Alan Dye (3:26)

Yeah, it's all been very positive. We keep a close eye on those things. We're busy thinking about what's next and working on what's next. But so far, you know, it's been lovely to hear such positive responses from everything from the updates to the hardware to all the work we've been doing on WatchOS 7 and especially a lot of the new faces. I'm getting a lot of positive feedback. I've got two little ones at home who just got watches. They're a little more critical, but for the most part, fairly positive.

Om Malik (4:03)

Fairly positive.

Stephen Pulvirent (4:04)

Is that your super secret focus group there?

Alan Dye (4:06)

That's right, that's right. We give them M and Ms. As well. Perfect for positive comments. But no, they're loving it and it's been fun to see them exploring Apple Watch for the first time.

Stephen Pulvirent (4:19)

That's awesome. Yeah, it's funny, I mean, you mentioned you're always working on the next thing and we experience it at Hodinkee as well. I think every couple of years company experiences this, which is by the time something goes out into the world, it's old news to you, like it's news to everybody else, but it's old news to you and you're already working on the next thing. So I wonder, is there anything or any feedback you've gotten since people were able to start interacting with WatchOS 7 or the Series 6, that maybe you weren't anticipating stuff that just didn't occur to you throughout the process and now you're like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

Alan Dye (4:56)

Yeah, I think that happens. That of course happens along the way. I think oftentimes it sort of takes our software going out into the world in order to uncover some of these things or even just notice different patterns or trends or ways that people actually use our products that maybe we didn't anticipate. You know, one thing for certain, we understood, you know, and in such a great Apple sort of way. There was a team off thinking about hand washing quite a while ago and quite a, quite a few months ago, and they had a real deep understanding of how we could better understand if someone was actually in the act of washing their hands through motion data, through maybe through sound. And again, this wasn't feedback from customers per se, but we saw what was happening in the world and we scrambled to come up with a UI and an experience that would encourage users to wash their hands for 20 seconds. I'm really proud of the work that we did there to respond to some things that were happening in the world.

Stephen Pulvirent (6:17)

Yeah, that must be a sort of unusual. I mean, everything about this year has been unusual, but that must be a sort of unusual case for you and your team where instead of having years of sort of planning and development, a situation pops up that calls for a real solution that your team has the ability to solve. Can you think, have there ever been other instances like that where sort of midway through a development process, some new use case pops up that's sort of like mission critical that you need to kind of do quickly and efficiently?

Alan Dye (6:53)

Well, I think there are oftentimes, you know, part of the design process and part of making products dictates the fact that along the way we're going to discover different capabilities of, you know, our products that are going to force us to think a bit differently about the design of our products. And so without a doubt, I think that's, that's a very regular part of our process. You know, we're constantly, there's constantly a back and forth between all of our. I mean, that's the great thing about, I think about our process and the work that we do at Apple is this constant conversation between the various teams. And so we're, you know, we're constantly learning about what capabilities we have or we don't have, what's, what seems to be working, what doesn't, and we're allowed to kind of. Or we're able to then just sort of adjust from there. But I mean, this is definitely one of those cases where I think the team. There's no question we would have done it otherwise. You know, this is something team had been after for a while, but the timing really worked out quite well and we did hustle to get it in for this release because we knew how important it'd be.

Stephen Pulvirent (8:01)

Yeah, for sure. Well, well, I mean, to look a little more big picture, I mean, from my standpoint on the press side of things, the first question I get from readers, from listeners, whatever, when a new Apple Watch comes out, or really any new update to an existing watch is should I upgrade? Why do I want to upgrade? What's my use case? If I'm an existing user, does this thing matter to me? I have my own thoughts. I've expressed them on the site already. People can go check that out. But I'm curious, from your standpoint, if somebody goes from an Apple Watch Series 5 running WatchOS 6 to an Apple Watch Series 6 running WatchOS 7, what do you think are going to be the biggest tangible changes for them day to day? What are the things that you would want to call out as reasons why people might want to take that leap?

Alan Dye (8:57)

Well, of course, first and foremost, one of the things that we have built upon year after year is just the health and wellness aspect of Apple Watch. So the blood oxygen sensor is something that I can't help but think is important now and will continue to be important into the future. We're really proud of the work we did across all of our ecosystem around sleep. So I think that's a really compelling part of Apple Watch. And of course, we're also really proud of all the work that we've done with all the new faces. Obviously, there's a wide variety of there, but we also know in so many ways the watch faces at the core of the user experience on Apple Watch. So we put a lot of energy into the new faces with WatchOS 7, and I think that's probably, obviously, first and foremost going to be the thing that people notice the most.

Stephen Pulvirent (10:00)

Yeah, the new watch faces, for me, as a watch person, are particularly interesting this time around. I think we've seen this in the past, even from day one. I mean, I remember at that first event, you know, six years ago now, you know, seeing some nods to traditional watchmaking in the first batch of watch faces, but I think this most recent batch might be the most. The most overt in its references. You know, things like the count up face, referencing a dive bezel, things like the GMT face, which very clearly referenced some. Some classic travel watches, the Rolex GMT being kind of most prevalent. I wonder, what's your thinking behind integrating these little nods to traditional watchmaking into the watch faces?

Alan Dye (10:46)

Well, I mean, we've talked about this a little bit in the past, and it's been at the core of our process, like you mentioned, since the very beginning. Right. Traditional watches, or I could even say more broadly traditional ways of tracking the passage of time, have always had a big influence in our designs. Last year, we talked a lot about the solar dial. I think that's a really good example of this. And, you know, we've always. So we've always had this. You know, we've always certainly been huge fans of traditional watches and have a huge respect for the design. And while we certainly embrace that history, also want to do what we can only do on Apple Watch. Right, right. So, you know, while we love, and certainly our users love for us to kind of pull inspiration from that history, like the Chronograph Pro or the GMT or the Count up that you mentioned, because of the information and the capability that they provide, and that history dictates that that capability is an important thing for users, whether you're a car enthusiast or aviation expert. What we love to do is not just draw on that inspiration, but also through the capabilities of Apple Watch and the technology, go a whole lot further. And so we're only interested if we can do something that certainly a traditional mechanical watch can't do. So, for example, the new GMT face certainly allows for a whole bunch of personalization. It's very easy to move between different cities. And of course, the. The dial itself even changes depending on what city you've chosen and what time of year it is. So those are things you just couldn't do in the past, but we can do it because of the digital medium.

Stephen Pulvirent (12:36)

Yeah, totally. I mean, I think that the GMT phase is a really interesting one to me, and I think points to sort of a broader design choice that I wanted to ask you about, which is if we look at Apple in the sort of early days of iOS, skeuomorphism was a huge thing. I mean, you had like fake felt in Game center, you had your notes app looked like a legal pad, all of those things. And Apple moved away into much more of a sort of flat, layered, transparency sort of style of design. And it seems to me like some of these new faces, and to some extent Apple Watch faces in general have charted a middle ground here. Like, they're not skeuomorphic, but they do sort of simulate the idea of physical moving parts in a way that maybe isn't what we've seen on iOS and some other Apple platforms over the last couple of years. Is that something you landed on specifically because of the Apple Watch, or is it some other sort of motivation behind that?

Alan Dye (13:36)

I think in this case, it's very specific to Apple Watch. I think we consciously, even early on, we decided to have both digital faces and analog faces, which seems probably in hindsight a small decision, but I think it was very important to us that we understand how people have become accustomed to telling time. Right. So we even have these digital versions of analog hands that we've stuck pretty consistently to and pretty rigorously to the design of. But at the same time, like, I think it's important to remember that the watch is certainly a much more intimate product than we've ever made before. You wear it on your wrist, you have a connection to it that's consistent and persistent throughout the day. I think early on, a big decision we made as a design team was also to have a physical crown. So from the very beginning, we wanted to establish the watch as an icon for, hopefully, the future of what a watch could be, but also reference back to the past. And so there are always these ways that we, I think, have tried to bring some of what makes a traditional watch, a watch, into Apple Watch, but also do it in a very digital way. So the digital crown is a great example where we understood that it could be such an important icon for the watch, but also play a very critical role in input, because we knew we wanted to allow for a different type of input that didn't require your finger always being on the display itself. We've been obsessed with this for a while, and while I don't think we ever made a conscious decision, frankly, we never even talk about skeuomorphism or. I don't even know if we knew the definition of that word until iOS7. But certainly we. We love this idea of blurring the lines between software and hardware and also paying respect to the history of watchmaking.

Stephen Pulvirent (15:48)

Yeah, no, that all makes a ton of sense in that answer. You mentioned that the Apple Watch is more personal. And that's always been, I think, a part of how Apple has communicated around the Apple Watch is that it's the most personal Apple device. And with that comes tons of personalization options. That's in every watch face. It's in the infrastructure of WatchOS as well. And with that, that must come with some design challenges for you and your team, because you're not designing sort of discrete objects, you're designing systems, and they have to work in sort of an infinite number of configurations. How does that change your approach as a designer and as the leader of a design team, when you're almost building building blocks instead of building a final object?

Alan Dye (16:40)

Right, right. I mean, luckily we have a team that has been thinking about systems and systems across ecosystems for quite a long time. So I think the most important thing from a design perspective, and you're totally right to Point this out. It's one of the biggest challenges we've got with, which is how do you continuously design a series of faces or a collection of faces whereby each one can stand on its own, and yet even within each one, you can have so many variations and customization options. But then how do you design them as a series that can kind of hang and live together comfortably? So a lot for us is it's about that rigor early on. So what were those choices we made from the very beginning around things like typography or grid systems or line weight or how we draw icons? And so while we have evolved some of those things, we've actually taken great care to be very consistent in how we apply some of those just very basic core elements that make design. Design. To go back to type for a second. I think that's a great example of something where we initially drew a typeface for legibility, specifically for Apple Watch, that eventually became the San Francisco font that we use in all of our products. And we've introduced many versions of San Francisco because we want that font to take on different characteristics and maybe even feel different. You can see that on the typograph face we just released. But at the same time, the forms are very consistent from character to character. Even when we treat one with a serif and one without, they're cousins to one another. And all these things are very important to us, so they can kind of hang together.

Stephen Pulvirent (18:29)

I mean, it's also, I think it's striking that the number of complications that one can fit into a given watch face has increased over the years, and that, I wonder, does that come as a. Is that a conscious decision to say, okay, users want more things on the surface immediately, and so we're going to make it work for them? Or is that also, to some extent, a sort of outcome of refining your own design process and finding elegant ways for these things to sort of fit and interact together, or possibly both.

Alan Dye (19:03)

I think it's both. And it also comes as a consequence of some of the advances we've made in the display, some of the advances we've made in the compute power. So being able to run all these complications simultaneously, being able to just literally fit more on the display over the past few years, has been really. I mean, of course, we've thought about this for a long time as something we've anticipated, but not only is it a challenge, but it's something we really look forward to. And I think we've gotten better and better at the art of displaying a very robust and rich and detailed amount of information, but in a very small space. So I think as designers, many of us with a history of graphic design, I think we can't help but really love those sorts of challenges. And it's especially interesting when you get into describing data that maybe you wouldn't have seen on a traditional watch, like something like AQI or the air Quality index.

Stephen Pulvirent (20:07)

Kind of following that train of thought a little bit. Were there times along the way, or watch faces that were designed along the way where you maybe tried to pack too much in and you realize, like, okay, we've now hit the upper limit. Like, we now need to kind of scale back, peel back, reduce the number of options and kind of build where the edges of that framework are?

Alan Dye (20:29)

That's a great question. I'll say that 99% of the work that we design as a studio doesn't make it out into the world. I think that's probably not uncommon for any design team, but certainly for us, we're pretty rigorous about what gets out there. I don't know specifically that's ever happened. I keep hoping we can make the GMT dial fade over time if you happen to be in tropical locations, but that's something we're still working on. In terms of the software there. I'm half kidding. But for the most part, I think the work that we do and the really interesting thing about working as a studio is, yeah, there are times that there's a great deal of times that we make work, maybe even some really great work that we don't put out into the world that doesn't make it. And oftentimes what I've noticed over time, and the real lovely thing is that that work finds its way into something else or finds its way into a different product. And that's why the way that we work is so important.

Stephen Pulvirent (21:37)

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for making the time. I know you're a busy man, and it's good to get to chat remotely and hopefully things will clear up and soon enough I can come back out and see you at hq.

Alan Dye (21:48)

Would absolutely love that very much. Looking forward to that day.

Stephen Pulvirent (21:51)

Yeah, same.

Alan Dye (21:53)

Good to see you and stay in touch.

Stephen Pulvirent (21:55)

Thanks, Alan.

Alan Dye (21:55)

All right, bye now.

Stephen Pulvirent (22:03)

Up next, we have my conversation with Jon Gruber and OM Malik. Hey, thanks so much for joining us, guys. Really appreciate you both making time to hop on this call.

Om Malik (22:22)

Thank you, Stephen, for having us.

John Gruber (22:24)

Yeah, thank you.

Stephen Pulvirent (22:26)

I think it's been what it's been about a year since we've had Ohm on the show, and I Think about two years, I guess since John, since we had you on for the Apple Watch Series 4 chat.

John Gruber (22:36)

Yeah, yeah, we talked about Series 4 when they changed the form factor slightly.

Stephen Pulvirent (22:41)

Oh yeah, yeah. Wow. It's crazy how forever ago that feels after the 2020 we've been having. That feels like 10 years ago.

John Gruber (22:50)

Feels like we're talking about Palm Pilots.

Stephen Pulvirent (22:54)

Which for the record, if we ever want to do a Palm Pilot episode, I am more than happy to host that conversation as well.

John Gruber (23:02)

That would be a good one.

Om Malik (23:04)

Is that an old man joke? I mean, you're not old enough to make those jokes, Steven.

Stephen Pulvirent (23:10)

Me, I. All right, I'll fully date myself showing I'm not that old. But I got a Palm Pilot my junior year of high school and I thought I was the coolest person in the entire world with my Palm Pilot in my like you know, whatever AP Government class or whatever I was doing back then. Thought it was very, very cool. Knew how to write in graffiti. It was a different time. My Palm Pilot and my Motorola Razr.

Om Malik (23:40)

You were definitely ahead of your time. I'm not sure about the cool part, but it's okay.

Stephen Pulvirent (23:49)

I'll take that coming from you Om I'll take that one.

Om Malik (23:55)

Cool.

Stephen Pulvirent (23:55)

Well, we're here to chat mostly about Apple Watch. I'm sure we'll touch on some other things. But it was a couple weeks ago that Apple did their usual big September event, except instead of it being a big event, it was a live stream which I know Ohm you're a big fan of that, right? Doing the live stream instead of the big hoopla in Cupertino.

Om Malik (24:17)

Yeah, I used to love going to Cupertino but boy it's quite a hike, especially if you have to leave early in the morning and the barrier traffic didn't help. But I appreciate this, a more democratic, more open minded approach to events. Put the stream out, let people, whether it's journalists, analysts, regular humans, get all the information at the same time and make their own conclusions. And also it saves a lot of energy. Just it's good for the planet if hundreds of people are not driving to Cupertino from San Francisco.

Stephen Pulvirent (24:59)

Yeah, that's totally fair. I know. John, you expressed in your writing right after the event that one of the downsides you saw to there not being a live event was that those of us in the press didn't get to get hands on with the products immediately. So there was kind of a lot left to the imagination for that couple day window between the keynote and when people could see the products Right, Yeah.

John Gruber (25:26)

I think I know that the word privilege gets tossed around very easily these days, and rightly so, but it is. But being locked in with this quarantine and having all of these events be virtual, it does remind me what a privilege it is to be in a position in the media where I get invited to these events and get to do things like see all of the products hands on afterwards. And that's always. It focused it for me because that's, that's what I've always tried to do in my, like in the first 24 hours after one of these events is try to provide to my readers the perspective that I got from this position of being there, whatever it is that I notice. But you know, the most obvious thing would be what does it actually feel like to have these new watch bands on or something like that, in a way that all of Apple's presentation is all visual. If you can convey a sense of the feel of something or when we get into talking about the color of certain finishes, everybody knows that that stuff really matters. What lighting you're in, how does it compare, how dark is graphite steel, that sort of thing. And you just can't do that if it's all remote. And so there is something missing. I mean, there's something gained, I think by not having to travel, but there's also clearly a lot that's lost.

Stephen Pulvirent (26:57)

Yeah, no, I agree with both of you. I mean, kind of simultaneously and for me, the thing I missed the most was getting to chat with other journalists, being able to be in that big demo room and while everyone's waiting because there's a limited amount of product and it's a whole kerfuffle and kind of a circus in some ways. But getting to just have those little conversations with other people and get other people's first impressions, I always find I end up learning things and kind of discovering things that I hadn't picked up myself and I missed that. I think this go around.

Om Malik (27:34)

No, I don't deny any of those things. I just feel that at times for some of these events, just like that, it's like they gotta reserve these events for very special occasions, not for feature upgrades. And on top of that, they've done a good job of getting the products in the hands of journalists just right after the keynote or the day of the keynote. I know at least for some of the, the bigger names in journalism, like, you know, John and, you know, what's his name? Marcus Lee, Marcus Brownlee. And folks like that, they get the, you know, the you know, the device in their hand and yeah, you know, it's, it's. I don't think we get a lot of time with, with the products hands on, you know, when, even when you're there at the event, unless like you get into a special, you know, briefing session with the team. I mean, and that's, that's again only a privilege. Few get to that position. But like in general terms I do feel that this more open democratic process is actually good for good, good to get the information out. I like, I like this approach. I'm in minority maybe, but I do miss seeing. No, I do miss seeing John. I mean it's like probably the only time I get to see him is at these events and otherwise, otherwise he's just a voice in my ear and when I listen to his podcast.

John Gruber (29:06)

Well, that's one of our techniques, Ohm, is that I don't like. If I do come out, I come out from Philadelphia on my east coast. So if I do come out for a Cupertino event, I like to stay in San Francisco where it's civilized and there's better places to eat than to actually stay down in the Cupertino area. So I have often over the years hitched a ride with OM and that makes the Bay Area traffic better. We get to catch up on the ride to and fro.

Om Malik (29:32)

That is indeed true. Now if you do live, if you do stay in Cupertino, I can tell you some of the best South Indian food is available in Cupertino in a place called Sarvana Bhavan, which is probably as good as it gets outside of India. So there is some upside to it.

Stephen Pulvirent (29:52)

All right, well I now have something to look forward to next year for my trip to Cupertino. Hopefully assuming next year trips to Cupertino are happening. But yeah, I'm definitely, oh, I'm going to bother you for that recommendation again next year.

Om Malik (30:07)

That is not a problem at all. You can bother me anytime you want.

Stephen Pulvirent (30:12)

Thank you, sir. I mean om, you mentioned a minute ago that one of the reasons you thought not having a big in person event this year wasn't a problem is that this year, at least as far as Apple Watch is concerned, was mostly about small upgrades. This year was not the big change in form factor. It wasn't an always on display. It was really a bunch of pretty incremental upgrades, right?

Om Malik (30:39)

I wouldn't say they are, you know, incremental upgrades. They are upgrades, they are upgrades to features. But they were, they are pretty, you know, pretty impressive new, you know, New additions to the watch. I, But I don't think of it as like, oh, this is like, you know, sometimes when we went from iPhone3G to iPhone4, my God, that was just like the way the device looked was very different. And so, you know, it was pretty exciting. And then we went from like, you know, from, you know, iPhone, you know, 9 and 10 to like where we are now. Those are like substantial, you know, UX design. I mean, total look change. You know, that would have, that was fun to be like, you know, experiencing those devices firsthand. But this one is, I think it just is finally coming to a point where it was supposed to be. I, you know, I know John's not going to like this, but you know, the Apple Watch 4 would have been the watch Steve would have been okay releasing and this would be the Apple Watch 6 would be the one, you know, he wouldn't stop talking about. Like, that's how I think about it. This one is actually. And I've been wearing it pretty much every day since I got it. Like, you know, and I was not wearing the earlier watches as much. This one just feels right. It does, right? It's actually, believe it or not, delivering more in terms of, you know, the city works better on it, the screen and the power management is better. There are little things in this watch would just make it. Oh yeah, finally it's working. Like it just, it just. There is not very few annoyances with the, with the watch. Right. And I know I went a little.

John Gruber (32:31)

Bit off tangent a little, just a little off.

Stephen Pulvirent (32:37)

I was gonna be nice there, John. I was gonna let him have it.

John Gruber (32:40)

Can I just, can I just jump in? I just want to jump in though. I think that the example that he just cited is worth noting. The iPhone. And I know the whole talking about iPhones when we're supposed to be talking about the watch is tangential. But going from the iPhone 3GS to the iPhone 4 was the perfect example of being there in person. Because the big change was going to retina displays, right? And it was the first consumer device with a quote unquote retina display. But that meant everybody at home was absorbing the news on something that's not a retina display. Whether you watched Apple's event or you went to their website afterwards and you're looking at photos of it, or you went to the media and you're looking at the pictures that they have. How do you show a retina display on a non retina display to convey what it's like? It's actually Devilishly tricky. And you can zoom in and show that if you have like a jeweler's loop, you can see that there's four pixels packed into the space where there used to be one. But you really need that subjective take, right? That is the canonical example of, hey, what is somebody who actually saw one in person think? And that to me is still. That's the best example of it. But to me it's still important, even for things like color or band feel and stuff like that.

Stephen Pulvirent (34:08)

Yeah, no, I think that's a really, really good point. And I think up until now, I think every year we've seen a watch where it's pretty substantially different from the one the year before. I mean, whether the general form factor is changing or not, but there's something to latch onto in person that you couldn't or wouldn't experience kind of virtually. Whereas this year it felt. And maybe it was just me adjusting my brain and my expectations, but it felt like if you knew the Series 5, it was pretty easy to digest what was new about the Series 6 without having to live with it for a few days. Did you guys feel that way or is that just me?

John Gruber (34:54)

I think so. I thought that was definitely the case where they've added one major new sensor, the blood oxygen level sensor. The power management is better in a way where they can say it charges faster, it lasts longer, and the always on display is brighter in the always on mode. Meaning, like the mode when it doesn't think you're staring at it. And that's it really. At a technical level, I don't think there's anything else even really to say. That's a pretty short list. Very easy to understand. But that's not to say those are insignificant upgrades, but it's very easy to describe versus the Series five.

Om Malik (35:39)

You know the other point to that, John, I find that this is much more tightly integrated with the iPhone and Also the new iOS 14. I think there is just a little bit like everything just feels more cohesive and coherent and just seems to work much better compared to the previous version. Like, the four and the five were like, they left a lot to be desired, but this one just feels like, oh, yeah, this is how it's supposed to work. I think that's. I don't even know how to even, you know, say anything more than just that. This is how, like, I don't feel that there is a missing piece right now. I would love for them to add a sensor so that they can measure blood pressure, because I think that would be the last sensor I need from a health perspective to make this like a complete package.

Stephen Pulvirent (36:33)

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, that's a sensor that I think we've seen a lot of kind of like virtual ink spilled writing about. And the other thing people were asking for that we did get, but in kind of a modified fashion, is sleep tracking. And we've got sleep tracking now, but without like substantially increased battery life. And I wonder how you guys have found the process of attempting to sort of like, instead of charging your watch while you're sleeping, kind of like finding stopgap times to charge it. Have you found that experience to be pretty easy and pretty seamless, or do you find yourself still wishing that it had, let's say like, you know, two to three day battery life so that you didn't have to worry about it throughout the day?

John Gruber (37:19)

I definitely still wish that it did. I still find, and I think that coming as an aficionado of mechanical watches coming from that world, and when you're used to automatics, you're used to some of the same mentality, you don't charge an automatic, but you do have to wind it and you have to wear it to keep it wound and you're used to, oh, you know, this one has stopped, I've got to do something, I've got to set the time. So some of that mentality is the same, but then once you get in a groove of wearing an automatic, you just keep wearing it every day and you don't do anything. And it feels like a huge step backwards if you wear the watch every day, that you still have to find time. I mean, I get in a group. The thing for me is I started sleep tracking like a year ago with the Series 5 before it was a feature of the OS. And there are third party apps that would just use the health sensors to do it and they actually do a surprisingly good job. I was actually just talking to the developer of one of them, David Smith, who has an app called Sleep. And like he said, and I think he's right that it's pretty easy for a developer to look at the health heuristics of your breathing and your heart rate and stuff like that. And I guess, heart rate, I guess the watch doesn't pick up your breathing, but just your heart rate and pick up when you're asleep combined with motion. And any kind of app that tries to go deeper than that and tell you like, oh, you're in REM state two or three, that's bs. They can't do that. But they can tell you how long you sleep, what hours, and you can get trends. So I've gotten in the groove of charging my Apple watch, you know, like during morning coffee and just sort of knowing that I'm doing that and it works pretty well, but you can't. You know, honestly, it's funny, I find that it's an interesting, like when I get in the groove of wearing an Apple watch and I typically do it all weekdays long and maybe wear other watches on weekends. But in the coronavirus quarantine, it sort of promotes daily hygiene because it's like, well, I might as well go get a shower because I need to charge my watch.

Stephen Pulvirent (39:27)

It's good that it can, it can push you in that direction too.

John Gruber (39:30)

What am I going to do while I'm not wearing my watch? Well, I guess I'll get a shower.

Om Malik (39:34)

You know, I don't wear it at night mostly because I have, I suffer from sleep apnea. So I wear a CPAP machine. And we know one thing, another thing I don't need is another device on my body. I mean, it's like that CPAP machine is a nightmare to wear to begin with. So. But I charge it at night. It's perfectly fine. I turn off all notifications on all devices at 8pm I don't really care if somebody wants to reach me or not. And you know, I mean, if they want to. Like my mother calls me if she needs me, right? She has a old fashioned phone. So I mean they're the only, my parents are the only people I'm okay listening and hearing from at night because they live in India and the time zone is different. But the watch, I love wearing it all the time. It's on my right hand. On my left hand I have my Grand Seiko. I mean, you know, call me one of those weird people with two watches. But I wear, I'm wearing a health sensor and a real watch. That's how I think about it.

Stephen Pulvirent (40:41)

So when you do that, do you keep your notifications and stuff on for the Apple watch or are you really kind of wearing it fully passively as a sensor?

Om Malik (40:49)

No, I use like, I use the watch for like replying to, you know, messages. I use the notifications. Like sometimes I get a DM notification from Twitter because I don't really stay logged into Twitter. So I get the notifications on a few things. Not everything. Plus I check, I use the activity and like, you know, the nudges to stand up and I walk around. I have my activity monitor like I have those notifications modified to my taste. And I like it. Like, I mean, like, I'm walking more, you know, I'm standing up more. I'm like, you know, it's like I have a digital nanny now.

Stephen Pulvirent (41:31)

I think. I think maybe I need. I need to pay more attention to it. I could use a digital nanny in the ages of quarantine.

Om Malik (41:40)

You are so young and so skinny, so you don't need that. It's guys who are chubs like me who need that help.

Stephen Pulvirent (41:47)

Oh, man, you haven't seen me since quarantine started, man. It's not trending in the right direction here. We're going to have to do something about it. But I wanted to talk a little bit more nitty gritty about the product and the ecosystem that the product lives in as well, since both of you guys are so familiar in the long tail of Apple as a company and how they build their suites of products and the broader company strategy. And I think how Apple Watch fits into that is an interesting thing and a thing that, you know, I don't know how many of our listeners know a ton about that. Some may, some may not. But the first thing I wanted to talk about is the fact that the new, what we're calling the new Apple Watch, right, is the Apple Watch Series 6. But there's actually two new Apple Watches. There's the Series 6 and then there's the SE, which is the more budget friendly, I guess you could call it, option. But strangely, Apple is also leaving the Series 3 in the lineup, which is a little less expensive than the se. And I'm curious what either or both of you think about this new lineup that we have, 6 SE and series 3, especially. Keeping in mind the fact that the series 3 is substantively different in terms of the hardware from either the Series 6 or the SE.

John Gruber (43:11)

I think it exemplifies the sort of Tim Cook era of Apple. And I know that we're a long way, 10 years into it, really, at this point compared to the Steve Jobs era in the previous decade from say 2000 to 2010. And it kind of breaks neatly on the decade markers, really. Apple had a lot fewer products, fewer product lineups, and within each lineup, fewer products. And tended to get rid of old ones when new ones came. And if new, whatever new ipods came and you wanted one of the old ones, you better get one quick because they would disappear. Whereas the Tim Cook formula across the line is this. Introduce new ones at the high end in the mid range and keep older years old hardware and move it down to lower price points. It works. I don't mean this as criticism of Tim Cook versus Steve Jobs. I think it's the nature of Apple's incredible growth over that period. I think that what, what Apple is doing and with keeping the Series 3 watch at a 199 price point, which on a percentage basis is a lot cheaper than the 279 starting point for the Watch SE, you know, what's it called? Apple Watch SE. That's on a percentage basis it's pretty significant. I can't do the math in my head, but it's got to be what, 25% more or a third more?

Stephen Pulvirent (44:55)

Yeah.

John Gruber (45:00)

It gets more people in the ecosystem. And I think it's clear when Apple uses this SE name it tends to mean it's somewhere in between product generations and it means lower price and something that will stay around for a while. And so like when they say it's a Series four or a Series five or Series six, that's like an annual schedule. I think that what we now have is the SE will be in the lineup for years to come at lower and lower price points. And by not putting a number on it, it doesn't really make it seem old. It just sort of means this is the SE and it'll be there for a while. And if it gets more people in the door and gets them into the basics of just tracking their health in general with the watch, getting their notifications and some of those ecosystem things like getting into Apple Pay, which for me using the watch for Apple Pay and this whole quarantine thing without touching and going places and paying and not having to use my phone with a mask on, which everybody knows is a pain. And you just double click the thing on your watch and move it up against the Apple Pay sensor. And that feels so amazing in a way that it didn't before this whole thing started. The $199 price point is the main issue. Clearly that's why the old watch stays around. I think it just speaks to the reach that Apple is trying to get to with this product.

Om Malik (46:30)

Yeah, I think the other thing we should not forget that there is a lot of $200 watches out there which can be replaced by the Apple Watch. A lot of people buy those $200 watches. Clearly not Hodinkee dealers, but definitely tons of companies have benefited from those low priced watches. And I think we should keep an eye on the continuous erosion of Fossil as a brand and all these so called designer watches. I think that's the market Apple can suck in pretty easily. This is a classic strategy. We've seen it before with the iPhone. But then there is another aspect to this product which is data. I think the amount of data they can gather with more devices in the market, the better they can educate the so called the brains of their AI to keep making the device more useful. Even though they're doing it with privacy and all those kind of issues as core of their business strategy, they still learn a lot. If more people are using this watch and I think the more devices means better data for making better analysis and better research over a period of time, I think there is a huge upside to them trying to expand the footprint of the product.

Stephen Pulvirent (47:58)

Yeah, that's that, that last bit, Ohm I think is, is particularly interesting is, is the idea of expanding the number of people using Apple Watch both to make Apple Watch better and also presumably it's, it's to bring people into the Apple ecosystem too. I mean at $199, that's got to be, that's got to be the least expensive piece of Apple hardware since maybe the ipod shuffle back in the day and the ability to kind of get into the ecosystem at that level maybe eventually brings people into iPhone, maybe it gets people subscribing to icloud to Apple music, all of those things. And that's gotta be a part of the strategy here, right?

Om Malik (48:44)

Yeah, I mean the younger cynical me would also see it as it's a trillion dollar company, they gotta keep growing so they gotta suck up money from every, every which way they can.

Stephen Pulvirent (48:55)

No, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. I don't think that's cynical. I think that, you know, I'm trying.

Om Malik (48:59)

To be more positive about everything these days. So.

Stephen Pulvirent (49:06)

I don't, I don't know, I don't think there's anything, anything inherently negative about that. I mean like they're, they're, it makes sense and it's, it's good to kind of call it what it is I guess. But I don't know. One of the takeaways for me from the keynote and I said this in the little video we produced on Hodinkee, but you know, with Apple really hammered home the ways in which Apple Watch is a gateway to Apple services and to whether they're Apple's in house services or what you can get through the App Store, which we know Apple also makes a nice profit on. But you know, the keynote started with Tim Cook running through all the apps he uses on a daily basis on His Apple Watch. Everybody who got up on the sort of like virtual stage, everybody who was a part of this video for the Watch section was talking about all the things they do, all the apps they use, all the services they subscribe to. And I think with things like Fitness plus and the way that the Apple Watch integrates with that, which is coming sometime in the next few, few weeks, weeks and months, the new Apple One subscription service. I also, I think at this point Apple Watch is a pretty nice anchor to the Apple services and it's maybe incentive for people who are, you know, Spotify users to switch over or people who are using Google Drive to maybe switch over to icloud to just kind of streamline everything and to be able to do that with, you know, obviously I'm sure Apple makes a pretty penny on, on a $199 watch, but I would imagine that if that gets the customer to sign up for a 999amonth service, that service very quickly outstrips the Watch in terms of financial firepower. Right?

John Gruber (50:52)

I don't know. I guess so, you know, you know, if you can just do the quick math again and you know, somebody subscribed for, you know, $15 a month times 10 months is $150, you know, so what, $180 a year, you're up to almost to the cost of the Watch and that's, you know, presumably the margins are higher on the services than, than the hardware. Yeah, but it's, you know, it's complicated math because like they don't own the music and they actually have to pay for Apple music. They have to pay the actual artists and, but yeah, I mean it's, I think it's just a general overall strategy of getting people into an ecosystem and lock in gets a bad word, you know, and if you, you know, people can be annoyed by it, but it's like sometimes the lock in isn't like a strategic penalty or a trap that's been set, but it's really just, well, if you buy into our version of X, Y and Z, they just work together nicer, you know, and you're, you, are you. It does keep you in. And then even if you're not an enthusiast who wants to upgrade their phone every one year or every two years and you really just want to buy one of these phones and a watch and use it for five or six years until it really is outdated, it still, even in that long range game where you're playing a half decade at a time to get the consumer's upgrade money. They don't even think about it. Right. They think even if they haven't bought a new phone for five years, they think, well, maybe this is the year I'll get a new phone. Everybody's pictures look better than mine. I'll get a new camera. And if they're thinking which new iPhone should I buy instead of which new phone should I buy or which new Apple watch should I buy as opposed to what watch or fitness tracker should I buy? The strategic benefits of that are obvious. You don't have to be a business genius to see that if you can get a lot of people thinking that, it's a huge benefit.

Stephen Pulvirent (53:04)

Yeah, totally. To get out of the shift strategy stuff, I do want to make sure we talk about the nitty gritty of the hardware of the Series 6. And one of the things that comes with the Series 6 are the new bands. And John, I know you've written quite a bit over the last couple weeks. You're sort of the solo loop whisperer or guru on the web. But yeah, I'm just curious what you guys thought about the new bands. I have kind of mixed feelings that I've talked about a little bit before, but I'm curious what your takes are on the new bands.

John Gruber (53:42)

Well, I guess I should go first since I've been told I'm the guru. My wife tweeted that somebody was talking about it and she tweeted that you should ask me because apparently that's my new full time job is measuring watch bands. I had to laugh. I like them a lot. I think it's a very. I think anybody who's into watches knows how, how unusual it is to sell watch straps that are sized so precisely and can't be resized right. There's certain rubber watches, rubber straps you can buy where you cut them to size and now it's custom fit to you. But this idea that they come from the factory in 12 sizes and they're about 5 to 6 millimeters difference, very small, half a, you know, half. A little bit over half a centimeter between, you know, say a size 6 and a size 7. You got to get the right one. And that's a really. It just feels like this is something they've been working on for a long time. It wasn't like an idea that popped into their head just for 2020. And in just the way 2020 worked out, it's not the best because it's like buying shoes. You really do want to try these straps on in person and you can't in most of the country, in a large part of the world, because you can't go places, can't go into stores and just try things on. I'm enjoying them, though. They sent me both of the new ones. The regular solo loop, the rubber one, and the braided fabric one. I'm wearing the braided one more. Even though I like it less. I find that it is really, really varies. You know, again, Hodinkee podcast, I can definitely talk about this and everybody will be like, yeah, yeah, I know it's like, but your wrist changes size as like your temperature changes, the air temperature changes. It's like a wristband or a watch band that fits you perfectly in the morning, might be tight by midday or vice versa. And I find the braided loop is way more susceptible to that. Where it's like, huh. I've bragged on my site about how perfectly the size 7 fits me. Now it feels real loose and then I go to bed and it's like, oh, it's tight and it's left a mark on my wrist. Whereas the rubber one, it feels a little bit stretchier and just feels like. It always feels just right. I like them a lot, but I think it's a nightmare logistically for Apple to deal with getting people these sizes when they can't actually try them on.

Stephen Pulvirent (56:16)

Yeah. Have you been able to find a good fit with the new bands?

Om Malik (56:22)

I have not tried these two. I have only read about them on John's blog, so. Or on his tweet stream. I am using the sport band when I, when I actually, you know, wear the watch. I do have a favorite strap which is from a company called Nomad. They make a leather strap which I absolutely love. It's very, it's very, you know, it's like your very classic watch like strap and I love, I love wearing that though. I got The Blue Series 6 and the Sport Band in Blue with the Series 6 looks so good. I haven't been wearing the Nomad strap as much on this one, but I do like how easy it is to, to swap out straps on the watch. I just, I love doing that, you know, but I will now that, you know, John is waxed, eloquent about the braided one and the other one. I might have to drop some coin on them.

Stephen Pulvirent (57:22)

Yeah, I really, I've been a fan of the sport band for, for a long time. It's one of my favorite watch straps, period. You know, if I could, if I could throw one on some of my mechanical watches, I, I definitely Would but the sport.

Om Malik (57:37)

Just interrupt. Yeah, one second. I think this, the John's point on the, on the straps and how long they've been working on. We already forgot the melanese loop strap which they did when they introduced the watch, you know, the sportsman. These are little things which we don't realize how well executed they are. You know, I think this is the beauty of Apple. I think sometimes we get caught up in the trillion dollar valuation and the hype around all the fancy products. It's the things they do for or you know, the little things they do which no one actually sees. That's what makes them a better company than others. That's it. Like that is that, that Milanese loop strap. There is others out in the market which cost like many more, you know, hundreds of dollars and they don't feel as good as that one does it, you know, they don't work as well as that one does the, the fact that this sports brand doesn't make you sweat on your, you know, on your wrist, like have like. Because we haven't noticed, right. We don't talk about it. And I think that's the genius of Apple design is that they make you products which you don't really talk about in like how good they are. We just only talk about when they don't work as well as they should because we expect them to be like, I just love these structures, straps, like whatever straps they do. Just like, you know, I love the AirPod Pro when they came out and it's like, wow, this is actually a great product. And I think that is what I love about this company is the little things. Just the little things. Not the ooha big, big bang announcement. Just the little stuff they do is so, so much more exciting for me.

Stephen Pulvirent (59:26)

Yeah, I, I think that's an amazing point. And I think, you know, the, the straps are in so many ways heads and shoulders above what most traditional watchmakers are doing. And we've seen the impact on some of the bigger traditional watchmakers from Apple. I mean, we saw after Apple released bracelets that you could size at home. I mean, for how many, you know, dozens of years have you know, these big, you know, fancy Swiss watch companies been making bracelets and been re engineering and re engineering their bracelets. And it took Apple stepping in to say, you know, maybe, maybe you should be able to size it at home. Maybe you shouldn't have to go to a jeweler. Maybe if your wrist swells or if the weather changes or whatever and you want one more or one Less link. You should be able to do that, you know, with your fingernail instead of needing a tool. And we've seen brands like, I mean Cartier introduced it I guess about 18 months after Apple introduced it, maybe 24 months. But I think it's, they're not the only ones. And I think the easy interchange of bands has also pushed watchmakers, you know, not even just engineering better bands themselves, but making it easier for people to change them. Because like you said, ohm, like I love the ability to, you know, I go for a run and I have the, the Velcro sport loop on it, but then I want to put the rubber sport band for the rest of the day or whatever. And the ability to do that so easily is, is kind of contagious and people love it and people get really excited about it and the, the kind of old traditional players have, have had to adapt. And I think it's interesting those, you know, people like to talk about our, you know, again, big picture versus small picture. Like is the Apple watch creating a whole new generation of buyers that are gonna buy Swiss watches? Is it secretly saving the industry? Like, oh, who knows? And people love to wring their hands about that. But what people don't talk about is like, did the Apple watch's bracelet cause a bunch of 200 year old companies to say, oh, we never thought of that. Maybe we can do this better by looking outside instead of only focusing inside.

John Gruber (61:42)

One of my favorite little things, I know OM is just singing the praises of the Milanese loop, which I don't prefer myself, but my wife swears by because she likes a very tight fit and it's because it's infinitely adjustable, because it's magnetic. It can be just the way she likes it all day, including if she has to just do a slight readjustment because her wrist is a little swollen. Or, you know, the opposite. But one of my favorite little things is they've had that band since they debuted. But like about two years ago maybe along with the series four, they, they didn't announce it, they didn't call it like the 2.0, but they subtly changed the design such that the magnetic clasp can't fall through the loop accidentally. Like when you take it off. It's just this subtle little tweak where you used to, for the first few years had to be careful when you took it off that you didn't open it too far or it would go through the loop. And now it stays closed, but just in a big wide open O so you can get it off your hand and it's like they didn't need to do that. It was already a popular premium strap for people who like that look or like that infinitely adjustable magnetic closure. But they still improved it. You know, like and the fact that they go back and that little things like that bug them and they go and fix them even on a strap that is obviously not one of the best selling ones because it's, you know, it's, it's expensive compared to the sport band type bands. But they still go back and fix it. That to me speaks to the level of detail and that sort of bring your A game rest of the watch industry whether you're making sport watch, you know, digital watches or totally mechanical watches.

Stephen Pulvirent (63:44)

Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's a really, really, really great point. You know the idea that Apple, Apple brings its A game and like, I mean we get, we get crap from people every time, you know, this cycle comes around, you know, every September. Oh, you know, Hodinkee only has nice things to say about Apple. Why are they never critical of the Apple watch? And it's, you know I think we, we are reasonably critical where there's criticism to be had. But I think it, it genuinely says a lot about Apple that like they, they rarely just like totally biff it. Like they usually don't come to market with something if it's not good and thoughtful and very well considered. I mean like I can't think of the last time an Apple product came out and I was just, and I thought this was thoughtless or like how did this happen? You know. And I think there's a lot to be said for that.

Om Malik (64:40)

I think there is. Software sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. You know.

John Gruber (64:48)

The keyboards on the MacBook Pros.

Stephen Pulvirent (64:50)

Oh, you're right. You are absolutely right. I haven't had to scrape dirt out of my spacebar since yesterday, so shows you how good my memory is.

John Gruber (64:59)

But, but it's, it's sort of the exception that proves the rule where it stands out all the more. Right. Like if it had been some other brand like Lenovo. Well, Lenovo really has a good reputation for the keyboard. But Dell maybe and they had a bum two year or three year run of keyboards. People would have complained. It might have been a story. But it really stuck out for Apple because it just seemed so baffling. It was like how do they surely know this? Why are they being so obstinate about it?

Stephen Pulvirent (65:27)

Yeah, no, that's very true.

Om Malik (65:29)

On talking about the straps in 2015 I wrote a piece called the Should Must and Apple's little details basically, which is, I was talking about just the strap and like straps, what they were doing with the watch and some of the other things they've done over the years. And I think my conclusion was that this is a company which takes craftsmanship to an industrial scale, which is what makes it different. I don't know whether that will continue forever but they have taken that ideology of being craftsman, being, you know, taking an artisan approach to making mass produced industrial scale products. That is what makes them like Apple. I think in my mind that's what makes them Apple. And the minute you start to see them go away from that, that probably would be the first sign of alarm bells in my mind because that is how I view this company. A lot of things they do are not perfect. Am I happy about the App Store economics and all? Am I happy about the, the keyboard but, or the software? There is so many issues. No, I'm not going to deny that there are those problems but my God, just you look at these little things and you just say, you know, respect, that's all.

Stephen Pulvirent (66:46)

Yeah, well we're starting to run out of time here but I want to ask one more question and kind of to close this off. And it's the question I get asked more than any other question about Apple Watch. And so I am going to punt it to the two of you and let you give our listeners your answers. But the big question is should I upgrade? Right, if you already own an Apple Watch or if you're somebody looking for the first time, those answers might be slightly different. But I'm curious for each of you, what are kind of the yes, you should give this a shot and no you shouldn't give this a shot parameters for the Series 6.

Om Malik (67:32)

My answer to that question is if you are someone who has health as your priority or you have some, you know, other medical requirements in which, you know, you constantly need to monitor your physical activity, this is a no brainer, you should get it. It's better than the previous one. And as somebody who has a heart condition and who's diabetic and who has blood pressure problems, I love this product, period. The second thing I would say is if you're not in that category then you can easily go in for the lower priced models like the SE or the Series 3 and you'll be fine.

Stephen Pulvirent (68:16)

John, where do you stand on this?

John Gruber (68:19)

You know that I'm obsessed with the always on display and I always was, I knew it as I was doing it. And until they, until they did it last year, I spent way too many words every year reviewing the watch, complaining about the fact that the display would go off when you turned your wrist away. And so and I think for listeners of this podcast it is as life changing for me life changing sounds dramatic but that's how it feels. It just, I always say like it just little things. It's just surprising to me how many times I gladly glance at my watch to see the time off angle and I just want to see it. And so if you have one of the ones before the last year's Series five and that drives you nuts at all, it is as game changing as you think to upgrade to one that has the always on display. If you have the Series 5 from last year, I would say no, definitely not. In fact, me personally, I'm definitely, I have a Series 5 I bought last year. I wouldn't even think about upgrading to a Series six because the blood oxygen thing alone doesn't mean enough to me and even the improved brightness for the always on display, that doesn't really change it for me. But if you have an older one, I would say it's funny because we talked about the Series three still being on sale, but if you bought a Series 3 when it was brand new, I think it is a very good upgrade. I think that about a three year upgrade cycle on these, if you like wearing it gets you a lot. And I think that somebody upgrading from a Series three that they've worn for three years will be shocked at how much better the battery life is.

Om Malik (69:57)

I wanted to add one point, just, you know, I think we didn't talk about it and I would be remiss if we don't. We don't if I don't bring it up. First of all, you know, take John's advice. He knows Apple products better than any other human on the world on the planet. Second of all, you know, we should not just view this as a device, I think as an Apple device or a singular piece of hardware. In reality, Apple device is a microcosm of how technology and humans are going to interface all these sensors. Apple Watch is the ideal representation of what I've been writing about, which is called Sensor View. Our future is all about taking all these sensor inputs, cobbling them together into a beautiful user experience and making it relevant to people like to our daily lives or to our daily needs. I think that is what is the missing piece about the Apple Watch that it has given us a template of how we are going to live and coexist with sensors into the future in a more humanistic fashion, where privacy is protected, data is protected, and it's still very individual, but it's getting there. And I think this is why I get excited about the Apple Watch Series 6, because it's pointing to our new future with technology. But I couldn't let it go because I am that excited about the potential and the future ahead of us.

Stephen Pulvirent (71:33)

No, I love that. I'm glad you brought it up. And we'll link up to the blog post you wrote, Apple Watch's Sensory Overload, which I think does a pretty good job unpacking that further. I think people can get a little more of what you're talking about from that story. So we'll link that up in the show notes. People can check that out after they're done listening. So, yeah. Thank you guys both for joining. I mean, I said it earlier and I really mean it. My favorite part of going to these events is, is the chance to get out to California and to see kind of everybody who descends on Cupertino for this day long event. And so if we couldn't do it in person, it's nice to get to chat with you and get your thoughts here on Zoom and on mic for everybody to listen to.

John Gruber (72:23)

Well, it was a pleasure.

Om Malik (72:24)

Thank you, Stephen and thank you, John. It was great to catch up after all these months.

Stephen Pulvirent (72:30)

Awesome. Well, thanks guys. And hopefully, hopefully we can do it in person over, over a cup of coffee sometime soon. Deal.

John Gruber (72:38)

From your lips to coronavirus's ears.

Stephen Pulvirent (72:42)

I feel like if I say it at the end of every episode, I feel like I can, I can will it into being.

Om Malik (72:47)

I'm hoping 2021 is, is better than, than what we've been through.

Stephen Pulvirent (72:52)

So you and me both.

Om Malik (72:55)

Yeah.

John Gruber (72:56)

All right, I will see you guys.

Om Malik (72:58)

Yeah. Take care. Of sam.