MacBreak Weekly 399 (Transcript)
Leo Laporte: It is time for Mac Break Weekly and Andy and Rene are here and we are going to keep any on the Supreme Court arguments for and con for Aereo. We are also going to talk about how you can make your own iPhone link pictures look even more authentic. It is all coming up next on Mac Break Weekly.
Advert: NetCasts you love from people you trust. This is TWIT! Bandwidth for Mac Break Weekly is provided by CacheFly. (Spells out CacheFly.com) This is Mac Break Weekly, Episode 399 recorded April 22, 2014
Totally Not Better Than Siri
Mac Break Weekly is brought to you by grub Hub. Grub Hub delivers the food from your local favorite restaurant and five dollars of first order of ten dollars or more at grubHub.com/macbreak and use the offer code Podcast and by 99 designs, the world’s largest graphic design market place. 99 designs connects businesses seeking quality affordable designs with a community of more than 295,000 graphic designers, visit 99designs.com/mbw to receive a free power pack upgrade valued at 99 bucks and by Square Space the all in one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website or online portfolio for a free two week trial and ten percent off go to SquareSpace.com and use the offer code Mac Break.
Leo: Happy Earthday it is time for Mac Break Weekly the show that covers your Apple needs in great detail all in Apple news with Andy Ihantko from Chicago Sun Times.
Andy Ihantko: Happy Earthday Leo in commemoration of the day today of the 65 inch TV that I normally just leave on during the entire show upstairs on watch so that I do not have to wait for the colors to warm when I come back a few hours later. I have not turned it off but put it on street saver mode so.
Leo: You sir are a great American.
Andy: I am just going to give a guy a big old hug today.
Leo: That great citizen of the world also with us from Canada from Montreal the home of the better bagel Mr. Rene Ritchie.
Rene Ritchie: If I had known it was earth day I would have put a giant green leaf on my head.
Leo: It is not earth day in Canada. Canada like everything else they are doing it fifteen days later.
Rene: We have to wait for the fall Leo first. We cannot do Earthday with a perma frost.
Leo: I went to Whole Foods this morning and of course I was not thinking, it was earth day except that I saw the Google doodle that has a bird in it all and I thought it must be earth day. But I went into Whole Foods and they were all wearing funny hats, now they are commemorating earth day.
Rene: The hat earth day.
Leo: No it is earthday. Hello everybody Welcome.
Andy: That is my favorite opening comment from Leo on the show reading the show notes and going…..uhhhhh boy! Does anybody have a funny story from the weekend that we can talk about?
Leo: You got a movie clip or anything? It is so nothing.
Andy: No no some cool things happened over the weekend. We have got a new Apple TV update so it is good to see some new channels there.
Leo: Okay! I did not know that and that is good.
Andy: That just dropped yesterday and I just added that.
Leo: What is in that new Apple TV.
Andy: Now you got you have got you’re A&E Channel, you have got your History channel and now you have got your life-time channel.
Leo: So they have added five channels basically.
Andy: Tim Gunn arriving on the Apple TV to me that has to be a big update.
Leo: That is…..(unfinished sentence)
Andy: That has to be a valuable upgrade right? Some of these were apps that were available on Roku but given that you do not have that option and link things manually to the Apple TV more content is more content and that is more valuable stuff.
Leo: Before you jump up in joy and satisfaction you should know that even though the Apple TV has a lifetime channel and ANNIE and the History channel you can only watch it you are a direct subscriber of Direct TV, Verizon Files or Cable Vision Optimum. So I am a Comcast customer and I see those icons and press them, the button that says Great Login oh sorry you are XFinity we cannot help you.
Rene: They will have to add more providers eventually. Please be patient and stick to this icon for now.
Leo: Is that Comcast not making a deal with the History Channel, is it Apple not making a deal with Comcast who is, what is the? How? Why?
Andy: Why? I happen to know somebody who was an executive in the Cable company in the industry throughout the nineties and he left to preserve his sanity, and I tried to ask him a couple of years ago about what was going to have to happen and he basically explained it to me that a lot of it is really a case of executives in place right now simply do not like the business model of Internet TV and do not want the business model of Internet TV. They are making so much money off the old business model that there is just no pressure on them to actually change. So he actually feels though that a lot of people are going to have to retire out of the system, and you are going to get the first generation of people who grew up or are really relying on this mode of television, because you think about the amount of push back to some really great ideas and co-incidentally today or yesterday, probably today that Aereo’s (presenters talking over other)
Leo: Arguments in courts being heard today.
Andy: Aereo’s arguments between the networks and the cable companies in the Supreme Court to defend the idea that the Aereo service, should be legal and allowed to proceed. Now this is the fight that Aereo has wanted for so long that they could have gone through intermediate courts to get there. But as soon as the Cable Companies said we want to be heard in the Supreme Court Aereo said bring it on because we have been winning and winning and we have had a couple of losses but we want the Supreme Court to allow us to basically run rough shod of the entire country. And it is such a great service and it is so well in tune with the way people would want watch TV from now on and from the ability to stream any local channel to any Studley device that they have… that I am really fighting for….I think that is something that consumers should really, really win because I am always on the side of the consumers and this is holding the service back and this is not something that is going to be in the peoples best interest.
Sorry for the stuttering
Leo: (Puts on recording of the Supreme Court) and says: We are listening right now to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Oh ye oh ye, oh ye actually I love it and I wonder if he actually says that. No that is my favorite part of the whole thing. So these are oral arguments from March 25th Sabilius versus the Hobby Lobby Stores. That was a big case oh Man!
Andy: This one is pretty interesting because one justice had to recuse themselves for reasons that the did not explain which means that it is an eight justice panel and of it goes across party lines, if it is a tie then the win goes to Aereo. So it is going to be interesting.
Leo: The same thing happened they just did a decision, this morning I got it. First the Wall Street Journal said that it was 7 to 2 and then they said it was 6 to 2 because a judge recused himself or her as well. I cannot remember that one was but, so we will not hear a decision, because these are oral arguments now right? Is that right?
Andy: I do not know what the time table is but it is not going to be good movie style ending it is going to take a while for them to write the decision and then when they write the decision that is when we are going to fIgure what room people have. This is almost like Apple and Samsung in terms of acrimony and we have had networks say that well CBS has said,” Well,
If Aereo win this then they are going to take us and we are not going to be a broadcast network anymore then we are going to Cable so go to hell.” And Fox and other networks have said that if Aereo wins this case we are not going to be broadcasting the World Series on Free TV we are going to do it on Cable where people love us. Which is pathetic and they make so much money off transmissions that this is like the little kid saying if I do not get to cake for dinner I am going to leave and never come back and the Mom says Okay.
Leo: So if you go to Supreme Court.gov I presume that in a couple of weeks you will be able to hear the oral arguments that are going on right now for the Aereo case and also there is Oh the Oyez.org which is from the Kent College of Law University of Kent of College of Law and they do have a little bit of a video with one of their professors at law at Kings College of Law explaining the ins and outs of this case. So this is a big case for everybody, you know I have been watching. You know what Andy this reminds so much of the music industry where the executives of the music industry ten years ago and I was told this by somebody in the music industry they said that we know it is going to happen, we know that copy protection is dead, we know everything is going to be digital and we know all this is going to happen we just do not want it to happen on out watch! And we are just going to sit here and,
Rene: And take every penny of them.
Leo: We are going to keep it the way it is as long as we can and then retire. And then as you said the younger guys and gals are going to come in and who have a little bit more vision and this log jam will break. Meanwhile your Apple TV and Rene this is not the big update that we have been expecting.
Rene: No, no this is just the channel they come to partnership deals all the time. We did not get those channels in Canada but it is an international issue and we had an app on the IOS app store for each of our networks, CTV, Global, City TV and CBC, and they were great and you could basically watch any show and then little by little on……(presenters talking over each other)
Leo: Live or you could watch them on demand?
Rene: Yes you could watch them on demand. But little by little they have just been ruined. First they went to only three episodes because they realized that stacking prevented them from having a replay rights and tertiary replay rights. Then they locked the last two episodes unless you subscribe to the cable company but in Canada every network is owned by a distributor Rodgers owns Sha Global owns by Bell no sorry CBC TV owns Bell but Global owns Sha, and therefore you could subscribe the networks that own them. It is ridiculous and none of them are owned by Quebec companies, you do not get any of them in Quebec.
Leo: Which is why Cable companies should own the companies that make the content.
Rene: Airplay was working beautifully and they crippled Airplay and it no longer works and their apps have now become almost unusable and it is going to take an extinction level for some young upstart to really push this aside.
Leo: Some of this would I bet have something to do you kind of said it-agreements that they have made for rights with the production companies that made the content and so forth. Their older agreements and those agreements do not include this kind of streaming etc, etc, etc.
Rene: I forget who it was but someone was explaining that in the case of Comecast and NBC was that it was owned by the same company that the studio, the broadcast company will want to distribute the shows, and they will want to stack them by Netflix, but the studio will not because they get repeat rights and they get money for all these different versions of the same programs.
Leo: Did you see the Netflix ad? I saw it this morning oh I love the Netflix ad. Actually I guess that it is not a new ad, let me see if I can find it here.
Rene: I love them yelling at Comecast.
Leo: This is it. Can you get my audio? Advert : I cannot believe that just happened. Male Voice: This was going to be out thing, you watched ahead.
Female Voice: No. Okay I watched it on my way to work and certain episodes at my desk and I sort watched Season Two when you were sleeping.
Male Voice: Season Two.
Leo: That is the conversation I had in my house as a matter of fact. That is what I love and you can do that. Yes I do understand and they do not have the agreements blah, blah blah blah.
Rene: So why would there be consumer interest then imagine that?
Leo: It is such a great ad because really it is totally identifiable that is why we love Netflix and why we like House of Cards because we can and they had the good sense not to season until we had watched Season One one hopes. Isn’t this funny and this happens a lot but it is really notable how the interests of the consumer or those people that are buying the content is so in line with the people who make it and distribute it. Particularly, the people who distribute it.
Andy: That is why I think that this Aereo decision and I hope that they win and it is such a big deal, because Cable Vision got the right to use the DVRS but that also got the original Cable Vision verdict from the Supreme Court that established that if you are just providing the hard-ware that some-one can use to take the recording that they have a right and streaming it to another place that is not re-broadcasting that is the basic principle. It is one of the basic principles that Aereo was founded upon. But if Aereo can win this then this means that they have paid all of the money to settle this legal issue and that will give a lot of the other companies to produce stuff like this. I also hope that it will provoke networks to find a way to say well this is now legal and we cannot stop that now while we can do is make sure that we are the guys who are getting the money for a service as opposed to funding other start-ups so we will start to create a CBS app or an ABC or an NBC app that streams pretty much everything, the entire feed. But as Rene said that there are just so many legal agreements that are tied between the network and the going shows and the producers of local networks that I appreciate that it might be lot simpler that principally having the desire to do it and a 31 year executive finally getting it and then flipping the switch on this kind of service.
Leo: It seems pretty obvious when you referred to the Cable Vision case that was the case where a company was doing DVR in its cloud, so which is exactly what Aereo does as well where you could say,”Hey I want you to record this for me.” And the Supreme court ruled positively on that.
Andy: But the networks have the exact same disagreement and said no, no you are re-broadcasting this content and you are not allowed to rebroadcast. The Supreme Court said that no this the hard-ware, the customer who streams their DVR’D show has a right to that recording because of the way that the law is right now. The Cable company is not creating the recording, it is the user who is creating the recording on Cable equipment and the only person who is able to receive that is the subscriber to that DVR service so 1,2,3 means that this is not a re-broadcast.
Leo: I mean I am no lawyer and look they will talk about this in This Week In Law. It seems to be that like okay that proves it is okay for Aereo to do what it is doing. But I do know that this current Supreme Court seems to rule very strongly in favor of incumbent businesses and not so much in favor of obstructs.
Rene: What we need is an antenna on Apple Comecast 2 for every American.
Leo: So we can all get Cupertino TV.
Andy: But then again that is why this eight justice panel is so interesting, because once again the rulings that tend to favor business over the consumers that is in the public interest tends to be going 5/4. So that is as I would not say a political division but at least an idealogical division, and now it could be a 4/4 decision, and once again if it is tie essentially Aereo wins as far as I understand.
Leo: We do not know which Justice recused herself or himself?
Andy: We do remember, they did not say the reasons why they recused themselves, but that is the only air of mystery.
Leo: I mean this is as important as the Beta Max case and as important as the Cable Vision case. This is a big case and we will watch with great interest. I am with you and I deeply hope that the Supreme Court does the right thing. (presenters talking over each other)
Andy: It is really interesting too that Aereo, it is clear that part of their business plan, here is the 60% of our operating expenses and investments and we are going to spending on the big lawsuit that is definitely going to happen. About a year ago they announced a really ambitious plan and city, by city, by city to expand the service and those were put on hold. And they are supposed to be expanding and right now it is the North-East and the Mid-West. They have got Boston, they have got Chicago and they were supposed to have expanded into some other New England states, and also other Mid-Western states by the end of last year and that basically put a whole Kybash on that too. If they are going to win it is going to be a week before about a press release from Aereo saying,”Good news Dayton Ohio you are going to be getting Aereo soon.”
Leo: The Justice….I think that I found it here apparently the Justice who recused himself is because he has stock in one of the plaintiff’s let me see here. I have got an old New York article here, Justice Salitto recused himself from the petition decision and possibly because of a stock holding which suggests that he may refuse himself from the case. Alito is one of the justices that does support incumbents over upstarts so that might be good. It might be a vote out of the pot. That would be against Aereo. We will watch with interest I am sure. Apple is probably saying let us see what happens there, because would it not be great to do a deal with Aereo? Apple TV and Aereo they would be amazing.
Andy: They do not have to deal with all the agreements to get all these agreements in place.
Leo: You have got to think that there is an engineer in a closet in Cupertino who has got it working right?
Andy: They have already got an Aereo app on Roku and it works brilliantly.
Leo: So Aereo initially came out on iPad as an iPad app? So I do not think that this is a challenge at all. Imagine that Aereo has not only the ability to watch TV now you have to live in that city right?
Andy: Exactly. They were really, really careful to make sure that they crossed their I’s and dotted their t’s with all the legal stuff here.
Leo: They dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s.
Andy: It is always a big risk to make a joke like that because hopefully people will understand that you are being sarcastic as opposed to he really does not know what he is talking about. (presenters talking over each other) I once made a binomerial therum joke to people who had PH.Ds in Maths and My God the relief I had no he really does know the binomerial therum is he was trying to be funny. But yes there are heaps of restrictions on how you can use the service. The thing is that you would only be able to reproduce if you had an old fashioned TV with a set of…..
Leo: It is a maths joke. Here in Petaluma for instance we are technically in the San Francisco metro but I cannot get any of those station and if I was going to rent an antenna in San Francisco then I would not need Comecast. That is why there are people like this.
Andy: Boston has Aereo and Chicago has Aereo. So if I were to spend a weekend in Chicago that does not mean that I can get access to the DVR content that ie recorded in Boston. I can get access to whatever live TV is streaming in Chicago because of that.
Leo: You said something really interesting, and I did not understand that because I have watched Long Island I mean New York television in Petaluma on somebody who had Aereo in Manhattan and had her iPad here and she said, ”Do you want to see Aereo?” and it worked. Are you saying it monitors where you are and will not allow you to watch DVR with content if you are not in town?
Andy: I have tried that earlier and it did not work and also because it has been explained to me that again if they were to allow you to be in San Jose and watch TV from someplace else then that is not a rabbit your style reception. (A lot of stammering and stuttering) Now I am at the point where I need to look at all my notes from about a year ago but it is really a complicated system. Where it is simple if you are in your actual reception area. It is complicated if you are out of your reception area. As soon as network can make the case that you are letting people watch TV that they are not entitled to actually watch that is when the whole thing starts to go kafuiii.
Rene: And then they sling box it.
Leo: Anna Marie Cox just tweeted I guess a transcript from the ongoing conversation Justice Scalia what would the difference be. I mean you could take HBO right? You could carry that without performing Mr Justice…NO HBO is not over the air….. it is a private service Mr. Justice, they do not watch TV folks!
Andy: They are big time tourners also I think that they are still watching Falcon’s Crest.
Leo: Justice Scalia said,” How about that red wedding?” Wow I guess that this is coming out bit by bit from reporters, Justice Scalia“What would the difference be I mean you could take HBO and carry that without performance….No HBO is not over the air waves. You know when you hear stuff like this, but I should caution people that you cannot and I have seen this before and you cannot really judge from the ongoing oral arguments because the judges take all sorts of positions and they are really trying to challenge the attorneys but they may not feel one way or the other but cross your fingers here. Cross your fingers on this one. So that might be one reason why Apple would wait for Apple TV let us see what happens. The other is I presume an ongoing conversations with Comecast right, although obviously those are non-starters but Apple seems to keep going back.
Rene: Pulling the threads with intense interest.
Leo: Would you then say that one should not hold out for a new Apple TV?
Rene: I would still like an SDK for WWDC, it would be a nice gift for everybody.
Andy: I have been spending more time with Apple TV specifically because I have spent too much not using Apple TV at all. Also I am trying to be sure that I have still got my understanding of how well it works and what it does not. Do because sometime the streams get a little crossed too. But Man am I hurting back to go back to the Roku or the or even the Fire TV, because I never realized how often on Apple TV insists that I wait for something before I never see a progress wheel on any of the other streaming boxes but it seems that nothing starts on the Apple TV before I shut up and wait and here is black screen enjoy this potato on the guru meditation deal and that is what you have got. Apple does not keep something on the price list if they are ready to abandon it. They will simply cut that cord and that there have so many times when we have just not seen a lot of movement on a certain product and then it is because it is just not a high priority because at some point they produce this huge update to it, that it is like two years of incremental updates that hit all at once. I am sure that is what is going to happen with Apple TV because it is way too much a value able product.
Leo: Well, Walt Mossberg says Apple is like a movie studio and we will find out what the hell he is talking about in just a second. It is basically an apology and apologia for Apple from Ricod. Hey, speaking of Ricod have you guys been watching Silicon Valley the TV show.
Rene: I have not.
Leo: Ohhh.
Andy: I have not.
Leo: Can you not get in Canada.
Rene: I think that that Canadian HBO might have it but what channels is it on Leo?
Leo: HBO.
Rene: Okay, well may be I will have to look.
Leo: Right after G.O.T. you have got Silicon Valley. It is a comedy by Mike Judge and Beavis and BudHead and more to the point Office Space Guy and I really like it. Apparently, TWIT made a very minor appearance in the third episode thanks to the, should I say his name Chad, this will not get him into trouble, no…..
Chad: I do not think so.
Leo: Eric Nelson who is the VFX artist.
Chad: it was not like it was an absurd for a pet company.
Leo: He is a fan of TWIT and in the third episode, it is actually a very funny scene. Do we have not the video but I wonder if we have the image and I think that he sent us the image didn’t he. Yes, let me see, here it is in the third episode the reading is about the …the plot is there is this a young guy doing a start-up called Pied Piper and then he is living in an incubator and this real….I do not want to use a bad word, this bad guy Dim Wadd who is his landlord and ten percent owner of this company gives interviews to all the big tech things about the company in a very inappropriate way, but what is interesting is apparently in the script they call for him to give an interview to Caris Swisher in all things D and so Eric who knows a little bit better says,” Shall we recode now?” I was watching the show and all of a sudden I see this Re Code and a fake Caris Swisher article. But then if you look really closely and you probably cannot and I missed it (screen shot) so there is three tabs there. There is the Verge that is the second tab then what is third tab TWIT. I mean I would have never seen it like that but everybody else did. First of all I thought that we should see it like a re-code and the second and I did mention that I guess and then we will put TWIT in there and catch it in the third season too as an Easter egg. Yes I like that.
Andy: Well it is important that they could not incorporate you guys in the script because it is not as if you have productional level broadcast quality studio that you were able to stream like that. (presenters talking over each other.) I mean it would take a visionary show to see that opportunity there. HBO might not be that show to figure that out.
Leo: I was just so thrilled that…. If you guys get to see it, it is a very, very good show, and very funny. And as you can tell that it is authentic. I was like I had this, this little freezon when they said,’’Look Caris Swisher just wrote about it and I went OH that is very authentic. So that is neat and nice and I like that. Anyway thank-you Eric, for sneaking us in there.
Andy: Did she write about that experience because if I were approached like that I would say like Okay but I would have to write the fake copy because I will not have you having a lead paragraph that leads off with the word,”SO” or So this is or an Apple is doomed headline and say I did not write that and I did not even fake write that.
Leo: The word just in from Los Angeles Times the Justice Salitto did not recused himself so fears of a 4/4 tie on the Aereo are unfounded and all nine judges are sitting on the case.
Andy: Damned and blessed.
Leo: Yes unfortunately who wins in a tie?
Andy: Usually the defendant. I was reading about this a couple of weeks ago and preparing for it and that is when they were speculating that there would be a recusement and if there was a tie then it would basically go to Aereo. Anything to do with the Law or engine maintenance I have to have data in front of me to read off to make sure that I remember things correctly.
Leo: Well, anyway he is there and L.A. Times does mention for the record that an earlier version of this post referred to Justice Samuel Alito as Thomas Alito. We apologize for the error.
Rene: Did he recuse himself?
Leo: Thomas is not on the case. Just so you know. A tie refers backwards towards the lower court ruling. So of course the Supreme Court only hears these things on appeal or mostly only hears them on appeal or arguing where they would be the first the hear the case. But in this case it is an appeal and so basically it would be an approval of a lower court ruling which was in favor of Aereo? I do not know.
Rene: It is so complicated.
Leo: I do not remember who appealed this? Let me see if I can find this in the comments?
Rene: There are comments on this.
Andy: Aereo has been largely winning. There was one big loss…(presenters talking over one another)
Leo: Okay so they won in the Court of the Second Circuits of New York sided with Aereo and is that they decision that they judges are trying to overturn. So a tie would be in Aereo’s favor, Alito sitting back and Thomas or Samuel is bad for business and good for the networks. Aereo, Aereo, Aereo, …..
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Rene: In a couple of minutes.
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Andy: You have been watching so much Mad Men that you are basically channeling Don Draper. What we are selling is not the delivery of dinner. What we are celebrating is a family dinner without the things that make us split apart. It is love.
Leo: We are selling love. Yes I do love don Draper yes because he is my personal hero even though he is one of the worst human alive.
Rene: He is my fifties guru.
Leo: Yes he is my fifties guru. Walt Mossberg….. I asked Liz Gains when she was on the other day was Walt writing less and she said,’’No.’’ Walt is not what you call a blogger in the sense that he files several stories a day. He does think pieces he does personal technology reviews. He wrote today he published an article about Apple and why Apple is like a movie studio,he says this you know ofcourse in a response he says to this kind of drum beat that Apple had better have a hit, Apple better have a hit, has Apple lost its greatness, is it the Haunted Empire blah, blah, blah. He says that the most useful way to think of Apple is to see it like a movie studio. Studios release block buster franchise movies every few years and then try to leave of a series of sequels until the next big successful franchise and then he says something about Spider Man. And then he says looked at in this way your almost new iPhone S and iPad Air they are mere sequels they are patients of Apple block buster who rocked the world when they first appeared. Or you should not assume that because they are kind of like Spider Man two that they are the end of the line for Apple. As sometimes with The Godfather part two the sequel was considered to be better than the original, sometimes as in God Father part three it is not then sequels can make more money sometimes much, much more than the original. This has been true of Apple’s follow on on iPods, iPhones and iPads but after a while the audience interest in the sequels wanes and they want alluring new things then you had better have a whole new franchise because you cannot live forever on sequels. Jobs understood this well. By the way what we should mention is that Walt was fairly close to Steve at the end. It is one reason why he maintained a drum beat of game changers over a dozen years over iMac and the iPad that rocked its competitors and up ended other industries as well. And that is why Apple is like a movie studio, Steve built it that way. I guess that given that Steve also ran real movie studio Pixar that does make a lot of sense. Cook has done just enough, by the way I would like to point out that Walt called Steve jobs Mr Jobs and he calls Tim Cook Cook. Okay. I am just saying. Cook has done just enough to keep the sequels appealing I still believe that when you combine hard ware and software in the eco system the iPod and the iPhone and iPad and Mac Book Air they remain best in class. Cook has had some dangerous moments that did him no favors. The awful quality of the initial Map service, more recently the self-re booting bug on IOS 7 yes, high quality reliability cannot be taken lightly. So he goes on and he says that sequel time is almost up it is time for a new franchise but he does not weigh in on whether Apple will have another block buster but he says now is the time maybe the watch, the wearable, it may be mobile payments, it may be he mentions Apple TV. This one could be a real franchise. But if Apple settles just for something that is something that is too much akin to its current TV product it just might be a sequel. Sometime in the next six to eight months he suspects to see if Cook that Cook fellow….
Rene: Come on walks with me.
Leo: Walt either they are both Misters or neither. Anyway we will see if Cook is the kind of producer who grinds out too many sequels or the kind who brings forth an original God Father or Spider Man. Your thoughts.
Andy: It felt like a bit of stretch. I mean it was an entertaining read but Apple’s is not unique in the idea that when they have a successful product they try to leverage peoples like of the product and keep improving and improving it till the first version of anything kind of stinks so you do not cancel anything after the first ederation unless it is the Apple hi-fi and it is something that people do not like and do not want.
Leo: That is a really important point and it is all like the movie studio. Movie sequels are almost always worse than the original because you are taking an idea and stretching it. Say that again (referring to Andy>
Andy: In most respects God Father Two. (Andy clearing his throat)
Leo Yes. Part Two. Empire strikes back is really better than the original story. Okay there are a few exceptions that are notable.
Andy: But they are notable.
Leo: But they are notable because they are exceptions. Is not that right? Matrix Two, Rocky Two three four, five six seven! Electric Boogaloo. Okay. But in technology sequels are almost always better, because just as you say that you have a chance to refine, improve learn from customers. I would throw back to Mr Walt Mossberg’s I know Tim Cook, you are no Tim Cook.
Andy: I do not know that it merits a Craig Ferguson tear up the blue sheet. But it is a good piece it is something that people really for stupid reasons have to be reminded of the fact that Apple has not blown your mind in four or five years, but that does not mean that they are resting on their laurels. Part of the success of producing something great is that you get to keep producing that great thing that everybody really loves. And also would you really love it if every three or four years Apple completely changed their desk-top strategy so that everything you have learned and mastered over the last three or four years is now out of the window or even worse now there is nobody you can actually call for help because nobody has more than two or three years of expertise in any Apple product so.
Rene: It reminds me of that famous Jed Barclay speech the next ten words. The first ten words are easy Apple needs a new hit product. Tell me what it is right now and I will ask you to become the CEO of Apple. But the iPhone is boring, you could make it triangular would a triangular phone be better, it would be less boring. It is one of those phrases that gets mashed up and mashed up over and over and over again. It is almost mind numbing at this point.
Leo: I really do not think that technology follows that same pattern. I really do not. What happens is that technology gets mature and then you can only make incremental improvements, because to do otherwise is to change if refine, mature and nice. Windows 8.1 could be a good example of what not to do to a mature solid product.
Rene: Again what is that product is it a watch. A watch does not have the addressable market of a phone, a television set does not have the margins of a phone. A payment system could make a lot of money for Apple but it is not a sexy front facing consumer product, it is more like an itunes player but it is not an iPod play so it is really hard because the iPhone was a confluence of so many different things that it is hard to see anything else being that big and that value able for any company. I mean I joked on Twitter that week that should Apple have taken all their iPhone profits and bought Exxon. I mean there are very few things that make that kind of money in this world.
Leo: I have been reading as I have mentioned several times The Dog Fight Fred Vogelstein’s story of Google and Apple and Google and Apple Wars and it becomes very clear when you read that and I think that it is fair even handed book by the way. It becomes very clear when you read that both the iPhone and the iPad occurred in a period of time and it was the only period of time it could have occurred and people had tried to both things and the technology just was not there. Now that does not diminish in any Apple’s single minded persistance in making a great product, but the times have to be right. And is it obvious what the next product is? I do not think that it is a watch to be honest?
Rene: There will be things like an iWatch or could be an Apple TV where it increases the value over the Apple ecosystem (presenters talking over each other) and it makes the iPhone or the iPad more valueable. There is no single a watch or a car or none of those things like an iPhone even the iPad is not like an iPhone.
Andy: Right. We also have to acknowledge that one of the reasons why Apple could be so successful with the iPhone is that they were probably the only major tech company that had no investment and no development of phones at that point. So they were the only company that was truly free to create something brand new and start off with a blank slate. They were able to start off with what is the best phone that we can design in 2007. Blackberry, well there quite a lot of reasons why they failed but one of them was that they were so successful at building phones that were designed to be great for 2001 and 2002, and once you say,” Hi we are Blackberry and we are going to create something that is completely incompatible with everything else that you have used before, using a completely new interface that you have never seen before and so nothing that you love about our existing products will be applicable to this new one.” Wow, that would have flopped so big and so hard. Not only that but the other advantage that Apple has is that they will get lots of people on board quickly. That is because they have ….they have earned so much currency with their users that if you drop a brand new device in my lap and I maybe do not completely get on the first viewing the fact that it is an Apple product will leave me to think that perhaps there is something about this that I am not getting right now that I will not get in the future. I will stick with this. That is not the sort of thing that you get from a Microsoft product or a Nokia product or something like that so there are so many big factors to that. The innovation and the really fist great design the iPhone was just part of it.
Leo: I do not envy Apple at this point in time. It is a very tough world out there. (presenters talking over each other) They are more like BlackBerry now than they were in 2007 right? They have these big sets.(presenters talking over each other)
Andy: They have always been a company that has always been (stumbling over words) Apple and their recovery from the 1997 era and they are a company they know what they want to and they know where they are headed. And now they have an enough of a safety cushion momentarily that they can essentially keep driving towards that target, even if people are not going to be jumping on board with them immediately. They are willing to even dead tell their investors that if you do not like what we are doing with this company and if you think that we are not pursuing opportunities sell your stock and we will buy it from you and as you can see we are buying lots of our stock back because that is how much we like Apple stock right now. So Blackberry’s problem was that they really never had that ability to say here is what we absolutely want to go in five years. Their only plan was that we want to continue selling phones and make lots and lots of money from it. That is not how Apple succeeded. They succeeded by saying that it is Okay to do a brand new style of computer that is not does not run Mac OS, because this new tablet computer will fail if it runs a desk top operating system, and we are going to create a brand new product category. That is not that company that is fixated on just making the next successful product and that is going to be able to pull off.
Rene: It is a bit unfair to say that Tim Cook is blamed for the Maps project that started under Steve Jobs. He is also one of the reasons why Steve Jobs was therefore when they were manufactured efficiently and available at the price they were available for. It is very difficult to unwind who did what in those relationships, so saying that Tim Cook has not done anything or nothing has happened since Steve Jobs or problems have happened post Steve Jobs. Lots of problems happened with Steve Jobs, and I think that all of that is little bit disingenuous.
Leo: Alright. Apple is going to put Shazem into IOS 8 so that is good.
Andy: Yes. Now that is a big deal. I was just using Google Now Music Search feature just the other week, and before the show started I was talking about stuff that there are really very few things that make me feel like My God, I am living in the future. This is something, where if a 1982 technology wanted to do like a speculative this is what the future is going to be like in the year 2000 and the ability to be sitting in a restaurant hearing a piece of music I am about to ask the waiter what is that song and realizing wait a minute I can simply go and Google Now tap the microphone and hold it up, not only is that the song but here is the button on where to buy it. It is such a candy feature, it is such an important feature, that yes, I would not say that it is important of them to have but I am surprised that they have not put in yet.
Leo: I am glad that they are doing that. Now this is a rumor right Rene but are people seeing this code in their Beta version. Is that why?
Rene: No, there is no Beta version yet. This is IOS 8 stuff. This is stuff that Apple is rumored to I think that this stuff has now been rumored for a couple of years. People have wondered why Apple has not bought a Shazem like company because it is such basic, basic feature that competing devices have. But Apple typically goes through their list and that famous great Jaws line yes we know cut and paste is really important and it is on the list but we cannot tell you how high up it is on the list but it is towards the same thing.
Leo: Do we know if Google has its own recognition in Google Now or do they licence other companies.
Andy: I do not know. No.
Leo: I am going to guess that they do their own but I do not know.
Andy: It does not seem like a really complicated thing.
Leo: You know that it reminds me of that TV show Silicon Valley. Have I mentioned that?
Rene: The one with the awesome taste in web cams?
Leo: Yes. The company Pied Piper that this guy is starting….the idea that he came up with is that any recording artist can go to Pied Piper and play the song he is about to compose and see if anybody else has used that rift before. And they are all blown because this guy can search this huge database of songs in such a quick period of time. It turns out that he has this amazing compression algo rhythm right and that is what turns out to be so value-able. But I do not know how easy that is, because we have got a lot of songs in the world. There is 20 million songs in the iTunes catalogue right?
Rene: There is the music DNA project that finger printed all the songs and they will use to do a hash. (presenters talking over each other.)
Leo: I guess that they must do a hash? But even if you have got to compare the hash you just made with 20 million hashes that is not that bad. That seems like a lot of work.
Rene: Compute intensive.
Andy: If it were not more clever than we are making it out to be then that is what an entire data center would be doing, nothing but patter matching. It is interesting and it is above my college Maths skills. Matrix calculus is like yes may be not, maybe I will just ask somebody with what the answer is to that one. But it is going to be great to say SIRI what song is this?
Leo: Incidentally, just came in, over the wire over the trans 23 megabyte update IOS 7 7.1 is out. Further improvements to touch ID, print recognition fixes a bug that could impact key board responsiveness and fixes an issue using blue tooth key board with voice over and were enabled. Boy that seems like they have just released an update.
Rene: Unlike the security update is not available yet but they have released an OS 10 (presenters talking over each other)
Leo: I think there is a little heart bleed in there somewhere. Don’t you think?
Rene: oh something, something?
Leo: oh something, something on the heart bleed side of things. I don’t know anyway Apple does not say how urgent everything is. I think that it is an update and you will want to get it. The nice thing about Apple users is that they usually do these things pretty much right away. At 23 megabytes it is not going to break the budget as they say. Speaking of court cases a court rules that a rock star has to fight Google not in Texas where all great patent law suits are filed because East Texas is very favorable to the plaintiff.
Rene: The Rocket Docket.
Leo: Yes. But in fact in California it is Google Wished. The rock star is a patent troll that is paid for by Intellectual Ventures and so Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Ericson and BlackBerry they bought the Nortel Patents for four and half billion dollars of Nortel Patents and formed this company called Rock Star that spends a lot of time reverse engineering to see if they can sue them. Rock Star said the seven companies including Google are making Android Smart phones on Halloween, Google immediately carried a suit saying, “Hey can we do this in California?” US District Judge Claudia Wilkins agreed with Google using according to Art Tecknika using sharp language that suggests that Rock Star will not have an easy time litigating this case. The first thing she did is dispense with the idea that Rock Star is co-playing the Texas based mobile star should be treated as something separate and distinct from Rock Star “ The circumstances here strongly suggest that Rock Star formed Mobile Star as a sham entity for the sole purpose of avoiding jurisdiction in all other forms except in Mobile Star incorporation Delaware and claimed principle place of business Texas.”
Ooh this is a little sharp tongued. “ A mere day before the initiated litigation against Google’s customers Rock Star freshly minted Mobile Star with no California contacts and assigned the asserted patents to that sub city area. This happens all the time these are the shenanigans that goes on. Thank-you if you have ever listened ever to This American Life the podcast sorry no the In Patent Trolls, I do not know why the word podcast snuck in there. In East Texas they have got Patent Trolls and all these dummy offices down there so that they can sue in East Texas. So then the venue moved to California and that is a victory for Google and I think based on this Judge’s ruling.
Andy: You have got to figure that when you are the lawyer and the judge is referring to your actions as a sham corporation it is not going to go away.
Leo: By the way she also pointed out that the majority stake-holder in Rock Star is Apple which put 2.6 billion into the 4.6 billion hire purchase of Nortel patents, and own she says at least 1147 of the 2000 patents. She said, “You are owned by a California Corporation and I think that you should do it in California.” Okay.
Andy: This is not a judge asking HBO as a broadcast channel is it? This is what we are getting at here.
Leo: She also apparently read the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs, another quote from the ruling, ‘’Google’s and Apple’s rivalry in the smart phone industry is well documented. Apple’s founder stated that he viewed Android,” as a rip off” and of iPhone features and intended to destroy Android by launching a “Thermo Nuclear War.” That was straight out of Isaacson. The defendant’s litigation strategy of suing Google customers is consistent with Apple’s business interests, this “scare the customer and then run” tactic advances Apple’s interfering with Google’s business. Finally, a judge that kind of sees through all of this whole thing.
Andy: Yes.
Leo: Rock Star’s senior management is based in Ontario Canada.
Rene: My fault my badge sorry.
Leo: That is where Nortel was. It also has a small office in Plano Texas of course in the East District of Texas.
Rene: It does get cold in Toronto Leo.
Leo: Who wants to be there when you could be in Plano. Well that is interesting the same thing is happening in the podcasts lawsuits. I think that one of the big networks is being sued by Podcast Troll is trying to do it pre-emptively. Or maybe there was a pre-emptive lawsuit trying to change the venue to either New York or Boston where they feel that they will get a fair hearing in East Texas, so that is interesting. This is not an unusual……(did not complete the sentence) Do not get me started.
Rene: So many of the headaches.
Leo: Apple, of course the rumors are strong that Apple will some time perhaps sooner rather than later release two new iPhones a 4.7 inch and what a 5 inch?
Rene: You did not hear Leo that the unannounced 5 inch iPhone is now delayed.
Leo: How do you know something that you never announced?
Rene: As of this morning they have had production problems with the unannounced iPhone and it is going to be delayed now.
Leo: Oh well never mind.
Andy: To continue Rene’s brilliant West Wing analogies this is like the one where Josh Lyman, like stumbling through a press conference hinted at super top secret budget solution proposal, and the President had to say not only did you announce that I have a super top secret solution to the economy but you also do not agree with this plan?
Leo: Yes.
Andy: So yes.
Leo: Top secret plan.
Andy: Exclusive fabrication on the 5.7 and the 5.1 inch iPhone. They are having problems with yields on the display. I mean it was much like the column that I wrote in 2012 about how I do not think that Apple is going to have the savvy no how…….good heavens!
Rene: It is amazing every year Apple is rumored to making that new device and that new device is then rumored to delayed and then Apple releases it at the same time they released the rumored device from last year.
Leo: So will Apple do a 4.7 now that seems credible.
Rene: Yes.
Leo: 4.7 and I have said this before and it is just the right size. The current iPhones are 4 inches, a little smaller but not a lot. You can still hold the 4.7 in your hand and still do the thing that Apple wants to do and that is navigate with your finger with holding it one hand. I like 4.7, and as you pointed Rene it would not require a new scale right?
Rene: Anything up till five, and if they go to exactly five it will be the same pixel per inch as the iPad Air which means that they can keep making the same panels. But 4.7 is I do think better I have a couple of five inch phones behind me and I think that they feel a little bit too big and I think that 4.7 inch is just a nice medium.
Leo: Just for completeness understand I just ordered the 6 inch Nokia 1520.
Rene: It is a beautiful phone, it is as big as my head but it is beautiful.
Andy: It is a lovely phone and for people who are doing lots of reading during their commutes hopefully on the subway and not in their cars it is a nice happy medium between having a full sized pad and a small sized one but at some point like Leo you should like you how in machine shops they have that socket wrench set that has like every single socket size there is and you could do that with phones at this point.
Leo: I could do that with the phones at this point. (presenters talking over each other)
Rene: Did you see the Samsung graphics. Someone put up a graphic on Twitter of Samsung displays and there was this missing inch between I think 7 and 8 an entire inch without a Samsung display size that was in between it.
Leo: How could that be?
Rene: It is impossible.
Leo: Somebody must be fired. They have missed one inch. That is pretty funny they have got everything but one.
Rene: At quarter inch intervals all the way.
Leo: At quarter inch!
Rene: Four inches all the way up to twelve inches I think.
Leo: That is pretty cool. That is clearly considered effort and that does not happen by accident. (presenters talking over each other)
Andy: Samsung’s idea is that anybody who wants to buy a phone has money in their hands. Their goal is to take that money out of their hand and put the phone that they want in that hand. Which is perfectly valid way to go about your business and it also you know a brute force method of marketing but it has been working very well for them so far. I would be addressing that rumor I would really be shocked if Apple did not do a larger screen iPhone. By the same I would also be shocked if they did not have a standard sized iPhone 5 sized screen there too because it is a great form factor and people like and accessories work great with it and it is also for people who just do not want a larger phone. There are reasons why you can buy smaller screen Android devices because a lot of the people like the smaller phones. A lot of the people do not have these big greasy workman mitts like I have.
Leo: Phillip Elmer de Witt writing in Analyst this week estimates that iPad sales were down with the average of 19.3 million and that is the average of analysts’ guesses. Okay so Apple has not said it. So it ranges from Horace Sim code who says that 21.8 million iPads sold all the way down to a guy from the Braeburn Group who says 15 million. If you put the average at 19.3 de Witt says the iPad sales are slowing down, but as I mentioned when we talked about this iPad yesterday, that if you look at the graph, yes they are slowing down from the peak from when the new iPad came out but last two quarters of iPad sales still beat every other quarter but two since the iPad was released. So I would take that slow down right?
Rene: It is not a bad business. But Wall Street is the same Leo it is based on future expectations and not on current earnings.
Leo: I understand and we do not pay attention to it.
Andy: If sports were reported the same way that like businesses reported then we would be saying that Keflezighi actually came fifth in the Boston marathon based on what sports analysts predicted the finishing time would be.
Leo: He thought he would finish in so much better time so even though he won, he really did not.
Andy: He only managed to cross the finish line first.
Leo: You are right. That is a perfect analogy.
Rene: He is going to run faster next year and so we are going to down rank him right now. We are going to build in the depreciation for next year.
Leo: We have always known this but the Wall Street Journal confirms what Apple and Google vie for game manufacturers to buy exclusivity on their platforms. We know that Plants versus Zombie came out on the apps store on Apple three or four months ago before it came out on Android. Apparently, basically Apple and Google both offered companies promotional boost, premium placement on the home pages, featured lists. I do know from our own experience that with the shows getting featured on iTunes is huge and that is for podcasts and it has got to be even more for apps where there are millions of possibilities and nobody would even know your game existed unless your game got featured.
Rene: Well she could be on sale and she blanked the iTunes store for two weeks.
Leo: Such a brilliant move. And I would have imagined that she talks to Apple. But that is different with iTunes because iTunes is the king. But I would say that the Android app store versus the Apple iTunes store, they are kind of neck in neck at this point.
Rene: Yes but not in revenue. In downloads and numbers but not in revenue still.
Leo: Although, they are catching with Android it has of course has been much behind but they are catching up.
Rene: It is an acceleration curve because if you are behind and you are growing your acceleration is inevitable and way faster.
Leo: Right. They referred to Zepto lab sequel to cut the rope, which was introduced in December. Zepto labs and Apple agreed to a three month window in of exclusivity in exchange for the store prominently promoting the game, according to a person familiar with the matter. And then an Android, late march. There you go. Interesting though, for a long time companies were very loathed to make an Android version at all. They really wanted to keep on Apples good side, and there was always this kind of notion that Apple may only feature you if you’re a… they even have a section, IOS exclusives, and you want to get in that section. I do note that in every one of these cases, while Apple had an exclusive for a month, or two, or three. These companies did not forego Android, they came out on Android eventually.
Rene: Last night I got to watch Son of the Batman on ITunes, and I twittered about it, and people were like, it’s not available on Google play yet. But it’s part of Apples, you know, one week early release program. And we’ve seen that, the Star trek into darkness went to Target, and Walmart, and all these different stores with different special features. Because everyone is so keen to get whatever advantage they can, and the distribution is so tight, there aren’t that many app stores. I think amazon is doing something similar with their app store, but those are your only points of getting on to the users so everyone is going to try to manipulate those. It’s good for the artist because they can get a great deal from Amazon or Apple, they get more promotion, it’s good for Apple, Amazon, or google because it makes them, at least for a short period of time, look more attractive. I think most of the companies work that way.
Leo: None of the companies involved would comment of course. According to App Annie, I don’t know who she is, she’s at home, but. I guess that’s some company that does this.
Rene: It’s a metrics company.
Andy: Exactly. They track sales of mobile apps.
Leo: According to App Annie, 70% of the revenue on Mobile Apps is in video games. 70%! This is the category!
Andy: It really does feel like it’s almost meaningless for any platform to boast about the size of their app library, or how much money it’s generating, because it’s so lopsided into games. And not only that but it’s so lopsided into in-app purchases. And not only that, but it’s… if you’re trying to get developers to support your team, as opposed to somebody else’s. Based on the amount of revenue, it’s like, okay If you’re making a game in which people have to put an extra three dollars to put more popcorn into the movie theater machine, then yes, you should definitely put this platform over another. But if not, you’re better off just trying to build for an audience, and your 100 dollars a day, however you can.
Rene: Interesting too, will Apple eventually need exclusives? The console business for years had Mario, and Sonic, and Halo. And those really helped build up stickiness for the platforms. Google, and Amazon, and other companies have bought a lot of IOS platforms. Like snap feed, fantastic, all the nix stuff went to Google. Apple, so far hasn’t been buying. They bought Siri, and a few others, Chomp, but they haven’t been wholesale buying very popular apps, and they’ve been losing them to other parties that are willing to buy them. So I wonder if we’ll see first parties at some point if this curve continues.
Leo: Boy that really does underscore the power of that though, because when you say Mario, I know immediately the Nintendo. When you say Sonic, I know immediately Saga. When you say Halo, I know immediately Microsoft Xbox. I mean, they are so tightly tied to those platforms, but I have to point out, when the Xbox 1 and PlayStation 4 came out last year, the exclusives were very limited. And I think they continue to be.
Andy: I’m really thinking that promotion is very important than exclusivity. That’s the one carrot that both these stores can hang in front of you, because we all know how hard it is to, even if you have the intention of finding a specific app, for IOS, how hard it is to find that one app. Even when Microsoft came out with Microsoft office, man I did so many keyword searches looking for that app. Because I wanted to get the original version of it, the actual official version of it.
Leo: Right.
Andy: And I had to go to Microsoft.com, and find their launching page for it in order to find it. To say nothing of if you have a game that is going to have any measure of success whatsoever, next weekend, after you’re number one, there’s going to be 100 clones that have every single keyword that someone is going to search for. So if you want to offer developers something of value, it really is going to be we will give you one of the spotlight slots inside our carousel, so people will see you, whether they’re looking for you, or not.
Leo: App Annie also reports… How come I’ve never heard her name before? Suddenly she’s everywhere!
Rene: She’s oft reported in these things.
Leo: Okay!
Andy: The app will come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom line download tomorrow there’ll be games.
Leo: App Annie says that Google play store saw 45% more downloads than the App store on IOS in the first quarter. 45% more downloads! Worldwide revenue, though, as you mentioned, Apple is comfortably ahead, according to Annie. This is global, 150 countries. Downloads are up, revenue up, but not as much. In fact, the graph is kind of interesting. You know, you really can see the difference. Is that because most of these Android apps are free? Or people are cheap on Android? I mean, if you’ve got more downloads, it seems to be the revenue should catch up.
Andy: I think it partly has to do with the fact that if you have an iPhone, you only have a super-premium 200 dollars’ worth contract phone. Or even if you have a cheap one, it was once a 200 dollar super premium contract phone. Android covers, just as we talked about, every single spot on that board. So we have a lot of people who have no intention of putting any more money in this phone that they paid $49 for. And even then, they’re upset that they didn’t get it for free. That’s just in the US, worldwide, where the disparity is between pricing the phone is so much wilder than it is here in the US, you have people who just did not buy this phone with the intention of spending more money on apps. They’re not as app obsessed as we are in the US, I think.
Leo: You must know my friend App Annie, because that’s exactly what App Annie said. She said Android app download volume is growing, thanks to explosive growth in emerging markets. In Mexico iPhone growth grew by 75% last year. So, you know, that makes sense that you might have more downloads, but you may not have more revenue. Downloads were also strong in Brazil and Russia, both in the top three.
Andy: That’s why a lot of these observations based on, well here’s a percentage of users who are actually using the web for devices based on the competitors devices. Here are the number of phones that are out, and here’s how much revenue each one is being used for. It’s almost becoming meaningless as Android starts to saturate every single device with a screen and some sort of CPU on top of it. Because you just don’t know why some people are buying those things. I’ve never really understood that metric of here’s how much web use is being done on IOS devices versus Android devices. Particularly IPad, versus android Tablets. I would like to see that broken down by category to see how well that stands up. I don’t doubt that there is some merit to that comparison given that iPad are just so much more useful than almost any other Android tablet I’ve ever used. But it really is like a war shack test at this point. You can make any point that you want about any figure you want to dig up, about any segment of the mobile device market at this point.
Rene: Andy’s point is it’s an immature set of analysis and they’re not segmenting the smart phone market the way they do the auto market. Apple has 0% of the under 400 dollar phones. Apple has 0% of the cheap tablets that people buy in Asia to watch videos on. And If you broke down those numbers it’d be much more informative for everybody to kind of do their job, but it’s either not in the best interest in the metric companies, or they haven’t developed to the point they can offer those kind of statistics yet.
Leo: What would you suggest as categories? Price?
Rene: Yeah, well I mean it’s the same thing as cars, you don’t compare the cherry car sold in China to the BMW. It’s ridiculous, but that’s what happens in the phone market. So yeah, based, the premium market, the discount market. And you could start doing verticals for them as well. People who buy devices for specific purposes. Like an Android powered video player probably should be counted in the same category as the Samsung, or an Apple tablet, because it’s not the same device. It just happens, things that happen to run Android, that’s the barely debugged stack of dry wood of this decade. It just powers so many things.
Leo: It does. Including cars. So the IOS app store, top countries by downloads. US, China, Japan, the UK, and Russia. Top countries by Revenue, pretty much the same. US, Japan, China, the United Kingdom and Australia. So that’s where the money comes from, that’s who downloads. Very different from the picture on Android, where the top countries who download are United States, Brazil, Russia, South Korea, and India. Top countries who are revenue, Japan, United States, South Korea, Germany, United Kingdom. It’s almost a different list.
Rene: What’s interesting is today Apple also enabled Brazil specific ratings for the app store for games. And that was a huge point of contention I think, for a long time it kept games out of Brazil, because it wouldn’t support their rating system. Which skews also, because that skews downloads, it skews piracy levels, because if you can’t get games that greatly changes the equation for your…
Leo: You mean like the reviews have ratings? Or the mature ratings.
Rene: Yeah, the mature…
Leo: So the Brazilian system for game ratings is different?
Rene: Yeah.
Leo: Is it more sexy, or less sexy?
Rene: I don’t know the specifics, but I know it cost a lot of distribution problems for a lot of people.
Andy: I understand the bottom of the market is a lot fuller.
Leo: Our show to day brought to you by 99designs.com. My friends, 99 designs is the world’s largest graphic design market place. They are just fantastic. Over… what is the last count of 296,000 designers are waiting for you to go there. There are 2,000 open contests. 2 million dollars in payouts last month alone! From 99 designs. What we do, is we invite you to go to 99 designs.com, whether you’re a brand, a business, a restaurant, get your menu design, get your t-shirts. Everything from car wraps, to landing pages. Mobile apps, we got an email from Pastor Chadwick, East point church in Ohio, who heard about 99 designs in this show. He decided it was time for a makeover of the churches logo. Within days they had over 100 logo options to look through. Took them a while, took them about a month to go through all the options, choose the winning design. The designer got paid. East Point Church got a fantastic new logo they loved. One that respected their heritage, but was fresh and modern. I think that’s just so cool. And Pastor Chadwick, he can’t say enough about how great the 99 designs project and process is. “Thanks to Macbreak Weekly and 99 designs for helping our church move into the 21st century with a great looking design. It’s a great way to get high quality graphic design at affordable price.” Thank you Pastor Chadwick. That is really, really neat! We talk about branding a lot, you know. It’s a term that gets thrown around all the time. What is branding? It’s your, it’s the gut feeling people have about your company. You know, what comes to mind when they say TWiT? You know, branding leverages the fundamental truths about your company to create emotional connection to your audience, and design is absolutely critical in communicating that. Because most of the time it’s a nonverbal thing. You say so much about your design, not just here’s how we look, here’s what our logo is, but what are we saying about our company, about our business, about who we are. And it gets communicated in a non-verbal and very powerful way by design, that’s why pastor Chadwick was so happy, he wanted to say we’re traditional, we’ve got a heritage, but we’re also modern. That’s so cool. Go to 99designs.com. 99designs.com/mbw. You get a 99 dollar power pack of services for free, it gives you more designer time and attention, they will bold and highlight and feature your design in the 99… your project, contest in the 99 designs market place, and you’ll get nearly twice as many design, as a result. 99 dollars’ worth of services for free at 99designs.com/mbw. I thank them for their support of MacBreak Weekly. I need you to explain this in gadget story to me. So Siri, right? You talk to Siri, she sends your speech to Apple servers, probably in North Carolina where they’re interpreted, and they come back to you. So somehow Cortet a Freshman, at the University of Pennsylvania, at a Hackathon, in fact, invented something called Google, spelled like the number, googol plex. Offending everybody, Google, and Apple in the process from Alex Sans Aj Patel, Ben Shoe, and Gagan Goopta, this intercepts, you have to change your Wi-Fi connections proxy settings, it intercepts your Siri requests and gives Siri more capabilities to play tunes in Spotify, turn up the head on your Ness thermostat, even start up your tesla. I got to say, I have to think there’s, the Apple is going to shut this sucker down. Is this something you get on the App store? Did Apple even approve this in the app store? No! You just change your settings, right?
Rene: There’s been jailbreak stuff for a long time.
Leo: Is this Jailbreak?
Rene: No, but there has been jailbreak, Apple doesn’t expose APIs for Siri. All of that stuff is internal and Apple does partnership deals. If you break into the jail break what you do, I think this is probably, I mean, Steve Gibson could explain it better than me, and this is probably a man in the middle…
Leo: Basically you’re allowing a man in the middle attack.
Rene: Basically you’re just exploiting things. Apple has to do this stuff slowly, because if you just start exposing APIs, there’s all this chance for a collision like change my calendar, well is fantastical going to change it?
Leo: Right.
Rene: Is awesome calendar going to change it? But if you’re just having fun you can just open the flood gates.
Leo: It turns out Googolplex has its own API, so you can actually modify googolplex to work with other stuff! You can tell it what to do if it hears certain things. This seems so illegal, somehow! I don’t know! In gadget says hay it’s an easy thing to change these settings. I’ve never tried it but it’s an easy thing to change this proxy settings, and you can do it. The website is betterthansiri.com. Oh they’re asking for trouble!
Rene: When you have to repercussion worries you can do anything you want!
Leo: I guess when you’re a college kid, but yeah. No jail breaking, no download, it takes 30 seconds. So you go to… Should I try this?
Rene: Do you want all your Siri queries intercepted?
Leo: Right. Well that’s part of it. This is going to go through somebody, right? Okay. So I’m going to settings Wi-Fi, click the I on the Wi-Fi setting you want, you scroll down, and HTTP proxy is auto. Okay, that’s…but now I can put in a URL, and there wasn’t a URL there before. So the URL is HTTP, I’m really going to regret this aren’t I?
Move your ipad down a little.
Leo: Oh you can’t see it okay. Totally better than Siri.
Rene: Andy is going to be turning down the lights in the studio soon.
Leo: .com Okay, that’s it. It’s not that hard! And then now any request I make will be rerouted through totallybetterthansiri, but Actually I’ve got to point out, not just your Siri requests, everything you now do on the internet goes… I can’t recommend this!
Rene: No!
Andy: But it’s interesting that people are showing off what Siri could do just by people who don’t even work for Apple. So it’s… we’ll get there!
Leo: You can tell it to play a song on Spotify, you can tell it to turn on your lights on hue. You can make it warmer, you can literally say... Oh but you have to say googolplex. Well now that’s weird, let me try this. So I press and hold, Googolplex, turn on my lights. Yeah see, this didn’t work at all! Am I supposed to say Googolplex? Anyway. The first time you use googolplex you must select continue when prompted. And create an account. Okay, so I have to create an account first. Alright. Wow. First time…
Rene: I believe it’s totally.betterthansiri.com
Leo: Did I do the wrong? Oh I left out a dot! I don’t know who I’m sending my traffic to! So I can bet that there are some people who are doing that. There’s probably already some Russian Hacker who is getting my traffic. Totally. Thank you Chad. You young people are good at this stuff. Totally.betterthansiri.com Right? Is it ACPS? No! Now let’s try it.
Rene: That would be too secure.
Leo: Googolplex, play demons. This is not what suppose! Wait ah! Cannot verify server identity. Because it can’t see google.com because I’m now going to through betterthansiri, so I have to press continue and I have to sign up… This seems so wrong!
Rene: Please enter the iTunes password now.
Andy: We find that credit card numbers make wonderful secure passwords. Social security numbers also. Launch codes for nuclear vessels also for password.
Rene: All the whistles.
Leo: Whistles, we love whistles. Okay, username, password should be like something really bad.
Rene: Audience, Leo does this so that you don’t have to!
Leo: Yeah! I’m going to really regret this.
Andy: You probably could have launched Spotify, and played that song a lot sooner than this.
Rene: I hope Steve Gibson isn’t watching.
Leo: Wait a minute, password configuration…oh I did the wrong thing.
Andy: Chad do you have a bucket of benzene that Leo could dunk his iPad into after he’s done with this, just to be sure?
Chad: I’m just worried that you’re going to forget and then be like okay let me open up the bank of America app, and uh…
Leo: Alright, my account was made, now log in okay. Don’t show this again, I’ve got to…
Rene: You’re giving them your password, Leo!
Leo: Oh man, this is such a bad idea! I’m all set! I can now use googolplex. Okay now, what was it I was supposed to do? I forgot!
Chad: Say play music or something.
Leo: See I don’t have Spotify on here, that’s part of the problem. Googolplex turn on my lights. Wait a minute! Oh! Did you see that? Okay, so that’s weird, it pulled up a… it did a web search, and then Googolplex noted that the search was for googolplex turn on my lights, I see. So it intercepted the google search, noted the search term, which it will do every time you search on the internet. Looked for the word Googolplex, and said Ha! This one’s for me, and then tried to parcel it, and of course, sense I don’t have hue on here, I have to add that to my account! Okay this is a very bad idea!
Rene: Change your settings now please!
Leo: I’m glad you reminded me! So delete that totallybetterthansiri.com should be all I have to do right? It doesn’t change the proxy settings, still auto. I would just turn it off.
Rene: I would just nuke it at this point.
Chad: Just reinstall IOS.
Andy: Drop it into the bucket, set the bucket on fire, you might want to take it outside first, but, nuke it for more, but it’s the only way to be sure.
Leo: I think it’s an exercise, I’m sure these guys are completely benign. It is very interesting and, I hope they get an A in the project. Actually they came in second. In the hackathon.
Rene: When you open up a hole, it’s hard to tell if anyone else is going in the whole with you. That’s my only problem with it.
Leo: It’s so dangerous. I’m sorry, they didn’t even take second, they took 3rd prize! I’d sure like to see first and second place, if that was third price because that’s a pretty nice hack. That’s a sweet hack. By the way, Jeff Needles was watching as well. He’s the one who told us, thank you Jeff. Project Tango is a Google Smartphone technology that uses Apples prime since technology. It’s an experimental smartphone from Google that incorporates 3D sensors that allows users to map indoor, and outdoor environments. But if you look carefully at the chip here, it’s the prime sense Capri PC1200 3 imaging system on a chip that Apple owns because it acquired the company that made it last year.
Rene: Could you imagine if there was a Samsung chip in an Apple device?
Leo: Wow! Oh wait a minute, there is! So prime sense did connect. So this is kind of the vision capabilities of connect. But I presume Apple, you know, is licensing it to other people.
Rene: They have existing contract with other companies…
Leo: They’re still making it, right? Cool. Microsoft doesn’t use prime sense anymore, and it’s connecting at interface because Apple owns it. Do you believe the stories that we hear that Yahoo…Yahoo has never said this, there’s no evidence of this, its pure speculation on part of Kara Swisher and Recode, that Yahoo maybe planning to dumb google and default to Yahoo mobile search.
Rene: It would need a yahoo mobile search first, wouldn’t they?
Andy: Yeah.
Rene: I’m sure Yahoo would love to be the default.
Leo: According to her sources, there are two internal projects at Yahoo, aimed at building a viable mobile search engine, and monetization program, and of course, they want to convince Apple to use it.
Rene: Fund it.
Leo: Apples got… to fund it!
Rene: No, I’m just saying that’s probably how it’ll end up being.
Leo: Yeah, if you don’t have any customers you don’t have any funding.
Leo: First of all you’ve got Google, which everybody wants it. Something that Yahoo makes it, Yahoo doesn’t even do their own search, Bing does. It doesn’t seem credible.
Andy: Well if they’re wording it in terms of, she wants to try to get Apple to use Yahoo services, oh hell yeah! But that’s a credible idea that they’re moving in place, unless it involves Apple making an investment in Yahoo search technology. They really are like, they’re like the Indian space program at this point. They have the potential to do stuff if they were to create an industry to be at the level of what other people are doing right now, but they don’t have it right now.
Leo: Danny Sullivan poo-poos the whole thing, he says first of all, Yahoo has no search technology. That’s kind of a problem, but you know, you could get somebody to write something, get some college kid!
Rene: Google pays apple, I think... in 2012 it was a billion dollars.
Leo: That’s the other problem, there’s a lot of money changing hands. It wouldn’t be Apple giving Yahoo money, it’d be Visa Versa. Apple could…
Andy: And these are all rational companies. Apple, for all the famous going thermo nuclear against google stuff, they’re not going to cut off access to a service that is, both financial very good to them, and Also very good to their users.
Leo: That’s what Eric Schmidt said, He said the media treats this like high school, like I hate you! And Google hates Apple, and then nothing. He says it’s not, we’re grownups, this is business, and even if we’re suing a company, we still do business with them. Even if Samsung and Apple are bitterly fighting over patents, Apple still uses Samsung chips, because we’re grownups! This isn’t high school.
Rene: We say dumb things in front of camera, we’re still grownups!
Leo: Maybe that! Apple building new data centers to shrink their carbon footprint, as is everybody. Although I have to say Apple seems to really be gaining some traction on this campaign to promote the fact that it’s environmentally sensitive. This green piece, given it high marks, in fact didn’t green piece use Apple as example?
Rene: Did you see the Tim Cook narrated video they put up yesterday, Leo? Apple.com/environment. It’s interesting using Tim Cook too, because it really plays into using that Tim Cook moral ethical center of Apple.
Leo: I think he is, don’t you think?
Rene: I think that’s his differentiation from Steve Jobs.
Leo: Steve never wanted to give any money to charity, for instance. And Cook immediately, that’s one of the things he changed right away.
Video: And a powerful idea.
Chad: He said better right before I unmuted it.
Video: It makes it look at the world and want more than anything to change it for the better. To innovate, improve, to reinvent, to make it. Better.
Leo: I love that auburn accent, that soft auburn accent.
Video: And better can’t be better if it doesn’t consider everything. Our products, our values, and an even stronger commitment to the environment for the future. To use greener materials, less packaging. To do everything we can to keep our products out of landfills. Changes that will feed people as well as…
Leo: Really Apple? Really?
Video: To us, better is a force of nature.
Leo: The must unrecyclable products in the industry.
Andy: Well they’re all recyclable, certainly in the sense that you can take it back to the Apple store, and if they’re working they’ll give you a gift card for something, and if it’s a not working thing, they’ll dispose of it properly.
Leo: But only apple knows how to do that, because it’s all glued together.
Andy: Right, and also they, I really like this ad campaign, I particularly like the access they gave to Steve Levy, about how they’re trying to make as many of their data centers, and even stores as possible working completely on renewable energy, because it really does remind me of the fact that Apple is a unique company. I can’t think of another company that, if they produced a spot like this, I think that 40% of your brain would be skeptical about, okay they’re trying to reposition themselves as this, there’ trying to attract that, they’re trying to get people’s attention off the fact that they killed that whale on a corporate retreat three months ago. Samsung would, if they wanted to pivot toward environmentalism, they’d make a phone out of hemp, and then stop making it in a year. Apple is, when you see stuff like this, you really do know apple does believe in this sort of stuff, and it’s an expression of the fact that they are running one company with one focus, one heart, one mind, and one set of hands. As opposed to you have this one wacko guy who’s kind of interested in this, and they let him run wild as a distraction. It really is a very positive thing, and it’s an ad that I really, really like. The other cool thing about the… they gave Steve Levy… their new vice president in charge of greenery, for lack of better word, took Levy on tours of their data centers and their power sources, but for me, the most interesting part of that was when she came on board as the new VP, just basically asking around about what are we doing that could be improved? A couple of employees said, you know how we keep saying we’re doing a good job, we make so many things out of aluminum, but we’re only getting them from very good sources, and we’re not damaging the planet? Yeah, I don’t like the way we’re calculating these numbers. I don’t think we’re doing as well as we’re telling people. And she did an audit, and it turned out that yep, there is no deceit but they’re using a method of calculating a certain number that was not good. And that was one of the reasons they fell off one of their promises last year. Not because they didn’t do the job they were promising to do for the environment, but because they had to adjust their, the numbers that they’re shooting for with this new realistic budgeting system. So it’s a great thing because one of the things that makes Apple Unique is that to an extent you buy into, not just this actual product that you’re buying, or this actual service that you’re using. You're buying into a company that you believe has a set of values that intersect the values that you have or at least have the values that you approve of. So I'm glad that they're talking a little bit more about how they're – it’s not just about again engineers in front of a white background talking about fault tolerances and about every part has to interact perfectly with every other part. But they're saying “No, here's things we’re actually beyond trying to make you buy a new phone that we could easily get away with, but we’re not going to try to get away with it because we actually do think this stuff is important.”
Leo: LaCie, I just bought – remember how I just talking about how much I liked – what are you laughing at?
Andy: No, I'm sorry I'm just – complete the headline because I'm just…
Leo: So I've bought, and I'm really happy with it, this little big disk, it’s tiny, it’s cute, it’s very fast Thunderbolt 2 SSD external drive. LaCie is being acquired by Seagate, and oh by the way, their credit cards, they have been breached for a year.
Andy: I'm just laughing because I'm really about only two more of these announcements away from saying I am no longer going to use anything to get anything except for just bartering. I'm going to have goats and sheep and if you want me to buy one of your phones or cars, tell me how many sheeps or goats you want, we’ll make that exchange because it’s just not possible to do any sort of modern electronic institution for money exchange that’s not going to be completely hacked out.
Leo: The French hardware company confirmed last week that malware successfully made its way through access sensitive customer information from transactions on its website. Virtually according to LaCie, virtually everyone who shopped at LaCie’s website in the last year is at risk. It’s a cold fusion flaw, Adobe’s cold fusion software, Cold fusion by the way is used by a lot of sites for their ecommerce and this is probably one of the great many sites, some of which we don’t even know. Customer names, addresses, email addresses, credit card numbers, card expiration dates, usernames and passwords. They got it all.
Rene: I guess they should’ve been storing from the—
Leo: Well none of it is hashed apparently or in any way obfuscated, which is very bad practice even if you have a bug it shouldn’t be.
Andy: Yeah that’s why I hope Google and Apple do expand their reach of the iTunes Wallet and the Google Wallet because at this point it think those are the only two transactors that have never ever burned on even once. And if there were one store where I could buy something using my iTunes account or Google Wallet and other store offering the same thing that I couldn’t use that for I would almost certainly opt for the one that uses iTunes or Goolge Wallet even if costs a little bit more and had to wait two days to get it.
Leo: Steve Gibson is coming up on Security Now, he has tweeted that the IOS update is nothing major just bugs. I guess he’s looked in the security. I don’t know Steve if you can be sure of that because Apple often does not reveal security impact.
Rene: You have a link but you click on it but it almost always takes two days before there's an update on it.
Leo: Yeah, he does say however that, and I didn’t know this, I'm going to do it right now, there is an OS 10 update that just came out that he says you should absolutely install ASAP. I don’t see it here, oh here it is. Security update 2014 0021.0 includes Safari 703. It may be these are new Safari certificates. One of the ways certificate revocation of their heartbleed is be, the only way really it’s being effectively handled is by updating certificates, the certificate authorities and so forth. So that may be one of the things. It just requires a download and a restart. It’s about 80 megabytes so I'm doing it right now. And I’ll ask Steve about Googleplex.
Rene: …you did it.
Leo: That’s where I'm getting my update as a matter of fact. What it this? How to leak the iPhone 6, a beginner’s guide from phonecruncher.com.
Steve: This is a tutorial on if you're going to leak the iPhone.
Leo: Yeah.
Steve: It’s a—
Leo: The picture must be blurry, we've seen the left leaked images of smart phones and indeed the iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 to know that a proper leaked image has to be blurry. Have you ever seen a perfectly and focused HD gallery of leaked images, no. if you're going to leak your own pictures, start with a basic stance. Obviously you’ll most likely be standing still when taking pictures, so we suggest swaying to the side slightly just as you take the snap to add some motion blur. Ideally you want to make sure the actual product you're photographing is barely recognizable, only partly in view.
Rene: …did a really good job with the iPhone 4.
Leo: Include blueprints, if there’s one key element to any legit looking leaked pictures, it’s blueprints. Note, whether the plans are actually the product you're actually photographing is irrelevant. Nobody really knows what your blueprints say. A factory setting is ideal. Recent leaked images of the iPhone 6 have clearly been taken in production line warehouse. Yeah, so if you're planning on leaking your own iPhone 6 images, we suggest you do the same.
Rene: Posting one, sign…
Andy: Yeah.
Leo: if your leaked image offers a very slight glimpse of some workers or overalls that simply adds to the impact. An obnoxious watermark must be visible. Here's one form nowhereelse.fr.
Andy: Yeah there are some sites that take the sign away but would watermark one, then whatever Chinese site republish it in watermark so they would add a third layer of watermarks on top of it just so you can’t see anything underneath it.
Leo: Putting a watermark over your image is the cherry on the cake when it comes to leaked gadget pictures. The ultimate iPhone 6 leaked images reproduced this, what we believe is the ultimate iPhone 6 image after weeks of research, we’ve included photo blur, blueprints, a factory setting and of course a nice big watermark. The actual iPhone 6 is included but it’s tough to identify thanks to the slight tilt and the blurring. It’s funny because it’s true. I'm not going to do the Washington Post story about Samsung saying “Oh Steve Jobs just died, it’s an opportunity”. Okay, I just did it.
Rene: It’s a business.
Leo: It’s a business.
Andy: Yeah and it’s a deep paraphrase.
Leo: Right.
Andy: You need to know the context in which it is presented.
Leo: I don’t think anybody’s that quite that ghoulish. Let’s take a break. Even Samsung. Let’s take a break, and when we – the evil Samsung. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to come back with our pics of the week in just a moment but right now I want to talk a little bit about our good friends at Squarespace. We love Squarespace, don’t you know is the only one platform that makes it so easy to create and modify and to post to your own site, whether it’s a blog, a portfolio. Yeah, photographers love Squarespace because it looks fashionable, stylish. It looks good, it’s modern. Or ecommerce, if you're selling stuff. We use Squarespace here, everybody I know uses Squarespace for their blogs. We use it for our inside twit blog. The platform is constantly improving, now 25 beautiful templates, new features, new designs, even better support. A logo creator tool, we love that, it’s fun if you're a small business you don’t have a logo, you can make your own. You’ve got access to the entire library of Google fonts, it’s hundreds of fonts that you can use on any site. They're compatible with every browser. It’s easy to use but if you want help, they’ve got live chat and email support 24/7 from their offices in New York city so you're talking to somebody who really knows where of they speak. I like the boat, I like the sail boat, that nice. That’s our new logo, MacBreak Weekly, we’re on it. We’re on a boat, I like it. Yeah, sometimes it’s three hours. This time it’s only about an hour and a half. Easy to use but if you want some help of course they have live – oh I mentioned the chat. Oh now they have ecommerce by the way, on every template, every plan level. That’s great for non-profits, for school fun drives. We’re talking as little as eight dollars a month and you get a free domain name when you sign up for the year. The new Squarespace metric app for iPhone and iPad, check site stats like page use, social media follows, they got the blog app. It’s just – I love it. It shouldn’t have to sell this, just, it’s so easy it sells itself. Go to Squarespace.com and click the get started button. You can play with it right now, import all you content from your existing site, change your templates at will, modify them, drag and drop. You don’t have to be a CSS guru, of course if you are they have a great developer platform but it’s not required. The only things I ask, when you sign up, we know you will use the offer code MACBREAK and you'll get ten percent off on your new account. MACBREAK is our offer code at Squarespace.com but you don’t even need that just to try it Squarespace.com. So somebody’s telling me that you're hearing Chad my sounds.
Chad: It’s not a big deal, we can deal with that after the show.
Leo: I'm looking now at the notification center. I've got them turned off.
Chad: Wrong area, go back to the Doc.
Leo: Wait, well let me turn on do not disturb.
Chad: Doesn’t matter.
Leo: Yeah, do not disturb, do not allow Facetime call, okay. Now where should I go?
Chad: Go to the Doc.
Leo: The Doc?
Chad: The Google Doc.
Leo: Oh our Google Doc. Oh you mean you mean you're getting Google Doc on notifications.
Chad: Yes, hit the gear in the chat.
Leo: Oh when you said gear I didn’t—
Chad: No
Leo: Play an notific – oh.
Chad: There you go. Turn that off.
Leo: So that you were hearing, what does it sound like?
Chad: You can turn it back on.
Leo: No it’s okay.
Chad: Brrringng.
Leo: Really, you’ve been hearing brrring?
Chad: Yeah it’s the Google notification.
Leo: Oh but you’ve been turning it down.
Chad: Because I've been monitoring your—
Leo: You're a smart man.
Chad: Yeah we could’ve done that after the show.
Leo: Yeah just, you know people were hearing it. It think they ought to know Leo is an idiot but Chad’s going to save him.
Rene: No but it was a good how to tip Leo.
Leo: By the way, my pick of the week. All right now Andy Ihnatko’s pick of the week ladies and gentlemen.
Andy: Please don’t roll your eyes, this is an Android app but this is the Android app that lets you use Android Phones with the Mac very, very, very, very well.
Leo: That was close.
Andy: There you go. This is a really cool app called Driod NAS. It is the absolutely easiest way to share files between an Android device and pretty much anything Apple makes. This is really the entire interface, you tap this button that says start server and I've got my Mac mirrored here so watch what happens. If you look down here, hopefully after it takes a second for the server to start announcing via Bonjour network. If you look down here, there we go. My phone, the Nexus 5 shows up right here as a standard Samba server and if click on this, here is the entire file storage of this thing, of this device which I can then just simply browse. So if I want to pull photos off of it, movies off of it, documents, downloads, if I want to take files off of it, put files on to it it’s just all through this regular finder interface. It really sets itself up as a completely standard Samba server and so it really will work with absolutely everything. The other cool thing about it is that once again it is a standard SMB server, which means that you're not – let me see if I can find something cool. Here's the photos, there we go. Here's the photos thingy, folder.
Leo: That’s the technical name.
Andy: And this is all happening over Wi-fi so it’s not the fastest thing in the world. But – I should not try to demonstrate while I go at the same time. But here we go, let’s take a look at a cool screenshot that I made. There we go and actually I've just realized the lack of wisdom of randomly showing you pictures off my phone so I'm not going to do that. But trust me that – let me try something else. Let me try something else.
Leo: I get the idea.
Andy: Yeah you got the idea.
Leo: You could go both directions right. I can copy files to the phone and—
Andy: Exactly and you're navigating—
Leo: Now you're using Kit Kat because supposedly the Kit Kat update made it weird about copying files to the SD card.
Andy: No it works perfectly.
Leo: Oh you don’t have an SD card, you're on a NEXUS 5.
Andy: Right, exactly. Here you go, actually hear about this—
Leo: If you have an SD it may just give you fits.
Andy: Now the other really cool thing about this is again it’s a standard SMB server so it will also work on your iPad and on your iPhone if you’ve got a third party app that will mount network file shares so it’s the times when you like you take a picture like on you non-Apple phone and you want to edit it on iPhoto, it used to be that okay “So I guess that just to move this one picture, I'm going to have to upload it into Dropbox and then go into my iPad which is only a wi-fi iPad, and I could not find way to download from Dropbox.” If I have this all I have to do now is just simply start the server, open up my server, my client app on my iPad and then simply move it that way. It’s just that easy. Now the only bummer associated with it has nothing to do with the app, has nothing to do with Android, Mavericks really broke SMB in a really, really hostile way so that it’s possible that if you're running Mavericks you will launch this app, start the server and then your Mac will be able to find it but won’t be able to connect to it and then you'll have to do a work around or two of which then published in scads and scads and scads since Mavericks came out to get that to work. But otherwise it works just fine. And the last thing I’ll show you about it that’s really cool is that it understands that – I’ll stop the servers so I can get back here, it understands that there are different – you might not want the entire contents of your phone to be visible so right now I've got it on the home setting which is okay. I trust everybody on this network. It’s just me and my stuffed dogs so I’ll let the entire thing. If you tap on office, suddenly you don’t get access to the camera roll or the entire contents of the device. If you're in a public internet café, all you can get are things you’ve downloaded in music. And you can adjust these for each situation. So it’s not as though you will start this and suddenly you’ve got this immense security hole in your device. And of course as soon as you tap stop, it stops being a Samba server and now it’s just a regular phone. So it’s a free app, it’s a really wonderful, wonderful thing and it’s one of those things where it’s simple, it works, you can use it in a myriad of different ways and you have this just on your device there will be a time where it will save your bacon because you’d be thinking “Aw man, if only I can do an easy Bluetooth transfer but I can’t . Oh wait, I can establish my phone as a Samba server and that’s how I can get all my data on their Bluetooth suite.
Leo: Cool, Driod and NAS from code sector and how much does it cost?
Andy: Free.
Leo: Free is a good price.
Andy: Free is a very good price.
Leo: Thank you Andrew. Mr. Rene Ritchie, your pick of the week.
Rene: My pick of the week is an oldie but goodie, a perennial favorite, it’s 1password. They just announced new version today. I'm going to check the exact number, I believe it’s 4.5 for IOS and 4.3 for OS 10.
Leo: For Mac, that’s correct.
Rene: And the new version is, it’s been in beta for a while but it’s basically their IOS 7 makeover. It might seem late to be doing an IOS 7 makeover but they last updated after IOS 7 or right before or right around IOS 7 launching and it was already a good looking app so they just tweaked it slightly to make it more IOS 7e. And the update for the Mac greatly improves the 1password mini. They did a sale when heartbleed came out. They're doing a sale when these versions come out. I was using all weekend to change a ton and a ton of passwords because of heartbleed. And it really does – I am almost completely dependent now on 1password. When I install a new machine or a new phone or a new tablet, I add Dropbox because that’s where my 1password database is and then I add 1password and then I can log into everything. And it lets me use these twenty character long pseudo random passwords for all these different services so hopefully when something is compromised, there's one thing that gets compromised and it’s really hard to compromise it. There's a bunch of really good password managers, Lastpass, Datavault, all sorts of things. I've always been using 1password, I like how it works. It works really well for me. And these new versions, I've been beta testing them both for a while and they’ve been exceptionally good. And it’s a great company, they go above and beyond for their customer service so I'm always happy when a new version launches.
Andy: I wrote a column last week in which it not only recommended 1password but this is maybe we’re at a tipping point now where it’s no longer simply a good idea or a convenience to use a password manager and now these heartbleed bugs and other problems keep coming up so often, the easiest ways to address these as they come up is just simply have a password manager, generate a new absolutely bulletproof password and you never have to deal with, never have to mess with because it’s all being done for you. And the fact that 1password is 50% off, it’s normally about a $70 app, $60 app?
Rene: Yes, fifteen bucks on the iPhone.
Andy: Right, and for the Mac – you can also buy a bundle where you’ll get the version for your Mac, for your mobile devices and stuff like that. Really good deal and you really should jump in right now.
Leo: It is not Windows or Android or is it? Is it totally cross platform?
Rene: It is, I think the new Android version is good. I'm not sure if it’s still in beta or not but I've seen it and it’s fantastic and they have Windows versions as well.
Leo: Okay.
Andy: The Google Play Store version right now kind of stinks but they are working on that new edition that actually brings it up and stuff.
Leo: Sure you guys like it and I used it for many years but I got to say I'm really happy with Lastpass, it’s a lot less expensive.
Andy: Yup, yup.
Leo: And as far as I know it does everything this one does.
Andy: Well I don’t think it’s quite as slick.
Leo: Maybe not as Macish.
Andy: Yeah and also the biggest advantage of Lastpass is as far as I'm concerned is it that if you have to manage a group and a group of computers, it does things that 1passwords just isn’t inclined to do. 1password is for one person at a time. Lastpass is for you can do the entire family’s passwords, you can do your entire businesses’ passwords.
Leo: My pick is something I already picked but I just wanted to give you an update. I did get a swap on the Mac Pro. I got it on Friday, I sent the old one back and, by the way right before the old one went back, it stopped recognizing another memory slot. So it was clearly not in a shape. And I had forgotten what it was like to use a Mac and not be terrified that it was going to crash at any moment. It’s like, suddenly you just use the computer and you feel great so.
Andy: It was like using Mac OS 9.2 all over again.
Leo: I happen to have a lemon, I think, but Apple was very good about replacing it and the new one is just great and I really do like this computer especially if you're willing to spend a little money and get that little big disk from LaCie. The thing is so fast. Just feels good using it.
Rene: Best Home Theatre PC ever.
Leo: The Apple rep asked me, I guessed he listens to this show. Hi James. He said “And now tell me, we have a little questionnaire, how are you going to use it. Home theatre PC right?” I said no, not really, that was just a joke. Hey thank you Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago Sun Times, always a slice. His picture behind him just in case you don’t know, how could you not know, is apparently contestants in the Amazing Race, giving his cowboy hats to monks and the monks—
Andy: This guy might be Bull Murray, probably not but you know. He probably jumped into the show, told the producer no one will ever believe you and then jumped right out again. He is that cool.
Leo: Thank you Andy for being here. Rene Ritchie at iMore.com and whole Mobile Nations crew, really a great place to peruse whether you're a crackberry fanatic or a Macintosh lovah, imore.com. Thank you, Rene.
Rene: Thank you Leo.
Leo: We will see you back here everybody. This is MacBreak Weekly, I am Leo Laporte, we do this show on Tuesdays 11am pacific, 2pm eastern, 1800 UTC on twit.tv. We love it when you watch live but if you can’t, on demand audio and video is available after the fact at twit.tv and we do have excellent apps. Unofficial apps, we don’t do our own apps but on iPhone, Ipad Roku and of course Android as well. So check out those apps and start watching every single day. Thanks for joining us. Now, oh I see a t-shirt. Don’t forget – or you know what, I'm surprised how slowly these are selling.
Andy: I like that shirt.
Chad: You keep forgetting to mention them on the show.
Leo: It’s a 99Desings design and I do, I love it. We asked for designs for a hoodie and we got five great designs, we got many designs but we got five we loved so much we bought – we just said you know we won’t use it for the hoodie but we got it. And there's a tank top version of this, there’s women’s and everything. Teespring, tee.com/twit, time is running out, we will only sell this for a limited amount of time and if you want buy it, how much is it Chad?
Chad: Twenty bucks.
Leo: Come here, look at this Patrick Delahanty is wearing his. You don’t have to be that tall or that good looking to wear this t-shirt but it wouldn’t hurt.
Andy: It’ll almost cost you more not to launder whatever dirty shirt you have right now.
Rene: It’s nice.
Leo: It’s very affordable, everybody should buy to.
Rene: You can’t afford not to.
Leo: You can’t afford not to. Thank you, Patrick. And on that note get back to work because you know what, break time is over!
