PodSearch

Connected

34: Crazy Uncle Figure

 

00:00:00   *Intro Music*

00:00:06   From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode number 34.

00:00:11   Today's show is brought to you by our friends over at Igloo, an internet you'll actually like.

00:00:17   1Password from AgileWits, put passwords in their place.

00:00:21   And Wealthfront, the automated investment service that makes it easy to invest your money the right way.

00:00:26   My name is Myke Hurley, I'm back, and I'm joined as always by Mr. Steven Hackett.

00:00:31   Hey buddy, welcome back to the show.

00:00:33   Happy to be here, it's nice to be back with you guys.

00:00:36   I'm Mr. Federico Vittucci, hello sir, how are you?

00:00:38   - Ben tornato, Myke. - Ah, si si Federico.

00:00:42   You don't even know what I said.

00:00:43   Well I said yes yes anyway.

00:00:45   Yeah, that sounds accurate.

00:00:49   How are you Michael?

00:00:50   I'm very well.

00:00:51   I'm a little bit discombobulated right now,

00:00:53   because I came home from my two week trip today,

00:00:56   This is the third show I've recorded.

00:00:58   I don't, the schedule's all over the place.

00:01:01   I don't know where I am, but I'm happy to be here.

00:01:05   - Are you at your own computer, Myke?

00:01:09   - I am, I am.

00:01:09   And it has a couple more stickers, so that's always good.

00:01:13   - Can you even put more stickers?

00:01:16   - Yeah.

00:01:17   - He layers and overlaps.

00:01:18   - Wow.

00:01:20   - You have to eventually, you run out of space.

00:01:21   I think I need a 17 inch, like,

00:01:24   just so I can put the stickers on.

00:01:26   technically they don't make those anymore.

00:01:28   - Well, but everybody knows, Stephen,

00:01:30   you can buy old computers, you know?

00:01:32   - Really, just make Stephen sad.

00:01:33   - I'm gonna write that down

00:01:36   that you apparently can buy old computers,

00:01:38   and I'm gonna look into this for next time.

00:01:39   - Where can I find these computers of old?

00:01:42   - My house.

00:01:43   Come on over.

00:01:45   - I got 'em all here, buddy.

00:01:46   - Yeah, we spoke about that on analog this week,

00:01:49   or I guess last week, depending on how time works.

00:01:52   And so I sent Casey my text file of the collection,

00:01:55   and uh...

00:01:57   i think it

00:01:57   i think it surprised him

00:01:59   how many how many things were in there

00:02:01   i enjoyed listening to connected this week that was a lot of fun

00:02:06   steven have you ever

00:02:07   thought about making a museum

00:02:09   out of your house

00:02:11   for people to come in and visit and view old max?

00:02:14   the problem is that there's also people in my house and so what do i do with them

00:02:18   when the museum's open? you can put them to work

00:02:22   inside the house which is now a museum.

00:02:25   - It's fine, I do have a exterior garage workshop

00:02:28   that I could turn into a museum,

00:02:29   or I could put the family out there

00:02:30   and turn the house into a museum.

00:02:32   Both are really good ideas.

00:02:33   Good ideas.

00:02:36   Myke, if someone wanted to find that episode of Analog

00:02:38   or any of the links that we were about to discuss,

00:02:40   how would they go about that?

00:02:41   - Oh, you threw me for a curve ball there.

00:02:43   I didn't know what URL I needed to read.

00:02:46   The URLs that you will need for this episode of Connected

00:02:50   or relay.fm/connected/34 or preferably in your podcast app of choice.

00:02:57   You should mention Myke that these links cannot be opened on an Apple Watch because there's

00:03:03   no web browser.

00:03:04   Interesting.

00:03:05   Well, I mean...

00:03:06   I feel like it's an important thing to say.

00:03:07   That is very important. You cannot open those links in the non-existent web browser in the

00:03:12   Apple Watch.

00:03:14   So we should do... we should do follow-up.

00:03:17   Follow-up.

00:03:18   Follow-up.

00:03:19   Up first the... Myke stuck. Up first the limited edition connected t-shirt is

00:03:28   about to become really limited edition because as I am saying this there are

00:03:33   three days and five hours left to purchase the pretty awesome connector

00:03:40   shirt so you should go check that out if you haven't ordered one there'll be an

00:03:43   image in the show notes I got an email last week so I don't know if Federico or

00:03:47   Myke you saw that in the show notes I had that the mock-up from Frank that had

00:03:51   the guy with like muscular tattooed arms and several people asked if that were

00:03:57   you Myke so I think people think that you have like manly tattooed arms which

00:04:01   is cool. Yep one person actually just said to me did you trim your beard like

00:04:07   that was all that they said and I found that quite interesting I like that I

00:04:12   I like that people think that I am both one, muscular and two, tattooed.

00:04:16   Yeah, which...

00:04:18   I'm neither.

00:04:20   I don't wanna...

00:04:22   I'm tattooed, but not that in depth.

00:04:26   But I mean, I don't think people were trolling.

00:04:28   I think at least the one email that I'm thinking of was, I think, serious.

00:04:32   I said no, you know, it's just a mock-up.

00:04:35   But if you buy this shirt, you will be muscular and attractive like our model.

00:04:40   Do we know who that is?

00:04:44   Maybe it's Frank.

00:04:45   Maybe it is Frank.

00:04:46   Should we invite him on the show?

00:04:47   The muscular tattoo guy?

00:04:48   Yeah.

00:04:49   Sure.

00:04:50   It's Brett Kelly.

00:04:51   Up first in follow up we have more on weird internet devices.

00:04:57   So we've talked about this the last couple of weeks.

00:04:59   This needs to be the last time or we end up with the show notes thing again.

00:05:02   Yeah.

00:05:03   This is awesome.

00:05:04   This is the last time we talk about teletext.

00:05:05   No, please don't make it the last time.

00:05:07   Keep sending these devices.

00:05:09   This one, listener Axel Roden, his dad was an IBM employee, or their dad, I don't know what gender is appropriate here.

00:05:20   But basically this is a computer modem and a 10 inch black and white CRT screen.

00:05:25   And so there's a picture of this in a Wikipedia article that's not in English, but it looks kind of like an old computer with a telephone on top,

00:05:36   which is quite frankly adorable.

00:05:40   Awesome, amazing.

00:05:43   How many objectives do we need for the Teleguide?

00:05:48   Thank you Axel for dropping knowledge on the show.

00:05:55   I don't know what this Wikipedia page is saying.

00:05:59   I see IBM a couple times.

00:06:01   But it seems accurate based on the photos.

00:06:04   It seems like a great device.

00:06:08   Can you imagine working at this workstation, doing all the business here?

00:06:12   And if you get a phone call, you just pick the phone right up, like no problem.

00:06:16   I'm just on my own computer right now, buddy, how can I help?

00:06:20   Oh yeah, it's like, "Can you look at this for me?"

00:06:22   Yes I can.

00:06:23   I definitely can, because you know what?

00:06:26   You've called me on my teleguide.

00:06:28   I mean, this is so much better than when you're using an iPhone, like you're doing something,

00:06:34   checking Twitter and then you get a phone call. So you gotta stop looking at Twitter.

00:06:39   On this thing you could look at, I'm guessing, some kind of command line and also talk on

00:06:44   the phone. Can you imagine how much better our podcast would be if we could all just

00:06:48   talk to each other? Real innovation stopped with the Teleguide. Which is sad.

00:06:56   So while we're speaking about phones and computers, Myke, it turns out, is right this year.

00:07:05   So there's a whole list of links in here, one from Marco, one from me, one from our

00:07:10   friends at the Hello Internet podcast, and one from Jason at Six Colors, basically saying,

00:07:18   for the most part, except for Jason, that Myke was right.

00:07:20   The Six Plus has a lot to offer.

00:07:22   So spoiler alert for my post.

00:07:24   I ended up, I had a six plus if you guys remember

00:07:27   that I sort of had as a loner, that went back

00:07:30   and I missed it and so I bought one,

00:07:32   like mid upgrade cycle which is silly and foolish

00:07:35   but it was sort of a you only live once type moment.

00:07:39   I think Federico I was texting you from like the parking lot

00:07:42   of the Verizon store like I'm getting ready to do this.

00:07:45   If you're going to stop me now's the time

00:07:46   and you didn't stop me so.

00:07:48   - He didn't text me because he knows I would have stopped him

00:07:51   - I think I was sleeping.

00:07:52   - Like I told Stephen not to do it.

00:07:54   Even though I love the 6+ I just think it's so close.

00:07:57   But I'm so happy that you did it because Plus Club is awesome and we're happy to have you

00:08:02   in Plus Club.

00:08:06   I still haven't published my article.

00:08:09   I think it's coming real soon.

00:08:12   I chose to take my time, you know.

00:08:14   I like to do things slow.

00:08:17   I think it's coming up better in the end.

00:08:21   If I had published my piece like three weeks ago, I think I gained some sort of new perspective

00:08:29   on the device, which I think is ultimately beneficial to the article.

00:08:34   As usual, I'm kind of the last one to write about this stuff.

00:08:39   But I hope it'll be okay in the end.

00:08:42   So the posts and the links that we've got are pretty good in Jinyoung.

00:08:47   So Stephen is, you know, categorically saying that I'm right.

00:08:51   CGP Grey and Hello Internet said that I was right, which was fantastic.

00:08:54   I very much enjoyed listening to that.

00:08:56   Marco seems to be a little bit more on the fence, but I think leaning into Plus Club

00:09:01   territory.

00:09:03   And Jason just flat out, I'm very sad, he was just like, "No, I love my six."

00:09:08   But what I like about Jason's article is that he used some of my crazy theories that I have.

00:09:14   So I was happy with that.

00:09:16   Because I don't know if you guys have noticed this, but I have found the camera on the 6+

00:09:21   to be the buggiest part of the phone.

00:09:25   Sometimes the camera crashes when I take photos, sometimes it just will not take pictures.

00:09:30   No, no.

00:09:32   You haven't had that?

00:09:33   Not at all.

00:09:34   Okay.

00:09:35   I have to say this hasn't always been the way for me.

00:09:38   This has gotten worse over time.

00:09:41   My theory about this, because Jason's seen it, I think that Marco said that he'd had

00:09:46   seen some issues of it as well.

00:09:48   My theory is that there's something in the optical image stabilization, there's like

00:09:51   a bug in there and it maybe isn't recognized so quickly or it hasn't been recognized because

00:09:58   a lot of engineers in Apple aren't actually using the 6 Plus, so they're not recognizing

00:10:02   the bug.

00:10:03   Yeah, I mean, I've seen it a couple of times.

00:10:07   My thought was that the 6 Plus is more RAM constrained

00:10:11   than the 6 'cause of the bigger display

00:10:13   and it's gotta do more and that maybe it's just taking,

00:10:16   reaching for memory that's not available at the moment.

00:10:20   But I've seen it from time to time,

00:10:21   definitely nothing consistent though.

00:10:23   But I guess we'll see if it gets worse over time.

00:10:26   - Yeah, so there you go.

00:10:27   I love that this is a thing that is happening,

00:10:31   that people are talking about the Plus again, seriously.

00:10:34   I think it's fantastic.

00:10:36   Because I, as the two of you, really really believe that this is the superior device.

00:10:42   Like I just categorically think that this is the better phone.

00:10:46   And for me that's based on a bias because I've not actually used a 6,

00:10:51   but you both have and you've both switched, so that like vindicates my feeling.

00:10:56   How does it feel Myke to be a pioneer?

00:10:58   It feels pretty good, you know.

00:11:00   Because it's one of those things that I guess that in our little world I was the one,

00:11:04   you know, everyone was laughing at me and I was like no no guys seriously trust me and it's taken a while but

00:11:10   But you've ended up coming around to our way of thinking which is great. I am a pioneer

00:11:14   I do feel like a pioneer Federico. It's a really great way of describing my current mental

00:11:18   You're kind of like the the Harry Potter of big phones

00:11:22   You're kind of ruining it for me now. You're the chosen one. Oh, I like that again. I liked I like pioneer

00:11:29   I like chosen one. I didn't like Harry Potter of big phones

00:11:33   that of the three that was my favourite.

00:11:35   - What do you like Harry Potter?

00:11:37   - I like Harry Potter, I just don't wanna be called

00:11:39   the Harry Potter of big phones.

00:11:41   It's not, it just doesn't sit very highly.

00:11:46   - I would explain the weird scar on your head.

00:11:48   - It would indeed, I dropped a phone on my face.

00:11:51   And then that's it.

00:11:54   Right, let's take a quick break,

00:11:55   we have so much to talk about today.

00:11:57   I'm really excited to talk about 1Password from Agile Bits.

00:12:00   I love these guys, I love this app.

00:12:02   And this is one of those things this week

00:12:03   where I've been off and we've had 1Password.

00:12:05   I've been listening to all the great spots

00:12:06   that everyone's been reading and I was waiting to do one.

00:12:09   I'm happy that I can read an ad for 1Password right now.

00:12:13   For everyone listening to this show,

00:12:15   if for some reason you haven't got 1Password,

00:12:18   you need to just pause this.

00:12:20   Just pause right now, pause wherever you are,

00:12:22   go get 1Password.

00:12:24   It is an essential piece of software.

00:12:26   In the digital world that we live in now,

00:12:28   it can be way too easy to just use the same password

00:12:30   over and over again because everything,

00:12:32   you need to have passwords, you have user accounts

00:12:34   for every service that you use,

00:12:36   every website you have to have them.

00:12:37   It's way too easy to just use one,

00:12:40   like just use one word or maybe just change

00:12:44   the number every time.

00:12:45   But this is such a bad idea because sites get compromised,

00:12:48   they get hacked.

00:12:49   Even if you are super secret about your password,

00:12:51   there's nothing that can stop these sites

00:12:54   from getting hacked and your information

00:12:57   getting leaked all over the place.

00:12:58   and then if you have just, you just use one word

00:13:01   for all of the passwords of all of your sites,

00:13:03   you know, that you go onto and that you sign up for,

00:13:05   people can just get in and they can just go crazy

00:13:07   and that's when bad stuff happens.

00:13:09   But this is why 1Password from Agile Bits is amazing.

00:13:12   People that use 1Password do not have to worry

00:13:15   about this kind of stuff.

00:13:17   1Password is an app that is available for the Mac,

00:13:19   iOS, Android, and Windows, and it will also help you create

00:13:23   these super strong passwords

00:13:24   as well as keeping them safe for you.

00:13:26   They're all stored in an encrypted file on your device that you can sync via Dropbox,

00:13:30   iCloud or locally via Wi-Fi sync if you want to be super super secret about it all.

00:13:35   This keeps all of your passwords with you wherever you go and the only way that you

00:13:38   can get to them is with your secret master password.

00:13:41   This is like a sentence or a couple of words that you put together and you put that in

00:13:47   and that's your master password that unlocks your vault of where all your passwords are

00:13:52   saved.

00:13:53   None of this information is stored on a web server anywhere.

00:13:55   This is just your password to unlock your app and you can save it into Dropbox and it's

00:13:59   super encrypted and it keeps all of your stuff safe.

00:14:02   One password makes it easy to get secure online.

00:14:05   They can save you a ton of time with all this sort of stuff.

00:14:08   If you thought it was maybe more simple to just type in 12345678 for your password everywhere,

00:14:14   you're still typing in those numbers or those letters every single time.

00:14:17   But with one password you can get one click logons which is really great.

00:14:20   You have all these great menu bar apps and you have great browser extensions.

00:14:24   is

00:14:43   this

00:15:03   I love this app. I think you will too.

00:15:05   Put passwords in their place with one password.

00:15:08   Topic... it was gonna be topic zero, but then it sort of

00:15:12   exploded.

00:15:14   Topic one this week is the new MacBook. So reviews dropped today.

00:15:18   Myke, you just got off the air with Jason doing a special episode of upgrade about the MacBook.

00:15:23   He has a review on Macworld and then like a commentary on his site.

00:15:29   There's a link to the Verge review which includes a pretty nice video

00:15:34   You can actually see and actually we're gonna get to it

00:15:36   But you can hear the MacBook where the keyboard sounds and then there's a wired

00:15:40   Review as well, so

00:15:44   You know, it's it's kind of funny like yesterday. We're obviously gonna get to the watch

00:15:48   But yesterday was watch day and today's like oh, yeah, the MacBook is real - don't forget about me. But um

00:15:56   What are y'all's impressions from starting to see people's reviews of this thing?

00:16:01   I'll let Myke go first.

00:16:04   I think it looks pretty and there are many things about the device that are interesting for me.

00:16:10   I love that the size of the screen in a body that's smaller than the 11 inch, right?

00:16:16   That is such an appealing idea and as like as a portable machine, it sounds fantastic.

00:16:20   But the kind of overall feeling that I've got, especially from talking to Jason, is it's kind of like

00:16:26   Like, nah.

00:16:29   You know, there are good things about it, like there are some really nice things about

00:16:33   it, but there are also some things about it that kind of suck, like Jason hates the keyboard,

00:16:39   which I'm interested to try out.

00:16:41   But it's, you know, the One USB thing still seems a bit like, ah, it just seems like such

00:16:47   a pain.

00:16:48   Like, in Jason's review he spoke about trying to use Migration Assistant and he had to get

00:16:53   like two dongles and an ethernet cable to try and use migration assistant and

00:16:58   it's like I just it just seems frustrating and I you know I don't

00:17:03   really have a desire for this laptop for a different laptop my laptop's fine I

00:17:08   love it I don't need a second laptop like it's just not something that I

00:17:12   require I can see why it would be a good machine for a bunch of people but the

00:17:16   thing is it's just not the machine for me but I can appreciate why some people

00:17:20   might like it, it's just not something that I'm running out to buy.

00:17:23   So for me, it is a little complicated because I am in the market for a new Mac.

00:17:32   Because obvious reasons I own, um, 2011 Mac MacBook Air and I want to buy a new Mac.

00:17:42   But more importantly, I need to buy a new Mac because it's been, I'm guessing more

00:17:49   than a year at this point that my MacBook is missing the E key on my keyboard.

00:17:57   And I didn't bother fixing it or taking it to the Apple store because I know I will have

00:18:03   to pay and I'm just using my MacBook twice a week to record two shows with you guys.

00:18:10   And so it's just there, you know, and I know that eventually it is going to die.

00:18:16   it is gonna, you know, maybe I will miss more keys or maybe the trackpad will start having

00:18:20   some kind of issue.

00:18:22   So I know that I need to buy a new Mac because I mean, even if only twice a week, I still

00:18:27   need a Mac because, you know, I cannot record shows on the iPad and I don't know, maybe

00:18:34   there's those just couple of tasks that I need to do on a Mac, just occasionally.

00:18:40   Doesn't happen very often lately but it still happens.

00:18:43   Maybe I need to log into my dumb bank website that doesn't allow me to print a PDF on iOS,

00:18:50   but it still happens occasionally.

00:18:52   So I need a Mac, even if for short amounts of time.

00:18:59   And this MacBook could be the kind of Mac that I like, because it's kind of like an

00:19:03   iPad, in the sense that it's really light and it cuts down all the power user features.

00:19:09   I don't need ports, I don't need external displays, I don't need, I don't know,

00:19:14   fusion drives and that kind of complex stuff that you get on more serious Macs.

00:19:19   The problem is that, actually two problems, one is not exactly cheap, but I could save a little and then get this MacBook.

00:19:32   The problem is that I don't want to get the first generation of this MacBook, because if the MacBook Air is of an indication,

00:19:38   I need to wait for the second or third revision.

00:19:42   So because I'm not the kind of guy who needs a Mac on a daily basis, and I'm not the kind

00:19:46   of guy who wants to buy a Mac every year, like I buy an iPhone or an iPad every year,

00:19:52   I don't want to upgrade my Mac next year, if I buy this MacBook this year.

00:19:57   So I want to make sure that the next MacBook I'm buying is in a way future proof.

00:20:01   I want to make sure that in four years or five years from now it is still the MacBook

00:20:06   I can use.

00:20:07   So I'm really torn here because I want to use this MacBook, the new MacBook, because

00:20:13   I love the idea of first touch, I love the extreme portability, I love the retina display,

00:20:19   but I also kind of am concerned because I'm wondering if I wait until next year, if I

00:20:26   really make my MacBook Air die eventually of a slow and progressive death, if I just

00:20:33   wait until next year and if I wait until the second generation of the new MacBook will

00:20:39   I be in a better position five years from now. That's my suggestion.

00:20:44   If I was you I would wait until the heirs get a rev and get one of those.

00:20:49   I agree.

00:20:50   Because I think that the MacBook, that MacBook, the power that you'll get in there will not

00:20:57   be good for you in a couple of years time.

00:20:58   But will I get a Retina display on the new MacBook Airs?

00:21:03   Because I really want that.

00:21:05   Yeah, I don't want to have the eventually on.

00:21:11   I would expect you would get a Retina display on a MacBook Air sooner than you would get

00:21:16   the new MacBook in a power requirement that you would need.

00:21:23   So a couple of things, and we'll make it back to the reviews in a second, but you were always

00:21:28   going to play the eventual game buying, especially from Apple, it's just kind of the way that

00:21:36   it works.

00:21:37   "Oh, we gotta wait until they hit 1GHz, oh I'm gonna wait until they switch to Intel,

00:21:40   oh I'm gonna wait until they go to SSD."

00:21:42   You're always waiting.

00:21:44   Will the MacBook Air ever get random displays?

00:21:46   I don't know.

00:21:47   My thought is the MacBook Air line will actually probably go away or somehow be something different

00:21:53   than it is today, you know, long term.

00:21:56   way I view it is if you need a machine today say that Macbook Air finally dies

00:22:00   tonight when we're done. No it doesn't die tonight, come on. But just say that it

00:22:05   does or say it dies tomorrow. No. What is... I refuse. It's a hypothetical. When your computer dies, what do you buy?

00:22:18   And I agree with Myke that something like a base model 13-inch Macbook Air

00:22:23   might be a better fit for you than the MacBook. Clearly the MacBook is driven

00:22:27   somebody who is super portable and is space constrained you know in multiple

00:22:35   ways and what they carry maybe where they use the computer that's really you

00:22:40   know who comes to mind for me someone who's on the road you know for their

00:22:44   job day in and day out you know on airplanes in cars etc for that sort of

00:22:49   usage I think the MacBook makes a lot of sense it's got pretty good battery life

00:22:53   it's you know physically very small very light and is you know like in the in the

00:22:58   verge article like dude is just like walking down the street carrying under

00:23:02   his arm like somebody might carry a folder or an iPad I think carrying a

00:23:07   laptop under your arm in New York City is probably asking for trouble but they

00:23:11   didn't ask me so I think the MacBook Air is probably still for the average user

00:23:16   or you know the slightly above average user is still the you know the sub

00:23:22   $1,500 notebook to buy. Will you know will the MacBook improve power wise? I

00:23:29   think it will. I don't think we're ever going to see a second port on the thing.

00:23:32   Like I just you know people go they're going to add a second port next year. I

00:23:35   really don't think they will. I think that they've made a statement with this

00:23:38   machine and yes the MacBook Air you know so the original MacBook Air we talked

00:23:44   about this couple weeks ago came out one USB port micro DVI and headphone jack

00:23:48   Jack that was it and then in 2010 or 2011 whenever it was they rev the

00:23:55   MacBook Air, changed the form factor, added more USB ports, ended up

00:24:01   with Thunderbolt down the road, SD card slot, you know the MacBook Air became

00:24:04   more but in that transition the MacBook Air went from the high end of the line

00:24:08   it was very expensive to the low end overnight so the MacBook Air kind of

00:24:12   became the default machine for a lot of people and I don't see the MacBook doing

00:24:18   The MacBook already is pretty close to the bottom of the line price-wise.

00:24:22   It competes with the MacBook Air at a few points.

00:24:27   I really think they're staging it as a third line, at least for the next couple years.

00:24:33   I agree with you that buying a MacBook today for most people isn't a good answer, but I

00:24:37   don't know that the answer is going to become more clear in two years.

00:24:40   I just don't see where that ends up.

00:24:46   I'm really sure about this. My next MacBook is gonna have a Retina display. There's no way I'm

00:24:53   buying... Do you have to get a laptop? Well, for the shows I do. What if I'm on vacation and I

00:24:59   need to record a show? Oh right, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Do I just take a Mac Mini with me? No,

00:25:04   I forgot that you might, that sometimes you record from remote locations. Because I was wondering

00:25:10   that because you don't need portability in most instances like many people do because

00:25:15   you have that sewn up already you know but I get what you mean like sometimes you do

00:25:20   record from other places.

00:25:21   >> Like the bathroom.

00:25:22   >> Yeah and there's no way I'm getting a lower resolution display again.

00:25:28   >> Yeah.

00:25:29   >> So.

00:25:30   >> Hey.

00:25:31   >> I don't know.

00:25:32   >> I don't want to get a MacBook Pro.

00:25:33   >> I was just about to say.

00:25:34   >> It is wasted on me.

00:25:36   I don't need a MacBook Pro and I don't want a MacBook Air if it doesn't have a high resolution

00:25:42   display.

00:25:43   So either I wait or I get a MacBook and I'm gonna regret it for the next five years or

00:25:51   again I keep using the MacBook Air and I keep torturing the MacBook Air and watching it

00:25:58   die slowly, sadistically.

00:26:02   And see that I'm just gonna wait here and you know for the day when eventually the MacBook

00:26:10   will say goodbye and I'll be like okay whatever I'm getting a MacBook because it's enough.

00:26:17   It's kind of sad when you think about it.

00:26:20   It is a little bit.

00:26:21   I mean I've seen pictures of that thing it's in pretty sorry shape but you know but you

00:26:27   know even going back second and we've talked about this at length but you know your use

00:26:31   cases for the Mac of restoring iOS devices and recording podcasts and doing

00:26:36   those things you know it's it's you are closer to being able to use a MacBook

00:26:41   than someone like I am where I have a MacBook Pro and it's plugged into all

00:26:44   sorts of crazy things all day every day it is a for the most part of desktop

00:26:48   replacement and yes right now I'm using it in a dark room with a microphone

00:26:52   hooked up to it and power but you know I drive external displays and have

00:26:57   external drives and all this stuff you know the majority of the time so you're

00:27:01   closer I think than the mic or I but you know even hearing you say well it's not

00:27:07   quite enough computer you know I'm gonna run into these limitations that's really

00:27:13   interesting I really think that paints the picture of who it is for it's you

00:27:16   know people who don't even do as many things with the Mac as you do I think

00:27:20   that like the MacBook would be perfect for Federico right now but I don't think

00:27:25   it would last him for five years I think that's the only problem otherwise I

00:27:29   I would say I think you should get it.

00:27:31   But if part of it is you wanna have a machine

00:27:34   for another four or five years,

00:27:36   I don't know if this is the right one then.

00:27:40   - Yep, that's the problem.

00:27:42   - That's my only thing.

00:27:43   It's like I don't, that machine is gonna be

00:27:46   really, really hurting in a couple of years time.

00:27:49   But it's like I said, it would depend on what happens

00:27:53   with the next rev of all of those machines.

00:27:55   So maybe you wait another year if you can.

00:27:59   If poor little MacBook Air can do it. Yeah, if the MacBook can. I'm gonna wait.

00:28:03   That's my strategy.

00:28:06   The only thing I wanted to touch on in the reviews, just a couple comments that

00:28:10   kind of everybody said is that

00:28:11   you know it can get warm but no one seemed to really think that it gets like

00:28:15   scorching hot. That's kind of the beauty of the

00:28:18   of the Intel Core N that they're using. It's very low power, very low heat output.

00:28:23   That it is truly silent because there's no fan, there's no hard drive, it's you know

00:28:27   very iPad-like. There's even, Jason mentions it and it's in the Verge video where you plug

00:28:32   it in and it shows the iOS battery charging icon, like you know the green filling up,

00:28:39   very iPad-like. Yeah and it chimes, it gives the little bling noise when you plug the...

00:28:47   Wow. Yeah. Wow, that's... Yeah, because there's no color anymore on the... There's no indication,

00:28:54   right? There's no visual indication that you're charging, like that you'd see. So

00:28:58   now when you plug it in it makes the iOS noise of plugging in a charge. There's no LED for the, on the

00:29:03   MagSafe because there's no MagSafe anymore. The other thing that I really

00:29:07   walked away with, this is from from Jason, saying that the he was not a fan of the

00:29:15   keyboard that, you know, that is a compromise to make the computer thinner

00:29:20   and he hopes Apple views it as that and this keyboard doesn't spread to the

00:29:24   other products. Although guys like Jim at The Loop and other reviewers like

00:29:29   the keyboard. So I think it's definitely going to be one of those

00:29:32   personal things. I hope to go play with one in the coming weeks to type on one

00:29:37   to see how it's like. But I do think that this keyboard is going to spread to

00:29:42   other Macs. I believe that Apple really thinks this is a superior keyboard for

00:29:49   most people you know yeah and I'm all for you know all I can think of I think

00:29:54   I said last week is when I type on my MacBook Pro all I can think about is how the

00:29:57   keys are like flying off in different directions because that slow-motion

00:30:00   video Apple did like it really ruined me mentally in a way that is very deep and

00:30:05   profound well but I I do want to try it out you know but even saying this like I

00:30:11   remember when they went to the chiclet style on the original MacBook I was like

00:30:14   oh I don't want this the power the MacBook Pro and the power book like

00:30:18   those had superior keyboards and they change over time and you get used to it

00:30:21   so it's you know one of those things that I think even if they do change

00:30:27   people get used to I think that Jason were to continue to use this system he

00:30:31   would get used to it but it's just something interesting that it seems to

00:30:34   be a bigger difference than then maybe I thought it would be and on the verge

00:30:38   video and it's obviously it's mic it's not a lot it's not loud like a

00:30:42   mechanical keyboard but it sounds very different than my macbook pro which even

00:30:47   sounds different than the aluminum Bluetooth keyboards that I use at my desk and a very

00:30:52   different sound which I also was not, I didn't really think about beforehand so it's clearly

00:30:56   a very different experience typing on this thing and one I hope that if they do spread

00:31:02   to other devices that it's worth the adjustment.

00:31:06   What's up with the obsession of some tech people with keyboards that make loud noises?

00:31:14   Do they share their apartments or houses with other people?

00:31:20   Because anytime I'm typing and I'm making loud noises, my girlfriend or whoever's in

00:31:28   the house complains because it's not a pleasant noise to hear.

00:31:31   Right.

00:31:32   So I typed on an Apple extended 2G board for years, up until I had surgery on my elbow

00:31:40   a couple years ago and I had to move away from it.

00:31:43   And I typed on it because it was extremely comfortable for my hands and I could be very

00:31:49   fast on it.

00:31:51   The noise was like a nerdy bonus, but it wasn't...

00:31:55   So you liked it?

00:31:56   I didn't...

00:31:57   Yeah, I liked the way it felt and I liked the speed I could do.

00:32:00   Now the pressure required for the keys is too much for me because I'm old and brittle.

00:32:07   But I think for a lot of people it's the feel and it's the speed they can do.

00:32:10   The sound again is nice.

00:32:12   It is, you know, the Apple X-Tinted 2 is quite loud and is definitely not the loudest thing

00:32:17   on the market.

00:32:19   And so if you're in an open office like I am at work or, you know, working at home on

00:32:23   an iMac or something and you have family members around, they're gonna be driven insane slowly

00:32:29   by your typing.

00:32:30   Yeah.

00:32:31   I mean I guess I just don't understand why would you purposefully go find a loud keyboard,

00:32:36   you know?

00:32:37   Yeah, I think it's a side effect.

00:32:38   I guess usually you just try to find technology that is silent and quiet and

00:32:44   doesn't make you know a big loud mess and instead of some people who are kind of

00:32:49   obsessed with it. So maybe you could get the MacBook and then you USB-C to regular USB and

00:32:56   USB to ADB and you can use your Apple Xsenda 2. What did you just say? You have to jump

00:33:01   through two adapters. You just said the alphabet. I'll find a picture for the

00:33:06   I hooked my extended 2 up to a up to my iPad once and it was awesome and

00:33:11   Then I realized that I was a crazy person

00:33:13   You are so anything else on the MacBook? None of us are buying it

00:33:18   None of us seem super interested at this point, but we're gonna wait and see is that the consensus? Yeah

00:33:25   Yeah, I'm gonna take a look at it

00:33:26   I'm interested to see what the keyboard looks like and feels like I'm interested to see what the machine looks like in general, but

00:33:32   I

00:33:34   I don't have a desire for a second laptop. Like it's not something that I need so it's just not my machine, you know.

00:33:40   It's not something that you're looking at you have a Mac Pro, you have a MacBook Pro,

00:33:46   you're not tempted to sell the MacBook Pro and move to this because of the tower even?

00:33:50   If I use my Mac Pro like most people use their Mac Pros then I probably would think about it but

00:33:59   My Mac Pro is very much it has its job that it does and that's all it does, you know

00:34:04   Right everything else I do on the MacBook Pro. Gotcha. Okay

00:34:08   This week's episode of connected is also brought to you by igloo the internet

00:34:14   You'll actually like why invest in these fantastic beautiful devices that we're talking about like the MacBooks

00:34:20   You know these great iPhone 6 pluses if you're gonna just use them to stare an internet that looks like it was built in the 90s

00:34:27   Nobody wants to do that. That's horrible. And this is where igloo comes in

00:34:30   Not only can igloo be customized to look exactly like you want with all of the colors and logos and all the fun stuff that

00:34:37   You have of your brand but with its responsive design, it's automatically optimized to look fantastic on all of these devices

00:34:44   It's gonna look great on your iPhone. It's gonna look great on your Mac

00:34:47   It's gonna look great on your iPad and just like all your favorite Apple devices igloo helps you do your best work

00:34:53   You can share files, coordinate your calendars, provide status updates and manage projects.

00:34:58   Igloo is not just for your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms,

00:35:03   or it of course can do all of those things.

00:35:05   It's also there to help you work better with your colleagues, within your teams, wherever you are, whenever you want.

00:35:12   Igloo's latest upgrade, Viking, revolves around documents and how you interact with them.

00:35:17   They've beefed up their document engine, they've added the ability to track who has read critical information

00:35:22   to keep everyone on the same page so you can go in and say you send a document out to everyone,

00:35:27   you don't need to run around the office and check if Bob's read it and Sally's read it.

00:35:30   It will just show you. You can see little read receipts and it just shows you who's

00:35:33   actually looked at the document. It's really really cool. If your company has a legacy

00:35:37   internet that looks like it was built in the 90s you should be giving Igloo a try.

00:35:41   Igloo understands that love doesn't just happen overnight so this is why you can try out Igloo

00:35:47   for free for any team of up to 10 people for as long as you want. Sign up right now at igloo software.com/connected

00:35:54   Thank you so much to igloo for their support of this show and all of relay FM.

00:35:58   Let's talk about the watch. Yeah so reviews came out uh I wasn't expecting reviews until like

00:36:07   to maybe like today it came out maybe slightly earlier than I've expected I don't know what the

00:36:14   the trend is on these things. I guess they just had too much going on at once

00:36:17   so they spread them out a bit right? So they went out two days where they, one day

00:36:21   where the Embargoes left on a bunch of different projects. And I haven't

00:36:27   having been away I haven't delved into a lot of them. I have watched the

00:36:32   Verges review and I have read John Gruber's review. I think I read like 10

00:36:39   of them yesterday. I'm kind of exhausted. What was your favorite?

00:36:44   Huh that's a good question. I really liked John's during Fireball. I think it was a

00:36:54   good mix of like the perspective of a watch person and also the perspective of

00:37:00   a tech guy you know. I think it was a good balance between the two. There's

00:37:07   There's others that I linked on MacStories that I really liked.

00:37:11   There was one from... just trying to remember the name of the website...

00:37:18   Liz Plosser, she writes for Self Magazine.

00:37:24   She basically gave birth to a baby boy just 5 days before getting an Apple Watch review

00:37:30   unit.

00:37:31   So she's of course, she's kind of busy and she has a very active lifestyle.

00:37:36   And I found her perspective really fascinating, because she's using a watch as a new mom,

00:37:42   and she's busy, she's always running around for her family, and to read about the watch,

00:37:52   monitoring activity in this context was kind of different from the usual tech review.

00:37:58   Also I didn't exactly, it's not that I didn't like it, I didn't fully get the angle that

00:38:06   the Verge was going for.

00:38:09   I liked the video, I think it was very well made, but I still kinda don't fully get what

00:38:17   Neil Aipatale was after.

00:38:19   There was a part of the video that I really didn't like, which was when they were in the

00:38:23   bar and he was talking with the editor in chief of Eater.

00:38:30   And I didn't really understand what his point was like I'm getting too many notifications

00:38:36   so it makes me realize that I miss people like I didn't really understand.

00:38:41   It's like dude that is totally within your control to turn off what notifications you

00:38:47   don't want.

00:38:48   This is exactly the point that I want to discuss with you guys.

00:38:54   And this is not just from The Verge, but I think The Verge hits this point stronger than

00:39:01   other websites.

00:39:04   What's the deal with complaining about notifications when you are in control of notifications?

00:39:10   So Nilay complains about the fact that the watch is constantly pinging with emails, texts,

00:39:18   slack updates, Twitter.

00:39:20   Why he says his Instagram likes?

00:39:23   Like you don't need push notifications for Instagram likes.

00:39:27   Especially because he's a tech guy and he knows how to fiddle around with settings.

00:39:32   And also I would argue that most people, not necessarily tech people, at least from what

00:39:39   What I see from my friends and my family, they are not stupid.

00:39:43   They are not the kind of people that you would imagine by reading tech blogs or twitter that

00:39:48   they just say yes to everything.

00:39:50   All the people I know, every dialogue they get, they think about it.

00:39:54   They think about allowing notifications.

00:39:56   They think about allowing location because they know that these dialogues can lead in

00:40:01   the future to disturbing stuff like you get too many notifications or maybe an app is

00:40:05   constantly checking your location for whatever reason.

00:40:08   So there is a basic error in believing that most people, and by most people I mean this

00:40:15   average consumer that is often referred to by the tech press as some kind of mythical

00:40:21   beast, the average consumer is not stupid, is not dumb and doesn't say okay to everything.

00:40:28   That said, you are in control of notifications.

00:40:31   You can toggle them on and off and I think that's really the point.

00:40:34   What if you buy an Apple Watch and you start wearing the watch and you get no notifications

00:40:40   because the default behavior is to opt-in?

00:40:45   So in that case, the experience for most people would be worse because you buy a watch and

00:40:53   you start wearing the watch with some sort of expectation of the watch displaying notifications,

00:40:58   but then because the default behavior is opt-in, you need to go into an app and enable notifications.

00:41:03   Instead, because the default behavior is to opt out, you start getting notifications right

00:41:09   away and you can always turn them off.

00:41:12   So I kind of don't understand the perspective of The Verge.

00:41:14   It seems to me like it's the... some kind of a syndrome from the average tech guy who

00:41:24   enables all sorts of notifications, with the difference that on the iPhone, over the years,

00:41:30   have learned how to deal with them, they have learned how to ignore notifications on the

00:41:36   iPhone.

00:41:37   On the watch, because it's new, it's like "Oh my god, I'm getting all these notifications!"

00:41:42   You already get all these notifications on your iPhone.

00:41:45   So I'm really puzzled by this angle.

00:41:48   I really liked the overall of the video, I thought it was really good, I thought some

00:41:53   of the criticism I had was really good.

00:41:56   showing it like they were showing some just like weird like loading like

00:42:01   everything seems like it's a slow and needed to load right so that was like

00:42:04   okay that looked interesting but he was trying to I think he was trying to hit a

00:42:10   philosophical point which didn't really land for me which was like now I see now

00:42:16   I'm tapped on the wrist about his notifications it makes me realize how

00:42:20   much I ignore people. It's like, no man, like, it vibrates in your pocket already, like it's

00:42:26   totally fine. I can see what he was, I can see he was trying to get somewhere but it

00:42:35   just didn't land for me and that was, that's my only criticism for what I thought was a

00:42:40   good review but I think it was a pretty big point he was trying to make.

00:42:45   And again, I find it personally, I don't want to criticize the way that the Verge assigns

00:42:51   scores, because they are still using a score-based system for their reviews.

00:42:55   I don't want to criticize the way that they choose votes.

00:42:59   But it seems to me a little strange that the Apple Watch gets a 7 and the Motorola 360

00:43:06   gets an 8.1.

00:43:09   I don't know, because I don't have a watch.

00:43:12   But again, it sounds like this aspect of the notifications, it had a big role in getting

00:43:18   the score down, and I sort of don't understand, because it again, feels to me like he's a

00:43:25   tech guy with too many notifications, too many apps, and the watch makes him realize

00:43:30   that he has too many apps and notifications, but that's not really a problem of the watch,

00:43:34   maybe he should curate a little bit more the list of apps that send him notifications.

00:43:40   There was one thing that Neil I said that I thought was really, I really agree with.

00:43:46   The fact that the watch doesn't come with a stand or anything.

00:43:49   It's kind of just like, here's a cable, go at it.

00:43:53   It feels like there should be more in the box.

00:43:57   Like akin to what the, you know, your first iPod, right, had a bunch of stuff in the box.

00:44:02   And I think that there should be something a little bit more like that this time.

00:44:07   Something basic even.

00:44:08   but it feels like just saying here's your cable,

00:44:09   here's your watch, go at it, does feel a bit.

00:44:12   - Yeah, I agree with that, yeah.

00:44:14   - So a couple of things.

00:44:16   I too do not want to get into the why scoring things

00:44:22   and reviews is a bad idea.

00:44:24   - Yep.

00:44:25   - But I would say in their defense

00:44:26   that those devices came out at separate times

00:44:29   and answer separate questions to separate markets.

00:44:32   I don't think they're a direct comparison.

00:44:34   Anyways, I think you and I had a misunderstanding

00:44:37   Twitter because I think you were like

00:44:38   yeah we get a final connected and you

00:44:41   know I agree with you that for most

00:44:43   people the experience of if notifications

00:44:46   were opt-in my watch isn't doing

00:44:48   anything and that's bad and I agree with

00:44:51   you that anyone who has Instagram likes

00:44:55   on on their phone and pushed to their

00:44:57   watch have no room to complain that they

00:44:59   have too many notifications because

00:45:01   that's a ridiculous notification to

00:45:02   leave on especially if you're popular

00:45:04   like I assume Eli Patel is on Instagram. What I think what he was driving at and

00:45:11   I think they exaggerate it to make the point is that there is a social

00:45:18   awkwardness around checking your watch. We spoke about this months ago on the

00:45:22   show where you know if I'm in a meeting and I look down at my watch if anyone

00:45:27   notices me doing that they're gonna think that I'm bored or that I'm trying

00:45:30   to end the meeting or that you know I've double booked I need to get somewhere

00:45:34   and is generally perceived as something as a rude gesture, especially in my world

00:45:42   as meetings right now with work. So I think that's what he was driving toward

00:45:46   and I think they exaggerated it. He said it right back then.

00:45:50   I agree with that. I understand that point. It was the second half of that little skit that

00:45:55   Right. Oh yeah, the whole thing was cheesy. But I think they exaggerated it to make

00:46:00   the point that the way I view it and the way that you know we're gonna talk about

00:46:05   the apps in a second the way I think about the watch more and more as

00:46:08   pre-orders are just now a couple hours away is that I think my interaction with

00:46:14   the watch and apps and notifications is going to be extremely limited I really

00:46:19   depending on how you know depending on how fine grained the control is I'm not

00:46:23   gonna have a lot of stuff hit my wrist I already have most notifications on my

00:46:27   phone turned off. I have you know a lot of stuff to manually check and emails

00:46:33   aren't coming in and lighting up my screen all day long and so I think that

00:46:38   if you're that sort of user where you already care about the notifications

00:46:43   that come to your phone I think the watch is gonna be even more so. Like I

00:46:47   really want my watch to vibrate if I have a task due, an alarm or my wife

00:46:51   sends me a text. Like very few things and very few people are gonna have the right

00:46:56   to make that thing go off at least at first and we'll see how how disruptive

00:47:02   it is and I think the idea of you looking at your watch in a meeting that

00:47:06   being rude is going to fade away very quickly because people are gonna have

00:47:09   smartwatches. I was about to make that I was gonna say that because I felt that

00:47:13   from what John Gruber was saying as well it's like yeah but it's just this is a

00:47:18   march of change like looking at your phone it was still can be a bit like hey

00:47:24   you got somewhere to be or whatever, it's still just something that people do and we all do it,

00:47:29   so we kind of let it go. So it's going to take a little bit of time, but looking at your wrist,

00:47:34   it's going to mean something new. Because that's the social behavior from the traditional watch

00:47:43   kind of people. You check the watch because you need to check the time. Now you will check the

00:47:47   watch to do all sorts of stuff. So it'll be different over time, I think. Right. And I

00:47:53   I think there will be that awkward phase where if you were an early iPhone owner like I was,

00:47:58   it was really awkward to have an iPhone at first.

00:48:02   And I was very hesitant to pull it out.

00:48:06   Not only because people would ask if that was the iPhone and want to see it, right?

00:48:09   Then you're drawing it into yourself in a social scene that I don't want at least, and

00:48:12   I don't want to be followed out and mugged by the guy at the other end of the bar.

00:48:16   But there's going to be that awkward phase, and I think it's going to be more pronounced

00:48:20   than it was with a smartphone because again people are already doing things on their phones.

00:48:26   Everyone sat in study hall and played snake on their Nokia, right?

00:48:29   Like it's just a thing people did.

00:48:32   I think we'll see how that goes.

00:48:33   I do think there's going to be a very awkward period for early adopters, not only socially

00:48:38   but you know the question of why is that any better.

00:48:42   I had that conversation with a co-worker just yesterday of some of us talking about the

00:48:46   several people at work are gonna be up at 2 a.m. to order it and she's like, "Well, why

00:48:51   would you do that? You can just do stuff on your phone." And the explanation of,

00:48:55   well, you know, you know, in theory it'll mean less time on your phone because, you

00:48:59   know, it's quick things and you can quickly check things and get back to your day.

00:49:01   That didn't really register as like a problem or a solution to the problem

00:49:06   that she didn't see existing. So I think there's gonna be a lot of that, like, you

00:49:11   having to justify to people that you bought one, which is insane, right? Like,

00:49:14   you really shouldn't matter but I think it will.

00:49:17   It's like going back to 2007 why do you need email on your phone?

00:49:21   Exactly.

00:49:22   It's all that idea right?

00:49:24   Just about to say that, thank you Myke.

00:49:26   Yeah.

00:49:27   We just, we see...

00:49:29   Or even better, why would you need a full web browser on your phone?

00:49:34   Yeah, exactly.

00:49:36   Like we either see the utility of it or we see, or we agree with what the marketing message is right?

00:49:43   messages right and when we see the marketing message it's like yeah that

00:49:46   resonates with me I think I would get use out of that and then kind of move on

00:49:51   from there like and then eventually it ends up pulling pulling people along

00:49:57   with everybody else you know yeah um so I thought I thought it'd be worthwhile

00:50:01   to talk about the what was my biggest depression and I think I think y'all's

00:50:08   as well from chatting over the last couple days. Of all these reviews you know they

00:50:14   all say battery life is pretty good you know you really got to push it to be out by

00:50:17   the end of the day that's good stuff but what almost everyone said is that

00:50:21   watch kit apps are slow especially when they're moving large amounts of data or

00:50:26   location information from the phone to the watch so to recap you know these

00:50:31   apps you know on the 24th you unbox your watch and you put Evernote and

00:50:35   overcast on it. Those aren't real apps, they're projections from the iPhone over

00:50:40   Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to your device. So it's not native code if the phone is

00:50:46   gone the watch is you know less useful. And that what we should have been

00:50:52   realizing all along and something that you know I didn't really think about too

00:50:55   deeply until these reviews came out is that that's a very slow way to do

00:50:58   computing. It's happening remotely, it's transferring over wireless which

00:51:02   it can have all sorts of issues and the Wi-Fi hiccups or you know your Bluetooth

00:51:06   drops out like I get in my car and once a week my car is just forgotten that my

00:51:10   iPhone exists and I have to go and repair it like that sort of stuff is

00:51:14   going to hamper these watch kit apps because they're they're tied they're

00:51:18   completely dependent on the phone. And also they're mostly images. Yeah yeah

00:51:23   you're just pushing a slideshow and so you know the question is and one that I

00:51:30   think will be answered over time is, is this going to hurt the watch's sort of

00:51:35   initial launch? That are people going to download these apps with expectations

00:51:39   that they will, you know, like, if someone's gonna buy an Apple Watch early on

00:51:43   they're probably nerdier than the average Joe, but most of them aren't in

00:51:48   the world that we live in of like getting talked to Underscore last week

00:51:52   about like the ins and outs of WatchKit and they're just gonna think, oh, you

00:51:55   know, this thing has apps and are those people going to be disappointed or

00:51:58   frustrated that these apps don't run the way that they think they should based on

00:52:03   having an iPhone for seven years. I don't know if that's gonna be a problem.

00:52:06   I think I will be. I think I'm gonna be frustrated.

00:52:09   I think that in the long run WatchKit apps will be remembered like we remember

00:52:14   web apps on the iPhone. Yeah. But for us...

00:52:18   It's the simple analog to make between the two. I agree with that.

00:52:21   For the first year or for the first six months, I don't know, we will be

00:52:26   annoyed by the limitations of the WatchKit apps.

00:52:30   Will it be a problem?

00:52:32   Like will it actually damage the reputation of the watch and the software of the watch?

00:52:38   I don't know because I'm not a genius.

00:52:45   I'm guessing that Apple will want developers to switch over to the native SDK as soon as

00:52:52   possible.

00:52:53   I wouldn't be surprised to... you know, the watch comes out in April and in not even six months

00:52:59   you get the upgrade to the native SDK and you get like a faster watch, you know,

00:53:05   magically almost, just with software updates. So maybe these first six months

00:53:11   will be annoying but according to I think a couple of reviews, Apple is

00:53:14   working on an update to make things a little faster at least, but it's not

00:53:21   available to reviewers right now. Which would be, you know, definitely

00:53:25   welcome and, you know, they still have two weeks to get that rolled out and,

00:53:30   you know, maybe that you open the watch and it's got an update immediately, which

00:53:32   is not a great user experience but they, you know, you can go buy a MacBook

00:53:36   Pro that still comes with, you know, Mavericks on it. The MacBooks,

00:53:40   they're shipping with 10.10.2. Yeah, I mean, 10.10.3 is out now, like it's...

00:53:47   Yeah, well, I mean, you know, things happen, they put them in a box and then they ship

00:53:50   them. So native apps I think will be a big part of it that you know you're not

00:53:55   relying on the phone to beam images over a wireless internet connection which

00:54:02   sounds like something out of the future but running locally on the S1 chipset

00:54:06   will definitely be faster I mean there's no way that it couldn't be really but

00:54:12   you know I do have that thought in the back of my mind that if we're going to

00:54:14   be you know we're gonna be annoyed that we're gonna know why and we're gonna

00:54:18   to know that there's a future coming that could be better.

00:54:22   And I just wonder about those other early adopters who might not be following this stuff

00:54:27   as closely if they're going to be unaware that that's going on.

00:54:33   Just think about this.

00:54:35   Most people, or maybe not most people, millions of people will want an Apple Watch for the

00:54:40   holiday season.

00:54:42   by Thanksgiving time or Christmas time the watch will likely have a native SDK.

00:54:49   Yeah, I mean, yeah, similarly we'll see it this summer.

00:54:54   And also, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple called that Apple Watch OS 2 or whatever,

00:55:01   and so I think people know that Apple's products get better generation after generation, so

00:55:09   So it's like people said, "Oh, the first one's rubbish, but the next one will probably be

00:55:13   better because the first one's really slow, the apps are really slow."

00:55:16   But they're releasing OS/2 and it sounds like they've sped all the apps up.

00:55:23   I totally get your point, but I think now, by now, people are accustomed to the fact

00:55:30   that Apple's products get better over time.

00:55:33   So I think people might just think that's going to be the case anyway.

00:55:37   This is not going to help that thought process.

00:55:41   I hear it so many times, you hear it when the retina imac comes out of, "Oh, don't buy

00:55:44   a Gen 1 Apple product."

00:55:46   I hear that from normal, non-nerdy people who just casually follow the company.

00:55:51   Like, "Oh, don't buy the first one."

00:55:53   Also from me, just a few minutes ago.

00:55:55   Also from Federico, just a couple of minutes ago on this show, a premier Apple podcast.

00:56:01   We're giving you the same advice.

00:56:02   I'm sorry, everyone.

00:56:03   No, no.

00:56:04   - No, no, but I'm not saying that's a right or wrong assumption.

00:56:07   There are definitely cases where I think that's true.

00:56:10   Like I even thought it, and I maybe even said it about the retina iMac of like, "Ah, you

00:56:14   know, the first retina Macs have always been a little weird, like that first 15 inch, you

00:56:17   know, had image retention and issues."

00:56:21   But this is definitely not going to help that.

00:56:23   Like if Apple is not doing anything to shake that philosophy that people have.

00:56:30   But at the same time, like, this is the way technology works, that things evolve and things

00:56:36   get out into the world and they get iterated on and improved on.

00:56:40   Are we going to see watchOS 2.0 this summer with apps?

00:56:44   I think we will.

00:56:45   Are we going to see a faster Apple Watch in the fall or early next year with a faster

00:56:51   chipset, better processor, maybe that screen will be laminated?

00:56:56   I'm not so sure about but I do think that there is a you know there's a price to pay to be an early adopter that

00:57:02   you know we're gonna talk about it, but

00:57:03   At least one of us is going to be up that tonight or you know tomorrow morning

00:57:08   Ordering one of these things and there's always a cost associated with that

00:57:11   But I agree with you Myke

00:57:14   I think it I think it would be frustrating for us who know that a brighter future is around the corner

00:57:19   But I think too it might help balance

00:57:21   You know the I don't want to do a lot of stuff on this thing

00:57:24   You know and so maybe that the the awkwardness of watch kit will sort of like

00:57:28   Temper what I want to do with it day to day, so it's not all negative

00:57:32   I don't think it's just I think there's gonna be a perception issue with some users that Apple's gonna have to deal with

00:57:36   But the real question is can we have a funeral for Myke's pebble?

00:57:42   Yes, a little guy has a little relay FM watch face on him, you know, he's so cool

00:57:49   I'm gonna miss him because you know what?

00:57:51   I mean and this is one of those things like in reading Gruber's review and he

00:57:54   talks about like looking down and seeing the time. I get that with the purple.

00:58:00   Yeah that worries me on the Apple watch. Every time I look at the purple I see the

00:58:04   current time. Like it illuminates if I raise my wrist but you don't always need

00:58:09   it to illuminate. That is gonna be really frustrating. Like I can feel that I'm

00:58:14   gonna be annoyed by that.

00:58:16   serious question do you guys keep a traditional watch face or do you look at

00:58:23   time as a digital clock? I like digital clocks. Okay, same. I have one of these.

00:58:29   Steven, what about you? I have one of these. Steven uses an old pocket watch. So the watch I'm wearing today is a

00:58:36   Casio calculator watch so if we need to do some math after the show I can help

00:58:40   us out. We'll find a link in the show notes. The other watch I wear

00:58:47   that's a little bit dressier is a mechanical watch. It's you know

00:58:51   self-winding and it's you know black face with you know sweeping hands like

00:58:56   not digital at all. Nothing is digital about that watch. There's not even a

00:58:59   battery. So I like both as far as like what watch face I'm gonna end up on the

00:59:04   Apple Watch. I don't really know like I like the idea that I could put my next

00:59:08   calendar thing on there but is that going to be helpful long term or am I

00:59:11   going to end up with something simple? I'm really curious I think I'm gonna play a

00:59:15   lot with I think all of us will play a lot with watch faces on the Apple watch

00:59:19   until we kind of see what feels good. Yeah I just I just just thought you use

00:59:25   the sundial instead of the clock. So that's good to know. Thank you Stephen.

00:59:32   So it's you know so we have talked about in the past what we would be ordering

00:59:38   and it sounds like some of us have changed our minds a little bit.

00:59:41   So Federico, you sent us a very interesting screenshot in Slack earlier.

00:59:44   What are you doing?

00:59:46   Okay.

00:59:48   I feel like I need to prepare for...

00:59:50   Should we go back to the start of this story,

00:59:52   like to what happened between me and you yesterday?

00:59:55   Was it yesterday or the day before yesterday?

00:59:57   I think it was yesterday, actually.

01:00:00   So my plan was to ask Michael to buy an Apple Watch for me and of course from the UK and ship it to me to Italy.

01:00:14   And according to rumors and now according to Apple which has a press release out this morning,

01:00:21   there's going to be... the Apple Watch is only going to be available from online stores

01:00:27   and customers are limited to one watch per customer. At least that's what I heard. So,

01:00:34   of course, we went through some kind of back and forth with Myke because he was like, "I'm gonna

01:00:38   buy an Apple watch for you and I'm gonna ship it to you because it's my pleasure mate." You know,

01:00:43   all the kinds of things Myke says. Yeah. And I'm like, "Oh, thank you, Myke. I mean, that would be

01:00:49   really awesome." You know, our kind of conversation. And then of course we realized that this wouldn't

01:00:55   be possible and so I made other plans and yes so I'm gonna go with the

01:01:04   conclusion first I will wake up tomorrow morning at my local 9 a.m. actually you

01:01:11   know a few minutes before that because I need to get to my computer sip a cup of

01:01:15   coffee and just get ready I will wake up at about 8 45 in the morning and I will

01:01:22   buy an Apple Watch from Germany. That's my plan. Okay, so I have a friend. I have a dear

01:01:32   friend in Germany. And thanks to this friend, I will be able to buy a watch, get the watch

01:01:40   to my friend, and my friend will get the watch to me. And hopefully we'll be able to, you

01:01:48   to receive the watch on the 24th or maybe instead of Friday maybe on Monday and it'll ship it to me

01:01:55   so I'm hoping that using the fastest shipping option available I will have the Apple Watch by the week after the launch.

01:02:07   I'm gonna, you know, there will be a bit of a cost concern for shipments and stuff

01:02:16   but that's a compromise I'm willing to accept.

01:02:21   So don't ask me about the technicalities of my plan

01:02:25   but it's going down tomorrow morning.

01:02:30   Hopefully, I'm just concerned that the Apple website will crash.

01:02:35   I got get the app man you gotta go for the...

01:02:38   Yeah, see that's really nice.

01:02:41   Can I change the country in the app?

01:02:45   It's tied to your...

01:02:46   So the first question I have is that the Apple ID I use for iTunes has different billing

01:02:52   than the Apple ID I'm going to use to order the watch and so I've got to go in there and

01:02:56   change my billing over because the...

01:02:58   Business expense.

01:02:59   the App Store uses the built-in system Apple ID. I will say that if you are going to buy,

01:03:10   if you listened to this beforehand, the App Store holds up much better. The App Store

01:03:14   app on iOS holds up much better than the website during these things. I'll probably have both.

01:03:19   It's going to be 2 a.m. for me, which is really disappointing. But I've done it for several

01:03:23   hours.

01:03:24   I'm going to be rolling multiple browsers like it's going to be a party.

01:03:28   Yeah, so Federico, what's your final verdict on the model you're going to purchase?

01:03:33   I'm gonna get an Apple Watch Sport Space Gay with the black band.

01:03:42   So that's a down from what you had said weeks ago, I believe.

01:03:48   Why?

01:03:49   Because I read the reviews and I feel like, again, I'm gonna be that guy, because it's

01:03:58   a first generation product, I feel like I wanna wait at least until next year before

01:04:06   I drop that kind of money on the Apple Watch.

01:04:10   Because the one that I would want to wear on a daily basis would be the Apple Watch,

01:04:17   So the steel one, the space black with the link bracelet.

01:04:22   That's the one that I want, but it'll be 1500 euros.

01:04:27   So that's quite a bit of money for me, and I feel like because the Apple Watch is gonna

01:04:33   get better, I feel like for this first generation to get accustomed to the watch, it is better

01:04:41   for me to save a little money, get the basic Apple Watch, which according to the reviews

01:04:46   is still very much a fine watch, especially for physical activity, which is very important

01:04:51   to me.

01:04:52   So it's not like I'm getting some cheap watch that I really don't want to wear.

01:04:58   So I'm getting a good watch, I'm saving a bit of money, and next year I'll see if maybe

01:05:03   I want to spend a little more, get a fancier watch with an upgrade.

01:05:10   But I want to wait.

01:05:11   I want to wait until next year.

01:05:14   At least.

01:05:15   Yeah, I think there are a lot of people in that situation where after saying the reviews

01:05:20   and after kind of thinking about it over might be downgrading, but before I tell you that

01:05:27   I'm doing the opposite, Myke, what's your plan?

01:05:31   So I had come to the decision this week that I was going to get the Apple Watch.

01:05:38   I don't know what it was, I was just looking through them again, I was looking through

01:05:40   them with my girlfriend and we were looking at the balance and stuff like that, I was

01:05:44   like no I think I'm gonna go for the watch then I read the reviews like

01:05:48   Federica and I was like yeah I'm gonna go back to sport so I'm gonna be going to my

01:05:53   original plan I'm gonna be getting the sport I'm gonna be getting the blue

01:05:56   Flora Mastema. Is that how it said? Something like that. I'm gonna be getting the blue one I want the

01:06:05   black strap I think but what I'm gonna do I'm gonna but you can't get the black

01:06:09   strap with the aluminium the silver aluminium one which is what I prefer

01:06:14   because I still believe, I don't know why I believe this, but I still believe that the black one's gonna chip like the five

01:06:20   like the iPhone 5 did. Yeah, so the one

01:06:24   Federico is gonna buy might be all banged up in a year. Mm-hmm. Sorry Federico, but that's just my

01:06:29   conspiracy theory. I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm sure they've got that sorted out by now, but I don't know

01:06:35   I just and plus I I can see why people would like it. I just want the silver one. I like the silver one

01:06:40   So I'm gonna get that one and then I'm gonna try and also tomorrow book an appointment

01:06:46   At the store to try and hopefully go into a store and try one out before the show next week

01:06:51   That's my other plan

01:06:54   Is to make sure I can try and get down to the store and then when I'm at the store

01:06:57   I'm gonna choose what other band I want to buy because I would like to have

01:07:01   One of a band I'm leaning towards a level loop

01:07:05   But I want to take a look at those a little bit more

01:07:08   Gotcha, so

01:07:10   Yeah, the 2 a.m. Thing is gonna be exciting

01:07:13   I had I said on the show two weeks ago that I was gonna do the same thing Federico is doing the 42 millimeter

01:07:19   space gray aluminum black screen and

01:07:23   I

01:07:25   Have that favor favorited or whatever it is in my account, but I also have favorited the

01:07:31   Apple watch the stainless steel with the black band

01:07:36   Just because I get more nervous about the front of that not being the sapphire cover as someone who bangs their watch into things

01:07:44   all day long

01:07:46   I worry about the durability. It's a little bit more money. I

01:07:50   understand that I will not get that money back out of it at the back end like I'm sure the

01:07:55   Gazelle pricing on Apple watches, you know, I got time will tell how that how that market plays out

01:08:00   but I do I do worry a little bit about the

01:08:06   About that cover glass and so I and I've heard you know a lot of people have the reviewers and you know people who have had

01:08:11   Time with them. I've said that the steel one is really nice and the weight is not a

01:08:16   Whole lot more than than the sport one. So we'll see what happens in the middle of the night

01:08:21   Hopefully I don't order both

01:08:24   but

01:08:25   I'm leaning towards the the stainless steel with the black sport band and and like you Myke will probably

01:08:30   Pick up a couple other bands down the road like a white one or a blue one or something to spice it up

01:08:35   Yeah, I'm thinking still that the bands that we buy now will still be good in a while like

01:08:42   That's just my feeling

01:08:45   It seems pretty obvious

01:08:47   But it's just what I like to believe that the bands that we buy now we can use on the next maybe

01:08:51   Generation or two with the Apple watch I would hope so, you know looking at them even if that thing gets dramatically thinner

01:08:56   The way those grooves work, you know are pretty independent of how thick the device is

01:09:00   So I would imagine that you know

01:09:03   Maybe in a couple years, but you know honestly like as someone who's worn a watch pretty consistently

01:09:07   If you wear a watch every day you got to replace the band eventually because it wears out or cracks or you know

01:09:12   So I think that's reasonable and the sport bands are not

01:09:16   I mean all the bands are cheaper than I thought there would be in the sport band is pretty affordable

01:09:20   So if you know you crack it or you know something happens to it, and you need to replace it

01:09:24   It's definitely not the end of the world especially if you you know buy the $500 watch

01:09:29   So yeah, well, I guess we'll report back.

01:09:32   - We'll be up. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:09:33   - We'll be awake.

01:09:34   - I think I'll be in the,

01:09:35   maybe we'll open up the relay that will be in IRC,

01:09:39   talking with people, so.

01:09:40   - That's not a bad idea, actually.

01:09:42   - At first I can't-- - You should livestream.

01:09:43   - For a second, the other night,

01:09:44   I was like, we should livestream,

01:09:45   but I was like, A, it's gonna be 2 a.m. for me.

01:09:49   Like, I don't wanna be talking to anyone at 2 a.m.,

01:09:54   and let alone like in a house with sleeping children.

01:09:56   Like, the idea quickly fell apart for me,

01:09:58   me live streaming but I think we can hang out in the chat room. Yeah cool. Right we want to talk

01:10:05   about the Steve Jobs book a bit but before we do that should we thank our third sponsor?

01:10:09   Let's do it. Yeah. Connected this week is supported by Wealthfront the automated investment

01:10:15   service that makes it easy to invest your money the right way. Wealthfront software manages your

01:10:21   money using investment strategies that were previously only available to the wealthiest

01:10:26   of investors. For just one quarter of the cost of using a traditional advisor, Wealthfront

01:10:31   monitors your account 24/7, automatically rebalancing your portfolio, reinvesting dividends

01:10:36   and working to maximize your after tax returns. Wealthfront is overseen by a team of investment

01:10:42   experts, the same people who launched the index fund revolution and who've written some

01:10:46   of the most important books in finance. In case you're still not convinced, you should

01:10:51   know that Wealthfront manages over $2 billion in client assets and has saved millions of

01:10:56   dollars on taxes for its clients. So with Wealthfront watching over your investments

01:11:00   every day, what will you do with all of your extra time? Visit wealthfront.com/connected

01:11:06   to get your first $10,000 managed for free.

01:11:10   Wealthfront is an SEC registered investment advisor. Brokerage services are offered through

01:11:13   Wealthfront Brokerage Corporation, member FINRA and SIPC. This is not a solicitation

01:11:19   to buy or sell securities.

01:11:21   Investing in securities involves risks, and there is the possibility of losing money.

01:11:25   Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

01:11:27   Please visit WealthRunt.com to read their full disclosure.

01:11:30   Thank you so much to WealthRunt for their support of this week's show.

01:11:33   So becoming Steve Jobs, we've got a couple links in the show notes, one to Amazon.

01:11:39   If you haven't read Becoming Steve Jobs, I don't think we're going to spoil it in the

01:11:45   Well, we might. I would just proceed with caution if we start getting spoil- spoilery

01:11:50   come back later. But, so it's a book out, you can get a hardcover, I read it on the

01:11:55   Kindle. Myke, you did an audiobook. Lots of, lots of fun ways to enjoy it. It's best, I

01:12:06   think my comments reflect things that I also heard in a podcast. Gruber

01:12:12   interviewed the two writers of the book. There's a link to that in the show notes as

01:12:15   well as part of the Applesore Talks thing, part of the sort of thing

01:12:20   that you did in London about becoming a professional podcasters. Same type of

01:12:24   thing right? So which I think is really cool I like that the stores are doing

01:12:27   sort of that creative type work again which is a lot of fun. So instead of

01:12:34   going through the book chronologically what I've done is I've broken my

01:12:39   thoughts into topics and we'll see how far we get this might spill into next

01:12:44   week because we're already over an hour in but I kind of wanted to start with

01:12:49   the the meta discussion of the book itself and the kind of the environment

01:12:54   in which the book exists. So you know Steve Jobs died the Walter Isaacson book

01:13:01   comes out we all read it you know it's I don't know how many pages that thing is

01:13:05   I've got the hardcover version of it and it's like I could use it to prop up a

01:13:10   like a car I think is crazy thick. And a lot of us walked away from that book

01:13:15   saying that you know it's a real shame this guy had the blessing of Steve Jobs

01:13:21   and his family to write the official biography and he kind of blew it. And

01:13:26   there's lots of reasons why you should definitely go check out Syracuse's

01:13:28   hypercritical episodes about it. I re-listened to those in preparation for

01:13:31   this. And that book actually comes up in this book. So this this Becoming Steve

01:13:38   Jobs exists in a world post-Isaacson where you know what the last Steve Jobs

01:13:42   book wasn't very good, had a lot of things wrong with it, really wasn't all

01:13:46   that informative, it was basically just rewrites of all these other books and

01:13:49   this book steps into existence knowing all of that. It's very aware of the world

01:13:53   that it's in. In many ways this book is is very strange, right? It's written by

01:13:57   two journalists, one of whom had deep access to Steve Jobs over the course of

01:14:03   decades and it's two guys it's written in singular first-person which is

01:14:09   strange but it's it's definitely like aware that it's a Steve Jobs book right

01:14:14   like a in a way that most books I've read are not you know most biographies

01:14:20   don't say I'm a biography like this book says I'm a book about Steve Jobs so I

01:14:26   like the fact that it's that it's written from a journalist perspective

01:14:29   that these guys had taped interviews they had written interviews with Steve

01:14:32   jobs over the course of years. Lots of reference material and not only like the books that

01:14:37   you think of like Infinite Loop or West of Eden which are both two great books on Apple,

01:14:43   but you know original source material. These guys go out and interview people, they interview

01:14:47   some Apple people, interview ex-Apple people. Stuff that Isaacson really never did much

01:14:51   of. Isaacson basically just rewrote other books. But with that, you know, there's some

01:14:57   downsides. There are technical errors throughout the book. Jason and John spoke about this

01:15:00   on upgrade. The ones I just commented was like they said there was a black iBook. They

01:15:05   said the iPhone 3G had a faster processor than the iPhone. They said that the iPad 2

01:15:09   had a camera flash. Like I can forgive those things but like if so Myke so Myke if you

01:15:16   write the next Steve Jobs book you should hire a nerd to fact check it for you. Like

01:15:20   just the technical stuff like you could have paid somebody $14 to read this thing and not

01:15:24   said there was a black iBook but. People would have done it for free. Yeah I even had the

01:15:29   thoughts like I'm going through like highlighting these things to my Kindle

01:15:32   I'm like I just send me the transcript like I know the stuff by heart we could

01:15:37   have solved this problem for you and it's not that it it devalues the book in

01:15:41   my eyes I think historically it doesn't it doesn't hurt the book as much as it

01:15:45   hurts me as a pedantic you know every time Casey lists causes I've had

01:15:49   something silly I die inside but I think the general public you know is never

01:15:53   never gonna notice those things but it is it does you know show a little bit of

01:15:56   a crack in the way the book is written.

01:16:00   The other meta problem I have with the book, and I want to see what you guys think about

01:16:04   this, because you guys are both most of the way through the book, I believe, is that the

01:16:11   premise of the book, the thesis the book sets out to prove is sort of twofold.

01:16:16   One is that Steve Jobs, when he comes back to Apple, is a changed man from when he left

01:16:21   Apple.

01:16:22   the jerk, the guy who fires people on a whim in the 80s because of topography, that Steve

01:16:29   Jobs is not the guy who comes back to Apple.

01:16:32   And they sort of build a case for that, it's weak in places.

01:16:37   But the second part of the premise is, okay, Jobs came back, he was different, but really,

01:16:42   even the first Steve Jobs was not a bad guy, just maybe misunderstood.

01:16:46   And they tell some stories of he goes to this meeting and like goes off on this nonprofit

01:16:51   about marketing and then is crying in his car afterwards.

01:16:54   And that, like, yeah, that kind of shows that he wasn't two-dimensional in the fact that

01:16:59   he was just angry all the time, but they don't really paint the picture of what they're trying

01:17:04   to sell.

01:17:05   They kind of just say that thing and then they move on.

01:17:07   And that's a problem in any book, right?

01:17:11   If you chase every rabbit hole in a book, your book is going to be 10,000 pages long.

01:17:15   But if your core premise is to say Steve Jobs evolved over his lifetime and evolved over

01:17:19   his career you should paint that really clearly and I think this book only does

01:17:23   that about halfway what Myke you're further into it than Federico like do

01:17:30   you get that sense that that's what they're trying to say like as the meta

01:17:34   point of the book they're like the the whole point is trying to say that he had

01:17:38   a heart of gold like that's kind of what they're trying I feel like they're just

01:17:43   trying to get out it's like he is a nice guy and I'm not saying that he wasn't

01:17:48   but they try and explain so many things that he does and say yeah but he learned

01:17:54   later and it's like okay but he still did this then there is this kind of like

01:18:01   prevailing feeling in the book where they're trying to make the case that he

01:18:05   was a better person than then people think he was and in some instances I

01:18:10   actually think it works like they made me think differently about Lisa he's

01:18:15   his daughter right where they were like he was like in his early 20s the guy

01:18:20   didn't know what he was doing he kind of got lost and made it he did something

01:18:25   stupid by trying to like distance himself from it but he didn't know how

01:18:29   to do with it he was just a kid and it was like you know what that is a good

01:18:33   point I'm not excusing him because it was terrible but I've never heard it

01:18:38   said that way before like what would we do if we were 22 in that situation right

01:18:43   like, oh I was, but, uh, married with a baby, but, um, most people aren't, right? So like,

01:18:49   that's a really good example, Myke, of, you know, sort of putting people in Steve Jobs' shoes and

01:18:54   like, well, how would you react this way? How would you react if you had cancer? Would you tell people?

01:18:57   I love the Bob Iger story. Yes. Oh yeah, we're gonna get there.

01:19:03   The, the sort of the, the third meta point, we talk about technical issues, we talk about

01:19:10   what the book is trying to say. The third one is Apple's influence on the book. So leading up to it,

01:19:16   you know, iBooks is tweeting about it, Eddy Cue says, you know, this is a great book. Here's a

01:19:22   quote from Tim Cook. I don't know if you've heard of Tim Cook, he runs Apple now. This is a direct

01:19:28   quote from the book. "The picture of him isn't understood," says Cook. "I thought that the

01:19:32   Isaacson book did him a tremendous disservice. It was just a rehash of a bunch of stuff that had

01:19:37   already been said. It's focused on small parts of his personality. You get the feeling that Steve's

01:19:43   a greedy, selfish egomaniac, but it didn't capture the person. The person I read about there, being

01:19:49   the Isaacson book, is somebody I would never have wanted to work with over all this time. Life is

01:19:54   too short." That is really like, A, it's a dagger through the heart of the Isaacson book. Like,

01:20:02   Like if that book wasn't already condemned,

01:20:04   it is definitely condemned now.

01:20:06   But what becoming Steve Jobs is saying in this is that,

01:20:13   this is what they go on to say.

01:20:16   And saying this, "Cook echoed the feeling

01:20:18   of many of Steve's close friends.

01:20:21   In interview after interview,

01:20:23   they complained that very little

01:20:24   of what had been published offers any sense

01:20:26   of why they would have worked so long

01:20:28   and so hard for Steve."

01:20:30   And so what Becoming Steve Jobs is saying is,

01:20:32   look, these stories, these books you've heard

01:20:35   of Jobs being a jerk to people,

01:20:38   it's not the story, it's not the whole story at least.

01:20:40   And what we're gonna do is we're gonna tell

01:20:43   the soft, gooey bits in the middle

01:20:44   and why somebody like Tim Cook

01:20:46   would leave a profitable company

01:20:47   and come to Apple that was dying

01:20:49   and work for Jobs for 15 years.

01:20:52   And that's fine, but if you have the Apple CEO saying that,

01:21:00   a journalistic book, as a book written by reporters, you have biased it. You have

01:21:06   introduced an outside force saying, "You know what? This book is blessed." And by, you

01:21:13   know, osmosis, everything we are saying in the book is blessed. And I think that's a

01:21:17   little bit of a problem if you're approaching this book as a historical

01:21:21   journalistic effort to document this man's life. Why? I don't know if I

01:21:28   understand this as fully as you do because obviously you are a journalism

01:21:32   person. Yes that is what the degree says and I know that like this might just be

01:21:38   my own hang ups but if Becoming Steve Jobs is not saying we are writing the

01:21:43   definitive historical report of Steve Jobs life. What they are saying is we or

01:21:49   what they have done is we are writing a story with this lens with this message

01:21:54   of you know Steve had a heart of gold Michael you said it's much better than

01:21:57   I thought of it and yes he was a jerk and yes this other stuff happened but

01:22:02   underneath it all he was a good guy and what I really want and the book that has

01:22:07   not been written yet is the historical accurate unbiased like biography of Steve

01:22:16   Jobs and we don't have that because the Isaacson book was flawed and this book is

01:22:21   flawed to a lesser extent but in a different way and maybe that's just my

01:22:25   own hang up. I think some people share that thought. I think probably, like you

01:22:29   guys do. But it's something to think about as you read this book, that this book is

01:22:33   written from a certain point of view and a certain tone of voice that you should

01:22:36   be aware of, you know, when you think about this book.

01:22:39   Sure. My kind of last meta point, and this is just mostly me just preaching so you

01:22:46   guys just interrupt me. I'll say something. I think it, I was critical of it at the start because it

01:22:52   does feel like these guys are going in with their agenda but their agenda may

01:22:56   be based in what they believe to be fact or fact but I do come away from this

01:23:01   book I'm nearly finished I've got about an hour left in the audio book I do come

01:23:05   away from this book feeling vindicated like I feel like the man that I look up

01:23:11   to so much isn't as much of a tool yes he's been made out to be agreed so

01:23:17   whether he was or he wasn't, like I like that this book exists because I feel

01:23:22   better. I agree actually, I was talking to Mary about that. I was

01:23:30   finishing the book and I was like you know it's sort of a weird thing to look

01:23:32   up to look up to Steve Jobs because you know a lot of people have the view and

01:23:38   it's well founded in places that Steve Jobs was kind of a word that if I said

01:23:42   you would have to bleep it out on the podcast, right?

01:23:45   And so I do appreciate that as a fan,

01:23:48   as someone who looks at Steve Jobs as,

01:23:50   they're parts of his career, parts of his personality

01:23:54   that I think are worth emulating.

01:23:56   Absolutely, it's nice to know

01:23:58   that you're not following somebody

01:23:59   or that you're aligning yourself with somebody

01:24:02   who was a total jerk to people.

01:24:04   I think it's a really, I think it's a really solid point,

01:24:09   Myke, you know, it's interesting too,

01:24:11   and you're not to this part of the book yet,

01:24:13   but at the end of the book are all of the Apple executives

01:24:16   are sort of grouped together at the end of the book.

01:24:18   And it's, you know, it's Tim Cook,

01:24:21   it is Eddie Q, a couple others.

01:24:26   There's not Phil Schiller.

01:24:29   And it came out in that Gruber interview

01:24:31   that Apple allowed granted interviews

01:24:33   for people who attended Steve's private burial.

01:24:36   And Phil Schiller wasn't in that group

01:24:37   and that was the dividing line somehow.

01:24:39   and so that he wasn't allowed to be interviewed.

01:24:44   I will say that this is more of Eddy Cue

01:24:47   than we've ever seen.

01:24:48   Like I know there's that funny picture of him

01:24:50   at being interviewed by Walt Mossberg

01:24:52   and his shirt's unbuttoned,

01:24:53   but this is more of Eddy Cue than we've seen.

01:24:56   And I was surprised--

01:24:58   - Yeah, I know what you're gonna say.

01:25:00   - How powerful Eddy Cue seems with an apple.

01:25:04   And like-- - Dude is smart too.

01:25:06   - Yeah, 'cause you look at him, right?

01:25:08   So Eddy Cue drives a Ferrari

01:25:09   and he shows up with his shirt on button,

01:25:11   he's kinda sloppy, and it's easy to be like,

01:25:13   "Eh, Eddy Cue, he's sort of a crazy uncle figure,"

01:25:16   but like, he's-- - Yeah, it kinda feels like

01:25:18   iTunes Music Store, Eddy Cue's creation.

01:25:21   - Yeah, like-- - Not even so much

01:25:22   like he was asked to do it, he's like,

01:25:23   "He had an idea," and it became the iTunes Music Store.

01:25:28   And it's like, oh, AT&T deal, Eddy Cue.

01:25:31   Like, it's like, whoa. - Yeah, yeah, he's a beast,

01:25:34   and that's, you know, that's the--

01:25:36   - He's a real boss.

01:25:37   - Yes, he is. - Yeah.

01:25:39   And so that's sort of the fun part of this,

01:25:42   like, post-Steve, like, Cook, open Apple,

01:25:45   of working to see some of those stories now.

01:25:47   And there's, you know, there's more in this book

01:25:50   about the iPod and iPhone, or iPad and iPhone,

01:25:52   than we've ever seen before.

01:25:54   But, you know, you hear names of engineers

01:25:56   and people you haven't heard of before,

01:25:58   but that really impressed me.

01:25:59   That AT&T thing, where he was like,

01:26:01   "Hey, we're gonna build a phone.

01:26:03   "We're not gonna show it to you.

01:26:05   we're going to get a percentage of your data service charges.

01:26:10   Which they have gotten rid of since and I think it's why the pricing structure changed.

01:26:14   But yeah, like Federico said, he's a boss. And that was a lot of fun to read of like,

01:26:20   that dude is a machine and a very like, I don't know, like I always think EdiQ is

01:26:25   not that important, but in reality, apparently is very important to Apple's ongoing business.

01:26:30   And what I wish was in here was like the story of them buying Beats, because I guarantee you EdiQ

01:26:35   Q played hardball.

01:26:36   Like, he was the guy who would've finished it.

01:26:37   What it seems like is Q does the, did all the work and then Jobs would come in and seal

01:26:43   the deal.

01:26:44   Jobs came into the AT&T thing and was like, "We want part of the data stuff."

01:26:48   But Q is the one who's going in, he's feeling everyone out, he starts these things over

01:26:55   and then it's like, "Yep."

01:26:57   And then Jobs used to come in and slam it down.

01:27:00   Maybe that was when he wore the top hat.

01:27:02   Do you remember that story?

01:27:03   Yeah, it's something that happens, right?

01:27:10   And you know that they kind of deal with AT&T and you know that all these things happen,

01:27:13   but you're like, "Oh yeah, EdiQ was the guy who sort of massaged things into place."

01:27:18   It's pretty interesting.

01:27:20   Okay, so my next section you guys will see in the document is Steve Jobs, which seems

01:27:27   like he's one of my four topics for the book, but Steve Jobs is an individual.

01:27:33   And really what I walked away with and I'm gonna see what you guys think about this is

01:27:38   that there's even a quote with Johnny Ive talking about about Steve giving feedback

01:27:45   about sugarcoating the truth and that if you do that if you don't give brutal honest feedback

01:27:52   not to be brutal not to be a jerk but you just strip it down to the raw honesty of the

01:27:58   situation, that that is what's important. That you're doing a bigger respect to

01:28:02   somebody of just telling the truth as opposed to like chucking and jiving and

01:28:06   saying "oh it's pretty good but what about this?" If you just get to the heart

01:28:09   of it you're showing them more respect and you're getting better work in the

01:28:13   process. And not to be a jerk just to be mean even though I think there's cases

01:28:19   of that in Steve Jobs life, but you come across as abrasive because you're

01:28:24   stripping away that fluff that society wants you to put around truth that's

01:28:27   hard to swallow. What is that something you guys think like I look at that and I

01:28:32   admire that because it's you know a everybody kind of wants to be a jerk I

01:28:38   think I think a lot of people have that in them including myself but I look at

01:28:42   it I think yeah you know that that is kind of the way to handle things even

01:28:45   though my backfire sometimes like raw truth is raw honesty is the way to go but

01:28:50   How does that strike you guys? I think it's incredibly hard to be able to do it

01:28:59   but I can see the benefit in everybody else. Once you know that the

01:29:05   person that you work for works in this way, I can see how it enables you to

01:29:10   get work done faster. It eliminates an incredible amount of politics

01:29:15   because everyone is being honest or at least he is being honest and then that

01:29:21   allows you to be honest of each other as well because it's like but there's no

01:29:24   point sugarcoating this there's no point dancing around like and and like beating

01:29:29   the book reading about the bush about this sort of stuff let's just get things

01:29:32   done there's something about that which is great but gone Federico you gotta be

01:29:37   I'm sorry Myke it's just you gotta be in the position to be able to you know to

01:29:41   to go on with your life like that.

01:29:43   Because there's people who work day jobs,

01:29:46   and they just want to keep their jobs,

01:29:48   and they're not in the position to be jerks

01:29:50   and to not sugarcoat stuff.

01:29:52   Because at the end of the day, they're just

01:29:54   be nice to people, keep your job,

01:29:58   get a salary at the end of the month,

01:30:00   and go home and enjoy the rest of your life.

01:30:02   Because for most people, their job is not their life.

01:30:06   So if you're in a creative, controlling position,

01:30:10   I guess like Steve Jobs was and if you can afford to live with the consequences of people thinking oh my god

01:30:16   This guy's a jerk good for you. I mean we saw how much this kind of you know way of living

01:30:22   Ultimately was beneficial to Steve Jobs and to Apple because of this crazy creative process and to you know

01:30:29   To get things done and to move forward and that's great

01:30:32   Just most people don't need or want to do that and I understand why I mean it's easier

01:30:39   What do you guys say? To avoid all the politics and to go straight to the point and to be

01:30:45   kind of direct to people to just say what you think without, you know, all the fluff and that's great

01:30:52   But it's just most people want to avoid the problems that, you know, originate from this kind of behavior

01:30:58   they just want to be nice because it's easier and it makes you more comfortable and

01:31:02   Usually lets you keep your job

01:31:05   Yeah, and you're right like Jobs owned Pixar, you know, he

01:31:10   Was the CEO at Apple?

01:31:12   So if I come into my job as sort of a middle manager tech guy and I do that like it's gonna end poorly for me

01:31:18   I know because I've tried it and it is poorly for me

01:31:20   And I think this is one of the elements that changes

01:31:30   as jobs ages and again the book tells the story but doesn't really back it up in places of

01:31:36   He did that when he came back to Apple right he did that with with IV did that with the design team

01:31:41   But maybe he filed the edge off a little bit of them the meanness of it that you know

01:31:46   You can do that and if it's about the work

01:31:48   that's one thing but if you make it about the person doing the work like your jobs made things personal in his first tenure at

01:31:54   Apple and

01:31:55   That's really where you get into trouble right if you can say well your work is is

01:31:59   It's poopy, but if you say you're a poopy person different things

01:32:02   Trying to keep myself from yes, I'm editing tonight

01:32:07   and

01:32:09   And you know multiple times in the book

01:32:11   It's you know, I did the very best work in my life for Steve, you know

01:32:15   we as a team did the very best work of our lives for Steven and

01:32:18   clearly if you can work in an environment with someone, you know, like what Tim Cook said of

01:32:24   Who's not a jerk just to be a jerk and you balance that with like brutal?

01:32:29   like raw honesty you know Jobs eventually found that balance because he

01:32:35   got people you know the people who who made the iPod and who did all these

01:32:38   things you know built the iMac they were the same engineers who were building

01:32:42   Performas two years earlier that were really crappy and Jobs inspired them and

01:32:47   those you know they had new leadership but the same people were doing that work

01:32:50   and so clearly people can respond and reverberate to that sort of feedback

01:32:56   when done correctly and I think that's really like looking at companies you

01:33:02   see like CEOs try to be like oh I'm gonna be the Steve Jobs of X. Like well

01:33:07   that's sort of silly but if you're gonna do that like you have to get that

01:33:12   balance of you know yes I can I can be really brutal in my feedback and I'm

01:33:19   gonna give you honesty without any of the fluff but at the same time I'm gonna

01:33:22   build you up and encourage you I'm going to inspire you to do the best work I

01:33:25   think a lot of leaders fall into one or two of those camps but not both I think

01:33:30   that's where Steve Jobs lived as a manager later in his life was sort of

01:33:33   doing both of those things and that's what makes him a unique leader and you

01:33:39   know in that this book is not an original thought to this book but you

01:33:45   know Steve's biggest legacy Steve's biggest creation his biggest product is

01:33:50   Apple itself. You know this book talks a little bit about Apple University where

01:33:56   Apple employees are taught like historical Apple stuff not for the

01:34:00   reasons I care about it but like these are the decisions that were made and

01:34:04   these are the factors that went to those decisions like you know we could change

01:34:10   on a dime when we need to because of these things and Apple is trying very

01:34:13   hard to keep the spirit of Steve Jobs alive in the company and I think that's

01:34:20   really important I think you see that in this book where you know he's at Next

01:34:22   and he's watching Apple from afar and yes he's he's taking jabs at them in the

01:34:27   market but then privately he's like oh my gosh I can't believe that you know

01:34:31   this is going on he comes back to Apple it's six months before he does anything

01:34:35   right his next employees are all running divisions with an Apple but Steve is

01:34:38   outside of Apple sitting on his hands trying to decide what to do it's not

01:34:43   till nine months later that he comes on his ICO and then you know nukes

01:34:46   Gil Amelio out of the water, you see that shift of that balance kind of coming

01:34:53   into into play and and jobs caring about Apple not only as a family of products

01:34:58   but a product itself and I think that's something that other leaders, businesses

01:35:03   I've worked in, businesses that I see that I interact with, you know, you get

01:35:06   very down in the weeds in your product or your service and not not pay attention

01:35:13   attention to your culture or I think what Apple has is bigger than just

01:35:17   culture it is a way of thinking a philosophy of of work that Jobs tried to

01:35:23   tried to pass on. I did I did want to talk to you about the cancer thing I mean

01:35:31   it's in this book there's not a lot of new stuff in this book that wasn't in

01:35:34   the Isaacson book. The Isaacson book is really the first time you hear a lot of

01:35:38   the story because on the outside is Jobs took a couple leaves of absences leaves

01:35:42   of absence and he was kind of in and out and looked really unhealthy for a long

01:35:47   time looked really sick and then came back and had a little spring in his step

01:35:51   again and then you know went downhill and from the outside it was hard to tell

01:35:54   what was going on. This book does raise the question of like should Steve have

01:36:00   told people earlier should Steve have gotten treatment earlier? He tried doing

01:36:05   this holistic thing and then ended up you know being a more serious deal than

01:36:09   than he thought anyways. I don't feel comfortable, you know, passing judgment on

01:36:18   Steve's decisions about his cancer, maybe because I've had it in my own family for

01:36:24   a long time now and everyone approaches that differently. I don't know if you

01:36:31   guys had any opinions on that. I don't feel like I could speak into his

01:36:34   decision-making there and I think the book does a pretty good job of treating

01:36:39   that part of his life with respect of, you know, this was... they're not saying,

01:36:43   "Hey, it was a bad decision," or, "These were poor decisions," but, "These are decisions

01:36:47   he made with his family," and for better or for worse that's what happened.

01:36:52   Well, personally, like, I still have to reach this section of the book, but I'm familiar

01:36:59   with the story. I can only say that I, during my, you know, my process of going

01:37:07   through this stuff, I was offered to try, you know, this alternative solutions,

01:37:13   we are, um, instead of traditional science and medicine.

01:37:19   And my reaction was not exactly a good one.

01:37:24   And the person who tried to, um, poke my brain with this idea, I haven't, uh,

01:37:34   spoken to this person in four years.

01:37:36   So I don't feel like I'm qualified to comment on...

01:37:41   It was Steve Jobs' decision, of course, and it's just I personally don't believe in this stuff.

01:37:47   My reaction is always a bit aggressive when this sort of theme is brought up to me.

01:37:53   It was his decision, so I'm guessing, like you said, Steven, it was made with his family.

01:37:59   family. Personally, I don't think it's a smart choice, but you know, people can do whatever

01:38:06   they want with their lives.

01:38:08   I think for me, any feeling that I have or emotion that I have about that, it's selfish

01:38:18   because I didn't want him to die. Like, I want him to still be around because I benefit

01:38:25   from him being around.

01:38:27   But he'd made a decision in his life, which was like,

01:38:30   I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this.

01:38:33   And if it doesn't work, then then that's that because I don't want to do this.

01:38:37   And they actually did a really good job in the book of explaining how

01:38:40   a really invasive surgery for some people is something they just don't want.

01:38:45   And Steve was took a lot of care of himself

01:38:49   and didn't want people poking around inside his body.

01:38:53   So he wanted to exhaust other avenues before allowing that sort of stuff to happen.

01:38:59   And it's like, again, another one, it's like, okay, that is a different and interesting

01:39:05   opinion, different to one that I've seen before.

01:39:08   And again, going back to what we were talking about earlier, where the book can make some

01:39:12   weird decisions in the way it tries to explain some of Steve's stuff, it actually also passes

01:39:18   some interesting feelings that I hadn't thought of before and that is one of them.

01:39:23   Yeah and you know he's got the story of where he was showing off his

01:39:28   scar and saying you know this really was a big deal. I think that's really a good

01:39:33   point and Myke you know one that I have thought about but not in context of

01:39:37   of jobs. Really kind of what I want to leave this section with is Steve's speech

01:39:44   at Stanford and there's gonna be a link you can read the transcript the entire

01:39:49   transcript is in the book which I think is really great they'd read it all out

01:39:53   in the audiobook yeah I rewatched the video last night in fact Federico thank

01:39:57   you and I were texting and I always forget how powerful the speech is and

01:40:03   obviously in hindsight it's tragic because we know that you know he's only

01:40:08   got X number of years six years after the speech is given and he talks about

01:40:12   death, and my favorite line is "sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick,

01:40:17   don't lose faith." It's just like super heavy duty, but like that's--I think that

01:40:24   speech is printed in its entirety in this book, and I think it resonates with

01:40:28   us so well today, ten years later, because this is the jobs that this book is

01:40:32   portraying, and it's the jobs that we want to look up to of someone who's a

01:40:37   little rough around the edges. There's stuff in the speech that's really hard, and

01:40:40   and like kind of rough to listen to, but it's with that heart in the center of it and with

01:40:47   a passion for people and a passion for the very nature of life itself. He talks about,

01:40:54   "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I'm about to do today? And

01:41:00   when the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I change something." Such a compact statement

01:41:07   that has a whole world of philosophy behind it is pretty great, pretty powerful stuff.

01:41:14   I was glad to see that made the book in its entirety because I haven't read that in years

01:41:18   and it definitely like, I get choked up reading that speech, which may be silly but it's definitely

01:41:25   something that happened to me reading it.

01:41:28   So looking at where we are now, do you think we should maybe hold some of this?

01:41:31   Yeah, let's tackle Pixar and Apple next week and we'll wrap this up.

01:41:38   Yeah, because we're also going to talk, we're going to have Jason on next week, right?

01:41:42   We're going to talk about photos.

01:41:43   Yes.

01:41:44   Which will be fun.

01:41:45   Yeah.

01:41:46   Because we need to kill Apple's service.

01:41:47   We need to kill it.

01:41:49   So we're going to talk about it and then it's going to go away.

01:41:52   Just before we end the show, something that I just saw on Twitter that I'm about to retweet

01:41:58   right now.

01:41:59   Oh.

01:42:00   Okay.

01:42:01   retweeted. This is, we're doing it live. So there's people already in line to see the

01:42:07   watch in Australia. To see, because you can't buy in person right? Did we say that? No.

01:42:14   There's people in line just to see the watch, to try it on I think. And there's a, you can

01:42:19   see TV crews, you can see cameras, you can see the Apple store. I just retweeted this

01:42:23   and yeah. There's people. It's gotta be like still 8 hours away though right? I don't know,

01:42:30   It's kind of, what time is it in Sydney?

01:42:33   Let's see.

01:42:34   Because they're doing it the same time everywhere, like the pre-orders.

01:42:37   I don't know, maybe they're putting them in stores earlier.

01:42:39   It's midnight Pacific.

01:42:40   No, it's midnight Pacific, but it's 9am local time, I think.

01:42:45   So it's 9am in Sydney right now, and I'm guessing that the Apple Store is about to open, so

01:42:50   there's people, there's media.

01:42:52   Oh, right, they're going to have them in the store, but they can't order them yet.

01:42:56   Yeah.

01:42:57   because I think it'll be like I think it's like five o'clock or something Sydney time something

01:43:01   like that yeah but it makes sense right they're gonna have them in the store today that you just

01:43:05   can't do nothing with them but that makes sense I would be there like yeah I have to uh I was gonna

01:43:10   buy AppleCare+ for my six plus and I was gonna do it this weekend because I'm gonna be out where the

01:43:14   Apple store is and I was like yeah that's probably a bad idea I'm gonna be busy um yeah so we'll pick

01:43:21   up uh the second uh half of my rambling next week and that'll give you guys time to finish the book

01:43:26   because the Pixar and Apple relationship is really interesting. So we'll dive back in next week.

01:43:32   Yeah some of the Pixar stuff is fantastic but yeah I want to finish it. I want to finish it.

01:43:35   Cool. Great so I think that's about it for this week's episode. If you want to find our

01:43:41   massive list of links there's lots of stuff lots of cool things in there this week go to

01:43:44   relay.fm/connected/34 or you'll find the links in your podcast app of choice. There's a couple

01:43:50   of places you can find us online if you'd like to find Stephen Hackett he is @ismh on Twitter

01:43:55   and writes at the five tall pixels dotnet Federico's at the teachy vit ICC I and he writes at max stories dotnet and I am I Myke

01:44:02   I am y ke on Twitter and I host many shows over at the great relay dot FM

01:44:07   Which this show is a part of that's our web address really don't offend if you'd like to go there

01:44:11   You can find out more about the great stuff that we have on offer

01:44:14   Thanks again to our sponsors this week one password from agile bits

01:44:18   We also had igloo and wealth front and we'll be back next time until then gentlemen

01:44:25   peace and goodbye. Adios.