9: Fish Bicycle Scenario
19 Apr 2013The PC-sales downturn, PCs in business, Apple and IT departments, past and future Tablet PCs, and predictions for Microsoft Office for iOS.
Episode Description:
- Why are PC sales down?
- Why and when people have bought new PCs in the past.
- Forgoing or neglecting PCs today.
- PCs in businesses.
- Apple and IT departments.
- Last decade's Tablet PCs.
- The outlook for Windows 8 tablets in businesses.
- What will change if Microsoft Office is released for iOS?
- What AirPrint and black CD-Rs have in common.
- Still using (and abusing) Jonathan Mann's awesome ending song. Follow him and check out his other songs on YouTube.
Sponsored by Squarespace: Use code ATP4 at checkout for 10% off.
Transcript start
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So what are we talking about tonight?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think it was actually kind of a slow week in tech news.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think one thing I definitely did want to talk about though, and I probably should have read more about it beforehand,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but oh well, is this IDC PC sales are doomed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco report. And do either of you know the specifics of it? I know the gist of it is that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco PC sales are way, way down.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s not way, it’s like 14% or something, right?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But isn’t that like the biggest drop in a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John decade or something? Yeah, but only
⏹️ ▶️ John because it was an industry that was always growing. Every year you sold a little bit more and then it’s just like not just a
⏹️ ▶️ John slowing growth but a reversal. Now it’s – or I don’t even know if it’s a reversal. See, none of us read enough about this. But anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s 14%. It’s not like a 90% drop or a 50%. It’s 14%, but people freak
⏹️ ▶️ John out about it. I mean, if you were to graph all these numbers, I think it would look like, oh, well, it’s clear
⏹️ ▶️ John that growth is leveling off and then it starts to turn and downward and you know
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s what you would expect right?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know I think it’s it’s worth discussing and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thinking about why people buy new PCs and when people buy
⏹️ ▶️ Marco new PCs because obviously some degree of this growth
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was you know just population growing and more people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco getting a computer at all. And so you know I’m sure
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m sure that factor was responsible for probably the majority of PC sales maybe in the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco 90s and and probably a good amount of PC sales still in the 2000s.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But I would guess that now you know these days
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the PC market probably relies a lot on upgrades you you know, in this decade.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And the last one probably as well. And so, you know, I have these theories,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and I don’t really have anything to back this up except my own personal experience and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco having previously been a PC guy and a tech support guy and everything else.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco One of my theories is, you know, so in the 90s, when I got my first computer,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and so this is when I started paying attention, plus I was a little bit young in the 80s, but so So in the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco 90s, I feel like most people, like why would you upgrade your computer? Why would you buy a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco new computer? And I feel like, you know, in the 90s, the biggest reasons were
⏹️ ▶️ Marco significant speed upgrades or new capabilities. Like if your old computer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco didn’t have a modem and you either added a modem to your computer or you got a new computer with a modem. Later
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on, you have networking support, you know, once broadband comes in the very late 90s. You
⏹️ ▶️ Marco had the addition of things like sound cards and CD-ROM drives and major new hardware
⏹️ ▶️ Marco capabilities that sometimes required new computers and sometimes were just done as upgrades. And then
⏹️ ▶️ Marco similarly, back in the 90s, RAM was so incredibly scarce that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco an old computer and a new computer would actually be substantially differently performing, even
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just two years later because the new computer would be able to afford more RAM.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And CPUs were doing things like adding math coprocessors
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and adding hardware floating point ability, things that now just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco every computer and watch and HDMI adapter has built in. But back then,
⏹️ ▶️ John had the Mission Impossible operating system, where this operating system will self-destruct in six months to two
⏹️ ▶️ John years, but your computer would just slowly get worse and worse and worse. And what does a regular person do in that situation? Time
⏹️ ▶️ John to buy a new computer. I mean, that’s what it comes down to is like, if the thing you have,
⏹️ ▶️ John it gets worse or broken or bad or inadequate in some way, that’s when you replace it.
⏹️ ▶️ John A good comparison is television sets where the television set you had, it still shows
⏹️ ▶️ John TV shows. Does it turn on to the channels change? Okay, I’m fine. And HGTV was like, okay, well, now I feel
⏹️ ▶️ John it is inadequate because I saw my friends HGTV. Mine doesn’t look like that. it’s time to buy a new TV.
⏹️ ▶️ John But otherwise, people who are not videophiles would just keep their TV unless TV stopped
⏹️ ▶️ John performing what the job that it was supposed to do. And PCs used to be like you’d buy them and in two years,
⏹️ ▶️ John like it would it wasn’t even as good as the day you bought it forget it compared to your friend’s computer where it also pales in comparison,
⏹️ ▶️ John but it just it just degraded like, you know, software will get slower and we had viruses or
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco well, that was later.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like I feel like, like, so like in the 2000s that I would say that was more when that happened,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like in the 90s I think it was much more about things that were like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco computers were actually advancing significantly past their hardware capabilities.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John It was like HDTV came out every year.
⏹️ ▶️ John Every year you’d see your friend’s computer or the computer in the showrooms and it would be like looking at your regular TV versus
⏹️ ▶️ John an HDTV and you’d be like, oh well, mine sucks
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But like in the 2000s I feel like there was also this major move towards laptops and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco wireless And that helped drive a lot of sales.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John That’s another way your
⏹️ ▶️ John thing could suck. Look at this guy. He’s in a coffee shop. He’s being cool and hip and I’m attached
⏹️ ▶️ John to this gigantic full-height tower.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey To that end, when I was in school, which was 2000 through 2004, I got a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey ThinkPad that had a built-in 802.11b card. So rather than having
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this PCMCIA card with the little pimple, well, not little, it was this huge bulbous
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thing sticking out the side. kind of like an SD card does in a Mac today. Well, I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey actually had a ThinkPad with a built-in, and I think it was a Cisco card no less, and oh
⏹️ ▶️ Casey man, I thought I was hot stuff. Because the three places on campus that actually had wireless at Virginia
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Tech at the time, I could do it without having that stupid PCMCIA card hanging out of my computer, and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it was amazing. But it’s interesting because, to go back a step, I remember vividly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey my dad and I taking our 386 and adding a math coprocessor to it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey DX. Yeah, exactly. And so I feel like there was a wave, there was a period of time where advances were happening slow
⏹️ ▶️ Casey enough that you could kind of staple them on the computer you had. And I would, based on no
⏹️ ▶️ Casey facts whatsoever, I feel like that was early to mid-90s. And then, Marco, I think you’re right. Then all of a sudden, the velocity
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really cranked up, and then you had to replace an entire computer or an entire
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco motherboard
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to get the next advancement.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Although, to be fair, prices plummeted during that same time.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey Also true. in 94 was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like $2,500 and then by 97 I built a whole new one from parts for like $900. I mean it was it was a substantial
⏹️ ▶️ Marco difference. Well that’s,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, silicon consolidation. Shrinking means where you can fit more stuff on fewer chips. Fewer chips cost less money,
⏹️ ▶️ John blah blah blah. I mean, but you know, it’s to the point where our iPhones, you know, you get the whole system on the chip,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But I feel like, you know, in the 2000s there were still these things happening. There
⏹️ ▶️ Marco were still these big new reasons why you’d want a new computer. And a lot of that I think had to do
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with wireless and people moving from default of buying desktops to default of buying
⏹️ ▶️ Marco laptops. But I think a lot like I was working briefly in the tech
⏹️ ▶️ Marco support business in the mid-2000s and I was for very many years before and after
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that still doing it like on the side for friends and family and stuff. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was very very clear that starting in probably the early to mid-2000s a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco lot of people were replacing perfectly good computers because they were full of malware and people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thought oh it had slowed down because it’s too old I guess I have to get a new one you know they wouldn’t think to like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco reformat and reinstall Windows like that that was never considered they would just go out and buy a new computer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even though their whole was perfectly fine hardware wise and which is a comical
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and tragic waste of resources but I feel like that that certainly boosted PC
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sales and probably is still to some extent although anti-malware tools are way better now and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco way more widespread. But can you really blame anybody? That has to be a lot of… No, exactly.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like, people don’t know. You know, regular people don’t know. Like, they would say, oh, I’m out of space.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have to get a new computer.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you know, it got slow and I didn’t knowingly do anything to make it slow. So thus, it must
⏹️ ▶️ Casey be that technology has progressed past me and it’s time to get new hardware, where you’re absolutely
⏹️ ▶️ Casey right. In reality, it is… Well, and John is right as well. It’s a mission impossible operating system
⏹️ ▶️ Casey where every six months you’re going to have to reinstall Windows from scratch. And especially without really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey good backup solutions. This is a time before in-home networks were a thing,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for the most part anyway.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was very expensive to have three times as much hard drive space as you actually needed. Right.
⏹️ ▶️ John Nobody backs up now either, let’s not kid ourselves.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey That’s true. That’s true. I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John Mac users probably have the highest percentage of anybody, just because of Apple’s incredible push with Time Machine
⏹️ ▶️ John and the Apple Store experience where there’s likely to be someone during your purchase experience who
⏹️ ▶️ John told you that Time Machine exists and is a thing you might want to consider doing, and it’s not that hard. But the percentage is probably
⏹️ ▶️ John just depressingly low for Mac users and even more depressingly low for regular people.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco true. I would guess that’s true.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But either way, my point is that let’s say you had, and I don’t remember a really valid number at
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the time, but let’s just say you had a gig of MP3s in early 2000s. Where are you going to put put that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey gig of MP3s while you’re reinstalling everything on your hard drive. And I mean, you could burn it to CD.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And obviously, there’s many other options that existed, but they weren’t commonplace. And that’s assuming you’re confident enough
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in your abilities to even reinstall Windows, which eliminates 99% of the population to begin
⏹️ ▶️ John with. Well, that’s why everyone was just raced into the arms of appliance-like devices like iPods and
⏹️ ▶️ John smartphones. Because that’s the story here. It’s like, OK, people aren’t buying PCs. Why? Because they
⏹️ ▶️ John replaced their PCs with a smartphone or with an iPod or with a combination. because if you had that gig of MP3s,
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re probably pretty geeky to begin with. But anyone with a gig of MP3s
⏹️ ▶️ John who is not geeky probably has it on a phone or an iPod that works more like an appliance that gives them a fighting
⏹️ ▶️ John chance of preserving that in some way. Like they trash their PC, they get a new one,
⏹️ ▶️ John but they just plug their iPod into it and it says, do you wanna sync with this? I don’t even know if it allows you to do that crap. But
⏹️ ▶️ John I would imagine that the lifeboat for their music is these small handheld appliance-like
⏹️ ▶️ John devices. And it’s not so much like, oh, they like them better because they’re small and handheld and people have to have a phone anyway. It’s just that they
⏹️ ▶️ John work. They’re so much more friendly to people. They’re, you know, you can’t screw it
⏹️ ▶️ John up. You can install apps, uninstall apps. There’s very little you can do. I’m thinking specifically Apple devices, but even
⏹️ ▶️ John Android phones are much less intimidating and much less easy to accidentally screw up
⏹️ ▶️ John than a PC. So, I’m surprised that people say, well, I can do Facebook on this.
⏹️ ▶️ John I can send text messages. I can make phone calls. I can look at the few websites I want to do. and
⏹️ ▶️ John I get Netflix on my TV, remind me again why I have a computer?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, I think that’s why a lot of people are assuming this report is,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or assuming that this decline in PC sales is being caused by tablets.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And I think it’s really being more caused by smartphones.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, tablets, I mean, they don’t help. They’re
⏹️ ▶️ John helping matters, but smartphones, it’s gotta be by far. Like, it’s the
⏹️ ▶️ John stealing the growth market of the people who previously were going to buy a computer, but
⏹️ ▶️ John now don’t feel the need for one, and they’ll just keep upgrading their phone every couple years for a similar cost to buying
⏹️ ▶️ John a really terrible, you know, PC.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know. PCs are way cheaper than you think they are, John.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Well, I mean, considering… People
⏹️ ▶️ Marco buy PCs at Costco and Sam’s Club for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John like, for like, 300 bucks. I’m saying,
⏹️ ▶️ John like, the phone is a similar cost. It’s, you know, $299 for your fancy smartphone, plus the contract that you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John probably going get anyway so you can text all your you know what I mean like that’s that’s factored in it’s like well you gotta
⏹️ ▶️ John have a cell phone and yeah data plan is a little bit more expensive hey it’s only 300 bucks well you could have bought about a $300 PC
⏹️ ▶️ John and honestly you should buy a $300 smartphone instead of a $300 PC you will be much more satisfied
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with it. And like and at this you know in this day and age if you are at all interested in owning a computer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you live in a first world country you probably have already owned one you know unless
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’re like you know 10 years old or something but you’ve probably probably already owned one and so you are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco faced not necessarily with the decision of should I go out and buy a new PC this year
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but should I upgrade my PC this year and that I feel like people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are doing so much more you’re right people doing so much more on their phones now the phones have become the primary
⏹️ ▶️ Marco computing device for so many people that that like I feel like the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that so many people probably have this these great new smartphones whatever
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t really care. These great new smartphones and then they have like some laptop
⏹️ ▶️ Marco from 2008 that’s like creaking and falling apart, you know, some Dell Inspiron piece of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco garbage and, you know, this creaky plastic thing that has Windows XP on it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that, you know, they hardly ever use. Maybe they open it up like a couple times a year to get
⏹️ ▶️ Marco some file or, you know, do something that they can’t do on their phone. But like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what’s their motivation to upgrade that that computer ever, as long as it still works. And even when it breaks,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what’s their motivation then?
⏹️ ▶️ John I have to wonder how many people, like there’s some minimum amount of computing, especially in the
⏹️ ▶️ John internet age, that you have to do to feel like you’re part of society. Like you don’t necessarily have to have a Facebook
⏹️ ▶️ John page, but you probably have to have email, and you probably have to know about the web. And there’s some,
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s a baseline of like, you are part of our regular first world country society. You have some connection to
⏹️ ▶️ John the internet and electronic device. And that’s the thing that used to be
⏹️ ▶️ John bringing people along, and they’d buy PCs. But I wonder how many of the people, like once you cross that baseline, how many people
⏹️ ▶️ John use personal computers for leisure, I guess, put that in quotes or whatever. Like where, you know, because
⏹️ ▶️ John most of the time, you’re at work, you’re commuting, you’re doing stuff. You’re not like, your leisure time
⏹️ ▶️ John is small for the working person during the day. You have your job, you have your family, you have all those responsibilities. Then you have a small
⏹️ ▶️ John amount of leisure time per day that you can watch TV, you can go to a movie, you can go out, like whatever you want to do that
⏹️ ▶️ John leisure time to engage in your hobbies, how many people choose to take any portion of that leisure time
⏹️ ▶️ John and sit in front of a personal computer? I would imagine it’s very small, especially if they can
⏹️ ▶️ John get their sort of societal baseline participation in the internet age all during the day by looking
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, I see, I wouldn’t assume it’s that small of people who want to have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco computing-like activities during that time. I think especially social networking,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco especially Facebook.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey But even before that, we had casual
⏹️ ▶️ Marco games. In fact, I would even say that it’s probably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco likely that that number of people is still increasing. The number of people who would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rather spend that leisure time either… TV was obviously the big answer in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the past and still is probably the predominant answer. But now, you have, especially
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as computers moved first to laptops and now to phones and tablets, it’s so predominantly.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Now you have the option to be checking email and browsing Facebook while you have the TV on and you kind
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of have to pay attention to it. And that’s a very popular option. And there’s a lot of people who just go to the computer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco room or their computer desk or whatever and spend their leisure time
⏹️ ▶️ Marco browsing Facebook and playing little games and stuff instead of watching TV. That, I think,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is still growing and still has plenty of room to grow.
⏹️ ▶️ John When I picture it, I have trouble picture someone going up. I guess maybe it’s because I’m picturing a desktop computer,
⏹️ ▶️ John and that’s why I can’t picture it. Maybe if I picture a laptop and they’re on the couch anyway, that it seems more plausible. But I just
⏹️ ▶️ John see them getting this done throughout the course of the day with their phone. And even when they’re sitting and watching
⏹️ ▶️ John TV, having the phone next to them. I don’t see anyone going off into a room where there’s a desktop, sitting down in that chair, and doing stuff
⏹️ ▶️ John for long periods of time. And I don’t see people so much sitting on the couch with their laptops open. I think they used
⏹️ ▶️ John to do that until phones and a little bit tablets. But I don’t know, it’s hard for me to gauge because like,
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s a circle of computer connectivity savvy surrounding
⏹️ ▶️ John me through my own influence of like my family and everything, making them all get iPods and get computers. And like,
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know what it’s like outside that circle.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco It’s hard to observe.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s also worth considering the connectivity problem that certainly at your house,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people who have computers tend to have wifi these days, usually because it comes for free with your internet connection.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but you know if if you if you want if you have a laptop and you want to bring anywhere
⏹️ ▶️ Marco most people don’t tether most people don’t have 3g cards in their laptops
⏹️ ▶️ Marco most people you know their laptops are only connected if they have wifi somewhere and despite
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what many geeks like to think wifi is nowhere near ubiquitous not even close
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and so but but if they have a smartphone that’s effectively
⏹️ ▶️ Marco always connected and so it’s almost like I feel
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like computers now this isn’t a perfect analogy but bear with me I feel like computers now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are kind of like PDAs in 2003 you know like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like they were cool and you there were uses for them but these other things are coming up
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and and just destroying the relevance of that market because
⏹️ ▶️ John gonna get wiped out like PDAs did
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no it won’t, and that’s why it’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s, I think it’s a similar level of relevance to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, sort of. What you forget as a spoiled person who works out of the house and doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey have to go to an office like John and I, is that even business people who don’t,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on the strictest sense, their living isn’t in the computer. By that I mean they’re not writing code or doing something along those
⏹️ ▶️ Casey lines. Business people still have PCs and droves because they need to do corporate email, they need to write Word
⏹️ ▶️ Casey documents, and they need to write PowerPoints and so on and so forth. So I don’t think anything you’ve said is necessarily incorrect,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but I think we should point out that this is all true of outside of the workplace activities.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And all sorts of professions these days are still completely and utterly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey tied to having a computer in front of you always during the workday.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, that’ll be interesting canary to see. I don’t know what the, that’s a good question, what the steady
⏹️ ▶️ John state’s going to be going forward, how will this settle sort of how how tv versus movies
⏹️ ▶️ John kind of settled in after the invention of television you know it didn’t wipe out movies but the ratio is sort of adjusted to
⏹️ ▶️ John a a not a steady state but not as dramatic as you know first there was no tv and all of a sudden there
⏹️ ▶️ John is how does this shake out but yeah once once the majority of people are who would have
⏹️ ▶️ John gone into work and sat in front of a pc no longer do that and they sit in front of something else that’ll be
⏹️ ▶️ John the belt and that’s why i think like the pc won’t you know like like the movie theaters the pc won’t go away because
⏹️ ▶️ John there are certain tasks that you mean it depends on what you call a PC is your PC a big screen
⏹️ ▶️ John with a nice keyboard that you sit in front of but actually all it is is a bunch of
⏹️ ▶️ John naked peripherals that you walk up to with your phone and it magically connects them is that a PC anymore is that your smartphone right
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know the semantics but I’m saying like a thing with a large screen
⏹️ ▶️ John and a more efficient input device than you can get in a handheld device whatever that thing is and I’m just gonna continue calling
⏹️ ▶️ John at a PC. I don’t think people are going to go to work and not sit in front of the
⏹️ ▶️ John one of those. Or even like, even if it’s like you go to work and you put your hands into the neural
⏹️ ▶️ John receptors and put on your glasses, like, you know what I mean? Like the thing, the thing that you, that is at your desk lets you get
⏹️ ▶️ John your job done. That’s not going to be a phone because like the, the, the constraints are different. You don’t have, it doesn’t have to be small to
⏹️ ▶️ John fit in your pocket. Why, why would it be? Now maybe the entire smarts of your work experience are on something the size of
⏹️ ▶️ John a phone and you carry it with you, but that, that experience of, you know, taking advantage
⏹️ ▶️ John of the fact that you don’t have to be battery-powered all the time and you don’t have to fit into your pocket,
⏹️ ▶️ John you can work more efficiently when those constraints are lifted. And I don’t think that will go away, but I do think those constraints don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John apply to lots of activities like, you know, dorking around on the web or reading web pages or,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, playing on Facebook or using Twitter or whatever. Like, so many categories of things you don’t need those constraints. So
⏹️ ▶️ John I think the ratio will adjust between these smart devices and I think eventually it will start to blur
⏹️ ▶️ John where the only distinction really is how much room do you have for input output peripherals
⏹️ ▶️ John and how much what is your power budget are you near a plug do you need to be portable that seems
⏹️ ▶️ John like what the long-term thing is where this distinction between smartphone and PC will be we’ll keep trying to draw
⏹️ ▶️ John that little fuzzy line as they slowly you know merge not that we’re all using smartphones again but like
⏹️ ▶️ John you know once once the smart guts and the input output start becoming sort
⏹️ ▶️ John of interchangeable it really doesn’t sense to it. It’s kind of like when the iPad came out, it’s like, is it a PC?
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know. Like, it throws the old categories for a loop and you don’t really know how to talk about it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think, stepping back a half step for a sec, I wonder how much of this PC sales
⏹️ ▶️ Marco downturn businesses are responsible for. Because, you know, we know businesses buy
⏹️ ▶️ Marco lots of PCs, they always have. And I don’t think that’s necessarily changing. However,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at least not yet. I mean, as you said, I think, you know, who knows what it will be in five or 10 years. But But
⏹️ ▶️ Marco certainly for now, it does seem like everyone’s still buying PCs and using Office apps
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and stuff like that. And I think that’s going to be with us for quite some time. But
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how many new PCs do businesses buy in a recession
⏹️ ▶️ Marco where there’s no new jobs for anyone? If you aren’t hiring a lot of people,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco then you’re not buying PCs for new employees. And obviously there’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco some annual number of PCs that will fail or wear out or be lost
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by salesmen and need to be replaced in any organization. But besides that basic
⏹️ ▶️ Marco churn rate of replacements, what reason would businesses
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have to upgrade their systems if they’ve found something that works for them?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco has the business world, the business software world, offered to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco justify upgrades in the last, I don’t know, 12 years?
⏹️ ▶️ John In my experience in the corporate stooge world, the upgrade rate doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John seem to have changed much. It seemed like the personal computers
⏹️ ▶️ John on people’s desks turned over at the same rate when I started in the job market in
⏹️ ▶️ John the late 90s and now, which is not particularly rapid. one, two, three years.
⏹️ ▶️ John And different companies have different policies and it depends on the time, the size of the company, the bureaucracy, and the kind of deals they have with
⏹️ ▶️ John Dell for their whatever they’re putting, you know what I mean? But it wasn’t like, oh, back when the
⏹️ ▶️ John internet was new we got a new PC every year, but now it’s every three years. The average over my career
⏹️ ▶️ John has been a similar turnover rate, which has been surprisingly slow for me, like to the point
⏹️ ▶️ John where most of the people have a PC that they’re using that they think is old and crappy and they don’t like,
⏹️ ▶️ John but they still have to wait another year before they can get a new one.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I would agree with that. And I would actually also double down and say that in my experience in,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I work for a fairly small consulting firm in Richmond, but we consult
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with fairly large companies, some of which are, you know, fortune 1000 or fortune 500 or something like that big
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is the point I’m driving at. And in both our firm and the, and our clients, I’ve seen
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a MacBook verification of general laptops in the workplace.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And by that I mean, not necessarily everyone’s getting a MacBook Air, but almost everyone I know that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey doesn’t write code for a living, so regular people, they’re all getting either MacBook Airs,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and that does happen, or they’re getting whatever Dell or Lenovo equivalent is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that’s very thin, very small, very light, and very portable. And that kind of goes back to what you were saying, John,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about what will the future bring? Is portability really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey paramount? And it seems like even for people who don’t travel for a living, everyone’s got a laptop now
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and everyone’s got something that vaguely resembles a MacBook Air or is a MacBook Air. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey furthermore, a lot of times I wonder if the PC sales downturns are related to Apple doing better in the business
⏹️ ▶️ Casey world. And you could attribute that to maybe people bringing their own devices and IT
⏹️ ▶️ Casey departments being forced into supporting them. You could say it’s because IT has chosen
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to support them. But one way or another, it seems like I see a lot more Macs
⏹️ ▶️ Casey today than I ever have before, and I don’t think that’s a particularly profound statement or observation.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And so I wonder if that’s reflected in this report that you’re citing, Marco, that PCs
⏹️ ▶️ Casey aren’t selling as well.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I wonder also how much has to do with, because so many business computers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco used to be desktops, and so many of them now are laptops, even for regular employees
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that probably could have a desktop for so many businesses now laptops are the new default
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or the most common type that they buy. Laptops don’t last as long as desktops in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use. You know like they first of all if you if you have some kind of turnover like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know if if you if you come into a job it wouldn’t be that unheard of for them to give you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco somebody else’s desktop that’s like a year and a half old that’s you know still works fine for your job purposes
⏹️ ▶️ Marco then you just get someone else’s computer you might if you’re lucky get a new keyboard and that’s about it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But with a laptop, like, A, it’s a much harder sell to use someone’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Because… So,
⏹️ ▶️ John what are you talking about?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco They’re gonna use laptops
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, but how used? Because laptops show wear
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John a lot. Completely used. As
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco can imagine. Really? Because I figure, you know, a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco desktop, you can replace the keyboard for $12 and it looks new. But a laptop, like the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John whole top case… They don’t replace the
⏹️ ▶️ John keyboard. They give you the old keyboard.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Ew. And you have to have someone else’s, like…
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey fingernail clippings
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco in it, yes. Oh, yeah. It’s rough out
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Marc. It is. Okay, well, the old keyboard… Well, the other thing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is at least also with laptops that they tend to have two major problems
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one is that They just because they’re portable that because they’re gonna get banged around a bit They
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t think they tend to last as long
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John No, that’s just a guess people you how people and then the second thing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right? and the second thing is a very very common laptop problem is Needing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a screen repair and screen repairs usually once it’s out of warranty. They’re almost never worth doing doing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because they’re so expensive on laptops. So I feel like in general, if I had to guess,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would guess that the average business laptop is in service for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco less time than the average business desktop.
⏹️ ▶️ John That is true. That would make you think they’d be replacing them more, but that’s definitely true. I see how PCs
⏹️ ▶️ John are treated in the office now that there’s so many more of them. I feel like Adobe owes the world
⏹️ ▶️ John some restitution for their… Flash destroys laptops of all
⏹️ ▶️ John kinds, Mac, PC. Like, I see these
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey points. With heat?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, because they do like a Google Hangout or whatever. Not just Google Hangout, I think that’s HTML5. But anything
⏹️ ▶️ John that involves Flash, whenever I’m in a meeting and I hear someone’s tiny little high RPM
⏹️ ▶️ John laptop fan going, it’s a good bet that we’re right to peek around their screen. They had some tab with some stupid Flash
⏹️ ▶️ John thing running in it. And I hear it. And you know that sound of the laptop with the fans cranked up?
⏹️ ▶️ John Unless you’re doing like H.264 encoding or something, that shouldn’t be happening on your work machine. But it’s so
⏹️ ▶️ John common. And I’m like, that can’t be good for the computer, you know? Of all the other things, of just
⏹️ ▶️ John spilling your coffee on it, and clunking it around, and dropping it on the table, and tipping it off your desk, and all the
⏹️ ▶️ John other terrible things that happen to laptops, on top of that, they’re all running hotter than they should be because of flash.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And the other thing I should point out is that, again, being as part of a small firm, I think we have somewhere
⏹️ ▶️ Casey around 80 employees. That’s small?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Yeah. Oh my god. Oh, you
⏹️ ▶️ Casey have no idea. But anyway, so being part of a small firm, believe it or not, We are relatively
⏹️ ▶️ Casey progressive, and so we have been issuing Macs to people that are not developers,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and we’ve been issuing them to developers for a while because the developers are all demanding it, but one of the reasons
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that we’re very reluctant to issue Macs to regular people
⏹️ ▶️ Casey who don’t really need it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is because— Is that really an appropriate use of whom?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, probably not. I get yelled at so many times. That’s who, whom, that guy, whatever. It doesn’t matter. The point
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco I’m driving at is— Just say
⏹️ ▶️ Casey time. But anyway, the point I’m driving at is that the reason
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we don’t get Macs more often is because Dell has such an unbelievably
⏹️ ▶️ Casey great warranty, or maybe not warranty, but service plan, such that you can pretty much dropkick
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a Dell, and they will be there either that day or the next day with whatever part you need. They will come to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey our office, they will fix it, and you will be done within 24 hours.
⏹️ ▶️ John was going to say, how much do these PC vendors realize how much they owe to Apple’s complete indifference
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey to the enterprise market?
⏹️ ▶️ John They are just not interested. But Dell comes and returns. That’s nice.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco idea of Apple doing on-site help is laughable.
⏹️ ▶️ John There are Apple business liaisons, and they make motions in that direction, but they’re not willing to do what it
⏹️ ▶️ John takes, nor should they be as far as I’m concerned. I think they’re wise to stay out of that business because I think it’s poison.
⏹️ ▶️ John But by Apple being so terrible at business and so terrible at servicing businesses compared to
⏹️ ▶️ John Dell or any other resellers, PC resellers who are just willing to do anything for you and just
⏹️ ▶️ John have a machine ready to execute, that is, it’s got to be keeping
⏹️ ▶️ John many crappy PC companies afloat. Because like, you know, like Casey said, I have
⏹️ ▶️ John also experienced an incredible increase in recent years of regular non-geek
⏹️ ▶️ John people who want Apple hardware, whether there be phones to replace their BlackBerry
⏹️ ▶️ John or laptops to replace their Dell laptops, and are willing to make noise
⏹️ ▶️ John about it and make it happen in companies. And that is a
⏹️ ▶️ John fairly new phenomenon, at least in my work experience, where it used to be that people were a little
⏹️ ▶️ John bit disgruntled, and they’d look at the neat little Mac that was over there. But it’s like, oh, whatever. I got to get my work done. But now, we’ve crossed
⏹️ ▶️ John some sort of threshold where it’s like, you know what? Why can’t I have a Mac? I think that would be nice.
⏹️ ▶️ John And then the poor IT companies have to, I got to figure out how to get a Mac. And maybe there’s a local
⏹️ ▶️ John who gets it. And what happens when it goes bad? The poor IT people have horror stories of, I had to go to the
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple store. That’s not how corporate IT works. You’re not supposed to take, a human being is not supposed to carry
⏹️ ▶️ John a computer to a store in a mall. That is not how corporate IT works. And once that happens, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John so that tension still exists there. And I don’t think Apple’s interested in that market. And so I don’t know how that’s gonna
⏹️ ▶️ John resolve itself because the people want it, but it’s a terrible experience for corporate
⏹️ ▶️ Casey IT. Right, and it gets worse because the particular MacBook Pro I have is a 15 inch
⏹️ ▶️ Casey non-retina, a late 2011. And we put 16 gigs of RAM in this thing,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and most of my developer co-workers have basically the same machine. And one of my co-workers’ machines,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey his motherboard got fried somehow. And so our IT
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco guy- Casey, this is a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Mac. I believe it’s called a Logic Board.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Oh, whatever. It’s in Marco email. But anyway, about whom as well. But anyway, the point
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m driving at is that our IT guy, who’s an awesome, awesome, awesome guy, he took
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it to the mall, to the local Apple store, which is literally three miles from our office. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey they took one look at it and said, oh, this model doesn’t support 16 gigs of RAM. That’s why you fried your logic board. That’ll be $700, please.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And you think Dell would do that? Absolutely not. Dell will say.
⏹️ ▶️ John did he go to the mall store? I was just about to give disclaimers. Like, please don’t write in. I know Apple has
⏹️ ▶️ John actual business service now. This was like stories from a long time ago when the Apple Store first came out. But this is recent, where your
⏹️ ▶️ John IT guy went to the Apple Store?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t think we have. I know we have resellers or
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John whatever, but I don’t think we
⏹️ ▶️ John have. You’re 80 people. But there are VARs around who will do that stuff for you. But I think even
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple itself has programs that you can get into if you’re any kind of company to not have to bring things
⏹️ ▶️ John to the Apple Store.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco very well could be.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have a business account guy at the Apple Store. Yeah, but does
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco house and get your computer breaks? No, I still have to go there.
⏹️ ▶️ John And he doesn’t come with a replacing computer in his hand and hand it off to you and just take the other computer away?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Do they do that for people? I don’t even know.
⏹️ ▶️ John Dell Experiences, or any kind of
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco enterprise class
⏹️ ▶️ John hardware, They come, you get the new thing or the fixed thing within like two hours and your problem is solved. It’s re-imaged,
⏹️ ▶️ John everything’s back the way it was. Like that’s how corporate IT is supposed to work. And you know, server is the same type of thing. It’s like
⏹️ ▶️ John a four hour window. Like if your, you know, EMC hardware goes down and your stupid support contract is supposed to have a geek
⏹️ ▶️ John with the neck beard parachuting into your data center within hours
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey and fixing your thing.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s why you pay a bazillion dollars.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And that’s the thing is it’s all quote unquote free. And then my poor IT guy, he goes to Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and they say, okay, that’ll be $700. And by the way, we need to send this thing to God knows where in order to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey get it done. I mean, how is… why would he buy any more Macs
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco that way? Okay,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco first of all, I don’t think it’s possible for an unspecified… or for an
⏹️ ▶️ Marco unapproved quantity of RAM to fry a logic board. No, no, that’s… I agree. That’s exactly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the point. Second of all, he failed the number one rule of Apple do-it-yourself third-party
⏹️ ▶️ Marco RAM upgrades, which is always keep the Apple RAM and… And put it back in when you go to the store. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco put it back in whenever you bring
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it in for service. Right. Well, and you’re absolutely right. But it doesn’t negate the point that that is a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really, for lack of a better word, offensive experience for him. And why would he continue to buy
⏹️ ▶️ Casey apples knowing that if anything breaks, he the person the owner screwed and thus
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, because he doesn’t have a choice. keep whining for. I mean, that’s the tension. It’s sentiment. IT, Apple doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John want to support IT. IT doesn’t want to buy Apple. But the employees want Apple. And there’s just this constant
⏹️ ▶️ John struggle. But the tide has been shifting. It used to be that IT just held the line. No, you can’t have a Mac. There are no Macs in this company,
⏹️ ▶️ John period. No, you can’t bring your Mac from home. That was the old story. And that slowly shifted. And once
⏹️ ▶️ John people got their foot in the door, as far as I know, I was the first officially corporate purchase
⏹️ ▶️ John Mac in my company four years ago. Now, when you get hired,
⏹️ ▶️ John I believe it is an option for most people to say they would like a Mac. And tons of people have requested
⏹️ ▶️ John Macs. In fact, often they get a Mac alongside their Dell. So they have their Dell thing,
⏹️ ▶️ John their quote-unquote real work computer, but they also have a work-purchased MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ John Air, MacBook Pro, something like that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Really? Well, I think what happened was Apple attacked from the top there. Apple made products, and I don’t know if this was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco intentional or not, probably not, but Apple made products that were so good that the bosses started
⏹️ ▶️ Marco wanting them. And so, you know, it depends on like, I feel like how soon Macs
⏹️ ▶️ Marco were permissible or supported in your IT infrastructure at your work probably depends a lot
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on on, you know, how high up the IT department ranks authority-wise and how
⏹️ ▶️ Marco long it took for somebody who ranks above them in authority to want to bring in their own
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPhone or iPad or MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ John The bosses brought the iPhones in alongside.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco And the MacBook Airs. And
⏹️ ▶️ John the BlackBerrys. Maybe, but I would say the developers, if you have a company with whiny developers,
⏹️ ▶️ John they’re the ones who brought the Macs in for the desktop type of
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco thing. Yeah, but they were bringing in. They want
⏹️ ▶️ John to develop, and they want to have a Unix system where you can develop Unix software, but you can also do GUI stuff all on one
⏹️ ▶️ John machine, no SIGWIN, no Linux servers that
⏹️ ▶️ John have to page into. So those are the two portals. C-level executives
⏹️ ▶️ John make anything happen because they run the company, and they want an iPhone. They’re going to get one, and that cascades into Macs. So,
⏹️ ▶️ John for my experience, C-level executives have not been clamoring
⏹️ ▶️ John for Macs. They’re perfectly happy to sit there with whatever the cutest little ThinkPad is because they really don’t know how
⏹️ ▶️ John to use computers. That shows what kind of companies I’ve worked for. I’ve not worked for companies where the CEOs are computer nerds,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Steve McLaughlin As a software consulting firm, I knew that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the tide had turned when one of our C-level execs – I don’t even remember his title, which is funny because there’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like four C-level execs. But anyway, he had asked for a Retina MacBook Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Casey when the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro was pretty much brand new. And that was the first time I had seen
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a quote-unquote business person have a Mac. And since then, I’d say it’s a 50-50
⏹️ ▶️ Casey split between Macs and PCs. But all of the business people are all getting things
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like I was talking about earlier that are approximately the same form factor as a MacBook Air,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey whether or not there’s an Apple on the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco display. Ultrabooks. It’s one of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey these… Right, right, right.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I love, I love, you know, this is, this is something that, that the PC industry does all the time, and it isn’t just the PC industry that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco does this, but, but they certainly do it a lot, which is, you take something that’s having some success,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you immediately genericize it and start discussing it as if it’s a category, even if it’s not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco really yet. And, and it… Like tablet? Exactly. Tablet,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even, even like PDAs. Back when, like, pretty much the only game in town was Palm
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the Palm Pilot. Actually before it was, was it, no it was the US Robotics Pilot 1000
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think first. But like you know it’s like it isn’t just Apple that gets targeted with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this. It’s you know any company that has some kind of innovative thing. The analysts
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the press start genericizing it because they want it to be a category
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because then you know it’s better for them and there’s more to talk about and it’s more interesting. And it like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it totally sucks the life and originality out of the out of the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco originator I guess you know so it definitely happened with tablets and then it of course happened with ultra
⏹️ ▶️ Marco books you know like it’s ultra book was the generic name for macbook airs that’s like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and everything that looks exactly like them and has
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John well there is that came up with the name ultra yes that’s right
⏹️ ▶️ John coin that is generic but it’s like it’s kind of sometimes it doesn’t happen like podcast it didn’t happen with I don’t know if they tried
⏹️ ▶️ John to do like broadcast audio, internet audio, but podcast stuck and that became the Kleenex
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco we’re doing now. Leo
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Laporte tried to make Netcast and it just didn’t stick outside of his network.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I mean, sometimes you just can’t get it out of the way. But like, it’s a good – Apple didn’t have a generic name
⏹️ ▶️ John for the MacBook Air, so that’s too much of a mouthful. iPad could have potentially stuck,
⏹️ ▶️ John but, you know, tablet had been pre-existing, like, with, you know, Windows for
⏹️ ▶️ John pen computing and all the grid thing. Like, tablets had been around for ages,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco so that was kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco established. That’s not what—the iPad was so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John different from that. I know,
⏹️ ▶️ John but it’s a rectangle that you touch. It doesn’t take much—that generic term had been
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco pre-existing. Well, you didn’t touch the old ones.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you ever used the old tablet PC from the—I think it was the late 90s or early 2000s when Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ Marco did their second or third version of what they called tablet PC? It was actually
⏹️ ▶️ Marco decent. It was like—they had the convertible ones, but they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John have these again now. It would fold it back on itself. Yeah, it had the little swivel hinge. The twisty screen. engine. Yeah, so my
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John friend had one of those
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it was it was actually really interesting to use but it was it was similar to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if you imagine using Windows 8 only in desktop mode on a device
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with no keyboard you know like that’s that’s kind of how it was like there were some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco affordances for pen input in some applications and the system would you know throw up the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on-screen keyboard kind of hackily as needed but it wasn’t it wasn’t a very polished or robust system.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It wasn’t and it’s funny you bring it up because my wife is a school teacher, a high school teacher and when she was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in college or university depending on where you are, she was actually given
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one of these tablets, these Microsoft tablets to use during her
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in-class training which student teaching, I couldn’t think of the name of it for a second there. And I don’t recall why she
⏹️ ▶️ Casey liked it but she was like the only person on the planet that really, really liked having one of these
⏹️ ▶️ Casey pen-based Windows machines. I’ll have to ask her after the show what it was that she liked about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it, but she swore by
⏹️ ▶️ Marco my friend loved his. I mean, it was really great for note-taking,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if you’re standing up, like you would be with a lot of teaching and a lot of professions. A
⏹️ ▶️ Marco lot of times, just contextually, it’s kind of hard to sit down and open
⏹️ ▶️ Marco up a laptop and type. But even without that, if you just like handwriting and if you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco handwrite a lot of your notes, that’s probably still a better experience than using
⏹️ ▶️ John People liked it for the same reason. All the good things that we like about iPads now, a tiny fraction of those
⏹️ ▶️ John were present in any sort of tablet form factor thing. Microsoft really snatched a feat
⏹️ ▶️ John from the Joes of Victory with the whole tablet thing because they were just investing in it so early and so often.
⏹️ ▶️ John I experienced the same thing. People with those stupid swivel head things. It was just terrible plastic, you saw hardware and everything, but like there was
⏹️ ▶️ John enough of the things we love about the iPad. The fact that you can use it on your lap, the fact that you can touch it if you want to, you know, like
⏹️ ▶️ John all that stuff was like, it’s just a tiny bit of it, and there’s enough in there where people were like, hey, you know, so this thing is a
⏹️ ▶️ John piece of crap, but there’s something about it that I kind of like, and you’ll latch onto it and say, yeah, I’d like more of that. But
⏹️ ▶️ John Microsoft could not get out of its own way, because, I mean, it’s obvious now in retrospect what they should have done, but
⏹️ ▶️ John like, you know, I say this about all the things. They were just two, same thing with Windows CE
⏹️ ▶️ John and Windows Mobile and everything. They were two married, two Windows everywhere, PC everywhere. That is the paradigm.
⏹️ ▶️ John They would never have done anything like iOS and the iPad where it has no application compatibility with
⏹️ ▶️ John the Mac. Looks nothing like the Mac. Works nothing like the Mac. If Microsoft had done that
⏹️ ▶️ John back when it was playing with all these things, it would have had like four chances, four complete chances
⏹️ ▶️ John to screw up before the iPad even existed. Instead, every single one was like, You got a start menu on your phone. You’re like,
⏹️ ▶️ John are you kidding me? A start menu on my phone? Like, that shows they just didn’t get it. So they had,
⏹️ ▶️ John it was all there for the taking. They just could not get out of their own way, couldn’t get rid of Windows and Office. Like, that’s the
⏹️ ▶️ John story of Microsoft.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And you know what’s really funny is, the college I went to is Virginia Tech, and they have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a really, really great engineering program. And I’m looking at the Virginia Tech
⏹️ ▶️ Casey College of Engineering fall 2013, spring 2014 computer requirement, because everyone
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is required to bring a computer. OS, Windows 7 or 8, professional 64-bit, processor,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey third-gen Core i5, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Input device, integrated Wacom,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Wacom, Wacom, whatever it’s called, N-Trig, or S-Pen, or companion Slate slash tablet.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That is required. Wow. To this day. That is this year’s computing requirement.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s really interesting.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And supposedly, I don’t know anyone that’s in school anymore, because I’m way too old for that, But I’ve
⏹️ ▶️ Casey heard rumblings that there are some things about it that are really great and a lot of things
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that are really terrible. And one thing I was going to bring up was even way back when, when we were talking about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in the early 2000s when these pen computers were sort of kind of popular, one
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of the things that I think a lot of people liked about it, and Marco, I think you alluded to this, was note-taking and specifically
⏹️ ▶️ Casey OneNote, which was a Microsoft Office app that I have used and actually is really darn good
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for taking notes. And it’s very free form. And I’m sure there’s equivalents on the iPad now that I’m not even aware of,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but at the time it kind of stood by itself as a really, really awesome note-taking app. And like you
⏹️ ▶️ Casey said, Marco, when you can do that with a pen, it’s no different than paper, really.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco probably better.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, it’s way better than using a capacitive stylus on a capacitive screen. If you’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco going to be handwriting notes or doing anything with a pen on a regular basis, you really want a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco resistive screen or whatever the Wacom… Are those resistive, the Wacom ones? Or are they just a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John special kind of capacitive? I
⏹️ ▶️ John have no idea. It’s pressure sensitive, is what you’re… There’s
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco several aspects of it. Yes. You want a screen
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that your hand will not trigger, basically.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, well, there’s pressure
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco sensitivity, and there’s also
⏹️ ▶️ John proximity detection. So there’s capacitive touch, proximity detection, which I’m not sure how that works, and then plain old
⏹️ ▶️ John pressure sensitivity. So all the Palms are pressure sensitive. You’d have to press on the screen to make it register anything.
⏹️ ▶️ John The Windows tablet things and the Wacom tablets, I believe have proximity. They can tell
⏹️ ▶️ John when the pen is near it because it hasn’t even touched it yet. And I think right now the current Wacom, this one I’m going
⏹️ ▶️ John to go with, I’m going with Wacom.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco I believe it’s Wacom,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but I always say Wacom just because it’s fun. Just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John like I say, you know, the F in key.
⏹️ ▶️ John They should have pronunciation guide on their website and maybe they do, but we have not looked at it obviously.
⏹️ ▶️ John But I think what they currently do is they do the pressure sensitivity in the pen, if I’m correct. I don’t know. I know that at
⏹️ ▶️ John one point they’ve done this where like the pressure sensitive devices inside the pen and the surface that you’re drawing
⏹️ ▶️ John on does not actually give like the old palm screens used to give.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think they’ve always, I think all the Wacom tablets, I think they’ve always been like that. The pen is somehow
⏹️ ▶️ Marco smart, but somehow doesn’t use a battery. I don’t know if it uses induction to power itself or what. It’s
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⏹️ ▶️ Marco So going back a second, there was some news or rumor or something. We are so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ill prepared for this show. There was some news or rumor or something that Microsoft Office for iOS
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was delayed or something. Office for iOS this week. What was that?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, there was a leaked schedule that’s that some sort of leak, supposed leak document
⏹️ ▶️ John from inside Microsoft that had Office for a
⏹️ ▶️ John tablet type systems as 2014. And so like everyone’s saying that, well, they’re not going to release
⏹️ ▶️ John it for iOS before they release it for Windows 8 RT or whatever.
⏹️ ▶️ John And therefore, if there is an iOS version of Office, it’s not coming till 2014 to the point was that
⏹️ ▶️ John Lots of people thought maybe this year Microsoft would ship Office for
⏹️ ▶️ John iOS, and this supposed unverified leaked thing from inside Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ John had the number 2014 on it instead of 2013. And that’s the story. That’s all you need for a story.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Do you think, I mean, as we were discussing 15 minutes ago about businesses and their
⏹️ ▶️ Marco computer usage and everything, do you really think that Office for iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is going to be a big deal if it ever does come out? Like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John in the sense that…
⏹️ ▶️ John No, no, no. The ship, they waited too long.
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s… Yeah. Like the longer they wait, the less important or relevant it becomes. And I’m not turning up my
⏹️ ▶️ John nose at it because I think it will be useful. I think the most interesting thing about Office for iOS is how
⏹️ ▶️ John the hell that dance between these two cobras is gonna work, or this cobra and this
⏹️ ▶️ John mouse, if you decide. Apple and Microsoft are like, is Microsoft gonna give… I guess
⏹️ ▶️ John they’re gonna give Apple 30% of their Office sales? Like that is just… I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t even know how that’s going to work. Or is it going to be free, but there’s going to be in-app purchase or a subscription, and it’ll
⏹️ ▶️ John be subscription only, so Microsoft gets recurring revenue, and they don’t mind giving up the 30%?
⏹️ ▶️ John And what is it going to look like? And is it going to have file compatibility? Will it use iCloud? Will it have
⏹️ ▶️ John Dropbox integration? Will you need to sign up for Microsoft SkyDrive, and it’ll do HTTP requests to Microsoft servers?
⏹️ ▶️ John And there are so many unanswered questions about how would this it’s like a fish bicycle
⏹️ ▶️ John scenario. How is this even going to work? I don’t understand. And that, to me, is much more interesting than
⏹️ ▶️ John does the iPad suddenly become legitimate because it has Office, because I don’t think people care about that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, see, I don’t know if I’d be so sure. I think your average consumer, your average business
⏹️ ▶️ Casey consumer, is assuming that the iPad is a brick that is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey useless for doing normal day-to-day business things because it doesn’t have Office. Now, as it turns
⏹️ ▶️ Casey out, I think that’s bogus. But I think your Joe Schmoe
⏹️ ▶️ Casey business consumer, I bet you it will be a big mental shift once it’s available.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John That’s based on no facts. It won’t
⏹️ ▶️ John be like, it’ll be the same way that Keynote is available on iOS and the Mac. So no matter
⏹️ ▶️ John what presentation you have, it’ll work identically in both places, right? No. Like,
⏹️ ▶️ John all the crazy, like, oh, you embed this Excel chart, this chart and this thing and this PowerPoint
⏹️ ▶️ John and it’s linked to this Excel document, when you update the Excel document. to still use that stuff. You can’t
⏹️ ▶️ John do that on iOS. There’s just no way. It’s not going to work the same as it does on a
⏹️ ▶️ John desktop. And that, I found, is the bar where it’s like, because I have Office on my Mac,
⏹️ ▶️ John but people still turn their nose up at it. And rightfully so, because it’s like, look, we’re passing
⏹️ ▶️ John around what should be a text file. But instead, it’s a Word document that, for some reason, has some
⏹️ ▶️ John crazy macro thing in it or something. And it doesn’t look right on your Mac. So just
⏹️ ▶️ John open it in your VM. and just don’t even bother with this. Like, if it’s not 100% compatible,
⏹️ ▶️ John like, I found an amazing variety, a pointless variety, but
⏹️ ▶️ John an amazing variety in the features of these individual files that people use
⏹️ ▶️ John in Office for Windows. And that having Office on the Mac, like, maybe it gets the foot in the door,
⏹️ ▶️ John maybe it checks a checkbox. But in practice, all the time I come across
⏹️ ▶️ John documents that do not look the same on the Mac and the PC. So what hope is there really that someone’s
⏹️ ▶️ John going to be able to take a document, somehow spirit it over to your iPad, and it will function correctly there? Even just
⏹️ ▶️ John in a viewing. Forget about editing. Just like, will it look the same when I open it? I
⏹️ ▶️ John very little faith that this will be. So I think it’ll be the same type of phenomenon. Well, it’s got Office, and it will get in the
⏹️ ▶️ John door. But in practice, it’s going to be like, look, if you didn’t create it in iOS, it’s going to look different there. And some things
⏹️ ▶️ John might not work. And if you want to see the real budgeting spreadsheet, you have to open it on a PC.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And I would say also, that’s not that different from the status quo. right now. Like you’re totally
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right that if it’s going to be like a different edition of Office, if it’s going to work differently
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at all, which it almost certainly would have to, then that’s going to be like a major
⏹️ ▶️ Marco problem for integrating it to businesses. But right now we already have that. Right now we have pages
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and we have iWork on iOS. So we already have something, a situation now where
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people can open MS Office documents on their
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John iOS devices. In a half-assed way.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right. And it kind of works. Sometimes. And if you’re coordinating with someone else who’s using the PC version,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’ll probably have issues. Or you’ll at least have inconsistencies and weird formatting problems.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John I mean, to cry it out
⏹️ ▶️ John loud, at our office, people still send Word documents, emails, and make web pages
⏹️ ▶️ John with links. The URL of links is G colon backslash, because everyone has their G drive
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey mounted. Or triple slash share name for a share
⏹️ ▶️ John mounted on everyone’s PCs because the IT pushes it all in. That’s how the world works. And it’s like,
⏹️ ▶️ John if you are the guy with the Mac and you go, I clicked on the link and nothing happened, they’re going to be like, oh, well,
⏹️ ▶️ John just look at a PC. It works there.
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, that’s the world the Macs come into. And that’s why the people who get them are the people who can support themselves. Because
⏹️ ▶️ John IT doesn’t want to support that. They can’t make everyone stop authoring documents with PC-specific features or pads
⏹️ ▶️ John to shares that are not mounted on. It’s just backslashes instead of slashes. Like, oh, it works
⏹️ ▶️ John fine for me on my Windows machine. I don’t see what your problem is.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I completely agree. My point is simply that, and I think you yourself had said this, John, that it gets
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the foot in the door and it at least lets it become part of the conversation. Whereas
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think for an average business user, if there’s no office, it’s not even a discussion. I’m not even going to give it a shot.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey In reality, even if there is office, it’s going to be a piece of garbage, not because it’s Microsoft, but just because there’s way
⏹️ ▶️ Casey too much complexity for that platform. But I think just having it there would be a big win
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in the sense that it would at least let the iPad enter the conversation.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, Windows 8 is really the real entry of tablet computing into the office because in theory
⏹️ ▶️ John like once the few more revs of Silicon and Windows 8
⏹️ ▶️ John non-laptop laptops will become of the real deal. And I see no reason
⏹️ ▶️ John if Microsoft is able to keep going on this course that they can’t produce
⏹️ ▶️ John what’s essentially that thing that the convertible tablet we were just talking about,
⏹️ ▶️ John essentially that but the non-crappy version. Because now finally, in something that small, with no
⏹️ ▶️ John keyboard attachment, or maybe that clicky keyboard, or maybe a full-size keyboard that you can Bluetooth to, or whatever, suddenly
⏹️ ▶️ John you have real computing power, a reasonable small screen, maybe the possibility to hook it up
⏹️ ▶️ John to another screen. It’s a dockable laptop without a keyboard that turns into it’s the whole it’s the whole
⏹️ ▶️ John Windows 8 concept. And I think that is a reasonable concept for businesses, because if it’s an x86 in
⏹️ ▶️ John there, you can run the quote unquote real versions of Office, which are still going to be incompatible with like, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, the Office 97 documents that people are still passing around and companies all over the world. But
⏹️ ▶️ John like that’s that will move things on. And I think that’s Microsoft’s goal is, OK, we would like to
⏹️ ▶️ John see a Windows 8, instead of an Ultrabook, a Windows 8 tablet, but really mostly gets used
⏹️ ▶️ John as a PC, but it also doubles as a tablet when you move it. That’s what they’re going for. And that seems reasonable to me. And
⏹️ ▶️ John once that happens, then it’s like, well, everyone else has these little things that look like squares that you carry. Can
⏹️ ▶️ John I have the thing with the Apple logo on the back that’s a square that you carry? And the distinction is like, well, this has an
⏹️ ▶️ John x86 chip, and it runs VL Office. I think that will be even less of a barrier. It was like, all right, well, that’s a rectangle,
⏹️ ▶️ John too. You can try that rectangle. Does it have Office? Yeah, but they don’t know that that doesn’t help you.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, I think I mean it’s worth considering Would Microsoft withhold office from iOS
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as a competitive advantage to boost Windows 8 tablets? No, they’re just not done with it. You think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know I think
⏹️ ▶️ John they may not have embarked on the project with gusto if the moment the iPad was announced ago We’ll get the Mac business
⏹️ ▶️ John unit. They need to get working on office for iPad. Maybe they didn’t do that But at this point it’s not like they’re holding it back. They just
⏹️ ▶️ John have not been scrambling to get it Maybe they probably are scrambling to get it finished at this point, but yeah, I don’t I just think
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s a factor of team size and syncing with whatever the crazy
⏹️ ▶️ John strategy is gonna be for pricing and figuring all that that they just they started on it when they finally got all their ducks
⏹️ ▶️ John in a Row about what they were gonna do and they’re writing it and it will be done when it’s done
⏹️ ▶️ Marco See, I I don’t believe that. I honestly I think right now maybe two years ago I would have believed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that they wanted office everywhere and they’re gonna put it on the iPad. Okay, but But now,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco now that they have their own alternative to the iPad, they are competing directly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with iPads and iOS for professional slash business slash office
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use, I can see them totally wanting to keep Microsoft Office
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and quote the real Microsoft Office. They’ve already used that as a selling point, that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco these are tablets you can also get real work done on. I can see them wanting to keep that exclusive
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and not ever making an iPad version of Office.
⏹️ ▶️ John They’ll make one. Maybe it’ll be crappy. Maybe it’ll be made by a different team. It’s not really compatible.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think it will eventually be there once they get everything sorted. Their tablets already have Office
⏹️ ▶️ John and iPads don’t. They’re milking the exclusivity period now. I don’t think
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s anything to be gained by them extending it out for years and years.
⏹️ ▶️ John Why do they keep making Office for the Mac? not about to yank that away and say, well, if you want Office, you have to get a PC.
⏹️ ▶️ John They make money on these things. That’s the bottom line. The Mac business unit makes the money. I’m sure Office
⏹️ ▶️ John for iOS will as well. They’ll price it at a whole $9.99 or maybe it’ll be
⏹️ ▶️ John a recurring subscription. I don’t even know. Yeah. I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I’m sure whatever they do,
⏹️ ▶️ John it will make them money.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Another thing to consider is, and I’m talking a little bit out of my wheelhouse now, but I know
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’ve heard a lot of rumblings around our office that it would be considerably cheaper for us
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to start using, uh, Microsoft, their office 365 or whatever it is,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which I don’t know. And barely anything about, but apparently is all like, I think it’s web-based. It’s like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Google docs and Google spreadsheet or whatever. But anyway, apparently there’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey some office 365 thing, whatever that means that I’m being told is actually
⏹️ ▶️ Casey considerably cheaper. And I believe that’s a subscription based thing, regardless if it’s native software or if it’s web-based,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it’s subscription. And so that makes me wonder, John, if you’re absolutely right, that if something arrived
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on the iPad, maybe it’d either be part of this Office 365 thing or it would at the very
⏹️ ▶️ Casey least be a subscription one way or the
⏹️ ▶️ John Microsoft has had the subscription bug in their butt for so many years and
⏹️ ▶️ John such a hard sell. I mean, Adobe’s managed to, I wouldn’t say pull it off, but they’ve managed to
⏹️ ▶️ John not have just gigantic backlash because Adobe did the subscription thing, they continue to sell alongside. And
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s the type of thing where people, I think, mentally resist the notion of why do I have to pay every year for this thing. But
⏹️ ▶️ John I think once they get on that train, and if you do subscription really well, if you actually, if it’s not just
⏹️ ▶️ John the same exact experience you had before, only now you pay every single year, if it’s like, oh, well, now you get
⏹️ ▶️ John your updates instantly, and it’s nice and clean, you never have to worry about licensing. And like, you know, you can give all the benefits that
⏹️ ▶️ John you could possibly have with a subscription, if you can deliver on those benefits, I think it is possible to bring
⏹️ ▶️ John the IT guys in it because I think people are already paying like whatever the hell thing you pay Microsoft for their like you get access
⏹️ ▶️ John to all of our software for free and you know like those deals that they make with companies where you okay well you
⏹️ ▶️ John license this and every year you pay this amount of money for your exchange server and you get an unlimited number of seats and any
⏹️ ▶️ John any software in our library that you want you can download license-free versions of it and distribute you know
⏹️ ▶️ John that is basically a subscription but it has to be renegotiated and repurchase and stuff it would be nice there if it was just
⏹️ ▶️ John automated through your computer and you’re just connected to the big Microsoft servers and money
⏹️ ▶️ John flowed from your company into theirs every year. That’s the dream.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Isn’t that what.NET originally meant? Wasn’t the.NET initiative
⏹️ ▶️ Marco originally one of the names for their subscription plans?
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t think so. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John umbrella term that covered many different things, but I always associated with the common language runtime and that
⏹️ ▶️ John whole big ball of wax.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I thought it related to their Microsoft Live, before it was Microsoft Live or MSN
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Live, whatever they’re calling it now. I think it was some, it was.NET passport. That’s what I’m thinking
⏹️ ▶️ Casey else. Yeah, but I mean, but to most people.NET is.NET is.NET, just like iCloud is iCloud
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is iCloud, even though under the hood, it’s many different technologies doing many different things. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The point is, don’t use iCloud.
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s another sad tweet of some person who got their app rejected because their iCloud
⏹️ ▶️ John download wouldn’t complete.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Oh yeah, that was great.
⏹️ ▶️ John testing it and they got rejected for that reason. Everyone’s got their limit. And who knows if that
⏹️ ▶️ John was even what the actual problem ended up being, but that’s what he thought it was. And so it’s like, all right, well,
⏹️ ▶️ John I will now rip the guts out of my app and start over.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I once pulled the print feature out of Instapapers iOS apps,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which actually, by the way, still angers like three people who used it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I developed this print feature. It got my app rejected twice
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then during one of the big iOS upgrades, I think going from going from four to five,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco something broke about it really badly and I was like, you know what, I’ve probably spent more time
⏹️ ▶️ Marco testing this feature, just using it in development, than all of my customers combined have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco used this feature.
⏹️ ▶️ John But now you’ve got a misleading name for you. It says right there, Instapaper. If it doesn’t instantly
⏹️ ▶️ John turn things into paper, I’m one star useless.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well I removed the feature and like three people got angry but most people like I know it’s on
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Twitter hey I’m you know I’m gonna remove this feature because it’s being problematic to support and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco almost every response was you can print from instapaper like no one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even knew that was there and I have to wonder like and this is kind of office related
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like how many people print from iOS devices
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ve never seen someone do it nor have I ever done it myself
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the only person I know know that does it regularly is my father, who is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey very forward-thinking, but for some reason he likes him some pieces of paper. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey so I know he does that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John relatively often. He just hates trees, that’s what it is.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apparently, he’s a terrible, terrible man. He prints, or last I heard anyway, he
⏹️ ▶️ Casey prints from his iPad somewhat regularly, and from his iPhone as well, I think. But he just,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know, he’s one of those people who just likes paper.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think air print it’s it’s one of those really cool technologies that’s just come out way too late. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like like black CD ours. Remember those the ones that had the black
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, well they were they would have been really cool if they came out like five years earlier.
⏹️ ▶️ John The PlayStation had colored ones too,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, they were all black. Yeah, but just like this, this technology like air print is this is this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco awesome technology like there’s no more print drivers as long as your printer supports this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John one particular That’s not a
⏹️ ▶️ John technology. It is a business
⏹️ ▶️ John Sure. Like, finally, we have the leverage to force the damn printer manufacturers
⏹️ ▶️ John to stop making this Byzantine zoo of crazy-ass hardware and just say, no, you do
⏹️ ▶️ John it all yourself. We talk to you one way, and you take it, and you print it, and I don’t want to hear about it. You
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t get to install any drivers. You don’t get to do it. Like, because that’s why printers have been so terrible. Like, it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John not a technology problem. It was a business problem, because printers were made by various companies, and operating systems were
⏹️ ▶️ John made by others. and this thing called the driver exists, and it was just never going to be a happy ending.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Well, and most
⏹️ ▶️ Marco printers were like soft printers, like soft modems, where the printer itself would have very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco minimal computing power and would do almost
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John no computations. Well, that’s a recent
⏹️ ▶️ John innovation. That was actually an exciting thing. That was like, finally, it’s going to solve this printing problem. We’re going to make the printer super dumb.
⏹️ ▶️ John We’re going to put all the smarts in the driver. That’ll solve the printing problem, right? No.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Just moved it around.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like, what you really need to do is just say, you don’t get to install a driver. this is what
⏹️ ▶️ John we’re going to put out there. You will receive it and you will print it. And if you don’t, your printer will appear to
⏹️ ▶️ John be broken. And that’s it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco This is like the legacy computing podcast. It is.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like, do you want to talk about cassette tapes next?
⏹️ ▶️ John Rewinding them with a pencil. Pros and cons.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Let’s wrap it up. Thanks again to our sponsor, Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com
⏹️ ▶️ Marco slash ATP to get a free trial and credit us with that referral and check it out if you want to make a website
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Now the show is over They didn’t even mean to begin do we want to show
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for people to review us in iTunes?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco let’s do it yeah, let’s why don’t you please review us on iTunes if you like us and if you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t like us, please email John and Is
⏹️ ▶️ John you looked at how many reviews you have and you got depressed because there’s so few of them? Because there aren’t many.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Honestly, I usually forget to look at all. So I end up looking like once every, I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t know, two months or so usually at my iTunes reviews. But usually
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there aren’t really that many usually.
⏹️ ▶️ John hear that reviewers, you don’t have to say anything about Mark because he never looks but I look all the time. So say
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey nice things about me. As
⏹️ ▶️ Casey do I. There you go. I’m vain enough that I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco look regularly. Cause
⏹️ ▶️ Casey was accidental Oh, it was accidental John didn’t do any
⏹️ ▶️ Marco research Margo and Casey wouldn’t let him Cause it was accidental
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh, it was accidental
⏹️ ▶️ John find the show notes at atp.fm And if you’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You can follow them them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so that’s Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M, and T. Marco Armin, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Syracuse. It’s accidental,
⏹️ ▶️ John accidental, they didn’t mean to, accidental,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco My favorite review is that one from the guy who was like, Marco isn’t that bad on this particular