Is Apple Gunning for Google?

Greetings everybody. Welcome to the Wednesday, June 24th, 2015 episode of Free Webinar Wednesdays. This is Eric Cook and I am with WSI Internet Consulting where we work with businesses and organizations on helping them better understand and leverage the power of the internet as a strategic business tool. You can learn more about me online and WSI at www.powerinternetconsulting.com. Powered by WSI.com. Jeff is in transit, so he will be here shortly. So I will kind of do a brief intro for my good friend and Free Webinar Wednesday partner, Mr. Jeff Simpkins. He is over at Community Bank Consulting, and those of you that are bankers in the audience or have any touch or involvement in the financial services space, feel free to get in touch with him and He does lots of cool stuff in the banking world and certainly can help you out. We've had some videos and actually did a session probably 3 or 4 weeks ago maybe where we gave Jeff an opportunity to kind of talk a little bit about some of his operational assessment capabilities and efficiencies and making sure businesses are using all of their tools and resources at optimum performance. So I encourage you to check that out. So there's a little Jeff Simpkins commercial. Today's webinar and all webinars, just as a reminder for those of you that might be new to us this week, are recorded and made available over at freewebinarwednesdays.com. So if you want to check out some past videos, feel free to hop over there and let us know what you think. And then lastly, before we officially get started, we do appreciate— and typically when we have Greg joining us, who I will introduce here shortly, we do get quite a few comments and questions through the chat box. And we like interaction. These are designed to be live. And of course, if you're listening to the recording, it's not going to be possible. But if you are attending live and have a comment, question, or just want to say hello, feel free to use the chat function that's in your control panel, probably floating over on the right-hand side of your computer screen. And we would love to hear from you. So with that, whilst we wait for Jeff— and once we see Jeff arrive, we'll give him an opportunity to say hello to everybody. I am very excited to welcome back— I think Greg McPherson holds the record for the number of guest appearances on Free Webinar Wednesdays. We have Greg McPherson who is a high school buddy of mine. He's a Realtor extraordinaire in Marshall, Michigan. Relevant to today's conversation, Greg is our resident I will call you a Mac and gadget guru because I think I always refer to you as the Apple guy. And you are one of the 2 individuals that convinced me to make the jump from the PC world into the Mac world, at least for my computer. I still have an Android phone so I haven't jumped quite there yet. But one of the things that Gregg is also known for is showing up on Free Webinar Wednesdays and talking about cool gadgets and gizmos and apps. And even on our the best free apps to use show ended up getting me to spend a couple hundred dollars on a pretty cool little scale that measures body fat and tells me how I really need to be spending more time exercising and working on that percentage. But today we're going to chat about Apple and some of the changes that are going on over in the Apple world. And there's been some rumblings on the internet about Apple gunning for Google with. Search, and chatting a little bit about personal digital assistants like Siri and Google Now and Cortana, and kind of the cost-benefit between having devices know everything that we do and what efficiencies that creates versus privacy. And maybe he's got a little gadget or two that he'd like to mention to us as well. So with that rather long-winded introduction, Greg, are you still there? If you're still awake, welcome back to Free Webinar Wednesdays. It's awesome to have you on the show, man.

Thanks a lot, Eric. I appreciate that. That was a very generous introduction. I appreciate that. Thanks for having me again.

Wasn't that epic?

That was epic.

That was nice.

You should put a link to that on your LinkedIn page or something.

That's an idea. I might just do that. Thank you.

There you go. There you go.

So the last time, and before we jump in because I kind of want to to wait for Jeff to get here to really dive into the Apple stuff. But the last time you joined us, we were talking about gadgets. And one of the things that you had shared— because even though I will probably never get to take the helm of a legitimate airplane and fly up into the wild blue yonder, the closest thing I'm going to get to is likely going to be driving a drone and getting a first-person view through a cockpit like an iPad to get up above the ground and fly around. So maybe just as a recap, if you want to kind of— the drone that you're using, but then you shared with me a really cool little drone that we can talk about that I think has some interesting implications to it, both with function and price point.

Sure.

I believe the unit that I was talking to you about the last time we spoke was I had purchased maybe 6 to 8 months ago a drone in The manufacturer is DJI, and the unit model number was the Phantom 2 Vision. Essentially, it's what you read about in the newspapers and see on TV. This particular drone is kind of the, I would say, middle class of photography drone. So the purpose for it was for me, as you mentioned in your introduction, I'm a broker. Marshall, Michigan, and I do sell farms and acreage and so forth. And so for you to really be able to take the scope of that in sometimes, it's nice to be able to have kind of an aerial that's a little bit more intimate than maybe Google Search or Google Maps or satellite or even an airplane. So with the drone, you're able to get up high enough to where you're able to literally get a bird's-eye view. And it creates some nice marketing opportunities to be able to catch people's attention and to draw their, you know, I guess attention to a sale that it just, you know, gives it a little bit of a different angle. So that's what the idea was for me to purchase the drone, to see how that would work. I was actually amazed at the ease of use flying it. I have little to maybe moderate experience kind of piloting a device like that. It's gotten to a point where you can literally take out your phone and put a flight plan into a drone simply by having something that looks like Google Satellite on your phone. And this is all software that comes with the device. And then you simply point, touch on your phone, the points that you want to fly to, elevations and so forth. So you create a flight plan, show it exactly where you want it to land, and then you hit the start button and this thing takes off and creates a video, high-def, you know, 1080 video, pictures of whatever it is, you know, you want to send it over. So that was kind of the origin of why I purchased it. I had amazing results with it. I had a lot of calls with people that were impressed with what they saw and wanted to know how they could implement it and similar sales that I would do for them. So it really was a great marketing device for that type of an event. I can't recommend that enough. If you're looking for something similar to that, I think that would be probably a model that you could look into. Price point on something like that at the time that I purchased it? was about $1,500 which is expensive. But again, if you are having a larger sale, it is certainly something that can be justified. Now since then they have come out with a newer model, I think a Model 3, and I believe there has actually been a reduction in price.

Yep.

And I think it is maybe $200 to $300. So somewhere between $1,000 to $1,500 is what you are looking at for a really nice video photography drones that will capture video that will actually stun you.

Yeah.

The device that I mentioned to you, which is I think kind of a bit of a game changer in some aspects, is a new drone that's out called Lily. It's a drone that probably would fit in the palm of both of your hands together, maybe somewhere around the size of a smaller football. And the thing that makes this drone unique is, again, it is video-based. But the difference between this and what I just discussed is this drone comes with a GPS tracking unit that is specifically aimed at the niche of taking video of you. So for an example, this unit comes with a band that you can put on your wrist or in your pocket, whatever is appropriate. And you literally can be at the top of a ski slope, or in a boat getting ready to go water skiing, or on a mountain bike. And you flip this thing up in the air, it automatically takes off, and then you go ahead and head down the slope, and this thing follows you above at whatever height that you set it at and videos your progression. So it is kind of the new ultimate selfie, I guess, in some aspects. I think the thing that's the most amazing, I guess, about the unit is the fact that the price point is $500. That's a very approachable number for pretty much anyone who has any level of interest in this type of technology.

Yep. So while you're talking, I know you're not able to join on the webinar, but I've actually got the Lilydot Camera site up, and it's funny, you would almost think that you were actually reading off of the website because There's a picture of somebody sticking the tracking device in their pocket, and there's a picture of somebody tossing it in the air, and there's a snowboarder cruising across the screen with the camera staying equidistant away from them. So there's a really cool video that I won't play here because video over webinar typically is not the best, but check out Lily.Camera and watch the video. There's some pretty interesting elements in here. One of the things that Greg hasn't mentioned is the fact that this device is waterproof. And I've read stories of individuals that have had drones and they've gone out on the boat and then the drone ends up running out of battery or something happens or a wind gust and it drives it into the water. And I don't know if your Phantom 2 is waterproof, but I suspect if you ditched it into Lion Lake, you'd probably be out $1,500.

No.

And this one they show an example of The guy tosses it in the water and it floats, and then basically it takes off from the water and then follows the guy while he is actually kayaking down some rapids. And the analogy of kind of the next generation of the selfie stick, it is a selfie stick without the stick. So it is kind of cool that you are seeing something like this kind of evolve. And the questions that I have is, If I take it mountain biking, is it going to know where there's trees? If I go around a corner, if I'm using it someplace, is it going to fly into stuff, or does it have proximity awareness? No.

I would almost guarantee you that that's going to be a part of the user's responsibility, is making sure whatever the flight path is is going to be accounted for.

Yep. Yeah. Lily 2.0 may have some of that spatial awareness, but for this one, But just really cool. So watch the video. It's kind of mind-blowing just what's out there. Put the little tracking thing— the little device that you put in your pocket or on your wrist actually has a microphone on it from what I've seen. So if you've ever heard a drone video with audio enabled, all you hear is the vroom of the propellers, and there's really no sound that you can put. And this records sound from the little puck device. And synchronizes it up with the video. So you can be on the ground talking about things and have the video actually play it without having the drone noise droning out your voice. So some cool stuff. When I spoke to Gregg and said, hey, I want you to come on the show and talk about Apple, but I want you to— what kind of gadgets are you looking at? Are you still using the drone? Of course not. Not to be disappointed, you threw this right at me and it was amazing. I think I've watched the video like a dozen times.

It's very, very cool.

So well done. So Greg— or not Greg, Jeff, the other. Are you with us, Mr. Simpkins?

I am. I'm having trouble getting in the meeting, but I'm here.

Okay. So Jeff is with us. I gave a really nice intro for both you and Greg, so you have to listen to the replay because Greg said it was pretty awesome. Yeah, so welcome. And I know you're not on the video either, but you can check out that Lily.Camera and see what you think. So the real reason we wanted to get together, I've been seeing more and more stuff in the news talking about Apple going after Google in search. And those of us that are Apple users, MacBooks, you've got this little search function called Spotlight which traditionally has been used just to kind of search your desktop and your files and your folders, and it makes it really easy to get to things. And that's one of the things I like about the Mac operating system compared to PCs. It just seems to have search internally a whole lot better. But we're talking about evolving that and making it go outside of your computer. So if you do a search for something and it's not on your computer, now it'll kick in, and I think it's using Bing right now, but being able to go out to the rest of the world and look at information. And so when Jeff and I were chatting about that, we were talking about kind of the evolution and iOS number 9 coming along and some of the things that it is going to do with Siri. And Greg, you had mentioned in the pre-chat that you're actually using the new version of the Mac operating system. So let's kind of start there. I don't know where exactly to start, but I threw a lot of things So whatever you'd want to maybe chat about first, and then we'll kind of see where the path takes us.

Well, yeah, I am actually using the new operating system for both the Mac and the phone. I'm using beta 2 of El Capitan, which is the next operating system that has not been released yet for the Mac platform. And then on the iPhone 6, I'm using iOS 8, I believe it is, which is again the unreleased version. Both of these releases, I don't think that there are really any breathtaking changes of technology. Most of the look and use is very similar. I think that both of these platforms are going to follow the same template that Apple followed back when they had the The Lion operating system. I think you remember a few generations ago they had Lion, and they went in and they made a lot of adjustments and kind of revitalized their operating system. And then the following system that came along after that was called Mountain Lion. And actually what they did with that was they, instead of trying to add more bells or whistles, they simply kind of pulled back and said, okay, let's not focus so much on what more we can do. Let's refine it, make it simpler, and create a smaller data footprint. So they actually made the footprint of the operating system smaller and tried to make it more efficient. So with these 2 operating systems, El Capitan and iOS 8, I think that's exactly what they're doing for both of these. Both are supposed to have a smaller data footprint. They're supposed to do things behind the scenes that are going to make use of the operating systems more convenient. They're supposed to be more efficient, obviously, in separate ways, being one is the desktop platform versus the mobile platform. And then probably the thread that is linked through both of them, as you've stated, Eric, is they are trying to take search platform and make it more robust through both. I think Apple sees the future as everyone has that instead of typing a search into, you know, a browser or a phone. You know, the future is coming, you know, sooner than later that you want to be able to ask a device whether it's your laptop or your phone, you know, just like you're talking to an individual. Give me information on last night's game? What are these ingredients? What is this conversion? What are these stock prices? They want that to be forthcoming and quick. And so I think you're kind of in the beginning stages of doing just that. One other thing I'll say to kind of supplement what you said, and then I'll turn it back over to you so that you can hone in on what you'd like to talk about. But Apple has always— I wouldn't say always. I would say in the last 3 years, They have had peripheral interest in being in the search engine market. And I mean like web crawling. I don't just mean Siri and in your local environment. I think everybody, if they are vaguely aware of technology, Google was the default choice that they ran with when the iPhone came out. And then when Google introduced Android, They felt like that was kind of a conflict of interest for them, and so it made Apple a bit bitter. Then after they ran their term with Google, they switched over to the Bing platform, and that's kind of where it's progressed. In that meantime, Apple was also creating their own web crawler called Applebot, which has been going out collecting that. Very similar to what both Bing and Google does, only obviously it's kind of in its infancy, and it's certainly not as capable as either of those 2 platforms. So if you want to have a parallel to what I'm trying to discuss, it's very similar to Google having a very robust mapping platform, Google Maps and so forth, and then ultimately Apple came to the table and said, well, we can do that. Here's Apple Maps. It's very pretty, but I think most people who have used it would say that it's not as capable at this point. Not that it won't be at some point, but it's not as capable as Google Maps. So with regards to the search angle, I feel that's kind of where they're at in this process right now. Ultimately, they're going to try to be independent of any third-party search. But I don't see that being something that happens immediately. They are doing some other things that others are not, that I think they're trying to create a new niche for the search market. But I'm not sure exactly what you want to talk about, so I'll turn it back over to you, and you can kind of hone in on whatever your level of interest is.

Yeah.

Jeff, any area in that— and there's a lot of really good nuggets So a good summary. But Jeff, any areas in that that you'd like to maybe drill down into? I know you've been doing a little bit of reading about this, so I'm curious if there's an angle that you'd like to pursue.

Well, I have. I think with iOS 9 and the next release of the desktop operating system, I think, Gregg, I'm interested in your thoughts on this. It appears to me that there are going to be some things that are going to be pretty significant behind the scenes, but I don't know that there's going to be a huge wow factor on the front end for a lot of people. Do you think that there's any truth to that?

I agree wholeheartedly. I think that iOS 9, specifically the mobile platform, I feel like most people— there's going to be some refinement, but I think it's all going to be relatively aesthetic. They're going to flatten the OS further. They're taking away from the 3-dimensional aspect that they had 2 generations ago. So they're changing fonts and they're doing things to make the experience more efficient and fit well on your device. But you're not going to see anything that you're like, wow, conceptually this is new and something that I need. The biggest difference, and again, like you said, Jeff, it's behind the scenes. I think for developers, I think that it is going to be a big version because it's going to allow them to do things that they had not been able to do in the past. For the end user, I don't think that they're even— they're not going to be aware of what's kind of going on underneath the hood. So that's kind of my take on it. The one thing that I alluded to a bit earlier that Apple is doing that is unique to them is in the past when you downloaded an app and it created data, for the most part the apps were siloed devices. And what I mean by that is it held your independent data inside that app and pretty much kept it to itself for its own use. Of course, it would send it back to servers and so forth, and then that company could use the data in whatever means that you had agreed to and so forth. What Apple is doing a little bit now though is with the search engine Siri and everything that's going on, They're trying to make that data more accessible if the end user would want that to be the case so that it can create a more robust environment for that user that is using the mobile device. So in other words, if you're using multiple apps and you want to have those more open to where the phone is able to take that information and be able to interpret, okay, you're going to the airport at 6:00 and it automatically is doing all this stuff behind the scenes because you've got a flight checker app and you've got email apps and so forth. I think it's trying to open those apps up a little bit more so that it can anticipate where you're going rather than where you are.

2 things that came up when Eric and I were talking about this show that I think are worth mentioning. Number one, because Siri is getting smarter in the next release. Eric made a really good point in our dialogue that that's going to require an update to Apple's privacy policy. So expect to have to accept the new privacy policy because the new smarter Siri is going to get in your calendar and other information that apparently Based on what Eric said, because clearly he sat down and read the privacy policy. They were not—

I don't know if I go that far.

I gotta poke fun at you.

I know. Who reads those privacy policies anyway, right?

Well, some people do, obviously, based on reading things on Facebook and other social media. The other thing I wanted to mention is I want to backtrack a little bit on my comment that there probably won't be that much for the end user to get excited about the way they use things on a day-to-day basis. I think that's not going to be as true on the tablet, on the iPad, because I think the introduction of what they're calling true multitasking, which based on the screenshots I've seen, means that you can truly use more than one app on the screen at the same time. I think that'll be a game changer to some extent for some end users.

Yeah, I don't disagree. They're definitely trying to make it more of a multi-app experience. Before, they really haven't had a way to do that, but with each generation of the operating system They are trying to make it a little bit more efficient in use. And I do think that there are going to be some advantages to that.

The Android jokester in me is going to say, and they will finally catch up with what the Galaxy Note 3 has been able to do for 2 years. How cool is that with multi-screen?

You have every right to say things like that.

Yeah, I know. I know. And believe me, I love Apple, but I still have the Android device, and I'm hanging on with— The one thing— we do have a question that I just want to ask real quick, and then I've got some other thoughts with regards to the Siri and the intelligent assistant conversation. But Greg, do you know whether the El Capitan fix takes care of printer networking issues that were prevalent in Yosemite? Bob's asking.

Well, you'll see the— yeah, I— is that a Wi-Fi issue?

Yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe Bob, if you want to maybe clarify that a little bit. My gut tells me Wi-Fi because I don't know how many people in today's day and age really still connect to a printer through traditional cables unless it's like an office printer and it's networked through a local area network. I'm suspecting most of those printers are wired.

To answer the question, I have not come across that. I'm aware that there were some glitches with regards to Yosemite. That being said though, there's a lot of variables. And what I mean is depending on is it Wi-Fi, is the system plugged in, what model is it, The printer model and so forth. So it's hard for me to say that that's been resolved. But the focus of this version is to work the kinks out, not to look for more Flash.

Yep. And I think the one noticeable thing, even though I seem to think— and I'm going to obviously trust you guys more than what I know because you've done the reading— I think the biggest Flash change, at least from an iOS, the mobile device that came was when they implemented the operating system that supported the change to all the flat icons and the totally different graphics. I'm not seeing or hearing that there's going to be another graphical change. I think that flat design is still going to maintain. But it sounds like the functionality behind— so the visual impact of the change may not be that much, but the things that your phone is going to be able to do either by itself or in combination with your computer, probably you are going to have some pretty significant changes if you jump in and accept the privacy changes. And I guess along those lines, one of the things that I think Google has going for it, because I've listened to some podcasts that have compared Siri versus Google Now, and the new version of their M software operating system is going to have Google Now on tap as the next generation of it. But it is already doing those things because most people that are using an Android device have Gmail where all your email is coming in. They are using Google Calendar so that has got all of your appointments. They are using Google Contacts so that knows who you are meeting with and all the people that your emails and phone numbers. And it has got Google Maps so when you plug in that you have a meeting at a certain individual, the phone will plan out intelligently with traffic. And we've got kind of a demo rolling on the screen right now. But everything within the Googleverse is communicating to one another because they had rolled out, I think about a year ago, their unified privacy policy, if I'm not mistaken, Jeff, because I know you still use Google Apps for Work, that said, hey, we're going to share everything across all platforms. And there's a reason for that, because if you're going someplace and we know where you're going, we can tell you the weather. We can tell you what traffic is like. We can see what's going on with the person they're meeting. If things were— we know there's a Delta confirmation email that came in with your flight number. Now we can practically go check and determine whether it's delayed without you even really having to do anything. We just know that you're going to the airport, so you probably would like to know if your flight's delayed or if it's on time or been rescheduled. And that's where when you talk, Greg, about the apps within Apple being somewhat siloed, They didn't give up on privacy, but they said, we think our customers are going to appreciate us being more intelligent about what they're doing over worrying about us knowing too much about them. And that's where they went with that privacy policy. And that's made the Google Now Assistant more intelligent, from what I've seen, Cortana. from Microsoft is going that direction. I think that's really where Siri wants to go. But my question for you guys, being Apple users, will Apple users dig their heels in and resist that? And are people using Apple because they don't want a company, whether it's Google or Apple, to know everything about them? Or are they going to see this as being a good thing, going, yeah, I want Apple to know where I'm going and what I'm doing and who I'm meeting with, because I don't have time to look all this crap up. I want them to tell it to me so that I I have proactive things about my world and make it more of an effective communication and management device. Who wants to go first? Jump on it. You guys didn't hang up on me, did you? Yeah.

Well, if you don't— I'm here. No, can you hear me?

Yep, got you.

Okay, you're breaking up a little bit, Eric. That's why I was a little bit— your audio, I don't know, maybe it's me, but I'm having difficulty hearing. I heard probably 95% of what you said.

Me too. I thought I was having bandwidth issues here. No, that's Eric.

Leave it to Eric and his Galaxy 5. Anyway, to answer your question, I don't feel like— and Jeff, you can jump in and either kind of challenge this or agree with it. I don't go with Apple because I feel like they are the champions of privacy. I don't feel like, boy, they are my best friends and they are worried about my best interests. I do think though that they do have a track record that expresses a more— they are more interested in trying to secure people's rights whether privacy or otherwise. So does that mean that there are these angels flying around me? I don't think so. But that being said, from a technology standpoint and the issues that are going to be bigger concerns tomorrow than maybe they are today, privacy, data, you know, I think that they're trying to rule out problems of the future before they get here today. Right now, sure, is there identity theft and so forth? Sure, but it's a little bit more of a headline than it is something that is an everyday occurrence. 10, 20 years from now, I mean, would it be possible for there to be devices where you walk down the street and someone's got the ability, if your phone's not properly secure, to call all that data right out of your phone just because you walked by a device within proximity? Yeah, absolutely. And what is that data worth? I don't know. What's a credit card worth? What's a credit card number worth? For somebody to be able to pull all that information from you, health, literally health records, these devices are certainly going to become more and more knowledgeable about who you are, how much exercise you're getting, do you walk, do you smoke, do you drink, do you eat? All that stuff is going to be on your phone. I mean, it's going to be a database of who you are as an independent individual. And that's going to have value. I mean, just like having somebody's— 10 to 15 years ago, if you had somebody's address and phone number, people sold that stuff like crazy because you could say this individual made $75,000. And if you are a marketer and you have a product that falls within that purview, you could market this guy by sending him snail mail and he might be a possible customer or client. Comparatively, that's laughable. Now on today's scale, you have these devices that are culling all this information from you daily. Anything that you can do to protect that information, I think it's certainly worthwhile. The difference between the platforms of Google and Apple, and honestly, I'm not a champion of either. I think I see it pretty clearly. Apple is looking to create a user experience that's convenient. And, you know, it's about being productive, you know, having everything sync and just be as you need it, you know, instantly. That's where they make their money. They make their money selling iPhones. They make their money selling laptops. They make their money selling iPads, although the iPad has been cannibalized buy the larger iPhones. And then the Mac computing devices are still selling quite well. So that's what they do. That's where their bread and butter is. They also have a lot of other markets that keep them somewhat independent and honest because they sell apps. They get a piece of that. They sell music. They get a piece of that. They are now a banking industry. They have more credit cards in their servers than anyone else. So now you tie that to Apple Pay and the ability to pay virtually, even though that service has not really took off, it's certainly poised to do that at some point. So again, protecting this information, I think that's just their priority because they see that at some point It's going to be like leaving your house open and going on vacation if you don't. Google, on the other hand, their approach is certainly, we collect this information and we are the data collectors, and this is how we get paid, is we know as much as we can about Eric Cook, and we can sell this information to anybody that maybe would like to sell him a product, perhaps a new iPhone because his current phone is inadequate. So that's the kind of stuff that Google does.

Or a girl.

That's the kind of stuff that Google does, is they are marketing. That's the way the search engine has always been about marketing. People used to say before the stock blew up, I don't understand it. There's other companies. Netscape was another one prior to this. They had this this IPO and it blew up, and then they did nothing with the traffic. They were just simply a search engine, and they didn't know what to do with all of that attention, and ultimately it ended up crashing and becoming nothing. Google said, we've got this traffic, we got to monetize it. We are collecting information about people like nobody else has ever been able to, and that's what they do with the information. They monetize it and they sell it. Again, by the way, God bless capitalism. I don't have a problem with it. I think the majority of the people that use their services are quite aware of that. It's just like Gmail. If you use Gmail and in the Gmail it says, Dear John, this is no longer working out. I want to break up with you. Signed, your girlfriend. Don't be surprised if in the web banner it has an advertisement for Match.com or, you know, I mean, that information is literally, you know, what they base on your advertising. You know, that's, that's how they use it. So, you know, that's, that's the 2 differences in my opinion. And Jeff, you jump in and tell me if you see it otherwise.

I don't. I mean, the basis of the original question is Do I have privacy concerns? Yeah, and my first thought was, well, if I have privacy concerns, then that means I need to not have a cell phone or not have a smartphone, do all sorts of stuff. But I mean, the reality of it is, after I thought through that for a few minutes, we don't have choices that we once had about privacy. I mean, when we drive our cars, our license tag numbers get captured by devices that use that information. You know, when we go in certain public places, our faces get caught by devices that use that type of information. So, you know, I think Greg's points were very good in that Apple seems to be being proactive at protecting our privacy to the extent that they can and still offer us the conveniences that we're looking for. And I started to say understanding that sacrifices some privacy. I'm not sure everybody does understand that, but it certainly does. Mr. Cook, your thoughts?

Yeah, I need to talk slowly.

You've got 2 devices that are picking up the sound. Are you using the computer or the phone?

Turn your mic off. There we go.

There you go. There we go.

I fixed it.

Next week you guys can have a seminar on how to set up audio for a webinar.

Yeah, exactly. It seems like audio— everything else in my world works pretty well except for whatever reason Your Galaxy 5? Yeah, well, I'm still on a Palm Pilot. Yeah, I haven't upgraded to that yet. Jeff and I are on Google Apps or the Google for Work or whatever, the paid version. So we're not seeing as many of the advertisements in Gmail since we're using the paid version.

But you know what, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean the information is not collected though.

Exactly. They're still mining the data.

Yeah, they're just not trying to monetize because they're still looking at my information. And if they see I get an email from Delta, they know that I'm, you know, traveling someplace.

And well, they're monetizing it in a different way. They're selling it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In a more private manner.

Right. But, you know, I kind of came to grips with that, you know, several years ago that I'm okay with that because, you know, the more it knows about me, the more relevant it can be. And not that I have any plans of being single anytime ever until maybe death shows up or whatever. That's a really lame attempt at saying that I'm happily married. Easy.

Yeah.

But if that were the case, maybe I would want those sorts of things. And so you have to think about, do you want— if people are going to advertise to you, do you want just crap being thrown at you that's not relevant? Or do you want targeted advertisements or messages or offers that have relevance to you based on who you are, what you're doing, what's happening in your life? And yeah, it's still providing a monetization opportunity for somebody else to sell information to you, and your info is being sold. But to me, I also see it as an advantage because I'm getting more out of it because those are things that are relevant to me. So when I see things that talk about cycling and computers and nutrition, and those are things that are relevant to me and have actually You know, got me to purchase helpful products. So I'm okay with that. And, you know, the more it can ingrain in my daily life to help me manage stuff so I don't have to pay attention to things as much, I'm okay with that. And I'm sure there's a slippery slope there because at some point it's going to be too much. But, you know, I'm not that concerned about it.

I just think it's the new world. I mean, the whole privacy issue, I don't think that people really have a choice at this point, except to maybe jerk the— I was going to say the Cat5 out of your wall, but no one uses that anymore— to turn off the Wi-Fi in your house. It's just a non-issue. They have to come up with a way to monetize free services. And the only way to do that is to be able to target individuals in a capitalistic manner. It's just that simple. The way that they try to make it harmless is that the data is somewhat faceless. In other words, there isn't a file on a server someplace that says Eric Cook and then it has your information beneath it. That data would be called 005626 99562000, that's Eric Cook.

It's like his permanent record when he was in school.

That's right. That's right.

That does exist.

I'm glad you said school. I'm glad you said school and not something else.

But I just think ultimately, that's the 2 differences. I think Apple is still about more of an experience. They're trying to create efficiencies in a work environment, and obviously aware that being able to search and pull information back into the experience is really the only way to continue to make things productive and so forth. I think Google has still got the same concept, is that they're using the data to sell and make money on it.

Yeah.

A couple of things that I will mention, and actually this is where I get to give you that last thing at the end that you might want to go buy. We're talking about devices and so forth that Google and Apple and Bing, and there's a host of other people out there, Microsoft Cortana, they're trying to create or they're trying to have these intelligent— One that has not been mentioned here which is surprisingly competitive is Amazon. Amazon has a brand-new product right now called Echo.

Didn't they just public release that yesterday?

Correct. And it's going to be available for actual delivery I think in July. But I am a very— it might not sound like it, but technology-wise, I'm a very picky and a very cynical individual. I don't have patience with things that are glitchy or, oh, this is neat. You just have to put up with this. I don't like adding some complex routine to my life. If it's simple and it works, that's what I'm looking for. This is interesting. Are you using one yet? No, I've followed it. I've followed it kind of behind the scenes. There's been private testing that's been going on. If you go and read the reviews for it—

I've got a friend who actually has been using it for 3 to 6 months and she's absolutely flipped and loves it.

Yeah, it's— I tell you, go watch the video. It is what we are talking about, what we want tomorrow out of these types of devices. The cylinder, you know, it's an aesthetic-looking cylinder, but simply it plugs in, it pulls into the cloud, and you can talk to this thing as an individual, and it doesn't hang for a second and, you know, then come back with information. You know, you can simply You know, I think you call it by its name or whatever to activate it, but it's always on. And you say, Echo, we need eggs, this, this, this, and this, and it'll put that on a grocery list. You know, you can say how many teaspoons in a tablespoon, what's the weather for tomorrow, who won the game last night, and this thing instantly has it like it's a personal discussion. The thing that's most attractive to me I'm telling you, this right here, I mean, I've already ordered it. This right here alone will make it worth my while. All that other stuff, that's fine. Who really cares? But I can say, whatever this device is, reorder donut coffee, reorder Captain Crunch cereal, and it will automatically, if you're a member of Prime, have that stuff shipped to you instantly. It's an instant order that's filled.

One of the features of it that actually adds significantly more to the price tag than the $180 for the device is it has a really outstanding interface to electrical devices, light bulbs.

Yeah.

Appliance on/off switches and things like that. I think Philips is the main brand that it connects to, but you can literally be laying in bed and say, Echo, I'd like the light beside my bed at reading level, and it adjusts that. A friend of mine that has this, she just absolutely loves just being able to control her lights all over the house with the device.

That is actually the other killer feature to it. My whole house has Philips light bulbs in it. I love it. I love it. And the biggest pain with that device is this. It is the worst app in the world. I cannot believe they've got these bulbs, which are really fantastic, but the app that they use to control is just— it amazes me that they can't get this thing figured out. For the most part, it's okay because when I come home, I come in, my lights see me through GPS, they automatically come up to a soft, relaxing light tone. Then if I leave, it automatically turns everything off. I don't have to mess with it a ton. There are instances where I'm like, okay, I'd like to have this be a little bit brighter. I want to turn off lights here but not here, or whatever. And the only way to do that is to get in my pocket, fish out my phone, fire up the app, wait for it to connect. And I mean, it's not a big deal. That's how spoiled people are in this day and age. But all of that can take, I don't know, 5 or 10, 15 seconds. And you feel kind of stupid because you've got to go through all that to be able to turn on your light, where obviously In years past, you simply hit a switch on the wall and you're good. I know that you can buy other applications that you can actually hang on your wall that will allow you to control these Philips things, but that always seemed to me to be kind of the whole point is that you're trying to get away from some of that. But now to be able to walk into a room and have this thing, this Amazon device, as you said, Jeff, for me to be able to say dim the lights in the living room, turn off the lights in the bedroom, turn all the lights on in the house, set the dim to 30%. I mean, I'm telling you, that alone, forget about all the other stuff, $180, done.

It's like an intelligent clapper. There you go.

My parents had one of those.

You got 2 claps, you got 3 claps, you know, that's the extent of the clapper, but now you've got even more. So I know, Greg, you can't see the screen, but Jeff, I don't know if you can see what I've got my mouse over, but that it's, it's got an overwhelming number of 5-star reviews on Amazon, but there's a 1-star review that came in and the comment was, this is how Skynet was born.

There you go.

So obviously there's somebody out there worried that technology is going to take us over and we're going to have Arnold Schwarzenegger Android bots coming in and looking for time travelers and whatnot. So anyway, yeah, I did have a friend actually mention this to me and totally forgot about it until you just brought it up, Greg. That this is kind of what Google Now and Siri are doing, where you talk to your phone, but now you've got a device that basically sits in your house. And it'll be interesting to see if it can communicate back into your devices then. So you can say, Echo, what's my schedule today?

It will, I believe, with Google. I think it's working with Google devices. It's not working— yeah, I think it's Google Maps and so forth. If you go to the website— It's like Jeff said, it will tell you it works with Hue, it works with Webo, it works with all these other wireless automating devices. It works with that and then kind of the host of Google Apps.

Great.

Again, I don't believe it will not work with Apple Calendar and so forth. I think that they're going to have an independent app for the device so that when you say add Cap'n Crunch to the shopping list, it's going to be an Amazon app, not some third-party list.

Yeah.

It would make sense that it works with Google Apps since Android is the basis for the Kindle operating system.

Good point.

Cool. Well, good. Well, yeah, you managed to do it. I didn't know if I was going to pull the trigger on a Lily drone. I've got one Lily in the house, and she's a handful enough. So I don't know if I need 2, but it is pretty cool. But I have been hearing some good things about Echo. So who knows? This might be sitting right next to my Aria scale from my friends at Fitbit that you conveniently made me aware of that I purchased.

You're late to the game. I got the Withings, or Withings, however you pronounce it, 2 years ago.

Yeah, yeah. I never tell Alicia when I'm having Gregg on the show because then she takes the credit cards away from me for a couple of weeks.

I just realized it's been 3 years since I got that scale and it still works and I still love it.

Yep, me too. I still have the same one, first generation. I know the newer one does different things, but this one is seamless and does exactly what it's supposed to do. It's fantastic.

I of course did have to add the blood pressure monitor later.

One thing I will say, because I know you're getting ready to wrap up, but just as kind of an asterisk for people to check out, obviously Apple has their hands on a lot of things, and the next maybe 2 quarters will be interesting for them. The Apple Watch is— I have not purchased it. I don't know that I have a need for that just yet. but maybe second generation, we'll see. But from what I've read, that watch is outselling— the adoption rate on that watch is exceeding the adoption rate on the first iPhone. So if that's the case, and we're talking about collection of data, that's going to be huge.

Yeah.

This thing monitors your heart rate, it monitors your exercise. So if people really make this and implement it as a part of their life, it's really going to personalize the collection of data even further. So that's something certainly to keep your eye on. And then secondly, Apple is finally rolling out their music streaming service, and that is going to be another, you know, yet another avenue for them to bring in revenue. And yep, it'll be interesting.

That's next week on Tuesday, isn't it?

Yeah, but it's definitely going to take target at Spotify and some of these other places, because they have been able to secure a significant amount of publishing rights. I'm sure anybody that's vaguely familiar with any of this, they had a 3-month free trial, and apparently— I don't know, it doesn't really seem like their style, but they weren't planning on paying the artists during that 3-month time. Taylor Swift wrote an open letter to the company, so now they are going to be paying all the artists even during the free trial. When the service does become available, there is a 3-month free trial. If you are using anything that is competing with it, you might as well fire up a 3-month trial and see if it's a better experience or not.

If you do not have an Apple device, I think you have to wait until the fall to have access to the— I guess it's iTunes for non-Apple devices.

You said that just for me, didn't you, Jeff?

Greg, I guess, doesn't that mean since the The change to iTunes is coming out next week. Is that going to mean they have to push out iOS 8.4 next week, or will that be an iTunes update?

I think it's going to be an iTunes update. I don't know that they're necessarily going to have to push out the new iOS. I think it's going to be app independent. I don't think it's going to need— I don't think there's any new technology that's really involved. I mean, it's just like Spotify. You can download Spotify and on your iPhone and it works. That is actually my preference, Spotify. I'm an Apple guy. I don't feel like I'm a cult type of follower. I think that they've made mistakes. For the majority of their products, I do enjoy them, but I'm not just somebody that is going to switch over simply because it's Apple. Spotify is a good service. I'm able to listen to probably 95% of everything that I want. It's quick, it's efficient, the graphics user interface is very aesthetic. I've never been a big fan of the iTunes interface, so I'm interested. I hope they do this right. They have completely reinvented the app and so forth, so I hope that they get it right because I would love that. I'm a big music guy and I hope that they're able to pull off something here that they haven't previously, but I'm just going to be cautiously optimistic.

I will say this to you, Greg, and to the folks that are listening. Those of you that are Apple or Amazon Prime, the Amazon Prime Music app, there's a lot of stuff on there that you get as part of your Prime membership. I have actually been taking advantage of that a good bit recently. Since you are going to be adding this new Amazon device that I'm sure will integrate with the Amazon Music service, if you are not using that, check it out. It's a really good service, and you are already paying for it if you've got Amazon Prime.

I agree. Most people have no idea with Prime you can get free movies that are comparable to Netflix. You get free data storage. There are all kinds of things that Prime includes, and I'm like you, Jeff, I don't. I simply look for the 2-day shipping and that's good enough for me, but I am with this new device that's going to be rolling out, I agree with you 100%. If I can say to that device, play playlist Easy Listening, and then it fires that up instantly, I'm absolutely on board with that.

Cool. Well boys, we need to wrap it up. I know we are a little bit over, but I didn't want to interrupt that thought process. There was some good stuff there. On the screen you have a new app that I heard about that I just wanted to share kind of a parting. I don't know, Gregg, if you have heard of UrtheCast, U-R-T-H-E-Cast. But I heard about this the other day. It is 4K video being delivered from the International Space Station, 4,000 kilometers. Above our plant. And you can visit it. You probably don't want to do it during the workday. You can probably get lost in it. But they've got all sorts of different snippets here of actual video. And unlike Google Earth, you can actually see cars driving and activity bustling. When you start talking about big data and all that stuff, I just thought— What an amazing world we live in that something like this is available at no cost to take a look at our planet. There's a live streaming component of this where you can actually see the sun come up and the sun set as the device travels at 25,000 kilometers per hour around the globe. So check it out. It's kind of a cool little app. It has nothing to do with business or productivity or privacy, but it's just kind of a cool thing.

Awesome.

Just wanted to share that. So anyway, that concludes a little bit after the fact, but still a great show. Not that I had any doubts to the contrary, but thanks again, Gregg, for being our guest and always really, really good stuff. And so with that, we'll look forward to seeing everybody next Wednesday and every Wednesday back here at freewebinarwednesdays.com. Until then, have a good week.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.