MacBreak Weekly 439 (Transcript)
Leo Laporte: It's time for MacBreak Weekly. Andy, Rene and Alex are here to talk about
the Apple earnings report. We don't know the numbers yet but we'll give you
something to look for. We'll also talk about the Apple Watch, it's due any minute now. And updates, updates, updates! For iOS and OSX, tell
you what's new next on MacBreak Weekly.
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Leo: This is MacBreak Weekly, Episode 439. Recorded Tuesday, January 27th 2015.
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using the promo code MacBreak. It's time for MacBreak Weekly, the show where we cover all the latest Mac
news, of course this week. You know I'm thinking we blew it, we should have just flip flopped with Steve Gibson because the big Mac news as
every quarter will come out after the market closes. Apple's earnings, we'll
talk about it in a second. At least we can give you some predictions. Andy Ihnatko is here from the Chicago Sun Times, great to have
you. Andrew. Look at that, we've got snowmageddon out
the back.
Andy Ihnatko: Yeah and I planned to do
this anyway but I was expecting it to still be, the original forecast was that
it was going to still be like hammering down hammering down hammering down
until like late afternoon so I thought okay if I'm going to be like Jack
Nicholson at the end of The Shining at least let's get a podcast out of it, but
it's actually, it was actually so... it's tamed down so much that as of an hour
ago we actually had like neighborhood kids in my back yard sledding so.
Leo: Wow. That's good. That's
pretty. It looks like the scene in White Christmas where they haven't had snow
in Vermont all season and at the end of the play in White Christmas they open
the back of the barn and it's snowing and...
Andy: Sorry I don't have the
Santa Clause leisure suit that Bing Crosby was wearing for that final scene.
Leo: Exactly right. (laughing) Also with us, Mr. Rene Ritchie
from Montreal where snow is just a way of life.
Rene Ritchie: We left the back door open
again, I'm so sorry about that. So so sorry.
Leo: (laughing) He's hunkered
down as usual.
Andy: That's okay because 4 more
hockey players snuck in through the back door while you had it open so...
Leo: Please, close the back
door. Rene is at iMore.com and also I'm glad to see joining us from Washington
DC, where I understand he just last night flew a DJI Phantom drone into The
White House grounds, Alex Lindsay of the Pixel Corps.
Alex Lindsay: I had nothing to do with
that I just want to say for the record. At least no one can prove it, that's
all I'm saying.
Leo: That is the strangest
story, because it was apparently a government employee who flew at 2 in the
morning, was recreationally flying his DJI Phantom, but the best thing is this
snapshot from the secret service, the secret service showed the drone that
crashed on the south lawn. It's a DJI Phantom, I recognize that drone.
Alex: And I think the technical
term now is former government employee.
Leo: (laughing) They say that he's facing no charges.
Alex: I know but facing no
charges and getting fired are very different things.
Leo: That's true.
Andy: Also you thought it was
difficult getting your Frisbee back from the old man next door, you're not
getting... (indistinguishable.)
Leo: I have some sympathy
because I got my first drone a couple of days ago, we're going to have a drone
lesson with Father Robert Ballecer Wednesday
afternoon after This Week in Google by the way, you're all invited. And we're
going to do it indoors but I thought I'd get ready so I got my Syma and I got it all ready, and my back. We have some
space out there so we went out back, turned it on. It goes up and up and up,
it's like a helium balloon, I can't get it to move or
go down, it just goes straight out of eyesight straight up. And that was it, I
never saw it again.
Alex: (laughing)
Leo: So I think... I was looking
closely to see if this was a Syma because I thought
maybe it ended up in the White House lawn but no. Isn't that hysterical?
Andy: As these things become more
sophisticated and more expensive, there's got to be someone figuring out how to
like have a second controller somewhere that can override yours and just have
it like land inside the back of your van and then you drive away with it.
Alex: Exactly.
Leo: Well it's too small to be
picked up by the radar apparently that's protecting the White House. White
House, the reason I thought of this is right behind Alex. You could easily fly
a drone over there.
Alex: Yes. I'm actually surprised
it didn't happen sooner. When you think about how many people are using drones, that something didn't end up in the White House
lawn, seems like a good place to shoot, of course everyone's afraid of the guys
on top of the roof. That's the... I think that might be what's slowing them
down.
Leo: The secret service agent
who was posted on the south grounds of the White House heard and observed the
drone but they were unable to bring it down. I wonder if there was some
shooting before it passed over the White House fence and struck a tree. The
drone was too small and flying too low to be detected by radar and could easily
have been confused for a large bird. The agency said the employee, a government
employee, not identified by the secret service was flying the object near the
White House around 3am for recreational purposes. When he lost control of it,
officials did not explain why the man who does not work at the White House and
who has not been charged with a crime was flying a drone at that hour.
Rene: For the lulz.
Leo: For the lulz. But it actually, it's a very serious thing because
that drone could have a payload. I mean it's not, yeah. It is serious. We live
in a strange age.
Rene: I was on one of those shows, someone 3D prints a drone and then sends it on a
nefarious mission.
Leo: Right! It could happen!
Andy: Because that's so much
easier than just buying one?
Rene: Well they're going to start
monitoring the drones, Andy.
Leo: That's right if you print
it, you can print it safely.
Andy: Well then they monitor the
servos.
Leo: Here's an article on
Digg.com. I haven't even read the article but I like the headline. “Do not
strap roman candles to your drone” is the headline. (laughing)
Andy: Oh god!
Rene: Is there a lesson learned
video?
Leo: Yeah there is, after this
commercial in 3... 2... 1.
Andy: Or do it because you're an
idiot who shouldn't have a drone and then you won't have a drone any more. So I
totally underscore...
Leo: (laughing) But don't you...
aren't you tempted to strap roman candles to your drone?
Andy: Not on anything that costs
more than $13 that I paid for.
Leo: Those are roman candles.
This can only end poorly. This is the kind of thing Alex Lindsay would do.
Rene: This looks like episode 1
footage.
Alex: Lasers. I'm really into
lasers.
Leo: Whoa!
Alex: Whoa.
Leo: It's shooting at him!
That's terrible.
Alex: Well played.
Leo: A weaponized drone. Oh my
god! This is terrible.
Rene: No guidance. No guidance
package at all.
Leo: Oh it gets him in the head!
It's good he's wearing a helmet, oh! Oh bad word.
Rene: Does this end in a Darwin
Award?
Leo: It feels like this really
ought to. How do you get remote controlled roman candles,
that's what I'd like to know.
Rene: They could just be waiting.
(laughing)
(screaming in video)
(more laughing)
Rene: He did not watch enough
Wile. E. Coyote as a child.
Leo: I'm sorry.
Alex: It is great with the little...
what appears to be a kind of tracer action going on.
Leo: Yeah, it looks like a
gunship.
Alex: It's good video. I am kind
of disappointed that I didn't do that first.
Leo: I know, this is an Alex Lindsay right there.
Alex: This pretty much is a
flavor of my childhood.
Leo: Who were you going to get
though? Your kid brother obviously, to stand there.
Alex: Oh it's always the younger
brother. It's the younger brother. And usually it has something to do with you
get to watch your movie first.
Leo: Right. Okay, but you get to
wear the helmet while I come at you with the drone armed with roman candles.
Alex: But it has to be backed up
with something related to I don't think this is even
going to work.
Leo: Yeah, right. Don't worry.
You're safe. But just in case, wear this helmet.
Alex: (laughing)
Leo: Alright later today Apple's
quarterly earnings will come out, these are the big
ones, right? The holiday quarter.
Rene: Q1 2015.
Leo: Q1, first earnings of the
year. Because Apple has a fiscal year that does not
correspond to the calendar year. You know, it's almost always a blowout
in Q1. Now you said Rene last time we talked that Apple no longer sandbags the
analysts with lower than expectations than they really have.
Rene: I guess you can call it
sandbagging or you can call it being conservative with your estimates and they
come from a long tradition of not performing well, so they had a habit of being
super conservative. And then they suddenly realized they were making money.
Leo: Apple told Wall Street to
expect total sales growth of 15% from 63.5 to 66.5 billion, somewhere in that
range.
Alex: Which I think is pretty
amazing when you think about it. For them to look at a
quarter... I don't even know what I'm going to make 2 months from now, a
month from now. I always look at it like, for them to be able to accurately say
within 6 or 8%, it's pretty... you know, for a consumer product that you're
releasing, you don't know how it's going to be taken, you don't know all those
things. For them to make those models is actually pretty interesting.
Leo: And this is an interesting
graph. This is from Fortune Magazine where they show revenue projected by well
Apple's guidance, that's the white dots. The amateurs, I don't know who those
are, that's the green dots, the pros that's the blue dots and the actual is the
yellow bar.
Rene: Probably really smart
people who don't happen to work for a financial institution at this point.
Horace Dedius and the...
Leo: Those are the amateurs,
yeah. I would call Horace a pro, much more frankly reliable than some of the
Gardner Group folks but okay. It's kind of as you pointed out, Rene. It's been
pretty close. Apple's guidance has actually been pretty close to the actual
result.
Rene: And they switched to no
longer deferring as much income as they used to which has made it easier for
people to understand. Not that they don't defer it but they report the non-gap
on numbers so it's easier to understand.
Leo: Last quarter though they
were pretty low, they low balled it. So we'll see what... is there anything to
look for in the quarterly results when they come out? They'll be out in about
an hour and a half.
Rene: iPad numbers? I mean,
that's... there's a lot of...
Leo: If they break those out,
right?
Rene: They usually do, they
traditionally do. They haven't not broken them out ever
before and it would be kind of odd if they didn't. Also how much the
iPhone, one of the big questions with the iPhone is how many can they make,
it's not how many they can sell any more but I believe last quarter they were
constrained not by how many people bought but by how many they could physically
produce and that lowered the number from what, I think it was from 70 down to
50 based on the projections.
Leo: Hm. That makes sense though,
because it's still really, they sell every one they can make at this point. You
don't see anywhere with oh my god we're blowing them out to the bare walls,
hundreds of iPhones in the back!
Rene: I love Philip's remark at
the bottom there where he says that Apple's quarters are now as big as... the
only companies that can compete with Apple quarter-wise are oligopoly companies
that control fossil fuel resources, and even then only the top 2.
Leo: Yeah, it's pretty
impressive.
Alex: And we're still looking at,
I don't know where it'll be this quarter or not but we're still looking at a
whole new product line coming out. In this quarter, so I think that they
definitely are going to be... and there's a lot of
possibilities whether it's updates to the Apple TV, updates to the iPad,
there's so many things that are sitting out in front of them that this year
doesn't look like it's going to slow down.
Leo: Right. Get ready for the
big one says business, that was Philip Elmer DeWitt,
this is Jay Ero, get ready for the big one. He has
interestingly, the same picture of Tim Cook signaling a touchdown apparently.
Rene: There's a couple
publications that can go from doom to triumphant so quickly back and forth that
you really have to remember what week it is you're reading.
Leo: Apple's over, Apple's
winning! Yeah...
Rene: I hate the iPhone, I love
the iPhone!
Leo: Yeah. So
about 4pm Eastern so we're about an hour and a half. You know if we
really draw this out, we might be able to get to the earnings. They usually release
it press release beforehand so we might have...
Rene: 1:30 Pacific.
Leo: Yeah. Maybe we won't make
it, it'll happen during Secure Now. Next to quarter flip flop. Clearly we... I
mean. So that's the thing to watch, iPad sales. They've been tailing off to...
will this be yet another slow quarter for iPad sales, that will be important to watch.
Alex: By the way it's about just
in case you're wondering, about $25,000 a second.
Leo: Is that how much they make?
Alex: That's what it sounds like.
Leo: Revenue, you just did the
math?
Alex: Just did the math. I did
not do it in my head.
Leo: $25,000 a second.
Rene: Another $25,000. Another
$25,000...
Leo: Oh my god... that's pretty
good. That's pretty amazing.
Alex: Good business model, that's
all I'm saying.
Leo: Do you think we'll look for
a big Mac quarter? There weren't really new Macs.
Rene: Retina 5k iMac, the new Mac
Mini.
Leo: Oh I forgot the iMac and
the new Mac Mini yeah yeah yeah.
Rene: And I think the laptops are
still going to be popular.
Leo: So it might be a big
quarter for the Mac. I bet the 5k iMac sold well.
Andy: But do desktops really have
the ability to move that kind of profit now? Now that you're chasing against
products that sell in the millions and still make that 40% profit margin.
Leo: It's iPhone iPhone iPhone.
Alex: I think that really I know
they used to say the Apple TV was a hobby but I think the desktops are getting
to be pretty close to a hobby.
Leo: No, don't say... shut yo mouth!
Alex: I'm just saying...
Leo: Oh no you didn't.
Alex: I have a lot of them. I
have a big investment now.
Leo: Don't say that.
Alex: I'm just saying that when
you look at it, if they stop making desktops. It would go down a little, but
not much.
Rene: I think there would still
be a huge business if someone just made Macs, which is the crazy thing.
Leo: Right.
Alex: Yeah.
Leo: That's a good point.
Alex: A good, and growing business. If all it was is Macs.
Leo: It's only doesn't seem so
important because of the iPhone's huge success.
Rene: Such a showoff, overshadowing
the poor Mac. It's just... it can't get any love.
Leo: Look at me, look at me. Now
I'm bigger, look at me!
Rene: Units in your pocket la da da.
Leo: So let's talk about the
future. Stronger rumors now based on a Apple patent finally for it. Pressure sensitive pen that Apple might be doing a iPad Pro 12.9” iPad with a touch sensitive pen perhaps as
an add on or maybe included.
Alex: I'd love to see one that
really works. I mean I think I have half the pens that they make for the iPad,
trying to get really the right solution that would solve that. And number one
it would be great to have something that works OS wide. A lot of these pens
will only work with this application or that application. And also they're all
a little wonky. None of them really work the way you want a pressure sensitive
pen to work in my opinion. Having Apple integrate something I think would be
great. Not great for Wacom. But...
Leo: Well maybe great for Wacom
because the Galaxy Note uses a Wacom digitizer.
Alex: Right.
Leo: It might be that Apple...
well is that the kind of thing Apple would do or would they just make their
own?
Alex: I think that they'd make their own, and I think that they're also
trying to solve a different problem. I don't think they need to have 1024, 2048
levels of sensitivity. I think that the old fashioned 256 or 128 is probably enough. Most of the time what I do with my Wacom
is actually not much art, it's actually marking up drawings or marking up plans
and so on and so forth and I think that there's a lot of utility there that it
doesn't have to be an art program to be useful.
Andy: Yeah. It depends on how
they try to sell it. I think there are two different way to have a pen on a
tablet. One is to do stuff that you're talking about where people just want to
be able to mark something up and annotate things which is incredibly useful.
I'm doing... I'm working with somebody designing book covers for something I'm
working on and I'm about to like just put this into my drawing app and do, and
just like use the mouse to add stuff but that's oh well actually I have like
this. When I just open this in my iPad, use PDF pen and just draw and this is
done in like 5 seconds and intuitively. So that is an important thing, as well
as using it as a note taker, but I think that there are so many people who are
artists who use the Mac on a professional basis that it'd be interesting to see
if Apple really wants to make sure that those people are really really happy. If this is the most profoundly useful and
transformative art tablet that's ever been put on the market. They do like to
do things like in superlatives. Where they can really justify
that line of the keynote. We really think this is best pen based tablet
that's ever been made. And with all the art programs that are available for the
Mac right now, and even on the iPad, they could really do that.
Leo: I actually was kind of poo-poo'd this idea of a 12” iPad until the stylus rumor and
then I thought oh this is something, you know. Penny Arcade, The Oatmeal, all
these guys are just going to flip their lid. Finally I can do my cartoons on an
iPad. I think that would be a huge product.
Rene: My friend Mark Edwards who
runs Bojango, he's a really well known iOS designer.
He's been petitioning for the biggest iPad he can get, he would like 120” iPad
to just use as his easel if he could get it. There's huge demand in artistic
and design communities.
Leo: He should get the surface
hub, the new surface hub.
Rene: I think he's trying to fit
that on his wall right now. There is huge demand for multitouch services in many industries.
Leo: It's a 55” or 85” screen
from a company Microsoft bought called Perspective Pixel that runs Windows 10.
Rene: And not infrared based any
more. Big improvement there.
Leo: Yeah that was a terrible
solution. I'm looking at this mock up from Mac rumors that would give you some
idea of the size. On the left is an iPad mini, then a
slightly bigger iPad Air 2 and then a whole lot bigger, and iPad Pro. I mean
that's a big jump.
Andy: It's a big jump but...
Alex: Well and I think that the
bezel will get smaller.
Leo: Yeah that's one way to make
it not such a big jump.
Andy: That's the last thing you'd
want to do is have a big tablet with a small bezel. Unless they've really
improved their palm rejection algorithms to a higher degree, the bigger a
device gets, you don't have the ability to hold it like this anymore, you really do now have to hold it like this.
Leo: That's a good point. And
you need ears anyway.
Andy: You'll drive yourself
bonkers. Apple really has to start differentiating the difference between the
iPad Mini and the iPad Air now because it's... I still have problems trying to
advice people on why would you want to get the 9.7”
instead of the mini when the mini is not that much smaller, it's not that much
more convenient. The 9.7” is a lot more expensive, it runs the exact same
software with the exact same user interface.
Leo: Oh wow, look at the snow
behind you. We got a little...
Andy: Yeah we're getting a little...
Leo: Kicking up there.
Andy: I think that's just snow
being tossed around the roof.
Rene: AT-ST walker behind him
too.
Leo: It looks like it.
Andy: I still have that Empire
Strikes Back banner that a friend of mine gave me that was used in like an
interview at Lucas Film. I figure this is higher resolution and a lot less
trouble for me.
Leo: Andy Ihnatko from the planet Hoth tonight.
Rene: If you look at what Apple's
doing, there's an argument that can be made that the Apple Watch is going to
allow for larger phones, like the iPhone 6+ which is going to allow for larger
tablets.
Leo: Wait a minute, why?
Rene: Because if you have a watch
on you can look at your notifications, you don't have to take your phone out of
your pocket or your purse as much. So the ability to quickly move it around
doesn't become as much of an issue and if you have a larger screen phone an
iPad Mini like Andy said doesn't make as much sense. You already have a small
large screen. But maybe an iPad makes more sense at home for video and web and
all these things. So as the sizes increase, the sizes of the other things can
increase proportionately. And you have technologies like Handoff where if
something is too... you get a notification on your watch but it's too finicky
so you just hand it off to your phone. Try and do it on your phone but the
email is taking too long to type, you hand it off to your Mac or your iPad. And
if you look at the iPad Air 2 which already has 2GB of RAM, 3 cores, 8 graphics
cores and is thinner and lighter than last year, if you extrapolate that. I
think Apple is impossible to predict but really easy to look back at patterns,
I think we're getting these things so that when an iPad Pro comes out, it is
light enough that it's not going to be a burden and it's powerful enough that
it can start running these side by side apps. I don't know about you but ever
since I had cards on Web OS, the idea of multiple windows was nice but I
couldn't do anything with it but if I can start dragging and dropping, like I
can pick up Leo's name in this app, drag it to that app, drag a picture back to
the other app, then multi-touch starts to become an interesting multi-window
environment.
Andy: Yeah, that's another
underscore for the 12” iPad. That Air 2 is suspiciously powerful for the apps
that it runs.
Leo: (laughing)
Andy: It runs some nice apps and
it runs them more quickly than the original iPad Air did but it isn't a
transformative difference and that's why I say suspiciously. It seems as
though, again, you don't stare into the face of the Sphinx, you will be driven
mad. But if you try to look at that and think it's not hard to think that oh,
so I think they really do have a time table for running multiple apps side by
side simultaneously. And that would be such an emphatic, cool thing for a
reason to say you know what, not only do I want the 12”, a real big sized iPad
instead of an iPad Mini. I want this instead of the Macbook Air that I thought I was going to get. Because this is enough of a work space
that I can really lose myself in this window. I will simply spend all of $80
for a full sized Bluetooth keyboard that frankly will even be better quality,
more comfortable to use than what's in the Macbook Pro right now. It's, it really could shift the
center of gravity across the entire product line.
Rene: If we look at history, the
RAM increases in iOS devices have almost always come with simultaneous
improvements in what apps can do. Like when they started bumping from 512 to
1GB we started getting not just multitasking but background tasking and all these
other things. And this year we've got a RAM increase, so what's Apple going to
do with all this? They don't need extra RAM for... there's no garbage
collection, they get to write to their own metal so they don't have to have
abstraction layers. There's no interpreter like Java running on top of it.
That's a lot of extra room that they could theoretically do something really
interesting with.
Leo: What's the resolution on
this?
Rene: On the Pro?
Leo: Yeah.
Rene: They'll probably scale up.
They've gotten resolution independent now thanks to adaptive UI's so that they
can basically fill any screen bucket you give them.
Leo: So they don't care anymore.
Rene: So the target is Retina,
yeah.
Leo: You don't have to double
the iPhone 6+ or something like that.
Andy: Also if it's true that the
highlight of this is going to be apps running side by side, then we start to
not even worry about well this has to be a 2x scale because we have to fit into
the right box.
Leo: (laughing)
Andy: Well because that now users, I would be very disappointed if their answer
to running apps side by side on the iPad was you can have just the iPad view
and then just the iPhone view of one other app next to it. It really would be
slide this little separator wherever you want to go. And then Microsoft can say
yeah we had a tile the multi-app user interface with Windows 1.0, thanks for
catching up Apple finally.
Rene: Andy don't look now but there's an AT-AT on your shoulder.
Leo: It's coming from the... oh
it's shooting at him! I hope those aren't roman candles.
Andy: That's okay I'll stay here
until the last transport is away.
(laughing)
Leo: Alright. When would they
release it, would they wait until the fall as usual? Or do you think we might
see this one a little sooner?
Rene: I think right now they go
when they're ready. If it's ready in the spring they'll go in the spring.
Leo: They don't have a calendar
any more
Rene: No, I think again like we
see so many products in the fall and we see products arrive so hot like the
Retina iPad Mini because they're literally sprinting at the finish line as fast
as they can go, they don't have anything sitting on the shelf burning a hole in
their supply chain.
Andy: I do think that they want
to have a little bit of air around the Apple Watch announcement but otherwise I
agree with you.
Leo: So let's get to the watch.
Now rumors are March. Yes?
Rene: Yep.
Andy: I don't discount that.
Leo: Early or late? I'm trying
to...
Andy: Late.
Leo: Tie my savings account.
Rene: I would guess for the same
reasons that the original iPad launched when it did the Apple Watch will launch
in a similar time frame. There's just certain things
that have to be in place for all that to happen.
Leo: Yeah. So again we can't
predict. We just have to wait. I don't want to wait.
Rene: I'm trying to figure out if
it will go international right away because the iPad, neither the iPhone nor
the iPad launched internationally at first. They both launched in the US at
first and then couple months later slowly moved out. So I might have to hitch
on a plane back to your side of the country Leo.
Andy: But remember that both of
those had cellular radios either built in or as an option.
Leo: So FCC issues is what
you're saying.
Andy: And also striking deals
with local carriers. This could be a completely different situation. I think at
this point if they can't launch in USA and China simultaneously, I think that
would not be a deal breaker but that's something that Apple would say oh boy I
really wish we could have at least done those two countries at the same time. Canada after China.
Rene: Yeah, exactly.
Leo: Yeah he doesn't care about
China. China? What about Montreal? Let's take a break, when we come back new
updates across the board from Apple. We have more analysts including Horace Dediu coming up with an interesting statistic. And a Missouri State representative who has a crazy idea. By
the way this just in, the gentleman who flew the DJI Phantom into the White
House grounds at 3am had been drinking.
Alex: (laughing) Don't drink and drone, that's all I've got to say.
Leo: No drinking and droning!
Our show today bought to you by LegalZoom, you've got to love LegalZoom, these
guys have been around for more than a decade, making it easy to get things that you need to get
done, done. Easy and affordable. And I think those go
together, a lot of times when you think ah. I've got to make a will, or I've
got to do a trademark, or a patent. Or maybe I want to incorporate my business
to a living trust. You think ah, it's gonna cost
money, going to have to go to a lawyer's office. Actually no, LegalZoom is not
a law firm. They give you the self help services you
need so you direct it, you do it at a very affordable rate, but here's the
thing. Stuff like this is paperwork. It isn't, you don't need a high priced
attorney to do this stuff. I did the LLC for TWiT that we still run on 10 years ago at LegalZoom. Now they've also added a legal
plan which is kind of neat. They have contacted with attorneys in almost every
state who can give you legal advice at a low, pre-negotiated fixed rate. You
can get the reviews, the profiles of the attorneys and unedited reviews from
LegalZoom users on their website. That's nice. That gives you a little extra
stuff. If you've got a question. I had questions and I
wanted to know why should I do it in Delaware versus California, LLC Chapter S,
Chapter C, what's the difference? Things like that. You can just ask them. Get
on the phone, you ask them. And it's very affordable. Let's see, where should you be going to be getting your life in order. Maybe
protect your family. Do you have a will? How about a living
trust. A medical power of attorney, things like that. LegalZoom can
help, there's no easier way to make sure your family is legally taken care of.
We did the whole power of attorney and all of that stuff and it's really cool,
you know the medical directives. It's good to have that, makes you feel good.
You don't have to worry, takes some worry of your shoulders. Also, you know.
Getting your business going can make a big difference. Not just LLCs but
Chapter S, Chapter C corps, trademarks, patents. If you go to LegalZoom.com,
you'll see the huge variety of legal work they can do for you. For more than 10
years LegalZoom has helped millions of people get the personalized attention
they need and if you'd like more help, they will connect you with an
independent attorney in more states. But they are not a law firm. They're
LegalZoom, they're better! Don't let another year pass you by before getting
your life organized for legal help you can count on. For your family or for
your business go to LegalZoom.com, use the offer code MBW and you'll get $10
off at checkout. LegalZoom.com. I don't think we have a pet will for Ozzy. You see the pet protection... it's only $39, take $10
off of that, well there you go. Should probably have a pet
protection agreement. Jason, would you take Ozzy?
You should have a dog for...
Jason: Actually, yes I would. Because our youngest would go ape if she had a dog.
Leo: Perfect. See, alright.
Jason: So there you go.
Leo: I'll draw it up.
Jason: Cool.
Leo: LegalZoom.com and you can
bet I'm going to use the offer code MBW to get $10 off at checkout. We thank
LegalZoom so much for their support of MacBreak Weekly and for doing all that paper work. Nice. Nice! Horace Dediu, we mentioned him earlier. Just writes the greatest
blog, you call him an amateur, I find him kind of more knowledgeable than
almost anybody at Simco. He came up with an
interesting statistic. We had mentioned that Apple had said that in 2014 they
paid $10 billion to developers but just, a great stat. That's more than... what
was it? Now I've lost it.
Rene: Hollywood.
Leo: Hollywood, right?
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: iOS app developers earn
more than Hollywood did from box office in 2014. That is a big economy you've
got here with the apps. That is amazing.
Rene: Well is Candy Crush the
size of The Avengers? I mean it's interesting to look at those kind of numbers.
Leo: It probably is, right?
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: I think we talked about the
numbers from Monument Valley the other day. And well I mean proportionately
they're not major motion picture numbers, it cost them a little more than a
million dollars to make it, they raked in 5 million. But still...
Alex: Well and I think one of the
things that a lot of people was well, not all the developers make money. Well
not everyone on Hollywood makes money either. There's a lot of people that are serving dinner at different restaurants hoping to get
their big break.
Leo: It's actually very similar.
Where it's a hit driven economy right?
Rene: Investment banking.
Leo: A lot of the apps don't
make it, but when you get Iron Man then you've got a franchise.
Alex: Right.
Leo: $500 million spent on iOS
apps in week 1 in January of 2015. Half a billion, wait a minute. Let me say
that again. Half a billion spent on iOS apps in the first week of this month.
Rene: Yeah. Everyone gets their
brand new devices on Christmas and opens them up and starts downloading.
Leo: Yeah it's got to be the
biggest week right?
Andy: Gift cards too.
Leo: And gift cards, that's
right. Yeah. Michael got hundreds of dollars in gift cards. Yeah. Apple, by the way, kudos. Because I've
been entering gift cards from other people. You just show the gift card
to the camera and it goes oh yeah I got it. When you have 12 gift cards to
enter, that is a boon. That is nice.
Rene: And you can actually have
Siri send a gift card for you. Just tell Siri to send an iTunes gift card.
Leo: No!
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: Siri, I love you dude. Lady. Whatever.
Rene: Depends on the country.
Leo: Cumulative developer
revenues, $25 billion making 2014 revenues 40% of all app sales since the store
opened in 2008. Billings for apps increased 50% in 2014. 627,000 jobs created
in the US. We talked about that. That's kind of an interesting number. I don't
know, but still.
Andy: It is kind of interesting,
I've been spending a lot of time poking through Apple sites and also because of
Microsoft's keynote last week, their sites, and then also looking through
Google and it's interesting how if you really just want to go through all the
nooks and crannies it's very very easy to find on
Apple where they're saying here's how much we're helping the economy, here's
how many jobs we're creating, here's the good that we're doing. It's also very very easy to find in Microsoft, here is the actual real
research that we're doing, in addition to developing products, we're developing
basic technologies and publishing, supporting research papers that are going to
support all kinds of other work that's being done. Google maybe has a
combination of both but it's kind of interesting to see that dichotomy between
like if we want to devote some of our users attention towards things that are
not directly involved with selling them a new phone or selling them a new piece
of software, here's how we want to define ourselves to the public and that's
clearly what Apple wants people to know about.
Leo: Here's a graph Alex
Lindsay's not going to like too much. iTunes group
gross revenues by product type, that little thin layer at the bottom, pro apps.
Alex: (laughing)
Leo: Then music, then video.
Video is bigger than... music is bigger than video. The red one is apps. And
that's, you see that's a big portion of revenue. That's gross revenues, so you
take 30% of that goes to Apple, 70% to developers.
Rene: Music is popular. If you
look at Twitter I think all the most followed people are music artists at this
point, not sports people, not Hollywood stars it's singers.
Leo: Really?
Rene: Yeah I believe that's still the case.
Leo: Huh.
Rene: The popularity of music is
amazing.
Alex: I think also a lot of the
pop stars and singers have, that is a huge part of their business model. I mean
I think that a lot of them, the ones that are getting that kind of following
are really doing some pretty interesting social outreach.
Leo: Look at Taylor Swift. Yeah.
Alex: Did you see the thing where
she delivered stuff to her best fans? Those kind of things, and I have to admit
that Taylor Swift is a perfect example of someone who is kind of converting
from the traditional music model to something different. Even though she's
staying with certain parts of it obviously, not putting it on Spotify, not
doing a lot of other things, but her building up that social brand, she's
probably doing that better than almost anyone else in her industry at the
moment. She's just doing a lot of things that make a lot of sense. But I think
that whether it's her or Katy Perry or a variety of other artists, there's
nothing that's accidental about what they're doing there and so I think that a
lot of the sports guys are just not, they're not paying attention to that at
the same level.
Leo: I think there's too many...
I think they're more faceless. I mean look at Taylor Swift's built such a
community around her and so this is video that she made on YouTube of her...
after something that became known Tay-lurking,
whereupon every detail of a fan's likes, job, whereabouts was studies intently,
a single Santa emoji would appear on their socials from Taylor Swift and then
large... she would send them gifts, large FedEx boxes. She just picked people
kind of at random, I mean obviously she's not doing this, her social team is.
But these are people who got...
(video plays:) That is a lot of the stuff I went shopping and got yesterday.
Leo: She went shopping.
(video continues)
Leo: For her fans. This kind of...
this is just... I think. You can be cynical about this and say that well that's
a great manipulation, but you know what she's sitting there wrapping them.
Rene: Now is she also behind Infosec Taylor Swift because that's a huge service to the
industry as well.
Leo: By the way Infosec Taylor Swift says I think says she's given it up,
she says I'm tired of this. Joke's over. I still want
to meet Infosec Taylor Swift. It's a brilliant
Twitter feed.
Rene: It enraged people, I
remember the tweet that said Android was the malware layer on top of Linux and
I think that almost broke Twitter for an hour.
Leo: (laughing) I... you know.
Maybe your team put together the list or something, but she's actually seems
like she's seriously doing this. I mean if this is fake,
she put more effort into faking it than she would have actually doing it.
Andy: She would also deserve
credit if this was her idea to simply, not be the person whose executing
someone else's plan but someone who put a team together and said here's what I
want to do with our social media, come up with new ideas that come more
powerful than simply tweeting out when we've got a new album out.
Leo: I feel like she gets it
more than many, almost anybody.
Andy: It's instinctive.
Leo: It's her age too. Right, I
mean?
Rene: She's not hostile to her
fans, she's embracing them.
Andy: It really is an instinct.
I've spent the past 6 to 7 months looking at people who produce content on YouTube.
I'm just interested in the subject about how people use that to express
themselves. And also because maybe I'd like to do some
YouTube publishing. It really is interesting that people have that
instinct for this kind of medium. Where they express themselves naturally in
the form of a 5 minute video, or as a way of connection through social media as
opposed to I'm going to sit down and write something that takes 800 words, or
I'm even going to write out a script that would take 15 minutes to play out on
YouTube. It really... there are people who are just grown up with an
instinctive understanding of what this mechanism works, that it's more than
simply write something and then people read it on their Twitter feeds. It
really is, here is a larger machine that we're
building.
Leo: In Connecticut she's hand
delivering. Imagine this fan. I mean we've seen stuff like this before as a
publicity stunt. I don't get the feeling this is a publicity stunt. I really...
I mean obviously it is.
Andy: That movement is a
publicity stunt. She's delighted.
Leo: It seems like she's
enjoying it, you couldn't fake that.
Andy: Yeah, exactly.
Leo: And I think that's kind of
critical is that she's actually, she's digging this. She came up with this and
she likes it and she's doing it because she likes it. I follow her on Instagram
and the truth is I couldn't identify a Taylor Swift song to save my life and I
haven't bought any of her albums. But I admire her just for this alone.
Alex: And I also think that one
of the things that's interesting that she's done as well as a variety of other
artists is not trying to block every usage of their music on YouTube and I
think that's been extremely successful. If you look at how many lip dubs there
have been to shake it off. It's one of those things that that also helps build that community, it builds this kind of sense of
singularity between lots and lots of different people that they've all used
this as a context to express themselves. And I think that that is something
that is, the smartest artists. The Katy Perrys and
the Miley Cyruses and the Taylor Swifts and a variety
of other ones have done very well. Have benefited very well from being a little
bit more hands off than some of the... really to be honest with you, has-been
60s, 70s, 80s artists that don't want anyone to use their music.
Leo: Look at Prince. Contrast
this to Prince who just pisses on his fans basically.
Andy: Almost never during a
performance though Leo.
Leo: Not during a performance.
There are artists who have done that by the way. But that's an old school
style. I'm the artist above my audience. And you know what, that's probably...
there's nothing wrong with that and that's probably going to continue. There
will be people who do it, but I just admire somebody like Taylor Swift who does
seem... I mean she's what, 22 or 23? She grew up with the internet, she grew up with all this. This is native to her. And she takes it... seems to
take some delight in this. And if you can do that, but the interesting point to
me is it's not...
it's more than selling records, it's about building a community of fans and
that is incredibly powerful.
Andy: It's also about
infrastructure that supports an artist. YouTube has been doing really well but
now they've started to make unusual new demands on musicians to basically say
that...
Leo: Right!
Andy: We used to give you the
ability to say that if you want to let other people like put your music over
other things we will help you monetize it, we will help you make sure that you
can take off things that are not good, but now it's like we will have to sign...
you're going to have to give us such incredibly good terms to have that now
they have to choose between either using YouTube or not using YouTube at all as
opposed to finding their own level of water. There's no paradise...
Leo: Zoe Obviously and we talked
about it on TWiT, she's a cellist who has done quite
well on YouTube and used content ID on YouTube to identify, because apparently
many of her songs like thousands of her songs have been used with her blessing
as background music in videos, including like the Game of Thrones special
effects reel and she's content ID'd it because if you
do that and you can choose to take it down, but if it's not monetized she can
turn on monetization or, and more importantly if it is monetized she takes a
portion of the monetization, so it's a reasonable revenue strategy, YouTube has
now come to her saying you must agree to sign up for our music key service to
provide all your music both free and paid on music key and you can't do it
exclusively anywhere else, anything that you offer anywhere else including Soundcloud or Bandcamp has to be
offered on YouTube. I mean, it's pretty draconian.
Rene: It's almost like the terms
that got Apple in trouble with the DOJ. But it would be interesting to see if
for example, I do podcasts that have video ads in it, or if PGP Gray or someone
else who does some of the sponsored shows. Could YouTube come and say well if
you do sponsorships on your shows, or if your shows are a certain length, you
can't disable banner ads or overlay ads. I mean it's a slippery slope.
Alex: There's actually a lot of rules in the TOS with YouTube that do include that kind of
stuff, so they don't... I don't think that necessarily it's being enforced
currently but there's definitely... it's one of the reasons that a lot of folks
choose to use YouTube's live streaming service which we stream to a lot is
something that is very very powerful and amazing that
it's free, but there are some restrictions on how you use it. And part of that
is that there's a huge infrastructure that's supporting you being able to do
this, and I think that that's the other side of that. But it is one of those
things that... everybody's going to have to... eventually you're going to have
to pay for what you're getting. And that's the thing that... all these
services, when we look at them whether they're Google or many many other services. Facebook, eventually someone's going
to have to make money on it, and so when they start to monetize it is when they
have a lot of, when one way or another is when things get more complicated.
Andy: I've got to say that I
think there's an argument to be made that they have already been paying for
this service in the form of, just like Apple doesn't make a whole lot of money
off of hosting apps that don't do very well, they make a lot of money off of
apps that do do very well, and so you have these
people that can just do a whole bunch of cinnamon challenges and get audiences
of seriously tens of millions of people and then get to talk to the president
of the United States of America and this helps out Google in many ways,
monetarily and also by increasing their advertising base, so I think that...
I've always said that I don't think Google is a bad company, I don't think that
they're turning customers into products, I do think that there's always that
transaction that's being done. Saying you will give me free video hosting, in
exchange here's what I'm going to give you and I feel as though that's a good
deal. I think that there's so many... because there's so many... because
there's so many musicians who are feeling like, you're not interfering with my
ability to make a profit, you are interfering with my ability to practice my
business, to express my art. If I can't post something very very quick and simple on Soundcloud or Bandcamp, which is where a lot of my users, a lot
of my fans go to look for me, you ruin my ability to make the music that I want
to make. That's the danger that they want to skit away from.
Alex: Yeah, I mean I think that
it's one of those things that, it's really... the biggest thing that's
difficult in this whole process is when you start changing the rules.
Andy: Right, right.
Alex: The rules were one thing
and then you start re-negotiating and it's what every company has to do. They
are constantly moving these rules around, but that is the tricky part of the
entire process. You know, it's such an incredible... they built it up by making
it free and making it easy and doing all these other things as this incredible
platform where half a billion people will watch a single video. You know and so
it really is the radio. Like when I want to listen to a song
or someone talks about a song, half the time I just go to YouTube to see what
it... just to hear the song. You know and it really is truly...
playlists in some ways on YouTube have become a replacement for you know, for
radio for some people. Definitely younger generations. So I think that they've definitely built that up, and then of course when they
decide they're going to try to make money with it, or try to fit it into a
model that makes sense for them it's difficult. And I'm the worst person,
people change the rules on me and I throw all kinds of tantrums so...
(laughing)
Rene: You won't like him when
he's angry.
Leo: Yeah I mean I have mixed
feelings about it too because you do get a great.... we'll talk more about this
I'm sure on This Week in Google as we have on TWiT.
But I guess the point here is to contrast this to iTunes and... but maybe not. By the way Zoe Keating makes the bulk of her
money by selling her music on iTunes.
Rene: And iTunes doesn't let you
sell directly, you've still got to go through CD Baby. So it's not like
YouTube, you just upload a video. And iTunes isn't their own studio the way a
lot of other companies is becoming so it's interesting the battle they've
chosen to fight.
Leo: This just in, the drunk government employee who landed a drone in the White
House was an employee of the National Geo-spacial Intelligence Agency. The NGA is the agency responsible for providing the
government with timely, relevant, and accurate geo-spacial intelligence in support of national security.
Alex: So really it was a test. It
was all research.
Leo: He was off duty, he got
drunk at a nearby apartment, heard about it the next day, turned himself in.
Andy: Are you sure this isn't an
episode of Perfect Strangers? I'm pretty sure this was an episode of Perfect
Strangers where Balki gets a toy helicopter and then
it lands in like the governor's mansion during a...
(all talking, indistinguishable)
Alex: I'm wondering whether it
was more like exactly like what you had described at your house where he and
his friends were drinking and they're like oh let's take this thing out and it
just shot up into the sky and then they just went okay well it's gone, let's go
back to drinking.
Leo: Yeah. I'm sure that's
exactly what happened. I'm sure that's exactly what happened.
Alex: (laughing)
Leo: It's not... you know... I
bet you anything he didn't fly it towards the White House. It's really easy to
lose control of these drones. As I know.
(all talking, indistinguishable)
Rene: He's got only a drone!
Leo: I feel that this, this year
is going to be like the year that drones both take off and crash. Like there is some horrible drone stories ahead of us.
Rene: A lot of stories with
anti-aircraft guns.
Alex: It's movies like that roman
candle movie that's going to have people at the FAA going um, yeah we're going
to have to really do something about this right now.
Leo: But what? But what?
Alex: I don't know. I don't want
them to do anything, I'm quite happy. I live in the country with a drone.
Rene: You put roman candles on
your roof to shoot down the roman candles on the drone, Leo.
Leo: (laughing)
Rene: They get a stick and a nail
you get a bigger stick and a nail, that's how this works.
Leo: I think that we need 3D
printer templates for weaponry for our drones that's all there is to it.
Andy: It's very simple, starting
spring time secret service agents will all be equipped... a radio, a gun, a taser, and a butterfly net on a really really big long pole.
Leo: (laughing)
Andy: Protect America.
Leo: According to Forbes the
world's most valuable brands, you know I see these and I go well I don't know
how... how they do this.
Rene: I can't afford any of them.
Leo: Top 100 most valuable
brands span 15 countries and cross 20 industry categories, we started, they
say, with a universe of more than 200 global brands. They had to have a
presence in the US. They first determine earnings before interest and taxes,
they average those over 3 years, subtract from earnings a charge of 8% of the
brand's capital employed, then they apply the maximum corporate tax rate in the
parent company's home country to that net earnings figure then they allocate a
percentage of those earnings to the brand based in the role brands play in each
industry, to this net brand earnings number we applied the average
price-to-earnings multiple over the past 3 years. You know what? It was just a
spreadsheet. That's all. They put it in a spreadsheet and the winner is...
Apple Computer, number 1, what a surprise. Brand value,
$124.2 billion.
Alex: I think the crazy thing is
that the...
Leo: This is a 19% increase over
last year.
Alex: It's not just the ranking, it's the difference between Apple and number 2.
It's almost double.
Leo: It's twice number 2 which
is Microsoft. Although I have to say, and this might be...
Rene: That was before the new HoloLens event.
Leo: Yeah this may be
controversial on an Apple podcast, but I'm very excited by what Microsoft
announced last week.
Andy: Yeah, me too.
Leo: Not just the HoloLens but I think Windows 10 in general, they seem to be on track for a much improved strategy. Which is good, you need
competition to keep everybody honest.
Andy: Exactly. And this is again,
we're not going to turn this into a Windows podcast but one of the things that
I thought was most interesting was that I think that there were a lot of really
interesting and really promising in that keynote, I think the most interesting,
one of the most interesting though was the keynote itself where it was really
presented in the form of we can't just roll out a series of announcements, we
have to shape a story and leave these journalists and the people watching the live
stream a way with a story of here is who we are as a
company and here is what we are capable of doing so even if you see some bumpy
spots over the next couple of years you will understand us by the trail of the
dead that we follow.
Leo: I think it was fairly
compelling, and it did follow the Apple template. Starting off at the beginning
with a litany of how we're doing, 1.5 billion users and ending with Satya
Nadella, their new CEO in a mock turtleneck and black jeans.
Rene: It's amazing that all these years later Apple still announces devices and
Microsoft still announces platforms.
Leo: Well, I think that's
changing. I think the HoloLens is very interesting
and I wonder what Apple's response is going to be to this.
Rene: They didn't just announce
the HoloLens, the HoloLens is an open
development platform.
Leo: Yeah.
Rene: It's not like a closed
thing like Oculus.
Leo: Okay. That's good, right?
Rene: No, yeah, that's fantastic,
that's what I love best about Microsoft.
Andy: Right I mean, that's as I
said on Twitter, Rene and I were talking about this on Twitter during the day
and it's like Apple is not capable of having success on the scale of a
Microsoft office. Microsoft is not capable of having success on the scale of
the iPad. There's definitely playing to their strengths.
Leo: I'm very excited. And I
wonder if the HoloLens will be... I feel we're
looking at the future of UI.
Rene: Look at this Leo, Facebook
has Oculus now. Google has Google Glass and Microsoft has HoloLens.
So they all, all of them have a presence in VR or AR, however you want to term
it. And Apple has nothing in that space yet.
Alex: Apple has patent.
Rene: Yeah, Apple's got patent.
But they're also... Apple's not a first mover in any of these categories, they're not first to phones, tablets, TV boxes
or watches. So if this is the next thing, at what point is that market mature
enough for Apple to enter and in what way would they enter?
Leo: Let's not forget that
Microsoft created the first mouse, it was Apple that
popularized it.
Alex: Right I mean I think that
Apple's and I think...
Andy: Uh. Create Xerox.
Leo: Alright the first mouse was
created by Niklaus Wirth at Logitech off the beat and
actually even before that Douglas Englebart at Xerox
Park. But the first commercial mouse was sold with Microsoft Office years
before Apple came out with the Macintosh.
Alex: Well and I think that it's
just a very... Apple doesn't like to show their notes. A lot of these other... everyone else, and I don't really know I mean
because I think Google Glass is a perfect example of showing your notes, of
throwing something out there. Not sure, and just seeing how people will react
to it and then they react badly to it and then it's really hard to kind of
corral that back up again.
Leo: There's a very big difference
though. Oculus Rift you don't see what's out there. You're in a world of your
very own which I find...
Rene: I tried it at CES again,
like the latest version and it is very disconcerting because you have it on and
looks beautiful now and it's smooth and there's almost no compression and it's
real time and you can move your head up and down, you can jump up and down but
you put your hands up and you can't see them. And that is a very primal sort of
what's going on here feeling.
Andy: But two important things.
Number 1, Google Glass is just one example of what they're doing, they also
have half a billion dollar investment in Magic Leap which is a very very secret company that's doing...
Leo: Very similar, very similar
right?
Andy: Exactly, that has made the
most frustrating press releases known to mankind, it's almost like a scene from
the Simpsons where they're going to tell you everything about how awesome this
thing that they're building is except for any details whatsoever because what
they're doing is so top secret, so they've got their hands in a lot of
different ways of articulating that. But the thing is, I don't want Google and
Microsoft and other companies to be ding for oh look at them, they have this
Google Glass concept of course it failed after a year. Well it didn't fail
because they never actually did it as a product, I think they legitimately said
that here is some ideas we think might be important,
we can't really figure out how good these ideas are until we put these in the
hands of real people and have them tell us how they're using this. So Glass
should definitely not be an embarrassment for them, if anything if there...
there is a very short list of things I think that Apple is... doesn't show as
much confidence as other companies. Apple is more than happy to make money off
of something that they know there's a market for, and that they know other
people have been doing this. There's no... here's a
finished thing and a finished base of customers, here's how we can do that
better. I can't think of more than maybe one instance which they've done
something where... no here is a product that is so good that we are going to be
pathfinders here. We're going to be the innovators and the pioneers, we're not
just going to be the people who come in 2 or 3 years later after lots of...
hundreds and hundreds of explorers have died to find the route over the
Rockies. Now we're going to build the railroad in now that they've done that
for us. Apple could have a little bit... there would be an additional source of
pride if they could point to things and say that there was no such thing as a
smartphone, then we created the smartphone. There's no such thing as a tablet,
then we created the tablet. There's no such thing as the laptop, we create the
laptop.
Alex: Well and I think that
what's ironic about the whole thing is that Apple is one of the biggest copy...
they have all these patents, but they're one of the biggest copycats, they let
everyone else be the front row because as I'm saying, there's something like...
as someone who has Glass and I think that there are things that Glass does that
nothing comes close to. You want to do point of view training videos of how to
do something, if you want to...
Leo: Oh no no but I've got to tell you. HoloLens is going to be
better. Both Oculus Rift and Glass have a significant flaw. They're not
augmented reality, they're not heads up displays. They
demonstrated with HoloLens, fixing a light switch and
you're looking at the actual light switch while somebody's on Skype talking you
through it and drawing on your view of the light switch to say do this, do
this. Much better than looking at a manual over your right
eyebrow. It's a completely different experience.
Alex: But we were doing, what we
were doing with Glass was two-way conversations where I see what you're seeing
and you see what I'm seeing. Now it didn't have the hologram where you're
drawing on it but I'm sitting there, what I was doing was basically saying okay
now grab onto this part of the camera, we both have the same camera and you're
either doing what I've... you know, I can see that. So it wasn't looking at a
manual, it's actually talking to someone two-way and that was one of the things
that was really good about Glass and I think that Microsoft's product is going
to be...
Leo: No, Skype two-way. Two-ways
Skype talking to you, and furthermore drawing on the thing you're fixing and
saying turn that this way now.
Alex: Right.
Leo: It's mind boggling.
Andy: It's a much more ambitious
thing but remember that was part of the thought process that Google put into
Glass to begin with, that you know how Steve Jobs said well if you have a
stylus on a touchscreen device that means that that designer failed, Google's
whole idea was look if this is putting something into your field of vision then
we failed in the design. The whole point of their point of view for this was
here is a computer that it will not take up... it will not obscure your vision,
it will not obscure your hearing, it will not obscure
your sense of touch. No phone can do that, no heads up display can do that, no
laptop can do that. If this is just live your life, do whatever you want to do,
except we will have this little piece of software that will put a little bit of
a queue above your field of vision to help you not ever have to take out your
phone ever again. So it's...
Leo: It's different, I understand it's a different goal.
Andy: It's all about I love how
technology really is art. And art comes front a point of view and a statement
that someone wants to make and so there is a signature house style to the way
that Apple wants to design something, there is a signature style to the way
that Google wants to design something and when you talk to the designers and
you ask gee, why isn't this like something that can actually put an arrow on
this building to show me what building I want to go to? They will tell you that
we don't want you to ever have something in front of your eye, we want you to be able to see what you want to see, hear what you want to hear.
That's great design. No matter how useful or not useful the result might be, I
love hearing those stories from the designers of what their point of view
actually was.
Leo: I'm excited about the idea
of augmented reality. I've thought from the day 1 both Glass and Oculus Rift
missed the boat because AR is the future, and AR is not a new technology, it's
been used for years.
Rene: I just want to know when
the Amazon Cobra Commander Fire Face is going to ship. That's what I'm waiting
for, the Fire Face.
Leo: (laughing) You know, everybody's now rushing if they haven't already
been doing it in secret labs somewhere to create some AR solution. But I just... I feel like Microsoft got it right. Now
there's a long history including the mouse, including the tablet of Microsoft
being first to the table but not being best.
Rene: I don't want to be
pessimistic Leo but the thing about this that I think intrigues them also
especially companies like Facebook is on a phone I can look at the Facebook
app, press the home button, I can look at Facebook.com on the web, close the
browser. And whether it's Microsoft or Facebook or Google, once it's on my face
they control my entire experience. And I can't just close that. I have to
physically take it off. And once I've put it on there's less impetus to take it
off. So I think it also serves their purposes of getting much higher engagement
and attention.
Andy: Or you cannot run that app.
Leo: I think the...
Rene: Well it's still there.
Leo: I think HoloLens you can turn off and then it's sunglasses.
Rene: Giant, giant sunglasses.
Leo: Big sunglasses. Interestingly...
Andy: What if we put the Beats
logo on the sides of it? Then it would be absolutely palatable.
Leo: They did not show HoloLens.... they did not anywhere in the video show HoloLens out of the house. It really is designed to be an
adjunct to computing in the home. Which is interesting. I would guess... absolutely that both Google and Apple will have something
similar quickly. But...
Andy: I don't know about that.
Rene: I don't know...
Alex: I don't know if Apple...
Leo: Maybe not Apple huh?
Alex: I don't see Apple doing
anything with... in this space significantly this year.
Leo: Yeah.
Alex: I think they've got plenty
on their plate, they're going to be pushing through... they've got other things
to be doing. I'd be very surprised.
Rene: They have a saying that
they need a lot of people to try it and create problems that they then think
they can add value by solving. And there's not been enough trial and problems
discovered for this yet.
Andy: Yeah, their whole MO
historically and their whole strength has always been here is a product that
does not work well, we can make this product work incredibly well.
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: Yeah.
Alex: Right.
Andy: That means you have to
start off with a product that actually exists.
Leo: Anyway. Times are changing.
Microsoft second, Google 3rd, Coca-Cola 4th. It's
interesting the 3 big tech companies are 1, 2 and 3 as the most valuable brands
in the world. Then McDonald's. General
Electric. Samsung is in there, number 8. Toyota. Louis Vuitton? Really? BMW. Cisco, I thought it
said Crisco and I thought oh wow. No, it's Cisc. Intel, Disney, Oracle, AT&T, Mercedes Benz,
Facebook number 18, Wal-Mart, and Honda make the top 20.
Rene: Works for Larry Ellison.
Leo: Yeah. Oracle is Oracle number 15 yeah right after
Disney and before AT&T. They don’t say most loved brands you notice and
every one of these guys is going to have a super bowl commercial.
Rene: Range of Mouth Marketing is surprising, Leo.
Leo: Range of Mouth, I like it. Speaking of range we are
going to talk about Missouri and Apple Pay in just a second but first
audible.com; I love my Audible. I was out in the hot tub this morning listening
to my audible book on my phone. Audible is probably the only, the greatest
purveyor of audio books in the world 150,000 titles; so many great books. I’ve
been an audible member since 2000, which means I have something like 500 books
in my library; that is one thing I like about audible once a book is in your
library its always there. You can put the audible app on any device that you’ve
got Android, IOS, Windows phone, Windows, or Mac and then listen; and I can go
backwards and listen to all of the great stuff that I’ve ever. It is like your
book shelf. I got the book you recommended Andy, As You Wish the behind the scenes of The Princess Bride. I can’t wait to listen to
that, that’s going to be fantastic; it’s written by Westley. If you go, now
here is the deal.
Andy: Westley.
Leo: Westely. I’m going to get
you a free book if you go to audible.com/macbreak you
can sign up for the gold plan. That is the book a month plan; your first month
is free, your first book is free, and then you also get the daily digest of the
New York Times and Wall street Journal as you do with any subscription plan.
You don’t have to pay anything for the first 30 days; cancel in that time and
you will keep that book and you have paid nothing so it is a free book. But I
think you might stick around, there are so many wonderful, wonderful books on
here. What are you listening to these days.
Andy: The last audible book I finished just a few of days
ago was Patton Oswalt’s really good memoir of his
film addiction called Silver Screened Fiend. One of my other favorite audible book was by comedian Steve Martin. He wrote a memoir, it was
less of a memoir than a biography of a person that he used to be; it was a
biography of the standup act that he built during the 70s and abandoned during
the early 80s. This is similar to that, it documents a brief period in the late
90s early 2000s where he was just an absolute; he was always a film fan he
just, he became an absolute addict of the cinema. Spending every moment that he
was not spending doing standup at the new Beverly Cinema almost watching movies
and going back home and opening up a psychotronic film guide or some other guide and checking off the movies that he had seen and
writing down the time, the date, and the place where he actually saw it. It
really is an interesting story pretty breezy, about 4 hours long I think. He
reads about him developing his voice and his career as an actor while having
this addiction that is maybe about to; it was like he was at a cross roads it
seems in life where he could either commit himself from 80% to his career to
100% to his career or be one of these people who just see lots and lots of
movies and talks about moves but never actually makes movies. It is a really
interesting story about how a person evolves at a interesting part in their lives and these, I love
these memoirs where the story is read by the person who wrote it and lived it.
He just has a great voice that you just want to get into and listen to for 4
and half hours.
Leo: You may not know the name but if you see a picture of
Patton Oswalt you will immediately know.
Andy: He is one of my favorite comedians.
Leo: I love him.
Andy: One of my favorite actors, he was on King of Queens
for 9 or 10 sessions, he was the voice of Remy the rat in Ratatouille, but you
really can’t pigeon hole him with any one role that he actually did.
Leo: He’s got that funny kind of squished up face.
Rene: He is on Agents of Shield right now
Leo: He also has a podcast, the super ego podcast.
Andy: I think he appears on it I don’t think he.
Leo: Oh he is a featured guest, I
get it, your right.
Rene: So he is like.
Leo: Let me play, you will
recognize his voice probably, let me play a little bit of.
Patton Oswalt: Like I said
there were plenty of multiplexes in L.A. in which to see Conair, Broken Arrow,
or Eddie Murphy’s remake of the Nutty Professor. Nothing wrong with those
movies, if people need bread and surfaces better it be bread for the best
spring flower and spring water and circus’ under the cleanest canvas tents with
the healthiest animals.
Leo: That sounds like you, that is exactly the kind of
thing you would say Andy and by the way happy birthday Patton Oswalt; it is his birthday today somebody told me.
Andy: Yay.
Leo: Yay, you know what I did hear as you described that, I
went to the books Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life From an Addiction to Film because I too love film, I feel like that has been a huge
part of my life and then I added it to my wish list. So I keep a wish list and
this is something that every audible subscriber probably does because you meet
other audible subscribers and they go oh you’ve got to listen to this or that.
So I actually have a fairly long wish list. That is so that when I get credits
and I get credits every month, becauseI have a
subscription; I know oh yeah I was going to listen to that. So I always add
Andy’s book and I highly recommend that you do the same. Audible, but first you
have to get a subscription; go to audible.com/macbreak sign up today that gold plan is yours, that first book is free it is
yours. It is hard to choose but browse
around there is so many great choices I’m just a huge fan; it is pretty much
all I ever do. I listen, if you have an IOS or iPad
app it makes it so easy for you to listen where ever you are in your car, at
home, on the treadmill. I love it audible.com/macbreak please give it a try today I think you will love it too. I see this audible
snow advisory 100% chance of hearing a great book. Perfect if you’re stuck in
the house because of the snow, they say we have suggestions for your snowcation. Snowed in with your family; and that is another
thing buy the way you can listen as a family it is great to listen. We were
listening to the Lightening Thief together.
Rene: Nice.
Leo: It is a great book and it is fun to listen as a family
to a book and cuddle by the fire, highly recommend it. Audible, don’t listen to
the Porn Clerk Stories if you are listening with the family; audible.com.
Although I’m tempted, I want to know what that is.
Alex: My dad was driving to North Carolina with my older
kids but still at the time they were 15 and 17 and he was listening to The Girl
with the Dragon Tattoo. He decided that he had to stop.
Leo: Yeah
Alex: He had to stop listening, he decided that wasn’t going
to work it was building up to.
Leo: That is kind of a kinky story yeah.
Andy: Here is another tip, the version of Animal House that
you see on cable all the time has been substantially edited from the DVD that
you get from Redbox so don’t show that to your little kids.
Leo: Don’t lick the minivan and other things I never
thought I would say to my kids that is what you need to be listening to
audible.com/mackbreak. You’ve all by now used Apple ID, you tap your iPhone on the register and boom you walk
out the door happy with no more effort on your part. Well apparently one
Missouri law maker says no, no, no too easy. Democratic representative Joshua
Peters from St. Louis says the bill introduced Wednesday requires customers to
show a state driver’s license or other identification when they use a tap to
pay app because.
Rene: It’s witch craft.
Leo: Its witch craft, I don’t know if I trust that touch ID
and also clerks will be required to verify the identity and write down the id
number and keep it on record. Where the.
Rene: And no dancing, no dancing.
Leo: Or the store could be held liable for fraudulent
purchases and of course you guys are just making fun of him. I’m thinking maybe
Wal-Mart got to him and said hey the problem with this tap and pay is we don’t
know who these people are.
Rene: They are not as secure as QR codes.
Leo: Yeah.
Rene: You really want.
Leo: We would really like to keep track of these people so
could you just write down.
Andy: We are going to exicute this
rampaging elephant using tap to pay to show you how dangerous it is.
Alex: To all of the constituents who are upset right now,
you voted for him.
Leo: He didn’t understands. He
said we want to make sure no fraudulent purchases are made using a stolen
device. He is apparently unclear of the ID of touch ID.
Rene: Or the history of credit card fraud.
Leo: Well or how much easier it is to make a fake driver’s
license than to fake a thumb print.
Rene: Just a social engineer with stolen card.
Alex: If you validated this, of course if you validated that
you can’t prove that someone is who they say they are by their thumb print then
it would invalidate an awful lot of criminal prosecution.
Leo: That is a good point, a very good point.
Alex: It is a pretty accurate way of doing that given that
you are standing in front of them and you are holding it down. I don’t know
there is so many ways; we send people out. I’m not going to get into it but I
mean people use credit cards all the time that aren’t.
Rene: Yeah.
Alex: That aren’t theirs.
Leo: Apple has some targets for battery life and apparently
according to Marc German and 9 to 5 Mac once again great scope; the CPU inside
the Apple Watch will be A5 level. A5, current iPad and iPhone use A7?
Rene: A8.
Leo: A8 so A5 goes back to the 4S or 5? 5 probably I don’t
remember.
Rene: Yeah A5 is what is in the current iPod Touch, the
current Apple TV, the.
Leo: It is plenty fast enough.
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: For a watch.
Rene: For a watch yeah.
Leo: Plenty fast enough.
Rene: It won’t hit 60 frames per second Leo, it is almost like a religious thing for them.
Leo: For the first time people with knowledge of Apple
Watches development have provided Marc German with specific performance targets
Apple wants to achieve for the battery. Actual numbers may fall short of this,
they have used a very powerful; relatively powerful processor for a watch and a
high quality screen. Both of which contribute to significant power drain,
running a stripped down version of IOS code named ski hill. The Apple S1 chip
inside the Apple Watch is surprisingly close in performance to the Apple A5
while the retina class color display is capable of 60 frames per second. Apple
initially, this is Mac German again I’m just reading him, wanted Apple Watch to
provide roughly one full day of usage. That is kind of what Tim Cook implied
you will charge it every night. As of 2014 Apple wanted the watch to provide
roughly 2 and a half to 4 hours of active application use 19 hours of combined
active passive use, 3 days of standby, or 4 days of sleep mode however, sources
say Apple will only achieve 2-3 days in standby or low power modes.
Andy: That is certainly fine. You might have had the same
experience I’ve had the Moto 360 that so long as I am;
I’m almost guaranteed a full day with.
Leo: That is all that I care about.
Andy: Even if we define a full day as I have to check out of
my hotel at 4 am, do all kinds of meetings, and go out to dinner with friends,
then catch the Red Eye home. So we are kind of defining a full day as like 22
hours, I’m fine because anything above that again at the end of the day I’m
going to take off this watch and put it on the night stand. I’m not averse to
putting it on top of a charging pad.
Leo: Right.
Andy: When I do that.
Leo: No and you know it is interesting because the Moto 360
shipped with fairly poor battery life but with several firmware updates, it is
pretty darn good at this point.
Andy: Yeah I mean, it was actually
a failure it looks like with the software where if it lost contact with the
phone it would just scream for help, bloody murder over and over.
Leo: Right.
Andy: Again till it killed the battery.
Leo: Right.
Andy: But they did some more tweaks to it.
Leo: Right.
Andy: Now if they gave me a couple of extra days of battery
life I would certainly take it. There is a point in which it is like okay this
is good enough.
Leo: Apple is still looking to get 2 and a half hours of
heavy application use such as game play, processor intensive game play. So if
you are playing Snake on your watch it should go for 2 and half hours; anybody
who can play Snake for 2 and a half yours.
Rene: There are no native apps until late next year.
Leo: So that is not.
Rene: Not yet.
Leo: An issue right. 3 and half hours of standard use and
that means with the screen on.
Rene: That means with the screen on, the screen updated, and
you staring at it.
Leo: Yeah and that is actually pretty good given my
experience with phones and watches; 3 and half hours of screen time is a lot
for a day, most people.
Rene: The bad thing is that.
Andy: I think I would even say that is too much for a watch.
If you are saying that you want anybody to spend 3 hours looking at this.
Leo: Right.
Andy: You are not being clear what this watch is for.
Leo: Not solid.
Alex: If you did do that.
Andy: But for
Alex: Go ahead.
Andy: Sorry just one last thing that I wanted to say was that
how long can you exercise with this and still have the battery? Can you run a
full marathon and still.
Leo: They say 4 hours of straight exercise tracking.
Andy: Yeah and that is going to be important for a lot of
people.
Leo: So if you run a marathon run it fast. If you are a, because really good marathon runners are done in 3
hours right?
Andy: My new training goal is to make it to the end of this.
Leo: Right.
Andy: Before the watch stops collecting data.
Leo: That’s good.
Rene: Whether it’s a phone or it’s a watch the thing is that
battery life is a currency and you spend it; if you use a radio that spends it,
if you add a screen, if you add color, if you add density all of those things
are battery life that you are expending. A Pebble is an ENK display that uses
lots of battery life but some people want a color display and some people want
other features so you always have to get this trade off of how much it does
versus how long it does it for and it is like this big balancing act.
Leo: One of the big issues then and we’ve noted this with
Android Wear Watches is the display of time and Android Wear Watches in fact
all of the smart watches I’ve ever used, when your hand is down; when your
wrist is down they go dark or they go to a very low power display. Apple has
conducted numerous tests to determine how long it could run on purely time
keeping modes German says, we are told the watch should be able to display
clock face for 3 hours including watch ticking animations. Any moving parts use
more juice as you said.
Rene: And again that is stuff you are staring at. John
Gruber mentioned this on a talk show last week, and I have heard similar that
they have spent an enormous amount of time testing the gesture.
Leo: Right.
Rene: For looking at the watch, turning it on, putting it
away, turning it off, and that’s the kind of thing that helps them get battery
efficiency.
Leo: That is one thing that is week on the Moto 360 in my
experience, I don’t know what your experience has been Andy; but sometimes when
you flip your wrist up to look at it, it doesn’t wake up and you kind of have
to shake your wrist a little bit to see what time it is.
Andy: You know I had that exact same problem the first day
but I think that is residual effects of wearing the Pebble for a month and a
half. Where I feel as though they are looking for the accelerometer thing where
as this is just simply, it is not asking for a snap it is just asking for a
simple turn. As soon as I retrained my wrist to not expect it to be a Pebble it
stopped bothering me.
Leo: So which should I do? Should I go like this or should
I just go like that?
Andy: No don’t snap just go like that and it will light up.
Leo: Just like that is all it needs.
Andy: Yep.
Leo: So I need to be trained on how to look at my watch
apparently.
Rene: You’re turning it wrong Leo.
Leo: I’m turning it wrong.
Alex: That is the whole singularity of convergence for us.
The machines are getting trained to us and us getting trained to the machine.
Leo: Some of that has to happen.
Alex: When you talk to Siri it is like Siri call Trish home.
Leo: Yeah.
Andy: That is a great point because the first 2 days with
this watch were incredibly frustrating because of how poorly other devices work
because I was talking to, it does voice commands; I was talking to it like Siri
and was getting it write maybe half to three quarters of the time. But as soon
as I said take a note, tomorrow there is going to be 400 people arriving at 2
pm. If I just speak normally, 100% almost every single time.
Leo: Right.
Andy: If I go remember that tomorrow.
Leo: Right.
Andy; 400 people are coming.
Leo: Right its true isn’t it.
Andy: You know you should talk to it as if you are angry
with it.
Leo: Yeah.
Andy: Which you have to do with Siri.
Leo: German says that.
Andy: Siri remember that tomorrow to pick up eggs.
Rene: Excellent enunciation is creating a whole new
generation of enunciators.
Leo: I’m a trained, professional trained announcer and I
have difficulty. I am a trained.
Rene: You’re a trained announcer?
Leo: I’m a trained.
Andy: Professionally?
Leo: Professionally.
Rene: I’m waiting for.
Leo: The Cucamonga Express ready to leave from track 9,
track 9.
Alex: Where do you go to school for that?
Andy: Ruggles IPOK route 128.
Leo: I would like to do that actually. I want to do it in
France, I love the French.
Rene: Oh Leo.
Leo: Apparently Apple has circulated 3,000 test units
already. So you might if you go to the campus see a few people wearing these watches,
mostly the stainless steel variant. They have also.
Alex: You probably have to come in and have them unlock it
off of your wrist.
Leo: Oh yeah, or they put it around your ankle like a home
arrest device.
Alex: Yeah exactly.
Rene: You can tell the villa maes by their bands Leo, you can tell them by the
maleness.
Leo: I want the maleness band I don’t care about the watch
I just want the band.
Alex: I’ve been thinking about the bands. This is going to
be a crazy, huge industry for the bands.
Leo: Oh yeah.
Alex: Because now that the watch is coming I saw this, I
don’t know if you saw this but that.
Leo: Yes.
Andy: Yeah.
Alex: Leatherman now has this band with screwdrivers and
they have a little watch and.
Andy: Oh look at it.
Alex: All that I can think is that they have a watch
addition that they are offering and that I can think of is that would be a
great band for my Apple Watch.
Rene: They are getting a lot of calls over this Alex.
Alex: Yeah.
Rene: You know they are getting a lot of calls.
Leo: It is called the Leatherman.
Andy: My second thought was that.
Leo: Tread.
Andy: With bands like that, big harry wrists don’t worry; 2
days after wearing that watch harry wrists will no longer being a problem.
Leo: This is the band by the way $150-$200, the Leatherman
Tread. It is definitely kinky and it turns into a knife.
Alex: No, no it doesn’t turn into a knife all of those
little things are little screwdrivers.
Leo: Little tools.
Alex: Yeah you just take it off and fold it to what screw
driver you want and.
Leo: Wow.
Alex: I got to tell you I use little screw drivers a lot and
I need one that is all I got.
Leo: This is the lumberjacking of America.
Andy: There is a great story behind it. The guy who designed
it works for Leatherman and was frustrated because at some sort of security
check point he had to hand over his multi-tool because it had a blade on it.
Leo: Yeah.
Andy: He was like if I hide things on a bracelet they are
not going to challenge me are they?
Leo: Is that true? You can go through customs or whatever.
Andy: Well they should because it is not a blade so there is
no problem they are going to have with it.
Leo: I’m sorry sir your watch band is set of screw drivers.
Wow.
Rene: That is pretty awesome.
Leo: Wow.
Alex: Isn’t that thing awesome.
Leo: What the hell.
Alex: I’m sorry.
Andy: You want this thing now.
Leo: What the hell.
Alex: Look at that, so you just fold it and there you go.
Leo: Oh.
Alex: Pop your tri pod mount off.
Leo: Oh I want this. Now do we know if Apple is going to
make the attachment to the watch proprietary?
Rene: There is no chip in it.
Leo: Oh I guess you could duplicate it huh.
Rene: There is probably a lot of
factories in China making this.
Leo: Reverse engineering.
Andy: I bet there is going to be some sort of MFI program
that says of course you can buy some sort of cheap knock off but if you have
this logo on it and pay an $18. You know that this has been made to.
Leo: Right.
Andy: To the exceeding tolerances.
Alex: It would just keep releasing on itself otherwise you
know it just keeps popping off or.
Rene: That MFI program is to a joke, I mean they test that
stuff in coordinately.
Leo: But I mean really, test a watch band; really do we
need to?
Alex: I don’t know I think.
Rene: I think there is going to be and MFI.
Andy: I think they want to protect the value of the MFI
brand.
Leo: Yeah.
Andy: So I don’t think they would miss the trick to say we
have MFI certified bands. Here is rubber bands that
have been torn apart. Here is a watch that fell apart and fell into a toilet
but if you have an MFI band you will never toilet exodus your $5,000.
Rene: If you go to the MFI page now it will say what kind of
accessory do you want to make and has things it will
need like the accessory protocol or the home kit protocol you need MFI. If you
are making a case just go down load our schematic right now and God bless you
sir.
Leo: Yeah.
Rene: So I depends on which way it
goes.
Leo: So there will be a mag safe conductance charge for the
watch. That will, I presume, be proprietary and probably expensive. Sources
according to Marc German indicate that was responsible for slower than expected
recharging times, something they are obviously going to want to work on. There
are plastic and stainless steel versions of the charger depending on which
watch you get. End of March, start saving now. I want
one.
Andy: I really want to see the over under on what the addition
is going to cost. That is going to be the fun number.
Leo: That is the expensive one right, the edition.
Andy: You start off with more than 5 grand or less than 5
grand and then you say 6 grand.
Leo: Yeah.
Andy: 7 grand.
Leo: Yeah.
Rene: Well it is fun because you can charge anything. If you
go by traditional watch companies, you can charge anything you want because you
are not paying for materials beyond a certain point; you are paying for a fancy
watch and that is almost limitless on price.
Andy: How well can they sell the point that, can they make
the case that no, no we didn’t just take the molds for the cheap one and put a
more expensive metal in it and change the markup to 8,000% instead of 40%. At
least it is a great form of entertainment; watching these companies that
really, really need to sell you on craftsmanship. Here is an 83 minute unedited
video on a watch engineer hand shaping just one tine on one gear on this watch;
and there are 400 gears just like it.
Rene: The interesting thing is that.
Andy: This is why it cost $9,000.
Rene: Marketing is all social engineering; there is always a
low tier, a mid tier, and a high tier and you have to
pick what is palatable for people. So Apple has traditionally said people will
pay for a bigger screen or they will pay for more RAM. Regardless of what the
screen or RAM actually cost them those are what we’ll accept to pay higher tier
prices for and this time they are trying it, well there are 2 different sizes
but this time they are trying it mostly with materials. Will they pay more for
aluminum, will they pay more for gold, and yes there is a cost for other
components but it is just how much the market will bear those price steps.
Alex: It is just like some people will want to be able to
say that they have the most expensive watch because they can afford it. I think
that is the bottom line they are going to put enough into it. I don’t know if
it is going to have value, I don’t know if it is something that I would get;
but I definitely think there is definitely a subset of people who buy the
iPhone that put the gold plating on them you know all the bling that they add
to them. So that is going to be.
Rene: Kim Kardashian.
Andy: Do you want the life styles of the rich and famous, a
tour of any apartment that Donald Trump lives in where it is like do you see
this toilet seat. It is made out of 24 karat gold, it is incredibly luxurious
and everyone else is saying yeah you’re a damn idiot because you just took
something common that works and found a way to spend 1.8 million dollars for it
your dumb.
Rene: You have heavy metal poisoned of your butt Donald.
Andy: It’s a huge butt.
Leo: Updates are out, updates are
out all over the place 10.10.2 for OS 10 which also includes a remote desktop
client update 10.
Rene: Security fixes.
Leo: Say again.
Rene: Some really good security fixes.
Leo: Yes.
Rene: The thunder strike bug, it fixes the Google zero days,
it fixed the colonel exploit there is a lot of good stuff in there.
Leo: It resolves an issue that may cause Wi-Fi to
disconnect. That seems like that is boiler plate, like every update should do
that.
Rene: And there will be a little break in percentage for
Apple too.
Leo: It resolved an issue that may cause web pages to run
slowly, it fixes an issue that causes Spotlight to load email content when the
preference was disabled; that would be embarrassing. It improves audio and
video sync when using Bluetooth headphones, adds the ability to browse iCloud
drive in Time Machine, improves voice over speech
performance.
Rene: The Spotlight thing was a privacy thing because you
could disable.
Leo: Right.
Rene: Automatically uploading images which was tracking pixels
in the mail that Spotlight would still show them. Now Spotlight respects the
preference that you set in email.
Leo: That is a very good point, yeah. Addresses the issue
that made the input method to switch languages unexpectedly, improves security
and stability in Safari. Most importantly fixes a number of security issues
including Thunder Strike and those that you mentioned including Google Zero
Days. So you must download that and install that as quickly as you can if you
are, obviously if you are using Yosemite. There is also
updates for IOS right?
Rene: Also just as a side, Mavericks and Mountain Lion have
Safari security updates as well.
Leo: Because some of those.
Rene: Everyone who was yelling last week that Apple has
abandoned older versions.
Leo: No.
Rene: Once again not true.
Leo: 8.1.3 bug fixes, stability, and big deal reduces the amount of storage required to perform a software
update. That is really important maybe even in response kind of back handed
response to that class action lawsuit over storage; bet people with 8 gig or 16
gig iPhones will be happy to know.
Rene: With Apple, the response is a very human one. People
had trouble downloading the update for IOS 8, there is
a bunch of people at Apple who have relative who have those.
Leo: Yes.
Rene: Same problems, they want to fix it. Not everyone has
the latest phone. There are people working on the iPhone whose relatives have
iPhone 4S and they want to make sure.
Leo: Yeah.
Rene: There is really good performance.
Leo: Yeah.
Rene: So they were determined to fix this and I installed
this on a couple of devices and it was lightening quick; I didn’t have to
re-log in, I didn’t have to re-board. I just downloaded it, it was ready to go.
Safari was faster, the phone was faster, it was a
really good update.
Leo: Good. So 10.9, 10.8, and 10.10 updated IOS 8.1 and 8.3
out; Apple TV pushed an update this week too. 120 sports have been added; wait
no, no a channel called 120 sports has been added.
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: What is that?
Rene: They can, the thing with Apple TV is there is 2 separate tracks for that so you have the software
update, they will get separate versions for IOS. Apple TV runs on iOS but Apple
insists on labeling it with a different version number.
Leo: Right.
Rene: It makes it a little confusing. The way that the
spring board works on the Apple TV is that those are essentially like web apps.
Leo: Oh okay.
Rene: They can be pushed an icon to go anywhere so this is
why.
Leo: So this isn’t really an update then, it is just a new.
Rene: It is a new channel. It is the same way that the Apple
events channel shows up before every event.
Leo: Right.
Rene: The iTunes festival; the icon shows up and then goes
away. It is just that they can add things to that grit whenever they want to.
Leo: Okay, any problem reported with the IOS or OS 10
updates? Everything is going okay everybody. Somebody said that the IOS update
bricked my iPhone 6; code wrangler says.
Rene: There is always a percentage of people for whom the
update has an ill effect and that is just because of the complexity of the code
base at this point and how many differences there are.
Leo: Yes.
Rene: On everybody’s phones but usually you can restore it
or something to get it back on track.
Leo: 120 sports apparently is on
demand video from the NBA, the MLB, and the NFL; and has sports news and
highlights of recent games so.
Alex: And I think this is going to be a really interesting
market to watch as all of these sports networks are all becoming their own
network. They are all kind of slowly.
Leo: Yeah.
Alex: They are still taking money from the broadcasters.
Leo: Yeah.
Alex: They own the content, they
are doing video on demand right now. It is a frightening thing for a lot of
these broadcasters to think about what it looks like if the NFL just decides to
start distributing all of the, you know everything live you know at some point.
Which is probably 20 years away but they are moving more and more towards
taking over that content.
Rene: Like HBO.
Leo: Right.
Alex: Like HBO, like CBS, a lot of the…
Leo: ESPN with Dish.
Alex: Yeah I mean eventually everyone is going to have; all
of the networks themselves are going to have their own play. That is also kind
of coming down the path, is that everyone is looking for how is their app going
to work on the phone. The real losers is not so much
the networks as it is the cable operators. As cable operation really is cutting
the cord, the cable operators are going to have to be happy with serving a band
width because everyone is going to be getting it in different ways and I think
that part of the problem is that cable didn’t move as fast as HBO wants to in a
lot of different ways. I think that it will be interesting to see in April if
there is going to be a 4K Game of Thorns or in March.
Rene: It is amazing, it is amazing
how the intermediation has moved from the transport to the display. You always
have a middle man but now it is no longer the guy in the truck it is the guy
who made the screen that you look at.
Alex: Right and I think that there is a real opportunity
here where the content creaters are getting closer
and closer to the consumers. Where you know the people who are writing it and
doing it are getting much closer and there is less and less proxies in between
which is pretty exciting for content creators. You know it is not the movie
industry or the cable networks or the cable companies; all of that stuff is
kind of going away and being distributed. There is still YouTube or iTunes or
all these other things. So there is always going to be somebody managing that
distribution but I think that the creator has more control over this than they
ever have.
Leo: Well of course Sunday is the Super Bowl probably the
most valuable TV program of the year. NBC says if you have an iPad or a Mac you
can watch it for free. They are debuing a new super
stream Sunday edition that allows US based users to watch 11 continuous hours
of content through the NBC sports website or the NBC sport live app on your
iPad or iPod touch.
Rene: I just want the American commercials
that is all that I want Leo.
Leo: I wonder if they will have the commercials on or not.
You know every time I have seen streams in the past, they didn’t have commercials which make it much less interesting.
Andy: You know I am curious, you can already see the
commercials 3 days before hand.
Leo: I know.
Andy: This is starting to become like CES where everyone
wants to announce something.
Leo: Right.
Andy: Before everyone is announcing everything.
Leo: I want to watch it in C2, I
like to see it in.
Andy: Exactly it is like seeing public art in a museum
instead of in the park in which it was intended.
Leo: That is right, that is right.
Andy: Otherwise.
Leo: Super Steam Sunday starts February 1 at noon eastern
time; not only will you get Super Bowl XLIX you will get the half time show
with Katie Perry and the pre and post-game shows and an episode of the Black
List and you don’t even have to have a cable subscription.
Rene: Nice.
Leo: And they.
Andy: And there is also a special setting so that it will
make the game last even longer. Every time they stop the ball.
Leo: I want the cut down.
Andy: They add another 30 seconds to the clock.
Leo: They cut; when they cut out all of the commercials,
all of the jabbering, all of the time outs an NFL game is about 11 minutes long
I kid you not.
Rene: When you time Marc on smart speed it is about 12
minutes.
Leo: Yeah.
Andy: It’s getting more watchable. Believe it or not I had a
brush with great technology. I went out to breakfast last week and I was told
by the person that had been sitting there for about 45 minutes that he had had
a conversation with 2 people who were responsible for micing up players for the New England Patriots and they had a long; he is a Mac
developer, they had a long conversation about all of the telemetry that is
wired into these uniforms just to make football more watchable for people who
are not just insanely involved in football. The underwriting theme is that the
whole goal for the NFL is make these games look just like the John Madden NFL
games because people are now expecting.
Leo: Right.
Andy: To see electronic illustrations, they are expecting to
see these camera shots that would have been impossible, they are expecting to
see the players highlighted as they move so they are trying to do that sort of
stuff. I kind of now think that I want to start watching football. It has
always been so boring to me because again 4 hours; the math nerd says 4
quarters of 15 minutes each, 4 times 15 is 60 minutes. Why is this taking 4 and half hours?
Leo: Well.
Andy: Even minus the 45 minute musical dance number.
Alex: Well and the cool thing about football in general when
it comes to media production is that you have a piece of content that is making
a lot of money. It is.
Leo: Yeah.
Alex: Printing money. If all they want to do is between last
year and next year how are we going to make this even cooler. It is not really
a budget item as much as it is how do we make it work.
Leo: I love the NFL and I love they have a thing on the NFL
network of the sounds from the games because they mic up all the players. I’ll
play a little bit of it for you, it is amazing what
the players actually are saying. You see them from a distance but here is what
they are actually saying it is kind of amazing. Okay I just want to tell you it
is not what you thought when you.
Andy: Go ahead YouTube smart master, make fun of people who hurt people for a living that will work out great.
Leo: Actually it is bad lip reading, they do it every year.
This is the new one NFL 2015 bad lip reading; they are so good at it I don’t
know how they do it. They are so funny, alright let’s take a break when we come
back your picks of the week gentlemen; line them up and we will knock them
down. But first a word about my mattress and that is not a bad lip reading. I
actually want to talk to you about my Casper mattress. Casper is an online
retailer of premium mattresses for a fraction of the cost; they are changing
the mattress industry. Know you might say well I’m not going to buy a mattress
online, what if I don’t like it. Don’t worry, in fact I would submit the idea
of going to the mattress show room and lying on it for 5 minutes under bright
lights while some sales person stares at you is not the best way to see if a
mattress is right for you. You have to take off your clothes, you have to
really interact with that mattress, and Casper lets you do that for 100 days.
They offer free delivery and painless returns within a 100 day period so you
don’t have to lay down in a show room and you can really know if this is the
right one for you. Here is my queen size Casper. It comes in a very small box.
This is really convenient, I got an email from somebody who said you know I
tried to get my king size mattress in our apartment they couldn’t fit it so
they got 2 twins but as you see you can fit Casper any size mattress through
any size door. You just open it up the mattress is made of latex and memory
foam so you get just the right sync, just the right bounce. It is firm but
comfortable; it is my favorite mattress of all time. I love my Casper mattress
and you know what is great? Doesn’t that look comfy? You know what is great is
that it isn’t that expensive. $500 for a twin $950 for the biggest they make
the king size. That is a great price compared to that show room price and as a
listener to MacBreak Weekly you are going to save an
additional $50 off by going to Casper; c a s p e r
.com/mabreak and use the promo code MACBREAK. That is
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beautiful mattress. We love this Casper.
Rene: They were at CES, they let us jump on a bed and they
were amazing.
Leo: That is right they had them at CES didn’t they.
Rene: Yep George Head, Serenity, and I just jumped on the
bed we were so happy that they let us jump on it.
Leo: Isn’t it nice.
Alex: I just look at it like it is checkable, the twin one
is probably checkable.
Leo: You can check it.
Alex: Yeah like you can.
Leo: You can take it with you.
Alex: Cary it with you exactly then.
Andy: I have an email that says my Casper mattress is on a
truck yesterday.
Leo: Oh you got one. Good for you.
Andy: So I hope that if the driver got stuck on I-95 I hope
that he unpacked it.
Leo: He’s sleeping.
Andy: Laid it out, and it having a good night sleep on I-95
Leo: I want to hear next week or whenever how much you like
it or not.
Rene: I’ve got one it is fantastic.
Leo: I love them.
Rene: Yeah they are great.
Leo: I love them. Pick of the week, let’s start with Rene
Ritchie.
Rene: So I to admit, I haven’t had time to try this yet
because I was busy will all of the coverage today but Alfred Remote has come out
for IOS. If you are a fan of Alfred on the desktop.
Leo: I love Alfred.
Rene: Alfred has come out, you know
the modern version of quicksilver makes it. It is like Spotlight on hulk serum.
It lets you do all sorts of keyboard wizardry with your Mac and now you can do
that same stuff. They have a video up that shows you some of the awesome things
that you can do but it’s just supper impressive. You take your IOS device you
can control Alfred on your Mac and it makes; if you are and I have to say this
is nerdery of the first degree. You are going to want
to be the kind of person that would want to run Alfred on your desktop to begin
with before you would have any interest in the IOS app; but if you are the kind
of person who will do that you will find this to be completely up your alley.
Leo: I’m a full nerd, I love Alfred. So you need Alfred on
the Mac to make this work.
Rene: Yes.
Leo: And you control it with your iPad.
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: Give me one example of one thing you could do with
this.
Rene: They will show you right there on the video, you can
have access to your Alfred all of your Alfred activities. Again I haven’t had
the chance to use it yet.
Leo: Right.
Rene: I have downloaded it but I’m looking forward to.
Leo: I use Alfred on my Mac it is great I love it, it was the replacement to Quicksilver.
Rene: Yes.
Leo: And I love the guys to they are really nice. Do you need the power pack to use Alfred Remote? Or.
Rene: I don’t know.
Leo: I bet not although if you had the power pack you could
do even more, get it anyway.
Rene: Get it anyway.
Leo: Support them. Why not? Alright Alfred Remote for IOS,
you need it on your desktop as well but it is highly recommended. Alex Lindsey
your pick of the week.
Alex: So I do a lot of events and often times, often times
you are recording them and it is kind of an imperfect situation. You get some
echo from a big room or you get a little bit of hiss because you turned up the
mics because that is what you had to do to pull everybody in and you have to go
back and fix it. There are a lot of great tools that are built into many of
these applications whether it is your sound editing applications or Final Cut
10 or whatever else you are using and almost all of these allow you to use
plugins. One of the plugins that I have started to use for a lot of this to
clean things up is from Izotope and it is called RX4
and I got it for a couple of jobs and now it is something that I find myself
really digging into. This is not the cheapest solution, I have the advanced one which I think is about $1,000.
Leo: Is it a plugin?
Alex: It is a plugin and a standalone so it will open up as
a standalone but you will also see it as plugins in Final Cut 10. That is what
I am using, I am mostly using it in Final Cut 10. I’ve
got some stuff that I want to take out, I’ve got some hiss, I’ve got literally
echo. So you are in a big room and stuff is echoing around and it will not
maybe completely reduce but very much. You know not completely eliminate but
very much get rid of much of the reverb that you have in the room.
Leo: Wow.
Alex: And the analysis that you have is pretty nifty.
Leo: And it works wow.
Alex: yeah it works, it works, it is pretty amazing. So it is really good at go through there and finding stuff
removing some of the hiss, room noise, reverb, all of those things are things
that it give you some heavy surgery much over top of what you normally have.
Some of this stuff is available in other applications like Adobe Audition so on
and so forth.
Leo: Yeah that spectrum view I have used to eliminate some
of that stuff in Audition; similar to that.
Alex: It can be but the match audio, the reverb; what I
mostly use is the noise removal and the reverb reduction are the 2 things that
I really but there are a lot of things in here that are. It seems silly to
spend 3x as much on one set of plugins as.
Leo: It is $2,000.
Alex: You do on the application. It is $1,000.
Leo: $1,000.
Alex: It is $1,000 but I mean it is 3x as much as Final Cut is itself.
Leo: Right.
Alex: But it is a very specialized tool and if you find that
you have recordings and you are trying to find a way to solve this, this is a
pretty awesome collection of tools. They make a lot of different collections,
this is the only one that I have and use currently.
Leo: Does this work with Logic 2?
Alex: Yes, yes it does.
Leo: Okay.
Alex: It is a standard VST.
Leo: Plugins right.
Alex: You know plugin format so it will work in all of
those. Any application that will see those things so as I said what I am
primarily working on is in Final Cut 10 to clean up those videos that we’ve
shot.
Leo: There is a $1,000 version and a $300 version do you
need the master version?
Alex: You know.
Leo: I just bought it by the way.
Alex: If you are just starting out; I have to admit that I
got the advanced one because.
Leo: Right.
Alex: It is the reverb stuff, the removing reverb which is
the primary reason that I got into it so that is part of the advanced
solutions.
Leo: Got it.
Alex: So that is why I ended up with that; there is a lot of
great tools in the basic one but what I needed specifically was in the advanced
one.
Leo: Yeah and I see, you might want to look at the bundles
too because if you do the Izotope pro products and I
have used a number of their plugins. You might want to bundle them.
Alex: Yeah they make a lot of pretty amazing tools. Again
these are not tools that are necessarily for the hobbyist unless you are.
Leo: No but the podcaster might use them, I mean.
Alex: Exactly, exactly.
Leo: Well.
Alex: They are a podcaster and.
Leo: I tell you in the early days when I was doing the
audio on these shows there was some really horrible problems.
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: And it was nice to have these tools.
Alex: Yes, I remember those days.
Andy: It is nice to have a problem that can be solved by
saying well if I pay this amount of money I never have to deal with this
problem ever again.
Leo: Right.
Alex: Or if you, you just have a scalpel that you use for
it. A lot of times it is not that the tools that are built into the apps aren’t
great it’s just these are people who this is all that they are working on is
figuring this stuff out. And it really, I know a lot of people who swear by
Ozone for instance to do a lot of.
Leo: Yeah I have used those too.
Alex: So these are pretty amazing solutions for a highly
specialized. What is great is that you are working inside of the application
that you are already using.
Leo: Yeah.
Alex: You are not having to pass it out to another
application and work on it, you just open it up and start cooking through it
and again I was just talking to my sister about; my sister I think is going to
be getting into doing some podcasting. We were talking about there is some
podcasts out there that she really like to listen to but the audio quality is
so bad that she just couldn’t keep on listening.
Leo: Yeah that is true.
Alex: If you are going to try to turn this into a business,
the audio has to be; the audio is more important in podcasting and web casting
than video. You know you can deal with bad video pretty often. That is why a
lot of these lip dubs and everything else do really well is because the audio
is great and pre-recorded and the video can be whatever it is because people
will give video a lot more room than they will to give audio to work.
Leo: I agree, I agree. I z o t o p e izotope.com RX4 yeah it looks cool.
Rene: Can I fix clipping that is all I want to know, can I
fix clipping?
Leo: No.
Alex: It does.
Leo: Does it.
Alex: Yeah it has some greatclipping fixes built into it.
Leo: Yeah look at this non-destructive clip game; de-cip.
Alex: It does that and I believe that it has a de-s er as well that works pretty well.
Leo: Wow nice.
Alex: Which those S’s that really jump out at you.
Leo: I think we should get this Jason Howell for our
editors because we do use Final Cut.
Jason: I think that if we had at least one license in
house.
Leo: It would be a good idea yeah.
Jason: Yeah.
Leo: If you have a problem.
Jason: One of those tools that you hope you never need
to use but if you need to having it would be handy.
Leo: Speaking of which Jason, have you tried the new Logic
10 that just came out last week?
Jason: I haven’t, it’s been a long time since I’ve
spent a significant amount of time with Logic. I’ll be honest I’m pretty much
firmly in the pro-tools camp.
Leo: Ah.
Jason: I used to work with Logic and I liked it; this
was before it became Appleized when it was a separate product from the Apple’s catalog and then they bought
it. It is just overly complicated for me and.
Leo: A lot of people said and now I’m not a Logic.
Jason: It is different now.
Leo: Yeah I am not a Logic user but a lot of people that I
know including my son love Logic and the new Logic is apparently really easy to use, it has some nice new features, and great new
sounds so.
Rene: Jason Snell uses it, Dave Wiscus uses it, a lot of podcasters use it.
Leo: Yeah.
Jason: It is really good for Midi if you are into Midi
instruments and stuff like that.
Leo: Yes it is.
Jason: for editing. Midi editing tools are.
Leo: Yeah.
Jason: Top notch.
Leo: That is what Henry uses it for he has a Midi keyboard
and will do beats and it is pretty cool what you can do. Let’s see Andy Ihnatko your pick of the week.
Andy: Speaking of tools that you hope you never have to use
but you are glad to have the times that you need to use them of course I have a
few of weather emergency related picks this week. This is something that I
bought 3 or 4 years ago that oh my goodness am I glad to have it; Eaton has a
line of emergency radios, the EMRX line, this is the FRX 3 and this is
something that you buy during good weather, you put it in a closet, you put it
on a shelf, you forget you have it, and then when you have an emergency where
you lose power then you have a radio that has all of the whether bands on it.
You can power it off of AAA batteries, if the AAA batteries don’t work there is
a rechargeable battery that of course you plugged it in and charged it before
hand, if you forgot to do that too you have a hand crank so you can charge it
up just like this, and if you don’t want to do this you can use the solar cell
and leave it outside and it will charge up the radio. Not only that it also
has, where did it go, it also has a USB port on the back of it so you can use
any of these charging methods to recharge your phone when you need it.
Fortunately the blizzard wasn’t as bad as the worst case scenario, I didn’t
even lose power here today but it is also something that is definitely
something that is somewhere that I can get it; it also has a flash light, it is
also an emergency light. I have had times where the power is out for days,
worst case scenario, and that is where the cell tower backup battery a couple of
blocks away dies out and now you have no source of any information except for
radio that is focused on emergency sort of information. So these are not that
expensive, the cheapest one they make is about $30 they have a version that is
a couple of generations past this now that are about $80 or $90. It has a much
bigger battery it can actually recharge your tablet and stuff like that. This
is why you have kids, you want to send a text message
so you have your kid sitting in the corner like this churning butter for a good
20 minutes to charge it up. Just such a good thing to have; again buy it forget that you have it until oh I’m so glad that I
bought that a few years ago. The second and last thing that I have is weather
apps; there are so many of them and many of them are no good because you have a
very peculiar need for information and especially in a weather situatuion. My favorite is an app called bright weather
because they have the best combination of I just need a quick answer of I need
to go into town and do something on Thursday; is the weather going to be nice
on Thursday do I need to bring an umbrella? It will quickly give you and answer
to that. A lot of apps will give you a sunny icon with a cloud behind it that
tells you what you want to do. But then there are times that you really want to
have that deep dive look; okay they are going to clearly going to explain to me
what is going to happen. Is this going to be a don’t make plans day? Is this going to be a you’re okay so long as the streets are going
to be clear by 5 pm or is this really a go down and buy, throw some elbows and
buy bottled water and can goods sort of thing? The other good thing to have is
whatever your local news weather is, almost every
major city the weather affiliate will have a weather app. New England has a
station called New England Cable News NECN and because I still think that to
get a full picture of weather in a short amount of time, you will never do
better than 2 minute long explanation that weather meteorologist on TV will
give you. Because they are the people who will give you here is what the
weather will be for the next 2 days, here is what we are looking out for. If
there is really bad weather coming they will explain to you here is what it is
going to be and when it is going to be really, really bad and we have also
gotten notice that I-95 or 101 is going to be shut down starting from 2 pm.
They are going to start towing people off of the highway from 8 pm onward. I
don’t think that I have seen any app that is as efficient as giving you in 2
minutes here is a complete picture of what is going on as the weather app that
is being produced by your local TV station that will do nothing but stream what
the local forecast is.
Leo: So there you are disaster preparedness from the planet hauth with Andy Ihnatko, be
prepared. My pick really quick.
Andy: I’ve got the princess we are all sealed up here, I’ll her out in the falcon.
Leo: I have 2 picks; the folks who created Opera have
created a new browser that is not from Opera of course, Opera was sold; called
Vivaldi. It is an Opera like browser for pros, it is intriguing it is in beta
and gosh knows we don’t need; we have Safari and Chrome and Firefox.
Rene: And Spartan now too.
Leo: Is Microsoft Spartan going to be on Macintosh? No.
Rene: No but in general it is amazing that we are getting
browser engines again.
Leo: Yeah.
Rene: We only hit the dirt for browser engines for a long
time.
Leo: Yeah, so that might be worth looking at Vivaldi.com
and there is a new podcast app called signal that I think is interesting. Again another category that is over represented. Overcast,
Marco Armon’s podcast app is the perfect podcast app
but this one is kind of interesting it has features that might be of use for
instance you can as you are listening to a show, put in a take action cue, an
in show action item that will say hay this is good it is more than a book mark.
I frankly wish it had our, well it has a pretty good list of our shows. Once
you have your shows in here it makes it pretty easy to listen to them; you just
press the play button and it will play the next thing you have there, it has
social media integration. I like that so you can post your favorite podcast,
excuse me, and there is a market place which makes it easy to find them. It is
an iPhone app so I’m showing you for purposes of big screenage on the iPad but it is kind of nice it just came out. It is called Signal and it
has some nice feature, worth looking at; it’s free and you know I’m a fan of
podcast apps what can I say. Ladies and gentleman we have come to the end of
this show, I know that all you must now go out and shovel your sidewalks so we
will let you do that. Rene Ritchie doesn’t bother shoveling his sidewalk
because he just hunkers down for the winter.
Rene: I’ve got Apple earnings to shovel Leo I’ve got no time
to shovel sidewalks.
Leo: Coming up soon you are all going to have to run and do
those Apple earnings. We will kind of give you the low down next week but watch
imore.com.
Andy: They will have to shovel out, they will have to shovel out money.
Leo: Money.
Andy: They are stuck in the office because they have too
much money.
Leo: They have a blizzard of money.
Andy: Millions of dollars.
Rene: Oh and cheap plug but another part of the Don Martin
and Sontra saga up on debug this week and it was a
slobber knocker.
Leo: That is not a cheap plug that is a great show that you
must subscribe to debug at imore.com.
Rene: They tackle the software stability thing and the
improvements for it.
Leo: Ah.
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: Very good insightful stuff thank you Rene. Rene
imore.com, Rene Ritchie from Washington D.C our nation’s capital; you could fly
a drone right off of that thing and man you would be in the Potomac before you
know it.
Alex: Exactly.
Leo: It is Alex Lindsey pixelcorp.com anything you want to
plug Alex?
Alex: Follow me on twitter I will probably be twitting some
stuff tomorrow I’ll be in Rome so.
Leo: Wow.
Alex: I’m off again, so I’m out of here I’ve done enough
damage here for one week.
Leo: What a jet setter in Pittsburgh last week, Washington
D. C. today, and Rome tomorrow.
Alex: That is kind of the life style that I’m trying to grow
out of but haven’t quite made that yet.
Leo: Are you doing anything with the Vatican while you are
out there with the padre?
Alex: No comment but I will say that there was a great
YouTube event last week in the White House that people ought to check out the
interview with Obama.
Leo: Nice job on that one, that was something. We just won’t say anything more about that.
Alex: Yeah but it was.
Leo: It was well produced lets just put it that way.
Alex: Thank you. So anyway, but anyway I’m
off again but I’ll be coming in to MacBreak.
Leo: Really.
Alex: But from a hotel room.
Leo: You can join us from Rome? Awesome.
Alex: I just want you to know I spent an hour and a half to
find a hotel that said, that promised they would have Ethernet in the room.
Leo: Ooh.
Alex: And that is no small thing in Rome so I did it just
for you Leo.
Leo: Italian internet
Alex: Yes we will see how the Italian internet works
exactly.
Leo: We will be visiting, woops the snow go to the end of
its.
Rene: Look away.
Leo: Look away there is nothing to see here.
Alex: There is nothing to see here.
Leo: I hate it when that happens
Andy: It is a licensing thing.
Leo: Andy Ihnatko from the
Chicago Sun Times, it is darkening even though it is only 4 o’clock on the east
coast it seems to me that maybe you are going to get.
Andy: Now you know why I usually have a black out curtain in
front of this, it would be nice to have this lovely back drop but.
Leo: I like it, I think it is beautiful. I love it.
Andy: The giant day ball, even so that I have this like
taffeta thing because I can’t afford; you are supposed to like buy film to put
over windows to make them more whatever worthy. Or it is like I can spend $8
for these chinsey curtains.
Leo: I think I t looks good. Chicago Sun
Times cwob.com thank you Andrew.
Andy: Thank you Leo.
Leo: Catch him on Andy’s Almanac and 5 by 5 podcast
network. You can catch this show each and every week 11 am pacific on Tuesdays
that is 2 pm eastern, 1900 utc you can watch live if
you don’t want to or if you can’t it is on demand available on line at twit.tv/mbw or where ever you get podcast. Podcast app on your
mobile, the twit app on your mobile, we’ve got apps on IOS, Android, Windows,
or Roku. We didn’t do them can’t take credit we have great third party
developers who said you know what I think there should be a twit app and we
appreciate that thank you very much. That’s about it; time to get back to work
because you know what, break time is over!
