Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (classical music)

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

00:00:10 ◼   ► The show is brought to you this week

00:00:11 ◼   ► by our two sponsors, Casper and Melrout.

00:00:15 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett, and I'm joined

00:00:17 ◼   ► across the internet, Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:19 ◼   ► - Hello, Stephen, hi.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Hey, buddy.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - I am coming to you from across the world

00:00:24 ◼   ► and the internet, so.

00:00:26 ◼   ► - It's, do you ever have those moments

00:00:28 ◼   ► just think about how absurd all this is? Just like that we do this? It's so strange.

00:00:34 ◼   ► It's kind of romantic even I would say. Wow. A friend of mine is visiting the United States

00:00:40 ◼   ► and he was posting pictures on Facebook and I think I saw a picture of Michael Jackson's

00:00:47 ◼   ► house. What's the one in Memphis? Is that Michael Jackson's? It's Elvis. So he posted

00:00:53 ◼   ► a picture of Elvis and I was like the first thing I thought was not oh cool my friend

00:00:57 ◼   ► is checking out you know Elvis house I was like that's Stevens town.

00:01:02 ◼   ► It's true.

00:01:04 ◼   ► Yeah you changed my perception of Memphis because I associate Memphis with you now.

00:01:11 ◼   ► I took Myke to Graceland. So I'd never been until maybe like five years ago when Myke

00:01:17 ◼   ► came to Memphis and we went together and if you ever come visit me which you totally should

00:01:23 ◼   ► we will go. It is the most surreal tour you'll ever... It is just super strange.

00:01:31 ◼   ► It's very, very, very weird. We went on a Sunday morning and it was like us and

00:01:36 ◼   ► just buses full of tourists. Which is super weird. Like, I'm sure you feel the

00:01:42 ◼   ► same way in Rome, right? Like you see tourist groups and you kind of roll your

00:01:45 ◼   ► eyes. Like it's sort of a strange thing. But we went and it was just like really,

00:01:50 ◼   ► really weird. Was Myke taking pictures? Myke was taking pictures. I'll maybe see if I

00:01:56 ◼   ► find a picture of us and put it in the show notes. Yeah, I hear it's not with us because

00:02:00 ◼   ► he's working on his own Graceland for, you know, when the time will come. Yeah, I mean,

00:02:07 ◼   ► he said there's a plumber coming over, so I assume they're, you know, they're almost

00:02:10 ◼   ► finalizing everything. I guess. The plumber's been there for like eight hours, so I don't

00:02:14 ◼   ► think it's going well. Yeah, well, I mean, Myke's Graceland is a big place, so, you know,

00:02:19 ◼   ► a lot of hours. It's true. Okay, so we should do some follow-up and then we'll get into

00:02:24 ◼   ► things. There are some claims out that in early December we will see a limited run of

00:02:32 ◼   ► AirPods for the first time. So they were due out last month. You will remember Apple made

00:02:37 ◼   ► a statement saying, "They're not quite ready. We need a little more time." So, BRB. And

00:02:43 ◼   ► I don't know if this is true or not, but I would like it for it to be true. As we spoke

00:02:47 ◼   ► about I would like to order these things.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Yeah I mean we got no other official details from Apple just still coming soon. And I don't

00:02:57 ◼   ► understand like a limited run doesn't mean like only some regions get the airports only

00:03:01 ◼   ► some Apple source could be maybe the problem was a production issue and they want to release

00:03:06 ◼   ► them before the end of the year and then you know they're gonna have wider availability

00:03:10 ◼   ► next year could be or it could be January everywhere. This is a rumor from some supply

00:03:15 ◼   ► chain sources I guess, or from an Apple store retail guy. Is that the one from the Apple

00:03:19 ◼   ► store retail person who talked to a friend of your uncle or cousin?

00:03:23 ◼   ► I think so, yeah. Who knows?

00:03:25 ◼   ► That's the story. Okay. Yeah, we'll see.

00:03:28 ◼   ► We'll see. So we will keep tabs on that. Also in the news, something that we've talked

00:03:34 ◼   ► about in the past, this rumor that keeps popping up of like three iPad sizes, so you would

00:03:40 ◼   ► have 9.7 and then 10.9 and then the big one. I guess 4 if you include the

00:03:45 ◼   ► many that Apple apparently still makes. This rumor kind of collides those things

00:03:51 ◼   ► a little bit and sort of the TLDR is that the new this new 10.9 inch model is

00:03:57 ◼   ► basically the 9.7 without any bezels or very small bezels so you know Apple

00:04:03 ◼   ► names their sizes based on the screen size not the device size itself because

00:04:08 ◼   ► you have the bezels and the aluminum and everything. But this would push the iPad into this territory

00:04:15 ◼   ► that we talked about, the unicorn iPhone with no home button, no bezels, all glass. And

00:04:23 ◼   ► this rumor says, well, the iPad may beat it there as early as the spring. What do you

00:04:29 ◼   ► think about this? Because I have lots of questions.

00:04:32 ◼   ► This is interesting, right? Because we're not just talking about a different size. They're

00:04:36 ◼   ► also kind of implying, without bezels, so that what does it happen with the home button?

00:04:41 ◼   ► Do we get an iPad that ditches the home button before the iPhone does? And if it truly is

00:04:48 ◼   ► an iPad with a virtual home button, how does it work in terms of software? Does Apple use

00:04:55 ◼   ► gestures to navigate the iPad, navigate between apps? And it just, the idea sounds amazing

00:05:02 ◼   ► on paper, right? To have like a single piece of glass, large beautiful display that you're

00:05:07 ◼   ► holding in your hands and you don't see the bezels. So in theory that sounds incredible.

00:05:12 ◼   ► But in practice I wonder how is it going to work? Because I already have so many doubts

00:05:19 ◼   ► about the iPhone, but maybe the part in me that wants to believe this rumor, maybe it's

00:05:26 ◼   ► easier for Apple to start doing this on the iPad which is beautiful, which is a beautiful

00:05:32 ◼   ► device to look at in terms of screen size which would make even more of an impression,

00:05:37 ◼   ► but it's also bigger than the iPhone, so it maybe allows Apple to experiment with an

00:05:44 ◼   ► easier device if it makes sense. It must be trickier on the iPhone which is smaller and

00:05:51 ◼   ► everything is super compact, but maybe on the iPad Pro you have a little more leverage

00:05:56 ◼   ► in terms of how much you can arrange under the display. But this is just a crazy theory.

00:06:02 ◼   ► In practice, are we really looking at an iPad that is only a piece of glass with no home

00:06:07 ◼   ► button? How do you make it work? How do you explain that to people? How is that a Pro

00:06:16 ◼   ► feature, I mean I guess you could push the iPad as a piece of glass without bezels. That

00:06:22 ◼   ► could be a selling point for creatives, for artists and in general for people who want

00:06:29 ◼   ► to have the biggest display, the biggest impact on an iPad. That could make sense. But I also,

00:06:37 ◼   ► again, I have many questions about how in practice it's gonna work. How is it gonna

00:06:43 ◼   ► work with Touch ID? How is it going to work if you have some software issue and then you're

00:06:47 ◼   ► stuck with a physical home button? It's true that we're already moving past the traditional

00:06:53 ◼   ► home button with the iPhone 7. I'm both excited by the idea, I think it makes sense on a bunch

00:07:01 ◼   ► of different levels, and I think it's going to be, if it's really just a piece of glass

00:07:07 ◼   ► without bezels and without buttons, it's going to be a beautiful device. But on the other

00:07:11 ◼   ► hand I'm also concerned that it's going to be difficult in a bunch of other ways.

00:07:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I agree with all of that and I mean I think back to the the iPad

00:07:23 ◼   ► Mini and then the iPad Air that you know the bezels had been even all the way

00:07:26 ◼   ► around and then now they're skidding on the side which is where we've been for a

00:07:29 ◼   ► while now and just how much better that felt and how old and janky the old

00:07:36 ◼   ► old design felt like instantly.

00:07:39 ◼   ► This idea of just having a piece of glass

00:07:42 ◼   ► really feels like the future,

00:07:43 ◼   ► but there's some real usability questions I have.

00:07:46 ◼   ► They've gotten a lot better at the thumb detection

00:07:50 ◼   ► on the sides if you're holding and scrolling,

00:07:51 ◼   ► your thumb doesn't stop to scroll.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Obviously that would have to be really bulletproof

00:07:56 ◼   ► because these things are too big,

00:07:58 ◼   ► at least for me, I can't palm a 9.7 inch iPad.

00:08:03 ◼   ► I can iPad mini, but I gotta hold it with my thumb around the front and so

00:08:08 ◼   ► That's where technology has to be like perfect in a situation like this or just be really frustrating to use right?

00:08:15 ◼   ► It's like you're just trying to use your your iPad and your you know

00:08:18 ◼   ► You can't because you have to hold it then you're like balancing it and you drop it. I don't know

00:08:22 ◼   ► I would find it interesting if the iPad beats the iPhone here because the iPhone is the the product

00:08:30 ◼   ► You know, maybe it's it's like you say the iPhone would be harder to do because everything's smaller

00:08:34 ◼   ► and so this is like a proof of concept like a proving ground for the technology, but

00:08:39 ◼   ► So many questions

00:08:44 ◼   ► But it does seem to gel with what you've been saying that this is the iPad is going to be on a spring cycle

00:08:50 ◼   ► From now on which I you know now it seems

00:08:53 ◼   ► The fall is over. They're not doing any any more stuff between now the end of the year

00:08:59 ◼   ► And I don't think they can go all the way until the fall again with the iPad so I think I think this like

00:09:04 ◼   ► February March April time frame is is sort of

00:09:08 ◼   ► Home for the iPad now and I for one I'm glad like I think the iPad

00:09:14 ◼   ► needs some breathing room from the iPhone as far as like product cycle stuff and

00:09:19 ◼   ► It of course gives all the Apple press including me and you

00:09:25 ◼   ► something to talk about this spring besides just WWC predictions for months and months.

00:09:32 ◼   ► So I think you get the emoji with sunglasses. I think that's you right now.

00:09:39 ◼   ► I mean, the timeframe seems to be holding up. And again, the last time I checked, the

00:09:47 ◼   ► idea seemed to be that there's some big software features coming to the iPad and coming to

00:09:53 ◼   ► the iPad Pro line and I don't know yet the extent of those changes or the details of

00:10:00 ◼   ► those changes. I wouldn't be surprised, this is my personal speculation, I wouldn't

00:10:03 ◼   ► be surprised if we're looking at a home screen revamp or multitasking changes in terms

00:10:09 ◼   ► of split view and slide over seems to be a given, but I feel like Apple is planning a

00:10:13 ◼   ► really big update. And while last year with iOS 9.3 we saw big changes to education, I

00:10:21 ◼   ► I feel like we're going to have a repeat of that style, but only big changes for everyone,

00:10:27 ◼   ► not just educators and school institutions. I feel like it's going to be the same style

00:10:32 ◼   ► of last year when we got an announcement in January and a release in March, I think. So

00:10:38 ◼   ► I'm curious to see, does Apple make it to the end of the year with no new announcements

00:10:44 ◼   ► besides what we saw today. And then we're looking at a January announcement of some

00:10:51 ◼   ► kind of Apple event maybe, or new iPads announced, or are we just gonna get a web page about

00:10:57 ◼   ► 10.3 with the developer beta, and then a proper announcement in the spring with an iPad event

00:11:04 ◼   ► where they also show off the new hardware. Could be. But it definitely seems like we're

00:11:11 ◼   ► gonna have, as we heard last year, we're gonna have an iPad release cycle separate

00:11:17 ◼   ► from the iPhone. I would love to see some of those education

00:11:21 ◼   ► features trickle down, especially the multiple user deal. So a situation I have right now

00:11:26 ◼   ► at home, my kids' school, they have a lot of their homework is in this, it's a web

00:11:35 ◼   ► app that runs on the iPad, it's actually pretty nice. So my kids are doing homework

00:11:39 ◼   ► on the iPad and right now we have three iPads in the house.

00:11:42 ◼   ► We have My Pro, we have my wife's iPad Air 2,

00:11:46 ◼   ► and then I have an iPad Mini 2 that the kids have just,

00:11:51 ◼   ► we've had it just like the random kid iPad.

00:11:53 ◼   ► But now we're in a situation where both kids

00:11:55 ◼   ► need one for school and so like they're using

00:11:58 ◼   ► my wife's iPad Air, some if they're not sharing

00:12:01 ◼   ► or they're using her MacBook for it,

00:12:03 ◼   ► and multiple users would be really nice

00:12:07 ◼   ► because you would be able to have the kids get on there

00:12:10 ◼   ► and do their thing and not deleting her email

00:12:14 ◼   ► or unassigned after something.

00:12:16 ◼   ► So we've even talked about it,

00:12:20 ◼   ► about can you do multiple users?

00:12:22 ◼   ► Like, oh no, not yet.

00:12:23 ◼   ► And you can kind of fake it.

00:12:24 ◼   ► Like if you run an OSN server

00:12:26 ◼   ► and basically trick the iPad into that

00:12:28 ◼   ► you're an education client, but it'd be great to have.

00:12:33 ◼   ► and I'm holding out until we see what's coming in the spring

00:12:38 ◼   ► before I buy another iPad Mini.

00:12:39 ◼   ► Because if they do multiple users, that would get us by.

00:12:42 ◼   ► And they could get a lot of people by in that situation

00:12:44 ◼   ► where you share an iPad with a spouse

00:12:46 ◼   ► or a significant other or your kid,

00:12:48 ◼   ► and you don't, you know, it's like a computer.

00:12:51 ◼   ► You want your stuff to kind of be in your area

00:12:54 ◼   ► and their stuff in theirs.

00:12:55 ◼   ► So I, for one, would be super pumped if that made it

00:13:00 ◼   ► into a future version of iOS 10 for the public.

00:13:04 ◼   ► But who knows?

00:13:06 ◼   ► Right now it's so dependent on having a server

00:13:08 ◼   ► and having some infrastructure that most people don't have.

00:13:10 ◼   ► They'd have to, I guess, port all that stuff to iCloud

00:13:13 ◼   ► or something.

00:13:13 ◼   ► But it'd be fun.

00:13:17 ◼   ► So up next, we have a release date for Super Mario Run.

00:13:23 ◼   ► Finally.

00:13:25 ◼   ► It's coming out next month on December 15th on the App Store.

00:13:28 ◼   ► It's gonna be a global launch in 151 countries, which should be every country where the App Store is available.

00:13:34 ◼   ► It's gonna be a free download and as Nintendo previously announced, there's going to be a single In-App Purchase to unlock all content.

00:13:40 ◼   ► We didn't know the pricing before, now Nintendo this morning and the App Store account on Twitter,

00:13:45 ◼   ► they revealed it's going to be a $9.99 In-App Purchase to unlock all of the three game modes in Super Mario Run, every level.

00:13:55 ◼   ► no recurring fees, no subscriptions, no ads, hopefully.

00:13:58 ◼   ► And this is it, free download, $10 to unlock everything,

00:14:02 ◼   ► it's coming out in a month.

00:14:03 ◼   ► It's gonna be awesome.

00:14:04 ◼   ► - I'm excited.

00:14:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, me too.

00:14:06 ◼   ► I'm gonna spend so much time playing this game.

00:14:09 ◼   ► - All right, so we have a bunch of topics this week,

00:14:11 ◼   ► but first I wanna tell you about our first sponsor this week

00:14:15 ◼   ► which is Casper.

00:14:18 ◼   ► Casper is a company that is focused on sleep.

00:14:23 ◼   ► Which like, I just love that sentence,

00:14:24 ◼   ► the company's devoted to making people have a better night's rest. They have created one

00:14:30 ◼   ► perfect mattress and they sell it directly to consumers, eliminating the weird commission-driven

00:14:35 ◼   ► inflated prices thing you get when you go and buy a mattress. Because the mattress industry

00:14:41 ◼   ► is being revolutionized by Casper because they're cutting the cost of dealing with

00:14:45 ◼   ► resellers and showrooms and passing that savings directly to us, the consumers.

00:14:51 ◼   ► It's an award-winning mattress that was developed in-house

00:14:53 ◼   ► that has a sleek design and is delivered in an impossibly small box.

00:14:58 ◼   ► I mean, this thing comes in, you slide it in your bedroom, you cut it open,

00:15:00 ◼   ► it just sucks all the air out of the room and expands.

00:15:03 ◼   ► It's really amazing.

00:15:04 ◼   ► In fact, I periscoped the opening of ours because I found it so much fun.

00:15:08 ◼   ► In addition to this mattress,

00:15:10 ◼   ► Casper now also offers an adaptive pillow and soft, breathable sheets.

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00:15:17 ◼   ► An in-house team of engineers spent thousands of hours

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00:15:32 ◼   ► breathable so you can help regulate your temperature throughout the night.

00:15:36 ◼   ► Mattresses are expensive. They can often cost well over $1,500 but the Casper

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00:16:23 ◼   ► Terms and conditions apply.

00:16:24 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Casper for their support of this show and all of Relay FM.

00:16:28 ◼   ► So I wake up, I was telling you before we started recording, I wake up and I'm, you

00:16:33 ◼   ► know, kind of just on my phone looking through Twitter and all of a sudden people are like

00:16:36 ◼   ► paging ISMAs, like, where is he?

00:16:38 ◼   ► Wake up.

00:16:40 ◼   ► Apple made a press announcement this morning. Yes that they are starting tomorrow going to be selling a book

00:16:47 ◼   ► Highlighting the last 20 years of Apple design. So basically starting the way I read it starting at the iMac g3

00:16:54 ◼   ► which I know a few things about and it is

00:16:58 ◼   ► going to be

00:17:01 ◼   ► Full of like 450 photographs. It's going to be available in two sizes

00:17:07 ◼   ► basically 10 by 12 at $199, 13 by 16 inches at $299, and limited availability in retail.

00:17:17 ◼   ► This is A) exciting for me because I like this stuff and like people on Twitter are

00:17:22 ◼   ► like, "I don't know who to spend money on this. I'm spending money on this." But

00:17:25 ◼   ► I'm me. It's right in my wheelhouse.

00:17:28 ◼   ► It's like it's gonna be like a new, I don't know, like the book that you buy multiple

00:17:34 ◼   ► versions and you just place around the house in multiple spots. It's going to be like

00:17:39 ◼   ► the new kitchen coffee table book for you.

00:17:42 ◼   ► As excited as I am about it and as excited as some Apple fans are, and I totally understand

00:17:48 ◼   ► that people are thinking this is nuts because it is a lot of money, what is going on here?

00:17:54 ◼   ► So this is, you know, Apple doesn't look back very often. They did their 40 years and

00:18:01 ◼   ► 40 seconds video last year.

00:18:03 ◼   ► It was pretty easy to write that off as like,

00:18:06 ◼   ► oh, where they're leaving town hall behind

00:18:09 ◼   ► and they wanna kinda remember what it's given the company.

00:18:13 ◼   ► But this is something different.

00:18:17 ◼   ► And I would argue it's not really even Apple history.

00:18:20 ◼   ► This is Johnny Ive history.

00:18:22 ◼   ► And yes, he did design stuff before the iMac,

00:18:25 ◼   ► but the iMac was the big hit.

00:18:28 ◼   ► This feels, to me at least,

00:18:30 ◼   ► want to see what you think about this. This feels a little bit like a Johnny

00:18:34 ◼   ► Ive like farewell tour like when a band puts out the their best of record you

00:18:39 ◼   ► kind of know they're done right like? I've been thinking about this. Okay. So

00:18:44 ◼   ► I've been thinking about the reasons why why a band does the greatest hits and I

00:18:48 ◼   ► came up with three reasons I think. One is the farewell tour like they're saying

00:18:53 ◼   ► goodbye and they want to be remembered with their best songs. The second reason

00:18:57 ◼   ► is sometimes you see a band doing the greatest hits because they want to sort of have a clean

00:19:02 ◼   ► slate, so they do the greatest hits and then they start doing something new. Whether they

00:19:06 ◼   ► switch genres or they switch the lineup of the band, they do the greatest hits and then

00:19:11 ◼   ► they continue doing something different. And then there's the money grab, when they just

00:19:16 ◼   ► want to make a quick buck and they release the greatest hits with minimum work and they

00:19:22 ◼   ► put together a bunch of songs, they don't do any remasters, they just do a fancy booklet

00:19:26 ◼   ► maybe, with some really inexpensive extras and they sell you for like $15 or $20. And

00:19:34 ◼   ► those are the three reasons. Now I don't see Apple having to make a quick buck from

00:19:37 ◼   ► a book, you know, because they have a lot of money. So the two reasons that I'm left

00:19:44 ◼   ► wondering about is, is Johnny Ive saying goodbye or is Johnny Ive ready for something new and

00:19:50 ◼   ► he wants to have this kind of compendium, if you will, this kind of collection about

00:19:55 ◼   ► everything before he moves on to the next big thing. And I honestly don't know because

00:20:01 ◼   ► on the one hand I'm kind of concerned about, you know, being to, and you wrote this on

00:20:06 ◼   ► your post on 512, Apple has been more in touch with its past lately, for these past few years

00:20:12 ◼   ► we've seen the Mac celebration, you know, with 20 years of Macintosh, there was some

00:20:18 ◼   ► kind of other video last year, the callout to old Macs at the Mac event, and it seems

00:20:24 ◼   ► seems like the general feeling is we're celebrating, we're thinking about our past more. And

00:20:30 ◼   ► it's cool, you know, every once in a while, but when I woke up this morning and I saw

00:20:36 ◼   ► the press release, my first reaction was, "Oh, cool, they're going to have another

00:20:40 ◼   ► web page," you know, when I saw "Designed by Apple in California." My first reaction

00:20:44 ◼   ► is, "It's going to be a web page or a video." And instead it's going to be…

00:20:47 ◼   ► not a $300 book. It's gonna be a $300 book and that makes me think, you know, it's

00:20:55 ◼   ► cool to be nostalgic but it's another thing to make a $200 book for how beautiful it must

00:21:02 ◼   ► be, you know, great photos, whatever. There's a description of the, of course, of the engineering

00:21:08 ◼   ► process behind the making of the book which I really don't want to read because I know

00:21:13 ◼   ► half of these words. But I'm kind of concerned on the other hand because, you know, it's,

00:21:20 ◼   ► you know, when you're being too nostalgic, when you're thinking too much about your past,

00:21:27 ◼   ► that's not, you know, something that I envision Apple doing often. So I'm kind of torn between

00:21:33 ◼   ► to stances here. It's nice, it's beautiful, Apple products and Apple design has to be

00:21:43 ◼   ► celebrated because it's unlike anything else. But also, Apple is very famously the company

00:21:48 ◼   ► who doesn't like to dwell on their past. They like to move forward, they like to do the

00:21:52 ◼   ► next thing. And so to have a press release and a $200 book with a $300 version for the

00:21:58 ◼   ► the plus model, it's kind of odd.

00:22:01 ◼   ► - Did she just call it the plus model?

00:22:04 ◼   ► - No, it must be, it must be called internally.

00:22:06 ◼   ► - So I've been thinking about this too,

00:22:08 ◼   ► and I think I'm gonna amend my blog post

00:22:12 ◼   ► or post an update to it.

00:22:14 ◼   ► I think my position has changed a little bit

00:22:16 ◼   ► in that Steve Jobs is not like looking back.

00:22:19 ◼   ► I linked to it in my blog post.

00:22:21 ◼   ► When Jobs returned to Apple in '97,

00:22:24 ◼   ► Apple had been curating a large

00:22:27 ◼   ► internal historical library and he came in and donated the entire thing to Stanford.

00:22:32 ◼   ► It's like back your truck up to the door and take it all.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Apple has since been slowly rebuilding that.

00:22:38 ◼   ► On occasion you see these stories or if you're like in this world you know that Apple will

00:22:41 ◼   ► sometimes reach out to people to want to purchase software, purchase a piece of hardware, that

00:22:46 ◼   ► they are building a collection internally.

00:22:48 ◼   ► There's a story that they're going to be reopening a museum at campus too.

00:22:54 ◼   ► So what I think is that Jobs didn't like to look back

00:22:57 ◼   ► and that Apple in the year since Steve's passing

00:23:01 ◼   ► has changed about that.

00:23:03 ◼   ► And it's weird because it's still new,

00:23:07 ◼   ► but I think we're gonna see more of this in the future.

00:23:12 ◼   ► But it's just, the thing to me that I keep coming back to

00:23:14 ◼   ► is like what does it mean for Ive?

00:23:18 ◼   ► What does it mean for, like you said,

00:23:20 ◼   ► what direction is he going?

00:23:22 ◼   ► Is this a swan song type deal?

00:23:24 ◼   ► Or is this a hey, this is what we've done

00:23:26 ◼   ► for the last 20 years, buckle up because some new stuff

00:23:29 ◼   ► is coming and we can talk about some of that new stuff.

00:23:34 ◼   ► We have one of those topics later in the show.

00:23:37 ◼   ► But it's just an odd moment because this sort of

00:23:41 ◼   ► retrospective look is still fresh from Apple

00:23:45 ◼   ► and a little bit uncomfortable I think for some of us who

00:23:49 ◼   ► just, you know, when you first think about Apple looking back, you know, you think about

00:23:52 ◼   ► how Jobs didn't like doing that and now they're doing it. But, um, yeah, I gotta say it's

00:23:59 ◼   ► the most Johnny Ive product ever. Here's what I want to ask you. A couple of weeks ago,

00:24:07 ◼   ► John Gruber had this article on Daring Fireball about how if you think Apple is going to do

00:24:11 ◼   ► a 10 year anniversary iPhone, you're kidding yourself. That was the extent of the story.

00:24:17 ◼   ► Now if a company does a book with, you know, 450 photos and it sells it for $200 and $300,

00:24:27 ◼   ► is it also the company who's never going to do a 10-year anniversary iPhone?

00:24:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know. I mean the…Tibet Gruber's argument, a book that only a few

00:24:42 ◼   ► people are going to buy drastically different than the world's biggest consumer electronics

00:24:47 ◼   ► product.

00:24:48 ◼   ► I agree. I agree.

00:24:49 ◼   ► But you never know. I don't know.

00:24:52 ◼   ► But it's – you can – I guess you can be nostalgic for things that don't matter

00:24:57 ◼   ► and not nostalgic for the product that gives you the most income. So when it comes to the

00:25:04 ◼   ► iPhone you're always looking forward but when it comes to a book, whatever, let's

00:25:09 ◼   ► make money off old products, but it sort of… I think this book betrays the fact that there

00:25:19 ◼   ► is an underlying feeling or thought process inside Apple that has a bunch of executives

00:25:29 ◼   ► who like to celebrate old things. So it's not completely unlike Apple at this point

00:25:36 ◼   ► to be nostalgic. We could argue that they're never going to do this for the iPhone or for

00:25:42 ◼   ► current products. We could argue that they're going to do it for things that are just minor,

00:25:49 ◼   ► you know, minor announcements like a book or like, I don't know, a poster. I mean,

00:25:52 ◼   ► it could be anything at this point. But to say that Apple is not 100% nostalgic, that

00:26:00 ◼   ► Apple never looks back, that at this point is incorrect because they are looking back.

00:26:05 ◼   ► Yeah, absolutely. You know, maybe in two years they will do a 20th anniversary iMac and it

00:26:10 ◼   ► will be, you know, beautiful 5k display covered in blue, green, translucent plastic. So yeah,

00:26:19 ◼   ► so I will, like I said, I'm going to be ordering one. I would point people to Iconic Book.

00:26:24 ◼   ► They'll be linked in the show notes. If you are into this sort of thing but you want more

00:26:28 ◼   ► than just the last 20 years, if you want to see a bunch of stuff before that, this is

00:26:34 ◼   ► This is a book by a friend of mine, a guy named Jonathan,

00:26:38 ◼   ► and it is a really, it's like this, right?

00:26:42 ◼   ► It's like high production photography.

00:26:44 ◼   ► He traveled the world taking pictures

00:26:45 ◼   ► of people's collections and rare items.

00:26:48 ◼   ► And so we'll have a link to that in the show notes.

00:26:50 ◼   ► They have been a sponsor in the past.

00:26:51 ◼   ► They're not sponsoring this.

00:26:53 ◼   ► I just really like the book.

00:26:55 ◼   ► In fact, he sent me, I feel like,

00:26:56 ◼   ► a pre-production copy of it here,

00:26:59 ◼   ► and it's a really nice gift or something, you know?

00:27:03 ◼   ► know both of these things are gonna be nice gifts for Apple nerds in your life this Christmas.

00:27:07 ◼   ► But it's, you know, there's a lot of resources out there if you're into this sort of stuff

00:27:12 ◼   ► and don't want to spend 300 bucks for a, well how did Apple describe it? Specially milled

00:27:18 ◼   ► custom dyed paper with gilded matte silver edges using eight color separations in logo

00:27:23 ◼   ► stink. Linden bound. I mean, what is happening?

00:27:28 ◼   ► It has to be like some kind of secret code if you're also an engineer and you hear somebody

00:27:33 ◼   ► talking this way, you know they're like you because they are using the same words,

00:27:38 ◼   ► like a special passphrase, you know.

00:27:41 ◼   ► - "LogoSt, Inc." is gonna be my new band name. They did say it's been in development

00:27:46 ◼   ► for eight years, so Jobs was around for at least the beginning of this. I like to think

00:27:50 ◼   ► that it was like a secret, like Johnny Ivehead on his personal Dropbox account, was like

00:27:53 ◼   ► just taking pictures at night, and it's like, "One day I'll do it, and tomorrow

00:27:58 ◼   ► is that day!"

00:27:59 ◼   ► got one detail wrong it was iDisk but not Dropbox but still. There you go. Yeah. Look

00:28:05 ◼   ► at you. Yeah I know all stuff too. You should do some of that on your website one day. Yeah

00:28:13 ◼   ► I guess maybe. So MacBook Pro with Touch Bar reviews are in. Neither of us has spent time

00:28:23 ◼   ► with one. It's on my to-do list this week to go to the Apple store. But I think there's

00:28:28 ◼   ► some pretty like clear general thoughts across these reviews and so we have a

00:28:32 ◼   ► bunch of friends who wrote some there's some links in the show notes it's early

00:28:36 ◼   ► days for this touch bar and it seems really inconsistent at times like even

00:28:41 ◼   ► Apple's own apps like pages may do one thing and then Final Cut Pro did

00:28:46 ◼   ► something like drastically different like conceptually different with it

00:28:50 ◼   ► that's not surprising to me I mean I think it's pretty clear that Apple's

00:28:55 ◼   ► software division has pockets and like, not everything is even developed in Cupertino.

00:29:00 ◼   ► So like a lot of the logic team is in Europe. And there was I work team lives for a while,

00:29:05 ◼   ► I think in Canada somewhere like these groups are independent to a degree. And so, you know,

00:29:12 ◼   ► early days, I think there will be a consistent, like use case for this even in third party

00:29:18 ◼   ► apps, like Jason was talking on upgrade this week, which if you haven't listened to, you

00:29:22 ◼   ► you should go listen to, he talks a lot about the touch bar,

00:29:25 ◼   ► that even in development of PCALC,

00:29:27 ◼   ► James Thompson has been changing the way things work

00:29:30 ◼   ► based on feedback and trying to fit into

00:29:33 ◼   ► what is going on with use case.

00:29:40 ◼   ► When does it make sense to leave your keyboard

00:29:42 ◼   ► and touch the touch bar and then come back?

00:29:44 ◼   ► When does it make sense to do something in the touch bar

00:29:46 ◼   ► then you have to go to the track pad and look at the screen?

00:29:49 ◼   ► These things all just seem all over the place right now,

00:29:52 ◼   ► but I think it will get better over time

00:29:55 ◼   ► as like consistent use case kind of builds.

00:29:58 ◼   ► I mean, I think it's similar to like some stuff

00:30:00 ◼   ► we've seen on iOS with like some of the early days

00:30:04 ◼   ► of like the extensions, or you would see like

00:30:07 ◼   ► one developer implement something

00:30:09 ◼   ► and then another developer implement

00:30:11 ◼   ► like what would be the same feature,

00:30:13 ◼   ► but in a drastically different way.

00:30:17 ◼   ► and I think that that will sort of all gel over time.

00:30:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I saw a few screenshots.

00:30:25 ◼   ► Of course, this is not high on my list of things

00:30:28 ◼   ► I'm interested in, but I read the reviews.

00:30:31 ◼   ► I still had to watch the Casey Neistat review

00:30:34 ◼   ► that Myke sent us a link this morning.

00:30:37 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be interesting to see

00:30:41 ◼   ► how both Apple and developers figure out

00:30:43 ◼   ► the touch bar together.

00:30:45 ◼   ► reminds me of widgets in a way that initially it's all over the place and maybe Apple

00:30:50 ◼   ► will sort of revise and redesign some of their implementations. One striking difference I

00:30:59 ◼   ► think is on iOS with extensions and widgets we saw some app store rejections because some

00:31:09 ◼   ► developers were trying ideas that Apple said "well, maybe you shouldn't really do this

00:31:14 ◼   ► kind of widget on the iPhone. So we saw a bunch of come forth for these new designs,

00:31:20 ◼   ► new features, so I don't think we're gonna see the same on the Mac, because I mean, the

00:31:25 ◼   ► Mac App Store is already a problem, now you're gonna even reject apps, and so I don't think

00:31:29 ◼   ► that we'll have that kind of scenario on Mac OS. But it's definitely interesting to keep

00:31:35 ◼   ► an eye on what developers do and what's gonna happen.

00:31:39 ◼   ► I do like that it's open to developers right out of the gate.

00:31:42 ◼   ► This is not something that is tied to the Mac App Store.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Like 2011, Apple would have been like, "You can only use it if you're in the Mac App Store,

00:31:49 ◼   ► and now you can even use iCloud stuff."

00:31:54 ◼   ► So I like that it's open, but the trade-off there is that it's going to be messy for a

00:31:58 ◼   ► little while.

00:31:59 ◼   ► Something that Jason said that I've been thinking about, I thought this initially, I think some

00:32:04 ◼   ► people said it was that it being only on the notebooks was going to limit their

00:32:11 ◼   ► like penetration of this technology that just being a laptops means that pros

00:32:16 ◼   ► won't have it and to Jason's point the notebooks are like two-thirds of Mac

00:32:21 ◼   ► sales these days and even though it's just on the most expensive models it

00:32:24 ◼   ► will trickle down and so even if it's never on the iMac which I hope it is as

00:32:29 ◼   ► an iMac user that it's still gonna have like wide adoption in the Mac community

00:32:34 ◼   ► eventually. So speaking of the touch bar, if you have a Mac without one, if you don't have one of the new MacBook Pros, our friend Daniel Jackut is making a

00:32:47 ◼   ► touche, which basically simulates a virtual touch bar on your Mac. We've seen a bunch of these utilities on GitHub over the past couple of weeks. I think this is an easier way to install this kind of app to simulate

00:33:04 ◼   ► the touch bar on the screen, which is completely not like having the real thing of course,

00:33:10 ◼   ► but it helps you one, understand what it looks like in software, and two, it helps you take

00:33:18 ◼   ► screenshots of the touch bar, which I don't think is natively supported on the MacBook

00:33:23 ◼   ► Pro. So if you're looking for a way to sort of see what the buttons look like, what the

00:33:28 ◼   ► interactions look like and what the general feel of the touch bar could be, it's a free

00:33:33 ◼   ► download from the red sweater website. I still haven't run this on my Mac because I feel

00:33:40 ◼   ► like it's going to die because if I install this kind of hack, and I don't want my MacBook

00:33:46 ◼   ► to die just yet, but I think it's interesting especially if you want to open multiple apps

00:33:52 ◼   ► that have been updated for Sierra and you want to see how the shortcuts and the buttons

00:33:59 ◼   ► not just when you switch between apps, but also when you change the view inside

00:34:04 ◼   ► of the same app. So the touch bar, the controls can change whether you're

00:34:09 ◼   ► editing a document or creating a new document for example. So that could be

00:34:13 ◼   ► interesting to check out.

00:34:14 ◼   ► Yeah, so I did install it on my new non-touch bar, MapUp Pro, and it's

00:34:20 ◼   ► interesting to see how the context switching works and to see how, you know,

00:34:25 ◼   ► the software interacts with it.

00:34:27 ◼   ► It's weird and not very useful,

00:34:29 ◼   ► 'cause you can't actually touch it,

00:34:30 ◼   ► although I did find myself wanting to touch my screen,

00:34:33 ◼   ► which was really concerning as someone

00:34:35 ◼   ► who tries really hard not to do that.

00:34:38 ◼   ► But I think overall it's a good example of how it works,

00:34:41 ◼   ► but I think actually having it,

00:34:44 ◼   ► the physical touch bar obviously is way better.

00:34:46 ◼   ► I mean, this thing is only useful to understand

00:34:48 ◼   ► how it works and take some screenshots.

00:34:50 ◼   ► But props to Daniel for making it,

00:34:52 ◼   ► 'cause I was having trouble understanding

00:34:55 ◼   ► the control strip which is like the system controls on the right hand side.

00:34:58 ◼   ► How that interacted with the rest of it and like the different modes and this

00:35:03 ◼   ► did help me sort of grok that a little bit better.

00:35:06 ◼   ► So if you want to play with it, it's just a free little download and you can kind

00:35:11 ◼   ► of see how it would work.

00:35:14 ◼   ► I will say that so far I'm still okay with my purchase of the non-touch bar

00:35:19 ◼   ► MacBook Pro really for the same reasons I said initially the cost and because

00:35:25 ◼   ► because I'm using an iMac now at my desk,

00:35:27 ◼   ► I didn't want to be in a situation

00:35:29 ◼   ► where I had the touch bar just sometimes,

00:35:30 ◼   ► in case I did find it really useful.

00:35:32 ◼   ► And I was a little afraid of that

00:35:36 ◼   ► becoming a stress point in my setup.

00:35:38 ◼   ► So I'm still okay with the fact

00:35:40 ◼   ► that I bought the cheapest one.

00:35:42 ◼   ► The battery life seems to be better.

00:35:43 ◼   ► The reviews, something that's in all of them

00:35:46 ◼   ► is like battery life is kind of really consistent,

00:35:48 ◼   ► and I had that on mine.

00:35:49 ◼   ► Like last night I was using it,

00:35:51 ◼   ► and the battery life was amazing.

00:35:53 ◼   ► But like two days ago, last time I pulled it out, it wasn't.

00:35:56 ◼   ► So there seems to be some issues there maybe,

00:35:58 ◼   ► but the non-touch one is perfect for my needs.

00:36:02 ◼   ► I really wanted to run a MacBook Air

00:36:04 ◼   ► and that's really what I have here.

00:36:06 ◼   ► So it's an exciting time if you're in the market

00:36:10 ◼   ► for a Mac notebook.

00:36:12 ◼   ► There are, like in Casey's video,

00:36:14 ◼   ► there are disadvantages if you're a professional.

00:36:16 ◼   ► Like just the other day actually,

00:36:18 ◼   ► I was out taking some pictures and I wanted,

00:36:20 ◼   ► I had grabbed my MacBook Pro.

00:36:22 ◼   ► I wanted to import some of them,

00:36:23 ◼   ► but I didn't have the SD card reader with me.

00:36:28 ◼   ► And I cannot believe that's gone from the new machine.

00:36:30 ◼   ► It's super frustrating.

00:36:32 ◼   ► But there are those trade-offs.

00:36:33 ◼   ► But if you're in the market for a new machine

00:36:35 ◼   ► or the touch bar really calls you,

00:36:37 ◼   ► I don't think there's anything in these reviews

00:36:38 ◼   ► to dissuade you.

00:36:40 ◼   ► I think the worst thing in these reviews

00:36:42 ◼   ► is that right now the touch bar may be a little gimmicky

00:36:44 ◼   ► until developers take full use of it.

00:36:47 ◼   ► But I think if you need a new machine,

00:36:51 ◼   ► I would say these are perfectly good options.

00:36:54 ◼   ► So I think that does it for MacBook Pros.

00:36:58 ◼   ► We're gonna get into some really

00:37:01 ◼   ► strange stuff here after this break.

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00:38:49 ◼   ► So tell me about Spectacles.

00:38:52 ◼   ► This must be great for you, Steven.

00:38:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I wish... tell me about Spectacles.

00:38:59 ◼   ► So are you aware of teenagers, right?

00:39:02 ◼   ► I see them roaming the streets in packs.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Well, there's many of them and they use this app called Snapchat, right? And Snapchat is

00:39:11 ◼   ► now making sunglasses that have a camera, actually I think two cameras maybe, or maybe

00:39:16 ◼   ► one camera.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Just one.

00:39:18 ◼   ► Just one, just one camera, and it records circular video from the sunglasses, and that

00:39:27 ◼   ► you can watch on your phone because there's an automatic Bluetooth transfer for standard

00:39:33 ◼   ► definition video or Wi-Fi transfer for HD video, but according to most reviews the difference

00:39:38 ◼   ► is not that noticeable.

00:39:39 ◼   ► So it puts that video on your phone and the, I guess the gimmick or the feature here is

00:39:44 ◼   ► that you can rotate your phone in area orientation and because the video is a circle you don't

00:39:50 ◼   ► see any black bars around the video.

00:39:53 ◼   ► It's very smooth, very clever.

00:39:55 ◼   ► Now the news here, because the Spectacles announcement came a few months ago, the news

00:40:01 ◼   ► is they're selling these devices, these sunglasses out of vending machines called the SnapBot,

00:40:08 ◼   ► which is a yellow vending machine with a screen with a Snapchat logo.

00:40:14 ◼   ► And it's all very strange and all very Snapchatty in many, many ways.

00:40:19 ◼   ► You can only buy from the vending machine.

00:40:21 ◼   ► There's a screen on the vending machine that shows you a preview of what the spectacles

00:40:25 ◼   ► will look like on your face.

00:40:27 ◼   ► And the vending machines appear in seemingly random locations around the United States.

00:40:34 ◼   ► And to catch one of these locations, you have to follow the website, and almost every day

00:40:38 ◼   ► there's a new location on the map. So they started from Venice Beach, so LA, California,

00:40:45 ◼   ► they moved up to Big Shore, and then they're selling them in Oklahoma today, I think. It's

00:40:51 ◼   ► all very strange, and it's all very different. It's not a traditional tech product in any

00:40:58 ◼   ► There was no tech review embargo.

00:41:02 ◼   ► There was no big reveal to bloggers.

00:41:06 ◼   ► One day they just showed this video of a vending machine dropping from the sky, which I really

00:41:12 ◼   ► don't think was the case, but it was like a simulation.

00:41:15 ◼   ► But still the idea is just one day the vending machine appeared and people started to line

00:41:20 ◼   ► up.

00:41:21 ◼   ► And of course there's going to be people who are selling these spectacles on eBay,

00:41:24 ◼   ► But you know, it's, I have to say, it's very different.

00:41:30 ◼   ► But it's also kind of cool.

00:41:31 ◼   ► I think the idea is, I think the idea of driving with your friends on a road trip to find a

00:41:37 ◼   ► vending machine as this sort of, I don't know, it's a, it's a cool idea.

00:41:42 ◼   ► It's different and it makes total sense for Snapchat to do something like this, which

00:41:47 ◼   ► feels more approachable than having this beautiful, elegant retail store where everyone greets

00:41:54 ◼   ► you and gives you the sunglasses. No, you're just going to go on a road trip with a bunch

00:41:58 ◼   ► of friends and find a vending machine somewhere in the woods, which sounds kind of crazy.

00:42:03 ◼   ► It is crazy, but it's sort of perfect for the company. I missed the episode where you

00:42:11 ◼   ► guys talked about Snapchat. I have an account. I rarely use it. But their vibe of the company

00:42:16 ◼   ► and the app, this fits it perfectly. These vending machines are super weird but super

00:42:21 ◼   ► Adorable like like the minions out of the animated movies that if you're a parent

00:42:25 ◼   ► You're groaning inside

00:42:28 ◼   ► thinking about that, but it's I like that it is not like this big tech product that is just something that they made and

00:42:35 ◼   ► They're just putting it random places and I let their fans find them

00:42:40 ◼   ► I think it's cool and you know, there are some like hands-on impressions. There are some reviews the verge had one

00:42:45 ◼   ► Mashable's got one

00:42:47 ◼   ► Austin Evans has a good video and then the guy did the video with cut him in half which is sort of hilarious

00:42:53 ◼   ► but it's

00:42:55 ◼   ► It's just one of those things that gets so different from what we normally see in the industry that you have to pay attention to

00:43:00 ◼   ► It even if you don't use snapchat or like don't understand it

00:43:03 ◼   ► Or think it's silly you have to respect them for doing something that is

00:43:08 ◼   ► Both like totally different from everybody else like perfectly on brand for what they do

00:43:13 ◼   ► Definitely, I mean it

00:43:16 ◼   ► completely unlike what we've seen before. Compare this to the Google Glass announcement,

00:43:23 ◼   ► the reviews from the press. It's not a tech product in any sense. It's almost like a fashion object

00:43:34 ◼   ► and in this case scarcity is increasing demand I think and it's creating this cool factor that

00:43:41 ◼   ► Because it's not sold in Best Buy or in retail stores, in the traditional sense of a computer

00:43:49 ◼   ► or of a tech gadget, it feels more for normal people, in the sense that lining up to buy

00:43:58 ◼   ► a new iPhone isn't.

00:44:02 ◼   ► We've seen this from Snapchat before, how they can use tech to reach this much more

00:44:09 ◼   ► normal audience of everyday teenagers, everyday people, not the ones who obsess over megabytes

00:44:16 ◼   ► and standard resolution. I bet that most people don't even know that the camera has two resolutions

00:44:22 ◼   ► in the spectacles because it doesn't matter. They're selling this accessory and this idea

00:44:28 ◼   ► they're not selling a camera on the glasses. Google Glass was a camera with a bunch of

00:44:33 ◼   ► Google features. This is a pair of sunglasses that work with Snapchat and that's it. It

00:44:40 ◼   ► doesn't feel like a tech product. It looks stylish to me. I don't know if it's going

00:44:44 ◼   ► to be a big thing, if it's going to be a fad, if Snapchat is going to care about an international

00:44:49 ◼   ► launch but the feeling seems about right to me.

00:44:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so. And I agree with you, they look good. They're not as cyborg as the Google

00:45:02 ◼   ► Google Glass were.

00:45:04 ◼   ► And I think they've taken some lessons from Google Glass

00:45:06 ◼   ► where you have the camera, on the other side you have

00:45:09 ◼   ► a little ring of LEDs that spin.

00:45:11 ◼   ► When you're recording it's very clear.

00:45:13 ◼   ► When it's recording, which I think was one of the,

00:45:15 ◼   ► even if it wasn't an actual problem with Google Glass,

00:45:17 ◼   ► it was a perceived problem that people are recording

00:45:19 ◼   ► and you don't know it.

00:45:21 ◼   ► This helps with that, I think.

00:45:23 ◼   ► I think it's pretty clear that if you see spinning LEDs,

00:45:25 ◼   ► you may not know it's a camera,

00:45:27 ◼   ► but you know they're doing something.

00:45:30 ◼   ► and I think that's coupled with the fact

00:45:33 ◼   ► that they're sunglasses that you're not wearing these

00:45:37 ◼   ► indoors, like there was that--

00:45:39 ◼   ► - Unless you're crazy.

00:45:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean unless you just are super way cooler

00:45:42 ◼   ► than we are.

00:45:43 ◼   ► It is a different thing, like if it's something

00:45:48 ◼   ► that you're gonna put on, how much video do they shoot

00:45:51 ◼   ► or how long is it battery, it's like 16 minutes

00:45:53 ◼   ► of battery life or something, like this is not something

00:45:56 ◼   ► you're gonna wear all day and it's gonna be part,

00:45:58 ◼   ► it's not gonna be like an Apple Watch

00:45:59 ◼   ► it's something that you interact with throughout the day.

00:46:01 ◼   ► It's something that you put on,

00:46:03 ◼   ► maybe you're wearing it,

00:46:04 ◼   ► but you're using it for very short periods of time.

00:46:06 ◼   ► My guess is you'd be using it

00:46:08 ◼   ► in situations where people may know what they are.

00:46:13 ◼   ► I mean, I think the fact that they

00:46:16 ◼   ► have this buzz around them and they look the way they look,

00:46:18 ◼   ► maybe that helps.

00:46:19 ◼   ► But the tech is pretty interesting too.

00:46:22 ◼   ► So you mentioned this, the video is circular.

00:46:26 ◼   ► And so basically you're looking at one of these videos

00:46:29 ◼   ► and as you turn your phone in your hand

00:46:30 ◼   ► from portrait to landscape and beyond,

00:46:32 ◼   ► the viewfinder shifts around the image.

00:46:38 ◼   ► That's super hard to explain.

00:46:40 ◼   ► Go look at some of these links and watch it

00:46:42 ◼   ► if you haven't seen it.

00:46:43 ◼   ► It's a really cool effect, and I think there's a lot

00:46:47 ◼   ► of opportunity for creativity in that.

00:46:49 ◼   ► You can have something like hiding in your field of view

00:46:51 ◼   ► that people don't see until they turn their phone.

00:46:54 ◼   ► I think people are gonna really play with this format

00:46:57 ◼   ► because it is a new format to a degree. I think that opens a lot of doors.

00:47:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this is going to be eventually a mode or an API in the iOS camera.

00:47:09 ◼   ► Because the interaction is very smooth and it captures this beautiful edge-to-edge video that you can rotate

00:47:17 ◼   ► and it keeps the center, doesn't show you any UI chrome around. It's all very smooth, all very different.

00:47:25 ◼   ► And I feel like once you see it, you're going to want all of your videos to be like that.

00:47:31 ◼   ► So definitely a very smart interaction from Snapchat.

00:47:34 ◼   ► It's not new.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Snapchat is not new to creating this sort of UI paradigms that other companies are going

00:47:42 ◼   ► to follow.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Because even if you look at the iMessage, there's a bunch of features that Snapchat

00:47:46 ◼   ► pioneered, you know, whether it's drawing on pictures or, you know, the big emoji and

00:47:50 ◼   ► whatever.

00:47:53 ◼   ► I would keep an eye on what Snapchat is doing because even if we're probably not Snapchat's

00:48:01 ◼   ► big audience, they know what they're doing.

00:48:04 ◼   ► They're not clueless as most of us think.

00:48:08 ◼   ► They're not just throwing interfaces at the wall and see what sticks.

00:48:13 ◼   ► They know exactly what they're doing.

00:48:14 ◼   ► They're just doing it very much differently from what we're used to.

00:48:19 ◼   ► So this is the background for a report in Bloomberg yesterday.

00:48:24 ◼   ► And it is by our friend Mark Gerben and some Bloomberg colleagues.

00:48:30 ◼   ► And I'm just going to read you the lead.

00:48:33 ◼   ► "Apple is weighing an expansion in digital glasses, a risky but potentially lucrative

00:48:38 ◼   ► area of wearable computing according to people familiar with the matter."

00:48:42 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:48:43 ◼   ► - So, super early days on this.

00:48:48 ◼   ► The thing in this report that jumps out at me the most

00:48:52 ◼   ► is Germin does a good job at highlighting all the times

00:48:56 ◼   ► Cook has talked about AR.

00:48:58 ◼   ► So this idea of augmented reality,

00:49:01 ◼   ► that you were seeing the world,

00:49:02 ◼   ► but you were seeing things layered on top of it.

00:49:05 ◼   ► Cook seems to be interested in this.

00:49:07 ◼   ► And Apple's, another way that Apple has changed

00:49:10 ◼   ► is that they talk about things now,

00:49:12 ◼   ► and like Jeff Williams made the comment about the car

00:49:15 ◼   ► being the ultimate portable device.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Cook was on stage talking about

00:49:21 ◼   ► ways to track the human body and sensors and stuff,

00:49:27 ◼   ► and we got the Apple Watch.

00:49:29 ◼   ► I think Apple is definitely looking at AR.

00:49:32 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:49:33 ◼   ► - And the only way you do that is with a headset

00:49:34 ◼   ► or glasses, right?

00:49:35 ◼   ► No one wants to hold up the phone and look through their

00:49:36 ◼   ► phone like Pokemon Go all day.

00:49:40 ◼   ► And so I think that if Apple is really looking at AR, then they have to be looking at some

00:49:46 ◼   ► sort of glasses or, you know, like head unit of some sort, right?

00:49:52 ◼   ► >> Yeah.

00:49:53 ◼   ► I agree.

00:49:54 ◼   ► It feels like the best way to present an interface that augments what you're seeing, whether

00:50:05 ◼   ► it's AR or mixed reality, whatever these people are calling it. And we talked before about

00:50:12 ◼   ► how products like Apple Maps, for example, could be enhanced by AR. I just, again, I'm

00:50:23 ◼   ► torn here because on the one hand it feels like a repeat of the initial Apple Watch rumors.

00:50:29 ◼   ► you know, we started hearing these sort of conversations a couple of years before the

00:50:36 ◼   ► actual Apple Watch was announced. And so it seems to be a pattern of modern Apple entering

00:50:44 ◼   ► a new category of devices that a couple of years before you start hearing these rumors.

00:50:49 ◼   ► Apple is considering these glasses according to people familiar with the matter because

00:50:53 ◼   ► it sort of eases people into the idea of what they're going to see, you know, like in 2018

00:51:00 ◼   ► for example. But also, I remember Tim Cook's comment on "I wear eyeglasses because I have

00:51:10 ◼   ► to, not because I want to". So, you know, people are not going to want to wear eyeglasses

00:51:17 ◼   ► because of a bunch of AR features.

00:51:21 ◼   ► You know, most people don't like eyeglasses. I wear eyeglasses because I find

00:51:25 ◼   ► contacts disgusting, but if I had a choice

00:51:29 ◼   ► I would not wear eyeglasses. So the only type of glasses that are suitable

00:51:33 ◼   ► for most people are sunglasses. And this to me feels like a response

00:51:37 ◼   ► to the buzz around Snapchat and the spectacles. Because

00:51:41 ◼   ► the type of glasses that people want to wear are sunglasses.

00:51:45 ◼   ► So are we looking at Apple sunglasses? Are we looking at the real version of the emoji

00:51:51 ◼   ► with the sunglasses? Is that some kind of teaser? I feel like with Apple's involvement

00:51:59 ◼   ► with the Apple Watch, with a bunch of different fashion companies, it's not too crazy at

00:52:02 ◼   ► this point to imagine Apple doing their own sunglasses with a bunch of partnerships with

00:52:08 ◼   ► Gucci or Ray-Ban, for example, and to have... Maybe Apple could be a provider of AR features

00:52:15 ◼   ► for other type of sunglasses, because you also need to consider that unlike the Apple

00:52:21 ◼   ► Watch, the wrist is pretty much universal, right? The wrist is a universal point of the

00:52:29 ◼   ► human body, in the sense that once you nail the concept of the band, and the measurements

00:52:35 ◼   ► and the size of the band, you don't have any special requirements for the wrist, it's

00:52:40 ◼   ► just a wrist, you just put the watch in there in your set, you just need to adjust the band.

00:52:45 ◼   ► but putting something on your face and in front of your eyes, well, that's a much higher

00:52:50 ◼   ► degree of complexity because people have different eyesights, because people have different eyesight-related

00:52:56 ◼   ► problems, and also something on your face sticks out much more than a watch on your

00:53:02 ◼   ► wrist. So the degree of complexity and the proposition that you make to people has to

00:53:10 ◼   ► be so perfect, has to be at the same time so versatile, because otherwise we're just

00:53:15 ◼   ► gonna look, everybody's gonna look like, you know, like robots wearing the same AR glasses

00:53:22 ◼   ► on our faces. Now, I find Snapchat is doing much more simple to get people into this idea,

00:53:30 ◼   ► you know? You don't see an interface in front of you, it's just a pair of sunglasses with

00:53:33 ◼   ► a camera, and you see the video on your phone. But the rumor here is Apple is exploring AR,

00:53:39 ◼   ► going to put an interface in front of your eyes. And the way they're going to do it,

00:53:43 ◼   ► it's going to be sunglasses, it's going to be eyeglasses, it's going to be a special

00:53:46 ◼   ► type of visor like the Google class. I don't think so. I think we're looking at sunglasses,

00:53:51 ◼   ► and I think we're looking at a fashion focus, if this is true. Otherwise, you know, it could

00:53:56 ◼   ► be just a concept and it's going to go nowhere.

00:53:59 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's, I think that's an important distinction. Like, I think if we, if Apple's

00:54:06 ◼   ► Apple's working on what I think you and I believe they are.

00:54:09 ◼   ► It is drastically different from what Snapchat is doing.

00:54:13 ◼   ► But what Snapchat can do is they can

00:54:17 ◼   ► help normalize technology on the face.

00:54:19 ◼   ► Google Glass did not do that.

00:54:20 ◼   ► In fact, people, there was severe backlash to Google Glass,

00:54:25 ◼   ► right, and people were very turned off by it

00:54:29 ◼   ► and there were some horrible stories of people wearing them

00:54:32 ◼   ► like being attacked, like there was some terrible stuff

00:54:34 ◼   ► that happened.

00:54:35 ◼   ► Apple's not full of dummies, they know that happened.

00:54:39 ◼   ► And so anything they introduce is coming into a world

00:54:43 ◼   ► that is hostile, historically, to on-face technology.

00:54:48 ◼   ► But if Snapchat and Spectacles can break that down

00:54:52 ◼   ► a little bit and they can normalize people

00:54:57 ◼   ► to the idea of it, then if Apple's coming along

00:55:00 ◼   ► in a couple years with something,

00:55:02 ◼   ► maybe that landscape has changed.

00:55:04 ◼   ► Maybe Apple benefits from Snapchat

00:55:07 ◼   ► kind of softening the blow a little bit

00:55:09 ◼   ► when it comes to this thing.

00:55:11 ◼   ► Who knows if Apple will ship something?

00:55:13 ◼   ► You know, it seems,

00:55:15 ◼   ► Gorman actually writes it,

00:55:17 ◼   ► that there's tons of stuff that happens within Apple.

00:55:18 ◼   ► They build prototypes that never ship.

00:55:21 ◼   ► Maybe the car was one of them.

00:55:23 ◼   ► They work on things for a long time

00:55:25 ◼   ► that don't necessarily ever get out the door.

00:55:29 ◼   ► And it's another way Apple has changed

00:55:31 ◼   ► over the years, by the way.

00:55:34 ◼   ► So, this may be just early days that something that they're playing with but never shipped.

00:55:39 ◼   ► But I think it's interesting that Cook keeps talking about it. I think it's interesting

00:55:43 ◼   ► that there is something in his mind and something that he wants to share with people about his

00:55:49 ◼   ► thoughts on this. At first I thought it was a defensive move against VR of saying, you

00:55:54 ◼   ► know, VR is going to be big in gaming. We don't have a VR headset because we don't think

00:55:58 ◼   ► that's the future. We think AR is the future.

00:56:00 ◼   ► Yeah, everybody's everybody's talking about VR, but we're also doing this thing just with a different letter. It's AR

00:56:07 ◼   ► Cool guys, it's we're doing this one. I mean they are fundamentally different and and I initially thought that Cook was saying

00:56:14 ◼   ► we don't believe VR is where we want to go and

00:56:17 ◼   ► That was just a defensive move. But you know, maybe it wasn't maybe it is a hint of something to come

00:56:22 ◼   ► Who knows like all of this stuff you have to take with a huge grain of salt?

00:56:27 ◼   ► But I thought was super interesting the timing of this leak

00:56:30 ◼   ► being days after

00:56:33 ◼   ► Giant yellow robots start dispensing spectacles in random towns across the United States like the timing is so interesting and

00:56:40 ◼   ► if

00:56:43 ◼   ► snapchat can

00:56:44 ◼   ► Change the perception of technology you wear on your face

00:56:48 ◼   ► Then Apple only benefits from that and they don't have to come into a world like I said where

00:56:52 ◼   ► Google if it poisoned to people's minds

00:56:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm very optimistic personally about Snapchat and the Spectacles. It feels like

00:57:02 ◼   ► like a continuation of the fact that

00:57:05 ◼   ► And I see this with a lot of my friends

00:57:07 ◼   ► It's become totally normal to use GoPros for example to capture

00:57:12 ◼   ► what's in front of you in during special occasions and I feel like there's there's been a barrier coming down of what's acceptable when you're having a

00:57:22 ◼   ► a shared experience, whether it's a concert or you're going for a hike, and you're capturing

00:57:27 ◼   ► what you see, which is also very cool when you watch afterwards. And so I think they're

00:57:32 ◼   ► sort of riding on that sort of changing perception with a product that is much cooler than a

00:57:40 ◼   ► GoPro and that is also quite useful because it's sunglasses. And it makes total sense

00:57:45 ◼   ► for when you go to concerts or when you spend a weekend at the beach, for example. I think

00:57:52 ◼   ► it's a very sensible use of a device that is meant to be used outside, with what Snapchat

00:58:03 ◼   ► is best at doing, which is letting people share memories in a non-creepy way. If Apple

00:58:11 ◼   ► can do this much more difficult thing, which is to show me a computer on my retina, in

00:58:23 ◼   ► the literal sense. Now we're talking about something completely different, way into the

00:58:29 ◼   ► future, at least a couple of years I would say, and it does feel like the first Apple

00:58:36 ◼   ► Watch rumors, and if you remember back then we were already doing this show, and we were

00:58:41 ◼   ► talking about all kinds of different features like "oh it's gonna monitor my skin conductive

00:58:52 ◼   ► level" whatever, it's gonna do this crazy health feature and it ended up being a much

00:58:57 ◼   ► more restricted, much more limited kind of fashion/computer accessory.

00:59:04 ◼   ► So now when we're talking about AR we're in the rumors stage and we're picturing all of

00:59:08 ◼   ► these kind of crazy ideas and if it's true the final product will likely be more limited,

00:59:16 ◼   ► more simple in a way type of interface, type of computer product that does stuff for you.

00:59:27 ◼   ► There's going to be Siri, there's going to be Apple Maps, but it's not going to be, you

00:59:30 ◼   ► know, "Oh my god, I'm going to buy the Apple glasses and now, you know, hello everyone,

00:59:36 ◼   ► I'm Robocop, you know? It's not gonna be that. But it's also more difficult than, you know,

00:59:43 ◼   ► sunglasses that capture video. So I guess it's the new thing we're keeping an eye on

00:59:49 ◼   ► because now that the Apple Watch is with us, we needed this new kind of product category

00:59:54 ◼   ► and so I guess this is the rumor. You know, with the car now on the side, now we're gonna

00:59:59 ◼   ► talk about glasses. So, yay.

01:00:05 ◼   ► So if you want to find links to all this stuff this week you can do so at relay.fm/connected/117.

01:00:13 ◼   ► You can find our dearly departed co-host on Twitter @imyke.

01:00:18 ◼   ► You can find Federico @maxstories.net and Vitici on Twitter.

01:00:23 ◼   ► You can find me at 5fulpixels.net and ismh.

01:00:27 ◼   ► If you want to send feedback for the show you can do it via email or via Twitter.

01:00:32 ◼   ► The show is @_connectedfm.

01:00:34 ◼   ► It's always good to have follow-up from people.

01:00:37 ◼   ► Until next week, Federico, say goodbye.

01:00:40 ◼   ► - Adios. - Adios.

01:00:41 ◼   ► us.