WEBVTT - The End of iTunes 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:13.720 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.160 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:18.920 How Stuff Works and I heart radio and I love 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.400 all things tech. And first and foremost, my apologies if 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.560 my voice starts to give out throughout this episode. Between 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:30.680 when I recorded the first part of the iTunes Story, 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:34.600 which came out before this episode, and this part the 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:37.879 second part of the iTunes story, I got a terrible 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.640 summer cold, and so I am on the mend. I was, 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.440 I was just fighting it off when I recorded the 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.680 first half, and now I'm getting it, you know, getting 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.600 out the other side on the second half. So my 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:55.520 apologies for the particularly grossness of my voice today. But 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.800 the show she must keep going, I think, as the saying. 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.880 And in our last episode, I covered the developments and 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.600 launch of iTunes in two thousand one, when the program 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.600 first launched, up to the point when Apple would introduce 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.600 the iTunes Music store in two thousand three, and I 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.040 also focused quite a bit on Apple's history leading up 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.720 to that and why it would be such a big 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.960 deal for iTunes to premiere. The company had managed to 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.319 convince the music industry to take a chance on selling 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.240 songs a la carte for cents a pop, and the 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:32.600 record labels had little to lose and agreed with some 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.399 conditions which I talked about. But in two thousand four, 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:41.480 Apple expanded the iTunes Music Store internationally. It had started 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.080 off as only being available in the United States, but 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.200 next on the list of countries to join iTunes Music 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:58.720 Store where France, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Austria, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:03.080 and the Netherlands the Great White North. But by which 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.320 of course I mean our buddy Canada had to wait 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.560 a few months later. They got iTunes music store support 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.239 starting December third, two thousand four, so just at the 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.919 very tail end of the year. Now over the following 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.880 year's Apple would continue to expand operations into new markets, 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:21.480 which greatly contributed to the increase in revenue through the 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:26.080 iTunes Music Store. Then we have iTunes version five, which 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.680 debuted on September seven, two thousand five, And it was 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.280 this version of iTunes that would set the stage for 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.000 my career because it was iTunes five that adds support 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:40.320 for a young form of media called podcasts. Now, technically 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.880 podcasts were available on iTunes before version five came out. 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.079 They had been added to the music store about three 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:51.720 months earlier with an update called iTunes four point five. 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:54.519 But it was really upon the release of iTunes five 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.560 that people started to really hear about it and just 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.320 to let you guys, peek behind the curtain a little bit, 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.200 where your show appeared on iTunes if you were a podcaster, 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.920 that was a huge deal back in those days. Arguably 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.080 it still is, but I mean back then it was 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.840 make or break. There weren't as many podcatching services back then, 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.560 or at least not many high profile ones, so getting 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.280 your show featured on the podcast page of the iTunes 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.000 store could mean going from obscure to famous in very 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.920 short order. To get featured, someone at Apple had to 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.520 take notice of you, and it really helped if you 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.480 happen to be really good, which is why my colleagues 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.400 Josh and Chuck, hosts of Stuff you Should Know, got 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.600 featured on iTunes pretty early on, just a few months 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:40.960 after they had launched Stuff you Should Know, and that 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:44.840 propelled them to the spotlight where they flourished. My show 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.280 has appeared in the top ten technology podcasts frequently over 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.200 the years, sometimes even reaching number one on occasion. I 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.200 remember taking a screenshot the first time that happened because 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.440 I was chuffed two bits, so to speak. The algorithms 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.520 to determine placement in the top in We're never really 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:04.600 entirely apparent, but it became clear that showing up on 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.920 those pages really helped bring an audience to the show. 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:12.160 Another feature introduced between versions four and five, but really 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:17.120 emphasized in five, was Party Shuffle, which does not describe 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.440 the type of dancing I do when I'm at a 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.120 social gathering, although that would also be accurate. No. A 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.599 party Shuffle would create a shuffled playlist, so instead of 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.400 keeping the next song a mystery where you would have 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.320 a song playing and you have no idea what's coming 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.000 up next, the feature would actually take a list of 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.560 songs and shuffle the order so that the user could 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.080 actually still see the full list of songs, and that 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.280 gave users the option of customizing a shuffled playlist and 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.279 moving songs or even removing them completely from the queue. 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.680 So you might have a nice list of songs and 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:52.599 you think I don't even know what order to play 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:54.719 these in so you could use party Shuffle. It would 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.800 automatically randomize the order of that list, and then you 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:00.919 can look over and make sure that still, you know, 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.080 seems like a good party mix. It's pretty handy if 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:05.919 you're building a playlist for a party and if you 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.960 don't want six slow jams playing back to back. Eventually, 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.080 this feature would evolve into something else called iTunes DJ, 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:18.840 but that's uh slightly more complicated story that I might 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.080 touch on a little later in this episode. Similarly, Apple 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:25.760 had also introduced a service called air Tunes, which allowed 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.920 users to stream audio from one WiFi connected device running iTunes. 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.000 So really we're talking about a Mac computer because this 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.160 is really before the iPhone and iPod touch eras, and 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.200 then you could stream that to another WiFi connected device. 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.000 Around that same time, Apple also introduced a piece of 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:46.240 hardware called the Airport Express. It's a wireless access point 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.679 that also had an audio output jack. So you could 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:56.280 stream music from your Mac computer to your Airport Express outlet, 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.280 and you could have speakers plugged into that outlet and 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.200 you could play music in a different room. So that 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.560 was the basic idea. You also had to have an 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.760 ethernet cable plugged into that airport express. But it was 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.359 a way that you could expand or extend the way 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.840 you could play music through a space, So it was 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.440 an interesting idea. Now. Later Apple would evolve air Tunes 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:24.040 into a similar service called Airplay, which eventually could handle 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.640 all sorts of media, not just audio streaming. I'll talk 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.840 about that a bit later too. By the time iTunes 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.400 five point oh came out, the Apple Music Store played 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.520 host to more than two million songs, ten times the 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.000 number that the store had opened with back in two 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.080 thousand three oh and Steve Jobs had a new type 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.000 of hardware to show off at that particular music event. 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.160 It was what he called the iTunes phone, also known 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.880 as the Rocker E one R O k R, was 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.040 a phone made by Motorola that users could port songs 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.719 from iTunes onto. But the Rocker would turn into a 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:05.160 painful lesson for Jobs and for Apple. First of all, 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.240 the phone was not very impressive to look at, and 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:10.080 you can tell when Steve Jobs was showing it off 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.480 at this event that he wasn't really feeling it. The 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.200 phone looked a bit cheap. If I'm going to be honest, 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.360 It was a candy bar style phone format from the 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:21.920 old cell phone days, so it was a cell phone, 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:24.400 it was not really a smartphone. It could only hold 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.760 about a hundred songs, and you had to transfer music 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.160 from a computer to the phone via a cable, so 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.920 you actually had to put the phone and plug it 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.520 into your computer and then manually poured over the songs 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.679 the one hundred or a fewer songs you wanted onto 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.680 the phone. And it was only available on singular wireless, 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.240 which meant that users would have to get locked into 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.840 a contract with a specific provider if they wanted to 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.880 use this technology. Also, during the demonstration itself, the phone 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.920 simply refused to operate as it was supposed to, and 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:01.200 Jobs got visibly irritated on stage. This presentation is still 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.120 available for you to watch on YouTube if you want to. 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:05.840 It's the Music event from two thousand and five. He 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.120 tried to show how the phone could pick up right 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.680 after you left off listening and was failing miserably and 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.920 made some comment akin too, well, if you can know 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.400 what buttons to push, you can make it work. The 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.960 iPod Nano, which Jobs also unveiled at that same event, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.960 fared much better. It was in line with Apple's aesthetic 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:30.160 plus it you know, worked, Jobs suspected that phones were 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.240 going to be a big threat to the iPod business 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.959 before long. He was absolutely right. Phones already had cameras 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.120 in them and some rudimentary web browsers, though these were 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.439 mostly text based, and that was why he had agreed 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:45.880 to work with another company to create the so called 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.040 iTunes phone in the first place. It's the only reason 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.440 he agreed to it. But he saw that when things 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.560 were outside his control, he couldn't expect them to measure 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.480 up to his standards. So you could argue that the 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.199 lackluster demonstration of the Rocker in two thousand five is 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.200 what pushed Jobs to create a department within Apple to 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:08.200 develop the iPhone in the first place, although surely the 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:12.000 development process was already far enough along at that point. Now. 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:16.040 According to numerous sources and Apple itself, version five point 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.280 oh had some bugs in it that caused issues for 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.520 many users. The company issued a patch, but the full 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.000 version of iTunes six wouldn't be far behind. It would 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.720 release on October twelve, two thousand five, so essentially a 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.319 little more than a month after version five came out. 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:36.640 Version five in September, version six in October. So version 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:38.760 five added some features and made a few changes to 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:41.080 the user interface, but version six had a bit more 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.559 to offer, and that's when video would come to iTunes. 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.280 Starting with version six, users would be able to purchase 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.600 music videos or episodes of certain television shows for the 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.360 princely sum of a dollar ninety nine. And it was 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.160 a good idea, boosted by the fact that MTV, which 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.319 had built itself on top of showing music videos, had 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.520 started to drift away from videos in favor of other programming. 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.840 They had shown a decreasing amount of music video content 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.960 year over year for several years running by this point, 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.120 So now users would be able to watch music videos 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.840 on demand, purchasing them for a pretty low price and 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.240 keeping them forever. One thing did put a bit of 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.800 a monkey wrench into the works, and that was YouTube. 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:27.079 So in the early days of YouTube, this is back 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.720 when YouTube was first launching, users were uploading all sorts 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:32.640 of stuff to the service. You know, it was meant 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:36.000 to be a place where people would put user generated 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.920 content of whether it was home videos or sketches or 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.600 whatever it might be. But in the early days of YouTube, 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.240 it was mostly done by people who had no rights 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.079 to the videos they were uploading. They were uploading stuff 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.440 that didn't belong to them. It got YouTube and some 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:54.920 pretty hot water from various studios out there, music studios, 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.960 movie studios, TV studios, but that might have hurt music 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.680 video sales on iTunes because you could find a lot 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.040 of stuff on YouTube, though it wasn't guaranteed to stay 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.040 up for long. The TV shows, however, we're doing pretty well. 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.560 The videos also included short films by Pixar, which had 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.800 made several feature length computer animated films for Disney at 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.840 that point but had not yet officially joined with the 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.560 Mouse House yet, and Steve Jobs, by the way, was 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:24.480 a major shareholder in the company. Jobs had invested in 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:29.960 Pixar essentially right after it spun off from Lucasfilm years earlier, 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.920 so it was a great case of synergy there now. 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.439 According to lifewire, though to be clear, I didn't see 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.040 their source for where they got the statistic, Apple sold 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.079 one million videos within the first twenty days of iTunes 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.480 supporting video sales, which is not a bad start. But 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:51.240 this is also a good time to note that people 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.000 were starting to already notice some serious feature creep in iTunes, 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.040 something that would become a real issue as the software 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.360 would grow over the years. Eat your creep is when 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.840 product developers keep adding features to something beyond its original 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:09.240 intended purpose. In some cases, it might all work out, 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.319 like with the famous Swiss Army knife. You know you've 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:14.360 got a toothpick in there. Who thought that a knife 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.200 would need a toothpick? But it works for Swiss Army knife. 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.319 But in other cases you'll end up with a product 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.480 that's a total nightmare. It might quote unquote do a 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.160 hundred things, and maybe it doesn't do any of them 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.800 very well. That's the bad kind of feature creep. It's 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.640 part of what sidelined Copeland, which if you listen to 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.240 my last episode you'll recognize as the code name for 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.120 a version of the Mac operating system that never came 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.920 to be. With videos being added to iTunes, some people 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.480 begin to ask if, perhaps at the very least, Apple 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:48.920 should reconsider the name iTunes. After all, on iTunes you 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.760 could get music, but you could also get videos, e 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:56.000 books and podcasts. It seemed like either Apple should change 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.120 the name of the software to better reflect everything that 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:02.360 was available in it or break the program up into 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.760 more manageable applications, something will chat about at the end 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.920 of this episode, because that's ultimately what they have done. 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:13.160 The relatively simple interface of the earlier versions of iTunes 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:18.080 was beginning to get a little less simple. For some reason, 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:23.439 the company decided against either rebranding or restructuring iTunes, and 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.720 not for the last time either. Not entirely certain what 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.719 the logic was behind maintaining the iTunes name, because there 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.920 were other instances where Apple didn't seem particularly reluctant to 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:39.240 rebrand the service after they had changed it significantly, So 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.800 I don't know what was special about this one. Still 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.280 beyond a few critics who felt that iTunes was starting 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.720 to get a bit too bloated and messy, things were 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.640 going really well, and it laid the groundwork for the next, 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:53.960 really big revision to the platform. The seventh generation of 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.640 the iTunes program would come out in September two thousand six, 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.600 following in the footsteps of iTunes five, which would come 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.800 out the previous September. From here on out, Apple would 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.760 establish the fall as the time for announcements about things 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.920 like the iPhone, the iPod, and iTunes, although the iPhone 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:12.640 would have to wait for a couple more years it 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:16.480 had not yet been unveiled. Now you could download movies 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.160 using iTunes. Earlier it had all been music videos and 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.640 TV show episodes, but with iTunes seven you could do 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.720 movies as well. But that also added to the feature creep. 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.880 Criticisms people had for the program, but it became a 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.040 popular option. Now. I've got a lot more to say 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.960 about iTunes, but before I get into it, let's take 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:46.320 a quick break. One thing that iTunes seven would add 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.640 to the experience was a user interface upgrade in the 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:54.080 form of cover Flow. And this wasn't actually an Apple invention. 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.120 Much like iTunes itself, it was something that they had 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:01.040 seen from a different developer and and acquired it. It 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.240 was the work of an artist named Andrew Coulter in Right, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.360 who came up with the idea of representing files in 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:09.600 a visual way in which you could flip back and 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.840 forth through them like a slide show. And Apple would 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.440 acquire cover Flow and then implemented it in iTunes seven 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:18.560 point oh, so that users could browse through their music 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.240 collection by album cover, sort of as if they were 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.400 standing at a shelf thumbing through all their record albums. 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.600 So you can kind of get the visual appeal, although 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:31.640 as I understand it, very few um iTunes users typically 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.240 talked a lot about using it because it could be 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.960 a little bit of a hassle. UM. I don't know. 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.320 That's anecdotal, Like I don't know if Apple ever gathered 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:43.920 any information about it, I do know that it wouldn't 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.360 hold on to cover flow forever. And later on Apple 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.320 would be involved in a patent infringement lawsuit against Mirror 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:55.280 World Technologies and later the parent company for the Mirror 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.320 World Technologies, which was Network One, and it was all 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.440 about cover Flow. At the heart of the matter was 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.040 a patent that described a system that organized documents in 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.640 a stream chronologically similar to the way that cover flow worked, 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.120 but the patent dated all the way back to so 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.200 it definitely predated the iTunes version of cover flow. While 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.120 the court case went back and forth in favor of 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.680 either one party or the other as it was making 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.800 its way through the court system, getting appealed and pushed 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.520 to higher and higher courts, the two parties would eventually 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.280 agree to a settlement that gave Apple a full license 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.520 to use the technology, and eventually Apple would phase out 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.080 to cover flow, because again, while it was really flashy, 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.840 it was not necessarily the most practical user interface. Other 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.840 features that joined the iTunes family with seven point oh 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:45.000 included gapless playback. This is pretty much what the name suggests. 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:49.400 It's playback of multiple tracks with no gaps between the songs. Now, 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.680 that isn't that big a deal between songs that have 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.400 clear endings and beginnings, but on some albums, one track 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.640 is supposed to flow directly into the beginning of the 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.360 next track, and again at between the two breaks up 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.159 the listening experience. If you want an example of this, 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.600 you should check out the songs this beat goes on 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.199 and switching to Glide by the Kings, which is one 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.960 of my favorite transitions between songs. But obviously there are 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:19.639 tons of examples out there in music, particularly on concept albums, 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:22.760 where a song will flow directly into the next one, 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.040 So gapless helped out a lot that way. iTunes seven 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.720 would remain the standard version for two years, with iTunes 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.800 eight premiering in two thousand eight. So this was unusual 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:38.480 because typically Apple was updating iTunes at least annually, if 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.840 not more than once a year. Because iTunes five and 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.680 six both appeared just within a month of each other, 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.200 but between two thousand six and two thousand and eight, 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.760 when iTunes seven was the standard, Apple would have another 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.440 big product announcement, which was, of course, the iPhone and 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.879 Macworld two thousand seven, Steve Jobs got up on stage 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.320 to introduce the iPhone, what he called a revolutionary product 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.359 that changes everything, and that's exactly what the iPhone turned 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:10.520 out to be. The sleek design, intuitive interface, and Apple's 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:15.240 software blew away the admittedly biased crowd of Mac fans 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:17.879 in the audience. It would be six months before the 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.800 phone came to market, but Apple clearly already had a 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.120 hit on its hands before even getting into the stores, 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.320 and iTunes would play a big part with the iPhone, 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:29.320 and the iPhone would play a large part of why 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:33.439 iTunes is now going away in twenty At the event, 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.679 Jobs explained that iPhone users would sink their phones with 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:42.000 their computers through iTunes, just like they would with an iPod. 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.320 He made the case that people were already used to 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.440 this idea as the company was getting ready to sell 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:50.640 it's one million iPod in two thousand seven. So from 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:54.680 the start, iTunes and the iPhone were linked, both metaphorically 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:58.840 and frequently physically. The original iPhone couldn't sync up with 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.679 a user's account of the air. Users would have to 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.280 place their phone in a docking station attached to their 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:08.119 computer and the phone would sync up using iTunes, so 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.320 you can make easy changes on your computer and then 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.399 sink it to your phone, rather than having to go 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.399 through your phone settings and change things that way. This 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:20.800 added yet more features two iTunes technically inversion seven point three, 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.680 that was the first version of iTunes to have iPhone support. 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.600 Version seven point four would add support for another new 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.679 Apple product, the iPod Touch, which, for those who might 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.399 not be familiar, was sort of an iPhone without the 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:37.159 phone part. The seventh generation of iTunes would go so 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.400 far as to support the second generation of the iPhones 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.120 operating system, which we now call iOS, with iTunes version 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.560 seven point seven, so version seven lasted long enough to 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.080 go through two different versions of the operating system for 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:54.200 the iPhone. In two thousand and eight, Apple finally released 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.080 a full new version of iTunes with iTunes eight, and 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:59.840 in this update, the company included a feature called i 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.960 Tunes Genius, which would generate a playlist based off a 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:08.680 song the user selected. Genius would actually consult massive amounts 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.160 of data in order to do this, And here's what 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.520 was going on from a very high level. All right, 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.840 Let's say you've got your music library there and you 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.679 want to put together a playlist for a chill party 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:23.439 of hipsters, but you don't really have the time to 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:28.000 dive through your massive music library to curate the perfect playlist. Instead, 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:32.119 you select one song to be the seed for this playlist, 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.320 and let's say it's waiting for Superman by the Flaming 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:39.360 Lips from your perspective. iTunes then pulls together a playlist 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:41.719 of songs for you based on that selection, and it 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.359 only takes an instant it's there almost immediately. But what's 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.560 actually going on is a bit more complicated. Apple would 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.840 take your data, including the information about all your songs 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.959 in your library, the genre those songs would belong to, 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.600 and how frequently you listen to each of those songs, 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.560 and then would compare your data against the information of 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.600 other iTunes genius users, and it would look for profiles 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.360 that had a similar library to yours and the sort 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.439 of things that they would tend to like. The Apple 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:14.080 hasn't really revealed how it was weighing different variables, how 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:17.680 it would assign weight to those variables, like how prevalent 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.760 at particular genre is in any given library. How much 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.560 does that matter? If my music library is eighty percent 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:30.800 country music, then how much importance does the Genius algorithm 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:35.720 give to the country genre? Uh? Or how does listening 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:38.720 frequency affected? If I've listened to one particular song, let's 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:41.320 say Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash, and I've listened 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.320 to it five times as many times as the next 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:48.680 closest song, then how much does that determine whether or 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.920 not it shows up on a playlist? Those things were secrets, 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:56.160 but it did use comparisons to draw conclusions about which 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.399 songs would best match up to create a playlist of 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:01.800 your choice. And it could also suggest songs in the 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.119 iTunes music store that seemed to fit your preferences, but 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.440 that weren't already in your library. So maybe it looks 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.000 at your playlist and it says, oh, well, based on this, 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.880 you should definitely have this other song, but you don't 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.159 actually own this one yet. Here's a link if you 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:18.720 would like to buy it, and you can listen to 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:20.359 a preview and decide whether or not you want to 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.199 add it to your library. In a way it's a 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.600 little similar to what services like Pandora Radio we're already 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:30.639 doing since two thousand five. Pandora Radio's method was to 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:33.480 take songs and then break them down by describing them 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.680 in as many different ways as possible. You take a 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:39.400 piece of music and you say, all right, what are 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.159 the different qualities of this music? So you might have 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:45.199 ways of describing it saying there's a female vocalist, it 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.439 has a complicated rhyme scheme, it's guitar driven, it's got 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:51.720 a fast tempo, and so on. Then the radio algorithm 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:54.360 would search for other songs in this database there were 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:58.119 somewhat similar to the seed song you had selected, and 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.760 then it would feed those extra songs to the user, 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:06.119 And that gave opportunity for users to discover new music 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:08.600 that fit their tastes. Maybe they'd hear a song that 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.159 they've never heard before, but they'll love it because it 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:13.480 happens to fall into the same sort of stuff that 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:17.439 they already listened to. So Apple wasn't necessarily innovating in 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:20.800 this space, but rather incorporating a working strategy into the 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:24.920 existing iTunes framework, which is something the company is particularly 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:28.160 strong at at identifying things that work well and then 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:32.160 improving upon them. In addition to the Genius feature, iTunes 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:35.560 eight also made available TV shows in HD format in 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:39.040 the iTunes store, and the store continued to contribute a 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:42.560 significant percentage of Apple's overall revenue, and it wasn't just 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:46.040 affecting Apple. The company announced in April two eight that 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.960 customers had purchased more than four billion songs from the 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:53.520 ituned music store since its launch, making Apple the largest 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:57.440 music retailer, beating out Walmart at least according to Apple's 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:00.800 own press release. Other reports would state that Apple held 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:04.720 a strong second place behind Walmart. So your mileage may 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:08.360 vary on that particular point. It would eventually replace Walmart 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:11.040 one way or the other. Question is just as when 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:14.200 did that really happen and the pace was picking up. 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:17.639 It was four billion songs when the company made this 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:21.399 announcement in April of that year, but then in June, 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:24.000 just a few months later, the company reported that the 0:24:24.080 --> 0:24:27.280 number of songs sold now topped more than five billion, 0:24:27.400 --> 0:24:31.760 which is incredible that it's it's an amazing achievement to 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:34.119 have gone from four to five billion in just a 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:37.199 couple of months. The closest competitor online with Apple in 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:40.120 the music department at that time was Amazon, which had 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:42.960 only been selling digital music downloads for about nine months. 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:47.600 When Apple hit that five billion songs sold milestone, Amazon 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:50.000 sales were about a tenth of Apples, But it is 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:51.679 fair to point out that Apple had been in the 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:54.560 business for five years at that point and Amazon had 0:24:54.640 --> 0:24:57.760 just gotten started. Business was going really well. In fact, 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:00.280 it was enough to get discussions going in various state 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:03.800 governments in the US about the prospect of taxing iTunes 0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:07.960 digital downloads. The concept faced a lot of opposition, particularly 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:12.520 in California, not by not by coincidence that happens to 0:25:12.560 --> 0:25:16.040 be where Apple has its headquarters. But gradually many states 0:25:16.160 --> 0:25:20.240 would pass legislation allowing them to collect taxes on digital purchases. 0:25:21.040 --> 0:25:24.800 Not all of them would cover iTunes store purchases. It's 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:27.240 a state by state sort of thing, but New Jersey 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:30.040 would be the first to do so. Actually, the Garden 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:32.200 State technically had done it in two thousand and seven, 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:36.080 before any of this other stuff was happening. Version nine 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:39.120 of iTunes would come out in September two thousand nine. 0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:43.560 Once again, Apple introduced new features with their increasingly gargantuan 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:48.119 digital jukebox program. One of those was the iTunes LP feature. 0:25:48.600 --> 0:25:51.399 It's sort of like the bonus features on a DVD. 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:55.159 For some albums, you could get lots of bonus stuff 0:25:55.160 --> 0:26:00.160 like music videos, live concert footage, liner notes, artists, interviews, 0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:02.639 and more. So it was kind of like getting a 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:06.119 whole bunch of collectors editions stuff with your album purchase. 0:26:06.240 --> 0:26:09.760 For certain albums, not all of them had this. Similarly, 0:26:10.000 --> 0:26:14.359 Apple introduced iTunes Extras, which had bonus features for some 0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:17.920 films available on iTunes, so you could get deleted scenes 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:20.280 and interviews and stuff like that when you downloaded your 0:26:20.280 --> 0:26:23.600 digital copy of let's say Batman Begins. That was one 0:26:23.640 --> 0:26:26.960 of the first movies to feature these extra things, and 0:26:27.040 --> 0:26:28.720 you would just you buy it from the iTunes store 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:30.679 and along with the film, you would get access to 0:26:30.720 --> 0:26:35.000 this extra material. Another new feature was home sharing, which 0:26:35.000 --> 0:26:37.919 would allow iTunes users to share their libraries on up 0:26:37.960 --> 0:26:41.159 to five computers within a household. Each person in the 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:44.120 household with an iTunes library could do the same with 0:26:44.200 --> 0:26:48.600 the others, so the shared library could grow much more quickly, 0:26:48.960 --> 0:26:51.240 and I'm sure it was a popular feature for folks 0:26:51.280 --> 0:26:55.399 who are living with housemates. Apple discontinued home sharing. Starting 0:26:55.400 --> 0:26:59.359 with iTunes version twelve point two, Apple also added in 0:26:59.520 --> 0:27:03.080 app management and sinking features and iTunes nine to let 0:27:03.200 --> 0:27:06.440 users arrange their app layouts, which then could transfer over 0:27:06.480 --> 0:27:10.520 to their iPhone upon sinking with the computer. One thing 0:27:10.560 --> 0:27:13.720 that Apple would take out of the music on the 0:27:13.760 --> 0:27:18.280 iTunes Store starting with iTunes nine was DRM, or Digital 0:27:18.359 --> 0:27:22.320 Rights Management. Apple had already negotiated with music label E 0:27:22.560 --> 0:27:25.399 m I to remove DRM from that labels music on 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.120 the store a couple of years earlier, but everyone else 0:27:28.200 --> 0:27:31.520 still had DRM attached. In two thousand nine, the company 0:27:31.560 --> 0:27:34.960 was able to remove it from all the music in 0:27:35.040 --> 0:27:38.600 its store, and Steve Jobs had been an outspoken critic 0:27:38.960 --> 0:27:41.320 of DRM, but it took some time for Apple to 0:27:41.359 --> 0:27:44.680 actually ditch it. Amazon had already been selling digital music 0:27:44.920 --> 0:27:48.400 DRM free for some time. That to be fair, Amazon's 0:27:48.440 --> 0:27:51.840 foul format was MP three, while Apple was using A 0:27:51.840 --> 0:27:54.640 A C files that were at least marketed as being 0:27:54.720 --> 0:27:58.760 higher in quality. So you were balancing things out. Did 0:27:58.760 --> 0:28:02.040 you want higher quality music but with DRM, or did 0:28:02.080 --> 0:28:07.280 you want the lower quality arguably recordings but without DRM. 0:28:07.320 --> 0:28:10.600 Now as a concession of music labels, Apple also agreed 0:28:10.600 --> 0:28:15.440 to introducing variable pricing on music tracks, because before all 0:28:15.520 --> 0:28:18.480 songs cost nine cents. It didn't matter if the song 0:28:18.560 --> 0:28:20.359 was three minutes long or twelve minutes long, it was 0:28:20.400 --> 0:28:23.600 all ninety nine cents. But this agreement would allow labels 0:28:23.600 --> 0:28:26.359 to select a price of either sixty nine cents, ninety 0:28:26.440 --> 0:28:29.480 nine cents or a dollar twenty nine per song. And 0:28:29.480 --> 0:28:32.760 if you wanted to upgrade your library with DRM free music, 0:28:33.200 --> 0:28:35.159 you had to pay for it. In fact, it was 0:28:35.200 --> 0:28:39.480 thirty cents a song or sixty cents for an album, 0:28:39.520 --> 0:28:42.280 and I imagine that would get pretty expensive if you 0:28:42.320 --> 0:28:45.600 had a really big music library. Later, this would be 0:28:45.640 --> 0:28:48.480 replaced by a service called itune Match, which i'll talk 0:28:48.560 --> 0:28:52.160 about a little later in this podcast. First, I'm gonna 0:28:52.200 --> 0:28:54.520 go and drink a nice big cup of tea, and 0:28:54.560 --> 0:29:04.000 we'll be right back after this break. All right, we're 0:29:04.000 --> 0:29:08.080 in the home stretch. So iTunes had been criticized for 0:29:08.080 --> 0:29:10.040 a long time for the fact that it was getting 0:29:10.080 --> 0:29:15.360 too big and unwieldy to be useful, particularly for Windows users. 0:29:15.800 --> 0:29:19.360 Now I've used iTunes on both Windows and Mac machines, 0:29:19.840 --> 0:29:23.640 and anecdotally, which I realized is not really evidence, I 0:29:23.680 --> 0:29:26.320 can tell you that in my experience. Using it on 0:29:26.320 --> 0:29:29.680 a Mac, while not perfect, was way easier than using 0:29:29.720 --> 0:29:33.240 it on Windows, and anyone who has had iTunes installed 0:29:33.280 --> 0:29:35.560 knows how it can place a really big demand on 0:29:35.640 --> 0:29:38.920 computer resources. But things were about to get even more 0:29:39.040 --> 0:29:43.120 messy with iTunes ten, the last version to release during 0:29:43.160 --> 0:29:47.480 Steve jobs lifetime he would pass away in the flagship 0:29:47.520 --> 0:29:50.880 app from Apple got a bit of a makeover until 0:29:51.200 --> 0:29:54.720 version ten. The logo for iTunes was a c D 0:29:55.320 --> 0:29:58.040 with a pair of eighth notes on it. After all, 0:29:58.080 --> 0:30:01.360 back when the first version of iTunes came out, that's 0:30:01.400 --> 0:30:04.479 the narrative Apple relied upon. The idea was that users 0:30:04.480 --> 0:30:08.640 would rip music from their store bought c d s 0:30:09.120 --> 0:30:12.920 and create a digital jukebox on their Mac computers. But 0:30:13.080 --> 0:30:15.520 the CD was a bit of an outdated symbol by 0:30:15.560 --> 0:30:18.440 this point, and the updated logo was a simple pair 0:30:18.520 --> 0:30:22.080 of musical eighth notes on a circular blue background. There 0:30:22.160 --> 0:30:25.320 was no more c D in the background. But the 0:30:25.360 --> 0:30:28.240 feature that got a lot of attention, and most of 0:30:28.280 --> 0:30:30.959 it was not really positive, was the addition of a 0:30:31.040 --> 0:30:35.720 new social networking element in the iTunes program called Ping. 0:30:36.440 --> 0:30:38.880 The purpose of Ping was to make it easier for 0:30:39.040 --> 0:30:42.320 users to share with one another. You could share information 0:30:42.320 --> 0:30:45.880 about your favorite artists, your favorite albums, You could share 0:30:45.920 --> 0:30:48.920 your thoughts about live shows you had attended. You could 0:30:48.920 --> 0:30:52.000 also view concert listings in your area, and you could 0:30:52.040 --> 0:30:55.560 indicate which shows you hoped to go see. The idea 0:30:55.720 --> 0:30:58.960 was to extend iTunes out to be a more social 0:30:59.040 --> 0:31:02.840 experience of my users. That people like to talk about 0:31:02.840 --> 0:31:05.240 their music collections and find out what their friends are 0:31:05.280 --> 0:31:07.960 listening to and find out what they're artists that they 0:31:08.000 --> 0:31:10.360 love what they're listening to, And in fact, you could 0:31:10.400 --> 0:31:12.240 do that with ping. At least in theory, you could 0:31:12.240 --> 0:31:15.320 follow artists, and the artists were encouraged to post to 0:31:15.360 --> 0:31:18.440 the social platform and share information about their experiences and 0:31:18.480 --> 0:31:21.360 what sort of music they enjoyed. So in theory it 0:31:21.440 --> 0:31:25.040 was all a pretty decent idea. Apple would encourage discover ability, 0:31:25.480 --> 0:31:28.080 it would bring more value to the experience of using iTunes, 0:31:28.120 --> 0:31:31.760 and ultimately it would help sell more tracks to users 0:31:32.120 --> 0:31:34.240 because you would encounter new music, or you'd find out 0:31:34.280 --> 0:31:37.360 that your favorite artist happens to be a big fan 0:31:37.400 --> 0:31:39.760 of this obscure artist and you think, well, that's got 0:31:39.760 --> 0:31:41.200 to be interesting, and you go out and you buy 0:31:41.200 --> 0:31:44.120 out all of their stuff. There was one big problem. 0:31:44.160 --> 0:31:47.400 Nobody was using Ping, at least, not enough people to 0:31:47.480 --> 0:31:52.520 justify continuing the service. So why did Ping fail? One 0:31:52.560 --> 0:31:56.240 big reason might have to do with another social platform, 0:31:56.480 --> 0:32:01.680 everybody's favorite monopoly, Facebook. The rumor was that Apple had 0:32:01.720 --> 0:32:06.840 originally included Facebook interoperability in Paying. Users would be able 0:32:06.880 --> 0:32:10.880 to share their paying activity directly to their Facebook pages, 0:32:11.200 --> 0:32:15.160 and that made sense because everybody was already over at Facebook. 0:32:15.360 --> 0:32:18.120 That's where all your friends already were, so this would 0:32:18.120 --> 0:32:22.320 help attract people who weren't using paying, but who were 0:32:22.360 --> 0:32:26.600 on Facebook, and then they would see this service and 0:32:26.680 --> 0:32:28.840 the notifications and think, oh, I should check that out. 0:32:29.600 --> 0:32:33.000 But before Paying could even launch, something changed, and the 0:32:33.040 --> 0:32:37.680 story I've heard most frequently is that Facebook pulled support 0:32:37.760 --> 0:32:41.600 from the app, that this was a decision on Facebook's point, 0:32:41.720 --> 0:32:44.200 not on Apples, and that it was possibly in an 0:32:44.200 --> 0:32:46.840 effort to avoid helping give a boost up to a 0:32:46.840 --> 0:32:49.920 potential competitor, so you could argue it was an anti 0:32:50.000 --> 0:32:54.239 competitive move. Ping failed to gain any real traction and 0:32:54.400 --> 0:32:57.640 didn't survive to make it to iTunes eleven, which launched 0:32:57.680 --> 0:33:01.280 in two thousand twelve. So was it a terror experience? Well, 0:33:01.440 --> 0:33:04.640 I can't say from a personal perspective, as I actually 0:33:04.880 --> 0:33:07.800 never used it. I never really heard anyone bash it, 0:33:08.080 --> 0:33:09.840 But at the same time, I never heard anyone say 0:33:09.880 --> 0:33:14.000 anything positive about it either. It just sort of was 0:33:14.800 --> 0:33:19.200 and then it really wasn't. In addition to paying, iTunes 0:33:19.240 --> 0:33:22.840 ten would introduce Airplay. That's the updated version of the 0:33:22.880 --> 0:33:26.720 earlier feature called air tunes that I mentioned. With air Tunes, 0:33:26.800 --> 0:33:29.440 users could stream music from their iTunes PC to another 0:33:29.480 --> 0:33:32.719 WiFi connected device on their network. Airplay would work very 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:36.760 much the same way, except it would eventually include video media. 0:33:36.920 --> 0:33:40.480 Apple also had more products that were compatible with Airplay 0:33:40.560 --> 0:33:43.040 at this point, so they were able to sell those 0:33:43.080 --> 0:33:47.000 as well. The third thing that iTunes tend introduced, though 0:33:47.160 --> 0:33:50.960 it would only be fully implemented in iTunes eleven, was 0:33:51.040 --> 0:33:55.240 iTunes Match. I also mentioned this earlier. So this service 0:33:55.400 --> 0:33:57.680 was to address the fact that we were shifting away 0:33:57.720 --> 0:34:01.280 from having a centralized personal comput uter as the hub 0:34:01.440 --> 0:34:04.840 for all our entertainment. You know, back when iTunes launched 0:34:04.880 --> 0:34:07.480 in two thousand one, that was how things worked. You 0:34:07.480 --> 0:34:10.600 would have your Mac computer, you probably have just the 0:34:10.719 --> 0:34:13.879 one Mac computer, and you would have it act as 0:34:13.920 --> 0:34:16.480 the home for all your digital media and in those 0:34:16.480 --> 0:34:19.720 early days that was pretty much just music or maybe 0:34:20.120 --> 0:34:22.719 audio books as well. If you wanted to burn a 0:34:22.800 --> 0:34:26.040 CD or load songs onto an MP three player, you 0:34:26.080 --> 0:34:29.880 would do it by using that machine. You would burn CDs, 0:34:29.920 --> 0:34:33.640 and that machines CD burner. You would connect your MP 0:34:33.760 --> 0:34:37.160 V player to that machine. Everything was centralized to that 0:34:37.280 --> 0:34:41.560 one gadget. But by two thousand eleven things were different. 0:34:41.880 --> 0:34:45.040 Now with cloud services and cloud storage, we could have 0:34:45.080 --> 0:34:47.480 all our stuff living on computers that are out on 0:34:47.520 --> 0:34:50.440 the internet somewhere. Sure, it wasn't sitting on our computer 0:34:50.520 --> 0:34:53.799 at home unless we chose to download everything. But the 0:34:53.840 --> 0:34:56.440 flip side was that if we were using any device 0:34:56.480 --> 0:34:59.600 to access our cloud account, we'd get access to all 0:34:59.640 --> 0:35:02.960 of that content. So if I got a brand new phone, 0:35:03.200 --> 0:35:05.400 I wouldn't have to sink it with my home computer 0:35:05.560 --> 0:35:08.759 and slowly poured over my entire music collection or go 0:35:08.880 --> 0:35:11.160 through and figure out which songs I wanted and which 0:35:11.200 --> 0:35:13.640 ones I didn't. I could just access my library of 0:35:13.719 --> 0:35:18.000 music in the cloud anyway. iTunes Match is a sort 0:35:18.040 --> 0:35:22.319 of a solution to a practical problem. See if you 0:35:22.360 --> 0:35:25.600 had purchased your music straight from the iTunes music store, 0:35:25.920 --> 0:35:29.120 Apple knew about it and those songs would automatically be 0:35:29.160 --> 0:35:31.520 in your cloud library because Apple had a record of 0:35:31.560 --> 0:35:34.000 you buying them. But what if you had ripped songs 0:35:34.040 --> 0:35:36.399 from a CD and then you had them in your 0:35:36.400 --> 0:35:39.200 library that way, or what if you had downloaded from 0:35:39.280 --> 0:35:42.719 some other source like band camp or something, And what 0:35:42.840 --> 0:35:45.359 if and I know this is scandalous, but what if 0:35:45.400 --> 0:35:49.919 you had pirated music? Well, iTunes Match would scan all 0:35:50.000 --> 0:35:52.799 the music in your iTunes library and it would look 0:35:52.800 --> 0:35:56.360 for matches in the Apple database. When it found matches, 0:35:56.800 --> 0:35:59.399 it would be the matched version that would join your 0:35:59.400 --> 0:36:03.000 cloud library. Not only that, the version of the matched 0:36:03.080 --> 0:36:05.759 songs in the cloud would be encoded to a high 0:36:05.800 --> 0:36:09.319 quality two six killabits per second a a C file, 0:36:09.680 --> 0:36:12.239 and they would be DRM free. So let's say you 0:36:12.280 --> 0:36:15.319 had bought a song in the early days of the 0:36:15.360 --> 0:36:18.200 iTunes music store. It would have been encoded at a 0:36:19.040 --> 0:36:22.359 killabits per second, so lower bit rate, and it would 0:36:22.360 --> 0:36:25.680 have also had DRM on it. Your cloud version would 0:36:25.680 --> 0:36:28.680 be higher quality and DRM free, so you could end 0:36:28.760 --> 0:36:31.200 up with songs that actually sounded better than the ones 0:36:31.239 --> 0:36:34.120 that were on your physical hard drive when you enabled 0:36:34.280 --> 0:36:37.680 iTunes match. For those songs that were in your library, 0:36:37.719 --> 0:36:39.880 but we're not in the Apple database. In other words, 0:36:40.120 --> 0:36:42.719 Apple did not have the rights to that music. They 0:36:42.760 --> 0:36:45.120 scan their database to say, well, you know, we don't 0:36:45.200 --> 0:36:48.279 offer this track. You got it some other way. It 0:36:48.280 --> 0:36:52.200 would then upload those songs, and only those songs from 0:36:52.239 --> 0:36:56.120 your computer to your cloud library. That would help guarantee 0:36:56.120 --> 0:36:58.640 that users would have access to their full library of music, 0:36:58.840 --> 0:37:01.520 but also cut down on data transfer requirements to make 0:37:01.520 --> 0:37:03.920 it happen. You don't have to upload everything, just the 0:37:03.960 --> 0:37:08.200 songs that Apple doesn't already have. The services subscription based, 0:37:08.440 --> 0:37:11.000 and it launched at about twenty five dollars per year. 0:37:11.320 --> 0:37:13.880 If your subscription were two lapse, you would lose access 0:37:13.920 --> 0:37:16.520 to those songs, though they would still be on whatever 0:37:16.600 --> 0:37:19.200 hard drive they were stored on, and Apple would allow 0:37:19.280 --> 0:37:22.440 users to download their cloud library to a Mac or PC, 0:37:22.520 --> 0:37:24.920 so you could create a backup first before allowing your 0:37:24.960 --> 0:37:27.560 subscription to LIMP to end, and you would end up 0:37:27.600 --> 0:37:30.160 with the higher quality versions of your songs, at least 0:37:30.200 --> 0:37:33.840 for the ones that Apple actually had copies of. Steve 0:37:33.920 --> 0:37:37.919 Jobs gave that presentation about iTunes Match, but not long 0:37:37.960 --> 0:37:40.960 after that he would pass away, and his passing was 0:37:41.000 --> 0:37:44.239 felt by the entire industry. Not just at Apple, and 0:37:44.280 --> 0:37:46.440 many people were wondering how the company would carry on 0:37:46.480 --> 0:37:49.960 without the iconic leader at the home. One thing that 0:37:50.080 --> 0:37:53.080 shook up the company in two thousand eleven, besides the 0:37:53.120 --> 0:37:56.520 death of their founder, was a report from the Telegraph 0:37:56.680 --> 0:37:59.800 that a security vulnerability in iTunes had given a British 0:38:00.040 --> 0:38:04.680 bunny the opportunity to create software that exploited that vulnerability. 0:38:04.880 --> 0:38:08.960 The company called Gamma International created what appeared to be 0:38:09.120 --> 0:38:12.759 a software update to iTunes, like a security update, but 0:38:12.840 --> 0:38:16.400 in fact it was essentially malware that would hack the 0:38:16.440 --> 0:38:20.560 person's iTunes account. The Telegraph reported that Apple had been 0:38:20.600 --> 0:38:23.400 aware of this vulnerability since two thousand and eight, but 0:38:23.520 --> 0:38:26.640 had failed to patch it until two thousand eleven, so 0:38:26.719 --> 0:38:30.960 that wasn't great news. In two thousand twelve, Apple introduced 0:38:31.000 --> 0:38:35.279 iTunes eleven. Boy did this stir up a hornet's nest. 0:38:36.160 --> 0:38:39.800 They paired that announcement with announcements about the iPhone five 0:38:39.880 --> 0:38:43.120 and the iOS version six that came out that same year. 0:38:43.719 --> 0:38:47.319 But this version of iTunes featured a brand new interface, 0:38:47.719 --> 0:38:50.600 overhauling the way iTunes had looked for ages. It also 0:38:50.680 --> 0:38:52.960 got rid of a navigation bar that had been part 0:38:52.960 --> 0:38:55.480 of iTunes for years, which frustrated a lot of users. 0:38:55.520 --> 0:39:00.040 People really didn't like the way this change may it 0:39:00.440 --> 0:39:03.239 more difficult for them to navigate through their collections and 0:39:03.280 --> 0:39:06.200 to go from things like music to TV two podcasts. 0:39:06.840 --> 0:39:10.440 The program now allowed for a sink listening or viewing experience, 0:39:10.560 --> 0:39:12.480 which meant that you could listen to an album or 0:39:12.480 --> 0:39:16.080 watch a show on one iTunes connected device, You could 0:39:16.080 --> 0:39:18.520 pause it, you could go to a different device connected 0:39:18.560 --> 0:39:21.200 to that same iTunes account, and you could pick up 0:39:21.239 --> 0:39:23.400 right where you left off. So if you were listening 0:39:23.400 --> 0:39:26.239 on your phone when you were walking home and you 0:39:26.280 --> 0:39:28.759 walk through the door, you switch it over so that 0:39:28.840 --> 0:39:31.800 your computer is using airplay to play it through your 0:39:31.840 --> 0:39:34.600 WiFi connected speakers. It picks up right where you left 0:39:34.600 --> 0:39:37.919 off when you're listening on your phone. Uh. This version 0:39:37.920 --> 0:39:41.080 of iTunes was also the official end to ping. Ping 0:39:41.200 --> 0:39:44.080 was done, and it only lasted a little less than 0:39:44.120 --> 0:39:47.759 two years. Really, UM and Apple kind of abandoned it, 0:39:48.400 --> 0:39:52.440 and it also had iCloud integration built into it. In 0:39:52.480 --> 0:39:55.520 two thousand and fourteen, the company would release the last 0:39:55.680 --> 0:39:59.879 major update to iTunes iTunes twelve, and this one got 0:40:00.200 --> 0:40:03.760 pretty harsh criticism as well. When it came out once again. 0:40:04.160 --> 0:40:08.520 Apple made big changes to the user interface. Uh, they 0:40:08.520 --> 0:40:10.799 did not go back to the old user interface. They 0:40:10.880 --> 0:40:15.480 changed it more. They removed the sidebar again. If you 0:40:15.520 --> 0:40:18.320 had put it in with iTunes eleven, it was gone again, 0:40:18.719 --> 0:40:21.440 making it pretty difficult to add back in. You could 0:40:21.440 --> 0:40:24.320 do it manually, but it usually it would require you 0:40:24.360 --> 0:40:25.919 to do a quick search on the internet to figure 0:40:25.920 --> 0:40:28.719 out the steps you needed to follow. The playback bar 0:40:28.800 --> 0:40:31.400 has changed as well. In general, a lot of users 0:40:31.440 --> 0:40:33.680 looked at the changes and said that the control and 0:40:33.760 --> 0:40:37.320 menu system was actually less intuitive and useful as a result. 0:40:37.800 --> 0:40:41.080 Not everyone hated the changes, but the people who did 0:40:41.160 --> 0:40:45.480 hate them really hated them, and they wrote long, detailed 0:40:45.520 --> 0:40:48.680 posts on the Internet about why the changes were possibly 0:40:48.760 --> 0:40:52.399 the worst thing ever. And I exaggerate a little bit 0:40:52.440 --> 0:40:54.840 with that, but I did come across one article that 0:40:54.920 --> 0:40:59.840 legit stated categorically that iTunes twelve was the worst soft 0:41:00.000 --> 0:41:03.799 Apple ever released and that it should be recalled. And 0:41:03.800 --> 0:41:06.160 I came across more than a couple that gave instructions 0:41:06.160 --> 0:41:09.360 on how users could roll back their version of iTunes 0:41:09.400 --> 0:41:12.640 to an earlier version. So that's never good to read 0:41:12.680 --> 0:41:16.080 if you're releasing software. Oh and this is also when 0:41:16.120 --> 0:41:19.520 Apple gifted every iTunes user with a copy of the 0:41:19.560 --> 0:41:23.600 YouTube album Song of Innocence, whether they wanted a copy 0:41:23.640 --> 0:41:26.120 of it or not. Lots of people complained that the 0:41:26.160 --> 0:41:30.000 album was taking a valuable storage space on their devices, 0:41:30.040 --> 0:41:33.720 particularly on iPhones, and also that it wasn't actually easy 0:41:33.800 --> 0:41:37.560 to get rid of the album. That eventually prompted Bono 0:41:37.719 --> 0:41:40.319 from You two to actually apologize publicly for the whole 0:41:40.320 --> 0:41:43.400 goof them up, and Apple would eventually let users delete 0:41:43.440 --> 0:41:47.600 the album more easily. An update to iTunes twelve integrated 0:41:47.600 --> 0:41:52.320 support with Apple Music, that is, Apple's music streaming subscription service. 0:41:52.800 --> 0:41:54.440 So here we get to the point where Apple is 0:41:54.480 --> 0:41:56.920 doing the thing that Steve Jobs said no one wanted 0:41:56.960 --> 0:41:59.839 to do more than a decade earlier, though obviously things 0:41:59.840 --> 0:42:04.600 that changed significantly within those intervening years. So for ten 0:42:04.640 --> 0:42:06.840 dollars a month, you could sign up and listen to 0:42:06.960 --> 0:42:12.880 music streaming on demand from Apple's entire database, and you 0:42:12.920 --> 0:42:15.680 could also listen to music that had been curated for 0:42:15.760 --> 0:42:18.520 you based upon your tastes as defined by your own 0:42:18.600 --> 0:42:22.319 personal music library in the cloud. And that is how 0:42:22.400 --> 0:42:25.279 it works today. So from two thousand fourteen to two 0:42:25.280 --> 0:42:29.000 thousand nineteen. iTunes twelve would continue to grow and add 0:42:29.040 --> 0:42:32.440 more support for features like Apple Music, but the behemoth 0:42:32.520 --> 0:42:36.320 was really out of control. It was impossible to deny 0:42:36.360 --> 0:42:39.720 that the software had grown too large, and that trying 0:42:39.760 --> 0:42:42.719 to keep the same aesthetic across multiple windows owned and 0:42:42.760 --> 0:42:45.799 operated by different teams with an Apple seemed like a 0:42:45.840 --> 0:42:49.720 fool's Errand in addition, the consumer trend of moving towards 0:42:49.719 --> 0:42:53.560 streaming services instead of purchasing copies of media meant the 0:42:53.560 --> 0:42:56.200 the iTunes store was starting to flag a bit. The 0:42:56.239 --> 0:42:59.200 sales were starting to drop off, so the writing was 0:42:59.239 --> 0:43:02.520 on the wall. Digital downloads are starting to follow the 0:43:02.560 --> 0:43:06.279 same trend as CDs and DVDs, so it made more 0:43:06.280 --> 0:43:09.840 sense for Apple to discontinue iTunes and focus on breaking 0:43:09.920 --> 0:43:13.239 up those services into three dedicated apps, which is what 0:43:13.239 --> 0:43:17.200 we're getting now. The successors to iTunes are the apps 0:43:17.320 --> 0:43:21.520 Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts, very similar to 0:43:21.560 --> 0:43:25.600 what is already on iOS devices. The company has assured 0:43:25.719 --> 0:43:29.880 customers that their music libraries will remain intact during this transition. 0:43:30.200 --> 0:43:33.120 All music purchased or transferred to iTunes will be in 0:43:33.160 --> 0:43:36.319 the Apple Music app, including playlists, so none of that 0:43:36.400 --> 0:43:40.040 is going away. Movies and TV shows will similarly be 0:43:40.120 --> 0:43:44.040 available on the Apple TV app. The podcast you subscribe 0:43:44.080 --> 0:43:46.879 to will be on surprise surprise, the Apple Podcast app, 0:43:47.080 --> 0:43:49.400 and Audio books will actually move over to the Apple 0:43:49.480 --> 0:43:53.120 Books apps, so everything is getting split up. To interface 0:43:53.160 --> 0:43:56.520 between a computer and iOS device like the iPhone or 0:43:56.600 --> 0:44:00.480 iPad will now require you to use the Mac Finder 0:44:01.000 --> 0:44:04.240 to do that, so you wouldn't use iTunes anymore. Mac 0:44:04.280 --> 0:44:09.440 Finder is now the the overlaying application you use to 0:44:09.480 --> 0:44:13.520 synchronize between a device and a computer. The next version 0:44:13.560 --> 0:44:17.240 of Mac os Catalina will have no support for iTunes, 0:44:17.400 --> 0:44:19.919 so this is Apple getting users prepared for a big 0:44:20.000 --> 0:44:23.160 change now. Personally, I think this is the right move, 0:44:23.400 --> 0:44:25.719 though it's got the potential to be really confusing for 0:44:25.840 --> 0:44:29.719 existing iTunes customers who use Mac computers. There are a 0:44:29.719 --> 0:44:31.880 lot of questions being asked, and to Apple's credit, the 0:44:31.880 --> 0:44:34.759 company is answering them over time, but I think it's 0:44:34.760 --> 0:44:37.000 hard to defend a piece of software the group so 0:44:37.120 --> 0:44:41.520 far beyond its original purpose. As for iTunes on Windows, 0:44:42.120 --> 0:44:45.480 there are no specific plans from the company as of 0:44:45.520 --> 0:44:48.960 the recording of this podcast to discontinue it I don't 0:44:49.000 --> 0:44:51.560 know if they'll continue to support it, but there are 0:44:51.560 --> 0:44:54.560 no plans on it going away. Also, the store element 0:44:54.640 --> 0:44:56.839 will still be there in the individual apps. You'll still 0:44:56.840 --> 0:44:58.920 be able to shop for stuff and download stuff if 0:44:58.920 --> 0:45:02.319 you want to. Although a lot more people are now 0:45:02.360 --> 0:45:05.200 just streaming things and not bothering to buy them at all. 0:45:05.320 --> 0:45:08.200 I know that's how I am. I haven't. I can't 0:45:08.200 --> 0:45:11.279 remember the last album I bought. It might have been 0:45:11.320 --> 0:45:13.919 the soundtrack to Hades Town. I did buy that one 0:45:13.960 --> 0:45:18.719 because it was so incredible, but beyond that, I mean 0:45:18.719 --> 0:45:21.800 that was like a one off, special thing. I usually 0:45:21.920 --> 0:45:25.960 end up streaming stuff because that's just convenient, and I'm 0:45:26.000 --> 0:45:28.640 almost always somewhere where there's an Internet connection. The only 0:45:28.680 --> 0:45:31.560 times when I regret going that route or when I'm 0:45:31.560 --> 0:45:34.520 on an airplane and I can't connect to WiFi and 0:45:34.560 --> 0:45:40.120 then I regret not having downloaded more stuff to my devices. 0:45:40.160 --> 0:45:43.880 But that's that's a rare case. Otherwise, I'm just streaming 0:45:43.920 --> 0:45:47.440 everything just like everybody else. So Apple was making a 0:45:47.480 --> 0:45:50.319 move that makes a lot of sense. You can't really 0:45:50.360 --> 0:45:53.160 fault the company for doing it. It is weird to 0:45:53.280 --> 0:45:57.759 see a an app that has been around for half 0:45:57.880 --> 0:46:01.400 my life now going away, but at the same time, 0:46:01.600 --> 0:46:05.719 I'm not feeling particularly sad about it. iTunes and I 0:46:05.760 --> 0:46:09.040 have always had a love hate relationship. I loved being 0:46:09.080 --> 0:46:15.040 able to synchronize between a device and a computer and 0:46:15.080 --> 0:46:17.440 get all that stuff on an m P three player. 0:46:18.000 --> 0:46:21.160 I hated just about everything else with iTunes. I loved 0:46:21.680 --> 0:46:25.040 getting my show featured on iTunes. That was always wonderful. 0:46:25.160 --> 0:46:28.360 It was very flattering, and it definitely helped bring listeners 0:46:28.400 --> 0:46:32.399 to the show. For that, I'm always thankful. But when 0:46:32.400 --> 0:46:34.480 I used it was using iTunes, I never felt like 0:46:34.480 --> 0:46:38.400 it was the easiest to navigate around, particularly from version 0:46:38.440 --> 0:46:41.360 to version where things would change so dramatically where you 0:46:41.400 --> 0:46:43.759 have to relearn where everything is in order to get 0:46:43.840 --> 0:46:47.920 stuff done. Um, it's interesting that the same company that 0:46:47.960 --> 0:46:51.800 can make such an intuitive user interface with the iOS 0:46:51.880 --> 0:46:57.359 devices also made a desktop application that got progressively more 0:46:57.520 --> 0:47:00.520 difficult to use, at least for me. Then again, I'm 0:47:00.520 --> 0:47:03.279 also old, so new things confuse me more and more 0:47:03.360 --> 0:47:07.480 every year. All right, Well, that wraps up this set 0:47:07.560 --> 0:47:11.240 of episodes about iTunes. I plan on doing an update 0:47:11.560 --> 0:47:15.680 about how stuff works in the next episode because I 0:47:15.719 --> 0:47:18.440 got a listener request for it. And uh, it's been 0:47:18.480 --> 0:47:20.680 a couple of years since I talked about how Stuff Works, 0:47:21.160 --> 0:47:23.600 and you guys might be curious to know what's been 0:47:23.640 --> 0:47:26.319 going on and how things have changed. You know, I 0:47:26.360 --> 0:47:29.200 say that I'm an executive producer with How Stuff Works 0:47:29.200 --> 0:47:32.600 in my Heart Radio, But what does that actually mean. Well, 0:47:32.640 --> 0:47:35.200 I'll explain all that. I'll explain what the company is 0:47:35.239 --> 0:47:38.640 doing now in the next episode. Hopefully you'll you'll find 0:47:38.680 --> 0:47:42.440 that interesting because you know, these are people who are 0:47:42.440 --> 0:47:44.280 near and dear to my heart. Some of them are 0:47:44.600 --> 0:47:47.600 co workers and some of them are former co workers. 0:47:47.840 --> 0:47:50.279 But I'll explain more in that next episode. If you 0:47:50.320 --> 0:47:52.799 have suggestions for future episodes, you can send me an 0:47:52.800 --> 0:47:56.520 email the addresses tech stuff at how stuff Works dot com. 0:47:56.600 --> 0:47:58.960 You can drop on by our website that's tech stuff 0:47:59.000 --> 0:48:01.480 podcast dot com. You'll find an archive of all of 0:48:01.480 --> 0:48:04.400 our past shows. There. You also find links to the 0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:07.040 social media presence for the show, as well as a 0:48:07.080 --> 0:48:09.719 link to our online store, where every purchasing make goes 0:48:09.760 --> 0:48:12.400 to help our show and we greatly appreciate it, and 0:48:12.480 --> 0:48:19.839 I will talk to you again really soon. Ye hext 0:48:19.840 --> 0:48:22.480 Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. 0:48:22.680 --> 0:48:25.480 For more podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit the I 0:48:25.600 --> 0:48:28.839 heart radio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:48:28.880 --> 0:48:29.800 your favorite shows.