You Chose Poorly S01E09 - Keynotes

You sound jazz. I'm very excited this morning. And it's the most awake I've been to start a podcast since we started because I've been up for a couple of hours. Well, I'm assuming you woke up early to watch the keynote.

The keynote. Yes. Yes, I usually watch live. That'd be one of the morning here, but I was just focused.

I figured I'd just sleep and make ready to watch it before we record. You usually, well, I know what happened. What you read the news about Microsoft buying LinkedIn and you were so excited that you knew you didn't have enough cycles in you to take any more news. Like that just that just that took all of it out of you.

Yeah, I saw it. I jumped up and I ran around the room and just started yelling things like like like clamps yelling. I couldn't pick the morning. I could not believe how many people have like the little animation of Clippy ready to go in a Photoshop file for when they need to make fun of Microsoft.

Like I heard that Microsoft bought LinkedIn and then on Twitter, I saw like 15 funny pictures of Clippy immediately like so fast. So I'm surprised. Impressive. I'm surprised because of course they would.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's Clippy. You have to have it on your own. Where do you even get it? Where do you even get a Clippy?

You open your old windows 95 PC and you I don't know. He's great or something. I don't know. LinkedIn.

So I have a quick. It's like this is our show this week. You chose poorly. Clippy edition.

You sound psyched. I'm way less like. Yeah. Yeah.

You on Twitter, it feels like you like kind of a bummer day. So I'm sorry. I'm the positive one this week. I don't have a bummer day.

I just I tempered my expectations because I know that the WWDC or the dub dub DC has wrestling fans will call it. I know I know that that isn't for me. Like I'm a consumer. I'm not a developer and I know that it's most of the announcements really aren't going to be for me.

So I go in there knowing that but they do always come out with stuff for consumers at the show like Apple. Music last year and this year they do a bunch of definitely consumer facing features that will change how you use your various tech diggases. You know, those are there. You know, like improvements to the really core apps that kind of thing.

But what I was mostly bombed by and this is I think something we're going to talk about on the show is that I feel like I've wasted a lot of my life watching keynotes for tech from tech companies. I don't know about you. But I feel like the time that I've spent watching these keynotes definitely could have been better spent doing other things. I could have been playing old retro video games.

I could have been writing fanfic. You know, I could have been descaling my coffee maker. I could be doing productive things. But instead what I find myself doing is watching multi billion dollar companies.

Tell me what my thing will involuntarily change to in six months. And I'm supposed to be excited about that. Whether or not I like the thing or not. And increasingly I find that increasingly I find that it's almost a threat.

Like coming this fall, the phone that you are currently holding your hand won't do this anymore. You will now do this. You know, yeah, you have three new messaging apps. I think, you know, I don't know.

It's always in the end of the show that we kind of processing to figure out what's wrong with either of us. Yeah. But I'm going to go ahead and say that I think I almost said I just got in the plan to say I think you're old. But I don't think that's it.

It's not that you're old. I mean, those dudes who told me all about everything my phone is not going to be doing and get to be doing in a few months. They're older than both of us combined some of them. But well, maybe not.

But maybe not. Not both of us. But it's a it's there are things that you if it seems that you were never OK with. Yeah, I don't think these are not new things.

I think like the messaging problem and now the issues with you know, don't feel like things that you that you just had a problem with recently. They feel like things that are just bumping up at the surface now, but this is just a natural state of view of things not being OK. And and and since that is becoming a bigger and bigger thing in everyone's lives, including yours, and it's no longer just a compartmentalized thing for you that you just happened to be hobby hobbyist of. I think especially now that we have this weekly out before.

I think that's especially why it's all coming up. It's this is not you chose poorly is so becoming less and less about us choosing poorly and more about you just being weird. I think or me, but let's let's let's break this one down specifically because I think we need to we need to go through my weirdness on an episode by episode basis. So let's let's break this one down a little bit.

So keynotes and and and like we can say I think with some with some clarity that like the big keynote press conference reveal of a new service or product is kind of apples fault that we even do this at all. Right. Like before before Apple like there were there would be product reveals and stuff, but nobody except for the press ever showed up for them. You know, and that's still that's still mostly true with other companies.

You see you see like oh somebody had a reveal, but if it was like, you know, even if it's like if it's for Samsung, if it's like say Samsung does reveal for a product for anything but the new galaxy phone nobody shows up except for the press. Maybe right no one's get no one's getting in line to go see Samsung's new line of refrigerators. Yeah, even though they even though they run and right now. Yeah, that's true.

It's it's I don't know you were you've been around longer than I have, but you think it might be E3 as well in the gaming world for Apple. It's definitely them to well because I want to say like Apple kind of started doing keynotes in the 90s. I mean, that's true. Right.

And and E3 certainly existed in the early night. It was 94 and 93 started, but it was it was it was press only for many years like a regular person couldn't even go let alone like sit in the room where the keynote is happening. It's a like and with Apple like their keynote started being something that you could watch maybe 10 years ago. I want to say before that, even then like the video which help eventually, but it was mostly like like the press would report on it and you would read the presses take on it and then you would consider whether you wanted to buy the new gadget or whatever.

But I feel like ever since it's like, oh no, here's the time and the date and the website and the link to watch this keynote and get the first glimpse of the new future. It's been this like if you care about technology, kind of have to watch these things because if you don't, then you're stuck with the opinion of a tech blogger or the New York Times or something like that. And I honestly wonder if it's a bad idea for a regular consumer who is not a reporter, not a blogger, not a developer, not someone who has like skin in the game really to pay this close of attention. So are you drawing a line for yourself where you're considering yourself as someone who doesn't have skin of the game?

I mean, we have a podcast. Sure, I have a blog, sure. And I own an iPhone and because the iPhone is basically a living organism at this point, it's a constantly evolving change in thing. And that I feel like I'm good at it.

I think that's the thing too, is that like if you feel like you're pretty good at this stuff, then you sort of impart on yourself to keep up with it, to be the go-to person that knows all the new things. Like I know all the new things now and no one else in my office knows all the new things. Very few of my friends in real life know all the new things, right? I know all the new things right now.

Last night or this morning when I announced that I would skip the keynote and not like to eat like an easily worked, I was joking. I was jokingly apologizing for everyone who would be disappointed. And surprisingly a couple people reply somebody reply and express his appointment. And just now someone tweeted that I skipped the keynote also and truly expect the comment to just see from your feet everything you that happened.

And it was a point of the day with nothing. So there is that real sense, I guess I can relate with that sense of being that guy. Yeah, you're the guy. You are the guy, right?

And then you know that about yourself. And so you're like, well, I got to do it. I got to say up on things because if I don't, then who will? They're not going to watch it.

They're not going to know who to read. It has to be. And it's not good enough for you to just read the blog layer and find all the new features. Because even that is an enthusiastic decision to look up the features on an upcoming operating system.

Right? No, you have to watch live as it is presented to you theatrically by the company who is known for presenting things theatrically to you. And who like we judge the quality of their keynotes. Like they're like they could have here and give us information about what they're working on.

And we go, that wasn't entertaining enough. Yeah. But do you think your sense of frustration with it came with or was in sync with just when keynote themselves became a game? I mean, I need to say, okay, no, I've been a thing for the longest time.

Sure. But they were just the vehicles through which these companies would deliver information to the company. That's just chosen or they're paying for it to do it. Especially in the showman like seems jobs, et cetera.

Yeah. But I think it's a good giant TV screen to prove your point. Exactly. It's not enough for you to say.

Yeah. But I need to say, it does feel like it's only been in recent years that keynotes themselves were a thing. And it was acknowledged by the companies themselves, that the keynotes themselves were a thing rather than merely this invisible or chosen vehicle for them. It's a thing you had to watch.

Do you think your frustration with the companies being able to know this or is it public? What was the catalyst for you to notice the sense of frustration with the keynotes or the time you quote, wasted with the keynotes? Well, partially I think it's because I started watching keynotes because I feel like there was a run of really good ones. I feel like starting in maybe 2007, 2008, there was a run of really good keynotes and not just by Apple.

Though Apple was doing really well at that time. This is the early days of the iPhone, the MacBook Pro, lots of big meaty reveals of these things. But it was also a time of like, I feel like that was when they started letting other people be on the stage at Apple as well. So you got like, this is your first glimpse of people who are not Steve Jobs but who do work at Apple.

And I feel like before that it was like, the only person I know at Apple is Steve Jobs. Like I know Johnny I was in there somewhere but you never saw him. But like around 2008 you started to see this like cast of people. Like that's when Phil Schiller started, I think 2009 was his first one.

Like he started seeing Schiller, he started seeing Eddy Q. Federico would come around 2012. I want to say he's sort of like the favorite right now I'd say. And you'd start to see these personalities and you'd start to realize that Apple the company is very much shaped by these personalities.

And so if you follow this company, you like this company, then you kind of want to follow the personalities as well. And that's the only time you got to glimpse into the company, into this thing that you pay hundreds of dollars a year to enjoy. It's like this is just a little peak into that whole thing. And so I feel like around 2007-2008 that's when I started going, you know I'm going to start kind of watching these.

And so you're pretty entertaining, you learn stuff, you come away with it feeling confident in this brand you've chosen. And like you get excited for something. It's like an announcement Christmas. You know, it's like get excited for stuff that's coming, we're going to tell you what's coming soon.

It's way more exciting when they were like and it's available today. I feel like they don't do that anymore. The days of like available today is over. Well, I would disagree.

I think Apple more than anyone would do. I think like for instance the WBC presentations. After they moved the iPhone launch from June to September, June became you know purely developer centric software centric thing and things and for a while it was just software all of which would be launched within your iPhone. But recently with the public betas and I think starting I think might have been last year with where betas were available to everybody and all you had to sign up that they started.

Yeah, the day thing exactly. Yeah, the public betas returned made Apple return to having available today pause applause as punctuation to all of your announcements and I think they realized that it's a very effective thing to do. Because without that the WBC presentations in June three months before all the new products might come out doesn't have many doesn't have much teeth. You know, it's not a thing that would be the center of the tech universe as WBC I would say should be unless there's anything that people could play with immediately and not just the developers or the 5000 people who went to the conference.

But the rest of us who are following the live blog or now watching the live stream. No, I mean, you're right about that. They often have like available today in terms of like people who like like betas are available today and things like that. But I feel like it's been a while since they've come out with a brand new product inside available today.

It's even like the Apple TV back last fall. It was like a month or two, that kind of thing. And brand new products that come out. It's usually had a six month to a year lead time.

Right. The shortest they would do for a new product announced that keynote would be say a week or two pre-orders this Friday out next Friday. Sure. And that's super, I don't know.

All that's fine, I guess. And none of that is what makes me feel like this time is regret. Whether or not I'm happy with a keynote almost has nothing to do with me feeling like I wasted my time. It's what I feel is like it would be like if you're kind of into the news, you know, like if you're a news follower and you find yourself slowly and slowly reading news that's closer to the two likes.

Just like the Reuters fire hose. You know, like you're no longer reading just the front page of your newspaper. You're no longer reading like the Huffington Post. Now you're subscribed to like a Bloomberg machine that's giving you up to the second like pure data driven stuff.

That's what I feel like when I watch these things. I'm like, I'm too close. I feel like I'm too close to for what a regular consumer should be to this stuff. This goes back to the what might be the very first thing we talked about on this show with the fatigue with the fire hose.

The strange thing I find about what you're saying is that I don't feel keynotes are that because of keynotes now being their own thing. I guess that's what I was saying a while ago that they used to be the vehicle through which they would just fire hose people like you. Now I may be starting with when was I think Apple Apple's first keynote as a thing was the iPhone six keynote, you know, the one where they had their own live stream page and there's a social media box where they would feature popular people thinking about the impending announcements. I don't know if they actually haven't done that since.

Yeah, I think because the network was so bad then the service was so bad. But I remember Ellen Ellen DeGeneres using the hashtag Apple live and then everybody else subsequently doing so excited about you two and watch. They use that amazingly beautiful theater for that event too. Right.

Yeah. And then something about it being done in a theater. What could you ever tell if it was a theater? I mean, unless you could tell the size of the stage and the audience.

But you tell that it was a theater as opposed to a regular auditorium from watching a live stream? I feel like I can. Especially the iPhone six. The iPhone six event because they had those curtains.

They had the curtain and they had the box seats on the side. So it looked it just looked amazing. That's just a beautiful beautiful theater. But they usually do it when they have the small ones.

They usually do it in these pretty small rooms. WWDC is a very, very big room, but it's not fancy. Yeah. It's just like an event hall basically.

Yeah. It feels like a vintage Apple presentation. Black box. Exactly.

Exactly. Which, you know, pretty much everybody has copied in some fashion or another. Yeah. I'm always kind of impressed.

Still, when I see a keynote and they put great effort into the stage, like I remember watching a Samsung or a Sony one a few years ago where the entire wall space was screen. Like all the way around the audience. It was all screen. It was very cool.

So where people have to turn around and watch? Well, it was kind of all for effect. Like information was on the main screen up front. But when they would do transitions or when they would do videos, the whole room lit up.

Okay. It was kind of cool. Or like Microsoft, I remember they did a really cool reveal for Connect in 2010. They had this hour long show that had, I believe, Cirque du Soleil performers and they did it in like a hockey arena.

And they had, they did it like in the middle, like a wrestling show, like right in the middle of the arena. Exactly. It was very cool. That's the only thing.

I feel like I watch a lot more keynotes than you do. You watch the afterones. Do you watch any other companies, major keynotes? Unlike the Apple ones, I have to wait though they're done.

And for someone to say that the keynote is worth watching. Because I think that's what others haven't perfected yet. The keynote has its own thing. Did you watch Google IO this year?

Yes, I did. Well, I watched what we were going to talk about. And I feel like those are the only things worth watching for. You probably got the gist of the feel of it because it was outdoors.

Right? That's sort of the interesting thing about that one. They're very early outdoors. Yeah.

And, yeah, and there was a set. There was stage design. This is my Apple by a showing. But everything feels derivative of Apple.

It's either a direct copy of what they did or have done or do or something that looks like it's trying just a bit too hard. Did not be that. My favorite one was the Samsung one in New York. The first one that Apple was a little scared about.

The feel should have to go to New York for to make some Apple noise just to divert attention from the Samsung event, which is kind of sad. I wish they didn't do that. But the one where has this? This might be the S5.

I believe the Galaxy S5 event. And it was the most bizarre keynote I've ever seen or ever heard about or read about. Is it a little bit of skits? Yes.

There were skits. And there was an MC who was not the CEO who was not any officer or exec in the company, but just the guy they hired to be the host of the show. Sure. Which, that's very E3, I got to say.

Is it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Ubisoft's keynote today at E3. You should Tyler was the host of it.

Right? Like she doesn't work for Ubisoft. Yeah, that's true. And I like it.

You should either. That dude was not a person. There's good will when someone like, are you just Tyler or these weird celebrity endorses who suddenly become fake officers for a company? Sure.

Microsoft used to do that at CES. Because Microsoft used to have the actual, like, we keep throwing around the word keynote, but Microsoft had the actual keynote spot at CES for many years where they were the first company that got to say anything at the event. And they would often have a celebrity come on and be really fakely enthusiastic about a product that would just never ship. Right, right.

And, but the thing that with the Samsung people, I think they, sorry whoever you are if you're listening or someone who knows this person, but yeah, like, you're listening. But the dude was just like a professional MC, a professional freelancer host guy. It's a staidu. I do here.

You know, you go around getting hired by people to host things. Yeah. He wasn't, he was good, but he wasn't anyone who, I guess, mattered, sorry, in the sense of, you know, public mind space. So the immediate response when he came out was, you know, who was this guy?

And then this is just the, and the absurdity of the event just escalated from there. Right. So it's like the quintessential Apple, I would say maybe post Apple anti Apple keynote, you know, this is just trying to do big noteworthy things that is not a thing Apple would do. And I think they just went a little bit too far.

But everything since then has been, you know, I think things are coming back to the ground now with Google I, or Google I, it seems like it had a few weird works here there, but it seemed like it's becoming its own thing. Like Google's having a flavor now. How they do their presentation. Microsoft has been that way for, I would say, post Balmer, you know, Microsoft has been, oh my God, you know, you know, that Balmer keynote, like that, I can't even like Balmer keynotes are totally worth watching, but not for the reasons you want.

Like, Balmer is, right. But Balmer was so, so for people who don't know, see, Balmer was the CEO of Microsoft from 2002, about 2013, I want to say. And he's this sort of like, he's a bigger guy. He's bald.

He has 15 pounds of flops wet on him at all times. It just constantly regenerating flops wet at all times. But he's also the most confident and enthusiastic insane maniac that he'd ever seen. And he, like, he, you can't say that he didn't put a hundred ten percent into every single, like, every single word he did on stage, whether he knew what he was talking about or not.

Or whether the product he was holding was a real product or not. Microsoft was so bad at that in the Balmer era of holding this thing in front of you on stage and being like, we're making this and it's going to be amazing. And then three months later, it's like, where did that thing go? But the post Balmer keynotes have been, I think, very, very good and very professional.

And watchable for the right reasons. Yeah, I agree. The Balmer. I love him.

You can't, you can't. It would be a missed opportunity in the podcast to not talk about my favorite Balmer things. I guess I don't want to do it too far into it. I love the sweat.

The sweat was important. Yeah. And it's the thing about sweat is, I mean, I guess most tech people are, you know, we're a kind bunch. I guess because many of us were dorks growing up.

So, you know, we're, it's, we're very forgiving when it comes to socially, what would be socially unacceptable things in certain other contexts. We're more forgiving with someone who looks like a door or someone who's weird looking or funny looking or like, Balmer sweats a lot. But he just, that combined with his enthusiasm and is just the constant yelling for no reason and the running around flexing. It almost excused former outcasts and former dorks like many of us to actually then make one of him.

You know, it's not like a thing. You just have to do it. You can't, there's no getting away from it. You have to call out that these guys underarms are soaking with every time.

Every time. And then you have to be so excited. Yeah. And you know, many of us, many of our underarms are all the time, but then there's the Balmer, right?

And then in some ways it's like watching him will then teach, you know, teach us how to dress up properly. You know, maybe don't wear a blue shirt if you're presenting, you know, or put on some anti-purse for something because then you have Balmer as exactly the kind of guy you love for being exactly the kind of guy you don't want to be as a nerd. You know. I always kind of liked the guy.

You know, he was not a visionary in the sense that we look up to tech like CEOs is like visionary. Like he's not an Elon Musk, you know, but like he's, I felt like Balmer was like one of the guys way more, you know. And I think he's very much at home as like the owner of a basketball team. Yeah.

Like I think he finally found his right place as like a very rich white bald man who owns a basketball team and is very excited about it. You've seen have you seen one of the Clippers games where he came out and does his bomber thing as the Clippers owner? I think I have. I will put some in the show.

They're good, right? Like he hasn't lost a step. Not at all. But then you watch it and then it's not there isn't a factor of there's a sense of cringing like you would while watching a Microsoft, you know, that's what I'm saying where I feel like he's finally in his right arena.

Whereas like announcing Windows Vista is not the place for upstairs. No, we're yelling about developers for no reason. No reason. I'm happy for him.

Very, very good. Exactly. It's like it's like he went to like white rich head and like that's like that's where he is. So good for him.

But like I don't know to go back to like sort of wasting my time watching these. I don't remember a single thing he ever announced. Yeah. I'm wildly we were talking about it was trying to scramble for anything.

No, no, no. Most of the things he announced were their vaporware or Windows phones and like, you know. Yeah. We know all about that.

So I don't know, but the new Microsoft keynotes are like they're almost they're almost like very much in the other. They're almost like the most serious keynotes in the land. And I think that's all due to Panos Panay. They're major announcements.

Like he comes out and he does most of the hardware announcements for Windows phone. Yeah, he's kind of the Phil Schiller in that spot. And Panos is just this like deeply serious. I'm going to slow down and I'm going to make sure you understand the importance of this moment kind of speaker and he's good.

He's really good at doing that. And he's like, like he makes you realize how important a hinge is. That kind of thing. I said you went to the Surface Pro.

Then what did you think of him? I have to be honest with you. I didn't get to watch it. Oh, that's it.

Yeah. Sorry. Thanks. But no, but I did watch the I did what I have a memory of him presenting it and you're right.

You know, it's he looks like a family of I'm being completely wrong here, but he looks like a kind of a guy for you. And you would you know, Guy Fieri is right. I know Guy Fieri is. I don't super I mean, do you like maybe without the sort of clownishness.

Right. No, exactly. Just looking at him, you would I would I expected him to be a guy for you. I mean, visually before he opens his mouth to present anything, I expected him to be another Balmer tech weirdo.

Yeah. But then he does this thing. And it's the great thing about some of these people, I guess, is that it centers on the product. I guess getting into now what makes key notes worth watching or what made you know, sort of watching for you initially is that the best showman were never or were rarely rarely called attention to themselves as showman, which I guess is true for so many things.

But and I think Panos has that. I think he has that quality where you notice, you know, I don't think if you made him announce everything during the bomber era, I don't think he'd be nearly as effective. You know, I don't even think he was around. I think he's like, I think he's I think he's new Microsoft in the same way that Sati is like he might have been there before, but he wasn't like he wasn't high up enough to make to change the company in his image like he probably is now.

Yeah. And yeah, that's right. So and even as a presenter, he's memorable as a presenter, partly because, you know, the products, I don't know, I guess it's a two way thing. He's memorable as a presenter because the products were worth remembering.

But you know, in this day and age, I have a hard time believing that the products are worth remembering because of him, you know, I mean, yeah, the internet doesn't need a key note to tell the informed the rest of the entire world about the products, which is why I think I'm, which is why I guess going back to the thing, I'm a little, I'm a little confused about why or not confused, but I'm a little, yeah, let's say confused about why you're so tired of keynotes. So they're, they're so clearly not just about the products anymore. And I wonder if maybe that's it. I wonder if it's like my like boy gadget brain wondering where the gadgets are, like increasingly keynote time is spent talking about software, you know, I, and this is true for every company, Google, Facebook, Facebook does keynote now, like what, Apple, Microsoft, like Microsoft does three or four keynotes a year and one of them has hardware in it, you know, like they do a whole new keynote for office, like that's all software.

And I wonder if it's just like sitting and watching a keynote of new features and software is just way less exciting on a lizard brain level than being shown a fancy new shiny thing, you know, like I wonder if it was just way more exciting to watch the reveal of a new iPod than it is the reveal of a new iOS. Yeah, I suppose that makes sense except, well, did you watch the, did you watch the keynote this morning? I listened to it. I was at work, so I just, I had it on my headphones.

I listened to it while I worked. And that's the nice thing about sort of stark Apple is that they really, very rarely put stuff on screen that they're not actually saying out loud. You know, very little is you don't really need to watch an app, you know, like it's totally fine all you only. That's true.

And the, but watching it though, I mean, I didn't get the live tweet, which I guess is a better way to watch keynotes. It's less fun, but then I got to pay attention more because usually, you know, half and half on your phone and the screen, but you know, having missed the whole live tweeting opportunity, I just opened up a notes app on my iPad and watched it on the other half of the screen. And you notice, I guess I'm able to notice now something that I guess is obvious for a few years, but now more than ever that the human side of things is the thing that Apple, I'm not going to say Apple completely gets because then you have weird things like eddyq being a weird little last year. But then there are things that are, I feel like are instinctive to the company that, uh, with instinctive with Apple that are still not instinctive with almost anyone else, even Google especially and I feel like Google is going the opposite direction.

I mean, I would compare the duo, I mean, just excerpts of keynotes here, the duo or sorry, the aloe segment of IO versus the iMessage segment of the WWDC keynote. And there's just, there's the technologies are the same, the implementations are very similar. It was all the exact same announcement, wasn't it? Yeah, but then you watch the two keynotes segments and it feels like, you know, on the surface, it's exactly the same thing.

People are going to use these things the same way. You know, it's a messaging app. You can whisper, you can shout, there aren't a fact. Um, there are stickers now.

Are you excited about that? Excited about the stickers? If we have a part three about messaging, there's more to say. But yeah, the stickers are not, my wife would be excited.

They're all about it on the way to work. Sure. But then, um, I mean, not so much. I'm excited about the, uh, that, that, the replaced words with emoji thing.

I think that's a, that's a, that's a thing for you. No, no, no, no, I was actually really excited about that because I got to say one of the reasons I type more than I use emojis is because I, like, it takes me longer to do the emoji thing. That just like cut way down emoji time. Like, I can write the word and then turn that into emoji.

That's pretty great. Or the emoji will show up while I'm typing in the auto complete thing. Pretty great. That's fantastic, actually.

That would, that would be like me using emojis more. Yeah. That's exactly what I was thinking. I would say maybe next year they should take a step further and for people who just send emoji, they should tap the emoji and see what the words might be.

Oh my God. Wouldn't that be perfect? That sort of reverse engineering. Yeah.

Right. Let's read a bunch of hieroglyphs. Yeah. Like, because of whales and snakes and stuff.

Yeah. Exactly. That's the immediate next thing I thought of. And, well, I have comments about the keynote, but wait, wait, what I was saying was that comparing the Dukey notes, the human aspect is a thing that Apple is instinctive about.

And it just makes it so clear that all these other companies are just trying to, sorry, I'm going to go out and say it, are just trying to do the Apple thing. Because they don't need the Dukey notes. I mean, Google, especially, it seems weird that Google has IO, so I guess they needed to have a keynote. Yeah, like, what the hell is Amazon doing doing keynotes?

Yes. That's so not in Amazon's DNA to do something like a keynote. They should just update Amazon.com with the new thing they're selling. And now that'd be that.

They don't need to do anything else. And more people are going to talk about it, just having a show up on the front page of Amazon.com. Way more. And they totally realize that.

They used to do keynotes. Like, Jeff Bezos would go up and say, we have this new Kindle and he would talk about it for 45 minutes. They don't need to do that with a Kindle. Not at all.

No, what they need to do and what they've done for the last like three or four Kindles they've come out with, you hit refresh on Amazon.com and there's a new Kindle and there's a slash page that tells you why it's something you should buy now. That's exactly what Amazon needs to do. They don't need to send a press release. People are going to go to Amazon.com.

They're going to see it. And everyone goes to Amazon.com. And that's why Amazon doesn't need to do an announcement for anything. Right?

It almost detracts from their brand to do something like a keynote. I would say Google also. I mean, Google more so than Amazon. More people go to Google.com.

Absolutely. But they don't necessarily go to Google to buy products. Whereas when Amazon comes out with a new product, they already have this thing where they sell products. They totally have the closed loop already.

Whereas you're not necessarily going to Google.com. Nexus. New every day. Well, I mean they own Google.com.

And everyone goes to Google.com to do everything. You have people not knowing where to put the URLs and putting them in search fields. But they almost never put a product there. Yeah, they never do.

And I guess it's good that they're improving and having their own keynote flavor and keynote style. I can't help but think of the face or the duo conversation of the Google guy with his daughters. Yeah. And it was cute and charming.

And you know it's manufactured. But there is this sense of, well, it's really his daughters. And let's get it. Let's watch this.

And then two seconds later, it's like, well, that wasn't part of the script. It's immediately clear that it's under-hursed and thus it's clear that it's rehearsed and manufactured. And that's not human, which I guess in an ironic sense. Very perfect.

It is very Google. Yeah. Whereas Apple, I thought it was amazing that Craig Federighi and I tweeted about it. It's made fun of Apple's marketing team for showing off a feature of you tap the camera button on the keyboard when you're an iMessage.

And you immediately see what's on the viewfinder in the camera. And they're like most attractive people ever, right? And they're married people. Which you look at.

It's a Google thing to do. Or I mean, not Google themselves. It's a Google template company thing to do. Press release marketing thing.

And all Craig had to do was make fun of marketing for half a sentence. And immediately you're back to, well, there's a human instinctive connection here that almost no one else gets. It's fascinating to watch. Craig's really good.

I will say that. Craig, when I'm enjoying Apple's Kino's, I'm enjoying them often because of Craig. Yeah. I agree with you completely.

And I think it's so great that he's found his groove, I think. I think WWDC, while it feels like there were less crazy moments, I think, or less dad jokes. I think it might be the perfect Craig presentation. Well, they really weren't kidding last week when they came out with a bunch of news about the App Store.

And they basically said, we don't have room for this in the main show. And I completely believe it because that show was that that was a tight two hours. I mean, I kind of feel like the iMessage portion of it was like 20 minutes, which is maybe too long to spend on just iMessage, especially because I think that all of the news for Watch OS and Mac OS fit into the same time they spent talking about just iMessage. That's true, yeah.

But that's the only real criticism in terms of time management. I don't know what else they could have said. And they did. They came out with a ton of stuff.

You were right to tweet that this is one of the, I think this is one of the best in terms of like list of new things to like think about and work on, like released to developers. Like this is, it is really amazing. And I was like, I was super inspired at the end when they came out with that coding for kids app. Like that looks good God.

That's one of those things that could change the world. Just like iBooks author. Which I watched the other other keynote dude. I've wasted my life.

See that, well, I guess everything you just said is making me rethink my original point of the keynote being their own thing. Because I guess I really like the keynote because you're right. What they announced was pretty freaking good. And it's all the stuff I'm excited about.

Yeah, it was kind of like, it was like, if you give it the jungle or baseball thing, it was kind of doubles. It was like a double, a double, a double, a double, a double, a very few of them were like super home runs I feel, but like lots of doubles. Yeah. Mark Gurman posted a tweet at the thing about how, because of course Apple as usual I would say is the biggest iOS release ever.

And the cynics come out, like Gurman would say, I would argue that iOS 5 and iOS 7 were bigger releases. It's so funny how this keynote, how keynotes from Apple have become such an Apple centric thing that it is like the easiest way to incite both inspiration and cynicism from all the usual players. I mean, of course there are people like us, you and me who would just comment about it and me who would just be very excited about certain things. And then there has to be someone like Gurman who will try to put a damper on things.

I was better. Steve Jobs better. Yeah. I don't think Steve Jobs gave a shit about the iPhone.

If I can be totally honest with you, I don't think he ever gave a shit about it. I think he really loved it. I think Steve Jobs really loved the iPad and looked at the iPhone as like a major compromise. Yeah.

Well, he admitted to something like that. Yeah, because he wanted to do the iPad. He's like big dream was to do like the iPad and then they couldn't do it, but they could do the iPhone. So they did the iPhone first.

And like obviously the very first reveal of the iPhone is a huge Steve Jobs moment. But can you remember any other time where he was ever really all that excited about the iPhone? Well, I would say there was a bigger announcement with the retina display with the four. But in terms of Steve Jobs himself being excited, I don't think so.

No, you're right. I think the iPhone is like other people in Apple. That's their baby. But the iPhone is fine.

You probably guess. But it's like, you know, it's whatever. But the iPad, that's amazing to see. The one that once he announced you could tell he was so happy about the developments from the iPad, the first one where you just sat there in the couch.

Yeah. And then the iPad 2 keynote is like Steve Jobs is most giddy. Yes. And I would say it's like, we've got the most I think in our iPad episode.

But how the iPad 2 was the underdog best Steve Jobs, Dark Horse best Steve Jobs presentation ever. Yeah. And then the thing. He was in love with that product.

Yeah. And the red into this play in the three and it's or the new iPad. And it's it was nice to have seen him. I mean, the dude for the iPad just sat there using the iPad, you know, it is something we've discussed in the past.

But it's I guess the we've watched him do it. And we watched him several times. Several times. Do it.

It's like if you think of like tech tech keynote as like a TV show that you watch and I think you can think of them like this. Like, oh, this is like a season premiere of Apple products, you know, like, it has that little bit of a mess. Like, like, oh, this is a really special event. You know, like, I gotta look into it.

Like, I care about these characters and I care about my association with this. I think people who like don't have who don't like feel that they like that the products have something to do with them, like people who just like use the products and like whatever, I don't think they could care give a shit about keynotes or new announcements or anything. They just use the stuff and whatever. But I think that like once you get like invested, it's hard to ignore these things.

And if I have one other thing that I feel like I regret is the amount of time that they're beginning to take. They used to be a lot shorter. And I'm really impressed when when someone like when someone like Elon Musk can do a Tesla keynote and he announces a whole new car and it's 22 minutes flat, you know, like when if he can have that kind of restraint, I really respect that. Like I was really happy that today's Apple keynote was only two hours.

Yeah, it was a back to it. It was a very packed two hours. It could easily go over that. Which is why I think you can tell when like last year's Apple music, WWDC was so obviously not packed.

Yeah. They stretched the whole thing out. Yeah. I really, really like Nintendo's keynotes actually what they do, like instead of doing a live stage thing what Nintendo does is they have they have one YouTube video basically and it is a collection of trailers and interviews and little behind the scenes things that basically tell you what they're working on for the next like two or three months.

And they have slowed down doing those this year, I think mostly because their CEO died late last year and maybe the new guy isn't as high on these. They call him Nintendo Directs and Satoro Water the previous CEO, like he was like the star of these things. He was really good in them. And they were super, to me the Nintendo Directs are the most charming of keynotes because you go through and you're like, I don't even want to play these games.

I'm just enjoying this show, you know? No. Have you watched any of those? I know you got much of a video game or an Nintendo guy to like have you seen a Nintendo Direct at all?

I saw it wasn't Nintendo Direct yet. I think the last one I saw was the Wii, the first Wii. Was that Nintendo Direct already? No, they started doing Nintendo Directs near the middle end of the Wii's lifespan I want to say because Nintendo started to really sort of eek away from E3.

Like E3 is like when all the video game companies come together and they deliver all their news at once and Nintendo being very much a contrarian company felt like they were being sort of like just kind of ignored because Nintendo is just not as big as Sony and Microsoft, right? It's not quite at that level of marketing blitz. So what they do instead is they do a Nintendo Direct at E3 but it's just one of usually five or six they do throughout the year. And one is never really much bigger than the others.

They all kind of even out. And because they seem to do them a lot, you never had the expectation like, oh this one needs to blow me out of the water because you knew another one would be coming in eight weeks. But you know, and they were cute and what they would do after the video came out is that they would break the video out into its individual components and put that on YouTube as well. You know, yeah, I liked those.

I missed those actually to be honest. But even though it's like the longest one was like 45 minutes. Yeah, but I don't, what's the, is it because of the F-ON memories of Nintendo Directs and then eventually the products that came out with them that makes you look at them so fondly? I really liked the presentation and the chill that the company had about it.

Like I'll send you a really, really good one to watch later. It's short. But you'll see it. It's just like the company just had this amazing chill in these videos that you go, you know what?

I can, I feel at home with these guys because like they're not coming at me like trying to be cool and trying to like talk to me like I'm a cool, edgy 14 year old. Like I got to say like like E3 is pretty awful. It's like a thing to watch. Like it's just, it's not just that it's like violent video game after violent shooty video game.

It's that like the presenters themselves are honestly like 45 year old guys trying to talk to, trying to seem cool to 13 year olds. Right. Think of that. It's exhausting.

Yeah. I think, yeah, it's, it seems like many of them, many, many companies think of these presentations as a thing they must do and then try to fit their products into whatever presentation they have to play. They feel works best. Yeah.

And the best ones are the ones that are just true to the product and true to the company and to the presenters. Yeah. And so maybe that sounds like that's why I'm going to do it. I'm going to go watch it when you send it to me.

Yeah. It's, it's really good. Like even if you don't know any of the games are up there, just like it's a fun little video to watch. Like I really like watching the Tesloans even though I'm not a car guy at all, but I like those videos.

Um, but, and I wonder if I just, if I just like the keynote format of television, right? It's, yeah. Even though it's something I've never watched on an actual TV, it's always like a laptop view. Oh really?

Yeah. Yeah. I never, I don't think I've ever watched a keynote like on a TV. Yeah.

I graduated through the TV and I think, you know, I felt like I liked this enough to put this on my TV, around a MacBook Air envelope launch thing. Do you watch them by yourself? Uh, well, when I was single, yes, I don't know anyone who would ever think the keynote's for a social thing. Do you watch them with your wife now?

Well, no, see, this happens to be in the room when I watch it. But she lets you have it on. Yeah. Yeah.

It has more to do with just, just their being background noise asleep than the keynotes themselves, because she doesn't, um, she doesn't pay attention to them, I guess, because unless something sticks out, like when I was watching Google I.O. You know, uh, and I think, I, I don't know what it is. I think so many people seem to think that Apple has like an Apple way of doing keynotes. And I think that's, I mean, sure they do, they have a, like, I guess basic marketing guidelines for how they do things.

I think the wrong way to go about it is to try to find the Steve Jobs principles of presentation and apply it to your company, just for a sec. You know, and that might be why so many of these things are fatiguing to people like you, you know? Uh, and I guess they would be, if I watched half as many keynotes as you did, I think I'd hate them to. I think, I think I probably watched about one month and maybe I need, maybe I need to scale back, you know?

Might be too much. That might be too much. That might be too much, you know? Yeah.

Um, I think you should watch keynotes like you watch wrestling. Yeah, like once a year, you know? When enough people you trust say it's worth watching and when you have it. I think that's what I need to get to.

Maybe I need to get to a point where it's like, I'll watch the keynote if like, if you tell me it's good, like, or you and two other people, like, if, then I'll check it out. But otherwise maybe not, you know? Maybe I need to go down a gear, you know? Not quite a title because I think that's extreme.

I do generally like them, but just like, and this is probably a lot of the things that I choose poorly is that I kind of go a little too in, right? More in than I need to, more in than is maybe healthy for what I'm actually getting out of it. Yeah. Um, you know, yeah, I would just, I figured I should start being more honest about my Apple iOS on the show and start pretending to be objective.

But I think I don't have that sense, but I feel like I'm all in too far with so many Apple things. Are there, do you ever find when you watch an Apple keynote though, you're like, I really could have just read the blog. That would have been fine. Uh, the last one I felt that the March ones are always the ones I just read about.

I feel like they're the least important ones. Yeah. Yeah, you know, the last year's MacBook and this year's, well this year was important because I wanted to buy an iPad, but you know, that's the only reason I watched it. I would have not stayed up to watch the 9.7 iPad row and the iPhone SE.

That one was super minor, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And then the first year, since they moved the iPad launch to September, it's always minor.

I think you're right. Yeah. But usually the second one, if they do two in the fall, the second half usually pre-missable. Yeah.

It's in the town hall and it's small. Yeah. I remember the iPad Air one was the first one after I got engaged and I just didn't give a shit, you know. Right.

It was just not, okay, I'm going to go sleep. But, but it's, I don't feel that it's a, it's because I'm less invested. I feel like, you know, the deeper my investment, the, and because it's so, it's so narrow, the focus of my investment is so narrow. It's really just Apple.

And through my Apple on the lens, I see other companies. And then that's when I decided when it's watching other companies, you know, that it's then so easy for me to, especially since you and I, it's our discussion, I figured out how to manage the fire hose of tech news that it's, it's the keynote to themselves are remain a very fun thing for me to watch, you know. So even though once you're going to send me the day, the ones that you consider bad or the ones that you consider worth watching for the wrong reasons, I think I'm, are things I'm actually excited to go watch the day and I don't have a sense of keynote day, you know, not another keynote. I just watched one this morning and it was a good Apple one, you know, it's a keynote are, keynotes are fun in the sense that there's a sense of your, the first thing you mentioned of being that guy who watches the keynotes, but, and also being that guy in the sense of other people knowing that you're that guy, but also the sense of just the weird and internal superiority of being the guy that gets it and being a guy that knows what a good keynote is and why this was a bad, you know, why the Google IO worked and why Amazon's, it didn't work and why Amazon's didn't work and why Tesla's work, you know, there's some, a common theme with our podcast is the vein satisfaction we have for liking these weird things.

And I guess the price that we have to pay for it. That is absolutely right. That is absolutely it. And what I guess what I'm wrestling with is, is the price I'm paying for this specific thing, is that, is that worth it?

You know, and I think maybe if I were to clip a few of them or in general take recommendations as opposed to pre deciding to go into something, I think I probably like them a lot more. Yeah, I think you would do. I'm really looking forward to the Samsung refrigerator keynote though. You wish I just watched one for the heck of it.

Right, they must be something interesting there. Yeah, they book to stage. Those things cost money. Yeah.

It's the Apple expectation we have, it's just part of the Apple's fault, I guess, for all of these keynotes that makes us laugh at these things. Yeah, I guess, because Apple is like, we're not going to put on a keynote unless we have something special to say. Like guarantee HP probably puts on 75 keynotes a year for no reason. They must, right?

We should probably develop a bomber lens through all the keynotes from now. It might make things more fun for you. They expect bomber, you know, expect the worst and maybe you get Steve Jobs somehow. I'm curious to see what people think is like what their favorite keynotes are that are maybe not necessarily like the ones that we've talked about.

If there's some wack-o-kinos out there for, like, I haven't mentioned like Nokia's at all, but they were interesting just because they were European and they just had a different flavor than the ones here. They just had like a weird, slightly different pacing. I don't know. But they were interesting.

But other people, one other people think are interesting, you know, big company product announcement, keynote-y type things. Yeah. You know? We should probably ask people to send in what they think.

We'll tell us in the talk about mentioned. Yeah, definitely. We totally didn't even talk about how this is all terrible capitalism at its worst anyway. Yeah.