The Verge's Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz discuss Apple's iPad event, the evolution of the streaming business, updates on the Wisconsin Foxconn site, and much more tech news.
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00:00:00Hello and welcome to the Vertcast, the flagship podcast of manufacturing in southeastern Wisconsin.
00:00:08We're going to go deep today on concrete, on blue collar jobs, bringing America back
00:00:16from wherever it was.
00:00:17And then we get a big globe, right?
00:00:19A huge tiny dome.
00:00:21Yeah.
00:00:22A dome, excuse me.
00:00:23It's a dome.
00:00:24What I'm talking about, of course, is Foxconn in my hometown of Racine, Wisconsin, the literal
00:00:28place where I grew up.
00:00:31We're going to get to it.
00:00:33It's really just a victory lap for me personally, because Foxconn has not done anything else.
00:00:38Actually quite notably, the news is that someone else has done stuff on that site in Wisconsin.
00:00:43Nealey, do you think you're the most famous resident of Racine, Wisconsin at this moment
00:00:48in time?
00:00:49No, the most famous people from Racine, Wisconsin is the bad team in the movie, A League of
00:00:54Their Own.
00:00:55Oh, that's good.
00:00:56That's really good.
00:00:58Easily the most famous Racine thing is that, what's her name?
00:01:06Is it Lori Petty?
00:01:07Yeah.
00:01:08Lori Petty.
00:01:09She goes to the other team.
00:01:10I don't remember her character's name.
00:01:11I just know it's Lori Petty.
00:01:12Yeah.
00:01:13She has to go.
00:01:14She goes to the Racine Bells and then has to pitch against her sister, Gina Davis.
00:01:17That's correct.
00:01:18And Jeff Bridges is already dead and the bus can't go slower than 55 miles an hour.
00:01:23That's not in the movie at all.
00:01:26They're all the same.
00:01:27That is a straight reference to Dressed to Kill by Eddie Izzard.
00:01:29And if you get it, I love you and you are my people and you can just send me a note
00:01:33and I'll send you a t-shirt.
00:01:34But you have to be able to tell me exactly what it is.
00:01:36Okay.
00:01:37That's that whole thing.
00:01:38The other most famous resident of Racine, Wisconsin is, of course, Sam Johnson of Johnson's
00:01:42Wax fame, who did some weird stuff in a plane over Central America and built a wax fortune
00:01:48that started the high school I went to, whose PBX system was connected to the SC Johnson
00:01:53company.
00:01:54So you could pick up any phone in the school and dial four digits and get a J-Wax VP.
00:01:59I don't know.
00:02:00I don't know why I know that information.
00:02:01That was some deep Racine lore.
00:02:06Was that who you would prank call?
00:02:08I got kicked out of that high school a lot.
00:02:11Just flatly kicked out of that school.
00:02:13Anyway, that's coming later in the show.
00:02:15Not the Johnson Wax stuff, the Fox Hunt stuff.
00:02:18That's much later in the show.
00:02:19There is iPad news, like a lot of iPad news to talk to, but in a small way.
00:02:24We'll get to it.
00:02:25Kranz, the streaming movie industry, the television industry, in a moment of, I would say, turmoil.
00:02:33Yeah.
00:02:34They realize they have to make money.
00:02:36That's a problem.
00:02:37So we're going to talk about that.
00:02:38And then we got a lightning round, just shockwaves in the lightning round, which is unsponsored
00:02:43again this week.
00:02:44So between now and the lightning round, if you've got money to spend.
00:02:50We have gotten some interest, though.
00:02:51I will say, if you want to throw money at us, let's start a bidding war, because it's
00:02:57coming.
00:02:58Yeah.
00:02:59And we'll do it live on the air.
00:03:00That'll be the lightning round.
00:03:01Love it.
00:03:02A recursive lightning round sponsored by the people.
00:03:04Wait, dude, does that mean we get to do the bidding voice?
00:03:06You know you can go to classes for those?
00:03:09I saw a TikTok.
00:03:10Anyway, none of that is important.
00:03:15By the way, I'm your friend, Eli.
00:03:16Alex Kranz is here.
00:03:17I'm your friend who really wants to be one of those blah, blah, blah guys.
00:03:20Auctioneer.
00:03:21Auctioneer.
00:03:22The word you're looking for is auctioneer.
00:03:24The blah, blah, blah guy is like Elmer Fudd.
00:03:26That's what he is.
00:03:27No, that's a Kid Rock song.
00:03:31David Pierce is here.
00:03:32Hi.
00:03:33Lovely to be here.
00:03:34All right.
00:03:35So this week, the news is that Apple had like a warm up event for WWDC.
00:03:40I don't even know what else to call it.
00:03:41It felt like a warm up.
00:03:43Crack their knuckles.
00:03:44They're like, here's some stuff.
00:03:45We got to get this stuff out of the way.
00:03:48They ran a 35 minute infomercial for new iPads.
00:03:51At this point, Apple loves the infomercial event, but they had some watch parties.
00:03:55David went to one in New York.
00:03:57You got to sit down, watch the infomercial, spend some time with the new hardware.
00:04:03But all of it, even at the end of the event, I feel like it's important to contextualize
00:04:08this event by noting that at the end of the iPad infomercial, Tim Cook came back on the
00:04:13screen and said, we will have much more to say about the future of our platforms at WWDC.
00:04:21Because the thing that needs to change on the iPad is iPadOS.
00:04:24And they announced no changes to iPadOS at this event.
00:04:29So it just felt like, here's part one of the story.
00:04:34You watch-
00:04:35Follow for part two.
00:04:36Yeah.
00:04:37You watched all of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning.
00:04:40Can't wait till next year.
00:04:42That's basically how that felt.
00:04:43Yeah.
00:04:44It was odd, I think.
00:04:46And I went in thinking there must be something.
00:04:49And we got, to be fair, little teeny tiny bits of software, right?
00:04:51There was new Final Cut and new Logic.
00:04:54There's a new app called Final Cut Camera.
00:04:56So there's tiny bits of things that you can do.
00:04:59But the overwhelming question for the iPad for damn near a decade at this point has been,
00:05:05what am I supposed to do with all of this power in this thing?
00:05:08And we did not get a lot of, I would say, new, compelling answers to those questions.
00:05:13I would say, in fact, we got none.
00:05:14And I want to come to that, because we have to review these things.
00:05:18And I think there's a question mark at the end of this review.
00:05:22And the question mark is, what if they add a bunch of AI features in June?
00:05:26Who knows?
00:05:27But let's actually talk about what they announced.
00:05:28They basically refreshed the entire lineup, save the mini.
00:05:32It's actually very funny.
00:05:33If you go to apple.com right now and click on iPad, all of the iPads have the word new
00:05:36under them.
00:05:37And it feels like the mini should have the word old under it.
00:05:40The mini did at least get, it was in the last 20 words that Tim Cook said in the whole thing,
00:05:49he said the words iPad mini out loud, which made me happy.
00:05:53Because that at least is some acknowledgement that it exists and will continue to exist.
00:05:59But that was it.
00:06:01That was the entirety of the love for the iPad mini at this event.
00:06:04And that made me sad.
00:06:05I love the iPad mini.
00:06:06They just refreshed it last year?
00:06:07I'm trying to remember when I bought mine.
00:06:09Was it last year?
00:06:10It was like two years ago.
00:06:11It was 2022 sometime.
00:06:12Yeah.
00:06:13Oh, wow.
00:06:14Okay.
00:06:15And they make that product entirely, as I understand it, for pilots to strap to their
00:06:17legs while they fly planes.
00:06:19So whatever.
00:06:20The mini aside, dear sweet mini.
00:06:22The base model's refresh, insomuch as it's a refresh, is that they dropped the price
00:06:27to $349, which is important because that's probably where it should have been.
00:06:31They got rid of the ninth gen, which they were selling for $329.
00:06:34That's one of the lightning connector and the headphone jack.
00:06:36No iPads Apple is selling right now have a headphone jack, which I think is nightmarish
00:06:40for parents.
00:06:41I know I have a lot of dongle apologists in my mentions.
00:06:44But if you have a small child and you are ever traveling with the child, managing Bluetooth
00:06:50headphones for a child, it's just like no fun.
00:06:53And charging a thing, it's just easier to have the analog connector.
00:06:56Please don't tell me about your USB-C dongles.
00:06:59I don't care, man.
00:07:00I don't care that you're in the pocket of big dongle, which is not my problem.
00:07:03Anyhow, that's the big refresh there.
00:07:06And I think it's important they brought that price down.
00:07:08Then the iPad Air feels like a very subtle refresh.
00:07:11David, what'd they do there?
00:07:13Yeah.
00:07:14I would say subtle refresh is basically right.
00:07:18The big change is that now there's a bigger one.
00:07:20There's now a 13-inch version of the iPad Air.
00:07:24It has an M2 chip.
00:07:26It comes in a couple of new colors, but it is still very much an iPad Air.
00:07:32This is, I think, the iPad that Apple wants most people to buy, which is why it has the
00:07:38new colors.
00:07:39It has the magic keyboard.
00:07:41It has the pencil.
00:07:42It is kind of the most mid of all of the iPads, and that is very much what Apple wants it
00:07:49to be.
00:07:50And yeah, it's $599 for the 11-inch, $799 for the 13-inch.
00:07:54And they're very much doing a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro thing with these devices, where
00:07:58you have the slightly less powerful, cheaper, simpler computer in two sizes, and then you
00:08:06have the more Pro thing with all the advanced specs for a lot more money, still at the same
00:08:11two sizes.
00:08:12So they've kind of hit it on this 11- and 13-inch thing as the way going forward.
00:08:16But I just don't understand why anyone would buy the Air when the regular iPad exists and
00:08:25has got like, what, it's got the same, or it's got an A14, okay.
00:08:29The iPad Air has an M2.
00:08:31Does that really matter to 90% of people who are using an iPad?
00:08:35No, which is back to what you were saying, Neal, a minute ago.
00:08:40Apple would like you to believe that it matters.
00:08:42And Apple would love to tell you stories about all the power of its new chips and why this
00:08:47stuff matters.
00:08:48And we're going to get to the Pro in a minute, which has an even newer chip.
00:08:51And I spent a lot of time with Apple executives learning about the wonders of the new chip.
00:08:58If you're just like a person who does normal iPad things in the world, I cannot in good
00:09:04conscience tell you a processor upgrade in your iPad is worth it.
00:09:08Yeah.
00:09:09And so I think that is the question.
00:09:10I think Apple would very much like you to buy the Air.
00:09:15And I think Apple thinks the Air is the correct one for the largest number of people.
00:09:21But it still feels a little like tweener-ish to me for a lot of things.
00:09:27I found some differences between the Air and the 10th gen iPad.
00:09:32The hover function on the new Apple Pencil will work on the Air.
00:09:36Yeah, it's a bunch of pencil stuff.
00:09:39The original, the 10th gen iPad is a USB-C doofus pencil, and it has the other smart
00:09:47keyboard or the Magic Keyboard, and that's it.
00:09:51And it 100 nits brighter?
00:09:54Sure.
00:09:55P3 instead of sRGB?
00:09:57Hey, that matters to me.
00:09:59Yeah, that and the fact that it has anti-reflective coating, those two things do actually matter.
00:10:03It's a slightly nicer product that uses slightly newer accessories.
00:10:07But again, by the time you're down this road of any of this stuff, you're way beyond the
00:10:13average, I-just-need-an-iPad-to-look-at-while-I-sit-on-the-couch user, right?
00:10:18To me, it's like, if you're even thinking about buying a Magic Keyboard, buy the Air
00:10:22or higher, period.
00:10:24I think that's fairly simple.
00:10:25I think a lot of people who want iPads don't want anything other than the pane of glass
00:10:30to hold in their hands.
00:10:32And for most of those people, I can't think of a single reason the Air is going to be
00:10:37meaningfully better for you in your life than the regular iPad.
00:10:40Yeah, and I think this points to just the problem, which is what is the use case for
00:10:46the iPad?
00:10:47And now, again, the hardware suggests that it is an expansive list of use cases.
00:10:53And to some extent, it is, right?
00:10:56Some people, I am sure, produce music and logic exclusively on an iPad.
00:11:03Those people are causing themselves an enormous amount of pain, but they're choosing to do
00:11:06it, and that is their right as Americans.
00:11:08Sure.
00:11:09Fine, right?
00:11:10It's just here at the bottom of the range, the step from the 10th gen to the Air is very
00:11:16small hardware-wise.
00:11:17Right.
00:11:18It is a nicer piece of hardware.
00:11:19It has a bigger screen.
00:11:21You can get now an even bigger screen, but it's a very mild refresh.
00:11:25And basically, they have added the 13-inch size.
00:11:28Fine.
00:11:29Yeah.
00:11:30But the capabilities of the product are exactly the same as they were yesterday or the day
00:11:35before.
00:11:37It's the iPad Pro and now the Pencil Pro.
00:11:43The purpose of this event, it felt like, was to simplify this increasingly complicated
00:11:48lineup.
00:11:49And you get to the iPad Pro and the Pencil Pro and the fact that Apple now sells, I think,
00:11:53four different pencils, and you're just like, what is going on here?
00:11:58The pencils are really bad.
00:12:00The chart of which pencil works with which product and has which feature, no.
00:12:06If you have a chart that big for Apple product, you've messed up.
00:12:10Yeah.
00:12:11Let's get into the...
00:12:12Well, there's that.
00:12:13Yeah.
00:12:14Let's talk about the philosophy of the iPad in a second.
00:12:15Sorry.
00:12:16The iPad Pro is a piece of hardware.
00:12:17It appears to be very impressive.
00:12:18David, you've seen it.
00:12:19Tell us about it.
00:12:20It's so, so good.
00:12:24We go to a lot of these events, right?
00:12:25And you're constantly being handed a thing that somebody has just spent a half hour telling
00:12:29you is new.
00:12:30Most of the time, you're just like, this is a MacBook of C. It sure is.
00:12:37And the iPad is the canonical example of that, right?
00:12:40For years and years and years, you pick up an iPad and you're like, boy, that sure is
00:12:43an iPad.
00:12:44I picked up the iPad Pro at this event in New York and out loud, involuntarily just
00:12:49said, holy shit.
00:12:51It is so thin and so light and so small, especially on the 13 inch.
00:12:58It's the biggest leap forward in how impressive I find this hardware in a really long time.
00:13:05Again, we can debate forever the value of any of this hardware, but just the sheer engineering
00:13:10feat to get this thing under a pound.
00:13:13It's 5.1 millimeters thick.
00:13:17By the way, everybody says 5.1 millimeters thin now, and I think we've complained about
00:13:20that.
00:13:21That's nothing.
00:13:22Things are not...
00:13:23You can't measure the thinness of something, it's thickness, and there's not much of it,
00:13:28Steve Jobs started doing this with, I believe, the second generation MacBook Air.
00:13:32I hate it so much, and everybody does this now and it drives me insane, but that's neither
00:13:36here nor there.
00:13:37It's 5.1 millimeters, but that's the 13 inch?
00:13:40Yeah, and the 11 inch, I believe, is 5.3.
00:13:44But the point is, they're spectacular.
00:13:47Truly as pieces of hardware, they are incredibly impressive, to the point where you're holding
00:13:51the thing and everybody who's made this joke, Marques Brownlee, when he made a video, had
00:13:56the JerryRigEverything guy just sort of peek out from the corner of the video.
00:14:01It feels like you could snap this thing in half.
00:14:04Whether or not you can, I don't know.
00:14:05If you can, that feels like a problem.
00:14:08But yeah, just the sheer machinery inside of this thing is really, really, really impressive.
00:14:12Yeah, and there's two pieces, I think, that are important to call out.
00:14:16One is the new processor, the M4, which is interesting just sort of from a processor
00:14:21technology standpoint.
00:14:23Apple didn't put an M3 in this.
00:14:26If you read Ben Thompson's trajectory, he points out that the M3 is on a three nanometer
00:14:32process node from TSMC that was a technology dead end, and TSMC has all but admitted it.
00:14:39And the M4 is on the one that is sustainable and has a future.
00:14:43So TSMC was like, we made this weird dead end because we have customers who insist on
00:14:47being at the leading edge.
00:14:50There's one customer that insists on being at the leading edge.
00:14:53So the M3 could be in whatever computers it was in, and the M4 is the leap to the good
00:14:59version of the three nanometer node that has a roadmap in front of it.
00:15:03So you see Apple is trying.
00:15:05They're putting the stuff, the best stuff they got, into this machine.
00:15:10And then on top of that, it has the tandem OLED.
00:15:13People have been talking about stacked OLED displays for a very long time.
00:15:17It's a really simple idea.
00:15:19It's deceptively simple.
00:15:21Obviously, it's taken a long time to pull off.
00:15:23But if you run an OLED at the brightness you want to run an OLED, it gets hot.
00:15:27You risk burn-in.
00:15:29So why don't we just take two OLED displays, basically combine their power source, and
00:15:34then we just run them each at half brightness on top of each other?
00:15:37It's like real pimp my ride.
00:15:41It's very clever.
00:15:42And then what you can do, and David, I'm very curious, because I haven't seen it, I know
00:15:46you run them both at top brightness, you get a much brighter OLED display, which is that,
00:15:52I think, is the promise and the thing that people have been trying to work on for a long
00:15:55time.
00:15:56Yeah, it was tough to tell.
00:15:57I mean, these Apple events are always lit really bizarrely in such a way that it's really
00:16:01hard to sort of get in the nitty-gritty pixels of a display.
00:16:04But it was noticeably brighter.
00:16:07Like I brought my 11-inch Pro from last generation with me, and just holding the two things side
00:16:13by side, you can tell how much brighter the OLED is.
00:16:16I think they said it's 1,600 nits at full brightness, which is a lot.
00:16:20I assume we'll just shred your battery to bits at full brightness, because you're running
00:16:25that many OLED pixels at full brightness, like I'm going to watch one episode of something
00:16:31and it's just going to shatter the battery.
00:16:33Well, no, but this is the idea, though, is that you get more efficiency, maybe at the
00:16:38top brightness, where you're running effectively both panels all the way.
00:16:41But the idea is that sort of at your everyday brightness, you're running both panels like
00:16:47halfway.
00:16:48Right.
00:16:49And that's also a big part of the reason that the M4 and the Tandem OLED are happening simultaneously.
00:16:56The overwhelming thing I heard talking to folks at this event was that we couldn't do
00:16:59one of these without the other.
00:17:02That driving those two displays at that high resolution and that high refresh rate is just
00:17:09a massive amount of computational work.
00:17:11And doing those two things, especially in a way that is at all power efficient, is just
00:17:16really hard.
00:17:17And that a lot of what the M4 is, is explicitly about driving the Tandem OLED, which I think
00:17:23is really interesting.
00:17:24And I wonder what that says about the next set of products that might have M4s inside.
00:17:30What kind of MacBook do you make if you've got a big Tandem OLED driver sitting on your
00:17:34chip, right?
00:17:35The big-ass battery?
00:17:36Exactly.
00:17:37It is just going to be one of those 100 mAh Anker batteries with a screen that falls out
00:17:42of it.
00:17:43I would take that product.
00:17:44If they made this twice as thick and got rid of the camera bump and was like, the battery
00:17:47lasts for a week, I would be happy.
00:17:50I do agree with that.
00:17:51I mean, there was a very funny thing where you hold this thing and it's a remarkable
00:17:55piece of technology, like they built the hell out of the hardware.
00:17:58But then I'm like, OK, if this thing was a little thicker so that it didn't have a camera
00:18:02bump, which is the thing a lot of people pointed out was this could have been the thickness
00:18:07of the camera bump and would have been about the same thickness as the last iPad, which
00:18:11no one was complaining about the thickness of, by the way.
00:18:14And you'd get more battery.
00:18:16You might get more power efficiency out of it.
00:18:18You'd get better speakers just because there's room to move the audio around.
00:18:22That maybe this constant thrust toward thinness that Apple has been on for so long is actually
00:18:29not the right strategy.
00:18:31And I largely agree with that, but like, God damn, is it cool just to hold the thing
00:18:35when it's that thin?
00:18:36This thing, you are Johnny I've killed.
00:18:38This thing is like Ives revenge.
00:18:40It kind of is.
00:18:41Here's what happens.
00:18:42You pick up an iPhone six and it flops over.
00:18:43But damn, is it thin?
00:18:44Yeah.
00:18:45Yeah, pretty much.
00:18:46Fine.
00:18:47Yeah.
00:18:48And then there's a new accessories, right?
00:18:50So there's the Apple Pencil Pro, which adds the ability to do a barrel roll barrel.
00:18:57You can also squeeze it.
00:18:59Love to love to squeeze a pencil.
00:19:01When I think about totally natural user interfaces, it's squeezing a pen.
00:19:04Yeah.
00:19:05Wait, can I just say two things about the pencil?
00:19:07Yeah.
00:19:08One, the squeeze is actually pretty nice.
00:19:09They put a real like haptic engine into it.
00:19:11So it feels it feels like a MacBook trackpad now in the sense that you get a little bit
00:19:16of that response.
00:19:17I don't know that it adds wildly to the experience of using it, but it does feel nice to squeeze
00:19:22the thing.
00:19:23The other thing is Apple is very excited about the developer possibilities for this.
00:19:28There are going to be APIs that you can just give to any app and they're going to be able
00:19:32to do stuff with the squeeze.
00:19:34And I just like casually threw out the example of like, oh, I can't wait to use my pencil
00:19:37to change the Spotify song.
00:19:39And somebody just goes, hmm, interesting idea.
00:19:41And I was like, no, that was a joke.
00:19:42That's a bad idea.
00:19:43No one should do that.
00:19:46So there's going to be some like deeply weird pencil gesture support stuff going on.
00:19:51And they're they're going to be able to chain gestures on the pencil to shortcuts.
00:19:57So all the shortcut nerds are really excited about this now.
00:20:01It's going to get really weird.
00:20:02And I'm very excited about it.
00:20:04Okay.
00:20:05My prediction is that it does not get weird.
00:20:09Like I, I love the idea of adaptive user interfaces and I have like talked about them with a lot
00:20:16of people over the years.
00:20:17I actually just Dylan Field, the CEO of Figma was on stage with me at South by and he's
00:20:22like, I love the idea of adaptive user interfaces.
00:20:25We talked specifically about styluses and pencils and like, what if as you were, you
00:20:31know, sketching a design in Figma, the sort of UI was around your stylus was adapting
00:20:36to what you were doing.
00:20:37So you can just like move seamless.
00:20:38Like this is a dream.
00:20:40This is a technologist dream.
00:20:42The idea that a bunch of app developers are going to flock to the broken app development
00:20:47model of the iPad and develop custom features for a pencil that is only available at the
00:20:52top end of the range.
00:20:56I look, David, I'm there.
00:20:57I really want you to squeeze your way through a Spotify playlist.
00:20:59I mean, there's nothing I want more for you.
00:21:01You're, you're way overstating the amount of work that it's going to be.
00:21:05It's like, it's like setting up a keyboard shortcut to do this.
00:21:07Like it's not hard work.
00:21:08My man, Netflix wouldn't put a video player on the vision pro.
00:21:11Yeah, I mean, fair, but also I mean, a, you're right.
00:21:19I would like everyone to email your favorite shortcut to Neil, I at the verge.com.
00:21:22I love it.
00:21:23I love a shortcut.
00:21:24I love them.
00:21:25Can't get enough of scripting my own applications to defeat the lack of cross app interoperability
00:21:32on Apple's platforms.
00:21:33It's my favorite.
00:21:34Yeah.
00:21:35I just, this is the sort of thing where Apple makes a big promise, but everybody's supporting
00:21:38a thing and then we wait.
00:21:40Yeah.
00:21:41So I would just challenge you on the scale of, I don't know, um, dashboard widgets to
00:21:50the touch bar.
00:21:51Where do we think pencil squeezing support is going to land from like very bad to very
00:21:56bad?
00:21:57Is that, is that where we're at right now?
00:21:59Uh, no, I think about some big Apple, um, UI idea that it had, uh, iPhone widgets on
00:22:05your lock screen, live activities and the dynamic island support.
00:22:08We've seen just a lot of support for that, especially as it came to the mainstream phone.
00:22:12Very good.
00:22:13Okay.
00:22:14So that's on the plus side.
00:22:15That's great.
00:22:16And then there's the touch bar all the way over there.
00:22:18The touch bar was awesome.
00:22:20Just nobody gave a shit.
00:22:23Okay.
00:22:25Excited for you to use Spotify with your touch bar.
00:22:27Okay.
00:22:28I'm just saying that's the range.
00:22:30Where do you put squeezing the pencil closer to the touch bar?
00:22:32I mean, I think it's just true.
00:22:36It's not a mainstream accessory.
00:22:38I would actually like keyboard shortcuts on the iPad are, are actually probably right
00:22:42in line with the same thing, right?
00:22:44It's the kind of thing that, uh, are relatively cheap to add and relatively straightforward
00:22:50for users to access once they have them.
00:22:52But the attach rate of those accessories is not super high.
00:22:55Yep.
00:22:56Most apps don't really need it.
00:22:57Like what you're going to see is there's going to be this set of like apps that use the pencil
00:23:02that are going to use the hell out of the pencil and you're already all of the drawing
00:23:06apps and like, I've just been talking to folks even in the last couple of days, like
00:23:10folks are psyched about the barrel roll stuff and just like the little creative abilities
00:23:15that you get just with the additional tiny features in here are like a big deal, but
00:23:20they're a big deal for a tiny number of features to a tiny number of people.
00:23:24That's great.
00:23:25But I don't see a world in which the pencil is ever bigger than that.
00:23:28So I think the idea that like Spotify is going to care about it is not real.
00:23:32If a pencil came free, I would feel differently, but it doesn't.
00:23:35I do love the idea that you go to events where people are sort of professionally obligated
00:23:39to like be kind to you and just have horrible ideas and they're like, good idea.
00:23:44It's so fun.
00:23:45It's so fun.
00:23:46I just pitch stupid products to people for like several hours and they go and then they
00:23:51keep giving me demos.
00:23:52It's great.
00:23:53So that's the pencil.
00:23:55What I'm really curious about is the keyboard because my favorite plain computer of all
00:24:00time was a 12 inch MacBook, which was super light and thin.
00:24:03I tried to replace it with the previous 11 inch iPad pro, which just turned out to like
00:24:08thick, like it was just like a heavy, weird, it just like wasn't as good as a laptop in
00:24:13many ways because of just the way it worked.
00:24:16Is the new keyboard case sort of better?
00:24:18They announced it as being more like a MacBook than ever, which I thought was really interesting.
00:24:22The top half hasn't really changed, which I think is going to be its challenge.
00:24:28It's still, at least in the demos I got and the time I was able to spend with it, it's
00:24:32still a little wobbly, especially when you touch it.
00:24:35So it kind of wiggles as you move it around.
00:24:37The bottom, especially on the pros is aluminum.
00:24:41It's much more solid.
00:24:42It's really smooth.
00:24:43It actually like feels nice to rest your palm on kind of MacBook airishly.
00:24:48And the keys felt amazing.
00:24:49I've spent like 10 minutes on it, so I reserved the right to change my mind.
00:24:52But it, it was, it was one of those keyboards you just put your hands down and instantly
00:24:55start typing on.
00:24:57I also really love Apple's normal magic keyboard.
00:25:02So everyone's mileage may vary on that, but I think that's a great keyboard.
00:25:05And this felt to my hands just like that, which is kind of all you'd want for this.
00:25:09I always thought the iPad pros keyboard was a little like mushy and sort of thick.
00:25:16It just, it just felt like you had to sort of smash the keys all the time.
00:25:19And then I spilled like half a diet Coke on mine.
00:25:22So now you have to really smash the keys.
00:25:25But this one, at least in the bits that I've gotten felt fantastic.
00:25:29Like I instantly want it as just a little kitchen computer that I can just sit and like
00:25:36write emails while I wait for my coffee to brew.
00:25:39Like it felt great.
00:25:40But I have a question.
00:25:42Which do you want more?
00:25:43This or Microsoft Surface device?
00:25:48Because like the whole time watching this, the whole time talking about it, talking even
00:25:51about the stylus, I was like, this just feels kind of like Microsoft in 2017 or 2018, right?
00:25:57Like when they and all the OEMs were really pushing like, yeah, look, it's a touch screen
00:26:01computer.
00:26:02And I'm like, yes, now Apple has done a touch screen computer right down to talking about
00:26:07the processor, which they didn't used to do with the iPad.
00:26:10Like this is just a computer.
00:26:12Yeah.
00:26:13There was a, this was a speeds and feeds event.
00:26:15It's fascinating on that front.
00:26:16It really was.
00:26:17Super weird.
00:26:18Interesting.
00:26:19So it's interesting.
00:26:21Back then I think Windows was in a weirder spot.
00:26:26So they announced the Surface and they were like, but then it's Windows and Windows is
00:26:32in a sideways sort of fashion come a long way.
00:26:36Yeah.
00:26:37Like I would say it's in a different spot.
00:26:39Right.
00:26:40Is that spot ahead?
00:26:41It's more of a diagonal.
00:26:42Yeah.
00:26:43Yeah.
00:26:44It's gone.
00:26:45It's, it's come a distance.
00:26:47Yeah.
00:26:48The direction I think is a good direction.
00:26:51And I only say that because you can argue about what the evolution of Windows to contrast
00:26:57with the fact that the iPad is in exactly the same place as it was.
00:27:01Yes.
00:27:02I went back and I read my iPad air review from 2013, which in a horrifying sequence
00:27:07of events, I forgot that I had written.
00:27:09You're like, oh, this guy's pretty good.
00:27:12Yeah.
00:27:13It's like, oh, smart.
00:27:14Snappy.
00:27:15Oh, that's me.
00:27:16Here it is.
00:27:17And it is exactly the same.
00:27:19That iPad was running iPadOS 7.
00:27:22Yeah.
00:27:23And my review is like, this thing is constantly fighting you.
00:27:27They have not done enough with this software to take advantage of the larger screen.
00:27:30And it's just like plaintive.
00:27:32Like why is Siri so weird on this?
00:27:34Like why is it, why is it just a big iPhone?
00:27:37I read my iPad pro review from 2018 when it, the first USBC one.
00:27:41And I'm like, why is this computer fighting me?
00:27:43Like why is file management on the iPad so confused?
00:27:47Yeah.
00:27:48And all that stuff has gotten incrementally better.
00:27:50Yep.
00:27:51They've added stage manager.
00:27:52Shortcuts people, I'm so proud of you for writing an alternative operating system in
00:27:57shortcuts on top of iPadOS.
00:28:00That is an achievement.
00:28:01You know, that's cool as hell.
00:28:03That's like, I'm a computer nerd.
00:28:05I'm happy to do computer nerd stuff.
00:28:07But the ultimate problem, which is you have to fight the computer to get it to be a computer,
00:28:13like remains as true for the iPad today as it did in 2013 when I was running iOS 7.
00:28:19Yeah.
00:28:21And I think my answer to you then, given that question is like, I'd rather take the weird
00:28:25sideways windows because at least, at least it's going to do everything that I want it
00:28:32to do without some like.
00:28:36Like putting on armor and just going to war with your operating system.
00:28:38Yeah.
00:28:39Just like running into like the brick wall of Apple's business model.
00:28:41Yeah.
00:28:42Right.
00:28:43Apple's like, we're going to distribute all the applications to the app store.
00:28:45We're going to take 30% of all those buttons.
00:28:48And if we open that up on the iPad, then we're terrified that we'll have to open it up on
00:28:52the iPhone.
00:28:53We're already being brats about opening it up on the iPhone.
00:28:56Like no, like it's going to be like this.
00:29:00This is the future of computing.
00:29:02And then you're like, is it?
00:29:04Yeah.
00:29:05And it really doesn't.
00:29:06It feels just like they made a hobbled Surface device.
00:29:10Like to be clear, my dream Surface device in 2018, but a hobbled Surface device, right
00:29:16down to the fact that you have to choose the processor, the storage, like the markups
00:29:22are high to make it functional.
00:29:24So the thing we don't know, the thing we don't know is like what's going to happen in June.
00:29:28That's true.
00:29:29That's true.
00:29:30Will they rev iPadOS?
00:29:31And that's what, to me, David, I couldn't tell if while you were at the watch parties
00:29:35and I had one in New York and one in London, like maybe the vibes are different all around
00:29:39the world.
00:29:40But for me sitting at home, watching it in the glorious Dolby Atmos of my own home, Apple,
00:29:47by the way, did not stream this thing at any more than like eight megabits per second.
00:29:51So it was not in Sony Bravia core.
00:29:53Yeah.
00:29:54It was at 48 kilohertz Atmos, which was great, but I mean, come on, where's the, where's
00:29:57the resolution, man?
00:29:58You're going to show John Ternus whipping around the bark, holding an iPad.
00:30:02I want the full, anyway, I was like, man, like I can't wait until next month when they
00:30:09finish this product.
00:30:11Yeah, exactly.
00:30:14It just felt like, okay, you've, you've announced this thing that we've already seen before.
00:30:18We've already heard the pitch that this kind of computer is really good for creatives because
00:30:22that was the whole pitch, right?
00:30:23It was like, look, this is for creatives.
00:30:24And I was like, yeah, I heard that from Microsoft and HP and everybody else back in 2018.
00:30:29I know that now.
00:30:30And you've heard that from Apple about the iPad.
00:30:32Yeah.
00:30:33And like, okay, show me.
00:30:34And they're like, yeah, we did it.
00:30:35No, no.
00:30:36It's actually good for creatives now where it's actually that useful computer.
00:30:40All you've done is like crush a bunch of stuff with a hydraulic press.
00:30:43Wait, I want to come to the crushing.
00:30:44We'll get to that.
00:30:45Yeah.
00:30:46Yeah.
00:30:47I'm curious, David, if that came through at the, whatever the, when it was, it wasn't
00:30:51like a full event, but I'm curious if it came through there.
00:30:53I think it was hard to tell at the event whether this was the end of something or the beginning
00:30:59of something.
00:31:00And one way to look at this event is that essentially Apple like finished the job of
00:31:05the iPad, right?
00:31:06And they said this over and over and over again.
00:31:07They're like, this is the magical pane of glass, right?
00:31:10That's the thing they've been wanting to build for a really long time.
00:31:13And like they, they built a really nice one.
00:31:16It has an outrageous amount of raw horsepower.
00:31:19It's really light.
00:31:20It's really thin.
00:31:21The screen looks awesome.
00:31:22Like you could make the case that they have been sort of working toward this particular
00:31:26iPad since the beginning of the iPad.
00:31:28And I think like they said over and over, this is the biggest day in the iPad since
00:31:32the launch of the iPad, which like objectively not true.
00:31:36But if you want to look at it that way, this is the end of that journey in a certain way.
00:31:40Like I genuinely don't know how much further you can push the actual details of the hardware
00:31:46here than what this is now until we get to like rollable displays and something.
00:31:51It's like this feels like an endpoint in a real way.
00:31:54Or the flip side is this is the thing that is going to empower all of the things that
00:31:59Apple is going to launch in June.
00:32:00And that was all the stuff that they were sort of intimating with the AI stuff and talking
00:32:04about the features and, you know, leaning on.
00:32:07We're going to have more to say about the future of the platform in June.
00:32:09I don't think this running Mac OS is the answer for the iPad.
00:32:13And there are a lot of people who are like, the evidence is everywhere.
00:32:16They're going to have Mac OS on the iPad.
00:32:17Like, no, they're not.
00:32:18It's just not going to happen.
00:32:19But if there is a next turn for what the iPad can be and do, and like a fundamental shift
00:32:27in the use case, that's when this feels like the beginning of something, right?
00:32:31And now they're like, we have a different kind of hardware with a different set of accessories
00:32:35and a different performance envelope that can actually go do all of this new stuff.
00:32:40And this is the story everybody has been telling us about AI for like damn near two years now.
00:32:45And none of it's really been true.
00:32:46So I'm not ultra confident that Apple is going to have like massively improved the state
00:32:52of the art of AI and has solved all the features for everybody in June.
00:32:56But this did, it felt very much like this is the vessel and we're going to fill it a
00:33:03month from now.
00:33:04And if not, this will feel like the end of an era of the iPad to me.
00:33:08How does AI fix iPad OS?
00:33:10I want to come to that.
00:33:12That's where I want to end.
00:33:13Okay.
00:33:14I'm sorry.
00:33:15Sorry.
00:33:16I definitely want to end there.
00:33:17Yeah.
00:33:18I just want to, before we get to that, because I think that's, that's the right place to
00:33:19end for sure.
00:33:20And I think that's another hour of the show.
00:33:23I just want to call out the biggest day of the iPad since the iPad.
00:33:27Off the top of my head, I can think of three more important iPads than these that like
00:33:33move the needle.
00:33:34The iPad two, which was like a shock announcement and the design direction of the iPad two was
00:33:41basically the iPad until Monday.
00:33:45Like that ninth gen iPad with the lightning connector, like slightly different design,
00:33:50but it was, it's an iPad two.
00:33:52They just flattened it a little bit, right?
00:33:54But it's the same exact home button bezels, the whole thing.
00:33:58That's an iPad two.
00:33:59And that iPad two launch, Steve Jobs on a stage, we're like, I did it again.
00:34:03You saw the first gen iPad.
00:34:04Here's the second one.
00:34:07This is always my test.
00:34:09That shit made the local news.
00:34:10Yeah.
00:34:11Right.
00:34:12If you, if you want to break through in the mainstream, you need ABC seven in Chicago
00:34:15to be like Apple announced a new iPad today.
00:34:17You got to do it.
00:34:18You got to get there.
00:34:20The iPad four, which was the retina display and lightning connector, the iPad three had
00:34:26a retina display, but it was way too early and it was thicker and the thing ran so hot.
00:34:31The battery life was garbage.
00:34:32The iPad four was the good one.
00:34:34Huge.
00:34:35Big deal.
00:34:36Everybody I know who had an iPad immediately upgraded to that iPad.
00:34:39And then the original iPad air where they changed it to the boxier design and they like
00:34:44gave it the extra capabilities.
00:34:47That was a big deal, which is why I was reading my 2013 review where they, they redid the
00:34:52form factor to make it that more square and a form factor change is always just a big
00:34:57deal.
00:34:58Like none of the ones you mentioned though were when they got rid of the button.
00:35:02Yeah.
00:35:03Cause whatever.
00:35:04You don't care about the button.
00:35:06I believe that was the original iPad pro.
00:35:08Yeah.
00:35:09That's the 2018 iPad pro.
00:35:10And that one I would say was not as big deal because that's when they added the keyboard
00:35:13and they'd like got real surfacy and I'm just using my local news test.
00:35:18That thing was really expensive.
00:35:20It tried, it tried to make it a laptop and it, I did it work.
00:35:25Did it go on the local news?
00:35:26I'm just saying off the top of my head, well if you're just ranking the biggest iPads,
00:35:31the things that made the iPad breakthrough to the mainstream and like cause a fuss, it's
00:35:36100% the iPad two.
00:35:39Yes.
00:35:40It's really the most beat you're ranking the biggest moments for the iPad since the iPad.
00:35:44The iPad two is at the top of that list without question.
00:35:48Then I think it is the iPad four when all of the early adopters, the iPad upgraded cause
00:35:52the hardware had a new capability and the retina screen that was worthwhile.
00:35:55Instead of the iPad three, which again had a retina screen but was also a tiny nuclear
00:35:59reactor.
00:36:00Uh, and then the, the iPad air, which was the big form factor shift that everybody upgraded
00:36:05to and also pass the local news test of Apple has a new iPad.
00:36:08It's was thinner than ever before.
00:36:10Like that thing.
00:36:11I do want to tell you that in fact the, the event this week did pass the local news test.
00:36:16You're watching ABC seven ABC seven did in fact cover it.
00:36:19Oh no, it's covering the streaming bundle in Chicago.
00:36:23Just going, but, but yeah, they were just like Apple unveils new iPad pro with outrageously
00:36:28powerful AI powered chip.
00:36:31All right.
00:36:32I'm not going to tell you why I think about ABC seven news.
00:36:34Um, it is what my mom watches.
00:36:36Okay.
00:36:38So I, I'm, I'm with you like local news when it hits local news.
00:36:40So I'm genuinely surprised this hit.
00:36:43They need something.
00:36:44All right.
00:36:45It was a slow news week for them.
00:36:46Obviously that's my test and I, that's to me is the, God bless the people at ABC seven
00:36:51news.
00:36:52Yeah.
00:36:53I'm in Chicago for New Year's every year and they do a, just a wild New Year's Eve thing.
00:36:56So that's why it's always on my mind.
00:36:58But it is true.
00:36:59That's the one my, uh, my mom watches.
00:37:01Uh, but I think about that test and it's like, did this pass the test where a whole bunch
00:37:06of new people are going to pick an iPad or going to buy an iPad?
00:37:11And I don't, I don't think this hardware is that thing.
00:37:14No.
00:37:15Maybe at the top end of the scale, a bunch of people are going to get an iPad pro cause
00:37:16I want to do a barrel roll.
00:37:19I'm that person.
00:37:20I'm not a tandem OLED.
00:37:22Yeah, I'm in, let's spend the money.
00:37:25I'm just, that's the thing I'm thinking about.
00:37:26And that's where I'm with David where I'm like, you gotta, you gotta reset your expectations
00:37:31of what the thing is capable of.
00:37:33Yeah.
00:37:34And that's what I think brings me to the commercial and all of this talk about AI, Apple said
00:37:40a million times is the most powerful AI computer you can get because the M four we've been
00:37:45doing the neural engine for years.
00:37:47Here's uh, uh, the, the thing in logic where you can put in a song and it does the AI and
00:37:52it splits the stems and the drums and guitars and vocals for you.
00:37:56That's cool.
00:37:57Here's some final cut pro stuff.
00:37:58That's cool.
00:37:59By the way, final cut camera on the iPhone.
00:38:00They announced, they just slid by that.
00:38:03They announced pro camera software for the iPhone through it.
00:38:07That rules.
00:38:08Like that's awesome.
00:38:09Um, but you know, the thing is very powerful and then they're like, we're going to have
00:38:12more AI feet.
00:38:13You can see they're going to, that's a ton of AI features at WWDC.
00:38:16And I think what is fascinating is maybe Apple's core constituency hates it.
00:38:24And then this ad just like lit the fuse.
00:38:27The ad was like unintentionally a flashpoint and what feels like some sort of new class
00:38:32warfare between like big tech and creatives and, and we've been seeing it in Hollywood
00:38:38a lot, right?
00:38:39Like as Apple and Amazon and everybody goes and takes over streaming there, everybody's
00:38:43got really strong feelings about it.
00:38:45But to see it happen here, to see like Hugh Grant be like, this sucks, you're destroying
00:38:50the world.
00:38:51That was a really bad Hugh Grant impression.
00:38:52Yeah.
00:38:53Sorry.
00:38:54I, he's famously British.
00:38:55He's famously British.
00:38:56I'm, I'm, I'm not.
00:38:57The opposite of British.
00:38:58The opposite.
00:38:59So the, the ad is a bunch of stuff like beautiful old creative stuff.
00:39:04Yeah.
00:39:05It's like paint and phones.
00:39:06There's a trumpet, I believe in the beginning.
00:39:07Yeah.
00:39:08A metronome, a sculpture that I thought was, was like a sculpture and then it was clay
00:39:14because it just smooshed all unsatisfyingly in the hydraulic press.
00:39:18And it was like a really good commercial and it's the same thing they've done a billion
00:39:21times before where they're just like, what if all of this stuff was in the palm of your
00:39:26hand?
00:39:27And everybody's like, F off.
00:39:30Yeah.
00:39:31How dare you?
00:39:32You were, and cause I think it was the, that, that image of things being all crushed.
00:39:36Being destroyed.
00:39:37Like beautiful things being destroyed.
00:39:38Yeah.
00:39:39To make an iPad.
00:39:40And everybody out there in the world is, is really upset.
00:39:42There's a lot of anxiety around AI in so many creative industries.
00:39:47So to have that happen, it was like, Ooh, y'all missed the mark on that one.
00:39:51Yeah.
00:39:52I think the, the like overarching point of the idea that technology is like literally
00:39:59flattening creative culture, good and fair and valid and worth fighting about the reaction
00:40:04to this commercial in particular is so stupid and I just wish everyone would get over it.
00:40:09It's so funny.
00:40:11Like, I will say there was a great, uh, I forget who did it and I'm sorry, I can't give
00:40:15them credit for it, but there was somebody who literally just ran that commercial in
00:40:18reverse and was like, this is actually much more compelling and sells the iPad much better
00:40:22than all of this stuff comes out of the iPad.
00:40:25And I think that's very funny because it wasn't much more like compelling and uplifting version
00:40:28of the thing.
00:40:29Uh, but also like the idea that everyone is like, Apple has always loved creatives and
00:40:35now it's destroying trumpets is like, come on everybody.
00:40:38Like it's, nothing has changed.
00:40:41Apple is trying to tell you that there's lots of things that you can do in an iPad.
00:40:44And the fact that it's smushed a trumpet to do so is probably fine.
00:40:48It's probably fine.
00:40:50Things have changed for a lot of folks, right?
00:40:52Like things have changed on the other side of it that was totally unrelated to Apple.
00:40:55Like it really was just Apple just like stepping in it without even knowing that we're stepping
00:40:59in it because out there in the world, people are furious at technology in general.
00:41:04And then Apple was just like, look, we did a cool iPad and everybody's like, you'll die.
00:41:08I agree with that.
00:41:09I think, I think the, the broader story here is real, right?
00:41:12And Apple is out there talking about AI while everybody is rightly nervous about what AI
00:41:16is going to mean to their creative work.
00:41:18All that stuff is totally fair and valid.
00:41:20It just isn't about this commercial.
00:41:21No, that's what I mean.
00:41:23I think the commercial is like, dude, in a month, Apple is going to announce AI features
00:41:28across its operating systems.
00:41:30Like huge sweeping AI features from the reports we've read.
00:41:37They're going to add the, the AI photo editing to photos.
00:41:41Just imagine the, what is a photo conversation we're going to be having in a month when that
00:41:45stuff is built in at the system level to the iPhone.
00:41:49It's never going to stop.
00:41:50We're just going to start Verge casting right after the keynote ends and we're going straight
00:41:54on to the end of the year.
00:41:56This is officially my two week notice, but I mean like they want to add generative capabilities
00:42:04to the products directly.
00:42:06And I think what they just learned is even a hint of breaking creative stuff is bad for
00:42:13them.
00:42:14I think the reaction to the ad is like, one, don't destroy cool things that we like.
00:42:19David, it sounds like your disdain for trumpets is off the charts.
00:42:24Some people think trumpets are cool, right?
00:42:27There's ska bands across the world that are like, what are you doing?
00:42:30David's like, no to ska.
00:42:32Destroy all trumpets.
00:42:33There's, you know, there's like a retro arcade console.
00:42:36It's just like cool stuff, stuff people like.
00:42:38And they're like, smash.
00:42:39We're doing one of those TikToks with the hydraulic smashers.
00:42:42And now here's an iPad, this like sort of soulless corporate pane of glass, right?
00:42:49You take that anxiety just around this ad, just around the imagery of that ad, and you
00:42:54hand it, you like point it at iOS itself in a month and it's like, oh, that's a powder
00:43:00keg actually.
00:43:01Yeah.
00:43:02It is.
00:43:03And Apple has been, I think the extent to which it has misread the room about how people
00:43:09think about Apple, I think is what has been most telling about this, because there was
00:43:12a time when Apple really did convince creative people that it was behind them, right?
00:43:20And it was, it was making tool, even as it was disrupting the music industry and changing
00:43:24the way a lot of this stuff worked.
00:43:25People who made things used Apple products, like overwhelmingly that was the case.
00:43:30And there was the sense that like this company made good products in the right way and believed
00:43:34in creative people and cared about this stuff.
00:43:36And Steve Jobs was a Pixar investor, like all this stuff.
00:43:39And I think between the way that Apple's business model has been sort of aired out like dirty
00:43:45laundry over the last couple of years, and the way we've come to understand what it does
00:43:49to developers, and the way that all of this stuff is just in general getting subsumed
00:43:53inside of technology.
00:43:55Like there's the bigger story about what technology is doing to the world and to creative people
00:44:00that I think is interesting and important.
00:44:01But there's also a thing that has happened where people don't look at Apple the way Apple
00:44:05thinks that they do anymore.
00:44:07And I think to me, that was the thing that was most interesting about this was a bunch
00:44:10of people who otherwise would have been like, oh, Apple's, you know, one of the good ones.
00:44:14They actually care about this stuff.
00:44:16It's a huge tech company that actually like does the right things the right way.
00:44:20That company does not get the benefit of the doubt anymore.
00:44:23And I don't know that that's coming back.
00:44:24And I think it's going to really hurt it with AI in a really big way.
00:44:28The thing that I have thought about the moment, like specific phrase that I've been thinking
00:44:32about during this whole commercial kerfuffle, which I agree is it's about something else.
00:44:38Yeah.
00:44:39Right.
00:44:40But I have been thinking a lot about Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone 4 and he held
00:44:44it up and he was admiring his own product in a way that Steve Jobs was want to do.
00:44:48And he said, it's like a beautiful old Leica camera.
00:44:53And he meant it.
00:44:54Right.
00:44:55Like he was like, this is I loved that thing.
00:44:59And I made a thing that is like it.
00:45:02And this thing is actually meant to honor that thing.
00:45:05Right.
00:45:06You just go watch it.
00:45:07You go watch the iPhone 4 introduction.
00:45:09It's funny because he like dunks on Gizmodo at the beginning.
00:45:11I'm sorry, Alex.
00:45:12It's fine.
00:45:13Alex wasn't there yet.
00:45:14I wasn't there yet.
00:45:15But it's like, you know, it's like a whole thing.
00:45:16Right.
00:45:17It's Steve Jobs has to reannounce the product that has been so thoroughly leaked that it
00:45:22has already been disassembled on the Internet.
00:45:26And he does a great job.
00:45:27But there's this moment that makes it work, that like makes it click where he's like,
00:45:32it is like a beautiful old Leica camera.
00:45:34And he's just talking about a piece of design that he loves that represents a way of doing
00:45:37things that he obviously respects.
00:45:40And that's now here's his iPhone.
00:45:42Contrast that to buy your mom an iPhone.
00:45:44Like that's that's the journey.
00:45:45But contrast that to buy your mom an iPhone.
00:45:48Contrast that to we're going to smash everything in your iPad.
00:45:51Yeah.
00:45:52Right.
00:45:53It's like, oh, now we're a bulldozer.
00:45:54Yeah.
00:45:55We're not a participant in this thing.
00:45:56Right.
00:45:57We're not going to honor the past of creativity with blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:45:59We've commodified creativity.
00:46:01We're a bunch of accountants who are going to take our 30 percent.
00:46:04And that is bad.
00:46:05Like I whatever it is.
00:46:07I'm sure someone is going to write to me about Apple stock performance now, like whatever
00:46:10you want to think about that.
00:46:12That's great.
00:46:13They're dominant.
00:46:14People love them.
00:46:16But they don't.
00:46:17That benefit of the doubt where the company was led by an artist or someone who held himself
00:46:22out as an artist or a patron of the arts or whatever is gone.
00:46:26And I think this ad is actually a reflection of that.
00:46:29Right.
00:46:31It's an ad.
00:46:32It's a very expensive ad.
00:46:33But it's not born out of a love of those things.
00:46:36Because if you truly loved those things, you would not smash them.
00:46:42And like maybe that's just a metaphor.
00:46:43Maybe it's silly.
00:46:44Maybe it's just a misfire.
00:46:45But a month from now, they're going to launch a bunch of AI features that are trained on
00:46:51a bunch of creative work.
00:46:52And they're going to have to answer a bunch of questions about whether or not they paid
00:46:55for that training data and whether artists are going to compensate it and whether if
00:46:58you type into GarageBand, make me a beat in the style of whoever, that person gets
00:47:03money.
00:47:04And like, are you ready for this?
00:47:07Because the reaction to this ad suggests that you are not.
00:47:11Yeah.
00:47:12The same is true of Google.
00:47:14Next week is Google I.O. where they're going to announce a bunch of AI.
00:47:18It's just destined to happen.
00:47:21I can confidently predict that Google is going to announce a bunch of AI stuff at Google
00:47:24I.O.
00:47:25We're going to talk about Gemini a lot.
00:47:27They're going to put Gemini in your face.
00:47:29And are they ready?
00:47:30Are they ready for that stuff?
00:47:31This week, OpenAI is the leaked details of how they're going out to publishers.
00:47:37And the publishers are like, you already scraped the data.
00:47:39This is a head fake.
00:47:41We don't trust you.
00:47:42And I think this whole industry is kind of like on a razor's edge.
00:47:45Like, they don't understand that the lack of trust around AI is going to come to all
00:47:50of their products, including a relatively innocuous iPad ad.
00:47:55Yeah.
00:47:56I agree.
00:47:57A hundred percent.
00:47:58All right.
00:47:59I'm very curious now to see what iOS 17 brings.
00:48:00By the way, David, what is the evidence real quick before we break that it's going to run
00:48:04macOS?
00:48:05Because that would be my dream.
00:48:06I don't know.
00:48:07There's just a lot of I think a lot of people who are like, oh, the magic keyboard exists
00:48:11and feels more like a Mac.
00:48:12There's a bigger trackpad.
00:48:14People just want it.
00:48:15Thus macOS.
00:48:16I challenge anyone to like try and think about how you would touch the things in your menu
00:48:22bar.
00:48:23Like, it's just not a good idea.
00:48:24You should have Mac apps that this rules poking away over here.
00:48:27This is great.
00:48:28I'm trying to I'm trying to scroll down to get my menu bar.
00:48:31No, I as far as I can tell, there is no actual evidence except this thing is stupendously
00:48:36powerful.
00:48:37And when you put it in, it kind of feels like a laptop.
00:48:39Yeah.
00:48:40All right.
00:48:41No, that's my dream.
00:48:42If you're listening to me, Tim, I will trust you again.
00:48:45If you put macOS in there, it's a bad dream, Tim.
00:48:47Don't listen.
00:48:48Turn off the podcast.
00:48:50Tim is in our YouTube comments.
00:48:52He's like first.
00:48:53That's him every time.
00:48:54All right.
00:48:55We got to take a break.
00:48:56We'll be right back.
00:48:57And then Alex is going to tell us about streaming.
00:48:59So buckle up.
00:49:00We'll be right back.
00:49:01All right.
00:49:02We're back.
00:49:03Alex, I feel like every time we talk about streaming, you say uncomfortably horny things
00:49:14with David Zaslav.
00:49:15It's true.
00:49:16So I would like you to just assure me that that is not going to happen today.
00:49:23I can't make promises that way.
00:49:24All right.
00:49:25Well, I tried.
00:49:26I did my best to protect myself and our extended listener family.
00:49:29You guys all love him too.
00:49:30That's why you're listening.
00:49:31Don't worry.
00:49:32I get it.
00:49:33The good news is there's not a lot of direct Zaslav news.
00:49:37There isn't.
00:49:38No.
00:49:39They had their earnings.
00:49:40Disney's had their earnings.
00:49:41A lot of folks had their earnings this week and they're doing okay.
00:49:43They're making money.
00:49:45And that's because they have things like ads and they're running these companies like businesses
00:49:51that have to make money now rather than just like giving us all free content all the time,
00:49:55which was super sick.
00:49:56And I will miss those years like crazy.
00:50:00But the big stuff was like Disney, Hulu, and Max are all going to get a bundle at some
00:50:04point this summer.
00:50:05Not your child.
00:50:06You know, she walked up to the TV the other day and said, why is there an icon that said
00:50:10Max?
00:50:12And I honestly, I challenge you to explain that to a six-year-old in a way that makes
00:50:17any sense.
00:50:18First of all, kudos to Max.
00:50:19Can read.
00:50:20That rules.
00:50:21That's awesome.
00:50:22Yes.
00:50:23Yeah.
00:50:24Did you start explaining David Zaslav to her?
00:50:26I just challenge you to explain, like, try, be like, you're six years old.
00:50:31You cannot start with, there once was a company called Time Warner.
00:50:34That's what I was hoping.
00:50:35Right?
00:50:36Like that.
00:50:37You're just like, there was a mistake.
00:50:39That's a mistake.
00:50:40Is that how you write a children's book for Max?
00:50:43Just to explain that?
00:50:44There was a mistake.
00:50:47Inside of that icon rests a 4'3 Grayscale Batman movie.
00:50:53I'm sorry.
00:50:54Okay?
00:50:55Like the entire, one day I will tell you the story of the American economy and it will
00:50:59start with that icon.
00:51:02But for now, don't worry about it, Max.
00:51:03Okay.
00:51:04So this is where we get to Zaslav.
00:51:05Obviously Zaslav runs Warner Brothers Discovery.
00:51:07He's been looking for money.
00:51:08Yeah.
00:51:09He's been looking for growth.
00:51:10And what better way than to partner up with other companies who are also looking for growth
00:51:15and being like, if we get together, we can offer our stuff cheaper and also not have
00:51:19the FTC come after us constantly for having our own little like fiefdoms.
00:51:26So they're going to bundle this up and say, is it going to be two different apps?
00:51:31Three?
00:51:32So I guess Hulu is already in Disney Plus.
00:51:33Right.
00:51:34Hulu's already in Disney Plus.
00:51:35That's why it's like that gross color now.
00:51:37Yeah.
00:51:38They were just like, they smashed the blue and the green together.
00:51:40So you sign up.
00:51:41I read the press releases.
00:51:43The press releases are like, we'll release more details later.
00:51:46Yeah.
00:51:47There really isn't a lot of details.
00:51:48It really is just like, it's coming.
00:51:49Yeah.
00:51:50We don't know pricing.
00:51:51We don't know when.
00:51:52We just know it's happening.
00:51:53So you're going to pay some money to someone.
00:51:54Yes.
00:51:55They're going to figure it out.
00:51:56And he lied.
00:51:57David's very good at this.
00:51:58Zaslav, not Pierce.
00:51:59And then you're going to, I feel like if David Pierce was in charge with, in charge of Warner
00:52:03Brothers Discovery.
00:52:04I was going to say, I honestly believe like to my bones that I could run the streaming
00:52:08industry more successfully than any of these clowns.
00:52:10Oh, you 100%.
00:52:11The user interface would work.
00:52:16Just let David do it.
00:52:17That's what I'm saying.
00:52:18You're going to log into two apps, you're going to have two apps on your Roku still.
00:52:22We don't know.
00:52:23We don't know.
00:52:24Yeah.
00:52:25We genuinely don't know most of this stuff.
00:52:26We know that it's coming.
00:52:27We know that they're excited about it.
00:52:29I would say, by the way, that there is virtually no chance of this being a combined app.
00:52:35Like just from what we've seen on the right stuff alone, like Disney, the work they had
00:52:41to do to integrate the Hulu stuff with Disney Plus.
00:52:44And those are two companies owned by Disney.
00:52:48Just the right stuff that wouldn't allow some things on Hulu to be in Disney Plus.
00:52:52So there are things that are in Hulu, the app that are not in Hulu, the tile and Disney
00:52:56Plus.
00:52:57Like imagine adding all of a whole nother company to that.
00:53:00I just don't see how that's possible.
00:53:02Like this is good.
00:53:04They're going for unified login, which is a good idea, is like the most ambitious thing
00:53:09I think comes out of this.
00:53:10Yeah.
00:53:11But the entire idea of these roll ups to begin with, Disney buying Fox, buying out the rest
00:53:15of Hulu from Comcast, Disclosure, Comcast as a stake in our parent company, Vox Media,
00:53:21and also people hated Comcast so much they rebranded their cable company to Xfinity.
00:53:24That's a real story.
00:53:25They don't like me very much.
00:53:28There's Disclosure.
00:53:30And then Zazlove just zazzing his way to merging Warner Brothers and Discovery.
00:53:34The idea there was always scale, right?
00:53:37The specific pitch for Warner Brothers Discovery was, we will have HBO for your appointment
00:53:43Sunday night viewing.
00:53:44And then the rest of the time when you're like, I don't know, what do those Property
00:53:48Brothers do?
00:53:49And you'll just like turn that on and watch TikTok in the background, right?
00:53:51And they explicitly made this, this is the idea.
00:53:54Like the bundle will be so big that you'll subscribe to it.
00:53:57It'll be great for you.
00:53:58But bundles can get bigger.
00:54:01And that's what, like this has run out.
00:54:03Yeah.
00:54:04Yeah.
00:54:05And then there's other content, right?
00:54:06Like it is unrealistic to expect people to only watch Netflix.
00:54:11It is unrealistic to expect people to only watch Disney Plus unless they're like under
00:54:15the age of five, in which case it's super realistic.
00:54:17But like...
00:54:18Did you see that stat by the way?
00:54:21One out of every three shows on Disney Plus is a Blu-ray stream.
00:54:23Yeah.
00:54:24Wow.
00:54:25Is it just maxed?
00:54:26Wow.
00:54:27It's like 30% of all Disney Plus streaming is Blu-ray.
00:54:29That's insane.
00:54:30Yeah.
00:54:31Oh my gosh.
00:54:32Everybody is extremely beholden to an Australian dog.
00:54:35Wow.
00:54:36I don't want to talk about Blu-ray at this time.
00:54:37David, your kid isn't old enough to know, but when it comes time, it will be very sad
00:54:44for you as well.
00:54:45But so the bundles get bigger.
00:54:46Yeah.
00:54:47But why doesn't Netflix have this pressure?
00:54:49Because Netflix is huge.
00:54:50Like Netflix is bigger than kind of everybody else, right?
00:54:54Right.
00:54:55They have that first mover advantage.
00:54:56So they can just be, they're so far ahead of everybody else when it comes to subscribers
00:54:59and stuff that they can just keep doing that and they can keep asking for more money.
00:55:03And also, this is the Alex who put them higher on the Go90 scale than some of the other people.
00:55:11They've got hubris, right?
00:55:14They still haven't worked partnered with Apple.
00:55:15So you don't really get that soul, that tight integration with like the Apple products that
00:55:21you get with Disney Plus and Max and all these other ones.
00:55:24They don't partner with everybody else as often because they are the biggest.
00:55:28And oftentimes when you do that, your hubris catches up with you eventually.
00:55:33So I think it's kind of a mistake for Netflix to not try to do this, but I'm not surprised
00:55:38by it because it's also the most, like these are entertainment companies.
00:55:41Yeah.
00:55:42Netflix is a technology company.
00:55:43So you made a YouTube video this week.
00:55:46You basically like the cable bundle is back and that's what's happening here, right?
00:55:50You got Disney, the Hulu assets, they're going to put ESPN Plus in the Disney Plus app.
00:55:55That's the cable bundle.
00:55:56You're subsidizing all this stuff that you don't necessarily want because I know you
00:56:01guys love sports.
00:56:02But you have to, you are just like ESPN will be here.
00:56:04I'm furious that I'm going to have ESPN on my Disney Plus.
00:56:07And we don't know what the pricing will be.
00:56:08And then you get all the sort of Warner Brothers assets now too, plus HBO.
00:56:13Depending on what the price is, right?
00:56:16It could end up being that the price is the exact same.
00:56:19The only difference is that it's just more convenient to log in.
00:56:22Well, so we do have this quote from Zazz.
00:56:26I'm just so worried about Zaddy.
00:56:28There we go.
00:56:29Sorry.
00:56:30I had to do it.
00:56:31I'm so tired.
00:56:32If I ever meet that man, like I can't.
00:56:37I just walk away.
00:56:38I won't let you.
00:56:39As somebody who's responsible for this newsroom and your friend.
00:56:43He's like, no, we can't.
00:56:44Go that way.
00:56:45Interesting.
00:56:46Can you imagine having to work with somebody every day who's horny for David Zazz?
00:56:52That's what it's like here at The Verge.
00:56:53All right.
00:56:54Here's the quote from Zazz.
00:56:59It's like the New York Times is like dealing with Kevin Roos being like, I banged 18 robots
00:57:03on AI.
00:57:04And we have Alex.
00:57:05I'm just like, I love it.
00:57:06Very different.
00:57:07By the way, you should read the Kevin Roos article where he did make friends with 18
00:57:11different AI personalities.
00:57:14Even from the jump.
00:57:15He's like, it's a little horny.
00:57:16It's good.
00:57:17Anyway, here's a quote from David Zazz.
00:57:21There's a lot of irrationality in the market that's getting shaken out in terms of money
00:57:25spent.
00:57:26Ultimately, I think the business will look very different in two to three years.
00:57:29It will be much better for consumers.
00:57:33Lot of ideas.
00:57:34Yeah.
00:57:35I like basically they're just bringing TV back and in a lot of ways TV is quite convenient.
00:57:42People loved it for 50, 60 years.
00:57:44It worked.
00:57:45And then everybody was like, we're tired of all the ads and everything else.
00:57:49And that's why we got streaming to begin with.
00:57:51And that's just what he's doing.
00:57:53I think he's very right in that there are a lot of bad ideas and they are being shaken
00:57:56out.
00:57:57That's why everybody's going to advertising.
00:57:59That's why everybody is bundling.
00:58:00That's why everybody is subsidizing sports and all of this other stuff.
00:58:04But I don't know if it'll be better for consumers in three years.
00:58:08I think the one other thing that's worth mentioning here is it's very telling to me that what
00:58:13he says is in terms of the amount of money spent.
00:58:17And I think if you want to talk about what's different about Netflix versus these other
00:58:20companies is Netflix can afford to exist.
00:58:24Whereas you have Disney, which spent way too much money to acquire Fox.
00:58:28You have Warner Brothers Discovery, which took on a massive quantity of debt in order
00:58:34to become the company that it is.
00:58:35These companies literally cannot afford to exist in the way that they currently work.
00:58:40Whereas Netflix, I think it was in 2021, 2020 or 2021 announced basically like, we're good.
00:58:46We have enough money now that we don't have to take external financing.
00:58:49And that puts you in such an unbelievable position of power to be able to just do whatever
00:58:54you want because you can afford your business.
00:58:57And what no one else has proven other than Netflix is that this is a business that you
00:59:01can afford.
00:59:02Or that has the margins to let you grow, right?
00:59:04Like Netflix is actually maybe the easiest way to talk about this is the Go90 scale of
00:59:09doom streaming services.
00:59:11So Netflix to me, I know Alex.
00:59:13I'm on the other side, but I get it.
00:59:15He thinks Netflix will fail.
00:59:17But by the way, disclosure, I produce a Netflix show.
00:59:19It's called The Future of It's very good.
00:59:20Yeah.
00:59:21Likely story to support him, huh?
00:59:23He really did rebranded Xfinity because everyone hated the Comcast brand.
00:59:26So that is a true story.
00:59:27I heard it again recently.
00:59:29I put Netflix at zero.
00:59:30By the way, the Go90 scale, if you remember Go90, it's Verizon's failed streaming service
00:59:34where they thought children would join, quote, gangs.
00:59:37No, it's a cruise.
00:59:38It was something.
00:59:39They thought the kids would rotate their phones 90 degrees to watch YouTube and they had no
00:59:42idea why anyone was watching YouTube and it immediately failed.
00:59:45Quibi before Quibi.
00:59:46It was a lot.
00:59:48Now to Go90 means to die.
00:59:51This is a broadcast lore if you're unfamiliar.
00:59:54So the Go90 scales during streaming services from zero to 90, you put them on a scale.
00:59:58Zero is alive.
00:59:5990 is dead.
01:00:00Netflix in my mind is zero.
01:00:03Right now.
01:00:04It is the one you don't quit.
01:00:05No one churns off a Netflix.
01:00:06Right now it is 100% zero.
01:00:07I would agree with you there.
01:00:08I will say Alex said it was a 40 at South by Southwest.
01:00:12Yes.
01:00:13It was a 40 in my heart and in the future, it is zero right today.
01:00:17Because you think the hubris makes them brittle.
01:00:19I understand the argument, but I just don't, I think Netflix is very good at programming
01:00:23its service exactly to make you never churn.
01:00:26They're like, here's one more John Mulaney special.
01:00:28Like the predictions are coming, man.
01:00:30I'm so excited.
01:00:31It's just always, they're always doing that thing.
01:00:32Yeah.
01:00:33You're like ready to quit.
01:00:34They got one more thing for you.
01:00:35Good.
01:00:36They figured it out.
01:00:37Data.
01:00:39HBO or now max, whatever the hell it's called.
01:00:44Max is 45.
01:00:51They hit a hundred million subscribers globally, but they're about to hike prices again because
01:00:54of what David is saying.
01:00:56They cannot afford to run this business.
01:00:58It's programming is all over the place, right?
01:01:01They have HBO's programming, but HBO is in one of its sort of like consistent sort of
01:01:06like dry spells.
01:01:08I'm sure there'll be more stuff coming back, but that's the history of HBO.
01:01:11It runs hot, then it runs cold.
01:01:15There isn't some consistent slate of programming.
01:01:17Yes, there is.
01:01:18Those property brothers, people love them.
01:01:20Well, there's that stuff, but there isn't like the-
01:01:22I mean, we can't ignore it.
01:01:24It's something that maybe we don't talk about like critically and you don't see people talking
01:01:27about it on threads and social media and stuff, but that is a big part of their business.
01:01:33Why Zaslav could afford to buy Warner Brothers is because of how big that business is for
01:01:38him.
01:01:39That's not going away anytime soon.
01:01:40He's really good.
01:01:41But that's the discovery business.
01:01:42That's the discovery business.
01:01:43That's now in Max.
01:01:44Sure.
01:01:45Okay.
01:01:46I'm just saying 45.
01:01:47Yeah, I know.
01:01:48Because you're not running around trying to make a deal with Disney if you think you're
01:01:51more alive than dead is just my belief.
01:01:54Well, this is why the sports race is so intense right now because I think the property brothers
01:01:59will keep people subscribed to you.
01:02:00They're not going to win you vast tens of millions of new subscribers.
01:02:05But I also want to be wary of saying that this deal is an indication that Disney and
01:02:10Max are struggling because I don't think- like I think this is as much about dealing
01:02:14with the fact that these are highly vertically integrated companies and there's currently
01:02:19a government that doesn't like that and it's really useful to be like, no, we're partnering
01:02:23together.
01:02:24Do you think that in the absence of Lena Kahn, Disney would buy Warner Brothers Discovery?
01:02:30If Lena Kahn got sucked up by aliens tomorrow-
01:02:34If Trump gets elected.
01:02:35Yeah.
01:02:36And they managed to sell ESPN so they can make all their money, they would buy it in
01:02:40a heartbeat.
01:02:41No chance.
01:02:42No chance.
01:02:43In a heartbeat.
01:02:44With what money?
01:02:45That's why I put those clarifiers on there, right?
01:02:49Let's add your debt to our debt and we'll give you 50 bucks and then we'll all slowly
01:02:53die together.
01:02:54Wait, actually, David, when you describe it like that, that does sound like the media
01:02:56business.
01:02:57That does, in fact, sound how these CEOs think.
01:03:03Let's lay off 10,000 people and have a bunch of debt.
01:03:06Somehow we will get boats and is Zack Snyder available?
01:03:09Because we have a number of movies that should be recut as grayscale squares.
01:03:12Hollywood is built on debt.
01:03:15This way financing has worked in Hollywood from the beginning is on debt.
01:03:19Nothing is ever made with like the cash they have in house.
01:03:22It's made with-
01:03:23Usually the assumption has been that the properties will make money.
01:03:28A problem that they are having.
01:03:30Anyway.
01:03:31I think they'll be fine.
01:03:33So I'm putting Max at 45.
01:03:35I'm putting Disney plus at 45.
01:03:40That's my go 90 scale.
01:03:41I think these things are wobbly in the middle right now.
01:03:44No, Disney is massive.
01:03:47Streaming is a big part of Disney's business.
01:03:49Streaming is not all of Disney's business.
01:03:51Of all of these companies, it is super positioned because it's got a ton of very lucrative theme
01:03:57parks throughout.
01:03:58I just want to point out that technically the Max app has already gone 90 several times
01:04:03as it is rebranded from HBO to HBO Max.
01:04:05Every other month it goes 90.
01:04:08It keeps going away in some way.
01:04:09Well I think this all sort of revolves around Netflix in a funny way, which is why Netflix
01:04:15is so powerful in all this because I think the case for Disney plus going away is that
01:04:20Disney decides that actually if we want our theme parks to succeed, the best way for us
01:04:25to do that is to sell shows to Netflix and not put them on Disney plus, which I think
01:04:29is a not crazy conclusion to draw in a couple of years.
01:04:33You're going to decide it is so expensive and so wasteful for us to run our own service.
01:04:38What we actually need is for people to watch our stuff.
01:04:41And the way to do that is to put it in movie theaters and put it on Netflix.
01:04:45And I think it's possible that that is where this goes.
01:04:47We come back to this at the end of the summer if and when we find out whether or not there
01:04:52will be more Blu-ray episodes because I honestly think depending on that answer, Disney plus
01:05:00goes in one or two directions.
01:05:02If you just look at the scale of how much that business is currently dependent on Blu-ray,
01:05:07it's not dependent on whatever horrible garbage Max watches otherwise.
01:05:11There's a show about the children of the villains.
01:05:15It's bad.
01:05:16All this is bad.
01:05:18Why do I know that?
01:05:19I've never seen anything worse in my entire life.
01:05:20I've never watched it.
01:05:21It's fine.
01:05:22It's like very safe if you have a six-year-old girl.
01:05:23You're like, watch this garbage.
01:05:25It's better than what's on YouTube kids.
01:05:28But I'm saying, depending on how blue he goes, we should come back to that conversation.
01:05:32Okay, we should take a break.
01:05:33I will call out, by the way, that Sony is in the middle of discussions to buy Paramount.
01:05:38I hope not because it's with Apollo Management, right?
01:05:41Yeah, that's just layoff city.
01:05:42That's what's going to happen.
01:05:43Yeah.
01:05:44All the headlines about Sony and Paramount should be like, Sony discusses laying off
01:05:46Paramount's employees.
01:05:47But they're still also in talks with Skydance, which is owned by Larry Ellison's son from
01:05:51Oracle.
01:05:53That could still happen.
01:05:54That's the one I'm mainly rooting for because I hate watching companies be bought up and
01:05:59broken apart.
01:06:00You love CBS.
01:06:01Also, I love ... Is it really because I'm concerned about Star Trek?
01:06:05Yes.
01:06:06There's a very good episode, by the way, of The Town podcast where they talk about this
01:06:09and basically land on, if you want good content, root for the Skydance deal.
01:06:15If you want a bunch of Paramount shareholders to make money and then all of this to go away,
01:06:20you should root for Sony and Apollo.
01:06:23I'm slightly simplifying, but not that much.
01:06:27That's 100% correct.
01:06:29If you want Star Trek, root for Skydance.
01:06:31If you don't care about Star Trek and Taylor Sheridan's branches, root for Apollo and Sony.
01:06:39That's a bad mix of things to care about.
01:06:42How do I get one but not the other?
01:06:43Okay.
01:06:44We've got to take a break.
01:06:45We're going to come back with the lightning round, which actually has to be lightning
01:06:49because we are so over today, but it's going to be really long.
01:06:53We'll be right back with Varchest.
01:06:55All right, we're back.
01:06:58It's the lightning round, which really, for me, is what I have taken to calling the victory
01:07:04lap round.
01:07:05Let's begin with Alex Reynes.
01:07:08Not a victory lap for mine.
01:07:11This is a bummer.
01:07:13Microsoft is currently going through it.
01:07:14Tom Warren had a really great piece up this week, and Ash Parrish, our game reporter,
01:07:18had a really cool follow-up piece on it.
01:07:22They've been closing studios.
01:07:23They've been laying people off.
01:07:25They had to make an all-hands after they closed this one studio that made this really popular
01:07:30game last year called Hi-Fi Rush.
01:07:31If you haven't heard about it, that's because you don't play video games enough.
01:07:35Hi-Fi Rush was a big indie darling, and it was widely well-received.
01:07:41It did really, really well for them.
01:07:42And then they closed the studio, they laid everybody off, and they were like, yeah, we
01:07:48need to make more games like that.
01:07:49And it's like, well, maybe, hmm.
01:07:53And so there's just a lot of chaos over there.
01:07:55And I think it's the same thing we're seeing.
01:07:57We've talked a lot about creatives in this episode.
01:07:59It's that same anxiety.
01:08:00It's the same issues that we're seeing with streaming, where these people have spent a
01:08:04lot of money on acquisitions and growing during the 0% interest rate days.
01:08:10And they grew a whole lot.
01:08:11And you can't grow in, like, infinite content has to have infinite people watching it and
01:08:19paying for it.
01:08:21We don't do that in this human life.
01:08:24It is a remarkably similar trajectory.
01:08:27Like Microsoft saying, okay, we think this is going to move from a you-buy-a-thing model
01:08:33to a subscription model.
01:08:35Thus, we need a lot of content.
01:08:37Oh, God, we need a lot of exclusive content to, okay, maybe actually there aren't as many
01:08:42people who want to pay for all of this, especially given what it costs, because all this stuff
01:08:47is expensive.
01:08:48Bail, bail, bail, bail, bail.
01:08:50And then, so you go from, like, we have to grow to the size of the universe in order
01:08:54for this thing to work.
01:08:55And then you realize, oh, it's actually not possible for us to grow to the size of the
01:08:57universe.
01:08:58In the same way that everybody thought they were going to get a billion subscribers to
01:09:01streaming services.
01:09:02Like, no, it turns out there is kind of a local maximum to that.
01:09:06People are finite, unfortunately.
01:09:08Yeah, and it turns out, I think Microsoft is going to do the same thing now, where it's
01:09:11like, okay, if we build this unbelievable war chest of content and people and talent,
01:09:16it will work.
01:09:17And then all of a sudden, everybody's like, oh, that's not a plan.
01:09:21That's nothing.
01:09:22And it all just kind of collapses.
01:09:24And it's really sad, because it's happening at, like, unbelievable scale and pace right
01:09:29now.
01:09:30And it's also in an industry that I think was already unsustainable to begin with, with
01:09:33Crunch and everything like that.
01:09:35This was an industry that's been creaking for a decade.
01:09:38And it's having a massive moment, and it sucks for all the people involved, but, like, it's
01:09:44happening.
01:09:45Yeah.
01:09:46I just want to point out that Microsoft fought tooth and nail to buy Activision.
01:09:50And they were like, this will grow our business.
01:09:52This is the thing.
01:09:53And really the question we should ask with all of these deals, how many people are you
01:09:57going to lay off?
01:09:58How many is it?
01:10:00It's always some.
01:10:01Wasn't it T-Mobile that said, in buying Sprint, that it thought the number of jobs were going
01:10:05to go up?
01:10:06And everybody's like, oh, sick.
01:10:07And then they immediately let off thousands of people.
01:10:09Immediately.
01:10:10Yeah.
01:10:11Like, that's not true.
01:10:12It's never true.
01:10:13And it's just like, it's the thing.
01:10:14Like, you combine two companies, there are going to be a lot, there's going to be overlap.
01:10:18It's going to happen.
01:10:19I interview a lot of executives.
01:10:20You can just see the wheels turning.
01:10:22Boy, I don't need double the back office staff.
01:10:25Like, whatever.
01:10:26You can just, and they call it efficiencies, but it's really layoffs, and that's just like
01:10:28how it goes.
01:10:29And then on top of it, Microsoft was insistent that it needed to buy Activision because it
01:10:35was winning while Microsoft was losing.
01:10:38And they bought Activision.
01:10:39And they're like, look at all these losers.
01:10:42And it's like, we should just start asking the questions ahead.
01:10:44How many people are you going to lay off?
01:10:46That's the only question, right?
01:10:47Like, that is the policy consequence of allowing these mergers at scale.
01:10:51Like, really, truly, on the ground, a bunch of people are going to lose their jobs.
01:10:56How many is it?
01:10:57If they're not willing to answer that question, I honestly think we should no longer give
01:11:01any of these companies the benefit of the doubt.
01:11:03You don't get to just buy it.
01:11:06I would point out that AT&T buying Time Warner did allow Zack Snyder to employ a number of
01:11:11people to make a 4.3 grayscale Batman movie.
01:11:14Neil, do you get a cut of sales of this movie?
01:11:17Like, what is happening here?
01:11:18We've officially tipped from like, this is funny to like, what's Neil's angle here?
01:11:23I want to hammer it home for people that the Trump administration getting rid of net
01:11:29neutrality allowed AT&T to buy Time Warner, and now there is a grayscale Batman movie.
01:11:35And that is a direct line of events.
01:11:36By the way, net neutrality didn't pass.
01:11:38They got rid of the weird rule that would have allowed for 5G pass lanes.
01:11:41We now live in a world of net neutrality again.
01:11:43That's great.
01:11:44Sorry, Zack.
01:11:45All right.
01:11:46Victory lap one, complete.
01:11:48Victory lap two for me.
01:11:53This is the whole lightning round.
01:11:55Just Neil, I was right about you.
01:11:59You will recall that Epic Games sued Apple for antitrust violations long ago.
01:12:06They mostly lost that case.
01:12:07They did.
01:12:08They mostly lost that case.
01:12:09I would say that they might have set the stage for the current DOJ case, for other cases.
01:12:14They made a bunch of arguments that are now being made again by the government.
01:12:17They got a ball rolling.
01:12:18Very much got a ball rolling.
01:12:19The one thing they won in that case was the judge applying California law, because I think
01:12:27the judge was unwilling to rewrite United States federal antitrust law, but the judge
01:12:31interpreted California law to say Apple could no longer prevent app developers from what's
01:12:38called steering.
01:12:39So Apple has these things called anti-steering rules, where you're not even allowed to mention
01:12:43that there's another website where you could buy stuff.
01:12:47The anti-steering rules struck down.
01:12:49I have the specific quote here.
01:12:51Apple is permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from including
01:12:55in their apps, in their metadata, buttons, external links, or other calls to action that
01:12:58direct customers to purchasing mechanisms in addition to the app store.
01:13:03That's the rule.
01:13:04Judge passed this rule.
01:13:05And Apple's response was to allow a app, or a link, rather.
01:13:09Right.
01:13:10So the rule comes out, and I wrote a piece back then, 2021, saying Apple's about to end
01:13:16up in a fight over buttons and links.
01:13:19They're not allowed to prevent buttons and links from going to external purchasing mechanisms.
01:13:24When courts write two nouns, they often mean for the nouns to mean different things.
01:13:31So now you have buttons and you have links.
01:13:34They necessarily mean different things.
01:13:36This is just legal interpretation 101.
01:13:39I would say the AstroTurf Brigade attacked me.
01:13:43Some developers tried this.
01:13:44They went in front of the court again.
01:13:45The judge said, look, stop it.
01:13:49We'll figure this out when we get there.
01:13:51Apple has to issue its entitlements and do all this stuff.
01:13:53And then everyone thought I was wrong.
01:13:55This is true.
01:13:56This is like a real sequence of events that I'm very hot about.
01:13:57The point of all this is Epic went to the judge recently and said, Apple is only allowing
01:14:03one external link to a fixed web page, and you are not even allowed to say it's cheaper
01:14:08on the web page.
01:14:10All of the rules about what you're allowed to do to get around anti-steering are basically
01:14:14anti-steering.
01:14:15You're basically allowed to say, this is a website.
01:14:18Yep.
01:14:19And it's at the very beginning of the flow.
01:14:21So if you have an app with other things you can buy in it, you are not even allowed in
01:14:25that area of your app to put links to an external website where you can buy stuff.
01:14:30It's beautiful.
01:14:31You are allowed to have one link.
01:14:33That link, when you click on it, if you're logged into the app, can't even pass your
01:14:37login info to the website.
01:14:39I always think of the Kindle app as the easiest way to explain this, because it's like the
01:14:43way it should work is you should be able to go into, I mean the way it should work
01:14:47is you should be able to buy Kindle stuff from your, but there should be a link on every
01:14:50book that says buy this on the web.
01:14:52That is explicitly against the rules.
01:14:54You can have one link in one place in the app that says, books on web.
01:15:00That's basically the entirety of what is allowed.
01:15:04Or sign up on web, but not for 30% cheaper or not, it's cheaper on the web because Apple
01:15:09charges us a fee.
01:15:10Right.
01:15:11None of that's allowed.
01:15:12Do they get the preposition?
01:15:13Do they get the preposition allowed?
01:15:14The on?
01:15:15I mean, Apple's totally in control of this.
01:15:16Oh, by the way, if you click the link, you get a warning screen that says you're leaving
01:15:18this app where Tim Cook will protect you with sword and shield.
01:15:21This is a buff Tim Cook picture.
01:15:24This is all true.
01:15:25So Epic drags Apple back into court, because the judge in 2011 said, I will decide if Apple's
01:15:29in compliance with my injunction, not Apple, I'm going to decide.
01:15:32The judge, so Epic drags Apple back to court.
01:15:36There's a hearing this week.
01:15:37I just want to read you some things that were said in this hearing to Apple as they talk
01:15:42about buttons and links.
01:15:46And this is to an Apple executive.
01:15:48Is it fair to say in today's day and age that everyone understands that www.url.com is an
01:15:54external website on the World Wide Web?
01:15:57That's just a question.
01:15:58Like, do you really think people are this stupid, Apple?
01:16:01Pete, in society, people make lots of purchases on the web all the time.
01:16:05Would you agree with that?
01:16:07Yes.
01:16:08And they understand that Apple trusts its users that the web is separate and apart from
01:16:12different even on an iOS device, right?
01:16:15Yeah.
01:16:16Do people know that clicking on a link, taking you out of an app, takes you out of the app?
01:16:20That's where Apple is in buttons and links.
01:16:23And then there's the judge who interjects in the middle of a conversation about button
01:16:28design because Apple has constricted the design of buttons.
01:16:33I can't imagine a logical reason why Apple would demand that of competitor apps.
01:16:39What's a logical competitive reason for not suggesting but demanding it other than to
01:16:43stifle competition?
01:16:45I see no answer.
01:16:47Can you give me one?
01:16:49Buttons and links.
01:16:50Did they give them?
01:16:51It took three years.
01:16:52No, no.
01:16:53This is blah, blah, blah security.
01:16:54Oh.
01:16:55It took three years.
01:16:56But Apple is now in this fight over the design of buttons and links in its apps because that
01:17:02injunction is actually a big deal.
01:17:05And they have not actually provided a reason why they are constraining the design of buttons
01:17:11and links in their apps, which, by the way, are different.
01:17:13A button is supposed to just do something.
01:17:16A link takes you somewhere else, right?
01:17:18So these are different in terms of construction.
01:17:21And I think Apple and its hubris, all the stuff we've talked about, they've run into
01:17:25the judge saying, no, no, I meant something when I issued this order.
01:17:30And you can't give me reasons that are not just straight anti-competitive, malicious
01:17:34compliance reasons.
01:17:35I don't know how this is going to turn out.
01:17:36It's just the evidence you're hearing right now.
01:17:38Maybe the judge is going to find Apple is not in compliance.
01:17:40Maybe this DOJ lawsuit is going to break it all open.
01:17:42I don't know.
01:17:43Maybe a bunch of Europeans are going to hurl cheese at Apple until they stop it.
01:17:47Something's going to happen.
01:17:48But I'm just saying that right now, three years after the Epic case, Apple is in a courtroom
01:17:54defending its own malicious compliance because it was inevitable that the buttons and links
01:17:59conversation would come back around.
01:18:00And it's been interesting to watch these fights get more and more specific over time, too.
01:18:05And I think this is the thing that is actually going to affect real change, right?
01:18:09We talked about this with the emulators the other week, that as these things get whittled
01:18:13down from these sort of big philosophical debates into, here is a thing about the experience
01:18:17that is broken, and you can't explain to me why it's broken other than you believe you
01:18:22deserve all of the money.
01:18:24That is actually the way that Apple is being pried open.
01:18:28And it is happening in these little tiny pieces much more quickly than it's going to happen
01:18:32in some grand, you're not allowed to be like this anymore way.
01:18:36So I think it's like the death by a thousand cuts thing is very much underway in a really
01:18:41fascinating way.
01:18:42Yeah.
01:18:43And this stuff takes time.
01:18:44Like this DOJ lawsuit, that's a decade.
01:18:46Oh, easily.
01:18:47It's a decade.
01:18:48Like you can decide whether it is good or bad.
01:18:51You can have whatever feelings about the complaint you want.
01:18:53A decade from now, we will see the results of that case on the devices we use.
01:18:58It took three years from the Epic case for us to be back in the courtroom saying, actually,
01:19:03your weird link entitlement idea might be anti-competitive.
01:19:07And that still has to play out.
01:19:08So you need some patience here.
01:19:10But I agree with you, David.
01:19:12It's starting in a way that Apple can no longer defend.
01:19:15I just spent a lot of this time on meta AI, trying to make it show me images of a shredded
01:19:21Tim Cook protecting people from buttons and links, and it wouldn't do it.
01:19:27I went to www.url.com while we were sitting here and discovered that url.com is for sale.
01:19:32So that's cool.
01:19:34I just think if you have your executives on the stand, and the question is, people in
01:19:37society make lots of purchases on the web all the time, would you agree?
01:19:40And the answer is yes.
01:19:42You're probably done for.
01:19:44So good.
01:19:45Eli, in the spirit of kindness, I would like to bequeath you my lightning round because
01:19:50you have another victory lap I'd like you to take.
01:19:52I do.
01:19:53I do.
01:19:54I do.
01:19:55I'm very excited about this one.
01:19:57This victory lap, nothing has happened.
01:19:58So we'll end the show where it began.
01:20:01In Wisconsin.
01:20:02In southeastern Wisconsin, where I was a child.
01:20:06Were the cheese curds really squeaky?
01:20:08They're good.
01:20:09They're good.
01:20:10They're good everywhere in Wisconsin, particularly.
01:20:11Well, Madison.
01:20:12I would say Madison is where I enjoyed the cheese curd lifestyle the most.
01:20:15But President Biden was in Racine this week.
01:20:20He was announcing a data center built to be built by Microsoft.
01:20:24So he had 2,000 construction jobs and then 2,000 permanent jobs to build this data center.
01:20:29This is, I would just say, politically opportunistic at its finest.
01:20:33Microsoft had already purchased this land.
01:20:35They had already announced the data center.
01:20:37They'd already done all the permitting, all the stuff.
01:20:39Joe Biden just showed up and was like, look at the jobs I made.
01:20:43Great.
01:20:44I'm super excited for it.
01:20:45Do politics.
01:20:46I'm happy for you.
01:20:47The point of this is that they are building this on the land that was supposed to be the
01:20:52Foxconn site.
01:20:54And Joe Biden's political opportunism is he's standing there and he's like, literally,
01:20:59I think he said something along the lines of Trump didn't give you any jobs and I'm
01:21:01giving you actual jobs.
01:21:04Because it's the Foxconn site where Trump waved a golden shovel around and promised
01:21:07an LCD factory that was supposed to bring 13,000 jobs to this region.
01:21:11And we at The Verge, someone famously always knew that was a lie, reported on it quite
01:21:17a bit.
01:21:18We won an award.
01:21:19Josh Trezor won an award for his big feature on it.
01:21:20The feature, actually, Chris Hayes read it on MSNBC last night.
01:21:25Just straight up.
01:21:26He was like, Biden announced some things.
01:21:27You might remember this is Foxconn.
01:21:29And then just read some of Josh's feature to the camera to explain what had happened.
01:21:33There are rules.
01:21:34Congratulations to Josh.
01:21:35He reported the hell out of that story.
01:21:37The victory lap I would like to take is to remind everyone and to initiate our newest
01:21:43members of the audience.
01:21:46During that period of time, while we were doing all that reporting, I received a number
01:21:49of hilariously threatening emails from anonymous Foxconn executives telling us, reminding us,
01:21:55insisting that we leave them alone.
01:21:59Literally emails would say, leave us alone.
01:22:00And then they would try to explain to me what Foxconn's AI plus 8K plus 5G strategy was.
01:22:08Galaxy brand strategy.
01:22:09It was nothing.
01:22:10By the way, Foxconn has abandoned AI 8K plus 5G.
01:22:13This is true.
01:22:14They've abandoned it.
01:22:15If you go to the Foxconn in Wisconsin website now, which is literally, I believe, just foxconnwisconsin.com,
01:22:19you can see they have a new strategy, which is 3 plus 3 equals infinity.
01:22:23This is true.
01:22:24That's even worse.
01:22:25How did they make it worse?
01:22:28It's 100% true that their new strategy is 3 plus 3 equals infinity.
01:22:34And then there's a lengthy section of that website dedicated to how you can see the dome
01:22:39that they built from the highway.
01:22:42I don't know what to tell you, man.
01:22:47They built a little dome.
01:22:48I keep calling it Timu Epcot.
01:22:50It's a little baby dome.
01:22:51A little baby dome.
01:22:52It was supposed to be the dot of an I.
01:22:55They were going to spell Foxconn, F-I-I, Foxconn Industrial Internet.
01:22:59They were going to spell it in buildings.
01:23:01That's a lot of letters.
01:23:03It's only three.
01:23:04They only got to the dot, which is the dome.
01:23:06They insisted for years, this is true, that the dome was a data center.
01:23:11And I would have various conversations with data center people, like, would you ever make
01:23:16a data center in the shape of a dome?
01:23:18Do you think that would be?
01:23:19And they would all be like, no.
01:23:20I don't know.
01:23:21We wouldn't.
01:23:22It turns out the dome was just like a party center.
01:23:24It was like where corrupt Wisconsin politicians would have drinks and take photos with.
01:23:29The dome.
01:23:30With their dome.
01:23:31The dome remains.
01:23:33That whole thing remains.
01:23:34I don't know what's going to happen there.
01:23:35There's some rumor of the building servers.
01:23:37Microsoft is now taking all of the industrialization that was built up, the water, the power, to
01:23:41build an AI data center.
01:23:45But I want to end here with one of the best things that has ever happened on the show,
01:23:50which is all those emails I got about leaving people alone.
01:23:53I would read them on the show, and then people would make memes and songs.
01:23:59In one of my favorite songs, which I thought about today as I watched Joe Biden dunk on
01:24:03Trump in his golden shovel, I was like, it would rule if Biden would just play the song
01:24:09that Vergecast listener Jackson Hayes wrote for us about the factory.
01:24:13Liam, can we play the song?
01:24:17Neely, you didn't listen to me, but that's OK, because we're going to tell you what you
01:24:23already knew for months. You didn't leave us alone, leave us alone.
01:24:31You didn't leave us alone, leave us alone.
01:24:36A.I. meant new generation, mobility and self-driving cars.
01:24:43Wait, is that story we're running, Jeremy?
01:24:45OK. A.K. means smart, safety and security through A.K.
01:24:51technology. I mean, come on, Neely, you should know this.
01:24:545G means pioneering with medical solutions, on some health cloud network.
01:25:04OK, you didn't leave us alone, leave us alone.
01:25:09It's catchy. It's good.
01:25:10You didn't leave us alone, leave us alone.
01:25:16It was just A.K. and 5G.
01:25:20Well, I see how that was hard to believe.
01:25:25You didn't leave us alone, leave us alone.
01:25:30You didn't leave us alone, leave us alone.
01:25:35Now, I just want you to imagine.
01:25:36OK, you win.
01:25:39Can't make that on an iPad.
01:25:41Well, with the power of A.I. technology.
01:25:44So thank you to Jackson, one of my all time favorite FudgeCast moments.
01:25:47I hope you're listening. I just want you to imagine Joe Biden announcing the
01:25:51Microsoft deal and then me like, as a reminder.
01:25:54Busting out his acoustic guitar.
01:25:56He just take a seat.
01:25:59That whole sequence, I just I just want to remind people that sequencer reporting
01:26:03was like mid pandemic.
01:26:05This is the weirdest time in reporting that you could do.
01:26:10And we were reporting on this weird factory that didn't exist.
01:26:12And I was getting these crazy emails.
01:26:15Just leave us alone. Just leave us alone.
01:26:17That was awesome. Leave us alone.
01:26:20Anyway, it's a data center now.
01:26:21There's a little dome. You can go look at the dome.
01:26:25I have pictures of the dome. It's on the website.
01:26:26That's it. I think that's it.
01:26:28One thing we didn't talk about.
01:26:29TikTok sued the government over the bill to quote unquote ban TikTok.
01:26:33We wanted to take some time with that.
01:26:35So that will be next week's decoder.
01:26:37Alex Heath and Sarah Jong are going to join me.
01:26:39We're going to pull that whole complaint apart and see where the arguments are good
01:26:41and bad. We just needed to take some time with it.
01:26:43Also, there were iPads. Come on, it's the VergeCast, everybody.
01:26:46That's it. That's the VergeCast.
01:26:53And that's it for the VergeCast this week.
01:26:55Hey, we'd love to hear from you.
01:26:56Give us a call at 866-VERGE-11.
01:26:59The VergeCast is a production of the Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network.
01:27:02Our show is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James.
01:27:05That's it. We'll see you next week.