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Phil Schiller Discusses WWDC 2019 on Accidental Tech Podcast

I do not care for these staged PR stunts. Why would I?

I just hope for Marco/ATP that his download numbers are spectacular.
Maybe he can buy another nice imported european car.

I really tried hard not to diss them here, but ... at this point it's perfectly clear these interviews are next to useless.
Apple does not need to be honest anymore - even if they would need to - they simply cannot.

Someone mentioned the WWDC invites ... this is not a lottery. Marco et al. will get there.

I will watch the keynote. But the days when I was excited as a developer to see these is long over.
I cannot even tell when I registered, I believe when the 3GS was released in Germany.

Once you got that big as a company, you cannot go back to modest products and care for customers.

It's like Coca Cola, or McDonalds or Kodak ...
The only thing that brings those companies down is an internal error of judgement.

So why do these PR stunts. I no longer believe any of it, my guess is most people don't.
I'm really disappointed, this is why I write this. I know it has been written a million times.
 
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@Brammy

I guess I don’t understand why ATP is worried about dying on any hills.
Nothing they do nor their income sources are dependent upon Apple to my knowledge, are they?

Their independence and informed objective opinion is why I listen.
If they’re just gonna turn into a homer outfit, I’m out
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pmau said:
So why do these PR stunts. I no longer believe any of it, my guess is most people don't.
I'm really disappointed, this is why I write this. I know it has been written a million times.
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I don’t buy any of it either.

Apple is kind of in this weird space where they still have some holdovers at the top from when Steve was there and I just don’t think those guys know how to do it any other way than acting like they did over a decade ago.

This company just doesn’t even resemble what it was 15 years ago in scale or approach or care about products and consumers…

So all this stuff just rings totally hollow to those of us that have been around for all of it & paying attention.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
Nothing they do nor their income sources are dependent upon Apple to my knowledge, are they?
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That might be true ... but for me it is about their history and the level of access they got.

There are a lot of talented and critical people on YT etc. besides MKBHD ;)
If Apple would care, they would have the "courage" to address these people.

(Or us people here, but I know this is fiction)
 
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Brammy said:
The only thing I ever worry about here with these kind of interviews is the impact it may have on their narrative on the podcast moving forward.

These guys are dorks - great guys, but dorks - and dorks get easily starstruck with stuff like this.

Marco has been a beacon of sanity in Apple land about the keyboards and touchbar, etc,

It would be a tremendous shame if his platform elevated him to a point where he gets noticed and gets to talk to Phil Schiller and suddenly is afraid or were unwilling to be super candid about Apple issues in the future.
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Spot on.
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Brammy said:
Phil did a masterful job at deflecting
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Well the fact that you, and just about anyone listening could tell he was deflecting actually makes him look bad.
So exactly how ‘masterful’ is that?!?
 
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turbineseaplane said:
I guess I don’t understand why ATP is worried about dying on any hills.
Nothing they do nor their income sources are dependent upon Apple to my knowledge, are they?
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Apple shutting them out has an impact. Whatever weighing they use for WWDC lottery will go against them. They started to get review units and press access to events. Marco has apps on the App Store.

Asking a keyboard question you know they aren't going give a good answer to doesn't do anyone any favors. What would have been interesting is a follow up to Phil going, "Oh yeah, we've got metrics" with asking how Apple squares getting metrics about how people use the devices with being a privacy-oriented company. Apple said at the Mac Pro round table the their data shows users open a "pro" application x amount of times, and they were ok with getting rid of the SD card because data showed people did use it? What data? How are they collecting this? How much of what I do on my Mac do they track?

Also, Gruber mentioned once about his live show with Schiller that they didn't get any guidance on what on or off topic, but he knew from experience what kinds of questions they just aren't going to answer, so he'd rather as a question he'd get a good question to.

They have been home team rooters for a while. Their complaints are generally around the keyboard and Marco going on about losing his SD card slot. They are also big on saying things need to be "disrupted" but then getting mad when the thing they use gets disrupted.

They are big about talking about privacy, but still take Eero's money after it is bought by Amazon. They gave a token, "who knows what is going to happen" but will still take their money. Their informed opinion is subjective. I trust what Marco has to say about development and Apple's developer relations, but I also tone out when he mentions what people in jobby jobs should do.

All of the tech podcasts I view as just entertainment.
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BigBoy2018 said:
Spot on.
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This is misquoted. I did not say that.

BigBoy2018 said:
Well the fact that you, and just about anyone listening could tell he was deflecting actually makes him look bad.
So exactly how ‘masterful’ is that?!?
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I got a kick out of how he answered the question, without actually answering anything, and then moved on to another point.
 
Brammy said:
I got a kick out of how he answered the question, without actually answering anything, and then moved on to another point.
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You may have gotten a kick out of it, but being good at dodging questions and avoiding substantial issues is not a good look, for Schiller, or anyone.

More damning though is the clearly castrated way Marco and John dealt with him.

A losing display for both parties.
 
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@Brammy

Interesting thoughts.
I think we will just agree to disagree here

To me they should’ve just not had him on, especially if the situation is truly that precarious and the fear of covert retribution so high and legitimate.

That is basically describing potential dictator authoritarian thug behavior on the part of Apple.

It’s a real shame that the worlds most valuable company is apparently so thin skinned that one of their senior executives can’t come on an Apple enthusiast podcast and directly address any of the biggest things that everyone in this sphere has been talking about for the last several years.
 
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BigBoy2018 said:
A losing display for both parties.
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I think the biggest issue is the ATP guys aren't practiced interviewers. Phil is the 3rd guest they have on the show: Brianna Wu sat in once; they geeked out with Chris Lattner, and now Phil. Casey in his consulting gig was probably the one more used to interviews, but he was the quietest. So, I went into it with very low expectations other than to be entertained while I was driving yesterday.

Gruber I think would have done better, and Jason Snell. Snell actually went to journalism school and worked for a magazine for a while.
 
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Brammy said:
Gruber I think would have done better, and Jason Snell. Snell actually went to journalism school and worked for a magazine for a while.
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Snell for sure.

I think he also would’ve been the least likely to sound like he’s getting hit on by a smoking hot woman for the first time ever.
 
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Brammy said:
I think the biggest issue is the ATP guys aren't practiced interviewers. Phil is the 3rd guest they have on the show: Brianna Wu sat in once; they geeked out with Chris Lattner, and now Phil. Casey in his consulting gig was probably the one more used to interviews, but he was the quietest. So, I went into it with very low expectations other than to be entertained while I was driving yesterday.

Gruber I think would have done better, and Jason Snell. Snell actually went to journalism school and worked for a magazine for a while.
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That may be, but I felt for John the most. As I said earlier I know he has a LOT of integrity and I sensed it pained him to not be able to ask so many of the more important questions he had on his mind besides, ‘are you nervous going on stage?’.

Marco ... he just sounded giddy that such a ‘bigshot’ had decided to grace their show.
 
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BigBoy2018 said:
That may be, but I felt for John the most. As I said earlier I know he has a LOT of integrity and I sensed it pained him to not be able to ask so many of the more important questions he had on his mind besides, ‘are you nervous going on stage?’.
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Enthusiast press interviews are always a challenge. I've done a lot of them, and there are either topics out of bounds, or topics you know you're going to get a pat response to. So, in the 50-odd minutes you have, do you burn 5 of them just to get a question they aren't going to answer satisfactorily on the record, or do you understand your part in this play is not to channel your inner Bob Woodward?

The nervous question is an interesting one. I know someone who has done as many presentations as Phil and is still terrified. Maybe that question was John's way of testing the waters for what will come out. Because I bet anything Phil does get a little nervous, but he won't say it because the next time he gives a keynote he will hear "Yep, Phil got nervous again, so that's why that happened." I would have loved a follow-up question to be about how they handled Craig's nervousness the first time, and what they do to coach people for these things.

As an aside, there is a discussion on this Reddit thread about the podcast. Casey chimes in with a few things.He at least answers why they didn't do a lot of follow up.
 
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Relentless Power said:
They stated specifically when removing the headphone jack it was antiquated.
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Do you know what's antiquated? Non-replaceable batteries and laggy and unnecessarily compressed audio. Fix those those and I 100% agree with you on wired headphones being antiquated.
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Brammy said:
There was a point in time where a few people mentioned to Marco that while, yes, anyone could do a business model he did, few lacked the audience and comfort he did. He took a lot of offense to that. That whole thread blew up for other reasons, but Marco can be very thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.

I have wondered what John thinks of the whole thing. It's pretty clear ATP and assorted podcasts make enough money for them all to quit, but I think John likes what he does for a living, and values the whole 401k thing.
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For the most part I find myself relating to the opinions of John. He's more in touch with the real world and seems to be the most reasonable in terms of putting his money where his mouth is. Marco is normally bang-on with his observations on hardware but is the complete opposite when it comes to a UX/design standpoint.
 
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Anyone know what name Phil goes by in these forums?
Phil is munching on popcorn lurking smirking and laughing at us toying with our requests....
 
It was a good illuminating interview that anyone in the Apple fam would enjoy.

They approached the keyboard issue in a smart way by getting Phil to admit we do listen to customer feedback across podcasts, forums and social media. There was no point directly going at the issue Marco whines about regularly, because Phil was only ever going to say we believe these are the best keyboards we've ever put in a laptop. He certainly wasn't going to pre-announce any changes coming later in the year.

I highly recommend everyone listens to this episode of the podcast.
 
dumastudetto said:
It was a good illuminating interview that anyone in the Apple fam would enjoy.

They approached the keyboard issue in a smart way by getting Phil to admit we do listen to customer feedback across podcasts, forums and social media. There was no point directly going at the issue Marco whines about regularly, because Phil was only ever going to say we believe these are the best keyboards we've ever put in a laptop. He certainly wasn't going to pre-announce any changes coming later in the year.

I highly recommend everyone listens to this episode of the podcast.
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Is that you, Casey Liss?
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Relentless Power said:
Except, Phil Schiller specifically already commented on this with the launch of the iPhone 7. They stated specifically when removing the headphone jack it was antiquated. Bluetooth is here, the headphone jack isn’t coming back for the iPhone, and I think they made that clear by even removing it for the iPad. Even if Phil was reading this, that doesn’t change their perspective given the future of wireless and the AirPods. Time to move on.
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Hey RP, whats your take on the brand new, just announced ‘antiquated’ iPads with headphone jacks?
 
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BigBoy2018 said:
They do some very hard hitting critiques of countless apple shortcomings, which you should know if you’re a regular listener.
So yea, they did go totally soft with Phil.
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They totally went soft, it was gutless. I suspect it was released later than normal because they needed to get it cleared by the Apple PR machine first.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
Snell for sure.

I think he also would’ve been the least likely to sound like he’s getting hit on by a smoking hot woman for the first time ever.
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This week Snell interviewed the iMac product manager, did you spot any difference? Did they talk about how much it suck to have an HDD on an iMac in 2019? They mentioned price points etc. but no hard questions.
I think it isn't fair to expect ATP to ask about the MBP. It is obvious Phil came to the show to only talk about WWDC and even if they asked about the keyboard he'd have given them the classic PR response, so a waste of time.
 
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