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.
00:00:32 ◼ ► 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,
00:01:10 ◼ ► 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
00:01:28 ◼ ► 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,
00:02:49 ◼ ► 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."
00:03:31 ◼ ► It's a great one. There are a lot of great time travel movies of different kinds. "Back to the
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.
00:04:22 ◼ ► What are the rules there? Is there another Marty that left that world, and what world did he go to?
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,
00:04:57 ◼ ► That's right. It's holiday quarter of 2019, but it's technically their first fiscal quarter of
00:05:12 ◼ ► where there are currently even more charts, which is just that you got a bit chart-happy,
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.
00:05:44 ◼ ► 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,
00:06:02 ◼ ► 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,
00:06:28 ◼ ► and I can't see the whole chart on one screen vertically because iPhone growth exploded so much
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,
00:08:15 ◼ ► 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
00:15:04 ◼ ► 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
00:15:44 ◼ ► 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.
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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
00:20:55 ◼ ► 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,
00:21:49 ◼ ► 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,
00:25:27 ◼ ► 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
00:27:58 ◼ ► 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.
00:29:23 ◼ ► 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,
00:29:53 ◼ ► 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
00:30:26 ◼ ► Steven Hackett did one better. It's a great idea. He watched the event and recorded his commentary
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,
00:31:04 ◼ ► 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.
00:34:19 ◼ ► 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,
00:35:09 ◼ ► 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
00:35:57 ◼ ► 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.
00:36:31 ◼ ► 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
00:38:23 ◼ ► tablet device is, it's an iPad. That's the answer is, uh, it's in, it's all in that presentation.
00:38:36 ◼ ► 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,
00:38:49 ◼ ► 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,
00:39:33 ◼ ► 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.
00:39:58 ◼ ► 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,
00:40:11 ◼ ► 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.
00:40:44 ◼ ► 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,
00:41:22 ◼ ► 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.
00:45:05 ◼ ► 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.
00:46:21 ◼ ► 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.
00:49:06 ◼ ► 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.
00:50:14 ◼ ► 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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00:53:37 ◼ ► 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
00:55:38 ◼ ► 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.
00:55:55 ◼ ► 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.
00:57:19 ◼ ► we spoke about this already, but the reasons it took its time is it needed to find its place,
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.
01:03:24 ◼ ► That's a carnival game. Put the ball in the Apple park hall. I, and this is why I have to say
01:03:39 ◼ ► and the iPad during this decade. But it's like, you know, they had a rocket ship with the iPhone
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
01:04:19 ◼ ► 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.
01:05:31 ◼ ► 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,
01:10:34 ◼ ► 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.
01:18:23 ◼ ► 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,
01:21:13 ◼ ► 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,
01:21:27 ◼ ► 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
01:22:37 ◼ ► analytics to more, to work more efficiently and make fast decisions as well. And everyone
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
01:22:54 ◼ ► the need to adapt to constant change, which we all feel to provide open source solutions. So clients
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
01:23:10 ◼ ► priority. They also integrate their capabilities of intelligence grade cybersecurity with Booz
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.
01:24:32 ◼ ► Yeah. She had a clear case for that. I don't remember where we got it even. That was the one
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
01:26:15 ◼ ► **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.
01:26:37 ◼ ► **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,
01:27:29 ◼ ► Phil asks, "What are your recommendations for password management? I'm currently using a
01:27:38 ◼ ► but now all the upgradients know. "I feel like I should be using something more secure." Jason,
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,
01:28:41 ◼ ► 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,
01:31:27 ◼ ► 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
01:34:06 ◼ ► 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
01:34:31 ◼ ► "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
01:35:15 ◼ ► 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
01:35:54 ◼ ► 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
01:37:02 ◼ ► 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,
01:37:59 ◼ ► 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.