Upgrade

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00:00:03 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode number 23.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's episode of Upgrade is brought to you by our friends

00:00:17 ◼   ► over at lynda.com, where you can instantly

00:00:19 ◼   ► stream thousands of courses created by industry experts.

00:00:22 ◼   ► For a 10-day free trial, visit lynda.com/upgrade.

00:00:26 ◼   ► MailRout, a secure, hosted email service

00:00:28 ◼   ► Protection from Viruses and Spam and Stamps.com. Postage on Demand. My name is

00:00:34 ◼   ► Myke Hurley and I'm joined as always by your host of mine, Mr. Jason Snow.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Hi Myke, how's it going? Very well sir, where are you? Are you in a submarine? Are you

00:00:43 ◼   ► on a plane? I am speaking to you from a from a undisclosed location in the

00:00:49 ◼   ► Greater Los Angeles area. I'm down here with my in-laws with my with with my

00:00:55 ◼   ► family and we're driving back home tomorrow so but today is even though

00:01:00 ◼   ► today is a holiday in the United States Myke it's a it's Presidents Day but I'm

00:01:07 ◼   ► here because it's upgrade and upgrade waits for no one

00:01:09 ◼   ► happy president to you hey thank you pick your favorite what who's who's your

00:01:15 ◼   ► favorite president I mean I think the only one that I have any opinion about

00:01:22 ◼   ► is the current president. Interesting. Like, do you know of other presidents? Yeah,

00:01:26 ◼   ► yeah, I know of them, but like, of the presidents that I remember, like, really

00:01:31 ◼   ► in my lifetime, I have, and like I'm properly truly aware of, I have the

00:01:37 ◼   ► choice of George Bush and Barack Obama, so, you know, like, the safe answer

00:01:43 ◼   ► is Abraham Lincoln. Just say Abraham Lincoln and we'll be good. Well, my

00:01:48 ◼   ► reasoning like for outside and kind of not being directly affected by American

00:01:54 ◼   ► politics I would go with Barack because he his like he his term into office I

00:02:02 ◼   ► keep coming into office was like historical right first like non-white

00:02:09 ◼   ► president and then also he I don't know there's something about him that like

00:02:15 ◼   ► from a again a non-political thing is kind of cool he does some cool things so

00:02:20 ◼   ► like to a to a to a Brit like someone who's not affected by him as much it's

00:02:25 ◼   ► fun to watch him do cool things but there you go yeah all right fair enough

00:02:29 ◼   ► we would have also accepted any of the other presidents but at least you

00:02:32 ◼   ► identified a precedent that's good I don't know who my favorite Prime

00:02:36 ◼   ► Minister well we'll go with Churchill how about that perfect I like the way

00:02:40 ◼   ► you said it as well. Okay, Churchill? Yeah, I don't know, they just seemed like more of

00:02:47 ◼   ► like Church Hill, instead of like the way that I would say, which is Churchill, which

00:02:51 ◼   ► is, doesn't sound any different to most people, but I've been to his

00:02:56 ◼   ► birthplace, but we, Blenheim Palace, but we're way off topic now. We were never on

00:03:02 ◼   ► topic. So, follow-up? Yes, please. Follow-up, or as we could also call it, topics that

00:03:10 ◼   ► we recently covered and are now covering again. And in fact I've got two notes from listeners

00:03:16 ◼   ► about the nature of follow-up. Listener Mark said, "I like follow-up at the beginning.

00:03:21 ◼   ► It's like previously on upgrade or when we last left Myke and Jason." So that's good

00:03:26 ◼   ► feedback about how we could sell follow-up as something more exciting for the people

00:03:30 ◼   ► who don't like follow-up. And listener Nick said, "Follow-up tangent topics used to bug

00:03:35 ◼   ► but then I decided topics are topics, who cares when they happen? Very nice approach

00:03:40 ◼   ► there. Topics are gonna happen, who knows when, who knows where, they just happen.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Topics gonna topic.

00:03:46 ◼   ► Topics gonna topic. So topic number one of the follow-up of recent topics that are previously

00:03:52 ◼   ► on When We Laugh, Myke and Jason, whatever.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Last time we saw Myke and Jason.

00:03:57 ◼   ► I have three pieces of follow-up from listeners that I'm going to refer to as Coverflowians.

00:04:04 ◼   ► They are from the church of the CoverFlow we last week mentioned that CoverFlow is still

00:04:08 ◼   ► in the Finder and we both expressed, even though I use ListView and you use ColumnView,

00:04:13 ◼   ► the next step style ColumnView that you use, which is also somewhat crazy because everybody

00:04:18 ◼   ► knows the way that you use the Finder, that one uses the Finder as the right way and all

00:04:22 ◼   ► other ways that other people use it are crazy.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Anyway, both of us agreed that although we disagree about how we use the Finder, the

00:04:30 ◼   ► people who use CoverFlow, those people are crazy people.

00:04:33 ◼   ► And so, we said, "Anybody who uses CoverFlow, write in."

00:04:37 ◼   ► And we got some notes from CoverFlowians.

00:04:40 ◼   ► Listener Nate is a CoverFlowian.

00:04:42 ◼   ► He says, "I use CoverFlow in the Finder almost every day.

00:04:44 ◼   ► I'm an eighth grade math teacher and have thousands of worksheets and documents that

00:04:47 ◼   ► I've created over the years.

00:04:48 ◼   ► The easiest way I have found of sorting through them quickly is searching by keyword and then

00:04:53 ◼   ► using CoverFlow to preview the contents.

00:04:55 ◼   ► If there's a better way, I would love to know about it."

00:04:57 ◼   ► And I think he makes a good point here that he's actually looking at those thumbnails

00:05:01 ◼   ► flipping through them trying to find the one that looks right and I don't I mean

00:05:07 ◼   ► I guess you could put you could do that in a list view with a really big icon

00:05:10 ◼   ► and scroll through that which would probably serve the same purpose it might

00:05:13 ◼   ► work just as well it might not but he's been using CoverFlow all this time since

00:05:18 ◼   ► before the list view was that flexible and or icon view it was that flexible so

00:05:24 ◼   ► more power to you listener Nate. CGP Grey told me he actually uses the same and I

00:05:30 ◼   ► I was shocked, I was shocked when he told me.

00:05:33 ◼   ► - He's a cover flow-ian.

00:05:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, he was very angry at me.

00:05:36 ◼   ► But yeah, so it's like the same sort of idea,

00:05:40 ◼   ► like when he says when he's working on a project,

00:05:42 ◼   ► he's using lots of different media types.

00:05:45 ◼   ► So if he knows he's looking for like an image,

00:05:47 ◼   ► it's an easy way to just scroll down

00:05:48 ◼   ► and wait to see the icon size change even.

00:05:52 ◼   ► And so this was one of those things,

00:05:53 ◼   ► like I said, I know we ask for feedback,

00:05:55 ◼   ► but you know what, you know you do those things

00:05:57 ◼   ► where it's like, you know, you have an idea

00:06:01 ◼   ► or like you have a thought that we make,

00:06:04 ◼   ► just like a throwaway comment

00:06:06 ◼   ► and then you just get inundated.

00:06:08 ◼   ► This is one of those things and I love it when that happens.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - It's amazing.

00:06:13 ◼   ► And we, you know, here at Upgrade,

00:06:16 ◼   ► we ask you to send in your feedback.

00:06:19 ◼   ► - We do.

00:06:19 ◼   ► - It's not like ATP where all I tell you to do

00:06:21 ◼   ► is not email them.

00:06:22 ◼   ► - Oh, here we go.

00:06:23 ◼   ► - That's an ATP joke.

00:06:25 ◼   ► That's not, I'm not being serious there.

00:06:26 ◼   ► listener_h also said whenever i use cover flow in the finder it's to look at

00:06:29 ◼   ► photos i don't use icon view for this because the icons don't get as large as

00:06:33 ◼   ► i would like

00:06:34 ◼   ► that's amazing because they get really large

00:06:36 ◼   ► also i can't see file info while i browse this is a great point whereas in

00:06:40 ◼   ► cover flow there's a list view below the previews that shows me lots of metadata

00:06:43 ◼   ► i don't use quick look because it only shows one image at a time

00:06:46 ◼   ► and i like to peek ahead in cover flow to browse faster so that's a good one

00:06:50 ◼   ► perfectly valid

00:06:51 ◼   ► and listener_dale said i work with lots of scanned PDFs that have similar layout

00:06:55 ◼   ► content. CoverFlow is a quick convenient way to view and rename them for filing

00:06:58 ◼   ► purposes. The icon view, even with the size slider turned all the way up, is

00:07:02 ◼   ► simply not big enough to see the detail in the PDFs on my 15-inch MacBook Pro. I

00:07:07 ◼   ► don't know if there's a better way to do this than with CoverFlow. So I'm not

00:07:10 ◼   ► sure, I mean this seems to be, the common ground here seems to be that CoverFlow

00:07:14 ◼   ► lets you see these icons at huge sizes, even bigger than you can in an icon view

00:07:19 ◼   ► in the finder and so they stick with CoverFlow. Although some of this

00:07:25 ◼   ► also seems to be well, CoverFlow works for me so I'm not going to change it.

00:07:28 ◼   ► It may be that there's some other view option in the finder now that could

00:07:32 ◼   ► solve this but they've got something that works for them. So if Apple removes

00:07:37 ◼   ► CoverFlow at some point in the future we will find out if there is a solution

00:07:41 ◼   ► that's better for them than CoverFlow. But that's the answer. Three listeners

00:07:46 ◼   ► Thank you for writing in and explaining that you use CoverFlow.

00:07:50 ◼   ► I think CoverFlow is kind of weird, but hey, if it works for you.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Please don't.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Don't write, don't email us.

00:07:57 ◼   ► See there we are.

00:07:59 ◼   ► We're just as bad as ATP now.

00:08:04 ◼   ► The other bit of a topic that you've heard before and now you're hearing again that's

00:08:08 ◼   ► totally not follow up comes, it's about podcasting, so that'll push some buttons for a few listeners.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Tim wrote in, we were talking last week about one of the problems with podcasting being

00:08:19 ◼   ► discoverability and shareability and that there's no way to, you know, like with YouTube

00:08:23 ◼   ► you can link to a particular part of a clip and play it back and podcasting is kind of

00:08:28 ◼   ► hard to explain and hard to introduce to people and it's one of the problems with growing

00:08:34 ◼   ► the podcast audience. And Lister Tim wrote in and he wrote us a few times, he kept thinking

00:08:42 ◼   ► of more things to say, which was actually kind of great. It was a really well thought

00:08:45 ◼   ► out email that he wrote. The first one was really long and he was like taking a little

00:08:49 ◼   ► journey as he wrote it, I think. But he pointed out that a bunch of other podcasters have

00:08:54 ◼   ► talked about the same issue, that recommending podcasts to people is really hard. As he put

00:08:59 ◼   ► it, "The activation energy is tremendously high." Little science for you there. If you

00:09:04 ◼   ► don't already know the person very well and can explain why you might think they'd enjoy

00:09:08 ◼   ► a specific podcast episode, it's futile. Then again, maybe the other side of that coin is

00:09:12 ◼   ► that podcast listeners are supposed to be loyal, good with feedback, and tend to be

00:09:16 ◼   ► more valuable for advertisers. I would say, I mean, this is, we talked about this a little

00:09:20 ◼   ► bit, this is the up and down side, and I wrote about this on Six Colors, this is the up and

00:09:23 ◼   ► down side of podcasting, is the audiences are fantastic, but it is very hard to get

00:09:27 ◼   ► people into the audience, because you need to be committed enough to get, like, what

00:09:31 ◼   ► a podcast is and start to listen. And once the activation energy is spent and you're

00:09:36 ◼   ► in, it's a lot easier. Tim actually wrote a blog post, which we'll link to in the

00:09:40 ◼   ► show notes, where he describes, among other things, trying to get his

00:09:43 ◼   ► sister to listen to a podcast. And it is sobering in the sense that, you know, it

00:09:49 ◼   ► just shows how hard it is to get people to get podcasts, and it needs to be

00:09:54 ◼   ► better. And the question is, who's gonna make it better? And I'm not sure there's

00:09:57 ◼   ► a great answer there, although Tim's email actually filled me with

00:10:02 ◼   ► excitement because I felt like there's a great opportunity here for somebody to

00:10:06 ◼   ► try to make the podcasting thing more accessible for people. I don't know who's

00:10:12 ◼   ► going to do it. I don't know... I kind of don't think that even though he's got a

00:10:15 ◼   ► lot of really great ideas a one-man band like Marco Arment is going to be able

00:10:20 ◼   ► to do it. He's on one platform with one app. I feel like the place with the most

00:10:26 ◼   ► leverage here to make a difference is probably Apple. And although Apple is

00:10:31 ◼   ► making some interesting moves, you know, with some of the changes they made to the

00:10:34 ◼   ► podcast app and that they put it on every iPhone now. I feel like they could

00:10:38 ◼   ► do more and that if Apple innovated here a little bit more, if Apple

00:10:44 ◼   ► created some better tools for podcasters including things like building mp3

00:10:49 ◼   ► chapter marks or things like that and supported in their apps, they could start

00:10:53 ◼   ► to push some discoverability if they built a sharing system that you know

00:10:58 ◼   ► threw up an iTunes page with a podcast episode embedded in it that jumped to

00:11:02 ◼   ► the right area or whatever. Apple could probably start the ball rolling and Apple's not going

00:11:07 ◼   ► to be the be all end all because there's going to be Google, you know, Android users and

00:11:11 ◼   ► there are Windows users and all of that. But Apple could probably make a dent that might

00:11:15 ◼   ► be enough. They're a big enough player because they've got the iTunes podcast directory.

00:11:19 ◼   ► They could potentially make a difference. I don't know if Apple cares enough. I'm sure

00:11:24 ◼   ► there are people at Apple who do. But that was just, it's a thought I've had for a while

00:11:28 ◼   ► which is I think maybe the highest leverage place to make change to make

00:11:33 ◼   ► podcasts more accessible involves somebody at Apple. Now my question is is

00:11:37 ◼   ► there somebody at Apple who's really concerned about podcasts or is there

00:11:41 ◼   ► like somebody at Apple who runs the podcast app, somebody at Apple who does

00:11:45 ◼   ► iTunes and it's got encoding and stuff in it but they don't really care about

00:11:48 ◼   ► it, somebody at Apple who is in charge of the podcast section of the iTunes

00:11:51 ◼   ► Store. Is there a bigger picture view of podcasting at Apple? Is there somebody

00:11:56 ◼   ► who's a champion for podcasting at Apple? My guess is not. If there is, that's awesome,

00:12:01 ◼   ► because I think that person has a lot of potential to make change here. That would be, I think,

00:12:07 ◼   ► I wish Apple did have that. That would be a great job. In fact, I would say, I was saying

00:12:11 ◼   ► to David Sparks this morning when we had breakfast, he said, "Would you ever consider working at

00:12:14 ◼   ► Apple?" And I said, "You know, the only job at Apple that I think I would be suited for

00:12:18 ◼   ► and that I would love would be the podcast evangelist czar kind of person, because I

00:12:24 ◼   ► I do think Apple has a chance to change the medium there,

00:12:27 ◼   ► but I just don't think it's,

00:12:28 ◼   ► and I don't think it's necessarily a focus they should have,

00:12:31 ◼   ► but I think they could make a lot of change

00:12:33 ◼   ► if they wanted to push in that area.

00:12:36 ◼   ► - I do know that there are people that work

00:12:41 ◼   ► on podcasts at Apple, right?

00:12:43 ◼   ► The people that work on the iTunes team,

00:12:45 ◼   ► there are staff and they are huge fans of the medium.

00:12:49 ◼   ► - Oh, absolutely.

00:12:51 ◼   ► - But what I don't know,

00:12:53 ◼   ► and I think is what you're saying, Jason,

00:12:55 ◼   ► correct me if I'm wrong, is I don't know how much

00:12:58 ◼   ► these people have to be able to swing

00:13:01 ◼   ► any real product direction.

00:13:03 ◼   ► - Well, think of it this way,

00:13:05 ◼   ► and actually I'm not sure how this dovetails

00:13:07 ◼   ► with like how iBooks works

00:13:08 ◼   ► and with the people who build iBooks Author,

00:13:10 ◼   ► but that's sort of what I'm thinking is,

00:13:12 ◼   ► is there somebody, are those people

00:13:14 ◼   ► who live and breathe podcasts

00:13:16 ◼   ► and promoting them in the iTunes store,

00:13:18 ◼   ► are those people, do they have any power

00:13:21 ◼   ► to do anything involving, let's say, creating a tool for podcasters that makes some of these

00:13:28 ◼   ► other things possible. A piece of software or a web app. Drive direction of the podcast

00:13:34 ◼   ► app that's for iOS. Evangelize podcasting features in GarageBand, which if there's somebody

00:13:40 ◼   ► whose job it's been to do that, I feel very sorry for them because nobody's listening.

00:13:46 ◼   ► That's my question. Is podcasting something that's just scattered into a bunch of different

00:13:50 ◼   ► things because Apple collectively has power to change that change the medium I

00:13:53 ◼   ► think I or at least like I said the most leverage of anyone one organization right

00:13:59 ◼   ► now to do that I think if they pushed in certain directions it would the whole

00:14:04 ◼   ► podcasting world would push that way just to you know to pick up on the

00:14:08 ◼   ► momentum but I'm not sure Apple you know has a center like that and if they do

00:14:12 ◼   ► that's great but I'm not sure they do I sort of feel like they view iTunes as a

00:14:17 ◼   ► a, you know, podcast is a section of iTunes and then there's a podcast app and maybe

00:14:21 ◼   ► those people talk to each other or maybe they don't and then, you know, and then

00:14:25 ◼   ► there are no engineering resources for things like tools that would make the

00:14:28 ◼   ► stuff that came into the podcast part of iTunes better or make the podcasting

00:14:35 ◼   ► discovery experience better. That stuff doesn't seem to really be there other

00:14:39 ◼   ► than just if you go to the podcast app and look in the directory you'll see

00:14:42 ◼   ► things and that's good but I think that's not all that Apple

00:14:47 ◼   ► could probably be doing. I don't know.

00:14:49 ◼   ► So upgrading @stevelibrarian, so I will say Steve on Twitter,

00:14:56 ◼   ► he said to us using the hashtag #AskUpgrade that we said that last week you

00:15:02 ◼   ► said you didn't want a YouTube podcast but this week mentioned a good use case

00:15:06 ◼   ► shareability and that's kind of what Jason is talking about a bit as well

00:15:10 ◼   ► I was having somebody who's better at it.

00:15:12 ◼   ► Now, I totally understand what it sounds like we're saying,

00:15:17 ◼   ► which is we want kind of a bit of both,

00:15:21 ◼   ► but I personally wouldn't want there to be a company

00:15:26 ◼   ► like a Stitcher or something that does this.

00:15:30 ◼   ► - I agree, I agree.

00:15:32 ◼   ► - The only company that I, at the moment,

00:15:35 ◼   ► would trust to do something is Apple,

00:15:37 ◼   ► like we've been saying,

00:15:38 ◼   ► just simply because in the past,

00:15:40 ◼   ► they have been very respectful of a lot of things

00:15:43 ◼   ► that podcasters want to do, like host their own files.

00:15:47 ◼   ► Like Apple do not touch anything.

00:15:49 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:15:50 ◼   ► - So that's why they're the only company that right now,

00:15:53 ◼   ► not only are they probably the only one

00:15:55 ◼   ► that could do it today and have a real swing

00:15:58 ◼   ► in anything that they wanted to do in the podcasting space,

00:16:00 ◼   ► because they actually really did help pioneer the medium.

00:16:04 ◼   ► I know there were people first,

00:16:05 ◼   ► but they really actually did put it on the map.

00:16:08 ◼   ► without Apple, podcasting never would have taken off in the first place, I would say.

00:16:14 ◼   ► But also, they've been pretty good about it all so far, so I think that they're the only

00:16:19 ◼   ► ones that I would personally trust.

00:16:21 ◼   ► Yeah, and what we don't want is a monolith that controls the only way that you can get

00:16:26 ◼   ► listeners and the only way you can make money is by going through X. We don't want that,

00:16:31 ◼   ► and Apple hasn't done that. And I'm not advocating for... I don't want Apple to invent a whole

00:16:34 ◼   ► bunch of new things that only work on iPhones and that you know that you've

00:16:39 ◼   ► got to be you've got to go through Apple to do approval for everything and all of

00:16:43 ◼   ► that. I'm not advocating that but I do think that they have some

00:16:46 ◼   ► leverage to to push some of this stuff forward and maybe solve some of these

00:16:53 ◼   ► problems if they wanted to solve them. I do think it would improve what do they

00:16:56 ◼   ► get out of it I do think they would improve people's attachment to their

00:16:59 ◼   ► iPhones and to their cars with CarPlay potentially if they do a good job of

00:17:05 ◼   ► this that this is going to be another way that people love their iPhones

00:17:09 ◼   ► because I know the people who listen to lots of podcasts now on

00:17:14 ◼   ► iPhone podcast apps they love that experience and your iPhone becomes that

00:17:18 ◼   ► much more valuable to you because you are listening to all of these podcasts

00:17:22 ◼   ► so I think that there's a lot of strength there for Apple if they

00:17:26 ◼   ► wanted to go there but I'm not sure that there's anything that organized

00:17:29 ◼   ► I think it's just kind of all up. I also threw in here from listener Tom

00:17:33 ◼   ► just because it's just gonna get your goat again Myke is you know you could

00:17:37 ◼   ► also use a chapter marker to solve problems like follow-up so... You could.

00:17:45 ◼   ► And this is one of those cases where what I would say is the current state of

00:17:48 ◼   ► chapter markers and podcast apps is so problematic that it is not something

00:17:52 ◼   ► that is worth the time of many podcasters and when they make those

00:17:56 ◼   ► calculations but if the tools improved and if support improved and it became

00:18:02 ◼   ► something that had some momentum behind it it might be something that could be

00:18:06 ◼   ► done and that would be nice but right now this is part of the difficulty is

00:18:10 ◼   ► that you know there's no there's no chicken there's no egg it's just some

00:18:17 ◼   ► straw and everybody's saying where's the chicken anyway that is that is follow-up

00:18:23 ◼   ► Boom. Done with follow-up. Well, no, it wasn't follow-up. It was... Oh, sorry.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Previously on topics we discussed previously and are now discussing again

00:18:32 ◼   ► briefly with reader feedback interlaced. Yes, that part is done. Excellent. This

00:18:39 ◼   ► week's episode of Upgrade is brought to you by our friends over at lynda.com.

00:18:44 ◼   ► That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com. You can invest in yourself right now and give this year a

00:18:50 ◼   ► a real kick in the pants by signing up for an account

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00:19:03 ◼   ► - Wherever you want the kick, you can take it.

00:19:05 ◼   ► And you can sign up right now with lynda.com

00:19:06 ◼   ► and get yourself a free 10-day trial.

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00:19:12 ◼   ► and has over 3,000 courses on topics

00:19:15 ◼   ► like web development, photography, visual design, business.

00:19:17 ◼   ► If there's something that you wanna learn,

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00:19:26 ◼   ► They have fantastic courses on things like

00:19:28 ◼   ► iOS app development, they have Swift essential training,

00:19:31 ◼   ► I've been hearing a lot, I've been seeing a lot of people

00:19:33 ◼   ► talking about Swift now, and this could be a really great

00:19:36 ◼   ► time to jump in and start learning, and lynda.com

00:19:38 ◼   ► have really fantastic courses on this stuff.

00:19:41 ◼   ► It's all produced really well, it's produced by experts.

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00:19:58 ◼   ► They're adding new stuff all the time to lynda.com.

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00:20:04 ◼   ► called Code Clinic, where each month lynda.com

00:20:06 ◼   ► issues a code challenge and authors and different people

00:20:10 ◼   ► share their solutions using a wide variety

00:20:12 ◼   ► of different programming languages.

00:20:13 ◼   ► So this could be something, you know,

00:20:14 ◼   ► you're trying to learn a new language,

00:20:16 ◼   ► like Swift or something else, maybe you want to learn Ruby on Rails, but you know a different

00:20:20 ◼   ► language and you want to see, oh, how do people solve it in these different languages with

00:20:25 ◼   ► different techniques and it can kind of help you adapt your thinking a little bit.

00:20:29 ◼   ► It's a really interesting kind of exercise that you can get involved in as well.

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00:21:00 ◼   ► New things.

00:21:01 ◼   ► New things.

00:21:02 ◼   ► Hooray.

00:21:03 ◼   ► Talking about new things.

00:21:04 ◼   ► Yeah, moving into topics, I had a couple quick links I wanted to do.

00:21:08 ◼   ► Not spend too much time on them, but one of them is David Sparks, who I mentioned earlier.

00:21:13 ◼   ► breakfast with him today because I'm down here where he lives in Orange

00:21:18 ◼   ► County and on Friday was his last day at his law firm. He started his or Thursday

00:21:25 ◼   ► maybe and Friday he posted his new website where he's got his new law firm

00:21:29 ◼   ► and and then he he wanted to devote more time to doing the stuff that we do too

00:21:34 ◼   ► right he wants to devote more time to writing about tech topics and doing his

00:21:40 ◼   ► Max Sparky Field Guides books and videos and his podcasting and his law firm,

00:21:46 ◼   ► he was at his law firm for even longer than I was at Macworld and it was a big

00:21:51 ◼   ► move for him and it turns out that he and I, I mean he and I have have talked

00:21:54 ◼   ► about this a lot, we have a lot of this in common including being, he was

00:21:58 ◼   ► pointing out today, parents who were children during the Great Depression and

00:22:03 ◼   ► who seemed to instill in their children this sort of risk averse nature of like

00:22:11 ◼   ► oh you you just grab whatever you can get when you can get it because you

00:22:14 ◼   ► never know when it's all gonna go bad rather than like I'm gonna take a risk

00:22:17 ◼   ► and if you know if it doesn't work I'll figure something out and he feels that

00:22:21 ◼   ► and I feel felt that and and so he did it he he left his law firm and and is

00:22:29 ◼   ► now has his own firm where he likes to say he sort of practices like a like an

00:22:34 ◼   ► old country doctor he likes consulting with his clients and doing the right

00:22:37 ◼   ► thing for them and steering them away from things that might make him more

00:22:40 ◼   ► money but are wrong for them and he's a so he's doing that he's a business

00:22:46 ◼   ► business attorney and then he's gonna do more books and do more stuff on max

00:22:51 ◼   ► barky.com and that's awesome he is a great guy if you haven't visited his

00:22:55 ◼   ► site if you haven't looked at his books and you haven't listened to Mac power

00:22:57 ◼   ► users you are really missing out and we're gonna get more of David Sparks

00:23:01 ◼   ► nerdy side which every time I talk to him I'm amused by the fact that he's got

00:23:05 ◼   ► his uh all of his colleagues who are lawyers and the people at the firm were

00:23:10 ◼   ► like this and all of his other his other lawyer friends and they are completely

00:23:13 ◼   ► baffled by us they do not they're like you've got this Apple II thing this

00:23:17 ◼   ► geeky thing and they thought it was like you know this funny thing that he did

00:23:23 ◼   ► like collecting figurines or something and he and he and they're a little bit

00:23:28 ◼   ► baffled that he's like no this is a major part of what I want to do and I

00:23:31 ◼   ► want to make room for it and I don't want to have cases that take up my

00:23:35 ◼   ► entire like four months so I can't do books and I can't do anything else I

00:23:39 ◼   ► want to be able to modulate that a little bit better and now he's gonna be

00:23:42 ◼   ► able to do that he's gonna be able to pick his clients and do the kind of law

00:23:45 ◼   ► that he wants to practice and have time to do his books and write about stuff on

00:23:50 ◼   ► his blog and do MacPower users and that's great. So I just wanted to mention

00:23:55 ◼   ► that because he you know he's going through what what I went through and you

00:23:59 ◼   ► know obviously he and I have been talking about this for a while and I'm

00:24:02 ◼   ► really excited for him I think he's gonna do I think he's gonna do a great

00:24:05 ◼   ► job. He's just one of those people that you know if you can throw around like

00:24:11 ◼   ► the full-time thing you know like the idea that going full-time on your

00:24:16 ◼   ► passion project or whatever. I feel like David is just one of those people that

00:24:21 ◼   ► deserve it. Like, just really does. He's just so fantastic and he's such a... he's

00:24:28 ◼   ► such a credit, like, to the community. Like, he's just such this like

00:24:32 ◼   ► fantastic thing, you know, that we all need to see more of and hear more of.

00:24:37 ◼   ► We're lucky to have him and I'm so... I'm just so happy for him. It's just fantastic.

00:24:42 ◼   ► And I should mention, I also listened this weekend as I was driving around LA, freeways,

00:24:48 ◼   ► there's a lot of driving involved.

00:24:49 ◼   ► I got to catch up on a lot of my podcasts.

00:24:51 ◼   ► I listened to last week's "Inquisitive" with your guest Merlin Mann.

00:24:55 ◼   ► So this is, I guess, technically follow out.

00:24:57 ◼   ► I wanted to mention, because in a similar way, I mean obviously you have gone through

00:25:02 ◼   ► this going out on your own thing, like I have and like David has, and I wanted to mention

00:25:07 ◼   ► that you guys talked about a lot of these same issues in that episode of "Inquisitive"

00:25:10 ◼   ► which is really excellent and about trying new things and making big jumps and I know

00:25:15 ◼   ► that starting this week, Inquisitive is going to be a very different show and I've heard

00:25:20 ◼   ► what you're doing with it and it's really great but I really encourage people to listen

00:25:25 ◼   ► to last week's Inquisitive with Merlin if they want to hear you guys talk about some

00:25:29 ◼   ► of the very same things that David and I were talking about over eggs and potatoes and sausage

00:25:33 ◼   ► this morning.

00:25:34 ◼   ► Thank you Jason.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Follow out to you.

00:25:39 ◼   ► like nepotism follow-up but it'll do. It'll work, it'll shake out. My other quick link is to

00:25:44 ◼   ► the Johnny Ive profile that was in the in the New Yorker today which is so

00:25:49 ◼   ► long that I didn't get through it and I had to go so I insta-papered the

00:25:55 ◼   ► rest of it. But people should read it, it's fascinating. The level of access the

00:25:59 ◼   ► reporter got is excellent. The level of detail of the reporting was very

00:26:03 ◼   ► impressive to me. The fact that this reporter was noticing lots of things and

00:26:07 ◼   ► was following up with people and asking what they were later and I was as just

00:26:11 ◼   ► from a pure reportorial stance I was looking at it going wow okay good job

00:26:15 ◼   ► this person did a really good job or or the editors or the fact-checkers or who

00:26:20 ◼   ► whoever did it it did it they all worked on this and it's it's a very rich thing

00:26:25 ◼   ► the short thing that I will mention and I said this on Twitter earlier today is

00:26:30 ◼   ► come for the many tens of thousands of words profile of Johnny Ive stay for the

00:26:34 ◼   ► anecdote about how he and JJ Abrams discussed lightsaber design. Yes, I read that. So I

00:26:42 ◼   ► I saw this this morning and was like, I can't do this. This is too much. So I like I tweeted

00:26:49 ◼   ► like I'm just gonna wait for people to sum it up for me. And then like for today, people

00:26:54 ◼   ► have been sending me links, which has been awesome. And there's one that I'm including

00:26:57 ◼   ► in the show notes today, which are relay.fm slash upgrade slash 23 or your podcast app

00:27:02 ◼   ► of choice, no problem, The Verge did a 15 things we learned post which was very useful

00:27:10 ◼   ► and it wasn't a slideshow, it was just a list of 15 things and it was all very interesting

00:27:15 ◼   ► stuff and I expect to over the next day or so see lots of little tidbits come up but

00:27:20 ◼   ► I see an article like that, Jason, and I think to myself, genuinely, and I don't mean it

00:27:27 ◼   ► as a joke, someone should just narrate it and put it out as a podcast.

00:27:32 ◼   ► Oh, I agree.

00:27:33 ◼   ► It's so long, it takes a lot of time for somebody to sit through it, even if you're a fast reader.

00:27:40 ◼   ► This is the perfect type of thing to turn into a 45 minute podcast of just somebody

00:27:44 ◼   ► reading it, because then people can listen to it on their commute.

00:27:48 ◼   ► I don't know, it feels like it's just one of those things that's just begging to be

00:27:52 ◼   ► put into audio form.

00:27:54 ◼   ► I agree.

00:27:55 ◼   ► I having written that story about the photos app for tidbits last week I

00:28:00 ◼   ► They have a they have an audio recording of all their articles, so I actually got to record an audio version of what I wrote

00:28:09 ◼   ► And you know the among the many quirky things that the guys at tidbits do that Adam and Tanya have put together over there

00:28:17 ◼   ► That one fascinates me and but it's interesting that you mentioned this that that yes

00:28:22 ◼   ► this would have been a great podcast, this big profile. But you know, I'm sure

00:28:28 ◼   ► somebody out there will turn text-to-speech on it, that won't be the

00:28:31 ◼   ► same, but it would be a great, it would be a great, I mean, I guess you could argue

00:28:35 ◼   ► at that point there's a slippery slope where people say, "Oh well, but then if we

00:28:38 ◼   ► recorded his audio do we get, well, but that takes too long." It's like, "No, just

00:28:41 ◼   ► read it, it's fine, just read it." Yeah, like you don't even, you don't need to

00:28:45 ◼   ► have Jonathan Ive on the audio, like, just read it. Anyway, anyway, that's just my, my,

00:28:50 ◼   ► And that just simply comes because I'm just not a big fan of reading really long things.

00:28:55 ◼   ► Fair enough.

00:28:57 ◼   ► I also wanted to mention since I'm down here in LA, I wanted to as a mini topic just mention

00:29:02 ◼   ► I'm traveling.

00:29:06 ◼   ► This is not something that I did before I got the Retina 5K iMac.

00:29:09 ◼   ► I'm traveling with a laptop that's not new, but it's not my main Mac.

00:29:14 ◼   ► And that has, I've had lots of interesting moments with that.

00:29:18 ◼   ► I had that a little bit at Christmas when I was traveling and now the two hard drives

00:29:23 ◼   ► have diverged even further because that's what happens is that one was a migration from

00:29:28 ◼   ► the other so they were the same and then at Christmas they had diverged a little bit and

00:29:32 ◼   ► now they've diverged much further from each other.

00:29:36 ◼   ► But I just want to say it's great, first off it's great Federico Vittucci talks about like

00:29:41 ◼   ► posting from anywhere using his iPad.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I felt like that with my 11 inch MacBook Air.

00:29:47 ◼   ► I posted an item from the Marriott LAX lobby that was going on with people dressed as various

00:29:54 ◼   ► Doctor Who characters all around me.

00:29:56 ◼   ► I posted some items from there for six colors.

00:29:59 ◼   ► I posted items from my in-laws dining room table.

00:30:04 ◼   ► And most off I noticed the things that I'm really thankful that I've got to make this

00:30:09 ◼   ► process easier and make me not have to be quite as prepared as I might have had to be.

00:30:14 ◼   ► know I was busy packing for the trip and I didn't have to do a lot of packing on

00:30:19 ◼   ► my hard drive for the trip because of Dropbox where I keep most of my active

00:30:24 ◼   ► project files because of 1Password because this laptop you know doesn't

00:30:31 ◼   ► have and I think I maybe reset the cookies at some point it doesn't I had

00:30:34 ◼   ► to log into everything on this laptop maybe it's just because I haven't used

00:30:37 ◼   ► it very much and you know 1Password syncing via Dropbox got me logged back

00:30:42 ◼   ► into everything and I didn't have any

00:30:45 ◼   ► frustrations. Using Google Docs I've got

00:30:47 ◼   ► all of my documents that I needed to get

00:30:50 ◼   ► including our show notes here. They're in

00:30:51 ◼   ► Google Docs. It was easy to get to them.

00:30:54 ◼   ► Even something like LaunchBar having

00:30:57 ◼   ► stuff like I've got the Google Docs or

00:30:59 ◼   ► the Google Drive app and it puts files

00:31:02 ◼   ► down on my file system that aren't

00:31:04 ◼   ► really files they're just links to the

00:31:06 ◼   ► stuff that's up on Google Drive these

00:31:07 ◼   ► you know spreadsheets and documents and

00:31:10 ◼   ► and then launch bar indexes that.

00:31:12 ◼   ► So I can just open launch bar

00:31:14 ◼   ► and type the first few letters of a Google doc

00:31:16 ◼   ► and it comes up and I don't have to think about it,

00:31:18 ◼   ► it just sort of happens, it's great.

00:31:20 ◼   ► And if I did forget something,

00:31:22 ◼   ► and I mentioned this in a previous show,

00:31:24 ◼   ► if I did forget something,

00:31:25 ◼   ► I also am grateful that I have an online backup

00:31:27 ◼   ► because my online backup,

00:31:29 ◼   ► I can actually restore files from my online backup

00:31:32 ◼   ► of my iMac onto this laptop

00:31:34 ◼   ► using the online backup service.

00:31:36 ◼   ► And that's great 'cause if I do forget something at home

00:31:39 ◼   ► that does happen, I can retrieve the backup file that I saved at home even

00:31:45 ◼   ► though my computer is off, which is also great. So I was really appreciative that

00:31:49 ◼   ► we live in a world where I've got this little laptop and I've got all the

00:31:52 ◼   ► software and all these cloud services and you put it all together and it kind

00:31:55 ◼   ► of doesn't matter that I'm not on my computer that I use every day because

00:31:58 ◼   ► other than the fact that the screen is dramatically less sharp and dramatically

00:32:03 ◼   ► smaller, which I really notice in a way that I did not notice before when I was

00:32:07 ◼   ► using the 11 inch every day.

00:32:08 ◼   ► It's, other than that, it's just easy.

00:32:13 ◼   ► It's easy to keep doing my job

00:32:15 ◼   ► even though I'm not on that system

00:32:16 ◼   ► because of all these other services

00:32:19 ◼   ► and pieces of software that make it easy.

00:32:22 ◼   ► - I kind of deal with this in like a,

00:32:25 ◼   ► like the reverse, it's kind of strange.

00:32:28 ◼   ► So like I use my Retina MacBook Pro

00:32:32 ◼   ► as like my main computer.

00:32:34 ◼   ► Like it's where all my stuff is.

00:32:35 ◼   ► It's the computer that I use every day.

00:32:38 ◼   ► But the Mac Pro is kind of where maybe

00:32:40 ◼   ► the most important work I do is.

00:32:43 ◼   ► And recently, I have a co-working space that I go to,

00:32:48 ◼   ► but I haven't been there that much

00:32:50 ◼   ► in the last couple of weeks

00:32:50 ◼   ► because I'm working on the new inquisitive.

00:32:53 ◼   ► It requires me to be using logic a lot to get it done.

00:32:57 ◼   ► You'll see why.

00:32:58 ◼   ► And the files are huge, just humongous.

00:33:03 ◼   ► So I can't really easily move them around

00:33:06 ◼   ► to the MacBook Pro, so I'm chained to the desktop computer

00:33:11 ◼   ► in a really weird way, 'cause it's kind of like,

00:33:14 ◼   ► my laptop is where I do everything,

00:33:16 ◼   ► and then usually my Mac Pro benefits from the fact

00:33:18 ◼   ► that I have 1Password and Dropbox on them,

00:33:21 ◼   ► even though I don't really use it for a lot.

00:33:23 ◼   ► But now it's kind of like I can't go wherever I want,

00:33:26 ◼   ► because those project files are locked down to that machine,

00:33:29 ◼   ► just because they're multiple gigabytes,

00:33:31 ◼   ► and I don't want to and can't transfer them easily

00:33:36 ◼   ► because I'm concerned about moving one to,

00:33:38 ◼   ► I could, if I really, really wanted to,

00:33:41 ◼   ► I could just take the logic file

00:33:42 ◼   ► and put it onto the Retina MacBook Pro and go,

00:33:45 ◼   ► but it's, I don't know, there's--

00:33:49 ◼   ► - You could do it, I do that, I actually do that.

00:33:51 ◼   ► And I actually have, 'cause I also will copy those files off

00:33:57 ◼   ► sometimes to my server that's attached to my Probo

00:34:00 ◼   ► and then bring them back.

00:34:02 ◼   ► And they're huge.

00:34:03 ◼   ► I've got, especially the radio theater episodes

00:34:06 ◼   ► that I'm working on,

00:34:08 ◼   ► are like what you're doing with "Inquisitive."

00:34:10 ◼   ► Lots of editing, lots of source files.

00:34:11 ◼   ► They are enormous, like, you know, 50 gig files.

00:34:16 ◼   ► They're just, they're huge and getting bigger all the time.

00:34:20 ◼   ► And yeah, you can do it.

00:34:24 ◼   ► You can do it.

00:34:25 ◼   ► I mean, I end up, to load up this laptop before I came here,

00:34:28 ◼   ► that was the one thing I did

00:34:29 ◼   ► was this week's episode of The Incomparable and I plugged it into

00:34:35 ◼   ► Gigabit Ethernet through my Gigabit Ethernet adapter and then copied it

00:34:39 ◼   ► that way because doing it airdrop was not gonna do it. So when I go,

00:34:45 ◼   ► because I've got quite a bit of traveling in April, I'm going to do an element of

00:34:50 ◼   ► that but it's like that's too much for me just to work in a different

00:34:56 ◼   ► location for a day.

00:34:58 ◼   ► You know, because then I'm moving it all onto one,

00:35:00 ◼   ► then moving it all back again four hours later.

00:35:03 ◼   ► - Right, for this incomparable episode,

00:35:05 ◼   ► when I get home, I'll just plug into ethernet

00:35:06 ◼   ► and copy it to the archive.

00:35:08 ◼   ► I'm not gonna copy it back to the desktop,

00:35:09 ◼   ► I'm not gonna go back and forth

00:35:11 ◼   ► and back and forth a bunch of times.

00:35:12 ◼   ► That would get pretty annoying,

00:35:13 ◼   ► 'cause the files are huge.

00:35:15 ◼   ► - 'Cause like I said, when I go,

00:35:17 ◼   ► like the same view, like if I go on a longer trip,

00:35:19 ◼   ► I will do it, but it's like the idea of,

00:35:21 ◼   ► I can't just, with all of my other work,

00:35:23 ◼   ► you know, that I can do, I can just pick up

00:35:25 ◼   ► from one machine, go to another,

00:35:26 ◼   ► it's easy, it's small files, but once you start getting into these really large

00:35:30 ◼   ► files it kind of does tether you to a machine a little bit more, especially

00:35:34 ◼   ► with my personal internet issues, like with the connection speeds that I have,

00:35:39 ◼   ► like there just isn't a way for me to move this like data around over the web.

00:35:45 ◼   ► It's just not possible for me to do that. Yeah, it is an issue. With the huge files

00:35:51 ◼   ► it's hard. Huge media files are still a little bit of an exception. You can't

00:35:56 ◼   ► just drop them in Dropbox and know that if I close up here I can go right over

00:36:00 ◼   ► there and get them because it will take forever for them to sync. Yeah, for me

00:36:04 ◼   ► if you have space. Like it actually costs me money to do because I have to buy

00:36:09 ◼   ► additional data for the hotspot that I use on the Mac Pro. Oh right, well

00:36:13 ◼   ► yeah you're not even, you can't even do a land sync there. No. So there you go.

00:36:19 ◼   ► well not all things have been so this will all be solved in five years

00:36:22 ◼   ► unfortunately though your files will then be like 20 terabytes and you won't

00:36:27 ◼   ► be able to transfer them then but yeah everything will get faster the hard

00:36:33 ◼   ► drives will get bigger but your data files will just get huge because they'll

00:36:35 ◼   ► be the 3d super telepathy audio yeah 3d audio oh I can't wait 3d audio is gonna

00:36:41 ◼   ► be so good huge Jason will ask you a question yeah is Apple building a car

00:36:47 ◼   ► Yeah, they got some cinder blocks up in their driveway.

00:36:53 ◼   ► They got the frame there, they got the chassis, they got the tires off.

00:36:57 ◼   ► They're working on it.

00:36:58 ◼   ► What's going on here?

00:37:00 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:37:05 ◼   ► This story seemed to come from a weird place, like it spun out of the Tesla, you know, Tesla's

00:37:10 ◼   ► stealing people from Apple, Apple's stealing people back, and then all of a sudden the

00:37:13 ◼   ► Wall Street Journal pops out with a story that says, you know, we've confirmed from

00:37:18 ◼   ► sources at Apple that this is, that there's a team of a hundred people who are working

00:37:22 ◼   ► on a car project.

00:37:25 ◼   ► Wow.

00:37:27 ◼   ► That was abrupt.

00:37:28 ◼   ► That was sudden.

00:37:29 ◼   ► I don't know what, first off, okay, there are a bunch of things here.

00:37:34 ◼   ► First off, Apple does a lot of R&D.

00:37:39 ◼   ► tries a lot of things I think that we never see or that we never see what they

00:37:44 ◼   ► thought they would be when they started doing them and I think that's part of

00:37:47 ◼   ► what's happening here

00:37:48 ◼   ► look if you're Tim Cook and you're or you're another senior executive at

00:37:52 ◼   ► Apple and you're like car cars like Tesla's really got this opportunity to

00:37:57 ◼   ► be the apple of the car industry and really reinvent cars and and think of

00:38:01 ◼   ► them as electronic electric cars purely electric their computers

00:38:05 ◼   ► there's battery technology which we know about, manufacturing we know about,

00:38:10 ◼   ► should we do that or is that too far afield for me? And if I'm

00:38:16 ◼   ► Tim Cook maybe I say you know what let's look at it, let's see, and if it's not

00:38:20 ◼   ► and if any company has the money to spend to see it's Apple and what if the

00:38:27 ◼   ► answer is that it's a good idea? What if they could could be a major

00:38:34 ◼   ► player in the, you know, super smart electric car industry with all of the

00:38:39 ◼   ► skills that they've already got and they bypass it because they didn't want to

00:38:44 ◼   ► bother to think about it. I mean that's where you get into danger as a

00:38:48 ◼   ► company. We were talking about on previous shows about Apple being willing to

00:38:53 ◼   ► change, right, like I wrote about it at iMore a couple weeks back. This is one of

00:38:59 ◼   ► those examples where I feel like it's really great that Apple has this "let's

00:39:01 ◼   ► try it attitude if this is what's going on here like let's look at it now they

00:39:06 ◼   ► may decide it's a bad idea they may come back and say look we can't add that much

00:39:10 ◼   ► or it's gonna cost way too much and we don't you know we don't think it's gonna

00:39:14 ◼   ► be profitable enough there's so many different ways they could come back and

00:39:17 ◼   ► say this program is not gonna work but you know unlike Google which would just

00:39:22 ◼   ► say hey look self-driving cars we're doing this thing it might be a product

00:39:26 ◼   ► in 20 years Apple doesn't do that Apple goes off and investigates lots of stuff

00:39:31 ◼   ► and they only tell you about it when they've got something that they want to

00:39:34 ◼   ► sell you. So you know I I'm curious about the whole would Apple just rather buy

00:39:42 ◼   ► Tesla or not and maybe you know maybe Elon Musk is not interested in working

00:39:46 ◼   ► for Apple and and it's that simple and Apple thinks well we don't want to work

00:39:52 ◼   ► with Elon Musk anyway what if we did an Apple car ourselves what would that be

00:39:55 ◼   ► like and I can see why you get in a war over engineers if you have these two

00:40:02 ◼   ► competing smart car projects or you know super intelligent driving computer

00:40:08 ◼   ► projects whatever you want to call them but so I don't think it's outrageous for

00:40:11 ◼   ► them to be investigating it I think the challenge for Apple is going to be can

00:40:15 ◼   ► they do this can they add to this can they really can they really do something

00:40:18 ◼   ► that changes the world and are they trying to change the world or are they

00:40:23 ◼   ► doing research that's going to allow them to, I don't know, buy somebody or sell

00:40:28 ◼   ► this technology to somebody or more likely partner with somebody, make a

00:40:34 ◼   ► partnership with one of the automakers. I don't know, how big are the automakers?

00:40:38 ◼   ► Maybe Apple could just buy by Ford or something and say, "Oh, new cars."

00:40:43 ◼   ► Well, I think I heard, like, you know one of those things when the earnings calls out, like, that Apple

00:40:47 ◼   ► could buy like GM, Ford, and one other, and like they could just buy them if

00:40:51 ◼   ► if they wanted to.

00:40:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, which they don't, why would you want to,

00:40:54 ◼   ► other than the factories and some of the supply chain.

00:40:57 ◼   ► But even then, the argument for Apple

00:40:59 ◼   ► getting into the car business is that they don't want

00:41:00 ◼   ► to be in the old car business.

00:41:03 ◼   ► If you're Apple, you get into this business

00:41:04 ◼   ► because you see it not as an extension

00:41:07 ◼   ► of the old car business, but that the old car business

00:41:09 ◼   ► that started with Henry Ford is dying.

00:41:12 ◼   ► And there will be a new car business.

00:41:15 ◼   ► And the new car business is going to be Tesla,

00:41:17 ◼   ► and it's going to be what Google is doing.

00:41:19 ◼   ► and it's going to be maybe some of these cars

00:41:22 ◼   ► that some of the car makers are making now

00:41:24 ◼   ► that are these electric cars that are very different,

00:41:27 ◼   ► but that they don't wanna be burdened

00:41:28 ◼   ► by having this whole old car company infrastructure

00:41:32 ◼   ► around them.

00:41:33 ◼   ► And if they really believe that,

00:41:34 ◼   ► that we can be better by not having any of that,

00:41:38 ◼   ► then that's the reason you investigate it.

00:41:40 ◼   ► So buying Ford on that level, why would you do that?

00:41:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, it seems crazy, 'cause you're buying,

00:41:49 ◼   ► you're basically buying all of the wrong infrastructure.

00:41:51 ◼   ► Like everything you're buying is kind of not

00:41:53 ◼   ► what you're trying to make,

00:41:54 ◼   ► if what you're trying to make is an electric car.

00:41:57 ◼   ► Because those companies have the ability

00:41:59 ◼   ► to make electric cars, but they also have factories

00:42:02 ◼   ► and tens of thousands of people that are making gas cars.

00:42:05 ◼   ► So it's kind of like, why would you do that?

00:42:08 ◼   ► I really don't know how I feel about this.

00:42:11 ◼   ► I've read some people say like what I originally thought,

00:42:16 ◼   ► like my original thought about when I,

00:42:18 ◼   ► My gut reaction, my instant reaction was,

00:42:21 ◼   ► if Apple make a car, I'm concerned about Apple's direction

00:42:25 ◼   ► as a company because it's like, what are you doing?

00:42:29 ◼   ► Why are you making a car?

00:42:32 ◼   ► I still think there's a big part of me that feels that way.

00:42:36 ◼   ► And then I've seen some other stuff,

00:42:39 ◼   ► like Steven wrote a great piece on 512 pixels about it

00:42:42 ◼   ► 'cause me and him originally had a conversation

00:42:44 ◼   ► and we had the exact same feelings,

00:42:46 ◼   ► like what are you doing?

00:42:49 ◼   ► And he wrote this interesting piece about

00:42:51 ◼   ► consumer electronics can only go so far,

00:42:54 ◼   ► like if they want to continue as a company,

00:42:56 ◼   ► they need to start thinking about other things

00:42:58 ◼   ► and this could be an interesting one to do.

00:43:00 ◼   ► And I get that, but there's still this part of me,

00:43:03 ◼   ► and I do think it's the larger part of me,

00:43:05 ◼   ► it's like why?

00:43:07 ◼   ► You're doing alright for money.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Is this the thing?

00:43:16 ◼   ► Is this the next thing that you as a company

00:43:18 ◼   ► should be going for?

00:43:19 ◼   ► Like, are there not other things that aren't like cars?

00:43:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:43:23 ◼   ► - It might be or it might not be.

00:43:24 ◼   ► And that's why I think they're investigating this.

00:43:26 ◼   ► But, you know, when I've talked about Google in the past,

00:43:29 ◼   ► I keep saying, look, Google knows that,

00:43:31 ◼   ► and you can see it in their balance sheet now.

00:43:33 ◼   ► Google knows that text ad advertising

00:43:36 ◼   ► is not gonna continue.

00:43:39 ◼   ► They know it, they know it.

00:43:41 ◼   ► And I think Google is spending all their crazy money

00:43:43 ◼   ► they've got right now on all of these Google X projects

00:43:46 ◼   ► because they're trying to place some bets

00:43:48 ◼   ► or put some money down in the roulette wheel

00:43:51 ◼   ► and spin the wheel a couple of times

00:43:52 ◼   ► and say, can we find the next big things?

00:43:54 ◼   ► What are the next big things?

00:43:55 ◼   ► Maybe for them, the next big thing is YouTube advertising.

00:43:57 ◼   ► And then they're working on the one that's after that.

00:44:00 ◼   ► But I think as a company,

00:44:01 ◼   ► if you're not looking for that next big thing,

00:44:03 ◼   ► you risk becoming so complacent

00:44:05 ◼   ► that you end up being like Microsoft

00:44:07 ◼   ► and being sort of like,

00:44:08 ◼   ► we're just gonna ride this thing down.

00:44:09 ◼   ► And then with Satya Nadella,

00:44:11 ◼   ► he's like, oh geez, we can't do that.

00:44:12 ◼   ► and now he's been given the task of way too late saying,

00:44:16 ◼   ► okay, we're gonna rethink this.

00:44:18 ◼   ► And so for Apple, I do think it's in Apple's character

00:44:20 ◼   ► and their culture to say, why not?

00:44:22 ◼   ► I think the moment, I think what you do is say,

00:44:24 ◼   ► what are we good at?

00:44:25 ◼   ► And if you look at the electric car thing and you say,

00:44:27 ◼   ► okay, we have so much expertise.

00:44:29 ◼   ► I mean, you could go the same,

00:44:31 ◼   ► it's like the opposite direction from the watch.

00:44:33 ◼   ► At least the watch right now is an iPhone accessory,

00:44:35 ◼   ► but still, it's like kind of a wacky direction.

00:44:38 ◼   ► But if you look at it and say, okay, design, hardware,

00:44:41 ◼   ► integration between hardware and software, building devices with batteries, right? It's like

00:44:45 ◼   ► building things at scale

00:44:48 ◼   ► They're good at a lot of the stuff that goes into making an electric car

00:44:52 ◼   ► They're good at all that stuff

00:44:54 ◼   ► And if they think like I said if they think that that car market is going to have a shakeup

00:44:58 ◼   ► if if current cars are like

00:45:01 ◼   ► Mainframe computers or something and this is like the first PC or if this is like these are like smartphones as

00:45:09 ◼   ► as opposed to old cell phones. If they really think there's a market, I don't want to belabor

00:45:13 ◼   ► that metaphor, but if there's a market change happening in the auto industry and that the

00:45:18 ◼   ► companies that are best positioned to make cars in the future are going to be tech companies,

00:45:25 ◼   ► not old style car companies. Because the old style car companies, as technical as they

00:45:29 ◼   ► get, are not going to be able to do what Tesla does because Tesla is starting from a very

00:45:34 ◼   ► Silicon Valley kind of approach instead of having this whole huge legacy of old

00:45:40 ◼   ► school auto automotive engineering and structure and factories and and all of

00:45:45 ◼   ► that and now I'm not saying that's true I'm saying if Apple thinks that then I

00:45:50 ◼   ► can see why they would look into this but that's step one there are a lot of

00:45:54 ◼   ► steps before I you know we all get invited out to the track for a special

00:45:58 ◼   ► Apple event where they unveil the cars and we drive them around.

00:46:03 ◼   ► A beautiful white track with white tires that don't mark the track.

00:46:08 ◼   ► I can't wait to see that Johnny Ive video about the car.

00:46:10 ◼   ► But you know, I wouldn't put it past them because Apple's in a very funny place right

00:46:15 ◼   ► now where they've got huge momentum and all this power and all this money.

00:46:20 ◼   ► And I know we all would say things like, wow, I can't believe that they're building a car

00:46:24 ◼   ► but they can't get pages to work better and they can't get iCloud to sync better.

00:46:28 ◼   ► It's like, well that's true on one level, but on another level, you know, what is Apple best at?

00:46:34 ◼   ► Apple is best at that building hardware with some really nice software on it.

00:46:39 ◼   ► That hardware-software synthesis stuff, and if they view, and they're really good, we know it,

00:46:44 ◼   ► supply chain and hardware engineering and all of those things,

00:46:47 ◼   ► if they view the electric car market as a place where that core strength of Apple

00:46:53 ◼   ► would be a winner and

00:46:56 ◼   ► you gotta think they do believe that.

00:46:59 ◼   ► Whether or not it's true, whether they gotta look at it and say wow if we did that

00:47:04 ◼   ► we would be awesome and we would totally win there. You know that people at Apple

00:47:08 ◼   ► think that.

00:47:09 ◼   ► The question is then how do you investigate it

00:47:12 ◼   ► in a sober way to find out what the real deal is

00:47:16 ◼   ► so you can decide if you actually want to go down this path or not.

00:47:19 ◼   ► And my gut feeling is that that's where they are,

00:47:23 ◼   ► or that they've just come out of that

00:47:25 ◼   ► and are now, have decided that it is

00:47:26 ◼   ► and they're starting to do something more.

00:47:29 ◼   ► You know, this feels to me like something

00:47:31 ◼   ► that is years away and is more investigatory.

00:47:35 ◼   ► I, you know, I could totally be wrong.

00:47:37 ◼   ► I don't have any facts about this.

00:47:38 ◼   ► But that's just my gut feeling,

00:47:39 ◼   ► is that this is either something

00:47:41 ◼   ► that they're still figuring out,

00:47:42 ◼   ► or they've just figured it out and are gonna do it.

00:47:45 ◼   ► But it's totally reasonable, I think,

00:47:49 ◼   ► to make that argument that they really believe that the entire auto industry is going to

00:47:55 ◼   ► transform in the next 10 or 20 years as electric cars come on board and that the most important

00:48:00 ◼   ► features of cars going forward are going to be about software and battery charging and

00:48:06 ◼   ► self-driving features and stuff like that that's all about software and if you're Apple

00:48:11 ◼   ► and you're looking at how current car makers approach the integration of hardware and software

00:48:16 ◼   ► or even the integration of hardware, the car, and hardware, the entertainment systems, the

00:48:22 ◼   ► air conditioning, all sorts of other things.

00:48:25 ◼   ► It's terrible.

00:48:26 ◼   ► It's terrible.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Integration is really bad in most of the auto industry.

00:48:32 ◼   ► And Tesla integration is pretty darn good.

00:48:35 ◼   ► And some of the luxury brands, the integration is better.

00:48:38 ◼   ► But if you're Apple and you look at that and say, "Wow, we could do full stack, control

00:48:43 ◼   ► the whole car and that we could make a much better car because of that and that

00:48:46 ◼   ► the future of cars is going to be that because the most important

00:48:49 ◼   ► differentiating features in cars going forward is going to be stuff that

00:48:52 ◼   ► requires super high-tech software stuff and sensors and that's us. I mean if you

00:48:58 ◼   ► really look at 20 years and say every car is going to have a self-driving mode

00:49:02 ◼   ► it's like you know who's going to build that? Is it just going to be Google? Are

00:49:07 ◼   ► car makers going to do it? Are OEMs going to integrate with cars? That's terrifying.

00:49:11 ◼   ► So, I don't know, when I first heard I thought this was totally crazy and the more I think

00:49:17 ◼   ► about it the more I think like if I was at Apple I would certainly want to take a shot

00:49:21 ◼   ► at at least seeing if this is something we want to do.

00:49:23 ◼   ► With an eye toward the fact that somebody might come back and say, "Man, you do not

00:49:26 ◼   ► know what we're stepping in if we go this way."

00:49:30 ◼   ► And the ability to back away and say, "Look, it's not for us."

00:49:34 ◼   ► Last question on this.

00:49:36 ◼   ► I don't think that since the iPhone we've really had a compelling long-term rumor.

00:49:43 ◼   ► Do you remember like rumors used to be like...

00:49:46 ◼   ► iPhone rumor was like 12 years.

00:49:48 ◼   ► Yeah, like you have something and then you talk about it a lot and a lot and a lot and

00:49:52 ◼   ► I guess maybe the Apple making a television is the only thing but I genuinely feel like

00:49:57 ◼   ► this is gonna be the thing that people just keep talking about.

00:50:02 ◼   ► yeah not all the time but it's gonna because I remember you know like from

00:50:06 ◼   ► years ago should Apple make a car but it was always like should Apple make a car

00:50:12 ◼   ► right and it was it was super it was super jokey in a way that this is this

00:50:15 ◼   ► is not I you know the watch was a little bit like that the TV Gene Munster is out

00:50:20 ◼   ► there he's gonna flog that one you know if Apple comes out with a with a car

00:50:24 ◼   ► before they come out with the TV I expect Gene Munster to just throw

00:50:27 ◼   ► himself in front of the car at the presentation. I remember Apple phone rumors from the 90s.

00:50:34 ◼   ► Right. That's been going on, that went on for a long time. So in fact when those rumors

00:50:38 ◼   ► intensified, a lot of us were like, "Yeah, yeah, we've heard it before."

00:50:42 ◼   ► Because it's like, I've always felt that those long-term rumors become self-fulfilling prophecies.

00:50:48 ◼   ► Like if people keep saying it and keep asking for it and keep wanting it eventually, maybe

00:50:54 ◼   ► just have to make it because you get to the point where people want it so bad that if

00:51:00 ◼   ► you have any inclination of making it, you've got a market. The market has created itself.

00:51:06 ◼   ► I also think you can control, if you decide that's not a direction you want to go, you

00:51:12 ◼   ► get to control that and say, never mind, right? And like downplay it and come out and get

00:51:18 ◼   ► the, you know, one reason it builds is because you're not saying you're not doing it.

00:51:23 ◼   ► And I would imagine that if Apple decides they're not doing it, or that it's not going to be what people think,

00:51:30 ◼   ► there will start to be those stories that will leak through reliable sources that will say,

00:51:34 ◼   ► "Well, it's not really a car. What Apple's really doing is whatever."

00:51:39 ◼   ► And they'll downplay it if they decide that this is not what they're doing.

00:51:43 ◼   ► Cool.

00:51:45 ◼   ► Alright, should we take a break and then actually talk about something which kind of plays into what we've just been speaking about?

00:51:51 ◼   ► Yeah, let's do it.

00:51:53 ◼   ► Jason could you please, please thank our friends over at MailRoute.

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00:54:58 ◼   ► for being sponsored by mail route mail routes backward

00:55:02 ◼   ► - Welcome to Mail Route, this is Upgrade.

00:55:06 ◼   ► - This is our new podcast brought to you by Upgrade.

00:55:08 ◼   ► Thank you to Mail Route for sponsoring Upgrade.

00:55:10 ◼   ► - Thank you, Mail Route.

00:55:11 ◼   ► - Thanks, Mr. Mail Route.

00:55:14 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:55:16 ◼   ► That was a news boy, a 30s news boy came in, or Mickey Mouse.

00:55:20 ◼   ► - Oh dear.

00:55:22 ◼   ► Tell me about this link that you've put in here.

00:55:26 ◼   ► - Oh. (laughing)

00:55:28 ◼   ► Our next topic is this link I put in here.

00:55:29 ◼   ► I wanted to just mention, this is not,

00:55:31 ◼   ► It doesn't have to be a very long topic, but the difficulty of predicting

00:55:34 ◼   ► Apple. We just spent a lot of time chewing over this rumor about Apple

00:55:39 ◼   ► making a car. I love that stuff. I love trying to figure out what Apple's

00:55:43 ◼   ► thinking. That is my favorite thing, observing what Apple does, trying to

00:55:46 ◼   ► figure out what their thought processes are, trying to understand Apple.

00:55:50 ◼   ► Sometimes it rubs people the wrong way, and I get people who say to me, "Why

00:55:53 ◼   ► did you say that this was a good idea? You always say that this thing that

00:55:57 ◼   ► Apple's doing is a good idea." It's like, "You know, I don't always think

00:55:59 ◼   ► that what Apple does is a good idea. I'm not trying to endorse Apple's ideas. I'm trying

00:56:03 ◼   ► to understand why they do them because I think that we're all served by having a better idea

00:56:07 ◼   ► of why Apple does what it does. I think that helps. Understanding Apple is important and

00:56:13 ◼   ► so that's why I spend a lot of time with it. A guy named John Kirk, speaking of lawyers

00:56:18 ◼   ► and former lawyers, I believe he's a former lawyer, wrote a piece on tech opinions called

00:56:22 ◼   ► The Secret to Apple's Success Remains a Secret. You should read it. It's an interesting piece.

00:56:29 ◼   ► money graph is, "I notice a consistent pattern in Apple's critics. Those that

00:56:33 ◼   ► understand Apple the least criticize them the most. If you want me to believe

00:56:37 ◼   ► you understand the reasons why Apple will fail, first demonstrate to me that

00:56:40 ◼   ► you understand the reason why Apple grew at all and grew so tall. Until then,

00:56:44 ◼   ► I'll remain skeptical of the doomsayers. For while I have great respect for the

00:56:47 ◼   ► opinions of many Apple observers, I still believe that the secret to Apple's

00:56:50 ◼   ► success remains a secret." I think what... so there's so much here that's really

00:56:56 ◼   ► interesting. One of them is, a lot of the people who write about Apple being doomed

00:57:02 ◼   ► prove in what they write that they have no idea about how Apple's business works or why

00:57:07 ◼   ► Apple has been successful. And those are people that are, it's actually very easy to ignore

00:57:11 ◼   ► them because these are the people who say, "Apple is doomed. At some point, people are

00:57:15 ◼   ► going to wake up and realize that these are just, you know, religious cult drone people

00:57:20 ◼   ► who were brainwashed by clever marketing into buying products." Those people have no idea

00:57:25 ◼   ► what they're talking about. You can just discount them.

00:57:27 ◼   ► I almost can't believe that people still write that stuff in 2015.

00:57:30 ◼   ► I saw one the other week. It's amazing. I mean, sometimes I'm not sure they believe

00:57:35 ◼   ► it but they write it. I mean, this is the Rob Enderle factor. Rob Enderle, I'm pretty

00:57:38 ◼   ► sure, doesn't believe most of what he writes. He's writing it because he's getting paid

00:57:42 ◼   ► to write it and he makes a very nice living writing what his clients pay him to write

00:57:47 ◼   ► and opining about whatever his clients want him to opine about. It's a living. I couldn't

00:57:54 ◼   ► do that, but that's what Rob Enderle seems to be doing.

00:58:00 ◼   ► So anyway, the point--the difficulty with Apple's success of the last decade is if you

00:58:07 ◼   ► were an analyst or a journalist or something in between, fashion industry analyst, who

00:58:16 ◼   ► said Apple's making mostly good decisions, Apple's gonna keep growing, Apple's doing

00:58:22 ◼   ► right. And you'd say that consistently since 1997, you'd be right. You could also say,

00:58:31 ◼   ► "Well, if you're somebody who's just an Apple fanboy, who thinks everything Apple does is

00:58:36 ◼   ► right, you could since 1997 have said, 'Everything Apple's doing is great. Apple's going to keep

00:58:40 ◼   ► getting great.'" They would be right. And that leads to a very interesting case where

00:58:48 ◼   ► You have to look a little bit deeper because somebody who correctly--

00:58:54 ◼   ► who critically evaluates Apple but correctly perceives what the company is

00:58:57 ◼   ► doing, is hard to distinguish from somebody who just uncritically praises

00:59:03 ◼   ► Apple, on the surface, because Apple has done so well.

00:59:07 ◼   ► So this is the challenge, and this is actually, I think, the source of why

00:59:10 ◼   ► a lot of people who write about Apple, including John Gruber, get called lots

00:59:15 ◼   ► of names is, you know, I think John Gruber is a really good critical thinker and is well

00:59:22 ◼   ► aware of the issues involving Apple. And this is the thing about Marco writing that piece

00:59:26 ◼   ► that criticized something about Apple and people are like, "Oh, geez, now things are

00:59:29 ◼   ► bad that even the fanboys are criticizing Apple." It's like, "No, he's been doing that

00:59:32 ◼   ► a lot." But it is easier to paint everybody with that same brush because Apple's done

00:59:37 ◼   ► so well. And I always got that at Macworld. There was a period at Macworld where people

00:59:41 ◼   ► were saying, "Why do you keep giving, why does Macworld, not just me, why does Macworld

00:59:46 ◼   ► keep giving all of these products these high ratings?"

00:59:48 ◼   ► It was like, "Well, show me the last really, really doggy Mac that Apple developed."

00:59:53 ◼   ► There was a period there where they just were good.

00:59:55 ◼   ► They were on a roll.

00:59:56 ◼   ► The products were good.

00:59:58 ◼   ► Do I give a terrible review to a product just for variation, just for kicks?

01:00:04 ◼   ► And this is the problem when Apple's on a roll like this, is that the contrarians have

01:00:08 ◼   ► always been wrong and the fans have always been right.

01:00:11 ◼   ► And so it becomes really difficult to figure out who's got a handle on it and who doesn't.

01:00:16 ◼   ► And I think that's some of what John Kirk's going for here.

01:00:19 ◼   ► And his argument is we still don't really understand Apple's success because when you're

01:00:23 ◼   ► hitting all the greens, there's no way to tell whether your theories about what Apple's

01:00:30 ◼   ► doing right are right or not.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Because until they have some failures and some serious failures and we can go back and

01:00:37 ◼   ► go, "Oh, well that means that this theory isn't right," it's very hard to tell.

01:00:41 ◼   ► I think that's a really interesting idea and I think it's true.

01:00:44 ◼   ► I think it's very easy to see the people who totally don't get Apple, but it is harder

01:00:49 ◼   ► for us to know for sure, like I said, it's harder for us to know for sure that we understand

01:00:54 ◼   ► Apple and that's one of the things that fascinates me is trying to understand why they do what

01:00:58 ◼   ► they do.

01:00:59 ◼   ► Since I'm not a financial analyst, I'm a little less concerned about why they're financially

01:01:03 ◼   ► successful than sort of like creatively successful, why do they make the choices that they make.

01:01:09 ◼   ► And then I also in our document linked to an amusing tweet by Farhad Manjoo who wrote

01:01:15 ◼   ► from the New York Times who said, "At this point the whole Journo analyst class, myself

01:01:19 ◼   ► included, has to concede we were wrong about Apple having to make a cheaper iPhone."

01:01:24 ◼   ► Now I appreciate the mea culpa, however it's a little less of a mea culpa when you say,

01:01:30 ◼   ► "Hey don't blame me, everybody got it wrong."

01:01:33 ◼   ► To which I say, "Really, everybody?

01:01:35 ◼   ► I don't think that's accurate.

01:01:37 ◼   ► I don't think everybody got it wrong."

01:01:39 ◼   ► I think people have been complaining about Apple needing to go down scale and reach a

01:01:45 ◼   ► cheaper market for ages now and that has never proven to be right.

01:01:50 ◼   ► Some people know that.

01:01:53 ◼   ► That tweet made me laugh out loud that it's the very well done way of wrapping your entire

01:02:00 ◼   ► field around you so that it's not just you who got it wrong.

01:02:05 ◼   ► I think Kirk's point is fascinating.

01:02:07 ◼   ► The idea that when all you see from Apple is success,

01:02:11 ◼   ► and this is similar to what John Syracuse

01:02:12 ◼   ► had talked about on ATP sometimes,

01:02:14 ◼   ► which is, I think goes back to the Pixar question,

01:02:17 ◼   ► which is success was the John Madden line,

01:02:21 ◼   ► success is a great deodorant.

01:02:23 ◼   ► The idea that as long as everything's going good,

01:02:26 ◼   ► a lot of the problems you just never see 'em,

01:02:28 ◼   ► 'cause nobody has to deal with them,

01:02:30 ◼   ► 'cause everything's looking good.

01:02:32 ◼   ► And it's only when there are failures

01:02:34 ◼   ► that you can start to pick it apart and I'm sure Apple has lots of internal processes

01:02:39 ◼   ► to identify failures, but it's very hard for us to see it on the outside.

01:02:43 ◼   ► And what they call failures are probably not things that are even very visible for us.

01:02:47 ◼   ► And if they are visible for us, Apple will deny that they're failures, even while they're

01:02:51 ◼   ► probably eating each other alive inside, saying, "How could we have done that better?"

01:02:55 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm fascinated by the idea that Apple has been so unprecedentedly successful that

01:03:00 ◼   ► it's actually hard to judge why. What do you think?

01:03:07 ◼   ► I don't disagree with anything you're saying. The regards to being critical about Apple,

01:03:15 ◼   ► I think for me anyway, it's worth pointing out that being critical is not necessarily

01:03:25 ◼   ► a bad thing in like the idea of we criticize Apple but we're not saying

01:03:33 ◼   ► that they are doomed and I think that there is oh yeah it there's really a

01:03:38 ◼   ► thing to make because saying like the people that like the people that are

01:03:42 ◼   ► most critical and maybe the people that know the least it depends on I think it

01:03:47 ◼   ► depends on how they're being critical because we are critical about Apple

01:03:50 ◼   ► because we know a lot about them and we love them and when they do things that

01:03:55 ◼   ► that are crazy to us or annoying to us,

01:03:57 ◼   ► it's because we know how good they can be?

01:03:59 ◼   ► - I think that what Kirk is saying is

01:04:01 ◼   ► that we're not in that group of the ones

01:04:03 ◼   ► who criticize Apple the most,

01:04:04 ◼   ► 'cause they're those people who literally

01:04:05 ◼   ► just criticize everything Apple does.

01:04:07 ◼   ► We're more down in the, you know, I like this,

01:04:10 ◼   ► of course, you know, I love my Mac, it's great, but,

01:04:12 ◼   ► which is a level down for him in the hierarchy of critics.

01:04:18 ◼   ► But it is true that we have the,

01:04:21 ◼   ► especially Apple ecosystem here, media ecosystem, is really weirdly distorted because first

01:04:29 ◼   ► off there are all the people who remember when Apple was doomed, was actually doomed

01:04:34 ◼   ► in the 90s.

01:04:35 ◼   ► And now Apple's been on this incredible run and that leads to this really weird combination

01:04:40 ◼   ► of things where you've got the doomsayers out there, people conflate any criticism of

01:04:44 ◼   ► Apple with being the doomsayers is so easy.

01:04:47 ◼   ► I don't know if you've experienced this, I have.

01:04:49 ◼   ► If you write something that says that something about Apple is less than up to par, you will

01:04:55 ◼   ► get furious people who are trying to destroy you because they basically are going to destroy...

01:05:02 ◼   ► I think they've geared up for a fight with the people on Business Insider who are just

01:05:07 ◼   ► writing stupid things, but they don't limit their attack to that.

01:05:11 ◼   ► They're going to attack all lack of purity of thought.

01:05:16 ◼   ► I think really harmful to discussion of Apple and critical views of Apple

01:05:20 ◼   ► but it's a weird environment where you've got these critics of Apple who totally don't get it and

01:05:26 ◼   ► It makes criticizing Apple with nuance a lot harder

01:05:29 ◼   ► Because of this that that layer floating at the top that is just stupid and has no idea what they're talking about

01:05:36 ◼   ► Yeah, like we can be quite and we are quite critical of Apple and connected

01:05:42 ◼   ► You know me Steven and Federico we kind of say how we're feeling and if something annoys us then we do and some people

01:05:48 ◼   ► Kind of see that as us just being like down on them

01:05:51 ◼   ► Which is not kind of what our intention is

01:05:54 ◼   ► You know is the idea because we love them and we know what they're capable of

01:05:58 ◼   ► That when they don't and you know, and it's difficult because it's like, you know make us unicorn tears

01:06:03 ◼   ► Like give us everything we want all of the time

01:06:05 ◼   ► But it's a company that historically has had a pretty good track record of doing that

01:06:11 ◼   ► you know so we kind of want what we know they can give us yeah and and as as as

01:06:21 ◼   ► somebody once said nothing is so perfect that it can't be criticized right I mean

01:06:25 ◼   ► this is this is how I've made my look you could argue that a huge chunk of my

01:06:30 ◼   ► media life not just about tech but about culture stuff with the incomparable stuff

01:06:34 ◼   ► is about dissecting and criticizing things I like.

01:06:40 ◼   ► And it doesn't mean I don't like them.

01:06:43 ◼   ► This week's Incomparable is about a movie called The Core,

01:06:45 ◼   ► which is really bad and I don't like it.

01:06:47 ◼   ► But generally, discussing things I like,

01:06:49 ◼   ► and like John Syracuse always says,

01:06:52 ◼   ► you know, understanding why you like it

01:06:55 ◼   ► and what parts you didn't like,

01:06:57 ◼   ► and what worked and what didn't,

01:06:59 ◼   ► or like I said, why Apple does what it does,

01:07:02 ◼   ► is I find examining all of that really interesting.

01:07:07 ◼   ► There are people who will view criticism as an attack

01:07:09 ◼   ► and if you're somebody who's really internalized

01:07:12 ◼   ► your love of Apple products, you can,

01:07:16 ◼   ► and you feel like people are really saying stupid,

01:07:19 ◼   ► mean things about this company whose products you love

01:07:22 ◼   ► like some of these Business Insider and Forbes

01:07:25 ◼   ► kind of pundit people that John Kirk is talking about

01:07:28 ◼   ► having no idea even about what they're writing

01:07:30 ◼   ► and especially if you're somebody who lived through

01:07:32 ◼   ► that near death experience in the 90s,

01:07:34 ◼   ► then when people criticize Apple,

01:07:36 ◼   ► it feels like they're criticizing you

01:07:38 ◼   ► and you take it personally and you get mad.

01:07:40 ◼   ► And there is some of that out there,

01:07:41 ◼   ► but I agree with you.

01:07:43 ◼   ► I think, as we say on Incomparable, actually,

01:07:48 ◼   ► a lot of this stuff is coming from a place of love

01:07:51 ◼   ► or at least of wanting the products to be better

01:07:55 ◼   ► because we want them to be good

01:07:57 ◼   ► because we use them and we like them.

01:07:58 ◼   ► It's not coming from a place of destruction,

01:08:01 ◼   ► where what we really want to do is tear this thing down.

01:08:04 ◼   ► It is at its core constructive criticism,

01:08:08 ◼   ► where if you're not trying to change the behavior

01:08:11 ◼   ► of someone else, you're at least trying to understand

01:08:13 ◼   ► why you didn't like something, or how it could be different.

01:08:17 ◼   ► And you know, that's not for everybody.

01:08:19 ◼   ► Some people just want to say, yeah, I like it, it's cool,

01:08:21 ◼   ► I don't want to hear about the bad things.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And that's fine, that's a valid choice.

01:08:25 ◼   ► But I love picking that stuff apart,

01:08:27 ◼   ► and that is not a worldview that says everything is bad.

01:08:31 ◼   ► It's more like a worldview that says

01:08:32 ◼   ► it's kind of fun to understand why things are good

01:08:36 ◼   ► and why they're bad and what the nuances are there.

01:08:39 ◼   ► But it is a charged,

01:08:41 ◼   ► Apple is a company that is just full of charged commentary

01:08:44 ◼   ► and it makes it much difficult

01:08:46 ◼   ► to find places in the middle sometimes.

01:08:50 ◼   ► - Should we do some Ask Upgrade?

01:08:53 ◼   ► - Yes, Myke, I think it's time to move on to

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01:10:21 ◼   ► He got it, it's a hilarious box

01:10:23 ◼   ► 'cause it's got disks in it from an old shrink wrap copy

01:10:27 ◼   ► of Logic Pro that I had laying around,

01:10:30 ◼   ► 'cause Nan needs to edit better.

01:10:31 ◼   ► So he's frustrated with GarageBand,

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01:10:38 ◼   ► "but it works fine, I'll send it to you."

01:10:41 ◼   ► Getting a box full of disks in 2015 is really weird.

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01:11:56 ◼   ► So let's do some Ask Upgrade. #AskUpgrade. Listener Ben wrote in to say, "Regarding the

01:12:03 ◼   ► Photos app, which we talked about last week, any way to have multiple iCloud accounts,

01:12:09 ◼   ► for example me and my wife, feed the same photos in our library?" Listener Ben, it's

01:12:18 ◼   ► It's a beta and it's a new version, so you never know what's gonna happen.

01:12:23 ◼   ► But right now, no.

01:12:27 ◼   ► Right now it is a one-to-one and in fact you can only have one iCloud account per computer,

01:12:36 ◼   ► or one Photos library per computer sync to iCloud.

01:12:40 ◼   ► So maybe, I would love family sharing for example to have some hooks for photo stuff.

01:12:48 ◼   ► Feels like if they were gonna do it they wouldn't do it that way Ben, they would do it through

01:12:53 ◼   ► family sharing.

01:12:54 ◼   ► Yeah and I think, you know this is all so new including family sharing that that would

01:13:00 ◼   ► be the kind of thing that maybe in a year, you know maybe in the next rev we would get

01:13:03 ◼   ► some more family features.

01:13:05 ◼   ► - Because it's a natural.

01:13:07 ◼   ► - That's such an easy version two thing, isn't it?

01:13:10 ◼   ► Like you said, you know, that's a feature

01:13:12 ◼   ► that you could conceivably wait on

01:13:14 ◼   ► and it gives you something to say like,

01:13:16 ◼   ► "Oh, and now we have this."

01:13:17 ◼   ► - Well, there's already a shared library infrastructure.

01:13:21 ◼   ► So you could have a family version

01:13:22 ◼   ► of a shared library infrastructure

01:13:23 ◼   ► that allowed you to share some or all of your photos

01:13:25 ◼   ► and they would just be part of everybody

01:13:27 ◼   ► in the family's library in some way.

01:13:29 ◼   ► There are ways they could do it.

01:13:30 ◼   ► We're just not there yet.

01:13:32 ◼   ► This version is brand new, still in beta,

01:13:35 ◼   ► and it's gonna be one library, one iCloud account per back.

01:13:38 ◼   ► And they don't, you know, you can do the sharing stuff.

01:13:42 ◼   ► So you could share albums and things

01:13:44 ◼   ► with your wife's iCloud account,

01:13:47 ◼   ► but it's not the same as having sort of a shared pool

01:13:51 ◼   ► right now, unfortunately.

01:13:52 ◼   ► - We have @eves_io.

01:13:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think this is Eve in French.

01:14:00 ◼   ► - Oh, yes.

01:14:02 ◼   ► - Eve. - Oui, oui.

01:14:03 ◼   ► - Of course, yes, we Europeans

01:14:05 ◼   ► are neurotically privacy concerned.

01:14:08 ◼   ► Is there a photos for Mac setup

01:14:10 ◼   ► with minimum iCloud involvement?

01:14:13 ◼   ► - Yes, and Eve, yes, that is true.

01:14:16 ◼   ► I know you Europeans, including Myke,

01:14:18 ◼   ► are privacy concerned.

01:14:19 ◼   ► The British still considering themselves European?

01:14:22 ◼   ► - Technically not, no, not in that sense.

01:14:26 ◼   ► We are in Europe, but most Brits

01:14:28 ◼   ► do not consider themselves European,

01:14:30 ◼   ► plus like I do not have privacy concerns.

01:14:33 ◼   ► - Okay, just in general.

01:14:35 ◼   ► - For Eve's sake anyway,

01:14:38 ◼   ► the yes is the answer.

01:14:42 ◼   ► You don't even need to turn on iCloud Photos

01:14:45 ◼   ► to use Photos for Mac.

01:14:47 ◼   ► You can just leave it off.

01:14:49 ◼   ► And you don't even need to have your Photos

01:14:52 ◼   ► come into the Photos library if you want.

01:14:55 ◼   ► If you've got them as files on your desktop

01:14:57 ◼   ► or in folders or wherever you keep them,

01:14:59 ◼   ► you can actually, there's a setting to not copy them into the library.

01:15:03 ◼   ► And then when you drag them in, it's referencing them on disk.

01:15:07 ◼   ► And so...

01:15:08 ◼   ► >> What is that doing? Hard linking or something? What is it doing?

01:15:10 ◼   ► >> No, that is just referencing the files.

01:15:13 ◼   ► That's like, essentially like an alias.

01:15:15 ◼   ► So if you delete them, they're gone.

01:15:18 ◼   ► I checked.

01:15:18 ◼   ► Hard linking them would be interesting,

01:15:20 ◼   ► because the idea there would be that if you deleted them from your disk,

01:15:24 ◼   ► they would still be in the library.

01:15:26 ◼   ► but I think that defeats the purpose of managing them yourself which is if you want to delete

01:15:30 ◼   ► them you would just delete them and they'd be deleted. This way you'd delete it and it

01:15:34 ◼   ► wouldn't go anywhere and you'd be like "Why? Why won't it die?" and then you're deleting

01:15:38 ◼   ► everything in two places and that's a bad thing. So yes you can use it as not iCloud

01:15:44 ◼   ► but managing its own library or even not iCloud and having it being on your desktop or on

01:15:49 ◼   ► your hard drive and that all works. Hooray.

01:15:52 ◼   ► So you can effectively use it as just an app for local photos? Like iPhoto, basically?

01:15:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:59 ◼   ► I know that sounds like a crazy thing to maybe to inquire, but it just seems that Apple is

01:16:07 ◼   ► so iCloud focused that it would be like the app for the future, but it's good that they're

01:16:11 ◼   ► keeping that in mind for people that don't want to do that.

01:16:14 ◼   ► Right. Also, some libraries are going to be huge, and you've got to pay for iCloud Sync.

01:16:21 ◼   ► So people are not gonna, some people are not gonna want to pay and that's fine.

01:16:26 ◼   ► And yeah.

01:16:28 ◼   ► Ooh, this is Twitter.

01:16:31 ◼   ► See, we're in Ask Upgrade where we don't actually know the names of people because the Ask Upgrade

01:16:36 ◼   ► thing doesn't do it.

01:16:37 ◼   ► This is from Twitter user, it's nearly down, it's Andy, listener Andy says, "Myke, what

01:16:44 ◼   ► do you make of the news that Zane Lowe is leaving the Beeb for Apple?"

01:16:49 ◼   ► And I've also got a tweet here from a i-mic, spelled strangely with a "y", that says,

01:16:57 ◼   ► "Context, Zane Lowe is way more than a DJ.

01:16:59 ◼   ► The guy loves music and can spot new stuff like no one else.

01:17:01 ◼   ► This makes sense for curation."

01:17:03 ◼   ► So can you talk a little bit about Apple hiring this fellow named Zane Lowe, who I've never

01:17:08 ◼   ► heard of?

01:17:09 ◼   ► So Zane is from New Zealand, I think, but he's been on the BBC for as long as I can

01:17:15 ◼   ► remember.

01:17:16 ◼   ► 2003 he has been a DJ on Radio One.

01:17:21 ◼   ► I'm gonna include a link as well to an article

01:17:24 ◼   ► that Federico wrote because Federico's familiar

01:17:26 ◼   ► with Zane Lowe as well.

01:17:28 ◼   ► What makes Zane Lowe more than a DJ is his ability

01:17:33 ◼   ► to spot and discover new music.

01:17:36 ◼   ► Like there are a lot of bands that have been very popular

01:17:38 ◼   ► in Britain, either American bands or UK bands,

01:17:41 ◼   ► doesn't really matter where they come from,

01:17:43 ◼   ► that have become popular because of Zane Lowe's influence.

01:17:48 ◼   ► For example, a band that I really love, The Arctic Monkeys,

01:17:54 ◼   ► Zane really kind of pushed them even further

01:17:58 ◼   ► into the mindset of the general populace

01:18:00 ◼   ► because The Arctic Monkeys became popular

01:18:03 ◼   ► because they kind of didn't try and destroy music sharing.

01:18:07 ◼   ► If people were sharing their music illegally,

01:18:09 ◼   ► they didn't stop it, really.

01:18:11 ◼   ► so it kind of helped them become big that way.

01:18:14 ◼   ► But then they kind of had to break through

01:18:16 ◼   ► to the Radio One audience, which is like, you know,

01:18:18 ◼   ► a large mainstream audience in the UK.

01:18:22 ◼   ► But basically it makes sense for Zayn to join Apple

01:18:27 ◼   ► if what Apple is doing is continuing to go

01:18:31 ◼   ► with music curation in their music streaming service

01:18:34 ◼   ► that will replace Beats.

01:18:35 ◼   ► - Which is the best thing about Beats, I think.

01:18:37 ◼   ► - Yes, it is for me, 100%.

01:18:39 ◼   ► And that's why I put up with some of my frustrations with it

01:18:42 ◼   ► is because the music curation is so good.

01:18:44 ◼   ► And Zane Lowe joining Apple as like an editor

01:18:49 ◼   ► in an editorial position is fantastic

01:18:52 ◼   ► because he is really great at spotting new music.

01:18:56 ◼   ► I hope that they continue to do something with him

01:18:58 ◼   ► that he is famous for.

01:18:59 ◼   ► He used to do these like album playbacks

01:19:02 ◼   ► where he would bring the artist into the studio

01:19:05 ◼   ► and he will play the entire album,

01:19:07 ◼   ► a new album or a recent album and talk through

01:19:11 ◼   ► with the artist each track, just absolutely fantastic.

01:19:14 ◼   ► And he's just one of those people that really understands.

01:19:19 ◼   ► Are you familiar with John Peel, Jason?

01:19:21 ◼   ► - Vaguely, yes.

01:19:23 ◼   ► - John Peel was another Radio One DJ from many years ago.

01:19:27 ◼   ► He passed away in 2004.

01:19:29 ◼   ► But he is very, very well known for doing this.

01:19:33 ◼   ► The Peel Sessions, which were a thing

01:19:35 ◼   ► where he would pick out music.

01:19:37 ◼   ► Nobody has ever had an ear,

01:19:41 ◼   ► like in recent history I was well known

01:19:43 ◼   ► for having an ear for new music as John Peel,

01:19:45 ◼   ► but Zane Lowe is to my mind anyway

01:19:49 ◼   ► one of the closest people in the UK that could do that.

01:19:52 ◼   ► And I guess what speaks to his ability

01:19:54 ◼   ► is that Apple is bringing him over from the United Kingdom

01:19:58 ◼   ► to work with them in the US.

01:20:00 ◼   ► Do you know what I mean?

01:20:02 ◼   ► I think it shows his ability

01:20:04 ◼   ► is that they're bringing someone from outside of the United States to come and

01:20:07 ◼   ► to come and work with them on this. Very exciting. I'm very, very excited now

01:20:11 ◼   ► to hear that. That's cool. I think it's, I mean, this is another example of how

01:20:15 ◼   ► the way we think of Apple has to change because Apple is not the company that it

01:20:19 ◼   ► was

01:20:19 ◼   ► and there are a lot more parts of it and having somebody like Zane Lowe

01:20:23 ◼   ► who is a, you know, a curator and understander and breaker of new music

01:20:28 ◼   ► when you're, when, you know, you have iTunes and you have

01:20:33 ◼   ► streaming service. You know that's the business that they're in and

01:20:39 ◼   ► that's a... and who knows they'll also probably have him find the right

01:20:45 ◼   ► breaking bands to run in their commercials too or something like that. I

01:20:48 ◼   ► mean having some people like that who understand music because it is you know

01:20:51 ◼   ► they love music at Apple and all but it is a tech company so having people who

01:20:55 ◼   ► understand this part of the this business that they're in is smart. We have

01:21:01 ◼   ► one more piece of feedback, sorry not feedback, we're not using that word anymore

01:21:06 ◼   ► #AskUpgradeQuestions and it is from Twitter user tar kid and I wonder if I

01:21:13 ◼   ► can... we'll play the game of like what's their actual name.

01:21:16 ◼   ► Twitter listener Robert, there you go, listener Robert wrote in to say I'm just

01:21:21 ◼   ► saying Myke watches a movie can be a regular feature.

01:21:24 ◼   ► I love it. I think what we said last week is I think I think Myke watches a

01:21:30 ◼   ► movie movies with Myke whatever we want to call it should should be a recurring

01:21:34 ◼   ► feature it's not going to be every week but but I think I think as movies come

01:21:39 ◼   ► up we will we will do more of that do you think are you up for it?

01:21:45 ◼   ► I am. Are you up for more movies? Yeah I'm definitely up for it we may we may be stealing it for an

01:21:49 ◼   ► episode of analog. Oh. Because I've never seen sneakers and it drives Casey insane.

01:21:55 ◼   ► Oh well that I was gonna say we got some feedback suggesting that we that we that

01:21:59 ◼   ► we have you watch sneakers right well then there you go that listen to analog

01:22:03 ◼   ► I think maybe maybe next week's episode it's one of Casey's movies and he

01:22:06 ◼   ► constantly quotes it to me this is gonna be like a floating vertical movies with

01:22:12 ◼   ► Myke I think it's a little round because it might be a nice thing to cross around

01:22:17 ◼   ► with Federico's always telling me to watch Mean Girls but I don't think that

01:22:20 ◼   ► will pop up on any of the the other shows but who knows you never know you

01:22:24 ◼   ► never know you never you can make it you can make it a subcast the things that I

01:22:29 ◼   ► invented that's you do that I'm leaving that solely on you the movies with Myke

01:22:34 ◼   ► subcast speaking of which I did mention that we that we watch the core on the

01:22:40 ◼   ► incomparable which is a thing we're gonna try to do on a recurring basis

01:22:43 ◼   ► where we watch a shall we say not particularly well-loved science fiction

01:22:46 ◼   ► movie from the past and so you should check that out it's very funny it's me

01:22:51 ◼   ► and Dan Morin and John Syracuse and Tony Sindel are talking about 2003 science

01:22:58 ◼   ► fiction disaster movie and that word disaster is probably in the wrong place

01:23:02 ◼   ► in that sentence the core so you should check that out. Whilst we're doing this

01:23:07 ◼   ► whilst we're doing follow out I want to tell people to go listen to the

01:23:10 ◼   ► incomparable game show. Oh yeah we should we should mention that that hadn't

01:23:14 ◼   ► dropped when we were on last week it's a inconceivable which is a reference to

01:23:18 ◼   ► The Princess Bride which you see yeah yeah with Dan Morin is the first episode

01:23:24 ◼   ► of the incomparable game show. Did you like it?

01:23:27 ◼   ► I loved it. You know I've wanted you to do game shows for a long time.

01:23:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I know. I know. We did it.

01:23:34 ◼   ► So fantastic. Explain to people very quickly how this works, because it is a little bit

01:23:39 ◼   ► different.

01:23:42 ◼   ► All of us professed a love for panel shows and game shows, and none of us felt like we

01:23:46 ◼   ► had the time or energy to do one every week. We talked about, "Well, can we do it every

01:23:51 ◼   ► other week? Well, probably not. Maybe once a month? And a bunch of us said, "Oh, I

01:23:55 ◼   ► could do a game show or panel show once a month." And I had this

01:23:59 ◼   ► moment, I think it was me, we had a whole thread about it, could have been somebody else, but

01:24:03 ◼   ► there was this moment that was, "Well, if we've got four people who are willing to

01:24:07 ◼   ► do a game show once a month, we could just have it be like a rotating wheel of

01:24:12 ◼   ► shows in the podcast." So that's what we're trying to do. So Inconceivable was

01:24:17 ◼   ► number one there will be a new thing this week hopefully we're recording it

01:24:22 ◼   ► later tonight that I'm doing with Dan Morin that is similar to clockwise but

01:24:28 ◼   ► the opposite. An alternate reality. David Lore is working on a panel discussion

01:24:36 ◼   ► show and Phil Michaels is working on one for us too so which which listeners of

01:24:42 ◼   ► the Macworld podcast might be able to guess what that is going to be. What on

01:24:46 ◼   ► on earth type of game show can Philip Michael's be working on.

01:24:50 ◼   ► And so, yeah, well, we'll see how it goes.

01:24:52 ◼   ► And if other things fall in and things fall out as we go,

01:24:55 ◼   ► that's fine.

01:24:56 ◼   ► And it may not be exactly every week,

01:24:58 ◼   ► depending, because it's a lot of scheduling of a lot

01:25:00 ◼   ► of different moving parts.

01:25:01 ◼   ► But yeah, we're hoping to keep it up.

01:25:03 ◼   ► I love those kind of shows, because they end up

01:25:06 ◼   ► being really entertaining.

01:25:07 ◼   ► And it's fun to listen to people play games

01:25:09 ◼   ► while they're also having a good time and making jokes

01:25:12 ◼   ► and things like that.

01:25:13 ◼   ► And Dan wrote a really nice blog post

01:25:15 ◼   ► his blog about his inspiration for doing it. It's actually a radio show in

01:25:20 ◼   ► Massachusetts that the host of it just passed away a couple weeks ago and

01:25:25 ◼   ► it's a really nice piece that he wrote and Inconceivable was a lot of fun. I was

01:25:28 ◼   ► one of the contestants on that. If you're somebody who is sort of not interested

01:25:33 ◼   ► in listening to people critically break down movies and TV shows and things like

01:25:37 ◼   ► that but does like funny panel shows like you get on NPR like Ask Me Another

01:25:42 ◼   ► another or wait wait don't tell me check it out incomparable game show the

01:25:45 ◼   ► incomparable.com/gameshow. Alright, Movies with Myke follow-up I wanted to we had a

01:25:55 ◼   ► little bit of follow-up for Movies with Myke last week and since the Movies with

01:25:58 ◼   ► Myke segment was at the end of the show I thought we would put this follow-up at

01:26:01 ◼   ► the end of the show if you're somebody Movies with Myke is a special segment if

01:26:05 ◼   ► you don't want to listen to it you don't have to we're not making you we're

01:26:08 ◼   ► putting this at the end out of consideration to you. So the follow-up is

01:26:12 ◼   ► at the end now. We had two really nice pieces of follow-up. Listener Lindsay

01:26:17 ◼   ► wrote in and he said, "I'm listening to your Real Genius segment. I hadn't seen

01:26:22 ◼   ► it before so I watched it last week when you mentioned it." Now we discussed the

01:26:26 ◼   ► Jordan-Mitch relationship last week and Lindsay says, "Jordan clearly says she's

01:26:31 ◼   ► 19 at least once and in the scene with Mitch and Sherry she says something like

01:26:35 ◼   ► I've been waiting for this moment and I took this to mean Mitch had just turned

01:26:38 ◼   ► 16 so there's a suggestion there maybe about age of consent and then he points

01:26:45 ◼   ► out correctly immediately when Mitch goes to see Jordan and says I don't want

01:26:48 ◼   ► to do it with her I want to do it with you this doesn't really square with your

01:26:53 ◼   ► interpretation of an innocent relationship I accuse you Jason Snow so

01:26:58 ◼   ► he didn't actually say that but I put that in there so I have two comments

01:27:02 ◼   ► here one is as somebody who has watched this movie a lot I feel like I feel like

01:27:10 ◼   ► the way that that's phrased is a nice turn of phrase but he's not very

01:27:16 ◼   ► specifically saying let's go have sex right now I think it's much more just

01:27:20 ◼   ► him revealing that he has romantic thoughts for her and like I said I think

01:27:24 ◼   ► these two characters are so innocent and kind of growing emotionally that it's

01:27:30 ◼   ► gonna they'll get there but it's gonna take a little time. I also wanted to say

01:27:34 ◼   ► that my friend Erica Ensign who does the Doctor Who podcast Verity and is on the

01:27:39 ◼   ► Incomparable a lot and is on Total Party Kill who I got to see this weekend in

01:27:44 ◼   ► person which was great.

01:27:46 ◼   ► She has this thing that she didn't invent but I feel like she's popularized

01:27:49 ◼   ► within our circles the idea of something called headcanon. And headcanon is when

01:27:56 ◼   ► you take the text of a work and then you have you lay your interpretation on it

01:28:01 ◼   ► and say well I would like to believe this is what this means and so it's like

01:28:05 ◼   ► you inscribed into the canon of that work what you think it all means so in

01:28:10 ◼   ► my head canon for real genius which I suppose I have Mitch and Jordan do not

01:28:16 ◼   ► immediately hook up but they become they take it slow and they'll get there like

01:28:21 ◼   ► I said, but I feel like neither of them is quite ready at that point to jump

01:28:27 ◼   ► into the teen, 80s teen sex comedy scene and that they're they're gonna take it

01:28:33 ◼   ► slow and and their relationship is gonna grow at a little bit of a slower pace

01:28:37 ◼   ► given that he's 16 and she's 19 and they're both somewhat innocent when it

01:28:41 ◼   ► comes to this stuff. That's my headcanon. That that is, or to put it another way,

01:28:46 ◼   ► that's the way I choose to read the movie. Other interpretations are

01:28:49 ◼   ► perfectly valid but that's my head

01:28:51 ◼   ► cannon so there it is. I don't know if

01:28:53 ◼   ► you had those sorts of deep thoughts

01:28:55 ◼   ► while you were watching it Myke. Yeah as

01:28:57 ◼   ► I said I was still freaked out by it

01:28:59 ◼   ► like I felt better after you explained

01:29:02 ◼   ► that to me last week you know the idea

01:29:05 ◼   ► is like they're both just simple like

01:29:07 ◼   ► simple-minded and they you know they may

01:29:10 ◼   ► not have thought about doing anything

01:29:12 ◼   ► like that yet they're kind of innocent

01:29:14 ◼   ► in that regard. I'm right there with you.

01:29:17 ◼   ► he's terrified yeah Mitch is terrified of the lady's name I can't remember

01:29:22 ◼   ► Sherry and he's trying in his own stumbling way to explain that the reason

01:29:27 ◼   ► that he ran out of her also as a adolescent male you've got a woman in

01:29:33 ◼   ► your room who's taken off her clothes and wants to have sex with you and you

01:29:36 ◼   ► run out why would you do that that's that's awesome why would you do that and

01:29:40 ◼   ► so in his own little adolescent way he's trying to explain to the girl he likes

01:29:44 ◼   ► this is why it's because I like you and so we know when she says did you make it

01:29:49 ◼   ► with her he says you know no I want to do that with you he's not saying right

01:29:53 ◼   ► now yeah that's the way I take it also in the chat room Doug Beal asked for the

01:29:58 ◼   ► etymology of hand head cannon and there is a meet know your meme page about head

01:30:02 ◼   ► cannon the idea is there is cannon for like dr. who and Star Trek and things

01:30:06 ◼   ► like that which is like well if it's in the show it's it's cannon but if it's in

01:30:10 ◼   ► the books it's not cannon it's not official it could be contradicted at

01:30:13 ◼   ► any time and you can't use that as proof that when Captain Kirk fires the phasers

01:30:17 ◼   ► in this scene he's doing it because his brother's second son who was kidnapped

01:30:22 ◼   ► by the Klingons etc etc because that happened in a book and not in the show

01:30:26 ◼   ► that's canon right head canon is you get to decide what canon is in your own mind

01:30:32 ◼   ► and if you decide that the reason this person in this movie does this thing is

01:30:37 ◼   ► because of this thing that's not in the movie but you've decided that that's

01:30:40 ◼   ► what it is, that's your headcanon. And it's a... I like the concept because it's a pithy

01:30:46 ◼   ► way of saying it is my personal interpretation of the text and I have it. And I've decided

01:30:53 ◼   ► I'm comfortable with that. And if you don't like it, that's fine. You can have your own

01:30:58 ◼   ► headcanon but this one is mine.

01:31:00 ◼   ► It's one of my favorite things about listening to shows that talk about movies or have movies

01:31:05 ◼   ► as a subject. Like when people say stuff like, "Oh, you know, James Bond wouldn't have done

01:31:11 ◼   ► that because he does this," and, "Oh, I'm sure that when this happened, what he actually

01:31:16 ◼   ► like he was thinking this or he was meaning this." Like that's all headcanon and I love

01:31:20 ◼   ► it. It's just like you know the characters, so you believe that they act in a certain

01:31:25 ◼   ► way. Nobody said it. I mean, you can also assume that it was the director's interpretation,

01:31:30 ◼   ► but still, nobody said it.

01:31:32 ◼   ► And also this is a way out of plot holes sometimes.

01:31:35 ◼   ► Yeah, and you make excuses for it because you want to.

01:31:38 ◼   ► Right, and that's why Erica will often say, and this is the phrase that Jonathan Mann

01:31:43 ◼   ► used in his year-end song for the incomparable, which is "apply some hand-wavium to your head

01:31:47 ◼   ► cannon."

01:31:48 ◼   ► The hand-wavium is an element that you can apply to anything that explains away things

01:31:53 ◼   ► that probably don't make any sense, and head cannon is actually really good for that.

01:31:57 ◼   ► Like, I don't know, I mean you can pick a favorite movie and say, "Well why does this

01:31:59 ◼   ► person do this?"

01:32:00 ◼   ► "Well, probably there's something we didn't see where..."

01:32:05 ◼   ► And that is you trying to interpret your way out of something.

01:32:09 ◼   ► In some cases you're probably right and the writers are like, "We don't need to explain

01:32:13 ◼   ► every single thing that happens in the movie.

01:32:15 ◼   ► People will figure it out or they'll make up their own explanation and we'll move on."

01:32:19 ◼   ► But if you want to get an explanation, you can apply some hand wavium to your head canon.

01:32:25 ◼   ► Eric is so fantastic.

01:32:26 ◼   ► I'm so happy that you brought her onto the incomparable show.

01:32:30 ◼   ► She is great.

01:32:32 ◼   ► She's really great.

01:32:35 ◼   ► She's on this podcast, Verity, which is a bunch of women talking about Doctor Who, and

01:32:39 ◼   ► it's a great podcast.

01:32:40 ◼   ► And I got to meet many of the Verities this weekend, which was really great, and they're

01:32:44 ◼   ► all so smart and so funny.

01:32:46 ◼   ► And I was listening to Verity and I thought, Erica sounds like one of us.

01:32:50 ◼   ► She sounds like, actually several of them do, but she was like, I was thinking, I'm

01:32:53 ◼   ► trying to get more women into the incomparable panel, and I heard her talking and I thought,

01:32:58 ◼   ► I think she would fit in.

01:32:59 ◼   ► And so I emailed her and I said, "I'm sorry you have no idea who I am, but I have a podcast

01:33:03 ◼   ► that you've never heard of."

01:33:07 ◼   ► But her husband does a podcast and those guys know who I am.

01:33:14 ◼   ► And her friend Chip, who she does the Babylon 5 podcast with, is a friend of mine too.

01:33:17 ◼   ► So you know people who know me, but you don't know me.

01:33:20 ◼   ► But I have a podcast, would you like to be on?

01:33:22 ◼   ► And I said, "For example, next week we're doing an episode about The Matrix."

01:33:25 ◼   ► And she said, "Oh my God, I saw The Matrix 20 times in the theater."

01:33:27 ◼   ► I would like you on my podcast. And yeah she's great and that was one of those

01:33:33 ◼   ► that was one of those great moments. I need to do more. We have so many people on

01:33:36 ◼   ► the panel and yet I always like recruiting more people because they

01:33:39 ◼   ► bring all sorts of interesting new perspectives and she's been a great one

01:33:43 ◼   ► and it was great to see her in person this year. I saw her last year at

01:33:48 ◼   ► the same event and I got to go back and see her again. We have one more bit of

01:33:51 ◼   ► movies with Myke follow-up which is from listener Lauren who actually liked

01:33:55 ◼   ► the opening song which I kind of downplayed with jazz and the pictures

01:33:58 ◼   ► and Lauren said I always thought this is just wonderful it sets an interesting

01:34:03 ◼   ► off-center mood appropriate for this movie and then here's I thought this was

01:34:07 ◼   ► really good we were talking about the references to the male anatomy that are

01:34:10 ◼   ► throughout and listener Lauren says I never thought of it until you brought it

01:34:14 ◼   ► up but all those repeated references to that particular part of anatomy might

01:34:17 ◼   ► well be a nod to the very common trope in the 60s and 70s or like ever of

01:34:22 ◼   ► of nuclear missiles and by association all weapons as a pretty obvious phallic

01:34:26 ◼   ► symbol for people who must have been trying to prove something.

01:34:28 ◼   ► And you know what? I have never thought of that interpretation but I think

01:34:32 ◼   ► I'm putting that in my headcanon, which may also be a phallic symbol

01:34:35 ◼   ► if you want it to be. I'm gonna put it in there

01:34:39 ◼   ► that I think that's a great idea. That one of the reasons this movie is

01:34:43 ◼   ► obsessed with male anatomy is because this is a

01:34:46 ◼   ► movie about the military-industrial complex and

01:34:50 ◼   ► scientists building the latest big gun. So good bit of interpretation, listener Lauren.

01:34:56 ◼   ► And that's it for movies with Myke Follow-Up. We won't be watching Sneakers because you're

01:35:03 ◼   ► watching that with someone else. I can pretend I've never seen it if you want.

01:35:08 ◼   ► No that's good, that's good. That's one of Dan Morin's favorite movies actually.

01:35:12 ◼   ► So and I and Casey's apparently. So that's great, that's great. I hope you have a good time. I might

01:35:18 ◼   ► ask for a really brief recap here of of Movies with Myke over there. Okay we can

01:35:25 ◼   ► do that. If you would like to find the show notes for this week's episode you

01:35:29 ◼   ► should point your web browser or podcast app, well they're already there, at

01:35:32 ◼   ► relay.fm/upgrade/23. I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsors again

01:35:38 ◼   ► for this week's episode. That is to find folks over at lynda.com, mailroute

01:35:43 ◼   ► and stamps.com. If you'd like to find Jason's amazing work on the internet you

01:35:47 ◼   ► you should go to the incomparable.com, sixcolors.com,

01:35:50 ◼   ► or twitter.com/jsnell, J-S-N-E-E-L-L,

01:35:55 ◼   ► there we go, I made it.

01:35:56 ◼   ► And I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E,

01:35:59 ◼   ► if you have never listened before,

01:36:01 ◼   ► or you have, or maybe you're a lapsed listener,

01:36:04 ◼   ► I would really, really appreciate you checking out

01:36:06 ◼   ► Inquisitive this week, episode number 27,

01:36:09 ◼   ► which will be out on Wednesday the 18th.

01:36:13 ◼   ► It's something that I have poured my heart and soul into,

01:36:16 ◼   ► and I really hope that you enjoy it.

01:36:18 ◼   ► Please tell me you enjoy it even if you don't.

01:36:20 ◼   ► And we'll be back next week.

01:36:23 ◼   ► Thank you all for listening.

01:36:25 ◼   ► We love you dearly.

01:36:26 ◼   ► Till then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:36:29 ◼   ► - Goodbye, everybody.

01:36:30 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:36:32 ◼   ► [ Music ]