Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host Joshua Topolski,
Speaker 1: and today on the podcast, boy have we got one
Speaker 1: for you? Boy oh boy. I'm very excited because I
Speaker 1: have been thinking a lot about reality and how terrible
Speaker 1: it is and how I'd like to escape it. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm not giving reality a good affair shake.
Speaker 1: The truth is reality is actually pretty excellent, unless you
Speaker 1: read the news. I don't recommend that. But there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of talk recently about a new Apple product
Speaker 1: that is coming out which is supposedly going to be
Speaker 1: a headset, a thing you wear on your face that
Speaker 1: does virtual reality and augmented reality, and suppose will have
Speaker 1: a screen that shows your eyeballs on it when you're
Speaker 1: using it, which sounds very normal and not dystopian at all,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure lots of people will really enjoy that. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: there has been a ton of great writing done by
Speaker 1: Mark German at Bloomberg. I am a huge fan of his,
Speaker 1: and we've got him on the show today to get
Speaker 1: into the guts of the Apple headset and all of
Speaker 1: what the company's working on around that. So let's get
Speaker 1: into this conversation because I have got a lot to say.
Speaker 1: You are like probably at the top of the pyramid
Speaker 1: of Apple scoopers, Like you have more inside info on
Speaker 1: this company than I think anybody has ever had in
Speaker 1: my experience, and I've been reading, as you well know,
Speaker 1: I've been reading and writing about this shit for a
Speaker 1: long time. You are consistently one hundred percent correct with them,
Speaker 1: which is or like ninety percent correct with them, which
Speaker 1: is very rare. So first, I want to say kudos
Speaker 1: to you for being some kind of Apple Ninja's very
Speaker 1: strange situation. But I applaud you, Thank you. But the
Speaker 1: reason I want to talk to you is because we
Speaker 1: are on the precipice supposedly, as so you claim on
Speaker 1: the precipice of Apple releasing a mixed reality headset? Does
Speaker 1: VR and AR? Correct? Stop me if any of this
Speaker 1: sounds incorrect. Okay, they've been working on this headset. It's
Speaker 1: a thing you wear on your face, you wear over
Speaker 1: your eyes. It does VR, it does AR. It is
Speaker 1: a product that you claim that Apple is going to announce.
Speaker 1: Tim Cook is going to announce on stage at WWDC
Speaker 1: on June Is it fifth? Is that the date? Yeah?
Speaker 2: June fifth, Monday, June fifth.
Speaker 1: Literally like next week, right, Yes, just give us the
Speaker 1: quick like where did this come from? Because I have
Speaker 1: a lot of questions about it? Yes, you just share
Speaker 1: whatever you think is like a good setup for this thing.
Speaker 2: Kicked off after the Apple Watch came out in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: They were sort of looking for their next idea, right.
Speaker 2: The hardware engineering group hired a guy named Mike Rockwell,
Speaker 2: who was the CTO of Dolby and before that was
Speaker 2: the CTO of Avid super Into Displays, super Into VR,
Speaker 2: super Into high quality Audio. They hired Tom Holmansen, who
Speaker 2: was the creator of THHX, which is the studio behind
Speaker 2: the audio from Star Wars, which is, as everyone knows,
Speaker 2: one of the paramount reasons people love Star Wars is
Speaker 2: because of the soundtrack, right, and so this is a
Speaker 2: music expert, and Apple's design team at the same time
Speaker 2: was looking at virtual reality, augmented reality head worn devices,
Speaker 2: and you know, one thing led to another. They came
Speaker 2: together and they started working on this device. They did
Speaker 2: many explorations around use cases. They used Samsung Gear vrs,
Speaker 2: they used HDC vibes, they used every Nascent and VR
Speaker 2: headset that was available eight years ago to run demos
Speaker 2: on demo to Tim Cook, the executive team, the board
Speaker 2: of directors.
Speaker 1: Right, eight years ago they started working on this.
Speaker 2: This is eight years ago, right. And you remember when
Speaker 2: Steve Jobs announced the original iPhone, he said, this is
Speaker 2: a day I've been looking forward to for two and
Speaker 2: a half years, right.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You remember when the Apple Watch was announced, they said
Speaker 2: that was about a two to three year development process. Right,
Speaker 2: We're talking seven eight years here. Now there's more to it,
Speaker 2: but you know that's a long development process.
Speaker 1: I mean, here's what I'll say. I mean, I want
Speaker 1: to hear all this backstory, but like I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: a little bit in disbelief, like if you're in. By
Speaker 1: the way, your scoop record, as I said at the
Speaker 1: top of this, is very good. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: rare that you write something and with this much detail,
Speaker 1: Like look at the background here that you're sharing and
Speaker 1: the stuff that you shared in your stories on Bloomberg. Right,
Speaker 1: And I tweeted about this. I was and a lot
Speaker 1: of people responded to this feels like the most unlike
Speaker 1: Apple thing that I've ever heard of. It's like the
Speaker 1: development process, the infighting. You you wrote about the infighting there,
Speaker 1: the fact that this is a device that sits on
Speaker 1: your face. Apple often comes into a market and like
Speaker 1: it's like there's a little bit of a market and
Speaker 1: they blow it up and they turn it into a
Speaker 1: huge market. I don't even know if there is a
Speaker 1: market for this in a widespread way, because like, getting
Speaker 1: people to wear anything on their face is difficult. People
Speaker 1: get laser surgery on their eyes to avoid wearing glasses, right,
Speaker 1: and I like glasses, Like I'm a glass.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you so. A few years ago, they were
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how they can get the weight
Speaker 2: down right in the device and the overall size. So
Speaker 2: you're kind of screw your glasses my front because you're
Speaker 2: not going to be able to wear those and the
Speaker 2: headset together.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean that alone sounds okay. See everything you're saying.
Speaker 1: See when I hear this shit, what I think is
Speaker 1: and this is why I'm so like I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you because I this just sounds like it's
Speaker 1: not going to happen.
Speaker 2: Well, there's going to be a prescription system where you
Speaker 2: pay a couple hundred bucks and you'scriptions.
Speaker 1: Does that sound like something Apple would do?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Does it? Actually?
Speaker 2: It does? Okay, that specific feature, yes, but if you're
Speaker 2: asking about this device in general, the answer would be no,
Speaker 2: this is definitely the new Apple so to speak. Right, right,
Speaker 2: this is they're trying something new. You know, depending on
Speaker 2: who you talk to there, there's mixed confidence in how
Speaker 2: this thing is going to do. But I think the
Speaker 2: through line, what most people at the company, the decision
Speaker 2: makers have understood, is that this thing is going to
Speaker 2: start off remarkably slow. I think even maybe slower than
Speaker 2: the Apple Watch. Right, actually, probably much slower than the
Speaker 2: Apple Watch.
Speaker 1: I would imagine it's going to be expensive too, right,
Speaker 1: It's not cheap.
Speaker 2: It's going to be expensive. It's going to be roughly
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars. So I would say anywhere from the
Speaker 2: high twos to the low threes. Now that's pretty you know,
Speaker 2: eye melting. But if you look at the XR market
Speaker 2: in general, they're probably in the Hollow Lens to Magic
Speaker 2: Leap price range. Yeah, we know those two devices failed.
Speaker 1: But I was going to say, Magic Leap is like
Speaker 1: a they'll teach the story of Magical Leap in business
Speaker 1: classes about like this vaporware company. Right, Like Magic Leap
Speaker 1: was a company that was making a headset that people
Speaker 1: were like, this is like magic. Literally when you put
Speaker 1: it on, you're transported. It can do anything. It's the
Speaker 1: it's the be all, end all, it's the next iPhone whatever.
Speaker 1: And then the company just has fizzled out, like they'd
Speaker 1: never been able to ship any real meaningful product, certainly
Speaker 1: not a consumer facing product, right, Hollo lens. That's Microsoft's entrant, right,
Speaker 1: which was a mixed reality. I mean, I think they
Speaker 1: basically wanted to target enterprise, right. It was like a business,
Speaker 1: a lab maybe like a warehouse type of device you
Speaker 1: might use like for some ar assisted stuff. That's also
Speaker 1: kind of fizzled, right, it has.
Speaker 2: But Apple's going to shoehorn this thing into working out.
Speaker 2: I mean that's my belief.
Speaker 1: You think this is not only that this is going
Speaker 1: to happen for real, you believe that that they're going
Speaker 1: to announce this product.
Speaker 2: I'm in trouble if they don't.
Speaker 1: But yes, right of course, yes, But I mean, you know, listen,
Speaker 1: the way you write it, though, is the kind of
Speaker 1: product that they could get very close to and then
Speaker 1: look at it, do the demo and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: like it's not there yet, right, Like that that has
Speaker 1: happened well.
Speaker 2: Back to the like the more comparing the timelines on
Speaker 2: development processes three years for the previous two products and
Speaker 2: then eight years for this. Let's see, this has been
Speaker 2: delayed three or four times. The original original original pipe
Speaker 2: dream was twenty twenty. Obviously that got pushed to twenty one,
Speaker 2: then twenty two, and then twenty three. They were going
Speaker 2: to announce it in January, then they were gonna announce
Speaker 2: it in the spring. Right, and here we are WWDC.
Speaker 2: It's it's locked, It's it's locked and loaded. At this point,
Speaker 2: I don't see any way around that.
Speaker 1: Can you describe it like physically? Do you know? Have
Speaker 1: you seen it? Have you tried it?
Speaker 2: I have not tried it. I've tried the Quest three,
Speaker 2: but I have not tried this one.
Speaker 1: Okay, but the Quest three is not we're not talking it.
Speaker 1: That's not in the same ballpark. No I know has
Speaker 1: this right? So you wrote about it having an external
Speaker 1: battery pack. First off, is that staying.
Speaker 2: You know, like the mag Safe battery like they started
Speaker 2: selling a few years that you can put on the
Speaker 2: back of the iPhone anchor if you other companies sell
Speaker 2: that looks like that about bigger. It's about the size
Speaker 2: of an iPhone and you connected over a cable. The
Speaker 2: cable is lodged into the battery pack, you plug it
Speaker 2: into the headset and it goes over a wire. And
Speaker 2: the two considerations there were safety and weight. Obviously, with
Speaker 2: the product like this, you wanted as portable as possible
Speaker 2: and as light as possible, right, and getting the battery
Speaker 2: out of there was a big help in my thinking,
Speaker 2: is even though they wanted to get the battery in
Speaker 2: there initially, and even though for these types of products
Speaker 2: you do want the battery to eventually be in the
Speaker 2: frame itself. Remember the Apple Wash they launched with one
Speaker 2: day of battery life, and the initial speculation was, oh,
Speaker 2: over time, they're going to increase the battery life. Now sure,
Speaker 2: ten years later we got the Apple Watch Ultro.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's only a little bit increased. It's like, right,
Speaker 1: two three days instead of one. It's not that great,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 2: But in what they did, they had two options, right,
Speaker 2: they had let's add to the battery life, or let's
Speaker 2: add more and more power and functionality without reducing the
Speaker 2: battery life.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They've done that with the iPad as well. Obviously, the
Speaker 2: iPhone's a bit different they had to go in a
Speaker 2: situation where they had to increase the performance and increase
Speaker 2: battery life. Right, but I think the headset were probably
Speaker 2: locked into this external battery situation for years to come,
Speaker 2: and ideas people are gonna be okay with that, let's
Speaker 2: add more performance rather than sort of taper it down
Speaker 2: and get the battery back inside. I want to talk
Speaker 2: about the naming thing.
Speaker 1: For a minute though, Yeah, yeah, please do it, please
Speaker 1: do So.
Speaker 2: They've trademarked quite a few names, right, So, they trademarked
Speaker 2: the name Reality one. They trademarked the name Reality Pro.
Speaker 2: They've trademarked a few potential operating system names. They've trademarked
Speaker 2: the name Reality OS. They've trade marked the name XROS.
Speaker 2: They've trademarked the name Reality PROS and XR pros. Right,
Speaker 2: here's what I can tell you for fact, Right, for fact,
Speaker 2: the OS itself is going to be called XR OS.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They were originally going to call it Reality OS. It
Speaker 2: was sort of the working title, so to speak. It
Speaker 2: was your this is my next before the verbs. Right.
Speaker 1: We don't like that, yeah, yeah, right, So it was.
Speaker 2: Going to be Reality OS, and then last year they
Speaker 2: moved from the working title to the real name, which
Speaker 2: is XR OS right. Now. I think there are a
Speaker 2: couple of reasons for that. One. I think the word
Speaker 2: reality probably doesn't translate so cleanly internationally, right, But I
Speaker 2: think it's a more understandable term, at least in the
Speaker 2: English language than x R.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, XR sounds like a motorcycle, right.
Speaker 2: But it also sounds a little bit more high tech, right,
Speaker 2: And Apples tries to sort of bridge that idea of
Speaker 2: mixing tech with you know, mass understanding. So it's a
Speaker 2: little odd there. But this is a highly technical product,
Speaker 2: and I think it's initially going to appeal to a
Speaker 2: very niche audience, So perhaps it makes sense. What they
Speaker 2: really are trying to do is sort of, in their minds,
Speaker 2: create this x mixed reality market, and so it would
Speaker 2: help them own that market from a marketing standpoint, the
Speaker 2: XR market. Back to the naming conventions, so they went
Speaker 2: from reality OS right to XROS. And if you have
Speaker 2: an operating system called reality OS, the logic would be
Speaker 2: that the device itself would be called the reality right
Speaker 2: or the Reality pro, just like the iPad runs iPad OS,
Speaker 2: the watch, watch OS, TV t v OS et cetera. Right,
Speaker 2: they've switched to XROS on the operating system name. Does
Speaker 2: that mean the device is called the XR Pro running XROS.
Speaker 2: Does it make sense to have a Reality Pro running
Speaker 2: XROS or does it make more sense to have an
Speaker 2: XR pro running XROS? What Apple release a product called
Speaker 2: the XR Pro, Like the mass consumer is not going
Speaker 2: to know what XR pro means? Right? And so those
Speaker 2: are the questions I'd like to see answered, which will
Speaker 2: obviously be answered. It's WWDC, Right, That's what's been on
Speaker 2: my mind lately.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. XR is I mean presumably that means mixed reality, right?
Speaker 1: Is that what we're supposed to be XR is? Or
Speaker 1: I mean x has usually not used the mixed but
Speaker 1: crossed reality, mixed reality whatever let's call it. That makes
Speaker 1: sense in a global way of describing it, right, like
Speaker 1: the for the format. Forget about whether they call it
Speaker 1: reality or XR. Look, I've seen a lot of really
Speaker 1: impressive demos of mixed reality, and I'm sure you have
Speaker 1: as well. I've seen a lot of and no doubt
Speaker 1: Apple can do this better than anybody. Like, I'm not
Speaker 1: questioning that they can't execute something that's a better product, right,
Speaker 1: we know that they can. They can take a smartphone,
Speaker 1: You've seen a million of them, and they can make
Speaker 1: it something really special and really like cohesive. What I
Speaker 1: wonder though, in what's sort of not in your in
Speaker 1: that bigger piece, is a question about the consumer aspect
Speaker 1: of it, the relationship to consumer desire. Listen, as a
Speaker 1: guy who's tried all the VR headsets, was unbelievably excited
Speaker 1: about Oculus when they first appeared. Was like the biggest
Speaker 1: fan in the world. I've dreamed of VR my whole life.
Speaker 1: Like all of the experiences have not only have they
Speaker 1: been like ultimately sort of impressive, but disappointing in the
Speaker 1: long run. What I found is like, oh, wearing this
Speaker 1: thing on my head and being removed from reality and
Speaker 1: having these experiences, it's a very kind of like singular
Speaker 1: private experience that you can only do once in a while.
Speaker 1: And I'm a nerd, Okay, remember I'm one of the
Speaker 1: biggest fucking nerds in the world. They also make me
Speaker 1: motion sick, Okay, Like, those experiences.
Speaker 2: Have problems, right, I don't want to get too tmi.
Speaker 2: But the first time I tried the quest this was
Speaker 2: the original quest. I had lunch before using it. It
Speaker 2: wasn't so pretty and so, oh my god, you really
Speaker 2: got to get the IPD correct right, the pupil distance.
Speaker 1: Right, you have to the latency has to be But
Speaker 1: even then, I don't know that. Like you still are
Speaker 1: challenged by lots of different things. But so this is
Speaker 1: the thing, Like I understand consumers wear watches, right, Like
Speaker 1: I can make an art. I can hear the argument
Speaker 1: at Apple like, hey, they wear these things in their wrists, right,
Speaker 1: maybe more people I would wear it if we could
Speaker 1: give them a reason to put it on. You know,
Speaker 1: there's already health trackers. We know that's a big market.
Speaker 1: We could bite into that market. There's already a watch market.
Speaker 1: It's a big market. We know we could bite into
Speaker 1: that market. Maybe not everybody wants to wear the Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: but we can bring people around over time, and they
Speaker 1: certainly did. Like I'm one of those people's like I
Speaker 1: don't want I don't need it, And then I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I love wearing it.
Speaker 2: I was the same, I could believe it or not.
Speaker 2: I didn't wear an Apple Watch until the series five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I tried a couple of them, and
Speaker 1: I was like, it's not for me. I wore regular
Speaker 1: analog watches, and then like the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: I was started wearing a garment for exercise and I
Speaker 1: was like oh. When the Aultra came out, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is like actually what I want. Yeah, But here's
Speaker 1: the thing I am not hearing or seeing. And I
Speaker 1: say this as a person who would love to see
Speaker 1: a real broad consumer use case. I feel like when
Speaker 1: you write about it, it feels like this product from
Speaker 1: that era that you describe as like which where the
Speaker 1: HCC is getting into it and quest is coming, you know, meta,
Speaker 1: it buys oculus and they start doing question and again
Speaker 1: and I get it. Samsung was trying to do VR stuff.
Speaker 1: It's like many many years ago. This feels like a
Speaker 1: product from a time when the excitement around that still
Speaker 1: seem new and like possible.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I don't think consumers have embraced these products and even
Speaker 1: want them. And so what is Apple saying internally or
Speaker 1: what are they how are they testing internally? I know
Speaker 1: they're like the consumer doesn't know what it wants or whatever,
Speaker 1: but can you give me some color on like what's
Speaker 1: going on with their relationship to a consumer audience for this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that is a good question. You know,
Speaker 2: if you pull one hundred people on the street to
Speaker 2: ask them if this is something that they're going to
Speaker 2: use on a daily basis, the number is going to
Speaker 2: probably be incredibly small. What I think is that they
Speaker 2: see this as a very very long term thing, like
Speaker 2: ten years long term. And one thing I believe they're
Speaker 2: going to try to do is position it as quote,
Speaker 2: the future of the computer. I think they see this
Speaker 2: as something that's a Mac replacement or an iPad replacement,
Speaker 2: So maybe five years from now you won't own a Mac,
Speaker 2: you'll own a headset instead. I say that as being
Speaker 2: around long enough to know how many people were saying
Speaker 2: that about the iPad, and I know very few people
Speaker 2: personally who've transitioned from a Mac to an iPad. Fully,
Speaker 2: I will say there are millions of people who have right,
Speaker 2: so don't get me wrong, but I think it's going
Speaker 2: to play out similarly to that. I mean, the best
Speaker 2: estimates that I'm hearing are the most optimistic estimates I'm hearing.
Speaker 2: Is this bringing in about twenty five billion a year
Speaker 2: in revenue. That puts it on part the iPad and
Speaker 2: the Apple Watch, which is not nothing. It's not nothing
Speaker 2: for Apple to show growth that's good enough. They're going
Speaker 2: to make a big return on this investment. Within a
Speaker 2: few years. They're going to become the market leader in
Speaker 2: XR in terms of unit sales and revenue probably within
Speaker 2: six months, or revenue within six months. Unit sales probably
Speaker 2: not as quickly. So you know, from a market standpoint,
Speaker 2: it's going to be a success out of the gate.
Speaker 2: Apple standpoint, it's going to be a flop out of
Speaker 2: the gate, I think, but eventually be hugely successful. Like
Speaker 2: I really believe in this long term you do because
Speaker 2: of the investment, Yeah, I do. The ga Apple's not
Speaker 2: going to give up on this, right, even if it
Speaker 2: takes five ten years. They're going to shoehorn this thing
Speaker 2: till it works out. You know, the price is going
Speaker 2: to come down eventually too. You're going to get new
Speaker 2: features like cellular. There are going to be big enough
Speaker 2: improvements and a big marketing budget behind it to get
Speaker 2: people interested in this. Right, They're going to make a
Speaker 2: whole big deal about this thing in Apple retail stores.
Speaker 2: It's going to drive foot traffic. They're going to try
Speaker 2: selling other products to people who are just coming in
Speaker 2: to try this thing on. It'll be a big marketing exer,
Speaker 2: so a.
Speaker 1: Lot of accessories, I'm sure a lot of accessories. Right. So,
Speaker 1: like everything you're describing sounds very app right, and I
Speaker 1: think like the long the long play is possible, right,
Speaker 1: They definitely like the I mean, I've had a good
Speaker 1: example of something that has never found a perfect home,
Speaker 1: but definitely there's a big market for it. And they've
Speaker 1: created that market really for tablets, right, right, And I
Speaker 1: think you're right, Like I've grown to become an iPad user,
Speaker 1: and in fact, they just released some greats that like Logic,
Speaker 1: the music software that has been Mac only for a
Speaker 1: really long time. They were a music guy before this, right,
Speaker 1: I used to produce music.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm curious what you think, Well, I'll.
Speaker 1: Tell you what I think. I think it's fucking amazing.
Speaker 1: And I have been sitting on my iPad at night,
Speaker 1: like in my downtime, making music in Logic. Now there's
Speaker 1: some stuff that's like a little bit yanky because it's
Speaker 1: like the iPad the way it works is just weird
Speaker 1: for things where you need lots of windows, like it
Speaker 1: just doesn't want to do that. But like in terms
Speaker 1: of a tool. It's like unbelievably powerful and really really
Speaker 1: good for what it's like what you want it to be.
Speaker 2: And I think it's going to work in the headset.
Speaker 2: I think that app run in the headset.
Speaker 1: So that sounds like a super fun like I can see,
Speaker 1: like listen, I mean Jaron Lanier, who is the guy
Speaker 1: who basically invented VR, who's written about technology for years,
Speaker 1: for decades and decades, he's really like become like a
Speaker 1: philosopher when it comes to this technology. Originally, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of created VR for this purpose of working in
Speaker 1: a larger space, Like he was dealing with these really
Speaker 1: large numbers that you couldn't look out on a monitor.
Speaker 1: So I see the commercial applications there, right, I can
Speaker 1: see like there's going to be places, like I said,
Speaker 1: where hollow Lens was maybe targeting, or where magic Leap
Speaker 1: hope to target where I can see more of a
Speaker 1: retail or commercial application. What's so weird to me though,
Speaker 1: is if you look at the landscape of today, right
Speaker 1: so peak COVID, I'd see this as being a really
Speaker 1: attractive product, right like when we were had peak COVID,
Speaker 1: when everybody was at home we had lockdowns, we had
Speaker 1: like everybody was scared to kind of go out and socialize.
Speaker 1: Like I think that's when you know, that's when Facebook
Speaker 1: tried to kind of capture with their metaverse bullshit. They
Speaker 1: kind of tried to capture this moment of like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're going to all move to this different kind of
Speaker 1: like way of communicating and computing and working and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But I feel like if you look at
Speaker 1: the hit rate now again and maybe this Apple sees
Speaker 1: that as a market opportunity, it feels like such an
Speaker 1: off key entry. Like we've seen so many versions of
Speaker 1: this that had been really rejected and in fact, like
Speaker 1: none surprisingly, but Facebook's huge pivot was basically rejected as
Speaker 1: this concept of the metaverse and being more like what
Speaker 1: I see from society. And frankly, what Tim Cook has
Speaker 1: actually said at many intervals on stage is like people
Speaker 1: want less of this, like of this stuff in their life.
Speaker 1: They want to be less immersed in technology. When they
Speaker 1: talked about the watch, they were like, we want you
Speaker 1: to be less distracted by your phone and you can
Speaker 1: get up on your you know, do your thing. You
Speaker 1: can just glance at your watch and all this it
Speaker 1: just feels like it flies in the face of And
Speaker 1: Tim Cook was a big part of this, right, Like
Speaker 1: he pushed this, This is like his product in some way,
Speaker 1: he wanted this to happen. I mean, he runs the company.
Speaker 1: This doesn't feel like it flies in the face of
Speaker 1: everything that, like the industry has told us and that
Speaker 1: consumers have told us about this.
Speaker 2: Yes, but I think one of the most fundamental aspects
Speaker 2: from early on in development was how you make VR
Speaker 2: socially acceptable and how you take people in VR without
Speaker 2: removing them from the real world. And there's a few
Speaker 2: tricks they have up their sleeve on that. One is
Speaker 2: this external display that they've been working on from the
Speaker 2: very beginning for the headset, where it's essentially you can
Speaker 2: see you have this front ole a display and you
Speaker 2: see the person's eyes who's wearing it, and so like
Speaker 2: it's sort of like they're there or not there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this sounds insane, right, Like just hearing
Speaker 1: you describe that, you're saying that on the outside of
Speaker 1: these basically look like ski goggles, right right, this device
Speaker 1: is something like that you're saying on the outside surface
Speaker 1: of it, is it covering the whole surface of the
Speaker 1: outside the screen.
Speaker 2: Do you know the screen A portion of it, Yeah,
Speaker 2: where your eyes would be, and you can you know
Speaker 2: you're moving your eyes and you can you know you're blinking.
Speaker 1: And so there's cameras inside of the there's some kind
Speaker 1: of camera inside of the goggles that are tracking your
Speaker 1: eye movements.
Speaker 2: Yeah, eye tracking, right.
Speaker 1: And so then it's showing people on the outside. So
Speaker 1: do they think that you'd be walking around in public
Speaker 1: wearing this headset?
Speaker 2: There was a demo internally, and not only that, that
Speaker 2: you would wear it to a party, which I think
Speaker 2: is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But I mean, this is the thing, Like, think about
Speaker 1: a bunch of people at a party wearing the things
Speaker 1: on their face and try to imagine a desire there.
Speaker 2: I would leave.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm kidding right now, you probably, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you didn't have one, you certainly would leave. Right, That's
Speaker 1: the point, right.
Speaker 2: I don't think they're gonna they're going to try to
Speaker 2: make this socially acceptable. The other thing they've done from
Speaker 2: a technology standpoint, it is a it's a VR headset,
Speaker 2: but they've shoehorned AR into there as a very core
Speaker 2: component of it. Because you have these dozen external cameras
Speaker 2: and you have the crown on the Apple Watch. You
Speaker 2: have a bigger version of that on the headset, right.
Speaker 1: So it's like that. And it's like the headphones. I
Speaker 1: have the big yeah Apple they have that big crown
Speaker 1: on them to adjust volume and stuff.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's like going between VR and AR mode, right,
Speaker 2: and so you are seeing right.
Speaker 1: Oh, you can dial it. You can dial it to
Speaker 1: by degrees in and out. Oh is that the idea?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I was described to me as on
Speaker 2: or off.
Speaker 1: Oh really, okay, because I was thinking like, actually, it's
Speaker 1: a cool idea. If you could go, like I want,
Speaker 1: like sixty percent you know, virtual reality and forty percent
Speaker 1: you know, real or whatever. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Just that that I don't know that actually would make sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a dial it's just my thought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that too.
Speaker 2: But also the idea of XR being a spectrum as
Speaker 2: much VR as you want or as much AR as
Speaker 2: you want, that would make a lot of sense to
Speaker 2: me too. I think most people will probably use it
Speaker 2: in VR mode, but you have the AR mode there too, right.
Speaker 2: I think that it's going to be a really interesting
Speaker 2: differentiator from the competition, like I was using the Quest
Speaker 2: three the other day. There's no dial to go in
Speaker 2: and out of vr AR. It's like a sending.
Speaker 1: I mean, on the Quest you can switch into a
Speaker 1: mode where you're to a pass through mode right as
Speaker 1: flipping a dial on the top of the headset.
Speaker 2: That's going to be something every headset maker is going
Speaker 2: to take, you know, for sure.
Speaker 1: And it would have to I mean presumably would have
Speaker 1: to be able like if they imagine people at a
Speaker 1: party with this, then the view it gives you has
Speaker 1: to be as like close to one to one of
Speaker 1: your vision as like you have when you're not wearing
Speaker 1: the headset, right, because like otherwise you're going to be
Speaker 1: bumping into shit and like you know, falling on things.
Speaker 1: Because like you need to be able to see, like
Speaker 1: imagine walking around and you don't have like perfect vision,
Speaker 1: like you can't see the law or whatever.
Speaker 2: Put it this way, I used the Quest three. This
Speaker 2: was a prototype. By the way, this thing's not being
Speaker 2: announced for several months. I used the Quest three and
Speaker 2: it was pretty on point in terms of what you're describing,
Speaker 2: being able to walk and see what you're doing.
Speaker 1: That has two cameras, okay, right, this has a dozen.
Speaker 2: Roughly a dozen, so I would say anywhere between ten
Speaker 2: to fourteen, right, And so you're talking about three to
Speaker 2: five x performance of something that, to me, someone who
Speaker 2: uses this stuff was pretty damn good, right, and talking
Speaker 2: about the metaproduct, and so this is going to be
Speaker 2: this is going to be unbelievable. People who have demoed
Speaker 2: this thing like is rocked off their socks. I mean,
Speaker 2: they've been blown away.
Speaker 1: See here's the thing. It's like, I believe that Apple
Speaker 1: can execute on something like this better than anybody. Like
Speaker 1: that's what I was saying earlier, like the thing that
Speaker 1: just breaks my brain. I don't mean to keep coming
Speaker 1: back to it, but it's just like I just like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, even in the best executed sense, there's so
Speaker 1: many things that are off putting about this. And again
Speaker 1: I say this as a person who desires to be
Speaker 1: able to have these experiences, like I think this is
Speaker 1: a cool technology that we haven't yet seen the end of.
Speaker 1: But I personally have gotten a little bit deflated in
Speaker 1: terms of like what it can provide, not just because
Speaker 1: the experience has been bad or not as good as
Speaker 1: I would hope, but because societally, like culturally, I feel
Speaker 1: like we are all feeling really burnt on being inside
Speaker 1: the box, right, being inside this thing here that we're
Speaker 1: talking on and looking at this thing all day long, right,
Speaker 1: being immersed has become a thing that I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I mean, listen, you're much younger
Speaker 1: than me. I'm an old man now, I'll be dead
Speaker 1: at any day now. But you know, like having lived
Speaker 1: through the boom of this stuff of like the social
Speaker 1: media era and the phone era, I'm like, yeah, like
Speaker 1: I kind of want less of it. And Apple is saying, okay,
Speaker 1: but what if you put your entire fucking face inside
Speaker 1: of it all the time? Right? That's kind of like their
Speaker 1: bat here, which seems weird to me.
Speaker 2: It's scary, it's scary. I mean, they do make these
Speaker 2: comments about like you said, they want you to lose it,
Speaker 2: use your devices less. They don't want you using these things.
Speaker 2: They don't want you to be addicted to them. But
Speaker 2: if people weren't addicted to them and using them as
Speaker 2: much as they did, they wouldn't be making they wouldn't
Speaker 2: be a three trillion dollar company, right, So there is
Speaker 2: some nuance there, right, They want to toe that line.
Speaker 2: You know, what I heard from a few people is
Speaker 2: that at the get go of this project, you know,
Speaker 2: Apple had serious reservations and considerations internally about creating a
Speaker 2: product that would run counter to this idea we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They didn't want to create something that would keep people
Speaker 2: out of the real world. And one idea that they
Speaker 2: came up with internally was this argument that if we
Speaker 2: don't do it and do it in a responsible way,
Speaker 2: this external display, the mixed reality focus, someone else will
Speaker 2: do it poorly and you know, hurt society. Now, right,
Speaker 2: that's that opinion. It's a preventative measure, right Yeah, No, yeah,
Speaker 2: buy it at Walgreens. No, But that's one end of
Speaker 2: the spectrum. The other idea here is if Apple doesn't
Speaker 2: do this, Amazon, Meta, Google, someone else will come with
Speaker 2: a VR headset and destroy Apple in that market. Like
Speaker 2: Apple was hurting smart speakers and voice assistants and such, right.
Speaker 1: The speaker thing I was thinking of when you were
Speaker 1: saying how they stick with stuff long term, Like.
Speaker 2: They just continued that after a year.
Speaker 1: Right. There are places where Apple tries to fight and
Speaker 1: doesn't ever really gain a footholder. Just for for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: they can't get the fit right, Like there's something about
Speaker 1: the market doesn't want their version of it. It's too
Speaker 1: you know, so it's like, well, I just.
Speaker 2: They totally screwed up at the home pod at the
Speaker 2: get go right. And if you think about you know,
Speaker 2: it depends how you look at these things. If you
Speaker 2: consider the home pod a major product category, that could
Speaker 2: have been in the same vein as you know, the iPhone,
Speaker 2: the iPod, right, the iPad, the mac right, I consider
Speaker 2: it more in the accessories category, something akin to like
Speaker 2: an Apple TV or air pods.
Speaker 1: It's smaller, it's smaller.
Speaker 2: They okay, that was a five six year development process.
Speaker 2: Also because there were numerous times where they were thinking,
Speaker 2: let's not do it, let's do it. They had many delays.
Speaker 2: They screwed up twofold pricing, three point fifty out the door,
Speaker 2: awful decision, right yep iPhone exclusive serie exclusive, no app integration,
Speaker 2: no ecosystem. I mean that was just.
Speaker 1: Are you describing describing the headset right now? Well, high
Speaker 1: price point out.
Speaker 2: Of the gates, high price point out of the gate.
Speaker 1: It's definitely not going to work with anybody else's device, right,
Speaker 1: You're not going to able to use an Android phone.
Speaker 2: With this, it's not going to work with anyone else's device,
Speaker 2: but it is going to run a million iPad apps
Speaker 2: when you take it out of the box, and so
Speaker 2: they are not going to have a content issue, and
Speaker 2: from day one they're going to have the biggest XR
Speaker 2: app ecosystem of any provider.
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, I mean, I'm just I
Speaker 1: was thinking through this. Like you mentioned that they were
Speaker 1: talking about doing logic. It's a studio app. It is
Speaker 1: something that people use in professional studios to produce music.
Speaker 1: Probably most of the music you listen to, either pro
Speaker 1: Tools or Logic is where they people produce it. So
Speaker 1: you're saying they just brought it to the iPad. You're saying,
Speaker 1: now they can take that and expand it to XR
Speaker 1: and create. Presumably you're in the headset and you can
Speaker 1: see your score. You can see what you're working on
Speaker 1: from like the beginning of a ten minute song to
Speaker 1: the end of it in one glance.
Speaker 2: Right, all right, let me take a step back. First,
Speaker 2: iPad launched Okay, two options for apps, full scale iPad apps,
Speaker 2: iPhone app to x moon't run on the iPad, right,
Speaker 2: and the iPhone only apps died pretty quickly because they
Speaker 2: were crappy.
Speaker 1: I don't like where this is going.
Speaker 2: It was a thing, right, and so this is going
Speaker 2: to be a much better version of that. It'll run
Speaker 2: your iPad os apps out of the box.
Speaker 1: But you're saying like it'll run up. You're saying it'll
Speaker 1: run a window. It'll run a window, right, and then
Speaker 1: that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Right, But if the developer wants to create a native,
Speaker 2: native XR version of that app, they can do that also.
Speaker 1: Right, right, So it's like an operating system literally in
Speaker 1: the sense that I will be able to open and
Speaker 1: look at like multiple iPad apps running as I would
Speaker 1: see them, or some variation of how I would see
Speaker 1: them on an iPad, like a in a windowed scenario essentially,
Speaker 1: but then possibly like at a later day. Okay, so
Speaker 1: so I can So that's really interesting. I mean again,
Speaker 1: but here's the thing. What I was going to say
Speaker 1: is last night I was in my living room. I
Speaker 1: was messing around with logic. I had my headphones on
Speaker 1: and I had noise cancelation on, right, so I couldn't
Speaker 1: hear anything, that's just hearing. And my wife walked in
Speaker 1: the living room and I literally jumped because I didn't
Speaker 1: know she was there and I looked up and there
Speaker 1: was like a person standing there, and I fucking jumped,
Speaker 1: you know. And then I was like, Okay, well, I
Speaker 1: can't sit in the room with her listening to my
Speaker 1: like logic project I'm working on while she's like trying
Speaker 1: to talk to me or we're like, you know, you know, going, hey,
Speaker 1: we should watch a show or something. Like. You can't
Speaker 1: be in a room with noise cancelation unless you expressly
Speaker 1: want to shut the world out, right, Like, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've used noise cancelation on your on your AirPods and
Speaker 1: you know what I'm talking about. This is like noise
Speaker 1: cancelation for your fucking eyes, I assume additionally for your ears, right, Like,
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to imagine that same scenario, right, but
Speaker 1: like you're sitting in it. You're sitting in a room,
Speaker 1: you're doing something, You're totally isolated from people in that room.
Speaker 1: It's such a weird vulnerability that I just feel like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, does Apple really think people want that?
Speaker 1: Like do people want that? I guess I don't know.
Speaker 2: I personally, you know, I'm a nerd like you I'll
Speaker 2: be first in line, right, not freaking wait to try it.
Speaker 1: We'll buy it. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to
Speaker 1: buy it and use it because I'm a total like gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm a total freak for this shit. But like, right,
Speaker 1: but I have I have quests, and I have all
Speaker 1: kinds of other stuff, and you know, like it comes
Speaker 1: comes out occasionally, but it's just a very unusual experience.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. My question is is how long until
Speaker 2: this thing is charging on a daily basis on my
Speaker 2: desk rather than being used? How long until it turns
Speaker 2: into uh, you know, something that just sits there and
Speaker 2: gathers dust.
Speaker 1: Here's an interesting anecdote and I think maybe speaks to
Speaker 1: this question about immersion. Yeah, I started to use my
Speaker 1: iPad more in the evenings when I wasn't working because
Speaker 1: I wanted to have an experience that made me less
Speaker 1: immersed in like the windowed noisiness of a laptop. Right,
Speaker 1: Like on my laptop, I've got like Gmail open, I've
Speaker 1: got Twitter open, I've got all this shit, and everything's
Speaker 1: like pinging, there's all this noise, and on an iPad
Speaker 1: it's like very singular. You're like when I'm working on
Speaker 1: logic on the iPad. You know, I'm in like do
Speaker 1: not Disturb, and it's like everything is gone. There's no
Speaker 1: other windows, there's no little pop ups. It's like very
Speaker 1: and you know, for even for browsing or watching shit
Speaker 1: on YouTube. I do like I'll just go into that
Speaker 1: kind of like singular sort of focused zone. It's like
Speaker 1: a bigger workspace, but it's like less noisy and less
Speaker 1: immersive than being in a computer in the sense you know,
Speaker 1: it will take time. I agree with you, but.
Speaker 2: I'm us it. By the way, I was a big
Speaker 2: iPad user until the m one computer started coming out, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because the Intel machines were so crappy and slow and fans.
Speaker 2: I was like, I need to get anything horrible battery, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I need to use the iPad.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But since I've had this m one Max MacBook Pro,
Speaker 2: the iPad is not as useful because I actually can
Speaker 2: get stuff done on this now.
Speaker 1: So but I want to talk about that. Actually, like
Speaker 1: this brings us to an interesting point about all of this,
Speaker 1: which is like we are very much in the Tim
Speaker 1: Cook era here. I mean, there's no question that.
Speaker 2: We're deep in the Tim Cook era.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna be CEO forever. Obviously he's not that old,
Speaker 1: but you know there's going to be a CEO after
Speaker 1: Tim Cook. This could be his big like moment, right.
Speaker 1: The era of Tim Cook produced this product, But the
Speaker 1: era of Tim Cook has produced a lot of middling
Speaker 1: just okay, not that exciting me too, products that feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, like like Apple music is It's fine. You know,
Speaker 1: it didn't change the world. It didn't destroy Spot, it
Speaker 1: didn't you know, it's didn't iTunes the situation, right, It
Speaker 1: wasn't like one day we're all got our rios and
Speaker 1: then the next day nobody is using anything but iTunes.
Speaker 1: The lack of definition of this feels very of a
Speaker 1: type of Tim Cook sort of product. Not to say
Speaker 1: that that and you mentioned this in your article that
Speaker 1: he's not a product guy. So can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how this is like a part of
Speaker 1: his legacy if you know what type of legacy he
Speaker 1: would have like in a post Tim Cook era.
Speaker 2: Well, I really think they see this as the third
Speaker 2: major new computing paradigm in Apple's history, right, the first
Speaker 2: one being the Mac, the second one really being the iPhone,
Speaker 2: with the Apple Watch of the iPad as an extension
Speaker 2: of that. Like I would say, you know, the Mac
Speaker 2: is one, the iPhone is two, and the iPad and
Speaker 2: watch are two A and two B, right, And then
Speaker 2: I really think this is number three, right. I think
Speaker 2: they really believe that the future of computing could be
Speaker 2: living in these mixed reality environments. Certainly more immersive, it's
Speaker 2: certainly brings a lot of power with it. There's a
Speaker 2: lot more flexibility in the types of apps you can use,
Speaker 2: there's a lot more ways that you can actually interact
Speaker 2: with your content. But it is so early stage one.
Speaker 2: I mean it really I think could take ten years
Speaker 2: to take off. And I think if they successfully create
Speaker 2: this XR market, because let's be honest, it's really nascent,
Speaker 2: it basically doesn't exist, and they take it into how
Speaker 2: people use computers in the future instead of laptops and desktops, right,
Speaker 2: or instead of iPads and phones, I think that's a
Speaker 2: pretty cool legacy. Right. It's also an extremely big bet
Speaker 2: because there is a very high chance that never happens
Speaker 2: and it doesn't work out. On the other hand, Apple
Speaker 2: has so much market cachet and has so much money
Speaker 2: and so many resources that I think that this thing.
Speaker 2: Becoming a massive, massive failure would not break the company.
Speaker 2: But I think this being a big hit would do
Speaker 2: wonders for the company.
Speaker 1: Like you would change that the path of where they're
Speaker 1: focused like pretty much for the future, right, it.
Speaker 2: Would change a lot. It would change a lot. And
Speaker 2: so I think that is one aspect of it. Another
Speaker 2: part of it that I don't think people are talking
Speaker 2: about enough, and I tried to flick at this through
Speaker 2: my articles in this conversation, is the app situation, right.
Speaker 2: I think the idea is that the Apple user of
Speaker 2: Tim Cook's dream has all of these products, the phone,
Speaker 2: the watch, the iPad, the Mac, et cetera, right right
Speaker 2: at the headset, and you have one app that can
Speaker 2: run across the ecosystem. So whatever Apple device you're on,
Speaker 2: you can run any app you have in a different form.
Speaker 2: You can run logic on your Mac, you can run
Speaker 2: logic on your iPad, you can run logic on your headset,
Speaker 2: you can I message from your watch, from your headset,
Speaker 2: your phone, whatever, and it all just integrates together.
Speaker 1: And that's their biggest that's their biggest asset when you
Speaker 1: get down to it, Like obviously the hardware or the
Speaker 1: software that the acumen, a building, and but like the
Speaker 1: way all of these things work together is ultimately at
Speaker 1: the core of Apples sort of mastery of this industry.
Speaker 1: It's like, but it's a.
Speaker 2: Double edged sword. It's a double edged sword because this
Speaker 2: has been a Timcook thing. I mean, Steve Jobs are
Speaker 2: sort of laying the groundwork for that with iCloud and
Speaker 2: the initial post PC devices as they called it. But
Speaker 2: that's really been a thing, this Timcook era has been pushing.
Speaker 2: I don't mean to credit him specifically, but it has
Speaker 2: been his company the last decade and change, so you know,
Speaker 2: we'll credit leadership to that it has. It's a double
Speaker 2: edged sword because it necessitates Apple doing everything because if
Speaker 2: they miss one potential major consumer technology category, you break
Speaker 2: the ecosystem. The example I like to give is, let's
Speaker 2: say Amazon comes out with an amazing AR headset. Apple
Speaker 2: doesn't have one. Right, everyone wants to buy this Amazon
Speaker 2: ar headset. Then they get exposed to other Amazon products,
Speaker 2: whether it's the Amazon tablets, the Amazon phone, if they
Speaker 2: bring that back to the e buds.
Speaker 1: Right, Right, it's all about ecosystem sort of dominates.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's like, you don't just want one product, you want
Speaker 1: to be inside of the entire thing.
Speaker 2: So the reliance by Apple on this idea where you're
Speaker 2: owning the whole ecosystem, if they miss one element of it, right,
Speaker 2: even though the HomePod was a complete failure, that's why
Speaker 2: they had to do a HomePod and try a HomePod right, right.
Speaker 2: And so their bet is if the technology industry is
Speaker 2: going to push into headsets, they have to have one too,
Speaker 2: because if they miss on that, yeah, one crack in
Speaker 2: the ecosystem could cost them big time across their other products.
Speaker 1: But you see, you actually just raised an interesting point
Speaker 1: that I meant to bring up earlier and I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about before we ended. This is what's so interesting,
Speaker 1: Like you're talking about the ecosystem, you're talking about Apple
Speaker 1: missing things. And I think that like one of the
Speaker 1: blind spots Apple has had in some ways historically has
Speaker 1: been things like the Internet and search and these like
Speaker 1: large sort of like online projects that like look at
Speaker 1: maps for instance, right, Like they've they've been playing for
Speaker 1: years playing catch up to Google in all of these
Speaker 1: areas of just like they're like, hey, we just didn't
Speaker 1: see this, we didn't put any money into it. My
Speaker 1: understanding wasn't I feel like this has been said before.
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs actually didn't like the Internet. He wasn't like
Speaker 1: a fan of being online, and like so a lot
Speaker 1: of us were kind of built with like not online
Speaker 1: as a component. But I'm looking now at the landscape,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at what is the emergent moment that
Speaker 1: is happening. And listen, we're not done with any of
Speaker 1: this stuff yet. We're at the very early endings of
Speaker 1: a lot of this technology that we're starting to see.
Speaker 1: But if you look at what's happening with AI right now,
Speaker 1: for instance, right in these large models, you know whether
Speaker 1: it's mid journey or open AI. Obviously you see Microsoft,
Speaker 1: you see Google now suddenly getting into this like huge
Speaker 1: race for dominance in computing that goes beyond the known
Speaker 1: space that I think we've been in right a type
Speaker 1: of computing that is about us interacting with the machine
Speaker 1: in a way that is naturalistic and responsive, beyond anything
Speaker 1: I think we could have imagined even ten years ago.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Siri is a good example of
Speaker 1: where Apple tried to get into this like assistant game.
Speaker 1: They obviously have a huge foothold there, but everybody knows
Speaker 1: that Siri is worse at everything than many of the
Speaker 1: other assistants, notably Google's assistant right, And so to me,
Speaker 1: like a bold, exciting Apple has got it figured out
Speaker 1: for the future or has sees a pathway forward would
Speaker 1: be something like Apple announces it has acquired open ai, right,
Speaker 1: or Apple has built an AI that is far more
Speaker 1: sophisticated but also focused on privacy and respecting copyright and
Speaker 1: all this other stuff that people are worried about. And
Speaker 1: yet what I see is, this is what's so odd
Speaker 1: to me about this this headset, is that it feels
Speaker 1: like the industry and the Internet and its users are
Speaker 1: going in one direction over here to a different new
Speaker 1: thing that is it's not and I don't think it's
Speaker 1: just hype. I think part of it is like there's
Speaker 1: something underpinning that that's very real.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: Whereas Apple's over here going into this again almost this
Speaker 1: like internal inside the box, not really about outside, not
Speaker 1: really about the Internet, not in some ways even about
Speaker 1: being able to be social. And it just feels like
Speaker 1: these two really divergent paths, and I I I just wonder,
Speaker 1: like does that fit anywhere into this, like the AI
Speaker 1: stuff that's happening and is there any from your sense
Speaker 1: anywhere at Apple or that's starting to be like a
Speaker 1: conversation because it feels like they're missing something right now right.
Speaker 2: I've seen a few people point this out where the
Speaker 2: industry is heading into AI and Apple is a week
Speaker 2: away from heading into XR. Right, two diverging paths, and
Speaker 2: that's certainly true. The way I look at it sort
Speaker 2: of off the cuff here because I haven't given it
Speaker 2: much thought. The XR situation is a platform. AI is
Speaker 2: in my opinion, more feature than platform, and I think
Speaker 2: AI is something that they play very heavily on XR,
Speaker 2: So I don't think it's two different paths. I think
Speaker 2: the two can go together. On the top of my head,
Speaker 2: I can't come up with the most interesting use cases
Speaker 2: for AI in XR, but certainly Apple needs to get
Speaker 2: the ball rolling. I think these chat bots that you see,
Speaker 2: like the chat GPT stuff, Yeah, this is weird, but
Speaker 2: I call it like raw AI. It's like a raw
Speaker 2: implementation of what artificial intelligence can do. And I think
Speaker 2: what Apple does is they take these raw technologies and
Speaker 2: they apply them.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's like if you look up the definition of technology
Speaker 2: right in Mirriam Webster. I believe the definition is applied sciences, right.
Speaker 2: I think chat GPT's science. I think technology is applied science.
Speaker 2: And I think the ultimate way of showing AI's power
Speaker 2: is applying that. And so if Apple is able to
Speaker 2: take AI and apply it to real world use cases, right,
Speaker 2: to make things easier, to make things better, I think
Speaker 2: that's where AI can really shine. I think Microsoft, from
Speaker 2: the little I've seen so far of what they've shown,
Speaker 2: these things like Copilot, these things that can assist you
Speaker 2: in day to day development of things, I think that's
Speaker 2: where AI can really shine. So I think Microsoft is
Speaker 2: doing a great job. THEAI stuff you're starting to see
Speaker 2: in Google Search and bar and being and such. I
Speaker 2: think that's happening there. I think we're a couple of
Speaker 2: years away from Apple really showing some big news in AI.
Speaker 2: I'm not anticipating rights they had a five year lead,
Speaker 2: another five years behind, right, and so.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing is like they feels like they're
Speaker 1: always playing ketchup in these areas that actually end up
Speaker 1: to be huge, huge, like massively important moments in computing.
Speaker 1: It's not to say, look, Apple's like the most valuable
Speaker 1: company in the world, right, like you can't knock. You
Speaker 1: can't be like, well they're bad at business or something.
Speaker 1: That's not it.
Speaker 2: They're doing something right.
Speaker 1: They're doing something right, So like you have to be
Speaker 1: inclined to go like, well, maybe they've got a good
Speaker 1: idea with the headset, but yeah, it just feels like
Speaker 1: it's interesting because because when I was reading your writing
Speaker 1: on this, and there's so much of it that's so
Speaker 1: good and I encourage everybody listen to go and read it,
Speaker 1: but like it just feels like a weird almost an artifact.
Speaker 1: And so I guess their challenge here will be can
Speaker 1: they make something that feels like yesterday's sort of tech
Speaker 1: or yesterday's future feel like tomorrow's You know.
Speaker 2: I think yes, because that future never took off, right,
Speaker 2: I mean I think they really believe that it never
Speaker 2: took off, And you know, based on the tech that's
Speaker 2: going to be in there, I really think it's going
Speaker 2: to blow the water off of anything. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's extremely powerful, extremely advanced device. The bigger question to
Speaker 2: me is do people really want that and are people
Speaker 2: going to be sold on that? And I think that's
Speaker 2: something that's going to take time. I certainly could be
Speaker 2: sold on it. But you know I haven't used it, right,
Speaker 2: I haven't played with these things for an extended period
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 1: So you claim right, So I claim you claim. Mark.
Speaker 2: We're actually talking to you from one right now and
Speaker 2: it has this in feat right there.
Speaker 1: That's that's fucking amazing.
Speaker 2: I mean, how cool would it be if we were
Speaker 2: doing this in virtual reality where it felt like we
Speaker 2: were in the same living room together, right?
Speaker 1: Well, would it be cool? That's a question. I think
Speaker 1: that I have done that. I have done podcasts in
Speaker 1: virtual reality and it was but this was like five, six,
Speaker 1: seven years ago. It was like shit, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: what would it be like? I guess we're going to
Speaker 1: find out in a few days. Mark, listen, I know
Speaker 1: you got to go. Thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It's this a brilliant conversation, super interesting. You got to
Speaker 1: come back. We're going to talk more about all of
Speaker 1: the unearthed secrets that you've that you've gotten into because
Speaker 1: it's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And if I can just give a shout
Speaker 2: out anyone wants to read more, it's Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 2: slash power on or Twitter dot com slash Mark Erman
Speaker 2: and thanks Josh. It was an honor to bear with
Speaker 2: you and looking forward to next time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining. Well that is our show. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are several hundred more hours of conversation I would
Speaker 1: like to have with Mark, but we all have things
Speaker 1: we've got to do. Anyhow, we will be back next
Speaker 1: week with more what future as you know, and as always,
Speaker 1: I wish you and your family the very best