♪ good wednesday morning. i'm kayla tausche. carl quintanilla is off today, but joining us for the entire hour, henry blodgett, "business insider." >> thank you for having me. >> jon fortt is here, as always. we're thoonkful for that. apple, shares off highs after hitting an intraday record that being $100.77 per share. apple trading at $139. the electronics giant broke the $100 mark yesterday, the first time it happened since splitting 7 for 1 earlier this year. apple last set an all-time high

in september 2012. with the iphone 6 launch xpevgtsed in a few weeks, how much higher can apple shares go? bring in the managing director joining us on "squawk alley." steve, good morning. >> good morning. how are you? >> doing well. upped your price target, $110. thought there was room to run in the stock. what a two years for apple since it last hit the all-time high. walk us through why you think the stock is getting such a bid right now. >> sure. the stock typically runs up before product announcements. the question, what happens after this time? since people remember the five two years ago and very excited, but the company did not come through. margins declined and the stock had a real tough time. we think this time is different, because the new phones are going to be addressing a third of the market that apple does not address today. we think gross margins are likely to hold up. also getting in addition to a below market multiple, not the case two years ago, 2% dividend yield, buying back 5% to 6% of the stock and apple kind of

moving out more broadly. what we call the apple sphere, you use your mac, go to your ipad, outside to iphone. car, car play, store with i beacon. tim cook said he is a very broad vision of what ios, apple the system can be over time. >> steve, i hear you. a lot has to do with not how great the products actually are but how they match up with people's expectations. initially, people were disappointed in the ipad, which kind of seemed silly in retrospect. what does apple have to do? how much of this has to do with the initial first weekend sales of the iphone 6? supposing it's called that. how much of this has to do with a wearable device that make as big splash? what has to happen for people to be so excited about the stuff they send the stock higher after announcements? >> the phone is still the main event. interesting, stock hit a nigh 2012 about the day apple said they it fantastic first day seals and so forth. great. you knee stainability. the fact they're now addressing

about one-third of the market they've not played in in larger screen phones suggesting you could have a strong upgrade cycle we still think could be more than people expect. you also have the iwatch. we have relatively conservative expectations. nevertheless a lot of analysts don't have the iwatch in their models at this point. with a reasonably stable gross margin and new products we think you'll have earnings estimates moving up, not the case two years ago. >> sfeev, great to see you. the iphone 6, monstrous. no question there. what happens afterwards, though? the iwatch likely to be a lower priced product? 70% of apple's profit is coming from the smartphone. so what happens after we get past this launch? we get into 2015? >> well a good question, henry. i assume the launch will take them through most of 2015, that you've got a lot of people coming off contracts. so it's not going to be just a one quarter hit. they do have to do well until merging markets. also a bit of a difference tv two years ago. the company has lower priced

phones. it is having greater penetration in emerging markets. i worry getting towards 2016. i feel pretty good through most of next year. 2016 might be tough comparisons. we don't want to get too carried away with a price target of $115. >> steve, in the last week the stock had quite a run-up. investors on the show touting it as the best value play. at what point, though, does apple not become a value play? >> well, it's at about a 7% discount to the market multiple. i'd say when you get to a market multiple or slight preem up, a little hard to call it a value play. take out the cash, argue it's still below a market multiple. at some point, argue this a lifestyle kpip as much as a tech company. as a tech economy, another wurn maybe two points, at some point you might have to argue, like a luxury goods company with a stable customer base that will continue to feed premium product to, and we don't have to worry

about the really low-priced phones as we over of the last 18 to 24 months, the company the hope, steve. we'll see. september 9th. we'll be there. you'll be watching as well. for now, leave it there. >> very good. thank you. >> all right. thanks, from ubs. next up, from the white house to the garage. uber is hiring david plouffe. former white house senior adviser and manager of president obama's 2008 campaign. his official title, head of strat yi. running uber communication service as the car company continues to expand. seems to be a rite of passage. think of google, elliott shrag, facebook, joe lock harhart. how is this different? >> kayla, right. interesting about plouffe, he wasn't always just your washington insider. he didn't go to washington in the first term to work inside the white house necessarily. stayed out.

work and date tao in the on the ground organizing. the obama campaign was so good at working with data to figure out how to get the right people to do the right thing for them at the right time. that's just what uber needs. not just with its customer base, but as it attacks regulatory hurdles ahead of it, and plouffe, i don't know who would be better. >> brilliant. the biggest risk to uber is government interference. it's unions. it's big taxi cartel as they're calling it. >> the government. >> exactly. taking a big democrat strategist, knows everybody obviously can start to diffuse this issue from the inside, and would start to align, effectively we had a republican on last week we love uber! great. it's like, now on the other side of the fence. everybody loves uber. let's great lake down the barriers and go forward. >> only a matter of time, calling has pock traes crazy noting plouffe was behind the message of inequality during

president obama's campaign, and a pro-union campaign and uber is a very different company than some of the messages communicated in that specific campaign. i'm wondering, how did uber as a company become such a political lightning rod? >> i think it's a disruptive company. nobody knows exactly what to think of it. on the one hand, the founder has been associated with ian rand and objective philosophy, very much a libertarian-type thing. on the other harnd, people who couldn't ever afford to take black cars before are able to do it through uber and lis-ilyft, little guy, big guy? who knows? >> people love the service. if they can take that message, travis talked in his note yesterday. we got to win this campaign. that's what it is and what plouffe will be doing. >> gop loves it, too. op-ed in the journal saying, this isn't killing the taxi industry. they like, too. more people are riding. we can agree people like uber.

>> smart move. >> yes. fwetweet time. overed uber's bitter rivalry with competitor lyft. squawk on the treat, who does lyft need to hire to respond? handle @squawkalley. let us know. we're air responses later in the show. finally, steve ballmer is leaving mike soft, stepping down from the board to spend more time on his new job. owner of the l.a. clippers. he's been with microsoft 34 years and still the biggest individual shareholder a 4% stake woerth abouts 150 $15 bil. we will miss moments like this. >> developer, developers, developers, developers, developers! developers, developers, yes! >> now it's not about developers. it's mobile first. it's cloud first. in this statement, supporting

the strategy. how much of a leash does this give nadella going forward? >> still has bill gates around. a big deal. i'm a fan of steve ballmer. we'll get to see him chanting, just in a differ kind of arena. i think the guy is underrated in a lot of ways. yes, microsoft had its problems. miss add number of things under his watch, but not all his fault and he absolutely gave his all to that company. >> one thing we can be confident about is, this had nothing to do with him being a busy guy. even though he is. >> his strategy, effective, no, that's not working. you're ot. soughti i sought soughtisatya, take over. >> exactly six months after nadella took the helm of the company. now a peaceable transition off the board. $15 billion is still a big stake in a company, henry. if you were a ceo and someone had a 4% stake that used to be on the board, used to run the

company itself, what type of relationship would you nied to keep? >> still has a voice knno questt that. the idea he would agitate, be annoying. the idea, remove him from it. it's a new regime. give them the room to run with it. >> you don't see him showing up at a shireholder meeting pounding the table? >> he has plenty of tables to pound that have nothing to do with microsoft now a good thing. a few around microsoft wondering what will he do? he lived and breathed microsoft so for long. so passionate about the company. i hope he finds a passion. he seems to have found one. good for satya in a dnadella. has big gates. a nice stock run-up and balmer gets to take over and underdog for once instead of taking over microsoft as he did a few weeks before the nasdaq's peak. >> great, by the way. microsoft at its best when fighting as the underdog. tremendously competitive.

>> saying the l.a. clippers could go to the playoffs next year? >> if they don't, nobody's going to blame steve ballmer, right? he's got some time. not taken owner like the l.a. lactsers or chicago bulls post-jordan. >> a good comparison. we'll see. guys, leave that discussion there for now. meantime, just a couple hours into trading, we want to check on markets, which are mixed right now. you see the dow up about 25 points. the s&p up 2. nasdaq the only major average that is in the red now. just by about a fraction. a fraction of one point. shares of hertz down big. company saying its 2014 results would be "well below its prior forecasts." the company said car recalls and higher operating expenses are pressuring its car rental business. meantime, shares of jetblue rallying after upgrading that stock to outperform. the firm says it expects a number of moves to increase profit act, including a change in management. could be an interesting move there. jetblue on that report up nearly

4%. when we come back, paypal intderring a one-touch economy. the brain behind apps for open table and air budg & b. plus a major milestone for music app shazam this morning. the ceo joins us with details later on, and tom hanks and the typewriter. founders of that app join us, all coming up on "squawk alley." with all the opinions about stocks out there, how do you know which ones to follow? the equity summary score consolidates the ratings of up to 10 independent research providers into a single score that's weighted based on how accurate they've been in the past. i'm howard spielberg of fidelity investments. the equity summary score is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. call or click to open your fidelity account today.

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mobile payments not always easy, from filling out addresses, re-entering information, take morse than a few minutes. our next guest is trying to change the way we purchase on the go being the first to roll out one-touch payments, apps like open table, air b & b and uber, pay on a tab or less. akwaied by palpal and ebay a few months ago. good to see you. you said one of the advantages you'd got over paypal wases that you're built for mobile. you can let people pay in a tap or less. does this nation issue for paypal what you're doing now? >> yeah. one of the premises we had from early on, computing devices, do

most e-commerce shopping there, need a different way to pay to turn the shopping sessions into buying. we think this has the opportunity to become the defining buying experience on mobile. which if you combine that buying experience with the breadth and reach of paypal, most widely used and trusted ditchistal wall in the world, it has the opportunity to change the way people buy and sell using a mobile device. which is, quite timely now, because you already have more than half of all e-commerce shopping sessions coming from mobile devices, but buying is not happening there yet. depending which analyst report you look at, sort of 10 percent brs to 15% of e-commerce purchases happening on emobile. if the buying experience is right, we think more than half the shopping is happening on mobile, then more than half of the buying should happen there as well. enables that future, just as much biing on mobile as you have shopping. >> bill, a lot of money in the payments business. assuming you're wildly

successful and take over a lot of 9 mobile transactions. who gets paid? right to paypal and who gets screwed? the traditional credit card companies and processors? >> well, you know, we any this is beneficial for the ecosystem. right? we've looked and syd, if we can have consumers and buyers connect to do things they're looking to do, it's a win for everybody. for the shopper, for the seller. a win for the ecosystem, a ultimately we partner with card networks and others and this this is a win for the industry, if consumer, able to shop more seamlessly and buy more seamlessly on what is quickly becoming their preferred mobile device. >> what specifically will elbow owl competition like visa checkout, just rolled out a couple weeks ago? or banks rolling out peer to peer what you did, and if you

put the resources behind the technology, it's a competitive space now but could be a big threat to your company. why not? >> one, we pioneered this kind of experience and started with the touch you mentioned almost a year and a half ago. goes back several years of work how to create a great one-touch buying experience on mobile? that combined with the deep expertise of paypal around fraud, you know, making sure the consumer has a safe buying experience, all of these things is something we think nobody else in the industry can match, that the reach pay pal has both with many, many millions of consumers as well as a wide reach of merchants doesn't exist elsewhere and it's the combination of the detechnology with the millions of consumers and merchants that let us do it in a way it's not the easiest but sayest way to pay on a mobile device. >> and apple releasing many more devices.

how important to do this now before apple perhaps breaks into the space? >> we've been on the track for quite some time, give wen started with touch a year and a half ago. on the track of moving to something differ and partnered, paypal partnered with samsung around their fingerprint scanning and have looked at on the mobile device, user passwords, we think there's a better way to do this. on the track quite some time and think it's a fundamental step forward to get to one-touch buying but doing other things sump as fingerless scanning with samsung. >> thanks, bill. we'll see. good luck. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. up next, the severe drought continues in california with almost the entire state seeing an impact. some crafty l.a. residents are finding ways to make money during the water shortage. we'll tell you how. plus, the number one preapp on the app store is all about tom hanks and a typewriter. the founders join us coming up

later on xwm "squawk alley." stay with us. the drought in

currently covers about 99% of the state. this drought is very different than in years' past. we explain. >> jon, look at this. the house next door, returning the xrinkallers now, water is returning into the street. they could fete geined $500 for that. look at the grass behind me. so lush. like so much in los angeles, it's fake. one big difference with the drought this time, not how bad it is, how much money water agencies are giving back at rebates. as much ass 3ds a square foot to replace the grace with drought tolerant plants or the fake stuff. vick watterson, yes. his name is watterson, owns waterless turf, cost as much as $10 a square foot to take out the old and put in the new. >> i attribute that mostly to

the drought and also the department of water and power. the water company's providing an incentive to install the live turf with the artificial. >> reporter: the metropolitan water district gave rebates for grass ripped up. equivalent of 1,700 yards and the rebate fund is starting to run a little low. one guy waiting for his $6,000 rebate is les. his real grass. you'll see his fake lawn, which he says even with the rebate cost about $1,9 grand and take about eight years to pay off. >> our current cost is about $7.50 a day for water. my projection is we'll be down to $3 a day. that's a considerable savings. >> and get this. even with all the water restrictions and rebates, in sacramento, the state's capital,

it is currently unallowed, barred, illegal, to have fake grass in your front yard, in sacramento. later on "power lunch," why replace the grass? just paint it green. one guy's making a killing doing that. back to you. >> if anyone can do that story, it is you. we'll tune in later to see just that. for now, jane wells, thanks. meantime, european markets close in a few minutes. bring in simon hobbs to tell us what's moving. >> kayla, yeah. effective, europe flat into the end of the session. everybody waiting to see what the fomc comes through with with the minutes. remember, these markets gained 1.6% during the course of the last week. so you're coming from particularly two days of strong rallies there. as we await the fomc and decisions about when they're going to start moving to raise interest rates, shocker today, the bank of england minutes from august 7th revealed two members actually voted for higher rates, mark carney, bank of england

governor lost consensus. the two that voted for rates said to be gradualists you have to do it now. the seven said keep them as they are said if we move too early, vulnerable for shocks. the pound is stronger after recent weakness. trade at $1.66.41. the big one is the euro, which lost $1.33 overnight. the euro is clearly now sensitized more to what is going on in europe, and the problems they have. more importantly, it's the dollar. beginning to take off big time. you'll see here since the recent highs, now down -- early may -- now down 4.5% on the euro. a huge move. now we've broken 133, koss coul lower if people pile in on the dollar. carlsberg, big bear giant, russia, second warning. largest brand in russia called belltic amplt.

stock down 5%. heineken a great set of results in contrast. another beer player. in uk, building. karyian, finally an offer to y buy, rejected. the whole deal is off. not going to get together and cra created largest building in the uk housing market. many other builders, guys, have also fallon. back to you. >> quite a red chart there, simon. thanks. get ready to watch the latest episode of "scandal via snapchat." expanding into content. the app to look to add tv and movie clips news articles and advertisements, called snapchat discovery set to debut in november. one media company is in talks to be a partner with snapchat. daily mails website mail online. of course, if you watch the show you know our contributor jon steinberg is the ceo. the company had no comment.

snapchat, no comment as well. could be an interesting move for a start-up looking to build revenue. when we come back, a itch maer milestone for music app shazam. the ceo of shazam joins us in a cnbc exclusive to explain what exactly it is. plus, hiring former david plouffe, uber, to run its communications. covered that with competitive lyft on this program. today's "squawk on the street," who does lyft need to hire to respond? your answers later on this hour. tweet us.

shazam launched as a music identification app a dozen years ago. now it's much more, and today announcing a brand new milestone. julia boorstin is live in l.a. with the details. julia? over to you. >> kayla, thanks. shazam's announcing today its mobile app grown 34% in the past year to over 100 million monthly active user giving it a bigger mobile user base than pandora, pin tricht or snapchat. downloaded to 500 million devices and user shazam 20 million times per day. uses. the app built its business on music recognition. ability to identify what song is playing and where to buy it drives over 400,000 digit's

downloads a day and the company take as cut. the majority of revenue from in-app advertising and become a force in tv ads for big events especially like the super bowl allowing hundreds of brands to connect on the second screen allowing people to use the app to access more information about what's happening on tv and now is working to become a valuable partner to help tv networks connect with consumers on smartphones and pabst announcing a sales platform to give control over what content you see when shazam is on tv. dig clark productions and amc are already onboard. now the company is diversifying into new areas with a partnership in the works bringing shazam into movie theaters and a move into retail in the works. kayla? >> all right. thanks so much for that, julia. stick around. the ceo joins us exclusively here at post nine, rich good to see you. >> always good to be here. >> quite an app many used to know only as a way to identify music.

where do you see the biggest growth going forward? julia mentioned tv, movies, is it still music? >> we're excited to have crossed the 100 million mobile monthly active user milestone and our foundation is very much in music. we intend to continue to provide the best music experience, most shazam's happen in less than four seconds. provide more content for music and more. tv, cinema, retail and beyond. >> rich, reaching an interesting position, though, where you've got such user growth. such engagement, you might have an opportunity to turn this into a platform for a lot more. we've seen companies like facebook, maybe like whatsapp, make that leap at potentially the right time. when do you become more of a platform more thon of dent fiping what's out there and selling ads against that? >> we started our evolution into truly being a platform enable other consumer companies to engage their customers and potential customers through

shazam. like the partnership launching in almost every u.s. movie theater later this year. working with advertisers. over 500 tv ad campaigns users can is a shamm for more content, special offers from advertisers. platform is very much of a part of our strategy. >> how do you get paid? what's the model? >> three-part business model. the platform part, per campaign or per show or per store or event. we also have advertising within the app, traditional cpm advertising model and then sell almost 10% of all music downloaded. take a rev share on most of that and also paid by streaming providers for sending them new customers i. believe julia has a question from l.a.? >> yes. rich, your business is all about listening to what's going on in the environment to pick up what the ad is, or what the song is. how does that work in retail? what will you do when you launch into the retail space? >> great question. shazam is truly a technology company at heart. over 120 scientists and engineers, over 200 patents.

our history is in audio recognition. looking at sound waves, matching those with songs. also now able to identify water marks both sonic and ultra sonic and exploring ib and other technologies. the case of retail, using actual water marks in the background music of the start to identify which location you're in. >> shazam is a treasure-trove of big data? the record labels love investment in shazam because they can see what customer, looking for, trying to identify as potential future artists on their own record labels. i'm wondering, how do you plan to harness that data in other industries going forward? >> so 20 million sa s.a.ha sajs. a strong signal of intent. people shazam when e in really like it and want to know more about it. that data used by the record label industry for a long time to predict future hits, and know which artists are resonating where, and we're sharing that with advertising partners, tv

networks and providing really, really deep insights into all the partners on our platform. >> about a year ago you said you wanted to go public. sounded like that would happen fairly soon. here we are a year later. what's your plan? is an ipo in the near-term horizon? >> we think shazam has fundamentals of a great public owned company, global brand, massive consumer adaptation and growth. in a business model talked about three it fundamentally strong components and we're trying to build the best company, create the best consumer service we can and go public if the time is right. >> when will the time be right? you guys raised new funding earlier this year, $500 million valuation roughly. last year the speculation was this would be a $1 billion company when it went public. how is the valuation changed and how do you watch the public markets? >> fortunate to have fantastic investors. through american mobile, we did our last round add $500 million

and continue to have great support from investors to continue to invest in the company and execute against this massive opportunity. >> are you going to kill the qr code? >> you know, we're trying to provide the best way for people to engage with music, tv, and the future live events, retail store, cinema and want to make as much of the world shazamable agency we k. interesting that you brought in the music label as investors earlier this year. how does that change your strategy when you have them onboard? does this mean we might see more partnerships? could you ever sell music directly through shazam? >> we have very close relationships with the record labels and artists and managerses. by virtue of how much music we sell and one. primary ways people discover music. constantly dipping into those relationships. whether data and insights with them, getting content, a more content-rich environment. helping them promote new artists and new albums and concerts,

things like that. we're continuing to be in those partnerships. >> rich, meantime you've done what many seeing a a holy grail, provide a verb out of your product. shazam, shazamable. what else? >> we were on "jeopardy" a couple months ago. exciting for us. trying to do extend this great verb to go beyond music. so we always want to be the best in music, but want people to shazam tv, and 30% of u.s. users, shazamed tv in of the last year. the number of tv shazamed doubled year over year and we're excited about what we're wag about to do in movie theaters, in retail envirnlts and will keep doing. >> we'll keep having you back for all of these milestones. rich riley, ceo of shazam. >> phones in movie theaters, tough combination. and up next, entering the main stream, will consumers buy in? new research for you first on cnbc. first, rick santelli what are you watching today? >> well, jon, maybe our seventh

president can give us some clues. listen, if you owe somebody $20, and there's a bit of deflation, your bill actually gets bigger. but if you have a $s 20 in your pocket you want to buy something with and get a bit of deflation, you're looking better. maybe that's the whole crux of central banking. we're going to talk about that, right after the break. what can your fidelity greenline do for you? just take a closer look. it works how you want to work. with a fidelity investment professional... or managing your investments on your own. helping you find new ways to plan for retirement. and save on taxes where you can. so you can invest in the life that you want today. tap into the full power of your fidelity greenline. call or come in today for a free one-on-one review.

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hour, counting down to what could be the market's moment of truth. steve liesman tells us what janet yellen will snay jackson hole. back to school. shopping at the mother ship. the executive vice president at mall of america, grades retailers. while some sports retailers warn of a declining golf business, adam scott's popularity is soaring. the master's winner is live on "the half." jon, see you in a bit. >> looking forward to that. from nike fuel bands to google glass, wearables are becoming more main stream and consumers adopt the technology. who are these consumers? the textbook rental company surveyed over 1,000 community college students and found while two-thirds of students weren't familiar with the term wearables they were able to identify ones like fitbit and jawboneup. while ownership is low, the survey finds the price point rather than the cool factor is the obstacle that stands in the way. in terms of a possible iwatch,

48%, take a look at it. only 8% are basically saying they're already basically guaranteed to buy it, guys. >> interesting, because college students aren't known for purchasing power. so ask them how much would enjoy receiving it at a gift and maybe you'd get a little bit more of a favorable number. i don't know. >> probably true. >> i don't know. i've been hearing the hype about a watch for two years now. nobody has given me a single reason to want to own it. >> yeah. these students said, one-third of them wouldn't want to go above $100. on a watch. so apple's really going to have to bring out the sexy factor to have people want these as much as a pair of shoes. >> 86% knew what google glass was. does that bode well? gotten a tough rap on the show. >> know what it is, but are not wearing it. >> there we go. everybody know what's it is. >> purchasing power, $1,800. >> everybody knows what mom jeans are, too, but, you know? >> interesting data points to say the least. meantime, get to the cme group, rick santelli is there whip "the santelli exchange."

hey, rick. >> hi. and thank you. you know, jackson hole coming up at the end of the week and some of the moves i've seen, i'm not sure it's a coincidence that for the week the s&p is up roughly 30 points. the dow roughly up 300 points. i do believe that from the benefactor's side of the ledger, that central banks indeed are the best thing that the equity markets have going. now, let's put an asterisk there. good things are going on in the u.s. economy and i continue to say that we have one powerful mule in the u.s. economy. it's a shame we have so many saddle bagging weighing it down. having said that, i think that some of the strategies that central banks put forth for requirements to normalize policy in my opinion, i think they're hiding behind the goal post movements as they change the requirements for normalization. it wasn't that long ago that ben

bernanke was talking about kind of a symmetrical approach. we weak data, strong data, warrant duff approaches to normal saigsz of policy. doesn't seem than it's road we're on. why is that exactly? i think the answer is simple. it's about servicing debt. consider the debt in all the various countries. the leverage associated with the debt and lack of improvement keeping interest rates low through programs like quantitative easing. sure, there's been improvement and it's interesting when you have discussions especially whip somebody who observes housing. the comment will always be well. low interest rates center aren't going to hurt housing, but it's how much they help. about cost benefit analysis. what's so simple? servicing the debt. in our analogy for the tease, if you owe somebody an andrew jackson, dropping prices, call it deflation. a loaded term.

your deck gets mo debt gets more expensive. you have no debt, andrews jackson prices drop, you can buy more. servicing debt, by historic terms, i don't think they're going to soon, servicing the debt would probably dwarf some of the largest of the u.s. entitlement programs. europe, my final thought. as your europe, monitor this euro. a because i think the experiment with the single currency may be doomed. why? because the falling sur ining c helps their company, but it really helps germany. if then had the deutsche mark, and the euro a drop in euro is going to help. back to you. >> thanks, rick. up next, the number one free ipad app, backed by award-winning actor tom hanks. the founders of the hanks writer app join us next on "squawk alley."

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out with the old. in with the new. not this time. award-winning actor tom hanks taking it old school with his new app hanks writer. the typewriter simulator now the number one free i pad app on the app store. asked what inspired him to inspire this he wanted the sensation of an old manual typewriter. he teamed up with our next guests. co-founders of a tech agency specializing in mobile games. so, guy, it's a free app. top of the app store.

a big deal. in-app purchase working there. what are you trying to sell in this free app, and are you selling any of it? are you making money? >> yeah. we're, we have a couple different typewriters you can add on whenever you download the app and also a special bundle package you can have to get access to all of the different typewriters. >> chris, how did you guys get connected with tom hanks and when you first connected this seemingly simple idea, how long did it take to then develop this app? >> chris? >> well -- so basically, hits sense has been doing a lot of game development and one of our big games, draw a stickman, successful in the industry and won quite a few webby awards for that app, and because of that, we ended up getting introduced to creative artist agency, who reps tom hanks, and whenever they, he came to them with the

inspiration to develop an ipad app, they kind of introduced us and thought we would be a good fit for them on this project. >> yeah. and kind of interesting thing with that is, the inspiration from this app solely came from tom hanks. she a big collector of typewriters. he has well over 200 typewriters in his house. most people don't realize that, but he often talks about the days when he used to go to a cafe and type on to a typewriter, to write hits scripts, and it was something about the sound and the process that really would get him into the rhythm of writing scripts. ever since the computer has come out, a lot of that has gone away. so part of the process for him is he wanted to re-create that old experience that he so much loves. >> chris, what's the average age of people who like this app? i am old enough to actually remember using one of these machines 150 years ago. i imagine for most people, this is a curious object that your grandparents used. so are kids interested in this

as well? >> yeah. i mean, we've seen a wide range of interest, just from people that just have creative spirits and creative minds. one really good thing about apple and in partnering with him. an ipad that really has kind of a very hipster-type feel of user base, and so across the board, all genders and ages, we've really seen a lot of success and people actually liking it. >> so clinton, quick question. should i go horse and buggy or xerox machine if looking to come out with an app next? >> i would go -- i don't know. i'd go horse and buggy, and see what happens. >> how did you decide, guys, what conventions of the old typewriter to keep intact and what new technologies to introduce? i know one very innovative factor in this app is that had it a delete button. no more whiteout. obviously, didncan't do that on ipad. how important was it to keep the

nostalgia alive in this product, even as you're introducing some of these new facets? >> i think this was one of tom's passion projects, and his goal was to give that feel of a typewriter, also still make it good for composing. so obviously, we do have the ability to turn off the modern delete and use the x-out. also, still, if you want to compose with this, to create and use the fonts and all that, you can do that. >> is ios 8 going to let you move this typewriter into other apps as well? are you looking into that at all? >> yes. so we have, we work very closely with apple in many different ways. we were just at an apple event and one of the big releases for the new ios 8 coming out later this year, third-party keyboards for the first time. something androids had for a long time. we're in the process of evaluating everything, about the possibility of taking what we've done with this typewriter app

and actually em belding it into the third-party keyboards, which are just going to be available for the first time in the coming months. >> that is going to be even more fun. clinton, chris, thanks for joining us. >> yeah. >> thank you. while i was on vacation earlier this week, i tried to detox from social media until jon fortt called me out on twitter challenges me and michael dell to the ice bucket challenge. not just on twitter, on facebook. pretty much any social media. >> from adobe, that ceo did it, too. >> he as well and michael dell responded both did it earlier in the week. i did miss my 24-hour window, didn't really have wi-fi. off the grid. i did manage to respond yesterday and here is my entry in the latest social media phenomena. >> jon fortt, i accept your nomination to the ice bucket challenge to strike out als. my donation is sent and i will see you tomorrow before the main event, i pass on my nominations to my cnbc colleagues joe

kernen, sara eisen, can't get out of this and kelly evans. >> oh, my -- oh. >> it was very cold, though was about 95 degrees and very humid outside. i am told by a little birdie, joe kernen may be doing this later in the week. sara eisen has yet to accept. kelly evans did it yesterday while i was away, but i owe you one, jon. >> look at you. selfie ice buckets. both of you. well done. >> we're not fancy, you know, big-time people with whole crews going around. we go in the backyard and get it done. >> yeah. wore my fancy shirt. i don't know if viewers saw it. it says "live a little." we all have to get our kicks somehow. and talking about all hour, uber. covered the competition with lyft.

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let's get to it. time to squawk on the tweet. uber hiring former white house adviser david plouffe. we've covered uber's bitter rival with with its competitor lyft. who does lyft need to hire to respond? lisa tweets, john carville. ride the results of uber, and john tweets, in true silicon valley style, lyft should hire david plouffe from uber. that's not you, jon. a different john. quite a savvy response right there. we'll see how this shakes out. want to get a quick check on the market before the we hand you over to the "half." nasdaq trading at rts highest level in 14.5 years. among the biggest point advantages for the nasdaq, apple, microsoft, amazon, 21st

century fox and to think we were talking about correction in these name as short months ago. jon, see you tomorrow. send it over scott wapner and team "halftime report." starting lineup, jon najarian, and mike murphy. stephen weiss, and josh brown, and we begin with a countdown to what could be the market's moment of truth. janet yellen's speech in jackson hole on friday. so will the fed chair be as dovish as investors hope, or is there a surprise lurking in the grand tetons? someone who probably knows. our own steve liesman who is there. steve, will she disappoint the markets or not? >> depends on what the markets want, scott. >> you know what they want, steve. >> you know better than i do. >> you know what they want. >> the