Benedict Evans on WWDC
If you, like me, were busy at work this week and were not able to pay attention to WWDC, then this podcast with Benedict Evans is well worth the 25mins it takes to listen.
Now I feel like I know what was announced and what to make of it.
Thanks Benedict.
Comments (Archived):
Thanks–been slammed and missed the real time flavor of it.I like these bite sized cliff notes on the event as well especially the thoughts about how they are viewing news consumption:http://lefsetz.com/wordpres…
that was a really good read. thanks Arnold.his comments about the watch cracked me up
“Once upon a time there was a car that was a boat”
Disclosure. I do not own an Apple watch. Yet. But have played around with it on occasion.I think his comments about the watch were valid but I also believe Apple, unlike Google, will listen to feedback such as his and iterate to a better experience. I had the first iPhone and they didn’t get it right the first time but the potential was there. I feel the watch is already evolving.
I think his comments about the watch display being always on is wrong. Maybe some tweaks/improvement to the glance gesture to get it to turn on, but because it’s a display the idea that it’s going to constantly project light is not only a waste of battery but I think would look cheesy. Maybe even rude/obnoxious in places like movie theater. Could see this being ok if they used e-ink like Pebble though.
Good point about the light always being on. Would be kind of annoying after a while.
.Needs a wearer determined action.Just like how long your smartphone stays on after you throw it in your LL Bean beach bag.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
Apple doesn’t get it right at first for a few reasons. [1]One reason is that you want your competitors to scoff and ignore what you are doing. And not realize the opportunity you have invested in and therefore pump all sorts of resources into competing with you. It’s a stealth move, almost like a trojan horse.First iteration (in some businesses) it often pays to have a deprecated product. Even if just to work out the bugs and to use it as an alpha or beta test.[1] Anyone remember the Mac 128k? I do and using Mac Paint was fun but of little commercial or personal value.
Did you see Vanessa Friedman’s piece on the Apple Watch in today’s NYT? All smartwatch makers — Apple included — haven’t broken the code when it comes to making a real fashion accessory. http://www.nytimes.com/2015…
I’ve been wearing the Apple Watch for a week or two now. The only people that ask me about it are other techies. The cashiers at the places I use it for Apple Pay were all unfazed. Nobody at any of my meetings have asked about it. I didn’t get the flashy one though, went with the black one with the black sport band. Kind of weird for people to buy something ostentatious and then complain when people notice and ask about it.
Apple has a very strong brand & is undeniably associated with technology. Right or wrong, people wearing the Apple Watch are going to be be labeled by others as ‘a techie’. For some people that’s okay; for others…not so much.This Mary Quant quote sums it up: “The fashionable woman wears clothes. The clothes don’t wear her.”
I think Apple is much more mainstream than Android or Pebble, though. That aura will wear off the way it wore off with iPhones and Mac computers. The MacBook Pro was originally the “hackers computer” and it’s draw was that it ran on a UNIX base. Now many mainstream computer users have Macs and you wouldn’t automatically assume someone with one is a geek. Same with the iPhone.
Maybe the Apple watch will be the first fashion accessory to successfully iterate. The mention of “Complications” suggests that they understand the need to compete with a Patek Philippe and other master complication creators. Very early to say they have lost.
As Swann said the other day “it’s much more fun to disagree with you”.I am not seeing why what Lefsetz say matters at all other than his comments on music because that is his specialty. If you can find them. His writing is entertainment and almost inside baseball. Of course it’s the type of writing you’d expect from a critic and belongs in the NY Post. This is WWDC not that other Apple Event anyway.The writing is meant first to entertain and second to inform. Reminds me of how much I hate to read car reviews and why I don’t read them.For those who don’t know Bob Lefetz:Bob Lefsetz is an American music industry analyst and critic, and author of the email newsletter and blog, the Lefsetz Letter. The newsletter has tens of thousands of subscribersFwiw, in 2007 Lefsetz was mainly positive on the iphone, primarily because of what others were saying.http://lefsetz.com/wordpres…
Good link Arnold.
My strategy for 15 years is to follow Om. He never lets me down and led me to this one.
“My strategy for 15 years is to follow Om.”15 years of success covered so pithily
Been a reader of Bob Lefsetz’s blog for years (he writes primarily about the music biz). It’s a good read but he’s a bit of a curmudgeon.
I get the most from reading non tech bloggers.He’s new to me and now on my list.
But about what subjects? Isn’t that a bit dangerous? Kind of like a garbage in garbage out thing.Except for music, does his opinion matter anymore than anyone else?
I haven’t listened to Bendict’s podcast yet but I did watch the keynote late in the evening.Maybe I’m crazy with this new iOS release developers now can replace their laptops with iPads. Text selection and quick split screen. That’s huge.I suspect I will be able to code on my iPhone 6+
Money quote referencing Twitter/Facebook.There’s an inexorable law that every website beyond a certain scale tries to turn into the yahoo home page.
Love Apple strategy. Serendipity and smarts. Split screen lays basis for devs and IBM partnership (Finance & Health, Apple for business, Machine Intelligence).Editing everything to get to 1-word comment by 04 July 2015.
Beats algorithm alone is a better search and discovery approach than Flipboard, Google Now and Twitter.It has a completely different contextual layer.
I liked that watchOS 2 will enable stand-alone apps, so it seems that Tim Cook took my advice to cut the umbilical cord from the iPhone.But overall, more general openness from Apple, which is good. They know how to manage their ecosystem well.
I was expecting them to cut the cord between the watch from the phone. Would have been extremely shocked if they got that basic fundamental wrong.And I think opening Swift was also a great step in the right direction. Both Microsoft and Apple are discovering the power of openness which is a good thing for sure.
They didn’t cut the cord completely. But it is a step in that direction. I think making the watch a stand-alone device separate from the iPhone is a “duh,’ but it will take time.
And they opened the body signals part so you could write more meaningful apps for that, and Healthkit is more open to, so could see the synergy there.I guess openness is relative for Apple. If they start with being closed, any little crack they open later is openness, and they get credit for something they didn’t do in the first place 😉
Ah, the games big companies play.
A couple of quick thoughts on Apple Music:1) The app will also eventually be avail on Android devices. (Is this a crack in the dam?)2) Biz Model–No hanging around indefinitely. You either like the sub product and buy after a 3-month trial, or it’s sayonara. Existing freemium models (Spotify, Pandora, etc.) have low conversion rates to premium and IMO are almost as bad for the music industry as P2P was in yesteryear. Why? They leave a shit load of money on the table as their free and premium offerings are way too similar to justify the upsell to pay.3) There’s certainly an opportunity to deliver better curation, exclusive content and stronger artist/fan engagement. Apple Music appears to have the tools to deliver, but can they execute. Otherwise, it’s (insert yawn here) another parity music product.Bottom line–Apple Music may be late to the streaming party, but you can never sell this company short, particularly w/ their brand equity, loyal customer base and database/marketing capabilities.
apple sent out a bulletin at wwdc that music discovery is a talent/skill. After watching Walk the Line (again) recently, I agree
Benedict has a great podcast on Google I/O also: https://soundcloud.com/a16z…
There are some very interesting things being discussed in the developer sessions. I can’t go into details but if you couple these advancements, sift the tea leaves a little and couple it with the public multitasking announcements, this could be a big year for iPad innovation. I’m a big iPad user myself and really want some of the features this is leading toward (or at least I believe it is leading toward) including better pen support.
Fun fact from when I looked over the USV.com data: having the word “Benedict” appear in the description of a post was predictive of a post getting more comments.I imagine a similar pattern would be here on AVC
What are you using to look at the data?
I went to a USV hackday and I used Python
Doesn’t make me want to run out and buy a 1st gen watch. I wanted a 1st gen phone. Maybe it’s because the Apple iPhone was so much better than the rest of the market. Watch doesn’t have a real use case, and there is nothing to compare it to other than an analogue watch
Yeah. When the iPhone came out it was a mini mobile computer which was revolutionary. With the watch it’s more like the iPad, a rendition of the iPhone. I am already hearing some very cool use cases coming down the pipeline. So in anticipation of that I will be purchasing a 1st gen watch.
USV should make Evans an offer. He complains about living in San Francisco and might prefer living in New York.
BE really has s high level understanding, I enjoy his assessments and take on all things mobile and tech.Something I find very interesting is Apple’s new attempts to content block or ad block within the Safari browser on iPhone and iPad devices. This would naturally have a negative impact on publishers and others generating future revenue if users opt for blocking (approx 70% do on desktop). However, the really interesting part is how Apple then shifts the ad revenue opportunity into its own new News App…quite clever. Curious to see what happens with all this, it’s really going to shake things up and this possibly explains why they haven’t pursued acquiring other platform properties.
Thanks for sharing.Re: Apple Music — will the ‘Power of Default’ be enough to win? Apple reportedly has 600M credit cards on file, surely giving them some advantage.Will the UI/UX be ravishing enough to port over casual Spotify/Rdio users? I know for me, after trying Tidal, the UX/UI was so abysmal that I reverted back to Spotify.Will the level of curation, algorithmic and human, be special? Where do we discover music now? Hypem, Movies, Sat Radio, Video Games, Music Junkie Friends?Benedict asked “will this replace Rolling Stone and other mags?”. For many, I think they get their music two channels down from Rolling Stone, ie asking the music junkie friendHow important is music discover to the average person? Are most people content with top 100 in their genre of choice?(http://www.businessinsider….
Thanks!