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Talking to Casey Liss about Callsheet, the App Store, SwiftUI, Apple Car and more
Apr 30, 2024
Callsheet on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/callsheet-find-cast-crew/id1672356376
Announcement: https://caseyliss.com/callsheet
Transcript on Cult of Mac: https://www.cultofmac.com/825004/casey-liss-callsheet-interview/
Accidental Tech Podcast: https://atp.fm/
I spoke with Casey Liss from the Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) about making Callsheet, a new app that’s a nicer IMDb experience. Our conversation led down why he designed it the way he did, how he decided to price the app, alternative app stores, developing with #SwiftUI, cool features he’s proud of, his dog, cool features he can’t make, the Mac we wish #Apple made, the Apple Car, the advent of Wi-Fi and the weird foods we eat.
More Apple news: http://www.cultofmac.com
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:45 Motivation for making Callsheet
3:07 Design process
4:29 App icon
5:07 Awesome features
6:35 Limitations
7:36 How it’s monetized
11:48 SwiftUI
15:32 SwiftUI in other apps
16:21 Alternative app stores
18:42 Apple silicon
23:03 Worst websites
23:51 Worst bugs
25:37 Apple Car
27:34 Weird foods
30:47 Outro
Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac
Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Since the dawn of time, humanity has been begging for an answer to two pressing questions
0:07
Who's that person on the TV, and where do I know them from? Could a brand new app from Casey List remove these barriers and unlock the next stage of human knowledge
0:17
I have him with me here today. Say hello. Hey, that's a lot of pressure. I'm a little nervous now, but hopefully we will unlock some new knowledge of some sort today, one way or the other
0:27
So who the heck is Casey List? Who knows who is Casey List? So hey, I'm a podcaster, developer, and occasionally a writer based out of Richmond, Virginia, in the United States. If you know me at all, you probably know me from the Accidental Tech podcast, which I do with my buddies, Marco Arment, and John Syracusa. I have a couple of other apps in the app store that you may not have heard of. There's a peak of you. It allows you to hand your phone to someone, and they can flip through the pictures on your phone, and they can only see certain pictures, and they cannot delete them. There's no way to delete them. I also have another app called Masquerade, and the
0:59
idea there is, hey, maybe it took a group shot with a bunch of friends, and maybe not all of them
1:03
are friendly to social media, or maybe it's children, and you don't really want to blast these
1:08
children's images across the internet. And so what it does is it uses, well, I would have said
1:12
machine learning, but now apparently I need to say AI in order to detect where the faces are
1:18
and it'll pop a little emoji on everyone's faces, and it will do that automatically, so it makes
1:22
it really nice and quick and easy to share. But of course, you can customize which emoji is which. But call sheet is basically, you know, where's this actor from
1:29
When did this movie come out? What is the fifth episode in the third season of Ted Lassow
1:34
It's IMDB, but it doesn't stink. And it's not plastered with ads everywhere
1:39
Doesn't want to autoplay videos. It's just a nice version of IMDB by someone who actually gives a crap
1:45
So what was your motivation for making this? Yeah. You know, I'm one of those people that annoys my wife dearly and deeply because, you know, I'll be watching a show
1:54
And it's like the Lean Order DiCaprio, oh, I know them from
1:58
Oh, I got to look it up. And I'll, of course, go to IMDB. And I have the IMDB app on my phone
2:02
But the app is, I feel like it's designed to infuriate me
2:08
It's very, very frustrating. And I just got sick of it. Some of the other software I use uses a couple of websites, the movie database and the TV database
2:16
And both of those websites have fairly robust, you know, data sources for this sort of thing
2:21
And I started just kind of kicking around against the API. Like, can I do something with this
2:26
And sure enough, it turned out I could. And then, you know, over the years I've gotten better and better at Swift UI
2:33
One of the great things about Swift UI is that it lets you do stuff very quickly, be that
2:37
prototype or even develop an honest to goodness app. But it was not that long before I had the essence of call sheet
2:44
Hopefully when you use call sheet, it'll become clear that I'm trying to sweat the details
2:49
And so I'm trying not to be self-serving. I'm trying not to put ads
2:55
I don't have ads as we record this. I don't have ads in your face. I'm not playing auto-play videos
2:59
I'm trying to make one of my favorite kinds of apps, which is figure out what you need to figure out
3:04
and move on with your day. That's the best case scenario. In designing a reference tool like this
3:08
you really have to optimize for like speed and information density. So can you walk us through some of the decisions
3:14
you made when you're designing the user interface of your app? Yeah. You know, it's really tough because, as with
3:19
all apps, especially done by individuals, it's a reflection of what the individual cares about
3:24
And I think that's true. I guess that's very true of IMDB as well. But it's a reflection of what Amazon cares about, not necessarily the developers of the IMDB app
3:32
It's a reflection of what the various market forces that drive them to be profitable
3:36
care about. Exactly. Exactly. And so for me, you know, what I typically do on IMDB and now call sheet is, you know
3:43
I'll look at, you know, who are the, you know, top four or five cast members like director
3:47
and whatnot. who are the crew members, excuse me, and then the four or five cast members as well
3:52
But I also care about, like, when was it released? How long is it? When I started putting this in front of more and more beta testers, though, that became a little
3:58
bit squishy because the information that I care about may not be the information that you
4:02
care about. And where to watch is a great example of that. During the development process, I had thought, oh, I'll integrate with some sort of, you know
4:10
where can I watch Ted Lassow sort of provider at some point. But I kept saying having people say to me, no, you should really add where to watch
4:17
You should really, really add it. You should really add it. And they were right. It's that care that hopefully sets me apart from IMDB as an app that cares about what its users want
4:27
and less about what the developers want. The app icon is of a movie Clapperboard
4:32
What movie details do you put on there? Well, as we sit here now, the movie that's shown is the Hunt for Red October by John McTiernan
4:41
which is one of my, if not my favorite movie of all time. I'm a little nervous that that's potentially a copy
4:47
right issue or something like that because I don't want to imply that like, you know, John McTorner or the Hunt folks have endorsed the app, although they should
4:55
So I might change the text on there, but my plan is if the text is changed
5:01
it's going to be like the search for Blue March. I couldn't help but put an homage into one of my favorite movies
5:06
So below the surface level features of the app, you know, looking up actors and series
5:11
what are some of the cool, advanced features that you want to mention for our audience here
5:15
One of the things I noticed is that when I'm looking at the cast of things in particular, oftentimes I'll have something spoiled by it
5:25
And spoiler alert for Watchman, one of the characters is the husband of the star in the show
5:30
And they list his name. I forgive me. I don't remember the name of his name there
5:34
But it was like John or Sam or something like that slash Dr. Manhattan
5:39
I was like, whoa, whoa. That's not cool. Like I didn't know that
5:43
They haven't revealed that yet. And so I'm still mad about it like two years later
5:48
And so as I was working on call sheet, it occurred to me, I can fix this problem
5:53
You know, I have the power. That's what's great about being a developer. And so what I've done, particularly for TV shows, specifically, is I have an option for hiding spoilers
6:03
And you can opt into doing this for a particular TV show
6:07
And it's shown, you know, above the fold, if you will, just above the cast and the crew
6:11
And there's a little button. And then it brings you to a screen that says, okay, what would you like to hide? the whole idea is you should never ever be ruined
6:17
You should never have something spoiled just because you are interested in seeing who's in it
6:21
Because it is so infuriating when you're just absolutely invested in a show like I was with Watchman
6:27
And then all of a sudden this pivotal, just critical moment has been ruined just because you were
6:33
interested in who that actor was. So what are the features you love to imagine but are limited by today's technology or
6:39
impossible to develop as a one-man team? Some of the things that I'd like are difficult because they're not affordable
6:46
A lot of people asked for Common Sense Media, which is a organization that does really good parental, like, guidance information for films and TV shows
6:58
I looked into integrating with Common Sense Media specifically, but they are one of those like, let's get on a call and see if you can even afford it kind of places
7:07
and I suppose I could or maybe will see how prohibitively expensive that is
7:14
but it definitely does not strike me as the kind of thing where they want, you know, podunk single, you know, indie guy in Virginia
7:20
to be integrating with their APIs. And that's too bad. So what I've done is, again, like falling back on IMDB
7:26
and I'll show you IMDB's version of it in a web view. That's on the list of things that I think I might need to reevaluate
7:33
once I get this thing out the door and hopefully get a little bit of traction behind it. So choosing how to monetize an app is one of the hardest choices a developer has to make
7:41
How much functioning at the time of recording are you currently given for free
7:46
Yeah. And how are you charging for the full features? Yeah So this is extremely tough My other two apps are free to try and then a one time hypothetically forever unlock That didn seem appropriate for call sheet because I don know what my costs will be from the movie database going forward
8:10
Although the movie database's cost is minimal right now, I really don't want to put myself or my users in a position where I have to say, oh, you know how it was like
8:21
super cheap before? Yeah, it's going to be like three times that now. And that's a tough thing to
8:26
balance, right? Because I know that everyone has subscription fatigue. I have subscription
8:30
fatigue. I am guilty of not even blinking an eye at spending $2.50 on a diet Coke at a
8:38
restaurant and thinking nothing of it. But if I see a $2.50 monthly subscription, I'm like
8:43
whoa, whoa. But for something that has an ongoing cost, including the maintenance of the app
8:51
in general, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a little bit of money. What I've landed on
8:56
is, as we record today, what I've landed on is you're going to get some amount of searches for free
9:03
I think that number will be 20, but I'm reserving the right to change it and tweak it. And then at
9:07
that point, you're going to have to subscribe to the app and you're going to have to pay for it
9:12
Hopefully, there's enough padding for me that even if my costs go up, some, I don't immediately
9:18
have to pass that down to my users. I can just eat that cost. But I would, I will say that I'm trying a couple of a little bit off-the-wall things
9:25
If you're presented with the, what I call the pre-sale screen, basically the, okay, here's
9:29
where you would subscribe. By default, there's a monthly option and a yearly option
9:34
And then below that, at the bottom right, below the two options, there's a text that says
9:39
more options. And if you tap into there, there's a yearly version that's basically twice the cost, and I'll
9:46
explain in a second. And there's a yearly version that's like five times the cost
9:50
those are effectively glorified tip jars. I don't know if anyone will ever take me up on it
9:55
But you know what? If someone is hurting to give me a little extra money, who am I to stop them
9:59
So that gives you no perks other than my undying love. And it throws a little bit extra money my way
10:05
But the third thing during the time you're using your 20 free searches, if you tap all the way through into more options and at least glance at the fact that I'm asking for yet more money, then at the bottom, at one time you can say, can I maybe have like five more
10:20
freebies please and I'll give you five more. So that's a whole bunch of words to say I get it
10:25
Subscriptions are no fun. They're not fun for me. Like if I thought I could get away with a one-time
10:29
purchase and keep the business sustainable, I'd absolutely do that by keeping it simple and
10:34
basically saying do you want monthly or yearly and quietly, do you want to just give me extra
10:39
money because you're nice? You know, do you want monthly or yearly and that's that? Early on
10:43
the one that you've seen most recently, I had like a couple of bullets and then a picture of our dog
10:50
at the bottom. And I, and I captioned it, you know, Penny, our dog says, thank you. Arf. And I thought
10:55
that was very cute. But the feedback I got was that that was maybe not as professional as I wanted
11:00
So I pulled that. Well, if you're, if you're cutting the bit about your dog from the app
11:04
do you have a few words you would like to speak about Penny in this, in this environment
11:09
Yeah. No, so we have a, at the end of 2020, as with everyone else, we adopted a rescue
11:16
This particular dog, who again is Penny. In backstory, my surname is List
11:20
You can't really name your child penniless, but you can name a dog penniless
11:25
She's a Sharpay, which means she was super wrinkly when she was little
11:29
And I like to joke that she's been ironed out from the neck down as she's grown
11:33
We had said to our dear friend who rescues dogs, you know, we would like not a puppy who is somewhere to the order of like 10 to 15 pounds and doesn't shed
11:43
We ended up with a puppy who has grown to 35 pounds and sheds like hell, but you can't win them all
11:48
Regarding Swifty Y, you touched on this earlier. It's sort of a controversial new user interface framework amongst developers
11:54
Yeah. I have just a few quotes here. Ethan Lipnik said in an interview with me
11:59
I couldn't deliver a good product if it was 100% Swift UI. Shihab Mabababab
12:03
developer of Aviary and now Mammoth. Oh, yeah, yep, yep, yep. It's too unreliable at the moment to use in a fully fledged feature-rich app
12:11
and he wouldn't dream of building an entire app that relies on it. And this Casey List said
12:17
Oh, that guy, he doesn't know what he's talking about. A lot of it, you just can't freak out. do. And the tough thing is, it is a black box. Once you hit the wall or the edge of that black
12:25
box, you're screwed. Who would have said such a thing? No way. No way. Oh, man. You know
12:32
Swift UI, it's a very interesting, very, very interesting beast. I have come to quite like it
12:40
I would say 99% of call sheet is Swift UI. It's funny because when I first started developing
12:48
call sheet, which is just a couple of months ago, I, ran into an issue where as you scrolled and things fell off the screen, they would just never
12:56
come back. So if you scroll down the screen and then come back up the screen, the stuff at the top
13:01
it would just never, ever come back. But there was a point release coming for iOS 16. And I was
13:07
like, well, I know I'm not ready to release yet. Maybe it'll get fixed. And sure enough, it got fixed
13:12
It used to be in the original versions of iOS. You know, you would have the title little tiny up at
13:17
the top of the screen. And then over time, if I think it was iOS 7 or something, I think it was iOS 7 or
13:20
like that. They put, they would put the big title where to say inbox, and then you would have your
13:24
inbox below it or whatever. But if it's more than one line, you just get an ellipsis. So it'd be
13:31
the hunt for, dot, dot, dot, dot. Well, no, no, I'd like, I'd like multiple lines, please. No, no, no
13:36
you get the hunt foe dot, dot, dot to dot. No, no, but that doesn't work for me. I need both the lines
13:42
Well, I'm sorry, you get the hunt foe dot dot, dot, and you will like it. And stuff like that
13:46
Like, so much is so easy on Swift U.I. Like, adding the search box
13:50
is preposterously easy. You just say, searchable, please, and say where you would like the text stored
13:58
That's it. It's amazing. But the flip side to that is, occasionally you run into these walls
14:03
like the title, where there's nothing you can do. And I didn't have to go down to UI kit to fix it
14:08
but I had to do way too much work. And so that's something that's silly
14:14
but also kind of a showstopper. Like, if this wasn't fixed already, I genuinely may not release the app
14:20
would have to like completely re-architect the app. So it works very, very differently just to get a void this very unusual gotcha
14:27
But so much of Swift UI I love, I am not a good designer
14:33
Doing something like rounding the edge, like putting a corner radius on an image or a rectangle in Ui kit, which is the prior, you know, old school version of iOS, you know, user interface programming, it seems like more work than it should be just around the edge of something
14:49
Whereas in Swift UI, you just say corner radius. And you tell it how much of a corner radius you want
14:55
I went from nothing to a fully functional app. It was kind of a garbage app, but it worked in the span of a couple of weeks maybe
15:03
Like it really was, it may even been less than that. It was stunningly fast
15:08
Whereas if I was working on this in UIKit, it is just so much slower and there's so much more code involved
15:13
I would rather not ever have to write UIKit again if I can avoid it
15:17
All that being said, you know, know, the quotes that you had earlier, including from that dope Casey list, I could passionately
15:23
agree with any one of them. You know, I could make an argument that it, even today, that it's
15:27
too soon for Swift UI. Obviously, that's not what I believe, but I can make the argument
15:31
So despite all of those qualms, do you think you'll be using this going forwards and maybe
15:36
switching your other apps into Swift UI? Masquerade was almost entirely Swift UI. Peak of view was mostly UI kit with a little bit of
15:46
SwiftUI sprinkled in. The problem with those apps like I still maintain them They still out there I plan to maintain them But for better and for worse they don make that much money And I think some of that is because they just not as appealing as I hope they would be But some of that is because you pay once and that that And so if you think about it from my perspective I not terribly incentivized to work on those apps There a lot that I have yet to do in call sheet Whereas with the other apps I think there are some things that I could add to them But they are most
16:18
fully realized at this point. So would you ever consider distributing your app on an alternative app store if Apple
16:26
were ever made to implement that sort of thing? I would consider it for sure
16:29
I don't think it would be ignorant of me to say that I wouldn't even think about it. I don't, I think it would take a lot for me to do it, though, because the app store is going
16:39
to be the default forever. And I think it makes sense for that to be the case
16:44
I would be very surprised if any other app store had any real
16:48
real traction. And so even if it's a more lucrative proposition for me in in terms of the fees that I
16:55
pay, I'd be surprised if it would end up lucrative on account of the fact that now there's an
17:01
additional barrier to entry just to get my foot in the door. Did you see just before we
17:06
we started this meeting that Apple put out a press release that developers generated $1.1 trillion in
17:11
the App Store ecosystem in 2022. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure they did. I'm sure you didn't, you didn't
17:17
enjoy taking your 15 to 30% of every one of those transactions. It's because they had to
17:22
How else would they pay for it? I really do enjoy Apple
17:27
And I know a fair number, and I'm sure you do as well, a fair number of rank and file engineers
17:31
And particularly the rank and file really do just want to make cool stuff that makes people happy
17:36
The one thing I will say, though, in conflict with myself, is that especially for the rank
17:43
and file that have been there a long time, that's... There's a alarming amount of, I don't want to say the word entitlement, but I'm going to use it because I can't think of a better one, but entitlement that, look, we Apple have put in all this work
17:59
You wouldn't have a call sheet if it wasn't for our iPhone. So yeah, you owe us
18:04
Like, that's completely fair. And early on, yeah, that made sense, like 2007, 2008, 2009
18:09
You've earned it. You did something that is truly remarkable. And I think you should be compensated for it
18:15
but that was iPhone one. It's not the same place it was in 2007
18:20
This is not the same market. This is not the same universe. And it would be healthy for Apple to realize that, yes
18:26
I wouldn't have call sheet without the iPhone, but we wouldn't have the iPhone without people like me
18:33
But that being said, everything about an alternative app store feels even worse
18:38
So I still come back to, please, sir, can I have another, you know? Now in our beautiful Apple Silicon world
18:44
They're once again expanding the Mac lineup, which I don't think anybody would have expected 10 years ago
18:49
What is the dream Mac you wish Apple would make just for you
18:53
This is going to be a mostly boring answer. My current computer, which is an M1 max 14 inch MacBook Pro, it's really good
19:05
It's really good. The only thing I can really think of that I really wish this computer had is a cellular modem
19:11
I would give my arm for a MacBook Pro with a cellular modem
19:16
And I know that to so many people that sounds bananas. When I've made this same speech about iPads
19:22
so many people will be like, why would you ever pay for a cellular iPad? That's bananas
19:27
Just tether. It works fine. That's not really wrong. To be honest, that is correct
19:34
But it is so much more delightful to just open the device
19:40
and immediately you are connected to the internet. It's magic. You don't have to worry about connecting via Wi-Fi or a cable
19:47
You don't have to worry about whether or not the Bluetooth communication that gets the devices to know that they're near one each, one another
19:54
to do the magic auto-tethering. You don't have to worry about that. You're not killing two batteries
19:59
You're only killing one battery. Like in so many ways, I prefer to have my devices
20:04
have their own internet connections. And all my word, as someone who is disproperper
20:10
disproportionately pleased by working in odd locations like parks and train stations and things like that
20:16
it would make me unreasonably happy if I could give Apple another $150 on top of the like $5,000 or
20:23
whatever obscene amount I spent on this laptop was in order to get a cellular modem
20:27
And as much as it would destroy me to give Verizon another $10 or $15 a month to enable said cellular modem
20:32
I would do it. I would not even think about it. I have absolutely no need for this and no desire for it
20:37
but I just think it would be neat if they went the opposite direction as well
20:42
and competed with like those ludicrous like gaming laptops. They bring back it in the 17-inch MacBook Pro form factor
20:51
They give it an insane battery. They put in the, they put in the Ultra in it
20:55
because they currently don't have, the Ultra is exclusive to the Mac Studio. And to put the icing on the cake
21:02
they anodize the whole thing with like that black that like the keyboard well is in
21:06
Don't even tease me about. that. I wanted, so my first Mac was a polycarbonate MacBook, and this was when you could spend another, I think it was $150 to get a black polycarbonate MacBook. And I was so jealous of anyone. I was too cheap to do it myself. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was so jealous of anyone with a black MacBook. I thought they were the coolest. And I don't think I have a desire, excuse me, for a, for a large laptop like that. But where you would get me interested is if you said it's so big that we can fit an Ethernet port in there
21:37
I am one of those lunatics that still uses Ethernet religiously. I try to use Ethernet wherever possible because it is so much nicer
21:44
it's so much faster. If there was any way to find a MacBook that was so big in general
21:50
that putting Ethernet on board kind of made sense, you know, I would be so there for that
21:56
I would really think about it because I have no desire for 17 inches, but if you said 17 inches with an Ethernet Jack
22:01
maybe. In the early aughts, you would do the little like thing where you would like slot
22:07
load or you would like chink. Yeah, like you could get an Ethernet Jack inside of a PCMCIA card slot that slot out
22:13
and you put it in vertically. That's exactly. We're saying the same exact thing. Yep, yep, yep, yep. When I was in college, it was, you know, 2003, 2004
22:20
And I remember I thought I was hot stuff because I had a think pad where you could flip it
22:25
upside down. And I loved to think pads. You'd flip it upside down and you could unscrew a couple of, unscrew a door
22:31
And you could slot in a Cisco wireless card in it in the, in the display
22:36
they had the antennas, they just weren't hooked up to anything. And so you could have an onboard wireless card rather than the PCMCIA
22:43
wart sticking outside, you know, it's sticking out the side of the computer
22:46
I had a few of those Cisco cards as well. And oh, man, when it was internal, I was hot stuff
22:52
Let me tell you, I thought I was so cool running around Virginia Tech, not having to have one of those stupid little dongle, or not dongles
22:58
We know what I'm saying, bulges sitting out the side of your computer. Ah, those were the days
23:02
What are some of your other least favorite websites? Anything that requires a two-factor code through SMS, I kind of die a little inside anytime that happens, including my bank
23:12
The Amazon app and the iPhone is garbage, which sounds a little bit like IMDB. Who coincidentally, as we've mentioned, is owned by Amazon
23:18
The app I don't care for at all. And what's frustrating is now that we have a dog, as we discussed, we've been using chewy from time to time
23:25
The chewy app is either native or such an unbelievably impossibly good web view that I cannot believe they made it this good
23:35
And using the Chewy app has just snapped into focus for me how awful the Amazon app is, now frustrating and slow it is
23:45
And so yeah that not a website but that a great example of something that just infuriating For any public persona on the Internet it a right of passage when you start experiencing a catastrophic bug that you desperately want Apple to fix
23:59
What are the bugs that are currently affecting you? I don't have any that I can think of right this minute
24:06
But I will say, it was an iOS release or two ago
24:10
So it was like 12, 13, maybe 14. my family is all in on iPhones, but my wife's family is all in on Android, possibly just despite me at this point, but whatever, I respect the game
24:20
We would just not receive messages. And so we would have to, like, take our phones and, like, sit there and, like, compare
24:27
All right, who got what message? And we're, like, trying to, like, Sherlock Holmes our way into figuring out what the entirety of the conversation was
24:34
And this went on for months. And I was just ripping my hair out, trying to figure it
24:41
there's nothing I can do about it. And of course, I'm like, I'm throwing stuff across the wall and feedbacks
24:46
I'm taking cyst diagnosis like it's my job. And I would collect these logs and I would wait for it to happen
24:51
And, you know, again, I'm like doing this with Aaron's phone and my phone. I'm like, oh, it happened. It's trying to make sure I grab the cyst diagnose when it happens so I can give it to
24:59
the engineer so they have something to work with. And all of a sudden it just magically went away
25:04
And I wish I could tell you that was because of me. But I think it's just somebody realized there was something wrong somewhere in the stack
25:10
and it got fixed. But it was infuriating. And let me tell you, if you really, really love your spouse, which I hope you do, and I very much do
25:19
there is nothing more painful than your beloved spouse saying to you, why won't my piece of garbage phone work
25:26
Especially when you make your living talking about that piece of garbage. So it was a rough time around the list household for a few months there
25:33
And that was brutal. So you're a car enthusiast as well as a tech enthusiast
25:39
and at the intersection of that is the rumored Apple car that was apparently so embarrassingly expensive
25:45
that the project was scrapped and rebooted from scratch. So my question is
25:51
what weird luxury car features do you imagine that concept Apple car might have had
25:57
Probably a cellular freaking radio. I bet it had one of those. It's hard for me to envision it
26:02
but I think there's something very powerful about the idea of the device
26:08
that is most central to your entire life, which is your phone
26:13
imagine that having really honest to goodness, you know, from the core integration with the device that
26:19
especially if you're American, especially if you live in the suburbs like we do, the device that is your gateway to the world
26:25
Like your phone controls your whole world, but your car is how you get there
26:30
And I can imagine that there could be some really impressive stuff
26:34
if you could really and truly integrate the two of the, being able to route plan on your phone or your iPad or even your computer and have that seamlessly
26:44
beamed or carried over to your car, I think that'd be neat. I think if Apple were to integrate
26:51
with charging infrastructure, I could see them doing a more robust job of understanding what's
26:58
available, when it's available. I'm sure a lot of this exists in some way, shape, or form
27:02
but the thought of having it all integrated and consistent across the board is, is very, you
27:08
very appealing to me. If Apple Silicon is showing us anything, being deeply overpowered can be fun
27:15
And as car enthusiast, having way too much power is always a good thing. So I could see
27:20
you know, an Apple car being just stupidly, stupidly fast like some Teslas are. And that could be fun
27:27
too. I drive a Prius, so I wouldn't know anything about that. Hey, the new Prius looks really good
27:32
actually. I have to say, they would really nice. What is the fast and sad meal you make yourself
27:37
when you, A, need to get a quick meal, but for whatever reason you can't eat out and you need to make something yourself
27:43
B, you're feeling a bit down. And C, you're completely alone with nobody to judge you
27:50
The obvious answer, which is an honest answer, is velvita shells and cheese
27:55
I do love velvita shells and cheese. If you're not American, it's going to look truly terrible
27:59
But basically it's pasta. I forget the name of the pasta, but it's shell pasta. And then it comes with a packet that appears to be a packet of like
28:07
foil. I'm not sure that's actually accurate, but it looks like foil. And there's like this gelatinous
28:12
like goop cheese in there. And so you boil the pasta just like you normally would. And then you squeeze
28:18
the cheese, squeeze it out of that thing into the pot and mix it up. I know it sounds disgusting and I'm not
28:25
doing a very good job of selling it, but it is so good. We really like cheesy rice, which is you
28:31
cook up the rice and vermicelli and then you put like this cheese dust on top and you stir it in and it
28:37
becomes this like cheesy rice and again like I'm sure any reasonable human with self-respect
28:42
would find either of these completely revolting but I enjoy both of them deeply what's yours
28:48
way to turn it around on I know that a lot of people of yours who don't know me are going to watch
28:58
this so I'm not going to admit to the most heinous one oh come on where's the fun in that
29:02
I haven't done this since college you get like a six-pack of the uh
29:07
the like the Johnsonville like like pre-cooked sausages or something which is delicious it's a heart attack but it's delicious you buy two six packs of that and a single 12 pack of hot dog buns so that you can you can wrap it up all in like all over a period of two weeks or so that's amazing I am not above this I that actually sounds very tasty it's four meals of three of those each that is that I think I might need to go see a cardiologist after just hearing that described but
29:37
it does sound delicious. We're not at the bottom of the hill yet
29:41
Oh, no. All right. Tell me more. Because eating the same thing three times might get repetitive, I have a specific
29:47
array of sauces. Excellent. The first one, ketchup and mustard. Okay. The second one, mustard and barbecue sauce
29:55
The third one, barbecue sauce and ranch dressing. So this is preposterous, but I'm here for it
30:01
There's a drive-in theater that's like half an hour west of Richmond
30:05
It's in between Richmond and Charlottesville. And it's called the Guchland Drive in Theater
30:09
Guchland is the name of the county in which it's placed. At the Guchland Drive in Theater, they have something called the Guch Dog, which is a hot dog
30:16
But then they put macaroni and cheese on top. And then they put barbecue sauce on top of that
30:21
And it's one of those things where this doesn't sound very good, but oh my word, it is terrible in the most delightful ways
30:30
I would eat that right now if it was put in front of me. I wish I was on one of those food shows where they have the, like, thing come in from
30:35
off screen, you know, and they just hand it to you and you get to chow on it. I would do it right now. Hot dogs already, I think, have a marketing problem. That's true. That's true
30:43
Calling it a goch dog. It's not good. I don't see how they think that helps. Nope. That's all my
30:47
questions. I have no idea how to end this. You can download call sheet from the app store, I presume
30:51
If you click here or here or maybe down there, somewhere, you can find it. So you can go to
30:56
caseless.com slash call sheet, and that should link you to the announcement post when it's up
31:00
And you can hopefully get an easy, peasy link to the app store from there. How about that
31:04
There we go. Historic in marketing. You can almost tell. Well, good
31:09
Thank you so much for spending all the time with me. I really do appreciate it. And, yeah, I hope any, I hope you
31:13
I hope anyone listening and watching. I hope you check out call sheet. Again, you get a little bit of time with it for free
31:18
It can't hurt. Give it a whirl, kick the tires, see what you think. And, you know, send me an email if you have an idea about it or if you don't like it
31:25
Tell me why you don't like it. Give me something actionable to fix and maybe I'll be able to fix it. And we can also find you on ATP, accidental tech podcast
31:32
Yeah, you can catch me at at ATP. You can also catch my other podcast og with my dear friend Mike Hurley
31:37
relay.fm slash og. Thank you for joining us. Of course. Thank you so much
31:41
I really appreciate it
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