼   ► says like, how much are they going to change the design of the iMac?

01:38:42 ◼   ► If they really change it, maybe the current peripherals will look out of place.

01:38:49 ◼   ► What if it comes, it's black?

01:38:53 ◼   ► That's the color that it comes in.

01:38:54 ◼   ► Well, they have a black version of the Magic Mouse, but is it time to change it?

01:39:02 ◼   ► I kind of wonder if really people are buying the trackpad now more than the mouse anyway.

01:39:09 ◼   ► I would think so.

01:39:10 ◼   ► And I don't really think they need to do anything to the trackpad.

01:39:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

01:39:15 ◼   ► I don't like the Magic Mouse myself.

01:39:18 ◼   ► I find it really uncomfortable to use.

01:39:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:39:21 ◼   ► When I got the review unit of the new iMac, I didn't realize there was a Magic Trackpad

01:39:28 ◼   ► in the box.

01:39:29 ◼   ► I only saw the mouse.

01:39:30 ◼   ► There was both.

01:39:32 ◼   ► And so I started using the mouse.

01:39:34 ◼   ► I hate it.

01:39:35 ◼   ► It's so bad.

01:39:36 ◼   ► I rely on pinch and zoom and all these gestures that it can't do.

01:39:42 ◼   ► And I don't like mice anyway, but I got to spend a little time with it and I still hate

01:39:48 ◼   ► it.

01:39:49 ◼   ► And then I found that there was the trackpad in the box.

01:39:51 ◼   ► The Magic Mouse, I know that people like it because it has some gestures, right?

01:39:57 ◼   ► And that is cool.

01:39:59 ◼   ► But really, you just get a mouse from another company that has a button or two on it and

01:40:04 ◼   ► you can replicate that stuff by and large.

01:40:07 ◼   ► Like if you have to use a mouse.

01:40:08 ◼   ► Because then you go to a trackpad for all of the additional gestures a trackpad gets

01:40:13 ◼   ► you like pinching and zooming, which I do not believe that the Magic Mouse can do.

01:40:17 ◼   ► I don't think it pinches the zoom.

01:40:20 ◼   ► So yeah, it's not for me.

01:40:21 ◼   ► This is actually a related question that comes from Nicholas.

01:40:25 ◼   ► Nicholas wants to know if we have any recommendations for ergonomic peripherals for the Mac.

01:40:30 ◼   ► I have none, so go for it.

01:40:32 ◼   ► Oh, I've got some.

01:40:34 ◼   ► So all right, so I have a few.

01:40:36 ◼   ► Some work better than others for the Mac.

01:40:39 ◼   ► You know, it's like one that I'll recommend is a keyboard that I'm using right now, which

01:40:42 ◼   ► is called the Microsoft Sculpt keyboard.

01:40:45 ◼   ► This is a keyboard that was recommended to me by Michael Ament a long time ago.

01:40:49 ◼   ► And I know many other people that use it.

01:40:51 ◼   ► It is a Microsoft keyboard, so it is a PC keyboard.

01:40:55 ◼   ► You do have to kind of embrace that and maybe swap some stuff around.

01:40:59 ◼   ► You're also going to always have a Windows logo in front of you.

01:41:03 ◼   ► But look, it's a great keyboard.

01:41:05 ◼   ► It's a part split keyboard.

01:41:07 ◼   ► So it kind of basically the advantage to this keyboard is that your hands aren't like completely

01:41:16 ◼   ► straight towards the computer.

01:41:18 ◼   ► So you're not bending your wrists at a weird angle.

01:41:23 ◼   ► An ergonomic keyboard, a split keyboard like this allows you to kind of place your hands

01:41:27 ◼   ► on the keyboard in what I and many other people consider to be a more comfortable kind of

01:41:34 ◼   ► orientation.

01:41:35 ◼   ► I don't only use this keyboard or split keyboard, but I do quite frequently.

01:41:41 ◼   ► My big thing about ergonomics with peripherals, the thing that works for me is to use lots

01:41:47 ◼   ► of different ones and not just to focus on one thing for one time for a long period of

01:41:53 ◼   ► time.

01:41:54 ◼   ► So that's one keyboard.

01:41:55 ◼   ► If you want to get what I think to be a nicer experience from a split keyboard, I will recommend

01:42:02 ◼   ► to you two products.

01:42:04 ◼   ► One is called the Dygma Raise, which is DYGMA.

01:42:07 ◼   ► This is my favorite keyboard, but it is a mechanical keyboard.

01:42:12 ◼   ► It's a clicky keyboard.

01:42:13 ◼   ► So I can't use it while I'm recording here.

01:42:15 ◼   ► It's the one that I have a cherry brown switches on it because it's too noisy.

01:42:19 ◼   ► But this is the keyboard that I do the vast majority of my typing on.

01:42:23 ◼   ► I think it's fantastic.

01:42:24 ◼   ► It has RGB.

01:42:25 ◼   ► If you want it, you can adjust it, you can change it.

01:42:28 ◼   ► This is my favorite keyboard.

01:42:30 ◼   ► I will also recommend or at least suggest the Ergodox keyboards because they are definitely

01:42:37 ◼   ► the more popular of the split keyboard.

01:42:40 ◼   ► I see this one around, but visually I prefer the Dygma Raise.

01:42:43 ◼   ► And I also like the layout of some of the buttons a little better than the Ergodox keyboard.

01:42:50 ◼   ► I'm being told by Sam in the chat room about silent mechanical switches.

01:42:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I am aware of them and I'm thinking about it for a future keyboard purchase for

01:43:00 ◼   ► maybe to get a different split keyboard that I like more.

01:43:02 ◼   ► But anyway, I like my the keyboards that I write on the most to have some clickiness

01:43:06 ◼   ► to them because that's fun.

01:43:08 ◼   ► So they're the keyboards that I would recommend.

01:43:10 ◼   ► When it comes to mice, I have three products from Logitech that I will also recommend.

01:43:15 ◼   ► One is the very aptly named MX Ergo, which is a trackball mouse.

01:43:22 ◼   ► So you don't move the mouse, you use your thumb to control the trackball.

01:43:27 ◼   ► And I use this mouse every day with my iPad Pro.

01:43:30 ◼   ► I have it connected via Bluetooth to that.

01:43:33 ◼   ► And so when I put my iPad in the stand, I use this.

01:43:36 ◼   ► I also will recommend the MX Master 3, which is Logitech's like premium mouse, like it's

01:43:42 ◼   ► the one that everybody knows and uses.

01:43:45 ◼   ► I find it to be a much more comfortable experience to use than say Apple's mouse.

01:43:50 ◼   ► And then another one, which is another product that I'm using right now is the MX Vertical,

01:43:55 ◼   ► which is a vertical mouse.

01:43:57 ◼   ► So instead of your hand being like horizontal to the desk, it is vertical to the desk in

01:44:02 ◼   ► its orientation.

01:44:04 ◼   ► And again, like I use a combination of these things and a trackpad.

01:44:08 ◼   ► And I also use a Wacom tablet to allow for my hands to my arms to feel comfortable when

01:44:14 ◼   ► using computers for long periods of time.

01:44:16 ◼   ► But these are my recommendations.

01:44:18 ◼   ► Do with them as you will.

01:44:20 ◼   ► I strongly recommend that people look into products like this right now.

01:44:26 ◼   ► If you are a new at home worker, I am genuinely very concerned about the ergonomics of people

01:44:34 ◼   ► that have found themselves all of a sudden working from home because it takes a while

01:44:40 ◼   ► for these problems to develop.

01:44:43 ◼   ► So please do whatever you can to try and be sensible with your ergonomic environment.

01:44:50 ◼   ► Get a good chair, get a good desk where you can.

01:44:54 ◼   ► And you know, but if that stuff's difficult for you, look into some of these products.

01:44:59 ◼   ► Plus the Dygma Raise, the OgoDox, they're really cool keyboards.

01:45:02 ◼   ► And you might have fun with it because then you can start getting custom key sets and

01:45:07 ◼   ► like key caps and you can put them on and you can make it look really cool.

01:45:11 ◼   ► And then you can have awesome RGB lighting, you know, go wild with it.

01:45:14 ◼   ► Janos asks, do you track a room temperature or overall home temperature at all with any

01:45:21 ◼   ► technology?

01:45:22 ◼   ► Jason, to you, I know you're a weather person.

01:45:24 ◼   ► Does that also include the indoors?

01:45:26 ◼   ► Yeah, well the, so my weather console that's attached to my weather station wirelessly

01:45:31 ◼   ► has a temperature sensor in it.

01:45:33 ◼   ► So there's an indoor temperature sensor in that.

01:45:37 ◼   ► And I use that.

01:45:38 ◼   ► And then my, I have a Nest smart thermostat, so that's got the indoor temperature in it.

01:45:43 ◼   ► And both of those, I can use Homebridge to get those temperatures into HomeKit.

01:45:48 ◼   ► So I have them that way.

01:45:49 ◼   ► My understanding is that there are a bunch of smart home sensors you can buy.

01:45:52 ◼   ► And there are also some sensors that actually come with like smart home things that do other

01:45:57 ◼   ► stuff, but also have a temperature sensor in them that can be read.

01:46:00 ◼   ► So there's a bunch out there for that purpose.

01:46:04 ◼   ► But for me, since I already have that, the weather station console and the Nest, I already

01:46:09 ◼   ► have multiple ways to detect the temperature in my house.

01:46:13 ◼   ► I use the Canary, the smart home security system thing.

01:46:18 ◼   ► And that actually has a temperature sensor in it, which is useful.

01:46:21 ◼   ► I found that useful when it's been hot because I could get a basic readout of the main room

01:46:25 ◼   ► in my house, how hot it is.

01:46:27 ◼   ► But I've been thinking about maybe getting something cheaper for other rooms and also

01:46:32 ◼   ► for the studio.

01:46:33 ◼   ► I might look into that at some point.

01:46:36 ◼   ► Last question comes from Brent.

01:46:37 ◼   ► Brent wants to know, "Zoom seems to be a particularly bad offender for making fans spin.

01:46:43 ◼   ► How do you handle podcast recording when guests don't have an iMac Pro or a fanless machine?

01:46:49 ◼   ► Do you just make sure people aren't multitasking?"

01:46:52 ◼   ► Jason, I know that you deal with guests and people that aren't in fixed environments way

01:46:58 ◼   ► more than me.

01:47:00 ◼   ► Do you have any particular recommendations here?

01:47:02 ◼   ► No.

01:47:06 ◼   ► My recommendation is that I bought an iMac Pro not just because it's quiet, but because

01:47:14 ◼   ► I needed the power to denoise all of the audio tracks of all the people in these podcasts

01:47:19 ◼   ► who are on my podcast because there are going to be laptop fan noises and that's just going

01:47:25 ◼   ► to happen.

01:47:26 ◼   ► And I remove them and hope it sounds okay.

01:47:29 ◼   ► And that's about it.

01:47:31 ◼   ► I don't have a really great solution there.

01:47:35 ◼   ► Have them use the app and not the web browser.

01:47:41 ◼   ► Video is worse than just audio.

01:47:44 ◼   ► Don't use video.

01:47:46 ◼   ► When Brent said they're using Zoom, I'm assuming there might be a video component.

01:47:50 ◼   ► Obviously, video is more processor-intensive than audio, so turn off video.

01:47:56 ◼   ► And get your microphone away from the computer.

01:48:00 ◼   ► Get the microphone, if they have an external microphone that they're using for a podcast

01:48:04 ◼   ► or something, have them put the computer on the far side of the desk.

01:48:11 ◼   ► Move it as far away as possible.

01:48:12 ◼   ► And if you're doing video, there are other issues there.

01:48:15 ◼   ► But that's often the killer is that the microphone is right next to the laptop that's blowing

01:48:19 ◼   ► its fans and that's the worst.

01:48:23 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question for the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag

01:48:27 ◼   ► AskUpgrade or use ?AskUpgrade in the Relay FM members Discord, which you can get access

01:48:32 ◼   ► to along with many other wonderful benefits by going to getupgradeplus.com.

01:48:38 ◼   ► If you stay tuned after the theme song, if you're an Upgrade Plus subscriber for more,

01:48:43 ◼   ► and you will so as well as getting these bonus segments and bonus content, you can upgrade

01:48:48 ◼   ► with no ads.

01:48:49 ◼   ► Go to getupgradeplus.com to sign up today.

01:48:52 ◼   ► If you want to find out more about this episode, you can go to relay.fm/upgrade/311.

01:48:58 ◼   ► I want to thank Jason as always.

01:49:00 ◼   ► So if you go to sixcolors.com, you go to @jasonljfnell, you can find Jason's wonderful content.

01:49:07 ◼   ► If you want more podcasts of Jason on, there are many more here at Relay FM and many more

01:49:11 ◼   ► at theinc comparable.com as well.

01:49:14 ◼   ► I am i Myke, I am Y-K-E. If you want to find me online, don't forget 1130 a.m. Eastern

01:49:20 ◼   ► on August 18th at twitch.tv/relayfm.

01:49:23 ◼   ► We're going to do something fun there for a little bit.

01:49:26 ◼   ► Come hang out, come join.

01:49:27 ◼   ► And thanks to Mint Mobile, Pingdom, and Bombas for their support of this show, and thank

01:49:32 ◼   ► you for listening.

01:49:34 ◼   ► We'll be back next time.

01:49:35 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye Jason Snow.

01:49:36 ◼   ► Goodbye everybody.

01:49:37 ◼   ► [music]

01:49:44 ◼   ► [music]