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282: The iPad at 10

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 282. Today's show is brought to you by DoorDash,

00:00:15   Pingdom and Booz Allen. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hello, Jason Snell.

00:00:21   Hello, Myke Hurley. It's good to hear your voice, as always, on the Upgrade podcast.

00:00:27   We have a wonderful #SnellTalk question this week from Art. Art wants to know, Jason,

00:00:32   what is your favorite time travel movie? Oh boy, there are a lot of great time travel movies.

00:00:37   Time travel is nonsense. A lot of the plots of time travel movies are nonsense. And full of

00:00:42   holes. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and there's whole philosophies about, like, which kind of time

00:00:48   travel, which is hilarious because there is no kind of time travel that works, but, like,

00:00:51   narratively, there are, like, the kinds where you change the future by altering the past,

00:00:55   and they're the ones where the future can't be changed, and all of those things. Anyway,

00:00:59   I will point people to an episode of The Incomparable, episode 153, titled Monkey

00:01:04   with a Tin Foil Sandwich, which includes two of my favorite time travel movies.

00:01:10   12 Monkeys, which is a really good movie, starring Bruce Willis, that has a very interesting time

00:01:16   travel philosophy involving the inviolability of the timeline, which I kind of like. I kind of dig

00:01:24   that. You can send somebody back in time, but everything they do will just cause what

00:01:28   already happened to happen. Like, there's only one timeline, so if you go back in time and do

00:01:32   something, that thing already was always going to happen, and you were always going to do it.

00:01:35   I like that. Part of the timeline included the going back in time, like, that was just the way

00:01:42   that the future was created, was because the past was altered, and there was no way you could change

00:01:46   it. You go back to stop the Kennedy assassination, and somehow what's going to happen is you're

00:01:49   going to cause the Kennedy assassination. You trip and fall on the gun, right? Like, yes.

00:01:54   It's just going to happen. But my favorite time travel movie, also covered in that episode of

00:01:58   The Incomparable, is, and there's a great debate about how you pronounce this word, because it's

00:02:04   "pr-may," or as I like to call it, "primmer," which is a word that means, it's like an educational

00:02:12   book that tells you how to do something. But there's also a word "primer," which generally

00:02:18   means, like, paint that you put on a wall before you paint it a color. But anyway, people use

00:02:23   that pronunciation for the meaning of "primmer," too. So you can call it "primer" if you want.

00:02:27   The director started calling it "primmer," and then he gave up when everybody called it "primer," so

00:02:32   lesson learned. Then he just called it "primer" after that. However you pronounce it, though,

00:02:36   I love that movie. It's nuts. It is a very different philosophy than 12 Monkeys.

00:02:42   It kind of continually writes over itself, and it's about these two guys in Texas who

00:02:49   invent a time machine by accident and keep going back in time and altering things in an

00:02:57   extremely confusing and weird way. But I love it. I love how confusing it is and strange,

00:03:03   and it was shot for like $30,000. It's a low, low, low-budget film, and I love it. So that's

00:03:08   my favorite time travel movie. Check it out. "Primer," or "primmer," or whatever. P-R-I-M-E-R.

00:03:14   It's worth a watch. I'd say it's not worth a watch. It's worth many watches as you try to

00:03:19   figure out what the heck is happening, and then you bring up the big chart on the internet that

00:03:23   explains what's happening, and then you shake your head and say, "I still don't understand."

00:03:27   It's that kind of movie, but I love it. I love "Back to the Future."

00:03:31   It's a great one. There are a lot of great time travel movies of different kinds. "Back to the

00:03:36   Future" is a really good one. There are lots of movies that just include time travel,

00:03:41   which are good too. Like "Avengers." Yeah, actually, that's a really good one.

00:03:47   "Back to the Future," we talked about this, I think, at one point when we were talking

00:03:51   about "Back to the Future" on this show. If you think about how time travel works in "Back to the

00:03:56   Future," it gets a little bit disturbing because Marty comes back to a world that's different from

00:04:02   the world that he left. His parents are happy and wealthy, and he's got a truck and stuff like that.

00:04:10   And that makes you ask the question, "What happened to that Marty McFly?"

00:04:14   If we really did cheat. Because then he does it again, though, right?

00:04:17   And then Biff's in the power seat and whatever. He messes stuff up.

00:04:22   What are the rules there? Is there another Marty that left that world, and what world did he go to?

00:04:27   I got a lot of questions about time travel. But anyway, time travel movies are fun,

00:04:31   and "Primer" is my favorite. Thanks, Art. If you would like to send in a "Snow Talk"

00:04:36   question to open the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag #SnowTalk, and it might be

00:04:40   included in a future episode. We should let you know, we are recording this on Monday the 27th,

00:04:45   which is significant for a reason we'll get to in a bit, but on Tuesday the 28th of January 2020,

00:04:50   is Apple's Q4 results, right? For the calendar Q4, Q1 2020.

00:04:57   That's right. It's holiday quarter of 2019, but it's technically their first fiscal quarter of

00:05:02   the 2020s. Yeah.

00:05:03   So that's going to definitely occupy some discussion next week.

00:05:07   For sure. You'll be able to see some charts on sixcolors.com,

00:05:12   where there are currently even more charts, which is just that you got a bit chart-happy,

00:05:17   didn't you, over the last couple of weeks, I think.

00:05:19   I don't want to commit to it, but I'm kind of trying to do a chart every week. That's kind of

00:05:23   what I'm trying to do, is eat fun with charts every week. We'll see how long I stick with it.

00:05:27   Until you run out of charts? Until I run out of charts, but I wanted to

00:05:30   challenge myself with some recurring bits, so I'm going to try to do a chart.

00:05:33   Well. Of the week.

00:05:34   And so I made some charts. You have the data.

00:05:35   I started with some financial charts. There are other charts, too, that I might make.

00:05:38   And what's funny is every time I write an article about a chart in the article,

00:05:44   I end up looking up something that gives me a note for a future chart. That's happened every

00:05:49   time now. I've done it three times, and every time I've come out of it with a note for another chart,

00:05:54   that was the next chart. The charts just keep going.

00:05:57   You should start charting those. I would say that this whole project has been

00:06:02   worth it for the Decade of iPhone Revenue chart, which is on the Decade of Apple Growth

00:06:09   post, which I'll put in the show notes. Because the chart for iPhone growth is so huge,

00:06:16   it's bigger than the web page. You can't look at the chart in one.

00:06:20   I have it max size in Safari. I have the window the size of my iMac screen,

00:06:28   and I can't see the whole chart on one screen vertically because iPhone growth exploded so much

00:06:37   that it broke graphs. So it's kind of hilarious to see that.

00:06:40   Yeah, this is one of those things that started with me. I had a back and forth with John Gruber

00:06:44   actually about a previous chart article where I actually changed the scale originally. My scale,

00:06:49   it was about percentages, and the scale went to 50%. He sent me a text and said, "You're killing

00:06:55   me," and I knew what he was talking about, which is if you're showing percentages, the most

00:06:58   appropriate way to do it is to show all 100% because then you get an idea of within the

00:07:03   volume of 100% how much of each percentage is it. But that got me thinking about scale.

00:07:09   I made these charts, and I had that same thought, which is when I do these charts about revenue for

00:07:15   iPad, Mac, and iPhone, the scales are totally different. I don't have the scale set the same

00:07:22   because then you could basically, the iPad and the Mac would look totally flat if they were the same

00:07:27   scale as the iPhone because the iPhone's numbers are so much bigger. So I make them a different

00:07:32   scale, and I thought, "Well, how could I express this?" The answer was I made a version of the

00:07:38   iPhone chart where the scale was the same as the iPad and the Mac charts. As a result, because

00:07:45   iPhone revenue is so much more than those, it's this incredibly laughably tall chart. But it

00:07:53   expresses exactly what I wanted it to, which is you may misunderstand when looking at charts

00:08:01   just how much bigger the iPhone is than the other parts of Apple's product line by a lot,

00:08:06   and the growth that it had over the course of the last decade.

00:08:10   So we have some stuff we want to talk about today, but there is obviously a story that

00:08:15   occupied most of last week, but it was after we had recorded, was a conversation about Apple

00:08:21   and end-to-end encryption, especially in regards to iCloud backups and why they're not encrypted

00:08:29   fully and potential reasons for that. I just wanted to do a follow out to episode 278 of Connected

00:08:36   because I don't have the energy to get back into this conversation again because it riles me up,

00:08:42   Jason. So I recommend if people want to hear that, because sometimes if you just listen to this show

00:08:49   and we skip over a topic like this, you may think we're omitting it, right? But it's purely because

00:08:54   there's only so much we can talk about every week. So if you want to hear more on that, you can go

00:09:00   listen to Connected or you could also listen to ATP, right? Episode 362, I spoke about it there.

00:09:06   If you want to just hear people talk about it, but my views are they are what they are.

00:09:13   Yeah. Glenn Fleischman talked to John Gruber about it for three hours on the talk show. You can

00:09:18   listen to that if you've got three spare hours. Church show. And yeah, it's all covered pretty

00:09:23   well. I find the topic really frustrating because I think that there's a lot we don't know and

00:09:27   so you can talk about a very small amount. If this comes back in the news, we'll talk about it again,

00:09:33   but I think it was well covered elsewhere and the idea of balancing and what we may get into it

00:09:41   later in this episode too a little bit obliquely, but the idea of this being... Encryption is...

00:09:47   Offering end-to-end encryption to your customers is complicated and it's not just because of

00:09:53   governments wanting access to your customer data. It's also complicated because of customers

00:09:59   wanting access to their data and forgetting their passwords. And so then you start to ask,

00:10:05   what about making it optional? But then that has issues because then it's not on by default.

00:10:12   It's a whole can of worms. There are other podcasts that discussed it in depth. We probably

00:10:20   will discuss it again because this will not stop happening, but we're going to give it a pass this

00:10:25   week. We should talk about something that is particularly pertinent to our typical discussions.

00:10:31   I will frame this as an upstream topic, which is going back to Apple and original podcasts. So

00:10:38   Apple creating podcasts of their own. There's been two news stories about this in the last week.

00:10:43   One was a Bloomberg report. This came from... Who wrote this Bloomberg report? It was Mark

00:10:49   Germin and Lucas Shaw. And they stated that Apple are indeed planning on making original podcasts

00:10:57   that as I think we predicted quite a while ago, focus on its Apple TV+ shows as the content.

00:11:02   So they apparently started sending out requests for pitching to production companies over the

00:11:09   summer, podcast production companies. These podcasts would likely include production assistance

00:11:15   and appearances from the people involved in the shows themselves. This is much like the

00:11:20   podcast from networks like HBO, right? That there is an accompanying podcast to a TV show.

00:11:27   This is the easiest way for Apple to get into the game. And then in an interview with Forbes,

00:11:33   Lee Eisenberg, who's one of the co-creators of Little America said the following, "Apple is such

00:11:38   a worldwide and multifaceted brand. We're doing a podcast to delve more into the stories and the

00:11:44   music on the show. There'll also be a playlist for every episode. We're also putting out a book.

00:11:48   Apple has an infrastructure that just felt like it would be able to touch all of the different pieces

00:11:53   that we wanted." So... Do you think that's going to be one of those iPhoto books where you just,

00:11:58   you know, you get a little hardcover book with some pictures in it? Definitely made in iBooks author,

00:12:02   whatever it is, right? Sure. You know, this is... We've spoken about this before, right? That like,

00:12:08   as Apple move more and more into the entertainment industry, their ability to get people to keep

00:12:13   their mouth shut is going to become harder and harder. Because Eisenberg has basically said

00:12:18   that he's given the confirmation we were looking for, that Apple are indeed creating podcasts for

00:12:24   their TV shows because he's... So much has said it. This may be for the second season of Little

00:12:29   America. This makes perfect sense. What it doesn't answer, which is the bigger question of like,

00:12:36   this will be how Apple show their feeling about the podcast market as to whether these will be

00:12:43   available with RSS feeds or whether they will just be available in Apple podcasts? I think this isn't

00:12:50   going to prob... Unless they make them restricted, I think it won't tell us anything because the idea

00:12:56   is they're about Apple TV+ shows. So why not make them as widely available as possible because it's

00:13:03   about your product and that you have to be a subscriber to watch. So my guess is that they'll

00:13:09   be out there for everybody. I do think this is a best practice. I don't think it's being done as

00:13:12   much as it should be. As somebody who enjoys podcasts and enjoys TV shows, there should be

00:13:18   official podcasts about every TV show. You should do an official podcast. And I know I was having

00:13:26   this conversation with a mutual friend of ours who will remain nameless, who said that he listened to

00:13:34   the Chernobyl podcast on my recommendation and hadn't listened to it before because he was worried

00:13:40   and I think this is the problem, that it was just going to be a self-congratulatory exercise,

00:13:46   a marketing exercise about... I remember back when "Doctor Who" started back in the UK, they did a

00:13:51   podcast and it was the two executive producers. And literally it was just, "Hooray, hooray for

00:13:57   that person. Isn't that great? Isn't everything great?" And it didn't provide any insight into

00:14:02   like the making of the show. It was not helpful. The Chernobyl podcast was... They're not saying,

00:14:10   "Wow, this episode sucked," because it's the people who made it. But it was insightful about how the

00:14:17   show got made and the choices that were made. And the "Good Place" podcast is a little bit like that.

00:14:22   Again, nobody's slagging anybody off and saying, "This is a terrible episode," or "That actor is a

00:14:27   jerk." That's not going to happen on an official podcast. Nobody's going to say, "Wow, this one was

00:14:32   a stinker." But that show, the "Good Place" podcast has been really great and educational in terms of

00:14:39   getting people from all over the crew to talk about their job. So it's not just the actors and

00:14:44   the writers. It's the actors and the writers, sure, but it's also directors and producers

00:14:49   and set decorators and special effects people and script supervisors and things like that. So

00:14:56   I find those two podcasts especially... And the "Watchmen" podcast was pretty good,

00:15:00   although there were only three episodes of it, which was very frustrating to me.

00:15:04   But as somebody who listens to podcasts and watches TV, let me just say it, your show should

00:15:10   have a podcast. Every show should have a podcast. This is the brand extension. It's easy, won't take

00:15:17   too much time, it's fairly cheap, and it will give your viewers more of what they want. So I think

00:15:25   it's natural that Apple's doing this. So I'm looking forward to it. I want the official "For

00:15:29   All Mankind" podcast. And yeah, "Morning Show" podcast and whatever else, do it. Let's make it

00:15:34   happen. I want Ron Moore and his writing staff to go back through the first season of "For All

00:15:41   Mankind" and I'll watch those episodes again and then listen to the podcast.

00:15:44   Give me the director's commentary that I so greatly want. That's kind of how I feel about

00:15:50   this stuff. I want that content. Give me, give me, give me, give me. I feel for people like yourself,

00:15:57   Jason, who make podcasts about this type of content because things get a little trickier

00:16:03   to compete. You know, like when all the TV shows make the TV, the podcasts about TV shows, it can

00:16:10   be harder to stand out. Yeah, I don't agree mostly because we as an independent podcaster about a TV

00:16:20   show. So I'm doing that right now. Here's, here's a plug. I'll put in a plug. I'm doing that right

00:16:24   now for the current season of "Doctor Who" and for the new "Star Trek" Picard show. And you can

00:16:28   go to the incomparable. The "Doctor Who" stuff is in the TV podcast and there's a podcast called

00:16:34   "Vulcan Hello" where we talk about new "Star Trek." So I'm doing it for two shows right now.

00:16:37   And I did it for "Game of Thrones" and "Star Trek Discovery" and, you know, I've done it for some

00:16:42   other shows. The difference is that we can say, "Wow, that was a bad episode," or "I didn't like

00:16:49   that performance," or "What were they thinking?" We can be critical. We can be fans and we can be

00:16:55   excited. But it's not, there's no fallout from us saying that this episode was bad or I questioned

00:17:01   this performance or I don't understand what they were doing here. Plus we're not constrained by

00:17:05   knowing what happens next or you're not going to speculate about what happens, which we can do with

00:17:10   a lot of these shows. Like, I wonder what will happen next. Well, they know, so they're not going

00:17:13   to say anything. They're not going to touch that. So I feel like, you know, it's the classic,

00:17:18   maybe coming from journalism here is what colors this for me. But, you know, what we're doing is

00:17:24   we are free to say whatever we want. What they're doing is marketing. Marketing can be really good

00:17:28   content because they have access, but it's still marketing. So I want from the official podcast,

00:17:34   I want to hear from the people who made it about the choices they made. I want to know about the

00:17:38   creative process. I'm less interested in other stuff because it is marketing, but I don't think

00:17:45   it's an issue for being, you know, for people who are on the outside because you're never going to

00:17:50   get that from insiders, right? You're never going to that person won't last long in Hollywood.

00:17:55   If they appear on a podcast and say, yeah, my co-star really mailed it in. That's kind of a

00:17:59   weak performance. I don't think he did a very good job. I don't want to work with him ever again.

00:18:03   Like that's never ever going to happen. All right. This episode is brought to you by

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00:19:48   Jason, I said that today, January 27th was a, uh, was a, was a day in the calendar,

00:19:54   a monumental day. And it was because the iPad has turned 10 years old today.

00:20:00   Would you like to talk about that for us? Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, happy birthday iPad,

00:20:06   I guess, but it's a, it's, uh, you know, 10 is a, is a milestone for us 10 fingered humans.

00:20:13   And, uh, so I wanted to talk about it a little bit, like think about a decade of the iPad

00:20:19   and also to go back to the original, uh, event that happened, um, 10 years ago, the, uh, but,

00:20:28   you know, first I think it's worth mentioning, um, John Voorhees did a story about this on

00:20:32   Mac stories that just went up about like all of the rumors and mockups and things about the iPad

00:20:38   beforehand, being a friend and frequent iMessage compatriot of John Voorhees has been amazing over

00:20:44   the last couple of weeks as he has been finding these super weird like mockups that were being

00:20:50   made like in the months leading up to it. And then most of them are in the article,

00:20:55   at least the best ones on Mac stories, but it's just hilarious to see what we thought this device

00:21:01   might look like before it showed up. I mean, what the people who make mockups thought anyway,

00:21:07   but yeah. Yeah. But it's true. Like the Mac. So 2010, like the iPhone had been out, but there was

00:21:14   also this legacy of speculation that Apple's tablet computer was going to not be an iPhone.

00:21:21   It was going to be a Mac and there, there, that had been going on for a long time. And it sounds

00:21:26   like, you know, they were working on something like that inside Apple. And it was just, it never,

00:21:31   it never really worked. We also now know that the iPad actually was in process before the iPhone

00:21:38   and was impractical enough that they decided to go with the phone, the little phone first,

00:21:46   and then come back to the bigger device. Do you remember the mod book?

00:21:49   So this is, I wanted to mention it for people who don't remember it. Um, not only were people

00:21:55   really intrigued by the idea of a tablet computer, because there have been tablet PCs, Microsoft had

00:21:59   been making windows and all the PC licensees with tablet PCs for awhile. They weren't very good.

00:22:04   They were actually kind of a failed category. Um, and the, if you, if you look at my iPad,

00:22:10   my original iPad review, I say, you know, this is a failed category that it's coming into. Um,

00:22:16   but there was a company that was making the mod book a, a, it was a Mac book. It was a,

00:22:24   one of the plastic, the polycarbonate Mac books, like the white Mac book. And they basically

00:22:29   bought one and tore it apart and then put it back together with a touch screen. And so it was like

00:22:38   thick, but it was one slab and it was a touch screen. And the idea was, this is your touch

00:22:44   screen, Mac, this is your Mac tablet. Uh, which is funny because we, you know, there, there has

00:22:49   never been a Mac tablet. It is not a thing because the iPad happened instead, but there was definitely

00:22:55   in that, in that era, the, the Mac people had been agitating for an Apple tablet that was based on

00:23:01   OS X and a lot of the mock-ups picked that up. Right. And they, and they are showing, you know,

00:23:07   not a big iPhone, but a big thick mod book, like Mac OS X thing. You can still, you can still get

00:23:17   them. Modbook is still around. Their website makes it seem like it has never changed, especially when

00:23:25   they talk about the fact that you can put Firewire 800 on this thing, but you can still order from

00:23:31   them a product like I'm looking at their ordering form now, like you can get an i7, bunch of Ram,

00:23:39   like they will still make these things if you want one. Oh, it has touch bar now. Isn't it wild?

00:23:46   So they, they, they, they move the parts around and and then put it in a new case. Yeah. So this

00:23:52   is the thing. So anyway, at the time that was what a lot of people were thinking. Also the rumors,

00:23:58   there's a in the, in the keynote, Steve jobs even puts up a thing from the wall street journal that

00:24:03   says it's the most anticipated tablet since the one that had commandments written on it.

00:24:07   It's true. It was the speculation was, was enormous. And the big bit of speculation that

00:24:14   I remember is us arguing about the price. Oh, the price. Yes. I would say that the most common price

00:24:21   prediction was nine 99. But, um, you know, and they were arguing, it's like, no, no, no, it's

00:24:31   going to be, it's going to be seven 99. I don't think anybody, and certainly not very many people

00:24:37   predicted the real price, which was four 99. And you can see in that video of the keynote that

00:24:42   jobs knows it, right? He knows that everybody is over speculated about the price and you could

00:24:50   spec it up, right? You could put it in cellular and more storage and it would be more expensive,

00:24:54   but the base model wifi was four 99. And he actually put up nine 99 in the slide and then

00:25:01   has the four 99 slam down and, and replace it. Yeah. Uh, because it, and that was a huge deal,

00:25:08   right? Because Apple was saying we had this incredibly hot new thing and it's, you know,

00:25:13   and, and it's the future of computing or whatever. And it's four 99. That was a, uh, and they,

00:25:18   they optimized for that, like in the, the stories go that they designed it to hit four 99 and they,

00:25:23   and they made it, they didn't want this product to be more than $500 as a base.

00:25:27   It is super hard to, uh, like to, to, to understate how much of a surprise that price was

00:25:35   like at the time nobody expected less than a thousand like realistically, you know, that,

00:25:42   that was like, people were like, Oh, if they can hit nine, nine, nine, like that's going to be

00:25:47   great. But like $499 for this product was incredible no matter what it was going to be,

00:25:52   right? Like, cause it could have ended up being something way worse than what it was for $500,

00:25:57   you know, but for them to Apple to release this product, which was believed to be like their next

00:26:02   big thing for $500 was a huge surprise. I mean, yeah, it was basically the price of an iPhone,

00:26:09   right? Like if you bought one, but nobody was buying them, we're all getting them on contracts.

00:26:14   And it was very different. I think more expensive than this, but you didn't buy them outright. You

00:26:18   just bought them on contract, but yeah. Yeah. So the idea of getting a much bigger tablet product

00:26:24   from them was, was wild. Also, I think we were, we were calling them slates, right? Like that was

00:26:30   the thing now. It's not, it's no, it's even worse than that. Myke it's worse than that.

00:26:35   Tablet PCs was a thing for Microsoft, right? And Bill Gates tried to make tablet PCs happen

00:26:40   for a long time. HP had a, had one. I remember he used to do all these presentations with them.

00:26:46   Yeah. We just had it come up in the chat room where people were like, you know, Bill Gates

00:26:49   was right for some definition of right, which is exactly right. Like Bill Gates was like,

00:26:52   I'm a believer in this, but the stuff that they shipped was rejected by the market largely because

00:26:58   it was just, it wasn't good. It wasn't ready. It was not acceptable. And, but that was tablets.

00:27:04   And so tablets was the category slate only became a thing. And this is hilarious because there was a

00:27:12   rumor in late 2009 that Apple's product was going to be called the isolate. And there were other

00:27:22   rumors about what it was going to be called. I tablet, I'm not sure if iPad was out there, but

00:27:26   like the isolate was the rumor that everybody kind of jumped on and said, well, this must be it.

00:27:32   And this is where CES comes into the story because of course it is January 27th as we record this.

00:27:38   So late January CES had already happened. Well, those rascals at the consumer electronics show,

00:27:46   who, you know, show you products that don't exist and stuff like that are also quick to jump on

00:27:51   a trend and they wanted to pre-empt Apple. So all of these products get shown at CES

00:27:58   in 2010, before the iPad is announced and they are all called slates. They're referred to as being in

00:28:05   the slate market. This is a, this is a new slate we're going to create. And it's all because of

00:28:10   this rumor that Apple's thing is going to be called the isolate, which it wasn't. So that's

00:28:17   where slates come from. Slates was an attempt to jump on Apple and they, they failed. Also,

00:28:23   I'll point out the iPad name was widely mocked as a ridiculous name. It's fine. Right? Like in the

00:28:30   end, this, this shows you why as a marketer, sometimes you just need to ignore the fact that

00:28:38   they're going to be some wags who mock you a little bit. If you think you've got a good name,

00:28:43   because it settled down very quickly and the iPad is fine and it's just, that's what it is.

00:28:48   And it's not a big deal. There's one of those, it's like one of those things with all names,

00:28:52   eventually the name of the thing just becomes the thing and there's no more association to it

00:28:58   other than what it is. Right? Like you can have a name which seems funny for a little bit, but then

00:29:03   eventually everybody forgets why it's funny. And it's just, well, it's the iPad, like iPad becomes

00:29:09   a word of its own. Right? So then its associations wear away. But yeah, people didn't like the name.

00:29:14   The name was, you know, it was, iPad is clunky when you think of it in the abstract,

00:29:21   but now we're so used to it. It feels like the perfect name.

00:29:23   Yeah. It's, and I think it's not much more clunky than iPod. In fact, I think the strongest argument

00:29:30   against iPad is that it's so much like iPod and it gets confusing. And back in the day,

00:29:37   you would, you would think iPad, but type iPod and have to fix it. And now you think when,

00:29:42   whenever I am writing about the iPod, I type iPad and I'm like, God, no, it's iPod. It's not iPad,

00:29:48   because they're so close. Um, but we we've come a long way in 10 years.

00:29:53   But also as well, you could probably see, like, it was still a while, but I think in Apple's mind,

00:29:59   they were like, the iPad's going to be around longer than the iPod. So let's not worry about

00:30:02   this association. Right? Like they knew where it was going.

00:30:06   Yeah. This is the era where the iPod was becoming an app, right? It was the music app,

00:30:10   what used to be called iPod on the, on the iPad and the iPhone. Um, so it was, it was

00:30:16   A touch, was it widescreen, iPod with touch controls.

00:30:20   Sure. That the event. So the event is great. I watched the event last week. Um,

00:30:26   Steven Hackett did one better. It's a great idea. He watched the event and recorded his commentary

00:30:31   with a little video inset about the event. So you can go watch that and watch Steven.

00:30:38   Hasn't yet been copyright claimed. No, not yet. Still there.

00:30:41   Uh, 10 years on Steven Hackett watching the Apple event. Uh, yeah. Uh, I was thinking you could,

00:30:50   you could maybe argue that it's transformative, but it probably isn't. But anyway, it's, it's fun

00:30:54   to see Steven kind of do a commentary over the event about it. And it is an amazing event. Um,

00:31:01   some background about that. Like, so it's an event. It was in San Francisco,

00:31:04   um, at Moscone West, I think in January. Um, Apple had just like, uh, divorced itself from IDG and

00:31:13   IDG world expo and said they weren't going to do Mac world expo anymore. And part of the, you know,

00:31:18   idea there was that they didn't want to be limited to have to do like events whenever the, the,

00:31:23   the calendar hit like January events. And then they did an event in January at Moscone. It was,

00:31:28   I remember at the time thinking, well, way to show your independence Apple. It's a January event in

00:31:34   San Francisco. You don't say like, you know, of course they could have done it at Mac world expo.

00:31:38   Um, and it's a remarkable event because of the chair. It's got that chair that's on stage that

00:31:44   they use the jobs, but not just jobs used. And I think it's so brilliant. I wrote about this

00:31:49   at macro last week, and we can put a link in the show notes, um, having people sit in the chair

00:31:56   and lean back and use the iPad. It's so smart because like, this is the education process of

00:32:02   here is how you will use an iPad. And here's what makes it different is that you don't have a laptop

00:32:06   in your lap and you're not just holding onto a little phone. You've got this thing and it's super

00:32:10   comfy in the chair. And we're going to scroll around and look at the, uh, we're going to look

00:32:15   at the New York times website for a very, very, very long time. Cause that's what happens in that.

00:32:22   Cause they're so proud of safari at a lot. It's iPhone safari on a larger screen and look that

00:32:27   real web, you can actually read the words on the page now. Um, so the chair is important. Um,

00:32:34   and of course Steve jobs gets a big hand because he had been sick and people hadn't seen him in

00:32:38   a while and there he is standing ovation, right? Like he, he was very, very thin, right? Like he,

00:32:47   clearly there was, you know, you could see that he'd been going through, of course he, he passes

00:32:51   away in October, 2011. So he was around for about, you know, two years after this, not that much

00:32:58   longer. But, but like, you know, it's often said, right? Like in biographies and stuff,

00:33:03   how important this was to him to be able to be the person to show off this product to the world.

00:33:09   Right. Um, so my argument in the Mac world column is that out the iPhone, the iPad succeeded where

00:33:20   other tablet devices have failed because of what Apple did in this event to a certain degree and

00:33:26   what it meant for where they, where they took it. So, you know, tablet PCs still exist. And in fact,

00:33:34   they're now like two and ones and convertibles and there's a whole PC category of running windows

00:33:40   um, and they're, they're better than they were, but you know, and we could argue about it,

00:33:46   but like Microsoft has, has never been able to get everybody to sort of like convert everything to a

00:33:52   tablet environment. You use a tablet PC and you're using a PC that can sometimes be put in a tablet

00:33:58   configuration, but it's really a PC and it really wants a keyboard and a mouse. And it's worth noting

00:34:03   and they're trying again, right? Windows X, like, which is coming for like the foldable and that

00:34:10   they're trying this again. Like it's going to be wild to see if they're able to finally pull it off.

00:34:14   But the apps make it hard, right? Yeah. Every attempt that they have had so far has,

00:34:19   has not worked out the way that they wanted. All of their apps are, you know, or most of their

00:34:26   apps want to be PC apps. Their, their strength is that they've got this whole catalog of PC apps.

00:34:30   And the challenge is if you're using a surface and it's just a tablet and then you're in this,

00:34:36   you know, PC mode and it's, it stinks like the, the tablet interface is good, but then you fall

00:34:42   back. And this is the important of apps. Like they tried, they've tried a few times to do a new

00:34:47   version of apps, including office that are like very tablet oriented, um, and touch oriented.

00:34:53   And then, you know, so much of Microsoft stuff ends up being like, yeah, but the reason we use

00:34:58   your stuff is because we have all these windows apps and it all kind of like pull the gravity,

00:35:02   kind of like pulls you back to using a PC. Um, Apple, Oh, I should say Android tablets

00:35:09   have a different problem. And even though Android tablets still exist and you can get them,

00:35:12   but they're basically a failure. Like they're a failure. And the reason they're a failure

00:35:17   is because, um, of apps again, because of apps, because on Android, there were, there are just not

00:35:24   enough apps that are actually optimized for the tablet experience. Most of them are, are blown up

00:35:29   phone apps because the app developers aren't particularly motivated to serve the market of

00:35:34   tablets. There's a little bit of a chicken and egg thing there where there aren't as many tablets as,

00:35:38   as there maybe should be. And there are so many Android phones and the Android developers are

00:35:43   really focused on the phone apps more than anything else. And so Android tablets have also not done

00:35:47   particularly well. And then there's the iPad, which has done well and it's because of the apps

00:35:53   and it's, and it's visible in on day one in this presentation, why that is.

00:35:57   Modern history shows that it's kind of strange that Android phones succeeded because every other

00:36:08   category, so watches, right? So smart watches, uh, tablets, like Apple has dominated them to the

00:36:16   point that really there's only one company making truly successful products right in those fields.

00:36:23   Right? Like if you want a smartwatch, the Apple watch is so much better than the competition.

00:36:27   Same for tablets. So it's kind of funny really, when you think about it, that like

00:36:31   there was the ability for other companies to make compelling and excellent smartphones that

00:36:37   are popular when all of the other consumer technology products made by Apple and by the

00:36:42   same companies making the smartphones that are succeeding and not working. It's kind of weird,

00:36:48   right? Yeah. Well, I mean, the smartphone one is the big one and you know, to Google's credit,

00:36:56   like they got Android out there and they got the partners, they use the Microsoft model

00:37:00   of third-party hardware developers and they did the core stuff and they built up their app platform.

00:37:05   But it's like they tried the exact same thing with Google wear and tablet versions of Android.

00:37:10   And it just hasn't worked. I think the answer is it's partially the quality of the platform,

00:37:17   but it's partially the weight of the size of the category that smartphones, and I'm going to get

00:37:26   to this about the iPhone in a second or the iPad in a second, but like Android phones, like that's

00:37:30   a gold rush. You want to be on Android because there's so many Android phones. And if you can

00:37:36   make money, you know, which is harder to make money on Android, but you can make money on

00:37:40   Android as an app developer in volume because the sheer volume of it and Android where, you know,

00:37:47   there is a chicken and egg problem there and it's like, people didn't really, it didn't,

00:37:50   it didn't really go as well as people thought it might. And, you know, maybe there were development

00:37:57   issues, but it's also like, I feel like on the Android side, there's so much of like, well,

00:38:01   let's see, I could do that. Or I could just do the phone where I'm going to make a lot of money

00:38:04   because there's so many people who have Android phones. I think maybe that's part of it. All

00:38:09   right. So the three different things that they did about apps that in my thesis about the iPad

00:38:15   succeeding where other products failed and dominating kind of the mind share of what a

00:38:23   tablet device is, it's an iPad. That's the answer is, uh, it's in, it's all in that presentation.

00:38:31   So it's three things they did first, they showed the built-in apps, which, you know,

00:38:36   it's like, how is this a little bit different? How is this device different from an iPhone is

00:38:40   basically the lesson that's being given there. Um, look at these iPhone apps. How is it different,

00:38:44   but familiar, right? That was the key. It's like, look at all these iPhone apps. Oh,

00:38:49   they're different because they're on a big screen and that you can do more with them. And this is

00:38:54   why there's so much Safari and so much New York times and why Steve Johnson is just going, let's

00:38:59   go to, let's go to the National Geographic website. Yeah. Let's look in mail and all that. It's to say,

00:39:04   Hey, it's even when it is just a big iPhone, you guys know the iPhone, you like the iPhone, right?

00:39:09   Well, it's way better if you can have a sidebar with your list of messages and then tap on one

00:39:14   and then see it on the right. Or it's better to see a webpage full size instead of in a little

00:39:19   tiny phone window. And so that was like, step one was iPhone apps are better on the iPad because they

00:39:24   they stretch to fit and they, and they, uh, change to take advantage of the space. Now that was,

00:39:30   that was like message number one for jobs, which is super important, I think.

00:39:33   So, um, number two is the third party apps. And this is something that I had forgotten just how

00:39:42   hard they hit this. So this is like bringing out Scott forestall to talk about iPad app development.

00:39:50   And the way they do it is really funny too. It's like, Hey, it'll run iPhone apps.

00:39:54   Let me spend some time on that. It's like, look, I got an iPhone app. Oh, it's little,

00:39:58   I'm going to press this little button and now it's going to be big. It's still an iPhone app,

00:40:02   but, but look at it. Um, and I remember at the time thinking and, and just afterward thinking,

00:40:08   well, this will get better, right? Apple will make the iPhone app,

00:40:11   you know, emulation on the iPad a little bit better over time. Right? Nope. Never touched it.

00:40:17   Never touched it. And this is part of their message, but it looks exactly the same. You

00:40:22   run an iPhone app today, you can make it two times bigger. It looks like crap and it runs like that.

00:40:28   They never changed that. It's like Steve jobs reaching out of the past and saying,

00:40:34   if you want to use just an iPhone app, it's going to suck. Okay. Like

00:40:38   get, get a better app. Get, get a developer who cares about the iPad. It is so way

00:40:44   that is almost like an Apple, like, right where they're like, no, we're just not necessarily

00:40:50   going to make this bad, but we are not going to do anything to make this better. Right. Because

00:40:56   we want to force our developers to have a bad experience on the iPad and inflict a bad experience

00:41:02   on their customers in order to force them to do an iPad version of their app. That is absolutely

00:41:07   part of the message. So he talks about that for a while and it's like, Hey, you know, and I think

00:41:12   the sense there is that some other companies might say, good news. We have this development,

00:41:17   this emulation thing, this this phone mode for these apps and Apple instead is like

00:41:22   swerving where they're like, Hey, we've got this thing. It sucks. So here's what you want to do.

00:41:27   We've got three months until we ship this thing developers. And so you and the SDK for this,

00:41:35   the software development kit for this, for third-party app developers is available now.

00:41:40   So you've got three months to turn all your iPhone apps into iPad apps and be there on day one of the

00:41:46   iPad. Keeping in mind that we are in this period in the throes of it's like the height of the

00:41:51   iPhone app store gold rush. So everybody's like, Oh, new Apple product apps make a lot of money.

00:41:58   I want to be there on day one for the iPad. And he says, for stall says like, if you are using

00:42:04   an iPad and you go to the app store, you can find iPhone apps, but we're not going to show them to

00:42:10   you, which is still the case today. Like you can get to them, but developers, if you just having

00:42:17   a, an iPhone app in the app store is not going to get you on the iPad at launch. People want,

00:42:22   they won't even see you in any of the pages unless they look for you. Yeah. Right. Which is like how

00:42:28   much clearer could this message be? But, but so, so you got your second class app on this new

00:42:36   platform. We're giving you three months to fix that. And everybody's already hyped up with those,

00:42:41   like I became a millionaire because I wrote a fart app kind of things that are going on.

00:42:45   And so it was the perfect storm for Apple to get broad developer embrace of the iPad. They had

00:42:56   existing apps that were already on the platform with iPhone. They had reasons to bring it to the

00:43:01   iPad. The Apple was kind of bringing down the hammer and saying, we're going to, you know,

00:43:05   not display your app if you don't do this. And we will highlight you if you do. And everybody's

00:43:11   kind of pumped about the money that's being made in the app store and you put those things together.

00:43:16   And there were a lot, three months later, two months later, there are a lot of iPad apps on

00:43:20   day one, lots and lots. And I think one of the things for that is like you saying that the

00:43:25   stories, the stories were because when the app store launched, there wasn't a lot of apps,

00:43:32   like a minute. There weren't like a million apps. There were some, but there were enough that it was

00:43:38   still pretty normal for people to look through the app store and just browse everything and buy what

00:43:44   they wanted. Right. Like I think, you know, anybody that was around then in like 2008, I think it was

00:43:49   2008. That's what we did. Right. I think if I look at my first apps, I have like a French translation

00:43:55   app. You know, it's just like, why did I, I don't know why I bought that. Right. But, but I, but if

00:44:00   people were just buying stuff because it was available. And I think that the, the promise of

00:44:05   that again was incredibly enticing to people. Right. Like the app store is launching again,

00:44:13   this device will be popular. We, if we make an app and get it in the app store, we might make

00:44:19   millions in one day because people were looking for new apps, which is why when the app iPad app

00:44:24   store launched, we were full of apps that were like something, something HD. Do you remember that

00:44:30   was the, like the naming convention for apps was like flight control, HD, and like Evernote,

00:44:36   HD. Like that was like the, the kind of the, the naming du jour for like iPad versions of

00:44:42   applications. Cause you got to remember as well, there were no universal apps at this point. Right.

00:44:46   This was just like, you had an iPad app and you had an iPhone app and they were separate.

00:44:51   Oh, you're right. You're right. It wasn't even universal. Was it?

00:44:54   So you made a brand new app? And the great thing about it was you, as a developer,

00:44:59   were able to charge your customer again. And when does that happen? Right. Like, so.

00:45:05   Yep. Yep. It's pretty good. But there was another part, right? It wasn't just the third party apps.

00:45:12   Apple kind of put their money where their mouth was. Yeah. So this is the thing that I, I remember

00:45:16   at the time thinking, wow, this is a big, this is a big move and it's a surprising move. Cause they,

00:45:20   that could have been enough. Right. Like, Hey, um, this is a great platform. It's got built-in

00:45:26   apps that we're doing that are great that are made better on the iPad than they are on the iPhone by

00:45:31   adjusting them. And you could do that too, developer and make money. That's not where they stopped.

00:45:36   They went and put another stake in the ground that still is having an effect to this day.

00:45:44   Apple has been remarkably consistent. This is not one of those things sort of like with the Apple

00:45:47   watch where they, where they like threw a bunch of stuff against the wall and then sort of figured

00:45:51   out what the Apple watch was the iPad from day one, anybody who tells you, Oh, well, the iPad

00:45:57   was a content consumption device. And then Apple pivoted and tried to make it into a work tool and

00:46:01   did the iPad pro and added keyboards and stuff like that. But that was a, that was a change.

00:46:07   It was not a change on day one on announced day Apple announced full. I work apps for the iPad.

00:46:16   They rolled out, they said, we're going to do I work apps, numbers, pages, keynote,

00:46:21   and I demoed them. And, and this is the message that was, I think really important to send

00:46:28   upfront, which was, this is not just a big iPhone. The size doesn't just give you a broader canvas.

00:46:33   It allows you to do more. And this is the part of the demo where Apple starting to shift a little

00:46:39   bit and say, this is a laptop competitor. Like there are things you can do on a laptop that this

00:46:47   thing can do. Like don't think of this as a big iPhone because it has a spreadsheet and it has a

00:46:53   word processor and it has a presentation program. Think of this as an alternative to a laptop and

00:47:03   that you can, you know, use it to do real work as we still say. But it was there from day one.

00:47:09   And there was even, and everybody, including me forgets. There was even a keyboard accessory on

00:47:16   day one because Apple announced that they were shipping this thing. That was the keyboard dock.

00:47:21   Now it didn't last. They didn't do another one. They only did that first one, but there was a

00:47:24   keyboard dock that was literally a, an Apple keyboard, uh, with attached to a stand with a

00:47:31   dock connector on it. And you put the iPad in, in vertical in portrait orientation and Jobs actually

00:47:39   makes a joke about like, you can type war and peace on it or something. He's, I don't think he loved

00:47:44   that accessory very much. I think he didn't like the idea necessarily of the iPad being a, uh,

00:47:50   a writing tool at a desk. Cause he liked it in his hands, but whoever was making these decisions,

00:47:55   like there it is like it's, it's right there. The, so we have these arguments about, can you use the

00:48:01   iPad to do real work and who are these people? And I think it's funny that this was not, um, a, a,

00:48:07   a, uh, you know, a change in direction by Apple. This was part of the plan from the start. The

00:48:14   message was there from the start, uh, not just to users, but also to developers. And I remember like,

00:48:20   um, talking to a WWDC, I think maybe talking to the Omni group that year and how they had committed to

00:48:27   basically bring all of their devices or maybe, maybe it was even earlier than that, all of their

00:48:31   apps to the iPad. And you know, that they were emboldened by what Apple did. You know, they,

00:48:37   they got the message and other app developers got the message that like, don't just think of this

00:48:41   as a place for big iPhone apps. Think of this as a place for you to deploy apps that do the kinds

00:48:49   of things you expect a computer to do. And I think that was really important to set that as a goal

00:48:55   from the very start. And yeah, that original iPad was limited, but it was there from the start.

00:49:01   That keyboard accessory is funny, but you know, you look at it now and it was just,

00:49:06   you could put your iPad, just attach it to a magic keyboard. They just put a dock connector on the

00:49:11   end of a magic keyboard. Yeah. And, and a weight, it actually was really heavy cause they wanted it

00:49:16   to be like not slide around or flop over. Uh huh. But cause you'd be tapping on the screen, right.

00:49:22   But was a needed accessory. You know, the, the idea of the, the creation versus consumption,

00:49:28   you know, that was, that was the phrase that, uh, it became a meme in the end really. But like,

00:49:32   that was the phrase for years. And I agree with you. Like, so what I would say on that is I would

00:49:38   say for most of the iPad's life up until 2015, it was mostly a consumption device for most people.

00:49:45   But I agree with you that this was not what Apple wanted to put out into the world, right?

00:49:50   It was a different thing when it got into the hands of consumers and the way that they used it.

00:49:54   And it was a different thing when like, you know, the, the market started to change around the iPad

00:49:59   and sales started to decline, which I'm sure we're going to talk about in a little bit. But the,

00:50:03   the, and then really like use cases changed and it became like, this is an entertainment device.

00:50:10   And that was that way for a while. But I agree clearly when it was being announced,

00:50:14   when Apple was showing it off, that wasn't their intention. It was great for consumption,

00:50:19   but as good for creation, right? That, that I think that was what they were trying to show.

00:50:23   - And this was what they wanted. They wanted the platform to go in that direction. This is

00:50:27   also Apple declaring its intent. Like we cared enough to build the iWork apps for this thing.

00:50:32   And this is where this thing is going and they weren't wrong, but you're right. It, it,

00:50:36   it took a lot longer for it to get there. And, you know, they may have even known that upfront,

00:50:44   but it did allow them to set that course and probably start selling them into businesses,

00:50:48   right into, cause Apple to this day talks about how they have so many enterprise partners,

00:50:54   very large corporations that are doing all these deployments using iPads. And I think it was a key

00:51:00   part of the iPad's growth over the decade that we don't talk about when we think about consumer tech,

00:51:06   but that Apple used it as a way in along with the iPhone, a way into fortune 500 companies

00:51:13   with their, with their tech, where the Mac maybe couldn't go because they had PCs, but with iPad

00:51:19   and iPhone, they could get in there. And the iPad turned out to be a real success story. I mean,

00:51:24   very rarely does a quarter go by where they don't mention the success with examples of iPad in

00:51:34   fortune 500 companies on that analyst call that they do after the results come out. Like every

00:51:39   time there's a, we, you know, and they'll pick an industry and they'll be like, we have seen a great

00:51:44   success in the shipping industry where iPad is being used. Like, and it's always in there. So

00:51:49   it's a huge part that doesn't get as much attention of what they're doing. And that's a result of

00:51:55   Apple putting that stake in the ground too. All right, let's take a break and we can continue

00:52:00   talking about the iPad at 10. Today's show is also brought to you by Pingdom. Look, our friends over

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00:53:31   invoice. That's pingdom.com/relayfm right now. Our thanks to Pingdom from SolarWinds for their

00:53:37   support of this show and Relay FM. So do you want to talk any more about the demo itself?

00:53:42   Yeah, I recommend people watch it or watch it with Stephen Hackett in that video as long as it stays

00:53:46   up. It is classic jobs. It's not, you know, the iPhone demo, which is for lots of reasons the kind

00:53:56   of pinnacle, but it's really good. It's also really funny to see the other stuff that maybe you erased

00:54:02   from your mind. Your mental picture of what the iPad launch event is, is probably not what the

00:54:05   actual event is. You know, we mentioned Jobs getting a standing ovation. It was obviously,

00:54:12   you know, everybody knew that he was not well and that this was a big moment and that he was back on

00:54:16   stage and he was delighting in it as well. I think people were thinking at the time too, like, oh,

00:54:22   he's so sick, he has to sit in the chair. It's like, that's not why the chair is there. I mean,

00:54:26   maybe, but that's the chair is a really effective prop. The other thing I wanted to mention here is

00:54:32   just that I, you know, I went to the event, but then I watched it. This is one of those things

00:54:36   where you go to the event and then later you're like, you know, I was taking notes. I was sending

00:54:39   messages around. I need to watch this again to get the full picture of it and take more notes and

00:54:44   then write more about it. And I remember I was at home watching the, you know, a replay of it

00:54:53   on the TV and realized that my five-year-old son was standing behind me, behind the couch,

00:55:00   staring at the TV. And I had one of those moments of like, oh no, I've exposed a young child to a

00:55:08   completely untempered reality distortion field. This is very dangerous. And, uh, and he's standing

00:55:15   back there and his eyes are wide open and he's just like, oh, this is great. I want it. When

00:55:20   are we going to get it? I want it. And for the next like months until we got one, he just kept

00:55:25   on saying, dear iPad, we got to get it. It's amazing. Just like a young mind exposed to the

00:55:31   Steve Jobs, uh, selling points. And he was completely enthralled by it. It was amazing

00:55:38   to watch. And I also felt a little bit bad because it was like, oh no, you're a kid who grows up in

00:55:43   the 21st century and a house that basically doesn't even have commercials in it anymore on TV.

00:55:48   And you just saw the iPad launch the best commercials, the biggest job demo,

00:55:55   the best commercial available. Yeah. Sorry, kid. Um, we should also mention you touched on it

00:56:03   briefly, like mentioned the sales curve of the iPad. The iPad had a real interesting story or

00:56:07   really interesting life because that initial surge of interest, they had a couple of years where they

00:56:13   sold like 30 billion in iPads, $30 billion in iPads. And then it went down for, as we know,

00:56:20   cause we watched it fall. It kept going down and down and down and down. And we're like,

00:56:25   where does it end? Where does the iPad hit? And everybody had theories about like, well,

00:56:31   there's a buying cycle and there's a long buying cycle for the iPad and there was initial interest.

00:56:35   And that was great, but it's not something that's sustainable in the long term. And it turns out the

00:56:41   last few years, it has stabilized as a business that is in the, you know, $20 billion a year range

00:56:47   and it's the size of the Mac more or less, and it is growing a bit. Um, so, you know, it's not,

00:56:55   it's not the iPhone. Nothing is, but in, in 10 years it has become as big a part of Apple's

00:57:06   business as the Mac is and keeping in mind the Mac sales are about as good as they've ever been.

00:57:10   Yeah. I mean, it took its time, right? And I think one of the reasons, you know,

00:57:19   we spoke about this already, but the reasons it took its time is it needed to find its place,

00:57:24   right? A little bit more than the, just the original idea, because frankly,

00:57:30   like a screen that you use in your home for entertainment is a thing that people were used to

00:57:37   and we don't change them a lot and it's televisions, right? So the idea of this device,

00:57:42   which is mainly used for entertainment in the home, it's probably not going to get upgraded

00:57:47   that much or people bought it and realized that they didn't have a need for it. It took

00:57:51   the iPad pro to really, I think, show that there was something more and reinvigorate Apple as well

00:57:59   into making the device more of what they thought it could ultimately become. And that's where we

00:58:06   are today, right? Like iPadOS is just another example of showing that this product deserves

00:58:15   even more attention, right? Like it deserves to be treated with the respect of the Mac.

00:58:22   It deserves to be treated with the respect of the iPhone as the Apple watch, funnily enough,

00:58:29   as like a platform deserving of its own, you know, like focused development from the platform holder.

00:58:37   And that's kind of where we are today. But I think maybe it would have back then in 2010,

00:58:43   would have even maybe seemed to be more likely that that would happen than it was in 2019.

00:58:50   Yeah, I think, um, if I'm surprised by anything, it's that the road is has been longer.

00:58:58   And I have some theories about why I think some of it is consumer acceptance. I think people got

00:59:06   this thing because it looked super cool and then realized that they were mostly just going to use

00:59:10   it to like look at web pages and watch videos. And then that, you know, and then it, they didn't need

00:59:16   to buy a new one to do that. It just did that. So they didn't need to buy it and the sales go down.

00:59:20   And then there's this sort of like upswing of using it for other things that has happened.

00:59:25   And it's all kind of like come together. But, um, part of it is on Apple. You know, I think

00:59:32   directly or indirectly iPhone sales from those charts that I did, right? iPhone sales in this

00:59:41   decade exploded like after the iPad came out in like 2012, 13, 14, as the iPad sales are going up,

00:59:52   and having their kind of bubble. But the iPhone exponentially accelerated and it didn't stop for

00:59:58   like there's like five years where the growth in the iPhone is enormous. And I think, and I'm not

01:00:05   able, you know, I'm not someone who's inside Apple who can say for sure, but it sure looks to me

01:00:10   like Apple looked at the explosive growth of the iPhone and said, we got to put our foot on the gas.

01:00:16   Yeah. Like we have to focus on the iPhone because look at what it's doing. And even as the iPad was

01:00:23   growing, it was nothing like that chart shows like two or three years, the iPhone had achieved

01:00:28   liftoff. It was off the chart of the iPad. Like it was never going to return there. The iPad was

01:00:33   doing nice growth. And then there was the iPhone. And I think probably for a lot of good, legitimate

01:00:38   reasons, Apple was like, we got to focus on the iPhone now. And as a result, the pace of innovation

01:00:43   on the iPad really slowed. Like we, because it talked to anybody who's an iPad fan today

01:00:49   and they will tell you, they will lament the slow pace of iPhone or iPad development that,

01:00:56   you know, every other year we get some software updates. The iPad, you know, some of it, like I

01:01:02   said, is consumer acceptance and not being ready to think of this as another device that could

01:01:06   replace their laptop, but like the iPad pro could be at the level it is today. It could have been

01:01:14   at this level five years ago. Yep. Yep. But it's kind of funny, right? Like I was just talking

01:01:18   about iPadOS. There is no greater proof of this like fear and distrust in iPad updates that the

01:01:26   year after Apple say it's going to get its own operating system, we're still scared that they

01:01:30   won't give it any updates this year. Yeah. Right. So like this has been the kind of the feeling of

01:01:36   the iPad faithful over this time is that it's just not going to be loved as much. And I think the

01:01:44   reason was like, you know, it was, as you mentioned, right, the iPhone went wild, but like, I think

01:01:49   with the iPad, Apple were hoping they were going to get another iPhone size business, which they got

01:01:56   until the iPhone business became a lot bigger than they expected. Yeah. So what they ended up with

01:02:02   was another Mac size business, which would have been great in 2010. But by 2011, that was very,

01:02:10   that was a very different thing because the company started to change because it became

01:02:14   the iPhone company. And that changed the trajectory of the, of everything to do with them. Right.

01:02:22   Every part of Apple was changed because of that. I think it's also the source of some of Apple's

01:02:27   problems in the two, in the 2010s with both, you know, we, we talk about all the Mac issues that

01:02:33   they had. Yep. Like it's very easy to say they took their eye off the ball when it came to their

01:02:38   other products because of the iPhone. I think to a certain degree they did, but I think also to a

01:02:42   certain degree, you could argue they should have. The other ball in the room was so big. It pushed

01:02:49   the other balls out of the room. It couldn't keep their eye on the ball because the ball was too big.

01:02:55   Yeah. The room was full of one giant ball. And then there were, you couldn't even see the other

01:02:59   balls. There's like two tennis balls and an earth ball. Right. And how could you not, your eye was

01:03:07   literally stuck to the giant ball. Anyway. You couldn't see past the ball. Couldn't see past the

01:03:12   one ball. Yes. Anyway, Apple, that's our metaphor about Apple being a room with a giant ball in it.

01:03:19   Enjoy. It could fit inside of the spaceship. There's a big hole in the middle.

01:03:24   That's a carnival game. Put the ball in the Apple park hall. I, and this is why I have to say

01:03:34   it would be easy to be like, shame, shame Apple on how you treated the Mac and the,

01:03:39   and the iPad during this decade. But it's like, you know, they had a rocket ship with the iPhone

01:03:46   and they needed to do it. And while I wish they had put more attention on the iPad,

01:03:50   the iPad, especially like was part of the iPhone and the iPhone operating system. And I'm sure it

01:03:56   didn't get the love and attention that could have made it like an Apple that just had the iPad and

01:04:02   the Mac during the decade of the 2010s could have lavished and would have lavished way more attention

01:04:08   on both. And they would both be further along as platforms, except they wouldn't be

01:04:16   because all of the money that came in because of the iPhone

01:04:19   accumulated to Apple and some other ways, including making the app environment on the iPad

01:04:25   more vibrant and, you know, and having a halo effect where people love their iPhone and came

01:04:30   to other Apple products and like, so you can't pull that thread. Really like the iPhone needed

01:04:36   to exist, but because it was so huge, which was good for Apple as a whole. I do think that the

01:04:43   iPad story over the its first decade was at least, you know, in the middle of the decade was a missed

01:04:48   opportunity. They, they, they have done better and we're all hoping that they will do better in 2020.

01:04:56   So, um, we should wrap this up by talking a little bit, a little bit bigger picture about like the

01:05:01   iPad in our lives. Does that like where it fits today, 10 years later? Yeah, I think so. I had a

01:05:06   real like stop start relationship with the iPad where at first, you know, I was absolutely blown

01:05:16   away by the iPad. Like I spoke about this, uh, on, uh, I think it was on our, in our draft, right.

01:05:25   When we moved last week that the iPad, my excitement for the iPad started my career in

01:05:31   podcasting because I was so excited about this technology. I felt like I needed a place to talk

01:05:40   about it. And so, you know, 2010, April, 2010, which was when the iPad came out was when I

01:05:47   started my podcasting career because I was, this was like technology was getting to a point where

01:05:53   it felt like it was changing and changing again, significantly in my lifetime. You know, like I

01:05:59   felt like we were moving the, you know, the iPhone, the iPad, this was new stuff. Like this was stuff

01:06:05   that was being created and I was watching it. Right. And I could talk about it rather than

01:06:11   I came into the world where the Mac existed and where PCs existed and they grew and they were

01:06:18   always a part of my life. But this, this was just touchscreen technology. This was new and this was

01:06:23   it for me. Right. But then kind of, as time went on, I was off and on with the iPad for a while,

01:06:29   you know, like it didn't do what I wanted. It couldn't do what my Mac could do. You know,

01:06:34   believe it or not, Myke Hurley, big Mac fan, right? Like has been a Mac user for 16 years,

01:06:40   right? Like big time. Right. And over time, my, my interest kind of waned. The iPad mini

01:06:48   really brought me back in for a while. You know, I loved the iPad mini. Used to use it all the time,

01:06:53   used it everywhere. Right. It was just a great little device and I would be off and on, right.

01:06:58   Like, you know, an iPad would come out for size one and it would be impressive in some way,

01:07:02   like the iPad Air or whatever. Right. Like it was like, Oh, this is interesting. But then, uh, iOS

01:07:07   nine, right. With the multitasking, it was nine. That was when it really kind of started to feel

01:07:15   like, again, for me, I hadn't used an iPad in years, like quite some time in that point,

01:07:20   like seriously, but it was like, Oh, this is interesting. And I was at WWDC. I bought an iPad

01:07:27   Air two to put the beta on it. Um, and it was like, Oh yeah, okay. I can see this. And so when

01:07:33   the iPad pro was introduced, I had been tinkering around with the iOS beta for long enough to feel

01:07:40   like I could see how this could become. And it had started to become a more serious work device

01:07:45   for me during that point. Right. Like just, just with the beta, just with Apple's apps, right? Like

01:07:51   notes, Safari and mail, I'd started to use the iPad Air two as a product, like a productivity

01:07:58   device again in a way that I hadn't really seriously done in quite a while. So when the

01:08:04   iPad pro came out, I was like, Oh, all right. Like that's what I want. Right. Like I didn't know.

01:08:12   I couldn't see like the forest from the trees. Right. Like I, I, you know, I know we were talking

01:08:18   about it. There were rumors, but the, the idea of this, like it was the keyboard, right? Like we,

01:08:25   we knew, I think we knew, we knew the large iPad was coming, but it was the whole package.

01:08:31   I don't think we could have foresaw that in the way that Apple showed it off. And then when I saw

01:08:37   what they had and I could see how I could compare it to what I was already doing with the iPad Air

01:08:43   two, right. It was like, yeah, I get this. Yeah. I think the magic for me about that iPad pro launch,

01:08:51   which was like a year after I left IDG and started doing this, like the iPad pro launch,

01:08:55   I had started to push the iPad and I'll get to it in a minute. Cause I'll talk about how,

01:09:02   you know, how my story here too, but I'd started to get it like, like, Oh, let's use this more.

01:09:08   And that was when the iPad pro came out. I was like, okay, let's do this. Right. Like it was,

01:09:12   I was kind of primed for it in a way where it didn't, I didn't like the iPad pro didn't come

01:09:17   out and I went, Oh, yeah, we were pro. We were very clearly on a similar trajectory then. And

01:09:22   we were definitely, I'm sure you could go back in the history of the show and find the conversations,

01:09:27   but like Federico was ahead of us. Right. And was like, had been in for a while. And then

01:09:33   people like me and you were like, would start like, it was, it really was iOS nine. Right.

01:09:37   I think that, that, that again, if that was the one with mods, it was iPad multitasking.

01:09:42   Yeah. One of these things that really was like, I can do a lot more with this than I can on an

01:09:47   iPhone. Right. Like that was what showed that it could be done because the iPad was still a one app

01:09:52   at a time experience. The difference being you had a larger software keyboard or maybe a third

01:09:56   party keyboard that you attached to it. Right. And so it was, you know, you could start to see

01:10:01   with multitasking that this was a product that could, you could push and it was powerful and it

01:10:08   can handle it. So the iPad pro was like, yes. So then when the iPad pro came out, I bought it and

01:10:14   then immediately replaced my laptop with it. So I was still using a laptop at that time. Um, but when

01:10:21   it came out, I just stopped using my Mac book pro for anything I would use a Mac book pro for,

01:10:27   because the iPad pro with the smart keyboard, just any Apple pencil just made complete

01:10:34   sense for me and my life. And I have not looked back since like the, the iPad pro is my favorite

01:10:41   computer ever. Right. Like, you know, the current one that we have because the iPad pro keeps

01:10:48   getting better and better, right? Like I don't, uh, yearn for the 2015 iPad pro the way that some

01:10:54   people might yearn for a MacBook air. Right. Like we're still very much in the, in the world of like

01:11:00   this product continues to improve. So whatever is the current one is my favorite, but it's,

01:11:05   it just works for me. The iPad OS, iOS before it, right? Like it works in a way that makes sense to

01:11:14   my brain. Um, it, I can make it sing the way that I want to. Right. Like it, it works in ways that

01:11:22   I can't really express, right? There are times where I know, I know not only that I can get

01:11:28   things done faster with a Mac in some areas, like I know the way in which to do it. It's not like

01:11:33   I'm held back for a lack of understanding Mac OS, but it is just pure preference in hardware and

01:11:41   operating system where it's like, I just enjoy this more and it is like the full package that I

01:11:47   love. And so now like, I'm in my business is run from an iPad and the Mac for me is a tool in the

01:11:57   same way my microphone is right. It is a very powerful piece of equipment that I use for a

01:12:04   purpose, but my computing, my personal computing, my business computing, right? All of the work that

01:12:12   I'm doing that isn't sitting in front and recording or editing is all done on the iPad. And I,

01:12:17   I don't want it any other way. Like that is for me where the iPad sits. Like it is the most

01:12:23   important computer in my life. Yeah. I'm I don't think I'm as far along as you, but I did, as

01:12:30   people to listen to the show will know, I stopped using a Mac laptop basically entirely a few years

01:12:36   ago. Um, and it was a progression, right? Like so much of what I used my laptop for at home,

01:12:44   especially when I was, you know, working in an office, but even once I was working in my garage

01:12:48   here, I would have my Macbook air in the living room or in the bedroom. And I'd be like reading

01:12:56   email and looking at Twitter and reading web pages and all of that stuff was so easily replaced

01:13:01   by an iPad because it's so much more comfortable. I just think those exact things. The iPad is

01:13:08   better than a Mac for like, well, I mean, why do I need, if I'm, if I'm writing an email,

01:13:13   having a keyboard is better, but if I'm just sort of like the things that I would do, it's the

01:13:18   evening, it's the weekend. I'm not intensely working, but I am, you know, looking at Twitter

01:13:23   and making, you know, little comments and answering quick emails and stuff like that. And it was just

01:13:29   so easy for the iPad to replace the laptop there. Cause I didn't need that laptop shape. It wasn't

01:13:33   as convenient. Um, and, and that had a knock on effect, which was, it meant that when I traveled,

01:13:39   I wanted to travel with the iPad, which meant that I now had an iPad and a Mac book air.

01:13:45   Because I could just do it all in the Mac book air, but Oh, it was so much nicer to watch videos

01:13:51   on the iPad and to, you know, and to read Twitter on the iPad and all those things. So now I'm

01:13:56   traveling with two devices. Next step is why do I have two devices? Can I, can I leave? I'm not,

01:14:01   I'm not leaving the iPad behind. Can I leave the Mac book behind? And that was a gradual process

01:14:06   of like, what can I do on my iPad? And this is the pre iPad pro time. I have a very clear memory

01:14:12   of sitting at my in-laws, uh, kitchen table, writing an article from Mac world on, um, the,

01:14:21   uh, that, uh, that origami in case origami. Thing where you'd snap in an Apple, uh, Bluetooth

01:14:27   keyboard and then fold it back and put the iPad on it. And you got like a little like iPad case

01:14:33   thing. Um, the, the studio neat guys did their version, their version of that with the canvas

01:14:38   canvas. That's what it's called canopy canopy. That's it can whatever the canopy. Um, and that

01:14:47   was way before iPad pro that was, uh, but I remember that was me on a trip pushing, like,

01:14:52   do I need to bring my laptop? Can I just use the iPad for this? And some of the stuff wasn't good

01:14:56   enough. Some of the stuff wasn't ready, but it was, uh, it was me kind of pushing and exploring

01:15:01   there. And then the iPad pro comes along and that helps a lot in the smart keyboard and multitasking

01:15:07   helped. And all of these things start to kind of like, uh, to roll to the point where, um,

01:15:12   as we talked about on this podcast, a lot like other than recording some podcasts, which even

01:15:17   then it's more possible now, like most of the reasons I would travel with a laptop just dropped

01:15:22   away. And the iPad pro was enough to the point where today I even edit, I've been editing, um,

01:15:29   the incomparable on the iPad using ferrite since last summer. Um, and this is not just when you're

01:15:36   traveling. This is just, no, I, I, there was the, we did our big clip show episode that I did on my

01:15:42   Mac and it was the first episode of the incomparable I'd edited on my Mac since June. Um, so I just, I,

01:15:48   and the reason why it's not like on a dare I dared myself to do it. I did a little bit because I like

01:15:55   ferrite. And when I started using the Apple pencil with ferrite, I really enjoyed it. And I think it

01:15:59   actually makes me a better editor, but also I edit the incomparable on the weekend. And even though

01:16:05   I work at home now and I could edit it on the Friday, I kind of like, it sort of fits in my

01:16:09   life as a Saturday morning, usually sometimes Sunday morning editing job that I do. And I, and

01:16:15   I wanted to do it in my house where my family is and not out closed up in the garage where I spent

01:16:22   the week. And that was sort of a motivator to put it on the iPad because the iPad is the thing that

01:16:28   I use outside of my Mac at my desk. Um, and that is sort of how the Mac has become defined to me,

01:16:36   similar to you a little bit different because I do, I do work mostly at my desk during the day.

01:16:42   I am writing not sometimes I will switch to the iPad just to do my writing. Other times,

01:16:48   I'll just write at the desk, but everything else I do, I'm kind of at my, my iMac. But when I'm out

01:16:53   of my office, whether it's traveling or just in the house, I'm using the iPad. So if I want to be

01:16:58   in the house to edit the incomparable where we have like a heater and my family is there and it's

01:17:05   more cozy, then I need to do that on the iPad. So I do. Um, I, I, every now and then think to myself,

01:17:12   like, would I abandon the Mac entirely or more than I do now? And I think it would be really hard.

01:17:20   I think I would need a very strong motivation to do it because there are a lot of things I still

01:17:26   just avoid on the iPad and say, I will do that when I'm back on my Mac. But I will say this

01:17:33   dating from 1990. So the last 30 years, the only two computer platforms, computer, I'm gonna say,

01:17:44   I'm gonna leave the smartphone out of it that I have used that I have embraced and have gone deep

01:17:51   into are the Mac because I got my, I bought my first Mac in 1990 and the iPad. And I think that's

01:17:58   meaningful because I've only used like four computing platforms in my life. There were the,

01:18:05   you know, the early days computers, the first computer I had was a Commodore pet. The second

01:18:11   computer I had was an Apple two E. Then I got a Mac and I'm still using the Mac 30 years later.

01:18:17   The only other operating system that has stuck with me and that has insinuated its,

01:18:23   its way into my life is the iPad. I am also an iPad user. And it just strikes me because I always

01:18:29   thought of myself as a Mac user for 30 years now, a Mac user, that that was who I was. And, you know,

01:18:35   I'm a multi-platform computer user and have been for like five years at least. And it's because of

01:18:39   the iPad. So I have a loyalty to the iPad that is kind of unexpected, but here's, here's where I am.

01:18:47   Like I ended up there for, for a lot of reasons that I think going back to that initial launch

01:18:53   10 years ago are elaborated on in that keynote in certain ways. I can look back and say, I see where

01:19:00   you're going with this and I see why it fit with ultimately how I wanted to use a computer in my

01:19:06   life. And so, yeah, that's, I think Steve Jobs, you get a real sense when you watch Steve Jobs

01:19:11   in that, that he knows that, you know, he's, his health is questionable. How long am I going to be

01:19:16   able to do this? And that his glee in doing it, I think ties back to the original Mac premise,

01:19:22   which is this is a computer for the rest of us that like the iPad allows you to drop even more

01:19:28   of the trappings of personal computers, the most recent generation of personal computers, Macs and

01:19:34   PCs, and replace it with something new. And, you know, it's not replacing everything. Those things

01:19:40   still exist, but on another level, I think he wasn't wrong that this fulfills the same kind

01:19:46   of thing they were trying to do when they brought out the Mac. And it was so different from the,

01:19:51   the command line computers of the time. The iPad was another attempt to do the exact same thing

01:19:58   with the technology of 2010, which was now you don't need the keyboard and the mouse anymore,

01:20:03   either. We've pushed it even further. And that's the thing that I walk away with 10 years later,

01:20:08   most of all, is seeing Steve Jobs on that stage, miss that guy, really loved it when he came out

01:20:14   and said, "Good morning." It was really amazing every time he did it. And when he died, I remember

01:20:18   thinking, "I'm not going to get that good morning from the PA system anymore." But here he was making

01:20:24   his, what turned out to be last definitive statement about the kind of the mission he'd

01:20:29   been on all along, which was to take this technology and make it for, make it different

01:20:35   and simpler and more intuitive for regular people. Cars and trucks. Yeah, right. It's all cars and

01:20:42   cars and trucks. You use, you use a truck now. Your Mac is a truck now. My Mac is kind of becoming

01:20:47   more of a truck now. It's true. What was that? It was like at the D conference, right? When,

01:20:52   when Charles spoke about that, like there can be space for both. The iPad is like a car. Most

01:20:57   people just need a car, but every now and then you need a specific use case. You know, you're

01:21:03   moving house. You need a truck. And I understand we are, our podcast reaches a lot of truck,

01:21:08   truck drivers. I mean, first off, first off, literally I have heard from them,

01:21:13   long haul truck drivers listen to a lot of podcasts. We're big in the trucking industry.

01:21:16   But second metaphorical truck drivers also, because computer people like technical people,

01:21:21   we have needs that are greater needs. We're both truck drivers. Yeah. But metaphorical

01:21:27   truck drivers, but you don't always need our trucks. Sometimes. Sometimes we just drive our

01:21:31   cars. But the truth is the smart, the smartphone shows it, right. The smartphone shows it like

01:21:35   everybody's almost everybody in the world's most important computer device by far is their phone.

01:21:40   What is that? Like a bird scooter or something? Yeah. Phone. No, I mean, you could argue that

01:21:46   it's the, it's the, the, the walking, the real car, the basic car. Okay. But, uh, but it doesn't,

01:21:53   yeah, it doesn't do everything that is super computery. So then you sometimes, but yeah,

01:21:58   it's just, uh, it's funny. 10 years. It's, it's worth looking back. I think at, at, uh, at again,

01:22:03   something that took me by surprise and became like the other computing platform that I'm,

01:22:09   uh, that I use a lot. Um, then I didn't really see it coming in a way. Yeah. I'm pleased that

01:22:17   we spent some time talking about this today. Yeah. All right. Shall we, uh, should we do

01:22:22   some ask upgrade to round out today's episode? It's a great idea. This episode is brought to

01:22:27   you by Booz Allen. Modernizing for the future is a challenge, especially for large organizations.

01:22:32   You may need to integrate legacy systems of new technology. You may need to incorporate AI and

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01:22:42   needs new ways of thinking to move to what's next. Whether it's government, commercial goals,

01:22:46   or more. Booz Allen understands, and they're helping some of the world's largest organizations

01:22:50   modernize. They understand the mission of government and industry, and they need, and

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01:23:00   can integrate innovation from anywhere, whether from visionary startups or major contractors,

01:23:05   plus they're helping clients power new technologies with analytics because security is everyone's

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01:23:16   Allen. Integration means putting you in control of innovation. Integrate, innovate, get it done

01:23:22   with Booz Allen. Learn more at BoozAllen.com/relay. That's BoozAllen.com/relay. We'd like to thank,

01:23:29   I should say, Booz Allen for their support of this show. And Jason, I will start. Our hashtag

01:23:35   #AskUpgradeToday. A question from Eric, and Eric has this question for me, which is, I apologize

01:23:42   for starting with a question for myself, but that's just the way that the magic 8-Ball of Ask Upgrade

01:23:47   has shaken out today. And Eric wants to know, Myke, now that you've had your iPhone 11 Pro Max

01:23:54   clear case for a few months, can you give a quick review of how it's going? Is it yellowed yet? Are

01:24:00   the buttons any easier to press? Let me just say, I do not use this case anymore, but I do have a

01:24:05   long experience with it. I have switched to one of the AutoBox PopSocket cases because it's just

01:24:12   cool to have a PopSocket constantly attached to my phone and the case is nice. But I actually ended

01:24:18   up wanting to move away from the clear case. It didn't yellow. Honestly, I don't think it will.

01:24:24   My mum had a clear case for her iPhone, what was the color of the iPhone? 5C?

01:24:32   Yeah. She had a clear case for that. I don't remember where we got it even. That was the one

01:24:39   that Apple made a clear case for, right? Oh, I don't remember. You're testing my Apple

01:24:45   accessory knowledge. I'm really trying now. I'm really reaching back into history for that one.

01:24:49   I'm not sure if they... No, they made... They didn't make a clear case for that phone. What

01:24:52   am I talking about? I don't think they made clear cases until recently. They made a clear case for

01:24:57   the 10R. This is what I'm thinking of. Sure. The colored... Bright colored... She had one of the

01:25:04   weird circular hole cases for the 5C. That's what I'm thinking of. She had one of those.

01:25:09   Swiss cheese cases. The Swiss cheese case. But she did also have a clear case for her 10R

01:25:14   and it had that long enough on mine and that's working great. There's no yellowing on that.

01:25:19   The reason I mention it is because she's had that one for a couple of years now and it's perfect.

01:25:23   So there was no yellowing on mine either. I don't think the plastic is going to do that honestly

01:25:27   in any space of time. But the buttons got a little bit easier to press, but it was still harder than

01:25:33   the buttons on the other cases. The main reason I changed is that clear case traps a ton of lint.

01:25:40   All cases do, but you can't usually see it. So there was always dust and particles in the case,

01:25:48   in places that I would basically have to take the phone out to clean it. But as soon as I put it

01:25:52   back in, in 10 minutes, it's collected more lint again. So, you know, I like the idea of being able

01:25:58   to see it. But then again, after a few months of owning the midnight green phone, I wasn't as

01:26:05   excited about seeing the color all the time, right? So didn't mind about switching to a different

01:26:10   color case. I have like a blue pop socket auto box case now, which I'm very-

01:26:15   **Ezra Klein:** I have a very quick answer to this question, which is my daughter has an iPhone 11

01:26:19   and she has the clear case for it because she wants to see the purple. And I asked her about

01:26:23   it when we saw her last weekend and she said she still likes it and it's great. So there you go.

01:26:29   **Ezra Klein** Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's fine. I just didn't like the lint,

01:26:33   but if it doesn't bother you, then go for it. Like it's cool to see the colors.

01:26:37   **Ezra Klein** She wants to see the purple, although it's funny because she doesn't see as much of the

01:26:40   purple because she's got one of those stick on wallets on the back. So it's a compromise, right?

01:26:47   Like she wants to see the color and it's really nice, but then she has to cover some of it up

01:26:51   because she carries her stuff. It's like that was a deal breaker. Like she has to have, she used to

01:26:59   have a bendy iPhone case and she had her cards in it. And on this one, it's not, you can't really do

01:27:06   that. So she got a thing that sticks on the back and it wears off after a while. So like she's on

01:27:11   her second one now, but she seems to like it. I do wonder over time, as pretty as that purple phone is,

01:27:20   if she might not be better off with like a case that's got a wallet built into it instead,

01:27:26   but we'll see. **Ezra Klein**

01:27:29   Phil asks, "What are your recommendations for password management? I'm currently using a

01:27:34   password protected Apple note." She probably shouldn't tell people that Phil,

01:27:38   but now all the upgradients know. "I feel like I should be using something more secure." Jason,

01:27:43   what do you use? **Ezra Klein**

01:27:45   One password. **Ezra Klein**

01:27:46   Yeah. I think that's the answer for most of us, right?

01:27:49   **Joe Stauffer** Yeah. I mean, I started one of the smart things

01:27:52   that they did is there was a period like a decade ago, maybe, where they just gave it away. Like you

01:27:58   could, any product you got and free one password, they were like bundled everywhere. But the smart

01:28:04   thing is it got people using it. And then as they did updates, they converted those people into

01:28:08   paying customers. And I started using it back then. And now I have a family account and I share,

01:28:14   the one, the passwords that my wife and I both need are in the shared bundle and all that. And

01:28:19   I just, I use it for everything. And notes are secure in there. And I put my passport information

01:28:28   in there and like, there's just, although you think of it as an autofill password thing,

01:28:32   it is for everything. Like it is, you can stick a bunch of encrypted stuff behind

01:28:36   that password and one password. It's very convenient. **Ezra Klein**

01:28:41   I use one password too. I think it's the best app out there. I've trusted it for years, right? Like

01:28:46   for all of those reasons, I have multiple teams, subscriptions now for business and personal rights,

01:28:51   so I have a team and family, like just the whole shebang. They recently announced a significant

01:28:57   investment, which is very new for them. The company had taken on investment, they've taken

01:29:01   on investment. And they appear to be going through some business changes because of this.

01:29:05   Now this stuff doesn't inherently mean that there's going to be a problem or a change, but

01:29:12   things could change. What they want to do as a company could change because of this. Maybe

01:29:18   for the better, maybe for the worse, we'll have to wait and see. So basically I say this because

01:29:22   it's like, I am choosing to reserve my judgment on this and evaluate one password over time to see if

01:29:28   they're still the right thing for me. But like, I think that it is worth noting that whilst I still

01:29:33   wholeheartedly recommend them, something has changed at one password, right? And we don't

01:29:39   know what that's going to result in yet, but it is definitely like a fork in the road situation.

01:29:44   Where I say, do you carry on doing things the way you've been doing them forever or do you change

01:29:48   your business? And they've decided to change their business. I'm really happy with all of the

01:29:51   communication that's come out since the initial announcement, but I still think it's something

01:29:56   worth keeping an eye on, right? Joshua asks, what are your top three personal favorite streaming

01:30:04   services or platforms right now? I don't think you have to do these in order. I haven't done

01:30:11   these in order. So I have Netflix, Apple TV Plus and YouTube. I'm choosing to count YouTube. I

01:30:19   think it counts, right? I also, I don't have access to a lot of people's favorite ones right now

01:30:25   because I'm in the United Kingdom, but these are the three that I use the most, right? I use YouTube,

01:30:30   Netflix and Apple TV Plus all the time. You know, YouTube and Netflix every single day,

01:30:35   Apple TV Plus when they have a show that I want to watch. But content wise, I've been happiest

01:30:39   of Apple's content. Like I love the content from like HBO, right? But we have to watch it on Now TV,

01:30:45   which is a service that sucks. It's so bad. There's like the worst app of any streaming service.

01:30:50   I hear people complaining about the apps of streaming services and I'm like, you've never

01:30:55   used a Now TV app on Apple TV. It is an absolute disaster. Do you know how it looks, Jason? It looks

01:31:01   like a front row app. Oh no. They modeled it after front row. I am not kidding. It's like carousels

01:31:10   and just tiles. It is absolutely horrific. So that's run by Sky. They own Now TV. Like if you

01:31:18   don't have a Sky subscription, you can pay for a Now TV like entertainment package or whatever,

01:31:22   which is how we get HBO stuff. So what are your three? What are your favorites?

01:31:27   Well, at this point in time is really the key here. So at this point in time, I'm watching

01:31:34   Star Trek Picard on CBS All Access. So it's there. I'm watching Letterkenny on Hulu. So it's there.

01:31:44   And I'm currently going through Sex Education season two, which is on Netflix. So I'll pick

01:31:51   those three today. It'll be different in a week. Yeah. Like I know that in a couple of months time,

01:31:57   Disney Plus is going to be big in my house. I can't wait for it. For sure. And if you would ask me

01:32:02   while The Mandalorian was on, I would have said that and Apple TV Plus while For All Mankind was

01:32:06   on for sure. And this is the point, right? I don't think that it's necessarily the streaming

01:32:10   platforms themselves. It is the content that is available. That's right. Glenn asks, do you ever

01:32:17   think Apple OS would be a thing? I think no. I think I, this is the speculation of like a unified

01:32:27   Apple operating system for everything. And I will point you at iPad OS and say no. I feel like Apple

01:32:33   philosophically thinks that products should have their own tuned operating systems. And even if

01:32:39   ultimately all of Apple's products are running a version of the same operating system, they will

01:32:44   still brand them based on the device category that they're in unless they have a major shift. So like

01:32:53   even if they were to undergo a like transformation of the Mac where they do a variation of iPad OS

01:33:00   that is more like the Mac and they try to like call it, well, this is the new Mac OS, it's Mac

01:33:04   OS 11 or whatever. I don't think they would call it Apple OS. I think they'd still call it Mac OS,

01:33:10   even if it wasn't the Mac anymore. So like I was very much on this train for a while, right?

01:33:16   Feeling like that there's got to be a next generation thing, but I'm now feeling like it's not

01:33:22   the platforms themselves. It's like everything that goes on top of them now, which is Swift UI.

01:33:30   I feel like Swift UI and those projects, the idea of like developing once and it can be interpreted

01:33:37   on multiple platforms. That's more like what we were thinking a unified operating system would be,

01:33:44   right? Because the idea is you would create unified operating systems so you have to develop once,

01:33:49   but now they're creating a system where you can develop once. I'm oversimplifying this,

01:33:55   of course. You can develop once and then all of the separate platforms can interpret it in the

01:34:00   way it needs to because of declarative UI, if I'm remembering the phrases correctly.

01:34:06   But that is more the kind of thing now, I think. You can have all the platforms, but you only need

01:34:12   to, you don't need to think as distinctly as you did before. I think that this might be the maximum

01:34:20   or something like advancements of this type of technology, I think is the closest thing to

01:34:25   unification now. I think Apple's making that quite clear. My previous feeling of like,

01:34:31   "Oh, they're definitely going to unify one day." That has moved away in the sense of like, "Oh,

01:34:35   well really they're just going to provide tools to make it easier to be on everything." Right?

01:34:41   Yeah. Evan asks, "If you could have modern day specs in any previous or current Macintosh form

01:34:50   factor, which model and color would you choose?" Yeah, this is a hard one.

01:35:01   This was not hard for me at all, Jason. Well, I'm trying. Okay, Myke, you put your

01:35:08   answer in the notes and it's the best answer. Oh, okay. Okay. Can I just say it then?

01:35:13   So you say yours and then I will make something up.

01:35:15   The iMac G4. It's the most amazing, in my opinion, like Mac hardware design that has ever lived.

01:35:23   This was, if you're not familiar, the iMac that looked like a lamp. It just had a little base and

01:35:28   then an articulating arm, which came out of the base, which had the monitor on it. So you had

01:35:33   so much flexibility in the way that you could move the monitor around. It's just built into

01:35:41   way more than any product that Apple makes now. Because you could adjust it to the exact

01:35:46   height that you wanted. But also this computer just has so much

01:35:54   personality to it in a non-cheesy way. Because it looks like the lamp from the Pixar animation.

01:36:03   That's what it looks like and I just imprint on that and just feel like this is so cute

01:36:11   and beautiful at the same time as being genuinely useful. So I would love Apple to come back to a

01:36:18   design close to this. I want an iMac with a built-in arm. I absolutely adore this design,

01:36:27   always have. And it still looks modern to me. I'm looking at one right now. I have one in my

01:36:34   office. It looks great. It looks modern to me in a way that no other Mac does. It looks more modern

01:36:41   to me than Macs that came after it. You can show me an iMac from 2012 and it looks older than this

01:36:50   thing does. So beautiful. It's just absolutely beautiful. I love it. Well, I'm tempted to say

01:36:56   something like I want a Mac Pro, modern Mac Pro in a blue and white Power Mac G3 case.

01:37:02   But I'm going to be a little more serious and say I would love to have a modern day Mac in

01:37:11   the 11-inch MacBook Air. Like I want a Retina screen and I want modern processors in the 11-inch

01:37:18   Air because when I use a Mac laptop, that is the laptop I use. I love it. It's small. The MacBook

01:37:24   was close to it, but of course it's been discontinued now and it only had the one port,

01:37:28   which is a little bit silly. And the modern MacBook Air is a little bit bigger. So, you know,

01:37:35   I'll choose one of those. But the iMac G4, I think is the right answer. I would love an iMac

01:37:40   or a iPad Studio kind of device with its own little monitor arm, screen arm thing. I think

01:37:49   something like that would be beautiful. iPad Studio is a lovely name. We're back in that room again,

01:37:56   making suggestions to Apple. I can't find that ball right now, Myke.

01:37:59   Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade. If you want to find our

01:38:04   show notes, go to relay.fm/upgrade/282. Thank you so much to everybody who sent in a question.

01:38:09   If you want to send in a question for us to answer on the show, just send out a tweet with

01:38:13   the hashtag #askupgrade and it will be included in a future episode or maybe. Thanks so much to

01:38:18   DoorDash, Pingdom, and Booz Allen. If you want to find Jason's work online, go to sixcolors.com.

01:38:23   You should follow the Six Colors Event Twitter account, right, for information following along

01:38:30   with the analytics call. Yeah, Dan will do a blow by blow probably of the analyst call.

01:38:35   So that's always a good one to have. It is a low volume Twitter account that is high volume at

01:38:42   certain times, which I love for that reason, right? Like when that account is fired up,

01:38:47   you're going to see a lot of tweets from it, but then it's quiet, waiting, always sitting and

01:38:51   waiting for a big event. But it's also really good for grabbing little quotes. So thank you to

01:38:56   Dan for doing that. And you'll be making charts, won't you, like a big chart boy over at sixcolors.com.

01:39:02   More charts this week than ever. Yeah. Charts, charts, charts. You can find Jason online at

01:39:08   @jasonl. I am @imike and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye Jason Snell.

01:39:14   Goodbye, Myke Hurley.

01:39:21   [Music]