Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 138.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Encapsula, TextExpander, Mac Weldon and FreshBooks.

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

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hey Myke, how's it going? Welcome, welcome home.

00:00:25 ◼   ► I arrived home today from the Atlanta Pen Show where I was taking part in pen addict

00:00:32 ◼   ► stuff.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:00:34 ◼   ► We did a live show.

00:00:35 ◼   ► We had a hundred pen nerds in a room and we recorded an episode and it was great.

00:00:42 ◼   ► And if you're interested in the pen addict at all, maybe you've never listened before,

00:00:47 ◼   ► this might be a good jumping on point.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Live episodes are the way to go.

00:00:50 ◼   ► We did that live clockwise at ULL and that was great. There's laughter and people applaud

00:00:56 ◼   ► at the end and it's amazing.

00:00:58 ◼   ► It's great when you start the show and people are screaming. It's great. I really want to

00:01:05 ◼   ► do more of them but it's really difficult. It's a difficult thing to get it all set up.

00:01:12 ◼   ► All the logistics of it including the technical stuff, it's a big deal. I'm glad you had a

00:01:17 ◼   ► a good time. That's why we're, if you are wondering why this podcast episode dropped

00:01:21 ◼   ► in your feed a day late, Myke forgot what day it was.

00:01:24 ◼   ► I sure did.

00:01:25 ◼   ► When he planned his trip and said, "No, I'll be back on Monday," and then he realized he

00:01:30 ◼   ► was not going to be back on Monday.

00:01:31 ◼   ► At least I realized on like Friday or Saturday that I wasn't going to be home until Tuesday,

00:01:37 ◼   ► right? Like, luckily enough, I didn't recognize this on Monday morning.

00:01:41 ◼   ► Yeah, or like Sunday night at the airport.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. That would have been very unfortunate.

00:01:45 ◼   ► my plane. It's not here. Yeah. So it's good. And I realized just as you picked up the call

00:01:52 ◼   ► today that this is the first time we've done a show where I know what your office looks

00:01:57 ◼   ► like.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Yeah, because you've been here.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Because I've been in it. Mm-hmm. That's right.

00:02:01 ◼   ► I know where you live.

00:02:03 ◼   ► You do. Oh, dear.

00:02:04 ◼   ► I mean, like, literally, I know where you live. I've been to your house. It's not—I

00:02:07 ◼   ► didn't mean that to be threatening, but it came out threatening.

00:02:09 ◼   ► I have just come back from the US and in the hotel, in the parking lot of the hotel that

00:02:17 ◼   ► I stay at there is a waffle house. In the parking lot. So Jill's question for Snout

00:02:22 ◼   ► Talk this week, Jill asked, "Jason, pancakes or waffles?"

00:02:27 ◼   ► Waffles.

00:02:28 ◼   ► You're a waffle guy, huh?

00:02:30 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, people who follow me on Twitter know this already. In fact, I just made waffles

00:02:36 ◼   ► for dinner a couple nights ago because we had nothing in the house and didn't want to

00:02:42 ◼   ► go shopping. And so I said we'll do breakfast for dinner and I made waffles. I like waffles.

00:02:47 ◼   ► They have shape. They have, you know, they can be crispy and all that. Pancakes are nice.

00:02:50 ◼   ► I don't want to run down pancakes but they're just kind of, you know, they're floppy and

00:02:55 ◼   ► insubstantial and they're fine but waffles are the winner here.

00:03:00 ◼   ► So, I'm gonna say, nobody asked me, but I'm gonna say, uh, I like pancakes more, but I've

00:03:06 ◼   ► never really had good homemade waffles. So, I need good homemade waffles and then I can

00:03:14 ◼   ► make my decision.

00:03:15 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't, waffles are waffles, I don't know if good homemade waffles, I mean,

00:03:19 ◼   ► like-

00:03:20 ◼   ► I don't know, I mean, Waffle House waffles are not very good.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Yeah, alright, well, maybe so, maybe so. There are good waffles out there, I'll just say

00:03:27 ◼   ► that. But I like them because they got little holes, little indentations so you can get

00:03:32 ◼   ► like syrup in there or butter. And in Belgium, where they serve waffles from a little cart

00:03:38 ◼   ► and they kind of bake them with the syrupy stuff kind of on the griddle, the Belgian's

00:03:44 ◼   ► waffles are the best. And if you've only had "Belgian waffles" which in a place that's

00:03:50 ◼   ► not Belgium, you have not had the Belgian's waffles. So again, I promote Belgium as a

00:03:57 ◼   ► a place you should go, and when you're there, beer, waffles, chocolate, french fries.

00:04:03 ◼   ► I've done all of those things in that place, and I agree with that assessment 100%.

00:04:07 ◼   ► They are the best.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Yep.

00:04:09 ◼   ► So Jason, nothing happened on April the 18th.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So of course nothing happened on April the 18th.

00:04:15 ◼   ► Hashtag Jason was right.

00:04:16 ◼   ► You may remember weeks and weeks ago, I think we were discussing this when Apple Park was

00:04:20 ◼   ► announced, I brought up the fact that at WWDC on the wall there was a call out to a date

00:04:26 ◼   ► which said, "Hello, April 18th, 2017."

00:04:29 ◼   ► And I thought that there might be something about that date.

00:04:32 ◼   ► There was nothing about that date.

00:04:34 ◼   ► What actually happens on that day

00:04:36 ◼   ► is it's a tax return day in the United States of America.

00:04:38 ◼   ► And that's probably what Apple were referring to.

00:04:41 ◼   ► So #JasonWasRight, nothing happened on that day

00:04:44 ◼   ► except people paid their taxes.

00:04:47 ◼   ► - Everybody have a waffle.

00:04:48 ◼   ► - I saw on The Verge this week that Samsung announced

00:04:54 ◼   ► that the pre-orders for the Galaxy S8 were 30% higher year over year compared to the

00:04:58 ◼   ► Galaxy S7. And that Samsung is saying this is their best ever pre-order number. The reason

00:05:05 ◼   ► I bring this up is because we spent quite a lot of time following the exploding Note

00:05:10 ◼   ► 7 fiasco. And I know everybody knows this is not that line of phones, but it's Samsung's

00:05:19 ◼   ► phone that came directly after that. So in theory, will have been affected with all of

00:05:25 ◼   ► the press and all of the bad coverage about the fact that their phones were exploding.

00:05:28 ◼   ► In fact, every review I watched or read basically led with the fact that the Note 7 exploded,

00:05:35 ◼   ► right? Like it was the big trend. Rightly so. I mean, you can't write the review of

00:05:42 ◼   ► this phone without bringing that up because it affects it. You know, like it seems like

00:05:46 ◼   ► Samsung actually undercooked the battery in this. They put a weaker battery than they

00:05:51 ◼   ► maybe would have. It doesn't have a real great improvement in battery life in any way.

00:05:57 ◼   ► So it's interesting to me to see that it seems that people have decided they don't care.

00:06:06 ◼   ► And that either they think that this is not a problem or they believe that Samsung can

00:06:12 ◼   ► fix the situation and/or what I expect is happening is people seeing the look of that

00:06:17 ◼   ► phone and they're like "Oh my god, I want that" and they're buying it and they don't

00:06:21 ◼   ► care about the fact that the note exploded.

00:06:25 ◼   ► So I have two theories here. One is the Galaxy S8 flagship is not the Note, it's not the

00:06:34 ◼   ► phablet, it's not the huge phone, and the Galaxy S7 is Samsung's most popular phone.

00:06:40 ◼   ► So I think what this says to us is the Samsung brand as a whole has not been so tarnished

00:06:48 ◼   ► that it is dramatically depressing sales, although we will never know what the sales

00:06:52 ◼   ► might have been, which we'll get to my second theory in a moment, will never tell us what

00:06:57 ◼   ► they might have been, that this might have been an even greater blockbuster of a phone

00:07:02 ◼   ► if they had not had their problems last time.

00:07:07 ◼   ► But we'll have to see what happens with the Note 8. They've resolved that they're doing

00:07:11 ◼   ► a Note 8. They're not renaming it. They're just doubling down on it. We'll see how those

00:07:16 ◼   ► sales go, although I've got a feeling that they'll go okay if only because everybody

00:07:22 ◼   ► who wanted a Note 7 couldn't have one or had to give it back, right? But we'll see. We'll

00:07:29 ◼   ► see if that brand sales are suppressed. It's also possible that people who used to buy

00:07:33 ◼   ► notes are like forget that I'm just going to get the S8 and be done. So that's also

00:07:39 ◼   ► possible. My second theory here is that this, you know, Apple showed it, when you make substantial

00:07:49 ◼   ► changes to the phones look and ergonomics you can get a sales boost. When Apple made

00:07:55 ◼   ► the big phones, they had a huge sales boost. So maybe the, you know, small bezel, super

00:08:04 ◼   ► interesting looking design of the S8 is something that consumers really respond to. And because,

00:08:10 ◼   ► you know, that consumers respond to changes in design, especially if they are ones that

00:08:16 ◼   ► you can see very readily and it makes the phone look cool or makes any product look

00:08:21 ◼   ► cool they respond to that so I think that maybe that's part of it too.

00:08:26 ◼   ► So you know it's what this does tell us is that Samsung as a global phone brand doesn't

00:08:31 ◼   ► seem to have been smashed by you know all the bad press for the note at least when it

00:08:39 ◼   ► comes to their most important product right there their single most important product

00:08:43 ◼   ► is the S8 and they it's interesting that they were kind of paranoid about it though like

00:08:48 ◼   ► the New York Times I think didn't get a review unit in advance because the I mean I wonder

00:08:56 ◼   ► what's going on there whether they're they're a little concerned or whether they're trying

00:08:59 ◼   ► to have some payback to certain news organizations who they felt covered the the note seven thing

00:09:06 ◼   ► aggressively I don't know quite what's going on with that but feels like an almost Apple

00:09:11 ◼   ► like move really isn't it I know right yeah but by all accounts it's a successful launch

00:09:17 ◼   ► And so we can make a lot out of the Note 7 debacle and the fact that the leader of Samsung

00:09:23 ◼   ► got arrested and stuff like that.

00:09:26 ◼   ► But the fact is Samsung as a global technology giant, not just in the phone space but all

00:09:33 ◼   ► sorts of places, still seems to just be motoring along and their most important smartphone

00:09:37 ◼   ► product is doing great.

00:09:40 ◼   ► And I think you, honestly I think you nailed it in the fact that the design is trumping

00:09:44 ◼   ► anything else.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Right, I think so.

00:09:46 ◼   ► people were seeing that and they're like, whoa.

00:09:48 ◼   ► Like, I mean, I said, one of the places and I'll say here,

00:09:50 ◼   ► like, I think that's the best looking phone

00:09:53 ◼   ► out right now, at least.

00:09:56 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:09:57 ◼   ► - You know, like a regular consumer is gonna look at it

00:09:58 ◼   ► and go, wow, that's really cool.

00:09:59 ◼   ► I want it, I want it, I want it, right?

00:10:01 ◼   ► That's not, that makes perfect sense.

00:10:05 ◼   ► And let's keep in mind too, that, you know,

00:10:06 ◼   ► we talk a lot about, well, we don't on this show,

00:10:09 ◼   ► but people in general talk a lot about like Apple's

00:10:11 ◼   ► market share and Android market share and things like that.

00:10:13 ◼   ► But in terms of like successful smartphone products,

00:10:18 ◼   ► the two most successful smartphone products

00:10:21 ◼   ► are the Galaxy S series and the iPhone.

00:10:24 ◼   ► Like everybody else is way behind.

00:10:28 ◼   ► Those are the two.

00:10:29 ◼   ► So they're gonna be the best.

00:10:31 ◼   ► And if there is a competition there,

00:10:34 ◼   ► and I would argue that I'm not sure

00:10:36 ◼   ► people are really kind of hopping back and forth

00:10:38 ◼   ► between the Galaxy and the iPhone so much.

00:10:41 ◼   ► - I don't think it would be substantial, right?

00:10:42 ◼   ► people do it but I don't think it's a huge substantial numbers I think

00:10:45 ◼   ► especially for those two phones particularly people have the one that

00:10:49 ◼   ► they like if you start moving into like HTC and LG like I think people move

00:10:54 ◼   ► around a lot more right so I would actually argue that the the biggest

00:10:59 ◼   ► competition here is like galaxy sa doing well is eliminating even more of the

00:11:05 ◼   ► oxygen from the high-end Android smartphone makers you know compete with

00:11:10 ◼   ► Samsung and that's it's kind of a fascinating dynamic to see that you know

00:11:15 ◼   ► there's Google and there's Android and that's great but then there's Samsung

00:11:19 ◼   ► and Samsung is trying to exert itself in software in certain places and it's also

00:11:24 ◼   ► trying to stomp out stomp on all the competition and and and on the Google

00:11:30 ◼   ► side on the Android side so that's kind of interesting too so it's a it's a

00:11:34 ◼   ► weird dynamic but I think if you care about the iPhone I don't know I mean I

00:11:38 ◼   ► think the most interesting thing here is that Samsung seems to have set the bar

00:11:41 ◼   ► in terms of this design and all the rumors that we've heard about a new

00:11:45 ◼   ► iPhone suggest that Apple is basically on the same path to do the same thing

00:11:49 ◼   ► and it's not because either company in this case is copying one

00:11:53 ◼   ► another it's because this is sort of where the technology is capable of going

00:11:56 ◼   ► today because and full credit to Samsung for years Samsung was doing fast follow

00:12:03 ◼   ► on Apple where Apple would release a product and then six months later you'd

00:12:06 ◼   ► see the Samsung product look exactly the same. And Samsung made a product that does not look

00:12:11 ◼   ► like the iPhone, right? It looks different. They are pushing it forward here. And full

00:12:16 ◼   ► credit to them for that. Apple's going to have to respond, yeah.

00:12:19 ◼   ► Funnily enough, we might end up in September going, "Oh, wow, that really looks like the

00:12:23 ◼   ► S8." And that will be an absolutely interesting thing. And I think that it is a sign of the

00:12:30 ◼   ► times, whatever that may be. And I think it's a sign of two things. It's a speeding up of

00:12:34 ◼   ► Samsung and the slowing down of Apple. And it's resulted in this product. And I think

00:12:40 ◼   ► it's really interesting to see the tides turn. We've had 10 years of it being in the other

00:12:47 ◼   ► direction and Samsung, for their faults, have finally gotten to the point where they're

00:12:52 ◼   ► able to produce something quicker.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, the other way to view it is that there's a whole collection of places

00:12:59 ◼   ► where Samsung has tried to do things that are forward-looking.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:13:03 ◼   ► most of them have been ridiculous like you know we'll look at your eyes and if

00:13:08 ◼   ► you don't look at your phone will pause your video it's like no I don't want

00:13:11 ◼   ► that stop. I mean they still got a load of that stupid stuff software stuff in

00:13:16 ◼   ► this phone. The software stuff is still there. And their intelligent agent that didn't

00:13:21 ◼   ► ship with it but yes this is a case where they made some very specific

00:13:25 ◼   ► hardware decisions that seemed to you know that everybody seems to like and

00:13:29 ◼   ► make the phone look good and it's, you know, and Apple has been working on this too, but

00:13:36 ◼   ► because of their schedules, you know, Samsung got there first and in the end getting there

00:13:40 ◼   ► first probably doesn't matter. But it does raise the bar and if Apple doesn't get there,

00:13:47 ◼   ► maybe it matters.

00:13:48 ◼   ► So I just wanted to address some follow up in regards to yours and Ren's discussion from

00:13:53 ◼   ► last week about the iPad Pro and kind of where it is and where it's going.

00:13:56 ◼   ► Is this internal, sort of like internal follow-up where you're following up?

00:14:00 ◼   ► Yeah. Or are there other people following up? Is this about you?

00:14:04 ◼   ► I don't know. We'll have to ask Sir Akusa how he defines this. I'm not sure.

00:14:07 ◼   ► Okay. Right. Fair enough. So Simon wrote in and he said, "Two themes regarding quality

00:14:11 ◼   ► iPad software are a lack of pro-level software on the iPad versus the Mac,

00:14:16 ◼   ► and inability of developers to earn what they need from iPad-specific software due to consumer

00:14:20 ◼   ► cost expectations.

00:14:22 ◼   ► Could you both envision Apple creating an iPad Pro section of the App Store that changed

00:14:26 ◼   ► the calculus of it. A niche gated community within the app store with a few conditions.

00:14:32 ◼   ► Software limited to the iPad Pro line, a small pool of apps that carry a higher price, emphasis

00:14:37 ◼   ► on utilising pro hardware features of the iPad like the pencil and smart connector,

00:14:41 ◼   ► a definite upgrade path utilising subscriptions and more customer information shared between

00:14:46 ◼   ► Apple and the developer. It could be a pie in the sky type thing but Apple should create

00:14:50 ◼   ► a path to sell 20, 50 or 100 dollar apps in order to emphasise the production features

00:14:55 ◼   ► of the iPad. What do you think? So, you know, reasonable people can differ,

00:15:01 ◼   ► but I actually kind of reject the premise that Apple needs to do something like create

00:15:09 ◼   ► an iPad Pro. I mean, section, like in the sense that you'd feature them, sure, but I

00:15:13 ◼   ► feel like the path forward here is for Apple to continue doing what it started to do, which

00:15:18 ◼   ► is differentiating the iPad Pro by making the iPad the lower end system and making the

00:15:24 ◼   ► the iPad Pro, the high-end system, it's already differentiating the two products. And there's

00:15:29 ◼   ► the expensive iPad and the cheaper iPad. And that's a start. I think there's nothing in

00:15:33 ◼   ► today's climate that prevents any of the things that Simon wrote in about from happening without

00:15:42 ◼   ► any policy changes from Apple, without a single change. Like lack of pro-level software on

00:15:46 ◼   ► the iPad versus the Mac. Well, first off, there's a lot of pro-level software on the

00:15:49 ◼   ► the iPad. That I think is a mistake to say that. It's not all there, but there's a lot

00:15:54 ◼   ► of really great pro-level software on the iPad today, and the platform certainly makes

00:16:00 ◼   ► it possible for them there to be more. Now I'm a little disappointed in Adobe for doing

00:16:04 ◼   ► something like breaking Photoshop into like eight different little apps and not embracing

00:16:08 ◼   ► the fact that maybe we just want to run Photoshop on our iPads, but maybe they'll get there

00:16:13 ◼   ► at some point. I have the five Photoshop apps or whatever on my iPad, and quite frankly

00:16:17 ◼   ► is I use Photoshop because I understand kind of the premise of it because I've

00:16:21 ◼   ► been using it for 20 years, 25 years at this point, 30 years, I don't know, a very

00:16:26 ◼   ► long time, and then on iOS it loses all of its help. The brand doesn't have the

00:16:33 ◼   ► stickiness to me on the iPad because it's not familiar at all, it's like, well,

00:16:37 ◼   ► wait a second, how many different Photoshop apps do I have and how do I use them and

00:16:40 ◼   ► where do I go and it's kind of a mess, but that's on Adobe, they could change it.

00:16:43 ◼   ► They've got a subscription model. The Microsoft Office apps on iOS are great.

00:16:47 ◼   ► and they have a subscription model.

00:16:49 ◼   ► And it's sustainable.

00:16:52 ◼   ► The inability of developers to earn what they need

00:16:54 ◼   ► from iPad specific software.

00:16:55 ◼   ► Well, you look at the Omni group,

00:16:57 ◼   ► they charge higher prices or they have a subscription model

00:17:00 ◼   ► and you can get the money you need.

00:17:02 ◼   ► All that needs to change is that people

00:17:04 ◼   ► who are making professional software on iOS

00:17:07 ◼   ► need to charge the right price for it.

00:17:08 ◼   ► And I think having the iPad Pro be more differentiated

00:17:12 ◼   ► and realizing that pro software is not gonna cost $5

00:17:16 ◼   ► and that people who are interested in buying apps for $5 or $2

00:17:20 ◼   ► are not your market and just don't price your apps that way.

00:17:22 ◼   ► All that has to happen is that you price the apps higher.

00:17:27 ◼   ► And again, then they have to sell enough copies

00:17:30 ◼   ► for that to be sustainable,

00:17:31 ◼   ► either a la carte or through the subscription model,

00:17:34 ◼   ► which seems like a pretty good model too.

00:17:36 ◼   ► The challenge is going to be,

00:17:37 ◼   ► you need to get pros to use the systems.

00:17:39 ◼   ► I think that Apple differentiating the iPad Pro

00:17:42 ◼   ► helps push the product line down there.

00:17:45 ◼   ► but I don't think it'll succeed or fail as a market

00:17:48 ◼   ► based on the success of the iPad Pro hardware

00:17:50 ◼   ► and whether people can sell professional software

00:17:53 ◼   ► at a sustainable rate.

00:17:54 ◼   ► It will succeed or fail,

00:17:55 ◼   ► regardless of whether there's a special iPad Pro app store.

00:17:58 ◼   ► I just don't think that needs to happen.

00:18:01 ◼   ► I just don't think it matters.

00:18:02 ◼   ► Now, maybe a showcase for iPad Pros,

00:18:07 ◼   ► which they already have,

00:18:08 ◼   ► like great on iPad Pro is fine,

00:18:10 ◼   ► but just charge a sustainable rate for your software.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Use the pro hardware, I agree with that.

00:18:18 ◼   ► Absolutely, if you're building professional software

00:18:22 ◼   ► for the iPad, you should assume that your professional users

00:18:24 ◼   ► are gonna use the iPad Pro and focus on that stuff.

00:18:28 ◼   ► And there's already a subscription model,

00:18:30 ◼   ► the 30% goes down after they've been on it for a year.

00:18:34 ◼   ► So there's a lot of ways you can do that

00:18:36 ◼   ► if you use Apple's model.

00:18:38 ◼   ► And if you do what Adobe and Microsoft are doing,

00:18:41 ◼   ► you'd sell a subscription on your own

00:18:43 ◼   ► and you get all the money.

00:18:45 ◼   ► So there are lots of ways to do this now.

00:18:47 ◼   ► I think it's misguided to say that this is a problem

00:18:51 ◼   ► that Apple can fix by tinkering with the details

00:18:53 ◼   ► in the app store.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Again, reasonable people can differ,

00:18:57 ◼   ► but in my mind, this is all about Apple building

00:18:59 ◼   ► a better platform that's more appealing

00:19:01 ◼   ► to professional users in terms of the iPad Pro

00:19:04 ◼   ► and differentiating it from the iPad,

00:19:06 ◼   ► which they're doing already, we're seeing it.

00:19:08 ◼   ► And I think it will be even clearer

00:19:10 ◼   ► with the next round of iPads whenever they come

00:19:12 ◼   ► and hopefully with the next version of iOS.

00:19:15 ◼   ► And then it's for developers to say,

00:19:17 ◼   ► I'm going to have the courage, sorry to use that word,

00:19:20 ◼   ► to say, yeah, I'm gonna charge a reasonable amount of money

00:19:23 ◼   ► for this product because it's a pro product for iPad Pro.

00:19:26 ◼   ► And I'm not going to try and,

00:19:28 ◼   ► if somebody is not gonna buy it

00:19:29 ◼   ► because it doesn't cost $5, too bad.

00:19:32 ◼   ► I don't want that market.

00:19:33 ◼   ► That's not the market I'm interested in.

00:19:34 ◼   ► We're no longer chasing iPhone users for 99 cents.

00:19:38 ◼   ► We are building professional products and that can happen.

00:19:42 ◼   ► And you know, there's a chicken and egg thing there

00:19:45 ◼   ► about the software and the hardware

00:19:46 ◼   ► and how you get that to happen.

00:19:48 ◼   ► And Apple should be evangelizing this and encouraging this,

00:19:51 ◼   ► but I don't think they need to actually like create

00:19:54 ◼   ► a new place for the iPad Pro.

00:19:57 ◼   ► I think they just, you know, they need to make it clear

00:19:59 ◼   ► that it's a pro level system and get, you know,

00:20:02 ◼   ► and software needs to be charged accordingly

00:20:04 ◼   ► to be sustainable. Speaking of professional applications, professional

00:20:08 ◼   ► developers and clear business models, this week's episode is brought to you by TextExpander

00:20:13 ◼   ► from Smile. TextExpander for teams is a productivity multiplier. You get a shared knowledge base

00:20:19 ◼   ► to ensure your team communicates quickly and accurately together. With TextExpander, everyone

00:20:23 ◼   ► in your team will share common replies that can be worded by your best writers. They are

00:20:29 ◼   ► all immediately accessible and searchable through simple abbreviations and keyboard

00:20:34 ◼   ► shortcuts. The response that everyone needs would be just a couple of keys away and any

00:20:39 ◼   ► changes that you need to make are updated seamlessly in the background. What's great

00:20:43 ◼   ► about TextExpander is that it's available on all of the platforms that your team could

00:20:47 ◼   ► be on, Mac, iOS and Windows as well. I'm having some problems with my Mac right now, I think

00:20:51 ◼   ► I need to zap the PRAM or something but my login items are not sticking. So there are

00:20:57 ◼   ► just a couple of apps, not all of them, that just don't open when they're supposed to.

00:21:03 ◼   ► And unfortunately right now, TextExpander is caught up in this. So I'm turning on my

00:21:07 ◼   ► iMac and I'm typing things and nothing's happening. And I'm like, something's broken! And it's

00:21:13 ◼   ► because I'm typing my TextExpander keyboard abbreviations and nothing's expanding. And

00:21:18 ◼   ► it really upsets my brain when that doesn't happen because TextExpander has become an

00:21:23 ◼   ► and

00:21:37 ◼   ► as well.

00:21:46 ◼   ► April is the new TextExpander's first anniversary. In that time, the TextExpander team have added

00:21:52 ◼   ► team statistics, group notes, public groups, monthly active reports, the Windows app, tons

00:21:56 ◼   ► of client software updates and so much more. We here at RealAFM would like to extend our

00:22:01 ◼   ► congratulations to Smalllen and TextExpander for hitting this milestone and we will wish

00:22:05 ◼   ► which

00:22:26 ◼   ► So at the end of today's episode, we're going to be talking about Blade Runner for

00:22:31 ◼   ► Myke at the Movies.

00:22:32 ◼   ► Yes.

00:22:33 ◼   ► Um, and uh, I just wanted to mention this because I wasn't here last week, so I didn't

00:22:38 ◼   ► remind anybody.

00:22:39 ◼   ► But we're doing that at the end of today's episode.

00:22:42 ◼   ► Consider yourself reminded.

00:22:43 ◼   ► You have been reminded.

00:22:44 ◼   ► So if-

00:22:45 ◼   ► You look at the length of this episode and you think, "Oh my god, why is it so long?"

00:22:48 ◼   ► The answer is Myke at the Movies is why.

00:22:50 ◼   ► The answer is Blade Runner.

00:22:51 ◼   ► That's the reason.

00:22:52 ◼   ► Yep.

00:22:53 ◼   ► Jason, you put in this big topic today.

00:22:56 ◼   ► - Can you explain to me what's on your mind?

00:22:59 ◼   ► - How big it is, but it's something I thought

00:23:01 ◼   ► was interesting.

00:23:02 ◼   ► We talked over the weekend when you were in Atlanta

00:23:04 ◼   ► about the Uber story that Myke Isaac wrote

00:23:07 ◼   ► for the New York Times.

00:23:08 ◼   ► And if we wanted to talk about Uber again,

00:23:11 ◼   ► I was like, man, I don't wanna talk about Uber again.

00:23:14 ◼   ► And that story is like full of,

00:23:16 ◼   ► it's got some awful stuff in it about Tim Cook

00:23:18 ◼   ► calling in Travis Kalanick and saying,

00:23:22 ◼   ► you're in trouble because you're doing this thing.

00:23:24 ◼   ► and it was super sleazy where they were finding ways

00:23:28 ◼   ► to tag phone hardware using APIs that were,

00:23:33 ◼   ► I think people figure probably private, but accessible.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Anyway, basically they're doing like tracking

00:23:43 ◼   ► in the sense of do not track kind of tracking

00:23:46 ◼   ► where they were able to kind of fingerprint a user

00:23:48 ◼   ► and their device in a unique way

00:23:50 ◼   ► so that they saw them on the web later,

00:23:52 ◼   ► they would be able to recognize them

00:23:53 ◼   ► or if they wiped the phone and then reinstalled that they would be able to tell that that

00:23:58 ◼   ► was the same thing. They said they were doing it for fraud detection. But one of the things

00:24:01 ◼   ► – they knew that it was counter to Apple's guidelines because they put in geofencing

00:24:06 ◼   ► to basically turn off the feature if it was in Cupertino.

00:24:09 ◼   ► Jeez. I mean, it's like no matter what they were doing it for, whether it was some good

00:24:14 ◼   ► thing or not, it was something that Nudish shouldn't be doing. At its core, that's

00:24:19 ◼   ► the part of it, right? You knew you shouldn't do this to the point that you made it so no

00:24:23 ◼   ► nobody in Apple would find it.

00:24:25 ◼   ► And also, do they think, I mean, either they thought that Apple was that bad or Apple was

00:24:30 ◼   ► that bad, but like, if you're Apple, you've got to do lots of things to like test this

00:24:34 ◼   ► stuff including presumably spoofing where you're located in order to set an arbitrary

00:24:39 ◼   ► location and see what happens in that location so that you can test out Uber and instead

00:24:43 ◼   ► of ordering a car to one infinite loop, you order it in Philadelphia or something like

00:24:48 ◼   ► that and so did that and they obviously didn't get away from it but that was 2015 right like

00:24:53 ◼   ► uber in the grand scheme of things uber has I would argue probably done way worse stuff

00:24:58 ◼   ► in the intervening time for people to get mad about this kind of older thing that they

00:25:02 ◼   ► did and people were saying that some of it was related to maybe stuff that's getting

00:25:06 ◼   ► closed up or has been closed up in iOS it was not like physical location tracking that's

00:25:11 ◼   ► one of the funny things that came up as people assume this meant like uber had some strange

00:25:14 ◼   ► black magic where you could delete the Uber app and they still knew where you were. But

00:25:19 ◼   ► in reality, people leap to that conclusion, which was not true, because there was this

00:25:25 ◼   ► whole other story of Uber hanging onto your location data after you closed the Uber app

00:25:30 ◼   ► so they could see where you went, which again falls under the category of sleazy things

00:25:35 ◼   ► that Uber has done since this happened. And so people jump to conclusions about this because

00:25:40 ◼   ► of prior behavior on their part, which is kind of reasonable in a way, even though not

00:25:45 ◼   ► accurate in this case. But this is all a prologue because I think the most interesting thing,

00:25:49 ◼   ► or one of the most interesting things to come out of this whole article, was about user

00:25:54 ◼   ► data and about, in broad strokes, how whole businesses, and mostly internet businesses,

00:26:02 ◼   ► whole businesses exist to do super sleazy things with personal information of people

00:26:11 ◼   ► on the internet and you stop for a moment and think, "Well, how do they get that personal

00:26:16 ◼   ► information?" And the answer is they create services that are free, that help you do something,

00:26:25 ◼   ► and then they turn around and sell your information to other people. And this is, you know, when

00:26:34 ◼   ► we talk about like if the product is free, then you're the product, you're not the customer,

00:26:41 ◼   ► you're the product. And people have made that argument about like Google and things like

00:26:44 ◼   ► that, and there's some truth to that, but I want to take it out of the Apple versus

00:26:47 ◼   ► Google wars and talk about it a little more abstractly, which is there's a company called

00:26:52 ◼   ► Slice that does a lot of competitive data stuff and they claim to know things about

00:26:58 ◼   ► people's internet purchase habits. And the question, and this has come up over the years,

00:27:03 ◼   ► it's like how do they do that? And the answer is they have access to bulk anonymized data

00:27:08 ◼   ► from people's inboxes of the receipts that they get from online orders they place. The

00:27:13 ◼   ► question is, the next question is where do they get that information? The answer is Slice

00:27:17 ◼   ► bought a company called Unroll Me that does this. Unroll Me is this thing that is a web

00:27:24 ◼   ► app that you authorize to look at your Gmail inbox basically. Your inbox, it connects to

00:27:29 ◼   ► your email server, reads your email, and what it offers the user is the ability to auto-unsubscribe

00:27:37 ◼   ► from mailing lists and stuff like that. It's a free, helpful service.

00:27:41 ◼   ► A pretty cool service, right? Like the idea and everything behind it. It's like, "Yeah,

00:27:45 ◼   ► this is cool."

00:27:46 ◼   ► - It's okay, I mean, you can probably just do that yourself,

00:27:49 ◼   ► but yeah, it's like, we're gonna help you do this.

00:27:51 ◼   ► And there are other services like this that do other things

00:27:54 ◼   ► which is a whole other issue

00:27:55 ◼   ► 'cause some of them are legitimate and some of them are not.

00:27:57 ◼   ► But imagine this is a company whose business model

00:28:00 ◼   ► is give people a useful tool for free

00:28:04 ◼   ► in exchange for being able to take the contents

00:28:07 ◼   ► of their email inbox and sell it.

00:28:10 ◼   ► Maybe not specific emails, but maybe it's anonymized,

00:28:13 ◼   ► maybe it's just data, maybe they're just using a sample.

00:28:16 ◼   ► Although there's at least a rumor that somebody is spreading

00:28:19 ◼   ► that at some point they were actually storing the context

00:28:22 ◼   ► of everybody's email on an Amazon S3 server

00:28:24 ◼   ► in an unsecure fashion.

00:28:25 ◼   ► They deny it, but somebody who says that they were working

00:28:29 ◼   ► at a company that almost bought Unroll.me said

00:28:32 ◼   ► that it's true.

00:28:33 ◼   ► So I don't really know, but they could have done that.

00:28:36 ◼   ► Maybe they didn't, but they could have

00:28:37 ◼   ► because they have access to everybody's email boxes.

00:28:40 ◼   ► - They may have not even meant to,

00:28:42 ◼   ► but they might've done it, right?

00:28:43 ◼   ► Like it's very possible.

00:28:44 ◼   ► - They might've done it accidentally.

00:28:45 ◼   ► it might've been unsecure, you know, imagine having,

00:28:48 ◼   ► you know, we had around the election,

00:28:51 ◼   ► we had all these people who had their email compromised.

00:28:53 ◼   ► Imagine you personally are like,

00:28:55 ◼   ► "Oh, well, that would never happen to me."

00:28:56 ◼   ► Meanwhile, you've got a service

00:28:58 ◼   ► that you don't know who they are or what they do,

00:29:00 ◼   ► and they are silently downloading all your email

00:29:05 ◼   ► because you let them.

00:29:06 ◼   ► And this was their business model.

00:29:07 ◼   ► Like the unroll me business model is,

00:29:09 ◼   ► how do we make money from this resurface?

00:29:11 ◼   ► Well, we gathered the data and then we sell it.

00:29:13 ◼   ► And that was the whole idea.

00:29:16 ◼   ► And you know, they, the way that Myke Isaac put it

00:29:19 ◼   ► in the New York Times is Uber used this

00:29:23 ◼   ► competitive intelligence.

00:29:25 ◼   ► They purchased data from Slice using an email digest service

00:29:29 ◼   ► it owns named Unroll Me.

00:29:30 ◼   ► Slice collected its customers Lyft receipts

00:29:33 ◼   ► and sold the anonymized data to Uber,

00:29:35 ◼   ► which Uber used as a proxy for the health of Lyft's business.

00:29:39 ◼   ► And we've seen this,

00:29:39 ◼   ► Slice has used this for all sorts

00:29:41 ◼   ► of other purchase information.

00:29:43 ◼   ► like how are people buying things on the internet?

00:29:45 ◼   ► Well, we have a sample that we can use to tell it as a proxy

00:29:50 ◼   ► to tell how it's going.

00:29:51 ◼   ► It turns out their sample is that they,

00:29:54 ◼   ► Unroll.me has everybody's inboxes

00:29:56 ◼   ► so that they can scan it for information.

00:29:58 ◼   ► And again, that's a trade off that maybe people

00:30:00 ◼   ► are willing to make for that service.

00:30:02 ◼   ► But I think it's something that shows you

00:30:07 ◼   ► how this economy on the internet works,

00:30:10 ◼   ► where you get something for free,

00:30:12 ◼   ► but it's more complex trade than you ever really think about

00:30:16 ◼   ► in terms of access to your data.

00:30:18 ◼   ► And we all need to think about it more.

00:30:20 ◼   ► Like we can, we all need to think about this stuff more.

00:30:23 ◼   ► You need to check the terms of service when you sign up.

00:30:26 ◼   ► You need to ponder a little bit about who is paying

00:30:28 ◼   ► to keep this company afloat.

00:30:30 ◼   ► And the problem is a lot of tech companies these days

00:30:33 ◼   ► are VC funded and their business model is give everything

00:30:36 ◼   ► away for free and then figure out a business model.

00:30:38 ◼   ► So sometimes it can be hard because they're not always

00:30:41 ◼   ► created with selling your data in mind,

00:30:45 ◼   ► but they may get there if that's the place

00:30:47 ◼   ► that they can find money.

00:30:48 ◼   ► Like that face app, you know,

00:30:49 ◼   ► that people are passing around, it's like it's free.

00:30:52 ◼   ► And it's like, you can make yourself look old

00:30:53 ◼   ► or do a gender swap or make yourself look young and pretty.

00:30:57 ◼   ► That's a free app.

00:30:58 ◼   ► And everybody's uploading their pictures to their server.

00:31:01 ◼   ► And my question with that has always been like,

00:31:03 ◼   ► what's step two here?

00:31:05 ◼   ► What are they doing with all of our pictures?

00:31:07 ◼   ► Because what, you know, what,

00:31:09 ◼   ► And maybe it's nothing and they're not keeping them and they've got some other business model,

00:31:13 ◼   ► but you've got to ask the question, like, why is this happening? Who is this company?

00:31:19 ◼   ► What are they doing with my data?

00:31:21 ◼   ► David Tompa There are a bunch of business models that

00:31:24 ◼   ► any company that offers free can pursue. And I think it's always important to bear in mind

00:31:33 ◼   ► that one of them is this. And it's something that I think about, you know,

00:31:38 ◼   ► And people get frustrated with my approach to this stuff sometimes, especially people

00:31:44 ◼   ► that have a great fear of Google.

00:31:48 ◼   ► But I know the trade-off.

00:31:50 ◼   ► I don't know it explicitly, but I know it abstractly.

00:31:54 ◼   ► It's the same with something like Unroll Me.

00:31:58 ◼   ► If I used a service like this, I wouldn't necessarily think that they were doing what

00:32:02 ◼   ► they did, but I would know that they're doing something.

00:32:05 ◼   ► And it's up to you if you are willing to say, well, let me think about what my data's worth

00:32:12 ◼   ► and what they may get about me, and what they may actually be able to really do with this

00:32:16 ◼   ► data, and then decide if I think that this is worth it for me.

00:32:21 ◼   ► So let's use this example, right?

00:32:24 ◼   ► Now this Lyft email receipt thing, I mean, a lot of people are using this to say how

00:32:30 ◼   ► terrible Uber is, but I actually don't think Uber is at fault in this, to be honest.

00:32:35 ◼   ► were offered this data, right, by a company.

00:32:37 ◼   ► Yeah, but they're buying market intelligence.

00:32:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm sure Lyft do it as well, right?

00:32:42 ◼   ► I'm sure lots of companies do it.

00:32:44 ◼   ► Because you get a company like Slice come to you and be like, "I can tell you about

00:32:47 ◼   ► your customers."

00:32:48 ◼   ► And it's like, well, yeah, you buy that data.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Slice is at fault, really, for getting the data without telling people, you know, but

00:32:55 ◼   ► whatever.

00:32:56 ◼   ► Like, this is, like, are you familiar with Experian, the credit referencing company?

00:33:00 ◼   ► Sure.

00:33:01 ◼   ► I was going to mention financial stuff that is, that this happens all the time.

00:33:04 ◼   ► Yeah, go ahead.

00:33:05 ◼   ► When I worked in marketing, this is the type of data we would buy.

00:33:10 ◼   ► And it's very broad data, but they can say, "We can take this algorithm that we built

00:33:16 ◼   ► and we can overlay it over your customer base and we can tell you who we think have children.

00:33:21 ◼   ► And then you can use that data however you think you should use that data."

00:33:25 ◼   ► This is how marketing is done, right?

00:33:27 ◼   ► But the data has to come from somewhere.

00:33:29 ◼   ► A lot of the time that data comes from places that would be normal or places that you would

00:33:34 ◼   ► expect. Like, so for example, when I was in the bank, that data came from our transaction

00:33:38 ◼   ► information.

00:33:39 ◼   ► Right.

00:33:40 ◼   ► And everyone knows we can see their transactions, right? And I feel like that that is something

00:33:44 ◼   ► that's like, okay, like if you've based something on the fact that I've used my

00:33:47 ◼   ► credit card review, well, you know that. So like, the bank wasn't selling the data,

00:33:51 ◼   ► it was using a model, right?

00:33:53 ◼   ► Right.

00:33:54 ◼   ► But this data is somewhere.

00:33:55 ◼   ► And as far as – as far as we know, Slice also gets data from places like financial

00:33:59 ◼   ► institutions, right?

00:34:00 ◼   ► I'm sure they do.

00:34:01 ◼   ► They do.

00:34:02 ◼   ► probably has a deal with a bunch of major credit card makers to just, again, anonymized,

00:34:08 ◼   ► but say like this many Apple transactions at this average self, you know, whatever the

00:34:13 ◼   ► data is. And they'll say it's like it's anonymized, we'll do things as parts of our privacy policy.

00:34:18 ◼   ► It doesn't mean that they're not selling data there. In fact, that's one of the, I mean,

00:34:22 ◼   ► I think people sometimes don't understand that even if you find a revenue model for

00:34:26 ◼   ► a company, for a product or a service that you're using, and say, oh, this is how they

00:34:30 ◼   ► make their money. Chances are that even if you find the primary way they make their money,

00:34:35 ◼   ► that's not the only way they make their money.

00:34:36 ◼   ► So many companies dealing data exchange.

00:34:39 ◼   ► Incremental revenue is the phrase that always got thrown around at IDG, and it's just like,

00:34:43 ◼   ► this is how businesses work, is okay, we have, or I should say a lot of businesses work is,

00:34:48 ◼   ► alright, we make a million dollars, yay, but you know what, if we did this other thing,

00:34:53 ◼   ► this person has come to us and said they'll write us a check for $100,000 to do to give

00:34:57 ◼   ► them some data and we can fit it in our privacy policy. So let's do that. And so at IDG it

00:35:03 ◼   ► was things like list rental where you sign up and pay back in the day you pay $25 or

00:35:10 ◼   ► $30 to get a year of the magazine sent to you in your mailbox. And guess what happens?

00:35:16 ◼   ► Anybody who's subscribed to a magazine knows this. Like you start getting junk mail to

00:35:23 ◼   ► the person who subscribed to that magazine. Well how does that happen? It's like magazine

00:35:27 ◼   ► One of their incremental revenue sources was selling their mailing lists to people who

00:35:32 ◼   ► wanted to send mail to people. They would be like, "Oh, your audience is fairly affluent.

00:35:36 ◼   ► I mean, you'd start marketing. Look at how affluent our audience is. These people have

00:35:40 ◼   ► a lot of money and they're very tech-forward. You want to market to them." And sometimes

00:35:43 ◼   ► that was things like the Mac catalog or something like that, where it was totally legit, like

00:35:49 ◼   ► a perfect fit. But sometimes it's just like Condé Nast wants to find new subscribers

00:35:55 ◼   ► for Condé Nast Traveler and they buy a bunch of magazine lists and send them subscription

00:36:00 ◼   ► offers. And that like happened all the time. And then in the modern context, email lists

00:36:05 ◼   ► work the same way where there's email list rental where you get paid to spam your own

00:36:10 ◼   ► customers with an ad for someone else. And is that the core business? No, but still,

00:36:18 ◼   ► it takes a very particular kind of principled business person who is thinking about the

00:36:24 ◼   ► big picture, which the danger is the person who's making these decisions is not the

00:36:29 ◼   ► CEO thinking about the big picture, it's a salesperson who's got a revenue target

00:36:34 ◼   ► to hit. And they look and they say, "Oh, I can get an easy $100,000 right here, so

00:36:39 ◼   ► let's do it." And it takes a big person to say, "You know what? We're selling out

00:36:44 ◼   ► our customers. I'd rather turn that money away and not sell out our customers," because

00:36:51 ◼   ► you're turning away revenue for your business.

00:36:54 ◼   ► And if your business is struggling even a little

00:36:56 ◼   ► or has pressure from investors to grow

00:36:58 ◼   ► or any number of reasons why,

00:37:01 ◼   ► you make that calculation and say, "Nah, it's fine."

00:37:04 ◼   ► Right?

00:37:05 ◼   ► And you sell out your customers.

00:37:09 ◼   ► It happens all the time.

00:37:11 ◼   ► - I think it's worth just pointing out at this stage

00:37:13 ◼   ► that neither of us like this

00:37:15 ◼   ► or think that this is necessarily

00:37:17 ◼   ► the way the world should work.

00:37:19 ◼   ► - No, it's gross.

00:37:20 ◼   ► do we want to apply these practices to the businesses we both run, but I think we've

00:37:25 ◼   ► just both been in the corporate world enough to know that it really does happen, right?

00:37:30 ◼   ► We've seen some things. We've seen some terrible things, you know, and/or had to be involved

00:37:36 ◼   ► in them in some way, right? Because it was the way that things were done.

00:37:41 ◼   ► Exactly. So I guess, you know, what's the lesson here? I think the lesson is to be aware,

00:37:49 ◼   ► Like you said, be aware of the trade-offs that you think you're probably making. Be

00:37:54 ◼   ► savvy. Don't take something for nothing. Think of, think of what is happening behind the

00:38:01 ◼   ► scenes. Be, you know, be aware of it. And sometimes I would say sometimes the trade-off

00:38:07 ◼   ► is going to be what you're willing to do. Like I, I have my domain in Gmail, you know,

00:38:14 ◼   ► Google apps, which actually is a paid service now.

00:38:18 ◼   ► It's not, it used to be like a freebie thing,

00:38:20 ◼   ► but it's like a paid service now, Google apps is.

00:38:22 ◼   ► They don't call it that. - That's double dipping,

00:38:24 ◼   ► right, like from Google, 'cause you pay them,

00:38:26 ◼   ► but they're still looking at all their data.

00:38:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, that's true.

00:38:28 ◼   ► There's still some, although I don't know

00:38:31 ◼   ► what the security differences are,

00:38:32 ◼   ► but yeah, basically, I'm sure it's true.

00:38:33 ◼   ► - I'm sure it's different, but like, they're not like,

00:38:35 ◼   ► oh, we won't pay any attention to that anymore.

00:38:37 ◼   ► - But I'm kinda okay with that

00:38:39 ◼   ► because the Google services are very good

00:38:43 ◼   ► And I am willing, and also I have to say, I believe that Google's model is the,

00:38:49 ◼   ► the stuff that they're doing is very much like looking at stuff in context

00:38:55 ◼   ► in order to serve ads or in different places to me because ads is their

00:39:00 ◼   ► business. Would I consider switching if I got a clearer signal that Google

00:39:06 ◼   ► is actually like trawling through my archive and selling the data?

00:39:12 ◼   ► yeah I would consider it. I would consider the trade-off. All you can do,

00:39:16 ◼   ► everybody makes their own decision for different reasons, but you got to be

00:39:19 ◼   ► try to be savvy about it. Consider what the trade-offs are and

00:39:24 ◼   ► and then maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe anonymizing your, you know, your receipt

00:39:27 ◼   ► data in exchange for this convenience

00:39:30 ◼   ► service is not a big deal. That's fine, but the awareness of who have

00:39:34 ◼   ► you authorized to look at your email inbox, who have you authorized to

00:39:38 ◼   ► put to look at your Twitter followers list or post on your Twitter account.

00:39:42 ◼   ► Just maybe look, maybe check and see.

00:39:44 ◼   ► You might be surprised and it's worth thinking about.

00:39:48 ◼   ► It's just worth thinking about because this is the reality is there are whole

00:39:52 ◼   ► businesses, many of them that this is what they do.

00:39:55 ◼   ► This is part of the economy of, of technology right now.

00:39:59 ◼   ► And I do think it's dangerous.

00:40:00 ◼   ► I saw the tweet, I can't remember who it might've been.

00:40:02 ◼   ► Kara Swisher tweeted about like, watch out Silicon Valley.

00:40:06 ◼   ► Cause this kind of stuff is the thing that is going to make, turn the public

00:40:11 ◼   ► against you and turn the government against you. And right now, honestly, this is the

00:40:19 ◼   ► sort of thing that's more likely to happen in the EU than in the US because the EU has

00:40:23 ◼   ► much more sort of like business regulation stuff that they are concerned with than the

00:40:27 ◼   ► US is. But if it becomes politically expedient because people are up in arms about privacy

00:40:32 ◼   ► breaches and reselling of consumer data, if it becomes politically expedient for that

00:40:37 ◼   ► to be a quick win for politicians, it could happen and it could really blast a lot of

00:40:44 ◼   ► tech industry business models. So it's, this is the world we live in and it's something

00:40:48 ◼   ► to be aware of.

00:40:50 ◼   ► One last point on this. Me and you have spent so much time talking about the fact that we

00:40:54 ◼   ► don't want big podcast data, right? You know, like we spent all this time talking about

00:41:00 ◼   ► the fact that we don't want this tracking information. We don't want the information

00:41:05 ◼   ► about what people are listening to, where they,

00:41:07 ◼   ► you know, we don't want any of that.

00:41:08 ◼   ► This is why, because we know what that looks like.

00:41:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is the next step, yeah.

00:41:14 ◼   ► - And the companies that are asking for this,

00:41:16 ◼   ► where does their money come from?

00:41:19 ◼   ► Venture capital.

00:41:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is all, this is all like, yeah,

00:41:23 ◼   ► find other ways to monetize everybody.

00:41:27 ◼   ► Monetize is a key word, I've never liked that word,

00:41:30 ◼   ► and since the very beginning, the way I describe it is,

00:41:32 ◼   ► The word monetize to me always invokes this image,

00:41:37 ◼   ► which is, it's almost like from a cartoon.

00:41:40 ◼   ► It's a human being standing somewhere looking around,

00:41:43 ◼   ► just a generic human being.

00:41:45 ◼   ► And like a wizard or something comes out with a magic wand

00:41:49 ◼   ► with, you know, like a little stick with a,

00:41:50 ◼   ► like a star on the end and goes bing,

00:41:54 ◼   ► and that person turns into a pile of money.

00:41:56 ◼   ► Bad for the person, great for the wizard

00:41:59 ◼   ► 'cause the wizard's got money now.

00:42:01 ◼   ► That's monetizing.

00:42:02 ◼   ► This week's episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at Mac Wilden. They

00:42:10 ◼   ► make the most comfortable underwear, socks, shirts, undershirts, hoodies and sweatpants

00:42:14 ◼   ► that you're ever going to wear. Mac Wilden is better than whatever you're wearing right

00:42:18 ◼   ► now and they're so confident of this fact that they have a no questions asked return

00:42:22 ◼   ► policy. If you buy something from Mac Wilden and for some reason you don't like your

00:42:27 ◼   ► first pair, you keep them, they'll refund you, no questions asked. That's how comfortable

00:42:31 ◼   ► they are in knowing that you're going to be comfortable in their clothes.

00:42:35 ◼   ► By pairing premium fabrics with meticulous attention to detail and coupling of a simple

00:42:40 ◼   ► shopping experience, Macworlden delivers a new level of daily comfort straight to your

00:42:44 ◼   ► door. They make undershirts stay tucked, socks stay up and waistbands that don't roll down.

00:42:51 ◼   ► Everything they make is made with premium cotton blended with natural fibres.

00:42:56 ◼   ► So Jason, I got off a long haul flight today. What do you think I was wearing?

00:43:01 ◼   ► You were wearing the sweatpants.

00:43:03 ◼   ► I was wearing my sweatpants. I was showing them off.

00:43:05 ◼   ► Which one do you have? Do you have the ace pants or the sundae pants?

00:43:09 ◼   ► I have the ace pants.

00:43:11 ◼   ► Alright.

00:43:12 ◼   ► And I honestly, like, I talk about them all the time. I know I talk about them all the

00:43:18 ◼   ► time. But I just, I have to underscore just how comfortable they are. And they really

00:43:24 ◼   ► are and they look good and I love these things. I love them, they make me so comfortable.

00:43:29 ◼   ► I sleep in them on the planes right? Like I'm, they're coupling of just like my general

00:43:35 ◼   ► stuff and they're nice. They keep me warm when it's cold and they keep me cool when

00:43:39 ◼   ► it's warm. I really, really love these sweatpants and they make me feel good when I'm travelling.

00:43:46 ◼   ► Not only do Mac World's underwear, socks and shirts look good, they perform well. And they

00:43:51 ◼   ► They also have their line of silver underwear and shirts as well that's naturally antimicrobial

00:43:55 ◼   ► as well.

00:43:56 ◼   ► This is some cool science stuff kids.

00:43:58 ◼   ► Listeners of this show can get 20% off at mackworldon.com with the code UPGRADE.

00:44:03 ◼   ► That's m-a-c-k-w-e-l-d-o-n dot com.

00:44:06 ◼   ► 20% off when you use the code UPGRADE at checkout.

00:44:09 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Mack Worldon for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:44:15 ◼   ► Linking

00:44:22 ◼   ► you can do this anyone can do this you can do this if you are just tweeting

00:44:27 ◼   ► about link

00:44:28 ◼   ► tweeting about applications you can add a field link to them or if you write about them like

00:44:32 ◼   ► JSON or if you have show notes like we do you can add a tag

00:44:35 ◼   ► to a link that you put in about an iOS app or an app

00:44:38 ◼   ► that's on any of Apple's app stores or basically any of their products on any

00:44:42 ◼   ► of their stores including the iTunes store

00:44:44 ◼   ► and what happens if somebody follows that link and they buy the product

00:44:48 ◼   ► you get a cut of the purchase price

00:44:51 ◼   ► from Apple's end. So they give you part of their cut. It used to be 7% of the purchase

00:44:57 ◼   ► price, right? So they give you 7% back. So that's great.

00:45:01 ◼   ► Apple announced a couple of days ago that on May 1st, which is basically a week away,

00:45:07 ◼   ► they're going to be changing the affiliate program and they're going to be cutting the

00:45:10 ◼   ► percentage that an affiliate linker gets from the purchase price from 7% to 2.5%. This is

00:45:19 ◼   ► pretty big news for people, especially in the world of writing about apps on the web.

00:45:26 ◼   ► Yeah, it's writing about apps and I would say also people who built services and I'm

00:45:37 ◼   ► thinking of like Arnold Kim who built App Shopper and Touch Arcade building sites that

00:45:43 ◼   ► include like databases and things and their business model, they have ads, I think, but

00:45:49 ◼   ► their business model is fed in large part by affiliate revenue. You buy an app based

00:45:55 ◼   ► on a link that they included, they get a cut that comes out of Apple's percentage. And

00:46:01 ◼   ► likewise with, I mean, this is kind of like Wirecutter does this with Amazon primarily,

00:46:06 ◼   ► where they get a percentage of Amazon's sales for all the referral traffic. And the deal

00:46:12 ◼   ► there is basically like we are driving sales to your site and you give us a kickback. But

00:46:18 ◼   ► in this case it's a blanket deal and they've changed the terms with very little warning.

00:46:25 ◼   ► So I understand why Apple might do it in the sense that it's money that they put back in

00:46:30 ◼   ► their pocket and they must figure that the people who are sending them traffic probably

00:46:37 ◼   ► don't deserve that much money. They don't need it. If the traffic drops off a little

00:46:42 ◼   ► bit, it will still be worth it for them to reclaim that money. And possibly that they'll

00:46:48 ◼   ► still keep doing it even at the lower percentage, so why not lower it? But it's really tough

00:46:54 ◼   ► for everybody else, right? Like app developers may suffer because their apps may not necessarily

00:46:59 ◼   ► be as visible in all of these places outside of the app store that currently highlight

00:47:03 ◼   ► Like, if you imagine if Federico at MacStory says,

00:47:07 ◼   ► he's not gonna do this 'cause this is like his favorite thing,

00:47:10 ◼   ► but say we're gonna cut back on our app coverage

00:47:12 ◼   ► because we can't make money at it anymore.

00:47:14 ◼   ► We have to shift to cover more hardware products

00:47:16 ◼   ► because the Amazon deal is better.

00:47:18 ◼   ► Then those app developers who would have gotten featured on MacStories just won't.

00:47:22 ◼   ► And of course for people like Federico or Arnold Kim

00:47:25 ◼   ► or John Voorhees who builds an app that builds affiliate links, right?

00:47:30 ◼   ► It's gonna hurt them.

00:47:32 ◼   ► I feel like the only company that doesn't get hurt here is Apple, because Apple's just

00:47:36 ◼   ► walking away with more cash.

00:47:40 ◼   ► I don't understand why, really, they've done it.

00:47:44 ◼   ► You mentioned some of the people there.

00:47:45 ◼   ► I pulled in some interesting quotes that I saw.

00:47:48 ◼   ► I saw René at iMore saying that it's more than a 50% cut in revenue for sites or developers

00:47:54 ◼   ► that have successful affiliate initiatives.

00:47:58 ◼   ► mentioned especially those trying to reduce ads on their site and something I

00:48:03 ◼   ► saw from Federico you know I mentioned at the start that the cut was on Apple's

00:48:07 ◼   ► part you know the developers don't make any more money by this change that Apple

00:48:12 ◼   ► is just reducing their car and it does feel like there are gonna be a bunch of

00:48:16 ◼   ► people that are gonna feel an effect from this and it didn't make me think as

00:48:21 ◼   ► well you know things like seems like the business of writing about these types of

00:48:27 ◼   ► things online is getting harder and harder. Like the deck shut down recently

00:48:30 ◼   ► and this is another thing. Like if you were thinking like okay maybe advertising

00:48:35 ◼   ► isn't doing that well anymore but at least people are buying the apps from my

00:48:39 ◼   ► codes and that makes me a few hundred dollars a month, a few thousand dollars a

00:48:42 ◼   ► month or whatever it might be depending on the size of your publication. I mean

00:48:47 ◼   ► this is just making it harder and harder. Like it's a huge amount of money to

00:48:52 ◼   ► change in an incredibly short timescale.

00:48:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, again, I'm gonna come back to it again.

00:48:59 ◼   ► I'm not saying that I'm advocating this,

00:49:02 ◼   ► but I'm trying to understand what Apple is doing here.

00:49:05 ◼   ► I feel like somebody at Apple looked at this and said,

00:49:07 ◼   ► why are we giving them this big percentage?

00:49:10 ◼   ► One, they're probably gonna do it anyway.

00:49:11 ◼   ► And even if they don't,

00:49:12 ◼   ► do we really think that this drives enough traffic?

00:49:15 ◼   ► And they've got the stats, like, what does this drive?

00:49:18 ◼   ► Is it really worth giving people this money?

00:49:21 ◼   ► are they going to stop? What if they do? Do we care? And basically walk away and my guess

00:49:26 ◼   ► is say, they're not going to stop and we get the money back. So let's do it. But it comes

00:49:31 ◼   ► from a position of confidence. Like we don't need them. We don't need to give them this

00:49:36 ◼   ► amount of money. And this is a trend, right? Like Amazon hasn't cut their fees at the base

00:49:41 ◼   ► rate but Amazon recently cut their fees at the higher volumes. It used to be that higher

00:49:46 ◼   ► volumes would get higher percentages and I believe that they've knocked that out, which

00:49:50 ◼   ► has hurt people who rely on Amazon fees too, is my understanding. It's tough because the

00:49:54 ◼   ► idea here is there's a symbiotic relationship that Amazon or Apple is getting their stuff

00:50:00 ◼   ► out of their own, you know, silo and into the wider internet, which is good to get those

00:50:06 ◼   ► products in front of people who might not come into their little silos. And in exchange

00:50:11 ◼   ► for motivating people to make that effort, people get a kickback if there are sales and

00:50:17 ◼   ► people make a living doing that. I mean, I have both affiliate things for six colors.

00:50:23 ◼   ► I wouldn't say I make a living at it. I get some nice, I wouldn't even say nice, I get

00:50:28 ◼   ► some money from it. It's nothing huge. It will not make or break me for it to disappear.

00:50:32 ◼   ► I'm fortunate in that way. So I kind of look at this more as an observer. I kind of don't

00:50:37 ◼   ► care what happens if my affiliate revenue just vanished tomorrow.

00:50:40 ◼   ► It's a minor frustration for you, right?

00:50:42 ◼   ► I wouldn't even say I'm frustrated. I put the stuff there because it seems like a good

00:50:46 ◼   ► practice to do that. Like if somebody's going to buy a USB podcasting microphone from my

00:50:52 ◼   ► article, then, and I can get money back for that and it's a product that I recommend,

00:50:59 ◼   ► why not? But it's not my business model. If I was doing, but for some sites it is, like

00:51:04 ◼   ► for some sites writing about one reason why you write about apps is for the affiliate

00:51:09 ◼   ► kickback. Why you write about hardware stuff is for the affiliate kickback. And that like

00:51:16 ◼   ► helps you do your job and it's not, I don't think it's sleazy if you're writing about

00:51:20 ◼   ► products intentionally with good content and the links that you would put in there anyway

00:51:24 ◼   ► have affiliate links. There are also sites that have built up, you know, whole databases

00:51:29 ◼   ► like Touch Arcade and App Shopper and the whole point there is we built a database,

00:51:35 ◼   ► it's all affiliated, we added on top of it, but this is how we survive. I don't know,

00:51:42 ◼   ► an interesting calculation that Apple made and it has fallout for everybody except probably

00:51:48 ◼   ► Apple.

00:51:49 ◼   ► There's always a why. There has to be a why. And one why that I've heard people considering

00:51:57 ◼   ► is that could this be Apple starting to put the wheels in motion for a potential reduction

00:52:03 ◼   ► to their developer cut overall? Maybe taking the 30% cut down to 20% or 15% or something

00:52:10 ◼   ► Now what do you think about that potential option here or potential reason for why this

00:52:14 ◼   ► might be occurring?

00:52:15 ◼   ► It's possible.

00:52:16 ◼   ► I mean, it's also possible that this is a counterbalancing of their cut on the subscription

00:52:21 ◼   ► revenue that they've already done.

00:52:23 ◼   ► The question would be why would Apple do the reduction in their App Store cut?

00:52:28 ◼   ► What would be the motivation there?

00:52:30 ◼   ► Are they concerned about App Store economics and that think that taking 20% instead of

00:52:35 ◼   ► 30% might bolster app development?

00:52:38 ◼   ► I'm skeptical that they would think that.

00:52:41 ◼   ► - Why?

00:52:41 ◼   ► - Well, I mean if you're--

00:52:42 ◼   ► - I mean it would, right?

00:52:43 ◼   ► Like it would be a good sign.

00:52:45 ◼   ► - First off, if you're Apple, you're riding high,

00:52:48 ◼   ► do you really think, I mean, maybe you could argue

00:52:50 ◼   ► that you don't need to take that money from the developers.

00:52:54 ◼   ► It's gone so well that you don't need to give it back

00:52:56 ◼   ► to them, do you really think though that the App Store,

00:52:59 ◼   ► any economic problems people have developing apps

00:53:01 ◼   ► in the App Store will be cured

00:53:02 ◼   ► by taking a little bit less of a cut?

00:53:04 ◼   ► Is that really the problem with the App Store?

00:53:07 ◼   ► I don't think it is.

00:53:09 ◼   ► So you throw a little money back in the pool.

00:53:11 ◼   ► I think that would be very generous if Apple did that.

00:53:13 ◼   ► Apple doesn't need that money.

00:53:15 ◼   ► At the same time, that's services revenue.

00:53:17 ◼   ► Apple really wants to say, look at our services revenue.

00:53:21 ◼   ► So to cut that number, you're throwing that portion.

00:53:24 ◼   ► It's not true for,

00:53:26 ◼   ► none of this is actually true for the other parts

00:53:28 ◼   ► of the iTunes store businesses,

00:53:30 ◼   ► but it's just for app referrals.

00:53:33 ◼   ► So, you know, I don't know.

00:53:35 ◼   ► I think they're motivated to keep it.

00:53:38 ◼   ► And in fact, you could argue that this is all just

00:53:40 ◼   ► to bolster services revenue by cutting those kickbacks.

00:53:44 ◼   ► - I don't like it

00:53:45 ◼   ► because I can see people being affected by it, right?

00:53:48 ◼   ► - That's the truth of it, right?

00:53:49 ◼   ► Is that this may be something that makes sense

00:53:51 ◼   ► from an Apple perspective,

00:53:52 ◼   ► but like any business decision like this, who gets hurt?

00:53:56 ◼   ► Like the decider is probably not the one

00:53:59 ◼   ► that's gonna get hurt.

00:54:00 ◼   ► But everybody else who's come to rely on it,

00:54:03 ◼   ► they're gonna get hurt.

00:54:04 ◼   ► So we may understand reasons or can guess some reasons,

00:54:07 ◼   ► but we know the people who will be impacted.

00:54:10 ◼   ► And in the long run, you could really argue

00:54:12 ◼   ► like Apple is making a calculation.

00:54:16 ◼   ► They could be wrong, right?

00:54:18 ◼   ► They could be calculating that it doesn't matter.

00:54:23 ◼   ► But if you demotivate people to link to the app store,

00:54:26 ◼   ► then maybe that does have a long-term effect.

00:54:30 ◼   ► Maybe that does hurt.

00:54:31 ◼   ► And this is my feeling.

00:54:31 ◼   ► maybe that hurts third-party developers. Not Apple per se, but it hurts third-party developers to not

00:54:38 ◼   ► have as much of a presence on the wider internet. Or maybe not. The fact that the affiliate program

00:54:45 ◼   ► exists is a thing that shows that it works. This program exists because this is a thing that you do,

00:54:53 ◼   ► right? This program exists because the fact that this program exists increases the amount of people

00:55:00 ◼   ► that will link to the App Store. Not having those or having people go away, that's not a good thing

00:55:09 ◼   ► for the developer at the other end. Like, this is a funnel.

00:55:13 ◼   ► - Demotivates people to write about the App Store, demotivates people to build sites

00:55:17 ◼   ► whose purpose is to drive people to the App Store. And Apple has obviously decided that it's not as

00:55:23 ◼   ► important as it was to do those things. - This is one of those things, one of the

00:55:29 ◼   ► them many many many times where Apple's desire for secrecy is frustrating when

00:55:39 ◼   ► really I don't know if they need to be. Just tell us why you're doing it.

00:55:42 ◼   ► Like this isn't because of the new iPhone right? Like it's nothing to do

00:55:48 ◼   ► with that right? And it would be just it would be interesting to see why

00:55:53 ◼   ► they're doing it. If it plays into something else I wish they would do them

00:55:56 ◼   ► more at the same time, right? Like if this is because of the a potential that

00:56:02 ◼   ► they're gonna cut, let's just imagine that they're gonna cut this down, right?

00:56:05 ◼   ► They're gonna cut this, sorry, the developer cut down, then it'd be great to say

00:56:09 ◼   ► look we're doing this and we're also doing this at the same time. Because

00:56:12 ◼   ► otherwise all it is is it does that thing that we hate to think about where

00:56:15 ◼   ► Apple's this big company that likes to make a lot of money, where it could just

00:56:19 ◼   ► be that they want to increase the services revenue by half a percent and

00:56:22 ◼   ► and this is a way to do that. Yep. Self-driving cars is another thing. So

00:56:30 ◼   ► there's been a couple of stories in the past week which categorically say that

00:56:37 ◼   ► Apple is still working on a car project like there's no way to avoid it anymore

00:56:41 ◼   ► because of some of the things that you have to do. So the California DMV, the

00:56:46 ◼   ► Department of Motor Vehicles, has granted Apple clearance for trials of autonomous

00:56:50 ◼   ► driving technology and public roads. These tests will begin with new software being used

00:56:55 ◼   ► inside of existing vehicles. Apple's test cars will have a person behind the wheel to

00:56:59 ◼   ► monitor the testing at all times. The California permit covers three 2015 Lexus RX450H SUVs

00:57:08 ◼   ► and six particular drivers, the DMV said. This is one of those things where this isn't

00:57:14 ◼   ► a rumor, this isn't a leak. This is like in black and white on the Department of Motor

00:57:19 ◼   ► vehicle's website, it is like a permit. This is very reminiscent of me to FCC stuff, right?

00:57:25 ◼   ► Things that leaked or used to get leaked from the FCC because there's just legal things

00:57:31 ◼   ► you have to go through.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Well, they're not even leaked. They're like public things you need to file. And so Apple,

00:57:38 ◼   ► you know, Apple at a certain point can't be coy, really. Can't Stonewall and deny everything.

00:57:46 ◼   ► They can not talk about it, sure, but like this is not a...

00:57:53 ◼   ► Maybe this doesn't matter, but for those who would say, "Well, it's just a rumor.

00:57:56 ◼   ► The rumor, the so-called Project Titan, the rumor of the Apple car," all of those things,

00:58:00 ◼   ► right?

00:58:01 ◼   ► Well, we can say for sure Apple is testing autonomous vehicle technology in California

00:58:06 ◼   ► or has the intention of testing autonomous vehicle technology, period, because they filed

00:58:11 ◼   ► the paperwork.

00:58:12 ◼   ► It's done.

00:58:13 ◼   ► That's a fact.

00:58:15 ◼   ► those who didn't necessarily believe what they were reading, those stories were accurate

00:58:20 ◼   ► at least to a certain degree because this is real. And we don't know anything about

00:58:27 ◼   ► the details in terms of what they're doing, what their strategy is, what the technology

00:58:36 ◼   ► is that they're testing. We don't know any of that, but we do know that it's really going

00:58:41 ◼   ► to happen or at least Apple plans on it happening enough to have applied.

00:58:47 ◼   ► So Business Insider then obtained some of Apple's documentation for this via a public

00:58:52 ◼   ► records request. It's hilarious to me that this information is getting out. So they got

00:58:59 ◼   ► some documentation that Apple I think had given to the DMV to detail what they were

00:59:03 ◼   ► going to be doing and how they were going to be training people. So these documents

00:59:06 ◼   ► show off internal testing and training documentation guides that Apple put together for their people

00:59:14 ◼   ► that are going to be working on this project. The system itself is currently called the

00:59:18 ◼   ► Apple Automation System. Weirdly, they detail that the cars that will be used for this feature

00:59:26 ◼   ► are going to be having Logitech gaming steering wheels and pedals put inside them to simulate

00:59:35 ◼   ► the feeling of driving when the person has to take control. So these cars are pretty

00:59:40 ◼   ► heavily modified to the point where they're putting gaming hardware inside of them. So

00:59:46 ◼   ► this isn't a rumour anymore. Apple is working on a self driving car project. This isn't

00:59:54 ◼   ► a leak from Mark Gurman anymore, like this is categorical. Whether this is ever something

01:00:00 ◼   ► that meets the market, we're not sure, we're not going to know that until either it does

01:00:05 ◼   ► or we never hear about it again, but this is a clear sign that Apple is doing something

01:00:11 ◼   ► in this space. So let's assume that they're not building a car, right, which is what we've

01:00:16 ◼   ► heard, that they were building a car but now they're not building a car. Why would Apple

01:00:22 ◼   ► be building self-driving car technology? What is the point of this? Why would a car company

01:00:29 ◼   ► want Apple's technology? Why do Apple feel the desire to create this technology? And

01:00:36 ◼   ► why would a consumer choose a car that has Apple's self-driving car technology over Volvos?

01:00:41 ◼   ► Good questions, Myke. And this is all I have, right? I don't think

01:00:47 ◼   ► there are any answers. Yeah, I don't have any answers. I was thinking

01:00:50 ◼   ► like, "Well, how do I answer this?" And the answer is, "I don't have the answers."

01:00:53 ◼   ► These are all things we've talked about before, like you said, that are out there, which is,

01:00:58 ◼   ► is Apple doing here? And I keep coming back, my touchstone in all of this is, you're Apple,

01:01:06 ◼   ► you've got lots and lots of money, you know you're great at some things in technology,

01:01:12 ◼   ► you are making bets for the future, just like Google is, just like everybody should be who's

01:01:16 ◼   ► got lots and lots of cash and is a tech company because you know otherwise if you stay still

01:01:20 ◼   ► you will be replaced. And you make some bets. And you look at the car industry and you say

01:01:24 ◼   ► this is ripe for change on so many different levels. The electrification of the fleet is

01:01:31 ◼   ► going to happen. The introduction of self-driving technology, or at least intelligent assist

01:01:37 ◼   ► technology, is going to happen to what degree is debatable. So why not place a bet there?

01:01:43 ◼   ► That's stuff we know. So that's great. I understand why they're exploring this. The next step

01:01:52 ◼   ► is the hardest one for both of us to conceive of,

01:01:54 ◼   ► and for a lot of people to conceive of,

01:01:55 ◼   ► which is one, is Apple gonna make their own car?

01:01:59 ◼   ► Which it seems like they were investigating

01:02:00 ◼   ► and then they backed off of,

01:02:01 ◼   ► although it's unclear whether they backed off on it

01:02:03 ◼   ► because they're not,

01:02:05 ◼   ► or because they wouldn't need to worry about it for so long

01:02:08 ◼   ► that there was no point in working on it in the meantime,

01:02:11 ◼   ► when they weren't sure if they were gonna go that way.

01:02:14 ◼   ► But step two is the really weird one, right?

01:02:16 ◼   ► Which is, is Apple going to build car tech

01:02:21 ◼   ► that is then what licensed by car makers to use as their onboard systems are they

01:02:28 ◼   ► going to be like the android of cars because that's not very apple to be like

01:02:34 ◼   ► lots of car makers have the apple car in it that's not very apple that's not

01:02:38 ◼   ► like their business model it's not something they've ever done i mean that

01:02:43 ◼   ► is what carplay is but carplay is an apple carplay is an apple product that

01:02:48 ◼   ► that you plug into your car, but this is like gonna have to be a whole built into every

01:02:52 ◼   ► car thing, which is different. I mean, like, it's more like Apple TV exists, but there

01:02:58 ◼   ► don't exist TVs with Apple TV built inside of it, right?

01:03:03 ◼   ► TV is a great point here, right? Apple can't get TV companies, cable companies, to put

01:03:10 ◼   ► their content on Apple's box. How are they going to get car companies to accept their

01:03:15 ◼   ► operating system. The difference is, in this case, Apple is the content provider. In this

01:03:21 ◼   ► case, Apple is the one that says, "We've got the tech. We're great. You, car company, you

01:03:29 ◼   ► stink. You're bad at this. We've used your cars. They're awful. We've got this super

01:03:34 ◼   ► sweet thing. Let's make a deal." That's what they can say. And I think that people would

01:03:38 ◼   ► be maybe motivated to do that, although there is going to be a whole not-inventored-here

01:03:42 ◼   ► thing where it's like, "But we've got a whole team that's been working on self-driving tech

01:03:45 ◼   ► for the last 10 years, we're just going to use that. And Apple's going to say, "It's

01:03:50 ◼   ► worse than ours. Just fire those people and buy our system." That's what they're going

01:03:54 ◼   ► to say. Again, I have a hard time picturing that. I have a hard time picturing Apple making

01:04:00 ◼   ► their own cars. I floated a while ago the scenario that maybe this is something where

01:04:04 ◼   ► Apple eventually makes a strategic investment in a car company, and they work jointly on

01:04:12 ◼   ► a new line of cars that has Apple tech in it, but it's like a joint venture of, you

01:04:20 ◼   ► know, of Apple and GM or Apple and Volkswagen or whoever it is, Apple and Nissan make some

01:04:28 ◼   ► company they make a deal, there's a strategic investment, Apple doesn't necessarily buy

01:04:32 ◼   ► them out, but they buy a big percentage that like we're committed to this, we're going

01:04:36 ◼   ► to create a line. That's the best I've come up with yet, and I'm not an expert on car

01:04:40 ◼   ► So I don't know if that's plausible or not, but like that idea of what if we didn't buy a car company,

01:04:47 ◼   ► but we weren't all also like licensing it out to everybody.

01:04:50 ◼   ► And then Apple would get a say in what the cars were and they would be viewed as special, at least at the start.

01:04:56 ◼   ► And then maybe it expands from there. That's the best guess I have.

01:04:59 ◼   ► But I mean, I don't know. It's weird, but I understand their impulse to do it and I'm intrigued by it.

01:05:06 ◼   ► I just am still having a hard time seeing exactly what the endgame is, and maybe Apple is too.

01:05:11 ◼   ► I mean, maybe that was the whole thing that happened when they scaled back Project Titan,

01:05:15 ◼   ► was Apple just saying, "It's too soon. Let's slow this down. We need to get our tech right.

01:05:22 ◼   ► The other stuff can wait, and we'll either do it later or we'll find somebody to do it for us,

01:05:27 ◼   ► but that's not our area of expertise, so we're going to leave it for now and figure it out later,

01:05:32 ◼   ► after we know whether this is a thing or not." And that's, you know, why they're out there with

01:05:36 ◼   ► with their Lexus SUVs.

01:05:39 ◼   ► - We have the same questions.

01:05:41 ◼   ► We don't have any new answers.

01:05:42 ◼   ► - No.

01:05:43 ◼   ► - We have the same predictions,

01:05:46 ◼   ► but what we do have now is more fact.

01:05:48 ◼   ► - And you know what this is also gonna do?

01:05:50 ◼   ► This is gonna create a whole new level of stories

01:05:54 ◼   ► on the internet where people take pictures of Apple Maps,

01:05:57 ◼   ► mapping vehicles in California and say,

01:05:59 ◼   ► "Is this the self-driving car?"

01:06:01 ◼   ► Because now we know that they're gonna be able

01:06:03 ◼   ► to be on public roads,

01:06:04 ◼   ► which means that everybody's gonna freak out

01:06:05 ◼   ► be like, "Oh, they're on public roads!" And we know what the cars are. And we do know,

01:06:10 ◼   ► yeah, only if you see a 2015 Lexus RX 450 H SUV. You've got to look at it. Logitech

01:06:17 ◼   ► steering wheel. It'll probably have a huge Apple logo on the side, right? Like, Apple

01:06:22 ◼   ► on one side and on the other side it'll say, "Warning, Apple self-driving car." Right?

01:06:26 ◼   ► Totally. It probably will, you know, at least have something, right? I can't imagine, I

01:06:33 ◼   ► haven't looked into it but I can't imagine these cars just drive around unmarked.

01:06:37 ◼   ► No I think they do. Oh really?

01:06:39 ◼   ► I think they do. I guess that's probably for the best actually,

01:06:42 ◼   ► right, so people don't freak out around them when maybe they shouldn't have to.

01:06:46 ◼   ► Nothing makes me more nervous than when I'm behind a car on the freeway that has a student

01:06:50 ◼   ► driver sign in it. Mmm.

01:06:52 ◼   ► That scares me. So maybe you don't want robot student.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Maybe not. Today's show is brought to you by Encapsula,

01:07:02 ◼   ► multifunction content delivery network that boosts the performance of your website, protects

01:07:06 ◼   ► it from denial of service attacks and secures it from bad guys whilst ensuring high availability.

01:07:11 ◼   ► Over 100,000 organisations trust Encapsular every single day, from huge Fortune 500 companies

01:07:18 ◼   ► to one person's websites. It doesn't matter who you are, they can help protect you. They

01:07:22 ◼   ► have all the resources you're ever going to need to help your website load quickly, even

01:07:26 ◼   ► if something bad is going on behind the scenes. And with their 24/7 operations team, you have

01:07:31 ◼   ► that additional help there if you ever need it. You get personal account management and

01:07:36 ◼   ► the best service level agreement in the business. Look, you don't have to worry, Encapsular

01:07:42 ◼   ► have got this. Put simply, you're going to be world protected and your site will be lightning

01:07:47 ◼   ► fast. As a listener of this show, you can get one whole month of service for free. Just

01:07:52 ◼   ► go to Encapsular.com/upgrade. That's I-N-C-A-P-S-U-L-A.com/upgrade. This is where you can find out more about Encapsular's

01:07:59 ◼   ► service and claim your free month. Thank you so much to Encapsula for their support of

01:08:04 ◼   ► this show and Relay FM.

01:08:07 ◼   ► Time for some Ask Upgrade.

01:08:12 ◼   ► Nate asked, do you think

01:08:20 ◼   ► the iOS 11 will introduce the option to make App Store and iTunes purchases via Apple Pay?

01:08:28 ◼   ► I don't know what made me think of this recently.

01:08:30 ◼   ► I think, you know what it was?

01:08:31 ◼   ► I lost my cards.

01:08:32 ◼   ► I lost all my cards.

01:08:33 ◼   ► And I had to go, I got that annoying prompt in iTunes

01:08:37 ◼   ► where it was saying to me,

01:08:38 ◼   ► hey, you need to update your purchasing information.

01:08:42 ◼   ► And I went there and I was surprised by the fact

01:08:44 ◼   ► that I couldn't just choose Apple Pay.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Like I had to enter in my card information again.

01:08:49 ◼   ► Why can't it just use Apple Pay?

01:08:50 ◼   ► - I have a theory, which is that if Apple

01:08:55 ◼   ► has your credit card information direct

01:08:57 ◼   ► and charges you direct that it's better,

01:09:02 ◼   ► like a better price for them.

01:09:04 ◼   ► Like maybe the transaction fee is lower.

01:09:07 ◼   ► I'm not sure that's actually true.

01:09:09 ◼   ► It's also possible that it's just a complicated bit

01:09:11 ◼   ► of infrastructure and they don't wanna deal with it,

01:09:15 ◼   ► with changing it.

01:09:17 ◼   ► Like it's all working okay

01:09:18 ◼   ► and it's gonna be a lot of work to do it

01:09:20 ◼   ► or they're working on it and it's taking time.

01:09:23 ◼   ► I agree with you.

01:09:24 ◼   ► It would be way more convenient to have all of Apple stuff

01:09:26 ◼   ► be an Apple Pay, but that does not seem to have happened.

01:09:31 ◼   ► Also, can you do Apple Pay with subscriptions?

01:09:36 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:09:37 ◼   ► - I have no idea.

01:09:38 ◼   ► - Because basically the way it works now is,

01:09:41 ◼   ► is you put it the card on file and then when you buy

01:09:44 ◼   ► something, it's just like, yes, yes, buy it in Apple's UI,

01:09:48 ◼   ► instead of bringing up an Apple Pay sheet where you have to

01:09:50 ◼   ► pick a credit card and buy it.

01:09:51 ◼   ► So I think there's some simplicity to the idea of keeping

01:09:54 ◼   ► it on file at Apple.

01:09:56 ◼   ► So I'm sure they've got a reason.

01:09:58 ◼   ► As a user, it is annoying, right?

01:10:02 ◼   ► I just had that.

01:10:03 ◼   ► I had to change my credit card on an Apple site.

01:10:04 ◼   ► - Oh, I think you can,

01:10:05 ◼   ► because Memberful has Apple Pay, doesn't it?

01:10:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh, you're right.

01:10:09 ◼   ► - So you can do subscriptions via Apple Pay.

01:10:11 ◼   ► - You can.

01:10:12 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:10:13 ◼   ► My guess is that it's either a technical issue

01:10:15 ◼   ► or it's a money issue that like, so, right?

01:10:18 ◼   ► So either it's hard to do and they may not have prioritized

01:10:21 ◼   ► it or they're working on it.

01:10:23 ◼   ► Or they ran the numbers and said,

01:10:25 ◼   ► "Oh, if we do Apple Pay for our own stuff, we'll lose millions of dollars." And they're

01:10:28 ◼   ► like, "Then let's not do that."

01:10:30 ◼   ► Brent asked, "How does Jason decide what articles to write for Six Colors versus MacWorld or

01:10:35 ◼   ► other places? Because you write all over the web, don't you?"

01:10:38 ◼   ► Yeah, well, not all over. I write weekly at MacWorld and sort of monthly at iMore.

01:10:43 ◼   ► Where were you writing before? PC's WinSuperSite?

01:10:45 ◼   ► Oh, WinSuperSite, yeah. That's right. They wanted somebody to explain Apple to PC guys.

01:10:50 ◼   ► What were the comments like on those articles, Jason?

01:10:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

01:10:56 ◼   ► It was nice of them to have me and they paid me

01:10:58 ◼   ► and that was great.

01:11:00 ◼   ► And I waited for them to not pay me anymore.

01:11:03 ◼   ► Because as a freelancer,

01:11:06 ◼   ► hey, it's great when they pay you for articles.

01:11:09 ◼   ► For Macworld, I have something in mind

01:11:12 ◼   ► for the kind of thing I write for Macworld.

01:11:15 ◼   ► And I don't know how to define it.

01:11:18 ◼   ► There's a certain kind of article.

01:11:20 ◼   ► Some of it is length.

01:11:21 ◼   ► Some of it is like, ideally it's 800 to 1000 words

01:11:24 ◼   ► kind of article, 'cause that feels like

01:11:26 ◼   ► that's the column length for Macworld.

01:11:27 ◼   ► That was always my column length at Macworld

01:11:29 ◼   ► back in the day when I was writing a monthly column.

01:11:32 ◼   ► And so I think about that length

01:11:34 ◼   ► and I think about like story topic.

01:11:35 ◼   ► Like there's certain stories that I'd be like,

01:11:37 ◼   ► I'm not gonna write that for Macworld, that's silly.

01:11:40 ◼   ► I want the Macworld piece to be like a certain kind of piece

01:11:44 ◼   ► and of a certain length.

01:11:45 ◼   ► And so I collect story ideas

01:11:47 ◼   ► in my little reminders list of story ideas.

01:11:49 ◼   ► and I don't--sometimes I'll put like Macworld question mark, like maybe this sounds like a Macworld piece.

01:11:55 ◼   ► And other times I'll sit down on like Tuesday afternoon and I'll look at it and I'll be like,

01:11:59 ◼   ► "Any of these ideas Macworld, you know, Macworld ideas? Could I do this as the Macworld column?"

01:12:04 ◼   ► And sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes the answer is no,

01:12:06 ◼   ► and I sit there and rack my brain to come up with what my story idea is.

01:12:09 ◼   ► So there is a length and a sort of topic that I do.

01:12:12 ◼   ► There are some pieces I write for six colors that could be Macworld pieces,

01:12:15 ◼   ► and I just decide, "Nah, I'm gonna write that for six colors instead," because, you know,

01:12:20 ◼   ► I also need to write things for six colors. For Imore, generally it's a little different in that

01:12:25 ◼   ► I talk to Serenity and I say, "Do you have any ideas, any prompts you want to give me?"

01:12:30 ◼   ► And she will usually come back with something, and that's fun because that is--and then I will

01:12:37 ◼   ► try to figure out what spin I could put on that to get something out of it. So it's a little,

01:12:42 ◼   ► yeah, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

01:12:46 ◼   ► I feel like the Macworld pieces have a different tone of voice. Like, they still feel different

01:12:52 ◼   ► to the Six Colors stuff.

01:12:53 ◼   ► They are almost always written specifically with Macworld in mind. Not always, but almost

01:13:00 ◼   ► always. Every now and then, I will write something intending it to be for Six Colors, and I will

01:13:05 ◼   ► get to the end and think, "Oh, this has turned into a Macworld piece. I'm just going to send

01:13:10 ◼   ► to Suzy at Macworld. But that only happens like a couple of times a year. Most of the times I am

01:13:15 ◼   ► writing it for Macworld, you know, and thinking of that audience and thinking of the context of the,

01:13:23 ◼   ► you know, of a Jason Snell once a week column and, you know, it's so slightly different.

01:13:28 ◼   ► Steve asked, "If we ever get a new 4K Apple TV, do you think that Apple will give a multiple

01:13:36 ◼   ► Bluetooth headphone connection option. So I don't know if I see this feature specifically happening

01:13:43 ◼   ► or that Apple would even really promote it if they did because it seems like a super niche thing,

01:13:48 ◼   ► right? Multiple people can connect Bluetooth headphones to the Apple TV and listen together.

01:13:53 ◼   ► I can understand many situations in which this would be useful for people. I think of young

01:13:57 ◼   ► parents, right? Like the baby's sleeping, let's use headphones. Well, I can see these, makes sense,

01:14:04 ◼   ► But I just don't know if I see this feature. However, what I will say is I am very impressed

01:14:09 ◼   ► to learn about the ability to Bluetooth 5.0. Have you seen anything about Bluetooth 5.0

01:14:14 ◼   ► at all, Jason? I haven't.

01:14:16 ◼   ► So MKBHD put together a video about this because the Galaxy S8, which we were talking about

01:14:21 ◼   ► earlier, has Bluetooth 5.0 built into it. And one of the things, as well as like, better

01:14:27 ◼   ► data transfer, faster speeds, much improved range. It really is vastly better. One of

01:14:34 ◼   ► the things you can do with Bluetooth 5 is connect two audio devices at the same time

01:14:42 ◼   ► from one phone. MKBHD shows this, he connects two Bluetooth speakers to the S8 and they're

01:14:50 ◼   ► both playing the same thing at once. It's kind of cool.

01:14:55 ◼   ► So like you're saying that who needs Sonos, right?

01:14:58 ◼   ► You can have multiple speakers in your home playing the same audio source.

01:15:02 ◼   ► Well, yeah.

01:15:03 ◼   ► I mean, it simplifies it, right?

01:15:05 ◼   ► I am going to express skepticism that you could keep those things in sync over the long

01:15:10 ◼   ► run.

01:15:11 ◼   ► It's better for headphones, right?

01:15:12 ◼   ► Because they don't need to be exactly in sync, but your brain, beyond a certain bit of out

01:15:16 ◼   ► of sync, everything sounds weird.

01:15:17 ◼   ► Your brain tries to push them together and then at some point it gives up and says, "Nope,

01:15:21 ◼   ► I can't do it anymore."

01:15:22 ◼   ► So I'm skeptical of that.

01:15:24 ◼   ► is a slight difference between them at times and he says there are things you can do to

01:15:30 ◼   ► make it better but it is cool to see this technology starting right of course this is

01:15:35 ◼   ► the first time that this has been available.

01:15:38 ◼   ► And you know Apple did the engineering for the AirPods that even though they're not connected

01:15:41 ◼   ► to each other except wirelessly they are in sync.

01:15:47 ◼   ► So maybe Bluetooth 5 would make that even better I mean I have weird things sometimes

01:15:50 ◼   ► like if I just turn my head quickly like the AirPods get really upset and like they like

01:15:56 ◼   ► I lose it for just a millisecond. It's very strange. That's the one where I seem to have

01:16:00 ◼   ► it the most. It's like ah don't do that. I always find that really funny you know my

01:16:05 ◼   ► AirPods like no don't move too fast. I did have a thing on the airplane. I didn't want

01:16:12 ◼   ► to fall asleep with my AirPods in and was getting my my AirPods my cable ones with the

01:16:18 ◼   ► the lightning thing I was changing to those when I was sleepy because if I fall asleep

01:16:23 ◼   ► and like my head hits the seat the air pods coming out, the air pods coming out and it's

01:16:27 ◼   ► gone forever I've lost it in the airplane seat and that was kind of a funny thing on

01:16:32 ◼   ► my travels. Don't fall asleep if the air pods in you may lose them.

01:16:38 ◼   ► S Chan asked would you consider living overseas both of us because we are independent workers

01:16:44 ◼   ► that's something we would ever consider living overseas. It would be easier to do, right?

01:16:48 ◼   ► Like, we don't have an office that we have to go to. We work remotely with people. Like,

01:16:53 ◼   ► we could live overseas, I guess.

01:16:55 ◼   ► Yeah, but would you?

01:16:57 ◼   ► Maybe. I mean, it depends. Like, I had my dreams, you know, of moving to America. Who

01:17:03 ◼   ► knows though? Like, political climates are very strange these days.

01:17:06 ◼   ► Yes, all over.

01:17:08 ◼   ► So maybe if everything settles down again at some point, then maybe. But right now,

01:17:14 ◼   ► no, I wouldn't. However, there are times this year, like I actually think I'm going

01:17:19 ◼   ► to be in the US in multiple different cities for the entire month of August, and I will

01:17:23 ◼   ► effectively be living overseas during that time. I'm not going to be taking a month

01:17:27 ◼   ► off work. I'm going to be working. So that's going to be an interesting experience.

01:17:32 ◼   ► I, uh, yeah, I mean, I would consider it, but, uh, you know, all the usual, right.

01:17:39 ◼   ► Like it's easier, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we would do it.

01:17:42 ◼   ► Right.

01:17:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:43 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, exactly.

01:17:44 ◼   ► Cause okay.

01:17:45 ◼   ► We don't, we're independent workers, but we all, you know, we have family.

01:17:48 ◼   ► Right.

01:17:49 ◼   ► Like if I moved to Ireland, right.

01:17:53 ◼   ► First off let's, let's go over this.

01:17:55 ◼   ► You can't just move to another country and work.

01:17:58 ◼   ► they have to let you in and approve you and you have to

01:18:01 ◼   ► fill out paperwork and things like that. It's a complicated process

01:18:05 ◼   ► and they may not, and these days it's more complicated,

01:18:08 ◼   ► they may not let you in. They may not want you to be there. But if I were to go

01:18:12 ◼   ► there,

01:18:12 ◼   ► then what would happen? Like, okay, I'd pull my kids out of school,

01:18:16 ◼   ► my daughter's about to go to college, is she going to go to college back in the US?

01:18:19 ◼   ► And now she's a very long plane

01:18:21 ◼   ► ride away. My son is going to have to go to a different school.

01:18:26 ◼   ► It also means that I'm now like a 12 hour flight away

01:18:31 ◼   ► from my mother who is in her late 70s,

01:18:35 ◼   ► my, you know, away from my wife's parents.

01:18:40 ◼   ► There's so much like, it's very hard to do that,

01:18:45 ◼   ► I guess is what I'm saying.

01:18:46 ◼   ► And so while it's an interesting thing to think about,

01:18:50 ◼   ► I think it's unlikely.

01:18:52 ◼   ► And I happen to live in a gigantic country too.

01:18:55 ◼   ► So like I probably wouldn't move to Ohio either, right?

01:19:00 ◼   ► Because that would put me far away from my mom

01:19:04 ◼   ► and from my wife's parents.

01:19:06 ◼   ► And that would be a long way to go too,

01:19:09 ◼   ► even though it's in the same country.

01:19:10 ◼   ► So I do think about when my kids are out of the house,

01:19:14 ◼   ► if I might move somewhere else in the US, it's possible,

01:19:17 ◼   ► but it's probably a lot less likely

01:19:19 ◼   ► that I would move overseas just because it would be very,

01:19:22 ◼   ► from San Francisco, very, very, very far away

01:19:24 ◼   ► from everybody in my family. And that is just very complicated. I have friends who are English

01:19:30 ◼   ► who keep having to fly back because of horrible things happening medically to their parents.

01:19:34 ◼   ► And it's rough to, you know, to drop everything and fly 10 hours, 12 hours to get to a sick

01:19:42 ◼   ► parent.

01:19:43 ◼   ► Gary asks, "Are there any local or UK-focused apps like Yelp or Google Maps that you recommend

01:19:50 ◼   ► for people travelling to London. So one, I recommend Google Maps and Yelp. Yelp and Google

01:19:57 ◼   ► Maps are not US only. You can get all of the recommendations you would get in the US for

01:20:03 ◼   ► those here. All of the stuff is in there, you can get that. I also would recommend Foursquare,

01:20:10 ◼   ► especially for London. It's very good. Foursquare ratings are very good in London, recommendations

01:20:13 ◼   ► are very good in London. We use it all the time. So you can use the ones that you're

01:20:17 ◼   ► used to using, London is a major city enough that it will have as good information as you

01:20:22 ◼   ► might get in somewhere like New York or San Francisco in all these applications.

01:20:27 ◼   ► Google Maps and Open4 Square are great for London recommendations.

01:20:32 ◼   ► And Seth asked today "Why can't I buy a neon Nintendo Switch in any retail store or Amazon?

01:20:37 ◼   ► I've been looking regularly, am I missing something?"

01:20:40 ◼   ► In a nutshell, Nintendo is selling more than they expected they were going to sell.

01:20:47 ◼   ► You can see this in the fact that they have said that they have changed their production

01:20:50 ◼   ► amounts that they are making in their first year. The Switch has been more popular than

01:20:54 ◼   ► Nintendo expected. It's like any big product right? When a new iPhone comes out you either

01:21:00 ◼   ► get it immediately or you wait a while because companies forecast and things happen and then

01:21:05 ◼   ► maybe you can't get it. I recommend there is a link I'll put in the

01:21:09 ◼   ► show notes. I stock now, I heard about this in ATP and I've recommended it to some friends,

01:21:13 ◼   ► I know some people that have been able to use this service as a way to see.

01:21:17 ◼   ► I think this is in the US or maybe outside of the US as well.

01:21:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I can actually see they have UK information on here too.

01:21:26 ◼   ► It can show you current stock information is given to you, given to them by retail

01:21:31 ◼   ► outlets as to where stock is.

01:21:33 ◼   ► It doesn't necessarily mean there is one there.

01:21:35 ◼   ► I had a friend who looked at it.

01:21:37 ◼   ► The information was there. It said that they had units.

01:21:39 ◼   ► They went to the store and they were like, yeah, we had them this morning.

01:21:42 ◼   ► right like it's not it's not live data

01:21:44 ◼   ► yeah a lot of stories update at the end of the day. So, you know, buyer beware but it is possible and

01:21:52 ◼   ► look just quite frankly

01:21:53 ◼   ► very popular system right now it's a popular piece of technology and

01:21:57 ◼   ► you're not missing anything you missed the pre-order window that's what you missed

01:22:02 ◼   ► I'm gonna wind us back for a moment for a little real-time follow-up

01:22:06 ◼   ► trademark John Sarachisa. I think that's Casey, I think Casey came up with a real-time follow-up.

01:22:11 ◼   ► - All right, okay, Casey Liss, this one's for you.

01:22:14 ◼   ► In our chat room, we need to define

01:22:19 ◼   ► before we get an avalanche of email overseas.

01:22:21 ◼   ► - Right, okay.

01:22:22 ◼   ► - Because it's very important that,

01:22:23 ◼   ► I said from San Francisco, it's hard to think of any place

01:22:27 ◼   ► that's overseas that isn't far away.

01:22:29 ◼   ► And somebody in the chat room, David Schaub,

01:22:31 ◼   ► in the chat room said, "Well, what about Vancouver?"

01:22:33 ◼   ► And it's like, overseas to me implies traveling overseas

01:22:38 ◼   ► to get someplace else.

01:22:39 ◼   ► I can drive to Vancouver.

01:22:41 ◼   ► So while that would be moving to a different country,

01:22:44 ◼   ► and Vancouver is lovely,

01:22:45 ◼   ► I would just be able to drive there.

01:22:48 ◼   ► Mexico, I can drive there.

01:22:50 ◼   ► I guess technically I could drive to all of the Americas,

01:22:53 ◼   ► although I probably wouldn't want to.

01:22:55 ◼   ► - I mean technically you can drive anywhere, right?

01:22:57 ◼   ► But you might also be getting on a boat.

01:23:00 ◼   ► - Well, then I'm not driving though, then I'm on a boat.

01:23:02 ◼   ► Boat or not, that's a new debating podcast that we can have.

01:23:05 ◼   ► So, but Hawaii would be overseas.

01:23:08 ◼   ► I could live in Hawaii maybe,

01:23:09 ◼   ► But again, then I would be five, six hours

01:23:12 ◼   ► from all of my family and that would be hard.

01:23:13 ◼   ► So anyway, that's overseas as a way to refer

01:23:18 ◼   ► to international travel or living is an interesting term.

01:23:23 ◼   ► But since you live on an island and I live in America,

01:23:29 ◼   ► it's not a bad term to use for us,

01:23:31 ◼   ► but it's a weird term to use

01:23:33 ◼   ► because it may not mean what you think it means.

01:23:37 ◼   ► That's all.

01:23:38 ◼   ► Alright so we have more today. We have Myke at the Movies.

01:23:42 ◼   ► We do. We can talk about Blade Runner.

01:23:44 ◼   ► But before we do, let's thank our final sponsor for this week's show and that's

01:23:48 ◼   ► FreshBooks.

01:23:49 ◼   ► Look, maybe you're racing to get all those projects wrapped up

01:23:54 ◼   ► before the week is done. Prepping for a meeting that you have later on in the

01:23:58 ◼   ► afternoon.

01:23:58 ◼   ► Tackling mountains of paperwork and also

01:24:02 ◼   ► just trying to get paid. This is the challenge

01:24:05 ◼   ► of being a freelancer. Our friends at FreshBooks believe that the rewards are worth it and

01:24:10 ◼   ► they build tools to make it easier for people that want to live this type of life.

01:24:14 ◼   ► FreshBooks has been designed from the ground up to work the way that you do. You'll be

01:24:18 ◼   ► more productive and more organised whilst also being paid more quickly.

01:24:22 ◼   ► FreshBooks has been built to meet the challenges of people that work online. There are opportunities

01:24:28 ◼   ► now in the working world that exist that never existed before. Me and Jason have jobs that

01:24:32 ◼   ► didn't exist 10, 15 years ago.

01:24:35 ◼   ► Because the types of things that we do online,

01:24:38 ◼   ► just you couldn't make money from them, but you can now.

01:24:41 ◼   ► And I use FreshBooks, we use FreshBooks at Relay FM

01:24:45 ◼   ► as the way that we get money from the companies

01:24:47 ◼   ► that we work with.

01:24:47 ◼   ► All of our invoices are sent there.

01:24:49 ◼   ► We are swiftly approaching our 1,000th invoice

01:24:52 ◼   ► and we're FreshBooks.

01:24:53 ◼   ► We use them every week, every couple of days.

01:24:56 ◼   ► Me or Stephen is logging into FreshBooks

01:24:59 ◼   ► and dealing with everything that we need to deal with.

01:25:01 ◼   ► we can send all of our invoices out, we can see when somebody's looked at them, we can

01:25:05 ◼   ► make changes to them, we can, if we need to, we can send reminders, we can do everything.

01:25:10 ◼   ► We get our payments come through there, we can integrate with other payment services

01:25:14 ◼   ► as well, and FreshBooks customers get paid up to 4 days faster on average because it

01:25:18 ◼   ► is so easy to have an invoice paid. It arrives in somebody's inbox, they can open it and

01:25:23 ◼   ► they can click a link right there to pay immediately. And we have a bunch of clients, companies

01:25:28 ◼   ► that we work with that I send out an invoice and I get paid straight away and it's because

01:25:31 ◼   ► we're sending them via FreshBooks. If I emailed them it may take them a little bit longer

01:25:35 ◼   ► right they print it off they put it in an entry and it just sits there but with FreshBooks

01:25:39 ◼   ► it gives them the ability to pay it straight away. It's one of the reasons that I love

01:25:42 ◼   ► it. FreshBooks is offering a 30 day unrestricted free trial to listeners of this show. If you

01:25:48 ◼   ► invoice anybody please just go and try this out. I am very confident you will be extremely

01:25:53 ◼   ► happy with what you find, go to freshbooks.com/upgrade and enter upgrade in the how you heard about

01:25:58 ◼   ► section so they will know that you came to them from this show. So that's freshbooks.com/upgrade

01:26:05 ◼   ► you can find out more and sign up for a 30 day unrestricted free trial. Thank you so

01:26:09 ◼   ► much to Freshbooks for supporting this show and relay FM.

01:26:12 ◼   ► Alright so it is Myke at the Movies time and today we are talking about Blade Runner. Now

01:26:19 ◼   ► Blade Runner. Now, this, Myke, at the Movies is unique for a bunch of different ways. Okay.

01:26:29 ◼   ► Number one, you didn't want to do this one. It's fine. It's fine. I thought it was a

01:26:35 ◼   ► weird choice, but it's a very famous movie. By all rights, we should probably have done

01:26:39 ◼   ► Aliens since we did Alien. But I needed a break from the scariness. And I know many

01:26:46 ◼   ► people told me that Aliens is very different but I just needed a movie that wasn't the

01:26:50 ◼   ► Alien movie. So that's number one, that's part number one.

01:26:55 ◼   ► Number two is I've never had a movie in the movies where multiple people felt the need

01:27:00 ◼   ► to warn me about the movie in certain ways. Like people thinking that I wasn't going to

01:27:08 ◼   ► like it and that they were maybe trying to talk me out of it and saying that "Oh no,

01:27:13 ◼   ► don't watch this version, watch that version,

01:27:15 ◼   ► watch this version, type thing.

01:27:17 ◼   ► So people were tweeting at me like this.

01:27:19 ◼   ► John Siracusa didn't want me to watch it.

01:27:21 ◼   ► I saw him, he was in London.

01:27:23 ◼   ► We had dinner, which was fantastic,

01:27:25 ◼   ► and he told me he didn't want me to watch the movie,

01:27:29 ◼   ► 'cause he didn't think I would like it, and he loves it.

01:27:32 ◼   ► And I was very dead set on wanting to watch

01:27:38 ◼   ► just the regular edition of the movie.

01:27:41 ◼   ► the one with the Harrison Ford voiceover stuff and everything.

01:27:46 ◼   ► I wanted to watch the standard version of this movie.

01:27:49 ◼   ► I didn't want to direct his car or anything like that.

01:27:51 ◼   ► I wanted to watch that movie, like the original movie,

01:27:54 ◼   ► because this was the one that for whatever reason

01:27:56 ◼   ► was put out, this is the one that people latched onto.

01:28:00 ◼   ► I wanted to watch it, so that was what we chose.

01:28:02 ◼   ► It's also unique because this is the first movie

01:28:06 ◼   ► for my, the movies that I have watched on a plane

01:28:10 ◼   ► and in more than one sitting.

01:28:12 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:28:13 ◼   ► - Because I misjudged when I started watching the movie

01:28:16 ◼   ► and we had to land and then I had to pick it up

01:28:19 ◼   ► on the plane ride home.

01:28:21 ◼   ► - Ah, I see.

01:28:22 ◼   ► - So this is unique for many ways.

01:28:24 ◼   ► So I will do in my standard format

01:28:28 ◼   ► that I have created for myself,

01:28:30 ◼   ► would you like to know what I thought about this movie

01:28:32 ◼   ► before I watched it?

01:28:33 ◼   ► - Yes, I would.

01:28:34 ◼   ► - So I believed that Blade Runner

01:28:37 ◼   ► was a film noir style detective story, which I guess I was kind of right about. I mean,

01:28:43 ◼   ► I think that's kind of where they went with it, right?

01:28:45 ◼   ► Absolutely.

01:28:46 ◼   ► It's not black and white, but it's a lot of those tropes. They may as well have said at

01:28:50 ◼   ► one point, "she had legs from here to there." It was kind of that style, right? That you

01:28:55 ◼   ► see in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and whatever. And I knew that it was a cult classic is maybe

01:29:04 ◼   ► the wrong term because it was a popular movie, right? But like, it has gained this kind of

01:29:11 ◼   ► following to it. I also know that it's being remade. Or like, there's more of the story,

01:29:19 ◼   ► yeah.

01:29:20 ◼   ► There is a sequel being made, a much, much later sequel that is being released in October.

01:29:28 ◼   ► But yes, this is a well-known, well-thought-of, historic film, and I would say influential

01:29:39 ◼   ► film in many ways. The look of this film has been referenced and paid homage to many, many,

01:29:48 ◼   ► many, many times. It is—that's one of the important things about it. And its connection

01:29:52 ◼   ► to Alien is it's the same director. This is Ridley Scott. So it does have a connection

01:29:55 ◼   ► to Alien it is kind of a logical follow-on in a way whereas Aliens would have been for

01:30:01 ◼   ► a different reason. Also I have to ask you which version did you watch? Did you watch

01:30:06 ◼   ► the version with the narration?

01:30:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:30:10 ◼   ► Okay.

01:30:11 ◼   ► It was what iTunes gave me. So I just got what was I believe to be the standard edition

01:30:18 ◼   ► on iTunes. Is that not it then?

01:30:22 ◼   ► I don't know. There are multiple editions.

01:30:25 ◼   ► No. I didn't get the final cut. I got the regular, what looked like to me to be the

01:30:32 ◼   ► regular edition of the movie. People were telling me to watch the final cut, but I decided

01:30:37 ◼   ► not to. I wanted to get what I believed would be the most original version.

01:30:43 ◼   ► So you watched the 1982 theatrical release, which is the one with the lots and lots of

01:30:49 ◼   ► Harrison Ford narration.

01:30:51 ◼   ► And my understanding just from what I've picked up was this narration was added in later because

01:30:55 ◼   ► people couldn't work out what was going on, right?

01:30:57 ◼   ► Is that true?

01:30:58 ◼   ► Yeah, that's, I think that's right.

01:31:00 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:31:01 ◼   ► I'm not a Blade Runner historian, but that's my understanding is that it was, the narration

01:31:06 ◼   ► was put in to explain the movie.

01:31:09 ◼   ► And I think it was needed.

01:31:10 ◼   ► Although it adds to the noir feel of it, I feel like.

01:31:14 ◼   ► And it's a good, I think Ford's good.

01:31:17 ◼   ► There is—people are split about whether the no-narration versions are better. I don't—I

01:31:25 ◼   ► mean, and you might talk to somebody who's like, "Oh, that's the real one," but

01:31:28 ◼   ► there are other people who disagree. I think it's telling that both versions are available,

01:31:31 ◼   ► right? Because they are very different in a lot of ways, but you got to see the one

01:31:35 ◼   ► that was in theaters.

01:31:36 ◼   ► So, like, what I'll say is, like, you know, I haven't seen the other versions of the

01:31:38 ◼   ► movie, however many there might be, but without the narration in the movie that I watched,

01:31:42 ◼   ► I don't think I would have known what was going on.

01:31:44 ◼   ► So did you know going in, did you know that this is about androids?

01:31:49 ◼   ► Did you know that there is like, did you know about like the cityscape stuff?

01:31:55 ◼   ► Like that it looked like dark and lots of screens on buildings and stuff?

01:32:01 ◼   ► Yeah, just having been exposed to pop culture, you know, I was familiar with the term "replicant,"

01:32:07 ◼   ► but I wasn't completely sure what that was in reference to,

01:32:11 ◼   ► whether it was clones or robots or aliens, right? But I knew that was a thing.

01:32:16 ◼   ► And I've seen the look of this movie all over the place, right? Like the big screens.

01:32:24 ◼   ► Because I've seen pictures of Tokyo now and people saying "look, it is Blade Runner."

01:32:31 ◼   ► Stuff like that. I've seen that kind of thing. So I was familiar with some of the base ideas

01:32:38 ◼   ► as to what this movie was putting out there, you know?

01:32:42 ◼   ► And so let me tell you what I thought of this movie.

01:32:47 ◼   ► It is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen.

01:32:50 ◼   ► I was so taken aback and drawn in by the look of this film.

01:32:57 ◼   ► The majority of my notes are just about, "Wow, this set is beautiful," and, "Wow, that set

01:33:03 ◼   ► is beautiful."

01:33:04 ◼   ► Like, I was completely sold on the look of this movie.

01:33:07 ◼   ► Some of it is too dark, but the set design and the world design is incredible and I'm

01:33:18 ◼   ► kind of so surprised that it's taken this long for any continuation of this world.

01:33:28 ◼   ► Because this world is so intriguing and well thought out and fleshed out and there's this

01:33:34 ◼   ► whole lore and language to it, let alone just the way it looks. It's surprising to me that

01:33:40 ◼   ► more hasn't been done in the Blade Runner universe before now, honestly.

01:33:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it's, uh, you know, it was viewed and it's based on a story by Philip K. Dick, the

01:33:53 ◼   ► science fiction writer. Maybe there was a feeling like it's a one-off. The franchising

01:34:00 ◼   ► of everything in Hollywood has really picked up lately.

01:34:05 ◼   ► So now we're getting the sequel right all these years later,

01:34:08 ◼   ► which is weird, but that's where we are.

01:34:10 ◼   ► So at the time, you know, at the time,

01:34:13 ◼   ► I think it was not universally hailed or anything like that.

01:34:17 ◼   ► And it was not a huge hit.

01:34:18 ◼   ► It really did become kind of appreciated later,

01:34:20 ◼   ► became a cult classic.

01:34:22 ◼   ► It was put on the National Film Registry as a historic film.

01:34:26 ◼   ► I mean, it got there, but it took some time.

01:34:29 ◼   ► And so on that level, maybe I'm not surprised that it took them that long to revisit it.

01:34:34 ◼   ► They did, however, Ridley Scott did revisit the film a couple of times with these alternate versions of it.

01:34:41 ◼   ► I think I like this movie more than you do.

01:34:46 ◼   ► Okay. That's probably not hard.

01:34:49 ◼   ► Because I don't feel like I dislike the movie.

01:34:56 ◼   ► I don't dislike this movie. I have a bunch of issues with it and I don't love it.

01:35:02 ◼   ► Like I don't feel a great affection for it. I think it looks amazing. I think the storytelling

01:35:10 ◼   ► is a mess. I think it's got some really memorable scenes. And my big thing is that although the

01:35:20 ◼   ► soundtrack, like the score is beautiful, it's Evangelis who did "Cher, It's a Fire" as well

01:35:25 ◼   ► did this score and it's fascinating and weird and electronic and all that, but it's also sleepy.

01:35:30 ◼   ► And the movie is slow and I've told this story before but I'll say it again.

01:35:35 ◼   ► My wife, I've tried to get my wife to watch this movie three times,

01:35:38 ◼   ► and all three times she fell asleep. Fell asleep all three times. And she does not fall asleep

01:35:45 ◼   ► while watching movies all three times because the music lulls you and nothing is really happening.

01:35:51 ◼   ► And the scary thing is you get lulled and lulled and lulled, and then Daryl Hannah screams and does a bunch of cartwheels and tries to kill somebody, and you're like, "Baaah!" and now you're awake.

01:36:01 ◼   ► So, I have, yeah, I have some issues with this movie. It's not a movie that I enjoy, although it's a movie that I can appreciate for what it is.

01:36:10 ◼   ► Oh, and I should say that scene with Ruttger Hauer, where he's like, "I've seen things

01:36:16 ◼   ► you wouldn't believe. I've seen ships off the Tannhauser Gate, or ships on fire on the

01:36:22 ◼   ► arm of Orion and all of that. Time to die." That scene, all these things will be lost,

01:36:26 ◼   ► like tears and rain, that monologue is amazing, and I love it, and I also make jokes about

01:36:32 ◼   ► it all the time because it is so impressive. There are some amazing things in this movie.

01:36:38 ◼   ► you know, you could argue that maybe sometimes that's okay, that maybe a movie is memorable and important

01:36:44 ◼   ► even if it doesn't really hold together as a whole because the stuff, the bits that are in it, there's so many of them that are things you can appreciate.

01:36:52 ◼   ► So that's sort of my take, is I'm kind of ambivalent about the movie as a whole, but I have to appreciate the artistry and a lot of the things that are in it are amazing.

01:36:59 ◼   ► Harrison Ford you know I think I yeah what a career that guy had in the early

01:37:05 ◼   ► in the late 70s early 80s because this is right you know you got Indiana Jones

01:37:08 ◼   ► Han Solo you put this in there it's like this Deckard performance where he's this

01:37:13 ◼   ► noir detective in this future world and all that and he really you know it's

01:37:18 ◼   ► it's another one of those fascinating kind of performances that guy that guy

01:37:22 ◼   ► is great he was like typecast as the best kind of thing cool guy right yeah

01:37:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, what a great thing to be typecast as.

01:37:30 ◼   ► Right, like those three roles, it's like,

01:37:32 ◼   ► we need a cool guy.

01:37:34 ◼   ► Does anybody know a cool guy?

01:37:35 ◼   ► Oh yeah, we'll get Harrison Ford in to do it.

01:37:37 ◼   ► - We got a guy, well it's the, I look at that

01:37:39 ◼   ► and I think that that's the kind of career

01:37:41 ◼   ► that that's a Humphrey Bogart kind of career.

01:37:43 ◼   ► Where this is a guy, he's a movie star.

01:37:45 ◼   ► And he can play these parts and people love him.

01:37:48 ◼   ► And so like just keep making movies

01:37:50 ◼   ► where he's that cool guy.

01:37:51 ◼   ► Like why would you stop making movies

01:37:53 ◼   ► where he's the cool guy?

01:37:56 ◼   ► And yeah, yeah, absolutely.

01:37:58 ◼   ► - One of the things I really couldn't understand

01:38:00 ◼   ► about this movie is replicants

01:38:03 ◼   ► and their relationship to planet Earth.

01:38:06 ◼   ► Because if I was following it correctly,

01:38:10 ◼   ► replicants are outlawed on planet Earth,

01:38:14 ◼   ► but there is a company based on planet Earth that makes them?

01:38:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think the idea is that they're made to work

01:38:24 ◼   ► and they're not supposed to get free and try to live among people.

01:38:29 ◼   ► And it's not clear to me whether they're not allowed to be on Earth at all.

01:38:34 ◼   ► I think that's not true, but that these ones have come back to Earth illegally

01:38:38 ◼   ► because they want more life, they want to

01:38:41 ◼   ► extend their lives, and they've come back to their creator.

01:38:44 ◼   ► I mean, it's a classic story in that way. It's a Frankenstein

01:38:49 ◼   ► kind of story where the the created creature has come back to its creator demanding life or

01:38:56 ◼   ► or killing the creator which is totally what happens here so yeah yeah it was just difficult

01:39:02 ◼   ► for me to follow like are they outlawed completely are they like yeah it was it was just a difficult

01:39:09 ◼   ► thing because i was like this whole police force has been created to destroy them but yet the

01:39:15 ◼   ► the company there is making them, it was just a little bit like I didn't really feel like

01:39:19 ◼   ► I had a full grasp on it, right? Because I was like, are they only allowed on the other

01:39:24 ◼   ► world, right? Like where they're, it's like, we destroyed planet earth and everybody's

01:39:28 ◼   ► being moved off if they can be or they're desired to be, right? It's kind of what's

01:39:31 ◼   ► happening in this world.

01:39:32 ◼   ► - And Sean, but you know, Sean Young is there as Rachel and she's a replicant but she's

01:39:37 ◼   ► there on earth, so it's, I think it's more that these are like rogue replicants that

01:39:43 ◼   ► are being hunted and that's the story there.

01:39:48 ◼   ► So yeah, I guess that makes a little bit more sense, right? There are some that are allowed,

01:39:53 ◼   ► because they reference pleasure models, right? I think you can kind of draw from that what

01:39:57 ◼   ► they're getting at. And you would imagine that they would be allowed on Earth, but these

01:40:01 ◼   ► like the Nexus 6, this type of model that seems like a warrior or soldier, they have

01:40:08 ◼   ► these shortened lifespans so they'll be less dangerous I guess and I guess they're the

01:40:15 ◼   ► ones that they have to hunt down. Also I didn't get at any point why these police are called

01:40:22 ◼   ► blade runners? Yeah. I don't know. Okay great. I just like, this is a really cool phrase

01:40:29 ◼   ► but I don't know what it means. It's what I call them, they're called blade runners,

01:40:33 ◼   ► that's what they're called. They run the blades, you know. What's wrong with you? Why can't

01:40:37 ◼   ► you get this. FutureTech. FutureTech is in this. Future Technology based in 70s thinking,

01:40:44 ◼   ► 80s thinking.

01:40:45 ◼   ► - 80s thinking, yeah, exactly. Also, yeah, Future Technology and culture based on 80s

01:40:51 ◼   ► thinking. So this is in the 80s. In the 80s, there's definitely this feeling like Japan

01:40:56 ◼   ► and Germany are going to dominate the 21st century. That was the meme in the 80s. And

01:41:00 ◼   ► So you see here a Los Angeles that is very much sort of modeled on Tokyo and is very

01:41:06 ◼   ► Japanese in its style.

01:41:10 ◼   ► And the Nexus 6 looked like Germans, right?

01:41:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:15 ◼   ► It's one hair, blue eyes.

01:41:17 ◼   ► I suppose that's true too.

01:41:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:20 ◼   ► Although there are pictures now, I saw a picture that I think was in Beijing somewhere in Asia

01:41:23 ◼   ► where somebody had a picture that they posted that basically said, "Hey, does this look

01:41:27 ◼   ► like Blade Runner because it's a picture I took today in this large city in Asia. And

01:41:33 ◼   ► there is, you know, the visual style here, did they help create that? Did they just correctly

01:41:39 ◼   ► intuit it? You know, there's a lot here that's influential and interesting and maybe life

01:41:44 ◼   ► imitating art in the end.

01:41:46 ◼   ► David: One of the future tech things that I enjoyed the most was the photo enhancement.

01:41:52 ◼   ► You know, he takes the physical picture, puts it in the computer, and is able to enhance

01:41:56 ◼   ► it to the point where he can basically see reflections in tiny pieces of mirror right

01:42:00 ◼   ► and then he wants a hard copy of it and gets it printed onto a polaroid. Like that whole

01:42:06 ◼   ► scene is incredible. Like it starts with a physical picture, is enhanced astronomically

01:42:12 ◼   ► by this computer which then gives them a polaroid at the end. I love stuff like that. It's

01:42:17 ◼   ► so funny and it makes me think like what are we putting in movies now that dates us? Because

01:42:24 ◼   ► Because all of this was like, where can we see this technology going into the future?

01:42:29 ◼   ► What are we doing now in movies that are based in the future that is dating us?

01:42:34 ◼   ► I like to think about stuff like that because then it was like, this is the first, as far

01:42:38 ◼   ► as we can take this technology, as far as our imaginations can take us.

01:42:44 ◼   ► And I think that stuff's kind of funny.

01:42:47 ◼   ► One of the scenes that I really, really disliked is at the moment when, I think it's Roy,

01:42:53 ◼   ► the kind of the replicant dude, is arguing with Tyrell about science. Like they have

01:43:00 ◼   ► this really heated debate about the extension of their life. And they're debating about

01:43:05 ◼   ► like the different scientific methods that should be undertaken to see if life can be

01:43:10 ◼   ► extended. It's completely pointless. Like, there's just science jargon being thrown at

01:43:16 ◼   ► each other for a few minutes that culminates in an incredibly violent murder scene. It's

01:43:21 ◼   ► weird I did not like that scene it was very strange I mean let alone all the

01:43:26 ◼   ► stuff with JF like those toys that he makes when he refers to his toys they're

01:43:30 ◼   ► terrifyingly creepy and that's all kind of wrapped up in these back-to-back

01:43:33 ◼   ► scenes that was uncomfortable and then talking about death scenes and you

01:43:40 ◼   ► mentioned it already when Pris like the female strong replicant all of that

01:43:46 ◼   ► that scene where she's screaming and jumping around and then Decker, Harris and Ford shoot

01:43:53 ◼   ► her and she's like screaming and thrashing around on the ground like it's a bit much.

01:43:59 ◼   ► It's a little bit much. There are times in this movie where it just gets pushed a little

01:44:03 ◼   ► bit too far in a lot of ways and this is one of them. I mean then just the whole end scene

01:44:09 ◼   ► is a little bit too much for me. There's so much that happens in the third act of this

01:44:16 ◼   ► movie that I'm like I don't know what's happened like it just goes off the rails

01:44:21 ◼   ► like it completely goes off the rails like when from the point where Dekker

01:44:28 ◼   ► arrives at JF's apartment which is I think the most beautiful set like the

01:44:34 ◼   ► outside where he's like walking up the stairs it's unbelievable it shot so well

01:44:38 ◼   ► but from the moment he enters the door I'm like I don't know what's going on

01:44:42 ◼   ► anymore from the moment where she's screaming and cartwheeling around and he shoots her

01:44:48 ◼   ► and she's gone crazy on the ground to then like Roy the the the remaining Nexus 6 why

01:44:55 ◼   ► is he in his underwear? I don't know why he strips down to his underwear to chase

01:45:00 ◼   ► deck out. Why is he howling like a wolf? None of it makes any sense like and then he sticks

01:45:07 ◼   ► a nail in his through his hand and I assume it's because he's like he's starting to seize

01:45:12 ◼   ► up right like he's starting to die and I assume he does that to make sure he has feeling in

01:45:16 ◼   ► his hand left but that's weird because it's like then there are all these like biblical

01:45:20 ◼   ► references right like he puts a nail through his hands it's kind of strange and then like

01:45:27 ◼   ► why is he holding a dove like all of a sudden he's got a dove in his hand this doesn't make

01:45:32 ◼   ► And then like Decker's fingers gets broken, but he's still climbing up the walls

01:45:36 ◼   ► It's really gets the wheels come off this movie in an almost spectacular way

01:45:43 ◼   ► It's yeah, I mean again, I I wish I could I could somebody like John Siracusa needs to swoop in and and

01:45:53 ◼   ► and

01:45:54 ◼   ► Explain it and defend it better than I can. I look forward to the follow-up. Yeah, because for me it's like

01:46:01 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, right? I mean, these are things you're describing are not my favorite things about this movie.

01:46:07 ◼   ► Those are not the things that I think of fondly as being like, "Boy, that's a great moment."

01:46:12 ◼   ► I do like Roy Batty's last, like I said, his last monologue.

01:46:17 ◼   ► Yeah, that is great.

01:46:18 ◼   ► By the way, the number of people that are maddened by these Myke at the Movies episodes is fascinating to me.

01:46:23 ◼   ► Like, Antony Johnston just kind of like lost it about Alien.

01:46:26 ◼   ► He was telling me like, "What is going on with Myke?"

01:46:29 ◼   ► and it's like yeah I know it's it's it's funny when there's something in here and

01:46:34 ◼   ► trashing these eighties movies that's the problem yeah that I think that's it

01:46:37 ◼   ► well I think I think not getting it right like where people like but you

01:46:40 ◼   ► don't understand it's like part of the experiment with you is seeing these

01:46:44 ◼   ► movies you've never seen before and so do you you don't have that layer of

01:46:48 ◼   ► nostalgia or context to put on these things you weren't there that's exactly

01:46:52 ◼   ► right I want there yeah you know what I also don't get I don't know what the

01:46:56 ◼   ► moral this movie is? I don't know what it's trying to tell me. Interesting. I

01:47:03 ◼   ► can't work it out. It's... I would say... I would say the themes of this movie, I

01:47:09 ◼   ► mean a lot of it is about trying to understand yourself and that the... and

01:47:14 ◼   ► and having meaning in life and that the the replicants are interesting in

01:47:23 ◼   ► that they're kind of an accelerated version of humanity.

01:47:26 ◼   ► They have these very limited lifespans.

01:47:28 ◼   ► So they're intelligent and they learn

01:47:31 ◼   ► that they have a lifespan and they want to live longer,

01:47:34 ◼   ► which is a very human kind of concept,

01:47:36 ◼   ► even though these are androids, these are replicants.

01:47:39 ◼   ► And then you go to your creator, right?

01:47:44 ◼   ► And this is all the way back to Frankenstein,

01:47:47 ◼   ► but it's something that a created being can do

01:47:50 ◼   ► that we can't as humans, right?

01:47:53 ◼   ► we can't go to a creator and demand reasons. I mean, it's the base of many religions to do that,

01:47:59 ◼   ► but it's not like we—you can't walk up to somebody and say, "Why am I here?" Instead,

01:48:05 ◼   ► we ask, or we have a religion that explains it to us. And the replicants get to do that. They get

01:48:12 ◼   ► to go to Tyrell and say, "I want more life." Right? "Why am I here?" And so I think that's

01:48:19 ◼   ► interesting that that's an interesting theme that's one of the ones that I grabbed to is

01:48:23 ◼   ► is amid the screaming and shooting and folding of origami there is that question of uh it's like a

01:48:33 ◼   ► super accelerated existential question of who who are we why are we here why do we have to die

01:48:39 ◼   ► that the that the yeah you know replicants are asking the happy ending didn't fit this movie

01:48:44 ◼   ► for me. It's a very controversial ending. Yeah, very controversial ending. I think

01:48:50 ◼   ► changed at the last minute. It feels changed. And some of the footage is from

01:48:55 ◼   ► like another movie that they use to like show like the green grass and things

01:49:01 ◼   ► like that as they go. It is a surprise that it ends that way. Honestly, I was

01:49:07 ◼   ► expecting that that Dekker was a replicant. Okay, well, so that is one of the

01:49:12 ◼   ► great I don't know if you've read about any of this but that is one of the great

01:49:14 ◼   ► debates about this movie is that some of the people making it thought he was

01:49:18 ◼   ► some thought he wasn't they kind of left it ambiguous if he is a replicant I

01:49:24 ◼   ► don't know how he survived to be old Harrison Ford in the new movie they're

01:49:27 ◼   ► making so I guess that will change something about the story. Is he in the

01:49:32 ◼   ► movie? Yeah, Harrison Ford's in the movie. Well that answers it then, doesn't it? Because he either shouldn't get old?

01:49:38 ◼   ► right right because shouldn't get shouldn't get old or yeah or should not

01:49:43 ◼   ► be there mm-hmm but yeah it's a it's the fact I mean it's a classic and yet the

01:49:49 ◼   ► fact that the that they have redone it a couple of times and done alternate

01:49:54 ◼   ► versions of it I think speaks to the fact that it's also a bit of a mess and

01:49:59 ◼   ► that the the people who made it have kept thinking about going back and doing

01:50:05 ◼   ► things to it, especially after it became such a classic. I think that says something about it.

01:50:10 ◼   ► I think it also says something about the appeal of it, that people want to see it again and want

01:50:14 ◼   ► to have a new perspective about it and want to debate it. I think those are all in its favor,

01:50:18 ◼   ► but I also think that the fact that Ridley Scott wants to fix it suggests that he thinks that it

01:50:23 ◼   ► was kind of not right when he made it. I feel the same way about Brazil. Have you ever seen Brazil,

01:50:32 ◼   ► Terry Gilliam. It's a similarly brilliant, weird movie that has like

01:50:39 ◼   ► three or four--they did a DVD with like three or four different versions in the

01:50:42 ◼   ► box set of it because there's so many different cuts of the movie. And I feel

01:50:47 ◼   ► like there's something in that. If your movie's got

01:50:51 ◼   ► lots of different cuts that says something about it. Either you had a

01:50:54 ◼   ► horrible, you know, horrible relationship with your studio or you thought better of it later.

01:51:03 ◼   ► Obviously, the attitude toward the movie changed after it came out and that enabled people to make

01:51:08 ◼   ► different cuts of it. Otherwise, you just only ever have the one. So it's just kind of fascinating

01:51:13 ◼   ► when that happens. And Blade Runner, like Brazil, Blade Runner has had that. And it's kind of

01:51:19 ◼   ► interesting to view that as a trait of this film that years later the creators of this movie made

01:51:26 ◼   ► two different director's cut and ultimate cut or whatever and it's final cut that are different.

01:51:34 ◼   ► But you know again I don't have a huge fondness for this movie but I appreciate it and it sounds

01:51:40 ◼   ► like you're kind of in the ballpark too where it's like it's a really interesting movie

01:51:44 ◼   ► but it's not necessarily like you feel like you want to hug it and watch it a bunch of times.

01:51:48 ◼   ► There are a bunch of flaws in it that I wouldn't excuse if it didn't look the way it did.

01:51:53 ◼   ► It really does look great. I mean, it cannot enough--I mean, so much has been written about it,

01:51:57 ◼   ► but it's fair. This is--it looks amazing, and it completely changed people's conceptions of

01:52:06 ◼   ► science fiction futures and influenced so many movies. Somebody in our chat room was just saying,

01:52:11 ◼   ► like anime, like so much anime is Blade Runner. Like that is clearly a reference point for Blade

01:52:21 ◼   ► Runner, or for anime is Blade Runner. And it's true in live action movies too. There is so much

01:52:27 ◼   ► that we owe to Blade Runner's look. And you know, it's funny because from that perspective,

01:52:33 ◼   ► you can often look back on these old movies and say, "Oh, well, I don't see the big deal,

01:52:36 ◼   ► not understanding that this is the thing that set the tone." And at the time it was kind of

01:52:40 ◼   ► of a revelation. I also do think that though that at the time the people who are lukewarm

01:52:44 ◼   ► on it were lukewarm on it because they were seeing its flaws and that the, you know, they

01:52:48 ◼   ► were looking for as a movie and seeing the problems with the storytelling and as it became

01:52:54 ◼   ► a cult it became more about the debate about Deckard and, you know, some of the little

01:53:00 ◼   ► details and all the things that you pick up if you watch the movie 10 times that if you

01:53:05 ◼   ► watch it once you're just like "whatever" and I think that maybe explains why a lot

01:53:09 ◼   ► of cult movies become cult movies is that is that they unfold better over many viewings

01:53:16 ◼   ► than they do when you just watch it once and let it go.

01:53:20 ◼   ► I was I'm looking forward to the next one like I'm looking forward to Blade Runner

01:53:25 ◼   ► 2049. I like Ryan Gosling a lot and I'm interested to see what could be done further

01:53:31 ◼   ► in this universe. Yeah yeah I think it's interesting I'm gonna I'm waiting I'm

01:53:37 ◼   ► I'm gonna do a wait and see on that one, right?

01:53:40 ◼   ► Like, I'm not gonna be in line for it,

01:53:41 ◼   ► but I'm ready to hear that it's an interesting movie

01:53:45 ◼   ► and go see it if it is.

01:53:47 ◼   ► - If you wanna find out show notes for this week,

01:53:50 ◼   ► go to relay.fm/upgrades/138.

01:53:54 ◼   ► I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsors again,

01:53:56 ◼   ► Encapsula, TextExpander, Mac, Walden, and FreshBooks

01:53:59 ◼   ► for helping support the show.

01:54:01 ◼   ► Most of all, thank you for listening.

01:54:02 ◼   ► You can find Jason's work online at sixcolors.com,

01:54:05 ◼   ► he is @jsnell on twitter. I am @imike and we'll be back next time. Until then, say

01:54:12 ◼   ► goodbye Mr Snell.

01:54:13 ◼   ► Goodbye everybody.

01:54:14 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:54:17 ◼   ► [ Music ]

01:54:20 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]