WEBVTT - WWDC Preview: A Conversation With Apple’s Former App Approval Chief 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.160 Every year in June, Apple hosts a huge conference in 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:07.960 northern California called the Worldwide Developers Conference or ww d C. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:18.400 Goody good, this is one of the biggest moments of 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.239 the year. This is Apple basically saying, hey, this is 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:23.760 our big software roadmap for the next year or so, 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:26.640 while also hinting at the hardware it's planning for the fall. 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:29.360 Of course, it's also where developers learned to build new 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:34.360 apps with the latest technologies, which drives Apple's growing services revenues. So, Mark, 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.680 we're giving you an episode of Decrypted, the preview this 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:40.559 year's w w DC. What do you have for us? 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:42.760 Thanks Brad Well. Today I'm going to give you an 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.440 even earlier peak into what's coming at the conference and 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.280 take you inside the key app store approval process with 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.360 Philip Schumacher. He used to run Apple's app store review 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.840 department and play a role in some of the WWC conferences. 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:57.240 He left Apple a few years ago and he's now 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.960 the CEO of a security company called Identity dot Com 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.120 m We reached out to Apple on a number of 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.000 points in this interview and they declined to comment. I'm 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.240 Brad Stone and Dim mark Erman, and you are listening 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:13.120 to decrypted. Okay, Mark, I'll let you take it from here. 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.880 I remember this must have been ten years ago. In 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.000 a past life, they used to do some some app development. 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.399 Oh I know ya back in the day. So we 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.119 were in ninth grade or tenth grade, my friend Aaron 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.319 and I. We saw there was an app called I 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.160 Am Rich. It was a thousand dollars and I think 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.040 that's uh, maybe before you started or a little bit 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:40.160 after you started, and that app got removed, got from 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.199 the App store after I think sixteen or eighteen people 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.040 bought it. So we thought it would be funny to 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:46.760 come up with a hundred dollar version called you Are Rich. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.680 That get that got pulled from the app store. And 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.360 that's how I met you, because after I got pulled, 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:54.800 I called to complaint again, before I did all the 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.400 Apple News wanting to talk to you, demanding to talk 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.480 to Philip Shoemaker's and then I got you. So what 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:03.520 was that? Like? How often were you were you doing 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.160 stuff like that? Well, you know, to be honest, you 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:08.280 were one of the few developers that actually reached out 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.119 and you were persistent about it. Right that you're doing 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.520 what you're doing now. But at the time, there were 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.280 a few developers that would reach out. Two thousand nine 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.239 was really breakthrough year for Apple and learning a lot 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.480 about the App Store, and we learned a lot about 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.360 how approving the wrong app can actually make the stock 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.320 price go down. And when that happens, you get calls 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.400 like I did from Steve, from al Gore and folks 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.920 like that that would just you know, be mad at 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.639 you for for your team approving an app like that. Yeah, 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.600 I know, that's interesting. I didn't realize it went literally 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.480 all the way to the talk and beyond with Jobs 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.760 and al Gore. What what was the interaction between app 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.520 review and was actually you know, volume submission volume. In 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.240 March two tho nine, we're just skyrocketing and they kept 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:56.240 going anyway. We were doubling the size of the team 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.959 every three to six months, so uh so it would 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.280 it was very involved, this very involved process, and to 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.480 put these questionable apps in front of the executives once 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.640 a month was ridiculous to me. So I made that 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:14.359 meeting weekly, which meant I got a beating weekly right 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:16.679 when you'd miss your numbers or you to prove the 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:18.600 wrong app, which you know, in the early days we 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.600 did all of that. It was. It was a process 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:25.560 we were trying to refine because we were we were inventing. However, 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.000 when certain apps got to prove that they shouldn't have 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.440 you know that three more three weeks into my job, 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.359 Apple released, uh an Apple or approved an app called 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.600 baby Shaker. I'm sure you know all about that. Yeah, 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.600 take us through that. What take us start to finish? 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.080 What happened there? Baby Shaker was was one of these 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.120 really weird things because at the time, early early on 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.400 in the app store, we were not certain as to 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:50.840 what apps we should have proved and not approved. Early on, 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.600 we really had eight uh seven or eight things that 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.560 Steve gave us specifically to look out for, and things 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:00.640 like I Am Rich weren't on there. Things like baby 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:02.680 Shaker just really weren't there. So early on we were 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:04.840 having three sets of eyes look at every app. It 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.920 went to somebody that one of my peers, uh someone 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.800 senior that I took the team over from, and two 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:14.240 of his employees, and they all approved it. And what 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.760 it was was it's a it's a drawing of a 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.640 baby and when it would start to cry, just randomly, 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:21.760 you would rock it to sleep, and that was great, 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.960 but if you were getting frustrated, people would shake the 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.320 heck out of that device, and then it put excess 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:29.000 over the eyes of the baby. And it says never 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.760 shake a baby, but it was I wouldn't say it 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.200 was a a a good message, but it should never 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:37.560 been approved. So when that app got approved, it was 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.359 an interesting day. I got approved on a Monday or Tuesday, 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:45.440 and we announced record earnings. We announced I think Eddie 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.280 had announced something like a billion download for the app store. 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:50.640 I mean, all these amazing numbers, and our stock price 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.359 went down. And that's because of the bay, because of 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.719 the baby Shaker. We had the shaking baby syndrome. Folks 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.040 piketting outside of infinite loop for me baby shap. It 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:02.160 was interesting because I saw my phone ring and it 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.600 said Steve Job's office, and I picked up Reticent and 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:07.760 I got as admin who said Steve would like to 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.400 talk to you. And Steve just had simple word for me, 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.880 You're stupid and you hire stupid people. This was one 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.600 of the best conversations I had with Steven. Was just 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:18.719 so succinct, to the point you hung at the phone. 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.359 I knew I understood his gist right. It just was 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:23.000 and I had nothing to do with this app. I 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.200 didn't hire the people that reviewed it, I didn't review 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.520 it myself, but I get it. The next phone call 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.240 I got was from the office of Al Gore, and 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.200 then that just blew my mind. And talking to Al, 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.480 he he just wanted to know what the review process 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.520 was and how we missed this and what were the mistakes, 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:43.159 and he was very pleasant, unlike the Steve. Interesting. Is 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.200 that common for board members to get involved with the 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.560 senior executives at Apple across? They're not usually. Yeah, this 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:50.320 is the first time and only time it ever happened 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.280 to me at Apple. So tell me about the review 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.640 process itself, how it started under you, and what it 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:57.640 progressed too, because, like you said, I remember this was 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.840 like a one two week thing. These days you can 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.720 get an Apple proof within two hours, right, So how 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:04.800 does it work? Someone submits an app to the app store, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.720 someone on the app review team downloads the file, puts 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.240 on the phone, take us into the room. There's no secret. 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:15.080 First of all, there's zero automation. Well you have to 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.240 wrap your head around that, right. Every app has to 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.359 see a set of eyes, and that's something that Phil 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.400 was always Phil Schiller was always adamant. And that's the 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.200 senior VP of marketing who now runs all the app 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.320 store operations. That's correct. And Phil Wood was adamant that 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.800 we needed a set of eyes because things slipped through. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.400 So you'd go there in the morning, and you're a 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:35.920 good reviewer, you say, you know, I could review probably 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:39.599 between fifty d apps a day. Now, that's high. Sounds 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.360 like most reviewers could do about thirty, especially if it's 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:44.320 like a game or something super involved. You know, it 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.440 could take forever. That's right. Some of the some of 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:49.919 the levels, some of the the other features unlock over time, 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.200 so it's difficult to review every app. We don't have 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.599 any special functionality to go in and look at a 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.560 specific screen. We're using it just like users are. So 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.560 a reviewer goes in, they aim say, let's just say 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:03.960 it's a it's a basic reviewer. They claim thirty apps, 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.320 and so they go and they claim up. Now, what 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.880 that does is that downloads it from the server internally 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.440 and then starts sinking it to your device. Once everything sinked, 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.080 you have now thirty apps on your device. And you go, 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:18.720 you you load up the tool on your Mac. You 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.160 say okay, I'm gonna review this one first, and then 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.120 you launch it on your on your device and you 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.560 just start looking. Now, there's over a hundred and fifty guidelines. 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.320 In the early days, it wasn't that defined, and so 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:31.120 it's a little more nuanced than what you see in 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.280 the guidelines. The guidelines are written up in a gray 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.200 way for a very valid reason. Right, we want we 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.280 don't know what we're going to see what you're talking about, 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.680 the like the famous app review guidelines that are on 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.800 apples Felt website. That's correct, but so developers would submit 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.480 apps not knowing what's allowed and what's not allowed. And 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.080 the way most developers in the early days would determine 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:53.400 what's okay is they would look at the store. If 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.960 it's on the store, clearly it's all right. But if 0:07:56.000 --> 0:08:00.040 you think about it, app reviewers are human, so in 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.400 in in a case like this, I saw that as 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.360 an absolute failure, and I've always always tried to fix it. 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.320 That's why I think automation would be so so helpful. 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.440 But you and I know a I can only get 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.640 us so far. Now, then we relied heavily on this weekie, 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.600 and this Weekie became hundreds of pages long. You expect 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.280 a reviewer to review an app in about thirteen minutes, 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.400 right for a new app thirteen minutes while looking at 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.440 a hundred pages of a wiki. It's just it's untenable. 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.120 So over time, we we just started refining these these 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.599 wiki guidelines. We we started refining all of our processes 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:34.680 to be able to make a little flow flow a 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.040 little faster, and to be honest, to get it down 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.560 under three weeks, which is what it was when I joined. 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.560 We we had to make a lot of changes, and 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.200 one of the first was over time, I got rid 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:47.160 of the three eyes on every app and got it 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.040 down to one set of eyes. But all these reviewers 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.559 had to pass a lot of education that we did 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.320 internally and then ultimately I sit down with me. So 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.800 in order to be you know, the guy who can 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:59.960 put the stamp down to push our guy or girls 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.480 push the app out, they had to have a chat 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.040 with you first. You had to approve them as a 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.600 member of the team. Yeah, I sat down with everybody 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:09.800 before they could push that final button and remind them 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.440 about Baby Shaker, remind them about I am rich, and 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.839 and talk to them about stock price going down based 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:20.280 on just one bad decision that the team makes. And uh, look, 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:24.280 that baby shaker incident was painful internally. So what's the 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.800 room like? Is it like this big, you know, big 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.760 room with a bunch of desks, a bunch of iPads, iPhones, etcetera, 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.760 where everyone saying next to each other collaborating or is 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:38.920 it very individualized? Yeah, tell me, pretend you're an opper viewer. 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:40.520 Tell me what your days like. So I'll tell you 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.319 about the first days. Right, the early days March two 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.000 nine and most of two thousand nine, we were in 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.920 infinite loop three, so I O three and we were 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.640 scattered in conference rooms, so no rooms not bigger than this. 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:53.720 In a room this big, we would probably put in 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:56.840 five reviewers with you know, a foot and a half 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:58.960 two ft of death space, and we're in a small 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.160 room by the way, we're in a small room. We'd 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.920 fit five folks in there. We'd black in all the windows, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.400 and we would card activate every door. Because this was 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.760 you're dealing with developers secrets, right, they haven't released as 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.240 publicly yet. You want to be able to hold onto 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.880 these things and make sure that um um and make 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.640 sure that nobody outside of the app review team sees 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.240 these apps in advance because we have a we have 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.680 a responsibility to the developers. So everything was locked down. 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.360 We had black curtains everywhere and UH and the reviewer 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.600 would sit in front of a MacBook and and one 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.440 or two phones typically, you know. Obviously, after the iPad 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.280 came out, we put an iPad and every UH, every 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.520 UH reviewer had multiple iPads and multiple iPhones. And over 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.880 time we added to the processes such as wiping out 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.079 each device every morning, and we had a lot of 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.280 a lot of crazy situation scenarios in in those rooms 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.960 where people would be eating UH. So what one of 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.320 the big ones was oatmeal every morning with fish sauce 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:59.920 on it, and half the team would choke at that. 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.880 The other half the team loved it. So just crazy 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.200 things like that always happening. Now. The way it is 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.760 now is it's an open I'm sure you've been to 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:09.640 Facebook and other companies like that and you've seen their 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.120 open floor plan. It's pretty much like that. Everybody gets 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.040 about three ft now of death space. But it's all 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.840 open and it's extremely collaborative. Now, how many people would 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.079 you say are reviewing apps? And is it localized to Cupertino. 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.960 Do places otherwhere, elsewhere in California, elsewhere in the world. 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.120 How what's the setup like in in in a company 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.679 where where you're representing over fifty three countries. We are 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.360 fifty three languages that were represented by my team. You 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:37.760 would be great to be able to hire people outside 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.679 of Cupertino, but that's not the Apple way, right. The 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.360 Apple way is this is an intellectual property. What we 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.840 do on the review team and how we review apps 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.080 is very new to the world. We didn't want anybody 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.040 like Microsoft or Google or anybody learning our secrets, so 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.320 we never hired contractors and we kept them all in Cupertino, 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.360 and then ultimately we built a few buildings in Sunnyvale 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:01.400 and that's where they're to this day. What do you 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:03.520 think of the recent App store changes? There's been a lot, 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.679 you know, to improve it on the consumer side, the interface, 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.760 but also uh subscriptions, new ways for developers to create 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.360 additional revenue. What are your thoughts. There's good and bad 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.000 with all of it. You know. The thing that pained 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:20.360 me as a I've I've always been a uh. You 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.040 could look at my job at Apple is kind of 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.200 a regulator to make allow what goes on the store, 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.640 and what how they marketed all of that other stuff. 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:28.959 I didn't really care about that. The thing that kind 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:30.680 of got me a little nervous was when we started 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:35.200 putting advertisements in the and when you would search for 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.320 a certain game added the top. The search ads were 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.160 painful like Google search results, and they would have to 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.920 pay per click or pay for every hundred clicks or 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.480 so or hundred downloads, so you could have the worst 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.640 app ever that's always appearing at the top. And uh, 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.280 and I talked about worst apps a lot, because there's 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.959 a lot of stuff in the store that's that shouldn't 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:56.959 be there in my opinion, right, So how do you 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:58.440 think it should be? Do you think they should be 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.960 more stringent? I remember were very early days, especially when 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.440 the first iPad came out. Tell me about that with 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:06.800 Steve Jobs involved personally, and what are the first styles 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.360 and apps for the iPad, You're gonna be extra careful 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.319 because I remember when I submitted iPad apps, those things 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.400 were getting rejected left and right. Doesn't make stay that 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:17.000 it doesn't make sense to have as one of the 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.640 first bundle of apps. Talks about that, right, the the 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.000 the iPad was was interesting. It was the first hardware 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.040 release that my team got really involved in. For the 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.440 most part, Apples super tight on on new equipment, new products, 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.679 and they don't want to expose it to anybody. And 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.200 my team was mostly a bunch of ex Apple genius 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:36.520 Apple store folks, right, That's where we hired a majority 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.200 of our of our people from, and so Apple didn't 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.800 see them as the standard corporate folks, and therefore the 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.400 team wasn't as as trustworthy as the others. And plus 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.960 it's a large group. It grew over time. So so 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.280 we typically weren't involved in new product releases and I 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.520 understand that, but sometimes we have to get involved, like 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.600 the watch and the iPad were two examples. The iPad 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.800 we were involved pretty much about three weeks before launch, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.280 not much more than that, and that's when we started. 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.960 Except this was the only time we allowed people to 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.720 submit apps that were in alpha or beta state, just 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.840 so we could start understanding what people were because people 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:16.319 developers didn't have iPads yet, someone needed to test it 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.040 out on hardware, obviously would be Apple, so they could 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.280 be ready for day one when consumers get them. That's right, 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:23.880 really good point right in the past, we don't. We 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.680 never allow you to submit an app until the hardware 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:28.440 has been released because we want to make sure you're 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:30.760 trying it on actual hardware. You don't just do it 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.400 based on a simulator build, because it's not it's never 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.880 the same, never the same. But you and I you 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.400 probably know this as well as I do. Most developers 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.160 submit on a simulator build. So every night I'd send 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.160 a bunch of apps off to the Exacts and say 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.560 here's the issue we have, right it's tracking location or 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:47.800 whatever the issue was, and trying to figure out if 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.360 this was something that's appropriate or not. Everybody wanted to 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.520 change the UI. They wanted to go to like a 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.040 desktop UI for the iPad. So we are a lot 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:00.320 of developers drawing these, uh these like desktop metaphors, which 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.960 we rejected all of them, even though it's kind of interesting, 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.000 it just didn't fit the iPad and iPhone model, the 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.840 iOS model, So we rejected a bunch of those. But 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.400 early on I grabbed a team about fifteen people. We 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.000 put them in a special room from the app review team, 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:15.920 and they were the only ones that were able to 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:18.600 play with the hardware. We hadn't mounted uh you know, 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:20.280 with the cable light like used to see in the 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.640 Apple stores, mounted to the desk and uh, and we 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.680 collected them every evening. So it was a very tight 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.600 process and we rejected and rejected every day. We rejected apps, 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.800 and developers resubmit every day those same apps to be 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.960 able to be in that first block. So that leads 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.120 me to my next question. And I know, I mean, 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.880 you could easily just flatly deny this. Do some developers 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:51.440 get you know, special attention or special policies? And in circumstances, 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.520 what's the difference between you know, me as a developer 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.760 back then in high school, uh, you know, a mom 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:02.040 and pop shop development firm and Facebook. Because the idea 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.880 was they would all be treated the same. But is 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.760 that necessarily the case. Steve always argued that all developers 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.480 should be treated equally. For me, it was all about 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.840 I took Steve's word and I said, yes, all developers 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.600 are created equally. I will not give one developer any allowance. 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:20.400 And if you if you read some of the early 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:22.920 stuff that I wrote on Twitter, etcetera, I was calling 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.560 out Facebook all the time, even though they were one 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.240 of these privileged few developers, they had some of the 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:32.080 worst code at the time. I mean they uploaded remember 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.080 the Wall Street Journal article the apps are Watching You. 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.520 That radically fundamentally changed what we did at atter View 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.440 because we realized that even big developers linked In and 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.280 the facebooks that were taking your contacts and sending them 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.840 to the cloud, you just couldn't trust them, right. They 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:50.880 weren't notifying people that they were doing this yet Path 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.520 and Facebook and LinkedIn and so many companies were doing 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:57.680 this that you start giving this special allowances to these 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.920 big guys because they're who they are, and you get burned. 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:02.840 There is another app I did want to ask you 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:05.920 about Google Voice. Obviously you know today ten years later 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.320 this is Google's calling service. But Google wanted to do 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.159 was launch Google Voice for iPhones. This was in the 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:14.440 early days of the App store. But there's a whole 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.159 back story. There was talk us through it. Well it 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.639 actually you know, Google Voice for for online for the 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.440 web came out long before before they tried to push 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:26.439 through a Google Voice for the for the iPhone, and 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.600 the third party developer was the first one on board. 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.120 And what he did was he wrote an app for 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:33.560 uh I forget what the name of it was, and 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.119 for Google Voice Voice. I think I think it was 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.920 with Sean. I don't good memory, good memory, Yeah, it's 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.160 definitely g Voice. And I had weekly calls with him. 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.320 I mean he and I had many conversations and it 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.320 lasted eleven months, probably of me saying you're not going 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:50.720 to get on the store. You're not getting on the 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.800 store today, You're not getting on the store then, and 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.560 it went on daily. Now let's take a look at why, right, 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.800 what is Google Voice. Well, it replaces the telephone features 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.960 of your It replaces that the calling features of your iPhone. 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:05.399 That was kind of strike number one. Apple says, no, 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:09.200 this this is for we don't want Google to take 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.199 over the phone. We don't want there to be a 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:18.399 Gmail client, a browser, a phone calling contacts, etcetera, etcetera. Right, 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.160 because then it would become the g phone. Was the fear, right, 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:23.240 just like they're afraid of the Facebook phone. So there 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.760 was an actual fear inside Apple early days of the 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.560 app store that if they allowed these different Google services 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.400 on the phone, the phone could basically become a Google phone. 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.199 That was a real thing, that was a real thing. 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.360 And the fear that somebody would come along a Facebook 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.800 and Google whomever and wipe off and remove all of 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:44.240 our items, you know, the dialing, the contacts, and replace 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:46.840 that with Facebook or Google variations of it. That was 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.399 the number one fear because then suddenly you're kind of 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.720 you're losing this this uh um, You're you're losing the 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.400 cash of the phone. You're losing the people think more 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.080 about Apple once they start using these other apps, they'd 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.399 be thinking more about Google. Now is that a reason 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:04.040 why still to this day, and I believe that will 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.399 be the case for iOS thirteen, which we'll get to. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.919 You cannot set other third party apps as defaults for 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.240 main functions. Yes, I would say that's absolutely the reason. Now, 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:15.840 if if you look at it, if if if you 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.639 look at historically what app was doing Apple Finally, you know, 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.800 Scott Forstall, the VP of engineering at the time, uh 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.680 said something really good. He says, look, I don't care 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.120 if these other competing services come on the platform. It's 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:30.359