Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 117.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Smile, Encapsula,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Mac Weldon, and MailRoute.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley.

00:00:18 ◼   ► I am joined by the one and only Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - Hi Myke.

00:00:23 ◼   ► - Are you the one and only Mr. Jason Snell?

00:00:25 ◼   ► - Oh man, I'm not.

00:00:26 ◼   ► - Oh, what a shame. - You would think

00:00:28 ◼   ► the internet has ruined,

00:00:29 ◼   ► No, there's a Jason Snell who actually,

00:00:31 ◼   ► the one I get the most is there's a Jason Snell who works

00:00:35 ◼   ► or worked at Industrial Light and Magic

00:00:37 ◼   ► doing 3D match move stuff.

00:00:40 ◼   ► So he's involved in that and again,

00:00:44 ◼   ► lives or lived in the same county as me.

00:00:47 ◼   ► So at one point I actually donated blood and they said,

00:00:49 ◼   ► "Is this your birthday?"

00:00:50 ◼   ► And I was like, "Uh," or no, I went in for a blood test

00:00:53 ◼   ► and they're like, "Is this your birthday?"

00:00:55 ◼   ► They're putting me in the system.

00:00:56 ◼   ► I'm like, "No, that's not, no."

00:00:58 ◼   ► - It's not the Jason Snell.

00:00:59 ◼   ► the other one and they're like, "Oh, okay."

00:01:02 ◼   ► - So you are the one of many Jason Snell then?

00:01:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, occasionally he wins awards and stuff

00:01:07 ◼   ► and people are like, "Jason, I had no idea

00:01:08 ◼   ► "that you also did computer animation."

00:01:10 ◼   ► It's like, "Nope, not me."

00:01:12 ◼   ► - You need to ride that train, man.

00:01:14 ◼   ► - And there's also like a guy who's like a bluegrass

00:01:18 ◼   ► musician in the Midwest somewhere who's Jason Snell

00:01:21 ◼   ► and he's got a band and stuff and occasionally

00:01:23 ◼   ► a Google alert comes on for those.

00:01:25 ◼   ► And the saddest of my Google alerts,

00:01:27 ◼   ► 'cause I do have a Google alert for me.

00:01:29 ◼   ► that I set up a million years ago,

00:01:31 ◼   ► is that there was a guy with my name in Hawaii, I think,

00:01:34 ◼   ► who was found dead by the side of the road.

00:01:36 ◼   ► - Oh man, that's unfortunate.

00:01:39 ◼   ► I have a Michael Hurley,

00:01:41 ◼   ► I have, he is an American folk singer,

00:01:44 ◼   ► but I totally dominate Myke with a Y, Hurley.

00:01:49 ◼   ► - Well, Myke with a Y makes all the difference, right?

00:01:51 ◼   ► - Exactly, exactly.

00:01:54 ◼   ► - Smart.

00:01:55 ◼   ► - Having a Wikipedia page as well

00:01:56 ◼   ► gives me that nice little bio on Google.

00:01:59 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I'm sure I told you the story before,

00:02:02 ◼   ► but back in the early days,

00:02:03 ◼   ► my colleague at Macworld for many years

00:02:07 ◼   ► and incomparable panelist, Philip Michaels,

00:02:09 ◼   ► I registered philipmichaels.com

00:02:11 ◼   ► and he had a blog for a while

00:02:13 ◼   ► that I think is not live anymore,

00:02:15 ◼   ► although I still got the files

00:02:16 ◼   ► called The Trials of Philip Michaels

00:02:17 ◼   ► and it was all of his sort of funny things he wrote.

00:02:19 ◼   ► And he would write funny things in email

00:02:22 ◼   ► to a group of friends.

00:02:23 ◼   ► This is so long ago.

00:02:24 ◼   ► And then I would just post them to the internet for him.

00:02:28 ◼   ► 'Cause we had no...

00:02:29 ◼   ► Anyway, so one day he gets an email

00:02:32 ◼   ► from a guy named Phillip Michaels

00:02:34 ◼   ► and the letter is basically,

00:02:35 ◼   ► "Stop using your name on the internet

00:02:37 ◼   ► because people search for me and they can't find me.

00:02:38 ◼   ► All they find is your dumb things

00:02:40 ◼   ► that you write on the internet."

00:02:41 ◼   ► And I think his response back was,

00:02:43 ◼   ► "Sorry, it's my name too.

00:02:45 ◼   ► I'm not gonna not use it."

00:02:46 ◼   ► But it's like that early in the internet,

00:02:50 ◼   ► I think people didn't understand how it worked,

00:02:52 ◼   ► but he definitely had the upper hand on all other,

00:02:55 ◼   ► and that's a pretty common kind of name,

00:02:58 ◼   ► Philip Michaels, there's gotta be thousands of them.

00:03:01 ◼   ► But he has the domain, or more accurately,

00:03:04 ◼   ► I have the domain, and he had all of the search engine stuff

00:03:09 ◼   ► and that other guy was just out of luck,

00:03:11 ◼   ► but he was really bent out of shape about it.

00:03:14 ◼   ► - That's crazy.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Man, I love the idea as well that you were just

00:03:18 ◼   ► taking emails and just posting them online.

00:03:21 ◼   ► The TV blog was the same way.

00:03:23 ◼   ► That was an email, not even a mailing list.

00:03:26 ◼   ► It was like literally people just like with 15 people

00:03:30 ◼   ► in the two line replying to all with funny things

00:03:33 ◼   ► about television.

00:03:35 ◼   ► And I was doing something for Mac user

00:03:38 ◼   ► where I was testing like a web server.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, what if I did a, you know,

00:03:42 ◼   ► we didn't even have a word for it back then.

00:03:43 ◼   ► What if I could set up a template

00:03:45 ◼   ► and then we could post these items on the internet

00:03:46 ◼   ► and make a website with things on them.

00:03:49 ◼   ► 'cause we couldn't even, the blog was not a thing then.

00:03:51 ◼   ► And that's how that started too, same thing.

00:03:54 ◼   ► It was just like, we were circulating

00:03:56 ◼   ► our funny things in email and I was like,

00:03:58 ◼   ► "Hey, what if we put that on the internet

00:04:00 ◼   ► "for other people to read?"

00:04:01 ◼   ► And the irony of this of course is, well, it's not irony,

00:04:04 ◼   ► but I'll just point out that Phil met Lisa Schmeiser,

00:04:09 ◼   ► his wife of many years now,

00:04:13 ◼   ► because she saw his funny things

00:04:14 ◼   ► that he wrote on his website that I made.

00:04:16 ◼   ► - Look what you did.

00:04:17 ◼   ► So look, yep, yep, I win.

00:04:21 ◼   ► Well, he wins, but I helped, 'cause I made a website.

00:04:24 ◼   ► I got his brilliance out there for the world to see,

00:04:27 ◼   ► including his future wife.

00:04:28 ◼   ► So that's how things used to work

00:04:29 ◼   ► before there was Tumblr, kids.

00:04:32 ◼   ► You had to have a friend who knew how to run a web server

00:04:34 ◼   ► to put your funny things on the internet.

00:04:35 ◼   ► - Jason, did you get your Thanksgiving 5K badge

00:04:38 ◼   ► on your Apple Watch?

00:04:40 ◼   ► - I did not.

00:04:41 ◼   ► - Good man.

00:04:41 ◼   ► - I did not.

00:04:43 ◼   ► - I'm almost more proud of you because you didn't, you know?

00:04:45 ◼   ► - No, but here's the sad thing, Myke,

00:04:47 ◼   ► is on Thanksgiving day, I walked probably six or seven K.

00:04:52 ◼   ► - Oh, I saw you tweet about this.

00:04:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, so we took a walk in the morning.

00:04:58 ◼   ► So we were visiting my sister-in-law

00:05:02 ◼   ► who lives about four hours from here, which is nice.

00:05:06 ◼   ► She used to live on the East coast and she moved back

00:05:08 ◼   ► and she lives right between where we live

00:05:10 ◼   ► and where Lauren and her, you know, Lauren's parents live.

00:05:16 ◼   ► And so it's easier for everybody, basically.

00:05:18 ◼   ► First off, we can all get together

00:05:20 ◼   ► and we can drive four hours

00:05:22 ◼   ► and they can drive four or five hours

00:05:24 ◼   ► and we're all together.

00:05:25 ◼   ► It's great.

00:05:25 ◼   ► And it's up in the foothills.

00:05:27 ◼   ► It's very much the same terrain as where I grew up.

00:05:32 ◼   ► It's 50 miles south of where I grew up,

00:05:36 ◼   ► but it's very much at the same altitude

00:05:38 ◼   ► and it's the same climate and it's the same countryside.

00:05:40 ◼   ► It's great.

00:05:41 ◼   ► It's out in the country.

00:05:43 ◼   ► and her land backs up on this, you know,

00:05:46 ◼   ► like a kind of hilly open space basically.

00:05:49 ◼   ► And so she has legal access to go back there

00:05:53 ◼   ► and that's where she takes walks with her dogs.

00:05:55 ◼   ► She's got three dogs.

00:05:56 ◼   ► And so we all went out on Thanksgiving morning

00:05:58 ◼   ► with four dogs 'cause we brought our dog too.

00:06:00 ◼   ► It's like a little dog vacation.

00:06:02 ◼   ► And we had a great walk and up hills and down hills

00:06:05 ◼   ► and through meadows and it was amazing.

00:06:08 ◼   ► And we get back to start cooking dinner

00:06:10 ◼   ► and it's, or Thanksgiving meal, whatever it is,

00:06:15 ◼   ► 'cause I think we ate it at like two or three

00:06:17 ◼   ► in the afternoon.

00:06:19 ◼   ► And I wasn't quite at 5K, I was a little bit short.

00:06:21 ◼   ► I was at like three miles or two and a half miles.

00:06:24 ◼   ► I was a little bit short, but not a lot short.

00:06:27 ◼   ► And I thought, if I didn't have to go in

00:06:29 ◼   ► and prep the turkey right now,

00:06:31 ◼   ► 'cause I roasted the turkey,

00:06:32 ◼   ► I would just go out on the street

00:06:36 ◼   ► and walk around a little bit and get this stupid badge.

00:06:39 ◼   ► But instead I thought, no, I've got things to do.

00:06:41 ◼   ► So I stopped.

00:06:41 ◼   ► And then after dinner, of course,

00:06:43 ◼   ► we went back out for another little bit of a walk.

00:06:45 ◼   ► And I logged that one too.

00:06:48 ◼   ► And if you put them both together,

00:06:49 ◼   ► it was totally more than 5K.

00:06:51 ◼   ► But the way that Apple's badge thing worked,

00:06:54 ◼   ► it sounds like if you tried to add multiple ones together,

00:06:56 ◼   ► and they said, make a workout of more than 5K.

00:07:00 ◼   ► And apparently also if you used a fitness app

00:07:02 ◼   ► that uses the API, but doesn't,

00:07:05 ◼   ► that isn't a workout started in the workout app

00:07:07 ◼   ► on Apple Watch, you didn't get it either.

00:07:09 ◼   ► So close.

00:07:11 ◼   ► But I applaud Apple for doing it.

00:07:12 ◼   ► I think it's a fun idea.

00:07:13 ◼   ► I think that they should make more challenges like that

00:07:16 ◼   ► where they try to encourage people to do it.

00:07:17 ◼   ► I think it's gamifying fitness on a broader level,

00:07:21 ◼   ► get everybody to do a boxing day,

00:07:24 ◼   ► a boxing day walk of at least three miles

00:07:27 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:07:28 ◼   ► I think stuff like that, it's kind of fun.

00:07:30 ◼   ► Everybody's sharing their badges and talking about it

00:07:32 ◼   ► and you don't have to do it, but I think it's a fun idea.

00:07:35 ◼   ► So anyway, I did walk more than 5K, hike really more than 5K,

00:07:40 ◼   ► but no turkey badge for me, alas.

00:07:44 ◼   ► Did you do anything special?

00:07:46 ◼   ► I saw a photo that suggests that you did,

00:07:48 ◼   ► despite not having a reservation when we talked,

00:07:50 ◼   ► have an American-style Thanksgiving meal last week.

00:07:54 ◼   ► - In between the time that we spoke and Thanksgiving,

00:07:57 ◼   ► we decided to go to a restaurant

00:08:00 ◼   ► and we had a great Thanksgiving dinner.

00:08:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I saw it.

00:08:03 ◼   ► It was all-- - Yeah, it was brilliant.

00:08:05 ◼   ► all the stuff, right? It looks like you had turkey and...

00:08:08 ◼   ► All the trimmings. All the trimmings, yeah. Fantastic.

00:08:11 ◼   ► Yeah, it was really good. I'm really pleased that we did it, because Adina really wanted

00:08:14 ◼   ► to do that. She wanted to go and have a nice Thanksgiving meal, because she'd never had

00:08:17 ◼   ► it before and she was jealous that I did a couple of years ago, I think. So yeah, we

00:08:21 ◼   ► did that and it was really, really nice. We had a great time with that one.

00:08:26 ◼   ► That's fun. Were there lots of Americans around you?

00:08:29 ◼   ► I think so. I think so. It's hard to tell, but I assume so.

00:08:34 ◼   ► cowboy hats. I don't know how you identify the Americans that way.

00:08:38 ◼   ► Cuz I couldn't necessarily hear everybody. I wasn't sure how to identify them. Yeah,

00:08:45 ◼   ► cowboy hats, little flags, you know, the whole nine yards.

00:08:48 ◼   ► Sure.

00:08:49 ◼   ► But yeah, no, it was really nice. It was really, really, really nice. I loved the food.

00:08:52 ◼   ► That's great. I'm glad you did that.

00:08:53 ◼   ► I love the food that you Americans decide to eat for Thanksgiving.

00:08:56 ◼   ► Well, and for you, it's like a little bonus Christmas, right? Because it's the same sort

00:09:01 ◼   ► of idea.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Like sugar Christmas I guess, would probably be the way to put it.

00:09:07 ◼   ► That's great.

00:09:08 ◼   ► That's kind of how it is.

00:09:10 ◼   ► Extra sugary stuff on top?

00:09:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:13 ◼   ► Well we like it that way.

00:09:14 ◼   ► Sure do, and that's why I love America so much.

00:09:18 ◼   ► I want to mention this little product that got announced today by our friends at Studio

00:09:22 ◼   ► Neat.

00:09:23 ◼   ► I will just say right off the top not only are Tom and Dan of Studio Neat friends of

00:09:27 ◼   ► mine, I host a podcast with him called Thoroughly Considered.

00:09:30 ◼   ► I just want to mention that because we're about to talk about one of their products

00:09:33 ◼   ► because it's cool but you're the one who's been using it anyway.

00:09:38 ◼   ► Yeah I've been using this I don't even know how long now, many months.

00:09:43 ◼   ► I remember having one sent to me to give to Federico at WWDC.

00:09:48 ◼   ► So it's been a long time this has been in development.

00:09:50 ◼   ► It's been a very long time coming, in fact I'm scrolling back through through Slack and

00:09:58 ◼   ► I think I got it in February.

00:10:00 ◼   ► - Right.

00:10:02 ◼   ► - So a long time ago.

00:10:03 ◼   ► And those were handmade concept versions

00:10:06 ◼   ► where they're like, you know,

00:10:09 ◼   ► he's cutting the material and putting it together.

00:10:12 ◼   ► And they made some changes since then.

00:10:15 ◼   ► They actually based on the feedback,

00:10:16 ◼   ► they changed to sort of like how the snap is put together

00:10:19 ◼   ► and a little bit of the angle of view.

00:10:22 ◼   ► But it's, so I've been using this

00:10:24 ◼   ► and I've been on some shows like Twit

00:10:26 ◼   ► where people have seen it and said,

00:10:28 ◼   ► what is that and I've said it's not a product that is out yet so I can't help you with it.

00:10:35 ◼   ► One of my favorite accessories for the iPad has been the Origami, the Incase Origami Workstation,

00:10:41 ◼   ► which is a little case that you snap the old Apple Bluetooth keyboard into and it's a super

00:10:48 ◼   ► small very compact carrying case and then you fold it open and fold it back, it's got

00:10:52 ◼   ► a little Velcro kind of thing, and you sort of stick your iPad in it. And you've got an

00:10:58 ◼   ► iPad workstation basically with the with the standard Apple keyboard of the time.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Now the problem is the iPads are bigger, the bezels are smaller, and that's the old keyboard.

00:11:11 ◼   ► The dimensions are not as... it's still usable but it's not as great as it used to be with

00:11:16 ◼   ► like a modern iPad.

00:11:18 ◼   ► So the Canopy from Studio Neat is I guess basically a new take on that same concept.

00:11:24 ◼   ► not quite the same as the origami in that the origami had sort of like these

00:11:28 ◼   ► little wings that you fold it over and then velcroed and all of that. The canopy

00:11:32 ◼   ► doesn't work like that. The canopy has basically three surfaces and a

00:11:39 ◼   ► snap to close it and then when you open it up you fold two of the surfaces

00:11:43 ◼   ► back around and snap them back together and that is the base of it.

00:11:47 ◼   ► And it's designed for the Magic Keyboard and it will only really fit the Magic

00:11:52 ◼   ► keyboard. Other keyboards are... it's exactly the size of the Magic Keyboard.

00:11:57 ◼   ► But if you... and it's got this like super suctiony stick 'em stuff on the back so

00:12:02 ◼   ► you can take it on and off, but if you put it down it's held quite well to the

00:12:08 ◼   ► to the canopy case. You just sort of like line it up and stick it down and it'll

00:12:12 ◼   ► it'll stay there forever. And then so it wraps up very, again, compact carrying

00:12:18 ◼   ► case. You've got a little Bluetooth keyboard. The Magic Keyboard's a really

00:12:21 ◼   ► nice keyboard and then you open you unsnap it open it up fold it around the

00:12:25 ◼   ► back and snap it again and put your iPad in it and now you've got a full Apple

00:12:30 ◼   ► Magic keyboard and your iPad to do work and I've been I've used it all the time

00:12:35 ◼   ► because I don't love cases that you have to snap your iPad into because it takes

00:12:43 ◼   ► work to get them back out again. So it adds bulk and weight and all that stuff. Right.

00:12:48 ◼   ► - Right, and you're carrying it all around.

00:12:50 ◼   ► So for this, it adds very little weight

00:12:53 ◼   ► to the existing Magic Keyboard,

00:12:55 ◼   ► and it's a carrying case for the keyboard.

00:12:56 ◼   ► So I throw the keyboard in a bag, I did it,

00:12:58 ◼   ► this, you know, for Thanksgiving.

00:13:00 ◼   ► Throw the keyboard in a bag, it's there if you need it,

00:13:02 ◼   ► and it will serve as its own, you know,

00:13:04 ◼   ► it's also its own stand for the iPad.

00:13:07 ◼   ► So if I wanna write an article,

00:13:08 ◼   ► I will get out the keyboard and I'll set it up,

00:13:11 ◼   ► and I'll drop the iPad in, and I'll write,

00:13:13 ◼   ► but when I want to walk away,

00:13:15 ◼   ► I just pick up my iPad and walk away.

00:13:17 ◼   ► It's not snapped in or attached.

00:13:19 ◼   ► It's just sitting in the canopy.

00:13:21 ◼   ► So I like it.

00:13:23 ◼   ► It's a very specific product for a very specific use case.

00:13:26 ◼   ► But if you like the Magic Keyboard,

00:13:27 ◼   ► if you like the idea of having a keyboard at the ready,

00:13:30 ◼   ► but not having this keyboard attachment,

00:13:34 ◼   ► then I think it's a great option.

00:13:36 ◼   ► And I have used it more than any other iPad keyboard thing

00:13:41 ◼   ► since I got it.

00:13:43 ◼   ► It fills a need that doesn't exist anymore, right?

00:13:47 ◼   ► Well, it feels like a hole in the market,

00:13:50 ◼   ► that's what I'm saying,

00:13:51 ◼   ► because the origami has gone away, right?

00:13:53 ◼   ► There's no more origami case.

00:13:55 ◼   ► - This is, I had dreamed about a next-gen origami

00:13:59 ◼   ► because I really liked that idea of

00:14:00 ◼   ► take Apple's standard external keyboard

00:14:03 ◼   ► and make a nice case that also turns into a stand

00:14:06 ◼   ► for my iPad.

00:14:07 ◼   ► Like, that was what I was looking for.

00:14:10 ◼   ► And this is what this is with the Magic Keyboard.

00:14:13 ◼   ► So, you know, again, there are other use cases

00:14:16 ◼   ► where putting it in a keyboard case is better.

00:14:19 ◼   ► I know, you know, you and I both really like

00:14:21 ◼   ► the Logitech Create, the 9.7.

00:14:24 ◼   ► It's a very, very nice keyboard case,

00:14:27 ◼   ► but it is a case and you're carrying it around.

00:14:30 ◼   ► So, you know, it depends.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Everybody's got, there's no right or wrong here.

00:14:32 ◼   ► Everybody's got different uses.

00:14:33 ◼   ► But for the way I use my big iPad Pro,

00:14:37 ◼   ► this is generally the best fit

00:14:39 ◼   ► because, you know, most of the time,

00:14:42 ◼   ► I just want to have the keyboard away somewhere and I'll pull it out if I need to use it.

00:14:47 ◼   ► Yeah, it is really nice. I'm just not a fan of that keyboard. I don't know why I've used

00:14:54 ◼   ► it like once or twice and I used it for a day and my hands were on fire.

00:14:58 ◼   ► Huh, interesting.

00:14:59 ◼   ► I don't know why. I couldn't tell you why. I used so many keyboards that are like that

00:15:03 ◼   ► one, but there was just something about that keyboard. I still have one. It's like it's

00:15:07 ◼   ► in a draw. Maybe I'll use it one day for something.

00:15:11 ◼   ► I wish, you know, my biggest criticism of it is probably that I wish that, of the canopy,

00:15:19 ◼   ► is that its strength is that it is made exactly for the Magic Keyboard and the Magic Keyboard

00:15:24 ◼   ► is the right, if you're going to make a product like this for one keyboard, that's the right

00:15:28 ◼   ► keyboard to make it for.

00:15:30 ◼   ► The downside of that is there are some other really good Bluetooth keyboards that are good

00:15:34 ◼   ► with iPads and you can't use it with that.

00:15:37 ◼   ► Just like with the Origami back in the day, it's made for the one keyboard, it won't work

00:15:41 ◼   ► with any other keyboards. So if you like the Magic Keyboard, and a lot of people do, and

00:15:47 ◼   ► want to use it with your iPad, and I mean, it's like, yeah, this fits a very specific

00:15:51 ◼   ► niche, but it happens to be one that I really appreciate. So I like this product a lot.

00:15:55 ◼   ► So you can go and check it out. There'll be a link in the show notes, but it's at StudioNeat.com.

00:16:00 ◼   ► I think they're taking pre-orders for it right now.

00:16:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:16:03 ◼   ► StudioNeats.com/products/canopy if you're interested.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Yeah. But it's good to talk about it since I've been using it for whatever it is now.

00:16:10 ◼   ► You're one of the lucky few that's had it for a while.

00:16:13 ◼   ► But yeah, they're shipping it in the coming weeks.

00:16:15 ◼   ► So you can go check it out.

00:16:16 ◼   ► And we're gonna be recording an episode,

00:16:18 ◼   ► I think of Thoroughly Considered next week,

00:16:21 ◼   ► where we're gonna talk about this.

00:16:22 ◼   ► 'Cause this has been a long and interesting process

00:16:26 ◼   ► in trying to get this product made.

00:16:27 ◼   ► So if you're interested.

00:16:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm looking forward to the story

00:16:30 ◼   ► 'cause I've only seen the one little bit

00:16:32 ◼   ► as being a test case for the initial hand cut dust version.

00:16:37 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:16:39 ◼   ► Alright, this week's episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at

00:16:43 ◼   ► Mac Worlden, the company that produces amazing, comfortable underwear, socks,

00:16:49 ◼   ► shirts, undershirts, hoodies and sweatpants that you're gonna love. And if you're not wearing them,

00:16:54 ◼   ► if you're not wearing Mac Worlden right now for some crazy reason,

00:16:57 ◼   ► Mac Worlden is gonna be better than whatever you're wearing right now because they believe

00:17:01 ◼   ► in all the things that are important. They believe in smart design. I know you are, you always are.

00:17:06 ◼   ► I am.

00:17:08 ◼   ► They believe in smart design, premium fabrics, thank you for sharing, and simple shopping

00:17:12 ◼   ► experiences.

00:17:13 ◼   ► I'm not going to take this lying down, your suggestion that Mack Weldon stuff is better

00:17:17 ◼   ► than what I'm wearing now.

00:17:18 ◼   ► It is not!

00:17:19 ◼   ► Because it is already Mack Weldon.

00:17:21 ◼   ► Alright, go on.

00:17:22 ◼   ► Go ahead.

00:17:23 ◼   ► Fine.

00:17:24 ◼   ► I've got to give you that moment, I know.

00:17:25 ◼   ► Yeah, thank you.

00:17:26 ◼   ► I appreciate it.

00:17:27 ◼   ► Mack Weldon.

00:17:28 ◼   ► No, Mack Weldon.

00:17:29 ◼   ► Oh, Mack Weldon, I see.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Mack Weldon.

00:17:31 ◼   ► They're the company that make the comfortable underwear, Jason.

00:17:34 ◼   ► Not the company that made magazines.

00:17:36 ◼   ► Okay.

00:17:37 ◼   ► I am suitably chastened.

00:17:39 ◼   ► Matt Weldon, believe in making everything fun and good for you.

00:17:44 ◼   ► That's how I like to think about Matt Weldon.

00:17:47 ◼   ► Comfort, they want to make everything easy when you go shopping, right?

00:17:50 ◼   ► They want to give you discounts when you shop.

00:17:52 ◼   ► They're all about that.

00:17:53 ◼   ► And they also care about science.

00:17:56 ◼   ► Matt Weldon developed a line of silver underwear and shirts as well, undershirts, that are

00:18:00 ◼   ► naturally antimicrobial.

00:18:03 ◼   ► They eliminate odor by the use of silver science.

00:18:05 ◼   ► That's what I believe is what it's called, silver science.

00:18:10 ◼   ► And as we have established, it will ward off werewolves as well.

00:18:16 ◼   ► Werewolves will not bite you if you are wearing silver things.

00:18:18 ◼   ► It's just a scientific package.

00:18:20 ◼   ► It's part of silver science.

00:18:21 ◼   ► It's part of all of it.

00:18:22 ◼   ► It's the whole package, really.

00:18:25 ◼   ► Mack Weldon's stuff is not only comfortable, it also looks good and performs well.

00:18:30 ◼   ► If you're wearing this stuff when you're working out, going to work, or just lounging around

00:18:34 ◼   ► the house, you're gonna be set. Listeners of this show can get 20% off at MacWeldon.com

00:18:40 ◼   ► that's M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com with the code upgrade. Be like me and Jason and we're MacWeldon.

00:18:48 ◼   ► Thank you so much to MacWeldon for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:18:52 ◼   ► Be like us. I don't know why you bombard me during the MacWeldon ads but you do and I enjoy

00:18:58 ◼   ► it. I think the most entertaining podcast ads are where there are things going on in

00:19:02 ◼   ► and you can't skip them. That's the beauty of it.

00:19:05 ◼   ► And I, for some reason, I, plus I do have those things,

00:19:09 ◼   ► so I can actually talk about them.

00:19:10 ◼   ► And it's also fun to just...

00:19:13 ◼   ► - To just derail me. - Push your buttons a little bit.

00:19:16 ◼   ► - I appreciate it. - Werewolves.

00:19:18 ◼   ► - You and John Gruber had a great talk on the talk show,

00:19:22 ◼   ► which I actually got to after the last episode,

00:19:25 ◼   ► 'cause I didn't want to spoil our show

00:19:27 ◼   ► by hearing you talk about everything,

00:19:28 ◼   ► and I decided I didn't want to talk about any of it.

00:19:31 ◼   ► - That's smart.

00:19:32 ◼   ► Plus it was 17 hours long.

00:19:36 ◼   ► Yeah, something like that.

00:19:37 ◼   ► It was long.

00:19:38 ◼   ► It was a big one.

00:19:39 ◼   ► But it was a great one.

00:19:41 ◼   ► And there was a bunch of brouhaha after this show,

00:19:48 ◼   ► I guess is a way to focus on it, which was effectively you

00:19:52 ◼   ► and Jon spoke about Jonny Ive a little bit on the show.

00:19:55 ◼   ► And we're kind of throwing around the idea

00:19:59 ◼   ► about the "Design by Apple in California" book,

00:20:02 ◼   ► indicating the potential longevity of Ive's career and also kind of what his focus is.

00:20:08 ◼   ► Basically the same conversations that me and you had, the same conversations that Federico

00:20:12 ◼   ► and Steven had, the same conversations that they had on ATP. But there is a problem with

00:20:17 ◼   ► Talk Show, for some reason it's the only podcast that I know in kind of the Apple technology

00:20:22 ◼   ► sphere that will get verbatim quoted as fact.

00:20:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, Grouper's reputation is to blame for this, right?

00:20:33 ◼   ► It's like people are like, "Oh, he knows stuff."

00:20:35 ◼   ► To the point where now he has to sort of disclaim a lot

00:20:38 ◼   ► when he writes saying, "I don't actually know this,

00:20:41 ◼   ► "I'm just guessing."

00:20:42 ◼   ► Because people kind of assume that he knows all the secrets,

00:20:45 ◼   ► which isn't really true.

00:20:46 ◼   ► He does have good connections there.

00:20:48 ◼   ► And after this all happened,

00:20:50 ◼   ► he got some people to Little Birdies, as he says,

00:20:53 ◼   ► to tell him positive things

00:20:55 ◼   ► about Johnny Ive's commitment to Apple, sort of,

00:20:58 ◼   ► but it's, there's more, the Kremlinology of Apple,

00:21:03 ◼   ► like which we do here sometimes,

00:21:07 ◼   ► and there's deep holes of Apple Kremlinology

00:21:09 ◼   ► around the internet.

00:21:11 ◼   ► They watch Gruber, like Gruber is considered a,

00:21:16 ◼   ► you know, connected to the Politburo in some way

00:21:18 ◼   ► where they can do the Kremlinology through him.

00:21:20 ◼   ► And so, you know, ironically,

00:21:23 ◼   ► one of the things that we talk about

00:21:24 ◼   ► and that Marco has talked about before on ATP,

00:21:27 ◼   ► about how one of the beautiful things about podcasting

00:21:29 ◼   ► is it's off the cuff, it's not as considered as writing,

00:21:33 ◼   ► it's your thoughts can evolve as you have the conversation,

00:21:36 ◼   ► and because nobody has yet,

00:21:37 ◼   ► and I'm shocked that this has not yet happened,

00:21:40 ◼   ► nobody has yet turned a text-to-speech engine

00:21:43 ◼   ► on all podcasts and dumped them into Google.

00:21:45 ◼   ► Like, Google hasn't done that.

00:21:48 ◼   ► I'm really surprised that that hasn't happened,

00:21:50 ◼   ► that all things everybody says on a podcast

00:21:52 ◼   ► are not yet indexable, but I think it will happen.

00:21:55 ◼   ► - And I am terrified for that day.

00:21:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's gonna be a challenge,

00:21:58 ◼   ► but it allows you to kind of think these things out

00:22:03 ◼   ► and be a little bit imprecise

00:22:04 ◼   ► and it just kind of goes in its own little universe

00:22:07 ◼   ► and you have to listen

00:22:09 ◼   ► and you have to get the context of it, right?

00:22:11 ◼   ► So because John is in this,

00:22:14 ◼   ► he's considered connected enough

00:22:16 ◼   ► that what he says can be part of Apple Kremlinology,

00:22:21 ◼   ► what he said about Johnny Ive, which he did not properly disclaim and he wrote a piece about

00:22:26 ◼   ► how, you know, if you listen to the context you can really understand that, but if you take the

00:22:29 ◼   ► direct quote you can't, was picked up and quoted in an article by, I think, Apple Insider about

00:22:38 ◼   ► this. And in fact, the writer admitted to me, because I wrote to him, so what happened was

00:22:43 ◼   ► worse than that, which is I started getting tweets saying, "Jason's sources at Apple

00:22:51 ◼   ► say that Johnny Ive is no longer involved in product design." And I was like, "What?

00:22:57 ◼   ► What?" And I went to that article and all of the things that John said about Johnny

00:23:02 ◼   ► Ive were attributed to me. And so the story is basically, and the writer kind of admitted

00:23:09 ◼   ► this that a writer for Apple Insider on a very slow news week was half listening to

00:23:16 ◼   ► the talk show to the point where he didn't even know who was who, because I think he

00:23:19 ◼   ► had a cold and his ears were a little bit plugged up.

00:23:22 ◼   ► Oh no!

00:23:23 ◼   ► And decided to make a story about the seemingly authoritative "I heard that" pronouncements

00:23:33 ◼   ► from pundits pontificating and making speculation on a podcast, and sort of ginned up a story

00:23:38 ◼   ► about it, which then he had to revise because it wasn't me who said that it was John, and

00:23:43 ◼   ► then John sort of added in his layer, which was if you listen to the whole thing, and

00:23:47 ◼   ► this guy clearly wasn't paying super close attention to it, you get the context. But

00:23:51 ◼   ► the danger of podcasting is if they do listen and they do write down what you say, they

00:23:56 ◼   ► can take it out of context, and then you have no control over your words. So, you know,

00:24:01 ◼   ► that's the, you can control all your words if you post it yourself, but it's easier for

00:24:05 ◼   ► them to find. If they take you out of context, if they do find it, then you don't have that

00:24:11 ◼   ► control. So it's a problem, it's the internet, this is what happens. But the substance of

00:24:16 ◼   ► it is that Jon and I were doing what everybody else was doing, like you said, which is speculating

00:24:21 ◼   ► about what's Jonny Ive's involvement, he's got a new title. I made a lot of those same

00:24:25 ◼   ► speculations which is, does this mean he's more product focused, does this mean that

00:24:29 ◼   ► his new title allows him to sort of step away and look big picture, and he's not as deeply

00:24:34 ◼   ► involved in individual products necessarily, but he is managing the people who are, and

00:24:39 ◼   ► he's taken this sort of Steve Jobsian role as a product lead, because Tim Cook is not

00:24:44 ◼   ► somebody who seems to have that same kind of product sense. And it was all pretty reasonable,

00:24:49 ◼   ► but if you quote a certain part of what Grouper said, it sounds like his sources at Apple

00:24:54 ◼   ► say that "Ive isn't there." And what that seems to have done is shaken out of the tree

00:24:58 ◼   ► some people at Apple who said to Jon, "No, that's not true. He's as connected as ever."

00:25:03 ◼   ► So who knows what the truth is because there's also some kind of counter-programming kind

00:25:09 ◼   ► of happening there.

00:25:12 ◼   ► But yeah, this is, it's a, what a story, this is a very 21st century, it's a very 2016 kind

00:25:20 ◼   ► of story where you've got podcasts and blogs and slow news weeks and speculation about

00:25:25 ◼   ► Apple and counter information being sort of spread after the fact and I don't know, what

00:25:33 ◼   ► a mess. Basically the word from Apple now is still interesting to me though which

00:25:39 ◼   ► is that I've is focusing on bigger projects like architecture but that all

00:25:44 ◼   ► design decisions go through him and I said it's the word from Apple because

00:25:47 ◼   ► that's that's what has somebody decided to share with John Gruber for John

00:25:50 ◼   ► Gruber to share with the world. Yeah and the way he phrases it is Johnny I've is

00:25:55 ◼   ► as connected to product design as ever which I I guess that that was one way to

00:26:01 ◼   ► to look at it is, is Johnny's not connected to product design? I don't know. That was

00:26:06 ◼   ► never really my number one theory. My theory was always that he's connected to product

00:26:11 ◼   ► design, right? These people who are in charge of design at Apple work for him. I always

00:26:16 ◼   ► figured he was connected. I just figured he was higher up, less involved day to day, working

00:26:21 ◼   ► on some other stuff too. Not that he wasn't connected. And I guess what they're saying

00:26:26 ◼   ► here is, look, he's not out the door.

00:26:28 ◼   ► And connected is an interesting choice of words because it means, well, it depends on

00:26:32 ◼   ► how you want to read it, but my take is exactly that he is overseeing.

00:26:38 ◼   ► He's not taking pen to paper on a daily basis as much anymore.

00:26:42 ◼   ► That's the way that I look at this.

00:26:44 ◼   ► And honestly, not surprising to me.

00:26:47 ◼   ► Like this makes perfect sense to me, like that he is more of an overseer now because

00:26:53 ◼   ► he's not going to be around forever and quite frankly he's the people that are

00:26:58 ◼   ► underneath him I can't I can never remember their names yeah I know the the

00:27:03 ◼   ► two design offices they have one hardware and one on software yeah they

00:27:09 ◼   ► they are gonna be at least one of them will take his role one day in theory so

00:27:15 ◼   ► he should maybe kind of giving them a little bit more autonomy and just having

00:27:19 ◼   ► the decisions float through him.

00:27:21 ◼   ► - Well, if he's Steve Jobs now in terms of product taste

00:27:25 ◼   ► to a certain degree, right, that is not,

00:27:27 ◼   ► take it from me as somebody in a much smaller scale

00:27:30 ◼   ► and different industry, but when you get more responsibility

00:27:34 ◼   ► you can't do your old job anymore.

00:27:36 ◼   ► Like, you can't. - No.

00:27:37 ◼   ► - So if Johnny Ive has been elevated

00:27:40 ◼   ► when he got promoted to this other level,

00:27:43 ◼   ► of course he's not gonna be as involved with the details.

00:27:47 ◼   ► How can he be?

00:27:48 ◼   ► Plus, you're right, what you're doing is bringing in your lieutenants and they're learning to

00:27:55 ◼   ► do your old job or, you know, one of them is kind of a new job, which is the software

00:27:59 ◼   ► design, which kind of didn't exist before, I think, before sort of Forstall left.

00:28:04 ◼   ► But you've got software design and hardware design, and then you've got Johnny Ive in

00:28:07 ◼   ► this new role above them.

00:28:09 ◼   ► So of course he's less involved, but, you know, the other way to look at that is that

00:28:14 ◼   ► he's still working hard on, and is incredibly important at Apple, he's just taking on this

00:28:20 ◼   ► kind of like senior figure who is talking about product directions in videos in the

00:28:26 ◼   ► white room and is managing the kind of product process with balancing design and the realities

00:28:34 ◼   ► of engineering and all of those things. Now, and again, when we talk about Apple, I have

00:28:39 ◼   ► to say this, I'm not necessarily saying he's doing a great job at that or that all of Apple's

00:28:43 ◼   ► Apple's products are fantastic. That's not what I'm saying, but I can understand that

00:28:46 ◼   ► as a role. That you need somebody to do that, especially if you're, as we'll probably talk

00:28:51 ◼   ► about later today, if you're structured like Apple is structured, which was a structure

00:28:55 ◼   ► built by Steve Jobs, you do sort of need some people to say, right, to say this is the kind

00:29:00 ◼   ► of product we want to build. And it wasn't engineers, right? It was sort of Steve who

00:29:07 ◼   ► did that, and collaboration, but he was like a decider and had good taste and good product

00:29:13 ◼   ► and I think everybody would admit that he was the one who did that.

00:29:16 ◼   ► Nobody's going to be Steve anymore, but perhaps that's now Johnny Ive's role.

00:29:21 ◼   ► Final sign-off, frankly.

00:29:25 ◼   ► That's what he does.

00:29:26 ◼   ► He's final sign-off for product designs.

00:29:27 ◼   ► And setting direction, and checking in with his lieutenants, and saying "I like that."

00:29:33 ◼   ► He probably calls them "leftenants" by the way, because of course.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Because naturally.

00:29:37 ◼   ► Aluminium.

00:29:38 ◼   ► Sir Johnny Ive.

00:29:39 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:29:40 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:29:41 ◼   ► somewhere, probably. So he's checking in with them and saying, "He's setting the

00:29:47 ◼   ► direction, he's checking in." But it's not the same as being down in the trenches

00:29:55 ◼   ► with those things every day, because it's literally impossible for him to do that, because

00:29:59 ◼   ► he's got too much that he's responsible for. So I suspect that that seems reasonable

00:30:06 ◼   ► to me, not knowing anything about what actually goes on inside Apple, because again, I do

00:30:11 ◼   ► not talk to any little birdies really.

00:30:14 ◼   ► This the whole thing for me was it was just funny it was just funny to see it's like how

00:30:18 ◼   ► much stuff is said on podcasts every week.

00:30:21 ◼   ► I know right.

00:30:22 ◼   ► But it only ever seems to be John that finds himself in this mess.

00:30:25 ◼   ► Well Marco yeah right because Marco will write things I mean I think he doesn't anymore but

00:30:30 ◼   ► Marco would write things on his blog and people would freak out about it and be on CNBC and

00:30:34 ◼   ► all that but that's the thing is you know not to not to belabor this but it's about

00:30:40 ◼   ► laziness in the media, right? Like it's too hard to listen to podcasts and scrape them

00:30:47 ◼   ► for clickbait. It's too hard. So mostly it doesn't happen.

00:30:51 ◼   ► And there isn't anything to really link to as well. Like you can't link to the text.

00:30:55 ◼   ► Right. I mean, although clickbait doesn't care necessarily if you can link. But yeah,

00:31:00 ◼   ► it's more work because you have to transcribe it. It's hard. It's harder to do that. John

00:31:06 ◼   ► It's listened to by a lot of people and a lot of influential people and is perceived

00:31:10 ◼   ► as having a level of knowledge and access that allows, that makes it a little bit more,

00:31:16 ◼   ► even then though I feel like if it wasn't Thanksgiving week and there was more news

00:31:19 ◼   ► going on that probably wouldn't have been a story, but it's true.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Marco can say things that are far more incendiary on ATP that don't get the coverage that something

00:31:31 ◼   ► that he writes on markup.org will get because it's a lot more work to hear him say those

00:31:37 ◼   ► things on ATP.

00:31:38 ◼   ► Well, it's like this whole thing about the all-glass iPhone, no home button, 10th anniversary.

00:31:44 ◼   ► That started on the talk show. That whole rumor started with Gruber in May. And then

00:31:49 ◼   ► it got reported on and now it's considered fact. But my memory tells me, and I did some

00:31:54 ◼   ► Googling and yeah, I've got something in May. I'm sure that was the first time that that

00:31:58 ◼   ► was mentioned and now it's like everyone's expecting his 10th anniversary iPhone.

00:32:02 ◼   ► Well this is what comes up when you're influential like Jon is. I mean Jon, I know, I gotta say,

00:32:09 ◼   ► and I love talking on the talk show and I feel like it lets me reach people that I,

00:32:13 ◼   ► who don't know who I am and never hear me. I always love your episodes. They're always

00:32:17 ◼   ► some of my favorite ones. And it's fun to talk to Jon, I don't get to talk to Jon a

00:32:20 ◼   ► lot and so it's also just like me and Jon shooting the breeze a little bit. It's great.

00:32:25 ◼   ► great because when I see him at events I get to talk to him for five minutes and then we

00:32:28 ◼   ► have to go into the event and that's it. So I always enjoy my conversations with Jon.

00:32:34 ◼   ► That all said, I imagine this happens to him constantly, but for me I just get a window

00:32:39 ◼   ► into it. Every time I'm on the talk show for the next week I will get weird emails, Twitter

00:32:47 ◼   ► mentions, posts referencing me because people have their eye on that and it's a different

00:32:54 ◼   ► audience and you know I'll get some of that for Twit too but for John's there

00:32:59 ◼   ► is there is scrutiny there is hate listening it is amazing it is a

00:33:04 ◼   ► different world. I feel bad for him because like I just hope it doesn't

00:33:09 ◼   ► discourage him from sharing his thoughts on a talk show like that's my favorite

00:33:14 ◼   ► way to consume content from John Gruber because it's like it's relaxed and he's

00:33:20 ◼   ► just talking you know that's how I like it I mean because that you know

00:33:23 ◼   ► Podcasting is just my favorite thing anyway, but just like in the link post that he wrote where he kind of clarified some stuff

00:33:28 ◼   ► It just you know, it just is like his opening thing

00:33:30 ◼   ► He's like this is what I just like most about podcasting and that just kind of makes me sad a little bit

00:33:34 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah and his footnote was sad too because he's like, you know when I started seeing these stories

00:33:38 ◼   ► I was appalled it felt like a punch to the gut

00:33:40 ◼   ► It wasn't what I meant to get convey and I realized I've been there

00:33:43 ◼   ► you know, not with this stuff, but like we're just other stuff like well, you just say something and

00:33:48 ◼   ► And it's taken in a way because you're just kind of just riffing and you upset someone

00:33:53 ◼   ► and you're never meant to and that's what I'm saying.

00:33:56 ◼   ► And that's the problem with a medium like this is, you know, if you take it out of context,

00:34:02 ◼   ► if you don't listen to every episode or you don't listen to that episode, you just jump

00:34:05 ◼   ► to a time code, people will hear you say something and you know what, it is a rough draft, it

00:34:10 ◼   ► is something that our thoughts are evolving about.

00:34:13 ◼   ► When I write a story, I am considering it and making, I'm considering every word, but

00:34:18 ◼   ► we don't write scripts here. This is not, good lord, this is not scripted, right?

00:34:22 ◼   ► We have an outline, right? Like the things we want to get to.

00:34:26 ◼   ► But then we just have a conversation.

00:34:27 ◼   ► Yeah, because as we're talking very frequently, I will, and you will I'm sure as well, like

00:34:32 ◼   ► I have a new idea or I have a new take on it. Something that I wasn't previously expecting

00:34:36 ◼   ► before, because as we're talking, like synapses are firing and we have the chat room given

00:34:40 ◼   ► as pointers and stuff and so it evolves as it goes along and I think that's what makes

00:34:45 ◼   ► podcasting so amazing but it can also open someone up to scrutiny if they're looked at

00:34:53 ◼   ► in certain ways. Yeah I hope that nobody starts scrutinizing us.

00:35:00 ◼   ► Look away! That British guy said something really bad

00:35:03 ◼   ► about Johnny Ive, how dare he? How dare he?

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00:36:25 ◼   ► So there was this really interesting article over at Vox this week and it's the start of

00:36:31 ◼   ► a whole series of posts that they're working on that I think Vox are calling new money.

00:36:37 ◼   ► And they started this by looking at Apple's corporate structure and how it could potentially

00:36:43 ◼   ► be affecting their product lines.

00:36:46 ◼   ► Which is perfect for right now because everybody is concerned about Apple's product lines,

00:36:52 ◼   ► especially the Mac and what's going on there.

00:36:54 ◼   ► And this is quite complex. I want to try and distill it down if I can for our listeners

00:37:01 ◼   ► Jason and then we can maybe we can talk about it as we go along. So the question is this.

00:37:07 ◼   ► If Apple is the most valuable company in the world, why can't they make everything? And

00:37:14 ◼   ► so this is a really good thought, right? They have this much money, why can they not make

00:37:21 ◼   ► Why can they not just employ people and just make everything and it not be a problem?

00:37:26 ◼   ► And there's a couple of companies that are not as valuable as Apple that have much broader

00:37:31 ◼   ► offerings.

00:37:32 ◼   ► So if you look at someone like Samsung who make all consumer products, and the Vox article

00:37:40 ◼   ► picks out GE who build jet engines, tidal energy farms, freight rail, data systems,

00:37:46 ◼   ► mining equipment, medical devices, the list goes on and on and on.

00:37:50 ◼   ► So why can't Apple do this? Why is the Mac falling behind? Why is the Mac Pro not been

00:37:58 ◼   ► updated in over a thousand days? Why are some products dying on the vine? And apparently

00:38:05 ◼   ► this answer is found in the corporate structure that Apple chooses to employ.

00:38:12 ◼   ► And there is two different types. So most big companies, a company like GE, they run

00:38:16 ◼   ► on a divisional system. This is where different parts of a company are broken up and run slightly

00:38:22 ◼   ► independently. They will have all of the people, the resources and control that they need in

00:38:26 ◼   ► their column of the organisation to get everything done and only the people right at the very

00:38:31 ◼   ► top talk to the CEO as a way to help steer the ship. But they're relatively autonomous

00:38:35 ◼   ► in their being. For example, we've heard this many times, you talk about Samsung. Samsung

00:38:40 ◼   ► Samsung are a great way for me to try and help explain this. So Samsung have Samsung

00:38:46 ◼   ► the phone division, and then they also have the chip fabrication division. And the chip

00:38:51 ◼   ► fabrication division sell chips to Apple, but have nothing but like, even though Samsung

00:38:58 ◼   ► phone and Apple are at loggerheads all the time, Samsung chip company don't care because

00:39:03 ◼   ► that Apple's their customer. So they're completely separated in that way. And then there's people

00:39:08 ◼   ► at the very top it helps steer the company. It's all Samsung but they have kind of their

00:39:11 ◼   ► own columns of power. This is a divisional system. Apple is structured in what's known

00:39:17 ◼   ► as a functional system. So a good way to look at this is, if you go to Apple and this is

00:39:21 ◼   ► from I'm kind of cribbing this from the Vox article. It's a fantastic article. There'll

00:39:25 ◼   ► be a link in the show notes.

00:39:26 ◼   ► Yeah, medical ACs definitely should read it.

00:39:28 ◼   ► Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant. I learned a lot. So for example, if you look at Apple's

00:39:33 ◼   ► corporate structure, at least what they show you on their page, there's no Vice President

00:39:37 ◼   ► of iPhone, no vice president of Mac, they have senior vice presidents of hardware, technology

00:39:43 ◼   ► and hardware engineering. So functional structures are mainly used as a way to foster collaboration.

00:39:49 ◼   ► They don't split things up into product lines, they have everybody under the same individual

00:39:55 ◼   ► across product lines. So for example you would have software and hardware teams that are

00:40:07 ◼   ► are split across products. So the same person who manages software for iPhone will also

00:40:13 ◼   ► manage software for the Mac. So this is done as a way to kind of help people work together

00:40:18 ◼   ► and it is argued that because Apple run like this, they have cross device features, things

00:40:24 ◼   ► like continuity and handoff and stuff. They're possible because Apple is made up of teams

00:40:28 ◼   ► that work closely together. Am I doing okay so far, Jason?

00:40:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, no, I think you've got it.

00:40:34 ◼   ► This is the way Matt Iglesias puts it

00:40:38 ◼   ► in the Vox articles very much.

00:40:39 ◼   ► It's structured like a startup in that

00:40:42 ◼   ► when you are a small company,

00:40:44 ◼   ► what you do is you have the people who make the product.

00:40:47 ◼   ► And that's right.

00:40:48 ◼   ► And they're structured based on

00:40:50 ◼   ► what you do to make the product.

00:40:52 ◼   ► And Apple is structured like that,

00:40:55 ◼   ► even though it's a huge company in terms of revenue

00:40:59 ◼   ► and has a lot of employees,

00:41:00 ◼   ► although we have to keep in mind

00:41:01 ◼   ► that the core who make the products

00:41:04 ◼   ► is a much smaller part of Apple's business.

00:41:07 ◼   ► When you see a total number of employees

00:41:09 ◼   ► and includes the 30,000 retail employees,

00:41:12 ◼   ► there's a lot of support employees,

00:41:14 ◼   ► that, you know, there's, it's a smaller core,

00:41:17 ◼   ► but that's how they're structured

00:41:18 ◼   ► is there's an operating system group, right?

00:41:21 ◼   ► And there, you know, the people who build

00:41:23 ◼   ► the operating systems build the operating systems

00:41:26 ◼   ► and the, you know, software is software

00:41:28 ◼   ► and hardware is hardware.

00:41:29 ◼   ► It's not, as you put it, that there's a Mac division

00:41:33 ◼   ► that is off in a building somewhere

00:41:34 ◼   ► and that's all they do is the Mac.

00:41:36 ◼   ► That's not how Apple is structured.

00:41:39 ◼   ► - Microsoft is another good example of a counter.

00:41:43 ◼   ► So Microsoft have vice presidents who run lines of business

00:41:46 ◼   ► like office, devices, servers, that kind of thing.

00:41:50 ◼   ► So these people all have their own software engineers

00:41:52 ◼   ► that work in their teams, but they don't have somebody

00:41:55 ◼   ► who's the vice president of software engineering.

00:41:57 ◼   ► It gets more siloed.

00:41:59 ◼   ► The Office team and the devices team, they have software and hardware engineers where

00:42:02 ◼   ► they need them, but they don't have these cross-device or cross-product line teams.

00:42:09 ◼   ► It's more siloed, and apparently this is better for accountability.

00:42:13 ◼   ► If something goes wrong with Office, it falls on the VP of Office, because it's clear.

00:42:18 ◼   ► If something goes wrong with iWork, who is ultimately responsible for that?

00:42:24 ◼   ► Is it Craig Federighi?

00:42:26 ◼   ► It seems a bit weird.

00:42:28 ◼   ► But it's software.

00:42:29 ◼   ► >> Microsoft also is an interesting example because at the very end of his tenure, Steve

00:42:34 ◼   ► Bulmer re-org-ed Microsoft to be more like Apple and functionally organized.

00:42:39 ◼   ► And I believe then Satya Nadella came in and organized it back.

00:42:43 ◼   ► >> That was one of his first things.

00:42:44 ◼   ► He did a complete reorganization to do it this way.

00:42:47 ◼   ► But like the good question, so this is the good question of this, right?

00:42:50 ◼   ► Who is responsible ultimately inside of Apple for the fact that the Mac Pro has not been

00:42:56 ◼   ► updated in 1,000 days?

00:42:58 ◼   ► >> Yup.

00:42:59 ◼   ► >> I can't answer that question.

00:43:03 ◼   ► >> It's -- well, and the answer is it's somebody who is also in charge of making sure that

00:43:09 ◼   ► the iPhone and iPad and everything else ship, right?

00:43:12 ◼   ► >> Right.

00:43:13 ◼   ► So then how are you going to argue, right?

00:43:15 ◼   ► How do you argue with that person?

00:43:17 ◼   ► >> This actually is -- it's funny.

00:43:19 ◼   ► I'm reminded of a conversation we had about the iPad where we said if there was a CEO

00:43:26 ◼   ► of iPad incorporated, they would have been fired. And this is the thing, right? There

00:43:32 ◼   ► is no CEO of iPad incorporated. That doesn't exist. There's no, as far as we know, there's

00:43:38 ◼   ► no iPad product manager, right? Like maybe there's a product marketing manager, but is

00:43:43 ◼   ► there like a person who's got the business control and the budget line and all of that

00:43:48 ◼   ► for the iPad and decides where iPad resources are spent? I don't think so.

00:43:52 ◼   ► I would assume that there is someone who is pseudo in that role.

00:43:59 ◼   ► The speaker for the iPad.

00:44:01 ◼   ► Yes.

00:44:02 ◼   ► Or the Mac, right?

00:44:03 ◼   ► But their boss also looks after iPhone, right?

00:44:07 ◼   ► And it's like, how do you argue?

00:44:09 ◼   ► Like, if you need resourcing, you know, how do you argue with Dan Riccio, who's the hardware

00:44:16 ◼   ► engineering guy, or Johnny, I think it's Sujie, who is the hardware technologies person, how

00:44:21 ◼   ► do you go to them?

00:44:22 ◼   ► "I need some more budget for the Mac Pro."

00:44:25 ◼   ► And they go, "Well, I mean."

00:44:27 ◼   ► - I feel like the way that the Apple stuff works

00:44:32 ◼   ► is that people get retasked, right?

00:44:34 ◼   ► So there aren't people,

00:44:36 ◼   ► my understanding is that there are lots of people who like,

00:44:38 ◼   ► you work on this project

00:44:39 ◼   ► and then you go work on that project.

00:44:41 ◼   ► And some of those things happen where

00:44:43 ◼   ► if you are the person who loves the iPad,

00:44:45 ◼   ► it seems like, you know,

00:44:47 ◼   ► if you, you know, you get what resources you get

00:44:50 ◼   ► and if those people are working on the iPhone,

00:44:52 ◼   ► It's like, all right, that's, you know, but even then,

00:44:54 ◼   ► it's not like there are, as far as I can tell,

00:44:56 ◼   ► iPad OS people, right?

00:44:59 ◼   ► They're iOS people.

00:45:01 ◼   ► - And it's, budget is a word that we're using,

00:45:05 ◼   ► but I'm thinking more of like a time and attention budget

00:45:08 ◼   ► as opposed to a financial budget.

00:45:10 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:45:10 ◼   ► - So one of the things that is interesting to me

00:45:13 ◼   ► when I was thinking about this,

00:45:14 ◼   ► like just thinking about my own memories of Apple

00:45:17 ◼   ► and how Apple's run over the time

00:45:19 ◼   ► that I've been interested in them,

00:45:20 ◼   ► and you kind of alluded to this earlier,

00:45:22 ◼   ► Tim Cook has only seemed to move Apple further

00:45:25 ◼   ► towards a functional structure.

00:45:27 ◼   ► Like after Forstall left,

00:45:28 ◼   ► he consolidated roles even further, didn't he?

00:45:31 ◼   ► Like he took positions away

00:45:34 ◼   ► and moved them under key individuals.

00:45:36 ◼   ► And also, you know,

00:45:38 ◼   ► it seems like he's maybe doing more than that.

00:45:40 ◼   ► Remember we were talking about the idea

00:45:42 ◼   ► of all of the internet services teams coming together,

00:45:45 ◼   ► and then they will all kind of sit in one organization,

00:45:49 ◼   ► maybe in one building.

00:45:50 ◼   ► - Right.

00:45:51 ◼   ► - But it all still comes under like Eddy Cue

00:45:53 ◼   ► who looks after all internet software and services,

00:45:56 ◼   ► which includes the App Store and includes iBooks, right?

00:45:59 ◼   ► - Right, and some of that,

00:46:01 ◼   ► I think that some of that is more easily,

00:46:03 ◼   ► so okay, so here's the thing.

00:46:05 ◼   ► This is, this approach is part of Steve Jobs' secret sauce

00:46:09 ◼   ► about like how Apple gets stuff done, right?

00:46:12 ◼   ► I think Jobs felt very strongly

00:46:14 ◼   ► that you need these cross-functional teams.

00:46:16 ◼   ► a lot of Apple's strengths were about kind of combining things in new ways and that is

00:46:22 ◼   ► part of the corporate culture, you know, that something like Apple University probably reinforces

00:46:28 ◼   ► in all of the hires and existing employees. So that's the challenge here. Is Apple able

00:46:38 ◼   ► to split things off or if they split things off, do they lose something that makes them

00:46:44 ◼   ► fundamentally Apple-y. I think the services are is a really good question

00:46:48 ◼   ► where I could see how you know services as its own thing with its own you know

00:46:53 ◼   ► line in the in the financial reports now and some very clear products could be

00:46:59 ◼   ► broken up into smaller teams but even then you know there's this argument that

00:47:03 ◼   ► like there's one Apple ID and a lot of our criticisms about this stuff are like

00:47:08 ◼   ► why do I need to keep putting in my password in different places why does my

00:47:12 ◼   ► iPhone not know that when I just logged in here but now I'm trying to buy an app

00:47:16 ◼   ► and I need to log in again right and some of that is because some of the

00:47:21 ◼   ► stuff got built up separately and it needs to be more integrated not less

00:47:25 ◼   ► integrated so this is the challenge with every single thing is is that something

00:47:30 ◼   ► we can really do on our own and for a new product like are we limiting what we

00:47:38 ◼   ► can create as a new product because we've got it in a silo as opposed to

00:47:43 ◼   ► using our knowledge from like the iPad was created because they had the

00:47:47 ◼   ► knowledge of the operating system from the iPhone and the and the hardware too

00:47:51 ◼   ► like it was it sprung out of the iPhone a lot of the Mac stuff that happens is

00:47:54 ◼   ► based on work that also went in to iOS the car project just to throw out one

00:48:01 ◼   ► example right the car project you would think would benefit from Apple's base

00:48:07 ◼   ► Now maybe this isn't true and maybe that's how it got re-orged, but you would think that

00:48:12 ◼   ► Apple's base of knowledge, especially on the operating system side, would be useful to

00:48:16 ◼   ► some degree with the car project.

00:48:18 ◼   ► So how do you, do you risk harming that other product by separating it from the core base

00:48:25 ◼   ► of knowledge?

00:48:26 ◼   ► On the other hand, if it's a small product like an Apple TV or something like that, it

00:48:30 ◼   ► only exists because they've got that iOS base to use on it, and previously a Mac base, but

00:48:34 ◼   ► they had a base from another product.

00:48:36 ◼   ► that product suffer because it's small and not high priority? Yeah, maybe, but does that

00:48:43 ◼   ► product also exist because it's connected to the base of those other products? Also,

00:48:49 ◼   ► yeah, yes, it does. So it's a really difficult problem when you scale, right? And that I

00:48:55 ◼   ► think is the base of a lot of this is the reason that we talk about startups behaving

00:49:00 ◼   ► this way is because they're more manageable. Because I will tell you, if you're managing

00:49:05 ◼   ► five people working on one thing, it's a lot different than if you're managing 30 people

00:49:11 ◼   ► working on five things or six things.

00:49:13 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:49:14 ◼   ► It's just not, you know, and this is, the people have written books about it, like,

00:49:18 ◼   ► as you scale, things change. You can't just say, "Hey, we are making one great product

00:49:24 ◼   ► with five people, now make six great products with 30 people." It's like, that kind of doesn't

00:49:30 ◼   ► work.

00:49:31 ◼   ► So there's two courses here for Apple from now forward. They have a stay on this course,

00:49:39 ◼   ► they continue with their functional structure, they create a further more increasingly cohesive

00:49:46 ◼   ► product line due to their collaboration, but they only focus on the most popular products

00:49:51 ◼   ► because of that, because that's the way that you can be most effective here, right? You

00:49:55 ◼   ► have to shrink the line to be able to actually affect the most change. Or do they now more

00:50:01 ◼   ► move to a divisional system in the attempt to maximize all lines individually at the

00:50:06 ◼   ► expense of potential collaboration and cohesion. Honestly, I think I prefer the sound of option

00:50:12 ◼   ► one, and there are just going to be some things that meet the chopping block.

00:50:16 ◼   ► It's a funny thing, because we're in a moment where people are criticizing a lot of the

00:50:21 ◼   ► decisions Apple is making, and so the idea of change sounds appealing, but I feel like

00:50:30 ◼   ► if Apple went to a more divisional system, everybody, the outcome of that would be that

00:50:35 ◼   ► everybody would be screaming that Apple has completely lost the things that make it Apple.

00:50:40 ◼   ► I think that under a current system, some people lose, right? And I think that it's

00:50:47 ◼   ► the people on the edges are going to lose a little bit, and we're seeing that, right?

00:50:51 ◼   ► That the real pro machines, that people are losing. But on the idea of them kind of moving

00:50:57 ◼   ► to a more divisional, less collaborative function, a less collaborative system, I think everybody

00:51:04 ◼   ► loses honestly. I think we lose what makes Apple products Apple products.

00:51:09 ◼   ► So what I tried to do is imagine if the Mac would be better out on its own, if they just

00:51:13 ◼   ► created a Mac division or spun off, you know, Mac incorporated or whatever. I'll link to

00:51:20 ◼   ► Adam Engs wrote a piece on tidbits about sort of where the Mac fits and the way he says

00:51:25 ◼   ► as it, which I think is an interesting way of thinking it,

00:51:27 ◼   ► is that the Mac is an iPhone accessory, in a way.

00:51:32 ◼   ► Like, it's the computer that works best with your iPhone.

00:51:37 ◼   ► And Mac users may be really offended by that,

00:51:40 ◼   ► but there are way more iPhone users

00:51:42 ◼   ► than there are Mac users.

00:51:43 ◼   ► So viewed through that lens, what Apple's saying

00:51:46 ◼   ► is our best way to keep Mac sales high

00:51:49 ◼   ► is to make it the best friend to your iPhone

00:51:52 ◼   ► and work like your iPhone.

00:51:53 ◼   ► And so if you've got an iPhone, why would you buy a PC?

00:51:57 ◼   ► You're better off buying a Mac.

00:51:58 ◼   ► But if you think about it, I mean, it is true.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Apple definitely thinks that.

00:52:02 ◼   ► You could argue that if you had the Mac go its own way

00:52:07 ◼   ► and not care about being the best iPhone companion

00:52:10 ◼   ► it could be, that the result would be

00:52:12 ◼   ► that it would do what the rest of the PC industry does,

00:52:15 ◼   ► which is just keep shrinking.

00:52:17 ◼   ► Like that may be the reason the Mac is floating

00:52:20 ◼   ► when the rest of the PCs are shrinking

00:52:22 ◼   ► is because Apple has chosen to tie it very closely

00:52:25 ◼   ► with this incredibly successful smartphone product

00:52:28 ◼   ► that Apple sells.

00:52:29 ◼   ► I also start to think like,

00:52:31 ◼   ► if you had that separate Mac division,

00:52:33 ◼   ► going back to like Samsung examples and things like that,

00:52:38 ◼   ► does that division make decisions

00:52:41 ◼   ► that are bad for Apple as a whole,

00:52:45 ◼   ► but might increase Mac sales?

00:52:47 ◼   ► Where you see that it's like, why did they do that?

00:52:49 ◼   ► And the answer is,

00:52:50 ◼   ► 'cause they don't care what happens in the rest of Apple.

00:52:52 ◼   ► What if they said,

00:52:53 ◼   ► well, now we're gonna make a touchscreen Mac

00:52:55 ◼   ► 'cause we don't care about the iPad anymore.

00:52:57 ◼   ► We're just gonna do that.

00:52:58 ◼   ► And we're gonna, would that be good?

00:53:00 ◼   ► Would that be bad?

00:53:02 ◼   ► And I feel like the real truth here is Mac on its own,

00:53:07 ◼   ► you lose access or to some or all of a degree,

00:53:13 ◼   ► access to the Core OS development.

00:53:15 ◼   ► There's Core OS shared among all these devices.

00:53:18 ◼   ► What about chip development?

00:53:20 ◼   ► People talk about ARM on the Mac,

00:53:23 ◼   ► but the chip development,

00:53:25 ◼   ► is the Mac division gonna develop chips on their own?

00:53:27 ◼   ► That's not gonna happen,

00:53:28 ◼   ► so you can throw that out the window.

00:53:29 ◼   ► Would Touch Bar have happened,

00:53:31 ◼   ► which has got huge amounts of learning

00:53:33 ◼   ► and actual operating system from iOS?

00:53:36 ◼   ► Stuff like that in a Mac context wouldn't exist anymore.

00:53:40 ◼   ► Without all of that stuff,

00:53:41 ◼   ► what is the Mac in a Mac division like that,

00:53:44 ◼   ► other than another PC maker doing what the PC makers do,

00:53:48 ◼   ► which is probably putting more current Intel processors

00:53:53 ◼   ► in their computers and otherwise kind of not doing

00:53:57 ◼   ► a whole lot with a, I just,

00:54:01 ◼   ► and I don't think that would ever happen,

00:54:03 ◼   ► but I'm just saying, if you start to walk through it,

00:54:04 ◼   ► it's like, this is why Apple doesn't do this.

00:54:07 ◼   ► And this is why the, as a Mac user,

00:54:11 ◼   ► the way Apple has treated the Mac is frustrating

00:54:14 ◼   ► and yet still is probably the right choice.

00:54:18 ◼   ► And I'm not defending specific,

00:54:21 ◼   ► they've screwed up a lot of things with the Mac this year,

00:54:23 ◼   ► but I don't think the Mac is a better product

00:54:27 ◼   ► if it's siloed off from the world's most single,

00:54:32 ◼   ► you know, the world's most popular single consumer product

00:54:35 ◼   ► or electronics product, the iPhone, right?

00:54:37 ◼   ► I don't think that severing those connections

00:54:41 ◼   ► and making the Mac live on its own is worth it.

00:54:44 ◼   ► And you can say, well, we won't sever them.

00:54:45 ◼   ► We'll just create more responsibility.

00:54:48 ◼   ► It's like, I don't think it works that way.

00:54:49 ◼   ► I don't think you can section off part of the bowl of soup.

00:54:53 ◼   ► It's soup, it all just mixes around.

00:54:55 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:54:57 ◼   ► It's a business school problem that is interesting.

00:55:00 ◼   ► And I'm sure the people at Apple

00:55:01 ◼   ► and the business school people who run Apple University

00:55:03 ◼   ► inside Apple, right, have talked about it a lot.

00:55:05 ◼   ► But I do believe that Apple thinks

00:55:06 ◼   ► This is fundamentally part of what they do.

00:55:08 ◼   ► It's also a huge challenge, right?

00:55:10 ◼   ► Because it does mean that Apple kind of can't walk

00:55:13 ◼   ► and chew gum at the same time.

00:55:14 ◼   ► That's an overstatement of it,

00:55:16 ◼   ► but it means that Apple requires more focus

00:55:19 ◼   ► and that Apple has to do a lot of process switching

00:55:21 ◼   ► to keep all these products going.

00:55:23 ◼   ► And it makes you wonder, are they doing things internally

00:55:26 ◼   ► to try and keep their functional structure

00:55:30 ◼   ► while also allowing them to be more multi-threaded?

00:55:35 ◼   ► and I'm sure they're trying that

00:55:36 ◼   ► because this is the challenge is how do you scale

00:55:39 ◼   ► this thing that's fundamentally Apple?

00:55:41 ◼   ► Because I think it's the reason why Apple

00:55:44 ◼   ► isn't something like Samsung or GE is because at its heart,

00:55:49 ◼   ► and I think a lot of us have been saying this

00:55:50 ◼   ► for a long time, as big as Apple is in terms of its value,

00:55:54 ◼   ► because of the products they sell

00:55:55 ◼   ► and how huge its supply chain is,

00:55:57 ◼   ► if you look at the people who make the products

00:55:59 ◼   ► in Cupertino, it's still run like a fairly small market.

00:56:04 ◼   ► a fairly small company. It really kind of is. And I know that's hard to grasp, and so

00:56:10 ◼   ► when they do something like the report about killing the airport, and I say, "Well, I can

00:56:14 ◼   ► kind of understand it because they want to focus," people are like, "What do you mean?

00:56:18 ◼   ► They got all the money. Why do they need to focus?" It's like, well, this is why, because

00:56:22 ◼   ► they're not really made on a large scale. Again, there are lots of exceptions, I'm sure,

00:56:28 ◼   ► but on a large scale, this is, I think, part of the magic of Apple and the secret sauce

00:56:33 ◼   ► that goes into Apple making these kind of products, this is their playbook. It's really hard to

00:56:38 ◼   ► do that and then just say, well, what if we triple the number of people who are working on everything,

00:56:44 ◼   ► then we can do more products. Like, I'm not sure that actually works.

00:56:47 ◼   ► There is one thing that could be improved quite significantly by Apple kind of changing

00:56:54 ◼   ► to a more divisional structure is we could see new people in the vice president roles.

00:57:02 ◼   ► Yeah, that's true. I mean, I would love, don't get me wrong, I would love high visibility people who are the spokespeople for products, right?

00:57:09 ◼   ► Because it seems like that there are a lot of women in important roles inside of Apple, which because they've been changing kind of who presents, you know, like they're bringing more product managers onto stage to like talk about Apple Pay and stuff like that.

00:57:22 ◼   ► So it seems like that there are women at the top there, but they're not on the current SVP thing, right? The way it's structured right now.

00:57:31 ◼   ► So if they will move more divisional, then we may see more of those women get more important

00:57:34 ◼   ► roles inside of Apple, which would be a good thing.

00:57:37 ◼   ► Yeah, there are some product marketing positions that are tied to product lines.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:57:47 ◼   ► But, and I think that's how Apple does structure it.

00:57:49 ◼   ► So you've got spokespeople who are out there, like Greg Joswiak is vice president of iPod,

00:57:55 ◼   ► iPhone, and iOS product marketing, right?

00:57:58 ◼   ► So he's the iPhone guy, basically, right?

00:58:03 ◼   ► But it's product marketing.

00:58:04 ◼   ► It's being a spokesperson and an advocate for your product.

00:58:07 ◼   ► That's not quite the same, right?

00:58:08 ◼   ► And is there a person who is like the Mac person?

00:58:13 ◼   ► Actually, Apple PR is structured that way.

00:58:15 ◼   ► I know who the guy is who does Mac PR.

00:58:18 ◼   ► Like, I know that guy and he's a good guy

00:58:21 ◼   ► and I talk to him all the time.

00:58:22 ◼   ► And like that is structured that way.

00:58:24 ◼   ► Like PR people are tasked with products,

00:58:27 ◼   ► but it would be great, and again, this is me saying,

00:58:30 ◼   ► it would be great for me as an observer

00:58:33 ◼   ► and somebody who writes about this stuff

00:58:35 ◼   ► and uses this stuff, not necessarily what's right for Apple.

00:58:39 ◼   ► I wanna be clear about that too,

00:58:40 ◼   ► but it would be great to have a person you could point to

00:58:42 ◼   ► and say, that's the Mac person, right?

00:58:45 ◼   ► That's the iPad person.

00:58:47 ◼   ► That's the person I, even if they were more of an evangelist

00:58:50 ◼   ► or a product marketing manager,

00:58:51 ◼   ► we talked about Sal Segoian, right?

00:58:52 ◼   ► It's like, he was the AppleScript guy,

00:58:53 ◼   ► he was the automator guy, right?

00:58:55 ◼   ► there is some value in these big products

00:58:57 ◼   ► of being able to point to somebody.

00:58:59 ◼   ► And I'm not saying that Phil Schiller

00:59:01 ◼   ► doesn't do a good job expressing

00:59:03 ◼   ► what Apple needs to express,

00:59:05 ◼   ► but I do feel like I would love to hear from somebody

00:59:09 ◼   ► who's like, "No, no, no, I am the person

00:59:10 ◼   ► "who cares about the Mac every day at Apple

00:59:13 ◼   ► "and make sure that the Mac gets what it deserves."

00:59:15 ◼   ► And I don't think we have that.

00:59:17 ◼   ► And if you ask Phil Schiller,

00:59:19 ◼   ► that's probably part of his job too.

00:59:21 ◼   ► But in the end, it's not just his job.

00:59:26 ◼   ► It's part of his job.

00:59:28 ◼   ► And if you ask him about the Mac,

00:59:29 ◼   ► he may say, "We love the Mac."

00:59:31 ◼   ► But on another day, he'll say,

00:59:32 ◼   ► "But look at what is great on the iPhone,"

00:59:35 ◼   ► because he's got a lot of roles.

00:59:36 ◼   ► And that's, so yes, I would love a figure out there.

00:59:41 ◼   ► Maybe this is the advantage

00:59:43 ◼   ► of having the old evangelist program, right?

00:59:46 ◼   ► Or you could think of it as a product marketing person,

00:59:50 ◼   ► if you'd like.

00:59:51 ◼   ► Who is the person who helps represent that product line on stage and in interviews?

00:59:58 ◼   ► And is the Mac maven, right?

01:00:01 ◼   ► That might help us, but I don't think it helps any problems inside of Apple.

01:00:05 ◼   ► Like, if there was a Mac spokesperson, it doesn't mean that the Mac Pro gets updated faster.

01:00:10 ◼   ► Right, like, that is like a marketing decision.

01:00:14 ◼   ► Right, it depends on if they're just a spokesperson or if they're somebody who is responsible.

01:00:19 ◼   ► - Because the other question about this is communication,

01:00:21 ◼   ► right?

01:00:22 ◼   ► If that spokesperson has the ability to communicate

01:00:25 ◼   ► and maybe even has some influence,

01:00:27 ◼   ► then there could be some interesting sort of like,

01:00:30 ◼   ► maybe there's better awareness inside of Apple

01:00:32 ◼   ► if they're not aware,

01:00:33 ◼   ► or maybe Apple is able to express what they're doing

01:00:36 ◼   ► that would require them to want to express it.

01:00:38 ◼   ► And that's the question,

01:00:38 ◼   ► do they really want to express it?

01:00:40 ◼   ► But they could do that.

01:00:41 ◼   ► But you're right.

01:00:42 ◼   ► I mean, it's something that we would like to see.

01:00:44 ◼   ► I'm not sure it's something that makes sense

01:00:45 ◼   ► for Apple to do it.

01:00:46 ◼   ► But wouldn't it be great if you did have somebody

01:00:48 ◼   ► you could be like, "Oh, that's the person. They tell us what's going on with the Mac.

01:00:52 ◼   ► They're the first one out there when there's something going on with the Mac." And, you

01:00:55 ◼   ► know, right now, it's a, again, it's a functional thing. I mean, that's Phil Schiller's job.

01:00:59 ◼   ► And so Phil Schiller will come out and talk about what's going on and when it's a Mac

01:01:05 ◼   ► issue. And that's, you're right. That's more about communication than about behind the

01:01:09 ◼   ► scenes. But I suspect it's happening behind the scenes too. I don't know.

01:01:13 ◼   ► You cannot ignore that if this is the way Apple is run, or it's like any company, you

01:01:17 ◼   ► know.

01:01:18 ◼   ► It doesn't, there is a part of me that's like, it doesn't even matter if it's a divisional

01:01:21 ◼   ► iPhone, it's always going to be king.

01:01:23 ◼   ► Well, I mean, the idea would be that you would take your 13% of the company's focus and,

01:01:30 ◼   ► you know, and go somewhere with it.

01:01:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:35 ◼   ► And build the product.

01:01:36 ◼   ► That's the, that's the dream is like the, the Mac and the iPad take their 13% cut of

01:01:39 ◼   ► revenue and they build a budget because that's realistically that's part of this

01:01:43 ◼   ► too is they get a profit and loss based on the Mac and the goal is to make a

01:01:48 ◼   ► profit on the Mac and that would make changes right I mean you could also

01:01:52 ◼   ► argue that that Apple manages those products now as part of this kind of

01:01:56 ◼   ► larger ecosystem it's a little bit different when you get to spend your

01:02:00 ◼   ► little cut of what you make and return a profit and would those decisions be

01:02:05 ◼   ► distorted but that's the dream anyway is that they get to go off and pay their

01:02:08 ◼   ► people and make the decisions that only matter to the Mac and that may even contradict what

01:02:15 ◼   ► Apple does or they get told well yeah you can't even though you want to make that decision

01:02:19 ◼   ► we're not going to let you because that's going to interfere with our decisions. So

01:02:23 ◼   ► it would be complicated.

01:02:25 ◼   ► Would that even be a better scenario? Let's look at our iPad right? As you said before

01:02:29 ◼   ► the head of iPad would have been fired. So is the fact that Apple has run this way good

01:02:35 ◼   ► for the iPad because it's like a Halo device for the iPhone?

01:02:38 ◼   ► Like would the iPad get as much focus as it's been getting

01:02:41 ◼   ► and hopefully will continue to get next year

01:02:44 ◼   ► if Apple wasn't structured this way?

01:02:46 ◼   ► Because would the iPad have just been killed?

01:02:48 ◼   ► - Apple's a long game with the iPad, right?

01:02:50 ◼   ► I mean, Tim Cook says, "I think that ultimately

01:02:52 ◼   ► the iPad is the future of this stuff," right?

01:02:53 ◼   ► I mean, that is not a product that has been doing well

01:02:56 ◼   ► for a long time now, but Apple believes in it.

01:03:00 ◼   ► And if you were in charge of the P&L for the iPad, yeah,

01:03:04 ◼   ► you would either need a lot of patience

01:03:07 ◼   ► or you would be in trouble.

01:03:08 ◼   ► And it goes to that person then starts to make decisions

01:03:11 ◼   ► that are based on what they need to do for their P&L

01:03:15 ◼   ► and for their job to stay

01:03:17 ◼   ► and not necessarily for the long-term focus of Apple.

01:03:22 ◼   ► And that's again, a downside of having those divisions.

01:03:25 ◼   ► As somebody who worked at a company

01:03:27 ◼   ► with lots of divisions,

01:03:29 ◼   ► we would make decisions that were completely in opposition

01:03:32 ◼   ► to what other groups were making,

01:03:34 ◼   ► because they were the right decisions for us.

01:03:36 ◼   ► And as our divisions got, we actually,

01:03:39 ◼   ► IDG became less and less divisional as I worked there.

01:03:42 ◼   ► And with every change came more overhead

01:03:46 ◼   ► and it made it in many ways, harder to do our jobs

01:03:49 ◼   ► and harder to do a good product

01:03:51 ◼   ► because we now were part of this larger entity.

01:03:55 ◼   ► And so, you know, it's just different.

01:03:57 ◼   ► It's not necessarily fundamentally better,

01:03:59 ◼   ► but I do think it's fundamentally Apple

01:04:01 ◼   ► the way it's structured around functions.

01:04:04 ◼   ► I do think that is like an Apple thing

01:04:07 ◼   ► and that if Apple made something off in a silo,

01:04:10 ◼   ► would it really be Appley?

01:04:11 ◼   ► Plus we haven't even talked about

01:04:12 ◼   ► the human beings here so much,

01:04:13 ◼   ► but you know, if you're somebody who's an OS engineer,

01:04:17 ◼   ► you and you're working on stuff that's Mac and iOS

01:04:20 ◼   ► and things that are gonna be core OS stuff

01:04:21 ◼   ► that's gonna work in both places

01:04:22 ◼   ► or something that came from iOS

01:04:24 ◼   ► and now you're gonna put it on the Mac,

01:04:25 ◼   ► that's a much cooler job than being told

01:04:29 ◼   ► you're gonna work in the Mac division,

01:04:31 ◼   ► you get 13% of the budget, you've got the small audience,

01:04:34 ◼   ► they love you, I hope you like it.

01:04:36 ◼   ► But a lot of engineers on a career path

01:04:38 ◼   ► who are the best engineers, the hottest engineers,

01:04:41 ◼   ► they would view that as being exiled.

01:04:46 ◼   ► So one of the advantages in terms of people

01:04:48 ◼   ► of keeping these groups large

01:04:50 ◼   ► is that you're all rowing in the same direction for Apple

01:04:53 ◼   ► and you work on different projects

01:04:55 ◼   ► instead of being kind of put in Siberia,

01:04:57 ◼   ► which would lead probably to,

01:05:00 ◼   ► And again, not necessarily, but I'm gonna say,

01:05:04 ◼   ► a Mac division on its own probably would not have

01:05:08 ◼   ► the highest rising stars of Apple running it

01:05:13 ◼   ► because it's a legacy division without a lot of growth

01:05:16 ◼   ► that's perceived, that is an old, it's an older code base

01:05:20 ◼   ► and it's an older and not growing user base.

01:05:24 ◼   ► And so, they might have good engineers over there,

01:05:27 ◼   ► but it would certainly be the kind of place

01:05:30 ◼   ► that would be not perceived as being like the place to be

01:05:33 ◼   ► if you're an up and coming developer at Apple,

01:05:37 ◼   ► engineer at Apple.

01:05:38 ◼   ► And that would be a problem too, I think,

01:05:40 ◼   ► for a platform like that.

01:05:42 ◼   ► - Great article, a vox really taught me some stuff.

01:05:46 ◼   ► So go check it out.

01:05:47 ◼   ► Time for some Ask Upgrade, Jason.

01:05:50 ◼   ► - Sounds like it.

01:05:51 ◼   ► - Who is supporting Ask Upgrade this week?

01:05:54 ◼   ► - I'm very excited to tell you that Ask Upgrade this week

01:05:57 ◼   ► is being brought to us by MailRoute.

01:05:59 ◼   ► - Mail route.

01:06:00 ◼   ► - That's right.

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01:06:05 ◼   ► The answer is the people who do only that,

01:06:09 ◼   ► and that is mail route.

01:06:10 ◼   ► All the big companies are bowing out

01:06:12 ◼   ► of the email protection business.

01:06:14 ◼   ► It's hard work, and we just talked about focus.

01:06:17 ◼   ► We just talked about doing what you're great at

01:06:19 ◼   ► and not worrying about the stuff

01:06:20 ◼   ► that's not core to your business.

01:06:22 ◼   ► Well, guess what?

01:06:23 ◼   ► There are a lot of companies

01:06:24 ◼   ► that thought email protection was a nice add-on,

01:06:27 ◼   ► and it's actually so hard that maybe it's worth not doing it.

01:06:30 ◼   ► Postini went away, McAfee and MX Logic.

01:06:33 ◼   ► Google came out and said,

01:06:34 ◼   ► if they want you to use a gateway service like mail routes

01:06:38 ◼   ► so that they don't have to filter all your mail

01:06:39 ◼   ► for Google apps, who can you trust to do the job properly?

01:06:42 ◼   ► The answer is mail route,

01:06:44 ◼   ► a team that has been focused entirely on this,

01:06:46 ◼   ► just on email security since 1997.

01:06:50 ◼   ► It's a very long time ago, they've been doing this.

01:06:52 ◼   ► This is what they do.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Mail route protects your email against spam,

01:06:56 ◼   ► Viruses and other threats, it protects your mail server,

01:06:59 ◼   ► and they deliver your mail even when your mail server can't.

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01:07:09 ◼   ► it's loaded with administrative tools, including an API.

01:07:14 ◼   ► It's all designed to make your life better.

01:07:16 ◼   ► There's no spam, there are no viruses,

01:07:18 ◼   ► and you have no bounced mail

01:07:20 ◼   ► putting a load on your email server.

01:07:22 ◼   ► MailRoute takes the bullet for you.

01:07:24 ◼   ► They'll protect your email from all of those things

01:07:26 ◼   ► and will guarantee mail access during outages.

01:07:29 ◼   ► That's one of the nice things about having mail route

01:07:32 ◼   ► between you and the internet

01:07:34 ◼   ► is if something happens to your server,

01:07:35 ◼   ► mail route's still collecting your mail

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01:07:40 ◼   ► They do it better and have been doing it longer

01:07:42 ◼   ► than anyone else.

01:07:43 ◼   ► They have lots of great features

01:07:44 ◼   ► that I'm not gonna get into here,

01:07:46 ◼   ► but I am going to mention that in addition

01:07:48 ◼   ► to that great API I talked about earlier,

01:07:50 ◼   ► they do offer mail bagging.

01:07:52 ◼   ► (bell dings)

01:07:53 ◼   ► - Mail bagging.

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01:08:22 ◼   ► I think that's true. It's pretty simple. That was good. You had a lot of pent-up mail-bagging

01:08:29 ◼   ► energy there. It was ready. I did go into sheer panic when I realized I wasn't sure

01:08:34 ◼   ► how I was going to do it. Yeah. I appreciate your enthusiasm. Time for Ask Upgrade. Brent

01:08:41 ◼   ► asked, "Exporting MP3 for podcasts, shall I use 64K, 96K, or something else?" Jason,

01:08:49 ◼   ► What on earth is Brent talking about with all these codes?

01:08:53 ◼   ► It's a great question, Brent.

01:08:56 ◼   ► The search here, let's see, let me, I'm going to back up.

01:09:04 ◼   ► The MP3s are encoded at a bitrate, so the lower the bitrate, the lower the quality,

01:09:09 ◼   ► but the smaller the file size.

01:09:10 ◼   ► And so it used to be, I was listening to a podcast, I was listening to an incomparable

01:09:14 ◼   ► from 2011 and it sounds terrible and it was encoded at a very low bit rate. And so these

01:09:22 ◼   ► days people have more bandwidth, although you know you've got metering and people on

01:09:26 ◼   ► smartphones downloading on cellular and there are lots of other issues. So the question

01:09:30 ◼   ► is a common one, what do you do? I would say I used to do everything at 64 kbps mono. I

01:09:40 ◼   ► do a lot at that but Marco Arment sort of encouraged me to try encoding

01:09:45 ◼   ► things more at 96 kbps stereo because when you've got stereo stuff it's

01:09:51 ◼   ► in stereo and when you don't it uses that bitrate for your audio quality and

01:09:57 ◼   ► your audio quality is good. So and it's not that much bigger it is bigger file

01:10:03 ◼   ► size so I would say you know most of the shows I do are either 64k mono or 96k

01:10:08 ◼   ► stereo. Myke, what about relay shows? It varies across the map. However, people

01:10:14 ◼   ► encode their own shows, you know, most of our shows are edited by their hosts. I

01:10:19 ◼   ► have always recommended 96 kilobits a second mono as a minimum. I used to do 64

01:10:26 ◼   ► but I think that 96 is a lot better sounding. However, I have changed what I

01:10:33 ◼   ► am encoding recently because I don't know what it was but I was just

01:10:38 ◼   ► I was listening to some of my shows recently and I'm like, "I don't like how they sound."

01:10:42 ◼   ► It doesn't sound like how it sounds to me when I edit them because the quality is lower.

01:10:47 ◼   ► So I have recently been encoding 128 stereo.

01:10:51 ◼   ► What?

01:10:52 ◼   ► Wow.

01:10:53 ◼   ► Including our show and nobody said anything.

01:10:56 ◼   ► So I'm going to keep doing it because I think it sounds vastly better and they're not that

01:11:01 ◼   ► much bigger.

01:11:02 ◼   ► For example, today I published an episode of Cortex.

01:11:05 ◼   ► It is an hour and 40 minutes long and it's 95 megabytes.

01:11:10 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right?

01:11:11 ◼   ► That's fine, it's fine, I think.

01:11:13 ◼   ► People download over WiFi these days,

01:11:17 ◼   ► if they're on LTE, the bandwidth caps are larger.

01:11:20 ◼   ► I think that that is mostly fine, to be honest.

01:11:24 ◼   ► I have been doing this for months

01:11:26 ◼   ► and nobody's said anything.

01:11:27 ◼   ► - All right, interesting, yeah.

01:11:28 ◼   ► - So I'm gonna keep doing it.

01:11:28 ◼   ► - I don't think people even know.

01:11:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I would say right now 96K Serio is my standard.

01:11:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I would say go with that as a minimum.

01:11:36 ◼   ► If you've gotten weird like me, you should go up to 128.

01:11:39 ◼   ► I would say right now to not go any more than that,

01:11:42 ◼   ► but that's where I'm sitting.

01:11:43 ◼   ► This is the first time I've said that I'm doing this.

01:11:45 ◼   ► I'm gonna keep doing it.

01:11:46 ◼   ► If anybody tells me, if anybody complains now

01:11:48 ◼   ► after listening to this episode,

01:11:50 ◼   ► your complaint is invalid because you didn't know.

01:11:53 ◼   ► Right, I will not take your complaint.

01:11:55 ◼   ► - I should say one of the fun things about MP3

01:11:58 ◼   ► is when you switch to stereo,

01:12:01 ◼   ► it basically only uses the stereo when it detects a stereo signal, otherwise it encodes

01:12:08 ◼   ► it all as mono when it's mono. So it's not doubling the file size for something that's

01:12:16 ◼   ► in mono just because you said it was in stereo.

01:12:18 ◼   ► Exactly. So that's why I can do stereo, and that's why the file sizes stay smaller. And

01:12:24 ◼   ► I love what Zach W. said in the chatroom, "Can confirm, didn't notice a change, so whatever

01:12:27 ◼   ► makes you happy Myke and it does because I think the show sound better they sound

01:12:32 ◼   ► truer to how we actually sound at 128 than at 96 and I really it doesn't seem

01:12:37 ◼   ► to be making a massive difference so I did it all right there you go surprise

01:12:42 ◼   ► makes the mix the music sound better it does makes everything sound better it

01:12:46 ◼   ► makes me you sorry yeah so much compression happens to these yeah anyway

01:12:52 ◼   ► I think I sound fine, Myke. I think it's great. Hello.

01:12:56 ◼   ► Mark's question here.

01:12:57 ◼   ► Alright, ask 2-2-2, ask a 3.

01:13:00 ◼   ► "Do you think the opening of Apple Campus 2 has anything to do with Apple's refocus,

01:13:06 ◼   ► for example killing monitors in airports?"

01:13:09 ◼   ► Great question.

01:13:10 ◼   ► And I think this lends into, I kind of, the trainer thought that I think Mark has, and

01:13:15 ◼   ► a couple of people asked this question this week which is quite interesting to me, the

01:13:18 ◼   ► idea of like bringing these teams together, putting them together, working out kind of

01:13:23 ◼   ► who's gonna go where, is this a time when Apple's sitting down and being like, "Ah,

01:13:27 ◼   ► We're gonna have to move. It's like me moving house right now. We have to move this stuff. Is it worth it?

01:13:34 ◼   ► I feel like I'm Tim Cook right now, you know in my house. I'm moving from office one to office two.

01:13:41 ◼   ► Do I really want to take this monitor or can I really get by without it?

01:13:45 ◼   ► I think that there might be a little bit of this going on which is why they may be killing off some of this stuff now.

01:13:51 ◼   ► They're taking stock of what they've got, what they have to move and who's gonna continue.

01:13:55 ◼   ► and maybe they are, maybe they're getting rid of it, I don't know.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that it only has something to do with it in the sense that it might be an impetus,

01:14:05 ◼   ► like, do this now, we don't want to move these people if we're gonna re-org or get rid of them,

01:14:11 ◼   ► and so let's, you know, make these decisions now, because the last thing you want to do is

01:14:15 ◼   ► say these engineers that were in the wireless team are now in the Apple TV team and we're gonna have

01:14:19 ◼   ► have them work on that and they're going to be over here and then say, "Oh, we don't have

01:14:25 ◼   ► space for them there because we just moved in and we didn't." Right? I mean, that...

01:14:29 ◼   ► So I think space planning is something that it gives you a deadline. It maybe makes you

01:14:34 ◼   ► focus and make a decision that you've been putting off. But I'd say that's got to be

01:14:40 ◼   ► it, right? I mean, what's not happening is Apple's like, "Oh, man, AppleScript. I don't

01:14:45 ◼   ► know if I've got any chairs for them. Let's just get rid of AppleScript. I got no... No

01:14:48 ◼   ► No desks are available for AppleScript. That's not happening. It may be, if it's anything,

01:14:54 ◼   ► it may be just, you know, setting a deadline of like, if we're going to make changes, let's

01:14:59 ◼   ► make them now so that we can, you know, move people with those changes already factored

01:15:05 ◼   ► in.

01:15:06 ◼   ► David asked, "No need for Apple to make a Wi-Fi router specifically, right?" Like, David

01:15:13 ◼   ► thinks it's like whatever, like we did, we were kind of just like, okay. But what about

01:15:17 ◼   ► something like Time Machine is that gonna is that gonna be impacted by this

01:15:20 ◼   ► now the time capsule which is Apple's hardware product which does Time Machine

01:15:27 ◼   ► over Wi-Fi I expect that that will go away right but Time Machine itself the

01:15:36 ◼   ► backup system I assume that that is completely unconnected to that team and

01:15:40 ◼   ► It's a Mac thing.

01:15:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, yep.

01:15:44 ◼   ► And there are ways, like there are NAS devices

01:15:48 ◼   ► that support Time Machine now.

01:15:51 ◼   ► Apple has a spec for Time Machine over SMB,

01:15:54 ◼   ► as well as over AFP.

01:15:55 ◼   ► I think there's some questions about the,

01:15:59 ◼   ► a lot of the NAS devices,

01:16:01 ◼   ► sorry for using all these terms, but this is,

01:16:03 ◼   ► NAS is a network attached storage.

01:16:05 ◼   ► It's, that's effectively, that's what time capsule is,

01:16:09 ◼   ► which is it's a storage device that's networked

01:16:12 ◼   ► instead of being a computer.

01:16:14 ◼   ► It is a computer, but you don't see it as that,

01:16:15 ◼   ► and it just sits on your network.

01:16:17 ◼   ► A lot of the makers of those,

01:16:18 ◼   ► they're using open source stuff

01:16:20 ◼   ► that is not necessarily totally what Apple wants to see,

01:16:24 ◼   ► but I think that Apple getting out of this market

01:16:26 ◼   ► will probably motivate more marketing of this.

01:16:28 ◼   ► Also, Apple has, there's been a report,

01:16:31 ◼   ► Apple's still selling these things, right?

01:16:34 ◼   ► I would imagine that the day that the time capsule vanishes

01:16:38 ◼   ► from Apple stores, Apple stores will have something that they will recommend for wireless backup.

01:16:47 ◼   ► Yeah, or you know, there'll be somebody who sells a hard drive that's a networked hard

01:16:52 ◼   ► drive with time machine support that you will plug in somewhere to your Ethernet or it'll

01:16:58 ◼   ► be a Wi-Fi configuration thing and it'll be validated by Apple or with officially or Apple

01:17:06 ◼   ► will have chosen it and said, "This one works, and we think we can sell this, and we're going

01:17:09 ◼   ► to sell this in our retail stores." I think that will all inevitably happen. I, you know,

01:17:14 ◼   ► people do it. I know we know lots of people who back up to NASA's using Time Machine,

01:17:20 ◼   ► and it works fine. And, you know, I don't because I have a Mac Mini that I back up to,

01:17:26 ◼   ► so I'm backing up to it instead, but you can do that too. So that's my feeling is it is

01:17:33 ◼   ► I heard from a bunch of people who said,

01:17:34 ◼   ► "But if the future is wireless,

01:17:35 ◼   ► "why is wireless backup going away?"

01:17:37 ◼   ► And my feeling is,

01:17:38 ◼   ► I don't think wireless backup is gonna go away.

01:17:40 ◼   ► I think Apple is going to be able to point to somebody

01:17:42 ◼   ► and say they're doing it.

01:17:45 ◼   ► And even if Apple doesn't do that,

01:17:47 ◼   ► which would surprise me,

01:17:47 ◼   ► I think that any opportunity for Apple retail stores

01:17:51 ◼   ► to sell a NAS box to somebody who's buying a laptop

01:17:54 ◼   ► for their wireless backup, they will take.

01:17:57 ◼   ► But if I'm the maker of a device like that,

01:18:00 ◼   ► I'm gonna look at this as a huge opportunity

01:18:03 ◼   ► to make sure that my time machine support over the network is rock solid because I can

01:18:10 ◼   ► swoop in where Apple is abandoning the market and take customers.

01:18:16 ◼   ► I think even though some people are upset with what is left in the monitor space or

01:18:22 ◼   ► some of the dongles and stuff, I think Apple is being pretty responsible in that if they're

01:18:26 ◼   ► not interested in doing something anymore, they're helping other people make it.

01:18:30 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:18:32 ◼   ► - So we'll see about that.

01:18:35 ◼   ► I use Time Machine.

01:18:36 ◼   ► I think Time Machine's great.

01:18:38 ◼   ► And I just have a little hard drive plugged into my iMac

01:18:41 ◼   ► and there it goes.

01:18:42 ◼   ► It just does its thing.

01:18:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I heard from somebody who said

01:18:45 ◼   ► that they had never used Time,

01:18:48 ◼   ► they tried Time Machine that way with an external drive

01:18:50 ◼   ► and that it had never completed.

01:18:52 ◼   ► And I didn't know what to say to them

01:18:53 ◼   ► other than that I've used it a lot

01:18:55 ◼   ► with a directly attached drive and it works fine.

01:18:59 ◼   ► You might need to--

01:19:00 ◼   ► I would say maybe if it's not completed, maybe the drive isn't big enough.

01:19:04 ◼   ► It's possible or there's some, you know, or maybe the energy saver settings are wrong

01:19:08 ◼   ► and it's going to sleep before it can finish the first backup or something like that.

01:19:11 ◼   ► But I've, it's made to work that way.

01:19:13 ◼   ► And if it doesn't work for you, something else is wrong.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Your hard drive is wrong.

01:19:17 ◼   ► Something on your Mac is wrong.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Something's messed up because that's how it works.

01:19:20 ◼   ► That's like, it's meant to work that way.

01:19:22 ◼   ► Hello.

01:19:23 ◼   ► Andy asked, do either of you have a favorite ginger molasses cookie recipe?

01:19:28 ◼   ► Now we mentioned ginger molasses cookies last week. Now I have only ever had ginger molasses

01:19:32 ◼   ► cookies in one place, but I love them and it's in Blue Bottle Coffee. They sell them

01:19:37 ◼   ► in Blue Bottle.

01:19:38 ◼   ► Well, it's funny that you should mention that, Myke, because he's asking because there were

01:19:42 ◼   ► my review of the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. It was sitting on my kitchen counter.

01:19:48 ◼   ► Yep, and you had the recipe up.

01:19:49 ◼   ► A recipe was up and there was a box of cookies next to it that were the ginger molasses cookies

01:19:54 ◼   ► that the recipe was up. And so, because I made it, and they were really good, and I'm

01:20:01 ◼   ► going to make them again. It's funny that you mention blue bottle because, in fact,

01:20:06 ◼   ► the recipe, and we'll put it in the show notes, that I got from my friend Sherry on her blog

01:20:10 ◼   ► Pork Cracklins, but it came linked from another blog called Pixels and Crumbs. It is the blue

01:20:16 ◼   ► bottle coffee ginger molasses cookie recipe. So there it is. You need a lot of ginger.

01:20:22 ◼   ► me tell you I grated a lot of ginger for those cookies but they were great they were super

01:20:26 ◼   ► spicy and sweet and fantastic so we'll put the link in the notes to the direct and maybe

01:20:34 ◼   ► we'll put in the link to Sherry's blog because Sherry writes a lot of great stuff about food

01:20:38 ◼   ► on pork cracklins and yeah they're great. So like I would say if this is very specific

01:20:46 ◼   ► but if you ever do go to Blue Bottle and you get the New Orleans coffee which is my favorite

01:20:51 ◼   ► coffee drink that they make which is their cold coffee. It pairs perfectly with the ginger

01:20:57 ◼   ► cookies. So I recommend them. Okay. So I think they're in New York and San Francisco, I think.

01:21:05 ◼   ► Or you make your own. Oh, you can make your own. Make your own.

01:21:09 ◼   ► All right. Lachlan asked, he wanted to take a kind of survey of the two of us as to how

01:21:16 ◼   ► much we're using Apple's iMessage features that came with iOS 10. So we have all of the

01:21:22 ◼   ► things here. So Jason, how often do you use iMessage apps?

01:21:26 ◼   ► Never.

01:21:27 ◼   ► Same here. I don't have one that I use. What about stickers?

01:21:33 ◼   ► Sometimes. Always, every day, constantly. Ironically and non-ironically. I use stickers

01:21:41 ◼   ► for fun. I use them for information. I use them to convey emotion. I think it is fantastic.

01:21:47 ◼   ► I love them. I love them. I'd use them more if they worked on the Mac. Yeah, I would use

01:21:53 ◼   ► them even more if they worked drag and drop in uh, I played split screen, which they do

01:21:59 ◼   ► not. Oh yeah. Yep. They don't. They do not. They were so funny. And when 10 was released,

01:22:04 ◼   ► you could drag them so they will come up with a drag animation and then you try and stick

01:22:08 ◼   ► them and they went away. So in turn 2 they fix this feature. How do they fix it? You

01:22:12 ◼   ► can't drag them at all in split-screen. Nope. That is not the way to fix the problem. That

01:22:17 ◼   ► is a terrible way to fix something but that's how it is so I hope for a change there in

01:22:21 ◼   ► the future. What about effects? So like the confetti and the explosions? Sometimes. I

01:22:32 ◼   ► them ironically. I agree. But I still do use them. I use them ironically more than I use

01:22:39 ◼   ► Digital Touch ironically on my Apple Watch. Right? Like that was an ironic thing that

01:22:44 ◼   ► wore off but I still am use sending those message effects because I think they're funny.

01:22:49 ◼   ► But I don't use them to convey anything seriously. It's all for fun. Because sometimes someone

01:22:55 ◼   ► will send me something and it is hilarious, right? Like it works. What about Digital Touch

01:23:00 ◼   ► a night message. Oh, digital touch. Never. Never. Handwriting. Never. Never. Never. Tap

01:23:10 ◼   ► back. Sometimes. That one also works on the Mac. I sometimes use it, like to thumbs up

01:23:18 ◼   ► a message or something. Tap back, I always forget it's there. You can press and hold

01:23:21 ◼   ► on a message. I think you 3D touch a message and you get those little bubble balloons that

01:23:24 ◼   ► pop up. I think that Apple should make that a better to access system. But yeah, I do

01:23:32 ◼   ► use that sometimes. So that's it. I think apps, apps kind of have been over shown by

01:23:36 ◼   ► stickers as they should be because apps I'm not really sure how much they should really

01:23:41 ◼   ► live inside of our message in all honesty. I don't think that I've really seen any that

01:23:45 ◼   ► I'm that keen of. Stickers are amazing. And I'll ask a question for today. Chris asked,

01:23:52 ◼   ► "Would you buy an audiobook edition of Made in California by Apple, narrated by Johnny

01:23:56 ◼   ► Heith?" In a hot second will I buy that, of course. It's what we all want, really,

01:24:01 ◼   ► isn't it? Just to hear him talk about the stuff?

01:24:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, this goes to the core problem with the book, is that it's a, uh, it's

01:24:07 ◼   ► just a photo book, and anyone could have hired a good photographer and made a photo book,

01:24:12 ◼   ► and the stories about the products would be much more interesting. So, yes, an audiobook,

01:24:18 ◼   ► I would say a documentary about Apple design.

01:24:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:24:23 ◼   ► - Everybody was like, oh, they're so self-indulgent,

01:24:25 ◼   ► but like, okay, so don't have it be released by Apple,

01:24:28 ◼   ► but a documentary about Apple design

01:24:30 ◼   ► with just Johnny Ive in the white room

01:24:34 ◼   ► and photography and videography of those products,

01:24:38 ◼   ► I think would be a really cool documentary.

01:24:40 ◼   ► That would be great.

01:24:41 ◼   ► But that's my problem with the book

01:24:42 ◼   ► more than anything else is it doesn't actually

01:24:45 ◼   ► explain anything about Apple's work.

01:24:47 ◼   ► it just shows it and we already saw it all. So yeah.

01:24:53 ◼   ► So that's it, the vast got great today. After this break we're going to be doing Myke at

01:24:57 ◼   ► the Movies and today we're going to be talking about Gremlins. No more technology talk for

01:25:01 ◼   ► the day. So if you either haven't seen Gremlins yet or you're just, you know, you're not interested

01:25:06 ◼   ► in Myke at the Movies, no more technology talk. But we're going to be talking about

01:25:10 ◼   ► Myke at the Movies, Gremlins after we take a moment to thank our friends over at Smile

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01:27:19 ◼   ► is the time. Thank you so much to Smile for their support of this show. I like that Alden

01:27:23 ◼   ► the chat woman said can you not go to a library and print it out. I don't want to. I don't

01:27:28 ◼   ► want to go and print it out. I just want to use PDF pen Pro instead. Thank you so much

01:27:33 ◼   ► for smiling for your support.

01:27:34 ◼   ► Can't you just go to Mailbox's store and use their fax machine?

01:27:39 ◼   ► Can't I just go and buy some mail bags? No, I can't.

01:27:43 ◼   ► No, you have a mail bag. I sent you a mail bag. You already have a mail bag.

01:27:46 ◼   ► I have all the mail bags I'm ever going to need. This is one of those things where I'm

01:27:49 ◼   ► like, I love that I've got that, but it's like, I have to move that mail bag. I can

01:27:53 ◼   ► put things in the mail bag.

01:27:54 ◼   ► You put things in the mail bag, Myke.

01:27:56 ◼   ► - Exactly, that's what it's about.

01:27:57 ◼   ► - It doesn't have to be mail. - I put my mail in there.

01:28:00 ◼   ► - You could.

01:28:00 ◼   ► - Print out your mail. - Gremlins.

01:28:02 ◼   ► - Put it in the bag.

01:28:03 ◼   ► - Time to talk about Gremlins.

01:28:04 ◼   ► - It's time for Myke at the Movies

01:28:06 ◼   ► and we're talking about Gremlins from 1984.

01:28:11 ◼   ► - Shall I do my usual and tell you what I knew

01:28:16 ◼   ► or thought I knew about Gremlins

01:28:18 ◼   ► before I sat down to watch it today?

01:28:20 ◼   ► - Yes, let's start there.

01:28:21 ◼   ► That's always a good place to start.

01:28:23 ◼   ► - So my understanding of Gremlins

01:28:26 ◼   ► is that it's a scary movie about aimed children. That was my assumption. Uh, and that the Gremlins,

01:28:33 ◼   ► which I believed were called Gremlins, like that these, these little monsters, these little

01:28:39 ◼   ► creatures were called the Gremlins, and that they were cute furry things that become monsters

01:28:45 ◼   ► when they are either wet or fed after midnight, and that it is a cult classic movie.

01:28:51 ◼   ► So, I was close.

01:28:54 ◼   ► You were close. You were very close.

01:28:56 ◼   ► So, the thing is that they become monsters when they're fed, they multiply when they're

01:29:00 ◼   ► wet, and I don't think that this movie should be aimed at children under any circumstances.

01:29:06 ◼   ► Nope. Nope. In fact, this movie was one of the examples along with Indiana Jones and

01:29:10 ◼   ► the Temple of Doom of why they needed to add a new rating to the film rating system in

01:29:15 ◼   ► the United States called PG-13 to say that, although it was not a rated R movie, it was

01:29:26 ◼   ► playing at, it was inappropriate or at least special parental guidance needed to be added

01:29:33 ◼   ► for children under the age of 13. And that was a new, this was one of the examples why

01:29:37 ◼   ► they added that because they felt like this was not, PG meant anybody could go of any

01:29:44 ◼   ► age but we recommend that parents be aware of the content and they added PG-13 which

01:29:51 ◼   ► meant this is really not for younger kids. You should be doubly aware of the material

01:29:56 ◼   ► here. And it's, I mean, so I haven't seen this movie since I saw it in the theater in

01:30:01 ◼   ► 1984. Also, I'll point out the amusement. It was released, I believe, a week away from

01:30:09 ◼   ► when Ghostbusters was released in the summer of 1984. It's a Christmas movie. It's set

01:30:14 ◼   ► on Christmas Eve. Why again, like Miracle on 34th Street, why these movies set at Christmas

01:30:20 ◼   ► are released in the summer, it's babbling to me.

01:30:22 ◼   ► I don't know why this is a Christmas movie.

01:30:25 ◼   ► Well there's that too, right? You know, there's so many resources.

01:30:29 ◼   ► It makes no difference.

01:30:30 ◼   ► I was blown away because I have no memory of this. I mean, I have the vaguest memories

01:30:35 ◼   ► of this because I hadn't seen it since 1984. So yeah, when I was 13, PG-13, hello, that

01:30:44 ◼   ► was me. Yeah, so, produced by Steven Spielberg, written by Chris Columbus, who was sort of,

01:30:52 ◼   ► he went on to make like Mrs. Doubtfire and the first couple Harry Potter movies, but

01:30:57 ◼   ► He wrote "The Goonies" and "Gremlins" and...

01:31:02 ◼   ► In fact, we're doing a Chris Columbus double feature

01:31:07 ◼   ► 'cause he directed "Home Alone."

01:31:09 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:31:10 ◼   ► - So there's a lot of Chris Columbus here.

01:31:14 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a weird movie.

01:31:15 ◼   ► Joe Dante is a horror movie director.

01:31:17 ◼   ► And so, Steven Spielberg, I think,

01:31:23 ◼   ► wanted that kind of mix of horror and comedy and kind of the the you know the Christmas time like

01:31:30 ◼   ► aspect I think is an interesting it's interesting in its incongruity to the rest of the movie.

01:31:37 ◼   ► - Can you answer for me what Steven Spielberg presents means?

01:31:41 ◼   ► - Well he was the producer of it I think that the or the executive producer of it I think he made it

01:31:47 ◼   ► he made it happen and he was connected to Chris Columbus I suspect that he hired Joe Dante

01:31:52 ◼   ► to do it. It was a selling point that it was a Steven Spielberg film that he had made a team.

01:31:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause a bunch of movies have that to it, don't they?

01:32:02 ◼   ► - Yeah. It's from his factory, but he wasn't gonna direct it or write it, but it was from his

01:32:10 ◼   ► group. So that was the idea, I think, behind it. I should point out also, if it isn't already obvious,

01:32:15 ◼   ► that this is not one of my favorite movies of all time, because I literally haven't watched it since

01:32:19 ◼   ► since I saw it in the theater.

01:32:21 ◼   ► So this is not one of those Jason exposes Myke

01:32:23 ◼   ► to one of his favorite movies

01:32:24 ◼   ► in hopes that Myke doesn't hate it.

01:32:26 ◼   ► This is a different kind of experiment we're running today

01:32:28 ◼   ► on Myke at the movies.

01:32:29 ◼   ► - Well, good news, Jason Snow.

01:32:31 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:32:32 ◼   ► - Because I hated this movie.

01:32:33 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:32:36 ◼   ► Never do this experiment again.

01:32:38 ◼   ► I hated this movie.

01:32:40 ◼   ► - See what happens when I don't supervise the,

01:32:45 ◼   ► and handpick the very best content for you.

01:32:48 ◼   ► We decided to go for the holiday theme, right, as we're in the holidays. That was the idea.

01:32:54 ◼   ► That's the idea between the Gremlins Home Alone double feature. But it was so far a

01:32:58 ◼   ► terrible idea because I really dislike this movie. This is the only Jason upgrade, Myke

01:33:06 ◼   ► at the Movies that I had disliked. This is the only Myke at the Movies movie where I

01:33:12 ◼   ► doing other things while the part of this movie was on. I watched it today and I really,

01:33:20 ◼   ► I can't talk about the movie without stating that I hated this movie.

01:33:25 ◼   ► Okay, I didn't love it. I did not love it. Or probably like it. I spent the first, I

01:33:36 ◼   ► I don't know. I spent a while hating it and then I got to a point where I kinda liked

01:33:41 ◼   ► it.

01:33:42 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:33:43 ◼   ► - A part of it. And it's sort of in the middle. You know, I gotta be honest, I really enjoyed

01:33:47 ◼   ► the part where my favorite part in this entire movie, and maybe you can guess what this is,

01:33:51 ◼   ► my favorite part in this entire movie is the part where the mom kills lots of gremlins.

01:33:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a great bit.

01:33:57 ◼   ► - I loved that. I loved that.

01:33:58 ◼   ► - 'Cause it's so weird.

01:34:00 ◼   ► - And the whole movie is really like all of these tropes of horror movies and Christmas

01:34:04 ◼   ► movies and playing with them and it's meant to be kind of wacky and satirical

01:34:10 ◼   ► at times and zany and and over-the-top it's got it's got some severe tone

01:34:16 ◼   ► problems throughout yeah there's so many things wrong with this movie but the mom

01:34:21 ◼   ► at home is such a you know she's the next victim the kid is gonna be shocked

01:34:27 ◼   ► that his mom has died she's been killed by all these gremlins she's she's she's

01:34:31 ◼   ► She's a woman, she's at home alone, she's gonna be a victim.

01:34:35 ◼   ► - She's very emotional and dithering before that, right?

01:34:39 ◼   ► Like she's not really shown as a strong character.

01:34:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, and she puts a gremlin in a blender.

01:34:45 ◼   ► Does she microwave?

01:34:49 ◼   ► - She microwaves one and stabs one repeatedly.

01:34:52 ◼   ► - With a knife, with a big kitchen knife.

01:34:55 ◼   ► - Like slasher movie style.

01:34:56 ◼   ► - It's so great, and the gremlin that goes in the blender

01:34:58 ◼   ► just like explodes into like gremlin goo.

01:35:01 ◼   ► - After like screaming and bleeding to be let out.

01:35:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I love that part.

01:35:07 ◼   ► Now I will also admit,

01:35:09 ◼   ► I disliked the movie at that point enough

01:35:12 ◼   ► that I was really happy to take out some of my frustration

01:35:16 ◼   ► by having Glee at the death of gremlins.

01:35:19 ◼   ► - You know what, I think you're right.

01:35:20 ◼   ► - Die all gremlins, die, just die.

01:35:22 ◼   ► - What preceded this is the worst part of the movie,

01:35:24 ◼   ► which is like the extended montage of the gremlins causing trouble and hurting people.

01:35:30 ◼   ► - Which you can see why-- okay, so the other thing I noticed about this, watching it back,

01:35:35 ◼   ► is this seems like one of those kind of crowd scenes in a Muppet movie,

01:35:43 ◼   ► where they're panning across a bunch of Muppets you don't really know very well.

01:35:49 ◼   ► They're like the background Muppets, and they're all-- they've all got something weird to do,

01:35:53 ◼   ► and they're going, "Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!"

01:35:57 ◼   ► The manic Muppets are doing weird things, right?

01:35:59 ◼   ► And it's like a group scene.

01:36:02 ◼   ► And then they cut away to like,

01:36:03 ◼   ► Kermit walking by and calm down everyone or whatever it is.

01:36:06 ◼   ► It felt like that, which is not my favorite thing

01:36:09 ◼   ► about a Muppet movie, extended forever in time.

01:36:14 ◼   ► Like, it's all of the lesser uninteresting Muppets

01:36:19 ◼   ► doing annoying things for minutes and minutes and minutes.

01:36:24 ◼   ► And I didn't find any of it amusing at all.

01:36:29 ◼   ► Like the gremlins in the bar

01:36:32 ◼   ► where the Peter Gabriel song is playing in the background.

01:36:37 ◼   ► Like it's just, yeah.

01:36:39 ◼   ► - Why is she serving them?

01:36:40 ◼   ► Why is she serving them?

01:36:41 ◼   ► - Why is Phoebe Cates serving?

01:36:43 ◼   ► I guess she feels threatened by them or something,

01:36:45 ◼   ► but she's sort of acting like everything is normal

01:36:47 ◼   ► and she should just serve the gremlins.

01:36:49 ◼   ► It's like I'll keep lighting the cigarettes.

01:36:50 ◼   ► Like I don't, I don't understand.

01:36:52 ◼   ► My main problem with this movie is nobody ever reacts

01:36:55 ◼   ► to the Gremlins appropriately.

01:36:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, like, no, I think you're right.

01:36:59 ◼   ► - Why does he buy it?

01:37:01 ◼   ► - Why does he buy the Mogwai gizmo?

01:37:06 ◼   ► - Why does he buy it?

01:37:07 ◼   ► - It's, you know, it looks like a Furby.

01:37:09 ◼   ► It's a weird animatronic stuffed, you know,

01:37:12 ◼   ► creature that in the movie, okay, it's alive.

01:37:15 ◼   ► It's a movie that's never been seen before.

01:37:16 ◼   ► I don't know, why does Randall Peltzer, the inventor,

01:37:21 ◼   ► this incredibly broad character played by Hoyt Axsen,

01:37:24 ◼   ► known for his country music and his narration,

01:37:26 ◼   ► who's not a very good actor.

01:37:28 ◼   ► - Nope.

01:37:29 ◼   ► - Why does he get this thing?

01:37:31 ◼   ► I don't know, 'cause he's a, I think the idea is

01:37:34 ◼   ► 'cause he's an inventor with big ideas

01:37:35 ◼   ► that are also bad ideas generally,

01:37:37 ◼   ► and this is his latest bad idea,

01:37:40 ◼   ► which is I can market this thing.

01:37:41 ◼   ► - But he doesn't think that until later in the movie.

01:37:44 ◼   ► Like his reason for buying it is,

01:37:46 ◼   ► I need a Christmas present for my son.

01:37:48 ◼   ► And here's a weird animal that nobody's ever seen before.

01:37:52 ◼   ► Speaking of all the tropes, at the Chinese curiosity shop, right?

01:37:59 ◼   ► With the guy with the pipe and the long beard, it's like, what are you doing?

01:38:02 ◼   ► Well, you know, and it's one of those things where it's like, I think it's knowingly

01:38:09 ◼   ► tropey but it's not satirized in any way. It's like, "No!" It's like, "Hey, you know

01:38:18 ◼   ► those horribly racist cliches? We could throw some of those in." It's like, "Uhhh, maybe

01:38:24 ◼   ► not!"

01:38:25 ◼   ► But like, when Billy opens the box, everyone just accepts this thing. Nobody questions

01:38:33 ◼   ► like "What is this?"

01:38:34 ◼   ► It's a magical creature we've never seen before.

01:38:36 ◼   ► takes it to the scientists, like a science teacher. The science teacher's like, "Alright,

01:38:40 ◼   ► I'll do some experiments on this." Nobody ever questions it!

01:38:43 ◼   ► So I'm like, this goes to the tone problem of this movie, because it's meant to be fairy tale-like,

01:38:47 ◼   ► right? This is meant to be a fable. Like, the whole, like, don't shine bright light,

01:38:52 ◼   ► don't get it wet, don't feed it after midnight. It's very much like a fantasy, a fairy tale kind

01:38:59 ◼   ► of thing. These are the rules.

01:39:01 ◼   ► Except I feel like they don't really play that up. Like I don't feel like I'm watching a fairy tale

01:39:07 ◼   ► and yet the rules are kind of fairy tale-ish.

01:39:10 ◼   ► Because nobody questions the rules and everybody breaks them.

01:39:13 ◼   ► Indeed, yes everybody does break them.

01:39:16 ◼   ► And then the other thing, when the dad comes back to town,

01:39:20 ◼   ► right, so when Randall Peltzer comes back to town after his convention,

01:39:24 ◼   ► which I'll get to that convention in a minute,

01:39:27 ◼   ► The whole town is in disrepute and he arrives magically in the store where the striped gremlin is dying

01:39:34 ◼   ► and he never questions what the hell is going on.

01:39:37 ◼   ► The whole town has been destroyed.

01:39:39 ◼   ► He never says "what's happening?"

01:39:40 ◼   ► He's like "oh that thing's just melting in front of me,

01:39:42 ◼   ► like dad give me your scarf because gizmo's dying on the floor, just give us a scarf"

01:39:45 ◼   ► like never questions the thing, like just doesn't question it.

01:39:48 ◼   ► And this is probably because he's such a bad actor as you say right?

01:39:51 ◼   ► Like there's no expression on his face, the expression is just like "well this is going on"

01:39:56 ◼   ► you know how good an actor uh uh Hoyt Axsom is is that he about three years before this was in

01:40:03 ◼   ► a tv movie based on also a Christmas movie based on uh a Christmas carol called skin flint

01:40:11 ◼   ► a country Christmas carol with my friend and incomparable colleague Steve Lutz what

01:40:19 ◼   ► I didn't know this Steve would Steve play tiny Tim it you can oh yeah skinflint a country Christmas carol

01:40:27 ◼   ► it's on youtube you can check you can check it out yeah he's the he's the yeah

01:40:32 ◼   ► anyway uh that's just a little a little aside that's kind of amazing is it's it's uh it's yeah

01:40:39 ◼   ► it's totally on youtube anyway uh so yeah Hoyt Exton is not a very good actor that that's the

01:40:46 ◼   ► that's the bottom line. He was a, I think he's kind of a pretty good narrator, like

01:40:49 ◼   ► a "Let me tell you a story about a boy who got a funny little creature and it turned

01:40:54 ◼   ► out to destroy a town." Right?

01:40:56 ◼   ► I also didn't understand why the narration was even there.

01:40:59 ◼   ► Well I think it's because it's Hoyt Axton, so you make a narration, but then he's acting

01:41:03 ◼   ► and it's like, and then it's very much like they're reading off a script, so that's not

01:41:06 ◼   ► great. The destruction of the, there are several points at which the complete destruction of

01:41:10 ◼   ► the town is kind of hand-waved, but people can still get around.

01:41:17 ◼   ► Talking about the town, that's Hill Valley, right?

01:41:21 ◼   ► I don't know, it is a movie set town with lots of snow blown onto it.

01:41:25 ◼   ► That's Hill Valley. It looked exactly the same.

01:41:29 ◼   ► It could be.

01:41:30 ◼   ► I assume it's the same soundstage or whatever it's called.

01:41:34 ◼   ► Yeah, it's super fake.

01:41:35 ◼   ► They had the clock tower, right? And then they had the store on the corner which is

01:41:39 ◼   ► the bank but was clearly the restaurant like I'm pretty sure that was Hill Valley.

01:41:44 ◼   ► I believe it that set has been there forever there's did you know that the I believe that

01:41:49 ◼   ► set is used in the pilot episode of the Twilight Zone.

01:41:52 ◼   ► I've never seen a Twilight Zone.

01:41:54 ◼   ► That town has been there a long time that that town set and it still gets used I so

01:42:02 ◼   ► the Mogwai itself Gizmo I think is kind of cute and weird and I like that I like that

01:42:07 ◼   ► that he never turns evil, that he comes around with Billy

01:42:10 ◼   ► in the backpack throughout their adventures together.

01:42:13 ◼   ► He's helpful at a couple of points.

01:42:15 ◼   ► I think that's fun.

01:42:16 ◼   ► I think that fits in with the, this is a fantasy story.

01:42:20 ◼   ► This is a fairytale.

01:42:21 ◼   ► This is a boy's journey with his loyal pet/companion,

01:42:26 ◼   ► teaches him to like sing along with music

01:42:29 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:42:30 ◼   ► I think Gizmo is cute and fun.

01:42:32 ◼   ► And although he's very limited by the fact

01:42:34 ◼   ► that he's an animatronic blob.

01:42:37 ◼   ► I think I like that part of it.

01:42:40 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm trying to think.

01:42:44 ◼   ► I like the fact that when the gremlin escapes

01:42:47 ◼   ► to the swimming pool, that it actually does,

01:42:50 ◼   ► when you're watching it, you think they won't do.

01:42:53 ◼   ► I assume when he goes to the swimming pool,

01:42:55 ◼   ► it's like, well, they're not gonna have

01:42:56 ◼   ► like hundreds of gremlins that would destroy this entire,

01:42:59 ◼   ► nope, they're gonna do that, right?

01:43:01 ◼   ► It's like, all right.

01:43:02 ◼   ► - It's a good thing, it's like the logical thing, right?

01:43:03 ◼   ► he's gonna go find the biggest body of water he can.

01:43:06 ◼   ► Right, like that's logical.

01:43:08 ◼   ► That is one logical, that's maybe the only logical thing in the movie.

01:43:11 ◼   ► Like one thing that is, that I will never understand, when they spill the water on Gizmo,

01:43:16 ◼   ► why does he never take him out of the water?

01:43:18 ◼   ► It just leaves him there to continue spawning new gremlins until he's done.

01:43:22 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:43:23 ◼   ► And also, that is one of the first super gross things in this movie.

01:43:28 ◼   ► The way that the gremlins are born is just so gross.

01:43:32 ◼   ► like all of the eating stuff like when they eat the chicken and add the close-ups on the

01:43:37 ◼   ► faces with like the teeth and it is that's disgusting the breaking out like cocoons is

01:43:41 ◼   ► disgusting I kind of like that those were disgusting though I thought I thought that

01:43:44 ◼   ► was that was kind of fitting because the gremlins are disgusting I liked yeah the fact that

01:43:49 ◼   ► they like you get water on them and they get like boils and then the gremlins like pop

01:43:53 ◼   ► out that was kind of that was kind of kind of gross the fundamental flaw in the idea

01:43:58 ◼   ► of Billy's dad thinking that he could sell the Mogwai. You can't sell them because they

01:44:05 ◼   ► multiply for free. How do you sell them? You sell one to one person and then they just

01:44:12 ◼   ► multiply them.

01:44:13 ◼   ► But that's the, that's the, um, this is the problem with the trouble with tribbles. Have

01:44:16 ◼   ► you ever seen that, the episode of Star Trek?

01:44:18 ◼   ► I know what this is.

01:44:19 ◼   ► The original Star Trek?

01:44:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I know what this is.

01:44:21 ◼   ► Okay, I mean, it's the same premise. It's, there's a fuzzy thing that's cute and somebody

01:44:23 ◼   ► thinks that he can sell it, but it turns out that they, they reproduce at a vast rate and

01:44:28 ◼   ► And so they're worthless. They're cute, but they're worthless to speculators because you

01:44:34 ◼   ► can make more of them really easily. I'm sure there's a parable about this, about rabbits

01:44:39 ◼   ► or something that's been around for thousands of years. It's the same idea. Can we talk

01:44:43 ◼   ► about some ridiculous things? Let's mention Christmas Eve in general, because I think

01:44:47 ◼   ► one of the things that stuck with me when I watched this movie as a kid is that everything

01:44:51 ◼   ► happens in this movie on Christmas Eve, which doesn't need to be the case. It could be the

01:44:55 ◼   ► Christmas season, but they make it all Christmas Eve because they want to have

01:44:58 ◼   ► it be Christmas Eve climax into Christmas Day. But like, people are in

01:45:02 ◼   ► school on Christmas Eve, that doesn't happen. People are... there is the

01:45:09 ◼   ► inventors convention happening on Christmas Eve. - Why would you plan a

01:45:13 ◼   ► convention on Christmas Eve? Why would you do that? - Well the inventors I think

01:45:17 ◼   ► are not that bright, but we get to like two scenes with Hoyt Axton in like a

01:45:21 ◼   ► phone booth with people walking by at the inventors conventions. - It's the most

01:45:25 ◼   ► I did air quotes there. It's like a couple of panes of glass in a beige background and

01:45:32 ◼   ► like they have a couple of extras walk by. It's amazing. Well later on there's like somebody

01:45:38 ◼   ► in like a box with a thing that is like supposed to be an invention and you're like, "Oh yeah,

01:45:44 ◼   ► inventors." But again, it's Christmas Eve and they're busy at the inventors convention

01:45:49 ◼   ► on Christmas Eve. It doesn't make any sense to me. But the perhaps the most ridiculous

01:45:53 ◼   ► scene in the movie is is the one in which at long last I don't know like do

01:46:00 ◼   ► we care about this character at all but at long last

01:46:03 ◼   ► Phoebe Cates reveals why she doesn't like Christmas after after we've seen her

01:46:09 ◼   ► say this repeatedly there's a super we haven't even mentioned the super broad

01:46:13 ◼   ► scenes at the bank where there's judge Reinhold who's a who's a jerky yuppie

01:46:18 ◼   ► kind of guy and there's a holiday seriously because I've seen Arrested

01:46:22 ◼   ► development. Well you shouldn't take him seriously in this either as Gerald

01:46:25 ◼   ► because he's awful. Polly Holliday who is Flo on Alice is essentially Cruella Deville

01:46:29 ◼   ► here. She's threatening dogs. Now, okay, she's basically a MacGuffin

01:46:34 ◼   ► villain. She is. She's a MacGuffin villain. She is. So first off, Billy has his dog

01:46:41 ◼   ► at the bank. Doesn't make any sense. What? How did he get it in the door? Nobody should have accepted that as

01:46:47 ◼   ► the thing. No, and then and so the dogs at the bank and then and then the mean

01:46:51 ◼   ► lady comes and then the dog attacks the mean lady.

01:46:54 ◼   ► - He doesn't even need to take the dog to the bank.

01:46:56 ◼   ► Why does he need to take the dog?

01:46:57 ◼   ► - No, we don't, I don't know.

01:47:00 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:47:01 ◼   ► And then Polly Holiday, in another scene

01:47:02 ◼   ► that I remember very clearly,

01:47:04 ◼   ► is she's got her little staircase elevator thing

01:47:08 ◼   ► that she uses 'cause she's an old lady,

01:47:09 ◼   ► even though she walks around fine,

01:47:11 ◼   ► she doesn't go up the stairs.

01:47:12 ◼   ► And of course the Gremlins rewire this later

01:47:15 ◼   ► so that she's ejected out her window

01:47:17 ◼   ► and flung in the air and presumably is dead.

01:47:20 ◼   ► So, there is that. But then there is the finally we get the reveal of Phoebe Cates super important

01:47:28 ◼   ► character point which is she hates Christmas which is a whole speech about how her father

01:47:34 ◼   ► went down the chimney to bring them presents dressed as Santa Claus but he got stuck and

01:47:39 ◼   ► then and so he went missing and they could not find him and then they went to the it

01:47:43 ◼   ► was a cold night and they lit a fire but when they were going over the fireplace they smelled

01:47:47 ◼   ► something awful and they thought something died in it so they called somebody out to

01:47:52 ◼   ► take off the chimney and get out the dead thing and then it turned out that it was the

01:47:55 ◼   ► dead body of her father dressed as Santa Claus and he'd been there all along. Ooh! And it

01:48:02 ◼   ► is just terrible.

01:48:04 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:48:05 ◼   ► Talk about tone though, right?

01:48:08 ◼   ► See if you can guess what line I'm gonna bring up.

01:48:10 ◼   ► - I can't, I can't.

01:48:12 ◼   ► - When, is her name Kate in the movie, Phoebe Cates?

01:48:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:48:16 ◼   ► - Very inventive.

01:48:17 ◼   ► When they're walking down the street

01:48:19 ◼   ► talking about Christmas.

01:48:21 ◼   ► - Kate Phoebe's.

01:48:22 ◼   ► - And she says about how Christmas is depressing

01:48:26 ◼   ► and that lots of people are sad at Christmas

01:48:29 ◼   ► and she says, "When most people are opening their presents,

01:48:32 ◼   ► Some are opening their veins.

01:48:34 ◼   ► Wow.

01:48:36 ◼   ► What a line.

01:48:37 ◼   ► Why?

01:48:38 ◼   ► Well, there's a, there's a, there's a lot of, I hate Christmas.

01:48:41 ◼   ► I just don't like Christmas.

01:48:43 ◼   ► And yet she's never really redeemed.

01:48:45 ◼   ► Like, I mean, she's got a good reason to not like it, although it's super extreme.

01:48:49 ◼   ► But then I don't know, again, tone problems.

01:48:52 ◼   ► Like they threw, like, like Billy's mom.

01:48:56 ◼   ► Uh, they threw a bunch of stuff in a blender and out came a disgusting ooze.

01:49:01 ◼   ► I mean, 'cause it's like, I can see how there's a movie here, right? I can see how there's

01:49:07 ◼   ► kind of a fable about a monster and it's mishandled accidentally, or a cute thing that's mishandled

01:49:14 ◼   ► and it generates monsters and it wreaks havoc and there's a boy and he likes a girl and

01:49:19 ◼   ► the girl is a bah humbug kind of character. I can see all of the outline of the movie

01:49:25 ◼   ► here that is like a holiday movie that's a fable about about I don't even know what the

01:49:31 ◼   ► fables about will work on that that'll be in the rewrite but what night what you have

01:49:36 ◼   ► you have no midnight snacks and wear sunglasses and stay dry stay dry bring a towel and but

01:49:45 ◼   ► the end result is just a it's just a mess it's just a huge it's a huge mess it's it's

01:49:49 ◼   ► It's wacky and anarchic and if you enjoy a wacky mess involving puppets then this is

01:49:57 ◼   ► the movie for you, but I can't endorse it.

01:50:02 ◼   ► They really love Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, we didn't mention that too, and that

01:50:05 ◼   ► leads to another scene that I really like.

01:50:07 ◼   ► I love the scenes where they kill Gremlins, it turns out, where they break open the gas

01:50:11 ◼   ► main and light a fire and blow up the movie theater.

01:50:14 ◼   ► - I thought that was kind of great,

01:50:16 ◼   ► except of course the one,

01:50:17 ◼   ► the stripe gremlin escapes again.

01:50:20 ◼   ► - Who decides to use a crossbow and a handgun

01:50:24 ◼   ► to try and ward off Billy.

01:50:26 ◼   ► This film is so weird.

01:50:28 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, in the end, they're in the hardware store

01:50:30 ◼   ► and there's a whole like a battle in the hardware store.

01:50:33 ◼   ► And they say, at one point they say,

01:50:36 ◼   ► "The sun will be coming up soon."

01:50:38 ◼   ► And like five minutes later,

01:50:40 ◼   ► they can open that skylight and bright light is streaming in

01:50:43 ◼   ► from the bright day outside. Um, okay. But, uh, yeah. Yeah. Didn't like this movie, man.

01:50:53 ◼   ► No, it's not good. Don't watch it. No. My apologies to those who like it. If you like

01:50:57 ◼   ► Gremlins because you have fond memories of it as a kid, don't watch it. Again, just keep

01:51:01 ◼   ► your fond memories. If you do like Gremlins and all of the things that we talk about and

01:51:05 ◼   ► you watch it all the time, I don't know what to tell you. Shine on you crazy diamond. It's

01:51:10 ◼   ► It's a bad movie. Bad, bad, bad.

01:51:12 ◼   ► Bad, bad movie.

01:51:13 ◼   ► Yeah, it is. It is.

01:51:15 ◼   ► I like I said, what I take away from it is my glee in the murder of all the gremlins.

01:51:22 ◼   ► I'm not sure I was supposed to take that away, but I did enjoy that.

01:51:26 ◼   ► And this also makes it inappropriate for little kids, I think.

01:51:29 ◼   ► But I did enjoy these gremlins who I hated being just destroyed in terrible ways and stabbed and blended.

01:51:36 ◼   ► I mean, like, literally, a gremlin is microwaved to death.

01:51:42 ◼   ► That was kind of great.

01:51:43 ◼   ► But that's it.

01:51:44 ◼   ► Didn't like this movie, Jason.

01:51:46 ◼   ► No.

01:51:47 ◼   ► Well, we got another chance with Home Alone, which I haven't seen.

01:51:50 ◼   ► Well, I know I love that movie.

01:51:53 ◼   ► And I have watched it recently, so, like, I'm not just going nostalgia.

01:51:56 ◼   ► Like, Home Alone is one of my--is my favorite--probably my favorite Christmas movie.

01:52:01 ◼   ► Either that or Action Skyscraper.

01:52:02 ◼   ► Yeah, well, that's a good one.

01:52:05 ◼   ► sad, sad, sad, divorced cop.

01:52:08 ◼   ► I will see what I think though.

01:52:09 ◼   ► The shoe is on the other foot now, Myke.

01:52:11 ◼   ► There's a movie that you really like.

01:52:12 ◼   ► The question is, will I like it?

01:52:14 ◼   ► - So that's coming up.

01:52:16 ◼   ► We're gonna be, that's gonna be on the episode

01:52:18 ◼   ► on the 12th of December.

01:52:20 ◼   ► So we're a couple of weeks away

01:52:22 ◼   ► from a clear redemption for Christmas movies.

01:52:26 ◼   ► 'Cause it doesn't matter how you feel about "Home Alone,"

01:52:28 ◼   ► you'll like it more than "Gremlins."

01:52:30 ◼   ► - Okay, fair enough.

01:52:31 ◼   ► - I'm very confident of that.

01:52:32 ◼   ► - For people who enjoy "Myke at the Movies"

01:52:34 ◼   ► will remind you that we make a feed of just all of the movies

01:52:37 ◼   ► Myke watches with various people over at The Incomparable,

01:52:40 ◼   ► at the incomparable.com/mike.

01:52:42 ◼   ► There's Myke at the movies feed.

01:52:44 ◼   ► So if you ever wanna go back and like,

01:52:46 ◼   ► I remember that they watched Raiders of the Lost Ark,