Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode number 88.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Casper and Pingdom.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hi Myke, how's it going?

00:00:22 ◼   ► Very good. Uh, Jason, are you familiar with bingo calls?

00:00:27 ◼   ► You mean like, like I4 or I38?

00:00:32 ◼   ► - There's a slightly different way of doing it in the UK

00:00:35 ◼   ► where it's all numbers,

00:00:37 ◼   ► but there are certain types of bingo that you can play

00:00:39 ◼   ► where some of the numbers have names attached to them.

00:00:43 ◼   ► And 88, if you call it in bingo,

00:00:45 ◼   ► in some places in the UK,

00:00:47 ◼   ► would be two fat ladies, 88,

00:00:48 ◼   ► because eight and eight together look like two fat ladies.

00:00:51 ◼   ► That's the old idea. - Oh, interesting.

00:00:53 ◼   ► - And there's like two little ducks is 22.

00:00:56 ◼   ► It goes on and on and on.

00:00:57 ◼   ► Is that where the two fat ladies got their name?

00:01:00 ◼   ► Yes, probably.

00:01:01 ◼   ► The cooking show with the two ladies?

00:01:04 ◼   ► Two fat ladies is like a known phrase in the UK.

00:01:10 ◼   ► So I would expect that, yes, that's what they got it from.

00:01:13 ◼   ► So I'll put a link in the show notes to a Wikipedia article

00:01:16 ◼   ► of British bingo nicknames.

00:01:18 ◼   ► So you can go there and brush up on them and say them to me

00:01:22 ◼   ► and see if I'll recognize them.

00:01:25 ◼   ► We only have one piece of follow up this week.

00:01:27 ◼   ► It's a good one, it comes in from Matthew.

00:01:30 ◼   ► So last week we were talking,

00:01:32 ◼   ► somebody wrote in last week to ask about

00:01:34 ◼   ► safe battery cycling on the Mac.

00:01:39 ◼   ► And Matthew recommended Fruit Juice,

00:01:42 ◼   ► which is an application that lives in your menu bar

00:01:44 ◼   ► and gives you lots of really good battery information.

00:01:49 ◼   ► And you can also kind of get an idea of maintenance

00:01:53 ◼   ► and cycling and all that sort of stuff.

00:01:54 ◼   ► So it will give you the data that you might want

00:01:58 ◼   ► to ensure that you're keeping your battery healthy

00:02:01 ◼   ► on your Macintosh.

00:02:02 ◼   ► Do you know what I really like about iOS?

00:02:05 ◼   ► - Hmm.

00:02:05 ◼   ► - I don't have to think about this stuff.

00:02:06 ◼   ► - You don't have to do it.

00:02:08 ◼   ► But those are mobile devices where you're never leaving.

00:02:11 ◼   ► iOS devices don't just stay plugged in all the time.

00:02:14 ◼   ► - Of course.

00:02:15 ◼   ► - I think that's the problem is that oftentimes

00:02:16 ◼   ► a Mac laptop will stay sitting on a desk for a long time

00:02:19 ◼   ► and is only sometimes used for travel

00:02:21 ◼   ► and then it becomes a problem.

00:02:23 ◼   ► I know for a fact that iOS devices do a charge cycle where they once they get up to full

00:02:28 ◼   ► they actually stop charging and they drain a little bit even when it's plugged in. That's

00:02:34 ◼   ► a thing that a technique Apple does in the software in iOS. But on the Mac there are

00:02:40 ◼   ► some challenges there. I heard a couple of things and I can't find all the email now.

00:02:44 ◼   ► I know there's a guy who wrote to us who was working on a product that is not out yet that

00:02:49 ◼   ► is a, that is called Battery Bypass that listener Tim sent in, that he's working on, that does

00:02:58 ◼   ► this sort of thing where it will stop, basically it will stop using the battery, or start using

00:03:03 ◼   ► the battery and stop using the AC power for a little while and then kind of do the cycle

00:03:08 ◼   ► thing. But the simplest way is just to unplug your laptop every now and then, let it drain

00:03:13 ◼   ► a little bit.

00:03:14 ◼   ► a link to the battery bypass page. Tim has a little sign up. It was funny to me, you

00:03:19 ◼   ► know, it must have been funny to Tim too, that we were talking about. He's like, "I'm

00:03:22 ◼   ► working on this!"

00:03:23 ◼   ► Tim I'm working on it, I've got an app, it's

00:03:24 ◼   ► coming out, it's in beta right now.

00:03:25 ◼   ► Tim Unless this was an elaborate ploy from Tim

00:03:28 ◼   ► and he posed to be somebody else last week and...

00:03:30 ◼   ► Tim He's an opportunist.

00:03:31 ◼   ► Tim Bravo to you, Timothy.

00:03:32 ◼   ► Tim Marketing his app. Yeah.

00:03:34 ◼   ► Tim We have been putting off this topic for a

00:03:37 ◼   ► couple of weeks just because things have been getting in the way and...

00:03:40 ◼   ► Tim And it's not going anywhere, right?

00:03:41 ◼   ► Tim That's very true. And it's probably about

00:03:44 ◼   ► time that we got to it and that's we want to talk a little bit about the Apple

00:03:48 ◼   ► Watch. Yeah. We are, the Apple Watch has been in our lives for over a year now

00:03:53 ◼   ► just about right they shipped in March didn't they if memory serves? Yeah I think so. Something like that.

00:04:00 ◼   ► So April maybe? Yeah March, April. A year ago. Yeah about a year ago so this is I

00:04:04 ◼   ► think prompted a lot of articles to be written by people lots of reflections

00:04:08 ◼   ► you know and now it's bringing us to do this now and this kind of started off

00:04:12 ◼   ► with a Wall Street Journal article talking about kind of the sales pace of the Apple

00:04:19 ◼   ► Watch compared to the original iPhone. Jason, could you sum this up?

00:04:23 ◼   ► Sure. Basically, the Wall Street Journal article says Year One of the watch was double that

00:04:29 ◼   ► of the iPhone and that when we do… when we look at the watch, the smart watch market,

00:04:37 ◼   ► is kind of holding a dominant position. And what's interesting about it is, you know,

00:04:43 ◼   ► all those numbers are great, but people still think it's a failure in some ways or a huge

00:04:49 ◼   ► disappointment, which is funny because it's all about your expectations. And I would argue

00:04:54 ◼   ► that people's expectations for this product, as with most Apple products, are probably

00:04:58 ◼   ► unreasonable because they all think they're going to be the iPhone. But, you know, I think

00:05:03 ◼   ► I think the real question is how is this market doing and is this market going to be something

00:05:08 ◼   ► or not? Because it looks like Apple has an incredibly strong position in this market,

00:05:12 ◼   ► but is it a small market, is it a disappointment of a market?

00:05:15 ◼   ► Adam: One of the things that I find funny from this piece is kind of comparing it to

00:05:20 ◼   ► the iPhone and being like, "The watch is sold more than the iPhone, so it's fine." But I

00:05:25 ◼   ► think we're in a very different world to how we were 10 years ago.

00:05:28 ◼   ► certainly. I mean the iPad sold more than the iPhone too near one.

00:05:32 ◼   ► Look how that's gone.

00:05:33 ◼   ► The bar for the iPhone sales are, I mean that was that first year, it accelerated as time

00:05:40 ◼   ► went on, it was singular only, it was in the US for only for a long time.

00:05:44 ◼   ► And really the only comparison you can make in my opinion between the watch and the phone

00:05:49 ◼   ► is that they came from the same company and that's kind of where it ends. Because you

00:05:53 ◼   ► know there are so many things like you can't buy the watch unless you're already an iPhone

00:05:57 ◼   ► owner, like, the iPhone was a revolution, and no sales numbers were needed to prove

00:06:04 ◼   ► that it was a revolution, like we just knew it when we saw it. The Apple Watch, not so

00:06:08 ◼   ► much, really.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah, it's also the expectation, I mean, the expectations of what Apple is doing are

00:06:15 ◼   ► totally different today than they are then, and their marketing reach is greater and their

00:06:18 ◼   ► user base that they're selling this to is huge, and so it's a different world. So it's

00:06:22 ◼   ► not a really good argument, but I like the sentiment of it, which is basically like,

00:06:28 ◼   ► in lots of metrics, and that's probably the worst one to choose, but in lots of metrics,

00:06:33 ◼   ► the Apple Watch seems pretty successful for a first hack at a product, but I think people

00:06:40 ◼   ► have this expectation that Apple's first hack of the product is going to be like the one

00:06:45 ◼   ► that makes, that bowls everybody over, and I think the only time that actually happened

00:06:49 ◼   ► was the iPad and what happened is it pulled everybody over and then everybody

00:06:54 ◼   ► bought one and then people stopped buying them. So is that an indicator of

00:06:58 ◼   ► future success that you have a big first release that everybody rushes out and

00:07:03 ◼   ► buys immediately? I'm not sure it tells us anything other than that this seems

00:07:07 ◼   ► to be in its category a fairly successful product in terms of sales.

00:07:11 ◼   ► We'll see how ongoing sales are and we'll see how that category goes but

00:07:15 ◼   ► But it's really a lot of people looking at numbers or looking at anecdotes talk about

00:07:21 ◼   ► like the Apple Watch being a disappointment and you know everything is relative.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Disappointment compared to what?

00:07:26 ◼   ► So saying about that, there have been I guess lots of posts recently again with the idea

00:07:32 ◼   ► of reflection that people are unhappy with the Apple Watches.

00:07:37 ◼   ► You know like for example Marco as is funnily enough the Apple Watch has pushed him to mechanical

00:07:43 ◼   ► watches. And, you know, kind of, I wonder there, like, what do you think of this trend?

00:07:50 ◼   ► Is this type of thing expected from people or is this a peculiar thing that the Apple

00:07:55 ◼   ► Watch has kind of come into people's lives and then they've pushed it away?

00:08:00 ◼   ► >> I think the class of people, different classes of people for these products, right,

00:08:07 ◼   ► so you'll get people in who have always worn a watch and they'll get the Apple Watch and

00:08:12 ◼   ► and they'll be like, "Eh, I prefer a mechanical watch."

00:08:14 ◼   ► And other people are like, "Oh, yay.

00:08:17 ◼   ► "Now instead of a mechanical watch,

00:08:18 ◼   ► "I've got a smartwatch on my wrist."

00:08:19 ◼   ► That's great.

00:08:20 ◼   ► - I'm one of those people. - You've also got people who,

00:08:21 ◼   ► yeah, and I'm one of those people too,

00:08:23 ◼   ► who I've always worn a watch,

00:08:24 ◼   ► but I'm happy now that I've got one that is smarter

00:08:28 ◼   ► than the one that I had before.

00:08:29 ◼   ► You also gonna have people who didn't wear a watch

00:08:31 ◼   ► who were like, "Oh, but I love Apple.

00:08:33 ◼   ► "I'm gonna wear the Apple Watch,

00:08:34 ◼   ► "even though I don't wear a watch."

00:08:35 ◼   ► And some of those people were like, "Oh, I kinda like it."

00:08:37 ◼   ► And other people will say,

00:08:41 ◼   ► I don't want to wear a watch, it turns out. I just don't like it." And then there are

00:08:44 ◼   ► people like Marco Arment who are instead saying, "Well, I kind of get why people like the watch,

00:08:50 ◼   ► but I don't like the Apple Watch, so I'll buy another watch." And in Marco's case, he

00:08:53 ◼   ► got into it because he's a person who tends to fall into these enthusiasms like he does.

00:08:58 ◼   ► He gets very enthusiastic about stuff. He got into like fancy mechanical watches, but

00:09:02 ◼   ► it could just as easily have been somebody saying, "You know what? I like having something

00:09:06 ◼   ► on my wrist. I'm just going to go out and buy a nice watch."

00:09:09 ◼   ► or like a Fitbit or something.

00:09:10 ◼   ► I think a lot of people have moved that direction too.

00:09:13 ◼   ► - Right, it's like, turns out what I really want

00:09:15 ◼   ► and my prioritization is entirely about fitness.

00:09:19 ◼   ► So getting a dedicated wearable fitness tracker

00:09:21 ◼   ► is a better use too.

00:09:23 ◼   ► That's another use case.

00:09:24 ◼   ► So it's, you know, it runs the gamut.

00:09:26 ◼   ► - Here's a different part though for me and you,

00:09:28 ◼   ► which I don't know if this is different,

00:09:30 ◼   ► but we shared this.

00:09:31 ◼   ► We both wore pebbles before the Apple Watch.

00:09:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I did.

00:09:34 ◼   ► I mean, I wore a regular watch before that,

00:09:36 ◼   ► but I did wear the pebble before I wore the Apple Watch

00:09:38 ◼   ► and the experience wasn't, you know, wasn't fantastic.

00:09:40 ◼   ► But again, it told the time

00:09:42 ◼   ► and it sent me push notifications.

00:09:44 ◼   ► And so that was good.

00:09:45 ◼   ► And the Apple Watch is a much nicer watch than the Pebble.

00:09:47 ◼   ► And it tells the time and sends me push notifications

00:09:50 ◼   ► and does a little bit more that I use.

00:09:52 ◼   ► And so it's, you know, it's an upgrade, it's better.

00:09:56 ◼   ► But you know, is it, we'll talk about like,

00:10:00 ◼   ► is it disappointing and does it have room to grow?

00:10:02 ◼   ► And like, yeah, totally, of both of those.

00:10:05 ◼   ► But I still use it.

00:10:07 ◼   ► that was-- so when Casey Liss wrote this piece, I-- it's funny because I felt the

00:10:11 ◼   ► same thing about it, is his poor Apple Watch piece which he talked about,

00:10:14 ◼   ► which he felt like he was surrounded by, and on ATP Marco kind of poo-pooed him on it,

00:10:18 ◼   ► but I felt the same thing, which is that suddenly there were a bunch of people

00:10:22 ◼   ► writing stories about-- especially like tech nerds saying, "Oh, I got rid of my

00:10:27 ◼   ► Apple Watch. It's dumb." And I think as somebody who wears it every day and

00:10:32 ◼   ► likes it, at some point you feel like you've got to stand up just to be counted

00:10:35 ◼   ► is saying, look, not everybody is writing the breakup post with the Apple watch. Hello.

00:10:39 ◼   ► And I didn't, you know, I don't post a weekly blog post that says still wearing my Apple

00:10:44 ◼   ► watch. Right. So instead what you get is the people who are, who are saying, Oh, that's

00:10:47 ◼   ► it. I, I, I it's, it's irrelevant. I I've given it up, I've sold it, whatever it is.

00:10:52 ◼   ► So you know, those canary in the coal mine type things for, um, uh, you know, is it legal

00:10:58 ◼   ► representation? You know, like they have those things in like a page somewhere on companies

00:11:02 ◼   ► websites, you should have one of those, like in your about page, you should say like "Jason

00:11:06 ◼   ► is an Apple Watch wearer" and then...

00:11:08 ◼   ► Jason is still wearing his Apple Watch.

00:11:10 ◼   ► And then when it comes away, then you'll know.

00:11:12 ◼   ► Then you'll know.

00:11:14 ◼   ► So I appreciate Casey writing it because, you know, I didn't feel like he was defending

00:11:19 ◼   ► the Apple Watch so much as saying, you know, a lot of us wear the Apple Watch, I wear the

00:11:23 ◼   ► Apple Watch, and I like it, and I like wearing it, and it doesn't mean that I don't have

00:11:28 ◼   ► lots of criticisms about it in my personal case, but like Casey, that doesn't mean that

00:11:34 ◼   ► I've stopped wearing it or finding value in it. And it's funny because, like I said, people

00:11:39 ◼   ► don't say that. People don't write those big blog posts about how they are still using

00:11:44 ◼   ► a product and like it. It's only the ones who are angry and making a change or disappointed.

00:11:50 ◼   ► And so I appreciated his thing because I feel the same way. And I know you feel the same

00:11:54 ◼   ► way too. It deserves a lot of criticism but it doesn't mean I'm not wearing it.

00:12:00 ◼   ► So let's talk about how we use our watches then. Because the stage is set, both me and

00:12:06 ◼   ► Jason are happy Apple Watch wearers. We've spoken many times about what I have, at least

00:12:11 ◼   ► all the bands that I have. I put it on every day, it sits next to me on my bedside table,

00:12:16 ◼   ► it's one of the first things that I do in the morning. And if I for some reason forget

00:12:19 ◼   ► to put it on, it feels weird. Like I'm like, "Why do I not know anything about my life

00:12:24 ◼   ► "Oh, my watch isn't on my wrist." Because I'm moving around the house, I'm doing

00:12:28 ◼   ► whatever and the notifications are coming in on that thing.

00:12:32 ◼   ► I have a lot of my devices set up that really the watch is the primary way that I get notifications.

00:12:38 ◼   ► I have everything on Do Not Disturb, I have things not showing up on screen, and the watch

00:12:43 ◼   ► is kind of my gateway, my guardian I guess, to the things that are happening that require

00:12:48 ◼   ► my attention in my life. So that's kind of the overall reason of why I wear this thing

00:12:55 ◼   ► is because it is the way that people can get to me and I have it set up perfectly for me

00:13:01 ◼   ► so it works like that. But this isn't the only way that Apple want the watch to be used

00:13:06 ◼   ► and I think this is where it starts to break down. I think most of the people that even

00:13:10 ◼   ► have left the Apple Watch are like "I quite like it for the fitness stuff and I quite

00:13:14 ◼   ► like it for the notifications, but everything else is a mess, right? That's kind of the

00:13:18 ◼   ► general feeling is third party apps, glances, complications, they're all a mess, they're

00:13:23 ◼   ► all full of problems. So I think that tends to be the general consensus for why people

00:13:30 ◼   ► leave this. So I wondered, between the two of us, what do we actually use outside of

00:13:35 ◼   ► notifications coming in? So Jason, what do you use on the Apple Watch outside of just

00:13:40 ◼   ► the notifications?

00:13:41 ◼   ► Well, I use, built in, you know, I use the timer. I use the alarm clock because I do

00:13:48 ◼   ► use the nightstand mode and have it next to my bed. I use the fitness when I remember

00:13:54 ◼   ► to use it when I go for a walk or a hike. That's actually one of my complaints about

00:14:01 ◼   ► it is I feel like the, I want it to be smarter about what I'm doing. I know that there's

00:14:10 ◼   ► amount of logging that happens regardless, but like if I am wearing my Apple Watch and

00:14:15 ◼   ► I start running, Apple Watch should be like, "Oh, you're running. Your pulse is elevated.

00:14:21 ◼   ► I'm being jiggled around a lot. I'm going to check your pulse. Wow, your heart rate's

00:14:24 ◼   ► way up too. I'm going to monitor this again. Oh yeah, it is again. You know what? You're

00:14:29 ◼   ► on a run. I'm going to turn into run mode and I'm going to log this automatically."

00:14:33 ◼   ► And it doesn't do that as far as I can tell.

00:14:36 ◼   ► I agree with you completely. Like today, I did the seven minute workout today in the

00:14:41 ◼   ► afternoon after having sat in my chair for the morning and then all of a sudden I'm

00:14:46 ◼   ► doing jumping jacks. But I forgot to tell the watch that I was in fitness mode but it

00:14:51 ◼   ► has no idea. Like, you know, my green fitness ring has not moved by seven minutes today.

00:14:58 ◼   ► You know, like it just has no idea. And you're right, I feel like there are enough senses

00:15:02 ◼   ► in this thing, or could be enough sensors in this thing, it should understand that stuff's

00:15:09 ◼   ► happening right now.

00:15:11 ◼   ► I think part of the problem is that the battery, they're worried about the battery, and we

00:15:21 ◼   ► know that the sensors use a lot of battery, the pulse sensor especially, because if you

00:15:26 ◼   ► leave your thing in fitness mode for a few hours, it'll kill the battery. But, you know,

00:15:31 ◼   ► I still feel like it should be smarter about turning those on and monitoring and checking

00:15:36 ◼   ► every so often how you're doing. It will give you some credit for some things as you go,

00:15:42 ◼   ► but seriously, one of the things that I had hoped I would get with the Apple Watch, and

00:15:47 ◼   ► we'll get to it later because I'm sort of jumping ahead, but I had hoped that it would

00:15:51 ◼   ► be smarter about keeping track of my fitness times and logging them and letting me look

00:15:57 ◼   ► at them and given all of its sensors and all of its connection to my phone, you know, I

00:16:02 ◼   ► shouldn't have to kick off a fitness event. It should just be able to tell me. And then

00:16:06 ◼   ► I should be able to go to an app or a website later and say, "Oh, this is that run I did

00:16:11 ◼   ► yesterday," without having to do anything on the watch to start it going. Because that

00:16:17 ◼   ► I think that's, and that goes back to a core problem we'll talk about later, which is putting

00:16:21 ◼   ► things on, you know, having to launch an app and wait for it to launch and press some buttons

00:16:25 ◼   ► to get things going and then remembering to press those buttons again later to turn it

00:16:29 ◼   ► off is not fun. On the current version of the Apple Watch, it can be very slow, but

00:16:35 ◼   ► regardless, it should be smart enough, and I think it has the technical ability to be

00:16:40 ◼   ► smart enough to intuit this stuff. I shouldn't need to tell it, right? It should just be

00:16:45 ◼   ► able to say, "Oh, you're running," right? It should be able to do that, and it can't

00:16:49 ◼   ► right now, or it doesn't, and that bugs me. So anyway, I do use those. In terms of third-party

00:16:54 ◼   ► like I use Authy, the two-factor authentication app. A lot of times I'm sitting at my desk

00:17:02 ◼   ► with my watch on and my phone is plugged into the charger in the kitchen and I get a two-factor,

00:17:09 ◼   ► you know, put it in the six-digit code request and I can use the Authy app to bring it up

00:17:16 ◼   ► on my watch.

00:17:17 ◼   ► I don't use Authy. I feel like I should check it out. I mean, I kind of do everything by

00:17:21 ◼   ► text message, I guess.

00:17:23 ◼   ► Well, some things won't do text message.

00:17:26 ◼   ► Right, okay.

00:17:27 ◼   ► And so I use Authy.

00:17:29 ◼   ► You can use Google Authenticator, but Authy's got a nice--when it works, it's got a nice

00:17:32 ◼   ► Apple Watch app.

00:17:33 ◼   ► It doesn't always work.

00:17:34 ◼   ► Well, the worry that I have with text message is, "What if I'm on a plane?"

00:17:38 ◼   ► You know, like, and I can get data but can't get texts, you know?

00:17:42 ◼   ► And for that reason, I have a lot of, you know, a lot of services which dump you a list

00:17:45 ◼   ► of codes that you can save in something like 1Password.

00:17:48 ◼   ► But yeah, I've heard lots of people talk about Authy.

00:17:51 ◼   ► feel like I should take a look at it.

00:17:53 ◼   ► Yeah, and Dan wrote a nice piece in six colors about it, so maybe we'll put that in the show

00:17:59 ◼   ► notes.

00:18:00 ◼   ► You bet it will be in there.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Alright, so I used that.

00:18:04 ◼   ► I used the weather underground complication on my watch face, which doesn't update as

00:18:08 ◼   ► often as I would like, but it's a pretty good reflection of the local temperature, because

00:18:14 ◼   ► as I've said I think on a past show, where I live, there's a huge temperature gradient

00:18:19 ◼   ► like south of me, especially in the summertime, south of me and north of me, the temperature

00:18:23 ◼   ► changes dramatically. It gets way foggier and cooler to the south and it's much warmer,

00:18:28 ◼   ► much hotter to the north. And so a lot of canned weather apps, you know, you put in

00:18:35 ◼   ► a zip code and it finds the whatever its forecast is for a city near there. And so for me, sometimes

00:18:43 ◼   ► I'll get something that's saying the temperature and the highs and lows and it's 10 degrees

00:18:47 ◼   ► too hot or it's 10 degrees too cold because it's just that's where I live. So with Weather

00:18:53 ◼   ► Underground, it's using my local, ideally it's using my weather station in my backyard,

00:18:59 ◼   ► but it's certainly something very local that I can, so the temps are much more realistic.

00:19:04 ◼   ► So I use that, but really almost everything I do with the watch is stuff that is on the

00:19:09 ◼   ► face, is launched from the face, or is notifications. And then the only other thing I'll say that

00:19:14 ◼   ► I throw in there is, you know, I do use the timer for cooking and things like that. I

00:19:20 ◼   ► will use Siri to activate the timer and have it be for five minutes or eight minutes or

00:19:29 ◼   ► whatever.

00:19:30 ◼   ► So, I use a few apps actually, but they kind of come to me through the complications. So,

00:19:39 ◼   ► I use Fantastical and Carrot Weather for my calendar and my weather.

00:19:45 ◼   ► And they both have applications that load relatively quickly, especially Carrot Weather.

00:19:49 ◼   ► I find that one to be very reliable.

00:19:52 ◼   ► It loads quickly, it has a really nice loading animation where it just flashes up different

00:19:56 ◼   ► glyphs of weather but it doesn't take a long time to load.

00:20:00 ◼   ► And the actual Apple Watch app displays a fantastic amount of information on the screen.

00:20:06 ◼   ► So like I'm looking at it now, I see the temperature, I get the feels like temperature, the speed

00:20:11 ◼   ► of the wind, I get the idea of how much rain there's going to be for the next hour and

00:20:16 ◼   ► what the temperature is going to be like over the next six hours, all just without scrolling.

00:20:20 ◼   ► And then I can go down, like scroll down and see a seven day forecast.

00:20:22 ◼   ► I think it's fantastic.

00:20:25 ◼   ► I kind of like the Carrot Weather app on the iPhone.

00:20:28 ◼   ► I love it on the watch.

00:20:30 ◼   ► It's far superior for me on the watch than it is on the phone, which is kind of funny.

00:20:34 ◼   ► The Carrot Weather app on the iPhone doesn't have great information density because it's

00:20:38 ◼   ► more about the character, which I appreciate, but I really like it on the watch because

00:20:42 ◼   ► that typically is where I want the weather anyway.

00:20:44 ◼   ► It's on my wrist rather than on my phone.

00:20:46 ◼   ► I want to check it quickly.

00:20:48 ◼   ► The Fantastic L1, it does a decent job.

00:20:51 ◼   ► It does a fine job of showing me the agenda stuff.

00:20:54 ◼   ► I just like the complication because I can get an idea of when my next appointment time

00:20:59 ◼   ► is and the small complication.

00:21:01 ◼   ► I use the what face is it?

00:21:03 ◼   ► the simple face, because I like the monochrome.

00:21:06 ◼   ► - I would have loved having appointments and things

00:21:10 ◼   ► on my watch back when I had a real job,

00:21:13 ◼   ► but now it's irrelevant to me essentially,

00:21:16 ◼   ► because all my appointments are just notes to myself

00:21:19 ◼   ► and when I need them, I'm at a computer that has them.

00:21:24 ◼   ► So I feel like regret.

00:21:27 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, that would have been so great to have

00:21:30 ◼   ► when I had all those meetings," but I don't now.

00:21:31 ◼   ► and I don't regret not having those meetings. I just, it's like that would have been a really

00:21:34 ◼   ► great feature when I was that person.

00:21:37 ◼   ► In all honesty, I probably don't even need this complication there, but like it fills

00:21:41 ◼   ► the space and it's fine. I also, the timer, I actually have a complication for the timer

00:21:46 ◼   ► because I use the timer probably about four times a day for like coffee and cooking. I

00:21:50 ◼   ► love it. It's one of my favorite features in the Apple Watch is having a timer just

00:21:53 ◼   ► there constantly. I also use the Joo app, D-U-E. I made the way that this, you know,

00:22:02 ◼   ► I used Joo for a lot of like, you have to do this thing now and you can set it like

00:22:06 ◼   ► it has great notifications where you can say remind me in 30 minutes, remind me in 15 minutes.

00:22:11 ◼   ► Every now and then I'll open the Joo app and dictate a little thing to remind me to do. Like,

00:22:15 ◼   ► this is for stuff like take out the trash, do the washing up, that kind of thing. Like these things

00:22:20 ◼   ► things that I don't really feel need to go in OmniFocus, they're just like little tasks

00:22:22 ◼   ► to do throughout the day. And the app actually works pretty well. I think it is one of the

00:22:30 ◼   ► best apps that could be made, like it has a bunch of problems, but all of the problems

00:22:35 ◼   ► feel like problems with the watch rather than what the developer does. So they're kind of

00:22:38 ◼   ► the apps and stuff that I use and basically outside of that I don't really do much else.

00:22:43 ◼   ► You know I use Apple Pay constantly.

00:22:45 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I didn't mention that too, but that is, yeah, I don't use Apple Pay on my phone,

00:22:50 ◼   ► because why? Just two taps and hold it up, you don't even need to look. Two taps and

00:22:55 ◼   ► you hold it up to the thing and it beeps or, and your watch buzz, or vibrates and that's

00:22:59 ◼   ► it, you're done. I did that the other day, we went out late to walk the dog and we'd

00:23:08 ◼   ► had dinner and we basically were like, "We're gonna get ice cream." Basically that was it.

00:23:14 ◼   ► And since we don't have like an ice cream place nearby, but we have Whole Foods, I just

00:23:18 ◼   ► went and I got a little tiny pint of ice cream for the, which is, you know, for the four

00:23:21 ◼   ► of us.

00:23:22 ◼   ► That's not, that's not too bad.

00:23:23 ◼   ► It's a little present.

00:23:24 ◼   ► And I just like literally just walked the pint of ice cream up to the check stand and

00:23:28 ◼   ► handed it to the person.

00:23:29 ◼   ► And she went, you know, beep.

00:23:30 ◼   ► And I put my watch on the thing and it went beep.

00:23:33 ◼   ► And I said, thanks.

00:23:34 ◼   ► And I walked out and I was like, there we go.

00:23:36 ◼   ► That's you know, that's the stuff.

00:23:38 ◼   ► And yeah, it's great.

00:23:39 ◼   ► So I use Apple Pay on the watch.

00:23:40 ◼   ► That's, and I know people are like, oh, but you could just bring out your phone.

00:23:43 ◼   ► like yeah I could but I don't... this is better I love it.

00:23:46 ◼   ► Yeah like every time I leave the house I use Apple Pay like at least four or

00:23:51 ◼   ► five times because like I use it to get on and on and off the tube. Right. You

00:23:54 ◼   ► know like it's I use it to buy like a drink at the shop you know like a juice

00:23:58 ◼   ► or something. Yeah pretty soon all the all the vending machines are gonna have

00:24:02 ◼   ► it too I would think so. Yeah I have seen a bunch in the States yeah and I've

00:24:06 ◼   ► used my watch to vary in success sometimes just everything gets really

00:24:11 ◼   ► upset when I try and use my Apple Pay in other countries, but it's the same with contactless

00:24:15 ◼   ► cards as well. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

00:24:17 ◼   ► Yeah, there's still some contact terminals here that fail on Apple Pay and I don't really

00:24:21 ◼   ► understand what their problem is, but it's all gonna change.

00:24:25 ◼   ► But that's not all there is, right? There's also the glances. And I use the "now playing"

00:24:30 ◼   ► glance, and that's the only thing. For me, swiping up from the bottom is just to get

00:24:34 ◼   ► "now playing". There's nothing else that I ever use in there.

00:24:37 ◼   ► I do actually. I also use the other stock one because I will occasionally ping my phone

00:24:44 ◼   ► to I'll be standing in the middle of the house and say, you know, should I should I go out to

00:24:49 ◼   ► the garage and get my phone off my desk or is it over here on the on the coffee table? But

00:24:54 ◼   ► otherwise, yeah, but now playing glance, I was actually thinking about this this morning when

00:24:56 ◼   ► I was walking the dog that I was I'm using these the what is it the Jaybird Blue Buds earphones

00:25:04 ◼   ► and a listener heard me complaining about the chords rattling around a few months ago

00:25:10 ◼   ► and said, "Well, you know, there's a little clip that comes with them and you kind of

00:25:15 ◼   ► like wrap them around this clip like five times and it makes them basically suspended

00:25:21 ◼   ► that exactly whatever size you want it to be and then they just sit behind your head

00:25:25 ◼   ► and they don't rattle," which totally worked and made it a much better, more enjoyable

00:25:29 ◼   ► product to use. The problem is that in that configuration one, you can't use them for

00:25:33 ◼   ► talking on the phone because the microphone is now behind your head. But two, the controls

00:25:38 ◼   ► are also behind your head, the remote control. And I can reach back there to turn the volume

00:25:43 ◼   ► up and down or play it or pause it, but you know what? I can use my Apple Watch for that.

00:25:48 ◼   ► And so I use the now playing glance to do that volume and pause and stuff like that.

00:25:55 ◼   ► It's funny that on the watch, both me and you just use that swipe up control center

00:26:00 ◼   ► on the phone, right? To get the media things and like the little quick tasks.

00:26:04 ◼   ► Well, I, and, and doesn't this, I feel like what we've been talking about now is, is very much like

00:26:11 ◼   ► how, how we're using the things in the watch that work well and what, what is, and when we look at

00:26:17 ◼   ► like where we go, where does Apple go with watchOS 3, which is I think going to be pivotal for the

00:26:22 ◼   ► future of the Apple watch is has Apple looked at how people use the Apple watch? Has Apple

00:26:28 ◼   ► had time now because it's been a while right it's been

00:26:32 ◼   ► it's been a year and a half basically since the watch was announced

00:26:35 ◼   ► has Apple had enough time to

00:26:39 ◼   ► decide that their first take on the Apple watch wasn't quite right

00:26:42 ◼   ► watchOS 2 was just you know it was they might as well have called it

00:26:46 ◼   ► watchOS 1.1 it was a quick fix it was announced like three months after

00:26:51 ◼   ► the watch. Photo faces like it was nothing you know yeah so but

00:26:55 ◼   ► But watchOS 3 is like the first real

00:26:58 ◼   ► reconception of the watch, at least opportunity for it.

00:27:01 ◼   ► What will the faces change?

00:27:03 ◼   ► Will how faces work change?

00:27:04 ◼   ► Will there be more faces?

00:27:06 ◼   ► Will you be able to change them?

00:27:07 ◼   ► How does the app model change?

00:27:08 ◼   ► There are all these questions that are out there.

00:27:10 ◼   ► And I think that when we describe how we use it,

00:27:14 ◼   ► that's telling about like the stuff we don't use.

00:27:16 ◼   ► They're so proud.

00:27:17 ◼   ► When they launched it, they were so proud

00:27:19 ◼   ► of the app interface and those little round

00:27:24 ◼   ► around app icons and all of that stuff. I just avoid them, and you largely avoid them

00:27:34 ◼   ► too. It's because it's a bad interface, it's not that good, they're not fun to use, they

00:27:38 ◼   ► take forever to launch, sometimes they don't launch. There's so many things about it that

00:27:42 ◼   ► are bad, but then we love interacting with notifications or swiping up to get to a glance

00:27:48 ◼   ► or looking at the complications on the watch face. These are things that it does well.

00:27:52 ◼   ► I think it'll be interesting to see, do they double down on like the app thing, and like,

00:27:55 ◼   ► "No, no, no, this is totally how it's gonna work, but it's better now." Or do they say,

00:27:59 ◼   ► "Actually, maybe let's back off of it, and let's make it more about more capable glances,

00:28:05 ◼   ► more capable complications, launching apps from complications and glances, and maybe

00:28:14 ◼   ► more capable notifications too." Because that's actually one of the funny things, like when

00:28:18 ◼   ► I get a text from messages, it's got the replies and stuff that you can do. And actually,

00:28:24 ◼   ► Twitterific does this too. And those are great. And then I get a Slack DM, and the Slack app

00:28:29 ◼   ► is bad on the watch.

00:28:31 ◼   ► Yeah, Slack are not good with notifications. You can't reply even on the iPhone from a

00:28:35 ◼   ► notification.

00:28:36 ◼   ► Right. So often I just want to say, "Reply, OK." And on Slack I can't do it. So anyway,

00:28:43 ◼   ► there's the stuff that they do really well and the stuff that it doesn't do well. And

00:28:46 ◼   ► For me, that's the real big question here is, what happens with WatchOS 3? Do they change

00:28:52 ◼   ► their approach to the interface? Do they make those buttons behave differently, right? Do

00:28:56 ◼   ► they say, "Ah, that friends button, you know, a lot of people don't use that, so we're going

00:29:00 ◼   ► to do something else with it or give you the option to do something else with it?" And

00:29:05 ◼   ► maybe they won't. Maybe they'll double down like, "No, no, we totally got it right. This

00:29:09 ◼   ► is perfect, everybody loves it. But I'm hoping that they will rethink it, that they will

00:29:17 ◼   ► have seen what I think a lot of us who use it have seen, which is some of these ideas

00:29:20 ◼   ► seemed like good ideas at the time, but in practice are not the right approach.

00:29:25 ◼   ► So I think that there's definitely an amount of rethinking that will occur, right? It's

00:29:29 ◼   ► just natural with a product this early on in its life. I think it would be a mistake

00:29:35 ◼   ► to heavily pull back from apps. I think it's not the right move for the future. I think

00:29:43 ◼   ► that they should do some stuff to make the apps better. I think they should do a lot

00:29:47 ◼   ► to make the parts that people use even better, like the complications and notifications and

00:29:52 ◼   ► maybe give me more of a reason to use glances. But I think it would be a big mistake to say,

00:29:59 ◼   ► you know that app thing that we did? Don't worry about that so much. And I think a lot

00:30:03 ◼   ► of people saying that they should just get rid of apps and make it just what we use it

00:30:07 ◼   ► for but I don't think that's a good idea. I think the idea of an app is too important.

00:30:15 ◼   ► Even just from a naming perspective, people just expect there to be apps. You get this

00:30:19 ◼   ► watch and there are apps for the watch and they don't have apps for the watch but the

00:30:21 ◼   ► notifications are really cool. It's like no way man we need apps. You get where I'm going

00:30:26 ◼   ► with this. I think apps need to be a part of this system but they need to just be rethought

00:30:32 ◼   ► and retuned and in a lot of areas powered up, to be honest.

00:30:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I'd almost rather, yeah, I mean,

00:30:40 ◼   ► I don't love that app interface.

00:30:41 ◼   ► I think it's hard to find apps

00:30:43 ◼   ► and I'd almost rather be able to pick apps

00:30:46 ◼   ► or even consider the glances to be like an app switcher

00:30:50 ◼   ► for my most commonly used apps.

00:30:53 ◼   ► I don't know, there are lots of different ways

00:30:54 ◼   ► that could go with it, but I don't think the only problem

00:30:58 ◼   ► with apps is that they don't launch fast enough

00:31:00 ◼   ► and aren't reliable enough.

00:31:01 ◼   ► I think getting to them is not great. And for a device that only has two buttons, I

00:31:07 ◼   ► think it's not using the buttons well. But I thought that at the time, right? The first

00:31:12 ◼   ► time I saw it, I thought, "Really? That button is only to give you little pictures of your

00:31:15 ◼   ► friends so that you can send them little fingerprints and dumb little sketches that you do with

00:31:21 ◼   ► your finger?"

00:31:22 ◼   ► Yeah. It kind of wore off. I mean, me and Adina used them every now and then, but not

00:31:26 ◼   ► really

00:31:45 ◼   ► it I think. It was a really great idea you know, Digital Touch and it's a great

00:31:50 ◼   ► way to sell Apple watches right to more people within a household but I just

00:31:56 ◼   ► think that maybe there's more they could do with that they could do more Digital

00:31:59 ◼   ► Touch stuff which might be cool. I think it'd be really nice if these little

00:32:04 ◼   ► things could work as walkie-talkies I think that'd be fun you know like you

00:32:08 ◼   ► hold the little button and speak into it and then it like plays through the

00:32:11 ◼   ► little speaker your girlfriend you know like I think that might be kind of fun

00:32:14 ◼   ► I think there's more they could do with that,

00:32:16 ◼   ► but I just think, again, with everything to do with WatchOS,

00:32:20 ◼   ► there's more to be given.

00:32:22 ◼   ► And I think that that is a good thing

00:32:24 ◼   ► that we can even see a lot of this stuff,

00:32:27 ◼   ► because it means that definitely Apple can see it.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Tim Cook certainly thinks he can see it.

00:32:32 ◼   ► So he was on Mad Money last week.

00:32:35 ◼   ► This was kind of after the earnings stuff, right?

00:32:38 ◼   ► He pops up on Mad Money every now and then.

00:32:41 ◼   ► And this is a quote from Mad Money.

00:32:43 ◼   ► He said, "In a few years, we will look back and people will say, 'How could I have ever

00:32:46 ◼   ► thought about not wearing this watch because it's doing so much for you?' and then it will

00:32:50 ◼   ► all of a sudden be an overnight success."

00:32:54 ◼   ► Everything about that is phrased interestingly to me.

00:32:56 ◼   ► It's like admitting that it's not a massively essential thing for people right now, which

00:33:02 ◼   ► is good that they do admit that because they'd be kind of crazy if they said, "Oh, everyone

00:33:06 ◼   ► needs one of these things," because everybody knows that they don't.

00:33:09 ◼   ► The idea of Apple is confident that what they're doing is going to make this more of an essential

00:33:14 ◼   ► product for people. I think it's good because I would have hated for them to back away from

00:33:21 ◼   ► the Apple Watch. I think really it deserves doubling down on, especially because this is

00:33:27 ◼   ► Tim's product, right? This is the product I think that most of us can point to and be like, "This

00:33:33 ◼   ► was 100% after Steve and this is his thing. They spent so much time in it. He made such a

00:33:39 ◼   ► a big thing about it, they've brought one more thing back for it, you know, like I think

00:33:43 ◼   ► it means a lot to him, and I'm pleased to see that they're like, "We're keeping on,

00:33:48 ◼   ► keeping on with this thing, because we've got some great ideas."

00:33:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean he's obviously been a big champion of it, and I think, I, also they're on the,

00:33:59 ◼   ► they're on the downward slide now, right? They're not as much about selling the current

00:34:03 ◼   ► Apple Watch and Apple Watch software as they are talking about the next, the next big thing,

00:34:07 ◼   ► thinking about the next big thing and admitting, you know, a year and a half ago if they'd

00:34:12 ◼   ► come up on stage and said, "Well, you know, you're going to look back on this product

00:34:15 ◼   ► and think, 'Wow, it's not nearly as good as the Apple Watch now, but hey, it's our first

00:34:20 ◼   ► crack at it and we're going to learn a lot and then in three years the Apple Watch is

00:34:24 ◼   ► going to be great.'" You can't do that. You say, "This is a product unlike anything you've

00:34:28 ◼   ► ever seen," because it is, and it does stuff that will surprise you, because it does, but

00:34:33 ◼   ► But now it's a year and a half since they did that. And presumably there'll be an OS

00:34:38 ◼   ► announcement in June and probably a watch announcement in the fall maybe. And so I think

00:34:44 ◼   ► this is a logical step, which is to move to the next thing and start saying, "Look, there's

00:34:52 ◼   ► a process here. This is where we started and we're continuing to advance it. And we think

00:34:57 ◼   ► in the long run, this is going to be a product that people are just not going to want to

00:35:00 ◼   ► give up. And I feel that because I, like you, I don't want to take it off my wrist and I

00:35:06 ◼   ► feel weird like in the morning when I'm walking around and I'm like, "Oh, I didn't put the

00:35:10 ◼   ► Apple Watch on because I got distracted by this or that when I was getting up." And I

00:35:15 ◼   ► rush to go put it back on. So I think so, but it needs to be better. There's no doubt

00:35:19 ◼   ► about it.

00:35:20 ◼   ► Matt Gromas, a couple of weeks ago now, reported some Apple Watch 2 rumors. Apple is working

00:35:27 ◼   ► on adding cell network connectivity and a faster processor to its next generation watch,

00:35:31 ◼   ► according to people familiar with the matter. I mean, I think we all could have guessed

00:35:35 ◼   ► that it was going to get a faster processor, but I wouldn't have expected Apple Watch 2

00:35:40 ◼   ► to have cell network connectivity. Do we-- is this going to make the watch better? I

00:35:46 ◼   ► don't know.

00:35:47 ◼   ► Well, I was thinking, like, um, if they do this, that it's going to be, uh, like how

00:35:52 ◼   ► the Kindles have cell data, where it's going to be access to some slower data network.

00:36:01 ◼   ► Like I suppose at this point that would be like a 3G network because I think you're turning

00:36:04 ◼   ► off all the 2G networks.

00:36:06 ◼   ► Because I'm not interested in paying a cell plan for my watch.

00:36:10 ◼   ► So that's my theory. My theory is that rather than it being like AT&T will allow you to

00:36:15 ◼   ► spend $10 a month to add your watch to your plan, my theory is that this is a kind of

00:36:20 ◼   ► thing where Apple does it. Where Apple has got, like Amazon has done with the Kindle,

00:36:25 ◼   ► that Apple has deals with wireless providers for their less used, slower old networks.

00:36:34 ◼   ► This is like the T-Mobile thing, where T-Mobile said you get free, what is it, is it 2G in

00:36:40 ◼   ► Europe if you're a T-Mobile person in America? They're like, "You can just have free 2G data.

00:36:45 ◼   ► slow data, it's yours. That kind of thing, where Apple would take an old network, maybe

00:36:51 ◼   ► it's a 3G network, not the LTE network necessarily, but I could see that, I could see something

00:36:57 ◼   ► like that, I think that would be a good idea.

00:36:59 ◼   ► Or how T-Mobile has the iPad plan, right, where if you have a T-Mobile account, you

00:37:06 ◼   ► get 200 megabytes of data for free every month. I get that, because I have a T-Mobile account,

00:37:10 ◼   ► because I have a UST Mobile SIM.

00:37:12 ◼   ► And when I signed in on my iPad, it's just like,

00:37:15 ◼   ► hey, there you go, this is your data now.

00:37:17 ◼   ► It's like, awesome, thanks T-Mobile.

00:37:19 ◼   ► - I have the same thing.

00:37:20 ◼   ► And so, yeah, so that's my thought is that

00:37:24 ◼   ► this is probably not gonna be used for intensive data, right?

00:37:28 ◼   ► I think that this is slow data, not a lot of it.

00:37:32 ◼   ► But what it means is that if your watch

00:37:35 ◼   ► can't find the iPhone and it can't find a wifi network,

00:37:39 ◼   ► it can still see the Internet and get an update your complications and stuff like that. And

00:37:46 ◼   ► I think I think that's good. I do think this probably suggests some changes in watch OS

00:37:52 ◼   ► three to make the watch a little more independent from the iPhone because right now so much

00:37:55 ◼   ► of what it does is sent to it by its iPhone that it's paired with and unless there I mean

00:38:02 ◼   ► maybe this is that you know that them being able to use the Internet to talk to each other

00:38:05 ◼   ► if they're both on the internet but they're not together. Or maybe this is something where

00:38:10 ◼   ► it's going to do more stuff using cloud, you know, well I guess that's the same thing,

00:38:14 ◼   ► using cloud services to look for stuff independently instead of just relying on the watch. We'll

00:38:20 ◼   ► see. I would not put that down as a must-have. I feel like faster makes sense in terms of

00:38:24 ◼   ► having apps launch. I would say faster processor is the number one priority I would make, more

00:38:30 ◼   ► than battery because it does get through a day and more than cellular connectivity or

00:38:37 ◼   ► GPS or anything like that. But I can see why they've got a strategy about making the watch

00:38:42 ◼   ► smarter and have more access to the internet and feeling like it doesn't always have to

00:38:49 ◼   ► be tethered to the phone that they would try to do something like this. But I hope it's

00:38:53 ◼   ► that and not like you said, the $10 a month to add your watch to your plan because forget

00:38:58 ◼   ► that.

00:38:59 ◼   ► suck you'd have to give me a real good reason and yeah i just but you know like i said amazon does

00:39:04 ◼   ► and it's an extra price for those kindles but they have these cellular kindles and you don't pay a

00:39:08 ◼   ► bill they just you know they just are on that the data network i had one for a while i probably told

00:39:14 ◼   ► this story on this show before but when i got the second gen kindle which you could buy like you

00:39:19 ◼   ► could buy in the uk but it came from amazon.com like the us and like you you got a us uh ac

00:39:27 ◼   ► adapter and stuff but I had the one where it just came with data and I was using roaming

00:39:34 ◼   ► T-Mobile or was it AT&T? It was AT&T but it was roaming. It was so slow but like it was

00:39:39 ◼   ► trying to you know it was doing roaming data it was so funny. It was just hilarious to

00:39:43 ◼   ► me that they didn't bother to do any deals with UK cell companies. It's like "I would

00:39:48 ◼   ► just roam, no problem" and it used to just if I had the cell radio on it just burnt through

00:39:54 ◼   ► the battery. I'm sure. Because it was trying to find who knows what to connect it. Who

00:39:59 ◼   ► knows what. So you Apple Watch users out there, you Apple Watch lovers, we're with you. Don't

00:40:05 ◼   ► worry, we've got your back. Yeah, we both like it, but it needs to be better, right?

00:40:11 ◼   ► It needs to be better. There's absolutely no denying it needs to be better. I'm so interested.

00:40:16 ◼   ► I am more interested in WatchOS 3 than I am in the next versions of OS X and iOS, only

00:40:21 ◼   ► because I feel like it's pivotal. I feel like this is Apple's opportunity to say, "Here's

00:40:27 ◼   ► where we're going with this device." Now that it's been in the real world for more than

00:40:31 ◼   ► a year, we had a lot of time to think about where it's going next, and here's our conception

00:40:37 ◼   ► of it. And will I be disappointed if they basically say it's more of the same? Yeah,

00:40:41 ◼   ► I will be because I think there are some clear flaws in their approach, and I would hope

00:40:47 ◼   ► that they've seen it too and that they would make some changes to make it more useful and

00:40:52 ◼   ► maybe emphasize the things that are working really well and de-emphasize some of the stuff

00:40:56 ◼   ► that is not so great.

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00:43:08 ◼   ► off my friend. Oh no. Let's talk about this New York Times Apple expose in the podcasting

00:43:16 ◼   ► realm. So I want to give a little bit of background to people in case they may have missed this

00:43:21 ◼   ► because you know, you probably did miss it. The New York Times posted a thing over the

00:43:26 ◼   ► weekend stating that there had been some kind of secret meeting inside of Apple where a

00:43:32 ◼   ► a bunch of leading podcast professionals were brought in to talk about how Apple can probably

00:43:38 ◼   ► make things better for them. I assume that this meeting came because there were people

00:43:43 ◼   ► complaining to Apple, so Apple brought them in to talk to them. There are a couple of

00:43:46 ◼   ► different meetings between these leading podcast professionals and Apple and then Apple internally

00:43:53 ◼   ► with EdiQ is what they talk about in this New York Times piece. And then this piece

00:43:57 ◼   ► came out where lots of people were very secretive and leaking stuff to the New York Times, probably

00:44:02 ◼   ► because they weren't happy with what Apple had suggested that they would or would not

00:44:06 ◼   ► do.

00:44:07 ◼   ► Basically, the ideas put forward by these leading podcast professionals was that they

00:44:13 ◼   ► wanted more data about their listeners, they wanted Apple to help better promote them and

00:44:17 ◼   ► give them more promotional tools and mechanisms, they wanted Apple support in trying to help

00:44:22 ◼   ► direct listener support come through. Um, and you know, basically it seems like they

00:44:28 ◼   ► went to the New York Times because they maybe Apple said, we're not going to give you this,

00:44:34 ◼   ► or they wanted to kind of just light a fire underneath the Apple. Uh, they called out

00:44:38 ◼   ► some people by name, um, mentioned Steve Wilson, who is a great guy and it is, that part is

00:44:46 ◼   ► true. So they talk about the fact that like, there's one person that you have to kind of

00:44:51 ◼   ► get in contact with if you want your show to be featured.

00:44:55 ◼   ► And this is because the podcast team inside of Apple really seems like it's very small,

00:44:59 ◼   ► but they do actually have people that are dedicated to doing it.

00:45:03 ◼   ► There are different people in different territories.

00:45:05 ◼   ► In the past I have worked with people in the UK and I've worked with people in the US

00:45:10 ◼   ► and they call out these people by name in this piece for a reason I'm not completely

00:45:14 ◼   ► sure why, but they do.

00:45:16 ◼   ► But that part of it is very true.

00:45:17 ◼   ► Like if you want to get featured, you have to kind of be seen by this person.

00:45:21 ◼   ► But my experience is whilst some of the promotion has changed and it has shifted more towards

00:45:28 ◼   ► these general interest large shows away from tech shows, the people inside of Apple are

00:45:33 ◼   ► still very supportive of shows of all kinds and do a good job of promoting everyone.

00:45:38 ◼   ► And I know this kind of sounds like now I'm trying to cover my butt, but like there have

00:45:42 ◼   ► been many times where we have a new show launching and I email Steve and they help us out with

00:45:48 ◼   ► it. In all honesty, they were very helpful for us when we started, let alone where we

00:45:54 ◼   ► are now. So, you know, whatever. But anyway, let's get back to the meat of this. This outraged

00:46:01 ◼   ► a lot of us in the more independent tech space because it goes against everything that we

00:46:07 ◼   ► want.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Yeah, and suggests a level of, some of the reactions to it and some things in the article

00:46:12 ◼   ► suggest a level of misunderstanding of how podcasts work that is kind of...

00:46:16 ◼   ► From our perspective.

00:46:17 ◼   ► Yeah. Well, no, I mean, some of it is from a technical perspective of not understanding

00:46:21 ◼   ► how it works. Like, there is a so-called technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal who

00:46:28 ◼   ► seems to not understand this at all, but that doesn't stop him on Twitter from making comments

00:46:33 ◼   ► about it. It's like literally, you literally don't know how this works, but why should

00:46:39 ◼   ► that stop you? Comment away.

00:46:42 ◼   ► Yeah, Marco wrote a great piece. Marco, naturally having made Overcast, understands a lot of

00:46:49 ◼   ► this as well as being a podcaster of his self. And one of the reasons that he made

00:46:54 ◼   ► Overcast was to actually fight against some of these bigger players, right? That was one

00:46:59 ◼   ► of the reasons that Overcast even exists. And he does a good job of breaking down why

00:47:04 ◼   ► a lot of the requirements from leading podcast professionals is an issue. So asking for more

00:47:10 ◼   ► data about listeners requires Apple to kind of lock down their apps. So in case you don't

00:47:17 ◼   ► know, the way that it works right now with the iTunes podcast directory, you submit an

00:47:23 ◼   ► RSS feed to Apple, they kind of take note of the RSS feed and when you subscribe to

00:47:28 ◼   ► to a show in one of the podcast apps that Apple makes, you subscribe directly to the

00:47:33 ◼   ► RSS feed that that person provided. Apple don't take the files, they don't re-host

00:47:38 ◼   ► the files, nothing like that. They just basically do a handshake between the subscribe button

00:47:44 ◼   ► and the submitted RSS feed. That's effectively how it works. For a lot of this stuff to be

00:47:49 ◼   ► found out, for there to be more data about listeners, like to know stuff about where

00:47:53 ◼   ► you are in the world to know demographic information, how old you are, to know if you've listened

00:47:59 ◼   ► to the whole show, what parts you've skipped. For Apple to know this information, they would

00:48:03 ◼   ► have to kind of lock down a lot of the way that podcasts work. They would probably need

00:48:09 ◼   ► to be hosting the files and reserving them on their own. They would need to do more tracking.

00:48:14 ◼   ► And then they would also be providing all of this data to the podcast creators. And

00:48:20 ◼   ► And what Marco is arguing is that this would kind of stop the free open nature of the way

00:48:26 ◼   ► that podcasts have worked with the RSS feeds and you know, you just subscribe to a feed

00:48:30 ◼   ► and it comes to you.

00:48:32 ◼   ► And also, you know, what if Apple then decided they wanted to start reviewing things more

00:48:36 ◼   ► tightly, they wanted to start tracking you, you know, and sending that data out to other

00:48:40 ◼   ► people, which would then be sold to advertisers.

00:48:42 ◼   ► Like that's the idea of this.

00:48:45 ◼   ► And I think that it was a really great piece and then Federico wrote a great one as well.

00:48:49 ◼   ► Federico talks about how what he likes about podcasting right now is it feels like blogging

00:48:55 ◼   ► for him that, you know, everything is free and open. There's no proprietary file formats,

00:49:00 ◼   ► you know, and he says something and Federico talks about this sort of stuff a lot and I

00:49:04 ◼   ► like it. He says, "I want to know that 30 years from now, I'll be able to look up one

00:49:07 ◼   ► of my podcast episodes from 2016 like I can look up a blog post from 2009 on my own server."

00:49:14 ◼   ► Yeah, it is. Some of this is about kind of being contrary to how podcasting works. Technically,

00:49:20 ◼   ► it is an open standard. People, there's a fundamental misunderstanding in a shocking

00:49:25 ◼   ► degree that Apple is hosting podcasts and acting as a gatekeeper for podcasts. And it's

00:49:31 ◼   ► just not true. Apple publishes a directory. When you click subscribe on a podcast in iTunes

00:49:36 ◼   ► or in the podcast app, you know, Apple knows you clicked subscribe and that's it. Like

00:49:42 ◼   ► your RSS is being downloaded from the provider. Your MP3 file is being downloaded from the

00:49:52 ◼   ► provider. Apple might have some stats in terms of the download count, and I think they do,

00:49:57 ◼   ► because they do like what I do with my RSS feed and what you do with yours, which is

00:50:00 ◼   ► you put a tracker inside that basically is a redirect, so you can measure a download.

00:50:05 ◼   ► That's literally all you can measure because it's an MP3. Unlike the web where you're loading

00:50:11 ◼   ► a page, as Marco says, web pages are software, they can run code. It's like the hits days

00:50:17 ◼   ► of the web, we can measure the download, and that is all we can measure. But there's this

00:50:22 ◼   ► idea that somehow Apple has this incredible ability. So you can't conflate the iTunes

00:50:30 ◼   ► app on the Mac and the podcast app on iOS with the iTunes podcast directory, because

00:50:36 ◼   ► those are separate, and there's some basic data you can get from the podcast directory

00:50:39 ◼   ► based on what they've got now. Now, their app gives them more power because that is

00:50:44 ◼   ► a very popular app. One of the reasons why Google added podcasting, I think, to Google

00:50:48 ◼   ► Play Music is because they don't have an on-platform, like on-device, every-device podcast answer.

00:50:55 ◼   ► There are obviously many third parties, but there's no on-device thing. And they decided

00:50:59 ◼   ► to sort of stick it inside their music app, which I'm a little disappointed they didn't

00:51:03 ◼   ► just build a podcast app, but they didn't. So Apple's got this huge amount of data. By

00:51:09 ◼   ► the way, Marco has data too, if he wanted to get it, where you could wire into your

00:51:15 ◼   ► app, monitoring the behavior of the users and radioing back with, you know, how long

00:51:21 ◼   ► did they listen to that episode? Where did they skip? Did they listen to it all the way

00:51:24 ◼   ► through? When did they abandon it? And they could roll all that up and present it to podcasters.

00:51:29 ◼   ► And I think that's part of what they're doing here. But the way it gets spun, like the New

00:51:32 ◼   ► York Times story says, I want to quote this directly, "Apple does not allow shows to charge

00:51:38 ◼   ► people to download episodes and does not support paid subscriptions. Apple has stuck with an

00:51:44 ◼   ► advertising model for podcasting. Now, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how podcasting

00:51:50 ◼   ► works. This is people saying basically, "Apple is, password protecting RSS feeds is complicated

00:51:57 ◼   ► and it kind of doesn't work very well." And that's inherent in the format. So what they're,

00:52:02 ◼   ► I guess what they're saying is, I wish Apple could be a gatekeeper and divert podcasting

00:52:08 ◼   ► from being what it's been and turn it into something like the App Store or the iTunes

00:52:13 ◼   ► Store where they would come up with a system that would only work in their apps, presumably,

00:52:20 ◼   ► to have people pay for episodes. By the way, if you wanted to put your episodes up for

00:52:24 ◼   ► pay, you could do it. You'd make them audiobooks, you'd put them in the iTunes Store, that would

00:52:28 ◼   ► or you write your own app, put that in the app store, and people do that and you can

00:52:33 ◼   ► charge it that way. But the podcast format doesn't really allow that, so you would have

00:52:38 ◼   ► to really subvert the format in order to make that happen. And the concept of "Apple has

00:52:43 ◼   ► stuck with an advertising model" is so removed from reality, and this is what led to that

00:52:49 ◼   ► Wall Street Journal columnist from saying, "Apple has refused to support advertising

00:52:54 ◼   ► and podcasting since 2005, which is just not, that's not what it is. It's the idea here

00:53:00 ◼   ► is Apple's just using, providing a directory. I guess the leading podcast professionals

00:53:08 ◼   ► are saying, "Apple, please intervene here and become a gatekeeper and allow us to make

00:53:14 ◼   ► money on these podcasts in new ways." But it's just really unrealistic. I think the

00:53:19 ◼   ► only realistic thing they're asking for is more data, and specifically more data from

00:53:23 ◼   ► the podcast app. I think that's going to be the most important place, and from iTunes

00:53:28 ◼   ► on Mac and PC, I suppose. And I can see why you might want to have more data, although

00:53:36 ◼   ► the web has a lot of data. And how's that web experience for everybody? It's bad for

00:53:41 ◼   ► media companies. The ad rates are terrible. It's bad for users because web pages are terrible

00:53:47 ◼   ► and they're full of ads, but they've got it all measured. Whereas every other medium

00:53:53 ◼   ► in existence doesn't have that, right? They don't measure eyeballs on billboards, they

00:53:58 ◼   ► have to estimate it. They don't measure eyeballs for magazines or newspapers or broadcast television

00:54:03 ◼   ► or cable television. They have to do samples and hope that their samples are right. Or

00:54:09 ◼   ► some places now have data based on like DVR boxes and things like that, but it's limited

00:54:14 ◼   ► samples. Like, the web is the best place for perfect ad tech data. And look at the web.

00:54:21 ◼   ► a mess. It's a disaster. Media companies are struggling to make money on the web. So they

00:54:26 ◼   ► want that for podcasting? It's terrible. It's a terrible idea. Plus, it's not podcasting

00:54:31 ◼   ► anymore.

00:54:32 ◼   ► Why?

00:54:33 ◼   ► Well, because to do it, again, the idea of "does not allow shows to charge people to

00:54:40 ◼   ► download episodes, does not support paid subscriptions," that's kind of inherent in how the RSS format

00:54:47 ◼   ► works. And I suppose if there's a standard for password protecting RSS

00:54:54 ◼   ► feeds by individuals, I mean you can use like HTTP authentication to do it or

00:54:59 ◼   ► something like that, but it's not a web page. It doesn't work like a web page.

00:55:02 ◼   ► Then I suppose if there was a standard and everybody else was using it, but

00:55:05 ◼   ► Apple's got the most popular client and they're not using it, so they could

00:55:09 ◼   ► deseach Apple to support it. I could sort of see that, but that's sort of not just

00:55:13 ◼   ► not how the podcasting is structured, because it's just these RSS feeds and

00:55:17 ◼   ► And that's just how it is. You know, we don't have the... when you want to create a premium

00:55:23 ◼   ► podcast, you do what Midroll is doing with Howl, you do what Audible is doing, and you

00:55:29 ◼   ► build your own tools and charge people to listen inside your tools. But podcasting is

00:55:36 ◼   ► more open than that.

00:55:39 ◼   ► What the leading podcast professionals... we're trolling by saying this. I know we're

00:55:43 ◼   ► being kind of silly but I can't help it. They're asking for Apple to do what's Google and Spotify

00:55:50 ◼   ► doing, and I want to address this because Relay FM shows are now on Google and Spotify,

00:55:55 ◼   ► I know The Incomparable is now on Google. Basically, what these systems are doing is

00:56:02 ◼   ► they take your feed, they take your file, and then they re-serve it so they can get

00:56:06 ◼   ► data. They are closed systems that we have opted into, and the reason that we've done

00:56:11 ◼   ► that is because if there is going to be another big player like Apple, it's going to be one

00:56:18 ◼   ► of those two companies. So from a business perspective, I want to be there. What I don't

00:56:24 ◼   ► want is Apple, a company that has done things in an open way, to now become that as well.

00:56:30 ◼   ► Because then what it does is closes all of the major systems. And I don't like the thought

00:56:35 ◼   ► of that. I like that we have a mix right now. We have some systems that we opt into that

00:56:39 ◼   ► are closed because their terms are good. We're not in Stitcher and there are things like TuneIn.

00:56:45 ◼   ► I don't like the way that their contracts look, but I like the way that Google and

00:56:49 ◼   ► Spotify did, so we were happy to enter into those relationships. But I like that there's a mix.

00:56:56 ◼   ► So we have a couple of things that we're trying out. They're small for us right now. They might

00:57:00 ◼   ► get bigger. But then we have all of the third-party apps that we work with that are very open. They

00:57:06 ◼   ► They just take our RSS feeds.

00:57:07 ◼   ► We have Apple, who is a huge player

00:57:09 ◼   ► with a big marketplace who is also open.

00:57:11 ◼   ► Like I like that mix.

00:57:13 ◼   ► I don't want everything to be closed.

00:57:15 ◼   ► - Right.

00:57:16 ◼   ► - Because Google and Spotify, they're experiments for us.

00:57:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's a huge difference between

00:57:22 ◼   ► having an open market

00:57:25 ◼   ► and then also participating in closed markets

00:57:28 ◼   ► and having no open market.

00:57:29 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:57:30 ◼   ► - Talk to CGP Grey about how great it is

00:57:32 ◼   ► to just be reliant on YouTube.

00:57:34 ◼   ► - So this is the other part, right?

00:57:35 ◼   ► for us why it's weird. So I just looked at, we've spoken about this before way earlier

00:57:39 ◼   ► in the day about our statistics on this show. Over 50% of the listeners that listen to upgrade

00:57:45 ◼   ► listen in overcast. And then it's like 20% listen in iTunes. So the thing is it doesn't

00:57:53 ◼   ► for our existing audience, whatever Apple does is not that much of a problem because

00:57:58 ◼   ► of where our audiences skew, they skew to third party apps. But what I don't want is

00:58:03 ◼   ► the whole of the industry changing to think that you have to have this data because I

00:58:10 ◼   ► like that my listeners choose and I want that to continue.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I've got and just for the record, I mean the data that iTunes currently provides

00:58:23 ◼   ► people is basically like downloads and subscriptions that they're estimating like this is how many

00:58:31 ◼   ► downloads and subscriptions we got, and that's coming out of Apple's platforms. What's being

00:58:36 ◼   ► asked for, also, I have to say it's a little disingenuous. Some people are saying, "Well,

00:58:40 ◼   ► what we really want are plays," which is basically, yes, once you download, if you're like me,

00:58:46 ◼   ► you've got 30 podcast episodes in your play queue, and you'll only ever listen to about

00:58:51 ◼   ► eight of them, if you're like me. But they all count as downloads, because honestly,

00:58:57 ◼   ► without intervention by the app that you're listening to, nobody knows that you listen

00:59:05 ◼   ► to them. Only the app knows. From our side, you downloaded our file. That's all we know.

00:59:10 ◼   ► So I get why they're saying, "Well, I want to know how many people press play or how

00:59:15 ◼   ► many people got to the end or where people stopped and how long they listen." And the

00:59:21 ◼   ► The fact is you can get a lot of that through a sample. You could probably do that where

00:59:27 ◼   ► you could find a partner who would give you a sample and you could say, "Oh well, on average,

00:59:33 ◼   ► the first 30 minutes are good and it's 70% of downloads are listened to or 40 or whatever

00:59:38 ◼   ► it is." You don't necessarily have to measure everybody, although that's sort of what they're

00:59:41 ◼   ► asking for. But some of these things are even weirder than that. Some of the things people

00:59:45 ◼   ► are asking for are like ad rates, like ad listens, who listened to this ad, who skipped

00:59:54 ◼   ► that ad, and that data is so sophisticated because now you're talking about tagging up

00:59:58 ◼   ► a podcast episode with time codes based on what ad spots are where, and then having a

01:00:04 ◼   ► system, I mean it gets really complicated really fast, is it surprising that Apple is

01:00:08 ◼   ► not interested in participating in that? And let's keep in mind, Apple's not doing this

01:00:12 ◼   ► now. It's not like Apple is providing this complete service and refuses, as it's been

01:00:18 ◼   ► characterized, refuses to add these features. Apple would have to build something completely

01:00:23 ◼   ► new to do this, and it would need to take our files and re-serve our files, which would

01:00:29 ◼   ► take all that data away from us and we wouldn't understand it anymore. We would have to use

01:00:33 ◼   ► their tools to do it and rely on them. And that goes back to the independence thing.

01:00:38 ◼   ► And so what they're asking for seems, if you phrase it a certain way, very simple,

01:00:44 ◼   ► but is not simple. It's extremely complicated. I'm not sure they need it. And I feel like

01:00:49 ◼   ► it ends up driving a race to the bottom where you end up with really crappy marketing and

01:00:54 ◼   ► really awful marketers who are marketing things in very specific ways because all they really

01:00:59 ◼   ► care about are essentially the equivalent of clicks. And that's the other thing about

01:01:03 ◼   ► podcasts, is podcasts don't generate clicks. So you can't measure clicks like you can

01:01:07 ◼   ► the web. All you can measure are listens. So I'm fine for more podcast data. I would

01:01:12 ◼   ► love to be able to know how many people actually play my episodes. But what's being asked here

01:01:19 ◼   ► I think is unrealistic and goes way beyond that. And it doesn't help that the New York

01:01:22 ◼   ► Times is shaping the public perception of how this works in a way that is distorted

01:01:28 ◼   ► by the desires of a bunch of people who came from public radio and took a lot of investment

01:01:35 ◼   ► money and are now trying to find a way to scale their businesses and hire more people

01:01:42 ◼   ► to their new startup and have them all work locally in Brooklyn, which is one of the most

01:01:48 ◼   ► expensive places in the world, let's say, and do all of that. And now they need more

01:01:53 ◼   ► revenue. How do we get it? Well, let's make it more like the web then. And they go to

01:01:57 ◼   ► Apple and they get a meeting with Apple and they're like, "All right, Apple's going to

01:01:59 ◼   ► listen to us." And they go in there and Apple's like, "Okay, we hear you, but there's stuff

01:02:02 ◼   ► we're willing to do and there's stuff we're not willing to do and they leave and they're

01:02:05 ◼   ► all mad and like "Why did we even come here? Apple doesn't care about us. Apple doesn't

01:02:08 ◼   ► care about us increasing our revenue and being able to pay back our investors. Let's leak

01:02:13 ◼   ► it to the New York Times." Well, you know, I guess that's how the game is played.

01:02:18 ◼   ► Fundamentally, one of the things that I want to mention is like we're not shafting our

01:02:22 ◼   ► advertisers. Like we're not hiding things from them. They're not getting a bad deal.

01:02:27 ◼   ► Like the way that it works is just how other untrackable, like completely untrackable advertising

01:02:34 ◼   ► works.

01:02:35 ◼   ► We're not completely untrackable. That's the thing. It's like television is completely

01:02:38 ◼   ► untrackable. Magazines are completely untrackable beyond the number of ones you put out there

01:02:44 ◼   ► or newspapers, right? And television, right? It's just like we ask Nielsen to give us a

01:02:49 ◼   ► sample or something like that.

01:02:50 ◼   ► But there are television ads that work like how we do. Like they use specific codes, they

01:02:54 ◼   ► use specific URLs.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Specific phone numbers?

01:02:57 ◼   ► Yeah, that stuff all exists, right?

01:02:59 ◼   ► And that's kind of like what we do.

01:03:01 ◼   ► But at the end, like basically,

01:03:02 ◼   ► like I came from a world where this was a thing, right?

01:03:05 ◼   ► Like working out television buys and working out

01:03:07 ◼   ► mobile buys. - Sure.

01:03:09 ◼   ► - There are statistics that you can do,

01:03:11 ◼   ► and especially with podcast ads,

01:03:13 ◼   ► because we use those codes,

01:03:14 ◼   ► people can see if there's been a direct response

01:03:16 ◼   ► to the codes.

01:03:17 ◼   ► And I have lots of conversations with advertisers

01:03:19 ◼   ► and they're like, the renewals and the code were great,

01:03:21 ◼   ► you know, or the renewals and the code are not so good,

01:03:23 ◼   ► how can we work around this?

01:03:25 ◼   ► And it allows us to be more creative

01:03:27 ◼   ► because I work with the advertisers to think like, "How can we make this work better for

01:03:31 ◼   ► you? What's the copy that's better?" If they have such specific data, which shows this

01:03:36 ◼   ► worked and this didn't work, I think everything would get a lot more robotic. People will

01:03:39 ◼   ► be less willing to try out exciting things. And fundamentally, the reasons that you might

01:03:44 ◼   ► hear some advertisers quite a lot on these shows is because the advertising is working.

01:03:49 ◼   ► They're not just throwing money into a pit.

01:03:51 ◼   ► And you know, I also would say I think podcasting needs to have better measurement standards.

01:03:59 ◼   ► I think that everybody needs to be using the same numbers.

01:04:02 ◼   ► I think that right now it's very hard to define what the size of a podcast audience is, and

01:04:09 ◼   ► I would actually welcome some standards there.

01:04:12 ◼   ► I think sometimes that some of the stuff that I do is unfairly compared to some other things,

01:04:17 ◼   ► and that my things are probably unfairly compared to other things, because different

01:04:21 ◼   ► platforms measure things differently. And so I get the idea that you want to have better

01:04:29 ◼   ► measurements. That said, if you're somebody who's being sold something that is 30,000

01:04:34 ◼   ► listeners and you get a return and you're happy with it, and then a new measurement

01:04:38 ◼   ► tool comes out and says that it's actually 40,000 or 20,000, if you got the value out

01:04:43 ◼   ► of it, has anything really changed other than that the number is being measured in a different

01:04:48 ◼   ► way. Because in the end, I get if you're Coke and all you really want to do is brand

01:04:53 ◼   ► advertising which is actually a thing that the web has kind of ruined because everybody

01:04:57 ◼   ► wants to get clicks instead of accepting that there's value in just putting your brand

01:05:01 ◼   ► in people's faces so that they know it.

01:05:03 ◼   ► Podcast brand advertising exists.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Squarespace is brand advertising.

01:05:07 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:05:08 ◼   ► It is. I mean, why are there so many Squarespace ads? Because they want you to think of Squarespace

01:05:13 ◼   ► when you want to set up a website. And direct response is a part, I guess, of what they

01:05:18 ◼   ► look for, but that's certainly not the only benefit they get from doing that. So I don't

01:05:22 ◼   ► love advertising. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but you know, when I see people

01:05:27 ◼   ► sort of representing an entire medium that I'm in and they don't represent me, making

01:05:31 ◼   ► arguments that seem to be based at least in part on misunderstandings of how it all works,

01:05:36 ◼   ► I do feel a little subverted and offended by their ideas that they desperately need

01:05:41 ◼   ► these things to make their business work.

01:05:43 ◼   ► I don't feel like I need to be called into Apple to have a conversation with a

01:05:48 ◼   ► queue but all I but I just want someone who does the type of thing that I do to

01:05:54 ◼   ► be in that room or I just don't want this to happen at all like I don't feel

01:05:58 ◼   ► like I need to be there it'd be nice if Leo Laporte was there right like as the

01:06:03 ◼   ► the person who represents what we do because he's the biggest and it's the

01:06:07 ◼   ► closest to what we do right but again I don't care if that's there either I just

01:06:12 ◼   ► want Apple to be sensible about the way that they're going to do this. And to be honest,

01:06:17 ◼   ► the reason this New York Times article exists is because they're probably not being sensible,

01:06:21 ◼   ► but they are being sensible, not being sensible.

01:06:24 ◼   ► Yeah, they're not listening to them.

01:06:25 ◼   ► Yeah, not being sensible by the metrics of the leading podcast professionals who have

01:06:30 ◼   ► seen in the past that if you shame Apple in the media, then you can twist their arm.

01:06:34 ◼   ► Yeah. All we really need is iAd for podcasts, and this will solve this whole thing, right?

01:06:38 ◼   ► And look how well that turned out.

01:06:41 ◼   ► Yeah, there are platforms that do measurements of podcasts, podcasting as an open standard.

01:06:48 ◼   ► There will continue to be innovations on that front that will give us data.

01:06:53 ◼   ► People who want, I mean, also Mark, when we say Marco, we're on Marco's side in this,

01:06:58 ◼   ► and he kind of said this, he said on numerous occasions, like one of the reasons he did

01:07:03 ◼   ► overcast and made it free is because he feels like it's dangerous to have these huge players

01:07:10 ◼   ► and he seems resolved to not measure his customers behavior, right? And that's what they want.

01:07:18 ◼   ► That's what these guys want. They want to know exactly what you listen to and how long

01:07:22 ◼   ► you listen to it for. And they can't do that without... I'm actually a little surprised

01:07:26 ◼   ► that they haven't funded, maybe they have, but we know several major independent podcast

01:07:31 ◼   ► app manufacturers. So I don't think this has happened yet, but I'm a little surprised that

01:07:34 ◼   ► the leading podcast professionals haven't just funded a new app that is the most awesome

01:07:38 ◼   ► podcast app in the world, and I shouldn't give them ideas, but like, and reports all

01:07:44 ◼   ► the data back, and it's like the super like ad app, and then you put inside of that, you

01:07:49 ◼   ► make it, you put in e-commerce where people can subscribe to paid podcasts and all of

01:07:53 ◼   ► that, and I'm sort of surprised that hasn't gone further down the road. Maybe there's

01:07:57 ◼   ► something out there, but you know, something that poses as a podcast app, but is actually

01:08:02 ◼   ► a plant to harvest data.

01:08:05 ◼   ► I feel like that these people couldn't agree. They would all want their own.

01:08:08 ◼   ► That may be, and it would be collusion and all that. Or that somebody who's the equivalent of

01:08:14 ◼   ► Nielsen, essentially, builds a podcast app with all that built in so that they can, at the very

01:08:19 ◼   ► least, have a sample of podcast user behavior. Because that's what they're really asking for.

01:08:25 ◼   ► It's a little bit like saying, if you couldn't measure ad responses without getting

01:08:33 ◼   ► Apple and Microsoft and Google to modify the web browsers to report back on every page you went to

01:08:39 ◼   ► Right, it's like we could really use that data

01:08:42 ◼   ► but fortunately they don't need to ask Apple was long not supported the

01:08:47 ◼   ► The area of blogging right they've not given the data back to the advertisers

01:08:53 ◼   ► It's time that Apple rewrite Safari so people can track where their mouse clicks go. I

01:08:59 ◼   ► I don't know if this is interesting to you listener, I hope that it is.

01:09:02 ◼   ► If you want to know anything more about this send us in some questions, send us on twitter,

01:09:09 ◼   ► use the hashtag #askupgrades, send us emails. If you want to hear us talk more about this,

01:09:14 ◼   ► because there's so many different avenues of this, if you want to hear us expand on any of it,

01:09:18 ◼   ► let us know. If you don't ever want to hear us talk about it again, just don't say anything

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01:11:14 ◼   ► All right, so it's time for Ask Upgrade.

01:11:16 ◼   ► Okay, the first question this week comes in to us from Adrian.

01:11:20 ◼   ► How do you handle significant others not understanding tech the way that you do?

01:11:25 ◼   ► For example, my significant other refuses to use one password but can never remember

01:11:29 ◼   ► any of her passwords.

01:11:30 ◼   ► Jason, do you have any kind of ways to softly strong arm the people that you love into using

01:11:36 ◼   ► technology the way that you like it?

01:11:38 ◼   ► No, I will extol the virtues of things that I think have virtues and offer to set them

01:11:44 ◼   ► up to try to use them and they can decide.

01:11:49 ◼   ► And beyond that, quite frankly, I can help their understanding, but they need to judge

01:11:56 ◼   ► whether they think it's worth it. And if I think it's worth it for them and they decide

01:12:00 ◼   ► it's not, it's not my place to say that they should change their behavior. So I try to

01:12:04 ◼   ► lay it out there for them. So I do that with my mom, I do that with my wife, I do that

01:12:09 ◼   ► with my kids. I will provide them with, you know, you could do it this way. And sometimes

01:12:13 ◼   ► they're like, yeah, it's not worth it. And other times they'll be like, oh yeah, tell

01:12:16 ◼   ► me more." That sounds good. And that's it for me. I feel like I can diagnose their issues

01:12:23 ◼   ► and I can explain to them what's going on and I can offer suggestions and then I kind

01:12:27 ◼   ► of have to leave it. I will take them as far as they want to go. And if they don't want

01:12:31 ◼   ► to go, then I'm not going to push it. I mean, I guess if it's dangerous, if it was like

01:12:35 ◼   ► a security thing where I'm like, "No, no, seriously, you can't do it this way. You cannot

01:12:40 ◼   ► have 123 be your password to this thing. But I've never really come into something that

01:12:47 ◼   ► serious.

01:12:48 ◼   ► I actually can pretty much agree with you. If I think that something is right for Adina,

01:12:54 ◼   ► I would explain to her why I think it's right and try and display to her what I think she

01:12:58 ◼   ► would benefit from. Because she understands, if something is beneficial to her, then she'll

01:13:02 ◼   ► use it. She is a 1Password user now. We're still kind of going down that road of getting

01:13:06 ◼   ► her to put more passwords into it and changing some passwords and stuff. But now she understands

01:13:11 ◼   ► it she can see the benefits she can see why she doesn't have to remember all her passwords

01:13:14 ◼   ► anymore like it can be good and we move down that road you know. But I think that's the

01:13:20 ◼   ► important thing like I don't think that you should try and strong arm people and force

01:13:23 ◼   ► them to do something but like try and explain it to them because it's not about not understanding

01:13:28 ◼   ► it's like they just don't care the way that we do so they don't take the time to learn

01:13:31 ◼   ► everything about it so it's kind of if we feel it's important it's our responsibility

01:13:34 ◼   ► to try and explain it in a way that isn't boring. Alex said, "Will Apple bundle services

01:13:41 ◼   ► together in the future? Paying for iCloud, Apple Music, iTunes Match, maybe a potential

01:13:49 ◼   ► TV service, other services could end up adding up. Do you think, Jason, that they will do

01:13:53 ◼   ► kind of like a one price for everything at some point? Need to get it all?

01:14:01 ◼   ► guess is no. It's possible that they do something Prime-like, but what they offer is so different

01:14:07 ◼   ► that I think that they'd rather have people pay for the things they use and not for the

01:14:10 ◼   ► things that they don't, and that there's not a lot of extra value to be gained in bundling

01:14:14 ◼   ► it all together. Presumably they'd bundle it for a discount or something like that,

01:14:18 ◼   ► which I imagine they wouldn't want to actually do. They would like to charge you for everything.

01:14:22 ◼   ► So it's possible that a huge raft of services that they could buy you, you could buy an

01:14:27 ◼   ► all-in package but I wouldn't bet on it. I think they're more

01:14:31 ◼   ► comfortable to just let you pick and choose what you want.

01:14:33 ◼   ► I have to say as a user of Prime I do love that you get it all.

01:14:39 ◼   ► I agree. My question is just how would you do it? I guess I could see

01:14:44 ◼   ► an Apple thing where they threw in iCloud storage or something like that.

01:14:47 ◼   ► And you get this storage. We'll just throw that in as a

01:14:52 ◼   ► value-add kind of thing. But I don't know. I have a hard time seeing

01:14:56 ◼   ► Apple's offering is quite as coherent as even Prime. Luke would like to know could

01:15:03 ◼   ► Apple regain a little traction in the kind of the echo Amazon echo market by

01:15:08 ◼   ► introducing some Alexa-esque API hooks for Siri in iOS 10 so allowing

01:15:14 ◼   ► more services to tie in with Siri the way that the echo does you know like say

01:15:18 ◼   ► you want to turn your lights on and off that kind of thing what do you think

01:15:20 ◼   ► they might do that and you think that it would help if they did? Well problem is

01:15:23 ◼   ► that, I mean, one of the problems is HomeKit, where Apple has taken the stand like, you

01:15:28 ◼   ► know, you're either with us or you're against us. So I wish that would happen, that they

01:15:34 ◼   ► would open that up a little bit. On the Siri side, yeah, I think that that's one of the

01:15:40 ◼   ► big problems with Siri, is that people have been wanting to tie in, they've been wanting

01:15:43 ◼   ► to tie their apps in, and then you could also talk about, you know, web apps and things

01:15:48 ◼   ► like that, just tie in more ways where you could set up Siri. I think Apple wants Siri

01:15:52 ◼   ► to have no interface at all, right? I mean, basically you turn it on and off, and to do

01:15:56 ◼   ► the stuff that you do with the Amazon Echo, there's an interface. You need to kind of

01:16:01 ◼   ► wire it up a little bit, and I'm not sure Apple wants to go down that rabbit hole, but

01:16:06 ◼   ► boy, it would sure be nice. Yeah, I find Alexa so much more useful for so many things than

01:16:13 ◼   ► Siri at this point that it's kind of, yeah, it's frustrating. So yes, I think it would

01:16:20 ◼   ► help. I do think Apple still needs a box that is listening to you, though, like in the air

01:16:25 ◼   ► and not something where you have to push a button. And your phone is not, you know, as

01:16:30 ◼   ► we've detailed in previous shows, your phone is one of those options, but I think that

01:16:34 ◼   ► the Echo has showed that there's probably room for something else.

01:16:37 ◼   ► All right, final question this week comes from Brent, and it's kind of directed to me.

01:16:43 ◼   ► How do you decide which topics to cover on upgrade versus connected? And this is a good

01:16:48 ◼   ► and lots of people ask me this and they say like,

01:16:49 ◼   ► "How are these shows different?"

01:16:51 ◼   ► I think that these shows are very different

01:16:53 ◼   ► in many different ways, right?

01:16:55 ◼   ► Like mine and Jason and our relationship,

01:16:58 ◼   ► the way that we talk and interact about these topics

01:17:00 ◼   ► is very different to the way that the three of us do.

01:17:03 ◼   ► I think "Connected" is generally more sillier, right?

01:17:06 ◼   ► Like it's, and this show is more, we've debate more

01:17:09 ◼   ► and that kind of thing.

01:17:10 ◼   ► I think in tone they're quite different.

01:17:12 ◼   ► There are many topics that will spread across both shows.

01:17:15 ◼   ► like when iOS 10 comes out, we're gonna talk about that

01:17:19 ◼   ► on both shows.

01:17:21 ◼   ► But something that I try to do a lot

01:17:22 ◼   ► is to keep specific points for certain shows.

01:17:27 ◼   ► So like I might have a feeling about something

01:17:29 ◼   ► that I don't express on upgrade,

01:17:30 ◼   ► I express it on connected instead because--

01:17:32 ◼   ► - And you and I will often talk about a topic

01:17:34 ◼   ► and you'll say, I wanna talk about this stuff on upgrade

01:17:36 ◼   ► and I wanna talk about this stuff on connected,

01:17:37 ◼   ► which doesn't mean that I can't talk about the other aspects

01:17:40 ◼   ► but like when you wanna delve into like a personal take

01:17:42 ◼   ► or tell an anecdote, sometimes you will break those up

01:17:45 ◼   ► and said, "This feels like this story about me doing this." So we'll say, "Oh, well, you

01:17:48 ◼   ► bought a second iPad." And although, maybe that gets covered on Cortex instead, but sometimes

01:17:56 ◼   ► we'll do something like that and be like, "Well, let's talk about this part of that

01:17:59 ◼   ► here." Or we'll just say, "Oh yeah, you're gonna talk about that or you just talked about

01:18:03 ◼   ► that on Connected." So we do kind of plot out a little bit of like what information

01:18:07 ◼   ► you release so that you're not saying the same thing on every show that you are co-hosting.

01:18:13 ◼   ► But what we don't do is shy away from a topic because, and people who were listening to

01:18:18 ◼   ► the live stream last week will have actually heard us do this on the live stream, which

01:18:21 ◼   ► we usually don't do, which is we don't shy away from covering a subject just because

01:18:27 ◼   ► Connected covered it, for example. We will do it again. Myke will modulate how much he

01:18:31 ◼   ► participates because he doesn't want to say the same thing on every show.

01:18:36 ◼   ► Yep. Because I feel that my role on most of the shows that I'm on is to encourage the

01:18:41 ◼   ► conversation from the other person. So I just try and bring out your thoughts and I try

01:18:47 ◼   ► and bring out Steven and Federico's thoughts. And genuinely, one thing that I try very hard

01:18:53 ◼   ► to do is to actually make it better if you listen to all of the shows. So say for example,

01:19:01 ◼   ► Cortex and Upgrade and Connected. When I kind of started to delve deeper into iPad craziness,

01:19:08 ◼   ► I try to spread some of my thoughts across all of them. So if you listen to all of those

01:19:12 ◼   ► shows you get more out of it. Because I remember back in the day when those 5x5 shows you had

01:19:18 ◼   ► the talk show and build and analyze and hypercritical and when they were all there you would listen

01:19:24 ◼   ► to all of them and stories would go across all of the shows and I like that and I try

01:19:27 ◼   ► and bring some of that to what I can influence. So that's it. I mean yeah there are times

01:19:33 ◼   ► where we're going to talk about the same topic but we talk about them in different ways and

01:19:36 ◼   ► I would hope that anybody that listens to both of those shows would know that.

01:19:40 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I think it's a good question, and it is just definitely something

01:19:43 ◼   ► that we think about, and not to -- I mean, people who are listening here either skipped

01:19:49 ◼   ► that previous segment or they survived us talking about the insider-iest of inside baseball

01:19:53 ◼   ► topics about podcasting, but all of you are podcast listeners. I like to make that point.

01:19:58 ◼   ► A hundred percent of the people listening to this podcast listen to podcasts, and that's

01:20:01 ◼   ► why we love you. But I just would say, sometimes I feel like there's a perception that some

01:20:06 ◼   ► of these conversational shows are half-assed, and some of them are, but more than you'd

01:20:12 ◼   ► think aren't. And that the—

01:20:14 ◼   ► I tell you what, this isn't.

01:20:16 ◼   ► Thought goes into these shows, some of these shows, and this is—I think this is a good

01:20:23 ◼   ► example of that, where behind the scenes, we are talking about what we're going to

01:20:27 ◼   ► talk about, what points we're going to hit, what we're not going to talk about, what

01:20:30 ◼   ► show, you know, what conversation goes where. You know, there is preparation and planning

01:20:34 ◼   ► that goes on to lead us to the conversation that we then have in the show. So it's not

01:20:41 ◼   ► scripted or anything like that, but there is definitely consideration put in up front

01:20:46 ◼   ► before we get to the recording.

01:20:48 ◼   ► I hope that answers your question. Thank you so much for listening to this week's show.

01:20:53 ◼   ► If you'd like to find our show notes, head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/88. If you'd

01:20:59 ◼   ► like to find Jason's work online, go to sixcolors.com and the incomparable.com. Jason is @jason.

01:21:04 ◼   ► on Twitter, JSNELL, I am @imike, I M Y K E.

01:21:09 ◼   ► Upgrade is a part of Relay FM.

01:21:11 ◼   ► There are many other shows on Relay FM,

01:21:13 ◼   ► like Connected and Cortex, Rocket, Disruption.

01:21:16 ◼   ► The list goes on and on and on.

01:21:18 ◼   ► There is something for you if you enjoy this show.

01:21:21 ◼   ► There is something else on Relay FM

01:21:23 ◼   ► I am positively sure that you will enjoy.

01:21:26 ◼   ► - And it's called Liftoff.

01:21:28 ◼   ► - Don't forget Liftoff, the space show,

01:21:29 ◼   ► the pen addict, the pen show.

01:21:31 ◼   ► It goes on and on and on.

01:21:34 ◼   ► because we have a great selection of content that you can go and enjoy to your heart's content.

01:21:39 ◼   ► Thanks to Casper and Pingdom for helping support this episode, but most of all, as always,

01:21:43 ◼   ► and I really do mean this, thank you for listening. We couldn't do this without you.

01:21:47 ◼   ► Until next time, say goodbye Mr Snell.

01:21:49 ◼   ► Goodbye everybody, we love you.

01:21:50 ◼   ► Nothing.

01:21:51 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:21:55 ◼   ► [ Music ]