Tech Brew Ride Home - Apple Event Debriefing with MacStories' Federico Viticci and John Voorhees

Episode Date: March 30, 2019

So, we did the pre-amble for the Apple Services event last week, I figured we should do a debriefing, especially since it was such a confusing event, at least to me. I knew I needed some Apple experts to help me out, so I reached out to Federico Viticci and John Voorhees from MacStories. I don’t know if we sorted it out, but as I said earlier in the week, great minds think alike because Federico and I both had a brainstorm about when we might see AirPower released, if we ever do. By the way, Federico and John host a podcast you should check out, if you never have. AppStories, exploring the world of apps. Subscribe to it wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to another weekend bonus episode of the TechMeme Ride Home. I'm Brian McCullough. We did the preview of the Apple Services event last weekend,

so I figured we should do a debriefing this weekend, especially since it did turn out to be such a confusing event, at least to me. I knew I needed some Apple experts to help me out, so I reached out to Federico Vitici and John Voorhe's from Mac Stories. I don't know if the three of us actually sorted it out, But as I said earlier in the week, great minds tend to think alike because Federico and I both had a brainstorm about when we might actually see airpower released if we ever do. By the way, Federico and John host a podcast you should check out if you never have. App Stories exploring the world of apps.

Subscribe to it wherever you get your podcasts. I guess in the classic, what would you say, film review style, like just generally what did you guys think of the event, not necessarily what was debuted, but just the event itself? I kind of love the fact that it was so different from other Apple events, especially because I think they set the tone right from the beginning that it was going to be all about services. And so we were not expecting, you know, the one more thing with the hardware or a new version of iOS.

But we knew from the first couple of minutes, essentially, that it was going to be all about services. And it was just a different rhythm, I guess, from the usual Apple event. You know, they talked about games and subscriptions for games. They talked about credit cards and then all those movie stars.

I think it made some people uneasy. You know, folks who have been following Apple since, you know, the return of Steve Jobs and, you know, what used to be called the Mac heads, you know, the people who were super into the Macintosh, you know, a couple of decades ago. I think this is the kind of modern Apple that we're going to see more and more going forward. And knowing that it was going to be a different event, I just enjoyed it because it was not WWDC, it was not an iPhone event.

It was something else. Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. It was, I think Apple did a smart thing by setting it up last week, by getting all the hardware out of the way. I mean, because there were a lot of rumors about different sorts of, you know, hardware that were going to come out. They got the IMAX and the AirPods and got everything out of the way, which cleared the decks to talk about services. And it really is kind of, it was in a way almost like the debut of the new Apple. I mean, this has been in the works for a long time with services. But this is really the first event where that was front and center and the only thing focused on.

I might register some qualms later as we go forward. But that makes me think of one thing. And there's been some discussion about this. Do we know why they did this event now? because one of the things, well, let's do it now. One of the things that felt odd to me was there was so much that they couldn't tell us, you know, lots of discussion about they couldn't name pricing or like, you know, titles of specific things.

But also, it's not like everything was even available. So did they have to shoehorn this in now because they didn't want to do it at WWDC? What do we know about that? Yeah, I feel like that's one of the reasons. that they were not going to do a repeat of the Apple Music announcement from a few years ago when essentially they devoted 30 minutes of WWDC to Apple Music and Drake was on stage and the developers in the audience hated those 30 minutes. So I think they wanted to move away from announcing consumer stuff at a developers event.

I also think they wanted to have the spotlight all about this narrative of Apple as the server. services company and also I feel like the all the Hollywood stuff all those you know I've been following all this news and rumors for the past couple of years and it was getting to the point where we knew more from this upcoming video streaming service from actors and directors you know having interviews on different blogs and different publications like the Hollywood reporter and variety then we actually knew from Apple so it was getting to the point where Apple just needed to pre-announce what they were working on. So I feel like it was a combination of factors that led to having this separate event.

Well, that actually kind of makes sense because, you know, one of the things that was weird to me is like they didn't even show friggin trailers of the show, like the most obvious thing they could do. So I'm like, if you're not even ready for the trailers, then why are you doing this now? Yeah, it was a little, little odd in that sense. And I think the thing that surprised me the most, though, was that we saw the gaming service this week because I was at GDC, the game developer conference in San Francisco last week. And there was a lot of buzz about the service that was coming. And I was told at the time that it was going to be in the fall.

But I really didn't expect to see it at this event, even though it was a services event because it just struck me, since it's app focused, that it was the kind of thing you'd see at GDC, I'm sorry, at WWDC, or perhaps not until the fall itself when, you know, the new iPhones come out. Right. So let's actually start taking them in order then. And we'll start with Apple Arcade. So it is interesting to me this idea of exclusive titles and like the curation of it. And Apple actually financing the development of these games and making them exclusive. So you guys, I actually, this totally missed me. I didn't even know that any sort of gaming thing was coming.

It was kept pretty quiet, but there were rumblings over. I think back to January maybe, there were a few rumors here and there that Apple was approaching game developers and talking to them about financing games and doing some sort of service. But the details around it, I mean, there aren't a lot of details around it even now. It's not entirely clear what exclusive means. I think it means exclusive to the service, not exclusive to the platform. But I think, you know, one of the problems, Apple has, Apple fell into gaming backwards because they just were making money hand over fist with freemium games with all the gems and

coins and those kind of games. But the problem was that over time, that sort of started to choke out the paid up front, kind of indie, classic, artistic games that were on the store. And I think that once they had an editorial staff in place with the App Store, there was a push, by the people in that group to try to clear the weeds a little bit. And instead of getting rid of freemium or doing something that would harm that money-making machine, they're carving out a new area for these other games to live in, which I think is a good way to do it because they just need to be nourished in their own environment so that they're not

eclipsed by these other types of games. Yeah. And I feel like there's also the fact maybe that until a few years ago, I get the impression that Apple was convinced that the future of gaming in general was mobile gaming, and they were sort of caught surprised by the success of the PlayStation 4 and the insane success of the Nintendo Switch. And they must have seen how a lot of these games, a lot of these iOS games, they launched on the App Store, but arguably they found more success on the Nintendo E-shop

once the developers made the Nintendo Switch version of those games. And so I feel like in the past, of years, they must have seen this shift, or rather, that basically things stayed the same. You know, people are still buying consoles, people are still playing, you know, adventure games and story-driven games. And there's a space for mobile gaming. There's a space for Clash Royale and all those games. I mean, you know, the money speaks for itself. But also, I feel like Apple reached a point where they saw the Nintendo Switch and they saw the PlayStation 4 and they realized, well, I guess we got to do something at this point

because people still want to play those games in addition to the quick fix of the iPhone mobile game. They also want a deeper experience and so how can we combine that with making money and maybe trying a different business model

on the app store and I guess the subscription was the answer, you know, the Netflix for games which I think is an interesting model. I'm a little skeptical about how money is going to be split among developers. That's one of the big questions, I guess.

What's it going to cost? It's going to be $10 a month. It's going to be $20 a month. And how is money going to be allocated between developers? Let's move on to Apple News Plus, which I think you guys published first impressions with. I actually haven't even had time to attempt to play with it yet. So what do you guys think of Apple News Plus so far? So I went through all the magazines.

Right, which was super useful for me to even decide if I wanted to do this. The only one that's missing that I would want on there is the economist, but that's the economist. So I get why they're not there. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's right now, it's in a sort of strange initial stage in that half of the magazines are using what Apple calls the Apple News format, which is the sort of a fork of HTML that

allows rich layouts and articles to be responsive on smaller screens and the iPad and the Mac. And half of them are still based on essentially PDF. So fixed, you know, high quality, but still fixed pages of documents that used to be the format of the old texture service, which Apple acquired. And the problem, though, is that those PDF pages, they are, of course, uncomfortable to use on the iPhone, but they look great on the iPad. You get these custom layouts with rich photography and you know, this, if coming from the print tradition of magazines, you get the same experience, but on a digital display. And then you have the Apple News format, which is more comfortable to use. It's responsive and you can scale the size of text, but most of them are based on these

templates that I guess, you know, big publishers are using to convert their magazines to the Apple News for a month, so it's kind of boring. It could be so much more, but really, you get the rich experience, you get it with the National Geographic and maybe a couple of more, but all the others, they essentially look at the same. So I guess if you're like me and if you just happen to have those four to five magazines, plus the Wall Street Journal that you really wanted to have in a single application, so for me, that would be Edge, the Video Game Magazine, Retro Gamer, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and the Wall Street Journal. If you just happen to like those and you can say, well, I'm just going to pay $10 a month and I can have them

in the same app that I'm already using. But I'm also aware of the fact that folks who love magazines, there have been alternatives. I think one of them is called Ridley, for example, and they've been around for years. And the problem is Apple News is still limited. And Apple News Plus is only available in the US and Canada. So it's a slow start. I think it could have been worse. Of course, it could have been better, I guess, right now, if you're a magazine fan and if the offering of Apple News Plus contains what you love, maybe you can give it a try, but otherwise I would say there's a long way to go. Yeah, I think that's right.

And it's, you know, coming out of the gates, it's a little bit buggy. I think maybe this, you know, this was rushed out the door maybe a little bit sooner than it should have been in order to sink it up with the other services. that we're being dealt with. But it does, the selection is pretty good. I just, I'm not super thrilled with the PDF selection myself because I do like the alternative of reading on my iPhone when I'm commuting or doing something like that.

We should probably leave most of the rest of the room for the TV stuff. But real quick, takes on the Apple card. I think it's fantastic. I'm looking forward to it. I mean, I don't think that the benefits that you get, the rewards are the best in the industry. I mean, I think you can do better with some of Chase's cards. But I do like the fact that I like the security, and I also like some of the stats and other, you know, financial management tools are coming along with it.

You know, the one thing, because I don't really care about the cashback stuff and all that, but the one thing that is making me seriously consider it is just the fact that they're not going to share my spending data. They're not going to share where I'm spending my money with anybody. And just that one thing would be probably enough, especially because there's no yearly fee or anything like that. Right, exactly. And that's, you know, that that's one of the main sources where, you know, companies get information about you is on your purchase history, on your credit cards. Federico. Yeah, I mean, I'm. Oh, because you're not going to be able to take advantage of it.

Exactly, right. No. But just the concept of it, like, in terms of even like a thing that Apple wants to do, does that make sense to you at all? it does make sense to me I think it's a little odd maybe to see Apple teaming up with the bank and you know there's already the memes

going around you know the idea of Apple wants to change the word but eventually they have to team up with the bank and you know this huge corporation but I mean I love the idea I love the fact that integrates with the wallet app on the iPhone and I think we've been seeing this sort of

transformation of Apple trying to become a bank, you know, first with Apple pay cash and the wallet app and now with the Apple card, I think it makes sense. I also feel like this is going to be one of the services that it will be super slow to expand internationally. But I hope to be wrong, honestly. All right. This is where I need your help. All the TV stuff. And this is almost interesting to me, the idea that I watched the whole thing, I've had days to think about it, read everybody's hot takes, and I still don't know that I conceptually get what they're trying to tell me they're being revolutionary about or whatever, you know, whatever Apple superlatives they like to

use. So as I think I understand it, and then tell me where I'm wrong, essentially the Apple TV app, they want to replace my cable box with an app, like, in the sense that I can a la carte sign up to any of the channels that I want piecemeal. And then, oh, yeah, by the way, also one of those channels is our own Apple created channel, our own Apple content. Is that essentially what we're talking about? Yeah, I think that it is essentially what we're talking about. Part of it is to reduce the friction of getting the content into the TV app because right

now you have to download a separate app. You have to sign up in that app and then the stuff starts showing up in the TV app. but with this system, it will all live within the TV app itself. So it's a little bit like turning inside out the mantra of several years ago, which was the future of TV is apps. Now it's the future of TV is the TV app. That's where it's all going to live. But I don't think until we see the original content,

which there was precious little of that discussed during the keynote, it's going to be really hard to see how this is going to distinguish itself. It feels a lot to me like Amazon Prime, for instance, which has its own sort of channels thing. Right. We'll come back to that in a second. Federico, though, again, this is the thing that they've been doing over the last couple months where it's like, oh, yeah, well, this will be on everything. This will be on Samsung TVs and things like that. So does that feel a little odd to you? It's almost like they've gotten religion that, like, if we're going to go in this direction, I guess Apple Music,

taught them this, well, you've got to be on every single platform that you can be on. Yeah, that's, I feel like they, again, I go back to the idea that we got to get used to these different kind of Apple until a couple of years ago. It would have been unthinkable to see Apple joining, you know, forces with Amazon to say, we're bringing Apple music to the Echo or with Samsung to say we're embedding the iTunes, I guess now it's going to be called the TV app on Samsung television. I guess when you're doing services, the very idea of a service is to reach as many people as possible to provide the service. And also, you know, when it comes to televisions, of course, Apple is not making one.

And people are buying all kinds of television sets. And most people are maybe resistant to the idea of adding yet another TV box to their TVs. So we're going to see, you know, this week we got the announcement that TV app will be compatible with the Roku and with the Amazon Fire TV. I think we'll continue to see more and more of this expansion, even though it is weird. It is odd to see Apple, you know, featuring these names and these products and these companies on their website and in their keynotes. But it's what they need to do if they want to have a service that the majority of people everywhere can use. It's just what they need to do. So the main thing that I expected that we didn't get, but then we didn't get this because we didn't even get pricing for some of these services.

So there's all of these different universes of subscription services now. So I was totally expecting them to announce some sort of master bundle. Some people have said, you know, it'll be like, you know, Amazon Prime for like you pay this dollar amount per month and you get all of our stuff, right? And so that's got to be inevitable someday, right? Yeah. I really thought they were going to announce a bundle. Of course, the problem is we don't have pricing for the Apple originals on Apple TV Plus and the Apple Arcade. So you cannot announce a bundle unless you know the prices of all the elements that, you know, make up the bundle.

But I do think there should be one. and the bundle should also consist of iCloud for example maybe apple care you know all the other services like products that apple sells they should all be thrown into you know whatever you want to call it apple plus apple one i don't know but i agree that the bundle should be a thing and i you know maybe in the fall we'll also get this kind of product real quick about the week of hardware refreshes Surprise that the iPad Mini lives on. By the way, I just got a notification that mine has just been delivered. So I'm super excited.

But surprise that the iPad Mini lives on? Yeah, I am a little surprise. I'm very happy, though, because I think it's a great, especially now that it's got an A12 processor in it and has pencil support, it's a great little iPad. I have a 9.7-inch one that I use mostly for reading and really light email and web browsing and stuff when I'm not working. And I'm seriously considering getting the mini

because it seems to me it's a perfect iPad for reading a book in bed and doing that sort of thing. And the AirPods refresh. I feel like this didn't get a lot of attention, but there was a lot of rumors around things like noise canceling and other bells and whistles coming to that, and that didn't happen. Do you guys know anything about that at all?

Yeah, I think Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, Ghees said that Apple is planning another version for next year with noise cancellation and there were some other feature that he was talking about. But the idea is, according to German at least, that we're going to see a third generation AirPods in 2020 at this point. That would be a little strange, I guess, because the original AirPods they launched in December 2016. Maybe Apple will switch to an annual upgrade cycle for airports.

as well. I guess we'll see. Well, then the final, final question, Whither Airpower because when they announced the AirPods refresh with the wireless charging, I'm like, okay, tomorrow comes airpower, and then it didn't come,

and then I'm like, well, maybe they'll just do it on stage for funsies. What the heck? Yeah, I don't know. I thought the exact same thing. I thought that was going to be the Thursday announcement, and I've had a draft article for MacStory's drafted since last fall about air power. I mean, I know Federico and I keep placing bets on when it's going to come out,

and we're both wrong always. So, no insight from you on that, Federico. I'm a believer. I think it will come out eventually. I mean, it would make for, and this is just my personal speculation, but if it is true that Apple is actually placing orders for, you know, in the supply chain for air power, and it's late March, that would be air power. That would be air power. it would be a fantastic April 1st release. I was just gonna you stole my, yeah. As a final troll, as a final troll for everybody, it would be amazing for April 1st. That would be good. That would be fantastic.

Well, literally that would be two days after this drops, people will find out if we're right about that. Thank you gentlemen, I much appreciate it. Sure, thank you. Thank you, Brian.