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Connected

129: Game of Sorrow

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:06   From relay FM, this is Connected, episode 129.

00:00:10   Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Encapsula and Blue Apron.

00:00:15   My name is Myke Hurley.

00:00:16   I am joined by Mr Federico Vittucci.

00:00:18   Ciao Myke.

00:00:20   And Mr Stephen Hackett.

00:00:22   Howdy boys.

00:00:24   Howdy partner.

00:00:25   Happy Valentine's Day to you both.

00:00:27   You too.

00:00:28   I couldn't think of anything better than spending my Valentine's Day with you two talking about

00:00:33   reality television and that's what we're going to do later on today.

00:00:37   Nothing came to mind.

00:00:38   Not sure how to respond to that but thank you.

00:00:41   Oh no, I have many offers, you know, there are many things I could do but this is the

00:00:45   one I would choose to do the most.

00:00:49   You are a very sweet Valentine, Myke.

00:00:52   Thank you.

00:00:53   It's a pleasure.

00:00:54   And I would like to wish a happy Valentine's Day to all of our listeners too.

00:00:58   Can you guess what Valentine's Day is called in Italy?

00:01:04   Just try to imagine how could we say Valentine's in Italy.

00:01:08   Is it Valentino?

00:01:09   Yes, perfect.

00:01:10   Oh my god, you're pretty good at this.

00:01:12   Nice job, nice job.

00:01:13   I've known you for long enough now.

00:01:14   That's all it takes.

00:01:16   Nice job.

00:01:17   Can we do some Valentine's Day themed follow-up?

00:01:21   I don't know if it's necessarily...

00:01:23   There is a theme, but it's not Valentine's Day.

00:01:26   Let's do the Valentine's follow-up.

00:01:29   The theme I follow this week is "Listeners have questions for Federico."

00:01:32   Oh, okay.

00:01:34   So, Jim, listener Jim, starts this.

00:01:37   I love you, Jim.

00:01:39   Wow.

00:01:40   Jim.

00:01:41   Well, it's Valentine's Day.

00:01:43   "Shouldn't the iPad home screen be able to hold at least as many apps as the iPhone,

00:01:48   if not more?

00:01:49   Is there a good reason as to why this is the case?"

00:01:52   There's no good reason if you ask me.

00:01:55   It shouldn't be the case, especially on the big iPad Pro, the home screen should be completely

00:02:01   different than it currently is.

00:02:04   I feel like Apple has done a lazy job at adapting the iPhone home screen, actually, seven years

00:02:12   ago when the first iPad came out, then it never changed, they didn't make any functional

00:02:17   improvements to the home screen, and now the situation is even worse, especially on the

00:02:22   big iPad Pro.

00:02:23   So there's no good reason if you ask me, but I'm not the person, you know, I don't know,

00:02:28   I have no idea just like you.

00:02:30   I wish I had a plausible explanation other than Apple has just been lazy and they haven't

00:02:36   done a good job, you know, with many iPhone interfaces and the home screen is the perfect

00:02:41   example.

00:02:44   My favorite part is that your rows change as you rotate from portrait to landscape because

00:02:50   it has fewer in portrait and so if you change your

00:02:55   orientation a bunch your icons move around which is infuriating

00:02:58   even after this long. I

00:03:02   have a question for you both. Do you, and I'll start with you Federico, it's the same question,

00:03:07   do you believe that Apple in the near future, maybe within the next two or

00:03:12   three years, is likely to change the way that the home screen looks on the iPad?

00:03:15   I think it would be useful.

00:03:19   I know it definitely would be. Do you think they're gonna do it?

00:03:22   I think so. Because I feel like they also know that the current home screen is just an adaptation.

00:03:32   I feel like the people who work on this stuff, they know, and I feel like it's a problem for them too.

00:03:39   So I think we will see something, not to the extent that some people imagine like crazy Android-like widgets on the home screen,

00:03:46   But I think we'll get some new ways to organize apps maybe to pin documents or files or

00:03:51   You know, I just feel like they are gonna do it not to the extent that we imagine with this, you know

00:03:58   All these widgets floating around I don't think that's the answer

00:04:03   But the current situation isn't the answer either so somewhere in the middle. I think Apple will do something

00:04:11   Because they have to otherwise they're just trying to apply the paradigm

00:04:16   of the of the iPhone to the iPad and just doesn't work because the home screen works on the iPhone because you just you know you

00:04:22   Pull up the phone from your pocket

00:04:24   Then you see icons and you launch stuff on the iPad it needs to be something else

00:04:28   And and I think they will do something not as crazy as we think so somewhere in the middle

00:04:33   I think it's a sweet spot for Apple. What do you think Stephen?

00:04:36   It's been seven years of

00:04:40   stagnation, why would they change?

00:04:44   That's the spirit.

00:04:46   I agree.

00:04:47   It would be really nice, and I think it would be a way to show the iPad as a more serious

00:04:55   work machine.

00:04:56   I mean, to open it and just be a grid of icons is sort of silly.

00:05:00   I agree, it works really well on the phone, but the iPad deserves more.

00:05:04   But I mean, it's been seven years.

00:05:07   If it's on someone's to-do list, it's clearly, it hasn't been very high.

00:05:12   But I'd love to be proven wrong, so bring it on.

00:05:15   I think part of the problem with it now is like it's been so long that they kind of have

00:05:19   to make a really big change if they're going to make a change.

00:05:23   And I don't know if that really big change is around the corner, honestly.

00:05:27   Yeah, the thing that I come back to is that you have widgets in Springboard with 3D Touch,

00:05:36   hard touch, whatever it's called this week.

00:05:40   And they're kind of already there on the home screen

00:05:44   if you have one of those devices and the app you want

00:05:47   supports it and you know how to do it.

00:05:49   Like they're so close.

00:05:50   I think they could do widgets on the home screen

00:05:53   and it'd be nice and it not be junky, but I don't know.

00:05:58   I think that they're probably gonna stay the course.

00:06:05   Up next, Jordan, listener Jordan, weighs in on Nintendo and talking about the pricing

00:06:13   and that would have been more successful if the game was paid up front.

00:06:18   We'll talk about Super Mario Go, right?

00:06:20   Right.

00:06:21   Yes, sorry.

00:06:22   Thank you.

00:06:23   "Most games on the App Store need to go through some free-to-play shenanigans because they

00:06:27   won't get enough downloads otherwise."

00:06:29   I'm quoting Jordan.

00:06:30   "Nintendo, you know, they're big enough.

00:06:32   There is pent-up demand for it.

00:06:35   they have just sold it at $10 up front based on that alone. And he contrasts

00:06:40   Nintendo and Mario with Minecraft. You know, it's a household name. If you have

00:06:44   kids who are like my kids ages, like Minecraft is everywhere. And it's paid

00:06:49   up front and it's consistently on the top of the paid apps list. And Jordan

00:06:53   thinks that Nintendo could could be there as well. And you know, I was

00:06:58   wondering what we thought about that and especially like in the the negative

00:07:02   ratings problem because if you're obviously not familiar you can only

00:07:06   rate an app if you've purchased it or if you've downloaded it and it free to play

00:07:10   you can play it for free never pay anything and then like burn down their

00:07:14   app store ratings and that causes some friction and so Federico and Myke I'm

00:07:19   curious what you guys think about this is it a fair comparison to bring up

00:07:23   Minecraft is it something that Nintendo could have done differently and maybe

00:07:27   be seeing more success? Well I think it makes sense for Minecraft, right? I think

00:07:33   what Nintendo wanted to do was to be at the top of the top-grossing charts and

00:07:37   so I think the Minecraft approach works for Minecraft but it wasn't one

00:07:45   necessarily what Nintendo wanted. They wanted to have this freemium game with a

00:07:51   single in-app purchase that will let them reach a lot of people with the free

00:07:56   download and then have those people pay up to play the full game. And they managed to

00:08:02   stay at the top of the Topicals in Charge for about a week. They weren't happy with

00:08:07   the results. If you read the latest interview with President Kimishima on Time magazine,

00:08:16   he said we're almost reaching the number that we're comfortable with in terms of revenue

00:08:23   from this game and in terms of downloads, because from 78 million downloads they want

00:08:28   to move past 10% of paid in-app purchases.

00:08:33   So they're moving towards that number.

00:08:35   And I don't feel like Nintendo from the get-go wanted to have a Minecraft-like pricing model,

00:08:41   and I also don't think that there's a market for any more Minecraft games, and in the sense

00:08:49   that I'm just gonna let Myke go with this point because I think he wants to.

00:08:54   He knows more about Minecraft than I do but I think the basic problem is

00:08:58   Minecraft is in a league of its own basically.

00:09:06   You can't compare anything to Minecraft anymore.

00:09:10   It has transcended what a usual video game is possible of doing.

00:09:15   There is no application or game, even Mario, that can be compared to Minecraft because

00:09:21   Minecraft is an existing property which happens outside of just the App Store.

00:09:27   People know what Minecraft is before they download it.

00:09:30   That wasn't the case for Super Mario Go.

00:09:33   It was a different type of game.

00:09:37   And I think that Nintendo ultimately made the right move.

00:09:42   I think if they would have gone paid up front, I can see us easily having the exact inverse

00:09:47   argument of saying they shouldn't have done paid up front. People need to try out the

00:09:51   app first. And I think that honestly, I think they probably have made more money this way

00:09:57   because if they would have put $10 to buy this game, like just straight up front download

00:10:03   like this is what you're paying to get this. I don't think it would have done very well

00:10:06   at all. And I know that the rating situation would have been different, but honestly, I

00:10:12   I don't think that the rating situation is affecting Mario very much people either want it or they don't want it

00:10:17   I don't think people are looking at me like Mario two stars. No way

00:10:22   Like it just doesn't seem like a thing to me like yeah

00:10:26   People are gonna try it if they want to try it and the fact that it's free is fine

00:10:30   And then you know Nintendo maybe haven't hit the numbers that they wanted

00:10:34   but that comes from what Nintendo thinks Nintendo is able to do based on Nintendo's history and

00:10:39   Nintendo has never done this before so I expect that their next games will have adjusted

00:10:44   Goals on what they're looking to achieve

00:10:47   But I really don't think that they would have done much better if it would have been a paid up front game

00:10:52   If it was like straight up, this is Super Mario Brothers. Like this is the game, you know

00:10:58   Maybe just yeah, just I would just back a truck full of money up to them

00:11:04   Yeah, it's interesting to think about in a world where, like Jordan wrote, so many games

00:11:09   are free within that purchase.

00:11:12   And are there names that are big enough, are there brands that are big enough to go against

00:11:17   that trend and be successful?

00:11:18   I found the whole idea very interesting.

00:11:23   So to round out follow-up, kind of going back to Myke automating his entire house with smart

00:11:28   light bulbs, you said company over?

00:11:32   I wanted to ask you, it's not in the notes.

00:11:34   You just had some family in town.

00:11:35   - Yep.

00:11:36   - How did they turn lights on?

00:11:39   Or did they just walk you around in the dark?

00:11:43   - We had to do the voice activation

00:11:46   because these family members do not speak English.

00:11:50   So asking them to speak to the echo

00:11:52   is not really something that works very well.

00:11:56   But what they were able to do,

00:11:58   if they wanted the lights to be on,

00:12:00   'cause there's only lamps, right?

00:12:01   We have over the headlights,

00:12:02   but if they wanted to turn the lamps on,

00:12:03   They were just like, and they just did this on their own.

00:12:05   They turned the lamp off and then turned it back on again and it comes on.

00:12:08   Right. But it's just a regular white light because the hue kind of falls back to that.

00:12:12   And that worked fine for them. And they were just doing that.

00:12:15   But they were very impressed by our lights.

00:12:18   They also found it funny, like how we would ask it to do things, because I've also added

00:12:22   one more piece of equipment since the last time that we spoke.

00:12:25   I now have a Logitech Harmony hub.

00:12:33   as a way to turn on my Dyson fan. So like I was, I've mentioned this, right? The harmony,

00:12:42   like the Dyson fan, like I've wanted to be able to turn that on and off, but like it's

00:12:45   not a smart device. So James wrote in to say that, uh, he uses one of these harmony hubs

00:12:53   and is able to get, like you could, you can then like use a, oh, you said it, you said

00:12:59   it this time. I know I said it. I said it. You can program it all together. So now I

00:13:08   can say, hey, it's bedtime or like trigger bedtime. And then the lights go off in the

00:13:13   front room. They come on in the bedroom and turn on the fan as well, like the heater fan.

00:13:18   So I'm pretty happy with that arrangement. Uh, but yeah, it worked fine, but they kind

00:13:22   of found it a little bit amusing. Yeah. Every, every time, every time my, my mom comes to

00:13:27   visit and I show her around at my latest automations. She's both amazed by what computers can do,

00:13:39   but also she looks to me and she's like, "So you're spending money on switches to turn

00:13:45   on the lights?" Like, to an extent, a lot of people are surprised that we're so lazy

00:13:51   we cannot even get up to turn off the lights. But on the other hand, it's so convenient,

00:13:57   You know, just to be…

00:13:59   Yeah it tends to be a mix of like interest and pity.

00:14:03   Yes, yes.

00:14:04   I think that's what I'm looking for.

00:14:05   There's an element of pity in all this.

00:14:07   Like look at this guy, he cannot even get up.

00:14:10   I'm really happy for you but like what are you doing with your wife?

00:14:14   Yes, yes.

00:14:15   There's an element of that.

00:14:17   But still, good job getting the Harmony app.

00:14:21   I love mine because of the way that we can control the television set.

00:14:26   And especially I don't have to deal with multiple remotes anymore.

00:14:30   Silvia doesn't like this.

00:14:32   She hates that we now have a single remote and she doesn't understand the interface.

00:14:36   I personally love it because I can set up all of my inputs for the PlayStation or for

00:14:42   the Chromecast.

00:14:43   I can just say, you know, I can speak to the Echo and I can ask to switch to certain devices,

00:14:49   which is pretty great.

00:14:50   I love it.

00:14:51   Yeah, the problem for us is I can't do any of that because the Harmony Hub is in the

00:14:58   bedroom because it needs to hit the Dyson fan by IR.

00:15:02   Oh, okay.

00:15:03   So like, pretty much all it's doing for me now is controlling, is turning the fan on

00:15:09   and off, but I'm looking at setting up, because it can find WiFi stuff and you can set up

00:15:14   scenes and I'm seeing what I can do with it outside of purely just being there to turn

00:15:19   a device on and off.

00:15:23   So, in this world, why this is in follow-up is there's a new Kickstarter called Turn Touch,

00:15:33   and it is a programmable remote control. A guy named Sam makes it, but it's handmade

00:15:41   out of wood. You could have it out on your coffee tub or something and people are like,

00:15:45   That's a smart home device.

00:15:47   It looks beautiful.

00:15:49   And you can hook it up to a bunch of different stuff.

00:15:52   So you can turn your Hue lights on and off.

00:15:54   You can adjust your Nest thermostat.

00:15:56   It works with some of the smart switches

00:15:58   and smart lock stuff.

00:16:00   And the idea is you can have all this

00:16:02   in a standalone device.

00:16:04   You don't have to pull your phone out

00:16:05   to do a bunch of the stuff

00:16:06   or yell at the lady in the canister.

00:16:08   This looks awesome.

00:16:12   I like the way that it looks.

00:16:13   I like that it doesn't look techy.

00:16:14   like that you don't have to use your phone.

00:16:18   And I will admit, I didn't read all of this,

00:16:20   but I have some questions about how it works.

00:16:25   Is it just the hardware and it talks to all the software?

00:16:28   What else do you have to have to make this work?

00:16:32   What do you guys think about this?

00:16:33   Yeah, there's an app.

00:16:35   There's a bunch of apps.

00:16:36   I think there's a Mac app and an iOS app, which

00:16:39   you use to pull in all of the different sources,

00:16:42   like your Hue lights or whatever.

00:16:44   and then you can say what each of the switches does,

00:16:46   basically you're able to customize it via the app.

00:16:48   - Yeah, the iPhone app basically has

00:16:51   a few built-in utilities.

00:16:53   Like there's an alarm clock feature, there's a timer,

00:16:57   and those are like features of the app.

00:16:59   So when you interact with the remote,

00:17:01   the remote talks to the app,

00:17:02   and it's not like it's setting the native iOS timer,

00:17:07   it's setting timer inside of the iPhone or the Mac app.

00:17:10   And then there's the Web API stuff,

00:17:13   the integrations with web services like Philips Hue or other home automation devices. And

00:17:19   I'm pretty sure there's Sonos integration also. So the goal is to offer this sort of

00:17:24   mixed environment where there's native apps for the iPhone and the Mac where you can manage

00:17:30   the remote, where you can set up the shortcuts. And then there's the web stuff. So you can

00:17:36   connect to web services and connect to other devices. So I know Sam. He makes NewsBlur,

00:17:42   which is one of the best, I would say along with InoReader, NewsBlur is one of the best

00:17:48   modern RSS services. And I think this is a very clever idea. It's definitely not what

00:17:56   I was expecting from Sam, because after so many years of making NewsBlur, a smart home

00:18:02   remote made of wood, it's not exactly what I was imagining. But I think as someone who

00:18:08   a couple of Logitech POP buttons. This looks much better, I think it looks much

00:18:14   better for power users also because there's a lot more settings, a lot more

00:18:17   options you can set up. Honestly the Logitech POP, the iPhone app is

00:18:24   kind of terrible, whereas just from screenshots this thing is looking pretty

00:18:28   good to me with all the settings, with all the gestures and the

00:18:34   tabs that you can set up. Also there's an iPad app which is good to see on, you know,

00:18:39   it's gonna launch with an iPhone and iPad and Mac. So I'm excited about this, I wanna

00:18:44   try it. Among the list of support services there's ULights, Belkin WeMo, Nest, Sonos,

00:18:52   you know, I'm looking at all these other, Spotify of course, Pandora, which is also

00:18:56   launching a new streaming service shortly by the way. So yeah, I'm very excited about

00:19:03   this. The Kickstarter project is still, I mean, it has been funded, but there's 23 days

00:19:11   to go and a couple of stretch goals that I want to keep an eye on, and particularly there's

00:19:17   a HomeKit support and IFTTT support. So, one is, you know, IFTTT is 50k and HomeKit is

00:19:26   75k. So, I don't know if it will reach those, but even without HomeKit, I think this will

00:19:32   be very useful, especially because unlike the pop switches or the

00:19:37   flick buttons, which are another type of product like this, it's a physical thing

00:19:41   that you hold and you press and you do stuff around the house, this thing here

00:19:46   has like, I think about 10 gestures for remote, so that's pretty cool, you

00:19:52   know, that's a good return on investment, you can set up a lot of shortcuts with

00:19:57   this. So, yeah, I'm I'm going to check it out.

00:20:00   Yeah, I am.

00:20:01   I backed it because I think it looks nice.

00:20:04   Right. And also I can just see that I could have a bunch of things that I would want to

00:20:08   do with this. I really hope that it hits the IFTTT support because of the things that I

00:20:13   would be able to trigger with that.

00:20:14   Like there are just just random Web services I could trigger instead of just home

00:20:19   automation stuff. That would be very interesting to me.

00:20:23   So yeah, I backed it because I think it looks pretty nice and it's just another thing to

00:20:28   add to the myriad of internet connected things that are entering my home.

00:20:32   Right.

00:20:33   Can I ask you a serious question, guys?

00:20:37   So I was thinking about this a few days ago.

00:20:40   Do you ever get the question from people that you know?

00:20:44   And to me that is a dreaded question because I never know how to answer without getting

00:20:49   into some kind of heated discussion.

00:20:52   you have all of these wireless devices and all of these Bluetooth devices and someone

00:20:57   asks you "are you not gonna get cancer from all of these electronic things around the

00:21:01   house?"

00:21:02   No one's ever asked me that question.

00:21:05   Really?

00:21:06   Oh man, like I was talking about the AirPods the other day.

00:21:09   I was like "oh they're super cool, they're Bluetooth" and this person said "well you

00:21:14   know I really don't want to get all of these things, they're gonna make you sick, all of

00:21:19   these radios, all of these wireless devices".

00:21:21   I was like, no they don't, you know, because there are studies and stuff like that.

00:21:27   It seems to me like it's a thing that a lot of people fear.

00:21:33   I don't know if it's an Italian thing maybe, but I definitely get asked about this, you

00:21:39   know, especially for Bluetooth and wireless devices.

00:21:42   You know, I have stuff on my nightstand, for example, the AirPods, the pop switches, I

00:21:48   have the echo in my bedroom. So I'm surrounded by wireless radios. And some people are afraid

00:21:54   that they're going to get sick because of those. So I just wanted to know if it's a

00:21:59   common thing or if just my bad luck of knowing people who think this way.

00:22:03   I think there might be a little superstition based in there, you know? Like, I've never

00:22:08   had that, but it sounds like the type of argument that would be laced with superstition in some

00:22:14   way, right? Where it's like these things are out to get you.

00:22:17   Yeah, I've never had it. And if anybody asked me, I'd be like, "Well, you know, what are you gonna do?"

00:22:22   Like, we know so little about so many things, like, what am I gonna do?

00:22:26   Like, anything could be it. I could... My water could be making me sick for all I know.

00:22:30   Like, I don't know.

00:22:31   No, I mean, I'm pretty sure that your microwave gives you more radiation that, you know,

00:22:36   I use it every day.

00:22:38   You know, I never use it, so... I don't even have one, actually, so...

00:22:42   Yeah, I just wanted to know if it's, you know, because every time I'm shoving around people,

00:22:47   you know, all my wireless things and my devices. Eventually there's someone, at least one person

00:22:52   who goes like, "Yeah, you know, these things are gonna make you sick."

00:22:55   It's like hiding outside on the balcony.

00:22:57   "I'm not coming in that house, there's too many radio waves."

00:23:01   Yes, pretty much.

00:23:04   So we'll keep an eye on that Kickstarter. I'm happy to see more of this stuff popping up.

00:23:10   I love having my home connected to a bunch of random stuff. I've started using the Home

00:23:16   complication on my Apple watch. It's a good way to get the lights to turn on

00:23:21   enough. Like you just hit the little home complication and it opens up the thing.

00:23:24   It's pretty good. Although it's really weird the way that false touch does

00:23:29   basically nothing on the Apple watch now. You should be able to force touch so you

00:23:34   can change the brightness but you have to hit this little button with an

00:23:37   ellipsis on it. It doesn't make it... they totally ripped out the force touch

00:23:41   in Watch OS 3. It just doesn't do anything anymore. Most of the times all it does is

00:23:46   just makes the screen move. There's no features there anymore.

00:23:50   I'm a little surprised that the Series 2 Watch kept that hardware in it, honestly.

00:23:56   My guess is that it would slowly go away.

00:23:58   It's very strange.

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00:25:02   Encapsular for their support of this show and Relay FM. So Tim Cook has been on a European walkabout,

00:25:10   spiritual walkabout, and having lots of meetings and seeing lots of art. He got an honorary

00:25:16   doctorate, which is pretty cool. But in this walking spiritual tour, he sat down for a couple

00:25:26   interviews, and one of these he got into AR again, which is something that he has talked about

00:25:34   repeatedly on stage and in interviews really for like a year or 18 months now, if not even longer.

00:25:39   this idea that augmented reality is something that he thinks is going to be

00:25:45   a big deal. So in an interview he said this, I'm going to quote this for a second,

00:25:52   "I regard AR as a big idea like the smartphone. The smartphone is for

00:25:57   everyone. We don't have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic or

00:26:01   country or vertical market. It's for everyone. I think AR is that big too. It's

00:26:06   It's huge.

00:26:07   I get excited because of the things that could be done to improve a lot of lives and be entertaining.

00:26:12   I view AR like I view the silicon here in my iPhone.

00:26:15   It's not a product per se, it's a core technology.

00:26:18   But there are things to discover before that technology is good enough for the mainstream.

00:26:22   I do think there can be a lot of things that could really help people out in daily life.

00:26:28   Real life things.

00:26:29   That's why I get so excited about it.

00:26:31   At this point it seems clear to me, I don't think clear to anyone, that Apple is spending

00:26:37   some of that giant R&D budget on AR, right?

00:26:41   There's a pattern to this.

00:26:42   Tim was talking about health sensors and we got the Apple Watch.

00:26:45   They were talking about the car being the ultimate mobile device and then, you know,

00:26:51   rumors of Project Titan started.

00:26:53   And this follows along in that new tradition of Apple, which is very different from the

00:27:02   Steve Jobs Apple.

00:27:04   But I just wonder, like, what's the end game here?

00:27:10   To say that an idea is as big like the smartphone is a bold sentence.

00:27:15   And even the iPad, his vision of the future of computing is not as big as the smartphone.

00:27:21   smartphone has won and he to him is positioning AR to be next in line they

00:27:29   take that mantle from the smartphone potentially and I just have maybe it's a

00:27:34   lack of imagination on my part but I have a hard time seeing what this looks

00:27:37   like as a product I think you should never say it even if you believe it

00:27:42   never say X is gonna be as big as the smartphone don't say like that's a such

00:27:50   a dumb thing to say because there has maybe never been something in technology as big

00:27:57   as a smartphone. You shouldn't say this phrase. You are only setting yourself up for a problem.

00:28:06   Is anything in the near future going to be as big as a revolution as a smartphone? I

00:28:11   really don't see it and I think saying it, going on record saying stuff like this is

00:28:17   a bad idea. I really don't think that Tim should be saying that. He may well believe

00:28:24   that AR in whatever guys Apple are working on will be a big deal, but the last thing

00:28:30   that they considered to be a really big deal was the Apple Watch. And I'm just going to

00:28:34   say this, it's not setting the world on fire. It is a product that I'm sure Apple is very

00:28:40   happy with. I'm sure it's selling more units and making more revenue than many companies,

00:28:46   you know, do in a year, right? Like, I'm sure you could build an entire company around the

00:28:52   revenue that the Apple Watch is generating.

00:28:54   You're listing all of the reasons that we hear every time someone criticizes the Apple

00:29:02   Watch. You're just preemptively…

00:29:04   I'm preemptively preparing myself for that. But I agree with it. Fine. It makes sense.

00:29:12   This is valid to say that the Apple Watch is a success. If they're selling it, they're

00:29:17   making money from it, whatever. But it's not something like the smartphone. It's nowhere

00:29:20   near it. And I just think that it's a silly thing to say, to make these comparisons. You

00:29:31   You can say that, "Oh, I believe that AR is going to be the next big thing."

00:29:35   Or, "I believe that AR is going to be the next big computer revolution."

00:29:40   You can say these things, but you should never call the smartphone into the discussion.

00:29:45   And I know that at this point I'm getting super, like, et-a-pin semantics.

00:29:52   What everything Tim Cook says on record is important because he is the head of the biggest

00:29:59   company in the world.

00:30:01   So every phrase, every word, every sentence should in theory have been confirmed beforehand.

00:30:08   Like he has a team of PR people that work with him to make sure that he's saying the

00:30:12   right thing at the right time, especially when he knows he's going into interviews.

00:30:16   And I just think this is a really weird thing to say.

00:30:19   Yeah, but so taking this at face value.

00:30:22   So Apple is working on an AR.

00:30:24   What could it be?

00:30:26   Aside from dedicated devices, which I feel like we cannot really speculate much about

00:30:31   because it could be anything, right? It could be glasses, could be headsets, could be, you

00:30:35   know, inside a phone, we don't know. I'm just thinking about what could be in iOS and in

00:30:41   the system camera app, because I think if Apple's gonna do AR, they're gonna start from

00:30:46   an obvious place. And I think the camera app is a relatable, you know, piece of software

00:30:52   people know, people use, and I just feel like it could be interesting if some AR features are...

00:30:58   Apple starts doing those inside of the camera, maybe inside of maps. I'm just thinking, like,

00:31:06   imagine if... we talked about this before, but imagine like any kind of exploration feature

00:31:11   that involves maps and the camera could show you overlays of directions. There are already apps

00:31:18   on the app store for this. So I'm just imagining what Apple could do on iOS.

00:31:23   Based on Tim Cook's statements it sounds like

00:31:27   it's not gonna be like a feature of

00:31:30   the camera or like a feature of maps. It's gonna be something more.

00:31:34   And this is, I think, this here lies the problem.

00:31:38   Which is, if you say it's gonna be as big as the smartphone, if you say it's gonna

00:31:44   be, you know, for everyone,

00:31:46   Are you talking about a feature of the iPhone or are you talking about a new product?

00:31:53   Right? And they've been banging this drum for a couple of years now and we have seen nothing, not even an iOS feature.

00:32:03   You know, and especially after Pokemon Go, it seems like Team Cook has been really into AR as a thing to say to journalists,

00:32:12   but we still haven't seen anything. So I wonder if before we get some kind of AR

00:32:20   device, if we ever gonna get some kind of AR device, I wonder if we're gonna get an

00:32:24   AR SDK at WWDC. I think it will make a lot of sense for Apple to start laying

00:32:30   the foundation of an AR platform by letting iOS developers build on top of

00:32:37   the camera APIs for the iPhone with an AR SDK. So that's my theory. Too bad we already

00:32:45   did the predictions this year. I should have added this. Is it too late to add this? It's

00:32:49   too late to add this. Okay. Okay. Fine. I mean, you can make the prediction, but it's

00:32:52   too late to add it to that official set of predictions.

00:32:55   Fine. Did we bet money? I forgot. Did we bet money?

00:32:57   We didn't. Oh, a dinner? We didn't. Ah, that's too bad.

00:32:59   A dinner is good. A dinner. A dinner is good.

00:33:02   In Italy, though. Not in elsewhere. We could just do it at a time when we're all going

00:33:06   to be in the same place as opposed to like everyone has to come to Italy to have dinner

00:33:10   with you.

00:33:11   Like the week of WWDC when it's actually in the news.

00:33:16   Yeah, I tend to agree with you Federico that I think Apple is going to start by baking

00:33:24   some of this stuff into iOS and maybe if it takes off maybe we see some sort of hardware

00:33:29   product, but I think that coming out, you know, there was this crazy rumor at the end

00:33:34   of the year that Apple was going to release an AR headset. I forget who was peddling that.

00:33:41   Oh, it was Robert Scoble, I think. That's right, that's right, because I put a picture

00:33:46   of him in his Google Glass in my 5.0 pixels post. He was saying that the phone was going

00:33:50   to be flexible and it would wrap around your face. No, the phone was going to be transparent.

00:33:56   Yeah, yeah, that's it, that's it. There were two rumors at two separate times. The first

00:34:02   one was the phone was going to be see-through, a see-through iPhone. The second rumor was

00:34:06   Apple is making with the famous brand, what is it called, Carl Zeiss, they're making these

00:34:13   glasses that you put on your face and you see stuff. And the rumor went, "An Apple employee

00:34:20   told me at CES..." It was like a whole story around this rumor. It was kind of amusing,

00:34:27   honestly.

00:34:28   Yeah. Yeah, so that seems like a big jump, right? All of a sudden, out of nowhere, magic

00:34:37   face phone.

00:34:38   Step one to step ten.

00:34:40   Right. So, you know, if Apple's going to start this, it makes sense to build it into iOS,

00:34:46   build it into the iPhone. You know, maybe it's something that only the Plus can do with

00:34:49   its, I mean, who knows, right? It's interesting. I, you know, we all three have experienced

00:34:56   In fact, I think, you know, we did it together and there was lots of screaming and crying

00:35:03   on my part.

00:35:05   That's one thing, right?

00:35:06   This is something totally different.

00:35:07   I have not really experienced AR in any meaningful way.

00:35:10   I've played with a couple apps that kind of do it, but something like the HoloLens, you

00:35:13   know, only very few people have actually experienced that.

00:35:17   And so it's hard for me to wrap my head around this because I haven't had that firsthand

00:35:21   knowledge.

00:35:22   I understand intellectually what it can do,

00:35:25   but I haven't seen what that could mean in the real world.

00:35:28   And that's what Tim Cook's quote is all about, right?

00:35:30   I want to help people we think can help people

00:35:32   in their real life.

00:35:35   And that's a very Apple, very Steve Jobsian thing to say.

00:35:38   We want to make a product, we just don't want

00:35:39   to make technology, and that AR is part of a product.

00:35:42   But again, part of me just sort of weirded out

00:35:46   that Tim Cook talks about future things

00:35:48   in these abstract ways.

00:35:50   But I think it's definitely worth keeping an eye on,

00:35:53   if anything, just because it seems to be

00:35:56   what Apple thinks is next, and that they have

00:35:59   so far set out of the VR space entirely.

00:36:03   And I mean, they don't even have any VR mode on the iPhone,

00:36:06   like the Pixel and these other Android phones have.

00:36:09   That they've completely set that aside

00:36:10   and seem to be focusing on this is very different

00:36:13   than what other companies are doing.

00:36:15   - Yep. - I think that's interesting

00:36:16   just in and of itself.

00:36:17   - It feels to me like if I was gonna maybe try

00:36:19   put a pin in what I think he might be getting towards is something more of like an operating

00:36:24   system which is AR based.

00:36:28   Because he talks about it being not just a feature but like as core to the phones the

00:36:34   silicon it feels like that at least Tim sees this as a not just a feature but like as a

00:36:42   thing across the entire line like this is something that is going to be a big sweeping

00:36:48   move that Apple move towards and I wonder if it is like as core as a part of the operating

00:36:54   system or something all new right like AROS or something you know like that is its own

00:37:00   thing that Apple are trying to develop I don't know but it I would have you know thought

00:37:05   that oh they're just gonna add something they're gonna make an app which looks for the camera

00:37:08   right because what we're spoken about but he seems to be like hyping it up way beyond

00:37:13   that level. So I don't know. And again, it's like, yeah, we're pulling apart a

00:37:18   quote that he gave, but he gave the quote for a reason. Like the quote is given to

00:37:23   start people thinking about what he's thinking about and he's really setting

00:37:27   this one up to be something quite important, but as of right now we don't

00:37:32   know what that's gonna be.

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00:39:43   Apron, a better way to cook. I have had a song stuck in my head for about a week and a half.

00:39:52   Can you sing it for us?

00:39:54   [Sings the theme music]

00:39:56   Alright.

00:39:56   This is the theme music, the in-game music to Stagehand, which is a game that we've all been playing.

00:40:04   Stagehand is from Big Bucket Games who are responsible for the incident and space age,

00:40:10   which are two games that I know that we've all played and really enjoyed.

00:40:14   Federica, you wrote a review about Stagehand. Can you explain what this game is?

00:40:21   They call it a reverse platformer. So think about Mario games, like the

00:40:26   the traditional ones, the 2D Mario games. You control Mario, you run and jump from

00:40:31   left to right. You control the character. In stagehand, the character just goes

00:40:37   automatically. He runs and jumps on his own. You control the stage. So with your

00:40:44   finger you swipe to move the ground around the character. So you swipe to

00:40:49   move platforms up and down and you swipe to remove obstacles that kind of come down from

00:40:56   the "sky". So you remove these barriers and you move the platforms. And it's a very unique

00:41:03   twist and it takes a while to get used to, especially because the game looks and almost

00:41:09   feels like a traditional platformer game, you know, like a Mario game. There are some

00:41:14   graphical elements that look like a Mario game, so your brain is wired to think "ok,

00:41:19   I should control the character", but instead you must control the platforms, and the first

00:41:25   ten minutes, I don't know if it's been the same experience for you guys, but at least

00:41:31   for me the first ten minutes are like "what am I doing here?

00:41:34   What is going on?

00:41:35   This game is unplayable".

00:41:36   Then if you stick with it, it is a surprisingly fun and strategic game, and it's the kind

00:41:43   of game that it's only possible on the iPhone because it's only possible thanks to multi-touch

00:41:48   and it's a very difficult game. There are problems, there are things I would have liked

00:41:54   to see done better but I think it's in pure big-bucket style. It's a very unique iPhone

00:42:01   only, not because of economic decisions but it can only be possible on the smartphone.

00:42:07   It's a very unique iPhone game.

00:42:11   You mentioned about like you kind of have to get into it and you really do because all

00:42:14   of the instincts that you have of a game that looks this way is wrong.

00:42:19   And I, you know, I mean, at least the way that I play eventually is I stopped paying

00:42:23   attention to the character very much and kind of just look at the path that I know I'm creating.

00:42:28   It's a very different way to play these types of games, which I think makes this so fun

00:42:31   because it's, it breaks the convention and it's, it makes it weird and fun in its own

00:42:38   way, but it does make it hard to come to initially.

00:42:43   But I would say give it some time, because when you lock into it, it's awesome.

00:42:48   This is such a fun little game.

00:42:50   It's one of the nicest iOS games that I've played in a while, because it's doing something

00:42:57   that we talk about a lot, which is it's playing to the strengths of the device that it's sitting

00:43:02   on.

00:43:04   You can only really make a game like this when there's a touchscreen in front of you.

00:43:09   Because trying to do something like this with a controller would be really difficult and

00:43:12   it would be a lot more like you would only be able to move one thing at a time.

00:43:16   But with stagehand you can move multiple things at a time.

00:43:20   You know like I might be pushing up one level to make sure the platform's raised and also

00:43:24   raising like something over there so he's got a clear path.

00:43:29   And it's really nice to play on all devices in different ways.

00:43:32   Like I can play it really easily on my iPhone because I have the whole thing in my hand

00:43:36   right there and I can basically get everything with one finger.

00:43:39   But when I'm playing with my iPad I use two hands and I'm moving stuff all over the place.

00:43:43   It is a great game.

00:43:44   I've also put a link in the show notes to a blog post that Cable Sasser wrote.

00:43:49   Cable wrote the theme music that's been in my head constantly and it's a really lovely

00:43:55   post which kind of goes through the creative process and Cable has included like all of

00:43:59   demos that he was creating of the music and it's fun and in a way for me kind of heartwarming

00:44:05   to see the way that somebody would create something like a piece of music like this

00:44:08   to go from humming it into music memos, we found the person that used music memos by

00:44:13   the way, all the way up to like having people playing trumpets in a music studio.

00:44:20   Yes, and that was amazing.

00:44:21   It's a really like, in a way like I kind of get like choked up reading it and looking

00:44:28   at all of the videos and stuff. I just want to say anything the cable does

00:44:32   feels heartwarming to me. Because he's the nicest person on the planet.

00:44:36   There's something about cable that feels like my mother's hug, you know? It's like it makes

00:44:42   me feel nice. If you've never seen Cable's talk at the XOXO

00:44:48   festival in 2013, you should watch it. I was there and I cried and it's amazing. It's a

00:44:55   a very very good talk about kind of burnout and stuff like that so I recommend going and

00:44:59   watching that but yeah I really like stagehand. How much is it Federico?

00:45:05   You know I don't even know. Let me go take a look. I'm going to this website called

00:45:13   Max stories to see if I can get the price from there.

00:45:16   There's no price in my review because I don't put in.

00:45:20   Okay. I tend not to put in prices anymore. Why is that?

00:45:24   Because I feel like if something has value, you're gonna read the review and you're gonna

00:45:29   make up your own mind.

00:45:30   And then you're gonna open the app store and see and compare to what I wrote versus the

00:45:36   actual price and your thoughts.

00:45:38   I feel like putting prices in the review, it kinda... it doesn't put you in the right

00:45:47   mood to read the rest of the story.

00:45:50   Very philosophical.

00:45:51   Because you're just gonna focus on the price.

00:45:54   that I want people to think when they're rating. Same with ratings. I have a whole set of weird

00:46:00   opinions about prices and ratings. Not the best time to talk about them, but that's what

00:46:06   I do. Yeah. Anyway, two dollars. So go get it. It's a great game.

00:46:12   Steven, you've been creating your own game of sorts, I think, over the last few days.

00:46:19   of sorrow. No, is that a new TV series? So Instapaper starting on February 8th had a

00:46:30   extended outage and there's two links in the show notes, one to their blog post and then

00:46:35   one to a post written by Brian Donahue who is the lead developer on Instapaper and has

00:46:46   been for a while now. And basically what happened, it's not super important for our conversation,

00:46:51   their database filled up. There was some information that Brian, his team didn't have, coupled

00:46:58   with Amazon's kind of apparently poor reporting of this error led to Instapaper basically

00:47:03   filling up its database and needing to be migrated. It was down for like 31 hours. It

00:47:09   came back up as of today, February 14th. Instapaper has given us all a Valentine's Day present

00:47:14   of our complete archives again. There was no data loss. It was just down for a long

00:47:18   time and slow to recover. And anytime this sort of thing happens, I get nervous. You

00:47:25   know, I have a lot of data in Instapaper. I've been using it since day one. Like I remember

00:47:30   whenever it was, you know, it was like the first day of the App Store a couple days,

00:47:34   Marco had it out. I didn't know Marco then, but I wanted something like Instapaper. It

00:47:39   fit a need that I had and it's been in the same slot on my home screen ever

00:47:44   since, like forever. And I got nervous, you know, it's been through a couple

00:47:49   changes of hands. He sold it to Betaworks, Pinterest bought it last year, and I was

00:47:56   like, you know, maybe it's time to just explore what else is out there. And this comes on

00:48:00   the heels of, Federico, you talking about Safari reading list. We've talked about that,

00:48:04   the three of us. I use Chrome on the Mac. Safari just doesn't work with

00:48:09   some of the stuff I need to do online so I just use Chrome for everything.

00:48:13   Safari reading list is not really an option for me. I don't want to bounce around between

00:48:17   browsers. So I spent some time looking at Pocket. I have the same problems with Pocket.

00:48:23   I've always had. I don't care for the design. The reading experience isn't

00:48:26   nearly as nice as Instapaper. Although it has improved, it used to be that text was

00:48:30   always fully justified, which is I hate reading. The fonts used to be really poor.

00:48:34   They have improved it greatly, but I still don't really care for some of the aesthetic choices.

00:48:41   And so I spent some time looking at Pinboard.

00:48:45   Again, I've paid for Pinboard forever.

00:48:47   Pinboard, you can save bookmarks basically online.

00:48:51   I pay for the full text search.

00:48:53   So if I'm researching something or I know I'm going to write an article in the future about something,

00:48:57   I'll just send a bunch of stuff to Pinboard and then search for it there later, which is really nice.

00:49:00   and because it caches that content,

00:49:03   it's easy to find later.

00:49:06   And Pinboard, you have a bunch of different

00:49:08   kind of privacy options.

00:49:09   My account is set to like full private mode

00:49:11   so you can't follow me on Pinboard,

00:49:13   you can't see what I send there.

00:49:15   I've chosen that way, I don't wanna use Pinboard

00:49:18   as like a social thing.

00:49:20   Which Pocket, by the way, has turned into a social thing,

00:49:23   which I hate, like I don't want social stuff

00:49:26   in my reader later, so I'm gonna send stuff there,

00:49:28   it when I get a chance and then archive it. So my problem I ran into with

00:49:34   Pinboard it's easy to send stuff to Pinboard and mark it as read later

00:49:39   and so in the Pinboard web on the website there's a tag for read later you

00:49:44   can drill right down to it and see everything you've saved. The issue I ran into

00:49:49   is iOS apps and so it's easy to send stuff to Pinboard. I looked at several

00:49:56   different pinboard clients on iOS the big two that were Pinner and Pushpin a

00:50:03   couple others like PinSwift and there's a couple others. There's a real trend in

00:50:06   the naming of these. Yeah there should be there should someone should make an app

00:50:11   for Pinbird and call it Pinpin I feel like it would be really fun. Just pin

00:50:15   Pinboard board for the pinboard. So it's easy to send stuff to Pinboard you can

00:50:25   do it with Automator or not Automator, geez, with Workflow.

00:50:29   - Whoa.

00:50:30   - Wow.

00:50:31   - He's showing his colors.

00:50:33   - A little bit.

00:50:34   - You can do it with AppleScript.

00:50:35   - Yeah, you can do it with a shell script on your iPhone.

00:50:39   You can do it with Workflow, just how I was doing it.

00:50:42   These apps all have little extensions

00:50:45   and you can send stuff to them.

00:50:46   The problem I'm having is that all of these apps

00:50:49   that I tried, all three or four of them,

00:50:51   are really problematic when it comes to syncing

00:50:55   with Pinboard, and I think there's two reasons.

00:50:57   One, like most of these apps aren't

00:50:58   in super active development.

00:51:00   In fact, one on Twitter basically was like,

00:51:02   yeah, there's some giant bugs, but I can't fix it

00:51:04   'cause there's no money in it.

00:51:05   I understand, I'm sorry if you're in that situation

00:51:07   as a developer, that stinks.

00:51:09   But I need an app that works at the same time.

00:51:13   But because all of them really struggle

00:51:14   to stay in sync with Pinboard,

00:51:15   I think part of it is on Pinboard, maybe it's their API.

00:51:18   Maybe it's the fact that I have like 25,000 things

00:51:20   in Pinboard, maybe it's just too much data.

00:51:23   But they don't sync very reliably.

00:51:24   So I would send something to Pinboard via workflow.

00:51:28   So the Pinboard website would have it like instantly,

00:51:31   but these apps would time out.

00:51:32   They wouldn't sync, they'd sync incorrect data.

00:51:35   And it was just a big nightmare.

00:51:37   This should be something that works very well.

00:51:41   Like Instapaper Sync works great.

00:51:43   Pocket Sync works great.

00:51:44   Pinboard apps don't.

00:51:46   That doesn't really solve my problem.

00:51:48   Pinboard does have a mobile website,

00:51:52   but when you pin it to your home screen,

00:51:55   it breaks their login authentication.

00:51:58   So you try to log in and like the mobile web app,

00:52:02   you know, it's on your home screen

00:52:03   and it kicks you to mobile Safari

00:52:05   and then it won't let you log in.

00:52:06   So there's nothing broken there too.

00:52:08   So I just gave up and went back to Instapaper.

00:52:11   Mainly because Brian's post is so open

00:52:15   and so honest about what happened

00:52:17   and he takes, I mean, and like takes response.

00:52:20   And we've interacted a little bit,

00:52:21   I don't know if you know who I am,

00:52:22   but we've interacted a little bit on Twitter over the years

00:52:24   and he took responsibility for it.

00:52:26   He's open and honest saying they screwed up.

00:52:29   What happened?

00:52:30   They didn't need to go into this detail, but they did.

00:52:32   And that makes me feel better.

00:52:35   The outage is really bad and no doubt Brian and his team

00:52:37   had a terrible week last week.

00:52:39   Comments like mine on Twitter didn't help.

00:52:41   I was upset.

00:52:42   But they were open and honest about it.

00:52:44   And they were, I think he's extremely humble in his writing

00:52:48   that what went wrong, the buck stops with him

00:52:50   as the lead on this, and I think that's great.

00:52:54   And for me, that's enough to understand

00:52:58   that this is a thing, that they are putting

00:53:00   new processes in place, and that clearly Pinterest

00:53:03   still cares about the product because they worked

00:53:06   really hard to get it fixed, and got it fixed faster

00:53:08   than they said they would, and then Brian goes

00:53:10   and writes this thing.

00:53:10   And so all of that together makes me feel better

00:53:13   about the outage, and makes me feel more confident

00:53:17   in the service moving forward.

00:53:19   So for me, I'm not changing.

00:53:21   It was interesting to go spend some time

00:53:23   with these other services over the weekend.

00:53:26   I kinda wish the pinboard thing worked better

00:53:27   because I already have a lot of stuff there.

00:53:29   It'd be nice to consolidate a little bit.

00:53:31   But if you have an outage,

00:53:33   if you have some sort of service disruption,

00:53:36   I think the way Incepaper handled it,

00:53:39   they were slow at first to explain what was going on,

00:53:41   but on the back end, they did a really good job.

00:53:43   And I think that that's a really good case study.

00:53:45   If you run a service or run a website or anything

00:53:48   people depend on and you have a big

00:53:50   outage, this is how you should handle it.

00:53:53   You should be open, you should be honest.

00:53:55   I'm sure it's uncomfortable, right? I'm sure

00:53:56   Brian didn't love writing that, but I'm

00:53:59   glad that he did and because of it I

00:54:01   trust him and I trust that they are

00:54:03   going to make sure this sort of thing

00:54:05   doesn't happen again. But even if you

00:54:08   didn't, you kind of seem a little bit

00:54:10   stuck because nothing gives you what you wanted.

00:54:12   Okay, honestly, I mean, and honestly what I

00:54:14   would probably do is like just use

00:54:16   use Pinboard and just log in through Mobile Safari and be done with it.

00:54:19   But I like Instapaper.

00:54:21   It still provides value to me in my workflow.

00:54:25   I use Instapaper as a holding place for reading and for things I want to link to.

00:54:29   And so it's been part of that workflow for a long, long time.

00:54:34   And I'm glad that I don't have to change it.

00:54:35   You should just stop printing stuff.

00:54:38   I should.

00:54:39   Just print everything.

00:54:40   Definitely.

00:54:41   Yeah.

00:54:42   So 500 pixels has a newsletter.

00:54:44   I never use it.

00:54:45   but I thought about resurrecting it.

00:54:46   But what if I resurrected it as an actual newsletter?

00:54:49   Like, instead of an email newsletter,

00:54:51   I just mail out like a three page newsletter

00:54:53   to everybody once a month.

00:54:55   - Just articles you wanna read.

00:54:57   That's all it is.

00:54:58   So you just print them out on the printer

00:55:00   and then you pick them up and then you photocopy them

00:55:01   and just send them out to everybody.

00:55:03   - Yeah, so you don't have to wait for me to link to it.

00:55:04   You just wait for the mailman to bring it to you.

00:55:07   This is gold.

00:55:08   - These are all the things I was kind of interested in.

00:55:10   Maybe you can read them and if you are, great.

00:55:12   - Yeah, and when you're done,

00:55:13   can use this paper to uh you know start a campfire or something. That's a weird use of the paper.

00:55:18   I don't know. Okay camping on the mind. Why why why do you have camping on the mind? Because we're

00:55:24   doing like we're playing okay we're really off topic now we're playing this like spring break

00:55:28   thing with my wife's family we go camping but uh. Federico have you ever been camping?

00:55:33   He does it every summer. It's it's not traditional camping it's what the Americans call glamping.

00:55:39   It's hipster camping.

00:55:41   It's... I also think we're gonna sell it.

00:55:44   The glamping house.

00:55:47   Not sure yet.

00:55:49   We don't go there quite often anymore.

00:55:52   But I never did. I cannot do camping. What am I, an animal?

00:55:56   You know, live in the woods with tents?

00:55:58   You've never slept in a tent.

00:56:00   Why would I?

00:56:01   Yeah. Music festivals. That's the only time.

00:56:04   I did. That's a good point.

00:56:06   I did sleep when I was 19 right after graduating high school.

00:56:10   We went on a, you know, a graduation trip with my friends.

00:56:14   We went to the Benny Cassie music festival. I slept in a tent for nine days.

00:56:19   We, two of my closest friends,

00:56:24   and it was awful, but we were 19 and we were drunk most of the time.

00:56:28   So that was okay. But as an adult, as an adult,

00:56:36   As an adult, I've never slept in a tent, nor do I intend to, because I don't see the appeal.

00:56:43   It's like those people, it's like they have these crazy hobbies, and they're like, "Oh,

00:56:47   do you want to go walking with us in the woods? Why would I? Am I like a Peregrine going on

00:56:52   some kind of, you know, I just don't, some kind of walk?" Like these people have some

00:56:58   crazy hobbies. It's like I'm comfortable in my city, my house, with my shoes and my car.

00:57:03   It's like, why would I go somewhere in the wilderness just because it's a crazy hobby?

00:57:09   I mean, I get all that, and I'm not like a hardcore camper.

00:57:13   I've been like once in like the last decade.

00:57:14   We're gonna go for spring break with the kids, it'll be fun.

00:57:18   But it is nice, I cannot believe we're talking about this, it's nice to just break away and

00:57:22   like leave all that stuff behind for a weekend.

00:57:24   Is it though?

00:57:25   Is it though?

00:57:26   Is it?

00:57:27   Is it?

00:57:28   Is it?

00:57:29   Every once in a while.

00:57:30   Every once in a while.

00:57:31   Well, I was in a place, I was in the Alps for New Year and there was no internet. So

00:57:38   the first couple of days I was like, okay, I feel like a hippie. There's no internet.

00:57:41   It's cool. I'm liberating myself. I'm cleansing right now. This is great. After a couple of

00:57:47   days it was awful because any basic human activity was cut off because we couldn't look

00:57:55   it up on the internet. It's like, okay, I need to find a doctor. Where do I look? Oh,

00:58:01   need to go to the civic billboard. Jesus, I need to go down to the municipal office to

00:58:10   look up what the doctor is. It's like, I'm living in a medieval age right now. Just let

00:58:17   me go on the internet. It's like, this sucks, this is terrible, I'm never coming back.

00:58:25   I expected the answer no. That was all I expected. Do you like camping Puerto Rico? No I don't.

00:58:33   Let's move on. I did. Oh my god the civic billboard. Oh dear oh dear. I don't like camping.

00:58:42   Never have. Never found it comfortable. It doesn't matter what I do, it's never comfortable

00:58:46   for me. I hate camping. I don't like tents, I don't like sleeping bags. It's just not

00:58:51   thing that I enjoy. But that's cool, Steven, that's great that you're doing it. I'm glad

00:58:56   that you enjoy it. I'm happy that you can do it, you know? I'm happy. Me and Myke, we're

00:59:01   just gonna hug, we're just gonna talk on Skype in our sleepers, it's fine. You can go camping,

00:59:08   we will be CT-ing. That's what we're gonna do. Yep. Okay. Myke, can you just take over

00:59:16   from here. Yes, I will try and wrestle control of the show back. This episode is brought

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00:59:31   your next great idea. And with a unique domain name, award-winning templates and more, you'll

00:59:35   be ready to show it to the world. Maybe you're looking to create an online store to sell

00:59:39   camping supplies. Maybe you want to create a portfolio of photography that you've taken

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00:59:48   It doesn't matter what you want to make, Squarespace has an all-in-one platform that lets you do

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01:00:46   Make your next move, make your next website.

01:00:49   So yesterday evening, the trailer dropped for Planet of the Apps.

01:00:55   In case you do not remember what this is, this is the reality TV show that

01:01:01   Apple are working, well, that a company and Apple are working,

01:01:06   the production company Apple working together to make.

01:01:08   It's going to be an Apple Music.

01:01:10   Eddy Cue was at the Code Conference yesterday.

01:01:13   He had an interview. We'll put some links in the show notes if you want to go check it out.

01:01:16   But I think that probably the biggest thing that came out of this, the thing that we want to talk about,

01:01:19   is the trailer for Planet of the Apps.

01:01:21   So in case you haven't seen it, let me kind of walk through some of it with you.

01:01:24   It is very much as we assumed many, many weeks ago.

01:01:28   This is basically Dragon's Den or Shark Tank, but for applications.

01:01:33   As a panel of judges, so the people that we've heard about, we weren't really sure what their roles were.

01:01:38   Will.I.Am, Jessica Alba, Gary Vaynerchuk and Gwyneth Paltrow.

01:01:41   They are judges as well as like,

01:01:44   I can't remember the exact word that they used, but they're kind of people.

01:01:48   They're advisors. That's what they use.

01:01:50   So what happens is they're all sitting in chairs

01:01:53   and someone comes out and they get on an escalator,

01:01:58   which takes 60 seconds to reach the bottom of the floor.

01:02:00   And on the when they're on the escalator, they give their elevator pitch.

01:02:05   They kind of messed that up a little bit.

01:02:07   Like, I know what they're trying to do, and I actually think that that's a fun visual,

01:02:17   right?

01:02:18   Like, yes, and it adds tension, right?

01:02:21   Because as you're giving your pitch, you're getting closer to the bottom.

01:02:24   Like, I can see it.

01:02:26   You're literally sinking into the floor the longer you talk.

01:02:29   It's like, I know what…

01:02:30   You're descending into hell as you talk.

01:02:32   I can see how this went, right?

01:02:34   There was a meeting at the production staff and they're like, "People are going to get

01:02:37   their elevator pitches.

01:02:38   Great idea!

01:02:39   What if we put it in an elevator?"

01:02:40   Then they consulted somebody who makes sets and they're like, "If you want an elevator

01:02:45   that's constantly in motion that takes 60 seconds to move down, the set needs to be

01:02:49   150 feet high.

01:02:51   It's not going to work."

01:02:52   So they created an escalator.

01:02:54   Fine.

01:02:55   Right?

01:02:56   So, as they're going down the escalator, they get their pitches.

01:03:00   If anybody's interested in the pitch, then they'll say, so one of the advisors will say

01:03:03   they're interested. There's then a bit of back and forth between the advisor and the

01:03:07   person who's making the pitch. And then this person, the contestant, chooses the advisor

01:03:13   that they want to work with. Right. So they show one of the examples of shows there is

01:03:17   somebody that both Gary Vaynerchuk and Will.I.Am want to work with and the person chooses Will.I.Am

01:03:22   and Will.I.Am because of a joke about his shoes. Then after they've chosen the advisors,

01:03:27   this is like stage one of the show and all of the advisors and they've all got their

01:03:32   people are all paired up with the companies that they're going to work with. They will

01:03:35   kind of take them through the process of making the application. They're going to work with

01:03:39   outside successful companies. They call out Uber and Yelp as a couple of companies there.

01:03:44   And I guess they will take it from idea to something that they can show. Once they've

01:03:49   got that, they go back into the pitch room, but this time they're pitching to a VC firm,

01:03:54   Lightspeed Venture Partners, which is such a great name for a company, by the way. Lightspeed

01:03:58   adventure partners. I love the name of that. That's so it sounds so fancy.

01:04:02   Okay. I like it. This is where they start digging into the like the nitty gritty of it. And if the

01:04:09   and then basically the winners of the people that get investment from this company to help them

01:04:15   build their applications. And then Apple will also be featuring these apps on the App Store.

01:04:22   Okay, right now on the internet today on Twitter I have seen a lot of people saying that they

01:04:29   think that this show looks ridiculous and they're really upset about it. I think I'm

01:04:34   going to enjoy this show.

01:04:36   Oh, okay, I agree with Myke. Okay, I was not expecting this. All right, go on.

01:04:42   This is a reality TV show. I can see that and just from everything that's in there,

01:04:48   it's going to be awkward, there's going to be a lot of really dramatic music and people

01:04:51   looking at each other when there's no need. There's going to be all of this.

01:04:54   Slow-mo. Yeah, for sure. Okay.

01:04:56   But I actually tend to enjoy these sort of shows. Like I like Dragon's Den. It's called

01:05:02   Shark Tank. It's basically the same idea. People come and pitch stuff because I like

01:05:06   the fact that there's business to it. And just from the trailer, like you can see, especially

01:05:10   when they're in the VC part, there's a lot of business terms being thrown around. And

01:05:14   I actually find that stuff kind of interesting to see people talk about their businesses

01:05:18   a way to try and convince somebody that they're a good idea. Plus, I like applications. And

01:05:24   this is about apps. There are a couple of people in it that I think are kind of interesting.

01:05:28   I'm really pleased that Gary Vaynerchuk is going to be one of the advisors because we

01:05:33   spoke about this. Like, he is the person that maybe has the closest tie to the type of stuff

01:05:37   that we're interested in, right? Like, he is of the internet. And then, well, I am Jessica

01:05:43   Alber and Gwyneth Paltrow. Like, they are celebrities that are known for other things,

01:05:47   But they also do all own their own companies that make products, right?

01:05:51   They have brands.

01:05:53   They are people that know business.

01:05:57   So I'm fine.

01:05:59   I was just looking it up.

01:06:01   I knew that Gwyneth Paltrow had her own company.

01:06:03   And then I looked up Jessica Alba.

01:06:05   She has her own company.

01:06:06   Like, I'm fine with that.

01:06:07   These are people that they know the businesses that they know.

01:06:10   And I mean, everybody knows what they like from applications these days.

01:06:14   There are so many jokes like, "Oh, is Gwyneth Paltrow going to teach you about code

01:06:17   commits? No, it's not about that, right? Like, I have no time for this type of thing. They

01:06:22   are business advisors helping people try to understand their businesses. I am interested

01:06:27   in seeing how this show will unfold. I saw the trailer and was like, there is so much

01:06:33   cheese in this. I can deal with all of that. I think it's going to be fun.

01:06:38   I have, if you allow me, I have a couple of opening statements that I just feel I want

01:06:43   get out of the way. So like both of you, we're really busy, I think we work very much. And

01:06:53   when it comes, you know, the end of the day, I like to relax with crappy television. It

01:06:59   just, I like to unplug and watch something stupid. And I watch comedies, I watch The

01:07:06   Big Brother, I watch anything crappy that doesn't make me think. Because it makes me

01:07:12   and I worry about the business, I worry about managing a team all day.

01:07:19   When it comes, after dinner, I just want to unwind, I just want to unplug, and I watch stupid stuff.

01:07:25   That said, I saw a lot of people on Twitter, especially of course, complaining about how this doesn't reflect reality.

01:07:37   I honestly don't know what these people were expecting.

01:07:40   I mean, were you expecting Apple to explain the concept of apps to people using, I don't know, an Xcode crash course?

01:07:49   Or were these people expecting Apple to invite people to WWDC?

01:07:54   See, there's a fundamental problem right now, which is a lot of people have no, zero idea what making an app looks like.

01:08:02   looks like. We talked about this a long time ago when we discussed how for a lot

01:08:07   of people any developer works for Apple. People have no idea where apps come from.

01:08:12   So from my perspective, any explanation of the process, even if it's a Hollywood

01:08:19   defied watered-down version of that story, can help change the perception of

01:08:26   people. And we saw that with startups, right? We have Shark Tank in Italy. I'm

01:08:32   I'm not sure what it's called, probably Shark Tank, because we don't change titles.

01:08:35   We're not clever enough.

01:08:37   But it helps people understand what launching a startup is.

01:08:43   And I feel like even if they're not talking about Xcode, they're not talking about code

01:08:49   signing, this is not a documentary.

01:08:52   Apple is not making a documentary for the National Geographic but about developers instead

01:08:56   of bears.

01:08:57   making a reality TV show and that can help people understand the basics, the very basics of the

01:09:04   process in a very television easy consumer format. And I feel like saying "well this doesn't help

01:09:12   app discovery" or "well you know they should talk about the developer website". It misses the point

01:09:18   entirely. What Apple wants to do here is reality television because people watch it and those people

01:09:25   watch it, whether you like it or not. It's millions of people who are not

01:09:29   developers, millions of people who have no idea what making apps look like,

01:09:33   but also people like me who just for once want to watch something stupid. Not

01:09:38   stupid in the sense that it's gonna, you know, set my brain on fire or

01:09:43   it's gonna, you know, make me stupid, but stupid in the sense of easy, I don't need

01:09:49   think about it. It's probably very dramatized as a story. It's, you know, there's slow motion

01:09:56   and epic music. Stupid in the sense of it's not deeply fundamentally intellectual. And, you know,

01:10:06   I don't think making a show, a technical show about, oh, okay, in this week's episode of

01:10:11   Planning of the Apps, we're gonna talk about code signing universal binaries. Okay, people are gonna

01:10:16   understand the App Store for sure, if you do that.

01:10:19   So I think it's gonna be in many, many parts awful.

01:10:24   It's gonna be super dramatized.

01:10:26   There's going to be slow motions, music,

01:10:29   will.i.am cracking bad jokes,

01:10:31   such as developers are the rock stars of right now.

01:10:34   I mean, seriously, it's gonna be terrible in that sense.

01:10:37   But also if it helps people understand

01:10:41   that developers, point one, don't work for Apple,

01:10:44   and two, anyone can become one, I'm gonna call that a victory, because right now we're at zero.

01:10:51   And so even if people understand the very basics, I'm gonna say, "Alright, that's better."

01:10:56   Steven, I expect you are not keen on this.

01:11:01   I'm not, but not for all the nerd angst reasons.

01:11:06   Like, I just don't like this kind of television in any genre.

01:11:09   - That's perfectly acceptable, because it is terrible, right? - That's fine, yeah.

01:11:12   Like there are a lot of things to not like about these sort of shows

01:11:14   But if you can accept them like I think this looks like it's gonna be done quite well like the budget looks pretty high

01:11:21   I've no doubt like it looks super polished and the year they've got in the eddy-q interview

01:11:27   They talk about the history of the TV show like it was pitched to

01:11:29   I'm gonna use air quotes regular television people and they were all interested like it looks like it's me really well done

01:11:36   It's not it's not like you know me in my office with like a single camera talking about Mac books

01:11:41   the

01:11:43   My thing is I just don't care for this sort of programming

01:11:46   but I agree with both of you that like

01:11:49   It's fine that's not gonna be nerdy like can you imagine like, you know, there's some like guy crying on the floor as he learns about

01:11:56   sandboxing like

01:11:59   Like this stuff is gonna happen

01:12:02   They're just not maybe not gonna show all of it

01:12:04   Like I expect that there will be some things that will be relatable like that

01:12:07   they'll try to explain because there has to be some drama there.

01:12:11   Like, I don't know what it's going to look like, but like, I think it's going to be really

01:12:14   interesting as well.

01:12:16   Like the people that observe Apple to see how they want this story to be told.

01:12:22   Like, what do Apple want to say about how apps are made?

01:12:26   Like that sort of stuff is very interesting to me.

01:12:30   And like looking at how these apps are going to be promoted, like, are they going to be

01:12:33   like beta applications?

01:12:34   Because they're going to be, I assume, being made as the show's going on, but they're going

01:12:38   to be in the app store.

01:12:39   Like, I'm just interested to see how this is going to unfold.

01:12:44   I mean, all this has already been done.

01:12:49   They're in post-production, I would assume, at this point.

01:12:52   But that is interesting, you know, the app store component.

01:12:55   So one of the prizes, I guess if you will, is having your app in some sort of new featured

01:13:03   section in the App Store, which is definitely a step beyond Apple's normal editorial control

01:13:10   on the App Store.

01:13:11   I think some people see this like, "Oh my God, why would Apple do this?"

01:13:14   Apple promotes stuff all the time in the App Store.

01:13:15   There's a whole department of people who work on editorial in all the App Stores.

01:13:20   And there's going to be a new section in there as far as we can tell.

01:13:26   That is interesting to me because it is a step beyond what Apple has normally done.

01:13:31   And I saw some people on Twitter complaining that I felt slimy or kind of weird.

01:13:35   And I understand that point of view and I don't totally disagree with it.

01:13:40   There is some weirdness there, but it's not like they're going to stop all their other

01:13:46   editorial initiatives.

01:13:47   It's just going to be something in addition to it in parallel with that other stuff.

01:13:52   And so I understand that point of view, but at the end of the day, I kind of, whatever.

01:13:57   whatever, Apple can do what they want

01:14:00   with that editorial power.

01:14:01   I think at the heart of a lot of this sort of angst

01:14:06   that we're seeing is, Myke, you said it,

01:14:09   what sort of stories Apple wanna tell about making apps,

01:14:13   and I think that the process of pitching to a VC,

01:14:19   having sort of a celebrity VC,

01:14:23   that is how a lot of apps get made,

01:14:26   A lot of apps are back like that.

01:14:28   But a lot of apps aren't.

01:14:29   And I think the people who are responding to this

01:14:32   kind of in a knee-jerk way are people who are like us.

01:14:36   The three of us, we all own media companies.

01:14:41   We're all successful in our careers.

01:14:43   And we're all independent.

01:14:44   And we've done that taking no money from anybody else.

01:14:47   You started Max Stories, Federico, with your own money.

01:14:51   Relay was started, Myke and I poured our life savings

01:14:53   into it.

01:14:54   that is very different from this world

01:14:58   that they are portraying.

01:14:59   However fake it may be or however real it may be aside,

01:15:02   it's just a different world.

01:15:03   And I think some people are just

01:15:04   sort of uncomfortable with that.

01:15:06   But I have no doubt that they're gonna put it on Apple Music

01:15:09   they've got, Eddie Q in his interview said,

01:15:12   more, well past 20 million subscribers now,

01:15:15   hey, they didn't say how many.

01:15:17   I have no doubt it's gonna be successful

01:15:19   'cause people like shows like this.

01:15:20   Like Shark Tank is successful,

01:15:22   It's why it's in all these countries.

01:15:24   This is a successful format that people like.

01:15:28   And I have no doubt that it will be well received

01:15:30   by a lot of Apple Music subscribers who come across

01:15:34   and like, "Oh, what is this?"

01:15:35   And I think it's important to filter out a little bit

01:15:40   some of the nerd circle reaction to it

01:15:41   because it's so specifically targeted

01:15:44   kind of in our world that I think a lot of our reactions

01:15:49   to it aren't going to carry out into the broader audience?

01:15:53   - I feel like the closer Apple moves

01:15:58   towards the consumer space,

01:16:00   and it starts making this mainstream,

01:16:03   I don't wanna say content, but that's what it is, right?

01:16:06   With Carpool Karaoke or with Planet of the Apps,

01:16:11   they invite Drake on stage, they have Beats 1.

01:16:14   They're not the Apple, they're not just maybe

01:16:17   the Apple making Safari reading list or making the OS anymore.

01:16:24   They're trying to position at least one part of the business

01:16:27   as a more lifestyle/media company.

01:16:32   And I feel like a lot of the people who have been observing

01:16:36   Apple, like us, that's tough to accept, right?

01:16:41   That they're becoming this sort of Hollywood presence and force

01:16:45   much more than in the past.

01:16:48   And so when you see Drake on stage at WWDC,

01:16:50   when you see Eddie Q talking about this Shark Tank-like

01:16:55   television show, or Apple Music starting

01:16:58   to feature TV series and more video content,

01:17:02   Apple pouring money into original content,

01:17:04   that makes a lot of people uneasy.

01:17:06   And I think it's going to be a bigger theme that we'll

01:17:09   see going forward of the people who observe Apple are going

01:17:13   to sort of see Apple in a different way and maybe be a little put off by what the company

01:17:20   does.

01:17:21   I think one last thing I want to say on this in regards to the types of apps that are being

01:17:27   made here.

01:17:28   They are apps, but I think what we're going to end up seeing is services.

01:17:32   It's people creating companies, not applications here.

01:17:35   But those companies, they interface with their customers via apps.

01:17:39   This isn't somebody who is making stagehand, right?

01:17:43   This isn't someone who is making a pinboard client.

01:17:47   This is a company, one of the ones that they showed was, I'm interested to know more about

01:17:52   it, but an application that can suggest to you via AI about shopping habits.

01:17:59   These are people that are creating services, but they're services, the interface is applications.

01:18:05   I think that that's a thing that's worth pointing out because that is a different business model

01:18:10   and that business model does need venture capital and that's what the show is based

01:18:16   around.

01:18:17   It's not like that we're going to watch people building applications, we're watching people

01:18:21   build companies and looking at what that ends up looking like.

01:18:26   So that's a very good point.

01:18:27   Planet of the Apps will be premiering on Apple Music in the next few months.

01:18:32   There's going to be a companion app, like a second screen type app where people can

01:18:36   vote on whether they think the app ideas are interesting as they're being pitched.

01:18:39   You can swipe left, swipe right, you can find out more about the applications.

01:18:43   All of these big shows now they have companion apps, right?

01:18:46   Especially reality television shows.

01:18:48   But it is interesting that these things usually work when the show is live because it's polling

01:18:53   this data, but that's not going to be the case.

01:18:55   They will be released weekly, I guess at a certain time, but there isn't a live TV component

01:19:00   to these.

01:19:01   It doesn't look like that anyway.

01:19:02   And no ads.

01:19:03   I don't know why anybody expected there would be ads, but there's no ads because it's part

01:19:07   of a paid service.

01:19:09   So that's Planet of the Apps, but that wasn't all.

01:19:12   Q was questioned by Peter Caffery.

01:19:14   He spoke about a couple of other things that are relatively interesting.

01:19:18   He said that Apple is not interested in buying up content like Netflix.

01:19:21   They right now just want to help create original programming that fit the sensibilities that

01:19:26   they have.

01:19:28   were a couple of questions asked around podcasting and Q said that he you know

01:19:33   he can say that there is a resurgence right now the iTunes needs to do more

01:19:38   they want to do more he seemed to dodge a question about like the fact that

01:19:42   Gimlet had asked via Peter Kafka if they can get information about the people to

01:19:46   subscribe this is basically pulling up that thing that happened in the New York

01:19:51   Times a while ago Eddie shook that off and basically said we've got some stuff

01:19:57   that we're working on.

01:20:00   I found that particularly interesting.

01:20:02   I mean, granted, you and I own a podcast production company, but I really feel like that, so if

01:20:08   you subscribed, is this even so accurate, Federico?

01:20:11   At least in the newsstand days, if you subscribed to a magazine through the newsstand, you could

01:20:15   elect to send some very basic kind of information to that magazine publisher.

01:20:22   And to date, I think that's the only exception to Apple's "you don't know who your customers

01:20:28   are" rule.

01:20:29   It's the only hole poked through that wall.

01:20:33   And I would imagine that Apple only did it for magazine people because they had to.

01:20:38   That for some meeting and some planning somewhere, that just had to happen.

01:20:43   I don't see them adding that to podcasting and iTunes.

01:20:47   And frankly, I don't want it.

01:20:49   And it wouldn't be that helpful to us.

01:20:51   And so I found that question, I definitely rolled my eyes a little bit at that because

01:20:56   there are people who want that in our industry.

01:20:59   I think that's not the direction Apple should go and frankly I don't think it's the direction

01:21:02   they will go because I really feel like magazines are that exception that they probably didn't

01:21:07   even want to do but they had to.

01:21:10   But I did find that interesting.

01:21:13   Also our friend Aaron Minkie who produces the LoRa podcast got a shout out which is

01:21:17   pretty cool.

01:21:18   a very successful show that you should check out.

01:21:21   - Yep, 'cause it's going to Amazon.

01:21:23   They're making a TV show, it's like a whole big thing.

01:21:26   It's incredible. - Crazy.

01:21:27   There's some other stuff in this article,

01:21:31   or in this interview, Q talked about some of their initial

01:21:33   like iTunes music negotiations

01:21:36   and how they didn't go very well at first.

01:21:39   They got pushed on the Amazon Prime not being there

01:21:44   and Q basically was like, "We have an open platform."

01:21:47   They're welcome any time, which has really cracked me up.

01:21:52   And he was asked about Siri in this context of Amazon

01:21:58   and their products.

01:22:01   And he repeated the line that Phil Schiller has said

01:22:04   that we've seen in some of the Apple media

01:22:06   that the best assistant is the one you carry with you.

01:22:09   And they keep bringing that line out,

01:22:12   and I don't know if they're not working on a cylinder

01:22:14   with Siri inside of it or that they are and they're just being coy about it, but they just keep

01:22:20   rerunning that line and I think every time they say it it feels more and more dated because

01:22:25   you can

01:22:27   do so much of these other items and

01:22:29   the only thing that Amazon would have to do to like blow that out of the water is

01:22:35   create an app on the iPhone that you open it and you tap and you're talking to their

01:22:40   their service and there's already a third-party app that does that that I use frequently it's pretty good, but

01:22:46   it just seems like a really like a thin ledge to stand on to say that

01:22:51   Because Siri is portable with you and on your watch and on your phone that makes it better like that's true

01:22:56   Like it is nice to have the same thing with you all the time

01:22:58   But if it doesn't work as well something else and that something else could be on your platform easily

01:23:04   it's kind of nice but um

01:23:08   All in all you know it's it's an Apple executive interview. They're not sharing much

01:23:12   They were remarkably open about the process of creating the show and I find I find like the process of media interesting even though the

01:23:19   Show is not for me

01:23:20   I think that the way they got to the point where they're doing this show is

01:23:25   Interesting and they say they're gonna do more of it

01:23:27   So I think that we will continue to see Apple music sort of

01:23:30   Blossom and and spread out into these other areas which is it's exciting right there

01:23:36   They're competing with Netflix and Amazon now in this new space.

01:23:40   And I think that's pretty cool.

01:23:41   Yeah, I would call it more interesting and exciting.

01:23:44   Like, I'm still coming at this with a little bit of trepidation.

01:23:49   I know that I know the reason they're doing this, like, is to try and sell Apple

01:23:55   music, but like at the same time, I'm also asking the question, why a lot still?

01:24:00   Which is I'm just in a little bit of a conflict about it.

01:24:04   And if like they also show Carpool Karaoke, they've had some trailers and the trailers look pretty good.

01:24:10   So I'm kind of like I know that I will feel how I will feel about this when I actually watch the first episodes of both of these shows.

01:24:17   And if they're both really good then fine, like keep going for it.

01:24:21   But if they're underwhelming it's going to be like why are you doing this, you know?

01:24:26   If Apple were not truly trying to make like excellent programming,

01:24:33   I feel like that it's just why, you know, like why? That's my feeling on it and it's quite a

01:24:41   complex feeling but I'm looking forward to Planet of the Apps. I'm interested in Cardpool Karaoke

01:24:48   just because some of the pairings that they show look kind of fun because but it's not all James

01:24:53   Corden which is upsetting to me. I think he's only in one of them because I think he makes the show

01:24:58   but we spoke about that in the past but yeah we've got links to all that in the show notes if you

01:25:01   If you want to check it out and the rest of our notes are over at relay.fm/connected/129

01:25:07   for this week's show.

01:25:08   If you want to find us online as a person you can do that.

01:25:10   You can go to maxstories.net for Federico's work.

01:25:13   He is @Vittici on Twitter, V I T I C C I. Stephen is at ISMH and he's at 512pixels.net

01:25:19   and I am @imike.

01:25:22   Thanks again to our sponsors this week's episode for helping support the show, Encapsular,

01:25:26   Blue Apron and Squarespace and as always thank you for listening.

01:25:30   Until then, say goodbye guys.

01:25:31   Arrivederci. Adios.