Upgrade

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00:00:08 ◼   ► -From Relay FM, this is "Upgrade," episode 432.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Capital One, Hover, and Trade.

00:00:16 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Jason Sonnell.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Hi, Jason. -Hi, Myke. How are you?

00:00:21 ◼   ► -I'm pretty good, my friend. How are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► -Doing okay. You know, had a --

00:00:26 ◼   ► took a trip over the weekend.

00:00:27 ◼   ► I know you were sleeping inside a cardboard box

00:00:30 ◼   ► for part of the weekend.

00:00:32 ◼   ► But now we're all fine, we're all better.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - That makes it so much worse than it was.

00:00:38 ◼   ► - Oh, sorry, you were sleeping inside a cardboard box

00:00:40 ◼   ► inside the house that you bought.

00:00:41 ◼   ► So there. - Yeah, yeah.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - So congratulations. - Thank you.

00:00:43 ◼   ► - And I'm glad that the boxes are mostly unpacked now.

00:00:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh yeah, I have some home automation discussions

00:00:49 ◼   ► that I wanna have on the show in the coming weeks.

00:00:51 ◼   ► I'm redoing all of it.

00:00:54 ◼   ► - We are gonna dig in.

00:00:54 ◼   ► This is great hashtag content for us.

00:00:57 ◼   ► So excellent, excellent.

00:00:58 ◼   ► - If you've been like wondering,

00:01:00 ◼   ► why is Myke so focused on matter?

00:01:02 ◼   ► Well, that's why.

00:01:04 ◼   ► I've been thinking a lot about smart home, right?

00:01:07 ◼   ► That's been a lot of my thoughts

00:01:09 ◼   ► over the last couple of months.

00:01:12 ◼   ► - Should we refer people to the analog?

00:01:13 ◼   ► 'Cause I think there's an analog episode

00:01:14 ◼   ► where you talk a little bit about moving stuff, right?

00:01:17 ◼   ► - I spoke a little bit about it on analog.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Yeah, there isn't really a definitive yet

00:01:21 ◼   ► 'cause I haven't spoken about it yet.

00:01:23 ◼   ► But I had moved, when me and Casey recorded,

00:01:27 ◼   ► I'd moved the day before.

00:01:28 ◼   ► And so I was, that episode is a bit like

00:01:30 ◼   ► I'm kind of out of it and I sound pretty damn,

00:01:34 ◼   ► but you know, I'm feeling good.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Everything's good.

00:01:36 ◼   ► - It's all fine now.

00:01:38 ◼   ► - I'd moved 24 hours earlier.

00:01:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, we didn't record our episode last Monday

00:01:42 ◼   ► 'cause Myke was literally between homes at that moment.

00:01:45 ◼   ► So we were smart and pre-taped,

00:01:49 ◼   ► but that means it's been 10 days since we talked.

00:01:51 ◼   ► So I guess we should get to it.

00:01:53 ◼   ► - I have a hashtag snow talk question

00:01:55 ◼   ► comes to us via run who wants to know, Jason,

00:01:58 ◼   ► have you ever tried maple syrup in your tea?

00:02:02 ◼   ► - You know, I love maple syrup,

00:02:04 ◼   ► but thumbs down to this idea.

00:02:06 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:02:08 ◼   ► No, no, thank you.

00:02:11 ◼   ► I have inadvertently put olive oil in my tea.

00:02:15 ◼   ► - Oh, how was that experience?

00:02:19 ◼   ► - Sometimes the honey and the olive oil

00:02:20 ◼   ► are both out on the counter and it's the morning

00:02:22 ◼   ► and I haven't had any tea yet.

00:02:24 ◼   ► And there, at least one time, I think,

00:02:26 ◼   ► I put olive oil in the tea and I had to dump the tea in

00:02:28 ◼   ► 'cause nobody wants olive oil in your tea,

00:02:31 ◼   ► but I don't want maple syrup in my tea, thank you.

00:02:34 ◼   ► Appreciate the question.

00:02:36 ◼   ► Implied suggestion that maybe I should, not going to.

00:02:39 ◼   ► I know, not interested.

00:02:41 ◼   ► - But I guess you don't put sugar in your tea, right?

00:02:44 ◼   ► So like, it makes even less sense

00:02:46 ◼   ► that you would put something else.

00:02:47 ◼   ► - Well, no, I put honey in my tea,

00:02:49 ◼   ► which is a thick, viscous, sweet thing.

00:02:52 ◼   ► So you could argue that maple syrup would go in there,

00:02:54 ◼   ► but that is not a flavor I want in my tea.

00:02:56 ◼   ► It would be overpowering.

00:02:57 ◼   ► I might as well just, I don't know,

00:03:00 ◼   ► just drink maple syrup at that point.

00:03:03 ◼   ► - I don't think it'd be that bad.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - No, I, no thank you.

00:03:07 ◼   ► - If you would like to send in a question

00:03:08 ◼   ► to help us open an episode of Upgrade,

00:03:10 ◼   ► just send out a tweet with the hashtag SnailTalk,

00:03:12 ◼   ► or use question mark SnailTalk

00:03:13 ◼   ► in the Reel AFM members Discord.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Follow up, Jason Snell, we have some follow up.

00:03:19 ◼   ► First comes from Nick, who writes in to say,

00:03:21 ◼   ► As a follow up to the last episode, my theory as to why you notice ProMotion more on smaller

00:03:27 ◼   ► devices is because you are hands on with them, expecting the screen to respond to your touch

00:03:32 ◼   ► as opposed to a mouse or other input devices.

00:03:35 ◼   ► Nick, I had a friend of mine write to me personally to say this kind of thing too, of like the

00:03:39 ◼   ► idea that you've got the device in your hand and you're touching the display is why like

00:03:46 ◼   ► Like with smaller devices like that, you may be more likely to experience the promotion.

00:03:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I think there's truth in that.

00:03:53 ◼   ► The way Nick phrases it here is a little like smaller devices.

00:03:55 ◼   ► I was trying to read that as like the smaller the device, the more you notice.

00:03:58 ◼   ► And I don't agree with that, but I do agree with the idea that if it's a direct manipulation

00:04:03 ◼   ► device, so an iPad or an iPhone, you're going to notice it more than if it's one level removed

00:04:08 ◼   ► where you're using a pointing device or something on it.

00:04:11 ◼   ► I think that's probably true.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:04:15 ◼   ► Apple have issued a statement about the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro and some manufacturing/production

00:04:25 ◼   ► issues.

00:04:26 ◼   ► So we spoke on the last episode when we were talking about earnings about Apple saying

00:04:31 ◼   ► that they were already unable to meet the demand for Pro phones.

00:04:40 ◼   ► This has now gotten a lot worse.

00:04:43 ◼   ► So China has a zero COVID policy, which has led to factory shutdowns in Zhengzhou.

00:04:51 ◼   ► This means that Apple is working at a severely lower manufacturing capacity.

00:04:56 ◼   ► So coming from their statement, "We now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments

00:05:02 ◼   ► than we previously anticipated, and customers will experience longer wait times to receive

00:05:07 ◼   ► their new products."

00:05:08 ◼   ► So a statement like this, so they put it on their newsroom blog and it's got like a bunch

00:05:13 ◼   ► of legal stuff at the bottom, you have to issue this kind of statement if something

00:05:19 ◼   ► is going to severely affect your next quarterly earnings if you're a public company.

00:05:27 ◼   ► If you know about it, you have to disclose it.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Now I don't remember what it was, but I know in the – I can't remember off the top of

00:05:33 ◼   ► my head, I've been trying to think about this all day, but this came up in I think

00:05:37 ◼   ► that the book about Johnny Ive and after Steve,

00:05:42 ◼   ► there was another one of these,

00:05:44 ◼   ► but I don't remember what it was,

00:05:45 ◼   ► where, and I know Apple's done this in the past,

00:05:47 ◼   ► like something's happened, so you have to disclose it.

00:05:50 ◼   ► Like it's a thing you need to say,

00:05:52 ◼   ► hey, this happened, so it's gonna affect us, so.

00:05:57 ◼   ► - What we've been talking about,

00:05:58 ◼   ► like this happened with the Mac,

00:06:00 ◼   ► but the Mac is not as material to Apple's business

00:06:02 ◼   ► as the iPhone is.

00:06:03 ◼   ► And these are the pro products,

00:06:05 ◼   ► the Pro products are the most popular iPhones,

00:06:07 ◼   ► and they're going to have a shortfall of availability

00:06:11 ◼   ► for them during peak iPhone season, which is really brutal.

00:06:15 ◼   ► So they may pull it all back next quarter,

00:06:18 ◼   ► but I think that this is a pretty severe warning sign

00:06:23 ◼   ► about Apple's ability to materially affect

00:06:28 ◼   ► iPhone revenue for the next quarter.

00:06:30 ◼   ► Like this is rough.

00:06:34 ◼   ► The fact that this exists at all is a bad sign.

00:06:38 ◼   ► And the details of it don't really make it any,

00:06:45 ◼   ► seem any better.

00:06:46 ◼   ► It only seems to get worse.

00:06:48 ◼   ► So this is a big deal and we're gonna see people

00:06:51 ◼   ► trying to buy iPhones and find out that they're out

00:06:54 ◼   ► a month or two.

00:06:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, so that, when we were talking on our last episode

00:06:59 ◼   ► about our expectation that they're gonna have

00:07:01 ◼   ► storming quarter. Well, you can forget about that now.

00:07:05 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:07:06 ◼   ► 'Cause who knows what it's gonna end up being like,

00:07:09 ◼   ► but I think it's probably safe to say

00:07:12 ◼   ► Ample think that this is a non-resolved,

00:07:16 ◼   ► potentially non-resolvable situation

00:07:18 ◼   ► by the end of the quarter, right?

00:07:19 ◼   ► Like when it matters for the holidays.

00:07:21 ◼   ► So they feel like you probably can't get caught up.

00:07:23 ◼   ► - And the idea here is that the zero COVID policy

00:07:27 ◼   ► means that they do shutdowns and they,

00:07:31 ◼   ► - In some cases they keep people in the factory

00:07:33 ◼   ► and they're quarantined and that limits the factory

00:07:35 ◼   ► because even if you keep the people there,

00:07:37 ◼   ► you've got a limited ability to move stuff through.

00:07:41 ◼   ► And then there are reports about people like escaping

00:07:44 ◼   ► out of the factory and walking a hundred miles home

00:07:48 ◼   ► because they didn't wanna be locked up in the factory,

00:07:50 ◼   ► which I mean, kind of makes sense.

00:07:52 ◼   ► But then they're also breaking the quarantine,

00:07:54 ◼   ► which isn't great.

00:07:55 ◼   ► So there's a lot of stuff going in here,

00:07:57 ◼   ► but the bottom line is that iPhone production

00:08:00 ◼   ► is gonna be severely hampered,

00:08:02 ◼   ► and that's just, Apple is gonna have to deal with that.

00:08:05 ◼   ► - And Matter has officially launched.

00:08:08 ◼   ► So there was a big launch event for Matter

00:08:12 ◼   ► in Amsterdam last week.

00:08:16 ◼   ► I'm gonna put a great article from Jennifer Patterson.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Tuohy?

00:08:22 ◼   ► - Tuohy?

00:08:24 ◼   ► - Tuohy, sorry, T-U-O-H-Y, that is a name

00:08:27 ◼   ► that I have never had to say before, I apologize.

00:08:31 ◼   ► - The old JPT.

00:08:33 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:08:34 ◼   ► - OG JPT.

00:08:35 ◼   ► - Oh, you know what it is?

00:08:36 ◼   ► It's Tooie because--

00:08:37 ◼   ► - Tooie, JP Tooie.

00:08:38 ◼   ► - Because their Twitter handle is @jp2e.

00:08:42 ◼   ► So Jennifer Patterson Tooie.

00:08:44 ◼   ► There we go, that is smart.

00:08:46 ◼   ► - We're calling her JP Tooie from now on.

00:08:48 ◼   ► That's just how it is. - JP Tooie at The Verge,

00:08:50 ◼   ► who has been doing great reporting about MATA.

00:08:53 ◼   ► - Great work, yes.

00:08:54 ◼   ► - And this article is fantastic.

00:08:56 ◼   ► it kind of talks about the entire event,

00:08:58 ◼   ► a lot of the product, and basically is what you'd

00:09:01 ◼   ► kind of expect.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Lots of companies announced new products,

00:09:04 ◼   ► lots of companies announced their kind of roll out plans.

00:09:08 ◼   ► Like one of them, the big one is Amazon,

00:09:11 ◼   ► the Echo lines, it's gonna take a while.

00:09:14 ◼   ► Like they're starting on just Android this year

00:09:17 ◼   ► and just a select amount of devices that will work,

00:09:20 ◼   ► but then iOS is coming next year.

00:09:23 ◼   ► There was, what is the name of that company?

00:09:26 ◼   ► David likes Acara.

00:09:29 ◼   ► They're doing a software update to their hubs

00:09:32 ◼   ► to support Thread.

00:09:34 ◼   ► I think it was LevelLocks who's like,

00:09:36 ◼   ► "Oh, by the way, there's been a Thread Radio

00:09:37 ◼   ► "in our products the whole time."

00:09:39 ◼   ► And so, they just never told anyone.

00:09:41 ◼   ► And Eve are gonna be supporting a bunch of this stuff,

00:09:45 ◼   ► which is great, 'cause Eve have been historically

00:09:48 ◼   ► basically just HomeKit.

00:09:50 ◼   ► - Right.

00:09:51 ◼   ► - But now, because the underpinnings of Matter is HomeKit,

00:09:54 ◼   ► they're now going all in on Matter

00:09:56 ◼   ► and their products are gonna be available

00:09:57 ◼   ► to Android users for the first time.

00:09:59 ◼   ► So a lot of stuff is starting to happen

00:10:02 ◼   ► and they announced like the next set of device types

00:10:06 ◼   ► that the meta standard is gonna support.

00:10:07 ◼   ► So there's a ton of stuff going on.

00:10:09 ◼   ► I'm pretty excited about it.

00:10:12 ◼   ► So yeah, we'll see.

00:10:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's gonna take time though.

00:10:14 ◼   ► You have to take time and there's gonna be frustrations

00:10:17 ◼   ► where there's things that are,

00:10:18 ◼   ► the update isn't out

00:10:19 ◼   ► or they're gonna declare it incompatible.

00:10:22 ◼   ► All that stuff is gonna happen too

00:10:23 ◼   ► but I have high hopes that this will settle down

00:10:26 ◼   ► and be much better than our current situation.

00:10:30 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:10:32 ◼   ► We mentioned tea earlier.

00:10:34 ◼   ► If you want to hear Jason talk about tea

00:10:35 ◼   ► for a really long time,

00:10:37 ◼   ► you can go and check out the latest episode

00:10:39 ◼   ► of "Thoroughly Considered."

00:10:40 ◼   ► So Dan and Tom, they do like a off week.

00:10:45 ◼   ► So I record that show with them.

00:10:46 ◼   ► We talk about product design and stuff like that.

00:10:48 ◼   ► And we do that once a month.

00:10:50 ◼   ► And then on the opposite,

00:10:53 ◼   ► It's basically the show comes out twice a month.

00:10:55 ◼   ► It's not really fortnightly.

00:10:57 ◼   ► It's like every other episode is a new thing

00:11:01 ◼   ► called The Last Detail where they bring on a guest

00:11:04 ◼   ► and talk about a specific product that they love

00:11:07 ◼   ► and you went on to talk about your T-robot.

00:11:10 ◼   ► So if you wanna hear Jason talk about the T-robot,

00:11:12 ◼   ► I was listening to it before I sat down today.

00:11:15 ◼   ► I haven't finished the episode yet,

00:11:16 ◼   ► but I'm enjoying it very much.

00:11:17 ◼   ► - Oh, there's a big twist at the end.

00:11:18 ◼   ► There is not a twist.

00:11:20 ◼   ► - Oh, maybe.

00:11:21 ◼   ► yes, if you want to hear me explain the T-robot.

00:11:25 ◼   ► Talking to those guys is fascinating, right?

00:11:26 ◼   ► 'Cause they think about product design.

00:11:28 ◼   ► They think deeply about product design.

00:11:30 ◼   ► And so it was fun to get their reactions to the product

00:11:35 ◼   ► and what needs it fulfills.

00:11:38 ◼   ► And we ended up talking about Breville, the company, a lot,

00:11:41 ◼   ► and the different kind of products that they make

00:11:43 ◼   ► and their brand promise and what they're trying to do.

00:11:46 ◼   ► We had a moment of unexpected bonding

00:11:48 ◼   ► about a particular button on a Breville toaster.

00:11:51 ◼   ► That was fun.

00:11:52 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a fun episode

00:11:54 ◼   ► if you wanna hear me talk about my robot.

00:11:56 ◼   ► And it's not a robot by the way,

00:11:58 ◼   ► John Syracuse, I asked him, he said,

00:11:59 ◼   ► "It's not a robot," and never fails.

00:12:01 ◼   ► There's always somebody who immediately,

00:12:03 ◼   ► helpfully chimes in and says,

00:12:06 ◼   ► "I love that you're enthusiastic about this.

00:12:09 ◼   ► I just put a teabag in a cup and boil water."

00:12:12 ◼   ► And I was like, "Well, yeah, I do that too.

00:12:16 ◼   ► I did that this weekend when I was traveling,

00:12:18 ◼   ► but at home, I don't wanna wait.

00:12:21 ◼   ► I don't wanna wait for the water to boil

00:12:23 ◼   ► and then wait for the tea to steep

00:12:24 ◼   ► and stand there while all that is going on

00:12:26 ◼   ► or forget and have bad tea.

00:12:28 ◼   ► I wanna press a button and walk away

00:12:30 ◼   ► and then the tea just sits there ready for me,

00:12:32 ◼   ► which it did this morning, by the way.

00:12:35 ◼   ► So yeah, an hour about the Tea Robot.

00:12:37 ◼   ► - I like their products.

00:12:38 ◼   ► They're called Sage, yeah.

00:12:40 ◼   ► - Ah, interesting. - All the Bible-branded

00:12:42 ◼   ► kitchen stuff is called Sage.

00:12:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, called Sage.

00:12:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it's good.

00:12:46 ◼   ► and I have been one of their coffee makers,

00:12:47 ◼   ► and I love it.

00:12:49 ◼   ► They make good stuff.

00:12:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, why don't you just put Senka in a cup

00:12:52 ◼   ► with some hot water, Myke?

00:12:53 ◼   ► Why do you need a machine to make coffee?

00:12:56 ◼   ► - 'Cause I have espresso,

00:12:57 ◼   ► I can't just put the espresso beans in a cup.

00:12:59 ◼   ► Just...

00:13:00 ◼   ► - You wanna mash 'em in there,

00:13:01 ◼   ► you get a mortar and a pestle,

00:13:02 ◼   ► you just mash those beans,

00:13:03 ◼   ► and then pour in water and then drink it.

00:13:05 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:13:06 ◼   ► It's gonna be great.

00:13:08 ◼   ► - And while we're in the follow out segment,

00:13:10 ◼   ► don't forget there's always merchandise available.

00:13:12 ◼   ► We have a selection of t-shirts

00:13:14 ◼   ► that are available all times on our wonderful store,

00:13:17 ◼   ► upgradeyourwardrobe.com.

00:13:19 ◼   ► There's some upgrade logo t-shirts,

00:13:20 ◼   ► there's a draft t-shirt and a rumor round up t-shirt.

00:13:23 ◼   ► You can go and get those at any time

00:13:25 ◼   ► from our friends at Cotton Bureau.

00:13:26 ◼   ► And if you enjoy this show

00:13:28 ◼   ► and you want longer ad-free versions every single week

00:13:31 ◼   ► and access to a bunch of wonderful benefits

00:13:34 ◼   ► of being a Real AFM member, like the Discord,

00:13:36 ◼   ► go to getupgradeplus.com.

00:13:38 ◼   ► You can sign up for $5 a month or $50 a year

00:13:41 ◼   ► and you'll be helping support the show too.

00:13:43 ◼   ► Thank you if you do.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Let's do some room around up before we move on today, Jason.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Okay, all right, saddle up.

00:13:49 ◼   ► Got a few things.

00:13:50 ◼   ► So Mark Gurman has confirmed no new Macs will be coming this year.

00:13:57 ◼   ► So we'll be waiting for 2023 for the next M2 Macs, I suppose.

00:14:03 ◼   ► Yeah there were a whole bunch of people who were asking me about this and they're like,

00:14:05 ◼   ► "Really, really?

00:14:06 ◼   ► Is this really true?"

00:14:07 ◼   ► Because they're wanting to buy a MacBook Pro.

00:14:09 ◼   ► They're like, "But there's a new MacBook Pro coming, right?"

00:14:12 ◼   ► And I was like, well, not until next year now.

00:14:15 ◼   ► So you can hold on until early next year.

00:14:19 ◼   ► You should probably hold on until early next year.

00:14:21 ◼   ► - So I guess maybe March, maybe earlier.

00:14:25 ◼   ► I guess it depends how much they've got.

00:14:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, Germin says March because he says,

00:14:30 ◼   ► oh, Apple traditionally doesn't do events.

00:14:32 ◼   ► And he's looking at the calendar

00:14:33 ◼   ► of like when Apple traditionally does events.

00:14:35 ◼   ► I don't know if I really believe that.

00:14:36 ◼   ► Apple used to announce products in January all the time

00:14:39 ◼   ► in Mac World Expo period.

00:14:40 ◼   ► and then even after that still announce products in January.

00:14:43 ◼   ► I think it's possible that if they've got these products

00:14:46 ◼   ► and they've just decided to take their foot off the gas

00:14:48 ◼   ► a little bit, it might be earlier in January.

00:14:51 ◼   ► It is also possible that it could be later,

00:14:52 ◼   ► but when Mark Gurman says it, he's just using the calendar.

00:14:55 ◼   ► He doesn't seem to actually have sources telling him that.

00:14:58 ◼   ► I think that we could be open to the possibility

00:15:00 ◼   ► that they might be January or February,

00:15:03 ◼   ► if not, you know, if not maybe March.

00:15:06 ◼   ► And then likewise, unless there's a larger story to tell,

00:15:08 ◼   ► it'll probably be like the iPad launch and be a press release kind of thing.

00:15:12 ◼   ► Mark is also reporting that Apple is looking to drop the "hey" from the Siri

00:15:18 ◼   ► trigger phrase within the next two years, quote, and additionally,

00:15:23 ◼   ► Apple has also been engineering further changes.

00:15:25 ◼   ► It will integrate the voice assistant deeper into third party apps and services

00:15:29 ◼   ► and improve its ability to understand users and take the correct course of

00:15:32 ◼   ► action.

00:15:33 ◼   ► So this feels like a WWDC 23 or 24 announcement of like,

00:15:38 ◼   ► we've made Siri brand new and blah, blah, blah.

00:15:43 ◼   ► And so they're currently testing it

00:15:44 ◼   ► with a bunch of Apple engineers and employees

00:15:47 ◼   ► to get some data about how often it's gonna misfire

00:15:52 ◼   ► which I expect to be quite a lot.

00:15:54 ◼   ► But personally, I hope that they do this,

00:15:58 ◼   ► that they find a way to do this

00:15:59 ◼   ► because I would like to use less syllables

00:16:03 ◼   ► to invoke the assistant.

00:16:06 ◼   ► - Sure, the problem is that to do this,

00:16:08 ◼   ► you're increasing your chance of it misunderstanding.

00:16:11 ◼   ► And I will tell you,

00:16:12 ◼   ► my Amazon thing accidentally triggers way more

00:16:16 ◼   ► than my Apple things do, way more.

00:16:19 ◼   ► And that has the one word trigger instead of the,

00:16:25 ◼   ► although I guess it's the same number of syllables, right?

00:16:28 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:16:29 ◼   ► So they're trying to get this down to a two syllable trigger.

00:16:31 ◼   ► - I always wondered if there was like a minimum syllable

00:16:36 ◼   ► amount, right?

00:16:38 ◼   ► But I don't know, right?

00:16:39 ◼   ► 'Cause like Google has theirs, right?

00:16:42 ◼   ► I think they're like four syllables.

00:16:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:16:45 ◼   ► - Or three, 'cause they have okay and hey,

00:16:48 ◼   ► so you can do either.

00:16:49 ◼   ► And I'd always wondered if like there was like a,

00:16:51 ◼   ► if you do three syllables, you're more likely to have less

00:16:55 ◼   ► of a error rate or something like that.

00:16:58 ◼   ► I think this is true.

00:16:59 ◼   ► I think that what they're trying to do here

00:17:01 ◼   ► is use whatever machine learning and whatever else

00:17:04 ◼   ► to try and get it down there in a way that also reduces.

00:17:07 ◼   ► This seems, I mean, I'm okay with the idea

00:17:11 ◼   ► of making it simpler.

00:17:12 ◼   ► I think it's funny, like this is not the problem

00:17:17 ◼   ► with Siri, right?

00:17:18 ◼   ► This is not the problem with Siri, but I can see it.

00:17:23 ◼   ► I'll tell you, one of the challenges that I found

00:17:25 ◼   ► in activations is I get a lot of activations

00:17:29 ◼   ► when Apple is trying to bypass this

00:17:31 ◼   ► and instead use other data.

00:17:34 ◼   ► Like, you know the raise your Apple watch

00:17:36 ◼   ► and then talk thing?

00:17:37 ◼   ► I accidentally activate that all the time

00:17:39 ◼   ► when I happen to raise my arm and speak

00:17:42 ◼   ► and it's decided that I'm giving a command.

00:17:45 ◼   ► I'm like, really not.

00:17:46 ◼   ► I just moved a body part while talking.

00:17:49 ◼   ► That's all that was.

00:17:50 ◼   ► But I don't know.

00:17:52 ◼   ► It's, I like that they're pushing forward.

00:17:54 ◼   ► It's just that I think the biggest challenge

00:17:56 ◼   ► with Apple's Assistant is what comes out of it,

00:18:01 ◼   ► not activation issues.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Also, Gurman pointed out in his newsletter,

00:18:05 ◼   ► which I thought was really good,

00:18:06 ◼   ► and he admitted it's a nerdy kind of feature request,

00:18:09 ◼   ► but it would also be kind of nice

00:18:11 ◼   ► if you had a little bit more of an ability

00:18:13 ◼   ► to address particular devices for certain tasks,

00:18:17 ◼   ► because that's the other thing that is a problem

00:18:19 ◼   ► with Apple's Assistant is if you've got a constellation

00:18:22 ◼   ► of Apple devices, which of course Apple wants you to have.

00:18:25 ◼   ► Sometimes you end up with these mistaken activations

00:18:29 ◼   ► where I'm shouting out to HomePods and my iPhone answers.

00:18:32 ◼   ► It's like not talking to you, but how does it know?

00:18:36 ◼   ► - 'Cause there's also like, I know that you can ask

00:18:40 ◼   ► like a device, you can say like, turn the lights off.

00:18:43 ◼   ► And what it should do is turn the lights off

00:18:46 ◼   ► in the room that you're in, but that is relying on it

00:18:51 ◼   ► correctly picking up the right device first, which isn't--

00:18:54 ◼   ► - Right. - Right?

00:18:55 ◼   ► So I never feel confident saying that,

00:18:58 ◼   ► giving that phrase in the,

00:19:00 ◼   ► it was gonna turn off all the lights,

00:19:02 ◼   ► which isn't what I want it to do.

00:19:04 ◼   ► So yeah, it would be good if you could like,

00:19:08 ◼   ► name them yourself or something, I don't know,

00:19:10 ◼   ► or like give some kind of different way of naming them,

00:19:13 ◼   ► like, Siri Kitchen, do this.

00:19:16 ◼   ► - This is great news because not only does it make it harder

00:19:19 ◼   ► for us not to accidentally activate

00:19:21 ◼   ► if this happens and accidentally activate people's devices.

00:19:24 ◼   ► But also it means it's a big moment

00:19:28 ◼   ► where ahoy telephone will simply be telephoned.

00:19:31 ◼   ► - Just telephone or like telly or something like that.

00:19:34 ◼   ► It's like, you know. - Or ahoy.

00:19:35 ◼   ► - There's only so much you can do.

00:19:36 ◼   ► - That should be a new trigger phrase, ahoy.

00:19:38 ◼   ► - 'Cause a moment ago, someone in the Discord said

00:19:40 ◼   ► that I triggered the home pod,

00:19:42 ◼   ► but like I didn't actually say the words together.

00:19:44 ◼   ► So I don't, you know what I mean?

00:19:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, right. - What am I supposed

00:19:47 ◼   ► to do about it?

00:19:48 ◼   ► I feel like there's only so much I can do.

00:19:50 ◼   ► Hey everybody, I hope we're having a great time

00:19:52 ◼   ► talking about Siri.

00:19:53 ◼   ► Shouldn't trigger anything, right?

00:19:56 ◼   ► - Shouldn't, but we'll find out if it does.

00:19:59 ◼   ► Emily Birnbaum at Bloomberg is reporting

00:20:03 ◼   ► that Apple is talking with advertising companies

00:20:06 ◼   ► to show ads during their major league soccer games

00:20:09 ◼   ► that they're gonna be doing from next year.

00:20:11 ◼   ► Birnbaum is reporting that you will see these ads

00:20:15 ◼   ► even if you're a paying subscriber.

00:20:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, it'll be across all of their,

00:20:18 ◼   ► They're free and paid versions of MLS

00:20:22 ◼   ► because there will be free and paid versions.

00:20:24 ◼   ► There'll be ones that are in the MLS package.

00:20:27 ◼   ► There'll be ones that'll be available

00:20:28 ◼   ► to all Apple TV+ subscribers,

00:20:30 ◼   ► and there'll be ones that are available to everyone.

00:20:32 ◼   ► There'll be three tiers for this thing.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Maybe, I don't know, I mean, I was gonna say maybe

00:20:37 ◼   ► if there's an Apple TV+ with ads tier at some point,

00:20:40 ◼   ► but I think that wouldn't actually affect

00:20:41 ◼   ► how they're doing MLS.

00:20:42 ◼   ► So, Major League Baseball, what they're doing is

00:20:45 ◼   ► they've got, MLB Network is selling the ads

00:20:48 ◼   ► in producing the show for them there, right?

00:20:50 ◼   ► And so there are ads on their baseball games,

00:20:53 ◼   ► but they are, someone else is selling those ads.

00:20:56 ◼   ► And there's probably a rev share and all of that,

00:20:57 ◼   ► but someone else, the major league baseball,

00:20:59 ◼   ► whoever is producing that, if that's,

00:21:01 ◼   ► I think that's inside of MLB,

00:21:03 ◼   ► I think they've got their own sales force

00:21:04 ◼   ► and they're not using like some other company to do it.

00:21:07 ◼   ► But, and I wonder if in the long run,

00:21:09 ◼   ► this might be a change or whether that's a condition

00:21:11 ◼   ► of Apple's deal, you know, whether Apple can come in

00:21:13 ◼   ► and say, we want to sell these ads now.

00:21:15 ◼   ► So you guys get out or not.

00:21:17 ◼   ► But for Major League Soccer,

00:21:18 ◼   ► they are building an infrastructure to sell these TV ads

00:21:21 ◼   ► and place them in Major League Soccer.

00:21:23 ◼   ► And this is a, I would,

00:21:25 ◼   ► so this is the guy, the Vice President of Advertising

00:21:28 ◼   ► at Apple that we've been talking about

00:21:30 ◼   ► in a lot of other contexts.

00:21:31 ◼   ► This one to me on one level feels the most natural,

00:21:34 ◼   ► which is television is built around ads.

00:21:37 ◼   ► And so having ads on television sort of makes sense.

00:21:42 ◼   ► I will point out that soccer is actually notoriously

00:21:44 ◼   ► one of the hardest sports to advertise because it doesn't have breaks. Baseball and football

00:21:54 ◼   ► have breaks. Soccer doesn't have breaks.

00:21:57 ◼   ► That's just one big one in the middle, but you can't do like 20 minutes of ads.

00:22:02 ◼   ► Right. And so like in American commercial broadcasters, they do things like drop logos

00:22:06 ◼   ► onto the screen while the match is going on and stuff like that, but it's not quite the

00:22:11 ◼   ► the same as running a commercial.

00:22:13 ◼   ► I think it's interesting, like I've definitely seen

00:22:14 ◼   ► Pushback who says, "If I'm paying for Apple TV Plus,

00:22:19 ◼   ► "it's too bad that I'll see ads."

00:22:21 ◼   ► And I can see that, I feel like Apple TV Plus

00:22:24 ◼   ► is not currently being sold as an ad-free product per se,

00:22:28 ◼   ► right, it's just you pay and you get access to the videos.

00:22:32 ◼   ► But down the road here, I wonder if we'll get in a scenario

00:22:36 ◼   ► where there is, like there is for almost every other

00:22:39 ◼   ► streamer now, including Netflix now,

00:22:41 ◼   ► a cheaper Apple TV tier with ads.

00:22:45 ◼   ► And if that's the case,

00:22:46 ◼   ► then I get a little more grumpy about the fact

00:22:48 ◼   ► that if I'm paying for the version without ads,

00:22:51 ◼   ► you're still potentially burning the ads in,

00:22:53 ◼   ► but you know, it's incremental revenue.

00:22:54 ◼   ► They spent a lot of money on this MLS deal

00:22:56 ◼   ► and they want to make that money back

00:22:58 ◼   ► in a few different ways.

00:23:00 ◼   ► And so, yeah, so get ready.

00:23:02 ◼   ► This is also interesting to me

00:23:03 ◼   ► because this is a co-production with MLS.

00:23:05 ◼   ► I think MLS is doing the video production work,

00:23:08 ◼   ► but it shows you some progression on Apple's part

00:23:10 ◼   ► in terms of what they wanna do with sports.

00:23:12 ◼   ► And I don't know whether in the long run Apple would,

00:23:16 ◼   ► I don't think Apple is gonna set up

00:23:17 ◼   ► its own sports video production group,

00:23:21 ◼   ► but having them be more hands-on in the product,

00:23:24 ◼   ► I think is fundamentally a good thing

00:23:26 ◼   ► because I'm disappointed by how

00:23:28 ◼   ► the Major League Baseball stuff was

00:23:30 ◼   ► really just an MLB Network game with new labels on it

00:23:35 ◼   ► for the most part, a few new graphics and stuff.

00:23:37 ◼   ► - I would expect they will,

00:23:38 ◼   ► 'cause if they're doing baseball and soccer,

00:23:41 ◼   ► and if they get Sunday Ticket,

00:23:44 ◼   ► they're gonna need a team of people to oversee that.

00:23:47 ◼   ► - I don't think they necessarily will.

00:23:49 ◼   ► I mean, MLS, 'cause soccer is not baseball.

00:23:53 ◼   ► Football, the Sunday Ticket thing is totally different

00:23:55 ◼   ► because they're using the feeds from the networks.

00:23:57 ◼   ► They aren't producing their own games there at all.

00:23:59 ◼   ► - But wouldn't they do their own analysis shows or something?

00:24:03 ◼   ► - Well, they do, and that's where

00:24:05 ◼   ► I think the innovation will be.

00:24:07 ◼   ► We were talking about this on downstream the other week,

00:24:10 ◼   ► and somebody wrote in to say,

00:24:11 ◼   ► "You didn't mention that Sunday Ticket

00:24:13 ◼   ► has its own Red Zone channel."

00:24:14 ◼   ► And I was like, I think I did,

00:24:15 ◼   ► but I used to get that Red Zone channel.

00:24:17 ◼   ► And that is the channel where, so there are two of them.

00:24:20 ◼   ► DirecTV has a Red Zone channel.

00:24:21 ◼   ► Red Zone channel is I'm a host,

00:24:23 ◼   ► and I show you all the games

00:24:25 ◼   ► when interesting things are happening.

00:24:26 ◼   ► So you can tune in on Sunday Ticket to a particular game,

00:24:29 ◼   ► or you can just watch the Red Zone.

00:24:31 ◼   ► There is also a Red Zone channel

00:24:33 ◼   ► that people who don't have Sunday Ticket can get.

00:24:35 ◼   ► It's a different channel with a different host

00:24:37 ◼   ► doing the same thing.

00:24:38 ◼   ► And that seems weird.

00:24:39 ◼   ► They're both NFL Network employees.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Why are there two of them?

00:24:42 ◼   ► And the answer is that the DirecTV one

00:24:44 ◼   ► is integrated into Sunday Ticket,

00:24:46 ◼   ► where he'll be like, that's on channel 782, right?

00:24:50 ◼   ► Whereas the guy on the NFL Network doesn't say any of that

00:24:54 ◼   ► because there is no integration.

00:24:55 ◼   ► You can't tune it to that game if you wanna watch it.

00:24:57 ◼   ► And I think about Apple getting Sunday Ticket,

00:24:59 ◼   ► or Amazon, honestly, and think,

00:25:02 ◼   ► well, there's a real app opportunity here, right?

00:25:04 ◼   ► where you could have like the guy

00:25:06 ◼   ► and he could be like showing you the games

00:25:07 ◼   ► and the games would be maybe even interactive tiles

00:25:10 ◼   ► where you could actually then just like click on the game.

00:25:13 ◼   ► DirecTV did this years ago

00:25:14 ◼   ► and kind of badly 'cause their hardware platform

00:25:17 ◼   ► isn't very good, but they had the ability to do that

00:25:19 ◼   ► where they'd be like, oh, and look over there,

00:25:21 ◼   ► this one's going on and you can just clearly click

00:25:23 ◼   ► and switch to it or switch to its audio,

00:25:27 ◼   ► but keep the guy up.

00:25:28 ◼   ► Like it's an interactive experience.

00:25:30 ◼   ► It's actually kind of interesting.

00:25:31 ◼   ► So they could innovate there.

00:25:33 ◼   ► But in the nuts and bolts of production of like baseball

00:25:36 ◼   ► games, where you've got to use the local cameraman,

00:25:39 ◼   ► you've got to have a truck, and you've got to have all this

00:25:42 ◼   ► stuff going on, right?

00:25:43 ◼   ► Having MLB Network be your partner for that

00:25:47 ◼   ► is probably a good idea, just because it's a very

00:25:50 ◼   ► specialized sort of thing.

00:25:51 ◼   ► There are rumors that Apple or Amazon

00:25:53 ◼   ► is going to buy in to college football as well.

00:25:56 ◼   ► That would be a case where they'd need to get somebody

00:26:00 ◼   ► to produce those games.

00:26:01 ◼   ► But like one of the conferences that's out there,

00:26:04 ◼   ► that is the one that is currently looking for TV partners

00:26:08 ◼   ► is the PAC-12 conference.

00:26:10 ◼   ► And they currently have a cable network that produces games.

00:26:15 ◼   ► So presumably that's the same sort of thing

00:26:17 ◼   ► where Apple or Amazon would come in and say,

00:26:20 ◼   ► "Yes, you conference, you make the games for us, right?

00:26:24 ◼   ► "Maybe we'll sell the ads, but you make the games for us."

00:26:27 ◼   ► So where they draw those lines is gonna be interesting.

00:26:29 ◼   ► But what's interesting here is that Apple is drawing a line

00:26:33 ◼   ► in a different place than they drew it

00:26:35 ◼   ► for Major League Baseball,

00:26:36 ◼   ► which I think happened so early in their process

00:26:38 ◼   ► that they weren't really ready to step in and say,

00:26:41 ◼   ► "We'll sell the ads."

00:26:42 ◼   ► So Major League Baseball, you sell those ads

00:26:44 ◼   ► and roll them in there.

00:26:46 ◼   ► And for MLS, they're like, "No, no, no, no, no.

00:26:47 ◼   ► We're gonna do it.

00:26:48 ◼   ► We're gonna sell the ads.

00:26:49 ◼   ► We're gonna take, we're not gonna have a middleman

00:26:51 ◼   ► taking a percentage of the ad share.

00:26:53 ◼   ► It'll be them, presumably, I don't know,

00:26:56 ◼   ► maybe they'll split it with MLS

00:26:58 ◼   ► or maybe they get to keep it all

00:26:59 ◼   ► because they're paying it less. I don't know.

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00:28:13 ◼   ► One. Capital One, what's in your wallet?

00:28:17 ◼   ► you wrote an article over at Macworld about Apple's kind of rising prices. Would you like

00:28:22 ◼   ► to give an overview of what you're thinking about here?

00:28:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it was something that just hit me from the analyst call and I was gonna write it

00:28:31 ◼   ► up, you know, I write up a post analyst call piece for Macworld and I had it in there and

00:28:35 ◼   ► I was like, "No, no, there's too much here. I'm gonna save this one, write it up next

00:28:39 ◼   ► week." And the idea was, okay, you know, Apple stuff is not cheap. Apple's not the low price

00:28:45 ◼   ► They start up at a higher level.

00:28:48 ◼   ► I think they provide pretty good value at those levels,

00:28:51 ◼   ► but they're definitely not looking

00:28:53 ◼   ► to make the cheapest thing possible.

00:28:55 ◼   ► And we had that rumor item the other week

00:28:57 ◼   ► about that plastic iPad, and they're like,

00:29:00 ◼   ► we're not gonna make that.

00:29:01 ◼   ► So what I wonder and what we've seen as like

00:29:06 ◼   ► the MacBook Pro got more expensive.

00:29:08 ◼   ► I mean, the Mac Pro originally got more expensive.

00:29:10 ◼   ► The MacBook Pro got more expensive.

00:29:13 ◼   ► The iPad Pro got more expensive.

00:29:14 ◼   ► We've seen like the MacBook Air and the iPad

00:29:16 ◼   ► come out with a new version while keeping the old version

00:29:20 ◼   ► in the price list because the new version is more expensive.

00:29:23 ◼   ► This kind of elevation of Apple's prices.

00:29:26 ◼   ► And I've thought for a while now,

00:29:28 ◼   ► like, well, how would you know if you're Apple,

00:29:31 ◼   ► whether consumers will accept higher prices?

00:29:36 ◼   ► How do you know what the availability of like price

00:29:41 ◼   ► increases is in terms of how it dictates,

00:29:44 ◼   ► how it results in sales.

00:29:45 ◼   ► How do you do that?

00:29:47 ◼   ► You can't, you know, you don't really wanna test it,

00:29:50 ◼   ► but if you're Apple, if you're somebody inside Apple,

00:29:52 ◼   ► you're probably like, "We could sell this for more."

00:29:55 ◼   ► And it would still sell,

00:29:56 ◼   ► which may be what you're seeing with things like,

00:29:58 ◼   ► "Well, let's sell this MacBook Air M2 version

00:30:02 ◼   ► for more than $999, and we'll just keep the old one around,

00:30:05 ◼   ► and people will want the new one."

00:30:07 ◼   ► And boom, you've just made an extra two or $300

00:30:10 ◼   ► on that thing.

00:30:11 ◼   ► Okay.

00:30:12 ◼   ► Well, the strong dollar has allowed Apple

00:30:16 ◼   ► to treat the rest of the world as a lab to test this theory.

00:30:21 ◼   ► And they made a statement about it in the call

00:30:26 ◼   ► that the result was that outside the US,

00:30:30 ◼   ► Apple products were priced higher

00:30:32 ◼   ► and they were delighted to discover

00:30:36 ◼   ► that they still sold really well.

00:30:39 ◼   ► And I had that moment where I just thought, oh no,

00:30:43 ◼   ► somebody told them they can raise their prices

00:30:45 ◼   ► and people will still buy their products.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And if we know anything from Apple

00:30:49 ◼   ► is that it doesn't really wanna leave money on the table.

00:30:51 ◼   ► This is something that I feel like philosophically

00:30:53 ◼   ► has actually been going on for a while,

00:30:55 ◼   ► but I think it's fascinating to see a situation

00:30:57 ◼   ► where you have the strong dollar leading to Apple products

00:31:02 ◼   ► being, as you know, living in the UK,

00:31:04 ◼   ► being way more expensive in other countries than in the US.

00:31:09 ◼   ► And yet they still talk about growth and demand

00:31:11 ◼   ► and are thrilled with the response,

00:31:15 ◼   ► including in emerging markets

00:31:17 ◼   ► where their sales are growing a lot.

00:31:21 ◼   ► And that gave me this thought,

00:31:22 ◼   ► which is this is kind of like the classic,

00:31:24 ◼   ► I believe the economic term is inelastic demand.

00:31:27 ◼   ► The idea that instead of the classic demand,

00:31:30 ◼   ► which is you raise prices and demand goes down,

00:31:33 ◼   ► this is you raise prices and demand doesn't change.

00:31:37 ◼   ► And if that's the case, as a business person,

00:31:41 ◼   ► you raise prices, right?

00:31:43 ◼   ► Like if I can sell a thousand of these for $100

00:31:47 ◼   ► and I can sell a thousand of these for $200,

00:31:50 ◼   ► I'm gonna sell them for $200, right?

00:31:52 ◼   ► That's the idea there.

00:31:53 ◼   ► So I thought it was an interesting,

00:31:56 ◼   ► like I'm sure this has been a data point inside Apple

00:31:58 ◼   ► for a long time now,

00:31:59 ◼   ► but I thought it was the first time

00:32:00 ◼   ► that I felt like they really,

00:32:02 ◼   ► at least to my ear, said it out loud

00:32:05 ◼   ► in the context of the strong dollar, allowing them to--

00:32:10 ◼   ► or you could argue forcing them to raise the prices elsewhere

00:32:13 ◼   ► because they don't want to give back their profit

00:32:15 ◼   ► margins in foreign exchange.

00:32:16 ◼   ► But having just the delight that Luca Maestri had when he said--

00:32:22 ◼   ► and it's gone really well.

00:32:23 ◼   ► [LAUGHS]

00:32:25 ◼   ► He's very excited about it.

00:32:26 ◼   ► And I'm sitting there thinking, oh, no.

00:32:28 ◼   ► OK, somebody told them that they can't raise their prices.

00:32:31 ◼   ► And we know that that means they will.

00:32:33 ◼   ► And they are.

00:32:34 ◼   ► I mean, they have been.

00:32:35 ◼   ► the whole idea that it used to be

00:32:37 ◼   ► they would not release a new MacBook Air, I would say.

00:32:40 ◼   ► They would try real hard to not release a new MacBook Air

00:32:43 ◼   ► until they could hit the price slot, the previous price slot.

00:32:46 ◼   ► And now they don't.

00:32:48 ◼   ► Now they're like, no, this one's just more expensive

00:32:50 ◼   ► and you can still buy the old one at the old price slot.

00:32:53 ◼   ► And that's a difference for them.

00:32:54 ◼   ► So I don't know how you feel as somebody

00:32:56 ◼   ► who's on the outside, somebody who's in the lab

00:32:59 ◼   ► as Apple raises prices.

00:33:01 ◼   ► - I mean, I'm frustrated about it because,

00:33:04 ◼   ► you know, 'cause we've spoken about before,

00:33:07 ◼   ► prices were just higher here anyway,

00:33:09 ◼   ► like and they kind of always have been.

00:33:11 ◼   ► - Always have been.

00:33:12 ◼   ► I remember when I worked at Mac User,

00:33:13 ◼   ► I used to get letters from people in Australia

00:33:15 ◼   ► who were very, very angry about how expensive

00:33:18 ◼   ► everything was in Australia,

00:33:19 ◼   ► and that was like the late 90s, right?

00:33:21 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:33:22 ◼   ► - It's been that way in many markets that Apple stuff

00:33:24 ◼   ► is just so much more expensive than it is in the US.

00:33:27 ◼   ► - And that is even taken into account sales taxes, right?

00:33:32 ◼   ► So like in the UK, our sales tax is called VAT,

00:33:36 ◼   ► it's value added tax.

00:33:37 ◼   ► And it's at the moment is 20%.

00:33:39 ◼   ► It varies, varied over time, but at the moment it's 20%.

00:33:43 ◼   ► And it's included in the sales price.

00:33:45 ◼   ► Like I know in some places in America,

00:33:47 ◼   ► at least this was a big shock for me

00:33:48 ◼   ► the first time that I went to America where they did this.

00:33:51 ◼   ► Like you see the price and then taxes added on at the end.

00:33:54 ◼   ► And like you have to kind of work that out on your own

00:33:57 ◼   ► in some states, which I just think is like a wild thing

00:33:59 ◼   ► to do if the tax rate is a fixed rate, why not just, anyway.

00:34:04 ◼   ► So-- - I know.

00:34:05 ◼   ► - You know, so, but even in a lot of cases,

00:34:08 ◼   ► this was the case before the recent currency fluctuation

00:34:12 ◼   ► stuff, you take 20% off the price,

00:34:14 ◼   ► you're still way over the dollar price,

00:34:16 ◼   ► like the converted pound to dollar price.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Apple have done this for a really long time,

00:34:20 ◼   ► and you know, as we spoke about before,

00:34:22 ◼   ► they will say, and maybe this is the case,

00:34:24 ◼   ► that some of it is to kind of mitigate

00:34:29 ◼   ► any of these kind of currency swings.

00:34:32 ◼   ► But I think a lot of it is just like,

00:34:33 ◼   ► what will the local market pay, right?

00:34:37 ◼   ► I think is a lot of it.

00:34:39 ◼   ► And one of the things I've always kind of said is like,

00:34:41 ◼   ► even though the pound and the dollar have different values

00:34:45 ◼   ► a lot of the time, our economies are pretty similar, right?

00:34:48 ◼   ► So what is a dollar is basically a pound

00:34:51 ◼   ► and like people just think of it that way, right?

00:34:53 ◼   ► So it's, you know, if something costs $1,000,

00:34:57 ◼   ► it can cost a thousand pounds and people are kind of like

00:35:01 ◼   ► fine with that, even if a thousand pounds is $1,500

00:35:04 ◼   ► if you actually did the conversion.

00:35:06 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause it's usually that the pound is more,

00:35:10 ◼   ► but the exchange rate is you end up paying more in

00:35:16 ◼   ► - Pounds than you would in dollars.

00:35:17 ◼   ► Yeah, so like, it's usually like $1.5 to a pound or whatever.

00:35:22 ◼   ► I mean, it's much lower at the moment.

00:35:26 ◼   ► It has been as much as two to one.

00:35:28 ◼   ► And recently at one point it was one to one.

00:35:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, basically.

00:35:33 ◼   ► - It's really fluctuated between double and parody.

00:35:37 ◼   ► And right now it's a pound is about a dollar 15.

00:35:40 ◼   ► - Like right now, the iPhone 14 is, I'm just bringing up.

00:35:45 ◼   ► It starts at $799.

00:35:49 ◼   ► That's before trade in, right?

00:35:52 ◼   ► So it's 799 or 849 pounds.

00:35:56 ◼   ► is the starting price and 849 pounds is $976.

00:36:01 ◼   ► So the iPhone 14 is nearly $200 more expensive

00:36:10 ◼   ► in the UK than it is in the US.

00:36:13 ◼   ► - Now, one reason that Apple does this

00:36:16 ◼   ► is that they price in additional price

00:36:20 ◼   ► so that if there is a major foreign exchange change,

00:36:26 ◼   ► they don't end up losing money without re-pricing.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Which, 'cause that's the other way you could do it,

00:36:33 ◼   ► is you could be continually re-pricing.

00:36:34 ◼   ► And today the iPhone is this,

00:36:36 ◼   ► but in two months the iPhone has a different price.

00:36:38 ◼   ► And they generally don't do it at that kind of a pace.

00:36:43 ◼   ► But, so what they end up doing is they're saying,

00:36:45 ◼   ► "Well, we don't want that to happen.

00:36:46 ◼   ► So we're gonna make this 849 iPhone $975."

00:36:50 ◼   ► And that is gonna cover us,

00:36:54 ◼   ► even if there's a major fluctuation in the exchange rate.

00:36:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think at the moment, I don't know,

00:37:00 ◼   ► it bounces around a lot, right?

00:37:01 ◼   ► I think maybe with the sales tax

00:37:02 ◼   ► it's pretty close right now,

00:37:03 ◼   ► but nevertheless it's like, it's expensive.

00:37:06 ◼   ► The thing that I wanted to get to with this

00:37:08 ◼   ► is because I agree with everything you're saying,

00:37:09 ◼   ► they continue to keep pushing this,

00:37:11 ◼   ► but this put me down a different kind of route today

00:37:13 ◼   ► when I was thinking about this for the show.

00:37:15 ◼   ► I was thinking of Kindle with ads, right?

00:37:19 ◼   ► So-- - Yeah.

00:37:20 ◼   ► I mean, do you mean special offers?

00:37:22 ◼   ► - Is that what they call it now?

00:37:24 ◼   ► - Special offers is what they call it.

00:37:25 ◼   ► - Okay. - Yeah.

00:37:26 ◼   ► - But this is the Kindle.

00:37:28 ◼   ► There is a version of the Kindle.

00:37:29 ◼   ► Can you still get this?

00:37:30 ◼   ► Like, is this the thing that Amazon still sells?

00:37:32 ◼   ► - This is the base model of Kindle.

00:37:35 ◼   ► Every Kindle starts with special offers.

00:37:37 ◼   ► And then you can either buy it for more

00:37:39 ◼   ► or unlock it and turn it off by paying $20,

00:37:43 ◼   ► I think it is, afterward.

00:37:44 ◼   ► So they basically cut $20.

00:37:46 ◼   ► It allows them to sell that 199 Kindle

00:37:48 ◼   ► for 179 with special offers.

00:37:52 ◼   ► and then it's 20 to turn it off or whatever.

00:37:55 ◼   ► - Joe Stu in the chat is killing me right now.

00:37:57 ◼   ► iPad with magic offers, iPad with smart offers.

00:38:01 ◼   ► - With smart offers, smart offers folio,

00:38:03 ◼   ► which is literally a cover that has an ad on it,

00:38:05 ◼   ► but you can pay them and peel it off.

00:38:08 ◼   ► - But I was thinking about this, right?

00:38:09 ◼   ► So like, can Amazon sell this product forever

00:38:12 ◼   ► as a slight discount, right?

00:38:13 ◼   ► If you're willing to have an ad,

00:38:15 ◼   ► I assume for other books and or Amazon products

00:38:19 ◼   ► on the front of your Kindle, which is genius, right?

00:38:21 ◼   ► 'cause there's an ink display, right?

00:38:23 ◼   ► It's connected to the internet.

00:38:25 ◼   ► You can just push a ad to it

00:38:26 ◼   ► and it's just gonna sit there, right?

00:38:28 ◼   ► - And sits there, right?

00:38:28 ◼   ► 'Cause when it's off, the screen is on.

00:38:30 ◼   ► And so there's an ad on the screen

00:38:33 ◼   ► when you're not using your Kindle.

00:38:35 ◼   ► - That's great.

00:38:36 ◼   ► - And now you may be saying to yourself,

00:38:38 ◼   ► this is one of my favorite little features of this,

00:38:40 ◼   ► but Jason, they make Kindle cases with covers.

00:38:44 ◼   ► Doesn't that remove the value of the ad?

00:38:47 ◼   ► Guess what Amazon does?

00:38:49 ◼   ► Amazon, if you have the special offers version,

00:38:53 ◼   ► when you open the cover, it doesn't wake up.

00:38:57 ◼   ► It makes you press the button so that you have to see

00:39:00 ◼   ► the ad when you open the cover.

00:39:03 ◼   ► If you buy out of special offers, when you open the cover,

00:39:07 ◼   ► it just turns on the Kindle.

00:39:09 ◼   ► But it won't do that if you've got special offers,

00:39:11 ◼   ► because they want you to see the ad.

00:39:14 ◼   ► - So the reason I started thinking about this is like,

00:39:18 ◼   ► for what we've been talking about in the past couple of weeks

00:39:20 ◼   ► and in the Rumor Roundup segment of like Apple and ads,

00:39:24 ◼   ► right?

00:39:24 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:39:25 ◼   ► - We were talking about it in the app store.

00:39:26 ◼   ► There have been rumors for a long time

00:39:27 ◼   ► that they're gonna bring, start bringing ads to maps.

00:39:30 ◼   ► They're gonna bring ads to podcasts.

00:39:31 ◼   ► They're gonna bring ads to books, right?

00:39:33 ◼   ► - Right, and mostly the rumors are like in the apps, right?

00:39:36 ◼   ► Like they're not gonna roll an Apple pre-roll ad

00:39:40 ◼   ► in front of your podcast probably,

00:39:41 ◼   ► but on the podcast page, well, who knows?

00:39:45 ◼   ► But on the podcast page,

00:39:45 ◼   ► may have the ability for people with podcasts to advertise their podcasts. Like, I mean,

00:39:50 ◼   ► Overcast does that, right? Like, that they might start doing that too, where there's

00:39:54 ◼   ► a revenue opportunity to be made App Store style in dropping ads inside of the podcast

00:40:00 ◼   ► app interface.

00:40:01 ◼   ► But, you know, you're saying about the pre-roll audio ad, where they're going to start doing

00:40:05 ◼   ► Apple TV ads, maybe they would do Apple podcast ads at some point. It's one of the ways Spotify

00:40:10 ◼   ► makes money, it's on the free plan. So what this got to be the thinking is, Apple is clearly

00:40:14 ◼   ► continuing to add more and more ads, which is like just a thing that I find funny as

00:40:18 ◼   ► they continue to increase prices. But it did make me wonder that like, what if they just

00:40:23 ◼   ► add, they continue to put all of these ads into all the different apps that they make,

00:40:28 ◼   ► and then all of a sudden when they say, "Hey, if you have iCloud Plus, we get rid of those."

00:40:33 ◼   ► - Maybe, although, so here's the challenge there.

00:40:38 ◼   ► Look, this is one way you can do a premium product

00:40:45 ◼   ► is have ad removal as part of it.

00:40:46 ◼   ► So Upgrade Plus is available.

00:40:49 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:40:50 ◼   ► - No ads and extra content.

00:40:51 ◼   ► It's not just no ads.

00:40:53 ◼   ► We did a thing at Macworld where you could pay

00:40:56 ◼   ► and the ads would go away

00:40:59 ◼   ► and you got some other stuff too, same thing.

00:41:02 ◼   ► It's an interesting approach.

00:41:04 ◼   ► I think a lot of people would say what actually

00:41:09 ◼   ► the guy who ran IDG for all those years said to me

00:41:12 ◼   ► about the Macworld plan, which was,

00:41:15 ◼   ► well, you know, why not take their money and show them ads?

00:41:19 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:41:20 ◼   ► It's like, then we make more money.

00:41:22 ◼   ► And that's why that guy made a lot of money.

00:41:24 ◼   ► And this is the argument, right?

00:41:26 ◼   ► Is on one level, you've got an ad business.

00:41:28 ◼   ► And if you allow people to pay to not see the ads,

00:41:31 ◼   ► there is an argument that you're degrading your ad business.

00:41:36 ◼   ► I think they can handle it.

00:41:37 ◼   ► I think they're tough enough that your ad people

00:41:40 ◼   ► will be able to explain that.

00:41:43 ◼   ► I mean, and in streaming media, we've seen that.

00:41:45 ◼   ► Ad tier, ad-free tier, those are all,

00:41:48 ◼   ► they all co-exist, it's fine.

00:41:50 ◼   ► But there is that counterargument

00:41:53 ◼   ► that why is your status as a paying customer,

00:41:59 ◼   ► Why does that fundamentally mean you never see any ads?

00:42:03 ◼   ► Because in the old days, you would buy a magazine

00:42:06 ◼   ► and it would have ads in it.

00:42:07 ◼   ► They didn't just give away,

00:42:10 ◼   ► there were some magazines that got given away for free

00:42:13 ◼   ► in order to do the ads in newspapers and all that.

00:42:15 ◼   ► But there was not like the ad-free version,

00:42:17 ◼   ► like, oh, we can't mix paying customers with ads.

00:42:20 ◼   ► That's not a thing that we can do.

00:42:21 ◼   ► Well, you can do it.

00:42:23 ◼   ► So I think they could do it.

00:42:24 ◼   ► But you're right, it is an interesting approach.

00:42:28 ◼   ► I would feel kind of disturbed if Apple started dropping ads everywhere and said, "But if

00:42:36 ◼   ► you pay us," because then yeah, you're right, it's iPhone with special offers at that point.

00:42:40 ◼   ► If you pay us, then you don't see the ads. Apple will also make the argument for something

00:42:43 ◼   ► like Maps that is even more so, I think, than the argument they make for the App Store,

00:42:48 ◼   ► which is, "But ads are content. We're allowing people to find relevant things from the ads.

00:42:54 ◼   ► the ads can be helpful too. And like theoretically they can, often they aren't, but theoretically

00:42:59 ◼   ► they can be. So I don't know, I feel like if Apple's gonna go to the trouble of putting

00:43:04 ◼   ► ads in podcasts and maps, that they probably will just put them there and not offer anybody

00:43:10 ◼   ► a way to sort of extort them to turn off ads by giving them money directly. Although, you

00:43:18 ◼   ► know, I think a lot of people would love that, right, because they don't want to see ads.

00:43:23 ◼   ► Like if you're gonna put them in there,

00:43:25 ◼   ► you can put them, more people will see them

00:43:28 ◼   ► if you don't limit it to people

00:43:29 ◼   ► who aren't paying for iCloud Plus.

00:43:31 ◼   ► - But then I go back to the idea

00:43:33 ◼   ► of the special offers thing, which is like,

00:43:36 ◼   ► you get a bit of a discount for seeing Amazon's ads, right?

00:43:41 ◼   ► And you don't get any discount

00:43:42 ◼   ► for seeing Apple's ads at the moment.

00:43:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's true.

00:43:47 ◼   ► Also, I'll point out, like, I don't know,

00:43:49 ◼   ► it's been a while since I used to Kindle

00:43:50 ◼   ► with special offers, I just buy it

00:43:52 ◼   ► with that stuff turned off now.

00:43:53 ◼   ► But back in the day,

00:43:56 ◼   ► the other argument for special offers

00:43:59 ◼   ► was that they actually were special

00:44:01 ◼   ► and that there were good deals on that ad

00:44:07 ◼   ► and that you were actually kind of motivated.

00:44:10 ◼   ► At least for a while, Amazon seemed to make the effort

00:44:13 ◼   ► to make the ad worth looking at.

00:44:15 ◼   ► - Right.

00:44:16 ◼   ► - Because like somebody pointed out at one point,

00:44:18 ◼   ► I think Dan Frakes told me about

00:44:20 ◼   ► there was a Kindle special offer that was like,

00:44:23 ◼   ► you could get, I don't know whether it was an Apple gift card

00:44:27 ◼   ► or whether it was an Amazon gift card.

00:44:29 ◼   ► I think it might've been an Apple gift card,

00:44:30 ◼   ► but it was basically one of these things where it was,

00:44:33 ◼   ► spend $40 for $50 in credit or something like that.

00:44:36 ◼   ► And that's literally the special offers were saying,

00:44:38 ◼   ► we will give you $10 if you commit to spending $40.

00:44:42 ◼   ► It's like, well, that's actually a pretty good deal.

00:44:44 ◼   ► And if I turned off special offers, I'd miss it.

00:44:46 ◼   ► So like you can make them valuable,

00:44:48 ◼   ► but I think they probably wouldn't do anything like that.

00:44:51 ◼   ► I assume maybe this is us being cynical here, sitting here,

00:44:54 ◼   ► but like, we know what the situation is

00:44:56 ◼   ► with ads in the App Store.

00:44:57 ◼   ► I have a hard time believing they would be a cut above

00:45:02 ◼   ► in like the podcast app.

00:45:04 ◼   ► Maps, if they could do the relevance right,

00:45:06 ◼   ► like I could see it 'cause Google,

00:45:08 ◼   ► I think does some of that.

00:45:09 ◼   ► You know, the problem with ad placements

00:45:11 ◼   ► is then you don't know what the most relevant thing is

00:45:13 ◼   ► because a good relevancy algorithm

00:45:17 ◼   ► is across purposes.

00:45:18 ◼   ► This is the problem in the app store, right?

00:45:21 ◼   ► If the search is really, really good

00:45:22 ◼   ► and customized suggestions are really, really good,

00:45:26 ◼   ► it makes the app advertising less helpful or relevant

00:45:31 ◼   ► because you would never look at it

00:45:32 ◼   ► because the algorithm has done such a great job.

00:45:35 ◼   ► And so, is maps gonna get worse if there are ads in it?

00:45:39 ◼   ► Because why would we make this better

00:45:41 ◼   ► when we wanna have people drawn to the ad unit?

00:45:46 ◼   ► - Well, but then you end up in a situation,

00:45:48 ◼   ► like I think with stuff like Google, right?

00:45:50 ◼   ► And I think it's honestly with like the apps

00:45:52 ◼   ► or search ads where it ends up just being a case

00:45:55 ◼   ► that the best stuff pays the most money

00:45:57 ◼   ► to advertise anyway 'cause they have to,

00:45:58 ◼   ► and so it kind of comes out, but if they don't,

00:46:02 ◼   ► well then they're gonna lose the placement.

00:46:03 ◼   ► So you end up with-- - Yeah, it's extortionate

00:46:05 ◼   ► in effect.

00:46:07 ◼   ► And just let's back up, you mentioned Google.

00:46:09 ◼   ► Let's back up a moment here because I'm not,

00:46:12 ◼   ► I'm not against advertising, right?

00:46:15 ◼   ► Our podcasts have advertising.

00:46:17 ◼   ► My website has advertising.

00:46:20 ◼   ► My old magazine took advertising.

00:46:21 ◼   ► I'm not opposed to advertising.

00:46:23 ◼   ► I think that there are bad ads and good ads.

00:46:25 ◼   ► And I understand that people don't love ads.

00:46:29 ◼   ► And I hear from a lot of people

00:46:30 ◼   ► who are basically allergic to ads.

00:46:31 ◼   ► Like I never want to see an ad anywhere ever.

00:46:33 ◼   ► Like, okay.

00:46:34 ◼   ► I mean, I think that's not realistic.

00:46:36 ◼   ► - For $5 a month, just go to get upgradeplus.com.

00:46:38 ◼   ► You know what I mean? - There you go.

00:46:39 ◼   ► - No ads, you're good.

00:46:40 ◼   ► - But I also can appreciate that there,

00:46:43 ◼   ► as I said about the special offers,

00:46:44 ◼   ► there can be good ads and bad ads.

00:46:46 ◼   ► Back in the day in the 90s, when I read magazines,

00:46:49 ◼   ► paper magazines, some of the ads were junk

00:46:51 ◼   ► and some of the ads were good.

00:46:53 ◼   ► And like, there can be good advertising.

00:46:56 ◼   ► But so I'm using that as a preface

00:46:58 ◼   ► 'cause I think it's very easy to hear us talk

00:46:59 ◼   ► about advertising and think, oh yeah,

00:47:01 ◼   ► people just hate advertising, but it's not realistic.

00:47:04 ◼   ► But I will say this, which is the moment you start comparing

00:47:09 ◼   ► as you did Google and what it offers to what Apple offers,

00:47:14 ◼   ► I think we have a problem because Google is an ad company.

00:47:19 ◼   ► Google makes money from advertising.

00:47:22 ◼   ► Apple's great differentiator is that it's not an ad company.

00:47:27 ◼   ► And so I think fundamentally,

00:47:31 ◼   ► this goes back to what we talked about last week,

00:47:33 ◼   ► you lose part of the Apple brand promise

00:47:37 ◼   ► if suddenly Apple is also putting ads everywhere.

00:47:42 ◼   ► because one, part of the Apple brand promises

00:47:45 ◼   ► it's not Google, it's not an ad company,

00:47:47 ◼   ► and it's not gonna litter everything you're doing with ads

00:47:49 ◼   ► 'cause that's the only way it really makes money.

00:47:51 ◼   ► And second, Google's always gonna be better at it than you.

00:47:55 ◼   ► Right, Google's always gonna be better

00:47:57 ◼   ► at advertising than Apple. - They have to be.

00:47:58 ◼   ► That's their business.

00:48:00 ◼   ► - Fight me.

00:48:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:48:02 ◼   ► Right, like, Google is the supreme advertising entity

00:48:07 ◼   ► in the universe as far as we know, right?

00:48:12 ◼   ► there may be a black hole out there somewhere

00:48:13 ◼   ► that's got an ad on it,

00:48:15 ◼   ► and I wanna meet whoever sold that ad.

00:48:16 ◼   ► But on our planet, Google is it, right?

00:48:20 ◼   ► So Apple's never gonna match up.

00:48:23 ◼   ► They're never gonna match up

00:48:24 ◼   ► and they're gonna lose what makes Apple unique

00:48:27 ◼   ► versus its competition.

00:48:29 ◼   ► So why would you go down that path?

00:48:30 ◼   ► I just think it's fraught with peril

00:48:32 ◼   ► that they're gonna end up being a second rate Google

00:48:35 ◼   ► offering a second rate service.

00:48:37 ◼   ► And at that point, it's like one less reason

00:48:39 ◼   ► to get an iPhone.

00:48:40 ◼   ► Anyway, this is, if you're listening to this, it's "Upgrade with special offers."

00:48:51 ◼   ► I admire, I admire Amazon for that, right?

00:48:54 ◼   ► Like, I just, I love that phrasing.

00:48:56 ◼   ► It's so Orwellian in a way, and yet it's kind of hilarious.

00:49:01 ◼   ► The uh, it's special offers.

00:49:03 ◼   ► What you do is there's an ad you can't not see.

00:49:06 ◼   ► I didn't know that they did that with the covers, by the way.

00:49:09 ◼   ► That is...

00:49:10 ◼   ► - 'Cause their two big ad spots are on the interface,

00:49:12 ◼   ► not when you're reading a book,

00:49:14 ◼   ► there's no ads when you read a book,

00:49:15 ◼   ► but on the interface where you have your list of books,

00:49:17 ◼   ► there's an ad, and then there's on that lock screen.

00:49:20 ◼   ► And if your cover is covering the lock screen,

00:49:22 ◼   ► you know somebody was like, "Oh no, can we not make covers?"

00:49:25 ◼   ► And somebody's like, "Oh, I got an idea."

00:49:27 ◼   ► What if we make the covers with the little magnets

00:49:30 ◼   ► so they turn on and they're really great.

00:49:32 ◼   ► And then if they have special offers, they don't turn on.

00:49:34 ◼   ► How about that? - Fantastic.

00:49:36 ◼   ► - Or they turn on, but they're in a mode where they light up

00:49:38 ◼   ► but it doesn't move and you have to swipe.

00:49:39 ◼   ► I think that might be what it is now,

00:49:40 ◼   ► but like you have to make an extra gesture

00:49:43 ◼   ► to get away from the ad

00:49:44 ◼   ► because like we gotta show them the ad folks.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I mean, sorry, we gotta show them their special offers.

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00:52:11 ◼   ► of this show and Relay FM.

00:52:14 ◼   ► That was a special offer.

00:52:15 ◼   ► It sure was. There was a couple of articles going up on Six Colors, one from you.

00:52:21 ◼   ► I do publish things there, yep.

00:52:23 ◼   ► One about the same thing, which is that's a rarity.

00:52:26 ◼   ► Oh yes, that's true.

00:52:27 ◼   ► One from you and one from previously mentioned in this episode, Joe Steele, friend of the

00:52:32 ◼   ► about something that Apple appears to be testing

00:52:37 ◼   ► with some changes to the Watch Now tab

00:52:40 ◼   ► of the TV app on Apple TV.

00:52:42 ◼   ► And with this change, when you now open the TV app,

00:52:46 ◼   ► I've tried this by the way, and it's not on my Apple TV.

00:52:49 ◼   ► When you open the TV app,

00:52:50 ◼   ► there is a dedicated row for featured content.

00:52:53 ◼   ► - I think it's in the beta.

00:52:54 ◼   ► I think it's only showing in the beta version,

00:52:56 ◼   ► but not 100% of that. - In 16.2?

00:52:57 ◼   ► I don't run the beta of tvOS,

00:52:59 ◼   ► even though I'm a tvOS guy, but.

00:53:00 ◼   ► - Even though you're on the cutting edge, I know.

00:53:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you know, I'm a big TV user.

00:53:05 ◼   ► I don't wanna mess up my TV with beta.

00:53:07 ◼   ► - I see.

00:53:08 ◼   ► - So with this change, when you open a TV app,

00:53:10 ◼   ► instead of seeing-- - Oh, wait a second.

00:53:11 ◼   ► Imagine if you were on the beta

00:53:12 ◼   ► and you saw beta episodes of TV shows.

00:53:15 ◼   ► What about then? - That would be cool.

00:53:16 ◼   ► That would be, I would do that.

00:53:18 ◼   ► - Like, no special effects

00:53:20 ◼   ► and just people in front of a green screen,

00:53:21 ◼   ► but you could try them out like in advance,

00:53:24 ◼   ► 'cause we're beta testing the shows?

00:53:26 ◼   ► - Aren't some of the screeners

00:53:27 ◼   ► kinda like that a little bit though sometimes?

00:53:28 ◼   ► - No, that's exactly what they are.

00:53:29 ◼   ► Don't like the plot of this episode?

00:53:31 ◼   ► You know, file a feedback.

00:53:33 ◼   ► Anyway, sorry to interrupt you.

00:53:36 ◼   ► - No, it's no problem.

00:53:37 ◼   ► So I just was, you know, the idea of-

00:53:39 ◼   ► - You're just getting too excited.

00:53:39 ◼   ► - Extra betas inside TV betas.

00:53:42 ◼   ► Yeah, okay. - You're full of tea.

00:53:43 ◼   ► So when you open the TV app now on the Apple TV,

00:53:46 ◼   ► on the beta, you see, instead of the up next queue,

00:53:51 ◼   ► it shows you like these are the shows you're watching,

00:53:53 ◼   ► there are new episodes and it's like brought in,

00:53:56 ◼   ► aggregated from all of the apps that sign,

00:53:58 ◼   ► like sign up with Apple to be in the TV app, right?

00:54:01 ◼   ► So not Netflix.

00:54:02 ◼   ► - Not Netflix, yeah.

00:54:03 ◼   ► - Instead of this carousel that would show you

00:54:06 ◼   ► the content that you choose to watch,

00:54:08 ◼   ► this has now been demoted to the second level.

00:54:10 ◼   ► So it's small tiles now, not the big tiles.

00:54:13 ◼   ► And the big tiles all feature,

00:54:16 ◼   ► hey, why don't you watch this?

00:54:17 ◼   ► Is it all Apple TV content?

00:54:19 ◼   ► - No, it's not.

00:54:20 ◼   ► It's curated from across all of the things

00:54:23 ◼   ► that are on Apple TV, the OS, on different apps.

00:54:28 ◼   ► So it'd be like, hey, you could get HBO Max

00:54:31 ◼   ► and watch "The White Lotus," for example.

00:54:35 ◼   ► That's the big banner that's up there right now.

00:54:38 ◼   ► Which is interesting, but this is the problem.

00:54:41 ◼   ► So what happened is the up next view is now below the fold.

00:54:44 ◼   ► Basically there's a giant image,

00:54:46 ◼   ► and then there's a set of tiles of featured items

00:54:49 ◼   ► that is basically for everybody.

00:54:51 ◼   ► Everybody sees the same featured items.

00:54:53 ◼   ► It's somebody's curating it somewhere.

00:54:54 ◼   ► It's not algorithmically generated just for you.

00:54:56 ◼   ► In fact, it knows nothing about what you subscribe to

00:54:59 ◼   ► or what you've seen already

00:55:00 ◼   ► or what you might be currently watching.

00:55:02 ◼   ► It just shows some stuff that somebody

00:55:05 ◼   ► in an office somewhere picked.

00:55:06 ◼   ► And then you have to scroll down

00:55:09 ◼   ► to the part that isn't even visible

00:55:11 ◼   ► to see your up next cue,

00:55:13 ◼   ► which is literally everything that you've been watching

00:55:15 ◼   ► and what the next episode is

00:55:16 ◼   ► or something you stopped halfway through.

00:55:19 ◼   ► And I use that feature every day.

00:55:21 ◼   ► I do, I watch all my TV on the Apple TV.

00:55:24 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:55:25 ◼   ► - And I use that feature every day.

00:55:26 ◼   ► In fact, my opinion when this feature came out,

00:55:29 ◼   ► and I'm sure you could go back and find it

00:55:31 ◼   ► in this very podcast was,

00:55:32 ◼   ► this thing's not gonna work

00:55:33 ◼   ► 'cause it doesn't have Netflix in it.

00:55:35 ◼   ► - Yep, we both said that, I think.

00:55:36 ◼   ► - Right?

00:55:37 ◼   ► And the net result is,

00:55:38 ◼   ► it is such a good feature that I use it

00:55:40 ◼   ► and I forget that I'm watching things on Netflix.

00:55:42 ◼   ► - Yep, we are in the exact same boat, right?

00:55:44 ◼   ► Or like I check Netflix-- - Which is dumb for Netflix.

00:55:47 ◼   ► - Now, I check it way less than I used to.

00:55:49 ◼   ► - And this is on Netflix.

00:55:50 ◼   ► All Netflix has to do is agree to be on this thing,

00:55:52 ◼   ► but it's like, no, no.

00:55:53 ◼   ► And it's on some other boxes, but not on the Apple TV.

00:55:55 ◼   ► no, no, no, we're not gonna share any information

00:55:57 ◼   ► with Apple about this.

00:55:59 ◼   ► So I use it all the time.

00:56:00 ◼   ► And now basically Apple seems to be saying in this beta,

00:56:04 ◼   ► eh, what you wanna watch isn't that important.

00:56:07 ◼   ► What we wanna do is show you this list.

00:56:09 ◼   ► And I have so many reasons why I think this is bad.

00:56:12 ◼   ► Number one is it prioritizes them over me.

00:56:16 ◼   ► I would also say related to that is this is a thing to,

00:56:19 ◼   ► the idea is to provide discovery.

00:56:22 ◼   ► Did you know the White Lotus came back, right?

00:56:24 ◼   ► Like that's season two of a show that was very popular,

00:56:26 ◼   ► well-reviewed, people watched it.

00:56:27 ◼   ► Did you know that season two is there?

00:56:28 ◼   ► Well, first off, if I really watched White Lotus

00:56:31 ◼   ► and liked it, it would be in my up next queue

00:56:33 ◼   ► when it would have popped up and said,

00:56:34 ◼   ► "Hey, White Lotus is back."

00:56:35 ◼   ► But I still, discovery can be valuable

00:56:37 ◼   ► for shows you don't know about or watching.

00:56:38 ◼   ► - That's what the up next queue does, by the way, right?

00:56:39 ◼   ► Like if you've watched a show before

00:56:41 ◼   ► and a new season comes up, like it will show you that

00:56:45 ◼   ► even though you're not like,

00:56:46 ◼   ► that show like hasn't been like actively watched by you

00:56:49 ◼   ► because there's been a season break.

00:56:51 ◼   ► - 'Cause it's in your up next.

00:56:52 ◼   ► And so it will now show it to you

00:56:54 ◼   ► 'cause there's a new episode.

00:56:55 ◼   ► So I don't disagree that Discovery is,

00:56:59 ◼   ► like Discovery is important.

00:57:01 ◼   ► I'll put it that way.

00:57:02 ◼   ► Discovery is important.

00:57:03 ◼   ► However, to prioritize Discovery,

00:57:06 ◼   ► which I use sometimes,

00:57:07 ◼   ► over the up next queue,

00:57:08 ◼   ► which I use all the time,

00:57:11 ◼   ► I think is user hostile.

00:57:12 ◼   ► I think it's Apple saying,

00:57:14 ◼   ► "Don't watch what you wanna watch,

00:57:16 ◼   ► "watch what we want you to watch."

00:57:17 ◼   ► And like, I want to choose to go into Discovery mode,

00:57:21 ◼   ► but up next is the thing that matters to me.

00:57:24 ◼   ► So that bothers me.

00:57:25 ◼   ► And I wrote about that.

00:57:26 ◼   ► - I have a question for you.

00:57:28 ◼   ► That, I don't know if you know the answer to this, but.

00:57:31 ◼   ► So you've kind of got two places where up next shows, right?

00:57:35 ◼   ► You've got the home screen of the Apple TV,

00:57:38 ◼   ► if you use the Apple TV that way.

00:57:40 ◼   ► - And if you set the setting to show up next, yes.

00:57:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, do you know?

00:57:45 ◼   ► - It's bigger tiles and there are not as many of them,

00:57:47 ◼   ► but yes.

00:57:48 ◼   ► - 'Cause that's how I use it.

00:57:49 ◼   ► Do you know if it shows featured there?

00:57:52 ◼   ► - Okay, use it in the TV app.

00:57:53 ◼   ► - I use it in the TV app.

00:57:54 ◼   ► And I think that they will keep that, you know,

00:57:56 ◼   ► if you're out on the like app list and you move,

00:57:59 ◼   ► and TV app is at the top level

00:58:01 ◼   ► and you move your cursor over the TV app,

00:58:03 ◼   ► it will then show a bunch of big tiles above

00:58:06 ◼   ► that show you your stuff.

00:58:08 ◼   ► However, you can't,

00:58:09 ◼   ► all you can do is sort of launch into them from there.

00:58:11 ◼   ► You can't like mark it as played.

00:58:14 ◼   ► If it's like a Marvel show

00:58:15 ◼   ► that's got five minutes of credits,

00:58:17 ◼   ► it shows as still, you're still watching it

00:58:19 ◼   ► 'cause you haven't watched all the credits

00:58:21 ◼   ► about who translated it into French and Turkish.

00:58:25 ◼   ► I think Turkish is always last in that.

00:58:27 ◼   ► I always think that's kind of funny.

00:58:29 ◼   ► So yeah, you can do it from there.

00:58:31 ◼   ► It's more limited.

00:58:31 ◼   ► In the TV app, you have a lot more,

00:58:33 ◼   ► you can remove the show from up next,

00:58:34 ◼   ► you can mark it as watched,

00:58:35 ◼   ► you can do all sorts of stuff from it.

00:58:37 ◼   ► Also, before I get to Joe's point,

00:58:39 ◼   ► which I think is a good one, I should say,

00:58:41 ◼   ► the battle between featured and what I wanna watch

00:58:44 ◼   ► has been going on a long time

00:58:45 ◼   ► because most of the streaming apps

00:58:48 ◼   ► have downgraded what you are watching on their service

00:58:53 ◼   ► below featured items for a while now, right?

00:58:57 ◼   ► And that's a lot of feedback I got when I wrote about this,

00:58:59 ◼   ► but Hulu does that, and Disney does that,

00:59:02 ◼   ► and Netflix does that,

00:59:03 ◼   ► and so like, why shouldn't Apple do that?

00:59:05 ◼   ► And I actually heard, I have a Twitter follower

00:59:07 ◼   ► who is the, who is a, I think, head of product at Peacock.

00:59:10 ◼   ► I'm like, wow, okay, very impressed.

00:59:13 ◼   ► And what I said to her was,

00:59:15 ◼   ► The difference is this isn't the Apple TV+ app, right?

00:59:19 ◼   ► On the Apple TV, on TVOS, it's a platform app.

00:59:24 ◼   ► And the whole purpose of it is to showcase

00:59:27 ◼   ► what's available on the whole platform.

00:59:30 ◼   ► And I think that means the bar is higher

00:59:35 ◼   ► for giving the users, and like, first off,

00:59:37 ◼   ► this feature is like, this is the, in my mind,

00:59:41 ◼   ► best feature of TVOS, literally the best,

00:59:44 ◼   ► because it is watching my viewing habits everywhere,

00:59:47 ◼   ► rolling them together and I can get a list of like,

00:59:49 ◼   ► hey, did, like I was talking to Lauren about this last week

00:59:52 ◼   ► and I said, do you know what day the peripheral comes out?

00:59:55 ◼   ► And she's like, no.

00:59:56 ◼   ► I said, do you know what streaming service is on?

00:59:58 ◼   ► She's like, no.

00:59:59 ◼   ► I'm like, well, it's whatever.

01:00:00 ◼   ► It's like Wednesday night at nine on Prime Video.

01:00:03 ◼   ► But the fact is, we don't need to know, we go to Up Next.

01:00:05 ◼   ► And at nine o'clock on Wednesday,

01:00:08 ◼   ► a little tile comes up and says,

01:00:09 ◼   ► the new episode of the peripheral is here

01:00:10 ◼   ► and you click it and you watch it.

01:00:12 ◼   ► And it doesn't matter what app it's in or anything.

01:00:14 ◼   ► It is the best feature of tvOS.

01:00:16 ◼   ► And so for Apple to say,

01:00:18 ◼   ► "Well, we're gonna be like all those streaming apps

01:00:20 ◼   ► and downgrade this and make you have to go find it

01:00:22 ◼   ► because what's more important to us

01:00:23 ◼   ► is that you wander through featured stuff

01:00:26 ◼   ► and we wanna essentially advertise all the other services

01:00:30 ◼   ► that are on the platform."

01:00:32 ◼   ► So I admit that this is a trend.

01:00:35 ◼   ► I think it's a bad trend.

01:00:36 ◼   ► I hate going to Netflix and not being able to find

01:00:39 ◼   ► the episode of the Great British Bake Off

01:00:42 ◼   ► I was watching yesterday.

01:00:43 ◼   ► Why do they make it like three levels down?

01:00:46 ◼   ► It's never the same one either.

01:00:47 ◼   ► Like sometimes it's the next time,

01:00:49 ◼   ► sometimes it's three.

01:00:50 ◼   ► Like I know why they're doing it, but I don't want that.

01:00:52 ◼   ► - But yeah, because they've hooked you on that show

01:00:54 ◼   ► and they wanna hook you on other shows

01:00:56 ◼   ► and that's their priority and it's user hostile.

01:00:58 ◼   ► And I don't like it,

01:00:59 ◼   ► but I think that it's even more user hostile

01:01:01 ◼   ► when you're the platform vendor,

01:01:02 ◼   ► which in the case of the TV app on TV OS, Apple is.

01:01:06 ◼   ► The other point, and this is the point that Joe Steele made,

01:01:08 ◼   ► I think so well, is not only is this user hostile,

01:01:13 ◼   ► but the implementation is poor.

01:01:16 ◼   ► And this is the other part of it is,

01:01:18 ◼   ► it's not an algorithmically generated list

01:01:21 ◼   ► of shows you might like.

01:01:23 ◼   ► It's something somewhere,

01:01:24 ◼   ► and I actually have a friend who does this

01:01:26 ◼   ► for another platform who curates a movies list, right?

01:01:29 ◼   ► Like it's somebody in an office somewhere

01:01:32 ◼   ► picking shows to be on that carousel.

01:01:36 ◼   ► It doesn't adapt to what you've already seen.

01:01:38 ◼   ► It doesn't know stuff you're already watching.

01:01:40 ◼   ► And that's just as offensive as moving the up next down

01:01:45 ◼   ► is that it's also not a smart list.

01:01:47 ◼   ► Like if an algorithm said,

01:01:49 ◼   ► "Hey, you know, I know what you're watching over here.

01:01:52 ◼   ► This show is for you."

01:01:53 ◼   ► And it just came back.

01:01:55 ◼   ► I would be like, okay, you know,

01:01:57 ◼   ► I see what you're trying here.

01:01:59 ◼   ► But instead what you end up with is a featured carousel

01:02:01 ◼   ► that features like stuff you've already seen.

01:02:05 ◼   ► And it doesn't say you've seen it.

01:02:06 ◼   ► It doesn't hide it.

01:02:07 ◼   ► It knows that, theoretically it knows

01:02:10 ◼   ► that the next row down is that tile on the up next list

01:02:14 ◼   ► with the next episode,

01:02:16 ◼   ► but does it do anything to show that in that top level?

01:02:18 ◼   ► No, it doesn't, it doesn't bother.

01:02:20 ◼   ► It's just the same for everybody everywhere,

01:02:22 ◼   ► no matter what they've watched or who they are.

01:02:24 ◼   ► It's dumb and lazy and bad.

01:02:26 ◼   ► And yet Apple is like, "Oh no, put it at the top.

01:02:31 ◼   ► "Put it at the top."

01:02:32 ◼   ► I wouldn't like it at the top if it was good.

01:02:35 ◼   ► I would like to choose what goes at the top

01:02:36 ◼   ► because up next is most important to me.

01:02:39 ◼   ► But if you're gonna do something like that,

01:02:41 ◼   ► you should stand behind it.

01:02:43 ◼   ► And when I talk to people about this issue,

01:02:45 ◼   ► what I've found is, I think these days,

01:02:47 ◼   ► a lot of people assume algorithms and personalization

01:02:50 ◼   ► are things that are happening.

01:02:52 ◼   ► And one of the dirty secrets of a lot of what Apple does

01:02:55 ◼   ► is it isn't.

01:02:57 ◼   ► Apple is just, there is a person in an office somewhere

01:03:00 ◼   ► with a probably lousy web interface

01:03:03 ◼   ► who's putting in content IDs and pressing save,

01:03:07 ◼   ► and that's what's on there.

01:03:08 ◼   ► And then it's not doing de-duping,

01:03:10 ◼   ► it's not doing after the fact personalization.

01:03:12 ◼   ► Oh, they already watched this,

01:03:13 ◼   ► I'm not gonna show that tile.

01:03:14 ◼   ► And this one, they're in episode five,

01:03:16 ◼   ► so I'm gonna show them the thing for episode five here.

01:03:19 ◼   ► No, they're not gonna do that either.

01:03:20 ◼   ► So it's just, that part of it is a letdown.

01:03:22 ◼   ► It is Apple pushing something

01:03:23 ◼   ► that's kind of mediocre to lousy

01:03:26 ◼   ► on top of the thing that they built,

01:03:27 ◼   ► that is again, the best feature of tvOS,

01:03:30 ◼   ► which is aggregating everything I'm watching,

01:03:33 ◼   ► except for Netflix, in one place.

01:03:34 ◼   ► It's just ridiculous.

01:03:36 ◼   ► - I have no problem with them wanting to do this

01:03:39 ◼   ► as a thing, right?

01:03:39 ◼   ► Like if you wanna, 'cause already, right, for me,

01:03:42 ◼   ► if I go to the TV app, there's a,

01:03:44 ◼   ► underneath my beloved up next queue,

01:03:47 ◼   ► it says what to watch, right?

01:03:48 ◼   ► And I'm assuming it's the same thing,

01:03:49 ◼   ► 'cause there's like a bunch of content in here,

01:03:51 ◼   ► some stuff I've seen, some stuff I would never watch,

01:03:54 ◼   ► like if no algorithm would ever pick

01:03:57 ◼   ► some of these shows and movies for me,

01:03:58 ◼   ► because it's like nothing else I watch.

01:04:01 ◼   ► There's somebody in an office at the Battersea Power Station, Apple offices,

01:04:05 ◼   ► who is going, "Click!"

01:04:06 ◼   ► But like, my point is I don't mind that that's there,

01:04:11 ◼   ► but it shouldn't be number one.

01:04:14 ◼   ► If they want to make a second carousel which is as large and put it underneath my up next,

01:04:21 ◼   ► fine, right? Fine.

01:04:23 ◼   ► I can live with that, because I'm still getting what I want and you're getting a bit of what you want,

01:04:28 ◼   ► and sometimes these things might overlap.

01:04:31 ◼   ► But like, don't--

01:04:32 ◼   ► If-- like the question that I would ask the person who's making this decision is like,

01:04:37 ◼   ► point one is like, do you think that you're doing a good job of Up Next?

01:04:41 ◼   ► Like, do you think that that is a good product made well?

01:04:44 ◼   ► Your answer is inevitably going to be yes, right?

01:04:47 ◼   ► So if that's the answer, why are you now making it harder for me to access that?

01:04:52 ◼   ► Right?

01:04:52 ◼   ► And if your answer is no, Up Next is poor,

01:04:56 ◼   ► then one, why is it still there then?

01:04:59 ◼   ► and two, shouldn't you do something else about that?

01:05:02 ◼   ► - Shouldn't you make it better?

01:05:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:05:04 ◼   ► - And the featured stuff,

01:05:05 ◼   ► and I talked to people who were like,

01:05:06 ◼   ► "Oh, all that stuff is ads."

01:05:08 ◼   ► And again, it's that ad allergy thing.

01:05:10 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, sort of, but not quite.

01:05:13 ◼   ► And as the platform owner, what Apple's trying to do,

01:05:15 ◼   ► especially since Apple made the decision

01:05:17 ◼   ► to sort of make the TV button on the remote

01:05:19 ◼   ► by default launch the TV app, which you can change,

01:05:21 ◼   ► but it is by default, that's what it is.

01:05:23 ◼   ► The, by the way, when you restore it,

01:05:27 ◼   ► when you get a new Apple TV,

01:05:28 ◼   ► 'cause I got a new Apple TV last week.

01:05:30 ◼   ► Among the things that it doesn't remember,

01:05:32 ◼   ► even if you bring over your settings, is that setting.

01:05:35 ◼   ► It goes back to auto launching the TV app

01:05:37 ◼   ► and then you have to go into settings and turn it off.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Also forgets all your logins,

01:05:40 ◼   ► remembers where your apps are, forgets all your logins,

01:05:43 ◼   ► so you didn't have to spend 20 minutes

01:05:44 ◼   ► logging into everything.

01:05:45 ◼   ► Not great, Apple, that would be a thing to work on.

01:05:48 ◼   ► iPhone like restore for Apple TV.

01:05:52 ◼   ► But like, it's just, it's so frustrating

01:05:56 ◼   ► because it is useful, although it could be more useful.

01:05:59 ◼   ► And the featured stuff is not dynamic in any way,

01:06:04 ◼   ► but I do appreciate the fact that as the platform owner,

01:06:07 ◼   ► they are, what I was saying about the button,

01:06:09 ◼   ► they are kind of like saying,

01:06:10 ◼   ► "Well, you don't really see the App Store

01:06:12 ◼   ► when you're in this mode."

01:06:14 ◼   ► They were like, "No, the future of TV is the TV app now."

01:06:16 ◼   ► Well, how do we float up new stuff on the platform

01:06:20 ◼   ► if you don't see the App Store,

01:06:21 ◼   ► unless you go out to the app screen?

01:06:23 ◼   ► And the answer is, we'll put a thing in there from HBO Max

01:06:26 ◼   ► and we'll put a thing in there from Hulu.

01:06:27 ◼   ► And I think in that, Apple's actually done a pretty good job

01:06:30 ◼   ► of not just pushing Apple TV+ stuff, right?

01:06:32 ◼   ► Like they are, I think, doing what is their responsibility

01:06:36 ◼   ► for the platform and saying,

01:06:37 ◼   ► this is not an Apple TV+ delivery platform.

01:06:40 ◼   ► This is an Apple TV and tvOS.

01:06:44 ◼   ► And what makes it great is it's got our stuff and HBO

01:06:47 ◼   ► and Netflix and Hulu and all the rest.

01:06:49 ◼   ► And we're gonna show you all of it in our interface.

01:06:52 ◼   ► And then there's an Apple TV+ tab

01:06:53 ◼   ► for the Apple TV+ stuff.

01:06:55 ◼   ► Now, do they weigh the Apple TV stuff a little heavier?

01:06:58 ◼   ► Sure, they do.

01:06:59 ◼   ► But there's like White Lotus, that's an HBO show.

01:07:01 ◼   ► And that was at the top.

01:07:02 ◼   ► So I think it is,

01:07:04 ◼   ► you could call it advertising for the other stuff,

01:07:06 ◼   ► but I also think it's kind of a consequence of Apple

01:07:09 ◼   ► making the TV app kind of the default.

01:07:11 ◼   ► And also saying like,

01:07:12 ◼   ► "Look, you may have heard about the White Lotus,

01:07:15 ◼   ► but you don't even know what streaming services it's on.

01:07:18 ◼   ► Here's a tile for the White Lotus.

01:07:19 ◼   ► And if you click on it,

01:07:20 ◼   ► it will either take you to HBO Max,

01:07:22 ◼   ► or it'll take you to the app store

01:07:24 ◼   ► and let you download the HBO Max app

01:07:26 ◼   ► and log in and pay for it and whatever.

01:07:28 ◼   ► I don't think that's unreasonable.

01:07:29 ◼   ► That part of it doesn't bother me so much.

01:07:32 ◼   ► I actually think that it's good that Apple is trying

01:07:35 ◼   ► to show us a broader world inside that TV interface on tvOS.

01:07:38 ◼   ► It is, is the TV app doing too many jobs at once?

01:07:42 ◼   ► Yes, yes it is.

01:07:44 ◼   ► That's another discussion.

01:07:47 ◼   ► But like, if we focus on just the little things,

01:07:49 ◼   ► it's like, it's okay that it's there,

01:07:51 ◼   ► but to eclipse my viewing sessions is not okay.

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01:10:08 ◼   ► Let's finish out today with some #AskUpgrade questions.

01:10:14 ◼   ► Ian asks, "In the studio tour that you shot with Ian,

01:10:18 ◼   ► what are the slippers that you were wearing?"

01:10:22 ◼   ► So there's a couple of things to this.

01:10:23 ◼   ► One, somebody asked this question to Ian in our Discord,

01:10:28 ◼   ► and then Ian submitted it as an Ask Upgrade question.

01:10:31 ◼   ► - I see.

01:10:32 ◼   ► - But my friend Ian came to London,

01:10:36 ◼   ► this was recently before we went on a trip.

01:10:42 ◼   ► recently before we went on a trip.

01:10:44 ◼   ► It was just before the podcast.

01:10:46 ◼   ► That's when it was, it was in September.

01:10:48 ◼   ► And we hung out a bit and Ian shot a,

01:10:51 ◼   ► with me a tour of my studio space, so mega studio.

01:10:54 ◼   ► Which is something I was pretty excited about.

01:10:55 ◼   ► It's just something I wanted to do for a while,

01:10:57 ◼   ► but was, I didn't really know how to do it myself, right?

01:11:00 ◼   ► And it just felt like difficult,

01:11:02 ◼   ► but we kind of got to do it crib style.

01:11:04 ◼   ► So Ian followed me around. - Nice.

01:11:06 ◼   ► - And I kind of went through everything.

01:11:08 ◼   ► It's 33 minutes long. (laughs)

01:11:11 ◼   ► one of those that I didn't know how long it was gonna take him but I put a link in the

01:11:14 ◼   ► show notes I reckon people watch it if you're interested in kind of like the environment

01:11:17 ◼   ► that I work in every day there's an exhaustive tour of it but the slippers that I'm wearing

01:11:23 ◼   ► in the video are by my hobbies I think that's how you spell it and they're called the curve

01:11:30 ◼   ► slipper so I in in the studio I don't like to wear my outside shoes I like to wear different

01:11:37 ◼   ► choose because whatever. This is something we started doing like in the beginning with

01:11:41 ◼   ► COVID which is like everything you just don't want to touch anything with anything, right?

01:11:45 ◼   ► So I had some slippers from Mahabis like they're kind of regular ones but something that I

01:11:50 ◼   ► noticed is that the kind of the toe area would wear a little bit for me and I think it's

01:11:55 ◼   ► because of the way that I kind of sit on my chair. I kind of kick the ground a lot. I

01:11:59 ◼   ► don't know why I do this. It's just it's the thing that I'm doing right now as I'm talking.

01:12:02 ◼   ► I can't tell you why I do it. It's just how I am. But Mahabis I think maybe this happens

01:12:07 ◼   ► to a lot of people because now they make a version of their slipper which has rubber

01:12:11 ◼   ► going on the bottom and all the way over the toes.

01:12:14 ◼   ► Mahabhi's whole thing is like these are slippers you can also wear to walk outside in, right?

01:12:18 ◼   ► It's kind of like their whole thing that they've always been.

01:12:20 ◼   ► I love these things.

01:12:22 ◼   ► I love that they have like a back that you can collapse down.

01:12:26 ◼   ► It's like elasticated so you can wear it as like slip on slippers.

01:12:30 ◼   ► But then if you do need to walk outside or you can pull up the back and they can be more

01:12:35 ◼   ► secure on your feet.

01:12:36 ◼   ► So this is my number one question for you,

01:12:39 ◼   ► because I think you're gonna sell me

01:12:41 ◼   ► a pair of these slippers today.

01:12:42 ◼   ► - Incredible.

01:12:43 ◼   ► Jason, what is it gonna take to get you

01:12:46 ◼   ► in a pair of these slippers today?

01:12:47 ◼   ► - Well, what it's gonna, Myke, I have a problem.

01:12:51 ◼   ► Maybe you have a solution for me.

01:12:53 ◼   ► I like to wear slippers, but I hate it

01:12:56 ◼   ► when they don't attach to my heel

01:12:58 ◼   ► and the whole back part flops off

01:13:00 ◼   ► so that I'm supporting it entirely with my toes.

01:13:02 ◼   ► I need the back and the heel to remain secure.

01:13:06 ◼   ► Can you help me?

01:13:07 ◼   ► Is there a solution for this problem?

01:13:08 ◼   ► - The solution is exactly this.

01:13:11 ◼   ► - Oh, so what is it?

01:13:12 ◼   ► It's like a little neoprene or something heel thingy?

01:13:15 ◼   ► - And it completely keeps them on,

01:13:18 ◼   ► like a pair of sneakers, honestly,

01:13:21 ◼   ► but still feels much more comfortable than a pair of sneakers.

01:13:24 ◼   ► It doesn't give you ankle support, right?

01:13:26 ◼   ► But it keeps the shoe on, so they're not gonna slip off.

01:13:29 ◼   ► - That's what I want.

01:13:30 ◼   ► If you do ever want to just slip them on,

01:13:33 ◼   ► you can also do that.

01:13:34 ◼   ► And like, I do the slip on most of the time,

01:13:37 ◼   ► but then pull up the back when I want to.

01:13:41 ◼   ► - I don't want to do that.

01:13:41 ◼   ► - But what I will also say Jason, I'd be intrigued.

01:13:44 ◼   ► Like I, these slippers, they have a kind of a ridge

01:13:47 ◼   ► at the back anyway, which keep them on for me.

01:13:51 ◼   ► But yeah, you can pull them up

01:13:53 ◼   ► and it's still more comfortable than say,

01:13:55 ◼   ► putting on a pair of sneakers, right?

01:13:56 ◼   ► Like it kind of sits between a regular pair

01:13:59 ◼   ► of slip-on slippers and a pair of sneakers.

01:14:01 ◼   ► I really like these.

01:14:02 ◼   ► I wish Mojave would sponsor the show.

01:14:08 ◼   ► So I'm putting that out there into the world.

01:14:10 ◼   ► Mojave, if you're listening, please sponsor us.

01:14:12 ◼   ► - It could be a special offer.

01:14:12 ◼   ► - But I've been a very, very happy customer of theirs

01:14:15 ◼   ► for like two years, two, three years.

01:14:17 ◼   ► - All right, I'm gonna be real sad if I buy these

01:14:18 ◼   ► and then it's a sponsor and they wanna send me a pair.

01:14:20 ◼   ► But that's okay.

01:14:21 ◼   ► - Then you have two pairs.

01:14:22 ◼   ► - And then I'll have two pairs.

01:14:23 ◼   ► I'll choose a different color.

01:14:25 ◼   ► So my other question for you was the Curve

01:14:26 ◼   ► versus the Classic.

01:14:27 ◼   ► you mentioned the classic doesn't have kind of the tread goes over the toe in

01:14:33 ◼   ► the curb and not in the classic. Is that the only real difference there? As far as I

01:14:37 ◼   ► can tell, yeah. I mean, I recommend the curve over the classic. I'll just have to

01:14:44 ◼   ► choose color then. Because otherwise they're basically the same, but the, yeah.

01:14:50 ◼   ► They also do, like, they have ones that are, they're like, they breathe, right?

01:14:54 ◼   ► because they're kind of like wool, they're like wool on the outside.

01:14:57 ◼   ► And they have ones that are like a mesh, like the body is like a mesh,

01:15:00 ◼   ► which I guess are more of a summer slipper.

01:15:03 ◼   ► And they do full, if you can, I know this isn't for you, Jason,

01:15:07 ◼   ► but for other people.

01:15:08 ◼   ► They do full like slip-ons, right, but they don't have any back at all.

01:15:14 ◼   ► Because even the regular one, as I say, has a kind of back to it,

01:15:18 ◼   ► so it like it holds.

01:15:20 ◼   ► Big fan of the Marvy slippers.

01:15:23 ◼   ► Alright.

01:15:24 ◼   ► Eric asks…

01:15:25 ◼   ► I'm not…

01:15:26 ◼   ► Hold on, hold on.

01:15:27 ◼   ► Okay.

01:15:28 ◼   ► A little done.

01:15:29 ◼   ► Here, here.

01:15:30 ◼   ► This is me growing as a person.

01:15:31 ◼   ► Alright.

01:15:32 ◼   ► We're gonna all witness it together.

01:15:33 ◼   ► I am not gonna go buy these because it's November 7th and instead I am sending a text…

01:15:42 ◼   ► Good idea.

01:15:43 ◼   ► …to my wife.

01:15:45 ◼   ► Yep.

01:15:46 ◼   ► Uh…

01:15:47 ◼   ► I want these slippers.

01:15:48 ◼   ► Uh-huh.

01:15:49 ◼   ► - And also, because it's also November 7th,

01:15:52 ◼   ► maybe in three weeks they might be on sale, right?

01:15:55 ◼   ► - Maybe. - For Black Friday.

01:15:56 ◼   ► But yeah, this is a good, like,

01:15:59 ◼   ► yes, this is a good Christmas gift for Jason.

01:16:02 ◼   ► - I have sent that text to my wife.

01:16:07 ◼   ► So see, that's me growing,

01:16:08 ◼   ► 'cause the problem is we get into this part of the year

01:16:10 ◼   ► and then I'm like, "Oh, I'm gonna buy that."

01:16:12 ◼   ► And then it comes in, I'm like, "Oh no,

01:16:15 ◼   ► that should have been a Christmas present gift item list."

01:16:17 ◼   ► Let's just be clear, like if she doesn't get it from me,

01:16:19 ◼   ► that's fine.

01:16:20 ◼   ► I'll just buy it afterward.

01:16:21 ◼   ► - You can buy it yourself, yeah.

01:16:22 ◼   ► - But we're looking for presents to give each other

01:16:26 ◼   ► and so I'm growing.

01:16:27 ◼   ► Okay, thank you to Ian and whoever told Ian this thing

01:16:31 ◼   ► that Ian submitted and to you, Myke,

01:16:33 ◼   ► for wearing slippers in your office.

01:16:35 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:16:35 ◼   ► - Eric asks, "Do you think live activities

01:16:39 ◼   ► will come to the Apple Watch?"

01:16:41 ◼   ► - Interesting idea.

01:16:46 ◼   ► - I still wanna talk about live activities on the show,

01:16:48 ◼   ► by the way, but I'm still like,

01:16:50 ◼   ► not as many apps have updated for me as I thought would.

01:16:54 ◼   ► - So I traveled this weekend

01:16:56 ◼   ► and I got to use Flighty with live activities.

01:16:57 ◼   ► - I'm excited for that.

01:16:58 ◼   ► - As I was taking my flights and it was really good.

01:17:00 ◼   ► Like it was really, really good.

01:17:03 ◼   ► And it made me think this is it.

01:17:05 ◼   ► Live activities is really a thing.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Apple Watch, where's the space for it?

01:17:13 ◼   ► - But I could see-- - I'm reminded

01:17:14 ◼   ► the Siri watch face, right?

01:17:16 ◼   ► So the Siri watch face used to have those little tiles.

01:17:19 ◼   ► So you could maybe have a special kind of like

01:17:24 ◼   ► always on display, but I had a thought, Jason,

01:17:26 ◼   ► of adaptive complications, right?

01:17:30 ◼   ► So like maybe like a version of a live activity

01:17:33 ◼   ► where it's just a complication that is updating

01:17:36 ◼   ► more visually than they do currently.

01:17:39 ◼   ► - Maybe, maybe so.

01:17:41 ◼   ► Like that it is, yeah, that it's updating,

01:17:44 ◼   ► it gets the ability to update more aggressively

01:17:48 ◼   ► in certain scenarios,

01:17:49 ◼   ► or there's just like that one large complication space

01:17:52 ◼   ► that might be able to be overridden by a live activity,

01:17:56 ◼   ► for example, right?

01:17:57 ◼   ► That most of the time it's just whatever you put there,

01:17:59 ◼   ► but you have the option to put a live activity there

01:18:01 ◼   ► if something is happening.

01:18:02 ◼   ► That'd be interesting.

01:18:04 ◼   ► It's an interesting idea.

01:18:05 ◼   ► - But yeah, I would like to see them on all the platforms

01:18:08 ◼   ► 'cause I think live activities are great.

01:18:10 ◼   ► Like I only have a couple of apps that I use frequently

01:18:12 ◼   ► that have them.

01:18:14 ◼   ► And I think a lot of them is like,

01:18:15 ◼   ► maybe I just don't know yet.

01:18:16 ◼   ► I just haven't gotten into a situation

01:18:18 ◼   ► where the live activity will do its thing.

01:18:20 ◼   ► But yeah, I'm excited to use Flighty's one

01:18:22 ◼   ► when I'm going on a trip later on this month.

01:18:24 ◼   ► So I'll be using that for the first time.

01:18:26 ◼   ► But it looks really good.

01:18:27 ◼   ► I did a test. - It was fun.

01:18:28 ◼   ► - Like the app lets you test it, which is kind of cool.

01:18:30 ◼   ► You can just like get a random flight

01:18:32 ◼   ► and like you can just test it out.

01:18:33 ◼   ► But like, I wanna, I wanna help myself.

01:18:35 ◼   ► - It was just so great to pull my iPhone out of my pocket

01:18:38 ◼   ► and have that live activity sitting there

01:18:40 ◼   ► with all the details of what's our gate number,

01:18:44 ◼   ► and how much time is it until boarding,

01:18:46 ◼   ► and all of those things were on there.

01:18:47 ◼   ► It was really convenient, I liked it a lot.

01:18:49 ◼   ► And it looks great too.

01:18:51 ◼   ► - Having used them a little bit,

01:18:53 ◼   ► and there's an app called City Mapper,

01:18:55 ◼   ► which is like a transit app that is in London that I love,

01:19:00 ◼   ► and their live activity is unbelievably good, right?

01:19:06 ◼   ► I can look up my phone and I can watch a little dot moving in almost real time across a train

01:19:14 ◼   ► map.

01:19:17 ◼   ► Using these kind of live activities where some of them are quite rich and detailed,

01:19:22 ◼   ► it really has confirmed to me the idea of why Apple designed Always On to be the way

01:19:29 ◼   ► that it is.

01:19:31 ◼   ► want it to be rich with information, visuals and color to benefit the fact

01:19:38 ◼   ► that the live activities are there doing their thing. I can see more now what we

01:19:42 ◼   ► thought might be the case of why it's not just white text on a black

01:19:46 ◼   ► background because the phone should in theory be doing stuff more often.

01:19:52 ◼   ► I am still a fan of the Always On. I think it looks good.

01:19:58 ◼   ► - Brant asks, "Do you tend to prefer taking ultra wide or telephoto shots with your

01:20:05 ◼   ► iPhone? Do you have a preference?" - I have been, so I've been using the the 14 Pro

01:20:11 ◼   ► and I was traveling this weekend, I took a bunch of photos. I am using the 2x a

01:20:17 ◼   ► lot actually, which is the crop, center cropped 12 megapixel of the regular

01:20:24 ◼   ► camera. And I, so I don't know if that answers the question of ultra-wide or telephoto. I

01:20:34 ◼   ► like that a lot in terms of cropping, I think, and the quality is really good. I have taken

01:20:39 ◼   ► some zoom shots recently that I was very impressed with the quality, like that I could get out

01:20:46 ◼   ► of there, whether it's the sensor or the image pipeline or whatever, I did some zoom-ins

01:20:51 ◼   ► to sort of like see if I could see,

01:20:53 ◼   ► it was actually at a football game and it was like,

01:20:55 ◼   ► can I see what they're doing over there?

01:20:56 ◼   ► There's people, whole bunch of people

01:20:58 ◼   ► with the same color shirt sitting somewhere.

01:20:59 ◼   ► Like, is there a logo?

01:21:00 ◼   ► Who are they?

01:21:01 ◼   ► Why are they there?

01:21:02 ◼   ► And I zoomed way in and I was like, wow,

01:21:04 ◼   ► that actually looks decent, not great, but like decent.

01:21:07 ◼   ► And I can see their shirts and what logo is on it.

01:21:11 ◼   ► So that was really interesting.

01:21:12 ◼   ► I don't use the ultra wide that much

01:21:15 ◼   ► only because there is so much lens distortion.

01:21:17 ◼   ► But if I'm in a beautiful outdoor setting

01:21:19 ◼   ► or something like that, the ultra wide can be great.

01:21:22 ◼   ► What about you?

01:21:23 ◼   ► - This, I mean, for me, it is the kind of the question

01:21:25 ◼   ► of what is the image?

01:21:26 ◼   ► So, telephoto, I tend to use these days

01:21:30 ◼   ► more for like a specific utility reason,

01:21:33 ◼   ► like you just described, right?

01:21:35 ◼   ► Like I wanna take a picture of something,

01:21:37 ◼   ► but I just wanna zoom in on it for,

01:21:39 ◼   ► so I can see something clearer or whatever it might be,

01:21:43 ◼   ► rather than it being like a stylistic preference,

01:21:47 ◼   ► Because stylistically, or just sometimes to get a better photo,

01:21:52 ◼   ► I find myself using the ultrawide more and more.

01:21:55 ◼   ► Like, these days I feel like I can get more, actually get more into an image

01:22:01 ◼   ► if I use the ultrawide.

01:22:02 ◼   ► And the fact that now that ultrawide camera has gotten so much better,

01:22:08 ◼   ► I can take photos of it indoors, in restaurants, that kind of stuff,

01:22:11 ◼   ► more than I ever would have been able to and get a good result.

01:22:14 ◼   ► because up until this phone, I feel like I was never getting a good enough quality result.

01:22:22 ◼   ► One of the reasons Apple had to do this and make that lens better is for a feature that

01:22:26 ◼   ► kind of annoys me, which is how often now the iPhone will switch to the macro mode,

01:22:32 ◼   ► so it uses the ultra wide, because the focal length of the main camera is further now.

01:22:40 ◼   ► So if you want to be close to something and be able to focus on it, it typically has to

01:22:44 ◼   ► the switch to the ultra wide now even if you're not really close to it because the main lens

01:22:50 ◼   ► can only actually focus I don't know what the exact distance is but it's not really

01:22:54 ◼   ► important but you'll notice if you have the 14 pro you'll find that it is doing that switch

01:23:00 ◼   ► you know when you've got the little macro or maybe you don't even see it you can toggle

01:23:04 ◼   ► it as a preference it makes that switch way more often because of the focal length the

01:23:08 ◼   ► distance so I find it a little bit annoying even though the picture quality is still good

01:23:13 ◼   ► like the shots are good but I don't know why but it just bugs me that it's having to make

01:23:17 ◼   ► that switch every time. But yeah, anyway I tend to find myself gravitating these days

01:23:22 ◼   ► towards the ultrawide more and more but the telephoto is still fantastic but it tends

01:23:28 ◼   ► to be like the stuff that I enjoy taking photos of. I take photos for fun rather than like

01:23:33 ◼   ► for a reason. I'm using the ultrawide more than the telephoto for that.

01:23:40 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question of your own for us to answer on the show just

01:23:43 ◼   ► send out a tweet with the hashtag #AskUpgrade or use question mark #AskUpgrade in the RelayFM

01:23:47 ◼   ► members discord. Thank you so much if you sign up for upgrade plus you get access to

01:23:51 ◼   ► the discord and all of the other wonderful benefits of being a member. Go to getupgradeplus.com

01:23:57 ◼   ► and you can sign up. Thanks to Trade Coffee, Capital One and Hover for their support of

01:24:01 ◼   ► this week's episode and of course thank you for listening. We genuinely really appreciate

01:24:07 ◼   ► that you choose to spend some time with us every single week. If you want to catch up

01:24:11 ◼   ► for

01:24:32 ◼   ► slash shows and pick a new show.

01:24:33 ◼   ► We don't have to be on it.

01:24:35 ◼   ► There's tons of great hosts,

01:24:36 ◼   ► tons of great content.

01:24:37 ◼   ► Go enjoy yourself.

01:24:38 ◼   ► We'll be back next week.

01:24:39 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye.

01:24:41 ◼   ► Jason Snell.

01:24:42 ◼   ► They're all special offers, Myke.

01:24:44 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:24:47 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:24:50 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]