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Upgrade

252: The Hippie Gets a Haircut

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:10   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 252. Today's show is brought to you by Lumen5,

00:00:17   Bombus, and TextExpander from Smile. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined, as always,

00:00:22   by my Summer of Fun podcasting partner, Mr. Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell.

00:00:27   Hello, Myke Hurley. It's good to be here for the Summer of Fun. It's July. Can you feel

00:00:31   it? It's July. I can feel it. Jason, we promised on our last episode some super special guests

00:00:36   for today's episode. Would you like to introduce said special guests?

00:00:39   Okay, yes, we have two special guests, and this is going to inform what we're talking

00:00:44   about today. First off, these are both Relay FM hosts who I have multi-decades of history

00:00:52   with, host of the Parallel podcast, and my former colleague at MacUser Magazine back

00:00:59   in the day, Shelley Brisbane. Hello.

00:01:01   Hello. It's nice that you invited the old people here on the show. I'm glad to be here.

00:01:05   Yeah, we're going to show Myke how it was done back in our day when podcasts were just

00:01:10   rants on the sidewalk.

00:01:11   I'm just sitting here on my lawn, waiting for somebody to try and get on it and see

00:01:15   what I might do.

00:01:16   Now, Shelley, you and I work for MacUser. We had a columnist, this fellow, Andy Inotko

00:01:24   is what I think you pronounce that. It is. It's hard to pronounce or spell. And he is

00:01:28   the host of the Material podcast here on Relay FM, as well as a regular panelist on MacBreak

00:01:33   Weekly and a visitor to WGBH Boston's public radio. Hello. Do I get it all right there,

00:01:39   Andy?

00:01:40   Yeah, I talked for half hour about technology on NPR here in Boston, but once a weekend,

00:01:47   it usually comes out pretty much okay. I do gesture a lot with my hands, even though it's

00:01:51   simply radio, but over the past couple of years, I'm kind of winding that down.

00:01:55   Oh, it's, you know, just calm down. I've been in the audience for that, so that's pretty

00:01:59   good. That's a nice thing. So we have my pals who I have known since the '90s here, and

00:02:07   we're going to talk...

00:02:08   Jason, can I say my usual line? It's traditional. I've known Jason for so long that he is the

00:02:14   man who taught me how to boldface in HTML.

00:02:17   It's true. It's true. That was back when we were still learning what a web browser was.

00:02:24   So we're going to talk about Apple and the many transitions in Apple's history, but before

00:02:29   we do that, I think we should answer a Snell Talk question, Myke.

00:02:34   We should. Just because we have guests, we do not issue from tradition around here. It's

00:02:37   the summer of fun, but it's not the summer of no tradition, Jason. So we're going to

00:02:42   go with a #SnellTalk question from Gordon, and I was looking through our list and I was

00:02:47   like, let me pick something which kind of fits in with today's episode. So I went for

00:02:52   something which is pre-OS 10, and the idea of the question comes from Gordon. What is

00:02:57   your favorite app that you still use regularly that dates back to the pre-OS 10 days? Mine

00:03:03   is Graphic Converter. Jason, do you have an answer for this?

00:03:07   I actually do have a few answers. I'm wondering if perhaps I should defer to my guests if

00:03:12   they have favorite apps that date back to the pre-OS 10 period. Andy and Shelley, do

00:03:18   you have favorite apps from the olden times? I do, actually. I like Graphics Converter.

00:03:23   I still use it. Graphic Converter, pardon me. I still use it, but I startled James Thompson

00:03:27   when I met him about a year ago and I said, James, I really love Drag Thing. And he was

00:03:32   like, really? As in, that's been a long time and that's a 32-bit app. I don't use it all

00:03:38   the time, but I use it on a laptop that I have because that's how I like to see my icons.

00:03:43   That extra squeak was about, really? It's a 32-bit app, it won't be updated and we'll

00:03:47   stop working in the fall. Exactly. And he made me aware of that. And

00:03:51   I'm trying to let myself down easily, get some other solutions that are more modern,

00:03:56   but I always enjoy Drag Thing. All right. That's a great one. Andy?

00:04:00   I feel like there's one that Jason and I both absolutely adore and as a sign of my friendship,

00:04:05   I should leave that for Jason. I had you go first for a reason. I got another one in my

00:04:11   back pocket. Okay. In that case, it has to be BB Edit,

00:04:14   which is the, BB Edit is a program, technically a programmer's text editor, but it has been

00:04:20   powering tech writing and all kinds of writing behind the scenes for eons because...

00:04:26   I used it today. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm pretty sure that

00:04:30   when Jason taught me that, "Oh, here's how you both face something." It was code, HTML

00:04:35   code I typed into a BB Edit document to create that formatting. And up until fairly recently,

00:04:41   it was what I wrote every single one of like two or three weekly columns on because it's

00:04:45   a text editor. It gets out of your way. It's 100% reliable. It is fine tuned, extremely

00:04:52   sleek, efficient code. And the people who create it are awesome people. And it's like,

00:04:58   every time that I use it, I feel like I'm smart for choosing to use BB Edit. And I'm

00:05:05   pleased. I'm also pleased that it's sort of like when you have that rice cooker that you've

00:05:11   used since college, that it's like, "Okay, everything's okay. This is definitely my MacBook

00:05:17   because look, I've got BB Edit on it." Just like every MacBook and PowerBook I've had,

00:05:22   it is a touchstone of reality for a lot of people who write on Macs.

00:05:26   Yeah, I wrote a column last week where I referred to BB Edit as the app of Theseus in that it

00:05:31   has gone through so many transitions, as we're going to talk about here, that there's nothing

00:05:36   left from what was there at the start. But it's also never had one of those schisms where

00:05:42   there's a new version and it's completely incompatible with the old version and doesn't

00:05:45   do what the old version did. It's never done that. It's always just kind of kept evolving

00:05:49   with the times, which is delightful.

00:05:52   Rather than that simile, I would use the old Japanese wooden temple. I said, "This temple

00:05:57   has been here for 800 years." Like, "Wow, the wood looks fresh." Well, yeah, because

00:06:02   every time a piece of wood rots out, we replace it. So basically, it's nothing in that older

00:06:07   than 50 years. And it's like, but it's always been this temple. It's always been there.

00:06:12   It's never blown up. It's never caught on fire. No one has ever... They're never going

00:06:18   to change a command and say, "You know what? Let's turn this into a coffee house. And it'll

00:06:22   be like a coffee house with like a wine bar on it." And then they had to go back to being

00:06:27   a temple because that was a terrible idea. It's been like consistency often.

00:06:30   My answer is going to be, and this is an app that had a little bit of a schism, but it

00:06:34   is essentially doing the same thing with the same author. And that's Default Folder from

00:06:38   St. Clair Software, which I remember downloading as shareware in college. And I still use it.

00:06:44   And actually one of my more proud moments of the last couple of years is I was using

00:06:48   it at one point a few weeks ago and thought to myself, "Hey, you know, there's something

00:06:52   Default Folder doesn't do." I actually had an idea for a feature in Default Folder. And

00:06:57   I emailed John, the developer of Default Folder, and said, "Could you do this? Is this possible?

00:07:03   Am I missing this feature?" And I had one of these stranger things. It does happen occasionally

00:07:08   when you write about this stuff, which is the next day, John sent me a beta build with

00:07:13   my feature implemented. Okay. And it's great. And the nice thing is that I've heard from

00:07:19   several people afterward when it was rolled into the official kind of beta releases of

00:07:24   Default Folder saying that they actually wanted that feature and are glad that it's there.

00:07:29   So that's nice. But Default Folder, for those who don't know, lets you set when you choose

00:07:35   open or save in a document in any app, you can set what the default folder is that you're

00:07:40   saving into and you can set it per app. You can override it. There are a bunch of things

00:07:44   where you can click on like a finder window that's behind and it will switch to that finder

00:07:47   window. And a new feature you may not be aware of is it can now actually use a script to

00:07:54   determine based on current conditions where you want to save something. It's a new feature.

00:08:00   Whoever thought of that feature is a genius. So that's mine.

00:08:05   I didn't even know that this thing was still in existence and I've got the webpage open.

00:08:08   I remember using it a long time ago but I just assumed it was gone.

00:08:13   Thank you, webpage. I think I will try it for free for 30 days.

00:08:16   Thank you so much to Gordon for the hashtag Snell Talk question. I'm pretty proud of my

00:08:19   choice for this week.

00:08:21   It's a good one.

00:08:22   Good choice.

00:08:23   It's a very good one.

00:08:24   It's a very good one.

00:08:25   For our panel here today. You can always send in a question for us to open an episode of

00:08:27   Upgrade with the hashtag Snell Talk. So Jason, you mentioned transitions. Transitions is

00:08:33   one of the big discussion points that we're going to talk about today because Apple are,

00:08:39   we've been talking about this over the last couple of weeks as we move into Catalina with

00:08:43   Catalyst apps and then looking forward to Swift UI and what that could do for Apple's

00:08:48   platforms as well as looking at the introduction of iPadOS. There is a lot of stuff going on

00:08:53   right now. I mean, that's not even beginning to mention the fact that we could be moving

00:08:58   from Intel to ARM in the near future. So as a way to kind of provide maybe a little bit

00:09:04   of context and background for these upcoming transitions, it might be a good idea to look

00:09:09   at the past because Apple has been through many transitions from personnel to architecture

00:09:16   to software. So you wanted to assemble our group today to discuss that, right?

00:09:21   Yes, the group. Don't call them the group of elders. We're not going to use that word.

00:09:27   We are really more of a council really. Yes, that's right. We were consulting with those

00:09:32   who've seen, well, it turns out, Myke, if you stand around long enough and just watch,

00:09:38   you become a witness to history. Sometimes it's boring history, sometimes it's exciting

00:09:42   history, but it's history. And Shelley and Andy and I have been standing roughly near

00:09:46   the corner of technology and liberal arts for a few decades as the parades have gone

00:09:51   up and down the street. And I feel like that gives us a perspective that, again, I don't

00:09:58   feel like I've been standing on this corner for 25 years, but I really have. And every

00:10:04   now and then we go through one of these transitions and I realize I'm talking to somebody like

00:10:08   you, Myke, who has not even, didn't even do the PowerPC to Intel transition, let alone

00:10:14   the transition to PowerPC or the OS9 to OS10 transition or any of these other transitions.

00:10:20   And I realize, oh, you know, a lot of people don't have the context of what Apple has done

00:10:24   in the past when they've had to go through something like this. I've got a list here,

00:10:27   so I think we should go through them. And you guys contributed to this list as well.

00:10:32   Going way back, I like this one. I hadn't really thought about it. Originally, the Mac

00:10:36   was a self-contained item. It was the original Mac and then the 128 and, you know, it became

00:10:42   the 512 and there was a plus and the SE. But there was that moment where Apple made a box

00:10:49   that you could attach a color monitor to and that was a Mac too. And I remember it was

00:10:56   a little bit later, color Macs were out, but I hadn't used any of them. I remember that

00:10:59   first time that I used a Mac that was capable of conceiving of colors and used, you know,

00:11:04   could only didn't have a built in display. And it was definitely a very weird kind of

00:11:09   transition.

00:11:10   Yeah, particularly because one of the reasons why there are a lot of reasons why a lot of

00:11:15   people, users in the industry didn't take the Mac seriously at first. Well, A, because

00:11:20   you couldn't word process a document longer than nine pages, okay. But it really did look,

00:11:25   it didn't look like any other computer. It looked like as intended an appliance, a friendly

00:11:29   little pal that's on your desk. And when you had to transfer, it was interesting to finally

00:11:38   react to a Mac that was a box with a TV looking screen on top of the box. And it was because

00:11:47   that's what all computers since that I'd ever used looked like. And not only that, but it's

00:11:52   felt like the face that I'd been looking at for the previous X number of years was this

00:11:57   like 500 pixel wide black and white Bloxy face. And when you're looking at a color image,

00:12:05   it's like when a friend that you've known your entire, you've known for 10 years, but

00:12:08   has never ever not had a beard suddenly comes back from vacation and he shaved. And it's

00:12:13   like, I know that's still Doug, but this is a very weird form of Doug that I'm going to

00:12:18   have to get used to.

00:12:19   Well, and for most people, the screen got bigger because you could attach a radius display

00:12:23   to an SE 30, something like that. But for most people, I think the nine inch screen

00:12:27   on the plus sized, which is the first Mac I had, was what people thought of as a Mac

00:12:32   13. And so even if you just had the 13 inch RGB on the Mac two, you were looking at a

00:12:36   bigger image, you were looking at a color image. And of course, the big deal of expansion,

00:12:41   those little handle held Macs could be expanded in sort of weird and kludgy ways. They even,

00:12:47   you could even get a hard drive and a Mac plus, which I always thought was going to

00:12:50   break at some point because somebody would, you know, put it down wrong. But with the

00:12:54   Mac two, it was meant to be expanded. You open it up and there were slots and you didn't

00:12:58   have to have torque wrench and you didn't have to do all these crazy things and, you

00:13:02   know, pray to the gods of hardware repair if you wanted to put memory or a drive in

00:13:07   your computer. It did just definitely change the context in that one of the criticisms

00:13:11   of the Mac in the earliest days was that it was this appliance. Ironically, I mean, this

00:13:16   is sometimes I think the iPad is similar to the concept of the original Mac. That's why

00:13:21   I always I always felt like Steve Jobs was trying to push to that same place, which is

00:13:26   I want this to be just a thing that you carry around and you don't feel that it's super

00:13:30   technical and it is that computer for the rest of us. And the Mac was criticized as

00:13:35   so many Apple products are for being not quite what everybody expects from the category.

00:13:41   And it was all in one. It was had had a mouse. It was strangely shaped all of these things.

00:13:49   And the Mac two when that came in, it was almost like Apple saying, All right, we hear

00:13:53   you. Do you want you want a computer box that you attach things to? We can give you that

00:13:58   too. But the original and that definitely my first Mac was a an SE. So I definitely

00:14:03   was somebody who was entering the Mac through that little nine inch diagonal screen, black

00:14:08   and white screen, which I think about it now and I can't even believe what a wide world

00:14:13   it opened up to me in that teeny tiny little square, a little rectangle. But it did. And

00:14:19   then and then Mac two. Yeah, we had a at my college newspaper, we had a Mac two. And eventually

00:14:25   we had a Mac two f x, which was pretty I remember how it sounded because the hard drive ticked

00:14:32   and it was so fast. But you know, but for me at home, you know, in my dorm room and

00:14:38   all that it was still that nine inch screen. I used to encounter Mac twos in unexpected

00:14:42   places. Once the Mac two came out, I saw it on a trade show at a supercom a supercomputer

00:14:47   trade show of all things as a front end to a very large computer doing data visualization.

00:14:52   And I saw it at an office in IBM because we have to figure out how this Mac thing works.

00:14:56   But it didn't really make any sense until the Mac two came along. And so it felt like

00:15:00   and obviously Apple did this intentionally. They did all the things that you have to do

00:15:04   to make a computer expandable and you know, accessible to all the things that that it

00:15:09   is with that other computers are. And it felt like that gave people permission to acquire

00:15:14   Macs, even if they weren't going to make them their primary computer. It was a computer

00:15:18   that could live in the same environment with other kinds of machines. Yeah, I think the

00:15:23   first time I saw Mac two I pretty sure was before it was even released. Because I was

00:15:28   a freshman in college and I used to hang out in like the graduate school's graphics lab,

00:15:35   computer graphics lab, and they had one in like Los grandes boards stage where it was

00:15:40   literally it was a table with Mac two boards like just all wired together that they were

00:15:44   writing code either. I don't know if they were developing code for it for Apple or whether

00:15:50   they gave they were given an early version of it so that they could see what it could

00:15:53   do. But it was weird to see this thing that dominated dominated like it looked like a

00:16:00   real computer, even though it didn't have a case on it as opposed to, "No, this isn't

00:16:03   this is my this is my friend the Macintosh. This is my Mac plus." And yeah, it was it

00:16:08   really was a moment where Apple was realized that they weren't going to get to that they

00:16:14   weren't going to get them back to that stage where it's so affordable that everybody can

00:16:17   buy one. It's not going to be like the Apple two where families could sort of afford to

00:16:21   have one in the house as the home computer that was always they were never going to get

00:16:25   to that price point. So the only if they couldn't go down, they had to go up and really sell

00:16:30   it as for desktop publishing. The nine inch screen is not that great for laying out a

00:16:36   newspaper but hey, will give you not only processing power to lay out that page but

00:16:40   the ability to just plug in a huge display as opposed to like Shelley said, crack open

00:16:45   that case clip it was a couple of these displays it was literally like a spring clip that you

00:16:52   would clip onto the CPU to get at the address lines. Some of them you send them I think

00:16:57   you would send them your motherboard, they would send back a new motherboard that had

00:17:02   professionally soldered in stuff. So the ability to simply unplug this plug in that you're

00:17:07   good it felt like it wasn't a bad transition but it really was like the hippie gets the

00:17:11   haircut and doesn't like switch to a three-piece business suit but realizes that perhaps I

00:17:17   should start wearing shoes instead of sandals everywhere.

00:17:20   So now one of the funny things about living through some amount of history is that you

00:17:25   do get to witness this thing you don't realize when you haven't lived through much of it

00:17:28   which is this flattening of history and I don't you know want to take the time right

00:17:32   now to talk about it but it's not like there weren't other transitions that happened in

00:17:36   the early days of the Mac. System 6 to System 7 was an enormous one back when like there

00:17:41   was really no ability to run more than one app at once unless you use multi finder and

00:17:46   it was this whole complicated thing and System 7 really was a dramatic change but I want

00:17:51   to forward a little bit to a time when I actually was at Mac user so in my the beginning of

00:17:58   my professional career at Mac user we had a column for a while in the letters column

00:18:03   which I edited called ask Dr. Power Mac and it was literally just Stefan Somoji who worked

00:18:10   at Mac user back then reassuring people about how terrifying the 68,000 to Power PC processor

00:18:20   transition was going to work and for those who don't remember those olden days but maybe

00:18:25   if you remember the Intel transition was a similar thing where there were computers with

00:18:29   new chips and old software written for old chips and Apple did I think a tremendous job

00:18:37   in that era of figuring out a way to translate the instructions for those old apps so that

00:18:43   they worked on Power PC processors so you have an old version of word built for the

00:18:48   68,000 series and you brought it over to a Power Mac and it ran and it was a little slower

00:18:56   sometimes depending on the computer you were coming from but it actually ran and it that

00:19:02   was I would say the biggest certainly was the first one I saw but it was a big hardware

00:19:08   transition it was one of the first that Apple had to do on that front and the lesson I took

00:19:13   away from that was that there was a lot of fear but that when handled correctly people

00:19:19   would end up being surprised that it wasn't as bad as they thought that I don't know if

00:19:23   you have if you have different recollections of that Power PC transition but I just remembered

00:19:27   being a lot we wrote a lot of words about something that ended up being not nearly as

00:19:31   painful as we feared. I think so and I think for somebody out there who was buying Macs

00:19:39   maybe not a Mac user reader but somebody was out there buying Macs they weren't thinking

00:19:42   about it in the same way or to the same extent that we were and Apple at the same time that

00:19:47   they made the when they made the Power PC transition they transitioned to vastly different

00:19:52   hardware so it wasn't like well your LC will now run a PPC chip it was here's the Power

00:19:57   Mac 6100 here's a 7100 and onward and so I think for some people that experience was

00:20:03   hidden sure you'd get the dialog box that would say this is a 68k app but it felt like

00:20:08   there was a less there was less of a requirement that you be involved in it unless you were

00:20:14   just super curious about it or maybe you had a specific piece of software that wasn't going

00:20:19   to work but I don't even remember a lot of that it seems like that was a relatively smooth

00:20:23   transition mostly just worked yeah I think shelly's absolutely right I think most most

00:20:27   humans most civilians they didn't really notice a difference they just noticed I think that

00:20:33   eventually they noticed that some of their software was running slowly and some of their

00:20:37   software was running super well and it didn't didn't really realize they didn't really realize

00:20:43   that what they were running was 68,000 Motorola software in emulation and some were being

00:20:49   transitioned into Intel native apps and that's exactly how well Apple did it it's this could

00:20:55   be a case study and how to manage fears that anyone's gonna anybody's gonna be feeling

00:21:01   in any large moment of transition if you can if you can do everything you can so that they

00:21:05   don't notice anything even though there's a titanic change happening under the floorboards

00:21:10   that's exactly the way to do it so sometimes I think in principle it's always a good idea

00:21:17   to inform people and tell people and make sure things are done out in the open but oftentimes

00:21:23   I find myself over explaining a transition or over explaining a concept that I when I'm

00:21:29   when I finally like slap myself in the in the head and at eight and a half minutes in

00:21:32   my little monologue realize that actually this is not going to affect your lives at

00:21:36   all because it's gonna it's gonna affect the lives of everybody working at Apple who is

00:21:41   gonna have to work on this and make sure that it works properly but if they do their jobs

00:21:46   okay you're just gonna notice that some of your some of your apps are gonna be slow some

00:21:51   are gonna be fast and after a year all of your apps are gonna be fast it's really this

00:21:54   chain right where it starts with Apple it goes to the developers of apps and then it

00:21:59   goes to the user and at if executed properly Apple does provides the tools and the infrastructure

00:22:08   and the developers are able to do their updates and you know if it all goes well the user

00:22:14   doesn't notice anything right like that is the goal is you know here's a new update and

00:22:19   we mentioned you know BB Edit earlier here's a new update and and they don't need to know

00:22:24   the users don't need to know that oh well behind the scenes I had to do a whole lot

00:22:27   because Apple changed this thing and that thing and all that in the end the user just

00:22:30   wants to use the thing and and if if the developers get the tools to do their updates properly

00:22:37   it can be an invisible transition which in my mind is the best transition to have.

00:22:41   Yeah it's it's you have to get a column out and maybe it'll pop into my mind that oh my

00:22:45   god Apple's gonna be changing the the with their web renderer for Safari from KHTML to

00:22:50   something else like actually nobody who actually reads this is going to notice nobody who reads

00:22:55   this is should care and maybe you're just going to be scaring people into thinking that

00:22:59   the rug is about to be pulled out from under you.

00:23:02   And that process was made easier by the fact that Apple was so involved in making PowerPC

00:23:07   a chip that they could use for their computer their operating system and it wasn't like

00:23:10   Apple said you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna buy a chip from somebody and I'm gonna

00:23:14   write my operating system to run on it they were much more intimately involved in the

00:23:18   hardware side than that and so that made it easy for them I mean it doesn't diminish what

00:23:22   they were able to accomplish for the user but it does indicate that they had that it

00:23:26   was smart of them to make the choice they did about how they developed that hardware.

00:23:31   Yeah and I'm just remembering that I think they made the announcement shortly before

00:23:36   that year's MacHack developer conference which was which was WWDC before Apple thought to

00:23:42   actually hold the WWDC so I was in like a hotel room in Dearborn Michigan excuse me

00:23:47   hotel with a in Dearborn Michigan with about 200 300 like super super hardcore developers

00:23:53   including many who work for Apple and got here so much opinion and so much talking about

00:24:00   how this transition could possibly be made I think they actually had a piece of Intel

00:24:03   hardware maybe and they were banging on it and trying to figure out how to make it work

00:24:09   and it was a weird time because Apple was really trying to make the developers feel

00:24:13   as happy about this as they're trying to assuage the any guilty feelings but the that the users

00:24:18   might be having.

00:24:19   It's interesting when we talk about chip transitions and we'll talk about in our next segment I

00:24:23   want to talk about a lot of these sort of Steve Jobs comes back to Apple transitions

00:24:26   because that was definitely he was he was making change everywhere he could possibly

00:24:30   do it and including ultimately PowerPC to Intel but I think it's interesting when Andy

00:24:36   you mentioned PowerPC there was the PowerPC Alliance which was Apple IBM and Motorola

00:24:41   the AIM Alliance and that goes back to a thing that has been part of Apple's DNA since the

00:24:47   beginning which is trying to go its own way and so going from the Motorola 68000 to the

00:24:52   PowerPC it was very much like we're going to go to this new chip architecture that we're

00:24:56   helping drive whereas the Intel transition was interesting because that was basically

00:25:02   their partners let them down you know IBM had let them down on the PowerPC side and

00:25:08   they ended up just taking chips off the shelf from Intel and as we think about Apple going

00:25:14   to arm it's funny how that happens they're going back the other way now it's like oh

00:25:19   yeah we've been let down again maybe we should take more control over this so I definitely

00:25:24   am seeing parallels there but but Myke has reappeared so maybe it's time for us to take

00:25:31   a break now before we go get into some CEO transitions and Steve Jobs coming back to

00:25:35   Apple.

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00:27:31   I wrote in our notes the the CEO transitions it is definitely a thing but most people don't

00:27:37   think of most of them because there was sort of the you know John Scully came in and Steve

00:27:42   Jobs left Apple and then after Scully got kicked out there was a disaster parade of

00:27:50   failed CEOs and then Steve Jobs came back and then obviously Steve Jobs got very ill

00:27:55   and just before he passed away he handed the keys to Apple to Tim Cook but you know CEO

00:28:01   transitions can be meaningful they aren't always meaningful I was definitely a young

00:28:06   editor at Mac or at Mac user back in the day watching the that parade of problematic CEOs

00:28:13   walk through and you know it was sort of like well maybe Michael Spindler will be the answer

00:28:17   and the answer was no he no no Gil Amelio well only in the sense that he found Steve

00:28:22   Jobs that sometimes CEO transitions aren't meaningful but Steve Jobs as a personality

00:28:29   with a person with a strong philosophy definitely transitioning to him and away from him are

00:28:37   moments that you can draw a line and and and at least try to intuit what what they brought

00:28:44   to the table as a CEO and I had a list here of the Steve Jobs returns transitions that

00:28:48   happened in a very tumultuous time in the early part of this century primarily late

00:28:55   late 90s as well the the clones got killed Apple obviously brought in OS 10 which is

00:29:03   how Steve Jobs got imported into the organization because it was based on the next OS so the

00:29:09   classic OS transition to OS 10 ending in a funeral by the way at WWDC Steve Jobs had

00:29:16   a funeral with an OS 9 box in it and put it down below the stage the iMac transition which

00:29:22   sometimes doesn't get enough credit which is when Apple took all the old ports that

00:29:26   were standards on the Mac and basically kick them to the curb and said we're just going

00:29:30   to do USB now then a little bit later the Intel transition and and I think from a developer

00:29:36   standpoint one of the things that also happened is as a part of the OS 10 transition there

00:29:41   was really this transition to Apple's own tools which were based on next tools and this

00:29:46   is essentially interface builder and Xcode which over the course of the time with the

00:29:52   OS 10 and Intel transitions all the stuff that was happening with like CodeWarrior from

00:29:58   MetroWorks which was the definitive PowerPC development environment all kind of faded

00:30:03   away because Apple wanted you on its own development tools so Steve Jobs did all of that and I

00:30:09   know that's a lot to kind of cover but I think it's interesting what I would say about

00:30:15   Steve Jobs is the advantage of having somebody like Steve Jobs who knew the company well

00:30:20   but was outside the company and felt no ownership in current products I feel like in some ways

00:30:26   that's the best case scenario for something like this where you get somebody who knows

00:30:30   you well but doesn't have any ego invested in any of the details to come in and say no

00:30:36   we're gonna kill the Newton and we're gonna kill OpenDoc and we're going to move to this

00:30:42   new operating system and we're gonna start talking start doing Intel builds of it in

00:30:45   case we need to dump the PowerPC and we're gonna get rid of Mac serial and SCSI and like

00:30:50   and Steve Jobs was able to do that and you know that was a tumultuous five years but

00:30:56   Apple came out and the Mac I think came out stronger for it yeah absolutely I think the

00:31:01   one of the key things that Steve did was to take a look at Apple as a single organism

00:31:09   as opposed to think of it as a company that makes this product line they make the Newton

00:31:13   product line and they make this product line the one of the most important things that

00:31:17   he did I think was simply here is what we are here to do and we're not gonna do anything

00:31:21   that has nothing to do with that famously he at one of his keynotes he collapsed the

00:31:29   entire Mac product line into a grid of two boxes by two boxes we are going to have portable

00:31:35   Macs we're going to have desktop Macs the Macs can be either consumer grade or professional

00:31:40   grade one two three four that's all that's all we're gonna do we're not gonna have the

00:31:44   Centris 6152C with the special option of as deviates it's going to be simplified we're

00:31:51   out there they try doing everything that didn't work so let's focus on the stuff that we can

00:31:56   do and you're absolutely right about the iMac being important too not simply because of

00:32:03   the fact that they made so many groundbreaking changes like the first computer to absolutely

00:32:09   commit to USB and absolutely commit to optical drives but remember that this came at the

00:32:16   tail of so many indistinguishable unremarkable beige boxes and Apple had gone from being

00:32:23   this exciting product development company to something just made other boxes that you

00:32:30   saw at Sears Roebuck that didn't look really any different or any more exciting than anything

00:32:35   else out there and so the suddenly see that it was such a true return to form that we

00:32:40   are going to quote the original classic Mac by having here is a one friendly box with

00:32:46   a big handle deep into the back of it so you can pick it up and carry it some places but

00:32:49   it's going to be like it was inflated out of latex and it's going to be colors so freaky

00:32:55   we have to invent new names for them and it was so influential just from industrial design

00:33:01   that you could buy waffle makers in a range of iMac colors not from Apple of course but

00:33:06   it was so influential and if even if it were successful or unsuccessful as computer as

00:33:12   a statement to the world especially to investors and people who are supposed to support the

00:33:16   stuff that Apple has not given up there is something that you liked about Apple even

00:33:20   if you didn't always necessarily invest in their hardware that thing is back we are not

00:33:25   going to become another indistinguishable tech company like Gateway or compact we are

00:33:29   going to do something that only we can do.

00:33:31   I think it's worth pointing out that those transitions toward Steve Jobs and toward the

00:33:36   iMac and USB and all those things while in hindsight were absolutely right were very

00:33:41   bloody when they were happening and Apple had started to go to clones because it seemed

00:33:48   like if they wanted the Mac operating system to spread they had to do it but that went

00:33:52   away and there were people that were worried about that well is Apple going to be able

00:33:55   to survive just making all the hardware itself OS 10 what became Mac OS 10 took a lot of

00:34:02   years because even though that was based on Next Step early on it was four years before

00:34:09   they I think three or four years before they actually got an OS out there the iMac okay

00:34:14   it's it's really cool looking but it's got a hockey puck mouse what is this crazy USB

00:34:18   thing and I don't think anybody who said that was particularly enamored of the old Apple

00:34:24   specific ports it was just that it was unclear to people that that was the direction that

00:34:31   was needed that they needed to go and so while as I say in hindsight it all was it all was

00:34:36   right and then Steve you know made mistakes along the way but he the the his hit rate

00:34:40   given what had happened to Apple in the mid 90s was pretty darn high I think it's also

00:34:45   important as we're praising a lot of this stuff is that then as now Apple has the ability

00:34:51   to make these choices that inflict a lot of pain on users such as congratulations none

00:34:57   of your old Mac peripherals will work with this new iMac oh and by the way you pretty

00:35:02   much have to buy an external floppy drive because good luck good luck storing your data

00:35:09   someplace else on and on and on they could do this because they always had that last

00:35:14   way to end an argument saying well are you going to switch to Windows no okay well then

00:35:19   that's all we're offering you and so it's so it's one thing to say oh see they're the

00:35:23   only ones who had the vision to really do this like no other computers had it you just

00:35:28   didn't have to buy the one machine that this one company was pushing on you and yes they

00:35:34   were eventually proven right but there's so but I don't think that in a competitive Apple

00:35:39   was at the size that it was at the time and they were and users really did have options

00:35:45   they would not only a certain percentage of them would have chosen to buy computer that

00:35:52   is as cool but also impractical as the original iMac also the original iMac was one of the

00:35:58   of a product line right like the the transition was slow enough that like the pro users weren't

00:36:04   buying the original iMac so it was this kind of was just the oddity consumer model and

00:36:09   they'd it happened over time so the the higher part other parts of the market didn't have

00:36:14   to respond as immediately but you're both right it was really tumultuous time and sometimes

00:36:20   I look back on it and I think well the advantage of having somebody like Steve Jobs in charge

00:36:24   is that he would be like he'd say well I know this is gonna bother people but I don't care

00:36:29   and they'll get over it whereas Microsoft in that era seemed despite all of their power

00:36:34   they were petrified that their product would be rejected by their users and not incorrectly

00:36:40   because we saw you know over the next 10 years that Microsoft tried to introduce larger changes

00:36:47   to their ecosystem and they were generally just rejected by their user base so you know

00:36:53   struggling today yeah like with this type of stuff right like this is still a thing

00:36:57   that is a problem for them well an Apple spent before Steve Jobs came back and after he did

00:37:01   I guess you could say they probably spent 10 years or so really branding themselves

00:37:06   against Windows they don't do that in the same way at all today but at that time they

00:37:11   could say as Andy pointed out look we're the Mac you have the advantage of this user interface

00:37:16   that is comfortable that is likable that is something somebody who hates Windows can be

00:37:21   comfortable with and Apple leaned into it and so did we writing magazines lean into

00:37:25   it as well yeah and the other part is that people have an emotion Apple users have an

00:37:29   emotional response to Apple that Windows users do certainly not have with with Windows devices

00:37:37   it's Windows is the Windows and Windows PCs are really the Toyota Corolla of computing

00:37:45   they're for people who I I really just want something where I get in and I begin to the

00:37:50   driveway I turn the key it starts up it gets me to work safely and then at five o'clock

00:37:56   it gets me home safely I'm not a lover of this thing I wanted to be practical and I

00:37:59   really can't tell the difference between this $18,000 car you're showing me and this $38,000

00:38:04   car you're showing me despite the fact that the $38,000 car is much more innovative and

00:38:09   as much more cool stuff in it so Windows people are not are fickle that way because they're

00:38:14   just buying they're buying a bag of flour that's really all they're buying whereas it

00:38:18   kind of disappoints us if Apple doesn't do something that's a little bit alarming at

00:38:22   times because that's kind of what they're in the job for there and that's their that's

00:38:25   their job to do something that are that makes me think wow I don't know if they should have

00:38:31   let people into the new Spaceship Campus before the industrial adhesives and the carpet had

00:38:36   finished off gassing because that was a really odd choice they just made that product you

00:38:41   want them to surprise you and challenge you but also sometimes they make mistakes and

00:38:46   it is you know whenever I'm evaluating something that Apple does there's this moment of like

00:38:51   well I like that they did it we'll see like the MacBook if we take the the 12-inch MacBook

00:38:57   as an example like and the original MacBook Air was like this too where it's sort of like

00:39:02   well I this is an opinionated product design they've made some very clear decisions and

00:39:07   trade-offs that other people would not necessarily make and it leads to a product that's very

00:39:12   interesting and depending on your priorities could be exactly what you're looking for or

00:39:17   depending on your priorities is exactly the wrong product to exist at all and you know

00:39:23   then you just kind of have to wait and see and with the MacBook Air I think that you

00:39:29   know it turned out that it was in the right direction but wasn't all quite there and they

00:39:33   need to take another stab at it before they really got it right and they finally did get

00:39:36   it I think exactly right it just took them as somebody who had that original MacBook

00:39:40   Air and you could really only use it in a meat locker because if it got too warm it

00:39:45   stopped working and shut down its course but they did get there eventually and with the

00:39:49   MacBook it's the same way like you know among a bunch of other products people love that

00:39:53   little thing and yeah it only has one port and there are a lot of people for whom it's

00:39:56   not appropriate but but at the time it's very hard to say is it do I just not like this

00:40:02   keyboard or is this keyboard a disaster and you can't tell I could tell except for only

00:40:06   Andy can tell well now we can tell now we can see it my dislike for the lack of travel

00:40:11   on that keyboard blinded me to the all the other problems with that existed so it's a

00:40:19   tough one Myke should we take another break I think that sounds like a great idea today's

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00:42:24   support of this show and relay FM all right so the the last transition I want to talk

00:42:28   about before we we do the tech industry pivot and talk about where we go from here is a

00:42:35   mindset and perception transition I think it actually goes along about the same time

00:42:41   as the transition from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook it precedes it a little bit but I think that

00:42:46   it's all kind of of a kind in this late model Apple that we we deal with now where we've

00:42:54   got you know those of us who wrote about Apple and and and use Apple stuff in the 90s like

00:43:00   the default mode then was that Apple was doomed I have a t-shirt that says I've been a Mac

00:43:06   user since Apple was doomed and boy those were dark days like Mac user which we've mentioned

00:43:11   several times where we all wrote and edited and and did you know went to parties and things

00:43:16   like that and he didn't get to go to the parties because he was freelancing remote but we had

00:43:21   them and you went to the parties in Boston probably we had parties at Mac World Expo

00:43:25   in Boston too anyway it died that magazine died in 1997 because the publishers of the

00:43:30   Mac magazines knew that Apple was about to go out of business and they wanted to share

00:43:34   their loss so that they didn't both take a bath and then you know within six months they

00:43:39   realized they had made a horrible mistake but it was too late to back out of it but

00:43:43   that was it it was a dark time Apple was falling apart and then over the next decade you know

00:43:50   we got the iMac we got the iPod and then ultimately we got the iPhone and the story of this decade

00:43:58   is really that Apple is no longer the doomed you know misunderstood edge case niche product

00:44:06   vendor for the for the you know the small group who cares about it and more that Apple's

00:44:12   huge and powerful and rich and unstoppable and it's a huge shift that I would say also

00:44:19   coincides to the perception of Apple is the Mac becoming Apple is the iPhone because that's

00:44:24   another huge part of this same story with the the success of the iPod leading to the

00:44:29   leading to the success of the iPhone and you know my friend Greg Noss who I went to college

00:44:32   with so I've known him even longer than I've known you both he said to me a few years ago

00:44:37   you know I remember Apple being that that company that was like it was kind of adorable

00:44:42   because they've tried so hard and now they're like the Death Star they they own everything

00:44:49   and can afford everything and they're everywhere and you can't get away from them and isn't

00:44:55   it funny to in 15 years have gone from death's door to Apple being seen as the you know not

00:45:02   the underdog at all but one of the one of the the big guys one of the big dogs I suppose

00:45:07   it's interesting when you hang out with civilians as much as I do because back in the day when

00:45:12   we were talking about well most people use Windows and some people use the Mac and so

00:45:17   my Mac using friends of course we're all on board but most of the people I knew in my

00:45:21   life like oh isn't it cute that you use a Macintosh it's so adorable you know and then

00:45:26   and now there's so much awareness of Apple as a company in the broader culture people

00:45:30   know what an Apple keynote is people know Tim Cook's name who I would argue a lot of

00:45:35   people knew Steve Jobs but later on in his tenure and I think Apple as a phenomenon as

00:45:42   a cultural force and it frankly more lately is getting sort of wrapped up with a lot of

00:45:48   the negativity of tech in general it is very very different and it's so weird to have been

00:45:53   in this sort of weird underdog place where you were going hey I like my team I like being

00:45:59   part of this sort of scrappy upstart and what are they going to do next to no really Apple's

00:46:04   the one that cares about your privacy they're not as bad as the other guys whoever those

00:46:08   other guys might be and it's a very odd transition.

00:46:13   Yeah it's when you grow up with Apple as I did and I'm sure you guys did like with Apple

00:46:22   too 2 plus or 2e you hear the story about the two hippies in the in the garage who are

00:46:29   building these computers and that's sometimes a hard thing to get rid of in your mind when

00:46:34   you realize that no they own so many they own so much of the so many markets they have

00:46:38   so much power and so much influence they are not the scrappy little upstart they are a

00:46:42   huge giant they take big steps and they disrupt every every situation that they walk in simply

00:46:52   by being there and this was and it was really hard to remember a day when the only time

00:47:01   that I've ever directly confronted another tech journalist to tell him specifically that

00:47:09   his reporting was completely out of line and unworthy of him was a major major reviewer

00:47:16   who I think he major major columnist who reviewed the I think was meant in the first titanium

00:47:21   power book and if it was a 1200 word review 300 words were about the the what the actual

00:47:28   product was the actual hardware was in the actual plan for the hardware and the rest

00:47:32   of it was but none of this matters because they're gonna be out in business in three

00:47:35   months like well of course at $2,000 I mean it's it's a it's weird be stupid to invest

00:47:41   this much money on a platform that won't be around in a year from now and now they would

00:47:46   you dare tell they can they can keep they can keep any product they want alive for however

00:47:51   long they want it simply by force of will that is the that is the absolute goal of any

00:47:57   corporation to be able to control its own destiny and Apple is one of the few companies

00:48:01   that absolutely controls its own destiny it does not do anything it does not want to do

00:48:06   and conversely anything that it does not do they could do it if they wanted to if they're

00:48:11   not doing it's because they don't want to do it that's how big they are.

00:48:14   Right and I would argue getting just a little bit to what I said before about them sort

00:48:18   of getting wrapped up in the criticism of tech I would get wrapped up I would say that

00:48:24   Apple whatever the merits of their approach to privacy and user information whether you

00:48:29   absolutely agree that they are protecting your privacy 100% of the time or whether you

00:48:33   have mistrust for them they operate in a slightly different way than other companies who are

00:48:38   in that same in the same business and I think that there is a tendency for people politicians

00:48:44   particularly to say here are all the bad actors here are all the actors that we want to regulate

00:48:50   and Apple's included because Apple is a big dog not so much to do with what Apple is actually

00:48:55   doing or how they're doing it but because they are they are not at all a scrappy underdog

00:48:59   in fact they're probably even if you don't if you they're probably the first company

00:49:04   many people think of when they're trying to you know wrangle this big thing called tech

00:49:09   that people are now much more suspicious of than they were even 10 years ago.

00:49:13   So when we do the tech industry pivot which we're about to do I think these are the these

00:49:17   are the things to keep in mind it's sort of like Apple is going through transitions now

00:49:21   and we'll be going to them soon possibly in a different place as Andy said as a company

00:49:28   at the height of its powers that can do whatever it wants essentially in terms of spending

00:49:34   money for certain and also this is a company whose priorities are different as well over

00:49:41   half of its revenue comes from a single product line and it's not the Mac it's the iPhone

00:49:46   and so then we end up with these transitions that are going on so when you think about

00:49:52   something like catalyst catalyst is on one level a developer technology that users don't

00:49:59   necessarily need to care about but it is Apple's attempt to figure out a way to get all of

00:50:06   the work that's been done building software for iPhone and iPad to benefit the Mac because

00:50:12   the Mac uses an incompatible method of developing apps there's Swift and Swift UI behind that

00:50:19   which is the way to create a new method of writing software that is more easily deployable

00:50:24   across all of Apple's platforms down the road and another one that I'll throw in there is

00:50:29   this rumored transition at least in part to Mac's running ARM processors designed by Apple

00:50:35   like the ones that are in iOS devices and I think that is what struck me when Andy said

00:50:40   you know they can spend money to do what they want one of the transitions we haven't talked

00:50:45   about but it feeds into this idea of the Mac transition to ARM is Apple transitioning to

00:50:50   designing its own processors for the iPhone and the iPad where originally was taking things

00:50:57   kind of off the off the shelf ARM designs and now it's got this that that's a case where

00:51:02   it spent a lot of money and has been very successful in building its own thing which

00:51:07   it controls completely as opposed to having to rely on a partner like Intel that has proven

00:51:12   to be problematic in terms of their capability to drive their technology forward so you know

00:51:18   we have that here we have Apple at the height of its powers making these these transitions

00:51:23   and we don't know how they're going to turn out because we don't have the power we have

00:51:27   the power to look in the past from our vantage point on this corner but we don't know what

00:51:31   what's in this new parade that is that is about to start marching in front of us so

00:51:36   I would love to know what you both think about like the the transitions that are in process

00:51:41   and ahead for Apple and how Apple is most likely knowing what we know about Apple and

00:51:45   transitions how how it's going to handle it the ARM thing is interesting to me because

00:51:50   Apple obviously their position in the marketplace and the amount of money that they have is

00:51:54   what makes it possible for them to control their destiny in that way they couldn't have

00:51:58   done that when they made the 68k to power PC transition even though they were part of

00:52:02   the power PC alliance they couldn't have done that when they were putting Intel processors

00:52:06   into max which were a very small portion of the computer market overall but now they can

00:52:12   and it totally makes sense that they do and and frankly I don't unless the chips end up

00:52:16   being a bad fit for max unless catalyst and Swift UI don't work in terms of making apps

00:52:24   properly cross-platform I just don't see a downside it seems like owning the means of

00:52:29   production so to speak and being able to design those chips can only go wrong if they make

00:52:33   some catastrophic mistakes yeah I'm I'm I'm really excited about the switch to ARM I don't

00:52:40   I don't at this point understand if I don't understand how Apple could make ARM processors

00:52:48   that can do what they need a professional Mac to do so I believe that it would be a

00:52:55   two chip sort of family but that aside one of the reasons why iPhones are so amazing

00:53:02   and iPads are so amazing is that they design a CPU to work intimately with every other

00:53:08   piece of the hardware that's on that device and also every other thing that's running

00:53:13   on that operating system and every other API that that developers are using and so when

00:53:19   you when you a generic solution is never going to be as efficient as a bespoke one so when

00:53:25   you have a generic Intel processor as amazing as these things are they are not specifically

00:53:31   tuned to run iPad OS and they're not specifically tuned to run on a phone when you have a CPU

00:53:38   that's designed for augmented reality when it's designed for the exact type of ways that

00:53:45   iPad OS handles user interface that's where you get super speed and super power that's

00:53:51   why Apple can sell a $300 iPad that is as responsive as many thousand dollar Windows

00:53:58   Intel notebooks so I'm really keen to see how they can design a Macbook a consumer level

00:54:04   Macbook that yes of course will hopefully be lower power longer life all that sort of

00:54:08   stuff but also what new features they can introduce the operating system and the hardware

00:54:13   that takes advantage of that level of intimacy as far as the other stuff it's I'm I haven't

00:54:20   seen a lot of evidence externally that Apple is as passionate about the Mac as they are

00:54:26   about their iOS devices and internally I also don't feel as though I've heard a lot from

00:54:33   inside Apple that they feel as though that their flagship their standard of how good

00:54:40   Apple can be at developing technology I don't think they feel as though they express that

00:54:44   through the Mac I feel as though they express that through their mobile devices and I think

00:54:49   that I think that's I think that's true but partly because every time that they trump

00:54:53   on how much thought and how much work they've done in making this amazing new Macintosh

00:54:57   it's usually about and look how great this is going to be for at developing content and

00:55:01   apps for iOS devices as opposed to we are going to make the greatest laptop a student

00:55:07   has ever used or the regular consumer has ever used so when I look at catalyst when

00:55:12   I look at the move to Swift UI I'm hopeful that it's not a way to tell iOS developers

00:55:19   that oh and by the way if you want to bounce off a Mac copy of that app by all means do

00:55:23   that and won't have you won't be running in a virtual virtual iPad it will actually have

00:55:28   drop down menus and stuff I hope that it's to make sure that if a developer invests time

00:55:36   thought and creativity and developing something for one platform they could apply a new fresh

00:55:42   set of create creative decisions to making that into a Mac app without having to learn

00:55:47   Objective-C if they didn't learn Objective-C or learn how another set of API's for user

00:55:52   interface works so I'm a little bit hesitant about it but it looks like a very very impressive

00:55:58   move forward well I would agree with a lot of what Andy said as he was talking I was

00:56:01   thinking about the degree to which iOS is still a growing evolving thing and I as a

00:56:10   Mac first person still think the Mac is the easier system to use not because it's simple

00:56:16   but because the thing the hooks are there it's mature it does all the things you want

00:56:21   to do to use iOS productively 100% of the time would involve for me a lot of jumping

00:56:28   through hoops and that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with iOS it means iOS is still

00:56:32   growing and developing and evolving and there's lots of room for that to happen so that's

00:56:37   where their energy is going to be and I'm not saying that's right as somebody who would

00:56:42   prefer to see the Mac continue to grow and develop and evolve I'd like to see them evolve

00:56:46   together but I think it's natural that making iOS do as much as the Mac can do and finding

00:56:52   it finding ways for it to do more and different things in the Mac can do is kind of where

00:56:57   Apple's you know real creativity and real brain power has to be and that's where we're

00:57:02   going to continue to be wowed from here on out and I've said before I think the the arm

00:57:07   chip thing is is a no-lose situation for them it'll be interesting to see how they do that

00:57:12   on the desktop and on the laptop but I just I feel like there's so much more to happen

00:57:18   for iOS including those technologies like augmented reality and and others that are

00:57:24   really in their infancy there's just there's like so much out there I feel like sometimes

00:57:28   it's hard to see more than the thing you want in the next year the little feature that would

00:57:32   make your life better but I feel like in iOS because there are so many new technologies

00:57:37   that really haven't become usable in a practical everyday sense because there's so many that

00:57:43   are still out there growing that I think they still have the ability to surprise and amaze

00:57:48   us with iOS.

00:57:49   Steve McLaughlin We talk about transitions I think there was

00:57:51   an invisible transition that happened a couple of years ago and Myke and I have talked about

00:57:54   this a little bit on this show before the idea that Apple seemed to have come to the

00:58:00   conclusion that the Mac was going to just kind of get pushed out on an ice flow and

00:58:05   as long as it could float it would be alive but that you know it and its user base would

00:58:12   just kind of like get older and fade away and a couple years ago they seem to have made

00:58:18   an internal transition where they said okay instead what we're going to do is we're going

00:58:22   to bring the Mac kind of into the fold in terms of our product development and our software

00:58:28   platforms and that's the root of Catalyst.

00:58:32   It is the idea that SwiftUI will let you build apps that will run on the Mac you'll be able

00:58:36   to do a version that will run on iPads and Apple watches and you know wherever else you

00:58:41   want to put them and that they're going to you know that's where the new Mac Pro came

00:58:46   from and and other kind of things where they seem to have changed their tune a little bit

00:58:51   which I find kind of fascinating because you know the story of this current era of technology

00:58:56   really is about sort of what cards you've been dealt and so from Microsoft's perspective

00:59:03   they missed the boat in terms of the mobile revolution and so are building toward the

00:59:12   future from Windows and so we see touch interfaces on Windows and we see convertible PCs which

00:59:19   you know Apple isn't doing because Apple's cards dealt it this hand that is the iPhone

00:59:25   this incredibly successful product possibly the most successful individual product of

00:59:30   our lifetimes forward and backward but it also has the Mac which is like a joker kind

00:59:37   of it's like why I also have this thing over here but this is not our strategy our strategy

00:59:41   is this this over here and and I'm always fascinated seeing how Microsoft and Apple

00:59:46   approach this kind of thing because they they're approaching I think maybe the same thing from

00:59:51   two completely different sides because it's where their strength lies and they have to

00:59:55   build from there and I am fascinated by the idea that I really wonder what they thought

00:59:59   the endgame for the Mac was before because it seems now like they're going to give the

01:00:03   Mac the big hug where the Mac is not going to it's going to feel more like iOS than it

01:00:07   used to but it's still going to be part of the of the whole picture when the alternative

01:00:12   was for them to just sort of say well the Mac is what it is and it'll just kind of go

01:00:15   on but it's not going to be interesting and we're not going to focus on it and I don't

01:00:20   know if that's good or bad but it does seem like they made that change I think in the

01:00:25   end it means the Mac will survive a lot longer but it may not be what we think of as the

01:00:29   Mac.

01:00:30   I think the problem is that you look at what's been happening in Windows hardware and software

01:00:39   and how they've created entirely new categories of laptops and how what Google has done with

01:00:44   Chrome OS which was it was as laughable and funny and ridiculous a product as the original

01:00:51   Mac was but it felt it feels like it's it's it felt this it made the same trajectory where

01:00:57   like oh well now that it doesn't stink the core concept is actually really really good

01:01:03   and and in many ways it's actually outperforming for me stuff that I've stuff that I've got

01:01:09   going on my $2,000 MacBook and you wonder well okay that's great now let's turn to Mac

01:01:14   OS what is better about my Mac today than it was five years ago and are they doing incredible

01:01:21   new form factors like like a two-in-one yoga style convertible where I can actually tent

01:01:27   it up and use it just as a as a display with the keyboard out of the way no I will have

01:01:31   they done really incredible user interface revolutions and tweaks like no mostly they've

01:01:37   taken mostly when they add new features during the keynote they mentioned how they are now

01:01:43   your iOS gestures and your iOS window tiling and it's other feature that we've renamed

01:01:47   from we've kept the same name from iOS is now available on Mac OS it's it's I have to

01:01:52   I have to say that it's a very frumpy looking and frumpy behaving operating system at this

01:01:57   point I know that they've done made amazing changes under the hood mostly long needed

01:02:02   improvements to architecture so it's not as though it's been stagnant but I can't remember

01:02:06   the last time there was something about the operating system that got me really excited

01:02:10   about what I will be able to do with this Mac that I was not able to do before whereas

01:02:15   I've had on other platforms many situations like that I feel like that about the iPad

01:02:20   all the time yeah and on the Mac it's the Mac and it's and it's it's fine but I do wonder

01:02:26   if Apple is actually cutting off interesting areas of exploration because it's got the

01:02:33   Mac and the I like Apple doesn't make a convertible right they make an iPad with a keyboard case

01:02:39   but no pointing device well now it's going to be like limited pointing device support

01:02:43   and they make a laptop with a screen that you can't remove but Microsoft and partners

01:02:48   are tinkering in the middle zone and because of these these barriers that Apple has formed

01:02:52   between their product lines they're just sort of isn't something there and it's I feel like

01:03:00   it's kind of a shame like I would I've said I would love to see an iOS laptop I would

01:03:04   love to see a Mac convertible I'd love to see a Mac with a touchscreen but I'm unclear

01:03:09   on on on what transitions Apple considers good ideas and what ones they consider kind

01:03:14   of bad ideas slash heresy I don't know yeah and even even the new hardware that they have

01:03:20   tends to hark back to old hardware I mean you could be very simplistic and say the Mac

01:03:24   Pro harks back to the cheese grater which as I say is entirely too simplistic but the

01:03:28   Mac mini that everybody is so fond of that came out last year it's a better version of

01:03:32   the previous Mac mini though the computers that have had problems have been the laptops

01:03:36   where they've actually tried to innovate in some way or move move people forward in terms

01:03:41   of their expectations of laptops and there are there have been a lot of problems whether

01:03:45   you talk about the keyboard or whether you talk about the balance of ports I don't feel

01:03:49   like Apple is having a good experience with laptops and the computers that they do seem

01:03:53   to be you know doing well and firing on all cylinders or things like the iMac and the

01:03:58   Mac mini that are actually quite old designs yeah I just don't feel as though Apple is

01:04:03   I don't think that Apple is embarrassed about the Mac I don't think that they're trying

01:04:06   to ignore it I just think that you can always tell when somebody is passionate about something

01:04:12   and somebody is simply responsible about something where they definitely I think that Apple is

01:04:16   passionate about the about iOS I think that they are they've got their egos invested in

01:04:22   it that this is what we haul out to show people how we are doing something that no one else

01:04:26   could possibly do and this is being done as well as anybody can possibly be doing it if

01:04:30   not better Mac is like and we have a laptop and works really really well it's very very

01:04:35   secure it's designed very very well it's a it's a it's a very nice design but they're

01:04:40   not going to point to that to say when they when they invite someone into their rec room

01:04:44   that's not the display case they lead people to they lead people to the display case of

01:04:48   iPads and the iPad and the and the Mac oh well yeah we have a couple of those two but

01:04:52   yeah all right I want to do before we go I have a special upstream topic that is something

01:04:58   that I've been holding for a while and I think that you would be perfect people to talk to

01:05:01   it about but before we do that we do have one more sponsor if Myke Hurley is out there

01:05:07   of course I am of course I am I'm playing the role of the listener the advanced listener

01:05:12   of this excellent you know excellent thank you for doing that you're all doing a great

01:05:16   job by the way he'll be sending his hit in his snail talk question in a moment I'll be

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01:07:26   this show and relay FM all right Myke it's time for upstream we usually do it at the

01:07:31   beginning and now it's at the end it's because it's a special summer of fun everything's wild

01:07:35   in the summer of fun it's all here but it's all in a different way and this is a topic

01:07:39   I think I originally was going to do this with John Syracuse and we ran out of time

01:07:42   and it's been sitting in our show document for a long time but I think it is a fun topic

01:07:47   and I know that Andy and Shelley are people who have opinions about this and Myke you

01:07:51   probably do too and it started with Harry McCracken back in April my colleague from

01:07:57   he was my he was the PC World Editor in Chief when I was the Mac World Editor in Chief he

01:08:03   linked to a story about why 2.7 million Americans still get Netflix DVDs in the mail what Harry

01:08:09   said was when streaming emerged I thought it would lead to just about everything ever

01:08:12   done being readily readily available but I've been gravely disappointed and I you know I

01:08:18   thought about this for a while about how we think about and when I do episodes of the

01:08:23   incomparable this comes a lot up a lot where we do episodes about like last week on this

01:08:27   show we talked about Kiki's Delivery Service which is not available for streaming it is

01:08:34   not available for digital purchase you have to buy the blu-ray or the DVD that's how you

01:08:38   get it and there are a lot of movies that are out of print or they're only available

01:08:42   on disk and and while there are places that are collecting movies that are either out

01:08:48   of print or going out of print like my friend Monty Ashley always talks up Scarecrow video

01:08:53   in Seattle which is basically not just a video store but a museum of film and TV and other

01:08:59   video things there's just so much stuff that's not available on Netflix or another screen

01:09:03   streaming service and I'm starting to wonder if if you're not on streaming if you're just

01:09:10   lost and Miyazaki again is an example a lot of classic movies a lot of great old TV shows

01:09:15   a lot of movies that don't have a clear rights holder stuff from Broadway there's so many

01:09:20   things some of it is caught up in rights issues but it becomes really difficult when I want

01:09:28   to talk about a movie or a TV show and everybody says well I can't I can't listen to that episode

01:09:32   I can't listen to your conversation because I can't click one button and watch whatever

01:09:37   that thing is and it frustrates me because there's a lot of great stuff out there that

01:09:41   are out there that is not streaming and I worry that it's all kind of fading away and

01:09:48   I'll also mention as an aside I actually saved a bunch of VHS tapes from my teenage years

01:09:54   of primarily of David Letterman shows and found out that by the time I had a setup where

01:10:02   I was going to digitize those and put them up somewhere that all of them were basically

01:10:06   on YouTube already and thanks to the guy named Don Giller who basically has digitized Don

01:10:12   Z. Don Z he has digitized like everything literally let's make sure people are clear

01:10:19   about this literally everything and I mean the literal version of literally like it's

01:10:24   so much so that when people on staff at the Letterman show and for now former members

01:10:29   of staff need a clip they come to Don Z there was a documentary about bathrooms over Broadway

01:10:35   I think it was but about the Letterman writer who did all the who did all the the record

01:10:45   called Dave's Record Collection would have like really weird institutional and business

01:10:48   musicals they had clips from the show that they got they could only get from Don Z that's

01:10:54   how exhaustive it is yeah sorry and and no it's amazing and we'll put we'll put Don's

01:10:59   blog and there's a New York Times piece about it that he has done this it is amazing of

01:11:05   course technically copyright violation right it's not he doesn't have a copyright on any

01:11:10   of this stuff and yet he's the one who is making sure that it doesn't fade into oblivion

01:11:15   because NBC doesn't care especially about the stuff you know that maybe David Letterman's

01:11:20   production company cares a little bit more maybe not I don't know but NBC for the early

01:11:24   stuff he doesn't care I'm reminded of another story I read in the New York Times back in

01:11:27   March about this guy who obsessively taped boxing matches on VHS and for a long time

01:11:34   the entire boxing industry would come over to his apartment and borrow his tapes and

01:11:40   he would write on little cards and he passed away like five years ago and his wife is still

01:11:46   taping boxing matches to keep the archive going but as things get digitized it's less

01:11:54   and less used and she's trying to find someone who will take it away and I look at that story

01:11:58   and I think this the other part of it is sure one person can make a ridiculous effort to

01:12:03   save stuff for the future but in the end when they go away for whatever reason they pass

01:12:09   away they decide they don't want to do anymore what happens to this stuff and I don't know

01:12:14   I just find it I just find it kind of disturbing that in this yes we are in an era of plenty

01:12:18   where there is more great television being made than ever before and there's a huge amount

01:12:22   of content accessible to all of us with the click of a button I do wonder about all the

01:12:28   stuff that's falling through the cracks yeah that's absolutely true it's I do believe the

01:12:34   copyright is important I believe that copyright paying the people who create stuff is important

01:12:39   I don't believe that you should be a Johnny no wanna pay and just simply say well because

01:12:42   I can get this on on a bit torrent that means that there's no reason for me to pay for this

01:12:48   blu-ray or to pay for this HBO subscription I don't I don't believe that at all however

01:12:53   there is there are a couple of ethical ethical exceptions I think that there are so many

01:12:59   pieces of content like you described that if not for the fact that there are people

01:13:03   who are pirating this stuff it would just go away like my favorite example of this was

01:13:07   you know the the flying Karamazov brothers like the juggling comedy troop so they came

01:13:12   they did a production at Lincoln Center of the comedy Shakespeare's the comedy of errors

01:13:17   and it was like all vaudeville like all juggling all all all wire walking funny as hell amazing

01:13:25   and it aired on PBS is live at Lincoln Center once because again it was a it was an actual

01:13:32   production and they did a special like live airing of it according to the rules of course

01:13:37   they didn't get they can only air it like once or twice and now you can't get it and

01:13:42   it's on YouTube parts one and part two well I'll include the links to them and when you

01:13:49   see this you would think that I don't think that whoever it was who digitized this and

01:13:55   posted it did anything wrong they did something important and noble because this thing would

01:13:59   have died it would nobody would know it exists if not for the fact that someone someone stole

01:14:03   it and Smirnjakov Karamazov Sam Williams was a was a friend of mine one of the original

01:14:10   members the Karamazov's and he was actually very he was actually very very pleased that

01:14:15   DVD copies VHS copies were becoming DVD copies and I think he passed away just as YouTube

01:14:22   was becoming really really big and I knew that he as one of the performers in there

01:14:27   he could not give permission for this but he was happy that people were able to see

01:14:30   this and so it's it's amazing to me that how ephemeral this content can be even something

01:14:37   as impressive as the Flying Karamazov brothers doing the comedy various I would I don't want

01:14:41   to recommend it to people I want to people to be able to click a link and actually watch

01:14:45   it.

01:14:46   Where to begin I I've collected classic films forever and I love them and I have watched

01:14:53   them wherever I could I have bought every opportunity there was I have looked at all

01:14:58   the streaming services to see what and what what was and wasn't available the thing about

01:15:01   a lot of classic movies is they are just plain out of print there are extremely complicated

01:15:06   rights issues having to do with the fact that the companies that made the films have been

01:15:10   bought and sold and merged and you know concatenated and the whole thing and so I if you if you

01:15:15   give me the name in the studio that made a movie I can tell you who owned it and the

01:15:19   chances are very small that it's the same people who made it and the people who then

01:15:23   own it don't necessarily have any interest in creating in cleaning it up and making it

01:15:28   the kind of quality that would it would need for streaming release there are people who

01:15:34   are out there you know doing the Lord's work restoring films or facilitating the restoration

01:15:39   of films finding films in foreign countries reels of film and taking them to the USA UCLA

01:15:45   film archive and saying hey could you please help us restore this oh if you raise the money

01:15:48   we'll do that and then they take them back to the rights holder and they say well we've

01:15:51   done this really cool restoration of your film could we now strike a DVD well no because

01:15:57   either the rights are contested or the people who own the film don't feel there's a financial

01:16:02   incentive for them to do it even if a lot of the work has been taken care of so basically

01:16:06   what I've done is behave like a little squirrel and every time I see something that I want

01:16:10   I keep it and it can be DVDs it can be I've you know I've DVR'd thousands of movies from

01:16:16   Turner classic movies because that's my preferred that's a lot of the stuff I like is from there

01:16:21   and and you will be shocked at what's on TCM that's not on video because apparently there

01:16:26   are contracts that allow things to be shown on TV that allow them to be shown on cable

01:16:32   TV but not streamed because that's not in the contract not stream nor put onto DVD yeah

01:16:37   and sometimes what will happen is TCM will show a movie and you'll think oh well that's

01:16:40   a TCM movie I can see that again and then if you ask them if you said you know I saw

01:16:45   that movie I saw a desk set that I really liked I'd like to see that again when are

01:16:49   you going to play it they say well we're gonna have rights to it again in five years because

01:16:53   even even for showing it on cable the rights don't necessarily continue so it's it's and

01:16:58   I that I guess has a lot to do with why I've had a mistrustful relationship with streaming

01:17:03   and I've always believed that instead of having every streaming service so I could have access

01:17:07   to everything I wanted in theory that I was just gonna take subscriptions to the streaming

01:17:12   services that had what I wanted now and never assume that I was going to be able to watch

01:17:16   it ever again and I think that's the only healthy way to behave for what I want especially

01:17:23   in light you know look what's going to happen later this year we have Warners who killed

01:17:27   Warner Archive and who killed the previous incarnation of their streaming service and

01:17:33   they're now going to create some sort of giant bundle thing because they want to leverage

01:17:36   the back catalogue that's still saleable the you know the far more current movies so if

01:17:42   you have an art house movie if it's a great classic it might end up on Criterion or it

01:17:47   might not and I just never assuming that something is going to be available tomorrow that you

01:17:51   saw today is the only way I can you know continue to enjoy movies yeah absolutely those blog

01:17:58   posts constantly like what's coming off Netflix this month right like and then where does

01:18:03   it go who knows yeah but that's exactly the problem it's like there are movies that I

01:18:08   love so much that I don't want to ever lose access to them and that's why so often that's

01:18:13   why I buy a lot of DVDs and I buy a lot of Blu-rays because I don't want to lose access

01:18:18   to airplane I don't want to ever lose access to John Woo the killer okay I don't want to

01:18:27   ever have to or the abyss which has never been which is still we're still waiting for

01:18:31   the wonderful 4k restoration one of my favorite movies ever and let's also talk about Babylon

01:18:37   five that's been an amazing epic TV series but that Warner Brothers just doesn't seems

01:18:44   to actively not care not not care about they actively are disinterested in it they actively

01:18:49   are saying we could if you if you take this quarter maybe this quarter move it from this

01:18:54   glass to this glass I'm gonna put the two glasses in front of you and that will cause

01:18:59   Babylon five to be available to people they would not even take that they may break the

01:19:03   glasses at that point exactly they took they so actively don't care about it and so if

01:19:08   I don't buy the DVDs and if I don't rip the DVDs into files so I can put it on my file

01:19:14   server it just does it just doesn't that's no good and that's another reason why one

01:19:20   of my favorite apps ever is an app called Downey for for Mac OS and no matter pretty

01:19:26   much no matter what is streaming in your web browser it's a browser plug-in and you click

01:19:30   on this button and it does everything for you it'll figure out from what service you're

01:19:34   streaming from and capture and find the original mp4 file and just download it to a file and

01:19:41   I use this on stuff that is on YouTube that maybe shouldn't be on YouTube I do that all

01:19:46   the time because thank goodness I get this this made-for-tv movie starring the stars

01:19:51   of the producers as in a in a comedy about how about a disease that turns people temporarily

01:19:58   into rhinoceroses and that is never coming to DVD and that's not gonna be remade with

01:20:04   with with new cast of characters if you don't so at some point someone's gonna notice who

01:20:09   some algorithm run by a movie studio is gonna notice the thing is up there and it's gonna

01:20:13   disappear and that's what I'm glad that not only did I watch this I also click that button

01:20:17   and had downy make me a copy of it it's not legal but I believe it's ethically I don't

01:20:22   have an ethical problem with it and the irony is that Warner Brothers at least at the moment

01:20:27   notwithstanding what I said about their streaming service they have been one of the better ones

01:20:31   about back catalog and companies like Fox companies like Paramount have I mean I'm talking

01:20:36   about really ancient back catalog but even the Babylon 5 thing surprises me and I'm not

01:20:40   in that loop and they've restored all sorts of crazy TV series from the 70s and 80s it's

01:20:45   a politics because it wasn't made by the core TV business it was made by their syndication

01:20:49   arm and therefore the core TV business doesn't want anything to do with it that's the story

01:20:53   there but you're right I have been thinking for a long time and I know I've talked about

01:20:57   this with Myke that in the end I feel like a lot of the older content is going to go

01:21:02   somewhere because I do think there's a niche streaming service that could be successful

01:21:10   serving older movies and older TV shows but we aren't there we live in a world where all

01:21:17   the money is going toward creating more original content for new services and the rest of it

01:21:22   is just sort of like floating out there but I do really believe that and I want to believe

01:21:26   it maybe I'm wish casting a little because it does I feel like we didn't learn the lesson

01:21:32   of every previous transition to a new medium or to a new storage medium or transmission

01:21:38   transfer medium whatever you want to put it as of like losing stuff and you'll be like

01:21:42   oh those silly people back in the day who put their film stock or put their films on

01:21:48   flammable film stock and then didn't take proper care of it but then there's the oh

01:21:52   those silly people at the BBC who erased all of their videotapes of Doctor Who because

01:21:57   it wasn't going to be worth anything and by the way those episodes exist now in large

01:22:02   part because of fans yeah right again it's the YouTube story except back in the 70s it

01:22:07   was fans taping shows off of off of off air on VHS or beta or even before that fans taping

01:22:14   the audio using just audio cassette tapes is the reason any of that stuff survives so it's

01:22:18   very similar to today's YouTube kind of kind of thing and you know but in the end are we

01:22:24   not there already that that a lot of the stuff is going to just fade away and unless you

01:22:28   happen to grab a copy and have it in these kind of digital underground it's just gone

01:22:33   and nothing frustrates me more than coming up with a great movie or TV show to talk about

01:22:37   on the incomparable for example and realizing we can't talk about it because nobody can

01:22:42   get it or at least not you know you could get a used DVD of it but you can't get it

01:22:47   on in HD you can't get it on streaming you can't buy it on iTunes and so it might as

01:22:52   well be invisible. I talked to a guy for one of my parallel shows about right about the

01:22:56   time that the the Warner streaming service stuff happened last year and we were talking

01:23:02   because he had done a film festival on TCM about disability in film and I said where

01:23:08   did you get some of the films you had because they were really incredibly rare incredibly

01:23:12   hard to find he said well the way I got access to see them was I know a lot of collectors

01:23:17   and there was a lot of exchanging back and forth that wasn't strictly legal so that he

01:23:20   could view the movies and decide whether they went in the festival and then he had to present

01:23:24   this list to TCM and say here's the film I want to show how many of these can you get

01:23:29   me and I think it was two years before he actually got the festival on the on the air

01:23:35   that it took them to resolve all the rights there were a couple that he didn't eventually

01:23:39   they didn't at all get to show this is TCM they've got a team of lawyers that does nothing

01:23:42   but rights issues but he still couldn't get those shown and he's got another list which

01:23:46   if he ever does this festival again he's going to add and so it's it's it's incredibly difficult

01:23:51   and it's incredibly challenging like I say this is a guy who collects film who didn't

01:23:56   have access to the things he needed to see in order to create a new work of art that

01:24:00   would explain film to new generations.

01:24:02   Yeah what percentage of movies before 1922 are considered lost? It's a stack it's an

01:24:08   impressively large number where you'll see not just some home movie stuff but here's

01:24:12   the biggest star of the day on one of the most profitable movies of that of 1921 and

01:24:19   you see oh wow where is it like no it's lost oh wow so it's so I have to go to a university

01:24:25   archive no it there is no no copy known to exist.

01:24:28   It's the nitrate film and it's also that people didn't see their value and a lot of copies

01:24:32   got thrown away and a surprising number of films made after 1930 which is essentially

01:24:36   when the silent transition happened are gone or partially gone and that's the the restoration

01:24:41   stories that I find fascinating is when you have people like the Phil Knorr Foundation

01:24:45   that go out and they say I want to restore this movie and they scour collectors all over

01:24:49   the world they find and they'll say well I found this reel in a vault in Italy and I

01:24:53   found that the studio had this reel and we combine them together and we raised a bunch

01:24:58   of money and we got the UCLA film archive to actually do the painstaking digital restoration

01:25:03   and that's the only reason this thing is available on DVD or Blu-ray and then it's you know don't

01:25:08   not even to mention things like showing theatrically which is a whole separate thing you know revivals

01:25:13   houses have difficulty getting more than a sort of standard set of classics that we've

01:25:18   all seen a hundred times or those of us who pay attention to classics have seen a hundred

01:25:22   times it's really hard to get those restorations that are theatrical quality. Also the danger

01:25:28   of keeping things in the vault and I will put a link in the show notes to the New York

01:25:32   Times piece about the universal audio archive fire where all the master recordings were

01:25:39   destroyed in in this fire that's the danger of keeping something in the vault and not

01:25:44   letting it out to the world is that if you keep it in the vault you might lose the master

01:25:47   but at least you will have saved something but if you keep it in the vault and then the

01:25:52   vault burns down you keep it on a you're on a archival DVD and the bitrod happens your

01:25:59   hard drive crashes your server melts down and the backup turns out to have been faulty

01:26:05   the more you spread this stuff around the more likely it's not going to become lost

01:26:09   forever and and that is I mean Shelley you mentioned about finding movies in weird places

01:26:14   I think they found what was it was at the front page ended up being like there's an

01:26:18   entirely different version with the better takes and we've been watching the version

01:26:22   with the bad takes or was it or was it his girl Friday maybe it was his girl Friday I

01:26:27   don't know about that one it might have been and then I would bet it was front page because

01:26:31   that's an older no I think that's right and they did the international version in the

01:26:34   US version the US version got the got the good takes the international version got the

01:26:38   bad takes and the movie that everybody had been watching as a fan a film fan for 50 years

01:26:42   was the bad takes the second takes because the first takes was lost and then somebody

01:26:46   found it and that's great because you know but that was also sheer luck and I mentioned

01:26:51   Doctor Who before all the black and white Doctor Who really only exists because they

01:26:55   put that on film and shipped it to Africa and the Middle East and to show on TV there

01:27:01   and those film canisters survived the purge and that's also ridiculous and and luck and

01:27:06   you've lost a lot of a lot of stuff so my my I think all of our point here is it is

01:27:11   a point of frustration that we live in this world of plenty and yet there's all this stuff

01:27:15   that for legal reasons for intransigent owners of the content reasons are languishing and

01:27:24   I don't want to live in a world where if it's not available on streaming it doesn't exist

01:27:29   but I'm concerned that that's the world we live in already yeah it's about this is our

01:27:35   heritage this is our culture and it disappears unless it is honored unless it is preserved

01:27:39   just as we say it's it's it's it's it's distressing but there is another piece of hope in here

01:27:46   in that even 10 years ago I don't think anybody could have imagined the power that would be

01:27:52   in the hands of just individual really motivated fans the ability to create an HD version of

01:28:01   the original release cut of Star Wars Episode IV that just from all we have our crappy 35

01:28:09   millimeter prints but we're going to source them the best the best cuts from all these

01:28:12   prints that we can get from collectors and then we are going to by hand by basically

01:28:17   crowdsourcing 100 frames at a time people people getting rid of scratches getting rid

01:28:23   of cuts and then the scholarship of oh actually this is this doesn't have the original crawl

01:28:29   the original crawl didn't have the series title on it and the ability to have this actually

01:28:34   come almost I would say with the color grading and everything a really commercially grade

01:28:39   1080 blu-ray type of release of the original Star Wars that has not been modified or messed

01:28:45   with with a with with future cuts and yep it's illegal nope there's no there's no there's

01:28:50   no legally defensive way but again I have this file on my server which is backed up

01:28:56   in many places because if I want to see Star Wars as I believe that it exists which is

01:29:01   the way that I first saw it that is my only option and I feel like I'm helping to save

01:29:05   humanity a little bit just by participating in the piracy.

01:29:12   And related to that the fact that we have such greater capacity than before because

01:29:16   people were transmitting initial people were transmitting single movies on single VHS tapes

01:29:23   and old-time radio shows on single half-hour cassettes and now you can put dozens and dozens

01:29:29   and hundreds of radio shows onto a blu-ray disc and transfer it easily you have YouTube

01:29:35   out there you have you have enormous hard drives which must be backed up and must be

01:29:39   archived offside and all that stuff but you do have the capability of moving large enough

01:29:44   volumes of stuff around that it makes it's possible for an individual collector to amass

01:29:49   a pretty respectable set of files that they care about.

01:29:53   I just upgraded my four terabyte NAS I'm sorry my eight terabyte NAS to a larger NAS because

01:29:59   I'm slow with archiving all of my CDs and all my downloaded files and all the blu-rays

01:30:04   and DVDs that I've ripped I didn't think I'd run out of space four years ago but I'm running

01:30:09   out of space and now I have to back up that as well because if this ever went away I would

01:30:14   be very very sad because this is this is a video store this is Netflix for Andy this

01:30:20   is like I would pay ten dollars a month for Netflix for Andy but it doesn't exist so I

01:30:24   have to have this box with a Synology logo on it.

01:30:28   We kind of have that and sometimes what I'll do to watch a movie is I'll just hit random

01:30:33   it's the greatest feeling in the world because I know everything on there is something that

01:30:36   I collected for a reason and you know four thousand films or whatever I have I might

01:30:41   not even feel like watching the first thing it comes up with but the idea that I have

01:30:44   that many choices that are tailored to my tastes and interests is very cool.

01:30:50   It's cost me a lot of money and time to do it but I'm glad I did.

01:30:54   You have to enjoy being a librarian I find I kind of enjoy being the curator I enjoy

01:30:58   when I rip a CD to not only say this look this is Joyce Dinanato's picture on the front

01:31:05   of the CD it says Joyce Dinanato and the title of the album the fact that she did one one

01:31:12   duet on this album does not make it a compilation of various artists I'm fixing that.

01:31:18   Well I think we've reached the end of this very special episode this has been a fun conversation

01:31:22   I want to thank my guests for being here and making it special.

01:31:26   Andy Anotka thank you for being here.

01:31:28   Oh always great to be in podcasts with two of my oldest tech friends.

01:31:34   He's not talking about Myke I think.

01:31:39   Shelly Brisbane thank you too.

01:31:41   Thank you thank you for inviting me I rarely get the chance to shake my virtual finger

01:31:46   at the sky about old movies and that it pleases me to being able to do that and old Max too.

01:31:51   And if there are kids on our lawn get off get off just come on and Myke you too you

01:31:57   get off our lawn.

01:31:58   All right well do you want me to do do you want me to just go now or do you want me to

01:32:03   do the show?

01:32:04   I think you should say I think you should wrap up the show first and then get off my

01:32:05   lawn.

01:32:06   Okay so I do a job for you then I'll get off my lawn and then get off of it yeah.

01:32:10   Mow the lawn and then get off it.

01:32:12   If you want to find links to this episode including links to all of Shelly and Andy's

01:32:17   wonderful places that you can go and follow online including their Relay FM shows you

01:32:20   can go to relay.fm/upgrade/252 you can find Jason at sixcolors.com as well.

01:32:28   Thank you so much to our wonderful sponsors of this week's episode Lumina 5, Bombas and

01:32:32   TexExpander and most of all thank you for listening to this Summer of Fun special.

01:32:38   We'll be back next week with another special guest so that will be something for you all

01:32:42   to look forward to.

01:32:44   Until then say goodbye everybody.

01:32:46   Toodles.

01:32:47   Bye everybody.

01:32:48   Goodbye.

01:32:48   Bye.

01:32:49   Bye.

01:32:50   Bye.

01:32:51   Bye.

01:32:52   (upbeat music)

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