Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 141.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Encapsula, Squarespace, and Freshbooks.

00:00:18 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hello, Jason Snell.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you?

00:00:25 ◼   ► I'm good. I believe you're coming to us from an undisclosed location today.

00:00:29 ◼   ► I can disclose it if you like, but it's not my – I'm not at my house, that's

00:00:33 ◼   ► for sure.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Okay, you can't disclose it.

00:00:35 ◼   ► It's just undisclosed to the point in which you disclose it, right?

00:00:37 ◼   ► Well, if I disclosed it, then that would be what we call glenning, which is talking about

00:00:42 ◼   ► somebody you know in the style of Glenn Fleishman who knows everybody.

00:00:46 ◼   ► And so I will and say I'm in Glenn Fleishman's office.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Thank you very much to Mr. Fleishman for providing a mobile studio for upgrade this week.

00:00:56 ◼   ► Yes.

00:00:57 ◼   ► usual setup. So I'm just speaking to you from the Seattle Bureau of the Incomparable

00:01:02 ◼   ► is basically what's happening.

00:01:04 ◼   ► But as is tradition, Jason, nobody wants to know about any of this. They just want to

00:01:08 ◼   ► know snow talk questions. And today's #snowtalkquestion comes from Tyler. Tyler asks, "Which internet

00:01:15 ◼   ► personality that you've never met in person would you most like to hang out with?"

00:01:20 ◼   ► Yeah, this is a tough one. I have met a lot of people, so that makes it harder. A lot

00:01:26 ◼   ► of people who I enjoy on the internet and then I have met them in life. I had that moment

00:01:31 ◼   ► where I went through all the tech people and I'm like, "You know, I met all the tech people."

00:01:35 ◼   ► And then I thought, "Maybe somebody like who's on Twitter and posts things on the internet

00:01:41 ◼   ► that I like?" And I thought, "Oh, like Wil Wheaton." Oh, I met Wil Wheaton. So where does

00:01:47 ◼   ► that leave me? And I just decided, "Is there somebody on Twitter or somewhere that I see

00:01:52 ◼   ► their posts and I think I'd like to meet them and chat with them for a little while.

00:01:57 ◼   ► And this is going to seem totally random, but I'm going to say Stephen King, because

00:02:04 ◼   ► I think he's very interesting as a writer, and I've read his book about writing, and

00:02:08 ◼   ► I would love to talk to him about writing a little bit.

00:02:11 ◼   ► And he's a Twitterer these days.

00:02:14 ◼   ► He posts his thoughts on Twitter, like most humans.

00:02:17 ◼   ► And so, yeah, I'm going to say Stephen King, because I would like to talk to him about

00:02:20 ◼   ► writing.

00:02:21 ◼   ► Good answer. Good answer. Because Internet personality is very broad. Anybody on the

00:02:26 ◼   ► Internet is an Internet personality.

00:02:27 ◼   ► And he has a personality. And he's an interesting one because he's so welcoming, like in his

00:02:32 ◼   ► writing book, on writing, which I recommend highly to anybody out there who is a writer

00:02:36 ◼   ► or thinking about being a writer. It is a very, very good book. But in it, it's very

00:02:42 ◼   ► much like Uncle Stevie tells you about the secrets and all that. And you get to the end

00:02:46 ◼   ► and you're like, "Oh, I want to talk to Uncle Stevie." And the answer is, no, he is an author

00:02:50 ◼   ► of all the best-selling novels and is not available for contact from people on anywhere.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Like, you cannot send him a letter, you cannot talk to him. He is at remove. So I would like

00:03:02 ◼   ► to, yeah, I'd like to sit down and have lunch with him, talk about writing. That'd be awesome.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Well that's that. That's a great question. Great question from Tyler.

00:03:12 ◼   ► Thanks Tyler.

00:03:13 ◼   ► If you want to send in a question to open the show, just tweet with the hashtag #snelltalk

00:03:17 ◼   ► And we will see it. Thank you so much to Tyler for the suggestion this week and I look forward

00:03:21 ◼   ► to reading the suggestions to people in the future.

00:03:24 ◼   ► You'll see it, Myke. I won't see it. That's part of the glory that is Snell Talk is I

00:03:28 ◼   ► don't look at the hashtag Snell Talk.

00:03:31 ◼   ► But I do and I love all of the responses.

00:03:33 ◼   ► You do?

00:03:34 ◼   ► We're going to make this three for three, Jason. I'm going to mention my time zone widget

00:03:38 ◼   ► clock again, K-L-O-K, because in between the last episode and this episode it received

00:03:43 ◼   ► an update and it now has a widget design which is more consistent with iOS 10. So it worked.

00:03:51 ◼   ► It was fine. Do you remember like the widget cut style kind of changed to like the more

00:03:56 ◼   ► like the dark backgrounds or the see-through backgrounds? Well, clock has been updated

00:03:59 ◼   ► now. I wanted to mention it because I love this application and it's been updated and

00:04:03 ◼   ► now people glad people seem to be not sure about using this app because it hasn't received

00:04:08 ◼   ► an update in a long time. Well, now it has.

00:04:11 ◼   ► Great, it's like you made it happen.

00:04:13 ◼   ► I like to think so.

00:04:15 ◼   ► My ego will tell me you made this happen, but logically I'm sure I have nothing to do

00:04:21 ◼   ► with it.

00:04:22 ◼   ► Jason, you have picked your flight tracking application.

00:04:25 ◼   ► This is some real long-term follow-up now.

00:04:28 ◼   ► Which one did you land on?

00:04:29 ◼   ► I, oh, I see what you did there.

00:04:32 ◼   ► That was totally unintentional, but I'm so proud of myself you had no idea.

00:04:37 ◼   ► I chose Flight Update Pro, which is $10. And again, it's not the best, I guess, but it's

00:04:43 ◼   ► not as good as the old flight track was, but it seems to fit my needs the best. And it

00:04:48 ◼   ► works. And it's not super pretty, but it works pretty well. There's another app that is more

00:04:54 ◼   ► polished called App in the Air, which I'm very impressed with. And people can give it

00:04:57 ◼   ► a try. The challenge there, I think, is that a lot... I feel when I'm using it, like, I'm

00:05:02 ◼   ► kind of using it at their pleasure while they try to upgrade me to their subscription plan.

00:05:08 ◼   ► And for the amount of travel I do, their subscription plan is too much money, more money than I'm

00:05:13 ◼   ► willing to spend for a flight utility that I use a couple of times a year. But it is

00:05:17 ◼   ► a great, very impressive app. And so if you travel a lot, I think it's probably the

00:05:21 ◼   ► one that you should go with. But I'm going to focus on Flight Update Pro for now and

00:05:26 ◼   ► travel with that. And if I have issues with it, then maybe I'll revisit this, but I'm

00:05:30 ◼   ► I'm going to give it a go.

00:05:32 ◼   ► And then the other thing I mentioned in the Six Colors article I wrote about this is I

00:05:36 ◼   ► discounted airline apps early on because the early airline apps were bad.

00:05:44 ◼   ► But I must have had some sort of bad experience with them and I just discounted them.

00:05:48 ◼   ► And a bunch of people when I wrote about this say, "Look at the airline apps for the airlines

00:05:52 ◼   ► you use."

00:05:53 ◼   ► And in fact, yes.

00:05:54 ◼   ► They've gotten better.

00:05:55 ◼   ► If you're flying on an airline, you should get that airline's app because they have

00:05:59 ◼   ► they're wired into their flight data and they can do things like also show you

00:06:03 ◼   ► your boarding pass and things that maybe the others can't. And I think it's worth,

00:06:07 ◼   ► if you're flying on British Airways, get the British Airways app and you can have

00:06:12 ◼   ► another app too. If you're mixing up all the all the airlines you use, you don't

00:06:17 ◼   ► fly on one airline regularly, having this general-purpose app is really great. But

00:06:22 ◼   ► if you're on a trip where it's all on one carrier, then having that carriers

00:06:27 ◼   ► app can be very valuable. I have taken nine flights using App in the Air since

00:06:32 ◼   ► we last spoke all about this. Yeah, that's a lot of flights. And I will say that

00:06:38 ◼   ► this is the application for me and I'm happy I paid the money. It has all of the

00:06:43 ◼   ► features that I want. My problem with App in the Air is it has more features than

00:06:47 ◼   ► I need and it really wants me to use all of those features. Like, it's not

00:06:52 ◼   ► extra for me to pay. It's like just the features that they have of the

00:06:55 ◼   ► application, but they're always asking me to use the features and you can do some customization

00:07:00 ◼   ► of the interface, but one thing you can't seem to not be able to remove is the ability

00:07:04 ◼   ► to share your flight status with somebody else, which is really good.

00:07:08 ◼   ► Like as a great feature to be able to like share the all of your flight information with

00:07:13 ◼   ► another person, which you can just do that in the application.

00:07:15 ◼   ► But I don't want to do that.

00:07:17 ◼   ► And it's annoying that I can't get rid of it.

00:07:19 ◼   ► And also they have this like they can do check in for you and stuff, which also sounds awesome.

00:07:23 ◼   ► I just don't want them to do it, but they keep wanting me to do those things.

00:07:27 ◼   ► But for everything else, honestly, like some of the features of this application

00:07:32 ◼   ► are better than what was it?

00:07:34 ◼   ► What were we using before?

00:07:35 ◼   ► Was it Flight Track?

00:07:36 ◼   ► Flight Track, yeah.

00:07:36 ◼   ► Like the updates and the push notifications and everything, like I'm

00:07:41 ◼   ► really, really impressed.

00:07:42 ◼   ► You know, like for me, the mark of a good flight tracking app is that it gets the

00:07:46 ◼   ► data before the airport can communicate it to you.

00:07:48 ◼   ► That's how you know you've got a good app, right?

00:07:51 ◼   ► like you're getting push notifications before the screens update.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Like that's when I know that you've got something good and App in the Air does

00:07:58 ◼   ► that. But it is expensive. If you do not fly a lot, I mean, don't get it.

00:08:02 ◼   ► Like I think I'm at like the, the, the kind of the bottom level,

00:08:05 ◼   ► the people that should buy it, you know, like I'm, I am having an,

00:08:09 ◼   ► I'm having a lot of, I'm, I'm traveling a lot this year.

00:08:15 ◼   ► I'm not necessarily spending more time or making more trips than usual,

00:08:19 ◼   ► but I'm taking a lot more flights than usual.

00:08:21 ◼   ► So I'm happy I did this.

00:08:23 ◼   ► But if I weren't taking the amount of flights that I take,

00:08:26 ◼   ► which might be kind of in the region of like 25, 30 this year,

00:08:30 ◼   ► I don't know if I would say that you should go for it.

00:08:32 ◼   ► I would say to try out Jason's app first.

00:08:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I agree.

00:08:38 ◼   ► And your airline apps.

00:08:39 ◼   ► - I always use those as well.

00:08:42 ◼   ► Like I always have them also,

00:08:44 ◼   ► but I like to have the application

00:08:45 ◼   ► that just has all of the data in it.

00:08:47 ◼   ► 'Cause sometimes you're switching airlines

00:08:48 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Sources have told Buzzfeed's Joan Pakzowski that Amazon's Prime Video app is going to

00:08:54 ◼   ► be announced at WWDC this year.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Talk about long-term follow-up.

00:08:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:02 ◼   ► This will not go away.

00:09:03 ◼   ► But there really isn't honestly anything more to this story than what we spoke about last

00:09:08 ◼   ► week except for a date.

00:09:10 ◼   ► Pakzowski has no more information.

00:09:13 ◼   ► Yeah, no, it's just that this is not going to be something that lingers.

00:09:19 ◼   ► It's going to be a WWDC announcement, which makes sense.

00:09:22 ◼   ► Totally makes sense.

00:09:23 ◼   ► But with the summer release of the application, though, so they'll bring Amazon out on stage.

00:09:28 ◼   ► Someone will say, "Hey, look at this.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Woohoo!"

00:09:30 ◼   ► It's coming soon to the App Store on Apple TV.

00:09:33 ◼   ► Woo!

00:09:34 ◼   ► And then that's done.

00:09:35 ◼   ► There's more rumors this week for other stuff at WWDC, which we're going to get to in a bit,

00:09:38 ◼   ► but that's one thing.

00:09:40 ◼   ► So that's something to look out for.

00:09:41 ◼   ► starting to fill in our, I was going to say our WWDC bingo or our draft, but to be more

00:09:50 ◼   ► decorous, I guess I'll say, we're starting to fill in what we think the agenda of WWDC

00:09:56 ◼   ► keynote is going to be.

00:09:57 ◼   ► It is worth pointing out at this stage, Jason Snow, that we are two weeks away from the

00:10:00 ◼   ► keynote draft.

00:10:01 ◼   ► Oh, that's a good point.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Two weeks away from the keynote draft and three weeks away from the keynote, is that

00:10:06 ◼   ► right?

00:10:07 ◼   ► That's correct.

00:10:08 ◼   ► in Todoist two days ago to start picking out the the keynote draft stuff. So our draft list is

00:10:13 ◼   ► filling, starting to fill in with all these rumors and things like that, which is good.

00:10:17 ◼   ► Yeah, start sending in suggestions for our draft pick, like the sensible stuff, right? The rumors

00:10:21 ◼   ► that we're expecting, so we can we can start getting those. So send us, turn us over to Twitter

00:10:26 ◼   ► and we can start filling that out. And then, and we can explain also, so on the Monday of the

00:10:31 ◼   ► keynote, I will be at the keynote in San Jose, 10 a.m. I'll be there earlier than that, but at 10 a.m.

00:10:37 ◼   ► That's when it will start.

00:10:38 ◼   ► Well, did the invites go out or are you just assuming?

00:10:40 ◼   ► Yeah, invites went out last week.

00:10:42 ◼   ► Oh, I totally missed that.

00:10:44 ◼   ► How did I miss that?

00:10:45 ◼   ► Well, there you go.

00:10:46 ◼   ► It was low key.

00:10:47 ◼   ► You know how you missed it is that the invites were sent by, I mean, it wasn't personal.

00:10:53 ◼   ► I'm sure that there was a batch email to everybody who got invited, but it wasn't

00:10:59 ◼   ► one of those big graphics with a, you know, come see what we're whatever it was.

00:11:04 ◼   ► I got an email from an Apple PR person who said, "Hey Jason, I want to invite you to

00:11:09 ◼   ► the keynote, which is going to be on this date in this place and be here by this time,"

00:11:13 ◼   ► and all of that.

00:11:14 ◼   ► And that's all it was.

00:11:15 ◼   ► So nobody took a screenshot of the fancy graphic and put it up for Kremlinology.

00:11:19 ◼   ► That's right.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:11:21 ◼   ► Maybe you got a secret invitation, Jason.

00:11:22 ◼   ► It was just you, you know.

00:11:24 ◼   ► No, I think everybody got one.

00:11:25 ◼   ► I don't think it's just going to be…

00:11:26 ◼   ► Well, if it's just me and the developers there, then that's fine.

00:11:29 ◼   ► But anyway, afterward, we will get together.

00:11:32 ◼   ► Exclusive.

00:11:33 ◼   ► Yeah, exclusive between me and the developers and Tim Cook.

00:11:37 ◼   ► Afterward, we will get together in the afternoon in San Jose at the Relay FM compound, right?

00:11:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:47 ◼   ► Someone's Airbnb or my hotel room is the real hotel room.

00:11:51 ◼   ► Or my hotel room, but yeah, one of those.

00:11:54 ◼   ► And we will call it though, we will call it Relay FM global headquarters for WWDC.

00:11:58 ◼   ► That's what we'll call it, but it may just be somebody's Airbnb.

00:12:02 ◼   ► and we'll break it down. So that'll be a little bit later than we usually post the podcast,

00:12:07 ◼   ► but we're going to do a day of. It will be as close to an instant reaction as we can

00:12:10 ◼   ► do.

00:12:11 ◼   ► Yeah, what typically tends to happen is I find Jason in the street, we grab a sandwich

00:12:15 ◼   ► and then go and record.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Yeah, it's funny. You know, after a keynote, I am just so excited that I go lay down in

00:12:20 ◼   ► the street and you have to pull me out.

00:12:22 ◼   ► I pick him up. I have to usually troll the streets of San Francisco and then pick up

00:12:27 ◼   ► Jason.

00:12:28 ◼   ► San Jose, the streets are wider, they're cleaner. It'll be much easier to spot me.

00:12:32 ◼   ► Perfect, perfect. I'm excited about that.

00:12:35 ◼   ► Jason, we didn't talk last week or we glossed over some of the Mac stuff in the earnings

00:12:40 ◼   ► and after the show you were frustrated that we didn't touch on the MacBook Pro.

00:12:45 ◼   ► Yeah, well I just wanted to mention that. In fact, I promised in the show, I said we'll get back to that.

00:12:49 ◼   ► We'll bookmark that for later and I guess the bookmark leads to today instead.

00:12:53 ◼   ► But one of the things that we didn't mention was that Mac average selling price went way up

00:13:00 ◼   ► and the Mac sales went up.

00:13:03 ◼   ► And there are different ways to view that in terms of what it means because

00:13:08 ◼   ► I mean fundamentally what it means is that Apple sold a lot of MacBook Pros

00:13:11 ◼   ► because those MacBook Pros are higher priced and the average selling price went up

00:13:15 ◼   ► and the volume went up.

00:13:16 ◼   ► So the MacBook Pro launch has been a success in that sense.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Now that's in a pure sales success

00:13:25 ◼   ► sense and I think the argument would be

00:13:28 ◼   ► what does it mean? And you could take two different paths there or in between, right?

00:13:35 ◼   ► But path one is to say, "Look, there was a lot of pent-up demand and people are angry,

00:13:42 ◼   ► but people still need to buy a new laptop. And so of course they went and bought these

00:13:46 ◼   ► laptops anyway, but they're not happy about it and that jeopardizes Apple's long-term

00:13:50 ◼   ► relationship with its users." That's the one way to view it. The other way to view

00:13:54 ◼   ► it is to say, "Apple sold a lot. They made a lot of money. Apple's happy and people

00:13:58 ◼   ► are buying them. And so maybe everybody's frustration with the Mac in general and those

00:14:03 ◼   ► laptops in particular was a lot of noise, but not reflective of reality. I think the

00:14:10 ◼   ► truth is in between. I think Apple did some lasting damage to some portions of its market

00:14:16 ◼   ► with that product and will need to redeem itself with products that make that part of

00:14:21 ◼   ► the market feel better about what Apple's doing. But at the same time, I also think

00:14:25 ◼   ► we get so focused, especially those of us who talk about Apple as what we do, we get

00:14:30 ◼   ► so focused on the noise of people who are upset that we maybe overemphasize that and

00:14:38 ◼   ► miss the larger picture, which is that MacBook Pro launch worked. If you look at the numbers,

00:14:44 ◼   ► they sold a lot of MacBook Pros. And you look at the revenue and the average selling price

00:14:50 ◼   ► and you can see it. They sold a lot of laptops. What we can't measure is the mood of the

00:14:55 ◼   ► people who bought them and whether they bought them sort of in resignation because they feel

00:15:00 ◼   ► trapped by Apple or because they're enthusiastic about the touch bar. We can't measure their

00:15:05 ◼   ► customer sat afterward. Only Tim can do that. So, we'll see. But it was an interesting

00:15:11 ◼   ► data point that just from the pure numbers standpoint, Apple sold a load of MacBook Pros

00:15:16 ◼   ► last quarter. Yeah, I like that you put both arguments ahead, and I agree with basically

00:15:25 ◼   ► everything that you said, right? That we do have the ability to get caught up in what is

00:15:34 ◼   ► essentially perceived wisdom, right? That we would just assume that because people we know that like

00:15:41 ◼   ► these things don't like these things then maybe they're bad right like and then kind of if you

00:15:46 ◼   ► say something often enough it comes true right like in your mind like if you keep saying something

00:15:51 ◼   ► over and over again then you just assume that's the truth so there there is more than i'm sure

00:15:57 ◼   ► that there are a lot a lot of people that love these computers i know people that don't like them

00:16:03 ◼   ► i know people that like them but not as much as they would like to like them and i know people

00:16:08 ◼   ► that really like them, right? Like, it's a spectrum, and I don't know if I can adequately

00:16:13 ◼   ► remember if all Apple computers are this way, right? Like, when they come out.

00:16:20 ◼   ► MATT PORTER >> Or do they like like them? Do they—

00:16:22 ◼   ► JIM

00:16:22 ◼   ► Yeah, and you see people, I think one of the things, and I've mentioned this before,

00:16:28 ◼   ► but I think one of the things that's most striking about this is that decision with

00:16:32 ◼   ► the MacBook escape, as we call it often, the touch bar-less MacBook Pro, the decision to

00:16:39 ◼   ► market that as a MacBook Pro and roll it in there with the touch bar models and it makes

00:16:44 ◼   ► it seem like the weak model, like it's sort of a laggard, a behind the curve kind of model.

00:16:53 ◼   ► And only as time has gone on, I think, has there been more recognition of the fact that

00:16:58 ◼   ► in many ways it's the new MacBook Air and it's more expensive, but it's not much

00:17:03 ◼   ► heavier and it's retina and it has a lot going for it. I would say that was a marketing

00:17:12 ◼   ► mistake on Apple's part. That product is a pretty great product and it got lost in

00:17:17 ◼   ► the Touch Bar stuff. And maybe they could have chosen a different way to market it that

00:17:23 ◼   ► made it not seem like an afterthought because a lot of people we know, including Marco Arment

00:17:29 ◼   ► is a good example of this, really like that laptop. And that's interesting to me, but

00:17:35 ◼   ► got lost in all the hubbub about the Touch Bar stuff. So, you know, it's funny that

00:17:42 ◼   ► it's sort of taken time and perception of some of these products has changed over time.

00:17:46 ◼   ► I think perception of the Touch Bar has changed over time where there was more enthusiasm

00:17:49 ◼   ► for like, "Oh, I can't wait to try it. That sounds like an interesting idea." And

00:17:53 ◼   ► now there's a lot, everybody I talk to who uses the Touch Bar regularly is like, "Yeah,

00:17:57 ◼   ► it's interesting. I wish it did more. I hope that there's more in the future," where

00:18:01 ◼   ► you know, kind of gotten pushed off. Like, using it didn't make people convinced, it seems to me,

00:18:06 ◼   ► as much as it made people hopeful that it could get better in the future, which is not great.

00:18:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I think irrespective of how good or bad the products actually are, I think Apple made a lot of

00:18:17 ◼   ► mistakes here, like just from how long it took them to actually put these things into existence,

00:18:23 ◼   ► right? And then kind of how the marketing was. I don't think that, as you say, it was completely

00:18:28 ◼   ► clear about what these machines actually were. And one of the things that frustrates me a

00:18:34 ◼   ► lot is if you really believe in something, go for it. The existence of the MacBook escape

00:18:42 ◼   ► undermines the touch bar. You've basically said that you might not like this, so here's

00:18:48 ◼   ► another product. Those things, while they're good that you give people choices, sometimes

00:18:53 ◼   ► that stuff can frustrate me because it's like either do it or don't do it.

00:18:57 ◼   ► Well, that's the problem with messaging, right, is it should not have been seen as this kind

00:19:00 ◼   ► of dumb fallback for the touch bar. It should have been seen as its own thing. Now, I get

00:19:06 ◼   ► their problem here, which is they don't want to call it the Air. They already have a MacBook.

00:19:12 ◼   ► And so what do you call it? And they're like, "Well, we're going to decide that those systems

00:19:17 ◼   ► that have Thunderbolt and have the i5 and i7 processors are pro. So we're going to call

00:19:22 ◼   ► a MacBook Pro. And in the end, I think it's a mistake. I think it's a mistake not just

00:19:27 ◼   ► because you shouldn't have two 13-inch laptops that have the same name that are released

00:19:32 ◼   ► at the same time that have totally different feature sets, but that you're making decisions

00:19:39 ◼   ► that have implications for both that product and the products above it that you don't want.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Like that product's a great product on its own. Let it stand on its own and not only

00:19:49 ◼   ► not be overshadowed by this other product but also make you question the other product

00:19:55 ◼   ► and your commitment to it. It's just not, yeah, they, it's a tough, make no mistake,

00:20:01 ◼   ► this was a tough call on their part because I think it was an easy call, they would have

00:20:05 ◼   ► made an easy call and instead they had to make this difficult call and like try to finesse

00:20:09 ◼   ► having him be in the MacBook Pro line. But, and so maybe all their other options were

00:20:14 ◼   ► worse, I don't know, but it does seem like this was a… we can see all the problems

00:20:23 ◼   ► with this decision, and you would think maybe in the end a different decision would have

00:20:27 ◼   ► been better, but I don't know what those other options are that they felt that they

00:20:32 ◼   ► had. To give it a new name, to release it at a different time, I don't really know.

00:20:37 ◼   ► It's a weird one.

00:20:39 ◼   ► The problem is that that would have been called MacBook, but that name had already been taken.

00:20:44 ◼   ► Right, right. If the MacBook was the MacBook Air, then this would be the MacBook.

00:20:48 ◼   ► Yeah, because there is, you know, it may have been, honestly, there was just no other name for it other than creating a new brand,

00:20:53 ◼   ► and that would have been crazy because it would have had four brands, right? Like MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, MacBook, and then something else.

00:20:59 ◼   ► Well, they could have called it the 13-inch MacBook.

00:21:02 ◼   ► They could have.

00:21:04 ◼   ► They could have, and said we've got a 12 and a 13. I think they don't want to take away from the specialness of the MacBook as this super thin, light thing.

00:21:11 ◼   ► thing, but it's this "what is this product?"

00:21:14 ◼   ► I mean, or really, they should have stopped selling the MacBook Air and replaced it with

00:21:17 ◼   ► this thing, but hey ho.

00:21:19 ◼   ► But yeah, well, and this is actually why I kind of like, I don't love a lot of these

00:21:22 ◼   ► cutesy names for products, like the MacBook Adorable and all that, but I actually really

00:21:27 ◼   ► like MacBook Escape as a name only because it separates it from the MacBook Pro. It makes

00:21:32 ◼   ► it this weird new MacBook that's in between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, which guess

00:21:36 ◼   ► But that's actually what the product is.

00:21:39 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a tough one.

00:21:42 ◼   ► I feel like this would be a great assignment, a great debate in a marketing class because

00:21:47 ◼   ► there really is a…

00:21:49 ◼   ► There are not a lot of great answers here.

00:21:51 ◼   ► It's just a question of exactly what do you want to do that has the ramifications

00:21:56 ◼   ► you're most comfortable with.

00:21:57 ◼   ► David: There are no great answers.

00:21:58 ◼   ► There's just a list of bad answers and you got to choose the best bad which I think is

00:22:01 ◼   ► what they actually ended up doing.

00:22:03 ◼   ► Maybe. I mean, it's hard to see from this perspective because we can see what's bad about it.

00:22:07 ◼   ► But it is possible that if we really sat down with all their other options,

00:22:12 ◼   ► we would come to the same conclusion that Apple did, which is this is the best of a bad lot.

00:22:17 ◼   ► At least they released the product, right? They could have just not released the product.

00:22:20 ◼   ► And said, "Touch bar," or that thing, and there's nothing in between.

00:22:25 ◼   ► And then everybody would have been screaming about how, "Why is there no MacBook Air class processor kind of product?"

00:22:31 ◼   ► and the answer would be, well, you know, we just decided you can get the touch bar.

00:22:34 ◼   ► Yeah, because I tell you, this is not what the marketing team wanted to happen.

00:22:37 ◼   ► They didn't, you know, they would say, well, get rid of the air, right?

00:22:40 ◼   ► But it probably wasn't the marketing team's decision.

00:22:42 ◼   ► Certainly not.

00:22:43 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Have you seen the Blade Runner trailer?

00:22:46 ◼   ► I have.

00:22:47 ◼   ► Blade Runner 2049.

00:22:49 ◼   ► What do you think of it?

00:22:50 ◼   ► Uh, looks great.

00:22:52 ◼   ► It does, right?

00:22:53 ◼   ► Like, beautiful as well as in the looks great department.

00:22:57 ◼   ► Look, looks, looks, yeah, that, I mean, it looks great.

00:23:00 ◼   ► That's what I mean. It looks great. What's the story? I don't know. I like that Denis Villeneuve,

00:23:05 ◼   ► who did Arrival, is the director of it because I really liked Arrival. And Harrison Ford is in it.

00:23:12 ◼   ► And I think that's interesting because I'm kind of curious about how they deal with the passage

00:23:17 ◼   ► of time and what's happened in that world. We should also say, by the way, just as a side note,

00:23:23 ◼   ► that I feel like there is a podcast that could be done where John Siracusa and Antony Johnston

00:23:29 ◼   ► just dissect our discussion of Blade Runner.

00:23:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I just don't want to be involved in it.

00:23:35 ◼   ► And why we were totally wrong.

00:23:36 ◼   ► Well, I encourage those two gentlemen to record a podcast about how wrong we were, and then

00:23:41 ◼   ► I'll just tack that on the mic at the movies version of our conversation on the incomparable.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Which I'll have, by the way, the mic at the movies version will be the director's

00:23:51 ◼   ► cut, where you'll hear us discuss the movie further after we were done with the episode,

00:23:56 ◼   ► so just get ready for that.

00:23:57 ◼   ► Oh, you got that, huh?

00:23:58 ◼   ► Listeners.

00:23:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I got that. I saved that. But maybe Antony and John would be persuadable to come

00:24:06 ◼   ► on just on their own and record about how terrible we are to not appreciate Blade Runner.

00:24:12 ◼   ► You should do two cuts. Do the director's cut and then the final edit.

00:24:14 ◼   ► Well then there'll be the final. That's it. I'll do the director's cut, which will just

00:24:18 ◼   ► have my additional material, and then when Antony and John weigh in, I'll do the final

00:24:21 ◼   ► version of the Blade Runner commentary.

00:24:23 ◼   ► That's at the incomparable.com/mike, by the way, that feed.

00:24:27 ◼   ► Yes.

00:24:28 ◼   ► feed that we have where it cuts out all of the Myke at the Movies segments that we do

00:24:33 ◼   ► across all the other shows, including some standalones.

00:24:36 ◼   ► Me and John Siracusa are going to do one over the summer as well.

00:24:39 ◼   ► Oh, that's good.

00:24:40 ◼   ► And including you and Casey talking about Firefly, which is technically not a movie,

00:24:44 ◼   ► but we're going to roll it in there because why would we not, which is going on now.

00:24:48 ◼   ► Yeah, people should check it out because I actually had somebody ask the other day, like,

00:24:50 ◼   ► which episode of Upgrade had Myke talking about-- this is Spinal Tap or something like

00:24:55 ◼   ► that.

00:24:56 ◼   ► I just said, "Well, it's Mykey the Movies, too."

00:24:58 ◼   ► I mean, that's the way.

00:24:59 ◼   ► If you're like, "Remember when Jason and Myke were talking about, or Casey and Myke

00:25:02 ◼   ► were talking about that thing?"

00:25:03 ◼   ► Go to TheIncomparable.com/Myke because that's where they get just the conversation about

00:25:09 ◼   ► the movie a month after the episode comes out on relay.

00:25:14 ◼   ► It's just the pure, unadulterated discussion of movies, so people should check that out.

00:25:19 ◼   ► But Blade Runner 2049, I'm really excited about it because it has the look, which is

00:25:23 ◼   ► is exactly what I love the most out of Blade Runner. It's a modern action movie, right?

00:25:29 ◼   ► The music is very similar, which I'm a fan of because I think that fits. Plus I love

00:25:33 ◼   ► Ryan Gosling. He's one of my favorite actors and the story looks like it makes no sense

00:25:38 ◼   ► if you watch it, but I guess that's the point, right? Like right now, you're not supposed

00:25:41 ◼   ► to know. Jared Leto looks like it.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Better that way. Yeah.

00:25:44 ◼   ► So I'm looking forward to that. I'll go see that in the cinema. I saw Guardians of the

00:25:48 ◼   ► Galaxy.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Oh yeah?

00:25:50 ◼   ► I loved it.

00:25:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I liked it.

00:25:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I really, really, really enjoyed it. Very funny.

00:25:57 ◼   ► This week's incomparable. You can check it out. The one that's already live, 352, I think.

00:26:02 ◼   ► Okay, that will be in the show notes as well. Let's take a break.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Okay. I think we're done with follow-up.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I think so. Thanks, John Syracuse, for inventing follow-up.

00:26:12 ◼   ► Yep. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at FreshBooks. Now, the internet

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00:28:16 ◼   ► So Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI is reporting that he believes Apple will launch both a Siri speaker

00:28:24 ◼   ► and the 10.5 inch iPad Pro that has been heavily rumoured, mostly by Ming-Chi Kuo, at WWDC.

00:28:31 ◼   ► What's funny?

00:28:34 ◼   ► I like that you pointed out the self-dealing that's happening there, where it's like,

00:28:38 ◼   ► "That iPad I told you about, now I'll tell you when." I mean, maybe he's got good…

00:28:44 ◼   ► maybe he's got good… I mean, he gave it chances, right? He didn't say it's definitely

00:28:48 ◼   ► going to happen. He was like 50/50 for the speaker and 70/30 for the iPad Pro, so it's

00:28:53 ◼   ► Not 100% but they're increasing odds, right? And I say that because he's been talking about

00:29:00 ◼   ► this stuff for a long time. Now my understanding is that Quo's sources are the supply chain

00:29:09 ◼   ► mostly. So wherever he is getting his stuff from, it's coming from the supply chain. Which

00:29:19 ◼   ► Really is probably one of the best ways to get your information

00:29:23 ◼   ► Well, once they start cranking up the machine and building products. Yep, you you you know, you can't hide that

00:29:30 ◼   ► Once the machines are booked right like it's like okay, you can get an idea that something's going on

00:29:36 ◼   ► The other thing I know about quotes stuff is quo knows things but quo doesn't always know everything

00:29:44 ◼   ► Right. So like he may be aware of something that's happening, but I have seen him in the past like he's like

00:29:50 ◼   ► 60 70 percent right like yes, it was that but actually turned out to be a different thing, right?

00:29:56 ◼   ► It's like you know what? I mean, right?

00:29:58 ◼   ► It's like oh you thought those screens were an iPad turns out they were a MacBook, but you were right something was coming

00:30:02 ◼   ► Limited information and then he's trying to guess and when he says 50/50 or 70/30, I think some of it is

00:30:09 ◼   ► right, I mean you

00:30:12 ◼   ► Product announcement is marketing

00:30:14 ◼   ► It's not it's not the product and unless the only way to collapse it so the product marketing is is a product is

00:30:21 ◼   ► If every time you announce a product it's shipping immediately

00:30:25 ◼   ► but that that doesn't happen like the Siri speaker and the iPad both potentially could not ship right away or

00:30:31 ◼   ► One of them could not ship right away

00:30:33 ◼   ► And in fact my guess is that that's where his a lot of his uncertainty comes in is that he knows that the Siri speaker

00:30:40 ◼   ► Thing is being built or they're planning to build it

00:30:43 ◼   ► But it's it's it's not far enough along that he can say with confidence that it will be announced at

00:30:49 ◼   ► WWDC I think what he's hedging on is like well

00:30:53 ◼   ► They could announce it and then have it shipping later in the summer, which is why it's so

00:30:58 ◼   ► You know, it's not super advanced in terms of where it's going to you know, when where they are in the production process or

00:31:06 ◼   ► They could announce it in the fall and have it ready to go

00:31:10 ◼   ► and so he just doesn't know which it is. And with the iPad, I think his

00:31:14 ◼   ► confidence level there, because he's been talking about it for a while, is higher

00:31:17 ◼   ► that they're like, "They've got this thing ready to go.

00:31:19 ◼   ► It's just a matter of announcing it and shipping it." So they could not

00:31:23 ◼   ► announce it and hold on it even longer, but his feeling is that they are

00:31:28 ◼   ► far enough along in the production process that it's unlikely, or it's less

00:31:31 ◼   ► likely that they would do that. But he's, again, he's ball parking all of this

00:31:36 ◼   ► because he doesn't know the product launch details. He only knows sort of like status

00:31:41 ◼   ► points of these products and is then trying to guess at what that status equates to in

00:31:47 ◼   ► terms of an announcement.

00:31:49 ◼   ► I appreciate the percentages, honestly, because far too often people will say, "Oh, it's

00:31:53 ◼   ► definitely happening," right? Because it makes you sound smarter, right? But it's just like,

00:31:58 ◼   ► "Well, you know, I have pretty good sources and my sources are giving me this info." So

00:32:02 ◼   ► So the 70% on the iPad Pro is because of leaks from accessory makers and rumblings from the

00:32:08 ◼   ► supply chain.

00:32:09 ◼   ► So that suggests that the manufacturing for this product will begin in Q2 with the likelihood

00:32:15 ◼   ► of an actual product rollout in June.

00:32:18 ◼   ► So Apple has a big event in June, right?

00:32:23 ◼   ► Why would you not mention this product and launch it when you're doing that?

00:32:28 ◼   ► Especially since you're going to also talk about all the great features it's going to

00:32:31 ◼   ► to get with the next version of iOS, right?

00:32:33 ◼   ► - In theory, we'll come back to that in a moment.

00:32:35 ◼   ► Kuo also states that the speaker will,

00:32:37 ◼   ► the Siri speaker will, and this is obviously an Echo

00:32:40 ◼   ► or a home, Google Home competitor,

00:32:43 ◼   ► the speaker will debut alongside an announcement

00:32:46 ◼   ► of software development details for home AI at WWDC.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Kuo also states that the speaker will include

00:32:52 ◼   ► a touch panel, almost like the Echo Show.

00:32:56 ◼   ► So let's look at these products a little bit closer, right?

00:32:58 ◼   ► Because I don't think me and you have spent much time

00:33:00 ◼   ► actually on this show talking about either of them.

00:33:03 ◼   ► So the Siri speaker, this is Apple's attempt to put Siri inside of a box for you to put

00:33:09 ◼   ► in your home, right?

00:33:11 ◼   ► Jason, why would Apple get into this market?

00:33:15 ◼   ► Well I think I wrote a big piece on Macworld about this more than a year ago and I think

00:33:20 ◼   ► the most obvious reason is that Apple's got voice assistant technology.

00:33:27 ◼   ► got a company that is making audio products and Apple's got a streaming music service

00:33:33 ◼   ► and Apple's got a home technology smart home initiative. Like, add it up. They've

00:33:41 ◼   ► got all the tech to build this product and reasons to do it. So it seems like this should

00:33:47 ◼   ► be a product that exists. It should be your home kit hub. It should be your interface

00:33:53 ◼   ► for Apple Music playback and have really nice speakers that they can say are, you know,

00:33:57 ◼   ► they might even say are like brought to you by Beats. They've got lots of reasons. And

00:34:02 ◼   ► as an Apple Music user, I look at this and I think, I want that I want the equivalent

00:34:06 ◼   ► of the Amazon Echo that has better speakers and connects to my Apple Music stuff because

00:34:10 ◼   ► I've got a lot of it and I've and so I think it's just kind of a natural I think Apple

00:34:16 ◼   ► also has to look at this market and see their competitors in it, mostly because of Amazon

00:34:21 ◼   ► having some success in there. And, you know, if I'm Apple, I'm sure part of it is saying,

00:34:26 ◼   ► "Oh, turns out there is a market here that we didn't really anticipate." And I would

00:34:30 ◼   ► also say, if I'm at Apple, I'd probably say, "Well, our technology is better than that.

00:34:35 ◼   ► We could make a way better product than Amazon can make because we've got so much more skill

00:34:39 ◼   ► in so many of these different areas where Amazon has sort of been behind." And so,

00:34:45 ◼   ► you know, and it's another place for Siri to go. It's another place for Siri to stretch

00:34:50 ◼   ► out into the home instead of where Siri is now where it's constrained to your Apple remote

00:34:56 ◼   ► on your Apple TV or your phone or your tablet. And it just puts Siri in another place throughout

00:35:03 ◼   ► your house. And there's validity in that approach. I mean, as an Echo user, I feel that way absolutely

00:35:10 ◼   ► that I choose to talk to the Echo and not my phone, even though my phone can do a lot

00:35:14 ◼   ► of this stuff too, because it works in contexts where talking to my phone doesn't work. And

00:35:20 ◼   ► it's more pleasant to do it. So, you know, I think there are lots of reasons for Apple

00:35:23 ◼   ► to do it. I'm honestly a little surprised that Apple hasn't already done this, that

00:35:28 ◼   ► they were apparently either so skeptical of this category or could not get the product

00:35:32 ◼   ► to come together that they were out even sooner. But I think they still have, in the end, I

00:35:36 ◼   ► think it's early days for this category and that Apple will be able to bring everything

00:35:40 ◼   ► they've got to bear and they make a competitive, interesting product here.

00:35:43 ◼   ► Will you say though that the timing of this kind of fits Apple's patterns, like waiting

00:35:49 ◼   ► for people to kind of work out what the market is and the route is and then they come in

00:35:54 ◼   ► and leapfrog people. I mean that's the thing that is typical of them, right? That they'll

00:35:59 ◼   ► wait, they'll hold it out, see how things go and then barge in and make something that

00:36:03 ◼   ► makes everyone go "whoa".

00:36:05 ◼   ► No, I think so. We'll see what that product is. I think the longer you wait, the more

00:36:11 ◼   ► that you need to impress with the product that you release. So I'm intrigued by this

00:36:15 ◼   ► product and think that it needs to impress us because the competitors have raised the

00:36:23 ◼   ► bar since two years ago and since a year ago. And so now Apple has to sort of meet and beat

00:36:30 ◼   ► a higher bar with a brand new product. It doesn't mean they can't do it. I'm sure that they

00:36:34 ◼   ► feel that they've got something that differentiates in a lot of different ways. There are some

00:36:40 ◼   ► challenges there in terms of Amazon having a lot of links to third party app ecosystems

00:36:48 ◼   ► where you can drive things from the internet and connect to various devices. And Apple's

00:36:54 ◼   ► got some stuff that they can do there too. They have familiarity with app stores and

00:36:59 ◼   ► with home automation products, obviously. So they can put it... I mean, in the end,

00:37:04 ◼   ► it's that, which is there's a product here, there's an Apple product here that they could

00:37:07 ◼   ► They've got all the pieces. They just have to have a vision and they need to execute

00:37:10 ◼   ► on the product. And hopefully we'll actually see that in June. That would be great. I'd

00:37:14 ◼   ► love to see what Apple's take on this category is.

00:37:17 ◼   ► You said that Apple have all the pieces. Do you think that they have the software stuff?

00:37:21 ◼   ► Do you think that Siri is in a position that it could just be put inside one of these canisters

00:37:26 ◼   ► as it is and it be enough?

00:37:30 ◼   ► It's getting there, right? I mean, I would imagine at WWDC they're also going to be talking

00:37:34 ◼   ► about the next generation of Siri extensions.

00:37:37 ◼   ► like Siri kit. Yeah, exactly right. So, for their operating systems, but presumably that

00:37:42 ◼   ► would also roll out to a device like this in terms of connecting Siri to different places.

00:37:47 ◼   ► And, Siri is a key part of Apple's strategy. So, if, I guess the way I would put it is,

00:37:57 ◼   ► Apple has all the pieces in the sense that they've got an assistant. Now, it doesn't

00:38:00 ◼   ► mean that they have to just ship whatever they've got and they're good. It means that

00:38:05 ◼   ► that that's a that's a let's take it for granted that they are actively working to improve

00:38:09 ◼   ► their products in all these different categories right and I think Siri has some issues but

00:38:15 ◼   ► it also has some advantages and including the fact that it works all around the world

00:38:20 ◼   ► and most of their competitors don't so I think it's got a lot going on but you know it can

00:38:27 ◼   ► it could always do more the Siri kit stuff points the way to it doing more and yeah I

00:38:34 ◼   ► I guess we'll see.

00:38:37 ◼   ► One of the thoughts that I have on this is why they would maybe announce this at WWDC,

00:38:42 ◼   ► because I think that they would announce it but wouldn't ship it.

00:38:46 ◼   ► And that's because I think that they're going to talk about SiriKit and it's going to be

00:38:50 ◼   ► so obvious what they're doing, right?

00:38:52 ◼   ► Like whatever it is they're saying SiriKit will now be able to do, it'll be so obvious

00:38:56 ◼   ► they may as well show off the hardware along with it.

00:38:59 ◼   ► And it doesn't ship.

00:39:00 ◼   ► And it doesn't need, it's not replacing an existing device.

00:39:02 ◼   ► so that they can pre-announce it by months and months and months.

00:39:04 ◼   ► Apple do this, like Apple will avoid the Osborne effect whenever they have an existing product,

00:39:10 ◼   ► but if they have a new product in a new category, they show it off, like look at the Apple Watch,

00:39:14 ◼   ► it was shown off six months in advance. Like I think that they would do the same whenever

00:39:18 ◼   ► they do announce this product, so they can say look, here is this thing, here is this

00:39:22 ◼   ► brand new operating system or brand new set of SDKs, you know, or APIs that we want you

00:39:28 ◼   ► to look at, right, you know, that this may become Siri OS or something like that. I think

00:39:33 ◼   ► I said this on Connected a couple of weeks ago, that they create this whole new way of

00:39:37 ◼   ► thinking about this stuff and then it's for this product, potentially, right, or maybe

00:39:41 ◼   ► it's just an enhancement of Siri across everywhere, and I'm sure it would be like a, probably

00:39:45 ◼   ► a little column A, a little column B, but they'll say, "Oh, and we're doing this because

00:39:49 ◼   ► we have this, and it's shipping in September, we have iOS 11, we're gonna have the new Siri

00:39:55 ◼   ► in a can. But they don't have to worry about it right now because one advancement, one

00:40:01 ◼   ► reason they might do it is to stop people buying everybody else's. Amazon comes out

00:40:08 ◼   ► at the end of June, Google IO this week and there are lots of rumors that they're going

00:40:11 ◼   ► to have version 2 of home. So kind of WWDC rolls around and they say like here is our

00:40:18 ◼   ► product and they show that they have something considering their competitors in this realm

00:40:24 ◼   ► are about to both ship V2 of their product and it's going to look like theirs in the

00:40:28 ◼   ► sense that it has speakers and a screen on it.

00:40:31 ◼   ► Because I really don't imagine Apple putting something out like this and it doesn't have

00:40:34 ◼   ► a screen on it because Apple have screens on everything.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Yeah, that rumor about a touch panel on the device, if you look at what Amazon's doing,

00:40:46 ◼   ► and then you look at what Phil Schiller said about how, well, the screen really has value,

00:40:52 ◼   ► which you know you could interpret as being their defense of keeping Siri on phones and

00:40:59 ◼   ► things and I have a problem with that because I feel like Apple needs to do a better job

00:41:04 ◼   ► of providing screen-free voice control of Siri. It needs to keep pushing forward on

00:41:11 ◼   ► that because I don't love it when even when I'm on my phone I don't love it when it kicks

00:41:15 ◼   ► back a thing for me to read instead of just telling me the answer. It really bothers me

00:41:19 ◼   ► But it's now a lot easier to look at that and say, "Oh, what he's getting at there is

00:41:25 ◼   ► that when they do this product, it will have a screen on it."

00:41:28 ◼   ► And that's okay.

00:41:29 ◼   ► Like we said about the Amazon, the new Amazon Echo product, when it's, with its screen,

00:41:36 ◼   ► its seven-inch touchscreen thing that it's got, is ambient information and being able

00:41:41 ◼   ► to call something up and show it to you is not bad, but the challenge is to not force

00:41:46 ◼   ► you to look at the screen every time you interact with the product. And that's my question

00:41:50 ◼   ► for this is that Apple has to work on this because Siri needs to be better at not just

00:41:56 ◼   ► kicking you to the screen when it fails. And it needs to fail less and it needs to use

00:42:01 ◼   ► its voice more because that's why I'm talking to it is I want to hear it talk. I don't interact.

00:42:07 ◼   ► Maybe other people are not like this, but I don't interact with Siri expecting the

00:42:12 ◼   ► relationship to be I talk and it shows me things on the screen. I expect it to

00:42:17 ◼   ► answer me. In all contexts I expect it to answer me, or almost all contexts, and I

00:42:23 ◼   ► feel like it falls down there a lot. So that's my fear about Apple

00:42:28 ◼   ► doing a product like this with a screen is if the screen is there to

00:42:31 ◼   ► provide extra information and extra context, great. If it's there to serve as

00:42:38 ◼   ► the place things get punted when Siri fails and they've got to give up, then I

00:42:42 ◼   ► I will be disappointed in that product so we'll see.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Let's talk about a 10.5 inch iPad Pro.

00:42:49 ◼   ► So if iOS 11 follows the iOS 9 model of an iPad heavy software release, which we are

00:42:57 ◼   ► secretly hoping, showing off a super sexy amazing iPad would kind of be the cherry on

00:43:03 ◼   ► the cake of it all right?

00:43:04 ◼   ► Is that what you British people say?

00:43:06 ◼   ► The cherry on the cake?

00:43:07 ◼   ► We say the icing on the cake.

00:43:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I think cherry on top of the sundae. Cherry on top, icing on the cake. But imagine

00:43:16 ◼   ► it's so good, they put icing on the cake and then put a cherry on top of it.

00:43:19 ◼   ► And they dump a sundae on top of the icing and then they put a cherry on top of that.

00:43:23 ◼   ► And it's just, "Okay, got it. Alright, that's great. Awesome."

00:43:25 ◼   ► That sounds pretty tasty, right? So that would make sense, right? Like in that

00:43:29 ◼   ► idea it's like, "Okay, so they're showing their increased commitment to the iPad with,

00:43:34 ◼   ► how beautiful this device is. But would you show this beautiful device three months before

00:43:41 ◼   ► iOS 11 ships? And if you do, when does this product go on sale? Quo is saying June. So

00:43:47 ◼   ► then you would show off all the amazingness of iOS 11 for the iPad, which I'm sure it's

00:43:52 ◼   ► going to be, right? Come on, please, please, please. And then you say it's going to look

00:43:57 ◼   ► great on our new device, but then the new device runs the old software. Do you think

00:44:01 ◼   ► that they would do it that way?

00:44:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's okay. Yeah, I think it's okay. I think the reason is just as they

00:44:07 ◼   ► showed off the multitasking stuff and

00:44:11 ◼   ► Said well this works on the iPad air, too

00:44:13 ◼   ► Right and then in the fall there, they're like and this big iPad Pro also, right?

00:44:19 ◼   ► I think they could I think they can get away with it because it's part of the larger story

00:44:24 ◼   ► I think they get away with it because they've got existing products that take advantage of this

00:44:27 ◼   ► They say look at all these great features for the iPad Pro

00:44:30 ◼   ► Look at all these things that will be able to the iPad pro already does here's what it'll be able to do this fall with

00:44:35 ◼   ► Ios 11 the iPad pro is getting more and more awesome, and you know how awesome it's getting it's also getting a new iPad pro

00:44:42 ◼   ► That's also awesome, and we'll get even more awesome in the cousin right in the fall

00:44:46 ◼   ► They could release every an updated version of the big one right they could indeed

00:44:51 ◼   ► So I think that I think it's all one of a kind. I mean yes

00:44:56 ◼   ► Ideally, would you like to drop that brand new iPad and iOS 11 together?

00:45:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess ideally you would.

00:45:04 ◼   ► At the same time, if you've got it ready now, why not put it out now?

00:45:09 ◼   ► And for developers that'll be great because they'll be able to get it and start working

00:45:13 ◼   ► on iOS 11 betas with the new iPad.

00:45:17 ◼   ► If there are new features that will be enabled on that new iPad, I'm assuming it will be

00:45:21 ◼   ► more or less the same as the iPad Pro 12.9, right?

00:45:25 ◼   ► right? But yeah, I mean, so is it ideal? Maybe not, but is it, well, I'll put it another

00:45:34 ◼   ► way too, is it's letting them have two things for, I mean, iOS 11 is going to ship anyway,

00:45:43 ◼   ► and they're going to be able to make hay with that. So they could launch it then or

00:45:47 ◼   ► they could launch it now, and they're going to get attention to a certain degree either

00:45:52 ◼   ► I don't think people are going to not buy it in June because they heard about this great

00:45:56 ◼   ► feature that they're not going to have until September.

00:45:59 ◼   ► But it may also be that from a pure production standpoint, they want the iPads being built

00:46:04 ◼   ► now before they start building all those iPhones.

00:46:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:46:09 ◼   ► I honestly think that this product should have been out by now, but there's been more

00:46:13 ◼   ► issues for whatever reason, so they have to push it back, but then they don't want to

00:46:16 ◼   ► do them all in September.

00:46:18 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly right.

00:46:19 ◼   ► you imagine that then, then it would have come out in the spring and the case would

00:46:23 ◼   ► have been look at all the awesome features we have in iOS already and then they would

00:46:27 ◼   ► come to WWDC and say, "Look, there's more."

00:46:30 ◼   ► But having a bigger, broader iPad story to developers at WWDC is not a bad thing.

00:46:38 ◼   ► Maybe not ideal, but I think they would do it.

00:46:39 ◼   ► I don't think they're going to hold on to this product because there are features coming

00:46:43 ◼   ► in a future operating system that are going to make it even better.

00:46:46 ◼   ► I just don't think they're going to do it.

00:46:48 ◼   ► So putting it on this stage, a couple of reasons it makes sense to me.

00:46:54 ◼   ► One you are enforcing the encouragement for developers to develop for this platform.

00:47:02 ◼   ► Look how great this product is, people love the iPad, you should make great iPad apps.

00:47:06 ◼   ► I think that's part of it.

00:47:08 ◼   ► The other would be by having the iPad Pro debut at this event bundles it into a bigger

00:47:15 ◼   ► event that has more eyes on it which is exactly what they did for the 12.9 they announced

00:47:20 ◼   ► it with an iPhone event. It was out of cycle for when they would release iPads, right like

00:47:24 ◼   ► 6 months before we would have expected it. And I believe they did it then because they

00:47:29 ◼   ► wanted more people to see the product and I think that they'll do that here, there's

00:47:34 ◼   ► a chance they'll do it here. This is not necessarily the place for iPad hardware, WWDC, but if

00:47:40 ◼   ► you want a lot of people to see it, well that's the way to do it.

00:47:44 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a big stage. Why not? Why not use it?

00:47:48 ◼   ► So it's not unusual for Apple to show hardware at WWDC. It's not every time, but it has happened

00:47:56 ◼   ► before. And in the 9to5Mac article, which I've put in the show notes, they detailed

00:48:01 ◼   ► a couple of times that they've done this, like in recent times, like the retina MacBook

00:48:05 ◼   ► was unveiled in 2012 and actually went on sale. The Mac Pro, of course, famously was

00:48:11 ◼   ► previewed in 2013. So Apple does have a history of showing off hardware that's

00:48:15 ◼   ► relevant to this audience. So as I said, right, like if you're trying to get

00:48:18 ◼   ► people to develop for the iPad, showing them this iPad might be a good way to do

00:48:23 ◼   ► that. And also, you know, if you are wanting to have people develop for Siri,

00:48:28 ◼   ► showing them a Siri speaker, same kind of deal.

00:48:31 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly right. The best way I can put it is that hardware is never

00:48:37 ◼   ► required WWDC and when people get really excited about new hardware that's being rumored and

00:48:42 ◼   ► they see WWDC on the schedule they're like "oh well that's when they'll announce it"

00:48:47 ◼   ► and it's not no it's not required.

00:48:49 ◼   ► Never required but it's always nice.

00:48:52 ◼   ► But if you've got it ready that's one thing and if it's something that you can fit into

00:48:56 ◼   ► the story you want to tell the developers yeah exactly.

00:49:01 ◼   ► So fingers crossed we're only oh my god we're just three weeks away.

00:49:04 ◼   ► Three weeks away I know it's hard to believe.

00:49:06 ◼   ► It's really creeping up on me.

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00:51:24 ◼   ► Two weeks ago, Tim Cook had an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC and in that interview he

00:51:32 ◼   ► announced that Apple will be investing a billion dollars into a US advanced manufacturing fund.

00:51:38 ◼   ► This is what Tim said.

00:51:39 ◼   ► "We're really proud to do it and by doing that we can be the ripple in the pond because

00:51:43 ◼   ► if we can create many manufacturing jobs around, those manufacturing jobs create more jobs

00:51:48 ◼   ► around them because you have a service industry that builds up."

00:51:53 ◼   ► Also whilst talking about all of this stuff, Cook couldn't help but mention his favorite

00:51:58 ◼   ► topic. He says it's $1 billion of our US money which we've had to borrow to get but that's

00:52:03 ◼   ► another whole topic. He's talking about tax reform because Tim can't help himself, right?

00:52:09 ◼   ► He puts him in a financial situation, he will complain about tax reform. And then last week,

00:52:16 ◼   ► Apple announced the first recipient of money from its advanced manufacturing fund and that's

00:52:22 ◼   ► Corning is the company responsible for Gorilla Glass.

00:52:36 ◼   ► Corning are going to receive $200 million of the $1 billion fund.

00:52:42 ◼   ► From Apple's press release, they say that this is part of the company's commitment to

00:52:45 ◼   ► foster innovation among American manufacturers and that this investment will support Corning's

00:52:51 ◼   ► R&D, capital equipment needs, and state-of-the-art glass processing.

00:52:55 ◼   ► Right, for people who don't know, the Gorilla Glass is made in Kentucky, and the product

00:53:01 ◼   ► exists basically because Apple wanted glass, and Steve Jobs wanted glass and not plastic

00:53:06 ◼   ► on the first iPhone. And this was a concept technology that they put into a real product,

00:53:14 ◼   ► I think for the first time, with the iPhone. And so that is all made in Kentucky. It's

00:53:19 ◼   ► It's one of these examples of a US sourced part for a product that's assembled in China

00:53:24 ◼   ► but actually has a bunch of pieces that are from the US.

00:53:28 ◼   ► And now, Kuani is huge because Apple helped and, as I say, all phones, all tablets, so

00:53:35 ◼   ► many computers, so much stuff is used in this class now because it's that good.

00:53:39 ◼   ► Now I've been digging around for the best I can out of this and it doesn't seem like

00:53:43 ◼   ► Apple actually get anything.

00:53:46 ◼   ► So the word investment is interesting to me here.

00:53:49 ◼   ► Well yeah.

00:53:50 ◼   ► Because it's not an investment in the sense that we know, and I think investment is being

00:53:55 ◼   ► used quite generously here.

00:53:59 ◼   ► I think it's being used, what strikes me is it's being used in a politics sense, which

00:54:04 ◼   ► is…

00:54:05 ◼   ► Yes, it's an investment in the country.

00:54:07 ◼   ► We need to make an investment in education, we need to invest in our future, and how do

00:54:11 ◼   ► we do that?

00:54:12 ◼   ► We spend money, we pay for things, and think that it will come back to us in some way that

00:54:17 ◼   ► is beneficial but it strikes me, now two things, so is it maybe more of a metaphorical investment

00:54:26 ◼   ► than that they're buying companies or investing in companies or is it that they will get something

00:54:31 ◼   ► out of it but the point is to show that they're laying out cash in the US, that they're spending

00:54:36 ◼   ► a billion dollars in cash in the US and I think that's exactly right. I think they want

00:54:42 ◼   ► to be publicly seen as spending a billion dollars on stuff in the US, a billion US dollars,

00:54:48 ◼   ► and they want to make that part of their long-standing sort of like, "Look how many jobs we create,

00:54:53 ◼   ► look how important Apple is," because Apple wants to keep reminding people in the United

00:54:56 ◼   ► States that they are an American company and that they generate a lot of business in the

00:55:02 ◼   ► United States and that just because they make their phones in Asia does not mean that they

00:55:06 ◼   ► are not generating jobs at home and that's for political reasons to keep the heat off

00:55:12 ◼   ► or make people a little less angry when Apple does other stuff.

00:55:16 ◼   ► And then also, yeah, I assume that for the 200 million that Apple is giving to Corning,

00:55:22 ◼   ► that Corning is doing something for Apple.

00:55:24 ◼   ► Right?

00:55:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:26 ◼   ► I mean, look, a company walks up to you with $200 million, they don't get any of your company

00:55:30 ◼   ► in return.

00:55:31 ◼   ► What they do get is something special.

00:55:33 ◼   ► Well, it's something like, "Okay, go build that factory. Here's $200 million. Go build

00:55:38 ◼   ► that factory for our product."

00:55:40 ◼   ► Yeah, we're going to tell you what you're spending this on, and you're spending this

00:55:43 ◼   ► on this. You know that idea that we spoke about a long time ago? That new type of glass

00:55:49 ◼   ► we want to make that wraps around people's faces? This is what this $200 million is for.

00:55:55 ◼   ► And you'll pay us back over time after it's up and running, but this will give you the

00:55:59 ◼   ► money to go build that huge capital investment that you're building for us. I think that

00:56:04 ◼   ► happens a lot in chip manufacturing too, where you have a company will say—and Apple did

00:56:10 ◼   ► this famously with a bunch of computer-controlled tools for building iPhones and things, where

00:56:17 ◼   ► they basically told a company, "Here, build all of them." And that company couldn't

00:56:22 ◼   ► build them for anyone else because they were building for Apple, and sometimes Apple does

00:56:24 ◼   ► that where it's like, "Here, build a factory for us." And they're like, "We can't

00:56:28 ◼   ► to build a new factory and they're like here's the money go build us the factory.

00:56:32 ◼   ► There was that Sapphire company right?

00:56:34 ◼   ► Oh yes the famous falling apart in Arizona the the Sapphire the the artificial Sapphire

00:56:39 ◼   ► where it was this deal Apple I think came to them and told them we want to use this

00:56:42 ◼   ► thing build all the stuff they couldn't make it to Apple specifications so then Apple just

00:56:46 ◼   ► moved away and then the company I think went bankrupt because they couldn't afford the

00:56:52 ◼   ► machines that they built and nobody wanted this because it wasn't good enough.

00:56:58 ◼   ► So I mean, I assume that, as you've kind of said, what this does is it puts Apple around

00:57:06 ◼   ► the table with Corning in an enhanced way, right?

00:57:09 ◼   ► It's like, we gave you all this money, so now we're going to work on this new project

00:57:13 ◼   ► together.

00:57:14 ◼   ► And also at the same time, they get to look good in the eyes of Washington.

00:57:20 ◼   ► And really, I mean, you look at it, right?

00:57:24 ◼   ► I'm interested to see where the rest of this money goes,

00:57:27 ◼   ► but a huge percentage of it has gone to Corning.

00:57:30 ◼   ► It's a billion dollars and they've just received

00:57:32 ◼   ► 200 million of it. - One fifth of it

00:57:34 ◼   ► is at Corning.

00:57:35 ◼   ► - And I expect that there will be maybe one or two more

00:57:39 ◼   ► of these and then a lot of little ones.

00:57:41 ◼   ► - Maybe, maybe there'll just be four more of these.

00:57:43 ◼   ► I don't know. - It could be.

00:57:44 ◼   ► I just don't know if there are enough companies

00:57:47 ◼   ► that in the US that Apple used so extensively

00:57:49 ◼   ► that it could give such huge amounts of money to.

00:57:52 ◼   ► Right, that's one.

00:57:53 ◼   ► I can't think of what they are. Maybe I don't know enough.

00:57:56 ◼   ► I've seen some speculation that Apple is trying to use this money to create supply

00:58:03 ◼   ► chains, little baby supply chains in the US. There's nothing to say that this money actually

00:58:08 ◼   ► has to go to other companies either. They could say that we're spending $500 million

00:58:13 ◼   ► of this on our own factory. Right. And then we expect that… And I think

00:58:20 ◼   ► Also, the issue is like, the idea is if you put some money in and say, "Okay, there's

00:58:24 ◼   ► money in this location in Kentucky or in Austin, Texas or wherever, there's money here."

00:58:32 ◼   ► If you're trying to build up a supply chain of other companies, just like with car factories

00:58:37 ◼   ► and things, they will, if there's money there and opportunity to feed the big factory,

00:58:43 ◼   ► other businesses will start to pop up to take advantage of it.

00:58:46 ◼   ► I think that that's one of the, at least political speculations that I've seen is

00:58:52 ◼   ► this is a way to counteract some criticism of Apple building so much stuff in Asia is

00:58:58 ◼   ► to say, you know, they've said there's no supply chain in the US. This is a way to say,

00:59:02 ◼   ► look, we're investing in the US and trying to get some sort of supply chain starting

00:59:08 ◼   ► to develop here involving, and that involves education. But what's the goal of this? The

00:59:12 ◼   ► The end goal of this is not just a blunt criticism of Apple politically, but it's also to get

00:59:16 ◼   ► Apple to make its case that they want that corporate tax holiday so that they can bring

00:59:23 ◼   ► their cash back from overseas at a lower tax rate. And their argument is, if you bring

00:59:28 ◼   ► it back, we'll spend it in America. Because right now what they're doing is borrowing

00:59:32 ◼   ► money in the U.S. rather than move their money back and pay taxes on it.

00:59:37 ◼   ► It's like, oh, we just built this facility, but we can't run it.

00:59:40 ◼   ► We can't afford to run it because our money, we can't bring it back.

00:59:43 ◼   ► Let's bring our money back.

00:59:45 ◼   ► Apple have also created a new page on their website.

00:59:47 ◼   ► It's called apple.com/job-creation.

00:59:51 ◼   ► And they're touting 2 million US jobs have been created by Apple and counting.

00:59:55 ◼   ► And this is, the page opens with this kind of paragraph text.

00:59:59 ◼   ► Apple is one of the biggest job creators in the United States,

01:00:02 ◼   ► responsible for 2 million jobs in all 50 states.

01:00:04 ◼   ► states. Last year we spent over 50 billion dollars of more than 9,000 US

01:00:07 ◼   ► suppliers and manufacturers. Since we launched the App Store in 2008, US

01:00:11 ◼   ► developers have earned over 16 billion dollars in the apps in App Store sales

01:00:15 ◼   ► worldwide and we're just getting started. They have a ton of information on this

01:00:18 ◼   ► site including a quite cool breakdown state-by-state of all the people that

01:00:22 ◼   ► they employ and people in the App Store ecosystem. So you know these these two

01:00:26 ◼   ► million US jobs, they're not Apple employees right? These are Apple

01:00:30 ◼   ► employees plus people who make money because of Apple. They should maybe include me and

01:00:36 ◼   ► you in this, but I don't think that they are.

01:00:38 ◼   ► We are a part of this job creation.

01:00:39 ◼   ► Well, you're not a US job. Come on. You're outsourced.

01:00:42 ◼   ► He's a US company.

01:00:43 ◼   ► I know. It's true.

01:00:44 ◼   ► US company.

01:00:45 ◼   ► It is true. Relay is a US company.

01:00:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I export my voice to the United States.

01:00:50 ◼   ► Huh. Nice.

01:00:51 ◼   ► I'm an import. I'm an import.

01:00:52 ◼   ► I'm surprised they haven't taxed your voice yet.

01:00:55 ◼   ► do. Why are they doing all of this then, right? Like I think that this job creation page says

01:01:01 ◼   ► it may be even more than the billion dollars is that they are maybe trying to keep Trump at bay

01:01:09 ◼   ► here. President Trump has said in many avenues about keeping things in America, right? Like he's

01:01:17 ◼   ► very incensed in keeping things in America production-wise. Are they maybe trying to do

01:01:23 ◼   ► this to look favorable there? Maybe are they trying to do it to get a favor in return?

01:01:30 ◼   ► In the Cramer interview, Cook spoke about his relationship with Donald Trump. He said,

01:01:34 ◼   ► you know, my view on working with any government in the world is that there are things you

01:01:38 ◼   ► will agree upon and things that you will not. I think with each administration in every

01:01:42 ◼   ► country of the world, there are things you disagree and things you agree. And you look

01:01:46 ◼   ► to find common ground and try to influence the things that you don't. If you don't show

01:01:50 ◼   ► up I think that's the worst scenario because then you're quiet and this doesn't do your

01:01:54 ◼   ► cause any good or your point of view any good. Roughly translated, this says to me, we're

01:02:00 ◼   ► given a little to get something back.

01:02:02 ◼   ► Yeah, and that we're engaging with somebody who we disagree with on a lot of issues because

01:02:08 ◼   ► if you just abandon the field, you will not be able to play the game and make an influence

01:02:14 ◼   ► democracy. And I think that's true. I think also as a business, you can't just make

01:02:22 ◼   ► your political views destroy your business because you've spited the people in power.

01:02:29 ◼   ► It's a challenge. So he's trying to walk that line of saying, "Look, if we're in

01:02:34 ◼   ► the room, we can talk about things that matter to us." And does that mean that down the

01:02:39 ◼   ► road if there's an issue with the FBI wanting Apple to build a special version of their

01:02:44 ◼   ► operating system that can decrypt information on phones and Apple says no again? Does it

01:02:51 ◼   ► help if Apple has a working relationship with the administration and can say, "Look, we're

01:02:57 ◼   ► playing ball with you guys. This is too far." Whereas if they spite them, then they don't

01:03:04 ◼   ► have the relationship. They don't get the chance to make that case. I think that's

01:03:07 ◼   ► true, I do think that at the end of the day this is Apple making its, yes, we're a good

01:03:13 ◼   ► citizen and also please let us bring our money back into the US at a lower tax rate. I think

01:03:18 ◼   ► that that's just part of the game because that's a lot of cash they've got out there

01:03:21 ◼   ► outside the US and they would like it back and they would like to spend it in the US,

01:03:25 ◼   ► but they do not like that enough to pay the current tax rate on it. And that's true of

01:03:30 ◼   ► a lot of companies right now. So, I don't know, this is complicated stuff. Apple, this

01:03:35 ◼   ► This is one of those cases where we have to look at the size of Apple as a company and

01:03:38 ◼   ► its importance in the world economically and how it is in all these different countries

01:03:44 ◼   ► and has to navigate all of these different issues.

01:03:47 ◼   ► And this is one of those cases where Apple is trying very hard to navigate the American

01:03:53 ◼   ► political waters.

01:03:56 ◼   ► I think ultimately this is a good thing I think. Basically it's Apple putting some money

01:04:07 ◼   ► that it has in its insanely large war chest back into helping people and helping other

01:04:14 ◼   ► companies which is probably a good thing. And if we can take Cook's comments at face

01:04:21 ◼   ► value. Let's remove the tax thing from this because I'm not actually sure if

01:04:26 ◼   ► like if that's good or bad honestly like from a regular person level it's like

01:04:31 ◼   ► tax no tax I don't care I don't care how much tax Apple pays honestly like

01:04:37 ◼   ► it doesn't affect my life but if they're able to try and get a better

01:04:41 ◼   ► relationship with the government so they can more easily ward off these FBI type

01:04:46 ◼   ► things right that's a good thing in my kind of column of good and bad right yeah

01:04:51 ◼   ► I think it's I suspect it's more about the money but so do I but like my point

01:04:56 ◼   ► on that is like it's okay good for you like I I really don't know this this

01:05:01 ◼   ► really upsets Tim but I don't think that it behooves him to keep talking about

01:05:05 ◼   ► this so publicly it's like oh oh no you had to borrow like you look you borrowed

01:05:11 ◼   ► that money because you wanted to you definitely have a billion dollars on

01:05:14 ◼   ► hand in the US. I will not believe that. You borrowed that to make a point.

01:05:18 ◼   ► I don't know. They do borrow money in the US regularly. That's one of the things that

01:05:22 ◼   ► they do. You can hear it on the analyst calls. They borrow it in the--

01:05:24 ◼   ► All companies do this, right? Whether they have the cash or not, there are benefits and

01:05:29 ◼   ► it's probably tax-related again on the other side.

01:05:32 ◼   ► This is one of the reasons is that they wouldn't have to borrow it if that money was in the

01:05:34 ◼   ► US's cash, but a lot of it's outside, so they just borrow in the US. It's not a big deal,

01:05:39 ◼   ► it is something that they do. I do think it's largely about the money, but I think it is

01:05:45 ◼   ► also about public perception of Apple and all those stories. I think it's about the

01:05:48 ◼   ► stories about the Chinese factories and the conditions of the factories and all of that,

01:05:52 ◼   ► because not only does that reflect negatively on Apple in the sense of the bad conditions

01:05:58 ◼   ► there that get reported every now and then, but I think it also reflects negatively on

01:06:03 ◼   ► Apple because it reminds everybody that Apple is making things in China and when you've

01:06:09 ◼   ► got people in America who are upset that jobs are leaving the United States, then it's

01:06:15 ◼   ► a reminder that Apple is one of those companies that's doing that. Now, of course, I would

01:06:19 ◼   ► say obviously Apple has so many people that they employ in the United States building

01:06:24 ◼   ► these products, making these products, designing these products. So it's PR, right? I mean,

01:06:29 ◼   ► At the end of the day, it is PR for a few reasons.

01:06:31 ◼   ► It's to make customers feel better about Apple.

01:06:33 ◼   ► It's to make politicians feel better about Apple.

01:06:36 ◼   ► And it's about Apple being able to be

01:06:38 ◼   ► seen as an upstanding citizen.

01:06:39 ◼   ► So when they say--

01:06:40 ◼   ► just like when Tim Cook talks about how much tax they pay.

01:06:43 ◼   ► They say, we're one of the biggest taxpayers

01:06:45 ◼   ► in the United States, or the biggest taxpayer

01:06:47 ◼   ► in the United States.

01:06:49 ◼   ► When they're being bashed for hiding money in Ireland

01:06:53 ◼   ► and keeping money overseas when they could bring it home

01:06:57 ◼   ► pay taxes, it allows them to have a counter to that. So it is a marketing and PR kind

01:07:02 ◼   ► of front for them in terms of political and consumer marketing. That's the game they're

01:07:10 ◼   ► playing because they really, really, really want to repatriate their money at a lower

01:07:14 ◼   ► tax rate, which is a game that the current administration, I mean, that's the thing,

01:07:18 ◼   ► it's a game the current administration, I think, probably wants to play. And honestly,

01:07:24 ◼   ► This is the sort of thing that allows the current administration to say, "See the progress

01:07:28 ◼   ► we're making because Apple has announced this $1 billion fund."

01:07:33 ◼   ► And that's part of the game too, politically.

01:07:37 ◼   ► I'm going to say a thing.

01:07:38 ◼   ► Uh-oh.

01:07:39 ◼   ► I'm going to say a thing.

01:07:41 ◼   ► When I say this thing, don't take it at face value.

01:07:46 ◼   ► Do you have an idea of what I'm going to say here about this whole thing?

01:07:51 ◼   ► I cannot see this happening under Steve Jobs. All of this, I just don't see it. I'm not

01:08:01 ◼   ► saying that it's bad or worse. I'm just saying that looking at Apple doing something like

01:08:08 ◼   ► this, I just cannot see Steve doing this.

01:08:13 ◼   ► Well, I think the "look at how altruistic we are" thing is more a Tim Cook thing than

01:08:23 ◼   ► a Steve Jobs thing.

01:08:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I've said in many, many places, and I'll say it here again, Apple is a better

01:08:29 ◼   ► company, as what a company should do and be under Tim.

01:08:34 ◼   ► From charitable to just playing the company game, which it should.

01:08:39 ◼   ► It's better under him.

01:08:40 ◼   ► changes they made like as soon as Steve was gone in terms of corporate giving and things

01:08:48 ◼   ► like that, right, where I think Steve either didn't care or he was just like, "No, let

01:08:54 ◼   ► people give on their own. We don't care." And he didn't care so much about necessarily

01:08:58 ◼   ► being a good corporate citizen. I think that that's true for whatever reason.

01:09:01 ◼   ► I think all those things were distractions, right?

01:09:02 ◼   ► Yeah. I don't know the reason psychologically why he had that attitude, but it seems to

01:09:08 ◼   ► me like he had that attitude in a way that Tim Cook doesn't. He wants to be seen as being,

01:09:12 ◼   ► and Apple being seen as being a positive force in the world in a lot of different ways. I

01:09:16 ◼   ► will say that there was a pragmatic streak in Steve. And so when you say, "I don't know

01:09:21 ◼   ► if this would have happened with Steve around," I will say that some of this in terms of the

01:09:27 ◼   ► politics and trying to get the money back, I could see Steve playing games about that

01:09:32 ◼   ► stuff because I think that's the kind of stuff that as a pragmatist he would have realized

01:09:37 ◼   ► "We need to do this politically." In fact, it might not have been cloaked in "We're making

01:09:43 ◼   ► the world a better place as much as it is."

01:09:45 ◼   ► I think that's kind of more what I mean is that it would have been a letter on Apple.com

01:09:50 ◼   ► explaining everything and him kind of saying, "Screw you, we're doing it this way."

01:09:54 ◼   ► Thoughts on taxes.

01:09:55 ◼   ► Yeah, you know? Like as opposed to these games that Tim plays, and he plays the games that

01:10:01 ◼   ► a big CEO will play. It feels like it's a lot more... I can't think of a better phrase

01:10:07 ◼   ► business makes it sound worse, but like a lot more cloak and dagger.

01:10:09 ◼   ► Like it's like we're doing this one thing, but we're hiding under another thing like

01:10:15 ◼   ► this job creation page, right?

01:10:17 ◼   ► It's all like saying a thing, but really you're doing this other thing.

01:10:22 ◼   ► Yep.

01:10:23 ◼   ► And and again, it's like this is I'm not attempting to criticize Tim Cook because he is doing

01:10:28 ◼   ► what he should be doing.

01:10:30 ◼   ► This is what the CEO of the largest company on the planet should be doing.

01:10:34 ◼   ► you should play the game this way, because this is the way you play if you want to get

01:10:38 ◼   ► what you want. He would probably prefer to play a different game, but this is the game.

01:10:43 ◼   ► Yeah. Honestly, that job creation page, and to a certain extent the environmental page

01:10:50 ◼   ► too, but the job creation page especially, I roll my eyes at it a bit because I feel

01:10:56 ◼   ► like it's greenwashing. The idea that you are…

01:11:00 ◼   ► It is. The statistics that they are including in

01:11:02 ◼   ► that they should not include in that, I think.

01:11:05 ◼   ► For people who don't know what greenwashing is, greenwashing is doing things like if you're

01:11:09 ◼   ► an oil company, you spend a million dollars on an environmental program that transforms

01:11:18 ◼   ► your plastics made from your petroleum output into pillows or something like that, or you

01:11:25 ◼   ► plant a forest that's going to absorb CO2 and put out oxygen and makes everybody happy.

01:11:32 ◼   ► and everybody's like, "Wow, look, giant oil company cares about the environment."

01:11:37 ◼   ► But they spend a million dollars on that and meanwhile they're spending billions and

01:11:40 ◼   ► billions of dollars on all of these other things and it's a drop in the bucket to

01:11:43 ◼   ► them.

01:11:44 ◼   ► And the reason they're doing it is not to change the world but to tell the story.

01:11:47 ◼   ► They pay for the program so that they can do an ad that shows you how great they are

01:11:53 ◼   ► in order to take your eyes off of this other thing that you might not like that they're

01:11:57 ◼   ► doing.

01:11:58 ◼   ► That's greenwashing.

01:11:59 ◼   ► these using these heartwarming stories as a big corporation to sort of move

01:12:03 ◼   ► your eyes away and I always thought that about the jobs page that it was it was

01:12:07 ◼   ► initially like no no no don't look at the Chinese factories look over here at

01:12:12 ◼   ► the happy app developers and the Apple Store employees that's what we want you

01:12:15 ◼   ► to focus on and now you've got that added political element and you're

01:12:20 ◼   ► absolutely right they are a huge company this is the way the game is played all I

01:12:24 ◼   ► think as people who use their products we have two things one we want the

01:12:27 ◼   ► products to be good. And two, we want to not feel bad about the company we buy the products

01:12:33 ◼   ► from. And it's a complicated feeling. And everybody's got personal relationships with

01:12:38 ◼   ► different companies. People will do personal boycotts of companies that they don't like

01:12:41 ◼   ► because they heard their CEO said a thing and it's bad. And that's fair. You can do

01:12:46 ◼   ► that. Although, if you take that to an extreme, you will run out of products to use. I will

01:12:49 ◼   ► tell you, you will run out of products if everybody has to vote the same way you do

01:12:53 ◼   ► and believe the same religion that you do and all of those things. You will run out

01:12:57 ◼   ► of products because every –

01:12:58 ◼   ► David: Don't try and look at how your food is made.

01:13:00 ◼   ► Tim Cook – Every company contains masses, everybody contains people with lots of different

01:13:03 ◼   ► philosophies. I think as a CEO of a big company like Apple, Tim Cook is trying to navigate

01:13:08 ◼   ► and say, "Look, we've got some principles that we follow." But you could very easily

01:13:12 ◼   ► point to like China and say, "Google doesn't want to participate in China to a large degree

01:13:18 ◼   ► because of all the censorship of information and Apple will never worry about that because

01:13:24 ◼   ► Apple makes too much money in China. And that's a place where Apple has decided, as Tim Cook

01:13:28 ◼   ► said, "Well, we'll disagree, but you still have to work with them." And I think that's

01:13:33 ◼   ► always a challenge because what you don't want to be perceived as is a company that

01:13:38 ◼   ► is evil and is working with evil people on evil things. But you also, as a corporate

01:13:45 ◼   ► executive, you need to not ignore big markets where your company can grow and have profit.

01:13:52 ◼   ► And so it's a tough one. It's a really tough one. And I think Tim Cook is trying very hard

01:13:57 ◼   ► to navigate it and doing a pretty good job. But I will say that by talking about your

01:14:01 ◼   ► corporate principles, you do open yourself up to criticism for not living up to them.

01:14:06 ◼   ► And if you act as if you don't have any corporate principles, people will complain, but they're

01:14:11 ◼   ► not going to call you on hypocrisy. And that's the dangerous game that you play when you

01:14:14 ◼   ► walk down this path. But that's what it's Apple. It feels very Appley to do this. So

01:14:19 ◼   ► feel like Tim Cook is not changing Apple into something else. By having these beliefs and

01:14:26 ◼   ► getting them out there, it sort of fits with their brand. It's a tough job. I wouldn't

01:14:33 ◼   ► want it.

01:14:35 ◼   ► No. And as I say, I think he does a great job. I just think it's different.

01:14:41 ◼   ► Yeah, certainly. I think there's lots of stuff Steve just didn't care about. I think

01:14:46 ◼   ► Steve Jobs never wanted to be the CEO of the biggest company. I think, in fact, I'll go

01:14:50 ◼   ► further. I think if Steve had not had a recurrence of his cancer, I think that it would have

01:14:59 ◼   ► only been a matter of a few years if it wasn't already happening, that Tim would be de facto

01:15:05 ◼   ► CEO in the sense, perhaps just remaining COO. But I suspect at some point he might have

01:15:11 ◼   ► even become CEO and Steve would have been, as he was right at the end of his life, the

01:15:15 ◼   ► chairman of the board and basically like working with Johnny Ive on products. Because ultimately

01:15:19 ◼   ► Steve Jobs was a product guy. He's a product guy. He never wanted to be the CEO of the

01:15:24 ◼   ► largest market cap company in the world. Not his thing. Like corporate stuff, totally not

01:15:31 ◼   ► his thing. So at some point, if he had lived, I think push would have come to shove and

01:15:36 ◼   ► he'd be like, "I don't want this crap, Tim. You do it."

01:15:38 ◼   ► Tim probably would have become CEO and then Jobs, you know, they would have created like

01:15:43 ◼   ► CPO or something for him. Well he would have been Chairman of the Board and Chief Creative

01:15:49 ◼   ► Officer or Product Officer or something working with Johnny on product strategy. You're probably

01:15:55 ◼   ► right Jason. I think you're right. Because you could see it anyway that as time went

01:16:01 ◼   ► on, illness or no illness, Cook was doing more than a COO does. Sure. He was doing all

01:16:11 ◼   ► the jobs of a CEO that Steve Jobs wasn't interested in, right? I think that's probably accurate,

01:16:16 ◼   ► which is why he was a logical person to step in on on leave of absence stuff. It was why

01:16:20 ◼   ► he was always on the conference calls.

01:16:21 ◼   ► He was ready.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, he did all those financial calls that Tim is on. Tim was always on those calls.

01:16:27 ◼   ► Like, it was rare when Steve would appear on the financial analyst calls. Tim would

01:16:31 ◼   ► appear on them. And he still appears as CEO because that's part of the job he was always

01:16:35 ◼   ► doing.

01:16:36 ◼   ► That's honestly right, Jobs was not the CEO.

01:16:40 ◼   ► Like what we think of as a CEO now

01:16:43 ◼   ► has been molded by Steve Jobs.

01:16:45 ◼   ► - There was a time when he was the CEO in the turnaround

01:16:49 ◼   ► because he needed to be,

01:16:51 ◼   ► because he had a vision for what the company was.

01:16:53 ◼   ► But once he got the company up and running,

01:16:55 ◼   ► and it started to get big,

01:16:57 ◼   ► big companies are different from little companies

01:17:00 ◼   ► that are about to go out of business if you don't save them.

01:17:02 ◼   ► They do require sort of different management.

01:17:05 ◼   ► And yeah, in the end, would Steve Jobs, would that not have been a waste of his time?

01:17:10 ◼   ► I'm sure he felt it was already a waste of his time, which is probably why Tim Cook did

01:17:13 ◼   ► all that, you know, all that work, because Steve didn't want to do it.

01:17:18 ◼   ► I don't think that the CEO of a company, historically, has been that closely connected to the creation

01:17:23 ◼   ► of the product.

01:17:24 ◼   ► Like, I don't think that historically, a CEO has been your company spokesperson.

01:17:30 ◼   ► You had company spokespeople.

01:17:31 ◼   ► If you're small and you're a startup, you are.

01:17:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:35 ◼   ► Steve came back to Apple, that's what he was. But you're right, in the long run, Apple was

01:17:39 ◼   ► becoming something very different. And if we take Steve's illness and death out of the equation,

01:17:44 ◼   ► and try to imagine like, what would a person like Steve Jobs do when Apple changed and grew,

01:17:49 ◼   ► I think he would gravitate toward the areas that were that were him at his best as the chief

01:17:53 ◼   ► spokesman, as the figurehead, and as the product guiding star, right? And not all this other all

01:18:01 ◼   ► all this other junk that, "Tim, do this. Tim, come on. Help me out here, Tim." So,

01:18:06 ◼   ► I think that's what happened. And it would have continued if Steve had lived. I think

01:18:11 ◼   ► it would have continued down that path.

01:18:13 ◼   ► Yeah, just being an observer of Apple in 2017 is very different. You look and think at things

01:18:19 ◼   ► that you didn't do before. Like even back from when I started, right, in 2010, looking

01:18:25 ◼   ► at this stuff seriously as an amateur.

01:18:30 ◼   ► Here's the way to think of it. Twenty years ago, Steve came back. Ten years ago, the iPhone

01:18:36 ◼   ► came out. So even Apple of ten years ago was not anything like it is now.

01:18:43 ◼   ► It was a very successful music company at that point, really.

01:18:48 ◼   ► And twenty years ago, it was a company that was falling apart in its death throes and

01:18:52 ◼   ► needed to be completely rebooted. So today's Apple is very different than even ten years

01:18:57 ◼   ► years ago, let alone 20 years ago when Steve came back.

01:18:59 ◼   ► So there you go. It's a very different world. We talk about politics on the show now.

01:19:06 ◼   ► Yeah, that went in the direction I wasn't expecting, but I thought it was interesting.

01:19:11 ◼   ► Whenever I see these things, I just can't help myself. And I really don't mean it as

01:19:15 ◼   ► a criticism when I say, "What would Steve have done?" in the way that most people do

01:19:20 ◼   ► when they invoke that phrase. No, it's just an observation that it seems

01:19:24 ◼   ► like this would be a different person would have a different take on this kind of thing.

01:19:27 ◼   ► And it's, as I say, and try to really underscore, by invoking that phrase, I don't mean and don't

01:19:33 ◼   ► even think that Tim is doing it wrong. Or like that different is bad because honestly, I think

01:19:40 ◼   ► so many things about this company are so much better under him. A lot of the political stance

01:19:46 ◼   ► that they take are done with, I think, a lot more grace and then ultimately more impact.

01:19:52 ◼   ► So yeah, but it's just, I think it's interesting to just see the difference

01:19:57 ◼   ► between the company between now and then. Oh, for sure.

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01:21:14 ◼   ► Ask upgrade time!

01:21:15 ◼   ► So, as always, you can send us your questions with #askupgrade for us to talk about at the

01:21:21 ◼   ► end of the show.

01:21:22 ◼   ► It can be what you want our thoughts about things, it can be technical support at times.

01:21:28 ◼   ► We will do everything and everything that we can, especially purchasing decisions, to

01:21:32 ◼   ► help answer your ask upgrade.

01:21:36 ◼   ► Vic has written in to say, "Regarding stickers, does Myke put them on his luggage?"

01:21:40 ◼   ► I can't believe I didn't mention this.

01:21:42 ◼   ► I don't cover my luggage in stickers, but I do put stickers on my luggage, and everyone

01:21:47 ◼   ► should do this, especially with luggage, because it's so hard to find your bag.

01:21:52 ◼   ► I put stickers on my luggage, and I think I came out very clearly as being relatively

01:21:56 ◼   ► anti-sticker last time.

01:21:58 ◼   ► I put stickers on my luggage when I got my Away suitcase, not a sponsor this week.

01:22:03 ◼   ► The first thing I did was put stickers on them.

01:22:06 ◼   ► I have an incomparable zeppelin on the front, and on the bottom, hiding, lurking, is Skeletor.

01:22:12 ◼   ► that way when it comes off the baggage claim, even if there's a bunch of Away suitcases,

01:22:17 ◼   ► which there probably will be, who are we kidding, I will be able to find mine because it's got

01:22:21 ◼   ► my stickers on them and it could only be me. So yeah, put identifying marks on your luggage

01:22:26 ◼   ► for Pete's sake. You got to do that. You don't want somebody else taking your bag.

01:22:29 ◼   ► Geoff - And my Away case is black and I forgot to put a sticker on it on my first trip. It

01:22:33 ◼   ► was a nightmare.

01:22:34 ◼   ► Dave - Also your Away case is green. It's a very, very, very dark green.

01:22:38 ◼   ► Geoff - Yeah, it looks black though, right?

01:22:39 ◼   ► Dave - I know.

01:22:40 ◼   ► Well, we just bought another one and Lauren was like, "Why didn't you get the green?"

01:22:44 ◼   ► And I said, "It's black."

01:22:47 ◼   ► And she says, "Oh, like the one we've got."

01:22:48 ◼   ► And I said, "No, this one is blue."

01:22:50 ◼   ► Can you tell though, Jason?

01:22:52 ◼   ► I can.

01:22:53 ◼   ► Can you tell you can?

01:22:54 ◼   ► I can.

01:22:55 ◼   ► So we got a red one instead.

01:22:56 ◼   ► So yeah, I ended up putting a big pineapple pepperoni sticker.

01:23:00 ◼   ► Yeah, there we go.

01:23:01 ◼   ► Because we had those made recently.

01:23:03 ◼   ► Stickers.

01:23:04 ◼   ► You got to put them on your – yeah.

01:23:05 ◼   ► Or something, right?

01:23:06 ◼   ► Like we had a bag that we had –

01:23:07 ◼   ► Or a ribbon around it.

01:23:08 ◼   ► We had a little cat collar that we got actually from when our dog, our first dog was a puppy.

01:23:13 ◼   ► She came with this little cat collar, a little pink cat collar and we just tied that on there

01:23:17 ◼   ► and well, she was so little that dog collars didn't fit her so they had a little cat collar.

01:23:22 ◼   ► And so that stayed on that.

01:23:23 ◼   ► I think it's still on that suitcase so you can see there's this little pink thing hanging

01:23:27 ◼   ► down and you're like, "Ah ha, that's ours."

01:23:28 ◼   ► So something identifying characteristic on your generic bag, please.

01:23:32 ◼   ► Sickers are great though.

01:23:33 ◼   ► Perfect.

01:23:34 ◼   ► this is a good question here from Adam. I will shortly be giving my first conference talk.

01:23:39 ◼   ► Any tips? Oh man. Yep. Big deal. Congratulations, Adam. This is a huge deal. So my, I've only,

01:23:47 ◼   ► I've only done like one serious conference talk, um, which was, uh, at release notes a couple of

01:23:54 ◼   ► years ago, which is a great conference. Um, I'm looking forward to attending again later on this

01:23:57 ◼   ► here my advice basically is rehearse past the point that you think you need to

01:24:03 ◼   ► so rehearse your talk to the point where you feel like you know it all and then

01:24:08 ◼   ► keep doing it and also this was not advice that I knew until I was told to

01:24:13 ◼   ► do and then forced to do it is to rehearse your talk in front of one

01:24:18 ◼   ► person in a room and film yourself doing it because this adds two times the

01:24:24 ◼   ► pressure because you will definitely it's way harder to talk in front of one

01:24:28 ◼   ► person when that one person is just looking at you right and you did the

01:24:32 ◼   ► only person in the room I find it harder anyway and the filming of yourself means

01:24:37 ◼   ► that your mistakes will be captured forever and you can go back and watch it

01:24:40 ◼   ► cringingly I I rehearsed my talk in front of gray and it's one of the

01:24:47 ◼   ► hardest things I've ever done in my entire life because he just sat there

01:24:50 ◼   ► done face watching me. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend that but do it in front of one person

01:25:01 ◼   ► and film yourself.

01:25:02 ◼   ► No, Greg, got it. Got it. Yeah. And I would throw in those are those that's great advice.

01:25:07 ◼   ► I would recommend in terms of building the presentation. Think about I'd say from the

01:25:15 ◼   ► start you know, think about an outline. I would say in terms of building slides if you're

01:25:20 ◼   ► going to do slides, just keep in mind, keep the words on the slides to a minimum because

01:25:26 ◼   ► there's nothing worse than a presentation where you read slide bullet points. Don't

01:25:30 ◼   ► do it. Don't do it.

01:25:31 ◼   ► >> BRIAN KARDELL-MULLER Or that people will be reading instead of listening to you.

01:25:32 ◼   ► >> JEAN RYAN Exactly. So if you must use slides, try to use images, try to use single words,

01:25:38 ◼   ► try to use short bits of punctuation. Don't put up big bullet points if you can help it

01:25:45 ◼   ► because it's bad on two levels because of your audience paying attention to the bullet

01:25:49 ◼   ► and not listening to you and because you read your bullet points and that's no good.

01:25:53 ◼   ► If you use the presenter's notes and you can do that, there are great, like you can

01:25:56 ◼   ► use an iPad or a laptop or even a phone to do your presentation and leave yourself presenter's

01:26:01 ◼   ► notes and keynote or PowerPoint or wherever.

01:26:04 ◼   ► I find that valuable.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Sometimes I will write what I want to say word for word.

01:26:07 ◼   ► Other times I will just bullet point myself and then I can read from my bullet points

01:26:11 ◼   ► and not sound scripted, which is even better if you can do that, especially if you're

01:26:16 ◼   ► somebody who sounds really scripted when you read a sentence. When it starts reading like

01:26:22 ◼   ► this because you are reading the sentence, right, maybe go to bullet points so that you

01:26:25 ◼   ► have to phrase them naturally. But don't put them on the slides, please. I beg you, don't

01:26:31 ◼   ► do it. That's a major no good kind of thing. And the other thing I throw in is if you can

01:26:37 ◼   ► rehearse or even just plug in and stand there in the place where you're going to give the

01:26:42 ◼   ► presentation in advance like a tech rehearsal. Do that because you will

01:26:46 ◼   ► find mistakes, you will find that they've got your setup wrong and you can get

01:26:50 ◼   ► them to fix it if it's a couple hours before instead of five minutes

01:26:53 ◼   ► before and it gets you comfortable with the room. You realize how you're entering

01:26:57 ◼   ► and where you're standing and it won't be a surprise when you get up there to

01:27:01 ◼   ► actually give the talk in front of a full room because that's not a time you

01:27:04 ◼   ► want to be surprised. So that's my advice.

01:27:06 ◼   ► Ok, I have more now. From a technical perspective, have multiple versions of your

01:27:11 ◼   ► presentation, have the keynote file or the PowerPoint that you want to give, but then

01:27:16 ◼   ► also have a version where everything is a PDF, because the computer that you're operating

01:27:21 ◼   ► on will probably not be your own and they may not have the fonts that you need. So if

01:27:24 ◼   ► you use special fonts, include those files, like, you know, everything you can put on

01:27:29 ◼   ► a thumb drive.

01:27:30 ◼   ► Let's follow that up by saying, if you've got multiple devices with you, put a copy

01:27:33 ◼   ► of your presentation on all of them, and on a thumb drive that you bring with you.

01:27:37 ◼   ► And on Dropbox, and on iCloud, everywhere.

01:27:40 ◼   ► put it everywhere all the time.

01:27:42 ◼   ► - Everywhere, and then you'll be safe,

01:27:44 ◼   ► because we have all had that.

01:27:47 ◼   ► - The one thing you don't wanna be worrying about

01:27:49 ◼   ► is where it is.

01:27:50 ◼   ► - We have a PC here with no fonts, and yeah.

01:27:54 ◼   ► Oh well, we don't have your adapter

01:27:55 ◼   ► for your MacBook or your iPad.

01:27:58 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:27:58 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:28:00 ◼   ► - Everywhere.

01:28:01 ◼   ► Eli asked, "Do you think that at some point

01:28:03 ◼   ► "Apple could merge the Mini and Pro lines

01:28:05 ◼   ► "and making it a configurable product across the board

01:28:07 ◼   ► "from entry level all the way up to Pro?"

01:28:10 ◼   ► No, I don't.

01:28:11 ◼   ► The price would be strange, right?

01:28:13 ◼   ► I think.

01:28:14 ◼   ► Well, there's a technical reason, too, because you've got to build this base system.

01:28:17 ◼   ► And the pro features, if you build all the pro features in, the speed of the memory and

01:28:23 ◼   ► the bus and all that, you're using probably reference stuff from Intel.

01:28:28 ◼   ► You could build a product that could scale, but I feel like it would be way too expensive

01:28:33 ◼   ► for the low end at that point.

01:28:35 ◼   ► Because you have to build in all the things, even if it's just the enclosure.

01:28:37 ◼   ► like, you have to build in the ventilation and all that for all of this stuff that the

01:28:42 ◼   ► low end's not gonna use. So I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all product here.

01:28:46 ◼   ► I think they can make a tower with some range that was sort of like mid-range to high-end

01:28:51 ◼   ► Mac Pro like they used to do.

01:28:53 ◼   ► But not low range to high-end.

01:28:54 ◼   ► But a Mac Mini, no. In fact, it's funny that this came up because I was talking to Russell

01:28:59 ◼   ► from the Material Podcast, and who's gonna be in Mountain View for Google I/O this week.

01:29:05 ◼   ► I'm hoping to have them on download in fact. And he bought an Intel NUC, those little,

01:29:11 ◼   ► it's like a Apple TV sized PC.

01:29:14 ◼   ► It's like a minimum viable computer.

01:29:16 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly right. And he bought it with Windows on it. Although it turns out, turns

01:29:22 ◼   ► out you can run, you can, that can be a hackintosh. You can actually run OS 10 on it, which is

01:29:27 ◼   ► just crazy. And I was thinking, you know, I wonder if that is going to be the next Mac

01:29:32 ◼   ► Mini. I wonder if Apple would do that, which is just like, you know what, because Apple

01:29:36 ◼   ► likes to be cool and likes to be cutting edge and they could probably take that reference

01:29:40 ◼   ► system from Intel of that little teeny tiny thing and say, here it is, it's SSD and a

01:29:45 ◼   ► little board and an i5 processor and it's the new Mac Mini and it's the size of the

01:29:50 ◼   ► old Apple TV that's even shorter, like it's super tiny and it's like, this is a Mac, you

01:29:55 ◼   ► can plug it in, run it, good luck. I think that might be more of a future direction for

01:29:58 ◼   ► the Mac Mini is even more minimal like here it is it's a Mac you can stick in

01:30:02 ◼   ► your pocket if you make it cool again exactly right because that that would be

01:30:07 ◼   ► that would be great because I looked at the Intel NUC thing and I was like wow I

01:30:10 ◼   ► almost want to buy one of those and turn it into a Mac Mini just because it would

01:30:15 ◼   ► be so cool to do that so yeah I'm intrigued that would be fun even just

01:30:21 ◼   ► take what they've built put a new case around it you know put it in a new box

01:30:25 ◼   ► and sell it be great.

01:30:27 ◼   ► Devon asked, "I have Amazon Prime, but stopped watching video after a show went from free to paid.

01:30:32 ◼   ► What is your draw to Amazon Prime or makes it different from Netflix?"

01:30:36 ◼   ► Stopped after a show went from free to paid. Amazon has two services.

01:30:40 ◼   ► They have Prime Video, which is free, and then they've got things that they sell.

01:30:43 ◼   ► So they're both Netflix and iTunes at the same time.

01:30:46 ◼   ► So this is no different.

01:30:48 ◼   ► So the way it's phrased, it's like, "Oh, they really screwed with me because it was free,

01:30:52 ◼   ► and then they tried to charge me for it."

01:30:54 ◼   ► it. It's like this is no different than Netflix dropping shows. It went off the free service.

01:31:00 ◼   ► So think of Prime Video as separate from Amazon Video. I know that's confusing and they like

01:31:04 ◼   ► to put them together, but it's no different than Netflix. Netflix drops shows off, Hulu

01:31:09 ◼   ► drops shows off, everybody out there drops shows from time to time as their contracts

01:31:14 ◼   ► expire.

01:31:15 ◼   ► Okay. For me though, I don't care about the service that I'm using, I care about the content

01:31:22 ◼   ► that's on it.

01:31:23 ◼   ► Totally. So like I don't care if it's Amazon or Netflix like both of the apps are different. They're like, you know

01:31:28 ◼   ► Adina goes crazy for the iPad version of the prime because it has the pause button right in the middle

01:31:35 ◼   ► You just tap the middle of the screen

01:31:36 ◼   ► She loves that like it drives her crazy every other application like the Netflix app or the iTunes app or whatever

01:31:42 ◼   ► She hates it because you have to like tap it and then tap at the bottom

01:31:45 ◼   ► Where like Amazon built their own control and all you do is just you just tap in the middle of the screen at any point

01:31:50 ◼   ► And it pauses she loves it. I

01:31:52 ◼   ► Don't know if you if anybody knows that that's the thing that it has but it's brilliant. It is really really cool

01:31:56 ◼   ► It's the way that all video pausing should work. Anywho, but most on the most case. It's not important

01:32:03 ◼   ► It's about where the content is

01:32:04 ◼   ► So right now we're rewatching Seinfeld the only place that I can get that is on Amazon Prime

01:32:10 ◼   ► You can't even buy it in the UK. Like iTunes doesn't have Seinfeld like

01:32:14 ◼   ► Up until it went on Amazon Prime like earlier this year

01:32:19 ◼   ► I think you couldn't get it anywhere at all streaming or buying it like it was DVD or nothing

01:32:24 ◼   ► So we're watching sign for that. We watch parks and rec on it recently

01:32:28 ◼   ► Like there's just stuff on these services that isn't anywhere else

01:32:30 ◼   ► So I sign up because it's where the content is you were talking about some download right about like the cable the cord cutting

01:32:36 ◼   ► Yeah, right. Like it's just wherever the services are you end up paying for all of them. It's not about the service itself

01:32:42 ◼   ► Right. You're you're following the content and the services hate to hear that because again

01:32:47 ◼   ► we live in a world of disintermediation where everybody, every company wants to add unique value,

01:32:52 ◼   ► like you have to buy it from them. But in reality, it does come down to the content.

01:32:57 ◼   ► Like Netflix, if everything, if you love, love, love, love Netflix, and then one day all the

01:33:04 ◼   ► content that was on Netflix was on Amazon Prime, and there was only garbage on Netflix, you would

01:33:09 ◼   ► not keep watching Netflix because it's Netflix, right? You would be like, "Oh, it's only garbage

01:33:14 ◼   ► are

01:33:36 ◼   ► asked what is your favorite Apple event of the year attending or otherwise so

01:33:40 ◼   ► for me it's WWDC because I'm in town and I get to see everyone and take part in

01:33:48 ◼   ► some of the fringe events and put on some events ourselves which I really

01:33:51 ◼   ► enjoy but it's also like just from an event perspective it's the most fun for

01:33:56 ◼   ► me because it shows the future of all of the platforms like it almost feels like

01:34:00 ◼   ► the start of Apple's year right it's like everything changes from WWDC

01:34:04 ◼   ► onwards. We find out things in advance before they're available which is fun

01:34:09 ◼   ► because it's like one of the only places that you do this stuff of Apple plus the

01:34:12 ◼   ► most surprises are there because it's software and the software can be more

01:34:16 ◼   ► surprising. Every other Apple event we know basically everything beforehand

01:34:20 ◼   ► right like if these hardware things get shown off at WWC we're talking about

01:34:24 ◼   ► earlier well that's ruined now because it's hardware but software they can

01:34:27 ◼   ► still surprise us like they can surprise us as Swift right like they can surprise

01:34:31 ◼   ► with other software related stuff.

01:34:34 ◼   ► - Stuff that's still inside Cupertino is a lot harder

01:34:37 ◼   ► to leak.

01:34:38 ◼   ► - Because sometimes it's stuff that like not even everyone

01:34:40 ◼   ► inside of Cupertino knows about.

01:34:42 ◼   ► - Exactly. - Like Swift.

01:34:43 ◼   ► - I agree, I have the same answer and it's because

01:34:48 ◼   ► this is the only event that is given many months run up

01:34:53 ◼   ► and people can travel and it happens for a week

01:34:56 ◼   ► and there's ancillary events around it.

01:34:58 ◼   ► And so it's, it is not just because all the other, these other events are media events, right? I drive

01:35:04 ◼   ► down somewhere early in the morning and I go to an event and then I drive home or I rushed somewhere

01:35:11 ◼   ► and I write and record a podcast and spend the whole evening writing and get up the next morning

01:35:17 ◼   ► and do more writing and podcasting and all of that. But it's just, it's just like a job thing,

01:35:24 ◼   ► right? I'll see people in the line when we're drinking tea and coffee and having pastries

01:35:30 ◼   ► and things beforehand, but then we all immediately, as soon as they open the doors, we go in and

01:35:37 ◼   ► do our jobs and I don't see those people in there. I'll wave at John Gruber or anybody

01:35:42 ◼   ► else.

01:35:43 ◼   ► Like if I came to town, I'd be super bored.

01:35:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:35:46 ◼   ► Because no one would be there. Everyone would leave.

01:35:49 ◼   ► right. You'd be like, "Hey, I can't go in." And then we'd be like, "Hey, it's good to

01:35:54 ◼   ► see you. Bye." And then you wouldn't see us ever again. WWDC's not like that.

01:35:58 ◼   ► Ever again? Oh no!

01:36:00 ◼   ► Ever again. Yeah, that's right. You'd never see us. We vanish. We go into a parallel universe.

01:36:06 ◼   ► So this is my way of saying it. Macworld Expo back in the day was great because it was the

01:36:10 ◼   ► same thing. It was a week-long festival of stuff that people hung out and talked and

01:36:15 ◼   ► all that, and it wasn't just about the keynote.

01:36:17 ◼   ► The keynote was better because people could go to the keynote if they wanted to.

01:36:21 ◼   ► Well, theoretically, except that the lines were incredibly long.

01:36:24 ◼   ► But WWDC, that's the answer.

01:36:26 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, that's the-- I wrote a whole thing for iMore about this.

01:36:29 ◼   ► That is the event of the year for Apple stuff.

01:36:33 ◼   ► And Apple has now kind of embraced the fact that there will be all these side events around

01:36:37 ◼   ► it and they're really creating like a week-long Apple fest that's happening in San Jose in

01:36:42 ◼   ► three weeks.

01:36:43 ◼   ► So, yeah, looking forward.

01:36:45 ◼   ► Yes, and it is only just a few weeks away, so expect the coverage to heat up.

01:36:50 ◼   ► We'll have one more regular episode next week, and then we would be doing the draft picks

01:36:57 ◼   ► the week after, and then we will be doing our reporting from San Jose in person again.

01:37:04 ◼   ► I hope you can use your laptop on the flight over.

01:37:07 ◼   ► Please don't talk to me about this, Jason.

01:37:08 ◼   ► The anxiety I have over this is off the chart.

01:37:11 ◼   ► I don't want to talk about it.

01:37:12 ◼   ► We're not talking about it.

01:37:14 ◼   ► And when it happens, we won't talk about it either because I'm just going to be too

01:37:17 ◼   ► mad.

01:37:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:37:19 ◼   ► It's a family show.

01:37:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:37:21 ◼   ► I can't.

01:37:22 ◼   ► Too much politics today already, and we didn't even really talk about politics.

01:37:25 ◼   ► Like, if you want to hear me go off.

01:37:27 ◼   ► Tell you what, if you see me in San Francisco and this has happened, or it looks like it's

01:37:31 ◼   ► going to happen, or San Jose, because if you see me in San Francisco, I got lost.

01:37:35 ◼   ► You've got, yeah.

01:37:36 ◼   ► You can ask me about this, and I'll tell you.

01:37:39 ◼   ► But I'm not talking about it on the show.

01:37:41 ◼   ► They want a final show on the show this week, relay.fm/upgrade/141. I would like to point

01:37:49 ◼   ► our listeners to two new relay FM shows because Can't Stop Won't Stop. We have Roboism and

01:37:56 ◼   ► Originality. So they're two technologically adjacent shows on Roboism, Savannah and Alex.

01:38:05 ◼   ► So Savannah Millian and Alex Cox talk about robots and technology and how robots and AI

01:38:10 ◼   ► AI are affecting our lives today which is an interesting way of looking at things. I

01:38:13 ◼   ► think robots are becoming more and more prevalent throughout our lives. And on originality,

01:38:19 ◼   ► Lynn Sims and Kay Tempest Bradford talk about creativity and how we are creative in our

01:38:25 ◼   ► lives and they talk about themselves and they have interviews and they have a really interesting

01:38:29 ◼   ► interview production style that I think you might get quite a kick out of. So you can

01:38:34 ◼   ► go check them out at relay.fm/originality and at relay.fm/rubboism.

01:38:37 ◼   ► If you want to find Jason online, he's over at SixColors.com and he is @JSnell on Twitter.

01:38:44 ◼   ► I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E.

01:38:47 ◼   ► Don't forget to listen to download later on this week, Google I/O. So you've got your

01:38:52 ◼   ► first big keynote to cover, Jason.

01:38:53 ◼   ► I hope you're ready.

01:38:54 ◼   ► Woo!

01:38:55 ◼   ► What, Microsoft Build wasn't big enough for you?

01:38:57 ◼   ► Not really, I'm afraid.

01:38:58 ◼   ► It wasn't that great.

01:38:59 ◼   ► I'm going to say, you know, I personally expect, you know, I mean, I don't know, I'm not producer

01:39:04 ◼   ► to Steven Hackett, but I would be surprised if IO was constrained to just one of your

01:39:09 ◼   ► stories.

01:39:10 ◼   ► Ah, yeah, I think you're probably right.

01:39:12 ◼   ► And a lot of love to Microsoft, but Microsoft split it, right?

01:39:17 ◼   ► They split it in half, honestly.

01:39:19 ◼   ► They did a product event and then they built.

01:39:21 ◼   ► And really they should have put it all together.

01:39:22 ◼   ► Yeah, they did two days of build keynotes too, so they split it in thirds.

01:39:26 ◼   ► Oh my gosh.

01:39:27 ◼   ► So yeah, you can go and check all that out.

01:39:30 ◼   ► It's going to be fun to listen to this week.

01:39:31 ◼   ► I'm excited about it.

01:39:32 ◼   ► So thanks for listening to this week's episode.

01:39:35 ◼   ► Thanks again to our sponsors, the fine folk over in Capsula, Squarespace and Freshbooks.

01:39:40 ◼   ► And we'll be back next week.

01:39:41 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye, JCS now.

01:39:44 ◼   ► Goodbye from Seattle.

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