Live with Phil ⇥ marco.org

Marco Arment was at John Gruber’s annual WWDC live podcast recording and, oh boy, what a show:

But after a brief introduction from Merlin Mann and Adam Lisagor, John introduced, “and I shit you not,” Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, Phil Schiller.

Being familiar with John’s dry humor, I’m not sure most of the audience believed him. Many cheered. Some hesitated. For a few seconds, nobody walked out, and people started laughing, thinking they got the joke.

And then Phil Schiller really walked on stage.

There’s a lot to unpack with an appearance like this, and Arment does so expertly. Most important, though, is that it still felt like an episode of the Talk Show. After a few minutes of thinking “holy shit, it’s that great writer interviewing one of the most important product people in the world”, it settles in to a pretty familiar feeling. It doesn’t feel like PR; it feels human. You really need to listen to this episode.

Update: The video recording is now up, and the tension in that short pause described by Arment above is totally palpable.