131: ‘If Only the Death Star Had That’ With Guest Rene Ritchie

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: The episode centers on Apple’s September 2015 launches and what they signal about the company’s evolving strategy. The hosts discuss the watchOS 2 delay, iOS 9’s rollout, the Apple event’s production scale, and then go deep on iPad Pro, Apple TV, and iPhone 6s/6s Plus. The core theme is that Apple is using software, custom silicon, and platform continuity to make its devices feel more capable without forcing radical redesigns every year.

Main Topics: watchOS 2 delay and iOS 9 rollout (Priority: 5/5): They open with Apple postponing watchOS 2 indefinitely due to an unspecified bug, then move to iOS 9 shipping with a different build number than the GM. The discussion emphasizes Apple catching bugs before release and the expectation that the issues are likely developer-facing rather than user-facing. Apple event production and media strategy (Priority: 5/5): A substantial portion is devoted to the scale and polish of Apple’s keynote production at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, including the custom build-out, lighting, seating, air handling, and tightly managed hands-on areas. They also discuss Apple reducing the need for multiple events and centralizing press coverage. iPad Pro, Pencil, and the future of tablet computing (Priority: 5/5): The hosts describe the iPad Pro as Apple’s strongest attempt yet to make a tablet that can serve serious creative and productivity workflows. They focus on the Pencil’s precision, the Smart Keyboard, display latency, speaker system, and the idea that Apple is making a true dockable, portable computer without compromising on touch-first design. Apple TV redesign and tvOS direction (Priority: 5/5): They praise the new Apple TV interface, Siri-driven search, fast scrubbing, app-based architecture, and app thinning/streaming resource management. They also discuss game controller limitations, universal search, and the significance of Apple opening Apple TV to third-party apps. iPhone 6s/6s Plus: 3D Touch, camera, Live Photos, and materials (Priority: 4/5): The conversation highlights 3D Touch as the standout feature, praises the improved camera system and Live Photos, and notes the rose gold finish. The hosts stress Apple’s two-year industrial design cycle and the importance of internal engineering improvements over exterior redesigns. iOS 9 features: notes, search, deep linking, multitasking, performance (Priority: 5/5): They detail iOS 9’s more meaningful upgrades: the redesigned Notes app, Spotlight and continuity-based search, universal links, return-to-app behavior, and iPad multitasking. The emphasis is on how iOS 9 improves real workflows without adding much cognitive overhead. Apple’s platform strategy and software-hardware integration (Priority: 5/5): Across the episode, they argue that Apple’s long-term advantage comes from owning hardware, silicon, OS, and services together. This allows Apple to tune features like refresh rates, touch sampling, Siri, and battery efficiency in ways competitors cannot easily match.

Key Arguments: Apple delaying watchOS 2 is preferable to shipping a buggy release, especially since the likely issue is developer-facing rather than user-facing. iOS 9 is not a flashy redesign like iOS 7, but it is a deeper and more useful release once content blockers, Notes changes, multitasking, and Continuity features are considered. Apple’s event staging is a major production achievement and a strategic tool; it is designed to maximize clarity, control the narrative, and showcase products in a highly curated environment. The iPad Pro plus Pencil is positioned not as a bigger iPad, but as a genuinely serious drawing and productivity device that can compete with Wacom-style workflows. Apple TV’s new app platform and Siri search are transformative because they make the device feel more like a modern software platform than a set-top box. 3D Touch is meaningful because it adds a new interaction layer without increasing visual clutter, and Apple has been careful to make it consistent and accessible. Apple’s yearly pattern—major redesign followed by refinement—lets the company solve industrial-design constraints one year and then focus on feature depth the next. Continuity, deep linking, and universal links are powerful because they preserve context and reduce friction without forcing users to learn new workflows.

Data Points: watchOS 2 launch: postponed indefinitely - Apple delayed the watchOS 2 release due to an unspecified last-minute bug. iOS 9 GM vs release build number: GM build 40; release build 44 - The final iOS 9 release had a different build number than the GM Apple distributed. iOS 9 update size for GM users: a few megabytes / about 100 MB - Users on the GM were told the final update would be small. iOS 9 review length: about 22,000 words - Renee’s iOS 9 review was described as book-length. Coles Notes version of iOS 9 review: 4,000 to 6,000 words - The shorter summary still ran unusually long for a brief review. Apple event attendance: about 1,500 to 1,700 seats available - The Bill Graham venue had a much smaller usable audience than its maximum capacity. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium capacity: 7,000 seats - Mentioned as the venue’s general capacity, though Apple did not use all of it. Apple TV app download limit: 200 MB initial download - Apps can start small and then download more resources on demand. Backblaze price: $5 per month per computer - Used to describe Backblaze’s unlimited backup service. Casper pricing: $500 twin; $950 king - Examples of Casper’s direct-to-consumer mattress pricing. Casper trial period: 100 days - Customers can test the mattress risk-free before returning it. Word count of iOS 9 review: 22,000 words - Used to characterize the scope of the review as closer to a small book. Apple TV universal search behavior: partner-based / limited to content partners - Search results depend on service partnerships rather than all installed apps. iPad Pro memory: 4 GB RAM - Mentioned when comparing the iPad Pro to laptop-class devices.

Pivotal Quotes: "nothing has changed except for everything" — Apple ad / discussed by hosts: Used to frame the iPhone 6s as an incremental-looking product with major internal changes. "It feels almost like they switched from doing iOS as a bitmap and made it a vector." — Host discussion: Describing iOS 7’s design shift as the foundation for later refinements like iOS 9. "Apple is just sound like kicking their ass in mobile too." — Host discussion: Referring to Apple’s custom silicon and the iPad Pro’s performance trajectory.

Implications: Apple’s near-term future is less about dramatic redesigns and more about compounding advantages: tighter hardware/software integration, richer input methods, better search, and more capable TVs, tablets, and phones. Competitors will struggle to match this coherence.