0:17

Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host

0:19

Joshua Topolski, and today on the podcast,

0:22

boy have we got one for you? Boy

0:25

oh boy. I'm very excited

0:27

because I have been thinking

0:30

a lot about reality and

0:33

how terrible it is

0:35

and how I'd like to escape it. I

0:38

feel like I'm not giving reality a good affair shake.

0:40

The truth is reality is actually pretty excellent, unless

0:43

you read the news. I don't recommend that. But

0:45

there's been a lot of talk recently about a new

0:47

Apple product that is coming out which

0:49

is supposedly going to be a headset,

0:53

a thing you wear on your face that

0:55

does virtual reality and augmented

0:57

reality, and suppose

1:00

will have a screen that shows your eyeballs

1:02

on it when you're using it, which sounds very

1:04

normal and not dystopian at all, and

1:06

I'm sure lots of people will really enjoy

1:09

that. Anyhow, there has been a ton of great writing

1:11

done by Mark German at Bloomberg.

1:14

I am a huge fan of his, and we've got him

1:16

on the show today to get into the guts

1:18

of the Apple headset and all of what the

1:20

company's working on around that. So let's

1:22

get into this conversation because I have got

1:24

a lot to say.

1:43

You are like probably at

1:45

the top of the pyramid of

1:47

Apple scoopers, Like you have

1:49

more inside info on this company

1:52

than I think anybody has ever

1:54

had in my experience, and I've been reading, as

1:56

you well know, I've been reading and writing about this shit

1:58

for a long time. You are consistently

2:01

one hundred percent correct with them, which is or like

2:03

ninety percent correct with them, which is very

2:05

rare. So first, I want to say kudos to you for being

2:08

some kind of Apple Ninja's very

2:10

strange situation. But I applaud you,

2:13

Thank you. But the reason I want to

2:15

talk to you is because we are on the precipice supposedly,

2:18

as so you claim on the precipice

2:20

of Apple releasing a

2:24

mixed reality headset? Does VR

2:26

and AR? Correct? Stop me if any of this

2:28

sounds incorrect. Okay, they've been

2:30

working on this headset. It's a thing you wear on your

2:32

face, you wear over your eyes. It

2:34

does VR, it does AR. It

2:37

is a product that you claim that

2:39

Apple is going to announce. Tim Cook is going

2:41

to announce on stage at WWDC

2:44

on June Is it fifth? Is that the

2:46

date? Yeah?

2:47

June fifth, Monday, June fifth.

2:49

Literally like next week, right, Yes,

2:51

just give us the quick like where did this

2:53

come from? Because I have a lot of questions about it? Yes,

2:56

you just share whatever you think is like a good setup

2:58

for this thing.

3:00

Kicked off after the Apple Watch came out

3:02

in twenty fifteen. They were sort of looking for their

3:04

next idea, right. The hardware

3:06

engineering group hired a guy named Mike Rockwell,

3:09

who was the CTO of Dolby and

3:11

before that was the CTO of Avid

3:14

super Into Displays, super

3:16

Into VR, super Into

3:18

high quality Audio. They hired

3:21

Tom Holmansen, who was the

3:23

creator of THHX, which

3:26

is the studio behind the audio

3:29

from Star Wars, which is, as everyone

3:31

knows, one of the paramount

3:34

reasons people love Star Wars is because of the soundtrack,

3:37

right, and so this is a music expert,

3:39

and Apple's design team at the same time

3:42

was looking at virtual reality, augmented

3:45

reality head worn devices, and

3:48

you know, one thing led to another. They came

3:50

together and they started working on this device.

3:52

They did many explorations around

3:54

use cases. They used Samsung

3:57

Gear vrs, they used HDC

3:59

vibes, they used every Nascent and

4:01

VR headset that was available eight years ago

4:03

to run demos on demo to Tim Cook, the

4:05

executive team, the board of directors.

4:07

Right, eight years ago they started working

4:09

on this.

4:10

This is eight years ago, right. And you remember

4:12

when Steve Jobs announced the original

4:15

iPhone, he said, this is a day I've been looking forward

4:17

to for two and a half years, right.

4:19

Right.

4:20

You remember when the Apple Watch was announced,

4:22

they said that was about a two to three year development

4:24

process. Right, We're talking seven eight

4:26

years here. Now there's more to

4:28

it, but you know that's a long

4:30

development process.

4:32

I mean, here's what I'll say. I mean, I want to

4:34

hear all this backstory, but like I mean,

4:36

I'm a little bit in disbelief, like if you're in. By

4:38

the way, your scoop record, as I said at the top

4:40

of this, is very good. So you

4:42

know, it's rare that you write something and with this much

4:45

detail, Like look at the background here that

4:47

you're sharing and the stuff that you shared in your stories on Bloomberg.

4:49

Right, And I tweeted about this. I was and

4:52

a lot of people responded to this feels like the

4:54

most unlike Apple thing

4:56

that I've ever heard of. It's like the development process,

4:59

the infighting. You you wrote about the infighting

5:02

there, the fact that this is a device that

5:04

sits on your face. Apple

5:07

often comes into a market and like it's

5:09

like there's a little bit of a market and they blow it up and they turn

5:11

it into a huge market. I don't

5:14

even know if there is a market for this in

5:16

a widespread way, because like, getting

5:19

people to wear anything on their face is difficult.

5:21

People get laser surgery on their eyes

5:24

to avoid wearing glasses, right, and

5:27

I like glasses, Like I'm a glass.

5:28

I'll tell you so. A few years ago,

5:31

they were trying to figure out how they can get the weight down

5:33

right in the device and the overall size. So

5:35

you're kind of screw your glasses my front because

5:38

you're not going to be able to wear those and the headset

5:41

together.

5:41

Okay, I mean that alone sounds okay. See everything

5:44

you're saying. See when I hear this shit, what

5:46

I think is and this is why I'm so like I wanted

5:48

to talk to you because I this just

5:50

sounds like it's not going to happen.

5:52

Well, there's going to be a prescription system

5:54

where you pay a couple hundred bucks and you'scriptions.

5:57

Does that sound like something Apple would do?

5:59

Like?

5:59

Does it? Actually?

6:01

It does? Okay, that specific

6:03

feature, yes, but if you're

6:05

asking about this device in

6:07

general, the answer would be no, this is definitely

6:09

the new Apple so to

6:12

speak. Right, right, this is they're trying

6:14

something new. You know, depending

6:16

on who you talk to there, there's mixed confidence

6:18

in how this thing is going to do. But I

6:20

think the through line, what most people

6:23

at the company, the decision makers have understood,

6:26

is that this thing is going to start off remarkably

6:29

slow. I think even maybe slower

6:31

than the Apple Watch. Right, actually,

6:33

probably much slower than the Apple Watch.

6:35

I would imagine it's going to be expensive

6:37

too, right, It's not cheap.

6:38

It's going to be expensive. It's going to be roughly

6:41

three thousand dollars. So

6:43

I would say anywhere from the high twos

6:46

to the low threes. Now that's pretty

6:48

you know, eye melting. But if you look at the XR market

6:51

in general, they're probably in

6:53

the Hollow Lens to Magic Leap price range.

6:55

Yeah, we know those two devices failed.

6:58

But I was going to say, Magic Leap is like

7:00

a they'll teach the story of Magical

7:02

Leap in business classes about

7:04

like this vaporware company. Right, Like

7:06

Magic Leap was a company that was making a headset

7:09

that people were like, this is like magic.

7:11

Literally when you put it on, you're transported.

7:13

It can do anything. It's the it's the

7:15

be all, end all, it's the next iPhone whatever. And then the

7:17

company just has fizzled out, like they'd never been able to

7:19

ship any real meaningful product,

7:22

certainly not a consumer facing product, right, Hollo

7:24

lens. That's Microsoft's entrant, right, which

7:26

was a mixed reality. I mean,

7:28

I think they basically wanted to target

7:31

enterprise, right. It was like a business,

7:34

a lab maybe like a warehouse

7:36

type of device you might use like for some ar

7:39

assisted stuff. That's also kind

7:41

of fizzled, right, it has.

7:43

But Apple's going to shoehorn this thing into working

7:45

out. I mean that's my belief.

7:48

You think this is not only that this is going

7:50

to happen for real, you believe that

7:53

that they're going to announce this product.

7:54

I'm in trouble if they don't.

7:56

But yes, right of course, yes,

7:58

But I mean, you know, listen, the

8:00

way you write it, though, is

8:02

the kind of product that they could get very close

8:04

to and then look at it, do the demo and

8:07

say, you know what, like it's not there yet, right,

8:09

Like that that has happened well.

8:11

Back to the like the more comparing the timelines

8:13

on development processes three years for the previous

8:16

two products and then eight years

8:18

for this. Let's see, this

8:20

has been delayed three or four times. The original

8:22

original original pipe dream was twenty

8:24

twenty. Obviously that got pushed

8:27

to twenty one, then twenty two, and then twenty

8:29

three. They were going to announce it in January,

8:32

then they were gonna announce it in the spring. Right,

8:34

and here we are WWDC.

8:36

It's it's locked, It's it's locked and loaded.

8:38

At this point, I don't see any

8:41

way around that.

8:42

Can you describe it like physically? Do you

8:44

know? Have you seen it? Have you tried it?

8:46

I have not tried it. I've tried the Quest three,

8:48

but I have not tried this one.

8:49

Okay, but the Quest three is not we're not talking

8:51

it. That's not in the same ballpark. No I know has

8:54

this right? So you wrote about it having an external

8:56

battery pack. First off, is that staying.

8:59

You know, like the mag Safe battery like

9:01

they started selling a few years that you can put on the back of the

9:03

iPhone anchor if you other companies

9:05

sell that looks like that about bigger.

9:07

It's about the size of an iPhone and

9:10

you connected over a cable.

9:12

The cable is lodged into the battery pack, you plug

9:14

it into the headset and it goes over a wire. And

9:17

the two considerations there were safety and

9:20

weight. Obviously, with the product like this, you wanted

9:22

as portable as possible and as light as possible,

9:25

right, and getting the battery out of there was a

9:28

big help in my thinking, is even

9:30

though they wanted to get the battery in there initially,

9:32

and even though for these types of products you do want

9:34

the battery to eventually be in the frame

9:37

itself. Remember the Apple

9:39

Wash they launched with one day of battery

9:42

life, and the initial speculation

9:44

was, oh, over time, they're going to increase the battery life.

9:46

Now sure, ten years later we got the Apple Watch Ultro.

9:49

Yeah, it's only a little bit increased. It's

9:51

like, right, two three days instead of one. It's not

9:53

that great, that's right.

9:55

But in what they did, they had two options,

9:57

right, they had let's

10:00

add to the battery life, or

10:02

let's add more and more power and functionality

10:04

without reducing the battery life.

10:06

Right.

10:07

They've done that with the iPad as well. Obviously,

10:09

the iPhone's a bit different they had to go in

10:11

a situation where they had to increase

10:13

the performance and increase battery life.

10:15

Right, but I think the headset were probably locked

10:18

into this external battery situation for

10:20

years to come, and ideas people

10:22

are gonna be okay with that, let's add more performance

10:25

rather than sort of taper it down

10:27

and get the battery back inside.

10:29

I want to talk about the naming thing.

10:30

For a minute though, Yeah, yeah, please do it, please do So.

10:33

They've trademarked quite a few names, right,

10:35

So, they trademarked the name Reality

10:38

one. They trademarked the name Reality

10:40

Pro. They've trademarked

10:42

a few potential operating system names.

10:45

They've trademarked the name Reality

10:47

OS. They've trade marked the name

10:49

XROS. They've trademarked the name Reality

10:52

PROS and XR pros. Right,

10:55

here's what I can tell you for fact, Right, for fact,

10:57

the OS itself is going to be called

11:00

XR OS.

11:02

Right.

11:02

They were originally going to call it Reality OS.

11:04

It was sort of the working title, so

11:07

to speak. It was your this is my next

11:09

before the verbs. Right.

11:11

We don't like that, yeah, yeah, right,

11:13

So it was.

11:13

Going to be Reality OS, and then last

11:15

year they moved from the working

11:17

title to the real name, which

11:20

is XR OS right.

11:22

Now. I think there are a couple of reasons for that.

11:24

One. I think the word reality probably

11:27

doesn't translate so cleanly internationally,

11:30

right, But I think it's a

11:32

more understandable term, at least

11:34

in the English language than x R.

11:36

Right. Yeah, XR sounds like a motorcycle,

11:38

right.

11:39

But it also sounds a little bit more high tech, right,

11:41

And Apples tries to sort of bridge that

11:44

idea of mixing tech with you

11:46

know, mass understanding. So it's a

11:48

little odd there. But this

11:50

is a highly technical product, and I think

11:52

it's initially going to appeal to a very niche audience,

11:55

So perhaps it makes sense. What they really are

11:57

trying to do is sort of, in their minds, create

11:59

this x mixed reality market, and

12:01

so it would help them own that market

12:03

from a marketing standpoint, the XR market.

12:06

Back to the naming conventions, so they

12:08

went from reality OS right to

12:11

XROS. And if you have an operating

12:13

system called reality OS, the logic

12:16

would be that the device itself would

12:18

be called the reality right or the Reality

12:20

pro, just like the iPad runs

12:22

iPad OS, the watch, watch OS, TV

12:24

t v OS et cetera. Right, they've

12:27

switched to XROS on

12:29

the operating system name. Does

12:32

that mean the device is called the XR

12:34

Pro running XROS.

12:36

Does it make sense to have a Reality Pro running

12:39

XROS or does it make more sense to have an XR pro

12:41

running XROS? What Apple release

12:43

a product called the XR Pro, Like the

12:46

mass consumer is not going to know what XR pro

12:48

means? Right? And so those

12:51

are the questions I'd like to see answered,

12:53

which will obviously be answered. It's WWDC,

12:56

Right, That's what's been on my mind lately.

12:58

That's interesting. XR is

13:00

I mean presumably that means mixed reality, right?

13:02

Is that what we're supposed to be XR is? Or

13:04

I mean x has usually not used the

13:06

mixed but crossed reality, mixed reality

13:09

whatever let's call it. That

13:11

makes sense in a global way of

13:13

describing it, right, like the for the format.

13:16

Forget about whether they call it reality or

13:18

XR. Look, I've seen a lot of

13:20

really impressive demos of mixed reality,

13:23

and I'm sure you have as well. I've seen a lot of and no doubt

13:25

Apple can do this better than anybody. Like, I'm not questioning

13:28

that they can't execute something

13:30

that's a better product, right, we know that they can.

13:32

They can take a smartphone, You've

13:34

seen a million of them, and they can make it something really

13:36

special and really like cohesive. What

13:39

I wonder though, in what's sort of not in

13:41

your in that bigger piece, is

13:44

a question about the consumer aspect

13:47

of it, the relationship to consumer

13:49

desire. Listen, as a guy who's

13:51

tried all the VR headsets, was unbelievably

13:54

excited about Oculus when they first appeared. Was

13:56

like the biggest fan in the world. I've

13:58

dreamed of VR my whole life. Like all

14:01

of the experiences have not only have they been like ultimately

14:04

sort of impressive, but disappointing in

14:06

the long run. What I found is

14:08

like, oh, wearing this thing on my head and

14:10

being removed from reality

14:12

and having these experiences, it's a very

14:14

kind of like singular private

14:17

experience that you can only do once in a while.

14:19

And I'm a nerd, Okay, remember I'm one of the

14:21

biggest fucking nerds in the world. They

14:24

also make me motion sick, Okay, Like,

14:26

those experiences.

14:27

Have problems, right, I don't want to get too tmi.

14:29

But the first time I

14:31

tried the quest this was the

14:33

original quest. I had

14:36

lunch before using it. It wasn't so pretty

14:38

and so, oh my god, you really got to

14:40

get the IPD correct right, the pupil

14:43

distance.

14:43

Right, you have to the latency has to be But even

14:45

then, I don't know that. Like you still are

14:48

challenged by lots of different things. But so this

14:50

is the thing, Like I understand

14:52

consumers wear watches, right, Like I can

14:54

make an art. I can hear the argument at Apple

14:57

like, hey, they wear these things in their wrists, right,

14:59

maybe more people I would wear it if we could give them a reason

15:01

to put it on. You know, there's already health trackers.

15:03

We know that's a big market. We could bite into that market.

15:05

There's already a watch market. It's a big market. We know we could

15:08

bite into that market. Maybe not everybody wants

15:10

to wear the Apple Watch, but we can bring people around

15:12

over time, and they certainly did. Like I'm one of those

15:14

people's like I don't want I don't need it, And then I was like,

15:16

wow, I love wearing it.

15:17

I was the same, I could believe it or not. I didn't wear an Apple

15:19

Watch until the series five.

15:21

Yeah, I mean I tried a couple of them,

15:23

and I was like, it's not for me. I wore regular analog

15:25

watches, and then like the last couple of years,

15:28

I was started wearing a garment for exercise

15:30

and I was like oh. When the Aultra came out, I was like, Okay,

15:32

this is like actually what I want. Yeah, But

15:43

here's the thing I am not hearing

15:45

or seeing. And I say this as a person who would

15:48

love to see a real broad consumer

15:50

use case. I feel like when

15:52

you write about it, it feels like this product from

15:55

that era that you describe as like which

15:57

where the HCC is getting into it

16:00

and quest is coming, you know, meta, it

16:02

buys oculus and they start doing

16:04

question and again and I get it. Samsung was trying

16:06

to do VR stuff. It's like many many

16:08

years ago. This feels like a product from

16:11

a time when the excitement around that still

16:13

seem new and like possible.

16:15

Right.

16:15

I don't think consumers have embraced

16:18

these products and even want them. And so

16:20

what is Apple saying internally or what

16:22

are they how are they testing internally? I know they're

16:25

like the consumer doesn't know what it wants or whatever,

16:27

but can you give me some color on like

16:29

what's going on with their relationship to a consumer

16:31

audience for this.

16:33

Yeah, I mean that is a good question. You know, if you pull

16:35

one hundred people on the street to ask them if this is

16:37

something that they're going to use on a daily basis, the

16:39

number is going to probably be incredibly small. What

16:42

I think is that they see this as a very

16:45

very long term thing, like ten

16:47

years long term. And one

16:50

thing I believe they're going to try to do is position

16:52

it as quote, the future of the computer.

16:55

I think they see this as something that's

16:57

a Mac replacement or an iPad

16:59

replacement, So maybe five years

17:01

from now you won't own a Mac, you'll own

17:03

a headset instead. I

17:06

say that as being around long enough

17:08

to know how many people were saying that about the iPad,

17:11

and I know very few people personally

17:13

who've transitioned from a Mac to an iPad.

17:16

Fully, I will say there are millions

17:18

of people who have right, so don't

17:20

get me wrong, but I think it's going to play

17:23

out similarly to that. I mean, the best estimates

17:25

that I'm hearing are the most optimistic estimates I'm hearing.

17:28

Is this bringing in about twenty five billion

17:30

a year in revenue. That puts it on part

17:32

the iPad and the Apple Watch, which

17:34

is not nothing. It's not nothing for Apple to show

17:36

growth that's good enough. They're going to make

17:39

a big return on this investment. Within a few

17:41

years. They're going to become the market leader

17:43

in XR in terms of unit sales and

17:46

revenue probably within six

17:48

months, or revenue within six months.

17:50

Unit sales probably not as quickly. So

17:53

you know, from a market standpoint, it's

17:55

going to be a success out of the gate.

17:58

Apple standpoint, it's going to be a flop

18:00

out of the gate, I think, but eventually be

18:03

hugely successful. Like I really believe

18:05

in this long term you do because of the investment,

18:08

Yeah, I do. The ga Apple's not going to give up on this, right,

18:10

even if it takes five ten years. They're going to

18:12

shoehorn this thing till it works

18:14

out. You know, the price is going to come down eventually

18:16

too. You're going to get new features like cellular.

18:19

There are going to be big enough improvements and

18:21

a big marketing budget behind it to get people

18:24

interested in this. Right, They're going to make a whole big

18:26

deal about this thing in Apple retail stores. It's going

18:28

to drive foot traffic. They're going to try selling

18:30

other products to people who are just coming in to try

18:33

this thing on. It'll be a big

18:35

marketing exer, so a.

18:36

Lot of accessories, I'm sure a lot of

18:38

accessories. Right. So, like everything

18:40

you're describing sounds very app right, and I think like the

18:42

long the long play is possible, right,

18:44

They definitely like the I mean, I've had a good example

18:47

of something that has never found

18:49

a perfect home, but definitely there's a

18:51

big market for it. And they've created that market

18:53

really for tablets, right, right, And I

18:55

think you're right, Like I've grown

18:57

to become an iPad user, and in

18:59

fact, they just released some greats that like Logic,

19:01

the music software that has been Mac

19:04

only for a really long time. They were a music

19:06

guy before this, right, I used to produce music.

19:08

Right, I'm curious what you think, Well, I'll.

19:10

Tell you what I think. I think it's fucking amazing. And I

19:12

have been sitting on my iPad at night, like in

19:14

my downtime, making music

19:17

in Logic. Now there's some stuff that's like a little bit yanky

19:19

because it's like the iPad the

19:21

way it works is just weird for things where

19:24

you need lots of windows, like it just doesn't want

19:26

to do that. But like in terms of a tool.

19:28

It's like unbelievably powerful and really

19:30

really good for what it's like what you want it to be.

19:32

And I think it's going to work in the headset. I

19:34

think that app run in the headset.

19:36

So that sounds like a super fun like

19:38

I can see, like listen, I mean Jaron Lanier,

19:41

who is the guy who basically invented VR,

19:43

who's written about technology for years, for

19:45

decades and decades, he's really like become

19:47

like a philosopher when it comes to this

19:49

technology. Originally,

19:51

you know, kind of created VR for this purpose

19:54

of working in a larger space, Like he was dealing

19:56

with these really large numbers that you couldn't look out on a monitor.

19:59

So I see the commercial applications

20:01

there, right, I can see like there's

20:03

going to be places, like I said, where hollow Lens was maybe

20:06

targeting, or where magic Leap hope

20:08

to target where I can see more of a retail

20:10

or commercial application.

20:12

What's so weird to me though, is if

20:15

you look at the landscape of today, right

20:18

so peak COVID, I'd see this as

20:20

being a really attractive product, right like when we were

20:22

had peak COVID, when everybody was at

20:24

home we had lockdowns, we had like

20:26

everybody was scared to kind of go out and socialize.

20:28

Like I think that's when you know, that's when Facebook

20:31

tried to kind of capture with their metaverse

20:33

bullshit. They kind of tried to capture this

20:35

moment of like, hey, we're going to all move to this

20:37

different kind of like way of communicating

20:40

and computing and working and blah blah blah.

20:42

But I feel like if you look at the hit rate

20:44

now again and maybe this Apple sees that as a market

20:47

opportunity, it feels like such an

20:49

off key entry.

20:51

Like we've seen so many versions

20:54

of this that had been really rejected and

20:56

in fact, like none surprisingly,

20:58

but Facebook's huge pivot was basically

21:00

rejected as this concept of the metaverse

21:02

and being more like what I see from

21:04

society. And frankly, what Tim Cook has actually

21:07

said at many intervals

21:09

on stage is like people want

21:11

less of this, like of this

21:13

stuff in their life. They want to be less immersed

21:16

in technology. When they talked about

21:18

the watch, they were like, we want you to be less distracted

21:20

by your phone and you can get up on your you know, do

21:22

your thing. You can just glance at your watch and all this it

21:26

just feels like it flies in the face of And Tim

21:28

Cook was a big part of this, right, Like he pushed this,

21:30

This is like his product in some way, he

21:32

wanted this to happen. I mean, he runs the company.

21:35

This doesn't feel like it flies in the face of everything

21:38

that, like the industry has told us

21:40

and that consumers have told us about this.

21:42

Yes, but I think one of the

21:44

most fundamental aspects from early on in development

21:47

was how you make VR socially acceptable

21:50

and how you take people in VR without

21:52

removing them from the real world. And

21:54

there's a few tricks they have up their sleeve on

21:57

that. One is this external

21:59

display that they've been working on from

22:01

the very beginning for the headset, where it's

22:04

essentially you can see you have

22:06

this front ole a display and you see the

22:08

person's eyes who's wearing it, and so like

22:11

it's sort of like they're there or

22:13

not there.

22:14

Yeah, I mean this sounds insane, right,

22:17

Like just hearing you describe that, you're saying that

22:19

on the outside of these basically look

22:21

like ski goggles, right right, this

22:23

device is something like that you're saying on the outside

22:25

surface of it, is it covering the whole

22:28

surface of the outside the screen.

22:30

Do you know the screen A portion

22:32

of it, Yeah, where your eyes would be, and

22:34

you can you know you're moving your eyes and you can

22:36

you know you're blinking.

22:38

And so there's cameras inside of the

22:40

there's some kind of camera inside of the goggles that are

22:42

tracking your eye movements.

22:44

Yeah, eye tracking, right.

22:45

And so then it's showing people on the outside. So

22:47

do they think that you'd be walking around in public

22:50

wearing this headset?

22:51

There was a demo internally, and not only that,

22:53

that you would wear it to a party, which I think is ridiculous.

22:56

But I mean, this is the thing, Like, think about

22:58

a bunch of people at a party wearing the things on their

23:00

face and try to imagine a

23:03

desire there.

23:04

I would leave.

23:05

Now, I'm kidding right now, you probably, I

23:07

mean, if you didn't have one, you certainly would leave. Right,

23:10

That's the point, right.

23:11

I don't think they're gonna they're going to try to make

23:13

this socially acceptable. The other thing they've done

23:16

from a technology standpoint, it is a

23:18

it's a VR headset, but they've

23:20

shoehorned AR into there as a very core

23:22

component of it. Because you have these dozen

23:24

external cameras and you

23:26

have the crown on the Apple Watch. You have a bigger

23:28

version of that on the

23:30

headset, right.

23:31

So it's like that. And it's like the headphones. I have the big yeah

23:34

Apple they have that big crown on them to

23:36

adjust volume and stuff.

23:38

Right, So it's like going between VR and AR mode,

23:40

right, and so you are seeing right.

23:43

Oh, you can dial it. You can dial it to

23:45

by degrees in and out. Oh is

23:47

that the idea?

23:48

I don't know. I was described to me as on

23:50

or off.

23:51

Oh really, okay, because I was thinking like, actually, it's

23:53

a cool idea. If you could go, like I want,

23:55

like sixty percent you know, virtual

23:58

reality and forty percent you know, real or

24:00

whatever. I don't know.

24:00

Just that that I don't know that actually would make

24:03

sense.

24:03

I mean, it's a dial it's just my thought. Yeah, well

24:05

that too.

24:06

But also the idea of XR being a spectrum

24:09

as much VR as you want or as much AR

24:11

as you want, that would make a lot of sense to me

24:13

too. I think most people will

24:15

probably use it in VR mode, but you have the

24:18

AR mode there too, right. I think that it's

24:20

going to be a really interesting

24:22

differentiator from the competition, like I was using

24:24

the Quest three the other day. There's no dial to

24:26

go in and out of vr AR.

24:28

It's like a sending.

24:30

I mean, on the Quest you can switch into a mode where

24:32

you're to a pass through mode right as

24:35

flipping a dial on the top of the headset.

24:37

That's going to be something every headset maker is going to

24:39

take, you know, for sure.

24:41

And it would have to I mean presumably would have to be able

24:43

like if they imagine people at a party with this, then

24:46

the view it gives you has to be as

24:48

like close to one to one of your vision

24:50

as like you have when you're not wearing the headset,

24:52

right, because like otherwise you're going to be bumping into

24:55

shit and like you know, falling on things.

24:57

Because like you need to be able to see, like imagine

25:00

walking around and you don't have like perfect vision,

25:02

like you can't see the law or whatever.

25:04

Put it this way, I used the Quest three. This was a prototype.

25:06

By the way, this thing's not being announced for several

25:08

months. I used the Quest

25:10

three and it was pretty

25:13

on point in terms of what you're

25:15

describing, being able to walk and see what

25:17

you're doing.

25:18

That has two cameras, okay, right,

25:21

this has a dozen.

25:22

Roughly a dozen, so I would say anywhere between

25:25

ten to fourteen, right, And so you're talking

25:27

about three to five x performance of

25:29

something that, to me, someone

25:31

who uses this stuff was pretty

25:33

damn good, right, and talking about the metaproduct,

25:36

and so this is going to be this is going to be unbelievable.

25:38

People who have demoed this thing like is

25:40

rocked off their socks. I mean, they've been blown away.

25:43

See here's the thing. It's like, I believe that Apple can

25:45

execute on something like this better than anybody.

25:47

Like that's what I was saying earlier, like the

25:50

thing that just breaks my brain. I don't mean to keep coming

25:52

back to it, but it's just like I just like, I'm like, even in

25:54

the best executed sense, there's

25:56

so many things that are off putting about

25:59

this. And again I say this as

26:01

a person who desires to be able

26:03

to have these experiences, like I think this is a cool

26:05

technology that we haven't yet seen

26:08

the end of. But I

26:10

personally have gotten a little bit

26:12

deflated in terms of like what

26:15

it can provide, not just because the

26:17

experience has been bad or not as good as

26:19

I would hope, but because societally,

26:22

like culturally, I feel like

26:25

we are all feeling really

26:27

burnt on being

26:29

inside the box, right, being

26:32

inside this thing here that we're talking

26:34

on and looking at this thing all day long,

26:36

right, being immersed has become

26:38

a thing that I think for a lot of people. I

26:40

mean, listen, you're much younger than me. I'm

26:42

an old man now, I'll be dead at any day

26:44

now. But you know, like having lived through

26:46

the boom of this stuff of like the social

26:48

media era and the phone era, I'm

26:51

like, yeah, like I kind of want less of it.

26:54

And Apple is saying, okay,

26:56

but what if you put your entire fucking

26:59

face inside of it all the time? Right?

27:01

That's kind of like their bat here, which seems

27:04

weird to me.

27:05

It's scary, it's scary. I mean,

27:07

they do make these comments about like you said, they want

27:09

you to lose it, use your devices less. They don't

27:11

want you using these things. They don't want you to be addicted

27:13

to them. But if people weren't addicted to them and using them as much

27:15

as they did, they wouldn't be making they wouldn't be a three

27:17

trillion dollar company, right, So there is some nuance

27:20

there, right, They want to toe that line.

27:22

You know, what I heard from a few

27:24

people is that at the get go of this project,

27:27

you know, Apple had serious reservations

27:29

and considerations internally about creating

27:31

a product that would run counter to this idea we're

27:34

talking about.

27:34

Right.

27:35

They didn't want to create something that would keep

27:37

people out of the real world. And one

27:40

idea that they came up with internally was this argument

27:42

that if we don't do it and do it

27:44

in a responsible way, this external

27:46

display, the mixed reality focus, someone

27:49

else will do it poorly and you know, hurt

27:51

society. Now, right, that's

27:53

that opinion. It's

27:55

a preventative measure, right Yeah, No, yeah,

27:58

buy it at Walgreens. No, But that's one

28:01

end of the spectrum. The other idea here is

28:03

if Apple doesn't do this, Amazon,

28:05

Meta, Google, someone else will come with a VR

28:07

headset and destroy Apple in that market. Like

28:10

Apple was hurting smart speakers and voice

28:13

assistants and such, right.

28:14

The speaker thing I was thinking of when you were saying how

28:16

they stick with stuff long term, Like.

28:18

They just continued that after a year.

28:20

Right. There are places where Apple tries to fight

28:23

and doesn't ever really gain a

28:25

footholder. Just for

28:27

for whatever reason, they can't get

28:29

the fit right,

28:31

Like there's something about

28:34

the market doesn't want their version of it.

28:36

It's too you know, so it's like, well, I just.

28:38

They totally screwed up at the home pod at the get go

28:40

right. And if you think about you know, it

28:42

depends how you look at these things. If you consider

28:44

the home pod a major product category, that

28:47

could have been in the same vein as you

28:49

know, the iPhone, the iPod, right, the

28:51

iPad, the mac right, I consider it more

28:54

in the accessories category, something

28:56

akin to like an Apple TV or air

28:58

pods.

28:58

It's smaller, it's smaller.

29:00

They okay, that was a five six year development

29:02

process. Also because there were

29:04

numerous times where they were thinking, let's not do it, let's

29:06

do it. They had many delays. They screwed up

29:08

twofold pricing, three point fifty

29:11

out the door, awful decision,

29:13

right yep iPhone

29:16

exclusive serie exclusive, no

29:18

app integration, no

29:21

ecosystem. I mean that was just.

29:23

Are you describing describing the headset right

29:25

now? Well, high price point out.

29:27

Of the gates, high price point out of the gate.

29:28

It's definitely not going to work with anybody else's device, right,

29:30

You're not going to able to use an Android phone.

29:32

With this, it's not going to work with anyone else's device,

29:35

but it is going to run a million iPad apps

29:37

when you take it out of the box, and so they

29:39

are not going to have a content issue, and from day

29:42

one they're going to have the biggest XR

29:44

app ecosystem of any provider.

29:47

I got to tell you, I mean, I'm just I was thinking through

29:50

this. Like you mentioned that they were talking about doing logic.

29:52

It's a studio app. It is something

29:54

that people use in professional

29:56

studios to produce music. Probably most of the music

29:59

you listen to, either pro Tools or Logic

30:01

is where they people produce it. So you're

30:03

saying they just brought it to the iPad. You're saying, now

30:05

they can take that and expand it to XR

30:08

and create. Presumably you're in the headset

30:10

and you can see your score. You can see what you're

30:12

working on from like the beginning of a ten

30:15

minute song to the end of it in one glance.

30:17

Right, all right, let me take a step back. First,

30:20

iPad launched Okay, two options

30:22

for apps, full scale iPad

30:24

apps, iPhone app to x

30:27

moon't run on the iPad, right, and the

30:29

iPhone only apps died pretty quickly because

30:31

they were crappy.

30:32

I don't like where this is going.

30:33

It was a thing, right, and so this is going

30:35

to be a much better version of that.

30:37

It'll run your iPad os apps out of the box.

30:40

But you're saying like it'll run up. You're

30:42

saying it'll run a window. It'll

30:44

run a window, right, and then that's

30:47

interesting.

30:47

Right, But if the developer wants to create a native,

30:50

native XR version of

30:52

that app, they can do that also.

30:54

Right, right, So it's like an operating

30:56

system literally in the sense that I

30:59

will be able to open and look at

31:01

like multiple iPad apps

31:03

running as I would see them, or some variation

31:06

of how I would see them on an iPad, like

31:08

a in a windowed scenario essentially,

31:10

but then possibly like at a later day.

31:13

Okay, so so I can So

31:15

that's really interesting. I mean again,

31:17

but here's the thing. What I was going to say is last

31:20

night I was in my living room.

31:22

I was messing around with logic. I had my headphones

31:24

on and I had noise cancelation on, right, so I couldn't

31:26

hear anything, that's just hearing. And

31:29

my wife walked in the living room and I

31:31

literally jumped because I didn't know she was there

31:34

and I looked up and there was like a person standing there, and

31:36

I fucking jumped, you know. And then I was like, Okay,

31:38

well, I can't sit in the room with her listening

31:41

to my like logic project I'm working

31:43

on while she's like trying to talk to me or we're like,

31:45

you know, you know, going, hey, we should watch

31:47

a show or something. Like. You can't be in a room

31:50

with noise cancelation unless you expressly

31:52

want to shut the world out, right,

31:54

Like, I'm sure you've used noise cancelation on

31:56

your on your AirPods and you know what I'm talking

31:58

about. This is like noise cancelation

32:01

for your fucking eyes, I

32:04

assume additionally for your ears, right, Like,

32:06

so I'm trying to imagine that same scenario,

32:09

right, but like you're sitting in it. You're sitting in

32:11

a room, you're doing something, You're totally isolated

32:13

from people in that room. It's such a

32:15

weird vulnerability that I just feel

32:17

like, I don't know, does Apple

32:19

really think people want that? Like do people

32:21

want that? I guess I

32:24

don't know.

32:24

I personally, you know, I'm a nerd like

32:26

you I'll be first in line, right, not

32:29

freaking wait to try it.

32:30

We'll buy it. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to buy

32:32

it and use it because I'm a total

32:35

like gonna, I'm a total freak for this

32:37

shit. But like, right, but I have

32:39

I have quests, and I have all kinds of other

32:41

stuff, and you know, like it

32:43

comes comes out occasionally, but it's just a very

32:45

unusual experience.

32:46

That's exactly right. My question is is

32:48

how long until this thing is charging

32:50

on a daily basis on my desk rather than being

32:52

used? How long until it turns into

32:55

uh, you know, something that just sits

32:57

there and gathers dust.

33:09

Here's an interesting anecdote and I think maybe speaks

33:11

to this question about immersion. Yeah, I

33:13

started to use my iPad more in the evenings

33:15

when I wasn't working because I wanted to have an

33:17

experience that made me less

33:19

immersed in like the windowed

33:22

noisiness of a laptop.

33:24

Right, Like on my laptop, I've got like Gmail

33:27

open, I've got Twitter open, I've got all this shit, and everything's

33:29

like pinging, there's all this noise, and

33:31

on an iPad it's like very

33:33

singular. You're like when I'm working on logic

33:35

on the iPad. You know, I'm in like do not

33:38

Disturb, and it's like everything is gone. There's

33:40

no other windows, there's no little pop ups. It's

33:42

like very and you know, for even for browsing

33:44

or watching shit on YouTube. I do like I'll

33:47

just go into that kind of like singular sort

33:49

of focused zone. It's like a bigger workspace,

33:51

but it's like less noisy

33:54

and less immersive than being in a computer

33:56

in the sense you know, it will take time. I agree

33:58

with you, but.

33:59

I'm us it. By the way, I was a big iPad

34:01

user until the m one

34:04

computer started coming out, Yeah, because

34:06

the Intel machines were so crappy

34:09

and slow and fans. I was like, I need

34:11

to get anything horrible battery, Yeah, I need to use the iPad.

34:13

Yeah.

34:13

But since I've had this m one

34:15

Max MacBook Pro, the iPad

34:18

is not as useful because I actually can get stuff

34:20

done on this now.

34:21

So but I want to talk about that. Actually, like

34:23

this brings us to an interesting point about all of this, which

34:25

is like we are very much

34:27

in the Tim Cook era here. I mean, there's no question

34:30

that.

34:30

We're deep in the Tim Cook era.

34:32

He's not gonna be CEO forever. Obviously he's

34:35

not that old, but you know there's going to be a CEO

34:37

after Tim Cook. This could be his big

34:39

like moment, right. The era of Tim Cook

34:42

produced this product, But the era

34:44

of Tim Cook has produced a lot

34:46

of middling just okay,

34:50

not that exciting me

34:52

too, products that feel like, you know, like

34:54

like Apple music is It's fine. You

34:56

know, it didn't change the world. It didn't destroy

34:59

Spot, it didn't you know, it's didn't

35:01

iTunes the situation, right, It wasn't

35:04

like one day we're all got our rios

35:06

and then the next day nobody is using

35:08

anything but iTunes. The

35:10

lack of definition of this feels very

35:12

of a type of Tim Cook sort of product.

35:15

Not to say that that and you mentioned this in your article

35:17

that he's not a product guy. So can

35:19

you talk a little bit about how this is like a part of

35:21

his legacy if you know what type

35:23

of legacy he would have like in a post Tim

35:26

Cook era.

35:26

Well, I really think they see this

35:29

as the third major new

35:31

computing paradigm in Apple's history,

35:34

right, the first one being

35:36

the Mac, the second one really

35:38

being the iPhone, with the Apple Watch

35:40

of the iPad as an extension of that. Like

35:42

I would say, you know, the Mac is one, the

35:44

iPhone is two, and the iPad and watch are

35:47

two A and two B, right, And then I really

35:49

think this is number three, right.

35:51

I think they really believe that the future of

35:53

computing could be living in these mixed

35:56

reality environments.

35:58

Certainly more immersive, it's certainly

36:00

brings a lot of power with it. There's

36:02

a lot more flexibility in the types of apps you

36:04

can use, there's a lot more ways that you can

36:06

actually interact with your content. But it

36:08

is so early stage one.

36:11

I mean it really I think could take ten years

36:13

to take off. And I think if they successfully

36:16

create this XR market, because let's

36:18

be honest, it's really nascent, it basically doesn't

36:20

exist, and they take it into how

36:22

people use computers in the future instead of laptops

36:25

and desktops, right, or instead of iPads

36:27

and phones, I think that's a pretty cool

36:29

legacy. Right. It's also an extremely

36:32

big bet because there is a very

36:34

high chance that never happens and it doesn't work

36:36

out. On the other hand, Apple

36:39

has so much market cachet and has

36:41

so much money and so many resources

36:44

that I think that this thing. Becoming

36:46

a massive, massive failure would

36:49

not break the company. But I

36:51

think this being a big hit would

36:54

do wonders for the company.

36:56

Like you would change that the path of where

36:59

they're focused like pretty much

37:01

for the future, right, it.

37:02

Would change a lot. It would change a lot.

37:05

And so I think that is one

37:07

aspect of it. Another part of it that I don't think people

37:09

are talking about enough, and I tried to flick at this

37:11

through my articles in this conversation, is

37:14

the app situation, right. I think the idea

37:16

is that the Apple user of Tim

37:18

Cook's dream has all of these products, the

37:21

phone, the watch, the iPad, the

37:23

Mac, et cetera, right right

37:25

at the headset, and you

37:27

have one app that can run across the ecosystem.

37:30

So whatever Apple device you're on, you can run

37:32

any app you have in a different form.

37:34

You can run logic on your Mac, you can run logic

37:36

on your iPad, you can run logic on your headset,

37:38

you can I message from your watch, from your headset,

37:41

your phone, whatever, and it all just integrates

37:43

together.

37:43

And that's their biggest that's their biggest asset when

37:45

you get down to it, Like obviously the hardware

37:48

or the software that the acumen,

37:50

a building, and but like the

37:52

way all of these things work together is

37:54

ultimately at the core of Apples

37:57

sort of mastery of this industry.

37:59

It's like, but it's a.

38:00

Double edged sword. It's a double edged sword because

38:03

this has been a Timcook thing. I mean, Steve Jobs are sort

38:05

of laying the groundwork for that with iCloud and the

38:07

initial post PC devices as they called

38:09

it. But that's really been a thing, this Timcook era

38:11

has been pushing. I don't mean to credit him specifically,

38:13

but it has been his company the last decade

38:16

and change, so you know, we'll credit leadership

38:18

to that it has. It's a double

38:20

edged sword because it necessitates Apple

38:23

doing everything because if they

38:25

miss one potential major

38:27

consumer technology category, you

38:30

break the ecosystem. The example I like

38:32

to give is, let's say Amazon

38:34

comes out with an amazing

38:36

AR headset. Apple doesn't have one.

38:39

Right, everyone wants to buy this Amazon ar

38:41

headset. Then they get exposed to other Amazon

38:43

products, whether it's the Amazon tablets, the Amazon

38:46

phone, if they bring that back to the e buds.

38:48

Right, Right, it's all about ecosystem

38:50

sort of dominates.

38:52

Right.

38:52

It's like, you don't just want one product, you want

38:54

to be inside of the entire thing.

38:56

So the reliance by Apple on

38:58

this idea where you're owning the whole ecosystem,

39:00

if they miss one element of it, right,

39:03

even though the HomePod was a complete failure,

39:05

that's why they had to do a HomePod and try a HomePod

39:07

right, right. And so their bet is if the technology

39:09

industry is going to push into headsets, they have to

39:11

have one too, because if they miss on that, yeah,

39:13

one crack in the ecosystem could cost them

39:16

big time across their other products.

39:18

But you see, you actually just raised

39:20

an interesting point that I meant to bring

39:22

up earlier and I wanted to talk about before

39:24

we ended. This is what's so interesting,

39:27

Like you're talking about the ecosystem, you're talking

39:29

about Apple missing things. And I think that like

39:31

one of the blind spots Apple has

39:33

had in some ways historically

39:35

has been things like the Internet and

39:38

search and these like large sort of

39:40

like online projects

39:42

that like look at maps for instance, right, Like they've

39:44

they've been playing for years playing catch up to Google

39:47

in all of these areas of just like they're like,

39:49

hey, we just didn't see this, we didn't put any money

39:51

into it. My understanding wasn't I

39:53

feel like this has been said before. Steve Jobs actually didn't

39:56

like the Internet. He wasn't like a fan

39:58

of being online, and like so a lot of us were kind

40:00

of built with like not online as a component.

40:03

But I'm looking now at the landscape, and I'm

40:05

looking at what is the emergent moment

40:08

that is happening. And listen,

40:10

we're not done with any of this stuff yet. We're at the very

40:12

early endings of a lot of this technology that we're starting

40:14

to see. But if you look at what's happening with AI right

40:17

now, for instance, right in these large models,

40:19

you know whether it's mid journey or open AI. Obviously

40:22

you see Microsoft, you see Google now

40:25

suddenly getting into this like huge race

40:27

for dominance in computing

40:30

that goes beyond the

40:33

known space that I think we've been in right

40:35

a type of computing that is about

40:38

us interacting with the machine in a way that is

40:41

naturalistic and responsive,

40:43

beyond anything I think we could have imagined

40:45

even ten years ago. And by

40:47

the way, Siri is a good example of where Apple

40:50

tried to get into this like assistant game.

40:52

They obviously have a huge foothold there, but

40:54

everybody knows that Siri

40:57

is worse at everything than many of the other

40:59

assistants, notably Google's

41:01

assistant right, And so to

41:03

me, like a bold, exciting

41:06

Apple has got it figured out for the future

41:09

or has sees a pathway forward would be something

41:11

like Apple announces it has acquired

41:13

open ai, right, or Apple has

41:16

built an AI that is far more

41:18

sophisticated but also focused on

41:20

privacy and respecting copyright and all this

41:22

other stuff that people are worried about. And

41:24

yet what I see is, this is what's so odd

41:26

to me about this this headset, is that it

41:29

feels like the industry and the

41:31

Internet and its users are going in one

41:33

direction over here to a different

41:35

new thing that is it's not and I don't

41:38

think it's just hype. I think part of it

41:40

is like there's something underpinning that that's very real.

41:42

I agree.

41:42

Whereas Apple's over here going into this

41:45

again almost this like internal inside

41:49

the box, not really

41:51

about outside, not really about the

41:53

Internet, not in some ways even about being

41:56

able to be social. And it just feels like these two really

41:58

divergent paths, and I I I just wonder, like

42:01

does that fit anywhere into this, like the AI stuff

42:03

that's happening and is there any

42:06

from your sense anywhere at Apple or that's

42:08

starting to be like a conversation because it feels like

42:10

they're missing something right now right.

42:12

I've seen a few people point

42:14

this out where the industry is heading

42:16

into AI and Apple is

42:18

a week away from heading into XR. Right, two

42:21

diverging paths, and that's certainly true.

42:23

The way I look at it sort of off the cuff

42:25

here because I haven't given it much thought.

42:28

The XR situation is a platform.

42:31

AI is in

42:34

my opinion, more feature

42:36

than platform, and I think AI is

42:38

something that they play very

42:40

heavily on XR, So I don't

42:42

think it's two different paths. I think the two

42:45

can go together. On the top of my head, I

42:47

can't come up with the most interesting use cases for

42:49

AI in XR, but certainly

42:51

Apple needs to get the ball rolling. I think these

42:54

chat bots that you see, like the chat

42:56

GPT stuff, Yeah, this is weird, but I call

42:58

it like raw AI. It's like a raw implementation

43:01

of what artificial intelligence can do. And

43:04

I think what Apple does is they take these

43:06

raw technologies and they apply

43:08

them.

43:09

Right.

43:09

It's like if you look up the definition

43:12

of technology right in Mirriam

43:14

Webster. I believe the definition is applied

43:16

sciences, right. I think chat

43:19

GPT's science. I think

43:21

technology is applied science. And

43:23

I think the ultimate way of

43:26

showing AI's power is applying

43:28

that. And so if Apple is able to take

43:30

AI and apply it to real world

43:32

use cases, right, to make things

43:35

easier, to make things better, I think that's where

43:37

AI can really shine. I think Microsoft,

43:39

from the little I've seen so far of what they've shown,

43:42

these things like Copilot, these things that can assist

43:44

you in day to day development of things, I

43:46

think that's where AI can really shine. So I think Microsoft

43:48

is doing a great job. THEAI

43:51

stuff you're starting to see in Google Search and bar

43:53

and being and such. I think that's happening

43:56

there. I think we're a couple of years away from Apple really

43:58

showing some big news in AI. I'm not anticipating

44:01

rights they had a five year lead, another

44:03

five years behind, right, and so.

44:05

Well, that's the thing is like they feels like they're always playing

44:07

ketchup in these areas that actually end up to be huge,

44:09

huge, like massively important moments

44:12

in computing. It's not to say, look, Apple's

44:14

like the most valuable company in the world, right, like you

44:16

can't knock. You can't be like, well they're bad at business

44:18

or something. That's not it.

44:19

They're doing something right.

44:20

They're doing something right, So like you have to be inclined

44:22

to go like, well, maybe they've got a good idea

44:24

with the headset, but yeah, it just feels like it's

44:27

interesting because because when I was reading

44:29

your writing on this, and there's so much

44:31

of it that's so good and I encourage everybody listen to

44:33

go and read it, but like it just

44:35

feels like a weird almost

44:37

an artifact. And so I guess their challenge

44:39

here will be can

44:42

they make something that feels like yesterday's

44:45

sort of tech or yesterday's future feel

44:48

like tomorrow's You know.

44:51

I think yes, because that future never

44:53

took off, right, I mean I think they really believe

44:55

that it never took off, And you know, based on

44:57

the tech that's going to be in there, I really think

45:00

it's going to blow the water off of anything.

45:02

I mean, it's it's extremely powerful,

45:05

extremely advanced device. The

45:07

bigger question to me is do people really want that

45:09

and are people going to be sold on that? And I think

45:11

that's something that's going to take time. I

45:14

certainly could be sold on it. But you know I haven't

45:16

used it, right, I haven't played with these things for an

45:18

extended period of time.

45:19

So you claim right, So I claim you claim.

45:21

Mark.

45:21

We're actually talking to you from one right now and it

45:23

has this in feat right there.

45:25

That's that's fucking amazing.

45:27

I mean, how cool would it be if we were doing this in virtual

45:29

reality where it felt like we were in the same living room together,

45:32

right?

45:32

Well, would it be cool? That's a question. I think that

45:35

I have done that. I have done podcasts

45:37

in virtual reality and it

45:40

was but this was like five, six, seven years

45:42

ago. It was like shit, you know, yeah,

45:44

what would it be like? I guess we're going to find out in a few

45:47

days. Mark, listen, I know you got

45:49

to go. Thank you so much for doing this.

45:50

Thanks for having me.

45:51

It's this a brilliant conversation, super interesting.

45:53

You got to come back. We're going to talk more about all

45:55

of the unearthed secrets that you've that

45:57

you've gotten into because it's fascinating stuff.

46:00

Thank you. And if I can just give a shout out anyone wants

46:02

to read more, it's Bloomberg dot com slash power

46:04

on or Twitter dot com slash Mark Erman and

46:06

thanks Josh. It was an honor to bear with you

46:09

and looking forward to next time.

46:10

Thanks for joining. Well

46:17

that is our show. I mean, there

46:19

are several hundred more hours of conversation

46:21

I would like to have with Mark, but we all have

46:23

things we've got to do. Anyhow,

46:27

we will be back next week with

46:29

more what future as you know, and

46:32

as always, I wish you and your family the

46:35

very best