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and good morning on Tuesday January 23rd had to double check that i'm BVG and it's the 359 podcast episode 343 and today your hosts include Joanie soles when Roger tank and Ben Fox Reuben good morning everybody so what are we talking about today Roger we're gonna be talking about a home pod home pod finally coming finally coming Apple finally confirmed the gates February February 9th and you actually begin to be able to pre-order it starting this Friday just in time for Valentine's Day yeah super romantic for the for the Apple fanboy in your life that's true I don't love anyone $349 really whoa that's your threshold 348 we'll also be talking about Netflix and it's a blowout quarter all really thanks to Will Smith I'm just just giving it to Will Smith and this little thing called stranger things what what and then just lastly a little tease to our Katie Collins story on sleep tech so as always if you have any questions on these topics please leave them in the comment section Brian will pick out the best and we will get to them in three minutes and 59 seconds from three to welcome to the 359 I'm Rutter Chang I'm Ben Fox worried but I'm Johnny salzman Apple finally set a launch date for home pod with pre-orders opening up this Friday and smart speaker hitting stores on February 9th now this was supposed to launch last year obviously we've talked a lot about the delay and since then we've seen a Lexington goggle assistant going everything right refrigerators televisions cars toilets CES was all about Amazon yet again yet again so then I get asked like does Apple have a chance here yeah absolutely it's Apple okay I mean look I understand that there are a lot of people in the tech industry that see a lot of the limitations of home pod and Siri and just one of say that this product is dead on arrival the thing is is that Apple can sustain this product for years and lose money on if it feels like it needs to to break into the smart speaker market I mean like they literally have more money than God well I checked with God before I said that true gods like yeah yeah Apple loves its margins it loves its profitability and it it's never taken an Amazon like strategy where it will willingly lose money to be in this business so will it be losing money on something that cost that much no I guess not I mean that's yeah to Ben's point about the idea of like losing money and the fact that like no one's gonna buying it for a while losing like cachet or cachet or no it's actually if it doesn't sell as well as it's not it's just like what would the point of Apple sunsetting the product after a year or two because like even if they get a couple customers in the door then they can start building out the ecosystem building the software and actually like get a foot in the door and smart speakers so it's just I think that people are being a little like they're they're they're jumping the gun to say that the home pot it's already finished it's not so I'm gonna let me ask you both this like I have to Amazon that goes like it's kind of committed to that ecosystem at this point I don't know if I really want to switch to another one what do you do that you have an echo I have three echos and a Google home but this is what I write about right so but that's the thing like you're you're an echo user would you be willing to switch to Google home or switch to home pod I mean purely as a consumer my calculus is that I am satisfied with the product that I already have I paid one quarter of the price for that product and I wouldn't ask to pay for this new one even though I do use I use Android and iPhone I use iPhone for my day-to-day life even though I'm part of that ecosystem already yeah I don't see the value in having something not as well replicate what I already have for much less money right I think that's the initial hurdle that I can't to wrap my head around is like how does Apple get past the idea that people have already committed to certain smart speakers okay if they have any traction whatsoever I think the expectation from some folks in the industry that they would come out with a home pod mini like a tiny a tiny version that would be a lower pricepoint it still wouldn't be around $50 which you would get with the Google home mini or the Amazon echo dot but it wouldn't be 349 dollars I next up Netflix posted another blow out quarter thanks in part to Will Smith's bright what stood out for you from those results well you're right Will Smith had Will Smith's bright blockbuster flick it was Netflix first attempt at a blockbuster popcorn style tentpole film and it really resonated with viewers from what we can tell it helped contribute to Netflix reporting it's the best quarter of new member additions ever wait still there's a little there's a little show called black mare big hit at all like reread a stranger that came out in the same period yeah all those things that's that's the thing that they're going for they're going for this constant cadence of new stuff that's gotta watch it sort of things even if bright wasn't the thing you gotta watch maybe stranger things was right interesting or they dropped interesting comment about rate hikes or the lack of rate hikes going forward right yeah so everybody always wants to know when their precious bill for Netflix is gonna be going up and the there was an increase last year and what they said last night is that there's no more increases on the horizon but then they got sort of wishy-washy about the circumstances that would allow them to raise and create raise rates again and it sounds a lot like what's happening right now so what they're I think what they're saying is we're not planning on hiking rates but I think we could if we want to do mmm okay so how many people how many new net additions were there in the United States in the US there are almost two million new like who I thought that market was already saturated so who are these folks so that's a great question I don't know exactly who they are I'm sure they're they're definitely not people at that like first half of the tech adopter new adopter wave like the first half of that pyramid or that wave they've already got that it's the second half Netflix has said like years ago that they believe that the US market is sixty million to ninety million people for them and they're at about 55 million so they still have runway they still see having runway before they even meet the meet the lowest threshold of what they see is being you know there are places in America where like Internet broadband connections are still getting up to par with actually holding the service like places that Internet access isn't great isn't like something when we take for granted so the market lastly if you have trouble sleeping you might want to check out a feature from our own Katie Collins and just how effective sleep tech can be she runs that runs down a number of different devices and just sort of talked about her own personal experiences and how it actually calls her to really stress out of our sleep it's just a read check out that store and more go and seeing it I'm Roger Chang I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Joanie sauceman thanks for listening dibs on the sleep tech stuff I'm always interested in that but wait a minute so she was looking into sleep tag and it stressed her out about no so she lost sleep so if you read her intro she she actually did lose sleep over it she used a misfit shine sleep tracker and you know for a while she stressed out because she has to do this for a paycheck no no no no she was doing this I serve though I was an experiment she was looking at her sleep sleep cycles or you know how much good sleep she got and she start stressing about the amount of good sleep she got like she felt like she was constantly like her Dan you know her sleep debt and so that that was kind of like that was sort of her intro of the story like why some of this stuff may not actually work I mean there she doesn't laid out some products that are more effective than others but I think that lead kind of is a great example of like the core dilemma when you use tech to solve you know you know what sleep tech I like there was a thing at CES it was a pillow that just breathed it was a breathing pill you hold it and it's it's like you're holding a dog or a yeah and it's just like you you hold it you turn it on and it breathes very nice I feel like I could get does that make a breathing sound was it just the motion I don't think so but you could probably buy something that will snore actually if you joke about that but my my kids got like a little stuffed baby that does makes those sleeping noises - like emulate her mother his mother's yeah obviously is it is it your wife's actually no no standard loves it the crib is like baby the baby yeah Rogers like backing up from the crib Kobe yeah [Laughter] it's like some kind of technology that replicates the experience of being like on a moving vehicle cuz I seen an airplane and a bus like you wouldn't believe I mean there's so much a crap it's so much baby tech but does that really really well not so much but I can think I'm like can we hand it to adults what is that technology is he you literally put the crib track that's the only thing you could fit in the room we were heading to CES and I was out before we were off the tarmac like thank you I can't I can't sleep on planes just yeah there are too many snakes yes please shout out to some new friends and new fans that are joining us namely we got CRO videos joining us live for the first time videos Joan talking about Netflix he said stranger things is their greatest hit and I don't Kontest that but what was Orange as a new black was their first and then streaming things you surf so like infamously Netflix doesn't share details but what you can glean from outside information is that house of cards was its first get people talking necklace was making originals that you want to watch hit that in terms of number of viewers was usurped by oranges new black and then stranger things was just like and out of the ballpark kind of now at the top level of the thing that of Netflix subscriber base and the largest portion of the square face watches that one show rather than any other that make sense yeah it's a good show and it's a that bright one of their most large titles including both movies and yeah which is impressive concerns have been around for a little while yeah well and they also put a ton of money into it if it was like a million dollars I mean like Marco Polo the film was also marketing I think marketing might be separated but you know it's a different calculus between like marketing a film the marketing expenses are giant Netflix did on it's like for for a Netflix property they did a lot of marketing for bright but it's still nowhere near like I mean imagine like a Star Wars nowhere near like what a normal studio would be doing right and a lot of the marketing is done like exactly free free yeah basically for you to wonder how much Bill Smith made yes he's probably like oh I can probably find out then 90 million was all tells me what dollar movie I like that the Michael Browns is why aren't nap pods a commercial thing I'm getting into that I'd have pods I'm thinking that like must be some kind of chamber that replicates whatever sleeping environment like it's about yeah I feel like you'd probably find that in SF like I'm sure I've seen an office in SF that's something like that I think they have them in a lot of airports these days right possibly I don't know I think I feel like I read something about that also I want to give a quick shout out to looker LA 69 who says you guys are really funny not so congratulations on keeping that in 1995 zinger alive melody Lane wants to know how exactly is the home pod going to differentiate itself from the election now we've raised over this in the past and we all know that Apple goes on about their speaker quality right but as Michael Brown so graciously pointed out in the chat series hot garbage I wouldn't disagree yeah I mean look that they're gonna be pushing the the fact that it's gonna be very tightly knit to your iPhone but yeah audio quality Brian you got it right I know quality's a big one but I imagine going forward especially as they're going after hardcore Apple users is is we're gonna sell this thing is like this is the this is the smart speaker that will be most closely tied to your iPhone yeah for Apple people yeah for Apple people but it's good question because I don't really know if it's just audio quality that that's not enough for a lot of people are deciding smart speakers for audio quality like so no generation so many people don't care about audio fidelity and I don't buy high-end speakers yeah we're already going that yeah we connect to other smart speaker you're not gonna meet us in the middle on that right so the Sonos one which works with Alexa and I believe also Google assistant is is definitely one of those higher-end speakers and the home pod is seen as a bigger rival specifically they're just so knows then it would be to the echo or the home line the problem is is that yeah Siri does need a lot of work and it's really just a matter of Apple actually spending the money and you know hiring more staff to do it it's not like they don't have the resources to they just haven't you know put the time and effort I believe into actually making Siri more worthwhile and you know a lot of the partners that already partner with Google home and the echo of course they'd want to partner with that well because it's Apple so yeah we want to take some more questions we got little time left yeah it's - okay just making sure sir enjoy did you guys see the home pod illustrations in a white soulless room I died a bit on the inside I did not see these I didn't see that no but I can sort of imagine enjoyed knows more about the show where are you sir enjoying yes New York maybe we can bring it on Skype or something yeah gonna figure that one out moving on Michael Brown Apple home pod will sell and will probably sell right over so no sand right under Google home and Amazon echo I think that's yeah I feel like that's a pretty safe bet I mean it's you know Sonos is still kind of an itchy brand watching into audio equipment Apple at this point has such a dedicated basis they can actually measure but think it's gonna get this and that they can't move the volumes because it's not like a fifty dollar speaker like the Google home yeah not only that but like I think that that's leaking down walls with this there's a good measure of schadenfreude I think that's that's going on here we're like Apple is the highest valued company in the world they have all this money people are waiting to see one of their products failed just because also like Apple fanboys aren't really they don't really ingratiate themselves to other people I would say Soho when it overgeneralize man well I know some very nice boys I wonder who they are yeah let's get a couple more in here before we call it a day oh I lost my place I lost my place a lot of people are talking about the Sonos speaker oh yeah that's a good point yeah that's a great alternative very cost-effective scott maya Apple bought Beats now entering the smart speaker market would it make sense for them to buy out so knows next Joan what do you think of the beats acquisition and why isn't this called like a beats speaker that's a good point well I think for the last question I think it's because the Apple brand is stronger than the beats brand people are much more invested in buying an Apple product than they aren't buying a beat spot yeah that's true but in terms of the beats acquisition itself I think that ultimately it was they bought it because they wanted to have a music service and not necessarily because they wanted to have the headphones even though the headphones are the thing that from the ground running made it not a completely stupid acquisition you know like you know the actual thing that made money it actually makes money it makes money well it dominated the premium speaker premium and so it wasn't like it was the sort of like you know undercurrent it's like okay that's a lot of money I think was three to buy meats it's a lot of money it's the biggest acquisition Apple has ever done but at least there's something in there that actually makes money and so yeah so I think that was sort of the reason why beets didn't now and now you know who knows whether and now they're kind of like stuck with this like they got their banana they've got Apple music but like it just seems clear to me that you know they don't have any like beets related integration into this or like they didn't even play ball anything like these are beets woofers or something like that it just means to me that like they're they're just not emphasizing the beets brand at all and like that I guess shouldn't have surprised me but whatever you don't let beets as a hardware brand just continued trucking along the way that it expanded more beyond what the money makes scheme of yeah alright it's good just a couple more quick ease in here before we call it a day Jamie Young is Siri going to be improved when home pod is released I'm a google home user recently purchased an iPhone trying to get into the Apple ecosystem I can only suffer to use Siri instead of Google you gotta wonder is that going to be the case will Siri actually stop being hot garbage thank you and Michael Brown because like when we all got Alexa in her homes yeah and I mean all of us pretty much yeah she had to learn she had to get smarter she had experience if they're basically kind of forcing that into an Apple users home will then inevitably actually improve the performance of Siri due to more usage oh definitely right like just just having more interactions will definitely have a didn't Apple promise though that's you would get a whole bunch of new features and upgrades yes yeah a lot of them are gonna be music related so when you ask for like specific you know artists or titles or okay I think I think a lot of those Syria additions are gonna be related to playing music in your home or like I want to hear symphony or I want to hear jazz or whatever I don't think that you're gonna see other stuff like buying a Domino's Pizza ordering an uber ride that might come later but at least for now really the third-party stuff that we saw that they announced today are like third-party messaging services like whatsapp you'd be able to use Evernote for like to-do lists it's very limited and herds of what you can do with Alexa or Google assistant alright we are right down to the wire here you want to give a quick shout out to dinosaur Dimas I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing your name right doing your homework good luck with that in Indonesia our listener base is a dog asks do you think Apple will make an HQ - like Amazon I've been labeled at that yeah I mean at this point they're looking at you know Amazon's blueprint not necessarily to do it publicly a bit like they're saying how I cities are just falling over themselves offering money and tax benefits to to open a new business they're open new campus like why wouldn't Apple take advantage of that yeah like that's really I mean it's good PR and it's also good for like in terms of like Tim Cook getting on president Trump's good side we're talking about jobs jobs jobs and Apple you know Apple comes out with this announcement like we're gonna bring new jobs and create whatever we're bringing a new facility in some city in America jobs are always good they're not playing it up the same way Apple organizations is that they didn't label it HQ - I said they're building a new US campus but I think they're still gonna be like their their mothership is still very much gonna be in Cupertino oh yeah yeah I mean like I said this is partly as much PR as it is you know opening a facility and you know taking advantage of whatever tax benefits cities are gonna throw at them I'm sure they're gonna be pretty generous dead sprint to the finish line here Scott Myatt do you think that they will ever Apple will ever open up Siri to other devices along the road are their phone device I meant imagine the opens since we see Alexa performing with the Sonos do you think series gonna start sneaking into other place it's a good question it's great question okay so it does work it will the home pod will work with other smart home gadgets so you'll be able to like operate your thermostat right you know you're connected lights because obviously everybody expects to be able to do that with a smart speaker I think whether that's who Siri actually moves from Apple it's not a very Apple thing to do but we've seen Google and Amazon already do that with their assistants you don't know it's a it's a good question and I don't really see it right now but it's certainly possible it also will depend on how well these you know Alexa and Google assistant power devices actually sell right like people bind them no one's buying them because Alexa's in it right which one like I don't know lights or refrigerators or all these other products you see with assistants built-in like you're not that's not why you're buying them yeah it's a value-add right now for sure so I don't know if Apple actually needs to alright and the final question of the day coming from our good friend Michael Brown I love this do you think sleep tech should be built into furniture beds lazy boys mmm etc yes what the sleep tech is right I mean what do we really have on the market now we got things like there are a lot of those are sensors the sensors and timers only there's like sitting there little speakers are like know when delight when you're about to sleep in either place soft music whoa that would be cool if my couch did that hanging out in the couch watching TV new stars like those and the couch back and forth it's like an award shows when the orchestra starts playing smart couch like talk to your netflix account like it noticed you were binge watching stranger danger like all right it's like seven episodes days you probably gotta get some sleep and like it boost you have a couch and a brush your teeth that would be a very jessica thing to do oh my god that is so Jets and I would love that if I could rush my teeth how much $10,000 Wow easy easy and I would buy it tomorrow no problem oh my goodness alright we are just about out of time and that's a some good food for thought I'm going to literally sit around and like draw what I wish trans and put it on the fridge in the office that's more stuff smart couches just tell you I'm calling they're gonna sleep CES 2019 yeah we saw a bunch of the bed stuff couches though it's a next frontier all right if you liked anything you saw or heard here check us out in CNET our podcast is available in iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music and Amblin echo see y'all tomorrow bye everyone