Tomorrow - Episode 8: John Gruber & Josh Get 2gether 4 an Apple Chat

Episode Date: June 26, 2015

ALERT. John Gruber is one of the world's foremost experts on Apple. Josh is one of the world's foremost experts on experts. Unsurprisingly, things get very nerdy when Josh and John sit down to discuss the past, present, and future of the company, as well as how it compares to the competition. But don't worry — Woodrow Wilson, James Bond, and the New York Yankees all pop up in the discussion as well. You've been warned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host Joshua Tupulski. Today on the show we're going to talk about James Bond, getting sober, and lots and lots of Apple. But first, a word from our sponsor. This episode of Tomorrow with Joshua Tapolsky is brought to you by Nadex, binary options trading. Say you think the markets are going up, you can go to nadex.com and make a trade on that. You're not buying stock, you're trading on where you think the price will be by a certain time. Trade the most popular financial markets with thousands of short-term contracts listed daily. Go to nadex.com and get started trading binary options. That's nadex.com. Futures options and swaps trading

involves risk and may not be appropriate for all investors. Quick note about today's podcast. I'm actually recording from home in a very makeshift studio. So if the sound is strange, it's your fault, really, when you think about it. No, I'm kidding, it's completely my fault. My guest today is a man that many of you know. Some of you love, many of you hate. No, I don't know.

That's really, that's a really mean intro. He's loved. He's hated. He's John Gruber. John, thank you for joining me. Josh, you always introduce me that way and I don't think it's true. I think I'm internationally beloved. You think, well, here's what I know. You and I come from a place. We come from a place, the internet, particularly the things that you and I have covered, there's a lot of passion. People can get very angry about the things that you might write or that I might write. I guess the love-hate thing is kind of a reaction to that.

I've personally dealt with quite a bit of both. I've seen people comment on John Gruber on the internet. And look, there's some guys, there's some people out there, guys and girls that just don't understand why you don't love Android the way they do. Yeah, well, you know what,

to me it's like the, maybe it's because I have a thick skin, but to me it comes back, I'm gonna butcher the quote, but paraphrasing Woodrow Wilson, who went from being like the president of Princeton to being the president of the United States, he said that the politics in the university were worse than the national politics. And he said, the reason why is because the stakes were so low.

And I think that's exactly what makes people angry. People will get way angrier over me tweeting, I didn't even make a comment. All I did was tweet the facts in the screenshots and some gifs over the new Android M copy and paste popup which is a lot like the one that iOS has had for years. It just makes people furious because then they start spouting off about all the things that Android had first. You know, like you pull down from the top and get notifications.

Android had that for two or three years before iOS had it. That's true. And then they more or less did this thing. That's just how the OS game goes. And you point it out and somebody thinks you're, you know, but the stakes are so low. Don't you think we've gone to a point now with Android and iOS that there's so many similarities that it's just you have to admit

to yourself that they're going to borrow from each other at this point because it's like there's only so many ways to do certain things. And, you know, at Google figured out a couple of smart things, Apple figured out some smart things and inevitably they're going to be ripping off each other. That's how, that's how like the best cars get made. Yeah. I think, and I think what happens to, and you know, the same thing happened with Mac and Windows is, and you would never look at Mac OS and Windows and say they look the same and that somebody

who's an expert and one can sit down in front of the other. And it's the opposite. If you're the more expert you are, the more you know the little differences, and then it drives you nuts on the other system. But for the most part, they do the same things. But in the early years, they were radically different. Right. And it's the same with iOS and camera.

One was good and one was absolutely terrible. I'm not going to say which, but I think we know. We both know the answer. I should, we should back up here actually, because we just got right into a conversation about fanboys. But if you don't know, and I don't know who'd be listening to me and John Gruber speaking to one another, not know who Gruber is, but it is possible. John has a very popular, very famous blog, can I call it a blog?

Do you mind? Is that okay? Sure. Called Daring Fireball. He's probably the world's most influential and important writer when it comes to Apple. Certainly one of the most influential and certainly a very influential to the company itself. I think that you have a lot of fans within Apple who really respect your opinion and your ideas.

Anyhow, if you don't know Gruber, he's just a huge force in the world of technology, writing and conversation. But you've been historically focused on Apple, and that's why I was talking about fanboys because we do. I think we're coming out of the haze of fanboyism, though, I think, don't you feel like the fanboy stuff has died down a bit in the world? God, I really, I don't like that word.

I really don't. You don't like the word. I have some people embrace it. Yeah, but some people embrace it. Like the Stephen Fry article, last week in the telegraph, announcing Johnny Ives' promotion, and in the headline in the article,

self-proclaimed fanboy. So maybe that's just me, I don't know. I used to not like the word blog too, so I just have some footage. But anyway, blogs are weird word. I know what you mean. Do you think that it's not as bad as it used to be? I think so, and I think possibly it's because

there's no underdog anymore. You know I feel like people have finally yeah but they don't really have big they don't really have their big problem is they don't have anybody who's well that I'm not gonna say anybody but they don't really have a contingent of fans like that's the thing that drives that is if there's one platform that perceives that maybe that the fans of the platform die hard. I love this thing. I love Android. I love the iPhone or you know macOS and I perceive that it might be getting squeezed out by

somebody else that it drives people to be a little bit more fanatical. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's true. I mean, but you would think that it would become like a Republican Democrat situation, which I think it has been for a long time. It actually used to be, you know, it's just that you end up with these very binary options, right, these very, you had for a long time,

it was Windows versus Mac. I mean, in the technology world, Windows versus Mac, and then it progressed to iOS versus Mac, I mean, in the technology world, Windows versus Mac, and then it progressed to iOS versus Android, and that has persisted. It did seem like there was a point where potentially there could be other competitors in that space very early on, and then it just kind of disappeared. I mean, people, I just feel like, you really can't have too many options. So I get why there's no Windows phone, there's no really fervent base options. So I get why there's no Windows phone, there's no really fervent base.

I mean, there are people who love Windows phone, and Windows phone is actually, listen, are these still calling it Windows phone? Is that actually how people are referring to it? I don't even know at this point. I think they might have even, I think they might have even gone back to Windows mobile now. Because they've gone.

You just made that up. Yeah, no, but I think that's it. But not as a separate OS, they've got this whole thing now where they've unified on a one of that up. Yeah. No, but I think that's right. But not as a separate OS, they've got this whole thing now where they've unified on a one-on-one OS. Right, Windows for mobile. And maybe that's what it is. Right. Yeah, I should know this.

I should know this. I just haven't, you know, the point is that there is a Windows operating system for mobile devices. It's Windows phone, but you're right. There's not, you do hear people speak up about it, but the thing is they are the underdog now, which is such a weird thing for anybody in the Microsoft sphere to be. It's actually kind of strange. I mean, they went from this dominant

forest that couldn't be stopped, and everybody was mad at because they were so dominant too. You almost feel, I feel like a little bit bad. You know, like they should have a little bit more going on right now. It's like they made a pretty decent mobile operating system. I don't know what the answer is. I mean, people have obviously chosen anyhow. This is a rabbit hole. We're going down a Windows rabbit hole. We don't want to go down.

Let's talk about Apple for a second. And then I want to talk about Google. Google just had their big I.O. developer's conference, and I'm sure you have some thoughts on that. And you've tweeted about it already. But let's talk about Apple, because WWDC is coming up. And there's the last few months for Apple have been really interesting.

And I kind of want to get, I mean, are you wearing your Apple watch right now? I am. Okay, so do you like it? I mean, you're into it. I do. I like it more than I expected to. It's a long, I really went into this.

I really went into this. I really want to pause there, by the way. I find it very, I still find it. Lo these, what is it? I guess since the, the review units went out two months, almost to the day. So it's been about two months, which is a lot more time than most people have had with it. Yeah. I still find it very, very difficult to to figure out what I think about it and to write about it. And I do get asked all the time. And I'll say this, it is true. And it really speaks to apples. is true and it really speaks to Apple's, their, their,

my share is I get asked all the time about it. You know, I was just like when you're out ophthalmologist, yeah, my ophthalmologist, as soon as she came in the room, she was like, hey, is that, is that what I think it is? And, you know, she's, she's not an Apple expert, you know, but she instant, and she doesn't know what I do. It's not like she knows who I am or what my career is. She's just there to see what my eyesight's like. And then we spent 15 minutes talking about it. Yeah. I actually have, well, first of their rare now, because most people don't have them. Even now, I mean, this is, you know, apples has not been, I think they've not moved as many onto the risks of people as they might have liked

at this point. I know a lot of people who've ordered them, ordered them on day one and are still waiting. I have somebody I work with just got one like yesterday and he ordered a couple of hours after the pre-order started. So it's taking a while and that was, you know, how long ago, that was a while ago. So I think first off, they're just rare people haven't seen them.

But I do think it is the first of this kind of device because there have been But I do think it is the first of this kind of device, because there have been plenty others, but it's the first of this kind of device that people really know about. I mean, there's like a Samsung watch and there's Android Wear, but none of those have made any kind of, there's been no marketing, there's been no hype really. The reality has been Apple announced as something everybody pays attention no matter what. And that does speak to the mind share, but it also speaks to the fact that they're just better at delivering a story about a product

than most other companies are. Like, yeah, and I'll just give you another example. And this is a perfect example of something that Apple really doesn't need, or should get credit for, is at the ophthalmologist yesterday. It wasn't just the doctor, I forgot. It was also her receptionist who came in to do the set up the room before the thing.

She noticed it too and also asked questions about it. And then she saw me turn my wrist and she goes, oh my God, does it just turn on when you turn your wrist? And I was like, yeah, so the screen's off all the time and you just turn your wrist and it turns on. And she was like, oh my god, does it just turn on when you turn your wrist? And I was like, yeah, so like the screen's off all the time and you just turn your wrist and it turns on. And she was like, oh my god, that's amazing. I thought you had to hit the button. And that's interesting. Right. And it's like, that's what all of these watches do though. Or at least the ones that don't have an always on screen like the pebble, but the ones that use a screen that the energy consumption is such that you can't keep it on.

24 hours. The Moto 360 is on, it's a glance, you glance at it and it turns on. It actually has, to be honest with you, the battery life is terrible on the 360, but it has a mode that also does an ambient screen, which is that even when it's basically off, it still gives you a small amount of information, which to me, actually, you're talking about you, you turn your wrist and you see it. One of the most annoying things about the watch to me was that, and I actually, I took it off for a while and then I put it back on the other day.

Like I had more than for a few weeks and then I put it back on and because a friend of mine was wearing one and I was like, oh, I should wear it again. And it started, it doesn't always turn on and I find it to be so aggravating. Now, look, I know you wore a watch. I think we've actually talked about watches in the past.

At Apple events, I feel like we had conversations about watches. And so I know you're a watch wearer. Now, doesn't it drive you a little bit crazy? There have to be moments when you look at your wrist and the screen doesn't activate because that's happened to me a lot. I mean, it's actually not like the majority of the times.

It's, but when it does happen, it's really notable because it's extremely annoying because you want to see the time or the weather or whatever. I mean, doesn't that drive you insane? I wouldn't say insane, but it's, in my week, you know, we, our initial reviews, you and you and I both had like the initial batch of review units. Yeah. So we had what, like, nine days to write something for our first review. We are initial reviews. You and I both had the initial batch of review units. So we had what, like, nine days to write. It's on the first review.

And I found that to be the hardest product review I've ever written in my career. Because I really felt like I'm still not familiar with this. And I felt very uncertain about making strong conclusions. And so, but I focused on the things that I knew that I was frustrated by, or that I knew that I was happy with. But I knew that I was leaving broad swaths of the product out. But the one thing for me that was,

and I think I devoted like a thousand words to this, was that I'm a long time watchware. I've worn one almost every day of my life since I was a teenager, and I've worn one every day of my life as an adult. And I'm used to being able to glance at my watch at any angle and just see it. Yeah. And it always is on. And it's driving me nuts. So I have a habit. And this is, it's ridiculous.

It makes no sense at all. I didn't even realize I had this habit until I started wearing an Apple watch. Is when I'm at my computer and my hands are on the keyboard. And I want to check the time. I don't look up in the menu bar of my Mac and check the digital time. I look at my wrists to check the analog time. Really? Well, and part of that, yeah, and I think part of it is that I, I don't digital time doesn't really make sense to me.

Like if it says three colon two zero, in my mind I have to convert that to like the hour hand and minute hand. Really? That's strange. I'm so used to analog to it. That's like a weird dyslexia that you've got, you're dyslexic about just the time or something, but it's not the actual numbers, it's like the physical representation of them.

Yeah, that's extremely. That's really, and so I just keep looking and I still have it. I still even now. So it doesn't drive you crazy. I mean, I actually found, this was one of the things that really stuck out to me in meetings. I'd be sitting there, my hand would be on the table. Like, normally with my watch, I kind of tilt my wrist

a little bit and I can just very casually glance. Like, I don't have to do anything, and you wouldn't even notice I'm looking for the most part. But on the watch, that's not even an option. I mean, you have to do something. You can't just casually move your wrist. I mean, you can't, your wrist can't be sitting, like you said, like if you're typing on your keyboard

or whatever, you can't just kind of nudge it over towards your view and see the time. That was, to me, that was one of the first things that stuck out was like, actually as a watch, it is not that great in many ways. At least in that way. If I could have one request, like my number one request for the watch, I think would be to have an ambient mode when it's off that just shows the hour and minute hands.

And I understand you don't want a second hand because then it has to animate and that's going to consume power. But if they can figure out a way to just do the hour and minute hands, honestly, even if they did it and only updated it every five minutes, I don't think it would make that big a difference, but as long as it was within five minutes. Well, I feel like you'd be, but you were saying you'd be looking at the time and it would be five minutes

late and then it would turn to the next. Yeah, I don't know. But it seems like a bad, I guess though, is it? I mean, that seems, yeah. But how would you be every minute? So it would move the hand one, one time a minute. I mean, really, the bigger question is what kind of battery life we're talking about if it's got a have the, the ambient screen, and they. I mean, really, the bigger question is, what kind of battery life are we talking about

if it's got a half of the ambient screen, and they're gonna have to, but I think that is, I agree with you that it's a feature that should and probably will happen at some point where they've got an ambient mode once the battery life is better or they've done some other conservation elsewhere. But like here's the thing,

let's talk about the watch for a second as a thing because I mean, look, you've spent essentially a lifetime studying Apple and you know this company probably better than anybody. You have a great affection for the company that I don't think that's a secret. But the watch, what's interesting that you said that it was the toughest review you ever did,

I thought it was also one of the most difficult reviews that I've ever done, and there are a couple reasons. The first is that, unlike, and I think this goes back to like, if you can, I didn't review the first iPhone, but, and I don't know, I don't know that you did either. You didn't really write a review of it, did you? I can't remember. But, no, because I was before, yeah.

I did like an initial thoughts the night I got, you know, and I didn't get a review in it. It was like the first day it went on sale, and it was like, here's just a grab bag of observations. Right. But so the thing is, even a phone has basic. There's some basic things you know about a phone. You know, you put it up to your ear,

you can make calls on it, you can send texts. Those were things you could do before. The idea of something that had a browser on it, like a mobile device with a browser was not unheard of. All of the things that the iPhone did really well, there were other things that sort of did similar things, and a lot of people had phones in their pocket that had a lot of the functionality,

not all of it, but a lot of the functionality. But with the watch, it was like, okay, this is a totally new, just even to describe how it does a basic thing. Like you get to a menu in this way, or this is how you use X app on it, you have to describe the process of actually doing that, which I found to be incredibly difficult. It's a very tactile device and so trying to just explain to somebody how the thing functions first

before even saying if the functions are good or not was very challenging. I also had a problem with trying to figure out what it was like, why it existed. And I asked Apple this. I was like, why does it exist? And they didn't really have, the people I spoke to didn't have a clear answer. They said, well, it does this and it does that.

And we, it's our most personal device ever and all this stuff. And it's like, I still feel like no one's entirely sure why the watch exists, which is bringing my question for you. Does that seem an apple-like to you? And doesn't that suggest a kind of shift in how Apple has traditionally approached products and product design? Let me just go put that out there.

Maybe, and I've certainly been thinking about it, and I think that the pessimists' take on a watch has been from the announcement, let alone when it actually came out all the way from September until now, that it just is, they made it just because they could make it. Right. Because there isn't one compelling use case for it. I'm not so sure though that it's all that different from the phone. The phone, they sold initially with the, you know, it's, you know, famously onstage,

jobs is very, very, I mean, the best introduction of any computer product that anybody's ever done, like, like an Apple, but the whole widescreen video iPod, internet, breakthrough internet, communicator, and a breakthrough telephone, you know, the world's best mobile phone. Yeah. All in one, it's three different products. No, you're getting it, it's one thing.

It's a phone, it's a great phone. The best phone anybody's ever made. An internet communicator and a widescreen video. Great, it's the best phone. Well, it and a widescreen video. Great. It turns out. Well, it turns out. Right. And it turns out it really, it was a good way to frame it and it was a great way and

it was instantly compelling. But ultimately it's the fact that it could run apps and it could do so many other things. I mean, think about what we all use our phone for now. It's like, it does things that, you know, I mean, like, periscope. Like, how would you have ever even thought of periscope back then? It's crazy. Because I think Uber is a really good one

because it took something that, that it could not have existed without an app infrastructure, right? It took something that's so obvious and has been so horrible for so long. Like, I need a car, or I need a cab right now. Yeah. But no, I don't think, don't think anybody, Steve Jobs, included thought this will be an application

for this thing. It's a completely novel approach to and a problem that everybody has. No, and I think you're right about that, but what would the, but I guess you know what, that's great though. Don't let's stay on Uber though,

you're right though, because think about it from all three angles. Well, it has nothing to do with a widescreen video iPod. So forget the iPod. So telephone. Well, you could always call for a cab, but that's part of the problem. Calling for a cab is terrible. Right. Right. Because at least in any major city I've ever been in, the reason calling for a cab sucks is you have to pick a cab company. Whereas what you really want is give me the closest cab of any cab. So the telephone technically could have solved the problem, but it was

terrible at it. And then the internet angle, is the part that we that none of us could have seen is nobody would have made Uber prior to 19 or 2008 because it doesn't make sense to have a website where you call for a black car. Like what you need is right where you are right now. You probably didn't have a web browser with you. Right. It doesn't make sense. Do the first iPhone have GPS? I can't you. Right. It doesn't make sense. Did the first iPhone have GPS?

I can't remember. Nope. I don't think it had, no, it didn't have GPS and it didn't have video. That's a couple of like glaring omissions. Yeah, and it was also edge data. Right. Anyhow, but at the time, we're talking about, by the way, it's not even that long ago when you think about it.

It didn't have GPS, if that's right, and I had to check, I just wanna double check on that. I'm sure people will angrily email me when they hear this. But, or email you. 99% sure. What it had was this, it had like fake GPS, didn't it? It was like using some kind of like cell positioning

to do GPS. Exactly. Yes. It gave you your rough position with self-cell tower triangulation, but did not have GPS. Yes. Exactly. No, but you're right.

So that's a great example. But here's the thing. Well, the internet communicator allowed it to do that. But that's like, I think you can say that third leg of the whatever table, I don't know. That is the reason Uber can exist and why it's such an interesting and innovative, why the iPhone ultimately is so interesting and innovative. But they were not those three things for the watch, which is, I mean, and I think at this moment, can you think of what the three big like, this is why the watch must exist?

Because that's how I, when you look at that presentation and jobs talking about the phone, he really makes a point. The phone must exist. Like, Mike take away from it and looking back at it is he perfectly leads up to this. Here's why it must exist. Because there are other things that do a lot of this stuff,

but they kind of suck. And we figure it out a way to make it all better. And the thing with the watches, but they kind of suck. And we figured out a way to make it all better. And the thing with the watches, like there is no clear, this is why part, you know? Does that make sense? Well, they did try to, but they did have, they have their own sort of version of that three way, three way thing. And they've been using it since September.

And I might be getting it wrong here, I'm looking online and I don't see it, but I know it's a fitness tracking. It's an extraordinarily accurate timepiece. And it's a new way to communicate. Right. So definitely modeled on my phone. So it's the three 10 polls. Right, but here's what's weird about that. And I've thought so right from the beginning, is that a $30 quartz time X keeps really accurate time. Now, probably not as accurate as Apple Watch, because Apple Watch constantly is checking in with a network time server.

And as long as you have an internet connection on your phone, the watch is seriously going to be within, as accurate to within a second as your eyes can detect, like your eyes can't see whatever off it is. I mean, no one needs that accuracy. You're not a computer. Only computers need that kind of accuracy. But it always struck me as a strange way to frame it from the beginning, because they're also saying it's a premium watch. It's a watch that we're going to sell.

Now, they didn't announce the initial pricing, way to frame it from the beginning because they're also saying it's a premium watch. It's a watch that we're going to sell. Now, they didn't announce the initial pricing, but we could all tell right away that this is the higher end models of the watch we're going to be expensive. We spent months debating just how expensive the gold ones were going to be, but even the steel ones we knew, this is going to be expensive. But the funny thing is, and you know this, is that in the analog watch, or mechanical watch world, the more expensive watch is the ones or mechanical watch world, the more expensive watches,

the ones that aren't quartz, the ones that are automatics, are actually less accurate than a $30 time X. So hammering on the accuracy to me was always a little weird. And then I thought about it and I thought, you know what, this is a message for people who don't wear a watch right now. This is saying, all right, you don't wear a watch, but we want to get you to wear a watch. And the one we're going to sell you

is amazingly accurate. And that's, that's very compelling to people who know watches. That actually is like, of course, do you think it's actually compelling to be able to don't wear watches because I wonder, uh, you assume every watch I assume, I mean, I would say generally speaking, and I actually do assume this even though I know there are variances depending on the type of movement and that sort of thing. But every watch tells time. Like it doesn't, it's not even a good watch if it can't tell you the time.

And everybody knows, like, oh, if it doesn't tell time, it's thrown the garbage. So that it's a great time piece doesn't strike me as a particularly effective selling technique for a watch. It's like those are table states. I don't think so either, but I chalked that up to my having already been like one foot in the, I like to wear watches and I, like you said, like you and I have taught you know. You like, hey, I like that.

Yeah, but we like watches that watch. Normal people, regular non watchwares even do understand the basic idea of a watch is that it will tell you the time and it will be accurate. Because we live in a world where there are how many that millions of cliches are there around like the time, right? You expect if you've got a watch, it's going to even if it's a

cheap. Anyhow, I see what you're saying, but I think you're giving, you're not giving the lay person, the non-watchware or enough credit, John. That is how I'm just saying. No, I just think to put up as one third of the stool of why this thing exists. I agree with you. Then there's the communications angle and the communications angle we could go on and

on about because there's this button. I still, I'm not quite sure that the button justifies its existence. I use them with you on that. For the Apple Pay, but it's even so, I feel like there's something else they could have done to trigger the Apple Pay. Double tap, communication stuff, put that aside. Then there's the fitness.

And I think that for this watch right now today, the fitness stuff is actually a completely compelling reason to get it. I do. If you're interested in that, you know, the fitness stuff actually I thought was the most fully realized feature. Like I got, if you basically are like, you want to get a fitness band, this is probably the best you can get.

I mean, listen, I have Fitbit makes good fitness bands and in job-bomb, they make stuff that tracks you're, you know, what you're doing and it's pretty seamless. But it's definitely like, as an offering in terms of style and ease of use and sort of basically, the basic setup of getting you into tracking your health, I do think it's a really elegant product for that. And I thought that was the strong,

I also felt in a way that was the strongest, most compelling feature. Gannock, totally, I know people who, like I have friends, several of them who are like, developers who bought it, no, you know, bought it on day one solely, or mainly for the reason of, I have to have one so I can write, you know, port my iPhone app to it,

have a watch version. Professionally, I need to have this device, I need to have one so I can write, you know, port my iPhone app to it, have a watch version. Professionally, I need to have this device, I need to be familiar with it, but I don't expect that I'm going to want to use it. And people who are not into fitness, people who've never worn fitness tracking before. And I know a couple of them who wear it all day every day, and they are totally committed to filling those circles, you know, for all three fitness things every day, and that they'll do things they never would have done before. Like, it dinners over, go for a walk,

go for a two mile walk just to make sure they fill in that last circle. Right. Well, I mean, I get it. I mean, I think for now that's happening. I do think I've bought a lot of, I've actually bought a Fitbit, and been like, I'm gonna track my health, I'm gonna get it. And for a couple of months, I'll wear it and I'm really upbeat about it

and then I kind of forget it completely. I mean, don't you think it's possible this is just the newness of this thing at all? I mean, is that, does that strike you as a potential issue? It's possible. I mean, only time will tell, but it seems to me that the way that Apple has, and I think that it's one of the things

that they put the most thought it's one of the things that they put the most thought into the design of the OS, is the way that these reminders come up so that they're enough to motivate you, but not so much that it feels like your watch is nagging you. And that these rewards, it just makes people, it sounds crazy, but it makes people want to make their watch happy. Which is disturbing phenomenon, I think, if that's how people feel.

But can we talk about, actually, I mean, we've talked about the watch for a long time, and can we just say one thing, can we just talk about how bad all apps are for the watch? Like, literally, is there a single app that you use that isn't one of Apple's core apps? A very, very few. I do like that.

It gives you like notifications when there's like a change in the score or something, right? Yeah, but you could get that even if they didn't have an app. I mean, you could just have your phone set to give you the same. Right. So what does the watch make it better? Right. I do like it, though. It just tells you, like, I can just, it's a little thing, but you can just tell at a glance,

you know, what, who the Yankees are playing tonight, where and what time. Okay, but it's really noted, it's just kind of like a very basic application. I mean, Marco Arman's overcast app is actually pretty good and this is a podcast app for the iPhone. And so the watch version gives you a remote control for the podcast that you're listening to. And I think it's very good.

And then you can do things like, when a podcast ends, you can go find another podcast and you know what it is to do it. I find that when I'm out and about in the city, that's great, so I don't have to take my phone out of the pocket. And I think it's gonna be even better in the winter when it's really a pain in the butt

to take your phone out of your pocket. Yeah, except you've got to interact with the watch. You get to take your gloves off. That's a lot easier though than taking one glove off is a heck of a lot easier than taking a phone out of your pocket and a freezer holder. I guess so. And taking gloves off in that case. But for the most part, no, I seriously question the...

Well, that's why I wonder if you want a computer on your wrist. I mean, because that whole premise to me is, I think, I'm... This has left me questioning like, okay, and you know, Androids got their version, Apple has its version now, and neither one of them have been so compelling to me that I wanna replace my traditional watch

permanently with it, you know? And so it's like, does it, you know, is this the answer? Is it like a watch replacement? I feel like it's an answer to a question nobody has been asking, really, you know? I mean, even the fitness band thing, I feel like not that many people, I mean,

yes, there's a market for it at the moment. I have yet, I've yet to see any of them really prove their value. And I feel like most of the people I know who get fitness bands, either forget about them in the sense that they don't think about what they're, the data they're collecting, or they take them off after a few months and you never hear from them again. Not the person, but I guess they never hear from them. You know what I'm saying. So, I mean, does that strike you at all as there's not really like a compelling case for

this thing? I don't think, and that's the thing when people always ask people like me, I'm sure they ask you, should I get one? And it's a really tough question to ask. I don't think, I think that the phone is a size and form factor that truly is naturally maybe the most essential computing device in your life. Most people I know, if they could only, if they committed some sort of crime and the punishment was, you're only allowed to use one computing device.

For most of them, the right answer is the phone. It's just the best combination of portability and power, you know, like you can write on the one too. It's an essential, I mean, it's an essential device for a modern human at this point. I mean, you can't really, I can't live without it. I feel like the watch is sort of on the flip side of tablets where most people, you know, the tablet is nice to have and it's convenient in certain places. You know, I, I like to have it on my coffee table and if I just want to lean back and read, it's great to

have an iPad there. It's the first device though, it's at least prior to the watch that if I had to get rid of one of my Mac, my phone, and my iPad without question, the iPad is the least essential. And I think the watch is sort of the micro version of a tablet where it can be nice to have, but it's not essential. And is being essential an important part of making a device? I don't think so. I think there's all sorts of things that we all have in our lives that are not essential. Right. All right. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with more John Grover.

This episode of Tomorrow with Joshua Topolskie is brought to you by Nadex Binary Options Trading. The world's markets are changing, so are innovations in how we trade them. With limited risk and a simple yes-no design, Nadex binary options offer an affordable, exciting new way to participate in the markets. Nadex is the first CFTC-regulated US-based binary options exchange offering thousands of short-term trading opportunities daily and weekly. Trade a wide range of markets, forex, commodities, US and global stock indices, even Bitcoin, all from one account. Binary options ask a simple question, will this market be above this price at this specific time? Yes or no? one account.

How great would it be if the post office was open 24-7? No more limited hours, you could get your mail-in and shipping done on your schedule. Well now you can when you use stamps.com. You can print postage whenever you need it right from your desk. Stamps.com will save you the time and the hassle of going to the post office. No more rushing there during your busy day, just use your computer and printer to get official US postage for any letter or package. Then the mailman just picks it up.

You'll save money with stamps.com too. You get the exact postage, the instant you need it, so you don't have to overpay. You can even get special postage discounts. You can't get it at the post office. Stamps.com is enormously helpful. My producer uses stamps.com. He mails all tomorrow related packages are sent out from him using stamps.com and he can't stop talking about it.

He's Swedish so you know it seems like an incredible innovation to him of course. But it is an incredible innovation full stop. Right now you can use my first name Joshua for this special offer. You get a no-risk trial plus a $110 bonus offer and it includes a digital scale and up to $55 of free postage. So don't wait, go to stamps.com and before you do anything else click on the microphone at the top of the page and type in Joshua. That's stamps.com and enter Joshua. We're back with John Gruber. We've been talking a lot about the watch.

I want to actually want to shift to sort of a broader conversation about about, well, I mean, I guess it's kind of about Apple and sort of the future of Apple. I mean, I think that, you know, the post Steve Jobs Apple, there was a lot of, people were really like, this could be the end of the company, you know, like they're never gonna recover from this, you know, it felt like that Steve Jobs was Apple and that they're, you know, that he'd come back and he'd completely reshape the company

and that there was no escaping that force. Do you think Apple has escaped that? I mean, has Apple on its own now, can Apple be Apple with NECO or the right CEO, no matter who that person is? No, I don't think so. I think that they need, I don't think so. I think that they need, you know, I don't think any CEO would do. I think, and if anything happened with Tim Cook, if he just said, you know what, I've had

enough. I've worked my ass off for 20 years. I'm leaving in a year. Whoever his successor would be, I think would almost certainly have to come from within. It has to be somebody who's already been there. And I think there. I think that they know that. I think that one of the most, it's just like everything else at Apple. It's very secretive. People know very little about it. But I think one of the most interesting and important aspects of the company and one of the reasons that they have done so well in the what three and a half going on four years since Steve Jobs stepped down and then died a few months later is Apple University, which is an internal program for people, employees at Apple as they move up the management chain.

It's like a business school within Apple where they teach this is Apple's way of doing business and making product decisions. And here's all these case studies from our past. And it is a super serious endeavor. They hired a guy, Joel Podolsky, who was the dean of the Yale Business School. Like, so, you know, in the same way that they got the CEO of Burberry, Angela Arns, the CEO to take as a promotion a senior vice-president ship at Apple looking over retail. They got the dean or president, whatever his title was, of the Yale Business School to come to Apple to run an internal business school. And I...

Oh, they probably offered him a lot of money, right? I think, I was probably very high-paying Jack. You know, I think on one, they could probably did do that. You have to imagine that Apple's generous when it comes to getting the dean of a business very well-about things. Yeah, I think you'd have to do both, though. I think you'd have to give him a very generous offer. The weather is certainly better in Cupertino than it is in Connecticut.

But I think it also has to be intellectually stimulating. And it must be. But nobody knows. I mean, well, some people know because they take the courses, but nobody really seems to talk about them. But the whole idea is to, and I, you know, jobs had a, you know, big part of it. It was to let's make sure that this thing, the way we do this, is an institution that can perpetuate itself into the future. Right. Let's build like a, basically, I mean, this is a sort of future proofing of apples of apples. Right.

So I would know, I certainly wouldn't say that I was certain that they would do well immediately in the first few years after jobs left, but I would have bet heavily on it because the whole executive team was still in place. And I think jobs was obviously important, but I never thought he was essential. At least once they got off the ground, like he might have been essential in those years, you know, the first half of his CEO ship, you know, the 1997 through 2004, 2005. I think once they got to around 2006, 2007, they had turned into a machine that did these things regularly. To me, the bigger question is what happened 10 years from now when a lot of the people who were jobs's first tier of his inner circle when they're

gone, that to me is the question. Well, I still, I mean, I still feel like Apple as an internet company, as a company that gets the internet and really knows how to operate within it, has lag tremendously. And, you know, so many of their efforts, I mean, like Maps, I wanted to ask you about this. Do you, you don't use Apple Maps, do you?

I do use Apple Maps. I actually, really? It has worked really well. I mean, do you know, you know how much better Google Maps is though, right? I'll use Apple Maps. I actually, really? It is worth really well. Do you know how much better Google Maps is, though, right? I'll tell you this, I honestly find the Google Maps app on my iPhone. I have it, and there are sometimes,

but it's been a long time since I felt I needed it. I think the last time I was in Europe, or I was somewhere weird, I don't know, but I was somewhere in Apple Maps. Where Apple didn't have that. I mean, I find that like if you look at if you look at a map of New York on Apple Maps versus Google, I mean, the differences in information. And by the way, I mean, I even had when I was testing the watch, I had this thing where I looked

for Katz's deli on my watch. And it brought up a Katz's deli in like somewhere in like Bucks County or something really weird. Lay was the top selection. I was standing in the middle of Manhattan. I put in Katz's deli and it gives me a result for somewhere in Pennsylvania. I just feel like, but I mean, have you really should compare and contrast the information you're getting between Apple and Google? I mean, do you use it for navigation like in your car? Yeah. So this is a totally true story.

I'm not making this a while testing the Apple Watch in the first week. This was so this would have been like the first week of April. I and it because it was the first week of April, I had an appointment with my accountant to do my taxes for the year. And my account, I live in center city Philly and my accountant is out in the suburbs in a town called Erdenheim. And I've been going to him for years and I kind of know how to get to him but there's always a few tricky turns. But I thought, hey, this is a good time. I don't drive that frequently and I thought, here's a good time to test the navigation on the watch. And so I start driving and the watch tells me where to go. And there's this road in Philadelphia called the Skoukel Expressway. It goes west out of the city.

And it's the only road, really. It's the only real highway type road going west out of the city. But it can be a traffic nightmare because of huge chunks of it go down to two lanes in each direction and any kind of little accident. So one thing leads to another and it's telling me it's tapping me and it's telling me to make a right and get off the school call way before I usually do going to my accountant. And I thought that is weird. And I was like, but let's see what happens. And as I'm getting off the exit, I look ahead and traffic ahead of me on the school call is absolutely at a standstill. And it gave me these weird directions because it detected I could see it as I took the

exit. I thought, wow, that is weird. And it took me in a way that I, through a part of Philadelphia that I've never been, and I thought this is crazy. And I thought I might have to call my accountant. And calling your accountant in early April and saying, I need to reschedule is like the worst because you know that they're both. I thought this is really going to be embarrassing, but instead it got me there about 10 minutes later than normal directions with regular traffic would have.

And I checked and the school had absolutely shut down a tractor trailer head overturned. If I had just not listened to the watch, I would have actually missed it. It was perfect. It was perfect. It was absolutely. So, I mean, listen, and I don't doubt that that was a great experience, but I mean, just like in terms of raw data, I mean, I guess my point of telling you about the maps, I am surprised to actually, I don't know anybody who actually uses Apple maps unless they're totally forced into it.

But my point about that was that, you know, Apple has been slow to get the internet. Even with you know, you actually, you wrote something about the Google stuff that they just announced this, this photo's app, which is essentially just photos from Google Plus now taking out as a standalone app. It has a couple of other features. But it's like this great idea. It's unlimited, basically unlimited storage for your photos, auto uploading, you don't have to pay for it. Your stuff is available on the web in a really easy way. I mean, it's like the kind of thing that, it's like why didn't Apple do this with its eye cloud,

photo stuff? I mean, that's always seems so strange to me and so backwards and so unaware of how the internet works and how people communicate on the internet. I mean, don't you feel like that's to their great detriment that they continue to sort of miss the mark on that stuff? I mean, even with, you know, this other thing that's now on top and some of the other stuff that Google's doing, you know, it just feels like their sensibility about how things are

all connected and where they need to be in the midst of that has never, has never quite gotten to. I don't know, it always seems like it's lagging, like it's like a generation behind. I mean, that to me feels like that's the bigger threat 10 years out from now. I think they're gonna keep making great hardware, but I think it's I think it's I think that's a very complicated topic. So just on maps on them, my sense is that maps is sort of the inverse of iOS and Android general usability and feel, where Android has started behind and it initially was way behind and was really sort of a terrible product for a year or two. Like the, what was the first HTC phone, the brown one? I mean, it was a sort of a terrible product for a year or two Like that what was the the first HTC phone the brown one? I mean it was a really bad phone whatever it was the first they come in brown. It was the it was the the

G1. Yeah, it's what called the G1. It was a bad it was a bad product With a flip with the keyboard. Yeah, and the little track ball. Yeah, and I have one somewhere I should go pull it out. Yeah, I mean it was it was by comparison to the. It was not an iPhone. Let's put that way. It was way behind in many ways. And in my opinion, it's still behind, but they've they're tracking know, there's a couple or maybe if you got one last year a Moto X but it tracks to within maybe like the niceness of the iPhone interface from like two to three years ago and I think oh really I disagree I really disagree with that I think I think the iPhone interface is like woefully Underdesigned and kind of hard to navigate. I mean, I, listen, I use an iPhone, I've gone back from Android devices to the iPhone many times.

I've been like frustrated with, you know, little things here and there. I'm a fan of the iPhone, don't get me wrong. But don't you look at what Google's doing in design and in terms of like the way apps interconnect and even just basic stuff, like multitasking. And don't you see, I feel like they've kind of kicked Apple's ass on design, just generally on UX and UI.

Well, we'll have to disagree. You don't feel that way. No, I do not. I don't. I feel that. That's really interesting. Have you used it like a lollipop device? I mean, have you ever used it?

Yes, I do. I feel that and it's really interesting. I mean, have you used it like a lollipop device? I mean, have you used it? So yes, I do have a, whatever the latest generation Moto X, I think that's what it's called. Yeah, I have it here. It's got like a bamboo back. That's actually kind of fun. Yeah. Now, I feel like some of the things they do to me are little,

what Google's done is a little ham-fisted. Like I feel like the animations when you tap down on a button, it's actually very, it's way better than what Android used to be able to do, and the timing is great in terms of frames per second. But it's actually a stupid thing to do to have an animation on tap down instead of just instantly light it up. It actually, to me, makes it feel slow or even that's not. That's a small nitpick. I would only just say that. Oh, but that's all that Google keyboard. I would only put that to Google keyboard.

Actually, like the usability of the Google keyboard with its swipe feature by comparison, what Apple has done in its keyboard, it's like so much of a better experience in my opinion. I actually feel like they've severely surpassed Apple on the keyboard. So, but just little things, like I see, I remember we had a conversation when when Apple

introduced iOS 7 about I maybe you wrote something about this about the how you felt it was really logical the layering that they built in was a had this really logical system and it was it made a lot of sense. And I feel like they completely don't make any sense like the layers of iOS are total throw away like meaningless design features that aren't actually reflective of a system. Whereas in, if you look at what material design is doing, it seems totally reflective. By the way, this is such a nerdy conversation. I mean, even for people who are nerds, this is like down a total nerd hole. But I just feel like a material design,

actually the concept of the layers seems to have some basis in a system in reality, which is also just, I don't know, just looks better. Do anything just looks better? No, I really don't. I really don't. Although I think it looks way better than what they've done before, and I also happen to like the way that it looks better than the Windows fun.

But I, there are aspects of iOS 7 and 8 though that I don't think look great. I don't think any of them look great in the way that and I I'm not and again I don't want to open the doors on the whole skew a more fake textures thing But in the way that that first I iPhone given the the styles of the last decade and what was in style user interface wise that looked perfect that really looked great It really a complete it felt like a complete thought. It felt like, I mean, I'll say this, I mean, looking back on it now, you're like, wow,

that's so silly. And many of those things look so silly. But it felt like a complete thought in that all of it was interconnected and meant to sort of express the same feeling. And that, frankly, the interface, the way you move through it was all relatively obvious, you know, I feel like that changed so dramatically in iOS 7 and graphically speaking just on the raw like iconography for instance Well, you know, we've talked about this before but I just think you don't want to open the door on I think Android's really lap them in design

Which is something that I thought I would never see I thought I would never say Google is actually doing better design than Apple That seems crazy to me. You know what actually so not to go back to the watch and I'm gonna ramble a little bit But some of the design of the watch is really inspired in particular the fitness app. I thought was like really inspired really app, I thought was like really inspired, really totally thought through design, which does not seem well represented across like all of the rest of the OS. And maybe we'll see something different at, you know, maybe at WWDC in a week or whenever it is, we'll see some iteration on that stuff that brings a closer together. I don't know. I, we're so all over the map, which is every podcast ever.

I would say that, I've thought about this with the fitness stuff. I told you earlier that I think the fitness stuff is the most compelling use case to buy the watch today. Like if you just want a simple should I buy it or not? Are you interested in fitness tracking at all? Yes, then you should buy it. That's my, if you want like a 10 second, should you buy it or not? I also think, I agree with you.

I think the interface on that stuff is excellent and really thought through and it really makes me wonder how long Apple has been thinking about fitness tracking and did they consider a stand-alone fitness tracker maybe a couple of years ago before they could have built this device that does all of the stuff that it does and as apps and everything. built this device that does all of the stuff that it does and has apps and everything. Did they think about building sort of more like an iPod, right? Like an iPod that doesn't have apps, you can't run and maybe runs like an iPod OS where it's just dedicated to fitness and that they've thought through all of these interface things, you know, they've had way more years thinking about the interface for these things than some of these other features.

It occurred to me that that seems like that's a very... I actually wish that Apple, what they would make is instead of a watch, I kind of want like a thin band that I can wear with a watch. That I can wear regular watch, then there's a thin band that's almost like a bracelet that shows me that does fitness tracking and shows me the weather, shows me the current temperature outside. To me, that would be, and then you know, maybe you could do a couple of other Apple-y things if they really wanted to.

You know, like Apple Pay or something. But to me, that would be the perfect situation because I get to wear a regular watch, which I really like, and then I could just have this sort of accessory. Because the watch is really an accessory. Like that, I think, and you were talking about that before, I don't know how we got back to this,

my fault we got back to the watch. But anyhow, okay, so really quickly, because we don't have a time more time, but I do wanna, I mean, we're totally off topic. But since this will be out on Monday, predictions for, do you have any predictions for WWDC? Do you think there's anything that's going to be surprised? Do you know, can you share anything that you know

that you've heard through your elaborate and enormous network of Apple insiders? Not affiliate. You know, I actually know so much less about upcoming stuff than I used to, because I used to fish for it more and I just, I grew tired of that. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm getting old, but I feel like there's so much that we can write

and talk about that has been announced that I just don't really even try to get upcoming stuff. So you think, you think German stuff, some of the stuff he has on, they're kind of Google, they're gonna do a Google Now play, does that seem right to you? It sounds plausible. I think that they could do it their own way, you know? And it's like we, it's going to do a Google Now Play, does that seem right to you? It sounds plausible. I think that they could do it their own way. And it's like we, it's going all the way back

to the beginning of this episode. Like, just talking about iOS and Android, that they've both kind of filled up each other's, each representative glass of features. And now they're at the level where there's just tiny little things that they're evening up, like a smarter copy and paste interface for Android. That's a lot like the iPhones. I mean, such a little thing, but it's like you said, ultimately there's one good way to do it on this

device, and that happens to be one where Apple came up with it first, and it's really just natural that it's going to go to the other. And I think that on the other side with Android and with Google, there are some of these like where the device knows what you're doing, where you are, and can be a little smart just based on, hey, I know what you do at six o'clock in the evening when you're at this place. I know you've been up your stuff in dry home.

Sure, right, but it's true, right? I know where you've been, but it is true. It is true, but the context of where stuff is huge. I mean, that's, that to me, is a whole new frontier. I think young, young Mark Gurman, over there at 9 to 5 Mac, has been kicking ass on stuff that Apple does not want out, unrelated, you know, secret Apple stuff, Apple rumors. I think he's done a better job than anybody who's ever tried to do it. No, he has been more right about more stuff that is truly not ready for publication, not for prime time in terms of what Apple puts out into the world.

He's been more right than I think anybody who's ever covered the leak stuff. Right. You know, when the snow and I both have had our moments, but nothing like, German has like full on. He's like, here's exactly what the OS is going to be like before they say a word about it. Right. I mean, he nailed iOS 7. He nailed it. And he wants to funny about that is, is, if you can go, if you remember it, he did the, he had like the icons. He's like, this is what the icons are going to look like. I've done a mock up of them or somebody did a mock up of them. Do you remember this? Yeah, I icon. So he's like this is what the icons are gonna look like I've done a mock-up of them or somebody did a mock-up of them

Do you remember this? Yeah, I do and and he had the icons pretty much dead to write He did not have the whole interface. No, he didn't he had a lot of it But but the icon stuff and I was like there's no way this is it because these icons look ridiculous like because you remember I really didn't like the I I still don't like a lot of the icons, but but but I was like there's no way this is right and it was Dead right I'm sure Apple loves it. Oh very much so I like well here's my point you know when the Snowden stuff first came out and and I'd people like you know What I like to do I like to write spy movies. I love the bond movies. I like that born movies. You're a big you're a big bond fan I

I'm a big spy movie fan in general, but I like the bond movies and You know there's this view of the world in those movies where Eric's known, somebody would have gone and like put a snuck up and a super assassin would have put a bullet in his head. And he would have been taking care. And there's also a series of, there's the type of movies where major corporations are evil and they do terrible thing.

If Apple were an evil corporation, Mark German, something terrible would happen to the brain. He'd have a break line in the break line movie cut. Right? Yeah. I mean, he'd be dead. It's what you're saying. And the break line will be cut, right? Yeah, right. I mean, he'd be dead. It's what you're saying. You think if Apple were truly evil,

Mark German would be murdered. Yes. I don't think the secrets are that valuable. They are. Are they at this point? No, no, no. I think that they're just mildly annoyed at it. This is not like the thing that's so interesting to me

is if Mark German said, I'm bored with this, I'm stopping, the amount of pre-release stuff that we would know about WWE DC would be just a thimbleful comparison. Well, somebody might buck it. We would come in and take his place. It's like, you know, there's always, there's always been waiting in the wings. I mean, there's always apparently somebody at Apple who wants to share stuff that they're not supposed to share. I really quickly, well, I was just going to say though, but a lot of the other stuff, a lot of the stuff that we know about WDBC is inevitable because some of it is,

the stuff where they have to talk to other companies is inevitably leaks. So the fact that they're seemingly on the cusp of announcing a streaming music service, well, of course that's going to leak because they had to talk to all the music labels. And the fact that they are seemingly on the cusp of a new TV type service where you can order up for X dollars a month and get 20, 30 channels of content.

Of course that's going to lead because they're talking to all of these different channels. Yeah, it really works. Let's really quickly, I'm going to go through a couple of things here before you have to go, even though we're a little bit over. Favorite Bond movie? Oh, tough question. Off the top of my head from Russia with Love. Okay, who is Bond in that film?

Is that Connery? It's the second Sean Connery month, and it's probably, it's one that doesn't have any kind of like secret base in a volcano or anything like that. It's sort of a small or spy movie and where it's it's you know and like the culmination it's just a fist fight with an assassin on a train it's just sort it

you know what I mean can you name the bond that I think it's the bomb is it the bond between Connery and Moore or is it though is it that there's a there's an odd bond that's like one or two movies there are there's two there's George Lazzin be George Lazzin be is the one I was thinking of. But then there's also one then there's also also who's the other one Timothy Dahl. Timothy Dahl. Who is a tremendous in the in the new showtime series. The name I can't think of right now, but it's about he's he's seriously like one of the best actors of the twenty it's twenty-first century is very good i can't have your means are casery not

he's a good act what is the show time series that he's in why can i think of it it's about it's kind of a horror set in the victory victorian era london uh... i forget you know it's got uh... my wife watches yes very sexy very sexy you should know timothy dotin is like the guy who like when there's going to be like a big London production of a Shakespeare play. They wouldn't matter what they just go to Timothy Dalton to see if he'll play the the rally. They're like, will you do something? We're not going to be getting anybody in this theater. All right, so now what do you do in your free time when you are not podcasting

about on the subject of technology or other things in your sort of professional area, or writing for Daryne Fireball? What does down time look like to John Groober? I watch him baseball. It's bad that you don't have an answer. You're like, I don't have a life outside of, do you not have a lot of downtime?

Are you overworked? No, I can't say that I'm overworked. But you know, I watch movies with play video games with my son and you know, I watch the games. Play video games. Well, no, I watch him play video games. You watch him play video games. You're not a gear nutter gamer. Do you know that? Do you want to do you own any game consoles? Oh, man, we've

got a PS4. We've got a whatever the latest Nintendo thing is, although I'll tell you that thing. My observation is that thing does not get turned on anywhere near as much as the Wii U. The Wii U. Yeah, it's not a big hit. No, not a big hit. So I've played with my son, we have the, I forget which bond game it is if it's called Gold Nye, it's not the old N64 Gold Nye. I think they remade, I think they get a remake of Gold Nye, I wanna say. I can be wrong.

Yeah, and I've played with my son on it, and he, it just, he beats me like 10 to 1, 10 to 0 every time and so I can't play anymore, because he just crushes. He just crushes. Just crushes you. Yeah so I can't play anymore because I can't crush those into it. Just crushes. Yeah. Can't, I can't take it. I can't. No, you don't seem like you'd be a great, you'd be great at losing. I don't know,

I mean, I don't know you that well, but at a glance, I would feel like you don't like losing. Yeah, I'm, I've never been a good loser. Right. Um, but you like baseball. I do. And your team, your favorite team is, is what? Who? And New York Yankees. You like the New York Yankees, even though you live in Philadelphia, right? And you're free from Philadelphia?

I'm free from Philadelphia. I grew up about 50 miles away from the general sort of the general area of Philadelphia. But why, you said that you said the Yankees? Why the Yankees? Well, my grandfather was a Yankees fan. My dad was a Yankees fan. Although by the time I got into baseball, my dad was no longer a Yankees fan. My and my dad, he turned his, he turned his back on the Yankees. He turned his back on the Yankees when the American League,

now this is really inside baseball, no pun intended. It's a baseball. When the American League added the rule called the designated hitter, which meant that pictures no longer had to bat. My dad really was turned off by that. And then there was the time when when Yogi Berra was the manager of the Yankees, I forget what year this was after the D.H. rule. Like my dad was halfway out the door, as soon as the American League put the D.H. rule in.

And then when I think it was George Steinbrenner filed, fired Yogi Berra as manager, my dad said, you can't fire Yogi Berra. You can't fired Yogi Berra as manager my dad said you can't fire Yogi man You can't fire Yogi Berra and that's it. So my dad's a National league man now and watches the Phillies, but my grandfather. Oh, every time in the summer I ever went to my grandfather's house my dad's dad I Can't remember going there and not having the Yankees on the TV set there So I was part of it and then the other part is it just not they just naturally appealed to me because I thought they had the best uniforms. I thought they had the best tradition.

They had the best stadium. And I just love their attitude. Their attitude was every we should win the World Series every year. Like most teams, they think they don't though. No, but that's but that's I'm not I don't follow I don't follow the sport of baseball But my understanding is the Yankees do not always win the world series. No, they've won 27 times roughly in like the last 100 years or so so they win an awful lot like aggregates pretty good Yeah, but their attitude is that their attitude though So they've won way more than anybody else, but their attitude is that they've been terrible failures because they haven't won all of them and I I That's good. They don't their bad losers as well, right? They're all of them. And I, I, that's good. They don't, they're bad losers as well.

Right. They're bad at losing. All right, finally, I think finally, who knows where this will go, but what's the worst thing, what's the worst product that Apple's ever made in history? Boy, that's really awesome. Could be software, could be software, could be hardware. Has to be one of those two though. What's the worst part?

And why, obviously. I can't name one particular model, but I would say it was the entire strategic decision around 95, 94, to go with this performance lineup and where they had like a performance 425, a performance 475, I'm making up these numbers. No, yeah. I had a I think I had a performer. Well and it was like the performer 475 was roughly equivalent to a quadra 450 even though it had a different number but the quadra was one

that you would buy from like an Apple authorized store. And the performer was one you would buy at Best Buy or one of the stores back then. You just totally sparked a memory for me of this. I completely forgot that there was this reality where you're right. There were the real professional Apple reseller places that would sell these like the big boy computers. And then there was like a family line. That was performa was like the family line. And it was so confusing and the prices didn't make sense. And it just made it so hard to just even decide what to buy.

And to me, that was the worst thing Apple's ever done because it was the most important thing. And it was the worst thing Apple's ever done because it was the most important thing. And it was the only thing at that point. The Macintosh was keeping them alive. There was no other product that kept them alive. And instead of cherishing that and making it as easy to buy one as possible, they made it as difficult as possible to buy one. Yeah.

That's interesting. That's who was CEO at the time? It was probably Michael Spindler. There was that, you know, it might have started while, right? You know, there was this weird messy. Yeah, it was a messy and ugly time at Apple. Um, actually, I had another one. I got one more and then and then I'll let you go.

Um, because you've been a great sport. I really appreciate it. Um, what do you do when you wake up in the morning? What do you look at? What do you read? What's the first thing you look at? Twitter. Yeah. How many people do you follow on Twitter wake up in the morning? What do you look at? What do you read? What's the first thing you look at? Twitter. Yeah.

How many people do you follow on Twitter? That's an excellent question. I don't know. Let me see if I can quickly look this up without... I'm gonna guess around 500. Yeah, guess. Let's, yeah, do a guess and then let's actually see. So I guess 500. I follow 921 people. 921? That's a lot of people. That's very surprised. I found I found a great trick It started as a joke But then it became an actually great trick for not allowing my

Twitter feed to become too crusty or noisy Which is I started I stopped at six hundred six six six people. I was like I'm gonna follow six hundred six six six people and But now what happens is every time I want to follow somebody new, I have to get rid of somebody old, so I have to keep going back into the archives and seeing who I'm not really care about or I'm not really paying attention to or hasn't tweeted in a long time. So my recommendation for you, if you're worried about your Twitter feed getting out of hand, which I know you are, is use my technique, pick a number. I'll recommend one for you, 420, for instance.

It might be a good one for you. So what's your answer to that same question? What do you look at first thing in the morning? Twitter, it's Twitter. And the funny thing about Twitter is that that's not normal for most people. Twitter is actually not a very popular service. I mean, you and I use Twitter because we're in

the field of journalism and technology, and we're very up on, we need to know what's going on right this second. Most human beings don't, and they don't use Twitter like that, and they don't think of it that way. And so it's very unusual to think people wake up and they look at Facebook maybe, or they check their email or text messages. But for me, it's Twitter because that's the easiest way

to find out if something horrible has happened. Yeah, to me, I used to be usually. It used to go, it was email for me, of course, because there weren't that many in our audience. And going to, I'm going to check email later in the morning, and I'm going to already have had a coffee, and I'm already settled in, as made my life much better. Well, I still check. I still have to, I mean, I, you know, listen, you're an independently employed man. You can use your own schedule, and nobody's calling you in for a meeting.

But I have to check email because there's definitely stuff in email that's, you know, if I don't get to it, they're going to be problems. But it's definitely a secondary consideration. Right. That, to me, is the greatest luxury of being truly independent and not having anybody above or below me. I have no employees. I can deprioritize email in general, and it is truly the biggest, like, attention improvement

in my life. Oh, email is a complete nightmare. I mean, I have between two email accounts though, work email, and then my personal email, I probably have 5,000 unread messages. They're never going to be read. I mean they're they're lost in the sense of time. They're either not important or if they were important I won't get to them. So if if anybody's listening to this actually and they send me something that's very important they haven't had a response just resend it now because I probably just missed it because my my situation's completely out of control. There should be a service. I would love to, and you'd have to really trust the service.

And then after this point, I think we will wrap up. But there should be a service where they will go into your email, a human being who you trust, will go into your email and will go through all of it. Like I don't care how long it takes, it could be a couple of weeks or whatever. And it will like actually deal with the things that are in your email that have not been read. Yeah, that would be one way or another. They'll make a decision, like, okay, this is spam,

I'm gonna get rid of it. This is actually important. Oh, this is a thing from their bank. That's a free idea, free startup idea. I have a lot of this, anyhow. John, thank you for coming on the podcast. I would love to do this again. I would actually like to get you, we did this over Skype. I would very much like, next time in New York you should let me know, and you can come in the podcast, I would love to do this again. I would actually like to get you, we did this over Skype.

I would very much like, next time in New York, you should let me know and you can come in the studio and we can do this in person because then we can have a drink. You drink, right? What do you drink, Manhattan's, right? What is your thing? You stopped drinking? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I stopped drinking.

You did totally? Oh, it was like two days ago. Oh, me too. Really, I stopped drinking two days ago also. I don't know if I'm gonna make it through the weekend because my parents are coming to visit the family this weekend. So I'll probably start drinking this evening. But it feels great, doesn't it?

Two days clean? Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyhow, good luck with that. And maybe I'll see you in a few weeks in San Francisco. Oh, you'll definitely see me in San Francisco. Well there we go. That's right. Well we should hang out there, we should do something. We should go out and get a drink. Yeah. Well go out and get the drink.

That sounds great. That sounds great. Alright John, thanks so much for joining, I really appreciate it. Alright, thank you. Thanks for having me John. you you